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Redefinition Evangelism

May 27, 1998Written by Rick Shrader

Redefinition Evangelism

by Rick Shrader

The gospel partakes of what has been called the “scandal of particularity.” This particularity is sometimes embarrassing to Christians who want to be sophisticated and tolerant, but the specificity is essential to the gospel. Christianity is not a vague cosmic optimism, a utopian vision of everyone loving one another, a formula for success and happiness, or even a belief in a benevolent deity. It is rather the scandal of Christ crucified.

Gene Edward Veith, Jr.¹ Concordia University-Wisconsin.

The sine quo non of Christian evangelism is what we call The Great Commission: Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world (Matt. 28:19-20). This command from our Savior contains three elements: 1) to teach or “disciple”, which we all agree means to convert; 2) to baptize the converts; and 3) to teach, or instruct the converts in the faith.

A simple rule of grammar applies in this verse. The word “nations” is a neuter gender noun, and the pronoun “them” is a masculine gender pronoun. Since a pronoun has to agree with its antecedent in gender, the subjects of baptism cannot be the “nations” but rather the converts made from among the nations. Evangelism cannot consist of performing a rite upon as many people as possible (as if we tried to baptize the “nations”), but rather of converting individuals within the nations and then baptizing them and teaching them. If we simply performed a water rite upon every individual in a nation, and then called that nation “Christian,” we wouldn’t have evangelized them at all, we would have merely redefined them.

Now suppose what we are really after is not evangelism but control over individuals and nations or ecumenical unity among all people; baptizing the whole nation would produce such goals and faith would be beside the point. Performing the rite would have defined everyone as Christian so that external demands could be made of them (since without faith internal demands are impossible).

Noel Smith once said, “The most powerful and effective and successful force that has ever appeared on this earth against the union of church and state is fundamental, Bible-believing Baptists.”² Why is that? Because believer’s baptism both insures the conversion of the individual and guards against inclusive redefinition of Christianity for ulterior motives.

The ecumenical concern today is not to get all the nations baptized (for which task the Catholics have always had the best arrangement), but rather to unify all religions and that by a much simpler method. If I were asking a hundred people to come inside a ten-foot circle, I would find my request much more accommodating if I simply redrew the circle to fifty feet, and encircled the area where the people were already standing. This is what I mean by “redefinition evangelism.” We simply redefine Christianity to include the people we want to reach.

The recent Evangelicals and Catholics Together movement, spearheaded by evangelical leaders Chuck Colson and Bill Bright, accomplished something overnight that the church has been trying to do for two thousand years—win the Catholics to Christ. By simply declaring that the Catholic doctrine (always before considered outside the circle of born-again Christianity) is actually Christian after all, we have redefined all the Catholics in the world and thus made them true Christians. At the end of his preaching career, Billy Graham considers Catholics, Russian and Greek Orthodox, as well as many Jews, to be merely different “expressions” of the one Christian faith.³ There are numerous attempts going on now to pressure Evangelicals (as well as Catholics) to repent of their sin of believing that the Jews need to become Christians.⁴

I say that redefinition evangelism is a simpler method because it fits the popular, yet anti-Christian, thinking of society at large. According to our societal norm, the worst sin that one can commit is to claim absolute truth. This may be done by pointing out another’s sin, by claiming someone else’s religion is wrong, and even by expressing any antipathy of cultural things. To do any of these is to first claim that you are correct and someone else is wrong, which we all know is a form of bigotry and self-centeredness. By suggesting that someone else may be wrong, you place them in a lesser or victimized status while placing yourself in a privileged class.

As this global attitude spreads to include tribal groups, occult organizations and Earth worshipers, we have become precariously open to a proposal, by a charismatic world leader, for worldwide church and state unification. In a secular society, claims of cultural superiority (usually known as “moral superiority”) become as offensive as religious superiority.

All of this creates great pressure on any attempt to evangelize people from another religious group (or “faith community” as we often hear). How dare we suggest that we have truth and they do not? Bruce Shelley writes:

It is easy to see, then, why Americans, once they understand it, have trouble with the Christian message. The God of the Bible is no democrat, and the gospel of Christ is no product of public opinion. Christian truth is never subject to an approving ballot. It is good news about what God has done in human history to everyone’s surprise, Jews, Greeks, and Americans. It claims to be inside information, a “Word” from God.⁵

No Christian is saying that all other religious groups are totally void of any truth. Since Eden, other religions have borrowed whatever they could from the true faith, sometimes to deceive, sometimes in a search for what is right. Theistic Muslims have more truth about God than pantheistic Buddhists. But both will stand before God without eternal life because they do not have the gospel of Jesus Christ. One man can jump three feet across a lake, another man can jump twenty, but both come short of jumping across the lake.

If we did not have a Word from God, we could not be so confident. But when God has gone to great lengths to tell us what is “the way, the truth and the life,” we have no right to redefine the boundaries. To do so is only to deceive many into thinking all will be well when they stand before God. Just as baptizing all the infants in the world will not make them Christians, pronouncing all people groups “God’s children” will not make them so either. We must make “disciples” and baptize only “them.”

Notes:

1. Gene Edward Veith, Jr., State of the Arts (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1991) 211.

2. Noel Smith, “The Separation of Church and State,” in The Biblical Faith of Baptists (Detroit: Fundamental Baptist Congress of America, 1963) 195.

3. As much as many of us may regret this statement, I had no choice about the conclusion after reading Graham’s autobiography Just As I Am. In addition, if my copy of Graham’s interview with Robert Schuller (5-97) is at all accurate, Graham has claimed that even people who never heard the name of Jesus Christ can still be saved if they are sincerely religious.

4. The Jerusalem Report (1/11/96), ran a long article titled “The Church Repents” in which, among other things, the Lutheran Church in America “voted to repudiate the anti-Semitism of its founder, Martin Luther” (p. 34). They reported a new “triologue” among Jews, Christians and Muslims to “create a theology of a shared ‘covenant of Abraham’” (p. 34).

5. Bruce Shelley, The Gospel and the American Dream (Portland: Multnomah, 1989) 39.

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Ashamed of the Gospel

April 27, 1998Written by Rick Shrader

Ashamed of the Gospel

by Rick Shrader

Ashamed Of The Gospel

What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear, in such a way that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could rise in the heart of the simplest man.

