Joe Biden and Civilized Nations

June 29, 2014 in Bible - NT - Acts, Bible - NT - Matthew, Church History, Homosexuality, Love, Meditations, Politics, Trials
Matthew 5:11–12 (NKJV)
11 “Blessed are you when [men] revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Vice President Joe Biden declared this last Tuesday that “protecting gay rights is a defining mark of a civilized nation and must trump national cultures and social traditions.” He warned other nations that there is a price to pay for failing to do so.
We shouldn’t misunderstand what this means. In one fell swoop, Biden has identified all traditional Christians – as well as Jews and Muslims for that matter – as enemies of civilization. Of course, Biden is using this rhetoric to justify intervention and regime change in Africa, the Middle East, and Russia. But such a statement must necessarily relegate us to barbaric status as well. Should this policy prevail, we will find ourselves the object of discrimination and persecution, labeled as “those who turn the world upside down.”
It is fitting for us to remember, therefore, how we are to respond to such persecution. It is ever easy to take opposition personally and forget that in defending the cause of Christ we’re not defending ourselves but the truth. And because we’re defending the truth, we can rest in the knowledge that God is His own best Defender. He will vindicate His Name and demonstrate to all nations that He is Yahweh.
In the meantime, our calling as individuals is to imitate His grace and mercy by showing kindness to those who persecute us or say all kinds of evil against us. While standing courageously for the truth and speaking it frankly, we are to look for ways to bless and extend grace to our persecutors. Why? Because this is the way God acts toward his enemies day by day. And if God extends grace, ought not we?
We must always beware the lure of moralism and defensiveness; we must ever remember the grace and mercy that God has extended to us and so extend it to others. As we do so, we can rest in God’s promise that no gracious word, no good deed, no turning of the other cheek will go unnoticed. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
And this type of faith manifesting itself in love is precisely what the Apostles modeled for us when they were persecuted by the Jerusalem authorities for preaching Christ – they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ’s name(Acts 5:41b).

But often we respond to the criticisms and slanders of others not by giving a blessing but by giving an insult instead. Rather than returning good for evil, we return evil for evil. But this is not the way of our Lord Christ, nor is it the way that God will work to bring the nations to bow before Christ and acknowledge Him to be Lord of all. So let us confess our sin to the Lord and pray that He would enable us to give a blessing instead.

The Lord of Glory

June 23, 2014 in Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians, Bible - NT - John, Church History, Cross of Christ, King Jesus, Quotations, Trinity

“When the Apostle says of the Jews that they crucified the Lord of Glory, and when the Son of man being on earth affirms that the Son of man was in heaven at the same instant, there is in these two speeches that mutual [sharing] before mentioned. In the one, there is attributed to God or the Lord of Glory death, whereof Divine nature is not capable; in the other ubiquity unto man which human nature admitteth not. Therefore by the Lord of Glory we must needs understand the whole person of Christ, who being Lord of Glory, was indeed crucified, but not in that nature for which he is termed the Lord of Glory. In like manner by the Son of man the whole person of Christ must necessarily be meant, who being man upon earth, filled heaven with his glorious presence, but not according to that nature for which the title of man is given Him.”

Hooker as quoted footnote 3 of Cassian’s Seven Books in NPNF, p. 577.

Eternal Father, Eternal Son

June 23, 2014 in Christmas, Church History, King Jesus, Quotations, Trinity

“Tell me then, before the Lord Jesus Christ was born of His mother Mary, had God a Son or had He not? You cannot deny that He had, for never yet was there either a son without a father, or a father without a son: because as a son is so called with reference to a father, so is a father so named with reference to a son.” 

John Cassian (c. 360-485), The Seven Books of John Cassian on the Incarnation of our Lord, Against Nestorius, NPNF, p. 574.

Pastors and Politics

June 20, 2014 in Bible - OT - 2 Kings, Church History, Coeur d'Alene Issues, Ecclesiology, Homosexuality, Politics, Sexuality, Ten Commandments

Well it seems the editor of the Coeur d’Alene Press is upset that a number of local pastors have expressed “political” opinions and may very well have influenced the last election. There was an article in the press expressing Representative Ed Morse’s exasperation at his and others’ defeat in the recent election. In the article he is quoted as claiming that he is going to bring these actions to the attention of the IRS. More disturbing than Representative Morse’s exasperation was the editorial piece of the same day. Yikes!

I debated writing a letter in response but couldn’t get myself sufficiently motivated. Fortunately, a number of folks have written some excellent responses. Scott Grunsted offered a compelling critique of the editorial and corrected many of the misrepresentations of the Founding Fathers found therein. Unfortunately, the Editor missed Grunsted’s point and entitled his article, “Church, State are inseparable.” This is not the point Grunsted was making and very few Christians would defend it.

