Did the Fathers Know the Gospel?

At T4G Ligon Duncan addressed the topic of the Fathers and the Gospel: Did the Fathers Know the Gospel?  Good address.  Here's one of the texts he cited, from The Epistle to Diognetus:

He did not hate us, or reject us, or bear a grudge against us; instead he was patient and forbearing; in his mercy he took upon himself our sins; he himself gave up his own Son as a ransom for us, the holy one for the lawless, the guiltless for the guilty, the just for the unjust, the incorruptible for the corruptible, the immortal for the mortal.  For what else but his righteousness [dikaiosyne] could have covered our sins?  In whom was it possible for us, the lawless and ungodly, to be justified [dikaiothenai], except in the Son of God alone?  O the sweet exchange, O the incomprehensible work of God, O the unexpected blessings, that the sinfulness of many should be hidden in one righteous [dikaio] person, while the righteousness [dikaiosyne] of one should justify [dikaiose] many sinners! (Diogn. 9.3-5 [Holmes])

So did the Fathers know the gospel?  Well, yes.  Was their understanding as clear as it is now after hundreds and hundreds of years of the Church's interaction with sacred Scripture and going through the fires of controversy?  Well, no.  This is essentially what Duncan says.  What is of most interest to me with a text like the one quoted above is how close the language of justification actually is to the position of the reformers.  If The Epistle to Diognetus did not intend to teach imputation, it did a bad job of it.  Sounds Pauline and Lutheran to me.

The Greatest, Highest Calling

I believe with my whole soul that the greatest, highest calling on earth is that of a mother.  Embracing being a mother, not to mention being a godly mother, rarely occurs in this perverse and evil generation.  One of the saddest commentaries on our day, no doubt, and revealing our arrogance in neglecting the word and wisdom of God, is the routine dismissal of the calling of being a mother.  This is tragic.  Oh how eternity will write large the glories of motherhood and praise the few worthies of these degenerate times.  And it is not mainly women who are to blame for this pathetic state of affairs.  Abdicating men and husbands bear the blame and responsibility here.  Shame on us.  Men who are boys!

One great mother once gave her son counsel that he has since passed on and which I find helpful.  She said, "Work hard, play hard, and never confuse the two."  This mother's counsel to a son has proven to be helpful to me this past year.  Take it to heart, for it is all too easy, especially for driven, type-A types, to go wrong here.

That mother was Elizabeth Margaret Maybury Carson (1909-1989), mother of D. A. Carson.  That woman who feared the Lord is to be praised, and she will be, for all eternity.  "Well done, good and faithful servant," Jesus said to her on 31 December, 1989, when Elizabeth Carson was called home to be with her Lord to enjoy the joy of her Master.

Dualism is Bad Juju

I love Doug Wilson.  What can I say?  He's one of the finest pastors of our day.  His exemplary theological cultural engagement has helped me get my bearings in this insane asylum called America (I almost said evangelicalism).  I regularly read his blog posts.  Typically I find them helpful, occasionally I disagree or don't follow him, not infrequently I enjoy great big belly laughs.   His posts of late under the category "Dualism is Bad Juju" really are must reading.  Even though not all will agree with every bit (not why I'm urging reading his stuff), yet there is so much that is stimulating and sane and on the ground, if you know what I mean. 

For instance, check out the recent post "Like Racoons in the Garbage."  You may not follow it all if you're not privy to various happenings in the Reformed world.  Yet I think many principles laid out there, in a way that is very earthy, can be taken to heart.  Hopefully you'll be encouraged to follow Wilson's dualism posts, for there is a lot there to consider.

Too Close to Home?

This bit of satire was well done.  Em and I got a good laugh from it.  Upon further reflection, we wept.

The Search for God and Guinness

This YouTube video of Stephen Mansfield talking about his biography of Arthur Guinness and the famous brewery he founded stirred up a good deal of discussion over at Justin Taylor's blog a number of days ago (May 17th and 18th).  I agree with Taylor that how we think about something like beer is a good test case for our understanding of Christianity and the gospel (or as he puts it, "is a good test case for hermeneutics, application, and ethics").  Check out the YouTube video and Taylor's comments.  The biography sounds interesting, and I hope to get an opportunity to read it.

