Monday, October 31, 2005
CALVIN ON JOHN 17:9
The following words of the master exegete John Calvin are worthy of careful consideration:
"Moreover, we gather from these words that God chooses out of the world those whom He sees fit to be heirs of life, and that this distinction is not made according to men's merits, but depends on His mere good pleasure. For those who place the cause of election in men must begin with faith. But Christ expressly declares that they who are given to Him belong to the Father. It is certain that they are given that they may believe, and that faith flows from this giving...." Calvin concludes by admonishing those who oppose God's sovereign initiative in salvation (e.g., our "Arminian" brethren) and those who mishandle and distort the doctrine of election (I think here of "hyper-Calvinists"): "Those, therefore, who try to blot out the knowledge of election from the hearts of believers do them a grievous injury, for they deprive them of the support of Christ. These words also serve to expose the perverse stupidity of those who under the excuse of election surrender to laziness, whereas it should rather sharpen us to earnestness in prayer, as Christ teaches us by His example."
Sunday, October 30, 2005
JOHN 17
I have been preaching the last few Sundays from the Lord's high priestly prayer in John 17. Martin Luther was surely right when he said, "This prayer may sound plain and simple, but it is reality deep, rich, and wide, and none can fully understand." So many things about this "deep, rich, and wide" prayer stand out to me. For instance, Jesus refers four different times to His people as given to Him by the Father. Likewise, earlier in John's gospel Jesus says, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him...." Jesus also said the giving by God precedes the coming to God (John 6:37). The Living Word Himself and the written Word of God both clearly teach God's sovereign initiative in saving sinners. For myself, I am finding that the older I get and the more I study sacred Scripture, the more convinced I am of the deadness of man in sin and the sovereignty of God in salvation. Secondly, and relatedly, I note Jesus' words in John 17:9: "I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me." Whatever one thinks of the doctrine of definite atonement (or limited atonement/particular redemption, whatever term you prefer!), it is notable that Jesus does not pray for the world. My Reformation Study Bible comments that it would be absurd for Jesus to die to take away peoples' sins and then refuse to pray for them. That is a good point. To my mind, John 17 can be adduced to make a strong case for definite atonement.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
MERCY CLOUDS
William Cowper, the 18th-century English poet, passed through a great crisis in his life (he suffered from periodic bouts of depression), out of which came these words of his great hymn "God Moves in a Mysterious Way." Consider carefully the hymn's third verse:
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.
What a comfort to know, as Cowper knew, "... that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28).
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
ADAM AND EVE
Speaking of the human condition, someone once suggested that Adam and Eve must have had a marriage with little conflict. Adam didn't have to listen to Eve talk about all the other fellows she could have married, and Eve didn't have to hear Adam boast about what a great cook his mother was!
Monday, October 24, 2005
THE HUMAN CONDITION (PART 2)
A Puritan minister by the name of Richard Alleine once made this insightful observation about human sinfulness: "Some talk that the devil hath a cloven foot; but whatever the devil's foot be, to be sure his sons have a cloven heart." Spiritually speaking, is it correct to say that people have cloven (or devilish) hearts? Are people basically good or bad? In my last blog entry, I emphasized that human beings are sinners by nature. The Bible is very clear on that matter.(See Ephesians 2:3, if you have any doubts in this regard!)
It is clear from the Bible that Adam and Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden disrupted their relationship with God and had far-reaching consequences for humanity, you and me included. The Bible says God commanded that Adam "not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die" (Genesis 2:17). In Genesis 3:6 we read that Eve ate the forbidden fruit and then gave some to Adam to eat. From that point on, their relationship with God changed dramatically. Following their descent into sin, Adam and Eve covered their nakedness and hid from God; shame and fear now characterized their relationship with their Maker.
Not only was there a change in Adam and Eve's relationship with God as a result of their sin, there was also a change in God's attitude toward them. Sin had--and has--serious consequences. In Genesis 3 we find God reacting to the sin of our first parents by punishing and expelling them from the garden. Notably, the consequences of their sin reached far beyond themselves. After their sin, the ground was cursed (Gen. 3:17) and death appeared (Gen. 3:19). The apostle Paul connected Adam's sin to humanity when he wrote in Romans 5:12: "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned...." Pelagianism, the teaching named for fourth-century Christian named Pelagius (the theological opponent of Augustine), denies a connection between the sin of Adam and the rest of humanity; human beings choose to sin, Pelagians say, but not as a result of any inherited or original sin.
