It has been a little while since the Frank Turk/White Horse Inn question cropped up. In my defence, my brain mulls over things slowly at times. To remind any possible readers, the letter in question is here.
Mulling it over, I realised that the major problem underlying this letter is one of communication. In fact there is a category error being committed here.
The first is this: Following John MacArthur and others in the early stages of the 'Lordship Controversy', it seems at times that Turk wishes to make necessary consequences of the Gospel into parts of the Gospel. The non-lordship teachers said that repentance and a changed life were not required of Christians. In response some of the 'lordship' teachers made these part of the Gospel. It seems to me (and I may be mistaken) that Frank Turk is tending the same way. The fact is that Horton and Co. believe that the Gospel has consequences, and these consequences are necessary, they are just concerned to distinguish the consequences from the Gospel itself. Even in the quotations that Turk gives, the White Horse Inn hosts talk about the Gospel affecting how we live. So I ask: Do we agree that the Gospel has necessary consequences for our lives? If so, are we in fact arguing over a category mistake?
What the Gospel results in is not the Gospel, or part of the Gospel. Now, you may think I am straining out gnats here, but I am not. You see, if we confuse the results of the Gospel with the Gospel, we start preaching them as though they were the Gospel. In the 19th century temperance was regarded as a necessary consequence of conversion by many groups. At that point you can argue about what Temperance means, but the point is that it was regarded as a result of conversion. But then people began to preach for temperance, not conversion! The result was preached - not the Gospel that leads to the result! So it is today when you have Churches preaching life-change as the Gospel. No, the Gospel is Christ crucified for me - life-change is the result! We need to be crystal-clear on this fact.
Billy Sunday was an American evangelist, and one of Billy Graham's models. Whatever we may think of him, he makes a good case study here. When Sunday began his ministry, he called people to believe in Jesus. As time went on, however, he began to add various aspects of life-change to that call. In the opinion of Homer Rodeheaver, Sunday's music director, this led to a situation where "Very rarely does he give a definite, clear invitation for people to forsake their sins and come and publically accept Christ as their Saviour" (Quoted in Lyle Dorsett: Billy Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America [Eerdmans, 1991] P. 135).
The two must be kept distinct. Time and again failure to understand this has led to legalism. On the other hand, failure to understand that the consequences of the Gospel are necessary has led to antinomianism.
The White Horse Inn is not a Church, and it seems to me a little odd to tell people off for, on the one hand, being treated by some people as if their radio broadcast were the Church, and then to tell them off for not acting more like the Church! But we are all inconsistent, after all!
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Unbalanced hangers-on
Wherever there is strife, wherever there is controversy, there are partisans. There are people basking in reflected glory. This is a bad thing. Always. Visiting New York in the 1930s, Dietrich Bonhoeffer noticed that the students at Union Seminary, though they ridiculed stupid fundamentalists, were in fact much shallower than those they ridiculed. Of course many were - it is always much easier to climb on a bandwagon. But the same is true of Fundamentalism. And where the original parties in the controversy were thinkers, there are hangers-on who are not, and who become radically unbalanced.
Some of the imbalnce is due to youth, either in years or in experience. The young Calvinist goes through a 'cage stage', where he needs to be locked up as a danger to himself and others, and is in danger of becoming hyper! He becomes proud of the fact that he did nothing to save himself! Why? Because he hasn't thought through all the implications of what he believes! That, I think is the problem, people are attracted to Calvinism, to the Reformed Churches or even to Confessional Lutheranism, and as soon as they are in the door, everything else is wrong. So there is an imbalance. C.F.W. Walther had to deal with people who talked of "The only saving Lutheran Church", and said that outside the Lutheran Church there was no salvation - is it any wonder we have similar folk today?
Hangers-on, when they are unbalanced, go beyond those they hang on. For example, in a recent theological controversy on the internet, concerns were expressed over the fact that a certain apologist was associating with certain Emergent types. Along comes a hanger-on and says, "He's a full-blown emergent", or words to that effect. But that statement bore no relation at all to reality! We can't blame those who are hung on for the hangers-on. We can only say this: if all your reading is from one small publisher, from one perspective, from one man or circle of men - you really need to get out more. You really do need to know what you believe and why you believe it - not just listen to s show that talks about teaching you to know that!
