in-view-of-gods-mercies-november-december-2006

CREEDS AND DEEDS ❘ CHRISTIAN LIBERTY ❘ MERCY MINISTRIES

MODERN REFORMATION

In View of God’s Mercies VOLUME

15, NUMBER 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2006, $6.00

MODERN REFORMATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS novemb er/d ecember

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Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Managing Editor Eric Landry Assistant Editor Brenda Jung Department Editors Diana Frazier, Reviews William Edgar, Preaching from the Choir Starr Meade, Family Matters Staff | Editors Ann Henderson Hart, Staff Writer Alyson S. Platt, Copy Editor Lori A. Cook, Layout and Design Ben Conarroe, Proofreader Contributing Scholars David Anderson Charles P. Arand S. M. Baugh Gerald Bray Jerry Bridges D. A. Carson R. Scott Clark Marva Dawn Mark Dever J. Ligon Duncan Richard Gaffin W. Robert Godfrey T. David Gordon Donald A. Hagner John D. Hannah Gillis Harp D. G. Hart Paul Helm C. E. Hill Hywel R. Jones Ken Jones Peter Jones Richard Lints Korey Maas Mickey L. Mattox Donald G. Matzat John Muether John Nunes John Piper J. A. O. Preus Paul Raabe Kim Riddlebarger Rod Rosenbladt Philip G. Ryken R. C. Sproul Rachel Stahle A. Craig Troxel David VanDrunen Gene E. Veith William Willimon Paul F. M. Zahl

In View of God’s Mercies 6

Creeds and Deeds: How Doctrine Leads to Doxological Living On what basis should the church exhort its members to “apply” Scripture or “live out” God’s Word? The author explores the relationship between creeds and deeds according to the Apostle Paul’s presentation of the indicatives in the Book of Romans (chapters 1-11) and the imperatives (chapters 12-16).

by Michael Horton Plus: Of Christian Liberty and On the Freedom of a Christian

16 Govern Well or Be Governed? The Christian and the Civil Authorities in Romans 13 Can Christians afford to submit to their civil authorities? In what sense is civil government God’s instrument for his sovereign reign over the world? Using Romans 13, the author helps us to understand and navigate our dual vocations as citizens of heaven and also citizens of earth.

by Brian J. Lee Plus: God and Caesar in China

20 Mercy Ministries: Two Perspectives

by Randy Nabors and Bill Smith

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24 Independence Day How are we to love others — particularly our “weaker brothers” — in a manner that does not compromise the liberty that belongs to believers but capitalizes on it? The author unpacks the meaning of love and liberty in Romans 14.

by Paul Zahl Plus: Masks of God COVER PHOTO BY CORBIS

Romans Road page 2 | Letters page 3 | Preaching from the Choir page 5 Interview page 29 | Reviews page 34 | Family Matters page 40

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ROMANS ROAD i n

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Our Road Through Romans

A Faith that Works

January/February: Romans 1:1-17, The Romans Revolution Introduction and overview of a year spent exploring the transforming message of the Book of Romans.

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March/April: Romans 1-2, Does God Believe in Atheists?

What role does general revelation play in our witness to nonChristians? How can we use natural law to establish a place in the public square with people of other faiths? Included in this issue is a handy apologetics chart detailing the differences between different schools of thought and answers to basic apologetics questions.

May/June: Romans 2-4, What Does It Mean to be Good?

Look around you: sin is redefined as weakness and grace is merely selfhelp power. No one wants to believe that all of us are under God’s righteous judgment. But along with the consequences of our sin is the promise of good news: the turning away of God’s wrath and a righteousness not of our own making.

July/August: Romans 5-8, The Peace that Starts the War God’s divine pronouncement that we are righteous in Christ is not the end of the story. It is the prelude to a much larger narrative of victory and defeat in our ongoing battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. How do we live the Christian life in the midst of a war zone?

September/October: Romans 9-11, Has God Failed?

Can God be trusted? His work in history—specifically in the nation of Israel—becomes an object lesson for how we relate to God and grapple with the mysteries of his divine will.

November/December: Romans 12-16, In View of God’s Mercies Truth must make a difference in our real lives. How does knowing and believing the message of Romans actually play itself out in our daily interactions with our family, neighbors, and church?

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hat is the church’s relationship to the world as the church exists under the shadow of the cross and in anticipation of Christ’s Second Coming? The seriousness with which this question has been embraced by all quarters of the Christian church is an encouraging sign to many that missiology is alive and well, even in highly pluralistic cultures like our own.

The kinds of similes and metaphors used to describe the mission and identity of the church, however, show that there is not much unanimity on the answer: The church is the continuing presence of Jesus Christ in and to the world. The church is a repository of God’s grace and the merits of Christ. The church is a frontier outpost of God’s coming kingdom. Each of these approaches and a dozen others not listed are trying to work out the delicate relationship between doctrine and practice, orthodoxy and orthopraxy, creeds and deeds.

In this issue of Modern Reformation, we’re examining the question in light of Paul’s final instructions to the Roman church. In Paul’s final chapters of his epistle to the Romans, three relationships seem to take precedence and help determine the answer to the church’s mission and identity: message and mission, church and state, love and liberty.

First, Reformed theologian and editor-in-chief, Michael Horton, takes up the question of whether there may come a time when we need to leave creeds behind in favor of deeds. Although the temptation to value deeds over creeds is not new, several prominent movements and personalities are reawakening the idea that the practical outworking of our faith is limited by valuing doctrinal precision over mission.

Former congressional aide, Brian Lee, unpacks the relationship between the already present kingdom of God and the relationship the church has to the passing kingdoms of this age. In conjunction with Dr. Lee’s article is a first-hand account by Bob Fu of the persecuted church in China and the struggle to understand Romans 13 in light of such persecution.

The third and most personal relationship Paul develops as he concludes Romans is considered by Episcopal theologian and president of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, Paul Zahl. Dr. Zahl’s article draws on some of the internal fractures within the Episcopal Church (USA) to bring the issue of Christian liberty to bear on our life of community with other brothers and sisters in Christ.

As we draw this year of studying Romans together to a close, the editors of MR hope that you have been encouraged, strengthened, and challenged in your faith. We plan on making 2007 another year of focused study on the challenges and opportunities confronting the American church. We’re calling 2007, “A Time for Truth,” and each of our issues will take up the Reformation solas as the answer to the pressing issues of our day. You won’t want to miss one of these engaging, informative, and hard-hitting issues so renew your subscription today or give a gift subscription to someone who needs to “keep time” with us.

Eric Landry Managing Editor

LETTERS your

The July/August/’06 issue was excellent. I did, however, take minor exception to the Family Matters article on Children’s Church by Starr Meade. As a PCA pastor, I have had to wrestle through this issue with my own elders. Our decision: allow (not mandate) the young children to be dismissed only during my preaching to be catechized with age appropriate teaching from the Children’s Catechism.

Reasons: the Old Covenant allowed for such on occasion in the public assemblies for the reading of God’s Word (see Neh. 8:2).

The New Covenant church will not be hindered by allowing the younger covenant children (who will not understand my exegesis of God’s Word to older people) to be dismissed.

Soon these children will be old enough to understand and to sit with their parents during my preaching. In no way have we minimized the significance of corporate worship by this practice. Since the New Covenant is silent in this regard, it seems appropriate to believe Neh. 8:2 may still be practiced without violating our commitment to covenant theology.

Rev. Bill Phillips Peoria, AZ

Starr Meade responds: I would agree that very young children (preschool age) might be better served attending something specifically for them. My column in the September/October ‘06 issue and the one in this issue address ways to help engage even early elementary children in corporate worship, and even during the sermon. There are many opportunities for school-age children to have age-specific instruction during the week. I’m suggesting one time a week when they come together around God’s Word with the rest of the church, learning by example and encouragement how to listen and respond to God’s Word proclaimed.

I am writing to let you know that your magazine has been a blessing to me. James Boice was the first preacher who helped me to realize that I do not have and cannot produce any righteousness of my own.

Modern Reformation echoes the same theme throughout its publication, with different theologians saying the same thing but with different words and illustrations.

It is undoubtedly one of the manifestations of our carnal nature to think that we can somehow work for our salvation. However when you become saved, you look back on your past and wonder how you could ever have believed such a thing. I therefore think that this teaching that we are saved by God’s grace alone is one that will have to be preached over and over until our Lord Jesus comes. Your magazine will always be needed.

Lester Forrester Queens Village, NY

I appreciated Jerry Bridge’s article, “The Discomfort of the Justified Life” (July/August ’06) but I wonder if the author would agree to qualify one of his absolute statements. In contrast to the believer’s ongoing struggle with sin, Mr. Bridges writes that “unbelievers don’t have such a struggle…There is no guerilla warfare for [them]” (13). However, is it not true that there is one point in an unbeliever’s life at which he or she may indeed encounter this struggle? I refer to the event of conviction, during which time an unbeliever encounters the law of God (via Moses or conscience) and is impressed by the Holy Spirit with the seriousness of his or her sinfulness. Since “the law was added so that the trespass might increase” (Rom. 5:20; cf. Rom. 7:713) and “the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ” (Gal. 3:24), a convicting encounter with God’s law may well involve an unbeliever’s

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attempt and subsequent failure to follow the law, leading to a heartfelt wish for a Savior. As the real-time duration of the event of conviction is likely to be different for every convert, a stubborn Pharisee such as Paul might live with this hopeless struggle against sin for years (cf.

John Stott’s thoughtful comment that Saul’s Damascus road experience was the climax of a long process, during which Saul had fiercely resisted the “goads” with which Jesus Christ was pricking him; Why I Am a Christian [InterVarsity Press, 2003], 18-23). Such a struggle would also be well captured by the words of Romans 7:14-25.

Paige Britton Quarryville, PA

Jerry Bridges responds: I distinguish the convicting work of the Holy Spirit before conversion from the battle between the flesh and the Spirit after conversion. To stick with the warfare terminology I use in referring to the believer's ongoing struggle with sin as "guerilla warfare," I would call the convicting work of the Holy Spirit more like conventional warfare where the Holy Spirit is making a frontal attack on the unbeliever through the law or conscience. Galatians 5:17 refers to the believer's struggle with sin as between the flesh and the Spirit.

Until the Holy Spirit indwells the believer, we cannot call it "guerilla warfare."

When reading your interviews with Jerry Walls (Arminian) and Robert Peterson (Calvinist) in the September/October ’06 issue, I was struck by what I would say is the undiscussed heart of the matter. Mr. Walls’ objections to Calvinism centered around how he perceives the Calvinists’ God as being out of char-

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acter concerning love. Mr. Peterson, in a noble attempt to minimize the gulf between the two systems, ignores the charges on this very important point.

The love of God…what more sublime subject in the universe? But woe is the effort of love for the Arminian God; he loves all equally, he desires their salvation, but there that love stands, no more effectual than that of a jilted suitor or mourning mother.

The God of the Calvinist has an omnipotent love, a love for the soul to get lost in, an effectual love that will secure a bride for his Son. Tom Bracewell Granger, WA

In “Remnant: Who Is Israel?”

(September/October ‘06), Michael Horton identifies the Sinai covenant as “a conditional treaty, intended by God to serve an important but temporary purpose of pointing forward to Christ.”

There is another way of looking at this.

The Sinai covenant was given to Israel after Yahweh had brought them out of Egypt—a deliverance that required faith in the blood of the lamb.

Yahweh then constituted the tribes as a kingdom of priests to the nations.

Rather than being conditional and preparatory, the Sinai covenant told an already redeemed people how to live as such so that they might model a redeemed community to the world around them. The original purpose of the law in Exodus was not to draw people up short at the bar of God’s justice and show their need for a Savior.

The law was given for sanctification and mission.

In Paul’s day, people were trying to use the Sinai covenant not for sanctification and mission but for justification. Paul tells these folks that the law, when misused for this purpose, will condemn them. Paul, however, does not deny the original purpose for the law as given in Exodus. In fact, he affirms the original purpose in Romans 13:8-10.

The Sinai covenant, then, is not obsolete in the sense that it has no 6 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

application to New Testament saints.

It still teaches God’s people how to present a distinct witness.

Dean R. Ulrich Baden, PA

Michael Horton responds: This is a complicated subject, but I would have trouble saying that the law is the source of sanctification any more than it is of justification. The Sinai covenant did not simply exhort the people to holiness and mission, but required obedience to all of God's commands as the condition for remaining in the land. Of course, its types and shadows pointed forward to Christ, but as a national covenant, the form and content of the Sinai treaty was conditional ("Do this and you shall live"). As for application to us today, it is not clear to me how the dietary, cultic, and civil laws have any binding status in the new covenant. If they are not binding, then they cannot be applied. We may learn much about God's economy under the old covenant that prepares the way for Christ, but the old covenant is regarded in the New Testament as a schoolmaster leading us to our Savior. While the moral law continues to guide us, it has no power to sanctify or justify. It directs, but only the gospel enlivens, redeems, and provokes the gratitude that can free us finally to say with the psalmist, "I love your law."

Thank you for the ringing clarity in each piece in the September/October ‘06 issue which highlighted and reinforced the greatness of our God. I guess not much has changed since Adam’s acceptance of the enemy’s offer in the garden, as mankind continues to try to make God “nice”, “fair”, and “politically correct” instead of trembling and rejoicing before the One who upholds everything by the Word of his power.

Focusing on the shadowy, finite, and shaky things of this life and depending on human reason and

understanding continues to take its toll. Confusion and division are still high cards in Satan’s deck, while God’s choices in history and the rich outlay of mystery and paradox in Scripture are evidence that things will never be boring in eternity!

Linda Dove Stirling, Ontario Canada

“We love Him because He first loved us.” And oh, what love it is, that the Creator of the universe would grant us the honor of being His children, and to be the brother of Jesus. I feel like I'm blaspheming when I write this, but I'm not. God is way too gracious to me, that I would be called a son. And that's the message that rings true from your magazine.

Don Sands Catonsville, MD

Modern Reformation Letters to the Editor 1725 Bear Valley Parkway Escondido CA 92027 760.741.1045 fax Letters@modernreformation.org Letters under 200 words are more likely to be printed than longer letters. Letters may be edited for content and length.

PREACHING FROM THE CHOIR perspectives

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From Alpha to Omega: The Music of Olivier Messiaen

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livier Messiaen is hard to label. Arguably France’s greatest composer of the

military service in August 1939, and then in the twentieth century, he was not well known during his lifetime outside the summer of 1940 he was captured by the Nazis and world of specialists. Thoroughly modern, he was accessible, not avant-garde. sent to a prison camp.

The piece was conceived In a revolutionary and secular age he was a devout Roman in Verdun and birthed in Stalag VIII A in Görlitz, Silesia.

Catholic. His musical texture includes Indian rhythms, bird There he met three other musicians, a violinist, a cellist, calls, Gregorian chant, and a sophisticated system of scales of and a clarinetist, all of them inmates. The first performhis own invention, all of which blend into a tonal feeling, ance was on January 15, 1941, and it has to count as one often in a warm and evocative sound. Born in 1908 in the of the most notable premiers of any era in the West, along southern town of Avignon (d. 1992), his parents inspired in with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (the composer-conduchim a love of literature, especially Shakespeare and the glotor nearly stone deaf) and the controversial Rite of Spring ries of French poetry. At a young age, his music teacher gave (where the angry audience threw fruits at Stravinsky in the precocious pupil a score of Debussy’s opera, Pelléas et protest). While World War II certainly inspired many sigMélisande, which Messiaen said had a “most nificant compositions, very few were written decisive influence on me.” He would later write in prison. Though the piece is not a setting of Messiaen was a his own lengthy opera, Saint Francis of Assisi, the Apocalypse, clearly the last book of the with clear antecedents in Debussy. Messiaen Bible is in the background throughout. theologically attended the Paris Conservatory, earning all the A prolific composer, Messiaen wrote in prizes obtainable. He also founded a society informed composer. many genres, from church music to orchesknown as le Groupe Jeune France, whose memtra, to chamber music and vocal music.

His favorite themes Above all he was a theologically informed bers looked to renew French music, giving it “sincerity, generosity, conscience.” were the incarnation, composer. His favorite themes were the At the age of twenty-two, Messiaen became incarnation, the resurrection, and the ascenthe titular organist at La Trinité in Paris, and the resurrection, and sion. He did not want to be called mystical, began his remarkable career as a composer of because he believed that Christian faith was the ascension. organ music. The archetypical French organ is not a matter of blending the human and the the Cavaillé-Coll, whose rich sound favors the divine, but of God reaching down in order to melodic and harmonic character of the great composers bring us up to the New Jerusalem. One of his masterwho used it: César Franck, Charles-Marie Widor, Louis pieces, indeed, is Colors of the Celestial City (1963), for Vierne, Marcel Dupré, Jehean Alain, and many others. In piano. He deeply believed in the reality of heaven. When 1935, Messiaen wrote a large cycle of nine meditations for he created Meditations on the Mystery of the Holy Trinity organ, called la Nativité du Seigneur, which is still one of his (1972) for organ, a discussion arose in which Messiaen most popular compositions. For the time, this was a was taxed as a composer of a theologia gloria. He did not remarkable composition. Messiaen used Indian rhythms, demur. Yet in all his work, the dark reality of sin and brovery complex note values, and pedal parts that far exceedkenness is certainly present throughout. He loved the ed anything hitherto. The composer wrote the cycle in first chapter of Romans, with its teaching about the reveGrenoble and commented that the surrounding mountains lation of God in his handiwork. A number of his pieces had a certain impact on his writing. So did the multicolare titled Amen (The Amen of the Stars, The Amen of the ored stained-glass windows of medieval cathedrals.

Creation, etc.). His influence will be felt in the years and Arguably Messiaen’s best-known work is Quartet for the decades to come. To which we can only say, Amen.

