the-chief-end-of-man-september-october-1993

THE CHIEF

END OF MAN

Celebrating the Westtninster Confession's 350th Anniversary

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Editor-in-Chief

Michael S. Horton

Managing Editor

Sara McReynolds

Editoral Director

Devron Byerly

Editorial Assistant

Doug Hoisington

Artists

John Dearstyne

Seann Lia

John Newcombe

Paul Swift

CURE Board of Directors

Douglas Abendroth

Howard F. Ahmanson

Cheryl Biehl

Robert den Dulk

Dr. W. Robert Godfrey

Richard Hermes

Michael S. Horton

Executive Leadership Team

President

Michael S. Horton

Executive Vice President

Kim Riddlebarger

Executive Administrator

Jo Horton

VP, Communications

Sara McReynolds

VP, Development

Dan Bach

. VP, Media & Production Shane Rosenthal Products Manager Doug W. Gorman Correspondence Alan Maben Treasurer Micki Riddlebarger CURE is a non,profit educational foundation committed to communicat, ing the insights of the 16th century Reformation to the 20th century Church. For more information, call during business hours at: (714) 956, CURE, or write us at: Christians United for Reformation 2221 East Winston Road Suite K Anaheim, CA 92806

modernREFORMATION © is a production of CURE Publications Ltd.

modernREFORMATION ­ SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1993

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CHIEF END OF MAN ·

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God Glorified In...

The Cross

Michael S. Horton

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Conversion

Dr. Roger Nicole

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Justification

Rick Ritchie

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Sanctification

Kim Riddlebarger

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Our Calling

Alan Maben

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Worship

Ken Myers

25

Glossary Book Review

28

Jeffrey Bearce

29

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l110dern REFORl\1ATION

A Brief History of the

Westminster Assembly

Celebrating the Westminster Confession's 350th Anniversary It is impossible to read the history of modern Britain or the United States without realizing that it is simultaneously the history of Puritanism. After the "first Reformation," which is how the Puritans referred to the sixteenth century led by Luther and Calvin, it became increasingly clear that many in Britain were simply moving from nominal Roman Catholicism to nominal Protestantism. Baptized in the Church of England, every native son or daughter was generally regarded as a citizen of heaven, in spite of so many learned and godly bishops and archbishops who insisted on further reformation of the church.

The Puritans thought the English Reformation had not gone far enough. Unlike the Anabaptists, they did not think that this meant a rejection of infant baptism or involvement in society. In fact, the Puritan~dominated House of Commons prior to the English Civil War in the mid~seventeenth century was on the vanguard of democratic thinking. The problem was that the Reformed Church of England had inherited a monarch for its head. When Henry VIn made the Church of England independent of Rome in 1534 and made himself head of the Church under the Act of Supremacy, it was not for all the right reasons, as we recall from high school history lessons. In fact, Henry had earlier earned himself the title "defender of the faith" from the pope for writing a tract against Luther, but as his leading scholars, bishops, and his own archbishop of Canterbury were turning to the Reformed faith, the ruthless monarch knew he would have to make certain concessions in order to win and keep his Church. "This King wants to be God," Luther charged. "He founds articles of faith, which even the Pope never did."

Henry's son, Edward, succeeded and encouraged Reformed faith throughout the realm, for he was himself an avid reader of the reformers as well as the Greek New Testament. The young king's favor for some of the greatest names in the Reformation brought them to England's universities as jewel's in the nation's crown. As these continental Reformed theologians taught and inspired an entire generation

of bright young scholars, Edward's untimely death at the age of fifteen placed "Bloody Mary," his half~ sister, on the throne. Between the years of 1555­ 1558, Mary had nearly 300 Protestants, including bishops and the archbishop of Canterbury, burned at the stake. Furthermore, in spite of the national and religious sentiment against Spain, Mary married King Philip II. The Queen was laid to rest in 1558, and the nation joyously acclaimed Elizabeth the "Virgin Queen." The scores of young Reformed scholars who had fled England during Mary's persecutions returned, with a first~ hand knowledge of the Reformed Churches of Europe.

