Don’t forget that today, at 7:00 eastern we continue our live study, working together through my father’s classic work, The Holiness of God. We will cover this week (after postponing last week due to weather) chapter 4. All are welcome to join us online. We’ll be on Facebook Live, at RC-Lisa Sproul. If, however, you are in the area, you are welcome to join us in our home. We serve a meal to our guests at 6:00. Do please let us know if you’d like to be here in person for the study or both the meal and the study. We hope to see you here.
Probably not what you think. My father was a wise and gracious man. He was a man of integrity and honor. He was also a man of insight. He noticed, when listening to unbelievers speak of Jesus, how well they all liked him. A closer look, however, revealed why. Unbelievers like Jesus because they don’t know Him. Instead they invest in Him their own favorite qualities and characteristics. Marxists love Jesus because they think He is a Marxist. Republicans love Jesus because they think He is a Republican. Everyone loves to dress Jesus up as a cheerleader for the home team.
Jesus, however, isn’t alone in getting this kind of treatment. Of late I have seen various social media pundits responding to intersectionality, critical race theory, churches violating social distancing rules, and riots in the streets not by suggesting that God’s Word says this about the situation or that applying Paul’s principle in Colossians would mean that about some event, but asking, WWRCD, what would RC do? And, much to the surprise of someone other than me, it turns out my father is the writer’s sock puppet.
My father was no man’s puppet, sock or otherwise. And he was full of surprises. Take for instance his dislike for government overreach. My father used to talk openly about the virtues of secession in our day. He was a limited government guy from the bottom of his loafers to the top of his perm. Which is exactly why I thought I would have his support when I turned 16. I told him that Uncle Sam expected me to register for the draft. I reminded him that that same uncle had sent soldiers into harm’s way more than half a dozen times into unlawful wars. I didn’t want to register because I didn’t want them enacting a draft, drafting me and sending me off to another Viet Nam.
“Son,” he said to me, “I want you to go to the post office and register for the draft. I understand, appreciate and agree with your fears. The good news, however, is that Uncle Sam isn’t commanding you to break God’s law by fighting an unjust war. He’s commanding you to give him your address. If a day comes when we need to defy your uncle, we’ll do it. But today is not that day.”
I didn’t like what I had to do, but I confess, he impressed me. A lot. He showed me the biblical pathway whereby I compromised nothing, endangered nothing, disobeyed neither my uncle nor my heavenly Father. It wasn’t what I expected. It was much better. He took my jingoistic passions and applied careful, biblical reasoning.
Of course, he might have been wrong. That is not the point. Either way I am asking that you stop. You are borrowing credibility you did not earn, like the purveyors of pseudepigrapha in the early church. You are claiming support you don’t really know that you have. You act as though you are honoring his memory when you dishonor it. You are confusing yourself with him, and worse, confusing him with Jesus. If you want to know what my father thought, I have good news. His thoughts are recorded in over 100 books and on thousands of hours of recordings. If you want to know what he would have thought, you’re out of luck. If you want to tell the world what he would have thought, you’re out of line. He’d tell you to knock it off.
Lord Acton was absolutely right, that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. He may have been more right, however, if he had adapted a bit of biblical wisdom in articulating the dangers of power. What if he had said instead, “The love of power is the root of all kinds of evil.” Just as greed is not the exclusive province of the rich, so the hunger for power extends well beyond the powerful, and with it goes all manner of evil. Those without power often seek power by sidling up to the powerful. If you have no power, the next best thing may be to get close to those who do.
We see this principle worked out in spades in the English Reformation. The Reformation came to England not because of a popular uprising of the people. It was not rooted in the heartfelt convictions of the clergy. The Reformation came to England because a king wanted a new wife, one who would bear him a son. The king thought he was pulling the strings of the clergy to get what he wanted, while the clergy believed they were pulling the strings of the king to get what they wanted. O what a tangled web they weaved when the English Reformation was first conceived. At any given moment, the shape of the Reformation was determined not by the Word of God, but by who had the king’s ear. The inauspicious beginning laid the groundwork for what would ensue, centuries of confusion, death and strife.
Trying to untangle the knots created by shifting alliances, convicted consciences and the providence of those born to inherit thrones may make for an interesting historical survey. What may be better, however, would be for us to consider our own failures and weaknesses as we set about the business of Reformation in our own lives. Whose ears do we seek access to, and to whom are we listening? Rather than trying to divine whether the Church of England skewed too Romish or whether its problems grew out of its Erastianism may just be a distraction from examining our own lives.
Reformation, rightly understood, is nothing more than dominion. Adam and Eve, in being called to rule over the creation were called to re-form the world. After the fall the call to dominion abides, and so does the call to re-form. Now we are not merely turning jungle into garden, but are at the same time turning sin into righteousness. Our re-formation is, by the power of the Holy Spirit, remaking the sinful dust of our fallen father Adam into the glorious gold of our elder brother, Jesus, the second Adam. The Reformation not only is not over, but it will not end until all things are brought into subjection. Those “all things” certainly includes the rulers of England, both ecclesiastical and civil. They certainly include all who rule here in these United States. They include our churches, our culture, our labors. But they begin with our families, ourselves, our hearts.
