Bible-Only Folk in Danger of Joining a Cult

"The kind of biblicism that learns nothing from the great councils is in danger of becoming cultic."

—D. A. Carson, Jesus the Son of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 108.

A Hale and Hearty Amen!

Here's a good word from Peter Leithart's blog over at First Things: 

One of my complaints against contemporary Protestantism is that it is nowhere near word-based enough. Protestant churches are often not Bible-based, but our-favorite-handful-of-texts—based or Bible-interpreted-through-confession—based.

To which I add my hale and hearty—amen!

Only, I want to add: if I had the opportunity, I'd want to remind Leithart that most so-called "Protestants" don't even have a confession, have never read a full confession, and are led by men (and, now, oftentimes women) who eschew confessions of any sort, especially of the ecumenical and historic varieties. So methinks that Leithart has a target closer to home for him than for most evangelicals. 

The Evangelical Tendency to Avoid Doctrinal Disputes

Piper:

The increasing abandonment of truth and moral absolutes in our culture, as militant diversity threatens all firm conviction, has dramatically influenced the evangelical mindset. The political spin doctors who specialize in deflecting attention away from truth onto feelings and relationships and styles have their counterpart in the evangelical tendency to avoid doctrinal disputes by casting issues in terms of demeanor and method rather than truth. Serious disagreements are coverered over, while vague language and pragmatic concerns preserve hollow unity at the expense of theological substance and biblical clarity and power.

—John Piper, God's Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards (Wheaton: Crossway, 1998), 24.

Courage to Be Protestant

The argument that David Wells makes in his book—The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth-lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World—comes, as you might expect, in the first paragraph of chapter 1 on page 1. And it is this:

It takes no courage to sign up as a Protestant. After all, millions have done so throughout the West. They are not in any peril. To live by the truths of historic Protestantism, however, is an entirely different matter. That takes courage in today's context.

But he also adds what might not be expected in the second paragraph:

But it [the argument] needs to be made not only with postmodern culture in mind but also with contemporary evangelicalism in mind. The truths of historic Protestantism are sometimes no more welcome in evangelicalism than they are in the outside culture. 

To my great dismay, I have found this to be true in my experience of modern American evangelicalism. And it has astonished me that so-called Protestants have been so ready to dispense with Protestantism.

Wells speaks to the what and how and why of all of this as well as anyone. And so I heartily commend the close reading of absolutely anything and everything he has written on this topic and on culture generally.

But be prepared: you just might have to gain a good deal of courage to soldier on if you become persuaded that he is correct in his assessment. And I'm afraid that all too many, not least among evangelical leadership, are unwilling to count the cost and embrace that cross. For that cross puts you out of step not only with the general cultural milieu but also with your own contemporary evangelical context. And the suffering and loss that come, in a variety of ways, with being out of step with much of evangelicalism are not easy to embrace.

Small wonder, then, that Wells speaks of the need for courage. And he is not alone in saying that courage is the "the need of the hour."

The End for Which God Created the Local Church

With the passing of time and the experience of living longer in this world and in the anemic American evangelical church, and with another year passing of reading through holy writ, I'm convinced that the heartbeat of every church—palpable in doctrinal statements, vision statements, and all of church life—must be a passion and zeal for the glory of God. Anything else is too small, too man-centered, too sub-biblical.

The combination of a pervasive man-centeredness today and the pervasive presence of texts like the one I read this morning—

Help us, O God of our salvation,
for the glory of your name;
deliver us, and atone for our sins,
for your name's sake! (Ps. 79:9)—

conspire to make me more eager than ever for God's name to be hallowed in all things in the life of the Church, in the world, and in homes, neighborhoods, and workplaces. Texts like the one quoted are everywhere in Scripture. It is the major note struck in the Bible. It is the major note God is striking in the symphonic narrative of redemptive history that he has orchestrated. And yet (to my great dismay and grief), it is hardly even a minor note in many, many churches.

As Jonathan Edwards reminds the church so well, the display and approbation of the glory of God is the end for which God made the world. And if it is God's end or goal in creation—and it most certainly is!—it ought to be our end in everything we think, say, plot, and do in the local church. Such a heartbeat ought so to thump in a local church that it is felt immediately and pervasively by all who come in contact with her living and breathing ministries and members. That is, unless she is dead or dying. 

