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R. Scott Clark has provided a historically lucid investigation into the life, theology, faith, and practice of Caspar Olevian, which is, but one example of orthodox Protestant scholarship and descriptive historical theology at its best. Clark begins by placing Olevian within the theologically divisive context of the 16th century. Attacked on both sides by gnesio-Lutherans and Tridentine Papists, the second-generation Reformed theologians endured persecution, slander, and accusations of heresy and schism. Both in Trier and Heidelberg, Olevian engaged in heated theological disputes with Lutherans, Zwinglians, and Roman Catholics. This historical context provides Clark an opportunity in which to examine Olevian’s covenant theology and its relationship to the emerging Protestant identity in the 16th century.
Central to Olevian’s thought is the substance of the covenant (substantia foederis) as a kind of organizing principle in which his theology was systematized. Building on Calvin’s doctrine of union with Christ and the two-fold grace (duplex gratia), Olevian, remaining faithful to Calvin, cast his theological vocabulary in slightly different terms in order to best suit his immediate scholarly purposes. Olevian used the phrase “double benefit” (duplex beneficium) to describe the substance of the covenant, this benefit being the twin, inseparable soteriological realities of justification and sanctification. Before examining Olevian’s understanding of justification and sanctification, Clark studies the influence of humanism and scholasticism in Olevian’s theological method, the underlying Trinitarian federalism that provided Olevian’s soteriology its ultimate significance, and the distinctive Calvinistic Christology and its connection to Calvinist and Lutheran Eucharistic controversies.
First, Clark recognizes Olevian’s theological method as unashamedly Aristotelian in its approach. For this very reason, Clark deems it necessary to label Olevian as a consciously Protestant Reformed scholastic. The very word “substance” used to describe the nature of the covenant reveals Olevian’s commitment to Aristotelian categories. Clark is quick to point out that Olevian’s Aristotelianism didn’t so much control his theology as much as it provided a needed framework in which to systematize biblical doctrine. As such, Olevian’s scholasticism was subordinate to his primary allegiance to Holy Scripture. Along similar lines, Clark classifies Olevian as a classical humanist in his approach to education and scholarship.
Second, Clark examines Olevian’s Trinitarian theology and its underlying federalism. Caspar Olevian was thoroughly Trinitarian in his theological commitments, writing three separate commentaries on the Apostles Creed during his life. His doctrine of the Trinity was closely tied to his doctrine of the pre-temporal covenant of redemption wherein the Father unconditionally elects a people for himself and the Son covenants with the Father to accomplish redemption on behalf the elect. Olevian’s Christology is important at this juncture in light of the necessary requirements for the accomplishment of redemption. In order for Christ to fully satisfy the wrath of God on behalf of the church, Christ’s humanity must be consubstantial with that of mankind. Caspar Olevian, faithfully defending orthodox Chalcedonian Christology, taught that Christ’s deity in no way poured its self over into his humanity so as to ontologically confuse the two natures. Olevian’s doctrine of the hypostatic union infuriated the gnesio-Lutherans because they taught the very opposite. Lutheran Eucharistic theology demanded an admixture of Christ’s two natures in order for his humanity to be omnipresent, local, and physically immanent. According to Olevian, the Lutheran Christology dismantles the creator-creature distinction, contradicts the consensus of Chalcedon, fails to break from the errors of Rome, and ignores the absolutely crucial role of the Holy Spirit in mystical union and the reception of the holy Eucharist.
After establishing Olevian’s broader theological context, Clark takes a detailed look into Olevian’s understanding of the double benefit. The first and primary benefit of the covenant is justification, defined by Olevian as the “free remission of sins.” Justification, according to Olevian, is thoroughly legal, federal, objective, and alien. Mankind’s fall in Adam’s necessitated both an active righteousness which met the terms of the covenant of works and a passive obedience which satisfied the wrath of God for the elect. Christ’s accomplished these two stipulations, thus meritoriously earning the requisite righteousness for those given him in the covenant of redemption. Faith alone in the Mediator is the only condition for justification, although faith itself, according to Olevian, is monergistic in its nature.
The second benefit of the covenant, which in Olevian’s mind is subordinate to the doctrine of justification, is the doctrine of Christian renewal or sanctification. While justification is entirely objective and forensic, sanctification differs in that it is subjective, progressive, and incomplete in this age. For Olevian, the doctrine of sanctification cannot be rightly understood apart from understanding the means of grace and their role within the individual life of a Christian. The primary means of grace is the preaching of the Word, which begets faith through the monergistic agency of the Holy Spirit in effectual calling. God himself speaks through the voice of the minister, remits sins, and assures his people with the covenant promises of the gospel. After establishing Olevian’s understanding of the preached word, Clark discusses Olevian’s doctrine of the holy sacraments and their role within the process of sanctification. In typical Calvinist fashion, Olevian regarded baptism as the sign and seal of God’s covenant promises to be administered to the children of believers. The Lord’s Supper or “Holy Eucharist” differed substantially from baptism. While baptism extends to believers and their children, the Lord’s Supper was instituted for those with a conscious faith in Christ. Olevian also regarded baptism as the means of initiation and the Lord’s Supper as the divinely appointed means of spiritual nourishment and faith’s confirmation.
Clark’s contribution to the study of 16th century Protestantism is a welcome remedy to 21st century Protestantism at risk of losing its identity. His study of Olevian provides a much-needed portrait of orthodox Protestantism at its best.