The Perils of Activism

J. I. Packer (through his writings and lectures) is one of the most significant influences in my life.  Doctrinally, there is a mass of sane and salutary stuff in Packer (most of the time; I know, ECT, and so on.  Yeah, yeah; okay, agreed).  Sometimes I've been influenced by Packer in dramatic, life-changing ways.  For example, some years ago I was wrestling with whether or not I should stay in an OPC church that was doctrinally sound but on a different page practically than I was finding myself as convictions were forming.  I could have stayed.  It wasn't an issue of needing to separate or anything like that.  It was just a question of usefulness and trajectories and long-term service.  And Packer, in a moment, with one word of wisdom, sealed the deal for me, as it were.  All became rather clear. 

So I ended up at College Church.  And there I met my wife.  Now I'm at one of College Church's church plants, finding myself persuaded of God's hand leading me to where I am.  And I really do have Packer to thank for it.  A word in season, how sweet it is. 

But I'm being more personal and autobiographical than I set out to be when I began plunking away here.  Packer wrote in the early nineties Keep in Step with the Spirit.  Wonderful, right-minded, helpful stuff.  In a chapter on the way of holiness, Packer speaks of how holiness has been a neglected priority.  He says, "The pursuit of holiness is very evidently a Christian priority, but it is one believers today commonly neglect.  That, alas, is all too easy to see."  He then proceeds to speak of some areas where we fall short.  I only want to highlight one: activism.  What follows are some of Packer's thoughts on the perils of activism, as he calls it:

Look at the activism of our activity.  Modern Christians tend to make busyness their religion.  We admire and imitate, and so become, Christian workaholics, supposing that the busiest believers are always the best.  Those who love the Lord will indeed be busy for him, no doubt about that; but the spirit of our busyness is constantly wrong.  We run around doing things for God and leave ourselves no time for prayer.  Yet that does not bother us, for we have forgotten the old adage that if you are too busy to pray, you really are too busy.  But we do not feel the need to pray, because we have grown self-confident and self-reliant in our work.  We take for granted that our skills and resources and the fine quality of our programs will of themselves bring forth fruit; we have forgotten that apart from Christ--Christ trusted, obeyed, looked to, relied on--we can achieve nothing (see John 15:5).  This is activism: activity gone to seed through not being grounded on sustained self-distrust and dependence on God.  But activism is not holiness, nor is it the fruit of holiness, and the activist's preoccupation with his own plans and schemes and know-how tends to keep him from either seeking holiness or increasing in it. 

There's much more here from Packer that is helpful.  For now, however, that is enough.  Perhaps you'll take up and read that good old right-minded and sane stuff.  Keep in Step with the Spirit is the title.  And Packer is his name, and theological packing it in is his game.

Lion-like Boldness, Lamb-like Gentleness

All of us are imbalanced people.  None of us stays on the horse.  I believe it was Luther who pictured man as a drunk who is always falling off the horse.  Some fall to the right, some to the left.  But no one stays on the horse.  Except one.

The Lord Jesus combines in his person diverse excellencies.  He is the Lion from the tribe of Judah, with supreme royal majesty and power and dignity.  He is also the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.  Only in Christ Jesus do we meet such diverse excellencies, as Edwards pointed out in a famous sermon on Rev. 5:5-6.  We see this almost paradoxical conjunction of excellencies in the Lord Jesus in the Gospels.  There we see a man tough and tender, bold and meek, mighty and merciful, lofty and lowly.  And it is only by beholding this one in faith that we begin to reflect according to our capacities something of the beautiful balance, proportion, and symmetry that do meet in the lovely Lord Jesus.  Beholding him we are being transformed from one level of glory to another, a glory that reflects the glory of the one after whose image all of redeemed humanity is being refashioned (2 Cor. 3:18; Col. 3:9-10). 

I sometimes almost totally despair of becoming a balanced Christian.  I long to be tough when I should be tough, tender when I should be tender.  My soul pants after boldness and gentleness in the proper proportion, deployed in the right places and at the right times.  And my only hope is beholding Christ--steadfastly.  Gazing at the brightness of his radiant excellencies, his glory and majesty, alone can transfrom a piece of work like me.  So I am persuaded that seeking lion-like boldness and lamb-like gentleness, therefore, should be undertaken not by holding up a list of rules or commandments (at least not mainly).  Such transformation ought to be pursued by sitting at Jesus' feet, beholding him steadfastly by faith, following the Lamb faithfully wherever he goes, listening to his voice intently at all times and in all places. 

Oh to see more and reflect more of him!  Oh to be lion-like and lamb-like!  Do the supernatural work, O sovereign Lord, for it is to you that I pray, in Jesus' strong name and for Jesus' great name's sake.

