Strong Enough Not to Need to Crush

June 16, 2009 in Bible - OT - Isaiah, King Jesus

Touched on Isaiah 11 the last Lord’s Day when preaching about Jesus as the Son of David. As usual I read John Oswalt’s excellent commentary on Isaiah in seeking to clarify my understanding of the passage. His remarks below were so trenchant that I included them verbatim in my sermon and post them here for those interested:

“What [Isaiah] does envision is a time when the ruler will no longer see himself as privileged but rather as responsible, when he will become one for whom his people’s welfare is uppermost. In a word, the ruler will be the servant, not because he is too weak to dominate, but because he is strong enough not to need to crush.”

In this Jesus becomes a model for all those in authority and reminds us what our calling is. Wow.

Muslim Demographics

June 7, 2009 in Islam, Trinity

Spoke this last Sunday about the implications of Trinitarianism for life and the contrast this makes with Islamic monotheism. As a spur for our passion for evangelizing Muslims would recommend watching the following video.

Let me encourage those interested in an excellent way to support evangelization among Muslims to consider supporting the Classical School of the Medes. See www.csmedes.org.

Worshiping the Father in Spirit and Truth

June 7, 2009 in Bible - NT - John, Liturgy, Trinity

John 4:21-24 (NKJV)
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and Truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and Truth.”

The text before us today is frequently misconstrued. It is imagined that Jesus is contrasting the external, formal worship of the Old Testament period with the heartfelt, internal worship of the New. At one time people worshiped externally, now all worship is “in spirit and truth” – that is, heartfelt and genuine.

The difficulty faced by advocates of this approach is not the insistence that worship is to be heartfelt and genuine. That is most certainly true. The difficulty is that this was no less true in the Old Testament than in the New. “Sacrifice and burnt offering you did not desire,” David declares. “The sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite spirit.” Heartfelt, genuine worship was to characterize the Old Testament no less than the new?

What then is the change Jesus is anticipating? There are actually two changes. First, Jesus insists that the corporate worship of the people of God would be decentralized. No longer on Mount Gerizim in Samaria nor on Mount Zion in Jerusalem would corporate worship be confined – rather corporate worship would be spread throughout the earth. Note that he is addressing corporate worship, for that was what happened in Jerusalem and, idolatrously, on Mt. Gerizim. Jesus is announcing that wherever the servants of God gather together in the Name of Christ and lift His Name on high, there is Mount Zion, there is the City of our God, there is the place of corporate worship. Jerusalem in Israel is no longer the center of God’s dealings with man; the heavenly Jerusalem, Mount Zion, the Church is the center.

Second, Jesus informs us that not only would corporate worship be decentralized, it would be explicitly Trinitarian. When Jesus rose from the dead and sent forth His Spirit, the worship of God’s people was forever transformed. It became explicitly Trinitarian – worshiping the Father in Spirit – the very Spirit whom Jesus promised would come and lead His people into all righteousness – and in Truth – the very Truth who took on human flesh and declared to His disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me.” Today is Trinity Sunday, the Sunday the Church has historically emphasized the Triune nature of God. It is this that Jesus does in our text. Worshiping the Father in Spirit and Truth is not an exhortation to heartfelt, genuine worship – that exhortation had been given throughout the Old Testament. Worshiping the Father in Spirit and Truth is to worship the Triune God not some vanilla deity. It was this transformation that Jesus anticipated and announced in His words to the Samaritan woman. “The time is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth.”

So what does this mean for us? It means that this morning as we gather together to worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth we are entering into the presence of God Himself. Brothers and sisters, the roof has been ripped off and we have been ushered into the presence of the Most High. “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first born who are registered in heaven…” (Heb 12:22-23) And, like Isaiah, who entered into the presence of God in the Temple, the first thing that should strike us is our own unworthiness – we are not worthy to be here. And so let us kneel and seek His forgiveness through Christ.

The Tradition of Anti-Traditionalism

June 1, 2009 in Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians, Holy Spirit, Meditations, Tradition, Word of God

1 Corinthians 11:2
Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you.

Our culture has institutionalized the tradition of anti-traditionalism. Yesterday’s clothes are outmoded; yesterday’s ideas are prehistoric. Each new generation is expected to originate something totally new. Beanie babies have come and gone; Tickle me Elmos have lost their flare; and Cabbage Patch dolls are a long forgotten craze.

