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Why Do We Have Baptists in the First Pla...

December 2, 2015Written by Matt Shrader

Why Do We Have Baptists in the First Place?

by Matt Shrader

In a day and age when Southern Baptists are the largest Protestant denomination in America and Baptist churches are seemingly everywhere, it is easy to ask what Baptists are all about and even why are they so prevalent. There is no short answer but I think that a brief general account of their beginnings can help begin to answer these questions. Since their beginnings, Baptists have recognized a few ideas as important for the life of a local church and hopefully you can see them through this short paper.

A Note about Origin Theories:

There are three general theories for the beginnings of Baptists. The first is that they have their origins in the New Testament and there is a thread of Baptist churches (though not called that by name) all throughout the church’s history. The second is that Baptists have their origins in the Anabaptist Reformation of the sixteenth century. The third is that Baptists have their origins in the later English Reformation of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. Very few hold to the first view anymore and those who hold the second are dwindling as well.¹ The reasons have to do with the ability to show genetic connection (i.e., direct influence and historical connection) either explicitly or implicitly.² Travelling backward through time Baptists trace a clear line to the London Confession of Faith in 1644, wherein a few defining ideas are crystallized. But, how much farther back can we go? We need to find those who made this confession and those who first held the central ideas contained in this confession.

Reformation in England:

The Reformation in England began under the reign of Henry VIII though it did not take permanent hold until Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558.³In general terms, the Church of England was “Protestant in theology but largely medieval in its pattern of worship and liturgy and in which the monarch held the reins of power.”⁴ It did not take long before several were unsatisfied at the extent of reformation. The Puritans sought to continue the English Reformation within the Church of England. The Separatists felt that they needed to leave the Church of England in order to attain the reformation they wanted. Out of these Separatists and Puritans came Baptists and their ideas.⁵

Robert Browne was one Separatist whose famous works, A Treatise of Reformation Without Tarrying for Anie and A Booke Which Sheweth the Life and Manners of All True Christians, provided a seminal presentation of the idea that the government could not compel religion, plant churches, or govern the activities of churches. The Separatists differed from the Puritans over the nature of the church. B. R. White explains it like this: “The Church was claimed to be a fellowship of believers which must be separated from the ungodly and the uncommitted. … The Congregation had power to appoint and, if need be, to dismiss its ministers. Final authority lay with the whole body of the congregation.”⁶ And so Puritans and Separatists, though both disagreeing with the Church of England on the extent of the Reformation, also disagreed with each other.

The Puritans experienced difficulties when Richard Bancroft became Archbishop of the Church of England in 1604 and began his heavy anti-Puritan polemic. In regard to the Separatists, persecution arose because of the growth of churches outside the government’s jurisdiction. “Their very act of separation from the established Church was regarded at the time as a manifestation of civil disobedience.”⁷ Browne actually recanted his views on government involvement in religion. His ideas continued, though, with great political consequence. Some recanted, many were imprisoned, some died in prison, a few were executed, and others fled to Holland for religious refuge. Among those that fled to Holland, the most important for Baptist history are the figures of John Smyth and Thomas Helwys.

General Baptists:

After a few Separatist groups began to gather in Holland, differences arose. John Smyth was one pastor who took his congregation out of England to avoid persecution. When they arrived in Amsterdam, they were not the first separatist congregation. And, they had important differences with the current separatist church led by Francis Johnson. They disagreed over the duties of a pastor, the number of required pastors, and the general way the church was to be run. The result was that the churches separated from each other, including a group within Smyth’s church that disagreed with their pastor, with a group relocating to Leiden and then eventually sailing to the New World and Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Smyth continued his controversial career by becoming the first separatist to reject infant baptism. Since he doubted much that came from the Church of England, he concluded that his infant baptism within that church was suspect. Upon investigation of the Bible he rejected infant baptism and affirmed credo-baptism (baptism only after confession of faith). He then compounded the controversy when he baptized himself and his church. As can be understood, many challenged these ideas and accused Smyth of being influenced by Anabaptists. This accusation was serious because Anabaptists were generally seen through the lens of the notorious Münster rebellion in 1534-1535. Smyth decided to approach an Anabaptist group in Amsterdam known as the Waterlander Mennonites to discuss their views of baptism and church government. As he was searching this out, Smyth was convinced of the view of salvation taught by Jacobus Arminius and being debated throughout Holland. This general view of election (as opposed to particular) became a denoting factor among later Baptists. After speaking with the Waterlanders, Smyth decided his own baptism had been hasty and so he assimilated into their congregation.

Not all of Smyth’s church agreed with this plan. Thomas Helwys (pronounced “Ellis”) was a deacon in Smyth’s church who had agreed with Smyth up to the point of denouncing his baptism at the hands of Smyth. When Smyth decided to join the Waterlanders, Helwys’s group returned to England and implanted their Baptist ideas into English soil. Importantly, Helwys was a strong advocate for religious liberty. His book, A Short Treatise on the Mistery of Iniquity (1612), was the first book arguing for religious toleration written in England. This idea attacked not only the Church of England, but also the Puritans and Separatists. Smyth published his book advocating religious liberty at about the time he returned to England. He was promptly arrested and died in prison a few years later. The views of his congregation, which included credo-baptism, religious liberty, church leadership through a multiplicity of pastors, and a general view of the atonement, were successful and multiplied their numbers in the coming decades.⁸

Particular Baptists:

Particular Baptists hold to a more Calvinistic view of salvation than the General Baptists. They also had their origins more among the Puritans and had a much larger following. Most historians point to the London church pastored successively by Henry Jacob, John Lathrop, and Henry Jessey as an important root of the Particular Baptist movement. Under Jacob and Lathrop, the church was a Puritan church that believed true churches did exist in the Church of England, but they needed reforming. This church produced at least two Separatist offshoots and saw both Jacob and Lathrop emigrate to the New World. When Jessey became the pastor in 1637 it continued on the same line until the issue of infant baptism came up.

In 1638, a famous document, “The Kiffen Manuscript”, noted that several people rejected infant baptism and were instead baptized as believers. They joined a church lead by John Spilsbury, which is probably the first Particular Baptist Church in England. The Jessey church was doing well in this time and split for the sake of its size in 1640. Again, baptism became an issue. This time the discussion was around the mode of baptism. Richard Blunt, a member of the church was convinced that baptism should be done only by the mode of immersion, based on Colossians 2:12 and Romans 6:4. Under the blessing of his church, he was sent to Holland to speak to Mennonites (the Collegiants) about this interpretation of scripture. When he returned, he began the practice of immersion. This spread to other churches within London, including the Spilsbury church.

Within London there were at least seven Particular Baptist churches by 1644. They did not all agree on immersion, but they did agree on credo-baptism. This created a great controversy within London as they were accused of being Anabaptists, among other things. Their response to this situation was historic. Michael Haykin describes it like this: “In order to dispel this confusion, refute other charges that had been leveled against them, and demonstrate their fundamental solidarity with Calvinists throughout Western Europe, these Particular Baptists issued the First London Confession of Faith in 1644.”⁹

The difference of this confession of Faith, which was reissued in a second 1646 edition, with anything prior is important. It differs from the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles, the Separatist Confession of 1596, and the contemporaneous Westminster Confession of Faith (1646). The main areas of difference cannot be overstated as they provided a self-understanding for these Baptists that distinguished them from other groups.¹⁰ The first area of difference was that the church was comprised of only converted believers (not infants) and they must be baptized as a confession of faith. Second, the authority of the pastor was placed under the rule of the church as a whole. Third, each church was autonomous from the State and from each other. While these ideas are important, it should be remembered that these Baptists did not see themselves as acting out of line with the history of the Church. Their confession contained the important new differences but also the important agreements they had with the Christian tradition.

Conclusion:

While I traced a different history between the General and the Particular Baptists, it should be remembered that their ideas were not completely distinct, even in the ideas of salvation, where specifically they agreed with one another on conversion, baptism, and local church autonomy.

The previous Aletheia article contained a historical exposition of the Anabaptist Balthasar Hubmaier and his understanding of believers’ baptism. While he and many other Anabaptist leaders held to this important idea, they did not hold to other ideas central to Baptists. Indeed, the one or two places where we can trace Baptists being influenced by Anabaptists (Mennonites in Holland for example), they refused to join the Anabaptists because of their differences. Further, the London Confession of 1644 had as one purpose to distinguish themselves from Anabaptists largely because of the political stigma surrounding the name. Genetically and self-confessedly, Baptists come out of the later English Reformation. The ferment created by the ongoing debates concerning the nature of the church resulted in the unification of a new group of people around a particular set of ideas, while also not rejecting theological ideas central to orthodox Protestantism and the Christian tradition.

One unique part in the origins of the Baptists is the political circumstance of England at the time. The political circumstances that allowed or persecuted different viewpoints from the Roman Catholic Church to the Church of England to Puritans to Separatists to Baptists all were dependant on the legality of their beliefs at certain times. And, for the decades following the London Confession of 1644 and 1646, England found itself to be politically tolerant of dissenting views as a result of the English Civil war and then the subsequent rule of Oliver Cromwell (1642-1651, 1651-1658). These decades of tolerance, and the spread of Baptist ideas through soldiers in Cromwell’s army, led to Baptist growth in England, Ireland, and Wales. After Cromwell’s death in 1658, religious toleration ended and persecution resumed. That is the time when early Baptists such as John Bunyan preached, but that is a story for another day.

As the offspring of the English Puritans and Separatists, Baptists since their beginnings have also recognized the importance of a church continually learning and reforming. They looked to fashion their church practices based on their understanding of Scripture but also within a confessional structure faithful to the beliefs of historic Christianity. Conversion prior to baptism and church membership, the autonomy of each church, and the plea for religious liberty stood at the center of this fresh understanding. Several centuries later these ideas are at still at the center of Baptist belief and practice.

Final thoughts about studying history

I have written the last four articles about church history and then about a couple moments in church history. In the first two I spent my time giving the why and the how. In the last two I spent my time showing examples of putting these historical practices to work. The two examples are worth contrasting. The article on Hubmaier pays attention to the historical situation of Hubmaier but gives the majority of the space to actually diving into the writing of Hubmaier. In contrast, the article on Baptist beginnings pays attention to the actual ideas but spends more time on the historical situation. In both articles, the ideas and the historical situations are important. And, for the Baptist beginnings article I did spend time reading some of the primary works, like was done with Hubmaier. While it is important to do solid historical work as I outlined in the second article, the ultimate goal is to understand not only what is being said but more importantly what the people are doing with what they say. When we get at those questions, then history begins to teach and challenge us.

And, we must remember why history is important. We are fallen human beings who are limited in our understanding. God accommodated to our weaknesses by giving us Scripture. The Holy Spirit inspired the words of Scripture and the Spirit indwells and illumines believers from all ages. When Spirit-indwelled believers in their own historical situations offer their Spirit-illuminated understandings of Scripture, we would do well to try our best to understand and learn from them.

Notes:

William R. Estep, The Anabaptist Story: An Introduction to Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995); and Malcolm B. Yarnell III, The Anabaptists and Contemporary Baptists: Restoring New Testament Christianity (Nashville: B & H Academic, 2013).
One great source for this discussion is: Stephen Wright, The Early English Baptists, 1603-1649 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 2006), 1-11.
For a general overview of the English Reformation, a good start is: Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England, 1547-1603, second edition (Houndsmill, UK: Palgrace, 2001).
Anthony L. Chute, Nathan A. Finn, and Michael A. G. Haykin, The Baptist Story: From English Sect to Global Movement (Nashville, B & H Academic, 2015), 14.
David W. Bebbington, Baptists Through the Centuries: A History of a Global People (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2010), 7-41; and Thomas S. Kidd and Barry Hankins, Baptists in America: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 1-7.
B. R. White, The English Separatist Tradition: From the Marian Martyrs to the Pilgrim Fathers (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 166.
White, The English Separatist Tradition, 87.
Though, Bebbington relates that the later General Baptists may or may not have been direct descendants of Helwys’s congregation: Bebbington, Baptists Through the Centuries, 39-40.
Chute, Finn, and Haykin, The Baptist Story, 25-26.
Still the best source for Baptist confessions is William L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Philadelphia, The Judson Press), various years.

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Balthasar Hubmaier’s View of Baptism

November 3, 2015Written by Rick Shrader

Balthasar Hubmaier’s View of Baptism

by Rick Shrader

Baptists often debate about their beginnings. Some believe that there is a trail of Baptist ideas all the way back through history to the New Testament. Others believe that the radical Reformation group known as the Anabaptists is the starting point for specifically Baptist beliefs. The majority view is that Baptists have their origins in the later English Reformation and the debates among the Puritans and Separatists.

I agree with the majority view, yet I still find that the Anabaptists are worth learning from. Many of their viewpoints and theologians I find personally disagreeable (such as Hans Hut, certain apocalyptic theologies, or pacifist viewpoints), but not all. Balthasar Hubmaier (1480/5-1528) is one person that I find interesting, particularly in his ideas on baptism. His most famous work, On the Christian Baptism of Believers (1525), has been described by James Stayer as “the most effective defense of believers’ baptism in the Reformation era”.¹ My hope is that a historical survey of Hubmaier and his theological writings on baptism will lead you to appreciate this Reformation thinker and his arguments for believers’ baptism, especially as it mirrors so closely what modern-day Baptists believe.

Early Life and Ministry

Hubmaier came from a peasant farmer’s home, but enjoyed a very good education at the Universities of Freiburg and Ingolstadt under the famous Roman Catholic theologian Johann Eck.² He earned a doctorate in theology and eventually became preacher at the cathedral in Regensburg (1516), which was home to a major pilgrimage site. Reformation theologians as well as the bankruptcy of his own ministry eventually overcame Hubmaier and he converted. After his conversion, he gave up his position in Regensburg and moved to the town of Waldshut, on the Rhine, in March 1523 where he worked to implement reformation.

Waldshut was in Southern Swabia (Germany), near the Swiss border, and not far from Zurich where Huldrych Zwingli was conducting his Reformation. Considering their proximity, it is not surprising that Hubmaier’s early work at Reformation was quite similar to Zwingli’s. But, not all Reformations were equal nor stayed equal. Zwingli’s Reformation was moving at a different pace than Luther’s and they disagreed over important points of theology. Others within Zwingli’s city, such as Conrad Grebel, wanted the Reformation to move at a faster pace than even Zwingli would allow. It helps to know that Hubmaier initially kept pace with Zwingli, but they eventually divided over baptism.