Praying for a Few Good Men

"A wise man scales the city of the mighty
and brings down the stronghold in which they trust" (Prov. 21:22).

There is need for such wise men today in the Christian Church like there is need for a drop of fiscal sensibility and responsibility in the United States.  In the public sesspool system, my wife watches the state pour out money on the ground like it's water year after year.  I watch gobs and gobs of money squandered in the healthcare arena day by day.  All of us watch, mouth agape, the political elites and greats dump trillions into never-never land while waving a magic wand over it all.  In short, there is a profound lack of fiscal and financial sense.  And so there is grave need.

There is similar grave need for wise men in the Christian Church who will scale the cities of the mighty and bring them down, bringing down the strongholds in which so many trust.  One of those strongholds that needs to be thrown down--precisely because so many trust in it, including Christians (alas!)--is the naturalistic worldview that pervades our thinking and doing.  The scientific worldview has got a stranglehold, even a death grip, on much of Western society, certainly North American culture, including within the church (alas!).  Yes, even the evangelical wing.

Now I don't mean that right-minded science is bad.  Of course not.  Those who are called to scientific work should pursue it zealously.  And there is much for which to thank the Lord.  Genuine advancements have been made in medicine, the hard sciences, engineering, and so forth.  Immense merices.  Colossal blessings.  And for these we should be grateful.  And yet.  But.  You knew I was getting there in a hurry.  There is a way of viewing all of life and reality that is shot through with naturalistic assumptions.  It is the scientific worldview, where everything is observable as in a test tube, where all is managed by some bright scientist with three Ph.D.s. 

Never mind that his marriage is a shambles.  Never mind that his kids are bearing children out of wedlock.  Never mind that he's in debt up to his neck.  Never mind that he's on his third marriage.  Never mind that he's cheating on her, too.  Never mind any of this wisdom stuff.  Never mind morality.  Never mind God!  Never mind that he created and runs the universe!  Never mind the fear of the Lord!  Why?  Because some fool has three Ph.D.s.  He's got credentials.  The worldly wise say he's an accredited prophet.  And he knows how--brilliantly, I acknowledge--to make life get on in some ways a little better in the here and now.  And, as I said, we should give thanks for the mercies that come to us through the scientist--and I'll now add, especially the pagan scientist.  But all of this doesn't solve or address our greatest problems and life's greatest issues: sin's guilt and power, God's wrath, the coming judgment, man's eternal destiny, the metanarrative of the world, and the like.  And what about the glory of God, that infinite value in the universe?  How does all of this science stuff relate to that?  And how does it relate to God's supreme and all-wise ends in the world?

I fear that so many Christians are far too easily impressed with matters that are relatively inconsequential.  And, I'll add, with many uncertainties cloaked in certainty.  But Eternity and Infinity are great levelers.  But we're earthly, worldly, carnal.  And so we need a few more wise, Spirit-endowed prophets who will scale the cities of the mighty and throw down the strongholds in which they trust.  May God be pleased to raise up some.  Such is my prayer.

(Incidentally and furthermore, it seems that our naturalistic assumptions are integrally related to or are undergirding the rampant functional deism within the North American church.  But the unpacking of this suspicion will have to wait for a future meditation and post.)

Lay Your Deadly Doing Down

I'm not sure where these words are from originally, but again and again I've heard Tim Keller impress them upon his congregation:

"Lay your deadly doing down,
Down at Jesus feet,
Stand in him and him alone,
Gloriously complete."

Believers, Christians, not just unbelievers, need to hear this sort of thing again and again, for deadly doing so easily crops up again and again.  And since it so frequently finds a place at the core of our identity, we refuse to lay it all down at Jesus' feet.  But he lived the life we should have lived, and died the death we should have died, so we can stand and rest in him--gloriously complete before the Father.  Without our doings. 

So lay it down, brothers and sisters.  Lay it down.  All of it.  At Jesus' feet.

A Depressed and Psychotic People

In 2008, antidepressants were the sixth best-selling category of drugs in the world, antipsychotics seventh.  In 2002, some 25 million Americans were taking antidepressants, about 11% of American women and 5% of American men.  This number has been on the increase in recent years per Charles Barber, lecturer in psychiatry at Yale.  Some 227 million antidepressant prescriptions were dispensed  in the United States in 2006. 

What shall we make of this?  Well, there is no doubt that a lot could be made of this.  But one thing is clear: we are a depressed and psychotic people.  And medications are not helping all that much.  They sometimes alleviate symptoms, but they are certainly not routinely helping or changing people significantly. 

