Election/reprobation: discuss

by Dan Phillips

Phil's recent (terrific) interchange with an Arminian brought this to mind. I've often thought it, but not quite sharpened it up this much.

Is this not the Biblical (which is to say, Calvinist) position?

1. If an elect person were finally and actually to leave Christ, he would be damned; and...
   
2. If a reprobate (non-elect) person were vitally to exercise repentant faith in Christ, he would be saved.
3. However, neither can do either; which is to say:
4. If any professor finally leaves Christ, he was never elect; and...
5. If any denier exercises repentant faith in Christ, he is not reprobate.

I think that's Biblical and clarifying, and I think it heads off a lot of uninformed dodging.

But not quite briefly enough for a "Next!"

(Actually and seriously, I guess I could have made 2-5 "Next!"s out of it.)

Discuss.

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That time of year again

by Phil Johnson



ong-time readers of the blog know that for several years I have spent a week each spring teaching theology at the Italian Theological Academy near Acireale, Sicily. That's at the base of Mt. Etna, Europe's largest active volcano. (The mountain is so high there's snow on it. Last year we visited the top and were treated to a blinding blizzard. Better a snowstorm than an eruption, I suppose.)

I teach systematic theology in a course that spans three years. We have one week in the classroom together each year—eight hours a day for five days straight (with a few hours off on Wednesday to break up the week.) It's grueling, especially with jet lag. (And if you think it's bad for me, imagine what my translator, David Standridge, goes through. He translates other courses on similar timetables throughout the year.)

But it's a great time, and I learn as much as I teach. Even the meal times are full of lively discussions and tough theological questions. It's my second-favorite week of the year, running a close second to Shepherds' Conference.

Darlene and I are leaving for this year's session first thing tomorrow, so I haven't got much else to blog about today. This year I'm starting at the beginning of the three-year course cycle, teaching theology proper and bibliology to an all-new group of students. I'll try to keep in touch somehow while on the road, but it's really hard to blog when you're jet-lagged and suffering classroom fatigue, so don't expect a lot of substance from me.



n an unrelated note, I've noticed a lot of Twitter-Chatter this morning about John Piper at Alistair Begg's Basics conference. (Challies is going to be live-blogging, too—evidently by time delay on West-Coast time.) In a brief Q&A session today, Piper was asked about John MacArthur's criticism of Mark Driscoll. Here's a Tweet from @PiperTravel: "JP on Driscoll and MacArthur: Watch for more to come on the Internet."

So that should be pretty interesting, huh?

Talk to you from Sicily, Lord willing.

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Is the Gospel a Failure?

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "God Justified, Though Man Believes Not," a sermon preached Sunday evening, 31 August 1890, at the Met Tab.






ome will say, "If So-and-so, and So-and-so do not believe the gospel, then religion is a failure."

We have read of a great many things being failures nowadays. A little time ago, it was a question whether marriage was not a failure. I suppose that, by-and-by, eating our dinners will be a failure, breathing will be a failure, everything will be a failure.

But now the gospel is said to be a failure. Why? Because certain gentlemen of professed culture and supposed knowledge do not believe it. Well, dear friends, there have been other things that have not been believed in by very important individuals, and yet they have turned out to be true.

I am not quite old enough to remember all that was said about the introduction of the steam-engine, though I remember right well going to see a steam-engine and a railway-train as great wonders when I was a boy. Before the trains actually ran, all the old coachmen, and all the farmers that had horses to sell, would not believe for a moment that an engine could be made to go on the rails, and to drag carriages behind it; and in parliament they had to say that they thought they could produce an engine that could go at the speed of eight miles an hour. They dare not say more, because it would have been incredible if they did. According to the wise men of the time, everything was to go to the bad, and the engines would blow up, the first time they started with a train. But they did not blow up, and everybody now smiles at what those learned gentlemen (for some of them were men of standing and learning) ventured then to say.

Look at the gentlemen who now tell us that the gospel is a failure. They are the successors of those who have risen up, one after the other; whose principal object has been to refute all that went before them. They call themselves philosophers; and, as I have often said, the history of philosophy is a history of fools, a history of human folly. Man has gone from one form of philosophy to another, and every time that he has altered his philosophy, he has only made a slight variation in the same things. Philosophy is like a kaleidoscope. The philosopher turns it round, and exclaims that he has a new view of things. So he has; but all that he sees is a few bits of glass, which alter their form at every turn of the toy.

If any of you shall live fifty years, you will see that the philosophy of today will be a football of contempt for the philosophy of that period. They will speak, amidst roars of laughter, of evolution; and the day will come, when there will not be a child but will look upon it as being the most foolish notion that ever crossed the human mind. I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet; but I know what has befallen many of the grand discoveries of the great philosophers of the past; and I expect that the same thing will happen again.

