Understanding the Times 2006
By Derek Thomas

Understanding the Times
Thankful

November 2006

The renowned Bible commentator, Matthew Henry, was robbed as he walked along a highway. Afterwards he told his friends there were four things for which he gave thanks. First, he was grateful that he had never been robbed before. After many years of life this was the first time he had been robbed and for that he was grateful. Secondly, he said, “Though they took all my money, I am glad they did not get very much.” That was something to be thankful for. Thirdly, he said, “Though they took my money, they did not take my life, and I am grateful for that.” And fourthly, he suggested, “I am thankful that it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed.”

As a Brit, entering into the spirit of Thanksgiving has its challenges, but in the interests of the biblical admonition that I ought to be “abounding in thanksgiving” (Col:2:7), let me offer these TEN thoughts.

I am thankful to God

1) That at the age of eighteen, a sophomore at college, and having never attended a church in my life, He saved me. As I look back now, 35 years later, it was all of Him and none of me. Grace was its motivation and pattern, then and since. A hymn says it all for me: “I sought the Lord, but afterwards, I knew, He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me.”
2) That He gave me a love for classical music from my earliest conscious moments. I can’t explain the obsession (it remains compulsive), but a mutual friend’s compulsion was the human instrument that brought me to first see the light that shines in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
3) For a wife of thirty years now who knows me better than any other human being does and, despite the massive failures on my part, seems intent to stick with me to the end. My life would be immeasurably poorer without her. An excellent wife is the “crown” of her husband, Solomon wrote (Prov. 12:4) and God has given me a golden crown.
4) That in 1976 I met Sam Patterson, then President of Reformed Theological Seminary, who encouraged me to consider training for the ministry in the Deep South. I encountered humidity levels which were evidence of the Fall but I received an education second to none and has withstood the test of time.
5) That God led me to a saintly preacher, W. J. Grier, a friend of Gresham Machen and who had been a minister of a church in Belfast for fifty years. I am thankful that at 26, I was given the easier task of a people to minister to who had been “prepared” by the preaching of a godly and faithful servant.
6) For the friendship and counsel of Sinclair Ferguson. We have talked on numerous occasions about all sorts of things, but it is his friendship that I value most. He is a prince in Israel, but to me he has been a friend.
7) And thinking of friends, my long- time friendship with Mark Johnston (currently minister of Grove Chapel, London) has been the richest one could have asked for. We talk most Sunday afternoons, reflecting on mutual joys and sorrows. These times have been for me the richest kind of encouragement.
8) For the past fifteen years, my life has been unimaginably altered by the friendship of another individual—Ligon Duncan. I think my first “sight” of him was in a kilt, but my being back in Mississippi, teaching at Reformed Seminary and ministering at First Presbyterian Church is mainly his doing. I have seen things and done things which would never have been possible without him. I once dedicated a book I wrote to him, citing the words of C. S. Lewis to the effect that the next best thing to being wise oneself is to surround yourself with the company of those who are!
9) Collegiality is a great thing in a working environment and my colleague David Jussely I knew when I was a student at RTS. Now, we are neighbors, who walk (or more truthfully are walked by) two dogs, Jake and Smokey, and put the world to rights. It is an invaluable time which I treasure beyond words.
10) A granddaughter! Who would have thought that a baby could bring such joy! My life will never be the same again and the focus of attention has changed almost entirely.

Take a few minutes this week and write down TEN things for which you are thankful to God!

September 21, 2006

Understanding the Times
Praying 
by Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas

    When you think about it, prayer is a rather silly thing. We tell God, who knows everything—both in itself and in relation to everything else, because He made everything, sustains everything and ensures that everything fulfills His divine purpose and plan. So, I say again, praying is a rather silly thing to do! Yet we do it: telling God, sometimes in specific ways what He should do and when He should it. We inform Him of information about the situation, reasons why it would be a “good” thing to do, how this or that would bring Him glory if only He would see it the way we do.
    Perhaps we think that by our many words and arguments we will cajole a reluctant Father in heaven to have pity on us and answer us, just to keep us quiet! Perhaps we think, after the fashion of the “Open Theists” of our time, that the future is uncertain, even to God! That in order to maintain true freedom, the future cannot be known in advance, at least, not in its entirety— yes, such theologians exist and do advocate exactly that.
    But these are, of course, unworthy notions, though we do confess that there are times when we have thought them; times when answers to our prayers were not given—at least, not in the form, or according to the timetable, we thought best. Interesting, then, that the Puritans—giants in the disciple of prayer that they were—wrote energetically about what they practiced vigorously: that we ought to make arguments in our praying why God should do this or that! Take Stephen Charnock, for example.
    Stephen Charnock (1628 – 1680), a Cambridge graduate who spent a good part of his life as Senior Proctor at New College, Oxford, and after that in Dublin, Ireland, is best known for his writings on the character of God: The Existence and Attributes of God. Thirty- five years ago, as a newly converted Christian at University, I sat through several months of study on this very theme much of which used and cited Charnock’s great work. Like most Puritans, Charnock insists that Christians make use of “arguments” in their prayers: “Our praying … should consist of arguments for God’s glory and our happiness: not that arguments move God to do that which He is not willing of himself to do for us … as though the infinitely wise God needed information, or the infinitely loving God needed persuasion…” Incidentally, the Larger Catechism (written, of course during Charnock’s lifetime) also says the same thing in answer to Q. 196 which concerns the conclusion to the Lord’s Prayer: “The conclusion to the Lord’s Prayer (which is, For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever, Amen.) teacheth us to enforce our petitions with arguments…”
    Two things emerge that need some comment: first, what on earth is the point of arguing with God about what is best in this or that situation if He already knows what is best and what He intends to do and will do? The answer, as Charnock in the quotation above goes on to say, is that such praying “is for strengthening of our faith in Him.” Such praying will give our faith a structure and backbone. As we plead His covenant promises, or the advancement of His glory, or the furthering of the glory that will be brought to His Son, Jesus Christ, if this or that prayer were answered this way—our praying will take on the shape of Daniel’s prayer, having just read a promise in Jeremiah as to the length of the exile, pleads: “O Lord, according to all Your righteous acts, let Your anger and Your wrath turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy hill, because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people have become a byword among all who are around us” (Dan. 9:16). What Daniel does, in effect, is to remind God of the words He had spoken. He speaks God’s words back to Him and says, “Now, Lord, You promised!” Having to do this, grows us. It lifts us from childhood into adulthood.
    But another issue merges, one that forces us to ask, How can I know what arguments to use? And it is just at this point that the praying of Jesus helps us. In saying in the Garden of Gethsemane, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39), Jesus let’s us know that despite His sinlessness, He still found the unfolding will of God for Him difficult to bear. It reminds us of a very important spiritual principle: that it is possible to question the will of God without doing so in a sinful way. What emerges is the importance of the phrase, “not as I will, but as you will.” Prayer must always seek the priority of the will of God over our own will. And our prayers should therefore attempt to discern what His will might be—that which generates good rather than evil, that tends in the direction of saving sinners or extends His kingdom or brings Him glory).
    Praying this way is not silly at all! It is Christ-like!

September 1, 2006

Understanding the Times
Persevering in Prayer 
by Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas
 

What’s the use in praying for someone’s salvation, especially if we have been praying for the same one for decades? It is an important, if not sensitive question to ask. Like you, I have had on my prayer lists many individuals whom God has not (as yet) brought to saving faith in Jesus Christ. Some of these individuals, I have to say, have been the subject of my prayers for over three decades! But pray for them I still do, partly because I have no assurance that I should stop, and partly because their salvation is what I earnestly desire more than anything else in the world. I am not alone in this enterprise. Paul said much the same when he spoke about his fellow Jews in Romans 9:1-3 and 10:1. It is the cause of many a parents’ tears for their children (and vice versa).

    The problem is a subset of a larger one: how God answers prayers generally can often be a mystery to us. Sometimes He seems to say “yes” immediately; sometimes it appears to be a “yes’ but “not yet!”; sometimes the answer appears to us to be a “no” but truth is He answers (as Calvin suggests) not according to our asking but according to the way we would have asked had we better insight.