In the economy of God, we do not re-form by seeking power. We do not re-form by seeking the ear of those in power. The only way to re-form is to die. The dead have no lust for power. They have no ears to be tickled. They have no lips with which to seduce others. Indeed this is where our power is found. By being powerless we are beyond the seducing power of power. By being dead we strike fear in the hearts of the powerful, for their power has no sway over us.
In the economy of God, the great things that we do for the kingdom we do in peace and quietness. When we speak to our children of the things of God, we are bringing Reformation. When we visit the widow on our block, we are bringing Reformation. When we sit down in a moment of quiet and meditate on the powerful Word of God, we are bringing Reformation. When we wash the dishes after sharing a feast with our fellow saints, we are bringing Reformation. We bring Reformation to the world in the very ordinary tenor of our lives.
We have no need to sit next to kings, for we are seated beside the King. Indeed we are kings and queens with Him, seated in the heavenly places. We do not need to seize the engines of ecclesiastical authority, for we are already a royal priesthood. We need not seek positions of power and influence, that we might whisper in the ears of the powerful. Instead we must make known our desires to the Almighty, Him whom we are instructed to call, “Our Father, who art in heaven…” We need not tear out the great weeds of unbelief that infest the church at large. We need only tear out the great weeds of unbelief that infest our tiny little hearts, that we might instead bear much of the fruit of the Spirit.
We must re-form our understanding of Reformation. The world is changed through service, not power. It is changed by service to “the least of these” rather than the powerful. Perhaps to better understand this we ought to tell ourselves, the next time we find ourselves changing a dirty diaper, “Be of good cheer. For in this deed we shall light a fire across the globe such as shall never be put out.” Perhaps that is what it means to play the man.
There aren’t many moments that I remember discerning pain in my father’s voice. Listening to him recount the sad saga of Francis Gary Powers was one of them. In 1960 Powers piloted a U-2 spy plane across Soviet airspace. With a ceiling at 70,000 feet the plane was believed to be out of reach of Soviet air defenses. Despite this his plane was shot down, mostly intact and he reached ground safely, only to be taken prisoner. The sorrow in my father’s voice, however, wasn’t over what happened. The sorrow came when he explained that President Eisenhower told the American people that a weather plane had accidentally flown off course and crashed with no survivors. Not long after, Khrushchev produced Powers and the spy plane for all to see. It was, to my father, the first time our government had been caught in an undeniable lie. It broke his innocence.
Lying is bad, heartbreaking, conducive to crushing the faith of the trusting. There is shame and embarrassment as well. What is worse, however, is when lies are told with such a brazen and callous spirit in which everyone knows it’s a lie. The rotting cynicism of a government that doesn’t expect to be believed, only obeyed brings to mind the words George Orwell penned in 1984– If you want a vision of the future imagine a boot stamping on a human face- forever.
That time is here, unmasked with the shameless hypocrisy of various state and local governments who have told us we must not, because of the health risks, congregate, unless we are remembering the death of a civil rights icon. We must not gather in large numbers, unless we are protesting the death of George Floyd. There has been no attempt to nuance or spin this reality, no verbal two-step or rhetorical misdirection. It’s all been out there, in the open. “Yes, we said it is not safe for you to gather. But if the motive for the gathering is this favored political expression or that, then it is safe.” Absolutely shameless.
There is one thing sadder still. That we just accept this. Please don’t misunderstand. The issue isn’t COVID or quarantines. The issue isn’t the memorial services or the protests. The issue isn’t debates on how deadly the illness or how useful social distancing is. The issue is that the government has now reached a place where they don’t even pretend to have a rational defense of what they say, and that we move along as if we have not just crossed a Rubicon. They painted this on the side of the barn- “All group meetings are equal” and then, when it suited them, added, “but some are more equal than others.” And we just keep chewing our cud.
I don’t have a solution. I can’t begin to imagine how to even get back to that better place and time where they bothered to wrap a veil of plausibility around their lies. I don’t know how to teach us to once again blush in the face of such shame. All I can do is cling to this glorious truth, that the real government, the one with all the power, is well beyond the reach of surface to air missiles, and that He has never and will never lie. Maranatha Lord Jesus.
No, and yes. The Bible does not have a specific text that suggests that the Bible alone is our final authority in all matters of faith and practice. Those who delight to point this out, however, typically Roman Catholics and the eastern Orthodox, typically miss the point. First, their energies more often than not are aimed at the Anabaptist error that we call solo Scriptura. Here a man affirms that all he needs is himself and his Bible. The wisdom of the church in history, the community of believers, are all deemed irrelevant to understanding the things of God. Solo scriptura is reprehensible and ignorant and a-historical.
