March 3, 2017 Show with J. V. Fesko on “The Trinity & the Covenant of Redemption”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Now, here's our host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County,.

Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are

listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday on

this third day of March 2017, and I am delighted to have back on the

program Dr. J .V. Fesco, author, academic dean, professor of systematic

theology and historical theology at Westminster Seminary in California.

We are going to be discussing his book, The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption, and it's my honor and privilege to

welcome you.

Back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr. J .V. Fesco.

Hey, Chris, it's great to be here with you today.

Great, and in studio with me is my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor.

And it's good to be back again.

Thank you.

And today, again, the Presbyterians are outweighing or outnumbering the Reformed.

Baptists.

And I think this is good for you, Chris.

I really do.

Yes, I happen to be...

I'm glad you noticed those things.

I happen to be a Reformed Baptist, and my co -host is a Presbyterian, as is my guest today.

But, in fact, I'm going to announce our email address right off the bat.

If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for Dr. J .V. Fesco on our theme, The

Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H

-R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the goal

USA.

Well, Dr. Fesco, you have written this book, The Trinity and the

Covenant of Redemption.

And let's start off with the Trinity.

A lot of the cults, non -Christian religions, or religions that claim to be

Christian, but in reality are not.

They are non -Trinitarian, Arian, and other forms

of heretical expressions of God and the Godhead and so on.

They will very often bring to our attention that the Trinity, the word, is not

in the canon of Scripture, it's not a biblical term, and

they will say therefore it is not to be trusted as a biblical truth, and

they will say it is an invention of the Catholic Church.

If you could respond to those things that immediately are what we are confronted with typically

when we face the.

Cults.

Yes, I think that one of the first things that we've got to recognize is that, you know, yeah, there are many things in

the Scriptures that we develop terms to describe what is there, and just because the term

does not exist does not mean that the concept is absent.

And in particular, the term Trinity was coined by an early church theologian by the name of

Tertullian, who was basically trying to come up with a word that would describe

how God is one God, but in three persons, and he came up with the idea of a

triunitas, or a threefold, you know, threefold God unity, and that's where we get Trinity as a

combination of three and unity.

And so the idea is that, yes, that term doesn't exist in the Scriptures, but the more fundamental

question is, does the concept exist?

Do we find a good reason to say that there is one God, and

nevertheless this one God is manifest in three persons, as, you know, the classic

historic creeds of the Church do affirm these things, such as the Council of Nicaea,

or the Council of Chalcedon in the 4th and 5th centuries respectively, or as these truths have been

professed by literally the whole, you know, Christians around the world.

And so the question is that we'd want to ask is, will we

teach these truths?

And it appears in a number of places, but, for example, when you read in Deuteronomy 6

-4 that it says, Here, O Israel, the Lord our God,

we're certainly affirmed that there is one God.

Is that what's called the Shema?

Is that what's called the Shema?

Yes.

Yes, and that's the Hebrew term that means here, you know, it's the command, Here, Israel, listen to what I'm about to

say.

And so it affirms that there is one God.

But on the other hand, we find other passages of Scripture, such as the opening of John's Gospel, when

he says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Where there's a clear distinction in that there is the Word, and there is God, but nevertheless the

Word is also God.

And you see John in his Gospel ascribing things to the Word that were only

traditionally and typically ascribed to God in the Old Testament.

All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

And so I think that that is, you know, an important passage that we say, Okay, how does this passage fit

in connection with the affirmation that there is one God, and how can John ascribe

deity?

See, for example, in Paul's famous

ninth chapter of Romans, where he is talking about all of the blessings that

Israel has received, and he says, To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to

Christ, who is God over all.

So here he explicitly identifies the Messiah as being God

over all.

But just a chapter over in the next chapter, when Paul is talking about the

Gospel, and he goes and quotes the prophet Joel, when he says, you know, Whoever

calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

And he says that in Romans 10 -13.

Where does he finally land?

He says in verse 17.

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through.

To call upon God is to call upon Christ.

And in line with the earlier passages that we just referred to, you know, this Christ has been

identified as God.

But another passage that's important that we want to take into consideration is in the

baptism of Jesus, where here we have Jesus.

He's been baptized, and in addition to this,

we have the Father proclaiming from the heavens, you know, This is my Son,

with whom I am well pleased.

Here is the Christ who is identified as God, but now here is God, you know, speaking

from the heavens.

And then in the segue that we go from Matthew chapter 3 to Matthew

chapter 4, Matthew tells us,.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.

And now here's a third appearance of somebody.

Who is this Spirit, and why does God pour out and anoint his Son with the outpouring of the

Spirit, as the Spirit descends in the form of the dove upon Christ to rest on him?

Well, the church looked at all of these things and said, you know, how do we put this all together?

And in the book of Acts, for example, when Ananias and Sapphira are caught in their deception,

and Peter says, You have lied to the Spirit, you have lied to God.

How do we account for this?

Well, this is where the church, after, you know, hammering these things out on the anvil of controversy

and through church councils, comes to the conclusion, and the right conclusion, I think, by affirming that we

have one God and that this one God is in three

persons.

And in the language of the Westminster Confession of Faith, it says, In the unity of the

Godhead there be three persons of one substance, power, and eternity.

God the Father, God the Son, and God...

You know, we embrace this teaching because it's ultimately a

scriptural teaching, that the scripture speaks of this one God and three

persons, to which we append the term the Trinity.

Yeah, before the Reverend Buzz Taylor.

Has a comment or question, I just wanted to clarify a couple of things.

First of all, you mentioned clearly that the scriptures teach that people can sin against the

Holy Spirit, which would prove that the Holy Spirit is not an it, it's not a power or force, it's a

person.

Mm -hmm.

Or he is a person, I should say.

And the claim that the

cults and the non -Trinitarians would hurl at us

would actually involve some of what you said.

In fact, I'm going to combine what the cults say and what the Roman Catholic Church says.

Both will say we would never have this understanding without the Roman Catholic

Church, and you just were speaking of councils that hammered these things out.

The Roman Catholic Church will actually want us to believe that those councils created

the teaching, rather than just deriving from the scriptures themselves what the teaching

is.

And the cults will say, well, you see, the Catholics are right, you never would have a Trinity without the Roman

Catholic Church.

How do you respond to those kinds of claims by both Romanists and cultists?

Yeah, you know, I think on the one hand, I'd want to distinguish and say that technically speaking, you know, the

Roman Catholic Church didn't exist.

I mean, the Roman Catholic Church, people in the Roman Catholic Church would object to that.

But it really doesn't become formalized until the 16th century with the Council of Trent.

And that's why historically Protestants have willingly appealed to the early Church to say that,

you know, that is us in that sense.

Yes, the Roman Catholic Church wasn't codified until Trent.

You mean not the Trinity?

Correct.

Correct.

And so in that sense, we look at this as being as part of the Protestants, as Protestants, we would see ourselves as part of

the Catholic with a small c, not Roman Catholic in caps, but the Catholic tradition or the

universal tradition in terms of, you know, looking at these things.

And within the context of that, these theologians and pastors that gathered together,

they didn't create the doctrine of the Trinity, but as you read these documents and you see what they're doing, and you read the literature surrounding the

period, they're hammering these things out exegetically.

But just for the sake of discussion, let's just say for the sake of discussion,

you know, to set aside the Church Councils for a minute, you know, I would want to press the case to say,

you know, against, say, the cultists and say, when Paul says in Romans 9 .5 that, you

know, here is the Christ, you know, God over all, you know, and he says it unflinchingly.

