The following is a sermon preached on 27 July 2008. It has been lightly edited for publication. The Bible passages read during the service were Isaiah 61:1-3 and Mark 2:13-17.
The story we read from Mark chapter 2 is in a simple form we frequently find throughout the gospels. Like every story, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning is the set-up – the situation which forms the backdrop to the spiritual points being made in the story. Here it is Jesus calling Levi to be one of his disciples, and the subsequent celebratory dinner held at Levi's house to mark his becoming one of Christ's people and to which Jesus and his other disciples go along to, joining in the celebration. The middle is the conflict when the Pharisees object to what Jesus is doing and make an accusation that Jesus is somehow not acting as a good and faithful Jewish rabbi should be acting. The ending is the resolution, when Jesus shows up his opponents by an authoritative statement, a word of wisdom, that resolves the issues and destroys his opponents’ arguments against him.Such is the story - the true story - that we're going to look at tonight. As I read this passage in preparation for tonight, I was struck by the very different attitudes we find in the different characters. Much of the interest and value in the story comes from seeing how those different attitudes play out and either work together or come into conflict with each other.There are actually three different attitudes that the various participants in the story display.
1. The attitude of the Pharisees.
2. The attitude of Jesus towards the Pharisees and towards Levi and his friends.
3. The attitude of Levi towards Jesus.
At the end of our time, we'll spend a few minutes drawing the various threads together and hopefully gaining some kind of insight into our own attitudes - to see where those attitudes need to be nurtured, encouraged and strengthened and perhaps where they also might need to be looked at, challenged and changed. Okay, so let's begin by looking at the attitude of the Pharisees to Jesus.
One of the key themes running through Mark’s Gospel is the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of his time. The disagreements time and time again boiled down to two things: the true nature of God and the truth about God’s acceptance and forgiveness of sinners through faith in Jesus.
This is the first time the Pharisees are actually mentioned in Mark’s Gospel. I think it will help us to understand their attitudes if we understand a bit about what the Pharisees believed and why they acted as they did.
The Pharisees were a strict, zealous, highly religious group within the Judaism of Jesus’ time. They took obeying God’s laws very seriously. So seriously in fact that they added on extra, even more strict rules on top of God’s laws to make sure that in their behaviour they never even got close to breaking one of God’s own commandments. Jewish scholars determined that there were in fact 613 commandments in the Old Testament (248 positive ones – the “thou shalts” so to speak – and 365 negative ones – the "thou shalt nots"). The Pharisees added other rules on to top of these 613 commandments as extra “hedges” designed from stopping them falling into sin.
One example of the Pharisees’ adding onto God’s laws to give “extra protection against sin” so-to-speak, was that Pharisees would only eat with other Pharisees. Because otherwise, so their thinking went, how could you be sure that the person you were eating with had obeyed God and tithed a tenth of the produce to God? How could you be sure you weren’t being tainted by this other person’s sins?
Not only would Pharisees not eat with anyone who wasn’t a Pharisee, they regarded anyone who wasn’t a Pharisee as morally suspect. They would freely call everyone who didn’t agree with them “sinners”. That’s exactly what we find in our passage. When the Pharisees learn that Jesus is in a house eating with sinners they question it.
“Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” they ask.
The questioning of the disciples probably happened when the meal or party was breaking up and everyone was leaving the house to go home. Do you see the mentality of the Pharisees here? If you are a religious person, you don’t mix with non-religious men; and if you do mix with non-religious people, then by definition you are not a religious person. They knew that Jesus was a rabbi – a religious teacher – so why was he eating with “these people”?
After all to sit down to a meal with someone in that culture was a sign of acceptance and camaraderie. It’s not that different now is it? If someone asks you out to a meal, you would probably be reluctant to go unless you accepted that person as a friend or at least a trustworthy acquaintance, someone you were happy to spend time with. Even the special meal we share as Christians, the Lord ’s Supper, is a visible sign of our unity and mutual friendship in Christ, isn’t it?
So, the Pharisees ask, how could Jesus have a meal with tax collectors and sinners? In their eyes, these people were sinners without God, and this Jesus claimed to have come from God and yet he eats with them. They couldn’t understand it. To them it looked wishy-washy. It looked like a compromise with evil. And the Pharisees hated compromise. Really, they are accusing Jesus of not being as holy as them. To be pure and holy in their eyes means staying away from sinners.
Now of course, Jesus challenges this attitude of the Pharisees in what he says. His criticism of the Pharisees isn’t because they want to take God’s law seriously. There is nothing wrong with being zealous and wanting to obey God. That’s not their problem. After all, we know that Jesus himself obeyed God’s law perfectly in his life – he never sinned.
No the problem with the Pharisees was their attitude. They might have scored high marks for their moral behaviour, but according to the great teacher in Israel, Jesus, their report card showed they had a bad attitude. To quote an old song: It ain’t what they do, it’s the way that they do it.
What Jesus objects to in the Pharisees’ attitude, it seems to me, is two things. One of them is what I mentioned before. The Pharisees added things on to God’s law. They tried to out-do the strictness even of God’s perfect law! They added extra things on based on their own traditions and particular interpretations and then they labelled and condemned people as sinners who couldn’t or wouldn’t accept those extra bits and pieces.
The other problem I think Jesus’ finds in the Pharisees attitude is that they get all hot and bothered about minor wee points and forgot about the most important things that God commanded. They use the excuse of wanting to avoid being tainted by sin so that they don’t need to actually get on with loving their neighbours and seeking their good always.
In other words, Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, “Guys, let’s get things in perspective here. Sure the little things are not meaningless, but you have to get the big things right first or obeying God in little things is totally pointless and hypocritical. Later in his ministry, in Matthew 23:23-29, Jesus is scathing in his criticism of the Pharisees on this same point:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence…Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”
In Jesus’ eyes, the Pharisees had a terrible attitude. His own attitude is so different. Jesus not only has a completely different attitude towards the sinners than the Pharisees did, but he also has a completely different attitude regarding what it means to be righteous and holy. Unlike the Pharisees, Jesus teaches that sinners need love, grace, mercy and forgiveness most of all, not condemnation and rejection.
Jesus’ attitude is so clearly shown in the answer he gives to the Pharisees’ question. They ask him, “What is he doing eating with sinners?”
He answers: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
As the commentator, Donald English says:
“Put bluntly, Jesus is saying that you would expect to find a saviour among those who need to be saved. You would not look for a doctor among the well but among the ill.”
For the Pharisees, to be holy means avoiding contact with sinners. Jesus turns this attitude on its head. It’s important to realise what Jesus is saying and what he isn’t saying if we’re going to get his point here. Jesus is not saying that holiness isn’t important. He isn’t playing down the need to be pure and avoid sin as Christians. No, he says that it is precisely because he is the Holy One, God’s Messiah, that he can get close to sinners, to socialise with them, to show them his love and care and to save them. Jesus’ exemplifies what Craig Blomberg calls “contagious holiness”. In other words, true holiness isn’t about steering clear of sinners, but in getting so close to sinners that our holiness, our Christian beliefs and lifestyle rub off on sinners, so they are changed and saved too.
Picture a surgeon. He gets scrubbed up before an operation. He makes sure that all the medical instruments are sterilised and disinfected. But this is not an end in itself for him. He has everything spotlessly clean so he can use the instruments to make people better. In the same way, Jesus gets close to sinners not because he wants to take part in their sins, as the Pharisees allege, but because he wants them to catch his holiness. He wants them to catch the cure for sin – his gospel of repentance and faith.
What Jesus is doing here is fulfilling his mission as God’s Messiah. At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus read out in the synagogue the passage from Isaiah that we read tonight and applied it to himself. He told his listeners that the passage was being fulfilled in their presence as he spoke the words.
"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendour."
Jesus’ work as the Messiah is to preach good news to the poor, not ignore the poor. It is to bind up the brokenhearted not condemn them for their weakness. It is to proclaim freedom not condemnation for people who are captive. It is to release prisoners, not lock them up in a prison of man made religious rules. It is to proclaim God’s grace and favour, not judgment and damnation. And that’s what he’s doing in that party at Levi’s house.
The lesson that Jesus gives the Pharisees is that to be holy is not to cut yourself off from sinners. To be truly holy is to get alongside sinners and help them. That is Christ’s attitude always.
The third character whose attitude we need to look at tonight is Levi.
The tax collector is named Levi in this passage in Mark’s Gospel. In Matthew’s Gospel, the same incident is recorded but there the tax collector is called Matthew – the same Matthew who wrote that gospel and who was one of the Twelve Apostles. We need not get too worried about this apparent discrepancy. It could either be that the same man had two names. Or another possibility (this is what I think is more likely), was that the man’s own name was Levi but when Jesus called him, he acquired or was given a nickname that stuck, just as Simon was named Peter by Christ. You see “Matthew” means “the gift of God”.
The fact that Jesus called a tax collector to be one of his closest followers is highly significant. Who Jesus called tells us a lot about Jesus and his attitudes. He calls someone who worked in a toll booth collecting taxes or toll charges on behalf of the hated Roman occupiers of Palestine. Sitting beside the Sea of Galilee, he was probably taxing trade passing along the trade route between Syria in the north and Egypt in the south.
The problem with tax collectors in those times was not just that people didn’t like paying taxes. The tax man now is still not a popular figure, but this is nothing to how they were viewed by their fellow Jews in Jesus’ time. As a tax collector, Levi was technically in the service of the puppet king, Herod Antipas, but in reality a tax collector would be viewed very much as a collaborator with Herod’s political masters in Rome. And tax collectors weren’t aversed to taking a bit more tax than they should have. They had about the same reputation as dodgy loan sharks have in poor neighbourhoods now. They weren’t allowed to vote and they weren’t allowed to be witnesses in courts. They were viewed both as traitors and as thieves by everyone in their society. As one commentator puts it:
“[Levi] sat near the lake at a table. Around him were piles of money, and account books, and fish, but few friends.” (Hargreaves).
But it’s precisely this outcast, despised man that Christ comes to seek and to save.
Although it might appear from Mark’s account that this happened to Levi out of the blue, it might have been that Levi knew of Jesus already and this decision to abandon his career to follow Jesus was merely the culmination of an interest in Christ that had been gradually building up. We don’t know for sure either way.
What we do know is that Christ chose him, Christ called him – all the initiative in the relationship was with Christ. And Christ chose someone the world despised. From this we can be assured that no one is “not the right kind of person” to become a Christian. God’s grace and the Christ’s gospel are for every conceivable kind of person. Levi was almost certainly a cheat and thief and seen as a traitor to his own people. But Christ chose him to be one of his own.
So what was Levi’s attitude? Well, reading between the lines of Mark’s account, I don’t think it is unreasonable to conclude that after being called to follow Christ, and after realising that Christ had good news of salvation even for a sinner like he knew he was, Levi was so filled with joy and thankfulness, that he wanted to celebrate the event by having a party with all his friends, and with his fellow believers, at which Jesus and his disciples were guests of honour.
Tom Wright makes an interesting point:
“Levi had been working for Herod who thought of himself as King of the Jews. Now he is going to work for someone else who has royal aspirations…[for] Jesus is the Messiah, the [true] King of the Jews.”
Levi wasn’t just going through the motions. Christ really had changed his life. And so he wanted to honour the Saviour in his home. He wanted to spend as much time with his new friend and master as possible. He wanted to share his joy with others. He wanted to just have a brilliant time because he couldn’t contain himself he was so happy.
That’s the attitude of someone who knows they are a sinner, the attitude of one who knows they don’t deserve God’s blessings and so one who responds with joy to the grace and peace they have received from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Levi’s attitude is that of someone overwhelmed by the experience of salvation and Christ’s love.
We’ve seen three lots of attitudes. All very different. I suppose the last question we need to explore is what does it have to do with us here tonight.
Well the first question is what is your attitude to Jesus? Do you know him as your Saviour and Lord? If the answer to that is no, then there is hope for you in this passage tonight. Christ’s calling Levi says that God’s grace can reach you, no matter who you are, no matter what you have done. The grace of God is boundless, choosing, redeeming, pardoning and saving any sinner who hears his call to follow Jesus Christ. Everyone who comes to Christ will share Levi’s experience of sharing a meal with the Saviour. Christ says in Revelation 3:20:
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”
If you are a Christian, then Levi’s attitude is perhaps one we should take note of as our example. Do we try to spend as much time as we can with the Saviour in prayer and reading the Bible? Are we eager to have him as a royal guest in our homes and in our lives? Do we celebrate and enjoy ourselves when we worship God? Is going to church for us like going to a party? If we truly know the good news, let’s celebrate it.
But the real conflict in the story is between Christ’s attitude towards the sinners and the Pharisees’ attitude. I think we all need to look at our own hearts and our own attitudes on this. You see Christ and the Pharisees actually typify two very different approaches to life.
The Pharisees wanted to stay away from sinners to protect their holiness and they got caught up in petty details while forgetting the most important things in life, like loving our neighbours and having an attitude of mercy and care towards those in need. In their zeal to obey God, they also added things on top of God’s laws and insisted everyone obey those traditions too. Jesus says they were wrong, dead wrong.
What about us? Do we keep ourselves to ourselves and away from people whom God is calling us to get alongside, to seek and bring to Christ? Do we think that we can use the excuse of not wanting to be tainted by socialising with “sinners” to avoid obeying Christ’s call to go out into the world to make disciples? This passage indicates that such an attitude is not true holiness, but a distortion of holiness.
Do we add things on to the gospel that make it more difficult for people to believe than it should be? Do we have extra requirements that people must meet before we will accept that they are a Christian? Are people suspect in our eyes if they don’t go to church as much as we’d like or as often as we do? Or if they spend their leisure time in ways we don’t think is right for Christians? It could be a hundred different things. For every one of us it might be different things. But I think it is something each of us needs to be on the look out for and guard against. “Beware the attitude of the Pharisees” I think Christ says to us all.
Christ says his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Are we adding extra burdens on to people’s backs? It might be by insisting that only certain kinds of worship are allowed, or certain kinds of hymns should be sung, that other people find hard to understand. It might be that certain “good works” or acts of service as we define them must be done that other Christians don’t think are that important. What traditions do we cherish and making tests of fellowship? Which ones do we need to let go of in order to open up the door to Christ’s Kingdom to sinners?
The kind of attitude we need is the attitude of Christ. We need to be willing to “get our holiness dirty” if I can phrase it that way. We need to be willing to get close enough to sinners, to touch them in their lives, that our contagious holiness is passed on.
The situation is not so much that we are to go out and find parties to go to where we can enter evangelism mode and launch into a gospel presentation to anyone we can corner. Some well-meaning Christians do things like that, and tend only to be resented and ridiculed by other guests. And I honestly don’t think doing that kind of cringe-worthy gospel presentation in social situations is what Christ is calling us to do here. No, Christ’s call is both far more challenging and far more effective than that. Remember the party Christ is attending is a celebration thrown by Levi after he has become a Christian. Christ was celebrating with his people at that meal, and getting close to sinners as a doctor gets close to patients. He never engaged in cheesy evangelistic techniques. He was always real with people and drew them to himself by his absolute sincerity and genuine compassion.
To be his disciples, to pass on his contagious holiness, we need the spirit of Christ in us. We need to imitate our King and Saviour in every kind of social contact we have with people in our daily lives.
Saturday, 9 August 2008
Friday, 20 June 2008
A Vision for a Parish Church
This was the magazine editorial in our parish magazine for June 2008.
