The following is a production of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. For more information about the seminary, visit us online at gpts.edu. It's good to be with you. I'm going to open with prayer in a moment after I take care of some preliminaries. The first preliminary is to thank Dr. Piper and the faculty of GPTS for the invitation to deliver addresses here at the conference this spring. It's yet winter, I guess, but, uh, and for the opportunity to interact with, with you all in terms of your life situation and your various ministries and your various needs with respect to the subject and the material of this conference. So thank you. Thank you for this invitation. Um, secondly, I do want to hawk a couple of books that, uh, are very important and you were introduced to the abridged volume edited by John Bolt. This is the real thing. This is volume two of The Real Thing, the four volume set, which is the magnum opus, the life work of Herman Bavink, which is translated now into English. You may be interested to know that I am responsible for supervising the project of translating Abram Kuyper's works from Dutch into English. And the first volume of Common Grace should be coming out any day now, in addition to his three-volume set Pro Rega, For the King, and a couple of anthologies, His View of the Church, His Doctrine of the Church, and His Doctrine or View of Education. In addition, I've translated about 15 to 20 Dutch-English works and would recommend to you this one by my mentor, Professor Dr. J. Dalma. D-O-U-M-A, Dalma Dutch names tend to be difficult sometimes for Americans to pronounce. You'll find this one on the bookshelf or on the book table at Reformed Heritage Books. This is Responsible Conduct, Principles of Christian Ethics. And if you're interested in learning in a very accessible way what it is we talk about when we talk about Christian ethics and the various dimensions of it, please, please do consider that. Now the book, the most important book for this afternoon is not here. It's not available. And that is the book by Herman Bovink that I translated entitled The Christian Family. It was published last October. And there's a story behind this that I won't tell you now in order to save time, but it's a very gracious story of good reformed ecumenicity transcending and crossing over denominational lines that allowed me to finish translating this work in the mountains, the Appalachian Mountains. last year, and we now see it. And this is what I'll be using for my remarks this afternoon. The Christian Family is available online, Amazon.com. The publisher is Christians Library Press. There's a Kindle edition of this that might attract you and that might serve your needs as well. So those books, resources, I think are worthwhile. Now I would like you to join me in prayer. Father in heaven, you have taught us from your word that all scripture is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be equipped and fully furnished unto good works. And by inference, we learned and have learned long ago that if scripture is profitable for all these things, so is the doctrine of scripture. And this afternoon, as we look at the doctrine of the image of God, we pray that you will open our eyes, our hearts, and our lives to some very important, some very crucial, timely implications and profitability of that doctrine for here and now and for today. To that end, bless us all, speaker and listeners. In Jesus' name, amen. Hermann Bavink has given us the greatest and most comprehensive statement of reform systematic theology in modern times. Quote, unquote, said Cornelius and Till. in his introduction to systematic theology. Hermann Bavink was born 1854, lived until 1921, grew up in a pastor's home in a devout reformed family where they had family worship thrice three times daily, consisted of prayer before every meal, scripture reading, and discussion after the meal. concluded, as is still the case in the Netherlands today among God-fearing households, concluded with the singing of a psalm and prayer. Annual family visiting throughout the congregation occurred in his lifetime, and he was brought to know the Lord under the preaching of the gospel at a very young age. He attended weekly catechism classes and benefited from Christian day school education in the Netherlands. He was an ordained minister and at age 28 was appointed professor of theology by the reformed churches in the Netherlands. He was a contemporary and colleague of Abraham Kuyper. And together with Kuyper shared a lifelong interest evident from his writings, his speaking, and his preaching. Lifelong interest in the relationship between Christianity and culture, sphere sovereignty, and common grace. It was in 1908 that Bob Ink came to these shores to deliver the Princeton lectures, the Stone lectures. Abram Kuyper is probably better known than Bob Ink for this series of lectures. Kuyper's on Calvinism, Bob Ink's on the philosophy of revelation. He was a great theologian with a childlike faith, a disciple of Christ, a willing student of the word, and a master teacher. When Bobbing came on the scene in the last 20 years of the 19th century, evolutionism and naturalism had begun to dominate the sciences. Already, the socio-political thought and philosophy of Ernst Troelsch, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Leo Tolstoy, Immanuel Kant, and Friedrich Schleiermacher and the like had achieved national, international stature and acceptance. And it was against these men, their ideas and writings that Boevinck spent a lot of his energy and a lot of his effort in applying the Bible's teachings to these modern problems in Boevinck's day now. Anti-supernaturalism, evolutionism. Bavinck avoided simplistic, fundamentalistic argumentation. He was thoroughly acquainted both with the history of the Bible's doctrine and the history of opponents to that doctrine. And because of his familiarity and for the young people who are aiming for a career in studying and teaching and academia, I recommend Because he knew his own history and the Bible's history so well, and he knew the history and thought of his opponents so well, he was able with much nuance to respond to those opponents. He was internationally known as a balanced, careful, responsible thinker. And rather than isolate theology from the