R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 607

Twitter Highlights (1/23/11)

Here are some highlights from the various Ligonier Twitter feeds over the past week.

Reformation Trust The right to choose, as sacred as it may be, does not carry with it the arbitrary right to destroy a human life. -RC Sproul #abortion



Ligonier Nobody has ever been a victim of injustice at the hands of God. -R.C. Sproul



Reformation Trust ...we hinder our witness if we cultivate a facade that masks our weaknesses, struggles, and needs. - Richard Phillips



Tabletalk Magazine Ferguson on Hebrews: "See everything in the light of who Jesus is, what He has done & what He continues to do today." http://bit.ly/e328Sj



Ligonier Satan could make an "A" in my Systematic Theology course. He knows the information & Satan knows that the information is true. - Sproul



Ligonier If you wonder why the 1st century church turned the world upside-down & we don't, it's because they preached the kingdom of God. -RC Sproul



Ligonier The biggest challenge for the scholar is to communicate what he's learned at a simple level without distorting the truth. -Sproul #lmac

 

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2011 Academy Conference - Session 6 - R.C. Sproul

Dr. R.C. Sproul concluded our 2011 Ligonier Academy Conference with his message "Post Tenebras Lux." What does this phrase mean and why is it important? Dr. Sproul explains thusly:

Introduction

I have appreciated the speakers that went before me today, and I particularly enjoyed Dr. Trueman's emphasis on the doctrine of justification. Luther called it the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls. Calvin said it is the hinge on which everything turns.

[image error]I have met people who have forgotten what this means. They are Protestants and I ask them what they are protesting. They look at me funny because the theology of Reformation has given way to the theology of Rodney King: "Can't we all just get along." Protest as a theme seems so very passé.

The Darkness of Sin

Let us turn first to Romans 1:18–32. This is a passage I look at again and again and again because it is foundational for understanding our predicament as people in a fallen world, what it means to proclaim this gospel in the fallen world, and how the gospel relates to our own Christian pilgrimage.

The motto for the new Ligonier Academy is post tenebras lux. It is not original by any means but is borrowed from the motto of the sixteenth-century Reformation. In the Reformation Park in Geneva there is the large Reformation Wall that is built of marble. There are a few figures and statues depicting Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Zwingli, Knox, and others intimately involved in the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. The first time I saw this wall, the thing that caught my mind was not the statues but the words post tenebras lux — "after darkness, light." What these words refer to is the darkness that came over the church in the Middle Ages that obscured and hid from public view the very essence of the gospel. The light of this gospel was hidden in large measure until the rediscovery of it by a German Augustinian monk named Martin Luther in Wittenberg, Germany.

When the gospel was rediscovered, it was though the light of the sun burst upon the midnight darkness and the whole world was turned upside down. This Reformation witnessed the greatest revival of apostolic Christianity in two thousand years of church history.

There is a problem of darkness when it comes to the church. Jewish philosopher Martin Buber in the twentieth century published a book called The Eclipse of God. I was intrigued as a student by the title of this book and I devoured it with relish. What Buber was getting at was that in modern and postmodern thought, there is a shadow that hides God and God is removed from our thinking. We do not think of history being guided by the invisible hand of God but by human programs and machinations.

I remember seeing the documentary on the Civil War on PBS and was amazed by its inclusion of letters written from both north and south. These letters communicated the pathos the soldiers knew in their situation when they saw the forces grouping and that a conflict with many casualties would follow. Nearly every soldier said, "I don't know what providence has in store for me tomorrow. Maybe you will hear from someone else what that providence has for me, but I am going into the morrow trusting in the benevolence of that providence."

Our culture does not talk like that anymore. Providence is now a city in Rhode Island famous for jewelry, not a viable, vital Christian doctrine. Yet it is not just the idea of providence that is in eclipse, but God Himself has been eclipsed from the view of everyday life in this country.

I like Buber's metaphor. In a solar eclipse, a shadow passes across the sun, and as the shadow begins to cover up the sun, darkness comes upon the land. This darkness only lasts for a short while until it moves past the sun and it can shine through once more. When an eclipse takes the place of the sun, the sun is not destroyed. The sun is not extinguished. It still burns with all of its intensity and manifests itself in all of its luminous brightness and refulgence. It is only hidden for a time. The shadow cannot harm it or annihilate it, but can only obscure it. That tenebras (darkness) is what the Reformers saw in the Middle Ages when the gospel of Jesus Christ had been eclipsed. The gospel had not been obliterated, the Bible was still there and the gospel was plainly taught in it, but the church had developed a sacerdotalism in which people are justified by priests and sacraments. Justification took place by the ministry of the church, not the finished work of Christ. Nothing was said about the importance of faith as the sole instrument of our justification. The light came on in the Reformation with the rediscovery of the gospel.

I read from Romans 1 because Paul is speaking of the universal, foundational, fundamental sin of the whole human race. That sin that brings us before God's tribunal in our natural state and leaves us exposed without an excuse.

The Innocent Native in Africa

he question I have heard more often from students than any other is "what happens to the poor, innocent native African who never hears the gospel?" I always answer that the poor, innocent native African goes straight heaven when he dies because the poor, innocent native in Africa does not need to hear the gospel or hear of Jesus Christ. I would not get out of bed to preach the gospel to innocent natives everywhere.

The real question is what happens to the guilty native of Africa, for there are no innocent natives in Africa or anywhere else. God is not going to punish people for rejecting that which they never heard, for that would be manifestly unjust. This does not mean that there is no need to worry. The gospel is given to a world that is already under judgment, not for rejecting the Son about whom it has never heard but for rejecting the Father. Why is the wrath of God revealed? It is revealed against all ungodliness and righteousness of men.

Is that fair? Of course it is. Why should he not be angry at these things? If God is good, he can hardly be pleased with evil. He cannot bless unrighteousness of any sort.

Paul is not speaking of unrighteousness in general but a particular sinful act. That one act is both ungodly and unrighteous. It is impious and immoral. That sin, the most fundamental, foundational sin of human existence, is the sin of suppressing, hiding, and distorting the truth of God.

God's Plain Revelation of Himself

Paul is teaching us in Romans 1 that God reveals himself to every person in this world, and this revelation does not happen in a hidden, esoteric way. He does not plant obscure clues for which a man must diligently search in order to conclude that God exists. God's revelation is phaneros — plain, clear, not obscure or hidden by shadows. God has revealed himself clearly to every human person. It is not that God has just made it possible to know He is there, but He has made Himself plain. He has shown us Himself in nature.

His invisible attributes are clearly seen. That sounds like a contradiction. We cannot see things that are invisible. To see them they must be made visible.