Some of the imbalnce is due to youth, either in years or in experience. The young Calvinist goes through a 'cage stage', where he needs to be locked up as a danger to himself and others, and is in danger of becoming hyper! He becomes proud of the fact that he did nothing to save himself! Why? Because he hasn't thought through all the implications of what he believes! That, I think is the problem, people are attracted to Calvinism, to the Reformed Churches or even to Confessional Lutheranism, and as soon as they are in the door, everything else is wrong. So there is an imbalance. C.F.W. Walther had to deal with people who talked of "The only saving Lutheran Church", and said that outside the Lutheran Church there was no salvation - is it any wonder we have similar folk today?
Hangers-on, when they are unbalanced, go beyond those they hang on. For example, in a recent theological controversy on the internet, concerns were expressed over the fact that a certain apologist was associating with certain Emergent types. Along comes a hanger-on and says, "He's a full-blown emergent", or words to that effect. But that statement bore no relation at all to reality! We can't blame those who are hung on for the hangers-on. We can only say this: if all your reading is from one small publisher, from one perspective, from one man or circle of men - you really need to get out more. You really do need to know what you believe and why you believe it - not just listen to s show that talks about teaching you to know that!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Sanctified by Faith: A Few Thoughts
A controversy has blown up over the question of the relationship of law and gospel in the Christian life. One of the contributions may be found here.
Put simply, the concern of Frank Turk and others is this: If we emphasise the distinction between the law and the gospel, are we in danger of Antinomianism? Are we denying that the Gospel has consequences?
The answer of course is no. I am not denying that the Gospel has consequences. It happens that on Saturday night, blissfully unaware of any of this, I was teaching a group of young people from Philippians 3. One of the major themes in Philippians is that the Gospel has an effect on our life, "Only let your conduct be worthy of the Gospel of Christ," Paul says in Philippians 1.27. So the Gospel has consequences, it is possible to live in a way that is worthy of the Gospel, and therefore to live in a way that is unworthy. In other words, the motive to holy life is the Gospel, not the law. The law shows us what a holy life looks like, but gives us no power to actually live that holy life.
The law governs by force, it is the paedagogos (a word that one of the members at Bethel now knows off by heart!), the harsh overseer who made sure the child went to school, did his homework and behaved himself! It is the message of what God demands.
The Gospel on the other hand is a message of what God has done for us in Christ to save us from our sins. But you see, it is a message of a great deliverance. That message changes everything. For we are delivered from the guilt of sin, and from its tyranny. We are born again, and led by the Holy Spirit. Gratitude, not obligation, drives us. Let me quote Thomas Chalmers on Romans 6:
"There is a sure transition from our being justified by faith to our being sanctified by faith. There is a provision made for this in the mechanism of the moral nature of man below; and there is a provision made for it in that celestial mechanism which has been set up in heaven... Faith makes known to us the love of God, and upon this gratitude calls forth the love of the heart to Him in return."
To return to Philippians 3, in the chapter Paul begins with legalism, with the Judaizers, and discards legal righteousness as rubbish. The only righteousness that matters, he says, is the imputed righteousness of Christ. But what does this lead to? It leads to a "pressing towards the mark", to holy living. Yes, there are the belly-worshippers (I'm sure there's a German compound word for that) who claim to be Christians, but the very fact that they are belly-worshippers proves that they are enemies of the cross. Jesus died to free us from our sins, not so that we could live in them.
You see, Jesus is the reward. If we really believe that, if we really are looking forward to living in the new heavens and the new earth in which righteouness dwells, then that will have consequences. But those consequences are just that. What I and the White Horse Inn folk are pleading for is that the distinction between the Gospel and its consequences not be erased - because the result of that is ultimately that the Gospel becomes something I do, my being changed, not that which changes me.
The law and the Gospel are always distinct. But they are never to be separated.
I would add that if you get all your teaching from a radio discussion show, you're radically unbalanced anyhow!
