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A Castle of Cards?

Written by Matt Shrader

A Castle of Cards?

by Matt Shrader

Are you ever discouraged because of your circumstances and have turned really pessimistic? I am not talking about having a “glass half-empty” but more of a  “glass bone dry” kind of attitude.  What do we do at that point? How do we wade through those difficult times? How do we get out of such pessimism? Why is it that we ever got to that point?

It is not always easy to see the good in the bad, the positive in the negative. As a Christian, I know that I should have poise because providence tells me that all things are working as expected under the perfect direction of God. Millard Erickson defines providence like this: “By providence we mean the continuing action of God by which he preserves in existence the creation he has brought into being, and guides it to his intended purposes for it.”1

This gives me encouragement that God is working in my life. This gives me confidence and comfort in prayer, knowing that God wants and enables me to align my purposes with His. And, this can take away fear in times of difficulty because I know God is aware, interested, and involved. A doctrine such as providence is truly inexhaustible. As many situations as we can possibly produce, we can likewise apply the doctrine of providence to each and any.

We can look at the past and see several instances where God has been faithful. The Psalm-writers do this. Asaph in Psalm 78 relates to the next generation the stories of providence that were told to him. These are stories of God’s providential protection and covenant faithfulness to Israel from captivity in Egypt to King David.

We could also look through more recent history at difficult times and realize that ours is not the only trial that has ever happened. Although the difficulties of the Second World War were great, C. S. Lewis argues that the war generation ought not to end in pessimism, but in reflection upon God and His work: “The classic expositions of the doctrine that the world’s miseries are compatible with its creation and guidance by a wholly good Being come from Boethius waiting in prison to be beaten to death and from St. Augustine meditating on the sack of Rome. The present state of the world is normal; it was the last century that was the abnormality.”2 No matter the situation, we still assert that God’s providence is always at work.

Perhaps you could think of personal examples where the Lord put you through a trying time. Can you relate to Psalm 40 when David trusted in the providence of God? “I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth—Praise to our God; many will see it and fear, and will trust in the Lord.”

Providence has been at work and we ought to praise God for what He has done. When we look back and recognize that God does not disappear in difficulties, we become overwhelmed with the faithfulness of God in every trial and we trust God to be faithful in the present and future.  Reflecting on the provision of God for Abraham when he was going to sacrifice Isaac in Genesis 22, William Cowper wrote:

 

 

Blest proofs of pow’r and grace divine,

that meet us in his word!

May every deep felt care of mine

be trusted with the Lord.

Wait for his seasonable aid,

and though it tarry wait:

The promise may be long delayed,

but cannot come too late.3

 

 

When we look ahead and try to gaze through the lens of providence and see the ultimate goal to which we set our eyes, we gain excitement considering what Christ is accomplishing. Providence is leading us toward what Christ wants us to be. We have that blessed hope of salvation. And when we travail those tough times God has ordained for us, we need to remember that God does this for us because we are His beloved children and that we have a hope which rests in God alone. The book of Revelation is filled with the cry of the martyrs for vindication and rest. They wait in anticipation for the rest that is realized in the new heavens and new earth. “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

But, what do we need to learn from our trials as we are going through them? Why do we need them? What do they tell us about ourselves now? The author of Hebrews tells us that God chastens us just like a father does, “but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness” (Heb. 12:10). There are benefits to our trials.  In what is left of this short essay I would like to take a look at a specific way that God works in times of difficulty. I want to know something more than just how a Christian may get out of a pessimistic disposition. What may we learn from our difficulty about ourselves? I would submit that we need our trials.  We need those times when we are emptied of all of ourselves. They help us to see beyond what we have become to what we need to be. It could be that the glass was the problem and it needs to be bone dry so that it can be broken and made anew so that it may become something better than it was?

 

 

A New Perspective:

We have looked briefly back and forward to see how providence can reaffirm our understanding that God has worked and will work. We have been reminded of His faithfulness in times past and His direction in the present and His ultimate plan for the future. These reflections give us cause to look up and consider the greatness of God.

Consider Job’s reaction to his nearly unparalleled trials. In the book of Job we are presented with the story of a man’s immense trials under the providence of God (chs. 1-2), his and his friends’ debating of the trials (chs. 3-37),  God’s answer to Job (chs. 38-41), and then Job’s confession and vindication (ch. 42).

In the Lord’s speeches, Job had asked for the Lord to answer him (13:22; 31:35) and God spoke to Job “from the whirlwind” (38:1). Job initially responds in 40:3-5 with silence. This silence is good (Eccl. 3:7). However, the Lord still has more to say to Job and more for Job to learn. “It is good that Job says nothing here, But that’s not enough. There are still some things that Job needs to say.”4

The Lord then lays out the two creatures, Behemoth and Leviathan, in chapters 40-41 to show again the distinction between God and man. Finally, in 42:1-6 we see the confession of Job. In chapter 42 and verse 2, Job praises God for his superiority and his sovereignty. In verse 3, Job declares his incapacity to know God, God’s incomprehensibility, and then his own ignorance. Finally, in verses 4-6 Job repents because his understanding has been clarified and then Job shows his contrition.

There are at least two lessons that Job needed to learn through his trials. The first is a proper perspective of God. Job began by praising God for his greatness. Job declared that he had been speaking of “what I did not understand” and “things too wonderful for me.” Job confesses that after he had been confronted by the greatness of God (“now my eyes see you”) that he had a better understanding and needed to repent. Job needed to understand that distinction between God and man. Understanding better the infinity and omnipotence of God led Job to understand who it is that claims to be the sustainer of the world. It is interesting that there is so much discussion and debate in the book leading up to the Lord’s speeches and then so little of a response to the Lord after His speeches. In Job’s confession, only verse 2 declares anything about God: “I know that You can do everything, and that no purposes of Yours can be withheld from You.” In the end, this simple understanding of God changed everything for Job.

The second lesson we learn from Job is the other side of the coin from the first: he had to change his perspective of himself. When we try to understand all of how God provides, we realize that we are like Job and are speaking of things too wonderful for us which we do not understand. Our finiteness limits us. We see dimly, but God is eternal. “You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (42:3). Job teaches us to gain the proper perspective. When we do, we end in the same place as he did: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:5-6).

When we look up and see God, we fall down before His greatness and at the same time we find peace under His wings. After seeing God, Job affirms God’s providence. The new perspective that we need is to see God for who He is. When we consider ourselves in such ineffable light we recognize our limitedness.

 

 

Considering Our Castles: 

Realigning our perspective should cause us to take a deeper look inside. When we do, we see that at our core there is merely a façade. We actually need trials sometimes to show us this. Trials have great benefit, not just because they give us some evidence that God is concerned about us and considers us to be His children, but we need trials because we need to see the inadequacy of our own selves. We need to recognize the problem areas in our lives. At the heart of Job’s problem was the fact that he had the wrong conception of many things. His understanding of God and of himself were weak. His faith in God and in himself were unbalanced. He had to see his own self-righteousness destroyed. Job needed to destroy the false conceptions of his understanding, faith, self-righteousness, and whatever else was lacking.

One of C. S. Lewis’s shorter works, A Grief Observed,  relayed his own struggle with the loss of his wife and how he faced the immense trial that came his way.  Lewis shares that as he reflected on his wife, he desired to not lose a true conception of her and to also remember their love for one another. He believes that his love for her is as mighty and as impregnable  as a castle. Thus, he must take care to keep the memory of her strong, no matter how the trial he is going through is testing that love. But, the more he reminisced, the more he found problems with his conceptions. So then, Lewis probed into what it means that trials come our way “to try us.” Lewis made a crucial distinction.

 

 

“But of course one must take ‘sent to try us’ the right way. God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.”5

 

 

Lewis understood that the love he was trying to protect was a love of her memory and not a love of her. Similarly, our conceptions of God can be distorted when we are more concerned with the conceptions than the reality behind the conceptions. Lewis did not want to be satisfied with his mental or emotional conceptions of such important realities. “Not my idea of God, but God. Not my idea of H., but H. Yes, and also not my idea of my neighbor, but my neighbor.”6

Lewis recognized that grief and trials are a part of reality. Our trials are sent to knock down the card-castles that we have built. We call them love, faithfulness, purity, understanding, prayer life, etc. God shows us that they are actually quite weak and in need of fortification. We consider them, like Lewis to be high and majestic castles of granite, impregnable and sure. In truth, they are merely a castle of cards which a wisp of wind leaves disheveled.

But, this is the greatness of the Gospel. The Gospel tells us that despite our deficiencies, God loves us! Despite what God knows about our inner conceptions, he loves us! When we become a child of God and follow after him, we still struggle with the sin in our own lives. God helps and chastens his own so that they may be presented holy and undefiled.

It may be hard to recognize, but sin can come in the form of an incorrect conception of what our faith or love is or what they ought to be. We need these incorrect conceptions to be destroyed. We need the card-castles to be knocked over so that they can be rebuilt. Trials do this for us. In times of intense trial, we are often laid bare in search of relief. We want merely to find rest from the stress and hardship. When trials become more and more difficult we find more and more that we need help from someplace or someone. We cannot simply rely on ourselves.

Where do we look? We look to friends and family and hopefully we fall to our knees before God, asking for help. Difficult times show the inadequacies of our own selves. They reveal what the difference is between our conceptions and the reality. They reveal the difference between what we think our faith is and what it is in reality.

Do we take the time in trials to consider that? No doubt, in the midst of trials we are not given to being introspective. But we ought to be. Trials will expose what is really there. It is perhaps the best opportunity to see what is truly in our hearts because our hearts have been probed by the depth of the trial. We ought to ask God amidst those times to open our eyes to see what wicked ways are in us. Trials will reveal what my prayer life really was. They will show how much faith I actually had. They will show how I truly did love God. These are the inner problems that trials can reveal that I need to change.

To repeat from the beginning of this essay, Millard Erickson defines providence like this: “By providence we mean the continuing action of God by which he preserves in existence the creation he has brought into being, and guides it to his intended purposes for it.”7 There is a lot to unpack when Erickson says that God “guides it to his intended purposes for it.” Trials are a part of God’s providential plan.

God uses trials to show that he cares for us. That is not so hard to see. God uses trials to help us and that is not so hard to see. But God also uses trials to break us down as we see. It can feel like God wants to use trials to destroy us totally. In fact, God wants to use trials to destroy what is defective in us so as to rebuild and improve us. Do we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear such a rebuke from God?

Trials are sent to test us and they are for our benefit, if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. As a blacksmith uses fire and heat to forge his utensils, so God uses trials to forge his utensils. How do we respond to the fires of trial? Do we even recognize what they can do for us and how they can expose the weaknesses in us? More importantly, does there dwell within our hearts a castle of cards?

 

1.Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, Second Edition (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004), 413.

2.C. S. Lewis, “Evil and God,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. by Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 22. 

3.William Cowper, JEHOVAH-JIREH, The LORD will provide. Gen. 22:14,” Olney Hymns. 

4.Layton Talbert, Beyond Suffering: Discovering the Message of Job (Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 2007), 210. 

5.C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, in The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics (New York: HarperOne, 2002), 678. 

6.Ibid, 684. Lewis refers to his wife Helen, as “H.” Lewis originally wrote the book pseudonymously and so concealed her name. 

7.Erickson, Christian Theology, 413. 

 

 

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New Testament Heralds

Written by Rick Shrader

New Testament Heralds

by Rick Shrader

Perhaps the most seldom used title in the Bible for the minister is “Preacher.”  Though the English word “Preacher” appears four times, one time (Rom. 10:14) is actually a verb, and another (2 Pet. 2:5) refers to Noah, an Old Testament character.  So the title “Preacher,” referring to the New Testament minister is only used by the Apostle Paul to describe himself.  Once in 1 Timothy 2:7 and again in 2 Timothy 1:11, Paul says that ordained him to be a preacher.

The job of a herald was a duty-oriented job.  He was employed by a king to announce what the king gave him.  He could not alter the announcement to fit his own whims.  It was the message of the king and it must be delivered exactly as it was given.  The herald was not a Groucho Marx who used to say, “Those are my principles! And if you don’t like them . . . Well, I have others.”  No, these were the king’s principles.

The disciples were often asked to perform tasks like a herald.  All four gospels include the story of the triumphal entry when Jesus commanded two of the disciples to go into Jerusalem and untie someone else’s donkey and bring it to Jesus.  If the owner asked why they were taking his donkey, they were to reply with the exact words of Jesus:  “The Master has need of them.”  Mark records that the two disciples “said unto them even as Jesus had commanded: and they let them go” (Mk. 11:6).  The king’s words would be the authority for the herald’s words.  A similar story is that of Ananias in Acts 9 when he was commanded to go to Saul and put his hand on him and call him “brother Saul.”  He did exactly as Jesus commanded (after initially objecting) and everything went exactly as the Lord said it would.

The word  kerux appears only three times as a proper noun (“preacher”), but it appears a number of times as the action ( kerusso, “preaching”) and sometimes as the message (kerugma, “the thing preached”).  Kittel’s Theological dictionary devotes 35 pages to its definition.  There are some clear observations:  1) Every king had one.  It was the common means of getting his message to the people.  2) They were untouchable.  If someone attacked the messenger, he would suffer punishment as if he had attacked the king himself.  3) They were sworn to exactness.  Gerhard Friedrich, writing the article in Kittel’s, says, “It is demanded then, that they deliver their message as it is given to them.  The essential point about the report which they give is that it does not originate with them.  Behind it stands a higher power.  The herald does not express his won views.  He is the spokesman for his master.”1

According to Kittel’s, the Greeks recognized three heralds:  1) Hermes was the interpreter of the gods.  In Lystra (Acts 14), Paul was called Hermes (Mercurius) “because he was the chief speaker” (Ac. 14:12).  2) Birds were considered messengers of the gods, especially the rooster who announced the new day and various watches of the night.  3) The philosophers were considered heralds and called “messengers” with the word angelos or “angel.”  This is why the New Testament pastors can be called “angels” and it was understood as heralds.  Paul wrote to the Galatians, “you received me as an angel of God” (Gal. 4:14).

