The heart of magic is misdirection. Sure, there are specially made tools of the trade. There is well-trained prestidigitation. There are moments of art and flourish. The magic, however, is to get the audience to look one direction while you do something decidedly ordinary in plain sight. That’s how we start with an empty hat, and end up with a fluffy bunny.
It is much the same in all manner of intellectual magic. If we can get our intellectual opponents to overlook the fact that we are bringing something out of nothing, we can wow them all the way to the bank.
Consider first naturalistic science. Here we begin with one of two hats, both of them black. Some will say that all of reality was compressed into a point of singularity that existed from all eternity. Did you see what they did there? They explain the creation of the universe by presupposing the existence of the universe. We ask, “If you deny that God made everything, where did everything come from?” and they reply, “Well, everything was really squished together…” We let them get away with a universe, and a profound change (the explosion of the point of singularity) from and by nothing. The second option is more brazen. On the one hand these scientists are more honest, affirming that there was nothing. And then they get more dishonest, when they tell us “it” exploded into everything. Wait. There was no “it.” There was nothing, not even a hat surrounding the emptiness. And now it’s everything?
They don’t, of course stop there. Evolution takes center stage for act two. We’ve got everything, but how are we going to make it better? How do we go from chaos to cosmos? The magicians flourish again and tell us, “Everything gets better.” We ask, , “But how? Where’s the oomph?” They tell us, “Everything gets better. It’s science.” More order, more information jump out of the hat as fish take a walk on the dry side. All by themselves.
Consider second economics. An honorable politician promises to defend our wealth. A truthful politician promises to take some of this one’s wealth for the benefit of another. A common politician promises he can make us all richer by taking from all of us. Once again the common politician is the magician. He wants us to forget that the state has nothing it can give that it did not first take from another. He may take it via taxes. He may take it by inflating the money supply. But he will leave it out of the equation, pulling bunnies out of hats. And worse, getting us to pull levers behind the curtain at our voting booths.
Consider third man’s will. Those who believe in the doctrines of grace are quite content to confess that men are free to do what they want, to act according to their nature. Indeed we affirm we must do what we want, and can do no other. Those who don’t believe in the doctrines of grace, on the other hand, define freedom of the will as the ability to do what you don’t want to do. You choose without the desire for what you choose. This too is something out of nothing. Two men are presented with the gospel message. One embraces it, the other does not. How’s come? If we confess the difference in the man, it is the man God made, the man for which God is the ultimate cause. (And of course the wiser man would have something of which to boast (Ephesians 2:9)). If we confess the difference is in God, well, welcome to the doctrines of grace.
All three, like magic, claim to give us effects without causes, something from nothing. All three depend on our willingness to be distracted, to be misdirected. All three are rabbits out of hats, and hats out of thin air.
Tonight we continue our look at the monumental, towering book of Romans. All are welcome to our home at 7 est, or you may join us for dinner at 6:15. We will also stream the study at Facebook, RC-Lisa Sproul. We hope you’ll join us.
No. But it could be. The apostle Paul admonished the Corinthians for their party loyalty, as some there said, “I am of Paul,” others, “I am of Apollos and others “I am of Cephas.” Isn’t identifying as a Calvinist, or an Arminian the same thing? Again, no, but it could be. If a believer’s identity is caught up in anyone or anything other than Christ, that’s a sin. But calling oneself a Calvinist isn’t, on its face, finding one’s identity in Calvin. It is merely describing a position on several issues that Christians disagree about. With respect to charismatic gifts, one might say, “I am of Grudem” or “I am of MacArthur” without idolizing either man. With respect to college football one could say, “I am of Alabama” or “I am of Ole Miss” without being guilty of idolizing either program.
Names, in short, can rightly be used as shorthand to identify what we believe as long as they don’t define our identity. I’m a Christian. I believe that the five points of Calvinism are true. I know enough church history to know that these five points were formulated well after Calvin had gone on to his reward, in response to the five points of Arminianism. Where do I stand with respect to believers falling away? I believe in perseverance of the saints. Where do I stand on the prescience view of election, whereby God chooses us on the basis of what He saw we would do? I’m opposed to that, affirming unconditional election.
I might should refer to myself as one who believes in the doctrines of grace, so as not to offend. Except of course that such might be construed to mean that I think Arminians don’t believe in grace. Either way, my goal is to communicate where I stand on several internal issues, not to elevate a man.
When I was in college I had a friend who, like me, was a Calvinist. He was reading Calvin and misunderstood something he had said. He raced into my dorm room, in a panic, saying, “Calvin didn’t believe Jesus was present at the creation!!!!!” I remained calm and explained to my friend, “First, I’m confident you’ve misunderstood him. Second, even if you haven’t, all that means is Calvin was wrong. There’s no need to panic.” My friend was skirting a bit to close the Corinthian problem. I was trying to help him escape it.
