No one can deny that race relations is a key issue in our day. Not that this is new. We’ve had such seasons before. But they seem to cycle back around. And this one especially does. Often, in such discussions, movements and trends, the pendulum swings wildly, and seldom finds a permanent resting place.
In my generation, the idea of a Black President was quite remote until Barak Obama came on the scene. And when he was elected – as much as I cared little or nothing for his social and political stances – I was glad to see a day in the United States when a man of color could win the highest office in the land. Who can actually measure the leap from Antebellum America to that event? And yet, as some (many) racial disparities still exist and persist (some real, some imagined, some realized, some invented, some unrecognized – none of these in equal proportions) we see those on various sides of the question seek relief from the pain of the disorder.
There are clear voices pointing us back to the Gospel as the ultimate answer – rightly so, even as there are other voices saying that for all that, the Church still has a long way to go while society struggles to find answers which not only seem ineffective but actually destructive. How to proceed sanely, effectively and above all Biblically seems to elude us. Especially in a society (and dare I say it, even in a Church) which seems to reject Biblical authority while giving lip service to it.
It is into these turbulent and muddy waters that J. Daniel Hays wades in seeking to help the Church think through it all in his insightful and profitable: From Every People and Nation: A Biblical Theology of Race. Don Carson in his preface writes: “Dr J. Daniel Hays is able simultaneously to make us long for the new heaven and the new earth, when men and women from every tongue and tribe and people and nation will gather around the One who sits on the throne and around the Lamb, and to cause us to blush with shame when we recognize afresh that the church of Jesus Christ is to be already an outpost of that consummated kingdom in this fallen world. This book deserves the widest circulation and the most thoughtful reading, for it corrects erroneous scholarship while calling Christians to reform sinful attitudes. If the book is sometimes intense, it is because the problems it addresses are not trivial.”
Yes!
If you want to think through the race issues we face today in a thoroughly Biblical and NOT simplistic approach, I cannot recommend it more heartily. I was informed, challenged and even surprisingly revealed in parts. I am grateful for Hays’ treatment. For his thoughtfulness, refusal to capitulate either to caricatures; trite, simplistic monotone platitudes; or the reactionary mischaracterizations which often infest various camps. It made me long to be more consciously engaged in Pentecost’s reversal of Babel. Especially in terms of White/Black relations in the Church today.
Working from an analysis of Old Testament passages on ethnicities and people groups, he explodes one preconception after another. Refreshingly. And then spending considerable time demonstrating how African Blacks play such an integral place in Israel’s history as the People of God, working through into the New Testament. It is not a book on being woke, or current. It is a book seeking to develop a truly Biblical concept of race, especially in light of the Gospel. Therein lies its power.
Weighing in at just a touch over 200 pages, it is not a ponderous tome, but it will give you much to ponder.
Let me give you just a couple of through provoking quotes to prime your pump. While exploring the numerous references to Cush and the Cushites in Scripture – referring to Black Africans – Hays notes: “In fact, there is a tendency among older commentators to assume that all Blacks (Negroes) that appear in Scripture must be slaves…However, when people of other nationalities are mentioned in the Bible, no one declares that they were slaves just because their nationality is given.”
Then after citing several eye-opening examples he goes on: “The quick jump, without evidence, from the term ‘Cush’ to the notion of slavery probably reflects an unintentional subconscious connection between Blacks and slaves in the minds of some White scholars. They assume—without doing adequate research—that if a character in the story is a Black African then he must be a slave.10 Such an assumption in the context of 2 Samuel is totally without historical or textual support. It reflects the kind of subtle prejudicial thinking among Whites that is so frustrating to the Black Christian community because White scholarship is so reluctant to admit it, or even acknowledge it.
Then in his “conclusions” to Ch. 7 he writes: “Several important conclusions relating to race emerge from our study of the prophets. First of all, the prophets emphasize that God cannot be tied to any ethnic community. Thus it is critical for the Church today to grasp the significance of the fact that God is not a Caucasian or a God only for Caucasians. Neither is he an American or a God primarily for Americans. Quite to the contrary, Yahweh is the God of all the peoples of the world. Likewise, the people of God are clearly portrayed as a wide-ranging ethnic mix. The biblical picture of this blended mix includes Black Cushites as one of the critical components. In fact, the Black Cushites generally function in the prophetic picture as representatives of the rest of the nations of the world.”
From Moses’ Cushite wife, to Phinehas, Ebed-Melech and others down to the Ethiopian Eunuch of Acts 8, the reality that all in Christ are of equal standing before God which becomes the necessary common identity is driven home.
In his closing portion he notes: “Also, it is important that White Christians guard against projecting a ‘White’ world back into the Bible. There is a tendency in many White Churches to assume that the Bible basically tells a story about White people and that the other races are simply added on as part of our gracious missionary enterprise. Pastors and teachers (and film directors) across North America need to correct this misconception and inform their people that neither Abraham, David, nor Paul had blond hair and blue eyes…One of the tragic legacies of Western civilization is the idea of White racial superiority. Consciously and subconsciously, both by individuals and by social structures, both in obvious and in subtle forms, this thinking continues in the West, not only in the secular world but in the Church as well. It is critical that the Church proclaim loudly and clearly that such thinking is explicitly contradicted by Scripture, which teaches that all peoples are equal. This truth is applicable for Christians around the world in situations where one ethnic group believes that it is superior to another…My hope lies in the next generation of Christians, aptly called ‘Generation X’. If parents, teachers, and pastors can proclaim this truth to the rising generation in a clear manner, I am optimistic that they can sever the ties with the ‘old man’ from our culture and make some real progress toward the vision of Christian unity that the Scriptures present…The White Church in the West does not define Christianity; indeed, the centre of Christianity is rapidly shifting away from the Western world.”
I will close with this comment from page 183: “all manifestations of racial and ethnic divisiveness are betrayals of ‘the truth of the gospel.’ ”
Pain may indeed be the megaphone through which God speaks in order to get our attention. Or it may be expressed in the apparently trivial disappointments we experience, which cumulatively encourage us to turn our eyes from seeking satisfaction in this fallen world onward to seek our true satisfaction in God’s new creation. Without God’s redemptive application of the rod of suffering to our lives, we would have no cause to desire something better than this world and thus to turn to God.[1]
[1] Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 203.