Albert Camus¹

The above quote from a well-known unbeliever is an amazing admission of the desire within lost people to hear the gospel message clearly and unashamedly from believers. Blaise Pascal wrote:

There are only three sorts of people: those who have found God and serve him; those who are busy seeking him and have not found him; those who live without either seeking or finding him. The first are reasonable and happy, the last are foolish and unhappy, those in the middle are unhappy and reasonable.²

Whether a sinner is foolish or reasonable, he needs to hear the gospel presented so that the Holy Spirit can do His work. Most Christians would agree that nothing is as important in this life as hearing or giving the gospel. Then why don’t we do it more? Why don’t we simply speak the words of faith in a sinner’s presence so that he is confronted with the claims of Christ? Now, I am not minimizing “pre-evangelism” or simply being wise enough not to turn people off before we get a chance to turn them on. But I am proposing that we often fail to speak the gospel, even after much time has been spent preparing the soil, and there may be a very telling reason. John MacArthur says, “We try to live our testimony rather than speak it. But no one ever got to heaven just because someone lived his testimony in front of him. Sooner or later you’ve got to give them the words of the gospel.”³

When the Apostle Paul wrote, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth” (Rom 1:16), he was not merely being emotional, but was expressing an issue that is at the very heart of evangelism. That issue is: Do we see God and eternity clearly enough to care about that more than we care about what people think of us? A “yes” answer would mean that we have a strong biblical faith. A “no” answer would mean, in biblical terms, that we are ashamed of things that cannot be seen when placed at the scrutiny of people we can see. To the Apostle, however, this would be like a doctor refusing to treat an emergency patient because he screams about the pain.

The writer of the book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus “endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb 12:2). Despite how the life of Christ and His passion are stretched for principles by everyone from money manipulators to management moguls, the person and work of our Savior was rejected by the Jewish nation and by Gentiles throughout the known world. Paul himself says, “But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness” (1 Cor 1:23).

The Apostles were men specifically chosen by Christ to be witnesses of His resurrection at a time when that was a very unpopular and even dangerous message. We ought to notice again how often the words “boldness,” “power” and “unashamed” appear in the early chapters of Acts. After the Apostles were imprisoned and instructed not to speak again of this resurrection, God told them to “Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life” (Acts 5:20). When they were arrested again, beaten and released, “they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name” (vs 41).

Peter later wrote that we are to be happy when we speak the gospel and are accused of being “evildoers” (1 Peter 2:12) by those who do not believe. “Happy are ye,” Peter says, “and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled” (3:14); “Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you” (4:4); “But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings” (4:13).

Paul asked the Roman Christians, “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life” (Rom 6:21-22). Paul makes it clear, to love Christ is to be ashamed of the world and to love the world is to be ashamed of Christ. It is the message of the cross for which we must not be ashamed. John Bunyan once warned, “Take heed of being offended at the cross that thou must go by before thou come to heaven. You must understand that there is no man that goeth to heaven but he must go by the cross. The cross is the standing way-mark by which all they that go to glory must pass.”⁴

In C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, master-demon Screwtape is instructing his pupil-demon Wormwood on how to keep a Christian (his “patient”) from being a witness. He says:

No doubt he must very soon realise that his own faith is in direct opposition to the assumptions on which all the conversation of his new friends is based. I don’t think that matters much, provided that you can persuade him to postpone any open acknowledgment of the fact, and this, with the aid of shame, pride, modesty, and vanity, will be easy to do. As long as the postponement lasts he will be in a false position. He will be silent when he ought to speak and laugh when he ought to be silent. He will assume, at first by his manner, but presently by his words, all sorts of cynical and sceptical attitudes which are not really his. But if you play him well, they may become his. All sorts tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be. This is elementary.⁵

The extent to which we realize that such a conflict exists between two worlds is the extent to which we will be unashamed of the gospel. We may even welcome the antipathy, as Paul wrote, “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God” (2 Tim 1:8).

Rick Shrader

Notes:

1. Quoted by Bruce Lockerbie, The Cosmic Center (Portland: Multnomah Press, 1986) 144.

2. Blaise Pascal, Pensees (160) (New York: Penguin Books, 1966) 82.

3. John MacArthur, The Master’s Plan for the Church (Chicago: Moody, 1991) 107.

4. John Bunyan, “The Heavenly Footman” Orations from Homer to McKinley, vol. 4 (New York: Collier, 1902) 1586.

5. C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York: Macmillan, 1982) 46.

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Lying – The Denial of God’s Reality

March 27, 1998Written by Rick Shrader

Lying – The Denial of God’s Reality

by Rick Shrader

Truth forever on the scaffold

Wrong forever on the throne

Yet that scaffold sways the future, and

Behind the dim unknown

Standeth God within the shadow

Keeping watch above His Own

~James Russell Lowell, The Present Crisis

Not long ago, in a prophetic way, the Boston Globe reported, “In our culture, it is not acceptable, if you are running for president, to blatantly lie about having an extramarital affair and then taunt the press to find out differently.” It then added, “But if a lie is along the lines of helping maintain our self-esteem and perpetuate our own self-deceptions, we may not even perceive it as a lie; we may perceive it as being supportive.”¹

We ought not be surprised. Even Robert Nisbet wrote, “The ideologies which gained entry into the academy in the sixties claimed that the fundamental intellectual principles of Western culture were illegitimate and must be overthrown. With that destroyed, terms like truth, good, evil, and soul could be discarded.”² Why do we wonder at the brazenness of politicians or educators of the nineties who were the flower children of the sixties? And why should we be surprised that the polling of soul-mated baby boomers shows agreement?

Educator Gene Veith writes, “Those who do not believe in truth are more likely, I believe, to lie. Those who believe that moral values are nothing more than the imposition of power may be more likely to use power to suppress their opposition, whether in enforcing politically correct postures in academia or, when they have political power, in acts of tyranny.”³ Veith is describing the postmodern man who has discarded both the need and the possibility of truthful writing or speech. He (the PM man) understands that truth in our day is constructed as the writer or speaker has need.

The fact that we have arrived at such a low state of affairs, is still surprising to anyone not educated within the last thirty years. They may still remember that the Bible upholds absolutes and calls them “truth,” and condemns violations of truth by calling them “lies.” Those who were raised in a Christian surrounding accepted moral the LORD are mercy and truth” (Ps 25:10). But man’s sin makes it very difficult for him to recognize the truth which he holds. C.S. Lewis wrote, “The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard.”⁵ This “standard” is sometimes called The Universal Moral Law. It is the truthful structure of God’s world. Bonhoeffer said, “The very existence of oaths is a proof that there are such things as lies.”⁶ This truthful world is the context for Paul’s argument.