The Protestants who sought a more complete reformation of the Church of England, patterned on the models of Geneva, Strasbourg, and Zurich, saw in Elizabeth a sign of hope for their spirits after such bitter disappointments. The new Queen seemed to support their hopes by making the newly returned Reformed exiles her archbishops, bishops, and chaplains. Nevertheless, Elizabeth declared herself, like her father before her, to be Governor of the Church and set out to steer a middle course between Rome and Geneva with what came to be called the "Elizabethan Settlement."

For many Englishmen, however, it did not settle anything. Just when Protestantism was restored in England, the further reformation for which so many Protestants had longed seemed stillborn. These were the beginnings of frustration. With so many who had tasted the best theological fare in the Reformed centers of Europe now in ecclesiastical power and so many more trained by these returned exiles, the key question became: Do we put up with an unreformed church, so long as the Gospel is purely preached?

Even Bullinger and Calvin answered, "yes," and generally sided with the Elizabethan bishops, counseling the "puritans" to pursue a moderate course of reformation.

Michael Horton SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1993.

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lnode rl1 REFORMATION At first, the Puritans heeded, but when the Presbyterian Thomas Cartwright was deprived of his living and his post at Cambridge, things definitely began to make a tum for the worse. Across Europe, wars over religion were breaking out and the Roman Catholic princes had formed a league to drive Protestantism off the continent. In 1572, over three thousand French Calvinists were slaughtered in Paris alone and many thousands more in the countryside and Pope Gregory XIII celebrated the event with a Te Deum. But the massacre, led by the Queen, gave Protestants in Europe and England the impression that Roman Catholicism equaled despotism in government and tyranny on the throne. Elizabeth was ,succeeded by her nephew, James of Scotland, who had been trained by Presbyterians. When the Puritans of England met up withJhe new monarch on his way down to be crowned, their hopes again were raised, only to be dashed after successive attempts to reform the liturgy, church government, and allow for liberty in matters of Christian conscience.

But the trouble really began in earnest when James was succeeded in 1625 by his son, Charles I. Marrying a Roman Catholic princess, Charles began to favor those who had been won over to the arguments of the Dutch heretic Arminius. In the eyes of the Puritans (indeed, many Protestants), this was tantamount to giving England back over to the religion of Rome. When Charles declared war on Scotland, the Puritan,controlled Parliament would not fund the war against its Presbyterian brethren and the King responded by dissolving Parliament.

Meanwhile, William Laud, Charles' archbishop of Canterbury, was depriving Calvinists of their posts and livings and ejecting ministers from the land. A trickle to the New World became a stream, as New England became the center for ejected Puritans. Of course, the affairs in England presented a constitutional as well as religious crisis. Finally, in 1642 the English Civil War broke out. In 1643, in the heat of military battle, Parliament called for an assembly of "learned, godly, and judicious divines" to meet at Westminster for the purpose of forming a Confession, Catechism, and Directory of Worship for the uniform worship of God in the three kingdoms of Scotland, Ireland and England. It is against this dramatic backdrop that the assembly of 30 laymen, a few Scottish observers, and 125 ministers, gathered to bind the divided kingdoms into one united kingdom. The basis of unity was theone Church that was patterned on "the example of the best reformed churches and according to the

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word of God." The Civil War concluded with the trial and execution ofCharles and Laud by Parliament as traitors and tyrants, along with the abolition of the House of Lords as "useless and dangerous." Oliver Cromwell took the helm until the monarchy was restored in 1660.

