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Is Repentance Necessary?

Written by Rick Shrader

Is Repentance Necessary?

by Rick Shrader

It is a telling sign of our time that we have to ask ourselves this question.  But when every other teaching that makes us uncomfortable is taken away, why should we be surprised when sinners are no longer told they need to repent?  This view is being taught today largely by what is called the “Free Grace” movement.  It was made popular in 1989 when Zane Hodges, then of Dallas Seminary, wrote his book Absolutely Free!  By claiming that preaching repentance as a requirement or prerequisite for faith would be preaching works for salvation, Hodges virtually eliminated repentance from salvation.  He wrote, “Thus, though genuine repentance may precede salvation, it need not do so.  And because it is not essential to the saving transaction as such, it is in no sense a condition for that transaction.”1

The disdain for repentance was heightened by Chuck Swindoll’s book, The Grace Awakening, in 1990 but it was an attack on Christian standards and good works after rather than before salvation.2 Today, however, most of this teaching comes from the Grace Evangelical Society and its Executive Director Bob Wilkin.  In a current article on the GES website Wilkin admits, “Throughout Church history nearly every theologian has taught that repentance is essential for salvation from hell. . . . Unhappily, this view knew little or nothing of grace.”3 It is certainly amazing that all the theologians for the last two thousand years have missed this teaching, but Wilkins and others have finally discovered the true teaching on salvation.

The Free Grace movement is a definite reaction against some expressions of Lordship Salvation.  This author is not in total disagreement with criticisms of Lordship Salvation.  Even Darrell Bock, in debating Wilkin over this, referred to “soft” Lordship and “hard” Lordship.4 Some views of Lordship come close to a works salvation by adding extra hoops for the sinner to jump through in order to prove that he is ready to believe.  But this only highlights two extremes regarding Free Grace and Lordship.  Free Grace errs by placing repentance after faith, and Lordship (often) errs by putting Lordship before faith.  As to the latter, it is possible that a sinner may truly be saved even though he is asked to promise more than is necessary (as long as he is not trusting in his ability to keep the promise) but it is not possible to be saved if he has never come to a place of repentance for his sin.

Salvation is certainly by faith alone.  But as is often said, faith is never alone.  Repentance and lordship are both integral elements of the gospel.  Both are vitally linked to faith.  Repentance, however, is attached to faith at the front end and cannot be moved to the back.  Lordship is attached to faith at the back end and cannot be moved to the front.  Picture a bridge that crosses a great chasm.  The bridge is faith.  There is a road leading up to the bridge, without which no one can get to the bridge.  That road is repentance.  No one can place saving faith in a Savior who has not first come to the understanding of his own sin and lostness.  The bridge of faith would be useless without this road leading to it.  The road on the other end of the bridge is lordship.  After one experiences faith, lordship will naturally follow,5 else faith, the bridge, stands alone and takes one nowhere (James 2:20).

All illustrations come short at some point, so we should emphasize again: Repentance is a vital “up front” part of the saving act whereas lordship is a natural consequence of it.  In faith the sinner is asking to be SAVED FROM sin.  Lordship, though not of necessity promised up front (also not something the sinner has necessarily denied) is something he will find himself easily given to once the bridge of faith is crossed.  To the sinner at the time of salvation, (as the road that brings one to the bridge differs from the one which will take him from it) sin is something he is familiar with because of bitter experience but lordship is something he knows nothing of and yet is about to joyfully discover.

The Necessity of Repentance

Douglas Groothuis wrote, “Restraint is the price of civilization, and we are casting off restraint.”6 Not only has America become a country of civilized barbarians, but our churches are becoming houses for paganized Christians, as any of us who lived through the last half of the twentieth century has sadly observed.  Laws and restraints have been rescinded or removed; manners and deportment have been practically erased and forgotten; respect under authority and humility under tutelage are now seen as oppressive and legalistic, even un-American.

Into this environment comes a movement like this that gives theological teeth to a culture of narcissism and self-esteem.  In the best-case scenario our churches have been stripped of godliness and have winked at worldliness among believers.  In the worst-case, our churches are being filled with unbelievers who, having a form of godliness, have denied the power thereof.  Our churches and our religious movements were supposed to see and warn the people as these days came upon them.  But they have rather taken the easier road of appeasement and success.  But one does not have to look far to see that this huge experiment has not worked.  We are losing our young people not saving them from a perverted generation.  We’ll either have to redefine being holy as God is holy or we’ll have to take drastic action in our churches, action that will not be very popular.

The book of Romans

This book ought to be the primary text for the subject of repentance.  After the apostle Paul described his own apostolic ministry in the gospel of Jesus Christ, he began to describe the gospel as the power of God unto salvation and the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith (1:16-17).  But such a gospel cannot be comprehended without first writing of the wrath of God which is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness (1:18).  This subject of the world’s sinfulness will take Paul through chapter three, verse 20 before he can come back to the subject of salvation by faith. We are not ready to be saved until we see that God has proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God (3:9-11).  It is not until we realize that there is no difference: For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (3:22-23) that we can be justified freely by his grace (3:24).  All the world is condemned by one of three laws.

The law of nature

First Paul deals with the heathen who has never heard of God, the Bible, or the gospel.  Yet this man is without excuse because of the law of nature.  For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse (1:20).  David had already declared, The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork.  Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge.  There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard (Psa 19:1-3).

By this law God prepares the unlearned and unknowing man for the gospel by proving to him that he is without excuse before a holy God.  It cannot of itself reveal grace and faith or the gospel message, but it can prepare for faith by proving sinfulness.  Alva J. McClain wrote, “Every man has the same revelation.  It is the evidence of creation.  When a man can look out at the created universe and fail to see the power, the Godhead, and the divinity of God, he is a man who is holding down the truth—not because he cannot see it, but because he is unrighteous.7

In this day of evolutionary belief and atheism the sinner is convinced that he is the highest product of an upward process rather than the fallen creature of a holy Creator.  Repentance would be the last thing he would want to hear.  Our society is opposed in every way to the law of nature found in God’s creation.

The law of conscience

Secondly Paul writes to the moral man who insists he is not as bad as most others in the world.  He is educated, informed, cultured, and erudite.  But Paul says he is inexcusable (2:1) because such people show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience  also bearing witness (2:15).  The moral rights and wrongs in the world open windows for reflecting on where morality and absolute truth come from.  A people without a conscience for these things is a people without God.

This postmodern world is known for its rejection of moral absolutes.  Even among believers we find the “Emerging” church movement which caters to postmodernism and questions even the truth of God’s Word.  They are certainly happy with setting old-fashioned repentance aside and having a faith which costs nothing and admits nothing.  It is a conscience which can be easily seared and not so easily pricked.

The law of Scripture

Specifically Paul addresses the Jewish readers and reminds them that they have the Law of Moses as well as all the Scripture.  Confident that they are a guide to others, they are reminded that they break the same laws themselves (2:21-23).  The “curse of the law” is that unless it is kept entirely one is “guilty of all” (Gal 2:10).  It is this Word of God that pierces even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb 4:12).

Polls continue to show that even Christians are losing their faith in the Word of God.  Inspiration is doubted or redefined, methods of interpretation allow for anyone’s belief to be accepted, and disallowance of application forbids modern sins to be named.  It is no wonder that a gospel without repentance, even though clearly contrary to Scripture, is easily accepted.

The Receiving of Faith

Paul proclaimed that before faith may be desired, every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God (Rom 3:19).  Salvation is more than a head knowledge about the facts of Christ.  “Believing” has an ethical element, a “receiving” element to it.  John records that when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did.  But Jesus did not commit (lit. “believe”) himself unto them, because he knew all men (John 2:23-24).  They believed in their head, but not with their heart.  They gave assent to the facts but did not commit the keeping of their souls to Him.  John concluded his book by using the word “believe” in both ways, But these are written, that ye might believe [the facts] that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing [receiving] ye might have life through his name (John 20:31).  Repentance is that part of faith that creates the thirst and makes clear the need to receive forgiveness.

And So . . . .

Vance Havner may have been right when, in the 1960s, he wrote, “We have made it easy for hundreds superficially to ‘accept Christ’ without ever having faced sin and with no sense of need.  We are healing slightly the hurt of this generation, trying to treat patients who do not even know they are sick.”8 May the Lord grant us patience with such patients, but also the courage to confront with the real solution to their sin, repentance, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Notes:
1. Zane Hodges, Absolutely Free!  (Grand Rapids:  Zondervan, 1989)  146.
2. See Dr. Ernest Pickering’s excellent rebuttal, Are Fundamentalists Legalists?  A review of this is on my website.  www.aletheiabaptistministries.org
3. www.faithalone.org is the official website for the Grace Evangelical Society.
4. See “Debate” on GES website.
5. Norman Geisler in his Systematic Theology points out that Lordship would use the term “inevitably” here, while Free Grace would say no lordship is “necessary.” (vol. 3, p. 521)
6. Douglas Groothuis, The Soul in CyberSpace (Grand Rapids:  Baker Books, 1997) 91.
7. Alva J. McClain, Romans (Chicago:  Moody Press, 1973) 65.
8. Vance Havner, Hearts Afire (Old Tappan:  Revell, nd) 51.
 

 

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Those Vision Statements

Written by Rick Shrader

Those Vision Statements

by Rick Shrader

Using the word “vision” these days is like Mother Hubbard’s dress, it covered everything and touched nothing.  But once a certain tool becomes popular, everyone has to have one.  In fact, these days if you don’t have a vision statement for what you are doing, you are surely a failure, a follower, or at best a poor leader—and we will avoid those labels at all cost.  Once the highly “successful” person attributes his “success” to his obtaining of a “vision” (especially a divine vision), all who desire “success” will quickly follow the pattern, hoping for similar results.

According to Mother Goose, Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to get her poor dog a bone, but when she got there the cupboard was bare and so the poor dog had none.  We, too, read the vision statements that are supposed to have come from God and walk away unconvinced that it is scriptural and from God at all.  They may range from cookie cutter style to wildly imaginative, some claiming absolute divine intervention and others being merely good advice.  If you lack imagination, you may easily borrow from hundreds online.

