Kevin DeYoung's Blog, page 174

Monday Morning Humor

One of the best candies. Ever.

Marks of a True Christian

How can you tell the difference between a true Christian and a false professor or heretic?

Wilhelmus à Brakel in The Christian's Reasonable Service (1700) lays down six propositions to get us started.

Proposition1: A Christian must have a great love for the truth; all splendid pretense void of love for the truth is deceit.

Proposition 2: A Christian must have great love and esteem for the church.

Proposition 3: The Holy Scriptures are the only rule for doctrine and life.

Proposition 4: Regeneration is the originating cause of spiritual life, and of all spiritual thoughts and deeds.

Proposition 5: A Christian avails himself of faith.

Proposition 6: All of man's felicity, here and hereafter, consists in communion with and the beholding of God.

To be sure, the list could be longer, but à Brakel is trying to warn against "Quietists," "fanatics," and "Boehmists" in particular. In any case, propositions 1 and 2 seem particularly relevant for our day. And proposition 6 sounds like John Piper.

As you read blogs and follow folks on twitter and keep up with the latest video to go viral, be sure to save time for godly dead guys.

GUEST POST: Report on PCA General Assemby

Jason Helopoulos is a PCA pastor in East Lansing and a great friend. He wrote up a report for his congregation on this year's General Assembly. As an outsider I found it very helpful and encouraging.

He gave me permission to post his report on my blog.

*****

Location: This year's General Assembly was held in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Moderator: Daniel Carrell was elected as this year's moderator. He is a ruling elder from Stony Point Reformed Presbyterian Church in Richmond, VA. He practices law in Richmond and has been a leader in the James River Presbytery and the General Assembly for years.

Numbers: The PCA increased in churches and mission churches from 1,740 in 2010 to 1,757 in 2011. There were 10,803 professions of faith in this past year. The membership of the PCA increased by 414 individuals to 346,814. The number of family units in the PCA saw an increase of 2,033 to 137,263.  In 2010 the PCA will have 657 long term missionaries, 113 two year term missionaries, 323 intern missionaries, and 5,436 two week missionaries. RUF grew this past year to 135 campuses in 36 states and 58 presbyteries.

Major Issues/Actions of this Assembly

1. The General Assembly voted to organize a study committee on the practices of the Insider Movement. This "Movement" has advocated and implemented a strategy of Bible translation which replaces references to Jesus as "Son" with terms such as "Messiah" and references to God as "Father" with terms such as "Guardian" or "Lord." The aim of these translators is to make such translations more acceptable to Muslims. It was clear through the Assembly's debate and action that there is a strong aversion to this movement.

2. Paedocommunion became a topic of discussion at this year's General Assembly and a firm stance was taken against the teaching of it. The Review of Presbytery Records (RPR) has the responsibility to review the minutes of the presbyteries in the PCA. The RPR expressed concern (our technical term is "noted an exception") about the minutes of Pacific Northwest Presbytery. This Presbytery had ordained a man who affirmed paedocommunion and granted him the freedom to preach and teach this practice. By an overwhelming vote, the Assembly agreed with the RPR's action and concern.

3. Another issue also came from the RPR. They sent a rule change to the Assembly proposing that ordinands (men being ordained to the office of Teaching Elder) be required to write their exceptions to the Westminster Standards in their own words. This rule change was approved by the General Assembly.

4. Each year there are a bevy of special days brought forward for observance. Each committee asks the Assembly to approve a certain Sunday as "Ridge Haven Day," "Senior's Day," etc. This year the Assembly said "enough is enough." It voted down a recommendation to anoint a particular Sunday "Ridge Haven Sunday" and  a clear message was sent that Sundays just need to remain Sundays. The Lord's Day is good enough.

5. Last year's Assembly issues were the funding of the Administrative Committee (the "brain" of the PCA) and the Strategic Plan. The Administrative Funding plan failed in the Presbytery votes. Therefore, this year there were a number of Overtures and Communications sent to the General Assembly with alternative funding proposals and some overtures recommending the defunding of By Faith Magazine (the PCA's denominational magazine). None of these overtures came to the floor of the General Assembly for action. They were all sent to the Permanent Administrative Committee and will be discussed and acted upon there. They will then make a recommendation to next year's Assembly.