The very name "Puritan" has become .a form of derision for those whom we consider prudish or indefatigably opposed to pleasure or joy. Despite much scholarship pouring off the press that dispels these myths, even from secular historians who have little sympathy for their views, the popular misconceptions persist. Unless we are opposed to Christ,centered, biblical preaching, godly living, constitutional democracy, the beauty of the arts and sciences, and the excellence of education, we have nothing to lose as heirs of the Puritans and everything to gain. Perhaps the portrait provided by C. S. Lewis will encourage us to take the Puritans more seriously at a time when we seem to be at a loss for the depth of biblical wisdom, richness of language, and clarity of insight-that these sturdy souls provided for their time and place: "Nearly every association which now clings to the word puritan h;s to be eliminated when we are thinking of the early Protestants. Whatever they were, they were not sour, gloomy, or severe; nor did their enemies bring any such charge against them. ...For [Thomas] More, a Protestant was one 'dronke of the new must of lewd lightnes of minde and vayne gladnesse of harte ...' We must picture these Puritans as the very opposite of those who bear that name today: as young, fierce, progressive intellectuals, very fashionable and up,to,date. They were not teetotallers; bishops, not beer, were their special aversion ....They wanted English drama to observe the (supposedly) Aristotelian 'unities,' and some of them wanted English poets to abandon rhyme-a nasty, 'barbarous' or 'Gothic' affair-and use classical metres in English.

There was no necessary enmity between Puritans and humanists. They were often the same people, and nearly always the same sort of people."

On this 350th anniversary of the Westminster Assembly, we at Modern Reformation are delighted to offer this modest tribute, with articles from non, presbyterians as well-including Lutheran and Baptist contributions. May God visit us with another Reformation and the warm,hearted, zealous, and deeply thoughtful Christianity we find represented in this Confession and these Catechisms.

1110c/ernREFORMATION

God glorified In...

The Cross

One sure sign of the enduring significance of the Westminster Shorter Catechism is the frequency with which its first question is answered in even non, confessional circles: "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." As recent surveys

by Barna, Gallup, and many others have demonstrated, even most Christians today regard self, fulfillment as the main purpose in life, and that, I think, measures what Columbia University historian Eugene Rice calls "the gulf between the secular imagination of the twentieth century and the sixteenth century's intoxication with the majesty of God." "We can," writes Rice, "exercise only historical sympathy to try to understand how it was that the most sensitive intelligences of an entire epoch found a total, supreme liberty in the abandonment of human weakness to the omnipotence of God." The medieval theologian, Thomas Aquinas, asserted, "Man's ultimate felicity consists only in the contemplation of God," and such definitions led the Reformed theologian H. Richard Niebuhr to conclude that Roman Catholicism and Reformation Christianity disagreed not only over the question of how one is saved, but over the very purpose of life itself. Medieval religion, says Niebuhr, was focused on contemplation and lived off the premise that grace was improving nature, as the believer ascended the ladder of mystical contemplation. In contrast, the Reformation was concerned with the kingdom of God, which was not a product of individual or corporate achievement, but the intervention of God alone. "The term 'kingdom of God' puts all the emphasis on the divine initiative," wrote Niebuhr.

What is the meaning of it all? Why are we here?

In one sentence, wonderful in its pregnant brevity, the Westminster divines offer their two,fold reply: "to glorify God and to enjoy him forever."

To Glorify God How on earth do we, rebels against God's majesty, we whose best works in this life are still stained with sin, bring anything of value or worth to

God? How can we be said to "glorify" God ?To answer this question, we must first realize that our glorification of God does not actually contribute anything to God's essence or character. In other words, we do not make him happier, more satisfied, or majestic than he was before our existence. God can get along quite well enough without us. Nor is there anything intrinsic to us that glorifies God-even in Christians, which itself adds to God's praise. Everything we have of any worth that may be said to glorify God is the direct product of God's own gift and activity.

First, our creation brings glory to God. In Eden, God created the human being and gave both male and female his divine image. God took extreme pleasure in this image,bearing creature and in the Garden, before the Fall, Adam and Eve both glorified God in their righteousness, perfection, obedience, worship and also enjoyed him as he indeed enjoyed them. Second, even after the Fall, God was glorified in his providence as he preserved humanity despite its rebellion. But supremely, God glorified himself in the institution and execution of the Covenant of Grace, and that is where I want to spend the remaining space of this introductory article.

