Can Calvinists Love Their Enemies?

A few weeks ago, in a discussion on Facebook, it was suggested to me that we should have no qualms about killing our enemies if they are God's enemies, that we cannot wish good upon them if God intends judgment on them.  A Calvinist, in short, cannot genuinely love his enemies if they are real bad guys.  I have encountered the same argument elsewhere, and certainly, it has some prima facie plausibility.  If we believe that God has already pronounced an irreversible verdict of judgment on the wicked, then who are we to second-guess that judgment?  Perhaps we are not normally called to be the agents of this judgment, to be Israelite holy warriors (though there is really no reason why the logic should not go in this direction), but if we find ourselves in a legitimate position to enact such judgment—in a courtroom, a situation of war, or a moment of self-defence—we should have no qualms about the death of the wicked, but rather, should rejoice at the opportunity to be co-workers with God, to be the means by which he has enacted his righteous sentence against the wicked.  

But doesn't Jesus lament over Jerusalem?  Doesn't Jesus pray for God to forgive his killers?  My interlocutor quoted Calvin to me on this point: "It is probable, however, that Christ did not pray for all indiscriminately, but only for the wretched multitude, who were carried away by inconsiderate zeal, and not by premeditated wickedness. For since the scribes and priests were persons in regard to whom no ground was left for hope, it would have been in vain for him to pray for them."  Well, that cements it then, doesn't it?  Calvin himself says that there's no reason to pray for those who are damned anyway, and that even Jesus wouldn't do so.  Is it possible then to be a Calvinist and to still take seriously the command to "bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse"?

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"Even Your Own Deed Also": Law and Corporate Moral Agency

How can we be free even in the midst of obedience to laws with which we do not agree?  In a recent post, I expored the conundrum of law and liberty in the Reformation, and how we might be free even in submission to law when we recognize that obeying the law is a means of loving the neighbor.  Hooker, in seeking to persuade Puritan consciences that the laws of the English church were edifying, rational, and had in their favor the approval of centuries of church practice, and of the wisest among the Church of his own day, seems to be smoothing the way for such a free and voluntary law-obedience:

“Surely if we have unto those laws that dutifull regard which their dignitie doth require: it will not greatly need, that we should be exhorted to live in obedience unto them . . . . The safest and unto God the most acceptable way of framing our lives therefore is, with all humilitie lowlines and singlens of hart to studie, which way our willing obedience both unto God and man may be yeelded even to the utmost of that which is due” (III.9.3). 

Nonetheless, what about when we don't think the laws in question are edifying and rational?  What about when we, and others, heartily disagree with the decisions taken by those in authority?  Given the breadth and depth of the Puritan protest, it seems a bit audacious for Hooker to declare, “To them which aske why we thus hange our judgmentes on the Churches sleeve, I answer with Salomon, because two are better then one. . . . The bare consent of the whole Church should it selfe in these thinges stop theire mouthes who livinge under it dare presume to barke against it.”  After all, the “consent of the whole church” was precisely what was lacking

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Believing Away What is Seen

Excerpts from a mesmerizing passage of the discourse "Love Hides a Multitude of Sins" in Kierkegaard's Works of Love:

"Just as one by faith believes the unseen into what is seen, so the one who loves by forgiveness believes away what is seen. Both are faith. Blessed is the believer, he believes what he cannot see; blessed is the one who loves, he believes away that which he indeed can see!

. . . We do not say this as if a person should become self-important by having in his power the ability to forgive another—far from it, because this also is unloving. Indeed, there is a way of forgiving that discernibly and conspicuously increases the guilt instead of diminishing it. Only love has—yes, it seems so jesting, but let us say it this way—only love has sufficient dexterity to take away the sin by means of forgiveness. If I encumber forgiveness (that is, I am reluctant to forgive or make myself important by being able to forgive), no miracle happens. But when love forgives, the miracle of faith happens . . . that what is seen is, by being forgiven, not seen.

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Justice Against the Oppressor--What to do with Imprecatory Psalms

Another gem of a passage from Bauckham's The Bible in Politics, offering perhaps the most satisfactory discussion of the issue of imprecatory psalms and forgiving enemies that I have yet read:

"The oppressed Christian who discovers Jesus' solidarity with him must take account of one respect in which Jesus in his suffering prayed differently from the way the psalmists prayed.  Jesus prayed for his enemies' forgiveness (Luke 23:34), thus practising his own teaching (Matt. 5:44).  The psalmists never did this: their attitude to their enemies is consistently unforgiving.  They pray for God's judgement on their enemies (Ps. 10:2b, 15), sometimes in the form of solemn and extensive curses (Ps. 69:22-8; 109:6-20).  But such prayers are not unknown in the New Testament (Rev. 6:10).  They need to be accorded a kind of provisional validity, which does not excuse any Christian from the duty of forgiving enemies, but does help us to understand what is really involved in forgiveness.  Jesus' demand for forgiveness of enemies does not, we might say, simply revoke these prayers, but takes a step further beyond them.  We have to appreciate what is valid about them before we can rightly take, as followers of Jesus must take, that further step.  

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My Song is Love Unknown

For the past several years on Good Friday, I have posted the text of Peter Leithart's incredible Good Friday homily of 2006--"Christ and Him Crucified."  There may finally be a homily to surpass it, however, Toby Sumpter's Good Friday homily of last year, "My Song is Love Unknown."  And as Leithart's homily has now found a home at a rather bigger and better blog, I thought I would share Toby's this year (or you can hear him preach it here).

God is love. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are eternally Love. This God of love, this God who is love has overflowed. This Triune God does not cease to love but eternally overflows. He is the surplus of love, the excess of love, the triumph of love.

God is the Lover par excellence. And His love is fierce, undaunted, jealous, comprehensive, and unabashed.

We say, “I love you.” And we don’t understand what we are saying. I say, I love you, honey. I love you, son. I love you, dear. And I am quite literally out of my mind. What am I am saying? What do I mean?

How does our God love? How does the Father love the Son, love the Spirit; Son love the Father, love the Spirit; Spirit love the Father, love the Son.  How? And how do we take that glory upon our lips? How do we sing that? How do we imitate that? How have we been embraced by that?

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