Bad day

by Phil Johnson

This was going to be a very hectic weekend in any case, but—wow.

I'm just finishing a monster project (a major book I have been editing for at least 3 months), and I needed to do one final read-through and final edit on the manuscript today. Also, Don Green was suddenly called out of town Friday afternoon, and he asked me to fill in for him in the GraceLife pulpit Sunday, so I also needed to spend a major portion of the day preparing. (Normally, it takes me a minimum of 8 hours for me to prepare 50 minutes of teaching.) On top of that, I needed to get a haircut and mow the lawn.

But the day started (while I was still having coffee) with a phone call from son number two, Jedidiah, telling Darlene he needed our help. He and his dear wife were riding their bikes this morning in Santa Clarita, and a car hit her bike. Jed said Anne wasn't badly injured but he wanted us to come get them because he didn't think she could ride the bike back to their house. They were only 2.5 miles from our house. Of course we left immediately.

When we arrived at the scene, however, it turned out to be somewhat more grim than Jed's low-key description had prepared us for. Anne was still lying on the sidewalk. The car that hit her was still stopped just beyond the point of impact. Multiple police cars were there, and an ambulance arrived moments later. Anne was fully conscious, however, and said she didn't think she was badly hurt. But she did complain several times that her feet hurt.

Here's what happened: The car was turning out of a parking lot, and the driver (trying to get into a gap in the oncoming line of traffic) neglected to look both ways. He was stopped completely when Anne started to cross in front of him. She thought he had seen her. Jed had just crossed in front of the same car himself, and Anne was only a few feet behind. But just as she crossed in front of the car, the driver gunned it to try to get into a gap. The car was a low-slung Corvette, so the bumper hit at the level of her feet. She landed on his hood, then rolled off when he screeched to a stop.

Anyway, the ambulance transported her to the hospital, where they took x-rays that revealed a broken toe. She also has multiple bruises and abrasions, but thankfully nothing worse. She's amazingly upbeat and perky about the whole ordeal.

After things calmed down, I ended up mowing the lawn at 2:00, when the temperature in our valley was 106. (Fortunately, it's a dry heat.) I got the haircut; revamped some old notes for tomorrow; and began the final read-through of the manuscript.

I suppose that sounds like a really bad day, but given how much worse it could have been, we're thanking the Lord for His goodness and grace.

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Update on Jeff Williams

by Phil Johnson

It's been awhile since I posted any news about Jeff Williams. That's partly because he's been in the news all week (inluding a live interview on CNN today), and you will have seen him if you watched the docking of Space Shuttle Discovery with the International Space Station on Thursday. That night the Shuttle/ISS passed over my house, and I took the photo to the left, by resting the camera on my back fence. The Shuttle, docked to the Space Station, is the short white streak in the center of the photo. The other white dots are stars. This picture looks east-southeast.

Tonight the Shuttle and ISS went directly over Los Angeles again, and its trajectory took it right across the face of the (nearly) full moon. It was spectacular.

Darlene and I have watched the ISS fly over some 25 times (from diverse locations such as Sicily; Italy's Adriatic coast; Bradenton, FL; and Bakersfield), but tonight when we went out on our front lawn to watch, some 30 people in our neighborhood were also outside watching for it. Apparently the recent news coverage alerted a lot of people that tonight would be an especially good time to view.

It was. One of the local news channels filmed the scene as the Shuttle/ISS flew directly across the face of the moon. If that video gets posted on the Internet, I'll try to link to it.

If you want to get viewing times and exact locations for the ISS in your area, check the Heavens Above Website. It's very precise.

I keep in touch with Jeff by e-mail a couple of times a week. He gets the latest PyroManiacs entries uploaded each Monday. He has posted (without fanfare) a couple of entries to his own blog from orbit.



Jeff says he is having a great time and will be very busy for the next week or so, unloading supplies from the Shuttle and repacking it with stuff to be sent back. There's a spacewalk scheduled, too, for recon and maintenance on the Shuttle.

Jeff and Pavel Vinogradov have been alone in the Space Station for the past 100 days. With the addition of the Shuttle crew, there are now nine people in that tin can. When the Shuttle crew comes home, they will leave behind one member, Thomas Reiter (a German), raising the number of the ISS's permanent crew to three people for the first time in several years.

I don't like having house guests for more than 7 days. But at least you can go for a walk to when you want privacy and time to think. With nine people in the ISS and no place to walk, I'd probably have a hard time. But the video feed from NASA so far makes it look like they are all genuinely enjoying each other's company, and in an e-mail I got from Jeff today, he said was glad for the full house.

Keep praying for him, and of course, pray for the safe return of the Shuttle crew next week.

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How to deal with posts you don't like—and the flip side

by Dan Phillips

I've noticed a pan-internetal phenomenon you'll all recognize. It's how different people deal differently with posts, articles, essays they don't like. (Now, I suppose I have to add "and pictures.")

You can not like a post for many reasons, reasons which will vary in part due to the post's content, and in part due to where you are, spiritually, intellectually, temperamentally, and time-wise (schedualically?).

Maybe the post in question is really stupid. Maybe it's palpably wrong. Maybe it's wrong and stupid.

Or maybe the content of the post simply makes you uncomfortable. It tweaks a pet notion, one of your me-ology theologies. Someone is advocating tee-totalling, and you disagree. Credo-baptism is the focus, and you like spattering babies instead. The post is aggressively [what-you-aren't]-mil, or enthuses about The You-Think-It's-Fetid Version of the Bible. It affirms the Bible's sufficiency, and the leaky-Canon position is very important to you.

So what do you do? Three main approaches spring to mind.

1. "Nothing to see here, move on!" You could just sigh, shake your head at the writer's dismal ignorance, and drive on. That takes some maturity and self-control, at best. Or it indicates indifference to the profileration of virulent error, at worst.

Nonetheless, not every fire is your fire, and you've not enough water in your tank (nor enough blank spaces on your calendar) to put them all out. Perhaps you recall, "Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears" (Proverbs 26:17). So you move on, saving your ammo for a more strategic battle. To mix metaphors.

2. "Your Honor, I would like to point out...." Alternately, you could step in, make a reasoned case, present counter-evidence, and stand by what you've written, ready to admit error or present further evidence as needed. You're thinking of Proverbs 18:17 here: "The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him." You might end up changing minds. You might end up realizing that you have to change your own mind. All of this takes maturity, self-control, intelligence, and a certain amount of free time.

3. (Ahem.) "Wahhh." Then there's always the great Christianoid trump-card. You could stomp in, judge everyone whose view threatens your own as "judgmental," separate yourself from them as being "divisive," hate them for being "unloving," and emote extravagantly about how "unspiritual" they are. You could brush aside the topic and condemn others for being condemning, tell them they're wrong for saying others are wrong, treat them harshly for their harshness.

I admit sincerely, there's a real beauty, of a sort, in this latter approach. Think about it, it really is remarkable.

It's like calling someone "racist." How can the accused possibly respond? How do you prove you're not a racist? Flat denial in the face of accusation is unconvincing. "Some of my best friends are ___" just gets laughs and rolling eyes. Get down in that mud pit, and you'll never get out.

Parenthetically, that happened to me one particular time. I was teaching a class of pastors, and found to my horror that a student had cheated on a take-home test, copying verbatim from the supposed-to-be-closed textbook. I overcame my gut-wrenching reluctance and confronted him with it.

His response? "You know, I suspected from the start that you have something against [insert race-other-than-my-own here]."

How would you have responded to that? Would you have accepted the invitation to leap into the mud pit, and prove that you're not a racist?

Here is my response, such as it was: "Look, don't even try to go there with me. This isn't about my feelings about your race. It's about the fact that you cheated on a pastoral ministry test. If you felt that I harbored hatred towards other races, you failed me as a brother by not rebuking me earlier, so that I could repent of that sin. That isn't our problem here and now. Our problem is your cheating, and what we have to do about that."

