Vos Group #72 — The Collective Sin of the Nation

[Music] welcome to christ the center your weekly conversation of reformed theology we're now on episode number 718 been at this for almost 15 years my name is camden busey i'm here in gray's lake illinois and we have another voss group episode lined up and you know what that means that means we have with us lane tipton who serves as a fellow of biblical and systematic theology here at reformed forum as well as pastor at trinity opc in easton pennsylvania welcome back lanes good to see you today rocking the mpc hat oh yeah yeah yeah this was uh i think this was an opcs chapter or section yeah i just had to put the hat on well now i just we just had a meeting for the committee for the historian about a week ago in terms of when we're recording and uh i uh i've got a big stack of those hats i probably shouldn't say that online because now people are going to be coming out of the woodwork for hats but they're very much worth getting they are they're it's within my purview to do what with the hats what i will so i'm entertaining offers may i say this i don't want to embarrass you but congratulations on his story and i'm sure someone someone else has done this on a different episode but i just wanted to take the opportunity to say i could not imagine a finer historian i think it's a wonderful opportunity could think of a finer history i could think of two finer historians at least that are on our committee but yes thank you very much i appreciate that um i still think and i've even just told him in our meeting i still think uh john muther should still be the historian and i could just be on the committee doing stuff but he will have none of it so i'm uh i'm thankful and that that happened at their last general assembly so i've been diving in i'm looking forward to getting to the opc archives and doing some work there tomorrow and uh that being said i'm still i'm doing an awful lot of work on ned stonehouse and reading the presbyterian guardian and all sorts of interesting things that i've got up my sleeve i don't know what will come of them i have some ideas but uh down the road we may see some more historical work in some of these things uh some under-treated materials and resources so all of this is kind of in line with uh what we do here at vos group obviously vos is a forebear to uh figures like cornelius van till one of our favorites uh but um he certainly had some sort of influence and um impact upon many other figures at westminster theological seminary notably jay grissom machine and machine's colleague in new testament from the very beginning ned stonehouse so being a figure who is largely and heavily influential upon those um it's all part and parcel so i'm reading ned stonehouse's dissertation on revelation right now which is quite interesting and some of his ecumenical work and got his books on the gospels so it's really interesting and tremendous to read you know biblical studies approaches and takes and see his influence of redemptive historical hermeneutics upon his work no doubt bleeding over from and coming from influence of vos among others it's just a it's a good era a lot of hard things going on in the church at the time a lot of modernism and if you think things are bad in the evangelical world now they are to a degree of a sort but my goodness when you read the history of what was going on in the 20s and 30s in american presbyterianism it is just it's flat out outrageous and so we're thankful for figures that towed the line and uh for those who issued that uh clarion call to covenantal fidelity biblical faithfulness and uh vos certainly was one of those even though he didn't go off to westminster didn't leave the main line you can read the book over my shoulder here the voss biography for some thoughts and speculation from danny olinger as to why he did not nevertheless uh his heart was with the cause he was uh i guess the proto-warrior child it's anachronistic to say because he's the warrior father well we'll call him he's in a sense matrons were your father uh we'll call it that so the warrior chief no i'm kidding yeah today we're opening up to page 264 of uh at least the banner of truth edition of voss's biblical theology old and new testaments to look at collective national sin sounds fun sounds on apropoe always a high point here at the boss group yeah exactly you know this is pretty much when you open the newspaper or if any or if anyone still gets those uh or uh it's hard sometimes not to get the newspaper something like i got it like a free promo and i couldn't get rid of it and they just show up on my they just want people to get the newspapers so they can sell the ads but anyway we see so much of talk about uh national you know unrighteousness and whatnot now obviously here we're talking about the nation of israel we're talking about covenantal features and aspects here and we're speaking uh specifically in the time of the prophets the old testament prophets looking at the nation of israel and their inter react their their their relation with the lord covenantally and how the prophets characterize that and speak so we're going to speak about collective national sin in that light but of course uh i'd like to take at least a couple minutes just to mention a few things going on here at reformed forum we do have a new course if you haven't heard already on union with christ and the benefits of his suffering and glory wayne taught uh it was probably about four or five months ago we finally got that out it's available it's in reformed academy it's uh it's in spanish as well as in simplified chinese we uh working on on uh you know fully developing handouts there is a book in the works lane is editing writing a companion book uh just reworking it takes a lot of time to write a book even when you've got lecture notes uh for those of you who've done it it's it's uh writing a book is unlike pretty much anything else you do in life it is so mentally taxing takes so much longer than you think it will take but we want to do an excellent job so we will have a companion book for that course coming down the road just as