As a boy I saw the movie The Invisible Man. If he wanted to be seen he would put his clothes on. In the movie you would see the suit of clothes but no face or hands, and his hat would be perched on nothing. If he wanted to make himself more visible, he would powder his invisible face and he would suddenly become visible again. In order for the invisible man to make himself visible, he had to use means that were visible. This is what God does. God is invisible, yet He makes himself visible through the things that are made. Through the created order. What is known about Him includes even his eternal power and Godhead. This renders us without excuse.

On the day of judgment, what excuse will every impenitent sinner seek to use before God. What plea will they bring. In the 1940s there was a song with the lyrics "I didn't know the gun was loaded. And I'm very, very sorry my friend." This is the songwriter's plea to absolve Himself from harming somebody else because of ignorance. We want to argue the same before God. How can I be held responsible if I acted out of ignorance? This is the excuse every non-believer is banking on in the day of judgment. They will claim ignorance and say, "if I had seen you, I would have served you. I was not hardcore in my unbelief, I was an agnostic."

Those who are agnostics invite more judgment than atheists because the agnostic makes his lack of knowledge into God's fault. He says that God is hiding somewhere. Paul demolishes this argument with this teaching on general revelation. He has made himself known so that everyone is without excuse. The portrait we have of the final judgment and the response of those in God's presence at the final tribunal is that of silence. Every mouth will be stopped. On the judgment day there will be no debate. No prosecution will give a case that is that countered by the unbelievers' defense attorneys. Mouths will be shut because there are no excuses in light of the clear self-disclosure God gives of Himself to every human being.

Why are they without excuse? Because they did not glorify Him as God and nor were they were thankful. Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God. We refused to acknowledged what we knew to be true. That is the sin. The foundational sin of the human race is an antipathy towards honoring God and a lack of gratefulness to Him. Ingratitude, dishonoring of God — those are the sins that provoke God's wrath in this epistle.

These are the driving tendencies that seek to put God in eclipse. This is the condemnation — that we love the darkness rather than the light, because our deeds are evil. This is how the gospel went into eclipse. It was much easier to go to the church, take the sacraments, and be righteous before God. People did not want the gospel. To be justified by faith alone, if it is true, is not just sola fide (faith alone) but also sola gratia (grace alone). I don't bring any of my own righteousness, I only rely on the grace of God.

The Gospel

Luther said the righteousness by which we are justified is an alien righteousness. A foreign righteousness that, strictly speaking, is inherently not my own. It is someone else's — it is extra nos, outside ourselves. Who would not want this righteousness? Anyone who thinks depending on grace is beneath them and who wants to stand on their own merit. But if you think like this, then you have nothing on which to stand. Because by works of the law no man be justified (Gal. 2:15–16). No one is righteousness, not one (Rom. 3:10).

Only in the gospel is this made clear — that we cannot get into the kingdom ourselves or even with the help of 1,000 priests. We have to be dependent on grace and grace alone. During his lifetime, Luther rejoiced that the gospel had been rediscovered and that light had shown forth. But he had a fear that someone would come with a new motto: post lux tenebras — "after light, darkness." He was afraid that the light of the reformation would fade again and another shadow would obscure the truth of justification by faith alone.

He feared this because whenever the gospel is clearly and boldly preached, it inevitably brings conflict. We do not enjoy conflict. We want things to be peaceful. We hear today words like "don't worry about justification, it is doctrine and doctrine divides. Let's not make a big deal about it." The last sermon Luther preached in February of 1546 expressed concern about what was already happening in Germany. The gospel was being preached from pulpits across the land and yet people were still taking trips to reliquaries to touch Mary's milk, Joseph's pants, straw from the manger, the bones of John the Baptist, and so on.

Why were they doing that? Because they believed there was power in Joseph's pants. Because they though there was power in the straw from the manger. They looked for power in every place except where God put it. The power is in the gospel, and if a generation does not believe this then we have an eclipse of the gospel in that generation. Luther said people want to improve on the gospel. They are not satisfied with it. Paul calls it the gospel of God, not the gospel about God but God's gospel, God's message. Can you imagine hearing a message from God and then taking a moment to edit it? Can you imagine anyone trying to improve God's message?

If I decided to ask you to tell me the gospel, how would you answer? Would you say, "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life." That may be good news, but it is not the gospel. Or what about this: "God can direct your life with purpose." That is great news, but it is not the gospel. Maybe the gospel is this: "You can have a personal relationship with Jesus." Well, the Devil has a personal relationship with Jesus, but it is not a very good one.

The gospel is very clear in the New Testament. It is the news about Jesus. It is not my personal testimony. It is the news about who Jesus is and what He has done. It says that in the fullness of time, Jesus fulfilled the law perfectly, made atonement on the cross, was raised for our justification, ascended to heaven, sits at God's right hand as our Great High Priest and King of kings, and He will return again. This is the objective dimension of the gospel.

But we still do not have the gospel without the subjective dimension of it. We must know how these benefits are appropriated to us. It is by faith and faith alone. Justification by faith alone is an inherent part of the gospel. And if you are preaching anything besides this you are preaching a different gospel, and there is no different gospel.

In our day, we are seeing the resurgence of so-called evangelicalism and at the same time the so-called evangel — the gospel — is being obscured. We are in profound need today of rediscovering the gospel. The faith that we proclaim and share is a faith in something. It is faith in what Jesus has done and who He is. It is a grasping of Him and relying on Him and Him alone for our salvation. This is not understood. People do not want to hear it.

Doing our best is not good enough. Christ has done his best, and that is the best I need and the best I want. This is what this conference and academy is about. We want to make sure the gospel of Jesus Christ is not eclipsed now or ever but that we will raise up a generation of faithful students who know who God is, who do not want to suppress the truth, who want to proclaim the truth, and who hunger and thirst for the gospel.

2011 Academy Conference - Session 5 - Carl Trueman

On Saturday afternoon, Dr. Carl Trueman took the podium to explain the centrality of justification by faith alone. Here is what he had to say.

Introduction

Faith, as defined in classic Protestantism, is not what the wider culture today has in mind when it speaks of faith.

[image error]I was speaking to someone recently who has a relative who goes to a rehabilitation group for help in recovering from an addiction. This person went to one of these meetings with her relative and, being a Christian, she wanted to talk about her faith in God But this was not allowed. The emphasis in the meeting was on faith, but just faith in general, not faith in a specific concept or person. This is evident throughout our society. Faith is seen as a virtue today, but generally people are not referring to faith in something. Instead, faith is seen a nebulous concept that all will turn out well or it is something that gets you through the day. For the Protestant Reformers, however, faith was something deeper.

