Extirpation

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from Able to the Uttermost, pages 94-95, Pilgrim Publications.

"The tribes, after they had conquered the land, had another task to do, namely, to extirpate the old inhabitants." 

For they were not merely to bring them under subjection, so that Judah or Reuben might possess his land, but they were to slay them utterly, for their sins had been great, and God had doomed them to die and the Israelites were to be their executioners.

Now, this is what God has to do in each one of His people, viz., to exterminate our sins. O brethren, what a battle that would be for us! Why, our sins, when we attack them single-handed, soon overcome us.

Why, the very weakest sin that is in any one of us would be our downfall if we were let alone; and as for our stronger passions, if opportunity and temptation should come together and then our evil desires should leap up at the same time, who among us could stand in such a conflict? And yet, as surely as God has undertaken the work of our salvation, He means to take up root and branch all our sins. Can you realise it?

O my brethren, who are daily fighting with inward sin, can you realise it, that the day will come when you will have no tendencies to sin, when all your powers will go towards righteousness and to righteousness only? Can you grasp it? “Oh,” say you, “it is a heavenly thought.” Yes, and in Heaven it will be realised, and you will have more and more of Heaven here below in proportion as it is realised here.

Holiness is the royal road to happiness. The death of sin is the life of joy. At the root of every sin there is the bitterness of sorrow. Sin is the root of bitterness. When God shall tear up every one of these roots of bitterness, it will be a blessed thing for us, but this He will do.

The quick-tempered brother shall no longer be liable to bursts of passion; the sluggish-minded shall no longer be tempted to indolence; the man of imperious pride shall bow as humbly as the seraph who veils himself with his wings; there shall be in us every propensity to good and no inclination to evil.

O sacred hour, O blest abode!

I shall be near and like my God,

And flesh and sense no more assail

The solid pleasures of my soul.

I shall be for ever free from that which brings me sorrow, and shall possess that which brings me joy. The Lord’s portion is His people, and He will not leave a Canaanite in the land. He will cut them up altogether.

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When "I tried that" is a problem

by Dan Phillips

[NOTE: to avoid having to fiddle with pronouns, I'll use the standard generic "he"/"his"/"him" throughout.]

Hearing a person in a troubled marriage say "I tried _____" raises a red flag of concern to me.

Why? Surely all the person is doing is sharing his frustration, his disappointment, his hurt. It isn't necessarily a claim of self-righteousness, or an attempt to build a case against his wife. He isn't necessarily trying to make me think he's the good guy, and she's the bad evil vixen. Oh, it can be any or all of those things; but not necessarily.


So I will of course start talking about ways to implement what Scripture says to do, and he will say, "I tried that."

And that's a problem.

How? How can "I tried X" a problem? If a doctor said "Take two ibuprofen" or "Have a hot bath," and the patient had already done so without any relief, wouldn't "I tried that" be the perfect answer? Isn't it both honest and diagnostically helpful?

In this case, no. It is helpful, but it is not a good sign. It is helpful, in that I've come to see it often as a clue to how the person approaches marriage, and his role in it.

Here's the reality: as I remarked more times than I can count when teaching on the Biblical doctrine of marriage,

"Marriage is like being a Christian
 — only more so." 

In other words, everything I am called to be as a Christian, I am called to be in my marriage. I am called as a Christian to love, to be patient and longsuffering, to be gracious and kind, to be ready to forgive, to be devoted to serve the other for his good. I'm called to seek to embody these graces towards all.

But in just about every relationship I have, if tension arises, I can walk away. I can go home, I can go to bed, I can get distance from the locus of the tension. For that matter, I could move to the other side of the globe from it. And I'm not called by God to be everyone's close friend. It isn't a moral obligation.

None of which is true with marriage.

With marriage, I have all the same obligations, and more — and it's 24/7/365, it's right up there in my face, and I can't simply walk away if it gets rough.

But go back to other relationships. What is God's command to us, for those relationships? Are we called to "try" loving each other? Then, if it doesn't work, we stop, complain, do something else instead? Are we called to "try" being patient, kind, devoted to their good? How about our relationship with God? Are we to "try" holiness, see if it works for us or not? Righteousness? Faith?

You all know the answer: "Of course not." These aren't methods offered to us on a trial-basis, for us to test-drive and evaluate, then reject or embrace depending on outcome. It's not a negotiation. These attitudes and actions are our lives, as Christians. We're called to grow this fruit, period (Gal. 5:22-23). If Paul could say there is no law against such graces (Gal. 5:23b), he could not say there is no law calling for them. This is what we are called to be, not to "try."

So: God doesn't call me to "try" loving my wife as Christ loved the church as a tactic. He doesn't call me to run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes. He doesn't invite me to see how that whole love-my-wife-like-Christ business works out, then to keep it up or drop it, depending on whether it "works." He doesn't call spouses to try not gossiping and complaining about each other. He doesn't call wives to try being respectful and submissive, any more than He calls children to try honoring their parents — or believing in Christ.