Unfortunately the Church has imbibed much of this cultural food. A couple weeks ago Steve was kind enough to pass along a Religion piece from the Wall Street Journal on the experience of one Trinity Church in Connecticut. Trinity was founded by folks who were dissatisfied with the traditions in the churches and who wanted something new, something hip, something relevant. But now, ten years later, they’ve found that they have their own traditions. The Journal remarks that “these churches were founded by people in rebellion against established institutions. Ten years down the road, they have become the establishment.” Consequently, the pastor of Trinity has decided to step down. “You don’t want to become ossified,” he says. “You have to keep thinking freshly on how to do church.”

Contrast this way of thinking with Paul’s counsel to the Corinthians in our text today: “Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you.” Paul praises the Corinthians not for their novelty but for their faithfulness to that which they had been taught. Paul, and the rest of the Word of God, teaches us to value a godly inheritance – to take what is given in one generation and prize it and pass it down to the next generation. To tell our children and grandchildren the wonderful works of God so that they in turn can tell their children and grandchildren.

Popular culture, by design, rejects this idea–it plans for obsolescence. Who could imagine making special note in one’s will of your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Collection? Or your Garth Brooks CD collection? The idea seems absurd because these things are not meant to be handed down. Products and performers in pop culture are expected to have their day in the sun and then disappear, to be replaced by another. For this reason, it is critical that our worship not reflect the pop culture mentality, not reflect an opposition to a godly inheritance.

One way that Classical Protestants have endeavored to cultivate a love for godly inheritance is to focus on those traditions in the history of the Church which highlight and exalt Christ, that celebrate the course of His life. Among these is Pentecost Sunday, the day on which we celebrate that Christ poured out His Spirit upon the Church to equip her for her worldwide mission of discipling the nations and bringing all men to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

It is because of Pentecost that the disciples were emboldened to preach the Word of God despite opposition. It is because of Pentecost that we have the New Testament. It is because of Pentecost that our fathers and mothers throughout history have endured torture and death for the glory of Christ. It is because of Pentecost that teachers continue to instruct God’s people. It is because of Pentecost that the Gospel has spread throughout the earth. And it is because of Pentecost that in years to come all the rulers and citizens of the nations shall come and bow before Messiah and acknowledge His greatness. So what better thing to do than to celebrate such an event?

Traditions are not bad; traditions are inevitable. It is when our traditions undermine or distract from what is biblically important that our traditions are destructive. The Pharisees were wrong not because they had traditions but because their traditions obscured and undermined the Word of God. Likewise, many traditions within Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy obscure and undermine the Word of God rather than clarify and exalt it. But the traditions of modern evangelicalism are also destructive – the tradition of anti-traditionalism, the constant tumult, the overthrowing of older generations because younger ones always know better – what do these things have to do with the Word of God?

As we gather to worship, therefore, let us do so with joy, celebrating the great work of the Spirit of God who was poured out upon the Church at Pentecost. And the first thing the Spirit does in bringing us into the presence of our thrice holy God is awaken in us a sense of our own sin – in particular, our sin of obscuring and undermining the Word of God through our traditions. Let us kneel and confess our sins to Him.

On the Holy Spirit

May 27, 2009 in Book Reviews, Holy Spirit, Trinity

Basil the Great’s (c. 330-379) treatise On the Holy Spirit is an excellent defense of the full deity of the Holy Spirit written at a time when the issue was being hotly debated within the Church. It demonstrates Basil’s devotion to Scripture, ability to reason, and passion for truth. Throughout he upholds the absolute necessity of believing in the divinity of the Spirit, and hence in the Trinity, in order to secure one’s salvation. Apart from a belief in the Triune God, man is lost. “I testify to every man who is confessing Christ and denying God, that Christ will profit him nothing; to every man that calls upon God but rejects the Son, that his faith is vain; to every man that sets aside the Spirit, that his faith in the Father and the Son will be useless, for he cannot even hold it without the presence of the Spirit. For he who does not believe the Spirit does not believe in the Son, and he who has not believed in the Son does not believe in the Father” (17f.).

