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Whatever Happened to Morality?

Written by Rick Shrader

Whatever Happened to Morality?

by Rick Shrader

The contemporary moral climate does not favor a faith as tough and fibrous as that taught by our Lord and His apostles.  Christ calls men to carry His cross; we call them to have fun in His name! He calls them to suffer; we call them to enjoy all the bourgeois comforts modern civilization affords!  He calls them to holiness; we call them to a cheap and tawdry happiness that would have been rejected with scorn by the least of the Stoic philosophers!1 (A.W. Tozer)

The frothy entertainment culture in which we live is a narcotic: not only is it addictive, so that we always want more; it also eats away at us, skewing our priorities, rotting our values as surely as too much sugar rots our teeth.2 (Carl Trueman)

How often have we all spoken, written, taught, or preached on the subject of morality over the last twenty years?  Yet it seems as if every year the subject becomes more needful and the current cultural malaise even more dire.  Nothing seems to shock us, surprise us, or even anger us.  Within the last week of this writing, four NFL players have been arrested for everything from murder to wife-beating.  On one news station a pastor and a pro-homosexual were debating and when the pastor mentioned that God has said that homosexuality is wrong, the other man said no one has a monopoly on God and that his god disagreed.  Around our country this week the American Atheists are erecting monuments next to the 10 commandment monuments stating that America was in no way founded upon Christian principles.  In a scene captured on a home video, a large man bursts into a home with a young child and her mother, punches the woman multiple times in the face, slams her to the floor, throws her down the basement steps, and then calmly proceeds to rob the house.  Meanwhile, a well-known rock singer and sex-symbol does a lewd dance for the king of a foreign country for a cool million dollars and no one even bats an eye.  And these things were news just this week!  No wonder most Christian parents feel that if they can just keep their kids free from sex and drugs until they’re 18, they have raised exceptional kids!  Sadly, maybe they have.

The church seems pretty good at pointing out the speck of immorality in the world’s eye while ignoring the beam of immorality in its own eye.  We have our cussing preachers, our rapping gospel singers, our tattooed professional athletes, our pants-on-the-ground teenagers, and reputation-in-the-world mega-pastors.  But in the church we have repentance and restoration of sinning and erring brethren because the church is a society within a society.  Regardless of what the world does, we can and should act Biblically.  That doesn’t mean we always do, but we should.  Sure, we have our times when we overlook too much or overreact too much, but that is not the norm.  Love is the norm.

I do not mean to diminish nor malign the brother or sister in Christ.  A true believer is and always will be a child of God.  And, in addition, a human being is a fellow creature made in the image and likeness of our God and we cannot easily speak positively of God and negatively of those made in His image (James 3:9).  But in the same parable of the speck and beam (Luke 6) the Lord Jesus said a good tree will bear good fruit and a corrupt tree will bear corrupt fruit.  An evil heart will bring forth evil treasure and a good heart good treasure.  “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?”  (Luke 6:46).  Adrian Rogers used to say what goes down in the well of the heart will come up in the bucket of the mouth.  A judgment of thought and motive is presumptuous and wrong, but a judgment of immoral actions spilled out for all to see is only honest and necessary.  “All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light” (Eph. 5:13).

The word “moral” or “morals” is practically nonexistent in our English Bible.  The KJV does not have the word at all, The NASV uses it once in Job 11:15 as “moral defect” and twice in 2 Peter 1:5 as “moral excellence” where the KJV has “virtue.”  The NIV uses it once in James 1:21 as “moral filth.”  The ESV does not use the word.  This is interesting because Biblical words have a weightier effect on our everyday lives.  A word like “holiness” seems to retain its meaning whether used in a positive or negative sense.  I’ve not heard anyone say, “Don’t push your holiness on me,” but I hear “don’t push your morality on me” all the time.  The same thing has happened with the word “culture” which is not found in our English Bibles either.  That word has changed dramatically over the last fifty years.  We know we can’t love the “world” but it seems we have no problem loving the “culture” even though the two may be identical.

Morality has become a relativistic word.  A quick look at the history of Webster’s dictionary shows this.  Noah Webster, in his 1828 dictionary, which was basically his own writing, said that “the word moral is applicable to actions that are good or evil, virtuous or vicious, and has reference to the law of God as the standard by which their character is to be determined.”3  He also defines “moral law” as “the law of God which prescribes the moral or social duties, and prohibits the transgression of them.”  My Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary published in 1967 never uses the word “God” in the definition but only says “conformity to a standard.”  That “standard” could be anything anyone wants it to be.

In spite of all of that, I think people today basically know what we mean when we talk of morality.  They know it so well that to them it is a matter of someone judging them.  Well, that is correct.  An immoral thing is wrong and to say so is to make a proper judgment about it.  But our society has made the judgment itself the immoral thing, and the thing itself is only a cultural phenomenon.  Homosexuality is such an obvious sin in the Bible that only hermeneutical gymnastics could avoid it.  Yet homosexuality has become a “normal” lifestyle and speaking against it in any way has become the social sin of “judging.”  When Israel of old fell into this same moral contradiction, God told Isaiah to say, “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 Basis For Morality

We Christians are making a big assumption when we talk this way.  We understand, and we have been accustomed to society understanding, that we can call something immoral because God has said that it was immoral.  Whether we talk of God’s Word, the Bible, or talk of “the moral law,” we have understood that there is a God to whom we all have to answer.  At times we have even appealed to societal norms, for example, that our country has always believed in the traditional definition of the family (a man and a woman).  But this appeal to societal norm will come back to haunt us when the majority of society believes a different way.  It is hurting us now because a few amoral judges can usurp society’s wishes anyway.

Revelation from God will become the key issue (again) very soon.  We can say that a thing is moral or immoral because we can appeal to what we know God has said.  But when society no longer believes the Bible is God’s Word, there is no longer any certain way of saying what God thinks.  B.B. Warfield wrote often that there are only two kinds of religion in the world:  humanistic and revealed.  Christianity is a revealed religion and everything else was dreamed up in the heart and head of man.  This is why I believe that the next battle for the Bible will be theism vs. atheism.  Praise the Lord for those believing textual scholars who reinforce the historicity and reliability of the Scriptures.

During WWII C.S. Lewis gave theistic talks over the London radio which became the book “Mere Christianity.”  He started his lecture with the illustration of a man getting on a bus and beginning to sit in a seat.  Just as he does someone slips in before him.  The man turns around and says, “hey, that was my seat.”  From this example Lewis built his case that we all appeal to a moral law for right and wrong and that that moral law must eventually appeal back to the God Who originated it.  When we have no belief in God, we have no appeal to a moral law because it has no appeal to an Authority who can enforce it, that is, God.

The Weakness Of Morality

The Bible also teaches the fallen nature of human beings.  Theologians call it a lapsarian view, that man has lapsed, or fallen, into sin beginning with Adam and Eve in the garden.  The Fall, as we call it, separated human beings from their relationship to God and has brought upon them a depravity that reaches to all parts of their being.  Because of this, man, at his best, is still a condemned sinner awaiting God’s judgment.  Isaiah said that even our righteousnesses are as filthy rags in God’s eyes (Isa. 64:6).

Fallen man has gravitated gladly to modern teachings of evolution or historical revisionism because this removes the historical possibility of a real fall and therefore relieves man of real guilt.  Add to that a Star Wars view of the future and man no longer believes there is a real judgment coming.  Even some so-called believers are positing a view that a literal hell would be unworthy of a holy and just God.  Say what you will, but when we have removed a literal view of the Scriptures, especially regarding these things, the human nature feels free to behave the way it likes, and that way is not acceptable with God.

The age of grace is a conundrum to sinners.  Even Peter prophesied that the scoffers of the last days would credulously ask, “where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation” (2 Pet. 3:4).  How can there be a God who cares when He has not intervened into human affairs in the last two thousand years?  As the world gets worse and worse, and bad things continue to happen to good people, either God does not care or He is unable to do anything about it.  The conclusion has been to eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die!

But the age of grace is designed for man to be left with the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit’s conviction, and the historical fact of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  God will not miraculously intervene into the sinfulness of this world and open up the earth as He did in the wilderness when Korah and his followers rebelled and “went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them” (Num. 16:33).  God is longsuffering because of the atonement for sin made by Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:9) and will wait until the end of this age and then judge the world severely for its unbelief and the immoral result of its actions.

The Triumph Of Morality

That coming judgment will be the triumph of morality.  Paul explained to the Thessalonians that in this age believers suffer at the hands of an unbelieving world, but this only confirms that judgment, when it comes, will be righteous.

“So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God, for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure: which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thes. 1:4-8).

That is a New Testament passage, and there are many more that explain that severe judgment is still coming on unbelievers because their sin is not forgiven through faith in the cross-work of Jesus Christ.  Rather, sinners treasure up for themselves “wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his deeds” (Rom. 2:5-6).

In addition to the triumph of morality at the judgment of God, Jesus Christ will usher in His kingdom that will last for a thousand years, the millennium, and will bring universal righteousness at last to the earth.  The promises, Old Testament and New Testament, will be literally fulfilled and morality will be the norm for the first time since Adam’s sin.  Zechariah says it will be so pervasive that, “In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD; and the pots in the LORD’s house shall be like the bowls before the altar” (Zech. 14:20).  Rather than now, when every billboard, every commercial, every advertisement, every program, song, movie, or video, is semi pornographic or worse, then every bell that rings will be dedicated to the holiness of God!

In the mean time, we can remember that the truth of God’s morality cannot change even in this age.  Marriage cannot change in God’ eyes; fornication cannot change in God’s eyes; the Word of God cannot change; and sin and the sin nature cannot change from what God has said that it is.  Man may redefine it, disbelieve it, curse it, or flaunt it in our faces, but truth will be truth with God, sin will be sin, and righteousness will be righteousness.

The Battle For Morality

For now we understand, like Paul, when he was almost stoned to death yet exhorted the believers in Lystra “to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).  Paul reminded the Roman believers that they were joint heirs with Christ, “if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Rom. 8:17).  We are here on the earth, in this time, to earnestly contend for the faith (Jude 3).  It is enough to know that we are fighting a losing battle.  The world will not be converted and we will not bring in the kingdom of God by our own efforts.  It is ours to be faithful and to preach a gospel of deliverance for any individual who will believe to the saving of his/her soul.

The churches in the last days will, no doubt, have to address current issues in the country where believers live.  How much can we give unto Caesar before we have to stop and give the rest unto God?  How much social and political involvement can we do before we are merely wasting precious time for ministry?  How long can we maintain properties, exemptions, licenses, accreditations, and other requirements without bowing too far to earthly authority?4  But more important than all of those, how much can we continue loving this world more than heaven?  When will we become too earthly minded to be of any heavenly good?

And So . . .

When the maniac of Gadara was cleansed of his demons (Luke 8), the towns people were “afraid” when they saw him sitting and clothed and in his right mind (vs. 35).  The world is afraid of the power of righteousness.  Paul told the Philippians, “and in nothing [be] terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God” (Phil. 1:28).  God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and a sound mind (2 Tim. 1:7).  We must always remember, “greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

Notes:
1. A.W. Tozer, Mornings With Tozer (Camp Hill: Wing Spread Pub., 2008) reading for march 20th.
2. Carl Trueman, Reformation: yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Kindle Version) 111.
3. Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English language , 1828 (Chesapeake, VA:  Foundation for American Christian Education, 1995).
4. I’m not being flippant, I am suggesting that the future may hold the necessity for some very tough decisions for local churches and other ministries in this country as well as others.  Paul called  the last days a “perilous time.”

 

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There is One God

Written by Rick Shrader

There is One God

by Rick Shrader

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5)

This is such an age of conformity, unanimity, and ecumenical oneness that we can hardly speak of God except in all-inclusive terms.  If one were to express that he believes his God to be the only real or true God, and every other god to be false, he would be branded as narrow and hateful.  To a lesser degree, one can hardly say that his country is better than another or that his form of government is superior to another.  Surely we cannot say that our values (much less our moral standards) are better than someone else’s.  Of course, this is also why we are not allowed to criticize anyone for their actions.  We might actually be positing that there is an absolute truth to which all other notions are subordinate!  But we get to this eclectic, ecumenical quagmire by first eliminating God Himself.  If there is no God, the First Cause of everything, the One who has revealed Himself in truth and equity, then there is no final appeal to which we can judge or compare all else.

Christians in twenty-first century America are observing a unique time of change and redefinition by an atheistic, polytheistic, multi-cultural,  and perverse generation.  In this time we see Christianity under attack from almost all cultural voices, while other religions enjoy unprecedented amnesty from criticism or scrutiny.  Christianity, which teaches that the wheat and tares of belief and unbelief must grow together in this age and cannot be forcibly rooted out of society by church or government, receives the hubris and persecution by that same society.  Yet, Islam, which teaches that the tares of unbelief in their doctrine must be rooted out and even physically destroyed and at best kept as second-rate citizens, is given fawning protection and religious liberty that no other religion enjoys, even in this country of religious freedom.  Could it be that this is due to the simple threat of physical reprisal if society does not acquiesce?  No doubt.  Christianity will only preach to you of truth and peace.  Islam will attack you on the street and attempt to dismember you.  So to which will this culture bow?  It is all too obvious.  This began with my baby-boomer generation in the 60s when we threatened to burn buildings and destroy campuses if we did not get our way.  It worked.  And now that same compliant society is faced with even bigger and more savage threats.  If we didn’t have the stomach  for it then, we surely don’t now.

My objective, however, is not political but theological.  Was the apostle Paul correct in saying that there is only one God?  Our world today is insisting that Allah is the same as Jehovah, the Mormon God is the same as the Jewish God, the Watchtower God is the same as the Catholic God.  Our problem is that we have to figure out the approach that is right for us.  Some Christian apologists would even argue that all religions worship the same God but most do not know enough about Him to obtain salvation, and the Christian mission is to fill in the gaps and bring their religion up to speed.  Of course, there have always been those universalists who believe God loves all people to the extent that no one will be lost forever but that all will eventually find their way to heaven and the God they have always believed in.

The God of the Old Testament as well as the New has called all other worship of a deity idolatry.  The God of the Bible claims to be the only God.  The Bible clearly teaches that no one can come to the true God except through Jesus Christ, Who also claimed unequivocally to be God in the flesh.  The bottom line seems to be that either the universalist view is correct or the Christian view is correct, but not both.  The Christian God cannot also be the non-Christian’s God.