And so I say it is a red flag, because I've found that it often is a symptom. It may indicate that the spouse holds as the paramount value — not glorifying God and enjoying Him forever, but — being treated as he believes he deserves. That is the first and great unwritten commandment. So when his wife doesn't treat him as he deserves, that's wrong. She needs to change. But she doesn't want to. How to get her to change?

Well, he could try various things. He might yell at her. Or he might freeze her out. Or he might ignore her. Or he might talk her down to others.

Or, if he's really pious, he might "try" loving her.

See what I did there? The objective is to get her to behave right. (And, for the record, she should: she should love him and honor him, and do her best to make him glad he's married to her.) In pursuit of that objective, he tries various things. This tactic, that tactic... God's commands might even be among those things he tries — in pursuit of his objective: getting her to treat him right.

So here comes the obvious rub. What if it "doesn't work"? What if she's still a merciless shrew? Well, he tried, you see? It didn't work. So he has to try something else. Like complaining about her to everyone who will listen. Like self-pity. Like growing increasingly bitter and resentful. Like wearing the martyr's robes for everyone to see. Like trying to get kids and friends to see her as he does, see how bad she is and how nobly he suffers.

Suppose, though, he realized that being a Christian who actually practices what he professes — which is, after all, what we're talking about, right? — isn't something you "try." It's something you do, come what may, and God helping you, you don't let all the powers of Hell stop you. Much less a grumpy, sharp-tongued, ungrateful spouse.

What then, when his wife responds to his love with contempt, scorn, or even abuse? What if his coming close to love and serve her just gives her a better and crueller shot at him? What then?

Let me ask you: Does the Bible say anything about how Christians should respond to verbal abuse? To ingratitude? To false accusations? Anything in there at all? Anything? Bueller?

I'll wait for the light-bulbs to finish flashing on.

See, marriage in that regard is not  a different category of life, as if I need to treat other people by unchanging standards, but my wife is different. It isn't as if I have 66 books of direction for all my relationships, but only a few chapters that apply to relating to my wife. She's only different in that she will always be there for me to practice these graces, and I can't walk away if it gets rough.

Because being married is like being a Christian.

Only more so.

And in that life, what gets "tried" is us and our faith (1 Peter 1:7) — not God's commands.

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The most dangerous kind of discontentment

by Dan Phillips

From 2006 to 2012, PyroManiacs turned out almost-daily updates from the Post-Evangelical wasteland -- usually to the fear and loathing of more-polite and more-irenic bloggers and readers. The results lurk in the archives of this blog in spite of the hope of many that Google will "accidentally" swallow these words and pictures whole.

This feature enters the murky depths of the archives to fish out the classic hits from the golden age of internet drubbings.

The following excerpt was written by Dan back in June 2006. Dan showed that a lack of trust in the sufficiency of Scripture makes people vulnerable to numerous spiritual dangers.

As usual, the comments are closed.

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. And 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?

In Colossians, not only does Paul lay down solid teaching about the person and work of Christ, he also 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.

But 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?

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.

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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Overlong prayer interrupted — the rest of the story

by Dan Phillips

The man who gave me my first pastoral training, David Morsey, told the story once of a meeting at which a man stood to open in prayer. The man went on and on, and after a time the meeting's leader arose and said, "While the brother finishes his prayer, let us turn to hymn 242."

It was one of those apocryphal-type stories that one hears, with various famous names attached (Wesley, Whitfield, and so on). After a time, one decides it may never have happened — but, if it didn't, it should have, and it still makes a good point.

I'm sure you know a number of the kind. Like the story of (Whitfield, Wesley, Whoever) walking down the street when a drunken bum grabs him arm and says "I'm one of your converts!" The great man replies, "Yes, you must be. If you were one of Christ's converts, you'd not be in this state." We all know a number of stories like this.

I quoted the long-prayer-interrupted one during our last Wednesday-night meeting, making the point that length in public prayer does not necessarily equal godliness. I noted that I couldn't source the story.

Imagine my delight when I did a bit of research, and found the specifics. It did actually happen. In fact, the story even gets better after the bit that's often told.

The leader in question was none other than D. L. Moody. A brother had been asked to pray, and he was going on and on. After a while, Moody stood and said, "Let us sing a hymn while our brother finishes his prayer." It's already a delightful and instructive story.

But the source of the story is British physician Dr. W. T. Grenfell, in his autobiography, A Labrador Doctor. It turns out that Grenfell himself had wearies of the prayer, and he'd taken his hat and was about to leave. Hear him tell it:

It was in my second year, 1885, that returning from an out-patient case one night, I turned into a large tent erected in a purlieu of Shadwell, the district to which I happened to have been called. It proved to be an evangelistic meeting of the then famous Moody and Sankey. It was so new to me that when a tedious prayer-bore began with a long oration, I started to leave. Suddenly the leader, whom I learned afterwards was D.L. Moody, called out to the audience, "Let us sing a hymn while our brother finishes his prayer." His practicality interested me, and I stayed the service out.