Personal Encouragements

1. This year's Assembly was without controversy. It was by far the most uneventful GA I have participated in during my seven or so years of attendance.

2. The action taken by the Assembly on the Insider Movement was expected and encouraging. The PCA continues to be a denomination marked by fidelity to the Scriptures.

3. It was a blessing to see our Review of Presbytery Records functioning rightly in its review and control. The RPR's actions were significant and provided a welcomed check on some Presbytery actions.

4. Frankly, I was a little surprised and overjoyed to see the overwhelming vote on Paedocommunion. This issue came "out of nowhere" this year. The vote to note an exception regarding the Pacific Northwest Presbytery for its action of allowing a man ,who held this view, to fully preach and teach such was more than overwhelming. It is my guess that 98% of the Assembly approved Review of Presbytery Record's action.

5. The Rules of Assembly Operation change which now requires men to write their exceptions to the Westminster Standards in their own words is encouraging. The current practice in many presbyteries has been to have the chairman of candidates and credentials or the stated clerk of the Presbytery write down the man's exceptions. This action now requires men to articulate their own position in their own words and allows the Review of Presbytery Records to review these exceptions more thoroughly.

6. The PCA's membership and church numbers continue to grow. It is slow growth, but most denominations in this country are in a slow decline. Therefore, overall, this is encouraging.

Personal Concerns

1. From my limited view, it appears that the PCA is becoming more top-down than it has been. There has been a clear centralization of power in the past three years. The PCA approved a Cooperative Ministries Committee (CMC) a few years ago as part of the Strategic Plan. This committee is comprised of past Moderators of the GA and heads of the agencies and boards of the Assembly. The reason this committee was created was to provide a forum for "getting on the same page" and cooperation among these agencies. However, as we saw last year and continued to see this year, this committee has become the vision casting and policy shaping hub of the PCA. This year there were multiple overtures sent from courts of the church (Presbyteries) to the General Assembly and they were never heard on the floor. Instead, they were sent to the Administrative Committee and ultimately will end up in the CMC. The CMC will then come forward with a recommendation through the Administrative Committee. I am concerned that Presbyteries can and may lose their voice in this process.

2. Related to the first concern, it has also become clear over the past two years that a minority voice on an issue is becoming harder to hear. The new rules we adopted as an Assembly with the Strategic Plan have made it very hard if not impossible for a minority voice to be heard on issues. Overtures can be stymied in committees of commissioners and never make it to the floor for discussion. And the minority voice has no recourse. It has made the committee of commissioners much more important in the PCA.

3. The number of presbyters attending this year's GA was down significantly. There were only about 1,000 commissioners present. It may be due to the fact that there was not a crucial issue before this year's GA, but this is of some concern.

Overall

It was a very good Assembly. This year's Assembly was not flashy or glamorous, but the work of the Church was done. The PCA continues to be a strong Reformed, Biblical, Presbyterian witness to the world. I am thankful for the Church and thankful to be a laborer in this particular portion of the vineyard. May the PCA continue to hold to its motto: Faithful to the Scriptures, True to the Reformed Faith, and Obedient to the Great Commission.

Glory of God: Fruit from the Root

John 15:1-11

"By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples."  (verse eight)

Talk is cheap. Anyone can say he is a Christian. In fact, Jesus tells us that on the last day many will say "Lord, Lord" who never really knew Jesus. We must do more than say we are Jesus' disciples. We must bear fruit like we are Jesus' disciples. The Bible is very clear about this: we are saved by grace, but the grace that saves also transforms. It is joyfully and mercifully true that we don't have to merit a good standing before God. Justification is by faith alone. But everyone who is truly justified–declared righteous–will also be sanctified–made more and more into Christ's image. Bad trees bear bad fruit. Good trees bear good fruit.

