An Important Essay from Geerhardus Vos' Boy

The Bible Doctrine of the Separated Life by Johannes G. Vos

The question of the separated life is a very important one, not only because it is a practical question which must be faced by every thoughtful Christian, but also because of the doctrinal ramifications that it has. Insistence upon the obligation to live what is called "the separated life" is very prevalent in some circles of earnest Christians today. The details of the separation demanded vary greatly; practices which are tolerated by some groups are denounced by others as inconsistent with Christian duty and fellowship, and vice versa. In general, "the separated life," as the term is commonly used, may be understood to be a life which is separated not only from what can be proved by Scripture to be sinful, but also from various other practices which may be indifferent in themselves; and this separation is regarded as binding on the conscience of the Christian, and is sometimes made a term or condition of ecclesiastical or even of Christian fellowship.

This problem is far more important than is at first apparent. It is far more important than the mere question whether Christians ought to participate in or to abstain from certain particular kinds of conduct. Other problems of the greatest importance are involved. If we give a wrong answer to the question, "What is the Bible doctrine of the separated life?" we are certain to fall into serious errors in other doctrines. Using the term "separated life" in the Biblical, not the popular, sense, we may say that the separated life is an ethical implication of the covenant of grace and is related to the doctrine of sanctification as the latter deals with the nature and place of good works in the Christian life. The other doctrines which are involved in the question of the separated life are: (1) Christian liberty in the use of things indifferent; (2) liberty of conscience from the commandments of men; (3) the sufficiency of Scripture as the standard of faith and conduct; (4) the nature and limits of the authority of the Christian church. The purpose of the present paper is to set forth the teaching of Scripture concerning the separated life, and then to show how erroneous teaching about the separated life affects the four doctrines enumerated above.

The Beard of Brotherly Unity

I dedicate this post to my beloved pastor, Nollie Malabuyo, and fellow elder, Albert Medina, with whom the bond of brotherly unity is both a pleasure and a privilege.

Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes! It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore. (Psalm 133)

A body in the process of disintegration is a grotesque sight. The order with which God has stamped nature impels us to recoil at disease, especially those of the kind that leaves the physical body disfigured. So it is in matters spiritual.

The church militant, that part of the body of Christ still embroiled in the warfare and struggles of this age, is at its comeliest when those that comprise it are integrated. The disease of disunity leaves it scarred and ugly. What is the foundation of this unity? Calvin writes in his commentary on the passage cited above:

All true union among brethren [is] to take its rise from God, and to have this for its legitimate object, that all may be brought to worship God in purity, and call upon his name with one consent. Would the similitude have been borrowed from holy ointment if it had not been to denote, that religion must always hold the first place? Any concord, it is thus insinuated, which may prevail amongst men, is insipid, if not pervaded by a sweet savor of God’s worship. We maintain, therefore, that men are to be united amongst themselves in mutual affection, with this as the great end, that they may be placed together under the government of God...We must hold, that when mention is made of the Priest, it is to intimate, that concord takes its rise in the true and pure worship of God, while by the beard and skirts of the garments, we are led to understand that the peace which springs from Christ as the head, is diffused through the whole length and breadth of the Church.

Unity is first and foremost founded on true religion, i.e., the pure and undefiled religion passed down from Christ, to the apostles, to the early church, and reclaimed by the Reformation. There may be unity in the basest essential doctrines shared by other professors, but the Christian religion permeates all of life, and all of life can only come under the righteous rule of Christ if true religion is the foundation. We do not aim for a "passing grade" in the school of Christ, we aim for excellence, to the glory of His name.

It must also be observed that unity promotes the fruitfulness of the church. As the sweet moisture of dew hastens the growth of vegetation, so does unity among the elders and constituency of the church provide the fertile soil upon which maturity in Christ is attained. Once more, Calvin observes:

David suggests, that the life of man would be sapless, unprofitable, and wretched, unless sustained by brotherly harmony. It is evident, that mount Hermon must have been rich and fruitful, being famed amongst places for pasture. Mountains depend principally for fertility upon the dews of heaven, and this was shown in the case of mount Zion. David adds in the close, that God commands his blessing where peace is cultivated; by which is meant, that he testifies how much tie is pleased with concord amongst men, by showering down blessings upon them. The same sentiment is expressed by Paul in other words, (2 Corinthians 13:11; Philippians 4:9,) 'Live in peace, and the God of peace shall be with you.' Let us then, as much as lies in us, study to walk in brotherly love, that we may secure the divine blessing.

