Westminster Wednesday: Refreshment for the Weary

The Lord's Day assembly is the day, the place and time, when the Christian hears from the Lord, "You are in My favor, My child. My Son, your Lord and Savior, has satisfied My covenant requirements. Be comforted, and live in the benefits that He has purchased for you through His fulfillment of the mission that I had placed upon Him. Walk in My ways for therein is life, and life truly."

Sadly, one would be hard-pressed to find such an announcement coming from the pulpits of most churches today.

J. Gresham Machen observed:

Whatever the solution there may be, one thing is clear. There must be somewhere groups of redeemed men and women who can gather together humbly in the name of Christ, to give thanks to Him for his unspeakable gift and to worship the Father through Him. Such groups alone can satisfy the needs of the soul. At the present time, there is one longing of the human heart which is often forgotten — it is the deep, pathetic longing of the Christian for fellowship with his brethren. One hears much, it is true, about Christian union and harmony and co-operation. But the union that is meant is often a union with the world against the Lord, or at best a forced union of machinery and tyrannical committees. How different is the true unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace! Sometimes, it is true, the longing for Christian fellowship is satisfied. There are congregations, even in the present age of conflict, that are really gathered around the table of the crucified Lord; there are pastors that are pastors indeed. But such congregations, in many cities, are difficult to find. Weary with the conflicts of the world, one goes into the Church to seek refreshment for the soul. And what does one find? Alas, too often, one finds only the turmoil of the world. The preacher comes forward, not out of a secret place of meditation and power, not with the authority of God's Word permeating his message, not with human wisdom pushed far into the background by the glory of the Cross, but with human opinions about the social problems of the hour or easy solutions of the vast problem of sin. Such is the sermon. And then perhaps the service is closed by one of those hymns breathing out the angry passions of 1861, which are to be found in the back part of the hymnals. Thus the warfare of the world has entered even into the house of God. And sad indeed is the heart of the man who has come seeking peace.

Is there no refuge from strife? Is there no place of refreshing where a man can prepare for the battle of life? Is there no place where two or three can gather in Jesus' name, to forget for the moment all those things that divide nation from nation and race from race, to forget human pride, to forget the passions of war, to forget the puzzling problems of industrial strife, and to unite in overflowing gratitude at the foot of the Cross? If there be such a place, then that is the house of God and that the gate of heaven. And from under the threshold of that house will go forth a river that will revive the weary world. (Christianity and Liberalism [1923], 180-81)

The Priests of Success Don't Sleep

"It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep" (Psalm 127:2).

Modernism and the industrial revolution have left us not only with conveniences that have made life much easier but, as I've argued elsewhere, an unthinking breed of men. Another offshoot of this is the undue quality of virtue that has been stamped upon workaholism. Wide-eyed adulation is heaped upon the man (or woman) who can work long hours, who has the mettle to forego personal relationships and amusements, all on the altar of the workbench.

Enter SAP India CEO, Ranjan Das. By all accounts, the SAP India head honcho was a health nut. He ate right, exercised regularly, and was even an avid marathoner. But at the unripe, young age of 42, Das drops dead of a massive heart attack. The reason? Sleep deprivation!

Ranjan Das was a poster boy for modernism and industry. He was one of its priests, and he sacrificed his life for sacred success.

I don't know about you, but that's certainly no way to live! Nor die.

John Calvin has some words to say on the matter:

Moses the Meekest

"Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth." (Numbers 12:3)

It does seem oxymoronic for Moses to refer to himself as the humblest human being in the world. But there is more here than meets the eye.

Firstly, Moses does seem to be possessed of an inherently underdog nature. Reared in the royal courts of Pharaoh, Moses could've lived life in the lap of luxury. He had the American dream down. But when he saw a fellow Israelite being bullied by an Egyptian, he didn't think pragmatically, counting his set life as a deterrent to doing the noble thing. He shed Egyptian blood and left easy street for a life of obscurity in the desert, becoming a good son-in-law in the tending of sheep. Imagine the lowliness of mind and self-estimation required for such a transition!

Also, Moses appears to have been afflicted with stuttering. As a stutterer myself, I know firsthand how humbling that can be!

Secondly—and this is perhaps the weightier point in the understanding of the passage—"meek" here can mean "miserable" or "burdened." God's call upon him signaled the beginning of a life of carrying the burden of the people of God. So when Moses refers to himself as the meekest man on the planet, what he's really saying is that his role in redemptive history is such that the weight of care and trouble that this mandate brings far exceeds that of anyone else's "stresses." Considering the fact that Moses is a type or shadow of Christ, it does make perfect sense.