Bearing good fruit brings God glory. When we look and act like Jesus, it shows that he is good enough to save us, valuable enough to be followed, and strong enough to change us. God is not glorified by nominal Christians who never lift a finger to serve others, or egg-headed believers who never pray or evangelize, or cranky disciples who show zero love, joy, patience, or kindness. God is glorified when we follow Jesus in all of life and bear fruit as his disciples.

Is Sanctification By Faith Alone?

The short answer is no. Though it sounds very Protestant, it is not correct to say "sanctification is by faith alone."

That requires some explanation.

In saying sanctification is not by faith alone, I'm not saying the work we do is somehow owing to us and not to God. He works in and we work out. But if we say sanctification is by faith alone, aren't we severely reducing what we mean by saying justification is by faith alone? It was the mistake of Catholics to inadequately distinguish between justification and sanctification. If in trying to honor justification by faith alone we provide the same formula for sanctification, we are destroying the former as much as the latter.

Faith that Worketh

It's true that we are sanctified by faith–both by believing in Christ's complete work on our behalf and by trusting in future grace. Faith continues to play a crucial role in sanctification, but not in the exact way it does for justification.

Listen to J.C. Ryle:

Moreover, the Scriptures nowhere teach us that faith sanctifies us in the same sense and in the same manner that faith justifies us! Justifying faith is a grace that "worketh not," but simply trusts, rests, and leans on Christ (Rom. 4:5). Sanctifying faith is a grace of which the very life is action: it "worketh by love," and, like a mainspring, moves the whole inward man (Gal. 5:6). (Holiness, xviii).

Sanctification is a gift just as justification is (a double grace, or duplex gratia, as Calvin called it). Both are the gift of God, ours by virtue of union with Christ. Both are found in Christ alone. Both are necessary for salvation–justification being the root and sanctification being the fruit. As is often said: faith alone justifies, but the faith that justifies is never alone.

So we must never separate justification and sanctification. The former can't help but produce the latter, and the latter must flow from the former. And yet we should not be afraid to talk about justification in a different way than we talk about sanctification. One calls us to rest; the other to fight. One reckons us righteous; the other makes us righteous. One allows for no increase or degrees; the other expects progress and growth. One is a declaration of God about us, the other a work of God in us.

Consider this paragraph from the Westminster Confession of Faith:

Their ability to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly from the Spirit of Christ. And that they may be enabled thereunto, beside the graces they have already received, there is required an actual influence of the same Holy Spirit, to work in them to will and to do, of His good pleasure: yet are they not hereupon to grow negligent, as if they were not bound to perform any duty unless upon a special motion of the Spirit; but they ought to be diligent in stirring up the grace of God that is in them. (16.3)

This paragraph summarizes what I've been trying to say in this series of posts and what I find some Christians reticent to say. We don't just fight to believe in sanctification (though everything flows from faith). We actually will and do.  We don't just dive deeper into our justification, we perform a duty. We must be diligent to stir up the grace of God that is in us. This sort of language—willing, doing, perform, diligence—has no place in talking about justification. But if we do not use this language in talking about sanctification we have missed the language of the Bible.

If the words mean all that we want them to mean with regard to justification, then "faith alone" is not the right phrase for sanctification.

One Final Thought

The Bible is a big book with a lot in it. As such, the Christian has a lot of tools in his sanctification tool belt. Are we sanctified by remembering our justification? Yes. But God also motivates us by a sense of duty, by gratitude, by threats, by promises, and by the fear of the Lord. We are told to follow the Lord's example and to live out our union with Christ. We're also exhorted to make our calling and election sure. So while we never move past justification. We can do more than revisit our justification to grow in our sanctification.

What You Find In Your Quiet Times

With my homemade Bible reading plan, yesterday had me in 1 Chronicles 1-3. I admit that I sometimes (ok, often) find it hard to be fired up for my 3-4 chapters. I wish this weren't the case, but it is. Most of the chapters are so familiar that I can easily zone out with my reading. This is a particular temptation when I know my three chapters will be nothing but a long list of names, as they were on Tuesday.

