The idea that God chooses not to save everybody is horrifying to some. The idea that He wants to save everybody and would save everybody but His desire for such is trumped by a deeper desire to leave room for free will is horrifying to me. I have a hard time imagining the damned complaining about the heat but finding some consolation in the blessings of their free will. God has the power to save all people. The value of the suffering of Christ is sufficient to cover all the sins of all God’s people. Protecting man’s free will is not something the Bible says God has the least interest in. So why?
The Bible tells us, explicitly, and clearly why. It says, “What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction…” (Romans 9:22). God doesn’t save everybody because He wants to show His wrath and make His power known. Now He also delights to show His grace, as the text says, “…and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He had prepared beforehand for glory” (verse 23).
This verse does nothing to shroud or push back against the verse before. Paul is explicitly, by using that word “and” denying this argument- that hell must exist that we might know the glory of our redemption. Hell is the black velvet on which God places the diamond of His grace. No, hell doesn’t exist to make heaven more glorious. It exists to manifest the glory of the One who made heaven and hell.
Hell isn’t a necessary evil. It isn’t the result of the dark side of God that He’d rather we not know about. It is something that glorifies Him, which means, in turn that it is something that He glories in. That we find that puzzling reveals just how worthy we are of hell. That we think it unseemly that people are in hell, rather than think it shocking that people are in heaven shows why we all deserve to be in hell.
It also explains why Paul had to explain, once again, the very nature of grace. The moment we come to believe it is owed, or necessary is the moment it stops being grace. Paul writes,
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens (Romans 9: 14-18).
I understand that this truth is difficult for us to swallow emotionally. It is not, however, difficult to understand intellectually. It is instead clear, simple. Our duty is to get our hearts in line with our minds, and to glorify Him for all that He glories in, all that He is.
Opinions are like noses, they say, everyone has one. One very common nose is that this bit of received wisdom means that we can never really know the truth. Which, of course, is a truth claim, and so contradicts itself. But perhaps one of the reasons that our post-modern culture has a tendency to embrace relativism is because we are coming out of a modernist culture that was over-confident in its capacity for knowledge. Being tired of living in a culture of know-it-alls, we have become the know-nothing culture.
The pseudo-science of psychology was perhaps most given to epistemological hubris. One pop-psychologist claimed to be able to read people’s posture, telling us in the best-selling Body Language that crossed arms are a sign of hostility, folded fingers a sign of perceived superiority. Freud claimed to be able to tell us why some folks chewed pencils, and others were overly fastidious. The sub-conscious mind, we were told, was out there in the open for all of us to read. The underground man is always coming up for air.
The truth is that we don’t always know the truth. Such should not send us scurrying into skepticism, just appropriate humility. We ought not to claim to know more than we do, especially about the motives of others. Such should make us particularly cautious about making judgements about others. That all men are wicked doesn’t mean we should ascribe the basest motives to others. Instead it should give us pause before we trust our own assessment. It also means we should beware of base motives when others are speaking well of us.
Consider Paul’s trial before Felix. The Sanhedrin has hired a mouthpiece, a lawyer named Tertullus to make the case against Paul. First Tertullus sets the stage for Felix, “We have enjoyed a long period of peace under you, and your foresight has brought about reforms in this nation. Everywhere and in every way, most excellent Felix, we acknowledge this with profound gratitude. But in order not to weary you further, I would request that you be kind enough to hear us briefly” (Acts 24: 2-3). Had you been Felix what you should have heard is that you are about to hear from a manipulative lick-spittle with no interest in the truth. What Felix probably heard was a wise man, one of the few to recognize his own beneficent rule. Here both speaker and hearer are caught up in their own deceitful hearts.
Gentle Tertullus then turns his attention to the accused, “We have found this man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is the ringleader of the Nazarene sect and even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him” (verses 5-7). It may very well be that Tertullus believes that he is now speaking the truth. This may in fact be his perception of the events surrounding Paul in Jerusalem.
The distinction, however, between truth and falsehood is not grounded in the sincerity of the believer. Paul is equally sincere in his belief that he is guilty of none of these charges. The wise in our age would affirm that both are right, and that neither is right. Because people sincerely disagree, it is all a matter of perception, and no real truth exists. The wise in our age are fools. Paul went and preached the gospel. He did so with a clean conscience. His goal was that his brothers in the flesh would come to worship the Messiah for which they had been waiting. That preaching pricked the hearts of those who heard, and they in turn caused trouble, and rioted. The truth is that it was neither Paul, nor the truth that caused the trouble. Instead it was the hatred toward the truth that caused the trouble.