Specifically, the glory of God must be manifestly known and prized. We must manifest that we know something about it, and then we must show how we treasure it above all else. And this must be included in doctrinal and vision statements, but must go way beyond such statements. In other words, it needs to be institutionally up front and center, like the first thing you see when you go to a website; but it must not be a dead letter, either. The glory of God affirmed on paper only is only an indictment. 

Even more specifically, based on Eph. 1:6, the aspect of the glory of God that needs to be highlighted and emphasized and gloried and rejoiced in is the glory of God's free grace for sinners. God's redemption planned from eternity past aims at this: "the praise of the glory of his grace" (Eph. 1:6, translation mine). So we should openly and vocally exist for this ultimate reason. 

So many other things in vision statements are good and right in their own place. But inasmuch as they are penultimate (that is to say, not the display and enjoyment of the glory of God), then they ought to exist openly for the ultimate: the glory of God. Otherwise, they betray a profound betrayal of the Bible's dominant emphasis and the goal of the universe—that is, God's goal to glorify himself in all things. 

So my prayer for local churches today is for the name of God to be esteemed and hallowed and praised and gloried in and valued above all else—manifestly, palpably, pervasively. 

True Friendship: A Holy Spirit Bought Bond

"For though they cling together, no friends are true friends unless you, my God, bind them fast to one another through that love which is sown in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us."

—Saint Augustin, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin, 1961), 75.

Heidelberg on Baptism

Question 73: Why doth the Holy Ghost call baptism the washing of regeneration and the washing away of sins?

Answer: God speaks thus not without great cause: namely, not only to teach us thereby that like as the filthiness of the body is taken away by water, so our sins also are taken away by the blood and Spirit of Christ; but much more, that by this divine pledge and token he may assure us that we are as really washed from our sins spiritually as our bodies are washed with water.

Question 74: Are infants also to be baptized?

Answer: Yes; for since they, as well as their parents, belong to the covenant and people of God, and both redemption from sin and the Holy Ghost, who works faith, are through the blood of Christ promised to them no less than to their parents, they are also by baptism, as a sign of the covenant, to be ingrafted into the Christian Church, and distinguished from the children of unbelievers, as was done in the Old Testament by circumcision, in place of which in the New Testament baptism is appointed.

—Philip Schaff, ed., The Creeds of Christendom (vol. 3; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 330–331.

Heidelberg 450 Years Old and Going Strong

I'm convinced by these five reasons. So our family will be reading through the Heidelberg yet again, this year on the Lord's Day.

Happy birthday, Heidelberg! And, thanks, Kevin DeYoung!

The Athanasian Creed

Consider me odd, but I love creeds. A brother who filled the pulpit for our pastors this past weekend recited the Athanasian creed in his fine sermon on Jn. 1:1-18, which recitation lit a fire in my soul. If you want a good sermon to listen to on what Christmas is all about, or if you want a good message on the deity of Jesus to meditate upon, you could do much, much worse than this one. And if you do listen, you'll hear, amid much solid instruction, the profound and stirring stuff of an ancient creed proclaimed.

I reproduce the Athanasian creed now for the good of my soul and yours (just as it is printed in the edition I'm citing from). It's worth memorizing.

1. Whosoever will be saved: before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith:
2. Which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled; without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
3. And the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
4. Neither confounding Persons: nor dividing Substance [Essense].
5. For there is one Person of the Father: another of the Son: and another of the Holy Ghost.
6. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one: the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal.
7. Such as the Father is: such is the Son: and such is the Holy Ghost.
8. The Father uncreate [uncreated]: the Son uncreate [uncreated]; and the Holy Ghost uncreate [uncreated].
9. The Father incomprehensible [unlimited]: the Son incomprehensible [unlimited]: and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible [unlimited, or infinite].
10. The Father eternal: the Son eternal: and the Holy Ghost eternal.
11. And yet they are not three eternals: but one eternal.
12. As also there are not three uncreated: nor three incomprehensibles [infinites], but one uncreated: and one incomprehensible [infinite].
13 So likewise the Father is Almighty: the Son Almighty: and the Holy Ghost Almighty.
14. And yet they are not three Almighties: but one Almighty.
15. So the Father is God: the Son is God: and the Holy Ghost is God.
16. And yet they are not three Gods: but one God.
17. So likewise the Father is Lord: the Son Lord: and the Holy Ghost Lord.
18. And yet not three Lords: but one Lord.
19. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity: to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord:
20. So are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion: to say, There be [are] three Gods, or three Lords.
21. The Father is made of none: neither created, nor begotten.
22. The Son is of the Father alone: not made, nor created: but begotten.
23.  The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son: neither made, nor created, nor begotten: but proceeding.
24.So there is one Father, not three Fathers: one Son, not three Sons: one Holy Ghost, and not three Holy Ghosts.
25. And in this Trinity none is afore, or after another: none is greater, or less than another [there is nothing before, or after: nothing greater or less].
26. But the whole three Persons are coeternal, and coequal.
27. So that in all things, as aforesaid: the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped.
28. He therefore that will be saved, must [let him] thus think of the Trinity.

29. Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation: that he also believe rightly [faithfully] the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
30. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess: that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man;
31. God, of the Substance [Essence] of the Father; begotten before the worlds: and Man, of the Substance [Essence] of his Mother, born in the world.
32. Perfect God: and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.
33. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead: and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood.
34. Who although he be [is] God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ.
35. One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh: but by taking [assumption] of the Manhood into God.
36. One altogether; not by confusion of Substance [Essence]: but by unity of Person.
37. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man: so God and Man is one Christ;
38. Who suffered for our salvation: descended into hell [Hades, spirit-world]: rose again the third day from the dead.
39. He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right hand of the Father God [God the Father] Almighty.
40 From whence [thence] he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
41. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies;

42. And shall give account for their own works.
43. And they that have done good shall go into live everlasting: and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire.
44. This is the Catholic Faith: which except a man believe faithfully [truly and firmly], he can not be saved.

—Philip Schaff, ed., The Creeds of Christendom (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 66-70.

A Sinner Pressed and Perplexed with a Sense of Guilt for Sin

What does the doctrine of justification primarily or fundamentally address? This question is important. If we answer that it addresses first and foremost the horizontal question of human relationships, the doctrine derails, the gospel aborts. But if we answer that it first and foremost addresses the vertical dimension of our existence, that is, our relationship with a holy and righteous God, the doctrine holds, the center stays. Then, and only then, certain horizontal entailments follow and function as they ought.

In volume 4 of his collected shorter writings, J. I. Packer says this:

The Augsburg Confession of 1531 states: "this whole doctrine [of justification] must be related to the conflict of an alarmed conscience, and without that conflict it cannot be grasped. So persons lacking this experience, and profane men, are bad judges of the matter." Calvin makes the same point in Institutio III.xii, a chapter on the theme that justification must be studied in the solemnising light of God's judgment seat (Honoring the People of God, 223). 

Packer then points out that "John Owen preserves this perspective when at the start of his classic treatise The Doctrine of Justification by Faith (1677) he writes":

The first inquiry . . . is after the proper relief of the conscience of a sinner pressed and perplexed with a sense of the guilt of sin. For justification is the way and means whereby such a person doth obtain acceptance before God, with a right and title unto a heavenly inheritance. And nothing is pleadable in this cause but what a man would speak unto his own conscience in that state, or unto the conscience of another, when he is anxious under that inquiry (The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, 7). 

So if in our formulation of the doctrine of justification we move too quickly to discussions of what justification has to say about man's relationship with fellow man, we step in the wrong direction. And this is what has happened with the so-called New Perspective on Paul (which is now old, by the way), valuable as some of its insights may be. It has a hard time addressing the distressed sinner (for that is not what it's for, they say, lambasting Luther for being so psychologically sensitive); its gospel lacks the potency and effect of the biblical gospel. Without adequately addressing the distressed conscience before a holy and just God, the doctrine falls flat and fails to liberate for love. And I believe it also makes a man-centered age even more man-centered. However, it works the other way too. It's no coincidence, to my mind, that a fundamentally horizontal understanding of justification has arisen in a period of history marked by profound man-centeredness. Sure, Luther had a context. But so do we.

The Covenant of Grace

What is the covenant of grace? It's not the language Scripture uses, but I do believe that, as a theological construct, it embraces the biblical data within and a common thread through God's gracious covenants.

Here's one of John Owen's brief descriptions of it: "This declaration of the grace of God, and the provision in the covenant of the mediator for the making of it effectual unto his glory, is most usually called the covenant of grace" (vol. 5, Works, 192).

Here's how the Westminster Confession of Faith describes it: "This covenant of grace is frequently set forth in Scripture by the name of a testament, in reference to the death of Jesus Christ the testator, and to the everlasting inheritance, with all things belonging to it, therein bequethed" (Ch. VII, Sect. IV).