I have to say, with Paul, "What if some did not believe?" It is no new thing; for there have always been some who have rejected the revelation of God. What then? You and I had better go on believing, and testing for ourselves, and proving the faithfulness of God, and living upon Christ our Lord, even though we see another set of doubters, and another, and yet another ad infinitum. The gospel is no failure, as many of us know.

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One Arminian's Proof-Texts

ere's an exchange of e-mail messages I had with an Arminian who wrote me to insist he had irrefutable arguments against the sovereignty of God in the salvation of sinners. It turned out he had a real gift for distilling Arminian presuppositions into neat sound-bites and supporting them with unusual proof-texts, but his points were hardly "irrefutable." (His messages are in the yellow boxes; mine are the bluish ones.)

I have a few verses I would like to get a Calvinist interpretation of. To me they don't seem to be compatible with many of the Calvinist doctrines; they deal with God commanding us to repent and turn to him and with us forsaking Him after we have been following Him. Why would God command something that is impossible?

God clearly does command us to do that which is impossible for fallen sinners: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). Moreover, the law of God itself demands to be obeyed perfectly, flawlessly (James 2:10)—thus demanding a level of obedience that has proven utterly impossible for every person who ever lived, except Christ. Therefore the fact that God commands us to do something is no proof that we have intrinsic power in our fallen state to obey Him. (Cf. Romans 7:15-16). One major reason God gives us moral standards we cannot obey is to reinforce our knowledge of our own spiritual impotence, so that we have no option but to turn to His grace as we seek salvation from our sin. (Cf. Luke 18:13-14). Nothing but sheer arrogance and a blindness to one's own spiritual poverty would lead anyone to think he is capable of obeying God or saving himself through human will power. (cf. Luke 18:11; Romans 10:3.) It is also a serious mistake to imagine that inability nullifies responsibility in the moral realm. The fact that sinners are spiritually dead and therefore morally unable to obey God does not remove them from the moral obligation to obey Him. I think you misunderstand the Calvinist objection to "free will." Every true Calvinist believes sinners are responsible moral agents, free from any external force or coercion in the choices they make. They choose freely. But they inevitably choose wrong, because their choices are determined by their own nature and their nature is sinful and corrupt. We can discuss this further if you're interested, but the point is simple: A call for the sinner to "choose" something good is in no way incompatible with Calvinist theology. Those simple points ought to take care of most of the verses you thought were incompatible with Calvinism. Why not give me a handful of your strongest proof-texts and let me respond to them?

OK. Job 34:4: "Let us choose to us judgment: let us know among ourselves what is good."

Scripture often calls us to make choices that involve a decision for good rather than evil. That in no way suggests that we are morally neutral, or inclined neither to evil or to good. Choosing "good" goes against the sinner's nature (Romans 8:7-8), so unless God graciously intervenes to awaken and empower us, we will always make the wrong choice (Jeremiah 13:23). And we do so without any external force or compulsion. In that sense our choices are perfectly free. But apart from divine grace we would be hopelessly enslaved to our own lusts (Romans 6:20). So the sinner's "choice," though free in every meaningful sense, is always predictably wrong.

Job 33:27-28: "He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; He will deliver his soul from going into the pit and his life shall see the light."

Note that this verse plainly teaches it is God who enlightens and saves the sinner; the sinner doesn't turn himself around apart from God's enablement. I don't know what in this verse you imagine is incompatible with Calvinism.

Job 40:14: God states; "Then will I confess to you that thine own right hand can save thee."

Well, just read what goes before this verse. The Lord speaks to Job out of the whirlwind and says, "Do you have an arm like God?" (v. 9). Can you thunder with a voice like His? Can you deck yourself in majesty equal to His? (v. 10). Can you disburse your wrath in a way that humbles all who are arrogant? (vv. 11-13). If you can do all that in the same way God can, "Then I will also confess to you That your own right hand can save you." In other words, God Himself is saying it is arrogant to think you can save yourself. That's exactly the same point I made above.

Deuteronomy 30:19: Moses tell them to choose life rather than death. If there is no choice in the matter why would he say this?

See above. They do have a choice. They just can't make the right choice without God's gracious enablement.

1 Samuel 15:11: Saul "turned back from following" the Lord, so he had to have been following Him at some point in time. As far as what I have learned one of the doctrines that Calvinists teach is the irresistibility of grace. Here it does not seem to irresistible.

Again, you don't understand Calvinism very well. God's grace toward His elect will always ultimately triumph over their resistance. (In other words, "irresistible grace" does not mean God's grace is never resisted, because many of us resisted it at first, but it ultimately proves irresistible.) However, God's goodness to the reprobate ("common grace")—which is what you see operating in Saul's case, I believe—is always rejected and resisted.