I have been thinking a lot recently about the church. Not so much the church worldwide or nationally, but our local church. I’ve been thinking about and asking myself a lot of questions about us. Hard questions, like why don’t more people want to come and worship with us, or even better, join us and become part of the church family. We give thanks for those who do come with all our hearts. But why don’t more people come?
After all, I think we are a welcoming and friendly congregation and I know how eager we are to see more people coming along to our services and other events. We are a strong and committed congregation – strong in our faith and committed to doing God’s work in our part of the city. And I believe we are a loving and caring church too.
In many ways we are doing well as a congregation. But there’s a hard fact that we have to face. Year by year we are shrinking as a congregation and we have been for years. Now, I know full well that if God wills it, he can send a revival and save a thousand souls. He can fill our church with new life and new Christians by the hundreds if he wants to. And we pray that he will!
But, what if God is waiting until we show our willingness to change and go further as a congregation to bring people to Christ? God has always also worked through the work and witness of his people. Sometimes he waits until we give our lives to his service and to mission. He might be waiting to act until we decide what our priority is as a church, until we decide we are willing to change ourselves and the way we do things, so that he can then do a new thing through us. Look at what he said through the prophet Isaiah:
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.“ (Isaiah 43:18-19, NIV)
The question we all have to face is whether we are ready and willing to change, to give up certain things, to have “dead wood” cut away from the stump of the tree so that new growth can flourish?
What things do I have in mind? Well I don’t have all the answers. I think this is a discussion we need to have with each other within our congregation. We all need to be willing to give and take, learn from each other, and take up different ideas. Here are just a few ideas to get the discussion started.
Faith. Unless we have a real, living faith in Jesus Christ ourselves, unless we know Christ as our Saviour and Lord, brother and friend, how can we really tell other people about him? Unless we understand the gospel, believe it and live it out in our lives, how can we really tell anyone outside the church that we have good news for them?
Worship. We need to worship God in accordance with God’s word. But are there parts of our worship that people from outside the church would find hard to understand, or difficult to engage with? Do we have things that are merely traditions rather than God’s commands? Could we do worship differently at some of our services if this would be more interesting or easy to understand for people who are not used to going to church?
Communication. Those of us who have been going to church for years are comfortable with church language that we use all the time. Do we need to take time to consider that not everyone knows what our church language means? Can we find ways of communicating the truth of God’s word in ways that are more meaningful to people who are not used to reading the Bible or going to church?
Prayer. Are we a congregation that takes prayer seriously enough? We need to become a praying congregation if we are going to become a growing congregation. The apostles were constantly telling Christians in New Testament times to pray for one another. Do we need a new system to enable us to pray for each other and for what we need as a congregation? Or how about coming to join the midweek prayer meeting? It’s a great opportunity to have fellowship with one another and support each other in prayer.
Fellowship. If the churches in the New Testament were anything they were communities. We are God’s family and we need to be as close to each other as any blood family. Are we ready to share our lives with each other, allowing each other to see and to share in our joys and sorrows? Or are we too proud to let our guard down? Too scared of what people will think of us, to be really honest with each other when we have problems, doubts, sadness, or pain? If we don’t live as a family, as God’s community, really loving each other and showing it, how can we convince anyone outside the church that we really love them?
Service. One of the most effective ways of touching the lives of those outside the church is by helping and caring for them in practical ways. In this Jesus is our prime example. As well as teaching people, Christ helped people in very practical ways. He cured the sick, he fed the hungry, he comforted the broken. How can we find ways of doing that for people that we want to reach and bring into God’s kingdom?
I hope this editorial will prompt discussion and, in the longer term, action. Christ calls us to “stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel” (Philippians 1:27).
Our congregation’s history shows that we have always been willing to “rise up and build” when God calls us to work for him. I have no doubt that same dedication to hard work combined with forward thinking and a deep trust in God can see us grow as a congregation in the years to come.
Dig Deeper!
Dig Deeper!: Tools to Unearth the Bible's Treasure
by Nigel Benyon & Andrew Sach
Inter-Varsity Press 2005
This little book is a basic introduction to reading and interpreting the Bible. It is designed for anyone interested in getting more out of their time reading the Scriptures - almost no prior knowledge is assumed - though it is very much a beginners text. Don't expect a comprehensive book on hermeneutics or anything approaching it. Although I don't agree with everything they say, I think Fee and Stuart's How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth is a much better book than this while still being accessible to a similar readership.
Dig Deeper would probably be most useful to maybe teenagers looking to get to grips with reading and understanding the Bible. In fact, it is written in the kind of style that leads me to think this is precisely the intended readership that Benyon and Sach were trying to reach.
I quite liked the way the book describes each interpretative technique as a "tool" and the collection of techniques as a "toolbox" for students of the Word of God. Each tool is described simply and concisely in about six pages which include a worked example for each tool. The subjects covered are all vital for Bible readers who want to understand God's Word properly and desire to come to sensible conclusions about what they believe and what God's Word might be challenging them to live out in their lives.
by Nigel Benyon & Andrew Sach
Inter-Varsity Press 2005
This little book is a basic introduction to reading and interpreting the Bible. It is designed for anyone interested in getting more out of their time reading the Scriptures - almost no prior knowledge is assumed - though it is very much a beginners text. Don't expect a comprehensive book on hermeneutics or anything approaching it. Although I don't agree with everything they say, I think Fee and Stuart's How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth is a much better book than this while still being accessible to a similar readership.
Dig Deeper would probably be most useful to maybe teenagers looking to get to grips with reading and understanding the Bible. In fact, it is written in the kind of style that leads me to think this is precisely the intended readership that Benyon and Sach were trying to reach.
I quite liked the way the book describes each interpretative technique as a "tool" and the collection of techniques as a "toolbox" for students of the Word of God. Each tool is described simply and concisely in about six pages which include a worked example for each tool. The subjects covered are all vital for Bible readers who want to understand God's Word properly and desire to come to sensible conclusions about what they believe and what God's Word might be challenging them to live out in their lives.
Thursday, 12 June 2008
Rethinking Communion
There is sometimes a danger in Reformed theology that we just assume that at an arbitrary point in time - let's say for example 1646 when the Westminster Confession of Faith was first written - the Church finally and totally sorted out its theology for ever and whatever was laid down then is the truth and any opinion at odds with it is false.
However, such a view is itself highly questionable from a Reformed standpoint. The Reformers and Puritans themselves viewed the task of reforming the church as an ongoing task that never ceases. One of the mottos of the Reformation was Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda which means "The church reformed and always being reformed". In other words, the church must always be willing to search the Scriptures and be led by the Holy Spirit to new and more accurate insights into divine truth.
This means that the work of the reformed theologian is never done. Each generation of Christians has a duty to return afresh to the Holy Scriptures and check and re-check our theology, our doctrines and our practices, to see if they are indeed in line with the inerrant Word of God, or whether we might have made a mistake in how we previously interpreted the Bible.
It seems to me that a case in point concerns the restriction in many Protestant churches that only ordained ministers can properly administer the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper. Although much of the following discussion would apply equally to administering baptism, we shall focus solely on the Lord's Supper in our discussion.
The Westminster Confession of Faith is, as always, nothing if not clear on the point at issue:
"There are only two sacraments ordained by Christ our Lord in the Gospel; that is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord: neither of which may be dispensed by any, but by a minister of the Word lawfully ordained."
The texts that are put forward in support of this proposition are:
1 Corinthians 4:1 "So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God." (NIV)
Hebrews 5:4 "No one takes this honour upon himself; he must be called by God, just as Aaron was." (NIV)
It seems to me that these texts cannot bear the weight of doctrine that the Confession seeks to put upon them here.
In the Corinthians verse, it seems clear that the "servants of God" Paul is referring to are the apostles and the "secrets" or "mysteries" are not the sacraments of the Church, but apostolic doctrine revealed to them by the Holy Spirit for the teaching and instruction of the churches under their care. Since few Presbyterians would regard gospel ministers as being the same office as the apostles, nor do we tend to believe that our ministers are given divine revelations (at least not on a par with the truths revealed to the apostles by the Holy Spirit), it seems reasonable to say that this text does not actually prove that only ministers can administer baptism or holy communion.
The Hebrews text plainly deals with the calling to office of Jewish High Priests. The only high priest - or any priest - that the Presbyterian acknowledges is the Lord Jesus Christ. The teaching eldership or gospel ministry is not an order of priesthood, and the sacraments administered are not in any sense propitiatory or expiatory sacrifices. It does seem more like mere "proof texting" than proper hermeneutics to use (or rather misuse) this text, out of context, to prove that only ministers may administer the sacraments.
Having examined the Confession's proof texts and found them insufficient to establish the proposition in question, we must also consider some passages in Scripture that would seem to indicate that there was no such restriction in the New Testament churches. At the very least, it seems very difficult to sustain the argument biblically that the sacraments cannot be administered by all ordained elders in the congregation.
I realise that alongside this immediate question lies another, perhaps more controversial one: are there two distinct categories of elder or presbyter mentioned in the New Testament or only one? In other words, what is the nature of the distinction between a full-time minister ("teaching elder") and a lay elder ("ruling elder")? Is the main difference that the former is paid by the church to labour full-time and is more skilled as a teacher whereas the latter is not paid and works part-time, or are the differences even more substantial than this - with one group having rights, privileges and powers as elders that the others do not possess? This is certainly the case in practice, but can it be justified biblically?
This article is not the place to explore the nature of offices in the church fully but some remarks on this might be useful at this stage. The standard Presbyterian answer to this second question is that the difference lies not merely in remuneration and time but in formal function also. Ministers, though technically called "teaching elders", are not the same as ordinary elders according to what might be called "classic" Presbyterian teaching. They have a different role - they have the main or sole responsibility for teaching in the congregation and they have sole responsibility for administering the sacraments. And in practice, if not in theory, they tend to be seen as the focus of leadership in each local congregation.
However, this distinction between "minister of Word and sacrament" and other elders is certainly questionable when the biblical evidence is reviewed. When we examine the New Testament passages that deal with offices in Christ's church, particularly the office of elder or "overseer-elder," there is no indication from those passages that a minister and an elder are to be understood as separate offices with only the former having authority to teach and to administer the sacraments.
First of all, the Bible is clear that an overseer or "bishop" is not a separate office from an elder. In Acts 20:17 & 28 Paul sends for "the elders of the church" (v.17) and then in his speech to them he designates those same people as the flock's "overseers" (v.28) .
So when Paul speaks of the qualifications for an "Overseer" in 1 Timothy 3:1-7, he is describing the qualifications for the eldership also. And among those qualifications is listed the ability to teach (v.2) and to pastor the church: "take care of God's church" (v.5). This is not the qualification for a select band of elders designated a holy order of ministers, but for all elders. All elders are to be teachers and pastoral carers to some extent at least.
Similar qualifications and instructions are given in Titus 1:5-9 where again "elder" and "overseer" are used interchangeably by the apostle Paul. There he says that elders are to "hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that [they] can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it." Again this indicates a teaching and instructing role and that all elders are to share in this task and that each church is to have a plurality or team of elders to carry out the work (v.5 - "appoint elders in every town, as I directed you.")
In 1 Peter 5:1-4 the same, consistent apostolic teaching on church offices is to be found. Here the apostle addresses "the elders among you" (appealing as a "fellow-elder" even though Peter was also an apostle) and encourages them to "be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers" (v.2).
Sometimes appeal is made to Ephesians 4:11 to show that the office of pastor or minister is distinct from that of elder: "It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists and some to be pastors and teachers." But once we realise that the word usually translated "pastor" in Ephesians 4:11 is the very same word translated as "shepherd" in 1 Peter 5:2 & 4 - and those "shepherds" were none other than "the elders" then such a view is difficult to sustain.
Reading all the passages together in context, it is clear that according to the New Testament, those designated pastor-teachers (or shepherds), overseers and elders are all different ways of describing the one body of church leaders envisaged by the apostles to hold office in the Church of Jesus Christ. It should be noted that this view of the biblical eldership does not mean we fail to recognise that some elders will have greater gifts for teaching or preaching while others may be more gifted in pastoral care and different elders may concentrate their efforts more towards where their greater gifts lie. In 1 Timothy 4:17 it is recognised that some elders will specialise in preaching and teaching and the verses following contain the basis for paying such elders for their teaching labours, presumably because they need time to learn and prepare lessons and sermons and so cannot work in day-to-day jobs as much as other elders. But nothing here suggests that these full-time or specialist teaching elders are anything other than elders, equal with all other elders in a church.
Turning back to our main question, not only is the proposition that only ministers can properly administer the sacraments not really sustained by the texts put forward in support of it, nor by the New Testament's picture of a single church office of elder-pastor-overseer, but more importantly there are actually strong arguments, which seem to me to be biblically compelling, for instead arguing that the sacraments can at least be administered by any elder and perhaps by any Christian when done with the approval and permission of the elders in a congregation.
The first thing worth pointing out is that the passages in the Gospels (Matthew 26:17-30, Mark 14:12-26, Luke 22:7-23) and in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, which describe the institution of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the Church, do not deal with the issue of who may administer the sacrament. It would be easy to overlook this. Admittedly this is an argument from silence, but nevertheless it is striking that in these passages, particularly the Corinthians passage written to a Church, no mention is made of how or by whom the supper is to be administered. One would have thought that with all the problems that were occurring around the issue of communion in Corinth, Paul would have mentioned the minister's duty to make sure communion was conducted properly had he been the only one in the congregation administering it.
If anything, the Corinthians passage seems rather to indicate the opposite was indeed the case, and in the Church, we should expect the sacrament is to be administered by a wider circle of Christians than ordained ministers. Certainly the whole passage is addressed to the church at large and not to the minister(s) of the Corinthian church. In the passage everyone is criticised and everyone is instructed.
The indication seems to be that the Lord's supper would be taken often by Christians. "For whenever you eat this break and drink this cup..." (verse 26) might at least hint that the churches of the New Testament took communion very regularly, perhaps daily. If this is so, then it is highly unlikely that the ordained minister would always be in attendance to consecrate the elements and lead the others in communion.
It is also clear that the Lord's supper was celebrated as part of an ordinary meal shared by the members of the church. How very different is this from the very formal, symbolic "meal" that communion has become in the vast majority of churches, where it is celebrated as part of a formal service of worship after preaching of the Word of God and not usually as part of a normal, proper meal?
The picture we get of communion in the early church is further backed up from Acts 2:42-47: "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer...All the believers were together...Every day...they broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts."
We have good reason to suppose that this "breaking of bread" mentioned here is more than simply a way of saying that the believers ate together. I believe this is saying that they shared in the Lord's supper together. And according to this passage, all the believers did it, and they did it every day in their own homes not just when the whole church gathered together for worship. Once again, there is absolutely no indication that only certain Christians were permitted to break the bread when these meals took place.
Perhaps it is time for those Presbyterian and Reformed churches which do not allow anyone except ordained ministers to administer the sacraments to apply the Reformed principle of semper reformanda to this issue, time for them to stop complaining about their ordained ministers being overburdened and burnt out from stress and fatigue, time for them to abandon the misguided notion that "the minister" is a separate and special creature compared with the "rank-and-file elders". Allowing other elders and other trusted Christians to administer the sacraments would allow more fellowship meals and informal communions to be held within the life of a congregation, doubtless improving the spiritual life of a congregation while freeing up the full-time minister from having to try to fulfil every teaching, worship-leading and pastoral task that comes up in the life of their congregation.