This meeting and what followed influenced Grenfell to become a medical missionary. Note this, from the article on Grenfell in the Dictionary of Christianity in America:

After five years ministering to deep-sea fishermen across the Atlantic, he visited Labrador in 1892 and resolved to devote his life to alleviating the misery of the poor folk there. Beyond numerous persons converted or strengthened in the faith, his over forty years of labor produced six hospitals, seven nursing stations, four hospital ships, four boarding schools, twelve clothing-distribution centers, about a dozen cooperative stores, a cooperative lumber mill, a dry dock and a YMCA/ YWCA He also developed cottage industries and directed the first mapping of the Newfoundland coast. Grenfell’s books and his visits to Britain, Canada and the U. S. raised funds for the mission and brought him acclaim. Among other honors, he was awarded Oxford’s first honorary M.D. in 1907 and was knighted in 1927. [Reid, D. G., Linder, R. D., Shelley, B. L., & Stout, H. S. (1990). In Dictionary of Christianity in America. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.]

And all because Moody cut short a "tedious prayer-bore" in a public meeting!

And now you know... well, you know.

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"They took the money"

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from The Gospel of the Kingdom, pages 256-57, Pilgrim Publications.

"For money Christ was betrayed, and for money the truth about his resurrection was kept back as far as it could be: They gave large money unto the soldiers." 

Money has had a hardening effect on some of the highest servants of God, and all who have to touch the filthy lucre have need to pray for grace to keep them from being harmed by being brought into
contact with it.

The lie put into the soldiers’ mouths was so palpable that no one ought to have been deceived by it: “Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept.” A Roman soldier would have committed suicide sooner than confess that he had slept at his post of duty. If they were asleep, how did they know what happened?

The chief priests and elders were not afraid of Pilate hearing of their lie; or if he did, they knew that golden arguments would be as convincing with him as with the common soldiers: “If this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you.”

The soldiers acted just as many men have continued to do from their day to ours: They took the money, and did as they were taught.

“What makes a doctrine straight and clear?

About five hundred pounds a year,”

is an “old saw” that can be “reset” to-day. How much even of religious teaching can be accounted for by the fact that “they took the money”! There are many who make high professions of godliness, who would soon give them up if they did not pay.

May none of us ever be affected by considerations of profit and loss in matters of doctrine, matters of duty, and matters of right and wrong!

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Nondenominations of abomination: the split, in under 90 words

by Dan Phillips

Don't word-count this part.  Over at Cripplegate, the Rt. Hon. Rev. Prof N. Busenitz offered a rationale for parting denomination from abomination (i.e. Christian group from cult), in under 200 words. I offer two responses:

First: I agree. His point's well-made. This is not a disagreement. It's a valuable, useful post.

Second: I think it could even be further focused, though Nate's fuller development (and still-fuller developments than his) are also necessary.

So what follows is my attempt to shave the difference to one point of less than ninety words. (If I moved the Scriptures to footnotes, it would be under sixty-five words.)

Ahem.

This part counts, starting...next word!

False teachers have a deficient view of Christ. They deny that He is God incarnate (Jn. 1:1, 14), the Father's eternal and distinct Son (Jn. 1:1-2), giver of the Spirit (Acts 2:33), who saves by grace alone through faith alone by merit of His penal,

substitutionary sacrifice alone (Matt. 1:21; 20:28; Eph. 2:8-9), witnessed by His bodily resurrection (Jn 20—21), and who kept His promise to bring revelation to completion through the Spirit's work in His apostles (Jn. 14—16; 1 Jn. 1:1-3).

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Seeing Others the Way God Sees Them

by Frank Turk

From 2006 to 2012, PyroManiacs turned out almost-daily updates from the Post-Evangelical wasteland -- usually to the fear and loathing of more-polite and more-irenic bloggers and readers. The results lurk in the archives of this blog in spite of the hope of many that Google will "accidentally" swallow these words and pictures whole.

This feature enters the murky depths of the archives to fish out the classic hits from the golden age of internet drubbings.

The following excerpt was written by Frank back in June 2010. Frank addressed our need to extend the same grace towards others that God has extended to us.

As usual, the comments are closed.

Dan had a great post in which there was this bit:

And then I saw Romans 15:13 — "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." God gives joy and peace. Thank God. How does He give joy and peace? In believing. But wait — I'll believe when I feel joy and peace! That will tell me I'm really a child, an elect child of God!

"No," Paul would say to me, to you: "you have it backwards. You don't get joy and peace, and then believe. Believe, and then you will know joy and peace."

Right? Amen?

In which Dan rightly intended for you, the smoldering wick, the bruised reed, to take refuge. How you "feel" should be about knowing Christ is the one who gives you what you need, not in how you have given what you need to give.

And many people needed to hear that. I needed to hear that. Inside my personal echo chamber, the me I see in there is the me who doesn't do what he ought, and does what he ought not to do, and who can save me from this wretched state? Praise be to God: it's the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I can see me that way. You can see you that way.

But the real trick in the Christian life is to see others that way. That is: just as you are Christ's in spite of your pitiable state, the other believers you encounter are Christ's in spite of their pitiable state. Maybe they work too much. Maybe they are social misfits. Maybe they are essentially emotionally blank. Maybe they have never thought about a stranger's impressions of their actions.

Maybe they are just tired and they don't have the energy for you. You are a burden, you have to admit, even after a good night's sleep.

