Friends,
Tonight, 7 eastern, we continue our study, The ABC’s of Theology, looking at C is for Covenant. Need a basic refresher? Feeling a mite light in your theological credits? Better still, would you like to know God better? Join us online at RC-Lisa Sproul on Facebook Live, or in person at our home in Fort Wayne. All are welcome.
For the preaching of the gospel. That’s the only reason any church should start. Perhaps though the question is, Why are you starting a church? More than four years ago I made headlines across the Christian world when I was arrested for and pled guilty to driving under the influence. It was a scandal, and it wasn’t my first. There are some who would argue that I am thus disqualified from ministry. There are others who would argue that I am, by virtue of my failures, especially qualified. Who better, after all, to reach grievous sinners than a grievous sinner? I would argue that I am ordinarily qualified.
I am, like every other pastor and aspiring pastor, a sinner. My reputation, based on my past, is not good with those outside the kingdom. Heck, it’s not good with plenty who are inside the kingdom. My damaged reputation, however is grounded in a scandal that is long behind me. My critics out in the world could surely still pin plenty of sins on me today. Those sins, however, would not be any different than the sins of any other pastor in the world.
I have lost a great deal through my scandals. What I haven’t lost, by His grace, is the one thing I need, His grace. I have lost neither the covering of my Elder Brother, nor the love of my heavenly Father. I have not lost my ongoing need of His grace nor the ongoing provision of His grace. What I have lost is the will and the ability to pretend that everything is just fine, that I have it together, and that in those few places where it’s not quite as it should be, Jesus has that. I have lost the ability to act as though Jesus saves us from the really bad sins, and once saved all we’ll ever commit are the not so bad ones.
I have not lost my commitment to the Reformed faith. I have lost my faith in the Reformed. Not, mind you, that we are any worse than the rest of His church. Rather, though we are too prideful to admit it, we’re just as bad as the rest of the church. I have lost, by His grace, many lifeless idols I once dragged behind me. His grace is not only in loving me in the midst of my ruined reputation, but in loving me by allowing me to ruin my reputation. He is setting me free from the me I pretended to be.
What changes me, in the end, is what changes all of us- repenting and believing the gospel. Sovereign Grace Fellowship begins this Sunday as a body of repentant sinners who gather each week to hear the good news and who scatter each week to speak the good news. If the fact that it’s me preaching disturbs you, don’t come. If the fact that it’s me preaching excites you, don’t come. If the Man preached excites you, please, come. Here it is the message, not the messenger, that matters.
“You can’t turn back time.” “There’s no stopping progress.” It’s interesting the way we manipulate words. It’s certainly true, I suppose, that you can’t turn back time, and that there’s no stopping progress. But somehow these truisms have come to mean something other than what they say. We know the words add up, but the sentiments are patently false. To consider that perhaps the older ways are better than the newer is not to turn back time. Rather it is to honor it. And no one I know is interested in stopping progress. But if we’re wise we’ll labor to stop regress. That is that you cannot tell if you’re making progress unless you know where you came from, where you are, and where you want to go. Only a fool comforts himself while he’s lost by considering what great time he is making. These arguments are tricks the liberals play on us. They begin with the assumption that we’re moving toward their vision of the good life, and that we will inevitably get there. And so to suggest that we’re going down the wrong hill is to be accused of the folly of Sisyphus. They don’t own the future, we do. And progress is not measured by the number of Gs in your wireless network, the growth of government, or the eroding of what’s left of our moral foundation. Progress is moving toward a greater understanding of His grace, toward the consummation of His Kingdom, and toward greater obedience to His law.
But still there is the question of methods. The evangelical church is all abuzz with the great insight that we can reach the lost if only we can learn to take the morally neutral tools of the world and apply them to the spreading of the gospel. That’s how we got Christian television, Christian rock music, Christian movies, Christian enneagram books, Christian yoga, and a host of other knock-offs. I too once dreamed of having my cake and eating it to, writing the great American novel that would spawn the third great awakening. Fame and fortune would be mine, and all for the glory of God. Who says you can’t serve God and mammon?
The trouble is in the assumption that mediums are morally neutral. Our understanding of the law of God has become so blunted that we’ve lost the capacity to see sin unless it wears a neon sign announcing its nature. We’ve forgotten that there are more carnal weapons out there than cannons and fighter planes. We’ve accepted the propaganda that propaganda is an acceptable means of winning the lost. We’ve bought the lie that marketing truth is okay. There’s a madness to our modern methods.