(Quoting Abraham Kuyper) “It is not God who exists for the sake of His creation; the creation exists for the sake of God. For, as the Scripture says, He has created all things for Himself…The starting-point of every motive in religion is God and not man. Man is the instrument and means, God alone is here the goal, the point of departure and the point of arrival, the fountain, from which the waters flow, and at the same time, the ocean into which they finally return. To be irreligious is to forsake the highest aim of our existence, and on the other hand to covet no other existence than for the sake of God, to long for nothing but for the will of God, and to be wholly absorbed in the glory of the name of the Lord, such is the pith and kernel of all true religion.”[1]
[1] Rex Ambler, “The Christian Mind of Abraham Kuyper,” in Puritan Papers: 1965–1967, ed. J. I. Packer, vol. 4 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004), 206.
Here then was a reaffirmation of the Sovereignty of God as the first principle of Christian theology, and in this affirmation a denial of those types of theology which begin with the needs and powers of man.[1]
[1] Rex Ambler, “The Christian Mind of Abraham Kuyper,” in Puritan Papers: 1965–1967, ed. J. I. Packer, vol. 4 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004), 206.
At his [Kuyper’s] farewell sermon at the Reformed Church in Utrecht he spoke of True and False Conservatism from the text in Revelation, “Hold fast that which thou hast.” He left them with the injunction: “Do not bury our glorious orthodoxy in the treacherous pit of a spurious conservatism.” Our fathers have laid the foundations. We must try to build on them.[1]
[1] Rex Ambler, “The Christian Mind of Abraham Kuyper,” in Puritan Papers: 1965–1967, ed. J. I. Packer, vol. 4 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004), 208.
To think and act Christianly is to think about everything and to do everything in the light of God’s sovereign rule. And since nothing in the whole creation lies outside the scope of God’s rule, there is nothing we can think or do which is not either in obedience to God or in disobedience.[1]
[1] Rex Ambler, “The Christian Mind of Abraham Kuyper,” in Puritan Papers: 1965–1967, ed. J. I. Packer, vol. 4 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004), 213.
Only an “R” rating portrayal does justice to the evils of Auschwitz and Belsen; similarly, sometimes only an “R” rated sermon does justice to the outrage of sin.
The ugliness in the cross. How else do you explain the obscenity of the cross? An innocent man—the only truly innocent man who ever lived—is convicted in a rigged trial, abused by his guards until he can scarcely walk, yet forced to carry his own cross on a back that has been flayed raw. Nails are forced through the living flesh of his hands and feet, and he is jerked upright to hang until, too tired to lift himself one more time, he suffocates. What good God could permit such a death? What loving God could permit his own beloved Son to undergo such agony? What awful thing could be so bad that only such an atonement could pay for it?
The answer is sin. In the cross, we see sin revealed in its starkest, most abominable ugliness. There, if we sweep away for a second the prettification with which we sentimentalize that terrible moment, we see God’s “R” rated answer to my sin. There is the “atonement” that God made (Ezek. 16:63), the ransom that he paid for his people (cf. Mark 10:45). The cost of our salvation was not silver and gold but the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:18–19). This is something that we all too easily forget.[1]
[1] Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 218.
As Calvin put it: “If we desire, therefore, our sins to be blotted out before God, and to be buried in the depths of the sea … we must recall them often and constantly to our remembrance: for when they are kept before our eyes we then flee seriously to God for mercy, and are properly prepared by humility and fear.”[1]
[1] Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 219.
The same reasoning led John Newton to instruct that his epitaph should simply read: “John Newton, Clerk; once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.”[1]
[1] Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 219.
The prophets would never have begun their arguments with the words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident … .” To be righteous was to be in right relationship with the Lord, to accept him as your overlord, and therefore to accede to his demands on your life.[1]
[1] Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 240.
[MY NOTE – The following is from a paper from J.I. Packer regarding John Owen’s method of testing the validity of someone claiming to have something like the gift of tongues. I find the willing tentative position, very useful.]
1. Since the presumption against any such renewal is strong, and liability to “enthusiasm” is part of the infirmity of every regenerate man, any extra-rational manifestation like glossolalia needs to be watched and tested most narrowly, over a considerable period of time, before one can, even provisionally, venture to ascribe it to God.
2. Since the use of a man’s gifts is intended by God to further the work of grace in his own soul (we shall see Owen arguing this later), the possibility that (for instance) a man’s glossolalia is from God can only be entertained at all as long as it is accompanied by a discernible ripening of the fruit of the Spirit in his life.
3. To be more interested in extraordinary gifts of lesser worth than in ordinary ones of greater value; to be more absorbed in seeking one’s own spiritual enrichment than in seeking the edifying of the Church; and to have one’s attention centered on the Holy Spirit, whereas the Spirit Himself is concerned to center our attention on Jesus Christ—these traits are sure signs of “enthusiasm” wherever they are found, even in those who seem most saintly.
4. Since one can never conclusively prove that any charismatic manifestation is identical with what is claimed as its New Testament counterpart, one can never in any particular case have more than a tentative and provisional opinion, open to constant reconsideration as time and life go on.[1]
[1] J. I. Packer, “The Puritans and Spiritual Gifts,” in Puritan Papers: 1965–1967, ed. J. I. Packer, vol. 4 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004), 217.
A one-sentence definition of a [spiritual] gift, in line with Owen’s analysis, would be this: a spiritual gift is an ability, divinely bestowed and sustained, to grasp and express the realities of the spiritual world, and the knowledge of God in Christ, for the edifying both of others and of oneself.[1]
[1] J. I. Packer, “The Puritans and Spiritual Gifts,” in Puritan Papers: 1965–1967, ed. J. I. Packer, vol. 4 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004), 222–223.
But all [spirit given] gifts alike are increased by use of the means of grace—prayer, meditation, constant self-abasement, and active service in God’s cause.[1]
[1] J. I. Packer, “The Puritans and Spiritual Gifts,” in Puritan Papers: 1965–1967, ed. J. I. Packer, vol. 4 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004), 224.
[MY NOTE: Owen’s observation that we increase the usefulness of our giftedness is increased by “prayer, meditation, CONSTANT SELF-ABASEMENT (emphasis mine) and active service” is powerfully informative. The inclusion of self-abasement is all but absent in what most profess as spiritual gifts today. And then the need to reflect on these before the throne too seems to me to be lost element.]
Do we seek to grow in grace through the exercise of our gifts? When we speak to others of the things of God, do we seek to feed our own souls on the same truths? Equally, do we seek to increase our gifts through stirring up our hearts to seek God? When we speak of divine things to others, and lead them in prayer, do we seek to feel the reality of the things we speak of?[1]
[1] J. I. Packer, “The Puritans and Spiritual Gifts,” in Puritan Papers: 1965–1967, ed. J. I. Packer, vol. 4 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004), 229–230.
