Packer on Friesen's Book "Decision Making and the Will of God."

J. I. Packer and Carol Nystrum critiques Garry Friesen's model for decision making in their God's Will: Finding Guidance for Everyday Decisions.

In Decision Making and the Will of God (Portland: Multnoma, 1980), Garry Friesen put forward, in place of the idea of guidance by immediate "impressions" or by arresting circumstances, a Bible-based "wisdom" model for determining the will of God with regard to school, marriage, career and all other significant choices, much in line with what we have been affirming in this book so far. But it has been reported that "many...came away from his presentation with a great disquiet, a disquiet that arises from a tone that implicitly denies that existential dynamic of the Spirit in the life of the believer and substitutes instead a formula (albeit a thoroughly biblical formula) for determining legitimate options in any situation." And Friesen's book was once roundly critiqued in J. I.'s hearing as a fine statement of the "Deist doctrine of guidance"--a doctrine that is, that denies, ignores, or otherwise leaves out of account all direct action of God the Holy Spirit in the deep Christian heart and consciousness. It has to be admitted that Friesen's book, however salutary in other ways, does appear overall as an example of the subspiritual mindset in action.

Packer and Nystrum go on to explain what the subspiritual believer does wrong: he overvalues reason, and he undervalues the grace of faithful waiting.

God will dwell in the tents of Shem. (Genesis 9:27)

Walter Kaiser Jr., in his book Toward an Old Testament Theology, traces what he calls the "Canonical Theological Center," which is the revelation of the promised seed throughout the Old Testament. He shows how Noah's cursing and blessing of his descendants in Genesis 9, provides further revelation about the promised seed.

The structure of Genesis 9:25-27 is a heptastich which is divided into three parts by the repeated refrain of Canaan's servitude, a son of guilty Ham:

And he said
Cursed be Canaan;
a servant of servants will he be to his brothers
--verse 25

And he said,
Blessed be the Lord God of Shem;
Let Canaan be a slave to him.
--verse 26

God will enlarge Japhet,
But He will dwell in the tents of Shem;
Let Canaan be a slave to him.
--verse 27

Now the key issue is this: Who is the subject of the verb "he will dwell" in Genesis 9:27? We concur with the judgment of the Targum of of Onkelos, Philo, Maimonides, Rashi, Aben Ezra, Theodoret, Barumgarten, and Delitzsch that the subject is God. Our reasons are these: (1) the subject of the previous clause is presumed to continue into the next clause where the subject is unexpressed; (2) the use of the indirect object of the previous line as subject ("Japhet") would require strong contextual reason for doing so; (3) the context of the next several chapters designates Shem as the first in honor of blessings; and (4) the Hebrew phrase weyiskonbe'ohole sem, "and he will dwell in the tents of Shem," hardly makes sense if attributed to Japhet, for Japhet had already been granted the blessing of expansion.

The plan of the whole prophecy appears to devote the first strophe only to Canaan, the second to Shem and Canaan, and the third to all three brothers. On balance, then, the best option is to regard God as promising to Shem a special blessing. He would dwell with the Semitic peoples. The word for "dwell" is related to the later concept of Mosaic theology of the Shekinah glory of God wherein the presence of God over the tabernacle was evidenced by the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. Hence, the man Shem would be the one through whom the "seed" promised earlier would now come. Had not God said, "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem" (Gen. 9:26)? And why did He use this distinctive form of address? Could it be that the blessing and indwelling were linked? And could it be that they were God's next provision to earths's latest crisis? (pp. 81-82, Toward an Old Testament Theology, Kaiser)

The promised seed of Eve can be traced through the line of Adam's and Eve's son, Seth. The seed then can be traced through Noah and then through Shem (father of the Semitic tribes). Abraham is from this tribe. This line of descendants can be tracked through David and thus to Christ. God gives us hope through his meticulous planning and care of the line of David. This gives us hope and comfort because we, through the Church, are adopted into this holy family.
The concept of dwelling with man is central here. God promises to dwell with Israel (Exodus 29:45). God through His Spirit promises to dwell within the Church (1 Corinthians 3:16), and individual believers as well (1 Corinthians 6:19). In Revelation, God the Father promises that the dwelling place of God is with man.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (Revelation 21:3, ESV)

We have God in Revelation restoring the relationship with Man that Man lost in Genesis 3.

The Ruler of Promise: Genesis 49:10.