The Controversy of the Reformation

To see the importance of faith for Protestantism, we will look at the controversy of the Reformation, particularly Luther's contribution to the debate. First we need to understand Luther's background. He was trained as a medieval theologian even though theology in the 16th century, theology was moving in the direction of the Renaissance. He was trained in the via moderna or modern way, which was a late medieval development of earlier themes. Before the Reformation, medieval theologians understood justification as the transformation of people. You are justified if you are made righteous. God declares righteous those who were righteous in themselves or who had at least started the process toward righteousness. Justification iss a process that involves real change.

Thomas Aquinas is an exemplar of this view. Aquinas saw justification as the change brought about by the infusion of grace into a person through their participation in the sacraments. In partaking of bread and wine in the mass, something passes into you and changes you into someone more righteous. When God declares you justified it iss because there has been a change in your being.

Luther was not trained in Aquinas but in the modern way. These theologians had a profound sense of the otherness of God and did not want to impose on him that which the human mind conceived. Theologians of the via moderna believed that Aquinas' view of justification was an extrapolation from human reason. They said that God could declare an unrighteous person to be righteous These theologians said God will declare you righteous if you do your best even though unrighteousness remains. In some ways this is pastorally brilliant, because not everyone can attain the same level of righteousness. One need not achieve a certain standard to be declared righteous but only one only needs to do one's best in order to get an initial infusion of grace.

But how do you know when you have done your best? Luther saw that the pastoral advantage of this position was also its Achilles heel. This drove him to wrestle with his sin, Psalms, Romans, and the human condition.

Luther's Insight

By April 1518, Luther's thinking on justification starts to develop. He presides over the Heidelberg Disputation in that year. In these theses we see Luther's thinking on faith and justification start to emerge. Its last thesis (#28) captures Luther's theology in a nutshell: "The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it."

Luther meant that human love is a response to something that is intrinsically beautiful and lovely. We see some quality in an object and move to it in love. This is true in marriage and with our children. We love our spouses because we find something lovely in them. We love our children because they are our children. Divine love, on the other hand, is of a whole different order. Divine love creates that which is lovely to it, it does not find it. The great flaw in medieval theology was that human beings assumed that God thinks like us but more perfectly. Luther argued on the contrary that God does not think or love like we do. He does not find a lovely object and then loves it. He finds an unlovely object and makes it lovely.

Thesis 25 of the Heidelberg Disputation says that "he is not righteous who does much, but he who, without work, believes much in Christ." If God thinks like us, then we think justification operates like our human relationships operate. If we think of God in this way, making amends to him makes perfect sense. We try to make amends toward those whom we have offended, and if God is like us, we will think that we need to do what we can to make up for our sin.

Luther expands upon thesis 25: "For the righteousness of God is not acquired by means of acts frequently repeated, as Aristotle taught, but it is imparted by faith, for 'He who through faith is righteous shall live' (Rom. 1:17) and 'Man believes with his heart and so is justified' (Rom. 10:10). Therefore I wish to have the words 'without work' understood in the following manner: Not that the righteous person does nothing, but that his works do not make him righteous, rather that his righteousness creates works. For grace and faith are infused without our works. After they have been imparted the works follow. Thus Rom. 3:20 states, 'No human being will be justified in His sight by works of the law,' and, 'For we hold that man is justified by faith apart from works of law' (Rom. 3:28) In other words, works contribute nothing to justification. "Therefore man knows that works which he does by such faith are not his but God's. For this reason he does not seek to become justified or glorified through them, but seeks God. His justification by faith in Christ is sufficient to him. Christ is his wisdom, righteousness, etc., as 1 Cor. 1:30 has it, that he himself may be Christ's vessel and instrument."

What Luther is talking about here in terms of faith is far different than the Oprah Winfrey kind of faith that says everything is going to be okay. For Luther, faith is linked to Christ and the promises of Scripture. Faith is linked to a complete inversion of human expectations about God. Faith is coming to a knowledge that God is nothing like we imagine Him to be. It has a definite content and is not just some kind of nebulous trust. It is connected to the complete overturning of human projections of who God is and what He is like.

How Luther's Insight Came

Luther did not have this breakthrough immediately. A series of things happened in Luther's mind to bring him to this position. First, his view of sin changed. The via moderna said that sin was a weakness, a tendency to do things we do not want to do. If sin is a weakness or like dirt, then baptism becomes a healing/cleansing and justification becomes a process of cleansing. Luther in 1515/16 concluded that he had understood sin wrongly. It is not a weakness; it is death. And dead bodies cannot work. Luther came to think of baptism as a resurrection. He saw the seriousness of sin and the absolute need of God to take the initiative.

Heidelberg Disputation Theses 19–21: "That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the 'invisible' things of God as though they were clearly 'perceptible in those things which have actually happened' (Rom. 1:20; cf. 1 Cor 1:21–25), he deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross. A theology of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theology of the cross calls the thing what it actually is."

We can illustrate this by looking at 1 Corinthians. First Corinthians is a letter sent to the church in the Las Vegas of the ancient world. The amazing thing is that there was a church there, not that there were sexual problems in the congregation. Yet despite its problems, Paul could still call it the body of Christ. If we were to look at the Corinthian church we would see 60–70 people who were absolute low-lifes and yet Paul calls it the body of Christ and temple of the Spirit. He saw the church through the eyes of faith. Faith is not reducible to trust but is a whole approach to reality. He articulates this in chapter 1. The cross is foolishness and offense, and this is fortunate because the Corinthians were foolish nobodies whom God made into a church.

Luther's theology of the cross is held by one who looks at reality through the framework of revelation. We cannot talk about faith without talking about its content. The theology of glory says "Christ, if you are the king, come down from your cross." This is the first thief on the cross. The second thief says "when you enter your kingdom, let me in." He is not thinking in human terms or theology of glory terms. He knows that death is no bar to entering the kingdom but that Christ's death is the only way in. He is thinking in terms of the cross.

Heidelberg Disputation Thesis 26: "The law says, 'do this,' and it is never done. Grace says, 'believe in this,' and everything is already done." This is the counterintuitive work of the cross. God's love is fundamentally different than that of human beings. This is his foundation of his work with human beings. Luther's notion of righteousness is that it is something given to us by faith. "But that isn't fair," is the common reply. That means it is not fair according to human criteria of fairness. But that understanding is the theology of glory. That is not the logic of faith or of the Bible. If you have no faith, the theology of the cross is nonsense. The logic of the cross works only if you have faith.