Furthermore, it would send a clear signal to every church member and every person who has contact with the church from outside that every church has not one minister who has to be the one to attend to them but a whole team of ministers who all do God's work in teaching, caring for and guiding the congregation. In return, perhaps more "ordinary" elders would live out their calling better and really see themselves as ordained ministers or servants to God's people and not merely the spiritual management committee of the local congregation?
However, such a view is itself highly questionable from a Reformed standpoint. The Reformers and Puritans themselves viewed the task of reforming the church as an ongoing task that never ceases. One of the mottos of the Reformation was Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda which means "The church reformed and always being reformed". In other words, the church must always be willing to search the Scriptures and be led by the Holy Spirit to new and more accurate insights into divine truth.
This means that the work of the reformed theologian is never done. Each generation of Christians has a duty to return afresh to the Holy Scriptures and check and re-check our theology, our doctrines and our practices, to see if they are indeed in line with the inerrant Word of God, or whether we might have made a mistake in how we previously interpreted the Bible.
It seems to me that a case in point concerns the restriction in many Protestant churches that only ordained ministers can properly administer the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper. Although much of the following discussion would apply equally to administering baptism, we shall focus solely on the Lord's Supper in our discussion.
The Westminster Confession of Faith is, as always, nothing if not clear on the point at issue:
"There are only two sacraments ordained by Christ our Lord in the Gospel; that is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord: neither of which may be dispensed by any, but by a minister of the Word lawfully ordained."
The texts that are put forward in support of this proposition are:
1 Corinthians 4:1 "So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God." (NIV)
Hebrews 5:4 "No one takes this honour upon himself; he must be called by God, just as Aaron was." (NIV)
It seems to me that these texts cannot bear the weight of doctrine that the Confession seeks to put upon them here.
In the Corinthians verse, it seems clear that the "servants of God" Paul is referring to are the apostles and the "secrets" or "mysteries" are not the sacraments of the Church, but apostolic doctrine revealed to them by the Holy Spirit for the teaching and instruction of the churches under their care. Since few Presbyterians would regard gospel ministers as being the same office as the apostles, nor do we tend to believe that our ministers are given divine revelations (at least not on a par with the truths revealed to the apostles by the Holy Spirit), it seems reasonable to say that this text does not actually prove that only ministers can administer baptism or holy communion.
The Hebrews text plainly deals with the calling to office of Jewish High Priests. The only high priest - or any priest - that the Presbyterian acknowledges is the Lord Jesus Christ. The teaching eldership or gospel ministry is not an order of priesthood, and the sacraments administered are not in any sense propitiatory or expiatory sacrifices. It does seem more like mere "proof texting" than proper hermeneutics to use (or rather misuse) this text, out of context, to prove that only ministers may administer the sacraments.
Having examined the Confession's proof texts and found them insufficient to establish the proposition in question, we must also consider some passages in Scripture that would seem to indicate that there was no such restriction in the New Testament churches. At the very least, it seems very difficult to sustain the argument biblically that the sacraments cannot be administered by all ordained elders in the congregation.
I realise that alongside this immediate question lies another, perhaps more controversial one: are there two distinct categories of elder or presbyter mentioned in the New Testament or only one? In other words, what is the nature of the distinction between a full-time minister ("teaching elder") and a lay elder ("ruling elder")? Is the main difference that the former is paid by the church to labour full-time and is more skilled as a teacher whereas the latter is not paid and works part-time, or are the differences even more substantial than this - with one group having rights, privileges and powers as elders that the others do not possess? This is certainly the case in practice, but can it be justified biblically?
This article is not the place to explore the nature of offices in the church fully but some remarks on this might be useful at this stage. The standard Presbyterian answer to this second question is that the difference lies not merely in remuneration and time but in formal function also. Ministers, though technically called "teaching elders", are not the same as ordinary elders according to what might be called "classic" Presbyterian teaching. They have a different role - they have the main or sole responsibility for teaching in the congregation and they have sole responsibility for administering the sacraments. And in practice, if not in theory, they tend to be seen as the focus of leadership in each local congregation.
However, this distinction between "minister of Word and sacrament" and other elders is certainly questionable when the biblical evidence is reviewed. When we examine the New Testament passages that deal with offices in Christ's church, particularly the office of elder or "overseer-elder," there is no indication from those passages that a minister and an elder are to be understood as separate offices with only the former having authority to teach and to administer the sacraments.
First of all, the Bible is clear that an overseer or "bishop" is not a separate office from an elder. In Acts 20:17 & 28 Paul sends for "the elders of the church" (v.17) and then in his speech to them he designates those same people as the flock's "overseers" (v.28) .
So when Paul speaks of the qualifications for an "Overseer" in 1 Timothy 3:1-7, he is describing the qualifications for the eldership also. And among those qualifications is listed the ability to teach (v.2) and to pastor the church: "take care of God's church" (v.5). This is not the qualification for a select band of elders designated a holy order of ministers, but for all elders. All elders are to be teachers and pastoral carers to some extent at least.
Similar qualifications and instructions are given in Titus 1:5-9 where again "elder" and "overseer" are used interchangeably by the apostle Paul. There he says that elders are to "hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that [they] can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it." Again this indicates a teaching and instructing role and that all elders are to share in this task and that each church is to have a plurality or team of elders to carry out the work (v.5 - "appoint elders in every town, as I directed you.")
In 1 Peter 5:1-4 the same, consistent apostolic teaching on church offices is to be found. Here the apostle addresses "the elders among you" (appealing as a "fellow-elder" even though Peter was also an apostle) and encourages them to "be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers" (v.2).
Sometimes appeal is made to Ephesians 4:11 to show that the office of pastor or minister is distinct from that of elder: "It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists and some to be pastors and teachers." But once we realise that the word usually translated "pastor" in Ephesians 4:11 is the very same word translated as "shepherd" in 1 Peter 5:2 & 4 - and those "shepherds" were none other than "the elders" then such a view is difficult to sustain.
Reading all the passages together in context, it is clear that according to the New Testament, those designated pastor-teachers (or shepherds), overseers and elders are all different ways of describing the one body of church leaders envisaged by the apostles to hold office in the Church of Jesus Christ. It should be noted that this view of the biblical eldership does not mean we fail to recognise that some elders will have greater gifts for teaching or preaching while others may be more gifted in pastoral care and different elders may concentrate their efforts more towards where their greater gifts lie. In 1 Timothy 4:17 it is recognised that some elders will specialise in preaching and teaching and the verses following contain the basis for paying such elders for their teaching labours, presumably because they need time to learn and prepare lessons and sermons and so cannot work in day-to-day jobs as much as other elders. But nothing here suggests that these full-time or specialist teaching elders are anything other than elders, equal with all other elders in a church.
Turning back to our main question, not only is the proposition that only ministers can properly administer the sacraments not really sustained by the texts put forward in support of it, nor by the New Testament's picture of a single church office of elder-pastor-overseer, but more importantly there are actually strong arguments, which seem to me to be biblically compelling, for instead arguing that the sacraments can at least be administered by any elder and perhaps by any Christian when done with the approval and permission of the elders in a congregation.
The first thing worth pointing out is that the passages in the Gospels (Matthew 26:17-30, Mark 14:12-26, Luke 22:7-23) and in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, which describe the institution of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the Church, do not deal with the issue of who may administer the sacrament. It would be easy to overlook this. Admittedly this is an argument from silence, but nevertheless it is striking that in these passages, particularly the Corinthians passage written to a Church, no mention is made of how or by whom the supper is to be administered. One would have thought that with all the problems that were occurring around the issue of communion in Corinth, Paul would have mentioned the minister's duty to make sure communion was conducted properly had he been the only one in the congregation administering it.
If anything, the Corinthians passage seems rather to indicate the opposite was indeed the case, and in the Church, we should expect the sacrament is to be administered by a wider circle of Christians than ordained ministers. Certainly the whole passage is addressed to the church at large and not to the minister(s) of the Corinthian church. In the passage everyone is criticised and everyone is instructed.
The indication seems to be that the Lord's supper would be taken often by Christians. "For whenever you eat this break and drink this cup..." (verse 26) might at least hint that the churches of the New Testament took communion very regularly, perhaps daily. If this is so, then it is highly unlikely that the ordained minister would always be in attendance to consecrate the elements and lead the others in communion.
It is also clear that the Lord's supper was celebrated as part of an ordinary meal shared by the members of the church. How very different is this from the very formal, symbolic "meal" that communion has become in the vast majority of churches, where it is celebrated as part of a formal service of worship after preaching of the Word of God and not usually as part of a normal, proper meal?
The picture we get of communion in the early church is further backed up from Acts 2:42-47: "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer...All the believers were together...Every day...they broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts."
We have good reason to suppose that this "breaking of bread" mentioned here is more than simply a way of saying that the believers ate together. I believe this is saying that they shared in the Lord's supper together. And according to this passage, all the believers did it, and they did it every day in their own homes not just when the whole church gathered together for worship. Once again, there is absolutely no indication that only certain Christians were permitted to break the bread when these meals took place.
Perhaps it is time for those Presbyterian and Reformed churches which do not allow anyone except ordained ministers to administer the sacraments to apply the Reformed principle of semper reformanda to this issue, time for them to stop complaining about their ordained ministers being overburdened and burnt out from stress and fatigue, time for them to abandon the misguided notion that "the minister" is a separate and special creature compared with the "rank-and-file elders". Allowing other elders and other trusted Christians to administer the sacraments would allow more fellowship meals and informal communions to be held within the life of a congregation, doubtless improving the spiritual life of a congregation while freeing up the full-time minister from having to try to fulfil every teaching, worship-leading and pastoral task that comes up in the life of their congregation.
Furthermore, it would send a clear signal to every church member and every person who has contact with the church from outside that every church has not one minister who has to be the one to attend to them but a whole team of ministers who all do God's work in teaching, caring for and guiding the congregation. In return, perhaps more "ordinary" elders would live out their calling better and really see themselves as ordained ministers or servants to God's people and not merely the spiritual management committee of the local congregation?
Monday, 26 May 2008
The Church That Christ Builds
The following is the text of a sermon preached at the Evening Service on 18 May 2008. It has been lightly-edited for publication. The chapter on this verse in J C Ryle's classic work on the Christian life Holiness provided a lot of the material for this sermon.
We gather here tonight one week after Pentecost, that wonderful miraculous day when the Holy Spirit was poured out on Christ’s church, and we gather as part of Christ’s church. We also gather knowing that the highest court of our own denomination, the General Assembly is meeting in Edinburgh this week, and that our own minister, Howard, is going to play his part in making the decisions that will affect the church this year and perhaps for many years to come.
And so on a night like this, we look not at this or that Christian writer’s latest book on “How to do Church” nor do we look at reports of this or that General Assembly committee, but we turn instead to some words about the Church that come from higher authority than even the General Assembly. We turn to again at part of what our Lord Jesus Christ, the King and Head of the Church, himself taught about the Church in Matthew 16:18 where we find the words we are going to concentrate on this evening:
“And on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
There are five things for us to have a look at in these words of Christ tonight.
There is a building: “My Church.”
There is a builder: Jesus Christ says “I will build my Church.”
There is a foundation: “On this rock I will build”
There is opposition and danger: “The gates of hell”
And there is the promise of safety and security: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
So first, there is a building: “My Church.” Before any of the rest of this verse can be properly understood, it is crucial that we understand what this building, the Church is. It is a very special kind of building you see. It is a building not made of bricks or stone or marble or wood. It is a temple, but not one built by human hands, not one we can see standing on the earth. There is no cathedral, no temple, no chapel, no church building that you can see anywhere in the world and point to it or photograph it on holiday and say of it: “You see that place? That is the Church Christ is talking about in this verse.
No, the building being talked about by Jesus here, the building that he calls “my Church” is a great company of men, women and children. It is a spiritual building consisting of everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The word usually translated “Church” in English bibles here is the Greek word Ekklesia. And that’s a very interesting word. Literally it means “A Calling out” in the sense of people being called out to form “a gathering” or “an Assembly”. The Church is a group of people.
When William Tyndale first translated the New Testament he translated this verse as: “And
upon this rock I will build my congregation: and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
The New Jerusalem Bible translates it: "And on this rock I will build my community. And the gates of the underworld can never overpower it."
So this Church that Christ talks about is a congregation or community of people, not a collection of buildings or any human institution calling itself a church. It is not any particular denomination or branch of the church. It is not the Church of Scotland, or the Free Church of Scotland, or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, or the Episcopal Church, or the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church or any Charismatic Church. And it is certainly not the Russian or Greek Orthodox Churches or the Roman Catholic Church. None of these bodies are the “My Church” that Christ referred to, though any and probably all of have members who are part of the church Christ refers to here.
The Church in this verse consists of all true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. It consists of all of God’s elect. It is the body of Christ, the flock of Good Shepherd, the Bride of the Lamb. It is the “one holy, Catholic and Apostolic church” that the Nicene Creed talks about.
It includes everyone who has repented of sin, and turned to Christ in faith. This membership of this Church is made up of all who have been washed in Christ’s blood, all who have been clothed in Christ’s righteousness, all who have been born again and sanctified by Christ’s Spirit.
J C Ryle says of it: “The Church of our text is one that makes far less show than any visible church in the eyes of men, but it is of far more importance in the eyes of God.” (Holiness, p.211).
All the denominations, groups and fellowships we find in the world are visible churches. They are all human institutions to some extent, and they are all imperfect manifestations of Christ’s own church to some extent. But the Church of this verse is invisible, and it is not a human institution. It is an assembly or gathering of people from all over the world and throughout all of human history who form the covenant people of God, the people he chose, the people he saves, the people who have faith in him and follow him as their Lord.
J C Ryle gives an illustration of the difference between the various visible churches in the world and the one true, but invisible church made up of God’s chosen people who live by faith in Christ. He says that the visible churches of this world, be they Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Independent, Baptist, Charismatic, Reformed or Methodist are “the scaffolding behind which the great building is carried on.” The denominations are the scaffolding around the true Church of Christ, which is being built in the background.
Think of a mighty cathedral shrouded in scaffolding and plastic sheeting. The scaffolding is what is visible, but it is not itself the building being built. It is merely what can be seen, while within and behind the scaffolding, the real building work is going on. I think that’s a brilliant illustration. All this that we see around us, is merely scaffolding, while the real building work of saving souls and rescuing lives, of drawing men and women into a living covenant relationship with God and with fellow Christians is slowly, silently, relentlessly going on in the background.
The great congregation of the redeemed is the Church Christ talks about in this verse. Outside of this church, the body of Jesus Christ, the faithful congregation of all believers, there is no salvation.
Second, there is a builder: Jesus Christ. “I will build my Church…” says Christ. No one else can or will build it for him. He must build it with his own hands.
The prophet Zechariah said of the coming Messiah in Zechariah 6:12-13:
“Thus says the LORD of hosts, "Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD. It is he who shall build the temple of the LORD and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne. And there shall be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both."
The Messiah will build the temple of the LORD. Not one part of the Church can be built without his work and his blessing.
It is Christ who calls the members of the Church to leave the world’s way and follow him. It is Christ who breathes spiritual life into sinners who were by nature dead in trespasses and sins. It is Christ who washes away their sins. It is Christ who gives them peace. It is Christ who gives them eternal life. It is Christ who grants them the gifts of repentance and faith. It is Christ who enables them to become God’s children.
