Thesis 80- We must always focus on the three great truths.
There are three great truths which, to the extent that they are believed, result not just in eternal life, but in a faithful life in the here and now. Three truths that can never be too familiar, never too impactful, that can never be silenced inside and outside the church. Three truths that have the power to reform the church.
The first is this- I am a sinner. I was conceived in sin. I was born in sin. I lived in sin in my death. When I was reborn by His Spirit and in accordance with His will, the power of sin was defeated in me, though its presence remains. I disobey God, defy Him. I harm His image bearers, disrespect His Spirit. I grumble against His goodness and seek joy, meaning and pleasure elsewhere. That I, as a believer, am forgiven, all my sins, past, present and future, doesn’t mean it is not right, fitting and potent for me to remember what I am. The same is true of all of us.
The second is this- Jesus is the savior. He, God the Son, took on flesh and dwelt among us. He obeyed all that God has commanded, living a perfect life. That life He lay down freely, receiving in His person the just wrath of God due to me for my sins. He suffered in my place, taking on my guilt. He died on the cross. Death, however, could not hold Him. For He, in Himself, was innocent. The resurrection vindicated Him, demonstrating that the curse He suffered was what was my due. And the resurrection vindicated me. He died because in me He was guilty. I was raised because in Him I am innocent.
This same Jesus continues to save me, as He washes me with the water of His Word, as He intercedes for me, as He brings all things under subjection. He ascended into heaven, taking His throne at the right hand of the Father. This same Jesus will save me, when He returns, judging the quick and the dead, and raising up my corruptible body incorruptible. His kingdom is forever.
Despite the first, and because of the second, the third is this. My heavenly Father loves me. That love is infinite, immutable, eternal, and personal. That is, He loves me by name. He has adopted me as His son. He is my forever family. His love does not diminish when I sin, nor grow when I do well. For when He looks at me He sees only Jesus. He invites me to come into His presence, not just as my Maker, but as my Father. He holds me in His loving arms and delights in me.
This is what we gather to remember, to celebrate, to feast over. This is the message we take out of our meetings, carrying it to the four corners of the world, and of our neighborhood. This is what defines us as a people- sinners, redeemed and adopted.
Tonight, 7 eastern, we continue our ABCs of Theology Study, looking at s is for Sacraments. All are welcome in our home or on FB live, RC-Lisa Sproul. We pray you’ll join us.
I think not much at all about it. Not because I’m not Southern Baptist. Not because I don’t care about the issues they are grappling with. But because the convention barely matters at all. What matters are the local churches. And any church or church leader that takes its or his cues from decisions made by the Convention, whichever way things go, has bigger problems than the way things go.
The Southern Baptists are, by design, an association of independent churches. I’m not here taking a stand on whether that’s a good thing or not. I’m merely noting that as such, for all the sturm and drang, all the hand-wringing on both sides, there is precious little at stake. Some in the SBC have sent their Paul Reveres out in force warning that the Woke are coming. Others in the SBC have sent their own Paul Reveres out in force warning that the racists are coming. Neither side, however, has so much as a rusty old cannon to fire at the other.
I’m confident that there are racists in the SBC. I’m pretty sure that any institution boasting 15 million members has racists in it. Racism is ugly, unbiblical, sinful, shameful and should be called out as such. That it persists, however hidden in dark corners, is no argument that nothing should be done. The only thing that can be done, however, is done by the local church. They alone, in the SBC, have any authority to exercise church discipline.
I’m confident as well that there are race hustlers in the SBC, those who embrace the errors of critical race theory, who are at the very least fellow travelers with cultural Marxists. I’m pretty sure that any institution boasting 15 million members has such in it. Critical race theory and cultural Marxism are ugly, unbiblical, sinful, shameful and should be called out as such. That it persists, however nuanced, however disguised as academic credibility, is no argument that nothing should be done. The only thing that can be done, however, is, wait.
There’s the problem. What this is about isn’t, ironically, the local church. It’s all about control over agencies that are not under the authority of a local church. It’s about what message gets sent out by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. It’s about who will teach at what seminaries, and whose books will be marketed by Lifeway. A group of churches so committed to the autonomy of the local church to defang anything above the local church has found itself having annual gum-fests over their wayward children with all the world watching.
I don’t ever want to underestimate the evil of racism or critical race theory. A pox on both their houses. I do want to agree with the principle being fought against by both sides, that the local church is what matters. That is where the work of the ministry takes place. The evangelical-industrial complex, Big Eva, is a pushy broad. My prayer is we’ll all learn to dance with the one who brung us. Invest your time and talent in your local church, and in those who work through their local church.
I don’t, in all honesty, have much knowledge of this peculiar movement. I’m pretty sure it involves a great deal of prayer, in particular prayer against demonic powers that are believed to have some sort of proprietary sway over a given region or institution. Think of spiritual warfare as seeking to perform an exorcism on a whole town. I’m guessing this movement got a kick in the pants from Frank Peretti’s early novels wherein angels and demons fought battles in an invisible realm, and our prayers gave the angels power boosts.
Now there are any number of silly things about the spiritual warfare movement. I’m afraid, however, that some reject it not because it doesn’t fit with the Bible, but because it doesn’t fit with our modernist mindsets. The trouble, from our perspective, isn’t that this movement affirms things about demons that the Scripture does not say, but that this movement affirms things about demons. Like angels, we think demons are certainly real. We just think they’ve been sitting on the sidelines for the last two thousand years. Angels and demons, like everything else supernatural, we seem to think became passé with the closing of the canon. This despite the truth that one part of the canon tells us that we war with principalities and powers (Ephesians 6:12).