Christians in the tradition of Augustine maintain that human nature as a whole sinned in Adam; what happened in the garden of Eden affected the entire human family. Even as I type this, I recall the words of a colleague in ministry who stridently denounced the doctrine of original sin, believing it to be a doctrine of man rather than a biblical teaching. Like Pelagius before him, my friend in ministry is just plain wrong in his understanding of the human condition! The Augustinian view regarding sin is clearly more in keeping with the biblical witness. In short, human beings choose to sin because sin is part of our very nature.
THE HUMAN CONDITION
It is amazing how many people believe in a "god" of their own imagination, a sentimental deity who overlooks sin and ushers everyone into His Kingdom. This past week I had a conversation with a churchgoing person who mentioned that she works with Muslims and atheists who are, in her words, "good people." With much emotion in her voice, she declared that people are good by nature and that God will find room for everyone in His Kingdom, even those who refuse to trust in Jesus Christ for their salvation. One might expect such a view from an unchurched person, but this lady is very actively involved in her local church. Her sincere, but deluded, beliefs cause me to wonder what people are being taught (or are not being taught!) in churches today.
Are people basically good? Will God save everyone, giving free Kingdom passes to atheist and devil worshipper alike? From the Bible's point of view, the answer is a categorical "no." Scripture clearly teaches that people are not inherently good; we are sinners by choice and by nature. In this regard, many theologians speak of the doctrine of original sin, which refers to the state of sin that characterizes all human beings as a result of Adam's sin. David, for instance, spoke of being sinful from the time of conception. "Surely I was sinful at birth," he said, "sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5). Likewise, in Psalm 58:3 we read, "Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward and speak lies." Jeremiah gave a stark description of the human condition when he said in Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" Paul spoke of the sinful human condition in Ephesians 2:1-3 when he referred to people as spiritually dead apart from Christ. In fact, he said sinful human beings "were by nature objects of [God's wrath]." One should not take lightly the phrase "by nature." Paul made this statement because all human beings come into the world in a state of sin, having inherited the sinful condition that characterized fallen Adam.
The second chapter of Ephesians makes clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that people are not basically good but are sinful by nature and objects of God's wrath apart from Jesus Christ. This point of view is neither politically correct nor popular. It certainly does not square with many people's conception of God. But what should we expect from those who ignore God's self-revelation in Holy Scripture? When we disregard or distort the Bible, how easy it is to create our own god!
Long ago, a very wise Christian named John Calvin noted how people often conjure up gods of their own making. "Just as waters boil up from a vast, full spring," Calvin said, "so does an immense crowd of gods flow forth from the human mind, while each one, in wandering about with too much license, wrongly invents this or that about God himself." When thinking about God and/or human nature, it is critically important to be informed by His self-revelation in Scripture. And God's scriptural revelation is clear: human beings are sinners by nature and by choice and are, apart from God's saving grace in Jesus Christ, objects of His wrath.Saturday, October 22, 2005
QUOTABLE QUOTE
Here is a great quotation from William Carey, the father of modern missions:
"Attempt great things for God, expect great things from God."
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
THE CORPORATE NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY
What should our attitude be toward the church, the people of God? First of all, we should recognize that the Bible has a high view of the church. Many people have a take-it-or-leave-it attitude toward church life, but the Bible says Christ loves His church and died for it (Eph. 5:25). Should we take lightly that for which Christ died?
Scripture says, "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching" (Heb. 10:25). This verse is part of a larger passage of Scripture that includes an exhortation to draw near to God. It is then that the biblical writer refers to Christians meeting together. Both are very important--drawing near to God and drawing near to God's people!
It has been my experience as a pastor that whenever people start withdrawing from corporate church life their spiritual life suffers; it is not long before they begin growing cold toward the things of God. It is vitally important to remember, with regard to church life, that Christianity is personal but not private; when the Lord saves sinners He places them into community--the church. "For we were all baptized by one Spirit," the Bible says, "into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink" (1 Cor. 12:13).
God is triune in nature, existing as one God in three Persons. Consequently, there is communion among the Persons of the Godhead. And of course communal life is to characterize the people of God. Certainly the Bible has much to say about community, a concept that is sometimes lost in our American setting, where individualism is so strongly emphasized. Consider, for example, how many of the New Testament books were written to communities of faith rather than to individuals. Consider, too, how frequently we interpret verses in an individual sense, often forgetting their corporate context. For instance, Rev. 3:20 is often quoted to urge sinners to accept Christ, when the context has nothing to with individual salvation but is instead an invitation to let Christ be part of the Laodicean church!