burning questions of the day, he sought to integrate theology in his answer to these questions in a fresh formulation, a fresh formulation of biblical doctrine and life. So while we champion Bob Enk and this book on the Christian family shows its datedness, he's got a chapter, for example, on how people, Christians now, Christians, how Christians should deal with the domestic servants in their home. So that's dated. But what we can learn from that chapter are methods and principles and approaches to questions that affect us in our present, even today. We can learn a method. We can learn an approach from Bovink. And that's why I'm here. That's why I'm participating in this conference too. introduce you to, to share with you some of Boebinck's approach to the question of humanity created in the image of God. My primary sources for this lecture this afternoon are, of course, his Reformed Dogmatics, volume two, pages 509 to 588, and The Christian Family, the book that I was able to translate and is now in print. Secondary source, a very important dissertation appeared By Brian Mattson, you'll see the name on the bottom of the sheet. Brian Mattson, Restored to Our Destiny, Eschatology and the Image of God in Hermann Bavink, a Brill publication, 2012. It'll set you back $155. I'm persuaded Brill is interested in collecting books, not selling books because of those prices, but we all know Brill is Brill. Let me tell you where I'm going in the next few moments. give you a summary, an abstract, they call it, of my presentation entitled, and by the way, with apologies to the organizers of the conference, I am making up my own title here, Man or Humanity as Imago Dei in the Thought of Hermann Bavink. I want to explicate key ideas in the teaching of Bavink about the unfolding nature of the image of God in humanity, the Trinitarian covenantal, marital nature of humanity. These notions, the unfolding nature of the Imago Dei and the covenantal, marital nature of the Imago Dei, are notions that I'm going to suggest to you are important today for the preaching of the gospel, for Christian living, and for the church's mission in the world today. So let me first explain Bob Incke's treatment of the doctrine, the locus, the area of imago dei, or humanity in the image of God. Secondly, elucidate a particular aspect of his teaching that is available for us in that booklet, The Christian Family, and then tease out some implications and concretized application of Bob Incke's teaching for us today. So first, the explanation. I've divided that into three areas. The standard component. the polemical components, and the creative components. Here's his opening sentence. Creation culminates in humanity where the spiritual and material world are joined together. I know it's the afternoon after lunch, but you've got to listen to my words and to Boving's words. He did not say Humanity is where the spiritual world and the material world are joined together. He did not say humanity is where the spiritual and material worlds are joined together. He said humanity is where the spiritual and the material world are joined together. From the outset, with his Doctrine of Humanity, Bavink emphasized the essential integration of spirit and matter. That is crucial to the biblical reformed understanding of the Doctrine of Humanity. He opens up with a discussion of the relationship between Genesis 1 and 2. He discusses human nature, whose essence is its being created in the image of God. He uses a term, mikrotheos. Mikrotheos, to put it into English, means micro-god. That human beings are micro-gods, little gods, if you will, though that's dangerous. And he says underlying Ephesians 4.24 and Colossians 3.10 is the idea that humankind was originally created in God's image and in the recreation is renewed on that model. So he goes on to treat extensively the biblical data. I won't review this because this is sort of par for the course in any reform systematic theological treatment of the doctrine. You can find it in Burkoff, you can find it in any number of Reformed systematic theologies. He insists there is no essential or material difference between words like image and likeness. People are created in the image and likeness of God. He didn't want to play those off against each other. They're used interchangeably, he says. And he says, Scripture teaches that this being created in God's image is not restricted, not restricted from God's side, in terms of some attributes of God, in terms of one or another person of the Trinity, not restricted from that side, but that humanity bears God's image in His totality, God's totality. Nor is it limited from our side in that only part of us images God, like our soul, Like our intellect or our holiness, he refused to restrict that reflective essence of humanity to any or several of those parts of human identity. The whole person is the image of the whole deity, said Bavinck. Scripture teaches that the image manifests itself, the image of God manifests itself in human dominion. dominion over all the created world. We heard Psalm eight this morning. First Corinthians 11 verse seven is another passage. The image of God includes conformity to the will of God and recreation in conformity to the image of God or Christ consists primarily in putting on the new man, which consists in among other things, righteousness and holiness. He treats. He treats the constitutional nature of human beings in terms of dichotomy versus trichotomy. I won't go into that with you this afternoon. He talks about the relationship between body and soul, the origin of the soul, in terms of pre-existentialism, traditionism, creationism. Those are all technical terms in this area, in this field. And if you wish to know more, you can pick up Bavink, or you could pick up Burkoff, for that matter, on these subjects, too. Those are the standard components of Bavink's treatment. Now let me turn secondly or next to the polemical components. The polemical components. Already in the first section of his treatment, he engages the issue of creation and evolution, focusing on Darwinism and the origin of humanity. He provides four salient arguments against Darwinism. And as to the age of the human race, he concludes that it, the human race, began about five to 7,000 years before Jesus Christ. One of his key emphases in terms