Essential Truths of the Christian Faith

Essential Truths of the Christian Faith
by R. C. Sproul
Tyndale House Publishers

This is an excellent introduction to the Christian Faith written from a strong evangelical, Reformed perspective.

In around 300 pages, R. C. Sproul covers all the major doctrines of the Christian Faith. The book is divided into 10 sections covering:

• Revelation
• The Nature and Attributes of God
• The Works and Decrees of God
• Jesus Christ
  
• The Holy Spirit
• Human Beings and the Fall
  
• Salvation
• The Church and the Sacraments
• Spirituality and Living in this Age
• End Times

Needless to say such a scope of subject matter - just over 100 doctrines are covered in total - necessitates that each subject is only dealt with in a rudimentary way. Each chapter is only two to four pages long.

This book was a whirlwind refresher for me and contained little titbits here and there that were new, but for a new Christian or teenager wanting to seriously increase his or her knowledge of Christian theology, this book - or something very like it - could be very useful.

I liked Sproul's view that the idea that hell is "separation from God" was totally wrong and misleading (to give just one titbit that has stayed with me). For the unbeliever, the idea of separation from God is no punishment. It is how he or she has lived their life; it is how they hope the universe is (no God). Sproul points out that on the contrary hell is very much in the presence of God, but it is God's very present justice and wrath that the wicked will experience eternally. I hadn't heard it put quite that way before.

I disagree with Sproul on a few things, and would have preferred different explanations of some of the doctrines. A better "further reading" list would also be useful in a volume such as this. But these are minor quibbles. All-in-all this book is really good. But don't take my word for it. You can read it online here for free!

John Frame on Church Denominations

As I continue to grapple with the decisions made at May's General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, I was challenged by John Frame's Evangelical Reunion which I found online here.

Which evangelical in the Church of Scotland would not be heartened and challenged by some of what Frame has to say?

For example, in chapter three, "Towards a Post-denominational Ecclesiology," Frame draws sharp distinctions between the biblical concept of the Church and the man-made concept of the Denomination in four ways mentioned in the Nicene Creed.

1. The Church is one; denominations are many.
2. The Church is holy; denominations per se are not "set apart" by God as his people.
3. The Church is catholic or universal; denominations - even Rome - are restricted.
4. The Church is apostolic; denominations are only so in so far as they are built on the apostolic foundation.

He also maintains that only Christ's church and the officers he has called have authority over the people of God. Denominations only ever have some kind of derived authority in so far as they are congruent with the Church; they have no authority over God's people, nor are God's people called to be loyal to denominations, except where they act as God's Church - in obedience to God's word.

Similarly Frame doubts that modern denominations can claim the New Testament promises of all the gifts that are granted to the Church. This is evidenced by the fact that not all denominations are fully equipped in the gifts of the Holy Spirit: some have better teachers than others, some have better leadership than others, some have better evangelists than others. The Church on the other hand, has all the Spirit's gifts granted to it (Ephesians 4:12; Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12).

Frame then goes on to say a series of remarkable statements that made me raise my eyebrows, especially when read in light of recent events (I quote them in full):

We owe to our fellow Christians a special love ("love of the brethren," I Pet. 1:22; cf. I John 2:10, 3:10ff, 4:20f), a special care, which takes precedence over our duty to help unbelievers (Gal. 6:10). Is there a special love that we owe only to members of our own denominations and not to other Christians? To ask such a question is virtually to answer it negatively. But we often act as if it were true. Yes, there are legitimate obligations which we incur to our denominations in our membership vows. And we tend to form our closest friendships within our denominations, and friendships make legitimate claims on our affections. But the Christian Philadelphia, brotherly love, is for the church, not for one denomination above another.

These comparisons should indicate to us that there are great differences between the church and the denominations: differences in oneness, holiness, universality, apostolicity, power, foundation, authority, gifts, love. Yet it seems that in the ecclesiological literature and in our usual thinking and speaking we tend to equate the church with the denominations. When Jesus says that the gates of Hell shall never prevail against the church, preachers routinely apply that text to the Free-Will Baptist Church or whatever denomination they may belong to. That is bad exegesis and bad preaching.

We need an ecclesiology that makes some careful distinctions between the attributes, powers and gifts of the church, on the one hand, and those of particular denominations, on the other. We should not any longer develop doctrines of the church which are written as if the schisms had never taken place, or as if we were all still living before 451.

