There are any number of theological questions that manage, at one and the same time, to elicit arguments and yet create no division. These are issues over which both sides, while disagreeing on the issue at hand agree that the issue at hand is both not easy to solve, and not all that important. John Calvin once sagely said about speculative theology, “Where the Lord has determined to be silent I will refrain from inquiry.” While we affirm that the Bible is clear, we acknowledge that some things are more clear than others. The answer to this question scores pretty low on the clear scale.
There are, historically, two perspectives on the issue. The slightly less common view is called traducianism. It holds that the creation of a human soul is as natural as the creation of the human body, that conception itself is the immediate cause of both body and soul. This view has two advantages over its competitor, both of which take us back to the beginning. First, it honors the principle that God has rested from the work of creation. The first six days, Genesis tells us, were morning and evening. The seventh day has no such description, suggesting that in some sense we are still in the seventh day and that God, while ruling actively through His providence, is no longer creating. Second, it makes the doctrine of original sin just a tad easier to swallow. If souls come about naturally, just as Levi was in the loins of Abraham when he paid a tithe to Melchizedek, so were we all in the loins of Adam at the fall, and so his guilt becoming ours is that much more clear.
The more common view is the creationist view which holds that souls are immediately created by the hand of God. This view affirms a different form of continuity between Adam and the rest of humanity. Instead of future generations branching off Adam, creationism has each of us being made by an act of God just as Adam was. God breathed life into Adam. He does the same for us. In addition the creationist view better reflects the language of Psalm 139:13, “For You created my innermost parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.”
I suspect the debates on this question continue for two reasons. First, people interested in such things love to debate. Second, there are implications or tendencies for each view that could conceivably lead someone astray. The former view is stronger in affirming the unity of body and soul, the latter tending a bit more to the error of seeing men as souls in bodies. The latter view is stronger in seeing God active and at work, the former mildly veiling the glory of God’s work in making us.
If we are careful to affirm that God is at work, that all men begin their existence tainted by sin, that God is not guilty over the previous truth, that Jesus is fully God and fully man, like us in every way yet without sin, that all men are stamped with the image of God, then either position is safe and should be seen as such by those adopting the other position. The danger in this debate is less that we will end up embracing some kind of grievous error, more that we will swell up with foolish pride. The solution is to remember that the important truth is that He is our Maker, and for those in Christ, our redeemer and Father.
I have noticed in recent years a great upsurge in objections to the objective truth to what we are. Anytime I speak of the believer as a sinner, let alone a miserable sinner, I can always count on someone to come along behind and chasten me for forgetting how God sees us. They will, happily, often do so by reminding me of the great truths of the gospel. But one thing the gospel doesn’t do is make our sin disappear on this side of the veil. It doesn’t make us incapable of committing this sin or that (with the exception of blaspheming the Holy Spirit). If we define “sinner” simply as “one who sins” then it doesn’t cause us to cease being sinners. And it certainly doesn’t mean that we are removed from our calling to recognize and give thanks for His mercy.
When we get ahead of ourselves, when we start to think not that we are deemed fine fellows by our Maker due to the life and death of His Son for us, but think instead that we are fine fellows in ourselves, we lose sight of the marvel of mercy. We forget not only to give thanks for the redemption of our souls, but for the preservation of our bodies. We forget not only to give thanks for the goodness in our lives in all the things that give us pleasure, but for the goodness in our lives in all the things that give us pain. In short, when we miss the sin, we miss the mercy. When we forget what we are due, we forget all that we have been given.
We forget we are sinners, we forget to give thanks for His mercy, precisely because we are still sinners. We preach this truth not to beat us down, but that we would look up. Jesus told us that the man who beat his breast, crying, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner” went to his home justified (Luke 18:13). He went home then joyful, thankful. He did not, however, from that moment forward never again beat his breast. He did not, from that moment forward, never again cry out to God, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.” But each time he returned to pray, he prayed the same prayer, and went home with the same joy. If we would remember the joy of our salvation, we must needs remember the sorrow of our damnation.
Our lives are faithful liturgies by which we remember the joy of our thanksgiving. We remember to remember our condition before we are redeemed. We remember to remember our condition after we are redeemed. We remember to enter into the graces He continues to show us, remembering that His mercies are new each day (Lamentations 3:22). We remember to hope in the promises of future grace, remembering that one day we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (I John 1:3). And all along the way we give thanks, that He did not destroy us, but died for us when we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8), that He will never leave us not forsake us as we walk to the Celestial City (Deuteronomy 31:6), that He who began a good work in us will carry it through to the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6).