of his polemic was the emphasis on the unity of the human race. He argues, and I quote, the unity of humanity is finally not a matter of indifference, as is sometimes claimed, but on the contrary, of the utmost importance. It, the unity of the human race, is the presupposition of religion and morality. the solidarity of the human race, original sin, the atonement in Christ, the universality of the kingdom of God, the Catholicity of the church, and the love of neighbor. These all, I'm still quoting, these all are grounded in the unity of humankind, end quote. Well, not surprisingly at the center of his polemical treatment in other areas is his critique of Roman Catholic supernaturalism. I won't give you that extended debate, but it's in this discussion against Roman Catholicism that Bavinck is at his philosophical best. He examines in minute detail the structure of Roman Catholic metaphysics and theology, and he offers a biblical reformed response. to that Roman Catholic metaphysics and structure of theology, because it comes to bear immediately upon the doctrine of the Imago Dei in terms of the Donum Super Auditum, in terms of nature and grace, and in terms of other components of the discussion. So I'm going to leave that there. We've covered his standard components, polemical components. Now let me move to the creative components. It's important to recognize that scripture identifies at least three referents, E-N-T-S, three referents of the phrase imago Dei. The first referent to which that phrase applies is the individual human being. Genesis 1 verses 26, 27, 5 verse 1, 9 verse 6, In the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 11, 7, James 3, verse 9, the individual human being images God, is an imago dei. That's number one. Number two, Jesus Christ is the image of God. He's the image of the invisible God, 2 Corinthians 4, 4, Colossians 1, 15, Hebrews 1, 3. That's the second referent. Here's the third. The third referent is the new humanity. The new humanity is the image of God. Romans 8.29, 2 Corinthians 3.18, Ephesians 4.24, Colossians 3.10. Now, in addition, you know that scripture uses the phrase son of God, son of God, to refer to Adam, to Israel, to Jesus Christ. and the new humanity. That leads me then to identify with you and for you two particularly creative elements or components in Bob Inks doctrine of the Imago Dei. The first is what I've dubbed the unfolding, the unfolding Imago Dei. And in this connection, we have to grab hold briefly on a term that is present in the theology of both Herman Bovink and Abram Kuyper, which is rather central, it's the idea of organic. Organism. Organic. That's an idea Well, let me let Brian Mattson explain it to you. He has an excursus in his dissertation on the concept of the organic and its sources. He says, scholars explain the neo-Calvinist emphasis, and by the way, Kuyper and Bovink are dubbed neo-Calvinists because it is alleged that their program and their project is an advancement upon us, the next stage after what is called Calvinism. Scholars explain the neo-Calvinist emphasis of Kuyper and Babinck about organism, organic, development, unfolding, et cetera, as coming from the idealistic philosophy of Hegel and Schelling, from the German history of religion school, and the Dutch ethical theologians. It's a very popular understanding. It's popular. I receive this criticism of neo-Calvinism all the time. That their notions, Kuyper's notion about the church's organism, the organic unity of the human race, the unfolding nature of culture and humanity, these are borrowed from German idealism, we're told, all the time. Matson, however, disagrees. And he appeals to Richard Muller to correct this picture. Now, if you know Richard Muller, you know that he is the international expert, reigning scholar on all things having to do with reformed orthodoxy. Richard Muller has a monumental work, has done monumental work with the tradition of Reformed Orthodoxy, and he has shown the tradition's overarching interest in the biblical unfolding of dogmatic loci. Listen, let me say that again. He has shown the tradition's interest, your tradition's, my tradition's interest, in the unfolding nature of doctrine in the Bible. In the Bible. You take, for example, the doctrine of the resurrection. We know more, far more in terms of detail, depth, scope from the New Testament about that doctrine than we do from the Old Testament. I hope that doesn't upset you. Because the Bible is that kind of a book that it unfolds in its disclosure of truth. And Muller has emphasized this in his work, from which Matson concludes then, it is at least possible that Kuyper and Bavinck were speaking to the critical issues of their day out of the resources internal to their own tradition. In fact, this hypothesis makes for a far more satisfying account. With respect to the doctrine of humanity then, this emphasis on the organic with the Doctrine of the Covenant of Works. Now, we heard yesterday a presentation on the Doctrine of the Covenant of Works in terms of its structural essentiality for the Doctrine of Salvation. Bavink, interestingly and importantly, incidentally, does not deny, he does not criticize the Doctrine of the Covenant of Works. He works with it, no pun intended. Among its components is this aspect, namely, that within the covenant of works, humanity before the fall did not yet possess its highest possible blessing. Here, park this one. Park this one in your memory, would you for me? To be perfect, to be finished, does not yet mean to be complete. That's an important rule of thumb, slogan, maxim, call it what you wish. But many people, when they look back in Genesis and they see we've got a perfect Adam, we've got a perfect creation, we've got a finished work of God, he rested on the seventh day, that's all there was to it. Not so. In fact, what distinguishes the Reformed from the Lutherans in connection with this doctrine of man or humanity as the image of God is precisely this element that there was a future that God had embedded in the creation for Adam and Eve, and that this future consisted of the unfolding of humanity and human life. In addition, the doctrine of the covenant of works contains a third idea, namely that Adam was not created alone. As a man and by himself, he was incomplete. Now think about that a moment. Adam