In the book of 2 Timothy, Paul uses all three forms of the word herald.  In 1:11 he writes of the kerux, the preacher.  In 4:21 he writes of the kerusso, the preaching.  In 4:17 he writes of the kerugma, the message preached.  This is the only book of the Bible where all three appear.

The Preacher (The Messenger)

The apostle Paul tells Timothy that he was “appointed” to this high office by the Lord.  This is the word Jesus used when he said to Paul, “I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles” (Acts 13:47).  Again, Paul says that he was “allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel” (2 Thes. 2:4).

First, God’s herald doesn’t have to be a great man, but he does have to be a man of God.  “But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness” (1 Tim. 6:11).  Great men never wanted to be great, they just wanted to be men of God and God used them in great ways.  Our ministerial schools cannot teach young men to be great without first teaching them to be men of God.  Vance Havner wrote, “What our forefathers were without knowing it, we want to  know without being it.”2 Savonarola said, “In the primitive church the chalices were of wood and the prelates were of gold; today the prelates are of wood and the chalices are of gold.”3

A tourist group, visiting birth places of famous people, passed through a European village.  One of the tourists asked a local man, “Were there any famous people born in this village?”  “No,” the man replied, “Just babies.”  John Bunyan was born into a tinker’s home, one of the lowest status occupations of the time.  But Bunyan became one of the most powerful preachers in England.  “John Owen heard him preach, probably at Zoar Chapel, and when King Charles expressed wonder that a man of his [Owen’s] learning could bear to listen to the ‘prate’ of a tinker, he answered, that he would gladly give all his learning for this tinker’s power.”4 Bunyan’s autobiography is titled “Grace Abounding To The Chief of Sinners,” not to the Chief Executive Officer.

Second, God’s herald must have the mind of Christ, not the mind of the world.  Paul was insistent of this qualification for a minister of Christ.  “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).  “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16).  It was Demas, who forsook him, who had the mind of the world (2 Tim. 4:10). Jannes and Jambres were “men of corrupt minds” (2 Tim. 3:8).  Friedrich says, “Heralds adopt the mind of those who commission them, and act with the plenipotentiary [full power] authority of their masters.  It is with this authority that the kerux conducts diplomatic business.”5

John describes the preacher with the worldly mind contrasted with the preacher with the mind of Christ.  “They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.  We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us.  Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error” (1 John 4:5-6).  Too many of God’s ministers are busy winning themselves to the world rather than winning the world to Christ.

A.C. Dixon, who served in both Spurgeon’s Tabernacle and Moody Memorial Church, wrote:

Every preacher is, or ought to be, a prophet of God who preaches as God bids him without regard to results. When he becomes conscious of the fact that he is a leader in his church or denomination, he has reached a crisis in his ministry. Shall he be a prophet of God or a leader of men? If he decides only to be a prophet insofar as he can without losing his leadership, he becomes a diplomat and ceases to be a prophet at all. If he decides to maintain his leadership at all costs he may easily fall to the level of a politician who pulls the wires to gain or hold a position. He who would prophesy or speak forth the message of God is careful of none of these things but only that he shall speak the message that God gives him, even though he be in a lonesome minority.6

The Preaching (The Messages)

“Preach the Word!” (2 Tim. 4:2).  Here Paul exhorts Timothy to action.  Now he is to pay attention to the way in which the message goes forth.  “Herald the Word.”  This is the way in which the prophets of old delivered their message.  “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins” (Isa. 58:1).  This is one methodology that we cannot afford to change.

First, the urgency of the situation demands it.  It is a command to preachers of the gospel.  “Be instant,” Paul says.  The kerux must always be ready with the kerusso.  Think what you will of Charles Finney’s evangelism, but in his biography he is quoted as describing his preaching style.

You breast yourself to the work like a giant. You open the attack with Jupiter’s thunderbolt. You take the doctrine for a damning fact—declare you know it—raise your voice—lift high your hand—bend forward your trunk—fasten your staring eyes upon the auditors—declare that they know it to be God’s truth; that they stand upon the brink of hell’s gaping pit of fire and brimstone . . . unless they repent forthwith.7

Paul reminded the Corinthians, “For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ” (2 Cor. 2:17).

Second, the message of the King guides it.  It must be “the Word” which the herald proclaims.  When we decide to change it to fit the situation, we have betrayed our King.  D.L. Moody said, “When a minister or a messenger of Christ begins to change the message because he thinks it is not exactly what it ought to be, and thinks he is wiser than God, God just dismisses that man.”8

By now we all recognize that this is a postmodern society.  We are finding it more and more difficult to speak the message of our King in a straightforward manner.  Our audience has a hard time accepting anything without a “hermeneutic of suspicion.”  They can say one thing and do another.  They can say one thing and believe another.  They can even say one thing and intend another, and they believe all of us are using language and media the same way!  Benjamin Woolley, a postmodern writer, said, “Artificial reality is the authentic postmodern condition, and virtual reality its definitive technological expression . . . . The artificial is the authentic.”9 As ministers of Christ, and as heralds of the gospel, we must not let our preaching fall to such a low estate.  Paul said, But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay . . . . For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God” (2 Cor. 1:18, 20).

The Preached (The Message Itself)

“That by me the preaching [kerugma) might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear” (2 Tim. 4:17).  Here Paul admonishes Timothy to guard the message that is preached.  This form of the word is our English word “kerygma.”  Webster’s dictionary to this day still defines this word as “The apostolic preaching that Jesus is the Christ.”  In the great resurrection chapter of First Corinthians 15, Paul uses this form and the verb form:  “Now if Christ be preached (kerusso)  that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?  But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching (kerugma) vain, and your faith is also vain (1 Cor. 15:12-14).  You can have all the action and commotion in the world, but if you’ve lost the content, it is in vain.

Today we play with symbolism over substance to our detriment.  We are worshiping worship as a substitute for a real Holy Spirit experience.  We have faith in faith rather than the faith once for all delivered to the saints.  We have a kerux who is busy with the kerusso, but we are quickly losing the most important thing—the kerugma!  Three things are certain from this final chapter of Paul’s life.

First, when you stand by the truth, the Lord will stand by you.  “Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me; that by me the preaching [kerugma] might be fully known” (2 Tim. 4:17).  Though all his friends had forsaken him, Paul was not forsaken.  When Paul stood at Gallio’s bema seat in Corinth, the Lord appeared and said to him, “Be not afraid, but speak and hold not thy peace: for I am with thee” (Acts 18:9-10).  When he stood before Herod’s bema seat in Caesarea, the Lord appeared and said to him, “Be of good cheer Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also in Rome” (Acts 23:11).  Now before Caesar’s bema seat the Lord is there to deliver him from the mouth of the lion.  But Paul was most concerned with appearing before Christ’s bema seat, “Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him” (2 Cor. 5:9).

Second, when you stand by the truth, the lost will know they should stand with you.  By the faithful proclamation of the truth, the kerugma “might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear” (2 Tim. 4:17).  There was no “stealth” in Paul’s presentation.  He did not coax them in with one method and then sometime down the road reveal to them what he was really all about.  Paul prayed for Philemon “that the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus” (Phile. 6).  As the old song goes:  “Tell me the story softly, with earnest tones and grave; remember I’m the sinner whom Jesus came to save.  Tell me the story always, if you would really be, in any time of trouble, a comforter to me.”  That is the need of the world.

Third, when you stand by the truth, the Lord will deliver you.  “And I was delivered out of the mouth of the Lion” (vs. 18).  The Lord may deliver His saints in the way He chooses.  It may be by life or by death.  Either way, He will not let us be devoured by the Lion.  Once when Vance Havner was old he was speaking to ministerial students.  He described his busy schedule even in the autumn of his life.  A student responded to him, “Why, if we kept that schedule all of the time it would kill us!”  Havner replied, “Who said you can’t die?”  Is not heaven the greatest deliverance from the Lion?  “According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death” (Phil. 1:20).

And so . . . .

In his book, Twice Told Tales, Nathaniel Hawthorne writes of the Spring of 1689 and the tensions that had developed in the new country over control from England.  It was a time when “the Puritans were all dead, and the Methodists had not been born.”  Sir Edmond Andros, the king’s hand-picked governor marched his troops through the streets of Boston, slowly approaching the colonists who shrunk from the fearsome militia.  The pastors stood protected by the people and looked piously from behind the cover.

The rightful governor, Simon Bradstreet, stood far away near the court house steps and gave instructions to the people not to provoke the situation.  Just then, “the figure of an ancient man, with eye, the face, the attitude of command appeared on the street, dressed in the old Puritan garb.  ‘Stand,’ the old warrior-saint commanded.  The solemn, yet warlike peal of that voice, fit either to rule a host in battle or be raised to God in prayer, was irresistible.  The advancing line stood still. . . Who was this Gray Champion?” Hawthorne asked.  “I have heard that whenever the descendents of the Puritans are to show the spirit of their sires, the old man appears again.”10 May the preachers of the gospel be ever so vigilant.

Notes:

1. Gerhard Friedrich, “Kerux,” Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. III (Grand Rapids:  Eerdman’s, 1978) 687-688.

2. Vance Havner, personal collection of quotes.

3. Savonarola, “On the degeneration of the church” Orations: Homer to Mckinley, vol. III (New York: Collier and Son, 1902) 1281.

4. Thomas Armitage, Baptist History, vol. I (Watertown: Maranatha Baptist Press, 1976) 479.

5. Friedrich, 688.

6. Quoted by Vance Havner, In Times Like These (Old Tappan:  Fleming Revell, 1969) 103.

7. Charles Hambrick-Stowe, Charles G. Finney and the Spirit of American Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids:  Eerdman’s, 1966) 135.

8. D.L. Moody, Spiritual Power (Chicago:  Moody Press, 1997) 14.

9. Quoted by Douglas Groothuis, The Soul in CyberSpace (Grand Rapids:  Baker Books, 1997) 27.

10. Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Gray Champion,” Twice Told Tales (New York: Modern, 2001) 3-10. 

 

 

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The Kingdom of God in the Gospels

Written by Rick Shrader

The Kingdom of God in the Gospels

by Rick Shrader

Few subjects have been of greater interest to me in my ministry as a pastor and teacher than that of the Kingdom of God.  Coming out of high school and going to Bible College I knew nothing of its doctrinal significance.  I must confess that I knew little more than that coming out of Bible College.  The gospels especially were confusing to me and my “Life of Christ” class consisted only of lists of miracles, parables, and people.  Seminary did not have a class on the Life of Christ as such, but it had something that opened my eyes and broadened my understanding of the Bible, and that was a class on the kingdom.1 In addition, understanding the kingdom in a traditional premillennial, dispensational setting even further broadened my perspective.

Still, putting Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John together in a consistent way that made sense without destroying each book’s individual purpose was challenging.  Even more so was the definition of the kingdom in the gospel record.  But God forced the issue.  I began teaching in a West coast Bible College in 1978 and the first class I was given to teach was The Life of Christ.  The two required texts were A.T. Robertson’s Harmony of the Gospels (a valuable tool in any day) and Philip Vollmer’s The Modern Student’s Life of Christ which was anything but modern, being published in 1912.  Robertson lists 184 events in the life of Christ, so we took out a piece of paper and put #1 at the top and started there.  In a year’s time we went through 184 events, studying the time, place, and context. I did that for the next ten years and learned far more than any of my students.  In 1981 J. Dwight Pentecost published his Words and Works of Jesus Christ which became the text for my class.  Interestingly he goes through the events of Christ’s life paralleling Robertson’s harmony but with his own titles.  To me it is still the best book on the subject.  (It was my privilege again to teach a module version of the class in Kiev, Ukraine to pastors and teachers this past April).

It is because I love the subject of the kingdom of God that today’s lax use of the term catches my attention.  An insufficient understanding of the kingdom, especially in the gospels, can lead to all kinds of theological and practical errors. McClain begins his book with eight interpretations of the kingdom.2 None is more liberal than the Social-Kingdom idea.  He says,

In the long history of special interpretations of the Kingdom of God, there has been none more one-sided or guilty of greater excesses than this Social-Kingdom conception.  With fanatical zeal some of its champions have been ready to scrap almost anything in the realm of Christian faith and morals if only the process of ‘social reconstruction’ could be somehow advanced.3

McClain cites liberal thinkers such as Walter Rauschenbush, Shailer Matthews, and E. Stanley Jones as examples of liberals who were able to advance their causes (especially of a social gospel) when the definition of the kingdom was bent to suit their purposes.  It continues today.  If we used the word “church” as loosely as we use the word “kingdom,” heretical fires would begin to burn.  That is why I was interested when, browsing the marked-down section of a book store, I saw a title by W.B. Riley (a champion of fundamentalism from the generation prior to ours), The Only Hope of Church or World. Upon opening the book I had turned to chapter II which is titled “The Church and the Kingdom A Distinction.”  The chapter begins this way,

There are certain words that distinguish the liberal theologian as perfectly as ever the ranchman’s brand indicated his ownership.  Among them no word is more suggestive of loose thinking and liberal theology than the word ‘kingdom.’  They not only employ it as a synonym for the church, but as an all-inclusive term that covers every spiritual, moral, ecclesiastical, social, and now even party and political interest.4

This is not a fault just of liberals.  All of us are guilty at times of using biblical terms to suit our own purposes.  However, it seems the broad use of “kingdom” is as loose as ever.  In preaching through the Beatitudes (part of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5-7), I constantly read of the struggle on how to understand Jesus’ use of the term.  If it can be taken to mean something in the present age (whether in addition to, or in place of, the coming age) one can find almost any social, political, or moral issue one wants.  James Boice, for example (perhaps bouncing between his predecessor’s premillennialism and his church’s amillennialism) takes the “kingdom” of the Beatitudes as somehow present and says of the second beatitude (“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted”), “To each of us, therefore, the second beatitude is a call to involvement in the social arena.”5 Why?  Because if the kingdom is now, so must be the results of the kingdom.  It is more difficult, of course, for him to apply the pure in heart seeing God now, or the meek inheriting the earth now.