Or just in terms of the opening of Paul's letter in Romans chapter one, where he talks about

Christ, and he declared, you know, that he's declared to be the Son of God in power,

according to the Spirit of holiness, you know, and he says, Jesus Christ, our Lord, it would be

unthinkable.

It would be unthinkable for a first century Jew to ascribe the title of

Lord to anyone less than anyone less than

God.

And Jesus himself pressed the Pharisees when he asked

them, you know, quoting Psalm 10, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your

enemies your footstool.

You know, he says, how can David call his descendant, you

know, and the implied answer is, well, he can if

his descendant is actually God, and who but

God could sit at the right hand of the Father.

And in this sense, we also see this, I think, in Christ's, you know, the crucifixion passages,

where the religious leaders crucified him because he claimed to be God.

When you look at numerous passages in the Scriptures, especially, say, for example, in the Gospel of John,

where Christ repeatedly takes upon himself the title of I Am, you know, before

Abraham was, I Am, that's the divine name.

So you take all of that exegetical information, and I would say, there are simply too many passages

for the cultist to say, oh, that's just one text, or that's just two texts.

No, it's just there's a, you know, a cornucopia of different texts from which we,

you know, come to the conclusion that we worship a triune God.

And then quickly on the, you know, the Roman Catholic question is, you know, I would want to appeal

to the standard Protestant idea that the Church does not

give birth to the Word, or, you know, correlatively, the Church ultimately

does not give birth to doctrine.

Scriptures and its teachings give birth that apart from God's Word,

there would be no Church.

And that takes.

Precedence.

And before Nicaea or the Council of Chalcedon, there were

Christians and those amongst the Church Fathers who believed in the concept of

the Trinity without using the term, correct?

Yes, absolutely.

All right, Reverend Buzz Taylor, you had?

I was just kind of, you can either, I'm going to the doctor for some teaching here, okay.

But I can't understand why the Jews would have a difficult time understanding the concept of the.

As soon as inspired scripture was let out of the gate, when it said, in the beginning,

God created the heavens and the earth, the word for God there, Elohim, is a plural word in itself.

Why would that be instead of using the singular Eloah?

I'm not a language expert, so you can, you know, enlighten me if I'm wrong on that.

Yeah, no, I think that it's just a common way of talking about, it's an honorific in the sense

that it's talking about the exalted nature of God, and so the plural

is used there.

And I think that you can find similar occurrences with other terms that in order to elevate the term, you

put it into the plural.

But in this particular case, even when you read some of the Jewish

commentaries, the very, very early Jewish commentaries

on the opening of Genesis, they will, you know, they will not know what to do.

They kind of punt, or they kind of will change some of the wording, say, for example,

in Genesis 126, when, you know, the grammar is seemingly

off when it says, let us make man in our image.

Because it says, then God, singular said, let us make man in our image.

They're not quite sure what to do with it, and so they kind of, you know, they have different opinions, but

they don't want to acknowledge anything close to the doctrine of the Trinity.

It's not until you get, I think, to the New Testament Church that theologians

begin looking at, throughout the scriptures and to passages such as Genesis 126, and say, okay, this is

in very seminal form, but it's ultimately speaking of the triune God.

And the way they do that is they look through the New Testament as the apostles and

the disciples exegeted these things in the New Testament as they were looking at the Old Testament.

So that, I think, is how I would, you know, try to explain that as far as the Jewish

reception or non -reception of the idea.

We have Ronald in eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who

wants to know your opinion on the current Reformed controversy on the

Trinity involving eternal subordinationism.

I know that Chris has had those representing either side of the

issue on his program.

Both sides seem to have much Orthodox and Reformed teaching behind them,

but disagree on this issue.

What is your guest's side on the issue, and if he believes that the opposing

side to his own is in serious error?

Yeah, I think, let me say up front that I have not followed the debate terribly closely,

but I've kind of kept an eye on it.

And a second observation is that it's my understanding that one of the

debate participants, Wayne Grudem, you know, made a, delivered a lecture at the recent

meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in November of last year, where

he changed his view.

And apart from...

Really?

Yeah, it's, yeah, I don't, I have it somewhere in my office, but I

can't comment much more than that, but that he did change his view.

You probably would find it out on the internet.

But setting aside, you know, representatives of the different, you know,

positions, because I'm not sure who's aligned with what, I would want to say that, you know, I would A,

want to affirm the historic, you know, Christian teaching on this that

we have basically throughout all of Western Christendom, and it's the idea of the

complete ontological equality of all three

members of the Godhead.

You know, again, as the Westminster Confession says, that in the unity of the Godhead, there are three persons of one substance,

power, and eternity, so that they all are God.

And in that sense, to affirm the aseity, or the self -existence of the Trinity.

The second thing that I would want to say is that I think it's unfortunate

to talk about the eternal subordination of the Son apart

from really explaining in great detail what exactly that means, because at a

bald reading of it, it makes it sound like Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, or the

Son, is in some sense eternally inferior, which it ends up

clashing with the affirmation of the complete and total deity, the

full deity of the Son, as the classic creeds affirm.

And in this respect, I don't know that this is Jacob Arminius who

affirmed the eternal subordination of the Son, saying that the Son was

essentially in some ways inferior, and you can find that in his theological works,

the three -volume works that's been written in the 90s.

So that, I think, is problematic.

But then the question is, is how do we account for the Son's

obedience to the Father?

And I think that it's important to recognize that it's one thing to talk about his person

as being fully God, and it's another thing to talk about his work

as the God -man.

One is necessary, in the sense that we have to affirm the Son's

complete and full equality with the Father.

The other is, in technical terms, contingent, in the sense that the

Son was not under obligation to redeem, but, you know, in the words of

Matthew, he voluntarily, the

God -man submitted himself to the Father.

And so in that sense, it's important to recognize the distinction between the

Son's ontology, or who he is in his being, and the economy, you

know, in terms of what he does, in terms of his work as the Redeemer, or in other terms,

the procession, the eternal processions of the Trinity, and distinguish those

from the missions, the missions of each member of the Trinity.

So that when Christ says, you know, the Father is greater than I, he's not

saying, I am somehow ontologically less than God, but rather

he's saying, as the God -man, and within the context of the work of

redemption, I am voluntarily submitting myself to the will of the Father in order

to accomplish the plan of redemption, which is essentially, more or less, the whole idea behind the

covenant of redemption, is that this is voluntary on the Son's part, and

not a necessary part of his being.

So to say that the Son is eternally subordinate is, at best,

or confusing, and at worst, it's

even potentially heresy, but I'd want to say, well, let me talk to the person

who's saying these things to try to figure out where he or she is.

Right, in fairness to the folks on the eternal subordination side who I've had on this

program, who are theologically reformed, they would say, just

as in complementarianism in regard to the gender roles, which teaches

that a man is not superior in any way, shape, or form to his

wife or to females, at the same time they have been given

an order where the wife is subordinate or submissive to the husband,

not making him superior, it's just the way that it was a part of God's design, and they will

say that there is no reason to think that

it violates the co -equal and co -eternal nature of the

Trinity, because they will, as you must know, that those that are within the Reformed faith would insist

upon the Trinity, including the aspect of the members of the Trinity being co -equal

and co -eternal.

And by the way, Ronald, you have won a free copy of the book that we are

discussing today, The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption,

thanks to our friends at Christian Publications, and that will be shipped to you, thanks to

our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cv, as in Cumberland Valley, bbs, as in

BibleBookService .com, cvbbs .com.

We have Joe in Slovenia who has a

question, and I have to enlarge Joe's font on his email because it's very, very tiny.

Since modalism, also called Sabellianism, was condemned as heresy long ago,

and Christian Trinitarian orthodoxy has been taught and disseminated thoroughly and

widely for centuries, how do modern -day modalists such as T .D. Jakes gain a

following?

