How do you spend your time? Do you spend it wisely for the Lord and eternity or waste it on trivial and meaningless things? As the next most precious thing to life itself, how we spend our time speaks volumes about us.
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In English we have a phrase ‘redeem the time.’ It comes from Ephesians 5:16 (c.f. Colossians 4:5, “Making the best use of the time”). It is a command of the Lord’s. To redeem means to buy out of the market (i.e. to purchase a slave), or more simply to rescue. Time means not quantitative chronological time but qualitative time like an opportune moment, critical juncture or a strategic period. Because the “days are evil” to walk in wisdom means not to waste our time in sin or meaningless activities.  These are dead ends. To redeem the time means to spend our time in ways that honour the Lord, have eternal significance, help others and enrich our lives. We redeem the time by putting the Lord first in our week (the Lord’s Day), prioritizing His will in our lives (“seek ye first” Mt 6:33), doing all that we do out of a biblically and prayerfully rooted life, being productive (Christian work ethic), planning out our weeks, engaging in wholesome and meaningful activities, etc.

Two giants of church history and the evangelical revival stand out to inform and inspire us.

Jonathan Edwards (1703–58)
Evangelical minister of Northampton, MA. He not only witnesses and was part of revival but through his prolific writings helped to spread revival.

Early in his ministry he crafted his 71 Resolutions, which reveal a Puritan-evangelical piety.  One is to “Never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.”[1]

William Wilberforce (1759–1833)
Evangelical Anglican and Parliamentary abolitionist of slavery.

Saved from a wasteful life Wilberforce went on to say in his best selling book, Real Christianity (1797), "No man has a right to be idle. Where is it that in such a world as this, that health, and leisure, and affluence may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate?" He devoted himself to two great aims, “the abolition of slavery and the reformation of manners [the Gospel]” In the 1790s he kept a ledger in which he noted how he spent his time. If he wasted 15 minutes in a day he would lament![2]

God calls us to redeem the time. Will we heed his call?


[1] George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards (2003), 51; Edwards, J., The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1, Banner of Truth Trust, 1974, lxii.

[2] This may give the impression that rest is wasteful, but this couldn’t be further from the true. Both men remembered the Sabbath day and took restful delight in many other areas of life. It does mean that they were intentional about how they incorporated rest into life, it was meaningful rest vs. pure amusement (amuser in French means to not think). 

In ‘Almost Dutch pt. I’ I reviewed the doctrinal standards of the Dutch reformed churches called the Three Forms of Unity. I noted that—doctrinally—I was almost Dutch because of my general approval of the Three Forms. However, there is one major difference and that is that I am an English Baptist.

Apart from a mild discrepancy with ministers vs. elders[1] my main critique of the Three Forms is infant baptism and correspondingly the nature of saving faith.

1.Baptism
For other blogs on baptism click here. For a worksheet on baptism click here.
It should come as no surprise that a convictional Baptist would take umbrage with infant baptism. This is address in Belgic Confession ch. 34 to which I take the following exceptions:

1. While the washing of water is a biblical symbol (1 Pet 3:21) it is not the predominant one, which is the death, burial and resurrection of Christ (Ro 6:3–5); clearly not something infant baptism or affusion (pouring) can identify with.
2. Old Testament circumcision cannot be likened to the New Covenant sacrament of baptism because every covenant has unique signs. The New Covenant is kainos new (i.e. a new invention) and not neos new (a brand-new car). The new sign of baptism befits the New Covenant, which is not a mixed covenant (believers and unbelievers) like the Old Covenant but one of believers only.
3. It is not adult baptism but believer’s baptism by immersion; something a child can experience if they demonstrate saving faith.
4. Using the Old Testament metaphor, Paul does speak of the circumcision of the heart, however, this is not in reference to baptism

Baptism is also addressed in the Heidelberg Catechism Q. 74, to which I take the following exceptions:

1. The same inter-covenantal and child-adult confusion as in the above.
2. While the children of believers are part of the visible church community by association, to join the Church is to be believe and be baptized, something which infants cannot yet do.