Based on several personal conversations, Hubmaier at first thought that he had allies in Zwingli, Johannes Oecolampadius, Sebastian Hofmeister and others who would agree that infant baptism was incorrect. On Easter Sunday, 1525, Hubmaier was baptized and then baptized several hundred others in Waldshut. Unfortunately, Hubmaier’s continuing Reformation at Waldshut was not well received by the men he thought would agree to take these next steps. Also, the complicated political situation in Waldshut was crumbling because the Peasant’s War was ending. On December 5 of 1525 Hubmaier ran for his life to Zurich because he was wanted for his part in helping the peasants. Before he did, however, he managed to write his famous work, On the Christian Baptism of Believers.

On the Christian Baptism of Believers

This work was written because he had been accused of trying to start a new sect, he was accused of rejecting legitimate government, and he was accused of saying that nobody sinned after baptism. He rejected all three charges. In fact, he believed the Bible taught believers’ baptism and so he was not sectarian but biblical, he opined for a righteous sword-bearing government, and he freely admitted the reality of sin after baptism.

His argument in favor of believers’ baptism and against infant baptism began by recognizing that there are multiple kinds of baptism in the Bible.³ First, there is “baptism in water” because of repentance as John the Baptist practiced. Second, there is “baptism in water, for or unto change of life” which should lead to a new life in Christ. Third, there is “baptism in the Spirit and fire” which is Spirit baptism that makes one alive and whole again. Fourth, there is “to be reborn out of water and Spirit” which is to help the converted not have fear and dread. Fifth, there is “baptism in water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (99).⁴

The main reason Hubmaier went through these New Testament uses of baptism was to show “that the word or teaching should precede the outward baptism, along with the determination to change one’s life by the help of God” (101). To prove further his point about the order of these events, Hubmaier surveyed the biblical passages referring to John the Baptist. He concluded that the normal order was for John to preach, people to be baptized for repentance, and then to be pointed further to Christ. The apostles followed a similar idea of preaching first, faith next, and then baptism. The difference with the apostles was that they could point directly to Christ, thus their baptism was not to recognize repentance and then point to Christ but to begin by preaching faith in Christ. Hubmaier then surveyed texts in the New Testament that talk of this baptism in Christ. Again, the normal order was word, then hearing, faith, baptism, and a life of good works. In each case, preaching and change of mind came before baptism.

Of course, the consequence of this order was that infant baptism was wrong because it placed baptism before faith. Hubmaier rejected the idea that infant baptism was an anticipatory “sign” (118-9) of faith, a future Christian life, or somehow in agreement with scripture. He also rejected the notion that it could be acceptable because it is not explicitly forbidden in Scripture. Because he saw believers’ baptism required in the New Testament, it followed that there is no place for baptizing anyone other than believers. He also responded to the question of the long history of infant baptism. He argued “even if it had always been like that, it would still not be right, because a wrong is always wrong” (137). In either case, he believed early church history was largely in agreement with the believers’ baptism position.

Hubmaier saw the order of justification like this: first, Christ begins to teach and the sinner sees his own sinfulness; second, Christ leads to confession of guilt and then gives grace; third, there is a public confession of faith culminating in baptism; fourth, the believer lives a life according to the rule of Christ; fifth, there is a regular remembrance of thankfulness in the Lord’s Supper. What is important to see is that Hubmaier argued according to the biblical order. After making this simple but profound point, Hubmaier anticipated several theological consequences. One was the theological permissiveness of infant baptism, as we have already seen. Another that came out here and in several later works is the relation between the Testaments and particularly the relation of circumcision to baptism. He saw baptism as a New Testament ordinance, like the Lord’s Supper, that was a part of Christ’s work and unconnected to the work of the Old Testament.

Later Ministry and Thought

Hubmaier’s biography continues that when he was found in Zurich he was imprisoned (as a political prisoner). Zwingli granted Hubmaier the opportunity to debate him and his men over infant baptism on December 19. At one point Hubmaier was embarrassed in this debate because he claimed Zwingli had rejected infant baptism. Zwingli had indeed said that infant baptism was not the dominant form in certain times of church history, but he did not conclude that believers’ baptism was to be restored. Hubmaier had to admit he misunderstood Zwingli. Another major disagreement was over covenants. Zwingli saw one eternal covenant in both testaments and so baptism corresponded to circumcision. Hubmaier and Zwingli evidently could not agree on the admissibility of the Old Testament to provide a sign for the New Testament. Hubmaier was forced to recant and he referenced love as the reason. In other words, despite the conviction otherwise and under the guidance of others who felt similarly, he thought he should recant out of the interest to the church’s unity. Famously, on December 29 when he was to give his public recantation in the church, Hubmaier stepped up to recant but then said that he could not go against conscience. Displeased, Zwingli promptly stepped into the other pulpit and ended the show. Hubmaier was put in prison, tortured, and only released after several months and another recantation.

After his release in April 1526, Hubmaier moved to Augsburg in Bavaria and then all the way to Nikolsburg in Moravia. From June 1526 until June or July 1527, he had a second opportunity to implement Reformation. At this time he published further works that he had begun working on when in Waldshut. One was a compilation of views by figures in church history that helped his position, Old and New Teachers on Believers Baptism.⁵ Another was a liturgical guide for his church, A Form for Water Baptism, as well as dialogues with Zwingli and Oecolampadius.

His views had not changed from his earlier days, he was simply trying to defend and clarify the issues as well as provide the practical service of a liturgy for his church. For example, in his Dialogue with Zwingli’s Baptism Book, Hubmaier rejected a connection of baptism to circumcision: “We know that Christ has newly institute baptism and the Lord’s Supper and abolished ceremonies, figures, and shadows of the Old Testament with his coming, as the epistles to the Colossians and the Hebrews clearly prove, Col. 2:16ff.; Heb. 8:13” (188).

He also reiterated the idea that infants cannot have faith nor have the faith of anyone else credited to them: “Baptism is a public testimony of faith which the baptized one himself makes before the church, not godmothers or godfathers. In that each believing person has three witnesses in heaven: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in whose name and power he inwardly surrenders to God and outwardly has obligated himself to lead a new life according to the Rule of Christ” (226).

One important final example is in his work On Infant Baptism Against Oecolampad where he solidified his assertion for the priority of the New Testament: “Water baptism is a ceremony of the New Testament. Therefore I demand from you a clear word out of the New Testament with which you bring to us this infant baptism” (288). We should notice that Hubmaier did not share the same presuppositions about scripture with Zwingli and Oecolampadius.⁶ Therefore, not only was Hubmaier’s view of baptism different but this difference began to show in other areas.

Hubmaier’s career as a Reformer was short-lived. From his conversion in 1523, his acceptance of believers’ baptism on Easter 1525, his imprisonment and wandering from December 1525 to June 1526, and then through his final ministry in Nikolsburg ending in mid-1527, Hubmaier was incredibly productive, but nevertheless left an incomplete work. His ministry came to an end with his arrest by the Austrian government in June or July of 1527. Hubmaier was martyred on March 10, 1528 in Vienna.

Some Observations

Several points can be marked from this brief survey. First, faith is personal. This is not a position unique to Hubmaier, but was one of the central ideas of the Reformation. However, Hubmaier and those who held to believers’ baptism saw this personal faith as contrary to infant baptism.

Second, the order of biblical events is important. Hubmaier saw baptism as a command of the New Testament and he saw it consistently presented within a certain order. Whether it was the baptism of John the Baptist or of Jesus and his disciples, Hubmaier made the highly influential point that the Bible consistently gave the order of preaching, faith next, and then baptism.

Third, baptism leads to a life of Christian witness within the local church. Baptism is a public profession not only of one’s faith in Christ, for Hubmaier, but also for one’s continuing life of commitment to Christ and his church. In fact, making the public profession of faith in baptism placed one under the authority and discipline of the church.⁷

Fourth, the biblical arguments are most important. Hubmaier was not opposed to historical arguments (he appealed to history and tradition), but these all stand in submission to the Bible. Again, this was a common Reformation idea, but it is still an important lesson to learn.

Fifth, the New Testament has priority for the church. While baptism was perhaps the issue that proved historically the most controversial, the debate was waged over several fronts. Baptism is a theologically connected idea that touches multiple loci of theology. Besides those just listed, we could also point to the idea of covenant and the debate over continuity or discontinuity of the Testaments.

Most of these observations bear affinity with modern day Baptists.⁸ There are, however, differences in areas not mentioned here such as church government and church-state relationships. The continuity of Baptist and earlier Anabaptist ideas has some overlap, though it does not transfer to any kind of genetic connection. What we can conclude is that Hubmaier’s famous work on believers’ baptism did have a long history of influence and should give us food for thought.

Some Concluding Thoughts

Modern day Baptists would do well to remember this source of theology. We should also note the strong contention that this point raised between Hubmaier and Zwingli. Indeed, baptism was and is no small matter. Perhaps some of these ideas and theological connections are new to you or perhaps you were reminded of an important point. Personally, when I read Hubmaier’s work, the idea of a faithful life (or even death) connected to genuine faith and believers’ baptism strikes me, particularly because Hubmaier suffered for holding such a view. We would do well to continually consider not only our views on baptism but also the interconnectedness of our theology. We can be thankful for those who began to think through many of the theological ideas that we still consider important today.

Notes:

James Stayer, “Hubmaier, Balthasar” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, ed. by Hans J. Hillerbrand, volume 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 261.
For biographical details, see: Stayer, “Hubmaier, Balthasar”; David C. Steinmetz, Reformers in the Wings: From Geiler von Kayserberg to Theodore Beza, second edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 138-45; Torsten Bergsten, Balthasar Hubmaier: Anabaptist Theologian and Martyr, translated by Irwin J. Barnes and William R. Estep, edited by William R. Estep (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1978).
Hubmaier also spoke about a three-fold baptism (Spirit, water, and blood) corresponding to 1 John 5:7. See, Pipkin and Yoder: 301, 349-350.
All Hubmaier’s quotes will be in parentheses and are from: Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism, translated and edited by H. Wayne Pipkin and John H. Yoder, Classics of the Radical Reformation (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1989).
It should be noted that not all of Hubmaier’s quotations and sources were correct.
Graeme R. Chatfield, Balthasar Hubmaier and the Clarity of Scripture: A Critical Reformation Issue (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2013), 114-31.
Brian C. Brewer, A Pledge of Love: The Anabaptist Sacramental Theology of Balthasar Hubmaier (Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2012), 84-141, esp. 138-41.
For a helpful overview of Baptist thought, see: Kevin Bauder, Baptist Distinctives: And New Testament Church Order (Schaumburg, IL: Regular Baptist Press, 2012).

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Church History: Where Do I Begin?

October 5, 2015Written by Matt Shrader

Church History: Where Do I Begin?

by Matt Shrader

In the previous issue of Aletheia I gave my explanation for why church history is necessary. I also mentioned that once we can agree that church history needs to be considered then we need to start asking how we are going to do this. I have been asked this simple question several times: where do I begin with church history? I may have convinced someone that it is either important or interesting, but that still leaves this issue of how and where to begin.

My high school soccer coach used to preach to my team that determination is breaking up a seemingly impossible task into small achievable goals. There is a lot of truth in that statement. We might be tempted to place church history in the category of the seemingly impossible. And, in a way, it is impossible. At my modest local library, there are no fewer than sixteen shelves of books containing the works of Martin Luther or works about him. When it comes to Augustine, it is even larger. In fact, there are three huge folio volumes that talk about the books that have talked about Augustine!

I do not think that we need be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of what there is. Our goal is not the impossible task of being comprehensive, only that of being responsible, a goal that is attainable. To that end, I would encourage you to consider the idea of determination mentioned a few lines above. I would also like to offer some ideas on the ways we can begin to read church history. To help visualize this I would put them in two categories: (1) the tools or skills that Christians need to do church history (what do I need to do this?) and (2) how we use those church history tools to affect us (what do I let it do to me?). Let me reiterate that this is not as hard as it seems and it is not for the specialist only. I am going to give some suggestions, but you may find that many of them are already in your possession.

Tools/Skills for Doing Church History.

A Worldview. One of the first “tools” needed as you begin looking at church history is an understanding of the Gospel core of Christianity and also a Christian worldview. Our assumptions of what is proper Christianity are important, especially for how we are able to evaluate the history of Christianity. This is not to say that someone cannot understand church history unless they have a correct understanding of the Gospel. But if the goal of church history is not just to understand the details but also to evaluate the relative worth of different time periods and apply our understanding to our current situation, then it is essential to know when someone has strayed from the Gospel or from the basic Christian worldview. As Baptist theologian Alvah Hovey once put it (way back in 1854): without this basic understanding of Christianity how can we “discover and honor the true ship of the Church amid fleets of piratical craft sailing under her colors?”¹ Of course, we also remember that we read church history to try and understand theology and even to be challenged or enriched in our theology. Yet, we must be careful not to allow any and every moment or viewpoint found within church history to be correct.

A complementary idea is to know what to do with disagreements. Not all of these are created equal. In my Aletheia article from last month (September 2015) I spelled out some of the ideas to keep in mind about how to handle disagreements. I will just restate that it is important to remember when these differences are essential to Christian identification (e.g., Trinity), when they are matters of theological consistency (e.g., inerrancy), when they are essential to local church fellowship (e.g., ordinances), or when they are matters of personal preference (e.g., author of Hebrews). If and when you begin studying a figure or time period from church history you will find things both to admire and to reject. In any such case we must remember the relative importance of the issue at hand and where it fits into the larger scheme of Christian thinking and witness.

Skills for Reading History. When we study church history we need to have a set of skills for how to read history in general. Many of these things should be rather self-evident, but they deserve repeating. John Fea, in his introductory work on studying history, gives “five C’s of historical thinking” that I find helpful.² First, we are concerned with change over time. Because things do not stay the same, we ask how things have changed because this gives understanding to why people think and act the way they do. Second, context is important for the study of the past. This means not only that we cannot take words out of context but we must also take cultures and entire belief systems into account. Third, we want to know about causality. In other words, we want to know not just a list of facts but why things happened the way they did and what shaped events. This should introduce some caution because we cannot possibly know this in every situation or even fully and completely in any situation. There can be any number of potential causes to an event. Yet, as students of history we work hard to understand these causes because it opens up better understanding. Fourth, we care about contingency or the possibility that human beings have the ability to do something not based on their surroundings, but more out of their own free will. Fifth, the past is complex. Not only are people from the past different from us, but they may also in fact be quite a bit more complex. Any student of the past would be willing to tell you about their favorite time period or personality and how complex that time or person is. Simplistic presentations of history run the risk of missing details that are essential to the story.