It is much more consistent and satisfying to read John Walvoord when he writes, “As in every text of Scripture, the truth presented must be first of all seen in its context.  In the gospels, Jesus was presenting Himself as the prophesied King, and the Kingdom He was offering is the prophesied kingdom.”6 Stanley Toussaint also correctly writes, “The basis of each blessing in every case is a reference to some phase of the Jewish kingdom prophesied in the Old Testament.”7 Yet many who are premillennial struggle with the concept of the kingdom NOT being present today.  Maybe they just can’t understand how God can really be in control of all things if the kingdom isn’t existing now.  Or maybe they can’t stand the thought that the Church isn’t the final phase of God’s program.  After all, aren’t we the culmination of all of God’s plans?  And, of course, it is much more pleasing to people and easier to preach a social/political gospel than a spiritual gospel because, basically, it takes no faith to believe, no hope in what is not seen.

We need the kingdom of God today to be right where it has always been—coming in the future at the return of Jesus Christ.  Any lessening of the kingdom into some allegorized version is a disappointment in the great prophecies of that golden age.  We ought to pray, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).  We need to hear, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33).  We should believe that when Jesus the Messiah is accepted there will be “on earth peace, good will toward men” (Lk. 2:14).  Every believer ought to look forward to the time when “an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 1:11).

The following are some of the concepts of the kingdom found in the gospels with which I struggled for years.  I am not saying there are not other ways in which good men take these statements, but I think these help find the consistency for which we look.  I do not have space to give and answer all of the opposing views.  Admittedly my view is a premillennial and dispensational view.  But I think these are great helps and not hindrances, and have been the main stay of prophetic preaching before and throughout my lifetime.

The kingdom predicted in the gospels was a continuation of the Old Testament theocratic kingdom.

This is the only way the Jews would have understood the concept of the kingdom.  In the Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 12:1-3) God made a 3-fold promise of land, seed, and blessing.  The promise of land will be fulfilled by the Palestinian covenant (Deut. 30:1-10); the promise of a seed will be fulfilled by the Davidic covenant (2 Sam. 7:12-16); and the promise of a blessing will be fulfilled in the New covenant (Jer. 31:31-34).  None of these have been fulfilled completely to this day and it will take the second coming of Christ to complete these three promises.  Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, realized that the birth of John and Jesus would be “to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he sware to our father Abraham” (Lk. 1:72-73).

The kingdom offer to the Jews was a bona fide offer.

The Jews were to pray for the kingdom to come (Mt. 6:10) and to see that their righteousness (inward) exceeded the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (outward) or “ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:20).  When the Jews attributed the power of Christ to Satan, He responded by saying, “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you” (Mt. 12:28).  George N.H. Peters concluded, “It follows, then, that the Jews had the privilege accorded to them of accepting the Kingdom, and if the condition annexed to it had been complied with, then the Kingdom of David would have been most gloriously re-established under the Messiah.”8 The fact that the offer was rejected in no wise annuls the offer any more than the Jews rejecting the land at Kadesh-Barnea annulled the offer of the land, or that rejecting Christ as Savior annuls the offer of salvation.

The kingdom predicted in the gospels is always to be taken as the future millennial kingdom.9

This is the only conclusion that can be drawn if the kingdom in the gospels is the same as the Old Testament theocratic kingdom.  McClain says, “The gospel records always connect the Kingdom proclaimed by our Lord with the kingdom of the Old Testament.”10 Pentecost says, “The kingdom announced and offered by the Lord Jesus was the same theocratic kingdom foretold through the Old Testament prophets.”11 The only kingdom the prophets foretold was the future millennial kingdom which will be on this earth at the return of Jesus Christ.  Jesus never had to give further explanation as to what He meant when He used the term “kingdom.”  The disciples’ question at His post-resurrection appearance shows this clearly, “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel” (Ac 1:6).  There is no rebuke, correction, or redefinition of the term.  If the future kingdom is not here intended, either Jesus did a poor job of teaching for three years or the disciples were incredibly poor students.

A further comment is in order here.  We have been so influenced by non-millennial views in our Christian literature, hymns, and common talk, that we hardly pay attention to how we denigrate the kingdom of God.  From Catholic to Protestant to Reformed, all speak freely as if the kingdom Jesus spoke of were existing now.  If the reader of the gospels would simply place a future definition on the word “kingdom” each time he reads, he would be amazed at what clarity it would bring to the meaning of the text.

The millennial kingdom of God was near at hand in the life of Christ.

Expressions of this abound in the gospels:  “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt. 4:17); “The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you” (LK. 10:9); The kingdom of God is come upon you” (LK. 11:20); “The kingdom of God is within you” (Lk. 17:21); “The kingdom of God is nigh at hand” (Lk. 21:31).  This must refer to something that isn’t existing now but may exist if the conditions are met.  Pentecost says, “By the term ‘at hand’ the announcement is being made that the kingdom is to be expected imminently.  It is not a guarantee that the kingdom will be instituted immediately, but rather that all impending events have been removed so that it is now imminent.”12 Toussaint says, “It was the Jewish eschatological kingdom which had drawn near.  The verb here is eggizw which means to draw near and not to be here.”13 He then uses the example of when Jesus “drew nigh unto Jerusalem” (Mt. 21:1) showing that He was near but not there yet.

The kingdom of God is “within you.”

“The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Neither shall they say, Lo here! Or, lo there! For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Lk. 17:20-21).  Perhaps no verse has been so used (and abused) to argue for a spiritual, invisible kingdom existing now in our hearts than this verse.  It is a classic case of one difficult verse being used to explain the many clear verses, rather than the many clear verses explaining the one that is difficult.

“Observation” is from the word paratere? which means that the kingdom is not coming with predictability.  “Within” is from the word entos, an adverb which can be translated a number of ways including within, among, in the midst.  It should also be noted that Jesus was talking to unbelieving Pharisees and not to believers.

George N.H. Peters took this to mean that the kingdom would have to come from within the nation of Israel if it were to come at all.14 Both Pentecost and McClain, however, have taken this to mean that the King Himself was among them.

Pentecost says, “The Lord is not asserting that His kingdom was to be a spiritual kingdom in the hearts of men.  Such is contrary to the entire tenor of the Word of God.  He is asserting that the kingdom to which they were looking was already ‘at hand’ in the person of the king.”15 McClain says,

“Surely in no sense could the Kingdom of God have been ‘within’ the hearts of the Pharisees to whom our Lord was speaking, and who had charged blasphemously that His miracles were being accomplished through the power of the devil (Matt. 12:24).  But in the person of its divinely appointed King, visibly present in incarnate form on earth where He must eventually reign, the Kingdom was in that sense already ‘in the midst of’ men regardless of their attitude, whether for or against Him.”16

And So . . .

I know I have been preaching to the choir.  These are familiar lessons to most of us and contrary lessons to many.  Yet a clear understanding of the kingdom of God is as crucial today as it has ever been.  Toward the end of W.B. Riley’s book he wrote,

The time has come when thinking churchmen recognize the fact that the Second Coming of Christ is creating and completing a definite fellowship.  The men who entertain ‘the Blessed Hope’ are bound together in a peculiar brotherhood; a brotherhood of increasing sweetness and deepening strength.  No single denomination, of the many that go to make up modern Protestantism, is as definite in its fellowship and as distinct in its doctrinal teaching as is the brotherhood of pre-millennialism.17

This is one of the reasons why the Blessed Hope is so blessed.  “For theirs is the kingdom of God.”

Notes:
1. My M.Div was done at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minneapolis.  In those days Dr. Rolland McCune taught the course on the kingdom using Alva J. McClain’s book, The Greatness of the Kingdom. Dr. McCune also taught Dispensationalism.
2. Alva J. McClain, The Greatness of the Kingdom (Winona Lake: BMH Books, 1974).  First published by Moody Press in 1968.
3. McClain, 11.
4. W.B. Riley, The Only Hope of Church or World (London:  Pickering & Inglis, nd.) 33.
5. James Montgomery Boice, The Sermon on the Mount (Grand Rapids:  Zondervan, 1972) 31.
6. John Walvoord, Matthew—Thy Kingdom Come (Chicago:  Moody Press, 1974) 45.
7. Stanley D. Toussaint, Behold The King ( Portland:  Multnomah Press, 1981) 96.
8. George N.H. Peters, The Theocratic Kingdom, vol. I (Grand Rapids:  Kregel, 1978) 377-378.
9.   Mention should be made in this article that I recognize the existence of a universal usage of the word kingdom in a few OT passages (e.g. Psa. 103:19).   McClain devoted a whole section to it (Chapt. IV) and referenced other premillennialists who do the same. Yet, no one was more insistent on a future definition of the kingdom in the gospels than McClain.
10. McClain, 281.
11. J. Dwight Pentecost, Things To Come (Grand Rapids:  Zondervan, 1969) 447.
12. Pentecost, Things To Come, 449-450.
13. Toussaint, 63.
14. Peters, 390.
15. Pentecost, 452.
16. McClain, 272.
17. Riley, 118.

 

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Why Do We Need Church?

Written by Matt Shrader

Why Do We Need Church?

by Matt Shrader

The question of why we need the church is an understandable question. It is also a helpful question. There are many of us who attend church multiple times every week and have done so for most, if not all, of our Christian lives. But why do we do so? What makes going to church and “the church” so important? Is it one of those “we’ve always done it this way” type of issues? I am asking not only what are the reasons we need the church but also what is the church. To take a step back and consider what we are doing is a good thing to do now and again. 

This question drives to what our theology of the church (ecclesiology) is. What we believe about the nature, function, and purpose of the church will weigh heavily upon our answer. Obviously, a proper understanding of ecclesiology is important here. Likewise, a defective ecclesiology will provide poor reasoning to our answer. I purposefully did not ask: “do we need the church?” To ask that question limits our discussion to positive reasons why we need the church. I would also like to discuss a couple negative or poor reasons that someone may explicitly or implicitly give for why we attend or need the church.
This short essay is by no means a comprehensive answer to the proposed question. It is rather intended to provoke reflection for how our theology influences our practice in this area.

Some reasons why we need the church:

The church is important because of where the church fits in God’s plan.

The church occupies a distinct place within the overall historical plan of God.1 There are many distinct institutions which are part of God’s plan. These institutions are all important and they all have their place within that plan of God. The church is one institution. The family,  the millennial kingdom, and Israel are  some of the others. While there is some overlap among these, they must not be confused or confounded.
As a traditional dispensationalist, I accept the view that the church began at Pentecost and will be completed (but not finished) at the time when Christ will rapture it to himself.2 Partly because of its unique time frame, the church is not to be equated with Israel. They also have different purposes, future destinies, and entrance requirements. Israel is both an ethnic group and a political group. God’s plan for Israel centers around several covenants (Gen. 12; Deut. 29:1-21; 2 Sam. 7:12-16; Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-38). I will show in the next point the makeup of the church. For now, it is enough to see that the church is primarily a spiritual group made up of people from every nation as “a people for his name” (Acts 15:14).
The church is also not to be equated with the kingdom of God. The kingdom promises given to Israel throughout the Bible are yet to be completely fulfilled (e.g., Zech. 12-14; Is. 60; and Jer. 31:27-40). This future for Israel is the millennial kingdom of God (Rev. 20:1-10). This kingdom is not the church. They are distinct concepts.3
The church is also not the family. Identity with the church is vastly different than identifying with a family. There are different criteria for joining, there are different purposes, and there is different leadership in both. No doubt the church needs strong families, but the church is not defined or determined by the family. The church is made up of individuals. And, identification with Christ itself supersedes familial identity (Matt. 12:48-50).
Based on the fact that God has a distinct place within his overall plan for the church during the time that we are now living argues that the church is important. We ought to pay attention to what the church is to be doing for the glory of God. After the apostle Paul had spent nearly three chapters presenting the mystery of the church within the plan of God, he concludes in a doxology of praise: “to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Eph. 3:21).
I have argued that the church is a distinct piece of God’s overall program because of what the church is as distinguished from what the other pieces are. This fact that God has a place for the church in this age which is distinct from those others argues that we need the church. Let me now present more fully what the church is and what it does and why this shows that we need the church.

The church is important because of whom the church is made up.

Those who are followers of the God-Man Jesus Christ enjoy a special bond together centered on that common head, Jesus Christ. The New Testament tells us that this bond is found specifically within the church.

There is an important distinction to be made between the universal church and the local church. The universal church refers to all those who have been saved in this age of grace and put into the body of Christ through Spirit Baptism (1 Cor. 12:13) and are now united with Christ (Gal. 3:27). The local church is a reference to a specific group of believers at a specific historical time in a specific geographical place who join together for specific reasons, namely, to administrate the ordinances, government, and administration of the church, to proclaim the word of God, to worship God, and to carry out the purpose of the church.

Though it is possible that the local church may have among its numbers someone who is not a true believer, the local and universal church are both made up of those individuals who are “in Christ.” This short but immensely rich phrase carries the idea that believers are no longer under the old realm of sin (1 Cor. 15:22; Rom. 5:12-21) but are new creations (2 Cor. 5:17) in a new realm of which Christ is the head (Col. 1:13, 27) and so we therefore completely reorient ourselves to follow after him (Col. 2:6-15). This common bond is what draws together believers no matter their country, tongue, heritage, social status, economic status, intelligence, appearance, or any artificial divider one may come up with.

We need the church (in its universal and local forms) because this is where we are told we find others who are co-members of this same body. “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many” (1 Cor. 12:12-14).

The church is important because of what the church does.

As the body of Christ, the local church has several purposes which were mentioned above. To remain obedient to the New Testament these purposes are to be followed and this is accomplished only within the local church.

Church leadership is prescribed in the New Testament and it is the responsibility of the church to follow. Baptist churches have typically recognized two biblical offices, pastor and deacon (Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3:1-13). Submitting to these two offices as the leadership of the church is a matter of obedience but it is also recognizing the  spiritual benefit of such submission. If the leadership of the church truly does exhibit the spiritual qualifications listed in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, then there is spiritual benefit to submit to such godly leadership (Heb. 13:17).