The Joyful Exchange

Luther's Freedom of the Christian Man in 1520 explained the joyful exchange of righteousness and sin when we are united to Christ by faith. Faith unites the soul to Christ as a bride is united to her bridegroom. Christ and the soul become one flesh. These two spouses hold things in common. Soul can boast as having what is ever Christ's and vice versa. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation; the soul is full of sin and damnation. When faith joins us to Christ, there is a transfer. Our sins pass to Christ and His righteousness passes to us. This puts faith in its place. Faith in itself is not meritorious. We are not saved because of faith but because of the righteousness that we receive because of faith. This takes us away from us any nebulous notion of faith as a trust that one is better of having than not having at all.

Take away propositions about Jesus and you take away Christianity. Faith has content. It is faith in somebody and if you take away propositions, you take away that somebody. Faith is not a contentless, existential encounter. So if someone says, "I know in my heart that it is true," then you know right away that it what they are saying is false.

The obvious criticism is that this paves the way to moral laxity. Luther knew that people would present this argument. Roman Catholics still use this argument today. It has a power to it. But there is an effective answer. Luther saw the law in negative terms regarding salvation. The law drives us to the gospel, which offers Christ to us when we are in broken and in need of a savior. Luther said good works flow as the spontaneous response to grace. Adam did not work to establish a status before God; he had the status and so he worked. We are justified by the pure mercy of God and so we work. Adam and his progeny would have done works on the same basis had they never sinned. The justified person is returned to paradise where works are not done to make righteous but simply because we love and trust a great God.

Luther's The Bondage of the Will is relevant for our view of justification. For Luther, faith is a gift of god. This flies against popular notions of faith. Dead men cannot muster up faith so it must be a gift, according to Luther. Luther says that "if we believe Christ has redeemed men by his blood, we are bound to confess that the whole man was lost; otherwise, we should make Christ either superfluous or the redeemer of only the lowest part of man, which would be blasphemy and sacrilege."

Justification, Luther says in this work, is based on five propositions:

1. Sin has rendered humanity morally dead.
2. Righteousness is not found in doing good works but solely in Christ.
3. The Law teaches that all have died in sin and are incapable of saving themselves.
4. The gospel offers the promise of salvation in Christ.
5. We are united by faith to Christ and receive Christ's righteousness when we believe the gospel.

Faith is not without content in Protestantism. All of the Protestant Reformers agreed upon this. Melanchthon, Luther's assistant, articulates justification in courtroom metaphors, picking up on Luther's ideas. But this was not contrary to Luther's marital views. Luther, in a letter, said he agreed with everything Melanchthon said in his courtroom analogy of justification. Calvin and Luther are at one with each other against Pelagianism and in their common agreement regarding the imputation of Christ's righteousness.

The Reformers Agree

Perspicuity, or the clarity of Scripture, rests on the coherence of the canon, the ability to reliably translate Hebrew and Greek in a way that conveys the concepts of the original languages, and more. One common objection to the perspicuity of Scripture is the disagreements among Protestants. Why the disagreement, Roman Catholics and others say, if the Bible is so clear?

But on key gospel elements there is no difference among mainstream confessional Protestants.

Sixteenth-century Europe was truly diverse, a hodgepodge of different kingdoms and territories. There were different communities and linguistic groups. There was a remarkable flowering of confessional documents at that time. Yet they all share a remarkable agreement. The Belgic confession, Genevan confession, Hungarian confession, and so on all substantially agree on what Scripture says about certain issues. In terms of what salvation is, there is no significant difference. We can include the Lutheran confessions and later Baptist confessions in this agreement as well. All basically concur on the central elements of the gospel, the identity of God, the actions of God, and how Christ is appropriated to the believer.

The central elements of the faith have not disagreements. Calvin, Melanchthon and Luther agree on justification, incarnation, and more. There is not basic diversity but basic unity.

Justification by faith really is the explosive that blows the whole church apart. Justification by faith shatters the need for the priesthood. You do not need the mediation of grace through the sacraments and the priesthood if justification is by faith alone.

In the present day, justification debates are not passé. If justification is the thing Protestants got fundamentally wrong, we have no reason to be Protestants anymore. This is the fundamental reason for Protestantism and all other differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics flow from this. I'm not advising you to be Catholics but am saying it to highlight the importance of justification. Justification is not a debate about church order and other things over which we can agree to disagree. It is an essential component of the gospel.

The Sanctity of Life

"For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well" (Ps. 139:13–14).

Whenever a potential nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States is vetted by the Senate, questions will invariably arise regarding that individual's opinion on the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. Many senators will not usually vote to confirm the justice if the appointee opposes abortion on demand.

Today we will look at the ethics of abortion. For decades, abortion on-demand — abortion for any reason whatsoever — within the first trimester has been a legal right in the United States. Note that we have called it a legal right. Legal rights from the government and moral rights from God can be, and too often are, entirely different things.

Supporters of the Roe v. Wade decision say they just want to give women "the right to control their bodies," and so those who endorse abortion on-demand are usually called "pro-choice." But make no mistake, this terminology is not accidental. Those who are adamantly pro-abortion chose this phrase years ago because they knew few could get enthusiastic about killing unborn babies. Framing the debate as a debate for women's rights and personal liberty, however, engenders more support. Ironically, this same concern for women's rights is not afforded to the female infants who are aborted each year.

Scripture forbids abortion on demand because it maintains that human beings are in the image of God at every stage of life. The Bible repeatedly refers to the unborn as persons (see today's passage), revealing that life begins at conception. Thus, wantonly ending the child's life is murder. Moreover, God's Word says children are a blessing (Ps. 127:3) and describes the great longing holy women like Hannah had for children (1 Sam. 1). The willing destruction of a developing life was unthinkable to faithful Israelites.

The moral right to govern our own bodies is biblical in principle, but the Bible recognizes that an individual's rights end where another's begin. From conception, the developing baby is a distinct individual with his own identity. To claim "women's rights" is grossly inappropriate, for in controlling her body, the woman who aborts a child is destroying the Lord's image.

Coram Deo

Some of the women reading this study today may have had an abortion. If so, know that you have been forgiven if you have repented and trusted in Christ alone. As Christians, we are called to uphold the duty to nurture the unborn. We can do this by lobbying our politicians for laws that protect the unborn and by providing for those who think abortion is their only option. Consider giving to a local crisis pregnancy center seeking to prevent abortions.

Passages for Further Study

Ex. 21:22–25
Ps. 127:3–5
Jer. 1:5
Matt. 2:16–18

2011 Academy Conference - Session 4 - Questions & Answers

After a full morning of messages by Carl Trueman and Stephen Nichols, we started the afternoon with a question and answer session with Drs. Nichols, Sproul, and Trueman. Chris Larson moderated.

Question: Why do you think we don't have the authority to label heretics as much as in the early church? Should we be able to apply that label?