He is the Alpha and Omega, the Author and Perfecter of faith. He is the life. He is the King and Head. From Him every part of the mystical body of Christians is supplied with all they need. Through Him they are strengthened for duty. By Him they are kept from falling. He preserves them to the end, and presents them faultless before the Father’s throne with exceeding great joy. He is all in all to all believers.
It is true that he does often carry on his work through subordinates, through human beings. He works through the preaching of his word, through the circulation and reading of the Scriptures, through Christian literature, through providential circumstances, through prayer, through church discipline, through fellowship and human friendships, through evangelism and mission. He works through all these things, but it is always Christ who is at work to build his Church.
Preachers preach, theologians write and discuss, but only the Lord Jesus Christ can build his Church. Not TV evangelists, not Popes, not even General Assemblies. Christ alone builds it.
Christ is the builder because of who he is and what he has done for his people. And that leads us to the next part of this verse.
Third, there is a foundation that Christ builds his Church on. “And on this rock I will build my Church.”
This is the most controversial part of this verse. There have been many different views put forward for what this foundation is that Christ will build on. The Roman Catholic Church of course say that the Church is built on the foundation of St Peter, the first pope, and on all the popes who have succeeded him to the office of Bishop of Rome. I don’t think it is too strong to say that such a view is totally without biblical warrant. Even if you interpret the verse to mean that Christ will build his church on the witness and work of the apostles and on Peter as the leading apostle, there is no way this verse can be used to justify the papacy. There’s no way these verses can be wrested to mean that. But actually, I don’t think that Christ was saying he would build his church on Peter at all.
Jesus says, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.” Notice that Christ did not say, “You are Peter and on you I will build my church.” And the rest of the New Testament does not give any real support for this either. Although we have two letters written by Peter in the New Testament, much more of the New Testament was written by John and especially by the apostle Paul for example. And far from being the infallible leader that the Church could be built on, though Peter was transformed by Christ and was one of the first leaders of the church, he was not perfect. He got things wrong. In Galatians 2:11, Paul says:
“But when Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him in public, because he was clearly wrong.”
Now of course “Peter” means rock and so that’s why the Catholic Church have used this verse to justify the doctrine of papal supremacy and papal succession. In effect they say that the verse says: “You are rock and on this rock I will build my Church.” But it’s very interesting when you look at the actual Greek words of our verse because two different words are used for “rock” in the sentence. Christ calls Peter “Petros” which is a masculine word referring to a stone or small rock, but when he says that he will build his church on “this rock” he uses the different word “Petra” which is a feminine word, referring to a large mass of rock, like a cliff or a mountain.
Also, it seems to me that Peter cannot be the foundation upon which the Church is built, because of what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:11:
“For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
I believe Christ’s meaning is properly conveyed if we translated the verse as “You are a stone, and on this rock I will build my church.” I believe what he meant was really “You are Peter – a little rock – but on the immovable rock of the truth that you have confessed – I will build my Church.” In other words, I think this verse teaches that Christ builds his Church on the truth of Peter’s confession, on the doctrine that Jesus is God’s Messiah and the Son of the Living God. These two truths lie at the heart of the Christian message, the gospel.
I agree with J C Ryle: “It was not Peter, the erring, unstable man, but the mighty truth which the Father had revealed to Peter. It was the truth concerning Jesus Christ Himself which was the rock. It was Christ’s mediatorship, and Christ’s Messiahship. It was the blessed truth that Jesus was the promised Saviour, the true Surety, the real Intercessor between God and man. This was the rock, and this the foundation, upon which the Church of Christ was to be built.”
When read in this light, we see that the rock solid foundation upon which the Church is built is not any person, not even the apostles personally, but on the truths concerning Jesus Christ that the apostles taught. This ties in much better with the rest of the New Testament and with other parts of Christ’s own teaching. For example in Matthew 7:24:
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
The gospel message that Christ is God’s chosen King and the Redeemer of his people is, I believe, the rock, upon which Christ builds his church.
Fourth, there is opposition and danger. Christ says that “the gates of hell” will try to oppose the Church that Christ builds.
In Bible times, cities were surrounded by walls. The gates by which they were entered were the principal places for holding courts, transacting business, and deliberating on public matters. The gates were where people made their plans, drew up their designs, negotiated deals and so on. The “gates of hell” it seems to me, refers to the plans and designs of Satan and his hellish minions against God and his purposes. The “gates of hell” are Satan’s evil plans against the Church.
It seems to me that the expression “the gates of hell” is a way of describing the spiritual forces in the heavenly realms that Paul mentions in Ephesians 6:12:
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
The Puritan commentator Matthew Henry wrote:
“The gates of hell are the powers and policies of the devil's kingdom, the dragon's head and horns, by which he makes war with the Lamb; all that comes out of hell-gates, as being hatched and contrived there. These fight against the church by opposing gospel truths, corrupting gospel ordinances, persecuting good ministers and good Christians; drawing or driving, persuading by craft or forcing by cruelty, to that which is inconsistent with the purity of religion; this is the design of the gates of hell, to root out the name of Christianity.”
History shows that Christ was correct in his view that the gates of hell – the powers of darkness – will always keep on trying to destroy his people. Such has been the case throughout history – both Old and New Testaments, and throughout this present gospel age. And the opposition and Satanic persecution of Christ’s people will go on until the end of the age.
The history of the Church, in all periods of history, is a story of conflict and war. This war between good and evil, between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of this world, has been going on since the beginning when Satan rebelled against God. It is one of the central and recurring threads that runs through the entire Bible. As far back as Genesis 3:15 we get the first glimpse of the war between Christ and Satan and between God’s people and Satan’s followers:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."
That was true then and it is true now. The Church is always under attack by Satan. He hates Christ’s Church more than anything, except maybe the Holy Trinity. He hates us with an undying and virulent hatred. He is always stirring up opposition and trouble for Christians. The Church is the pillar of the truth and the guardian of the holy gospel that is able to make men wise unto salvation, and so Satan never tires of seeking to prevent the Church from spreading the gospel message and witnessing to Son of the living God to the world.
As J C Ryle says:
“Warfare with the powers of hell has been the experience of the whole body of Christ for six thousand years.”
There is no peace treaty between heaven and hell. The Church is always at war, never at peace with the world or the Prince of this world. It is always at war, always militant, always fighting. Its battle never ends. As Martin Luther said:
“Cain will go on murdering Abel as long as the Church is on the earth.”
Satanic opposition can come in hundreds of different ways. There can be direct assaults of course. There can be false teachers, heretics, who are thrown into the church lives wolves among sheep, to confound and confuse God’s saints with false doctrine and wrong teaching on how we should live.
But sometimes Satan’s opposition can be far more subtle. In fact I would say usually Satan’s opposition is far more subtle.
Do you ever get the feeling that when you try to get close to God or decide you’re going to do something for God, that you suddenly start to have problems you never had before? I know I do. It’s no accident that when I’m getting ready to take a service that’s precisely the time I seem to get a cold, or get toothache, or have something happen that distracts me from my purpose. It’s no accident that when a church decides it’s really going to concentrate on mission and outreach that it suddenly finds it’s members under attack from illnesses, bereavements, family problems, trouble in the workplace, falling out with friends. Satan doesn’t fight clean and fair. He fights dirty. And when Christians decide they are really going to live committed lives to their Lord and Saviour, Satan will do anything he can to stop that from happening.
That’s the gates of hell trying to rise up and stop us from being effective, obedient, loyal Christians.
But far from being surprised or scared when such things happen to us, actually we should expect it and rejoice when such opposition or persecution comes our way, for it means we are on the right track in our Christian lives. A church which faces no opposition or Satanic attack should be the one that is scared, not a church which does face the gates of hell rising against it.
Remember Christ’s words when such opposition comes and take heart. This is Matthew 5:10-12, part of the Beatitudes:
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
And then also think about these words in 1 Peter 4:12-14:
“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.”
Things happen to us in life. Not everything is plain sailing. We go through hard times of suffering and loss and pain. Or we go through times of being mistrusted, disliked, mocked, and even hated because we have faith in Jesus Christ. The gates of hell are real and I don’t think there’s any Christian who is immune from such attack. It happens to us all.
Fifth, there is Christ’s promise of security and safety for his Church. “I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
Take heart, Christians! Because as well as Christ’s warning about the gates of hell, there is also a promise that Christ makes to us in this verse, a promise all of us need to cling to and remember. Yes, the gates of hell will try to rise up and destroy us, but they cannot and will not succeed. The forces of evil will do battle with the Church, but they will never prevail against it. They will fight, but they cannot win. That is Christ’s promise to each and every Christian believer.
Have you ever thought about the emblem that came to symbolise the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches throughout Europe? It’s still the symbol used on the badge of the Church of Scotland to this day. It’s the burning bush. The first impression might be that this is a very strange symbol to choose. But actually it’s highly appropriate, not only because it symbolises God’s presence with this covenant people, but because that bush is always in the flames, always under fiery attack, but not consumed, never destroyed. “I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
Only Christ’s church receives this promise from its King and Head. Other empires and earthly kingdoms rise and fall in human history. Think of the once mighty empires of the Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Vikings. Think of, in more recent times, the great empires of France and Britain. None of these earthly powers has stood the test of time. But Christ’s church stands and grows for ever. “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ” as the Book of Revelation says.
The promise does not apply to all visible churches in this world however. In New Testament times there were churches all over the Middle East and what is now modern day Turkey. Today, few of those churches remain in existence. In Bridgeton there used to be six or more churches in the area now covered by this one parish church. Individual churches can disappear and close. This is especially true of churches that depart from Christ’s teaching, from the faith that was once delivered to the saints. Christ warned the seven churches to whom letters were sent at the start of the Book of Revelation that if they did not pay heed to what the Spirit was saying to the churches, Christ would remove their lampstand from its place – in other words remove his presence and the light of his glory from them – so they would cease to be churches at all. So, although the promise does not apply to every individual church, especially churches that are not faithful to Christ in their teaching and service, the promise does apply to Christ’s own church, to the great congregation of true believers in him. Against them, the gates of hell cannot prevail.
Even if Satan stirs up persecution so that Christians lose their lives, the gates of hell shall not prevail against this Church, because for Christian martyrs, death is only a doorway into Christ’s presence and eternal blessedness in heaven.
No matter what the enemies of the church do, whether they be worldly rulers, enemies within the church, or the cosmic forces of evil that work behind our human enemies, God’s people, God’s church shall never be overthrown. We have Christ’s own promise for that.
As the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:8-10:
“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”
We can go through the mill in our sufferings. God sometimes puts us right into furnace with its blistering heat and searing pain. God puts us through it, but never without a good reason, there is always a purpose behind it, even if we cannot begin to imagine what it could be.
Romans 8:28: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
In the 19th century, French troops liberated the prison of the Holy Inquisition in Rome. In one of the cells, a prisoner – probably a Protestant who had been excommunicated from the Church of Rome – had scratched some words on the walls. They read: “Blessed Jesus, they cannot cast me out of Thy true Church.” Not one single believer can be snatched out of Christ’s hand by the Devil and all his minions however hard they try.
The question each of us must consider tonight is whether we are truly members of Christ’s Church. Not members of the Church of Scotland – for that membership can save no man or woman. But members of the body of Christ, part of Christ’s great congregation who trust and follow him and for whom he died to redeem and save. For membership in that Church guarantees salvation.
“And on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
We gather here tonight one week after Pentecost, that wonderful miraculous day when the Holy Spirit was poured out on Christ’s church, and we gather as part of Christ’s church. We also gather knowing that the highest court of our own denomination, the General Assembly is meeting in Edinburgh this week, and that our own minister, Howard, is going to play his part in making the decisions that will affect the church this year and perhaps for many years to come.
And so on a night like this, we look not at this or that Christian writer’s latest book on “How to do Church” nor do we look at reports of this or that General Assembly committee, but we turn instead to some words about the Church that come from higher authority than even the General Assembly. We turn to again at part of what our Lord Jesus Christ, the King and Head of the Church, himself taught about the Church in Matthew 16:18 where we find the words we are going to concentrate on this evening:
“And on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
There are five things for us to have a look at in these words of Christ tonight.
There is a building: “My Church.”
There is a builder: Jesus Christ says “I will build my Church.”
There is a foundation: “On this rock I will build”
There is opposition and danger: “The gates of hell”
And there is the promise of safety and security: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
So first, there is a building: “My Church.” Before any of the rest of this verse can be properly understood, it is crucial that we understand what this building, the Church is. It is a very special kind of building you see. It is a building not made of bricks or stone or marble or wood. It is a temple, but not one built by human hands, not one we can see standing on the earth. There is no cathedral, no temple, no chapel, no church building that you can see anywhere in the world and point to it or photograph it on holiday and say of it: “You see that place? That is the Church Christ is talking about in this verse.
No, the building being talked about by Jesus here, the building that he calls “my Church” is a great company of men, women and children. It is a spiritual building consisting of everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The word usually translated “Church” in English bibles here is the Greek word Ekklesia. And that’s a very interesting word. Literally it means “A Calling out” in the sense of people being called out to form “a gathering” or “an Assembly”. The Church is a group of people.
When William Tyndale first translated the New Testament he translated this verse as: “And
upon this rock I will build my congregation: and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
The New Jerusalem Bible translates it: "And on this rock I will build my community. And the gates of the underworld can never overpower it."
So this Church that Christ talks about is a congregation or community of people, not a collection of buildings or any human institution calling itself a church. It is not any particular denomination or branch of the church. It is not the Church of Scotland, or the Free Church of Scotland, or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, or the Episcopal Church, or the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church or any Charismatic Church. And it is certainly not the Russian or Greek Orthodox Churches or the Roman Catholic Church. None of these bodies are the “My Church” that Christ referred to, though any and probably all of have members who are part of the church Christ refers to here.
The Church in this verse consists of all true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. It consists of all of God’s elect. It is the body of Christ, the flock of Good Shepherd, the Bride of the Lamb. It is the “one holy, Catholic and Apostolic church” that the Nicene Creed talks about.
It includes everyone who has repented of sin, and turned to Christ in faith. This membership of this Church is made up of all who have been washed in Christ’s blood, all who have been clothed in Christ’s righteousness, all who have been born again and sanctified by Christ’s Spirit.
J C Ryle says of it: “The Church of our text is one that makes far less show than any visible church in the eyes of men, but it is of far more importance in the eyes of God.” (Holiness, p.211).
All the denominations, groups and fellowships we find in the world are visible churches. They are all human institutions to some extent, and they are all imperfect manifestations of Christ’s own church to some extent. But the Church of this verse is invisible, and it is not a human institution. It is an assembly or gathering of people from all over the world and throughout all of human history who form the covenant people of God, the people he chose, the people he saves, the people who have faith in him and follow him as their Lord.
J C Ryle gives an illustration of the difference between the various visible churches in the world and the one true, but invisible church made up of God’s chosen people who live by faith in Christ. He says that the visible churches of this world, be they Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Independent, Baptist, Charismatic, Reformed or Methodist are “the scaffolding behind which the great building is carried on.” The denominations are the scaffolding around the true Church of Christ, which is being built in the background.
Think of a mighty cathedral shrouded in scaffolding and plastic sheeting. The scaffolding is what is visible, but it is not itself the building being built. It is merely what can be seen, while within and behind the scaffolding, the real building work is going on. I think that’s a brilliant illustration. All this that we see around us, is merely scaffolding, while the real building work of saving souls and rescuing lives, of drawing men and women into a living covenant relationship with God and with fellow Christians is slowly, silently, relentlessly going on in the background.