The corporate nature of Christianity cannot be gainsaid. The psalmist said, "Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together" (Ps. 34:3). Togetherness characterized the early church, as Acts 2:42-47 reveals. Peter described Christians in these terms: "You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 2:5). Christians are "spiritual stones" being built together into a house. Thus, a Puritan minister named Joseph Hall said, "There is no place for any loose stone in God's edifice." It is unfortunate that there are so many loose--and even rolling--stones in the church today.
Monday, October 17, 2005
THOUGHTS ON ATONEMENT (PART 3)
The substitutionary view of the atonement maintains that, upon the cross, Jesus Christ bore God's wrath against sin, taking the punishment that sinners deserved.
I once read about an illustration a preacher used to explain the vicarious nature of the atonement (an illustration that I have occasionally used). He held a hammer, which he said represented God's wrath against sin. He also held a clear drinking glass filled with dirty water that represented sinners. As the preacher raised the hammer and prepared to strike the glass, he took a tin pan and held it between the hammer and the glass, so that instead of striking the glass the hammer struck the pan with a loud crash. Although that sounds crude, essentially it is right. (Reformed theologian Shirley Guthrie points out that if the illustration of the hammer and the glass is to be used in any way similar to what really happened on the cross, the hammer should strike the preacher's own hand--rather than the tin pan--thus emphasizing God's sacrifice of Himself.)
At the cross, the triune God's righteous anger against sin was propitiated; that is, God's wrath against sin was appeased by the sacrificial death of Christ.
Atonement language is especially prevalent in the book of Leviticus. In Lev. 1:3-5, for instance, the Lord said to Moses: "If the offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he is to offer a male without defect. He must present it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting so that it will be acceptable to the Lord. He is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him." It is also in Leviticus where we read about the Day of Atonement, the one day each year when the high priest would enter the special room in the tabernacle known as the holy of holies and sprinkle the blood of the sin offering before the mercy seat (the name for the lid of solid gold that covered the Ark of the Covenant).
Atonement language in Leviticus is clearly vicarious and sacrificial in nature. Hands are laid on the sacrificial animal, symbolizing a transference of sin, and blood is shed. Notice, too, in the passage cited above, that the offering was to be "without defect." Of course all of the atoning sacrifices in the Old Testament point to Jesus Christ, who is the heart of the Bible and the One to whom the Old Testament Law and prophets bear witness. The Bible describes Jesus as "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29), the perfect sacrifice who "appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Hebrews 9:26).
Interestingly, the word most often used for atonement in the Old Testament is kaphar and its derivatives; kaphar is the Hebrew word for "to cover." The idea is that a person was delivered from punishment by the placing of something between their sin and God (think of the tin pan covering in the illustration above).
To be sure, Jesus Christ was the perfect sacrificial victim--the Lamb of God--who died vicariously for sinners. Christ is the sinner's covering! In the words of Isaiah 53:6, "We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Elsewhere we are told, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Substitutionary language is also found in 1 Peter 3:18, where we read, "Christ did for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God." While acknowledging that there is much to learn from the different theories of the atonement (I think here of the ransom view, which was the early church's primary understanding of Christ's atoning work), it is my conviction that what happened at the cross is best, though not exclusively, understood in terms of substitution.
Friday, October 14, 2005
THOUGHTS ON ATONEMENT (PART 2)
A number of years ago, a fellow Christian took me to task for referring to the ransom theory of the atonement. As I recall, I was simply pointing out to my friend that the idea of ransom was the early church's understanding of the atoning work of Christ.
The "Christ as Victor" (Christus Victor) theory understands Christ as conqueror over the forces of evil. In the great struggle between God and the forces of Satan, the death of Jesus served to ransom sinners from the power of the devil. This ransom view of Christ's atoning work was widely held by the early Christians; there is an interesting parallel between this view of Christ as victor and the struggles the early church faced from temporal forces hostile to Christianity. Parenthetically, I find both curious and fascinating Gregory of Nyssa's (4th century) analogy of a fishing trip. The flesh of Jesus, Gregory said, was the bait and the deity of Jesus was the fishhook. At the cross, Satan swallowed the hook along with the bait! This theory is called the classical theory or the fishhook theory of the atonement.
While I personally embrace the substitutionary view of atonement, I concur with biblical scholar Leon Morris, who says about the different views of Christ's atoning work: "...we need all the theories. Each draws attention to an important aspect of our salvation and we dare not surrender any. But we are small-minded sinners and the atonement is great and vast. We should not expect that our theories will ever explain it fully. Even when we put them all together, we will no more than begin to comprehend a little of the vastness of God's saving deed."