When someone seeks to stir up in us passions of denominational loyalty, then, by pointing to Scripture's very high view of the church, we must raise questions. The church is a wonderful thing, deserving our deepest loyalty. It is that for which Jesus shed his own blood. But denominations are another thing altogether. I am not saying that we owe no loyalty to our denominations. I am saying that our loyalty to our denominations must be tempered by the understanding that these organizations are the result of sin, inadequate human substitutes for the God-given order of the one, true church. Somewhere in each of our hearts ought to be the conviction that denominations should work, not to their own glorification, but to their own extinction.

He concludes the chapter with these words, equally applicable in Scotland today as in the United States where Frame is writing from:

"We are in a post-denominational age, and we must apply the scriptures to the times in which we are living, not to a time that is long past. It is not easy to find the precise continuities and discontinuities between the church and the denominations. But we must be willing to take up that task."

The question for us in Scotland - not just in the Church of Scotland but in all the Churches in Scotland - is are we willing to see the Body of Christ is more, much more than our denomination, and see it not just in theory but in daily practice too?

Keep in Step with the Spirit

Keep in Step with the Spirit
by James I. Packer
Inter-Varsity Press

Having just finished reading this book, I found out that there is a second edition that was published in 2005; however, this review is based on the original book written in 1984.

I have to say I think Keep in Step with the Spirit is one of the best books on the Holy Spirit and particularly the gifts of the Holy Spirit that I've read and I think it deserves to be as well-known as Packer's classic Knowing God.

Essentially, the book is an assessment of the charismatic movement from a Reformed perspective. But, unlike many treatments which are resolutely cessationist and scathing of charismatics, Packer is very fair about the movement's strengths as well as its weaknesses. Overall, I get the impression Packer thinks that charismatics are much more a force for good than ill in the churches and I certainly agree with this assessment, particularly as regards the more mainstream charismatic churches.

Packer mentions no less than 12 aspects of the charismatic movement for which the rest of the church should be grateful and should seek to learn. These include the charismatics' commitment to radical, all-person ministry, excitement and spontaneity in worship, their sense of joy, etc.

Packer also then mentions 10 aspects of the charismatic movement that might give us cause for concern including the tendency to focus on the Spirit's work sometimes to the extent that Christ and his work is overshadowed, the two-stage Christian life (conversion followed by subsequent baptism by the Holy Spirit), spiritual elitism, theological naivity, and approaches to the spiritual gifts that do not always tie in very well with what the New Testament actually says.

I found Packer's assessment of the charismatic gifts, both in the similarity and also it must be admitted in the important differences between what they are like now compared to what they were in New Testament times, to be very convincing while remaining balanced and most of all charitable, even to those who would disagree with him. So, to take one example, although Packer insists speaking in tongues as found in the New Testament is very different both in content and purpose to speaking in tongues as it is experienced today, he does not denounce those who speak in tongues today. He recognises the value of the gift in the spiritual life of many Christians and considers it as one way God can use to bring people into a very close fellowship of worship in love and joy. Of course it is not seen by Packer either as the only way or the best way, but he is much more open to the practice than many cessationists.

I would recommend Keeping in Step with the Spirit to all Christians, charismatic or non-charismatic alike. It may serve to curb some of the excesses of the former and cure some of the suspicion of the latter.

Last Things First

Last Things First
by John V. Fesko
Mentor Books

John V. Fesko appears to be a new, young(ish) up-and-coming Reformed theologian and although I have seen his name before through a few articles found on the internet, this is the first book by him that I have read.

The book takes an interesting look at interpreting the three foundational opening chapters of the Book of Genesis using not only Christ as the key to understanding them, but in particular the Christ of eschatology. When viewed through these lenses, I was struck by just how many of the great themes of the Old and New Testaments are present there - often in embryonic form - in the first three chapters of Genesis.

Some of what Fesko argues in this book was new to me and refreshing to read. I thought it was fascinating the way he draws the parallels between the First Adam and the Second Adam (Jesus) in the Bible. I had also not really thought of Adam's role being prophet, priest and king rather than farmer when created, nor had I thought much about the Garden of Eden being a temple. The idea that our God-given work being essentially spiritual and religious rather than agricultural in subduing and dominating the world was so interesting and at once quite convincing. How much sense does it make of the rest of the Bible if Adam's task wasn't to be a gardener, but to extend the Garden of Eden - where God's presence was found in a special way on earth - to cover the whole earth and every person on the earth (Adam's descendants). This ties in beautifully with Christ's work and the consummation of all things under him when once again God will dwell with his people in a new heaven and earth, dominated by a holy city where God and people live in the closest bond of love forever!