we have a companion book for the foundations of covenant theology course now if you're interested in getting that course we also have that on usb drive we've got these little usb thumb drives that we have for sale at a very affordable price that you can use uh it just makes it you can get the course for free if you just want to watch the course you can watch it under reformed academy but if you want uh the actual files and uh to take and do with them uh what you will within the license you can't just go post them on your own youtube page or charge other people for burned dvd versions of them like we don't want bootleg copies of lance course but if you want some easy way just to show them at church during a sunday school or in a study group or you're just that kind of person who likes to have the files yourself head on over to reformedforum.org store you'll be able to find all the stuff available there it's exciting and very soon i have you know a draft type set copy of lane's book on van til's trinitarian theology we're going to preview that at a little event uh tomorrow well wednesday uh in our time this week and uh very soon we're going to work on indexing that and getting that book out so lane this has been 16 years in the making when did you write your dissertation 2004 i believe i submitted it in 2003 and um i think he's approved and then maybe maybe yeah 2003 or four camden yeah around in there so obviously working on it many years or several years in advance of that but now over time you've developed that material and we have a lot of that material available in the course on van tills trinitarian theology again available for free at reformedforum.org but the book is something else um you've really done a fine job lane we look forward to talking about that book when it comes out we're working our hardest and doing trying to work on doing a fine job of having a nice bound volume that covers van till's trinitarian theology and and his polemical context so i i hope you're proud of that book lane because at least in my you know external tangential uh involvement uh just helping it get published uh i'm proud of it i hope you are is the one who wrote it i am actually uh happy with it good believe it or not i'm typically not happy with what i do uh because i'm i'm aware of the things that need to be refined but um you know it's relation to the dissertation i i do believe it came to fruition and perfected many things that were there's no substantial changes but uh i think of perfecting of that dissertation and i'm really thankful for your help and the help of others and uh um i look forward to it being published and appreciate the opportunity to uh to write it and um to talk about it yeah much more on that to come in weeks to come but let's get back to vos uh of course we love talking vos and page 264 here of the banner of truth edition of foss's biblical theology lane when voss is talking about collective national sin what's what's on his mind and uh can you place us in the setting here of the old testament prophets and why this is a point of discussion yeah um let's let's review just briefly uh i don't want to repeat everything we said last time but remember vos was responding to what the critics were saying about the relationship between the lord and his people between jehovah and israel to use foss's terminology and the critics were wanting to suspend that relation on one of pure works we noted the pelagianized in character of that relation among the critics and what we found from vos is that that relationship far from being a full-orb substantial republication of the covenant of works um a relationship without redemptive grace it's a gracious covenantal relation or a relation between the lord and his blood-bought people it's a redemptive relation and therefore the breach of that bond is of the highest religious significance and so when we're trying to identify the nature of the relation between the lord and the nation of israel vos is insistent that contrary to the critics who take a pelagianizing works approach that this is a gracious relation established by the lord and blood bringing his people out of his out of egypt to himself through blood on the wings of an eagle and in that context va says we have to understand the the the rupture of that relationship it's apostasy from the covenant of grace as it was administered in promises types and sacrifices nationally and that brings us to this section here midway through page 264 on collective national sin and canon and we can spend we'll get through a few pages today we could spend an entire section just talking about i'm just reading the texts i mean he has so several he does and um and what this underscores is that there is a feature in the theocracy that is qualitatively unique in the history of redemption and here's that principle israel to allude to exodus 4 23 israel is god's firstborn son as a nation so there is a national dimension to israel's election a natural dimension to this covenant that god has made with israel and this means that the sin of israel is collective national sin and it has a multi-faceted character and vos vos quotes canada i wonder if you could read he has some scripture texts i think amos 2 6 through 8 might be the most useful because what it does is when we say collective national sin we're thinking abstractly amos 2 6-8 gives us a cross-section of that collective national sin in great detail or inconsiderable detail a kind of a taxonomy of sorts it's not exhaustive but it's very helpful could you read that and let us reflect on that yeah amos 2 6-8 says thus says the lord for three transgressions of israel and for four i will not revoke the punishment because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted a man and his father go into the same girl so that my holy name is profaned they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge and in the house of their god they drink the wine of those who have been fined wow so the the the first what what moss is doing here the reason vos cites this text is that it gives a kind of a taxonomic overview a cross-section of the national sins that