A couple of weeks ago I singled out the guys at White Horse Inn for their Truly Reformed® chastisement of the necessary consequences of the Gospel. I am sure many of you remember and will never really be the same again, one way or the other.
Now, it turns out I'm a fair guy -- when they do something which is also admirable and mitigates some of the flaws of their excesses, I'm willing to fess up in the same venue which I made the criticisms as well.
I was listening to an older podcast from Horton & Co. from 28 Oct 2008 called "What is a true church?", and at about 30:30 in that podcast, we get the following exchange:
Ken Jones (KJ): Can we go back to “the word rightly preached”? A little more detail in terms of what’s meant …
Mike Horton (MH): Yeah, now we’re getting into too much detail, let’s back up and go to the big picture.
(cross-talk)
Rod Rosenblatt (RR): Basically, what we would all say, I’m sure: the plot line of the Bible is about Rescue by the Messiah.
MH: Genesis to Revelation.
RR: Genesis to Revelation, this is the plotline of the Book.
MH: If you pastor thinks it’s about something else routinely, then the question is, “is the word of God rightly preached?”
KJ: Yeah, ah, like you said, the plot line, Christ as not only the fulfillment of the Scriptures but the center of Scripture. Is all of Scripture about him?
RR: which he said.
KJ: Exactly, and we’ve mentioned it before, but I think Dennis Johnson’s book Him We Proclaim is very helpful in this regard as one of the newer works that talks about preaching Christ from all of Scripture.
RR: Another thing that we’d all insist on: if Christ, if the Gospel is being rightly preached, the Law and the Gospel are not going to be the same.
KJ: Exactly.
RR: We’re going to distinguish them as much, as completely as we possibly can.
MH: They’re both going to be preached.
RR: They’re both going to be preached, and they’re God’s word.
MH: Now, something that I found very helpful on this point, and I think it will be helpful to a lot of our listeners, is – All of the reformers said, now be careful with this one. We’re not saying that is a pastor’s preaching is off, he’s had a really bad month of Sundays, we’re not saying that he’s got a hobby horse that’s goofy, we’re not saying that sometimes he tells too many stories, or we’re not even really saying, “we don’t get enough of the Gospel.” Really what it meant was, the Gospel is denied or not being preached.
KJ: Something instead of the Gospel.
RR: yes, that was the primary thing.
MH: This was really a denial or substitution. This wasn’t someone who is …
RR: … Not quite proficient.
MH: Not proficient in his preaching. Or not faithful even in his preaching.
Kim Riddlebarger (KR): It’s not about bad preaching. It’s about a denial of something, either through a direct statement or through [intentional] omission.
MH: this is important, because I think a lot of people pull the plug on their church attendance or membership or are excessively hard on their pastor or their church because he preached something that they believed to be in error. Or he has repeatedly mentioned something that they think is wrong, or he has this quirky idea about the end time, you know: whatever. Is the Gospel present? The Gospel creates life. If the life-creating Gospel is present, it’s a church.
RR: and we don’t have time to explicate that, but in prior shows we have spent a lot of time on what is the Gospel?
MH: Folks, it’s wonderful to know that the word rightly preached and the sacraments rightly administered are, despite all of our differences, the sine qua non of a true church because it is not our action but God’s action that determines the nature of a church.
Mike Horton (MH): Yeah, now we’re getting into too much detail, let’s back up and go to the big picture.
(cross-talk)
Rod Rosenblatt (RR): Basically, what we would all say, I’m sure: the plot line of the Bible is about Rescue by the Messiah.
MH: Genesis to Revelation.
RR: Genesis to Revelation, this is the plotline of the Book.
MH: If you pastor thinks it’s about something else routinely, then the question is, “is the word of God rightly preached?”
KJ: Yeah, ah, like you said, the plot line, Christ as not only the fulfillment of the Scriptures but the center of Scripture. Is all of Scripture about him?
RR: which he said.
KJ: Exactly, and we’ve mentioned it before, but I think Dennis Johnson’s book Him We Proclaim is very helpful in this regard as one of the newer works that talks about preaching Christ from all of Scripture.
RR: Another thing that we’d all insist on: if Christ, if the Gospel is being rightly preached, the Law and the Gospel are not going to be the same.
KJ: Exactly.
RR: We’re going to distinguish them as much, as completely as we possibly can.
MH: They’re both going to be preached.
RR: They’re both going to be preached, and they’re God’s word.
MH: Now, something that I found very helpful on this point, and I think it will be helpful to a lot of our listeners, is – All of the reformers said, now be careful with this one. We’re not saying that is a pastor’s preaching is off, he’s had a really bad month of Sundays, we’re not saying that he’s got a hobby horse that’s goofy, we’re not saying that sometimes he tells too many stories, or we’re not even really saying, “we don’t get enough of the Gospel.” Really what it meant was, the Gospel is denied or not being preached.
KJ: Something instead of the Gospel.
RR: yes, that was the primary thing.
MH: This was really a denial or substitution. This wasn’t someone who is …
RR: … Not quite proficient.
MH: Not proficient in his preaching. Or not faithful even in his preaching.
Kim Riddlebarger (KR): It’s not about bad preaching. It’s about a denial of something, either through a direct statement or through [intentional] omission.
MH: this is important, because I think a lot of people pull the plug on their church attendance or membership or are excessively hard on their pastor or their church because he preached something that they believed to be in error. Or he has repeatedly mentioned something that they think is wrong, or he has this quirky idea about the end time, you know: whatever. Is the Gospel present? The Gospel creates life. If the life-creating Gospel is present, it’s a church.
RR: and we don’t have time to explicate that, but in prior shows we have spent a lot of time on what is the Gospel?
MH: Folks, it’s wonderful to know that the word rightly preached and the sacraments rightly administered are, despite all of our differences, the sine qua non of a true church because it is not our action but God’s action that determines the nature of a church.
Now, some of you tuned out of this when Prof. Horton said, "Is the Gospel rightly preached?" about 1/3rd of the way in. But the last 2/3rds is the part you need to confider more fully -- especially the parts about the flaws in your local pastor.Of particular note should the the one word in this passage in green which I insterted. That's a tickler, and if Kim Riddlebarger didn't mean that, I'd be glad to receive his correction there.
"Is the Gospel rightly preached?" is not half as glib a consideration as many of us make it, people. An big kudos to the WHI team (even if it was a year ago) for making this point in a very specific way.