The ordinances of the church is a similar situation. It is a matter of obedience to be baptized and to regularly participate in communion (Acts 2:41-42). It is also a matter of practical spiritual benefit. Observing the two ordinances continually teaches the gospel and reminds us of our Triune God. These are at the center of our identity as Christians and ought to be vital realities in our Christian walk.

There are also various functions that the church is to be fulfilling. The church is given a Great Commission that it is to carry out. The church is also described as a place of teaching of the faith (Acts 2:42; Jude 3). The regular assembling together is also mentioned (Heb. 10:25). Church discipline is likewise a biblical function of the church. Again, discipline is a command but it also helps us (perhaps more than any other single function) in a practical way. If Christians truly are to be growing and becoming more like Christ, then discipline is necessary. Mark Dever suggests at least five reasons why discipline is practiced: “(1) For the good of the person disciplined, (2) for the good of other Christians, as they see the danger of sin, (3) for the health of the church as a whole, (4) for the corporate witness of the church, (5) for the glory of God, as we reflect his holiness.”4

The church is also an important place where we worship God. Worship of God is essentially a spiritual response to the truth about God (John 4:21-24). Congregational worship is important as we see it used as an example in the New Testament church (Acts 2:42-47; 13:1-2; Col. 3:16).5

Because of what the church is supposed to do, we find that going to church and functioning properly within the church is a matter of obedience and also of practical Christian benefit. Local church membership becomes the avenue by which we submit ourselves to such a dynamic and necessary body. When the church is successfully performing its biblical functions, then it is a powerful witness, to those who are outside, of the redeeming power of Christ to form a body with a new life, a common head, and a common purpose. 1 Timothy 3:15 calls the local church “the house of God” and “the church of the living God” because the church is what God works in and through. Thus, the church is “the pillar and ground of the truth.” In other words, it is the main support of the truth.

We need the church because it is a command of God for Christians today. But also, it is a vital part of the plan of God for this age to preserve and proclaim truth and to help produce healthy, growing Christian

Some reasons why we don’t need the church:

Or, poor reasons for why we do need the church. The reasons that could be listed here are surely not limited to what I give. These are chosen partly because they are generic (broad) categories and partly because they appear often.

We don’t need the church if it functions as a social club.

For many, church becomes a social club as meaningful to them as joining a country club or the YMCA. This is almost never explicitly stated to be the reason why someone needs the church or why they go to church. But, in too many cases this reason is implicitly shown to be the actual reason why many need the church or why they go to church.

For this person, understanding the biblical explanations of the church, fulfilling the various biblical functions of the church, or simply attending church with the practical goal of edification and growth are never the real reasons why many go to church. The real reasons are varied and include: “I have always gone to church,” “my kids need to go to church,” “my parents or grand-parents want me to go to church,” “my friends are at church,” or “church is just a good place to be.” These are either truncated reasons or  poor reasons for going to church.

Social club Christianity uses the church for purely social means and thereby neglects the biblical reasons for the church. This can be seen in attending church for all the wrong reasons mentioned above, neglecting to attend church or participate in its functions because you can find no good reason to go, or feeling no sorrow (or, maybe even joy) at the prospect of missing church and its functions. It can also be seen in the person who attends church merely so that their membership won’t run out. They use the church for their own arbitrary needs as they come up, but have no intention of contributing to the church or to the spiritual welfare of their fellow Christians. A healthy Christian will not have such shallow reasons to need the church, and a healthy church will not play the accomplice in such a scam.

We don’t need the church if it falters in its purpose. 

This could be a neglect, a confusion, or a change of its purpose. A neglect of its purpose is when the church lets itself become what I talked about above. It has essentially degenerated into a social club and nothing more.

A confusion or change of purpose is when the church tries to see itself as some of the things which it is not. The church is not the family, nor a family of families, though the church needs and is the place for families. Neither is the church the kingdom or Israel. The church has its definition and purposes presented in the New Testament. Other problems here could be letting social causes inhabit an improper place in church activity (such as in the social gospel), or letting the church be defined and determined by “seekers.” We do well to let the church be the church.6

The necessity of the church

To the person, and the church, with a proper understanding of the reasons for the church, being part of a local church means more than just attending an hour or two on Sunday morning. It means utilizing as many of the church functions as is possible in order to fulfill the purpose of the church. It means worshipping and fellowshipping with believers with (at the least) the goals of obedience and Christian growth. It is seeing the church as the place where Christians come together in order to follow what Christ has given us to do.

Perhaps the most rudimentary reason why we need the church is because of who we are and what God is doing now. The Christian believes that salvation is only through Christ. This salvation means that we are no longer under the wrath of God but are now children of God. This salvation has fundamentally changed all that we are. And because of that truth we follow after him who has made this change in us. As Colossians 2:6-7 says: “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.”

Why do we need the church? The answer is found when we understand that the church is part of God’s plan for the present age. As we have seen in 1 Timothy 3:15, it is “the pillar and ground of the truth.” If we are followers of Christ and if we see the church as God’s current program, then we can readily see the reason why we need the church. For the sake of obedience and love toward Christ, let us understand what we are, what the church is, what the church is to be doing, and then seek to embody that truth.

1. God’s plan within history is centered on the idea of the universal kingdom of God (Ps. 145:13). On this idea, see: Alva J. McClain, The Greatness of the Kingdom (Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 1974, 22-36; and, George N. H. Peters, The Theocratic Kingdom, 3 Volumes (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1972), 1:29-33.
2. Cf., Rolland McCune, A Systematic Theology of Biblical Christianity, Volume 3 (Allen Park, MI: Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, 2010), 213-7.
3. For fuller discussions on why the church should be understood differently than Israel and the kingdom, see: McCune, Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 201-5; and especially, John S. Feinberg, “Systems of Discontinuity,” in Continuity and Discontinuity , ed. by John S. Feinberg (Wheaton: Crossway, 1988), 79-86.
4. Mark Dever, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, New Expanded Edition (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004), 188-92. Dever’s entire chapter on church discipline is helpful. See Rick Shrader’s review of Dever’s book in the March 2012 issue of Aletheia, or online at our website:
5. For a helpful discussion of worship in the church and elsewhere, see the appropriate sections in: Scott Aniol, Worship in Song (Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 2009). 
6. See Rick Shrader’s  February and March 2009 Aletheia articles entitled: “Let the Church be the Church,” on the Aletheia archives tab of our website: www.aletheiabaptistministries.org 

 

 

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Can We Separate From Brethren?

Written by Rick Shrader

Can We Separate From Brethren?

by Rick Shrader

Separation is a topic that will not go away.  It will be discussed by believers until God separates us all from the world at the rapture.  Since Baptists have been called Baptists, and along with several other independent groups, we have been dissenters.  In London we visit Bunhill Fields, “the dissenter’s graveyard.”  Here you find the markers of those who dissented from the Church of England and were therefore not allowed to be buried in church yards.  Among those are John Bunyan, John Gill, John Rippon, John Owen, Isaac Watts, and even Susanna Wesley.    Spurgeon could have been buried there if it had still been open for interment in his day.  Isaac Watts called Bunhill Fields “sacred dust.”

There are some who never see a need to separate from anything.  To them, separation is only in your head, i.e., a believer never needs physically to leave a situation, he only needs to separate the good and bad in his mind and then think properly about it.  Others would admit that there is a time when a believer must separate himself from unbelievers, especially when outright immorality, heresy, or apostasy is taking place.  Even the most ardent evangelical who disdains fundamentalists’ actions over separation, probably would not himself be forced into feigning agreement with such things.  However, the discussion among evangelicals continues as to how and how far believers can walk with unbelief.  Is it a bounded set, a centered set, or something in between?  Is it enough to be merely looking toward the center of our faith, or does one have to actually be within the faith?1 And so the discussion continues.

Most fundamentalists (and I would like to think, therefore, most Baptists throughout history) quibble little over separating from apostasy.  It is a “given” in our circles.  But separating from a brother in Christ is another thing.  Some would say that the Bible never asks the believer to separate from another believer.  To many, this is just incompatible with Christian love and is to become judgmental.  The inclusion of descriptions and labels such as “secondary separation” has not helped a lot.  While these can be helpful when all agree on their meanings, seldom do we see such agreement.

My own trek in fundamental groups and schools on both sides of this issue has brought me to a place where I see that separating from a brother is necessary and biblical in proper circumstances.  The clear statements of 2 Thes. 3:6 & 14 make this mandatory to me.  “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us” (3:6).  “And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.  Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother” (3:14-15).

I don’t think these verses can be limited to the precise problem in Thessalonica (of quitting one’s job to wait for the rapture).  Paul repeatedly says that the reason for separating was the brother’s refusal to obey the Word (epistle, commandments), an action that repeats itself in many ways.  Neither is the action to be limited to the discipline of a local church member (though included) but to any of the false teachers that had spread the error concerning the coming of the Lord.  From such these brothers and sisters are to “withdraw” (vs. 6), and “have no company with” (vs. 14), which literally means “do not mix with.”  Other passages fit this scenario as well (Rom. 16:17; 2 Tim. 2:16-22; 1 Cor. 5:1-5).

 

The basis of separation

The basis for separation is the holiness of God.  Ernest Pickering wrote, “Separation, both personal and ecclesiastical, is grounded in the nature of God.  God is the great separatist.  He is absolutely separated from all evil and error.  Do His people err in emulating Him?”2 God says, “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit” (Isa. 57:15).  Verses could be easily multiplied that speak of God’s apartness from a sinful world due to His holiness including broken fellowship with His own children because of their rebellious spirit.

God’s holiness is His controlling attribute.  Many shy away from separation because they think it is incompatible with God’s love.  Holiness, however, is always the large circle and love a smaller circle within the larger.  We do not have holiness in love, but love in holiness.  A.H. Strong wrote, “That which lays down the norm or standard for love must be the superior of love.  When we forget that ‘righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne’ (Psa. 97:2), we lose one of the chief landmarks of Christian doctrine and involve ourselves in a mist of error.”3 If God Himself can separate from, and punish sinners while still being a God of love, surely we can speak the truth in love.  It is His holiness that demands that He separate Himself from sin, though He remains a God of love, mercy, and grace.

We believers are good at using phrases such as “well, I just believe that . . . (fill in the blank).”  Somehow we think if we believe something hard enough, or sincerely enough, it just has to be true.  What does it matter what we think when it comes to God’s holiness?  As much as we may not like separating from sin in a brother, we must because God does.

The requirement of separation

The simple proposition is that if God must separate Himself from sin so must we.  Though God never disowns His children, He does discipline, chastise, punish, and withdraw blessings from them when they walk disorderly.  The only standard for this can be the Word of God.  It cannot be subjective with us according to the way we feel, but must be based on the unchangeable standard of His Word.  Peter quotes Leviticus when he writes, “Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16).

A further requirement for separation will be conflict.  This goes with the territory of separation because nothing in this fallen world: men, demons, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, wants to be reprimanded.  Paul required Timothy to “endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.  No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier” (2 Tim. 2:3-4).  The Corinthians had a hard time coming out from among the sins of Corinth because they could not “enlarge” their hearts toward the things of God.  They were “straitened” by their own “bowels” or emotional attachments to the world (2 Cor. 6:11-18).  A believer who says he loves God but won’t “lower himself” to fight for God, doesn’t have a strong love for God.

The pursuit of holiness, which is fellowship with God, must be the highest priority of our lives.  Nothing must stand in the way of that fellowship.  Jesus Himself said that even our own family must not come between us and Him (Lk. 14:26).  If we disobey God’s Word by saying “amen” to those who walk disorderly (even brothers), our own fellowship with God is impaired.  There are those times when separating from a friend, a local church member, or a national figure, is an uncomfortable thing to do.  But that is when we must put our walk with God ahead of our walk with other people.

The areas of separation

The areas of separation (as well as the levels of separation) have been enumerated by many separatists.  First, The believer must separate from known heresy.  The book of 2 John was written for this reason.  “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God.  He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.  If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds” (2 Jn. 9-11).  To “bid him God speed” is to say “amen” to what he is doing.  This makes one “partaker” (from koinonia) or fellowshipper in all of his deeds.

Second, we must separate from apostasy, those who claimed to be Christian but left the faith because they were not of the faith.  The harlot ecumenical church of Revelation 17 and 18 is already growing today.  John heard the angel command, “come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18:4).  This ecclesiastical area of separation is one that has fallen on hard times.  Our inter-connected world makes it easy to communicate but harder to separate.

Third, we must separate from alliances that are unholy or unscriptural in obvious ways.  This is clearly taught in the 2 Corinthians 6 passage.  “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?  And what concord hath Christ with Belial?  Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel: and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?” (2 Cor. 6:14-16).  This is not speaking only of marrying an unbeliever nor only about idolatry.  The applications from this passage ought to be easy to see.  This is the reason for not participating in those city-wide campaigns that include unbelievers or liberals.  I believe it is a reason to not participate in concerts where there is no difference between Christian music and the world’s music.  Separatists could not agree with the ECT document or the Manhattan Declaration because in signing those, they would be allying themselves with the other names on the list.

Fourth, we must separate from those who will not separate themselves.  This is the reason for the biblical instruction to separate from a brother.  The believers in Thessalonica were following false doctrine and therefore the other believers were to separate from those brothers.  In effect, all local church members have separated themselves from other believers when they have set doctrinal and practical standards for membership.  There are many who cannot join that church because they are not living in a way the people in the local church feel scripturely they must believe and practice.  Church discipline is a form of this principle also.