As with many contemporary subjects, we may read what we want to read into vision statements.  Some writers use the word as a synonym for a good idea or even a burden to get something done.  Others include “divine” or “God-given.”  For example, A.B. Bruce, an older writer, in his commentary on Hebrews uses the word as merely insight, “For this sad state of matters there is but one radical cure: clear vision of the ideal, vivid realization of the grace wherein believers in Jesus stand, insight into the incomparable value of the Christian faith.”1 But Andy Stanley, in his contemporary and wildly popular book, Visioneering, repeatedly uses phrases such as, “a divine vision,” “a divinely-ordained vision,” “God’s intervention,” “a God-given vision,” leaving the reader wondering just what he means by “vision.”2

There is an obvious difference in how contemporary writers describe God’s part in the individual’s vision and how many other writers describe it.  George Barna says, “When God raises up leaders, He has a specific vision for the people those leaders have been called to mobilize. . . This entails developing a vision statement, which is a brief, punchy declaration of the unique purpose for which God has allowed that specific ministry to exist. . . . Vision, in short, becomes the centerpiece of the ministry—and of the leader’s life.”3 On the other hand, John MacArthur writes, “They are undermining the Bible when they do not regard it as the single authority.  Those who believe God speaks regularly with special messages for individual Christians trivialize His Word.”4

I know many will say that writers like Stanley and Barna do not mean that God actually speaks to them, and others will say that writers like MacArthur are only talking about Charismatics.  But this is the problem.  Those of us who read English can read what Stanley writes, and unless he intends for us all to be imprecise postmoderns, we have to take him for what he says.  On page 56 of his book he is describing the virgin Mary’s vision from Gabriel.  On the next page he says, “Think back for a minute.  Can you remember one Old or New Testament story in which the responsibility of figuring out how a divine vision would be fulfilled fell to the men or women to whom God gave the vision?”  He then uses Moses, David and Jesus as examples.  On the same page he writes, “If we were talking about good ideas, that would be different.  Good ideas are limited to our potential, connections, and resources.  If you are simply pursuing a good idea, then you need to devote a great deal of time and energy trying to figure out how to pull it off.  A divine vision, on the other hand, is limited only by God’s potential and resources. . . When God gives you a vision, there’s a sense in which you stand back and watch it happen.”5 Now, how is the reader of English supposed to take Stanley’s use of “vision” when he compares the believer’s “vision” to Mary, Moses, David and Jesus?  And yet in other places he calls loving one’s wife, raising one’s kids, and witnessing to one’s neighbor as “divinely inspired visions.”6 Such comparison of apples and oranges in dealing with a single subject is amazing.

In his fine book Escape from Church, Inc., E. Glenn Wagner takes issue with the current trend toward personal vision by leaders.  The problem, as he sees it, is that there is an unbiblical emphasis in the ministry on leadership rather than on shepherding.  This has caused men who should be humble shepherds to strive to be successful visionaries.  He writes, “A leader’s effectiveness is built on vision, not trust or character.  Shepherding is just the opposite.  Shepherding is built on character, with vision growing out of earned trust.  That means the number one goal for a pastor is not to articulate a great vision but to help his sheep trust him and know him.”7

Terry Conley (MCR, CCIM, and husband of our contributor, Debra Conley) has successfully navigated the business world for many years as a believer.  He replies in an email, “A lot of the current thinking about vision is being driven by a book that was published a few years ago, Good to Great, by Jim Collins.  One of the main themes is that you need to get the right people ‘on the bus’ and in the right seats before your vision for the future can take hold.  In the book he mentions various ways to get people either on the bus or off and if on, into the correct seats to support your vision.  I have even heard his term BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) used in sermons when talking about the future of the church.”

Unfortunately many pastors are using their “vision” as a way to get the church to adopt what they wanted to do in the first place.  After all, if this vision is from God, who are the laymen to oppose it?  If pressed for proof that this vision is from God he can disclaim any real divine activity, but when in need of extra clout he can press the divine element as authoritative.  The vote of the congregation becomes simply an affirmation of the pastor’s closeness to God.

The problem as I see it is an elastic use of the word “vision.”  Especially in Andy Stanley’s Visioneering, the author jumps back and forth between prophets and apostles receiving direct communication from God and average believers seeking God’s will.  No distinction is made between the two.  Though he is careful not to use charismatic-type lingo, there is still a definite proposition that God will give you your own vision.  As I have already shown, no safeguards are placed on just how God does this sort of thing.  Here are a few notes that I have written down.

First, if people really receive information from God which becomes the basis for their life, then God is still in the business of giving revelation and we have nothing to say to the Charismatics or the cults.  Second, the vision can become the basis for the Bible rather than the other way around.  For example, one website has it, “We envision all of our people constantly growing in their knowledge of the Bible.”  Think about that.  The vision tells them to study God’s Word.  Third, if, as Stanley says on one hand, every thing you determine to do in life is God’s vision for you (loving your wife, raising your kids) then everything in life is a vision.  But then, of course, nothing could be a vision.  Fourth, Stanley uses Mother Teresa as a great example of having a vision from God.  Evidently then, theology (specifically salvation) doesn’t matter in God’s selection of vision recipients.  Fifth, it would be better to call most of these things God’s will, or God’s calling, or God’s leading rather than to force these into divine communication language.

This would be a good place to include some Biblical data about the word “vision.”  There are basically four Hebrew words that are translated with our English word “vision” and only one Greek word.  All of these words have meanings such as appearance, sight, dream, revelation, seeing i.e. vision.  These occurrences  ALWAYS speak of miraculous interventions.  The great majority of them are in the prophetic passages of the Bible.  22 are in Daniel alone and 13 in Ezekiel, both highly visionary books.  Its only use in the Gospels is from the transfiguration when the disciples are instructed not to relate what they saw until after the resurrection.  12 of the 17 New Testament usages are in the book of Acts and, again, all relate miraculous communication from God.  In other words, if we would be completely Biblical in our vocabulary, we would only use the word “vision” to speak of times when God communicated His Word directly to revelatory writers and speakers.  Such limited usage would eliminate confusing definitions and manipulation.  However, seeing that this will not be the case, I would only encourage believers to use the word “vision” in the plain sense of burden or desire.

A final illustration will serve as a reminder of these thoughts.  In the late 1700s William Carey and his fellow Baptist Pastor Andrew Fuller were burdened by God to do more for world-wide missions.  Through their efforts modern missions was born.  Carey became the missionary and Fuller was the president of the mission board, apologist, and theologian.  In fact, Spurgeon called Fuller the greatest theologian of his day.

If ever men could have used the word “vision” to express what God had laid on their hearts, it would have been Carey and Fuller.  Rather, in Fuller’s voluminous writings he argues for just the opposite.  Among his many writings are personal letters, diaries and theological correspondences with various people of his time.  In one correspondence addressed to a prominent member of his own church he wrote

After a while, I began to suspect, whether this way of taking comfort, or of casting it away, or of judging of future events, and regulating my conduct accordingly, were either of them just or solid.  And in a little time I perceived that I had no reason given me in Scripture to expect the knowledge of my own state, or of the state of others, or of any future events, by such means.  I knew that the prophets and apostles had extraordinary revelations made to them, being divinely inspired to write the Holy Scriptures; but, vision and prophecy being now sealed up (Daniel 9:24) and woe being denounced upon the man that should add or diminish (Revelation 22:10), I concluded that we ought not to look for any new revelation of the mind of God, but to rest satisfied with what has been revealed already in his Word.

Indeed, I did not formerly suspect that I had been carried away by a supposed new revelation; but, seeing my impressions came in the words of Scripture, thought it was only the old revelation applied afresh by the Spirit of God.  But, upon examination, I found myself mistaken; for, though the words of Scripture were the means of the impression, yet the meaning of those words, as they stood in the Bible, was lost in the application.8

In the end, Mother Hubbard became subject to the dog she was trying to help.  The last line of the long poem reads:

The dame made a curtsy,

The dog made a bow;

The dame said, “Your servant,”

The dog said, “Bow-wow.”

Notes:
1. A.B. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Minneapolis, Klock & Klock, 1980) 405.
2. Andy Stanley, Visioneering (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 1999) 12,63,71,75 respectively.
3. George Barna, The Second Coming of the Church (Nashville:  Word Publishing, 1998) 164.
4. John MacArthur, The Master’s Plan for the Church (Chicago:  Moody, 1991) 26.
5. Stanley, 56-57.  6. Stanley, 26.
7. E. Glenn Wagner, Escape From Church, Inc.  (Grand Rapids:  Zondervan, 1999) 148.
8. Michael A.G. Haykin, ed. The Armies of the Lamb (Dundas, Ontario:  Joshua Press, 2001) 117-118.

 

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The Perfect Tense Will of God

Written by Rick Shrader

The Perfect Tense Will of God

by Rick Shrader

Someone has said, “The will of God is just what I would choose if I had all the facts as God has them.”1 But, since we don’t have such facts, we often don’t choose what God would choose even though we may pray and ask God’s guidance.  Why?  The answer sometimes rests in understanding the three types of God’s will.  All agree that God has a sovereign will.  Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world (Ac 15:18).  In the end, everything will have turned out according to His plan and we will praise Him forever for it!  When things don’t happen the way we would like, we know that God has a purpose for allowing it to go another way.

Most agree that God has a moral will.  That’s why there are moral absolutes in this world.  Whatever God has revealed to mankind becomes His moral will to us.  Therefore we are unashamed workmen when we rightly divide the Word of truth, truth that was once for all delivered to the saints!  If we transgress or ignore God’s revealed moral will, we will find life difficult.  Good understanding giveth favor: but the way of the transgressors is hard (Prov 13:15).

The third kind of divine will is the individual will.  Believers often disagree as to its validity from Scripture.  Garry Friesen has become known for his denial of an individual will for each person.2 But I would say that such a denial is unnecessary as long as we don’t constantly search for miraculous interventions from God and we don’t think all apostolic or prophetic examples can be directly applied to our lives.  We will become frustrated trying to receive visions and revelations from the Lord as the apostles received (thinking God is too immanent in this age).  But to think that God is not concerned with what we do or doesn’t desire the best way for us to go, is to leave Him too far outside of our lives (thinking God is too transcendent in this age).  Paul was content to tell the Ephesians, I will return again unto you, if God will.  And he sailed from Ephesus (Acts 18:21).

There are other obvious truths from Scripture regarding God’s will.  First, God’s Word is always God’s will.  Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word (Psa 119:9).  James M. Boice wrote, “Nothing can be the will of God that is contrary to the Word of God.  The God who is leading you now is the God who inspired the Bible then, and he is not contradictory in his commandments.”3 Secondly, the Holy Spirit never contradicts His Word.  Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.  And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the spirit (Eph 5:17-18).  The more we are filled with the Spirit, the greater capacity we will have for understanding God’s will.  It is futile to claim the leading of the Spirit if it contradicts Scripture.

Thirdly, God is in control of the circumstances.  The believer should look for God to direct his life by natural means, not supernatural intervention.  God designed these by His will also.  Job said, For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him (Job 23:14).  Fourthly, the end never justifies the means.  This would be the same as suggesting that God allows contradiction to His own Word.  Moses surely got water from the rock by striking it rather than speaking to it as God had commanded, but he suffered dearly for his pragmatism.  Uzza kept the ark from falling by putting his hand to it, but he paid with his very life.  Vance Havner wrote, “The course of things does not work against the believer.  It may seem to.  It may work against his earthly fortune.  It may even appear to defeat him.  But in the eyes of God and in the light of eternity all things work together for good.”4 Fifthly, godliness is always God’s will.  Paul gave this simple instruction to the Thessalonian church, For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication (1 Thes 4:3).  It would be impossible for “ungodliness” to be “godly” and it would be impossible for true “godliness” not to be God’s will.

God’s will in the “perfect tense.”

One of the most descriptive passages on God’s will is Acts 16:6-10.  There, Paul and Silas set out on the second missionary journey but (I believe desiring to go directly to Ephesus) were told twice by the Holy Spirit (an obvious apostolic prerogative) that they could not go south toward Ephesus nor north toward Bithynia and ended up in Troas at the end of the Asia Minor road (which probably seemed like the end of the world).  At this point Paul may have thought his fight with Barnabas over John Mark had grieved the Holy Spirit, or perhaps that Silas was the wrong choice to replace him, or a number of other things.  But Paul kept moving until he could go no further.  That night he received a vision (again, an apostolic prerogative), the “Macedonian call” for the gospel to go into Europe for the first time.  Luke (later) records, And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them (Acts 16:10).