But as I was praying that God would teach me something new with the start of 1 Chronicles, he reminded me of something no Christian should forget.

Adam was a real person.

How could he not be? 1 and 2 Chronicles were written for the returning exiles to remind them who they were, where they came from, how things went wrong, and how they can walk with God again. The two books are all about the history of God's people, and that means the real true history that began with Adam.

Adam to Seth to Enosh to Kenan to Mahalelel to Jared to Enoch to Methusaleh to Lamech to Noah to Shem to Arpachshad to Shelah to Eber to Peleg to Reu to Serug to Nahor to Terah to Abram, that is, Abraham (1 Chronicles 1:1-4, 24-27). So where does the myth end and the history begin?

Are we really to think that any Jew reading 1 Chronicles (or any Christian up until very recently for that matter) would have read the genealogies as anything other than true historical truth? The Chronicler's whole aim is to recount history. And everything in the Israelite worldview underlines the importance of God's dealing in real time and space. Nothing suggests that 1 Chronicles is mixing in some fantastic über-man with blood and guts real men.

That kind of genealogy wouldn't begin to make sense, not to the Jews and not to us. It'd be like starting your family tree with the Jolly Green Giant and Paul Bunyan. It'd be like writing a biography that begins with Anakin Skywalker and his son Luke and then goes on to his son Hugh Hodge and his son Charles and his son Archibald Alexander. Not very convincing.

And not very encouraging for a bunch of exiles trying to figure out who they really are.

Kings of Judah: Asa's Gracious God

2 Chronicles 14:2-16:9

For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. (16:9a)

Asa was a reformer–he removed altars, commanded obedience, tore down high places, and fortified cities. Like all good reformers, Asa called his people to commitment (15:10-15).

One of the reasons churches fail is because they don't call their people to commitment. An ad 1860 for the Pony Express read: "Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over 18. Must be expert riders willing to risk daily. Orphans preferred." Amazingly, they never had a shortage of riders. Too many churches give the opposite message: "Wanted: vaguely spiritual, cultural Christians. Must attend church sporadically, give miserly, and serve if you are into that sort of thing. Will tailor music, aesthetics, and preaching to fit your style. Ethical standards are minimal and beliefs are negotiable." The church needs to compromise less and call for commitment more.

The Lord is looking to help those who are committed to him. This is the theme of Asa's life, positively and negatively. When he was committed to the Lord and called out for help, the Lord answered. When he was half-hearted or too stubborn to rely on the Lord, he suffered. The Lord longs to be gracious to us, and if will be if we are fully committed to him.

Gospel-Driven Effort

Last week I wrote a piece about the role of effort in the Christian life. It was born out of concern that in our passion for glorying in the indicatives of the gospel (something I have gladly advocated many times) that we are in danger of giving short shrift to the necessity of obeying biblical imperatives. My worry is that we are afraid to exhort each other, as Scripture does, to strive, fight, mortify, vivify, and make every effort for godliness.

Later in the week Tullian Tchividjian offered some pushback with his post "Work Hard! But In Which Direction?" I'm thankful for Tullian's post. He is a good writer and an ardent champion of the gospel. He is also a good friend, not the "I met him once in a cab and now we always call each other 'my friend'" way, but an actual friend. These are important issues and I'm glad to have Tullian to sharpen me.

A Big Issue

As you may recall, I'm on sabbatical this summer. My main project is to write a book on holiness and union with Christ. Essentially it's a book on sanctification. So I have lots of thoughts rolling through my mind, thoughts not directly related to Tullian's post (even less, a direct rebuttal of his post), but thoughts related to sanctification in general. Thoughts like:

Can the justified believer please God with his obedience?
Is the justified believer displeasing to God in some way when he sins?
Is unbelief the root of every sin? Or is it pride? Or idolatry? Should we even both trying to find a root sin?
How are justification and sanctification related?
Can we obey God?
Can we feel confident about our obedience, not in a justifying way but that we have done as we were commanded?
How does Scripture motivate us to obedience?
Are most Christians too hard on themselves (thinking they are filthy scum when they actually walk with the Lord in a way that pleases him)?
Or are most Christians too easy on themselves (thinking nothing of holiness and content with little progress in godliness)?
What is the role of union with Christ in sanctification? And how do union with Christ and sanctification relate to justification?

