Understanding the
Times 2003
By Derek Thomas
12/3/2003
The
Intolerance of Liberalism
There comes a point in life where you think you’ve heard
everything, but there’s something quirky waiting around the corner. I’m in the
United Kingdom once more and was struck by a headline in the newspaper: "Red
Cross shops ban nativity Christmas symbols." The British Red Cross has
banned the use of all nativity symbols in its 392 shops this year. Anything
depicting Joseph and Mary, the baby Jesus, the three wise men, or even the word
"Christmas" has been banned whether on Christmas cards or advent calendars. What
may be allowed are generic cards depicting Dickensian snowy scenes bearing the
message, "Season’s Greetings."
What lies behind this farcical piece of political correction is the offense that such blatant portrayal of Christianity might cause to Muslims and other minority faiths. Yes, you may be scratching your head and wondering, how can an organization that itself bears a logo of a cross, ban symbols identifying Christianity? Leaders of the Muslim and Jewish community have responded with embarrassment at this absurdity. A spokesman (spokesperson, that should be) commented, denying that the Red Cross is a Christian organization.
What this nonsense highlights, once again, is the repressive tendencies of political correctness. In its zeal for non-offense, liberalism in all its forms becomes intolerant. In a desire to appease, it becomes despotic. The views of the few become the arbiter of the many. Social policy is decided by the ethic of non-offense. But I am offended by this. As part of a minority, I am offended by pornography on television, and the use of Jesus’ name as an expletive in almost every drama, and abortion on demand. Come to think of it, I’m offended that Harry Potter holds the number one slot in the recent Best 100 Books survey! I’m offended that classical CDs are always shunted off to the back of music stores. And I’m particularly offended by socialist propaganda. But is anyone listening to my concerns?
The idiocy of social policy based on non-offense is obvious to anyone who thinks about it. But thinking is not the issue. It is prejudice—prejudice of the most intolerant and focused kind. Humanistic ideology knows no bounds when it comes to legislating against intolerance—it does so in the most intolerant way.
And while I’m thinking about it, I am offended by Nativity scenes in the front yard with Santa Claus looking on! Now that should be banned!
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11/26/2003
ELECTION—A
Presbyterian Obsession?
In preaching on election recently, just at the point where the word
"predestination" emerged from my mouth, an entire row of people got up and left!
There may, of course, have been a perfectly good reason for it; but I couldn’t
help thinking at the time, "The Arminians are unhappy!"
Few things raise blood pressure like discussions on election! And many folk who inquire about election have already formed their opinions. The doctrine cannot possibly be true. It kills evangelism. It makes God into a tyrant. It robs us of free will.
Briefly, what can we say to this?
1. It cannot be denied (not in any reasonable way, anyhow) that the Bible teaches election. Neither can it be denied that God in His wisdom only provided us with one Bible. We simply do not have one Bible for Christians (the discerning and intelligent who can handle difficult things like election) and another Bible for unbelievers and young Christians (for whom any talk about election is going to confuse from the start). Paul writes about election in every letter and in most of them he is quite specific about it. (Look up such passages as: Rom.8:28-11:36; Eph.1:3-14; Col.3:12; 1 Cor.1:26-31; 2 Thess. 2:13-14; 2 Tim.1:9-10.)
2. Election is something that invokes very practical responses from believers: praise (Eph.1:3ff), assurance (Rom.8:28f), and (from Colossians 3:12) compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Of special significance, Paul urges Timothy to evangelism on the basis that God has saved him through election (2 Tim.1:8-10)! Far from being a dangerous doctrine that at best is only fit for private discussion, Paul sees its value for practical Christian living.
3. The Bible presents our salvation as a work of God from beginning to end. Everything about it is a matter of free and unconditional grace. It begins with the Divine choice of God. Even faith is a gift of God (Eph.2:8). Election is the first moving of God’s grace in the matter of our salvation. It tells us that we have to thank, not ourselves for the courage and the ability to believe the gospel, but God for His decree to save us.
4. Jesus preached election (see, Lk.18:7; Matt.24:22; Mk.13:26,27). Who are we to say that we are wiser than Christ?
5. The word "foreknow" in Romans 8:29 (and again in 1 Pet.1:2) does not mean (as is often stated) that God chose those whom he knew in advance would believe. The Greek word proginosko means "to fix attention upon beforehand." It is not what God knows but who God knows that is before us here.
6. If there is no election, then there is no hope! For consider the implication of the Bible’s assessment of the natural man: dead in sin (Eph.2:1), unwilling to accept spiritual things (1 Cor.2:14), having a conscience that is insensitive to God’s voice (Eph. 4:18f), perverse and ungodly (Rom.5:6). Moreover, the unbeliever cannot by himself believe (Rom.8:7). When God commands unbelievers to repent and believe in his Son they are unable to do so until they are given new hearts (cf. Jn.3:5; 6:44; 1 Cor. 2:14). When you and I give thanks for our salvation, do we thank ourselves for having the ability to believe or do we thank God for enabling us to believe? The answer to this question will take us a long way to accepting the validity of election as the only grounds upon which we can be saved at all.
7. So, why evangelize? Why do we bother? The answer lies along these lines: that God has told us to do so, and that God’s way of saving his elect is by our going and telling them of His love for sinners shown in His Son Jesus Christ. It is always right to obey God, even when we don’t fully understand all the reasons for it.
By the way, that’s what Calvin said in his Institutes: "...to desire any other knowledge of predestination than that which is expounded by the word of God, is no less infatuated than to walk where there is not path, or to seek light in darkness..." (III.xxi.1)
Predestination (which is but the doctrine of election applied to
the much larger scope of God controlling all things) ought not to
frighten anyone. It is a truth which Christians in particular come to love and
cherish. When entering the door of salvation they are aware, to cite Bunyan, of
a sign which says "Whosoever will may come." But as soon as they pass through
they see another one on the other side of the door which reads: "Chosen in Him
before the foundation of the world." And to find fault with this, to raise a
fist at the Almighty and question His right to do it, as
the Bible predicts some doing (Rom.9:11-21), is decidedly unwise
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
11/4/2003
I’ve been reading a book called, Is
God to Blame? Beyond Pat Answers to the Problem of Suffering,1 written
by Gregory A. Boyd. Boyd has been making quite a name for himself of late, as
one of the chief exponents of the "Openness of God" view—the view
that, well to put it simply, suggests that God doesn’t "know" the
future and therefore doesn’t "predetermine" it. It purports to be
new (it isn’t), and a way of answering the "problem" of evil (it
doesn’t).
This is a really bad book, and like many bad books it probably will be popular, even among those who should know better.
Boyd is unhappy with the Augustinian view that everything that happens is the result of God’s decree. Nor, of course, is he alone in this antipathy to divine foreordination. Here’s the issue: are we to say, in answer to some horrendous tragedy, that it happened because God willed it to happen? Those who reply in the affirmative, Boyd insists, make God into a monster: a sovereign, unquestionable being who, to cite his opening illustration of a woman whose baby died in childbirth, kills babies.
When bad things happen, God has nothing to do with it, is Boyd’s (admittedly empathetic and quasi-sophisticated) response. Yes, stifle the urge to say that we’ve heard this before in what was another best-seller! This view is influenced by "Hellenistic philosophy," he says—a point which he keeps asserting until the mantra becomes a little tiresome.
Space doesn’t allow a full response here (but I’m working on it). Suffice it to say that Boyd must tackle some difficult passages of Scripture which appear to deny his view. One that caught my interest was his chapter on the suffering of Job (chapter 4). Why did Job suffer? His friends’ answer was that it was Job’s fault (something which the book is at pains to say is not the case). Job himself blames God, something which Boyd also denies. Interestingly, in over fifty references to Job, he does not cite Job’s reply to his own wife’s question, "Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?" (Job 2:10). This would appear to be an appropriate answer, and one that has comforted thousands of Christians through the ages.
What, then, is the answer? Chaos theory! Things happen because, well, they just do. In the extraordinary complicated interrelation of events in a fallen world where Satan prowls, things are complicated—so complicated that they become unfathomable. Bad things happen because life is a mystery and our finite minds can’t get around all the nuances.
In one sense, Boyd is correct. But here’s his reasoning: things do happen, including bad things, because we live in a fallen world. They happen to us rather than someone else because, well, it’s just the "luck of the draw." There is no divine superintendence, no overruling hand upon the tiller, no foreknowledge that orders the end from the beginning and ensures that a definite outcome will eventuate.
For Boyd, there is no divine foreknowledge. God is subject to "mystery" of chaos theory, too! There are no guarantees of a good outcome, because there are no guarantees. All those promises of God are just softly spoken words that carry no ultimate meaning. There is no guarantee of salvation, no guarantee that anybody will be saved, no guarantee that one soul will make it through the expanse to the other side.