The Covenant of Grace Defined Weare familiar with covenants or treaties between nations, in which, especially in laying down the terms of peace, each nation lays down certain conditions and offers mutual obligations. Or in private affairs, one's last will and testament settles the assets in a trust and designates heirs. Both these images are employed in Old and New Testament descriptions of the covenant. Deriving from the Greek word diatheke, and its Latin translation, foedus, the scriptures frequently refer to the notion of "covenants." Richard Muller, in his Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, observes that "covenant" is synonymous with "pact."

Michael H orton

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1993

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The Covenant of Grace Executed While the seminal notions of"covenant theology" are drawn from the scriptures by the church fathers, Augustine, and the reformers, it was left to the heirs of the reformers, and especially the Puritans assembled at Westminster, to give more precise definitions.

Question 70 in the Shorter Catechism marks the arrival at this summit: "Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?" This is the question that provokes discussion of the covenant. It is not a question of the being of God or philosophical speculations, but the matter of salvation that brings these emi~ent theologians to explain the covenant of grace. Notice that it is not even the consideration ofpredestination, as important as it is, that leads into this topic. It is the salvation question and its Christ..centered focus, with the chapter titled, "The Covenant of Grace and Its Mediator."

First, it is impossible to read the Old Testament without noticing, as early as Genesis three, that God placed Adam in the position of representing the human race. This is implicit in Genesis, and explicit elsewhere, as in Romans five.

The terms are clear: Glorify God by perfect obedience and enjoy him forever by receiving the good gifts of the garden as tokens of his favor and fatherly pleasure. By eating the forbidden fruit, in the presence of such abundant, luxurious, and liberal provision, Adam rejected his God..given freedom and meaning and instead sought to define freedom and meaning for himself and for his posterity. The reformed theologians who called this arrangement in the garden a covenant of nature or covenant of works were merely giving a name to it. When Paul states that " ... the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, ... " and " ... through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners ... " (Rom 5:18-19), the covenant theme comes into sharp focus.

In the Garden, the covenant of nature or works included conditions (refraining from eating the forbidden fruit), with an accompanying blessing (eternal life) and curse (death). The tree is often seen as a sacramental sign and seal of this covenant; the

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tree of life promises eternal life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil promises judgment. By choosing to eat from the latter, Adam, representing the entire human race, plunged humanity into rebellion and the corresponding curses. In other words, Adam violated the covenant of nature or works and brought himself and his posterity under God's wrath.

It is against this tragic backdrop that God makes a new covenant with Adam after the Fall, and invites the rebels back into his favor. The problem, of course, is that now men and women are "by nature children of wrath" (Eph 2:3), spiritually dead, and incapable of fulfilling the covenant of works. They cannot recover the righteousness lost in the Fall, nor can they even pursue that righteousness. And that is why the Shorter Catechism begins its discussion of the covenant of grace with the question, "Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?" Answer: "No! He entered into a covenant of grace to deliver the elect out of that state, and to bring them into a state of grace by a Redeemer."

In spite oftheir sin, Adam and Eve were reconciled to God and were promised a redeemer, God himself replacing their fig leaves with the skins of an animal he sacrificed in order to cover them-of course, foreshadowing the Lamb of God. While Cain and his descendants pursue the covenant of works, ending in death, Seth and his descendants are heirs of the covenant and promise of grace. As early as Genesis four, "men began calling of the name of the Lord."

Much later, God appears to Abraham and promises, "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Gn 12:2-3) Thus, the nation of Israel is founded on this promise or covenant of grace. Israel looks forward to the coming Redeemer, foreshadowed in the sacrificial, legal, and ceremonial life of Israel.