These are just some of the issues I'm exploring this summer. I'll keep you posted.

To the Point

But with this post I simply want to respond to the main point Tullian raised in response to my earlier post. Tullian agrees that effort is not a bad word for the Christian. He questions, however, what exactly this effort is aiming at.

Kevin rightly affirms the fact that the Christian life is not effortless–"let go and let God" is not biblical. Sanctification is not passive but active. My concern here is to add to what Kevin wrote and identify the direction of our effort.

Tullian's concern is that we don't think of sanctification as moving beyond justification. I couldn't agree more. It's all too common for Christians to figure (in their heads if not spoken explicitly): "I'm saved by grace and assured of eternal life. But now I have a lot of work to do in making myself better. God gets me in all on his own, but now it's all up to me to become like Him." Justification feels like good news and sanctification feels like punishment. This is not the message of Christianity.

Tullian acknowledges that "sanctification is a grueling process." It requires effort. But the effort of our sanctification is to believe the good news of our justification. "Remembering, revisiting, and rediscovering the reality of our justification every day," says Tullian, "is the hard work we're called to do if we're going to grow." Later: "Sanctification is the hard work of going back to the certainty of our already secured pardon in Christ and hitting the refresh button over and over." Again: "sanctification is the hard work of getting used to our justification." Tullian's point is that sanctification requires the hard work of fighting to believe that we are justified by faith alone apart from anything good do or could possible contribute.

I agree sanctification requires the fight of faith to believe this scandalous good news of the gospel of justification. I disagree that this is the only kind of effort required in sanctification.

Effort Once Again

Growing in godliness is a fight of faith–a fight to believe the truth about our justification, our adoption, a fight to believe all that God says about us by virtue of our union with Christ. But growing in godliness is more than trusting; it is also trusting enough to obey. The New Testament gives us commands, and these commands involve more than remembering, revisiting, and rediscovering the reality of our justification. We must also put on, put off, put to death, strive, and make every effort.

Yes, this effort is always connected to gospel grace. But we cannot reduce "effort" to simply believing in justification. Tullian rightly points out that after Peter tells us to "make every effort" (2 Peter 1:5), he warns us against forgetting that we have been cleansed from our former sins (1:9). If we live ungodly lives we show that we have forgotten God's mercy in our lives. The antidote is to remember who we are in Christ and to "be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure" (1:10). Sanctification is from God and by faith, but unlike justification it is not by faith alone. (If that last sentence threw you for a loop, I'll say more later in the week.) As we work hard to remember the reality of justification, we must also work hard in the Spirit to stop doing sinful stuff and start doing righteous stuff.

True, there are lots of Christians who need to know the glorious good news of their forgiveness. American Christianity tends to be overly activist and can drive timid souls to despair. But just as surely, there are lots of professing Christians (and non-Christians!) who feel perfectly justified but are not growing in godliness and may not even by God's children. They do not doubt God loves them. They do not worry that they might not be accepted. They have no problem with grace. They do not come to church with crushed consciences. They do not need to work hard to rediscover God's forgiveness. They need to work hard to live like they have died to sin and been raised with Christ. The basic New Testament ethic is "be who you are." This requires believing "who we are" and working hard to "be" just that.

A Few Examples

At this point, I'm not really responding to Tullian (because he probably agrees with much of what I've written above and probably everything that is written below). But I do want to make clear why we must be clear about the sort of effort required in sanctification.