When bad things happen, we are meant to be reassured by the notion that they happen to God, too. And maybe that will help us.
And if Boyd is right, this poor woman who has lost her child is to be comforted by the thought that she was a victim of some inexplicable combination of forces beyond her control and ability to fathom. The comfort is in knowing that even God Himself is helpless, impotent, finite in knowledge, power and will. A "God" curiously like ourselves. And that’s its problem.
The issue of primary and secondary causality apart (and the Reformed tradition has carefully distinguished the two), if God cannot be credited with oversight when bad things happen, why is it possible to applaud Him when good things happen? The attribution or denial of sovereignty cuts both ways. If God’s lack of knowledge of the future hampers Him in overruling evil things (and God is not therefore the ultimate power in the universe), why should I draw any assurance from Paul’s words that God works all things for our good (Rom. 8:28ff)?
If I am forced to choose between Boyd and Job on this issue, I will flee to Job every time!
Have you, I wonder, begun to appreciate that? That if you are ever to be saved, it must be by the operation of God’s grace (power) in your life! His word needs to be applied to your heart (by the Holy Spirit) in order to create in you a sense of need—a need of forgiveness, a need of mercy, a need of Him! You need to be quickened; a work of regeneration needs to occur in your heart, causing a spark of divine life to emerge in your soul. Has this occurred to you?
Have you told him of your hopeless, helpless condition! Have you acknowledged that there is no way out of this predicament unless God is pleased to rescue you? Tell him you desire to hear his word of pardon! Tell him that general revelation—that revelation that comes from creation and providence—is not enough! Looking at Mars in its orange splendor is a wonder to be sure, but it will not save a guilty soul. Tell him that what you need is his word, his assurance, his personal corroboration that there is a way for a sinner to be pardoned. And he will tell you to look to the Scriptures! He will tell you to read Matthew 11:28-30, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
And come to him—to Jesus Christ—in repentance and faith. Turn from your sin and trust in the Savior as he is offered to you in the gospel. And what assurance does he give? This: "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out" (John 6:37).
And what then? Then, after you have come to Jesus Christ and rested upon Him for your salvation, I will tell you that God did it! He enabled you to do it. Without his working, you would never have come, never have believed, never have rested in Jesus Christ.
Thus, our Confession states:
‘All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, He is pleased, in His appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by His Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation, by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by His almighty power determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace.’ (Westminster Confession of Faith 10:1)
Let Spurgeon have the last word.
"I once attended a service where the text happened to be, ‘He shall choose our inheritance for us;’ and the good man who occupied the pulpit was more than a little of an Arminian. Therefore, when he commenced, he said, ‘This passage refers entirely to our temporal inheritance, it has nothing whatever to do with our everlasting destiny, for,’ said he, ‘we do not want Christ to choose for us in the matter of Heaven or hell. It is so plain and easy, that every man who has a grain of common sense will choose Heaven, and any person would know better than to choose hell. We have no need of any superior intelligence, or any greater Being, to choose Heaven or hell for us. It is left to our own free-will, and we have enough wisdom given us, sufficiently correct means to judge for ourselves,’ and therefore, as he very logically inferred, there was no necessity for Jesus Christ, or ourselves, to make a choice for us. We could choose the inheritance for ourselves without any assistance. ‘Ah!’ I thought, ‘but my good brother, it may be very true that we could, but I think we should want something more than common sense before we should choose aright.’ "
I’ve been looking at the stars again. They tell us that Mars is closer to earth now than it has been for 60,000 years. Even so, Mars is still 35 million miles away. And that’s a long way! I’ve told myself, if I miss this, there’s no "second chance"!
Mars appears as a bright orange object in the sky and this past week or so has been the brightest thing up there (apart from the Moon, of course). I’m certain that the fine observatory at French Camp will have enviable close-ups. For my part, I will have to make do with my considerably inferior telescope. The Hubble telescope is taking pictures too. One shows what looks like a polar ice-cap. Another shows the Hellas Basin. The pictures are breathtaking.
As I write four space craft are on their way to Mars, two American, one European and one Japanese. One significantly called "Mars Express" has traveled 24 million miles and is barely half way there.
All the same, it is worth seeing. What is it the psalmist said? "When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?" (Psa. 8:3).
There’s nothing like looking at the stars to remind ourselves of just how small we are, of how immense a thing it is that God should care for us enough to redeem us through the death of his Son.
I have always a thing for the stars. I built a telescope in my physics class as a "senior high" and went to study physics and mathematics at university.
And my love of Star Trek prompts in me the age old –question, "Is there life on other planets?" How does a theologian respond to that question? What if intelligent life were to be discovered, would this call into question the Christian faith in some way? Would it theoretically be possible for an unfallen race of beings to exist in some other part of the universe? That such creatures exist somewhere is beyond question: unfallen angels and archangels live somewhere! The idea is not that alien to Christianity. One thing is for sure: Christian theology has had to learn the hard way in pontificating that something "cannot be possible" only to find that it is—think of the church’s condemnation of Copernicus’ heliocentric solar system.
Star gazing must have been a pastime of the author of the book of Job seeing that many constellations are referred to—Orion, Ursa Major and Pleiades (cf. Job 38:32). They tell us nothing of the future. Astrology is a man-made idol, one more attempt on man’s part to turn that "which is made" into a god to be worshipped (cf. Rom. 1:18-23; Deut. 4:19). But there is a right way to view the stars: with wonder, with inquisitiveness, with gratitude, with worship—not of the stars but of God who made them all, including the mysterious "red planet."
This week, if these storm clouds ever move away (!) I will take
out my telescope once again and try, if only for a few seconds, catch a glimpse
of this magnificent planet and wonder, what exactly did God put on it? It is
right to wonder such things. It is part of the way we reflect his image.
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8/28/2003
August 14, 2003
The Church and the "Gay" Lifestyle - 1 &2
Recently the United States Supreme Court decided that the outlawing of sodomy by the state of Texas is unconstitutional. In Britain a storm is brewing over the appointment of an openly gay minister of the Church of England as Bishop of Reading. The recently installed Archbishop of Canterbury, Roman Williams, declared his willingness to recognize gay ministers at the time of his appointment. The Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Rt. Rev. Prof. Iain Torrance, weighed in by adding that he was "utterly untroubled" by the ordination of homosexuals provided that they proved "disciplined and effective" ministers. This, incidentally, is a shift from an earlier pronouncement he made some seven years ago. In June 2002, the synod of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster authorized its bishop to produce a service for blessing same-sex unions, to be used in any parish of the diocese that requests it. A number of synod members walked out to protest the decision (including J.I. Packer). They declared themselves out of communion with the bishop and the synod, and they appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Anglican primates and bishops for help. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.
There are many issues involved here, not least the role of the secular state in legislating public and private morality. We’ll leave that aside for now and address instead the church’s response to homosexuality. And here, it is necessary to begin with Scripture. Why? Simply because our response to this issue will define for sure our commitment to the Word of God. It is impossible to assert an infallible Bible and a tolerance of gay relationships. And why is that? Answer: Because Scripture is unequivocal on the matter. Take the following statement by Paul in 1 Corinthians:
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God (6:9–11, ESV).
This seems clear enough and only those with selective adherence to the Bible (rejecting those parts, such as this one, which reveal socially outmoded world-views) can side step its implications. It is speaking of lifestyles and behavior patterns (the two words translated "men who practice homosexuality," arsenokotai and malakoi, are graphic terms) rather than a single lapse followed by repentance, forgiveness, and greater watchfulness. Paul is addressing a situation not at all dissimilar to that of our own day. The church at Corinth was confronting enormous pressure to conform to the accepted social mores of the day.
I say this because the current acceptance of homosexual lifestyle, with "positive" role models, is adding a similar pressure upon us. Most prime-time TV shows now have the obligatory gay character, often displaying a more "favorable" character. This brings great pressure upon some, particularly confused and impressionable young people; and the church must be sensitive to this. There is forgiveness for the repentant, and Paul’s affirmation that some of the Corinthian Christians had been homosexuals (note the words in verse 11, "and such were some of you"—"were" not "are") underlines how broad the church’s acceptance of genuine repentance must be. This is not to make light of the sin; on the contrary, the sin is grave indeed, but it is to recognize a truth that many might be reluctant to admit exists, and that for all kinds of reasons: that some struggle here, and increasingly so as society at large tolerates (even encourages) free expression. It is in the interests of the gay Christian lobby to inflate numbers here, but the numbers are probably higher than we imagine or dare think. The church must, on the one hand, insist on the need for self-discipline, constant vigilance, and a life of opposition to homosexual urges, and, on the other hand, keep the door wide open for those who call upon the Holy Spirit’s help to live chaste lives in "sexual purity" (Col. 3:5).