Carl Trueman: It was easier in earlier times because first, the early church instituted a unity that we don't have anymore. Today we have a variety of churches so we can move from one to another with relative ease. Second, there is now a cultural distaste for dividing over theological issues. We tend to think of heresy under more intellecutal terms than moral terms. We still have notions of heresy, but they've shifted. The inability to call out heretics is part of a general cultural way we've come to.

Q: Do you think there is a lack of unity or conviction around the set of doctrines for which we could then apply the term heretic?

Trueman: It depends on what you mean. In confessional churches, there are significant degrees of doctrines. One thing we have lost today is the disctinciton between heresy and error. Not every error is a heresy. There are errors where we can agree to differ.

[image error]Q: Dealing with the term repentance, is it just a change of mind or does it go deeper?

Stephen Nichols: It goes deeper. A gloss translation is a change of mind, but when you look at what Christ is putting before his audience, he's calling for some deeper. He's calling for an about-face, which the holy spirit helps with. 

Q: Evil, or sin, originates in the heart of men. However, is the decree of God that sin should enter the world? Does God decree sin's existence and its proportion?

R.C. Sproul: One of the standards of the Westminster Confession says God has ordained whatsoever comes to pass. God is not the author of evil but since God is sovereign and omnipotent, nothing can happen in the universe apart from his sovereignty. When evil came into the world, God was aware of it and had the power to stop it, just like he knows when I'm going to sin. He lets me do it not by sanctioning it, but He chooses not to stop. If he doesn't prevent something, He's choosing that it come to pass. In that dimension, He ordains evil. In His eternal plan, He uses it to bring about His ultimate purposes.

Q: Dr. Nichols - I appreciate your study of church history. How do you practically put to use historical theology? Is it one reference of study or does it have a sense of first among equals?

Nichols: Scripture always needs to be first and foremost. We look to historical writings because they're merely pointing beyond themselves to Scripture, so that must always be kept in mind. But there is a sense in which the past is a helpful guardrail when we go to read the Scriptures. I would encourage you to allow some of these folks to minister to you as you read through them. We really are part of a community as Christians but it's not just gloabal, it's historical. These historical figures have the ability to see through the static to get to what matters. Allow them to nourish your soul.

Sproul: I'd like to add to that going back to the tradition that Steve spoke about this morning. The sin of substituting the Word of God with the traditions of man is something we need to be careful with. The apostolic tradition is something that each of these great teachers from history kept in tact. They didn't try to create a whole new Christianity. 

Q: Dr. Trueman - Can we have a definition of perspicuity?

Trueman: Perspicuity means that the fundamental message of Scripture is clear to whatever eyes are open to see. It doesn't mean that every passage is equally clear, but the basic message will come through loud and clear. You don't have to have an advanced degree to understand the New Testament.

Q: Is it okay to worship the Holy Spirit?

Sproul: We believe in the Holy Spirit, and it's always appropriate to worship God. But if what is meant is do we seek to separate the godhead, that would be inappropriate. But our worship is to be trinitarian.

Q: Does God love those in hell?

Sproul: Yes and no. In the New Testament we hear about the love of God and the different types of divine love. There is benevolence (good will towards all), but the highest form of love is complacency (God's love for His elect). We hear all the time that God loves everyone unconditionally, but I would like to find that in the Bible. If that's the case, we don't have to do anything. People say God hates sin but loves the sinner. That sounds nice, but he doesn't send the sin to hell, he sends the sinner. We have to come to grips with passages like Isaiah where we hear that God abhors the wicked. He is set against evildoers. Obviously, he dosn't have the love of complanceny for them.

Q: What does it mean to be a reformed congregation, theologian, or church. Aren't all protestants reformed?

Nichols: Yes, all are reformed, just maybe to different degrees. Reformed is a commitment to eschatology, but it runs deeper. It also entails a commitment to a covenant understanding of Scripture. It extends to commit to understanding the marks of a true church - preaching, the sacraments, and church discipline. It seems like those are at least a starting point.

Q: Do you think there is a gap between theologians and laypeople and what do we do with that gap? It's almost as if we need a gap between Sunday school and seminary, R.C.

Sproul: That's what Ligonier exists to do. I believe that the Lord in establishing his church put a premium on preaching and teaching. I believe in the education of clergy - those educated are called to a high degree of understanding to handle the Word of God. There is a charge to pastors to feed their sheep. For the last 45 years, I've had one leg in the church and one in the academic world and it is so easy to get lost in the academic world in the pursuit of knowlege and forget why you're trying to learn. The pursuit of truth and godliness were married for these leaders in church history we've been talking about. The biggest challenge for the scholar is to be able to communicate what he's learned at a simple level without distorting the truth. 

Q: What place do secular things have in the life of the Christian, especially music?

Trueman: Like many cultural pursuits, one of the things music does is bring pleasure and alleviate boredom in a fallen world. However, we must be careful because music, like fine food, can be good but can also become an idol. It can occupy too much time and money to where you are neglecting your duties. We must be careful, but I welcome music the Lord has given.

Nichols: What I found in blues was a real resonance with some themes in Scripture in terms of the lament, embracing the curse and realities of life in a foreign world. It better tuned me into some themes in Scripture.

Sproul: I love the blues. I think the blues was born in Egypt when God heard the cries of His people. Redemptive history really took off during the exodus. In our own history, we had the institution of slavery. People who were purchased, separated from family, and put to work living in poverty had very little to enjoy and much to be sorrowful about. In the basic structure of western music, we make a distinction between major and minor. The major sounds happy, while the minor sounds sad. In the black community, to express pain, they created music where they jammed between major and minor. The blues was born as an expression of people's pain and with it, an eschatological hope. We have classic spirituals that have enriched our hymnody because of it. In many cases, all the slaves had was their knowledge of the Bible, which was incredible.

2011 Academy Conference - Session 3 - Carl Trueman

Dr. Carl Trueman's first message at this weekend's Ligonier Academy Conference was titled "Truth." Dr. Trueman indicated that since his training is in church history he would be approaching his subject from a historical perspective.

Today the issue of Scripture's truth is coming to the foreground again. There are two areas where a renewed scrutiny toward Scripture is being focused. The first concerns the referential truth of Scripture. Are the words of Scripture true? The second concerns the perspicuity of Scripture. Is Scripture clear?

[image error]Dr. Trueman turned to church history to explain the fundamental importance of the inspiration and clarity of Scripture. He surmised that the modern world's suspicion and disdain for words is rooted in the desire to silence God. Why? Because, from the beginning of the church, the words of God have been absolutely basic to Christianity.

In the early church fathers, we find a constant reference to Scripture and a full confidence in citing Scripture. This implies first, that God's words have been written down and second, that the citation of these words is enough to hang an argument on.