Hannah Whitall Smith's book, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, is an unfortunate classic. As Andy Naselli has pointed out, Hannah's life was not happy and her theology provided no secret for Christian living. She makes a sharp distinction between God's work in holiness and our work. God's work is to make us holy. Our work is to continually surrender and continually trust (5). "All that we claim then in this life of sanctification," she wrote, "is that by a step of faith we put ourselves into the hands of the Lord, for Him to work in us all the good pleasure of His will; and that by a continuous exercise of faith we keep ourselves there. . . .Our part is trusting, it is His to accomplish the results" (7). It was this sort of teaching that prompted J.C. Ryle to ask "whether it is wise to speak of faith as the one thing needful, and the only thing required, as many seem to do nowadays in handling the doctrine of sanctification? Is it wise to proclaim in so bald, naked, and unqualified a way as many do that the holiness of converted people is by faith only, and not at all by personal exertion?" (Holiness, xvii-xviii).

Long before the Keswick controversy the Dutch theologian Wilhelmus a Brakel (1635-1711) expressed a similar sentiment in The Christian's Reasonable Service. In his chapter on "Spiritual Growth" a Brakel explores "Reasons why Believers Do not Grow as much as They Ought." He gives five reasons: 1) They presume upon grace. 2) They doubt their conversion. 3) They are discouraged by their progress. 4) They conform themselves to the world. 5) They are lazy. Remembering our justification may be the antidote for reasons 2 and 3, but effort is required with number 5. Many Christians "are hindered in their walk solely by lazines." Later a Brakel observes, "We indeed desire to be in an elevated spiritual frame and to grow as a palm tree, but we are not willing to exert any effort–and thus we also do not receive it. . . .Therefore, Christians, to the task! Strive to grow in both habitual and actual grace" (Volume 4, 154). It is precisely this exhortation that I fear is missing from some quarters of evangelicalism.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones made the same point more recently. After taking several sermons to unpack the glorious objectivity of our union with Christ in Romans 6:1-11, Lloyd-Jones turned to our efforts in 6:12-14. He emphasizes over and over that "holiness is not a constant appeal to us to surrender" (The New Man, 156). A little later he adds, "The New Testament teaching about sanctification is not just an appeal to us to 'look to the Lord.'" Sanctification, he argues, requires personal exertion. When we are told "Let now sin therefore reign in your mortal body" this is "an exhortation addressed to us, an admonition, a call to a positive activity of the will" (157).

I've read enough Lloyd-Jones to know that he often takes his readers/listeners back to justification (as he should). Spiritual Depression is mainly about applying the gospel of free grace to our pursuit of God. But Lloyd-Jones does not suggest that sanctification comes about only by recalling our justification.

The New Testament calls upon us to take action; it does not tell us that the work of sanctification is going to be done for us. . . .We are in the 'good fight of faith', and we have to do the fighting. But, thank God, we are enabled to do it; for the moment we believe, and are justified by faith, and are born again of the Spirit of God, we have the ability. So the New Testament method of sanctification is to remind us of that; and having reminded us of it, it says, 'Now then, go and do it'. (178, emphasis mine)

Remember the gospel indicatives. Then give full throat to the gospel imperatives.

A Crucial Matter

These issues matter because, on the one hand, some Christians are beating themselves up to be more like Jesus when they first need to realize that in Christ they've already died to sin and been raised with Christ. And on the other hand, some Christians are stalled out in their sanctification for plain lack of effort. They are lazy and need to be told so.

And then there are those who are confused, wondering why sanctification isn't automatically flowing from their heartfelt commitment to gospel-drenched justification. They need to get up and, as one author put it, "just do something."

We all need God's grace to believe what is true and do what is right. We died to sin in the death of Christ. Now we must put to death the deeds of the flesh.

RCA Integrity Conference Talks

The audio and video are now available from RCA Integrity's conference last month.

Ligon Duncan -Building Ministry on a Biblical Foundation

Ligon Duncan – Being a Biblical Shepherd

Ligon Duncan – Developing Biblical Shepherds

Bob Bouwer – Why I Love Theology and the Reformed Faith

Adam Barr – Thinking Biblically About Homosexuality

Kevin DeYoung – Gospel Priorities and the Missional Church

You can access the video and audio for each talk here.

Monday Morning Humor

The juvenile delinquent in me found this amusing.

HT: Light and Shadow

P.S. Finding something clean and funny each week is harder than you might think!