As human beings, one of our persistent traits is the marginalization of evil. We find it hard to believe in the existence of evil inside ourselves and the ones we love; instead, we reserve that sobriquet for the perpetrators of genocide and mass murder. We are ready to recognize that Hitler may have been evil, and perhaps Charles Manson and others of his ilk, but we are reluctant to admit that all of us are tainted with the same brush. We start from the premise that we are all basically good. And if we are basically good, how can a good God permit “bad things” to happen to us?
The Bible has a radically different perspective. All of us are basically bad, as Paul makes clear in Romans 3:23: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Until we grasp the accuracy of this statement as a description not merely of the worst of people but the very best, we will never understand the nature of the world in which we live. Our hearts will be filled with resentment at the impossible demands that God makes on us and his inexplicable anger at our inevitable failures.
But when we (all too rarely) experience genuine guilt over our actions, then our eyes are finally opened to the truth about our standing in God’s sight. We realize that a God who is not moved to anger by what we have done cannot be a good being. If that is so, and we are in fact much worse than we ever thought, then the astonishing aspect of the world is not the bad things that happen to good people but the good things that happen to bad people. Why should God send his rain on good and evil alike? God’s patience with sinners is the really mysterious side of providence.[1]
[1] Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 197–198.
Was Jerusalem really worse in its idolatry and social sins than New York or San Francisco or any of our modern cities? Are our small towns and villages really more God-fearing than the ancient Israelites were? The astonishing fact is not that God judged Jerusalem, but that God allows our contemporary society, with all its sins, flagrant and secret, to continue to exist. We should not regard that patience as inability to act, however. God’s “slowness” is patience in order to allow time for all of his chosen people to repent. But once that harvest is complete, the Day of Judgment will come with speed and finality (2 Peter 3:9–10). The sheep will be separated out from the goats, the children of the kingdom from the children of wrath, and there will be no room for quibbling at the justice of God.[1]
[1] Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 198.
“He only lives who lives to God,
And all are dead beside.”
This is the true explanation of sin not felt,—and sermons not believed,—and good advice not followed,—and the Gospel not embraced,—and the world not forsaken,—and the cross not taken up,—and self-will not mortified,—and evil habits not laid aside,—and the Bible seldom read—and the knee never bent in prayer. Why is all this on every side? The answer is simple. Men are dead.[1]
To hew a block of marble from the quarry, and carve it into a noble statue,—to break up a waste wilderness, and turn it into a garden of flowers,—to melt a lump of iron-stone, and forge it into watch-springs;—all these are mighty changes. Yet they all come short of the change which every child of Adam requires, for they are merely the same thing in a new form, the same substance in a new shape. But man requires the grafting in of that which he had not before. He needs a change as great as a resurrection from the dead. He must become a new creature. Old things must pass away, and all things must become new. He must be born again, born from above, born of God. The natural birth is not a whit more necessary to the life of the body, than is the spiritual birth to the life of the soul.[1]
The words which good old Berridge had graven on his tomb-stone are faithful and true, “Reader, art thou born again? Remember! no salvation without a new birth.”[1]
The most splendid marble statue in Greece or Italy is nothing by the side of the poor sickly child that crawls over the cottage floor; for with all its beauty it is dead. And the weakest member of the family of Christ is far higher and more precious in God’s eyes, than the most gifted man of the world. The one lives unto God, and shall live forever;—the other, with all his intellect, is still dead in sins.[1]
One thing is very clear;—we cannot work this mighty change ourselves. It is not in us. We have no strength or power to do it. We may change our sins, but we cannot change our hearts. We may take up a new way, but not a new nature. We may make considerable reforms and alterations. We may lay aside many outward bad habits, and begin many outward duties. But we cannot create a new principle within us. We cannot bring something out of nothing.[1]
Never, never will the Spirit turn away from a soul because of its corruption. He never has done so;—He never will. It is His glory that He has purified the minds of the most impure, and made them temples for His own abode. He may yet take the worst man who reads this paper, and make him a vessel of grace.[1]
Are you alive? Then see that you prove it by your growth. Let the great change within become every year more evident. Let your light be an increasing light,—not like Joshua’s sun in the valley of Ajalon, standing still,—nor Hezekiah’s sun, going back,—but ever shining more and more to the very end of your days. Let the image of your Lord, wherein you are renewed, grow clearer and sharper every month. Let it not be like the image and superscription on a coin, more indistinct and defaced the longer it is used. Let it rather become more plain, the older it is, and the likeness of your King stand out more fully. I have no confidence in a standing-still religion. I do not think a Christian was meant to be like an animal, to grow to a certain age, and then stop growing. I believe rather he was meant to be like a tree, and to increase more and more in strength and vigor all his days.[1]
Those who feel abandoned by God find that the pull of seeking out other gods increases, other gods whom they think can deliver the sense of security and significance they seek. If the Lord cannot deliver, why not try Marduk or one of the other Babylonian gods? Their hearts are torn between two loyalties, and they are attracted by the blessings that the idols seem to promise, the greener grass they offer, the more powerful magic they seem to contain.[1]
[1] Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 183–184.
Much of the counseling within the church of our day fails to recognize the key significance of the idolatries that remain within our hearts. On the one hand, there is a moralizing approach that focuses purely on the level of behavior. This approach says, “Your problem is that your anger (or lust, or worry, or whatever) is sin. Repent and change your behavior! If you would just do what is right, then good feelings will follow.” The problem with this approach is that in focusing on behavior it doesn’t go deep enough. It doesn’t recognize the reason for the behavior: the idols and false beliefs that are driving it. The reason why this particular person sins in this particular way is because there are idols and false beliefs in his or her life that say, “By doing this, you will gain what is really important and meaningful in life.”
On the other hand, there is a psychologizing approach to counseling that says, “Your basic problem is that you don’t see that God loves you and accepts you just as you are. If you could just feel good about yourself, right actions will follow.” This approach focuses on the feelings rather than the behavior, but still doesn’t go deep enough. It doesn’t recognize that behind the bad feelings lies an idolatry, a belief that “even if God loves me, yet while I don’t have this, I’m not a worthwhile person.” Both approaches fail to see the sin behind the sin, the fundamental issue of idolatry.
A better approach is to recognize that driving both our behaviors and our feelings are deep-seated heart idolatries. Our fundamental problem lies in looking to something besides God for our happiness. This is not a new observation. The church father Tertullian put it this way:
The principle crime of the human race, the highest guilt charged upon the world, the whole procuring cause of judgment, is idolatry. For, although each single fault retains its own proper feature, although it is destined to judgment under its own proper name also, yet it is marked off under the general account of idolatry … . Thus it comes to pass, that in idolatry all crimes are detected and in all crimes idolatry.[1]
[1] Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 188–189.
The difference between Christians and religiously minded idolaters is that Christians repent not only of their sins but also of their very best deeds, their best righteousness, in order to receive in its place the righteousness of Christ, to which they cling single-heartedly.[1]
[1] Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 190.