have brought israel to the point where quote god says i will not revoke punishment in other words the exile the loss of national election the outpouring of divine wrath against the nation is inevitable and there are classes of sins nationally here and the first one in verse six especially is there is a perversion of justice and and note this language the righteous are sold for silver um now here's what's happening and this is such uh so so appropriate for us to reflect on as well the wicked and israel i think particularly the rulers are in view here camden you can tell me if you think that's appropriate but the the rulers in israel sought money in the place of faithfulness so much so that they sold the righteous for a capital gain for silver this happened in israel it can happen in the para church it can even creep into certain quadrants of the church of jesus christ because remember the theocracy is an institutional integration unique categorically unique of church and state but but when uh what what what is happening here is that the leaders in israel will just call it a religious group prioritizes money over faithfulness and therefore sells the righteous for monetary gain and what's happening there is there's an abandoning of faithfulness for influence a rejection of righteousness and truth for the appearance or reality of power and clout and these practices that you find in israel at that day and during that time are practices that are nearer than we might think it's it's what moderates in the pc usa and at princeton did uh it happened to machine it happened to others uh who were seeking to be militant and faithful in the truth they were kicked to the curb as it were they were rejected as they stood for faithfulness and righteousness as the religious sought influence and power and so that this perversion of justice is one feature among many of this collective national sin and it's one reason why it's one of four uh instances of why punishment is irrevocable in israel a fundamental perversion of justice yeah we see that in in many places we see it uh time and time again in a lot of the prophets not just in amos but this corruption of um of the religious aspect of worship for money and it's it's sad and we see paul echoing comments uh to this effect in the new testament that uh the love of money the root of all evil and uh nothing nothing is uh immune from that or can be given the state of the sinful heart uh what else do we see in terms of other injustices and unrighteousness in this because this isn't the only type here indicated in this passage the second one is the oppression of the poor and this i think is tied organically to the first miscarriage of justice the falsely religious or outwardly religious leaders in israel not only sought to buy the righteous in exchange for gold or silver uh trading truth and righteousness for monetary gain but they sought to destroy the poor now it's it's unclear whether it's simply those who are monetarily poor or what jesus might be calling the poor in spirit and and i think that ambiguity is probably present here but it's the poor the poor and spirit the the low in stature who are often not always but often the ones who stand for truth or principle and here's one reason why they have no earthly possessions of great value so the poor the poor in spirit the are are are characteristically in israel going to be those who are heavenly minded they know that true religion means that god's throne is in heaven his reward is with himself and they're seeking like abraham hebrews 11 10-16 they're seeking a city that is to come and so they undergo the confiscation of their uh goods uh they pursue truth and righteousness and and what what is what does that do well if you're wealthy and your goal is to acquire wealth and influence and you have this band of poor people poor monetarily poor in spirit seeking righteousness and truth and laying up treasures in heaven what happens you have an a fundamental religious antithesis right in israel and so the uh the wealthy those who like saul have their mind on earthly things and unlike david who had his mind on heavenly things they they seek to do what they seek to exploit the righteous and oppress the poor and the goal is to prioritize financial prosperity at the expense of the righteous and the poor and what's so insidious about this is it's a fundamental overturning of the character of the of religion um the the poor here uh are sold for a pair of sandals dehumanized and exploited like a worthless pair of worn out sandals so here's what's happening it's not just collective national sin abstractly it's selling the righteous for silver it is dehumanizing and exploiting the poor and treating them like worn out sandals for these things you see the wrath of god is coming the punishment of god is coming upon israel because israel is looking now like a microcosm of the world sure i think these things and as we'll see here next to the third point too they just indicate that this this unrighteousness to sin is never private in the sense that it has no effect on society or on other people and uh it's it's not just that people have greed or desire to gain themselves or to have greater stature in their own eyes whatever that would be but that it all comes at the expense of the welfare and the benefit of others so it's a it's a compounding sin and a compounding error we see that even here also with the the sexual immorality yes yes so it's it's not only that the there's individual ambition yes it's that that individual ambition exists to promote self at the expense of the righteous and the poor so that's a real clear indicator of of a of a corporate form of ungodliness that leads to sexual immorality and here's why not only are the the religious leaders in israel exploiting the poor persecuting the righteous but they are guilty of profane acts of immorality a sexual immorality in particular and and here's a maxim that i think arises from this text sexual immorality goes right along with the quest for wealth and influence at the expense of others how are the righteous and the poor being treated like objects to promote