Put simply, the concern of Frank Turk and others is this: If we emphasise the distinction between the law and the gospel, are we in danger of Antinomianism? Are we denying that the Gospel has consequences?
The answer of course is no. I am not denying that the Gospel has consequences. It happens that on Saturday night, blissfully unaware of any of this, I was teaching a group of young people from Philippians 3. One of the major themes in Philippians is that the Gospel has an effect on our life, "Only let your conduct be worthy of the Gospel of Christ," Paul says in Philippians 1.27. So the Gospel has consequences, it is possible to live in a way that is worthy of the Gospel, and therefore to live in a way that is unworthy. In other words, the motive to holy life is the Gospel, not the law. The law shows us what a holy life looks like, but gives us no power to actually live that holy life.
The law governs by force, it is the paedagogos (a word that one of the members at Bethel now knows off by heart!), the harsh overseer who made sure the child went to school, did his homework and behaved himself! It is the message of what God demands.
The Gospel on the other hand is a message of what God has done for us in Christ to save us from our sins. But you see, it is a message of a great deliverance. That message changes everything. For we are delivered from the guilt of sin, and from its tyranny. We are born again, and led by the Holy Spirit. Gratitude, not obligation, drives us. Let me quote Thomas Chalmers on Romans 6:
"There is a sure transition from our being justified by faith to our being sanctified by faith. There is a provision made for this in the mechanism of the moral nature of man below; and there is a provision made for it in that celestial mechanism which has been set up in heaven... Faith makes known to us the love of God, and upon this gratitude calls forth the love of the heart to Him in return."
To return to Philippians 3, in the chapter Paul begins with legalism, with the Judaizers, and discards legal righteousness as rubbish. The only righteousness that matters, he says, is the imputed righteousness of Christ. But what does this lead to? It leads to a "pressing towards the mark", to holy living. Yes, there are the belly-worshippers (I'm sure there's a German compound word for that) who claim to be Christians, but the very fact that they are belly-worshippers proves that they are enemies of the cross. Jesus died to free us from our sins, not so that we could live in them.
You see, Jesus is the reward. If we really believe that, if we really are looking forward to living in the new heavens and the new earth in which righteouness dwells, then that will have consequences. But those consequences are just that. What I and the White Horse Inn folk are pleading for is that the distinction between the Gospel and its consequences not be erased - because the result of that is ultimately that the Gospel becomes something I do, my being changed, not that which changes me.
The law and the Gospel are always distinct. But they are never to be separated.
I would add that if you get all your teaching from a radio discussion show, you're radically unbalanced anyhow!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
A few words for the Baptist Successionists
If you are going to try to find a succession of valid Baptisms from Apostolic times to today, make sure they are valid baptisms. In other words, if you would not accept a man with that baptism into your Church membership, you can't accept him into your pedigree.
For most Baptists that would mean:
1. Baptism on profession of personal faith in Christ. It is not enough to be baptised because you have been through a course of instruction to prepare a person for baptism, there must be a confession of Christ as personal saviour.
2. Baptism with water. A symbolic rite involving tapping on the head with a copy of John's Gospel (which is what the Bogomils did) is therefore out of the question. Yes, there have been groups that have used 'Baptism' to describe a rite without water. We would not accept waterless baptism today, and if you would not today, you cannot accept it in the past.
3. Trinitarian Baptism. All Trinitarian groups would agree that a baptism that is not Trinitarian is not valid. Thus a Presbyterian might argue that Roman Catholic baptism is valid, but Unitarian baptism is not. So if a group can be shown to have been non-Trinitarian, then it cannot have had a valid baptism. Baptists hold not only to baptism on profession of faith, but also that it has to be the right faith!
4. Baptism by immersion. Practically all, if not all, Baptist Churches teach that immersion is the only valid form of baptism. If this is the case, then you cannot claim that a group that baptised by pouring or sprinkling, even if it was on a correct profession of faith, is in the succession of valid baptisms. If you don't accept it today, you cannot accept it in the past.