End of Time. This suite in eight movements (really seven, since 7 and 8 blend together) stands on its own as beautiBill Edgar is Professor of Apologetics at Westminster Theological ful music, but there is special poignancy because of the cirSeminary (Philadelphia, PA) and an accomplished musician. cumstances in which it was written. Messiaen entered

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IN VIEW OF GOD’S MERCIES

Creeds and Deeds: How Doctrine Leads to Doxological Living BY

MICHAEL HORTON

“T

he first Reformation was about doctrine; the second one needs to be about behavior,” best-selling author Rick Warren told a congress of the Baptist World Alliance last year. “We need a reformation not of creeds but deeds.”

Throughout the speech, as reported on the group’s website, Pastor Warren announced that a new movement is underway in the church, shifting the emphasis from doctrinal issues to service in the world.

“It’s time to stop debating the Bible and start doing it…This is the new reformation I’m praying for.”

I begin with this account not to suggest that we either jump on the bandwagon or burn it, but as a way to frame the challenging topic before us. As has been frequently pointed out, Paul often moves from doctrine to exhortation in his epistles. In fact, he is pretty obvious about it. In 1 Corinthians, he moves back and forth between diagnosis (division, strife, sexual immorality, lawsuits, mistreatment of the poor) and cure (God’s faithfulness, justification, sanctification, and the unity of the saints in union with Christ, especially as engendered by the Lord’s Supper). Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Romans exhibit an even clearer pattern. In each case, the first half or more of the letter expounds the riches of our inheritance in Christ by grace alone through faith alone, and then specific exhortations are given to realize the impact of these truths in the concrete relationships of believers between each other, in their homes, in their 6 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

relationships with non-Christians in their vocations as neighbors, workers, and citizens, and so forth.

Not even in Corinth, where strife, immorality, greed, and the profaning of the Lord’s Supper threatened the peace and purity of the church, did Paul seem to think that the problem was deeds rather than creeds. He always thought that when believers were “acting up,” the first recourse was to preach the gospel again, to recall believers to their one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one Spirit.

At the same time, even where the focus of the problem was doctrinal (as in Galatians), he did not fail to point up the spiritual and ethical issues involved. And even where the focus of the problem was spiritual and ethical, he did not fail to preach the doctrine. Paul would have considered it inconceivable that a church might have its doctrine right but be uninterested in missions, evangelism, prayer, and works of service and charity to those in need— or, conversely, that a church might be faithful in life apart from sound doctrine. Orthodoxy and orthopraxy were inseparable and mutually dependent elements of Paul’s message.

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“In View of God’s Mercies”: From Indicatives to Imperatives through Doxology omans, as we have seen, is the apostle’s most systematic presentation of the Christian faith. He has told us the bad news: everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, is “in Adam,” under the condemnation of the law. Yet this merely sets the stage for the good news that everyone who has faith in Christ is justified. After holding up this shimmering, many-faceted gem to our wondering eyes, Paul meets the objection that this gospel of free grace has always met: namely, that it will lead to moral license. Yet even here, the answer is not to reign in grace as if it were too much of a good thing, but to explain how Christ is the answer to the power as well as the penalty of sin.

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Moreover whom he predestined he called; whom he called, he justified; and whom he justified, these he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen and is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? (Rom. 8:30-38) Nothing. Absolutely nothing, Paul replies. Each ascent leads us to ever-higher vistas, all the way through the purposes of God’s electing grace in chapters 9 to 11, until Paul reaches his summit: N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 7

Doctrine is the Gospel; Deeds are the Law remember a meeting not a program to follow, but an announcement to several years ago with the General Secretary of welcome for our own salvation and to herald for the World Council of Churches. He told me that the salvation of the world. the old WCC slogan, “Doctrine Divides, Service Unites,” had proven Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and unworkable. “Actually,” he said, “it’s the other way knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his around. Even when we reach agreement on the meaning judgments and his ways past finding out! “For who of the Apostles’ Creed, unanimity falls apart when we talk has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has about political, social, economic, and cultural issues.” We become his counselor?” “Or who has first given to know where the WCC has ended up, although it began as him and it shall be repaid to him?” For of him and to a transdenominational, evangelical missionary movement him and through him are all things, to whom be attempting to wed evangelism to social concern. Along glory forever. Amen. (11:33-36) the way, it began to think that the gospel was about deeds, not creeds. Despite its good intentions, the assumption that We have moved from doctrine to doxology and only continually makes Evangelicalism a seedbed for liberalism is that after this do we meet Paul’s explicit transition to doctrine is secondary to life. Today, Evangelicalism is far less exhortation: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the divided by doctrine, which is generally treated with mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living indifference, than by the particular ideology that cultural sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your transformation should take. “Deeds, not creeds” has reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this already been tried—many times, and has simply led to world, but be transformed by the renewing of your ungodly strife and divisions in Christ’s body even over mind, that you may prove what is that good and matters that are not clearly addressed in Scripture. While acceptable and perfect will of God” (12:1-2). For the church history (and contemporary experience) exhibits next five chapters, Paul will be applying the teaching of evidence of wrangles over doctrinal precision that do not the first eleven. lead to the peace and purity of the church in its mission, It is not insignificant that Paul moves from doctrine the church has demonstrated that it can find plenty of to application through doxology. As G. C. Berkouwer has other things to fight about when it looks away from Christ. said in summarizing the order of the Heidelberg It might seem controversial to identify doctrine with Catechism, “Grace is the essence of theology; gratitude is “gospel” and deeds with “law,” especially since these days the essence of ethics.” There is a time to be a diligent we often hear calls to “live the gospel.” However, the student, to listen to the record of God’s great gospel is not an imperative, but an indicative; not a accomplishment of our redemption and its logical program to follow, but an announcement to welcome for inter-relationships. Yet in doxology we are caught up our own salvation and to herald for the salvation of the in it all. We put down our notepad and raise our eyes world. Does that mean that we do not have imperatives to heaven in joyful gratitude and wonder. Here is or that we do not follow Christ? As Paul would say, “May where the Spirit internalizes the message that we have it never be!” It simply means that we have to distinguish heard and makes us to feel deeply that we are what the indicatives and imperatives. The law gives us something to gospel announces: the ungodly who have been do, and the gospel gives us something to believe. justified, the enemies now reconciled, the dead who Christians are no less obligated to obey God’s commands in have been made alive in Christ, the hopeless who now the New Testament than they were in the Old Testament, have a future. Doctrinal understanding, inflamed by but they are commands, not promises. The imperatives drive wonder and praise, yields to “our reasonable service.” us to despair of self-righteousness, the indicatives hold up That is why Paul’s transition is so key: It is in view of Christ as our only Savior, and then the imperatives God’s mercies on display in the first eleven chapters become the “reasonable service” of believers “in view of that Paul makes his appeal.

No longer being God’s mercies.” There is a lot of wisdom to the order of the conformed to this world is not simply an act of the will.

Heidelberg Catechism: Guilt, Grace, and Gratitude. The It is not the result of individual or collective effort, but commands tell us what we are to do; the gospel tells us the effect of sound doctrine that has been converted what God has done. “Deeds, not creeds” leaves the sinner into thanksgiving. Apart from the renewing of the with the tattered garment of fig leaves rather than robed in mind (i.e., the doctrine of the first eleven chapters), we the righteousness of Christ. will become like the world in our thinking and If doctrine is rightly understood, however, not as dry therefore also in our practice. and dusty speculations, but as the biblical indicatives of

The gospel is not an imperative, but an indicative;

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C R E E D S

God’s work in creation, providence, redemption, and consummation of all things in Christ, then the doctrine is the gospel. In her book, Creed or Chaos, mystery novelist and playwright Dorothy Sayers wrote, Official Christianity, of late years, has been having what is known as ‘a bad press.’ We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine—‘dull dogma,’ as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man— and the dogma is the drama….Now we may call that doctrine exhilarating or we may call it devastating; we may call it revelation or we may call it rubbish; but if we call it dull, then words have no meaning at all. That God should play the tyrant over man is a dismal story of unrelieved oppression; that man should play the tyrant over man is the usual dreary record of human futility; but that man should play the tyrant over God and find Him a better man than himself is an astonishing drama indeed.

Creeds Without Deeds? t is certainly possible to have deeds without creeds—or, at least, without the Christian creed. There are quite decent people all around us, throughout the world.

Because of the law written on their conscience and God’s common grace which fans the embers of civic justice and morality in fallen humanity, adherents of other religions and of no particular religion at all are found at mass refugee centers in Sudan handing out blankets and food, inoculating children in Cambodia against smallpox, ministering daily comfort to dying AIDS patients in New York City. Christians are among them. Motivated not only by the ineradicable effects of being created in God’s image, but by being forgiven and conformed daily to the image of Christ, believers will have all the more reason to invest their lives in their neighbors. It may not mean an end to hunger, but working hard to feed one’s family and care for extended relatives in need, contributing time, talents, and treasures to brothers and sisters in one’s own local church, and giving one’s time and resources to nonprofit service agencies that may or may not even be identified with any particular religious cause. Caring for our neighbor’s welfare in this life is a human vocation, not necessarily the work of the church, which is entrusted with the commission of receiving and spreading, through word and sacrament, the good news of what God has accomplished in Christ.

So if deeds without creeds is possible, how about creeds without deeds? While it is certainly possible to have a church that is formally committed to Christian doctrine— even in the form of creeds, confessions, and catechisms, without exhibiting any interest in missions or the welfare even of those within their own body, I would argue that it is impossible to have a church that is actually committed to

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sound doctrine that lacks these corollary interests. With respect to individual Christians in their common vocations, the mercies of God in Christ propel a profound sense of obligation and stewardship. God has given us everything in Christ, by grace alone, so our only “reasonable service” is to love and serve our neighbors out of gratitude for that inexhaustible gift. In other words, there is no such thing as “dead orthodoxy.” I take this to be the point that we find in James’s letter. He does not say that faith without works is incomplete or insufficient for justification, but that a faith that does not bear the fruit of good works is dead—in other words, it isn’t really faith at all.

Within my own circles, I have seen a difference between churches composed mainly of those who have come either from non-Reformed or even non-Christian backgrounds and churches that have come gradually to take their doctrine for granted. The former tend to be animated by doctrine freshly discovered, while the other tends to assume, in a variation of the rich young ruler’s response, “All this I have believed since my youth.” Losing the joy—the doxology—of our salvation is the result not of “dull doctrine,” but of dull churches that have begun to forget the wonder of it all. They need to start over again with Paul’s famous letter: moving from doctrine to doxology, yielding grateful lives. I think if Paul wrote a letter to churches today that are only formally committed to orthodoxy, he would not begin, “Now, I realize that you know the truth, so I’m going to fast-forward to the exhortation.” I think he would begin the letter, as he did all of his letters, with the assumption that if people understand the gospel better—which is to say, doctrine better, they would get caught up in it all and it would make a difference in their lives, their relationships, their witness, and their loving service to their neighbor. ■

Michael Horton is Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, California).

Dr. Horton’s excerpt from Dorothy Sayers is from her novel Creed or Chaos (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1949), pp. 3, 7.

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Of Christian Liberty From John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 19, Sections 2–9

2.

Christian liberty seems to me to consist of three parts.

First, the consciences of believers, while seeking the assurance of their justification before God, must rise above the law, and think no more of obtaining justification by it.

For while the law, as has already been demonstrated(supra, chap. 17, sec. 1), leaves not one man righteous, we are either excluded from all hope of justification, or we must be loosed from the law, and so loosed as that no account at all shall be taken of works. For he who imagines that in order to obtain justification he must bring any degree of works whatever, cannot fix any mode or limit, but makes himself debtor to the whole law. Therefore, laying aside all mention of the law, and all idea of works, we must in the matter of justification have recourse to the mercy of God only; turning away our regard from ourselves, we must look only to Christ. For the question is, not how we may be righteous, but how, though unworthy and unrighteous, we may be regarded as righteous. If consciences would obtain any assurance of this, they must give no place to the law. Still it cannot be rightly inferred from this that believers have no need of the law. It ceases not to teach, exhort, and urge them to good, although it is not recognized by their consciences before the judgment-seat of God. The two things are very different, and should be well and carefully distinguished. The whole lives of Christians ought to be a kind of aspiration after piety, seeing they are called unto holiness (Eph. 1:4; 1 Thess.

4:5). The office of the law is to excite them to the study of purity and holiness, by reminding them of their duty. For when the conscience feels anxious as to how it may have the favor of God, as to the answer it could give, and the confidence it would feel, if brought to his judgment-seat, in such a case the requirements of the law are not to be brought forward, but Christ, who surpasses all the perfection of the law, is alone to be held forth for righteousness.

3.

On this almost the whole subject of the Epistle to the Galatians hinges; for it can be proved from express passages that those are absurd interpreters who teach that Paul there contends only for freedom from ceremonies. Of such passages are the following: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” “Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace,” (Gal. 3:13; 5:1-4). These words certainly refer to something of a

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higher order than freedom from ceremonies. I confess, indeed, that Paul there treats of ceremonies, because he was contending with false apostles, who were plotting, to bring back into the Christian Church those ancient shadows of the law which were abolished by the advent of Christ. But, in discussing this question, it was necessary to introduce higher matters, on which the whole controversy turns. First, because the brightness of the Gospel was obscured by those Jewish shadows, he shows that in Christ we have a full manifestation of all those things which were typified by Mosaic ceremonies. Secondly, as those impostors instilled into the people the most pernicious opinion, that this obedience was sufficient to merit the grace of God, he insists very strongly that believers shall not imagine that they can obtain justification before God by any works, far less by those paltry observances. At the same time, he shows that by the cross of Christ they are free from the condemnation of the law, to which otherwise all men are exposed, so that in Christ alone they can rest in full security. This argument is pertinent to the present subject (Gal. 4:5, 21). Lastly, he asserts the right of believers to liberty of conscience, a liberty which may not be restrained without necessity.

4.

Another point which depends on the former is, that consciences obey the law, not as if compelled by legal necessity; but being free from the yoke of the law itself, voluntarily obey the will of God. Being constantly in terror so long as they are under the dominion of the law, they are never disposed promptly to obey God, unless they have previously obtained this liberty. Our meaning shall be explained more briefly and clearly by an example. The command of the law is, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might”(Deut. 6:5). To accomplish this, the soul must previously be divested of every other thought and feeling, the heart purified from all its desires, all its powers collected and united on this one object. Those who, in comparison of others, have made much progress in the way of the Lord, are still very far from this goal. For although they love God in their mind, and with a sincere affection of heart, yet both are still in a great measure occupied with the lusts of the flesh, by which they are retarded and prevented from proceeding with quickened pace towards God. They indeed make many efforts, but the flesh partly enfeebles their strength, and partly binds them to itself. What can they do while they thus feel that there is nothing of which they are less capable than to fulfill the law? They wish, aspire, endeavor; but do nothing with the requisite perfection. If

they look to the law, they see that every work which they attempt or design is accursed. Nor can any one deceive himself by inferring that the work is not altogether bad, merely because it is imperfect, and, therefore, that any good which is in it is still accepted of God. For the law demanding perfect love condemns all imperfection, unless its rigor is mitigated. Let any man therefore consider his work which he wishes to be thought partly good, and he will find that it is a transgression of the law by the very circumstance of its being imperfect.

5.

See how our works lie under the curse of the law if they are tested by the standard of the law.

But how can unhappy souls set themselves with alacrity to a work from which they cannot hope to gain any thing in return but cursing? On the other hand, if freed from this severe exaction, or rather from the whole rigor of the law, they hear themselves invited by God with paternal levity, they will cheerfully and alertly obey the call, and follow his guidance. In one word, those who are bound by the yoke of the law are like servants who have certain tasks daily assigned them by their masters. Such servants think that nought has been done; and they dare not come into the presence of their masters until the exact amount of labour has been performed. But sons who are treated in a more candid and liberal manner by their parents, hesitate not to offer them works that are only begun or half finished, or even with something faulty in them, trusting that their obedience and readiness of mind will be accepted, although the performance be less exact than was wished. Such should be our feelings, as we certainly trust that our most indulgent Parent will approve our services, however small they may be, and however rude and imperfect. Thus He declares to us by the prophet, “I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him” (Mal. 3:17); where the word spare evidently means indulgence, or connivance at faults, while at the same time service is remembered. This confidence is necessary in no slight degree, since without it every thing should be attempted in vain; for God does not regard any sock of ours as done to himself, unless truly done from a desire to serve him. But how can this be amidst these terrors, while we doubt whether God is offended or served by our work?

6.

This is the reason why the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews ascribes to faith all the good works which the holy patriarchs are said to have performed, and estimates them merely by faith (Heb. 11:2). In regard to this liberty there is a remarkable passage in the Epistle to the Romans, where Paul argues, “Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:14).

For after he had exhorted believers, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof: Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God;” they might have objected that they still bore about with them a body full of lust, that sin still dwelt in them. He therefore comforts them by adding, that they are freed from the law; as if he had said, Although you feel that sin is not yet extinguished, and that righteousness does not plainly live in you, you have no cause for fear and dejection, as if God were always offended because of the remains of sin, since by grace you are freed from the law, and your works are not tried by its standard. Let those, however who infer that they may sin because they are not under the law, understand that they have no right to this liberty, the end of which is to encourage us in well-doing.

7.

The third part of this liberty is that we are not bound before God to any observance of external things which are in themselves indifferent (adiaphora), but that we are now at full liberty either to use or omit them. The knowledge of this liberty is very necessary to us; where it is wanting our consciences will have no rest, there will be no end of superstition. In the present day many think us absurd in raising a question as to the free eating of flesh, the free use of dress and holidays, and similar frivolous trifles, as they think them; but they are of more importance than is commonly supposed. For when once the conscience is entangled in the net, it enters a long and inextricable labyrinth, from which it is afterwards most difficult to escape. When a man begins to doubt whether it is lawful for him to use linen for sheets, shirts, napkins, and handkerchiefs, he will not long be secure as to hemp, and will at last have doubts as to tow; for he will resolve in his mind whether he cannot sup without napkins, or dispense with handkerchiefs. Should he deem a daintier food unlawful, he will afterwards feel uneasy for using loafbread and common eatables, because he will think that his body might possibly be supported on a still meaner food. If he hesitates as to a more genial wine, he will scarcely drink the worst with a good conscience; at last he will not dare to touch water if more than usually sweet and pure. In fine, he will come to this, that he will deem it criminal to trample on a straw lying in his way.