What is going on in Christianity that creates a situation which heresy of this

magnitude is present and tolerated in broader evangelicalism?

Thank you for instructing us today.

A very good question.

A lot of it, when I have conversations

with people that are non -Trinitarian or question its importance,

they will very often use some of the rhetoric that I brought up earlier.

They will say, well, I don't need the Catholic Church or councils to

define what I believe from the inerrant Word of God.

I will just look at the Bible, read what it says, and sure, it talks about the Father, Son, and

Holy Ghost, but I don't need to be bound by any kind of Trinitarian understanding of that,

and they will typically wind up devolving into some kind of a heresy like modalism, but if you could

explain yourself why you think this is

tolerated in a much greater way than it was centuries ago.

Yeah, I think there are a couple of reasons.

The first is that I think that there's a tendency, especially at least in the United States, I can't

necessarily comment as much about other parts of you know, Western culture,

but in terms of the United States, in terms of that, we often believe that Christianity

begins with our own profession of faith, and that we don't realize that, you know, when we

make a profession of faith in Christ, it's not just to do so as individuals, but rather as

individuals bound to a body, the Church, and that this Church extends from the present

day all the way back to Adam and Eve, and so that when we're thinking

about these things, we have to recognize that we are not the first to come to

these ideas, you know, and to come to the Scriptures.

Secondly, I think that in that regard, when Paul says in Ephesians 4 that Christ has

given gifts to the Church, and that these gifts are

pastors and teachers and what have you, that

these theologians in the past are part of Christ's gift to the Church,

and so that when we come to study the Word of God, we have to recognize we're not the first ones to come and study

the Word, and that many other gifted people have been given to the Church to teach us.

And so the saying that I like to use is that we're theological hobbits who get to stand on the shoulders of these

giants, so we can get a greater glimpse of the glory of Christ, like Zacchaeus sitting

in that tree.

So that, you know, we want to say, well, what does the earlier Church have to say about this?

I'm not the first to read this text, and maybe I can learn something from these theologians of

the past.

And so I think that that probably, you know, explains part of it, is that we're disconnected from the past, we

don't realize that there are many others that have professed the faith, and then

that these other theologians from the past are gifts to the Church.

And so in that respect, I think it requires some humility on our part.

Lord, teach me through these other people and through these gifted theologians, because what I may find very difficult,

I might be able to have tremendous insight and learn a great deal from other

people.

As C .S. Lewis, you know, characterized it, we want to have the fresh breeze of centuries gone by blow through

our minds to remind us of truths forgotten, or to show us

things that we need to learn.

We have to go to a break right now.

And by the way, Joe, in Slovenia, you have also won a free copy of the book we are

discussing, The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption, by our guest J .V. Fesko.

And this is quite a substantial work.

It's a gorgeous hardcover book.

And we thank Christian Focus in the UK for providing us with these

free copies today.

And keep your eye out in the mail, or should I say, have your daughter in the United States to whom we are mailing this,

have her keep her eye out in the mail for a package from Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service,

CVBBS .com.

That's CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for BibleBookService .com.

And we thank you for contributing to today's show with your question.

We're going to a break right now.

And if anybody else would like to join those who have already asked questions with a question of your own,

our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail

.com.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris.

Arnzen.

If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is Dr. J. V. Fesco.

He is author, academic dean, professor of systematic theology and historical

theology at Westminster Seminary in California, and we are discussing his book, The Trinity

and the Covenant of Redemption.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

Chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

In studio with me is my co -host, Reverend Buzz Taylor, and I have a humorous

email from our faithful listener in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Pastor Sterling Vanderwerker of Shepard's Fellowship says, in reference to that last

ad you heard about the New American Standard Bible, he says, only you

could hip up Dr. James White, H -I -P as in Peter, hip up Dr. James

White.

Good music in the background of the commercial.

Well, I have to give credit where credit is due because actually the Reverend Buzz Taylor found that music

for that ad and definitely did make it more interesting.

Well, I wonder if anybody's.

Happened to notice how much trumpet exists in all your ads.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, the Reverend Buzz.

Has been a fountain of musical beds, as they call them in the

industry, for our advertising on Iron and he is a trumpet player, so

a lot of his taste gravitates towards that.

Going back to what we were saying before, before I actually go to a real question that

Pastor Sterling Vanderwerker has, or I should say a question regarding our topic,

we were talking about, in response to Joe in Slovenia, we were talking

about how the doctrine of modalism

has really become accepted as not that

problematic by a great number of evangelicals today.

Even, ironically, a network called the Trinity Broadcasting Network has one of

its Pentecostals teaching on it.

Wouldn't you say, Dr. Fesko, that a lot of it has to do basically with the

disdain that modern

evangelicalism has for theological precision and doctrinal soundness,

or even the very concern for doctrinal soundness has been

relegated to Phariseeism or nitpicking or being

unloving and being sectarian and so on?

If you could comment.

On that.

Yeah, I mean, I think there is that tendency, and on the one hand, I can

understand it in the sense that sometimes understanding the Scriptures is hard

work.

It's a very big book, and there are a lot of things in there that, at first blush, are perhaps

difficult to understand.

But on the other hand, I want to say that in any type of relationship, whether it's

especially, let's say, a relationship between people, the stronger that relationship gets,

it's typically going to be driven by a greater knowledge between the two people as to who they

are and, you know, getting to know one another, so that when we study the Scriptures, it's not ultimately about

simply the acquisition of knowledge, but ultimately getting to know who God is and how he

has revealed himself in Christ through the Spirit.

So yeah, there may be technical aspects, technical things that we have to learn and study, but

I would liken them to, you know, I know that my wife hates surprises.

I know that my wife's favorite color is red.

I know that my wife likes certain types of clothing and certain types of

food, etc., so that the more that I get to know her, the more details I know about her.

I know her far better than anybody else probably in the world, though maybe her

parents would say, well, we know her pretty well, too, and I'd say, okay, sure, but you get the idea, and so that when it

comes to studying the Scriptures, it's ultimately about getting to know

Christ, and we want to recognize that it's not nitpicking to say that, wait a minute,

Christ is not just a man, he's more than that, but he's also

God.

Well, how do we account for that?

Well, we want to say that he's fully God and he's fully man, and, you know, there are

a host of things that come along with that, because in the end, you know, people say, well, why do we have to talk about

these details?

Can't we just talk about Jesus?

You say, okay, sure, and then as soon as you ask the question, well, who is Jesus, you inevitably get back into

those questions as to, you know, as to who he is, and in some respects,

this really is ultimately the difference between Heaven and Hell.

You know, I was out in the front yard of my house doing some work, and some people

pulled out their Bibles and started saying that there's a Queen of Heaven, and I said, look, I said, you know,

you're seriously mistaken.

This is not at all Scriptural teaching, and if you affirm that there is a Queen of Heaven when the

Scriptures don't say that, that's tantamount to idolatry, and this imperils

your soul.

So it's not that we're trying to get to

know better who has revealed

himself in Christ.

And the Spirit in the Word.

Okay, we have again Pastor Sterling Vanderwerker of

Shepherd's Fellowship in Greensboro, North Carolina, who says, I think it is interesting that

eternal subordination always focuses on Jesus's submission to the Father.

Isn't it another problem that the workman, the Holy Spirit, would be perceived to be

of some less value than Christ as he is only the agent of salvation?

If we look at all three persons of the Trinity, it is harder to see the value judgments that man places

on this argument.

All three persons in some way submit to each other.

Father takes on the planning, Son takes on the sacrifice, Spirit takes on the work of salvation.

So this is more of a comment than a question.