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
THOUGHTS ON ATONEMENT
Christ died for sinners. That statement is at the very heart of the Christian faith. And of course the primary symbol of Christianity is a cross. But what exactly does it mean to say that Christ died for sinners? The biblical concept that can help us understand Christ's death is atonement. According to Romans 3:25, "God presented him [Christ] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood...." We also read in 1 John 2:2 that "He [Christ] is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world."
Atonement is so central to Christianity that biblical scholar Leon Morris has written, "The atonement is the crucial doctrine of the faith. Unless we are right here it matters little, or so it seems to me, what we are like elsewhere." An excellent thought. Since I am preparing a Bible study on the subject of atonement, I hope to blog a bit more about it in the coming days.
Sunday, October 09, 2005
REFLECTIONS ON CHRISTIAN UNITY
In my morning sermon I referred several times to Ephesians 4:3: "Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace." The first three words of that verse really stand out to me: make every effort. I know that the Lord has done His part in dying for sinners on the cross and reconciling people to God. And of course in Jesus Christ barrier walls have come down; there is no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female--believers in Christ are all one in Him.In a world of more than 22,000 Christian denominations, sects, groups, etc., how important it is for believers to do our part, making every effort to keep Christian unity. To my mind, that does not mean unity at all costs, however. Christians must certainly hold to sound biblical doctrine (Scripture exhorts us to do so), while at the same time remembering that there is but one body and one faith. As a Christian who stands within the Reformed tradition, I believe that the Reformed understanding of salvation is by far the most biblically sound. Moreover, I have no trouble in affirming with Abraham Kuyper that Calvinism "means the completed evolution of Protestantism, resulting in a both higher and richer stage of human development" (Lectures on Calvinism, p. 41).
On the other hand, I have so much to learn from other expressions of Christianity--for instance, the Pentecostal emphasis on life in the Spirit and the evangelistic emphasis of my Baptist brethren. In fact, I would even go so far to say that there is much to learn from Eastern Orthodoxy. I am thinking here of their exalted and majestic view of God, a view that is often lacking in evangelical circles. We evangelicals are known for our chummy God-talk and a "buddy-buddy" relationship (from our point of view!) with the Almighty. Surely one of the pressing needs of the hour is the recovery of a biblical understanding of God's holiness and transcending awesomeness.
Anyway, these are just a few of my disjointed ramblings on Christian unity! I realize I have much work to do in the area of making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
TWO INTERESTING BOOKS!
I recently came across two book reviews in Christianity Today that made me want to order the books being reviewed! The title of the first book is The Holy Wild. The author writes that God's love is as "tenacious as oak roots, potent as a typhoon. It is abrasive as much as it is soothing. It scours and breaks us before it sets us right--in order to set us right. It never lets us alone." I like that imagery. I like it because I am a bit weary of the attempts by many Christians to "soften" God and His ways. Consider, for instance, the feminization of much of contemporary worship. (Can you imagine Martin Luther, John Calvin, or John Knox singing and swaying to some of our insipid contemporary Christian choruses?!) I fear we emphasize the "softer side" of God, while downplaying or ignoring His wrath against sin, His holiness, His judgments, etc. While I do not deny God's love, mercy and compassion (I stand in such desperate need of them!), I fear we too often try to create God in our image--we want a tame God, a manageable God, a God of love and mercy but not a God of holiness and justice. Too often, I think, our God looks suspiciously like ourselves. How important it is to remember that our God cannot be softened, "tamed," or put in a box.
In any event, the second book reviewed is The Christian Visigoth. I like that title, too. According to the reviewer, the book's author calls Christians to rethink the Christian life and become holy risk takers, renegades and Kingdom advancers. True Christian "barbarians," he says, do not look so much to Jesus for safety and comfort, but look to Him to lead us where He needs us most and where we can accomplish the most good.
Maybe that is just where I am at this point in my Christian journey. The sweet and syrupy version of "Christianity" is just not very appealing to me right now. I want a manly faith and a manly God. I want to become, in the words of the book title, a "Christian Visigoth" (properly understood) and live in the holy wild for a while. Then again, next week may find me longing for green pastures, flowing brooks, and a gentle Savior!Sunday, October 02, 2005
This is a picture of yours truly (Deutero Q) and two other local pastors standing next to a sign I installed at my church. How's this for nameless, faceless Christianity?!