Outside of repentance (and a lifetime’s commitment to say "No" to homosexual desires), Paul offers no possibility of forgiveness—no possibility of salvation! The truth is as stark and sobering as that.
For most of us Bible-believing and trusting evangelicals, the nagging question again and again is, "How in the world can an evangelical claim to be a practicing homosexual and still maintain a commitment to the Bible?" How indeed!
Last time in this column I raised the pertinent issue as to how an evangelical can be a practicing homosexual. No one should be surprised by the liberal church’s ability to engage in selectivity as regards the authority of Scripture. But what has emerged over the past 25 years, in the western world especially, is the discovery of a device that can deal with any and every problem regarding Scripture’s message and its relationship to contemporary social values. It is a catch-all term that, at once, renders all counter arguments redundant: that’s just your interpretation!
If I had a cent for every time I’ve heard that phrase used! It’s extremely powerful, if not terribly sophisticated. There’s just no arguing with it. Right! I do have my own interpretation of what Paul says; and John has his, and Jane has hers. And they are all different! And post-modernity embraces this dilemma with open arms. Truth, according to this view, is as slippery a concept as Pilate surmised two millennia ago.
Specifically, this "view" has a more recent pedigree, going back to the Enlightenment’s trust in human reason, and the evolutionary idea that each generation’s opinions are wiser than the past, and specifically to 1941 and an essay by Rudolf Bultmann on the need to demythologize the Scriptures, and to the rise of Karl Barth’s subjective hermeneutics whereby the Bible says different things to different people at different times. What Paul said was "true" for his day, perhaps, but to apply it in the same way to our day is just plain silly. We know better than Paul. What Paul said still contains some truth; it just needs to be understood a little differently. This is how evangelicals can argue for women’s ordination to preaching ministry. It is but a small step to legitimizing same-sex unions.
What this does, of course, is to view biblical authority in a radically different way. The rules of grammatical-historical interpretation (where meaning is tied to the definition of words and their relationship to each other according to rules of grammar and syntax) are outmoded. Instead, "meaning" is more slippery and is a combination of nuance, personal prejudice, and existential revelation. The Bible’s meaning changes with time and location. There is no longer one defined meaning (making, by the way, commentaries on books of the Bible superfluous in the end and hence the modern Bible-study syndrome where the most ignorant may have a valid idea, usually beginning with the phrase, "I like to think of it this way").
All this is to say that the evangelical’s acceptance of same-sex unions betrays a deeper abandonment of a historic commitment to the Bible’s authority, especially when it comes to moral issues.
John Stott continues to write in opposition to same-sex unions. At a recent gathering of Anglicans, he had this to say:
"We have to say to church leaders, bishops, archbishops and others, that whatever their position of influence in the Church, that they have no authority to disagree with Jesus Christ. Is the church the Lord of Jesus Christ so that it can edit and twist and manipulate his teachings and reject what it doesn’t happen to like? Or is Jesus Christ the Lord of the Church where we sit humbly at his feet listening to his voice with a view to obeying it?"
That is it exactly! The issue is the Lordship of Jesus Christ exercised through the authority of Scripture as God’s infallible Word. In this light, marriage is a committed, lifelong, monogamous, heterosexual, and loving union between a man and a woman and the only God-given context for sexual union and intimacy. And nothing can take its place: not cohabitation, not homosexuality.
In the end, it is simply a matter of obedience to the pattern of godliness laid down by Jesus Christ.
******
6/18/2003
"A Brand Plucked from the Burning"
By Derek Thomas
In late 1735, a ship made its way to the New World from England. On board was a young Anglican minister, John Wesley, who had been invited to serve as a pastor to British colonists in Savannah, Georgia. When the weather went sour, the ship found itself in serious trouble. Wesley, also chaplain of the vessel, feared for his life.
He noticed that the group of German Moravians, who were on their way to preach to American Indians, were not afraid at all. In fact, throughout the storm, they sang calmly. When the trip ended, he asked the Moravian leader about his serenity, and the Moravian responded with a question: Did he, Wesley, have faith in Christ? Wesley said he did, but later reflected, "I fear they were vain words."
This month (June 2003) is the 300th anniversary of the birth of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. He was one of nineteen (19!) children born to Samuel and Susanna Wesley in Epworth, Sussex.
We (Presbyterians!) remember him mostly for his dislike of the doctrines of predestination and particular (or limited) atonement. His letters and discussion with George Whitefield were hugely vitriolic at this point. But this is somewhat unfair, for as Whitefield himself acknowledged, Wesley was an extraordinary man both in terms of his personal piety and his commitment to evangelize the lost.
For all their disagreements, George Whitefield and the two Wesleys, John and his brother Charles, were to remain close friends and allies. When their disagreement had been sharpest concerning predestination, Wesley was asked if he expected to behold Whitefield on the final Day. "I fear not," John had replied, "for George will be so much nearer the throne of grace." John Wesley preached at Whitefield’s memorial service.
On February 9, 1709 (at the age of 5) John (then known as Jacky) awoke to find the house he lived in on fire. His father had rescued his brothers and sisters but had failed to get Jacky, the stairs to his bedroom having collapsed in the fire. His father had presumed him dead and knelt, apparently in the burning house, committing his son to the Lord. Jacky, however, had managed to make his way to the window ledge and neighbors had managed to catch him. On the same day, forty one years later in 1750, when John was preaching in London, he recounted the story once more to his assembled congregation, adding in comment of this occasion, "The voice of praise and thanksgiving went upon high, and great was our rejoicing before the Lord."
Wesley attended Oxford, proved to be a fine scholar, and was soon ordained into the Anglican ministry. At Oxford, he joined a society (founded by his brother Charles) whose members took vows to lead holy lives, take Communion once a week, pray daily, and visit prisons regularly. In addition, they spent three hours every afternoon studying the Bible and other devotional material.
From this "holy club" (as fellow students mockingly called it), Wesley sailed to Georgia to pastor. His experience proved to be a failure. A woman he courted in Savannah married another man. When he tried to enforce the disciplines of the "holy club" on his church, the congregation rebelled. Wesley returned to England.
After speaking with another Moravian, Peter Boehler, Wesley concluded that he lacked saving faith. Then came the famous experience at Aldersgate Street, on May 24, 1738:
"In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."
It was at this time that another former member of the "holy club," George Whitefield, saw the blessing of God upon his preaching in Bristol. Hundreds of working-class poor, oppressed by industrializing England and neglected by the church, were converted. Whitefield needed help! And it was John Wesley (reluctantly at first) who responded.
Wesley soon became the leader of this "movement." Wesley’s followers first met in private home societies, and later in classes. They met weekly to pray, read the Bible, discuss their spiritual lives, and to collect money for charity. It was the seed of what would become the Methodist movement. "I look upon the whole world as my parish" he once said.
Readers of The First Epistle may be interested in a book on John Wesley (and some later Methodists of the eighteenth century) to be published this month by The Banner of Truth Trust and written by Iain Murray.
6/11/2003
"Take me away..."
By Derek Thomas
I’ve been reflecting on heaven of late. Not because I’ve been given an indication that I’m soon to be called there (though, driving with the senior minister this past week brought the thought to mind! But that’s another story!). No, I’ve been thinking of heaven because the Bible tells us that we are to "set our hearts on things above" (Col. 3:1-2, twice). The Hebrew and Greek words translated "heaven" actually mean "sky" which is why Bible writers refer to it as "above," or "up there." It gets more complicated than that, however. Heaven is where God’s throne is (Ps. 2:4); the place where departed loved ones in Christ now gather to worship (Heb. 12:22-25); the place where the resurrected, now glorified, body of Jesus resides—where, in the words of Rabbi Duncan, "the dust of the earth sits." It is decidedly somewhere, not ethereal. It is variously described as a "city" (Heb. 11:10), a country (Heb. 11:16), and especially a place of "rest" (Jn. 14:1).
Christians, as Lewis argued, long for heaven because, just as sinners wouldn’t feel comfortable in heaven, believers don’t feel at ease on earth: "If nothing in this world satisfies me, perhaps it is because I was made for another world," he argued.In order to picture heaven in our minds we have to do several things: we must try and remove the ways sin has crippled and distorted this world; try to imagine what perfect fellowship with God would be like; and, think of what gives us true satisfaction and then multiply it by infinity! That’s hard, if not impossible, to do. What we do know is that we have never fully conceived its greatness and glory. "No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him" (1 Cor. 2:9). But what makes heaven what Jonathan Edwards called "a world of love"? It is seeing the glory that shines in the face of Jesus Christ (Rev. 22:4)!
The beatific vision! What has been fleeting and transient here will be unveiled in all its splendor there. The supreme joy of heaven is the vision of God himself. Poets and mystics and musicians have depicted the beatific vision as a culminating experience of almost intolerable bliss. In Milton’s heaven in Paradise Lost, the brightness of God’s presence is so intense that a shadowy cloud is drawn like a veil around the central blaze; but such is the blinding dazzle escaping from the edges of the cloud that the seraphim have to fold their wings doubly over their eyes to approach the Presence.