As I say, this "you're just not spiritual enough" approach has a beauty all its own.

You could literally take it to any thread, anywhere, and drop it in verbatim. I mean that literally: you could use the exact same words. You don't have to bring anything, contribute anything, prove anything. You don't even have to have read the post, or the comments! It could be your first time to the site, and you could not know the writers from Adam—or Adam West, for that matter. Just make the charges, and watch the fun.

(An aside: someone did just this in the comments section for one of my posts. I was talking with my son Matthew about it, and mentioned I saw the same person in another thread, on another blog. He suggested I do exactly what I just said—copy that person's comments verbatim, and drop them in the other thread under my name. It was beautiful, it would have worked perfectly. After I stopped laughing [which took awhile], I think I said something to the effect of, "Don't tempt me, Frodo!")

(Say... where did that boy get his naughty streak? Hm... but I digress, in Jay-Adams-like profusion of parentheticals....)

I'm convinced I've seen some who do this precisely this sort of disruption just for the entertainment it provides them, and the knowledge that it has yanked busy, productive people off-task for awhile and made them play the sniper's game.

What you are doing in this is giving an implicit invitation to the writer and all the participants to leave off that topic that made you uncomfortable, and to defend themselves personally. They have to prove the state of their hearts, to your satisfaction. (And be honest: short of total capitulation, will they ever do that?) Or for a bonus, they'd have to renounce the point you didn't like—because they're such bad people! Sort of a intellectual "suicide by ad hominem."

If things go your way, it's implicit that the others have to treat you nicely by your standards, and not really attack any of your points. Get this going, and you've got them. They're off-topic, focused on you, and on the defensive. They now are obliged make you feel good. And only you can rule on whether they've succeeded. It's now all about you, and your feelings.

If they don't play your game your way, you get to redouble the accusations, seal their condemnation, proclaim yourself a martyr, and—go, stay, whatever. You win! The topic loses.

Now, what the other participants—the writer, those who agree with him or her—should do is perhaps the topic of another post. The mud-pit is unappealing to me, and impractical for my calendar. I've seen folks I regard as vastly my betters go down that path, patiently responding and responding and responding and responding.

Almost invariably, they end up with nervous tics, talking to themselves, wondering whether they should just hang it up and take on something easier and more pleasant. Like sewer work.

Is there any other way to respond? One proverb does suggest itself: "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes" (Proverbs 26:5).

That approach is risky. It doesn't look very nice. It may instantly trigger the martyr-option, and that's never pretty. Sadly amusing sometimes. Pretty? Never.

But still, it is possible that God will use it to open eyes (Titus 1:13). This, of course, must be your hope and prayer, or you really are unloving, and you should repent. But if you have already seen others patiently and painstakingly respond to the very same issues over and over again with this person, without effect or progress, you may consider it.

After all, Jesus' idea of love is radically different than our age's notions. Hear Him: "Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent" (Revelation 3:19). Jesus' love isn't very loving, judged by our sentimentality. But it does explain why He moves the apostle to tell pastors to "reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching" (2 Timothy 4:2). How does the apostle define "complete patience"? It may vary situationally, but he tells Titus to reject a false teacher after two (2) warnings (Titus 3:10-11). In fact, in some cases the pastor must "rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith" (Titus 1:13).

Of course, in a perfect world, we'd never have to read posts that upset us. Or, from the other side, we'd never have drive-by's try to hijack threads.

But in the meanwhile, over here on this side of the Lord's return... I offer these thoughts for your consideration.

PS—how many words did I make up? How many hyphens did I use? If I had to pay $1 per hyphen, how broke would I be? Kids can play this game on long trips. Think of this as a Pyro summer bonus. We pack in the value for your buck's worth.

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Back to our roots

by J. Frank Norris



(A TRIBUTE TO YESTERDAY'S COMMENT-THREAD)

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All wet: an essay about miracles

by Frank Turk

I have, against my better judgment, been reading the waterfall of comments at BHT regarding whether or not we should "believe" or "believe in" Noah's Ark, and whether there's anything to be gained in playing Indiana Jones in seeking out the remains of a big wooden boat which somehow beached on a mountain top a few thousand years ago.

Let me say, first, that I unequivocally believe that God covered the Earth in water and spared one family because of His relationship with the father of that family, Noah. And let me also say that Noah was a wine-bibber, and that the first thing he did after thanking God for the promise of the rainbow was to plant a vineyard, grow some grapes, make some wine, and get drunk -- proving that Noah wasn't saved because he was inherently good, but because God is merciful. I believe it, and I really don't have any arguments to support my belief.

I also, by the way, am not looking for archeological proof or evidence. For example, I am not really interested in funding expeditions in to all the mountains of Turkey, Iran and Iraq in order to find the remnants for the big boat. And that has nothing to do with blindness of faith or intransigence of ignorance: it has to do with the reason I believe that Noah built an arkie-arkie.

My reason, for whatever you take it to mean, is Jesus Christ. See: in my view, it is historically indisputable that Jesus Christ died, was buried, and then did something as amazing as building a big boat and putting 2 of every animal onto that boat, and then living on that boat for about a year until the water went down. Jesus Christ, in an event as real as the failed missile tests by North Korea, was raised on the third day, and was raised in such a way that He was able to walk the 7 miles to Emmaus with two of His own disciples and discourse with them about the Scriptures and what those said about the Christ.

See: most people discount the value of the resurrection to only spiritual or supernatural or metaphysical meaning. It's a nice thing to think about on Easter, I guess -- that Christ's resurrection gives us (the ones called out) a promise of eternal life in Heaven. It's a great idea in fact.

But what most people miss out on is the riches of the Gospel in the resurrection. When Paul tells the Corinthians that Christ died, was buried, and then was resurrected, he doesn't just trumpet the resurrection as a religious or spiritual event: he proclaims that these things were done in accordance with the Scriptures.

You english-speaking people in many ways gloss over that, but when Paul writes that he means the event happened in the way the Scriptures had already said they would happen. That is, history was conformed to what was written in the Scriptures. So in his proclamation, Paul is saying that God's promises in Scripture, and God's truthful in Scripture, are all pointed toward this event. And more importantly, they are also justified or established in this event.

So when Jesus walked out of the tomb, our understanding of history has to now take into consideration and weigh that there is only one account of the events which saw this coming, and which based its reputation as reliable and authoritative on this thing happening. There is only one account of the events of all of history which pointed to this, and was written specifically for the sake of explaining this event. And that account says that Noah built an Ark, and the water covered the Earth, and that this guy who walked out of the tomb said, "They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all." (Lk 17:27)

I believe in Noah's Ark because Scripture is justified as reliable based on its predetermined revelation of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, who is Messiah. Jesus' resurrection forces us to stand on God's turf and not on the ground we think looks best to us. And take off your shoes, because this is holy ground.

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Labels: love 'em, hate 'em

by Dan Phillips

How we feel about labels often seems to vary in accord with whether we deserve a bad one. Or so I've observed. Liberals don't like to be called liberal, nor do leaky-Canoneers, emergents, pro-aborts, and a host of others seem to love the appellations that (at least to some degree) fit them.

Fundamentalist. Worse still, labels at their best are of varying utility. Take "Fundamentalist." If you asked me whether I was a Fundamentalist, depending on a variety of factors my response would probably be, "Tell me what you mean by that."

Historically a Fundamentalist was someone who affirmed what were adjudged Biblical fundamentals, Scriptural doctrines particularly under fire in the early 1900's: the virgin birth, deity of Christ, inspiration of Scripture, miracles, and so forth. If that's what you meant, and if you didn't mean that these were all the doctrines I affirmed, I'd cheerfully admit that I was indeed a Fundamentalist, and an industrial-strength one at that.