Sola Scriptura, like the Scriptures themselves, recognizes that God has gifted the church with teachers and pastors. It recognizes that the church has progressed and reached consensus on critical issues in and through the ancient ecumenical creeds. It affirms with vigor that we are all standing on the shoulders of giants. But it also affirms that even these giants have feet of clay. And there is where the Bible does in the end teach sola Scriptura.
Sola Scriptura is not a true biblical doctrine resting on the Bible saying so. That would be a tautology- the kind of argument we find in that collection of lies the Book of Mormon. Instead the Bible is our alone final authority because it alone is the Word of God. It has been attested, authenticated, by God Himself. Miracles serve as the divine imprimatur, the proof that this is a message of God. This is how Nicodemus reasoned when he said, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him” (John 3:2). This is also how Jesus Himself reasoned when He first forgave the sins of the paralytic lowered through the roof. In response to the unspoken charge that He had blasphemed, Jesus told the man, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house” (Matthew 9:1-8).
I would be quite content to add as a second infallible and inerrant authority the ancient creeds of the church under the following conditions. First, those who gathered to formulate these creeds would need to have their message authenticated by miraculous works. Let them raise men from the dead. Second, we must add those creeds to our Bibles. If both sources are equally authoritative, why do we separate them? In like manner, I’d be content to add as a second infallible and inerrant authority the statements of the Pope when He speaks ex cathedra. First, however, let him raise men from the dead. Second, let us add his words, assuming he would even tell us what they were, to our canon.
But wait, there’s more. I want an authoritative list, in both instances of what these messages are. Ask someone Orthodox to show you exactly where you can read their infallible tradition and you will receive slippery ooze. Ask someone Roman Catholic for a list of infallible papal or consiliar statements, and you will receive the same.
Finally, there is this problem. In both instances, Rome and Orthodoxy, you run headlong into the problem of the infinite regress. That is, those who are less strident in their views on tradition, who deny that tradition carries additional content to the Scripture, instead argue that tradition gives an infallible and inerrant interpretation of Scripture. Okay. Where then can we find an infallible and inerrant interpretation of the interpretation? Assuming we could succeed there, of course, we would need an inerrant interpretation of the interpretation of the interpretation. Ad nauseum.
No, the Bible is God’s Word. It is perspicuous, understandable. It says what it means and means what it says. It is attested by the miraculous power of God. And it is all these things, alone. It alone, all by itself, equips us for every good work. Flee anyone who tells you that more is required to understand, or more is required to obey. If you’d like to learn more, I’d encourage you to get and read my friend Keith Mathison’s outstanding book The Shape of Sola Scriptura.
No one likes to be judged, but everybody does it. Outside the church, of course, are those who embrace a relativistic ethic, wherein there is no objective right or wrong. Suggest otherwise to these good people, however, and you will know they believe you have embraced something objectively wrong. The one iron-clad moral law of our age is “Thou shalt not say there are any moral laws.” Inside the church things happen a smidge differently.
Here too we judge those who judge, citing, usually wrongly if I might make a judgment, Matthew 7:1, Judge not, lest ye be judged. Worse still however is not that we judge judgers, but that we judge non-judgers, simply on the basis that we “feel” judged. Consider this account I once read on a blog. Woman A is bemoaning the awful, evil, stench straight from hell judgmental-ness of hardcore, conservative homeschoolers. She explained how she was out doing some shopping, dressed in pants. She walked into a store, and there, doing her shopping, was Woman B, a member of Woman A’s church, dressed in a skirt. Woman B always wore a skirt or a dress, and so Woman A retired to her car, unable to shop, crying her eyes out because she was being judged by Woman B for wearing pants. Now if you think it not a bad thing for women to wear pants, chances are you sympathize with woman A. Even if you believe women shouldn’t wear pants, chances are you wish Woman B wouldn’t be so judgmental. But what, friends, has Woman B done? She dressed herself, and she went shopping. She said nothing, and as far as we know thought nothing at all about Woman A and her pants. Yet, Woman A is alone in her car casting all manner of judgment, all manner of private, secret (until she wrote the blog piece) bile against her sister. We know this not because we are free to guess what others might be thinking, but because Woman A told us in her own blog, without the least hint of irony.
Somehow we have come to believe that believing and practicing this belief or that is tantamount to practicing the inquisition against those who don’t so practice. Substitute masks for skirts if you like. Substitute opening, or not opening the doors of the church building. Substitute blacking out your instagram. This is what Matthew 7:1 is all about. When we do have a judgmental attitude, that is, not having a view on what is right and wrong, but rather being quick to convict with little or no evidence, we can rest assured that we will be judged in like manner. If you are judging people for what you guess they are thinking in judgment of you, turn around. There is someone secretly judging you in their heart. And you deserve it. Instead why don’t we all try to practice a judgment of charity? Why don’t we move through our days assuming that other people actually like us? That they mean and wish us well? That we can disagree about this issue and that without either side being unduly nasty about it? Maybe we in the church could all dial down the rhetoric, without dialing down our passion for His Word.