Basil wrote this treatise to one Amphilochius, a brother who was desirous of understanding more of the Spirit. In a series of commendations to Amphilochius for his pursuit of truth, Basil makes some wonderful comments about this pursuit. He notes:

“And this in you yet further moves my admiration, that you do not, according to the manners of the most part of the men of our time, propose your questions by way of mere test, but with the honest desire to arrive at the actual truth” (2).

“The beginning of teaching is speech, and syllables and words are parts of speech. It follows then that to investigate syllables is not to shoot wide of the mark, nor, because the questions raised are what might seem to some insignificant, are they on that account to be held unworthy of heed. Truth is always a quarry hard to hunt, and therefore we must look everywhere for its tracks. The acquisition of true religion is just like that of crafts; both grow bit by bit; apprentices must despise nothing. If a man despise the first elements as small and insignificant, he will never reach the perfection of wisdom” (2).

Later he comments:

“But we will not slacken in our defence of the truth. We will not cowardly abandon the cause. The Lord has delivered to us as necessary and saving doctrine that the Holy Spirit is to be ranked with the Father. Our opponents think differently, and see fit to divide and rend asunder, and relegate Him to the nature of a ministering spirit. Is it not then indisputable that they make their own blasphemy more authoritative than the law prescribed by the Lord?” (17)

Basil’s note in the second quote is somewhat of a defense for the first section of his work wherein he grapples with his opponents on the meaning of the prepositional phrases “of whom,” “through whom,” and “by whom.” It seems that the Arians and Pneumatachoi made use of these phrases to deny the deity of the Holy Spirit. They claimed that all things were made “by” the Father (Creator), “through” the Son (subordinate agent), “of” or “in” the Spirit (material out of which all made or place in which all occurs). The Spirit hence was impersonal and non-divine. The exact purpose of these distinctions somewhat escapes me. Basil himself seems to bounce back and forth in his representation of his opponents. Elsewhere he claims the opponents use “of whom” to indicate the Creator.

Basil attacks this whole bit of sophistry by a series of arguments. First, he demonstrates that the various prepositions are not so carefully distinguished in Scripture. The prepositions are used interchangeably and, hence, if his opponents desire to argue against the deity of the Spirit using these distinctions they must also argue against the deity of the Son and even the Father (reductio ad absurdum). Second, he clearly argues that the prepositions “of” and “in” do not necessarily indicate material or time–in fact they are used in a variety of ways. “In a word, the diligent reader will perceive that ‘of whom’ is used in diverse manners” (6).

A couple notes on Basil’s work. First, he makes extensive use of reductio ad absurdum. Routinely he takes his opponents’ position and takes it to its logical outcome. The following is an example:

“For if they will not grant that the three expressions ‘of him’ and ‘through him’ and ‘to him’ are spoken of the Lord, they cannot but be applied to God the Father. Then without question their rule will fall through, for we find not only ‘of whom,’ but also ‘through whom’ applied to the Father. And if this latter phrase indicates nothing derogatory, why in the world should it be confined, as though conveying the sense of inferiority, to the Son? If it always and everywhere implies ministry, let them tell us to what superior the God of glory and Father of the Christ is subordinate” (6).

In another passage he comments regarding the deity of Christ, reducing Arianism to absurdity by demonstrating that if Christ has not eternally possessed all knowledge then he will be eternally progressing in knowledge. In this he seems to presage Process Theology and Mormonism, which took the creation of the Son to its logical conclusion.

“Hence, if you have sense to abide by what logically follows, you will find the Son being eternally taught, nor yet ever able to reach the end of perfection, insasmuch as the wisdom of the Father is infinite, and the end of the infinite is beyond apprehension. It results that whoever refuses to grant that the Son has all things from the beginning will never grant that He will reach perfection” (14).

Other examples of this type of argumentation abound (e.g., pp. 5, 20, 30).

Second, Basil relies heavily on the declaration of the Nicene Council regarding the deity of Christ. He uses the same lines of reasoning to confirm the deity of the Spirit that had been used to defend the deity of the Son. If we accept the deity of the Son, we must accept the deity of the Spirit.