Let us mark this well. It is high time to dismiss from our minds those loose ideas about idolatry, which are common in this day. We must not think, as many do, that there are only two sorts of idolatry,—the spiritual idolatry of the man who loves his wife, or child, or money more than God; and the open, gross idolatry of the man who bows down to an image of wood, or metal, or stone, because he knows no better. We may rest assured that idolatry is a sin which occupies a far wider field than this. It is not merely a thing in Hindostan, that we may hear of and pity at missionary meetings; nor yet is it a thing confined to our own hearts, that we may confess before the Mercy-seat upon our knees. It is a pestilence that walks in the Church of Christ to a much greater extent than many suppose. It is an evil that, like the man of sin, “sits in the very temple of God.” (2 Thess. 2:4.)[1]
[MY NOTE] Ryle edges upon something which is important to ponder re: Is it possible, since the Believers in toto are now the Temple of God – may what is said here apply to professing Christians setting up self as supreme? Many in the Church even today make Christianity all about God serving them, meeting their desires and accomplishing their personal goals. The preaching and teaching of the Church today in terms of self-actualization and realization is nothing less than we, worshiping self. This may well be the great rebellion. We, may well be the “man of lawlessness” – serving self and our self-interests above everything else. We bow to no law but self. We own no truth but what we define it to be. We make the determination of what is right and what is wrong according to our own thoughts and preferences. And this is an abomination which is in truth, utter desolation of the soul.]
There is a natural proneness and tendency in us all to give God a sensual, carnal worship, and not that which is commanded in His Word. We are ever ready, by reason of our sloth and unbelief, to devise visible helps and stepping-stones in our approaches to Him, and ultimately to give these inventions of our own the honour due to Him. In fact, idolatry is all natural, down-hill, easy, like the broad way. Spiritual worship is all of grace, all uphill, and all against the grain. Any worship whatsoever is more pleasing to the natural heart, than worshipping God in the way which our Lord Christ describes, “in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23.)[1]
Unity in the abstract is no doubt an excellent thing: but unity without truth is useless. Peace and uniformity are beautiful and valuable: but peace without the Gospel,—peace based on a common Episcopacy, and not on a common faith,—is a worthless peace, not deserving of the name. When Rome has repealed the decrees of Trent, and her additions to the Creed,—when Rome has recanted her false and unscriptural doctrines,—when Rome has formally renounced image-worship, Mary-worship, and transubstantiation,—then, and not till then, it will be time to talk of re-union with her. Till then there is a gulf between us which cannot be honestly bridged.[1]
To the world around us, we are a letter from Christ, to use Paul’s phrase (2 Cor. 3:3). That testimony, like Ezekiel’s witness, must not only be verbal but also visual, aimed at the eye-gate and the ear-gate alike. This will be particularly true in cultures and locations that are not hospitable to our message. Words by themselves may suffice to communicate to those who have ears to hear, but those whose ears are tightly shut must see the Word become flesh again in the lives of his followers. We must speak clearly of the tragic and dangerous state of men and women without Christ: They are sinners under the wrath of God, at risk of eternal lostness. But we must also make visible clearly, in word and deed, the love of God demonstrated in this awesome fact, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8).[1]
[1] Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 165.
[MY NOTE: On the need to have a cohesive witness to the world. Word and deed must go together. The Word contradicted by our deeds nullifies it. Our deeds unaccompanied by our words and clear proclamation of the Gospel are like speaking in tongues: Without and interpreter, they are not rightly understood.]
Through his actions, along with the accompanying words, a message of judgment on their dearest hopes was imparted to his hearers, so that when God’s judgment occurred, the people would know that God was the One who had brought it about. Ezekiel had to tear down the things on which his hearers depended in this present world, in order that they might see the greater thing that God wished to do in and through them.[1]
[1] Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 165.
[MY NOTE: One wonders if God is not (graciously) doing this very thing in America today through the social unrest, tragedy of modern politics, Covid, etc. ]
The plain truth is that false doctrine has been the chosen engine which Satan has employed in every age to stop the progress of the Gospel of Christ. Finding himself unable to prevent the Fountain of Life being opened, he has laboured incessantly to poison the streams which flow from it. If he could not destroy it, he has too often neutralized its usefulness by addition, subtraction, or substitution. In a word, he has “corrupted men’s minds.”[1]
What more common than to hear it said of some false teacher in this day,—“He is so good, so devoted, so kind, so zealous, so laborious, so humble, so self-denying, so charitable, so earnest, so fervent, so clever, so evidently sincere, there can be no danger and no harm in hearing him. Besides, he preaches so much real Gospel: no one can preach a better sermon than he does sometimes! I never can and never will believe he is unsound.”—Who does not hear continually such talk as this? What discerning eye can fail to see that many Churchmen expect unsound teachers to be open vendors of poison, and cannot realize that they often appear as “angels of light,” and are far too wise to be always saying all they think, and showing their whole hand and mind. But so it is. Never was it so needful to remember the words, “The serpent beguiled Eve by his subtilty.”[1]
The third and last lesson of the text remains yet to be considered. It shows us a point about which we ought to be especially on our guard. That point is called “The simplicity that is in Christ.”
Now the expression before us is somewhat remarkable, and stands alone in the New Testament. One thing at any rate is abundantly clear: the word simplicity means that which is single and unmixed, in contradistinction to that which is mixed and double. Following out that idea, some have held that the expression means “singleness of affection towards Christ;”—we are to fear lest we should divide our affections between Christ and any other. This is no doubt very good theology; but I question whether it is the true sense of the text.—I prefer the opinion that the expression means the simple, unmixed, unadulterated, unaltered doctrine of Christ,—the simple “truth as it is in Jesus,” on all points,—without addition, subtraction, or substitution. Departure from the simple genuine prescription of the Gospel, either by leaving out any part or adding any part, was the thing St. Paul would have the Corinthians specially dread. The expression is full of meaning, and seems specially written for our learning in these last days. We are to be ever jealously on our guard, lest we depart from and corrupt the simple Gospel which Christ once delivered to the saints.[1]
[MY NOTE: This is especially true when it comes to Americanism, or Amerianity as I like to call it. We cannot, we dare not wrap the Cross in the flag. Such is an abomination which leads many off course. We are to preach Christ and Him crucified, not Christ and apple pie, Christ and democracy, Christ and western culture or anything else we might think prudent to add to Christ. Christ alone.]