But then the term strayed from its high birth to a lowly dilution in the following decades. From a very positive beginning, it came to a primarily negative connotation. Fundies were known by what they were agin', rather than what they were fer. They were angry and defensive. They came to be associated more with cultural pecularities (stands on nylons, lipstick, the touching of the alcohol, rock and roll, etc.) than with directly Biblical issues. The term came to be synonymous with "low-brow, angry, belligerent idiot." I'd not welcome a label, given that connotation.

And now the press has mangled it beyond easy recall, applying "fundamentalist" to anything they don't like -- fundamentalist regimes, Muslims, and so forth.

"Evangelical." I've often lamented the bastardization of "Evangelical." It once was nearly synonymous with "Fundamentalist," and had the distinct meaning of one devoted to the Evangel, the Good News, the Biblical Gospel. What does it mean now, when "evangelicals" embrace religions such as Roman Catholicism and Mormonism, sects that deny the Gospel at its root? When Fuller Seminary and Dallas and Westminster all equally can be called "Evangelical," I have to admit I have no idea whatever what it means anymore, and wonder whether it has any usefulness at all -- except to describe anyone to the right of Marcus Borg.

"Cessationist." Since I came to affirm that Holy Spirit's description of the sufficiency of Scripture and definition of the confirmatory or "sign" gifts, I didn't know what to call myself. "Non-charismatic" falls into the same ditch as "anti-abortion," defining a very positive and uplifting position by what it isn't, by what it opposes.

Then "cessationist" came along, and I was temporarily relieved at least to have a descriptive term. But then I realized with disappointment that, yet again, I was defining myself by what I didn't believe in, that I didn't believe that the Canon should be forced ajar and Scripture diluted to allow modern imitations to be lumped in with the exponentially-different Biblical phenomena. So I've tried for months, with no success, to come up with a fittingly positive term.

"Lordship salvation." I frankly don't love that label at all, and never use it of myself. Given that the other side characterizes itself (falsely) as affirming grace, it tacitly and unintentionally seems to agree that we see works as part of salvation, which we emphatically do not.

But what do you call the "other side"? The "grace" school? Surely this is to credit the position in ways it does not deserve, and foster misunderstandings.

As an aside, one of the bizarrest cross-linkings I've ever seen was to a post of mine in which I affirmed "Grace alone." Almost all of you will recognize this as the historic, Biblical, Reformed position, a distinctive that marks Christianity off from Roman Catholicism. Yet the author was evidently an adherent to this... this anti-Lordship, or whatever, school, and thought it strange that I, a 5-point Calvinist, should affirm grace alone.

It's enough to drive one to despair of all attempts at communication.



But I digress.

So what are better labels? In the light of 1 Corinthians 15:13, should I call mine the "Powerful Grace" school? Or, in the light of Titus 2:11-12, the "Saving-and-Sacntifying Grace," or the "Effective Grace" position? Either way, I think it best to call the other side the "Impotent Grace" faction, though I doubt they'd agree.

I could go on and on with other terms that are not as useful as one might hope, since they either say too much, too little, or too varied depending on the audience: Reformed, Calvinistic, conservative, and so on.

So is the answer, with some, simply to throw up one's hands in frustration and say, "I'm a Christian, period!"? To say, "I hate labels, I don't like them, I won't use them"? To adopt the (unintentionally) elitist, superior stance that I am so lofty and transcendently supercalifragilistic that I cannot be defined by a label, like lesser mortals can?

It has its appeal, but I'm afraid it's neither possible, nor desirable. I think we're hardwired to use labels. In fact, I think it's part of how God made us.

Genesis 1:26-28, as I read the Hebrew, effectively describes the "image of God" as the equipment necessary to rule and subdue creation under and for God. This work of exercising dominion is man's birthright, legacy, and calling, by creation.

Then when Genesis 2 pulls its tight close-up on the origins of man, we see the specifics. Adam wasn't simply told, "Subdue the earth... on three! One... two...." He was set down in the Garden, to work and subdue it (2:15), as his first assignment. In this connection the animals are brought to him, and he names them (2:19-20).

We read the narrative very badly if we see it as a quaint, "just-so" tale. To name a thing is to assert ownership of it; and to pick a name is to exercise study, analysis, and understanding. Naming involves categorization, categorization is an operation of subduing, and subduing is in our nature.

So it is necessary and desirable that we label positions. It is in our nature to think about, to analyze, to "capture" and subdue intellectually. It is this broken but brokenly-functional image that drives lost scientists to try to get a handle on aspects of creation, and it is this same image that moves us to get a handle on doctrinal and philosophical positions.

So labels are necessary and, in fact, unavoidable. They're an outgrowth of the imago Dei.

I just wish we had better ones -- and that they'd stay put once we make them up!

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Toying with the gospel

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote space at the beginning of each week to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive.

Spurgeon's contempt for modernism was well known:

If man makes a gospel—and he is very fond of doing it, like children making toys—what does he do? He is very pleased with it for a few moments, and then he pulls it to pieces, and makes it up in another way; and this continually.

The religions of modern thought are as changeable as the mists on the mountains. See how often science has altered its very basis! Science is notorious for being most scientific in destruction of all the science that has gone before it. I have sometimes indulged myself, in leisure moments, in reading ancient natural history, and nothing can be more comic. Yet this is by no means an abstruse science.

In twenty years time, some of us may probably find great amusement in the serious scientific teaching of the present hour, even as we do now in the systems of the last century. It may happen that, in a little time, the doctrine of evolution will be the standing jest of schoolboys.

The like is true of the modern divinity which bows its knee in blind idolatry of so-called science. Now we say, and do so with all our heart, that the gospel which we preached forty years ago we will still preach in forty years time if we are alive. And, what is more, that the gospel which was taught of our Lord and his apostles is the only gospel now on the face of the earth.

Ecclesiastics have altered the gospel, and if it had not been of God it would have been stifled by falsehood long ago; but because the Lord has made it, it abideth for ever. Everything human is before long moon-struck, so that it shifts with every phase of the lunar orb; but the Word of the Lord is not after men, for it is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

He'd have no use for the "Emerging Church," either—especially that movement's fascination with postmodernism. It's a whole different generation and they claim to represent a departure from modernism, but the same types of people are still playing with the gospel as if it were something infinitely changeable and made out of Lego® bricks.

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The Pec Strikes Back.

by Pecadillo



Well I just finished my first week of probation and it's time for my tri-annual post on Pyromaniacs.

I want to thank everyone for their prayers and kind words. It really meant a lot to me while I was going through the Academy. We'll see you back at the (some what) new and (not even close) improved I Drank What?.

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What Price Freedom?

by Dan Phillips

“…and from Jesus Christ, the Faithful Witness, the Firstborn over the dead, and the Ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood; and He made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father — to him be the glory and the might unto the ages of the ages! Amen!” (Revelation 1:5-6, my rendering)

We enjoy, in America, a degree of freedom unknown throughout most of the history of the world. It formally started with the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, in which the 13 colonies declared themselves independent of Great Britain, and which ended with the words “for the support of this declaration…we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

Was that just big talk, or flowery rhetoric? Well, the 56 signers were marking themselves as traitors to the Crown. “By the end of the war, almost every one had lost his property; many had lost wives and families to British guns or prisons; and several died penniless, having given all to the Revolution” (Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, A Patriot’s History of the United States [Sentinel: 2004], p. 81).

Americans enjoy freedom today because of the blood spilt by thousands of men and women from before 1776 until this very day. But our freedom, as Americans, is not free. If it hasn’t cost us, it surely has cost someone else!

But my mind turns today to a far deeper bondage, however, and an infinitely greater freedom — and to the far more dreadful price that was paid for that freedom.

It is found in Revelation 1:5b: “To Him who loves us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood.”

I'd like to focus on two aspects only of that text: the love of Jesus, and the cost of that love.

As to the love of Jesus, we can discern four aspects here:

First, Christ's love is FREE. God is, by definition, the one and only truly free Being. He is under no external controls, subject to no overrides, or limitations. He can will and do anything in according with His nature. Therefore, He was under no external nor moral compulsion to love guilty rebels. No committee or authority had petitioned or ordered Him, and it was provoked by nothing in us -- no foreseen faith, no anticipated holiness, as if the ultimate cause lay in us.