Had Paul not been sincere, however, he still would not stand guilty. Were there a battery of court appointed psychologists there at the trial to testify that Paul did have a titanic case of megolomania, (see, look at the way he folds his fingers, and how he signs his name with such big letters), he would still not be the cause of the riots. The only issue for Felix to decide is whether or not the message of Paul was true. If it was true, those who rejected it were to blame. If it were false, then Paul is to blame.
Sins are like the pores in our skin, everybody has a lot of them. One of the reasons that we go out in search of knowledge that we cannot possibly find, one of the reasons we seek to probe our darkest parts, is so that we can use the knowledge we think we have to trump the knowledge that is as plain as the nose on our face. If Felix can get at Paul’s motives, then we don’t have to trouble over the truth claims that he makes. And if he can avoid that, then Felix can avoid the claim of Jesus Christ on his life. We seek what we cannot know so as to hide from what we do know. At the end of the day, Tertullus’ message to Felix is one of praise and peace. And if Paul is right, Felix must repent, admit his sins, and serve another King. And so Paul remains a prisoner.
We would do well to judge better than Felix, to aspire to believe that which is true, because it is true, no matter what it says about us. We would do well if we would heed the wisdom of the true King, who told us that the truth would set us free. We must believe what we know, and leave the rest in the hands of the One who knows us.
That accusation, “You’re more pious than God,” when rightly used isn’t an argument against piety, but against impiety. That is, when our scruples line up with the law of God we are not being anything other than faithful, as we should be, even if the world thinks otherwise. No, what the expression means is we have a law that’s even more narrow or strict than God Himself.
Consider if you will the openly sexually immoral. This would include practicing homosexuals, adulterers and fornicators. The Bible says, with the utmost clarity, that we in the church are not to keep from associating with immoral people. To do so we’d have to leave the world (I Corinthians 5: 9-10). We would indeed be more pious than God were we to avoid the sexually confused of the world.
If, therefore, we are to treat the sexually immoral of the world with forbearance, how much more professing Christians who embrace sexual immorality? If we are free, according to God’s law, to “associate” with sexually immoral unbelievers, if failing to do so brings us under God’s condemnation for being judgmental, that must mean that we are to be especially gracious with our brothers and sisters in Christ who unrepentantly embrace sexual immorality.
Except that’s not what the Bible says. Paul says, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and against the inspiration of the spirit of our age, that if a professing believer embraces sexual immorality, (along with many other forms of immorality), believers are not to so much as share a meal with them. The grace that we are to show toward the unrepentant professing believer is the grace of church discipline. The grace we are to show is cutting them off from table fellowship for their own sakes, no matter how much it might pain us. The grace we are to show is a grace that is willing to take on the slings and arrows of being accused of being more pious than God by those who are more pious than God.
The spirit of the age is having his way with the church in our day. He has disguised debauchery as freedom, cowardice as kindness and worldliness as grace. He leads us about by the nose because he knows there’s nothing we crave more than the approval of the world. Respectability is our idol and we give up anything to have her.
The piety we are called to is that which submits to the plain teaching of the Word of God, that doesn’t look for ways to re-shape God’s Word to fit the zeitgeist. The piety we are called to is a humility that says, “When God speaks all I can say is ‘Amen.’” The piety we are called to does not lead us to respectability and the approval of the world but to disgrace and to the lion’s den. May He never give allow us to presume to be more pious than He is. And may we ever rest in the piety He gives us.
I confess that the subject of “leadership” is something of a mystery to me. I do not believe I am anything close to a natural born leader, but have found myself from time to time in positions of leadership. I lead my family. I have led, through my work, departments, churches, ministries, even movements. As such I tend, at least at first, to pay attention when people speak or write on leadership, looking not just for clues on how to do it, but clues to understand if, and how, I do “leadership.” I haven’t, however, read a book or attended a seminar on that theme and frankly can’t begin to understand what I might find there. What follows then are not the 5 Ironclad Laws of Leadership. That’s a little bold for my style, at least on this theme. Instead here are a few principles I believe might help.