We need to be delivered by one who alone can deal with all our miseries and soul-troubles.  We need a Savior.  Until we begin to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus as our only hope, we should only anticipate that our depression and psychoses will multiply.  May God be pleased to have mercy on a sorry lot, this human race, not least us sorry and sad Americans.

Seasonable Grace

In chapter 5 of Owen's On Communion with God, which speaks of communion with the Son Jesus Christ, there is a marvelous section that deals with Jesus' tenderness and compassion toward the saints in and under their temptations and afflictions.  Owen calls the help that Jesus is eager and ready to give "seasonable."  I like that.  Seasonable grace. 

Owen speaks of how eager the Lord Jesus is to tenderly and compassionately give aid to his own when they are severely tempted.  I'm often tempted to think that he is standing over me in the midst of temptations waiting to whack me if I stumble.  This is slander.  The Lord Jesus ever lives to intercede for his own, to bring help in time of need, to give seasonable grace.  In fact, Owen avers that "the sorer our temptations are, the more ready will he be to succor us."  I have simply melted in recent days under the fresh awareness of this love, care, provision, compassion, and tenderness of the Lord Jesus toward his own in the midst of our temptations and afflictions. 

How does this look?  How does the Lord Jesus come to us with seasonable grace to help in time of need?  Owen gives examples.  Here is one of the ways Jesus does this:

By taking away the temptation itself, when it grows so strong and violent that the poor soul knows not what to do.  This is called delivering the godly out of temptation (2 Pet. 2:9), as a man is plucked out of the snare, and the snare left behind to hold another.  This have I known to be the case of many, in sundry perplexing temptations.  When they have been quite weary, have tried all means of help and assistance, and have not been able to come to a comfortable issue, on a sudden, unexpectedly, the Lord Christ, in his tenderness and compassion, rebukes Satan, that they hear not one word more of him as to their temptation.  Christ comes in the storm, and says, "Peace, be still." 

Hallelujah!  What a Savior!

What Does Jesus Think of the University?

In a lecture on Christ and Culture, D. A. Carson points out that it is often asked what the university thinks of Jesus.  A better and more interesting question, he avers, is this:  What does the Lord Jesus think about the university?

We often get things bass ackwards, don't we?  Jesus is Lord of all.  Jesus is judge of all.  Let every knee bow.

Free Will or Necessity?

Is the man Messiah Jesus free?  Does he experience perfect liberty in his choices or not?  And is he capable of doing something sinful?  Is it necessary that he always do what is good and right and true?

These questions (and their answers) have a bearing on the relation between free will and necessity in man.  If we are truly free, what necessarily follows?  Is perfect liberty inconsistent with the idea of things necessarily flowing from that liberty?

Jonathan Ewards writes this in miscellany 116a:

Although it be said that 'tis most absurd that there [should] be liberty and yet necessity, that these are most inconsistent; that is, that there should be liberty, when yet 'tis impossible in nature but that the things will be: yet 'tis not worth the while to dispute it, as if liberty and necessity were contraries, for they are not; and 'tis most certain, that that which in any proper sense is called liberty is certainly consistent with absolute necessity.  Thus the glorified [saints], or at least the glorified man Jesus, has as much liberty as any man; but yet 'tis absolutely impossible that he should sin.

Are you free?  That is to say, Are you unable to sin?

Shifting Paradigms: Solid Ground?

Another quotation from Charles Barber, lecturer in psychiatry at Yale: 

Sea changes such as the advent of biopsychiatry are not unusual in the history of American psychiatry.  In fact, they have been common.  One paradigm replaces another, and each one is embraced with certainty and passion.  Only in hindsight are the revolutions questioned and discredited.

With this in view, how much stock should one put in the present state of affairs in the world of psychiatry or psychology?  Just wait a little while, and with equal passion a new theory or model will be shoved down your throat as unquestioned scientific fact.

You Must Put Away Slander

Slander is one of those sins that is not always obvious, especially to the one doing the slandering.  And yet it is a great evil, great as the evil one himself--the Satan--who has been a slanderer from the beginning.

Colossians 3:8 urges the new humanity in Christ, under his total lordship, to "put away anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth."  Then verses 9-10 say: "Do not lie to one another, because you have put off the old man [in Adam] with his deeds and have put on the new man [in Christ, the second Adam]. . . ."  There is a connection, I think, between the sins of the tongue in verse 8 and the call not to lie in verse 9 for those who are joined to the new humanity in Christ (v. 10).  Slander is often shot through with lying.  Yet it does not always have to be so.