The early church fathers understood that Scripture was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Dr. Trueman provided several quotations from Clement, Athenagoras, and Gregory the Great, showing that they all believed in the inspiration of Scripture and connected inspiration to the very being of God. Some today argue that a high view of inspiration is a relatively modern invention, but a high view of inspiration is already assumed in the early church.

Dr. Trueman continued with a quotation from Augustine on inerrancy. Augustine's comment is interesting because it demonstrates that he did not begin by assuming that a difficulty he encountered in the Bible was due to a problem with the Bible itself. Instead Augustine said that the problem might be with his own understanding or with the translation or with the manuscript. The Bible though is without error.

In the second half of his message, Dr. Trueman addressed the clarity of Scripture. He focused on the debate between the great Reformation humanist Erasmus and Martin Luther. Trueman noted that their debate was over more than predestination. It was also a struggle over Scripture.

Luther had stated that Scripture was clear and that theology should be formulated by comparing Scripture with Scripture. This was an explosive idea because it undermined the authority of the Roman church. Roman Catholicism is predicated on the idea that ordinary people cannot interpret Scripture rightly.

Erasmus and Luther had different conceptions of what Christianity is. For Erasmus, Christianity was about basic morality. Doctrine was not as important. For Luther, on the other hand, the basic question was: Where can I find a gracious God? Christianity for Luther is all about the Gospel.

Because the Gospel is a declaration, Christianity is fundamentally about assertions. Take away assertions and you take away Christianity. For Luther, preaching should be first and foremost doctrinal. This kind of preaching requires a clear Scripture. We must grasp the Gospel by faith, so the Gospel must be clear.

Luther's view of perspicuity or clarity involved two ideas: the internal perspicuity of Scripture and the external perspicuity of Scripture. Internal perspicuity has to do with our response in faith to the truth of Scripture. Luther explained the difference between the Pope and himself in the following way. He said that he and the Pope agreed that Christ was born of a virgin, died on the cross, was buried, was resurrected, ascended into heaven, and will come again. We both believe these propositions of the Apostles' Creed, Luther said, but I believe Christ did these things for me. This idea of internal perspicuity is important when dealing with those who set the Spirit against Scripture. We must understand that the Spirit enables us to believe and understand the Word.

External perspicuity concerns the matter of the external judgment on what Scripture means. Luther links this to proclamation of the Word. Scripture, he says, functions within the church. When we read commentaries, we are engaging with the wider body of the church in order to bring out the meaning of the text. We see, then, that Luther had a profound understanding of the corporate church. Luther believed that Scripture is clear when we gather together, hear the Word preached, and assess these things by Scripture. Luther knew that some things in Scripture are clearer than others. This is why catechism is important. The catechism gives us the basic framework within which we may understand the harder parts.

Dr. Trueman concluded by reminding us that in the current struggles over Scripture it is important to articulate both the fact of Scripture's truth as well as its perspicuity. Protestantism and Christianity depend on both.

Experiencing God's Forgiveness from Guilt Connected with Abortion

Thirty-eight years ago today, the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion on demand. Since then thousands of lives have been affected by this sin that deeply grieves the heart of God. Indeed, He hates it. Yet, in His great mercy He offers forgiveness to those who genuinely repent.

In his book on Abortion, R.C. Sproul writes:

Thousands of people struggle with guilt connected with abortion. It haunts women who have had them, men who have encouraged them, and doctors who have performed them. One doctor reported in The New York Times that she had to prepare herself emotionally and often endured sleepless nights before performing abortions: "It's a very tough thing for a gynecologist to do," she said. "The emotions it arouses are so strong . . . that doctors don't talk to each other about it." On one occasion, this doctor collapsed on the floor, overcome by emotion, after performing an abortion.

Guilt is a powerful emotion, one that has the capacity to inflict severe psychological paralysis on people. I once was approached by a practicing psychiatrist with an offer to join his staff. He explained that a large number of his patients were suffering from problems related to severe guilt. "These people don't need a doctor, they need a priest," he said. "They need someone to tell them they are forgiven."

This psychiatrist had no loyalty to Christianity; he was simply concerned about the mental health of his patients. He understood the devastating power of unresolved guilt, and he recognized that denial and rationalization were not effective means of dealing with real guilt. The only effective cure for real guilt is real forgiveness. To try to cover the stain on our hands is a poor substitute for having the stain removed.

Experiencing God's forgiveness

To experience the profound liberation of forgiveness, one must simply go to God and confess the sin with a humble heart and a contrite spirit. Contrition involves a genuine and godly sorrow for having disobeyed God. It differs from the repentance of attrition, which is a false form of repentance motivated by a fear of punishment. Attrition is seen in a child who, when he sees a paddle in his mother's hand, is sorry that he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. True repentance acknowledges the reality of the guilt and does not try to justify it. Anyone who approaches God with true humility, contrition, and an earnest resolution not to commit the sin again will surely receive the forgiveness of God…

Though what I have done cannot be undone, I can be forgiven. Forgiveness is one of the marvels of God's grace. Its healing power is magnificent. If a woman has been involved in abortion, God does not require that she spend the rest of her life walking around with a red "A" on her chest. He does require that she repent of her sin and come to Him for the cleansing of forgiveness. When God forgives us, we are forgiven. When God cleanses us, we are made clean. That is a cause for great celebration.

Excerpt from Abortion: A Rational Look at An Emotional Issue by R.C. Sproul

Also see: What is the Gospel? by R.C. Sproul

2011 Academy Conference - Session 2 - Stephen Nichols

[image error]After Friday night's "Theology in Dialogue" roundtable discussion and question-and-answer session, the speaker addresses for the 2011 Ligonier Academy Conference are on tap today. The conference theme is "Pillars of Christian Orthodoxy: History, Truth, Faith," with each of the three speakers addressing one of the pillars during the day.

The day's first session, "History," featured Dr. Stephen J. Nichols, research professor of Christianity and culture and chair of the biblical division at Lancaster Bible College and Graduate School in Lancaster, Pa. Dr. Nichols is the author of a number of books, including The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World, Jonathan Edwards: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, and Jesus Made in America.

Dr. Nichols opened by quoting from J. Gresham Machen's inaugural address as an assistant professor at Princeton Theological Seminary on May 3, 1915, in which he declared, "The modern church is impatient of history." Almost a century later, these words remain relevant, but the postmodern church is not only impatient of history, it is disdainful of history. Our age believes new is better. However, we are a people with a past, and when the church marches on in ignorance of its history, it is in great peril.

To stress the importance of history, Dr. Nichols discussed three points:

First, our faith is a historical faith. The apostle Paul said the gospel is that Jesus lived, died, was buried, and rose again, all in space and time. Our faith is not a faith of metaphors. These events really happened.