 

Paul’s Direct Statement

Why is Paul correct when he says that the God whom he is preaching is the only God?  Precisely because he also says, “and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time” (1 Tim. 2:5-6).  Only the Christian God is able to become a Mediator between Himself and sinful humanity.  Other Gods not only do not have this capability, they thrust upon mankind the false notion that salvation is up to them, not to God.

First, we should remember that the true God has revealed Himself solely in the Christian Scriptures, the Bible.  I understand that we will need to continually reaffirm our belief in the revelation and inspiration of Scripture, and that other religions can also claim that their holy books are really the true Word of God.  But Bibliology is not my task here either.  The textual criticism of two thousand (plus) years continues to affirm the reliability and uniqueness of the Christian Scriptures.  Second, Paul says that not only is there only one God, but there is also only one Mediator Who can sufficiently stand between a holy God and sinful humanity and bring both of them together.  This Mediator is both God and man, the “God our Savior” from verse three, as well as “the man Christ Jesus” of our text.  What Paul is saying is that only a God Who can be both is the true God.  That is, only the triune God of the Christian Scripture is the true God.  There must be God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit to be the true God.  This Mediator is “Christ Jesus” the God-man.  Only a Being Who is divine could be sinless Himself and qualify as our sinless Substitute.  And only someone Who is also fully human could take the sinner’s place and die for our sins and not for His own. 

Job, in his agony over his sinful condition, cried out to a holy God, “For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment.  Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both” (Job 9:32-33).  The old word “daysman” is usually noted as “umpire” or a person that is on equal footing in behalf of both sides.  Paul’s word for mediator is mesites, a middle person, a go-between.  This is the same word that the Jewish translators of the Old Testament used in their (LXX) Greek translation of Job 9:33. 

Third, this one God Whom Paul extols, could give Himself a “ransom” for all.  Christ Jesus was a ransom, an antilutron, or “payment in the place of,” a Substitute for all sinful humanity.  Peter wrote, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit” (1 Peter 3:18).   Only God is “just” and only a divine Substitute could pay the price for our sins.  Only the triune God of the Christian Scriptures is such a God.

 

Cultish Misstatements

One thing is true about the multi-cultural non-Christian gods; they are all alike in their ineptness to redeem sinful humanity.  But that is why they are all alike in their imagined reality.  They are all a figment of the sinner’s imagination because such a god does not really exist, as Paul said to the Corinthians, “For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many), but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him” (1 Cor. 8:5-6).  Paul did not see the pagan gods as uneducated forms of the true God, but as they truly are—no gods at all. 

There are some good examples  today of false gods.

The Muslim Allah.  Islam teaches that God is not a father and does not have a son.  To them, the trinity is pure polytheism.  They admire Jesus as they admire Mohammad, and even admit his virgin birth.  They deny He really died on the cross, and of course deny any atonement or resurrection.  I have read the Koran, and I was left asking the question, “where is the salvation?”  There is no Savior, no atonement for sin, no Substitute in my place.  One is left to himself to try to gain Allah’s favor by his own goodness.  No wonder such a religion cannot evangelize the world with a message of love and forgiveness, but rather must seek to conquer the world by human force. 

The Mormon Adam-god. Mormon theology is as confused as Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon.  God was actually conceived as Adam who eventually became the god of this earth only, from a sexual union between Elohim and one of his many wives.  The trinity to Mormonism is tri-theistic and polytheistic.  Yet Mormonism itself is “henotheistic” i.e. one principle god among many who rule in other worlds.  Jesus was the first-begotten son of a physical union of Elohim and Mary, who then also became a god.  There is no redemption in Mormonism either.  It is a system of works both for the life here and for those who have died already.  I toured a new Mormon temple before it was dedicated and observed the three floors of progressive good works leading to the top celestial room, or the greatest glory.  There is no Mediator for the Mormon, only the hope of becoming a god himself and begetting many spirit children like God had done.

The Witnesses Jehovah.  To Jehovah’s Witnesses all other beliefs are part of pagan “Christendom” or “religionists.”  Though they say they believe the Bible, they alone have the right to interpret it and only then from their biased translation.  They insist on only one person, not three.  Jesus was created by God (thus and only God’s “Son”) and has existed in three forms.  First He was Michael the archangel, then became Christ at His birth, and lastly became the new Michael recreated by resurrection in a perfect manner.  In addition, there is no personal Holy Spirit, but only a “force” of God.  If you are faithful enough to be in the 144,000 at resurrection, you could become a perfect spirit as Jesus became at His resurrection.  Though a JW will always talk of faith in Christ, his faith must be coupled with faithfulness, and that faith is not in the God-Man, Jesus Christ.

The Catholic Mary-god.  The Catholic church is actually closer to Christian theology than what is normally called a cult.  They do profess the triune God in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  But though their theology proper is correct, their bibliology and soteriology precludes having only one Mediator between God and man, for rather than having “the man Christ Jesus” alone, they insist on having Mary, the mother of God and intercessor for the believer.  At the Council of Ephesus (431) Mary was declared to be the Mother of God (Theotokos) as well as the Mother of Christ (Christotokos).  In 1854, Pope Pius IX declared the doctrine of her immaculate conception, that Mary was free of original sin at her own conception.  In 1950, Pope Pius XII declared the doctrine of bodily assumption of Mary, that she could not see corruption in death but was resurrected bodily upon her death and ascended bodily into heaven. 

But beyond all of that, it was Bernard of Clairvaux (10th Cent) who declared that Mary was the Mediator between Christ and men, since Christ is also a Judge and men need help to be able to approach Him.  Though we may not disagree with Rome’s doctrine of the trinity, how can we believe in the one true God and His own mediation for us, and at the same time believe that there is another mediator between the man Christ Jesus and sinful men?  These contrary beliefs have come to Rome because of its belief that Tradition is equal to the Christian Scripture.  In that view, the Christian God must be defined by both sources of revelation. 

 

Practical Statements

All religions have their own hypocrites.  It would not be fair to judge any religion by those who do not follow its doctrines.  Biblical Christianity as seen in the Christian Scriptures has had as many hypocrites and heretics as any other religion.  But that is why we stress Sola Scriptura, or the Scriptures alone for our belief.  When the world judges Christianity, though this hardly ever happens, we would wish that they would judge it by what the Bible says, not always by how people try to live it. 

What many people call Christian growth is really only normal human growth.  After all, as any human being grows older, he/she becomes smarter, more experienced, more friendly, more helpful to others.  When this happens around the church we may mistakenly call it Christian growth.  It may actually be a hypocritical faith, a person only growing older, not growing in Christian graces.  At some point we will act surprised when he/she is at a total loss to express any Christian fruit, showing only the wisdom of the world rather than true Christian spirituality.

If we could observe at least one true follower of each of the world’s religions,  we may not be able to distinguish a major difference at first glance.  The Bible promises, however, that over time the believer in the true God, through the only Mediator, Jesus Christ, will show old things passing away and all things becoming new.  Yet, still the real difference between that true believer and the world’s religionists, is faith in God as the Bible describes Him through the Mediator as the Bible describes Him.  Any other faith is a faith in a false god.  It is a faith in a god that does not exist.  It will always produce a religion of human works rather than redemption through the grace of God.

 

And So . . . .

I should end this article the way Paul ended his statement to Timothy, “Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity” (1 Tim. 2:7).  Paul was insistent that this Christian message of the one true God and Mediator be proclaimed to all men.  Of the three descriptions of Paul, one is unique to him and a few other men of the first century, that is that he was an apostle.  This gift from Christ was given to those men specially selected by Christ to be witnesses of His resurrection.  They were men who also wrote the Christian Scriptures under inspiration and established our foundation for the church (Eph. 2:20). 

Paul was also a preacher and a teacher, two words used to describe the ongoing offices of church leadership.  It is essential that the Christian faith be preached around the world until Jesus comes.  A preacher is a heralder (kerux) of the truth.  He does this by preaching (keruss?) and the message (kerugma) that he preaches is that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no man comes unto the Father except through Him (John 14:6).  The Word of God is the seed he sows and the field in which he sows is the world (Matthew 13:3-23).  Only some of the seed will fall into good ground.  Most of it will be unproductive.  The preacher cannot be discouraged because the world refuses the good seed of the gospel.  It is his job to sow it.

Paul also was a teacher in faith and verity (aletheia-truth!).  This faith of ours must be taught to saints and sinners alike.  Sometimes it takes a long process for the truth to sink into a sinner’s heart.  We also know it takes a life-time of study for the believer to mature in Christ.  With the Word of God, and the faithful preaching of its doctrines, and the constant teaching of its truths, we can be partners with God, Christ, the apostles, and the great saints, in proclaiming the one true God.

Jesus Thy blood and righteousness,

My beauty are, my glorious dress;

Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed

With joy shall I lift up my head.

 

Bold shall I stand in Thy great day,

For who aught to my charge shall lay?

Fully absolved through these I am,

From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.

 

Lord, I believe Thy precious blood,

Which at the mercy seat of God,

Forever doth for sinners plead,

For me, e’en for my soul, was shed.

 

 

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Not By Bread Alone

Written by Rick Shrader

Not By Bread Alone

by Rick Shrader

And when the tempter came to him, he said, if thou be the Son of God,

command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said,

It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, 

but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

                          Matthew 4:3-4

 

Do you know that feeling of intending to read a long way and then being struck by a single verse so that you stop and meditate on it a long time?  I had always dwelt on the statement of the Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.  But this time I was struck by the fact that bread alone is not enough, it must be accompanied by that Word, that is, by God Himself and His will. 

The second and third temptations (I think Matthew’s is the actual order of the temptations) seem clearer in their presentation:  you don’t tempt God by insisting He must do something you have decided He must (catch me as I jump); and you don’t give Satan what he asks for (your soul for the kingdoms of the world).  But what’s wrong with bread when you’re hungry?  Isn’t a hunger for food something God has created in us?  Is it only because Satan has suggested it that it becomes wrong?  Partly so. 

We first have to see a bigger picture of what was going on that day in the wilderness.  This was an ordained meeting of Jesus, the Son of God, with Satan.  Verse one says He was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by him.  Here Jesus was beginning His ministry by giving notice to His enemy that He will surely crush his head.  He will not give an iota to Satan’s subtlety and thereby be disqualified as the Lamb of God that will take away the sins of the world. 

We should also realize that Jesus was fasting forty days, meeting Satan face to face, succeeding in every way, so that we don’t have to.  It was not just an example for us, it was the Second Adam doing what the first Adam failed to do, and what the rest of us have failed to do since.  If this were merely an example so that we could do as Jesus did and thereby be accepted by God, we would all be doomed.  In the first place, Jesus succeeded so that we don’t have to.  He becomes our Lord, not by our striving to be accepted by Him but by His being our great Substitute.  But in the second place, though we are accepted in the Beloved, we are also called to walk as He walked, and it is our stewardship to strive to do the same things however imperfectly.  Practical Lordship comes on this side of the cross.

 

The bread of this world

To exist by bread alone is to exist without God.  This is how the world exists.  Some poor man may exist just to find his next meal, or a glutton may spend his day fulfilling every cry of his body for food.  A rich and cultured man may sit every evening to the finest cuisine and eat the perfect amount of the best foods, yet Jesus said a man, any man, can’t live by bread alone.

We should always be cautious when bread is offered to us either from the world, the flesh, or the devil.  There are always strings attached that make the eating of it unsavory.  The world has many things it sees as necessary to the body and justifies the using of them by pointing out that God made us with these desires.  It is this independent spirit that we are not to love (John 2:15) and about which the Lord here warns us.  James also warned that we sin when we are drawn away of our own lusts and enticed (James 1:14).  The animal world lives by such instincts.  Whatever it wants it takes in any way necessary.  The devil offered Eve what seemed necessary to her.  Perhaps it is this tragedy that bread alone most pictures.  The fact is that there are many things in this world like bread to which we must not give ourselves without God.

Food.  Adam was told, even after he sinned, that he would eat bread by sweat and hard work (Gen. 3:19).  The priests were to look at their bread (i.e. food) as “the bread of their God” (Lev. 21:6, 8, 17, 21-22).  Jesus made bread for the 5000 and then the 4000 and made bread part of the very ordinance of the church.  I am sitting here eating a snack and drinking a diet Coke as I write these lines.  Is anything wrong with that?  Well, Paul said that “every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:4-5).  Paul also told the pagans in Lystra that God “did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17).  To eat without recognition of God as the Source of all food and sustenance is to eat bread alone and not by what proceeds out of the Source Who is God.

Sexual reality.  Is there any doubt that this physical need of the body is the world’s number one sin against God and His Word?  Though God made us with this capability, it can be the most powerful temptation against the will of God in this world.  Just ask David, a man after God’s own heart, who sang the psalms of praise to God, when he allowed this urge to go unchecked by God’s will, and was overcome in a second and driven even further to the sin of murder.  To live by this physical desire or need alone is not to live at all.  Any poor harlot, thinking at first that this was just a neutral activity necessary in order to make ends meet, knows this is not living. 

We all know that it is the “marriage bed” that is undefiled (Heb. 13:4) but sex out of marriage is always wrong, even the lustful thought of it is always wrong (Matt. 5:28).  Polls tell us that as high as 50% of Christian teens engage in sexual activity out of marriage but I have to doubt that a believer can continue in such a sin without remorse and sorrowful repentance (see 2 Cor. 7:9-11).  Even the unbeliever, by a God-made conscience, cannot live by this “bread” alone.

Sleep.  Now, as the lady told the preacher, I’ve stopped preaching and started meddling!  No, even a necessary and blessed thing such as sleep cannot be done “alone” or without being informed by God and His Word.  The first sleep that a human being ever took was Adam’s while still in the garden (Gen. 2:21).  And someone said that when he awoke he had bigger problems than before he went to sleep!  But actually, of course, God-given sleep always brings blessing precisely because it is done according to every Word that proceeds from God’s mouth. 

God warns us against the sluggard because such a one ought to be awake and doing something productive at that time rather than sleeping.  The disciples could not watch with Jesus for one more hour in the garden when His very life was at stake.  The cherubim that guard the throne of God rest not day and night (Rev. 4:8) but rather continue their “holy, holy, holy” without sleep or rest.  How well we all know that the untimely urge to sleep in church is the enemy of worship.  How we all know also that the urge to sleep is the enemy of our prayers and Bible reading and other service to God.  The believer especially, with this bodily appetite, left “alone,” cannot live such a life.