Jehoshaphat is an Old Testament example of one who, though listed as a good king of Judah, failed to separate from the backslidden northern kingdom.  Rolland McCune concluded a survey of him by writing, “Imbued with good intentions, Jehoshaphat’s policy of inclusivism became one of prolonged entanglement that undid his positive contributions after his death, a legacy he never intended to leave.”4 That is a tragedy that has happened to too many believers.  C.H. Spurgeon, knew he had to leave the old Baptist Union in England, an organization with a good history that went back a hundred years.  But when the Union began admitting known liberals, Spurgeon chose to separate from his minister friends and his own brother saying, “Fellowship with known and vital error is participation in sin.”5

The levels of separation

A believer must pay attention to the various levels of his involvement.  The first level is his own personal or individual life.  A believer cannot let sin dwell in his life because it will break his own fellowship with his Lord.  Again, Paul admonished the Corinthians in this manner, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy [judge]; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1 Cor. 3:16-17).  This often demands that we not participate in what another individual does.  It should be noted, however, that we may also maintain communication with a sinning brother on an individual level which we couldn’t do on a higher level.  The danger here is that, out of personal friendship, we may acquiesce to his sin by privately saying “amen” in a way we wouldn’t corporately.

A second level of separation is our local church membership.  As has been stated, this creates a certain separation by its very nature.  We should join a church that has stated their doctrine and practice with which we are in agreement.  This is honest both for the church and the individual.  Church discipline, of course, is separation from a sinning brother or sister.  This is done corporately by the whole church always, of course, with the hope of regaining the brother or sister.

A third level of separation is the inter-church level.  Local churches need to fellowship with other local churches in order to maintain certain ministries.  Missions cannot be done by a single church.  It takes a fellowship of churches to do this.  Bible colleges and seminaries, youth camps, city-wide meetings, and such things need the cooperation of a number of like-minded local churches.  Yet the local churches, though they may stretch their comfortable zone in ways that do not violate their convictions, cannot participate in things that are an affront to their very existence.  How many youth pastors have had to spend a year overcoming the damage that was done by one week at youth camp?  It is always right to not go down that path in the first place.

A fourth level of separation has to do with national or world-wide association with known error.  Again, in our day of easy communication and travel, the individual (or the local church) can find himself involved in unscriptural things very quickly and easily.  We are constantly asked to sign petitions and documents online which probably involve all kinds of people and groups.  On the other hand, we have the advantage of easily hearing and reading of situations from which we should separate.  My Google reader allows me to see what national figures believe long before I am even asked to participate with them in some ministry.  I have an obligation as a pastor to warn and shield God’s people from entangling alliances that would violate biblical principles of separation.  It is a difficult task, because it is so easy to use materials, recommend books, invite instructors, and a host of other venues, which represent a compromising ministry.  But this is the day in which we live and we must be as vigilant as possible.

 

And so . . .

Space does not allow us to speak to every objection to the doctrine of separation.  Some will always wrestle with whether it is loving or judgmental.  When, however, we realize that separation is not our idea but God’s, we have only to be disciples following our loving Master in His example.

We should purge sin from our midst where this is possible, but when it is not, we must separate.  We must walk away from situations where there is no hope of correction.  We ought not to cross the threshold of many “rooms” where it is best for us not to enter, even though the majority of things in the room may be fine.  As someone said, 97% of rat poisoning is good old-fashioned corn meal.  It’s the 3% arsenic that will kill you!  We should never condone sin by saying “amen” to what is ungodly.  We should never set anything above God’s blessing on us and our fellowship with Him.

 

Notes:

1. See The Spectrum of Evangelicalism, a 2011 Zondervan Counterpoints book which sets forth four points of view including the fundamentalist point of view.

2. Ernest Pickering, Biblical Separation (Schaumburg:  RBP, 2008) 196.

3. A.H. Strong, Systematic Theology (Old Tappan:    Fleming H. Revell, 1970) 272.

4. Rolland McCune, Promise Unfulfilled (Greenville: Ambassador International, 2004) 141.

5. Quoted by McCune on p. 151, and many others.

 

 

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The Rapture in 2 Thessalonians 2:3

Written by Rick Shrader

The Rapture in 2 Thessalonians 2:3

by Rick Shrader

1. Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, 2. that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled in spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ [the Lord] is at hand. 3. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition (2 Thes. 2:1-3).

The great rapture passage of 1 Thes. 4:13-18 was fresh on the believers’ minds when the apostle Paul encouraged them not to be shaken in their minds nor troubled by false information about the timing of the rapture.  In this second epistle he beseeches them regarding “our gathering together unto him” (lit. epi-sunag?g?s, our “up-gathering”).  With increased persecution as well as false teaching, it was natural for them to think the tribulation (the day of the Lord, not of Christ) had begun (“is at hand” a perfect tense, “had already come”).  The “day of the Lord” is a common term used throughout the Bible for the end time event of the coming of Messiah.  Whereas the “tribulation” refers specifically to Daniel’s 70th week of seven years (and sometimes “great tribulation” to the last half of that time), the day of the Lord begins with the judgment of that seven years and includes the glorious return of Christ and His millennial reign.

Paul assures them that that day could not have begun for two reasons:  first, a falling away must take place; and second, the man of sin must be revealed.  In verses 7 and 8 he adds that the Restrainer, the Holy Spirit, must also first be removed.  The subject of this article concerns the first reason, the nature of “the falling away.”  It must happen before  the day of the Lord can begin.

The second reason (a brief comment is in order) is that the man of sin must be revealed before the day begins. Mid and post tribulationalists must place this revealing at the half-way point in the tribulation, specifically the abomination of desolation (Matt. 24:15).  However, there is no reason to think that the antichrist will not be “revealed” as soon as the church is raptured out before the tribulation.  His covenant with Israel (Dan. 9:26) will reveal him even if all do not recognize him for who he is; the restraint of the Holy Spirit and the church will be eliminated so that nothing can hinder his rise to power; Rev. 6:2 says he will be going forth conquering and to conquer, starting his political and military campaign early in the tribulation; verse 8 says that he will be revealed as soon as the Holy Spirit is gone.  Herman Hoyt wrote, “The first move on the part of Christ to take possession of the earth will be the release of Antichrist by the tearing away of the first seal (Rev. 6:1-2).”1

A third reason why the day of the Lord could not have begun already could be that the Holy Spirit has not yet been removed (vss. 7-8).  For purposes of this article, if the “falling away” is actually the rapture, then the removing of the Holy Spirit will take place simultaneously with that and is, therefore, the same as the first reason.  If the “falling away” is a religious apostasy, this becomes a third reason why the day of the Lord has not begun.  By either interpretation, a great proof for a pretribulational rapture is here given (vss. 7-8).  The Holy Spirit cannot be separated from the church.  He is the church’s seal until the day of her redemption.  If He leaves the church, the earnest is broken (Eph. 1:13-14).  Therefore, if the Holy Spirit is removed before the tribulation, the church must go with Him.

 

The “departure” view revived

The present question is whether the “falling away” mentioned in verse three refers to a religious apostasy (the common view) or whether it refers to the rapture of the church as a “departure.”  The departure view was revived by E. Schuyler English in 1954 in his book Re-Thinking the Rapture.  In a single footnote he brought the view to prominence again by pointing out that five English versions from the sixteenth century translated the Greek word apostasia as “a departynge” or departure.2 The versions are Tyndale (1526), Coverdale (1535), Cranmer (1539), the Geneva Bible (1557), and Beza (1565, who translates it “departing”).  English’s point was that “’The departure’ is assuredly an acceptable translation of hee apostasia.”3

Since then, the view has gained attention and greater acceptance.  Just two years later Kenneth Wuest proposed the same interpretation and credited English for it: “Dr. E. Schuyler English, to whom the author is deeply indebted for calling his attention to the word ‘departure’ as the correct rendering of apostasia in this context …” (he then cites the five English versions).4 In 1973, Leon J. Wood, then professor of Old Testament Studies and Dean of the Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary wrote The Bible & Future Events, in which he discusses 2 Thes. 2:3, using virtually the same arguments as English and Wuest for translating apostasia as “departure” referring it to the rapture.5

Interestingly, in 1978 J. Vernon McGee released his commentaries in which he recognizes the “departure” view and adds his own indomitable twist that the word refers to both a departure of the “organized church” from the faith followed by a departure of the “true church” from the earth.6 In the years interceding other pretribulationalists have written articles and added additional thoughts.  For example, Dr. Bernard E. Northrup, who taught at both Baptist Bible College, Clarks Summit, PA. and at Central Seminary, Minneapolis wrote an article for The Biblical Evangelist titled “The Rapture in Second Thessalonians.”  In it he defends the “departure” view.7 In 2002, Dr. Myron Houghton, Senior Professor of Systematic Theology at Faith Theological Seminary in Ankeny, IA wrote an article in the Faith Pulpit titled “The Rapture in II Thessalonians 2:1-10” in which he strongly endorsed English and the “departure” view.8 Here Houghton gave four reasons why he believes in this view, adding two additional reasons: the style of the writing in chapter two, and the purpose in writing the letter altogether.  In 2005 Midnight Call printed an article by Kenneth Wuest titled, “The Rapture—Precisely When?”  Here Wuest repeated his arguments from 1956 and expanded on the position.9 I’m sure there have been other fine articles as well.

“Departure” is a good translation

According to the apostle, a “falling away” must take place before the day of the Lord can begin.  As has already been noted, this word can (and perhaps should) be translated “departure.”  In this verse we have the noun, apostasia, which easily transliterates (or transfers) into the English word “apostasy” which usually means, to an English reader, a religious falling away from the faith.  But, as English and others point out, “It is from the verb that we obtain the root meaning of a noun.”10 The verb form of this word, aphistemi, looks and sounds entirely different and doesn’t prejudice the English reader as to its meaning.

The noun, apostasia, only appears five times in the New Testament.  Three of those times it is translated “divorcement” (Matt. 5:31, 19:7; Mk. 10:4) which, by its basic meaning, has more to do with a physical departure (of one person from another) than with a religious apostasy.  Besides our text the other place where the noun is used is Acts 21:21 where it does refer to religious apostasy when Paul was accused of persuading the Jews “to forsake Moses.”  So three of the other four uses of the noun mean a physical departure and only one refers to a religious departure.

The verb (aphistemi) appears fifteen times in the New Testament.  In the KJV it is translated “depart” or “departed” in eleven of those places.  Once (Lk. 8:13) it is translated “fall away” (the only other time it is translated thus) referring to believers who fall away from the faith like seeds that die among rocky soil.  In Acts 5:37 Judas of Galilee “drew away” people after himself and in vs. 38 Gamaliel advises to “refrain” from such people.  In 1 Tim. 6:5 Paul advises Timothy to “withdraw” himself from evil men.  In Heb. 3:12 it does speak of some “departing” from the living God.  Interestingly, in 1 Tim. 4:1, “some shall depart from the faith,” a definite place where religious apostasy is meant with the word “depart,” Paul adds the qualifier, “from the faith,” evidently because the word could not give that definite meaning on its own.  In addition, Houghton says that in the LXX (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), the word sometimes does mean a religious departure, “However, either the context or a descriptive phrase is used to indicate that  a religious apostasy is meant.  Therefore it might be argued that the word itself was more general.”11

The point is easily seen that the root meaning of the word most often means a physical departure, and only a few times indicates a religious departure.  Kenneth Wuest, being a well-known Greek scholar, writes,

The author is well aware of the fact that apostasia was used at times both in classical and koine Greek in the sense of a defection, a revolt, in a religious sense, a rebellion against God, and of the act we today call apostasy.  Liddell and Scott give the above as the first definitions of the word.  Moulton and Milligan quote a papyrus fragment where the word is used of a rebel.  But these are acquired meanings of the word from the context in which they are found, not the original, basic, literal meaning, and should not be imposed upon the word where the context does not qualify the word by these meanings.12

In other words, “departure” is a good translation of apostasia in 2 Thes. 2:3.

If apostasia is translated “departure” it becomes immediately clear that Paul is referring to the rapture of the church, placing it definitely before the tribulation period.  This is not to deny that a religious apostasy will also take place (as seen in 1 Tim. 4:11) but gives better assurance to the readers why they were not in the day of the Lord at that time.

The definite article makes the departure definite

All interpreters who take apostasia to be the rapture (the “departure”) point out that in the Greek text this noun has a definite article.  It is therefore he apostasia, “the departure.”  Since it is a well-known rule of grammar that the definite article points out something definite, it is obvious that whatever he apostasia refers to, it was something known to the Thessalonians and something most likely mentioned by Paul already in his letters to them.  This is critical to the discussion because the rapture has been specifically mentioned in Paul’s first letter (1 Thes. 4:13-18) and already in his second letter (2 Thes. 2:1) but Paul has not mentioned an apostasy, i.e. a religious falling away, at all.

Writers who do not believe in a rapture readily admit this function of the article and yet persist in talking of a religious departure as if it is in the context.  John Eadie the Scottish Presbyterian of a century ago, for example, says, “Thus apostasia, so signalized by the article he, is something so far familiar to them, and on which they had enjoyed previous instruction. See verse 5.” Yet in the next sentence  he says, “It is a spiritual falling away . . .”13 But his only proof is that Paul must have taught the Thessalonians the words of Christ during his first visit, thus the reference to vs. 5, “Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?” But this is merely conjecture on his part.

So to what does the definite article point?  Leon Wood says,

In later books (e.g., 1 Tim. 4:1,2; 2 Tim. 3:1-9; 4:3,4), Paul does refer to the last days as a time when men will forsake the faith; but he has made no mention of that idea in either First or Second Thessalonians, and these were the first he wrote.  So, then, as the Thessalonians would have read this usage of the word apostasia, they would have no background for understanding it as a departure from the faith.  Also, since Paul does not refer to the idea of last-day defection from the faith in any of his books, until the last he wrote, it is not likely that it was a subject of which he spoke orally to churches this early in his ministry.  Further, when Paul does present the idea in his last books, he does not employ the word apostasia in doing so, which suggests that, even then, Paul did not particularly associate this word with the idea.”14

Thus we must agree with the “departure” view writers such as Wuest when he writes, “In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Paul had given these saints teaching on the Rapture, and the Greek article here points to that which was well known to both the reader and the writer, which is another use of the Greek definite article.”15 Therefore the most natural meaning of apostasia with this “explicit article”16 used by Paul is the rapture of the church to heaven, here called “the departure.”