In Sir Edward Elgar’s setting of John Henry Newman’s Dream of Gerontius, Gerontius, lying on his deathbed, is carried in a dream into the hereafter. Suffused with Roman Catholic liturgy as the text is, it depicts a soul making its way through purgatory. His first approach to heaven brings him within earshot of angels singing their praise in rapturously glorious chorus. The dreamer is all the more eager and impatient to see his Lord; but when he actually draws near the Presence, the music escalates to a moment of incandescent magnitude and volume, and he "sees" the glory of God and Gerontius’ voice is heard saying, "Take me away!" From before the seat of judgment he would plunge into the depths and hide from the overwhelming promise of the bliss to come. Even as I write I can hear it in my mind, and it sends shivers down my spine. It is thoroughly Elgarian and a moment of ravishing beauty.These are but flawed attempts at picturing the unimaginable, of course. But the best picture is that which closes the Bible: "And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever" (Rev. 22:5). And you will hear folk say, "I never want this to end."
And it never will.
5/28/03
Changed from Glory into Glory
by Derek Thomas
Realizing who we are, and adjusting our lives accordingly, is what living the Christian life is essentially about. It involves an understanding that (in some sense) we died to sin the moment we first trusted in Jesus Christ (Rom. 6:2). Sin is no longer our master (Rom. 6:14); slavery to sin is something that belongs to our past (Rom. 6:17). "The love of sin," Thomas Watson noted, "is crucified."
But sin has not surrendered the fight. On the contrary, as Romans 7 indicates all too clearly, sin remains a powerful force in the life of every Christian. Far from surrendering, sin has retreated into the background to fight a kind of guerrilla warfare. "Remaining sin," wrote Thomas Watson, "is not perfectly cured in this life. Though grace does subdue sin, yet it does not wholly remove it... Though the Spirit be still weakening and hewing down sin in the godly, yet the stump of original sin is left. It is a sea that will not, in this life, be dried up."
The aim of the Christian life is to put this indwelling sin to death. "If by the Spirit you put to death ["mortify" is the King James word] the deeds of the body, you will live" (Rom. 8:13); "Therefore put to death your members which are on earth..." (Col. 3:5). "Members" is the New King James rendition, while the NIV has "your earthly nature." Neither is quite as graphic as the original which literally translated is "appendages": the literal sense seems especially apropos here since what the apostle wants crucified are a list of sexual sins: "fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire and covetousness which is idolatry"!
Our aim is to destroy sin completely. That is our aim! And it is a life-long war of attrition. Lest we should be lulled into a false sense of security, Peter warns us of remaining sins which "war against the soul" (1 Pet. 2:11).
But how then do we engage in putting sin to death? There is far more than we have space to enlarge upon here, but we shall note a few of the essential features.
The first is to develop a Christian mind. To be "spiritually minded," Paul said, "is life and peace" (Rom. 8:6; cf. Rom.12:2). We need to have our minds changed, and changed about what sin is, and what sin does! It is interesting to note that the word most commonly used in the New Testament for "repentance" is metanoeo, a word which literally means to change one’s mind!
Second, we need to learn to run from sin. Running away from trouble is not necessarily cowardice; sometimes, in a moment of weakness, it is the sensible thing to do. "Flee" was the apostle’s word: "Flee sexual immorality" (1 Cor. 6:18); "Flee youthful lusts..." (2 Tim. 2:22); "But you, O man of God, flee these things..." (1 Tim. 6:11; the "things" Paul had in mind were "foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition," one of which was "the love of money"). Did Paul have in mind the story of Joseph and how he fled from the clutches of Potiphar’s wife (Gen. 39:13)? Retreat in battle in order to regroup is a wise thing to do. We are to take care to recognize the occasions when sin is likely to strike: "He that dares to dally with the occasions of sin," wrote John Owen perceptively, "will dare to sin."
Third, we need to develop a Christ-like character. After a list of what Paul calls "the lusts of the flesh" in Galatians 5, Paul is careful to emphasize the positive side of sanctification: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (cf. Gal. 5:19-22). What are these but ways of describing the character of Jesus Christ! Every day we are to grow more like Him. At the close of his lectures, John Calvin would engage in prayer. One such went like this:
Grant, Almighty God... that we, being endued with Thy power, may boldly fight against Satan, and never doubt that Thou wilt finally give us the victory, though we may have to undergo many troubles and difficulties; and may not the contempt of the world frighten or dishearten us, but may we patiently bear all our reproaches until Thou at length stretchest forth Thy hand to raise us up to that glory, the perfection of which now appears in our Head, and shall at last be clearly seen when He shall come to gather us into that celestial kingdom which He has purchased for us by His own blood. Amen
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5/14/2003
Losing an Arm for Christ
By Derek Thomas
It’s been all over the
airwaves this past week: Aron Ralston’s grizzly deed of severing his right arm.
He had been hiking in the state of Utah when a boulder he was holding on to
slipped and rolled onto his arm.
For five days he was
trapped, and when his water ran out, Aron decided he had to do something to get
free. Unable to move the boulder, his only option was to use his penknife and
cut off the part of him that was trapped—his right arm, just below his elbow.
Having done so, and applied some first aid, Aron abseiled down from a 60 foot
high ledge and started hiking back towards his vehicle. A rescue helicopter took
him to hospital and the rest, as they say, is history.
Like everyone who heard this story and listened to Aron give a news conference some days later, I have wondered at the courage (and the pain!) that must have accompanied such a thing. I have grimaced at the thought of him having to break his bones because the knife was too blunt to cut through them.
And I have thought, too, of the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell" (Matt. 5:29). It is the point that Paul makes in the epistle to the Romans, "For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death (mortify) the deeds of the body, you will live" (Rom. 8:13). Mortification—putting to death indwelling sin as it manifests itself in bad habits—is our life-long duty. Having come to faith in Christ, having been justified in Christ, we are to "strive for… holiness without which no one will see the Lord" (Heb 12:14).
No one has written on this more eloquently or pointedly than the Puritan, John Owen (Volume 6 of his collected writings). "Kill sin or it will kill you" he writes. "Kill a sin, or a part of sin, every day" he says in another place. Our sins need to be destroyed—not toyed with, not merely pacified, and certainly not be rationalized away—but killed, crucified. I say no one, but John Calvin, too, in his Institutes writes in similar vein. In Book 3 he urges Christians to a life of self-denial and cross-bearing. Scripture, he urges, Scripture calls us to resign ourselves and all our possessions to the Lord’s will, and to yield to Him the desires of our hearts to be tamed and subjugated [III.vii.8]. In what is, perhaps, the most famous passage in the Institutes, Calvin drives home the point: "We are not our own: let not our reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own: let us therefore not set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours. Conversely, we are God’s: let us therefore live for Him and die for Him. We are God’s: let His wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions. We are God’s: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward Him as our only lawful goal" (III.vii.1).
Living for Christ will cost you more than an arm; it may cost you your life! "When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die," Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote. Two days after writing those words, the Nazis took him from his prison cell and hanged him!
Saying something
rather than nothing
By Derek Thomas
What Does Jesus Want from you? It is an interesting question, is it not? Many answers could be given, but one which comes to mind most readily is that which Jesus prays for in the Upper Room; "Sanctify them by the truth, your Word is truth" (John 17:17).
"Sanctify" is the verb for the noun "holy" (there is no word such as "to holify"!), and has as its basic meaning "to consecrate" or "to set apart for God" (or for holy use). Interestingly, the word is used of Jesus Himself in the same prayer: "For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified" (17:19). Here, of course, Jesus is not suggesting that He had issues of personal sin that He had to deal with (repent of, mortify). Jesus was sinless. What He meant by this was that He set Himself apart as the servant of God to become the substitute, the sin-bearer, the Lamb of God on behalf of His disciples. Jesus was without any transgression—wholly devoid of Adamic sin (by imputation) and personal sin (by actual transgression). "Which of you convicts me of sin?" He once asked (John 8:46).
Being set apart for God is something that has a twin understanding in Scripture. Firstly, definitive (positional), something which enables Christians to be called ‘sanctified’ as though this were an already achieved state of affairs. Paul does precisely this when he writes of Corinthians as those who "are sanctified in Christ Jesus" (1 Cor. 1:2; cf. Acts 26:18; Heb. 10:10, 14, 29). A major change has taken place in coming to Christ (into union with Him) that sets us apart from what we once were, and changes the direction of our lives forever. C.S. Lewis has people say of the young visitant Eustace, whom Aslan undragoned (read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader), that you would hardly know he was the same boy. For those conversions are sudden and dramatic (not all are), this dispositional change is equally breathtaking. Secondly, and this is where the New Testament has its greatest emphasis, there is a progressive and ongoing dimension to sanctification. We are in need of being sanctified. This is God’s work in and through us in character change, sin destroying and fruit formation (1 Thess. 4:3-4; 5:22-23; Gal. 5:22-23). It is what Calvin summarized as the duty of mortification and vivification. The context of this change is our union with Christ. The standard of this change is God’s moral law which is to be actively (rather than passively) obeyed.