    God loves to answer prayer. Giving good gifts to His children brings Him delight as it does to those of us who are parents (or grandparents). When prayer is made that is in accord with His will, answers are forthcoming in ways that are tangible. But what does it mean to pray in accord with God’s will? The Lord’s Prayer provides the answer to that. They are prayers which focus upon God first and foremost, spelling out His greatness and glory. All our motives and aspirations reflect His. Central is the desire that God’s will be done, no matter what.

    Take the way Paul prayed for the removal of the thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12. He asked “three times,” suggesting that even in the case of an apostle, immediate answers to our prayers are not necessarily to be expected. It is always appropriate to say, “not as I will but as You will” without this becoming a sign of weakness or a lack of faith on our part. Paul seemed utterly convinced of what the best thing should be but was willing to be corrected to see that God’s ways were not his ways when the answer came, that he must learn to live with the trial, thereby increasing his need to wait upn God’s grace moment by moment.

 
    But in the case of my prayers for my loved ones, doesn’t God say (in 2 Peter 3:9) that He wants everyone to be saved? Well, no; not there anyway. What he says is that “the Lord is patient toward you (my Jewish fellow believers to whom I am writing), not wishing that any (of you) should perish, but that all (of you) should come to repentance.” I have no problems with suggesting that in one sense, God desires the salvation of all. It brings to mind one of my favorite sentences in the writings of John Murray (who takes a different interpretation to 2 Peter 3:9 than the one I have suggested above): “God Himself expresses an ardent desire for the fulfilment of certain things which He has not decreed in His inscrutable counsel to come to pass. This means that there is a will to the realization of what He has not decretively willed, a pleasure towards that which he has not been pleased to decree. This is indeed mysterious …” (John Murray, “The Free Offer of the Gospel” in Collected Writings of John Murray, Vol. 4 [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1996], 131.

    There are mysteries whenever we talk about God’s ways with us and this world. When a person comes to faith we give all the glory to God. But when a person does not—dies in their unbelief—the blame we assign to the sin of individuals who refused to come to Jesus Christ (and even if they never heard the gospel, the blame is theirs for being sinners in the first place).

    So what am I saying? Don’t stop loving or praying in the certainty that God knows what He is doing. It is the Bible’s way.

August 20, 2006
Israel: Is prophecy being fulfilled?
by Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas

Are we witnessing the end of the world in the events of the Middle East? The tragedy of the events are deeply distressing on more than one level, but uppermost is the evangelical lethargy that watches the unfolding mayhem with what amounts to a paralysis of objectivity. No matter what injustice takes place, God’s will is being done—especially in the actions of Israel. Christians side with Israel, correct? It goes without saying that most do. But is this a biblical view?
   
    Norman Cohn, in The Pursuit of the Millennium (1957), famously compared medieval millennialism to fascism’s 1,000-year Reich and the perverted utopias of the Communist Bloc. Today, however, as Crawford Gribben has pointed out, it appears that millennial aspirations have outlived their exploitation by medieval sect-masters and tyrannical governments. If a recent series of opinion polls are to be trusted, millennialism’s new spiritual home lies not in “Old Europe” but deep in the American South, where the astonishingly successful Left Behind series enjoys its most fervent following. Central to it all lies a belief that the events of the Middle East are literal fulfillments of biblical prophecy. In correcting this view, I risk offending some of my closest friends. It would be both impossible and irresponsible to attempt a full response to this position in the 1,000 words or so available to me in this article; but fools rush in… even when friends hold opposing views.

    When the British Mandate of Palestine ended in 1948 (after a quarter century), the formation of the State of Israel on May 14 of that year was seen by many at the time as a fulfillment of prophecy. Passages in Jeremiah 29 and Isaiah 11 are cited as proof. The twists and turns of Israel’s existence since, especially its border disputes with Egypt (especially the region known as the Gaza Strip), Syria and Lebanon, especially the wars of 1956 and 1967, have provoked continued speculation among Christians, especially in the United States. Indeed, persistent speculation has been voiced that Zionism has more than once determined American foreign policy in the Middle East. Whatever missionary concerns there were for the Arab world has, since 9/11, almost entirely dissipated. And then there’s Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians, “Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God” (1 Cor. 10:32). Doesn’t Paul distinguish three groups: Greeks (Gentiles), the church and the Jews. Proof, so it is said, that God still has a plan for the Jews as a race. Dispensational as well as pre-millennial theology follow the details of the current escalation on the Lebanese border as further proof of God’s plan for Israel. Christians tend, wittingly or otherwise, to side with Israel, even when it tramples on the Geneva convention.

    I must first of all confess to having held to more than one opinion as regards the interpretation of Romans 11:26, especially the climactic expression, “all Israel will be saved.” When I read John Murray’s magisterial commentary on Romans, I capitulated immediately. There was no question about it: Paul is speaking about ethnic Israel, the conversion of Jews at the end of the age. Martyn Lloyd-Jones confirmed it: Jews are going to be converted in large numbers before Jesus returns. And an entire battalion of Puritans added their collective weight to this view.

    Then I read William Hendriksen. And again I was convinced: “Israel” meant “all elect Jews.” Not Jews at a point in history prior to the return of Christ but Jews converted throughout history, today, tomorrow, next week, and so on. God has a plan that includes the conversion of all the elect, including some who are Jewish. And Palmer Robertson’s The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (P & R, 2000) only further confirmed it.

    But none of this has anything to say about the Jews as such, or their return to Palestine, or the political entity known as Israel. The formation of the State of Israel in unbelief is nowhere prophesied in the Old Testament. Indeed, Ezekiel 36:33, states that “on the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt.” That this is a reference to the return from Babylonian exile is beside the point. Ezekiel does not suggest that the State of Israel will be formed first and then, sometime later, the Jews will be brought to faith. The order seems to be reversed and both seem to occur on the same “day.”
   
    So this is where I am today—a somewhat rigid and immovable Amillennialist. I proudly boast that I’ve never read a single “Left Behind” volume, though struggle with envy that such twaddle can make you very rich indeed. Recent happenings, therefore, do not prove that the Lord is fulfilling ancient prophecies regarding the return and restoration of the Jews. The various Old Testament predictions of restoration for Israel were fulfilled in the return from the Assyrian-Babylonian exile, inasfar as they were intended to be fulfilled in a literal sense. I therefore see no “prophetic” significance at all in the present struggle in the Middle East apart from the fact that such “wars and rumors of war” mark the entire period between the two “comings” of Jesus (the inter-adventual age). There will be apostasy from the faith and tribulation for the faithful (2 Thess. 2:3; 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:1-5; Rev. 7:13-14). The thousand-year period of Revelation 20:1-10, is world history between Christ’s two comings. It does seem to indicate a climactic struggle between the world’s anti-Christian forces and the people of God, but none of this indicates a national Israel with determined borders or any possibility of dating the Second Coming.

Kissing “Kissing” Goodbye!
Was it Louis Armstrong who crooned,
    You must remember this
    A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh
    The fundamental things apply
    As time goes by. . . .

A kiss is just a kiss? What world are you living in?

Further to my comments last week about President Putin kissing a child’s stomach, this week a Church of England Vicar, Rev. Alan Barrett, in the Lichfield Diocese, has been placed under a state investigation following allegations that he kissed a primary school girl “on the cheek.” The deed was done in a public setting when the child, who had struggled in a mathematics class, had done well. The 58-year-old clergyman was accused by politically correct social workers of “inappropriate touching” and placed under investigation. The trial, which has lasted for over two months, exonerated him completely, but he still resigned as a member of the school governing council. Probably out of sheer exasperation. He had been charged with “common assault” of a minor. He is married with three adult children. The mother of the child expressed disappointment at the result of the inquiry.

The issue has received the usual press attention of the “clergyman on assault charges” variety. Serious newspapers have weighed in on the insane lengths to which Britain (and Europe) have fallen prey to political correctness. Schools now ban all hugging of children. Comfort should be applied “verbally and at a distance.” Some schools refuse to apply “plasters” on gazed knees lest they be sued for inappropriate contact. The assumption is that if you touch, it must be sexual. In a sexed-crazed world, innocence is a fantasy-land commodity.

The French are suitably outraged at the seeming British prurience. They kiss all the time and find a public display of affection to a ten-year-old perfectly appropriate. They seem equally outraged that the Church of England left Rev. Barrett out in the cold, issuing a typically PC memo supporting the danger of any physical contact in any situation.