For it is no trivial dispute that is here commenced, the point in debate being, whether the use of this thing or that is in accordance with the divine will, which ought to take precedence of all our acts and counsels. Here some must by despair be hurried into an abyss, while others, despising God and casting off his fear, will not be able to make a way for themselves without ruin. When men are involved in such doubts whatever be the N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 11

accordingly, in using it pay no regard to their weak brethren. Under this head, but how, though unworthy and unrighteous, the sins of the present age are more numerous. For there is we may be regarded as righteous. scarcely any one whose means allow him to live direction in which they turn, every thing they see must sumptuously, who does not delight in feasting, and dress, offend their conscience. and the luxurious grandeur of his house, who wishes not to surpass his neighbor in every kind of delicacy, and does not plume himself amazingly on his splendor. And all these “Iknow,”saysPaul,“thatthereisnothinguncleanofitself,” things are defended under the pretext of Christian liberty. (by unclean meaning unholy); but to him that esteemeth They say they are things indifferent: I admit it, provided any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean” (Rom. they are used indifferently. But when they are too eagerly 14:14). By these words he makes all external things subject to our longed for, when they are proudly boasted of, when they liberty,providedthenatureofthatlibertyapprovesitselftoourminds are indulged in luxurious profusion, things which as before God. But if any superstitious idea suggests scruples, those otherwise were in themselves lawful are certainly defiled things which in their own nature were pure are to us contaminated. by these vices. Paul makes an admirable distinction in Wherefore the apostle adds, “Happy is he that condemneth not regard to things indifferent: “Unto the pure all things are himself in that which he alloweth. And he that doubteth is damned pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is is sin”(Rom. 14:22, 23). When men, amid such difficulties, proceed defiled” (Tit. 1:15). For why is a woe pronounced upon the with greater confidence, securely doing whatever pleases them, do rich who have received their consolation? (Luke 6:24), they not in so far revolt from God? Those who are thoroughly who are full, who laugh now, who “lie upon beds of ivory impressed with some fear of God, if forced to do many things and stretch themselves upon their couches;” “join house to repugnant to their consciences are discouraged and filled with dread. house,” and “lay field to field;” “and the harp and the viol, All such persons receive none of the gifts of God with thanksgiving, the tablet and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts,” (Amos by which alone Paul declares that all things are sanctified for our use 6:6; Isa. 5:8, 10). Certainly ivory and gold, and riches, are (1Tim.4:5).BythanksgivingIunderstandthatwhichproceedsfrom the good creatures of God, permitted, nay destined, by amindrecognizingthekindnessandgoodnessofGodinhisgifts.For divine providence for the use of man; nor was it ever many, indeed, understand that the blessings which they enjoy are forbidden to laugh, or to be full, or to add new to old and the gifts of God, and praise God in their words; but not being hereditary possessions, or to be delighted with music, or to persuaded shalt these have been given to them, how can they give drink wine. This is true, but when the means are supplied thanks to God as the giver? In one word, we see whither this liberty to roll and wallow in luxury, to intoxicate the mind and tends—viz. that we are to use the gifts of God without any soul with present and be always hunting after new scruple of conscience, without any perturbation of mind, pleasures, is very far from a legitimate use of the gifts of for the purpose for which he gave them: in this way our God. Let them, therefore, suppress immoderate desire, souls may both have peace with him, and recognize his immoderate profusion, vanity, and arrogance, that they liberality towards us. For here are comprehended all may use the gifts of God purely with a pure conscience. ceremonies of free observance, so that while our When their mind is brought to this state of soberness, they consciences are not to be laid under the necessity of will be able to regulate the legitimate use. On the other observing them, we are also to remember that, by the hand, when this moderation is wanting, even plebeian and kindness of God, the use of them is made subservient to ordinary delicacies are excessive. For it is a true saying, that edification. a haughty mind often dwells in a coarse and homely garb, while true humility lurks under fine linen and purple. Let every one then live in his own station, poorly or It is, however, to be carefully observed, that moderately, or in splendor; but let all remember that the Christian liberty is in all its parts a spiritual matter, nourishment which God gives is for life, not luxury, and let the whole force of which consists in giving peace them regard it as the law of Christian liberty, to learn with to trembling consciences, whether they are anxious and Paul in whatever state they are, “therewith to be content,” disquieted as to the forgiveness of sins, or as to whether to know “both how to be abased,” and “how to abound,” their imperfect works, polluted by the infirmities of the “to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer flesh, are pleasing to God, or are perplexed as to the use of need,” (Phil. 4:11). things indifferent. It is, therefore, perversely interpreted by those who use it as a cloak for their lusts, that they may This excerpt was taken from the Beveridge edition of licentiously abuse the good gifts of God, or who think there Calvin’s Institutes. is no liberty unless it is used in the presence of men, and,

For the question is not how we may be righteous,

8.

9.

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On the Freedom of a Christian From Martin Luther’s Concerning Christian Liberty (1520)

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hristian faith has appeared to many an easy thing; nay, not a few even reckon it among the social virtues, as it were; and this they do because they have not made proof of it experimentally, and have never tasted of what efficacy it is. For it is not possible for any man to write well about it, or to understand well what is rightly written, who has not at some time tasted of its spirit, under the pressure of tribulation; while he who has tasted of it, even to a very small extent, can never write, speak, think, or hear about it sufficiently. For it is a living fountain springing up unto eternal life, as Christ calls it in John 4.

Now, though I cannot boast of my abundance, and though I know how poorly I am furnished, yet I hope that, after having been vexed by various temptations, I have attained some little drop of faith, and that I can speak of this matter, if not with more elegance, certainly with more solidity, than those literal and too subtle disputants who have hitherto discoursed upon it without understanding their own words.

That I may open then an easier way for the ignorant—for these alone I am trying to serve—I first lay down these two propositions, concerning spiritual liberty and servitude: A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none, a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.

Although these statements appear contradictory, yet, when they are found to agree together, they will make excellently for my purpose…

Let us examine the subject on a deeper and less simple principle. Man is composed of a two-fold nature, a spiritual and a bodily. As regards the spiritual nature, which they name the soul, he is called the spiritual, inward, new man; as regards the bodily nature, which they name the flesh, he is called the fleshly, outward, old man. The Apostle speaks of this: “Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). The result of this diversity is that in the Scriptures opposing statements are made concerning the same man, the fact being that in the same man these two men are opposed to one another; the flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.

We first approach the subject of the inward man, that we may see by what means a man becomes justified, free, and a true Christian; that is, a spiritual, new, and inward man. It is certain that absolutely none among outward things, under whatever name they may be reckoned, has any influence in producing Christian righteousness or liberty, nor, on the other hand, unrighteousness or slavery.

This can be shown by an easy argument.

What can it profit the soul that the body should be in good condition, free, and full of life; that it should eat, drink, and act according to its pleasure; when even the most impious slaves of every kind of vice are prosperous in these matters?

Again, what harm can ill health, bondage, hunger, thirst, or any other outward evil, do to the soul, when even the most pious of men, and the freest in the purity of their conscience, are harassed by these things? Neither of these states of things has to do with the liberty or the slavery of the soul.

And so it will profit nothing that the body should be adorned with sacred vestments, or dwell in holy places, or be occupied in sacred offices, or pray, fast, and abstain from certain meats, or do whatever works can be done through the body and in the body. Something widely different will be necessary for the justification and liberty of the soul, since the things I have spoken of can be done by any impious person, and only hypocrites are produced by devotion to these things.

On the other hand, it will not at all injure the soul that the body should be clothed in secular clothing, should dwell in secular places, should eat and drink in the ordinary fashion, should not pray aloud, and should leave undone all the things above mentioned, which may be done by hypocrites.

And, to cast everything aside, even speculations, meditations, and whatever things can be performed by the exertions of the soul itself, are of no profit. One thing, and one alone, is necessary for life, justification, and Christian liberty; and that is the most holy word of God, the Gospel of Christ …For faith alone, and the efficacious use of the word of God, bring salvation…

Since then this faith can reign only in the inward man … and since it alone justifies, it is evident that by no outward work or labour can the inward man be at all justified, made free, and saved; and that no works whatever have any relation to him. And so, on the other hand, it is solely by impiety and incredulity of heart that he becomes guilty and a slave of sin, deserving condemnation, not by any outward sin or work…

Meanwhile it is to be noted that the whole Scripture of God is divided into two parts: rules and promises. The rules certainly teach us what is good, but what they teach is not forthwith done. For they show us what we ought to do, but do not give us the power to do it. They were ordained, however, for the purpose of showing man to himself that through them he may learn his own impotence for good and may despair of his own strength. For this reason they are called the Old Testament, and are so.

For example, “Thou shalt not covet,” is a precept by which N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 13

a lofty and eminent dignity, a true and almighty dominion, a spiritual empire, in which subject to none; a Christian man is the most there is nothing so good, nothing so bad, not to work dutiful servant of all, and subject to everyone. together for my good, if only I believe. And yet there is we are all convicted of sin, since no man can help coveting, nothing of which I have need, for faith alone suffices for whatever efforts to the contrary he may make. In order my salvation, unless that in it faith may exercise the power therefore that he may fulfill the precept, and not covet, he is and empire of its liberty. This is the inestimable power and constrained to despair of himself and to seek elsewhere and liberty of Christians. through another the help which he cannot find in himself…

Nor are we only kings and the freest of all men, but also Thus the promises of God give that which the precepts exact, priests for ever, a dignity far higher than kingship, because by and fulfill what the law commands; so that all is of God that priesthood we are worthy to appear before God, to pray alone, both the precepts and their fulfillment. He alone for others, and to teach one another mutually the things commands; He alone also fulfils. Hence the promises of God which are of God. For these are the duties of priests, and they belong to the New Testament; nay, are the New Testament. cannot possibly be permitted to any unbeliever. Christ has It is clear then that to a Christian man his faith suffices for obtained for us this favour, if we believe in Him: that just as everything, and that he has no need of works for we are His brethren and co-heirs and fellow-kings with Him, justification. But if he has no need of works, neither has he so we should be also fellow-priests with Him, and venture need of the law; and if he has no need of the law, he is with confidence, through the spirit of faith, to come into the certainly free from the law, and the saying is true, “The law presence of God, and cry, “Abba, Father!” and to pray for one is not made for a righteous man” (1 Tim. 1:9). This is that another, and to do all things which we see done and figured Christian liberty, our faith, the effect of which is, not that we in the visible and corporeal office of priesthood. But to an should be careless or lead a bad life, but that no one should unbelieving person nothing renders service or works for need the law or works for justification and salvation… good. He himself is in servitude to all things, and all things So, too, His priesthood does not consist in the outward turn out for evil to him, because he uses all things in an display of vestments and gestures, as did the human impious way for his own advantage, and not for the glory of priesthood of Aaron and our ecclesiastical priesthood at this God. And thus he is not a priest, but a profane person, whose day, but in spiritual things, wherein, in His invisible office, prayers are turned into sin, nor does he ever appear in the He intercedes for us with God in heaven, and there offers presence of God, because God does not hear sinners…

Himself, and performs all the duties of a priest…Nor does He Here you will ask, “If all who are in the Church are only pray and intercede for us; He also teaches us inwardly priests, by what character are those whom we now call in the spirit with the living teachings of His Spirit. Now these priests to be distinguished from the laity?” I reply, By the are the two special offices of a priest, as is figured to us in the use of these words, “priest,” “ clergy,” “ spiritual person,” case of fleshly priests by visible prayers and sermons… “ecclesiastic,” an injustice has been done, since they have These two things stand thus. First, as regards kingship, been transferred from the remaining body of Christians to every Christian is by faith so exalted above all things that, those few who are now, by a hurtful custom, called in spiritual power, he is completely lord of all things, so ecclesiastics. For Holy Scripture makes no distinction that nothing whatever can do him any hurt; yea, all things between them, except that those who are now boastfully are subject to him, and are compelled to be subservient to called popes, bishops, and lords, it calls ministers, servants, his salvation… and stewards, who are to serve the rest in the ministry of Not that in the sense of corporeal power any one among the word, for teaching the faith of Christ and the liberty of Christians has been appointed to possess and rule all things, believers. For though it is true that we are all equally according to the mad and senseless idea of certain priests, yet we cannot, nor, if we could, ought we all to, ecclesiastics. That is the office of kings, princes, and men minister and teach publicly…This bad system has now upon earth. In the experience of life we see that we are issued in such a pompous display of power and such a subjected to all things, and suffer many things, even death. terrible tyranny that no earthly government can be Yea, the more of a Christian any man is, to so many the more compared to it, as if the laity were something else than evils, sufferings, and deaths is he subject, as we see in the first Christians. Through this perversion of things it has place in Christ the Firstborn, and in all His holy brethren. happened that the knowledge of Christian grace, of faith, This is a spiritual power, which rules in the midst of . of liberty, and altogether of Christ, has utterly perished, enemies, and is powerful in the midst of distresses. And and has been succeeded by an intolerable bondage to this is nothing else than that strength is made perfect in my human works and laws; and according to the weakness, and that I can turn all things to the profit of my Lamentations of Jeremiah, we have become the slaves of salvation; so that even the cross and death are compelled the vilest men on earth, who abuse our misery to all the to serve me and to work together for my salvation. This is disgraceful and ignominious purposes of their own will…

A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and

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And now let us turn to the other part: to the outward man…

Although, as I have said, inwardly, and according to the spirit, a man is amply enough justified by faith having all that he requires to have, except that this very faith and abundance ought to increase from day to day even till the future life, still he remains in this mortal life upon earth, in which it is necessary that he should rule his own body and have intercourse with men. Here then works begin; here he must not take his ease; he must give heed to exercise his body by fastings, watchings, labour, and other regular discipline, so that it may be subdued to the spirit, and obey and conform itself to the inner man and faith, and not rebel against them nor hinder them, as is its nature to do if it is kept under. For the inner man, being conformed to God and created after the image of God through faith, rejoices and delights itself in Christ, in whom such blessing have been conferred on it, and hence has only this task before it: to serve God with joy and for nought in free love.

But in doing this he comes into collision with the contrary will in his own flesh, which is striving to serve the world and to seek its own gratification. This the spirit of faith cannot and will not bear, but applies itself with cheerfulness and zeal to keep it down and restrain it…

These works, however, must not be done with any notion that by them a man can be justified before God— for faith, which alone is righteousness before God, will not bear with this false notion—but solely with this purpose: that the body may be brought into subjection, and be purified from its evil lusts, so that our eyes may be turned only to purging away those lusts. For when the soul has been cleansed by faith and made to love God, it would have all things to be cleansed in like manner, and especially its own body, so that all things might unite with it in the love and praise of God… On this principle every man may easily instruct himself in what measure, and with what distinctions, he ought to chasten his own body. He will fast, watch, and labour, just as much as he sees to suffice for keeping down the wantonness and concupiscence of the body. But those who pretend to be justified by works are looking, not to the mortification of their lusts, but only to the works themselves; thinking that, if they can accomplish as many works and as great ones as possible, all is well with them, and they are justified.

Sometimes they even injure their brain, and extinguish nature, or at least make it useless. This is enormous folly, and ignorance of Christian life and faith, when a man seeks, without faith, to be justified and saved by works…

We may see the same thing in all handicrafts. A bad or good house does not make a bad or good builder, but a good or bad builder makes a good or bad house. And in general no work makes the workman such as it is itself; but the workman makes the work such as he is himself.

Such is the case, too, with the works of men. Such as the man himself is, whether in faith or in unbelief, such is his work: good if it be done in faith; bad if in unbelief. But the converse is not true that, such as the work is, such the man

becomes in faith or in unbelief. For as works do not make a believing man, neither do they make a justified man; but faith, as it makes a man a believer and justified, so also it makes his works good…

So, too, no good work can profit an unbeliever to justification and salvation; and, on the other hand, no evil work makes him an evil and condemned person, but that unbelief, which makes the person and the tree bad, makes his works evil and condemned. Therefore, when any man is made good or bad, this does not arise from his works, but from his faith or unbelief…

Lastly, we will speak also of those works which he performs towards his neighbour. For man does not live for himself alone in this mortal body, in order to work on its account, but also for all men on earth; nay, he lives only for others, and not for himself. For it is to this end that he brings his own body into subjection, that he may be able to serve others more sincerely and more freely…

Yet a Christian has need of none of these things for justification and salvation, but in all his works he ought to entertain this view and look only to this object—that he may serve and be useful to others in all that he does; having nothing before his eyes but the necessities and the advantage of his neighbor…

Here is the truly Christian life, here is faith really working by love, when a man applies himself with joy and love to the works of that freest servitude in which he serves others voluntarily and for nought, himself abundantly satisfied in the fullness and riches of his own faith…

Hence in the Christian life ceremonies are to be no otherwise looked upon than as builders and workmen look upon those preparations for building or working which are not made with any view of being permanent or anything in themselves, but only because without them there could be no building and no work. When the structure is completed, they are laid aside. Here you see that we do not contemn these preparations, but set the highest value on them; a belief in them we do contemn because no one thinks that they constitute a real and permanent structure. If any one were so manifestly out of his senses as to have no other object in life but that of setting up these preparations with all possible expense, diligence, and perseverance, while he never thought of the structure itself, but pleased himself and made his boast of these useless preparations and props, should we not all pity his madness and think that, at the cost thus thrown away, some great building might have been raised?

