Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 56

What is Family For (Part 2)

Eph. 5:22-6:9

Introduction

Last week we established the cosmic significance of the family. The family is the economic center of people-production. We make people who will live forever. This week we explore further what the Bible says goes into this process. 

Summary of the Text: Paul commands wives to submit to their own husbands as to the Lord, just as the church does to Christ in everything (Eph. 5:22-24). Likewise, husbands are to love their wives sacrificially, imitating Christ’s love, so that their wives are washed and purified (Eph. 5:25-27). Paul presses the fact that husband and wife are one flesh, requiring that husbands nourish and cherish their wives, just as they do their own bodies, just as Christ does for the Church (Eph. 5:28-31). And there is much more going on in this mystery, namely the fact that it is talking about Christ and the church (Eph. 5:32). And regardless of whether we understand how that is true, husbands need to love their wives, and wives need to respect their husbands (Eph. 5:33). Remember the chapter breaks were added later, and therefore, part of the mystery also includes the blessing of children and inheritance, and therefore fathers are charged with the responsibility of providing for their “nurture” and admonition in the Lord (Eph. 6:1-4). Likewise, servants are to obey their masters from the heart as servants of Christ (Eph. 6:5-8), and masters are forbidden to exercise authority by threats or partiality (Eph. 6:9). 

The Postmillennial Promises

You might summarize this message as exhorting you to keep God’s promises connected to your faith and obedience in all your household dealings. And it turns out that God’s covenant promises are cosmic in scope. Paul invites us to do this explicitly when he reminds Ephesian (Gentile) children of the promise that goes with the fifth commandment: that it may go well with you and you may live long upon the earth (Eph. 6:2). Note this well: Paul says that Gentile believers are now heirs of the promises that were originally given to Israel. But what land is Paul talking about? Paul’s paraphrase makes it clear: the whole earth. Everything that Jesus inherited is now the Promised Land along with the final hope of all things being raised and made new (Ps. 2:8-10, Mt. 28:18). 

One of the more tragic mistakes of some Bible teachers is represented by the following quote: “Paul’s reference here [Rom. 4:13] to being ‘heir of the world’ is probably not to a temporal repossession of the world but is rather an eschatological reference… For whereas marriage and physical procreation were the necessary means of building the physical nation of Israel, the spiritual people of God are built through the process of spiritual regeneration.” But this is two half-truths that create a very unhelpful distortion. First, this mischaracterizes the Old Covenant, which was always about regeneration also. Yes, the promises were given to ethnic Israel and began by bestowing the land of Canaan, but the true sons of Abraham were always by faith in the promises, and true Jews were always those whose hearts were circumcised by the Spirit (Dt. 10:16, 30:6, Jer. 4:4, Rom. 2:29, Gal. 3:7). And what did God promise? That by faith alone, God would bless all the families of the earth (Gen. 12:3, 28:14). Secondly, God is still working through marriage and family and land in the New Covenant. The prophets proclaimed this when they said the blessings and curses that applied to Israel will apply to all the nations when God is King of all the earth (Is. 66, Zech. 14). And now Christ is king (1 Cor. 15:25). This is all by faith, utterly depends upon the Spirit’s work of regeneration, and still looks for the resurrection, but now it is offered to all people everywhere (cf. Acts 2:39). 

They Ought to Marry

A related objection that is sometimes raised is that the New Covenant views marriage and singleness as equally normative options, but this is largely based on a misreading of 1 Corinthians 7 and Paul was giving instructions for the “present distress” (Cor. 7:26, 29-31). Jesus had warned about the same distress that would befall Jerusalem when the temple was destroyed (Mt. 24:1-2, 19, 34). But otherwise, the general command of Scripture is to marry and raise children (cf. Mk. 10:6-7). And this is part of our cosmic warfare against Satan (1 Tim. 5:14-15, 1 Cor. 7:1-5). 

The Ministry of Provision

You have heard before that God gives unique assignments to different authorities. The civil magistrate has been given the sword, which is authority from God to punish crimes and maintain equal weights and measures, including the protection of private property and requiring restitution (Rom. 13, Ex. 22). The church has been given the keys of the kingdom, which is authority from God to proclaim the gospel, administer the sacraments, and to exercise church discipline (Mt. 18, 28, 1 Cor. 5). To the family, God has entrusted the ministry of health, welfare, and education. We see this requirement established in our text where Paul requires a husband to “nourish and cherish” his wife as his own body, which is literally to “feed” and “keep warm” (Eph. 5:29). Likewise, the father is required to bring up or “feed” his children with the “culture” and “counsel” of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). Add to this, Paul’s admonition to Timothy that those who do not provide for their own families are worse than unbelievers (1 Tim. 5:8), as well as his prohibition of Christians fellowshipping with those who name Christ but refuse to work for their own food (2 Thess. 3:10-14). We work from the heart for Christ our Master, without partiality or threatening (Eph. 6:5-9). This includes children caring for their elderly parents (Mk. 7:11-13). 

Education, Wealth, and Inheritance

Solomon says a good man leaves an inheritance to his grandchildren (Prov. 13:22). Christian education is the process of passing down Christian wealth to the next generation. The wisdom of Christ is better than rubies, better than choice silver or gold (Prov. 8:10-11), but that wisdom is an inheritance that brings with it knowledge and understanding and the fear of the Lord and authority and power and riches and honor (Prov. 8:13-21). A Christian education is itself an inheritance of immense value, but it is also the kind of inheritance that trains you to be a good steward of far more (Lk. 19:17). So the question is not whether you will have wealth, but whether you will seek it biblically and steward it in obedience to Christ or not. Unbelieving education is oriented to the systems and values of Mammon, but Christian education teaches that all of the treasures of wisdom are found in Christ and His reproach is great wealth (Col. 2:2, Heb. 11:26). 

Conclusions

A family is a powerful economy ordered according to God’s word and nature for the production of fruitful people who will live forever. We do not set at odds the physical needs, responsibilities, or fruit of our labors with our spiritual needs, responsibilities, or heavenly reward. Do not store up treasures on earth: seek first the Kingdom. And we do that by knowing Christ, laboring honestly, remaining steadfast in the Word and prayer, by marrying, bearing children, starting businesses, confessing our sins, forgiving one another, providing rigorous Christian education, caring for elderly parents, building houses, investing wisely, giving generously, looking to help others in need. It is not an accident that having exhorted households to be ordered to Christ, Paul immediately turns to our cosmic struggle against the rulers of darkness in this world (Eph. 6:10ff). We are at war, and it is only by faith that all the families of the earth will be blessed. 

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Where’d You Get that Rad Car? Keith Mathison on Van Til

Keith Mathison has a helpful overview of Van Til’s theological-philosophical project over at the Table Talk blog and raises a number concerns as a friendly critique, in the tradition and spirit of R.C. Sproul. Before jumping into my thoughts on the article, let me heartily recommend Mathison’s book The Shape of Sola Scriptura to you. It’s simply one of the best treatments of the whole doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

Introduction

I’m no Van Til scholar by any stretch, but I have definitely been raised in the Van Tilian/Framian tradition of presuppositional thinking and apologetics. It’s what I’ve marinated in all my life, and I would hasten to add that Frame’s chastened, charitable, and deeply appreciative interpretation, expansion, and at points, modification of Van Til is certainly the strain of his thinking I have been taught and trained in. The various solipsistic or verging heretical or idol-worship versions of Van Tilianism Mathison mentions are completely foreign to my experience. As Mathison’s references allude to in the article, John Frame has been perhaps Van Til’s greatest popularizer and disciple, and he has never shied from critiquing Van Til where he thought necessary. I find myself happily in that camp.

Mathison’s criticism of Van Til’s weaknesses as an academic philosopher seem to me, in the main, fair and legitimate, specifically as it relates to clarity of communication, technical terms, and formal definitions. Mathison is charitable and largely presumes the best of intentions on Van Til’s part, but notes that Van Til can at times say opposite things about the nature of an unbeliever’s knowledge, was sloppy in his use of “person” when he said that God was both one person and three persons, used historical and philosophical terms idiosyncratically, and I’m willing to grant without great first hand study, that he significantly overstated the differences between what he was promoting and the Christian philosophical and apologetic tradition. All of that I take as helpful, persuasive, and seems like fair criticism from my vantage point.