What a world we live in! On this score, Elijah’s actions in 1 Kings 17, a passage I preached on a few weeks ago where the prophet restores the widow of Zarephath’s son to life, well… take a look and see for yourself! It would land him in jail for sure. In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, Richard Hook suggests: “If the action of a vicar in congratulating a 10-year-old with a kiss on the cheek in public is unacceptable in ‘today’s climate,” it is high time that we had an inquiry into today’s climate—not the vicar or the kiss.” (July 14, 2006).

It reveals a society where the saturation of sex (just watch some British television) has brought about the loss of innocence. Every word, gesture, and act is sexually laden. The story is both depressing and silly. It promises a generation of children who are afraid, suspicious, and dangerously paranoid. And churches inevitably follow suit. No hugging the children who achieve well or need reassuring. And as for kissing them—you can kiss that goodbye!

In the Brave New World of political correctness, there is the promise of something cold and austere. It is a world of suspicion and conspiracy, especially if vicars are involved.
 

July 14, 2006
To Kiss or Not to Kiss?
by Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas

This past week, the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, kissed a seven year old boy—on the stomach! Context: the President had bent down to ask the boy his name; the boy in embarrassment rolled up his T-shirt over his face thereby exposing his stomach; what else was a politician to do? Almost anything is the correct answer! Even hardened press reporters were “reported” to be astonished. It was weird.
    But it brought to mind the whole etiquette of social kissing. The British, you see, tend not to. At least, that used to be the case. But fashions change, and I understand that in London these days, among trend-setting socialites, it has become the in-thing for (straight!) men to hug and kiss, aping the French and Italians who do it to excess. I’m spending a day or two in the capital city this summer on my way to see my first grandchild, so I may start practicing these next few weeks!
Former US Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, in her Memoirs, recalls the confusion of kissing etiquette in Latin America. Some countries kiss on the left and some on the right, but which ones?
    Believe it or not, there’s a kissing guide website for American tourists visiting Europe: Paris has a four-kiss greeting, starting on the left—always! Brittany on the other hand follows a three-kiss pattern, and on the French Riviera (all that Mediterranean sun!), it can be as many as six! In the Netherlands, you always begin and end with the same cheek—the right; but in Belgium, as you might have expected, it’s only one.
    Then there’s the “ten year older?” rule: if the one you’re kissing is ten years older or more, you are expected to kiss some more! A recipe for tragedy to be sure.
The entry for Britain is hilarious, explaining that “the British as a rule don’t kiss outside of the family” adding “that a handshake is thought to be sufficient.” And it adds, “When the British ask how you are, they don’t expect you to tell them!”
    Which brings me to “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” It occurs five times in the New Testament (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:26; 1 Pet. 5:14). According to Justin Martyr (mid-second century), it was a standard part of the worship service. And Professor John Murray, a dour Scot, adds, “It betrays an unnecessary reserve, if not loss of the ardour of the church’s first love, when the holy kiss is conspicuous by its absence in the Western Church.”
But kissing in our contexts, especially when the practice is not part of social custom, is fraught with difficulties. So what should we do? Determine the timeless principle of which this is a cultural expression is the answer. Christians should greet each other warmly and affectionately. Too often, we pass each other without so much as a greeting. It ought not to be!

June 9, 2006
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall”
    One fine, sunny day, Alice walked in Wonderland. As she walked, she came across a large, rotund figure sitting precariously on a very narrow wall. “He is very large,” thought Alice to herself, “too large to be sitting on such a narrow wall!”
    “Good day to you,” she said politely, adding in a curious tone, “And who are you? And what are you doing perched on that narrow wall?”
“I am Humpty Dumpty,” he replied. “Some people think that I am an egg, but I like to think of myself as ‘The Decider of all Knowledge.’” I decide what words mean,” Humpty Dumpty continued in a tone that was decidedly pompous, Alice thought.
    Seeing Alice look a little puzzled, Humpty Dumpty added, “Take the word ‘God.’ It signifies a being who knows everything, past, present and future and is able to bring about exactly what he wills to bring about. But it also signifies one who has, well, ‘blind-spots’—areas where the future is ‘open’ and undecided, and because of that he is not able to bring some things about at all”
    “This is very curious,” Alice replied, adding, “but that means a word can mean two things at the same time.”
    “Quite so!” Humpty Dumpty said in a gleeful way sensing that Alice was a sympathetic and teachable student. “Words mean exactly what I say they mean; no more and no less.”
    “Even if their meanings contradict each other?” Alice asked, looking very skeptical indeed.
    “Of course!” said Humpty Dumpty now looking even more pleased with himself.
    “But that’s nonsense!” Alice protested loudly, at which Humpty Dumpty got so agitated that he wobbled and Alice thought for sure he was going to fall off the narrow wall. But Humpty Dumpty had met her sort before and soon balanced himself again and re-gained his composure.
    “Little child,” he sneered, “words can mean anything I want them to mean….”
    “Except what I want them to mean?” Alice interrupted attempting to be polite but firm.
    “Yes, exactly!” Humpty Dumpty said, reassured that his way of understanding the world had been correctly understood. “Of course, I don’t expect a mere child like you to understand the sophistication and complexity of the world in which we live. After all, it has taken me a long time to reach this level of understanding,” he said, now looking off into the distance as though forgetting for a moment that Alice was even there. “You see, we can never know for sure what a word means, especially when it was employed thousands of years ago and in a different language than our own. No, no, my dear child! We have to supply the meaning, taking into consideration the complex relationships of social, cultural and anthropological interactions. Our response to the word is just as important—often more important, in defining its meaning.”
    Alice didn’t understand what Humpty Dumpty was saying, especially when he began talking about something called “deconstruction.” “I hope he doesn’t deconstruct here,” she thought to herself, “or it will make a fine mess!”
Alice listened as Humpty droned on and on: “Truth is about helping everybody be comfortable with themselves and everybody else. We need to be careful that we are not inherently criticizing others when we use language. Take the words ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine,’ Humpty Dumpty said, “they are just learned social conventions and are really quite misleading, even wrong….”
    “But I’m a girl,” Alice insisted loudly, interrupting Humpty Dumpty in mid-sentence. “I’m definitely not a boy” and shuddered at the very thought of it.
“You are far too narrow in your thinking,” Humpty Dumpty said scornfully.
    Alice thought for a moment and then said, “But I thought my opinion was as valid as anyone else’s?”
    Humpty Dumpty didn’t say anything more, looking to all intents and purposes as though he no longer had any interest in conversation with her. And as Alice walked away, she could be heard saying to herself, “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.”

A copy of Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland was given to me on my seventh birthday by my grandfather. It remains a prophetic insight into the postmodern world of twenty-first century

July 2, 2006
World Cup Soccer
by Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas

It has probably escaped the notice of some of our readers, but, for the past few weeks, the rest of the world has been engrossed in a religious activity—soccer! It is the “World Cup” season, two weeks of wall-to-wall soccer (“football” to me, you understand) that consumes every moment of folks in Brazil, Argentina, Britain, Italy, or even Croatia. It is a truly international sport; and despite the fact that United States is playing (badly!), the game ranks barely a mention in the American media. By contrast, it would be impossible to exist in South America or Europe or even Africa without knowing important details of the national team. When Bill Shankley, a English football manager in the early 1980s was asked as to whether football was a matter of life or death to him he replied, “It’s more important than that!”
    Soccer is a game where 22 players kick a ball around for 90 minutes, but from another point of view, it is a game of individual skill and team dynamics. Both are apparently needed. Games are lost for the lack of either. And church is a bit like that
    It is interesting to reflect on the fact that when Paul lists the various gifts given to the church in Ephesians 4 (the gifts he mentions include apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, v. 11), the purpose in view is “the building up of the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:12). Similarly, in 1 Corinthians 12:28 (where the gifts mentioned again include apostles, prophets, teachers, as well as miracle-workers, healing, helps, administration, and tongues) the thing to be kept in mind is that “you are the body of Christ” (1 Cor. 12:27) and that we suffer and rejoice as a single body (1 Cor. 12:26).
    Love is essential in the utilization of gifts in the church; otherwise there is no team-spirit, but merely a parade of unseemly individualism. The body builds itself up when it exercises its gifts in a spirit of love (Eph. 4:16). Gifts are given to enable those who receive them to minister to others. Essentially, the church always was and always will be a single worshiping community. It is a “body” which has Jesus Christ as its Head. This explains how Paul could think of the one church universal as the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12-26; Eph. 1:22-23; 3:6; 4:4) as well as the local congregation (1 Cor. 12:27).
Two things are necessary to maintain this at a local level: teamwork and individual skill. Without individual skills the church suffers in various areas. Imagine no Sunday School teachers or pastors, for example. But unless these skills are being used with a view to growing the entire body, the result will be an unseemly display of pride and egotism.
    Working together as a team is what is needed. Then, as we were recently reminded in the exposition of Ephesians 4, “the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Eph. 4:16). Without love, gifts are a mere “sounding brass and clanging cymbal,” noise but not music!