self how are women being used in this case girls being used they're being used in precisely the same way a father and a son go into the same girl it's bad enough to be a pedophile it's grotesque and debauched to be sure but for a father and a son to engage in this is just really the sexual analog the sexually immoral analog to what were being done to the righteous and the poor using a girl for sinful wicked debauched so-called pleasure mirrors the way the righteous are sold for silver the poor oppressed for the price of sandals and so the abuse of the righteous and the poor extends itself if you could put it that way to girls to those who are exploited for sinful and perverse so-called pleasure and um when when you when you start to see this you have to recognize what we're doing here in um in our text in amos 2 is we're looking we're peeling back the onion as it were of national sin viewed collectively and we're looking at the cross sections of it and what you start to see is that it's not as you said camden it's not just private selfish ambition that doesn't extend its tentacles into the social and cultural and ecclesial realm because those are integrated in israel for sure but but it's um it's something that is most most clearly seen in the destruction of those things that are precious in the sight of god girls being violated in this way and maybe canon the fourth point maybe the the underlying cause of this i'm not saying that this is necessarily amos's argument but what what do all of these features have in common what do all these practices of exploiting the the selling the righteous exploiting the poor and abusing girls sexually have in common idolatry and that might be why laying down beside every altar on garments that are are um gained uh taken in pledge uh possibly just garments that are taken from the poor in a way of being uh repossessed or something yeah these people have debts or whatnot they can't they can't cover uh what they owe which in many of these cases they the reason they owe in the first place is probably unrighteous so it's yeah these even their clothes are repossessed and and uh so the the fact that the those in power possess these garments in the first place is and then use them uh they've taken everything uh from from those that they could and uh and then they use this unrighteous wealth or these unrighteous objects or the the these these objects that were gained unrighteously they used them for even more unrighteous purposes yes and and and the idea there of laying down beside every altar is shorthand for the absolute hypocrisy of outward religion of of giving a public face of being deeply religious and devoted yet privately um having a heart turned away from the lord and publicly oppressing the righteous and the poor and women and worshipping laying down beside every altar on garments that are gained by merciless and selfish means so what is it it's just religious hypocrisy and perhaps that's the deepest unifying feature of all of these perhaps that's why it's saved as the fourth and climactic expression here because those problems that are social and personal those those horizontal abuses are rooted in what a perversion of the vertical relation to god and and so this fourfold description of sin shows that the hearts of those in israel had fundamentally abandoned true religion um their hearts were darkened their practices were cruel their worship was a facade designed to promote their own reputations in line their pockets this is really a kind of preview of precisely what jesus rebuked the pharisees for doing right i think camden oh sure and so it's an exposure of hearts that are not simply breaking the law of god if you if you just read collective national sin you think oh they're breaking god's law yes that's true but they're doing it in order to advance themselves in the promotion of a purely external religion that if you look at just underneath it it's full of dead men's bones and everything unclean to pull lines from what jesus said about the pharisees um so uh how then should we think of let's zoom out for a moment and think covenant historically redemptive historically what does this say for the nation as a whole the nation is characterized as the son of god in many ways rehearsing some of the features of god's relation with adam adam is the first son the protological son israel as a nation according to exodus four is the type is is the son of god and we characterize them as the typological son we're looking forward to the need of the the final and the eschatological sun who will secure salvation for his own people but what does this say uh what how are we to understand this particular period of redemptive history in which the son of god is you know collectively religiously apostate yeah camden i think it's fascinating that immediately after the same as two six through eight quote we're still on line one here in uh on page 264 but but but we're taking a slow look for a reason this sets up so well for what boss is about to do but in uh three one through two um amos three one through two the very point you make camden about israel as a corporate people uh in the language of amos a whole family being brought out of the land of egypt and as such incurring the wrath of god sets up some typical features that i think are worth considering could you read that uh in the second text fast as well for sure we'll go amos 3 1-2 because this one's instructive i think certainly uh hear this word that the lord has spoken against you o people of israel against the whole family that i brought up out of the land of egypt you only have i known of all the families of the earth therefore i will punish you for all your iniquities yeah now you just pointed out and i think you're exactly right that in the exodus if you look back at exodus 4 23-24 god says to pharaoh through moses and aaron let my people go israel is my firstborn son now that language grows directly out of exodus 2 24 and 25 of god hearing the groanings of his people and remembering what remembering the promises he made to the patriarchs abraham isaac and jacob so that god is coming and this is so key