“Accounting” is the Point

However, and you likely guessed the conjunction was coming, the first eyebrow raise came towards the end of his discussion of the complexity of Van Til’s take on the difference between believing and unbelieving knowledge. Mathison concludes a lengthy summary wondering, “Although Van Til doesn’t say it in this way, it seems that the difference may be rooted in the distinction between the unbeliever’s knowledge of things in the world (which can be true “as far as it goes”) and the unbeliever’s accounting for his true knowledge on his own false assumptions about reality (something that he cannot do).” The key word in that last sentence is accounting.

In the attached footnote, Mathison continues his speculation along these lines with a tree analogy, wondering if Van Til means that unbelievers may know and see that there is a tree, but because of their fallen state see the tree tinted red, and therefore apart from Christ cannot see the tree clearly/accurately — and in this sense “truly.” Mathison denies being able to know whether that is an accurate way to read Van Til or not. For my part, and perhaps this is revelatory of being far more immersed in Frame’s work on Van Til than Van Til himself, but that is precisely what Van Til meant. It has everything to do with pointing out the unbeliever’s inability to consistently account for his knowledge apart from God and the necessary impact that inconsistency will have on the nature of his knowledge. But honestly, Mathison did such an admirable job quoting Van Til and summarizing him on the nature of knowledge and the antithesis, I’m honestly a bit flummoxed as to why he arrives at this speculative, head scratching uncertainty.

Just as Mathison chides Van Til for being unclear, I want to gently chide Mathison for not seeing the answer right in front of him. This point, it seems to me is the diamond of Van Til, the point of it all. But Mathison’s unwillingness to accept that likely interpretation dogs him as he goes on to explore what Van Til meant by “antithesis,” noting that Van Til made statements that verged in various extremes (although Mathison cites Frame who counsels us to temper the extremes and so appreciate the main point). This mistake continues to haunt Mathison when he returns to Van Til’s discussion of humans and our faculty of reason.

Formal vs. Practical “Accounting”

For example, Mathison writes, “One of Van Til’s most fundamental criticisms of traditional apologetics is that it unintentionally makes the mind of man ultimate.” But, speaking of traditional apologists, Mathison replies, “They are not asserting that the mind of man is the ultimate final court of appeal, somehow higher than God. Van Til is criticizing traditional apologetics for something he ends up, in a roundabout way, granting. He has fabricated a problem that did not exist and has devised an entire apologetic methodology to solve this nonexistent problem.”

Mathison is of course correct formally and technically in his claim. No Christian apologist formally asserts that the mind of man is the ultimate final court of appeal, but nevertheless, and Van Til’s central point is that human beings do it practically all the time. When Mathison claims that Van Til has fabricated a problem that did not exist, he is making a breathtaking claim. Let me explain. What happens when a Christian apologist snaps at his wife? He has sinned, yes, but in that irrational act, the Christian apologist certainly has presupposed that his mind is the ultimate final court of appeal, somehow higher than God. He has judged (foolishly/wrongly) that anger and frustration are a reasonable response in that moment. Thankfully, by the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the Christian apologist will momentarily come to his senses and repent of his sin and irrationality. But every non-believer functionally venerates his own intellect as the ultimate final court of appeal. Welcome to the real world where sinners do assert that their minds are the ultimate final courts of appeal all the time, in every sinful fit. Even believing Christians relapse into this insanity from time to time as they battle the flesh that remains inside them.

Reason as a Stolen Vehicle

Mathison continues his criticism wondering if Van Til realizes the necessity of human reason in the act of presupposing that Van Til makes so central to his method. And if so, “Does this mean that man, his rational faculties, or the laws of reason are metaphysically ultimate? No. None of them would even exist without God. God is metaphysically ultimate. It simply means that the human act of presupposing cannot occur without them. In other words, everything that Van Til says the believer or unbeliever must do presupposes reason. Van Til has not escaped this fact by creating presuppositional apologetics.”

Mathison is correct to point out that God’s existence is metaphysically ultimate regardless of man’s apprehension. But again I believe Mathison fails to grasp Van Til’s point. The point is that an ethical slant and moral filter is also inescapable in the use of the mind and human reason. The point of asking an unbeliever to give an account for their knowledge is an opportunity to point out their unethical use of reason. Yes, reason is presupposed, but reason is not a simple mathematical formula, a stainless steal idea-processor. Reason, so long as it pretends to be autonomous or neutral or in any way agnostic or atheistic, is operating as a rogue agent. Precisely because God’s existence is the metaphysical ground of all human reasoning, for humans to try or claim to reason apart from Christ, without giving Him thanks and worship, is for them to drive a stolen vehicle. And to the extent that reason attempts to operate apart from the Lordship of Jesus Christ, it is operating in rebellion to the God who gave that gift, and that rebellion (antithesis) cannot help but filter and slant the information processed. This is surely the point of Solomon’s maxim: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…” Van Til may be a better pastor than philosopher, more aware of human realities and less careful with his terms and definitions on paper, but he is pointing out something profoundly true and helpful.

Mathison continues: “Supposedly, this method of apologetics presupposes God as opposed to presupposing human reason. This method, however, does in fact presuppose the unbeliever’s human reason and its ability to discern which of the two opposing views explains intelligibility.”

But again, Mathison doesn’t seem to appreciate the ethical or moral dimension of asking an unbeliever to account for their knowledge. The question that Van Til is insisting we press on unbelievers is basically the request: take me to your leader, or if you prefer: where’d you get that rad car? The point isn’t that there’s some way to step out of your brain, the point is to destabilize the natural tendency of fallen men to think uncritically, to practically or functionally worship their ability to reason, to rely on their own moral-intellectual authority thoughtlessly — to assume that it’s perfectly fine for them to be their own leader, to assume that their intellect (the rad car) just came “naturally” or randomly. This fundamental humanism may lead some to bow before naturalistic science, humanistic empiricism, humanitarianism, or even various pagan religions, but all of those “faiths” are ultimately graven images of the self. Sinners put their trust in themselves, their ability to reason, interpret, and understand the world around them rightly. They drive their stolen vehicles around (using their reason while not acknowledging the God who created them) and insist that they are doing just fine, thank you very much, and they do not need God to use their minds, reason, etc. The point of questioning a man’s presuppositions is not to question the common grace gift of basic human reasoning itself, the point is to question the veneration, the unholy assumption that reason has no idolatry problem, that reason is in any way neutral. It isn’t. It is either captive to Christ or a slave of sin. That is the antithesis. That is the point. And it’s a glorious point.

Natural Theology

I appreciate Mathison’s overview of the historic Reformed take on “natural theology.” I’m grateful for the more recent work of Reformed theologians in recovering a robust (biblical) natural theology, and given our current sexual insanity, a sturdy, biblically informed natural theology is very much needed. So I take Mathison’s point that if all you read was Van Til, and you buried your head in the sand, you’d have a pretty distorted picture of things. But once again, I take Van Til to be a better pastor than philosopher in this matter. His concerns should not be waved away because people insist that they are not making the mind the ultimate judge and arbiter of truth. Every pastor knows that people can tell you one thing with a straight face and actually be doing the very opposite. And this is in some sense the very nature of the Fall: we saw that we were naked and we hid — what a reasonable (and true!) analysis that simultaneously reveals a deep and tragic distortion of truth and reality. The space between formal positions and de facto positions are the hallmarks of hypocrites, pharisees, legalists, and to some extent, every stripe of sinner. To the extent that we let unbelievers reason without reference to God, we are letting them pretend to have the rights to a tool they stole from their Maker. This makes them fools, and their foolish hearts, Scripture insists, have become darkened (Rom. 1). Whatever they may see truly, they only see through the shadows of their rebellion. This must not be forgotten, or else we will not love our unbelieving opponents in the truth.