Entertainment.  God has given us many things to enjoy or to be entertained with in this world.  Sadly, our generation usually thinks of cheap forms of enjoyment found only in the neon glitter of man-made kitsch.  Entertainment can be only a narcotic to somehow make it through another day.  No wonder some sink into the couch with a remote in one hand and a drink in the other, or lose themselves at the arcade, the mall, or the ball game.  As with the other things we’ve mentioned, these are not wrong when used in the light of God and His Word, but when used “alone” they cause us to find our enjoyment and fulfillment of life in ourselves and a worldly culture which is selfishness and sin.  This is why the believer is admonished, “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men” (Col. 3:23).

Work.  Man is made by God to work!  Adam was commanded to keep the garden, which he did with joyful obedience to God.  Even after he fell he was to work, though in the sweat of his face and among the thorns of the ground.  Paul said that the believer is to “Study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we have commanded you” (1 Thes. 4:11).  The believer is to be “working with his own hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth” (Eph. 4:28).  As with many human activities, work is good and produces good fruit. 

Yet this good thing can be used for selfish reasons and to fill our own barns without regard to our own souls (Luke 12:18).  The workaholic does it for the love of money which is the root of all kinds of evil, “which, while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (1 Tim. 6:10).  Life cannot be lived for work “alone” but must be done to glorify God Who made us to work. 

Talk.  God made us verbal creatures.  In fact, God saw fit to walk and talk with Adam, evidently every evening in the “cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8).  In this way instruction was given and God’s will was made known to His creatures.  When the disciples were perplexed about the death of Christ, Jesus walked and talked with two of them on the Emmaus road that Sunday afternoon.  They said, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures” (Luke 24:32).  Paul talked to the church at Troas until midnight (Acts 20:7).  There is no greater joy for the Christian than to talk of heavenly and Godly things.  This is why we were given this great gift, even to the preaching or heralding of the gospel. 

Yet, Paul had to warn Titus that on his island of Crete there were “many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers . . . Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake” (Titus 1:10-11).  It is appropriate that when Jesus told of a Pharisee who made an open show of his speaking ability said, “the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself” (Luke 18:11).  Man cannot live by talk “alone” either.  By our speech we can praise or blaspheme our Creator; we can tell the truth or we can lie; we can cry out, “God be merciful to me a sinner” or we can justify ourselves. 

Life itself.  Man cannot live by this earthly life alone.  Even his own life, his very soul, must also be lived by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.  The sinner is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1) and has no life without life from God with which He “quickens us” (Eph. 2:5).  The natural life all people have is an earthly, soulish (psyche) life.  The life God gives is a higher life (zoe).  “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [Christ] was made a quickening spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45).  “Quickening spirit” literally means “a life-giving spirit,” a zoe giving spirit. 

Man cannot live by “life” (psyche) alone either.  He must be truly made alive by the life (zoe) that only comes by regeneration from the Spirit of God.  He must be born again.  As with all of these things we have mentioned, life on this earth is only temporary.  One may live a temporary life by bread alone, or by earthly pleasures alone, though never knowing the fuller life God intended.  But human beings are eternal creatures and must live beyond this world, in a heaven with God, or in a hell without God and without hope.  You cannot live in heaven by the bread of this world, but only by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God your Creator. 

 

And So . . .

When we know Christ as Savior, we truly do not eat our bread “alone.”  We have learned in every thing to give thanks “for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thes. 5:18).  We even pray “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.  For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior” (1 Tim. 2:3-4). 

As believers we have learned to live within the boundaries that God has graciously made for us.  His Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path (Psa. 119:105).  To live a temporary life by temporary bread alone is to miss the abundant life God has given to His children.  The Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God is a precious Word that does not confine us, but opens to us a beautiful and fulfilling world both here and hereafter.

We have learned to eat our bread to the glory and praise of God.  “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him” (Col. 3:17).  Even if we are ridiculed as being too “holy” or “religious,” Peter 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 Peter 5:14).

We have learned that eating our bread with God’s Word and in God’s will, brings the power of God to our lives for all that is asked of us.  “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7).  With Him, we can do all things through God Who strengthens us (Phil. 4:13).  “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us” (Rom. 8:37).

 

And Also . . .

Where would we be if Jesus had made stones into bread that day?  He was hungry, having fasted for so long, and after Satan left the angels came and ministered to Him anyway.  Notwithstanding the impeccability of Jesus Christ, had Jesus sinned in simply making bread when He was hungry from the wrong motive and authority, we would not have a sinless Savior Who could die in our place, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18).  We would still be without hope and without God in the world (Eph. 2:12).  No wonder Paul rejoiced when he wrote, “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15).

My dear Redeemer and my Lord,

I read my duty in thy word;

But in thy life the law appears,

Drawn out in living characters.

 

Such was thy truth, and such thy zeal,

Such def’rence to thy Father’s will,

Such love, and meekness so divine,

I would transcribe and make them mine.

 

Cold mountains and the midnight air

Witness’d the fervor of thy prayer;

The desert thy temptations knew,

Thy conflict, and thy victory too.

 

Be thou my pattern; make me bear

More of thy gracious image here;

Then God the Judge shall own my name

Amongst the followers of the Lamb.

   

     The Example of Christ, Hymn 139

      Isaac Watts

 

 

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What’s In A Name? Why We Should Retain

Written by Matt Shrader

What’s In A Name? Why We Should Retain the Name Baptist (Part 2)

by Matt Shrader

             This article will appear in two parts.  The first part was written by Rick Shrader, president of Aletheia Baptist Ministries.  The second part is written by Matt Shrader, Educational Consultant at Aletheia Baptist Ministries.

Part II

Because this article carries on with the theme from the previous article, I do not get the enjoyment of providing a title for this essay. But if I did…I would name it something along the lines of: “A Plea for Wardrobes, Lampposts and other Enigmas.”In C. S. Lewis’ famous children’s books The Chronicles of Narnia we are introduced to much of Lewis’ sanctified imagination. Most people have not read all seven books from this series. If you have read one (or seen any of the movies), it is probably The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In this book two particular items stick in the mind’s eye: the wardrobe in the spare room and the lamppost in the woods. They are clouded with mystery and enchantment. The wardrobe leads the Pevensie children from the drab mansion in the countryside to the wonderful woods of Narnia. The lamppost provides light in the middle of the woods seemingly without any outside energy source. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe does not bother to reiterate from where these came and to what their magical qualities point. Imagination compels readers to try their own wardrobes for secret passageways and causes readers to look at most lampposts with a bit of wonder.Oftentimes there are certain things that seem mysterious and sometimes unneeded (what good does a lamppost do in a random part of the woods?). Are such mysteries worthwhile? Can we do without them? Of course for the person who has read all the books, the wardrobe and the lamppost did not pop into existence out of thin air. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe was the second book in the series. The first book, The Magician’s Nephew, provides the narrative by which we understand both the lamppost and the wardrobe to have significance in that they point to the awesome creative power of Aslan. The absence of the meaning behind the wardrobe and the lamppost is of consequence. Maybe not earth-shattering, but still important.Often times we see certain markers that are not fully understood and we may pass over them as if they are inconsequential or they are even hindrances. Perhaps the memorial stones of Joshua 4 were seen in a similar light? The “plea” that I made reference to is really concerning attitude. More specifically, attitude toward history. I would argue here for conservatism over progressivism. At its heart, conservatism is the idea to prolong something as long as possible with the understanding that we owe much to the past and to the future along with the present. I see keeping the Baptist name on Baptist churches as consequential because it is trying to preserve certain ideas for as long as possible because we owe something to the past that struggled with these ideas and we owe it to the future to pass on a worthwhile legacy.

Ideas, of course, are much more important than the name attached to them. However, I will argue that downplaying the name often downplays the idea, especially in certain contexts, be they cultural, historical, or theological. I also want to be careful that my concern for history is not just a romanticized sentimentalism that sees the past as the longed-for-pristine-environment needed in the present. I rather want a critical appropriation. Paul Hartog succinctly summarizes my point: “Those who are self-consciously indebted to the early traditions without naively romanticizing them often demonstrate an ideal mix of sympathy and critique.”1

The main points of this article will show why I believe the Baptist name is worth keeping. Several objections will be mentioned throughout and in closing that can be answered by considering the main points.

 

The “Baptist” Argument:

There is a recognizable Baptist identity that is important and needed, and fellowship at a local church needs unity on certain issues. “Baptist” as a label refers to a certain understanding of doctrines related to a certain denomination. These doctrines are important in that they create a boundary by which fellowship at a local church is enjoyed. Agreement or disagreement with each doctrine has consequence upon whether full fellowship in a church can be enjoyed. Let me list the basic ideas of Baptist ecclesiology:

Biblical authority and New Testament priority; believer’s baptism by immersion; regenerate and baptized church membership; soul competency seen in the priesthood of the believer and individual soul liberty; congregational government, local church autonomy, and the offices of pastor and deacon; and the separation of church and state.2

“Baptist” on a church name signifies these important church doctrines, or at least it should. It labels what happens at that church. It performs a great service. Disagreement over the subject and mode of baptism is important and these are proper issues to consider when joining a church. Disagreement with one or all of these church doctrines does not equal denial of the gospel. Though, disagreement over Baptist ecclesiology will affect whether full local church fellowship with someone is possible.

It is not hard to find examples of people or churches who use the name Baptist and have no intention of agreeing with Baptist doctrine. However, I do not think that the exception disproves the fact that there is a clearly identifiable Baptist theology. Also, taking the Baptist name out does not mean that someone disagrees with Baptist doctrine. I can understand that as well. But it does make me wonder about one’s attitude toward several other issues, which are the remaining points.

The “Theology” Argument:

Theology is important and we downplay it at quite a risk. One’s view of church polity is important. One’s view of comprehensive theological systems (covenant or dispensational theology) is important. One’s view of Jesus’ deity is important. One’s view of inspiration is important. One’s view of the authorship of Ephesians is important. All these are important, but they are not all important in the same way. We must recognize that there are levels of doctrinal  importance. But, each doctrine we have has importance at its own level.

When someone takes Baptist out of the church name, it makes me wonder what view he may have toward the importance of certain doctrines. In matters of salvation, the doctrines of the gospel are going to be important. In the local church setting, the doctrines of the church are going to be important along with the doctrines having to do with the gospel. To remove the denominational name communicates to me a few things about one’s stance toward church doctrine. For one, the church may no longer be Baptist. Of course a church is free to do that. Or, the church may subscribe to non-denominationalism (which is its own kind of denominationalism). To be purposefully non-denominational is making a theological statement and does downplay the doctrines of the church (I will say more about this below).

When the name is removed, I assume there is a reason for doing so. Whatever the reason is, it communicates to me a certain view of doctrines, especially “churchly” doctrines (those having to do with the church).

Again, the ideas are more important than having the name. Some take the Baptist name out to prove that point, though they remain “Baptistic.” Is that shame of being Baptist? No, I actually do not think so. Is that because Baptist theology is misunderstood? Yes, quite often, but surely we can be patient and explain what we are. To argue that ideas are more important than names (I agree) and then to remove the Baptist name and claim that such a move somehow reinforces the idea does not understand that in the evangelical culture of the last sixty years removing denominational names has almost always meant exactly the opposite. Plus, it has insinuated a certain view of how a Christian ought to relate to culture with which I do not agree. Such a move by the church makes a cultural statement, let me explain:

The “Cultural” Argument:

Omitting the name can make the statement that a church is not Baptist and it can make the statement that a church does not see certain doctrines as worthy of disallowing church fellowship. Similarly, getting rid of the Baptist name makes a cultural statement. Actually, it makes cultural statements. It makes a statement in the evangelical culture we currently live in and it makes a statement about a church’s attitude toward broader culture.

Evangelicalism re-made a name for itself in the middle of the 20th century through its emphasis on interdenominational cooperation. This type of cooperation was not invented by those evangelicals, but it was given a new  emphasis and thus a new problem. They emphasized the need to cooperate across denominational lines and to avoid unnecessary separation in order to do so. One problem this spawned was that of not emphasizing certain doctrines, especially ecclesiastical ones. Carl Trueman, commenting on the death and significance of Carl Henry, 1913-2003 (who was the frontrunner for this new-evangelicalism), writes:

The problem of interdenominational, popular-front evangelicalism is that, by its very nature, it serves to relativize significant theological distinctives and thus, ironically, to weaken the theological dimension of evangelical Christian identity. It is, in a sense, always doomed to be sub-Christian because it forecloses the debate on many of those things that are important to Christian orthodoxy.3

Trueman, who is also grateful for the new-evangelical enterprise, goes on to explain that the problem is the downplaying of churchly doctrine.

Taking out the Baptism name does not mean that one agrees mutatis mutandi with interdenominationalism. However, it is hard to see how there is not at least some identification (or acceptance) with the evangelical culture of the last 70 years; and, by extension, its interdenominationalism and downplaying of churchly doctrine. It is making a certain statement in the evangelical culture we live in. These Baptist church doctrines are specifically those that were mentioned above in the “Baptist” section; and, as Trueman (who is a Presbyterian) noted, such churchly doctrines are important for the life of the church.

Another argument is that taking the Baptist name out of a church can make a statement concerning broader culture and the church’s relationship to it. If someone is taking the name out because they are worried someone outside the church is offended by or misunderstands what the name means, then they are saying that someone outside the church determines how we identify ourselves as a church. That kind of cultural acquiescence makes me uncomfortable. It reminds me of the seeker-sensitive emphasis of Rick Warren, and merits a question: How much should those outside the church determine what we do inside the church? I would say not much, especially (and this is the issue at play with the Baptist name) if the issue is how a church identifies itself or how a church worships. Such activity is questionable.

Taking the Baptist name out often does makes cultural statements, and some are those with which I am uncomfortable.

The “Historical” Argument:

I made this point in the introduction, but I will repeat it here and add another. Church history and church tradition mean something and to discard them also means something.  The whole idea of “tradition” and “confessional” Christianity is largely misunderstood. Quite simply, I would say every church has its own tradition and its own confessional history it holds their people to.

The church looks to its past in order to see how others (who were also indwelt by the Holy Spirit) faced similar issues. We all recognize that the church of today needs to find agreement with its past, in some measure, in order to be properly Christian. A critical appropriation or dismissal of history is important. Likewise, an uncritical appropriation or dismissal is dangerous.

Discarding church history and tradition, even removing the Baptist name, argues that some part of that history and tradition is no longer needed and such action should not be done without due consideration. That is why this essay asks why we still need the Baptist name. I have argued that Baptist theology still means something very important. I have argued that removing the name makes me wonder about the church’s stance toward theology and culture.