All these points are helpful in understanding what it means to study history. There are skills that we inculcate and there are bad skills that we work to excise. The fact of the matter is that as we study history we can make a lot of mistakes and bad assumptions. Anachronism is to attribute a practice, event, or thing to the wrong time period. The Whig fallacy of historical interpretation is to assume that all things happen simply because they are pushing toward what we see in a later time. Books upon books have been written that explain potential fallacies.³ Skill and awareness is needed on these issues. It is also true that as we study history we continually reshape our own understanding of that history. I hope that you do not hear this and conclude that history is unknowable or a wax nose that we may make say whatever we want. While we admit that we can never produce a completely neutral and unbiased presentation of history, we can still produce a historically objective presentation of history provided we aim to follow the practices of good history.⁴ A good way to learn these practices (besides working through some of the books I have just footnoted) is to read good historical work. With some practice it is not as hard as you think.

Asking the Right Questions. One of the most important things we need when we to do is to ask the right questions. Do I understand the context well? Or causality? Is my understanding too simplistic? Am I avoiding fallacious historical reasoning? As we study church history, we should also ask a handful of questions that are more theological in nature. When a theologian – such as Martin Luther – does something – like post a 95-thesis statement – he is doing something. He is not just throwing out beliefs into the ether. He is actually doing something with his understanding of the Bible and theology and is trying to accomplish something – like showing the theological and moral bankruptcy of indulgences. This idea that theology is action cannot be undervalued. When Augustine wrote his Confessions, he was not simply saying something he thought was correct or worth hearing. He was trying to influence people, particularly so that they would see his spiritual autobiography and then consider their own. What was the Council of Nicaea doing with their statements? What was John Bunyan trying to accomplish when he published The Pilgrim’s Progress? This makes context essential and it opens up to us the immense value of church history and the power of theology both in the past and in our own day.

Related to this idea and to the previous point about disagreements, we need to understand not only what a person is trying to do with his theology but also what his sources of theology are and what his biblical warrant is. If we are studying history for the purpose of self-evaluation and betterment, then we must ask whether the things we are studying should change us. In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther wrote about The Bondage of the Will and Erasmus wrote about The Freedom of the Will. If we are interested in this exchange in church history we might ask a series of questions such as: What is the context of this historical debate? What are the actual arguments of each (what are they saying)? What are they actually doing to the church in their day and age with these books? What do they use as authority? Which one makes the best case biblically? Once we answer those questions then we can begin to ask what we should let history do to us.

As I finish this section on the tools of the historian, let me just say that this is not a how-to list that guarantees pure results nor is it a comprehensive methodology. Other ideas like our character qualities are important (e.g., are you generous or pugilistic?). There are tools we use and gain proficiency with and there are abilities and qualities of the person to consider. Studying history is both a skill and an art. But, it is something we can all do.

What do I let Church History do to me?

We must remember that we are not doing this simply as an academic exercise. It is academic in the sense that it takes study and the use of proper skills and understanding. But, we are doing this with an eye toward growing into the fullness of the stature of Christ. So, as we apply church history to ourselves, a few points about what I should do with my tools of church history are important here. In a sense, we are learning how to use tools and honing our skills so that we can construct/disciple ourselves and those around us. Such a task needs some thought.

Remember, We Need History. We need to remember why we need church history. It helps us to evaluate our thoughts and actions as Christians. It teaches us what is important and what is not important. It shows us what Christians think about a host of theological and ethical issues. It shows us what Christian witness looks like in the mundane and in the extraordinary. It tells us what Christian worship, benevolence, education, and friendship have looked like. The list could go on, but the point is that church history gives us identity and examples and we do well to consider how it models Christianity.

Be Open, at Points. This is not to say that we follow everything we see in church history. But, we ought to listen to what church history tells us is important. To push against the weight of church history is an uphill battle. Consider this statement by F. F. Bruce:

Where the Holy Spirit guides the people of Christ into further truth, that guidance (though meeting with some initial resistance) tends in the long run to commend itself to their general acceptance. It will not conflict with truth already learned and established, even if it shows that some things previously reckoned to be truth were only imperfectly so, or not so at all. It will be acknowledged to be in harmony with the mind of Christ, as His mind is primarily revealed in Scripture and progressively appreciated in the church.⁵

The assumption is that Christians throughout the history of the church have the same Holy Spirit working inside them. This same Holy Spirit wrote Scripture. Therefore, we compare our thoughts with the history of the church to see if it matches up while we also compare our thoughts and the church’s against the Scriptures. As I explained in the last Aletheia article, church history does not hold the same authority as Scripture. But, the same Holy Spirit has indwelt Christians throughout the church’s history and we ought to care for what they have urged us is important.

So, have the attitude of an apprentice, but not without a critical eye. I have already mentioned the need for a pre-understanding of what Christianity is and what the Christian worldview is. Here I am adding the idea that we are fallible and limited human beings who need to be pointed in the right direction. Now, while we are fallible, the Bible is clear and compelling in many areas. Not all areas of our convictions are as open to being challenged as others might be. I believe that Jesus is both fully God and fully human. To be honest, no amount of argumentation will get me to change my mind on that (but I think I stand in good historical company there). There are some areas where I am very open to being challenged in my ideas while other areas not as much. It would take a lot of convincing to convert me to not being a Baptist, or not accepting inerrancy, or any number of doctrines I currently hold. So, while I hold myself to be an apprentice to church history – and fallible at that – I also believe that Scripture is abundantly clear on many issues that I will have a harder time relinquishing than others.

Be Critical, Generous, and Respectful. That being said, we should be critical and generous. Christians throughout the history of the church are fallible and full of faults and even inconsistencies, just as we are. But, they also have the Spirit of God and we should listen well. Don’t condemn others from the past without good reason. If we do, we run the risk of what C. S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery”. This is

the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. You must find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood. From seeing this, one passes to the realization that our own age is also ‘a period,’ and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions. They are likeliest to lurk in those widespread assumptions which are so ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them.⁶

On the other end of the spectrum might be what we could call “historical naiveté”, or, the uncritical acceptance of a past act simply because it is past. Some things have passed away from the church’s history because they needed to while others have passed and need to be resurrected. Wisdom and biblical thinking need to be utilized in these appropriations.

Where do we begin to get into church history? I hope you see that reading church history is not impossible, though it cannot be done flippantly. My encouragement would be to take up and read! The tools and suggestions presented here do not take a college or seminary degree to attain (though that is certainly nice), but they may take a lifetime to master. As you practice, sharpen yourself and your skills. Read great historians and see how they do it. Continue to grow in your knowledge of church history and your understanding of theology and the church. More to the point, let church history teach you Christianity.

Notes:

Alvah Hovey, “A Good Church History”, Studies in Ethics and Religion (Boston: Silver, Burdett, and Company, 1892), 541.
John Fea, Why Study History? (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013), 6-15.
Carl Trueman, Histories and Fallacies: Problems Faced in the Writing of History (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010); David Hackett Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (New York: Harper, 1970).
Richard Evans, In Defense of History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999).
F. F. Bruce, Tradition Old and New (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1970), 18.
C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2012), 207-8.

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The Necessity of Church History

September 1, 2015Written by Matt Shrader

The Necessity of Church History

by Matt Shrader

Baptists have their roots in the English Reformation. Since their beginning, several beliefs have been at the center of their theology, including believer’s baptism, individual soul competency, congregational government, as well as fundamentally orthodox beliefs like the Trinity and the deity of Christ. Whether they are affirming the major beliefs of orthodoxy or their denominational distinctives, Baptists have normally placed the authority of Scripture as paramount. Considering that this essay is tasked with showing the necessity of church history, a Baptist might ask why I would want to make history necessary but also highlight the authority of Scripture and the competency of the individual to make spiritual decisions. After all, if we can read the Bible for ourselves and make decisions for ourselves, why do we need to know the past?

I have several responses to this line of thinking. Basically it misunderstands what Baptists mean by soul competency and it dangerously ignores church history. It’s the second point I want to focus on here. Robert Rea is correct when he says, “when we ignore centuries of God-loving Christians and the rich well of resources that they have passed on to us, sometimes ignoring even Scripture itself in the process, our perceived needs are often little more than the mirrors of our fallen culture.”¹ To ignore the past is to be held captive to the tyranny of the present age and it runs the risk of belittling even Scripture itself. I propose we think about four central reasons why we need church history, some important clarifications, and then start to think about what to do next. And so first, why do we need church history?

Because “tradition-less” does not exist

No matter what church we attend or what denomination we adhere to (or even if we do not claim any denomination), every church works within some kind of tradition. This may appear in the form of what a regular church service looks like (liturgy) or it may come in the doctrinal beliefs of the church (believer’s baptism) or it may surface in understandings of worship, fellowship, or spirituality. All these normal practices of a church inculcate values and theology into their church, i.e., tradition.² We have to recognize that at some point we are living out values and theology from our past, even if we are not quite sure where they came from or that we are even doing it. Simply put, “tradition-less” does not exist.

If we ignore the fact that we are part of a tradition or that we cannot get away from tradition, then we run the risk of being parrots of whatever our contemporary values are. Kevin Bauder offers this description of the danger: “Typically, they accommodate the forms of their Christianity to whatever else they are doing in their lives. And their tradition is transparent to them: they are blissfully unaware that they have exchanged the gold of the Christian past for a stubble of their own reaping.”³ To escape the tyranny of our own day we must first recognize that we are already embracing a tradition. To mine from the wealthy stores of church history we must recognize that they are there.

Because of what doctrine is in relation to Scripture

I recognize, of course, that there is a capital “T” Tradition that is often present in this discussion. This is the “Tradition” that reminds one of the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox views of church history. These views, though different from one another, elevate the authority of church history equal to or above Scripture. Protestants rightly oppose such a notion. I do believe, however, that as a Baptist I must insist on affirming the great Tradition in a certain sense. To see why, we must see the relation of Scripture to doctrine.

Scripture is inspired and inerrant and fully capable to provide all that is needed for life, doctrine, and practice in the church. As such, it is of a higher authority than anything else that we possess as humans. I am assuming that such ideas are readily acceptable by those who are reading this. The more difficult idea is that doctrine is Christian thinking and action about the teaching of the Bible applied to human experiences and situations. We believe the Bible teaches the idea of the Trinity, but that did not become a major issue for the church until a couple centuries after the Bible was written. Likewise, we believe that the Bible teaches the impossibility of anyone attaining salvation without the work of God’s grace, though this was a hot topic within the church in the fifth (and has been in nearly every) century. To affirm the Trinity and to deny Pelagian views of humanity has been almost universally recognized as important to Christian identity. Yet, these are doctrines, scriptural doctrines even, but they are not Scripture. They are essential and they are biblical, but they are not the Bible itself.

This is an important point to make because it is how Protestants guard the place of Scripture and hold in check the encroaching authority of human-formulated doctrine. This is precisely where we must use (and have been using) church history. Since the Trinitarian debates and the Pelagian debates of the early church, the overwhelming consensus of church history has urged us to agree. Notice, it has urged us, but I would argue that they are urging us to search the Scriptures to see if these things are so. As we search the Bible we find that the Trinity is there as well as the insistence on God’s grace in salvation, and both are vital. Yet, Trinitarianism has been occasionally denied and Pelagianism occasionally affirmed in church history. How do we determine which doctrines are to be held and which are not; and, are there times when we let tradition tell us what to believe?

The Reformation gave us some help on this point. They tell us that there is a difference between the norma normans (the norm that norms all other norms, which is Scripture) and the norma normata (the norms that are norms because they conform to the ultimate norm of Scripture).⁴ Doctrines are still norms because they conform to the highest norm of Scripture. Yet, doctrines can be challenged precisely based on their fidelity to Scripture. This kind of challenge is what the Reformers issued to the Roman Catholic Church over their view of justification, sanctification, and even tradition itself. And so, when we recognize we have traditions of doctrine and of value, we then need to traverse historical paths of doctrinal origins and development and judge them by the ultimate judge of Scripture. Baptists normally accept a Chalcedonian understanding of Christological texts, Reformation understanding of soteriological texts, and a Baptist understanding of ecclesiological texts. As Paul Hartog has said: “For as students of the entirety of church history, we know that we are both children of the fathers and heirs of the Reformation.…Nevertheless, we listen with ears open to the fathers even as our hearts are resolutely bound to Scripture. In other words, we really do learn and yet retain our distinctive theologies.”⁵ The history of the church and the tradition that it gives us are important because we learn many of the doctrines of our faith as the church has developed them through time. They can be essential to accept or reject dependent on their fidelity to Scripture, but they must be confronted.

Because we all need Christian apprenticeship

Church history is essential so that we can learn when tradition urges us to reconsider our doctrines according to Scripture or when it urges us to consider doctrines and practices that we have forgotten. No doubt, some doctrines are more easily recognized as essential to Christianity than others. Church history, when taught well, acts as a mentor in Christian identity.

We have to be taught an identity and come to terms with it before it becomes our own. This is simply true to human experience. Church Historian Robert Louis Wilken asserts as much: “Without tradition, learning is arduous at best, impossible at worst. In most things in life—learning to speak, making cabinets, playing the violin—the only way to learn is by imitation, by letting someone else guide our movements until we learn to do the thing on our own.”⁶ The way to learn what Christianity is all about is to be confronted by great Christians and let their thoughts and examples influence us. We need to be taught what is properly Christian both in word and in deed. Further, the words we use are important and we get that language from Scripture and the history of the church. “Trinity”, “Pelagian”, “Protestant”, “Baptist”, “evangelical”, “worship”, “holiness” and other such Christian ideas are given us in our tradition. It is our responsibility to assimilate them before we can rightly claim them (or critique them) as our own.

Because, on account of our fallibility, we need accountability

One last reason why we need church history should be relatively easy to assert: we are fallible human beings who need accountability. We are sinners by nature (church history teaches us that Pelagius got that wrong) and we need to be taught what is good and true. Further, we have to come to terms with the differences among us. While we believe the Bible is inerrant we also affirm that we are not. This explains how we have such divergent views of doctrine by many who claim the name of Christian. We have to come to terms with those differences. We also need to try and avoid repeating errors. And we have to try and recognize the work of the Holy Spirit in the entire universal church. Again, it is Scripture that is paramount in making these theological decisions, but church history helps inform us. As sinful, fallible people we need accountability as we determine what we believe Scripture teaches, and church history provides it.

Some important clarifications

Having said what I have in the space that I have, I want to try and be sure I am clear on a few central points. If I affirm the ultimate authority of Scripture, then I must let Scripture define what is essential to Christianity. Yet, this biblical priority must be well nourished with Christian tradition. There is a certain back-and-forth between letting our understanding of Scripture have the final say and letting church history tell us when, where, and what we must consider important. Both are authoritative, but not in the same way or to the same degree.

We also need to think about whose history we find important. Is it just Western, European, or English-speaking theology that is important? And just dead people? There are definitely certain points of church history that are important such as Nicaea, Chalcedon, and the Reformation. We tend to point to important points like these because they dealt with significant issues that have provided necessary distinctions between groups and because their conclusions have been consistently accepted by Christians through history as faithful to Scripture. And so, I would assert that all of church history is important, though not equally, and it is all under the judgment of Scripture and the rest of church history. Having a central idea of what Christianity is proves important in pointing out poor moments of church history from good moments.