We must distinguish between the issue of church/state and relgion/state. Church and State are separate in Scripture – kings were not priests and priests were not kings. Consider that King Uzziah was struck with leprosy when he tried to assume priestly duties for himself. While Church and State are separate, religion and state are not. Every state, ancient and modern, is built upon some religious foundation. The reason is that states impose morality – they penalize certain behaviors and reward others. So how does a state decide which actions to penalize and which to reward? Religion. Historically the religious foundation animating our public policy has been Christian. We are now in the process of apostatizing and abandoning this foundation – and the ease with which this is being accomplished is due, in part, to the failure of our Founding Fathers to articulate in our founding documents the necessity of this Christian foundation. While they did make the point in their private correspondence and public letters and speeches, they did not make this explicit in our Constitutional documents and this was a tragic error. It seems unlikely that our great republic will be able to persist as a result. Hopefully, the next time such an experiment as America takes place, their founders will repudiate the heretical notion of the secular state and recognize that every state is built upon some religious foundation. And the religious foundation that provides for personal liberty, liberty of conscience, and constitutional limits on political power is the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Another excellent letter responding to the editorial was written today by Kim Cooper. She demonstrates the absurdity of the editorial’s attempt to compartmentalize portions of people’s lives. She gives a great example of worldview thinking! Excellent work.

Let us just note in passing the inconsistency of the editorial as well. The press has campaigned rather clearly for numerous moral principles lately. They’ve opposed bullying, advocated the homosexual agenda, and portrayed the transgendered agenda sympathetically – and on each of these issues prominently featured within the articles is the Human Rights Education Institute and Mr. Tony Stewart. Is bullying wrong? Let’s ask Mr. Stewart and find out. Should homosexuality have public sanction? Let’s ask Mr. Stewart, he’ll tell us. But has anyone cried foul? After all, I think that the HREI is a 501c3 entity. How dare they dabble in politics? Sheesh! Haven’t they read those regulations? But of course it’s ok for them to express opinions, teach at the local government schools, nurture our children in the evils of discrimination because – well, because they agree with us! But those pastors – shut them up! Wisdom is justified by her children.

Existentialism and the Transgendered Movement

June 10, 2014 in Bible - OT - Genesis, Church History, Coeur d'Alene Issues, Creation, Homosexuality, Politics, Quotations, Sanctification, Sexuality

Below are notes from my sermon on Sunday endeavoring to highlight the connection between Existentialism and the transgendered movement and the way in which this deviates from the special creation described in Genesis 1-2; we might also add how demeaning the transgendered movement is to folks caught in its snare. May God have mercy upon us.

In the 20th century there emerged an incredibly influential philosophical movement known as Existentialism. This movement is the driving force behind much of the political and moral disarray occurring today – though most people are unaware of these philosophical underpinnings. Existentialism grew out of the teachings of the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre explains existentialism thus:
Atheistic existentialism, which I represent…states that if god does not exist, there is at least one being [man] in whom existence precedes essence… This means that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be. Thus, there is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it. Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is only what he wills himself to be after this thrust toward existence. Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.      Jean-Paul Sartre
And, Sartre would go on to declare, you can make of yourself whatever you want – the important thing is to do, to will, to make of yourself something, anything. You define; you decide; existence precedes essence. Existentialism! You popped on the scene and now you have to figure out who you are and what you are going to be.
Notice the way this philosophy drives our current cultural debates – even in our local government school system and the push to make the schools endorse transgenderedism: Are you born male? It matters not – you can choose to be female. Are you born female? It matters not – you can choose to be male. Choose. It’s all in the choosing. There is no god who defines us; no higher standard that bounds us. You exist – you were born this way. But that doesn’t define who you are. Your essence is something you choose – and all that matters is the choosing.
But let me suggest that this is the very thing symbolized by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Sartre is the serpent of the 20thcentury. He has tempted us to be “like god” – to define good and evil for ourselves; to say what is and what is not good and noble and right; to live autonomously as a law unto ourselves. But in the end, this will lead to death – indeed it already has: the deaths of millions of children still in the womb.
You see, Sartre and Peter Singer (Utilitarian Philosopher at Princeton) are of a piece. “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself,” Sartre pronounces. Or as Singer would have it: “Once the religious mumbo-jumbo surrounding the term “human” has been stripped away, we may continue to see normalmembers of our species as possessing greater capacities of rationality, self-consciousness, communication, and so on, than members of any other species; but we will not regard as sacrosanct the life of each and every member of our species, no matter how limited its capacity for intelligent or even conscious life may be.” For they must be able to choose; they must be able to make something of themselves.
So what are we to think of a human being who cannot articulate that choice? What are we to think of those who are suffering from dementia or cerebral palsy or madness – or perhaps even religious mumbo-jumbo? After all the Soviets determined that religious belief was a mental abnormality that needed to be cured; and Richard Dawkins has said much the same. So what are we to think of such human beings? They are expendable – for they lack the features that we (the elite like Peter Singer) have determined are meaningful for life.
But this is absolutely foreign to the Word of God. God defines us. We enter into the world pre-defined. Essence precedes existence. We have some form of essentialism not existentialism! God defines you – you are a human being, made in God’s image, invested with dignity and honor not because of what you have done but because of what you are. God has made you and crafted you and breathed into you the breath of life.
If you are male, God made you male and gives you a distinct calling to be a man. If you are female, God made you female and gives you a distinct calling to be a woman. You cannot redefine these things. The definition has already been established. So receive who you are; receive it as a gift from God and rejoice in it. God made you a man; made you a woman. Rejoice, give thanks, and sing! You bear the very image of God, an image that cannot be taken away.