Thus, too, we do not condemn works and ceremonies— nay, we set the highest value on them; but we condemn the belief in works, which no one should consider to constitute true righteousness, as do those hypocrites who employ and throw away their whole life in the pursuit of works, and yet never attain to that for the sake of which the works are done…

This excerpt was taken from Concerning Christian Liberty, translated by R.S. Grignon (Harvard Classic Edition, 1910).

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IN VIEW OF GOD’S MERCIES

GOVERN WELL OR BE GOVERNED? The Christian and the Civil Authorities in Romans 13

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aul’s primary concern about the civil authority in Romans 13 is that believers subject themselves to it.

He opens with the basic imperative to “be in subjection” and provides a series of arguments for it, based upon both the command of God and prudential concerns.

Most remarkable is what Paul doesn’t say. Not a word is spent discussing how Christians employed by the governing authority ought to behave in that office.

Indeed, advising rulers on how they should govern is not in his purview at all. Nor does he raise the question of the relative excellence of various governors. Paul seems to take it as an established fact that all rulers everywhere are always accomplishing what God would have them accomplish. Remember that Paul is writing to the church in Rome—the Washington, DC or Brussels of the first century. Even if the church contained no government officials, such proximity to power would have surely bred some familiarity and interest in affairs of state. But Paul doesn’t indulge it. While the apostle often directs moral instruction to both sides of a societal relationship— masters and slaves, husbands and wives—here he addresses believers simply as the governed.

There is a striking contrast in the approach of evangelical Christians today: dare I say, a refusal to submit. There is a prevailing view that we need Christians in politics. Believers of all political stripes take it for granted that Christians have a uniquely Christian contribution to make to the task of governing. Sophisticated evangelicals may no longer ask whether Jesus would drive an SUV, or if God is a Republican or a Democrat. But they still assume that government is ground zero in the larger battle over the shape of our culture, a crucial instrument to arrest our nation’s increasing slide into secularism. And this engenders a strong sense of Christian mission as they seek to incorporate their faith into the callings of lawmaker, regulator, and enforcer.

Properly understood, Paul’s command to submit should constrain our optimism about the civil government’s capacity to transform, save, or redeem. Civil government is not an aid to Christian sanctification, either on the individual or cultural scale. Rather, it is a dead-end, stopgap barrier that makes space for the good in a fallen world.

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In our capacity as believers and as a church, our task is not to ask how to govern well, but to be governed.

Why Be Governed? aul’s first argument for subjection to the governing authorities is that these authorities are established by God, “for there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God” (13:1). A failure to submit to the civil authorities is a failure to submit to God. Paul is not saying merely that the idea of government— the office of the ruler—has been ordained by God and left to operate in more or less working order depending on its inhabitant. He is making the much stronger claim that

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both the office and its particular inhabitants have been established by God’s providential hand. There is here no modern distinction between the abstract concept of government and the men and women who wield its power.

In other words, Paul is telling the Romans that God has enthroned Nero to rule over them and has vested him with all proper civil authority. The divine establishment of the ruler is personal and concrete. Roman imperial aspirations to deity, even the imposition of the cult of emperor worship, did not disqualify Nero as a ruler worthy of subjection.

For Roman Christians, this implied a different conception from that of the old covenant theocracy (Israel as a civic entity). Paul is building on Christ’s frequent rebuke of the zealots who sought to overturn Roman rule and crown him the King of an earthly Zion. While ruling Israel as a holy nation was inherent to the calling of every Jewish person in the old covenant, the church as the New Israel has no such civil calling. God had a stake in the faithfulness and purity of Israel’s kings, he has no such stake in the religious affiliation of earthly rulers.

Christians—as Christians—are called to submit.

God’s purposes for civil government are therefore accomplished through all governments, regardless of a particular government’s religious aims or errors. Thus a truly distinctive Christian political philosophy has both a great confidence that God will accomplish his goals and a radical humility toward the ultimate significance of earthly rulers. God doesn’t need either Christian rulers or Christian systems of government to fulfill his purposes, precisely because his purposes for the civil government are not ultimate or religious or eternal. In contrast, a fallen world with its limited horizon will always tend to invest its secular authorities with ultimate significance.

Paul is not saying that there is no relative merit among various rulers or systems of government, just that it’s irrelevant to God’s redemptive purposes in Christ, realized in the church. Americans tend to think that the founding of their nation was under God’s providential governance.

In this, they are correct, insofar as the foundation of every nation is an act of God. Yet whatever broad and deep influences the Christian tradition may have had on the political philosophy of our founders are utterly irrelevant to Paul’s concerns, and not just because he couldn’t have imagined such a well-founded nation. Rome, with a tyrannical system of government utterly foreign to JudeoChristian values, is equivalent to the United States of America for God’s limited, civil purposes.

This is not to say that humanly speaking we can’t discriminate among competing systems of government.

Just because all governments are sufficient for God’s ends doesn’t mean that all governments are morally equivalent.

Given the opportunity to shape one’s own political system, as Americans are, we are compelled to pursue the most just system available to us.

The contrast with Israel in the Old Testament couldn’t be more telling. Israel was God’s theocratic response to the

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equally “theocratic” pagan nations that surrounded her. She was a holy nation, a civil order that testified to the absolute kingship of the Lord’s Anointed. She rightly demanded theological purity of both its kings and its citizens. In the New Testament, this temporal type has been replaced by the eternal reality of the King of Kings. In Christ we have a heavenly citizenship, and neither Jerusalem nor any other earthly city is destined to be a city shining on a hill.

How Be Governed? he first thing that Paul thinks about when he thinks about the governing authorities is where they come from—they are established by God. But the second thing he thinks about is what they do—they cause fear. “For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil.”

The threatening nature of government is not accidental, but fundamental to Paul’s conception of a healthy civic government. It is how God uses government as an instrument to minister good.

Admittedly, Paul’s concern here is not to set out an exhaustive political philosophy. His claims are primarily theological, and explain in part his sweeping command to submit indiscriminately to governing authorities. He is telling the church what, after Israel, a civil government is good for, and how it relates to the universal Christian call to love one’s neighbor.

The context tells us even more about this unique role of the government in the pursuit of a reasonably just and loving society. In the previous chapter Paul has transitioned from a discussion of how the saints ought to behave toward one another within the church (12:1–8) to a broader discussion of neighbor love: “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good” (12:9). It is in this context that he picks up on the teaching of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and curse not.”

The Sermon on the Mount is a radical departure from the Old Testament Israel’s civil law of retaliation, or lex talionis, “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth” (Exod. 21:24, et al). But Christ’s rejoinder itself is already found in Proverbs: “Do not say, ‘I will repay evil’; Wait for the LORD, and He will save you” (Prov. 20:22, cf. 24:29). What’s going on here?

In both the Old Testament and the New, the contrast is between the civil law as an instrument of wrath and the personal calling of the citizen. The difference is with the relation of the people of God to that civil entity. It was a part of the nation of Israel’s holy calling to bear the sword of wrath. The church is commanded to set aside these civil responsibilities. When Paul commands believers to “leave room for the wrath of God” in 12:19, he’s imploring them to let the unbelieving civil government do its job. The Lord’s vengeance isn’t just future, it is also present. This transition from Old Testament to New is in part behind Paul’s discussion of the civil authorities in Romans 13.

Paul wants the Roman Christians to have just as much confidence in Rome as Old Testament saints had in Israel with regard to restraining evil.

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GOD AND CAESAR IN CHINA

by Bob Fu

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etween May 2005 and May 2006, nearly 2,000 Chinese house church pastors and Christians were arrested. Though most of them were released after international pressure was applied, many Chinese Christians today are still serving in labor camps. My wife and I have also suffered persecution.

When we were arrested in 1996 because of “illegal evangelism” my interrogator started the questioning by quoting Romans 13:1, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” In order to show my submission to authority, he demanded that I reveal all the names and activities of the brothers and sisters attending our house church. That made my conscience struggle a little bit. The extent to which Christians submit to God and Caesar will determine the relationship between church and state in contemporary China.

Today, any religious activities carried on outside the Chinese government-sanctioned patriotic organizations are considered “illegal religious activities,” and are subject to persecution. House churches that refuse to register with the TSPM (Three Self Patriotic Movement), the official state agency, come under this category of “illegitimate religious activities.”

Why would house churches refuse to register and join the TSPM? First of all, the alienation between the house churches and the TSPM has been deeply rooted in the history of the church in China since 1950.

Christians in the 1950s witnessed how the government used the TSPM to destroy both the institutional church established by Western missions and indigenous churches founded by Chinese believers. Many of the pastors were sent to prison during this period through the betrayal of pastors officially sanctioned by the TSPM. Even today, many TSPM pastors work as informants of house church activities leading to the arrest and imprisonment of house church pastors and Christians, like my wife and me.

Second, once a house church registers with the government and joins the TSPM, its activities are limited to Sunday worship. Even midweek prayer meetings and fellowship groups in believers’ homes are forbidden.

Third, once a house church registers and joins the TSPM, it can no longer engage in evangelism outside the church building or designated places of worship.

But house churches are committed to evangelism.

Joining the TSPM would mean giving up evangelism.

Thus the issue is to evangelize or not to evangelize?

Finally, the most important reason why house churches refuse to register and join the TSPM is their belief in the lordship of Christ over the church. “Who is the head of the church: Christ or the state?” they

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Why? The administration of God’s wrath in the civil government—every civil government—allows us to navigate the contrast between good and evil that runs through 12:9–21. We are personally able to abhor evil and cling to good, resist returning evil for evil, and indeed overcome evil with good, precisely because God is working in the world here and now to curb evil through the governing authorities. Evil deeds still elicit God’s wrath.

But believers as believers are now to be instruments exclusively of good, not evil; forgiveness, not vengeance.

Precisely because the Lord takes vengeance we are to refrain from doing so; our confidence that the wrath of God will render just deserts gives us leave to stop short of doing so. The end of civil Israel doesn’t mean the rise of anarchy, for God will continue to exercise vengeance and wrath through secular authorities, whether Christians or non-Christians hold those offices.

Love and Justice aul uses the metaphor of space to describe the relation of our response to evil and God’s: “Leave room for the wrath of God.” In doing so, he is distinguishing between two different spheres of activity.

Loving and caring for our neighbor—friend or foe—is an activity necessary for all Christians. Dispensing just deserts—avenging evil with wrath via the sword—is the Lord’s prerogative, and he accomplishes it, in part, through the governing authorities.

Judging from Romans 13, these two ministries must be kept distinct. Clearly, the believer’s neighborly office of love doesn’t allow him personally to take up the sword of wrath in vengeance. For the individual Christian, love and wrath are incompatible; the pursuit of the one requires the abandonment of the other. It would also seem to follow that the government’s ministry of wrath isn’t compatible with the New Testament ideal of love, for “it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.” Insofar as one sought to make the government an instrument of love, it would be destined to fall short of its primary, divinely appointed task. Indeed, Paul ties the paying of taxes directly to this ministry of fear, a connection that is easy to make in the modern world.

From the incompatibility of these two ministries, one could falsely conclude that Christians are forbidden from serving in the office of a governing authority. But Paul issues no such prohibition, and indeed encourages us all to support the activity of the civil government through the paying of taxes. Indeed, he clearly establishes the office of civil governor as a legitimate calling, an ordinance of creation whereby God keeps the peace. The ruler who preserves the peace is as crucial as the baker who provides the bread or the builder who constructs our shelter. Our heavenly citizenship in Christ does not cancel our earthly citizenship; both may place demands upon us. When the Christian serves in public office and wields the civil sword— or supports such activity by paying his taxes—he subjects himself to the civil office by acting in an official capacity.

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Subjecting to the Civil Authorities Today aul’s point in Romans 13 is a theological one, not political. The people of God are no longer to have their own political order. God is content to use the civil government of the natural man to restrain evil. The Christian has no special expertise to rule.

It is tempting to ferret out specific policy prescriptions on the basis of this text. Clearly, a government that limited itself exclusively to executing God’s wrath on evildoers would be far more circumscribed in its powers than any modern government. But Paul’s goal here is clearly not positive and constructive. He does not pretend to give a laundry list of activities affirmed, proscribed, and indifferent. Instead, he explicitly affirms the legitimacy and divine origin of secular governments that have no biblical foundation whatsoever, obviating the need for such a scriptural list.

Nor should we read Romans 13 as a recipe for a passive quietism in the face of unjust regimes. The insistence on the paying of taxes, reminiscent of Christ’s command to “render unto Caesar,” suggests that believers are active participants in the divinely established civil order.

Christian faith does not nullify the legitimate calling to public service in government. However, Paul strips us of whatever pretensions we may bring as Christians to this task. Speaking anachronistically, Paul establishes here a separation of church and state, and the Christian comes to this task as a mere citizen.

The church is always afflicted by those who believe that Christ’s kingdom hasn’t been sufficiently established until earthly powers are abolished and the yoke of human subjection is thrown off. In Paul’s day, it was the Jewish zealots who were offended by the Messiah’s failure to throw off the Roman yoke and establish the kingdom on earth. Likewise, the radical Anabaptists in the Reformation era rejected their civil rulers and sought to establish God’s kingdom on earth by force. John Calvin rightly relates this text to Christian liberty and the nature of Christ’s kingdom: “There are indeed always some tumultuous spirits who believe that the kingdom of Christ cannot be sufficiently elevated, unless all earthly powers be abolished, and that they cannot enjoy the liberty given by him, except they shake off every yoke of human subjection” (Commentary on Romans 13:1). The error in our own day, both on the religious left and right, likewise comes at the expense of Christian liberty. It denies that the present liberty of the Christian persists even in the height of human subjection, and insists that a “more Christian” civic order is necessary for the well-being of Christ’s church. ■

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would ask. The TSPM accepts the state as the supreme authority of church affairs. House churches that are committed to the sole headship of Christ in the church and to evangelism must operate as illegal groups conducting so-called illegal religious activities, and consequently must suffer the penalties inflicted by the state. In his book Called to the Ministry, Edmund Clowney said something that applies very directly to the church-state relationship in China: “Religion is tolerated when it supports the claims of the state, the Party, the institutional hierarchy.” The majority of the house churches have chosen to suffer for Christ and his Word rather than to enjoy the toleration afforded by an anti-Christian state. Through obedience, they have tasted the goodness and tender mercies of the Lord (Rom. 5:3–5).

In his book Their Blood Cries Out, Paul Marshall notes that some who live in the free Western societies, even Christians, know very little or refuse to know, about the mounting persecution toward Christians in countries such as China. “It’s hard for them to believe that there are, in today’s world, people willing to endure the same certain fate as the Tiananmen Square hero in order to quietly profess a Christian faith.”

Religious persecution and oppression seem “more suited to biblical texts and ancient Roman history than to evening newscasts” in the eyes of Western Christians. Why are Christians silent in the face of such persecution? Is it ignorance? Is it bias? It may be both. As Paul Marshall notes, American evangelicals tend to emphasize the seeking of the inner peace while the mainline churches are busy with seeking outer and international peace by establishing friendship with all political powers, even with persecutors.

The ultimate cause of this conflict in China is about the lordship of Christ. It is a choice between being loyal to Christ alone or yielding to Caesar’s demands to sacrifice Christ’s church. It is a test of lordship. Who is lord: Christ or Caesar? By making that choice to obey Christ rather than man, thousands of “prisoners for Christ” choose to suffer with Christ who has made a promise that nothing they will face from the outside can destroy their faith or take them away from the love of God (Rom. 8:31–39).

Bob (Xiqiu) Fu is the China Analyst for The Voice of the Martyrs (USA) and founder of the China Aid Association, a major voice for the persecuted church in China.

Brian J. Lee works for a federal agency in Washington, D.C.

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MERCY MINISTRIES: For Goodness Sake, Do Something!

by Randy Nabors

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hat good is theology in the mind if that is they may see your good works and give glory to your Father where it ends? If in thinking through the who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16) (italics added). revelation of God (the Bible) it stays in our You believe? Good, now go out and do something heads and doesn’t pass through to the heart unto the about it. Don’t just believe your faith or think about your hands and feet, how will anyone know it has affected us? faith. Don’t just know a lot about the faith and feel it so The mouth is not a sufficient instrument; God’s impulse intensely that you would weep or shout for joy. Do you and motivation must move to the hands and feet. Without feel your religion? Good, but again I say, go out and do action the mouth just makes noise. What good is theology something about it! if it is just sentiment, or sentimental? What How? “How should I live out my faith?” I good is the emotion created by truth if it hoped you would ask. I want to emphasize doesn’t move us to more than tears?

Congregations that the Scriptures move us beyond a simple I believe in the power of the Word, I personalization of religion. If we understand believe in the power of the gospel; when are designed by our religion simply to be a moral change, or a received by faith it transforms the heart. change of personality so that we become There is no substitute for gospel preaching in God to be public “nice,” or a spiritualized change where now this lost world of ours; no apology for we have personal meaning and relationship believing the truth, for proclaiming the truth, with God, then we have missed what true entities that for disseminating the truth. The poor religion is supposed to be. Yes, the gospel can especially need the good news preached to people see, and and does all of the preceding things them. God’s Word is creative in that in and of mentioned, but it calls us to more. It calls us itself (by the work of the Holy Spirit) makes unfortunately personally to “weightier matters of the law, hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. Yet, words like justice and mercy”(Matt. 23:23). It calls (from us) are not enough if that is all there is us, both as individuals and corporately as many of our to our religion. congregations, to help the poor (James 1:27, Personally I don’t like religion without congregations 2 Cor. 8–9, Matt. 25: 31–46). emotion, and to tell the truth I find it hard to There are some who may question a call to believe you believe unless you can feel it. It is congregations to help the poor. Some are “cities” hard to imagine the world without music. It believers may feel that if there is a call to help is hard to imagine enjoying God without which are seen the poor (and though it sounds amazing there passion or an emotional soundtrack. There is may be some Christians who simply don’t a joy in the sadness and pain of repentance; to do nothing know what the Bible teaches about preaching joy in the hope of a forgiving God who will the gospel to the poor [Luke 4:18], or feeding cleanse me, and fix me, and restore me. the hungry [Matt. 25:31ff], or doing good to but for Singing a new song to God just makes sense all men [Gal. 6:10]), then this is a mandate to as a constant reaction to him, and his mercy, individual Christians to do it when they have themselves. and his grace. Yet, emotional response to opportunity, not a mandate to congregations. truth is not enough.

