A few weeks ago while on holiday, I had the opportunity to read O. Palmer Robertson's book, The Christ of the Covenants. The book is something of a legend in the Reformed world, a tradition which sees great significance in the covenant theme in Scripture. Not having read it before, I thought the week off would prove a good time to do so.
While the book as a whole is valuable, Robertson's chapter on the covenant of creation is particularly important. As I've written elsewhere, we have a tendency to devalue the covenant of creation, which in turn leads us to neglect the role God gives to humanity on this earth. Instead of recognising that the covenant of creation shapes the whole of man's life in relation to God, some view this relationship as only encompassing the prohibition God sets in place with respect to the tree in the garden because it is key in ushering in the subsequent covenant of redemption.
Robertson rightly demonstrates that this perspective effectively ignores the whole of man's responsibilities under the covenant of creation, and instead
an extremely dangerous dualism will develop between man's 'religious' or 'spiritual' responsibilities and his 'cultural' or 'work-a-day' responsibilities. Adam under the covenant of creation did not have one set of duties relating to the created world, and another more specific duty of an entirely different nature which could be designated as 'spiritual' (81-82).
How we understand the covenant of creation has all to do with how we understand the gospel and the Kingdom of God. Failing to fully understand the implications of the covenant of creation often results in limiting the transforming power of the gospel and the rule of Christ to the spiritual dimension of life. For Robertson, however, the covenant relationship is a "total-life relationship," one in which God expects humanity to submit the whole of their lives to his rule.
Too often [Christians] may fail to consider adequately the effect of redemption on the total life-style of man in the context of an all-embracive covenant. That view results frequently in a by-passing of the responsibility of redeemed man to carry forward the implications of his salvation into the world of economics, politics, business, and culture (82-83).
The covenant of creation originally called Adam to exercise authority over all of creation as God's co-regent. That mandate has not ceased or been overturned. Our continuing call as God's people is to bear witness to his sovereign rule over the totality of creation. The fall into sin adds a different element to our task in that we now need to carry out our work in the context of a creation distorted by sin. But the redemptive work of Christ ensures the redemption of the whole of creation and enables us to continue fulfilling the cultural mandate and already now to work towards freeing creation from the corrosive effects of sin.
In this way we faithfully carry out the role assigned to us in the covenant of creation and honour the sovereign King who so graciously brought us into relationship with himself.
The essence of the Christian religion consists in the reality that the creation of the Father, ruined by sin, is restored in the death of the Son of God, and re-created by the grace of the Spirit into a kingdom of God (112).
That is one seriously loaded statement. But it lays down the sort of holistic understanding of Christianity that we so desperately need.
Over the past month, I have (very) slowly been making my way through William Willimon's book, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry. In a section discussing different images and models of pastoral ministry, Willimon suggests the recovery of a classical form of Christian ministry:
There is much to be said for the pastor being educated in the classical forms of Christian ministry. The church has much experience as a minority movement. We need to draw from that experience today. In that regard, I predict a recovery of the classical shape of ministry: to teach, to preach, and to evangelize through the ministries of the Word, sacrament, and order. I sense the end of a proliferation of ministerial duties and a reclamation of the essential classical tasks of Christian ministry. Because so many of our people have not been well formed in the faith, pastors must now stress doctrine, the classical texts of our faith, our master narratives, the great themes. The culture is no longer a prop for the church. If we are going to make Christians, we must have a new determination to inculcate the faith. In some ways our age parallels that of the Reformation, in which the church was faced with a vast undereducated, uninformed, unformed laity and clergy. Pastors need to be prepared to lead in catechesis, moral formation, and the regeneration of God's people.
He argues that we no longer live in a culture where Christianity holds a prominent place. As Christians, we are now living in a context in which the idea of being aliens and strangers in the land must be recovered. This was the situation of the early church, and it shaped the way they carried out their ministry. In particular, they invested a great deal of time and energy into the formation of believers. As we now find ourselves in a similar context, Willimon suggests that
more of our pastoral time, in this missionary situation, will be spent in catechesis, the formation of Christians who have the equipment they need to survive as Christians.
I often hear people react against the idea of catechesis because of an assumption that it is mere indoctrination, drilling purely intellectual and academic theological propositions into the heads of children. This, unfortunately, may have been the experience of some – to be honest, this was partly my own experience – but Willimon helpfully points out that catechesis instead is about the holistic formation of believers, equipping them with the tools necessary not only to think rightly, but to live rightly in the world.
In order to understand more fully what catechesis is supposed to entail, it is helpful first to have a well-rounded definition of the practice. The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides one such definition:
Catechesis...[includes] especially the teaching of Christian doctrine imparted, generally speaking, in an organic and systematic way, with a view to initiating the hearers into the fullness of Christian life....catechesis is built on a certain number of elements of the Church's pastoral mission...[including] the initial proclamation of the Gospel or missionary preaching to arouse faith; examination of the reasons for belief; experience of Christian living; celebration of the sacraments; integration into the ecclesial community; and apostolic and missionary witness (II, 5-6).
Catechesis is not just about intellectual matters, but it is about the whole of the Christian life. Recovering this sort of ministry is crucial for discipleship, and thus of great importance for pastoral ministry.
David Jackman, in his book, Spirit of Truth, writes of the Holy Spirit's work in opening our hearts and minds to the truth:
He does not reveal new truth, but leads us into the whole truth which is already set forth in Jesus, above whom there could be no fuller revelation of God's truth.
The Holy Spirit does not set us free to wander into new realms of 'revelation', secretly given or privately received. For the power of the Spirit is not revealed in secret, mystical messages given to a few super-spiritual people. His power is seen in the proclamation of Jesus Christ as the way, the truth and the life.
Just as Jesus says in John 14:26, "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."
In his book, Gospel and Kingdom, which is one of the volumes in the very helpful Goldsworthy Trilogy, the Australian biblical theologian, Graeme Goldsworthy, discusses how the understanding that the Old Testament forms an integral part of the history of redemption has been lost in our day. We have moved towards focusing on the individual and his or her personal appropriation of faith instead of first recognising the work of God in history as part of a much larger story and framework. He writes,
Failure to grasp this truth – largely because the proper study of the Old Testament has been neglected, has aided and abetted one of the most unfortunate reversals in evangelical theology. The core of the gospel, the historical facts of what God did in Christ, is often down-graded today in favour of a more mystical emphasis on the private spiritual experience of the individual. Whereas faith in the gospel is essentially acceptance of, and commitment to, the declaration that God acted in Christ some two thousand years ago on our behalf, saving faith is often portrayed nowadays more as trust in what God is doing in us now. Biblical ideas such as 'the forgiveness of sins' or 'salvation' are interpreted as primarily describing a Christian's personal experience. But when we allow the whole Bible – Old and New Testaments – to speak to us, we find that those subjective aspects of the Christian life which are undoubtedly important – the new birth, faith and sanctification – are fruits of the gospel. This gospel, while still relating to individual people at their point of need, is rooted and grounded in the history of redemption. It is the good news about Jesus, before it can become good news for sinful men and women. Indeed, it is only as the objective (redemptive-historical) facts are grasped that the subjective experience of the individual Christian can be understood (20-21).
Without the redemptive work of God in history through Jesus, we have no hope. This work of God is the starting point of faith.