Paul’s purpose and style in writing

All writers of the “departure” view point out the purpose for which Paul was writing.  These believers were being persecuted for their faith, a persecution which began under Claudius (41-54 AD), and which was now in full swing.  Could this be the dreaded day of the Lord which Paul had explained?  Could they have missed the rapture which was so plainly taught to them?  “Paul is, accordingly, writing this letter to straighten out their misunderstanding.  Paul’s answer, in a word, is that this predicted time of trouble which begins the Day of the Lord was still future.  The persecutions they were undergoing were the normal persecutions that can be experienced by all Christians throughout the church age.”17

But a further reason for understanding apostasia to be the departure of the church is given by Myron Houghton, that is, Paul, consistent with his style, repeats the two reasons given in vs. 3 again in vss. 6-9.

In verse 3, Paul states that two events must occur before the day of the Lord can come, namely (1) the ‘falling away,’ and (2) the revealing of the man of sin.  Paul’s reference to this second event seems to be more fully described in verses 8-9.  If, indeed, this is Paul’s style, then verses 6 and 7, which describe the removal of the Holy Spirit and the church, would be a more detailed explanation of the first event in verse 3 (the ‘falling away’).18

Therefore, this style of writing argues for a “departure” rather than “a falling away” in vs. 3.

And so . . .

In 1954 Dr. English humbly concluded his remarks by saying, “We have expressed our understanding of the passage as fully as we are able.  We are persuaded, in our own mind, that this is the correct view of this passage.  If we are not mistaken, we have here a final answer to the time of the translation of the Church in relation to the Tribulation.”19

Notes:

1. Herman Hoyt, The End Times (Chicago:  Moody Press, 1969) 127.

2. E. Schuyler English, Re-Thinking the Rapture (Neptune, N.J.: Loizeaux Brothers, 1954) 69.

3. Ibid.

4. Kenneth S. Wuest, Prophetic Light in the Present Darkness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956) 40.

5. Leon J. Wood, The Bible & Future Events (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973) 87-88.

6. J. Vernon McGee, I & II Thessalonians (Pasadena:  Thru The Bible Books, 1978) 120.

7. Bernard E. Northrup, “The Rapture in Second Thessalonians, The Biblical Evangelist. nd. Also at, http://www.biblicalevangelist.org/index.php?id=473.

8. Dr. Myron Houghton, “The Rapture in II Thessalonians 2:1-10,” Faith Pulpit, April, 2002.

9. Kenneth S. Wuest, “The Rapture—Precisely When?”, Midnight Call, October 2005.

10. English, 68.

11. Houghton, 2.

12. Wuest, Prophetic Light, 40.

13. John Eadie, Commentary on St. Paul’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians (Minneapolis: James & Klock Christian Publishing, 1977) 266.

14. Wood, 88.

15. Wuest, “The Rapture—Precisely When?, 6.

16. Dana and Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (Toronto:  Macmillan, 1957) 137.

17. John Walvoord, The Thessalonian Epistles (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974) 102.

18. Houghton, Reason #4.

19. English, 71.

 

 

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Considering Christian Social Responsibil...

Written by Matt Shrader

Considering Christian Social Responsibility

by Matt Shrader

You do not have to go far to find discussions about Christian social responsibility. This term may not be used, but it is part of the same conversation: What is the Christian’s responsibility toward the evils around him? Quite often the discussion is framed in terms of the Christian’s responsibility of good works and its relationship to the gospel. Does the gospel contain a parallel message of good works? Is there an imperative for social responsibility for those who have accepted the gospel? Or, perhaps there is a gospel of social responsibility?

After all, Jesus did give the Great Commission to spread the gospel and also said in another passage that the second commandment was to love others (Matthew 22:34-40). Similarly, the apostle Paul stated in Galatians 6:9-10 to not grow weary in doing good and to do good to others as we have opportunity.

If all we need is an opportunity then we need merely to open our eyes to the pain in the world today. The fact that there are problems in the world has been apparent to virtually every observant mind in the history of mankind. Christians are no exception. In fact, Christians have presented a vast number of solutions over multiple centuries from several different perspectives.

As one studies these different Christian solutions, various themes arise which the Christian needs to consider when forming his own thoughts on this issue. One thing to consider is whether there is an apologetic benefit for the Christian to do good works. Another is whether there is a present-day kingdom mandate to perform good works (this will obviously depend on your view of the Kingdom of God). It also matters if you believe that the church by definition is supposed to be accomplishing various good works. And, does the Bible require “social responsibility” simply by calling for “good works” to be done?

When a Christian begins to develop an understanding of social responsibility these questions (and others) are answered either directly or indirectly. In other words, whether you think about these issues or not, your actions reveal what you implicitly think about them. For that reason, it is helpful to study different approaches that have been attempted in order to see how they have answered some of these questions so that we may learn to better implement these considerations into our own thinking.

Among the various approaches to this question perhaps the most famous answer is given by the American Social Gospel movement of the late 19th and early 20th century. While I find myself to vary considerably from the solution offered by such a movement, there is an extremely important piece of the Christian-social-responsibility puzzle that surfaces in the effort to grasp the rationale of this movement. In fact, this issue is almost always glossed over in popular discussions. The question is one of the relationship of experience to biblical authority and the methodology that your view of the Bible allows. One’s view on these issues will affect one’s definition of the gospel, the church, and therefore Christian social responsibility.

The Social Gospel of Rauschenbusch

There is perhaps no more famous name in American social Christianity than Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918). Rauschenbusch was the son of a German evangelical Baptist pastor and seminary professor. Rauschenbusch was educated in Germany at a “gymnasium.” He then came back to America and was enrolled at the institution where his father taught and he himself would later teach, Rochester College and Rochester Theological Seminary.1 Here Rauschenbusch sat under theological giant Augustus Hopkins Strong and other leading voices in Northern Baptist theology. While here Rauschenbusch was exposed to and accepted much German and American liberal theology.2

Rauschenbusch applied to become a missionary but was turned down despite his impressive record because a former professor expressed concern over his burgeoning liberal theology. Rauschenbusch eventually became pastor of Second German Baptist Church in New York City. This church was in an especially infamous section of the city called “Hell’s Kitchen.” While here, Rauschenbusch became intimately aware and acquainted with the real problems of industrialization. He began to question how his Christianity, and especially the gospel, should speak to the social ills that surrounded him.

The New Evangelism

In a 1904 article entitled, “The New Evangelism,” Rauschenbusch laid out what theology in the new age was to be. He was not satisfied with the individualistic emphasis of the old theology. He wanted a theology that could speak to the modern problems of the day. Rauschenbusch formulated an understanding of the gospel that could speak to these specific problems.

“The gospel of Christ is one and immutable; the comprehension and expression of it in history has been of infinite variety. No individual, no church, no age of history has ever comprehended the full scope of God’s saving purposes in Jesus Christ. Neither has any proclaimed it without foreign admixtures that clogged and thwarted it. A fuller and purer expression of the evangel has therefore always been possible.”3

He is saying that the gospel is an evolving topic. If the gospel does not develop with the times, then it would become obsolete. The old evangelism with its emphasis on personal sin and regeneration did not speak to the social ills that Rauschenbusch saw. Rauschenbusch argued that one needed to grasp the ideals of Jesus and appropriate them to the contemporary situation. But what were the ideals of Jesus? Rauschenbusch would begin to answer that question in his first book.

The Ideals of Jesus

Rauschenbusch wrote his blockbuster, Christianity and the Social Crisis, in 1907. It laid out exactly what he had hinted at in the New Evangelism. He argued that there is an essential religion of Christianity that should be followed today. The essential religion is found in the prophets and was revived in Jesus. Rauschenbusch explains: “The essential purpose of Christianity was to transform human society into the kingdom of God by regenerating all human relations and reconstituting them in accordance with the will of God.”4

Rauschenbusch agreed that the prophets and Jesus recognized that there was a personal religious need but the end of it was social. This is because there is solidarity among all people and God. Sin then becomes selfishness or the unwillingness to socialize oneself.

Rauschenbusch wrote about the social gospel for the rest of his life. In his last and greatest book, A Theology for the Social Gospel, he states concerning personal salvation: “Salvation is the voluntary socializing of the soul.”5This conception of individual salvation was quickly and necessarily swallowed by his understanding of social salvation.

The social constructs of the day can be redeemed by departing from the Kingdom of Evil and entering the Kingdom of God. The church is to be the social factor of salvation. Its responsibility is to establish the law of Christ in the world. Social salvation is the realization of solidarity on a grand scale. Humanity is to become socialized and influence others to realize their social potential to live out the principles of Christ.

The Kingdom of God was the place where Rauschenbusch was able to coalesce all he wanted his theology to be. The Kingdom of God was the concept of what things are going to be like when God is in complete control and everything is perfect. The Kingdom of God is to be implemented now by Christianizing the social order.6 Both the personal and social aspects of salvation work together to bring in the Christianized social order, which is the only approximation of the Kingdom of God the present world can experience. And beyond this, the Kingdom of God provided a future, heavenly hope.

The responsibility of the Christian was to try and bring in the Kingdom of God, or to Christianize the Social Order. In a short work entitled, Dare We Be Christians, Rauschenbusch elaborates on what it means to be a Christian. “A man is a Christian in the degree in which he shares the spirit and consciousness of Jesus Christ, conceiving God as Jesus knew him and seeing human life as Jesus realized it. None of us has ever done this fully, but on the other hand there is no man within the domain of Christendom who has not been influenced by Christ in some way.”7

The mandate of the social gospel is to attempt the social gospel. Or, in other words, to attempt to Christianize the social order. This is the Kingdom of God now. But it must be remembered: “At best there is always but an approximation to a perfect social order. The Kingdom of God is always but coming.”8

Rauschenbusch’s Methodology 

A brief look at the methodology of Rauschenbusch is instructive. Rauschenbusch started by recognizing the social ills of his day. He famously stated that his social concern came from when he was in New York City:

“It came through personal contact with poverty, and when I saw how men toiled all their life long, hard, toilsome lives, and at the end had almost nothing to show for it; how strong men begged for work and could not get it in the hard times; how little children died—oh, the children’s funerals! They gripped my heart—that was one of the things I always went away thinking about—why did the children have to die?”9 

He required a theology that could speak to his problems. This was to be found in the ideals of Jesus. The gospel, sin, salvation, and the Kingdom of God were all redefined in order to fit within this theological need. His experience, by necessity, shaped his theology. The Bible was not an authority that transcends eras or that could speak directly to problems of any day. It contained the prophetic religion of significant luminaries like the prophets and Jesus. The religion of Rauschenbusch had to be flexible enough to adapt to contemporary needs. When the old theology proved to be incompatible with his requirements, it was replaced.

After the source for theology had been understood and his methodology was delineated, Rauschenbusch could explain his understanding of classic Christian categories like the gospel and salvation. Each of these was explained in the purview of social responsibility. His determination of what theology had to be resulted in a definition of the gospel and salvation which was geared toward providing an answer to social ills. Also, his understanding of the responsibility of the church under the umbrella of the Kingdom of God was determined under this rubric.

Many have recognized the lasting significance of Walter Rauschenbusch to be his discovery and explanation of social Christianity. Martin Luther King Jr. noted some problems with Rauschenbusch before offering this final summarization of his lasting contribution:

“The gospel at its best deals with the whole man, not only his soul but his body, not only his spiritual well-being, but his material well-being. Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.”10 

This starting point for theology has been the significant contribution of the social gospel movement. Rauschenbusch was the clearest and perhaps best spokesman for this movement. But as you can see, in this conception of religion there is very little of Christianity left over. It is notable that Rauschenbusch’s grandson and famous “neo-pragmatist” philosopher, Richard Rorty, comments that what secular humanists like himself appreciate most about Rauschenbusch is his “dismissal of the Pauline claim that we are corrupt and in desperate need of purification.”11 Rauschenbusch finds fellow-laborers in hostile non-Christians because they share the central idea that our primary problem is a need for a better society.

Considering Social Responsibility

One of the principles to be learned is not so much whether there are problems in the world that Christians are to respond to. But rather, where does the Christian’s response to these problems fit in with other important teachings? Is it part of one’s understanding of the gospel? Is it part of the definition of the church? When there is little more than an emotional reaction to get involved in solving social issues, you run the risk of implicitly agreeing with dangerous assumptions.

An obvious example is simply to say that my church is going to perform a social good because there is an obvious problem. While there may be nothing wrong with doing good, are certain theological categories being redefined based on the authority of this need? Has this church implicitly shown that they believe the church’s mission is social betterment? Or worse, that they believe Christian experience demands a place for social action in the definition of the church or maybe even the gospel?

Letting an experience or circumstance be the driving force runs the risk of the Rauschenbusch folly. To be biblical (inerrancy affirmed) is to not succumb to such authorities. Many Christians have no intention of downplaying their commitment to the authority of the inerrant Scriptures. However, when the only rationale given for Christian social responsibility is “there is a problem, so we get involved,” confusion about a number of issues is sure to follow. If this is the only reason given for social action or if this reason begins to determine other issues such as your definition of the gospel, then the difference between this and Rauschenbusch begins to fade.

And So…

As is the case with most really good questions, a short answer is almost never adequate. Since the Bible does say much about the definition of the gospel, the church, the Kingdom of God, the purpose of apologetics, along with many other pertinent issues, then our answer ought to include serious reflection on the interdependency of these issues. While we recognize that we cannot understand all things and cannot hope to be infallible in all our practices, let us approach these issues with diligence and excitement as we seek a properly biblical answer.

 

1. For biographical information on Rauschenbusch see the most recent biography, written by Christopher H. Evans, The Kingdom is Always but Coming: A Life of Walter Rauschenbusch (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company 2004).