to redeem his son the offspring of abraham as a corporate body the relationship that god enters into with israel reference to namus 3 1 is the lord remembering the redemptive promises to abraham hearing the groanings of his people coming to redeem his firstborn son and through the plagues that culminate in the feast of the hover over if we remember climb where the lord defends his people from the destroying angel redeems them through blood and brings them to himself god has brought a blood-bought people to himself through the glory pillars that accompany them day and night through his uh mighty redemptive power and he's done so as a whole family that is as a corporate collective body and it's just that feature that corporate sonship of israel that gives us what and this is the way i like to put it in camden we can fine-tune this but we talked this way in our opc report if my memory serves me well it's a redemptive and typological recapitulation of the sin fall and exile of the first son adam adam was under covenant of works israel is called and constituted in a covenant of grace but what happens verse two a new you that's that redemptive love that that discriminating love uh bathed in blood of the covenant i knew you of all families of the earth therefore i will punish you for all your iniquities what is it well this is a verse 2b is a single sentence summary of what we just explored in two six through eight because of your iniquities that have expanded in these ways that have that affect worship justice the poor and women because you are not worshiping the living and true god i will punish you and the form that punishment takes is what it is the national son of god placed in a garden temple realm canaan and due to sustained prolonged consistent and impenitent idolatry the lord will exile that sun from the typical land that flows with milk and honey and so it is a redemptive recapitulation of adam's sin fall and exile out of eden and um that amos three text camden that you you made reference to and that you read i think that makes the point in a in a very powerful way yeah i do too i think it's helpful always to be reminded of these things uh and sometimes to zoom out whether we're just reading for personal study or we're reading or preparing uh you know a sunday school lesson or a sermon for example to always be familiar with the overarching covenantal context so if we don't do that then we can make some grave errors and mistakes and forget what is going on and be rather confused so it's helpful to be reminded here of of that just for the listeners uh and viewers uh elaine was referencing the opc study committee report on republication which you can find very easily just by searching opc republication into google your computer might explode who knows or you might end up on some list but uh you know you can find you can find uh no doubt find uh the report rather easily so um yes uh you know certainly we have uh some some important covenantal dynamics going on and that amos is uh is bringing those into play do we have any other texts here does amos continue on into versus eight yeah there's one more uh eight uh one through six two eight one through six this is the last one that vos quotes and um it really is instructive it's going to be i think almost eerily uncanny for some of us but this is starting to um to to to lay bare the motivation of those who are committing these acts of apostasy both idolatry against god and the oppression of the righteous and poor and weak uh amos eight uh this is what the lord god showed me behold a basket of summer fruit and he said amos what do you see and i said a basket of summer fruit i know i usually don't like to pause but this is just classic hebrew you just wonder like does this seem obvious but yes this is this is always you know how how hebrew narrative and often poetry is doubling and repetition so again this is what the lord god showed me behold a basket of summer fruit and he said amos what do you see and i said a basket of summer fruit and the lord said to me the end has come upon my people israel i will never again pass by them the songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day declares the lord god so many dead bodies they were thrown everywhere silence hear this you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end saying when will the new moon be over that we may sell grain and the sabbath that we may offer wheat for sale that we may make the ephos small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances then we may buy the pour for silver in the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat quite the businessmen yes this is this is the commercialization of religion um and here's one way to put it when will the outward worship of god end so that we can get back to trampling the poor when will the new moon end so we can sell grain and maybe the chaff instead of the wheat when will the sabbath end that we may offer wheat for sale enriching ourselves as we exploit the poor and the humble in the land um and and then there's that reference once again that we might buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals see that it's coming up again what is it well it's market driven religion man they got some quarterly goals they gotta hit they gotta they gotta nail their kpis lane yes exactly exactly it's a it's a kind of it's a program program oriented approach to religion gain earthly possessions increase earthly influence and meet the monetary goals of the community at the expense of what at the expense of the worship of god and the serving of the righteous in the defense of the weak and the caring for the poor they are religious merchants at heart and this is this is something that um extends uh to a wide group of of people vos says if if we could look camden at the next section uh or the next uh i guess we're to the second sentence and following but he he makes a point and we might be a little hard on the the religious leaders the texts that we've looked at i think have made that point but vos makes clear that we find distinctions that are drawn between uh prolificates the rich oppressors the