Another argument I want to make in this section is that it is good to have history and to identify with the parts of that history with which you agree and which you find important.

History and tradition become  great tools to us. There is no need to constantly reinvent the wheel (unless the wheel becomes worthless). As the church has aged, it has experienced practical dilemmas that needed theological answers. The word Trinity is not found in the Bible, though the ideas are. At a certain point in church history, those ideas were under attack and church tradition gave us the doctrine of the Trinity. We agree with the doctrine of the Trinity through our exercise of critical appropriation. Likewise, as a Baptist, I agree with the doctrines of Baptist identity. Therefore, I hold to the word Baptist. And, since it is a set of churchly doctrines, and has consistently been understood as such, I attach it to the name of my church. Unless the Baptist ideas are of no consequence or need not be fought over any more, I cannot discard them if I agree with them.

Identifying with our past is not only good because it publically states what we believe, but also because it does a great practical service to the life of the church by creating theological standards of agreement by which our church functions in its day to day life. We are stating what we believe is acceptable and not acceptable in the church. Identification with a “churchly” history (in my case: Baptist) is important for at least these reasons: it gives ecclesiological roots, theological definition, and practical boundaries. The next section will talk more about the boundaries.

The “Fellowship” Argument:

This is really the “fundamentalist” argument. But, because fundamentalism and its ideas are usually misunderstood, I will focus on the central idea of fundamentalism as I understand it.

When we are asking about the Baptist name, we are asking about how a specific church intends to identify itself. We are asking a local church question. Every local church performs certain functions which are necessary for any church. For the church to function correctly, doctrines at the boundaries of church identity are important. These boundary doctrines provide the  essential elements of agreement by which “local church fellowship” is attained. To have meaningful church fellowship, surely we have to agree on what baptism means, what the communion means, who is a member, what a member can and cannot do, and agreement on the other “churchly” ideas. The local church is to desire as much unity and fellowship as possible and that can only happen when local church doctrines are agreed upon. Agreeing upon Baptist theology and identifying with it provides a ready made practical boundary by which to attain unity and fellowship.

The fundamentalist idea mentioned is that there are different types of fellowship and different levels of doctrinal importance. Depending on what kind of fellowship we desire, we must have a corresponding level of doctrinal agreement. This is because fellowship is a function of unity. 

If we desire the most basic kind of Christian fellowship, we must agree simply on the doctrines of the gospel. These would include sinfulness, the reality of judgment and penalty for sin, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and the deity of Christ. Another type of fellowship is organizational or quasi-organizational fellowship. If cooperation is desired, we must decide what kind of fellowship we want. A missions organization will desire more doctrinal agreement than only the doctrines of the gospel. A Bible college and seminary will also. The question becomes how much doctrinal agreement those who fellowship together in those organizations want to require. This will be answered by determining the type of fellowship they want or need to fulfill their purposes.

Another type of fellowship would be local church fellowship. To have local church fellowship we must have unity on those doctrines which pertain to the definition, purpose, and activities of the local church. For a Baptist, these would certainly include those Baptist distinctives mentioned already.

Having the Baptist name affirms certain doctrines which are necessary to define the proper doctrinal boundary for church membership and fellowship. As I have said already, when the name is removed I wonder if these churchly doctrines are being downplayed. The point of this section is to say that when churchly doctrines are downplayed the result is that the kind of fellowship within that church is reduced because less unity is needed, and specifically, less unity on issues that fellow church members should be united around. To me, removing the Baptist name makes theological, historical, and cultural statements concerning the things that a church wants to unite around. This produces a certain kind of fellowship, but not full local church fellowship.

Objections and Conclusion:

Here are some further common objections or arguments for removing the name:

Some argue that the New Testament churches simply put the name of the city on their title. This argument is countered by the historical argument and the need for doctrinal clarity and refinement as history has progressed.

One objection to my viewpoint says that I have made denominationalism more important than the Bible. This objection could only be correct if I had no argument at all but just wanted to keep the Baptist name. Theology is important, and church theology is important for the life of the local church. This is not putting the Bible in subjection to denominationalism. It is asserting that the Bible communicates meaning for our praxis. Plus, this objection reveals a serious historical naïveté.

In the end, having the Baptist name is not necessary (!?!?). In the right circumstances I would not have a problem not identifying as a Baptist. But I have a hard time imagining that such days are nigh at hand. If taking the name avoided the problems that I have with such a move, then I could do it. But that would demand a climate when doctrines of the church, theology in general, cultural statements, historical appropriations, and local church fellowship are all understood in vastly different ways. Perhaps the theological, cultural, ecclesiological, historical, and political environments could all change and produce such a climate. Today, I find no compelling reason to remove the name. Meanwhile, I do find compelling reasons to keep .

G. K. Chesterton was once asked by the London Times to submit an essay on the topic: What’s wrong with the world? Chesterton wrote back: “Dear Sirs, I am. Sincerely yours, G. K. Chesterton.” Such a short answer to a good question, though accurate and witty, of course makes more implications than actual statements. Chesterton made this short statement, but he also wrote a book-length discussion of the issue entitled: What’s Wrong with the World. I have answered the question: why keep the Baptist name? I feel like I have given the short answer. It may not have the wit of Chesterton, but I hold that the points made are as serious and tenable as his short answer. A longer answer is certainly possible, though this is not the venue.

Good questions deserve good answers. Short answers (when given seriously) to good questions ask for patience to understand their full implications. The Baptist name is often discarded because someone sees more value in removing it than in keeping it, and often no value is found in the name. I mentioned in the beginning that I am concerned about the attitude that such a response reveals. It is an attitude toward history, theology, culture, church fellowship, and the importance of Baptist theology. Reactionary responses, refusals to understand reasons why something is there, and pot shots are best replaced by patience, generosity, and understanding. In controversy I will listen to history and tradition before I listen to culture and pragmatism. Lampposts, wardrobes, and the Baptist name are not meaningless novelties destined to be discarded. They are rich reservoirs fed by deep springs.

Why keep the Baptist name? Because there is a Baptist theology that is identifiable, important, and agreeable (I am a Baptist!). That being understood, keeping it means something and removing it means something. I would rather stand with the meaning of the former.4

Notes:
1. Paul A. Hartog, “Evangelicals and the Tensions of Ressourcement,” in The Contemporary Church and the Early Church: Case Studies in Ressourcement, ed. by Paul A. Hartog (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2010), 204.
2. For further discussions of each Baptist distinctive, I would recommend: Kevin T. Bauder, Baptist Distinctives: and New Testament Church Order (Schaumburg, IL: Regular Baptist Press, 2012).
3. Carl Trueman, “The SBJT Forum: Testimonies to a Theologian,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 8, no. 4 (Winter 2004), 93.
4. Some may self-consciously agree with the theological, historical, and cultural points that I disagree with. They are free to do so. But, most I have spoken with simply believe there are no reasons at all for keeping the name. Hopefully, they can see that arguments can be made. If disagreement is there, let it be informed disagreement. That is my point. However, if someone wants to remove the name, they should! This is so because they have already departed from, or never had, these convictions.
 
 

 

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What’s In A Name? Why We Should Retain

Written by Rick Shrader

What’s In A Name? Why We Should Retain the Name Baptist (Part 1)

by Rick Shrader

             This article will appear in two parts.  The first part is written by Rick Shrader, president of Aletheia Baptist Ministries.  The second part will be written by Matt Shrader, Educational Consultant at Aletheia Baptist Ministries.

Part I

The question continues to be asked, “why should we keep using the denominational names?”  My answer is because they are needed as much now as ever and probably more.  The use of the name Baptist has never been without controversy with multiple detractors and supporters.  In this first part I want to give some historical and practical reasons why I am a supporter of keeping denominational names, especially our name, Baptist.

To denominate something is to name something.  I don’t think there is anything in this world without a name, a description that tells us what the thing is and a little something about it.  God started this in the six days of His creation.  Whether sun, moon, stars,  land and sea, heaven and earth, all were given names so that we would know them.  Adam’s first job in God’s creation was to participate in this task and give the animals names that would describe and denominate them.  Scientists, Botanists, Zoologists, and the rest have continued this practice with amazing descriptive preciseness.  As I look around the room in which I am sitting, I can’t find an object without a name, whether chair, lamp, shelf, or picture.  I’m glad for that.  It makes everything useable and knowable.

If I am asked what I believe, I use names also.  These names may be very specific such as pretribulational, or very broad such as Christian, but the more I use, the more you know about me.  In fact, I can’t deny something without a name, e.g., I am not charismatic, I don’t do that practice named speaking in tongues.  Now you know even more about me.  This is good.

Baptists have jokingly but somewhat seriously referred to John in the Bible because God gave him a descriptive name, “Baptist.”  This means he was the baptizer.  I am not making a case that John the Baptist was a Baptist in the denominational sense, I am pointing out that such a name served a good purpose and described what John did.  This is good. 

When some independents were first called “Anabaptists,” it was a good descriptive name because they were re-baptizing their converts.  Later when certain of them decided to give themselves a name, they chose Baptist because it continued to describe a specific and major doctrine which they practiced, even with threat of life or death.  Even those who haven’t liked the traditional labels still must label themselves something, whether “charismatic,” “evangelical,” “conservative,” “liberal,” or “nondenominational.”  Everything has a denominator or name and this is good also.

I also want to admit that Baptists, as all other religious groups, have had their embarrassments.  There have been those who did or believed things that brought despite to the name.  Sometimes people will become too loyal to a group at the expense of truth.  This is especially true of those in cults and liberal denominations.  There have been those in the Shrader family tree that did not help our name, but we keep trying to better the name, since we must be called something. 

Many have pointed out that a postmodern generation doesn’t like the traditional “branding” of past generations.  Millard Erickson wrote,

A further characteristic of the postmodern age is a reduced sense of commitment.  There was a time when people possessed brand loyalty. . . Brand loyalty was also manifested in commitment to a religious denomination, so a Presbyterian would look for a Presbyterian church when moving to a new community, as a Methodist would seek out a Methodist church to attend.  This was a lifelong commitment, and would not be deviated from without a very strong and compelling reason for doing so.1

George Barna said,

America is transitioning from a Christian nation to a syncretistic, spiritually diverse society.  It is shifting from a denominational landscape to a domain of independent churches.  It is a country where past defenses against ecumenism are giving way to the perceived benefits of cooperation, understanding, and consensus.  The days of theological rigidity are history; America is now a theologically pluralistic and encompassing society.2

Barna, not the most conservative of evangelicals, is just stating the facts and so is Erickson.  Much of our decision about the use of denominational names will depend on how far we can walk with the culture which they describe.  

Denominational names have a good history.

Like so many subjects today, our thoughts of history are shaped by the latest thing we hear on the evening news or read on a blog.  From what some say one would think that denominational names were invented by the devil himself.  For example, one statement of faith from a well-known evangelical organization admonishes readers, knowing that all believers are part of the larger body of Christ, to “rise above all sectarian prejudices and denominational bigotry” and just to love one another.3  Actually, denominations were started to guard against that very thing.

A good history of the beginning of denominations is given by Bruce Shelley, Professor of Church History at Denver Seminary, in his book, Church History In Plain Language, (p. 303-308).  Following the Reformation, Germany was headed into the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) because Catholics and the new followers of Luther were trying to make Germany either Catholic or Lutheran.  Historically, a land or country had to be the religion of its ruler or king and so fighting for territorial rights was a religious fight.  The peace of Westphalia (1648) was a landmark decision that allowed Catholics, Lutherans, and even Calvinists, to exist in the same territory without giving up their own interpretation of Christianity.  England would wrestle with the same problem in deciding whether the country was to be Catholic or Anglican or Puritan.  Each believed it ought to be their interpretation exclusively. “The use of the word denomination to describe a religious group came into vogue about 1740 during the early Evangelical Revival led by John Wesley and George Whitefield.  But the theory itself was hammered out a century before by a group of radical Puritan leaders in England and America.”4

The great American “experiment” was the natural setting for the solution.  In the old countries, a land had to be controlled by one religion and that religion had to be enforced by law.  The Puritans who first came to America tried to set up their colonies this way with miserable results and with no more individual freedom than  in England.  It was Roger Williams, whom most regard as the first “Baptist” in America, who solved the dilemma. 

In his book, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul, John Barry describes this problem in the enforcement of the ten commandments.5  The Puritans, especially John Winthrop, John Cotton, and Thomas Hooker in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, set up a government that controlled and punished citizens for their adherence to the ten commandments, even to the extent as to whether they loved the Lord their God enough (much less church attendance, daily prayers, and whether one should pray before or after the meal).  Williams had come firmly to believe that human government could enforce the second half of the Decalogue (man to man) but must not infringe on his relation to the first half (man to God).  Out of this Williams eventually founded Providence, Rhode Island with a separation of church and state where the state could not enforce or punish an individual concerning his relationship to God. 

Also, the territorial problem had to be solved.  Can anyone in a Puritan colony worship God in any other way, or would they have to move out of the territory?  Denomination was the answer.  Shelley explains,

Denominationalism, as originally designed, is the opposite of sectarianism.  A sect claims the authority of Christ for itself alone.  It believes that it is the true body of Christ; all truth belongs to it and to no other religion.  So by definition a sect is exclusive.

The word denomination by contrast was an inclusive term.  It implied that the Christian group called or denominated by a particular name was but one member of a larger group—the church—to which all denominations belong.6

 

The idea of denominations solved the territorial problem and allowed different interpretations of theology and polity to exist in the same area.  Rather than promoting “sectarian prejudices,” they actually solved that problem.

If a good thing has fallen on hard times, it ought to be restored.

The alternatives to denominations are not proving to be any better and will probably end up far worse.  As Barna pointed out in the above quote, theological pluralism is growing within Christian circles.  The lack of specificity in a church or in a group of churches will only end in chaos and bad teaching.  Denominational names and specifics help to guard against this problem and also allow the seeker to know a few things up about a church  up front.  It was a better day in America when the average citizen knew what the names meant, knew what his neighbors were, and got along fine with them.  Strong religious fences make good neighbors too.

In the early 1980s the church I worked for sent a staff member to California to start a church.  He thought it would be a good thing if he selected a generic name for his new church and not be identified with any particular denomination.  After weeks of making visits on people he found that the most common question he was asked was, “What kind of church are you?”  He also found that his most common answer was, “We’re Baptistic.”  In the end he added the name Baptist and avoided the problem.  Those who don’t know what the denominational names mean don’t care and those who do know want to know what you are.  The name over the door saves a lot of time.