More accurately, He loves in spite of the continued rebellions, treacheries, and unbelief of the objects of His love. When He loves, He loves because He loves. It is the only satisfactory and Biblical answer.

Second, Christ's love is DISTINGUISHING. The text says that He loves "us.” The context defines "us" as “His servants" and "his servant John” (1:1; cf. v. 4), as “the seven churches” (1:4), and as people who were “loosed …from sins… made… a kingdom, priests to his God and Father” (1:5-6). They are contrasted with false, pretend-Christians (chapters 2—3)
ii. Those who try to hide “themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16 calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Revelation 6:15-17).

Third, Christ's love is ETERNAL. John calls Jesus “Him who loves us.” The verb is present in tense, but it is a participle, not a finite verb. It marks no starting point, it erect no terminal point. It isn't “Jesus loved us," no "Jesus will love us.” Being a verbal noun, it is a characteristic of Jesus'. It was true when John said it, it is true as we read it, it will be true through all the centuries and millennia and ages of eternity. Before a world began, He set His love on His own. When the last rebel fist has been shaken, and judged, still He will love His own.

This characteristic trumps all of the fears of God’s people. “But I am unworthy!” So are we all; yet Christ is He “who loves us.” “But I sin!” So do we all; yet Christ is He “who loves us.” “But I am going through a dark, awful time!” So have we all; yet Christ is He “who loves us.”

There is no “use by” date, no expiration, no sunset provision. Because it is eternal, it is invincible; nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.

Fourth, Christ's love is revelatory of HIM, not of US. If ever you find yourself starting a sentence, “Well, I think God loved me because I…” — bail out! Step away from the stupid statement! The only true and Biblical way to finish that is, “God loved because God loved." And the fact that God loved, and the wretches whom God loved, and the invincible fierceness with which God loved all say a great deal about God -- and nothing about me.

Away with all self-help pop-psychologizing, that tries to find self-esteem in the Cross. Many say, “God loved me so much that He gave His Son to die for me — so I must be worth a lot! I must be worthy! I must be special!” I can’t easily imagine a more perverse line of reasoning. What the Cross says about us is that we’re helpless, we’re hopeless, we’re lost and doomed, and only the most extreme, radical, outrageous act on the part of God could redeem us from the wreck and ruin in which we’d buried ourselves!

The Cross says horrible things about us, as we are in ourselves, as Christ finds us! But it says wonderful things about God!

In fact, as a brief aside, to speak of loosing is to assume binding. That is, only those who are bound are interested in deliverance from their bonds. So what is it that binds us? The world, the flesh, and the Devil -- mighty, ubiquitous, tireless forces. [Sheerly because of the length of this post, I expand on this point elsewhere.]

Now let's turn to the COST undertaken by Jesus, because of His love: He freed us from our sins “by His blood.” We'll focus on three aspects.

First, Christ's blood is PRECIOUS blood. It is precious because of whose blood it is. It belongs to God’s Messiah, the Anointed One, the Faithful Witness, the ruler of the kings of the earth. It belongs to the blood of God incarnate; the Bible calls it the blood of God (Acts 20:28). This blood is of infinite worth. Dare anyone set a limit on the value of this blood? I would not! (It is a great misrepresentation of the Calvinist position to think that we do. We see its value as limitless, and its aim as specific.) Thus could Christ shed it on behalf of, and actually accomplish the redemption of, countless scores of multitudes of sinners from every nation, tribe and language.

Second, Christ's blood is PURE blood. The blood that looses us from our sins is itself sinless. This is the blood of the one Man who did not share Adam’s guilt, and did not replicate Adam’s sin. It is the blood of one who never violated God’s law in thought, word or deed, who kept every bit of God’s law in thought, word and deed. Can the contrast between the Lord Jesus and those for whom He died be any starker and more immense?

Third, Christ's blood is POWERFUL blood. The apostle John does not say that Jesus made it possible for us to loose ourselves from our sins by His blood. Nor does He say that Christ made loosing from our sins available by his blood. Rather, Jesus Christ actually loosed us from our sins by His blood!

Christ's blood is powerful, and it is effectual. Can any imagine that a drop of that blood would be wasted, would fall to the ground defeated and impotent? I cannot.

Notice the wonders He accomplishes by His blood (vv. 5b-6). Before, we were lost, rebellious, hopeless, impure slaves. After, we are a kingdom, and we are priests. We need no mere man to rule us. We need no man to stand for us before God. We are members of Christ’s kingdom, and priests to God through Him.

This, my brothers and sisters, is freedom!

But at what a cost!

Now, it's beyond us to know who reads our posts. So let me just say, Dear Reader, if your thinking is, “Oh, I don’t need such a drastic conversion; religion is all very well for weak men and old ladies, but I have a fulfilled and meaningful life. I must follow my heart. I don’t need fairy tales to brighten up my life,” then you are still a slave to the world, the flesh, and the Devil. The worst slave is the one who has grown accustomed to his chains.

What power on earth can save us from these things? No power on earth! Only Christ can — but at what a dreadful price! No mere example, or teaching, or method can save. Only the blood of God incarnate can loose us from our sins! Do you know that freedom?

If you do, praise and honor Him alone who loves you, and loosed you from your sins at such a staggering price!

If you do not, throw yourself on the mercy of God, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, look to Him this day!

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Is God arbitrary? Did he "create" evil?

by Phil Johnson

Today I'm answering an e-mail I received after making some comments about God's sovereignty and the origin of evil. I subsequently heard from a gung-ho ultra-high Calvinist who suggested that if God is truly Sovereign, He must be both the author and efficient cause of evil as well. Indeed, he insisted, citing the KJV rendition of Isaiah 45:7, "God created evil."

My correspondent, who remains anonymous, wrote the words in red italics:

It is common to hear men defend God against the charges of being arbitrary. Yet if these nervous brethren would but consult their English dictionaries as well as their theologies they would find that arbitrary is a most Scripturally appropriate adjective for the Almighty. Certainly the LORD is not capricious, but He and He alone may properly be arbitrary.

Let's see, shall we?

ar bi trar y (ar' bi-trer-ee) 1. determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle 2. despotic, tyrannical, ruling by whim, usually oppressively

It is that sense of the word that people usually mean when they say God is not arbitrary. He is not subject to fits of whimsy. He is a God of order and of law—a "principled sovereign"—and though we may not always understand His ways, we know He is never irrational, erratic, or inconstant (James 1:17). He always acts in accord with His own consummate holiness and perfect righteousness. He cannot lie (Titus 1:2), and He cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13).

Of course, He is bound by no rule higher than Himself, but nonetheless, all that He does must be consistent with His own immutable character. Thus He cannot be "arbitrary."

You wrote: "Evil is neither substance, being, spirit, nor matter. That's why it is not proper to speak of evil as having been created. Sin is not itself a thing created—not a substance—but the exact opposite. It's a want of moral perfection in a fallen creature." But I would point out that neither are souls, angels, nor evil "substances."

Human souls and angels are beings and thus can be created. Technically, even spirit beings have substance—even though it is not material substance. (One of the dictionary definitions of substance is "essential nature; essence." It is in this sense that the Nicene Creed, for example, speaks of the Son as being "of one substance" with the Father—even though God is a Spirit.)

Evil, on the other hand, is a defect—a subtraction and deconstruction of what God created.

Scripture is quite clear in teaching that evil was no part of God's creation. When He finished creating everything, He looked at all His creation and pronounced it "very good." If you insist that God created evil, you contradict His own assessment of what He made.

To say God created evil would contradict a number of other Scriptures as well, including 1 Corinthians 14:33: "God is not the author of confusion." For if He is the author of all evil, then He must be the author of confusion as well.