5. Denial of baptismal regeneration. Where baptism is seen as actually effecting the new birth, this contradicts Baptist teaching that baptism must follow a person's becoming a Christian. I am not altogether certain that all Baptists would reject a Cambellite baptism where it was understood that the baptism effected regeneration (and indeed there are a number of Baptist Churches that started out as Campbellite), but it certainly leads to some serious questions!
Now, it simply cannot be proved that every one of the groups in the claimed Baptist Succession was not flawed on one or more of these points. Many of the witnesses called upon by the Successionists are flawed at one or more of these points. I would therefore continue to say that Baptist Successionism is a figment no man can prove. It is an imitation of Rome, and if I may say so a far more shaky one. For Rome simply requires that one man laid hands on another, no matter what his doctrine or the ceremony in which the hands were laid on. But the Baptist Successionist must not only have a line of baptisms, but a line of true doctrine, and of the right mode and method of baptism!
For most Baptists that would mean:
1. Baptism on profession of personal faith in Christ. It is not enough to be baptised because you have been through a course of instruction to prepare a person for baptism, there must be a confession of Christ as personal saviour.
2. Baptism with water. A symbolic rite involving tapping on the head with a copy of John's Gospel (which is what the Bogomils did) is therefore out of the question. Yes, there have been groups that have used 'Baptism' to describe a rite without water. We would not accept waterless baptism today, and if you would not today, you cannot accept it in the past.
3. Trinitarian Baptism. All Trinitarian groups would agree that a baptism that is not Trinitarian is not valid. Thus a Presbyterian might argue that Roman Catholic baptism is valid, but Unitarian baptism is not. So if a group can be shown to have been non-Trinitarian, then it cannot have had a valid baptism. Baptists hold not only to baptism on profession of faith, but also that it has to be the right faith!
4. Baptism by immersion. Practically all, if not all, Baptist Churches teach that immersion is the only valid form of baptism. If this is the case, then you cannot claim that a group that baptised by pouring or sprinkling, even if it was on a correct profession of faith, is in the succession of valid baptisms. If you don't accept it today, you cannot accept it in the past.
5. Denial of baptismal regeneration. Where baptism is seen as actually effecting the new birth, this contradicts Baptist teaching that baptism must follow a person's becoming a Christian. I am not altogether certain that all Baptists would reject a Cambellite baptism where it was understood that the baptism effected regeneration (and indeed there are a number of Baptist Churches that started out as Campbellite), but it certainly leads to some serious questions!
Now, it simply cannot be proved that every one of the groups in the claimed Baptist Succession was not flawed on one or more of these points. Many of the witnesses called upon by the Successionists are flawed at one or more of these points. I would therefore continue to say that Baptist Successionism is a figment no man can prove. It is an imitation of Rome, and if I may say so a far more shaky one. For Rome simply requires that one man laid hands on another, no matter what his doctrine or the ceremony in which the hands were laid on. But the Baptist Successionist must not only have a line of baptisms, but a line of true doctrine, and of the right mode and method of baptism!
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Who killed Jesus?
Who killed Jesus? A fashionable answer is that it was the powers that be, the political and religious elite. Thus, we are told, the death of Jesus shows the bankruptcy of these systems and calls us to oppose them. Now, on one level there is some truth in this. The Jerusalem elites wanted Jesus dead because he threatened their power. To Caiaphas the choice was between the life of one man and the survival of the nation. The fear was that a real live Messiah would destabilize everything and lead to a war with the Romans, a war the Jews could only lose - as it turned out in AD 70. Caiaphas was a politician, and he decided that if one act of injustice was to be the price for national survival, so be it.
Pilate was finally prevailed upon to agree to the crucifixion because the Jerusalem elite convinced him that to do otherwise would be to set himself against Caesar, against the Empire. Imperial peace and stability were what finally led Pilate to agree to what he knew to be an act of injustice. In the case of Pilate and of Caiaphas, while one can argue that they were motivated by self-interest, there is also a plea of 'the greater good'. There is the calculation that it is, in the final analysis, right to sacrifice one man for the lives of thousands.