As Mathison notes, Van Til’s appraisal of natural theology fits fairly well with the post-enlightenment manifestation of those studies — the primary manifestation that Van Til was responding to. So why not appreciate it there, for what it was? But the fact that natural theology could grow that kind of rationalistic mold should give us a bit more appreciation for Van Til’s “nuke it” approach, even if in the final analysis, his assessments are not always entirely accurate or nuanced. And wherever Van Til was actually historically inaccurate, we should happily correct the record, but I also wonder if Van Til’s Jedi-pastoral sense was a bit more sensitive than some of our purely academic metal detectors. I would commend Van Til’s historical takes as worthy sparring partners, the judgements of a faithful great-grandfather in the faith, perhaps a bit cranky or hide-bound in places, but worthy of careful consideration and dialogue, not knee-jerk or proud dismissal.

Conclusion

Finally, returning to the themes above, I hazard a guess that the frustrating ambiguities that Mathison and others detect in Van Til’s writing were a function of his desire to hold the truths of Scripture up against the realities of the human condition on the ground. I don’t have any problem with folks pointing out the ambiguities, especially where it impinges on central Christian doctrine (e.g. God is one person and three persons is not helpful). But when it comes to an unbeliever’s knowledge of the world, I simply don’t believe that we can answer that question with a one-size-fits-all simple sentence. We may certainly say that all men continue to bear the image of God under common grace, and sin has marred this image and all of its functions in various ways. But this doesn’t mean then that we have a scientific formula for the nature of “fallen” knowledge. With the Reformers we insist that it is sufficient knowledge to be condemned and insufficient knowledge to be saved. That’s “true” knowledge in some sense and not really “true” knowledge in other senses. I mean, what kind of knowledge was it if 30 million years from now you’re burning in Hell? Not very “true,” I would submit.

So while I appreciate Mathison’s criticisms and warnings, and I think his article should be read and appreciated by students of Van Til, I do not go along with his conclusions that Van Til’s flaws and weaknesses are so intrenched that his work cannot be commended, much less salvaged or rehabilitated. On the contrary, I hold that Van Til’s insistence that there is no neutrality, that the antithesis runs through every human heart and mind, and that apart from God’s supernatural intervention, our rational capacities are seriously slanted — these are enormously helpful and biblical tools for the Christian Church and needed now more than ever, as we seek to call our culture to repentance and back to Christ. An academic and formally accurate Christian philosophy truly is helpful and needful, but I don’t believe we will achieve this goal of cultural reformation merely with more footnotes and scholarly apparatus. No, while we should certainly strive to be more careful than Van Til was at points, we should not shy from the task before us which is something a lot closer to Van Til than the ivory tower, something that includes both street smarts of Johnny Cash and the acumen of Francis Turretin.

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What Is Family For? (Part 1)

Introduction

This week and next week we will look at what the Bible says about what the family is for in order to better understand why God calls us to different tasks aimed at the same goal. 

Summary of the Text: In a somewhat challenging passage, Paul reminds the Corinthians that the creation details are important and significant, not arbitrary or ambivalent. The first woman was created from man, and this is because woman was created for man (1 Cor. 11:9). Paul reasons from the order of creation to a telos or purpose of creation. Paul says that this is why a woman ought to have authority/power on her head (1 Cor. 11:10), especially in the context of worship and public prayer (1 Cor. 11:4-5). This is so significant that it in some way even reaches up to the angels (1 Cor. 11:10). At the same time, none of this can be taken to mean that man is independent of woman, as though only she needs the man. No, both need each other (1 Cor. 11:11). In fact, don’t take the “from” language in a sloppy way because every man after Adam literally came from a woman. And besides all of that, all things are from God (1 Cor. 11:12).

Because of the Angels

Riffing off of C.R. Wiley’s new book The Household and the War for the Cosmos, the Bible says that getting sex and marriage right has cosmic significance. This is implied at the beginning of our passage where Paul writes, “But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3). Paul insists that the order (or structure) of male and female in this world is constantly referring to Christ and God. To mess with male and female is already to attempt to mess with God and His Christ. We’ve been reminded of this many times when considering the fact that man (both male and female) is made in the image of God. Since rebel man cannot actually strike at the Infinite God, he strikes at His image – he burns the image in effigy, like some kind of blasphemous voodoo doll. But here Paul presses the point further: the blasphemy is not merely in the disfiguring and dismembering of image bearers themselves, but it is also in the attempted deconstruction of the order of the sexes in marriage, in worship, and in the public square. To defy the order is to defy Christ and God. 

But it isn’t only that. Paul says that this order is even significant in some way because of the angels. Without pretending to understand fully what Paul had in mind with that phrase, we should understand that Paul is making a cosmic claim. He is arguing that the order of man and woman and Christ and God is not an extraneous matter, but it reaches up and out into the fabric of the universe. While we have been trained to think of molecules and atoms as the fabric of the universe, a more biblical understanding recognizes that God’s Word is what ultimately holds all things together (Heb. 1:3), and the angels are His messengers, who carry out His word (Ps. 103:20), sparks of fire intimately involved in all of creation, fulfilling His will (Ps. 104:4). This is why in the Bible angels are associated with the stars (Jdg. 5:20, Job 38:7, Lk. 2:13, Rev. 22:16), and star-angels can be seen in this sense as having something to say/do with the births and lives and callings of people (Job 3:9, Mt. 2:2-20). Our lives are intertwined with the angels (Ps. 8:5).  

All Fatherhood is Named

In another place, Paul again gestures at the cosmic significance of the family when he writes, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family [lit. all fatherhood] in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man…” (Eph. 3:14-16). As with angels and stars, moderns are frequently ignorant of the Biblical and cosmic meaning of naming. But going back to the original creation week, when God spoke and called the universe into being, He did so by calling it by name, and when He began to teach Adam what it meant to be made in His image, He taught him to imitate that creativity in the task of naming the animals (Gen. 1-2). And this was aimed at what the animals were for, given the fact that when he finishes, no helper suitable has been found for Adam (Gen. 2:20). This culminates in the creation of the “woman” who is named by Adam and Adam simultaneously renames himself and describes how these names say what they are called to do (Gen. 2:23-24). Naming in the Bible goes closely together with calling. To be called by God is frequently to be named by God with that calling (e.g. Gen. 17:5, 15, Mt. 1:21, Lk. 1:13-17). While we are not God, our words are still powerful like God’s words (e.g. Ps. 42:10, Prov. 25:15, Js. 3:5-6). So all fatherhood finds its meaning and purpose in the Eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and this is how God grants strength in the inner man. Knowing the Father through His only Son is an invitation to put roots down, to know who your people are, to know what your name is, to know what you and your family are for, to build a strong family. 

What Are Families For?

“Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen. 1:28). A great deal of our confusion is related to the fact that we don’t understand what family/marriage/home is for. The word “economics” is from two Greek words “home” and “law.” So literally, an “economy” is the “law of the house” or we might say the “order of the home.” An economy is literally the way a household is organized. A household economy includes what is being produced, what supplies are needed, and who performs what tasks. And therefore, there must be a clear chain of command. We do not generally bat an eye at the idea of a boss having authority and giving instructions and pointed feedback to employees. But this is frequently because we have a great deal of reverence for money and market success. But if you don’t think that the family-economy is doing anything terribly important then you might think the man being the head of his wife seems arbitrary and tyrannical – like some roommate being appointed “head” of all the roommates. But if you see how high the stakes are, that we are participating in cosmic realities, then you are likely to appreciate the need for clear roles. But you might still wonder: businesses have services they provide or goods they produce. What are families for? The answer is they make people. 

Conclusion

People are the most valuable resource in all of creation because they bear the image of the Eternal God. Lewis says somewhere that we have never had any dealings with a mere mortal. Everyone we come in contact with is either in the process of becoming a creature that we would be tempted to worship or to recoil from in utter horror. People are immortals. For two people to become one flesh, and create new people is to participate in something beyond reckoning: immortal souls are coming into existence and being fashioned for eternal destinies. And think of this making of people broadly: feeding, clothing, teaching, walking, dancing, laughing.