Now look at Isaiah 45:7. There, God says, "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things" (KJV). Does this mean what you suggest it means? Not to a Hebrew reader. Other translations capture the sense of the statement more accurately: "I make peace and create calamity" (NKJV). "I bring prosperity and create disaster" (NIV). "Causing well-being and creating calamity" (NASB).

The Hebrew word translated "evil" in the KJV is a word that means "adversity," or "affliction." It's talking about the calamitous consequences of sin; not ontological evil per se.

There is, of course, a true sense in which God decreed evil as part of His eternal plan. It did not enter the universe by surprise or against His sovereign will. He remains sovereign over it. He even uses it for good. But in no way is He the author or the creator of it.

"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you" (2 Thessalonians 3:18).

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Visionary truths

by Dan Phillips

It would be awfully hard to pick the most frequently-abused and misused text of Scripture. That in itself may make a fun (?) post someday.

But surely well up on the list would have to be: "Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he" (Proverbs 29:18 KJV). That poor, hapless soldier has been pressed into the service of ideologically foreign masters beyond anything that the laws of kindness should permit. How many church building funds, bus contests, motivational seminars and the like have been launched under the mistaken aegis of this verse?

It's a classic example of anachronism. We have this word today, "vision," that means "An ideal or a goal toward which one aspires." This verse has that word in it. Conclusion: this verse must be talking about how important it is to have goals.

Well, the conclusion is true, but the text in this case is a pretext. No one will find the underlying Hebrew term chazon used in this way. It just isn't. But you will find a consistent use of the term to indicate prophetic revelation, such as we have today in Scripture alone (cf. Isaiah 1:1; Daniel 8:1, 15; Hosea 12:11; Obadiah 1; Nahum 1:1, etc.).

And so I render the verse, "Without revelation a people runs wild; But the [people] keeping the Law, happy is it." Similarly the ESV, "Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law." It isn't at all about an individual, nor a group, gathering together and forming goals. It isn't about praying and "feeling led." It isn't about dreams (in the non-revelatory sense), targets, programs -- in fact, it isn't about any human endeavor at all.

The verse is about our need communally as well as individually for the Word of God. Any half-decent newspaper -- and I admit "half-decent" is setting the bar too high, these days -- illustrates the precise and almost technical truth of the verse. The more we cast off the absolutes of God's word, the more our culture plummets towards lawless chaos.

I say that to say this: I was struck in my reading today by a genuine statement of "vision" in the above sense, of ambition. It is in the apostle's words: "...I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation..." (Romans 15:20). To this, I append a few observations.

First, I'm struck by the responsibly task-oriented nature of this ambition. Paul aims at what he can normally control, not what he cannot control. Paul does not say, "I make it my ambition to win ___ souls," nor "to plant ___ churches," nor "to have ___ regular attenders within ___ weeks," nor "to build ___ buildings." All these goals vary in terms of worthiness, but they all have this in common: Paul controls none of them. His only way to "control" would be to engage in tactics, methods, manipulation, and we already know that the apostle will have none of that (2 Corinthians 2:17).

All these are effects, and they are in God's hands (Proverbs 16:1, 9). Paul may plant, he may water, but only God can cause actual life to spring up (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:5-9).

So Paul focuses on his part, the part of faithfulness (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:2). Even what he is, and what he does, depends on the Lord, and the Lord always retains veto-power and the right to redirect providentially. But it is Paul's part to plan (Proverbs 16:1 again), and plan he does.

Then I'm struck by the specificity of the plan. It isn't the sort of specificity that some motivational speakers urge, and in some contexts greater specificity is a good and necessary aim. But Paul's plan is specific enough that it excludes some goals, while targeting others. He can know, at any point, whether or not he is accomplishing what he aims at doing.

If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time. This is an axiom I've hammered out on the anvil of far too much experience. My beloved wife is very goal-oriented, and she's superb at setting terrific goals. I remember a day she engineered at Disneyland with our (then) two children, and it was like the most precise ballet, starting at 8am and ending at 2am. What we packed into those hours makes for a breath-taking memory. Well over a decade later, I still marvel.

I am, to be charitable to myself by vast understatement, less so than she.

Paul does not aim at nothing. He aims at something. It's a big goal, it's a lofty goal, it's a Christ-centered and Christ-honoring goal. It's a loving goal. It's a measurable goal. It is specific, and yet it is wide-open. It is set in time, but it has an eye on eternity. It allows for readjusting specifics (Africa? Spain? Australia?), yet also rules out other alternatives (not Jerusalem, not Judea, not Samaria).

Now let me conclude with a little end-run around myself. Does Proverbs 29:18 have nothing to say about forming goals? No; just not what it is commonly taken to say.

The verse is not talking about how important it is to formulate goals. However, it does apply to the absolute necessity of subordinating our goals, plans, methods, tactics, and values to the revealed Word of God.

Paul knew what sort of thing he should be doing from Jesus' words recorded in Matthew 28:18-20, and from His own words to him by special revelation (Acts 22:21). The specific methods and means were not spelled out; they were to be filled in by the apostle.

So you're a wife, and want to set goals for your family. Are your goals ruled and overruled by Ephesians 5:22-24? You, husband, are your goals formulated under Ephesians 5:25ff.? Likewise pastors, employees, bosses; politicians, writers, friends, children. Have you lined up all your goals consciously and deliberately under all the revealed Word?

Set goals, set specific goals, set adjustable goals; and do it within the framework and values laid down in the inerrant, abiding, sufficient Word of God.

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"TR" is not enough

by Phil Johnson

Brad, from Broken Messenger, posted a comment in reply to Dan Phillips's post from yesterday. I was going to reply to Brad in the comment-thread, but I decided to make a full post of it. Brad has raised a critical issue that I wanted to say something about anyway.

Besides, I still have admin authority on this blog, and this is one of the prerogatives of that power. Might as well wield it:

Brad: "Many Reformists simply deny Christ daily by their actions, and yet their doctrine is sound. Which of these is worse? Ignorance or willful disobedience?"

OK, let me start by saying I'm baffled about how DJP's post prompted such a reply. It seems to me the point Dan was making does indeed apply equally to a "Reformist" (or anyone else) who practices hypocrisy. What such people do is just another way of giving lip service to "faith, grace, and the glory of God" while actually denying it—and then denying that their denial is a denial.

(Note, by the way, that Dan's post was arguing in favor of a contented heart—not merely an orthodox creed.)

For the record, we're not in favor of hypocrisy here, especially when a practical denial of Christ (Luke 6:46) is masked behind the facade of a truly sound statement of faith.

So in answer to Brad's direct question: willful disobedience is worse than mere ignorance. Much worse. And the point Brad is making therefore underscores the actual point Dan was making; it doesn't detract from it.

In other words, I don't think there's any real disagreement here.

However, as long as Brad brought it up, and while we're on the subject, let's acknowledge that what Brad is saying is all too true on a disturbingly frequent basis. Way too many "orthodox" thinkers are heterodox doers. The Reformed community's admirable stress on the importance of being hearers of the Word is vital and necessary, especially in an era where many ears are itching for anything but the Word of God.

But it's no more vital or necessary than our duty to be doers of the Word (James 1:22).

We ought to highlight that truth more than we do.

A profession of faith—even with the most thorough, biblically informed, and accurate doctrinal statement backing it up—is no substitute for actual obedience. Such a profession will be of no value whatsoever when it really counts (Matthew 7:21-23).

Is hypocrisy really more common among Reformed types than elsewhere? I don't know, because there are no hard statistics to measure by. But:

1. When secret sin surfaces (or when overtly bad behavior is manifest) in the life of a sound believer, it's certainly more shocking and more evil than when a badly-taught Christian stumbles.
   
   
2. Because there's a higher ratio of talk-to-action within the Reformed community, it may well be easier—and a bigger temptation—for Reformed types to mask their sin with erudite-sounding theological discussions. (Drunk-in-the-Spirit-type charismatics aren't given to such discussions and aren't particularly impressed by them. So their hypocrites tend to mask their sin by other means.)
   