Joshua 23:8-16: Joshua warns Israel to cleave to the Lord their God as they have done and not to turn back. If they could not turn back in the first place why would God have Joshua warn them in the first place?

God's warnings are often the means He uses to secure our perseverance. See John Murray's comments on this in the chapter on perseverance in Redemption: Accomplished and Applied.

Galatians 4:9, 11: Paul asks the Galatians why they would desire to be in bondage again by turning to the weak and beggarly elements after they have been known of God. If grace is irresistible why would they have to be warned?

See previous answer. The warning itself is a manifestation of grace.

Jude 24: The expression is "able to keep us from falling"; not "will keep us from falling." Able in Greek means "maybe" "might" "can" anything but "will."

Wrong. "Able" in Greek is from a root that means "power"—dunamai. Literally, "God has the power to keep you from falling." Moreover, Peter makes it explicit: we "are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Peter 1:5). God's own power is the keeping agent, not my own weak and fragile "will power."

I have nearly 100 scriptures that seem to be incompatible with many of the Calvinistic teachings. I would greatly appreciate it if someone could interpret these scriptures with a Calvinist point of view.

Well, that knocks off eight of them. How else can I help?

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Faith, grace and works in James and John: an illustration

by Dan Phillips

A simple man, I like simple illustrative analogies. Here's a homely little illustration I've worked up that's helpful to me. Like all analogies, it eventually breaks down... but first, I get to flog it a good deal.

Premise. James and John both say things that (ironically) gutless-gracers and works-righteousness heretics both take out of context and turn to harm. Like for instance:

Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. (1 John 2:4-6)

Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. (1 John 3:7)
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? (James 2:14)

Illustration. Let us say that a sovereign cure for cancer has finally been found. You take it in pill-form, a little capsule to be precise. They color the capsule green, because of that color's association with life. They call it "Chlorozoetin" (green life).
Take one Chlorozoetin, and two things invariably begin to happen, with no exceptions:

1. The cancer starts shrinking
2. Your skin begins to turn green

In the case of some people, cancer shrinkage is immediate and dramatic. In others, it is more gradual, and marked by occasional setbacks. But the cancer invariably begins to be beaten back. That is a universal effect.

And some people rapidly turn a lovely rich green, like a bell pepper; others are lighter green, like celery. But there are no exceptions: everyone who has taken Chlorozoetin turns green. That is a universal effect.

You could say all of this, then:

Everyone who has taken the Chlorozoetin has green skin, and overcomes cancer. If anyone says "I've taken Chlorozoetin," but does not have green skin, and still has growing cancer, he is a liar. By this you know that you have taken Chlorozoetin: your cancer is beaten back, and you have green skin. What use is it to say you've taken Chlorozoetin, but your skin isn't green? Will that cure your cancer?

Now, suppose someone wasn't sure if he'd taken the right pill? You'd ask two questions:

1. Is the cancer in retreat?
2. Have you begun to turn green?

And then suppose someone had to answer "No" to those questions? What would be the solution?

Should they try harder to turn green? Should they want harder for the cancer to go into remission?

How about if they slather some green paint onto their face?

No, that's silly. You would tell them, "Get the right pill, take it. That's what you need."

Because both indicators are results of taking the pill. They are indicators that you've taken the pill. The green skin does not cure cancer. But it is the sign that you've taken the medicine that does cure cancer. The real key is: the lifegiving, healing pill.

And if one said, "Well, we can't expect the pill to have the same effect in everyone. What matters is taking the pill. Once they say they've taken it, they're on the way to a cure."

No. Impossible. (It's my illustration, so I get to control it!) As I said, this is a sovereign cure that invariably has those two effects. No matter how convincing a story anyone tells of taking a pill, and no matter how vividly nor emotionally Mr. (or Ms.) Talkative describes the verdure of the capsule, if it was the right pill, it would have those two effects! No effects — no green skin, no shrinking cancer — no Chlorozoetin.

When lips and life contradict, go with the life.

And so the "signs" of faith embodied in truth, love, and works are invariable indicators that one has been saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. The presence of the Lord Christ in a life invariably produces those results, the apostles teach. Different degrees? Yes. Different rates? Of course. Some thirty-fold, some more — but there are always these fruits.

If one should lack those indicators, what should he do? Try harder?

No!

He needs to go to Christ, to be saved by Him alone, by His grace alone, through faith alone.

Hope that this understanding helps you, as it does me.

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Husband

by Frank Turk

This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you - if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

I think there was still a lot of mileage to be gotten out of “blameless” because of who we are and how we think in the English-speaking world these days, but I’ll appear to let it lie and move on to the next clause here – “the husband of one wife”.

Those of you reaching for your Greek NT will hastily point out that the ESV does something rather, um, dynamic or functional here rather than literal, for the Greek saith, “μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἀνήρ” – “a one-woman man”. Fair enough, yes? In one sense, I think it’s somewhat unquestionable that Paul is here saying the candidate for Elder is a man with only one wife rather than a practitioner of polygamy.