For the glory of the Head, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the health and growth of His body, the Church, let the elders of the local body be united in doctrinal purity and love, and as they are such, the members shall in turn be united with them, and so shall Christ be "all and in all" (Colossians 3:11).

Church: The Place Where People Have It All Together?

I stumbled across this post over at "The Christian Curmudgeon" and it struck me as a pretty poignant observation, especially since I wrote in the same vein just recently.

TCC observes:

"While the church requires honesty, it may show it does not know quite what to do when there is transparent honesty.

Honesty is particularly dangerous when Christians admit to two struggles – struggles with doubt and struggles with sin."

It is a sad irony that awkwardness should characterize the church in its two chief mandates: orthodoxy and orthopraxy. But I believe the concession lies in one key realization that must occur both on the part of the church leadership and the church members, i.e., the realization that both parties still struggle with sin and that though biblical ideals are in place, the substantial fulfillment of them is reserved for the future age.

In other words, the church leadership should extend more grace to the members, and the members should extend more grace to the former when they fail to extend more grace to them.

The overarching unity in all of this is that we have been saved by grace, through faith, in Christ. As John Owen alludes to in his work on temptation, it is the patience of Christ (Rev. 3:10) that keeps us all together:

A soul acquainted with the gospel knows that there is no property of Christ rendered more glorious therein than that of his patience. (Overcoming Sin & Temptation, eds. Kelly Kapic & Justin Taylor [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2006], 204)

The Lord of Non-Contradiction

The beautiful aspects of creation reflect (analogize) the perfections of God. Behind our finite appreciation of the wonders of God's creation is the consistency which undergird the latter. Imagine your horror when you wake up one morning to find that the wheels on your car had morphed into the shape of a square! A square wheel. LOL.

The absence of such an absurdity in reality is by virtue of the fact that the Creator of reality is all throughout consistent in His being, and He has imparted this attribute of consistency to His handiwork.

The following paper by James N. Anderson and Greg Welty explore the relationship of God with logic and is a very profitable read:

Baboon Stress: The Perichoresis of Natural and Special Revelation

This is a pretty interesting National Geographic documentary on stress.

The initial findings consisted of the observation that one's placement in the social strata determined one's stress levels. So the bosses had lower stress levels than the subordinates, and hence, had less of the risk of stress-related disease. The scientific data gathering came from many fronts, but the video highlighted the research on baboons.

Near the end of the video, after data on genetic study revealed that stress shortened one's telomeres, it was revealed that positive, caring—loving—social interaction actually promoted the regrowth of these telomeres (it should be noted that the shortening of telomeres corresponds to aging). So, here, a premise emerges: love combats stress and its deadly consequences. The case of a baboon troop, whose aggressive alpha males were decimated by disease, that began to be characterized by gentle and caring social interaction by virtue of the survival of predominantly females and docile young males, and which utopian conditions prevailed across succeeding generations, somehow lends further credence to the argument.

The video ends with the resounding conclusion that the way to combat stress is not to claw one's way up the social ladder, but to be contented in one's life sphere, thereby feeling and experiencing the control which bosses posses, and to cultivate a loving social dynamic with others. Sounds very familiar!

"But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs." (1 Timothy 6:6-10)

and

"For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another." (Galatians 5:14-15)

Natural revelation and special revelation holding hands? Sure!

The Filial Ground of Salvation

Whenever I come across pictures of soldiers on the way to a tour of duty, holding their children in their arms, weeping for the impending separation (possibly for a lifetime), my heart is broken. As a father myself, I vicariously feel their pain. A parent longs to always be with his child, to commune with him, to raise him up—to personally love him. If such noble virtues exist in finite, created man, it is but fitting to ground them eminently on the infinite Creator.

It is said that God is merciful, but the kind of mercy that He lavishly bestows on His children is properly borne out of love, a love that has its moorings in God's eternal being. Plainly said, God is merciful to the elect because He loved them as His children before the foundation of the world, coddled in His eternal affections. This adequately negates any notion of worthiness on the part of the objects of love. In fact, God is able to show mercy to His evil, debauched, and sinful foreloved children because they are precisely that—His children.