   
3. But this elevated focus on academic theology is not entirely a point in favor of Reformed theology. Theology should never be merely academic. We need to be less impressed with mere talk and debate (without giving up our legitimate concern for sound doctrine), and more concerned about putting feet to our doctrines.
   
   
4. No one's doctrine is truly "sound" if he or she doesn't believe it enough, and fear God enough, to obey Christ (John 15:14). "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do His commandments" (Psalm 111:10).
   
   
5. My gut feeling tells me that if Reformed people in this postmodern era have a serious besetting sin, it is precisely the kind of hypocrisy Brad has put his finger on. Not to compare Brad to Shimei or anything :-), but if David could hear a legitimate admonition from the Lord in the taunts of a drooling, rock-throwing maniac (2 Samuel 16:10), we also ought to pause and listen when both friends and critics keep saying the same thing.
   
   
6. I'd count Brad in the former category, for anyone who wonders.

Selah.

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I'm not asking: I'm telling

by Frank the Baptist

I blogged today at my home blog about John 5 and the particular nature of Christ’s earthly work in that passage, but that topic always gets me stirred up about the nature of the work of Christ.

Let me give you an example of what I mean, by way of what I do not mean:

How can a person have God's forgiveness, heaven and eternal life, and Jesus as personal Savior and Lord? By trusting in Christ and asking Him for forgiveness. Take the step of faith.

After you have received Jesus Christ into your life, tell a Christian friend about the important decision you have made. Follow Christ in believer's baptism and church membership. Grow in faith and enjoy new friends in Christ by becoming a part of His church and attending the Sunday School class a church has just for you. You'll find others who will love and support you.

That’s an invitation from a church blog which will remain nameless, but it’s a standard invitations which they lifted from one of a library of such invitation provided by their denomination. I have blogged elsewhere about the backwards Gospel, so I won’t get all out of joint here about the mistakes some people make when presenting the Gospel to all people. The point of this example is to show that the major mistake a lot of people make when thinking about Jesus’ work and talking to others about it is that they see Jesus’ work as a consequence of man’s consent.

Jesus’ work is not a consequence of anything but God’s intervention to save men who will otherwise be lost. You know: for example, God didn’t give the prophecy of the resurrection in Psalm 16 because he thought it sounded good and let’s see what will happen. God gave that prophecy because it was what He intended to happen in order to demonstrate and reveal the Messiah to men. He wasn’t rubbing heads with David to see what might play well in Jerusalem: He was revealing His eternal plan of salvation.

That’s such a great word! Salvation. Any dictionary you might find says this word means, “deliverance from danger or difficulty” – and think on it: “salvation” is not “making possible the escape from danger or difficulty” but in fact “deliverance”. You are not saved if you can now find your own way: you are saved if you are actually taken out of the way of danger. Standing outside a burning building and shouting the names of those trapped inside does not make one a savior; even running through the halls of that building shouting names and “follow me!” does not make you a savior: going into the flames, and breaking down the doors, and searching under the bed for the scared child who doesn’t know how to save herself, and then carrying her out through the flames makes you a savior. A savior is who who actually saves, who does the saving and has saved someone when it’s all over.

Whoever you are, and wherever you are, Jesus is not waiting for you to make a choice. He’s not a deal-maker. He’s not trying to negotiate a contract with you. Jesus isn’t the one who will call the ambulance if you can only dial the ethereal 9-1-1. Jesus is God Almighty, and if you can hear this word today, Jesus has been made Lord and Christ – Savior!

Jesus Christ saves. Jesus isn’t fretting about the Earth while Satan is like a lion going here and there devouring anyone he wants: Jesus closes the mouth of the lion and snatches the victims of the lion – who put themselves in harm’s way, and will die without Christ’s intervention; people who have placed themselves in danger and deserve the consequences – out of the jaws of death. He saves. He takes us out of harm’s way even if we are too wicked and too conceited to want to be out of harm’s way.

Our faith is not in some consultation with the Holy Spirit which gives us a Ben-Franklinesque list of pros-and-cons from which we can then make a rational choice. It is in the mighty hand of God which reaches down and takes us out of the filth and disease of our choices and washes us clean by the blood of Christ, and dresses us in the blinding white cloth of His righteousness.

Jesus is not waiting for you to make a choice: Jesus is saving right now. The call is not “do you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior”: the call is “Jesus is Lord and Christ! Be baptized and repent in His name!”

It is a proclamation of fact, not a question to be debated. I cannot trick you into hearing it, either – because a savior is not a trickster or a con-man who makes you think you’re getting cotton candy when in fact you are getting your teeth drilled even if you need your teeth drilled.

Listen to me: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him -- this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, was crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

This Jesus God raised up, and there are many witnesses of this fact. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

Let everyone therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus who was crucified. And therefore, repent and be baptized for the sake of your forgiveness!

You! Jesus will not save you because you confess – confess because Jesus is a Savior: admit it! This is the Gospel – the Good News to men!

There will be no organ music during which you can mull this over. You are dismissed. Do the right thing.

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The dangerous vulnerability of discontentment

by Dan Phillips

Salesmen depend upon discontentment. Contentment = No Sale.

Think about it. Why buy anything, if you're happy with what you have? Why even shop? A salesman either has to find you discontented, or make you that way, if he wants to make a sale.

Now, sometimes the discontentment is legitimate and undeniable. Your washing machine broke, you need a new one. Your roof leaks, your car keeps breaking down, your clothes are becoming too revealing. You're "discontented" with being smelly, wet, stranded, and indecent. Nobody needs to talk you into looking for something new. For that matter, our conversion to Christ springs from a God-given "discontentment" with being lost, under sin, separated from God.

But what if what you have is really okay? What does the salesman do then? He has to convince you, somehow, that it is not okay. He has to persuade you that you'd be a lot more productive with a faster computer, that you'd be a lot more attractive if you bought his line of clothes/cologne/shoes, that you deserve a better car. Then what you thought was pretty decent doesn't look so hot anymore. You're discontented, and now you're vulnerable to a good sales pitch.

It's also Satan's favorite tool. Imagine your challenge is to approach a sinless woman who literally has everything she needs, and convince her that she needs this one thing that will in fact kill her, make her miserable, and devastate her world. How do you do it? But of course this is precisely what Satan did in Genesis 3. He presented himself as the woman's best friend, looking out for her best interests, wanting only her fulfillment, her actualization, her self-realization. She just needed this one more thing.

And she fell for it, hook, line and sinker.

And so has every natural-born child of Eve ever since. Why should Satan even imagine changing his tactics when we, gullible fools that we are, have fallen for it again and again for thousands of years?

So how can anyone counter this appeal to discontentment?

When I was preparing, years ago, to preach/teach through Colossians, I was struck with how Paul responded to incipient heresy in that congregation.

The apostle Paul was quite capable of being brutally frontal, as we see in his correspondence with the Galatians and the Corinthians. However, here he takes a somewhat different tactic.

The approach of the false teacher in Colosse (the references to him are all in the singular: 2:4, 8, 16, 18) was the same then as it is today: he was a charismatic individual who came in with special, personal, private revelation, special truths, special methods, all of which were must-have's for the person who really wants to have a top-grade spiritual experience. He excluded the "mere Christians" in Colosse as not having fully arrived.

How does Paul counter this? In Colossians the apostle mostly makes sidelong allusions to the false teaching. Paul does not get into a point-by-point explication and refutation of the Colossian heresy, as it has been called. Rather, he focuses on Christ, His person and work, His fullness. In my study, I found that Christ is men­tioned in 53 of the 96 verses in Colossians. In some of these, He is mentioned two and three times. Therefore, some 55% of the verses mention Christ at least once. Or, put another way, every other thing Paul says in this letter is something about Jesus Christ.