The irony is that these pragmatic theories don’t work. When we use marketing techniques to win the lost we find, much to our surprise, that they have no more loyalty to Christ than they have for their cola of choice. We find that when we hide the cost of discipleship the “converts” aren’t willing to pay it when the bill comes due. We find that all our appeals to how new we are work only until something newer comes along.
History shows us what works. It provides the empirical data we need. When were the lost being found? When was the kingdom being built? We know of no other time like the age of the Puritans. We look and see how they proclaimed the fullness of the gospel and we find that they proclaimed it boldly, straightforwardly, and confidently. They told it boldly, refusing to hide from their audience the truths of God’s sovereignty, of the horror of Hell, of the wrath of the Father, of the cost of picking up the cross daily. They told it straightforwardly, leaving out all the bells and whistles, but instead gathering in simple buildings to hear the simple Word expounded simply. These preachers knew nothing of the importance of illustrations, or humor, or charisma. They knew the power of the Word preached. And because they knew of the power, they preached confidently, believing the Gospel to be the power of God unto salvation. They understood that when you adorn the gospel with dainties, you present a dainty God. But when you let the pure Gospel loose, it goes forth like a lion.
Not long ago I published an Ask RC podcast titled, “What’s wrong with the enneagram?” One of my (many) concerns is that as with so many other so called assessment tests, we always face the temptation to excuse our sin on the basis of our personality type. The bossy person gives free reign (pun intended) to his bossiness by claiming to be gifted at administration. The more I’ve been thinking about this, however, the more I see it everywhere.
One of the reasons, for instance, that the Christian’s strategy of “Hate the sin, love the sinner” hasn’t been able to broker peace with the sexually confused is because the sexually confused wind their identities up in their confusion. Thus we have “Side B” Christians, celibate sexually confused people who are willing to give up gay sex, but not gay identity. When we hate the sin of the LGBTQ, they inevitably conclude we hate them because they think they are their sin. Even the “alcoholic,’ if he maintains a friendship with Bill W., even if he hasn’t had a drink in decades, holds on to his self-identity as an alcoholic.
We need not, however, find ourselves in these extreme circumstances to make the same mistake. I make it too. That is, even someone like me who rejects enneagram and other personality profiles, who rejects sexual confusion and who isn’t a friend of Bill W. still falls for this temptation. I needed no personality test to know this- I am introverted. I tend to find interaction with other humans less stimulating, more tiring. I’m far more likely to become a hermit than a salesman. Sometimes, witnessing my lack of enthusiasm, people reach the conclusion that I am rude. I am discovering that they are right.
The Bible calls me to love my brothers, to be actively involved in the lives of others. It does not call me to not be tired. That I am inclined toward the sin of rudeness, that I am selfish enough that I think being tired is sufficient reason to hide away isn’t a sign that I have a particular personality but that I struggle against a particular sin. My calling isn’t to grant a title to that temptation and then excuse my failure to overcome it by claiming, “That’s just the way I am.” “That’s just the way I am” doesn’t remove our guilt. It merely describes it.
When I name my weakness I make it my pet, something safe and manageable. When I give up that name, I can begin the good work of putting my weakness to death, nailing it to the cross. When I take the blame rather than shift it I can take my medicine and start to get better. Introvert can join the long list of things I used to be, that are no longer a part of my identity. I am not a slave to my habits, my temptations, my psychology, my past. I have been set free by Jesus. Whom He sets free is free indeed.
Too Hard
There are at least three working definitions of what constitutes heresy. First is the view that all error is heresy. This view has as an advantage that it recognizes the unity of truth. Because God is one, and God is truth, truth is one. Any error that we hold, if carried to its logical conclusion will lead us to wicked, damnable errors. If we adjust all that we think to make it consistent with the error we hold, we will enter into heresy. The disadvantage to this view, like many broad definitions, is that it draws the circle too wide. If we are all guilty of heresy, and if all error is heresy we are certainly all guilty, then in a manner of speaking, no one is guilty. Definitions exist to differentiate, not to be all-inclusive.
Too Soft
A second view holds that heresy is holding to any doctrine specifically condemned as heresy at an ecumenical council. The Arian heresy, which denies the deity of Christ, was condemned as heresy in the first half of the first millennia of the church. The Pelagian heresy was likewise condemned. This view has as an advantage being tied to the labors of the church at its broadest. That is, it is the church as the church that names the heresy, rather than each of us as individuals. It has as a disadvantage the hard truth that there have been no ecumenical councils in quite some time. Such would be rather hard to pull off in our day. Heresy, however, is rather easy to pull off. This view ends up with too narrow of view of what heresy is.