So that refuge in which we can rejoice in Christ for our own personal sake, and escape the real and right fear of our sins in Christ -- it's actually bigger than us. It's bigger than one person.

See: it's somewhat basic to say, "Christ died for me." It's probably the most basic thing you have to get to start this discussion. But Christ didn't die for "me" -- He died for "US".

If there's a refuge against the dark shadow of doubt in Christ for you personally, it should be greater than just you personally. It should be the place where you overcome the smallness of you and get joined together in the holy temple of our God -- which is not a building, but a body and family.

The joy for you is all our joy. You should come and see it with us -- in spite of us, and because of Christ.

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The hates and loves of the fool

by Dan Phillips

The book of Proverbs uses a number of different words which are all translated "fool" in most English versions. The word k^esîl [k'SEEL] occurs 49X in Proverbs. Its relation to cognates meaning "plump" or "fat" tempts one to translate it "fathead," but I take the translation "stupid" offered by many lexicons. It features in the pivotal verse signalling Solomon's shift from long-form to short-form proverbs:

Proverbs of Solomon.
A wise son rejoices a father,
but a stupid son¹ is the grief of his mother. (Proverbs 10:1 [DJP])
________________
¹Literally “a son, a stupid one.”

In this verse, Solomon crafted the perfect transition from Proverbs' introductory chapters to the sentence-proverbs that dominate the rest of the book. When I preached it, I developed that relationship at length; here my point is a bit different.

Here's a summary of most of the uses of k^esîl in Proverbs:

The כְּסִיל [k^esîl] hates knowledge (1:22), is complacent to his own destruction (1:32), exalts dishonor (3:35), slanders (10:18), thinks it's fun or a joke to do scheming evil (10:23), proclaims (12:23) and spreads (13:16) and spouts (15:2) denseness, is repelled by the thought of turning from evil (13:19), brings his friends to harm (13:20), is reckless and heedless (14:16), pastures on folly (15:14), disdains his mother (15:20), can't even have wisdom beaten into him (17:10), clings to his denseness fiercely (17:12), brings grief to his father (17:21), doesn't focus (17:24), brings bitterness to his mother (17:25), delights not in insig
ht but in sharing his opinions (18:2), is quarrelsome (18:6-7), gets deserved beatings (19:29; 26:3), is wasteful and unproductive (21:20), doesn't recognize or value wisdom when he hears it (23:9), requires special handling (26:4-5), should not have honor (26:1, 8), makes a horrid messenger (26:6) and proverb-teller (vv. 7, 9[?]), is a destructive employee (26:10), repeats his folly (26:11), is what you are when you trust your own heart (28:26), lets loose his temper (29:11).

Let's single out just one pair of those, in both of which "Fool(s)" translates a form of k^esîl:

Doing wrong is like a joke to a fool, but wisdom is pleasure to a man of understanding. (10:23)

A desire fulfilled is sweet to the soul, but to turn away from evil is an abomination to fools. (13:19)

The second verse uses the strong word "abomination," which means something abhorrent and appalling. This is the word Yahweh uses for how He feels about homosexuality (Lev. 18:22; 20:13), idols (Deut. 7:25-26; 12:31), and other repulsive things. It's a shocking, negative term. At the opposite end of the semantic spectrum is 10:23's "a joke," which translates a word meaning laughter, or what brings laughter. It's a pleasant, happy word. Jarring juxtaposition, eh?

But wait. It gets worse.

What both verses have in common is the stupid person. Where they both disconnect is right here: what brings the stupid man pleasure is what disgusts Yahweh; what disgusts the stupid man is what pleases Yahweh. Yahweh is pleased when sinners turn to Him from sin, and that is the very thing that repels the stupid man. He loves what God hates, and hates what God loves.

As an example, this may help us see why homosexual-agenda advocates and enablers become so enraged and incensed over certain notions. You'll have noticed that they often fly into a fury, not merely at ministries and programs that try to help those in the grips of same-sex attraction, but especially at individuals who claim to have found such freedom. Why are they not happy for them? Morally unanchored, why do they care who tries to help who do what?

Because turning away from evil is an abomination to the stupid.

It fairly boggles the mind, does it not? That degree of messed-up involves not just thoughts and conclusions and decisions, but affections — loves, likes, admirations. It puts him at loggerheads with God inside and out.

Good thing he's got free will though, eh? One day, he'll just decide to change! Oh, sorry; vented my inner Pelagian there. I'm better now.

But the k^esîl isn't. Left to himself, he loves what God hates, hates what God loves — and his complacency, his refusal to be alarmed and brought to repentance, is precisely what will destroy him (Pro. 1:32, using this same word).

Apart from an act of sovereign grace.

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"I would have you be decided"

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from Words of Wisdom, pages 74-75, Pilgrim Publications.

"I have often thought the best answer for all these new ideas is, that the true gospel was always preached to the poor—“The poor have the gospel preached to them.” 

I am sure that the poor will never learn the gospel of these new divines, for they cannot make head or tail of it, nor the rich either; for after you have read through one of their volumes, you have not the least idea of what the book is about, until you have read it through eight or nine times, and then you begin to think you are a very stupid being for ever having read such inflated heresy, for it sours your temper and makes you feel angry, to see the precious truths of God trodden under foot.

Some of us must stand out against these attacks on truth, although we love not controversy. We rejoice in the liberty of our fellow-men, and would have them proclaim their convictions; but if they touch these precious things, they touch the apple of our eye.

We can allow a thousand opinions in the world, but that which infringes upon the precious doctrine of a covenant salvation, through the imputed righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ, against that we must, and will, enter our hearty and solemn protest, as long as God spares us.

Take away once from us those glorious doctrines, and where are we, brethren? We may lay us down and die, for nothing remains that is worth living for. We have come to the valley of the shadow of death, when we find these doctrines to be untrue. If these things be not the verities of Christ, if they be not true, there is no comfort left for any poor man under God’s sky, and it were better for us never to have been born.

I may say what Jonathan Edwards says at the end of his book, “If any man could disprove the doctrines of the gospel, he should then sit down and weep to think they were not true, for,” says he, “it would be the most dreadful calamity that could happen to the world, to have a glimpse of such truths, and then for them to melt away in the thin air of fiction, as having no substantiality in them.”

Stand up for the truth of Christ; I would not have you be bigoted, but I would have you be decided.

Do not give countenance to any of this trash and error which is going abroad, but stand firm. Be not turned away from your steadfastness by any pretence of intellectuality and high philosophy, but earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, and hold fast the form of sound words which you have heard of us, and have been taught, even as ye have read in the Book, which is the way of everlasting life.

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The word and the Word: do not sunder what God has joined

by Dan Phillips

Ask a group of Biblically faithful Christians how God is known. Some will likely answer, "In Christ." Others, "Through the Bible." I had just such an array when I asked the other day, as we have been studying how God reaches out to us and how we must respond.

Well, which response is right?

Broadly, one could say that three answers have been given in the history of the Christian church. Taking "A" as representing "In Christ," and B as "Through the Bible," we can treat them thus:

A, not so much B. This would be broadly the view of Christianoid liberalism of all stripes. Like virtually all false teachers, they do want to be seen as on the Jesus bandwagon, so they would claim Him. "Christ, not doctrine" would be their rallying cry. It might be neo-orthodox shaped with a sprinkling of existential spice, but it would amount to this: "We must encounter the living Christ. The Word witnesses to this Christ, but it is just the words of men witnessing poorly and fallibly to the Christ. It is inadequate. All that matters is the soul's contact with the living Christ, a contact that can't be tied to dogma or reduced to doctrines."

This is useful, of course, because this "living Christ" usually fits in pretty well with wherever the professor wants to go. This "living Christ" gets down with the world just fine. He's for evolution, "a woman's right to choose," "marriage equality," "social justice," "empowering women"; He's green, He voted for Obama, He loves Huffington Post, He's not so sure about literal Adams and Jonahs and falling walls and man-swallowing fish. In other words, He pretty much hates and loves what the world hates and loves. The  professor need not deny himself, much less take up anything as distasteful as a cross.

Machen killed this monstrosity decades ago but, like Freddy Krueger, it just keeps coming back. Unlike Freddy, it does change its shirt from time to time. But it's always the same nonsense, under the skin.

Both A and B. Many orthodox Christians would sign onto this, and it's a vast improvement. It at least recognizes that Christ and the Word are not opposed to each other. In fact, I wouldn't quarrel too insistently with this answer, as long as its view of B matched B's witness to itself.

However, I think this isn't the best way to put it. It still envisions a parting between the two that doesn't do justice to the role Christ Himself (A) gives to the Word (B). That is better expressed as...

A, by sole means of B. Of course and always, the intent is to know Christ truly and intimately (Ephesians 3:17-19; Philippians 3:10). And this can happen only as we are born of the Spirit (John 3:1ff.), and the Lord opens our hearts (Acts 16:14). But by what means, through what instrumentality, is this accomplished?

As I've been studying closely with my church on Wednesday nights, God has always had but one means of making Himself known, from the first moments when there was sentient life: by His Word. This has always been the case. Adam's first recorded experience of God is of God speaking to him; and so it goes through redemptive history. The grand trans-covenantal paradigm of Abram is that his right standing before God came through his saying "Amen" to the word of God (Gen. 15:6 and context).

Nothing has changed in the coming of Christ. He preached, He preached and preached; He was known as "the teacher." His miracles showed that his preaching had power, but their meaning was known through His preaching. When people came for his miracles, He moved on so He could preach more, say more words about God and His Kingdom (Mark 1:33-38).

This is what He said would be the norm. The mark of someone who was a genuine disciple was that that person continued in His word (John 8:31-32). That person who experienced God and knew God personally would be the person who kept Christ's commands and word (John 14:21, 23). Christ's abiding in the person would flourish by means of His word abiding in him (compare John 15:4 and 7).