But I think that Paul is saying something here which, as he is prone, is short-hand for something he spends some time elsewhere saying in a more robust way:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Yes: fine. A “one-woman man”. But to Paul, the mystery of marriage is a symbol or expression of the church. Therefore, a man who discharges his duties as a husband rightly is therefore uniquely qualified to lead the church.

Most of the time we fly over these three Greek words as if they are about whether or not a guy has been divorced or remarried or not – but I think (especially given what follows here) that Paul means something so much more theologically and practically brilliant: those who are qualified to lead the church are those who can prove they know Christ’s love by being examples of it in marriage.

Can a guy love one woman as Christ loved the church? Because that’s the guy who should be setting things right in a church like Crete, and a church like the one you are in charge of, dear pastor reader.

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Preaching: beware the "And you are...?" factor

by Dan Phillips

I listened to Mark Driscoll's — what would you call it? Not a sermon, exactly. Nor an address. Sort of a talk. Really, more of a vent, or a catharsis. Anyway, whatever it was, he gave it at The Gospel Coalition, it is online, I listened, and I shared my impressions here.

Now I have one more thought which, I think and hope, will be instructive for us all.

I was reflecting on the talk/vent/rant, and I imagined another conference. By a multiple-miracle, this is another convention, featuring John Calvin, John Knox, Charles Spurgeon, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Mark Driscoll. They all can speak English, and they all present sermons.

When Calvin finishes, all the others say "Amen. Glory to God. Christ was exalted."

Knox finishes, and all say the same. Spurgeon, the same. Lloyd-Jones, the same.

Driscoll then gets up to speak. He offers the exact talk he just gave at the Gospel Coalition.

When he sits down, there is silence, and blinking. After a moment, John Calvin leans forward, a finger raised. He wants to ask a question. Driscoll nods to him. Calvin clears his throat. His question is:

"And you are...?"

Now I know what you're thinking. I would think exactly the same. You are thinking, "Phillips... dude... you don't think they'd say the exact same thing to you?"

I'm glad you asked that question!

No, you are absolutely right. They wouldn't know me from Alley Oop. And here's my point: my prayer would be that it wouldn't matter.

My prayer would be that I would preach Christ (Colossians 1:27-28), that I would preach the Word of God (2 Timothy 4:1-2), in such a way that it didn't matter who was doing the preaching. That they would not have to know all about me — my temperament, my trials, my sufferings, my gnarled life — in order to understand what I was preaching. That I would preach not myself, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and myself as their servant. (And so, that anything they did know of me would not detract from my preaching.)

And that is what sticks with me and troubles me about Driscoll's talk. It was about him, to a large degree. He was the backdrop, context, and refrain.

I think about the others I've heard. Keller? Preached Christ as the idol-smasher. I didn't have to know anything about Keller. M'man Lig Duncan? Preached Christ's grace and power. I didn't have to know anything about Lig Duncan. Ditto John Piper. Ditto every other I've heard from the conference.

Except Driscoll.

Or take D. A. Carson. Now, there's a man who's had a positive, constructive Christian life! Pastoral work, academics, world travel; towering international scholar, evangelist. And what did he do when he took the podium? Brief word, then dove right into the text. At the end, he illustrated the text with a few vignettes from his life.

Now, here's the thing. You don't know my heart, most of you. The Driscoll Defense-Squad will say I'm bashing, attacking. Honestly I don't mean to. I know this is a hard word, I've hesitated about sharing it, and I say it reluctantly.

I pray for Mark Driscoll. I think he's taken a really worrisome, dangerous turn. I think he was offered some very credible, loving, necessary, sober, mature, Biblical criticism that he really hated to hear. Instead of humbling himself like a wise man, taking it to heart, dealing forthrightly, and being the better for it, he's built Fort Driscoll, and I don't think everything's happiness and light inside. If he doesn't deal forthrightly, I just don't see good things ahead. In that scenario, nobody wins.

The First Rule of Holes is: when you're in one, stop digging.

Now, I wish honesty didn't compel me to say this, but I can identify, though from a vastly smaller arena, and not one in which everyone in the universe seemingly was watching and holding up score cards. One pastorate was particularly difficult for me. I felt myself embattled. When you're under fire, you come to see the text through the filter of your battle, and you run the risk of producing pesher instead of exposition. You and your pain color everything, and that's not good in any language. So yeah, I pray for Driscoll. You should too.

And now I say this: brothers, pray for yourselves, too. Pray God that He fill your eyes and heart with Christ and His word. Go up there to preach Him and it. Preach so that Calvin or the others wouldn't care that they didn't know you. Preach so that no one has to know much of anything about you, in order to know Christ and God's Word better as a result of your sermon.