After concluding his discussion of the prepositional phrases used by his opponents, Basil proceeds to set forth some of the positive reasons to adopt the deity of the Spirit. The two main foci of his defense are (1) the baptismal formula and (2) the doxology. In the baptismal formula, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are conjoined in such a way that the separate them is impossible (pp. 16ff). There follows an extended discussion of the Spirit’s relation to baptism and some discussion of baptism itself.

So, first he argues for the deity of the Spirit from the baptismal formula. Some of his comments on baptism are worth noting. He ties our “regeneration” with baptism when he comments, “And in what way are we saved? Plainly because we were regenerate through the grace given in our baptism. How else could we be?” (17) Elsewhere he exhorts the baptized, “and them I charge to preserve the faith secure until the day of Christ, and to keep the Spirit undivided from the Father and the Son, preserving, both in the confession of faith and in the doxology, the doctrine taught them at their baptism” (17).

According to Basil those who deny the deity of the Spirit are to be regarded as covenant-breakers. They have violated their baptismal covenant which was inaugurated in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. “And to him who denies the Spirit, what title do you wish me to apply? Must it not be [a transgressor], inasmuch as he has broken his covenant with God? . . . I testify to every man who is confessing Christ and denying God, that Christ will profit him nothing; to every man that calls upon God but rejects the Son, that his faith is vain; to every man that sets aside the Spirit, that his faith in the Father and the Son will be useless, for he cannot even hold it without the presence of the Spirit. For he who does not believe the Spirit does not believe in the Son, and he who has not believed in the Son does not believe in the Father” (17f.).

Basil links our Trinitarian faith with our Trinitarian baptism:

“If then in baptism the separation of the Spirit from the Father and the Son is perilous to the baptizer, and of no advantage to the baptized, how can the rending asunder of the Spirit from Father and from Son be safe for us? Faith and baptism are two kindred and inseparable ways of salvation: faith is perfected through baptism, baptism is established through faith, and both are completed by the same names. For as we believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, so are we also baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: first comes the confession, introducing us to salvation, and baptism follows, setting the seal upon our assent” (18).

While insisting that baptism and salvation are closely tied together, he nevertheless insists that baptism is not absolutely necessary. The work of the Spirit can be distinguished from baptism; yet he argues that the two should never be separated. Hence, those who die as martyrs prior to their actual baptism have been “baptized” by their own blood. The Spirit has obviously worked in their hearts and this work can be distinguished from baptism.

Having discussed the relationship of the Spirit and baptism, Basil goes on to treat more particularly of our faith in the Spirit. He discusses a number of biblical texts and their bearing on our doctrine of the Spirit. He begins by arguing that because (1) the Spirit gives gifts to the Church and (2) “sins against the Holy Spirit and against God are the same,” we should confess the Spirit to be divine. He proceeds to distinguish the Spirit from the created order and from the angelic world. He discusses the role of each person of the Trinity in creation:

“The Father, who creates by His sole will, could not stand in any need of the Son, but nevertheless He wills through the Son; nor could the Son, who works according to the likeness of the Father, need cooperation, but the Son too wills to make perfect through the Spirit. . . . You are therefore to perceive three, the Lord who gives the order, the Word who creates, and the Spirit who confirms” (24).

He argues that the Spirit is the one who gives life and empowerment to all things, including angels, Christ and the Church. “All the glorious and unspeakable harmony of the highest heavens both in the service of God, and in the mutual concord of the celestial powers, can therefore only be preserved by the direction of the Spirit” (24). “Whether you wish to examine ancient evidence . . . or on the other hand things done in the dispensation of the coming of our Lord in the flesh;–all is through the Spirit. . . . every operation was wrought with the cooperation of the Spirit” (25). “For there is not even one single gift which reaches creation without the Holy Ghost; . . .” (35).

He concludes by returning to a discussion of various prepositional phrases and their bearing on the matter. He argues that “with” is the best preposition to use since it conveys both the sense of the Spirit’s functional subordination to the Father and yet his essential equality with the Father and the Son. “For to say that the Son is with the Father is to exhibit at once the distinction of the hypostases, and the inseparability of the fellowship. . . . Thus while the word ‘with’ upsets the error of Sabellius as no other word can, it routs also sinners who err in the very opposite direction; those, I mean, who separate the Son from the Father and the Sprit from the Son, by intervals of time” (37). “The preposition ‘in’ states the truth [of the Spirit’s divinity] rather relatively to ourselves; while ‘with’ proclaims the fellowship of the Spirit with God wherefore we use both words, by the one expressing the dignity of the Spirit; by the other announcing the grace that is with us” (43).