When Luke wrote “that the Lord had called us” he used the perfect tense, that is, “that the Lord had been calling us.”  If he was only referring to the vision, he could have used the aorist tense as referring to the one action.  By using the perfect tense, he was looking back to a time long ago when God began leading them, and includes all the steps along the way as God continued to lead them up to that point.  Paul especially realized that God had been directing them to Macedonia, not Ephesus or Bithynia, and He had done that in many ways.

This same word in the perfect tense is also used in Acts 13:2 when the Holy Spirit commanded the church at Antioch to release Paul and Barnabas “for the work whereunto I have called them.”  Again, “the work whereunto I have been calling them” over a long period of time and many circumstances.  I believe this is a New Testament pattern that is often how God leads us today.  When the Jerusalem church decided on a method to encourage Gentile believers, they concluded by saying, It seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord (Acts 15:25) and again later, For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us (28).  If hind-sight is better than fore-sight, this “perfect tense” sight is the best.  Luke described it as “assuredly gathering” that they now knew God’s will.

There were a number of things that God had done in Paul’s life that would lead him to know he was in God’s will.

1.  His training and preparation.  Early in his life God was forming the mind and mouth of the great apostle with the specific academic tools he would need.  When Barnabas traveled to Tarsus to seek Saul (as his name then was), it was because he was now ready to beginning his speaking ministry.

2. Difficult situations.  The first missionary journey had been extremely difficult, ending with Paul being stoned.  But rather than discouraging Paul, it was preparing him for a Philippian jail and many more trials.  John Broadus said, “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.”5 It will be if we will let Him form His will in us over periods of time, making us perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight (Heb 13:21).

3. Taking one step at a time.  Paul knew when to suggest, Let us go and visit again our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord (Acts 15:36).  We should ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established (Prov 4:26).  Spurgeon wrote, “We are urged to further action; but it would be far easier to take a foolish step than to retrace it.  We will move when we are moved, and not before.”6

4. Closed doors and open doors.  It was certainly obvious to Paul that the Holy Spirit had closed two doors on his way to Troas.  Now it was even more obvious that a door was opened to go to Macedonia.  Paul spoke of effectual doors (1 Cor 16:9); open doors (2 Cor 2:12); doors of utterance (Col 4:3); and the Lord rewarded the Philadelphian church with open doors that only He could close (Rev 3:7).

5. Personal burden and conviction.  We cannot discount Paul’s great burden to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Even the forbidding of the Holy Spirit was “to preach the word in Asia” (Acts 16:6).  Missionaries have specific burdens for their fields of endeavor which God has fostered and grown in them.  John Cotton once said, “There is poor comfort in sitting down in any place, that you cannot say, ‘This place is appointed me of God.’”7

6. Dead ends and disappointments.  Troas was the end of the road on the Asian continent.  Paul had run out of options for taking even the less traveled road.  Sometimes this is where the Lord brings us before He calls us.  David Jeremiah, in his battle with cancer wrote, “When we navigate troubled waters, God is the Master of not only the waves, but also the ship.  He never abandons His plans or His people.  He will see the voyage through to its final destination.”8 The end of the road to us always turns into a “commencement” to God.

7. Revelation.  Here, as I have noted, is an apostolic prerogative.  Paul’s vision was a real and tangible communication from God.  These revelatory gifts ceased with the apostles, but God’s Revelation which was put in permanent, written form continues with us today.  Our appeal to revelation is an appeal to chapter and verse!  We say with Isaiah, To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them (Isa 8:20).  When our circumstances are reinforced by Scriptural truth, we have great confidence in God’s will.

8. Logical conclusions.  Paul and his companions “assuredly gathered” that they had found God’s will.  There will always be the human factor in drawing the conclusion about God’s individual will for us.  We can’t see all the possibilities the future may bring but we pray and the Holy Spirit interprets our prayers so that God works in our lives “for the good” (Rom 8:26-28).  William Orr said, “If there is failure to ascertain God’s will, or a failure to follow that will, the failure will always be a human failure.”9 We won’t find the perfect will of God every time, but we must draw conclusions from the circumstances God has designed.  We can be sure He desires that we be successful.

And So . . . .

A.T. Robertson once wrote, “The highest test of any life is doing the will of God.  To do that one must be yielded to that will, and follow God’s guidance, as seen in the Scriptures and in the leading of the Holy Spirit.  Then, if one follows the way that God shows him, he will have the richest and most fruitful life and one full of pure joy.”10

Notes:
1. Quoted by W. Wilbert Welch in The Baptist Bulletin, February 1999.
2. Garry Friesen, Decision Making & the Will of God, (Portland, Multnomah, 1980) see p. 82-83.
3. James M. Boice, Philippians (Grand Rapids:  Baker Books, 2000) 205.
4. Vance Havner, By The Still Waters (Old Tappan:  Fleming Revell, 1934) 31.
5. In A.T. Robertson’s, Life and Letters of John A. Broadus (Philadelphia:  American Baptist Publication Society, 1910) 211.
6. C.H. Spurgeon, The Down Grade Controversy (Pasadena:  Pilgrim Pub., nd) 39.
7. John Cotton, “On God’s Promise,” Orations, vol 4 (New York:  Collier, 1902) 1427.
8. David Jeremiah, A Bend in the Road , p. 120.
9. In G. Christian Weiss, The Perfect Will of God (Chicago:  Moody Press, 1950) 29.
10. A.T. Robertson, Jesus as a Soul Winner (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, nd) 72.

 

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Why Do Christians Vote?

Written by Rick Shrader

Why Do Christians Vote?

by Rick Shrader

The Bible says that believers are pilgrims and strangers on the earth and that we have no certain dwelling place here.  As normal human beings we are citizens of many countries, speakers of many languages, and partakers of many cultures.  Yet as Christians we are only visitors here, ambassadors for a more noble country, pilgrims on our way home, foreigners and outcasts to the ways of this world, and seekers of a more permanent city which has everlasting foundations, whose builder and maker is God.  As believers in God as Creator and Sovereign we understand that He made people and commanded them to govern their affairs.  Therefore Christians have been the most conscientious earthly citizens and the best caretakers of this earth and its societies.  Yet as believers in an eternal heavenly home we also have the shallowest roots, the least to covet, the most to give, and yet the most to gain when we leave this earthly abode.

How deep does such a person grow roots in this life and with what grip does he take hold of earthly endeavors?  Believers throughout history have taken various views as to their citizenship responsibilities.  Some have found themselves in God-fearing countries where it has been easy to support, work for, and even die for civil liberties.  Others have suffered for their faith at the hands of their own government and have sought to escape the tyranny of despots who violated divine principles of governance and persecuted believers with the sword.

Before giving some Biblical principles of earthly citizenship that believers have most generally followed, I should first make my ecclesiastical point of view clear.  I am writing as a premillennial and dispensational Baptist. Though we who hold these views may differ in many details,  there are general Biblical teachings with which we would agree.

1) The Church is not Israel.  Israel was (at least in an Old Testament framework) a theocracy.  It was ruled directly by God through the mediation of prophets, priests, and kings.  It was a union of religion and state and there was no other religion than Judaism and no protection offered by the state for any other belief system.  The Mosaic Law was a unity of religious, civil, and ceremonial responsibility.  The church of the New Testament, on the other hand, has no such organization nor desire.  God’s plan for His Church is separate from Israel except where it overlaps at the cross.  The cross is the end of the Mosaic dispensation and the beginning of the Church.

2) The Church is not tied to human government.  Baptists and other such premillennialists have always desired a separation of church and state.  Though such terminology is practically lost on today’s atheistic secularists, it is our basic point of view.  Human government was begun by God’s command under that dispensation when Noah came off the ark.  It has continued as a divine principle ever since.  The Church began at Pentecost, over two millenniums later, operating simultaneously with governments but having its own divine principles of operation which are unique to its purpose.  In the 1960s Noel Smith wrote,

And now let us do some reasoning about the separation of Church and state.  The fundamental thing is, their respective natures, philosophies, and missions inherently demand their constitutional separation.  The union of Church and state runs counter to their natures.  Separately, each complements and helps the other; together, each is dead weight on the other.1

3)  The Church is not a denomination.  Though I for one am very much in favor of keeping “denominational” names on our churches, Baptists have always understood that the Church exists on earth only as autonomous local congregations.  Since Constantine the error of churches being part of the national government or part of a larger ecclesiastical structure has plagued this world.  Infant baptism has been the entrance into denominational  structures and has attached the Church to the state in unbiblical ways.  New Testament churches gain members by conversion to Christ and subsequent adult baptism.  Neither has anything to do with governmental authority or ecclesiastical oversight.

4) The wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest.  When Jesus gave this parable (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43), He was speaking prophetically of His second coming and the establishing of His kingdom on earth.  Until then He made it clear that the lost and saved would dwell together in this world under human government and the believers should not try to separate lost and saved by human governmental means.  The Church, on the other hand, is commanded to make this separation, but only within its own local body membership and even then by simple exclusion, not by violence or even incivility.

Therefore, as members both of the Body of Christ whose citizenship is in heaven, and also of the country where we now live whose citizenship is on earth (and which we believe is also God-ordained), how does a Christian balance these responsibilities?  With what thinking does he come to the civil voting-booth and participate?  Here are four “freedoms” that Christians seek to promote when the country they live in gives them the freedom to participate by voting.

Freedom from the State

As I’ve already said, Christians have held to a separation of church and state whenever it has been possible in the country where they live.  This has been the great American experiment which has been a blessing to the churches and the world.  The church and state both have divine commissions from God to operate in this world, but both do that best when they do not control one another.

Leonard Verduin, in his monumental book, The Reformers And Their Stepchildren, describes the great mistake the Reformers made in trying to make their Church the State Church and at the same time describes the struggle and persecution Baptists and other independents (their “stepchildren”) had to suffer due to the lack of church-state separation.  Yet he says of government’s God-given responsibility,

The State is intended, by God himself, to regulate as best it can, with the insights available to it and with the resources at its command, the things of this age.  It is implied in the New Testament vision that the State, being itself a creature of God’s common grace, works with the resources which that non-redemptive grace makes available.2

Christians are glad to give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and still give unto God the things that are God’s (Matt 22:21).  These don’t have to be in conflict, but where they have been Christians usually end up suffering rather than benefiting.  When governments propose to encroach upon believers’ responsibility to follow Biblical teaching and commands, believers will vote in opposition.

Freedom of Conscience

This is the greatest freedom a government can give to its citizens.  The Christian conscience will never seek to violate God’s laws or seek freedom to do wrong.  Rather, the Christian enjoys order and protection to worship according to the dictates of his convictions.  When the apostle Paul had to answer for himself before the governmental authorities in Caesarea he said, And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offense toward God, and toward men (Acts 24:16).  At the same time Paul realized that if a Christian becomes a law-breaker he should suffer the consequences as any other citizen, For if I be an offender, or have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die (Acts 25:11).