I think Calvin was an astonishingly great theologian. The same could be said for Saint Augustine and RC Sproul and Sinclair Ferguson. These are men who have had a deep and profound impact on my understanding of the Bible. In one sense then you could call me a Calvinist, an Augustinian, a Sproulian or a Fergusonist. I am well aware, however, that not a one of these men are God incarnate; none of them lived a perfect life or died for my sins. They were not raised from the dead, nor do they sit at the right hand of the Father. That is Jesus Christ, and Him alone. Which is why my identity is in Him.
I don’t want to offend anyone who has such a scruple. I do not, however, share it. The principle that drives it, however, I’m fully on board with.
When I served as editor-in-chief of Tabletalk magazine, I committed my share of gaffes. I received more than my share of sweet-natured but school-marmish notes about why this semicolon should have been a colon, or why further was the better word in context than farther. But there were bigger blunders as well. Once, I allowed the magazine to go out with one word of its two-word title misspelled. Happily, we received virtually no feedback on that one because the misspelled word was in Latin.
Only once, however, can I remember receiving high praise for a mistake. I wrote something about the parable of the prodigal son, and by accident I referred to it as the story of the prodigal father. The letter I received was chock full of high praise: “I can’t believe someone finally said it. I always think this is what the story should be called. Thank you for having the courage and the insight to make this point.” He went on for so long that it started to feel pretty good, until I remembered I had made a mistake, not communicated an insight.
As I read, however, I came to see the wisdom of the man’s perspective—not on my editorial skills but on the parable. It is indeed the story of the prodigal father. It is true enough that prodigal can mean “wasteful” or “careless.” It can also, however, refer to someone who is extravagant in giving, overflowing in graciousness, abundant in tenderness and love.
It is good and wise that we should learn to recognize ourselves in the Bible. I always encourage people with this rule of thumb: if you want to know who you are in a Bible story, you are the sinner. Then, in part because of this very parable, I add this: if the story has more than one sinner, you are both of them. We are both of the brothers in the parable of the prodigal son. We squander the gifts given to us by our Father. We dishonor and disobey Him. We pursue our own ends, seeing Him as merely the supplier of our needs so we can get on with acquiring our wants. On the other hand, we are also like the older brother, thinking ourselves rather fine fellows. We don’t sin as outrageously as the heathen we see on television. We aren’t hedonists like the prodigal. We, because we are sinners, somehow manage to be both libertines and Pharisees, self-indulgent and self-righteous.
The story, however, doesn’t end there. It is a good thing to come face to face with the depth and scope of our sin. It is a better thing, however, to come face to face with the grace of God. The parable does tell us how bad we are—but it ends with a robe, a fattened calf, and a great celebration. It ends with a heartfelt embrace of the prodigal, and a gentle, loving call to repentance for the older brother. The story ends, just as our story ends, with the grace of God for us.
A wise theologian more than once has said that the great question plaguing those outside the kingdom is this: What do I do with my guilt? Romans 1:18–32 argues that it is precisely the desperate need to forget that guilt that leads the lost to folly and perversion. We worship the creature because the creature won’t judge us. We exchange the truth that we are under judgment for the lie that we are perfectly safe. We determine that what we need to be safe is more stuff. So, instead of worrying about the judgment that is to come, we worry about what we will eat and what we will drink, just like the prodigal son in the pigsty of the far-off country.
The answer to both problems, however, is found in the Father. We ought never, in dealing with those outside the kingdom, to diminish their sin for the sake of winning them. We must not belittle their rebellion. We must never nuance their moral crimes into mistakes, errors, or lapses in judgment. We must never seek to diminish in their eyes the reality of the wrath of God. We must, however, be quick to point them to the one and only solution to their problem: the overflowing grace of God. God forgives the repentant. The answer to our guilt is not to deny God, to flee from Him, but to run to Him. “This is the one to whom I [the Lord] will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isa. 66:2b).
We are to seek first the kingdom of God. As we do, however, we would do well to remember that we woke up and began our journey because He breathed life into us. We would do well to remember that while we were yet afar off, He girded up His loins and ran to us, crying, “My son, my son.” We would do well to remember that when we feast with Him at His table, we receive a foretaste of the feast to come. Because we move from grace to grace, we would do well to move from amazed to astonished. If you are in Christ, your Father loves you, forgives you, and is even now pouring out His grace on you. “The Father Himself loves you, because you have loved [Jesus]” (John 16:27). Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad.