In the first place, if we would be kept from falling away into false doctrine, let us arm our minds with a thorough knowledge of God’s Word. Let us read our Bibles from beginning to end with daily diligence, and constant prayer for the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and so strive to become thoroughly familiar with their contents. Ignorance of the Bible is the root of all error, and a superficial acquaintance with it accounts for many of the sad perversions and defections of the present day. In a hurrying age of railways and telegraphs, I am firmly persuaded that many Christians do not give time enough to private reading of the Scriptures. I doubt seriously whether English people did not know their Bibles better two hundred years ago than they do now. The consequence is, that they are “tossed to and fro by, and carried about with, every wind of doctrine,” and fall an easy prey to the first clever teacher of error who tries to influence their minds. I entreat my readers to remember this counsel, and take heed to their ways. It is as true now as ever, that the good textuary is the only good theologian, and that a familiarity with great leading texts is, as our Lord proved in the temptation, one of the best safe-guards against error. Arm yourself then with the sword of the Spirit, and let your hand become used to it. I am well aware that there is no royal road to Bible knowledge. Without diligence and pains no one ever becomes “mighty in the Scriptures.” “Justification,” said Charles Simeon, with his characteristic quaintness, “is by faith, but knowledge of the Bible comes by works.” But of one thing I am certain: there is no labour which will be so richly repaid as laborious regular daily study of God’s Word.[1]
[MY NOTE: What follows is D.M.L-J defining the term Puritan]
I am going to suggest a rough kind of definition. Roughly up until about 1570 Puritans were people who can be described as restlessly critical and occasionally rebellious members of the Church of England who desired some modification in church government and worship. You can think of examples and illustrations of that. They were members of the Church of England. Their one concern was that the Reformation should be carried further. They felt that the Church of England had stopped halfway between Rome and Geneva, and they were anxious that the Reformation should be carried out more thoroughly in the matter of ceremonies and discipline and things like that. That was the position more or less up until the time that Thomas Cartwright and others began to put forward the Presbyterian view of church government.[1]
From: The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts on Hebrews 11
The Thorn, by Martha Snell Nickolson
I stood a mendicant of God before His royal throne
and begged Him for a priceless gift which I could call my own
I took the gift from out His hand but as I would depart,
I cried “But Lord this is a thorn and it has pierced my heart.
This is a strange, a hurtful gift that Thou hast given me.”
He said “My child, I give good gifts and give my best to thee.”
I took it home and although at first the cruel thorn hurt sore;
As long years passed, I learned at last, to love it more and more.
I learned He never gives a thorn without this added grace;
He takes the thorn to pin aside the veil that hides His face.
Jesus Christ, the true prophet. We should not leave this passage, however, without considering how Christ has fulfilled the role of true prophet. The man who stood in the gap in the city wall on the day of battle was risking his own life for the good of others. Jesus not only risked his life but gave his own life freely, pouring out his blood on the cross for you and me. Jesus did not let his own security stand in the way of doing God’s work, nor did he guard his own comfort. Instead, for the sake of his people, he “made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Phil. 2:7–8).[1]
[1] Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 180–181.
I am well aware that many of you do not have the leisure I do in my present circumstance to read as you would like. So from time to time, I’ll try to pass on some significant quotes to give you kind of a digest of good reading. I hope they will be enlightening, encouraging, timesaving, thought provoking and otherwise beneficial.
Here’s today’s stuff.
Most of us see life with the screen up. We assume that things are as they appear and that we can easily identify those on whom God’s favor rests. We may put our confidence in the traditions of the past, for example, and assume that forms hallowed by repeated usage must be pleasing to God in the present. How far in the past we look may vary from person to person: We may insist on forms that stretch all the way back to the early church, the Reformation, or the Puritans, or simply the forms to which we have been accustomed as individuals. Alternatively, we may place our trust in numbers: If many people attend a particular church or type of church, then surely God’s blessing rests on it and we should model our church after that style.
God’s presence is not so easily discerned. He does not always continue to bless forms and institutions that he has blessed in the past, nor is he always found in the large and apparently successful churches. In the Bible, he is most often found with the poor and the weak, the despised and rejected, those whom the world regards as castoffs. So when Jesus comes, he visits the temple, but his primary teaching and ministry takes place in the open air. He will eat with the scribes and the Pharisees when they invite him, but he is known rather as the friend of tax collectors and sinners (Matt. 11:19). When he seeks twelve disciples, he goes not to the religious training schools but to the work places of ordinary men and women. The essence of his training program is not a rigorous course of book study, but three years of being in his presence.
Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 155–156.
it is the presence of Christ that constitutes the church. The prerequisite, then, for worship to be possible in the New Testament context is not a building chosen by God and accepted by him, but a people chosen by God and accepted by him. God dwells in the hearts of his people, not in a building made with hands. This surely has implications for how we assess different churches. All too often we make our judgment based on whether the programs a church offers seem to meet our needs or on its denominational label, rather than attempting the harder task of discerning the reality of Christ’s presence.
Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 156.
Yet while there is no room for complacency, there is solid hope for the believer in the most trying of times. For even while God may abandon parts of his professing church, he never abandons his covenant commitment to save for himself a people. If the religious leaders of the day and the major denominations turn their backs on him, he will leave them to their fate—but only in order to do a new work through the small and despised, those neglected and considered insignificant. God will choose the weak in order to shame the strong (1 Cor. 1:27). If the Jews will not receive their Messiah, then the gospel will go to the Gentiles. If the West turns its back on Christianity, then God will open up new doors in the other two-thirds of the world. In every generation, God’s work of giving to men and women a new spirit and a new heart continues until the full harvest of his people is brought into his kingdom.
Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 157.
As Calvin expressed it, in the form of a prayer:
Almighty God, as we have completely perished in our father Adam, and no part of us remains uncorrupted so long as we bear in both body and soul grounds for wrath, condemnation, and death, grant that, reborn in your Spirit, we may increasingly set aside our own will and spirit, and so submit ourselves to you that your Spirit may truly reign within us. And then grant, we pray, that we not be ungrateful to you, but, appreciating how invaluable is this blessing, may dedicate and direct our entire life to glorifying to your name in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 158.
Note: This is part of a reflection from the Puritan Oliver Heywood reflecting on the joy of his newborn son. How different from the mantra of the day in our culture that the only thing we seem to want for our children is that they be “happy.” Who cares if they remain happy in their sin and unbelief, as long as they are happy. Heaven forgive us.
I desire not great things for him in the world, but good things for his soul to prepare him for another and better world.…
Oliver Heywood was not friendly to the rule of Cromwell, and the state of the nation at this period provided occasion for further reflection:
Come then my soul and view this guilty nation … alas, we have become a mere skeleton; alas, this is the greatest grief of all that God is leaving England, this is the quintessence of our calamity; alas, how can our land fare well when God has departed? Well, and if poor England’s best days alone may be past, we alone may thank ourselves, we must condemn ourselves and justify God. Our people have been surfeited with the gospel, they cry out away with formalities; the manna is like food, it creates loathing, we need not wonder then if God should take away what has become offensive to the nation … should not the sins of this poor island, the cause of all its miseries much affect thee my soul.