A fuller discussion here and here.

Van Til on Driscoll

Mark Driscoll's rejection of the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son of God (declared in ecumenical creeds and Reformed confessions) is discussed here (Part 1), here (Part 2), here (Part 3), and here (Part 4).

It appears Cornelius Van Til was on the mark once again when he said:

It is sometimes contended that ministers need not be trained in systematic theology if only they know their Bibles. But "Bible-trained" instead of systematically trained preachers frequently preach error. They may mean ever so well and be ever so true to the gospel on certain points; nevertheless, they often preach error. There are many "orthodox" preachers today whose study of Scripture has been so limited to what it says about soteriology that they could not protect the fold of God against heresies on the person of Christ. Oftentimes they themselves even entertain definitely heretical notions on the person of Christ, though perfectly unaware of the fact. (An Introduction to Systematic Theology [New Jersey: P & R, 2007], ed. William Edgar, 22)

Westminster Wednesday: Some Big Van Tillian Words

References:
(Bahnsen = Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1998).

Frame = John M. Frame, Cornelius Van Til: an Analysis of His Thought (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1995).

VT= Van Til)


Absolute Personality: VT's basic characterization of God. Unlike any non-Christian view, the biblical God is both absolute (a se, self-existent, selfsufficient, self-contained) and personal (thinking, speaking, acting, loving, judging). See Frame, 51ff.

Ad hominem: Argument that exposes deficiencies in the arguer rather than deficiencies in the proposition under discussion. Thus, a logical fallacy. But often ad hominem argument is appropriate. See Bahnsen, 116ff, 468, 492, Frame, 153.

All-conditioner: VT's characterization of God in "Why I Believe in God" (see Bahnsen, 121-143). God is the one who ultimately influences all reality, including our own thinking and reasoning about him.

Analogy, analogical reasoning: (1) (Aquinas) Thinking in language that is neither literally true (univocal), nor unrelated to the subject matter (equivocal), but which bears a genuine resemblance to that subject matter. (2) (VT) Thinking in subjection to God's revelation and therefore thinking God's thoughts after him.

Antithesis: The opposition between Christian and non-Christian thought. See Frame, 187ff.

Apologetics: That branch of theology that gives reasons for our hope. VT saw it as involving proof, defense, and offense.

A priori: Knowledge acquired prior to experience, used to interpret and evaluate experience. Contrasted with a posteriori knowledge, knowledge arising out of experience. See Bahnsen, 107n, 177.

Authority of the expert: Submission to the knowledge of someone better informed, rather than absolute submission to God as the very criterion of truth. To VT, this is the only kind of authority the unbeliever will accept.

Autonomy: The attempt to live apart from any law external to the self. To VT, this is the paradigm attitude of unbelief. See Bahnsen 109, n.

The Pagan Roots of Homosexuality

First order of business: definition of terms.

What is paganism?

"I would suggest that the essence of paganism can be usefully described as monism, the belief that one principle defines and unites all of reality. Thus all is one, humanity is one divine reality, and all religions are ultimately many expressions of the one monistic truth. At the heart of this theoretical religious paganism lies a particular and powerful mystical experience of oneness. Indeed, it is often claimed in today’s syncretistic age that at the core of all religions, beyond and behind their distinctive doctrines, is the same mystical encounter." (Peter Jones, Androgyny: The Pagan Sexual Ideal, JETS 43/3 [September 2000], 446)

What is the historical association of paganism and homosexuality?

"Throughout time and across space, the pagan cultus consistently, though not exclusively, holds out as its sexual representative the emasculated, androgynous priest." (ibid., 448)

Pagan religion, with virtual unanimity, "believed that homosexuals 'were vocationally mediums.' They also, with a certain logical consistency, held that heterosexual intercourse impaired the mediumistic talent" (ibid., 454).

However, "this is not to suggest some scarlet, conspiratorial thread connecting the dots. The connection is logical, theological, and inevitable. A monistic view of existence will work itself out in all the domains of human life, and especially in the domain of sexuality" (ibid., 457).

What is the religious significance between paganism and homosexuality?