Do you have any response to Pastor.

Vanderwerker?

No, I think that's important to note.

I agree in the sense that we have to account for each, the division of labor, if you

will, within the Godhead, and that it's ultimately voluntary.

You know, God, the triune God, voluntarily created, and the triune God

voluntarily redeems.

In other words, the triune God is not under any obligation to redeem any fallen creature, and

even going further back than that, the triune God was not under any obligation to create.

And that's why Paul, for example, in Acts chapter 17 talks about, you know, God doesn't live in temples and

doesn't need to be served by human hands.

He doesn't need us.

But rather, he creates not out of a need, but rather out of an abundance of

love and a desire to share of his love with his creation, and in this

sense, amazingly so, with creatures who have rebelled and who hate him.

And in spite of this rebellion, the triune God reaches out and rescues

and redeems.

Fallen sinners.

Well, thank you, Pastor Sterling Vanderwerker, and you are receiving, as well, a free copy

of the Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption Complements of Christian Focus publications in the UK,

and complements of our dear friends right here in Cumberland County.

Cumberland County Bible Books, or Cumberland Valley Bible Book Services, CV for Cumberland Valley,

BBS for BibleBookServices .com, CVBBS .com.

Keep your eye open in the mail for a package from CVBBS .com.

And it just so happens that Cumberland County is in Cumberland Valley, so it's

kind of a tongue twister there.

And by the way, Reverend Buzz Taylor, our listener, Sterling Vanderwerker,

also has a comment.

He says, another description for those who play the trumpet is a blowhard.

I've heard it all.

Anyway, we have a first -time listener, or at

least a first -time questioner.

We have Linda in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Please ask Dr. Fesko to comment on the Spirit's role in the fruit of the

Spirit.

Is this only a New Testament concept, or can the Spirit's work be found in the Old

Testament?

Very good questions, Linda, and thank you for contributing a question for the first time on Iron Trip and Zion.

If you could, Dr. Vanderwerker.

Yes.

In terms of the Spirit's work, we always want to acknowledge that the Spirit is the

agent of the application of redemption, and thus, in that

respect, the agent of sanctification throughout the Scriptures in both the Old

and New Testament.

And the distinction that we would want to make, however, is that when Christ, for

example, is talking to the woman at the well, he says that

there will come a time when you will no longer worship here, but rather it's wherever you worship

in spirit and in truth.

You see this also in terms of the outpouring of the Spirit, in that it is a greater,

more abundant, universal outpouring of the Spirit.

In the Old Testament, it's much more localized, and not only localized, but restricted

really to the nation of Israel, and tied particularly to the Temple.

But in any instance where the Old Testament

saints manifested love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, or self -control, as

Paul says there in Ephesians 5, 22 and following, then it was

ultimately going to be as a result of the work of the Spirit.

But on the other hand, sanctification and that type

of Christian life, if we can put it that way, was ultimately tied to the land, it was tied to the

Temple, and in particular the Old Testament saint could be exiled from the land.

I think that this is what drives David's comment in Psalm 51, take not your Holy Spirit from me.

It's not that the Holy Spirit would abandon him per se, but rather because of his sin he would be cast outside the camp,

outside the benevolent presence, Spirit of God there in the land,

especially connected to the Temple.

Whereas in the New Testament, you know, we read wherever two or three are gathered there, in their midst.

And so that in that sense, we have a greater dispensation of the Spirit, and we can know that the

Spirit does not abandon us because we are united to Christ and have received

that outpouring of the Spirit.

Well Linda, since you are a first -time.

Questioner, not only are you receiving the last copy of the book that we are

talking about, the Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption by our guest J .V. Fesco, you're also

going to get a free New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the

NASB, and you're also, on top of that, getting a free copy of

A Time for Confidence, Trust in God in a Post -Christian Society by Dr. Stephen J.

Nichols, the president of Reformation Bible College, which is the Bible College of Ligonier Ministries,

the teaching ministry of R .C. Sproul.

And I was very honored and blessed to hear from Ligonier Ministries that Iron Sharpens Iron

Radio is one of a handful of their very favorite radio programs, and they have

given me a lot of copies of Dr. Nichols' book to give away to

first -time listeners of this program.

So we thank you, Linda, for joining us today, and we hope to hear from you often in the

future on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

By the way, Linda, I'm going to need your full mailing address because all I have is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,

in regard to where you are from.

So thanks again, Linda, and God bless.

We have Seth in Randles Bend, North

Carolina, and I have to enlarge his email as well because the font is

so tiny.

But Seth asks the question, do you think many

evangelical churches today are misrepresenting the Trinity and or

redemption?

If so, in what ways do you think, in what, let's see, in what

ways and what do you think can be done to prevent this from happening?

I guess a post -millennial hope would be the only thing I could think of.

He could write a book about it.

I mean, perfection coming to the human race before heaven.

But anyway, do you have any comments and suggestions or counsel in regard to this?

I mean, I think that there's always, you know, there's always good reason for us to ask ourselves

how well are we reflecting the teaching of the scriptures, not only in our theology, but also in our

practice.

And so I think in that respect, one of the many ways which we can sometimes

misrepresent the triune God is in our worship, and in particular,

on the one hand, attention to Christ is important.

By all means, we need to worship Christ, but sometimes in some churches that I've been to, as I'm sitting there

listening, I rarely hear references to the Father, I rarely hear references to the Spirit, and I

think that this is one of the ways that we can continue to inculcate our

churches in, you know, Trinitarian faith in the teachings of the scriptures,

is by ensuring that our liturgy is thoroughly Trinitarian.

I think you see a small microcosm of this in the Lord's Prayer, when

Jesus says, you know, how am I supposed to pray, and he begins that prayer with our Father.

So do our prayers, for example, begin with appeal to Father, and then

conclude in the name of Christ, and then somehow we acknowledge that we are praying in the power of the Spirit?

But those are things I think that we can do, you know, along the way in our worship services,

so that people objectively and continually and regularly hear

the imprint of the Trinity all throughout our liturgy.

Recognizing things, like we can say that, Father, we give you thanks for sending the Son, and for sending the Spirit to redeem

us.

You know, small things like that, and I think that we would find that, as we do so, that we would

be more attentive to the doctrine of the Trinity, and God -willing, less prone

to ignore or perhaps misrepresent the Trinity in our worship or

in our theology.

Reverend Buzz Taylor is going to have a comment or question when we return from the break, but we are going to a break right now.

If anybody else would like to join us on the air, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Don't forget to at least give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the good old USA.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Dr.

J .V. Fesco.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in,.

Our guest today for the full two hours with one hour to go is Dr. J. V. Fesco.

He's an author.

He's the academic dean professor of systematic theology and historical theology at Westminster

Seminary, California, and he is discussing the Trinity and the Covenant of

Redemption.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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Well, we are back with our interview with Dr. J .V. Fesco,

and the Reverend Buzz Taylor wanted to say something before we go to any more of our.

Listener questions.

Well, I first want to start out with just a little bit of inside information because I think your listeners would appreciate

this.

Dr. Fesco, I was giving you a thumbs up for your last answer, and Chris interpreted that as turn

my mic up, because he turns me down in

between things, because that way you don't have to hear me gargling on my coffee and all that stuff.

But yeah, I really appreciated your answer there that we need to be a little bit more

up about the Trinity in the way we pray and so forth in our liturgies.

And so yeah, you didn't know on the radio that you were getting a thumbs up.

Well, it makes me feel so good now.

But I told Chris, even though he mistook my thumbs up and turned my mic up, I said, well, I'll

still take the time because I want to ask you about the rest of your book, because we spent

the first hour talking about the Trinity.