W. H. Davies, “Oliver Heywood, the Northern Puritan,” in Puritan Papers: 1965–1967, ed. J. I. Packer, vol. 4 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004), 158–159.
And again, “O that I could learn the mind of God in all these dispensations. Surely I may sing of mercy and judgment, floods of love and only drops of displeasure. How mysterious is God in His proceedings! O that I had wisdom from above to spell out his meaning. He hath a special design in all these national commotions.”
Heywood, being deeply moved by the religious condition of the nation, believing also in God’s sovereign purposes, sought in obedience to the Scripture to discover its outworking in the events of his day. This reveals the prophet’s heart as much as the pastor’s. Pacific in his intents, he writes, “Woe is me that I have lived to see this day when ecclesiastical divisions have produced civil opposition … how sad is it that those who are reconciled by the blood of Christ should thirst after one another’s blood. How unlike is this to the spirit and grace of the saints of God.”
Note: There is something well worth our consideration in the following given the issues which have arisen over responses to the Covid crisis.
The accession of Charles II brought about unexpected opposition. In 1661 private meetings were ordered to be prevented. Heywood at first put a favorable construction on events, though he later had cause to change his mind: “The truth is, our dread Sovereign, at the first and hitherto, hath allowed us abundant liberty for religious exercises both in public and private, but his clemency has been abused which has occasioned this severe and universal prohibition. The fanatical and schismatical party truly so called, have by their unwise and unwarrantable practices troubled all the people of God throughout this nation, and have rendered the sweet savour of Christian converse to be abhorred.” And he continues with unsparing self-analysis:
But why do I lay the blame on others and not on ourselves? The actions of men and edicts of princes could not have abridged our liberties had not our sins procured these things. Just very just, is what has come upon us, for we have been unprofitable under our privileges.… they have been so ordinary that our hearts are grown indifferent and less than ordinary preparations have served for extraordinary duties. We meet as if loth to meet, our prayers were full of deadness, unbelief and vanity. It is therefore just we should not be permitted to meet for prayer. We too much aimed at applause for our gifts and God has taken away the occasion of venting the pride and hypocrisy of our hearts. We did not improve the society of our Christian friends and therefore we must not now enjoy it. I doubt not we have been too much abroad and too little at home, religious in company but careless in our closets. Now we must learn to enter into our closets and shut the door upon us. It is the property of a Christian to make a virtue of necessity and wisely to improve this present restraint of Christian liberty which our gracious God will restore to us if He sees it useful.
“O how little power have I over my own thoughts, I feel the truth of that word ‘when He giveth quietness who then can make trouble, and when He hideth His face, who then can behold Him?’ But now I feel the benefit of prayer.”
“So that you may take this account of our sanctity, that holiness as it is in us consists in our complete conformity to the Holy One; godliness is Godlikeness. God is the Holy One by way of eminency, far surpassing both men and angels. He is essentially holy, but we are participatively so; it is but a quality in us, it is essence to Him. He is holy effectively, for He makes others so. Our holiness requires that there be conformity to the will of God. The will of God is the rule of holiness, as His nature is the pattern of it, and there is no more of holiness in any work than there is of the will of God in it.”[1]
[1] W. H. Davies, “Oliver Heywood, the Northern Puritan,” in Puritan Papers: 1965–1967, ed. J. I. Packer, vol. 4 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004), 167–168.
Alas, what are you better for having Christ revealed to you, unless He be revealed in you? O woe will be to you if you prove Christless after hearing so much of Christ.… [1]
[1] W. H. Davies, “Oliver Heywood, the Northern Puritan,” in Puritan Papers: 1965–1967, ed. J. I. Packer, vol. 4 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004), 168.
Note: The following is from a paper by Ryle considering Paul’s rebuke of Peter at Antioch.
There are three great lessons from Antioch, which I think we ought to learn from this passage.
I. The first lesson is, that great ministers may make great mistakes.
II. The second is, that to keep the truth of Christ in His Church is even more important than to keep peace.
III. The third is, that there is no doctrine about which we ought to be so jealous as justification by faith without the deeds of the law.[1]
The Church of Rome boasts that the Apostle Peter is her founder and first Bishop. Be it so: grant it for a moment. Let us only remember, that of all the Apostles there is not one, excepting, of course, Judas Iscariot, of whom we have so many proofs that he was a fallible man. Upon her own showing, the Church of Rome was founded by the most fallible of the Apostles.*[1]
I see this tendency to lean on man everywhere. I know no branch of the Protestant Church of Christ which does not require to be cautioned upon the point. It is a snare, for example, to the English Episcopalian to make idols of Bishop Pearson and the “Judicious Hooker.” It is a snare to the Scotch Presbyterian to pin his faith on John Knox, the Covenanters, and Dr. Chalmers. It is a snare to the Methodists in our day to worship the memory of John Wesley. It is a snare to the Independent to see no fault in any opinion of Owen and Doddridge. It is a snare to the Baptist to exaggerate the wisdom of Gill, and Fuller, and Robert Hall. All these are snares, and into these snares how many fall![1]
But I pass on to the third lesson from Antioch. That lesson is, that there is no doctrine about which we ought to be so jealous as justification by faith without the deeds of the law.
The proof of this lesson stands out most prominently in the passage of Scripture which heads this paper. What one article of the faith had the Apostle Peter denied at Antioch? None.—What doctrine had he publicly preached which was false? None.—What, then, had he done? He had done this. After once keeping company with the believing Gentiles as “fellow-heirs and partakers of the promise of Christ in the Gospel” (Ephes. 3:6), he suddenly became shy of them and withdrew himself. He seemed to think they were less holy and acceptable to God than the circumcised Jews. He seemed to imply that the believing Gentiles were in a lower state than they who had kept the ceremonies of the law of Moses. He seemed, in a word, to add something to simple faith as needful to give man an interest in Jesus Christ. He seemed to reply to the question, “What shall I do to be saved?” not merely “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” but “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and be circumcised, and keep the ceremonies of the law.”[1]
An ignorant laity will always be the bane of a Church. A Bible-reading laity may save a Church from ruin. Let us read the Bible regularly, daily, and with fervent prayer, and become familiar with its contents. Let us receive nothing, believe nothing, follow nothing, which is not in the Bible, nor can be proved by the Bible. Let our rule of faith, our touch-stone of all teaching, be the written Word of God.[1]
let me entreat all who read this paper to be always ready to contend for the faith of Christ, if needful. I recommend no one to foster a controversial spirit. I want no man to be like Goliath, going up and down, saying, “Give me a man to fight with.” Always feeding upon controversy is poor work indeed. It is like feeding upon bones. But I do say that no love of false peace should prevent us striving jealously against false doctrine, and seeking to promote true doctrine wherever we possibly can. True Gospel in the pulpit, true Gospel in every religious society we support, true Gospel in the books we read, true Gospel in the friends we keep company with,—let this be our aim, and never let us be ashamed to let men see that it is so.[1]
In the familiar passage containing Jesus’ dialog with Peter in John 21, we all recognize Jesus’ triple admonition: “Feed my lambs”, “Tend my sheep” and “Feed my sheep.”