Proofs of Deity:
i. Distributes gifts to the Church (1 Cor 12, 14)
ii. Sins against the Holy Spirit and against God equated (Acts 5)
iii. Empowers our confession of Jesus Christ (1 Cor 12:3)
iv. Stands in closest possible relation to God, as soul of man to man (1 Cor 2:10f)*
*He calls this the greatest proof
v. Spoken of in conjunction with Father and the Son in baptism & doxology (Mt 28)
vi. Called the Spirit “of God” and “of Christ” (2 Cor 1:12; Ro 8:9)
vii. Called the Lord in numerous passages (1 Thes 3:12f; 2 Cor 3:17; 1 Cor 3:16; 2 Tim 3:16)
viii. He has attributes that are only appropriately ascribed to God (See pp. 34f)

“Moreover the surpassing excellence of the nature of the Spirit is to be learned not only from His having the same title as the Father and the Son, and sharing in their operations, but also from His being, like the Father and the Son, unapproachable in thought” (34).

Trinitarian confession:

“There is one God and Father, one Only-begotten, and one Holy Ghost. We proclaim each of the hypostases singly; and, when count we must, we do not let an ignorant arithmetic carry us away to the idea of a plurality of Gods” (28).

Spirit to be glorified together with the Father and the Son (Quotes Ecclesiasticus):

“Exalt Him as much as you can, for even yet will He far exceed; and when you exalt Him put forth all your strength, and be not weary, for you can never go far enough” (44, Ecclus 43:30)

Basil discusses at some length the works of the Spirit (pp. 30, 31). He then offers a helpful definition of Arianism.

“The Son, according to them, is not together with the Father, but after the Father. . . . They further assert that the Spirit is not to be ranked along with the Father and the Son, but under the Son and the Father; not coordinated, but subordinated; not connumerated, but subnumerated. . . . What is our answer to this? We say, Blessed are the ears that have not heard you and the hearts that have been kept from the wounds of your words” (8).

Basil places considerable weight upon oral tradition. He is critical of his opponents for demanding “written proof, and reject[ing] as worthless the unwritten tradition of the Fathers” (16). According to the notes in the text, Gregory Nazianzus is supposed to have said, “They find a cloak for their impiety in their affection for Scripture.” The notes remark that “the Arians at Nicaea objected to the homoousion as unscriptural.” (17) This section at least seems to illustrate the danger of “Scriptural” reasoning when divested of some sense of tradition–a sound board on which to test one’s interpretation. Whether to accord “unwritten” tradition the place Basil does seems untenable at this time given the corruption which has filled the church. However, his words surely could speak to us about the importance of valuing tradition.

He remarks later: “For were we to attempt to reject such customs as have no written authority, on the ground that the importance they possess is small, we should unintentionally injure the Gospel in its very vitals. . . . [Do not many things] come from that unpublished and secret teaching which our fathers guarded in a silence out of the reach of curious meddling and inquisitive investigation? . . . In the same manner the Apostles and Fathers who laid down laws for the Church from the beginning thus guarded the awful dignity of the mysteries in secrecy and silence, for what is bruited abroad at random among the common folk is no mystery at all. This is the reason for our tradition of unwritten precepts and practices, that the knowledge of our dogmas may not become neglected and contemned by the multitude through familiarity” (41,42). See further comments on pp. 44,45,

Basil’s comments on the Mosaic law are worth considering. He clearly understands types (pp. 19f).

“For He spares our weakness, and in the depth of the riches of His wisdom, and the inscrutable judgments of His intelligence, used this gentle treatment, fitted for our needs, gradually accustoming us to see first the shadows of objects, and to look at the sun in water, to save us from dashing against the spectacle of pure unadulterated light, and being blinded. Just so the Law, having a shadow of things to come, and the typical teaching of the prophets, which is a dark utterance of the truth, have been devised as means to train the eyes of the heart, in that hence the transition to the wisdom hidden in mystery will be made easy. Enough so far concerning types; . . .” (21).