2. “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever”(1:25). When people violate a truthful world, they deny God’s reality in it. The immoral acts of man are contrary to the way things “ought” to be in God’s world. Ron Mayers wrote, “The Christian can never agree for a moment to a non-theistic interpretation of reality, and the naturalistic unbeliever of our generation finds it intellectually impossible to comprehend the supernatural and transcendent dimension of reality.”⁷ That is, it is easier to be an atheist than to tell the truth. According to John Leo, the lost man has “Absolutophobia—an unwillingness to say something is wrong.”⁸ But it is more than a phobia, it is depravity at its best.

If we wonder today why, when people are polled about this lack of truthfulness, they do not care, we need only to read verse 32, “Who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” When sinners see powerful people living a lie (without consequence) that they would like to live, they like it. It gives them hope that their atheism may prove to be right.

3. “But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth, against them which commit such things”(2:2). Liars will be judged by God, the Ultimate Standard of truth. Satan’s grand lie is that we will not be caught. After all, many great people in history have lived by lying and no one seemed to care. When compared to all the liars that have existed, we don’t seem so bad.

But we will be judged by the One who is Truth. Tozer wrote, “Holy is the way God is. To be holy He does not conform to a standard. He is the standard.”⁹ Satan’s lie will not work for him nor for any other liar. Spurgeon put it, “Every liar is a child of the devil, and will be sent home to his father.”¹⁰

What does all of this mean to the Christian in our age? How can we “become all things to all men” when all men want us to lie and construct whatever “truth” makes them comfortable? Postmodernist Richard Rorty simply asserts, “Truth is what my peers will let me get away with saying.”¹¹ And we must ask, what will we let ourselves get away with saying to a man like that?

If our listeners do not accept our message as absolute, then they are not believing anything. If we show them at every turn that we will change, negotiate or discard almost anything we do, why should they believe anything we say? One older writer said, “How few are there like Barnabas and Saul, who, because they would not relax anything from the truth, were stoned by the very people who, but a moment before, were ready to offer incense to them as to gods descended upon earth?”¹² Audiences have always been willing to believe whatever makes them happy. Paul and Barnabas understood how critical the situation was, and so should we.

Notes:

1. Alison Bass, “Lying is a Universal Truth” in the Dayton Daily News, July 22, 1996.

2. Quoted by Cal Thomas, The Things That Matter Most (New York: HarperCollins, 1994) 6.

3. Gene Edward Veith, Jr. Postmodern Times (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994) 50.

4. “Postmodernism” A seminar paper by Rick Shrader, p. 19-20.

5. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: MacMillan, 1960) 25.

6. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost Of Discipleship (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995) 136.

7. Ronald B. Mayers, Balanced Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1984) 8.

8. John Leo, “A No-Fault Holocaust,” U.S. News & World Report, July 21, 1997, p. 14.

9. A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York: Harper, 1961) 112.

10. Charles H. Spurgeon, Treasury Of David, I (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978) 425.

11. Quoted by William L. Craig, Reasonable Faith (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994) 173.

12. Jean Baptiste Massillon, Orations from Homer to McKinley, IV (New York: Collier, 1902) 1720.

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Loving The Unlovely

February 27, 1998Written by Rick Shrader

Loving The Unlovely

by Rick Shrader

I suspect that many of us, in our quest after holiness, have imagined that being filled with the love of God would flood our consciousness with a kind of contemplative rapture, or a sense of infinite satisfaction. That is why many have developed a ‘holiness’ turned inward instead of outward; mystical instead of practical; self-centered rather than God-centered; sentimental rather than evangelistic; and egoistic rather than altruistic. The love of which John means when he writes, ‘God is love,’ is the most self-forgetting otherism in the universe, and when it is indeed ‘shed’ within us (Rom. 5:5) it lifts us right out of ourselves into a magnanimous solicitude for the well-being of others.

J. Sidlow Baxter¹

All of my life I have heard the phrase, “It’s hard to love the unlovely.” It is not only hard, it is almost impossible, at the least very difficult, to love in the sense of agape love. What to us is unlovely has nothing to reward our effort and therefore can hardly solicit our love.

In his famous work on love, C.S. Lewis described the four Greek words defining love.² The first three are human and demand a return on our investment as well as containing “congenital maladies.” Lewis calls them “need-loves.” Storge (Rom 1:31, “natural affection”) is parental or family love, driven by the need to belong as well as the need to be loved. Loving the unlovely fulfills a deep need within us to belong and to nurture.

Eros (Esther 2:17, LXX) is the sensual or “erotic” desire. It can be expressed properly in marriage, improperly outside of marriage, but is always need-oriented. Eros is simply the Greek counterpart to the Roman Cupid and was never imagined to be an innocent little imp spreading candy and good-will. In eros, the giver may devour and abuse the unlovely for its own sake.

Philia is friendship, a give-and-take sort of relationship. It is the biblical word for “kiss” because it so naturally pictures the necessary partnership. Friendship does not exist where only one companion makes an effort to give. Whereas eros is pictured face-to-face, philia is pictured side-by-side, two walking in mutual agreement. In friendship, the unlovely may not measure up.

Agape is the only “gift-love.” It is wholly disinterested in itself and desires only the best for the beloved. But in sinful humans, this selflessness is impossible without a divine transfusion.

Now whether anyone agrees with or likes Lewis’ description of the first three loves, all are agreed as to the divine nature of agape. Of human loves, the Lord Jesus declared, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). The Apostle Paul echoed the same by writing, “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die” (Rom 5:7). There is something to be gained by dying for a friend, a country or a family member. We gain back the companionship, the freedom or the filial relationship that our soul craves. But Paul’s amazing point follows, “But God commendeth his love (agape) toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us . . . when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (8,10). Agape alone can give when there is an impossibility to receive anything in return.

Agape has none of the maladies of the other three loves. It finds its expression (if not its very history³) in the theology of the New Testament. Kyle Yates wrote, “No stronger cord can ever bind us than the cords of love so clearly seen as we look upon the incarnation, the life, and the death of our Lord and Saviour.”⁴ Then why are there so many who refuse the agape love of the Savior? Because the unlovely does not want to be loved with agape love.