So then what do we do with those differences that we are bound to find in the history of the church? A few thoughts will have to suffice for now. I can be a Baptist who affirms denominational distinctives and also a Christian who is part of the universal church. It is of primary importance that I understand what differentiates the Christian from the non-Christian and what differentiates various Christians from one another both on the theological and the practical level. I affirm the priority of Scripture in making these distinctions but I also insist that I cannot be informed in these decisions without church history. Scripture and the history of the church teach me that I must embrace the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and the necessity for grace in salvation, among others. I also learn from church history the importance of identifying with a certain history within the history of the church, namely Protestant and Baptist. Importantly, as I delineate further historical descriptions I also recognize when these differences are essential to Christian identification (Trinity), when they are matters of theological consistency (inerrancy), when they are essential to local church fellowship (ordinances), or when they are matters of personal preference (author of Hebrews). In other words, there is more to Christianity than just “mere Christianity.” Differences, which are both real and important, are caused by the fact that we are still sinful humans trying to understand God’s ways. The variety of differences does not mean I must reject the competency of the individual to make decisions and it does not mean I must look to a recognized magisterium as equal to or above Scripture. Authority to adjudicate differences is still found in Scripture.

And now what?

I hope that by now I have at least opened to you the possibility that you need church history. Without it your tradition is bound to be shallow and near-sighted. Church history can offer deep resources for understanding the wonderful truths of what it is to be Christian. But how is this done exactly? Let me first warn that we must avoid certain dangers such as interpreting church history through contemporary assumptions, not seeing errors in the church’s history, and ignoring historical contexts to cherry-pick historical practices. But let me also state that church history really can help in significant ways. Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, and C. S. Lewis have helped me to understand human psychology and the battle with sin better. Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm, Jonathan Edwards, John Calvin, and Kevin Vanhoozer have helped me begin to see how Christians can understand theology at all. John Bunyan, C. S. Lewis, and Bernard of Clairvaux have taught me much about sanctified Christian imagination. John Gill, Charles Spurgeon, Alvah Hovey, E. Y. Mullins, A. J. Gordon, Mark Dever, and Kevin Bauder have helped me see the value of Baptist views of congregations, soul competency and even church discipline. And I could hardly do without what I have learned from Augustine, Bernard, Martin Luther, and my parents (!) about the Gospel and conversion. Some of how I have learned from church history has been hinted at throughout this essay, such as having a central idea of Christianity and taking note of ideas that church history has repeatedly affirmed to be important, among others. But these ideas are more involved and deserve a longer explanation. To be sure, a fuller presentation will have to wait for another essay.

There is much benefit from church history because Christianity is much bigger than any one of us. “We find ourselves situated in a Tradition that is bigger than us personally or even our contemporary generation collectively. There is wisdom in the ages. ‘Truly, we stand on the shoulders of giants and we honor them by knowing more about them, learning what they have taught, and seeking to apply insights from them, in the light of Scripture, for us today.’”⁷ I believe that if we give a proper place to church history then we will greatly benefit. Indeed, to overcome ourselves, we must utilize its benefits.

Notes:

Robert Rea, Why Church History Matters: An Invitation to Love and Learn from Our Past (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2014), 15.
Paul A. Hartog, “Evangelicals and the Tensions of Ressourcement” in The Contemporary Church and the Early Church (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2010), 207.
Kevin Bauder, “Understanding Conservative Christianity: A Digression” http://seminary.wcts1030.com/publications/Nick/Nick210.html
Carl R. Trueman, The Creedal Imperative (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 17, 80.
Paul Hartog, “Evangelicals and the Tensions of Ressourcement”, 226-227.
Robert Louis Wilken, “The Christian Intellectual Tradition” First Things June 1991.
Paul Hartog, “Evangelicals and the Tensions of Ressourcement”, 228.

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The Culture In Which We Live

August 1, 2015Written by Rick Shrader

The Culture In Which We Live

by Rick Shrader

“Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. (1 Peter 2:11-12)

Have we ever seen a time in our country in which God’s children needed to walk more honestly and have felt more like strangers than the time in which we live? We say that the world is getting smaller and faster, and it certainly is from a technological point of view, yet with advantages come also moral responsibilities and failures. These only show that the Scripture is correct in revealing human beings as fallen creatures needing regeneration by the Spirit of God and through His grace.

It is interesting to see an obvious irony in our culture. On the one hand we are as loose in our morals and manners as we have ever been, flaunting profanity, nakedness, lawlessness, rudeness, adultery and fornication of all sorts. Media, in all its forms, seems to have no boundaries and in fact protests loudly when anyone suggests a curb on their so-called liberties. Yet on the other hand, we impose the most ridiculous rules and politically correct limitations on everything from speech to printed T-shirts. One university campus imposed a list of words and phrases that cannot be used on campus, including the word American because it may offend someone who is not from this county. This, of course, while the most vile things go on in the student dorms and frat houses.

We scream for law and order but do so by rioting and destroying our neighbor’s business and property. We say certain lives matter but we sell the body parts of unborn babies for personal profit. We threaten law suits for deflating a football, but release six-time convicted criminals onto the public streets to murder again. We demand that pastors in a certain community turn in their sermons for investigation of terminology, but create sanctuary cities to protect anyone who needs protection for crimes against the state. “Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isa. 5:20).

The Christian must live in the world without becoming of the world. Paul warned the Corinthian Christians, “I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world” (1 Cor. 5:9-10). One day we indeed will go out of the world and dwell in God’s presence where none of these things can abide. But until then we are like Bunyan’s Christian, pilgrims on our way to the Celestial City. We must navigate the path with wisdom and insist to our fellow travelers that we stay in the way that leads to life eternal. When Paul says that we must not “company” with those who practice these things, he used a rather unusual word, sunanamignumi, which means to mix up together, to be intimate with, to share company with. This is a difficult task in an age such as ours.

Paul reminds us that he is not talking about not being in the same life together, or on the same planet because then the only way to fulfill this would be to die and go on to heaven. That will come in God’s own time. The Pilgrim still had to make his Progress. We still have to be neighbors, make commerce with them, travel the same roads and side walks with them. In fact, we have to approach them for the gospel’s sake, trying to win them to Christ so that they will go with us in the way. This takes the mind of Christ in the world in which we live.

We live among atheists

Our country has taught an evolutionary model of origins for a hundred and fifty years. Generations have been inculcated in our schools with a belief that there is no need for a Creator or for God at all. G.K. Chesterton said of his native England a hundred years ago, “Darwinianism was every bit as brazen an atheist assault, in the nineteenth century, as the Bolshevist No-God movement in the twentieth century.”¹

The Bible calls such a person a “fool” (Psa. 10:4; 14:1; 53:1) in the sense that he has been fooled into such thinking though he may be a highly intelligent person. It is no wonder that such a person would be “ungodly” (Jude 15). Douglas Groothuis wrote, “When God as the source and center of ultimate meaning, value, and significance, evaporates from the social scene, a bevy of busy idols rushes in to stake out the vacant territory. When the transcendence of God is rejected, the meaning of personhood is annulled; for persons are cut off from the only reference point that explains their origin, nature, purpose, and destiny.”²

When there is no Lawgiver there is no law. If we really don’t have a God against Whom all standards of right and wrong are measured, then every person becomes his/her own final authority in truth and morality. As one writer adds, “Nor can a person be expected to pursue pleasure only so long as it doesn’t hurt others—all grounds for condemning even destructive behavior have themselves been destroyed with the initial assertion that pleasure is the highest good. All moral assertions are relativized and destroyed and life becomes, as Nietzsche said, an aesthetic phenomenon.”³

Peter says, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer (apologia) to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear” (1 Pet. 3:15). Meekness is not weakness in these matters. Paul wrote, “The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient; in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth” (2 Tim. 2:24-25).

We live among murderers

Though the number of abortions per year has decreased from 1.6 million in 1990 to 1.06 million in the last three years, the total number of unborn babies killed since Roe v. Wade in 1973 in the United States is 57,496,000+.⁴ There is no so-called barbaric nation in history that could boast more killings than this. Hitler and Stalin combined have to take a back seat to America’s intentional homicides. Then very recently we have learned that Planned Parenthood (it should be called Planned Unparenthood) not only is history’s largest killer of babies but carefully harvests the bodies to sell body parts for so-called research. Pharoah and Herod were not so sadistic. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the author of Amazing Grace, John Newton, happened to write, “Unnatural lusts, and the want of natural affection toward their offspring, are abominations not to be found among the brute creation. What shall we say of mothers destroying their children with their own hands, or of the horrid act of self-murder! Men are worse than beasts likewise in their obstinacy; they will not be warned.”⁵

I am a baby boomer child of the 60s. My high school days (1964-1968) saw the sexual revolution come in like a flood along with its counterparts: drugs, rebellion, and Rock ‘n Roll. Combined with atheism and radical feminism, the hippies would have their immoral cake and eat it too. Nothing would stop them from their sexual desires including killing the human offspring of their fornication. All this took was a little redefinition of when life begins. They argued over various stages of pregnancy, trying to appease their conscience and objecting Christians, until some, even recently, suggested that life doesn’t begin until a mother takes the baby home from the hospital.

The problems with this grew, however. The discovery of DNA revealed that the baby, at the moment of conception, has complete DNA, i.e., complete personhood. Then came Ultra-Sound where the mother and father could see the live baby moving, breathing, smiling, crying. We could watch as the baby was brutally killed and thrown away in the trash. These amazing discoveries have forced us to see that “unborn” babies are fully human beings. In addition the Bible was rediscovered with its statements about the conception of Jesus Christ being the eternal God at His very conception (Luke 1:31-35), and King David admitting that he was a sinner at conception (Psalm 51:5), and Job lamenting that he didn’t die after conception that he might go to heaven before his birth (Job 3:11-17), not to mention the Bible’s strict teaching of the sacredness of life which is made in the image and likeness of God and given as a blessing from Him as Creator (Genesis 1:26; 2:7; Psalm 139:13-16). Yet still today, people will have their sexual sin at all costs, even the cost of a human life.

We live among fornicators

The sexual revolution has made fornication and adultery acceptable, even expected. Hollywood has gone from fairly clean entertainment with good guys and bad guys, to smutty and immoral entertainment with bad guys and worse guys. The music industry is making its fortunes by spewing out perverse lyrics to the shouting applause of its listeners. The pornography underground has come above ground. The ubiquitous internet and online cell phone have made parental policing of this destructive sin almost impossible. College campuses have become drunken co-ed overnights, Spring Break is almost indescribably immoral, and children being born out of wedlock is more common than two-parent homes.

The inevitable outcome of such a culture is homosexuality, the lowest form of fornication. The apostle Paul addressed the epistle of Romans to the church that existed in an empire drenched in homosexuality. Immediately in the first chapter he says that God gives people up to this debasing sin (Rom. 1:24-28). He called it “against nature” (1:26); a change of the “natural use” of the human body (1:26, 27); “unseemly” (1:27); and an “error” that brings about its own judgment (1:28). Both Peter (2 Peter 2:6) and Jude (Jude 7) used the homosexual sin of Sodom and Gomorrah as an obvious example of God’s judgment on this grievous sin and a warning to others who would spurn that judgment.

In the United States, however, a nation that boasts that it trusts in God, that swears in its elected officials with one hand on the Bible, has watched those same officials decree that same-sex marriages will be protected by the law of the land. This Biblically described sin is now a hallmark token of America’s boast against God. In the same nation pornography is protected as free speech and nakedness paraded in the streets is protected as an individual right. But when a Christian boy admits his sin and settles it in a Biblical manner, he is labeled for life by this same adulterous society. The Christian must continue to do right and think right. James warns even believers, “Every man is tempted, when his is drawn away of his own lusts, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren” (James 1:14-16).

I have four more areas of warning but I will shorten them due to the space I have left.

We live among idolaters

Here we may be getting closer to the heart of the problem. D.A. Carson says, “Yet the heart of all this evil is idolatry itself. It is the de-godding of God. It is the creature swinging his puny fist in the face of his Maker and saying, in effect, ‘If you do not see things my way, I’ll make my own gods! I’ll be my own god!’”⁶ If we are not actually making ourselves into gods, we certainly live around things that we have made into gods. We live in an image-based society rather than a word-based society. Everything we want and desire is placed before us in beautiful picture. We don’t even have to respond for the responses are scripted in for us. Most of the day may be taken up watching a screen of some sort. Not that the screen is the idol, but making a master out of it certainly is.

In America, for many, life is a continual concert. We are wallpapered with noise. Talk radio and conservative television cannot start nor stop without a long and drawn out invasion of contemporary “music.” Any group of sloppily dressed performers, young or old, can perform in the same, tired, old way and the audience, young or old, responds in the same tired old way. We can even call it American Idol and it only encourages rather than discourages us.

We live among thieves

Sadly, the American dream of working hard, paying off your own home, retiring with your needs met, is no longer the American dream. The American dream is now winning a million dollar law suit or the lottery jackpot. If those don’t work, the government will pay you not to work. Of course, all of these come from someone else’s work, not yours. Politics has become a promise of transferring one person’s wealth to another for a vote, taxing those who do work and giving it to those who don’t: legal thievery!

Man was made to work. Adam was placed in a garden, not a shelter. Paul reminded us to “do your own business, and to work with your own hands” (1 Thes. 4:11). Honest laborers are under the same kind of burden that the Jews and Christians were under during the Roman Empire but Paul told them to “Render to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom” (Rom. 13:7).

We live among the uncivil

I mean by this, we have lost any semblance of manners. We have no self-government nor self-control. Peter Drucker once wrote, “Manners are the lubricating oil of an organization. It is a law of nature that two moving bodies in contact with each other create friction. This is as true for human beings as it is for inanimate objects. Manners enable two people to work together whether they like each other or not. Bright people, especially bright young people, often do not understand this. If analysis shows that someone’s brilliant work fails again and again as soon as cooperation from others is required, it probably indicates a lack of courtesy—that is, a lack of manners.”⁷ “Be not deceived, evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor. 15:33).

We live among covetous people

Covetousness is itself idolatry (Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5). Paul’s testimony was that he was convinced of sin when he read in the law, “Thou shalt not covet” (Rom. 7:7). It is the tenth but foundational commandment of the second half. We do not love our neighbor because we are too busy coveting what he has. American thievery begins and ends with covetousness. Our houses are full of junk while we are constantly shopping for more. We are richer than any people in history but complain that we don’t have enough.

And So . . .