Although the author is not explicit here regarding what view he takes of Genesis One, I got the impression he has sympathy for the framework interpretation. Having said that, nothing in the book is in any way contra the literal 24-hour view (or indeed any of the major views of Genesis One).

If the author's goal was to make us read Genesis 1-3 afresh and glean far more from it than how it relates to science and the length of the days, and if his goal is to help us to see "Christ in all the scriptures" then for this reviewer, he certainly succeeded.

Who will Fill the Leadership Vacuum?

I thought this piece by Louis Kinsey was timely and true. If anyone thinks the crisis in the Church of Scotland is just going to blow over, they are wrong!

http://coffeewithlouis.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/who-will-fill-the-leadership-vacuum/

I would like to also suggest a national day of prayer and fasting that God would deliver us from this awful mess.

Total Church

Total Church
by Tim Chester & Steve Timmis
Inter-Varsity Press

I have been reading a number of books about "doing church" recently and have enjoyed each one, but Total Church is probably the best of them. I think if more of our churches looked like the portrait of church this book describes, our city and our nation would be transformed by the gospel. That's a big statement to make, but I really do believe that.

The key concept in Total Church is that our churches have to live by two key principles: gospel and community. For Chester and Timmis - and I would suggest for the New Testament writers - these two concepts go hand-in-hand and the church is weakened if either is downplayed. The writers suggest that many of the so-called "emerging churches" are good at community, but bad at gospel content. On the other hand they point out the weakness of many evangelical churches which are good at the gospel but poor at doing community. I would say there is truth in both sets of statements.

The proposed solution is to do gospel and community together. This approach certainly chimed with Mark Driscoll's book Radical Reformission, which I've also read recently, which calls for us to live reformissional lives rather than doing evangelism now and again.

So how are these two principles (gospel and community) fleshed out in the book?

First, the gospel. Total Church insists that the church must be gospel-centred and mission-centred. Church has to be focused on the word of God where we find the content of the gospel, and it has to be focused on communicating the gospel in mission.

Second, community. Total Church argues that we are to share our entire lives with each other as Christians, as a true family of God. It also argues that this community should be a place of welcome and belonging for unbelievers so that they can see Christianity in action and so be attracted to find out more, come to the Saviour and take their part in the gospel community.

The writers then take these two principles and apply them to a number of areas of church life including: worship, evangelism, leadership, discipleship, world mission and church planting.

It seems to me that this approach seeks to take the best of our "standard" evangelical churches and combine it with the best bits of "house churches" or "emergent churches" to give a potent blend that better mirrors the church as it was in the New Testament. It is a transforming message that church is not something we do among other activites, whether we are Sunday-only people or involved in midweek events too, but rather church is our lifestyle, something we simply are 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

This is radical stuff, but it is biblical radicalism that our lukewarm, pale churches need. I believe it is a message we need to hear, ponder and act upon if our churches are not to continue to decline.

From Creation to New Creation

From Creation to New Creation
by Tim Chester
Paternoster Press

This is a superb overview of the story of the Bible from God's creation of the universe in the past through to God's new creation of heaven and earth for eternity in the future. The book's subtitle is "Understanding the Bible Story" and that about sums up this book's intent and method. It sees the Bible not as a collection of proof texts but as a grand narrative, as a series of stories. He also makes it very clear, in line with the Emmaus Road appearance of the risen Christ, that Jesus Christ is the central figure and focal point of the whole Bible, both Old and New Testaments.

At times the scope of the story that Tim Chester helps us to understand simply staggers the mind. We see the story of God creating the world and human beings and the story of Adam and Eve choosing to disobey God. Chester's explanation of the danger of men and women "knowing good and evil" was not one I've noticed before, but it struck me as obviously correct. He argues that it was not being aware of good and evil that was the problem (this is often the way the verse is interpreted), but human beings deciding for themselves what constituted good and evil. This ties in much better with the Bible's picture of fallen humanity and our rebellious, sinful nature.

The story continues with God's choice of Abraham to be the one through whom he would create a nation, through whom the Messiah would come and ultimately through whom "all the nations" of the earth would be blessed.

Chester then charts the development of the nation of Israel through Isaac, Jacob and the Twelve Tribes, to the formation of a nation that was freed from slavery in Egypt, becoming a powerful nation with its own monarchy. He also traces the decline of the nation from David's day through to the exile in Babylon in the time of the prophets.