His realist, rather than covenantal, view of baptism affects his understanding of the state of OT saints. Because dying to sin and rising with Christ occurs in baptism OT could not have participated in these blessings and hence did not participate in many of the blessings we now enjoy. “Those men did not die with Christ; wherefore they were not raised with Him. They did not ‘bear the image of the heavenly;’ they did not ‘bear about in the body the dying of Jesus;’ they did not ‘put off the old man;’ . . .” (20).

Children in the Covenant

May 18, 2009 in Book Reviews, Covenantal Living

In preparation for my sermon on Mark 10:13-16 and Jesus’ blessing of the children, I read Lewis Bevens Schenck’s book The Presbyterian Doctrine of Children in the Covenant: An Historical Study of the Significance of Infant Baptism in the Presbyterian Church. P&R Publishing did us the inestimable service of reprinting this in 2003 and Frank James, one of my instructors at RTS Orlando during my tenure there, wrote the Introduction.

Throughout the book the contention of Schenck is that the questions of the lawful mode and recipients of baptism have sidetracked us from considering a much more important matter. Namely, what does baptism mean, what is its significance? Particularly when infants are baptized, what is the significance of that baptism?

Schenck’s book, as the title suggests, surveys Reformed opinion on this very question. Its purpose is not to build a biblical case for infant baptism but to consider theological reflection on its significance within the Presbyterian tradition. He begins with Calvin and ends with the confusion that predominated in Presbyterian circles following the rise of revivalism in America. His survey is trenchant and thought provoking, showing the remarkable uniformity among the early Reformed thinkers on the matter as well as the large scale abandonment of that teaching in 19th century Presbyterianism.

Schenck argues forcefully in the first chapter that the predominant opinion among Reformed thinkers, beginning with Calvin and proceeding through the Westminster Assembly, was that infant baptism was applied to children as members of the Kingdom of God. The children of believers were to be reckoned presumptively regenerate based on the promise of God to be God not only to believers but also to their children. Consequently, the children of believers are to be reckoned as believers themselves; not out of any infallible knowledge of their actual status, but based on the promise of God in the Scriptures. As Calvin remarks, “It follows, that the children of believers are not baptized, that they may thereby then become the children of God, as if they had been before aliens to the Church; but, on the contrary, they are received into the Church by this solemn sign, since they already belonged to the body of Christ by virtue of the promise.” (Institutes IV.25) The children of believers belong to God and therefore are to be brought into the visible church via baptism.

As I remarked in my sermon this past Lord’s Day, Calvin’s contention correlates precisely with the words of our Lord Jesus as He welcomes the children into His presence and blesses them. When the parents (most likely) come bringing these little children (all of whom or at least some of whom were nursing infants – Lk 18:15) and the disciples rebuke them for bothering our Lord, Jesus is indignant, angered at the behavior of the disciples. He delivers a dual imperative to the disciples, insisting that he desires little children not simply tolerated or permitted to come to Him but ushered unto Him. He then explain why – “for of such is the Kingdom of God.” Jesus does not commend the action of those bringing the children – “Don’t forbid them because every righteous parent should be bringing his children to me” – rather, He comments on the status of the children themselves. Jesus insists that these children should be brought to Him because they are part of the Kingdom; not that they one day shall be part of it but that they already are. These parents were right to bring their children to Jesus not in the hope that their children would one day belong to Him but because they already belonged to Him.

Given that our children belong to God, what is the purpose of Christian nurture, Christian education, training, discipline, etc? The purpose is to train God’s children to be ever more faithful disciples of Christ, to love and cherish Him all the more, to serve Him faithfully and truly. God freely, graciously has brought these children into His Kingdom by giving them to believing parents. So when we speak to our children, how ought we to speak to them? Ought we to speak to them as though they are over there, unconverted, unbelieving, separate from Christ, non-Christians? No! This is precisely what our Lord forbids. We are to speak to them as believers, exhort them as believers, treat them as members of Christ, as inheritors of the Kingdom of God. Why? Because God in His grace and mercy has promised to be their God and has testified to it in His Word. They are not over there; they are in here.