The Christian challenge is as great as it has ever been. We must be salt and light in a tasteless and dark world. The Bible was written in and for a time like ours. It was sufficient for them and it will be sufficient for us.

Notes:

G.K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Image Books, 1956) 108.
Douglas Groothuis, The Soul in Cyberspace (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1997) 29.
Michael Aeschliman, The Restitution of Man: C.S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 32.
National Right To Life: http://www.nrlpac.org/
John Newton, The Letters of John Newton (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2000) 108.
D.A. Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008) 46.
Peter Drucker, “Managing Oneself,” Harvard Business Review, March/April, 1999.

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Good News & Bad News About Human Identit

June 29, 2015Written by Rick Shrader

Good News & Bad News About Human Identity

by Rick Shrader

There are some things about which the Bible speaks clearly and one of those is the makeup of human beings. Yet it is amazing how far away from the plain language of the Bible our society has moved within one generation. In my youth it was risky enough to refer to homosexuals or lesbians rather than men and women. We would not even say the word sex in public and terms such as bi-sexual were a strange anomaly. Now we learn that “sex” only refers to biology but “gender” refers to however a person (I think we can still use that term with some certainty) feels about one’s identification in the world of anything-goes identities. In the 80s the acronym LGB (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual) became popular in an attempt to lessen the embarrassment of the categories. In the 90s it became LGBT, adding Transgender to the list, and now Q is added, obviously referring to queer or sometimes questioning. On a website that offered a list of terms now used, the title had LGBTQ+ because it listed over 50 gender identities, any of which a person may claim as one’s own and for which one may also rightly claim to be slandered. Today one may claim androgyny, binary, cisgender, pansexual, transgender, and even two-spirit gender! In our schools and public places, any offense given to someone who claims one of these, could end in accusations and even lawsuits.

Is all of this important? Well, I think it is and that it may partly determine how the government looks at the church, and sooner than we think. In a Weekly Standard article, writer Jonathan Last titled his article on this subject, “You Will Be Assimilated.” He summarized the growing problem this way,

All of which is a very long way of saying that whatever the Supreme Court rules in the coming weeks in Obergefell v. Hodges, the same-sex marriage campaign is far from over. It hasn’t even reached the point of consolidating its gains. Rather, it is still in its aggressive expansion phase. Next up on the docket are transgender rights . . . and polyamory. Then the push to bring religious organizations—schools, charities, and para-church groups—to heel will intensify. Already, Catholic Charities has been driven out of adoption and foster care in places like Illinois, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia because that organization doesn’t place children in same-sex households. (Tellingly, this rebuff has been deemed not a regrettable by-product of the gay-marriage movement, but a victory for it. The goal is not live-and-let-live.) then will come the big fight over breaking the churches themselves. And if you think that the same-sex marriage movement will stop short of trying to force churches to perform gay weddings, then you haven’t been paying attention.¹

As I write this article, the Supreme Court has ruled that gay marriage must be legally recognized in all fifty states. But my purpose is not to delve any further into this sad underworld of our society. Rather, I want to give the good news of what God has created, allowed, redeemed, and proclaimed. Only Christianity has a message of redemption. It describes the world realistically and offers the only solution to fallen human beings who are trapped in their own sin. To understand this, one has to believe that the Bible is indeed God’s Word, a revelation from Him to us, and an infallible record of what God has to say to our situation in any age and culture. In this revelation there is much good news and also some bad news.

Good News! We are made in God’s image.

Francis Schaeffer once said, “Man, made in the image of God, cannot live as though he is nothing.”² Of all the things God created, human beings are the zenith. Only of human beings did God say that they are created in His very image. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen. 1:26-27). Even though God created Adam first from the dust of the ground, and created Eve second from the side of Adam, the Scripture declares that both are made equally in the image of God. We may share life with the other creatures of God, yet none but mankind are given this unique and favorable position. G. Campbell Morgan once wrote, “There was life in the plant, and life in the lower animals, but when God inbreathed to man the Breath of lives, He bestowed a life in which lay the elements of light. In man, creation first looked back into the face of God, and knew Him.”³

In creation language there is only one race and that is the human race. There are only two sexes, or genders, and that is male and female. Jesus said, “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh” (Matt. 19:4-5). Because there are only two sexes, male and female, marriage, says the Lord, can only be between a man and a woman. Every other kind of “marriage” is fornication.

Bad news! We are sinners.

The Bible makes no mistake about the existence of Adam and Eve, and neither is it unclear that our first parents sinned. Having been warned of the consequences of their disobedience by God, regardless, they ate of that which was forbidden, “and the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Gen. 3:7). Millard Erickson wrote,

If we choose to investigate the Bible’s depiction of man, we find that man today is actually in an abnormal condition. The real human is not what we now find in human society. The real human is the being that came from the hand of God, unspoiled by sin and the fall. In every real sense, the only true human beings were Adam and Eve before the fall, and Jesus. All others are twisted, distorted, corrupted samples of humanity.⁴

But the Bible tells us something deeper, more personal than the fact that our first parents sinned: we sinned with them! They were the head of the human race, and we sinned also as part of that race. Therefore we are born sinners. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12, NKJV). L.S. Chafer wrote, “No other human being than Adam has ever become a sinner by sinning. All others were born sinners. Distinction is made at this point between sin as an evil act and sin as an evil nature. By a sinful act Adam acquired a sinful nature, whereas all members of his family are born with that nature.”⁵

Our whole human race has substantive guilt, i.e., since we received our nature from our parents, both physical and spiritual, material and immaterial, and they from their parents all the way back to Adam and Eve, we were actually present in them when they sinned, and we sinned with them. Sin was imputed to the entire race at the moment of that sin, our “original sin.” In addition, we have inherited sin passed down through the generations in the sin nature accumulated from all of our ancestors.

What a contradiction we are! Created in God’s image but so marred by the fall and past generations of sin that we are hardly recognizable. “When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen” (Rom. 1:21-23). Blaise Pascal described us, “What a freak then is man! How novel, how monstrous, how chaotic, how paradoxical, how prodigious! Judge of all things, feeble earthworm, repository of truth; sink of doubt and error, glory and refuse of the universe.”⁶

Good news! God loved us.

The reason why John 3:16 is the most well-known verse in the Bible is because it speaks such an obvious truth—if God does not love us, we are without hope. But God does love us! “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The apostle Paul pointed out that this love came to us, not because we were lovely, but while we were unlovely. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). What love is this? God loving the unlovely? Yes! The word agape is a word virtually unique to the New Testament. It is not a human love of give and take, but an all-giving love. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). God did not need anything in return from us in order to love us. He just loved us. And since He loved the whole world of sinners, any may come to Him without price and without worth, and find divine forgiveness. C.S. Lewis wrote,

I call this a Divine humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colours to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up ‘our own’ when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is ‘nothing better’ now to be had.⁷

“How could God like the sinful, foul, stinking world? How could he embrace and kiss it? He would have to turn from it in revulsion. But he could and he did love it, comprehending all its sin and foulness, purposing to cleanse it and, thus cleansed, to take it to his bosom.”⁸ Praise God for His great love wherewith He loved us!

Bad news! We cannot recover ourselves.

Human beings, in their sinful condition, find it a difficult thing to accept the unconditional love of God. Surely there is something in us that God sees as acceptable and therefore loves us. We want to give something to God first, something of value, so that God will say, “Ah, this person has something I can accept.” But this is not the case. Though God loves us because of what He did in creating us in His own image, yet because of our own sin there is nothing left in us that can merit salvation. God must love us in spite of our moral bankruptcy. And morally bankrupt we are!

The devil’s lie is that sinful human beings can work hard enough and finally produce enough “good works” that will make them acceptable to God, or at least enough to outweigh their bad works. All false religions are built on this premise. But the fundamental error is that man is basically good enough, or that man has more good than bad in him, or that man, being God’s creation, is all that is necessary for him to one day stand before a holy God and be accepted and not rejected. But man is fallen. He is sinful. Even his good intentions have selfish and evil roots.

The law of God, whether we mean the law of Moses written in the Old Testament, or we mean every moral or “natural” law that God has revealed, has proven that man is unable to produce righteousness that will redeem his soul. In fact Paul states, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:19-20). So Paul can conclude, “There is none righteous, no not one” (Rom. 3:10), and “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). There is a “curse” that comes with the keeping of law for salvation. “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal. 3:10). Or, as James so aptly put it, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10). But since the Bible plainly shows that no one is without sin, we are therefore all condemned.

Good News! Jesus Christ provides a way for God’s love to save us.

John Newton’s beloved song, Amazing Grace, is so popular even among those who know nothing of that grace, because it seems to say that grace accepts “a wretch like me” simply because God loves me. This, God cannot and does not do. On the one hand God does not accept us just as we are. In that case there would be no need for Jesus to die for us on the cross and resurrect victorious over sin and death. God cannot accept us without our sin being forgiven. But on the other hand we do come just as we are. when we sing “Just As I Am” we mean that we must come to God with no righteousness of our own, with no good works for salvation. We come to God as sinners and undone, needing to be clothed in the righteousness of the sinless Christ. The old song, Rock of Ages, has it,

“Nothing in my hand I bring,

simply to Thy cross I cling;

Naked, come to Thee for dress;

helpless, look to Thee for rest;

Foul, I to the fountain fly,

Wash me, Savior, or I die.”

In a strange way, the good news is that we are all sinners. Paul concludes in Romans 3 that, happily, “there is no difference: For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:22b-23). That is, it is a good thing that we are not saved by law keeping because then it would be unfair. Some might make it and some might not. But since the fact is that all have sinned, and that salvation cannot come to sinners, God has made salvation by grace through faith, “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24). You can be saved because, even though you are a sinner, God allows you to come by faith, not by your worthless works.

But one more thing needs to be said here, and Paul makes this plain as well. Jesus Christ died for you and rose again. God accepts Jesus Christ and all who attach themselves to Him by faith. He doesn’t save you by your righteousness, but by the righteousness of Christ. If God merely excused your sin then He would be unrighteous. So Paul concludes, “To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay; but by the law of faith” (Rom. 3:26-27). Faith in Christ leaves me nothing with which to boast, except the righteousness of Christ.

And So . . .

We human beings cannot act or boast as if we set our own rules of right and wrong. Outside of Jesus Christ we will choose wrong because that is our nature. And we will be condemned for it. But in Jesus Christ, in His righteousness alone, we can be sinners saved by grace.

Notes:

Jonathan V. Last, “You Will Be Assimilated,” The Weekly Standard, June 22, 2015.
Francis Schaeffer, Escape From Reason (Downer’s Grove: IVP, 1968) 53.
G.C. Morgan, Understanding the Holy Spirit (AMG, 1995) 40.
Millard Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991) 496.
L.S. Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. II (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1969) 217.
Blaise Pascal, Pensees (London: Penguin Books, 1966) 64.
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, (New York: MacMillan, 1962) 97.
R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1961) 259.

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Will The Antichrist Be Muslim?

June 4, 2015Written by Rick Shrader

Will The Antichrist Be Muslim?

by Rick Shrader

One of the difficulties for Christians in apologetics is that they have to know a lot about many religions and cults, but the religions and cults only have to know about Christianity. The growing threat from Islam reminds the Christian of this very thing. That is why I was glad to receive a book exposing Islamic beliefs (and deceptions) and read it with great interest. It is a 2009 book, The Islamic Antichrist by Joel Richardson.

Richardson’s purpose, however, is not simply to inform believers regarding Islam, but to propose that the coming antichrist will actually be a Muslim called the Madhi, the messianic figure of Islam, and that his empire will not be western but eastern. Although I would recommend the book to become better informed about Islam, I could not agree with Richardson’s thesis about the antichrist. First, I will try to explain his reasoning, which at times can be confusing, and then will explain why I am not convinced of his proposition. While giving good information about Islam, Richardson’s understanding of prophecy seems shaded by it and therefore sees Islam behind every prophetic bush. I will allow his own words to inform us about Islam, and then I will take time to respond to his view on an Islamic antichrist.

Richardson seems to do a thorough job of explaining, quoting, and footnoting sources from Islam. He takes time to give some history of Muhammad and the writing of the Qurʹan (which Muslims believe is inspired) pointing out how Muhammad himself didn’t know what happened to him and even believed he might have been demon possessed (chapt. 11, “The Dark Nature of Muhammad’s Revelations”). Besides the words of Muhammad in the Qurʹan, Muslims have the Sunna, a record of sayings, customs, teachings, and examples from Muhammad. These are equally important to Muslims. The Sunna contains two types of sources: the Hadith literature is the collection of oral sayings of the prophet handed down over the years. The Sirat literature is basically biographical (chapt. 2, “The Sacred Texts of Islam”).

Other interesting chapters of the book are “The Mahdi: Islam’s Awaited Messiah;” “Islam’s Ancient hatred for the Jews;” “Islam and the Goal of World Domination;” “Understanding Dishonesty and Deceit in Islam;” and “The Great Apostasy, Terror, and Islam’s Conversion Rates.” All of these give good information regarding the real nature of Islam. Richardson shows how lying and deception are virtues in Islam if it helps the cause of Jihad or promotes Islam or even if it protects Muslims from harm or embarrassment. He also believes that America is accepting the lie that Islam is basically peaceful rather than understanding that all Muslims are obligated to participate in world-wide domination, whether it is by repopulation of enemy countries, or fighting under the black flags of Jihad and beheading infidels.

Richardson quotes Mawlana Sayid Abul Ala Mawdudi, an Islamic scholar writing,

Islam is a revolutionary faith that comes to destroy any government made by man. Islam doesn’t look for a nation to be in a better condition than another nation. Islam doesn’t care about the land or who owns the land. The goal of Islam is to rule the entire world and submit all of mankind to the faith of Islam. Any nation or power that gets in the way of that goal, Islam will fight and destroy. In order to fulfill that goal, Islam can use every power available every way it can be used to bring worldwide revolution. This is Jihad.¹

Richardson then quotes Aduallah al-Araby, in his book The Islamization of America, describing an interfaith meeting where an Islamic cleric said, “Thanks to your democratic laws, we will invade you. Thanks to our religious laws, we will dominate you.”²

Will the antichrist be Islamic?

I will try to explain Joel Richardson’s view that the antichrist is not a westerner, as is widely believed among conservative prophetic scholars, but is a Muslim and that his ten nation coalition described in the Bible is made up of Islamic nations, not European.