I’ve kind of halted by blogging activity during the past few weeks in order to catch up on some much needed reading. This week, I’m reading R. Scott Clark’s great study of Caspar Olevian’s covenant theology. Clark’s contention is that Olevian’s Federalist Christology was nothing more than a return to the creedalism of the early church. Commenting upon the Apostles Creed, on which he wrote 3 different commentaries, Olevian writes:
“It is the old, true, undoubted Christian faith that the apostles confessed and preached. And this short confession of faith is a reliable guide for recogsizing and judging whether something is orthodox or not. For whatever is contrary to one or more of the Articles of faith must be false. If one simply sticks to the Articles of Faith, one cannot go wrong.”
-Caspar Olevianus, Firm Foundation
Praise the Lord for the remnant within the House fighting against infanticide. For now, abortion is essentially illegal in North Dakota.
It [modern culture] has made man the measure of all things on earth—imperfect man, who is never free of pride, self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects. We are now paying for the mistakes which were not properly appraised at the beginning of the journey. On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility.
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, A World Split Apart
I had the incredible privilege of listening to a sermon delivered by Professor Jerram Barrs of Covenant Seminary at my church this past Sunday. Barrs is professor of Christian studies and contemporary culture at Covenant Theological Seminary. He is also the resident scholar at the Francis Shaeffer Institute in St. Louis. His wonderful exposition of Ruth 2 can be found here at Trinity’s website.
In context Bavinck is critically addressing the post-Kantian trend in the universities of his day to separate the science of religion and the study of dogmatics by relegating dogmatics to the seminary, while keeping the “scientific study of religion” in the universities. The science of religion was basically a positivistic examination of religion with no theological commitments of any sort. In the positivistic schema, unbiased science was the only proper intellectual commitment. Following Kant, dogmatics only possessed value as they related to the moral and practical dimensions of life. The issues of truth or objectivity were completely left out of dogmatic study since the human intellect was completely incapable of entering the noumenal, and thus was left to the unbiased observation of the phenomenal. Here Bavinck defends dogmatics as the most important of scientific studies by appealing to its nature and end. Like Aquinas before him, Bavinck unashamedly asserts that theology is the “queen of sciences.”
“For in an absolute sense, neither the intellect nor the will, the true or the good, can be an end in itself; were this the case, they would be elevated to the level of the divine, and we would relapse into paganism. A ‘creature’ can never be an end in itself, neither individual nor society nor the state, and neither can abstractions like the true, the good, and the beautiful be ends in themselves. For every creature as such exists by, and hence, for God. Science exists also for God’s sake and finds its final goal in his glory. Specifically, this then is true of theology; in a special sense it is from God and by God, and hence for God as well. But precisely because its final purpose does not lie in any creature, not in practice, or in piety, or in the church, amidst all the [other] sciences it maintains its own character and nature. Truth as such has value. Knowledge as such is a good. To know God in the face of Christ- by faith here on earth, by sight in the hereafter- not only results in blessedness butis as such blessedness and eternal life. It is this knowledge dogmatics strives for in order that God may see his own image reflected and his own name recorded in the human consciousness. And for that reason theology and dogmatics do not belong, by the grace of a positivistic science, in a church seminary, but in the university of the sciences. Furthermore, in the circle of the sciences, theology is entitled to a place of honor, not because of the persons who pursue this science, but in virtue of the object it pursues; it is and remains- provided this expression is correctly understood- the queen of sciences.”
This is the first time this book has been translated into English. Written by one of the greatest Reformers of the 16th century, this book will most surely edify the church. Maybe this book will spark more interest in Bucer, seeing how his influence is often undervalued by many in the Reformed world today who seem to prefer, for example, the American Puritans over the continental Reformers like Bucer, Zanchi, or Vermigli.
I posted this quote over at my Bavinck blog, but enjoyed it so much that I’ve decided to post it here. It’s this distinctly Reformed understanding of the Bible which distinguishes it from Romanism on the one hand and biblicism on the other. Here is a classic and concise formulation of Sola Scriptura as this doctrine has been understood and articulated by Reformed and Presbyterian Christians throughout the centuries.
“It is most definitely not the authority of the church that makes a dogma into dogma in a material sense, elevates it beyond all doubt, and enables it to function with authority. The dogmas of the church have, and may have, this status only if and to the degree they are the dogmas of God. The power of the church to lay down dogmas is not sovereign and legislative but ministerial and declarative. Still, this authority has been granted by God to his church, and it is this power that enables and authorizes her to confess the truth of God and to formulate it in speech and writing.”
-Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1, p. 31
I’ve started reading through Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics with a group of other guys and have created a new blog for the exclusive purpose of reflecting upon my reading of Bavinck’s work. I hope to offer some helpful quotations, reflections, applications, and insights as I acquaint myself with this genius work of Reformed literature. I hope to post a few times a week. The blog is entitled Reading Bavinck, and can be accessed here. The discussion blog, headed up by Kevin Johnson, can be accessed here.
“From the first, therefore, I have always said to myself ‘if the battle is to be fought with honor and with a hope of victory, then principle must be arrayed against principe; then it must be felt that in Modernism the vast energy of an all-embracing life-system assails us, then also it must be understood that we have to take our stand in a life-system of equally comprehensive and far reaching power. When thus taken, I found and confessed and I still hold, that this manifestation of the Christian principle is given us in Calvinism. In Calvinism my heart has found rest. From Calvinism have I drawn the inspiration firmly and resolutely to take my stand in the thick of this great conflict of principles.”
-Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism
