Ben Zornes

Living and Dying to Show the Preciousness of Christ

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Commerce and Welfare

Commerce and Welfare

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It is vital, in this age which has disregarded God’s Word as the basis for our civil laws, to return again and again to the surpassing greatness of God’s will as revealed in Mosaic Law. We cannot improve upon God’s ordinances for how society should form laws and policies.

Now, of course we must point out that Christ’s fulfilling the law of Moses did not abrogate the moral requirements of the law. Rather, what was revealed was that earning salvation through law-keeping was exposed as the ultimate breaking of the law. Thus, we should still look to the Mosaic law for ordering a society according to God’s holy law, with the Gospel of Christ being proclaimed as the only hope of eternal salvation.

One law that is pertinent in our current economic climate is Leviticus 19:9-10, which reads, “And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God.”

Here we have a requirement that private business and commerce take the poor into consideration. The Bernie Sanders crowd might be nodding along saying, “Right on!” To which I’d reply, “not so fast, commies.” Socialist jokes are only funny if everyone gets them, after all. The text before us certainly appears to command that private businesses invest in charity. But before all the Millennials lift up a cry of joy that the 1% is gonna get what’s coming to them, we should notice a vital detail of this command.

The businessman is prohibited from reaping the corners, going over the field a second time, or harvesting every last grape. In essence, in his profits he must make allowance for mercy. But we must not miss the fact that the businessman is not commanded to dip into his harvest and hand it over to the government for them to disburse in so many welfare programs. He is to provide a means whereby the poor might be able to work with their own hands to provide for their own needs. He is not commanded to give handouts––or underwrite government welfare checks through inordinately high tax rates––but he is to ensure that if the poor want to work, there is opportunity.

Now, of course, as a God-fearing man, he will gladly give to those in need, like we see Boaz doing for Ruth (giving her a generous supply of grain from his harvest). However, this law is not a mandate for businessmen to––under government compulsion––write a check to support the living wage of the impoverished. He is commanded to make sure that if the poor want to work, there is room for the poor in his business. A modern illustration of this might be that a successful business owner makes sure that he budgets to be able to pay an impoverished single-mother a generous wage to clean the office. However, the law here is that the businessman is tasked to ensure that the poor can work with their own hands to earn their own living off of his successful harvest.

So, this law was not aimed at penalizing the landowner. Rather, it was intended as a means whereby the landowner might exercise mercy without compulsion. This law didn’t delineate a certain percentage of the corners of his field which couldn’t be harvest. Rather, he was commanded simply to make sure that the poor could glean sustenance from his harvest.

True charity looks like opportunity for the poor.True charity looks like opportunity for the poor. We often think that charity means giving something for nothing to the poor. However, this levitical practice seems to set up the poor for being able to learn a trade, while supplying for their daily needs, and if they showed competency the landowner may hire them to work in their field.

Of course, none of this hinders a God-fearing businessman from giving “something for nothing” to the poor, and in fact that is one of the most common features of godly businessmen is their generosity. We ought not to think that wealth = greed. It certainly can. But the poor (and more often the advocates of the poor) are those who are most infected with envy and greed. This provision in the Mosaic law ensures that both parties (the rich and the poor) are shielded against the sin of greed.

The businessman is reminded of his obligation to provide opportunity for the poor to work, and the poor are given a means whereby they might work hard for their own livelihood. The poor are spared the shame of needing to beg, and also delivered from the talons of government programs which need the poor to justify their existence. The businessman is afforded a means of showing charity and mercy. The rich and the poor work out the details of charity together, and none of this is administered or enforced by the government.

Tomlin and Individualism

Tomlin and Individualism

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Some Qualifications

Let me make a qualification before I attempt to dissect this. I learned to play guitar by plunking away at Tomlin songs. I cut my teeth as a worship leader by playing his tunes. Musically speaking, I was very much “mentored” by him. So, I do have respect and appreciation for much of what he has done, and how he continues to contribute greatly to the church. “How Great is Our God” is sung worldwide by millions of Christians and this is something to be grateful for.

That said, I’ve had growing concerns for many years as to the direction which “pop worship” has been going. This latest music video is a perfect example of the embodiment of some of those concerns. Apart from employing already overused “modern worship” clichés (i.e., “my chains are broken”), the song itself has little to quibble about. It is the imagery and the subtle theological implications behind that imagery that are of concern to me.  In this song, Resurrection Power, we see a young man drive out into a field, enter a baptismal, and––even as you inwardly beg for him not to do it––he then baptizes himself.

This music video is the embodiment of modern evangelicalism’s dangerous swerve into individualistic piety. I want to emphasize that true evangelical faith must be experienced by the individual, but not in isolation. The imagery in this video––of a solitary man baptizing himself––is appalling, for a few reasons. I’d like to lay out three reasons why this should be concerning to us.

First, it presents to us a notion of baptism that is theologically problematic.  The baptism that the video presents is troubling in that the fellow comes alone, administers the sacrament alone, and leaves alone.

Ingrown Pietism

First, we see an undue emphasis on internal piety. The man in the video is presented as taking some spiritual journey alone. We can’t know the state of a heart, of course, which is why the doctrine of the objectivity of the external covenant sign of baptism is so vital. I don’t know whether someone’s spiritual journey is sincere or feigned, what I can know is, “Were you baptized?”

Baptism is not primarily about the internal condition of our heart, it is primarily about Christ, the covenant head of the body of believers. Modern evangelicalism needs to be wary of making inward piety of such great importance that accountability and objective union with the broader congregation (through the sign of baptism) becomes of little importance.

The lyrics state that the “old has passed away.” So far so good (cf. Rom. 6:6). But the footage inaccurately portrays what “the old” which is passing away actually is. Baptism is a visible word that points to the fact that the individual is no longer covenantally tied––because of Adam––to the kingdom of this world. Rather a person being baptized is now covenantally united with Christ and brought into the Kingdom of God, i.e. the church.

The Bad Juju of Autonomy

Which leads to the second problem I see in this music video. It paints the Christian as autonomous. But when we are baptized we are not simply making a statement about ourselves, but we are now visibly joined with the congregation of saints, and thus made accountable to the authority of the Word, and to the elders which the Word commissions to keep watch over our souls. The baptism that the video presents is troubling in that the fellow comes alone, administers the sacrament alone, and leaves alone.

Accountability to the human authority which the Word of God establishes for the believer is entirely absent. The only thing we see is an individualistic choice to seek some spiritual experience. But when we are baptized we are bound to the obligations of the covenant of grace. Baptism is not about my autonomous journey of spiritual self-discovery. Rather it speaks of my conveyance out of the kingdom of satan and into the kingdom of Christ.

The individualistic religion that is presented in this video is not Christian, it is pagan. Colossians 1:13 (ESV) makes it clear, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” Christ is the head of His church, He has given His church elders to rule, guide, feed and rebuke the sheep. Normalizing autonomous spirituality is divorcing the member from the body and thus from the authority which God has put in place to oversee His flock.

Branches in Isolation Are for the Burn Pile

Finally, this overemphasis on individualism is a subtle departure from the apostolic faith. The Apostles’ Creed reminds us that we believe “in the communion of the saints.” We are one body, many members. We are not isolated cells on a spreadsheet of God’s roll-book. We are branches on a vine. The only branches in isolation are the ones cut off from the vine. It is a real sorrow that a song called Resurrection Power merely portrays an isolated individual expressing an autonomous spirituality, rather than what Christ’s resurrection––and thusly our baptism––truly proclaims.

Christ was the first-fruits from the dead, and His resurrection was to be the commencement of a great harvest. Christianity doesn’t mean we lose individuality, but that our individuality is folded into a great host of individuals who all comprise the universal church. It is neither communism nor individualism. The symbolism presented in this video is really at odds with the lyrics. The music video portrays a lonely baptism. Whereas, when we see baptisms in the New Testament they are overwhelmingly congregational.

Curmudgeoning is a Spiritual Gift

Now, all this is not me being a cantankerous old worry wort. It is a real concern that I’ve had for years that our modern worship music is slowly weaning us away from the faith which the Scriptures proclaim to us. It is imagery like what is found in this music video that reinforces a faulty understanding of what it means to be a baptized believer.

Being a Christian is not as much about who I am and what my spiritual journey has been. Baptism is all about Him and what He has done. The Gospel teaches us to lose sight of our merit, our experience, our inward feelings, and to obey the call to repent and believe in the objective work of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. The Gospel imagery presented in this video is quite lonely, whereas, the Gospel, if anything, moves us from isolation to communion. Communion with Christ, yes. But also His body, our fellow saints.

 

Like A River Glorious: A Brief Defense of the Reformation

Like A River Glorious: A Brief Defense of the Reformation

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The Reformation: A Failure?

A siren song is enchanting the heirs of the Protestant Reformation. It is a song which allures Protestants to lay aside the vital Gospel doctrines which their forefathers of faith fought for, and for the sake of apparent church unity and continuity, return to the wings of Roman Catholicism (RC), High Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy (EO). Many have heeded that song. Not only their doctrinal soundness, but in some instances their very faith, has been dashed to pieces on the rocks of error which the Reformation rescued the church from.
The sectarian tendency in Protestantism is viewed by some as the inescapable flaw in the Reformed tradition. Thus, in a desire for unity and continuity, “return”––to either Pope or Patriarchate—is the only remedy to disunity. In their estimation the Reformation––for all the good it may have accomplished––was a wrecking ball to Church unity. The only solution to salvaging unity, in their eyes, is for Protestants to rejoin a communion that allegedly traces its lineage clear back to the Apostles.
So, was the Reformation a failure? Did it, in fact, produce such a sectarian spirit that no matter how long we tarry, with much long-suffering, the Protestant Church will inevitably fracture into a thousand denominations? Can we even have unity in Protestantism? Can Protestants even claim continuity with the Church which Christ and His Apostles founded? Should we just hang our heads in humiliation, and after five hundred years return to Rome––hat in hand––apologetic for that whole Wittenberg episode, and submit to the Papal chains from which we were freed?

What Even Is Heresy Anymore?

Some assert that Protestantism is inherently flawed with a tendency to endless fracturing. They go on to claim that it has come to the point where heresy is no longer discernible from orthodoxy. Harold Brown cautiously expresses the concern that perhaps “the old distinction between orthodoxy and heresy is at best irrelevant, at worst meaningless.”1Brown, Harold O. J. Heresies: the image of Christ in the mirror of heresy and orthodoxy from the apostles to the present. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988. pg 412 He then points out that as the Protestant movement has progressed through history, “dissenters found for the first time that they could disown basic Christian doctrines and still remain within the church.”2Brown, Harold O. J. Heresies: the image of Christ in the mirror of heresy and orthodoxy from the apostles to the present. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988. pg 417 Truly, if we care about the purity of the Gospel which we are commanded to preach, this caution must concern us. We cannot have a church in which errors and heresies––and those who teach them––are allowed to simply reside unchecked and unrestrained. If Protestantism is in fact unable to purge out heresies and heretics, is it a defective church after all? Rome, at least, seems able to maintain unity.

Go With the Flow

Protestantism is the genuine fruit of the Holy Spirit’s work in preserving and carrying forward the Church.Philip Schaff, a 19th century German theologian, answers this objection quite insightfully when he declared, “The Reformation is the greatest act of the Catholic Church itself, the full ripe fruits of all its better tendencies.”3Schaff, Philip. The principle of Protestantism. Translated by John W. Nevin. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2004. pg. 224 We must not forget that the Papacy had encumbered the church with numerous, and grievous, errors which profoundly affected the Gospel message of salvation by grace through faith. The Reformation recovered the essence of the Gospel (i.e. justification by faith alone). Thus, Protestantism is the genuine fruit of the Holy Spirit’s work in preserving and carrying forward the Church.
Some Protestants seem to anticipate a day when the Reformers’ heritage returns to Rome, thinking of it as inevitable; in order to come to unity we will need to sell our birthright for a bowl of RC or EO pottage.4Hauerwas, Stanley. “Perspective | The Reformation is over. Protestants won. So why are we still here?” The Washington Post. October 27, 2017. Accessed October 29, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-reformation-is-over-protestants-won-so-why-are-we-still-here/2017/10/26/71a2ad02-b831-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?utm_term=.456e3b49a88e. “We have been a wayward rivulet,” these absconding Protestants reason, “and we ought to return and flow once more in the river of Papal or Patriarchal authority and continuity.”
Lest we forget history, when the river of God’s sovereign purpose met with the obstinate granite of Papal abuses, it was not sinful, human stubbornness that prevailed. The Church of the sixteenth century had been dammed up by the selling of indulgences, the priestcraft of transubstantiation, and the like; it was a stagnant slough of error. But Christ is the fountainhead of this river. At Pentecost this river burst forth upon the world (Acts 2:1-4). This glorious river is the Holy Spirit’s great work, not man’s––no matter how ornate his robes. The Church is Christ’s, not the Pope’s.
Though seemingly obstructed by the atrocities and abuses of the Church in the Middle Ages, that great river ground to sand all that impeded its progress. Luther, Calvin, Wycliffe, Hus, Zwingli, Tyndale, and the others were simply dike-breakers whom God raised up to free the river of His providence to wash His bride in the water of His Word. The Church had a great deliverance in 1517. The dam broke. It is Protestantism that still rides the current of that merciful emancipation of Christ’s Church. Rome was left a fetid and forsaken pond.
This glorious river is the Holy Spirit’s great work, not man’s––no matter how ornate his robes.Even as time went by, the prevailing Protestant mindset was that the Reformation was nothing short of a great and mighty deliverance of the Church. Five hundred years have transpired, our emotions have cooled, and the danger for Protestants is that we are tempted to think the lies and bondage of the Papacy weren’t all that bad. Jonathan Edwards exemplifies what our mindset should be in regards to this great turning point in history:
“There had been many endeavours used by the witnesses for the truth for a reformation before. But now, when God’s appointed time was come, his work went on with a swift and wonderful progress; and Antichrist, who had been rising higher and higher from his beginning till that time, was swiftly and suddenly brought down; he fell half-way towards utter ruin, and never has been able to rise again to his former height. […] The pope’s authority and dominion was so greatly diminished, both as to extent and degree, that he lost about half his dominions; besides that authority, even in popish dominions, which he had before. He is not regarded, and his power is dreaded in no measure as it was wont to be. The powers of Europe have learned not to put their necks under the pope’s feet. He is as a lion that has lost his teeth, in comparison of what he was once. And when the pope and his clergy, enraged to see their authority so diminished at the Reformation, laid their heads together, and joined their forces to destroy the Reformation; their policy, which was wont to serve them so well, failed. They found their kingdom full of darkness, so that they could do nothing, any more than the Egyptians, who rose not from their seats for three days. The Reformed church was defended as Lot and the angels were in Sodom, by smiting the Sodomites with darkness or blindness, so that they could not find the door.”5Edwards, Jonathan. “Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume One.” Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Accessed August 07, 2017. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/works1.xii.vi.ix.html.
Furthermore, the African Church of the sixteenth century held much the same doctrine which Luther recovered, with none of the Romish nonsense, false doctrines and practices. There was also evidence that Luther met with an Ethiopian cleric, Michael the Deacon to discuss these soon to be distinctive Reformed doctrines.6Daniels DD (2017) Honor the Reformation’s African roots. In: The Commercial Appeal. http://www.commercialappeal.com/story/opinion/contributors/2017/10/21/honor-reformations-african-roots/783252001/. Accessed 24 Oct 2017 The African Church could trace its heritage to the Apostles as well, but didn’t hold to the papacy, Mass, or other such Roman Catholic traditions. Either it was a false church, or God preserved His Church there, and delivered the European Church through the Reformation.

The Serpent’s Forked Tongue

Errors call the people of God to be a man.Not unexpectedly, the Serpent’s forked tongued has not been idle amongst Protestants. Satan successfully deceived many in the medieval Church. As the Holy Spirit used the Reformation to open blind eyes, soften hard hearts, and liberate the Church, it should not surprise us to find that Deceiver of old endeavoring to infiltrate the true Church and infect it with error. Certainly, errors are not in short supply in the Protestant communion. However, this is not an argument for returning to the foul ponds of Roman Catholic error. Errors call the people of God to be a man (1 Cor. 16:13), and fight the dragon (1 Pt. 5:9). Knowing and believing that God always refuses to leave His Church impure, Christian men of courage are always called upon to fight serpentine errors.
Five centuries after the Reformation began, we should not be surprised to discover that the Holy Spirit is still at work sanctifying the Church by exposing sin. Sins which we Protestants have long tolerated, and in some cases coddled. He loves us too greatly to leave us fractured and sectarian. However, His love does not beckon us to bear, once more, the Papal chains, merely to appear united. The Spirit reveals the glorious freedom which Christ bought (Gal. 5:1), and enables believers to strive for the unity which He grants the Church (Eph. 4:3). We seek a unity not made by human hands, but a unity which only the triune God can produce.
It is vital to see the inviolable link between the unity which the Spirit gives the Church, and the liberty of conscience which the Gospel gives. What the Reformation gave the Church was a deeper sense of the liberty of the Gospel. That liberty is not an excuse for sectarian fracturing. Rather, Gospel liberty is the marvelous basis for our unity; united under the authority of Christ’s mediatorial headship, and guided by the Spirit and God’s Word. As Douglas Wilson points out it, “The Lord Jesus is a monogamist. He has one bride, and He is going to love her throughout all the course of human history, and will love her efficaciously such that every spot, wrinkle, and blemish is removed. That one bride is the holy catholic church. If you want to know where this catholic church is located, simply look for the Spirit of Christ. As Cyprian once put it, where the Spirit is, there is the church.”7Wilson, Douglas. “Apostles Creed 17: The Holy Catholic Church.” Christ Church. Accessed October 24, 2017. https://www.christkirk.com/sermon/apostles-creed-17/.
By contrast, what Rome teaches causes Christians to come to see the Mass “not merely as a memorial of a sacrifice but as a new enactment of it, one that earned merit in God’s sight.”8Brown, Harold O. J. Heresies. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988. pg. 233 As this view emerged in the Middle Ages, it brought about a “judaizing” influence in Christ’s Church. Christians began to think in terms of earning merit for their salvation. This was not the freedom which the Apostles proclaimed (2 Cor. 3:17), it was a yoke of bondage. While there is a sense of authority and order in RC and EO, those communions are overgrown and––by the rule of Scripture––erroneous (i.e. the Mass, indulgences, prayers to saints and images of saints, etc.). What’s worse, all this is severely harmful to the growth of true faith, virtuous liberty, and pure affections in the church. While antinomianism and licentiousness are a serious danger to the church, forms, creeds, and traditions are Satan’s favorite bait with which to ensnare the Church into legalism and self-righteousness. Church history shows that we are far more often duped by the spirit of the Pharisees than that of the libertines.

Pro-test

Protestantism has notoriously been set in contrast to what it was protesting. Perhaps we can be allowed to have a little fun with the word itself. The older meaning of the word protest simply meant a solemn affirmation.9”Webster’s Dictionary 1828 – protest.” Websters Dictionary 1828. Accessed September 13, 2017. http://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/protest. The Reformation was not just contrasting itself with Rome. It was a positive affirmation of the Gospel of Christ.
We must not revile it as an unfortunate monicker which we must try to bleach from our legacy. Rather, it is our ensign of the great deliverance which God wrought. Perhaps one day we shall be permitted to let it fall by the wayside and be known only by Christ’s name. Nevertheless, as long as evil men are found pouring errors into the stream of God’s Church, we must protest to this Gospel and against these pollutants. Those who wish to return to the errors from which Christ delivered His Church display as much folly as a coroner who hopes that by examining the brain tissue of a corpse he might discover what their best ideas were. It is this kind of folly which we protest against, while simultaneously protesting to the wisdom of the Gospel.

One Lord, One Faith, One River

None of this means that the sin of sectarianism doesn’t need to be addressed. However, repenting of schism––or as Paul might call it: sedition (Gal 5:20)––certainly does not look like bequeathing authority to a tyrant of men’s consciences. Repenting of one sin does not mean turning to coddle a different sin. Our repentance means acknowledging that all authority is Christ’s (Mt. 21:18-20). His Gospel, and the liberty it brings, must be the uniting principle of Protestant Christians.
The fact that there are schisms in the visible Church should not lead us to believe that there is not a “faith once delivered (Jd. 1:3).” Harold Brown correctly asserts, “Traditional Christianity has always been first of all an objective religion.”10Brown, Harold O. J. Heresies: the image of Christ in the mirror of heresy and orthodoxy from the apostles to the present. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988. pg. 408 We believe objective facts, not mystical sophistries.
The many sects of Protestant Christianity all have an emphasis that they deem to be neglected by other sects or denominations. For instance, the Keswick Conventions of the late 1800s were a real reaction to the indifference towards sin and much coldness of religion in the Church of England.11Naselli, Andrew. “KESWICK THEOLOGY: A SURVEY AND ANALYSIS OF THE DOCTRINE OF SANCTIFICATION IN THE EARLY KESWICK MOVEMENT.” Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary Archive. Accessed March 11, 2017. http://archive.dbts.edu/journals/2008/Naselli.pdf. However, their later errors display how this reactionary response developed into doctrines (especially regarding sanctification) that eventually impeded true spiritual maturity in the individual Christian and the Church as a whole.
Sects may indeed serve important divine purposes: “a disciplinary scourge, a voice of awakening and admonition.”12Schaff, Philip. The principle of Protestantism. Translated by John W. Nevin. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2004. pg. 172 However, after they have fulfilled their purpose, they must have the humility to once more rejoin the broader stream. Our Protestant tendency to sectarianism must be chastened by humility. True humility helps us recognize that our freedom to read and interpret the Scriptures does not liberate us from the body of which Christ is the head. True sects ought to fulfill their commission, and if possible endeavor to “unite themselves again with the general life of the Church.”13Schaff, Philip. The principle of Protestantism. Translated by John W. Nevin. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2004. pg. 172
Protestants are not the ones needing to return to the river. It is the Papacy and the Patriarchy that have set themselves up against the knowledge of Christ. They must come home to Christ. Protestants are not prodigals. Do we have faults? Yes. This should cause us to work with great fervor to ensure that we do not repeat the same stiff-necked arrogance that the Papacy of the Middle Ages did. All the same, we ought to say with Schaff, “Away with human denominations, down with religious sects! Let our watchword be: One spirit and one body! One Shepherd and one flock!”14Schaff, Philip. The principle of Protestantism. Translated by John W. Nevin. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2004. pg. 155

A Christian View of History

Part of the allure to return to Rome is the result of a faulty view of history. “Augustine argued that what gave meaning to history was the providential intervention of God. […] The three basic elements of the Christian view history are these: (1) linear movement, (2) divine intrusion, and (3) teleological orientation.”15Gentry, Kenneth L. He shall have dominion: a postmillennial eschatology. Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1997. pg. 10 A Christian view of history presumes that God intrudes and intervenes in order to bring about His redemptive purpose. Either God worked mightily to deliver His Church through the Reformation, or else it was a mere human revolution.
This should lead us neither to construct nor correct history, but to reproduce the best things we find there. We are called to “remember” what our Lord has done in times past. Through all redemptive history God has providentially led his people by the light of His Word. This means we must, in one sense, always be going back “to the law and to the testimony (Is. 8:20).” We must look into the mirror of God’s Word in order that in the light of Christ’s perfections we might be made to see our defects and errors, not to find a weapon wherewith to vanquish our theological “enemies.” After all, it is God’s Word that has begotten us, and which binds us together. The true Church is one body. One river glorious.
“Protestantism,” Schaff asserts, “is the principle of the movement, of progress in the history of the church; progress, not such as may go beyond the Bible and Christianity, but such as consists in an ever-extending knowledge of the Bible itself, and an ever-deepening appropriation of Christianity as the power of a divine life, which is destined to make all things new.”16Schaff, Philip. The principle of Protestantism. Translated by John W. Nevin. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2004. pg. 201 Christians look back to the cross as we press towards the crown.
Learning and growing from history’s lessons is imperative, but not for nostalgia’s sake. Rather, it is in order that we might pursue with greater fervor the conversion of the nations:
“We will carry on the sacred war in word and in life, keeping always in view the honor of God in the interest of the church, forgetting not our own faults in our zeal against those of others; not with the rough weapons of the flesh in the way of wild fanaticism, but with the weapons of the Spirit–the sword of God’s word, the breastplate of faith, and the helmet of hope. Let it be a war of extermination against all error and division, but a conflict of prayer at the same time and love toward the souls of the blinded enemies of the church, to win them if possible to eternal life.”17Schaff, Philip. The principle of Protestantism. Translated by John W. Nevin. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2004. pg. 214-215
We should look forward to the day “in which law and freedom shall both be perfect in one and the results of all previous development appear conserved as the constituent elements of a higher and more glorious state.”18Schaff, Philip. The principle of Protestantism. Translated by John W. Nevin. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2004. pg. 218 By seeing the Gospel as a real force in history we are enabled to learn from the Church of ages gone by, and know what we are aiming for in the future. These two things must govern the Church of every age: the Lord Jesus died on the tree and rose again, and He must reign at God’s right hand until all enemies be subdued. His atoning work is done, His conquering work is underway, and we labor to that end.
That “river glorious,” flowing from the throne of God, runs through each age with greater and greater depth, restoring and reviving dead places, grinding to sand the kingdom of man, and from its banks grow trees whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, and all the birds of the nations find their abode in those boughs. Protestants must not think of themselves as if they are a small rivulet, continually subdividing until at last they each become a dry creek-bed. Rather, as we remain faithful to God’s Word, believing that Jesus Christ is Lord, proclaiming His Gospel of justification and new birth, and being ruthless in purging out the leaven of the Pharisees from our midst, we shall find that what we have come to call Protestantism, God calls, “the Lamb’s wife (Rev. 21:9).” May we wade into the center of that torrent of God’s redeeming providence and rush onward in obedience to His eternal purpose.

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Atoned by Weinstein

Atoned by Weinstein

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As the saga with Hollywood scumbag Harvey Weinstein has unfolded, one thing is abundantly clear, and that is that Gospel truths are inescapable. One in particular is evident: substitutionary atonement.

Our culture is guilt-ridden due to our sexual “liberty.” For decades, we’ve applauded and awarded movies wherein the actors disrobe for our collective erotic pleasure, and the more scintillating the better. Actresses’ cleavage is plastered on our glossy magazine covers that we might collectively drink in the arousing pleasure of our Aphrodite. We’ve cordoned off city streets in order for grown men and women to walk around gyrating their hips in sexual liberation, and we applaud and throw confetti, rejoicing in the orgy. We’ve freed the nipple. We’ve made it a cultural norm for couples to sleep together prior to any sort of covenantal vows, thus encouraging “test drive sex.” We have sought every which way to remove responsibility from sexuality, and thus have subsidized “birth control” in our federal and state budgets. This lawlessness does not, and cannot, come without guilty conscience.

You may disdain God’s law, but you may not escape God’s law. A person may wish the second law of thermodynamics didn’t exist, but they cannot imagine their way out of a universe in which that law and the force of it exists. Sin brings guilt. Guilty consciences can only be cleansed one way. However, the human heart is quite clever at coming up with ways to palliate our guilt by kicking the can down the road.

My case in point is that within a week, our culture has poured out all our wrath upon Weinstein. He’s been taken outside the camp, bearing away all our sins. Notice that there is hardly a voice out there who has not condemned how ghastly his sins were: how wicked, how evil, how dark, how wrong. We have stripped the man of his position, his awards, his achievements, and his glory. Our priests have laid their hands upon his head, and he is now on a plane, headed out into the wilderness, bearing our sins with him.

Our societal guilt has been soothed because someone has been made to bear it for us instead.Our societal guilt has been soothed because someone has been made to bear it for us instead. Both liberals and conservatives have delighted to roundly condemn the heinous sexual sins of the Hollywood magnate. What hardly anyone has done is confess their sin and guilt. We still insist that the right to murder a baby accidentally conceived is an inherent right. We still won’t cancel our porn subscriptions. We still want vicarious sexual indulgence as we watch the latest season of The Bachelor. We still want to leave the natural use of male and female. We want to twist our sexual drives every which way in hopes that the euphoria will be somehow higher and better. We want our children instructed at school in the latest sexual kinks. We assume our teens will access to porn, and we give them the devices to do so, despite the growing evidence that this is incredibly damaging to their long term health.

Thus, to assuage our guilt, we find the likes of Weinstein and see in him a sad shadow of a hope for atonement. Someone must bear our guilt. The wages of our sin is death, after all. We don’t want to die. So we hope someone will die for us. Weinstein will do. He is guilty. Social and political factions have united surprisingly quickly, and have ceremonially declared that here is our scapegoat (Lev. 16). The crowds cheer. Our sins are atoned.

But if a thousand rams and rivers of oil were not sufficient to eternally redeem and atone mankind’s sin (Mic. 6:7), then Harvey Weinstein is only a temporary reprieve from the Everest of guilt that is crushing us to powder. The only eternal sacrifice for sin is Christ. “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:22).” Either you will bear the guilt of your sin, or Christ will. Any other scapegoat is futile. Any other rock is sand. You will either be crushed by the Stone, or else fall upon it as your lone hope of salvation (Mt. 21:44).

Plainer Than Noses

Plainer Than Noses

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To say that God created the heavens and earth and all that is in them in seven days, as Scripture says, is a surprisingly contentious claim to make, even in Christian circles. The debate regarding young earth creation and old earth creation is a relatively new one, and has primarily arisen due to the prevailing confidence modern man places in “science.” Yes, I scare-quoted the all sacred “science.”

If we take a plain reading of the creation account in Genesis 1-2, we ought to come away with the idea that God, day by day, created the world and all that is in it. He did this all in seven days. Now, some, wanting to accommodate the (scare-quotes again) “apparent age of the earth,” have come up with the day-age theory. This goes along the lines of the hebrew word for day––יום––can sometimes represent an unspecified amount of time. The claim is that day in the creation account ought to be understood as eons spanning thousands (or millions) of years. The thought is that reckoning this way we have saved face for God by not embarrassing Him with the claim that we believe He created it all in seven literal days.

So, instead, we insist on seven literal eons of unspecified length. Saving face for God by overlooking something that is plainer than our noses: God, in the creation account, is clearly creating the world and everything about it in relation to Himself. This is why the sun doesn’t show up until day 4, to show that day is not dependent on the sun, but upon God. Day-age proponents are aiming to appease. The question is who or what are they appeasing?

A plain reading of this text produces no need for harmonization. For instance, Judas hanging himself (Mat. 27:5) and Judas’ falling headlong and his guts spilling out (Acts 1:18) requires a thoughtful harmonization. But in Genesis 1-2 there is only a problem if we import scientism’s assumptions into the text. Otherwise, we have a very plain, straightforward narrative: God says, “Let there be light,” and the lights came on, He saw it was good, separated the light from the dark, called the light Day (our word יום again) and the darkness night, “And the evening and the morning were the first day (Gen. 1:3-5).”

God names the light “day,” and it would be the oddest thing to then mean by the first day: the first “unspecified length of time.” As God is making the world the movement of creation is towards the creation of man; this planet was made to be inhabited by a creature in God’s image. All of it was designed with Adam in mind.

God of course, being timeless, did not need any time-frame in which to create the world. Thus, the most sensible thing to conclude from the creation narrative, as it pertains to the meaning of day, is that God meant an actual day here. It would be quite nonsensical to name day, describe it as an evening to morning rhythm/contrast, then mean by day something other than day. There is absolutely nothing in the text that inclines us to reason that these days need be anything other than evening to morning days. Speculation––based on “scientistic” assumptions––is what has produced the melee.

Be wary of the presuppositions you bring to the text.The key thing to remember here is that there are theological implications all throughout these texts, and changing the meaning of “day” brings theological repercussions. We see that God made man and woman last, and this has theological import: 1) man is both entirely dependent on God for his own existence and is also dependent upon the entire cosmos which God brought into being; 2) while this first point stresses mans dependent nature, we also see that mankind is to be seen as the crowning jewel of creation, for though all creation is glorious, none of it is made explicitly imago dei.

I already mentioned that the sun and moon were created on day four in order than Adam (once he was created) would know that the cosmos were not dependent on those celestial orbs, but that they themselves were contingent on God. If day six, for instance, was an age of primeval species fighting it out and finally one primate emerged which God condescended to impart soul and spirit to, we end up with generations of death. This weakens the prohibition against eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17). Furthermore, those who enjoin day-age theory as a means to incorporate evolutionary assertions regarding the origin of humans, only muddy the clarity of the NT contrast of the first Adam and Christ as the Last Adam.

In sum, be wary of the presuppositions you bring to the text. Otherwise, you will start to bend the text around your worldview, rather than letting the text be your worldview. The one approach makes God subservient to outside opinion. The other submits all things to the authority of the Word of the Lord. After all, the Word of the Lord is how we were all created anyway.

Dumber & Dumbest

Dumber & Dumbest

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The Independent recently published perhaps one of the dumber articles of the century, and there’s been a lot of competition recently. The article was entitled: The worst decision you can ever make is to have a child, according to science. 

So, let us hear about this “science,” shall we? Apparently, “science” is now public opinion surveys, because the first “proof” offered that having children are so bad for you is a survey of married couples. According to this survey, 70% of couples experiences a “significant slump” in their marriage after having children.

AHA…smoking gun…children are bad for you, terrible decision, worst choice EVER! The problem is there is no further data points cited from that survey. For instance, if you dig into the study they are citing, you’ll notice something profound. While two-thirds of couples experience a “slump” in their marriage after their first child is born, those who went through the workshop (i.e. had a stable source of wisdom, advice and guidance) saw drastically less depression, turmoil and conflict in their marriage.

Furthermore, while a child might bring added opportunity for conflict in a marriage, thus leading to dissatisfaction in the marriage, it doesn’t mean that there is always dissatisfaction in the marriage or that if there is it cannot be addressed through wise counsel! The Independent simply demonstrates sloppy journalism, by citing that 70% of couples experience a “slump” in their marriage, but it offers no further insight into the fact that one-third didn’t experience a “slump,” and that those who did experience a “slump” were greatly aided by some simple, common sense advise.

The Independent simply is parroting a common cultural mindset, because it is absorbed in a worldview that is drenched in self-fulfillment as the greatest virtue to be pursued. However, every parent I know, even if they’ve faced struggles in the marriage because of children––which is certainly common––would never choose to get rid of their kids because of that, nor if they had it to do over again would they choose to not have kids. A lot of people regret not having kids, I know of no one who regrets having kids.

The attitude expressed in The Independent article (and others like it), is that individual happiness and health is the end all. It reveals how immensely selfish much of our culture is. Further, it displays a false notion of what marriage is for. If marriage is simply about gratifying personal satisfaction, the marriage will quickly lose its luster. However, if it is about mutual sacrificial love, then difficulties (including the difficulties which a newborn introduce) become opportunities to love each other, support each other, and grow in greater unity and joy.

But let’s look at the other “science” which is cited. It describes lack of sleep, the expenses which children incur, and the potential dent in especially the woman’s income. Once again, these are not the full picture. If having children is bad for your health, we must ask: “by what measure?” Less sleep, sure. However, how many times have you seen a mother bedraggled, sleep deprived, and exhausted still beam with joy as she nurses the baby to sleep once more? Ask her if she would trade in her baby for a being able to have a full night of sleep. She ask you what institution you got out of.

Do children bring more expenses? Yep. But what is a man, particularly, working for. To provide and to pass on a good heritage to his children. Again, if we think that working for money is simply so you can attend concerts, eat out, go to games and movies, buy big boy toys, you will be deeply dissatisfied when you come to the end of your life with all your ticket stubs, ATV’s, and a big house, but no one to hand off your legacy to.

Once more, the sloppy thinking displayed in this article entirely neglects the fact that marriage is shown to grow wealth, and children who grow up in a married home unequivocally are better off by every measure. Thus, if individual happiness is the goal, the responsibility of marriage and children is actually more likely to produce wealth.

The final “science” which The Independent hyperventilates over is: OVERPOPULATION! While their earlier “science” was dumb, this is the dumbest. I’ve written before on the folly innate in the overpopulation argument. Let is suffice here to say that the assumption behind this argument is that we must “save the planet.” But for whom? This exposes the pervasiveness of Darwinian thought, it turns this planet into a place to be survived, rather than a garden to be stewarded.

Hard work is the most rewarding work.Children are hard work. It takes selflessness to ensure that both the marriage and family thrive. However, my observation is that joy and happiness exponentially grow as a couple raise children. It takes sacrifice, and it requires both husband and wife to take responsibility. But hard work is the most rewarding work.

My wife and I often fall into bed exhausted after the rodeo of dinner time, the tsunami of bath time, and the theatrics of bedtime; but more often than not, our last words to each other are memories and laughter of what the kids said and did that day. When my son Edwin awoke this morning, bright eyed at 6am, Elsje and I couldn’t help but squeeze him close and enjoy his kisses and snuggles. The joy found in those little laughs and watching them grow and change is inexpressible. I’ll give up sleep for that.

The Independent can give up sleep to watch a midnight release of the latest flick, or watch the playoffs, or go clubbing. I’ll pay money and lose sleep to see my children grow in wisdom and godliness, and I’ll rejoice to see that all that sacrifice reaps a harvest in my old age.

 

 

Hypochondriacism

Hypochondriacism

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The Sin of Racism

First, racism is a sin. Christianity emerged from the Messianic promise given to the Jews, fulfilled in Christ, who then sent His Apostles to the ends of the earth, to every tribe, with the message that He was the Savior of all nations. First century Jews struggled to figure out how this global mission of Christ’s Gospel would fit with their traditional ethnic “purity.” The answer was God’s people are “one in Christ (Gal. 3:28).” God’s people no longer fit in the category of only those who could trace their DNA to Abraham. God’s people were those who linked themselves to Abraham’s faith in God, and His promised Messiah: Jesus. Thus, Christianity was and is anti-racism to the core.

It is a sin to think in terms of racial superiority, as biblical doctrine teaches ALL mankind is under God’s wrath for our sin. So, ethnic arrogance is sin. This does not mean that some cultures haven’t achieved greater things than others, that is plain as the Pyramids. The pride of life (1 Jn. 2:16), which is of the world, seeps into every crevice of man’s heart and sets him at war with his brother. Hatred of another is indicative of an unregenerate heart, and hatred of another family, people group, or nation, is indicative of the same.

Now For Some Controversy

That said, in our recent culture clashes,RACISM has taken center stage. Some say it is systemic in our American system. Others deny there’s any instances of racism. Others insist on parading around in bedsheets, glorying in their shame. All that said, we must remember that the mass media is in the business of getting eyeballs, attention and clicks. After celebrity sex scandals, nothing grabs audiences like racism. This is partly due, I think, to our Nation’s Civil War, and many of the rifts that it created, as well as the segregation laws that followed. Other nations ended slavery rather peacefully, the USA set brother at variance with brother and still face the national consequences of that strife.

We all too often underestimate the effectiveness of media saturation on a given topic. When low-fat diets gained popularity, the talk shows loved to have on guests to tout their miracle diets, the nightly news spouted off the latest research, and bookstores had trouble keeping the shelves stocked with the many “best-sellers.” We demonized fat. What we had to show for it, was that low-fat diets didn’t do much to impact weight, cholesterol, etc. After decades of low-fat craze. Science shows that the right kinds of fat are actually very important for your well-being.

This anecdote shows that we ought to be careful to be mindful of the fact that what you sow is what you reap. Sow the gospel of low-fat diets, reap a harvest of low-fat dieters. Sow the gospel of systemic racism, reap a harvest of Social Crusaders demanding that white people leave their college or work place for a day. Sow the gospel of White Supremacy, reap the harvest of White Supremacists. There’s a difference between actual arrogance, manifesting itself as racism; and what we might call hypochondriacism. The power of suggestion, and in this case repeated suggestion by social media and mass media, can very well produce and perpetuate the very thing it feigns outrage over.