June 2, 2006

Musing on a Journey to Chicago
I'm about to get on an airplane again tomorrow bound for Chicago. I'm heading for Grand Rapids and a seminary where I'm an adjunct faculty member. I'm there to do some research for a paper I'm to give later this summer. But it has me wondering this Sunday evening: does God know whether I'll get there?

Of course, I know the answer. And I suspect you do too. But there some significant preachers and theologians of the Open Theism variety who suggest that God may not know the answer to this question! They suggest, for example, that Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane in which he requested the removal of the cup of judgment means that the future is contingent. Another future is possible (one without the cup of judgment). We'll pass by the oddity of why Jesus would pray for something God is powerless to change or even has knowledge of, and simply comment that this is all very silly.

I ask the question, however, in all seriousness. Planes are big things. And heavy! And some of the passengers are, too! Yes, I did my undergraduate degree in Applied Mathematics and can remember a thing or two about the physics of aerodynamics. I know all about the relative difference in the speed of air above and below the wings causing lift. If I scratch my head, I may even remember a formula or two (but perhaps not—it was thirty-five years ago). I'm still amazed, though, when one of those birds actually takes off and I frequently mutter silently a word of thanks to God that I didn't end up in a ditch at the end of the runway. I must die some day, but, please, not that way!

Truth is, God knows everything! Yes, everything. That's what being God means. If He did not possess all knowledge (all knowledge of actual future events and all knowledge of all possible future events), He just wouldn't be God!

It's usually the bad things which cause the problem here—does God know the bad things before they happen? The implication being that if He does, why doesn't He do something about it? And if He doesn't do something about it, He must not be good himself (which is generally avoided though the logic suggests that if God lacks knowledge why cannot He also lack goodness?), or else He lacks ability. So, I ask again, does God know whether I'll get to Chicago tomorrow?

It is interesting that Peter wasn't the least shy about answering this question. On the Day of Pentecost, in his first full-fledged sermon as a restored disciple, he tells the folk in Jerusalem plainly that the death of Jesus, something which they had caused and for which they were responsible, was nevertheless "according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23).

God knows beforehand because He plans it! Jesus' death was planned! It wasn't an accident that caught God off-guard. From eternity He had covenanted with his Son that this would be the way to rescue lost sinners.

Does that mean that Peter was a Calvinist? Yes, I suppose, since Calvin gave life to this truth when it lay almost dead in the sixteenth century. But what sweet comfort it is to know that no matter how dreadful tomorrow may be, God is working out His perfect will.

In all the details! Every single one! No matter what!

5/11/2006
Silence
    The Braves are playing poorly. Not that I’d notice too much, but my wife’s demeanor has lost its joie de vivre. I try to console, but when those guys swing and miss all the time, it makes for an unhappy time.

Truth is, I’d be lying if I said I really cared. I don’t! Nothing to do with the Braves; it’s just sport in general. It has become something of an idol.

But it’s easy for me to say that about something I don’t care much for; much harder when it concerns something I truly love and would pay dearly to enjoy.

Take Siegfried. OK, smart alecks! I hear you say, “Yes, take it as far away as possible!” But stay with me for a minute: Siegfried is part 3 of a four-part opera by Wagner. Yes, I’m still home alone and Wagner will reign until my wife gets home from Ireland! It’s around 4 hours long (the entire opera in all four parts lasts around sixteen hours). Siegfried contains some of the most sublime music ever written. For long stretches of time, there are just two people on stage, singing. But what singing! It is mesmeric—the perfect way to escape. We won’t go into what they sing about just now—it’s all in German and most of us are blissfully ignorant of the real plot.

They are playing it at a series of concerts in London this summer—concerts I used to attend as a teenager and many times since then. I had been scheming on how I might get there over the summer—on my way to see my first grandchild, perhaps. And the conductor? Christoph Eschenbach, the current principal conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

This past week the details were announced on the Internet. My heart sank! Why? Because they have scheduled it for a Sunday!

It makes perfect sense of course. With two intervals, the concert lasts over six hours! Beginning late Sunday afternoon makes perfect sense. No one is at work. No rush hour traffic in London to contend with. It will be a sell out (and it was, within 20 minutes of the announcement).

But it is something I cannot now attend. But that’s not my point! Well, not for now at least. The point is, “How much time can we legitimately spend on recreation?”

That’s a difficult question, not least because answering it involves approaching far too close something that sounds awfully like legalism, and I don’t think I want to be in the position of regulating people’s lives that closely. That seems to me to be tampering with conscience, and as our standards insist: God alone is Lord of conscience and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men…” (WCF 20:2). But, it does seem a fair principle to observe that God has given us six days to labor and one day to free from labor. As a rough guide, then, one-seventh of our time spent in recreation seems to me to be justifiable. That’s one or two hours of an ordinary day and a bit more at weekends. Well, Saturdays, that is! For my calendar says that the week begins with Sunday and not ends with it! But that’s another issue for another day.

To spend this amount of time, relaxing, productively feeding our minds and hearts and souls (not couch-potato idleness that deadens and stultifies) seems to be appropriate and healthy. Even watching those Braves! But only when they are winning, otherwise the activity can be draining. Go Braves!
 

5/11/2006
Silence
Rosemary is away in Ireland and I’m home alone: just me and the dog. And Wagner! Wall to wall Wagner! Parisfal, Die Walküre , Tannhauser—the whole nine yards.

And with plenty of volume. After all, there’s no one else in the house.

Truth is, I don’t care much for silence! I fully understand college kids at Barnes and Noble “studying”—glued to an Ipod (though probably not Wagner!).
Don’t misunderstand me, silence can be therapeutic.

    And Silence, like a poultice, comes
    To heal the blows of sound.
        Oliver Wendell Holmes

But thirty years ago, as a seminary student, I had this conversation with a Princeton PhD student (now teaching at a seminary in the UK) on how silence was more of a Roman Catholic idea than a Protestant one. Protestant services of worship have not generally included periods of silence and quiet meditation. Public worship is a corporate occasion; and despite the fact that the modern church will often suggest that it may now be appropriate to be still and quietly meditate, historically this would have been seen as a concession to something alien to “gathered worship.” Public worship is not about me doing my personal thing. It is the corporate voice of the people of God singing His word, praying His word, reading His word and preaching His word.

However, I do believe in the private spiritual discipline of silence. After all, the Psalmist could say, “My soul waits in silence for God” (Psa. 62:1). And Isaiah could say: “For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, ‘In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength’” (Isa. 30:15).

Few expressed the value of silence better than David Brainerd. He wrote in his diary:

“I withdrew to my usual place of retirement in great peace and tranquility; spent about two hours in secret duties and felt much as I did yesterday morning, only weaker and more overcome. I seemed to depend wholly upon my dear Lord, wholly weaned from all other dependeces. I knew not what to say to my God, but only lean on His bosom, as it were, and breathe out my desires after a perfect conformity to Him in all things.” [Jonathan Edwards, ed., The Life and Diary of David Brainerd, (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1949), pages 83-84].

This is not the Zen Buddhist “empty your mind and allow thoughts to focus” variety.  The “silence” practiced here involves the disciplines of prayer, fasting, and the reading of Scripture. Thus Jonathan Edwards could say:

“A true Christian doubtless delights in religious fellowship and Christian conversation, and finds much to affect his heart in it; but he also delights at times to retire from all mankind, to converse with God in solitude. And this also has peculiar advantages for fixing his heart, and engaging his affections.” [Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1, rev. Edward Hickman, (1834; reprint ed., Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), pages 311-312]

These are precious times of great spiritual value. But wait! Is that Siegfried’s horn-call I hear? Time yet for some more music.

