It may be a sign that we are in a technological age that we tend to equate technology with machines, but technology is not just about machines. Technology includes in its range of meaning the entire idea of techniques. Human technology need not refer to mechanical pacemakers, but instead can refer to the systems by which we bring about changes in humans. Both a ten-ton bottle-capping machine and an insightful question are tools. One keeps a bottle of soda from spilling and going flat on the way to market; the other, one hopes, provides insights toward spiritual growth. The difficulty is when we begin to see our friends, families and our churches as an assembly line of bottles, in need of the right cap.
Much of the wise criticism that has been made against the church over the last ten to twenty years falls into one of two jeremiads. Sometimes we chasten the church for succumbing to that spirit of the age that we call the therapeutic revolution. Other times we chasten the church for bedding down a different spirit of the age that we call the managerial revolution. In the former the church exists to soothe the tender spirits of the congregants, to keep the pop from losing its fizz, with a dose of pop-psychology. In the latter the spiritual CEO organizes the troops and motivates them until they become an efficient ministry, what else, machine. These two models for the church share two things in common. First, they are utterly unbiblical. Second, they are both technologically minded. They see the church, and its members, as products to be manipulated to bring about a desired end.
The Bible never describes the church in these technological terms. Never is the church called that which guides the soul toward health, nor that which provides the greatest efficiency for the building of the kingdom. The Bible has all sorts of analogies for the church, none of them technological. Instead each of them is organic. The church is not a set of gears and levers, covered in a faux veneer of vitality, a clockwork orange. Rather it is a set of limbs and appendages, or as Paul describes it in I Corinthians, a body. Of course that might not steer us completely clear of our problem. We’re so technological that we have come even to think of God’s great gift of our own bodies as yet another machine to be tweaked to maximize efficiency. We see our parts as parts, and miss the holiness of the whole.
Paul has another image for us, however, that is hard to reduce to something made down at the machine shop. Paul says that we are, the church as a whole, the bride of Christ. Brides are not given to technology. I’m not saying that tools are a man thing, and ladies should stand clear. Rather I’m saying that when we think bride, we necessarily think in organic and not in machine terms. No one says as the bride walks the aisle, “Mercy, look at the torque she’s able to handle with her medial collateral ligaments.” No one says to the bride, “You know, that veil of yours is not ergonomically designed for the giving of a kiss. Why not leave it off?” No one brings a stopwatch to measure the bride’s time in getting up the aisle. A bride is not meant to be efficient, but to be beautiful.
We will not, however, ever read a church bulletin that reads, “First Community Church By the Freeway’s purpose is to look really, really nice for Jesus.” Or, “Our first priority here at Our Lady of the Perpetual Committee Non-Denominational International Family Center is to clean ourselves up good for the wedding day.” That, however, is the health and the business of the church. I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t be proclaiming the good news, or that we must cease and desist from visiting the sick. I’m not saying we can never have a church picnic for the sake of fellowship, or never deliver turkeys to the poor. Instead we do these things, all that we do, in order to make us more beautiful as a bride. We are not a machine that needs to be honed, but a bride that needs to be beautified. That’s what the Groom has not only called us to do, but what He is doing in us.
That’s not all though. Brides do far more, though never less, than look their best. We are indeed a trophy to our Lord, but we are more. Brides have other callings as well, the first of which is to love and to honor the Groom. The problem with machines is that they lack heart, something the church must cultivate. We are to grow in our love of Christ, to love Him more daily not with our gears and our levers, but with our hearts and souls, minds and strengths. That’s why we study Him and His Word, why we meet Him at His table. That is why our preachers preach His glory, to fill our hearts with sincere affections.
That we are a bride is a given. We were made for such. And so when we take a technological approach to our calling, we turn our Groom into a machine. He is not a machine. He is not a tool by which, if we punch in the right code, we can have happy, successful, well-ordered lives. He is not a means, which is all tools are, to some other end. Instead our Groom is the end. He is our delight and our joy, not because of what He has done, what He now does, or because of what He will do, but because of what He is.
He will succeed. He will, because our Groom is altogether sovereign in authority and in power, get us to see what He has already told us, that we are His spotless bride. And when we see it, maybe then we will be spotless, besmirched with neither grease, nor sin.
.