So the stakes are really high if we get this wrong. But on the flip side, to submit to God’s design for man and woman and family is to cut with the grain of the stars. It is to even honor the angels in some mysterious way. It is to participate in something that reaches all the way up to God in heaven, which is why it is such a threat to all the old systems of sin and unbelief. But none of this is automatic. Our families participate in that heavenly/cosmic glory in the only way there is to our Heavenly Father, which is through the Son. This is good news for every kind of household there is: every household is marred by sin, and every kind of household finds its meaning and strength through the Son in the Father. We make people biologically through the one flesh union of husband and wife, and we make people for everlasting glory and productivity through the gospel, by knowing the Father through Jesus His Son.

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The Single Person’s Role in the Church

[These are notes for a talk I gave at the 2019 Post College Life Conference. The audio for this talk can be found here.]

Introduction

I want to do two things with this talk, which is probably more than the organizers had in mind, but I want to address the increasingly common claim that singleness and marriage are equally normative options for Christians and then talk about being fruitful and faithful as a man or a woman in the church. And the reason I think I need to do it this way is because there has been a heavy push in recent decades to downplay the ordinary calling to marriage and family. Sometimes articles or sermons or books come out on the potential idolatry of family and marriage or on why singleness is an equally normative option for Christians to choose, or sometimes, following this same logic, Christian couples announce that they have chosen not to have children. This topic has also become a hot button issue in the “gay-celibate” and “spiritual friendship” movement, seeking to revive some of the monastic impulses of the middle ages. 

Because of the Present Distress

One of the most misunderstood and misapplied passages on this topic is 1 Corinthians 7 where Paul says, “For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: it is good for them if they remain even as I am… Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife… But I want you to be without care. He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord – how he may please the Lord. But he who is married cares about the things of the world – how he may please his wife…” (1 Cor. 7:7-9, 27, 32-33). 

But nobody seems to pay very close attention to a few significant phrases: “I suppose therefore that this is good because of the present distress – that it is good for a man to remain as he is” (1 Cor. 7:26). And a few verses down: “But this I say, brethren, the time is short, so that from now on even those who have wives should be as though they had none, those who weep as though they did not weep… for the form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:29-31). Paul explicitly says that he is giving this advice because of the historical moment he was in. Jesus had actually said this as well: “But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!” (Mt. 24:19). What days was Jesus speaking of? He was answering the question his disciples had asked Him about when the temple would be destroyed (Mt. 24:1-2). And just in case we may be tempted to think that Jesus changed subjects at some point in the discourse, He insists that all of that judgment would come during “this generation” (Mt. 24:34). So Paul’s instructions were not for all times. They were specifically directed at the moment of cataclysmic social collapse of the Old Covenant — the form of that Old Covenant world was truly passing away and the time was short and it was going to be full of distress — and so all these things were fulfilled in 70 A.D. when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed, just as Jesus promised. At most, we might say that there may be an analogous application of Paul’s recommendation to remain unmarried to the guy who is called to be a missionary in North Korea. 

Old & New Covenant

There is also some confusion sometimes over the nature of the transition from Old Covenant to New Covenant. One writer says, “For whereas marriage and physical procreation were the necessary means of building the physical nation of Israel, the spiritual people of God are built through the process of spiritual regeneration.” This is unfortunately only half true. It’s true that the Old Covenant centered on Israel as an ethnic people in a specific land as their inheritance, but all of that was a type and training for the New Covenant which is international and Christ’s inheritance which is now the whole world (e.g. Ps. 2, Mt. 28). Both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant have external signs and blessings and internal and eternal realities. Paul says that Abraham’s true children have always come by faith – often biologically, sometimes by adoption or profession, but always by the miraculous working of the Spirit.

So rather than seeing the Old and New Covenants as opposed at this point, we ought to see the Old Covenant as the seed form of what would grow up into the New Covenant. And therefore, the command to be fruitful and multiply, the inheritance of children and the blessing of long life in the land, and therefore the ordinary calling of a man to leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and become one flesh is not merely still in force, it is still in force with the added promises and power of the gospel. This doesn’t reduce the blessings of the New Covenant to family and land because of course it includes forgiveness of sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and eternal life and the resurrection, but it still includes family, land, and inheritance in every land, among all people. The New Covenant takes up the basic building blocks of the Old Covenant (e.g. Acts 2:39 — the promise is to you and to your children) and expands the offer and promises and inheritance to everyone everywhere (“as many as are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call”), including those who are not yet married, those who are barren, those who for various providential reasons will not or cannot be married or bear children (cf. Is. 56:4-5).   

Fruitful Men & Women

As we turn the corner and begin considering what a single person’s role in the church is, I want to look at two texts that on the surface may seem unrelated or even unhelpful. “And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control” (1 Tim. 2:12-15). There are several fascinating things about this text, but the one I want to focus on is the fact that Paul says that the woman will be saved in childbearing. It cannot be the case that Paul means that regeneration is literally tied to procreation since Paul is the champion of justification by faith alone, not by works, lest anyone should boast. So in what sense could Paul mean that salvation is related to childbearing? One answer could be the fact that God promised that the seed of the woman would crush the seed of the serpent, and then Mary bore the Savior of the world. Salvation did literally come through the birth of a child. Paul may be alluding to that, but I think there is more. 

This leads us to our second passage: “For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror” (1 Pet. 3:5-6). The thing I want to point out to you is that word “daughters,” and the reason I want to point it out is because Sarah never had any biological daughters. In fact, for most of Sarah’s life she was barren, and then at the very end of her life, she had one child, a son, Isaac. But Peter says that Sarah is still bearing children, as women imitate her obedient, fearless faith. So I believe this is what Paul has in mind as well: women are saved by a maternal-shaped faith that continues in faith, love, holiness, with self-control. 

Pulling these two texts together, I want to insist that marriage and childbearing is the normal calling for most people, but in the absence of marriage and/or biological children, God still calls women to be fruitful mothers and homemakers, as “they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.” 

And we can make a similar argument for men from the way the Bible describes fatherhood. Yes, it is centrally the act of begetting biological children via marriage, but Timothy was Paul’s beloved son in the Lord (1 Cor. 4:17), and he lamented the fact that the Corinthians did not have more fathers in the faith (1 Cor. 4:15). And of course Abraham is the father of all the faithful. All men are called to a masculine-shaped faith and obedience that the Bible broadly describes as fatherhood.

No Place for Singles, Only Men & Women, Fathers & Mothers

The point I want to make is that there is no gender-neutral place for “singles” in the church. But there are necessary and crucial roles for men and women in the church, and those roles are broadly described under the headings of fatherhood and motherhood, or what we might call a masculine-shaped holiness and service and a feminine-shaped holiness and service. 

Men, your glory is your strength – particularly physical and emotional strength. You are good at concentrating on particular problems and creating solutions. You are good at trying and failing, trying something else and failing again, and finally succeeding. This is why most entrepreneurs are men. Use your strength sacrificially for the good of the world. Start a business, start a ministry, start a podcast, invent something, build something, give away whatever God has given you an abundance of, serve wherever you see needs. But think big and think long term. Think of leaving something behind, an inheritance, a legacy, something that matters. 

Women, your glory is your beauty and your ability to give life. You make homes. The central sign of this reality is the fact that God gave you a uterus. The uterus is a small home inside of you designed by God to make a human being. Whatever God has for you, He has put that inside of you to tell you what you’re for. You make people. But don’t just think of that as a biological thing, though no doubt most of you will one day do that. But think of motherhood and homemaking as the task of ministering life to the world: serving, loving, giving, blessing, feeding, teaching, organizing, communicating, making beautiful things, music, art, clothing, food – these are essential tasks for giving life to people, of making people. Think big and long term. Be fruitful in every way, and do not pretend to be competing with men. Never be ashamed of being a woman. 

 “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ” (Col. 3:23-24).

Don’t Be Proud or Have Higher Standards than God
I want to apply this to how you serve now: cleaning up, setting up chairs, running a sound booth, taking pictures, helping with little ones, cleaning homes, chopping wood, sending encouraging notes, praying for needs, giving tithes and offerings, working hard, practicing hospitality and evangelism. If Christ calls you to the task, the task is dignified by His calling.