Just Right
My own view is in the middle of these too positions. I agree with the second view that all those views which have been condemned as heresy by ecumenical councils are in fact heresy. I would add, however, that any denial of any element of any ecumenical creed, including the Apostles’ Creed, is heresy. That is, to avoid the charge of heresy, one must not only not embrace what the councils call heresy, but must affirm what the councils call orthodoxy. In light of the inability to put together an ecumenical council, indeed in light of the inability to reach agreement among all those claiming to be Christian churches, I would also add, though it is in the Apostles’ Creed only by implication, that one must affirm justification by faith alone in order to not be heretical. This doctrine Luther wisely called the article on which the church stands or falls.
Most of those councils which included condemnations of heresy dealt with issues of the incarnation and the Trinity. These are, of course, critical issues to the church. They should not, however, be given a privileged position about all the other affirmations of the Apostles’ Creed. To deny the resurrection, for instance, is as much heresy as to deny the humanity of Christ. To deny the virgin birth is as much heresy as to deny the two natures of Christ. Which means of course, that we have no unity with those who deny any of these things, whether we find these heresies in mainline denominations, or as in the case of denying the resurrection, whether these are held by those who would otherwise describe themselves even as “Reformed.” That is, among the hyper-preterists.
If my perspective is accurate on justification by faith alone, that too sets us apart from both Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy. Rome, which while in substantial agreement with Eastern Orthodoxy, but which speaks to the matter with greater clarity, not only does not affirm that we are justified by faith alone, but formally and unchangeably affirms that all of us who affirm that a man is justified by faith alone, apart from the works of the law, should be damned. See the sixth session of the Council of Trent.
To name heresy what it is is not to be unkind or unloving. It isn’t bigoted or narrow- minded. It is instead to guard the wisdom that has been handed down to us, and to protect His sheep from wolves. Truth be told, everyone, no matter how broadminded, draws lines somewhere. The only question is, are we drawing lines where God would have us draw lines? The answer to that, in the end, is found in His Word.
It is a common but dangerous business, our propensity to make ourselves the heroes of our own stories, and to see all who stand in our way as wearing the black hats. As a person with an interest in all things economic I see it in the realm of our buying and trading all the time. We all want to sell high and buy low. And we are all sellers and buyers. We all sell our labor in the marketplace. And we buy what we buy. The ones in the black hats, we think, are the ones keeping us from selling high, and from buying low.
First, when we sell our labor we all want to sell high. We might insist that the government make it illegal for anyone to hire anyone for less than what we think we ought to earn. We might simply grumble that we are being taken advantage of. We might cheat our employer on the ground that we are not being paid as we think we ought to be. In any of these cases the employer is wicked and must be punished.
Second, when buy goods and services we all want to buy low. We might insist that the government make it illegal for anyone to charge more than what we think we ought to be charged for the good or service. We might insist that the state give us money so that we can more easily buy what we want. We might simply grumble that we are being taken advantage of. We might steal from the business we are buying from on the ground that we believe they are charging more than they ought. In any of these cases the business is wicked and must be punished.
Trouble is, of course, that because we are all sellers and buyers we are all also buyers and sellers. Why should our employers not insist that the government make it illegal for anyone to work for more than they want to pay? Why should they not insist that the government give them money so they can more easily afford to pay us? Why should they not simply grumble that they are being taken advantage of? Why should they not steal from us, on the ground that we are charging them more for our labor than we ought? We may be, in selling our labor, a corporation of one, but we are a corporation.
Or, why should the business we buy from not insist that the government make it illegal for anyone to pay less than they are willing to sell for? Why should the businesses not insist that the government give them money so they can charge less? Why should they not grumble that they are being taken advantage of? Why should they not steal from us, on the ground that we are paying less for their goods and services than they believe we ought?
There is an economic lesson here, but as is so often the case with economic lessons, there is also a life lesson- we are adept at justifying ourselves and castigating others. Our moral compasses are out of whack because we think we’re the center of the galaxy, because we believe in our own innate goodness and the innate badness of all who oppose us, even if what it means to oppose us is charging more, or paying less, than we would like. The truth is that prices, for both labor and goods and services ought always to be determined solely by the free interaction of those making the deals, by agreement of both parties. When I stick my credit card into the gas pump that reads $4.00 a gallon I am reaching an agreement. When the Kansas City Chiefs write Patrick Mahomes a check for $40 million, they are reaching an agreement. When I pick up my spatula at the local Burgers Cooked By People Making $5 An Hour joint, I have reached an agreement. And when those deals don’t get made, we’ve just agreed to disagree. No one needs to be vilified or hung. No one needs to call the feds. But what we all need to do is own our own sins. We’re the hero of the story when we keep our agreement. And those who use the force of theft or the state to get their way, those are the ones in the black hats.