2. For an excellent treatment of the liberal influences upon Rauschenbusch while at Rochester, see: Jeffrey Paul Straub, “The Making of a Battle Royal: The Rise of Religious Liberalism in Northern Baptist Life, 1870-1920” (Ph.D. diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2004), 150-7.

3. Walter Rauschenbusch, “The New Evangelism,” The Independent LVI (Jan.-June 1904), 1054-5; reprinted in Winthrop S. Hudson, Walter Rauschenbusch: Selected Writings (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), 137. 

4. Idem, Christianity and the Social Crisis (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1907), xiii.  

5. Idem, A Theology for the Social Gospel (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1918; repr., Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing, 2011), 99. 

6. Idem, Christianizing the Social Order (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1912; reprint, Waco: Baylor University Press, 2010). 

7. Idem, Dare We Be Christians (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1914; reprint, 1993), 43-4. 

8. Idem, Christianity and the Social Crisis, 421. 

9. Idem, “The Kingdom of God,” Cleveland’s Young Men, XXVII (January 9, 1913), reprinted in: Robert T. Handy, ed., The Social Gospel in America: 1870-1920: Gladden, Ely, Rauschenbusch, 264-7 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), 265-6. 

10. Martin Luther King Jr., “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” The Christian Century 77 no 15 (Apr. 13, 1960), 440. 

11. Richard Rorty, “Buds That Never Opened,” In Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis in the 21st Century: The Classic That Woke Up the Church, ed. by Paul Raushenbush (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007), 347.

Note: For a more in depth look at Rauschenbusch and his presentation of Christian social responsibility, see the “articles of interest” tab on our website. 

 

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The Christian Walk and Its Indefinite Na...

Written by Rick Shrader

The Christian Walk and Its Indefinite Nature

by Rick Shrader

It would seem that a lot of controversy in the Christian life could be solved if God would have given us more specifics for Christian living in the New Testament.  In many ways the Mosaic Law was easier and more convenient.  Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego may have struggled with (though it seems doubtful) the willingness to die for their convictions, but they didn’t have to struggle with what was right and wrong for a believer to do.  The king’s meat and drink were a plain violation of the Law, as was bowing down before a statue.  We could be almost envious of the ease of knowing God’s will in Old Testament Israel compared to today’s age of grace.  It seems strange, therefore, that Israel went on to develop a mountain of tradition to further explain almost every atom of an Israelite’s existence.  But unbelief in religion can never be satisfied with anything but rote legalism.

As a fundamentalist pastor and teetotaler in most life-style choices, I hesitate to put it in these terms.  I feel comfortably firm in my convictions even though I see so many others (even in my own circles) coming to different conclusions.  One of the most common reasons given for a different life-style is that someone does not see a chapter and verse command to do or not do a particular thing.  This is for the most part true.  Christians must make more application from their faith than their law-abiding ancestors.  Yet, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew an idol when they saw one but twenty-first century Christians can’t  seem to see one even if thousands of people are waving their arms and pledging their devotion to it.  To them, if it’s not specifically described in a New Testament verse (and in great detail), it can’t be idolatry.  What such Christians really want, I guess, is a formatted list of biblical answers that can be stored and downloaded to give instantaneous, even thoughtless, life-style decisions when necessary.  Otherwise, they would like to be left alone, thank you very much!

Legalism had it so easy!  Israelites knew what to eat and not eat; what style of clothes to wear and not to wear; when to worship and when not to; what offering to bring and what not to bring; how far to walk on the Sabbath and exactly where they must stop.  But Grace doesn’t always spell it out like we would like.  Oh sure, we can spot the unequivocal commandments about adultery, murder, stealing and lying, but those don’t really go very far in the average Christian life.  What about what is permitted to drink and not to drink; or when dancing is suggestive; or when crude language goes too far; or when song lyrics are unchristian; or when I can miss church without penalty; or when a television has become an idol in the living room?  Rather than convenient and specific rules, I am left with those pesky biblical principles and all that disagreement.

Reading through 1 Thessalonians, for example, finds nebulous statements like “not pleasing men, but God” (2:4), “walk worthy of God” (2:12), “stand fast in the Lord” (3:8), “this is the will of God, even your sanctification” (4:4), “for God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness” (4:7).  This is so typical of New Testament epistles.  But I find that almost all Christians read the same verses and yet apply them differently (sometimes very differently) than I.  Maybe I should also praise the Lord for how much unity there is in the faith among believers who have read these same statements!  Yet I think there are good reasons why the New Testament doesn’t read like the Old, and why it is grace rather than law.

The New Testament does give us a divinely revealed pattern for living.  Two thousand years of Christian testimony speak to that.  Yet we find in our day a growing disparity over what is proper application from the New Testament to the Christian life and what is not.  The following are some reasons I think we must make application of Christian doctrine to our lives in whatever time and place we happen to live.  In other words, why doesn’t our New Testament give us more specifics for Christian living?

It would be “legalistic”

I must first include this caveat.  I believe that the term “legalism” ought to be reserved for a system of belief where one earns or keeps salvation by works.  If that is true, I don’t know of any fundamentalist who is legalistic.  However, that is not how the term is used today.  Today it means anyone who has rules that are too harsh. But this was my point about the comparison of the Old Testament and the New.  Living under the Mosaic economy was, in this sense, very legalistic, not only because its rules were often harsh, but because it took little thought.  All one had to know is the list of rules.  Keep it and you won’t get stoned.

There are many believers in the age of grace who won’t take the time to extract principles for living from the New Testament.  They are only looking for black and white statements.  When they appeal to “chapter and verse” they think they are being deeply biblical but in actuality it’s a cop out.  If it is on their list, fine, but if it is not, no amount of reasoning from principles will convince them otherwise.  So for all their accusing of others, this form of dealing with the New Testament is legalism by today’s definition.

It would be without faith

Paul wrote, “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7).  In the context of that chapter, faith is the ability to see truth (specifically about life after death) which the carnal eye cannot see.  In fact, this faith causes us to labor to be acceptable to Him (vs. 9) because we must all stand at the Bema Seat one day and be rewarded for things done or not done in our body (vs. 10).  To walk only by sight (things that pertain to this life) rather than by faith (things that pertain to the next life) is to glory in appearance but not in heart (vs. 12).

The desire of my heart ought to be to live this life in the light of that Bema appearance that I will some day make before The Lord Jesus Christ.  That desire drives me to err on the side of caution when it comes to questionable things.  Indeed, “all things are not expedient” (1 Cor. 6:12) precisely for this reason.  In that context Paul was arguing for going the extra mile in avoiding anything that resembled idolatry.

It would be without the Holy Spirit

Being filled with the Spirit is one of those things we talk about easily but live out in great difficulty.  A believer (who therefore possesses the Holy Spirit) should know the difference between being filled and not being filled, between having victory in the Christian life and not, between displaying wisdom from above and that which is “earthly, sensual, devilish” (Jas. 3:15).  This leading of the Holy Spirit is conditioned by a constant reading of the New Testament.  He brings verses to our mind that describe something from two thousand years ago and applies it right to our situation.  Jesus said, “when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth” (Jn. 16:13).  John would later write that the anointing of the Holy Spirit “teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie” (1 Jn. 2:27).

It would be academic

If the New Testament were merely a list of do’s and don’ts, it could be figured out and lived by a mathematical formula rather than by discernment.  This is the problem with numerology and typology.  All you need is a good calculator to be a good theologian.  Remember The Bible Code by Michael Drosnin which printed out the whole Hebrew Bible like a giant Scrabble board and then, by computer, found a string of letters connected vertically or horizontally thus showing any modern subject in the Bible?  The Koran is nothing but a list of sayings and commands (arranged from the longest to the shortest) with no other story line.  It takes no faith to read it and do it, just rote memory.

If the New Testament were given in such an arrangement, just a list of commands, we would be no better than a cult.  But Christianity takes the wisdom of years and the meekness of wisdom to live.  Those that are “unlearned and unstable” wrestle the Scriptures “to their own destruction” (2 Pet. 3:16) rather than applying them to their own salvation.

It would be without instructors

What is the process of discipleship and learning if not imparting principles from one who is learned to one who is unlearned?  “Let him that is [being] taught in the word communicate unto him that [is] teaching in all good things” (Gal. 6:6).  Paul wrote, “I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you.  For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers” (1 Cor. 4:14-15).  Anyone can be “shamed” into learning by memorizing lists, but it takes a fatherly figure to “warn” one of latent truth.  The process of education, of teaching, is to build a mechanism for discovering truth that at one time was not so obvious.  It takes line upon line and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little (Isa. 28:13).

How many of us learned Biblical principles from a Sunday School teacher or a youth pastor or just a Christian friend who spent time with us inculcating things into our minds and answering questions about what appeared to be contradictions?  Our Lord’s commission is for us to be “teaching them to observe” the things that are not easily observed.

It would be without covenant

In fact, it would be without doctrinal statement at all!  If we did not have to interpret and apply the Scriptures, if they were already spelled out in organized statements, no believers would have seen the need to formulate a confession of faith.  Church covenants have been those things which contain applications for Christian living which the local body of Christ feels convicted it must live by.  This is an honest way of letting newcomers know how that church has applied the Scriptures to questionable things.  Perhaps the lack of church covenants in our day is a tell-tale sign of our unwillingness to make applications from Scripture about specific things.

When young William Carey first went to Moulton to accept the pastorate of the small congregation of around twenty people, he was appalled at the slack attitude toward the church services and the non-use of the church covenant.  Rather than ignoring it he proposed a more pointed covenant that asked the members for greater commitment, not less.  This helped the church form the mind of the great missionary.

And So . . .

No matter how much we want to “live and let live” as brothers and sisters in Christ, we cannot stop our own quest for Biblical truth in living.  The Bible is meant to be read, thought about, meditated on, and applied to every situation of life.  Of course it cannot contain a list of every possible sin of every age of man, but it does contain what we need to meet every circumstance of our lives.  “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue” (2 Pet. 1:3).  It can only do this if it is possible to apply this timeless Book to every human situation, not just giving us a list to memorize, but a story, a history, so factual and true that it is current at all times and in all ways.

“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Psa. 90:12).

Lord, I esteem thy judgments right,

And all thy statutes just;

Thence I maintain a constant fight

With every flat’ring lust.

Thy precepts often I survey;

I keep thy law in sight,

Through all the business of the day,

To form my actions right.

My heart in midnight silence cries,

“How sweet thy comforts be!”

My thoughts in holy wonder rise,

And bring their thanks to thee.

And when my spirit drinks her fill

At some good word of thine,

Not mighty men that share the spoil

Have joys compar’d to mine.

(Isaac Watts, Psalm 119 part 6)

 

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The Son of God

Written by Rick Shrader

The Son of God

by Rick Shrader

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35).

 

 There are no more powerful words than these for Christmas.  This is as close as we come to a description of how “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).  We can all identify with Mary’s question, “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” (Luke 1:34).  We may even beg the question here, or actually two questions: how did God become fully human and remain fully God; and how, if that happened, did He remain sinless?  I say beg the question because we know He did both of those!  He did become fully man and He did remain the sinless Son of God.  Without both of those things being true, the substitution of Jesus Christ for our sins could not have taken place.  If He did not fully become a man He could not identify with the fallen race of Adam and become its Redeemer.  If He did not remain sinless He would have to die for His own sins, not ours.  “How shall this be?”

We know before we approach this verse that Jesus Christ was sinless.  Charles Ryrie writes,

Our Lord was announced as a holy child (Luke 1:35).  He challenged His enemies to show that He was a sinner which they could not do (John 8:46).  They failed in their attempts to trap Him by using something He said (Matt. 22:15).  During the trials and Crucifixion He was acknowledged as innocent eleven times (by Judas, Matt. 27:4; by Pilate six times, 27:24; Luke 23:14; John 18:38; 19:4, 6; by Herod Antipas, Luke 23:15; by Pilate’s wife, Matt. 27:19; by the repentant thief, Luke 23:41; and by the Roman centurion, Matt 27:54).  Furthermore, there is no record of our Lord ever offering a single sacrifice, though He frequented the temple.  This silence speaks of the fact that He did not need to since He was without sin.1

We know also that Jesus Christ was fully human.  Rolland McCune writes,

For instance, Jesus refers to himself as a man (John 8:40).  Peter announces that Jesus of Nazareth was ‘a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs’ (Acts 2:22).  Paul similarly asserts, ‘The free gift is not like the transgression.  For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many’ (Rom. 5:15).  In another place, Paul says, ‘By a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead’ (1 Cor. 15:21; cf. Heb 2:14).  Later he says that ‘there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’ (1 Tim. 2:5-6).  Additionally, references to Jesus’ Davidic descent further point to Jesus’ humanity (cf. Matt. 1:1; Acts 2:30; Rom. 1:3), as does reference to His Jewish lineage (Rom. 9:5).2

And so, again, letting Scripture speak for itself, before we approach Gabriel’s explanation in order to answer Mary’s (and our) question, we know that the divine method of virgin birth will produce a God-man, the theanthropic person, a hypostatic union between God and man.  One person, Jesus Christ, with two natures divine and human.  We also know the virgin birth will produce the sinless Son of God, “that holy thing” called “the Son of God.”  But, “How shall this thing be?”

Two extremes must be discarded before any sense can be made of it.  One, we must not exalt Mary beyond what she was, a sinner saved by grace.  And, two, we must not make the miracle less than it was, a divine intervention into the natural birth process.

“Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this thing be, seeing I know not a man” (Luke 1:34).  G. Campbell Morgan beautifully responds,

I have seen that question translated differently in the interest of softness, and what is falsely called delicacy: ‘How can this be, seeing that I am an unmarried woman?’  I hate this kind of false delicacy.  Leave the question as it is.  It is the cold, scientific, biological difficulty, bluntly stated.  It is the question being debated hotly today.  It is at least interesting, then, to observe that according to the historic record, the first person to raise the difficulty was Mary herself.3

Mary’s sinful humanity

That Mary was sinful is left without question in the text.  “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47).  Some have tried to get around this difficulty by posing that Mary’s sinful nature was enough to make Jesus sinful even with a virgin birth and therefore Jesus was a separate creation within but apart from Mary’s humanity.  But this would detach Jesus from any real humanity.