And yet, even in this covenant community, not every Israelite is necessarily elect. "For not all who are

1110dernREFORMATION

descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendents are they all Abraham's children ....In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring," Paul explains. In fact, the apostle goes on to demonstrate that even though Ishmael was as much Abraham's natural son as Isaac, God elected the latter and rejected the former. The same was true, Paul says, of Isaac's sons Jacob and Esau. The former was chosen, the latter rejected, "before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad-in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works, but by him who calls." .(Rom 9:6-13) In other words, God wanted all the glory for redemption. There is nothing in us that moves him to save us; rather, he is moved by his own character­ his freedom, love, mercy, justice, wrath, kindness.

"Not of works, but by him who calls:" that is the theme of this covenant. How different is this covenant of grace from the initial covenant of works! God elects apart from any conditions either present or even foreseen in us. It is an 'everlasting covenant, because it is founded on the mediation of Christ and his perfect righteousness (Is 55:3); it is a covenant of peace (Ez 37:26), because it reconciles sinners to God, and it is a covenant of grace because all the merit, working, and terms are fulfilled on God's side. Even the faith with which we accept this treaty of peace is itself included in the covenant.

This does not mean, however, that God's justice is sacrificed for his mercy. Weare still justified by works, but not our own. Weare saved because the Second Adam, Christ, became the trustee for the estate and, unlike Adam, fulfilled all obedience due to God's law. In his perfect obedience, sacrificial death, triumphant resurrection, and present mediation in heaven, Christ our Mediator has won for us full title to the inheritance lost by Adam. "Just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made siriners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin

reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Rom 5:19-21) Jesus said, "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day."

On 6:38-39} Before the creation of the world, we are told in scripture, God chose us in Christ. (Eph 1:4) So, even before there was a fallen world, God had already planned a way of salvation and had appointed Christ as the mediator of this covenant of grace. Just prior to his death, Jesus prayed, speaking of himself in the third person, "For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him." The Father gave a people to the Son before the creation of the world. "I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours." On 17:2, 9} How Do We Receive The Benefits of this Covenant?

As the Old Testament promised and the New Testament fulfilled, Abraham has become the father of many nations. His offspring include Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free, since ultimately the promise , f" depended on his seed (singular, as Paul points out so sharply in Galatians), namely, Christ. It did not depend on the faithfulness of the nation Israel, but on the faithfulness of the Âť true Israel, Christ.

But how do non,Jews receive the benefits of this covenant?

This is the problem Paul takes up thrqughout his epistles. It is on the same condition, from Genesis through Revelation: faith in Christ. The covenant of works commanded, "Do this and you shall live;" the covenant of grace proclaims, "Believe and you shall live." The Puritan Thomas Watson explains why faith was selected as the means of receiving the benefits of Christ: "To exclude all glorying in the creature...If repentance or works were the condition of the covenant, a man would say, 'It is my righteousness that has saved me;' but if it be of faith, where is boasting? Faith fetches all from Christ, and gives all the glory to Christ."

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1993.

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Faith does not set out to merit God's favor. It does not try to appease God by vain promises of better performances in the future, nor does it take anything to itself. Faith does not even look to itself as the one "little work" one performed for salvation. For we are saved by Christ, not by faith; faith simply receives everything that was already accomplished completely by the Second Adam and rests in his fulfillment of the covenant of works.

Even though the elect alone were given to Christ, the invitation is given to all men and women everywhere. Is that contradictory? Not at all. We do not know the number or identity of God's chosen and there are many who are within this covenant of grace who l as in Israel of old, are not true children of Abraham. So the gospel goes out to everyone, inviting all to receive the benefits of Christ.

Only by trusting in Christ can we be sure that we are one of the elect, one of those many people whom God chose and for whom Christ became the everlasting mediator. And of this every believer can be certain: If Christ was made your mediator before earth's creation, and fulfilled his office with the price of his own blood, you can be certain that he will save and keep you, for "of all that he has given me, I shall lose nothing." On 6:39) What Are The Signs & Seals of This Covenant?