There are also some who think that we Knowing and feeling are not enough, not if should help only the Christian poor, and we seek to be biblical, and if we seek to make an obedient those who are within our own congregations. I have impact on the world. “We were created in Christ Jesus to always found the argument to only help the poor in the do good works” (Eph. 2:10). “In view of God’s mercies church largely irrelevant if we are obeying the Lord by present yourselves to God as a living sacrifice”(Rom. 12:1); preaching the gospel to the poor. Was this not his mandate “in the same way let your light shine before others, so that (continued on page 22)

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TWO PERSPECTIVES Kyrie Eleison

by William H. Smith

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othing expresses the heart of Christianity like the compassion… Mercy is essential to our witness as a Kyrie. It was the cry of blind Bartimaeus, “Jesus, church to the world, and to the truth of the Bible Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:47). which displays the reconciling kingdom ministry of It was the prayer of the justified publican and the last Jesus Christ. prayer of John Murray, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

(Luke 18:13).

Does this church mean that faith will produce love for the The Bible makes clear that there is a connection brethren and that this will be a powerful witness to the between receiving and showing mercy. “Blessed are the world? No. This church does not neglect ministry to its merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Matt. own, but its emphasis is on its ministry to the 5:7). No one can ask God to show him mercy of its city.

When the church poor who does not show mercy. But to whom is Another church declares, “We aim to show mercy shown? world that the gospel will transform the so cares for its the Increasingly, among conservative urban core.” How? By the preaching of the Presbyterians, one may not question the cross as the power of God unto salvation? No, own, it objects of mercy. As one evangelical preacher “through ministries of word, mercy, and recently proclaimed from his pulpit, “Mercy must learn to respect, demonstrates to justice…Christians ministry is as important as the ministry of the learn from, and partner with our neighbors, as Word.” well as show them love and compassion. We the world a Before I raise questions about the focus not just on personal healing but social unquestionable, let me make it clear that I am It is this definition of and approach “see-how-they- healing.” not questioning the traditional, biblical role to mercy ministries that I am willing to that deacons perform and lead—ministry to love-one-another” question. the suffering saints. What I am willing to take My motivation for questioning mercy my life into my hands to question is the ministry, as it is now commonly understood life that testifies and practiced, is that I find it rests on a flimsy contention that both Word (proclamation of the gospel) and deed (deeds of mercy done to foundation. My contention is that to the power of biblical and for nonbelievers) are the mission of the mercy ministry, as it was practiced by the church and necessary to give a full and church, was focused, just as the the gospel and apostolic credible vindication of its message. Mercy Westminster Confession says, on expressing the ministry is becoming a virtual fourth mark of of the saints by relieving the may be used of communion the church—the pure preaching of the Word, needs of the saints. the right administration of the sacraments, the Acts 2 begins an account of the practice of God to provoke mercy faithful exercise of discipline—and something in the Jerusalem church that comes to like a housing assistance program, a food a climax in the creation of the office of deacon the world to bank, a jobs training program, or a homeless in Acts 6. One of the effects of the day of shelter. One Reformed church states: Pentecost and the addition of three thousand jealousy. souls to the church was that the believers (Our)… commitment to mercy ministries shared their possessions with one another, is wedded to the commitment to the Holy Bible. even to the point of selling off their possessions to take care Jesus Christ was a prophet mighty in word and deed, of the needy among them. and we seek to be so as His church. It is evident that In Acts 4 the report of mercy ministry is picked up commitment to the Word must necessarily produce (continued on page 23) faithful and sincere commitment to deeds of love and N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 21

For Goodness Sake, Do Something! (continued from page 20) (see Luke 4:18 as mentioned above)? Is it not ours as well? If we are evangelizing among the poor we will have them in the church, and what every poor community in the world needs is a gospel-preaching, holistic, and vital local church in its midst. Poor people need to be saved; they need a whole new set of cultural values built upon the Word of God. They need the practice and experience of the love of the saints and then their families will be rebuilt. And they will have hope, which is the absolute most powerful engine of economic change.

I would submit that such negative arguments spring from an undeveloped theology of the church, a defective theology of missions, and the absence of a theology of mercy. We are called to be a new community, to be a body of believers. We are called to help the widows in our midst (1 Tim. 5:3–16); we are given the example of sharing with other congregations who face hard times (I Tim. 6:18); and pastors are instructed to “command” those who are rich in this world to be rich in good deeds. We are given the model in Acts 6 of an ethnic and pragmatic solution to a mercy need within and by the local congregation. We see the community of Israel, as a nation, condemned for a hypocritical practice of religion by not sharing their food with the hungry (Isa. 58). How can we be seen as a “city”(Matt. 5:14–16) if we do not do good works corporately? Congregations are designed by God to be public entities that people see, and unfortunately many of our congregations are “cities” which are seen to do nothing but for themselves.

We are called upon to do good, and there are various ways of doing good in this world. We can individually do good by obeying the Ten Commandments and thereby not harm our neighbors. We can do good by a personal practice of compassion and kindness, thereby loving our neighbors. These things give us a personal good reputation, often no better than a decent pagan might achieve. Our churches call upon us to live as godly people in a wicked world, and they should. Many churches ask us to help the institution of the church and serve within it, to bless the other members through acts of service inside the institution, and of course they should do that.

Unfortunately, if that is all they do, our congregations then achieve a reputation of being only self-serving, of caring only about what happens within the four walls of the church. Few churches give us a program to perform deeds of goodness outside the institution as a collective force. It takes imaginative leadership (tied to faith) to help us do that. Yet if Jesus teaches us to do “our” good works so that they can be seen, then that means that corporately we are demonstrating the power and love of God among those who need good done to them and for them.

There is much to be done, and once we understand what there is to be done, well, there is our opportunity.

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and we have often left the doing to others, even to organizations begun by Christians who no longer speak the gospel. We somehow expect our missionaries to be doers, but all too often our missionaries look and act just like the people who sent them. They go out to create more “knowers.” They have a defective theology of good works.

We need to encourage and pray for our elders and deacons to help us know what needs to be done, outside the walls of our church building, and then show us how to do it. They need to lead us to make an impact on our neighborhoods. Can we build somebody a Habitat for Humanity house? Can we throw a block party for an apartment complex? Can we go into a poor neighborhood and set up a bike fix-it station on a Saturday? Can we organize a mothers day out for mothers of small children?

Can we invite all the seniors in a neighborhood to a bus tour somewhere? Can we paint a widow’s home? Can we install fire detectors in the old houses of a neighborhood?

Can we build a medical clinic in an underserved neighborhood? Can we plant trees or flowers in a bare patch of public ground? Can we help get people to a medical fair, or provide flu shots? Can we change the oil in cars of single moms? Can we just give a visible demonstration of the love of Christ?

Yes, we can do those things, and we can do more. We can create tutoring programs, and job partnership programs, and prison reentry programs, and care for people with HIV/AIDS, or provide hospice care. We can incorporate development agencies under the spiritual authority of the church (we do that for schools, don’t we?), and we can build housing, create jobs, and change whole neighborhoods. We can establish and send disaster response teams. We can train and equip our deacons, maybe even employ one full time, to do effective mercy with accountability and escalate that into true economic development—all the while preaching Christ and the need for Holy Spirit regeneration. I know we can do these things because our congregation has done it, by the grace and mercy of God. None of us individually, nor our churches, can do everything. We are not asked by God to do everything, only the good works he has prepared in advance for us to do. Doing good does not save us, but it ought to flow from being saved. The practice of doing good causes even unbelievers to give glory to our Father in heaven. Doing good can never replace articulating the gospel of grace, but it certainly does authenticate it. One might even use the word “incarnational.” What I am advocating is simply more of Jesus, in us and through us, to the world. ■

Randy Nabors is pastor of New City Fellowship (PCA) in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

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Kyrie Eleison (continued from page 21) again. The believers are still holding things in common and, as necessary, selling off goods and property, presenting the proceeds to the apostles, “and it was distributed to each as any had need” (v. 35). At this time the mercy ministries were so effective that “there was not a needy person among them” (v. 34). It is interesting to note that it was in the context of this demonstration of the communion of the saints that “with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all” (v. 33).

The sad case of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 6 confirms what we suspect in Acts 2 and 4—that the “holding of all things in common” was attitudinal and not obligatory. It also serves as a warning against hypocrisy in the ministry of mercy.

In Acts 6 the mercy ministry has grown to the point of there being a problem in its administration. Those Jewish converts, who were Greek of language and culture complained that their widows were not receiving fair distribution of the provision for the needy. Up until this time the apostles had been in charge of the mercy ministry.

Now they realized they could not focus on their primary ministry of preaching the Word and at the same time administer the mercy ministry. And so was born the office of deacon, literally and metaphorically to wait tables.

Interestingly enough, what followed the improvement of the church’s care of its own was that “the word of God continued to increase and the number of disciples multiplied” (v. 7).

When we move out of the initial phase of the church’s development, we find a woman of great grace, Dorcas, a resident of Joppa who is distinguished as being “full of good works and charity” (9:36). Her special ministry appears to have been making clothes for widows. This shows no more than any Christian should do, which is to do good works to all as we have opportunity. The context indicates ministry within the church. Calvin concludes, “We now know what is said in commendation of Tabitha, for reverence to God, or faith has first place; then we learn that she was busy helping the brethren, particularly in meeting the needs of the poor” (Acts 9:36).

At last the gospel broke out into the non-Jewish world and the predominantly Gentile church of Antioch was established. The prophet Agabus revealed that there would be a worldwide famine (11:28). What was the response of the Antiochean church? It was concern for the mother Jewish church. “So the disciples determined that everyone according to his ability would send relief to the brothers living in Judea” (11:29).

When the gospel spread to the Gentile world, the Apostle Paul was charged to “remember the poor” (Gal. 2:10). But there is not the slightest evidence that mercy ministries to the communities were used as a strategy for getting a hearing for the gospel and gaining its credibility

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by interest in “the whole man.” How did Paul keep his commitment to remember the poor? He taught the Gentile churches to care for their people. It is clear that the church at Thessalonica had been taught to care for its needy members, for some went so far as to abuse the mercy of the church. He also organized the special offering for the poor saints in Jerusalem, a subject he mentions in the last chapter of 1 Corinthians and to which he devotes two whole chapters in 2 Corinthians. He gives a brief description of the recipient and use of this offering in Romans: “I am going to Jerusalem bringing aid to the saints, for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make a contribution for the poor saints at Jerusalem. They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought to be of service to them in spiritual blessings” (15:25–27).

What about Paul’s direction to the Galatians to “do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10)? First, it is clear that Paul here sticks to the pattern of the rest of the New Testament in putting the primary emphasis on the church’s ministry to the church family. If some of this ministry spills over to the world, fine, but good done in the community is not a part of a word-deed strategy for evangelizing the city, nor is it anywhere near the heart of the church’s mission.

Moreover, in his commentary on the Book of Acts, Calvin makes a helpful observation about the basis for doing good: “Our common humanity makes us debtors to all; but we are bound to believers by a closer spiritual kinship, which God hallows among us.”

Do we as Christians have an obligation to the poor in general? Of course we do. I am willing to help the poor by all sorts of means—kingdom ministries carried on by Christians, responding to the need in front of me with what I have, charitable organizations that are or are not faith-based, and by the paying of taxes. What I am not willing to say is that ministry to the poor of the community is a mark of the church or a necessary component of its health. Indeed, I would argue just the opposite—that the church is weakened and rendered less effective when it puts such ministries at the heart of its life.

But what about our Lord the deacon? Did he not come to serve? Yes. But how? By giving his life “as ransom for many” (Mark 10:45); that is by his distinctively redemptive work. What is its purpose beyond pointing us to the sole source of our salvation? It calls to be servants to each other in the community of faith. Jesus showed us the way when in the Upper Room he washed his disciples feet and said, “For I have given you an example, that you should do just as I have done for you” (John 13:15). For whom? He has just washed the disciples’ feet when they would not wash each other’s. He is showing us how to treat each other as believers. When Paul picks up on the servanthood of our Lord in that great Philippian (continued on page 27) N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 23

IN VIEW OF GOD’S MERCIES

Independence Day BY

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ithin the Anglican context in which I serve, we are constantly offered up an insight from Romans 14, as the antidote to “fundamentalism.” “Fundamentalism” is the word that liberal opponents of our evangelical school of thought within the church use to label our position.

The stock argument deployed against theological conservatives in First-World Anglicanism is that St. Paul in Romans 14 sees the work of the Holy Spirit as a movement that blows down walls based on fear, such as the

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prohibition on homosexual behavior; and that the liberal voices in the church, like Paul in Romans 14, are moving forward in love and faith while the “weaker brethren” such as ourselves, the “orthodox,” are being held back by old taboos. If we, the orthodox, would just catch up, if we would just “get in step with the Spirit,” they (the Pauline apostles of love) would show us the brave new way.

As long as we orthodox realize that we are not yet in step with the Spirit, like those in Romans 14 who were not freed up enough to eat meat that had been sacrificed to

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idols, then they, the theological liberals who are out in front, will hold the train a little longer. But if we continue honestly to believe that our taboos are true, then their train is going to pull out of the station. It is going to pull away.

From an evangelical point of view, this is not the “Love Train” of the O’Jays nor the “Soul Train” of Don Cornelius.

It is more like the “Supertrain” of the failed 1970s television series, all electronic and silvery but getting ready to drive right off the tracks.

I use the contemporary but for me real and goring illustration of the Episcopal Church culture wars, because it helps illustrate why Romans 14 is so important. It is a classic text of Scripture that can be misused to make shortterm points.

It is so commonly abused in the contemporary context that you could almost wish it were hidden away somewhere. But it is not. It is there in plain sight. And it needs our attention. For myself, I think it is wonderful. Here is why.

Unmediated Relation n contrast to the fear-mongering orthodox, we are told that St. Paul wants us to think for ourselves. Or more precisely, he knows that we must do business directly with God and not man in relation to our closest convictions and ideas.

In verse 4, the apostle writes, “It is before his own master that (the servant) stands or falls.” In verse 5, he writes, “Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind.” Later, in verse 22, he writes, “The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God.” It is definite that Paul conceives of our relationship with God as unmediated. There are two parties to this relationship: each of us alone, and God himself. There is not a third party. There is no eavesdropper, no Polonius to take down every word.

Here is the New Testament point of origin for the tradition of critical intellectual autonomy birthed from the Protestant Reformation. Here is the Pauline source of the proper Christian position of thinking for yourself rather than having the church or another institution think for you. It is entirely in keeping with the idea that the rediscovery of St. Paul by the reformers led to independent thinking in the West and such consequences as civil and religious liberty, the Orange and constitutional tradition in the English-speaking world. The Protestant tradition of the mind’s critical life is here! It is pregnant within Romans 14.

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The Fourth of July ow consider the movie Independence Day (1996). It was successful because it was intended to tie in to the Fourth of July celebrations that year, with its in-your-face defiance of an imagined outer space power that sits in huge silver saucers over every world metropolis.

In the movie, which was a big hit, the nations of the world, led by the president of the United States, rise up as

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one against the aliens. The nations win a plucky and We declare our decisive, overwhelming victory. “independence” and beat the living daylights out of the enemy.

But Christians knew in 1996, and know now, that this idea is a mirage, a pure deception. There is no independence of this kind that does not become tied to tyranny on other fronts, because of original sin. Thus when you storm the Elysée palace, kill the Swiss guards, and capture King Louis, it sounds great, the rush and hullabaloo of freedom. But then you kill everyone else, as in 1789.

Similarly, October 1917 contained the “three days that shook the world”. But millions and millions of people ended up getting killed because of one Soviet “Independence Day.” Human “independence days” result in original sin’s being squeezed into new and different alleyways.

Romans 14 opens the door on human autonomy. But look again! It is in the context of God’s universal and explicit righteousness.

Consideration of Others ometimes the lofty views of humane consideration, and what is today termed “inter-dependence,” that are found within Romans 14, are seen as being anchored in love horizontally understood. And that idea is present. For example, Paul writes, “If your brother is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love” (v. 15). Paul is concerned that everyone, in every school of thought, be regarded as “one for whom Christ died (v. 15). You are not your own, in other words. You were “bought with a price” (1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23). There is infinite value attached to each human life—not just to your own but to everybody else’s, too.

So the command to love, and to evaluate each person on the basis of Christ’s love for him or her, is expressed emphatically in Romans 14.

The mercy seat before which the whole passage kneels, however, is the vertical image of God’s righteousness. Paul asks, “Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God” (v. 10). Paul adds, “So each of us shall give account of himself to God” (v. 12).

Horizontal loving has this vertical referent. And the vertical referent of Romans 14 peaks at verses 15 and 17.

In those verses Paul offers a tour de force for all time: “Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died… For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Not only do Paul’s words here stand in opposition to the attempts throughout the history of Christianity to inflate the sacrament of Holy Communion beyond its proper claims and sphere, but they anchor horizontal love in the righteousness of God. In short, love is not flaky. Love as expressed in Romans 14 is earnestly posited as the consideration given to all for

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when we make a moral judgment, we are like the men who were caught in the which is bearable only from the vantage point act of stoning the adulteress (John 8:7). We shouldn’t do of salvation equality. it. Therefore say nothing. It is better every time to say whom Christ died on the cross. In other words, everyone is to nothing. Watch your tone. Watch your own sin. Hold your be equally loved as the object of Christ’s sacrifice. Yet such tongue in any event. love kneels at the foot of holiness. Love is not You can find this thought also embedded within the consideration outside the entity of God. Love is, rather, fourteenth chapter of Romans. Thus “happy is he who has commanded by God. And he is righteousness and peace no reason to judge himself for what he approves” (v. 22). (v. 17).