Not only does Paul lay down solid teaching about the person and work of Christ, but he dwells on ways to make personal use of the truth. Chief among these is thankfulness. Again and again Paul either expresses gratitude, or says that all believers should be grateful, should give thanks. We see it at least in 1:3, 12; 2:7; 3:15-17; and 4:2.

Thankful people are people conscious of, and glorying in, the riches they possess. Thankful people are contented people. Contented people are immune to salesmen, whether they be peddlers of baubles and trinkets, or of false doctrine.

And so, Paul's centering on, and glorying in, the supremacy and all-sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ would have to flush out the false teacher. If the letter left believers rejoicing in Christ alone, grounded solidly in apostolic teaching, and uninterested in all the false teacher's supplements and additions, he was sunk. He'd have to expose himself more fully, speak more plainly. He'd have to put Christ and His work down, and put up his own additions more. He has to convince folks that what they have is not good enough.

And so it is today. "Merely" false teachings and damnable heresies alike depend on the same method. Regular readers will notice that, whenever one of us exults in the sovereignty of God in salvation, in the monergistic nature of saving grace, in the glories and sufficiency of God's eternal and inerrant word, the "But-but-but" crowd is activated. If God is truly sovereign in salvation, then where is the room for our "contribution"? If Christ's atonement actually atones, and not just theoretically, then where is the place for our "free will" on the throne?

And if God's word is everything the triune God says it is, then where is the rationale for endowing our emotions, our hunches, our intuitions, our peculiarities, with sacred and canonical status? Our feelings become mere feelings, our hunches mere hunches. We are "stuck" with having to study, work, pray, think, analyze, reason, explain, take accountability, shoulder responsibility. We have no more holy trump cards hidden up our sleeves that no one else can see. We can't pull out our cherished "the Lord told me" cards, or our "I just feel led to" cards, and end the debate. All we have is that Bible out there, that everyone else can see, study, learn, and meditate over just as surely as we. We have to agree with the Holy Spirit that it is what He said it was: sufficient (Deuteronomy 29:29; Psalm 119; 2 Timothy 3:15-17, etc. ad inf.), and we study it to know His mind (2 Timothy 2:7). We're on a level playing field; we have no mystical "gotcha" from God.

While itself a very liberating truth (John 8:31-32), to some it is threatening. It signals a sea-change, a paradigm-shift. It engenders panic, and panicky measures and expostulations.

But I'd point out to any and all the common factor in all of these.

Every teaching that denies Christ's divine glory begins by praising Him, and denies that it is a denial.

Every teaching that denies God's grace starts by praising it, and denies that it is a denial.

Every teaching that denies God's word starts by praising it, and denies that it is a denial.

Roman Catholics and Mormons believe in Christ, faith, grace, and the glory of God. It's the "alone" that separates Biblical doctrine from Romish doctrine. With Christian leaky-canon pop-off-ets, Roman Catholics and Mormons believe in the Scripture. It's the "alone" that distinguishes the one from the other.

And it's the "but" and the "and" that are the problem. And only the discontented are vulnerable. Why give up your steak for a plastic banana -- unless you really don't savor fully what you already have?

The answer is believingly to relish what God has given us, make much of it, and just say "No thanks -- really don't need it" to supplements and substitutes.

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Is Romans 7 the normal Christian life?

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote space at the beginning of each week to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive.

This excerpt is from "The Fainting Warrior," a sermon preached January 23rd, 1859, at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens. I chose this excerpt today because Spurgeon's text here was Romans 7:24-25, and I'm preaching on Romans 7 this weekend.

Of course, one of the tough questions people always raise about that passage is whether Paul was describing his experience as a mature apostle—because if he struggled with sin the way he describes here, there's little hope any of us will attain any kind of perfection in this life. If Paul was calling himself "wretched" as a believer, this text more or less deals a death-blow to perfectionist doctrine of every kind.

Anyway, I like the way Spurgeon basically brushes aside the suggestion that Paul was above struggling with sin and temptation:

IF I chose to occupy your time with controversial matter, I might prove to a demonstration that the apostle Paul is here describing his own experience as a Christian. Some have affirmed that he is merely declaring what he was before conversion, and not what he was when he became the recipient of the grace of God.

But such persons are evidently mistaken, and I believe wilfully mistaken; for any ample-hearted, candid mind, reading through this chapter, could not fall into such an error. It is Paul the apostle, who was not less than the very greatest of the apostles—it is Paul, the mighty servant of God, a very prince in Israel, one of the King's mighty men—it is Paul, the saint and the apostle, who here exclaims, "O wretched man that I am!"

Now, humble Christians are often the dupes of a very foolish error. They look up to certain advanced saints and able ministers, and they say, "Surely, such men as these do not suffer as I do; they do not contend with the same evil passions as those which vex and trouble me."

Ah! if they knew the heart of those men, if they could read their inward conflicts, they would soon discover that the nearer a man lives to God, the more intensely has he to mourn over his own evil heart, and the more his Master honors him in his service, the more also doth the evil of the flesh vex and tease him day by day.

Perhaps, this error is more natural, as it is certainly more common, with regard to apostolic saints. We have been in the habit of saying, Saint Paul, and Saint John, as if they were more saints than any other of the children of God. They are all saints whom God has called by his grace, and sanctified by his Spirit; but somehow we very foolishly put the apostles and the early saints into another list, and do not venture to look on them as common mortals. We look upon them as some extraordinary beings, who could not be men of like passions with ourselves.

We are told in Scripture that our Saviour was "tempted in all points like as we are;" and yet we fall into the egregious error of imagining that the apostles, who were far inferior to the Lord Jesus, escaped these temptations, and were ignorant of these conflicts.

The fact is, if you had seen the apostle Paul, you would have thought he was remarkably like the rest of the chosen family: and if you had talked with him, you would have said, "Why, Paul, I find that your experience and mine exactly agree. You are more faithful, more holy, and more deeply taught than I, but you have the self same trials to endure. Nay, in some respects you are more sorely tried than I."

Do not look upon the ancient saints as being exempt either from infirmities or sins, and do not regard them with that mystic reverence which almost makes you an idolater. Their holiness is attainable even by you, and their faults are to be censured as much as your own.

I believe it is a Christian's duty to force his way into the inner circle of saintship; and if these saints were superior to us in their attainments, as they certainly were, let us follow them; let us press forward up to, yea, and beyond them, for I do not see that this is impossible. We have the same light that they had, the same grace is accessible to us, and why should we rest satisfied until we have distanced them in the heavenly race?

Let us bring them down to the sphere of common mortals. If Jesus was the Son of man, and very man, "bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh;" so were the apostles; and it is an egregious error to suppose that they were not the subjects of the same emotions, and the same inward trials, as the very meanest of the people of God. So far, this may tend to our comfort and to our encouragement, when we find that we are engaged in a battle in which apostles themselves have had to fight.

I think Romans 7 is a pivotal passage, and I have never quite understood the difficulty some people have with the idea that Paul was describing his own daily experience. If you think the battle with temptation in Romans 7 is something mature Christians shouldn't have to face, your ideas about sanctification probably need an overhaul.

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This morning at the Elysian Park Police Academy in Los Angeles...

posted by Phil Johnson



(As long as we're posting on top of one another.)

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You filthy sheep-herd

by Frank Turk

I was having a discussion with my pastor, and I related it to my wife (who is the greatest blogger who never typed 1K of bandwidth). The discussion was about church leadership, and whether the metaphor of the shepherd was useful in a society like America where 95% of the people have never seen one sheep, let alone a flock, let alone a person who was herding sheep.

Now, before any of you start the “perspicuity of scripture” organ up and set your monkey to dancing, this was not a discussion questioning the sufficiency of Scripture. Tad’s an inerrancy & sufficiency guy, and in case you haven’t noticed, so am I. The question was whether you could just open up this metaphor and have it stand up on its own in today’s society without a pretty significant amount of back-fill.