The narrative reaches a crescendo with the coming of Jesus as God's Messiah in the New Testament. Again some of what Chester writes here was new and fascinating to me. He talks about the decline and decline of Israel until there was only one faithful Israelite left - the faithful remnant was reduced to just one man, Jesus Christ. So, as Elijah had thought he was the only one left who trusted in God, so later that would be the case for Christ. Christ carried out the task of blessing the nations that national Israel failed to do, through his life, death and resurrection.

The rest of the New Testament explains the creation of Christ's new people - the new Israel - who fan out from their covenant head just as national Israel grew out of Abraham. But as Christ is also the second Adam, this new Israel includes people from every nation on earth.

The story culminates in more than the restoration of Eden, but a new creation and a new heaven and earth where God and his people will live in peace and blessedness forever.

It's quite a story when you see it all laid out before you in broad vistas. Chester does an excellent job in this short 160-page book in which he unfolds the basic theme of the Bible, God's promise of salvation in four key elements:

• The Promise of a People who know God
• The Promise of a Place of Blessing
• The Promise of a King and a Kingdom
• The Promise of a Blessing to the Nations
  

It really made me want to re-read the biblical narrative for myself again. I think that by keeping the big picture in mind, it helps us understand the details of the narrative along the way.

I would recommend this without reservation. There are few Christians who would not benefit from reading this either as a guide before embarking on a journey through the Old Testament or as a refresher for the more experienced traveller.

I must go down to the seas again

The following is the editorial from the parish magazine for June 2009.


The one-time Poet Laureate, John Masefield, was fascinated by the sea. His first collection of poems was called Salt-Water Ballads and one of his most famous poems is entitled "Sea-Fever". It begins like this:

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by...

For a city dweller like me - Glasgow born and bred - the sea has always held a strong fascination. Being close to the sea was only one of many great things about my recent holiday down the Clyde coast at Gourock.

Being close to the sea for a couple of days brought me closer to the natural world in all its wonderful variety: the different kinds of seaweed, jellyfish, crabs, the sunlight on the water, wave patterns, sand and rocks, seabirds. And being closer to the natural world seemed somehow to make me feel closer to God.

As I watched the sunset over the Cowal peninsula and saw the sea turn purple and the sky a rich copper orange, I felt like a little child amazed at what his father could do. I wanted to point to the sunset and say to people in the street: ‘See that? My father made that.’

The writer of the Psalms shared my fascination with the sea and understood the sense of wonder that I feel looking out to sea.

‘The seas have lifted up, O LORD, the seas have lifted up their voice; the seas have lifted up their pounding waves. Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea – the LORD on high is mighty.’ (Psalm 93:3-4)

‘There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number – living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.’ (Psalm 104:24-25)

As well as marvelling at the beauty of creation, I must admit I also marvelled at the many yachts, boats and ships I saw sailing up and down the Clyde estuary. I even managed to get on board one of the ferries for a trip to Dunoon. The sea was flat as a pond and there was a refreshing breeze out at sea.

I remembered how much the sea and boats are mentioned in the Gospels and I thought how often Jesus and the fishermen-apostles sailed on the Sea of Galilee as it was one of the quickest and safest ways of travelling in those times. It was a hard life working as a fisherman then - indeed it still is today - it was dangerous at times on rough seas, it was frustrating when no fish were caught, it required a lot of skill and knowledge to run a fishing boat and to know how put your nets down in the right place, not to mention the money to buy and run a boat and pay a crew.

I can’t help thinking that part of Jesus' meaning when he said to Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John that they would be made ‘fishers of men’ was that although their life in his service was going to be very different from their old lives, in some ways, it was actually going to be same! Being a ‘fisher of men’ isn't an easy life any more than being a ‘fisher of fish’. It can be dangerous, it can be frustrating and seem like a thankless task, it requires skill and knowledge to do it with any success, and it needs investment of time, effort and money to reach out to those who need to hear the gospel in meaningful, practical and realistic ways.

I hope that over the summer, wherever you are spending it, you too will catch a glimpse of the glory of God in his creation - on foreign beach or local park it doesn't matter for his glory is revealed everywhere. I hope that you'll feel drawn to worship him anew, refreshed and ready for life back in city where we have an ongoing call and duty to be God's people on the ground, learning more about Jesus, living out our faith, reaching out to the lost, and worshipping our Creator and Saviour God. We need rest in order to carry out the work Jesus is calling all of us to do: to catch more fish in our local ponds, streams and rivers.