Anything But Repentance

The play that is being run on the church, is to convince her to surrender the Gospel which she must preach.My concern, especially for Christians rallying to go on a witch hunt for any hint of remaining racism in our country, is that we are running the risk of mistaking outrage for repentance, protests for compassion, #Activism with actual charity towards our neighbor. The play that is being run on the church, is to convince her to surrender the Gospel which she must preach. We are being convinced that social activism can result in Spirit fruit without preaching against sin, calling for repentance, and praying that God would give revival. If we insist on creating a new social order, without preaching the new birth, we will end up with a dead culture hellbent on insatiable vengeance. It will be the ugliest of unending feuds.

The messaging we hear is that we should see that racism is everywhere. Where racism exists it must be expunged. But not by unjust measures. Rather by the white hot Gospel that God sent His Son to die for His enemies, so that His enemies might become His friends. Only the Gospel of Christ’s atonement will satisfy the hurts of injustice, humble the arrogance of the human heart, and bring red, yellow, black, and white to join together in worship before the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ingrown Individualism

Ingrown Individualism

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The college freshman of 2017 were toddlers when airplanes flew into the World Trade Center. They were in first or second grade when social media giants like Facebook and YouTube launched and when the first iPhone was released. Whereas their parents had to wait until film was developed and organized into photo books, they’ve grown up watching their childhood on digital cameras and smartphones. They were pre-teens when they witnessed the United States elect its first black president; now, they are old enough to cast ballots themselves. The speed at which they can access information has gone from the “pony-express” of dial-up to the supersonic algorithms which now predict what they want before they even know they want it.

An entire broadcast booth is carried with them at all times: lights, camera, action. Journalism and advocacy is not something for the professionals to do, it is right there on their touch screen. They are their own news curator, with no editorial process to filter them. Far off events now show up before them and publicly expressing their reaction to such news is as everyday as blue jeans. In the days of newspapers, a small minority wrote letters to the editor; now, every social media user is obliged to publish their reaction: outrage, support, disillusionment, endorsement or sorrow.

This generation has obviously been shaped by all of this. They are clay about to go into the kiln and will soon emerge hardened and ready for the purpose for which they’ve been shaped. Regardless of your worldview and religion, there is an instinct to ensure that our progeny grasp our ideals, values, and ethics. As we look at these freshmen, they answer the question, “What is this culture’s values?” It would seem that Secularism has successfully pervaded our ethics, for they have instill in this generation the notion that self-discovery and self-expression are the highest of virtues. “You can be anything,” is the mantra they’ve been raised with, but the underlying assumption is that they must value, above all else, self-discovery and self-expression. “Here’s what we believe,” says Secularism, “so you should too.”

when a culture embraces the self-absorption of individualism as the supreme virtue, it can only shrivel up into a black hole of lonely meaninglessness. This incoming class is both more connected with each other than ever before, and yet their obsession with individualism is perhaps unrivaled. Steeped in a customization culture, social media profiles are the pages upon which they can try to tell their own story of self-discovery. They have been instructed in the praiseworthiness of charting their own course. However, when a culture embraces the self-absorption of individualism as the supreme virtue, it can only shrivel up into a black hole of lonely meaninglessness. Their education has taught them to react in accord with the rule of the “self-expression of their individualism.” But has it taught them to think? Wisdom, after all, is different than feelings. Wisdom requires us to move beyond ourselves, and submit to a higher authority than our subjective flinches and feelings. For all the lectures in individualism, they have, as yet, never been shown the beauty of being a part of a bigger story.

This is why history matters. Either we are meaningless molecules banging together in an eternal cycle of creation and destruction, or we are a part of a divine drama, being played out in real time, with a rapidly approaching denouement. If Darwin was right, then we are merely an accident of time and chance. Thus, Darwin’s story necessarily leads to individualism of the most ingrown kind. One must clamor against the universe, demanding a purpose, a glory, a reason for being. It insists on being heard, grasps at doing something meaningful, clawing to defy the vacuum of the nothingness from which we came and to which we go.

Perhaps the most grievous lie which Americans have believed is that they can trust Government-run education. As the older generations look at this rising tide of individualism, we must ask, where did this come from? The easiest thing to do would be to blame technology. Many generations before us have gladly blamed the problems found in their young ‘uns on the new-fangled technology. But this places the problem outside of the human heart. The wonders of iPhones or the platform of Social Media that has not produced this rampant individualism which has no tether to the safety of family, the beauty of principled art, the courage of objective truth. The culprit is the story which educators have told the last several generations of children. Technology has only been the screen which has broadcast our sad narcissism.

As we consider a new class of freshmen and the era in which they’ve been raised, we should be confronted with the hard question: “Is our passivity towards education and our implicit good-faith in the Public schools to blame for the toxic individualism of this generation?” As a nation we have trusted this sacred task of education to the Government, and assumed that politicians would impart our values to our children. We are then shocked when our children are perfect models of John Dewey’s vision for self-determination as the primary rule when it comes to a child’s growth and development.

Where do we go from here? While it is easy to blame the government for producing mushy brains, fully indoctrinated in Darwinism and Humanism, the real fault lies at those who shirked the responsibility to tell their children the true story of history. The responsibility lies with fathers who neglected to tell their children the story of where we came from, and where we are going. We are individuals, yes; but individuals who are a part of families. Where did these families come from? Well, let me tell you about our great-great-grandfather Adam, which of course means we have to talk about God.

This leaves us with two options. Either Darwin is right and incipient individualism is the only way to make us feel like there is meaning in this cold, purposeless universe. Or else the Bible is right and God is telling a story about His family, where we find belonging, love, and meaning. That is something to tweet about…

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