Working to get on track

Ok, I am well aware that I have been very next to negligent in my postings over the past couple of months. It is amazing how easy it is to get out of the habit of regular postings. It is my intention to be back on full track by the start of the new year. Obviously with the Holidays and such I may still be hit and miss but I will make every effort to record my thoughts on a more regular basis. Be patient with me - please.

A Little Virus!

Galatians 5:9
A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.

It has been an exciting past couple of days. Exciting like a train wreck! We evidently had some kind of pesky virus find its way into the church on Sunday and now that little leaven (virus) has been making its way through the congregation. At last count, some 35 people have been affected by the bug. Hopefully in the next 24-48 hours we will be okay. Nothing like a stomach flu to start the week!

All this serves as an interesting illustration of how something so seemingly small can have such an impact. Sin has a way of creeping its way far beyond what we imagine. All the more reason to rid ourselves of sin (as best we can).

The great Puritan scholar John Owen spent much time considering and probing this matter of eliminating sin. In the 17th century, he wrote a little 86-page book called "Mortification of Sin in Believers." The word "mortify" means "kill" in 17th century English - not "embarrass" or "shame" as it is often understood today. Owen made a remarkable little statement in this issue of mortifying the flesh -

"Be killing sin or it will be killing you."

The apostle Paul said it this way in Romans 8:12-13:

12 So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh — 13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

So then, let us wary of sin in our lives and be killing it. In the meantime, I will go to the church and spray the Lysol in order to kill the virus.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Pastor Ed

Distortions of the Biblical View of Predestination - Part 2

Continued from yesterday's post - here is the Biblical view of predestination as presented by R.C. Sproul -

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In sharp contrast to the caricature of double predestination seen in the positive-positive schema, is the classic position of Reformed theology on predestination. In this view, predestination is double, in that it involves both election and reprobation but is not symmetrical with respect to the mode of divine activity. A strict parallelism of operation is denied. Rather, we view predestination in terms of a positive-negative relationship.

In the Reformed view, God from all eternity decrees some to election, and positively intervenes in their lives to work regeneration and faith by a monergistic work of grace. To the non-elect, God withholds this monergistic work of grace, passing them by and leaving them to themselves. He does not monergistically work sin or unbelief into their lives. Even in the case of the "hardening" of the sinners' already recalcitrant hearts, God, as Luther stated, does not "work evil in us by creating fresh evil in us." That is not to say that "hardening of the sinners' hearts" is a work of evil. It is God's free choice. For if there were not lost people in the world, Christians would have no need to spread the Gospel, though Jesus commanded Christians to in Matthew 28:19. However Luther did not understand this and wrote:

When men hear us say that God works both good and evil in us, and that we are subject to God's working by mere passive necessity, they seem to imagine a man who is in himself good, and not evil, having an evil work wrought in him by God; for they do not sufficiently bear in mind how incessantly active God is in all His creatures, allowing none of them to keep holiday. He who would understand these matters, however, should think thus: God works evil in us (that is, by means of us) not through God's own fault, but by reason of our own defect. We being evil by nature, and God being good, when He impels us to act by His own acting upon us according to the nature of His omnipotence, good though He is in Himself, He cannot but do evil by our evil instrumentality; although, according to His wisdom, He makes good use of this evil for His own glory and for our salvation. (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will (Westwood: Fleming H. Revell, 1957), p. 206)

Thus, the mode of operation in the lives of the elect is not parallel with that operation in the lives of the reprobate. God works regeneration monergistically but never sin. Sin falls within the category of providential concurrence.

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Soli Deo Gloria,

Pastor Ed

Distortions of the Biblical View of Predestination - Part 1

I was reading through the caricatures of predestination and came across this statement by R.C. Sproul. It is interesting to see how those outside the "calvinistic" circle see this biblical doctrine. Much thanks to Sproul for clearly articulating this distortion of predestination. May is stimulate some thought.

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The use of the qualifying term "double" has been somewhat confusing in discussions concerning predestination. The term apparently means one thing within the circle of Reformed theology, and quite another outside that circle, and at a popular level of theological discourse. It has been used as a synonym for a symmetrical view of predestination, which sees election and reprobation being worked out in a parallel mode of divine operation, which usage involves a serious distortion of the Reformed view of double predestination.