was created perfect, sinless, but incomplete. There's the key. That's why God created Eve or woman for man. On the sixth day, God created both man and woman in union with each other in his image. Genesis 1 27 upon both man and woman together, God pronounced and the blessing mandate regarding multiplication and dominion. Here we go. Here we go, you've got to stay with me, we're going to go on a little ride now. The complementarity of man and woman constitutes the imago Dei. To put it another way, I'll reverse it. The image of God, the imago Dei, consists of the irreducible complementarity of man and woman. Sixth day, Adam, Eve, hugging, holding hands, loving each other. That by itself yet does not constitute the fully unfolded and developed imago dei. Bavinck goes on to suggest, not the man alone, nor the man and woman together, but only the whole of humanity is the fully developed image of God, his children, his offspring. You get it? Man alone. Stage one, man and woman together. Stage two, all of humanity. Stage three is the full, fully developed imago dei. But now listen to this. You talk about payoff. Belonging to that humanity is also its development. its history, its ever-expanding dominion over the earth, its progress in science and art, its subjugation of all creatures, all these things as well, I'm quoting Bavink, constitute the unfolding of the image and likeness of God in keeping with which humanity was created. Just as God did not reveal himself, I'm still quoting, did not reveal himself all at once at the creation, but continues and expands that revelation from day to day and from age to age, so also the image of God is not a static entity, but extends and unfolds itself in the forms of space and time. It, that image of God, is both gift, Germans like to speak of Gabba, and mandate, Aufgabe. It is an undeserved gift of grace that was given to the first human being immediately at the creation. But at the same time, it is the grounding principle and germ of an altogether rich and glorious development. Only humanity in its entirety, as one complete organism, summed up under one single head, spread out over the whole earth, as prophet proclaiming the truth of God, as priest dedicating itself to God. As ruler controlling the earth and the whole of creation, only it is the fully finished image, the most telling and striking likeness of God." In other words, what Hermann Bavink has done in terms of the Covenant of Works and the place of the Imago Dei in the Covenant of Works is to bring into consideration culture, history, human activity, the unfolding, the growing of all of that into the image of God. Well, that's the first creative component that I want to open up. Here's the second, and that's what I'm calling, I've called it in the outline, the nuptial marital imago dei. Now, look at that word nuptial, and please, Notice, I think it has three syllables, nuptial, as the word family has three syllables, family. Um, by nuptial, I simply mean covenantal or marital, if you will. And what much of what I'm going to tell you now comes from the book, the Christian family, which begins and ends this way. Listen. The history of the human race begins with a wedding. The history of the human race, he concludes the book, began with a wedding. It also ends with a wedding, the wedding of Christ and his church of the heavenly Lord with his earthly bride. That is the theme of the book, not only. Brothers and sisters, that is the theme of human history. It's the theme of created reality. Let me explain. From the introduction of the book written by Babinck scholar James Eglinton, we hear this. Babinck's work is essentially one giant effort to develop a worldview centered on the triune God, marriage and family included. The reality of God's glorious, eternal coexistence as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was both the beginning and the end of Babinck's theological enterprise. The triune God is the single most important factor in Bavinck's thought. It is the reality by which all others are measured. Eglinton goes on to suggest that the organic ideas found throughout Bavinck's perspective on the Christian family should be read as part of his effort to see the world in the light of the triune creator. For Bavinck, an organic view of marriage, and the family is a godly one. Now, you'll recall that a moment earlier we identified or we noted that Bavink identified both man and woman together as the image of God. I'm calling this nuptial complementarity and it constitutes the image of God. The irreducible organic identity of man hyphen and hyphen woman was designed to reflect the communion and complementarity inherent in the divine Trinity itself. The creation story in Genesis shows this clearly in the fact that both man and woman together are said to have been created in God's image. I want to emphasize, I'm going to parse that sentence, pull it apart for you. I didn't say man is created in God's image and woman is created in God's image. That's the current Rhetoric we're given to hear from evangelical feminists. Oh yeah, don't forget women are in God's image too. That's true. That's not what the Bible is saying at that point. What I said was both man and woman together are said to have been created in the image of God. Not merely one of them, but both. Not the one separate from the other, but man and woman together in mutual relation, each created in his or her own manner, each in a special dimension created in God's image, but together displaying God's likeness. Says Bobbink, the two in oneness of husband and wife, listen up young people, this is payoff time. This is so what, what for? The two in oneness of husband and wife expands with a child into a three in oneness. Father, mother, and child are one soul and one flesh, expanding and unfolding the one image of God, united within threefold diversity and diverse within harmonic unity. Continuing, this three in oneness of relationships and functions of qualities and gifts constitutes the foundation of all civilized society. The authority of the father The love of the mother and the obedience of the child form in their unity the threefold cord that binds together and sustains all relationships within human society. Authority, love, and obedience are the pillars of all human society, says Wabinck. If you have your Bibles