First, some have sought to make much of the nuances between sheep and lambs, and between feed and tend. While there may be something to teasing those things out, it seems to me they primarily round out the pastoral role with 2 emphases: 1 – God’s people need attended to, especially in terms of their basic, daily provision in feeding; 2 – These are Christ’s sheep, not ours. The thrice repeated “my” is not to be overlooked. Those committed to our care belong not to us, but to Him. And we will give an account of how we have treated, fed, tended to – shepherded His flock.
Second, God’s people are to understand themselves as His own, and that He has appointed some to see to their care and feeding. As most point out, shepherding revolves mainly around, feeding, leading and protecting. God’s people are on their way somewhere, and we need to lead them there. Obvious in that is that if we ourselves are not actually going anywhere, we can’t lead them anywhere either. If we are not pursuing Christ’s likeness on the road to Zion, we’re lost, and they will wander with us. Along the way there will be those who wish to harm them, and we must protect and warn them as best we can. Even as they acknowledge their need to be warned and protected. False doctrines abound. Distractions from seeking Christ and Heaven are everywhere. Those who would take advantage of them to line their pockets, boost their egos or simply maliciously abuse them in obtaining power are never in short supply. And the tendency toward wanting to feed our souls more on curiosities, our fleshly tastes and things which have no eternal value is inherent in our fallenness. It’s work.
Third, and my focus here, is that even as Christ’s charge centers upon feeding, that delightful and potent image has to inform us. Feed; not entertain. Feed; not beat. Feed; not berate. Feed; not inspire, enthuse, overload, under-nourish, replicate ourselves, force our opinions or school them in our personal preferences – feed. And I am certain here that no one would argue that such feeding is anything other than the milk, the meat and the bread of God’s Word.
And herein is my real point today. Spiritual growth and change is not the result of we preachers and teachers giving one life altering, soul-shattering, eternally impacting sermon after another – but the steady, faithful, preparation and delivering of God’s Word. Continually pouring into the life so as to sustain it over time, and not trying to transform it by bursts in singular, transformative sermons.
Take the pressure off of yourself to preach THE sermon that will shake the world. Feed His sheep. Stop trying to produce sermonic home runs every week. Feed His sheep. No, they won’t “get it” because you felt especially lit up last Sunday. They need a regular, consistent diet of Biblical truth which sustains day to day, and produces true growth over time. And it is in this very mundane, routine work of providing Christ to their souls that the real work is done. Strength for today, and slow, steady growth.
Yes, even in the natural, there are some growth spurts when we are younger. But as we age, not so much. Sudden impact change is not the norm. We are to “grow up into Him” as Paul says. To grow in grace. Not to blow up over night or because someone preached a real hay-burner last week.
Don’t despise, look down on or treat lightly the week in and week out labor of providing meal after meal after meal. One of the joys I’ve had in my life is to have eaten in some of the finest restaurants in the world. And not a one of those meals changed me. No matter how extravagant, well prepared, succulent or nourishing. Each, in the end, was only one meal. None of them by themselves made any permanent alteration. There’s not a one I could walk away from and say “man! that’s the meal I’ve been waiting for all my life – and now everything is different!” By the next morning, I was hungry again, and needed yet another meal to sustain me. And it is just so with the souls of men.
Brother, just feed His sheep. You sustain them best by simply giving them meal after meal after meal. And that is our call. Not to win a blue ribbon. To sustain them until they reach glory. It isn’t glamorous. But it is an unspeakable privilege, and eternally glorious.
Now, congregant. A last word to you. Please don’t require more of your shepherds than what Christ has charged. If they are regularly feeding you the soul-sustaining Word of God – praise your Savior for it. Maybe they don’t use the same spices someone else does. Maybe they don’t serve it in a flaming pan by the table. Maybe there aren’t any Michelin stars on the marquee. Maybe they do not excel in eloquence. Did you need your Mom to be a master chef in order to serve what sustained you into adulthood? It is the sustenance, the Word of God which takes priority, not the china it is served on, the flourish with which it is delivered nor the thread count in the table cloth. Meat, vegetables, fruit, bread and drink. These are all we can eat. There may be varieties of each, but when all is said and done – those are what have fed and sustained us. And so it is the manna God has provided for us in this wilderness until He takes us into the Promised Land. We can boil it, fry it, bake it, spit-roast it, saute it, puree it, grill it or eat it raw – but it is the only food-stuff He has given our shepherds to feed us with. And if they are doing so – let us not just be content, but grateful and satisfied. For it is only this regular diet which will enable us to grow in the likeness of our Redeemer.
End note: I’ll just bet growing up, Jesus heard a lot of pretty poor sermons in His local synagogue. Certainly no one who could preach or teach on His level. But we find Him there don’t we? Because it was where God’s Word was read, and expounded. Where God was worshiped. And that was enough. Even for Him.
Back in the 1970’s, writer and television personality Steve Allen, put together a TV show called “Meeting of Minds.” The idea was to bring figures from various points in history together to discuss ideas. So one show I watched brought Augustine, Empress Theodora, Thomas Jefferson and Bertrand Russell together to discuss religion. It was great.
I thought of that show often and thought if I were to host such a program, I would begin each segment with the directive: “Gentlemen, define your terms.” If participants in any dialog do not mean the same thing by the words they use, no true discussion actually occurs. And this is no less true when it comes to the Bible and theological terminology.
Every field of study has its own vocabulary. Mechanics talk about toe, caster and camber. Podiatrists talk about toe too, but these 2 are NOT talking about the same thing. Horticulturists have their words as do Mathematicians, Engineers, Artists – you name it. If it is a field of study, it has its own vocabulary. And so does the Bible. So that Paul can write to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:6 “If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.”
There are “words of the faith.” Words the Bible, as inspired by God’s own Spirit use one way, which we often co-opt but infuse with very different meanings. When we do this, we in fact can make the Bible say or teach things it really doesn’t. And one prime example of that is the way the word “spiritual” is used in popular discourse, and even errantly by Christians.
