Introduction, Pt 2

We come now to our Introduction to Systematic Theology lessons. And in our last lesson, we began a new section on the Doctrine of Creation. Now, I realize that my introduction was a little different than what you are probably used to. Instead of just diving right into Genesis, we took a discussion about the ordering of decrees, which typically occurs later on in Systematic Theology, and brought it forward to bring out the implications it has for creation. That is, what major decrees of God should we consider, how should we define them, and how should we order them. This became a big deal, especially in the time of the Reformation, because men could not agree as to what God’s plan is. And if you didn’t hear that lesson, I encourage to go back and listen to that one. Some of what I say today may not make sense apart from some of the background I gave in that lesson.

But I took that route to highlight and help correct a major problem I see with many professing Christians today, and that is the downplaying of creation in God’s eternal plan of redemption. You see this attack on creation in its worst form in the heresy of hyper-preterism, but even among evangelicals you hear things like, “God is going to wipe this planet out and be done with it forever.”

Some will look at you weird when you suggest that dying and going to heaven in a bodiless existence is not the final goal. When my family and I visited a church over in St Pete for about a year, a church many would consider a good, solid, Gospel preaching, evangelical church…they had a couple who was leading one of their mid-week home bible studies and they were explaining to me, who was still a hyper-preterist at the time, that the resurrection body is a body we get immediately after we die and has nothing to do with the body we have now. I was shocked. And what’s funny is that as a hyperpreterist, I agreed with them, but I ended up have a friendly argument with them explaining to them that, that’s not the orthodox Christian view - they are rejecting something they are not supposed to be rejecting. lol. I mean, it was really weird…here I was a resurrection denying heretic trying to correct a couple who were teaching the same heresy I was.

But beloved, this is very prevalent today. And perhaps it has become more so due to the over-reaction we have to radical environmentalists and others. Naturally, we are turned off by those who make creation and creation alone the major issue…as if that is all that exists. But we have to be careful not to overreact and end up in the other ditch, the other extreme, and minimize the importance of creation. And so as Christians we should be concerned about our planet. We should care about how animals are treated. We should be environmentalists, TRUE environmentalists! Our planet is not going anywhere. Now, it’s going to go through some radical changes, but its here to stay and we have been called to be faithful stewards over it; to exercise care and dominion over it as God has directed in His Word - and that includes what we do with our bodies as well.

None of God’s act of Creation was a mistake. None of this work of creation is just some disjointed, side hobby of the Creator. None of this was part of some other plan that God aborted.

Creation plays a necessary role in God’s eternal plan of redemption. And that has been the case since day one; or even better, since eternity. That’s what I wanted to highlight in our last lesson. And so to get us there theologically, we considered the infralapsarian vs supralapsarian debate, and then showed how the modified Supralapsarian position demonstrates this logical necessity and purposeful intention behind creation.

Now, this lesson is basically going to recap what we did in that first lesson. An extension of our intro. And I’m doing this because I truly believe that where we land on this issue will greatly affect where we end up. A lot of the minimizing of creation happens because we don’t establish certain points in the beginning.

Just to review, we saw that in the infra view, the main decrees are ordered as follows:

1. God’s decree to create the world and all men

2. God’s decree that all men would fall into sin

3. God’s decree to elect some fallen to salvation in Christ and reprobation of others

4. God’s decreed to redeem the elect by the work of Christ on the cross

5. God’s decreed to apply Christ’s redemptive benefits to the elect

…if you look at how those are ordered in the infra position, they are ordered as they would happen historically in time and space.

So, for example, the first decree to create the world and all men is the first thing God does in time and space; and so on.

And the original Supra view basically held to the same order with one exception. They moved the decree of election to the top in order to show that the decrees of creation, the fall, the work of Christ on the cross, and the Spirit’s work of application are all driven by the fact of election.

Well, I think the original supra view starts to move us in the right direction. But as Reymond points out in this Systematic Theology, the original supra view still suffers from some of the same problems that the infra view does by leaving the other four decrees in the same order. So, in order to demonstrate, a LOGICAL, NECESSARY relationship from one decree to another, the last four decrees are flipped upside down in a modified Supra view.