But one thing stands out in Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer—the goal of sanctification is likeness to Jesus Christ. Our sanctification is modeled by Jesus who sanctifies Himself. Holiness is essentially Christ-likeness. The Holy Spirit’s transformation track—producing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (see Gal. 5:22-23) is, in fact, a way of molding us after a Christ-like pattern—the way in which, as Paul so daringly expresses it, "Christ is formed" in us (Gal. 4:19).
Is this our longing?
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Saying something
rather than nothing
By Derek Thomas
Some experiences are too sublime for words! The adagio from Beethoven’s B flat Major piano sonata, the Hammerklavier, contains some of the most profound music that I know. Its opening three chords reduce me to the verge of tears every time I hear them. One recording of it (I have several) describes the movement this way: "Its tonality, F sharp minor, is enharmonically a third lower than B flat, poised between the overall tonic of the work and the focus of contrary forces in B minor…." and continues in similar vein for several pages! I’m unclear as to what that actually means!
Augustine expressed similar ideas whenever he discussed the doctrine of the Trinity. "We are not speaking in order to say something," he once said, "but in order to avoid saying nothing." Which leads me, deftly, into saying something about perichoresis (or circumincessio). It all arises from those simple enough collection of words in John 14:10: "I am in the Father… the Father is in me" (cf. 14:11, 20). This verse has given rise to some of the most sublime thought. John of Damascus, for example, a seventh-eighth century theologian, wrote:
The subsistences dwell and are established firmly in one another. For they are inseparable and cannot part from one another, but keep to their separate course within one another, without coalescing or mingling, but cleaving to each other. For the Son is in the Father and the Spirit: and the Spirit is in the Father and the Son: and the Father is in the Son and the Spirit, but there is no coalescence or co-mingling or confusion. And there is one and the same motion: for there is one impulse and one motion of the three subsistences, which is not to be observed in any created nature.
What is he saying? It is one of those paragraphs that needs re-reading, don’t you think? Tempted as I am to repeat Augustine’s words about not wanting to say nothing at all, the theologian is expressing an important truth about God.
There is a mutual fellowship in God between the three persons. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit share the same glory. They also share in the love of God. Each is lovely to the other. It is a characteristic of love that we desire to be in the thoughts and in the heart of another as that other is in ours. The doctrine tells us that each person has the other two in his heart all the time. None would be what he is (either Father, Son or Holy Spirit) without the other two.
The only thing that comes close (but not close enough) to this by way of human analogy is marriage. Man and wife are one flesh (Eph. 5:32). There is unity (oneness) and distinction. Similarly, Jesus is one with the church. He prays, "that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you… I in them and you in me" (Jn. 17:21ff). But the analogy breaks down because the church does not fill Christ as the Son fills the Father and the Father fills the Son.
Our finite minds stagger when we try to bring such a truth within our comprehension. We cannot comprehend it; it is too high and we cannot attain unto it. It is incomprehensible. And yet, there it is, several times in the words of Jesus in the Upper Room to his disciples. As though He were saying to them, "Before I go, let me tell you a little about who I really am!" That there was one in this world, who occupied its space and time continuum, who was greater than the universe itself!
Time to bow and worship!
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1611 And All That!
Wh
ich translation is the most accurate? And, is there one that is infallible? As to the second question, it is sometimes argued that our Westminster Confession seems to imply that such an infallible version exists, since it declares that something has been ‘kept pure in all ages’—and that ‘by his singular care and providence’ (1:8). Since the Confession was written in the 1640s, it is argued that it was referring to the King James Version published in 1611. Actually, this is not the case. Interestingly, when it comes to list the New Testament canon, it does not refer to the Pauline authorship of Hebrews (as the King James confidently does)! What the Confession declares as pure is ‘the Old Testament in Hebrew’ and ‘the New Testament in Greek’ in their original autographs, none of which we now possess, even though hundreds (even thousands) of copies of copies of copies… exist from which we may discern what the originals looked like.Some grow skeptical of an argument for the inspiration (and therefore infallibility) of the original autographs when none of them exist! The existence of many versions only furthers a suspicion that none of these versions is infallible and trustworthy. But this is not good reasoning. At the point at which the Bible was first written down (the original autographs)—what men wrote—was entirely controlled by the Holy Spirit. Entirely is the right word here, though not in the sense that no trace of the human author cannot be discerned.
The texts of note here are 2 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:20-21. Together they affirm the infallibility of every word of Scripture as breathed out by God through human instruments. What occurred after that is different. Copies of the originals were made, some almost immediately so that their contents could be read in more than one place. There is a remarkable agreement as to what they wrote as they copied—but they did make mistakes (mistakes like missing out a line, picking up the word where it occurred somewhere else and missing all that had been written in between). But before we despair, the disagreement is minuscule. In the 5,000 or more manuscripts of portions of the New Testament, together with an entire array of quotations of Scripture in the early Church Fathers, we have a degree of certainty that we do not have for any other ancient book! Even if you have the least critical edition of the Bible in your hands, you may hold it with certainty and call it the Word of God and be sure that what you have is what the apostles and prophets wrote.
Which leads me back to the original question as to which version is the best? I have had an elder (not at First Presbyterian!) tell me that if the King James was good enough for the apostle Paul, it should be good enough for the rest of us! Right! Answering this question is a bit like answering the question, ‘Have you stopped beating your wife?’ You are in trouble however you answer!
One important criteria in answering this question has to do with translation methodology, which, put simply, goes like this: is it a paraphrase or is it a translation? Something like Eugene Peterson’s The Message (which I often find wonderfully insightful) is a paraphrase. There is no attempt to translate the original in any word-for-word manner. It does not purport to be a translation. Peterson simply wants to convey something of the sense—often by exaggerating and overstating in order to make the point.
Into this category, too, fall such editions as the New International Version and the New Living Translation. Both of these employ in varying degrees, what is sometimes called dynamic equivalence, an attempt to convey the force rather than the wording of the original. I have used both to great profit. But my love for the NIV has been severely challenged by its publishers’ recent decision to employ a gender-neutral policy in forthcoming editions. That’s an issue for another article (and Ligon is your man here!).
But which translation is best? Ah, space has been exceeded and I must return to this at some later period.
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Parthenogenesis: Mary, ‘great with child’
By
Derek Thomas
According to Matthew’s Gospel, Joseph had no union with Mary ‘until she gave birth to a son’ (Matt 1:18, 25). What explanation, then, does Matthew offer for the pregnancy? This: "what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit" (v.20). This angelic pronouncement was given to Joseph as he considered ending the relationship and all thoughts of future marriage.
Based on this biblical testimony, the church has confessed: "we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ ... begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer…" (Chalcedon, 451 AD).
Theologians have fallen over themselves in the rush to explain away these statements of Matthew (and similar ones by Luke). These claims to a "virgin birth" were made late in the first century to bolster the claims then being made about Jesus’ deity, they have suggested. A virgin birth, after all, adds a layer of mystery to an otherwise bland story about a child born into an obscure family in Palestine.
All skeptics begin with the hypothesis: "Miracles do not happen." Having stated this premise, they must then offer some alternative explanation. Why did Bible writers such as Matthew and Luke record the birth of a child to a virgin?
Some dismiss the story as an example of the church’s confusion over the propriety of sex. A Savior born as the result of sexual union, they suggest, would somehow be inappropriate. Even the great Augustine flinched here.
Others complicate the issue by claiming that Mary herself was "immaculately conceived." They think this safeguards the sinlessness of Jesus — because although the virgin birth means that none of Joseph’s chromosomes were passed on to Jesus, Mary’s chromosomes were present. So Mary has to be sinless too! Others have gone on to insist that Mary remained a virgin for the rest of her life — despite the fact that the Bible records that Jesus had siblings (Matt 12:46-48). Needless to say, there is nothing in the Bible to support any of these theories.
So, what happened? The phenomenon is sometimes called ‘parthenogenesis’ (from parthenos, Greek for ‘virgin’). Although modern scientific research is now less dogmatic about what is, and what is not, possible in fetal production, spontaneous emergence of the Y-chromosome from a female egg is still considered ‘scientifically impossible.’