The great congregation of the redeemed is the Church Christ talks about in this verse. Outside of this church, the body of Jesus Christ, the faithful congregation of all believers, there is no salvation.
Second, there is a builder: Jesus Christ. “I will build my Church…” says Christ. No one else can or will build it for him. He must build it with his own hands.
The prophet Zechariah said of the coming Messiah in Zechariah 6:12-13:
“Thus says the LORD of hosts, "Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD. It is he who shall build the temple of the LORD and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne. And there shall be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both."
The Messiah will build the temple of the LORD. Not one part of the Church can be built without his work and his blessing.
It is Christ who calls the members of the Church to leave the world’s way and follow him. It is Christ who breathes spiritual life into sinners who were by nature dead in trespasses and sins. It is Christ who washes away their sins. It is Christ who gives them peace. It is Christ who gives them eternal life. It is Christ who grants them the gifts of repentance and faith. It is Christ who enables them to become God’s children.
He is the Alpha and Omega, the Author and Perfecter of faith. He is the life. He is the King and Head. From Him every part of the mystical body of Christians is supplied with all they need. Through Him they are strengthened for duty. By Him they are kept from falling. He preserves them to the end, and presents them faultless before the Father’s throne with exceeding great joy. He is all in all to all believers.
It is true that he does often carry on his work through subordinates, through human beings. He works through the preaching of his word, through the circulation and reading of the Scriptures, through Christian literature, through providential circumstances, through prayer, through church discipline, through fellowship and human friendships, through evangelism and mission. He works through all these things, but it is always Christ who is at work to build his Church.
Preachers preach, theologians write and discuss, but only the Lord Jesus Christ can build his Church. Not TV evangelists, not Popes, not even General Assemblies. Christ alone builds it.
Christ is the builder because of who he is and what he has done for his people. And that leads us to the next part of this verse.
Third, there is a foundation that Christ builds his Church on. “And on this rock I will build my Church.”
This is the most controversial part of this verse. There have been many different views put forward for what this foundation is that Christ will build on. The Roman Catholic Church of course say that the Church is built on the foundation of St Peter, the first pope, and on all the popes who have succeeded him to the office of Bishop of Rome. I don’t think it is too strong to say that such a view is totally without biblical warrant. Even if you interpret the verse to mean that Christ will build his church on the witness and work of the apostles and on Peter as the leading apostle, there is no way this verse can be used to justify the papacy. There’s no way these verses can be wrested to mean that. But actually, I don’t think that Christ was saying he would build his church on Peter at all.
Jesus says, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.” Notice that Christ did not say, “You are Peter and on you I will build my church.” And the rest of the New Testament does not give any real support for this either. Although we have two letters written by Peter in the New Testament, much more of the New Testament was written by John and especially by the apostle Paul for example. And far from being the infallible leader that the Church could be built on, though Peter was transformed by Christ and was one of the first leaders of the church, he was not perfect. He got things wrong. In Galatians 2:11, Paul says:
“But when Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him in public, because he was clearly wrong.”
Now of course “Peter” means rock and so that’s why the Catholic Church have used this verse to justify the doctrine of papal supremacy and papal succession. In effect they say that the verse says: “You are rock and on this rock I will build my Church.” But it’s very interesting when you look at the actual Greek words of our verse because two different words are used for “rock” in the sentence. Christ calls Peter “Petros” which is a masculine word referring to a stone or small rock, but when he says that he will build his church on “this rock” he uses the different word “Petra” which is a feminine word, referring to a large mass of rock, like a cliff or a mountain.
Also, it seems to me that Peter cannot be the foundation upon which the Church is built, because of what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:11:
“For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
I believe Christ’s meaning is properly conveyed if we translated the verse as “You are a stone, and on this rock I will build my church.” I believe what he meant was really “You are Peter – a little rock – but on the immovable rock of the truth that you have confessed – I will build my Church.” In other words, I think this verse teaches that Christ builds his Church on the truth of Peter’s confession, on the doctrine that Jesus is God’s Messiah and the Son of the Living God. These two truths lie at the heart of the Christian message, the gospel.
I agree with J C Ryle: “It was not Peter, the erring, unstable man, but the mighty truth which the Father had revealed to Peter. It was the truth concerning Jesus Christ Himself which was the rock. It was Christ’s mediatorship, and Christ’s Messiahship. It was the blessed truth that Jesus was the promised Saviour, the true Surety, the real Intercessor between God and man. This was the rock, and this the foundation, upon which the Church of Christ was to be built.”
When read in this light, we see that the rock solid foundation upon which the Church is built is not any person, not even the apostles personally, but on the truths concerning Jesus Christ that the apostles taught. This ties in much better with the rest of the New Testament and with other parts of Christ’s own teaching. For example in Matthew 7:24:
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
The gospel message that Christ is God’s chosen King and the Redeemer of his people is, I believe, the rock, upon which Christ builds his church.
Fourth, there is opposition and danger. Christ says that “the gates of hell” will try to oppose the Church that Christ builds.
In Bible times, cities were surrounded by walls. The gates by which they were entered were the principal places for holding courts, transacting business, and deliberating on public matters. The gates were where people made their plans, drew up their designs, negotiated deals and so on. The “gates of hell” it seems to me, refers to the plans and designs of Satan and his hellish minions against God and his purposes. The “gates of hell” are Satan’s evil plans against the Church.
It seems to me that the expression “the gates of hell” is a way of describing the spiritual forces in the heavenly realms that Paul mentions in Ephesians 6:12:
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
The Puritan commentator Matthew Henry wrote:
“The gates of hell are the powers and policies of the devil's kingdom, the dragon's head and horns, by which he makes war with the Lamb; all that comes out of hell-gates, as being hatched and contrived there. These fight against the church by opposing gospel truths, corrupting gospel ordinances, persecuting good ministers and good Christians; drawing or driving, persuading by craft or forcing by cruelty, to that which is inconsistent with the purity of religion; this is the design of the gates of hell, to root out the name of Christianity.”
History shows that Christ was correct in his view that the gates of hell – the powers of darkness – will always keep on trying to destroy his people. Such has been the case throughout history – both Old and New Testaments, and throughout this present gospel age. And the opposition and Satanic persecution of Christ’s people will go on until the end of the age.
The history of the Church, in all periods of history, is a story of conflict and war. This war between good and evil, between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of this world, has been going on since the beginning when Satan rebelled against God. It is one of the central and recurring threads that runs through the entire Bible. As far back as Genesis 3:15 we get the first glimpse of the war between Christ and Satan and between God’s people and Satan’s followers:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."
That was true then and it is true now. The Church is always under attack by Satan. He hates Christ’s Church more than anything, except maybe the Holy Trinity. He hates us with an undying and virulent hatred. He is always stirring up opposition and trouble for Christians. The Church is the pillar of the truth and the guardian of the holy gospel that is able to make men wise unto salvation, and so Satan never tires of seeking to prevent the Church from spreading the gospel message and witnessing to Son of the living God to the world.
As J C Ryle says:
“Warfare with the powers of hell has been the experience of the whole body of Christ for six thousand years.”
There is no peace treaty between heaven and hell. The Church is always at war, never at peace with the world or the Prince of this world. It is always at war, always militant, always fighting. Its battle never ends. As Martin Luther said:
“Cain will go on murdering Abel as long as the Church is on the earth.”
Satanic opposition can come in hundreds of different ways. There can be direct assaults of course. There can be false teachers, heretics, who are thrown into the church lives wolves among sheep, to confound and confuse God’s saints with false doctrine and wrong teaching on how we should live.
But sometimes Satan’s opposition can be far more subtle. In fact I would say usually Satan’s opposition is far more subtle.
Do you ever get the feeling that when you try to get close to God or decide you’re going to do something for God, that you suddenly start to have problems you never had before? I know I do. It’s no accident that when I’m getting ready to take a service that’s precisely the time I seem to get a cold, or get toothache, or have something happen that distracts me from my purpose. It’s no accident that when a church decides it’s really going to concentrate on mission and outreach that it suddenly finds it’s members under attack from illnesses, bereavements, family problems, trouble in the workplace, falling out with friends. Satan doesn’t fight clean and fair. He fights dirty. And when Christians decide they are really going to live committed lives to their Lord and Saviour, Satan will do anything he can to stop that from happening.
That’s the gates of hell trying to rise up and stop us from being effective, obedient, loyal Christians.
But far from being surprised or scared when such things happen to us, actually we should expect it and rejoice when such opposition or persecution comes our way, for it means we are on the right track in our Christian lives. A church which faces no opposition or Satanic attack should be the one that is scared, not a church which does face the gates of hell rising against it.
Remember Christ’s words when such opposition comes and take heart. This is Matthew 5:10-12, part of the Beatitudes:
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
And then also think about these words in 1 Peter 4:12-14:
“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.”
Things happen to us in life. Not everything is plain sailing. We go through hard times of suffering and loss and pain. Or we go through times of being mistrusted, disliked, mocked, and even hated because we have faith in Jesus Christ. The gates of hell are real and I don’t think there’s any Christian who is immune from such attack. It happens to us all.
Fifth, there is Christ’s promise of security and safety for his Church. “I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
Take heart, Christians! Because as well as Christ’s warning about the gates of hell, there is also a promise that Christ makes to us in this verse, a promise all of us need to cling to and remember. Yes, the gates of hell will try to rise up and destroy us, but they cannot and will not succeed. The forces of evil will do battle with the Church, but they will never prevail against it. They will fight, but they cannot win. That is Christ’s promise to each and every Christian believer.
Have you ever thought about the emblem that came to symbolise the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches throughout Europe? It’s still the symbol used on the badge of the Church of Scotland to this day. It’s the burning bush. The first impression might be that this is a very strange symbol to choose. But actually it’s highly appropriate, not only because it symbolises God’s presence with this covenant people, but because that bush is always in the flames, always under fiery attack, but not consumed, never destroyed. “I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
Only Christ’s church receives this promise from its King and Head. Other empires and earthly kingdoms rise and fall in human history. Think of the once mighty empires of the Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Vikings. Think of, in more recent times, the great empires of France and Britain. None of these earthly powers has stood the test of time. But Christ’s church stands and grows for ever. “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ” as the Book of Revelation says.
The promise does not apply to all visible churches in this world however. In New Testament times there were churches all over the Middle East and what is now modern day Turkey. Today, few of those churches remain in existence. In Bridgeton there used to be six or more churches in the area now covered by this one parish church. Individual churches can disappear and close. This is especially true of churches that depart from Christ’s teaching, from the faith that was once delivered to the saints. Christ warned the seven churches to whom letters were sent at the start of the Book of Revelation that if they did not pay heed to what the Spirit was saying to the churches, Christ would remove their lampstand from its place – in other words remove his presence and the light of his glory from them – so they would cease to be churches at all. So, although the promise does not apply to every individual church, especially churches that are not faithful to Christ in their teaching and service, the promise does apply to Christ’s own church, to the great congregation of true believers in him. Against them, the gates of hell cannot prevail.
Even if Satan stirs up persecution so that Christians lose their lives, the gates of hell shall not prevail against this Church, because for Christian martyrs, death is only a doorway into Christ’s presence and eternal blessedness in heaven.
No matter what the enemies of the church do, whether they be worldly rulers, enemies within the church, or the cosmic forces of evil that work behind our human enemies, God’s people, God’s church shall never be overthrown. We have Christ’s own promise for that.
As the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:8-10:
“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”
We can go through the mill in our sufferings. God sometimes puts us right into furnace with its blistering heat and searing pain. God puts us through it, but never without a good reason, there is always a purpose behind it, even if we cannot begin to imagine what it could be.
Romans 8:28: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
In the 19th century, French troops liberated the prison of the Holy Inquisition in Rome. In one of the cells, a prisoner – probably a Protestant who had been excommunicated from the Church of Rome – had scratched some words on the walls. They read: “Blessed Jesus, they cannot cast me out of Thy true Church.” Not one single believer can be snatched out of Christ’s hand by the Devil and all his minions however hard they try.
The question each of us must consider tonight is whether we are truly members of Christ’s Church. Not members of the Church of Scotland – for that membership can save no man or woman. But members of the body of Christ, part of Christ’s great congregation who trust and follow him and for whom he died to redeem and save. For membership in that Church guarantees salvation.
“And on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
Friday, 2 May 2008
Divorce and Remarriage in the Church
Divorce and Remarriage in the Church: Biblical Solutions for Pastoral Realities
by David Instone-Brewer
Paternoster Press 2003
This is an important Christian book on the sensitive and controversial subject of divorce and remarriage. It is not exaggerating to say that if David Instone-Brewer's interpretation of the biblical texts is correct, then the Church's traditional interpretations of the grounds for divorce and prohibition of remarriage are in need of major revision.
In the opinion of this reviewer, Instone-Brewer's argument provides a biblically consistent, pastorally caring, legally realistic and genuinely loving and fair road map through one of the most difficult areas of practical theology.
Most Protestants recognise the need for divorce and remarriage in the fallen and imperfect world we all inhabit. Many theologians come up with interpretative schemes that try to take the biblical texts seriously while providing practical solutions to real life situations. I think the position in the Westminster Confession, for example, is like this. It allows for remarriage after divorce by treating the "offending party" in the divorce "as if they were dead", and hence the marriage bond is completely severed. However, there is little real biblical justification for saying that a party in a divorce should be treated in law as if dead. It is, however, a practical solution to the issue.
Likewise, many theologians and pastors will take Paul's exception of "desertion" in a wider context than purely physical abandonment to include situations where there has been moral desertion, such as physical, mental or severe emotional abuse. Others have widened a strict reading of Paul to include the situation where a professing believer deserts his or her spouse on the reasoning that such a person can be treated as a unbeliever if they will not be reconciled to their spouse.
From the time of the Reformation, there have been theologians who argued that because on any reading, the New Testament seems to allow for divorce for adultery and desertion, it must be right by good and necessary consequence that divorce be permitted for worse sins than adultery or desertion, such as physical or sexual abuse.
All these practical solutions are attempts to respect the biblical texts while recognising that a strictly literalistic interpretation of what those texts is extremely difficult for real life pastoral situations. There is also a feeling in many people that such interpretations - which would, to give an extreme example, require a Christian wife to remain married to a husband who was physically torturing her everyday as long as he lives with her and does not commit adultery - are not consistent with the Christian gospel or with God's attributes of love, mercy, compassion and justice that we are to mirror in our lives.
The triumph, it seems to this reviewer, of Dr Instone-Brewer's position is that it works naturally with the biblical texts when interpreted in their original context rather than finding ways which frankly look like they are trying to get around the texts (at least in their most restricted interpretation). Instone-Brewer provides good and just solutions to the issue of divorce backed up by solid scholarship on the social and religious background of the first century world that the New Testament was originally written for.
The author has been criticised for making divorce too easy, but this is certainly not what he advocates.
He summarises his conclusions as follows:
For a covenant theologian like myself, who believes in the essential continuity of the old and new administrations of the one Covenant of Grace, the fact that this view does not drive a wedge between divorce in the Old Testament and divorce in the New Testament (which the traditional interpretation of the New Testament texts does), is also an attractive feature of this argument. Indeed it has always seemed strange that the traditional view necessitates the New Testament being somewhat more strict, more rigorous, more legalistic than the more practical and gracious provisions of the Old Testament which recognises human weakness in a fallen world. Dr Instone-Brewer's argument actually removes this apparent anomaly by showing how the New Testament texts grow out of the Old Testament texts rather than being a radical break with them.