You can’t redefine but you can rebel like Adam and Eve. But the result of rebellion is death, destruction, judgment. There is no third option.

What was God to do?

May 14, 2014 in Atheism, Book Reviews, Church History, Creation, Cross of Christ, Eschatology, Human Condition, King Jesus, Quotations, Trinity, Word of God

I’m doing sermon prep on the Image of God and recalled this glorious passage from Athanasius:

     What was God to do in the face of this dehumanising of mankind, this universal hiding of the knowledge of Himself by the wiles of evil spirits? Was He to keep silence before so great a wrong and let men go on being thus deceived and kept in ignorance of Himself? If so, what was the use of having made them in His own image originally? It would surely have been better for them always to have been brutes, rather than to revert to that condition when once they had shared the nature of the Word. Again, things being as they were, what was the use of their ever having had the knowledge of God? Surely it would have been better for God never to have bestowed it, than that men should subsequently be found unworthy to receive it. Similarly, what possible profit could it be to God Himself, who made men, if when made they did not worship Him, but regarded others as their makers? This would be tantamount to His having made them for others and not for Himself. Even an earthly king, though he is only a man, does not allow lands that he has colonised to pass into other hands or to desert to other rules, but sends letters and friends and even visits them himself to recall them to their allegiance, rather than allow his work to be undone. How much more, then, will God be patient and painstaking with His creatures, that they be not led astray from Him to the service of those that are not, and that all the more because such error means for them sheer ruin, and because it is not right that those who had once shared His Image should be destroyed.
     What, then, was God to do? What else could He possibly do, being God, but renew His image in mankind, so that through it men might once more come to know Him? And how could this be done save by the coming of the very Image Himself, our Saviour Jesus Christ? Men could not have done it, for they are only made after the Image; nor could angels have done it, for they are not the images of God. The Word of God came in His own Person, because it was He alone, the Image of the Father, Who could recreate man made after the Image.
     In order to effect this re-creation, however, He had first to do away with death and corruption. Therefore He assumed a human body, in order that in it death might once for all be destroyed, and that men might be renewed according to the Image. The Image of the Father only was sufficient for this need.

Athanasius, On the Incarnation, Trans. Anonymous. (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1977) 40-41.

