Yes and no. There is a perspective out there, driven I suspect more by psychology than theology, that looks down its nose at what is sometimes called “worm theology.” It suggests that we can be too down on ourselves, that looking too deeply into our sinful hearts is unhealthy and unbiblical. The Bible, however, gives a compelling portrait of our sinful nature before we are reborn (see Ephesians 2), and I would argue, after we are reborn (see Romans 7). To look more deeply into our sin is to look more deeply into His grace, and to respond more potently in love and gratitude. One thing most needful for me, and for the church in our age is a more honest, humble grasp of our own sin.
While it is likely not possible to overstate the scope of our sin apart from His grace (though it is possible to miss the blessing of that grace in stamping us with His image) nevertheless there is at least one way in which we can “over-repent.” We do so when we repent for things that are not sins.
There are at least two ways we repent for things that are not sins. First, when we in the church add to God’s law. The Pharisees, we remember, were infamous for what we call “fencing the law.” Here we take an actual law God has given, and to be extra certain we don’t commit that sin we make the law broader than God Himself did. The Pharisees were neither the last, nor the first to do this. Eve is the patron saint of this error. Remember when the serpent asked if God had forbidden Adam and Eve to eat of any of the trees of the garden she rightly replied that God had given them liberty to eat of any tree, save one. Her good beginning however soon came with a gloomy portent when she added, “Neither may we touch it.” God had said no such thing. Eve was the first to add to God’s law.
The second way we repent for things that are not sins is when we take on the burdens of the law from the world. They have their own law that often has little connection to God’s law. They are quick to condemn us, and sadly, too often we are willing to take on the stigma. Consider the tragic case of Joshua Alcorn. This young man some years ago took his own life, and left behind on social media his explanation for why. Joshua wanted to go through that process by which some men disfigure themselves and take in chemicals all designed to make him appear as a woman. His parents, professing believers, did not support either this process, nor the notion that Joshua was a girl trapped in a boy’s body.
The death is of course a terrible tragedy. The young man was struggling with deep despair. But the “lesson” we are called to learn, that too many professing believers have owned, is that Joshua is dead because of his cruel, narrow, believing parents. And we Christians are supposed to repent for our lack of understanding of those struggling with sexual identity. Trouble is, perhaps apart from Fred Phelps, I’m unaware of Christians lacking in understanding for anyone struggling with sexual identity or any other sin for that matter. I am aware that there are Christians, sadly too few, who are unwilling to call evil good in the boiling cauldron of sexual identity politics. The tragedy of the death of Joshua Alcorn was tragic because of Joshua’s death, not because we Christians won’t get with the program of our postmodern sexual free fall.
As when we in the church add to God’s law we end up distorting who God is, so when we embrace the world’s law as God’s law we do the same. We may weep for Joshua, and weep with his parents. We may not, however, add to or subtract from the law of God in the process. We have plenty of real sins to repent of without taking on the yoke of the contemporary zeitgeist. When we repent for things that are not sins, then we need to repent, for distorting the law of God, and therefore, His character.
All of us, I presume, from time to time change our minds. We know that we err, and we know that we grow in grace. At least part of that growth happens when we no longer believe the errors we once believed. Sometimes we add new information to what we believe. Sometimes we jettison old information. And sometimes we do both. I used to believe, decades ago, for instance, that the universe is many millions of years old. I now believe that it is less than ten thousand years old. That is progress.
Paul commands of elders that they, among other things, be sober-minded. I suspect that many of us give precious little thought to this command. Too many of us dismiss all of Paul’s qualifications. Even if we try to apply them, however, we often slide right over this one. We may assume “sober-minded” means the same thing as “not given to much wine.” We may assume that we don’t want elders who are given to whoopee cushions, joy buzzers and oversized clown shoes.
To be sober-minded, however, is to treat truth seriously, and to have a healthy doubt as to our own understanding of truth. It is all too easy to get confused here. Many churches have their fair share of “theology wonks.” These are usually young men who, happily, have a passion for theology. They read substantial books, and they engage in substantial conversations. You’ll usually find them at the church picnic, smoking a pipe, with a small cadre of acolytes sitting around them as they share their wisdom. They are contemplating the tug and pull of Nestorianism and Eutychianism. They are wondering out loud if maybe the hyper-preterists have it right, that Jesus may not be coming back again. They are expositing the proper procedure for stoning rebellious children.
A sober-minded person should think through the challenges of the incarnation. A sober-minded person should know the claims of all sorts of heretics, including hyper-preterists. A sober-minded person ought to contemplate the law of God. But there are two things a sober-minded person doesn’t do. He doesn’t practice experimental theology right in front of people. And he certainly doesn’t veer from this bedrock position to that one, dragging his sheep behind him. Indeed a sober-minded man, if he finds himself questioning some fundamentals, will grow frightened rather than excited, will grow more careful rather than more reckless, will encourage the faithful to look away, not to draw near.
If a man, for instance, suddenly “gets” covenant theology and now believes in baptizing covenant children he does not now take up this holy cause with the same zeal with which he defended the Baptist view just weeks before. A sober-minded man doesn’t, when he gives in to the biblical weight of Calvinism crusade for it just as he once crusaded against it. A sober-minded man instead thinks- “Wow. I once was so passionate about what I now know is error. Perhaps I ought not to lay hands on myself and become webmaster of www.don’t-listen-to-old-me-listen-to-new-me.com.”