But I'm curious about how this fits together, the Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption,

that it's not just a book about the Trinity, right?

Correct.

So could you explain the title and what you mean by Covenant, and specifically

Covenant of Redemption and how it relates to the Trinity?

Yeah, I think in historic reform theology, we have the

twofold doctrine of the Covenant, which most people would understand as the Covenants of Works and Grace.

And so that, I think, is certainly standard teaching.

But what a lot of people may not realize is that historically, a good

percentage of reform theologians in the late 16th, but especially the 17th century,

developed a third covenant that we've been called the Covenant.

And if the Covenant of Works is the covenant between God and Adam, and the Covenant of Grace is

made with the elect sinner in Christ, then the Covenant of Redemption is the

intra -Trinitarian covenant or agreement among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

when in eternity, they, you know, to speak and kind of humanly speaking, so to speak, when they gather

together to decide and, you know, to determine the plan of redemption.

That is, you know, that's a very, very basic definition of what the Covenant of Redemption is.

In some formulations, some theologians say that, no, it's just about the doctrine of Christ

and Christ's covenant mediator, or as in the words of Hebrews

722, the covenant surety or the covenant guarantor.

It's just about that.

And while I think that I understand what those theologians are saying when they want of Christ,

I think a fuller statement of

the Dolly about the Trinity, and the Father

sending the Son, and then in turn the Son and the Father, you

know, correlatively say that if the Father sends the

Son, that the Son willingly consents to go.

And then if the Father brings

about not only the plan, but also executes the plan of

redemption.

Do you think, going back to something that we were talking about earlier, the lack of Trinitarian

language in modern -day evangelicalism in sermons, and in books, and in

worship, that some of it is because modern

evangelicalism has a false concept very often of who Christ

is.

They pit the Father and Son against each other, perhaps not even consciously,

but it's almost like a bad cop, good cop routine, where they

have this meek and mild Jesus that is not

going to judge us.

He has no wrath.

He is just sitting there with his arms stretched open, waiting for us, and they

want this gospel to be so appealing to even the pagan

that they remove the sting out of the gospel message itself.

And in fact, nobody, I'm sure you would agree, could appreciate the

good news of the gospel unless they know what the bad news is.

But if you could comment on what I said, perhaps you disagree with me, but perhaps...

No, I agree, and I think what I would want to add is that I think one of the things that

the Covenant of Redemption helps us to understand is that contrary to some

portrayals that we find in the broader Church where, you know, Jesus is

somehow the victim, or I think notoriously, in Steve Chalk's

understanding, this is a book that was published in the UK a number of years ago where he said that he

rejected, you know, the doctrine of substitutionary atonement because he believed it was essentially

divine, cosmic child abuse.

And I think...

Oh, so he's the one that said that.

He's the one that coined that.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, those are just gross misunderstandings.

And if we take a look, say, at the Covenant of Redemption and what it affirms, is that so

many times when I've read the statements of theologians in the past that have talked about this doctrine,

they continually make reference to the idea that this is all about the love of the triune

God for fallen sinners.

Because, you know, you see this in so many passages of Scripture that I think many of us know

and are familiar with, but perhaps don't string them together on a

strand so that we can see this glorious strand of all together.

And it's the idea that, you know, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

You know, John 3, 16, so familiar to us, but do we stop and consider the fact that it's the Father

sending the Son in love?

You know, when we think of, for example, in Ephesians chapter 5, where it talks about the sacrificial

love Christ for his bride, that he is laying down his life

in love, and that Christ is doing this not only out of a love for his bride, but he's

ultimately doing this out of a love for his Father.

Think again back, we mentioned this in the first hour of the Shema in Deuteronomy 6 of 4.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And that is precisely what Jesus did in his obedience to the law.

He loved his Father.

Obedience and love are not oil and water.

They are not contrary to one another, but rather they go hand in hand.

And so here, not only does Jesus love his Father by obeying him, but it's ultimately

done to love us and to bathe us with his love.

And then in Romans 5, where Paul talks about the outpouring of love through the Spirit,

that historically, it was Saint Augustine who said that the Spirit was the bond of

love that existed between the Father and the Son.

Now, obviously, we could say that equally of the Son and the Father and the Father and the Son in terms of their

shared bond of love, but the way that the Scriptures talk about it is that Christ, when he baptizes the

Church in the Spirit, that he's pouring out the love of the triune God upon us through the Spirit,

so that from beginning to end, this agreement, this covenant among Father, Son, and

Holy Spirit to redeem is an over -abundant outflowing of the love of

the triune God poured out and given to fallen sinners so that

they could know of the love of God.

We have Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York,.

Who obviously wants to put myself and my co

-host, Reverend Buzz Taylor, at further odds with each other, and also my guest, for that matter.

He wants us to, I think he wants to create a fight here or something, but he says, is the Presbyterian understanding of the

covenant of grace identical to the Reformed Baptist's understanding?

If you could comment on that,.

Dr. Vesco.

Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously, I think that there are no secrets here, is that, you know, I don't know what the percentage would be,

but there's probably, I don't know, 95%, 90 overlap in terms of

what, you know, historically particular Baptists or Reformed Baptists have believed,

because they took the Westminster Confession of Faith, and in 1689, they made a few

modifications here and there, particularly in terms of issues related to baptism, and then,

you know, and then adopted it as their own.

So in that respect, there's a significant degree of overlap, and in particular, in terms of

the, I think in this respect, I think I've found a number of very

beneficial and useful treatments of, you know, of the doctrine of salvation from his

Reformed Baptists, or particular Baptist theologians from the 17th century, Benjamin Teach, I think, you

know, stands tall among them, or Nehemiah Cox is another.

So those are, you know, some great men.

But obviously, I think where the difference or the distinction would lie is in terms

of grace, in terms of visibly speaking, you know, the Westminster Confession of Faith says that the visible,

those who profess the true religion and their children, whereas

the true religion, so the

children and infants, unless they make, at least in the case of children, a profession of faith, obviously,

that's supposed to myself

side of things, and you, Chris, are on the 1689 side of things.

And so yeah, that's where those.

Distinctions lie.

Well, thank you, Tyler.

And so far, no bloodshed in the studio.

So far.

And we have Chris in Runnels, Iowa, who says,.

I am wondering if a little explanation of the wills of God can be given.

Does an inter -Trinitarian covenant imply that there are multiple wills.

Coming into an agreement?

Thank you.

Yeah, I think that the way that we want to understand this is that when the Son

says in the Gospel of John, I think it's some 25 to 30 times, I

don't remember exactly, that's why I write books so that I can write it down and I can forget it.

But I think it's close to some 30 times that Jesus refers to being sent.

And so the, you know, the common sense thing that we would say is you can't send yourself.

You know, you would instead say, I have come.

And so this reflects the idea that the Father sent the Son.

And so in more, slightly more technical terms, what we say is, is

the missions of the Godhead find their origins

in their processions, in their eternal processions.

Or to put that or state that more simply, is that the work that each

person of the Trinity does in the economy of redemption finds its origin

in their respective roles within the Godhead.

And so, for example, the Father sends the Son.

That is, you know, that's Father, and this fits his role as Son.

And then conversely, or at least correlatively, the Son and the Father send the

Spirit.

And I wish I had a chalkboard to be able to draw all of this out, but the

way I like to do it is I like to put a triangle up on the board and show how the Father is at the top of the

triangle, and he's, you know, you have the eternal generation of the Son.

He's eternally the Son.

And that this generation, if you will, extends temporally into history as

the incarnate Son.

And then as the Son and the Father, and the technical term is, is

eternally spirate, uh, the Spirit, that they then, this

extends, this eternal, you know, sending of the Spirit, if you will, extends into the

economy of redemption as they both send the Spirit.