5/4/2006
Why I Decided Not to Preach Mark 16:9-16!
Does Mark’s Gospel end at verse 8 of chapter 16?  In modern translations of the Bible, Mark 16:9-20 is prefaced by words suggesting that the most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20. I wanted to explain why I didn’t preach the “Longer Ending,” so-called because a “Shorter Ending” is also known to exist. The answer would take several pages, but allow me to attempt a brief explanation.

1. I believe in the inerrancy of the original autographs of the Bible without exception or qualification.
2. We do not have any original manuscripts of either the Old Testament or the New Testament. What we do have are “copies of copies of copies...” as well as the inclusion of biblical texts (sometimes just a few verses) cited in other works. Over 5,400 manuscripts of New Testament passages and books exist (compare Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War [c. 460-400 BC] where only 8 exist dating from 900 AD and a few fragments from the 1st century AD; or, Julius Caesar’s Gallic War [58-50 BC] where only 9 or 10 manuscripts of good quality exist from around 900 AD). In some cases New Testament manuscripts date to within around fifty years after their autographs (Rylands Papyrus 457 [P52] is thought to be dated to about 125 to 150 AD). We might wish that God had kept one copy of the complete New Testament intact somewhere; but that is not the case. He has left us to exercise reason and faith in the truthfulness of the Bible we hold in our hands.
3. These various manuscripts are not always in agreement on the exact text. If only two manuscripts existed, the science of comparing the texts (Textual Criticism) would be a necessary one. Textual criticism is a valid area of research by Bible-believing scholars who maintain the inerrancy of the original autographa. It should not be thought of as a liberal device to destroy our confidence in the Bible. The fact that some have attempted to do just that does not negate the validity of the science itself.
4. Only (yes, only) about 6% of the text of the New Testament is in question. Bruce Metzger concludes: “In textual criticism, as in other areas of historical research, one must seek not only to learn what can be known, but also to become aware of what, because of conflicting witnesses, cannot be known.” (The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration [1992], 246).
5. Even though the original autographs were without error, errors occurred in copying. Some were due to the visual similarity of certain Greek letters (Σ (sigma), Ο (omicron), and Θ (theta) can look very similar at a glance. Other “errors” occur due to homophony: the words “sound” the same—who hasn’t written “there” when we meant to write “their”? The Greek for “we have” and “we shall have” sound the same); haplography: omission of a letter or word because a similar letter already occurs—a bit like misspelling “occurrence” as “occurence,” or more commonly, completely missing a line as the eye (on returning to the manuscript) catches the same word somewhere else on the page; Dittography: writing the same letter or word twice, and so on. More seriously, some copyists attempted to harmonize and theologize which explain some of the variations on some of the manuscripts. This may account for why a tradition of manuscripts contains a very clear reference to the Trinity and others do not (1 John 5:7-8, the so-called Johannine Comma).
6. Despite the enormous value of the King James Bible (1611) the Westminster Divines used a different version and did not attempt to place their imprimatur on this particular version or the manuscript tradition that lay behind it. Behind the King James Bible lies the so-called “Received Text” based on a mere one-hundredth of the available manuscripts. There are web sites aplenty suggesting that to depart from the Received Text is tantamount to liberalism but that would imply that B. B. Warfield, Gresham Machen, William Cunningham, Charles Hodge, Robert L. Dabney and C. H. Spurgeon were liberals! Spurgeon is quite adamant that the extra line in Romans 8:1 “who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit” should not be there! (See, Spurgeon’s sermon on this text in Volume 32 of published sermons, p.475).
7. Two of the greatest manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) omit the longer ending of Mark, though it is cited in a sermon by Irenaeus (130-202 AD. Against Heresies, 111:10:6). Jerome (c. 340 – 402 AD) and Eusebius (c. 260 – 341 AD) attest that the passage was absent from nearly all Greek copies of Mark known to them. It is not found in the older translations (e.g. Sahadic Coptic, Sinaitic Syriac). Other endings exist and in some manuscripts both endings appear. In some manuscripts the longer ending appears in such a way that the copyists seem to be indicating doubt as to authenticity. One codex contains another paragraph between verses 14 and 15. For these reasons, B. B. Warfield concluded that we should employ the principle that because the shorter ending exists the longer one has to be suspect.
8. William Hendriksen makes the careful comment: “To the extent in which this ending truly reflects what is found elsewhere inside the covers of our Bible it can be described a product, however indirectly, of divine inspiration. Since it would be very difficult—perhaps impossible—to defend the thesis that every word of this ending is without flaw, no sermon, doctrine or practice should be based solely on its contents.” (Gospel of Mark, p. 687)
9. Have I ever preached a sermon on this passage? Yes, once! And I still have the notes in my sermon files!

I See a Dead Man—Walking!

If I close my eyes and repeat to myself, “I believe the tomb was empty on that first Easter Day,” what exactly am I saying? Am I saying the same thing as is meant by the Gospel writers when they relate a young man, dressed in white, saying to astonished women who have come to the tomb of Jesus early that Sunday morning, “He has risen! He is not here” (Mark 16:6).

No! Not necessarily! Let me try and explain.
    It’s what a famous critical scholar, Hans von Campenhausen said, more or less, in 1952, and he got into a good deal of “scholarly” trouble for it. Did he believe that in (let’s say for the sake of argument) 30 A.D., a dead Jesus physically rose from the dead in the world of space and time? Not at all! Dead men don’t do that; but something happened and it gave rise to a movement that grew into what we now call the Church. What happened occurred in another dimension of reality, the dimension of faith (he called it “the eschatological reality of the new immortal life” but that’s just a clever use of language designed to suggest that people believed it and to them it was real). The psychological and emotional power of such belief is a force to be reckoned with.

    Indeed it is! There are folk who believe they have seen Elvis in the local Piggly Wiggly grocery store and the notion changes their lives. Belief is powerful.
Take David Hume, for example! He’s typical of post-Enlightenment thinking, rejecting as a matter of “principle” (faith, that is!) the very possibility of miracles: acts that are contrary to reasonableness (defined largely in terms of a worldview of Newtonian physics, one should add, for which Einstein would reject) cannot occur. Thus the claim that dead men rise is “most contrary to custom and experience” (the closing words of his essay “On Miracles” in his book, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding [1748]).

    That’s why, and forgive me if I sound aridly philosophical for a moment, the doctrine of the physical resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth breaks apart the worldview of post-Enlightenment thinking. Hume was right to argue that such a thing lies outside of “reason” and in a world called faith.

    Capitulating to this massive intellectual onslaught, a slew of theologians have come—and gone!—who have rejected the “historical Jesus” for something called “the Christ of faith,” limiting “historical” here to mean “the Jesus that fits the Procrustean bed of a post-Enlightenment, reductionist worldview.”
Well, something like that! You see, they are operating by a system of “faith” too. But one that is unreasonable! Yes, unreasonable.

    Because the case of for the historical reality of the resurrection has to take into account the sheer impossibility of explaining how Christianity arose in the first place unless the tomb was, in fact, empty. If the authorities could have produced the body the first gasping breaths of Christianity would have been stifled. Matthew’s note that the authorities actually started a rumor that the disciples stole the body proves their inability to produce it!

    And who can possibly believe that the disciples were prepared to be vilified and persecuted, even to the point of death, for something they knew not to be true?
The hard facts of evidence posit a gaping hole in the “reasonableness” of the post-Enlightenment skeptics to play the game of evidence on a level playing field. “Convince a man against his will, he’s of the same opinion still,” they say and the skeptics refuse to see what’s in front of their nose. It isn’t evidence that is the problem; it is the unbridled prejudice of a fallen mind. A bit like my mother, who had caught me in the Christmas present wardrobe (a forbidden piece of furniture in December) asking me, while I grasped a present firmly in both hands and in full view, “What are you doing?” “Nothing at all!” was my reply and for that moment I believed as firmly as I believed in anything at all. “Nothing at all!” I kept repeating in the vain hope that repetition would bring her as much confidence in my epistemological worldview as it then did me! It did not!

    When I say “I believe in the resurrection” I don’t simply believe it my heart (in the same way that I can say that a dead person is still with me so long as I keep thinking about them). I believe it took place in space and time. It was an historical event. Jesus rose in physical form on that first Easter morning. And in so doing demonstrated His deity, validated his teaching, attested to His completed work on the cross on our behalf, assures us of personal pardon through faith in Him and gave a foretaste of resurrected life to come for all who are His!