Gossip, for all its destructive power, and the bounty of warning against it in the Bible, still carries with it an image as a cute or entertaining sin. We laugh at the town matriarch who is more effective at spreading information than the world wide web. We indulge in celebrity gossip while reading the headlines at the checkout at the grocery.
We are, however, able to recognize gossip and its destructive power when it comes in its most vicious form. Person A, knowing person B is completely innocent of said sin, nevertheless tells persons C-Z all about what person B supposedly did and why said person should be cancelled. Once we begin to chip away at all the elements, however, we start thinking the gossip is tame. Maybe person A jumped to an unwarranted conclusion about person B, but genuinely thinks him guilty. Maybe person A only told person C under the strictest confidence, and person C is the one who told persons D-Z. Maybe person B is actually guilty of said sin.
All these “mitigating” circumstances do not change the fact that it is gossip, and it is destructive. It doesn’t help the matter in the least. The real problem is that we like to give gossip, often not for the purpose of harming the victim but for the purpose of pleasing the recipient. And the second problem is that we like being the recipient. The two people talking to each other are simply using the one talked about as a means to an end of elevating their own status.
That the problem is so pervasive is no excuse for it being so pervasive. “Everyone does it” says nothing whatsoever about whether it’s okay to do. It’s not, which is precisely why God condemns it both frequently and vehemently in His Word. How then do we fight it?
First, we don’t do it. When I know, or think I know something about person B I need to ask myself a series of questions before sharing it with anyone else. Do I really know it? Could I be jumping to conclusions? Am I trusting information from an unreliable source? Will me telling someone else be a help to person B? If it’s true, if you know its true and if the person you’re telling never tells another, it’s still gossip if the person you are telling has no right and no need to know the information.
Second, we don’t listen to it. This can be tough because even when we try to stop the gossip being offered to us, the gossiper will try to defend his gossip on the grounds that person B did something really, really bad. When we say to the gossiper, “You know what? I don’t really need to hear this. Please don’t go on. If you need to talk to someone about this, I suggest person B” the gossiper, instead of getting the kudos he was expecting has brought shame upon himself. And he desperately wants the focus on person B’s supposed wrongdoing.
Third, repent. I have experienced in spades the destructive power of gossip. My connection to my father makes gossip about me especially juicy. That said, I’ve also created the destruction that gossip creates. I’m guilty of speaking gossip, and listening to gossip. I’m no better than others. Repentance is the beginning of getting better.
That’s it. If nobody tries to excuse it, if nobody tries to speak it, if nobody is willing to listen to it, it will die a swift death before the damage is done.
Pursuing an understanding of the glory of God is not limited to listing and unpacking sundry attributes. He is not an isolated thing, but is the God who relates. But this is not accidental. Our God, the living God, the triune God is not just a God who relates, but that He relates is essential to what He is. It is not an add-on, any more than being triune is incidental to His being.
Our failure along these lines is, in my judgment, just one more proof that we who are given to thinking through evangelical theology have quite a few Enlightenment snares still besetting us. We think that what defines us is what we are capable of, that we are a string of abilities. And so we think of God in the same way. Even the Westminster Shorter Catechism shows its Enlightenment chains when asking, “What is God?” What? Seriously? Wouldn’t you think the better question, the more biblical question would be, “Who is God?”
We do this whichever person of the Trinity we’re talking about. We describe the Father in terms of His power, His knowledge and His presence. We describe the Son in terms of His ontology, jumping quickly to the vexing mysteries of the incarnation. And when it comes to the Holy Spirit it seems we can’t get through ten minutes of talking about Him before we’re arguing about sign gifts. All of which makes us miss the truly shocking reality of the Spirit- that He indwells us.
It is a right application of the omnipresence of God to remember that wherever we go, God is already there. David himself said so in Psalm 139. God’s presence, however, isn’t merely a function of His ubiquity, His transcendence over all things, but of His indwelling, His immanence. To put it another way, God is not just with us universally, but is with us, believers, personally. Can you believe that? I don’t need to fear that my prayers never get past the ceiling. God is with me on my knees. I don’t need to look to the hills hoping He will come to me. He has never and will never leave me. The folly that thinks, like Adam and Eve in the garden, I can hide from God, is defeated because wherever I go, there He is.
It is good to remember that the Holy Spirit is not just a force. It is better to remember that He is a full-fledged person of the godhead. It is best, however, to remember that He is God not just with us, but in us. But wait, there’s more. He is not just in us, but there He cleanses us, guides us, instructs us, comforts us, strengthens us and fully, and immutably loves us. He is not just in us, but for us. All from within. Praise His name. He is the Spirit of the Living God.