There is, purportedly, a movement out there, a movement out of the church. A bevy of young, feckless and deformed men and women have weighed the evangelical church in the balance and found us wanting. They self-identify as ex-vangelicals. And boy do they love to tell their stories. As they grew up inside the church they noticed that it was full of sinners, based on the church’s own standard, the Word of God. We evangelicals are forever doing what we’re not supposed to, sinning in both ordinary and grievous ways. Shocking, I know. Because evangelicals are always droning on and on about how good and perfect we are.
As they make their way in the world they discover yet another failure on our part- we fail to measure up to the world’s standard. We’re accused of being bigoted, narrow, lacking in compassion for others because we believe boys are boys and girls girls, because we believe the sexual union is for married couples, and that marriage is one man and one woman. We’re so embarrassing that they simply have to treat us like tax collectors, lest they be sullied by us. Our calling is to be ashamed and put away our judgments and join them in their world of love and compassion. If we don’t, they’ll continue to treat us as pariahs. Because we’re not broadminded and loving like they are. We deserve their hatred and opprobrium because we’re so hateful and opprobrious.
I believe it was Tim Keller who once explained that on more than one occasion he was talking with a young man who had been a part of the church, but grew up and wanted to walk away. He would ask this simple question, “What’s her name?” The motive, Keller understood, whatever intellectual ribbons and bows the young man might have adorned it with, was moral, specifically, sexual. The move out of the church was necessary to starve the conscience so the fun could continue unabated.
It’s not always that that leads them out. Sometimes it’s this- they can’t stay in the church because they can’t stand the thought of people’s sins being forgiven, especially anyone who has sinned against them. You know, just like the Pharisees. The idea of grace is repugnant to the lawless, for it means there is a law, and they don’t measure up.
My hope and prayer is that ex-vangelicals will all become evangelicals once again, that they will repent and believe the gospel, that saves sinners like evangelicals. I also pray, however, that those who haven’t left won’t be drawn away by the Siren call of the ex-vangelicals as they seek to drive us away from rather than to Jesus because of our all too real guilt. Are we a judgmental bunch? For certain. Do we have so many skeletons in our closets that they can’t follow social distancing guidelines? We do. Everyone of their accusations against the evangelical rings true, not because we’re evangelicals, but because we’re people. The accusations ring true about everyone. The difference between those inside and those outside the church, however, is that those inside acknowledge our sin, and cry out for God’s mercy in Christ, while those outside stand on the public corner and thank themselves that they are not like other men. Which is why, by His grace, we go home justified.
No. One can certainly get wealthy by sinning. One can certainly sin while being wealthy. But it is surely not a sin to be wealthy. Though few would be so crass as to express such a sentiment, it nevertheless often reveals itself, ironically among the wealthy. Wealth, remember, is a relative term. Most of us like to think of ourselves as somewhere safely in the middle. But I suspect 99% of you reading this are, in terms of wealth, in the top 1% of the wealthiest humans to ever walk on this planet.
Wealth, like wine, is a blessing from God that can be misused, that can bring with it a bevy of temptations peculiar to it. One temptation common to many of God’s blessings is that we forget they are God’s blessings. That is, we lose sight of the giver of the gift in loving the gift. Every good gift, however, should be seen as a window through which we behold the grace and the beauty of the Giver. Wealth has this added danger- it can encourage us to lose sight of our dependence of God.
Which brings us to how to rightly respond to the gift of wealth. First, give thanks, knowing that it comes from the hand of God. Were we better able to recognize that we are all in the 1% we would begin to push back against the envy that crushes gratitude. We see wealth as wicked because we think it’s something other people have that we don’t. But to 99% of those who ever lived, we are the other people.
Second, recognize that we are but stewards of what God has given us. Better yet, recognize that you are the steward of what God has given you, and I am the steward of what God has given me. Sometimes we use the truth that we are stewards of what is God’s as a pretext to judge how others handle what God has given them. We think this one shouldn’t have such a big house but should be financing missions, and that one shouldn’t have such fine clothes but should be supporting the local soup kitchen. We pride ourselves into thinking we could steward the money God gave the other guy to care for better than he does.