So that in the simplest of terms, and this is all essentially wrapped up in the doctrine of

Covenant of Redemption, is that the God, the triune God of

history, is the same triune God in eternity.

And that the reason that redemption looks like the way it does is because it ultimately

reflects who God is in eternity.

Well, thank you very much, Chris, and keep spreading the.

Word about Iron Sharpens Iron in Runnels, Iowa, and beyond.

Well, let's hear about the correlation between the members of

the Godhead, and predestination, and justification.

Yeah, I mean, you know, we can, it's a pretty big question, so maybe we can, you know, how do you eat an elephant one

bite at a time?

You know, a step at a time, in that, in terms of, you know, the

doctrine of election, this is, again, once again, we would assume, you know, the classics

have historically been that the works of the triune God are

indivisible.

In other words, that is the indivisible work of the triune God,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But just because we affirm that it is the indivisible work of the

triune God does not mean, therefore, that each person of the Trinity does everything.

So, for example, we do not affirm historically or scripturally that the Father died on the

cross, or that the Spirit died on the cross.

That's something that we attribute specifically to the second person of the Trinity,.

Specifically to the Son.

In fact, wasn't there a heresy, a patré -passionism that actually taught.

That the Father died on the cross?

Right, exactly.

Yeah, that's been identified in the Church as heresy.

So, yeah, we don't want to affirm that.

So what we want to recognize is, yes, the triune God, you know, the work is indivisible.

They're always working in concert.

But at the same time, we want to say that each one functions in a specific way to execute

that plan of redemption.

So it's the Son who is sent and the Father who sends, for example, in that respect.

So that's the first thing that we want to acknowledge.

The second thing, in respect to, say, the doctrine of election, and you see this play out at several points in Scripture,

is that the New Testament invariably attributes the choice, or the

election, of the people of God to the Father.

And you see this in John chapter 6, where John

recounts Christ's words, and he talks about, you know, I will not

lose any of those whom you have given me.

You know, in that, you know, you have chosen them.

I will protect them.

I will keep them.

I will keep them so that none will fall away.

And so I think it's important, in that respect, that we recognize that it's the Father who does the choosing.

And you see that, I think, reflected in Ephesians chapter 1.

But also, in terms of that, the Father chooses the

Son as a part of his decree of election, and the reason that he

does so is because, as Ephesians chapter 1 says, that we are chosen in him, in

Christ, before the foundation of the world.

So I think that that's an important dimension that we have to recognize in terms of, say, the

doctrine of election as it relates to the doctrine of the Trinity.

In terms of, say, the doctrine of justification, along those lines, we would want

to say that, once again, the Father is the one who judges.

He's the one that issues the verdict over the sinner, and

famously, we see that in Romans chapter 4, when Paul says

in Romans 4, 5, that, and I'm sorry, in Romans

4, 1 and following, that what then shall we say was gained by Abraham unto the

flesh?

And as he gets down into verse 3, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Well, where does that righteousness come from?

If God is the judge, then that righteousness comes from Christ.

And he is the source of the righteousness, as Paul makes clear, for example, in Romans chapter 5,

where many are constituted as righteous by virtue of the one act of

righteousness.

But then the question comes up, well, how is it that we receive the work of

Christ?

Well, it's through the work of the Spirit, who effectually calls us and unites us

to Christ and places us in union with Christ through faith, and it's by this faith by which we are

able to lay hold of the righteousness.

Put it in, you know, in the terms that Luther has used in his Galatians

commentary, he says, by faith we lay hold of Christ.

Christ is present in faith.

And so, you know, here we see each person of the Trinity carrying

out the unified work of the triune God, but each with his different

role.

The Father sending, the Son being sent, or the Father choosing Christ

and uniting in his decree the elect to Christ in the decree, and then in terms

of the execution of the decree, that he sends the Son and the Son

accomplishes his work, and then the Spirit applies that work so that when God pronounces his verdict

over the elect, he can pronounce the verdict of just or righteous

because of that applied work of Christ.

And we are going to our final break right now.

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Us on the air with a question for our guest, Dr. J .V. Fesco, now would be the time to do it.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in, our guest for the last 90 minutes and the next half hour to come

has been and will be Dr. J .V. Fesco.

He's an author, and he's the Academic Dean, Professor of Systematic Theology and Historical Theology

at Westminster Seminary, California.

We have been discussing and will continue to discuss the Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption.

If you'd like to join us on the air, now would be the time to send in your email because we have less than a half hour left.

Our email address is ChrisArnsen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnsen at gmail .com.

That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N - Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And we have Murray in Kinross, Scotland, who asks, I

was interested very much in Dr. Fesco's comments regarding the Holy Spirit in Old Testament times.

In the case of Saul, should we assume that Saul was, in fact, an Old Testament saint,

or that the Holy Spirit had non -covenantal dealings with unbelievers in Old Testament

times, or is there a distinction to be made between the Holy Spirit resting on an individual

in the Old Testament, but not indwelling an individual in the New Testament?

If you need.

Me to repeat any of that, I will repeat it for you.

Yeah, no, Saul is a, I think it's a tough case because one of the things that we have to recognize

is, let me set this out hopefully in a couple of, just because they do it quickly

doesn't mean that everything is easy, in that first, we want to recognize

that the Old Testament is preparatory and ultimately anticipatory

of the ultimate revelation of Christ.

And in that respect, I think so many Old Testament saints are serving

as precursors, redemptive or revelatory precursors to Christ.

So for example, in the book of Hebrews, in the second chapter, it talks about Moses

as being in God's house, or a leader in God's house, whereas Christ

being over God's house, and talking about Moses in a typological

relationship to Jesus, that Moses prefigures Jesus.

Same thing with David, King David prefigures Jesus.

Well, as one of Israel's kings, Saul, is, you know, he

prefigures Jesus, at least in terms of the way in which he occupies the office

of king, because ultimately Jesus is the prophet, priest, and in this case, king.

The second observation to make is that when the Holy Spirit,

ultimate saints, we shouldn't be too quick to assume

that when he fell on them, it was

indicative salvation.

The person received the Holy Spirit, in many cases, for not in terms of

salvation, which could be a distinct issue, but rather in terms of them

carrying out a specific, as a

precursor to Christ.

So for example, this is not, you know, this is somewhat related in that you see

that Moses gets precluded from the promised land, he's barred from the promised land, and we understand that

the promised land is a force, so we might conclude,

gee whiz, if Moses was barred from the promised land, was he then therefore

barred from heaven itself?

Well we know, of course, from the New Testament and the Mount of Transfiguration that

Moses appears on the Mount of Transfiguration, so that just because Moses was barred from the

promised land was not an automatic indicator that he was not saved.

Now, I always tell my students this, how they knew it was Moses, I'm not sure.

Maybe they had name tags.

You know, but nevertheless, they knew it was Moses, and we know he's saved.

So along those lines, you know, I tell my students, I tell people in my church, it's quite possible that we'll run

into Uzzah in heaven, that, you know, Uzzah reached out his hand to

steady the ark in violation of God's command, and was immediately struck

dead for this violation.

But just because he struck dead doesn't automatically mean that he wasn't saved.

You know, we'll just have to wait and see.

Even, I am assuming that we might even meet Ananias and Sapphira, could we not?

Right, I mean that's a distinct possibility as well, you know, so we want to be cautious with that in terms of,

certainly they serve as warning signs against deception and lying,

but not just because the Lord, you know, punishes them with

fatherly discipline.

In this case, intense fatherly discipline would not automatically mean that they're not saved.