The details of what we believe are important.

Denominational names have always kept a good parameter around the beliefs of any denomination.  Baptists have fought and died for the authority of Scripture and the priority of the New Testament in defining the church; the absolute necessity of a regenerate church membership; the exclusive use of immersion of adult converts; the autonomous authority of the local church to govern itself; the separation of the state from church affairs; and the belief in soul liberty in matters of conscience before God.  These are historically identified with the name Baptist.  We should not take lightly the discarding of a name that carries such weight for the sake of some who might not even believe these things.

In addition, what we believe is important to the seeker, even if he overtly disagrees with us.  Doesn’t he deserve a straight answer from us?  Why is it better (it is certainly not more honest) to hide our beliefs from another human being who has shown interest in our church?  This is something cults do because they know their doctrine would be astonishing to the average person, especially to a Christian believer.  I am not talking about pushing theological minutia ahead of the gospel, but rather of simply being up front about what we believe with our fellow man.  Even if he has had a bad experience in another Baptist church, our beliefs are important enough to correct his estimate of us and to honestly portray what our great heritage has believed.

We are trading external divisions for external but false unity.

It is probably no coincidence that our generation is losing a clear conscience and understanding about the coming of Christ and the tribulation to follow.  A generation ago R.V. Clearwaters wrote,

Any casual observer of the Protestant world can easily see that there is a rapid shifting from a state of many external organizational divisions, called denominations, which through the years have had a large measure of internal unity based on their fidelity to the Word of God, to a state of external organizational union in the National Council of Churches with increasing internal divisions.7

It is worth remembering that we live in the latter days and a world conglomeration of religions is coming that will deceive the whole world.  No one will be willing to resist but will believe the lie told to them (2 Thes. 2:3-12).  It would be hard to argue that this lie of the antichrist is based on clear divisions of beliefs rather than on an unclear mixture of truth and error.  Will we be found faithful to the truth of the Word in these last days or be found apologetic and maybe embarrassed about what we believe? 

Are there not already many who have traded fidelity to truth for ease and peacefulness?  Don’t we live in a day when many are seeking to get along in the world and are afraid of rejection especially on religious grounds?   Although I am sure that many who drop their denominational name believe they are doing it in order to reach more people and believe that such a name is a hindrance to evangelism, but I have to believe that such decisions are giving up a mile to gain an inch.  The contribution to pluralistic syncretism, will in the last days, do much more to harm men’s souls than to win them.

And So . . .

G.K. Chesterton (who was a practicing Roman Catholic) said,

Hence the difficulty which besets ‘undenominational religions.’  They profess to include what is beautiful in all creeds, but they appear to many to have collected all that is dull in them.  All the colours mixed together in purity ought to make a perfect white.  Mixed together on any human paint-box, they make a thing like mud, and a thing very like many new religions.  Such a blend is often something much worse than any one creed taken separately, even the creed of the Thugs.8

No one I know is arguing for denominational names over Scripture.  When such sectarian attitudes occur, they are immediately expelled by those who know better.  Yet everything under God’s sun has a name and that is a good thing.  It is the way God has made us and made His world.  History and honesty argue for the keeping of those names, even when detractors detract and naysayers nay.  It is better for those of us who hold specific doctrines and practices to say so publically, and it is better for an honest seeker of the gospel to know that as well.  Ours is to be faithful to what we believe the Scripture teaches and pray like the apostle Paul, “That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak” (Col. 4:4).

 

Notes:

1. Millard Erickson, The Postmodern World (Wheaton:  Crossway Books, 2002) 31.

2. George Barna, Index of Leading Spiritual Indicators (Dallas:  Word Publishing, 1996) 130.

3. CEF doctrinal statement, #9.  “That the Church is composed of all those who truly believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior.”

4. Bruce Shelley, Church History In Plain Language (Dallas:  Word Publishing, 1995) 306.

5. John Barry, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul (New York:  Viking Books, 2012) part IV.

6. Shelley, p. 306.

7. R.V. Clearwaters, The Local Church of the New Testament (Chicago:  CBA, 1954) 63.

8. G.K. Chesterton, Heretics/Orthodoxy (Nashville:  Nelson, 2000)  45.

 

 

 

 

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The Dragon, The Beast, and the False Pro...

Written by Rick Shrader

The Dragon, The Beast, and the False Prophet

by Rick Shrader

As we begin a new year, we are faced with violence, immorality, and war on every hand.  Gunmen enter schools, theaters, and even school buses with no other purpose than to kill and hurt.  The leaders of our nation don’t seem to know what to do about it other than make acquiescing gestures toward the criminals hoping that appeasement will convince them to act nice.  Homosexuality is quickly becoming the sin of choice in our nation.  Many who would be appalled at violence see nothing wrong with homosexuality.  If it doesn’t hurt anyone, they figure, what’s the harm?  This sin is being pushed, legislated, and forced upon society, schools, and now even organizations like the Boy Scouts.  It has been glamorized by the entertainment industry for years.  War is being waged against peaceful peoples because they are peaceful and prosperous and their “ill-gotten” gains must be spread around the world.  People riot in the streets because they covet and demand things for which others have labored.

I heard a conservative news commentator say that violent people act as if they had no souls.  That tells  you a lot about why we are in trouble.  To people void of Biblical understanding, human souls are innocent and would do no harm to anyone.  Violence and activities that harm others are the only real sins, and they only show that such individuals have no “souls” and are less than human.  The fact is, of course, that such human acts only show the sinful nature of all humanity and the need for, on the societal level, a rule of law and, on the religious level, the need for personal regeneration. 

It is not that humanity has gotten off the upward track and needs to find solutions to a few problems; it is that humanity is displaying its true nature and the world is poised for an end-time scenario.  Now, we know that we don’t know that the Biblical tribulation is within our life-time.    Every generation of believers has had the privilege and responsibility of looking for the Blessed Hope of the church (Tit. 2:13, 1 John 3:3) because it has been imminent throughout the church age.  Yet the fact that it has not happened means that we are closer to it than ever before.  Only God knows when the last person will be saved and the church will be called out.  The moral condition of our world gives us pause to think of the dreadful time when God’s grace will be withdrawn and His judgment will be poured out.

Before delving into the Biblical descriptions of that end time, let me say that Christians are not monks or hermits who withdraw from their responsibility in the face of dire circumstances as Paul warned the church at Thessalonica (2 Thes. 3:11-12).  If we knew for certain that the Lord would come tomorrow, we would still plant an oak tree today.  The Blessed Hope keeps the believer working because time that is short is also precious.  Paul encouraged the Corinthians to be steadfast in their stewardship for God in the light of the Lord’s coming (1 Cor. 15:58).

Also, believers know better than to set dates and to insist that the current circumstances are the final ones (Matt. 24:36).  Believers surely could have thought that the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party, with all of its ugliness and inhumanity, was THE end time but it was not.  We can be assured that the real antichrist will be worse than Hitler and the real tribulation worse than the holocaust.

At the same time, however, we are to “look” (Tit. 2:13; Phil 3:20).  As with the proposed visit of a special loved one, we can work while we wait, and look earnestly for His arrival.  We can observe the world situation around us, discerning the signs of the times more than the face of the sky (Matt. 16:3).  There is no Biblical truth that will encourage us in this world than the promise of His coming.

Revelation 13 gives us a description of three prominent characters who will come to power in the middle of the great tribulation; the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.  Rev. 16:13 describes them by saying, “and I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.” This is the satanic trinity that is about to deceive the whole world.

They don’t gain control overnight, but through a process of time they are allowed by God to have their moment in history, bringing about their own end and destruction.  The dragon is Satan and the beast is the antichrist.  When the rapture of the church occurs (at the beginning of the tribulation), the antichrist will rise to power in a short three and one half years.  If the rapture is imminent, the coming of this evil trio is only slightly less so.

The Dragon

Paul told the church at Corinth that believers are not ignorant of Satan’s devices (2 Cor. 2:11).  Satan is the enemy of the church, the accuser of the brethren.  John delineates his names in  Rev. 12:9-10,  “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”  He does it again in 20:2, “And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.”  At the middle of the tribulation Satan is cast to the earth and given a short time to organize his forces.  At the end he is bound and cast into the bottomless pit for the duration of the millennium.

Throughout the church age, Satan has had terrific power and influence.  He is “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2).  He is the “god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), as “a roaring lion, [he] walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).  We can only imagine a time when his power will be multiplied and his hatred of God’s people accelerated. 

For the time being, this world is under the control of Satan.  Not that God is out of control, but that He is allowing Adam’s sin to run its course as was promised in Gen. 3:15, the first prophecy of Christ given specifically to Satan himself.  The kosmos is his legacy.  This is the culture that lost people create with their fallen natures, directed and conducted by the one whose “pipes” and “tabrets” were perfected when he was the “anointed cherub” before the throne of God (Ezek. 38:13-14).  He knows what he is doing.  He is so confirmed in evil that even after being confined for a thousand years, with his doom assured, still rises to make a last attempt at the overthrow of God! 

Luther penned these familiar words:

And tho’ this world with devils filled,

Should threaten to undo us,

We will not fear, for God hath willed

His truth to triumph through us.

The prince of darkness grim,

We tremble not for Him—

His rage we can endure,

For lo, his doom is sure

One little word shall fell him.

Surely this is true.  Although Satan has the power of death and hell (Heb. 2:14), the gates of death and hell cannot prevail against the church (Matt. 16:18) because Christ has the keys to both (Rev. 1:18).  But what is about to come when the church is gone?  This world that belongs to Satan and the people who are his spiritual children (Matt. 8:44), will be plunged into terrible sin and blasphemy in the tribulation period.  Rev. 13 repeats the word “blasphemy” both of the dragon (vs. 1) and of the beast (vs. 6).

Our current age is one of outright blasphemy in its language, immoral behavior, love of evil darkness, and its attack on all that is sacred.  It is blinded by the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4), taken captive by him at his will (2 Tim. 2:26).  With all the intelligence that is in this world, it does not realize its affront toward God.  “Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8).

The Beast

John writes, “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea” (Rev. 13:1).  For sake of brevity let me give what I believe is the Biblical description of this beast.  He is “the man of sin” (2 Thes. 2:3) who will be revealed to the world about half way through the tribulation period.  Though he pretends to be a messianic-type figure (Matt. 24:5, Rev. 6:2), even making a treaty with Israel to end the middle east conflict (Dan. 9:27), he will have a vital role in defeating the northern threat at the middle of the tribulation (Ezek. 38:21), and will become the sole ruler of the world, the little horn (Dan. 7:8, Rev. 18:7-11) who rises to great power. 

The antichrist is a westerner politically, though he may be of any nationality, including Jewish (Dan. 11:37).  He revives the template of the old Roman Empire with geographic and religious boundaries (Dan. 2:33; 7:7).  His ten-nation confederation of western kings (Dan. 7:7-8; Rev. 17:12) carries a religious conglomerate on its back (Rev. 17:1—which I personally believe is the Roman Church, though there is room for disagreement.  It is at least a world-wide ecumenical movement).  These kings use the harlot woman (the religious conglomerate) only to a point, then discard her in a terrorist-type attack (Rev. 17:16).

This antichrist is a smooth-talking orator (Dan. 7:8; 11:36) who can compel followers and blaspheme God at the same time (Rev. 13:6).  He is controlled by Satan (Rev. 13:2) so much that he can convince the world to worship him while at the same time worshiping Satan (Rev. 13:3-4).  He desires worship so much that he will pretend to be God (2 Thes. 2:4) and will accept the accolades gladly. 

This man could be alive as we speak, or he may be a few years off.  I don’t see any current politician who is intelligent and charismatic enough to fulfill this role, though one may be on the horizon.  We must remember, however, that this antichrist will be so completely filled by Satan himself when he comes to power, that we could not recognize the difference that such a filling will make in a person. 

We cannot equate America with the church or the kingdom of God.  We have been so blessed to live in a country founded on Christian principles but no human organization will be exempt from this end-time disaster.  We are already seeing our own government dictate anti-religious views (on homosexuality) and laws (forcing contraceptives) on its people, erasing the reminders of its Christian heritage (ten commandments) in every way possible.  Some issues (as gun control) have no religious connection other than they can be used for a government’s power over its people.

America is part of the western world and will no doubt have some significant part in the antichrist’s power.  Christians who live in the last days of the age of grace will surely suffer the beginnings of the persecution to come, including in America.  At some point we will have to refuse to give to Caesar what belongs only to God.  May God give us wisdom to know the difference!  Praise God that He has not appointed us to the wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thes. 5:9).

The False Prophet

One of the most intriguing characters in the book of Revelation is the false prophet mentioned first in chapter 13.  It seems that every Hitler has his Himmler, the spiritual head who works behind the scenes pulling the strings.  Somewhere in the antichrist’s rise to power this false prophet rises with him.  As John wrote, he had no idea of how a man could manipulate phenomena the way we can understand it today.  How could he make an image of the beast that could speak (fr. lale?, to talk, make verbal sound)?  Today we don’t even stop to wonder how such image-making can be done.  Neither do we wonder how he could make the image have “life” (fr. pneuma, breath, air, motion—not bios nor z??, biological life nor spiritual new life).  We see these kinds of technological tricks everyday.  We also see how such a multi-media presentation can sway crowds of cheering, hand-waving, religious people. 

By these wonders the false prophet will have the charismatic ability to persuade the peoples of the world to worship the beast by doing obeisance to his image.  Not only that, he will persuade them to do it or be killed (Rev. 13:15).  The most famous characteristic of his career is to use the deteriorating economic situation to force people to receive the mark of the beast “in their right hand, or in their foreheads” (13:16) or be killed.  God will have marked the 144,000 faithful Jews  with a “seal” (sphragis, a seal, proof, token) in the first half of the tribulation (7:1-8).  Unable to duplicate God’s own mark, the false prophet devises his own “mark” (eik?n, icon, resemblance) “in” (always epi, “upon” or “on” the surface) to imitate what God had done to those notable and godly Jews. 

Whereas the beast arises out of the sea (usually a description of multitudes of people), the false prophet arises out of the earth (13:11), evidently signifying a connection with nature, the green earth, the environment.  He is a new-age type of leader.  Having cast off the harlot woman and her traditional religion, this dynamic duo forces the new religion on the whole world.  He also performs “miracles” and “great wonders” which Satan and his ministers have always been able to do, as Pharaoh’s magicians could duplicate Aaron’s miracles (Exod. 7:8-13). 