As strange as this sounds, it is not only true but perfectly consistent with our theology. Man is not just a sinner, but a selfish sinner. The root of his rejection of salvation is his unfailing insistence that there is something worthwhile in him that God won’t condemn. That is why he gravitates to the three human “need-loves.” In each of these someone rewards him, or at least responds to him so as to acknowledge his worth. But agape, by its very nature, says frankly, “you are unlovely and have nothing of worth. That is why I am your only hope.” While no other love is capable of such selfless expression, the sinner is offended by its frankness and its declaration of his worthless condition. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “But the love of Christ for the sinner in itself is the condemnation of sin, is his expression of extreme hatred of sin.”⁵

In a favorite gospel song, the words say, “There is not a brother, sister, friend or mother, loves the way that Jesus can.” That is exactly right. However, the following words miss the mark: “Jesus wants to love you, there is none above you, you are precious in his sight.” That is what a sinner would like to believe; that there is something in him worthy in God’s sight. If that were true, divine justice would be enough. The “good news” is that God’s agape love does love the sinner because it needs no reciprocation, it does not merely want to love him as if it needed to be loved in return.

As believers, having received such agape love, we are asked the near impossible task of displaying it in the world around us. Being Adam’s children, it is not our nature to live selflessly, even as Christians. The sanctification process going on within us is teaching us to practice the agape, so contrary to our thinking, that we reluctantly received. It is still very difficult. So often our expressions of love, our worship experiences, our stand for truth, have selfish strings attached that bring back something congratulatory and satisfying to our ego.

The Apostle Paul said, “above all these things put on charity (agape), which is the bond of perfectness” (Col 3:14), the goal of our sanctification. L.S. Chafer said, “A human heart cannot produce love, but it can experience it. To have a heart that feels the compassion of God is to drink of the wine of heaven.”⁶

Notes:

1. J. Sidlow Baxter, A New Call To Holiness (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977) 111.

2. C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: HBJ, 1988).

3. Kittel calls its etymology “uncertain” and its meaning before the NT “weak.” (Theological Dictionary, I, p. 36).

4. Kyle M. Yates, Preaching From The Psalms (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948) 168.

5. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost Of Discipleship (New York: Touchstone Books, 1995) 184.

6. L.S. Chafer, He That Is Spiritual (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1972) 48.

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Technological Symbolism Over Substance

January 27, 1998Written by Rick Shrader

Technological Symbolism Over Substance

by Rick Shrader

Postmodernism’s pragmatic instrumental view of language is why image is everything in our culture. Language is not neutral but a tool by which those in power or in control of the media can manipulate and construct reality.¹

Timothy Phillips and Dennis Okholm

I believe it was Confucius who said, “When words lose their meaning, people lose their liberty.” History is full of examples of tyrants and other manipulators who changed the course of nations by redefining words and concepts. That’s why I was interested when I saw an article entitled, “Juliet and Shakespeare’s Other Nominalists.”² Nominalism is a centuries old philosophy that says there are no universal truths outside one’s own perception of truth (just because I can think about you doesn’t prove you exist except in my mind). The author of the article is pointing out that Shakespeare wrote in light of the ideas circulating in his time. In that day, Juliet’s proposal that Romeo change his name (because, after all, “What’s in a name: That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”) was a way of proposing that nothing that existed outside the two of them really mattered. There were those nominalists in Shakespeare’s day who first removed anything eternal from their existence, then anything outside their empirical world, then anything outside their own mind. Reality was reduced to the “nominal.”

Young says, “Nominalist epistemology is a step in the direction of postmodern liberation from the constraints of political and religious hierarchies.”³ We have a generation of Romeo and Juliets today who care about nothing outside themselves. We have spent thirty years educating them in this self-centered philosophy that nothing really matters but them. Why should we be surprised when a skin-head shoots a black man “because he was in the wrong place”? He doesn’t really exist anyway!

The Christian point of view is vividly seen in the Book of Hebrews. There we see the tabernacle of the Old Testament as an earthly representation of a heavenly tabernacle; the earthly priesthood as fulfilled in a heavenly priesthood. That is, living by faith is living with a constant realization that the universal exists. God’s sphere of existence is out there too. In fact, we are instructed to look for that world at the expense of this world (and never vice versa). Nominalism is at complete odds with the biblical view of life and faith. Faith is the ability to see much more than inside one’s own world.

The writer of Hebrews addressed a unique problem. Whereas the temple trappings and symbolisms were supposed to remind them of God, they were keeping them from seeing Him by faith. It was easier and more enjoyable, not to mention more acceptable, to worship with the sights and sounds of the temple than in the plain, simple service of the Christians. That is, the symbols and the sounds of the place can either serve as a reminder of the God we worship, or they can become the god we worship. In the Jews’ case, the temple was their worship. They had become nominalists in the sense that they reduced their worship down to the place and experience, but it was not connected to anything outside themselves.

There was a time in history when the Greek Orthodox Church stressed so much the beauty of the Byzantine architecture and church buildings, that their icons became idols. “On the surface this conflict, which raged for over a century, was a disagreement over the use of icons. But at a deeper level it was a disagreement over which things were sufficiently sacred or holy to deserve worship.”⁴ It was what I call “worshiping worship.” Gene Veith calls it “a conceptual shift of focus away from the object of art to the person of the artist.”⁵

We see the potential for modern nominalism all around us today. The elaborate structures have been replaced by electronic sights. The stained-glass windows have been replaced by rear-screen projectors. The moment these keep us from faith rather than helping our faith, they are icons that have become idols. How else could I explain the phenomenal growth of the local Unity Church due to an aggressive use of electronic, high-tech methodology, even though their doctrine denies the existence of a personal God? Their worship service is virtually the same as many evangelical churches but evidently that is all many people are seeking—the worship experience. Francis Schaeffer described modern man this way: “The tragedy is not only that these talented men have reached the point of despair, but that so many who look on and admire really do not understand. They are influenced by the concepts, and yet they have never realized what it all means.”⁶

In reading a recent article about church technology,⁷ the author states, “As more churches attempt to reinvent themselves as relevant institutions in a society driven by images, speed and information, technology has become an increasingly important worship and marketing tool . . . . The trend is feuled by the convergence of paradigm shifts in both religious worship expression and technology.” The article gives advice to corporations which can learn what works and what doesn’t in attracting people to their product. Neil Postman is correct when he observes that this “Technopoly” only “blocks the way to such consideration by beginning with the question of how we should proceed rather than with the question of why.”⁸

The Brazen Serpent was first an implement, then an icon, then an idol. The process caused a whole nation to miss their Messiah. Praise God for its implementation when it was a tool that gave people faith but cursed it was, when it became an idol for worshiping worship, a technological symbol that had lost its substance.