As the tree of life held out the fruit of eternal salvation, SQ Christ offers himself. God has not only promised us eternal life .through faith in Christ; he has even gone the extra step of promising us the very faith itself through which we will take hold of Christ.

The Westminster divines were convinced that the scriptures made just such a use of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. Just as circumcision was the bond of this covenant in the Old Testament, baptism is its bond in the New. We are promised Christ even before we utter our first sentence! He comes to us, and to our children, saying, "I will be your God, and you will be my people." As Peter declared at Pentecost, "The promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off-for all whom the Lord our God will call." (Acts 2:39)

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And then, when we are able to confess Christ for ourselves, God has even provided a means for the strengthening of our faith in the storms of adversity and doubt. Alongside the Word, the Lord's Supper confirms our faith in the sufficiency of Christ's atoning work. It is not merely a symbol, a bare and empty memorial of what God did for us in the past, but the ongoing renewal of God's covenant faithfulness to us in the present.

What Are The Effects of Being In This Covenant?

The most obvious benefits of being members of the covenant ofgrace are our justification, redemption, adoption, inheritance, etemallife, and assurance of God's pardon and acceptance. But being members of Christ's body means that we also share in his life. Those who are truly united to Christ by a true and lively faith grow and mature both in their knowledge and their character, as the life of Christ produces repentance, love, and the works that flow out of these gifts, in the life of the believer. These gracious effects never become the basis for our justification or acceptance before God. They follow regeneration; the believer need not undergo a further experience or enter into a higher level of grace in order to enjoy these privileges and joys of new life. The inheritance ofChrist does not come in pieces, as though God were holding a carrot above our heads in order to get us to jump through hoops. Rather, both gifts, justification and sanctification, new status and new life, are given the moment one trusts in Christ alone as the sufficient ground, mediator, and sustainer of the believer's righteousness before God. Conclusion God is glorified in his covenant of grace precisely because it is he alone who receives all the praise for its inception and execution. Only in this manner could he be true to his own character and, at the same time, glorify himself in our salvation. In the covenant ofgrace, God weaves his glory and our good into one common thread and only in this way could we who were "children of wrath" glorify God and enjoy him forever, both pursuits beginning right now.

Inode rn REFORMATION Perhaps you are wondering, "How could I be accepted in this covenant? I never have been a terribly religious person and I've done too many things wrong in my life." Perhaps you are even a professing Christian and you are thinking; "I've wandered so far from God and every" time I promised to change, nothing happened. I ended up digging my hole deeper, and I just don't think there's any use pretending I can pull it off." That, interestingly enough, is not the confession that bars you from etemallife, but the only confession that can secure it! Watson takes up this reply, "But I am not worthy that God should admit me into covenant," with this answer: "It never came into God's thoughts to make a new covenant upon terms of worthiness. If God should show mercy to none but such as are worthy, then must he show mercy to none. But it is God's design in the new covenant to advance the riches of grace, to love us freely; and when we have no worthiness of our own, to accept us through Christ's worthiness. " The tree of life, whose fruit Adam at first forfeited, is now offered to humanity again. Our Lord

himself assures us that if we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we have eternal life and will not come into judgment. On 6) That same tree oflife that appeared in the Garden of Eden before the Fall reappears in this divine drama at the end of history. "Then the angel showed me the river of the water oflife, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city.

On each side of the river stood the tree oflife, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.

And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse." (Rv 22:1-3) And the children of the covenant cry aloud, "Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly!"

Michael Horton is the president and founder ofCURE and the author of Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, Made in America, and The Law of Perfect Freedom, and is the editor of The Agony of Deceit, Power Religion, and Christ the Lord:

The Reformation and Lordship Salvation.

CURE's Weekly Radio Broadcast

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1993.

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God glorified In...