Otherwise, really, what are we in it for?

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Do We Really Need to Wage War Against False Doctrine?

. . . and how evangelicalism's refusal to fight for the faith destroyed the movement
by Phil Johnson



I answered an e-mail this week from someone who suggested that we should not concern ourselves with people who teach false doctrine. "After all," this person said, quoting Gamaliel from Acts 5:38-39, "if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God."

My reply? an excerpt from a chapter I wrote for Reforming or Conforming?: Post-Conservative Evangelicals and the Emerging Church:

hristian leaders in particular are charged with the task of defending the truth against those who would twist it (Acts 20:28-31). As politically incorrect as this might sound to postmodern ears, there are abroad and within the church "many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers . . .. They must be silenced" (Titus 1:10-11). Or, in the more picturesque imagery of King James parlance, "[Their] mouths must be stopped."

How false teachers are to be silenced is one of those things in Scripture that is crystal-clear. It is not by physical force or auto-da-fé. But they are to be refuted and rebuked by qualified elders in the church who are skilled in the Scriptures, "able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it" (v. 8). The duty assumes that vital truth is clear enough that we can know it with certainty. And in the battle against falsehood, Scripture prescribes a clear strategy involving exhortation, reproof, rebuke, and correction.

This is to be done patiently, not pugnaciously: "The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil" (2 Timothy 2:24-26).

And yet even within those boundaries, the defense of the faith sometimes requires a kind of spiritual militancy (1 Timothy 1:18; Jude 3). The Christian life—especially the duty of the leader—is frequently pictured in Scripture as that of warfare (2 Corinthians 10:3-6; Ephesians 6:10-18; 1 Timothy 1:18; 2 Timothy 2:3-4).

So the defense of the faith is no easy task. But it is an indispensable duty for faithful Christians. Again, Scripture is not the least bit vague or equivocal about that.

Nevertheless, the defense of the faith is a duty the evangelical movement as a whole has mostly shirked for at least two decades. Since the formal dissolution of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy in September 1987, evangelicalism as a movement has never fully mobilized for the defense of any point of doctrine—even in the wake of seismic challenges to the doctrine of God in the form of Open Theism—and despite recent assaults on the penal, propitiatory, and substitutionary aspects of Christ's atoning work. It is no longer safe to assume that someone who calls himself "evangelical" would even affirm such historic evangelical nonnegotiables as the exclusivity of Christ or the necessity of conscious faith in Christ for salvation. Recently, it seems, the evangelical movement's standard response to that kind of doctrinal slippage has looked like nothing more than cynical insouciance.

Such trends represent nothing less than the abandonment of true evangelical principles. Historic evangelicalism has always had the gospel at its center. The name itself reflects that, and it also denotes a particular stress on the doctrinal content of the gospel message. Yet the typical message proclaimed in many mainstream evangelical churches—including some of the best-known and most influential megachurches—was long ago reduced to a set of simplistic, solipsistic aphorisms ("God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life"; "accept Jesus as your personal savior.") The message is sometimes overlaid with moralistic platitudes and a conservative, mostly-secular political agenda. In fact, a lobbyist's commitment to a handful of morally-related political issues is about as close to anything serious as you will find in the average evangelical community. So the message communicated to the world at large sounds like a social and cultural commentary driven by Republican-party politics. Gone are the clarion notes of personal guilt, the redemption of the soul, and the real meaning of the cross—which, after all, Scripture says is the one message worth proclaiming (1 Corinthians 2:2).

Why fight for a message that doesn't even have Christ crucified at the center anyway? Contemporary evangelicals have utterly neglected and virtually forgotten almost everything truly distinctive about historic evangelicalism. They have broadened their boundaries to include beliefs they once viewed as beyond the pale. They have now forgotten what the boundaries were all about in the first place. Meanwhile, with the gospel no longer at evangelicalism's heart and hub, the entire evangelical subculture has begun to seem like a kind of spiritual black hole, where bad ideas spawned at the fringes are sucked one after another into the void at the center.

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Something to Bear in Mind While Choosing What to Watch on TV

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson





The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "Holiness Demanded," a sermon preached in 1862 at the Met Tab in London.

 

 

hose who can look with delight or any degree of pleasure upon the sins of others are not holy. We know of some, who will not themselves perpetrate an unseemly jest, yet, if another does so, and there is a laugh excited upon some not over-decent remark, they laugh, and thus give sanction to the impropriety. If there is a low song sung in their hearing, which others applaud, though they cannot quite go the length of joining in the plaudits, still they secretly enjoy it; they betray a sort of gratification that they cannot disguise; they confess to a gusto that admires the wit while it cannot endorse the sentiment.