Second, our church is a historical church. In some circles, tradition is a bad word. But Martin Luther said tradition is valuable. He did not write of fifteen hundred years of church history in his opposition to the Roman Catholic Church. His fight for sola Scriptura was all about authority.

Recognizing the value of tradition gives us perspective. We must not think so highly of what the Holy Spirit teaches us that we neglect what the Holy Spirit has taught others through the centuries.

Recognizing the value of tradition also gives us humility. We realize that we are not the first to wrestle with the biblical text. The saints of the past can instruct us.

Third, our God is the God of history. Dr. Nichols devoted the bulk of his lecture to this point. He began by noting that prior to Augustine, most philosophies of history were cyclical, but Augustine set forth a linear philosophy, saying that time had a beginning and will have an end, and in the middle, God is governing His universe by His providence.

This philosophy teaches us that God is sovereign over all things. Augustine said that God's dominion is sometimes manifest, sometimes hidden but always just, and that means it is good. A linear philosophy also teaches us that history is ultimately eschatology. It is being driven toward God's decreed end. This means that the life that is worth living is the life lived for the kingdom of God.

Edward Taylor, a Puritan pastor in Westfield, Mass., from 1671 to 1729, and an accomplished poet, saw himself as "a crumb of dust" in comparison to God. But he recognized that even "a crumb of dust" was designed to glorify God. In between creation and consummation, we live to glorify God.

This was Paul's perspective. In Romans 9:17, he notes that God raised up Pharaoh to show His power and so that His name might be proclaimed. As God's covenant people, we have the same purpose. Our task is to let God's glory show forth.

Thus, in the time between creation and consummation, we live to glorify God, always keeping our eyes on the end.

Jonathan Edwards once preached a series of thirty sermons titled "The History of the Work of Redemption." In it, Edwards likened history to a river. If we stand beside a river, we may wonder how it will ever reach the ocean. If we are given a bird's-eye view, we see only more obstacles. But God intends all streams to "disgorge" themselves at the end. Not one of all the streams shall fail, as God governs history to its decreed end.

2011 Academy Conference - Session 1 - Theology in Dialogue

[image error]The 2011 Ligonier Academy Conference on pillars of Christian orthodoxy began Friday, January 21, with a Q&A session featuring Drs. Stephen Nichols, R.C. Sproul, R.C. Sproul Jr., and Carl Trueman. Chris Larson moderated.

Question: In one sentence, what is the message of the Bible?

R.C. Sproul: If I had to explain the message of the Bible in one sentence it would have to be "the autobiography of God," because what I find in scripture is the character and attributes of God shown fourth in His plan of redemption for a lost and rebellious world.

Stephen Nichols: Two things I would say. One is not a complete sentence, but: creation, fall, redemption, restoration. The other would be that God is in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, and He's doing that because He who knew no sin, took on our sin and became sin for us — all of this for His glory.

Carl Trueman: I don't think it can be done in one sentence. I think that "the autobiography of God" is probably that best you'll get, but, still, when we are dealing with the level of biblical ignorance that people have, we cannot assume that people understand what the word "God" means. In our culture, it takes a much longer time talking to an unbeliever to explain even those basic elements.

R.C. Sproul Jr.: Romans 1 tells us that there are two things that the unbeliever knows: (1) there is a holy God and (2) they are not holy. Yes, they suppress this truth in unrighteousness, but they do know it. So if I had to come up with one sentence that would be most helpful to the unbeliever, it would be these words in the book of Revelation: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end; to the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment" (Rev. 21:6). I think this gets it by showing us the holiness of God, our need, and His provision.

Q: What should a Trinitarian emphasis look like in the life of the church or the individual Christian?

R.C. Sproul: When you ask that question, I think about the exodus and about God brining a people out of bondage in Egypt so they can worship Him. In American churches, I have not seen just a deterioration, but almost a total collapse of Godly worship. And I think that's because people don't have any idea of Who it is they are coming to worship. If we can communicate the biblical revelation of God, and we come to an understanding of who He is, then, the first corollary of this understanding is that we will have a revolutionary understanding of who we are as creatures in relation to the Creator. Nothing less than understanding this biblical, Trinitarian revelation of God will do.

R.C. Sproul Jr.: Some theologians can have the tendency to seek God as an object of study, more than an object of worship. When they do that, they end up taking these glorious attributes of God and separating them from the person.

Against this idea, I think of Jesus' high priestly prayer wherein He desires for us to enjoy the same unity with the Father that He enjoys with the Father. This requires a recovery of the doctrine of the atoning work of Jesus Christ in our churches; which is not just this idea that Jesus died, and your forgiven, but it is the truth that you're adopted as His child. This loving unity between the members of the Trinity is something we participate in because of the work of Christ. We become the children of God.

Carl Trueman: I think church history, or a knowledge of church history can help here. One of the practical problems you face when trying to teach people Trinitarian theology is the language of "substance" and "person." It can sound quite abstract. It helps to keep in mind that the formulation of this language in the fourth century came out of two basic issues: One was trying to understand what it means to say "Jesus is Lord." And the second is trying to understand the baptismal formula (i.e, why do we baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?). And if we keep this in mind, it will help us avoid problematic views of the Trinity and to be more sympathetic with the early church's, and our, formulation.

Q: What do you say to the person who says that church is not relevant and is boring?

R.C. Sproul: If we go to the Scriptures and see the record of individuals who encounter God in this world (e.g., Jacob at Bethel, Abraham in Genesis 15, Moses and the burning bush, Habakkuk, Job, Jeremiah, Isaiah), you'll see a wide range of human emotions and reactions. Sometimes it's a giddy joy. Sometimes it's just an awe inspiring silence. Sometimes it's the quivering lip and the trembling belly. Sometimes it's the rottenness that enters the bones. Other times it's weeping. There is no singular, monolithic, prescribed, human emotional response to an encounter with God's presence in holy Scripture. If you canvass all of those events, the one emotion you will never ever, ever find in Scripture is that people are bored in the presence of God.

So instead of trying to entertain and keep people's attentions, why don't we simply present God to the people and develop our worship in every way to awaken the people to the presence and character of Almighty God? If you bring people into the presence of God and give them His word, how can it not be relevant?

Carl Trueman: If you find the preaching of the word of God boring, you need to repent.

Stephen Nichols: There is a passage in the middle of Ecclesiastes that request our words to be few when we draw near to the house of God, because we are on earth but He is in heaven (Eccl. 5:1-2). There is a fundamental "otherness" to worship that is lost on wide swaths of American culture, and that game of meeting them where they are is a dangerous game to play.