We are all tempted to be practical deists. The deists were the poster children for god-of-the-gaps theology. That is, because they wanted the universe to make sense, but didn’t want to have to answer to the living God, they posited a creator god (for how else could we have gotten here?) who, after creating the universe, took a walk, never to return. God explains the universe, but is not active in it. If He’s watching at all, it is from a distance, and with a deep indifference.
A practical deist isn’t someone affirming deism but who also is handy with tools, but rather is someone who would never affirm such a doctrine but lives as if that doctrine were true, a deist in practice if not confession. And that’s where we come in. We who are Reformed confess with our fathers this- What are God’s works of providence? God’s works of providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions (Westminster Shorter Catechism 11). But we act as though all His creatures and all their actions are somehow outside His control. We too often treat answered prayer as a vaguely embarrassing pseudo-charismatic event. God, we seem to believe, may be Lord of space and time, but is an absentee Lord.
The proof is in the worry. Don’t get me wrong- the doctrine of God’s providence doesn’t mean that unpleasant, or horrific events will not come to pass. Worry, however, isn’t the understandable fear that something terrible might happen but foolish fear that things outside His sovereign plan might happen. Worry is the implicit denial of the promise of God in Romans 8:28, that all things, that is, all things, work together for good for those who love the Lord, who are called according to His purpose.
The solution is to cease living by sight. All that we see is real enough. The actions of wicked men, at the abortion mill, in the middle east, the ravages of disease, these are all real as well, and have genuine causal power. They bring things to pass. But each of them is but a secondary cause, a tool in the hand of the One who governs all the creatures and all their actions. He is sovereign over men and over disease, and always brings His sovereign will to pass, even when such violates His revealed will. Indeed such is how we have been saved. He brought to pass the greatest evil ever, and by it redeemed our souls.
But even here we can still be stuck in our deism. If we who confess to His sovereignty merely see Him as the one who wrote the full story of history, who numbered our days before there were days, who planned the descent of every hair falling from my head did not write the story and sit back to watch it play out. The glorious, though invisible truth is that He wrote Himself into the story. He who created space and time, who is above space and time also enters into space and time. The king’s heart is in His hand. And so is mine. Great and small, the good Lord is at work in them all. He is here and He is not inactive.
Be of good cheer. For though He is risen, though He is seated at the right hand of the Father, though He is exalted, having received all authority in heaven and on earth, lo He is with us always. What we cannot see is more real than what we can.
To too many the creeds are a dusty vestige of a happily distant past. They were written centuries ago, born out of abstract battles whose players we can’t even name. Isn’t it just better to love each other and not get caught up in all those silly questions?
We are indeed called to love each other. But let’s begin first by asking this question- are the questions wrestled over by the historic creeds silly? Is the deity of Christ an insignificant question? Is it a matter of indifference whether He was a man or not? Is the question of the future resurrection of moment to the Christian faith? Is the question of if Jesus really received the wrath of the Father due to us for our sins not a difference maker in our lives?
The reality is not only that there could not be any more important questions, but that in each case there are people and institutions who claim to be Christians, to be our brothers and sisters in Christ, who deny the deity of Christ, who deny His humanity, who deny the future resurrection, who deny the atonement of Christ for us. The creeds were born out of battles over denials of the faith that are not merely past but are with us now and will likely be with us to the end of the age. We cannot wish heresy away. Putting our head in the sand doesn’t mean it has left us.
Creeds are definitions of what it means to be a Christian. They are fences that, albeit imperfectly, seek to separate sheep from goats. Love too is a mark of the church. Jesus did say that the world would know we are His by our love for each other (John 13:35). But love as He defines it includes protecting sheep not just from goats but from wolves. Love among the brethren must necessarily include testing to see who is our brother.
Suppose there were a guard outside my house. Suppose Charles Manson shows up and demands entrance. When he’s asked for identification he insists, “Hey man, this is a family affair. I’m family, and it’s wrong of you to try to keep family out. Do you not have any sense of family? If you knew this family you’d know we’re all about love. So stop with all this interrogation and let me in.” The creeds would be a good guard. Firing them from the job doesn’t make Charles Manson a sheep. It makes him well fed upon the souls of the sheep.
But there is more. Even within the body creeds serve us in these ways. First, they remind us that we didn’t start the fire. They remind us that we have stepped into a stream that precedes us, that our fathers are at this table. It puts us in our context. Second, they teach us of His glory. They are tools by which we can enter into His character, and worship. They are delights, not burdens, radiant windows as well as effective gates. Maybe our fathers were on to something. And maybe we ought to get into them.