It is yet another part of our enlightenment conceit that we think the important event of any given Sunday is when the pastor, having waded through the preliminaries, finally gets to the point where he will feed our brains. He will present a body of information that he put together during the week. If that body of information is both sound and interesting, we go home happy. What we miss is that we have entered into another dimension, one inhabited by angels and demons.
Sermons certainly have their place. I’m a big fan of sermons. But what I like best about the Lord’s Day is the fellowship. When we gather together on the Lord’s Day, we are by God’s grace lifted up into the heavenly places. We worship in spirit and in truth at the true and eternal Mount Zion. We gather with all the saints in our local body, our local community and with all the people around the globe, and finally, with the souls of just men made perfect. It is true that as we gather the church militant is lifted up to join together with the church triumphant. That is why I get to worship with the great heroes of the faith. But there God’s people worship together with the angels. We join the heavenly host in praise of our God.
The angels speak with us. We go to them each and every Lord’s Day, where we join their choir. There we are gathered together in three part harmony, those who have gone before us, joined with those who are from everlasting, joined with us as we praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. May the Lord of hosts be pleased, each time we gather, to remove the scales from our eyes, that we might behold the glory of His hosts, reflecting His own glory.
I was ordained, for the first time, in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. It’s an interesting institution with an interesting history. It is the oldest Presbyterian denomination in the nation to have never had a split. It is also one of those rare breeds of institutions, those who drew near to the brink of apostasy and then drew back.
Long after the mainline Presbyterians had embraced theological liberalism, the ARP stayed the course. They sidestepped the modernist-fundamentalist controversy that gave birth to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the Bible Presbyterian Church. Decades later, however, slowly but surely neo-orthodoxy began to creep into the denomination. The neo-orthodox were those whose stance against liberalism was, shall we say, more like standing right next to liberalism. In fact, within a decade or two of its founding its most influential proponents had clearly slip all the way into liberalism.
The ARP, perhaps wanting to avoid the perceived stodginess of the Orthodox Presbyterians and the fundamentalism of the Bible Presbyterians styled themselves as the safe middle. At least, that’s what its leadership sought to do. Neo-orthodoxy had the advantage of being perceived as reasonably intellectually credible. One could be neo-orthodox and still be allowed to play the academics’ academic games.
It was, however, the laypeople in the denomination who came to the rescue. Much like the later conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, the ARP cleansed their churches and institutions of the unstable hybrid that was neo-orthodoxy. They came out the other side, to their credit, looking much more like the ARP of old. In my lifetime some of the most faithful men of the church have served in the ARP or at ARP churches. Dr. Jay Adams pastored an ARP church. Dr. J. Richard deWitt was moderator for a time. Dr. Sinclair Ferguson and Dr. Derek Thomas served in the ARP. These, however, were all well after the resurgence had taken place. The laity in the denomination had the sense not to buy into neo-orthodoxy and the courage to root it out.
Which should teach us at least two things. First, academic attainment is no hedge against theological drift. In this battle, in fact, the bad guys wore academic gowns and the good guys wore overalls. Loyalty to the Lord, and indifference to the approval of the world, these were what enabled the laity to recognize that the emperor wore no clothes. Which means these are the qualities we ought to be pursuing for both clergy and laity alike.
Second, elders matter. The ARP makes a distinction in the callings of ruling and teaching elders. It makes no distinction between their respective authority. The ruling elders were the heroes of the story. How easy it is for us to see elders as a kind of board of trustees, successful businessmen tasked with making important business decisions but ill-equipped to wrestle with the text of the Bible. How wise of the heroes of the story to understand both their authority and their calling. Elders, as would be obvious if we would but read the qualities required of them in Scripture, must be men of character and integrity. Not perfect, but faithful.
A great deal would depend on what that someone had to say first. The most important question is, is this person repentant. To such a one I would encourage them to remember that Jesus suffered the wrath of God that was due to us for our sins, that those who rest in the finished work of Christ are not only forgiven, but that their sins have been removed from them as far as the east is from the west, that they are not only forgiven but immutably and infinitely loved of their Father, who because of Christ loves them as much as He loves His Son. I would encourage them to not be afraid to enter into the sadness of their loss, but, having repented and been forgiven, not to return to their shame. I know the pain of losing a child and would want only to enter into the sorrow of others who have also lost a child.
If, however, the person has not yet repented of their sin, I would call upon them to repent and believe the gospel. I would tell them that they already know their guilt, that they have not just sinned but have committed what may be the most reprehensible sin one could imagine. They have not only murdered one who bears the image of God, but have murdered such a one who was utterly vulnerable and defenseless. They have not only murdered an image bear that was utterly vulnerable and defenseless, but have done so to their own kin, their own child. They, who were designed to nurture and care for their child, instead destroyed her. I would remind them that among the many things the living God hates is the hands that shed innocent blood (Proverbs 6:17). I would remind them that the all-knowing God finds this so shocking that He says of child sacrifice that it never entered His mind (Jeremiah 19:5). I would remind them that what they think they have done is secret will be revealed on the last day when the child, their own conscience and the living God will convict them.
The first answer, I pray you will note, in no way diminishes what was done. It does not downplay the sin, but rather magnifies the grace of God in Christ. The second answer, on the other hand, is no mean-spirited rhetorical torture. It isn’t piling on but is, like Peter’s potent sermon at Pentecost, careful, accurate, and loving. It is an appeal to whatever tattered remains of conscience this person may have left, in the hope that perhaps God might grant the gift of conviction, give a new heart and lead the person into the second conversation. It is designed specifically to push back against the very lies of the devil that encouraged the murder in the first place.
The sad truth is that too many believers cannot handle this simple truth. Calling sin sin is a sin to the contemporary church, which simply leaves the lost lost. The gospel is our only hope, and is given only to the hopeless. Jesus didn’t come to die for our mistakes, our bad decisions, our lapses in judgment. He came to die for our sins.