“He is Risen! He is Risen, indeed!”
 

April 13, 2006
Hell. Yes—On Good Friday
I begin by asking something of a technical question which, you may think only a professional theologian asks: How can someone who is God (like Jesus) die? For die He did, really and truly, on that first Good Friday at three in the afternoon. A soldier thrust a spear in His side to make sure. His heart had stopped beating; His brainwaves registered nothing. He was dead. By any definition employed then and now. And they buried Him.

    But, I ask again, how can someone who is God die? True, theologians have (for rhetorical and just plain silliness at best and because they are heretics at worst) said that God dies (which is different from saying that “God is dead” as they did around 40 years ago, but that was because they didn’t believe in God in the first place). Can we really speak, for example, of The Crucified God—an expression used by the theologian Jürgen Moltmann? But even Karl Barth thought Moltmann unorthodox and Barth himself was none too sound!

    True, Isaac Watts did say in his wonderful hymn,
        Alas! And did my Savior bleed:
        Well might the sun in darkness hide,
        And shut its glories in,
        When Christ, the mighty Maker, died
        For man the creature’s sin

but this was for poetical effect, and we know that he didn’t mean it literally.

    And Charles Wesley wrote as much in And Can it Be That I should Gain:
        ‘Tis Mystery all! The Immortal dies!
        Who can explore His strange design?
        Who indeed!
        God cannot die, can He?
        No! Absolutely not!

    So what exactly occurred on that Friday at three in the afternoon?

    This: the human body of Jesus died. His (human) soul continued to exist and immediately passed into glory, still united to His divine nature. The divine and human natures are in what theologians call a hypostatic union—a union which ensures that the two natures, “the Godhead and the manhood, are inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion” (Westminster Confession of Faith 8:2). And this is where it gets mysterious (right! even more mysterious!): the divine nature is now in union with a physical body which is dead. Such is the respect that Christianity offers the physical and material body (contrary to paganism then, and now) that God is in union with a corpse. Jesus had to experience death, and “remain under the power of death” for a season (WCF 8:4), in order to redeem us from the grave. There is no part of sin’s penalty that He has not entered and redeemed for us.

    Theologians have done their level best to be careful here by employing the technical language of communicatio idiomatum (Latin always adds the idea that it must have some meaning, even if we don’t understand what that meaning is!), defined by Louis Berkhof (Systematic Theology, 324) this way: “that the properties of both, the human and the divine natures, are now the properties of the person, and are therefore ascribed to the person.” Thus way we may speak of Jesus (as a Person) dying, but not in His divine nature. Calvin waxed eloquently on it, too (Institutes 2.14.2).
 
    Where has this got us? Not very far! Just a toe over the edge of mystery!

    What is undeniable and certain is that Jesus died on Calvary—not for any sin of His own, but for those of His people. He died, the just for unjust, to bring us to God (1 Pet. 3:18). It was hell He experienced. Hell—for us. That we might experience heaven.

April 7
The Clearest Gospel of All
On Monday, at the funeral of dear Paul Stephenson, we read once again from the eighth of Romans—the Bible book which Luther referred as “the clearest gospel of all.” Calvin, too, said of Romans: “If a man understand it, he has a sure road opened to understand all the Scriptures.” And if this is so of Romans generally, it is particularly true of the eighth chapter. From it, Christians have drawn the sweetest comfort in its Alpine summits as Paul seems to reach something of a crescendo as he relates his persuasion that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:39).

    In a series of four pointed questions, Paul rings the changes on the adequacy of “the God of grace” and “the grace of God.”

    Question 1: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31).
   
    It is the fear of opposition that is just below the surface of this question. The opposition of sin, or temptation, or failure, or demon. Does anything exist that can be a threat to the covenantal purposes of our God? What forces are there in the world or out of the world that can undo God’s design for His children? And what we are meant to say in answer to the “who can be against us?” is no one—at least, no one who is more powerful and determined than God!  The little words “for us” are taken from one of the psalms when David had been taken by the Philistines: “This I know, that God is for me” (Psa. 56:9). It is a very beautiful thought: the Lord Almighty, Creator, Sustainer is on my side, fighting on my behalf, ensuring that I will be brought through every trial and obstacle. No foe can undo His purpose, however terrible it might appear to be. Every Christian can say: God is for me.

    Question 2: “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32).

    Tempting as it is to think that this statement suggests that God will give us anything we desire, that would be facile. God doesn’t promise us anything we want but everything we need. It is the enormity of the argument that is breathtaking: Paul argues on the basis that God has given us the most dear and precious gift imaginable—His own Son! Can we doubt His generosity? Or His commitment? Or His resolve? Or more especially, His generosity.
Context is the key to interpretation and Paul has just told us that those He predestines in eternity He calls and justifies and eventually glorifies (though Paul is so certain of it he uses language that suggests it has already occurred). Everything that ensures our final glorification will be given to us. It is at once a reassurance of God’s provision along the way. And our sinful hearts are prone to think that God isn’t generous in His giving.

Question 3: “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” (Rom 8:33).

    What Paul has in mind here is our acceptance before God: “It is God who justifies” (Rom. 8:33). And our justification is based on the finished work and consequent resurrection of Jesus Christ.
    My hope is built on nothing less
    Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
    I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
    But wholly trust in Jesus’ name.
With Jesus as Savior, no sin, however great or lately committed, can undo what God has pronounced.

    Question 4: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rom. 8:35).

    Whatever trial we may pass through, whatever forces are arraigned against us, the love of God for His own is a fire that cannot be put out.
“O love that wilt not let me go…”

3/24/2006
Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest”: Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556)
by Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas

I have on my desk this morning a copy of Diarmaid MacCulloch’s Thomas Cranmer (Yale University Press, 1996). I have read it once before but feel this week an obligation to read it again—all 700 pages of it! Tomorrow (as I write, at least) is March 21 and 450 years ago (March 21, 1556), in the streets of Oxford, Thomas Cranmer was burnt alive, six months after a similar fate had befallen the two bishops, Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer.
    In the resurgence of Catholicism under the increasingly bitter Queen Mary, 286 men and women (some of whom were pregnant) were burnt at the stake for their avowal of Protestant and evangelical beliefs. Her tragic reign gained for her the title, “Bloody Mary.”
    Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), English reformer and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1533 to 1556 had guided the Church of England through its difficult and (for some at least) compromising steps towards reformation. Cranmer, assisted by his friend Martin Bucer, had produced two editions of the Book of Common Prayer (1549 and 1552, the former still contained much that the continental reformers found objectionable).
    Cranmer’s embrace of the Protestant cause eventually resulted in his imprisonment. Cranmer’s death warrant had already been signed on February 24, 1556 (a month before his execution) and attempts were now made to cajole him into signing a recantation, which he eventually did on March 19. The following day, when it had been made clear to Cranmer that his death was to take place despite his recantation, Cranmer spent the day in apparent preparation for his death. The authorities believed they had won a major coup against the reformation and planned that Cranmer be allowed to preach a prepared sermon denouncing the reformation (which was meant to have taken place beside the funeral pyre, but due to rain was held at a nearby University church instead).
    For his last meal, Thomas Cranmer was given, in addition to wine and ale, spice cakes, bread, fruit and nuts and a dish of stewed prunes,” which as MacCulloch explains, “ensured that the prisoner would not suffer on a trying occasion with a bout of indigestion” (p.599).
    In the morning of his execution Cranmer gave some suitable words to the prison staff, recited the litany and signed fourteen copies of his recantation (the authorities trying to ensure that no grounds of a charge of forgery would ensue). All seemed to indicate that Cranmer was playing the part the authorities had asked for. At the university church, following an address by a Dr. Cole explaining why his death was necessary despite his recantation, Cranmer began his sermon. It touched on many things, but soon made mention of “the one thing that, which so much troubleth my conscience.” The text of the sermon had already been written out and the authorities followed along as he spoke. The written text had referred to something which Cranmer had signed (meant to be a reference to Cranmer’s former denunciation of the Mass and belief in transubstantiation) but suddenly Cranmer deviated from the written text and identified the “one thing” with which his conscience was troubled—the recantation document he had signed two days previously!
    The church was in an uproar. Suddenly, Cranmer was shouting his disavowal of the authority of the Pope and the doctrine of transubstantiation. At this point the authorities stopped him and removed him from the church. A graphic cartoon-like drawing appeared later of Cranmer being hauled over the pulpit by enraged authorities who marched him through the packed streets to the place of execution.
    On arriving at the pyre, Cranmer was fastened to the stake by a circular metal band around his waist. The wood having been set on fire, Cranmer deliberately placed his right hand in the flames, repeatedly saying, “this hand that offendeth” and also while he could the dying words of the first martyr, Stephen, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” As A. M. Renwick describes the scene, Cranmer continued “pleading for God’s pardon and the forgiveness of the people, and urging them to maintain the doctrines he had taught. He then held the offending hand and arm in the flames until they burnt to a cinder” (A. M. Renwick The Story of the Church, 134).