This book is written for the general reader and the busy pastor. The exegesis and background history are concise and to the point. Dr Instone-Brewer has also written a much larger book which incorporates far more of his research in this area of biblical studies. The other book is entitled Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context. This reviewer definitely plans to read the larger book at some point in the future.
Note: Both of Dr Instone-Brewer's books are available to read online at his website
http://www.divorceremarriage.com/
by David Instone-Brewer
Paternoster Press 2003
This is an important Christian book on the sensitive and controversial subject of divorce and remarriage. It is not exaggerating to say that if David Instone-Brewer's interpretation of the biblical texts is correct, then the Church's traditional interpretations of the grounds for divorce and prohibition of remarriage are in need of major revision.
In the opinion of this reviewer, Instone-Brewer's argument provides a biblically consistent, pastorally caring, legally realistic and genuinely loving and fair road map through one of the most difficult areas of practical theology.
Most Protestants recognise the need for divorce and remarriage in the fallen and imperfect world we all inhabit. Many theologians come up with interpretative schemes that try to take the biblical texts seriously while providing practical solutions to real life situations. I think the position in the Westminster Confession, for example, is like this. It allows for remarriage after divorce by treating the "offending party" in the divorce "as if they were dead", and hence the marriage bond is completely severed. However, there is little real biblical justification for saying that a party in a divorce should be treated in law as if dead. It is, however, a practical solution to the issue.
Likewise, many theologians and pastors will take Paul's exception of "desertion" in a wider context than purely physical abandonment to include situations where there has been moral desertion, such as physical, mental or severe emotional abuse. Others have widened a strict reading of Paul to include the situation where a professing believer deserts his or her spouse on the reasoning that such a person can be treated as a unbeliever if they will not be reconciled to their spouse.
From the time of the Reformation, there have been theologians who argued that because on any reading, the New Testament seems to allow for divorce for adultery and desertion, it must be right by good and necessary consequence that divorce be permitted for worse sins than adultery or desertion, such as physical or sexual abuse.
All these practical solutions are attempts to respect the biblical texts while recognising that a strictly literalistic interpretation of what those texts is extremely difficult for real life pastoral situations. There is also a feeling in many people that such interpretations - which would, to give an extreme example, require a Christian wife to remain married to a husband who was physically torturing her everyday as long as he lives with her and does not commit adultery - are not consistent with the Christian gospel or with God's attributes of love, mercy, compassion and justice that we are to mirror in our lives.
The triumph, it seems to this reviewer, of Dr Instone-Brewer's position is that it works naturally with the biblical texts when interpreted in their original context rather than finding ways which frankly look like they are trying to get around the texts (at least in their most restricted interpretation). Instone-Brewer provides good and just solutions to the issue of divorce backed up by solid scholarship on the social and religious background of the first century world that the New Testament was originally written for.
The author has been criticised for making divorce too easy, but this is certainly not what he advocates.
He summarises his conclusions as follows:
- The Bible's message for those suffering within marriage is both realistic and loving
- Marriage should be lifelong, but broken marriage vows can be grounds for divorce
- Biblical grounds for divorce include adultery, abuse and abandonment
- Jesus urged forgiveness but allowed divorce for repeated unrepentant breaking of marriage vows
- Only the victim, not the perpetrator of such sins, should decide when or whether to divorce
- Anyone who divorces on biblical grounds or who is divorced against their will can remarry.
For a covenant theologian like myself, who believes in the essential continuity of the old and new administrations of the one Covenant of Grace, the fact that this view does not drive a wedge between divorce in the Old Testament and divorce in the New Testament (which the traditional interpretation of the New Testament texts does), is also an attractive feature of this argument. Indeed it has always seemed strange that the traditional view necessitates the New Testament being somewhat more strict, more rigorous, more legalistic than the more practical and gracious provisions of the Old Testament which recognises human weakness in a fallen world. Dr Instone-Brewer's argument actually removes this apparent anomaly by showing how the New Testament texts grow out of the Old Testament texts rather than being a radical break with them.
This book is written for the general reader and the busy pastor. The exegesis and background history are concise and to the point. Dr Instone-Brewer has also written a much larger book which incorporates far more of his research in this area of biblical studies. The other book is entitled Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context. This reviewer definitely plans to read the larger book at some point in the future.
Note: Both of Dr Instone-Brewer's books are available to read online at his website
http://www.divorceremarriage.com/
Monday, 28 April 2008
The Cross Centred Life
The Cross Centred Life
by C. J. Mahaney
Multnomah Books, Colorado Springs 2002
The Cross Centred Life is a short book on a very important subject. C. J. Mahaney reminds us here that the gospel of Christ's saving work on the cross is not only the main thing we need to grasp when we become Christians; the cross is also the main thing we need to keep focused on in order to live as Christians.
In essence, the purpose of this book is to help readers think through what it means to live by the gospel, what difference the knowledge that Christ died for you makes to how we should live our lives.
In seven short chapters and under 90 pages, the author covers a range of important subjects including: why our lives should be centred on the cross, the dangers of legalism, how to overcome a life full of guilt and condemnation, and the problem of living only by our feelings. There are then chapters on daily life focused on the cross and a final chapter on how there is not "something else to move onto" beyond the cross in the Christian life, however much we grow through learning and experience.
The book is not heavy reading in any way and could be read by profit by new Christians from mid teenage upwards. It could also be used as the basis for devotional reading over a week or so for any Christian.
Though fairly basic, I found it refreshing and challenging to be reminded once again of the glory of the cross and my need to live a cross-centred life every day. I could imagine myself coming back to it from time to time when I need to remind myself again of these vital truths.
I totally agree with Mahaney's comment: you can put this book away on your shelf, but never put away the message of this book.
by C. J. Mahaney
Multnomah Books, Colorado Springs 2002
The Cross Centred Life is a short book on a very important subject. C. J. Mahaney reminds us here that the gospel of Christ's saving work on the cross is not only the main thing we need to grasp when we become Christians; the cross is also the main thing we need to keep focused on in order to live as Christians.
In essence, the purpose of this book is to help readers think through what it means to live by the gospel, what difference the knowledge that Christ died for you makes to how we should live our lives.
In seven short chapters and under 90 pages, the author covers a range of important subjects including: why our lives should be centred on the cross, the dangers of legalism, how to overcome a life full of guilt and condemnation, and the problem of living only by our feelings. There are then chapters on daily life focused on the cross and a final chapter on how there is not "something else to move onto" beyond the cross in the Christian life, however much we grow through learning and experience.
The book is not heavy reading in any way and could be read by profit by new Christians from mid teenage upwards. It could also be used as the basis for devotional reading over a week or so for any Christian.
Though fairly basic, I found it refreshing and challenging to be reminded once again of the glory of the cross and my need to live a cross-centred life every day. I could imagine myself coming back to it from time to time when I need to remind myself again of these vital truths.
I totally agree with Mahaney's comment: you can put this book away on your shelf, but never put away the message of this book.
Thursday, 24 April 2008
A Portrait of the Church
The following is a lightly-edited text of a Sermon preached on 1 Peter 1:22-2:12 (Good News Bible) at the Evening Service on 20 April 2008
These days people want to paint the church as a whole range of different things. In fact there almost enough portraits of the church to fill an art gallery. For some people the church is the guardian of morality in the nation. The church is there to tell us how to live. The church is there to make sure governments don’t get out of line in the laws they pass. For as many more the church is oppressive, telling people what to do and stopping them from living their lives freely as they choose to do. For other people the church is a living link with history, a kind of working museum that gives us a flavour of what life was like in a simpler, more certain, but definitely bygone era. Others see the church almost entirely in political and practical terms. The church is all about doing good works in the community and helping people in this world and never mind any thought of life in the world to come. Essentially the church is a charity that exists to pay for things like social work, health care and education. Still others see the church as a kind of social club where harmless entertainment is offered to slightly odd people who don’t have anything better to do on a Sunday.
Some of these views contain elements of truth about what the church is. But all of them, all of them, fall hopelessly short of the mark. We see that when we compare views like this with the portrait of the church we find in God’s Word.
I think there are three layers to this portrait that we need to look at tonight, and these are:
1. What the Church’s status is in God’s eyes
2. How Christians are meant to live as the church
3. How the church is supposed to look to those outside it
Or to put it another way:
1. What we are
2. How we are to live
3. How we should look to others
And we’ll spend a few moments looking at these three things tonight.
So the first layer of the portrait of the church we’re looking at is “What we are” according to the passage.
The first thing to notice is this: the church is made up of people who have been born again into new life and have been saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There are at least six phrases that point to this in the passage.
In verse 22, the church is made up of people who have “purified themselves”. The Good News Bible is slightly misleading in talking about “purifying yourselves” which could sound like this purifying is a do-it-yourself job. The verse is more accurately translated “purified your souls” rather than “purify yourselves”. We know from the verses prior to where our passage starts that Peter taught that the way the people of God “purify themselves” is by “believing in God” (v.21) and looking not to ourselves but looking to “the costly sacrifice of Christ, who was like a lamb without defect or flaw” (v.19). In our passage, chapter 2, verse 7, Peter calls the church “you that believe”. So Christian’s are first and foremost people who have faith in God and Jesus Christ. They are also people who “have received God’s mercy” according to chapter 2, verse 10. The Church is people who have been saved.
When we say the Church is made up of people who have been purified from their sins, that’s not to say the church is made up of perfect people: none of us are perfect. But it is made up of people who have had their sins taken away and who have been washed clean by the blood of Jesus.
In verse 23, it says the church consists of people who have been “born again” and now have “an immortal parent”. God himself is our Father. Christians are people who have been “born again” and adopted into God’s family. When we become Christians we are changed from being people who are dead in sin to people who are alive with a new kind of life. The Holy Spirit comes upon us and gives us a new heart as the prophet Ezekiel talks about. We are “a new creation” as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:17. Again this points towards the fact that Christians, Christ’s people the Church, are people for whom salvation is a reality, a living reality they know in their lives.
The church is also described as people who have really experienced God’s goodness in their lives. In chapter 2, v.3: “You have found out for yourselves how kind the Lord is.” Other translations have “how good the Lord is” here.
Christians are people who have experienced God’s goodness in their lives. This is not to say people in the church don’t have problems and struggles in their lives. Of course we do. Part of experiencing God’s goodness is knowing he is with us when we go through trouble rather than keeps us from all problems. Remember the whole point of Peter’s First Letter is to encourage Christians who are suffering for their faith. He certainly wasn’t saying God being good to his people meant they would have problem-free lives!
Then in verse 4, Christians are described as people have come to Jesus, the Living Stone, and who keep on coming to him. “Come to the Lord, the living stone” it says. Christ is the person we should be coming to all the time, and building our lives on. We need to share our lives with him as we would with our best friend. We should be coming to him when we’re happy and share our joy and our thanksgiving with him. We should be coming to him when we’re sad to share our sorrow with him. We should be coming to him when needing help, or guidance, or encouragement, or sometimes just to be in his company and share a time of quiet fellowship with our Lord in comfortable silence.
That’s half of “what we are” as taught in this passage. Peter then goes on, in a number of descriptions in the passage, to tell us how God thinks of his people in the Church. Let’s look briefly at these now.
Look at chapter 2, verse 5: “Come as living stones, and let yourselves be used in building the spiritual temple.” The NIV is slightly more accurate and brings out Peter’s meaning better. It reads: “you also, like spiritual stones, are being built into a spiritual house.”
In other words, it’s not so much about us “letting ourselves be used” by God, but that God is building us into something bigger than each of us can be on our own. As the chorus puts it, “For I’m building a people of power and I’m making a people of praise.” That’s what this verse is talking about. God is building us into a spiritual house, a temple, where his presence dwells in a greater way than the presence of God dwelt in the Temple in Jerusalem. God dwells not in a temple made by human hands, but inside every Christian. He lives in us by the Holy Spirit who makes his home inside us, and builds us into a home fit for such a guest to stay. When we come to Christ, he takes us as we are, however rough and ready. But he doesn’t leave us that way. He builds us into something better. And he brings each person in his church together like building blocks to make something beautiful and special and dedicated to God’s worship and service. We are like stones that all come together to be built into a majestic temple of worship for God.
Peter then lists four things about the Church in verse 9 that are very significant. He says that the church is “the chosen race” (or “the chosen people”), “the King’s priests” (or more accurately, “a royal priesthood”), “the holy nation”, and “God’s own people”. Each of those phrases tell us something about the church. We are chosen by God. Sinners don’t just get up one day and decide that they’ll believe in Christ. They believe because God chose them for salvation. “You did not choose me, I chose you,” said Christ. The Bible says a lot about God’s choosing who would be saved. I’m not going into the doctrine of election in any detail tonight, but just in passing here we have that doctrine again. The church is a chosen people.
We are also a royal priesthood. Christ is the King and Head of the Church, and every Christian is a priest to the King. I’ve often wondered how ministers at Crathie church feel when they have to preach before the Queen when she’s at Balmoral. Do they get extra nervous? Are they more careful what they say? Do they feel privileged to be ministering to the British monarch? I’ll bet they do. Well each of us is a priest serving a greater king than any earthly monarch. We worship and serve the King of kings and Lord of lords.
And we are a holy nation. As well as being citizens of our country we are also citizens of another Kingdom: the Kingdom of heaven. And that nation consists of people from every tribe and nation and tongue on the earth. This is what Peter means, I think, in 2:11 where he talks about us as “strangers and refugees in this world”. We live here, but in a sense this world is not our home once we are Christians. We live in the world, but we are no longer of the world. We no longer share the world’s values. We no longer admire what this world admires. As the hymn puts it:
“Fading is the worldling’s pleasure,
All his boasted pomp and show.
Solid joys and lasting treasure,
None but Zion’s children know.”
And we are God’s own people. The Church is God’s own people, the people with whom he is in a special covenant relationship. He is our God, and we are his people. This is the covenant phrase that occurs dozens of times in the Old and New Testament. We are God’s people. We are God’s special treasured possession. We are dear to him, precious, loved, like jewels in a crown as the prophet Zechariah says.
And I think these four things in particular point us to a very important truth about the Church. All of the terms Peter uses here are used in the Old Testament to describe Israel. The truth I think Peter is highlighting here is that the Church is Israel, the Israel of God. And God never abandons that true Israel – his beloved children who trust and follow him. Some Christians think that the Church and the nation of Israel are two separate peoples and both are God’s chosen people, but I don’t think that’s correct. I think passages like this and several others in the New Testament, point to the fact that Israel is the Church in the Old Testament, and the Church is Israel in the New Testament.
What a wonderful picture of what the Church really is Peter paints here. So many wonderful ways he describes us. But that’s not all this passage contains. As well as describing what the Church is, Peter interweaves this with statements about how the church should be living. How each of us should be living. And while we may enjoy hearing all the great things God’s word says about what the church is, we may find it a little more challenging when we look at how our churches match up with how Peter says Christians should be living as the church.
Back in chapter 1, verse 22, Peter says that the Church should be obedient to the truth and should be a people of love: "Love one another earnestly with all your heart." These two things probably sum up a lot of what the Church should be like. The church should be a community of truth and love, of sound doctrine and compassionate care and concern. Neither one to the exclusion of the other. But so often churches do okay in one and neglect the other, or even worse fail to be either. When you see a church paying attention to both things, it’s a very rare and beautiful thing and such a church needs to be congratulated, encouraged and cared for.