Notes:

1. Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis Okholm, Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World (Downer’s Grove: IVP, 1995) 14.

2. R.V. Young, “Juliet and Shakespeare’s Other Nominnalists,” The Intercollegiate Review, Fall 1997.

3. Young, 21.

4. Bruce Shelley, Church History In Plain Language (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1995) 147.

5. Gene Veith, Jr., State Of The Arts (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1991) 93.

6. Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There (Downer’s Grove: IPV, 1968) 33.

7. Dave Zielinski, “Churches Go Hi-Tech: Delivering Presentations from the Pulpit,” Presentations Magazine, December 1997.

8. Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of a Culture To Technology (New York: Vintge Books, 1992) 171.

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Christmas Missions

December 28, 1997Written by Rick Shrader

Christmas Missions

by Rick Shrader

Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness

Light and life to all He brings, Ris’n with healing in His wings.

Mild He lays His glory by, Born that man no more may die;

Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth.

Hark! the herald angels sing, “Glory to the new-born King!”

Charles Wesley (1707-1788)

Among all the profanities encroaching upon the time of our Lord’s birth, let us not add a forgetful attitude toward those for whom Christ was born and died. The most devastating fact of Christmas Day will be that thousands of people will die without the Gift of God. D. Bruce Lockerbie wrote, “Rapid spread of the gospel to all nations has slowed so that today more than two-thirds of the world’s population knows nothing about Jesus Christ. At the same time, the church appears to be retreating and retrenching from global missionary concern. Funds dry up, mission stations must be closed, a chauvinistic ‘know-nothing’ attitude claims priority for local programs.”¹ Similarly, C.S. Lewis wrote, “But those who do not love the fellow-villagers or fellow-townsmen whom they have seen are not likely to have got very far towards loving ‘Man’ whom they have not.”² Paul said the fact that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” is a faithful saying and one we must not forget.

Over the years, the pleas of burdened missionaries on the foreign fields have encouraged churches to consider what the greatest use of their money would be at Christmas time. Perhaps the most famous for the Christmas missionary plea was Lottie Moon, a single woman missionary who labored forty years in China as an early Southern Baptist. She was born in December, 1840 to Godly parents who sent her to Female Seminary in Virginia. Turning down proposals from men who were not of her conviction, she proceeded alone to China. Once when accused of doing the work that men should do she retorted “with adamant protest that complaining men should come and replace her efforts.”³ In 1887 Miss Moon urged the Southern Baptist women to institute, at Christmas, a week of prayer and offerings to be given to foreign missions. The goal was $2000 in 1888. They raised $3,315.26. In 1918 the SBC instituted the annual “Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for Foreign Missions.” Lottie Moon died, ironically, on Christmas Eve during the Boxer Rebellion on board a ship sailing from Japan. Christmas for her was a time of giving the best gift of all, Jesus Christ, who is eternal life.

It was during that same great era of missionary work in China that Hudson Taylor wrote home asking, “Are there no servants of our common Lord rusting away at home or at least doing work that others could do if they left it, who might be out here among these numberless towns and villages?”⁴ L.E. Maxwell wrote, “Home missions are good; foreign missions are better; but ‘submissions’ at home and abroad are best of all.”⁵

Consider the contrast to those fiery hearts of a century ago to the 1928 World Missionary Conference a few years after: “The task of the missionary today . . . is to see the best in other religions, to help the adherents of those religions to discover, or to rediscover, all that is best in their own traditions, to cooperate with the most active and vigorous elements in the other traditions in social reform and in the purification of religious expression. The aim should not be conversion.”⁶ Such liberalism sounds all too familiar to our pious religious talk of “faith communities” and “cultural awareness.” Meanwhile, thousands more will die without the Gift of God.

The difficulties in meeting the great challenges to world-wide missionary efforts are not new. In 1792, William Carey, the father of modern missions, published a pamphlet, An Enquiry into the Obligation of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen, encouraging fellow Englishmen to continue the efforts. “It only requires,” he wrote, “that we should have as much love to the souls of our fellow-creatures, and fellow sinners, as they have for the profits arising from a few otter skins, and all these difficulties could be easily surmounted.”⁷ To this concern and passion could be added Adoniram Judson, Luther Rice and scores of others who gave their lives and fanned the flame of evangelistic mission work.

Reginald Heber, missionary to Calcutta, India, left these familiar words that called all Christians “From Greenland’s Icy Mountain, or From India’s coral strand”:

Shall we, whose souls are lighted

With Wisdom from on high;

Shall we to men benighted

The lamp of life deny?

Salvation, O salvation!

The joyful sound proclaim,

Till earth’s remotest nation

Has learned Messiah’s Name.

Notes:

1. D. Bruce Lockerbie, The Cosmic Center (Portland: Multnomah Press, 1986) 156.

2. C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: A Harvest/HJB Book, 1988) 41.

3. Thompson and Cummins, This Day In Baptist History (Greenville: BJU Press, 1993) 536.

4. William Petersen, C.S. Lewis Had A Wife (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1985) 73.

5. L.E. Maxwell, Born Crucified (Chicago: Moody Press, 1973) 27.

6. Lockerbie, p. 159.

7. Bruce Shelley, Church History In Plain English (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1995) 375.

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Those Biblical Oxymora

November 28, 1997Written by Rick Shrader

Those Biblical Oxymora

by Rick Shrader

The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world. . . I had been right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better than all things. The optimist’s pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring.

G.K. Chesterton¹

There is nothing we seem to enjoy more than popularizing an old word. Emerson said, “Every word was once a poem . . . Language is fossil poetry.”² I remember when “scenario” was the only interesting thing about an opera and a “disorder” was a command to break it up. But of all the reborn words going around today, I like “oxymoron” the best. Oxys means “sharp, or keen” and moros means “foolish—more at moron.” It is a combination of sharply contradictory or foolish terms.