Thus died one “of whom the world was not worthy” (Heb. 11:38

3/17/2006
How Honest Do You Want Me To Be?
“How are you?” someone asked me this morning. “Fine!” I replied. It’s what we expect Christians to say—especially Christian ministers! Truth is, I was feeling pretty tired and jaded, on the other side of many hours in the back seat of one of Delta’s less-than-luxury-flying-boxes. But my friend wasn’t expecting a long answer (since he continued to walk after asking the question) and I wasn’t for telling him just how low a minister can be on a Monday morning when the devil has told him with more realism than usual how poor a job I’d done the day before. The devil trades in guilt.

I’d sat next to this huge athlete on the flight back from Phoenix. He must have been a basketball player, I thought. He was tall, muscular and wore black shorts and trainers and had his face glued to a sports magazine the whole time—the kind that I never read! I remember thinking: “The strong succeed in this life” and I remembered how non-athletic I’ve always been.

The strong succeed. It’s the way of the world. It’s certainly the way of Sports. But it is not the way of the Bible. Let me explain.

From Lamech and the tower of Babel, the world has worshipped the strong and powerful: the go-getters, the successful tycoons, the warriors. The world has wanted to be like them. Witness the frenzy of pulp literature on “How to be Successful” that litter the bookstore shelves; witness the idolatry (yes, much is it is just that) for fitness and youthfulness. Now think of Paul: “his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account” (2 Cor. 10:10). The Corinthians, do you see, were into big preachers! And Paul didn’t fit that category. And like the world, they sneered at his weakness and mocked it. Paul wouldn’t have made it well on TV! His name didn’t appear in lights. And in worldly terms, he was a failure.

And his gospel didn’t amount to much either. He didn’t promise self-help techniques which, if followed to the letter, would achieve wealth and success. Nor did he assure victorious living above the war and strife that “ordinary” Christians endured. Paul’s Christians had a tendency to suffer, to be beaten down and put in prison and die!

Yes, God strengthens the weak, Paul would say—did say: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). But, the “all things” did not seem to mean for Paul what it meant to some who heard it. He still found himself thrown out of cities and beaten until he was near death. To the proud world of the Corinthian super-Christians Paul’s limitations seemed pitiful.

It is a spirit that remains with us to this day. “I should have told him just how weak and ineffectual I really feel,” I thought to myself as my inquisitor walked merrily on his way. “His life isn’t racked with trials and problems, I’m pretty sure,” I continued to ponder. But, of course, I was wrong! Dead wrong. For those whom God chooses to use He first of all breaks. He keeps His low and humble, in the position of suppliants, begging for help. Yes, “Help!” It is what Christian prayer is in its essence: a crie de coeur of weakness on our part looking to the Holy Spirit to strengthen and enable. “Now to Him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel” (Rom 16:25) Paul says at the close of his theological exposition of the gospel. And this is why he can say to the Corinthians: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9-10).

“Just a minute,” I wanted to shout, “I have something I want to share with you.” And what was that? That only those who feel weak can experience the strength of God that enables walk in the power of Christ

3/5/2006
War and Peace
In the world of classical music this is the centenary year of the birth of one the very greatest composers of the twentieth century, Dmitry Shostakovich (1906-1975). He is to music what Alexander Solzhenitsyn is to Soviet literature. Finding early success with an internationally received symphony (No. 1) at 19, his career fell foul of accepted standards ten years later when Pravda severely criticized his opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Thereby began twenty years of artistry aimed ostensibly at pacifying the communist regime and Stalin in particular, but now understood as filled with subtlety and irony. “The War Symphonies”—Symphonies Four through Nine (he wrote fifteen in all) delve into the harrowing subject of Stalin’s bloody purge on Russia and Shostakovich’s musical counterattack.

    These symphonies, written between 1936 and 1945, are the composer’s weapons against Stalin’s rampant bloodletting. Shostakovich called them his “tombstones.” Of these six symphonies, the Fifth is the best known and the most easily accessible. I heard a live performance of it when I was a teenager. My physics teacher, who introduced me to the twentieth century music of Sibelius, Mahler, and Shostakovich, gave me tickets to hear the Halle Orchestra play in the Great Hall in Aberystwyth, Wales. The breathtaking ending of the symphony, a sustained pulsing energy, rising to a climactic finish, is guaranteed to excite the near-comatose!

    The Seventh is epic in proportion describing the siege of Leningrad. It is the Eighth that is the most harrowing—the most graphic musical depiction of war that I know. Nothing can be compared to the metallic sound Shostakovich creates. My favorite Shostakovich symphony is the Eleventh, describing another memorable year in Soviet history, “The Year 1905.” It ends exactly the same way that it begins—quietly and hauntingly mesmeric. But in between, hell itself seems to be unleashed in fury and anger.

    My point? That out of the most brutal circumstances extraordinary good can emerge. Great literature, great art, great music! And therein lies a great lesson that the Bible reinforces again and again. That spiritual growth and vitality—the best things we ever do and say, emerge from the crucible of suffering and trial. The Puritans knew this lesson well and often preached and wrote about it. Wrote John Geree, a seventeenth century English Puritan, in his tract The Character of an Old English Puritane or Noncomformist (1646):

         “His whole life he accounted a warfare, wherein Christ was his captain, his arms, praiers and tears. The Crosse his Banner and his word [motto] Vincit qui patitur [he who suffers conquers].”

    “Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice,” C. S. Lewis wrote, and Christians of the past were not afraid to be reminded of it so long as it drew to live out-and-out for God as a consequence. I’ve no idea where Shostakovich stood spiritually, but his music reminds me of the frailty of this life and the need to live for Christ in a brutal, fallen world.

    Too much Christianity is concerned with personal pleasure where soothing syrup from preachers mollycoddles over-indulged Christians to expect the wrong things. Instead of preparing them for battle against the world, the flesh, and evil, they are hoodwinked into the belief that pain and deprivation are the greatest obstacles to Christian vitality and growth. Nothing could be further from the truth: God tries us “in the furnace of affliction” (Isa. 48:10). Like the music of Shostakovich, some truths can only be heard in minor keys.
 

February 26, 2006
Encouragement for Christian Workers

Some of God’s best workers have needed encouragement. Read the biographical sketches of Moses, Elijah, or John the Baptist and you will see what I mean. Moses was conscious of a price on his head and felt God’s call to return to Egypt was misguided (Exod.3:11). But, Moses need have no fear: “But I will be with you,” God says reassuringly (v 12).

Elijah is exhausted and fearful that Jezebel will take his life, so he asks God to take it instead. God comes to him, not with lectures and rebukes, but with food and sleep and a glimpse of His glory in all its tenderness and beauty (1 Kings 19:5-12). John the Baptist, imprisoned and facing execution doubts Jesus’ identity. The disciples are sent to encourage him, relating some of the great things that are being done in Jesus’ name (Luke 7:18-23).

Paul was another who needed encouragement. This might appear surprising, for we have this view of the apostle as a man of unparalleled strength and energy. Just read through Acts and follow him on his journeys from Antioch to Cyprus, Southern Galatia and on to Troas, Macedonia, Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth and Ephesus, and you will be out of breath just trying to take it all in. When Paul is reluctantly forced to defend himself before the Corinthians, he reminds them of the imprisonments, floggings, shipwrecks, narrow escapes from death and the like that he has been through (2 Cor.11:23-27). He bore the very scars of suffering on his body — they branded him as a slave of Jesus Christ (Gal.6:17).