Geerhardus Vos, in his sermon on Ephesians 2:4,5 entitled, The Spiritual Resurrection of Believers, comments:

Imagine for a moment that you seek the good of someone with whom you do not have a relationship, that you do everything in your power to advance his welfare; you sacrifice yourself for him. But look! Instead of thankfully acknowledging that, he remains indifferent, begins to hate you, and ends up by cursing you. What do you think? Would the miserable condition of such a person be likely to evoke your mercy?

But now, imagine for a moment that all the circumstances just mentioned are the same, except that this time the scoundrel is not a stranger but your own son. Could you stop loving him because he hates you? Could you cease praying for him because he curses you? Could you restrain the urgings of your fatherly mercy because he has seared his conscience? I think not! You will say: He is still my son, whom I have carried in my arms. The more such a rogue causes you shame and heartbreak, all the more will you watch, moved by deep pity for him, how he willfully throws himself into ruin.

Where now is the distinction? Why can't you show mercy to a stranger who behaves like this but can towards your own child, although he may be ten times more vile than the stranger? The answer is simple: in the first case, no love drove you to pity; in the second, a great love had to be expressed in rich mercy.

Our case is no different. In themselves sinners are not objects of mercy but vessels of wrath. Sin is enmity and enmity as such does not fall within the scope of pity. But from eternity God had loved those sinners, those enemies, those spiritually dead, with a fatherly love. This love was the foundation of everything and was before everything. It is useless to ask after its origin. It came from the inscrutable being of God and embraced the objects of its free choice even before they had existence. It determined to make them in such a way as to reflect that love. And look what happened! Those children fell, sank into sin and death. Instead of sons they became devils. Love was answered with hate. Nevertheless—and here lies the precious core of our text—all this was not able to extinguish that love, because it is impossible to tear the son from the heart of the father. On the contrary, it now first came to light clearly that it was love and not just kindness. Where the latter would have stopped it went further and emerged triumphant. It did not love the righteous and virtuous, but the godless. In this "God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us." This is the deepest reason why Paul knows to ascribe to no other cause than a great, divine love the fact that those who lay in the midst of sin and death and were enemies of God were nevertheless endowed with the greatest benefits that could befall them, namely that God, according to his rich mercy, made them alive together with Christ, the Lord.

These truths brought home by Vos hit me like a freight train. Though they are truths often considered as "common knowledge," the peculiar twist of grounding God's mercy on His parental love flooded me with Gospel comfort.

The Heavenly Father loved me before a single atom of my being became reality, and it is precisely by virtue of this love that He created me, sustains me, pitied me in my wretched state of sinfulness, and brought me to Christ, whose union ensures the continuity of the fatherly love that had no beginning and will have no end.

"I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty" (2 Corinthians 6:18).

Law and Gospel—the Superiority of the Latter in Dealing with Sin and Temptation

In the Christian's lifelong battle against indwelling sin, his heart is the prize defended and assaulted. Proverbs 4:23 and John Owen agree when the former states, "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life" and the latter, "Our hearts, as our Savior speaks, are our treasury. There we lay up whatsoever we have, good or bad; and thence do we draw it for our use." [1]

When the heart is filled up with good, the Law and the Gospel are its contents. But Owen makes the very important point that of the two, the Gospel is the superior antidote to temptation and its fruit, sin. He writes:

For the provision to be laid up it is that which is provided in the gospel for us. Gospel provisions will do this work; that is, keep the heart full of a sense of the love of God in Christ. This is the greatest preservative against the power of temptation in the world...Store the heart with a sense of the love of God in Christ, and his love in the shedding of it; get a relish of the privileges we have thereby—our adoption, justification, acceptance with God; fill the heart with thoughts of the beauty of his death—and you will, in an ordinary course of walking with God, have great peace and security as to the disturbance of temptations...A sense of his love and favor in Jesus Christ. Let this abide in you, and it shall garrison you against all assaults whatsoever...Contending to obtain and keep a sense of the love of God in Christ, in the nature of it, obviates all the workings and insinuations of temptation. [2]

He does not discount the utility of the Law, however:

A man may, nay, he ought to lay in provisions of the law also—fear of death, hell, punishment, with the terror of the Lord in them. But these are far more easily conquered than the other; nay, they will never stand alone against a vigorous assault. They are conquered in convinced persons every day; hearts stored with them will struggle for a while, but quickly give over. [3]

So it is the nature of the case that in dealing with sin and temptation, the Christian needs both the Law and the Gospel, with the Gospel as wielding greater efficacy. Churches who neglect one or the other, or both, benefit their members in no way.