Have you ever seen a “civil war?” I doubt if there is such a thing. Can it really be ended by a “peace offensive?” How about “old news?” Isn’t all information old when we get it? Did you ever tell someone they were “pretty ugly?” Well, they can take it any way they want I suppose. Until I gained some weight I didn’t know what “tight slacks” meant. I don’t think I want to find out why there are “death benefits.” This is not to mention such oxymora as “even odds,” “awfully good,” “loyal opposition,” “conspicuously absent,” “benevolent despot,” “war games,” “elevated subway,” and the “living end.” Now I am not sure about tongue-in-cheek oxymora such as “military intelligence,” “postal service” and “non-working mothers.”

This renewed dialectical interest ought to remind us that Christianity itself is an oxymoron. From childhood we learn from the Scripture that that the way up is down, power comes through weakness, greatness is in humility and the first shall be last. It is all too possible that we have learned these truths with the same “mindless thinking” with which we use our native tongue.

Consider these Biblical oxymora: “But and if ye suffer for righteousness sake, happy are ye” (1 Peter 3:14); “Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling” (Psa 2:11); “Who is the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15); “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge” (Eph 3:19); “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3); “having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost” (1 Thes 1:6); “and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev 7:14); “These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone” (Rev 19:20). I think that the central oxymoron of the Bible is “And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 3:23).

I have found the book of Hebrews to contain more than its share of these apparent contradictions. “Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest” (4:11); “Without father . . . but made like unto the Son of God” (7:3); “for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible” (11:27); “and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (12:1). Of course, the writer of Hebrews presents us with the most apparent statement of all, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (11:1).

My favorite oxymoron in Hebrews is an extended one in chapter 12 that illustrates chapter 11. We learned in chapter 11 that faith endures present and real affliction for the sake of unseen realities. Yet, “these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise” (11:39). After seventeen verses in chapter 12 in which the author admonishes us to look to Jesus (“looking” at someone who is not visible to us) and remain faithful in chastisement, we are given a most amazing word picture.

Verse 18 begins with, “For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched” and verse 22 begins with, “But ye are come unto mount Sion.” Now the fact is that those Jewish readers could travel to the Sinai and touch that old mountain if they wanted. Their forefathers stood there long before and trembled at the sight and sound of God’s power. Yet, for all the advantage of the greatest multi-media presentation known in history, those people could not translate the visible to the invisible and believe. The writer of Hebrews was telling his first century readers that they must stay in the assembly of true believers and not return to the visible temple with all of its pomp and ceremony, smells and sounds, beauty and ornament. The true worship of God is to see the unseen.

The true believer is now come to a real mount that has not yet been established, “unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (12:22-24). Those Jewish believers had a better reality than Sinai or Herod’s temple, they had faith in these “things not seen,” in a “cloud of witnesses” that they do not see.

Oxymora are not real contradictions but only apparent. Once they are explained, the initial misunderstanding disappears. That “peace offensive” is seen for what it really is, a “peace initiative.” We are commissioned by God to take the explanation of the reality of faith to a world that sees only with their natural senses. We ask them to see the unseen, to rest in work already done, to prepare for a world to which they cannot travel.

A.W. Tozer wrote, “The modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders of His world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word.”³ May we ever see what we cannot see, but by the eyes of faith.

Notes:

1. G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1994) 82-83.

2. Quoted by Gene Veith, Jr., Reading Between The Lines (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1995) 84.

3. A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit Of God (Harrisburg: Christian Publications, 1958) 13.

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Great Is Diana Of The Ephesians

October 28, 1997Written by Rick Shrader

Great Is Diana Of The Ephesians

by Rick Shrader

Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth. Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands: So that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought; but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth. And when they heard these sayings they were full of wrath, and cried out, saying Great is Diana of the Ephesians. And the whole city was filled with confusion.

Acts 19:25-29

Christians have often been faced with the choice of joining in with the meaningless applause of the crowd or quietly withdrawing. From the recent applause for Princess Diana, in the wake of her tragic death, I will have to withdraw. And yet the applause itself, gushing from an otherwise apathetic world, is in itself amazing. Actually, it is all too typical of a postmodern age.

A half century ago, Britisher C.S. Lewis wrote, “We Britons should rejoice that we have contrived to reach much legal democracy without losing our ceremonial Monarchy. . . Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”¹

Just as the Christians in Ephesus had to endure two hours of incessant truckle to an earlier Diana, we have been subjected to the same and not for far different reasons. An honest and frank look at Diana of the Ephesians would not only have exploded a lot of selfish philosophy, it just plain would have cost too much! Never mind that Diana of the Britons was on the one hand a princess and on the other an adulteress; on the one hand a Brit and on the other ready to marry a Muslim; on the one hand a mother and on the other hand absent; with the one hand holding a starving baby and with the other a Hotel Ritz wine glass. The amazing thing to observe is how the world not only accepts the apparent contradiction but lauds it rather than the death of more consistent servants.

We no longer fight modernism as a society nor as Christians. The generation before us is a postmodern generation, disliking modernism in society as much as the Christian disliked it in theology. If Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher represented the rugged individualism of a modern era, Bill Clinton and Princess Diana represent the “group think” (to use Orwell’s term) of a postmodern era. At least with our liberal friends we could reason on the basis of truth and lie, history and make-believe, manners and profanity. But there is no truth, no deportment, no morality to a postmodern. To him, there is absolutely no contradiction between being an adulterer and being a humanitarian. In fact, to criticize is far worse because the accuser has arrogantly imposed his out-dated morality on someone else and has injured the accused by implying he is inferior in knowledge. In this system the only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

Ironically, the more one would criticize Diana for her moral inconsistencies, the more he would become guilty himself and deify Diana. Gene Veith, Jr. writes, that to a postmodernist, “Such concepts as moral responsibility and individual freedom are thus also illusions, shaped by our Western bourgeois culture.”² For example, in education we now have “facilitators” who help us find our truth rather than “educators” who tell us truth; in philosophy we do not speak of “morals” which would be black and white but rather of “values” which can change from person to person.

The postmodern person lives in virtual reality (a world in which we live without blame or responsibility). Douglas Groothuis notes, “In the decentered self of assumed, online identities, the artificial is offered as the only option for the postmodern soul. There is no ‘real me,’ no trustworthy pattern for moral and spiritual improvement. All is negotiable, exchangeable, and multiple. Integrity becomes impossible; the ideal of virtuous character recedes even as the heart yearns for a self to call its own.”³ To live a double life becomes a mere, hollow anachronism.