And so it continued after He ascended. When Peter was surrounded by inquiring unbelievers, he preached God's words to them and used those words to urge them to salvation (Acts 2). The saved — reconciled to eternal fellowship with God — were those who embraced his word (Acts 2:41). Again and again, Luke describes the spread of Christianity as the spread of the word of God (Acts 6:7; 12:24; 13:49). In fact, how would we today have fellowship with the Father and the Son? Through the words of God through the apostles (1 John 1:1-3).

This is but a brief sample. I could just put it like this. You say the really important thing is to know Christ. I say "amen." And then I ask, "Who is this 'Christ'? Where do we learn of Him? Where do we find out infallibly who He is, what He taught, what He did, what He offers and demands, how I can know Him, and how He wants me to live and think?"

You know the answer.

A, by sole means of B.

Don't sunder what God hath joined.

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"God Without Mood Swings"

by Phil Johnson

From 2006 to 2012, PyroManiacs turned out almost-daily updates from the Post-Evangelical wasteland -- usually to the fear and loathing of more-polite and more-irenic bloggers and readers. The results lurk in the archives of this blog in spite of the hope of many that Google will "accidentally" swallow these words and pictures whole.

This feature enters the murky depths of the archives to fish out the classic hits from the golden age of internet drubbings.

The following excerpt was written by Phil back in April 2010. Phil used Exodus 32:10-11 to address the doctrine of Impassibility.

As usual, the comments are closed.

Scripture tells us that the eternally unchanged and unchanging God became so angry against Israel at Sinai that He threatened to annihilate the entire nation and essentially void the Abrahamic covenant:

And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? (Exodus 32:10-11).

Two things are perfectly clear from such an account: First, we are not to read this passage and imagine that God is literally subject to fits and temper tantrums. His wrath against sin is surely something more than just a bad mood. We know this passage is not to be interpreted with a wooden literalness.

How can we be so sure? Well, Scripture clearly states that there is no actual variableness in God (cf. James 1:17). He could not have truly and literally been wavering over whether to keep His covenant with Abraham (Deuteronomy 4:31). Moses' intercession in this incident (Exodus 32:12-14) could not literally have provoked a change of mind in God (Numbers 23:19). In other words, a strictly literal interpretation of the anthropopathism in this passage is an impossibility, for it would impugn either the character of God or the trustworthiness of His Word.

Nonetheless, a second truth emerges just as clearly from this vivid account of God's righteousness anger. The passage destroys the notion that God is aloof and uninvolved in relationship with His people.

In other words, we can begin to make sense of the doctrine of impassibility only after we concede the utter impossibility of comprehending the mind of God.

The next step is to recognize the biblical use of anthropopathism. The anthropopathisms must then be mined for their meaning. While it is true that these are figures of speech, we must nonetheless acknowledge that such expressions mean something. Specifically, they are reassurances to us that God is not uninvolved and indifferent to His creation.

However, because we recognize them as metaphorical, we must also confess that there is something they do not mean. They do not mean that God is literally subject to mood swings or melancholy, spasms of passion or temper tantrums. And in order to make this very clear, Scripture often stresses the constancy of God's love, the infiniteness of his mercies, the certainty of His promises, the unchangeableness of His mind, and the lack of any fluctuation in His perfections. "With [God there] is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James 1:17). This absolute immutability is one of God's transcendent characteristics, and we must resist the tendency to bring it in line with our finite human understanding.

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To be or..to become: when translators should try harder (John 1:1, 6)

by Dan Phillips

Last week I discussed an instance where the ESV used two different words to translate the same Hebrew verb in two consecutive verses, unintentionally obscuring a significant point of interpretation. There are cases where the reverse happens. One such is John 1:1 and 6.

Everyone knows verse 1, which doesn't warrant much creativity from a translator: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." That word "was" crops right up again in the ESV of verses 2, 3, and verse 6.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

"Was," "was," "was." Of course, verse 3 doesn't count since "was" there is just an auxiliary verb ("was made"). But the English-only reader is left to assume that every other occurrence of "was" must either translate the same verb, or that there is no exegetically-significant variation. Both would be incorrect assumptions.

In verses 1 and 4, the verb is ἦν (ēn), which is the imperfect active indicative of eimi, the common copula (I am). At this point, novices have sometimes waxed a bit imaginative, noting that the imperfect means continual action, so John is saying that the Logos continually was at creation.

Theologically, this is of course accurate. Etymologically, not so much. It might be, if a simple past (aorist) finite form of eimi were available to John. None was. Just the present (estin, is) and the imperfect (ēn, was). John could not have used that verb to say that Jesus "was," in the aorist tense, if he'd wanted to. (To oversimplify, aorist serves for punctiliar past events, with no emphasis on process: he ate, she sat, he built.)

But what of verse 6? According to the ESV, it's the same: in the beginning was the Word (v. 1), there was a man sent from God named John. The Word was, John was. No point is being made.

However, John (not the ESV) used two different words. Verse 6 employs the aorist tense of the verb ginomai, meaning simply "I become." It indicates beginning to be... something. Becoming something. Springing up on the pages of history.

In practice, one can't translate ginomai with forms of "become" every time, and I'm not arguing that we should. However, here it's pretty clear that John is making a point by using two verbs — ēn, ēn, ēn, ēn, ēn, ēn ...then egeneto. He introduces two characters in his opening verses: the Logos, and John. One had a beginning, one was at the beginning. The contrast between the two is, very literally, infinite.