Think about how you would go about planning something. Reymond gives the example of buying a car.

As you think and plan about how to make that happen, you begin to create a list of steps. The end game is to buy a car. But how do you make that happen? Well, you know that first you got to get out of bed. Then you have to leave home, either with your current vehicle or get a ride from someone. Then, you arrive at the dealership. Next, you talk to the salesman and agree on a purchase price, then lastly, you arrange a loan through the bank to purchase the car.

Notice, every step is a necessary part of the plan and has to be done in a certain order. You can’t arrange a loan with a bank if you haven’t discussed a purchase price yet. And you can’t discuss a purchase price with a salesman until you get to the dealership, and you’re not going to get to the dealership if you don’t get out of bed.

Every step is necessary. Every step leads you closer to the end goal. But also notice this….as you think through your plan and determine what steps are necessary, you are ordering the steps in your mind in the reverse order that you would actually carry out those steps in time.

Reymond writes, “How does the rational mind go about determining the means that are necessary to reach a determined end? Because it recognizes that each means in any purposive chain of means, except for the last one (last, viewed from the point of the determined end), of necessity is the “end” of the means that follows it, and because it is necessary always to pass from the end to the means to the end, the rational mind will not begin from the point where it finds itself and determine first from that point the last means to the end. Rather, the rational mind (in the case of men, it may do this at times without even realizing it; at other times it will be very conscious that it is doing so) will begin from the determined end and in a retrograde movement work back in its planning to the point where it finds itself at the moment. Only in this way does each means answer purposively to the need of the former means.

To use our car buyer illustration one more time: The car buyer has determined that he will purchase a car (his ultimate end). But in order to do that (given his present circumstance), he determines, as the first means to his ultimate end, that he must arrange a loan with his bank for the agreed-upon sum. But in order to do that, he determines, as the second means to his ultimate end, that he must agree with the car salesman on the purchase price of the car. But in order to do that, he determines, as the third means to his ultimate end, that he must get to the car dealership. But in order to do that, he determines, as the fourth means to his ultimate end, that he must leave home. But in order to do that, he determines, as the fifth means to his ultimate end, that he must get out of bed. In purposive planning, each element of the plan necessarily answers the need of the preceding element, so that there is purpose in each member and purposive coherence governing the whole plan. This is actually the way the truly rational mind purposes or plans.”

This is why the modified supralapsarian view was offered. If you look at the infralapsarian view, the steps (or decrees) are ordered in the way they would take place historically. But in doing so, they don’t demonstrate any logical necessity between the decrees.

In other words, it would be like you getting out of bed one day and then deciding to ask me to give you a ride to the car dealership. And I ask you, “What are you going for?” and respond with, “I don’t know. I don’t have any reason to go.”

In the infra view, the first step is that God creates the world. We’re not explained why. It just happens. Then, God decrees the fall of man into sin. Well, why? Again, it’s not explained. It doesn’t appear that the creation of man necessitated the fall of man. There’s no logical connection. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason.

And the original supralapsarian view suffers from the same problem. By moving the decree of election to the top, it does emphasize the governing principle of election, but it doesn’t do so with logical consistency.

The modified view orders the decrees in the way in which we would logically order them in our mind as we plan. Bu then when it comes time to actually put the plan into action, we carry out the steps in reverse order.

And so with the first decree, the election of men, we see that in order to make that happen, you have to apply a redemption to the elect. Hence the second decree. But in order to have a redemption to apply, Christ has to "work" out this salvation "by the cross." Hence, the third decree. But if you are saving sinners, you have to have a fall. Hence, the fourth decree. But in order for there to be a fall of men, you have to "create" the "world and men". Hence, the fifth decree. And so you see the necessary, logical from one decree to the next.

But then comes time for God to put the plan in action in time and space. And so what’s the first thing we read in our Bibles?

“In the beginning (that’s a time indicator…that’s letting you know that we are not talking about a logical beginning, but a historical one)….in the beginning God CREATED the heavens and the earth.”