The distortion of double predestination looks like this: There is a symmetry that exists between election and reprobation. God WORKS in the same way and same manner with respect to the elect and to the reprobate. That is to say, from all eternity, God decreed some to election and by divine initiative, works faith in their hearts, and brings them actively to salvation. By the same token, from all eternity, God decrees some to sin and damnation (destinare ad peccatum) and actively intervenes to work sin in their lives, bringing them to damnation by divine initiative. In the case of the elect, regeneration is the monergistic work of God. In the case of the reprobate, sin and degeneration are the monergistic work of God. Stated another way, we can establish a parallelism of foreordination and predestination by means of a positive symmetry. We can call this a positive-positive view of predestination. This is, God positively and actively intervenes in the lives of the elect to bring them to salvation. In the same way God positively and actively intervenes in the life of the reprobate to bring him to sin.

This distortion of positive-positive predestination clearly makes God the author of sin, who punishes a person for doing what God monergistically and irresistibly coerces man to do. Such a view is indeed a monstrous assault on the integrity of God. This is not the Reformed view of predestination, but a gross and inexcusable caricature of the doctrine. Such a view may be identified with what is often loosely described as hyper-Calvinism, and involves a radical form of supralapsarianism. Such a view of predestination has been virtually universally and monolithically rejected by Reformed thinkers.

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Tomorrow I will post Sproul's statement concerning the "Reformed" view of Predestination.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Pastor Ed

An Evangelical Crisis

The evangelical church of today is in a crisis – in reality, an identity crisis. The church does not know what it is, what it is to stand for or even what it believes. I recently spoke with someone concerning a “ministry” outside the church. As this person shared with me the mission of this non-church ministry, distinctively Christian terms like “outreach”, “fellowship”, “faith-based”, “evangelistic”, and “gospel” were used. But when asked for a definition of what these terms meant and how they were biblically carried out, the answers were greatly lacking and most disturbing. For example, when I asked about the presentation of the gospel, the answer was that the gospel is simply telling individuals that God loves them and wants them to change their lives. The implication of this is that it might well be within a person’s own ability to turn his or her life around and live in the love of God - that all God wants from a person is somekind our outward personal reform. Additionally, (and most disturbing), I was told that both Catholics and Evangelicals communicate the same gospel. The last time I checked, Catholicism was not teaching salvation was through grace alone, by Christ alone, through faith alone. The problem – the evangelical church and its individual members do not know what the Church is, what faith is or even what the gospel is.

To the very disregard for the Word of God, the evangelical church has so watered down the gospel – the Biblical presentation of man’s need for salvation from sin by the work of Christ - to be nothing more than some magical therapy to help those with poor self-images and emotional hang-ups to begin to finally feel good about themselves. And this approach seems to be working. For the theory goes, that since everyone has some kind of hang-up, then everyone needs Christ, at least to some degree or another. Therefore the gospel of restoring poor self-images is appealing to the masses. But rather than the gospel being seen as redeeming us for God, the gospel is viewed as that which we might use to redeem us for ourselves. God is seen as having provided through His Son Jesus Christ a way for us pursue and sustain our own ambitions and lifestyles.

To this end then, the church has become more and more man-centered rather than God-centered. While we in our circles may initially cringe at the term man-centered, remember that there are some “good” things which a church can do being man-centered. The church is to be concerned about one another and for fellow man. The problem is that the church has come to see this as her primary motivation for ministry and therefore pursue activities and ministries that neglect God-centeredness. The emphasis of so much of the evangelical church’s ministries is focused on things like personal comfort, enjoyment, fun, and excitement. More concern is place upon the physical and emotional well being of a person than upon one's own spiritual life. True holiness and godliness is squeezed into the equation almost a "necessary evil." The problem again is that while many of the activities and ministries of a church may be “good” – being man-centered and man-driven, they will invariably succumb to the ugliness of man’s depravity, squeezing God and His Word out little by little and more and more. A man-centered gospel, promising comfort, enjoyment and personal well-being makes it acceptable to be a Christian. A gospel that forces a person to see themselves as depraved sinners in need of the mercy of God even to look to God, that forces a person to make tough choices between satisfying the flesh or serving the living God is far less appealing.

We had better make sure we know the biblcal content of the gospel and seek to present it in the fulness that God had inteneded. May our desire be the same as the Apostle Paul -

Acts 20:27
For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. (NKJV)

Soli Deo Gloria,

Pastor Ed

A High Calling!

Ephesians 4:1-3
1 Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, 3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

I have been meditating on these verses for the past couple of days, being impressed with the high call of the believer not only toward God but also toward one another. Consider each of the calls here. Why are these given? These are given because the human heart constantly needs reminding to pursue such things. The human heart is so prone to either forsake or at least pervert the spiritual walk, humility, gentleness, patience and truly showing tolerance for one another.

The list will continue on toward the end of the chapter exhorting and challenging our perceptions as well as our actions toward one another. May we endeavor to practice these calls of the Lord in our lives for His glory.

Ephesians 4:31-32
31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

SDG,

Pastor Ed