"Therefore homosexuals are—though some unconsciously or only partially—true pagan monists, who have succeeded in translating spiritual theory into physical reality." (ibid., 462)

"The physico-theological mechanism seems to function as follows: androgynous persons, whether homosexual or bi-sexual, are able to express within themselves both sexual roles and identities. In the sex act they engage both as male and female, equally as penetrator and penetrated, the 'hard' and the 'soft'—and thus taste in some form or other both physical and spiritual androgyny." (ibid., 463)

Read the whole article here.

Steve Jobs Was Both Right and Wrong

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it." (Steve Jobs, Commencement Address at Stanford University [June 12, 2005])

The statement above by the late, great Steve Jobs is both true and false.

It is true in the sense that physical death was never part of man's telos as indicated by the fact that the everlasting life that is the heritage of the saints is a physical life to be lived out in a physical New Earth, and arguably, the damned shall be tormented in hell in a state of physicality as well.

But it is also false in the sense intimated by Paul in the following verses:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better (Philippians 1:21-23).

Steve Jobs had the best medical treatment that money could buy, and yet here we are now mourning his passing.

The message that is crystal clear is that not a single one of us holds our lives in our own hands, in an ultimate sense, regardless of the size of our pocketbooks. This is cause for fear and consternation on the part of the rebel, but comfort and solace for the humble in Christ:

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:28-31).

Westminster Wednesday: G. I. Williamson on the Offices in the Church

After meticulous consideration, he favors the 3-office view.

I want to begin this article by frankly admitting that I've long hesitated on this issue. The fact that Paul only speaks of elders and deacons in 1 Timothy 3:1-13 and Titus 1:5-9 has always seemed to me to have some weight in favor of the two-office view. At the same time, however, I've always thought that 1 Timothy 5:17 clearly proves that—in the established churches of the Apostolic age—there was a marked division of labor among those who were called elders. All elders ruled, but there were some elders who, in addition to ruling, were especially marked out to "labor in word and doctrine" and this undeniable fact always seemed to me to lend some weight to the arguments of those in favor of the three-office view.

I've read just about everything that I could put my hands on to resolve my hesitation, but never seemed to quite get beyond a two and-a-half-office view. But then one day it 'hit' me. Now I wonder why I never thought of it before. I'm even more astonished that no one else seems to have thought of it either (at least I am not aware of any, and I've been looking into this issue for the past 40 years). So here I am tentatively setting forth what seems to me to be the amazingly simple solution to this difficulty.

The Pastor: What He Is and What He Is Not

The news of Yousef Nadarkhani, an Iranian pastor facing possible execution, has made the headlines. A good treatment of his case can be found here.

Now compare him with the brash and insolent Perry Noble:




Noble, who claims to be a pastor, doesn't want to spend time with the people of his pasture (they make him uncomfortable) and abhors the idea of doing hospital visitations while the sick person is still alive (he might agree to visit when they're dead!).

Square that with the words of the Lord Jesus Christ (the One Noble claims to serve!):

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." (Matt. 25:31-40)

Can you come to grips with the idea of Noble being willing to die for his faith? I certainly cannot by any stretch of the imagination! If mere association with Christ's sheep rubs him wrong, then to claim love for the sheep owner is a blatant lie. In fact, "If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen" (1 John 4:20).

By now it must be pretty obvious what a real pastor is, and that Perry Noble does not measure up (not even an inch). If not, then the following lectures from Sinclair Ferguson should bring home the point pretty well, i.e., the pastor is called to give his life for his Master's sheep.

Mere Christianity: The Appeal to a Heterodox Past

It is often lamented that modern (or postmodern) evangelicalism does not look to the past for the foundations of its faith and practice. While this is certainly true in a strict sense, there is no escaping the universal truth expressed in Ecclesiates 1:9 and the fact that evangelicals today owe a lot to the legacies of those who've pandered a notion of mere Christianity in the past.

Claiming to get at the kernel and leaving behind the husk, these seemingly "radical" innovators are actually no more than current expressions of a rebellious individualism that has marked heretics of a bygone era. Tradition is stiff, "new measures" are where the Spirit's at, doctrine divides, and a host of other meaningless catch phrases comprise their rhetoric.

In fact, "Christian liberalism" is mere Christianity and this is what J. Gresham Machen fought against, not liberalism per se.

To C.S. Lewis fans this little snippet from Dr. Carl Trueman has much to say:

Westminster Wednesday: Where Have the Great Men Gone?

Scientific advancement and the industrial revolution have produced a new criterion for judging man as successful. A man is made when he has contributed significantly to industry, and a man who has thus contributed is rewarded handsomely in financial terms. Hence, the impetus for higher education has really not been the desire to know more about God, His creation, and the cultivation of the latter for the glory of the former, but the amassment of wealth. This phenomenon has produced dullards on a wholesale level.