Verse 23 tells us how we know the truth. It is through the living and eternal word of God. It is through the Bible. It is through that Word that remains or endures forever, as verse 25 says. So as Christians we should value the Bible and treat it seriously. We should want to hear the truths of the Bible preached. We should want to study the Bible whenever we can, and read it often. It is by the message of the Bible, Good News, the gospel that we are to live. And just as the Church should be a people who value God’s Word written, so we should be a people who value God’s word preached. Do we value what is proclaimed to us, what we hear when God’s word is preached? Do we see it as that message of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ to save us and which we have accepted in faith?
So we are to be people obedient to the truth, people who know what the truth is, people who feed on the truth – like babies feeding on spiritual milk as 2:2 says. And as we feed on God’s truth we grow as Christians.
The more we know and appreciate God’s truth, the more that truth should influence our lives. We are to people of love, and Peter spells out part of what that means in chapter 2:1:
“Rid yourselves then of all evil,” he says. “No more lying or hypocrisy or jealousy or insulting language.”
What’s Peter talking about here? What made him think there would ever be anything like that in churches? Hypocrisy? Jealousy? Insulting Language? Gossip? Rumour mongering? Nasty comments? Surely not! And of course we’ve never seen any of that in our church, have we?
Well maybe we have. But isn’t that a challenge to each one of us? If we dispense with the niceties, isn’t that what goes on in churches all the time?
How do we stop it? Well I think the way we stop it is by stopping doing it ourselves. Never mind anyone else. If I stop it, and you stop it, and everyone stops it, then wouldn’t our churches be transformed? That’s all it takes. Stop yourself. And if everyone does that – it’s ended...today. Simple as that. And if someone else does it, don’t encourage them. No need to get preachy with them. Just move the conversation onto something more positive, or end the conversation. Don’t feed these things with a listening ear. I think it’s as bad to listen and encourage these things as it is to do them.
We need to consider how we live and deliberately choose to do good and not do evil. If we live thoughtlessly, the default setting in our lives is often to do wrong. If we fly on autopilot, it’s easier to fall into bad habits and wrong actions. We need to concentrate to do good. In verse 11 Peter puts it like this:
“Do not give in to bodily passions, which are always at war against the soul.”
Instead we are to be people who live in God’s marvellous light (verse 9), people who have sincere love for others, people who know God’s goodness and mercy and so show goodness and mercy to others. In short, we are to live as people who act as if they know they are all those wonderful things God’s word says we are: a chosen people, a covenant people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation and so forth. Live it out then, Peter says. Show people that you are what you claim to be.
And that leads me on to the third thing this passage says about the church: how the church should appear to outsiders.
What I think it really means for us is that the Church should always have a heart for mission, always be looking to fulfil Christ’s commission to go into the world and make disciples for him. We need to be working as a church to attract people to Christ and to bring people to Christ. And we need to work against things that put people off coming to Christ in our church.
Now, the passage is clear that there will be people who will stumble and cannot accept Christ. But let us make sure that we are not stumbling blocks to people coming to faith, or how we do things isn’t a stumbling block, just because we’ve “always done it that way”. If Christ himself is the stone they stumble over and reject, that will be a terrible thing for those who reject him. If we are the reason that someone was put off coming to Christ, that may be a terrible thing for us.
Christ is a stone or a rock. For those for whom that rock is precious, that rock is a shelter and support – a resting place upon which we are rely and trust and build our lives. But for those who reject that rock, the same rock that can support and save those who believe, will ultimately crush those who reject him. That’s why it is important to come to Christ as the sure foundation stone upon which you can build and be built up in your life.
But the passage is also clear that where the church is acting as God wants, the church will be a missionary, outreaching church. Indeed it will be a church on a positive mission to reach people and bring them in rather than simply standing by waiting for people to come in.
Verse 9 says that we are “chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God.” If that doesn’t mean that the church’s mission is to tell others about God, I don’t know what is! We are to tell people the Good News that we have received. We are to let them know what God’s word says, in language that they understand. Unless we speak in words that people who hear us can actually understand, it’s as if we are speaking to them in a foreign language, and in a sense we are not really speaking to them at all. We are speaking over them.
I’m very conscious that I have a tendency to drop into “church speak” sometimes. Theological terminology has its place. It is vital to carefully guard and define the truth, in our creeds and confessions, in our colleges and seminaries, yes even in our church Bible studies. We need it at that level, but we don’t need it on the front line when speaking to people outside the church. We need to translate the Bible into language that people understand. And that may be saying things like “God’s verdict on people who trust in Jesus is that they are not guilty” instead of “God justifies us through faith in Jesus” or saying things like “Jesus dying on the cross means God isn’t angry with you anymore if you believe in him” instead of “Jesus’ death was a propitiation for those who have faith in his blood.”
But as well as our words, Peter also says we should be a missionary, outreaching church by how we live. He just won’t let us separate our faith from our lives. Verse 12, “Your conduct among the heathen should be so good that when they accuse you of being evildoers, they will have to recognise your good deeds and so praise God on the Day of his coming.”
To outsiders, to those who are not Christians, the actions of church members do matter. We might prefer it if this wasn’t true, but the Bible says it is true. What people see us doing. What people hear us saying. If they see we are different from them, it does matter. Now, note that the passage doesn’t say, that if we are really really good in our lives, people will see that and all come running into church to find out how they can be like that too. Peter is realistic. He says that some people will see that and hate it. In fact God’s word is plain here that for some people, it is God’s will that they will not come to Christ and find salvation. Verse 8: “They did not believe in the word; such was God’s will for them.”
So some outsiders will call us evildoers and seek to persecute us, but even they will have to have some kind of grudging respect for us if we live out our faith. They will be forced to acknowledge our good deeds when they come before God, not to “praise” him as the Good News Bible says – but to glorify him on that day when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Some will see our lives and hate it, but some will see our lives – if we are living as we should be – and will want to find out more. They will be more open to hearing what we say if they can see we live it out. And God can use our good deeds, our deeds of love and care, to bring people to the church and to Christ. He will use them to achieve his own ends. Our concern should be to live that way because it will please God and can be used by God. We are always witnesses to Christ in our lives. The question is, are we good witnesses or bad witnesses?
When I read a passage like this I am both filled with joy at how beautiful Christ’s bride really is, and I’m filled with sadness at how bruised and a bit grubby she is as she struggles with the wedding preparations. I think the Church is always faced with this tension between what she is underneath all the bruising and dirt and what she will be when the bruising and dirt are cleaned away for the last time and she is presented to Christ as the perfect bride ready for the consummation of her marriage to Christ at the end of time. And perhaps it is in looking forward to the wedding feast that we are able best to prepare the bride and make her ready for that day? Certainly if we take Peter’s message in this passage seriously, it can only be a step in the right direction.
These days people want to paint the church as a whole range of different things. In fact there almost enough portraits of the church to fill an art gallery. For some people the church is the guardian of morality in the nation. The church is there to tell us how to live. The church is there to make sure governments don’t get out of line in the laws they pass. For as many more the church is oppressive, telling people what to do and stopping them from living their lives freely as they choose to do. For other people the church is a living link with history, a kind of working museum that gives us a flavour of what life was like in a simpler, more certain, but definitely bygone era. Others see the church almost entirely in political and practical terms. The church is all about doing good works in the community and helping people in this world and never mind any thought of life in the world to come. Essentially the church is a charity that exists to pay for things like social work, health care and education. Still others see the church as a kind of social club where harmless entertainment is offered to slightly odd people who don’t have anything better to do on a Sunday.
Some of these views contain elements of truth about what the church is. But all of them, all of them, fall hopelessly short of the mark. We see that when we compare views like this with the portrait of the church we find in God’s Word.
I think there are three layers to this portrait that we need to look at tonight, and these are:
1. What the Church’s status is in God’s eyes
2. How Christians are meant to live as the church
3. How the church is supposed to look to those outside it
Or to put it another way:
1. What we are
2. How we are to live
3. How we should look to others
And we’ll spend a few moments looking at these three things tonight.
So the first layer of the portrait of the church we’re looking at is “What we are” according to the passage.
The first thing to notice is this: the church is made up of people who have been born again into new life and have been saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There are at least six phrases that point to this in the passage.
In verse 22, the church is made up of people who have “purified themselves”. The Good News Bible is slightly misleading in talking about “purifying yourselves” which could sound like this purifying is a do-it-yourself job. The verse is more accurately translated “purified your souls” rather than “purify yourselves”. We know from the verses prior to where our passage starts that Peter taught that the way the people of God “purify themselves” is by “believing in God” (v.21) and looking not to ourselves but looking to “the costly sacrifice of Christ, who was like a lamb without defect or flaw” (v.19). In our passage, chapter 2, verse 7, Peter calls the church “you that believe”. So Christian’s are first and foremost people who have faith in God and Jesus Christ. They are also people who “have received God’s mercy” according to chapter 2, verse 10. The Church is people who have been saved.
When we say the Church is made up of people who have been purified from their sins, that’s not to say the church is made up of perfect people: none of us are perfect. But it is made up of people who have had their sins taken away and who have been washed clean by the blood of Jesus.
In verse 23, it says the church consists of people who have been “born again” and now have “an immortal parent”. God himself is our Father. Christians are people who have been “born again” and adopted into God’s family. When we become Christians we are changed from being people who are dead in sin to people who are alive with a new kind of life. The Holy Spirit comes upon us and gives us a new heart as the prophet Ezekiel talks about. We are “a new creation” as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:17. Again this points towards the fact that Christians, Christ’s people the Church, are people for whom salvation is a reality, a living reality they know in their lives.
The church is also described as people who have really experienced God’s goodness in their lives. In chapter 2, v.3: “You have found out for yourselves how kind the Lord is.” Other translations have “how good the Lord is” here.
Christians are people who have experienced God’s goodness in their lives. This is not to say people in the church don’t have problems and struggles in their lives. Of course we do. Part of experiencing God’s goodness is knowing he is with us when we go through trouble rather than keeps us from all problems. Remember the whole point of Peter’s First Letter is to encourage Christians who are suffering for their faith. He certainly wasn’t saying God being good to his people meant they would have problem-free lives!
Then in verse 4, Christians are described as people have come to Jesus, the Living Stone, and who keep on coming to him. “Come to the Lord, the living stone” it says. Christ is the person we should be coming to all the time, and building our lives on. We need to share our lives with him as we would with our best friend. We should be coming to him when we’re happy and share our joy and our thanksgiving with him. We should be coming to him when we’re sad to share our sorrow with him. We should be coming to him when needing help, or guidance, or encouragement, or sometimes just to be in his company and share a time of quiet fellowship with our Lord in comfortable silence.
That’s half of “what we are” as taught in this passage. Peter then goes on, in a number of descriptions in the passage, to tell us how God thinks of his people in the Church. Let’s look briefly at these now.
Look at chapter 2, verse 5: “Come as living stones, and let yourselves be used in building the spiritual temple.” The NIV is slightly more accurate and brings out Peter’s meaning better. It reads: “you also, like spiritual stones, are being built into a spiritual house.”
In other words, it’s not so much about us “letting ourselves be used” by God, but that God is building us into something bigger than each of us can be on our own. As the chorus puts it, “For I’m building a people of power and I’m making a people of praise.” That’s what this verse is talking about. God is building us into a spiritual house, a temple, where his presence dwells in a greater way than the presence of God dwelt in the Temple in Jerusalem. God dwells not in a temple made by human hands, but inside every Christian. He lives in us by the Holy Spirit who makes his home inside us, and builds us into a home fit for such a guest to stay. When we come to Christ, he takes us as we are, however rough and ready. But he doesn’t leave us that way. He builds us into something better. And he brings each person in his church together like building blocks to make something beautiful and special and dedicated to God’s worship and service. We are like stones that all come together to be built into a majestic temple of worship for God.
Peter then lists four things about the Church in verse 9 that are very significant. He says that the church is “the chosen race” (or “the chosen people”), “the King’s priests” (or more accurately, “a royal priesthood”), “the holy nation”, and “God’s own people”. Each of those phrases tell us something about the church. We are chosen by God. Sinners don’t just get up one day and decide that they’ll believe in Christ. They believe because God chose them for salvation. “You did not choose me, I chose you,” said Christ. The Bible says a lot about God’s choosing who would be saved. I’m not going into the doctrine of election in any detail tonight, but just in passing here we have that doctrine again. The church is a chosen people.
We are also a royal priesthood. Christ is the King and Head of the Church, and every Christian is a priest to the King. I’ve often wondered how ministers at Crathie church feel when they have to preach before the Queen when she’s at Balmoral. Do they get extra nervous? Are they more careful what they say? Do they feel privileged to be ministering to the British monarch? I’ll bet they do. Well each of us is a priest serving a greater king than any earthly monarch. We worship and serve the King of kings and Lord of lords.
And we are a holy nation. As well as being citizens of our country we are also citizens of another Kingdom: the Kingdom of heaven. And that nation consists of people from every tribe and nation and tongue on the earth. This is what Peter means, I think, in 2:11 where he talks about us as “strangers and refugees in this world”. We live here, but in a sense this world is not our home once we are Christians. We live in the world, but we are no longer of the world. We no longer share the world’s values. We no longer admire what this world admires. As the hymn puts it:
“Fading is the worldling’s pleasure,
All his boasted pomp and show.
Solid joys and lasting treasure,
None but Zion’s children know.”
And we are God’s own people. The Church is God’s own people, the people with whom he is in a special covenant relationship. He is our God, and we are his people. This is the covenant phrase that occurs dozens of times in the Old and New Testament. We are God’s people. We are God’s special treasured possession. We are dear to him, precious, loved, like jewels in a crown as the prophet Zechariah says.
And I think these four things in particular point us to a very important truth about the Church. All of the terms Peter uses here are used in the Old Testament to describe Israel. The truth I think Peter is highlighting here is that the Church is Israel, the Israel of God. And God never abandons that true Israel – his beloved children who trust and follow him. Some Christians think that the Church and the nation of Israel are two separate peoples and both are God’s chosen people, but I don’t think that’s correct. I think passages like this and several others in the New Testament, point to the fact that Israel is the Church in the Old Testament, and the Church is Israel in the New Testament.
What a wonderful picture of what the Church really is Peter paints here. So many wonderful ways he describes us. But that’s not all this passage contains. As well as describing what the Church is, Peter interweaves this with statements about how the church should be living. How each of us should be living. And while we may enjoy hearing all the great things God’s word says about what the church is, we may find it a little more challenging when we look at how our churches match up with how Peter says Christians should be living as the church.
Back in chapter 1, verse 22, Peter says that the Church should be obedient to the truth and should be a people of love: "Love one another earnestly with all your heart." These two things probably sum up a lot of what the Church should be like. The church should be a community of truth and love, of sound doctrine and compassionate care and concern. Neither one to the exclusion of the other. But so often churches do okay in one and neglect the other, or even worse fail to be either. When you see a church paying attention to both things, it’s a very rare and beautiful thing and such a church needs to be congratulated, encouraged and cared for.