Conversion

You may be surprised to find that the word "conversion" does not appear in the Westminster Confession or Catechisms. But the verb "convert" does appear in the chapter on free will (9.4) in the phrase; "When God converts a sinner ..." The words "convert" and "conversion" are equally rare in the Bibl'e. In the King James Version "conversion" is found only in Acts 15:3. The verb "convert" appears 14 times, and the noun "convert" is used three times.

In other versions the figures are lower yet.

Even though this word is rare in the scriptures, the concept of conversion is present in a variety of Hebrew and Greek words. This is apparent in the beginning of the article Conversion in ISBE. Conversion is an act of God that causes a repenting sinner, brought to life in regeneration, to tum away from sin and toward God and living faith in Jesus Christ.

Saving faith and repentance are really two names for one radical tum by which one's original course is reversed away from sin and toward God. The Confession treats each of these two components in separate chapters; saving faith in chapter 14, repentance in chapter 15. They are introduced together in both the Shorter and Larger Catechisms. The Shorter Catechism has one question each for faith and repentance (questions 86 and 87), a~d the Larger Catechism devotes two questions to justifying faith (72 and 73) and one to repentance (76).

The Catechisms and Confession order these subjects in widely different ways.The Confession deals with faith and repentance after effectual calling,

Dr. Roger Nicole 8

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justification, adoption and sanctification, and before good works, perseverance and assurance. Glorification appears in the last two chapters. In this way the order of the golden chain of salvation (Ro~ 8:29-30) is followed, with the addition of two links, adoption and sanctification, that certainly belong to the phases of the plan of salvation. Glorification comes at the end, a natural place, since it is part of the consummation. It is noteworthy that G.!. Williamson, in The Westminster Confession of Faith for Study Classes has actually reordered the Confession's chapters to keep faith and repentance near effectual calling, since they are the immediate and necessary fruits of regeneration.

Here is the order in the Larger Catechism: justification, justifying faith, adoption and sanctification; then comes repentance unto life, followed by questions on the difference between justification and sanctification, the reason for the imperfection of sanctification in the believers, perseverance, assurance and nine questions on glorification and eternal destiny. The duty of repentance and faith is treated in question 153, after the lengthy exposition of the law of God. In the Shorter Catechism the order is different still. The questions concerning effectual calling, justifycation, adoption and sanctification are followed by three questions dealing with the benefits of salvation in this life, at death and at the resurrection.

Then come 46 questions related to the law of God (questions 39-84) followed by three questions dealing with faith and repentance (85-87). After that a study of the means of grace, the word, the sacraments and prayer, concludes the catechism.

These different orders show that there are different

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ways of organizing the order of worship. In his Institutes, Calvin dealt with faith and repentance immediately after saying that it is the Holy Spirit who applies to individuals the benefits of the mediating work ofChrist. Francis T urretin has no separate place for repentance or conversion, but he deals with faith before his treatment of justification. More recent theologians treat conversion and repentance immediately after regeneration. T urretin finishes up with a chapter on faith, then justification, sanctification and perseverance.

Let's take a look at the contents of the chapters on saving faith and repentance in the Westminster Confession.

1. Saving Faith The Origin of Faith 14.1 It is clear that faith does not arise by the initiative of sinful human beings. This glorious flower does not grow on the dunghill of human depravity and rebellion. The Confession states this truth in five ways: (a) Faith is called a grace; (b) the elect are the ones who exercise saving faith; (c) they are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls; (d) it is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart; and (e) three passages of Scripture are listed: 1 Corinthians 12:5, Ephesians 2:8, Hebrews 12:2.

It's also clear that this blessing that originates in God's plan is connected with the ministry of the Word and the administration of the means of grace.

God is the formal cause and these are often instrumental causes.