Christians clearly understand that every individual must answer to his Creator and, therefore, God’s moral law in the world is incumbent upon all people.  Government does best when it helps protect the citizen’s ability to follow it.  The American evangelist Charles Finney, himself a lawyer by training, wrote,

It follows, that no government is lawful or innocent that does not recognize the moral law as the only universal law, and God as the Supreme Lawgiver and Judge, to whom nations in their national capacity, as well as all individuals, are amenable.  The moral law of God is the only law of individuals and of nations and nothing can be rightful government but such as is established and administered with a view to its support.3

Freedom to Support Government

Christians rejoice when they live in a country that gives them freedom of conscience and at the same time does not interfere in the church’s business.  Christians in western nations, including the United States which has a Bible-based heritage, have enjoyed this freedom.  Ravi Zacharias has written,  “The certainty is this:  America was not founded on an Islamic, Hindu, or Buddhist worldview, however valuable some of their precepts might be.  If we do not see this, we do not see the fundamental ideas that shaped the ethos of the American people.”4

Because of this, Christians in America feel free to enlist in the military and fight for a righteous cause for he beareth not the sword in vain (Rom 13:4); to pay taxes for the benefit of all, tribute to whom tribute; custom to whom custom (Rom 13:7);  to pray joyfully for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty (1 Tim 2:2).

Freedom to Evangelize

Christians also bear the burden of world-wide evangelism which is given to them directly by their Lord (Matt 28:19-20, Acts 1:8).  This they must do regardless of the country in which they find themselves, and this they have done regardless of persecution or freedom.  Evangelism, we believe, must be accomplished by the Spirit of God using the Word of God through a spokesman for God.  We want coercion of no other kind whether that be governmental, physical or emotional.  Christianity is the only religion that asks for faith alone for adherence.

Many today fear that evangelistic Christians want to force their faith on others.  Such a statement only reveals the depth of misunderstanding there is in our day about the Christian faith itself.  The fact is, it is impossible for anyone to be forced to be a Christian!  Christian conversion can only be by willing faith.  Perhaps other religions can gain converts by force, but Christianity would cease to be Christianity if such were applied to it.  King Agrippa confessed that Paul almost persuaded him to be a Christian (Acts 26:28).  But Paul never forced anyone and neither could he.  He only answered, I would to God that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds (29).  When believers can vote for this freedom, they will every time.

And So . . . .

To these ends Christians in any country feel the need to vote and rejoice when such can be done freely.

Notes:
1. Noel Smith, “The Separation of Church and State,”  The Biblical Faith of Baptists, vol. IV , p. 102.
2. Leonard Verduin, The Reformers and Their Stepchildren (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1964) 24.
3. Charles Finney, Systematic Theology (Minneapolis:  Bethany House, 1994) 236.
4. Ravi Zacharias, Light in the Shadow of Jihad (Sister, OR:  Multomah, 2002) 28.

 

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The Assembling Of Ourselves Together

Written by Rick Shrader

The Assembling Of Ourselves Together

by Rick Shrader

And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one

another: and so much more, as ye see the day approaching.   (Heb 10:23-24)

 

As a pastor and father and a life-long church attendee, I have always taken these verses from Hebrews seriously.  I’m not one who makes Sunday a Christian Sabbath but I do believe that Scripture gives the pattern of New Testament worship, including attending church on Sunday, “the Lord’s day,” the “first day of the week.”  I believe we should go to church at those times that our church has decided to meet together.  For most of us that has been twice on Sunday and again on Wednesday night for mid-week prayer and study.  Even around the world that pattern seems to work well.  To meet on Sunday I think is imperative from biblical example whereas the times and other days  are more negotiable.  What cannot be excused is a neglect of the church services because we have fallen into a pattern of life like the world around us whether that is work, play, laziness, disorderliness, or simply lack of interest in the things of God.

Let me give a few comments on the verses themselves.  As the writer of Hebrews begins the concluding half of the book, he gives three applications from the fact that we have a High Priest (Jesus Christ) over the House of God.  These three subjunctive participles are translated in the older version with “let us” (what I like to call the “lettuce” patch):  “let us draw near” (vs 22), “let us hold fast” (vs 23), and “let us consider one another” (vs 24).  A.T. Robertson says these are volitive which gives them an imperative sense (Grammar, 930).  In fulfilling our obligation to “consider one another” in our own local assembly is the admonition (a present active participle with the negative) not to forsake assembling together with the church.  This was the “manner” (ethos, custom) of many in those days for various reasons not the least of which were embarrassment and harassment and ultimately unbelief.

“To forsake” is a unique but serious word.  Jesus used it on the cross when He cried, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Mt 27:46).  Peter quoted David from Psalm 16, Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell (Ac 2:27).  Paul used it of Demas, For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world (2 Tim 4:10).  With similar seriousness the writer of Hebrews was warning against forsaking the assembly times of the Christian congregation.

Interestingly, the word translated “assembling” is not our familiar ekklesia but the less frequent epi-sunagoge (appearing only twice in this compound form).  It is used also in 2 Thes. 2:1 of our gathering together unto him.  Where ekklesia might denote more of a business-related gathering, the root sunagoge denotes merely the fact of gathering together.  In other words, it is the fact of assembling that we are not to forsake, not simply making a choice to miss certain types of meetings.  He didn’t warn them to quit picking and choosing which services to attend, he admonished them not to miss the church services at all!

The local church assembly is important for a number of reasons, of which a few are mentioned in these verses.  We need to “consider” one another.  If we would do this more often we would like each other more.  This considering or thinking of one another will help us “provoke” each other to love and good works.  It will also help us to “exhort” or come along side one another in times of need.  All of this ought to be done with even more regularity as we see the day of Christ’s coming drawing near.  But none of this can be done unless we assemble together.  This isn’t an online chat room where we manipulate an image of ourselves but never face the realities about ourselves.  No, this is ultimate reality about ourselves and our Christian condition.  This makes us face our own spiritual growth every time we come together and rejoice that we have such a place that “provokes” us in this way.

In case you haven’t noticed, these kinds of churches are becoming rare even in our own persecution-free country.  Whereas there was a push away from them in biblical times due to persecution and hardship, now there seems to be a pulling away from them due to self-centeredness, gratification, and entertainment. R. Kent Hughes wrote, “It is my considered belief that those who do not have the local church at the very center of their lives are likely not to make it as Christians through the opening decades of the third millennium.”1 Here are a few reasons why I think these admonitions are needed now more than ever.

We really don’t love the brethren.

John’s first epistle admonishes us to love “the brethren” (1 Jn 3:14).  Peter says we are to “love as brethren” (1 Pet 3:8).  These are not isolated statements that describe a misfit whom the church won’t love.  These are common biblical admonitions for worldly professing believers to stop forsaking the rest of the assembly.  Those who “went out from us” (1 Jn 2:19), as John describes them, are those who loved the world more than the church.

We have a generation today which simply does not love God’s church or, more specifically, those who make up the church.  They are too pious; they are too boring; they are too heavenly-minded to be any earthly good; they just aren’t cool enough for this generation to love.

We are guilty of respect of persons.

James gave the perfect example of those who want beautiful people around them but shun those who aren’t acceptable (James 2:1-13).  To be partial toward those who are advantageous to us is to be guilty of this warning.  Jude describes them as murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage (Jude 16).  Peter  said of them, And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you (2 Pet 2:3).

The contemporary churches have targeted audiences that are acceptable and advantageous to them.  Perhaps a generation ago (or two) people in suits and ties or dresses looked down at those who had less, but this has now been entirely turned around.  Now the young, rich and beautiful, with their designer jeans, tattooed, and pierced bodies, have taken over the churches and pushed thousands of their elders and less appealing believers off the platforms and out of the pews.

We have lost our conviction about Scriptural commands.

Not only have we forgotten how to provoke and exhort one another to love and good works, we have specifically decided to keep on loving the world, to keep on forsaking the church for the concert hall, theater or other diversions.  We have decidedly ignored biblical commands to public decency, modesty, manners and meekness in favor of belly buttons and cleavage, profanity and sourness, noisiness and brashness.  Just try to confront such worldly behavior in the church and see where it gets you!  You will be met with instant scorn not only from that person but also from a “protective” parent or even staff person!

We have forgotten how NOT to be entertained.

We are in what Neil Postman called “the Sesame Street Generation.”  “Entertain me and I’ll learn.”  Today’s kids are raised with wall-papered noise and images.  It is never quiet around them and they seldom read and couldn’t stop long enough to pray.  Even expressions and imaginations are done for them by TV, radio, i-Pods, or monitors.  They may not be couch potatoes but they certainly are ear phone junkies!

The question over this generation has been one of expediency and pragmatism:  how far can we change the biblical pattern of the church in order to meet their demands?  Evidently, many can change it quite a bit!  The problem is that God didn’t!  How do I know?  Because the same Book said the same thing before this generation and It will say the same thing after this generation.  The truth is, no amount of “success” in any form gives us the right to change the Word of God.

We have decided to love the world.

John plainly says that a person cannot love the world and love God (1 Jn 2:15).  James calls one an adulterer and an adulteress who thinks being a friend of the world is not being an enemy of God (Jas 4:4).  This is truly the apostasy of our day.  A postmodern generation really believes that if they say something often enough that it will be true, at least for them!  If they say that they love God even though they love the world, their “sincere” and “heart-felt” belief will therefore be true.  Even the Bible can’t negate what they really “believe.”

The fact that this is truly what we see around us makes this so strikingly sad.  Take one short trip on your computer to MySpace.com.  Start with the site of a Christian young person and see what is only a click or two away.  Read the language that is used among so-called Christian young people.  Listen to the sounds that are played and look (only if you can) at the graphics that are displayed.  Then ask yourself, can I love this and love God also?  But you may have to do the same thing with your local Christian bookstore or your own local church!  But don’t try to persuade anyone to actually walk away from it.  You will be the bad guy for even suggesting such a thing!  But, of course, we must try, for they are “forsaking” the assembly of the saints by either leaving it, changing it into what they want it to be, or by lying to themselves about the possibility of loving God and the world.

We have lost our urgency about the gospel.

The writer of Hebrews saw clearly the decline of the last days.  Not only must Christians always be assembling together, but it will be even more urgent and necessary as we see the day approaching.  Read again Paul’s description of the perilous times that shall come (2 Tim 2:1-7).  Almost every description in the paragraph is true of today:  lovers of their own selves; boasters; disobedient to parents; heady; high-minded.  But perhaps most dangerous of all:  Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.  If one cannot live it, he has denied the power of it.  Paul’s remedy was simple:  From such turn away.  Within the previous 14 verses, Paul uses these words:  shun; depart; purge; flee; avoid.  The reason those Words of God will not be heeded is because a generation that has forsaken the pure, biblical pattern of the New Testament local church has no urgency left.  Jesus said of the end times, Many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.  And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold (Matt 24:11-12).  At the Bema Seat of Christ we will not be asked, “How many?” — only “How?”  Then we will see that God’s way has always been the best way.

Notes:
R.Kent Hughes, Set Apart: Calling a Worldly Church to a Godly Life (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2003) 137.

 

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Let Us Draw Near: Our Act Of Worship

Written by Rick Shrader

Let Us Draw Near: Our Act Of Worship

by Rick Shrader

And having an high priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water (Heb 10:21-22).

It took Sir Robert Anderson,  Scotland Yard chief detective, to shed the following light on these verses, “It is noteworthy that the only book of the New Testament which tells of the High-priesthood of Christ never once refers explicitly to the priesthood of His people; for it is as worshippers that we are bidden to draw near.”1 That plain sense from Hebrews ought to speak to the common error of today’s so-called worship wars.  It is often proposed that in our worship, we are the officiators and God is the audience.  I would think such a statement would sound odd to any fair-minded worshiper who has read the book of Hebrews.  As Anderson noted, it is not as believer-priests that we draw nigh to God in the light of the heavenly tabernacle, but as thankful observers of the officiating ministry of the only true and faithful High Priest, Jesus Christ.  It is only He who is worthy to offer that which is acceptable to God.