open at Genesis 127, I could illustrate it from the Hebrew, but I don't have the apparatus, and I won't try to do that for you. But I can suffice with the English, as good preachers ought to do anyway. Let me read it to you, 127, and then I'm going to introduce you to the poetic structure. And God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him. male and female created he them. I read from the American Standard Version. I want you to note the poetic structure. If you're going to put letters, little, little letters in your text of the Bible above certain words, you'll see the word create and image. Those two words reoccur in the verse. So you've got You've got God created, let's put the little letter A above that. Man in his own image, we'll put the little letter B above that. In the image, B, of God, he created, A, him. So far so good? Now if you visualize that, we've got A, B, B, A. If I were to put that on the board, I would draw an X. A, B, B, A. That's a technique called chiasm in Hebrew poetry. Older versions of the Bible do not print Genesis 127 in poetic structure. I regret that because it won't let me make my point. But we're not finished with the verse. We've got chiasm, which comes from the Greek letter chi, which means X, which is an X basically. We've got A, B, B, A. But now notice the last clause. Male and female, he created them. So that we've got A at the end. You've got A, B, B, A, blank, A. I submit to you that what goes in that blank is B. The image of God is male and female. Not the images of God are male and female, but the image of God is. Okay. I've tried to show you from the Bible that what I'm suggesting and what Bob Inke is suggesting to you is indeed true. Also, don't forget Genesis 5.2. It's not been read as far as I recall here yet, but this is what Genesis 5.2 says. Male and female created he them and blessed them. Get this. And called their name Adam in the day when they were created. Mr. and Mrs. Adam. That's what it means. Mr. and Mrs. You thought Adam was just the guy. Uh-uh. According to Genesis 5, 2, Adam was the name given to both. Now I, I agree. Adam was the guy. He wasn't, but it's not that just the guy is Adam. I think there's a little hint here also about who takes whose name in marriage. Wouldn't you agree? Huh? All right, let me go on to elucidate. Let me elucidate this very quickly. In the second main point of my address this afternoon, the nuptial, covenantal, marital imago dei in three ways. In terms of the Christian family as a Trinitarian society, first of all. Upon this fellowship of love then known as the human family, God has bestowed his blessing in a special way. He's the creator of man and of woman. He's the inaugurator of marriage. He's the sanctifier of matrimony. Each child born into this family is a fruit, a fruit of divine blessing. The two-in-oneness of husband and wife expands with a child into a three-in-oneness. Father and mother and child are one soul and one flesh. He goes on to suggest, Bob Ink does, that within the psychological life of every integrated personality, this triple chord forms the motif and melody. Okay, I'm going to lay something on you guys. No man is complete without some feminine qualities. I believe it. I'm telling you. I'm not joking. I believe that. And no woman is complete without some masculine qualities. And to both man and woman, the child is held up as an example. To both. Every society, says Bavink, every civilization, in the church and in the state, always needs these threefold characteristics and gifts. Authority, love, and obedience are the pillars of every human society. So if you think, and if you did, you would be mistaken, that the guy has the authority, The woman gets the love, that is, she's got to display the love, and the child has to display the obedience. No, no, no, no, no, no. He talks about leading characteristics, but not exclusive characteristics. Every man, husband, father, must exhibit authority, which in the Bible, as we all know, means service and leadership. Service and leadership. Every woman has to display love. Every child has to display obedience, but the husband had better display love as well. And the husband had better display obedience as well. Where do children learn obedience? They learn it from their parents, both. That's all I'm going to say about the family as a Trinitarian society. in your homes are called and designed to embody, to incarnate the triune God in your relationships, in your functions, and in your activities. Secondly, the Christian family is human society. All the features of human society are present in the family, the one and the many. all the features of human society. Bob Inks shows in chapter, at least two chapters, how economics proceeds from the home. Did you know that the Greek word oikonomia, oikonomia, is the word translated in the New Testament as household or house? From oikonomia comes our English word economy or economics. The science of economics initially, originally was the science and the study of human interaction in the home, not in the market, in the home. The polis, the Greek word for city or state, is born first in the home. Because what the state does is, excuse me, is exhibited in the home in terms of authority, punishment, reward of the good, from which then comes our notion of politics. Moreover, in the Christian family, each of the commandments is learned personally, daily, immediately. Think of the commandments of the so-called first table and of the second table. Where do people, look around you, read the newspaper, where do people learn authority? Where do they learn respect for authority? Respect for life? Respect for sexuality? Respect for property? Respect for truth-telling? Respect for contentment? Where do they learn it or not? In the family. In the family. Well, then you can imagine with me this afternoon what the breakdown of the family represents in our culture, and in our future. Yesterday's Wall Street Journal documents the uphill battle of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, no friend to piety. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is trying to alert people in New York City to the high cost of teen pregnancy. So there's a subway campaign underway, sponsored by the New York City Department of Social Services, features It features photos of grumpy-looking infants, carefully chosen for racial diversity, captioned by messages to their assumed parents, written in toddler-like scrawl. Here's some examples. Remember, infants talking to their parents. Dad, you'll be paying to support me for the next 20 years. Another one. Honestly, Mom. Chances are he won't stay with you. What happens to me? Another one. If you finish high school, get a job and get married before having children, you have a 98% chance of not being in poverty. By the way, if you think the church is the only institution with a gospel, And I put the word gospel in quotes. You need to open your eyes. That's why the state is such a competitor to the church. Because it offers alternative gospel, alternative promises. If you stay in school, get a job, and get married before having children, life will be good. Viewers of the ad are invited to text, quote, not now, to 877-877. to learn the real cost of teen pregnancy. Well, as you can imagine, his ad campaign in New York City has aroused an enormous backlash led by Planned Parenthood. Quote, the latest New York City ad campaign creates stigma, hostility, and negative public opinions about teen pregnancy and parenthood, rather than offering alternative aspirations for young people. In other words, Planned Parenthood and company is upset because Mayor Bloomberg is telling teenage children, don't get pregnant, go to school. And Planned Parenthood wants alternative aspirations. I don't know what those might be. Let me move to the third part of my presentation, and this is going to be probably the most provocative of what I've been saying, so it behooves you to listen so that you don't misquote me. I want to introduce you to a key modern notion in metaphysical in theory and in social theory. It's the notion of fungibility. Let me spell the word, F-U-N-G-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y. Fungible, fungibility. These words, fungible and fungibility, function most often in a legal context with reference, for example, to goods that are exchangeable or replaceable by other goods of similar nature or kind. These terms identify entities that are mutually interchangeable. Something is fungible if it is of such a nature that one part or quantity may be replaced by another equal part or quantity in the satisfaction of an obligation. Oil, wheat, and lumber are fungible commodities. Here's the point. So are people. It is the case today. that men and women are viewed individualistically, atomistically, separatedly, as fungible, mutually interchangeable entities. And this altered vision of the nature and essence of humanity as imago Dei is an alteration of metaphysical proportions with enormous consequences for all of human life. Now, we could identify a number of causes for this revised metaphysics. One of them has surely been the Enlightenment with its emphasis on individuality, individual personality, and individual personal identity. This revised metaphysics of today involves the age-old contest between the one and the many, a contest whose temporary victors have pushed and pulled humanity one time toward collectivism, another time toward individualism. Many of our modern moral and social disruptions are directly related to the loss of any understanding of the marital image of God, the nuptial image of God. Bavink had such an understanding, as we can see from the opening and closing sentences of his treatise on the Christian family. All of society and all of human history are rooted and grounded in the reflection of the triune God imprinted upon the complementarity, the nuptiality of humanity. God's unfolding self-revelation is mirrored and received in terms of a history-long unfolding, Imago Dei. Let me put the matter somewhat abruptly. For Bavink, all created reality, all history, all humanity is ordered and structured in terms of marriage, of nuptiality, or covenant, if you will. And the loss of this biblical view of the divine, covenantal, nuptial order has led to the reality that most teaching, I'm going to step on your toe, most teaching inside and outside the church on marriage and family comes from the fields of sociology and psychology. The loss of this biblical view of the divine, covenantal, nuptial order has led to the reduction of sexuality, the bioticizing of sexuality, to the separation of sexual education from marriage education, because sexual expression is no longer viewed as essentially nuptial. And it has led to the isolation of sexuality from mutuality. Let me quote to you from a very erudite Roman Catholic by the name of Donald Keefe, who writes this concerning women in combat. In the elitist view of those replacing the biblical vision, society is composed of fungible citizens. Remember fungibility? Fungible citizens, men and women indifferently indistinguishable, eminently replaceable each by each, lacking legally significant intrinsic intelligibility, and therefore available to any imposition of meaning which the modern mind, personified by the courts and the justices, may decide. Again, underlying the familiar feminist and libertarian rhetoric is the doctrinaire denial of the existence of any intrinsic, personal, ineradicably significant difference between men and women. There's a denial, I'll paraphrase, there's a denial of any inherent, intrinsically meaningful difference between men and women. And this denial is bolstered, he says, by a doctrinaire resolve that such differences as manifestly exist. Look! And you'll see the differences. This denial is bolstered by the resolve that such differences shall be regarded as nullities. Now let me turn to concretizations. The first, homosexual partnerships. The second, women in military combat. And I want you to know I meant what I said. When I said people's opinions inside and outside the church are not being shaped by the church, by the pulpit, they're being shaped by the media, they're being shaped by psychology and sociology, not theology. We can understand perhaps, and we might wish to excuse that on the part of unbelievers, but what is our excuse? with regard to this state of affairs in the church and therefore in society. I'm passionate about this because I believe that for every criticism we issue about society, we've got to look in the mirror and we've got to examine the church in terms of her faithfulness and fidelity, in