Paul was a man of extraordinary resources of will and physical strength. Yet, when he first comes to Corinth, he confessed to being afraid. Difficult as it is for us to imagine Paul “trembling,” this is precisely what he did upon entering the great capital city of the Roman province of Achaia (1 Cor.2:3). And it was just here that God encouraged His servant — in a late night vision: “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are My people.” (Acts 18:9,10).

Jesus, too, needed encouragement.

Take Gethsemane, for example. Which of us can begin to understand what went through Jesus’ human mind in those hours? One thing is sure: the road to Calvary lay before Him and any other course would be easier than this one. And Jesus must wrestle with the face of providence alone. There is no one to bear this burden with Him. There is none to help. The disciples, the three Jesus had stationed near Him, fell asleep. Jesus’ prayer seems to reflect a man at the end of his human resources. He throws Himself prostrate on the ground. He is facing the prospect of meeting the raw holiness of God, the mysterium tremendum, in its divine opposition to all that is unholy—the reality of what the cross will entail. When Moses saw God’s glory on Mount Sinai, the sight reduced him to fear (Heb. 12:21). And Moses was seeing God in covenant with man! But Jesus was facing God’s sword raised against Him (Zech. 13:7; Matt. 26:31). He was about “to be made sin” for us
(2 Cor. 5:21).

And it is just here that Luke describes “an angel” that appeared to Him “from heaven, strengthening Him” (Luke 22:43). This angel witnessed depths of suffering that we cannot even imagine. When He resumed his praying, it is in anguish (Gk. agonia), praying so hard that sweat drops became drops of blood (Luke 22:44). Hebrews recalls this moment, saying, “Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears” (Heb. 5:7). Alexander Whyte once said that in heaven, after he had seen Christ Himself, he would like his first conversation to be with this angel!

Do you need encouragement?

February 7, 2006
An Alarm to the Unconverted

The title is that of a seventeenth century book by Joseph Alleine (1633-1668). On the death of his brother Edward, Joseph asked if he could be trained as a minister to replace his brother. He entered Lincoln College, Oxford and eventually Corpus Christi graduating in 1653. He was ordained as an associate minister in St. Mary’s Magdalene, in Taunton, Somerset in 1655. He ministered for barely a dozen years before God took him home, but in that time he wrote two books, both of which remain in print to this day, A Sure Guide to Heaven and An Alarm to the Unconverted. Alleine’s Alarm, has been republished over five hundred times!
    The book is an evangelistic tract (the Puritans invented these). Some think that Puritans like Alleine knew little of evangelism. If by evangelism we mean the practice of getting folk to make decisions based on information of minimal content, then it is true; the Puritans knew nothing about such an activity. Nor did they know anything of “evangelistic campaigns” or programmatic evangelism. And whilst they did know plenty about “revival” in the historic sense of a sovereign outpouring of the Holy Spirit effecting conviction and conversion, they did not know of “revival” in the modern sense—of an organized series of meetings focusing on getting men and women to make decisions for Christ; nor would they have encouraged such a thing.
    But was Alleine evangelistic? Was he mission-minded in the biblical sense: having a Spirit-induced concern to make the gospel known to perishing sinners in such a way that they come to an end of themselves and have no other resort than to flee to Christ offered to them in the gospel? The answer, of course is a resounding, “yes.”
    Modern mission is based on the idea that the natural man is sick but not dead. It believes that man still retains some innate ability to turn to God at any time. The ultimate “decision” is the sinner’s to make and what evangelists and missionaries need to do is to tap into that resource and persuade the sinner to decide for Christ. Assurance is given, often by way of a “Protestant absolution” citing 1 John warning the sinner never to doubt from this point on. This form of evangelism was established by the eighteenth century Presbyterian, Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) who proposed what became known as the “new measures” to secure as many “conversions” as possible.
    Alleine knew nothing of this. Nor would he have supported it. To Alleine, the natural man is dead, incapable of faith or repentance and unwilling to embrace the gospel. If a sinner is to be saved, it must be by a sovereign work of God. He embraced the robust theology of the Shorter Catechism when it answered the question as to the nature of effectual calling; “Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel” (Q.31). As the Westminster Confession had affirmed, only the Spirit can change men’s hearts, “so that they come most freely, being made willing by His grace.” (10.1).
Preachers like Alleine were soul-winners. The saw their task as preaching—through sermons, books as well as personal evangelism—and applying both law and gospel. But evangelism cannot dilute the truth God has revealed in Scripture or pretend that sinners are capable of doing what they evidently are not. Preachers are to show sinners what God’s mind is and set forth the way of salvation as the Bible reveals it, exhorting the unconverted to learn the law, to meditate on the Word, to humble themselves, to pray that God will show them their sins, and enable them to come to Christ. And that’s what An Alarm to the Unconverted does—simply, profoundly, movingly. And God has used it over and over and over again in the salvation of souls.

An Alarm to the Unconverted is a paperback (around 125 pages) and is currently available from Sovereign Grace Publications for around $10.

January 19, 2006

“Roe v. Wade [Jan. 22, 1973] ”
by Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas

Christians have come to regard January 22 as a dark day. Thirty-three years ago (on January 22, 1973), the Supreme Court justices cobbled together a legal theory that allowed them to legalize abortion. In what has become known as Roe v. Wade, an awkwardly constructed theory divided pregnancy into three hypothetical phases or trimesters—arguing that the state has no right to interfere in what occurs in the first trimester, a limited (but largely undefined) right to interfere in the second, and a much more extensive right to limit abortion in the third. The basis for this somewhat arbitrary division was based upon fetal viability. Only in the third trimester is fetal viability an issue, it argued.
    Science is not necessarily a friend to Roe v. Wade! On a frustrating 22 hour plane journey back from South Africa this week, I found myself forced to watch a movie. I began watching something called “The Island,” only because Ewan McGregor was in it! I have to admit that I lost interest after about 30 minutes and abandoned it, but it began with a futuristic world in which human beings were produced (as transplant tissue providers) by a process called “ectogenesis”—bringing a fetus to term in an artificial womb. It spared women from the nasty business of giving birth (let alone the inconvenience of putting on weight and carrying to term an infant during the nine-month gestation). It also provided a ready supply of organ tissue for transplants.
    As I said, the movie was almost believable until they escaped this cocooned environment! But it set me thinking about how science can sometimes work against the humanistic philosophy on which it is founded. What “ectogenesis” promises (it may not be a reality yet, of course) is the possibility that “life” is, in fact, “viable” at a much earlier stage than the third trimester—even to the point of the initial (artificial) conception. Even by the standards of Roe v. Wade this suggests the illegality of abortion. The liberal hysteria in questioning would-be Supreme Court judges by this standard may well prove a false standard.
    Not that I’m expecting any changes in the liberal agenda any time soon. It has been regularly remarked since 1973 that the Supreme Court was determined to legalize abortion and went to the Constitution to find an argument to justify it. It is a hermeneutic with which Christians are all too familiar: you can prove anything from the Bible if you have a mind to. You simply cite a couple of verses, out of context, with no attempt to ask the bigger question of how it fits into the whole. Thus “Christians” declare the validity of gay sex, Cadillac-ownership, and vegetarianism with a wave of the hand.
    All to say that Roe v. Wade is probably due for updating if the world is to continue its justification of what Scripture regards as infant killing—the termination of a human life. In our morally confused age, what grows inside the womb is not a baby unless the mother says it is a baby. If the pregnancy is desired, or if morally- informed decision outweighs any other consideration, the fetus is a baby as soon as the news of a pregnancy is discovered. Otherwise it is not. It is just a piece of protoplasm, unwanted tissue, a “cancer” to be removed quickly and thoroughly. It is about choice; the choice of the adult and the non-choice of the infant. In a recent report in the Los Angeles Times, “Offering Abortion, Rebirth” [November 29, 2005], the story was told of Dr. William F. Harrison of Fayetteville, Arkansas, who during the course of the last twenty years, has “birthed” around six thousand children and aborted over twenty thousand. Asked why he gave his life to this latter course, he said that he heard “a still small voice asking, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ to which I was at last compelled to reply, ‘Here am I, send me.’”
    There you have it! The counter-culture of the world using the very language of the Bible to justify its evil deeds. It has always been the way of darkness to mimic the light.