First, a good leader has got to both be driven by the well-being of those whom he leads, and be able to persuade them that such is true. Leadership comes with authority and therefore temptation. A husband, or a father, for instance, could easily enough see his family as a means to his own glory, or comfort. God did not make the father the head of his house so that he would always have his slippers at the ready, his pipe well packed, and his drink well iced. Instead God gives him authority that he might serve the well being of his charges. Those following must know their leader knows this. Leadership thrives neither under weakness or fear, but under trust.
Second, a good leader must have the ability to focus on the end. Circumstances shift and change. Desires wax and wane. But the end is always the end. If I am fighting the last war, if I am committed to executing my current strategy rather than slaying the current dragon, I am leading poorly, and may be leading those under my care on Pickett’s Charge. Too often the good gets the better of the best and we are the worse for it.
Third, perhaps a corollary to the second, a good leader knows the difference between politics and principles. Both have their place. Consider that slippery word- compromise. Is that a good word, or a bad one? We don’t know, unless we know if what we are talking about is situations or ethics. Deciding between pepperoni or mushroom on our pizza is a great time for compromise. Deciding which unborn babies should be allowed to be sacrificed is a terrible time for compromise.
Finally, a good leader has to know that he is a follower. Every leader is under someone, save One. You cannot lead well if you cannot follow well. It is always best, if possible, for the authority above a given leader to be flesh and blood. Ultimately we will all answer to Jesus. But one thing we will answer for is how well we answered to those people He has placed in authority over us.
In the end there is no distinct body of knowledge or biblical law dealing with leadership discreetly. There is His instruction on what a man is to be, what an elder is to be, what an employer is to be. In the end we are all called to follow the example of Paul (I Cor. 11:1), as he followed the example of Christ. It’s not complicated, just difficult.
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There is a thin line between friendly fire and sound coaching. I’m grateful for everyone who recognizes the humanity of the unborn and longs to see them protected from all who would do them harm. That said, from time to time our rhetoric carries with it unhealthy assumptions, however potent they might be at tugging at our heartstrings. We end up, while fighting for precious ground, giving up more precious ground. Here then are three arguments I hear regularly from my friends that I don’t believe help.
1. Imagine all amazing artists, scientists, philanthropists we have lost through the evil of abortion. Or, imagine all the dictators, serial killers and abortionists we might have been spared because of abortion. We do not labor to spare the lives of God’s littlest image bearers because of all the good they might have done. We are, after all, sinners. More people means more wickedness. We don’t want to see the unborn flourish because of the good they might do for others, but because they are the others. Their value, like ours, is real, universal, and extrinsic to them, outside them. It is the imposition of the image of God that gives us our worth and dignity. Broader still, we don’t make decisions on what is right based on our best guess on how things might work out. Eve made that mistake. Our calling is to obey.
2. If we don’t stop killing our own children, God will one day judge us. Now I’m all in favor of fearing the judgment of God. Perhaps the worst judgment, however, is being given over to reprobate minds that cannot even recognize the judgment of God. What, I want to ask these friends, do they think judgment from God might look like? What if He sent a delusion upon us such that we thought it a good thing to destroy the greatest gifts He gives us? What if He gave us over to our own depravity such that we willingly, freely murdered a million of our own children each year? What if He gave us a government that not only protected our “liberty” to do this, but taxed us all to pay for it? We do not have to wait for God’s judgment to come- we are in the midst of it right now. The murder of the unborn is not just a reason for God’s judgment but is God’s judgment.
3. Abortion will cause Social Security to go bankrupt, because there aren’t enough children to pay into it. This makes as much sense as the old argument in favor of chattel slavery- if we outlaw slavery, who will pick all the cotton? Children are not given to us as future taxpayers, nor rescuers of a system of transfer payments that was not just flawed but doomed from its inception. They are not little units of future government income but human beings. And they should be valued as such.
Which brings us to the only real argument there is. Abortion is wicked, vile, an abomination because it is the willful murder not just of the most helpless and weak of human beings, but of our own children. There is no deeper perversion of our created nature than the wanton destruction of our own little ones. Which is why every unborn child is due the full protection of the law, no matter how their precious lives began. Complicated arguments never help but always obfuscate. Simple arguments speak potent truths- all children should be safe in their mothers’ wombs, because they bear the image of the One who put them there.