I also want to apply this to how you pray for and pursue a spouse. Have biblical standards and never compromise them and seek out biblical accountability, but don’t let your pride get in the way of seeking a spouse. Many human standards need to thrown away. What does God say makes a good spouse? What do your parents think? Your preferences or romantic imaginations may be getting in the way.  

Conclusion

I want to be clear: the ordinary calling of men and women is to marry, bear children, and build families under the blessing of God as a central means of building the Kingdom of God. But through various providences, God sometimes calls men and women to temporary or lifelong singleness, and when God does this, He does it for His good purposes and for the good and blessing of the Church, and for your good and blessing, so that you might exercise your fatherly and motherly gifts in the body.

Photo by Jehyun Sung on Unsplash

Rachael Denhollander & the Social Justice Movement

First off, I want to thank James White for his gracious address of the Founder’s trailer and his riposte to CrossPolitic on a recent Dividing Line. Second, I want to make clear that I do not have any formal connection to Founders and what I say here is my opinion alone. I love the brothers at Founders and respect them greatly, but I’m not claiming to speak for them. But if they wanted me to speak for them, this is what I’d say to Dr. White and others confused and confounded by the initial inclusion of a brief fuzzy picture of Rachael Denhollander in the midst of a trailer for a documentary purporting to be about the dangers of critical theory and social justice.

Here’s the connection: #MeToo.

#MeToo is the unofficial, unelected sex abuse arm of the Social Justice movement. And for my money, it is likely the strongest and sharpest of the spears in the arsenal of modern ungodliness. You could load your gospel bazooka and blow the main fortress of the Social Justice movement into smithereens, but if you don’t take down the victim-power culture at the heart of it all and specifically in the #metoo movement you will be right back where you started in a few minutes. In fact, the victimhood false-gospel is the seed of the whole Social Justice forest. And the reason why the #metoo flank is perhaps the strongest and sharpest of the spears? Because many in the #metoo movement are genuine victims of real sins and crimes, and Christians (rightly) have soft hearts for real victims. And this is how it becomes the camel’s nose under the Christian tent. But the issue here is the same as the Founder’s documentary title: By What Standard?

By what standard do we evaluate and distinguish sins and crimes? Whose jurisdiction is this? In what scenarios is the family sufficient to adjudicate and minister God’s justice and mercy and truth? In what scenarios ought the church also to be involved, and the church’s ministers and elders are sufficient to adjudicate and minister God’s justice and mercy and truth? And in what scenarios must the civil magistrate also be involved? By what standard do we evaluate the severity and appropriate responses, adjudications, and penalties to attach to the sins and crimes? And if these questions seem absurd, beside the point, or irrelevant, then you are part of the problem and not qualified to be part of this conversation.

The heart of the social justice false-gospel is the holiness of pain, the sacredness of hurt. If you have been hurt, you have been ordained. You are now a priest or a priestess forever according to the order of the Perpetual Bleeding Heart. In biblical justice there are answers to the previous questions. There is a Biblical case law and a long history of (imperfect) but useful western canon law that does not promise perfect justice this side of glory, but true and approximate justice in this world. But all of it is built on the foundation of Christ crucified. This was the sight of the only sacred pain, the only redeeming hurt. But remove the foundation of Christ crucified, and all of our attempts (even the best of them) at approximate human justice will leave you feeling empty, hungry, and eventually bitter and angry. And instead of justice, you will have nothing but virtue signaling followed by mobs, vigilante lynchings, and war.

So there are two essential pieces of biblical justice that underline the connections between the #metoo movement and the critical theory/social justice movement and their failures to deliver real justice: the first is the foundation of Christ crucified for sinners. Here, the justice or righteousness of God is on full display. The perfect, holy justice of God was exacted on the spotless Lamb of God, standing in the place of and fully paying the penalties of sinful men. If you don’t stand at the foot of the cross and glory in that justice, you will not have eyes to see or ears to hear any other sort of true justice. And God really does call us to linger here. Yes, to know Christ is to be concerned with all injustice in the world, but to know Christ is to revel in the fact that here on the cross, the greatest injustice was perpetrated in the history of the world in order to put all things right. Here, on a Roman gibet the only perfectly innocent man in the history of the world was brutally and shamefully abused, oppressed, tortured, and murdered. You cannot rightly care about racial injustice, justice for the unborn, justice for the poor, justice for the immigrant, justice for the elderly or disabled if you do not see the massive injustice of the betrayal and execution of Jesus, and the glorious justice that has been accomplished, revealed, and delivered by the same.

The point is that He was the only truly innocent victim. His blood atones for the foulest sinners because He was pure, clean, holy, sinless, and undefiled. In other words, He is the only High Priest. He is the only One whose victimhood gave Him the right to speak and true authority on every matter. There are other true victims of horrific sins and crimes, but the blood and shame and pain of those victims cannot save a single soul. There is no inherent power in suffering. There is no inherent power in being a victim. And therefore, there is no inherent authority or power or goodness in sharing your story, sharing a hashtag, or joining a social media mob. But this is precisely what the social justice movement is all about. It is about “empowering” the powerless. It sees the world in terms of power disparities, based on race and gender and socio-economic classes. It sees the world broken into systems of privilege and oppression, power and weakness based on material realities: wealth, politics, skin color, sex, physical ability, opportunities, victimhood, etc. And therefore sees justice primarily in terms of redistribution of power. And any remaining power disparities are therefore inherently unjust. But this is fundamentally a stance of rebellion against the Sovereign God who has ordained power disparities in the world according to His wisdom and for our good. That power can certainly be used sinfully and oppressively, but the power and authority is given by the Lord Jesus Himself. And He won the right to give and take all authority and power according to His good pleasure by His death and resurrection. He ordains pastors and parents, judges and husbands, swords and keys and rods, and all of it answers to Him.

This leads to the second essential principle for biblical justice: God’s word defines true justice. In the social justice vision, justice must be reduced to a material balancing act because that’s all there is. The critical race and social justice vision reduces human meaning to materialistic values. The Bible does not deny material factors and responsibilities. It recognizes the inherent dignity of being made in the image of God, the right of private property, the need for restitution, paying back lost or stolen damages to whatever extent possible, and in so doing completely subverts the wicked injustice known as the modern prison system.

But biblical justice only works in a world where there is a Cosmic Underwriter for all our checks and loans. In a world without a sovereign and perfectly just God, all our balancing has to include human risk management as well as an attempt to quantify the hurt and pain of victims. And good luck with that. How do you weigh the pain of sexual abuse? How should that compare with the pain and loss of being born without a leg or an arm? What (if anything) does society owe to an ethnic group that was regarded suspiciously for several generations? Has any injustice been done to a person born in poverty who didn’t grow up with regular meals or consistent health care or even shelter? How do you quantify those things? What are they worth? How do you pay them back? Any attempt by humans to make this up on their own is arrogant hubris and at attempt at divinity. It is a form of fiat currency, an attempt to declare human value based on nothing — which is why the more our justice system buys into critical theory, the less meaningful that justice is. And therefore if we want to actually give answers to these difficult questions, we must constantly begin with the words, “the Bible says…” if we hope to make any progress towards real justice. But then we’ll also find ourselves wrestling with Paul’s letter to Philemon and trying to figure out what he might have written to Robert E. Lee.

As I pointed out in a previous post, the Bible describes the “principalities and powers” as human and angelic authorities in the world, spiritual forces, which in a fallen world are often evil and may even be demonic, but which Christ has superseded, commandeering them all to His own purposes and glory, so that now every authority in heaven and on earth serves Him and must obey Him. This includes Supreme Court justices, angels, presidents, pastors, demons, ideologies, arguments, parents, and individuals thrust into the spotlight providentially, like for example, the Denhollanders’ public involvement in sex abuse cases, beginning with Rachael’s own glorious testimony regarding the Larry Nassar case, but also extending to her troubling pursuit of Sovereign Grace Ministries and now her public critique of Matt Chandler and Village Church. I do not doubt the Denhollander’s good intentions in the slightest. But to the extent that they have taken up with the #metoo movement, abandoning biblical standards of justice, including things like presumption of innocence for the accused, or the prohibition against Christians suing one another, they have unfortunately become part of the whole social justice problem.