We can debate on the requirements God makes of His stewards, whether the tithe is still binding, to whom it should go, gross or net. What we must not do is add to God’s requirements. Nor subtract from them. That is, not only is it not a sin to enjoy the wealth God has given you, it is likely a sin to not enjoy it. God commands His people in Deuteronomy 14:26- “And you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen or sheep, for wine or similar drink, for whatever your heart desires; you shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household.”
Which means the key is gratitude, not how much or how little we have been given to steward. We need not repent of our wealth. We likely need to repent for our failure to recognize it, and give thanks to the Giver. Wealth is no more proof of greed than poverty is proof of laziness. Work hard. Remember your dependence. Give thanks. And enjoy.
There’s a reason that after we are introduced to someone that we most often ask, “What do you do?” The truth of the matter is that our identity is rightly tied up in our labors. What we do not only reveals but is part of what we are. I don’t begrudge people who want to separate their work from their being, but I hope they understand why it’s natural to keep the two together. In our systematic theologies we make all sorts of divisions and that carries with it a danger. That we are able to distinguish regeneration and faith does not mean that we can separate them. That we can have a chapter on justification followed by a chapter on sanctification doesn’t mean that you have one without the other. In like manner, while we use the language of, “The Person and Work of Christ,” while there might be some benefit of dividing our discussion of His person from our discussion of His work, we would be wise to remember that the two are intimately tied together. Jesus does what He does because He is what He is and He is what He is because He does what He does.
The great medieval theologian Anselm, in writing his classic Cur Deus Homo, made just that point. Translated the title asks this question, “Why the God-man?” The incarnation, Anselm demonstrated, isn’t an afterthought, an interesting bit of trivia. Instead His atoning work required that God should take on flesh, take on humanity, in order to suffer for our sins. Indeed for our sins to become His, He had to be one of us. For His righteousness to become ours, He had to be one of us.
That said, Jesus also had to be God. To speak with the authority with which He spoke, to in turn judge the whole world, He had to be God. Which is precisely why the contemporary Jesus is so badly off both in terms of His person and work. That is, the unbelieving world, while happy to honor Jesus as at best a great prophet and at least a great moral teacher, they still leave Him in His humanity, precisely to leave off His judgment. They denature Him so that they can remake Him. They then remake Him in their own image. Professing to be wise they become fools, worshipping the creature rather than the Creator.
The reason then that so many are reluctant to admit His deity, the reason no one likes the options, liar, lunatic or lord, is not a philosophical, disinterested skepticism about persons, and natures, but because of a practical, biased need to avoid the truth of the coming judgment of God. This is why, when the world speaks well of Jesus, we ought not to conclude that they are halfway home. It’s not as though they are just missing a piece of the puzzle, and if we can add it they will get the picture. Indeed they would rather burn the puzzle to ashes than to add the terrifying truth of His coming judgment.
Which explains why we are doing such a disservice to our unbelieving neighbors when we seek to hide from them the truth of His judgment. We are keeping from them the one needful thing. We are hiding from them the very glory of God. When John the Baptist preached and the Pharisees came to check out his message he asked, “Who told you to flee from the wrath to come?” In our day our churches are filled with so called seekers who will never be told to flee from the wrath to come, for wrath, we are told, drives people away. Win them with Jesus meek and mild, and we make them twice the children of hell we are.
It was Jesus who, when asked about those killed when the tower of Siloam fell, warned “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” It was Jesus who told us that the one who beat his breast and cried out, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner” went home justified. It is Jesus who spoke more of hell than he spoke of heaven.
Jesus speaks with authority because He has authority. He has authority because He and the Father are one. In His authority He speaks law, which law we ever fail to obey. And so He calls us to repent, to confess our failure, to cling to His work. He promises, because in His deity He is all-powerful, that nothing will ever be able to take us from His hand, that He who has begun a good work in us will carry it through to the end. Remove, separate His deity from His person, remove, separate His work from His person, and His glorious gospel collapses in a heap.
Our calling then is to preach Christ, in season and out of season, to be clear, honest, forthright. And to leave the results in His sovereign hand. We are called to give over our clever strategies, our nuanced subtleties, and to boldly speak forth to the watching world, that our Lord reigns, and that He is coming again to judge the quick and the dead.