voluptuaries uh that we can talk about what that word means here in a second the corrupters of justice and the externalists in the worship of jehovah and his point there in that section is that the this is not simply the leaders in israel who are doing this but as go the leaders so go those who are being led and and so i think boss's point here is that the prolificats the licentious the voluptuaries that means someone devoted to pleasure and sensuality rich oppressors corrupters of justice and the externalists in the worshipping of god that this now characterizes the various classes of people so notice what's happening here rather than the prophets in vosse's summer here rather than classifying the people socioeconomically they're classified in terms of their idolatry and sin they're those who are licentious and lawless they're those devoted to sensuality and pleasure there are are wealthy opposed to the oppression of the poor but there are also the simple externalists in the worship of god and each of these is an instance of false religion and um i think why vos spends so much time on this camden is he setting us up we're not going to be able to deal with this extensively here but vos is setting us up to note the way that true religion operates among the prophets the prophets are not concerned first and foremost we start to see this on page 265 prophets are not concerned first and foremost with the outward forms of worship yes they want obedience to the word of god guess they want conformity to his law but what they're concerned about especially with israel is that the outward performance of the ritual not mask a heart that is opposed to the lord merely external worship is occurring and while doing that at the same time oppresses destroys and seduces the weak and the poor [Music] and so um it's it's quite a it's quite a um it's quite a a way for voss to to teach us something here that as you move over uh to page 265 the corruption of ritual worship this sets us up for something that um we can skim the surface of this time and then we can do more next time but um vos says there's a problem that you can encounter when you're reading the prophets he he lists a group of texts down on the bottom of page 265. amos 4 4 5 5 21-26 8 14 hosea 6 6 isaiah 11 1 micah 6 6-8 and then um a couple of others and and he says that there's something in the prophets that the critics seize on that has to be understood properly and it's this it's that the prophets appear to speak entirely negatively about the cult about the offering of sacrifices about the worship of the lord through ritual sacrifice and those texts allegedly teach this quote the prophet's opposed sacrifice and similar rights on principle and consequently they cannot have looked upon these as ordained by jehovah which again amounts to saying that the pentateuch did not exist at that time there is an unqualified condemnation of the cult expressed now that's a fairly uh that's a compressed quote from page 265. now well that's the critical take that the process is the critical take the privates are just opposed to this whole idea of offering sacrifices because they're presupposed that the pentateuch doesn't even exist at this point in time because it was written much later exactly the pentateuch is going to come much later and so the reason why the prophets are opposing sacrifice is there is no divinely ordained ceremonial system given through moses in place moses didn't write the pentateuch the pentateuch comes after these prophets yeah so say the critics so say the critics um i don't want to make this sound too convincing yeah that's what the critics yeah i don't want to get uh i don't want your video to get clipped and then all of a sudden people start presenting wayne tipton to some critical score yes yes so to emphasize vos is saying this is what the critics say their their their critical theory is trying to destroy the coherence of the bible this reminds me of the time we i i brought someone my wife and i brought someone uh to voss group the the original one at grace mullen's house and you presented the new perspective on paul so convincingly that when we left he was like you guys this is like this is like what you're into like he thought you were a new perspective i actually recalled that we had to do like 45 minutes of theological cleanup after that just because you were too convincing yeah we you know well you know the whole the goal here is you've got to get in the shoes of the people that you want to interact with and understand their view from the inside absolutely but uh but let me just let me get to the heart of this because um i know when people read about the velhaus in theory or school their eyes can kind of gloss over and say do we really have to deal with those old theories and arguments they keep coming back around of course they really do but the brilliance here is that vos says look there are some conservatives who try to say well what the prophets condemned was just faulty formal practice if you didn't dot an eye or cross the t boy they were all over you um and and he says that approach that the prophets were concerned about the formal aspect of worship whether you were actually meticulously following the ceremonial law he said that is implausible it misses the point entirely and he he makes a reference we won't go over it in detail here because we'll get into text more next time but he talks about amos four four through five right and um he also makes a reference to hosea 10 2 which really gets to the heart of it vos's point is is that the the prophets were not formalists so so a conservative response to these critics is not to say oh well all the prophets were concerned about is if you missed the form of the worship if you didn't conform meticulously to the ceremonial requirements he's saying no actually there are three fundamental problems that exist either distinctly or in relation to one another that the prophets are condemning and camden i think this is just so insightful but i know that we appreciate vos i just found this to be a bit of a jaw dropper on page 2 uh 66 he says that what the prophets are opposing