That is to say, if you allow your weaker brother to do the The novelist Stephen King makes this point tirelessly bad thing, the thing that is not ideal but is also not within his classic novels, The Stand (1978) and Desperation horrible, watch that you do not yourself do, or think you (1997). There the heroes, Mother Abigail and the Christwant to do, the very thing you are giving him the “space” like child David Carver, respectively, ever remind their to do. Look to yourself! halting followers of good, that loving neighbors begin and Yet, soteriology (the doctrine of salvation) changes end with loving God. everything.

Love of the brethren flows from sin equality,

Consideration in Contemporary Perspective he impetus given by Romans 14 to different schools of thought within the swirling readjustments and realignments of Christianity today need to be examined just a little more, in order to attain some clarity that will last. Can St. Paul’s commandment to love be a pretext to bless whatever is coming down the Zeitgeist as a bright wind of the Spirit? It is certainly used that way.

The way Paul’s idea here is presented today, at least in my Episcopal and Anglican context, comes in two forms.

The theological liberals present it as a condescending word to theological conservatives. They say, “We wish to bless homosexuality, which is the modern-day form of ‘food sacrificed to idols,’ which no one should call unclean.”

They argue homosexual actions, heterosexual actions: these things are neutral because they arise from different God-created sectors of human identity. Do not judge them, because in doing so, you are judging your brother.

Is this not exactly what St. Paul told us not to do in Romans 14? But hey, if you insist on doing this, if you “orthodox” still insist on judging—because you are either from Africa, where local cultural taboos still apply, or because you are an ignorant denizen of “double-wide” American fundamentalism—we just may treat you, at least for a little while, as Paul enjoined the stronger brother to treat the weaker. We’ll go our own way, in other words, doing what we want to do; and wait for you to catch up with us. This is the usual reading we are given by the majorities within North American and British Protestantisms. It cannot fail to sound condescending.

The other form in which these ideas come is an absolute interdict within our own circles upon judgment. The worst thing you can be as a Christian is “judgmental.” The worst thing you can do is “judge” another person. That is the one absolute worst thing you can do, as in verse 10: “Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother?” So from the theological Right,

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“All Change at Rye” emember the old song—not so old, actually— entitled “Money Changes Everything.” It is a line in Madonna’s “Material Girl,” and rings right out of the eighties, although it probably speaks for the whole world at all times. It is also not true.

What is true is that soteriology changes everything.

Soteriology, which is the formal term for Christianity’s heart, the teaching that Christ died for our sins, for our whole selves, changes everything. The deliverance from God is not only the Great Emancipator of Life, it is also the Great Equalizer. Love of the brethren flows from sin equality, which is bearable only from the vantage point of salvation equality. And salvation equality is faith. We have all fallen short and have now seen the Savior. This is Paul’s reason for considering the measure of value of each Christian as that person’s being “one for whom Christ died” (v. 15). And this is the idea that grounds the final verse of Romans 14.

There, in verse 23, Paul writes, “He who has doubts is condemned, if he eats, because he does not act from faith; for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (v. 23).

The meaning of the verse in context is that if you do the “new thing,” the thing which proceeds from the Spirit, such as withdrawing all judgment from homosexual acts because God has now called them ‘clean,’ but still carry a reservation of any kind, then you do wrong. You have to be fully convinced, from God’s Word, that you are doing right in the new situation. If you are not thus convinced, then what you do in “going along,” in “getting in step with the Spirit,” is sin. For actions arising from justifying faith are always joyful and full-hearted. They are never doubleminded. They grow, like fruit from a root, out of a saved heart. Walking by the Spirit is without ambivalence. It is without ambiguity. It is entirely and wholly spontaneous.

It is not “messy,” to use the contemporary expression.

Here, in Romans 14, is the authentically old, old story

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of faith. Justifying faith, standing on the “one full perfect and sufficient sacrifice, satisfaction, and oblation for the sins of the whole world” (Book of Common Prayer), is not “messy”! It is not colored or stained by conditions, cautions, or human double-mindedness. When it loses its wholehearted “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (v. 17), then it “does not proceed from faith, but is sin” (v. 23).

Catch the Wind? ook for a moment at the overwhelming calls within my own context, American Episcopalianism, for changing the Bible’s rules concerning human sexuality. This is not just “our” issue, for it is everywhere.

It is coming from the world and seizes the initiative in relation to the Presbyterian Church in the USA, the United Methodist Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, not to mention the Church of Scotland (the Kirk) and the Church of England. It says that the Spirit of God is blowing in a new direction, and that people who “catch the wind” (Donovan) may wait for us, but not for long.

So now, if these Donovan people are operating from faith in the Romans 14:23 sense, why the unrelenting pressure on those of us who dissent? Why the intimidation and the bullying? Why the demands and the eternal one-way “conversations” and “dialogue,” which know only one allowable outcome? Why the hustle and the undertow?

To me, this push on the part of those who quote Romans 14 so triumphantly in favor of innovation goes completely against the spirit of the last verse, that “brilliant corner” (Thelonius Monk) of Pauline perception. If the theological liberals are really so certain in the question of human sexuality, then why the force, why the violence?

Why the attack mode for their aims and objectives?

To me, the sheer pressure of their advancing front creates an impression of insecurity, of an aggression even, super-added-to by guilt. Their push creates an impression of inward doubt—its totalitarian tone, I mean—and thus looks like something that does not proceed from faith, but bears the stamp of sin. ■

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Paul Zahl is Dean and President of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry (Ambridge, Pennsylvania).

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Kyrie Eleison (continued from page 23) Christological passage, he uses Christ to show the Philippian Christians how to have “the mind of Christ” in their troubled church.

But didn’t the Lord warn us in the parable of the sheep and the goats that showing mercy is a test of our profession? He surely did. But to whom is the mercy directed? “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to the least of these my brothers, you did it to me… Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one to the least of these, you did not do it to me” (Matt. 25:45). So says James, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:26). So says the writer of Hebrews, “Remember those who are in prison [in the context there is no doubt whom he has in mind] as though you were in prison with them“ (Heb. 13:3). So says, also, the Apostle John, “[W]e ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let not love in work or talk but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:16–18).

The apostolic practice shows that the church’s ministry of mercy is to its members. We have a long way to go before there is not a needy person among us, and we serve one another in humility and love. But, when the church so cares for its own, it demonstrates to the world a “seehow-they-love-one-another” life that testifies to the power of the gospel and may be used of God to provoke the world to jealousy.

What the church needs is a renewed commitment to the mission Jesus gave: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19).

The mission is to make disciples. The means of making disciples are baptizing and teaching. He did not say, Go make disciples by engaging in mercy ministry.

Evangelicals need fresh confidence in the mission and the methods that Christ endorsed and that gave the church success in the first century. The need of the hour is not Word and Deed ministry, but Word and Sacraments ministry. ■

William H. Smith is pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Missouri.

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Masks of God

by Gene Edward Veith

God works through you in your vocation, whatever it may be.

When I go into a restaurant, the waitress who brings me my meal, the cook in the back who prepared it, the delivery men, the wholesalers, the workers in the food-processing factories, the butchers, the farmers, the ranchers, and everyone else in the economic food chain are all being used

by God to “give [me] this day my daily bread.”

This is the doctrine of vocation. God works through people, in their ordinary stations of life to which he has called them, to care for his creation. In this way, he cares for everyone— Christian and non-Christian—whom He has given life.

Luther puts it even more strongly: Vocations are “masks of God.” On the surface, we see an ordinary human face— our mother, the doctor, the teacher, the waitress, our pastor—but, beneath the appearances, God is ministering to us through them. God is hidden in human vocations.

The other side of the coin is that God is hidden in us.

When we live out our callings—as spouses, parents, children, employers, employees, citizens, and the rest— God is working through us. Even when we do not realize it, when we fulfill our callings, we too are masks of God. When a woman and a man, called into marriage, become parents, they sense the miracle that has happened, that God has created a new life through them. The miracle continues as God uses them to bring that child into his eternal kingdom when they bring their baby to holy baptism.

The sense of the miraculous may wear off in the routines of changing diapers, dealing with temper tantrums, earning a living to keep the kids fed and clothed, going to parentteacher conferences, driving to soccer practice, and everything else. But Christian parents can have the confidence that God, who has given them this holy vocation, is hidden in their parenting, that he is caring for their child through them.

The purpose of vocation, according to Luther, is to love and serve the neighbor. Scripture says that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:20-31).

Our relationship with God is based solely on his grace and initiative, what he has done for us in Christ, and not by any works of our own. Our relationship with our neighbors, though, does involve our “works.” As Gustav Wingren, in his classic book Luther on Vocation summarized Luther, “God does not need our good works. But our neighbor does.”

In the spiritual kingdom, it is not a question of serving God with our works: He serves us through his works, in Word and Sacrament, which bring us into the redemption he achieved in the work of Jesus Christ. But the faith of the Christian bears fruit naturally and even unconsciously in love for one’s neighbor, a love whose source is God and which is carried out in vocation.

Christians would do well to echo the lawyer who asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29). In the vocation of marriage, the husband is to love and serve his wife, and the wife is to love and serve her husband. Parents are to love and serve their child, and children are to love and serve their parents.

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On the job, the neighbor being loved and served may be the boss, one’s employees, the customer. In our vocation as citizens, our neighbors to whom we are responsible to love and serve are our fellow citizens in need of good public policies.

To be sure, we often sin in and against our vocations.

God did not call parents to abort or abuse their children, but to love and serve them. God called physicians to bring his healing to patients, not to kill them. God did not call businessmen to cheat their customers, but to provide for their needs. Government officials are not called to oppress their citizens, but to protect them.

Less dramatically, husbands and wives are to serve each other in love, not neglect each other. Workers need to do their jobs to the best of their ability. (The Reformation doctrine of vocation is said to have contributed to the socalled and fast-departing “Protestant work ethic.”) In the catechism, under “The Office of the Keys and Confession,” to the question, “What instruction does Dr. Luther give us for examining ourselves before Confession?” we are told to apply the Ten Commandments, very specifically, to our vocations: Here consider your station according to the Ten Commandments, whether you are a father, mother, son, daughter, master, mistress, servant; whether you have been disobedient, unfaithful, slothful; whether you have grieved any person by word or deed; whether you have stolen, neglected, or wasted aught, or done other injury.

And yet, even though we sin and fall short in our vocations, God continues to work in them, even despite ourselves.

Wingren gives the example of a business owner who cares nothing for his neighbor; his only concern is to make money. And yet for all of his sinful selfishness, God still uses his business to provide useful products or services to the community (otherwise, he could never stay in business) and to provide employment so that his workers can take care of their families. Similarly, God brings children up through even imperfect parents (as we all are). He brings his saving Word and Sacraments even through imperfect pastors. God has a way of delivering his gifts in earthen vessels, but that by no means diminishes how valuable they are.

If we are masks of God, even when we do not realize it, it is also true that God is masked in our neighbor.

Particularly when our neighbor is in need — when he or she is sick, hungry, thirsty, naked, a prisoner, a stranger — Christ Himself is hidden. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren,” the Lord says, “ye have done it unto me” (Matt. 25:40).

In serving our neighbors, we end up serving Christ after all.

Gene Edward Veith is the Academic Dean of Patrick Henry College and Culture Editor for World Magazine.

This article originally appeared in The Lutheran Witness (August 2001) and is reprinted with permission. It is the second in a series.

INTERVIEW for

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An Interview with Alister McGrath

A Discussion of Spirituality Dr. McGrath, how would you describe the spirituality of Evangelicalism?

Well, I think that one word that does come to mind is this: rootless.

What I mean is, evangelicals do seem to be searching for enhanced spiritual depth to their lives, but they seem to be doing so in a very random way, and there is a lot of flirtation with popular psychology and so on. And it seems to me that one of the things I sense is missing, which I think would be enormously helpful is wrestling with the spirituality of the Reformation period.

It seems to me that that could be an enormously valuable resource for the modern evangelicals.

What biblical or Reformation doctrines specifically are you thinking of? Why the Reformation as opposed to another period?

Well, I think that all of us who call ourselves Protestants in any sense of the word owe our origins to the Reformation. And one way in which any movement in history can regain a sense of direction and vitality is by going back to its roots.

And I think all of us need to ask what it means to be a Protestant.

One of the best ways of doing that is simply by going back to the Reformation to renew and refresh ourselves before going forward again into the future. They give us ideas, they give us a stimulus, and that can be enormously helpful.

I can hear the listener right now saying, “I don’t want to be Protestant; I want to be biblical. I don’t care about the titles. Why not go back to the Bible? Why

spiritual?

Well, the word spirituality isn’t all look at a particular period of histhat helpful, I think. Spirituality tory and say that is the kind of suggests something very monastic, spirituality we need to emulate? in other words, care of the spirit, There are two reasons why I think withdrawing from the world, that the Reformation is enormously sort of thing. There are some very helpful. One is because if negative overtones you summarize the spirithere. For the tuality of the Reformation period, I think all Reformation in a phrase, I think for the of us need to and it’s “going back to biblical writers as Christian roots,” “going well, the Christian ask what it back to Scripture,” and life is all about leadmeans to be a ing to what Paul calls the Reformation is giving us a classic example the spiritual person.

Protestant. of a spirituality which is That means the pergoing straight back to son who is open to Scripture. We can learn from that God, faithful to God, and obedient model. We can say, here’s how a to God in every aspect of life. I very important generation did think the right way of thinking exactly what we’d like to do today. about a biblical spirituality is this: They can give us some hints, some It’s a spirituality which takes you ideas, about how to go ahead. out of the church and puts you right in the world to serve God What are some of the biblical there. And I think that we need to doctrines you’re thinking of? recover that idea: serving God in I think the doctrine of justification the world. by faith is a very good example.

Most people would regard that docFrancis Schaeffer has called contrine as being totally unfamiliar and temporary evangelical spirituality yet it expresses so many central an “evangelical ghetto.” I know biblical insights. I really do think we even have our own Christian that we need to recover at least activities calendar in southern some of those today. We’ve lost California so that we can enterthem. I think the time has come to tain ourselves without leaving try and get them back again. the monastery, so to speak. That, you say, is a skewed spirituality. Is Well you’re certainly identifying it, in fact, a spirituality not territhe goals of this magazine and bly unfamiliar to the reformers? our organization. When we talk I think the reformers have someabout biblical spirituality, aren’t thing to say to us here. They recwe talking about evangelism, ognize – and I think we must recprayer, missions, going to church, ognize it, too – the need for us to working for a Christian organizanurture our faith, and that must tion…is that what we mean by be done inside the community of

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We should want to lead a form of life that conforms to the will of God, not out of a new sense of legalism, but simply out of a sense of thankfulness, and the best of all possible reasons: because we love God. faith. The church is there to nurture us, to deepen our faith. Why? To send us out into the world to work and to witness there.

We talk about the Protestant work ethic…Do you think that it is an aspect of evangelical spirituality which is, to some degree, lost?

I think it is. To me, the Protestant work ethic is saying this: To work for God, you do not need to become a monk. Rather, what you need is to bring to your work a determination to glorify God in it, even the most menial of tasks. The reformers said that even in the sweeping of a room you can glorify God. That brings a new depth of meaning to ordinary, everyday labors. It means you do them with new commitment, with a new level of meaning, and I really do think that we need to recover the idea that we can serve God in our everyday lives, rather than on some special occasions.

Don’t you think that we measure spirituality by, for instance, the usefulness to evangelism? For instance, if I want to be a filmmaker, to be really useful in the kingdom of God, I should produce evangelistic films for a Christian film company rather than work in Hollywood where you’re fighting an uphill battle with “the world”?

I think that’s a very fair question. I think all of us have to think through the following question. I am engaged in some kind of business, some kind of career, and that almost certainly reflects my gifts as 3 0 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

a person. Maybe God has given me those gifts to serve him as well as to make a living. And so I think that we’re being asked in the first place to identify our gifts and our talents by which we make a living, and just being asked, is there any way that those gifts and talents might find their service to God in his church? But I think there are other things that one could say as well. The main thing I’d like to say is this – and we need to recover the idea of vocation, the idea of being called by God, and that really means this: It means putting your trust in God, that you’re meant to be where you are, and that somehow he can use you right there. And that means being open to opportunities that God may put your way, and being prepared to serve him in totally unexpected ways at your place of work.

Many evangelicals, when they think of spirituality, they think of “I don’t drink, dance, smoke, or chew or go with girls who do.”

How would you contrast this type of spirituality with Reformation piety?

Luther wrote a book called The Liberty of the Christian, in which he takes up Paul’s phrase, “the glorious liberty of the children of God.” And Luther’s point is simply this: the gospel imposes no strait jacket upon us; rather, it renews us so that, spontaneously, we should be seeking to serve God in our lives. It gives us a new freedom from sin; it breaks the bond of sins, and it doesn’t put new bonds in their place.

Naturally, we should want to lead a

form of life that conforms to the will of God, not out of a new sense of legalism, but simply out of a sense of thankfulness, and the best of all possible reasons: because we love God. When you fall in love with someone, you naturally want to please them. You do the sorts of things you know they want you to do. Why? Because they’ve laid down the rules? No, simply because that is spontaneous, appropriate, and highly desirable. This is the way you want to live to please the person you love. Evangelical spirituality ought to be highly positive and affirmative. God has done everything for our salvation, so let’s live out a positive, committed life in response.

Tremendous points. We often hear Christians say that to believe in the divinity of Christ or to believe in the Trinity really is irrational and that ultimately the justification for our faith is that it is irrational. We think of some church fathers in the past who have said that I believe because it is irrational. Has that damaged us, that idea that faith and reason are incompatible?

I think it has damaged us. Let me take the example you gave; I think it is a very good example. A lot of Christians say, well, we’ve got to take these things on trust – like the divinity of Christ or the Trinity.