The Catholic Church tries to solve this problem by claiming that Jesus was sinless because Mary was sinless.  This doctrine is called the immaculate conception, not of Jesus but of Mary!  Of course this only puts the problem back a generation:  How, then, did Mary remain sinless?  They are not claiming a virgin birth for Mary, only a sinless human conception (Give me the problem of a virgin birth over that).  The Catholic Catechism quotes Pope Pius IX from 1854, “The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.”4

They claim that Gabriel said, “Hail, Mary, full of grace” (Luke 1:28) by which they claim Mary was, “redeemed from the moment of her conception.”5 Actually, of course, he said nothing of the kind.  “Highly favored” is a beautiful translation of the greeting.  Many margins have simply, “much graced,” or “having been graced.”  The Catholic doctrine goes on to make Mary the mother of all and who, through the Church, brings “virginal” grace to all through baptism.

Christ the sinless God-Man

We know both that Mary was sinful and that Jesus was sinless.  Gabriel said, “Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”  John wrote, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).  The Word (Logos) is the eternal second person of the God-Head, eternal, fully God, perfect, and sinless.  He never was tainted with sin and never could be whether in eternity past, in His incarnation, or in eternity future.  This Word “became” flesh, that is, His fleshly humanity started at this miraculous conception and will continue for all eternity as the God-man, Jesus the Christ.

Charles Wesley said it most famously when he wrote,

Christ, by highest heaven adored;

Christ, the Everlasting Lord!

Late in time behold Him come,

Offspring of the Virgin’s womb:

Veiled in flesh the God-head see;

Hail the Incarnate Deity,

Pleased as man with men to dwell,

Jesus our Emmanuel.

Hark! The herald angels sing,

“Glory to the new-born King.”

The virgin birth

The problem of a miraculous, supernatural birth is solved by the fact that “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.”  Those who doubt the validity of Biblical miracles simply doubt God.  “Anyone who affirms that a virgin birth is impossible, is just confessing his or her own unbelief in the God of the Bible.”6 “Overshadow” (episkiazo) means to envelop in darkness.  It is the same word used of the cloud that overshadowed the disciples on the mount of Transfiguration when they were made privy to Christ’s essential deity.  This is not unlike the Shekinah Glory that overshadowed the tabernacle in the wilderness when God’s glory appeared in the holy of holies.  The Word “dwelt” (tabernacle) among us.

Who can really explain how this miracle took place?  Or any miracle?  If we knew it would not be a miracle.    We can only know what resulted.  “Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”  William Kelly added,

and not merely Son of man.  This is exceedingly important.  ‘Son of God’ is a title that belongs to our Lord both in His Divine glory before He became a man and here; for, in this place when He became a man, he did not cease to be Son of God.  As incarnate He was still the Son of God.  So, again, when he rose from the dead, the same thing was true; He was the Son of God as risen again. . . He was the Son of God when He was purely and simply a Divine Person; Son of God when He became a man; Son of God when risen from the dead and gone out of this world to heaven.7

Though a man-woman conception did not take place (a thing necessary for all normal births, and necessary for sin to be brought forward from Adam and Eve), a conception did in fact take place; a conception somehow blending the divine and the human; a conception that kept in place the full humanity of the man, and the full deity of the divine; one person—two natures; Son of God, who can also now be called Son of man.

The take-back has begun

When the first man Adam sinned, the whole human race fell into sin and was taken captive by Satan at his will.  What was rightfully God’s was stolen by the usurper.  But on that eventful day of the virgin’s conception, God landed on our shores and began taking back what is rightfully His.  One day He will return Himself, bodily, and in great glory, to bring about “the restitution of all things” (Acts 3:21).  The usurper will be bound and kept in the bottomless pit while the whole earth enjoys its long-awaited millennial Jubilee.

Most people who have lived on this earth, however, have already died or will die before that event takes place.  Their only hope is to participate in the one-on-one recovery that is now taking place: the gospel preaching offer of personal faith in Jesus the Christ.    Their salvation is dependent, at least in part, on this miraculous virgin birth.  The only way for human beings to be redeemed by God is to accept the salvation provided for by the substitutionary death, burial, and resurrection of the sinless God-Man.

The “bad news” of the book of Romans is that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (3:23).  But the “good news” is that we can be “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (3:24).  This isn’t done by God declaring sinners excused as if God could “look the other way” (which is what I think many people believe grace is).  He could not do that and remain a just and holy God.  No.  There has to be a way for God to declare sinners justified and to remain just Himself.

This is why God became flesh and dwelt among us as the God-Man.  “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (3:25-26).

A sinless, just, divine, man, would be the only hope of the world.  A God-Man, Who could remain just Himself and bring the unjust to justification. “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18).  That began at that special moment of conception in Galilee, continued in that still and lonely night in Bethlehem, and was “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead,” (Rom. 1:4) that morning outside Jerusalem.  “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift.”

For Christ is born of Mary

And gathered all above,

While mortals sleep,

the angels keep,

Their watch of won-d’ing love.

O morning stars,

together proclaim the holy birth!

And praises sing to God the King,

And peace to men on earth.

 

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Coveteousness: The Universal Sin

Written by Rick Shrader

Coveteousness: The Universal Sin

by Rick Shrader

Covetousness surely ranks as one of the great sins of our day.  Its effects are seen in Christendom, our nation as a whole, and in an alarming display of selfishness around the whole world.  Riots and protests, destruction of property, anger and resentment, all manifest themselves by some in every country where “things” might be taken from them, even if insisting on keeping these things will topple the economy of the whole country or state or city.

Has a whole life-time of getting everything we want finally come back to haunt us?  Have we gotten so used to demanding “things” from governments and unions and corporations, that we absolutely will not part with our “things” for any reason?  Why is it that one man would resent what another man has?  Why is it that anyone feels it is his right to have whatever he wants?  If I find my neighbor has earned a fortune, should I envy him or rejoice in his blessing?  What does that say about me?

The first nine commandments are pretty concrete.  Israel could keep them or not, with a good attitude or not.  But the tenth is not so easy.  It goes to the heart and the desire within a person.  It deals with the root of our sin.  It doesn’t just keep us from stealing, it keeps us from wanting to steal.  As Jesus pointed out, it doesn’t just keep us from committing adultery, it keeps us from thinking about it.

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:17).  The New Testament does not let us off any easier.  Covetousness is equal to idolatry (Col. 3:5, Eph. 5:5); we are to be content with such things as we have (Heb. 13:5); Since we brought nothing into this world and can carry nothing out, we should be content with food and clothing, because godliness with contentment is the greatest gain (1 Tim. 6:6-8).

One theological dictionary defines covetousness as “Primarily inordinate desire.  It has come to mean a desire for anything which is inordinate in degree, or a desire for that which rightfully belongs to another, especially in the realm of material things.  In a general sense it means all inordinate desire for worldly possessions such as honors, gold, etc.  In a more restricted sense, it is a desire for the increasing of one’s substance by appropriating that of others.”1 Unger reminds us that it has a sense of lawlessness, and is sinful because it is contrary to the command to be content with such things as we have, and it sets up wealth in the place of God.2

The anointed cherub in God’s presence began to covet the very things of God, “therefore,” writes the prophet, “I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire” (Ezek. 28:16).  Yet immediately he tempted the man and woman into coveting things God had withheld from them.  “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat” (Gen. 3:6).

No sooner had the ten commandments been given at Sinai and the Israelites crossed the Jordan and conquered Jericho, than Achan confessed, “I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them” (Josh. 7:21).  No sooner had the church begun in the early chapters of the book of Acts, than we read that Ananias and his wife Sapphira let Satan fill their hearts to keep back part of the price of their land sale for themselves, stifling the life of the new movement (Acts 5:1-11).

Our word “covetousness” covers a wide range of meaning in the Scripture.  The three most common in the New Testament are 1) Pleonexia, meaning “to have more.”  This is the most common word and is used in places like Col. 3:5 where covetousness is called idolatry.  2) Philarguros, meaning the love of money or treasure is used in 1 Tim. 6:10 as “the love of money” and also in 1 Tim. 3:3 where a pastor is not to be covetous.  3) We commonly have Epithumia, “lust”, or “short desire.”    Saul of Tarsus (later converted and called Paul) admitted that he wouldn’t have thought of himself as a sinner without the 10th commandment.  “Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law:  for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet” (Rom. 7:7).  Interestingly, the words “lust” and “covet” in this verse both translate epithumia.  Saul realized that his lust for earthly things was a direct breaking of the commandment not to covet.

There are a number of things the believer can do to combat covetousness in his/her life.

 

Be heavenly minded

The common canard that one can be too heavenly minded to be any earthly good is not only wrong, it is exactly backwards.  Leonard Ravenhill once wrote, “Someone now warns us lest we become so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly use.  Brother, this generation of believers is not, by and large, suffering from such a complex!  The brutal, soul-shaking truth is that we are so earthly minded we are of no heavenly use.”3

Read again Luke chapter 12.  God feeds the unclean ravens and clothes the helpless lilies.  How much more will He do the same with us, O we of little faith?  Let us not seek the things of this world, “For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.  But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Lk. 12:30-31).  Place your treasures in heaven, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (vs. 34).

 

Follow Jesus’ example

It is true that we cannot (and for salvation need not) be all that Jesus was.  Praise the Lord that He accomplished in this life what no other could ever accomplish!  By faith we can be made the righteousness of God in Him.  Yet He said “The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord” (Matt. 10:24).  When approached by a seeking man who was sure he had the wherewithal to follow Jesus, He responded, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Lk. 9:58).  The man had not bargained to pay that price.

Persecution, in any degree, comes to the believer because it came to Jesus.  “If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you” (Jn. 15:20).  He was in this world to accomplish a mission and then go back to His heavenly home.  So are we (in our human way).  “Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2).  We can do the same, but not if we hang on to the things of this world too tightly.

 

Be glued to your faith

Paul admonished Timothy about those who “would be rich” (1 Tim. 6:9), and those “who are rich” (vs. 17).  Those who desire to be rich “fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition” (vs. 9).  But “the love of money” (vs. 10) is so strong that “while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”  Why do we go on choosing to stick ourselves with those sorrows?

However, Paul’s picturesque point is that covetousness causes some to stray away from their faith, to  “Err” (plana?) or wander away like a planet out of orbit or a wandering star.  This was the sin of Ananias and Sapphira.    They coveted the very thing they had promised to God and Satan immediately filled their hearts, causing them to stray away even within their new found faith.  This is why covetousness is idolatry and why a lost man has no inheritance in the kingdom of God (Eph. 5:5).  As Jesus warned, “Verily, they have their reward” (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16).  A believer in such a case is saved “so as by fire” (1 Cor. 3:15) or having his flesh destroyed, the spirit remains saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 5:5), or “scarcely saved” as Peter says (1 Pet. 4:18).

 

Be mission minded

To evangelize is to risk something.  It may be your image among your peers, or your status or job, or perhaps your personal safety.  It is safe to say that most missionaries do not surrender to the mission field out of covetousness.  Perhaps some covet the praise of others for their personal surrender, but hardly for material gain in this world.  Worldwide missions has been a sacrificing work for the church of Jesus Christ in this dispensation of grace.  Millions upon millions of dollars have been voluntarily given by God’s people to take the gospel to the lost world.

My favorite mission song ends with this verse,

Give of thy sons, to bear the message glorious;

Give of thy wealth to speed them on their way;

Pour out thy soul for them in prayer victorious;

And all thou spendest Jesus will repay.

When Paul wrote to the great Philippian church, he thanked them for their sacrificial mission giving.  For himself, he had learned “in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” (Phil. 4:11).  He knew how to abound and how to be abased.  In either circumstance he knew, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (4:13).  Because of his great example (“Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do”) the church gave sacrificially to his ministry, “an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God” (4:18).

 

Don’t love the world

Jesus warned that you cannot serve God and mammon (Matt. 6:24).  It is a “serve” or “despise” relationship.  John said it plainly, “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 Jn. 2:15).  The church of the twenty-first century needs to take a long and hard look at that truth.  We imitate the world, we use the world to lure people to church, we offer the world to keep people in church, and we are irritated when we’re reminded of it.  Then we preach to our people not to be covetous.

Jesus asked, “For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Lk. 9:25).  A man may build bigger barns to house his worldly possessions and take life easy, but if his soul is required of him in a night, then what profit will those things be? (Lk. 12:16-21).  Rather, Jesus said, “sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not . . . For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Lk. 12:33-34).  This is heavenly luggage!  And it won’t get lost by the baggage handler when it’s your time to make that trip!

 

And So . . . .

A person refuses to accept Christ because of covetousness.  After Paul had preached in Thessalonica many believed his message.  “But,” the text continues, “the Jews which believed not, moved with envy . . .” (Acts 17:5).  Their jealousy kept them from believing.  Paul had taken away their status with their peers and they wanted it back.  When a person says no to Christ he is opting for some more time in the world, some more time to have his own way before he surrenders his will to God.  The covetousness of a self-centered life keeps sinners from coming to Christ.

Jesus warned, “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Lk. 12:15).  Alexander Maclaren observed, “Covetousness is folly because it grasps at worldly good, under the false belief that thereby it will secure the true good of life, but when it has made its pile, it finds that it is no nearer peace of heart, rest, nobleness, or joy than before, and has probably lost much of both in the process of making it.  The mad race after wealth, which is the sin of this luxurious, greedy, commercial age, is the consequence of a lie—that life does consist in the abundance of possessions”4

 

Notes:

 

1. Lewis Corlett, “Covetousness,” Baker’s Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids:  Baker Book House, 1978) 145.

2. Merrill Unger, “Covetousness,” Unger’s Bible Dictionary (Chicago:  Moody Press, 1966) 225.

3. Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries (Minneapolis:  Bethany House, 1990) 28.

4. Alexander Maclaren, The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1938) 340.

 

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