Pastorally, however, a key application must not be missed. Pastors who emphasize the Law inordinately debilitate the sheep. Could it be that accountability of the members towards their elders is impaired by virtue of a fundamentalist, legalist bent in the latter? The erring member is predisposed to keeping quiet and left to dealing with his sin on his own because he foresees that acknowledging the error to his pastor would most likely result in humiliating condescension.

The gracious and Gospel-driven pastor would have the opposite outcome—members who are open to him and adequately mortifying sin in their lives.



Footnotes:
1. Overcoming Sin & Temptation, eds. Kelly Kapic & Justin Taylor [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2006], 204.
2. Idid., 205.
3. Ibid., 204.

Calling the Bluff on Anger

I almost figured in a road altercation this morning. I had just finished dropping my wife off to her usual shuttle service terminal, where she gets her ride to work, and was on my way home. I was about to make a left onto the main road that would take me home, having signaled my intention at the proper distance, when this car at the opposite lane suddenly shot up. I did make my left before this car could pass through, but not without having my ears blared at by an irate horn. In what I perceived was an injustice, I slowed my van just enough to give the offending car a look of taunting defiance. What I got in turn was the finger.

This incident taught me something about righteous indignation—I am often unable to discern the situations that call for it, and I often lack the good sense that makes one slow to anger, rendering me unfit for receiving the glory of the one who overlooks an offense (Proverbs 19:11).

Instead of having my temper blow up at my face when someone just as foolish calls my bluff, I must consider the One who never has the fear of meeting His match and yet prescribes patience, meekness, and longsuffering for His people because He Himself is the archetype of these virtues.

Perhaps, a deeper consideration of the decretive will of God would help me curb the anger that is often directed at mere trifles. The circumstances of life fall into their assigned places by design, and what haughty presumption would it be on my part to fume at instances wherein no explicit violation of God's prescriptive will is evident.

Indeed, be angry and sin not (Eph. 4:26), but this assumes an anger that is excited by infractions of God's revealed will, and even then the setting of the sun lays down the boundary beyond which even anger of the good kind has the potential of becoming bad.

With that said, I think easing off of metal music would do me good, too. LOL.

A good resource on anger by Ed Welch: The Madness of Anger

Effeminacy in Leadership: More the Effect Than the Cause of God's Judgment

Reproduced below is a very keen and penetrating analysis of the nature of the deplorable upsurge of effeminacy in the church, with the locus of the phenomenon placed not primarily on its consideration as being the cause of God's judgment but, conversely, on it, i.e., the phenomenon, as being the effect.

Recently I was asked whether it would be correct to say that, in the history of the world, whole dynasties and indeed civilisations have foundered on the rock of homosexuality. My answer was that I would not put it this way. Of course I believe that homosexual practices are immoral, and forbidden by God's law. However, in Rom. 1:21-32 Paul puts it this way: Men turned away from serving God to serving the creature. As a consequence God gave them over to impure passions. Homosexuality is God's judgement on a society that has turned away from God and worships the creature rather than the Creator. Spiritual apostasy is the rock upon which cultures, including our own, founder, and homosexuality is God's judgement on that apostasy. This is why homosexuality was a common practice among the pagan cultures of antiquity, indeed is a common practice among most pagan cultures, including now our own increasingly neo-pagan culture. In short, the idea that the toleration of homosexuality is an evil that will lead to God's judgement is unbiblical because it puts the cart before the horse. It is the other way round. The prevalence of homosexuality in a culture is a sure sign that God has already executed or is in the process of executing his wrath upon society for its apostasy. The cause of this judgement is not the immoral practices of homosexuals (immoral though homosexual acts are); rather it is spiritual apostasy. The prevalence of homosexuality is the effect, not the cause of God's wrath being visited upon society. And in a Christian (or perhaps I should say "post- Christian") society this means, inevitably, that the prevalence of homosexuality in society is God's judgement on the church for her apostasy, her unfaithfulness to God, because judgement begins with the house of God (1 Pet. 4:17).