And until faithful men are willing to stand up and say so publicly, we will continue to find ourselves outflanked and outmaneuvered. So to James White’s question: what do the Denhollanders have to do with the Social Justice movement?

There you go.

Photo by Cal Engel on Unsplash

Federal Vision, Nature, Christ, and Culture War

Introduction

There’s been a fair bit of discussion following my articles last week, the first a lengthy overview of growing concerns I’ve had with the Biblical Horizons-Through New Eyes paradigm and my own apology and retraction for my part in it for many years, the second a short follow up noting that despite the articles on Theopolis addressing problems with the “gay celibate movement,” Peter Leithart still hasn’t explained or retracted his endorsement of Wes Hill’s book Spiritual Friendship, nor has Jeff Meyers addressed the problems with calling his Missouri Presbytery Revoice Committee “balanced.”

I want to follow up here zeroing in on the regeneration issue and why it is so significant for our foundational theology as well as our current cultural moment fighting the LGBT Gestapo.

Reviewing Jordan’s Thesis

So first off, the argument from James Jordan is that “nature” does not exist. There is no substance or being that exists apart from God (which is true enough), but he reasons from this that the only thing “there” is the sum of relations. The nature of any given thing is merely the cumulative total of specific ways in which a being exists in relationship to God. This may seem overly esoteric, but it really does matter on at least two levels. First, as I noted in my previous post, this effects whether there is any substantial, rudimentary change that occurs when an individual is born again. And by substantial/rudimentary, I mean has the thorn tree become a fruit tree? Has the bitter stream become a sweet well of living water? Has the wolf become a lamb? These are all images that Jesus uses to describe the problem with unregenerate man. He cannot do other than whathe is. He needs to be made into a fundamentally different kind of human being. Jesus told a good, intelligent Jewish Pharisee that he needed to be born again (Jn. 3). Despite having all his covenantal paperwork in order, Jesus said Nicodemus needed a new nature. The Jordan view of regeneration says that being born again is merely entering a covenantal relationship with God. Since baptism is the formal entrance into the covenant, regeneration is collapsed into covenantal categories. And therefore, this sort of regeneration can be lost, forfeited, and a thorn bush may become a fig tree and then revert to thorn bushness, which definitely creates problems for assurance of salvation.  

Objectivity of the Covenant

As I noted in my previous post, I believe that this muddle really does create a confusing hash of traditional Reformed categories. On the one hand, I do believe that some in the Federal Vision conversation were merely wanting to point out that some passages that refer to covenant realities have sometimes been given short shrift. John 10, Romans 11, 1 Corinthians 10, and Hebrews 10 would all be good places to start. And let me offer that standard Presbyterian warning that these passages have been known to cause Baptists to become Paedobaptists in the State of California, so caveat lector and all that. But the basic gist is that these passages clearly teach that there is a category of person who has *some* kind of true connection to Christ that is not ultimately saving. Look for yourself: Jesus is the vine, disciples are the branches, and some are cut out that do not bear fruit. Certain Jews were cut out of the old covenantal vine, so that Roman Christians might be grafted in – but watch out, you too can be cut out. Likewise, Paul warns the Corinthians who have been baptized and are eating spiritual food that they too can fall just as the Israelites did in the desert – “these things were written for us.” And finally, Hebrews 10 says that some people may even trample the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified. Baptists who want a stainless steel New Covenant really do have problems with these apostasy passages. But a robust category of “covenant membership” or the “objectivity of the covenant” does justice to these passages (people are really falling from something, being cut out of the covenant). But that something is not a true, saving relationship to Christ – from which no one can fall. As a Calvinist, I believe those who are truly regenerated are given a stainless steel new nature or new heart that can never be lost or taken away. Or to put it another way: no one with a new nature, born again, filled with the Spirit of promise will become fruitless in the end. They will persevere to the end by the grace of God. I don’t believe any problems are caused by this covenantal formulation.

The Problems Caused

But problems are caused by collapsing regeneration into baptism/covenant categories. Now what are people falling from? Well, there’s a sense in which they are losing their regeneration, if regeneration is merely understood as covenant relationship. But it keeps going. What about justification? If there’s a “covenantal justification” that is practically indistinguishable from soteriological justification, then there’s also a de facto sense in which you can lose your justification. And it really is difficult to see how this does not make justification in some sense dependent on works, even if you’re saying “through grace by faith” all day long until you’re blue in the face. Or, if there’s a covenantal election that is indistinguishable from soteriological election, then there’s a sense in which you can lose your election. Now, I happen to believe that “election” is used in the Bible covenantally sometimes, but this is why careful distinctions must constantly be made. But if the category of “nature” has been abandoned, what exactly is being justified, sanctified, elected, or glorified? A relationship? Can a relationship be justified? Can a relationship be sanctified? I think one possible answer would be to say that a particular person is justified, sanctified, etc., and one does not need the category of “nature” to say that. But that leads me to my last point.  

And What About Chalcedon?

It seems to me that this whole thesis implicitly denies the Council of Chalcedon, which explicitly confessed that Christ is one person “recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence…” If there is no such thing as “nature,” how do we describe the incarnation? And it is heretical (strictly speaking) to say that the Eternal Word took on a person named Jesus. There were not two persons in one body. There was one person, Jesus of Nazareth, who was the Eternal Word in human flesh. The name of this union of natures is the hypostatic union. So again, I ask, to what did the Eternal Word unite Himself to? The historic Christian answer is “human nature.” But if there is no such thing as “nature,” what did the Word become in the incarnation?

And while the hypostatic union is completely unique in the incarnation, the early fathers were very comfortable saying that conversion/regeneration was analogous to that union, in that the Divine nature via the Holy Spirit came to dwell inside believers, completely renewing our human nature. What Christ was by nature – the Eternal Son and became through the hypostatic union in the incarnation, God grants to believers by grace by the working of the Holy Spirit. In this way, Peter may even say that we have become partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). And just as the hypostatic union is permanent, fixed, and forever, so too our saving union with Christ by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is permanent, fixed, and forever by virtue of our regeneration, our fallen nature being born again to newness of life.  

Conclusion

In other words, you can’t pull at this thread and not start unraveling the whole Christian faith. It’s not a little thing to be questioning whether “nature” exists or not. Is Jesus one man with two natures? And what are we? Do we have fallen human nature inherited from our fathers from Adam, and when we are saved and born again, what are we given? Is it merely a new relationship or status, or are we granted a new way of being human? And just to be entirely clear, this runs directly into our conversations about what it means to be male and female, whether there is any such thing as “sexual orientation,” and to what extent we may expect to progress in sanctification this side of glory. If there is not some underlying, fixed human nature, we cannot really insist that a biological man cannot become a woman. And why couldn’t a biological man be inherently sexually-oriented to other men? And even if we recognize that this is part of the fallen state (nature?) of a man, should we expect those deepest feelings to be eradicated or healed in this life? What is the nature of regeneration? What is the nature of being born again? 

We live in a world full of confusion, but we have been given the words of life. We have been given a clear word in the midst of a muddled world. And this is the clear word: God saves sinners. God took on human nature in order to stand in our place as the fully obedient One, the Righteous One, our perfect sacrifice, so that we might be made new, born again from above, and given an entirely new nature — eternal life that can never be taken away. As the early fathers would put it: God fully assumed our human nature without sin so that our human nature might be fully healed and restored.  

Photo by Laurenz Kleinheider on Unsplash

What Winning Feels Like

What does winning feel like?

Whenever You have ever won something – like a game, a competition, a job, a promotion, a wife – you know that the winning was costly. We know this – or at least we should know this because we know Christ, who won the world, by humbling Himself, suffering in the flesh, defeating Satan, carrying our sins, and being crushed by God’s righteous wrath in our place — for the joy that was set before Him. This means that when Jesus was flogged, He was winning. When Jesus was betrayed, He was winning. When Jesus was mocked and jeered and spat on, He was winning. When the whole world grew dark in the middle of the day and Jesus cried out and breathed His last, He was winning. 