William Newell, in similar fashion, wrote,

Now, why a Priest?  Let me ask in answer, Would you like to go into the presence of God as an independent one—redeemed indeed by the blood of Christ, but set free to go on your own way forever?  You know you would not if you are one of God’s own.  Your union with Christ forbids such a thought.  And His priestly work draws the heart.  Weaklings are we, passing through a world over which Satan is still the prince, and living in a age of which he is the god—in a world that has not changed since it joined in the cry against Christ:  “Crucify Him!”  Do we not need help?  Ah, we need nothing else! . . . Yes, we need a Priest, and we have a Priest, thank God, a Great Priest over the house of God (vs. 21).  Let us mark, however, that we do not serve Him as Priest: He serves us.2

The more we begin to intrude upon the session of Christ in the heavenlies (where the rest of us are “seated” as observers, not standing as officiators, Eph. 2:6), the more we either turn the biblical clock back to Mosaic worship or the historical clock back to Roman worship.  In the book I reviewed this month, David Bebbington shows how the Romantic era enhanced the coming of Liberalism in the late nineteenth century by causing evangelical churches to reinstitute liturgical practices into their services.  The Eucharist was so beautiful and “became more frequent, more dignified and more dramatic . . . The priest, consciously acting as an intermediary between the people and the Almighty . . . Placed lit candles on the Communion table . . . He might wear medieval vestments . . . Initially all of this alteration of practice was anathema to Evangelicals.  It was condemned, as by Edward Garbett at the Islington Clerical conference in 1868, as ‘a growing tendency to assimilate our worship to that of Rome.’”3

I have read worse things than these by today’s emergent church leaders as well as others who seem to need high-church, liturgical devices in order to have a “meaningful” worship service.  No wonder we hear of so many people returning to Orthodox or even Catholic services because of their “rich meaning and symbolism.”  It has been my contention for a long time that today’s contemporary services are doing the same with sights and sounds, trying to enhance the worship service by modern audio/visual icons, liturgies,  and priestly “worship leaders.”

The book of Hebrews constantly contrasts the earthly tabernacle/temple with the heavenly tabernacle.  The writer in no way encourages believers to return to the sights and sounds of the temple but rather to leave those shadows and patterns for the reality of the heavenly worship.  It was difficult for some to leave the liturgy and rich symbolism and come to the simple congregational worship of the believers.  But the writer cuts no deals between sight and faith, Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.  But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul (Heb. 10:38-39).

It is difficult for us as well to read of the detailed tabernacle worship and not want to recreate the patterns of things in the heavens rather than have the heavenly things themselves and better sacrifices than these (9:23).  But the point of the whole book is for the New Testament believer to walk through these truths by faith, continually understanding that our salvation depends on the service that Christ has and is performing for us.  That is why I have said that today we do not come together to worship, we are worshipers who come together.  Our worship doesn’t start and stop on Sunday but is continual just as His intercession.  Our congregational gatherings are in simple spirit and truth.  Whether prayers, songs, readings, ordinances or preaching, these are only acknowledgements of a greater and more lasting service which is going on in heaven.  By God’s good grace we will one day be dismissed from this rehearsal down here and be allowed to enter the reality up there, taking our seat among the elders and praising Him Who is worthy, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation (Rev. 5:9).

Using the same types that the writer of Hebrews uses I invite you to take a walk with me through the old tabernacle, realizing that by faith we are following Christ in the reality.

The altar of sacrifice.  This is the brazen altar where tabernacle worship began, outside the door of the tent (Ex. 27:1).  Our altar of judgment for sin (“brazen”) is the cross of Calvary where our sacrifice, neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood (9:12) He was once offered to bear the sins of many (9:28).  We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle (13:10).  Modern legalists have no right to bring their contemporary liturgies to this altar!  Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach (13:13).

The laver.  The priests had to pass by the laver and wash their hands and feet before entering the holy place (Ex. 30:18-21).  If they did not wash they would die (Ex. 40:30-32).  We follow Christ, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water (10:22).  Unger called this, “a type of Christ cleansing the believer-priest from the defilement of sin (John 13:2-10; Eph. 5:25-27).”4 We know this as our confession, not the washing of the whole body (Jn 13:10) but of the feet that get dirty on the road.

The candlestick.  The lampstand stood inside the tabernacle (Ex. 25:31), or as our writer says, the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the showbread; which is called the sanctuary (9:2).  There was no natural light inside the holy place and this seven-fold lampstand shed the only light for the priest’s work.  Our light is shed by the Holy Spirit, the Oil of God’s presence within us.  He illuminates the Word of God as Christ’s Substitute and Comforter.

The table of showbread.  On the opposite side of the holy place was the table of showbread; grain which had been crushed and baked in fire to give life to the eater.  Christ is the Bread of heaven, whether by the living Word or the written Word.  The Word is our sustenance and food.  It is the Word of God that is still living and powerful and more piercing than a two-edged sword.  It searches us to the depth of our very lives (4:12-13).

The altar of incense.  This altar was also in the holy place and marked the place of intercession as the incense rose up to God (Ex. 30:1).  Nadab and Abihu offered “strange fire” on this altar that God had forbidden and were killed for it (Lev. 10:1-11).  Nothing can intercede for the believer but his great High Priest because He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them (7:25).  The book of Revelation pictures this heavenly altar continually burning before God the Father with the prayers of the persecuted saints on earth coming up before Him (Rev. 8:3, 41).  Isaiah saw this heavenly altar and its smoke filled God’s temple (Isa. 6:6).

After following Christ from the altar of sacrifice, our own moment of salvation, through our washing of sanctification, the reading of the Word of God and the illumination of the Holy Spirit, now we come confidently to God with a prayer life that avails much in our behalf.  For the Tribulation saints, the prayers from this altar shake heaven and earth!

The veil of the temple.  The veil separated human priests from the very presence of God as He abode above the cherubim in the holy of holies (Ex. 26:31).  No man could pass this veil and live but the high priest and that once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people (9:7).  But now we enter with boldness . . . Into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh (10:19-20).  It was through His humanity that Christ had to pass for us, dying the awful payment for our sins on His cross.  It is a new way.  The word means “freshly slain” and Newell says, “He is evermore freshly-slain.  Not, mark it, slain anew, but there before God Who inhabiteth eternity, as His Lamb, provided in His infinite love, [as] just now slain!”5 And can it be that I should gain such an interest in the Savior’s blood?

The holy of holies.  This most holy place was beyond the first holy place (Ex. 25:17).  It contained the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat (Ex. 25:17-22) of which God said, And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat (22).  Our writer said, and over it the cherubim of glory shadowing the mercy seat (Heb 9:5).  Of course, “mercy seat” is translated from the same root as our word “propitiation.”  John wrote, And he is the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 2:2).  The wrath of God is removed and God is propitiated when we have applied Christ’s sacrifice for our sins.  Rather than condemnation for our sin we find communion with God.  When our writer urges us, Let us draw near (10:22), he is inviting us to follow Jesus from the altar of sacrifice all the way through into the holy of holies and commune with God the Father who said, And I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord Almighty (2 Cor. 6:18).

And So . . . .

Our worship is not of sights and sounds or emotional highs or lows.  The writer of Hebrews would go on to say that we are not come unto mount Sinai with its fire and blackness, the sound of a trumpet and voices (12:18); but we are come to mount Zion which is the heavenly Jerusalem and unto the company of heavenly angels and saints and, yes, our Lord Jesus Christ (12:22).  Our worship is in spirit and in truth.  We understand these great truths of Scripture and we live in the light of them every moment of every day.  After all, Christ is conducting that heavenly worship service for us every moment of every day!

Some years ago I cut out this story from The Sword of the Lord:

A Methodist preacher in Colorado had a son named Paul.  Paul was told that if ever he got a chance to hear D.L. Moody preach, he must do it.  One day Paul heard that Moody was to preach in Denver where Paul lived.  He did his best to get a ticket, but when he reached the building it was filled, and the ushers would not admit him. While he was standing outside in great disappointment, a chunky man came along and asked him if he wanted to get in. “Yes,” said Paul, “but I can’t.”  “Take hold of my coattail,” said the man, “and hang on.”  So he got in and was led clear to the front.  He had been hanging to the coat of Moody himself!  The young man was Paul Rader.

When we attach ourselves to Christ’s coattails in the heavenly tabernacle, He’ll lead us all the way to the front where we’ll commune with Him.

Notes:
1. Sir Robert Anderson, Types in Hebrews (Grand Rapids:  Kregel, 1978) 74.
 
2. William Newell, Hebrews (Chicago:  Moody Press, 1947) 348.
 
3. David Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism (Downer’s Grove:  IVP, 2005) 154.
 
4. Merrill Unger, “Laver,” Unger’s Bible Dictionary (Chicago:  Moody Press, 1966) 646.
 
5. Newell, 345.

 

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Godliness and Evangelism

Written by Rick Shrader

Godliness and Evangelism

by Rick Shrader

Though many have said the following in similar ways, I like the way C.S. Lewis put it, “Those who want Heaven most have served Earth best.  Those who love Man less than God do most for Man.”1 Answering obvious objections to that thought, Leonard Ravenhill 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.”2 W.J. Erdman wrote of such “heavenly minded” believers in The Fundamentals, “According to this reality their life and walk partake of thoughts and desires, hopes and objects, unworldly and heavenly.  Born of God and from above, knowing whence they came and whither they are going, they live and move and have their being in a world not realized by flesh and blood.”3 The obvious Biblical truth is that God would not ask us to be holy as He is holy and then criticize us for being too heavenly minded.

In Paul’s first letter to Timothy he instructs the young pastor to exercise himself more to godliness than to bodily exercise.  At the end of that fourth chapter he concludes by writing, Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee (1 Tim. 4:16).  Evidently, godliness is a vital ingredient for reaching the lost as well as for our own spiritual life.  John Gill wrote of this verse, “For though Jesus Christ is the only Saviour, the only efficient and procuring cause of salvation, yet the ministers of the Gospel are instruments by which souls believe in him and so are saved.”4

Our generation, however, seems to be of a contrary opinion.  We seem to think that a godly lifestyle is a hindrance to the presentation of the gospel, at least a godly lifestyle that is overtly evident.  Our generation of preachers seems to think that we will be a more efficient tool for evangelism if the sinner can identify with our human shortcomings.  Take, for example, Rick Warren’s impersonation of Jimmy Hendrix’s hit song Purple Haze in a stadium full of youth and saying, “I’ve always wanted to do this in this stadium.”5 And the church band on the stage accompanied him with no problem!  Of course I’m aware that such persons are trying hard to redefine carnal behavior as normal for the Christian life and thereby avoid any such contradictions.  But either they are right or two thousand years of Christian history is right.  I’m still of the opinion of the latter.