Hitler and Himmler, Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans, could only give commands to annihilate part of their own populations.  Imagine someone who has the authority to command that people all over the world be executed if they do not worship in the prescribed way!  We could be a short few years from this being reality!

Not long ago I read Hitler’s Mein Kampf (“my struggle”) specifically to find a quote that I had often heard.  Hitler used the first multi-media presentation to persuade masses of people to do what he wanted.  That description from Hitler himself is this,

The mass meeting is also necessary for the reason that in it the individual, who at the first, while becoming a supporter of a young movement . . .  For the first time gets the picture of a larger community, which in most people has a strengthening, encouraging effect. . . When, as a seeker, he is swept away by three or four thousand others into the mighty effect of suggestive intoxication and enthusiasm, when the visible success and agreement of thousands confirm to him the rightness of the new doctrine and for the first time arouse doubt in the truth of his previous conviction—then he himself has succumbed to the magic influence of what we designate as ‘mass suggestion.’  The man who enters such a meeting doubting and wavering leaves it inwardly reinforced: he has become a link in the community.  The National Socialist movement must never forget this  (p. 478-479). 

Hitler admitted, “I was a master of this art.”  But the beast and the false prophet, with Satan’s direct influence, will put Hitler to shame. 

And So . . .

I believe that our culture today is preparing people for this mass hysteria.  The massive, multi-media, hand waving, mindless concerts are today’s idolatry.  I have been many places in the world and have not been able to escape the noise, images, attitude, and fierceness of its influence.  Sadly, even the church, both false and true, by claiming that culture is morally neutral, has brought this  idolatry into its method of worship.  Like Ahaz, who duplicated the worship of Damascus in God’s temple in Jerusalem (2 Kings 16), even the church is aiding the coming idolatry of the Dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.  May God give us grace to stand in these last days.

 

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Reading This Year

Written by Rick Shrader

Reading This Year

by Rick Shrader

Francis Bacon once said, “Reading makes a broad man but writing makes an exact man.”1  I am not as broad as I ought to be and am surely not as exact as I need to be.  I find myself more in agreement with the preacher when he wrote, “and further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh” (Ecc. 12:12).  Yet I know that reading is the life blood of learning.  The great apostle, with no hope of escape from prison, still requested of young Timothy that he bring him his books! (See 2 Tim. 4:13); and Daniel, busy in his work as a head of state, wrote, “I Daniel understood by books the number of the years” (Dan. 9:2). 

My father was a university professor and my mother was an English teacher.  One would think some of it would rub of on their third child.  For my mother’s sake, I wear a white carnation on Mother’s Day and I try to continue to read and write.  Reading was comprehension to her, speed reading was not a real concern.  William McGuffey wrote, “Read much but not many books.  The motto in reading should be multum non multa”2 (not many things but much).  I (and my siblings) went to his grade school in Oxford, Ohio, maybe some of that will rub off! 

I’m certainly not a fast reader.  I have a four-speed transmission when it comes to how I can read various books.  Sometimes I can get up to third or fourth gear, but most times I plug along in first or second.  Technical books (such as commentaries and theologies, which I love) just need to be given time.  There is a saying, “it’s not the bee touching the flower, but abiding on it that produces the honey!” 

I have become a more organized reader as I’ve grown older; maybe you have as well.  I regret that I did not have (or no one taught me) a way to catalog information throughout my college and seminary days.  Those old text books and other reading material are filled with pencil scratchings behind the front covers, but if I can’t remember under which cover to look, I’ve lost it.  When my daughter Rebekah was my secretary, she wrote a small computer program to keep and catalog quotations from my reading.  Later, my software engineer son Michael made an even more elaborate program which I now use.  I guess if you can’t figure it all out yourself, raise some children who can.  They’ll only think you’re stodgy, which isn’t bad.  When Lee Strobel was writing his first book, he went to meet Bruce Metzger.  He said, “I found eighty-four-year-old Bruce Metzger on a Saturday afternoon at his usual hangout, the library at Princeton Theological Seminary, where, he says with a smile, ‘I like to dust off the books.’”3  That’s what my generation will be doing in retirement, and that’s not bad either. 

 

Some rules for reading

If I could start all over again I would follow a few rules.  If I didn’t like to read to begin with, I would begin reading with what I liked.  In my opinion a comic book is better than a cartoon because it takes more effort, imagination, and vocabulary.  But if one will continue in that vein, he will soon graduate to better reading.  Even to this day, when I get tired of reading the heavy things, I will go back to a good biography or even a fun story.  Those have a way of pulling me back to my corner chair and asking me to linger there a while.  Dr. Clearwaters used to quote William James saying, “We all have equal retentive powers, we only differ in degrees of interest and methods of learning.”  I have found that the degree of interest will greatly enhance the method of learning.

I would also slow down and read as if I were talking to the author and he with me.  But just as in real conversation, the pace will naturally pick up as you run deeper into the topic.  Spurgeon said, “A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books he has merely skimmed.  Little learning and much pride come of hasty reading.”4  Daniel said he “understood by books,” not that he saw something in a book. 

I would also try to expand my knowledge of various kinds of literature and authors.  A “university” (unity in diversity) training is what we need.   An “encyclopedic” (pediatrics in the whole cycle) knowledge is what we are after.  Thomas à Kempis wrote,  “Let not the authority of the writer offend thee, whether he be of great or small learning; but let the love of pure truth draw thee to read.”5  I see my younger son, Matthew, gaining this kind of reading ability much better than I ever did.  When our children were young, we would stock the shelves with children-sized novels and classics, and he read them all!  Now his (and all of our children’s) range of reading is much broader than it would have been.  Our younger daughter, Rachel, now has an MA in reading!

 

Those technologies

And also, as I have noted, I would develop a retrieval method much earlier in my career.  This is where the electronics boom has been such a blessing, though it can also be a curse.  My father, a PhD from the University of Missouri, was an electronics wizard.  He fixed anything and everything, built our houses, built and rebuilt our cars, and could tell you how every little gizmo worked and why.  He retired, however, in 1984 just as the computer world was coming into its own and he did not come in with it.  He had the brains, no doubt, and the aptitude, but the interest died out too quickly.  I am certainly no computer guru and only operate on an average level, but I am well beyond my father.  My children are the same distance ahead of me (maybe more) than I was of my father.  I’m sure their children will pass them as well. 

Now this doesn’t mean that we are more literate than our ancestors.  Most people agree that our generation has more material at its fingertips than past generations combined but seems to have less wisdom and literacy than past generations.  I know that I am far less literate than my mother (who died 1-1-01).  She was an English and Literature teacher and taught for 25 years in the public school system and was an avid reader.  She also taught a very popular Bible as Literature class in the high school where I attended—in the 1960s!  She never used a computer, as far as I know, but I still wish that my reading could be as broad as hers.  My sister, Debra, is just like her mother but more computer literate as well; so it can work both ways.  She reads quickly and comprehensively to the shame of the rest of us.  I would still call her “old school” when it comes to the kind of books she likes and her broad understanding of subjects, yet she is well beyond our mother in up-to-date technologies.

Only recently have I begun reading from a Kindle.  On a trip this year to Ukraine my son, Matthew (who has an iPad with Kindle on it), gave me his old Kindle with a few books already on it.  I bought a few more and took only that with me on the trip.  I loved the ease of it and read four books on the two-week trip.  That doesn’t bring me into the new age, however.  I still love to read with a pencil and my personal bookmark (I am terrible at marking up a book so no one else will ever be able to use it).  I have Amazon tagged with my favorite web sites and have done my share of making them rich.  But I still identify with  J. Sidlow Baxter when he said,  “All of us are fond of reconnoitering among the shelves of evangelical bookstores.”6  I’ll add to that, among dusty shelves of used book stores!

 

The next generation

What will our children and grandchildren face in their life-times? There is already the problem of plagiarism in schools and informal writing.  With Google searches, it is almost too easy to find information.  It takes little or no effort in personal research.  In fact, “research” today means searching the internet.  But footnoting and giving credit where credit is due takes time and know-how.  So why not just drop (cut and paste) the whole text right into my own document?  In a world-wide information system, who’s to know?  One can also word-search a subject in difficult-to-read books and lift a quotation out of it as if one has really read it.  Remember in the old footnoting system (which I still use) how you had to be careful not to use an author’s own footnote when he footnoted another author?  Either read the book yourself, or give the current author credit.  That kind of thing is even easier now.

On a personal note, I tire of the over-footnoting which is today’s style (and required of good students).  When you read a paper, or technical book, you are reading two things:  the text itself which is the top half of the page, and the footnotes which take up the bottom half of the page.  It’s almost like reading two books at once, like carrying on two conversations at the same time.  I’m old-school enough to just want it in one conversation or be polite and wait until later.  Footnoting itself (which I agree is necessary) is not found in older research books at all.  I’m not sure that I would go as far as professor Goodrick when he wrote, “Many a polluting interpretation that deserves a death with dignity is kept alive by the heroic efforts of that life-support apparatus called a footnote.”7

I am afraid that history will be so re-written that my grand children will not even know the truth of history.  The internet makes no distinction between false and true.  This is like the Hollywood film version of history—since it is all many people will ever see, it is accepted as fact without any critical thinking.  This is already bleeding over into Biblical history and the reliability of the Bible.  Dan Brown’s DiVinci Code is proof enough!

How many of us will see our grandchildren ten times as proficient as we with the technologies, but woefully deficient in the social skills of life?  I still find it ironic to talk about “social networking” among people who never see or talk to one another.  It is a common remark to hear someone say that they have been in a public place where everyone was busy on their electronic device but never said a word to one another.  Multi-tasking seldom includes conversation, evidently.  Add to this the coming deficiency in spelling, grammar, personality, facial expression, eye contact, not to mention manners.  And we cannot even talk about morality.  C.S. Lewis wrote some time ago, “He has read all the right books but has got the wrong thing out of every one.  It is as if he spoke your language but mispronounced it.”8  I think it is the same with an over-use of the internet and social media. 

We all fear the next generation’s attitude toward Christian fellowship and worship.  We try not to quibble over electronic words rather than printed words, or virtual speakers on a screen rather than the actual speaker in front of you.  We can’t even approach the subject anymore of which is better:  real sound or electronically reproduced sound.  We lost that battle over sound tracks, then over organs, and now we may only seldom hear the sound of a real acoustic piano.  But where are we headed when it comes to real books?  An appropriate illustration might be of the song book.  If older song writers did not copyright their songs (which, of course, they did not), they are changed at will to suit the current publisher’s purpose.  If Isaac Watts wrote “for such a worm as I,” then either sing it or leave it alone!  But don’t soft-peddle it into something he didn’t write.  But this is a mute point also since we are now beyond using actual song books anyway (except in my church).  You don’t have to have anything in your hand, Bible or song book, except perhaps your own “smart” phone to do something else when you get bored. 

I’ve used this old quote from J.S. Whale often, “Instead of putting off our shoes from our feet because the place we stand is holy ground, we are taking nice photographs of the burning bush from suitable angles.”9  Many worship services do feel more like a photo session than a worship service.  We worship the worship more than the object of our worship.  Our icons have become electronic.

 

The challenge

So what are the challenges that we face as we go forward (and go forward we must)?  First and foremost is to keep walking by faith and not by sight.  The immortal, invisible God lives in a world we cannot experience with our physical senses.  Therefore we must follow the path He has revealed to us, and that is precisely a written text.  A verbal, plenary view of the inspiration of that revelation causes us to want to read it!  Yes, we can do that electronically.  I have a few different electronic versions of the Bible plus an extensive Bible software program.  I must admit I still love the real Book in my hands and real commentaries, lexicons, etc.  I also do find these deficiencies with my electronic versions: I don’t mark them (though I can, clumsily, with built-in tools), I read them too fast, I read them in busy places, and I don’t reverence them much.  Again, the danger in all of this is losing a proper view of the invisible God.  Maybe He can be downsized, or stored in a file, or cut and pasted, or be given a handy size to fit my busy life-style.  Maybe I’m the one in control here.

Second, will this cycle of one generation dropping pace from the next, continue from now on?  Will children always have the attitude that adults don’t know things and are incapable of handling the simplest tasks?  What will a generation of kids look like in fifty years?  Will there still be a walk by faith and not by sight?  When the last generation does come, will there still be faith on the earth?

Third, what about myself and my generation?  I want to finish the race strongly.  Can I do that if I am not very technologically astute?  Can the older saints, whom we are to honor, be given any real respect in our churches, or are they mere spectators while the children run the show?  I watched my father retreat from a newer world and I’ve always told myself I won’t do that.  Frankly, retreat from communications that corrupt good manners seems prudent.  But I will continue to do the best I can within the framework of God’s Word.

 

And so . . .

The subject of this article is reading.  I believe we must read.  A generation that doesn’t read also doesn’t learn, spell, communicate, or write.  Christians can’t allow that to happen to them or their children.  We are in a strange world but so have been those before us.  Pilgrims and strangers must travel through the land and do the best they can in the time they have.  Our stewardship is with the tools God has given us, not what He has given someone else.  Stewards must be faithful.

Christian (in Bunyan’s classic) was uncomfortable in the city called Vanity which had a Fair that lasted twelve months out of the year so that the partying never stopped.  He was out of place, they told him, in his speech, his looks, and his stodgy ways.  He couldn’t change Vanity’s Fair in the time he had there because he was a pilgrim and had a goal in sight and had to move on.  But he was a light in a dark place for a while.  We are children of the light so let us also walk in the light in the time that we have.

 

Notes:

1. This quote is repeated by many.  See, for example,  Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995) 100.

2. Harvey Minnich, William Holmes McGuffey and his Readers (Cincinnati: American Book Co., 1936) 183.

3. Lee Strobel, The Case For Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998) 57.

4. Quoted by J. Oswald Sanders in Spiritual Leadership (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971) but attributed to H. Thielecke in a book titled Encounter With Spurgeon.

5. Thomas  à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984) 33.

6. J. Sidlow Baxter, His Deeper Work In Us (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977) 81.

7. Edward Goodrick, Is My Bible The Inspired Word of God? (Portland:  Multnomah Press, 1988) 107.

8. C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy (New York: HBJ, 1955) 199.

9. J.S. Whale, Christian Doctrine (Cambridge: University Press, 1963) 152.

 

 

 

 

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A Nativity Scene

Written by Rick Shrader

A Nativity Scene

by Rick Shrader

It was Christmas time in 1992 when I first visited Russia and Ukraine.  In America battles were raging over nativity scenes on government property.  It was a startling realization to find that in Russia, the former Soviet Union, nativity scenes were going up all over the place and government schools were inviting Christian ministers to speak to the classes about the birth of Jesus.  Churches that were underground for years were now meeting openly and even building church buildings.  As an American who grew up fearing the “We will bury you” rhetoric of Soviet leaders, it seemed like the world was backwards.  In America we couldn’t mention God or religion on government property, but in Russia there was freedom to do that and more.