David Powlison and Tim Keller say this about slander:

Nature or Nurture?

Still more from Charles Barber (see last post):

"Psychiatric disorders are almost certainly the product of an infinitely complex dialogue between genes and the environment."

"Psychiatry used to be brainless, it's said by some in the field, and now it's mindless." 

Where biopsychiatry lands on the debate about whether nature or nurture is a more significant determiner of who we are is not in doubt.  Barber offers some honest criticism of those who see us as just biology, just a bunch of atoms bouncing around randomly.  Nurture is important alongside our genetic makeup.  And as Dr. David Powlison has powerfully spoken of in print and in public, while nature and nurture are important variables, they are not the only ones, not even the most important. 

For example, the heart, the core of a person, which Scripture says no one except God can understand (Jer. 17:9), is almost bottomless.  Powlison pictures this aspect of the complex psychology of humans at the center of concentric circles.  Nature and nurture then are two additional rings around the heart.  Moving out farther, there is Satan, and then on the outermost ring is God, sovereign over all of it. 

Here I will reproduce Powlison's analysis of the "five-fold complexity in the springs of human action":    

Naturalism's Stranglehold

For those engaged in counseling at any level, not least pastors, the shift in psychiatry (not recent) from psychoanalysis to biopsychiatry is of immense interest and significance.  Charles Barber, a lecturer in psychiatry at Yale University, wrote this in the Winter 2008 Wilson Quarterly:

The field [psychiatry] has so thoroughly cast its lot with biology, and with the biology induced by psychoative drugs, that psychiatrists can hardly hope to publish in one of the mainstream journals if their article tells the story of an individual patient, or includes any personal thoughts or feelings about the people or the work that patient was engaged with, or fails to include a large dose of statistical data.  Psychiatry used to be all theories, urges, and ids.  Now it's all genes, receptors, and neurotransmitters.

Sow modernism and naturalism, and reap the same.  The naturalistic, evolutionary worldview (with all its assumptions) has such a hold on the society and culture, and Christians had better be able to identify this, and think through how to speak to it.  Christians must not only not get snookered by this so-called objective science that comes at us all sophisticated as biology and no more, but even more importantly we must present an alternative counseling worldview that speaks more poignantly to reality (where people really live and how we're actually made up) and more efficaciously to the human condition (in all of our fallenness and complexity).

The Very First Lesson of the Gospel

As my wife and I continue moving through John Owen's On Communion with God, I am jolted by my lack of Christ-centerdness.  What follows is a word from Owen that I long to embrace heart and soul.

In a section from chapter 5 that treats of Christ's love for those he died for on account of Christ's valuation of them, Owen speaks of the saints' valuation of Christ:

They value him above all other things and persons.  Christ and a dungeon, Christ and a cross, are infinitely sweeter than a crown, a scepter without him, to their souls.  So it was with Moses: 'He esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt' (Heb. 11:26). . . .  The treasures of Egypt were in those days the greatest in the world; Moses despised the very best of the world, for the worst of the cross of Christ.  Indeed, Christ himself has told believers, that if they love anything better than him, father or mother, they are not worthy of him (Matt. 10:37).  A despising of all things for Christ is the very first lesson of the gospel. 

And so, let us learn again and again, daily recalling Christ's worth and glory, this very first lesson of gospel.  "Christ is all" (Col. 3:11).  "To live is Christ, to die is gain" (Phil. 1:21).  In view of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord, let us count all as dung and loss, that we may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of our own, but that which comes through faith in Christ (Phil. 3:8-9).

All I Have Is Christ

I really like this song.  You can listen to it at Vimeo.

I once was lost in darkest night
Yet thought I knew the way.
The sin that promised joy and life
Had led me to the grave.

I had no hope that You would own
A rebel to Your will.
And if You had not loved me first
I would refuse You still.

But as I ran my hell-bound race
Indifferent to the cost
You looked upon my helpless state
And led me to the cross.

And I beheld God’s love displayed
You suffered in my place
You bore the wrath reserved for me
Now all I know is grace.

Hallelujah! All I have is Christ
Hallelujah! Jesus is my life

Now, Lord, I would be Yours alone
And live so all might see
The strength to follow Your commands
Could never come from me.

Oh Father, use my ransomed life
In any way You choose.
And let my song forever be
My only boast is You.

© 2008 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI), by Jordan Kauflin

Here is the four-part harmony sung at T4G.

HT: Justin Taylor