They are glad the minister was not there; they are glad to think the deacon did not happen to see them just at that moment; yet still, if there could be a law established to make the thing pretty respectable, they would not mind.

Some of you know people who fall into this snare. There are professing Christians who go where you at one time could not go; but, seeing that they do it, you go too, and there you see others engaged in sin, and it becomes respectable because you give it countenance. There are many things, in this world, that would be execrated if it were not that Christian men go to them, and the ungodly men say, "Well, if it is not righteous, there is not much harm in it, after all; it is innocent enough if we keep within bounds."

Mind! mind! mind, professor, if thine heart begins to suck in the sweets of another man's sin, it is unsound in the sight of God; if thou canst even wink at another man's lust, depend upon it that thou wilt soon shut thine eye on thine own, for we are always more severe with other men than we are' with ourselves. There must be an absence of the vital principle of godliness when we can become partakers of other men's sins by applauding or joining with them in the approval of them.

Let us examine ourselves scrupulously, then, whether we be among those who have no evidences of that holiness without which no man can see God. But, beloved, we hope better things of you, and things which accompany salvation. If you and I, as in the sight of God, feel that we would be holy if we could, that there is not a sin we wish to spare, that we would be like Jesus,—O that we could!—that we would sooner suffer affliction than ever run into sin, and displease our God; if our heart be really right in God's statutes, then, despite all the imperfections we bemoan, we have holiness, wherein we may rejoice.

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Not Easy Being Green

Saturday Bonus: An off-the-cuff rant about environmentalism, paganism, pimped-out Bibles, and market-driven evangelical faddism
by Phil Johnson



    don't even remember doing the following interview, but Will Moneymaker dug it up somewhere and added it to the GraceLife Pulpit's collection of my sermons (and miscellaneous other recordings):

Is God Green? (mp3 audio download)

The interview was prompted by a post I made here last September, titled "The Bible as a Fashion Accessory." Apparently I did this interview by phone later that same week. I have only the vaguest recollection of having done it. So I don't know how Will managed to acquire the recording, but there it is, for your listening pleasure.

Pilgrim Radio is an amazing ministry, perhaps the most edifying lineup of radio broadcasts you will find anywhere. Music is a buffer for the teaching broadcasts, which are laid out each day like a college class schedule. They prefer complete sermons rather than the half-hour format of most teaching programs, and the guys at Pilgrim generally have a good nose for great teaching.

The Pilgrim home office is in Carson City. They broadcast into several western states. But you can listen to them on line.

They broadcast sermons of mine occasionally and have done so for several years. Whenever I get a letter or e-mail from someone thanking me for my radio broadcast, I know that person has been listening to Pilgrim. They are currently airing my series on the Ten Commandments (between Matt Chandler on Luke and Mark Driscoll on 1 Corinthians).

I mentioned Will MoneyMaker, who manages the GraceLife Pulpit Website. He's the genius who puts my sermons and other things on line. He has more written articles of mine than I have at my own website. I'm grateful to Will for finding all this stuff and putting it out there.

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More on the Sissification of the Church

by Phil Johnson

Let's face this honestly, like men: by every statistic you could possibly use to measure the growth and operation of evangelical churches worldwide, it is clear that church membership, church attendance, church leadership, and church activities are more and more dominated by women.

on't you think effeminate evangelicalism is yesterday's problem?" an e-mail correspondent asked. "Why write about that now? Over the past 15 years there have been some very influential men's movements like Promise Keepers; fantastic books for men like Wild at Heart; and other books honestly talking about this subject. Cage fighting is practically the favorite sport for Christian guys in my generation; beer and cigars are the main attractions at some men's groups in forward-thinking churches. You're the one rebuking young men for using virile language in church. What right do you have to complain that the church is too effeminate?"

Let's look at the examples my correspondent singled out. Have these things actually helped reverse the trends that are feminizing the church?

No, they haven't.

Most of the seminars, rallies, and books targeting evangelical men have actually made the situation worse. They are either dominated by feminine themes (personal relationships, dealing with your emotional hurts, learning the various "love languages," and other forms of sensitivity training)—or else they tend to paint a picture of masculinity that sounds like it is taken from The Brothers Grimm rather than Scripture.

And here's the clincher: despite all the chatter and attention this problem has received over the past decade and a half, men are still less likely to participate in the church today than they were two decades ago.

Even those who talk the most about the need for the church to reach men usually have a very childish perspective on manhood. "Virile language"? Cusswords? That's your "proof" that men in the church are coming to grips with their spiritual duty to act like men? Really?

One of the recurring figures of masculinity that John Eldredge keeps bringing up in Wild at Heart is Maximus from the movie Gladiator. A fantasy character! The subtitle of the book is Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul. But here is the secret of a man's soul according to John Eldredge: "Deep in his heart, every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue."