are three distinct and sometimes related things first when the cult is conducted in a mercantile spirit that is if you give worship you'll get a return favor from the priest right right right just think of what jesus drove the uh drove out of the temple it's that spirit turning the place of worship into a place of financial gain secondly where the ethic of the cult the practice of religion is divorced from religious devotion to god and tied to sexual immorality where where the acts of the priest are joined to sexual immorality either in the acts of worship or immediately after or sometime in a in a sequestered place in other words the worship is not about devotion to the lord but just a formal practice that masks or incorporates sexual immorality and third the cult is employed to either escape from approaching judgment or avert it all together now let me put these together the themes of worship being market minded one ethics divorced from devotion to the lord to and pragmatic expediency escaping judgment three those three features either distinctly or combined are the substance of the prophet's denunciation of the cult so it's really not that the prophets are concerned if some formal feature was missed um that you forgot the bread to be unleavened there's leaven in the bread shame on you for that uh there is i suppose a place for that but what voss is getting at is that the concern of the prophets is that true religious devotion to the lord was being denied in the very practice of the cult in the very external expressions of worship and sacrifice by the priests and i think camden that is so much more profound than the typical conservative response saying there's a formal problem you didn't dot an eye or cross fatigue the prophets are so much more concerned about true heart religion and religious devotion to the lord exemplified and expressed in the worship of the cult yeah they even mocks those who who are have some sort of perverted zeal the people that would offer sacrifices every three days instead of three years and uh i i think this is exemplified in our lord's words you know toward the pharisees the people that tie their mint and cumin and dill these tiny little herbs like they're very careful to parse out you can imagine in the modern day people might have some sort of hyper-sensitive laboratory scales and their and uh you know like like you know some sort of chemist working and very precisely to get the tithe right but they miss the way to your matters of the law they don't even take care of their family and you know it's really basic things they miss the whole point yes they they do and and so like your appeal there to the amos four four through five text is that um amos is mocking the hyper religious yeah yeah they're getting the extra correctly exactly it's which is the very opposite of that traditional conservative argument boss says is so bad they're confirming meticulously just like you're saying the pharisees do and missing the heart of of true religion and but just to repeat i mean the the reverse is is a problem as well the people that would say ah and none of these external things matter i you know just it's all about the heart you know i you know modern day equivalence would be well i'm a member of the universal church i just watch church online and i don't need to go to a place and do this outward stuff the lord just cares about my heart yes well the lord's unhappy with that too because he's given to us his word and his commands and and the uh so so it's really it's really something along this the form and the substance must be married at every point right yeah and and and that really is i think the concern of the prophets i think your summary's really helpful there camden and um i i really think that we just need to remember this i don't want to overstate this i don't want to get too um dramatic about it but that danger that the prophets were facing in israel is every bit as much alive in our contemporary environment today in fact if you think about machine and the militancy of the orthodox presbyterian church he founded the militancy of the old westminster he founded where devotion to the purity of the worship of god and the doctrine that was devoted to that worship was preeminent and the financial concerns and the concerns about pragmatic calculated attempts to gain wealth or influence influence and affluence those things were not the central concern right and um and and what encroached on the purity of worship of god whether it was in israel's day or at the time the opc and old westminster were founded what happens is that alien concerns of market-driven influence greed driven affluence uh wholesale pragmatism image and the placing of an institution above the priorities of the kingdom of god those are perennial dangers dangers in every age and just as the prophets were calling for a return to the joining together of the form and substance of worship worshiping god for god's sake alone according to his revealed will in union with the promised now crucified and ascended messiah that's the substance of the concern that the prophets are expressing and so the the pursuit of anything other than that true religion is a grasping at the wind in the language of ecclesiastes and will fall ultimately under not only prophetic and apostolic censure but under the judgment of god and so what vos is pinpointing here in terms of the prophetic teaching and this call to repentance and true worship true religion true doctrine for the sake of god and his kingdom alone that's what needs to be recovered in the church today and so this is an extremely relevant section and as we deal with more of the details we'll only be bolstered and encouraged to walk in a manner worthy of our calling in christ yeah i would encourage people to listen to a crisis center episode from a few weeks ago on uh an event an occurrence in the early orthodox presbyterian church called the committee of nine which in in ways just became an ecclesiastical theater for uh the outworking of of this type of a battle then what kind of church would this be would it be a large culture-shaping influential church