When Paul wrote his final charge to Timothy, he said, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness” (2 Tim. 4:6-8).

So what does winning feel like? It feels like fighting, like running a race, like your whole life is being poured out as a drink offering. But there’s a way to get this terribly wrong. There’s a way for this to sound like you are doing this yourself, that you are conjuring up this energy on your own, coming up with this endurance out of your own reserves like some kind of lame Nike-Olympics false-gospel. But in another place, Paul explains, “I worked harder than all the others, but it was not me, but the grace of God which was in me” (1 Cor. 15:10).

So here the Lord sets before you the source of everything. It is not you who runs. It’s not you who fights or works. It’s Christ in You. This is what winning feels like. It’s like looking down while you’re running your heart out and realizing that you’re being carried. It’s like looking down while you’re fighting with all your might and realizing that He is the one fighting for you. It’s like looking down in the middle of a storm and realizing that you’re not sinking in the waves, that He’s holding you up because when Jesus was winning, He was winning for you. 

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

Photo by Cam Adams on Unsplash

What Do Principalities Look Like?

So the good folks down at Founders put out the trailer for their forthcoming documentary on social justice issues, entitled By What Standard? And the inter webs went berserk. You’d have thought Gideon got up in the middle of the night and knocked over a local idol or something. Wait, actually, that’s kind of what they did. 

In my original comment when I shared the trailer, I noted that everyone is fine with talking about knocking over idols, but whenever anyone actually looks like they might come into contact with an actual, real live idol, the trembling lips and quivering voices share how concerned they are with the “tone” and harshness, and not being very nice or conversational or collegial, and hurt feelings, misunderstandings, and so often no one is quite sure exactly who’s feelings got hurt, but everybody has heard about somebody who heard from someone else and there are just lots of vague and speculative “concerns” milling about like fog over over a bridge, like so many freshman congresswomen with microphones in front of them. And the center of the most recent hurt storm was the allegation that the 1.5 second fuzzy frame of Rachel Denhollander with Owen Strachan’s voice-over describing “principalities and powers” was hurtful, offensive, and somehow equated Rachel with demons.

Now the Founders guys, being gentlemen and not wanting to be seen as taking anything close to a cheap shot, especially at a woman, especially at a heroic woman like Mrs. Denhollander, immediately had that 1.5 second fuzzy frame removed. Their official statement can be found here, which I should belabor at this point, is their official statement. What follows is not their official statement but my own personal thoughts and comments. 

And I would simply like to make three points and then talk about what principalities and powers look like:

First, Owen Strachan was so absolutely right. And he was so right that exactly what he was talking about came right out and flexed its muscles for the whole evangelical webisphere. I want to circle back to this momentarily, but if Owen is even thinking about pulling out of the documentary, he must swear never to stand up in front of anyone and talk about principalities and powers exerting pressure ever again.

Second, the shrieks and howls that could be heard in various and sundry twitter feeds and Baptist institutions were in the first instance Exhibit A for our modern problem of mass biblical illiteracy. Has anyone actually done a bible study on “principalities and powers” in a minute? 

It’s like we graduated from VBS and called it good with Bible memory and the only verse anyone knows is the armor of God passage (Eph. 6), and then everybody goes with their inner charismatic, inherited from binge reading Frank Peretti novels in middle school. But there are a number of other Bible verses on these words. The Bible teaches that principalities and powers are created authorities, both human and angelic. The Old Testament calls human judges “gods” (Ps. 82), and Paul says that Jesus created all things, thrones and dominions (visible ones and invisible ones), including the “principalities and powers,” and they were created by Him and for Him (Col. 1:16). This means that “principalities and powers” were not originally evil at all. Principalities and powers were created to serve Jesus. There’s nothing necessarily Satanic about principalities and powers. They are simply visible and invisible authorities that exert influence, pressure, issue incentives, deliver verdicts, threats, and generally provide various sorts of gravity – some may be angelic, some may be political, some may be religious, and some may be seminary presidents, and in a fallen world, sure, some of them could be rebellious, tyrannical, self-serving, evil and/or demonic.

Third, we are so biblically illiterate that we do not know what godly friendship looks like anymore. We are not used to seeing hard, direct, courageous, and loving confrontational conversations anymore. But the thing is, every time someone says something is “hurtful” an angel loses its wings. Ok, that might not be true, but I’m pretty sure the angels sigh and ask the Lord how long He’s going to put up with our insolence. And by the looks of things, I guess the answer is “longer than you thought.” But the point is that your feelings are not the standard. Does God’s discipline hurt? Hebrews says that it better or else it wasn’t real discipline (Heb. 12). Does parental discipline hurt a child? It sure better or else you were wasting your time (and his) (Prov. 23:13). The question that needs to be asked is: was it just? Ok, it hurt – but faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. And of course, a shyster can claim Proverbs 27:6 and be utterly unjust. But he would be demonstrably wrong. And that could be demonstrated from the facts of the case. But when you let feelings become the standard, there’s absolutely no answer to the charges of “hurtful.”

Paul withstood Peter to his face in front of everyone – claiming the gospel was at stake, and surely some folks rolled their eyes and accused Paul of being a firebrand and hothead, divisive and hurtful. But Paul would call what he did “Christian love.” And Jesus loved Peter enough to say, “Get behind me, Satan.” In other words, sometimes good folks with good intentions can do things that play right into a satanic scheme, and they can do so without themselves being the devil incarnate. We are sinners after all, and fully capable of acting in various and sundry devilish ways. Ever had a bad attitude? There you go, welcome to the club. And the faithful and righteous thing is to do is point that out. I’ll even go further. The faithful and righteous thing is to hurt, cause pain, and even wound our brothers and sisters if necessary, to get their attention, to call them back to the truth, even though a bunch of evangelical fussers will hyperventilate about the “tone” of likening a good guy to Satan. Sorry, but I’m having a hard time taking you seriously, what with your heavy breathing into your intersectional airsick bag. Get back to me when you’ve actually read the Bible. The real question is: was the point “just”? Was the claim true? Yes, it hurt, but was it true?

So what do the principalities and powers look like? Some of them are angels who are ministers of our Lord sent to protect His own. Some of them are demons, messengers of the Accuser sent to stir up dissention, doubt, fear, and guilt. Some of them are presidents, supreme court justices, CEOs, seminary professors, politicians, entertainers, pastors, authors, podcasters, bloggers, pundits, parents – anyone with power, authority, a voice exerting pressure, gravity. There’s nothing essentially bad about being a principality or power – the question is whether you’ve surrendered your power to Christ, whether you have acknowledged that the Cross is the ultimate standard of wisdom and justice, whether you acknowledge that you have been given your authority to serve Christ, or whether you’ve sold your soul to the devil, whether you think power has levers and works by force and manipulation and fleshly pressure.

Paul says that the saints will judge the angels (1 Cor. 6:3). That means in principle the saints have been granted authority over all the spiritual principalities and powers in Christ Jesus. If we have been seated with Christ in the heavenly places (and we have, Eph. 2:6), then we have been seated far above all principalities and powers in Him and by Him and for Him (Eph. 1:20-23). Read it. It’s all right there. And so the irony is really rich when Boz Tchividjian, professional ambulance chaser, now representing an alleged victim of abuse, is suing the Village Church for damages. Those are principalities and powers alright, but that’s not the good kind. Those are the kind that Jesus exposes and triumphed over in the Cross, those are the kind that the saints will judge. Paul says this kind of exertion of power is shameful. And of course, in situations where there have been real criminal acts and/or coverups, it’s absolutely necessary to involve civil authorities. But these optics are way worse than a fuzzy image and a voiceover telling the truth about the way the world works. And I’m still waiting for the SBC tone police to go Full Ascol on that.