Auto-pilot and Sinful Ideas

May 11, 2014 in Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians, Church History, Creeds, Easter, Eschatology, Heresy, King Jesus, Meditations, Resurrection
1 Corinthians 15:12–19 (NKJV)
12 Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. 14 And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. 15 Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. 16 For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. 17 And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! 18 Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.
As readers of Scripture we are often tempted to go into auto-pilot and assume that we know what a text is saying without really paying attention. Consequently, we miss the point of the text.
Take the Scripture before us today. Many read our text and assume that Paul is arguing for the significance of Jesus’ resurrection. “Paul’s point is that Jesus really rose from the dead and that this is what guarantees our forgiveness.” And so we go on auto-pilot and move on to the next paragraph. But this is not Paul’s point. While Jesus’ resurrection is central to Paul’s whole argument, it is not Paul’s point. Jesus’ resurrection is not under dispute; Paul has already asserted that Jesus’ resurrection is central to the Gospel he preached. 
So what is his point? His point is that all other human beings are going to rise from the dead. You see the Corinthians weren’t denying that Jesus had risen from the dead; they were denying that the rest of us would rise from our graves. Listen to Paul again: Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead [generally, at the end of history]? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen.
Notice that Paul is endeavoring to highlight the inconsistency of the Corinthians’ beliefs. If there is no resurrection at the end of history; if the dead will not be raised when Christ returns again in glory, then neither did Jesus rise from the dead. Why? Because Jesus’ resurrection is the guarantee that every human being will rise from his tomb and stand before God. Jesus is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. So note Paul’s argument: if we deny the general resurrection then we must, of necessity, deny Jesus’ resurrection. And if we deny Jesus’ resurrection, then we are still in our sins and without hope. But Jesus has risen from the dead, therefore there will be a general resurrection. Paul’s point is that the resurrection of the dead on the last day is a central part of the Christian faith; we believe, as the creeds remind us, in the resurrection of the dead.
In the modern American church we stand in dire need of re-reading Paul’s words here in these verses. We have gone on auto-pilot. We imagine that we can teach that Jesus rose from the dead and simultaneously teach that our ultimate destiny as human beings is to go to heaven when we die. But this is not the Gospel; this is not the Christian hope for the future; this is not the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection. Our hope is that we shall emerge from our graves just like Jesus. So our confidence is that the bodies of those who have fallen asleep in Christ have not perished but that they do rest in their graves until the resurrection. We are not to be pitied; for we have not only in this life placed our hope in Jesus; there shall be a resurrection of the just and the unjust – Jesus’ resurrection is proof.
What Paul’s words remind us is that sins are not simply wrong actions; sometimes our ideas are sinful as well. We can embrace ideas that are erroneous and sinful. By denying the general resurrection, the Corinthians had embraced an idea that was poisonous to the Gospel. So when God in His grace and mercy shines the light of truth on our error and corrects us, corrects our thinking, what ought we to do? What ought the Corinthians have done? We ought to confess our error, ask God’s forgiveness for our folly, and rely upon the sacrifice of Jesus to make us right with God despite our erroneous ideas. Jesus is the sacrifice for our sinful ideas even as he is the sacrifice for our sinful actions. And praise God this is so.

And so reminded that our ideas are often sinful and dishonoring to our Creator, let us confess our sin to the Lord, seeking His forgiveness through Christ. Let us kneeel as we confess.

The Historicity of the Resurrection

May 4, 2014 in Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians, Church History, Cross of Christ, Easter, Heresy, Meditations, Resurrection
1 Corinthians 15:3–11 (NKJV)
3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. 6 After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. 7 After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. 8 Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. 11 Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
The American Presbyterian historian and theologian J. Gresham Machen wrote his classic work Christianity and Liberalismto expose the fundamental differences between Christianity historically understood and liberalism. In his day liberalism was beginning its conquest of the American mainline churches, a conquest which in our day is largely complete. Machen insisted that liberalism is not merely a corrupted Christianity, it is no Christianity at all. It is a new belief system that teaches that whether or not Jesus actually rose from the dead is insignificant. What really matters is our subjective experience of Jesus, that Jesus lives on in our hearts.
As Machen correctly perceived, this notion is entirely foreign to the message that Paul preached and that Christianity has preached. The Gospel that Paul preached was rooted in history, rooted in reality. Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day. The very thing that distinguishes Christianity from every other religious system is that Christianity is rooted in reality, centered on God’s actions in space and time, in history. It is not merely a system of dogmas but a declaration of events that have dogmatic significance.
Note, therefore, that Christiantiy is, as Machen insisted, founded upon a combination of historical events and their theological significance. Christ died. This is history. He did not get spirited away or exchange places with someone else as Islam teaches. He actually died on a cross outside Jerusalem while Pontius Pilate served as prefect of the Roman Empire in Judea. And why did Christ die? He died, Paul says, for our sins; he died to endure the punishment that our sins deserve. That is theology.
This same combination of historical reality and theological significance characterizes Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. This is history; and note that Paul emphasizes the historicity of this event by appealing to witnesses. The Risen Christ was seen by Cephas, the Twelve, 500 brethren at one time, James, the Apostles, and Paul himself. And, Paul implies, if you want to verify the truth of all this, go ask them since most of them were still alive in Paul’s day. In the rest of the chapter, Paul goes on to unfold the theological significance of Jesus’ resurrection.
As Christians we are often led astray by the theological liberalism that pervades our social institutions – both religious and political – ino believing that religion is just a subjective phenomenon. No one religion is superior to another; each has it adherents; each meets the subjective needs of its followers; each is merely a private, personal experience; so who are you to judge? But this is to subvert completely the very meaning of the word Gospel – good news. The Gospel is an announcement of something that objectively happened and that objectively changed the course of human history. Christianity is not just a private religious matter but a public announcement: Jesus died, was buried, and then rose again; so all men and nations are called to confess that Jesus is Lord; Jesus is God’s Anointed One.

So reminded that if we are to approach God it must be on the basis of truth, something that really happened, and not just on the basis of our sincerity; reminded that we must approach God through Jesus who died and rose again for our sins, died and rose again to reconcile us to God, let us kneel and confess our sins to God.