It is a wise quip, albeit one built on an urban legend, that April Fool’s Day is the national holiday for atheists. The Bible tells us that the fool says in his heart that there is no God (Psalm 14:1). The Bible is quite right, and we would do well to heed its wisdom. Too often we act as though these emperors of their own faux kingdoms actually have clothes, that their academic gowns cover their nakedness. Nope. They’re just fools and we have no reason to fear their academic prowess. Having a battle of wits with an atheist is fighting against a half-armed man.
That said, the Bible also describes another group of fools. These fools are theists, not atheists. In fact, they are not just theists, believers in the existence of a god, but Christians, professors of the one true God. Paul tells us in his first letter to the church at Corinth,
For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence (I Cor. 1:26-29).
We are called here to own what should be obvious to everyone, that we too are fools. We were not brought into the kingdom because of our wisdom, our strength, our nobility. We were brought into the kingdom because of our folly, our weakness and our ignobility. We don’t smart our way into the kingdom, nor strive our way into the kingdom, nor inherit our way into the kingdom. We are brought in in all our inglorious bastardy, by His grace, by His power, and for His glory.
The fool in us, however, is not easy to shake. We drag it along behind us. We’re fools enough to forget that we are fools. We’re fools enough to pridefully look down our noses at other fools. We’re fools enough to think we were chosen because of our virtues, rather than because of our utter lack of virtue, that our being chosen glorifies us, rather than Him.
When, however, our folly leads us to forget our folly, Wisdom calls us to repentance. Wisdom reminds us that we are but dust, that if God were to count iniquity, who could stand? This is a holy day, a holiday, because this is the day He has made, that it might be the day in which He remakes us into His glorious image. Let us own our inner fool, and in owning it, repent of it and disown it. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10). Happy Jesus’ Fools Day.
Thesis 19- We must stop being more pious than God.
If we understand piety as a devotion to God and to His Word, then naturally one could never over-do it. Indeed one of the great weaknesses of the modern American evangelical church is that we do not hold piety in high regard. That said, there is such a thing as false piety. False piety is where we have a great devotion, but it is not to God, nor to His Word. Rather, it is to our own conception of God, or to our own false understanding of His Word.
The Pharisees misused and misunderstood the law of God in two distinct directions. On the one hand they diminished the scope of the law of God. Their narrow understanding of the ten commandments, for instance, allowed them to believe that they actually kept the law. On the other hand, however, while the Pharisees were making the law less stringent than God, they often made the law more stringent than God. If God said, “Do not touch” they affirmed their “piety” by saying, “Don’t go near…” This is called “fencing the law.”
A few examples may make the point more clear. How many evangelical Christians hold the view that while Jesus did turn water into wine, while the moderate enjoyment of alcohol isn’t a sin, it is still “unwise” to partake? How many evangelicals recognize that Jesus clearly allows a spouse who is the victim of adultery to divorce, but would suggest that the “better” option is to forgive? Assuming that God’s law does permit the use of alcohol and divorce of adulterous spouses, what are objections that abstaining from either is wiser or better option than adding to the law of God? If God says “You may…” and we say, “You’d better not…” are we not claiming to be more pious than God?
The issue, however, isn’t the issue. That is, our problem isn’t that we misunderstand alcohol or adultery. Our problem is that we misunderstand our relationship to God’s law. We are neither His co-counselors nor His parents. We do not get to give Him advice on His law, far less are we free to supersede His law. The appropriate response to the law of God is “Yea and amen.”
The same is true with respect to His grace. The Bible says that if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (I John 1:9). How often do we confess our sins, and then try to demonstrate the depths of our piety by refusing His forgiveness? “Please forgive me O Lord” we cry out. God says, “I forgive you.” And we think we’re showing how good we are when our response is, “No, you can’t forgive me. My sin is too great. My heart is too black. I don’t deserve to have my sins forgiven.” Of course we don’t deserve to have our sins forgiven. That’s why it’s called grace. Our Father calls for the fatted calf, and we think ourselves pious for slinking our way down to the servants’ quarters. The appropriate response to the grace of God is “Yea, amen, and thank you dear Lord.”
If we were wise, if we were truly pious, we would cease to add to His law, and we would cease to take away from His grace. Our piety would seek to obey all that He commands, and to rejoice that He forgives us though we do not obey all that He commands. Indeed our adding to His law is against His law, and our taking away from His grace may mean we have not received His grace.