If we start thinking about them, we’ll discover they’re false and our whole faith will collapse. I think it’s dangerous, I think it’s shallow, and I think it’s very, very uninformed. Why do people feel like this? It seems to me there’s a failing on the part of our pastors and our teachers to ground their people in the bases of these doctrines so that they can be confident in them. I mean, the whole Christian faith stands or falls on the divinity of Christ. Why are people so worried about it? I mean, it seems to me we need to reassure ourselves of the foundations of these doctrines, and the bases are there! It

seems to me we need to be encouraging our people to assure themselves of the foundations of their faith. It seems to me there is a lack of serious education for Christians, which I think reflects a lack of intellectual interest on the part of many Christians to think through their faith.

You’re not suggesting, for instance, the Christian who puts in an eight-hour day at the shop has to go to seminary, for instance.

No, I’m not. I’m simply saying the Christian faith is one of the most wonderful things that life has to offer. It pays to think about it, to delve its depths. There’s so much there waiting to be discovered; I’m just saying that everybody’s faith could be so much more enriched if they simply took the trouble to follow it out, to think things through, to read more books, to deepen their understanding, not just because they’ll gain from it, but because they’ll be able to tell their friends and help them as well.

We don’t read enough, do we?

We don’t read enough and I think one of the problems here is that what we do read is often biographies. In other words, here’s a story of a great Christian. You go away, you learn an awful lot about that great Christian, but you don’t know a lot more about your faith.

And it seems to me that somehow we’ve got to create a market for people who want to read about their faith, who want to discover exciting new ways of presenting their faith, who want interesting analogies to help them think through their faith. That, I think, is missing today.

Certainly people like yourself, and J.I. Packer, and R.C. Sproul have shown that is indeed possible. At Oxford you surely must face constant intellectual challenges to Christianity. Surely you must’ve been presented at cer-

tain points with challenges of the Christian faith. Have you ever thought, at any point, that Christianity doesn’t stand up to the rigor of modern intellectual challenges? Have we become so sophisticated that Christianity by contrast is weak in the face of the arguments?

I don’t think Christianity is weak, but sometimes our perception of it and our presentation of it is weak.

I mean, I welcome challenges to my faith, personally, because it encourages me to think it through.

I mean, very often when I’m arguing with students, I hear point after point made which I haven’t heard before. It’s an invitation, to think that point through. But you know, I don’t think we’re seeing any new challenges to our faith today. All of the questions being raised have been raised before in some shape or form. The difficulty is, we aren’t giving good answers these days. In the old days, people would be able to give answers for the sort of difficulties that were being raised. Nowadays, very often, you get this sort of response: I just don’t know. I think that is a very inadequate response because the person who is putting to you a challenge to your faith, they might be open to faith if you could just give a good answer. Very often people challenge you about your faith not wanting to challenge you, really, but hoping that you will challenge them. And we’re missing out on an important evangelistic opportunity here by not giving good, convincing replies to their genuine questions.

Very often when we present the gospel, it’s not an intellectual challenge to their presuppositions or their convictions, but it’s a knee-jerk, emotional sort of “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” Would you say that is one of the deficiencies of our evangelism now?

I think that is right; I think that we do need to take people seriously,

and if someone says to you, “Well, I’ve always had difficulty believing that Jesus is divine,” for example, you could say, “Well, the Bible says he is. That’s it.” But I don’t think that is a very helpful response. I think a better way would be to say, “Well, I can understand that you find that difficult. It’s a very, very big thing to say. But I think we’re right in saying it. And what I would like to do is try and show you why Christians believe that. Let me start at the beginning.” And just begin to work your way through.

Why? Because you’ll be helping that person think through a difficult argument. Also, you’ll be doing yourself a favor by checking out that you really understand this point in the first place.

Has the anti-intellectualism that we’re talking about contributed to an anti-doctrinal bias, too. In other words, is there a relationship between the “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” and not moving on from there, and an anti-doctrinal bias of “I just want to know Jesus, not about Jesus.”

I think that’s fair. I think the word doctrine is a turn-off for many people because it suggests a very cerebral type of Christianity, that is, a Christianity that is head knowledge. Well, of course, you’re quite right. Christianity is about the response of the heart to Christ, but it is also about the response of the whole person – not just believing in Jesus, but believing certain things about him. Why should I want to dedicate my entire life to Jesus? What is it about him that makes that response appropriate for me? It seems to me that I have to be able to give an answer and that answer can only be in terms of doctrines about Jesus. Why does Jesus matter so much? Answer: Because Jesus is God incarnate, the Son of God. That’s a doctrine about Jesus which tells me why I am right to put my heart and set it firmly on Jesus.

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What can be done, practically, for the person who wants to love God with his or her mind but finds it so difficult. The time is just not there, there are a lot of distractions in the modern world, I’m sure you know. What about that person?

Well, I think a very helpful way of taking this forward is to simply suggest that person sets aside one hour a week, no more, and aims in their hour to think through one question which he or she has come across in relation to his or her faith. For example, it may be something somebody has said to them: Why do Christians believe that Jesus is God? Why don’t you think that one through? Get some paper, get some pens, write out your answers, think the thing through. Read books if you can.

But always have something there that you can use to deepen your faith. I think you’ll find that one hour is an hour well spent. Who would you spend it with? Well why not people like C.S. Lewis?

There are many people like that who will genuinely help you through. If you haven’t read C.S. Lewis’s book Mere Christianity before, that’s a marvelous starting point. It will keep you going for months if necessary, but you come out from that a wiser and a better Christian.

Speaking Of… In 1835, August Tholuck wrote one of the nineteenth century’s most popular books on preaching. In Tholuck’s foreword to his second collection of Sermons, he spoke “Concerning Preaching for the Cultured People of Our Day.” After noting how, in one German town after another, modern, educated people had deserted the churches, Tholuck asked, “What can be done to bring the educated classes back again to take part in our worship services?...We must offer the hand to the ‘Cultured Despisers of Religion’ [Schleiermacher]…in a time when Shakespeare is a stronger authority for many than is Paul and Goethe a stronger influence for many than the Epistle to the Romans…” To accomplish this, according to Tholuck, the preacher must speak, “not merely as a preacher to us, but as a human being…It is not enough that one speaks the truth; it is essential how one speaks…how the preacher bears the hopes, pains, and joys of the congregation so that they might hear.” …Looking back more than a century, we have difficulty imagining just how radical was Tholuck’s proposal. He was proposing that the action of the sermon shift from the pulpit to the congregation, from the orthodoxy of the speaker to the requirements of the congregation. If the congregation had now made Shakespeare more

Alister McGrath is Director of the Oxford Centre for Evangelism and Apologetics at Wycliffe Hall, and professor of historical theology at Oxford University.

This interview was conducted in 1992.

authoritative than Paul, if the congregation now wanted feeling more than theology, then preachers must adjust or else be stuck with empty pews. The humanity of the preacher had moved center stage as the content of preaching and the needs of the congregation as preaching’s ultimate standard.

— William Willimon, Peculiar Speech: Preaching to the Baptized (Eerdmans, 1992), pp. 47–51

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REVIEWS what’s

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Genesis 1–4: A linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commenatary

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n a publishing world where there is no shortage of books about the biblical

The outline of the book is fairly straightforward: chapter 2 illuscreation account, especially from the early chapters of Genesis, add one more trates the method the author is using; chapter 3 places these four from P & R publishing by Old Testament Professor C. John Collins at Covenant chapters of Genesis into their literary context; chapters 4 to 7 Theological Seminary explores the exegetical nuts and bolts of Genesis 1 to 4; (St. Louis, MS). This chapter 8 raises the question of possible sources; chapter 9 book differs from many covers the communicative intent of Genesis 1 to 4; chapother recent books on ter 10 interestingly examines the relationship of science, creation: it is scholarly, faith, and historical questions that Genesis 1 to 4 undoubtincorporates recent linedly raise, especially in conservative circles; and finally, guistic method, chapter 11 examines the ramifications of Genesis 1 to 4 for engages the science a Christian’s worldview today. and faith issue, trods The strengths of this text are many. First, for example, through the theological wading through the waters of Collins’s new book will aid heights while not us, in this reviewer’s opinion, in reading other Scripture neglecting serious and texts as well. Second, it is nice to see Collins inviting the sustained exegetical reader to sit “lightly” on the notion of necessary sequencommentary, and yet— tiality between the various days of creation. In fact, after in the end—makes his detailed exposition, Collins predicates that the nature some disappointing and lengths of the days of creation are not the main comclaims that have no litmunicative interest of the text. Anyone familiar with the tle consequences for debates over the nature and length of the creation days in systematic theology. conservative circles will recognize why this is significant.

Genesis 1–4: This last point is crucial Third, Collins has rightly classified the character of the A Linguistic, Literary and since Collins views his Hebrew of Genesis 1, which is not poetry, but “exalted Theological Commentary work as explicitly theoprose narrative.”

by John Collins logical in all its maniAlthough this reviewer learned much from Collins’s P&R Publishing, 2006 318 pages (paperback), $17.99 festations for the variproject and there is much here to commend the book, ous loci of biblical and there are certain descriptions of other positions and preditheological studies. cations in the book that warrant criticism. Only the most Collins uses a “discourse-oriented literary approach,” major shortcoming will receive comment here. Collins in which according to him, is the most important contribuhis discussion of the crucial chair passage dealing with tion to a greater rigor in the treatment of this topic. what Reformed theologians have called the covenant of Discourse linguistics is a term not easily unpacked since it works (i.e., Gen. 2:15–17) needs further clarification. includes a wide purview of topics for its study, including, After establishing that we may label this interaction but not limited to, embedded features of language reflectbetween God and Adam in the pre-lapsarian era a covenant, ing social interactions, the study of larger chunks of lanCollins asks the crucial question, “[S]hall we call it a guage beyond the clause and phrase level, and other areas ‘covenant of works’?” Correctly, Collins then goes to as well. Collins attempts to illumine our understanding of Romans 5:12–21 for help, where Reformed exegetes have Genesis 1 to 4 by paying close attention to the details and often turned for the Pauline Adam-Christ, first Adam/second how they are integrated within the larger context.

Adam analogy that is so instructive regarding the nature of

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the relationship between the federal headship of Adam visà-vis that of Christ, the second Adam. He notes the manner in which this has been expressed: “[T]he two covenant heads must be equivalent: just as Jesus earned [emphasis his] life for those he represents, so Adam must have been able to earn life for those he represented.” The very way he states the position, however, prejudices the case.

Collins incorrectly predicates that Romans 5 depends more on disanalogy than it does on pure analogy. Then, Collins makes the statement that “it seems better to think of Adam’s action as the work of covenant representation, without introducing the idea of merit” (114). It is understandable that Collins wants to avoid the language of merit since the reformers and their heirs often did given the circumstances in which they lived and fought for faithfulness to biblical teaching.

The above statement by Collins, however, is a misunderstanding of the function of analogy and the particular analogy in Paul’s epistle as it relates to the relationship between Romans 5 and Genesis 1–3. Moreover, it undermines the very necessity and purpose of the analogy at this point: to introduce an appropriately nuanced view of merit.

The very nature of analogy is that it predicates some things similar and some things dissimilar between two things being compared. In Romans 5, there is a parallelism here between Adam and Christ, but there is also contrast.

And the contrast is one of degree and consequence (here the reviewer follows Doug Moo). The comparison of degree is set forth in 5:15a, which reads, “not as the trespass, so also is the free gift.” This is explained in the climactic verse 19 as the work of Christ being more powerful than Adam.

The second contrast, the one of consequence, is that Paul says (5:17a) that although death reigned by dint of the transgression of the one, that is, Adam, nevertheless by means of an argument from the lesser to the greater, Paul says (5:17b) that there will be a great reversal, “much more” for those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness.

Of course, after the fall, a mere mortal is never able to merit anything whatsoever from God. Whatever good proceeds from us is anticipated by God’s work for and within us. Predicating the possibility of Adam meriting a higher state (with consequences for his progeny in perpetuity) upon condition of his obedience is not jeopardizing the Creator/creature distinction as long as, following Aquinas and others, we recognize and state precisely that human actions have a meritorious character “on the presupposition of divine ordination,” (Summa Theologia, 1a, 2ae, 114.1), that is, if and when God sets the conditions to be such. Such a carefully qualified definition of merit in the context of the covenant in the garden before the Fall may be endorsed.

Bryan D. Estelle is Associate Professor of History at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido, California.

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Too Good to Be True: Finding Hope in a World of Hype

by Michael Horton Zondervan, 2006 197 pages (hardback), $16.99 Michael Horton has written a unique book that is a thoughtful mixture of spiritual autobiography, biblical exposition, devotional meditation, and theological/cultural critique. The author’s struggles with a terminally ill father and a mother suffering concurrently from a debilitating stroke prompts some probing reflections about the quality of true faith and the nature of divine providence. Along the way, Horton analyzes a wide variety of trials that believers face during their earthly existence, offering “devotional exercises” that he hopes can “be both a balm in the middle of trials and a study guide for the exam of life” (21).

Friedrich Nietzsche may have understood better than many evangelicals today that Christianity is indeed a religion for “losers.” Evangelism programs during much of the twentieth century have sought to paint a different picture by parading celebrity converts and teaching that conversion can solve every personal problem. Religion has come to be viewed in the wider culture as merely another instrument to achieve “feeling good” and contemporary Christians have often unwittingly bought this popular view. But Horton explains that “the bottom line of this book is that the gospel is good news for losers, that in fact we are all losers if we measure ourselves by God’s interpretation of reality rather than our own” (26). The Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century understood this central truth better because their theology of the cross grasped the full significance of Christ’s redemptive suffering.

Luther and others recognized that, contrary to outward appearances, God was actually most at work at a time and in a place that seemed to scream out his absence, that is, Jesus’ crucifixion. Just when one might assume he was completely absent, God was in fact most present and at work, redeeming his lost sheep through the cross. Jesus himself sought to explain this hard truth to his disciples yet, at least prior to his resurrection, they consistently failed to understand it. As with his own Son, God the Father promises not to take us around particular suffering but to help us through it. Contemporary evangelicals need to discard their superficial “theology of glory” and allow a “theology of the cross“ to reshape their whole thinking and practice. Their failure to do this is evident in many different ways. “Our public worship today,” comments Horton, “is a fatal index of the fact that we do not know what to do in the presence of a God who is not only our friend but also our judge ”(30). This distorted view is most evident in how Christian funerals no longer deal honestly with grief and loss but have morphed into “celebrations“ that indulge believers in a sort of

shallow denial. The aptly titled “Burial of the Dead” service in the classic Book of Common Prayer provides a striking contrast in how it avoids unchristian euphemisms about dying and puts the focus squarely on Christ and the gospel.

Among the best ways to address these distorted views is first to correct our view of God, to square it with his selfdisclosure in holy writ. In contemporary culture, experience trumps propositional truth as set forth in Scripture, the creeds or confessions. Accordingly, many Christians today are really engaging their own projections of God, rather than coming to terms with the Bible’s rich portrait.

Convenient, self-serving images have come to characterize the belief of both the laity and some theologians whose “open theism” seeks to redesign God along more congenial lines. Horton argues that “we must eliminate both the idol of a loving but weak god and the idol of a strong but graceless god…Neither vision represents the God of the Bible”(64).

In the second half of his book, Horton explores the experience of Job and John’s account of Jesus’ raising of Lazarus to advance his argument about how believers can best view trials and understand the larger significance of suffering. To explain Job’s horrendous affliction, Job’s friends offer rebukes or platitudes, but Job refuses to accept their views. Job finally declares that he requires a “mediator” to make his case with God. Christians are blessed to know that they have such an advocate in Jesus. But the story of Job also teaches that our faith doesn’t solve all of our problems. Christian couples may, for example, discover that their faith is not a “fix” for their hurting marriages. Moreover, the raising of Lazarus can help us keep our focus on God’s larger redemptive plan, rather than our own particular problems. Just as Mary and Martha didn’t understand why Jesus had delayed and thereby allowed their brother to die, so believers can often fail to recognize the big picture in times of acute suffering. “The problem comes,” Horton explains, “when we think our own immediate concerns are ultimate” (173).

More than once, Horton rightly notes how our culture promotes these unscriptural understandings of suffering and how evangelicals have imbibed a pragmatic, even consumerist model of the faith. We view Christianity as an instrument to effect self-improvement and “our thirst for perpetual self-transformation is largely generated by the culture of marketing” (131). The author might have pursued this particular thread further. Why were American evangelicals so readily attracted to Ronald Reagan’s ebullient (and unscriptural) optimism about human nature?

How exactly does Americans’s love for rags-to-riches stories incline them to misread the gospel which is, in large part, the riches-to-rags story of Christ humbling himself to become despised and afflicted? (Horton raises this point but doesn’t explore it in depth.)

Pursuing such questions might have made this a different book. As it is, Too Good to be True is a genuinely insight-

ful and admirably accessible study of a cluster of difficult questions. Many American Christians could profit enormously from reading it.

Gillis Harp is Professor of History at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania.

Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity

by Lauren F. Winner Brazos Press, 2005 176 pages (hardback), $17.99 Baker Book House, 2006, 192 pages (paperback), $14.99 As created male and female, all of us are sexual beings with various seasons of sexual expression. Whether single, married, divorced, widowed, sick, healthy, young, or old, all of us are to engage in chastity as a spiritual discipline over the course of our lives.

According to the number of singles in my counseling office, the contemporary church appears to be more mime than mentor on the subject, where even the tire flaps on freight trucks have something sexual to say with their silhouettes of naked women.

A few years ago, Lauren F. Winner wrote honestly about her sexual activity as a single person for Beliefnet.com. She was a recent convert from Judaism to Christianity and though she had degrees from Columbia and Cambridge, she could not connect Jesus’s salvation with saving sex for marriage. She was demoted from senior editor at Christianity Today to staff writer, and after being criticized in print by World Magazine, she responded that Christian singles should be able to admit their desire for sexual relationships, “and in the context of rich church tradition and in the company of older Christians, try to figure out what we can do about it.”