Verse 23 tells us how we know the truth. It is through the living and eternal word of God. It is through the Bible. It is through that Word that remains or endures forever, as verse 25 says. So as Christians we should value the Bible and treat it seriously. We should want to hear the truths of the Bible preached. We should want to study the Bible whenever we can, and read it often. It is by the message of the Bible, Good News, the gospel that we are to live. And just as the Church should be a people who value God’s Word written, so we should be a people who value God’s word preached. Do we value what is proclaimed to us, what we hear when God’s word is preached? Do we see it as that message of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ to save us and which we have accepted in faith?
So we are to be people obedient to the truth, people who know what the truth is, people who feed on the truth – like babies feeding on spiritual milk as 2:2 says. And as we feed on God’s truth we grow as Christians.
The more we know and appreciate God’s truth, the more that truth should influence our lives. We are to people of love, and Peter spells out part of what that means in chapter 2:1:
“Rid yourselves then of all evil,” he says. “No more lying or hypocrisy or jealousy or insulting language.”
What’s Peter talking about here? What made him think there would ever be anything like that in churches? Hypocrisy? Jealousy? Insulting Language? Gossip? Rumour mongering? Nasty comments? Surely not! And of course we’ve never seen any of that in our church, have we?
Well maybe we have. But isn’t that a challenge to each one of us? If we dispense with the niceties, isn’t that what goes on in churches all the time?
How do we stop it? Well I think the way we stop it is by stopping doing it ourselves. Never mind anyone else. If I stop it, and you stop it, and everyone stops it, then wouldn’t our churches be transformed? That’s all it takes. Stop yourself. And if everyone does that – it’s ended...today. Simple as that. And if someone else does it, don’t encourage them. No need to get preachy with them. Just move the conversation onto something more positive, or end the conversation. Don’t feed these things with a listening ear. I think it’s as bad to listen and encourage these things as it is to do them.
We need to consider how we live and deliberately choose to do good and not do evil. If we live thoughtlessly, the default setting in our lives is often to do wrong. If we fly on autopilot, it’s easier to fall into bad habits and wrong actions. We need to concentrate to do good. In verse 11 Peter puts it like this:
“Do not give in to bodily passions, which are always at war against the soul.”
Instead we are to be people who live in God’s marvellous light (verse 9), people who have sincere love for others, people who know God’s goodness and mercy and so show goodness and mercy to others. In short, we are to live as people who act as if they know they are all those wonderful things God’s word says we are: a chosen people, a covenant people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation and so forth. Live it out then, Peter says. Show people that you are what you claim to be.
And that leads me on to the third thing this passage says about the church: how the church should appear to outsiders.
What I think it really means for us is that the Church should always have a heart for mission, always be looking to fulfil Christ’s commission to go into the world and make disciples for him. We need to be working as a church to attract people to Christ and to bring people to Christ. And we need to work against things that put people off coming to Christ in our church.
Now, the passage is clear that there will be people who will stumble and cannot accept Christ. But let us make sure that we are not stumbling blocks to people coming to faith, or how we do things isn’t a stumbling block, just because we’ve “always done it that way”. If Christ himself is the stone they stumble over and reject, that will be a terrible thing for those who reject him. If we are the reason that someone was put off coming to Christ, that may be a terrible thing for us.
Christ is a stone or a rock. For those for whom that rock is precious, that rock is a shelter and support – a resting place upon which we are rely and trust and build our lives. But for those who reject that rock, the same rock that can support and save those who believe, will ultimately crush those who reject him. That’s why it is important to come to Christ as the sure foundation stone upon which you can build and be built up in your life.
But the passage is also clear that where the church is acting as God wants, the church will be a missionary, outreaching church. Indeed it will be a church on a positive mission to reach people and bring them in rather than simply standing by waiting for people to come in.
Verse 9 says that we are “chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God.” If that doesn’t mean that the church’s mission is to tell others about God, I don’t know what is! We are to tell people the Good News that we have received. We are to let them know what God’s word says, in language that they understand. Unless we speak in words that people who hear us can actually understand, it’s as if we are speaking to them in a foreign language, and in a sense we are not really speaking to them at all. We are speaking over them.
I’m very conscious that I have a tendency to drop into “church speak” sometimes. Theological terminology has its place. It is vital to carefully guard and define the truth, in our creeds and confessions, in our colleges and seminaries, yes even in our church Bible studies. We need it at that level, but we don’t need it on the front line when speaking to people outside the church. We need to translate the Bible into language that people understand. And that may be saying things like “God’s verdict on people who trust in Jesus is that they are not guilty” instead of “God justifies us through faith in Jesus” or saying things like “Jesus dying on the cross means God isn’t angry with you anymore if you believe in him” instead of “Jesus’ death was a propitiation for those who have faith in his blood.”
But as well as our words, Peter also says we should be a missionary, outreaching church by how we live. He just won’t let us separate our faith from our lives. Verse 12, “Your conduct among the heathen should be so good that when they accuse you of being evildoers, they will have to recognise your good deeds and so praise God on the Day of his coming.”
To outsiders, to those who are not Christians, the actions of church members do matter. We might prefer it if this wasn’t true, but the Bible says it is true. What people see us doing. What people hear us saying. If they see we are different from them, it does matter. Now, note that the passage doesn’t say, that if we are really really good in our lives, people will see that and all come running into church to find out how they can be like that too. Peter is realistic. He says that some people will see that and hate it. In fact God’s word is plain here that for some people, it is God’s will that they will not come to Christ and find salvation. Verse 8: “They did not believe in the word; such was God’s will for them.”
So some outsiders will call us evildoers and seek to persecute us, but even they will have to have some kind of grudging respect for us if we live out our faith. They will be forced to acknowledge our good deeds when they come before God, not to “praise” him as the Good News Bible says – but to glorify him on that day when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Some will see our lives and hate it, but some will see our lives – if we are living as we should be – and will want to find out more. They will be more open to hearing what we say if they can see we live it out. And God can use our good deeds, our deeds of love and care, to bring people to the church and to Christ. He will use them to achieve his own ends. Our concern should be to live that way because it will please God and can be used by God. We are always witnesses to Christ in our lives. The question is, are we good witnesses or bad witnesses?
When I read a passage like this I am both filled with joy at how beautiful Christ’s bride really is, and I’m filled with sadness at how bruised and a bit grubby she is as she struggles with the wedding preparations. I think the Church is always faced with this tension between what she is underneath all the bruising and dirt and what she will be when the bruising and dirt are cleaned away for the last time and she is presented to Christ as the perfect bride ready for the consummation of her marriage to Christ at the end of time. And perhaps it is in looking forward to the wedding feast that we are able best to prepare the bride and make her ready for that day? Certainly if we take Peter’s message in this passage seriously, it can only be a step in the right direction.
Thursday, 10 April 2008
Hyper-Calvinism
Q. How do you define Hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism?
A. A Hyper-Calvinist is anyone whose Calvinism is higher than my own, and an Arminian is anyone whose Calvinism is lower than my own.
Now of course that's a joke. But if you've spent any length of time discussing Reformed or evangelical theology, you'll probably know that it's a slightly uncomfortable joke because there are people out there debating theology in online forums who don't argue that much differently from this. So what is real Hyper-Calvinism and how do you differentiate it from Historic Calvinism? One of the best articles on the web dealing with this issue is Phil Johnson's A Primer on Hyper-Calvinism. Johnson points out that there is more than one kind of Hyper-Calvinism, and some are more extreme and more seriously in error than others. He mentions five definitions:
"A Hyper-Calvinist is someone who either:
Here in particular, we must be careful to distinguish between someone who objects to a word of terminology but accepts the content of what it stands for from someone who rejects both the terminology and the content. For example, there are people who would question the use of the terminology "common grace" for the good gifts that God gives to the reprobate and elect alike in this life, but would in no sense deny that God does give the reprobate these good gifts in his providence. They merely say that it is not properly called "grace" when the Bible itself seems to use "grace" only for God's attitude of saving favour in the realm of redemption.
Having said that, I think it is fair enough for Johnson to mention all five of these positions as tenets of Hyper-Calvinism. Having flirted with points 4 and 5 myself in the past, I believe that a person holding to points 4 and 5 is probably on a slippery slope towards the more serious forms of Hyper-Calvinism, because at that point, although no one would admit this, people have already abandoned deriving their doctrine solely from biblical texts and have already started to read biblical texts through an interpretative matrix of what can and what cannot be correct because of how problematic texts are deemed to contradict or be in conflict with other doctrines that are obviously biblically correct.
Rather than work through the issues as rigorously as we should, there is a tendency to re-interpret Scripture to fit with our system. We take a fairly easy path of accepting an unlikely but possible interpretation of a problematic text so that it more easily fits into our system. The harder course is to see if our system can withstand the most likely interpretation of all texts, rather than having to choose unlikely meanings to make them fit into something. The latter is akin to the child who uses scissors on a jigsaw-puzzle to make the pieces fit, irrespective of how it destroys the overall picture.
For the avoidance of any doubt, my beliefs measured against Johnson's "Five Points" would be as follows:
1. The gospel call certainly applies to all, without exception, who hear the gospel message. And it is a call that goes out not merely as a human call by the preacher, but as a divine call, issued by God himself through the preacher to everyone within the sound of the preacher's voice.
2. Because the gospel is a command and an invitation issued by God, it is the duty of everyone who receives that invitation and command to obey it. The doctrine of reprobation does not exclude anyone from obeying God's commands, including the gospel command.
3. In the free offer of the gospel, Christ himself and salvation in him are offered to sinners, not merely as a bare presentation of facts about Christ and his work, but with the assurance that Christ is abundantly able to save any sinner who comes to him and the promise that no one who comes to him for salvation will ever be turned away. Furthermore, the free offer of the gospel should also be made to sinners with the understanding that, in his revealed will (will of command), God expresses a sincere desire for everyone who hears the gospel to believe it and be saved through obeying his command and accepting his offer. This desire is not something that God chooses to bring to fulfilment in the case of the reprobate however, as that genuine desire is nonetheless tempered by another divine desire: the desire to manifest his glory in the justice shown to those sinners he chooses to reject and punish for their sins.
4. God gives innumerable good gifts to all people, both elect and reprobate alike. In the sense that such providential gifts are not deserved by anyone, it is feasible to term them "common grace". However, it could be argued that this is not an ideal term for this doctrine as the Scriptures do not tend to use the word "grace" in this way. Something like "providential goodness" may be more accurate.
5. God does not love everyone with the same kind of love, but he does love everyone with some kind of love. As far as electing, redeeming or saving love goes, he loves only the elect and hates the reprobate (Romans 9:13). However, the Scriptures also teach that God has a compassionate, benevolent, though non-saving love, for all his creatures including every human being. It is from this love that God's good gifts to all his creatures flow. Such a non-saving love in God to the wicked as creatures is not inconsistent with God's curse and wrath against the wicked considered as guilty sinners or even with God's hatred of them as reprobates. On the contrary, the rejection of God's love and goodness by the reprobate serve God's purposes by leaving them without excuse and liable to greater condemnation.
A. A Hyper-Calvinist is anyone whose Calvinism is higher than my own, and an Arminian is anyone whose Calvinism is lower than my own.
Now of course that's a joke. But if you've spent any length of time discussing Reformed or evangelical theology, you'll probably know that it's a slightly uncomfortable joke because there are people out there debating theology in online forums who don't argue that much differently from this. So what is real Hyper-Calvinism and how do you differentiate it from Historic Calvinism? One of the best articles on the web dealing with this issue is Phil Johnson's A Primer on Hyper-Calvinism. Johnson points out that there is more than one kind of Hyper-Calvinism, and some are more extreme and more seriously in error than others. He mentions five definitions:
"A Hyper-Calvinist is someone who either:
- Denies that the gospel call applies to all who hear, OR
- Denies that faith is the duty of every sinner, OR
- Denies that the gospel makes any "offer" of Christ, salvation, or mercy to the non-elect (or denies that the offer of divine mercy is free and universal), OR
- Denies that there is such a thing as "common grace," OR
- Denies that God has any sort of love for the non-elect."
Here in particular, we must be careful to distinguish between someone who objects to a word of terminology but accepts the content of what it stands for from someone who rejects both the terminology and the content. For example, there are people who would question the use of the terminology "common grace" for the good gifts that God gives to the reprobate and elect alike in this life, but would in no sense deny that God does give the reprobate these good gifts in his providence. They merely say that it is not properly called "grace" when the Bible itself seems to use "grace" only for God's attitude of saving favour in the realm of redemption.
Having said that, I think it is fair enough for Johnson to mention all five of these positions as tenets of Hyper-Calvinism. Having flirted with points 4 and 5 myself in the past, I believe that a person holding to points 4 and 5 is probably on a slippery slope towards the more serious forms of Hyper-Calvinism, because at that point, although no one would admit this, people have already abandoned deriving their doctrine solely from biblical texts and have already started to read biblical texts through an interpretative matrix of what can and what cannot be correct because of how problematic texts are deemed to contradict or be in conflict with other doctrines that are obviously biblically correct.
Rather than work through the issues as rigorously as we should, there is a tendency to re-interpret Scripture to fit with our system. We take a fairly easy path of accepting an unlikely but possible interpretation of a problematic text so that it more easily fits into our system. The harder course is to see if our system can withstand the most likely interpretation of all texts, rather than having to choose unlikely meanings to make them fit into something. The latter is akin to the child who uses scissors on a jigsaw-puzzle to make the pieces fit, irrespective of how it destroys the overall picture.
For the avoidance of any doubt, my beliefs measured against Johnson's "Five Points" would be as follows:
1. The gospel call certainly applies to all, without exception, who hear the gospel message. And it is a call that goes out not merely as a human call by the preacher, but as a divine call, issued by God himself through the preacher to everyone within the sound of the preacher's voice.
2. Because the gospel is a command and an invitation issued by God, it is the duty of everyone who receives that invitation and command to obey it. The doctrine of reprobation does not exclude anyone from obeying God's commands, including the gospel command.
3. In the free offer of the gospel, Christ himself and salvation in him are offered to sinners, not merely as a bare presentation of facts about Christ and his work, but with the assurance that Christ is abundantly able to save any sinner who comes to him and the promise that no one who comes to him for salvation will ever be turned away. Furthermore, the free offer of the gospel should also be made to sinners with the understanding that, in his revealed will (will of command), God expresses a sincere desire for everyone who hears the gospel to believe it and be saved through obeying his command and accepting his offer. This desire is not something that God chooses to bring to fulfilment in the case of the reprobate however, as that genuine desire is nonetheless tempered by another divine desire: the desire to manifest his glory in the justice shown to those sinners he chooses to reject and punish for their sins.
4. God gives innumerable good gifts to all people, both elect and reprobate alike. In the sense that such providential gifts are not deserved by anyone, it is feasible to term them "common grace". However, it could be argued that this is not an ideal term for this doctrine as the Scriptures do not tend to use the word "grace" in this way. Something like "providential goodness" may be more accurate.
5. God does not love everyone with the same kind of love, but he does love everyone with some kind of love. As far as electing, redeeming or saving love goes, he loves only the elect and hates the reprobate (Romans 9:13). However, the Scriptures also teach that God has a compassionate, benevolent, though non-saving love, for all his creatures including every human being. It is from this love that God's good gifts to all his creatures flow. Such a non-saving love in God to the wicked as creatures is not inconsistent with God's curse and wrath against the wicked considered as guilty sinners or even with God's hatred of them as reprobates. On the contrary, the rejection of God's love and goodness by the reprobate serve God's purposes by leaving them without excuse and liable to greater condemnation.
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