One need not be the theology wonk to fail here. Neither does one need to be or aspire to be an elder to heed the call to sobriety of mind. Those who follow theology wonks are likewise not sober-minded. They are instead drinking a dangerous brew. If you are following someone who gives you intellectual whiplash, you would be wise to get off that bus. If your local guru is telling you about all the exciting things he saw on the other side of the Tiber, walk away. He leads sheep to slaughter, not to green pastures. It makes no difference whether it be sensual or intellectual delights. Only fools heed the call of the seductress. Her paths lead to death. Wisdom, on the other hand, is sober and steady. Heed her.
Thesis 58 We must fear God and obey all that He commands.
Ecclesiastes is one of the most difficult books in all the Bible. One key reason is that it is inverted. Much of it is an extended ad hominem argument. By ad hominem I don’t mean that Solomon is insulting his intellectual opponents. Rather he is embracing, hypothetically, an errant worldview, and then showing forth the necessary implications of that worldview. When Solomon says “Vanity of vanity, all is vanity” he is not saying that all is vanity. Rather he is saying that if there is nothing beyond the sun, if this world that we perceive with our senses is all that there is, then all would be vanity.
The bulk of the book is taken up with various explorations of attempts to find meaning under the sun. He looks at earthly wisdom, at pleasure, at work, at success. And each one dies a swift and brutal death when confronted with… death. If there is nothing beyond the here and now, there is no meaning in the here and now. Solomon looks unflinchingly into the empty chasm of meaninglessness and returns to tell us the horror of what he saw.
He does not, however, leave us there. Having left the world of matter and energy in a heap of dust he turns to remind his reader that there is meaning, and that there is direction. He finally tells us, truthfully, the sum of the matter- “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). After all the complications, after the hard work of tearing down our idols, Solomon brings us right back to the most simple of truths, to the direct, plain, eminently understandable calling of God on our lives- we are to fear Him and obey all that He commands.
It would be easy to find this conclusion anti-climactic. Of course we are to fear God and obey all that He commands. Every child knows that. There’s no disputing it. But what about… We may be willing to confess that this is our default position. The trouble is we think there’s a switch, and that sometimes circumstances cause us to flip it. Yes, fear God. Obey God. But if they threaten your livelihood, if they see you as a second-class citizen, if hardship comes, if this or if that, then it gets complicated. Then we have to figure out how to get what we want. God understands. He wouldn’t want us to be miserable and overrun.
Reformation happens not when we embrace a complicated, man-made strategy, but when we do the simple and obvious, when we fear God and obey Him. Consider the Great Reformer. When Martin Luther spent the night in his cell praying over his second appearance at the Diet of Worms his prayer was as simple as it was powerful. He did not ask for God to show him a way out. He asked God to recognize that the battle was His. Luther reminded himself that the end was in God’s hand, that all he had to do was fear God and obey. It is still true for all of us. It is the sum of the matter.
Friends,
Tonight, 7 eastern, we begin a new study The ABC’s of Theology. Need a basic refresher? Feeling a mite light in your theological credits? Better still, would you like to know God better? Tonight-why study theology? Join us online at RC-Lisa Sproul on Facebook Live, or in person at our home in Fort Wayne. All are welcome.
Of what? Antithesis, to the broader world, describes that idea which counters the thesis. The antithesis of “Social justice is a biblical concept” is “Social justice comes out of Marxist ideology.” To the Christian, however, it is more than this. “The antithesis” is a concept found in our Bibles that affirms the reality that there exists in this world two groups of people- the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, and that these two groups are at war with one another. It is a way of looking at the world in light of this reality.
The church, too often, takes the eminently biblical notion that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal and turns it into the eminently carnal notion that there is no war going on. The world is, to those who don’t think in terms of the antithesis, a neutral place, Switzerland if you will. To be sure there are Nazis out there, enemies of the kingdom of God, but the great bulk of the world is made of non-combatants, well-meaning albeit ignorant civilians. Such a perspective is, well, the antithesis of what the Bible teaches.
We are engaged in a war. The war began in the garden. Satan’s first assault made of every mere human a soldier in his army. God’s promise, however, was that He would put enmity in our hearts against the serpent, that He would draft us into His army. There is, however, no way station. We are born at enmity with God, by nature His enemies. We stay that way, no matter how polite and well behaved we might be, no matter how conservative our politics might be, unless or until He gives us new life. The instant that happens we are at enmity with the Serpent, soldiers in the Lord’s army.
Antithesis then means tearing down strongholds, every high-minded thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God (II Corinthians 10: 4-5). The Apostle Paul, Jesus Himself, the whole of the Bible reminds us of the reality of the war. Because one of the enemy’s most potent weapons is simply getting us to forget. In our day, as the broader culture tosses overboard every vestige of its biblical heritage, the antithesis is more easy to see. Watching tens of thousands of Argentinians in a frenzy of celebration over being given the legal “right” to murder their own babies doesn’t look “neutral” to the most oblivious Christian.
The danger faced by those who are aware of the antithesis, however, is found here- knowing who and what our enemies are. There is great overlap between the culture wars and the war between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. But they are not the same thing. The enemy of our enemy may be someone we can fight beside. But we must remain on our guard. We must not confuse our common cause with a common faith. We must, in fact, be eager to fight the enemy within, our own sins and lofty thoughts. We have been drafted into the Lord’s army, but the old man always tries to drag us to the other side. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty. And they begin here- with repenting and believing the gospel.