that would seek prestige and affluence um you know not to the extent that we see here in the prophets i don't want to overblow it but i mean there's certainly different motivations and a different desire from edwin ryan and others versus what paul wooley was advocating and eventually what won the day in the orthodox presbyterian church through the work of cornelius fantille and murray forest thompson who were the uh minority who submitted a minority report to the to the uh the majority report of the committee of nine so if you want to hear about that and hear me talking to john meather and danny olinger about that i think there are so many comparisons and modern day analogs that are really useful and we'll try to put a link to that episode in the episode description for this episode but also please read paul wooley's article discontent because it gets at the heart of this in a tremendous way so that is a product of history it is was written at a specific point in time for a specific purpose and within a historical context nevertheless i still find that article though it may be 80 years old now close to it still tremendously applicable and uh these same battles and these same tendencies arise within the church perennially and we need to be reminded of the nature of the church and uh what we are seeking to do the kingdom of god is not of this world flesh and blood will not inherit it but it comes through the working of the holy spirit and it's it's otherworldly and it doesn't operate according to the principles of of this world so just a few little little historian touch points there that i think will maybe make this uh a little bit more real life to some people out there yeah let me and let me say two things first that episode with you and olinger and ether i found just thoroughly edifying just delightful um and and secondly i did i must confess i had that in mind when i spoke here at the end about some of the parallels so it was more relevant than you might have thought it was in my mind and i i find that to to be uh a wonderfully instructive episode that i hope uh if listeners haven't heard that yet they go back and listen to it for the first time and if you have heard it might be worth revisiting yeah and it's not just for opc people uh obviously it's part of our history but uh it's it's applicable to everyone i would say it's applicable just to broad evangelicalism and anyone any faithful christian should hear and learn the lessons so even though this specifically is a matter of art laying in my ecclesiastical context it's our history of our denomination it certainly uh touches on universal themes that have been addressing the church and that's something that we ought to be cognizant of whenever we're studying history uh we're not merely interested in the details in the minutia for the sake of those details in minutia that's that's what trivia is uh we're not interested in trivia we're interested in in properly studying history historical theology and and uh the lessons they're in so uh that being said i think there's a lot of application and and lessons to be learned so that we we don't repeat them history doesn't repeat itself properly speaking but as one person said it surely does rhyme it might be one of those mark twain things i don't know if twain actually said it but uh that's great it sounds it sounds funny but he gets credit for everything mark twain and abraham lincoln pretty much get credit for everything anyone has ever said that was clever yeah um but uh but the but the thing that uh i think brings together what voss is saying and what you brothers said on that wonderful episode is that um when you hear these things militancy being militant about the truth of true religion revealed in the scriptures summarized in the creeds and confessions of our church it's really about heart devotion to the lord love for the lord your god with all your heart soul mind and strength love for your neighbor as yourself and a promoting of the gospel of jesus christ for his glory that's what militancy is and the prophets were militant our forbearers in the faith were militant and hearing about these things ought to bring about edification and encouragement in your heart to be unwavering in your prioritizing the worship and glory of god for his sake absolutely very good well uh certainly we'll have this episode up online if you are listening to the podcast we thank you for that please stay subscribed if you're not subscribed subscribe using a you know podcast app uh there are many out there that are available not just apple podcasts uh but uh i use pocket cast there are a whole ton of them they're great spotify is also available we're on there and of course we have the videos available full length episode videos on youtube uh and vimeo but i'd encourage you to head over to youtube.com reformedforum and we do usually put up about four or five highlight videos uh little snippets you know three four five minute chunks from the episodes up there as well so subscribe to that we're getting close to uh uh nine thousand subscribers so maybe you can you can push us over the edge on our youtube page i don't know what if that gets us a plaque or something i think you know compared to the the people that have like millions of subscribers we might they they might uh maybe send me a congratulatory email i don't know probably you got a wilderness plaque we'll take it we'll take it if uh yeah if there was such a thing we'll take it um anyway uh more importantly and more significantly we'll pick up at biblical theology old new testaments in the ballpark of page 266 267 next time lord willing that'll be next month we have a reform forum conference coming up very soon so stay tuned for uh all of the content and lectures and addresses that will be recorded and available on the website regarding that as well so i do want to thank everybody for listening and we hope you join us again next time on christ the center [Music] you

Channel: Reformed Forum

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Id: 68XUJvpFicY

Length: 62min 21sec (3741 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 30 2021