A look at the ancient Diana of the Ephesians brings startling comparisons. The Greeks knew Diana as Artemis, while Diana was a Roman name. She was armed with bow and arrow and yet as a virgin goddess was the protector of young girls. Unger, however, says that Diana “of the Ephesians” was actually an Asiatic goddess who was a counter-part to the Phoenician Ashtoreth.⁴ She was the “image which fell down from Jupiter” (Ac 19:35). She had the image of the Greek Diana but the private life of Ashtoreth. She had the image of being a helper of the poor, but “brought no small gain unto the craftsmen” (Ac 19:24). She had the image of being a Greek, but sold her soul to the Asian Mother-Son worship. Diana of the Ephesians was not the classical Greek goddess, but the new era goddess for Ephesians of the age.

I contend that Diana of the Britons was not the Princess of modernism, but the princess of postmodernism. She was a walking contradiction to the manners of an older age and yet she was the champion and hero of the newer age, an age that has long ago eliminated the possibility of being contradictory. The postmodern age loves what was once considered hypocritical. It has found a way to feed the flesh, the pocket-book and the ego; to have its cake and eat it too.

Albert Mohler has written, “Postmodernism is, in reality, modernity in its updated costume, a hypermodernity made all the more seductive by its sophisticated dress.”⁵ The danger lies in the beauty and charisma of a Diana as opposed to the stodginess of the Monarchy. The world will always stand and cheer for a person like that.

Notes:

1. C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986) 20.

2. Gene Veith, Jr., Postmodern Times (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994) 76.

3. Douglas Groothuis, The Soul In Cyber-Space (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1997) 75.

4. Merrill Unger, Unger’s Bible Dictionary,”Gods, False” (Chicago: Moody Press, 1966) 415.

5. Albert Mohler, “Evangelical, What’s In A Name?” The Coming Evangelical Crisis (Chicago: Moody Press, 1996) 39.

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The Middle Road Of Discipleship

September 28, 1997Written by Rick Shrader

The Middle Road Of Discipleship

by Rick Shrader

Our union with Christ means a separation from the domination of the sin nature because of its crucifixion. But it also means a resurrection to newness of living (Rom. 6:4). Throughout this section not only is death taught but also our resurrection. The truth includes not only the fact of separation from the old but also the all-important association with the new, the risen life of Christ. It is mentioned in every verse in Romans 6:4-10. Union with Christ, therefore, not only breaks the power of the old capacity, but it also associates us with Him who gives the power to live according to the new capacity.

Charles Ryrie¹

It often seems simplistic to advocate the middle ground between two points of view but it is also true that we easily and often gravitate to one of two extremes. Sometimes the right (not easy) answer is the simple one especially in matters of Christian deportment. Francois Fenelon, in the 15th century wrote, “Dwelling too much upon self produces in weak minds useless scruples and superstition, and in stronger minds a presumptuous wisdom.”² Our strongest foe in living the Christian life is the indulgence of our own selfishness. It is easier to call selfishness piety and go on than to seek a higher motive for our actions.

In my own life of being in church as well as in the ministry, I have watched the ongoing battle between legalism and license, between those who see the secret to Christian living in the striving to uphold a system and those who strive to be free of any restraint. I think because we realize that the truth must be somewhere in between, seldom do any of us claim either extreme position. But the fact is, we are often in one or both of these positions.

There are times when we strive and work for a pious life out of legalistic selfishness. It is actually easier to be given a list of actions the performing of which constitutes holiness. This was a Colossian problem, “Why are you subject to ordinances, after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the gody; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh” (Col 2:20-23). This was also a Cretian problem. The law keepers were “vain talkers and deceivers” (Tit 1:10), who gave heed “To Jewish fables, and commandments of men” (vs 14). Sadly, “They profess that they know God; but in works (the system itself) they deny him” (vs 16).

I think the historical phenomenon of the Monastic system is a unique illustration of the weakness and failure to achieve holiness through human effort. G.K. Chesterton, a Catholic himself, defends the system by saying, “So far from being a revival of paganism, the Franciscan renascence was a sort of fresh start and first awakening after a forgetfulness of paganism.”³ But the fact is, such a fresh start was only achieved by the first generation who retreated to monastic life out of true pietism. The next generation came because they wanted the same recognition of pietism that their founders gained. And so, even though the system of self-denying rules remained the same, it quickly became only a means to a selfish end, a way to gain recognition for piety, which is not piety at all.

John Armstrong calls this sort of thing, “a new form of legalism. It is a modern moralism without Christ and the cross.”⁴ We can perform even the most biblical of functions selfishly and therefore gain nothing in holiness. We can pray to God while wondering how well we are doing. We can sing “Amazing Grace” to be heard of men. We can give our money to missions in order to get a blessing from God. It is all selfishness.

There are times when we insist on personal liberties out of licentious selfishness. What some call a freedom in grace is nothing more than the flip side to legalistic selfishness. In his great chapter on Christian works, James says we will be judged by the law of liberty, that is, held eternally accountable (Jas 2:12). Peter warns not to use liberty “for a cloke of maliciousness” (1 Pet 2:16), and not to follow those who “while they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption” (2 Pet 2:19). If we have been crucified with Christ, are we not raised to a new holy life which is in antipathy to the world? Why, other than selfishness, would we want to be free to every indulgence?

There is also a unique illustration of this problem in Luther’s theology and that of his followers. Luther had found the riches of God’s grace and its unconditional forgiveness, so unlike the Augustinian order in which he had labored. As Bonhoeffer records, that grace for Luther was costly and would demand the price of his life. “Yet the outcome of the Reformation was the victory, not of Luther’s perception of grace in all its purity and costliness, but of the vigilant religious instinct of man for the place where grace is to be obtained at the cheapest price. All that was needed was a subtle and almost imperceptible change of emphasis, and the damage was done.”

Paul asked the “servants of righteousness,” “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?” (Rom 6:21). Somehow, licentious grace has forgotten to be ashamed. We relish to be free to miss church. We dress down not up when there are no expectations. We indulge rather than abstain at almost every turn.

The middle ground between these two pitiful valleys of selfishness is the higher ground. In our lives we might call this middle ground between absolute law and unrestrained freedom, manners— that self-effacing action of doing right when no one makes us, just because it is right. Manners go against every selfish bone in our being. And so do religious manners! We must not practice holiness because the law demands it of us, nor ignore holiness because we are free to do so. Holiness is that self-effacing servanthood whereby we identify with Christ’s cross. There is no selfishness in it. There are no rewards nor applause in this life. John Bunyan said, “Were it not for the cross, where we have one professor we should have twenty; but this cross, that is it which spoileth all.”⁶ Yes, because if we could only pander to selfishness, whether by legalism or license, people would flock to us.