First, however, Richardson writes, “Among the Major Signs, the most anticipated and central sign that Muslims await is the coming of a man known as ‘the Mahdi.’ In Arabic, al-Mahdi means ‘the Guided One.’ He is also sometimes referred to by Shiʹa Muslims as Sahib Al-Zaman or Al-Mahdi al-Muntadhar, which translated mean ‘the Lord of the Age’ and ‘the Awaited Savior.’”³ Richardson also says,

Throughout the Islamic world today there is a call for the restoration of the Islamic caliphate. The caliph (khalifa) in Islam may be viewed somewhat as the Pope of the Muslims. Muslims view the caliph as the vice regent for Allah on the earth. It is important to understand that when Muslims call for the restoration of the caliphate, it is ultimately the Mahdi that they call for, for the Mahdi is the awaited final caliph of Islam. Muslims everywhere will be obligated to follow the Mahdi.⁴

Jihad is the conflict that leads up to the coming of the Mahdi (p. 25). Faithful Muslims must begin that war so that Mahdi will return, ending the conflict by final domination of the entire world. These faithful Muslims will carry black flags with the words “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger” (p. 26). Mahdi will plant a white flag in Jerusalem when the destruction of Israel and the domination of the world is complete (p. 27).

Muslims see Jesus as a prophet but not as their messiah or Mahdi(Muslims do not believe Jesus died on the cross, but lived and was taken to heaven at a later time). They believe he will return in the last time and convince the world that Islam is the true religion and turn Christians to Islam (chapt. 6, “The Muslim Jesus”).

These facts about Islamic eschatology are fascinating and important in order to understand Islam (the author adds more details as well). Richardson, however, because these beliefs are so universal in a universal religion, believes that this Mahdi and this Muslim Jesus will actually be fulfilled in the Biblical antichrist and false prophet. That is, the Biblical antichrist will portray himself as the Muslim Mahdi and the whole Islamic world will follow him. Richardson also believes that the Biblical false prophet (of Rev. 13) will pretend to be the Muslim version of Jesus who will support the Mahdi and also cause the Muslim world to follow this deception (chapt. 5, “Comparing the Biblical Antichrist and the Mahdi,” and chapt. 6, “The Muslim Jesus”).

To support his conclusions, Richardson spends time explaining Gog and Magog of Ezekiel 38 & 39 as the antichrist and his confederates. (chapt. 10-”The Revived Islamic Empire of the Antichrist”). Having posited that, he describes the nations in Ezekiel 38 as Islamic nations—which, of course, they are. He doesn’t entertain the view (at least not here) that the battle of Gog & Magog happens before the battle of Armageddon. He does say,

Prophecy teachers and Bible scholars have different opinions regarding the identification of Gog and his coalition of nations. The majority position for the past few decades, however, has been that the invading army of nations described in Ezekiel 38 and 39 is not the army of the Antichrist, but another army led by another world leader. I personally reject the idea that Gog is anyone other than the Antichrist.⁵

To support this claim Richardson uses the reference to Gog & Magog in Revelation 20:8 after the millennium to try to say that antichrist couldn’t be in both places a thousand years apart. But, of course, that would also be a problem for his view as well. Also in support of his view, Richardson claims that after the Roman empire ended, the fifth kingdom is the Ottoman Empire which makes up the ten nation confederation of the antichrist. He rejects the idea of a “Revived Roman Empire” or of a European ten nation confederation.

He warns that we should not read our current situation into the Scripture as, he thinks, the past generation has done (which, of course, he is obviously doing).

No, the antichrist will be western

As I have said, I am not convinced of Richardson’s view, novel though it may be, and must stick with the majority view on this. Here are my reasons why.

10 toes, 10 horns. When Daniel sees the great image in chapter two, the legs are of iron which is the Roman Empire (to which even Richardson agrees). The ten toes (2:40-44) are mixed with iron and clay because they are attached to the legs of iron. Also, in chapter seven, Daniel sees the four beasts, the fourth of which is the Roman Empire described as a terrible beast having ten horns. The ten horns are on the Roman beast. The little horn who is the antichrist comes up out of these ten horns (7:19-25). This is much more a picture of a revived Roman Empire than a middle-eastern Islamic Empire.
The people of the prince. In the great prophecy of Daniel’s 70 weeks (Dan. 9:24-27), the antichrist will sign a covenant with Israel which he will later break (vs. 27). Before this, Daniel depicts the destruction of Jerusalem by saying, “and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary” (vs. 26). The Romans destroyed the city in 70 AD. Here the antichrist is called the prince that shall come and his people are those that destroyed the temple. They were (and will be) Romans.
King of the north. Daniel 11:36-39 is one of the most graphic descriptions of the antichrist and his hatred for Israel. In vss. 40-45 a king of the north is described coming into the land to fight against him. The antichrist destroys this northern king (whom most see as Gog and Magog) and then becomes the victor.
The God of his fathers. Daniel 11:37 says that the antichrist will not “regard the God of his fathers.” This has been traditionally taken to mean that the antichrist is Jewish. Though some have doubted that this is clear from the verse, Rolland McCune writes, “Racially or ethnically, it appears that the Antichrist is Jewish. Daniel notes that he will have no regard for the ‘[elohim] of his fathers’ (Dan 11:17). If this is taken in its Old Testament sense of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God of Israel—then this would indicate that the Antichrist has a Jewish background.”⁶ If this is the case, an Islamic Mahdi doesn’t fit Daniel’s description of the antichrist.
Gog & Magog. The nations of Ezekiel 38 & 39 are definitely Islamic. Richardson criticizes older writers for seeing this as Russia, Moscow, etc., due to name similarity, a view which has been corrected many times by men of my view. Interestingly he quotes Matthew Henry and Josephus as examples, showing how far back the old view goes. At any rate, no one argues with the fact that the nations following Gog are from the middle east and above. But there is no evidence that Gog is antichrist. That is pure conjecture. This is the king of the north, and is defeated long before the antichrist is defeated at Armageddon.
The harlot of Rev. 17. John describes a harlot riding upon a beast (who is the antichrist). The beast has 10 horns (his ten nation confederation). These 10 nations “receive power as kings one hour with the beast” (vs. 12). For the first three and a half years the antichrist and his confederates use the woman and then discard her. For the second three and a half years a new religion is established with the beast, the false prophet, the image, and the 666. Many have believed that this harlot is the Roman church, not that the antichrist himself is the Pope or the Catholic Church personified. This religious system that deceives the world is this Roman-based Church which the antichrist uses to come to power. In such a case, the ten nations and the beast upon which she is riding extend wherever she extends, which means that the antichrist’s western confederation exists wherever this western Church exists (many would say all of Europe, as well as North and South America).⁷
Antichrist, not AntiMahdi. I think an important point to make is that the apostle John gives us the title of “antichrist” in his first epistle (2:18). The antichrist will pretend to be Christ. I know that “anti” can mean “against” as well as “instead of.” The point is that he will be a false Christ. Even Jesus warned that “many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matt. 24:5). But an Islamic antichrist would not say this. In Richardson’s view the false prophet is the one who would say that he is Jesus Christ.
Premillennial writers. This point would not come first, but it should be mentioned. Many prophetic writers have held to the common view that the antichrist is western and that the ten nation confederation is western. Many of these writers wrote long before world powers were aligned in any specific way. In his historic work, Things To Come (1958), J. Dwight Pentecost, in dealing with the antichrist and his ten nation confederation, quotes from these men holding the same view: Lewis Sperry Chafer, C.I. Scofield, Edward Dennett, Arno C. Gaebelein, Sir Robert Anderson, S. P. Tregelles, William Kelley, Harry A. Ironside, G. N. H. Peters, E.J. Young, Walter Scott, Roy Aldrich, and F. C. Jennings. Again, this would not matter against plain Biblical teaching, but it is a strong testimony that many men who believe in a literal interpretation of the Scripture hold to a western antichrist and confederation.
Historical naiveté. Richardson himself says, “In America, we are infamously America-centric. As American Christians we read into the Bible our own American experience.”⁸ Also, “We must not read our assumptions or modern events into Scripture. We must allow Scripture to speak for itself.”⁹ Yet when commenting on Jesus’ words that those who kill you will think they do God a service, Richardson says, “Islam, however, fits Jesus’ prophecy perfectly.”¹⁰ So he is doing this very thing. It is always tempting to see the fulfillment of prophecy in our own circumstances though other circumstances in history probably fit much better than our own. I think if I had been a German Christian in the 1930s I would surely have thought Hitler was the antichrist, and maybe Himmler the false prophet. But it wasn’t so. Sure, we have thought that Russia would be the king of the north, and maybe it still will be. But we will not know until it happens. That’s what makes the second coming of Christ imminent.

And So . . .

I will say again how much I profited from Richardson’s knowledge of Islam and his careful documentation of its beliefs. His view on an Islamic antichrist is his view, and maybe that of many others. I think he is reading too much into the Scriptures that describe the antichrist. He may not be looking for the rapture but I am. And when the church is gone and the end time events begin, we will be praising God for His sovereign working of His mighty plan, and we will rejoice when we see it happen. Maybe that will be in our life-time with events as we now know them and maybe not. It could be a hundred years from now with totally different events. But either way, the church will always say with John, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20).

Notes:

Joel Richardson, The Islamic Antichrist (Los Angeles: WND Books, 2009) p. 144.
Ibid. p. 145.
Ibid. p. 21.
Ibid. p. 24.
Ibid. p. 83.

6.Rolland McCune, A Systematic Theology, vol. III (Detroit: Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, 2010) 373.

See McCune, p. 374, and also J. Dwight Pentecost, Things To Come, p. 324.
Richardson, p. 190.
Ibid. p. 86.
Ibid. p. 192.

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America’s Testing

April 30, 2015Written by Rick Shrader

America’s Testing

by Rick Shrader

In his farewell address George Washington said that a nation is “a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.”¹ More than two hundred years later America’s greatest animosity is to Christianity, and its greatest affection is to profligacy. On the day I sit to write these words, Baltimore is being burned by rioters, the Supreme Court could rule that same-sex marriages become the law of the land, and the President is about to sign an agreement to give the largest state of terror in the world and the greatest threat to Israel, Iran, a green light to nuclear weapons. Space allows me only to mention legalized marijuana, trans-gender rights, terror shootings in public places, licentious college students on Spring break, as well as the growth of radical Islam around the world and in our own country.

America has lived off the moral capital of the last two hundred years and it is about gone. In our churches we often say that God has no grandchildren, meaning that one is not a Christian just because his/her father and mother were Christians. Every individual must make that choice for himself/herself. We are learning that America is not a Christian nation just because our ancestors were Christians. We do not live by laws and morals just because our ancestors did, even though they wrote them into a binding Constitution. Why is this so? Because the Bible is true and declares plainly that human beings are fallen creatures and, without individual regeneration, will surely and resolutely rebel against God and His holiness. Man’s problem is not with culture, but with God as Creator and Owner of this world. D.A. Carson described it this way,

All of the potential of the so-called ‘natural’ world was called into being by God and operates under the authority of the resurrected Christ: all of art, music, administrative gifts, colorful diversity, creative genius. And yet everything is corrupted by sin. Our creative genius may build weapons of destruction, our administrative gifts may become exercises in personal power and self-promotion, our art may become wretchedly ugly and celebrate all that is disjointed, our nationalism easily identifies our own race or vision with the will of God, our democracy is in danger of claiming vox populi, vox Dei [the voice of the people is the voice of God], and our liberalism is tempted to confuse the pursuit of liberty with the pursuit of God—a vision of liberty that, in tragic irony, enslaves us in a new idolatry.²

Although no human band-aid can stop this decay from taking place and only spiritual renewal can even arrest it, laws that recognize the Biblical process can slow it greatly (though once that recognition is gone, the residual effects disappear quickly). However, the American experiment is proof that godly churches and Christian principles, mixed with proper laws, can produce a respite on this slippery slope. We may not be able to return to the same resoluteness of our forefathers but perhaps there can be enough true Christian character, enough moral fortitude, enough disgust from the citizenry, to slow the tide of our own moral decay and destruction.

Professedly, it is my belief as a premillennialist and dispensationalist, that this age of grace in which we live will not get better overall but will continue on a downhill slide until Jesus comes. God alone knows when that time will be. Human nature has a growing bent toward Godlessness, and God has not promised His people an America in every age, or any age. In fact He has promised apostasy. He has assured us that only His coming is what will ultimately heal this sin sick world. That is not defeatist. It is realistic and optimistic. It is the one thing that really gives hope and causes the believer to continue faithful until that Day.

Homosexual marriage in the courts

Today the Supreme Court began hearing arguments in the case known as Obergefell v. Hodges which will determine the legal definition of marriage in our country. The question is whether the states have the right to define (and therefore limit) marriage as only between a man and a woman. Federal district courts have blocked the states from enforcing their laws and have allowed same-sex marriages in spite of the states’ laws. In a surprise, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit which oversees four states ruled in favor of the states to define marriage. Now the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing the appeals.

In the majority opinion for the Sixth Circuit, Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, made a bold and truthful case for traditional marriage. In his blog today, Albert Mohler, Jr. described Sutton’s defense of the states,

He began by noting the speed of the moral revolution that has produced same-sex marriage in many U S. states, mostly by judicial action. “From the vantage point of 2014,” he wrote, “it would now seem, the question is not whether American law will allow gay couples to marry; it is when and how that will happen. That would not have seemed likely as recently as a dozen years ago.”

He continued: “For better, for worse, or for more of the same, marriage has long been a social institution defined by relationships between men and women. So long defined, the tradition is measured in millennia, not centuries or decades. So widely shared, the tradition until recently had been adopted by all governments and major religions of the world.”³

Not only would a Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage contradict Scripture and defy all of human history, it will destroy our Federalism or the rights of states to determine their own rules about such things. In addition, it will continue to bring great pressure upon any citizens who are caught in that middle ground of not wanting to support a homosexual lifestyle by not baking cakes or taking pictures. But it will also find a way to the front door of the church.

We have enjoyed, in our nation’s history, a moral fiber supported by the Christian Scriptures which makes outright immorality, if not illegal, at least forced underground. But we are in a time when such blatant immorality goes on parade. Now the very laws that once protected us from this will force it upon us. Christians can live in such society as they have always had to do (but how unfortunate in America). What a Christian cannot do, however, is condone such activity which God specifically calls sin. It is one thing for a store owner to sell a man who practices homosexuality a cake off the shelves, it is another thing to be asked to condone that sin by catering his wedding.

Obviously a Christian minister can live in a country where same-sex marriages are legal, but he cannot be asked to condone that marriage by forcing him to perform it. We could soon come to that point. And what will we do? We will refuse of course. And then what? Will we lose our tax exemption? Probably. Will we lose proper zoning for our church property? Maybe. Will we be arrested for disobeying the law? Perhaps. So far such laws have stopped outside the church doors and we can hope they will remain there. But when laws are no longer the church’s friend, anything can happen.