terms of her theology and passion, not only to be true but to live the truth. That's ours in Jesus Christ. To observe that at the present time the Christian witness for heterosexual marriage and against homosexual partnerships is viewed as ineffective and irrelevant is to tell you the obvious. You don't need me here to tell you that. But the all too frequent response to that observation about the irrelevance of the Christian witness The all too frequent response on the part of Christians is deeply, deeply troubling. Why? First of all, let me introduce you to this truism. Terms are essential. You will not hear me. You will not hear me talk about homosexual marriage because such a thing doesn't exist. You will not hear me talk about gay marriage because that is a contradiction in terms. Definitions are essential. Thank you, John Piper, who says, marriage is created and defined by God in the scriptures as the sexual and covenantal union of a man and a woman in lifelong allegiance to each other alone. as husband and wife with a view to displaying Christ's covenant relationship to his blood-bought church. There is no such thing as so-called same-sex marriage, and I exhort you not to call it that. We've got to clean up our language. That's the starting point. What Bobbink is teaching us about the Christian family in terms of the Trinitarian, marital, covenantal, nuptial order of reality and of history and of society is directly relevant to the church's response, analysis of and response to the phenomenon in our culture of homosexual partnerships. But far, far more, by the way, I don't know if any of you have heard of the University of Texas Professor Mark Regnerus. You've got to pray for that man. You've got to pray for that man. He has come out with a study. He's a sociologist. And he's come out with a study documenting and showing how raising children in a home with two men or two women as the parents is disastrous for children, and he is being crucified because of that study. He doesn't quit. He's done another study showing that men's frequent use of pornography alters their worldview by desensitizing their opposition toward homosexuality. We've known for some time that pornography has certain addictive qualities that are physiological, psychological. They're also epistemological, big word, how you know what you know. And the persistent frequent use of pornography, and by the way, that's not a recommendation for infrequent use, but the persistent frequent use of pornography alters worldview. He writes, statistical tests confirm that porn is a very significant predictor of men's support for same-sex marriage, even after controlling for other obvious factors that might influence one's experience, like political affiliation, religiosity, marital status, education, and sexual orientation. Well, I'm not here to talk more about that, but I want to alert you, all of us, to that reality. And if you think that reality is just out there, Folks, it's right in here. It's right in here. And it has to be spoken about. It has to be named. Ministers of the Word, preachers of the Gospel, you need to apply the living Word of God to the life of God's living people in terms about these, using discretion, using care, giving audience, etc., etc. But watch the terminology, but clean it up, and address these issues. By the way, you know, don't you? You would agree with me, wouldn't you? There is no such thing as a single parent family. Who told us there was such a thing as a single parent family? There can be a single parent household. No discussion. But a family consists of a husband and a wife, a father and a mother and a child. By the way, Mayor Bloomberg's problem is not teen pregnancy. Folks, it's called illegitimate childbearing. The rates of which in the African-American community in the United States of America are 75%. Seventy-five percent. And among white Americans, it's bordering on 30%. 30% illegitimacy rate. Let me turn finally to the issue of women in military combat. You recall the notion of fungibility that I explained to you? We have a modern phenomenon known as women in combat. And in this phenomenon, by the way, it has slipped under the radar. It has slipped so fast under the radar, nobody's paying attention to it, nobody's commenting on it. But here we have one of the most radical, one of the most reality-denying, government-sponsored examples of human fungibility that we could ever imagine. Women and men are mutually interchangeable fighting automatons. We have now by law daughters and wives and mothers fighting, killing to preserve the life and liberty of men, husbands, fathers, sons. Sexual differentiation, It's viewed as culturally insignificant, an accidental matter of physiology. In our culture today, with its emphasis incidentally on personhood, and by the way, I think as a Christian community from a deep philosophical metaphysical position, we need to think our thoughts carefully about the definition and understanding of human personhood. Personhood as an idea is of relatively new vintage personhood, individuality. But atomized, isolated persons today are viewed as asexual, their gender having become irrelevant to their function. And all I can do this afternoon without saying any more about this subject is that as Reformed and Presbyterian churches, who are commanded by God to nurture the flock, pasture the sheep, we must address this issue from the scriptures, from the Reformed confessions, for the protection of our daughters and of our mothers and of our wives, and in that connection, for the protection of our sons and our husbands and our fathers. Because if you think that the victories and the encroachments of feminism are simply designed to enhance and uplift women, you are sadly, sadly misinformed and mistaught. Because one of the fundamental chief goals of feminism is not only the elevation of women, it is the destruction of men. And we need to see that. And we need to talk about that in the church from the pulpits with regard to the Word of God being living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, profitable for teaching on this material too. Let me give you some recommendations finally, three of them not listed on the outline. First, the church must recover the Bible's teaching about the covenantal nuptial order of reality and of history. I must