Miraculous
We are left, then, with the
miraculous as an explanation of Jesus’ human origin. At either end of Jesus’
life stands a miracle! The virgin birth signals that Mary’s child is unique in
human history. No one else has been born this way, before or since. The
‘scientific method’ will be found wanting as a means to comprehend Jesus. There
are aspects of His Person that transcend the limitations of human thought. He
defies identification and classification. The power of God lies behind His human
genesis.
The virgin birth (like the empty tomb) solicits faith. It says: ‘you must believe this even though it goes beyond anything you have ever witnessed in your life’. The virgin birth reminds us that salvation comes from outside of ourselves. Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Tim 1:15). No one within the family of mankind could be found to serve as an adequate Savior. This is a reflection on the extent of our fallen condition.
Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit "overshadowed" Mary (Lk 1:35). The same word is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament story of the exodus. There it describes the cloud of glory that descended on the Tabernacle, signifying the very presence of God among His people (cf. Exod 40:35).
This is the essence of the matter. Another name for Jesus is "Immanuel," which means "God with us." Jesus Christ was God in human flesh. No wonder His birth was unique!
The question is, do you believe it?
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“All Work and No Play”
by Derek Thomas
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." I learned this proverb as a boy, and I assume it’s of British origin and may not be known in America. Maybe, I’m mistaken about that, but it needs no great cultural explanation. It surely translates automatically. If there is no—what Americans call ‘fun’—in your life, you will be miserable company. God approves of "fun." Or does He? Let’s explore a little, shall we?
You don’t read in the Bible that David enjoyed going to the Saturday football game at the Ole Jerusalem stadium. Nor do we read of Paul relaxing at the Athens Opera House. Nor is there any record of Mary or Martha tuning in to Emeril Lagasse at 10:00 every evening on the Food Channel on Bethany Cable Network. Nor, can we say it, do we find Jesus fishing on Lake Galilee with the boys. Right! There are anachronisms here, but the point is made nevertheless: Bible characters did not schedule entertainment into their lives as we do. For us, it’s a matter of need, of balance, of ensuring sanity. We see recreation as the way we are re-created, renewed in energy for life’s task (joy) of worship. We even find ourselves wondering how people coped before television and radio? Better than we do, is the answer! But let’s get back to the point: Is there a place in God’s plan for our lives for constructive, meaningful relaxation? [Note that I don’t ask if there’s a place for destructive, meaningless relaxation for the answer to that is obvious. There is not!]
If The Shorter Catechism is true (and it is!) when it says that all of life is to be dominated by the principle of giving glory to God, then leisure, "fun," is to be God-glorifying, too. Actually, it’s a good rule of thumb to employ: if I can’t honestly, in good conscience, say "Thank you, Lord, for these past few hours. They have been so enriching to me!" then it is more than questionable whether we should have been doing what we’ve been doing! But the Shorter Catechism, in summarizing life’s mindset, adds one significant thing: "and enjoy Him forever." God is to be enjoyed. All that God has made is to be enjoyed. All that God provides for our good and betterment is to be enjoyed. In Adam’s pre-fallen world, things were different, but not everything in our world is to be enjoyed. Some things in our world are sinful, and all things in our world have sinful elements to them.
It gets more complicated still: for things legitimate in themselves, if they become the "be all and end all" of our lives—if we become slaves to them—can become sinful preoccupations. I have wrestled with that one when it comes to music. Music has a power to dominate, to take control, to rule our lives and that is always wrong. The good can take the place of the best.
So, where are we? Does God approve of "fun"? Yes, but…
But, not when the fun is inherently sinful.
But, not when the "fun" pushes out our prime responsibilities.
But, not when we engage in it with a bad conscience.
Why all these caveats?
Ah, that’s the theologian in me.
888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
1 + 1 +
1 = ?
Now, fall upon your knees and worship!
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Precisionists
I love it when Peter says of Paul’s writings, "there are some things in them which are hard to understand" (2 Pet 3:16). I imagine Peter staring at one of Paul’s letters, scratching his head and saying, "What in the world does that mean?" When the Holy Spirit inspired the Scriptures, he did not always make concessions for the need for simplicity at every point. There are some passages (for me, it is 2 Thessalonians 2) that yield their treasures very slowly indeed, wrapped as they are in carefully constructed subordinate clauses. Why, O why, are we allowing our children to think that grammar is unimportant?
At the same time, every essential truth of the gospel can be discerned by any Christian, in what The Westminster Confession calls, "the due use of ordinary means."
"All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all [p]: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them (I:vii)."
This is the doctrine of perspicuity of Scripture. It lies at the very heart of the sixteenth century Reformation: in the publication of Martin Luther’s (German) Bible and the English Bibles of Miles Coverdale and William Tyndale; in the insistence that the gospel needs no tyranny of priests to “protect” it from the common and uneducated man; in the prominence given to preaching and exposition of the Bible. This is a very important truth.
Even so, some things require more careful explanation, more precise formulation. [The Puritans were first called precisionists for this reason]. Enter J.I. Packer. No one writes quite like the way he does. Packer by name and packer by trade! Take the following sentence which comes from a recent interview with him in which he pondered the problems in the Anglican Church (he is an Anglican!). He is being asked about a recent statement by the Anglican communion with regard to the doctrine of God. What had sparked it off was the widespread confusion about the nature of truth. Postmodernity finds it impossible to answer this question without the contortion of a thousand qualifications. In particular we live at a time when “intuition” and “impression” count for the same thing as “truth.” Now, here comes Packer to the rescue:
"If you are going to treat these impressions as revelation—the activity of God, making Himself known—you have to allow that the cultural conceptualizing is mutable because the appearance of cognitive content is illusory, and all you can be sure of is the sense of transcendent values, with a humanistic chameleon called “love” at their head, which your religious intuitions have impressed upon you. This to me, is not a declaring of the Christian revelation of God, but a denying of it."
I love that! Do you understand what he’s saying? I'm not altogether sure that
I do, but I love it nevertheless! Packer is saying (amongst other things) that
without the Bible as our source of absolute authority, the source of what God is
saying to us right now, we are left in a sea of uncertainty and confusion. We
are left, in the end, to an idol that we fashion for ourselves. And, as Calvin
reminds us, man’s mind is a perpetual factory of idols. But the way Packer says
it is so precise! I love it!
Just as in medicine or law, there is a place for precision, so in exploring the
truth that God has made known there is the need for accuracy and meticulousness.
Some things only yield their meaning after a lengthy reflection. When the
Puritan, Richard Rogers, was charged with being “too precise” his reply
was, “But I serve a precise God.”
Exactly!
Under repair
I’ve been pondering something in Thomas Boswell’s Life of Johnson, in which he recounts Johnson as having once said: "If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendships in constant repair."
This past week something extraordinary has occurred to me. Just last week, I wrote in these columns that I was brought to faith in Jesus Christ through reading a book (John Stott’s Basic Christianity). That is true. What I did not relate was the human instrument that gave me this book to read. His name was Richard and he was throughout my high school years, my closest friend.
Richard and I had a love for classical music that, well, set us apart from most and was considered by some obsessional.
It was Richard who introduced me to the beauty of Schubert and the banalities of Stockhausen. I introduced him to Sibelius and Stravinsky. Every summer we spent three or four weeks in London, living as cheaply as we could, attending art galleries by day and classical concerts by night (the Henry Wood Promenade concerts which run nightly from mid-June through mid-September).
I recall vividly a concert in which Sir Adrian Boult (the quintessential Elgar conductor—he had known Elgar personally!) conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Elgar’s first symphony in the first half of the concert and Alfred Brendel had played Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations in the second half. I get goose pimples even now, some 35 years later! And no! I wouldn’t let my teenage children go off to London by themselves or with a friend for three weeks as I did! Definitely not!
And our paths went in different ways. He to one university and I to another, and even though he did send me a copy of John Stott’s Basic Christianity, and I read it and was converted—suddenly and dramatically—we were never to meet again. That was 31 years ago.
Then, this past week, through the wonders of e-mail and the Internet, I saw his name posted to my old school website, complete with an e-mail link. I wrote a hasty note and waited.
Two days later he replied!I’m still in somewhat of a daze about it all. We’ve picked up and resumed conversations about Sibelius and Wagner as if time meant nothing. I discover that he’s an Episcopalian and I a Presbyterian. He reminds me that Britney Spears is an anagram of "presbyterian"!
Solomon reminds us, "A friend loves at all times" (Prov 17:17), and "a man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother" (Prov 18:24). And more importantly still, Jesus seems to have had friends, not least John "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (John 21:7, 20). And in a sense, every Christian enjoys this relationship with Jesus: "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends….’’ (John 15:15).
What a Friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear!
—Derek Thomas, Minister of Teaching
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An Eternity of Sundays
You have all heard the expression, a month of Sundays. It’s a euphemism for "a very long time." When you don’t know what Sunday is for, it can drag!