Last week I finished a sermon series on Hebrews. The text for my last message was “Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled” (Heb. 13:4). Actually, this is not just indicative but imperative, “Let marriage be honorable in all” just as the following verse, “Let your conversation be without covetousness.” The rest of verse 4 says, “but whoremongers (lit. “fornicators”) and adulterers God will judge.” That is, when marriage is honorable, all “conversation” is honorable. Even non-married persons keep marriage honorable by keeping themselves pure. But when marriage is not honorable, nothing is honorable and God will judge.

In 1 Cor. 6:9-10, a list of sins is given that, when practiced, show a person is not a believer and will not enter the kingdom of God. That list includes, “adulterers, effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind.” The NKJV has “nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites.” An obvious truth is that these things can’t be things that people are born with, because God does not ban someone from heaven and send them to hell for the way they are physically born. All the things in this long list are things people choose to practice, and are therefore judged by God for making such choices. “Know ye not” that they shall not “inherit the kingdom of God.”

Christians cannot condone such sins regardless of the cost. Let us pray that our Supreme Court will follow history, the Scriptures, and our good constitution.

Lawless rioting in the streets

No Christian should participate in rioting. Rioting is against every principle of Christian doctrine. Those who riot in the name of some religious principle have fooled themselves into thinking that their own sinful bent against their neighbor, against God-ordained law enforcement, against cultural civility, and against Biblical teaching, is somehow justified by the emotion of the moment. Rioting breaks every command for the Christian to be law-abiding, meek, peaceful, humble, loving (Gal. 5:22-23), as well as to accept our circumstance in this world as from God (1 Pet. 2:19-20), and to look rather to our reward in the next life where lies our real citizenship (Phil. 3:20-21).

The Greek word for “riot” is found four times in the New Testament. It is the word asōtia, meaning literally, “without salvation” (a is negative meaning “without,” and sōtia is the root word for “salvation,” as in “soteriology”). In Luke 15:13 the prodigal son wasted his substance in “riotous living.” In Ephesians 5:18 we are admonished not to be drunk with wine “wherein is excess,” asōtia, rioting. In Titus 1:6 a qualification for a pastor is that his children be not “accused of riot.” And in 1 Peter 4:4 believers are encouraged to not run with the old crowd they knew before their salvation, when they participated in “excess of riot,” even though they speak “evil of you.”

In all of these uses of the word, rioting is pictured as a sinful thing for a Christian to do. The very word itself (meaning “without salvation”) describes activity that is foreign to the Christian faith. It would be especially detrimental for a Christian minister to participate in or encourage participation in such activity. Rather than being faithful to his own calling of a more powerful and life-changing message, he has acquiesced to a lower, human groveling with the natural man.

Just today also, John MacArthur placed an article on his blog encouraging families to meet today’s challenges in a Biblical way even though that way is criticized by the world. In that short article he wrote,

In fact, the only taboo these days is holding to the absolute moral standards the Lord instituted in His Word. Lifestyles of promiscuity, debauchery, rebellion, and lawlessness aren’t merely tolerated—they’re celebrated. Selfishness, greed, and dishonesty are accepted and even expected.” . . . . “Far too much of the church’s effort in recent years has been squandered trying to confront anti-family trends, such as abortion and homosexuality, through legislative efforts alone. Reform is no answer for a culture like ours. Redemption is what is needed, and that occurs at the individual, not societal, level. The church needs to get back to the real task to which we are called: evangelizing the lost. Only when multitudes of individuals in our society turn to Christ will society itself experience any significant transformation.” . . . “Part of the problem is that many of the parenting and family programs being labeled “Christian” today are not truly Christian. Some are nothing more than secular behaviorism papered over with a religious veneer—an unholy amalgam of biblical-sounding expressions blended with humanistic psychology.⁴

The Christian should pray for those in authority that they would do right and follow their God-given responsibility of enforcing law in a lawless world. The riots of today are an eerie reminder of the 60s and fifty years has done little to heal the problem. Secularists and race hustlers may hail this as some kind of victory but another fifty years will go by with no solution if a spiritual answer cannot be found.

Nuclear weapons in the middle East

America should be Israel’s friend and most ardent supporter (Gen. 12:1-3; 1 Cor. 10:32). America has historically understood the unique Biblical connection between the church in this age and Israel’s place in history. Yes, our Jewish friends need Jesus Christ as their Savior or they will be eternally lost like any other sinful human being. But we also know that in the end God will save and rescue Israel and honor those who have honored her (Rom. 11:26-28).

For America, at this point in time, to turn from our support of Israel and allow her most powerful enemy potentially to destroy Israel’s people and land is to put America in opposition to God’s revealed will. Presidents, Secretaries of State, and any other political leaders who cannot see this do not understand the Scriptures, the age of grace, and the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Israel failed at her most important moment in history, the recognition of her very Messiah, Jesus Christ, Who was virgin born in Bethlehem’s manger, lived a sinless life as the God-man, died for the sins of the whole world (and thus became the world’s hope, not just Israel’s), rose bodily from the grave, and is ascended back to the right hand of the Father, “Whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21).

The return of Jesus Christ to the earth for the promised restitution will come suddenly into this world. Jesus will judge the lawless and sinners and will reward the righteous, the ones forgiven through His own blood. This is the Blessed Hope (Titus 2:13) that will alone bring real change to the world. That change can only come to an individual through a true repentance and regeneration.

The Middle East is headed for the battle of Gog and Magog and then Armageddon. Iran is Biblical Persia and will be defeated by God’s miraculous power at a time when she tries to invade and destroy Israel and fails (Ezekiel 38:18-23). This will be followed by a one-world government, economy and religion set up by a western leader we call antichrist. He will have his way for three and a half years until Jesus Christ returns and destroys him and his followers at a place called Armageddon (Rev. 16:16). Israel will then be established as the greatest nation on earth, ruled over by Christ Himself.

America has always understood this Biblical scenario and has sided with Israel in this age. The Christian Scriptures (New Testament) explain, fulfill, and complete the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) and bring into focus the position of the believer (as well as Israel) in this age of grace. One could truly say that America has been blessed because of this Biblical understanding.

And so . . .

In this short space I have tried to say that though the world is quickly changing around us, we have only to be faithful to our God and His Word. It has been ages since the church could be so effective as salt and light as it is in this needy world. Salt and light are not effective because they are like other things, but because they are so much unlike them. Be salt and light.

Notes:

George Washington, “Farewell Address,” Orations from Homer to McKinley , vol. 6 ( New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1906) 2526.
D.A. Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008) 64.
AlbertMohler.com, “In Defense of Marriage, The Rule of Law, and Ordered Liberty,” 4/28/15.
John MacArthur, Grace To You Blog, 4/28/15.

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Anointing With Oil

March 28, 2015Written by Rick Shrader

Anointing With Oil

by Rick Shrader

Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. James 5:13-15

I have been a Baptist pastor since 1985 and worked in Baptist churches since 1972. During that time I have stood beside many sick beds and death beds, praying with dear Christian people as this verse describes. I have had to perform well over one hundred funerals and try to comfort grieving families in times of sorrow and loss. I have done that pastoral duty with both joy and blessing, albeit not infrequently with tears. These are the times that you see the strongest Christian traits and the deepest faith of some of God’s great saints. There have been times when wonderful Christians have been more than ready to go on to see the Lord though family, friends, and medical personnel may not have understood their quiet resolve. In all of these times in which I have fulfilled my Biblical responsibility, I have never anointed someone with oil because I don’t believe that is part of my responsibility as a pastor/elder.

I have, however, often worked hand-in-hand with those wonderful medical people who do the modern equivalent of anointing with oil. Almost always, I would say as well, they have worked with me to allow me to perform the part that they don’t do—the prayer of faith. There have been many times that they waited in a pre-op room for me to finish my prayer with the family and their sick one before the surgery began, many times joining with us in the prayer. This has always been a fulfilling time in ministry. A.T. Robertson expressed this sentiment a hundred years ago,

Today we have a more advanced medical science which is, however, by no means final and infallible. We separate the functions of the minister and the physician. We prefer the doctor to the oil, but we still need God with the doctor. It is a great error for one to think that God is not to be called upon because we have a skilled physician. The minister still has a place, and a very important place, . . .”¹

Yet there has always been a controversy over what James meant when he urged the anointing of the sick one with oil. Good men differ. Some have used oil with a view to helping heal, though not in the same vein as the Catholic Church that administers extreme unction upon the dying person, yet still believing that there is healing power in the oil. Some put oil on a sick person in a symbolic way, a kind of object lesson, showing the sincerity of the act. I have always taken a third view that the oil was medicinal and was administered to ease the pain, even if cosmetically, but was not connected to the prayer of faith.

The first view is held by many charismatics and healers and seldom finds its way into Baptist orthopraxy. The second view is much more common. Douglas Moo gives a more recent defense of the symbolic use and concludes, “But other factors suggest that James probably views the anointing as a physical action symbolizing consecration. . . We conclude, therefore, that ‘anoint’ in v. 14 refers to a physical action with symbolic significance.”² The third view is strongly held by A.T. Robertson, R.C.H. Lenski,³ and recently by Donald Burdick who concludes, “There are a number of reasons for understanding this application of oil as medicinal rather than sacramental.”⁴ Burdick then gives three reasons which I will also list in this short article. In short, the Greek words used, the comparative New Testament passages, and the historical usage all suggest a medicinal use.

The Greek words used

There are basically two kinds of anointing, or two actions that can be taken with the oil. One is to physically apply the oil to the body. This may be done for a variety of reasons but the words used to describe this action all necessitate the actual applying of the oil. The other kind of anointing does not require any physical contact between the oil and the body. This is a spiritual consecration or positional anointing that makes a person (or thing) set apart.

Non-Physical anointing. We will consider the second, or positional anointing first. The word always used in this case is chriō (verb) or chrisma (noun) and two compound verbs built upon chriō. The most obvious use of this word is for Jesus Himself. He is called the Christ (Christos) because He is the Anointed One of God. In Acts 4:27 the disciples praised God in the face of Herod and Pilate who stood against “thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed.” Jesus is the Anointed One of God, not because any actual oil was put on His body by God, but because He was ordained of God to be the Christ.

Another use of chriō or chrisma is of the church of Christ. The church has been baptized by the Holy Spirit which is called an anointing (chrisma). John uses the noun three times in 1 John 2:20 & 27. The KJV has the word “unction” and also “anointing.” The verb (chriō) is used of the church once in 2 Cor. 1:21 where Paul says that God has “anointed us.” Believers in Christ are anointed by God in a spiritual or positional sense by being baptized by the Holy Spirit at the moment of our salvation. Just as our Spirit baptism was not a physical water baptism, so our anointing was not a physical rubbing of oil on our bodies.

Chriō is never used in any other sense but this non-physical anointing. However, the two compound verbs are used in interesting ways. Epi-chriō is used twice in John 9:6, 11 in the story of the blind man upon whom Jesus made clay with his spit and “anointed” his blind eyes. This was obviously a physical placing of clay upon the blind man. The other compound verb is eg-chriō used in Rev. 3:18 of the church at Laodicea needing to “anoint” their eyes with eye salve. But in neither of these cases is the pure verb (chriō) used, and in either place the case could be made that the physical element used had nothing to do with any cure that resulted. The physical element was at best a symbol of the spiritual work that was needed.

Physical anointing. The second kind of anointing is described primarily with the Greek verb aleiphō, but sometimes with murizō (verb), muron (noun), katacheō twice, and epixeō once. James uses the verb aleiphō in 5:16. This verb (there is no noun use in the NT) is used nine times in eight verses in the New Testament and always describes a physical application of oil. Jesus said to anoint one’s face with oil when fasting (Matt. 6:13); the apostles anointed with oil and healed (Mk. 6:13); the sinning woman anointed Jesus’ feet with oil (Luke 7:38, 46); Mary anointed Jesus with oil (John 11:2) and also anointed His feet with oil (John 12:3); and the women anointed Jesus’ body for burial (Mk. 16:1). The LXX uses this word for the anointing of the high priest for service (Exod. 30:22-33). Since James uses this word, it must also mean a physical applying of oil to the body.

A similar word (murizō, muron) is used as a virtual synonym with aleiphō. The verb is used once of Mark to describe Mary’s action of anointing Jesus (Mk. 14:8); and is used nine times in the noun form, “ointment,” all in the same contexts as above, with the addition of Rev. 18:13 also as “ointment.”

Then there are three other places where the physical kind of anointing is described. The word katacheō is used twice, both to describe Mary’s anointing of Jesus (Matt. 26:7, Mk. 14:3). The other usage is instructive. Epicheō is used only once in Luke 10:34 in the story of the good Samaritan. This man “bound up his wounds, pouring in (epicheō) oil and wine.” Even Douglas Moo says this is where oil “clearly has a medicinal use.”⁵ Perhaps Dr. Luke alone used this word because of its medicinal meaning but was unique to his time and place of writing. It does show, however, that oil was a common cure for wounds in the body.

Of the two kinds of “anointing,” Lenski feels that only the non-physical should be translated with the word “anointing” because we loose the difference when both are thus translated. He says, “Only [chriō] should be translated in this way [i.e. ‘anoint’] for it is used of the sacred act while [aleiphō] refers to the common use of oil. We do not ‘anoint’ a piece of machinery, we ‘oil’ it.”⁶ Burdick similarly concludes, “The word aleipsantes (‘anoint’) is not the usual word for sacramental or ritualistic anointing. James could have used the verb chriō if that had been what he had in mind. The distinction is still observed in modern Greek, with aleiphō meaning ‘to daub,’ ‘to smear,’ and chriō meaning ‘to anoint.’”⁷

The conclusion from the uses of the New Testament words is that what James describes is definitely a physical placing of oil on the body. The mixing of this application with any other spiritual significance is either nonexistent or would be very rare (only perhaps Mary’s physical anointing is said by Jesus to be with a look to His burial, Jn. 12:7).

Comparative New Testament passages

James was the first New Testament writer to use aleiphō and therefore doesn’t rely on another writer for meaning. It is not wise at this point to try to apply some principle about James being the first time the subject of anointing is mentioned, and then determining all other mentions by this. Myron Houghton warned, “If truth has been progressively revealed, then making the first mention of that truth crucial to its meaning simply cannot be true; in fact the opposite concept would seem better supported: the later mentions of a truth, particularly if found in the NT epistles, would present a clearer, more focused and detailed explanation of a truth found elsewhere in the Bible.”⁸ James used the common word for smearing oil on a sick body. Later mentions of the word aleiphō and chriō must stand alone in their own contexts. Yet, we find that other writers used the word aleiphō in virtually the same way as James thus confirming the very natural meaning of placing oil on the body, even medicinally.

James wrote in the late 40s A.D., Luke wrote in the late 50s or early 60s. Dr. Luke’s description of pouring oil into a wound for medicinal purposes carries on the meaning and practice that we first see in James. This was common in the first century and beyond. None of the New Testament uses contradicts a medicinal meaning by James.