In our present culture, people often refer to being spiritual as opposed to being religious or part of organized religion. So their so-called spirituality may take almost any form imaginable. It may mean they are people who have some belief system, whether it is well formed, historical or completely ad hoc and self-created. Maybe they mean mystical in some way, or simply empathetic, in touch with nature, into crystals, Druidism, mere positivity or who knows what? All of this ignoring that the Bible uses the term very specifically. Those who are spiritual according to Scripture are those, and only those, indwelt by the Spirit of God and living under His influence. Being spiritual is the sole domain of those born again. Of new creatures in Christ. Of those who have owned their sin and condemnation before God, looked to the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross as their only means of reconciliation to God, and whose lives are now lived under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Everything else, anything else, is not truly spiritual no matter how it sounds.
Now this is the chief concern of Vaughan Roberts’ wonderful book, “Authentic Church: True Spirituality in a Culture of Counterfeits.” And as a small group study, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is a brisk but powerfully poignant walk through the book of 1 Corinthians. A letter written by the Apostle Paul to a group of people who prided themselves on their spirituality, but were anything but – spiritual.
The chapters run as follows:
1. True spirituality focuses on Christ’s cross, not on human wisdom
2. True spirituality respects faithful leaders, not flashy ones
3. True spirituality demands holiness, not moral permissiveness
4. True spirituality affirms both marriage and singleness, but not asceticism
5. True spirituality promotes spiritual concern, not unfettered freedom
6. True spirituality affirms gender differences, but not social divisions
7. True spirituality prioritizes love, not spiritual gifts
8. True spirituality focuses on a physical future, not just the spiritual present
A wonderful way to capture 8 core concepts regarding genuine, Biblical spirituality.
Each chapter not only works through the passages clearly, with sound exegesis and pointed applications – they conclude with suggestions for further Bible study, a series of terrific follow up questions and points for discussion.
A small group would find this an invaluable resource.
Let me close my thoughts and my recommendation with these 2 quotes from the book:
“The authentic work of the Spirit is seen, not when people get excited by some new message or miracle, but rather when their eyes are opened and their hearts filled with an ever-deepening appreciation of the Bible’s teaching about what God has done for them in Christ and a growing longing to live in the light of all they have received from him.”
And 2nd: “If you want to find a Spirit-filled church, look for one which takes the Bible very seriously and gives time to hearing God speak through it. That will be a church where the sermon is central to its meeting and not a platform for the preachers to put forward their own ideas, but rather a faithful exposition of the truth of Scripture.”
One of the controlling concepts of the Bible is the idea of COVENANT.
God, as Scripture testifies, cannot lie. His word is always trustworthy. He says what He means, means what He says, and speaks only the truth to us. We however, are not as perfectly holy as He is. In our sin, we lie to ourselves, others, and in our fallen state, also sinfully doubt Him as though some of what He says is not trustworthy. It was that very doubting of His veracity that was at the center of The Fall in Eden. Had we believed Him and not the Enemy, or our own selves, we would have never taken the fruit He told us would be our death to Him in disobedience.
This is the reason why salvation is a matter of faith. A matter of believing the testimony of what Jesus did in His life, death and resurrection. Faith is the opposite of the unbelief that led to our destruction. And so His Word, all of it, must be received by faith. That is what reverses the Fall.
So good is our God, and so aware is He of how this matter of unbelief still infects Humanity, He condescends to not only make certain promises to us, but to swear to those promises over and above just making them. When He does this, it is called a covenant. He makes a formal act of it. So that our hearts and minds will drink in the seriousness and unbreakable nature of certain of His promises. The promises which are most vital to our relationship to Him.
Now in Jeremiah 31, we read that God declared to disobedient Israel (suffering exile for its sins) that one day He would make a new covenant with them. New, because He had made one with them as a people once before, but they had broken that one. Jer. 31:31-32 says it this way: Jeremiah 31:31–32 (ESV)“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.”
That Old covenant referred to is at its core, the 10 Commandments, and all that springs from, surrounds and supports them.
They were for that time.
And the prominent feature of those commandments is found in the repeated words: “Thou Shalt”, and “Thou Shalt not.” Do this, and don’t do that. Its focus was upon them. What THEY should and should not do.
But what about this New Covenant? Luke 22:20 has Jesus inaugurating it at the Last Supper. So we read that Jesus took: Luke 22:20 (ESV)“the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”
And that is the covenant for this time. A covenant which does not have 10 commandments built around “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not”, but around 5 “I will”s. The only “they shall” issues from the “I will”s God promises to perform.
See the contrast?
The responsibility for maintaining this New Covenant shifts from us and our weaknesses, to His eternal strength and commitment. And this is the covenant all Believers in Christ live in now. We’ve gone from 10 to 5. That’s what time it is. Thus Jer. 31:33-34 reads:
Jeremiah 31:33–34 (ESV)this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
What time is it? We’ve gone from 10, to 5. Believers live under this New Covenant now; made, sealed and testified to in the blood of Jesus Christ.Don’t live back there – live here.
I’m Reid Ferguson, and this has been Today’s Reiding. Thanks for joining me.
In 2008, it was my privilege to deliver 2 lectures at the John Bunyan Conference – hosted by John Reisinger, on the doctrine of Christ’s atonement. He was most gracious in inviting me, knowing in advance that we would disagree. But John was a champion of open discussion and always in favor of asking questions to further our understanding of what the Scriptures teach, and to refine our knowledge when and where we can.
Recently Cross to Crown Ministries, under the direction of A. Blake White has made almost 30 years of the John Bunyan Conference lectures available free online. They can be found HERE. And they contain lectures from John Reisinger, Fred Zaspel, A. Blake White, Doug Moo, Tom Schreiner, Don Carson and others. Tons of good listening. And I want to thank Blake and Cross to Crown for their largess in making this material available to all.
My 2 lectures were designed to open a dialog among my Reformed brethren regarding how we understand the the idea of “limited Atonement” – especially in light of the New Covenant. While the majority of those present did not agree with my conclusions, it was a genial – and I hope – productive time together. Fred Zaspel was the more-than-capable respondent to my lectures, and those responses are included in the recordings so that you can hear the nature of where our points of disagreement lay.
It is my prayer that continuing to search the Scriptures and challenge our own assumptions will help us grow more and more in the appreciation of this great, Christ-wrought salvation which is ours in Jesus, and overflow into every increasing worship to the One who saved us by His blood.
The link to both lectures is HERE Scroll down to near the bottom of the page – to 2008.
ResponsiveReiding 