When we think of trials and tribulations, our first thoughts usually turn to sickness, accidents or other tragedies that often come into our lives. It is true that these are results of the entrance of sin into this world, the results of a “broken” world which come upon all of us sooner or later,   but these are not the primary substance of Biblical trials.  The primary New Testament teaching about trials and tribulations emphasizes the fact that we suffer certain repercussions for speaking on behalf of Christ.  Jesus said, Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:10).  Paul said, Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong (2 Cor. 12:10).  To the Philippians Paul admonished, And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.  For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake (Phil. 1:28-29).  After being stoned for preaching the gospel in Galatia, Paul encouraged the believers by confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22).

We ought to be concerned that we do not place a stumbling block in a sinner’s way by our own foolishness.  Many, no doubt, have brought scorn upon themselves, not “for Christ’s sake” but for their own offensiveness.  However we have gone so far overboard in correcting that potential error that we are trying to avoid the unavoidable, the very offense of the cross!  In so doing, we have not found a more powerful witness but an impotent one.  The preaching of the gospel message is still foolishness to this world but it remains the power of God unto salvation (1 Cor. 1:18).  If we avoid the conviction that the gospel brings because we are afraid to offend, the very offense of the cross is ceased (Gal. 5:11) and the power of the gospel is lost.

Today’s Antithesis

Briefly, let me contrast the very thesis of New Testament godliness and evangelism with today’s opposite point of view.  How could we expect otherwise when we have given our Christian kids everything they desire; have seldom told them “no;” have changed the whole church to meet their expectations; and have longed for their approval in order to remain heroes in their eyes?  Assimilation to the culture is not relevancy.  True Christian relevancy has always known what people need, not what they want.  Stealth tactics do not bring conviction to the lost.  No thinking person (even a teenager!) wants the gospel camouflaged for his benefit.  Self-esteem cannot bring repentance and though some may suffer unnecessarily in this manner, biblically speaking, a low self-esteem is necessary for repentance.  Finally, “safety” in witness has no power in evangelism.  To always make the sinner happy is to shirk our own stewardship and avoid the necessary repentance process through which the sinner must go.  Today’s euphoric contemporary services may be as much of a “safe” retreat for the saint as it is an anodyne for the sinner.

The New Testament’s Thesis

Godliness relates to evangelism as politeness to falling in love.  There may be no perceived value in the person at first, but impeccable character soon overcomes objections and makes way for positive thoughts.  Jesus said,  Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven (Matt. 5:16).

1) There is power in the cross of Christ.  When the Lord said, And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me (John 12:32), He was speaking of the power that the truth of His crucifixion has in bringing men to Himself.  Paul wrote, For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God (1 Cor. 1:18).  Every believer remembers the convicting power of Christ’s sacrifice which brought him to his knees in repentance.  There, on the cross, was the sinless Lamb of God who can take away the sin of the world!  The injustice of it is what is so powerful.  Paul desired to share in this power when he wrote, That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death (Phil. 3:10).  But that is also what caused Paul to conclude that he was always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.  For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.  So then death worketh in us, but life in you (2 Cor. 4:10-12).

2) There is comfort in persecution for Jesus’ sake.  God gives special inward peace to those who suffer for the gospel’s sake.  Again, Paul admonishes the Corinthians about the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation . . . . For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ (2 Cor. 1:4-5).  To the Thessalonians Paul wrote, Therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our affliction and distress by your faith: For now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord (1 Thes. 3:7-8).  The soul-winner often senses God’s comfort while witnessing just as John when he was on the isle of Patmos for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ (Rev. 1:9).  Oswald Chambers described this boldness that comes because of God’s immediate comfort,  “Then comes the glorious necessity of militant holiness.  Beware of the teaching that allows you to sink back on your oars and drift; the Bible is full of pulsating, strenuous energy.”6 That is why Paul “lived” when his churches “stood fast.”

3) Antipathy toward godliness is a sign of convicting power.  Why did Cain slay Abel?  John says, Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous (1 John 3:12).  Jesus reminded his disciples, If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.  If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you (John 15:18-19).  John described the evangelism that seeks to please the world, 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 (1 John 4:5-6).  A love of the world and a conformity to the world’s expectations does not bring convicting power to the sinner, regardless of how much he likes it.  The great danger in that kind of cowardly evangelism is that a crowd of people is likely to follow, having found the cheap grace which sinners have always desired to find.

4) Godliness is worthy of suffering for Christ’s sake.  As far as we know, the disciples never had a hand laid upon them until the fifth chapter of Acts.  They had walked with Christ, witnessed His crucifixion, resurrection and ascension.  They had preached at Pentecost and had been warned by the Sanhedrin not to speak.  But the first time they actually suffered physically for their witness was in Acts 5:40 where they were “beaten” and commanded not to speak any more about the gospel.  The next verse says, And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name (Acts 5:41).  That’s why Peter later wrote, Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.  For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God (1 Pet. 4:16-17).  In the Tribulation period, John sees the martyrs who refuse the mark of the beast and die for Christ.  He describes them as, Them that had gotten the victory over the beast (Rev. 15:2).  Strange!  Victory for the martyrs of Jesus is death itself.

When the writer of Hebrews encouraged the believers to consider Christ’s suffering lest they become weary in their own sufferings, there is faint rebuke to them in the next verse, Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin (Heb. 12:4).  When we consider all of those who have truly suffered bodily for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ (read Heb. 11:32-38!), we ought to be ashamed of our own complaining as if our puny trials are too much to bear!  Spurgeon wrote, “True fidelity can endure rough usage.  Those who follow God for what they get, will leave him when persecution is stirred up, but not so the sincere believer; he will not forget his God, even though the worst come to the worst.”7

And so . . . .

Robert Torbet has an interesting description of the spread of Christianity across America:  “One of the unique features in the development of American Christianity as it adapted itself to the frontier environment was the phenomenon of revivalism which characterized the evangelical denominations in particular.  In essence, this revivalism was the product of an evangelistic zeal and a yearning for a deepened spirituality in the church.”8 A deep and true desire for evangelism will only come when there is a deep and true desire for godliness!  And, our evangelism will never be so powerful as it will be then.

Notes:
1. C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns (New York: HBJ, 1986) 80.
2. Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, nd) 28.
3. W.J. Erdman, “The Holy Spirit and the sons of God,” The Fundamentals. Vol II (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000) 352.
4. John Gill, Dr. Gill’s Commentary (London: Wm. Hill Colingridge, 1853) 610.
5. In an article, “Rick Warren Hits Home Run” by Dan Wooding, ASSIST Ministries, April 17, 2005.  Quoted by Lucarini and Blanchard, Can We Rock The Gospel, p. 28.
6. Oswald Chambers, Biblical Ethics (Grand Rapids: Discovery House, 1998) 135.
7. C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, II (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1978) 339.
8. Robert Torbet, A History of the Baptists (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1975) 298.

 

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Threshold Seperation

Written by Rick Shrader

Threshold Seperation

by Rick Shrader

The Biblical doctrine of separation is rooted in the very holiness of God and it is expressed in numerous texts in the Word of God.  Peter expressed it in his first epistle, As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy for I am holy (1 Peter 1:14-16).

It only makes sense that a God who Himself cannot be compromised in His holy character and desires His sons and daughters to fellowship with Him would require that they become more and more like Him.  John wrote, That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.  And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.  This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.  If we say we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth (1 John 1:3-6).

The Apostle Paul concluded the great chapter on being unequally yoked together with unbelievers by writing, Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty (2 Cor. 6:17-18).

In putting the doctrine of separation in its proper perspective, a few preliminary facts should be noted.  First, separation belongs to the believer, not the unbeliever.  Sanctification is not a means to salvation.  A believer must come to Christ and be justified by grace through faith.  It does not help the discussion to disparage separation with scriptural verses that teach salvation by faith and not by works.  Second, the doctrine of sanctification (of which separation is a part) is vital for the believer’s spiritual life.  There is no power nor Holy Spirit assurance in an unsanctified Christian life.  Separation from worldliness is a vital part of sanctification.  Third, though a believer is eternally secure in Christ, his eternally secure position in Christ does not negate nor override the possibility of carnality and the loss of reward at the Bema Seat of Christ.  The doctrine of separation ought to be of intense interest to any believer who understands that he/she will stand before the Lord and give an account of the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad (2 Cor. 5:10).

The problem of definition and degrees

The purpose of this article is to offer a practical way to apply separation to a believer’s life.  I don’t want to be understood, however, as if I’ve made the whole doctrine too simplistic.  I believe there are areas of ecclesiastical as well as personal separation (2 Tim. 2:16-21).  Good men may disagree as to when a believer ought to leave a church, a movement, or a circle of friends even though there may be unanimous agreement with the fact that it must happen at some point.  I believe there are times to separate from nonbelievers (2 Cor. 6:14) and also from believers (2 Thes. 3:6, 14-15).  Each man will have to be fully convinced when he has become “unequally yoked” to an unbeliever and also when he must have “no company” with a brother.  But the fact is, these concepts are clearly taught in the New Testament Scriptures.

In my lifetime there has been a lot of discussion over whether there is a “secondary” or “second degree” of separation from “every brother that walketh disorderly” (2 Thes. 3:6).  I would agree with those who practice separation to this extent but who also object to the unnecessary use of the term “secondary.”  When a brother fails to separate himself from unscriptural practices, even from those of another brother, he himself is walking disorderly.  The separation is from him as well as from any other disorderliness.  “Note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed” (vs 14).

The concept of a threshold

The problem of when and how to separate has been a life-long school of pass and fail.  I have, at times, been caustic and rude in my zeal to separate from obvious error and in so being have forfeited any opportunity to “gain my brother.”  I have often walked too far with my disorderly brother out of love or respect and have only made the inevitable separation harder, like waiting to pull a bad tooth until the situation has become unbearable.  In seeking both to be genuinely humble and biblically right in these difficult situations, I have found a biblical concept that has become more obvious to me as time has gone by.

I call this concept “threshold” separation.  This is the simple principle of not crossing the threshold of a room if there is too great a chance that something in that room will be harmful.  By shutting the door to the whole room, one may forfeit some things that would have been good, but at the same time eliminate the possibility of harmful things.  A little reflection will reveal that we all do or have practiced this at various times in our lives.  My children were not allowed to play in the street.  A street is actually a great area for children’s play:  it’s flat and smooth for little wheels; it is large and almost endless for balls and other projectiles; it even has curbs for boundaries!  But a street has an obvious danger to children that overrides all those advantages.  It has cars with drivers who are not careful and small children are no match for big cars!  A parent’s choice becomes obvious:  the street will be off limits to children.  The only amazing thing is how we begin to neglect such a sound principle when our children get older.

Some biblical examples

Paul wrote to the Corinthians (not a group of believers given to sanctification), Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend (1 Cor. 8:13).  Paul was absolutely willing to close the door to that room if that room contained the possibility of offending a brother.  To the Romans he wrote, It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak (Rom. 14:21).

At the Jerusalem council in Acts 15, the believers decided to place certain actions off-limits to all the churches because of the danger of offense and hindrance to the gospel.  That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well (Acts 15:29).  Fornication was surely prohibited by other biblical statements, but the others may or may not have been in many New Testament contexts.  The appeal, however, was to avoid these things completely.  The prohibition to idol meat was still being upheld in the Lord’s letters to the seven churches in 95 AD (Rev. 2:14, 20).

In 1 Corinthians 10:27-33 Paul advises believers that if a lost person notifies you that the meat you are eating is idol meat (and the man is proud of it, too!), then quit eating the meat altogether.  Use it rather as an opportunity to bring conviction to the lost man once he sees your biblical conviction.