Historical uses

All writers that I have referenced admit that oil was used for medicinal purposes in the first century. Moo says, “Ancient sources testify to the usefulness of oil in curing everything from toothache to paralysis.”⁹ Burdick gives a common observation,

Furthermore, it is a well-documented fact that oil was one of the most common medicines of biblical times. See Isaiah 1:6 and Luke 10:34. Josephus (Antiq. XVII, 172 [vi. 5] reports that during his last illness Herod the Great was given a bath in oil in hopes of effecting a cure. The papyri, Philo, Pliny, and the physician Galen all refer to the medicinal use of oil. Galen described it as ‘the best of all remedies for paralysis’ (De Simplicium Medicamentorum Temperamentis 2.10ff). It is evident, then, that James is prescribing prayer and medicine.¹⁰

It may be difficult for us in the twenty first century to grasp the medicinal advantage of rubbing oil on a sick body. Oil was obviously used also for simple cosmetic purposes, cleansing, perfuming, as well as helping in healing. But whether we think it useful or not, they obviously did in biblical times and it seems that James was instructing caring church members to help sick people by doing it.

Objections

Those who add a symbolic use to the application of oil are not totally out of bounds. Of the few times I have been asked to anoint some sick person with oil (and politely refused) it was mostly intended as a sign of some sort of one’s trust in God’s healing power. I think this may be commendable, but unnecessary. Moo goes further and says,

“The medicinal [only] view is problematic for two reasons. First, evidence that anointing with oil was used for any medical problem is not found—and why mention only one (albeit widespread) remedy when many different illnesses would be encountered? Second, why should the elders of the church do the anointing if its purpose were solely medical? Surely others would have done this already were it an appropriate remedy for the complaint.”¹¹

First, James is encouraging believers to help a sick member. If oil was common in the first century, it would be natural to use that as the example of help. I may advise a sick person to “see the doctor” when, it may turn out, he needs a surgeon, or some other specialist, but “doctor” is the most common way of instruction. So was applying oil to an ailing body. Second, the elders were called primarily for the prayer of faith. It would not be beneath them to apply the oil also, but it could be done by anyone. It is noted by most that the aorist imperative “let them pray over him” is to be done after the aorist participle “having anointed him” with oil. That is, the elders were there for the prayer which they did once the body was smeared with oil. It made no difference whether they applied the medicine or someone before them.

And so . . .

We can conclude (about James 5:14) that the grammar of the passage suggests that the oil was physically smeared upon the body of the sick person and that it was not necessarily connected to the prayer of the elders. Also, we can conclude that James uses this language apart from any other New Testament usage, but is nevertheless consistent with all other NT usages. And we can also rest assured that anointing a sick body with oil was the common thing to do in New Testament times.

At times when brothers and sisters have loved ones hurting or even dying, their cry for help is sincere and sometimes desperate. Their request for the symbolism of oil comes out of these feelings and should not be treated unkindly. I have found that a gentle explanation of the passage in James as to why the oil is not necessary because they are already under good medical care, and because such symbolism will not affect our prayer in any way, is a better help than acquiescing to their request. Such a request is more of a weakness in faith than a strength, and relying on prayer to save the sick is a much better kind of faith. There is nothing in the New Testament to suggest that our faith in God needs this kind of ritual. Robertson concludes, “There is here no such superstition as sending for a minister when death is at hand to perform a magical ritual ceremony to stave off death.”¹² To this I cringe for the strictness of expression, but agree with the truthfulness of the issue.

Notes:

A.T. Robertson, Studies in the Epistle of James (Nashville: Broadman Press, originally published in 1915) 190.
Douglas Moo, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) 241-242.
R.C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistle of James (Minneapolis: Augsburg Pub. House, 1966) pp. 660-665.
Donald W. Burdick, James, in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981) p. 204.
Moo, 241.
Lenski, 660.
Burdick, 204.
Myron J. Houghton, “An Evaluation of the Law of First Mention,” an unpublished paper, Faith Baptist Theological Seminary, p. 10.
Moo, 239.
Burdick, 204.
Moo, 241.
Robertson, 190.

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The Christian in an Unfriendly World

March 3, 2015Written by Rick Shrader

The Christian in an Unfriendly World

by Rick Shrader

The believer is in a hard place. James, the Lord’s brother, emphatically declared, “Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (Jas. 4:4). Yet Paul declared that we cannot altogether separate from the world, “for then must ye needs go out of the world” (1 Cor. 5:10). Still, John commanded, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world” (1 Jn. 2:15). The Christian knows he is created, and also redeemed, to bring glory to God with his whole heart and mind and strength. God created the world for this purpose, yet He will destroy it by fire and those who are an offense to His holiness with everlasting fire. What is a Christian to do?

When the Bible states that God loves the world, we understand this to apply to people, the one part of His creation made in His own image and likeness. It is certainly not wrong of us to love human beings in some degree to which God loves them. But human beings are moral creatures who, therefore, can do the most wicked and vile things in offense to their holy Creator, even making Him out to be blameworthy of all the world’s evils. And yet, this world, the life-time in this world, is but a moment compared to the eternity the redeemed will spend in heaven, or the eternity the unredeemed will spend in hell. And no doubt, for the redeemed as well as the unredeemed, most of our time is wasted on perishable things.

In 1923, soon after the first world war, with the fear of communism rising rapidly, conservative scholar J. Gresham Machen described the time wasted by Christians using the Christian gospel to fix the planet rather than to save the souls living on the planet.

“Christianity will combat Bolshevism; but if it is accepted in order to combat Bolshevism, it is not Christianity: Christianity will produce a unified nation, in a slow but satisfactory way; but if it is accepted in order to produce a unified nation, it is not Christianity: Christianity will produce a healthy community; but if it is accepted in order to produce a healthy community, it is not Christianity: Christianity will promote international peace; but if it is accepted in order to promote international peace, it is not Christianity. Our Lord said: ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” But if you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness in order that all those other things may be added unto you, you will miss both those other things and the Kingdom of God as well.”¹

Too often, it is true, we Christians spend too much time rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Yet, at the same time, God made us to work with our hands and to bring glory to Him by our labor in this world. We have a foot in each world—the world we live in now, and the eternal world which is to come. The task is to keep our minds in the proper balance and to see things as God sees them.

Recently I sat down and listed challenges we face from the broadest perspectives to the narrowest. I then listed several things within each perspective that face the Christian. I went back and selected the first four of each that came to my mind. It was not hard to match each one with pertinent Scriptures.

The International Situation

First, this is a dangerous world. Every day we watch the growth of ISIS and the slaughtering in the name of their god. Just this morning the television news, while showing the pictures of Iran’s military destroying a mock U.S. warship, the crawler on the page read, “weapons to play a key role in the battle with the U.S.” The believer is susceptible to terrorism as anyone else, yet God long ago said, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision” (Psa. 2:1, 4).

Second, we could be seeing an end-time scenario. No one knows for sure when the rapture will occur and the Biblical events will unfold, but the stage is more precisely set than ever before. There is an antipathy toward Christianity and Judaism, even in this country. Islam is spreading and insisting on Muslim law for all nations. So, “let your loins be girt about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord” (Lk. 12:35-36).

Third, Israel is in great danger. The nations to the north will be the first to invade Israel. Iran is being allowed to develop nuclear weapons with the intention of destroying Israel from the face of the earth. The battle of Gog and Magog always looms on the horizon. Never before have God’s words to Abraham been more appropriate, “I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee” (Gen. 12:3).

Fourth, America is in retreat. This does not have to be, nor does it have to continue, but for now America’s leadership is timid and unable to exert moral leadership in the world. We are like the weakling on the playground who lets the bullies intimidate him, but tries to act suave when in a safe environment. One wonders how we can last another two years until a leadership change. No longer does America proclaim, “O Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations” (Psa. 90:1).

In a similar vein to Machen, Darryl Hart recently wrote, “Just as William Jennings Bryan had pointed to Germany after World War I as an example of what happened to societies that abandoned Christianity for secularism, so [Harold John] Ockenga was convinced that without the cardinal doctrines of Christianity a fate similar to Nazi Germany’s awaited the United States and the West.”² Certainly, the world situation makes the Christian wonder what his role is in the time in which he lives.

The American Culture

First, colleges and other schools have become incubators for group think. Rather than creating individual thinking and creativity, they seem to be rehashing old, worn out deconstructive ideas. Christian kids are especially at risk and need our prayers. We are a long way from citing, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” but we can certainly say, “fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Prov. 1:7).

Second, the entertainment and arts industries are perverted beyond recognition. Things that could be used for good are overrun by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 Jn. 2:16). We are being told not to offend anyone’s gender because there are now over 50 recognized gender options for kids. You may claim one of two “sexes” but your “gender” could be any weird variety you “feel” you really are. If we live in the end time, “As in the days of Noah,” we should not expect different.

Third, basic manners are a thing of the past. If “evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor. 15:33), we must have awfully evil means of communicating. We are so politically correct that a young man could be sued for opening the door for a girl, or saying “yes ma’am” to an older woman. How dare we ask a man to remove his cap, even in church! No one will address indecency in public for fear of being accused of being perverted in his own thinking.

Fourth, the anti-Christian sentiment is overwhelming in our country, so much so that Christian chaplains are not even allowed to mention their religion while counseling. “In the mainline cultural establishment today—in the press, the universities, the art circles, and among other culture makers—Christianity hardly exists except as a reflection of bad old times or as a sentimental memento.”³

The Christian Church

First, we have endured the success syndrome. For all of my life I have heard and been pressured to make the church “successful.” This, of course, means to grow numerically, monetarily, and organizationally. The pastor must be a CEO, not, as Bunyan called his autobiography, chief of sinners. And, ironically, one of the best ways to become successful is to criticize the success syndrome.

Second, there is a marked de-emphasis on doctrine and identification. To become too confident in what you believe means that you are arrogant, if not racist. To put the description of what you believe over the door of your church is, well, offensive. Tozer said, “In many churches Christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak that if it were poison it would not hurt anyone, and if it were medicine it would not cure anyone.”⁴

Third, casualness, brevity, and entertainment have become the main reasons for assembling. Heaven forbid we might ask someone something that would cost time or effort. We have given up Wednesday and Sunday evening services for convenience’ sake, and we would do the same for Sunday morning if we could figure out a way. We have forgotten that the greatest need in church is to “humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up” (Jas. 4:10).

Fourth, there is a lack of ownership of the local assembly. The house of God is “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). This is God’s ordained oracle for the preaching and teaching of His Word. This is the safe haven for believers from a world that is no friend of grace. This is where we have our senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

The Christian Family

First, we suffer from a lack of structure and discipline. Much of this is due to the fast-paced age in which we live. Our days and evenings are crowded with activity. Surely, we cannot be Amish and live in a past, slower century as much as we might like. But we don’t have to adopt the uncouth and slovenly demeanor of our day. Our language, dress, work habits, and self-discipline can still be more Christian than pagan. We can still honor father and mother that our days may be long upon the earth.

Second, we may have religion in the home, but often the high places are not torn down. The television, the internet, the iTunes, the Netflix, the social media, can become idolatrous with our time, affection, and beliefs. None are evil in themselves, but any can become a “high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5).

Third, there is a lack of devotion time in our homes. We are all guilty of robbing God of the time He asks of us. Somehow we find time and create time for almost any desire we have, but we just cannot bring ourselves to give God, “Who giveth to all men liberally,” a few minutes out of the day. “What hast thou that thou didst not receive?” As someone has said, we better “come apart” before we come apart.

Fourth, there is a profane level of cursing, profanity, and other indecent acting on the part of those who name the name of Christ. It is shocking the kind of language and rancor that appears in many Christian homes. How far this is from Paul’s admonition to “let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:31-32).

The Individual Christian

First, there is the question of personal conversion. What passes as Christianity today is not all Christianity. We may be “co-belligerents” (to use Francis Schaeffer’s term) with some things that are called Christian by the world, for sake of conservative politics or anti-terrorism, but we may not be brothers. Though salvation is not a magic formula to be repeated with one’s fingers crossed, neither is it merely an education process, or a membership class, or a philosophical affinity. The scripture has harsh words for those who name the name of Christ but do not “work out” their salvation with fear and trembling. John says, “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 Jn. 2:4). Paul says, “They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate” (Tit. 1:16). C.S. Lewis wrote, “If we do not believe it, let us be honest and relegate the Christian faith to museums. If we do, let us give up the pretense that it makes no difference.”⁵

Second, our personal walk with God is more and more challenging in an anti-Christian culture. I’ve referred to some of this already. Surely we are like the frog in the slowly boiling pot. We think we are spiritually minded, and we are, compared to an atheistic world. But we are also like the juice that is settled too long on its lees, sour and contaminated. We ought to be light in the darkness, salt in an unsavory world, medicine in a sick and dying world, “for this is the will of God, even your sanctification” (1 Thes. 4:3).

Third, the pull of cultural mores is strong upon our generation. I can’t believe, for example, that the divorce rate is the same for Christians as for non-Christians (not everything that calls itself a Christian is one), but I am convinced that it is far too close to the world’s rate. Are there really believers who sleep around in church youth groups and among adults as well? Do we really smoke, drink, cuss, and chew like the rest of the world? Our language is crude and rude and ought to embarrass us but it doesn’t. Surely the Spirit that dwells within us yearns with envy. Someone said that though the Holy Spirit never leaves the believer, He often locks Himself in His room because He doesn’t like the rest of the house. These things ought not to be.

Fourth, the individual Christian today lives with an unfounded fear of ostracism by the world. Peer pressure seems to be one of the most powerful motivations for the believer today. For some reason we feel like we must never be considered nadir by the culture around us. The apostles, on the other hand, were “rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name” (Acts 5:41). Peter later wrote, “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you; on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified” (1 Pet. 4:14). We are pilgrims and strangers here. We are only passing through. Bunyan pictured Pilgrim passing through Vanity when it was having a fair. The residents asked him to leave for three reasons. His language and his clothing were too different than theirs, and he would not participate in the activities of the fair. We should care so little on our journey to the Celestial City.

And so . . .

It seems I have been critical and harsh, but no more to others than to myself. A little reflection and it will be admitted that it is a hard day for a Christian in the world. The apostle Paul says we can be more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Where sin has abounded, grace will much more abound. “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil” (Ecc. 12:13-14).

Notes:

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977) 152.
D.G. Hart, That Old-Time Religion in Modern America (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002) 116.
Gene Veith & Christopher Stamper, Christians In A .Com World (Wheaton: Crossway, 2000) 101.
A.W. Tozer, Worship and Entertainment (Camp Hill: Christian Publications, 1997) ix.
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (New York: Macmillan, 1980) 116.

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