J. Gresham Machen rightly observes:

"Scientific investigation, as has already been observed, has certainly accomplished much; it has in many respects produced a new world. But there is another aspect of the picture which should not be ignored. The modern world represents in some respects an enormous improvement over the world in which our ancestors lived; but in other respects it exhibits a lamentable decline. The improvement appears in the physical conditions of life, but in the spiritual realm there is a corresponding loss. The loss is clearest, perhaps, in the realm of art. Despite the mighty revolution which has been produced in the external conditions of life, no great poet is now living to celebrate the change; humanity has suddenly become dumb. Gone, too, are the great painters and the great musicians and the great sculptors. The art that still subsists is largely imitative, and where it is not imitative it is usually bizarre. Even the appreciation of the glories of the past is gradually being lost, under the influence of a utilitarian education that concerns itself only with the production of physical well-being." (Christianity and Liberalism, Introduction)

The solution? A Christianity that is integrally connected with the past.

Pro-Choice Kebabs

This video production by Ray Comfort is worth the half hour:




What struck me off the bat was the sheer stupidity of the American youths interviewed. It could be argued that the sampling was too small to be indicative of the state of the American youngster. I sure do hope that that is the case. However, this inanity is something I see even in the local Filipino youth culture, which convinces me of a pandemic of stupidity among the younger generation.

Back to the point of this post and the video: the murder of human babies in the woman's womb. Meredith G. Kline has given treatment to this issue, and I've blogged about it in the past here.

It was from Kline's article where I first learned that the pagan Assyrians (with natural law coursing hot through their veins) had such a disgust for abortion that they made kebabs of the early, pro-choice, women's libbers among their ranks.

"As we observed at the outset, induced abortion was so abhorrent to the Israelite mind that it was not necessary to have a specific prohibition dealing with it in the Mosaic law. The Middle Assyrian laws attest to an abhorrence that was felt for this crime even in the midst of the heathendom around Israel, lacking though it did the illumination of special revelation. For in those laws a woman guilty of abortion was condemned to be impaled on stakes. Even if she managed to lose her own life in producing the abortion, she was still to be impaled and hung up in shame as an expression of the community's repudiation of such an abomination. It is hard to imagine a more damning commentary on what is taking place in enlightened America today than that provided by this legal witness out of the conscience of benighted ancient paganism!" (Lex Talionis and the Human Fetus).

Is there a place for giant-sized meat skewers in our day? I am inclined to answer in the affirmative.

Pat Robertson: The Monster-Maker

I'm sure you're aware of the infamous "advice" that Pat Robertson gave this husband about the legitimacy of divorcing his "walking death" wife who suffers from Alzheimer's. See video below:






Square that with Paul's own "advice":

But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:8).

Got me thinking: What sort of being is actually worse than an unbeliever? Van Til's antithesis gives us only two kinds of human being, the believer and the unbeliever, so there must be something outside of this binary construct. Then it dawned on me: DEMONS.

John Calvin deemed this third kind to be MONSTERS:

He says that they who do not care about any of their relatives, and especially about their own house, have 'denied the faith.' And justly; for there is no piety towards God, when a person can thus lay aside the feelings of humanity. Would faith, which makes us the sons of God, render us worse than brute beasts? Such inhumanity, therefore, is open contempt of God, and denying of the faith.

Not content with this, Paul heightens the criminality of their conduct, by saying, that he who forgets his own is worse than an infidel This is true for two reasons. First, the further advanced any one is in the knowledge of God, the less is he excused; and therefore, they who shut their eyes against the clear light of God are worse than infidels. Secondly, this is a kind of duty which nature itself teaches; for they are natural affections. And if, by the mere guidance of nature, infidels are so prone to love their own, what must we think of those who are not moved by any such feeling? Do they not go even beyond the ungodly in brutality? If it be objected, that, among unbelievers, there are also many parents that are cruel and savage; the explanation is easy, that Paul is not speaking of any parents but those who, by the guidance and instruction of nature, take care of their own offspring; for, if any one have degenerated from that which is so perfectly natural, he ought to be regarded as a monster. (Commentary on 1 Tim. 5:8)

So Pat Robertson is actually asking us to become DEMONS and MONSTERS given the right circumstances. Can't get more ANTI-CHRISTIAN than that!