That's a fairy-tale perspective. It's an irresponsible little boy's notion of manhood. It lacks any biblical foundation whatsoever. But Wild at Heart is the single most influential book on Christian manhood published by any evangelical publisher in the past three decades. That says something about the state of the church. Meanwhile one of the best books actually dealing with the subject biblically is The Mark of a Man: Following Christ's Example of Masculinity—by Elizabeth Elliot.

Doesn't it say something about the state of the evangelical movement when so many men are writing bad books on Christian manhood, and the one current book that comes to mind dealing with the subject soberly and biblically was written by a woman?

Incidentally, it needs to be said that the crisis in the church is not primarily the fault of women who have shifted the focus of the church away from men. It's the fault of men who are too timid, too lazy, too fainthearted, too self-absorbed, too immature, too emotionally dysfunctional, too crude, too in love with fleshly values, or whatever. They have turned the church over to women.

In short, the problem is not that Christian women have overwhelmed the church with their feminine charms and seduced its focus away from where it ought to be. The problem is with Christian men who aren't manly enough to balance the equation.

That's a serious problem, and it is by no means a new problem. The tendency for men to abdicate their spiritual duties to women began in the garden of Eden at the fall.

And that in turn underscores the fact that the feminizing tendency in the church is not merely a cultural or sociological phenomenon that can be solved by sensitivity training or mere chest-thumping. It is a sin problem that cannot be remedied until we recognize the failure of men to lead the church properly and take significant steps to correct the problem—at its theological root, and not just in a way that masks the symptoms.

Here's the thing: manliness is not about bravado, and it's not about boyishness. Going out into the woods with a bunch of other men, putting on war paint, making animal noises, telling scary stories around a campfire, and then working up a good cry might be good, visceral fun and all, but that has nothing to do with the biblical idea of manliness.

Real manliness is defined by Christlike character, and not just the Gentle-Jesus-meek-and-mild-style character, but the full-orbed fruit of the Spirit rounded out with strength, courage, conviction, strong passions, manly love, and a stout-hearted willingness to oppose error and fight for the truth—even to the point of laying down your life for the truth if necessary.

That's what Scripture portrays as authentic manliness, and it's the duty of every man in the church to be a model of that kind of manhood. Until men themselves stop listening to those who define manhood in terms of beer, stogies, and cage fighting; until Christian leaders quit fooling around with various tokens of artificial manhood; and until Christian men en masse seriously begin to cultivate real courage, conviction, and commitment to Christ and the gospel, the problem will persist.

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Why I love Spurgeon: "much of my former obduracy remains"

by Dan Phillips

(This could equally well be titled, "Reason #47 Why I Love Spurgeon")

I have read a book or two on Spurgeon that were more hagiographical than biographical. Even the terminology was glittery, gauzy, glistering and gagular.

Spurgeon's own remarks about himself were nothing of the kind.

Once I had nothing but a heart of stone, and although through grace I now have a new and fleshy heart, much of my former obduracy remains. I am not affected by the death of Jesus as I ought to be; neither am I moved by the ruin of my fellow men, the wickedness of the times, the chastisement of my heavenly Father, and my own failures, as I should be. O that my heart would melt at the recital of my Saviour’s sufferings and death. Would to God I were rid of this nether millstone within me, this hateful body of death. Blessed be the name of the Lord, the disease is not incurable, the Saviour’s precious blood is the universal solvent, and me, even me, it will effectually soften, till my heart melts as wax before the fire. (Charles H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening : April 28 PM, emphases added)

I confess that this deeply resonates with me. Spurgeon echoes laments and prayers of my own, as if he had eavesdropped on some (many) of my own pleas, supplications, and confessions.

And this is why I have kept coming to Spurgeon for something like three decades, now. I have known of a fine Bible teacher or two, perhaps accurate in their rehearsal of doctrine and interpretation, but whose confessions of imperfection (if they ever come) seem de rigeur and formal rather than heartfelt. Sermon illustrations are drawn from others' follies or frailties.

Spurgeon's confessions never, ever have that feel. They are clearly always heartfelt and genuine. Yet at the same time he always avoids the opposite snare of that sort of self-indulgent transparency which betrays the generation of God's children (Psalm 73:15).

For with these admissions, all the more do we read of Spurgeon's deep love for Christ, his unending and ever-fresh delight at the riches of God's covenant with His elect. As I've said, he's like a man amazed to find himself an heir, incredulously plunging his hands deeply into piles of gold coins again and again, letting them trickle out and ring back into the abundance. Only for Spurgeon the riches are far better than gold; they are the riches of Christ.

In this I think he rather reflects the Psalms that he loved (and I love) so much. We overhear both strains in the songs of Israel, often and poignantly.

If we hear the psalmists sing...

O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in your wrath.
2 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing;
heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled.
3 My soul also is greatly troubled.
But you, O LORD--how long?
(Psalm 6:1-3)

...or...