Now maybe Founders should have recognized the biblical illiteracy of the SBC and evangelical world and chosen their words/images more carefully for the sake of clarity, but it’s a simple fact that what the trailer actually said and pictured was 100% true. Mrs. Denhollander is one of the powers in the current evangelical milieu, and she is exerting pressure. This is a good thing if her authority is used to point everyone to Christ and His word, as she did initially in her victim statements a few years ago against Larry Nassar. But unfortunately in recent years she has taken up with Boz Tchividjian and even lent her voice to the Sovereign Grace inquisition. And now she is even criticizing Matt Chandler and Ministry Safe for not being sufficiently woke. But this is how the standard of “hurtful” works. Your attempts at justice are never good enough for justice, for the victims, for the families, for anyone.

The human capacity for hurt is a black pit, and when you start falling into it, you find that there is no bottom because it is made up of eternal condemnation and regret. The only way out of that black hole is the cross of Jesus where justice and mercy met and kissed 2000 years ago, where all our sins were paid for, where all the injustice of the world was hauled up by God and dropped on His innocent Son, crushing Him for our peace.

And all of that justice is right there in His word, in the Bible. This was not an emotional outburst by God. It was measured, pure, absolute justice for our iniquity. That is the only source of liberty and justice for all. Otherwise, you’re just making it up as you go along, which is a noose that only gets tighter every time you try to loosen it. And for the record, I do call that sort of thing utterly demonic.

Photo by Joseph Northcutt on Unsplash

Regarding Sin

From time to time you may hear one of the pastors end our prayer of confession with words like, “if we regard sin in our lives this prayer will be ineffectual…” (cf. Ps. 66:18). What does it mean to “regard sin”? To regard sin is to respect sin. It means to let sin have some place in your heart or life. To regard sin is to make peace with sin. How do people do this?

Sometimes people regard sin by saying it runs in the family. Some people regard sin by saying it’s in their blood, in their biology, in their brain – they’re genetically predisposed. Other people regard sin by saying they have never experienced the world differently. They have always been this way. It feels natural. It’s just who they are. It’s their personality type. Or sometimes, we regard sin in our lives because the sin we need to repent of seems to us to be a virtue.

Ever since Adam, sin has come naturally. It has infected all that we are. And holiness does not come naturally to any son or daughter of Adam – it seems unnatural. Unfortunately, many people mistake common grace for saving grace. Some people can be naturally friendly, organized, strong leaders, self-disciplined, hard-working – all by common grace, supplied by the remnants of the image of God and natural revelation. And these virtues are frequently the devil’s strongholds because who needs to repent of their good work ethic?

But when someone becomes a Christian, the Holy Spirit invades a person’s soul and topples the reign of sin and death. We become new creations: new men, new women. When Jesus makes us new, our natural gifts are revealed to be covered in the flesh-rot of self-righteousness and pride – that we do have some goodness in ourselves after all. When Christ comes to reign, He makes war on all our death-deeds and especially the pride-mold in our virtues.

Jesus died and rose again so that we might be born again. And this means that everything must die first. This is necessary because we inherit sin from our fathers, because of the sin in our blood, in our brains, because of the sin that comes so naturally, because of the leprosy infecting our virtues, because we have never actually experienced the world rightly, until Christ makes us new.

Photo by Kunj Parekh on Unsplash

Jeff Meyers, Biblical Balance, and Covenant Renewal Worship

It’s likely I’ll be writing more about all of this in the coming weeks and months, but I want to follow up on my post from Monday concerning Jeff Meyers, Peter Leithart, Revoice, Federal Vision, etc. 

A few hours after my article posted, Peter had a short post up on Theopolis addressing some of the problems with the Celibate Gay Christian movement. Jonathan Barlow followed up with an article the following day that addressed Greg Johnson’s speech from the floor of General Assembly that was quite good. As I said when I shared Barlow’s article, I don’t know if my article had anything to do with the timing of the articles, and I do have a few quibbles here and there, but I’m very grateful for these articles. They go a long way in answering some of my concerns. That said, I still don’t understand why Peter Leithart has not clearly explained and/or retracted his endorsement of Wesley Hill’s book Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian. Why not address this directly and explicitly? I’m still confused why he endorsed the book in the first place (especially given what Peter wrote on the Theopolis blog this last week), and if I’m Wesley Hill, now I’m really confused too. 

But the questions surrounding Jeff Meyer’s appointment of the Missouri Presbytery Study Committee on the Revoice stuff are also still outstanding. Jeff has stated that he was merely seeking a “balanced” committee, but there are two problems with this. The first is that biblical balance is not the same thing as worldly balance. It is of course the requirement of God’s word that judges exercise impartiality and a plurality of judges is a safeguard to that biblical requirement. But the Bible does not teach that impartiality and equity is achieved by representative partisans. That’s the way of identity politics, which is central to Marxism and critical theory. According to identity politics, in order to have a balanced board, you make sure to have equal representation from various constituents (e.g. women, Asians, blacks, whites, etc.), assuming that these external, material identifiers predispose them to certain loyalties or convictions. But that isn’t the way of biblical justice at all. “You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid in any man’s presence, for the judgment is God’s” (Deut. 1:17). The Bible requires that justice be blind — not ignorant, but impartial. When the Hellenistic widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution, the apostles did not say that an equal number of Jewish and Hellenistic deacons ought to be appointed to make sure the deacon board was “balanced” as they looked into the needs of the widows. No, they called for seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit, and wisdom (Acts 6:3). 

And this leads to the second problem, which is that these requirements did not mean that Jeff needed to know what the members of his committee thought about Revoice (as though to stack the committee against Greg Johnson). He merely needed to know that they were not already partial to Revoice. Even in our secular law courts, members of a jury or judges that have previous connections to the accused in a trial recuse themselves, to avoid even an appearance of injustice. The links I provided in my original blog post take you to an analysis of the Missouri Presbytery report at Warhorn media where it seems fairly plain that there was not merely representation from folks familiar with Revoice, but a majority of its members had long standing ties to Revoice and Revoice-like ministries. In other words, there appears to have been a conflict of interest. How do you investigate yourself impartially? And how do you do that when reputations, friendships, and money is on the line? So there is a strong appearance of a stacked deck, and I hope that Jeff will either explain how that was not the case or apologize for failing to actually appoint a truly biblically balanced committee, even if it was completely unintentional. 

Lastly, in one Facebook thread, Jeff objected to my questions on the grounds that he doesn’t owe me any explanation. And of course Jeff does not owe me (personally) an explanation. But his work as moderator was a public office, his appointment of the committee members is a matter of public knowledge, and the report that exonerated Greg Johnson and the Revoice Conference is a matter of public record. And given the nature of the fight we are in, where the LGBTQP Gestapo is currently running every play they can on the conservative church, I do believe that Jeff owes an explanation to the conservative church at large. What happened, man? If there’s a simple explanation for the failure of your committee, make that known. Do you agree with your presbytery’s report? Or if the PCA Gestapo already has its hooks in you, Jeff, then you really need to reach out to some folks and get help. I don’t believe you support Revoice, but this committee and its report has brought further shame on your presbytery, the PCA, and by your involvement, the Biblical Horizons community, and all of us who have benefited from your ministry over the years.

Speaking of which, Covenant Renewal worship is supposed to be the kind of worship that transforms worshipers from glory to glory. That worship is sacrificial – it cuts us with the sword of the Word and lifts us up to the heavenly places where we are blessed with the heavenly gifts. But if that does not translate into actual public faithfulness, the whole thing is a sham. It’s absolutely worthless if we are not being made into the kind of people who can see the plays being run on us or will not stand in the moment of battle or will not admit when we have failed. If covenant renewal worship is the most biblical form of worship (and I believe it is), then it should create the most biblical Christians, the most faithful pastors. Again, if this whole thing was an accident, if people misrepresented themselves, if you didn’t know about their prior connections, would you please just say so? I would accept your answer and move on – as I have been willing to do with Peter’s endorsement of Wesley Hill’s book Spiritual Friendship. But otherwise, it looks like you’re covering for a presbytery that is shot through with compromise, and given Peter Leithart’s apparent reluctance to address the Revoice issue, both of these things together make Biblical Horizons, Theopolis Institute, and their related emphases and methodologies seem highly suspect.

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