Why? Go back to our order of decrees in the modified form. Why is God doing this? Because He is now, in time and space, executing His eternal plan! This is the beginning stage of its execution. The one, single, eternal, divine plan!

The implication of this then is that the work of Creation is not random. It’s not arbitrary. It’s not just some curious little side-thing that God is doing. It is done with intention and purpose to bring about the end goal.

Everything about it is exact and intentional. The amount of time He did it in. The way He created man, body and soul; not just a soul. I mean, think about it. Let’s go back to this couple in St Pete who was denying the resurrection of bodies.

If the men mentioned in the first decree (the election of some sinful men to salvation in Christ) are not of the same nature (body and soul) that they are in the decree of creation, then what was the point in creating men as body and soul to start with?

It would seem to me that creating men in the exact way God did (body and soul) was done in order to bring about the goal of having men glorify Him, BODY and SOUL. But if the redeemed men of the first decree END up being only disembodied souls, which is what resurrection deniers would have us believe, then why in the world did God give us BODIES to start with? What PURPOSE would it serve?

If God desired disembodied souls to glorify Him as part of the end game, why not make us just souls to start with?

And yet, that’s not what we see in Genesis. God created man, soul AND BODY, SO THAT man, soul and body, would glorify Him.

And of course, we see this very language later on in Scripture.

Paul says in 1 Cor. 6:

18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Beloved, it matters what you do with your body. The material creation is not arbitrary. It is not without purpose.

All of these elements in creation are intentional and necessary and are going to come back up in the story of redemption in order to bring us to that end goal.

But now that brings me to the second major point I wanted to highlight. And this was a point that I kinda, sorta hinted at in the last lesson, but now want to bring that out a little further, and even still won’t develop this full enough, but at least there’s enough here to get you thinking.

And the issue is this….does the Supra view even go far enough? Remember, that in the Supra view, the decree of election was moved to the top or first of decrees to make it the governing decree to which all other decrees answer to. It gives the other decrees their purpose. But what this does, at least in my mind, is make the ELECTION OF MEN the main, central thing. Now, I don’t know that that was intentional or not on the part of Supralapsarians. But you can’t help but see it when you look at the order.

In both the original and modified Supra views, what is the first decree?

It is the election of some sinful men to salvation in Christ

But that raises some questions in my mind?

First of all, is election the overarching, governing principle in Scripture? There is absolutely no question that the election of men to salvation in Christ is a necessary part of the plan, but is election to salvation the GOVERNING principle? I don’t think that it is.

If you’ll recall, we established what the governing principle is in the decree of God back in our previous series when looking at the eternal decree. Do you remember? I had asked, what is the end game in all of this…and the answer was not election. The answer was, broadly speaking, the glorification of God. More specifically, I said that it was this….It is God’s chief end that GOD GLORIFY HIMSELF; that He lift up and magnify Himself; that He put on display the full range of his perfections; his holiness and power and wisdom and justice and wrath and goodness and truth and grace.

THAT, I would argue, is the governing principle, not election. Election is not an end of itself, but a means to an end. And the means for which it serves is to glorify God and help put on display his holiness, power, wisdom, justice, wrath, goodness, truth, and grace.

Election is just one component of many to bring about that purpose. But if you make election the main thing, you are making men the center of it all, and making election the end all, be all of men. And how can that be? Election is not even salvation. We are elected TO salvation. Is election a necessary step in the order of salvation? Absolutely. But it doesn’t end in election.

That would be like going to the polls to elect a man just for the sake of choosing a man. Well, you don’t go just to choose someone, but you elect men to something…to an office. To a function. Donald Trump didn’t win an election and then party and say, “Alright. We won the election. Our job is done.” And then he went home. No, he was elected into office. The election was a means to something.

Another way to highlight this issue with the Supra view is to look at it this way. If the first decree is to elect some sinful men to salvation in Christ - and we stay with the train of thought that we have talked about with the modified view in asking ourselves how each decree is logically necessitated, then the question becomes - what necessitates the election of men to salvation, and further, if they are elected in Christ, who or what is “Christ” and what necessitated Him?