tell you that in my reading in preparation for this lecture, I had derived the most help from Roman Catholic theologians, and I know the difference between biblical teaching and Roman Catholic theology, okay? I do. But the Roman Catholics, some of them anyway, have been effectively unfolding, opening up and teaching this matter of the nuptial, marital, covenantal order of reality. We talk a big game when it comes to covenant, don't we? We can get red in the face and loud in the voice when we talk about covenant of works and covenant of grace. What about covenant reality? What about a covenant family? What about a covenant nation? A covenant people? Our children are learning a moral and a social order that is antithetical to the gospel. And the church, and by the church I mean the Christian community now, needs to invest in teaching a moral and social order that is truly foreign to our culture. We laugh perhaps, I don't know if you've lived around or been among, I don't know how many Amish people you know. But I'll tell you one thing, I respect the Amish. I don't agree with them at all. But one thing they've got going is they know how, right wrong reasons, they know how to stand up against the prevailing culture. And I'm really afraid that we don't know how. That we don't know how to stand up against a prevailing culture because it's going to cost us. It's going to cost us in terms of our acceptability, popularity, in terms of a whole lot of stuff. But it is high time that as a Christian community, we are busy creating, producing, and exhibiting an alternative culture in this land where we live. Number two, the church must practice the Bible's teaching about the covenantal nuptial order of reality. I think it is a tragedy beyond words how the phenomenon of divorce and remarriage has innervated and emasculated the church in our generation. And I tell you, young people, for me and for my generation, we've lost that battle. We've surrendered and given it up, being far far too accommodating on the matter of divorce and remarriage. And I plead with you, young people, as a matter of Christian testimony and Christian life, root out that evil which the Bible teaches us God hates divorce. Now be careful. Divorce is not the unpardonable sin. We need not return to attitudes and approaches of former times where divorced people starved for grace, hungered for forgiveness, languished in isolation. We don't need those times back. But the problem I'm talking to you about is the gospel problem. The problem we're encountering in the church betrays a loss of gospel dynamic, a loss of gospel power, a loss of gospel principle, and we are risking losing the gospel's heart. What do I mean? This is what I mean. We must recover both sides of the gospel. Namely, God hates sin and God forgives the penitent sinner. Those are both sides of the gospel. And we must dare to declare both sides of that gospel to ourselves. I am exhausted by the capacity of the evangelical right in this country to say to the world, no, no, no, no, no, wrong, wrong, wrong. But to themselves, God loves you. God wants you. God's warm to you. We've got two messages. One for us and a different one for the world. And we need to put them both back together. But we need to put them both back together first in the church. In the church. where we tell God's people, God hates sin, and God hates divorce, and God hates what's going on in your family if you're not honoring the triune, marital, nuptial, covenantal structure of reality. God hates that, and God forgives it. And in that regard, brothers and sisters, undertake with me today, will you please, for the rest of your life, a project. A project you'll never finish. from which a project you'll never exhaust, but from which you'll become exhausted, and that is meditate on the church. Did you know, you must know, the church of Jesus Christ, the bride of Jesus Christ, is an object not of sight, but of faith. Oh, preachers, don't ever forget that. As you look with your eyes, with your physical eyes at the congregation, I believe a holy, Catholic, Church. I don't see it. I believe it. And I preach to the holy Catholic Church that exists in Jesus Christ and is called and designed to be incarnate in our world today. Face the challenge then of celebrating the church's nuptial identity. The challenge of celebrating her relationship as bride with her bridegroom reflected in biblical marriages among us, but now be careful again, without exalting human marriage, listen to my words, without exalting human marriage in a way that isolates those not married. We need to integrate. We need to assimilate all in the body of Christ, the bride of Christ. Practice familial hospitality as a form of Christian show and tell. I look around, and I see young Christians in the church, and I see people toying with Christianity, and I see people not all that interested with dysfunctional homes. Why? Did you know they don't have family worship? Where are they going to learn it? You know, they don't know what tithing is all about. They can't keep a checkbook to save their money. Where are they going to learn it? Why don't we set up the church in terms of family-centered hospitality as a form of Christian show and tell? Would you like to know how Christian families interact? Come over for dinner. Watch me and my wife. I'm saying that metaphorically. I'm not. Not only do I not want you all in my house, but I'm not that great. That's not what I'm saying. Put yourself in my words, will you? Come to my home. Watch how we do family worship. Watch how Dad interacts with the children. Watch his tenderness, yet firmness. Watch Mother's organizational authority in the home. Come and see what the Gospel does in terms of the restoration of the Imago Dei, the nuptial, marital, covenantal Imago Dei in our life, in our homes, in our church. Join me, will you, in prayer. Father in heaven, anoint, sanctify, and bless our passion for you. the words, the ideas, the truths, whereby we seek to glorify your name, edify your people, and testify to a watching world. Oh, Father, we pray for the grace to make every day count, every conversation count, Every opportunity count as show-and-tell opportunities that we may display and demonstrate the power of grace, the fruit of the gospel, even our Lord Jesus Christ. In His name we pray, amen.