For evils have encompassed me beyond number;
my iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see;
they are more than the hairs of my head;
my heart fails me
(Psalms 40:12)

...we can also overhear...

You have put more joy in my heart
than they have when their grain and wine abound.
(Psalm 4:7)

...and...

Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy,
and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.
(Psalm 43:4)

...and again...

Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous,
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!
(Psalm 32:11)

Spurgeon admits his neediness, but he does so that the reader may identify with him as he does so, and then immediately Spurgeon takes both himself and his reader to the Savior. Never does Spurgeon plead for pity; always does he speak so that the reader will hasten to the same Cross, the same grace, the same mercy, the same Savior, to whom Spurgeon himself keeps hastening with all his sorrows and needs and pain.

Spurgeon uses himself as James uses Elijah: "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours," he says. The KJV memorably renders ἄνθρωπος ἦν ὁμοιοπαθὴς ἡμῖν as "a man subject to like passions as we are." The BAGD lexicon explains the adjective as " pert. to experiencing similarity in feelings or circumstances, with the same nature."

And? What of it? James continues, "and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth" (James 5:17). We do not and must not look at Elijah (nor Spurgeon) and see a creature of different frame than we. They are of the same frame as we. Ah! but captivated by faith — what did God do through them! So, take heart, hope, trust, rise, do also.

"I know weakness and frailty and coldness, in myself, like you," Spurgeon says (in effect). "But I find all I need and more in Jesus Christ. I am poor in myself, I despair of myself; but that drives me to Him, and I rejoice in Him, and am rich in Him. We have the same nature, you and I, and we have the same Savior. Flee to Him, as I do, and find your sorrowing heart's deepest desire — as I have."

I know that Christ is perfect. But I also know I am not. What I need to know is: can such a miserably flawed man as I find hope, life, and joy in Christ?

Spurgeon tells us he knows for a personal fact that we can.

And his testimony has both the ring of authenticity, and the backing of Scripture.

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A Sidebar on "Blameless"

by Frank Turk

I've been busy in the last week doing all manner of things, and we're still steeped in the first 5 verses of Paul's letter to Titus, but last week's post seems to have thrown a lot of people for a loop. I have tried to form up some private letters to answer some of the private questions asked, but I keep coming back to the same thing I started with last week -- at least internally.

I don't think the criterion of "blameless" is either hard to grasp, nor is it all that controversial. And in order to make my point, I found a dose of Spurgeon to help me say what I think Scripture itself is saying to us on this matter:

Where the Spirit of God comes he creates in the man a new nature, pure, bright, fresh, vigorous, like a fountain, and the fact that this new nature does exist in multitudes of men is a standing evidence that the gospel is true, for no other religion makes men new creatures, no other religion even pretends to do it; they may propose to improve the old nature, but none of them can say, "Behold, I make all things new." This is the sole prerogative of Jesus our Lord.

The existence of the new life is matter of fact. We ourselves know many whose lives are pure and blameless; they have faults before God, but before the eyes of men they are perfect and upright, blameless and harmless. The godly lives of Christians are good evidence of the truth of the gospel. Did I hear some one object, "But many professors of Christianity are not holy"? I grant you it, but then everybody knows that they are inconsistent with the religion which they profess. If I heard of a lustful Mahomedan I should not consider him inconsistent with Mahomedanism; is he not allowed his harem? If I heard of a licentious Hindoo, I should not consider him to be dishonoring his religion, for some of its sacred rites are disgusting and unmentionable. The same may be said of all the idolatries. But everybody knows that if a man professes to be a Christian and he is guilty of a gross fault, the world rings with the scandal, because it recognizes the inconsistency of his conduct with his profession. Though some may at the first breath of a slander blazon it abroad and say, "This is your religion," the world knows it is not our religion, but the want of it. Why do they themselves make such a wonder of a fallen professor? Are adulterers so very scarce that such a noise should be made when a minister is, truly or falsely, charged with the crime? The world's conscience knows that the religion of Jesus is the religion of purity, and if professed Christians fall into uncleanness the world knows that such a course of action does not arise out of the religion of Christ, but is diametrically opposite to it. The gospel is perfect, and did we wholly yield to its sway sin would be abhorred by us, and slain in us, and we should live on earth the life of the perfect ones above. Oh, may God produce in his church more and more the witness of the new life, the testimony of holiness, love, meekness, temperance, godliness, and grace: these are the gospel's logic, its syllogisms and demonstrations, which none can refute.

And as I read that, I wonder: is that actually true today? Is this who we are?

Isn't that who we ought to be? And that's merely those of us who are Christians in the broad sense. How much more should this be true of our pastors, in order that they might say, as Paul did, "Insofar as I am an imitator of Christ, be imitators of me."

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