Schenck substantiates that this approach to children was the predominant position of the Presbyterian tradition leading up to the Great Awakening in America. As a result of the Great Awakening, however, this conviction was undermined. In the place of Christian nurture and education as the normal pattern of discipleship came the camp meeting, the conversion experience. The Great Awakening insisted that the only legitimate sign of an interest in Christ was a measurable conversion experience. Conversion included first a period of conviction and then an abiding “sense” of relief in Christ. Schenck’s explains:

It was unfortunate that the Great Awakening made an emotional experience, involving terror, misery, and depression, the only approach to God. A conscious conversion from enmity to friendship with God was looked upon as the only way of entrance into the kingdom. Sometimes it came suddenly, sometimes it was a prolonged and painful process. But it was believed to be a clearly discernible emotional upheaval, necessarily ‘distinct to the consciousness of its subject and apparent to those around.’ Preceding the experience of God’s love and peace, it was believed necessary to have an awful sense of one’s lost and terrifying position. Since these were not the experiences of infancy and early childhood, it was taken for granted children must, or in all ordinary cases would, grow up unconverted.

Schenck’s critique of the Great Awakening is subtle and powerful, exposing its deleterious effects upon the training of Christian children.

He continues this critique in the next chapter in which he highlights how the Great Awakening made inroads into Southern Presbyterianism and undermined the consensus within Presbyterianism over the significance of infant baptism. Thornwell and Dabney, two of the greatest Southern Presbyterian theologians, insisted that children are not baptized because they belong to Christ but only because they reside in a privileged position of instruction. Baptism in the case of an infant, therefore, did not signify his regeneration, which was assumed not to have occurred yet, but only the spiritual blessings that one day he would receive, provided that he believed. “Children in the covenant then were classified with the offenders and ‘enemies of God.’ They were to be regarded as presumptively unregenerated.” (96)

The consequence of this position was the recommendation by certain men to revise the Book of Discipline in order to remove baptized children from the possibility of church discipline unless they had made a personal profession of faith. Schenck’s analysis of this suggestion is compelling. He utilizes the voice of the Princeton Theologians to critique the novelty of these positions. Taking up such central concepts of original sin, sanctification, the covenant, and the church, Schenck demonstrates the departure of many Presbyterians from the historic position of the church and the Scriptures.

His comments on the conditionality of God’s covenant with His people are excellent. “Man earned nothing by meeting the demands of the covenant. All the requirements of the covenant were covered by the promises of God; that is, God promised to give man all that he required of Him. The covenant of grace, as its name infers, was a covenant of the unmerited love and favor of God.” (121) Consequently, if “in Israel many entered into an outward relation with Israel, who did not enjoy the inward covenantal relation, this only showed that the true conditions of the covenant relationship had not been met.” (123) In other words, external membership among the people of God in the Old Testament was not real membership and could by no means classified as faithfulness. Likewise today.

He closes his book by contrasting in a number of significant ways the Reformed principle of training children with the revivalistic principle. “The principle of the Reformed faith, that the child brought up under Christian influence should never know a time when love to God was not an active principle in its life, was displaced by an assumption that even the offspring of the godly were born enemies of God and must await the crisis of conversion.” (153) His discussion of the centrality of the Christian nurture and training of covenant children is trenchant as is His insistence that apart from the power of the Holy Spirit all these efforts are for naught. In this his critique of Horace Bushnell’s notions of covenantal nurture is edifying.

The largest inadequacy of Schenck’s book is his treatment of Calvin’s rejection of paedo-communion. He takes up the issue in only one paragraph and fails to interact sufficiently with Calvin’s inconsistency. As Paul Jewett substantiates in his critique of infant baptism, Infant Baptism and the Covenant of Grace, paedobaptism and paedocommunion go together. If infants truly are presumptively regenerate, members of the household of God, members of the Kingdom of God, then why would we withhold from them the sacrament of the Supper? Why would God refuse to feed those whom He numbers among His people? Schenck does not address this matter at all – though given the scope of his study that is excusable.