Would Make for a Good Study

Follow this link for a table comparing the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) and the London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689). These two confessions are very similar, the latter dependent on the former: but the differences, even at a glance, are telling. Probing those differences, and asking why they are there and where they are going, would make for a good study.

HT: Justin Taylor

Jesus is Lord: The Basic Christian Confession

In confessing Jesus as Lord (e.g., Rom. 10:9; 1 Cor. 12:3), we Christians are not simply saying that Jesus is a great king. That he is, to be sure. We are not simply saying that he is king or sovereign of our lives, though he is. But we are declaring much more. We are confessing nothing less than that he is God over all, blessed forever (Rom. 9:5). Jesus is the sovereign covenant King of the old covenant, even YHWH, King of the nations, before whom there is no other. He is Lord of all. And if he is not Lord of all, he is not worthy to be Lord of any life, he is not a great king at all. But he is in fact Lord of all. And every tongue shall confess this in due course (Phil. 2:9-11).

The Purest Churches on Earth

"The purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error . . ." (WCF, Ch. 25, Sect. 5).

Lord of the Conscience

The Westminster Confession of Faith was produced in 1647.  Em and I have been reading it at dinner for a number of weeks now.  Chapter XX On Christian Liberty, and Liberty of Conscience is one of my favorite chapters.  Section 2 begins with this marvelous clause: "God alone is Lord of the conscience. . . ."  We would do well always to take heed of this.  O sweet liberty!  Man would rule over the conscience, but he may not do so.  It's not his prerogative.  "God alone is Lord of the conscience."

Intoxicated by Orthodoxy: Chalcedon

As a twenty-first century evangelical Protestant living in postmodern America who is a physical therapist by profession, I know that I'm not expected by most to care much about ancient creeds and confessions.  But I confess that I do.  I find creeds energizing, clarifying, stabilizing.  What's more, they get my blood boiling for the glory of the triune God.  Call it quirky.  Call it an odd primitive urge.  Call it what you will.  I love Chalcedon.  I get intoxicated by orthodoxy.  And today I savor this particular creed more than usual on account of recent discussions with a client who is a JW.  So much wisdom in the creeds!  What a heritage the Christian Church has!  Oh how we should give thanks to God for them!  We stand on the shoulders and walk in the steps of so many who've gone before.

Last week I posted the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.  This week you get the Chalcedonian definition:

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; consubstantial [coessential] (homoousion)* with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial (homoousion) with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the disctinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.

Praise God, Father, Son, and Spirit, from who all blessings flow, praise him all you creatures here below!  For this God, the triune Lord who reigns supreme, our Creater and Redeemer--and this God alone--is worthy to receive all power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing! Amen.

* The parenthetical Greek additions are mine.  The text is taken from Philip Schaff's The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 2.

(By the way, I am an infallibalist inerrantist who embraces sola Scriptura with every fiber of my being.  The Scriptures, not creeds, are our sole rule for belief and behavior, for faith and practice.)

The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed

Regularly reviewing and confessing creeds is good for the soul and body, both the individual and the corporate.  So here is an important one, hammered out at the Council of Constantinople in 381, worthy of memorization:

I believe (credo) in one God the Father Almighty;
Maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of the Father before all worlds [God of God],*
Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made,
being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father;
by whom all things were made;
who, for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man;
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered and was buried;
and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures;
and ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;
and he shall come again, with glory,
to judge both the quick and the dead;
whose kingdom shall have no end.

And [I believe] in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life;
who proceedeth from the Father [and the Son] (filioque);
who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped
and glorified;
who spake by the Prophets. 
And [I believe] one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins;
and I look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. 
Amen. 

The Council of Constantinople and the creed it produced ably defended the full deity of Jesus Christ, effectively stamping out and banishing from the Church Arianism and arianizing tendencies.  Jesus was confessed as being "of the same substance" (homoousios) with the Father, not merely "of like substance" (homoiousios), as the Arians would have it.  It was a glorious moment and great victory in the history of the Church, actually won, not in an instant, but over many drawn out years of debate and deliberation.  For it we should regularly give thanks, as we stand on the shoulders and walk in the steps of those who've gone before us in the once-for-all-delivered-to-the-saints faith.

* The brackets are Western additions (which, of course, I affirm as glorious, with all due respect to the Eastern Church).  The parenthetical Latin and Greek additions are mine.  The translation is from Philip Schaff's Creeds of Christendom, vol. 2.