The following is from the ESV Bible. Genesis 49:10

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him;1 and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
Footnotes
[1] 49:10 By a slight revocalization; a slight emendation yields (compare Septuagint, Syriac, Targum) until he comes to whom it belongs; Hebrew until Shiloh comes, or until he comes to Shiloh

Notice from the footnote and from older translations of the Bible (KJV, ASV) "until tribute comes to him" is translated "until Shiloh comes." In his book, "The Promise-Plan of God," Walter Kaiser argues that Genesis 49:10 adds further revelation about the Man of promise (the promised Seed of Genesis 3:15) by quoting von Orelli. Von Orelli comments on the phrase "until Shiloh comes."

The context on one hand, the oldest authorities in respect of reading on the other, conduct us to our translation. Selloh was the reading handed down from antiquity, and the LXX [Septuagint] rendered this neutrally: heos ean elthe ta apokeimena auto [until there come the things stored up for him]. Instead of this abstract neuter subject we take the personal subject dominating everywhere here and render: until he comes into that which belongs to him, therefore into his own, his possession described on the sequel. Cf. especially the blessing of Moses on Judah, Deut. xxxiii.7: we'el ammo te bi 'ennu ["to his people bring him"]. As champion of the other tribes, he will display untiring energy until he has won his territory without curtailment; and then not merely will the tribes of Israel do homage to him but other nations also will bow to his rule.

Kaiser summarizes his argument that from Judah's descendants would come the prophesied Man of promise.

For Ezekiel, or later Jewish and Christian interpreters, to regard this as another addition to the doctrine of the seed to come is therefore not unwarranted. Neither was Ezekiel's allusion in 21:27, "until he to whom it rightfully belongs shall come, to him I will give it," out of bonds either. The Man of promise would be overwhelmingly successful; he would reign over all the peoples of the earth because it was his right and destiny so to do. Furthermore, he would originate from the tribe of Judah in Israel.

Walter Kaiser on Genesis 3:15 and 4:1 -- Eve's expectation of her first born.

Walter Kaiser Jr. traces the path of the Promise through both the Old Testament and the New Testament. He makes some observations about Genesis 3:15 and 4:1.

But in the midst of the dirge of gloom and rebuke came God's surprising word of prophetic hope (Ge 3:15). A divinely instigated hostility--"I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman, and between your offspring [or seed] and hers--is climaxed with the triumphant appearance of a "he"-- no doubt a representative person of the woman's seed. He would deliver a lethal blow to the head of Satan, while the best the serpent would be able or even permitted to do would be to nip the heel of this male descendant.

Who this male descendant was, was not immediately revealed. Perhaps Eve thought Cain was the one. She named her son Cain (Heb., qayin), saying she had "gotten (Heb.,qaniti) a man, even the Lord" (4:1); at least, that is a fair way of rendering the enigmatic phrase. Regardless of whether one agrees with this rendering, she was mistaken, and the biblical text only records her longings and perhaps gives us an insight into how an clear an understanding she had of Genesis 3:15 -- she expected that God would supply a person who would care for their sin that had occasioned the fall. (The Promise Plan of God by Walter Kaiser Jr., p. 43)

There is a footnote by Kaiser that Luther interpreted the passage this way in the German bible.

Other references that indicate that Old Testament believers were looking forward to the Promised Seed:

To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord. (Genesis 4:26, ESV)

When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.” (Genesis 5:28-29, ESV)

When Abraham puts his faith in God's promise that Abraham's seed will be from his own body, then that belief was counted as righteousness.

And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:4-6)

Israel prophesies that from Judah the kingly line will come in Genesis 49:10.

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. (Genesis 49:10, ESV)

Genesis 29: Who is God using to discipline you?

I found a humorous and valid application of Genesis in a commentary(Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of the Book of Genesis by Allen P. Ross). My faith family studied the life of Jacob this week. In Genesis chapter 29, Jacob, because of the deception of Laban, married both of Laban's daughters. Jacob loved the younger, Rachel, but was not in love with Leah. God used Laban's family to discipline the not so righteous Jacob. Here's what Kidner wrote in how God used Laban, Leah, and Rachel to discipline Jacob.

In Laban Jacob met his match and his means of discipline. Twenty years (31:41) of drudgery and friction were to weather his character; and the reader can reflect that presumably Jacob is not the only person to have needed a Laban is his life.