So when we come now to the case of Saul, you know, the Holy Spirit falls upon

him in the similar fashion as the Spirit would fall upon other

prophets in the Old Testament in order to conduct their unique ministry,

their precursor ministry of preparing the way for Christ.

So what we can certainly say with regard to Saul is that Saul,

you know, lost the outpouring of the Spirit insofar as it related to his

specific function as one of Israel's anointed kings, and as a

precursor to Christ.

But on the other hand, at least for me personally, I'm not so sure that I want to

move that back to say that Saul is automatically, therefore, condemned.

Did he struggle with his sanctification?

Undoubtedly so.

Did he sin, you know, such as, you know, consulting with the witch of

Endor, which was a capital offense in Israel?

Absolutely.

But just because he sins in that fashion doesn't automatically mean that he might

not be saved.

So with Saul, I would probably want to just leave a question mark and say,

unsure, but we would certainly want to learn from Saul to say that, you know, his

conduct at many points was absolutely sinful, and his conduct

that would in no way or in no way should mark a Christian, you know, and that

we should type of conduct, we would want to repent from it immediately or as

quickly as.

Possible.

Any biblical reason why we should have hope for

Nadab and Abihu?

No, I don't know.

I mean, it's possible.

It's just, it's possible just simply from the perspective that so little is said

about them.

We just know that it was unauthorized fire, according to Leviticus 10, that they brought before.

So we don't know for sure.

I don't see a whole lot of positive indicators.

It seems like, you know, the priestly line at that point was

struggling, but at the same time, because of a lack of information, I would want to, you know, I

wouldn't want to make any cold, hard, you know, firm decisions other than to say that,

as with any person, we would pray that the Lord would extend mercy to them, because in the end, we

ourselves are ultimately the recipients of God's mercy as well.

Right, and I'm surprised when I've.

Heard biblically literate pastors bring a

question mark into the situation in regard to the eternal state of Judas, because

Jesus himself said it would be better for him that he was never born.

So obviously, that is a clear indication that Judas is not going to be waiting for us in heaven.

Right, yeah, no, you're right on that.

I think that, you know, there are a few cases in the scriptures that are just, you know, very crystal

clear as to what's going on, and that's certainly.

One of them.

Now I'll bring up something that is sure to get some of my non -Calvinist listeners upset with me,

because they do express their disappointment with me for bringing up Calvinism too much,

but I cannot help but think, and this I think applies to

the accusation that non -Calvinists hurl at

us, they will sometimes, some of them, that is, will say,

well, even if what you are saying about predestination, unconditional election,

is true, why do you have to bring it up as such an important deal,

like it's, you know, isn't this really something that is for ivory tower intellectuals

to discuss over cigars and brandy somewhere, and we don't really need to be

grappling with these mysterious and deep issues, let's just love Jesus and so on.

But isn't the system of Reformed theology

the only system that really harmonizes the members of the

Godhead as being in unity, as being in agreement

when it comes to the salvation of sinners?

It seems that the Arminian idea of salvation pits the members of the

Trinity at odds with each other.

You know, you have the Son wanting all men

who have ever lived, and whoever will live, to come to salvation, and he is dying for

them purposely to save every single human ever born and whoever will

be born, and yet they are not all going to be redeemed,

they are not all going to be regenerated by the Holy Ghost, and

they, you know, it seems to be a disjointed mission on

behalf of the, on the part of the members of the Trinity.

Am I making too much of this, or perhaps you could reply to what I said,.

Maybe you disagree with that too, I don't know.

No, I think in general, I mean, you know, it would, I'd want to eventually at some point, you know, were it to

be something that I was writing, you know, footnote and document some of these things, but I

think in general, yes, you know, there's, there is a disconnect in the sense of saying that,

you know, why is it, you know, why is it that Christ would universally, you know,

provide a universal redemption that ultimately somehow falls short?

And I think at least the generic Arminian answer would be that, well, it's because some people, you know,

reject the offer of the Gospel, but I think that going back to the

earlier comments that you were making in terms of the unified will of the Godhead, I

think that that's important, and as much as some people, you know, kind

of don't like to hear about the doctrine of election, I think it's such an important thing

on so many levels, you know, speaking first and foremost about the doctrine of election

itself, you know, to recognize that the triune God sets His

love upon us, you know, from eternity, and as Paul says in

Ephesians chapter one, that the Father chooses us and unites us to Christ

in eternity before the foundation of the world, and then the Son says, okay, I am

going to set out and redeem those people, and nothing, absolutely nothing,

will get between them and me.

You know, in that rhapsodic and beautiful passage that Paul gives us in

Romans chapter eight, where he's talking about that nothing can separate us

from the love of God in Christ, and that, you know, if God is for us,

who can be against us?

You know, what shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

No, through all of this, you know, we are more than conquerors, and Paul can say these things

because the sovereign God of the universe has, you know, determinately set His love

upon us.

When Paul talks about, you know, that we're predestined according to the foreknowledge, the

foreknowledge there is not a reference in Romans 8 to God knowing ahead of time.

That is taken care of with the word predestined, but rather it's set in terms of

the Old Testament usage of the term knowledge, which means to know.

When Adam knows his wife Eve, it is an outworking of love, it's a manifestation of

love, and so he says when he, in foreknowledge, it's in loving us

beforehand, in setting his love upon us, and then, you know, he quite literally, we can say, moves

heaven and earth to show that love for us.

So I think that's the first important observation I would want to make.

The second observation is that it is hopefully an incredibly comforting

thought, reassuring us that nothing gets in the way of

God bringing us home and setting His love upon us.

And, you know, a couple of passages come to mind, is that especially, say, for example, with

Joseph, when he's talking to his brothers in Genesis chapter 50, verse 20, he says, what you meant for

evil, God meant for good and for the saving of many lives.

So that he ordains providentially, as the Westminster Confession says in chapter 3,

paragraph 1, whatsoever comes to pass, so that every single event in our

lives, God uses not only to bring about our redemption and

thus unite us to Christ by faith, but he also uses all of these events in our

lives after our conversion, as well as even the events prior to our conversion, ultimately to

bring us in greater conformity to Christ.

We don't realize it sometimes, how he's using the events in our lives, or perhaps even in

life's tragedies and trials, we have hope in knowing that these are not

just things that happen by happenstance, or quite literally, I'm not speaking colloquially here,

but quite literally for the hell of it, because Satan has somehow gotten control of the situation.

But rather, each and every one of these events in our lives, even in life's trials and tragedies,

the Lord is using that to conform us more and more to the image of Christ, so that, as Paul says

there in Romans chapter 8, so that Christ would have many brothers, many who bear

his image there at the final day.

So as unsettling as the idea might be at first, you know, I would want to

hope that, you know, one of the outworkings of understanding the doctrine of election, especially within the context

of the covenant of redemption, is that it's ultimately the guarantee that God

will give us his love in the gospel, that he will bring

this good work that he has begun.

Now, why is the Reformed understanding of the Ordo Salutis, also known

as the order of salvation, why is this so important, and how does it

relate specifically to the members of the Godhead?

Yeah, it's important for us to recognize that when we're talking about the order of

salvation, we're ultimately not talking about a

piecemeal doling out of the benefits of redemption, or the blessings of

redemption.

You know, we don't want to give people the impression that we're saying, okay, first you're

sexually called, now let's wait an hour, and after that happens, then now, okay, now

you've got faith, and so now let's wait a couple of days, you know, it's not about piecemeal,

piecemeal.

We first want to recognize that the entire order of salvation finds

its source in our union with Christ.

We're ultimately talking about the blessings that we receive through our

union with Christ.

It's kind of like discussing and looking at the individual facets on a diamond.