I was listening to Elgar’s incomparable setting of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem, Sabbath Morning At Sea (one of the four Sea Pictures which he composed in 1899) that began me thinking. There’s a moment when the words go like this:
He shall assist me to look higher
Where keep the saints, with harp and song,
An endless Sabbath day…
It’s a breathtaking moment, musically, and the recording to get is the one sung by Dame Janet Baker! But it’s not the music that I want to comment on now, but the words, and in particular, its mention of the Sabbath.
Christians should keep Sunday special! God says so. If we accept what the Bible says, there can really be no question as to the abiding validity of the fourth commandment. It’s one of the Ten Words from Sinai (Exod. 20:11). But before we run away with the notion that somehow it belongs to the Old Testament we need to look carefully and note that the fourth commandment is based on a pattern established at creation (Gen. 2:2-3). That more than hints at its abiding validity. It wasn’t just a law that expired with Israel.
I love Sundays. I look forward to them. Even when Ligon asks me to preach three times and take a Sunday School! Especially then! You see, although it’s a commandment to keep this day special, God’s commandments are "easy" (Matt. 11.30). Actually, for Christians to gripe about keeping this day special is a bit like shooting oneself in the foot! It’s for our good, after all. To meet with God’s people, and have the opportunity to worship (twice!) is a foretaste of heaven each week—"there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God" (Heb. 4:9). As John Murray wrote so eloquently, "The weekly Sabbath is the promise, token, and foretaste of the consummated rest; it is also the earnest. The biblical philosophy of the Sabbath is such that to deny its perpetuity is to deprive the movement of redemption of one of its most precious strands."
That’s what Browning is hinting at in the line above, "an endless Sabbath day." And it’s what the seventeenth century Welsh poet, George Herbert, wrote in his poem, Sunday:
Thou art a day of mirth:
And where the week-days trail on ground,
Thy flight is higher, as thy birth.
O let me take thee at the bound,
Leaping with thee from sev’n to sev’n,
Till that we both, being toss’d from earth,
Fly hand in hand to heav’n!
A day of mirth! Yes, when our souls can take flight as the Word is opened up before us and our spirits liberated to worship Christ in the company of the people of God. It’s what Don and Virginia Primos have witnessed as they testified in the Summer 2002 edition of Sunday Magazine. Closing the restaurant on Sundays about seven years ago was a costly and brave decision. But as Virginia testifies, God "has blessed us above and beyond what we ever expected."
We need this day of rest and worship! And more than
that, keeping it special helps us (and others) anticipate heaven!
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I Just want to Enjoy it…
The Christian apologist, Francis Schaeffer traced the decline
of civilization through its art. I still recall being a little offended when he
suggested that the music of Igor Stravinsky and Dimitri Shostakovich signaled
the decline in twentieth century Western civilization. I had similar responses
to Hans Rookmaker’s analysis of art. True, when it comes to music, there is a
marked difference in a Bach motet, a Beethoven symphony, a Shostakovich
concerto, and a meditation by John Cage. But decline?
It reminds me of something a student of mine (at the seminary) said to a group
of Star Wars enthusiasts as 11.55 pm at the premier of Star Wars 1
(it was due to be shown at one minute past midnight!): "I don’t want any of that
Christian analysis; I just want to enjoy the movie!"
Exactly!
What is this "Christian analysis" when it comes to the arts? I understand it when it points out the prevailing "world-view"—pessimistic, optimistic, moral, a certain political agenda. But in music, or art, this is more difficult.
Take Stravinsky. This reminds me of another quip: where is the best place to play the bagpipes? As far away as possible! When I say, "Take Stravinsky," I can almost hear someone saying, "Yes, take him away!"
When I was sophomore at college, desirous to impress my beautiful date (and now my wife!), I took her to my mother’s home (she was out shopping) and played my latest acquisition: Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), played by the Cleveland Orchestra under Pierre Boulez, as I recall. The music (it caused a riot when first played in Paris in May, 1913) was gripping—not for its beauty so much as its rhythm and earthiness. Whatever it was, I liked it—a lot! And my wife-to-be? She thought I was completely insane.
Francis Schaeffer once wrote, "An art work has value as a creation because man is made in the image of God, and therefore… has the capacity to create." I still think that’s true, even though I disagreed with his evaluation of what was good, and especially "Christian" art.
If I can digress once more, take the current popularity of the paintings of Thomas Kincade. They are, seemingly, ubiquitous, turning up on almost every Christian venue. Their style is easily distinguishable, having the feel of a Christmas card. Their "make-believe" settings speak of a land we might all wish to live in. But that’s it: we don’t live in such a place. The creation he paints, albeit exquisite, bears no mark of a Fall, no ragged edges, no despair, no ugliness, no pain. Yet, many classify it as "Christian art,’ probably because Kincade is a professing Christian. But is art better because a Christian paints it, or writes it, or shapes it?
Perhaps we could ask the same of surgeons? Are they better because they are Christian? I know of no one who would answer that in the affirmative. Then, why is it so when it comes to art?
Back to Stravinsky.
The Rite of Spring is not a piece that everyone would enjoy, but neither would his Symphony of Psalms. To be honest, I’m not sure that "enjoy" would be the term I would use for it myself. But it is a language—a very distinctive and clever language that takes time to appreciate. Just as Russian, or Japanese, or English are languages with their own customs and styles and idiosyncrasies.
I’m still fond of the piece, and when I heard the New York Philharmonic play it in London six or seven years ago, I was gripped once again by it. Is it "Christian music"? No, but I’m not sure what that means.
O yes, you’re wondering if Rosemary likes Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring any better today than she did thirty years ago.
No!
—Derek Thomas
Minister of Teaching
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In Praise of John Calvin
Some find it misguided to praise men. It was, after all, the Corinthian problem that they openly declared their allegiance to men: Apollos, Paul, or Peter. In doing so they caused major divisions in the Corinthian church. But we are not, I think, to conclude from this that we are never to express our appreciation for the lives of men (and women!) whose gifts have helped, not only their own generation, but our own also. Surely, this is the meaning of the gallery of the faithful in Hebrews 11.
For my part any such gallery must include John Calvin. The opening sentence of The Institutes of the Christian Religion alone is worth a lifetime’s contemplation: "Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves." Not everyone would agree, of course. My favorite criticism of Calvin (monstrously over-done and deliciously vitriolic) is by Will Durant, the famous author of the eleven-volume series, The History of Western Civilization. "We shall always find it hard to love the man, John Calvin," Durant writes, "who darkened the human soul with the most absurd and blasphemous conception of God in all the long and honored history of nonsense." Who would desire to read anything by Will Durant after that?
What is it about Calvin that so inspires me? This: his disciplined style, his determination never to speculate, his utter submission to Bible words as God’s words, his submission to Christ’s Lordship, his sense of the holy, his concern to be as practical as possible; the fact that godly living was his aim and not theology for the sake of it. In a forest of theologians, Calvin stands like a Californian Redwood, towering over everyone else.
I know that the word "Calvinist" is a theological swear-word in some circles. I am convinced that folk who use the word that way have never read Calvin at all! They may have read about him; but they have not read the careful, reverential way in which he wrote. It is, of course, what Calvin said about predestination that goads certain people. But Calvin was extremely careful not to speculate here. He talked about predestination—in the same way that Paul does in Romans 8 and 9. Rather than introduce election at the very beginning of his treatment on theology (the logical place to put it), he placed it after spelling out what the gospel is and does. Calvin talked about the free offer of the gospel first: that the gospel is for "whosoever-will." Only after he has established this does he introduce predestination, and then in the context of re-assuring believers of their eventual glorification (in exactly the same way as Paul does at the end of Romans 8). Calvin was concerned to answer the question: why, when the gospel is proclaimed, do some respond and others do not? Not for Calvin the smugness and ugly exclusivism of the old Particular Baptist hymn:
We are the Lord’s elected few,
Let all the rest be damned;
There’s room enough in hell for you,
We won’t have heaven crammed!
Calvin simply wanted to extol the marvelous grace of God, that, though he deserved damnation, God had chosen to show His love instead. He would readily agree to the perspective of John Newton:
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
Calvin saw what I suspect even those who despise him also concede in some way or another, that election (God’s powerful work) provides the only hope of certainty as far as our salvation is concerned. For my part, if any part of it depends in the last analysis on me, I have no basis for any confidence at all!
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Running away from trouble is not necessarily cowardice; sometimes, in a moment of weakness, it is the courageous thing to do. Retreat in battle in order to regroup is a wise thing to do.
Running away from sin is always the right thing to do:
‘Flee sexual immorality’ (1 Cor. 6:18);
‘Flee youthful lusts...’ (2 Tim. 2:22);
‘But you, O man of God, flee these things...’
(1 Tim. 6:11; the ‘things’ Paul had in mind were ‘foolish and harmful lusts
which drown men in destruction and perdition’ (v.9), one of which was ‘the love
of money’).