R.C. Sproul Jr.: When we are worshiping rightly, it's not so much that we realize that we are on earth and He is in heaven, but that, in worship, He takes us from here to there. In Hebrews chapter 12, we read:

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, "If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned." Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear." But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all. (vv. 18-23) Our worship lifts us up into the heavenly places. When we truly experience the presence of God, we won't be bored.

Q: Dr. Truman, what are some particular problem areas in the American church?

Carl Trueman: One of the things that I tend to see in the American religious world is how secularism has taken over in certain areas. There is still a prominent feeling that health, wealth, and prosperity are still very important to us — I get concerned that even in confessionally orthodox churches, those in the pew and even some behind the pulpit are (beneath the surface) functionally health, wealth, and happiness people.

[image error]Q: Dr. Nichols, why is it a peculiar temptation among church leaders to have to comment on everything and to be the guru on every topic under the sun?

Stephen Nichols: The pressure seems to be on people to be the theological "dear abby," and to be able to address any and every topic. The remedy to this is realizing that a minister of the word needs to be talking about God, Scripture, and salvation. Leave the question of "what does a Christian vacation look like?" to someone else.

Q: Dr. Sproul, would you share with us the experience you had with Francis Schaeffer when you asked him, "What's your biggest concern for the American church?"

R.C. Sproul: Francis Schaeffer didn't hesitate when asked this question. He said, "statism." He saw the culture moving in this direction, and he thought that it would have a strong impact on the church. Statism is secularization on steroids. And it's been amazing to me to see the state creeping more and more into every aspect of human life and the exponential growth of the central government after Schaeffer uttered that concern 30 years ago.

R.C. Sproul Jr.: There are difficult questions that surround the church's involvement with the state. Is the church allowed to speak to political issues? Should the church speak up? As with so many things, the right answer is balance and wisdom. When you hear Christians talking about statism, the conversation often goes to discussing policy arguments without much resolution. The problem of statism isn't so much the size of the government or the consumption of national wealth, but the worshiping of the state.

Q: Tomorrow is the 38th anniversary of the legal decision that we know as Roe v. Wade. Globally it is estimated that over the course of this next year, 42 million children will be murdered around the world. What is the role of the church in an area where the state says abortion is a legal right?

R.C. Sproul: There's a broad spectrum of answers to the relationship of the church to the state, even within the reformed community, but one principle that is clear in the scriptures, is that even without a theocratic situation, the church always has the responsibility to offer prophetic criticism to the state — not for the church to take the sword and be the state or for the state to administer the sacraments. What we're asking is not for the state to become the church but for the state to be the state. The existence of the state primarily and foundational is for the protection, the maintenance, and the care of human life.

Stephen Nichols: On this issue, I think the church's prophetic voice needs to be raised for the sanctity of life, based on the image of God. I think we need to make a theological argument for that. But I also wonder if the church should have a priestly role along with its prophetic voice, in terms of a full orb response to the culture.

R.C. Sproul Jr.: I would want to encourage not only this prophetic voice, but I would argue that the prophetic and priestly voice need to be brought to bear in the house of God. We have this propensity to act as though abortion is "out there," but the facts of the matter show that abortion is present in the church. The studies that have been conducted show that abortion within evangelicalism is no different than the broader culture. I'll say this too, inside the church, our view of children is akin to the view of children in the world — we treat them as burdens, yet the Bible says they're blessings. Until the church believes God on that issue, we can expect the unbelievers to continue to continue with this murder.

Q: Why does a Christian throughout his life need to ask for forgiveness when all of his sins have already been forgiven?

Carl Trueman: I think you are pointing to the tension of living in the here and now. Were not sinlessly perfect, and therefore we do sin. When we sin, there is a since in which our sins were all dealt with on Calvary. Yet that doesn't negate the fact that, at some point in history, you need to repent and turn to Christ. Ultimately, this is a tension we will live with, but we recognize that the Bible still calls us to ask for forgiveness.

R.C. Sproul Jr.: I want to add to that a familial perspective. When we are regenerated and brought into the kingdom, we are adopted permanently. So the forgiveness that we're talking about in 1 John is not a forgiveness in order to restore a destroyed relationship. This is a seeking after forgiveness from your loving father.

Q: How does reformed theology speak to aesthetics?

Stephen Nichols: I would recommend the work of Bill Edgar, who has thought very well about beauty, specifically from a reformed stance. I think we start with the theology of creation for our theology of beauty.

Even as we look at Scripture, it is a work of literature. God could have given us bullet points, but he gives it to us in the form of genre — Scripture itself is a work of art when we step back and look at it. So, I think we start there with the doctrine of revelation and the doctrine of creation for a theology of beauty.

R.C. Sproul: Every form is an art form, and every art form communicates something. It is impossible to build a building without a form. Whatever kind of color you paint the walls and whatever kind of floor you have, it all communicates a message. Just as all truth directs our eyes to God, all goodness directs our eyes to the source and foundation of all goodness, also, all beauty ultimately sends us to the Fountainhead of that which is beautiful, which is the character of God himself.

Q: How would you asses the Pentecostal movement in the last century?

Carl Trueman: The acid test of, for want of a better word, revival is, "does it lead to an increased focus on Jesus Christ?" If the revival leads to a focus on strange phenomenon, or even a focus on the Holy Spirit, then I think one has grounds for doubting whether it is what it purports to be.

I appreciate an analogy Jim Packer gave comparing the Holy Spirit to the flood lights at a sporting event. If you go to a sporting event in the evening, you don't go to stare at the flood lights, but if the flood lights weren't there, you wouldn't be able to see the event. In other words, if the Holy Spirit is there, you will see Christ. You don't spend your time looking at the flood lights. So, the test we should apply is, did this cause people to talk more about Christ? Or, did it lead people to talk more about the Holy Spirit? To the extent that it led people to talk more about the Holy Spirit, quite probably it was not of the Holy Spirit.

R.C. Sproul: Additionally, the spirits chief menu of revelation is the Bible. So if it's really of the Holy Spirit it will drive people to Christ, but also, it will cause an awakening of passionate love and study of the holy Scriptures.

Links We Liked (1/22/11)

Here is a round-up of some of the notable blogs and articles our team read this week.

What About the Twins? The Deadly Logic of Abortion - 38 years after infamous Roe v. Wade decision, Albert Mohler says that the argument rages on — and so does the carnage.

Contrarian Reflections on Individualism - In his editorial for a recent edition of Themelios, D.A. Carson offers some contrarian reflections on individualism.

The Godly Way to Eat a Hamburger, Or Not - Stephen Nichols writes some reflections on what he likes about R.C. Sproul (and in so doing mentions Alice Cooper, Arnold Palmer and Van Halen).