So why not at least note the fact in translation? Sometimes, it is simply impossible to reflect nuances of Hebrew and Greek in English. Here? Not at all. Many translations make some try, such as "came" (NASB, NET, ASV, NJB), and "arose" (Rotherham). You could say "A man came to be; his name: John." But the ESV is not alone in apparently not even trying: "was" is found in ESV, NIV, CSB, KJV, and NKJV.

I can't even speculate about what moves translators to do or not do many things. It just seems like it's most respectful of the text to try to note both similarities and differences in the original text when one can. John could have used a sixth ēn, but chose to use egeneto instead. If we can reflect his word-choice, I think we should.

And here, we can.

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No apology given!

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from Words of Wisdom, page 112-13, Pilgrim Publications.

"Never judge according to numbers; say they are nothing but men after all; if they be good men fight on their side, but if they and the truth fall out, fall out with them." 

Be a friend to the truth; make your appeal to the law and to the testimony, and if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

That was grand of Latimer, when he preached before Henry VIII. He had greatly displeased his majesty by his boldness in a sermon preached before the king, and was ordered to preach again on the following Sabbath, and to make an apology for the offence he had given.

After reading his text, the bishop thus began his sermon:— “Hugh Latimer, dost thou know before whom thou art this day to speak? To the high and mighty monarch, the king’s most excellent majesty, who can take away thy life if thou offendest; therefore, take heed that thou speakest not a word that may displease; but then consider well, Hugh, dost thou not know from whence thou comest; upon whose message thou art sent? Even by the great and mighty God! who is all-present, and who beholdeth all thy ways, and who is able to cast thy soul into hell! Therefore, take care that thou deliverest thy message faithfully.”

He then proceeded with the same sermon he had preached the preceding Sabbath, but with considerably more energy. Such courage should all God’s children show when they have to do with man.

Thou art thyself nothing but a worm; but if God puts his truth into thee, do not play the coward, or stammer out his message, but stand up manfully for God and for his truth.

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Literal translation can make a big difference: example from Proverbs 8

by Dan Phillips

Have you been following along in, and been using the outlines for, my sermons through the book of Proverbs?  If so, you'll have noticed, to your amusement or amazement or indifference, that I always provide my own very literal ad hoc translation. Here's an example of why.

As I have explained more than once to my dear ones here, I don't do it to supplant any standard translation. Our church used a now-out-of-print edition of the NASB, and has since switched to ESV. Probably like anyone who's studied Greek and Hebrew closely, it drives me nuts. Every translation does. There is no fresh, consistently and readably literal translation.

Now, my point isn't to discuss translation philosophy or debate individual translations, but to make one point. I don't know whether it's the effect of committees or what, but one of the specifics that drive me nuts is the interpretive clues that translations withhold from readers.

For instance, here's one all translations do: there are a number of different Hebrew words for "fool" and "folly" in Proverbs. English versions all tend to render them all simply by "fool" and "folly." If Solomon is doing something with his word-choice, no English reader can tell; he'll sometimes look unnecessarily repetitive — as in 17:21, where ESV has "fool" twice to render two unrelated Hebrew terms.

Now, some of this is pretty much unavoidable. Anyone who reads my translation will say it's well-nigh unreadable, and I will agree. It's extremely literal. It isn't meant to replace a standard translation. My point is to try to make transparent nuances of structure and word-choice that a smoother, more readable translation would obscure.

Sometimes there's no good reason for what English versions do, and the less-literal hides delightful features of Solomon's art.

An example is found in Proverbs 8:32-36. Here's the ESV:

32 "And now, O sons, listen to me: blessed are those who keep my ways.
33 Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it.
34 Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors.
35 For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD,
36 but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death."

It looks like Wisdom asks them to listen and promises a blessing, says to hear (similar word, but different), then gives blessing and warning. And that's not wrong. Nobody is harmed by that translation.

But what Solomon's doing is a bit more artful than what's apparent. Here's my very-literal translation:

8:32  “So now, sons, listen to me!
And oh! the blessings of those who keep my ways.

8:33  “Listen to discipline, and be wise,
And do not ignore it.

8:34  “Oh! the blessings of the man who listens to me,
Watching at my doors day after day,
Keeping vigil at the doorposts of my opening.

8:35  “For he who finds me finds life,
And he obtains favor from Yahweh.

8:36  “But he who misses me does violence to his own soul;
All who hate me love death.”

Oh, look, that's a little different. "Listen" is in v. 32a, and v. 33a; then "oh! the blessings of" begins both v. 32b and v. 34a. Could that mean something?

Indeed it does. It means that verse 32 is the key to the entire section. Line A's call to listen is expanded in the terse imperatives (three imperatives in five words) on v. 33, and Line B's exclamation "oh! the blessings" is expanded in vv. 34-36.

In other words, Solomon has Wisdom saying "So now, sons, listen to me!" in Prov. 8:32a. Keying on "listen," verse 33 then expands this to three commands of which two are positive and one negative. It is a terse five-word verse, of which three words are imperative. Positively: listen, be wise. Negatively: do not ignore.

