Enjoy Kevin DeYoung's "A Conversation About the Law," His Chat with the Westminster Confession and the Christian's Relation to the Law

There are few theological issues more important and more difficult than the relationship of the Christian to the law. In recent years in particular there have been a lot of conversations and controversies about the proper use of the law in the believer’s progressive sanctification. We all know we are justified by faith apart from works of the law, but what is the place for obedience to the law after we are justified?

One explanation—and the best succinct one I know of—comes from Chapter XIX of the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF). For Reformed Christians in general, this ought to summarize what we believe. For Presbyterian office bearers in particular, this is what you swear to uphold. For Christians at large, there are plenty of Bible references in the WCF so you can see for yourself if these things are so.
I’ll ask the questions, and let Chapter XIX give the answers. Whenever the text is in italics that means I’m quoting directly from the Confession.

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Me: Hey, thanks for being willing to meet with me WCF. I know you are busy and very old, so I’ll try not to take up too much of your time. I just have a few questions about the law. For starters, where did the law come from? Was it just added after the fall?

WCF: God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which he bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience, promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it.

Me: Kind of wordy, WCF, but I think I get it. God gave Adam the law from the very beginning, even before sin entered the world.

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The Practical Doctrine of the Trinity

Kevin DeYoung’s The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16^th Century Catechism is a wonderfully pastoral yet theologically rigorous exposition and application of the Heidelberg Catechism for the church in the 21^st century.  Perhaps it is because we are of the same cohort, but I really enjoy Kevin’s subtle wit and humor, and his willingness to say (or write) what we believe to be true but didn’t think anyone else noticed it.  I’ll be honest; I was not expecting to find an application of doctrine of the Trinity to the perennial problem of the one-and-the-many or unity-diversity as I worked through this book.  With great clarity Kevin makes just such an application and shows its relevance to our contemporary culture.    

The Trinity matters for evangelism and cultural engagement.  I’ve heard it said that the two main rivals to a Christian worldview at present are Islam and postmodernism.  Islam emphasizes unity—unity of language, culture, and expression—without allowing much variance for diversity.  Postmodernism, on the other hand, emphasizes diversity—diversity of opinion, beliefs, and background—without attempting to see things in any kind of meta-unity.  Christianity, with its understanding of God as three in one, allows for diversity and unity.  If God exists in three distinct persons who all share the same essence, then it is possible to hope that God’s creation may exhibit stunning variety and individuality while still holding together in a genuine oneness (p. 52).

In this, Kevin is faithful to his Dutch Reformed heritage and the apologetic that flowed from it, not least in Cornelius Van Til’s thought.  In Common Grace & the Gospel Van Til stressed the importance of this application of the doctrine of the Trinity for apologetics. 

The God that the philosophers of the ages have been looking for, a God in whom unity and diversity are equally ultimate, the “Unknown God,” is known to us by grace (p. 9).

In the ontological trinity there is complete harmony between an equally ultimate one and many.  The persons of the trinity are mutually exhaustive of one another and of God’s nature.  It is the absolute equality in point of ultimacy that requires all the emphasis we can give it.  Involved in this absolute equality is complete interdependence; God is our concrete universal (p. 8).

Again, in The Defense of the Faith Van Til says,

Of the whole matter we may say that the unity and the diversity in God are equally basic and mutually dependent upon one another.  The importance of this doctrine for apologetics may be seen from the fact that the whole problem of philosophy may be summed up in the question of the relation of unity to diversity; the so-called problem of the one and the many receives a definite answer from the doctrine of the simplicity of God (p. 10).   

So, thanks to Pastor DeYoung for showing us a very relevant application of this most holy doctrine of ours!