An Aesthetically-Burdened Theology

Man, as made in the image of God, is a connoisseur of beauty. Every eminent feature of the created order is reflective of the perfections of God; hence, it is but fitting for man to appreciate His various creaturely analogies. However, when the comeliness of natural revelation begins to impose upon one's apprehension of special revelation, problems arise.

Somehow, the recent anomalies of "conversions" to Rome by prominent names in Reformed circles are instances of a specific kind of swimming goggles already worn years in advance, even before the Tiber was actually swum. A certain predisposition to beauty, commingled with religious convictions, lends these people weak to the transcendent, and what is it that Roman pomp and pageantry offer but the transcendent mediated through architecture and ritual. Given the almost irresistible tug of these sense-pleasers, the mind, and the theology it once held dear and defended, give in and conform (mutate), in accommodation to the aesthetic presupposition.

But are we promised grace from the both-immanent-and-transcendent God through such means? No. The presumptuously immanentistic trajectory of the low-church modern evangelical is no better countered by the awe-inspiring transcendentalism of the high-church Romanist.

But how is grace from God mediated to His worshippers? Through the Word of God.

The Word of God is communicated to God's people as grace through its faithful preaching and its proper administration as the Sacraments (the tangible/material Word).

I think it is in keeping with the humility of God that present age grace is delivered in a package of meekness, i.e., weak and faltering human ministers and the mundaneness of water, bread, and wine. However, thrill-seekers will not be disappointed at the glory and grandeur that will accompany Christ's second coming—something that will reduce today's incredible cathedrals to yesterday's crumbled bastions of idolatry.

But that is for a future day. Today, those faithful to the Gospel must content themselves with the beauty of holiness as it is presented in a run-down church.

The Best from Warfield's Pen

The following may represent the greatest product of B.B. Warfield's ruminations:

It belongs to the very essence of the type of Christianity propagated by the Reformation that the believer should feel himself continuously unworthy of the grace by which he lives. At the center of this type of Christianity lies the contrast of sin and grace; and about this center everything else revolves. This is in large part the meaning of the emphasis put in this type of Christianity on justification by faith. It is its conviction that there is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ's sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only "when we believe." It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be. It is always on His "blood and righteousness" alone that we can rest. There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place, or that can take a place along with Him. We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace. Though blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, we are still in ourselves just "miserable sinners": "miserable sinners" saved by grace to be sure, but "miserable sinners" still, deserving in ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath. That is the attitude which the Reformers took, and that is the attitude which the Protestant world has learned from the Reformers to take, toward the relation of believers to Christ.

Sourced from Dr. Carl Trueman's post at Ref21.

Hammock: Breathturn

"Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God." (Luke 18:16)

The Cost Is Everything

I would like to believe that every Christian family man shares my dilemma.

I love my wife and children more than myself, but I must love Christ above them.

I often find myself wondering what my reaction would be if God, in His sovereignty, decides to take back His gift of any member of my family. I do not know my heart well enough.

But the witness of men of God of ages past must instruct me. Job tearfully exclaimed, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). Abraham went through the same convulsions of soul, and the following by Edmund Clowney on the former's convictions serves as wise encouragement:

Abraham was ready to give everything in devoted obedience. Because he feared God, he would pay the price. The Angel stayed his hand. On the mount, Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a bush. He took the ram and offered it in the place of his Isaac. Abraham called the place 'The Lord Will See (to It).'

The cost to Abraham was everything, yet as he clung to the Lord in faith, the cost was nothing. He declared that the Lord would provide, and the Lord did provide. Abraham’s obedience was the obedience of faith. Isaac was given to Abraham a second time. He was his by birth and his by redemption. The offering of the sheep symbolized not only consecration but atonement in the blood of a substitute.

In the total commitment of faith the cost is everything, but in the simple trust of faith, the cost is nothing. Abraham worshiped as God renewed his covenant with him.

The demand that the Lord made of Abraham is not unthinkable. He makes that same total demand of you. Jesus asks it of everyone who would follow him. Whoever loves father, mother, son, or daughter more than the Lord is not worthy of him. Indeed, only as we are ready to receive our own death sentence and take up our cross do we receive everlasting life (Matt. 10:37-39). Much as we need the power of his grace to deny ourselves and follow him, his demand has not changed. Look at the cost: it’s everything. (Preaching Christ in All of Scripture [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2003, 75, emphasis mine)