But when we talk about the order, what we're ultimately talking about is a logical

ordering of these benefits, and that I could, you know, numerous theologians would say we

receive these benefits simultaneously by virtue of our

union with Christ, but if we're talking in terms of their logical relationship, or

say, for example, the technical term that the older theologians will use is the order of

nature, is what they will say, which is an old medieval concept

that goes back to the Middle Ages, where they're talking about the

logical ordering of something, a non -temporal kind of relationship in a certain number of, you know,

when you're taking different things and ordering them logically.

And so, for example, we see this in the scriptures in many ways.

For example, in John chapter 3, that you can't see the kingdom of God

unless you're first born of the Spirit.

Or when Paul talks about justification, you can't talk about justification

unless you have faith in Christ, which has to be first given to you in some sense.

And so this is what we're talking about in terms of this order of salvation, as

we're recognizing the different priorities that scripture assigns

to each of the distinct but nevertheless united benefits of redemption.

And so, for example, in classic Reformed theology, we talk about the two -fold grace of

Christ, which is the duplex gratia, which we always denominate as justification

and sanctification.

It's always justification first.

And we say that because to preserve the integrity of justification, to say that

we're justified by an alien righteousness, that is Christ's imputed righteousness,

not by our own good works.

And so, in fact, just a little while ago before, you know, I'm here on the quoting

a 17th century Reformed theologian by the name of Hermann Wittzius, who says, all

sound theologians will recognize that sanctification is the fruit of our

justification.

Or to put it in simpler terms, we are justified,

or sorry, we are sanctified because we are justified.

We are not justified because we are sanctified.

Yes.

And we have to keep those straight, otherwise we fall into, you know, Roman Catholic views where we're mixing

in our good works into the equation.

So we want to lay all of that out.

That's the first big step.

The next big step is to say, well, why is this?

Why is there this particular order?

Why do we find these logical priorities set out in the scriptures?

And the answer, I think, that comes to us is something that Gerhardus Vos suggested, and I

think he's true in this, and that what he formally suggests is ultimately, I think,

substantively present in this historic tradition as it explains these different relationships,

is that he says that the order of salvation follows

the work of the triune God in terms of the order of their work.

In that the Father sends the Son, and the Son's work comes first.

And then, after the Son completes His work, the

Spirit comes and accomplishes His work.

And so you see that in terms of Christ's outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost comes after

His own resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Father.

The fact that justification takes logical priority to

sanctification, I think, is rooted in the nature that Christ's

legal forensic work comes first.

His imputed righteousness is ultimately the legal foundation for

the transformative work that the Spirit accomplishes, and that the Spirit

first applies this work, first imputes the righteousness of Christ.

And so in Calvin's words, if you don't have a foundation upon which to build

piety, you know, apart from the doctrine of justification, you have no foundation upon which to build.

Doctrine of justification creates the context for our

sanctification.

And that's what Voss talks about, and he does this in his Reformed Dogmatics that was recently

translated, but he also talks about the foundational nature of the forensic work of

Christ, that legal work of Christ in His life, death, and resurrection.

In the simplest of terms, and this is, I think, more or less the way Voss puts

it, though I'm paraphrasing here, is that Christ's

work in me finds its foundation

in Christ's work for me.

Christ's work in me has its foundation in Christ's work for me.

And hence, that's why I think we put in the order of salvation justification before

sanctification, because justification is chiefly about Christ's work for me, and

sanctification is Christ's work in me.

Does.

That make sense?

Oh yeah, and I think that whenever you have an erroneous

understanding of the order of salvation, you are, whether you recognize it or not,

you are rising man, you are rising or raising

the sinful human race to a level that it does not deserve,

in that we would rightfully be able to claim a

share in the glory with God for our own salvation.

No matter how you may radically protest that kind of a

description, whenever man is made better than he really is in your systematic theology,

when you are describing him as being able to please God in the

flesh before he even has a new heart, as in Romans 8 .8, where

the Apostle Paul tells us those who are in the flesh cannot please God, and if repentance and faith

please God, how on earth can anyone still in the flesh please God with their repentance and faith?

This all requires a gift of God, it requires a heart transplant from God himself, and

it requires a gift of regeneration from the Holy Spirit.

Am I.

Right here in this description?

Yeah, no, absolutely.

I think that you find that, you know, you read, for example, William Perkins' The Golden Chain of Salvation,

where he elaborates upon this idea of the order of salvation, and he says, more or less,

fundamentally, the difference between the Reformed and the Roman Catholic

understandings is that Roman Catholics put sanctification either parallel

with or prior to justification.

John Owen, in the famous, or perhaps at least at the time it was famous, now it's been probably lost upon us, but

there was this massive controversy towards the close of the 17th century called the

Communion Controversy, where he was debating these doctrines, union with

Christ but also justification and sanctification, with an

Anglican theologian who was highly critical of his views, and he basically said the

fundamental problem here is that, again, they put sanctification before justification.

So this is something that Reformed theologians have historically rejected and

maintained the logical priority of justification to sanctification, while

at the same time affirming that we receive these things holistically

through.

Our union with Christ.

Well, this book has received some pretty impressive accolades

from people who I know personally, who have actually been guests on this program.

Dr. Joel R. Beeke, president of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, says,

some books today exegete the shining truths of the holy scriptures, others mine the treasures of Reformed

orthodoxy, and yet others interact with influential theologians of the modern era.

This book is one of the few that does all three and does them well.

And also Ryan McGraw, who's been on the program a few times very recently, he

says, by engaging in scripture, exegesis, historical reflection, and interaction

with modern trends in theology, Fesco admirably puts the covenant of redemption back

in its rightful place in Reformed theology.

That's Ryan McGraw, associate professor of systematic theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

in Taylors, South Carolina.

And Dr. Michael Horton, who is I'm sure recognizable to the vast majority

of our listeners, he says of Dr. Fesco's book that it displays the

vitality and richness of the covenant of redemption for other doctrines, not least the trinity,

in both method and substance.

This is an exemplary work that will edify as well as inform.

That's Dr. Michael Horton, the J. Gresham Machen professor of systematic theology and apologetics at

Westminster Seminary in California and also host of the White Horse Sin

program, one of my co -hosts, Reverend Buzz Taylor's favorite programs.

But if you could summarize what you have to leave our listeners with that you most want to etch in

their hearts and minds in about two minutes now, brother.

Well, I think in summary I'd want to say that the covenant of redemption is a

manifestation of the triune love that is shared among Father,

Son, and Holy Spirit as they agree to plan and to

execute the redemption of fallen sinners and to shower these fallen sinners

with this, the love of the triune God.

And that just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share in this close bond of

love among one another, that it was their desire and intention and plan to

share this triune love with us.

And I can't help but think of a more wonderful blessing that we mere

creatures, you know, in the words of First John, what wonderful manner of love is this, that we

should be called children of God so that through the Father's sending of the Son, through the Son

accomplishing the work of redemption in agreement with his Father and in the Spirit, in that agreement

of the covenant of redemption applying the work of Christ, that we can call upon God not as judge,

but rather as Father.

And we can call upon Christ not as vengeful warrior out, but

rather as our redeemer and as our

bridegroom.

Well, if anybody would like to get this book, if you live in the UK, go to christianfocus .com,

christianfocus .com.

If you live here in the States, go to cvbbs .com, cv for Cumberland Valley,

bbs for biblebooksservice .com.

Thank you so much, Dr. Fesco, for being our guest.

I look forward to you returning and also often to the Iron Sharpens Iron program.

I want everybody to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than

you are a sinner.

Have a blessed, safe, and joyful weekend and Lord's Day.

God bless.