Well, the supra view even in its modified form doesn’t really answer that question.

Again, is God electing people just for the sake of electing people? And if He is electing them “in Christ,” then that would suggest that men are elected indirectly, not directly, and that Christ, not men, is the central figure in all of this. But if that is so, to what purpose?

Again, the first decree as it is stated in the Supra view doesn’t spell that out.

There’s something that needs to account for why (1) men are elected in the first place and (2) what necessitated the “Christ.”

If you don’t account for this, then I’m afraid that you’ll (1) make election the main thing when it’s not and (2) have this “Christ” figure there with no explanation as to why He’s there or what His purpose is.

Well, I believe what accounts for these things and thus should be made the first or top decree, and thus the governing principle, is God’s desire to be glorified in His holiness, power, wisdom, justice, wrath, goodness, truth, and grace via a work (or economy) of salvation established by a covenant, in which the Father chooses to save some and not save others, the Son takes on a reasonable soul and body so that the man, Jesus Christ, who is united to the Godhead, subjects Himself to the Law, perfects obedience, subjects Himself to the wrath of God, can die as a substitutionary atonement for the elect, then raise from the dead to ascend into heaven at the Father’s right hand and exercise all authority over heaven and earth as Prophet, Priest, and King; and the Spirit applies the benefits of that salvation to the elect at the appointed time.

There are so many other functions for each member of the Triune Godhead that could be mentioned, but this is just a summary. And if this is the governing principle in the decrees, than we see how God, not man, is made central to the whole scheme. HIS glorification is made central. And election is not an end to itself, but a means to an end.

Men are elected to salvation for what purpose? That God be glorified in His holiness, power, wisdom, justice, wrath, goodness, truth, and grace.

And they are elected in who? The Christ. And who is He? He’s the second person of the Triune Godhead who covenanted with the Father and the Spirit to work out this plan in order that God be glorified in His holiness, power, wisdom, justice, wrath, goodness, truth, and grace.

I’ve read these verses, let me read some of them again:

Ephesians 3:8 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, 10 so that (there’s your purpose clause) through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord”

Eph 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Verse 5 of that same chapter: In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to (again, there’s your purpose) the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Romans 9: “Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.”

Do you see the pattern here?

Election is but one of many means by which God is displaying the full range of His perfections in order to be glorified. GOD is making Himself known. He is revealing His wrath. His goodness. His mercy. His power. His grace.

And that not only is the governing principle in the order of decrees, and thus should be made decree numero uno, but by implication becomes the governing principle in the work of creation.

Which is all to say, creation does not exist simply to give you something to analyze under a microscope simply for kicks. The work of creation is the execution of God’s eternal plan, His decree. It is the last of the decrees in logical sequence, but the first to be executed in time and space to bring about God’s work of salvation, centered in the person and work of Jesus Christ, in order that God be glorified in His holiness, power, wisdom, justice, wrath, goodness, truth, and grace.

He is not doing the work of creation despite or in opposition to the eternal plan of redemption, but as a very essential core component to that plan.

Chapter 5, Paragraph 1

“It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for (there’s your purpose) the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness,b in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days, and all very good.”

Col. 115 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. (Not you, not me, not your election…that HE be PREEMINENT) 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Do you see that beloved? The second person of the Trinity takes on our soul and body. The incarnate Christ. The work of His atonement by the shedding of His blood on the cross. His death. His real, physical death. And His victory over death in His resurrection and ascension…real, physical ascension…is how God is merging heaven with earth in order to put on display His full range of perfections!

The incarnate Word and His work of atonement, which could not be possible apart from the second Person taking on our nature, are the central theme to this whole deal, to this whole plan.

AND THAT’S THE POINT OF CREATION. That is it’s purpose. That is where Genesis 1 and 2 are heading.

Creation is essential to the plan. It’s not a mistake. It’s not arbitrary. It’s not just some fun little hobby for God that He is going to eventually disregard.

Creation matters.

All things in him, things in heaven and things on earth, are united and subjected to Christ, for the glorification of God in all of His perfections.

May THAT be your perspective on creation, on matter, on the material stuff of this earth.