But what is often overlooked is the common people. Their complaint was that Jesus was not the Messiah they wanted. Faced with the choice of setting free Jesus the Prince of Peace and Barabbas the violent revolutionary, they chose Barabbas. And they chose him freely, because he was the sort of leader they wanted, the leader Jesus was not, the man who promised liberation and victory over the Romans.
Jesus will not serve the Imperial agenda, but nor will he serve the revolutionary. He calls us to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, and to suffer for him. To die for him, not to kill for him. Now the cross is far more than this, but on the side of unbelieving men it is man killing God, because God will not fit in with our plans.
Pilate was finally prevailed upon to agree to the crucifixion because the Jerusalem elite convinced him that to do otherwise would be to set himself against Caesar, against the Empire. Imperial peace and stability were what finally led Pilate to agree to what he knew to be an act of injustice. In the case of Pilate and of Caiaphas, while one can argue that they were motivated by self-interest, there is also a plea of 'the greater good'. There is the calculation that it is, in the final analysis, right to sacrifice one man for the lives of thousands.
But what is often overlooked is the common people. Their complaint was that Jesus was not the Messiah they wanted. Faced with the choice of setting free Jesus the Prince of Peace and Barabbas the violent revolutionary, they chose Barabbas. And they chose him freely, because he was the sort of leader they wanted, the leader Jesus was not, the man who promised liberation and victory over the Romans.
Jesus will not serve the Imperial agenda, but nor will he serve the revolutionary. He calls us to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, and to suffer for him. To die for him, not to kill for him. Now the cross is far more than this, but on the side of unbelieving men it is man killing God, because God will not fit in with our plans.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Monday, December 27, 2010
The Eclipse of the Pulpit
The classic Nonconformist conception of the ministry has been to view it first and foremost as a preaching office. In distinction from the Laudian conception of the minister as a priest, the Independents, Presbyterians and Baptists regarded the minister's role as primarily prophetic, not in the sense of receiving new revelation from God, but in the sense of declaring the Word of God to the people. The minister was regarded as God's herald, declaring the Word of the Lord. Hence the form of the traditional English Nonconformist service, dominated by a sermon that typically takes up half the time of the service, more or less. It was a man's power in the pulpit, his ability to faithfully handle the Word of God, that determined his popularity, and the presses were occupied printing volumes of sermons. Thus Spurgeon was "The Prince of Preachers", and Joseph Parker was called "The Immortal Thor of Pulpitdom." The central feature in any Nonconformist chapel was a pulpit, whether a simple wooden box, or the vast marble construction of Parker's City Temple. The pulpit might be any sort of shape, but it was central, and it dominated. From that throne, the Word of God went forth. Typically the Communion Table was central too, below the pulpit, but it was the sermon, not the Sacrament, that was the centre of the service. Indeed, some of our Nonconformist brethren erred in practically neglecting the Sacrament. Of their emphasis on preaching we might say, "This ought ye to have done and not left the other undone."One result of this emphasis on preaching was that the English Nonconformists had some of the most knowledgable congregations in the world, where cooks and cleaning-ladies could hold conversation on theology. It drove a publishing industry that ensured that millions of copies of sermons were sold at a penny a time in bookstalls and news-stands.
But the pulpit has been eclipsed. The illustration is of a battered and vandalised pulpit salvaged from a derelict chapel, but it illustrates a sad fact that in Nonconformity today the preaching of the Word is devalued. When a preacher takes his cues from the latest blockbuster movie, or 'felt needs', he is not preaching the Word of God. When the emphasis is placed on spectacle, theatre and dance, music and supposed manifestations of the Spirit, again, the Word is neglected. And ironically, whereas in non-evangelical Nonconformity what happened was that the Lord's Table replaced the pulpit as the architectural centre of the Church, the tendency among modern evangelicals is to move both out of the way and replace them with a stage, a performance space!
The imperative given to Timothy was "Preach the Word," and it is still the imperative for the minister today. Word and Sacrament ministry is what we need, not attempts to draw people in with spectacle. The crisis in Nonconformity is one of confidence in the Word of God, leading to a loss of the note of authority in preaching. Restore the pulpit, and let it enthrone, not the pastor, but the Word of God which endures for ever.
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