Paul used the threshold principle in refusing to take John Mark on his second missionary journey (Acts 15:36-41).  Barnabas was of the opinion that more good than bad could come of Mark’s presence, but Paul would not take the chance of one mistake ruining the whole journey.  Therefore he refused to take Mark at all.

Church discipline itself utilizes the concept of threshold separation.  The last step that the Lord gave (Matt. 18:17) is to exclude the brother completely and treat him as you would an unsaved man.  In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul commands the church to do this with the fornicator.  This step, regardless of how severe it may seem, must be taken when other admonitions have failed.  They were not to pick and choose how he may intermingle with the church but rather to close the door completely to fellowship.

The biblical admonition to believers not to marry non-believers is an obvious use of this principle.  Paul’s clear instruction (1 Cor. 7:39, 2 Cor. 6:14) eliminates any possibility of a believer agreeing to marry a known unbeliever.  Only a blanket prohibition could possibly work in this matter.

John’s prohibition to believer’s ever bidding a false prophet “God speed” (2 John 10) is a blanket policy due to the obvious result:  you would become a “partaker” (koinonei, a fellowshiper, a sharer) in all of his evil deeds.  One cannot take a chance with such fellowship by trying to discern before each declaration.

Practical results

First, there is the obvious advantage of safety.  When that room contains dangerous things, I know I will not be harmed by them if I never enter the room.  Second, it avoids failing to discern questionable things.  John said “try the spirits” not “try out the spirits.”  For young or immature believers this is necessary at least for certain periods of time.  Third, we cannot serve two masters.  The more we love the one, the more we hate the other.  We are commanded NOT to love the world for this very reason.  If that room will not bring me closer to God, I don’t want to be in there.  Fourth, I brought nothing into this world and I will take nothing out.  Godly contentment will not miss whatever else is in that room!  I am waiting anxiously to leave this “worldly” existence altogether.  Why should leaving some of it now cause me any regret?

Possible applications

Until recently Christians agreed that abstaining from substances that cause us bodily harm is wise.  I have never smoked, drunk alcoholic beverages, or used addictive drugs.  I can’t imagine a scenario where it would have been any advantage to me as a husband, father or pastor to practice these.  Yet smoking and “social” drinking are coming into Christian circles now in a large way.  Christian young people do these things “underground” without knowledge of parents or church, and many adults are now flaunting their ability to “live large” for Jesus.  Sadly, only time will tell what harm this “room” will bring to the cause of Christ and a whole generation of young people.

Some “places” where I may go may be able to be avoided altogether and some may not.  I never go to a “bar” to eat or get a cup of coffee, yet I cannot avoid all stores or restaurants that sell liquor.  But my blanket refusal of “bars” still stands.  My wife and I have never been in a movie theater together nor with our children. This was an easy decision with an easy line to draw.  That doesn’t mean we didn’t watch TV or movies on the TV (though nothing above a G rating was brought home!).  The line was drawn at the theater and my family was both protected and made stronger because of it.  I have advised it for anyone who loves their children and have forced it upon no one.

We have kept the ministry of our church within the purpose of the gospel and the Scriptures.  We do not have social and political entanglements within the church.  I believe these are good and noble for Christians to do (as many other things in life), but they are not described, much less prescribed for the local church in the New Testament.  This is becoming increasingly difficult for many people to understand in this purpose-driven environment.

The ecumenical movement has placed pressure upon fundamental churches to “tear down the walls” that divide us.  Denominational names and other identifications, however, are a good and proper way of guarding our doctrine.  Most churches stay within their own denominational circles because it greatly decreases the chance of exposure to contrary doctrine.  Sometimes, however, a description such as “fundamentalist” or “conservative” may bring closer communion than our own denominational name.

And so . . . .

“Threshold” separation is a biblical concept with obvious practical advantages.  In a day when the boundaries of morals, proprieties, and manners are being eroded, it is wise to have a good stopping place.

 

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Are We Legalists

Written by Rick Shrader

Are We Legalists

by Rick Shrader

It was James who wrote the wonderful and inspired oxymoron, So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the perfect law of liberty (Jas 2:12).  Douglas Moo wrote of this verse, “God’s gracious acceptance of us does not end our obligation to obey him; it sets it on a new footing.  No longer is God’s law a threatening, confining burden.  For the will of God now confronts us as a law of liberty — an obligation that is discharged in the joyful knowledge that God has both liberated us from the penalty of sin and given us, in his Spirit, the power to obey his will.”1

John understood this when he admonished us, And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments (1 Jn 2:3).  And also, He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked (vs 6).  The believer who is seeking a life of true liberty seeks to keep the Lord’s commands, and even strives to walk in all his ways as He walked!  Some insist that the very presence of laws must be “legalism” but then the very Word of God would be legalism unless we are not obligated to obey it.  Charles Ryrie wrote, “The existence of a code of law cannot be legalism.  The fact that there are regulations, be it those of the Mosaic Law or the law of Christ, is not legalism.  Law is not legalism.”2

These days any believer who practices separation from worldly things lives with the constant accusation of being a “legalist.”  The accusation is wrong, of course, by any biblical concept but therein lies the problem.  What is “legalism?”  Those who make the accusation seem at liberty to use the term “legalist” in the broadest of definitions.  However, once their own definition is presented, anyone who transgresses it becomes the target for the accusation.

A common type of definition of legalism involves the idea of making a list of rules, being a Pharisee (seemingly the easiest accusation to make), being judgmental of others, being grace-killers, even being a believer who makes an effort to please or gain favor from God!  Synonyms seem to be: right wing, fear-mongerer, control-freak, joy-killer, and sometimes broader terms like fundamentalist (or “fundy” to be sarcastic), separatist, or dispensationalist.  Ironically, the common users of such invectives rarely see themselves as mean-spirited.  Evidently they have found a way to be above such inward motivations.

The Problem of Definition

1) From silence.  The most obvious problem with defining “legalism” in the Bible is that we don’t have such a term!  We have used the term only as a description of something we think is a biblical concept.  This fact does not necessarily negate the use of the term, but we must be extra careful how we use it.  The words “rapture” and “trinity” are not in our Bible either, but the use of them is surely justified.

“Legal” has to do with law and there is much in the Bible about law.  Unger lists six “senses” of law in Scripture:  laws given by man; the law of Moses; the law of grace; God’s will as law; the natural law; and the kingdom rule of life.3 Being “legalistic” might apply to any of these concepts.  The Pharisees surely used the Mosaic Law to their own advantage, usually seeking license to sin by manipulating the Law.  Ironically, the closest term to “legalist” in the Epistles is Paul’s quotation of antinomians in Corinth demanding, “All things are lawful unto me” (1 Cor. 6:12).

2) From common definition.  This is given by Ryrie as clearly as anyone:  “Legalism may be defined as a ‘fleshly attitude which conforms to a code for the purpose of exalting self.’”4 The emphasis is on legalism as an “attitude.”  Though law has its proper place, even within grace, it is obvious that someone can attempt to keep it with a selfish attitude rather than with love.

The problem with this common definition is the evaluation of someone being “selfish.”  Charles Swindoll used a similar definition in his anti-legalism book, The Grace Awakening: “Legalism is an attitude, a mentality based on pride.”5 But Myron Houghton rightly objected by writing, “Swindoll is correct when he says ‘legalism is an attitude, a mentality,’ but it is insufficient to say that legalism is ‘based on pride.’  Who determines whether or not a person’s actions are based on pride?  The person himself?  Dr. Swindoll?”6 The common thinking however is that God’s laws should be followed because we love Him, not because we want applause from others.

3) From the New Testament.  The major problem with law-keeping in the New Testament was the problem Paul had with Judaizers.  And certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved . . . . But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That is was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses (Acts 15:1, 5).  In the strictly New Testament sense, “legalism” would be the keeping of the law (especially Mosaic) in order to be saved or to stay saved.

Baker’s Dictionary of Theology says, “In Christ the Christian is free from the condemnation of the law and from  the necessity of fulfilling its precepts as a condition of eternal life.”7 Liberty in Christ, then, is the liberty from the works of the law for salvation!  Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law . . . . Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage (Gal. 2:16; 5:1).

The Great Equivocation

Because salvation by the works of law is “legalism” and “liberty” is to be free from such a system of dead works, it is easy to find verses which instruct readers not to work for the grace of God (e.g. Eph 2:8-9).  But often that admonition is followed (by accusers of “legalism,”) with further admonition not to work at all, even as a believer.  A typical warning is: do not to try to “earn God’s acceptance” or “please God” by law keeping.  The appeal to Scripture comes from verses that warn against being saved by works, but the accusation of “legalism” is applied to the good works in a believer’s life.

Ernest Pickering rightly responded to Swindoll for doing this very thing.  He writes,

There is a caricature here of those who seek to maintain standards of godly living.  They are stated to be conspirators who want to enslave others, who do not want them to be free. . . . The writer also declares that Christian leaders formulate rules of conduct so that persons obeying them can ‘earn God’s acceptance.’  After many years of ministry among thousands of churches both in this country and others I believe I can say with confidence that I have never met a pastor or Christian leader who believed this.  God’s acceptance is gained by grace not through the observance of rules (even biblical ones!).  This is an exaggeration which we believe does great disservice to many Christian leaders.8

Pickering is pointing out that one cannot start off quoting verses that prohibit works for salvation and then criticize believers on that basis because they are doing good works, even if those good works are of a questionable nature.  One may disagree with the rule that a certain believer is keeping, but that is merely a disagreement over sanctification in a believer’s life, not the mode of salvation.

The Reality of Legalism

So do we have legalists today?  Absolutely!, whether we use the common or the biblical definition.

1) Legalism by the common definition.  In this definition (see Ryrie above), legalism may occur when a believer is striving to keep the laws of God but for selfish reasons.  On the one side, a believer may keep biblical commands but with the attitude that he can keep the commands better than anyone else!  On the other side, a believer may become legalistic in his so-called liberty!  Ryrie uses the example of movie-going,

If, however, non-attendance is practiced in order to exalt the piety of the one who does not go to such affairs, then this is legalism.  However, the opposite course of action may also be legalism.  Another Christian may attend in order to prove to all the world that he has liberty, and he is zealous in letting everybody know that fact.  Even if it be perfectly all right for him to go, his going and exalting his self-righteous liberty is legalism.  He does not go because [he is] led of the Spirit and in order to glorify God; therefore, his attendance has become legalistic.9

2) Legalism by the New Testament example.  This is the obvious area of legalism where we would do well to place our emphasis for the gospel’s sake.  We have many legalists today who, like the Judaizers of Paul’s day, are tying to work their way into heaven.  The whole Roman Catholic system is a system of works to gain God’s grace for salvation; all the Arminian branches of Christianity who teach works FOR salvation are legalists, whether that work is baptism, church membership or tongues speaking.  Also, any who teach you can lose your salvation by a human act are teaching that God’s grace is merited by good works, and that is legalism.  Besides these are the multitude of cults and all false religions who are busily working for their salvation.

The Reality of Sanctification

The true believer, who is saved by grace alone without good works, now finds himself faced with the commands of Scripture to do good works.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them (Eph 2:10).  As we have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him (Col 2:6).