Then in Prov. 8:32, Wisdom exclaims "Oh! the blessings of those who keep my ways." What does all that involve? She tells us in vv. 34-36. Keeping her ways involves listening (again!), eagerly watching at her doors daily, keeping vigil at her every opening (v. 34). The one who does this gains real life, which is to say favor from Yahweh (v. 35). This bounty is heightened by a glance at the anti-blessing, the consequences of not seeking and finding her: doing violence to one's own soul, and loving death. (As I expound it, Lines A and B ov v. 36 are cause/effect, then effect/cause, respectively.)

What ESV does with vv. 32 and 33 is what it does when it's at its worst: simply echoing RSV without needed revision (pun noted, not intended). Both versions translate the exact same Hebrew word (שִׁמְעוּ, shim`û) by two different English words (listen, hear) in two sequential verses. (CSB and [it pains me to admit] NIV do not obscure this connection.)

As I said: does it harm anyone? No. Would a false doctrine be born of it? No. Could a reader read and be blessed and built up? Absolutely.

But as I say and have often said, a pastor is like a professor of ancient Hebrew and Greek literature. It'd be pretty rough for him to teach that course without knowing the languages. And one of the things that knowing the languages does for anyone is show greater color. If you've got a good B&W TV, can you watch Star Wars or Sound of Music and "get it"? Absolutely. But might you miss the color, and in some cases, the beauty is in the chromatic variations? Sure.

Proverbs 8:32-36 is a perfect example where a pastor's possession of a color TV can serve to bless his congregation with a deeper appreciation for and reverence of what God did in inspiring Solomon to craft this masterpiece.

POSTSCRIPT: having said all that, it is also true that the woodenly-literal can sometimes mislead an English reader, as I illustrate in today's post over at my personal blog.

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The abiding authority and perspicuity of Jesus' teaching

by Dan Phillips

From 2006 to 2012, PyroManiacs turned out almost-daily updates from the Post-Evangelical wasteland -- usually to the fear and loathing of more-polite and more-irenic bloggers and readers. The results lurk in the archives of this blog in spite of the hope of many that Google will "accidentally" swallow these words and pictures whole.

This feature enters the murky depths of the archives to fish out the classic hits from the golden age of internet drubbings.

The following excerpt was written by Dan back in December 2010. People find many ways to deny Jesus' Lordship claims; Dan addressed three of them.

As usual, the comments are closed.

Everybody who's heard of Him tries to "deal with" Jesus, and there are only two basic ways to do it:

1. Submit to His Lordship claims; or
2. Don't

The latter category has many varieties, of which this post hits on three.

There are the airy hand-wavers, who like to dismiss Jesus as a child of His time, merely reflecting current beliefs and speaking only to them. Some will throw in the gem that He wrongly expected the apocalypse within a few years, so He taught with no long-term thoughts or expectations.

It may be a lovely theory to some, but it comes to grief on the facts of history. The only Jesus who actually lived expected His words to be around, and to remain binding, for the duration of history. Note: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away" (Matthew 24:35).

Second, there are the wild and wacky cultists. There are the "Mind Science" cults such as Christian Science, Unity School of Christianity, and Religious Science, as well as other New Age cults. They approach Jesus' words almost as if they were floating in mid-air, free to be re-attached to any philosophy or worldview at all.

They forget that Jesus spoke from a knowable and understandable spiritual/intellectual framework. He has a context. Jesus was quite emphatic in His embrace of the literal truth of the entire Old Testament as the Word of God, from its earliest narratives (Matthew 19:4-6) to its latest (Matthew 23:35). He saw the entire Old Testament as a revelation of God, pointing forward to and framing Him and His work (Matthew 26:54; Luke 24:25-26, 44-47). The imagery and phrases and even specific words He used were already familiar to any careful student of the Old Testament.

Finally, there are academic Gnostics, who imply that no one can puzzle out Jesus' meaning unless he has immersed himself in highly-academic, highly-specialized studies.

If the great bulk of Jesus' teachings are comprehensible only to academics, then Jesus was a failure as a teacher. He was less the consummate teacher (as He claimed; Matthew 23:8; Luke 6:46), and more of a verbal graffiti artist, penning images lost on all but a tiny fragment of the initiated.

Regular readers know I'm far from denigrating godly scholarship. However, Jesus' words and images were chosen by vast, limitless, shoreless wisdom, crafted to connect with all sorts of people throughout history until the consummation (again, see Matthew 24:35). It seems that children were never far off (Mathew 18:2), and His audiences were made up of a wide variety of folks (Matthew 14:21). Jesus Himself rejoiced that the academics of His day missed what the "children" were able to grasp (Matthew 11:25).

So we go astray if we look for highly coded or highly specialized language. It's a step back to pre-Reformation Roman tyranny, the Bible reserved only for the Specialists and held off from commoners.

The Bible was meant for commoners. Jesus spoke to commoners.

After all, "the fullness of time" (Galatians 4:4) did not come until Jesus could teach people in a dialect that came to be known as Κοινή.

Which means "common."

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