Through this man he also drank deeply of his own medicine of duplicity; yet even as the loser he displayed qualities that were lacking in Esau. The tenacity that showed at his birth and supremely, at Peniel, enabled him to regard the defeat over Rachel as only a setback.

The lesson that Ross gives from the passage is the following:

The lesson is that, even though God's people may experience God's blessing on their endeavors, God will effectively discipline them by making them painfully aware of their unresolved sins.

Ross had to be smiling when he wrote this observation.

If we use the story of Jacob as a sample, we may say that, when we are thrown together with people who are crafty, arrogant, deceitful, contentious, gossipy, or a host of other human frailties, before we lament that we have to be around such people, we perhaps should take a long look at ourselves. It may be that some of those traits characterize us and that other people may be part of God's means of disciplining us.

I let the readers of this post sort out whom God is using to discipline whom in their own lives.

The Promise of the Holy Spirit

John Owen writes about the ministry of the Holy Spirit within us.

And if we consider this promise of the Spirit as to the ends of it, we shall find that he is promised and given as the sole cause and author of all the good that we can enjoy in this world. For there is no good communicated to us, no gift, grace, mercy, privilege, or consolation bestowed upon us, but through the Holy ghost; nor is there any good in us towards God, any faith, love, duty, or obedience, but what is effectually wrought in us by him, and by him alone. (The Holy Spirit: His Gifts and Power by John Owen, pp. 112-113)

According to Ephesians 1, the Holy Spirit is the gift of God that opens the eyes of our hearts so that we understand the riches that God has bestowed upon us through salvation.

Jonathan Edward's View on Beauty in Creation

Jonathan Edwards comments on divine beauty in creation. God uses nature to communicate his beauty to His creatures.

Now we have shown that the Son of God created the world for this very end, to communicate himself in an image of his own excellency.

He communicates himself, properly, only to spirits, and they only are capable of being proper images of his excellency, for they only are properly beings, as we have shown. Yet he communicates a sort of a shadow, or glimpse, of his excellencies to bodies, which, as we have shown, are but the shadows of beings, and not real beings. He who by his immediate influence, gives being every moment, and by his Spirit, actuates the world, because he inclines to communicate himself and his excellencies, does doubtless communicate his excellency to bodies, as far as there is any consent or analogy. And the beauty of face and sweet airs in men are not always the effect of the corresponding excellencies of mind, yet the beauties of nature are really emanations or shadows of the excellencies of the Son of God. So that when we are delighted with flowery meadows, and gentle breezes of wind, we may consider that we see only the emanations of the sweet benevolence of Jesus Christ. When we behold the fragrant rose and lily, we see his love and purity. So the green trees, and fields, and singing of birds are the emanations of his infinite joy and benignity. The easiness and naturalness of trees and vines are shadows of his beauty and loveliness. The crystal rivers and murmuring streams are the footsteps of his favor, grace, and beauty. When we behold the light and brightness of the sun, the golden edges of an evening cloud or the beauteous bow, we behold the adumbrations of his glory and goodness, and in the blue sky, of his mildness and gentleness. There are also many things wherein we may behold his awful majesty, in the sun in his strength, in comets, in thunder, in the hovering thunderclouds, in ragged rocks, and the brows of mountains. That beauteous light with which the world is filled in a clear day, is a lively shadow of his spotless holiness, and happiness and delight in communicating himself; and doubtless this is a reason that Christ is compared so often to those things, and called by their names, as the Sun of Righteousness, the morning star, the rose of Sharon, and lily of the valley, the apple tree amongst the trees of the wood, a bundle of myrrh, a roe, or a young hart. By this we may discover the beauty of many of those metaphors and similes, which to an unphilosophical person do seem so uncouth.

Michael A. G. Haykin comments on Jonathan's Edwards view of divine Beauty and its enjoyment of it by us is necessary in our walk with God.

Edwards' approach could also be helpful in that it explains why aesthetic experience is for many people also a religious experience. Moreover, by emphasizing that the beauty we perceive in the created realm is a mode of God's presence, he avoids the seeming nebulousness of much of the discussion about divine beauty.

If follows, of course, for Edwards, that those who ignore the beauty of God in creation are committing a religious fault. For Edwards, 'the beatific was basic' to God and the universe. Moreover, Edwards is convinced that men and women uniformly fail in this regard, for the have lost the faculty to see the visible beauty of God in his creation. They perceive the secondary beauty, but fail to see the divine beauty that saturates nature. This faculty can only be restored through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the 'agent of conversion and of all our good'.