Sadly, such freedom in Russia and Ukraine is being challenged and no one knows where Russia (especially) will end up with regard to freedom of religion.  Ukraine seems to be fairing better.  I have spent time in Ukraine in 2011 and 2012, teaching in a conservative Baptist seminary and speaking in local churches.  Things hardly seem any different than in our country for doing these ministries.  In fact, the school that was started by BIEM under Peter and Sam Slobodian in the mid-90s in Kiev is going strong and students are starting churches all over the former Soviet Union.  Some of the greatest Christian workers I have met are there faithfully serving the Lord and standing for the faith.

To be truthful, nativity scenes have never been my favorite thing, but we all understand the truth behind the images.  I prefer a church scene with carolers singing Christmas songs.  But I certainly sympathize with the battles for nativity scenes because those are battles for religious liberty.  What I don’t like is the display of nativity scenes, or any other decoration, for personal merit or display.  A Christmas decoration can be a witness for Christ if done in the right way, and many carry specific messages about Christ, but none should be done selfishly.

In our politically correct society, everyone is afraid to mention anything that might offend someone, and aren’t we all tired of people trying to make something spiritual out of everything from Santa Claus to giving gifts!  “After all,” they say, “isn’t the real meaning of Christmas to give?”  Forget speaking of Christ or incarnation, doing the good work of giving is what is important, and if we give in some way we are finding the real meaning of Christmas.  So we are flooded with commercials and programs that never mention what God did in Bethlehem but make a saint out of anyone (of any lifestyle) who works in a soup kitchen.  One wonders why human beings are so willing to make personal redemption a task rather than a gift from God.  But I guess if they can reduce that task to a simple deed at Christmas time, it soothes the conscience!

My thoughts go back to that Christmas in the former Soviet Union.  Does it take seventy years of oppressive atheism and communism to make a people long for the REAL meaning of Christmas?  Does a nation have to give up freedom, allow perversion within, and persecution without, and perhaps even wait for a generation to die off, just to learn what is really true and important?  Russia did.  I hope and pray America will not.  But at this time it seems we have no tolerance for belief in God, or revelation from His Word, or a message that says we need a Savior who is God incarnate.  I’m not remembering only church life.  What happened to a whole nation, conservative and liberal, cults and societies, religious and nonreligious, who allowed for God and His Word, respected church, honored public prayer, and fought for everyone’s right to have it that way?

It is an interesting fact that we do not find a lot of “holiday traditions” in the New Testament.  We do not see the believers keeping a special day for the birth of Christ, much less reconstructing a little artifact of what that scene in Bethlehem looked like—and there may have been some there who would have known!  It seems that Easter (as we and all the pagans call it) was celebrated every Sunday morning and not just once a year.  There is a real silence in the New Testament about such things.  Even Jewish feasts are only mentioned incidentally as the disciples (especially Paul) happened to be going to Jerusalem during that time.  The churches, it seems, were busy going about their business in another way.

Now I have never objected to using religious or secular artifacts that remind us of good things.  We have a Christmas tree at our house.  We bake birthday cakes and blow out candles.  We do not, however, keep Halloween in any form because these kinds of things have gone way beyond any worthwhile function.  I certainly have no objection to being deeply patriotic or celebrating other national memorials such as Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, or the fourth of July.  To the believer, however, these things are symbolisms that may have little or no real substance, including Christmas and Easter paraphernalia. 

My proposition is this.  The incarnation of God in the flesh (Emmanuel, God with us) must be believed and accepted (along with Christ’s death and resurrection) by simple faith in the heart.  That faith, will create the real nativity scene.  I am not saying that such faith takes the place of the original nativity.  That fact cannot be changed.  God became a man (actually at His divine conception nine months before His birth) and that is an undisputed fact of history.  Whether anyone believes it or not cannot change what happened.  A whole country may decide to outlaw its public mention and discard every memory of the fact.  It is fact nonetheless.  But even a scientific interest in Bethlehem’s manger or the arrangement of the stable will not fulfill the purpose for that event.  Only a reception of the truth of it will truly represent the first nativity scene.

I think the apostle John was highly sensitive to this when he wrote his three epistles.  Repeatedly he underscores the need to believe that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh.  “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?  He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 Jn. 2:22).  “”Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist” (4:3).  “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.  This is a deceiver and an antichrist” (2 Jn. 7).  John had no patience for a hypocrite who went through the motions of Christianity while denying truth of Christianity.  We would really be politically incorrect  today if we called a non-Christian who puts up Christmas decorations an antichrist!

Let me go back again to that Christmas in the former Soviet Union.  That nation had rejected the truth of God’s incarnation for seventy years.  It had robbed its people of the gospel and hope of eternal life for generations.  But the reconstruction of nativity scenes after the fall of the iron curtain was not the meaning of Christmas again in that dark land.  The reception of the truth of the incarnation was the real nativity scene.  That image that I carry with me of my father-in-law preaching again to his own people; the hungry soul that, when he had received a New Testament, said, “Ah, bread!”  that was the real Christmas.  So now, the thriving churches that gather each Lord’s Day to worship the true God, this is the real nativity scene that is reconstructed anywhere and anytime the truth of the incarnation is received.

There was a time in America when not even nativity scenes were necessary to display the real meaning of Christmas.  Believers gathered together, preached the gospel to friends and visitors, baptized their converts in a watery grave, solemnly memorialized the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and lifted their voices to God in praise and worship.  For me, that is all the nativity scene I need.  That is the real representation of the incarnation of Christ.

There was a time in America when nonbelievers allowed such nativity scenes without fear and animas.  They too realized the great benefit that was gained living in a country with that kind of a foundation.  No one was forced to believe it, but all benefited from it.  Alexis de Tocqueville once said that America is great because America is good.  When America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.  That is the spiritual cliff we are on.  Americans have lived on the capital of a spiritual and good nation.  But that capital is about gone.  Contrary to atheistic dreamers, the true nativity scenes cannot be expunged here anymore than they can in countries like the Soviet Union.  They will thrive in every corner where the gospel is preached.  And it will be preached because that will always be given unto God and not to Caesar.

May we all create a real nativity scene in our hearts by true belief in Jesus Christ as our Savior.  And may that scene be displayed throughout our needy land where ever true Christianity is found.

Our father’s God, to Thee, Author of liberty, to Thee we sing:

Long may our land be bright, with freedom’s holy light;

protect us by Thy might, Great God our King!

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;

Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today. 

We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell;

O come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Emmanuel!

 

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Having Respect of Persons

Written by Rick Shrader

Having Respect of Persons

by Rick Shrader

In preaching through the second chapter of the book of James, we usually focus on faith and works in the second half of the chapter.  However, the respect of persons which James deals with in the first nine verses is just as needful, and perhaps much more, in our own day.  Faith and works is important, in fact it has been the water shed of differences between denominations and cults.  But James’ pointed words regarding our own reaction to people who come into our church, or you might say, when the world comes to us, is crucial as well.

It is important to define what “respect of persons” means.  We are generally right when we understand that it means we should have no partiality toward people, especially due to their outward appearance.  Even more specifically in this passage, we should not prefer one person as a prospective member of the church over another because of what appears to be a better social or financial status.  James presents the familiar picture of a rich man and a poor man coming into the church service (“Your assembly”) and the rich man receiving better treatment by the saints of God. 

“Respect of persons” comes from a combination of the word for “face” and the word “to receive.”  To respect one person over another is to receive his face above another, or, as A.T. Robertson put it, “to lift up the face on a person.”1  Douglas Moo says that “this word was invented by New Testament writers”2  because it is a rare word.

The word is used only four other places in the New Testament (Acts 10:34; Rom. 2:11; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25) and in each place it refers to God as being without respect of persons either in salvation or in judgment.  James is the only one to apply it to believers, obviously teaching that we are to be like our heavenly Father in this regard. 

Douglas Moo also noted,

“But the Greek word here is plural—’acts of favoritism’ (NRSV)—and this makes clear that the prohibition has wide-ranging application.  The OT repeatedly stresses that God himself is impartial, looking at the heart rather than at the outside of a person, and God’s people are to imitate him in this respect.”3

Therefore we always translate “respects (plural) of persons” which indeed does widen the meaning of the idea.  There are many ways in which we show favoritism.  We pass by a person without speaking; we look at a person with a suspicious look; we speak but quickly move away  to other people.  But we also laud over an obviously well-to-do person; we follow up more quickly on a large family; we might even change what we do in church to keep someone from not liking us.

Hypocrisy is a kind of respect of persons because in being hypocritical we are changing our own face in sight of someone else for our own gain.  Pragmatism is a kind of respect of persons because we favor some people who can help us accomplish something, the end justifying the means thereby.  So being a respecter of persons is a kind of hypocrisy wedded to pragmatism.  We act in a way we shouldn’t in front of someone, with the purpose of using them for our own ends.  No doubt James saw something like this going on in his own congregation of believers.

Our own history

As fundamental Baptists, we have often had our faults in this matter.  Many of us remember the 60s and 70s when we boasted of the ten largest Sunday Schools in America, or when our churches were among the fastest growing churches in America.  In fact, there was an ongoing contest among the churches to see who would be listed in such reports.  Now, I certainly am not criticizing bigness as such.  There is nothing inherently wrong in a big church or in a little church, just as there is nothing inherently wrong in being rich or poor.  Either could be used for God’s glory and either can be used for selfishness.  But I am remembering, as one who was trained in ministry at that time, that what we really wanted was to grow and we needed people as well as people’s money to do it. Even worse, we may have pushed for altar results simply for the record of it rather than for the rejoicing of sinners being saved. 

I remember being a Bible College student (’68-’72) and fearing that if I left school to start or pastor a church, I might not grow fast enough and would be perceived as a failure by my peers or instructors.  Those were the days of church growth seminars where one could learn the latest method of increasing the attendance and altar result cards.  We all copied Jerry Falwell and Jack Hyles. 

Those days are probably still with us to some degree, but I think we have learned that growth for growth’s sake isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  There is a real hollowness in ministry when things are done by hypocrisy wedded to pragmatism.  People just become numbers or offering envelopes.  And I think our people felt it too.  I believe it is good for us to have dropped off the cutting edge of church growth dynamics.  We may not be in the news as much, but we are shepherding more than herding and I think pleasing God more.

 

The contemporary church

As fundamental churches decreased in numbers, evangelical churches took over.  The 80s and the 90s were given to a seeker sensitive style of ministry where polls were used to find out what would make the world like us.  The churches quickly became what was necessary to draw people.  If they didn’t like church buildings, the look of the building was changed.  If they didn’t like dressing up for church, everyone immediately became casual.  Not just “poor” like the man in James chapter two, but perfectly casual.  Casual with the most expensive casualness.  Ironically, a coat and tie became as nadir as the hobo of the 50s.  If you went like that, you were the one to whom no one spoke. 

The worst show of the respect of persons was the target audience.  Somehow a church determined who should be there and who shouldn’t, or at least whom they really wanted and whom they didn’t.  James would call this a violation of the “royal law” (2:9).  To not “love your neighbor as yourself” is to not love whoever is there, whoever comes in the door.  The word is “kingly.”  A king is supposed to love all of his subjects, and a church is supposed to love whoever comes in. 

I might add to this that there was a certain part of this movement that encouraged churches to push aside (or out) the older people because they would not give a proper impression to the younger generation that the church was trying to attract.  With their removal there was also the removal of their baggage: hymnals, choirs, coats and ties, etc. (and sadly their maturity). 

Was not all of this (like the church-growth movement of the 60s and 70s) truly a way of being a respecter of persons?  I think it was.  Ministry was plastic, a façade, something performed for a certain effect.  And that effect was success.   It’s not that 100% of churches then or now were driven by these motives, but too many of them were.

 

Even newer churches

Somehow I can’t believe that the emergent churches and other new brands of believers are any better in their motives.  Respecting persons is too much a part of human nature.  For the postmodern church to simply criticize the older churches as  being “modern” (i.e. molded by the modern, industrial, cookie-cutter age) and then to drop into the abyss of relativism, having no structure or stable values, is certainly no better.  In fact, it is worse.  The world will never adopt Christian principles on its own and to acquiesce to it in form and structure (or the lack thereof) is to respect the persons (the face) of the world in the worst way.  To say that the postmodern age is better than the modern or pre-modern ages is to become what the world wants you to become for your own gain.  It is to “lift up the face” to them in order to win them over. 

If we simply witness the popular writers of this movement (McLaren, Bell) and what doctrines and interpretations they have adopted in order to draw the postmodern generation, we need look no further.  The Bible is a human story, not an inspired record?  Hell is within each lost person, not a real place to which they go when they die?  To teach these things because the current generation will receive none other is to respect their faces too much.

 

Our culture

I agree with those who say that culture is not morally neutral, and in fact is the incarnation of a person’s (society’s) religion.  A thief steals because he believes it is right for him to do so.  Even if those reasons are nefarious, he was forced into it by circumstances beyond his control.  A liar tells a lie because for the moment it is necessary for him/her to do so.  These things are moral convictions that come from a person’s world view.  This is true for all of us.  If we have a Biblical world view we will talk, think, and do those things that we really believe from the Bible.  If those things are not Biblical, then we are hypocritical to say that we have a Christian world view.  Our culture is the way it is because it is the outgrowth of what society really believes.  Culture then is the incarnation of society’s belief system, good or bad.

It is human nature to respect persons.  A lost person may be made in God’s image, but he/she is fallen, a sinner who does not seek after God by nature.  Therefore, hypocrisy may become necessary for such a person to get ahead in this life.  Pragmatism is a way of life that makes even good things to be mere means to an end.  To respect persons in this manner is a way of life for the sinner, his culture, his real religion.

 

Our country

The respect of persons is seen in political campaigns in an unashamed fashion.  Even as we now try to evaluate why the president won and the challenger lost, the answers from the pundits is that we didn’t “appeal” to certain social groups in the country.  I don’t think there is any doubt that the president’s campaign was based on promising (once again) to give certain people whatever they want if they would vote for him.  Sadly, moral issues and personal failures (especially as the Commander in Chief) don’t seem to matter to people if they get the things they want from the government.  In other words, people are very willing to be the victims of this political respect of persons if it is an advantage to them.  For political parties and candidates to pander to people this way, to study the details of what will persuade them, and then to form a campaign and administration based on that is respect of persons at its worst.