So, for example, is there a 21st century American equivalent to the shepherd which we could say, “look: most of you have never seen a shepherd, so rather than try to unpack what a shepherd does, let’s think about [Profession X] which is just like being a Shepherd.” My opinion is that there is no equivalent, and we have to unpack the metaphor Scripture has for us. But we took away the challenge to think about the matter and report back.

So, I took the matter to the Holy Spirit, which in my house is manifest most often in my wife. She slept on it, and she came up with two great conclusions.

CONCLUSION #1:

Men would probably like it if the Shepherd metaphor translated into “staff sergeant” or “General” or “CEO”. It would make Macho sense to them. But they would be wrong: a Shepherd is much more like a Kindergarten teacher than like a Sergeant or a CEO. Of course, you can’t sell a lot of books to men in business if your thesis is, “Jesus really is a lot more like a good Kindergarten teacher than a superhero or a king when it comes to dealing with us stupid sinners.”

CONCLUSION #2:

The biggest separation, however, between the good shepherd metaphor and the CEO is that the Shepherd lives with his sheep in every way. That is, the shepherd has to get dirty and do distasteful and even degrading things to make sure he takes proper care of his sheep. I don’t know a lot of CEOs who are ready to degrade themselves, for example, by working in the same conditions as the hourly single parent who has to work on the line. “But cent,” you might say, “the CEO does a pretty radically different kind of work than the hourly employee,” and I’d agree with you. Christ does a pretty radically different work than I do, but you know something: though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

If you are looking for the model of leadership demonstrated in Christ, look there at the dirty sheep-herd who lives with his sheep, and sleeps with his sheep, and has to personally stand between his sheep and the wolves.

Good luck with that this weekend.

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Oh. while I’m here,

PHAT CONGRATS
TO
OFFICER PECADILLO! WOOO!

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How we "do" Christianity, and the reverse

by Dan Phillips

It's funny/sad how some false notions are like movie monsters.

It doesn't matter how many times or how utterly Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, or countless other baddies are decimated. If the box-office is good enough, they'll be back again for another round of bloody cliches.

I recently read the solemn remark that Christianity is not a relationship with a book, it is a relationship with God. The writer further said that he did not believe that Jesus rose from the dead because he read it in the Bible, and he expressed the hope that this was true also of every reader.

Ah, it's back again. Calvin killed it, Luther killed it, Owen killed it, Machen killed it, Clark killed it, Henry killed it, Schaeffer killed it. Yet here it is, and as sure as squash is yucky -- surer, some will say -- many will "discover" and embrace this notion anew today, as if it had never been decisively and utterly killed over and over again already.

So, let me say first that I'm perfectly happy to be a disappointment to the writer, in this regard. You ask me how I know He lives? The Bible tells me so.

One of my heroes, the great J. Gresham Machen, was asked to write on "My Idea of God," and these were his opening words:

If my idea of God were really mine, if it were one which I had evolved out of my own inner consciousness, I should attribute very little importance to it myself, and should certainly expect even less importance to be attributed to it by others. If God is merely a fact of human experience, if theology is merely a branch of psychology, then I for my part shall cease to be interested in the subject at all. The only God about whom I can feel concerned is one who has objective existence, an existence independent of man.

But if there be such a really and independently existent Being, it seems extremely unlikely that there can be any knowledge of Him unless He chooses to reveal Himself: a divine Being that could be discovered apart from revelation would be either a mere name for an aspect of man's nature – the feeling of reverence or loyalty or the like – or else, if possessing objective existence, a mere passive thing that would submit to human investigation like the substances that are analyzed in the laboratory. And in either case it would seem absurd to apply to such a Being the name of "God."

This is the point at which genuinely Christian theology parts company from everything else. Whence comes your knowledge of God? What is its basis? What is your authority for anything you say about Him?

When a writer or speaker fills the air with God-statements bespattered with "I think" and "I feel" and "I just have to/can't believe," you can be fairly sure he's not doing Christianity. He is not telling us about God. He is telling us about himself.

I don't say that he or she isn't a Christian. There are frames of mind in which the holiest saint doesn't "do" Christianity very well. But whether or not the person is Christian, that way of "doing" theology isn't. It is a frame from which no good, and no God, can come.

It should be beyond argument that Christianity should have something fundamental to do with Christ. If so, there is no doubt that Christ-religion is a religion of the Bible first and foremost.

To start with the most forehead-slappingly basic touchstone, I'd ask this: Tell me something about this "Christ" you say you believe in.

If even one intelligible word is offered in answer, two things will necessarily be true about it: (1) it will be a doctrinal statement; and (2) it will either be directly from the Bible, or it will be false at worst, or trivial at best.

Was your "Christ" virgin-born, God incarnate, come in fulfillment of prophecy to effect atonement for His people? Did He live a sinless life? What did He teach, what did He say, what did He do? What did He command, promise and threaten? How did He die? What happened then? What happens next? What does any of it mean? What should it mean to me?

Any truthful, consequential answer to any of those questions will come from the Bible.

Suppose we have dealt with that fact, and are ready to concern ourselves with what Christ actually taught. What do we learn?

We learn that Jesus Christ never spoke disparagingly nor disdainfully of the written revelation of His Father, nor of His own words, nor of the future words of His apostles. Quite and radically to the contrary, none spoke more highly of God's verbal, then enscripturated, revelation. It was the very word of God (Mark 7:13). It was not capable of being broken (ou dunatai luthenai he graphe, John 10:35).



He spoke just as highly of His own words, which were spirit and life (John 6:63), and would stand for all eternity (Matthew 24:35). In fact, it is most instructive to see the connection between close study and retention of His words and a vital relationship with God. Did Jesus bifurcate the two? On the contrary, He hinged the one upon the other:

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" 23 Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me" (John 14:21-24)

This cannot surprise anyone whose concept of Christianity comes from Christ, rather than religious tradition, cultural fads, or personal vapors. After all, Christ said that the distinguishing mark of a genuine disciple, or student, of His was continuing in His word (John 8:31). Only thus can one know His freeing truth (v. 32).

(An aside: surely at this point someone would want to burst out, "What?! What about love? Love is the distinguishing mark of a Christian!" To which I'd respond, "How do you know that?" And I hope the reply would be, "Because I read it in the... oh.")

But, even all that aside, how does the mystics' favorite apostle, John, see Christian worship and spirituality? What he says is too often overlooked, or over-glanced:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life-- 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us-- 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. (1 John 1:1-4)

First, the foundation is the apostles' own abiding knowledge of Christ (v. 1). They verbally transmit that knowledge to others (v. 2), in writing (v. 4). By those words, readers have "fellowship" with the apostles and, through that fellowship, they have "fellowship" with the Father and the Son (v. 3).

Therefore, "fellowship" with the First and Second Person of the Trinity comes by means of "fellowship" with the verbal revelation which the apostles passed on, in keeping with Christ's promise (John 14:26; 16:13; cf. 1 Corinthians 14:37; 2 Peter 3:2, 15-16).

Thus we know what we know of the Father and the Son, and we enjoy the fellowship we have with the Father and the Son, by means of the words of the apostles.

Nor was Paul's thought any different. To single out but one example, have you ever noticed how the great apostle describes conversion in Romans 6? How would you describe it? Repentance, coming to faith in Christ, coming to Christ, being born again -- all true. But notice how Paul describes conversion, almost in passing, in Romans 6:17 -- "But thanks be to God that you were slaves of sin, but you submitted from the heart to the pattern of teaching to which you were committed" (my literal rendering). Conversion is, among other things, submitting to a pattern, an example, a standard of teaching, of doctrine. And how do we, in our day, encounter the pure doctrine Paul had in mind? We have no apostles.

But we do have their writings.

So do we have fellowship with writings, or with God?

It's a false dichotomy.

God tells us that we have fellowship with Him by means of the words that He moved men to write.

To the degree that something else, some other method or direction, entralls us -- to that degree, we are no longer "doing" Christianity.

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