Her third book to date, Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity, includes discussion questions at the end of the paperback edition and is the worthwhile fruit of her figuring. Winner’s high view of the church, Scripture, sacraments, and spiritual disciplines make a rich backdrop for addressing sexuality, pornography, masturbation, marriage, community, Gnostic views on bad bodies, and chastity. Most helpfully, she points out that all personal transformation happens ultimately by the grace and power of Christ, and not by moralistic pronouncements such as “True Love Waits,” which tend to be communicated as reaN O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 35

sonable assumptions one physically attains out of sheer will.

Winner briefly reviews dismal statistics about abstinence, where the majority of students break a virginity pledge before college ends. Of those who say they keep it, more than half admit having oral sex. A similar percentage at an evangelical college admits they do not consider anal intercourse to be sex either. While definitions of sex may be shifting, it appears that actions of the adulteress are not, “She eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’” (Prov. 30:20).

Using both the Bible and Augustine’s high view of marriage, Winner eloquently demonstrates why sex, according to God, belongs only there in order to be real. “Faux sex” is something that happens outside of marriage and is a distorted imitation, “as Walt Disney’s Wilderness Lodge Resort is only a simulation of real wilderness. The danger is when we spend too much time in the simulations, we lose the capacity to distinguish between the ersatz and the real” (38).

Real Sex is the result of research and spiritual discipline exercised amid sexual longing and personal baggage, which Winner candidly and tastefully shares. She met her husband while working on the book. In chapter 6, they heed the advice of a friend, who was also Reformed University Fellowship’s campus minister at the University of Virginia: “Don’t do anything sexual you wouldn’t feel comfortable doing on the steps of the Rotunda.” Winner says this wisely combined the public and private, “The question for unmarried couples is not How far can we go? but, How do we maintain the integrity of our sexual relationship which at this point is only public?” (106).

For me, the rotunda boundary highlights the role of community but hides the nature of societal sin. I live in a city where homosexuals kiss at Starbucks, and teenagers masturbate one another underneath trees in the park.

Telling people to “only go as far as what’s acceptable in public,” lets the cultural conscience point us down a seared path. Our guide, ultimately, is Scripture and the interpretation and practice of the Spirit-indwelled body of believers. As history proves, communities will always sway between licentiousness and legalism.

The weaknesses of the book are mostly what it leaves out. It doesn’t provide a helpful guide for singles or the “single-again” who have been chaste for years and are looking for encouragement and examples. It doesn’t deal with motives leading to premarital sex, nor does it mention the prevalence of sexual abuse and its fallout. Winner also leaves out any substantive discussion on God’s wrath and judgment for sexual immorality, and doesn’t guide readers through meaty biblical exegesis on forgiveness, which follows confession. Winner rightly points people to embrace the story of Christ’s forgiveness. She just doesn’t show them the passages of the cross where this gets worked out.

One of the many strengths of Winner’s book is her goal for Christian readers to relearn their basic identity as one 3 6 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

placed in the biblical story of creation-fall-redemption and to work out their salvation within the Christian community. Then and only then can one understand his or her identity in Christ and God’s good news about chastity. This alone makes Real Sex a unique, contemporary treasure and a necessary group study for any church.

Shannon B. Geiger graduated with a divinity degree from Westminster Thelogical Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and works as a counselor at Park Cities Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Texas.

Shepherds After My Own Heart: Pastoral Traditions and Leadership in the Bible

by Timothy S. Laniak InterVarsity Press, 2006 313 pages (paperback), $24.00 In his book Shepherds After My Own Heart, Timothy Laniak provides in-depth exegetical examination of the pastoral leadership theme throughout Scripture. Laniak, associate professor of Old Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina, marshals a wide number of texts to help transform the perspective of pastors and ministry leaders in a number of important ways.

First, Laniak demonstrates quite clearly that those who serve as pastoral leaders serve under God who himself cares for and shepherds his own people. While this theme was most powerfully demonstrated in a negative fashion in Laniak’s engagement of the major prophets, it is nonetheless clear that “God is the ultimate shepherd of his people. He calls human deputies to work for him … to be a shepherd is to be both responsible for (the flock) and responsible to (the Owner)” (248).

In addition, pastoral leaders care for God’s people in this time between times as God’s people live in exile from their true home. Most powerfully demonstrated again in the section on the major prophets, but also in 1 Peter and Revelation, shepherds share in the sufferings of the chief shepherd, Jesus, who leads his people to himself. Again, because this world is not home, pastoral leaders do not use God’s people to develop power bases or fiefdoms.

A third insight that Laniak develops is that God’s presence and provision enables pastoral leaders to exercise their calling. Pastors and ministry leaders do not draw

from their own resources in order to care for God’s people.

Rather, it is always God’s own presence that provides sustenance and encouragement; pastors shepherd God’s people by constantly pointing them to their “only source of true delight.”

This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking book. My only wish is that the exegetical reflection had been more systematized into a coherent narrative. I often found the text to be rough-going, sloughing through the biblical details and struggling to keep the bigger themes in mind.

In that regard, reading the conclusion first might be a good way to keep the big picture in mind. In addition, Laniak himself suggested skimming sections of material in order to gain the cumulative effect (26–27). That being said, for the pastor who is willing to wade in, he will find a great deal of wisdom and insight for understanding the pastoral task.

Sean Michael Lucas is Assistant Professor of Church History and Dean of Faculty of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.

Revelations of a Single Woman

by Connally Gilliam Saltriver, 2006 216 pages (paperback), $13.99 Is marriage on the decline in Western culture? It would seem so given the number of books on singleness that have appeared on bookstore shelves in recent years. Could we be harkening back to Jeremiah’s day when the absence of marriage was a sign of the times, more specifically, the decline of the times? “For thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Behold, I will silence in this place, before your eyes and in your days … the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride’” (Jer. 16:9). It could be.

In any case, every Christian publisher has jumped on the singles bandwagon. The offerings range from upbeat to bitter, and with so many choices now available, some prescreening may help the reader with his or her selection.

Connally Gilliam has written a humorous and very honest (sometimes uncomfortably so) look at what it feels like to be single in a couples world. As someone who shares her marital status, I can say she has captured it perfectly. She puts into words what the rest of us feel, at least some of the time. Contrary to so much of what’s out there, Gilliam

doesn’t write from the posture of having all the answers.

In fact, part of why we are encouraged by the book is her frank honesty about her weaknesses. She is apparently well aware that while experience brings insight and wisdom, it does not magically confer exhaustive knowledge on a particular topic. Gilliam candidly admits her disappointment about remaining unmarried, but she knows this is the very thing that makes her more useful in God’s service. Such wisdom can only come from a heart of humility and is contrary to so much of what we read along these lines, which often reveals either a bitterness born of pride or a faulty belief that unmarried misery is biblically acceptable.

Gilliam has a strong grasp of postmodern thought and culture, perhaps because she works with a younger generation. As a result, she captures how postmodernism is shaping life and how we think about living. One of the most profound portions of the book is Gilliam’s explanation of the source of pain for single people in a postmodern society: fragmentation. She articulates what so many of us feel and fear but have not been able to identify.

Singles attempting to make their way in the world today are not defined by what has traditionally defined adults in our culture—a family structure, a group of settled friends, a straight career track, and a lifetime home town. This loss leaves us feeling undefined. Perhaps because many of us have never shed the mantle of such tradition, we are kept from defining the problem for ourselves; whatever the case may be, the contrast is clear to Gilliam and she opens it to the rest of us. Single people in our choice-laden society do not have the anchor of permanence or routine, and it does leave us wondering where and to whom we belong. Gilliam expresses the positive, however, reminding us that what we may really be missing is the sense of safety such routine provides, which is where the opportunity to trust God comes in to guide and lead us. From Gilliam we are enabled to see that postmodern fragmentation is merely an instrument in God’s hands to teach us greater reliance on him.

On an earthier note, Gilliam poses the question, “Who needs men?” in order to rip down the self-erected pain barriers of many single women. All too often, we single women are tempted to find relief from our husbandless state by structuring our lives and hearts so as to obliterate any desire for relational intimacy. The age in which we live has made this possible from a practical standpoint, and the ubiquitous feminist culture is all too ready to aid in this self-protective endeavor. The result of these influences is that single women are made to feel shame for their relational longings. Yet, there is a world of difference, or rather, as Gilliam sees it, “an almost invisible line,” between needing and being needy. After candidly sharing her own feelings of neediness, she concludes that women do indeed need men, if for no other reason than that male and female best reflect God’s image when reflecting off one another.

With humor and insight, fueled in no small part by her N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 37

stated yearnings for physical intimacy, Gilliam describes the angst of celibacy in a sexually saturated society. She epitomizes the culture-torn believer; committed to Christ, Gilliam struggles to free the foot still caught in the culture trap, although she is clearly aware of the snare. When friends who hold to a secular worldview express shock upon learning of Gilliam’s celibacy, her initial default response is to question her normalcy. Over time, however, her wrestlings have led her to understand that the sexually celibate can avoid feeling a culturally imposed sense of deprivation by viewing sex ultimately as an act of giving, not getting.

So, why aren’t you married? Every single person over the age of thirty is asked this question or a variant of it with irritating regularity, and the askers are, almost without exception, well-intended married people. Although natural and easily justifiable, sarcasm is not the right response. Instead, Gilliam says, single people can use such confrontations to come up with an answer, not for those who ask us, but for ourselves. The truth of the matter is that single people are single because, for today at least, God has ordained it. Perhaps, as we noted earlier and as Gilliam’s wise old friend said to her, “Your relational sufferings and disappointments are, sadly, emblematic of the age.” We are quick to seek reasons for our single status so that we can manufacture a cure, but that is to buy into the succinctly American illusion that we are masters of our happiness. Gilliam has learned, as will all single Christians who learn to worship God over marriage, that happiness and singleness are not mutually exclusive.

In sum, every unmarried Christian woman attempting to make sense of life in a tumultuous age will find something of themselves in this book. After reading its diverse chapters with many a chuckle and nod of agreement, you will feel much less alone than you might have felt before.

Lydia Brownback is an editor and author of two books, Legacy of Faith (P & R Publishing, 2002) and Fine China is for Single Women Too (P & R Publishing, 2003).

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POINT OF CONTACT: BOOKS YOUR NEIGHBORS ARE READING The World is Flat

by Thomas Friedman Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006 (updated edition) 608 pages (hardback) $30.00 The Pundit’s World: Newsflash: Technology, capitalism and low labor costs drive an increasingly fast-paced, global economy!

You knew that already?

Well, if you want 608 pages to better understand the forces behind this phenomenon, pick up Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat.

The forces described in this most recent book by Friedman led him to conclude that, “The global competitive playing field was being leveled. The world was being flattened.”

Friedman’s observations on global economic influencers serve a purpose much like David Brook’s insights life in the United States in On Paradise Drive. While both books state the obvious, credit goes to the respective authors for providing a categorization of the trends and defining “handles.” Friedman’s handles include business buzzwords such as “uploading,” “outsourcing,” “offshoring,” “supplychaining,” “insourcing” and “in-forming.” To say that Friedman thinks these forces have a significant impact would be an understatement. He believes our current time “will be remembered … as one of the most important turning points in the history of mankind.”

The World is Flat represents more digestible material than what Friedman typically offers as a much-celebrated New York Times columnist and itinerant pundit on political talk shows. This “brief history of the 21st century” presents easily accessible reading material. No heavy lifting is required to grasp the concepts although the occasional distraction such as outlining the nuances of HTML, HTTP, TCP/IP, XML, and SOAP proves unnecessary. The most engaging aspect of this book is found in the numerous examples provided. Much of the book reads like a Harvard Business School case study. The breadth of example companies and business professionals is impressive and instructive.

A main downfall in Friedman’s premise surrounds his focus on technological determinism as the chief source of change in today’s world. While Friedman concedes that

other forces can negate the effect of technological advances – a viral pandemic or a lower economic class that never reaps the benefits of technology in a developing world are two cited in the book – he remains a committed optimist to the future promises of technology. For example, Friedman claims the information revolution of the 1980s as the “one factor as first among equals” in contributing to the Soviet Union’s fall. Most historians, on the other hand, will undoubtedly focus on the emergence of legitimate democratic movements in the Warsaw Pact nations – particularly Poland, an arms race with the United States that overwhelmed the “Evil Empire,” a devastating defeat at the hands of the pre-Islamofascists in Afghanistan as well as other geopolitical, civil liberty and religious forces.

Friedman categorically believes technology has tipped the balance of power across the world to those advocating “democratic, consensual, free-market-oriented governance.” However, this position ignores a rising tide of nationalism, religious fundamentalism and ideology.

Whether it is Chavez’s view of a neo-Bolivar empire in South America, Putin’s old KGB trickery, thievery and intrigue becoming more predominant in Russia, the spread of Islam’s poison in traditionally secular countries or China’s desire to achieve economic prosperity while retaining oppressive control of her people, one very real response to open information borders is balkanization and extremism. As commentator Mark Steyn pointed out, “The jihadists are not primitives. They’re part of a sophisticated network: They travel the world, see interesting places, meet interesting people – and kill them. They’re as globalized as McDonald’s – but, on the whole, they fill in less paperwork” (or in Friedman’s case, transmit e-documents).

As you have probably guessed by now, there is much material in The World is Flat for the Christian to engage.

First, we know the answer to the question, “Who is God?” On page 177 we are told that two of the top Google searches are for “sex” and “God” (depressingly, in that order).

On page 186 we are given insight into this unknown god when one interviewee intones, “Google is like God. God is wireless, God is everywhere, and God sees everything.

Any questions in the world, you ask Google.” So information technology has become the new golden calf. While several of my daughter’s catechism answers are buried in the above quote, I somehow think they mean less to the flatlander than to my four-year-old.

Second, we can allay our fears and sinful desires while offering hope to those who feel overwhelmed by this world. Natural responses to this book would include anxiety about the evil forces that can use these same technologies to harm us, uncertainty about where it will all lead and greed, which drives someone to use new technologies to great personal extravagance. Through all of this we know that the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds (Heb. 4:7).

Finally, Christians can take advantage of these flatten-

ing forces to advance the Great Commission. Internet access delivers the gospel into otherwise closed regions and the relatively low cost of communication, production, and networking enables ministries to have more impact at a lower cost per unit. One can easily see how God can use these capabilities until, “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14).

In Friedman’s world we are evolving to some utopian future state where humanism enabled by technology will deliver us from pre-technology ignorance and deprivations. However, we know that the future history is already written for “a great multitude that no one can count, from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Rev. 7:9). This represents a “flat” world and you don’t need Google or Yahoo! to discover this truth.

Brian K. Esterly is a Ruling Elder at Tenth Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Philadelphia and serves as Senior Vice President for Corporate Development with excelleRx, Inc.

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FAMILY MATTERS r e sou rces

fo r

homes

Parenting in the Pew

W

hen Robbie Castleman entered the Presbyterian church as the wife of a pastor, she found a liturgical style so different from the spontaneity to

sing along with that refrain as soon as they are able.

Pastoral prayer: Follow up on prayer requests by doing something as a family or sending notes of encouragement to members of the congregation who were prayed for during the service.

which she had been accustomed in other church settings that genuine

worship seemed to her impossible. A friend challenged her with these words: “There is no external circumstance that can keep you from worship.” The young pastor’s wife took these words to heart and learned to worship in circumstances that were new to her—and learned to love Sunday morning worship with the people of God. When she became the mother of two boys, she wanted to be sure her children learned to worship as well. Week after week, as the boys grew, they sat beside their mother in the worship service as she taught them, not just to sit still and be quiet, but to participate with the people of God in worship.

Once the boys were grown, Mrs. Castleman wrote Parenting in the Pew (IVP, 2002) “to help parents train children in the only ‘proper behavior’ for church: worship!”

Mrs. Castleman has loaded her book with practical ways to help children of all ages take an active part in the church’s formal worship. Her suggestions cover all the elements of a typical Sunday morning service. She addresses the needs of families with pre-readers as well as those who have teens. In addition, the author presents a careful rationale for training our own children to worship (instead of either sending them off to a separate service for children or letting them play or draw quietly in the pew beside us).

She continually reminds us of the motivation that should accompany our practice, and challenges us regarding our own attitudes toward the church’s worship.

Mrs. Castleman offers a number of ideas for involving children in the different parts of a Sunday morning worship service. Below, I’ve given just one example of each of these: Responsive reading: Point out to a pre-reader the different types of font, indicating who reads when. As he holds the book or page with you, use your finger to follow along so he sees when the type changes and hears the change in readers. As soon as he is old enough to read a few words, point out some he’ll recognize so he can pick them out as the reading progresses.

Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs: Let the youngest children sing along quietly using “la-la-la” instead of the words.

From there, help them listen for repeated refrains, then

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Offering: If offering envelopes are used, be sure each family member has a box of them. Train children to give a portion of their own money.

Special music: Encourage children to listen for a specific word in the anthem and to squeeze your hand each time they hear it.

Sermon: Be sure older children or teens know that you will jot down three questions that underscore important points of the sermon to ask them later. When the pastor begins a story to illustrate a point, call a young child’s attention to it. Later, see if she can explain why the pastor told that story in his sermon.

Parenting in the Pew also offers ideas for cultivating worshipful attitudes, suggestions families can use to prepare in advance for the Sunday morning worship service, and practical advice on logistics to make the whole project go a little more smoothly. As Mrs. Castleman says, “Worship needs to be the one realm in our culture that refuses to accept the world’s addiction to be entertained in order to learn.” Instead, children need to learn to worship as they learn everything else: by participation and practice, with, in this case, large doses of parental modeling and patience thrown in as well.

Starr Meade is author of Training Hearts, Teaching Minds: Family Devotions Based on the Shorter Catechism (P & R Publishing, 2000).

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