 

Our churches

The most prominent New Testament command from our Lord is to love one another.  But this is like the commands to think right, it is plain but it is easier said than done.  We almost instinctively play favorites with people we know.  We must pray that the Lord will give us a genuine love of the brethren and a genuine interest (if not love) for the lost world around us.  Let us practice the royal law of loving whoever comes in the door.  After all, we spend millions going to all parts of the world, so we ought to be good ambassadors when the world comes to us.

Let’s let the Lord build the church.  I think I say that with the understanding of our great responsibility in the gospel outreach.  I don’t mean that in a cold, uncaring way.  I mean, let’s love all the brethren and let’s love them because they are brethren and not because they are some advantage to us.  Likewise, with those we meet who need Christ. 

At the same time, we must not let the world dictate to us the terms of the gospel.  That would be to respect their person more than to respect God’s own Word.  If that costs us converts, so be it, it didn’t really cost anything because those would have been our own converts, not the Holy Spirit’s.  We must give the gospel to everyone but we will not win every one.  That is Biblical too.

Let’s not trick people into coming to church.  Let the cults tell people one thing and then reveal the reality to them later.  Paul told Philemon that the communication of his faith would become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing that was in him in Christ Jesus (Phile. 6).  Let’s be real.  Say everything we are, do what believers do in church, put our name on the door, and don’t be ashamed or let our faces change because someone who doesn’t have the Spirit may not understand.  Rather, let us begin to show them what the real love of God is.

 

And so . . . .

Perhaps we could say with Isaac Watts of old in Psalm 48,

 

Far as thy name is known,

The world declares thy praise;

Thy saints, O Lord, before thy throne,

Their songs of honour raise.

With joy let Judah stand

On Sion’s chosen hill,

Proclaim the wonders of thy hand,

And counsels of thy will.

Let strangers walk around

The city where we dwell,

Compass and view thine holy ground,

And mark the buildings well;

The orders of thy house,

The worship of thy court,

The cheerful songs, the solemn vows,

And make a fair report.

How decent and how wise!

How glorious to behold!

Beyond the pomp that charms the eyes,

And rites adorn’d with gold.

The God we worship now

Will guide us till we die,

Will be our God while here below,

And ours above the sky.4

 

 

 

Notes:
1. A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures  in the New Testament, vol. vi (Nashville:  Broadman Press, 1933) 29.
2. Douglas Moo, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 2000) 102.
3. Moo, 102.
4. The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts (Morgan, PA:  Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1997) 85.

 

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Why Christians Vote

Written by Rick Shrader

Why Christians Vote

by Rick Shrader

Good Christian publications abound at this time with good advice for believers during a national election time.  It is generally (and rightly) believed that Christians in a free society should vote, speak their point of view, and even become involved in the political process where possible.  None of these is wrong for the Christian living in America.  We are not breaking any laws in doing so, nor are we violating any Scripture, nor acting in any way immoral.  A Christian citizen should feel free to do whatever is Scriptural, legal, and moral.  Consternation comes for the believer when forced to make a choice which is truly the lesser of two evils.  Can I vote for a Mormon to be president of the country in which I live because he is the better, though not the perfect, choice?  Could my parents vote for a Catholic?  Could, and did, my ancestors vote for a Mason?  Unless we have some theocratic view of the church in the age of grace, the answer should always be “yes.”

The British, though steeped in good evangelical preaching and belief, had to work hard at separating church and state because they did have a state church even though dissenters would not worship in it.  Tony Sargent, in writing the biography of the great British evangelical, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, said of his sermons during WWII, “They remain a pattern of how preachers should teach the Bible when their country is passing through critical times without resorting to a patriotism which abuses Scripture in the misplaced interests of nationalism.”  That is an even greater challenge for us in America because our Christian heritage rightly separated church and state and yet left us also with a great tradition of Christian participation and influence in our free governing process.

We have enjoyed, at least up until now, the freedom to speak of specifically Christian virtues in our governance.  Anyone who has toured the national monuments in Washington D.C. has to be amazed, and blessed, by the immersion of Biblical texts within the government halls and upon the national structures.  Yet we have no Biblical promise for the church in the age of grace that it will always be this way.  Indeed, more believers than not have lived without religious freedom and yet have carried on the Christian life and commission in better ways than we.  We won’t have any ticket to the front row at the Bema Seat of Christ just because we are Americans.  We may find ourselves far behind the greatest of Christians who come from much more difficult circumstances than ours.

But this is a two-edged sword.  The loss of Christian virtue in America may come largely, even mostly, because Christians have forgotten to live as Christians.  I don’t mean involved in government necessarily, but just living a Christian testimony and practicing real Christianity, letting the church be the church in a wicked and perverse generation.  At the same time, however, we understand the signs of the times.  We ought to remain as good at reading those as we are at reading the signs of the (political) sky.  We know where this world is headed and that is down, not up.  So who knows, whether we are “come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”  Are we willing to bless our sovereign God in that time as well?

Yet on the way down God’s sovereign road, we may be at a time when our leaders are not as “Christian” as at a previous time.  We may be fighting off total anarchy or totalitarianism in a once Christian nation.  We may have no other choice than the lesser of two evils.  God did not tell us to honor only believing kings, but rather to pray for them that we might lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty.

 

What is the church in a nation?

The universal church is made up of believers in the world.  Jesus is building His church until the rapture when He will call her home.  The church exists from Pentecost until the rapture and exists wherever believers are in the world.  Every believer has the same New Testament and the same obligation to follow it.  We are to give unto Caesar the things that belong to him, including honor, taxes, prayers, and obedience.  Of course, there have been those times when believers had to give unto God things that contradicted what Caesar wanted, and they did, sometimes to their detriment. Believers are both citizens of an earthly country and citizens of a heavenly country.  We have our feet in both worlds.

Believers are pilgrims and strangers on the earth.  We don’t expect things to go our way very often and when they do we rejoice and thank God for His goodness.  Such has been the history of America for most of the time.  There is no perfect nation because nations are made up of sinners.  Some nations are much better than others, especially when they will apply Biblical principles to life and government.  But believers will always have to put up with some degree of unbiblical and anti-biblical attitudes.  Our nation is not our church.  It is a mixed multitude where the percentage of true believers will always be woefully low and we should expect sinners to act and think like sinners.

The local church is where the New Testament places most of its emphasis, showing that the local church is God’s divine agency for the accomplishing of His will in the world.  Though the government is also His agency, again, it is a mixed agency to govern sinners.  The local church is made up of true believers and has an inspired constitution and possesses a divine Teacher who applies those truths to our lives.   Local churches will exist wherever believers exist because the New Testament commands us to gather ourselves together and commit ourselves to one another.  The local church has a divine commission and though existing in the world, must keep its focus on eternal things.  Our real citizenship is in heaven from whence we look for a Savior and a perfect kingdom.  The local church must be the church, not government though that is a divine creation, not earthly families though those are divine creations.  Rather, believers become the salt and light in all other organizations.  Yes, the salt has to get out of the shaker and into the world, but it better be in the shaker first, or it will be mere sand and gravel in the world.

What is the best scenario for believers?

That question has to be asked from both God’s perspective and ours.  His ways are not always our ways.  It is easy for us to say that God brought persecution to the early church so that they were forced to go into all the world and preach the gospel.  But my father-in-law (Peter Slobodian), a Ukrainian born in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, though thankful for all that God did for those believers, never thought it was better for his people to live under such an atheistic regime.  Who really wants persecution?  His heart rejoiced when the iron curtain fell and the gospel could be freely preached in his homeland.  Is the gospel more effective now than it was then?  Only eternity will tell.

The fact of the matter is that believers will always do God’s will no matter what circumstances they find themselves in.  This may cost them persecution in some places or it may allow them to be political leaders in others.  History has shown that Christians have been the best citizens in every situation.  We don’t steal, kill, slander, or break laws unless those laws force us to disobey God.  The American experiment has been so good for Christians and their churches because its law actually forbids the government to interfere in the church’s business or to establish a rival religion.  The civil authority can’t use the church to direct its affairs, and the church can’t use the civil authority to enforce its beliefs.  Our history has shown what a blessing this is to the churches, the country, and the world. 

God has commissioned the local church to evangelize and this we must do regardless of what country we are in or what the repercussions of that action may be.  We praise those in our history who have suffered for the sake of the gospel though we still would rather not have to have it that way.  Because we know it is better to have a true separation of church and state, we also know that means there must be freedom for all citizens to proselytize as well.  The cults, the false religions, Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, all must have the same rights as Christians to promote their faith and try to win converts to it.  That is fine with us because we believe that the Word of God powered by the Holy Spirit of God will always be the most effective in the arena of ideas.

Can we live with unbelieving leaders?

Of course we can.  The New Testament was written in such a situation and Biblical texts instruct us in how we should handle ourselves while living under unbelievers.  There is no instruction to cause insurrection or even to protest or to be involved in the political process.  There are occasional references to believers who held public office just as there are examples of believers who were soldiers.  Those options are left open for believers.  But the New Testament instructs us to be law abiding citizens, pay our taxes, give honor to whom honor is due, and go about living our faith with whatever results and repercussions may come our way. 

The fact is that we have had few believing presidents in America.  Russell D. Moore, dean of the school of theology at Southern Seminary recently said,

So many evangelicals want to go back and claim Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln and John Adams as orthodox, evangelical Christians.  The problem with that [is that] Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were great men who did fantastic things for our country, but once you start claiming them as orthodox evangelical Christians, you’re not elevating those men, you’re downgrading the Gospel into something that fits whatever they happen to hold.  And you wind up with [modern-day] politicians who learn the language of evangelical faith in order to use it, in order to manipulate people into supporting them.2

Now there may be a legitimate question as to the true faith of a man like Lincoln, but Moore’s point is well taken.  If every leader who ever claimed to be a Christian really was a Christian, I’m not sure I’d want to be one.  There are times when it is fashionable for a politician to be a Christian and times when it’s not.  That, of course, is a poor reason to make that claim.  Barack Obama claims to be a Christian; Bill Clinton belonged to a Southern Baptist church as did Jimmy Carter.  None, however, have shown much evidence of true Christian faith other than their own verbal testimony. 

Can we vote for an unbeliever?

Of course we can.  A vote for a president is not a vote for a pastor.  A vote in a civil election is not a vote in a local church.  In the one you are participating as a citizen of an earthly country, in the other you are voting as a citizen of heaven.  As a citizen of a country I do a lot of things, choosing the best out of a number of poor options.  My kids may have to go to a poor school because it is still better than the alternative.  I may have to live with a home-owners association that is ungodly and poorly run but I am forced to because I live in the neighborhood.  I probably will vote for the president of it though he/she is not a great choice.  I may have to choose a local politician or a national politician in the same way.

Noel Smith, founder of the Baptist Bible Tribune, speaking at the Fundamental Baptist Congress in 1971, said,

Christians should not take the position that we should have none but a Christian government.  I wouldn’t want to live under a government by preachers.  In the first place, half of them would hang the other half before sundown—for the glory of God.  And I suspect I would be on the hanging end.  The best Christian on earth may know nothing about the philosophy of civil government.  In government Christians have failed about as often as non-Christians.

Benjamin Franklin wasn’t a Christian.  Thomas Jefferson wasn’t a Christian.  William Howard Taft was a Unitarian.  Mr. Taft wasn’t one of our great Presidents.  William Jennings Bryan said that he went into office by a majority and went out with universal consent.  But Mr. Taft was an able Secretary of War, a wise administrator, and he was one of the great Chief Justices. 

William Howard Taft was an American.  He believed in and loved his country.  He was a man of principle.  He believed that the alternative to constitutionalism was exactly what we have today—anarchy.

I will vote for such men of character and patriotism, whether they are Christians or not.3

When the present presidential campaign started, I wished for a Dr. Frankenstein candidate, i.e., the brains of a Newt Gingrich, the looks of a Mitt Romney, the wit of a Herman Cain, the values of a Rick Santorum, and so forth.  But the real world isn’t the TV world.  I have to choose between a man who is a Mormon and a man who is a black liberation anti-colonialist.  I am going to choose the Mormon.  Now I despise what the Mormon church teaches about my Lord Jesus Christ—that he is the blood brother of Satan and is only progressing toward being like God the Father.  And I hate the social gospel of liberation theology and the socialism of anti-colonialism.  But one man, is bent on taking this country into the dark ages of European socialism and the other is not.  One man looks at Christianity as part of the problem of social inequality and the other does not.  One man will make it more difficult for the gospel of Jesus Christ to be taken around the world and the other will not.  One man’s belief affects this country greatly, the other man’s does not.  And, one of these two men will be the next president of the United States in which I and my family live.  As a citizen of this earthly country, I can make a good choice for the lesser of the two poor choices. 

And So . . . .

I am not espousing any imperatives for Christians when it comes to civil accountability.  I do believe I have an obligation as a citizen of an earthly country to do what I can for the glory of God and the proclamation of the gospel.  In this election cycle that means voting for one of two non-Christians.  But one choice is better for the glory of God and for the gospel than the other.  That choice seems obvious to me.  Recently, Kevin Bauder wrote,

If God held kings accountable in biblical times, then He certainly must hold presidents, prime ministers, parliaments, congresses, and courts accountable today.  More than that, he must hold individual citizens responsible to execute their political responsibilities rightly, for in the long run, officials can govern only as the people allow.  Even the unsaved are accountable, but Christians, who ought to understand God’s design for nations, have a special responsibility.  Even if they are a minority, they must use their influence within the public square to move their government as far as possible toward just policies—and that means policies that are just as God understands justice.4

 

“I exhort therefore, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men:  For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.  For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior” (1 Tim. 2:1-3).

 

Notes:
1. Tony Sargent, The Sacred Anointing: The Preaching of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994) 164.
2. Thanks to the Baptist Bible Tribune for reprinting a panel discussion of seminary speakers hosted by Southern Seminary. Original source was Baptist Press, 2012.
3. Noel Smith, “The Christian and Citizenship,” The Biblical Faith of Baptists, Fundamental Baptist Congress of America, 1971, p. 106-107.
4. Kevin Bauder, Baptist Distinctives (Schaumburg: Regular Baptist Books, 2012) 145.
 
 

 

 

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