‘Kill sin before it kills you,’ was John Owen’s warning, adding: ‘he that dares to dally with the occasions of sin,’ wrote John Owen perceptively, ‘will dare to sin.’
John Bunyan wrote a lengthy poem (16 verses in all!) called, Caution to Stir up to Watch against Sin. One of which goes like this:
Sin, rather than ‘twill out of action be,
Will pray to stay, though but a while with thee;
One night, one hour, one moment, will it cry,
Embrace me in thy bosom, else I die:
Time to repent [saith it] I will allow,
And help, if to repent thou know’st not how.
But if you give it entrance at the door
It will come in, and may go out no more.
Bunyan’s point? That sin is habit forming. Once you let it in to your life it is difficult to put it out again. It doesn’t matter what it is: pornography, greed, selfishness, a love of money… give way to them once, and it will be easier to give way to them a second time, and third time, and a fourth time.
That’s why it is necessary to develop a Christian mind when it comes to sin. Paul talks about the two mind-sets in Romans 8. There is what he calls, ‘the mind of the flesh’ and there is what he calls, ‘the mind of the Spirit’ (Rom. 8:6). There is a conformity to this world and there is what the apostle calls a ‘renewing of your mind’ (Rom. 12:2).
The way we think about sin affects the way we deal with sin. Recently, in a lecture on the doctrine of total depravity, I had occasion to mention the book once entitled, The Plague of Plagues, by the puritan Ralph Venning. The publishers (Banner of Truth) have seen fit to reissue it under a new title: The Sinfulness of Sin. "Obviously, it’s not meant to be best seller!" quipped one of the students! And, sadly, he had a point. Who would purchase a book with such a title? Only those intent and serious in ridding themselves of sin!
J. C. Ryle, whose writings are still amongst the most accessible more than a century after they were written, gave prominence to the doctrine of human sinfulness and corruption, for which the blood of Christ and the grace of God are the only remedy. In the very opening sentence of his book, Holiness, he wrote: ‘He that wishes to attain right views about Christian holiness, must begin by examining the vast and solemn subject of sin.’
We need to have our minds changed, and changed about what sin is, and what sin does! It is interesting to note that the word most commonly used in the New Testament for ‘repentance’ is metanoeo, a word which literally means to change one’s mind. We need to appreciate the Bible’s seven-fold description of sin as: rebellion against the ownership and rulership of God, transgression of the bounds that God has set, missing the mark God has told us to aim at, breaking the law which he has given, defiling ourselves and thereby making ourselves unfit (unclean) for his presence, embracing folly by shutting our ears to God’s wisdom, and incurring guilt before God’s judgment seat.
When sin is viewed this way, the best thing to do when we detect its presence is to run as fast as we can in the opposite direction!
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What’s in it for Me?
I sometimes tease folk that, for many, the American national anthem goes like this:
O, say, can you see,
what’s in it for me?
I intend no disrespect. It’s just that self-centeredness is our preoccupation. The gravitational pull towards fulfillment by self-righteousness is constant and powerful. We are driven by the "need" for leisure and entertainment. As someone humorously put it at a recent presbytery meeting, "I’ll give up a day of work to attend, but don’t ask me to give up my day off!"
And nowhere is this more apparent than current trends in worship. We are victims of what the linguistic philosopher, Gadamer, calls ‘dialogue.’ In conversing with prejudices other than our own, we instinctively imbibe them.
Let me explain.
I blame it on the ’60s! Now before you write me off as distinctively uncool, I’m a product of the ’60s! I know what I’m talking about—well, I know something. I sharpened my teenage angst on The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and The Monkees. Right! Truth is, I preferred Beethoven, Brahms, and Debussy even then!
The pop culture was inherently anti-establishment: reductionistic and guilty of what C.S. Lewis called "chronological snobbery." This last issue is what J.I. Packer (and only Packer could write this sentence) has recently described as that which sets tradition in antithesis to Scripture and places the church’s heritage of thought and devotion under a blanket of permanent suspicion, thus reducing its significance to zero and encouraging all who seek truth and wisdom from Scripture to dismiss tradition as mere morbid pathology and a hydra-head of destructive mistakes. ["A Stunted Ecclesiology" in Ancient and Postmodern Christianity: Essays in Honor of Thomas C. Oden, 122].
In its wake, it spawned evangelical Christians (the "40-" and "50-somethings" of today) who have no sense of the past, are distrustful of tradition, and view endless mantra-like choruses as the sacrament of God’s presence.The late James Montgomery Boice complained of worship services that contained no call to worship, no significant pastoral prayer, and virtually no Scripture reading as being all too often the norm. Worship becomes market driven. Worship and evangelism are confused. Instead of asking, "Does this please God?" we ask instead, "Will this attract a crowd?"
And things are going to get more complicated. The rise of digital communication (even First Presbyterian Church has gotten on board here!) brings the pressure of competing cultures and world-views. Folk are no longer subject merely to the once-a-year vacation experience of worship in a different church. Now, at a keystroke, we can access the worship of thousands of churches on the web. Try www.webchurch.org to take you "where no man has gone before"!
Pluralism has never been so easy to acquire. The pressure of conformity to the popular is increasing.
Where does this take us? Back to a document that has all but been forgotten! The Directory for the Public Worship of God, produced by the Westminster Assembly in 1645 and approved by Kirk of Scotland in February of that year. I know of nothing that sets forth with greater clarity the doctrine and practice of worship. At its heart: the regulative principle of worship. Nothing is to be introduced into worship other than that which God has clearly sanctioned in his Word. This is liberating—yes! liberating, for it frees us from the tyranny of personal taste and undue accommodation to contemporary culture. It does not answer every question, and it never claimed as much. Adherence to this principle will not bring absolute uniformity on all matters. But it will ensure the basics: that worship, to cite a good friend, is about the Word: singing the Word, praying the Word, reading the Word, and preaching the Word.
But something new is also happening. Boomer generations of the ’60s are being sidelined by Generation X and Millennial young people who do not share their parents’ deliberate sidelining of tradition….
Perhaps my gloom is ill-founded. I pray that it is so.
Derek Thomas
Minister of Teaching
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A Fishy Tale
Does a fish ever feel the need for a towel?
Honestly, have you never asked yourself that question?
I’m sitting on the sixth floor of a luxury condominium overlooking Pensacola beach. Mahler’s fifth symphony (the adagietto, Sehr langsam) is playing on an enviable sound-system—no, you’re not paying me too much, for it isn’t mine (I wish!). I’m speaking at the 25th anniversary of a PCA church nearby and they have asked me if this would be "OK." It only took a millisecond to suggest that it would be!
But back to my question: do fish feel wet?
I’m not an aquatic person. I don’t actually like to swim, having only learned as an adult and only then out of guilt whenever I took my children to the local swimming pool in Belfast and would not have been able to save them had they gotten into trouble. Even so, the sea is majestic today: calm, serene, deceptively beguiling.
And somewhere in the that azure expanse are fish—lots of fish, for I can see birds diving for their breakfast. And it has set me wondering: do fish feel wet?
You see, there’s a reason for my peculiar question. Yes, there is. It has to do with something C. S. Lewis said in his book, The Case for Christianity, written towards the end of the Second World War. And I quote him:
A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man isn’t a water animal: a fish wouldn’t feel wet.
Lewis has been laying out the groundwork for why God exists in his customary disarming way. The existence of evil in the world, many argue, makes it impossible to believe in the existence of a God. But without God there is no objective and universal standard of good and evil. Lewis’s point is tightly argued, but essentially it is this: that unless God exists we have no basis for moral judgment—that something is evil, for example. To establish universal justice—the right to say, this is good and this is evil—it is necessary to assume an objective morality outside of ourselves. If the universe is the product of mere chance occurrences there can be no basis for objective morality. At best, all we can attain is a contractual morality whereby we agree (out of convention, personal taste, the majority opinion, whatever) that something is either right or wrong, good or evil. In attempting to prove that God doesn’t exist, that the whole of reality is essentially senseless, we are forced to assume that at least one part of it is not, our own idea of justice. Put succinctly (and technically known as the modus tollens), it is this:
If God doesn’t exist, evil doesn’t exist
Evil exists
God exists
Now, of course, this hasn’t gotten us very far. It hasn’t in any way proven the existence of the God of the Bible, the triune God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But it has proven the sheer stupidity of those members of The Atheist Society who marched in Washington arguing for the removal of all religion from politics. [Isn’t it interesting how intolerant all forms of paganism become?]
So what did the fishy question have to do with this? That in order to call something evil or unjust, I need something with which to compare it, a morality that is objective, that exists apart from this world order. I feel wet because I am not essentially a water creature.
A fish, on the other hand doesn’t feel wet.
Derek Thomas
Minister of Teaching