When once the great Puritan, John Owen heard Bunyan speak in Zoar Chapel, King Charles “expressed wonder that a man of his learning could bear to listen to the ‘prate’ of a tinker, [Owen] answered, that he would gladly give all his learning for this tinker’s power.”⁷ “For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you” (2 Cor 13:4).

Notes:

1. Charles Ryrie, Balancing The Christian Life (Chicago: Moody Press, 1994) 57-58.

2. Francois Fenelon, “Simplicity and Greatness” Orations, Homer To McKinley, IV (NY: Collier, 1902) 1639.

3. G.K. Chesterton, St Francis of Assisi (New York: Image Books, 1990) 91.

4. John Armstrong, The Coming Evangelical Crisis (Chicago: Moody Press, 1996) 23.

5. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Touchstone Books, 1995) 49.

6. John Bunyan, “The Heavenly Footmen” Orations, 1590.

7. Thomas Armitage, The History Of The Baptists,I (Minneapolis: Klock Publishing, 1976) 479.

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And They Sang A New Song

July 28, 1997Written by Rick Shrader

And They Sang A New Song

by Rick Shrader

I saw in my dreams that just as Christian came up to the cross, his burden loosed from his shoulders and fell from his back and began to tumble till it came to the mouth of the sepulcher, where it fell in and I saw it no more. Then was Christian glad and lightsome and said with a merry heart, “He has given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death.”

John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress

Jonathan Edwards once said, “I love the doctrines of the gospels: They have been to my soul like green pastures.”¹ Surely the testimony of our Christian faith ought to be the absolute joy of resting in the truths of our redemption! It is that thrill that prompted C.S. Lewis to write, “For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books.”²

There seems to be a flood of devotional thought today, coming from any and every religious affiliation. It is “religiously correct” in that it does not offend anyone nor promote one religious “expression” over another. These devotional bytes are so encompassing that they do not even require a personal testimony of salvation in order to find spiritual application. Our area newspapers carry regular columns on the ecumenical virtues of all religions, especially any that claim to be “Christian.” The goal is obviously to apply religious belief to oneself, not to apply oneself to religious belief. In this way the individual becomes the standard of truth while belief is an item on a buffet that can be taken as one desires.

Is all worship valid just because it is worship? John Flavel, a fifteenth century Puritan, wrote, “Carnal men rejoice carnally, and spiritual men should rejoice spiritually.”³ It is no secret that lost people may speak when we speak, or laugh when we laugh, or sing when we sing, or say amen when we say amen. But are they doing the same thing we are doing? Or we might ask: If we form our worship by asking the lost person what he desires, will we be worshiping or merely sharing generic devotional religion? One pastor and author who promotes the “seeker-sensitive” format admitted, “I learned that it is imperative to keep seeker-sensitive services and traditional services separate. They do not mix.”⁴ Is there not a reason the two approaches do not mix? And isn’t that reason more than the usual proffer of cultural relevancy?

There is no greater biblical text describing worship than Revelation chapters four and five. We often sing a chorus from 4:11, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” This song expresses a truth that can be sung by all: believing saints (as here), angels (5:12) and creatures (5:13). But chapter five creates a sadness in heaven because, though all recognize God as God, there is not a “man” (5:3) who has “prevailed” (5:5) to open the special message of the seven-sealed book. When Jesus Christ appears as a lamb slain (5:6) who is “worthy” to open the book, a new song is sung. But it is a song that can only be sung by the saints. Their song cannot be sung by the angels nor the creatures. It is a “new song” which says: “Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (5:9). The only other place a “new song” is mentioned is 14:3 where the tribulation martyrs are described as “redeemed from the earth.”

The one requirement for participation in worshiping through the slain Lamb is to be redeemed by His blood. I am not advocating that the unsaved should be kept from singing in our worship services. I am saying that they have no reference point for advising us on worship. They should be invited guests who observe the worship of the redeemed and the Holy Spirit should be relied upon to translate the message of redemption to their needy hearts. Albert Mohler wrote, “Although worship may be contemporary and remain authentic, it cannot be ‘seeker-oriented’ and remain true to the biblical concept of genuine worship. True worship focuses on God—our gracious, loving holy Lord—the Trinitarian God who delights in the praises of His people.”⁵ And His people are those who have been “redeemed.”

In a biography of Francis Schaeffer, L.G. Parkhurst, Jr. writes about Schaeffer’s break from the Presbyterian church because of the liberalism that had taken over that denomination. Schaeffer lamented that with all the pomp of the Presbyterian services, so few cared at all about the great doctrines of the faith.⁶ Schaeffer’s turning point came when “he learned what the finished work of Christ meant in his present experience . . . He recognized that his own lack of the reality of the presence of God in his life was related to his ignorance about the meaning of the finished work of Christ.”⁷

The “new song” is a song about redemption, the finished work of Christ applied to the believing heart. J. Sidlow Baxter wrote, “The Christian belongs to what he is to become; not to what he has left behind.”⁸ Our worship must be the new song of a changed life which others can only stand and observe. Why do we think such worship is powerless? The fact that a lost person may be uncomfortable could be the greatest compliment that could be paid.

It is a misnomer to say such worship is “too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.” C.S. Lewis said, “Those who want Heaven most have served Earth best. Those who love Man less than God do most for Man.”⁹ The most “progressive” Christian thinker should be the one who, having observed the plight of his generation, heralds the one message that can bring about true change. “And they sang a new song!”

Notes:

1. Ralph Turnbull, Jonathan Edwards The Preacher (Grand Rapids: Baker Book, 1958) 70.

2. C.S. Lewis, God In The Dock (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman’s, 1970) 205.

3. Mayo Hazeltine, Ed, Orations from Homer to McKinley, Vol 4 (New York: Collier and Son, 1902) 1599.

4. Ed Dobson, Starting A Seeker Sensitive Service (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993) 43.

5. Albert Mohler, “Evangelical: What’s In A Name,” The Coming Evangelical Crisis (Chicago: Moody Press, 1996) 40.

6. L.G. Parkhurst, Jr. Francis & Edith Schaeffer (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1996) 77.

7. Ibid, 74-75.

8. J. Sidlow Baxter, Christian Holiness (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977) 39.

9. C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986) 80.

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