              

1. Saving Faith.

While the Three Forms defines saving faith splendidly,[2] what is said on paper and done in practice can differ greatly. When a child that has been baptized—usually as a teenager—wishes to move from child membership to full communicant membership and the ability to take communion they must confirm the baptismal vows made at their infant baptism in public (called Confirmation or Public Profession of Faith). In other words, they must accept personal responsibility for their faith. This is done through learning the catechism, being interviewed by the elders, making their vows and then receiving communion. While under the hands of an evangelical and discerning minister/elders this can be a useful process, I have often witnessed this being done culturally or nominally with the end result being unregenerate church members who rest in their baptism, public profession and orthodoxy (head knowledge) vs. personal saving faith in Christ as expressed in believer’s baptism by immersion.  
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I have great appreciation for Dutch culture and the Three Forms generally, however, as a Baptist I see these two points are great vulnerabilities.


[1] I see elders as being co-equal, and the man whom we may refer to as minister or pastor being a first among equals.

[2] Belgic ch. 22; Heidelberg, Q 21. 

*This blog is part of an annual series I do that explores a facet of Christ’s atonement that we remember every Good Friday.

God’s Justice
God, the King, is a great Lawgiver and Judge. His moral law is summarized in the 10 commandments or the Great Commandment. Because He is perfect, His Law is perfect. Because He is eternal, His law is weighty. The penalty of breaking God’s Law was death (Gen 2:15).

Our Injustice
God required of Adam perfect obedience to His Covenant and Law (Gen 2:15). However, Adam broke God’s Law (Gen 3), and as our representative, placed all of mankind under God’s just judgement for sin, which is death. This is why we are spiritually dead and physically dying. Not only do we inherit Adam’s guilt (Ro 5) but we all, daily, in our thoughts, words and deed, break God’s Law—we coopt into sin every day (Ro 3:23; Ro 6:23a). Try as we may to satisfy or meet the Law’s demands, we’ve broken it and in our sinfulness can do nothing worthy of satisfying it (Isa 64:6). As the hymn writer, Augustus Toplady, wrote, “Not the labours of our hands, can fulfill the law’s demands.” As a result, humans are without hope staring down an eternal death sentence.

God’s Justification
While God would have been perfectly just to sentence us to death, in His great kindness He offered His Son to do the work of satisfaction that sinners could not do so that we might be forgiven and know life.

On the Cross Jesus said, “It is finished!” (Jn 19:30). What is ‘it’? What is ‘finished’? ‘It’ refers to Christ’s work of satisfaction and ‘finished’ refers to its completion or being satisfied. Remember, mankind is under God’s just sentence of death because of our lawlessness.

Christ satisfied the Law’s demands by dying a sinner’s death. He ‘fulfilled the Law’s demands.’ He did this positively by living the perfect life (so that His righteousness might be applied to us) but also passively by dying the perfect death. Jesus satisfied or expiated[1] God’s justice.  In theology this is called penal satisfaction or expiation.

This is clearly seen in Mk 10:45, which says Jesus, ‘gave His life as a ransom for many.’ Jesus offered a ransom (payment) to the Father to satisfy divine justice. The old Baptist confession says, ‘[He] has fully satisfied the justice of God.’ (1689.8.5). So perfectly did Jesus’s merits do this that there is an abundance of His merits to share. Another old confession says,  ‘This death of God’s Son is the only and entirely complete sacrifice and satisfaction for sins; it is of infinite value and worth, more than sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world.’ (Dort 2.3.). The Bible refers to this as ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ’ (Eph 2:8–9) or the treasury of Christ. This gift is freely offered to sinners (Ro 6:23b).
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Our Justification
How can we receive these riches so that we may be justified? By repentance and faith or turning and trusting (Mk 1:15). We must call upon the name of the Lord—casting ourselves upon His mercy in faith—in order to be saved. To be saved from the penalty of sin means to be justified (declared just vs. unjust). This we must do by faith (Gal 2:16).  In justification the merit of our sin is credited (or imputed) to Christ’s account; and Christ’s justness is credited to our account. This is called the ‘sweet exchange.,’ the result of which is that we are no longer under the sentence of death and so forgiven to know life!


[1] Expiation means a payment that rescues from a penalty; or removes the guilt of sin through punishment.