When a believer starts out his new life in Christ maintaining good works, is he “pleasing God?”  Of course he is! And we should not feel bullied by antinomians into dropping such language!  That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work (Col 1:10); That as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more (1 Thes 4:1); But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts (1 Thes 2:4).  What is wrong with a believer, who knows he is saved eternally by God’s grace, wanting to please God?  To seek God is to desire to be like Him.  It is to emulate Him in His attributes; to please Him.

The Greater Problem

The fact is that antinomianism (“license”) is a far greater problem within Christianity than legalism.  One cannot read a doctrinal definition of “liberty” without reading strong warnings of its abuses.  Paul wrote, Only use not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another (Gal 5:13).  Peter wrote, [Live] as free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God (1 Pet 2:16).  James Orr wrote, “Christians are earnestly warned not to presume upon, or abuse, their liberty in Christ.”10 Lenski wrote, “It is rather usual when Christians are released from the fetters of legalism by throwing open to them the beautiful gates of Christian liberty, that they tend to turn this liberty into license.”11 Even by the common definition of legalism, there is just as much (if not more) bragging about how much one can get away with, as there is about setting up rules for self-congratulations!

And So . . . .

Being conservative in life-style, desiring to keep God’s laws, applying principles of Scripture to one’s life and saying “no” to worldly culture, even enforcing rules when necessary (e.g. Matt 18:15-17), does not make one a legalist, neither by common definition nor by biblical language.

 

Notes:
1. Douglas Moo, James (Liecester, UK: IVP, 1990) 98.
2. Charles Ryrie, The Grace of God (Chicago: Moody Press, 1975) 74.
3. Merrill F. Unger, “Law,” Unger’s Bible Dictionary (Chicago:  Moody Press, 1966) 647.
4. Ryrie, 76.
5. Charles Swindoll, Grace Awakening (Dallas:  Word Publishing, 1996) 83.
6. Myron J. Houghton, “What Is Legalism,” The Faith Pulpit, Sept/Oct, 1993.
7. O. Raymond Johnston, “Law,” Baker’s Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book, 1978) 319.
8. Ernest Pickering, Are Fundamentalists Legalists? Baptist World Mission, nd., p. 15.
9. Ryrie, 78.
10. James Orr, “Freedom, Free Will,”  ISBE (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1939) 229.
11. R.C.H. Lenski, Interpretation of First Corinthians (Minneapolis:  Augsburg Pub. House, 1961) 254.
 

 

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The Holy and the Profane

Written by Rick Shrader

The Holy and the Profane

by Rick Shrader

As long as man lives in this world and in his present condition, there will be the struggle between the holy and the profane.  We can no more rid ourselves of it than we can of heaven and hell, of God and men, or of sin and salvation.  No sooner had God given the Law at Sinai than we see Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10) offering strange fire in the holy place.  This was no trifling act with God for He struck them dead immediately and then instructed Moses and Aaron to teach the people to put difference between the holy and unholy, between unclean and clean (Lev 10:10).

The history of Israel (and of the Church also) is a history of understanding the holy and the profane.  Uzzah was killed for putting unclean hands on God’s ark; fifty thousand people died in Beth-shemesh for treating the ark in an unworthy manner; Ananias and Sapphira died before the church for lying to the Holy Spirit.  When the Israelites went into captivity, Ezekiel wrote, Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shown difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them (Ez. 22:26).

The good news is that God will remedy the antipathy in the end.  Even Ezekiel describes the kingdom of God on the earth when Christ will reign in righteousness, And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean (Ez. 44:23).  God’s goodness is superior to (and prior to) Satan’s evil and will reign victorious after all sin and evil has been judged and put away forever.

In our present time, we must deal with the conflict between good and evil by following God’s instructions carefully.  That is why parents teach manners to their children, or why governments make laws, or why wars are fought.  There must be constant vigilance on all levels in this battle between the holy and the profane.  God has often revealed specifics for His people to follow:  the Temple was His house and it was not to be made a den of thieves; the Church is God’s body and it should not be given offense; and our bodies are the Temple of the living God, and they are to be holy and acceptable to Him.

When the unholy is brought into the holy

God protects those areas where He places His glory and holiness and so should we.  We have a number of words and expressions that the Bible uses to describe this transgression.

Profane.  But refuse profane and old wives’ fables (1 Tim 4:7); But shun profane and vain babblings (2 Tim 2:16); Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright (Heb 12:16).  In English our word “profane” means “before the temple” or to bring something into the holy place that doesn’t belong.  That is translated from the Greek word beblelos, which means “to cross the threshold.”  To profane something is to bring something unholy across the threshold into the holy place.

To use profanity is to let words come out of our mouths that shouldn’t be crossing our lips.  James rebukes those who praise God with their tongue but turn around and curse men who are made in God’s image (Jas 3:9-10).  The name of God is never to be used in “vain” or in such a profane way.  We will be held accountable for every idle word that proceeds out of our mouths.

Obscene.  Though not used in our English Bible, the English word means “off the scene” or “off-stage.”  This is something that would not be worthy to be spoken in front of others and would be banned in any public speaking.  Gene Veith, Jr., in discussing the pathetic state of contemporary television and films, explains, “In ancient Greek drama, certain actions could not be performed onstage for fear of violating the decorum, the appropriate aesthetic effect, of the play.”1

Today it seems nothing is obscene, for anything at all may be said in any public place.  Even among Christians there seems to be little or no difference from the world.  As a pastor I am often shocked at the words Christians will use in my presence or in the church without so much as a blush.

Vulgar.  This word has to do with the language of the common man.  It means “of the mob” or “of the common people.”  The Latin Bible is called the “Vulgate” because it was first made in the common language.  Our Greek New Testament is “Koine” or “common” Greek.  In language it is the opposite of manners or politeness.  It even seems snobbish by today’s standards to speak of language that, though it is used in the street or locker rooms, has no place in public.

The current rating system for television (G, PG, etc) supposedly keeps younger people from watching something vulgar, but unwittingly only allows older people to do so with impunity!  How sad that Christians have followed the world’s standard of decency by following these instructions.  The truth is, if something is vulgar for one human being, it is vulgar for every human being.

Pornography.  This word is made up of two Greek words, porn? from porneia meaning “fornication,” and graph? meaning “to write.”  In most dictionaries the English word will be broken down as “the writing of harlots.”  It is the writing out, or making public, what is private.  It is not that nakedness is itself evil, but rather that it is private!  Marriage and its behavior is between a husband and his wife.

Blasphemy.  Blasphemy is the overt denigration of God and His name.  This word is a combination of “evil” and “speaking.”  “Blast” used to be a vulgar word by itself, but when such things are directed toward the holy God of heaven, it is truly “blas-phemous.”

Jesus was often accused of blasphemy by the Scribes and Pharisees because He said things that, if said by a mere human, would denigrate God’s name.  If you or I proposed to be equal with God, it would be blasphemous; if you or I claimed to be able to forgive sins, it would be blasphemous; but if Jesus was God and therefore could forgive sin, it was revelation!  Those who claim to speak in God’s name but say they are divine, or equal to Jesus Christ, or can become a god through some process, are guilty of this blasphemy before Him whose name is above all names!

When the holy is brought into the unholy.

It is hard for us to see the outside of the bowl when we live on the inside, but the larger picture of the holy and the profane is that the universe is filled with God’s holiness and has penetrated our little unholy world from time to time.  Oh, it is true that all of God’s creation declares His glory, but the truly miraculous has been a rare event in this world.  When it has happened it brings light and life to all it touches.  We also have words to describe this phenomenon.

Incarnation.  Something that  eats the flesh is “carnivorous,” or that is fleshly is “carnal,” or that is entertaining is a “carnival.” Yet something that takes on flesh, or becomes flesh, is an “incarnation” embodied, personified as a human being.  The only time this has happened was when God became a man.  Humans can’t be said to have experienced incarnation because we were nothing before we existed in our flesh.  But, The Word was made flesh, and dwelt  (“tabernacled”) among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth (Jn 1:14).

Revelation.  The manifestation, appearance or enlightenment of God to man is a “revelation.”  The biblical word is “apocalypse” or apo-kalupt?, to “un-cover.”  The Book of Revelation was an uncovering of information that had been withheld from us.  So the coming of Christ into our world was a revealing of things we did not know.  No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared (“exegeted”) him (Jn 1:18).  In these last days [God] hath spoken unto us by his Son (Heb 1:2).

Transfiguration.  There were times in Jesus’ life that His deity burst through into the darkness.  No time was so stunningly obvious than on the mount of transfiguration.  There Jesus was transfigured, meta-morph?th?, a “metamorphosis.” It is true that the deity of Christ shown through from the inside to the outside, but this was also a glimpse of the outside world bursting through to the inside.  Moses and Elijah were there, talking with Jesus about His own departure back to the outside world.  How could there not also be a radiant light, as on the Damascus road, when such a thing occurs?

Emmanuel.  In the Old Testament the name is spelled with an “I” in Isaiah 7:14 and 8:8; a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel . . . . The stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.  Once in the New Testament the name is used, quoting Isaiah, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us (Mt 1:24).

Never was there a moment like that moment!  God with us!  The Holy One coming into the world of the unholy and profane, the obscene and blasphemous.  Christ by highest heaven adored; Christ the everlasting Lord! Late in time behold Him come, Offspring of a virgin’s womb: Veiled in flesh the God-head see; Hail the incarnate deity, Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel.

Christmas.  Though not used in our Bible, this common description has been lost to commercialization and bad theology.  It is easy to see the Christ in “Christmas,” but it is not so easy to see the incarnation, the coming of the Holy One into the unholy world.  The Roman church uses the word “mass” to describe its sacrament of Eucharist.  Christmas is the “Christ-mass.”  In the mass, or Eucharist, they believe that Christ has again become incarnate, the bread and wine becoming His literal flesh and blood and (“blasphemously”) they crucify His flesh and blood again and again.

I am not for forfeiting the word Christmas because of bad theology on their part.  Though we do not believe in sacraments, and therefore do not participate in a mass, we certainly do believe that, when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons (Gal 4:4).  When we say “Christmas” we are glad we can still use a word that has “Christ” in it!  The commercialization of the season of our Lord’s birth has caused our avaricious country to sell its Christian birthright.  We will take the word “Christmas” and place no other meaning on it than what we believe: that God was incarnated into human flesh, revealed as the true God to a lost world, transfigured in light before our eyes, understood as Emmanuel, miraculously and eternally known as God with us!

And So . . . .

One of my favorite writers from a generation ago described the birth of our Lord in a similar way, when the sacred broke into the profane:

He was the earthly child of a Heavenly Father and the heavenly child of an earthly mother.  If men had arranged His birthplace they might have chosen a palace; God chose a barn.  Men might have prepared a royal crib; God prepared a feed trough.  Men might have provided silken robes; God chose the swaddling clothes of a poor peasant.  Men might have selected choice perfumes and spices; God came in the malodors of a stable.  Think of it!  The Prince of Glory couldn’t find room in a Bethlehem boarding house!  The King of kings, the son of a carpenter’s wife!  What a rebuke to our pride that He Who was so rich became so poor, when we who are so poor pretend to be so rich!2

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining.

It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth;

Long lay the world in sin and error pining,

Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn;

Fall on your knees, Oh, hear the angel voices!

O night divine, O night when Christ was born!

O night, O holy night, O night divine!

 

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