On the whole, Schenck’s book is a valuable resource for understanding the deleterious effects of the Great Awakening on the nurture of covenantal children. In many ways, Schenck’s book is a helpful corrective to Iain Murray’s otherwise excellent book Revival and Revivalism. It seems to me that Murray is himself an advocate of the “conversion pattern” as the normal method of God’s dealings with his people. Schenck demonstrates it inadequacy and encourages us to love and train our children in faith and hope.

Talking to Ourselves

May 18, 2009 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Meditations

Psalm 42:9-11 (NKJV)
9 I will say to God my Rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” 10 As with a breaking of my bones, My enemies reproach me, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” 11 Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.

We all have heard the school house adage, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” While the mantra may have helped us from time to time deal with some rather vicious words from our classmates, you no doubt have discovered over the course of your life that the adage just doesn’t hold up. As much as we might like to imagine that the attacks of others upon our personal character or our actions do not hurt, they in fact do. Indeed, they can cause us to question seriously our identity and can even lead to periods of depression and the temptation to despair.

It is this very temptation that the Psalmist records in our psalm today. He was being attacked by his enemies: told that his hopes and plans were merely wishful dreams; told that God did not really exist; told that he was simply deluded. And all this speech caused the Psalmist to begin doubting and despairing. “Perhaps they’re right. Perhaps it’s all just a dream.” And in the wake of doubt came depression.

In our modern day and age we face the same types of temptations that the Psalmist faced in his own. We face criticism at work and at home and we find ourselves weighed down under the reproaches of others. We too face periods of depression.

What’s a man or woman to do in such a circumstance? Our culture declares that we need to head to the local psychiatrist and seek our solution in a pill. While there are organic causes leading to certain types of depression, run of the mill depression is caused by our inability to deal with the trials we face in light of God’s Word. In the psalm before us today, the psalmist models what to do when we find our soul in the grips of depression and we are tempted to despair.

First, bring your complaint to God. The psalmist declares, “I will say to God my Rock, ‘Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?’” Don’t go first to the pastor, don’t go first to the counselor, go first to God and bring your troubles to Him. He hears. He listens. He acts. And those who wait for Him will mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not grow faint. While it may be necessary to seek additional outside help and encouragement, our first response must always be to go to our Redeemer and Savior.

Second, the psalmist not only trains us to bring our complaints first to God, he also trains us what to do with our thoughts of despair. Martin Lloyd-Jones in his wonderful book Spiritual Depression explains that when we are depressed we are greatly tempted to listen to ourselves. “Things are never going to get better. No one cares. God doesn’t care. Your enemies are right.” Instead, however, of listening to himself, Lloyd-Jones notes that the psalmist talks to himself. “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.” And so when you are downcast don’t listen to the Phantom of the Opera and the whispers of your own mind, talk instead – speak to yourself the promises of God and the precious treasures of our faith. Throw yourself upon Him and His mercy. His promises are more sure than our feelings. His character is more solid than the cloud of despair which seems so real at the moment.

But too often we do not model the psalmist. Rather than bringing our requests to God first and talking to ourselves; we listen to the imaginations of our own heart and fall into greater despair. And so let us kneel before our Savior and confess our sin, receiving the grace which He promises to us in Christ.

Tertullian on Marriage

May 12, 2009 in Church History, Marriage

As a fitting end to my sermon series on marriage, came across this quotation from Tertullian. It is from a letter he wrote to his own wife. Tertullian was an early church father who wrote in the late 2nd and early 3rd century.

“Where are we to find language adequate to express the happiness of that marriage which the church cements, the oblation confirms, the benediction signs and seals, the angels celebrate and the Father holds as approved? For all around the earth young people do not rightly and lawfully wed without their parents’ consent. What kind of yoke is that of two believers who share one hope, one desire, one discipline, one service? They enjoy kinship in spirit and in flesh. They are mutual servants with no discrepancy of interests. Truly they are ‘two in one flesh.’ Where the flesh is one, the spirit is one as well. Together they pray, together bow down, together perform their fasts, mutually teaching, mutually entreating, mutually upholding. In the church of God they hold an equal place. They stand equally at the banquet of God, equally in crises, equally facing persecutions, and equally in refreshments. Neither hides anything from the other. Neither neglects the other. Neither is troublesome to the other.”

From the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament: Mark, p. 135.