In light of this, it is important to recognize that the new Christian is not passive in the act of faith but actively exercises the new powers established by accepting the truth. Faith involves the whole person­ body and soul; mind, heart and will. It is not God who believes through us, but in faith we respond; the first act of a freed slave. On 8:32-36)

That a believer is personally active in faith is clear from the fact that the verb "believe" occurs in the imperative (e.g. Mk 5:36; 1n 10:38; 14:2; Acts 16:31) God commands us to do something that requires our participation, at least to some extent.

God never says "Be born" or "Be born again," for these acts are clearly outside our reach. But "repent," "believe," and "obey" include our activity even though we are helpless to do this if God does not enable us by his spirit.

The object of faith 14.2a "By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of God himself speaking therein," We can summarize this in three propositions: The whole Bible is true, the whole Bible is the Word of God, and the Christian is bound to acccept the whole Bible as such. To fail to do that is a signal of failure of faith.

Since the Bible contains different types of messages, the Confession articulates the right attitude toward three important forms ofrevelation: commands we must obey, threats that make us fear and tremble, and joyful promises. ~

Christ as the object 'of faith 14.2b Saving faith is indispensably connected with the redemptive work of 1esus Christ. Three words show how faith and redemption are linked: (a) accepting, that is, recognizing that what the Scripture says about the Savior is true; (b) receiving, that is, having the saving blessing that Christ secured; (c) resting upon Christ alone, that is, rejecting any hope or expectation of salvation or any other ground than the work of Christ.

Note that our faith is not the basis of justification,

otherwise faith would function as a work. The ground

of justification is Christ's work and that alone. Faith

functions as an electric switch that adds nothing to

the current but directs it where it is needed.

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The benefits embraced by faith 14.2c The Confession lists three benefits: (a) Justification, that is, the forgiveness of all our sins and the investiture of the merits of Jesus Christ; (b) sanctification, that is, the progressive elimination of all sinful drives and tendencies of our inner being, and renewal of our nature into conformity to the demands of a holy God; and (c) eternal life, that is, the blessing of fellowship with God our Creator in the present life (John 5:24) and for all ages to come On 14:3; Rom 8:38-39; 1 In 3:2). These are all benefits included in the covenant of grace.

The degrees of faith 14.3 Like so many human activities, faith shows some variation-when one compares one Christian to another, and also in the same person at different moments of life. In this sense faith may be assailed and weakened or again refreshed and strengthened.

One characterisic of a strong faith is the assurance ofsalvation through Christ, "the author and perfecter of our faith." (Heb 12:2) Assurance is undermined by disobedience; it is stengthened by the use of the means of grace that reinforce our sense of fellowship with Christ, and consequently of our union with Him. The joy of salvation is a blessing that God bestows on His obedient children. When willful and conscious sin intervenes the sense of fellowship is damaged, even as a cloud may for a time hide the face of the sun. (Ps 51:12)

II. Repentance unto life The relevance of repentance 15.1 The Westminster Confession calls repentance an evangelical grace, meaning that it is only through the grace of God that any sinner is awakened to repentance. This is stated in Acts 11:18. "God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life."

Every minister must preach the necessity ofrepentance as well as of faith. (Acts 20:21) As with faith, repentance, too, is not purely passive but must act in response to God's command.

The origin of repentance 15.1b There are three awarenesses that are at the root of true repentance: (a) a sense and sight of the dangers incurred because of sin; (b) a perception of the heinousness ofsin as contrary to God's nature and law; and (c) a realization that God is merciful to those who are truly penitent.

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The nature of repentance 15.2b Repentance is a sincere revulsion against the filthiness and odiousness of sin, and a tum toward God and his merciful pardon. It is a deep desire and commitment to abandon the paths of sin and to live unto God in a new obedience to His commandments.

This definition appears in almost identical terms in the two catechisms.

The necessity of repentance 15.3 Repentance is not necessary as the ground for forgiveness, since the work ofJesus Christ is sufficient for pardon and acceptance, but it is so indispensable that no one may entertain the hope of salvation without it.

The variety in gravity of sin 15.4 All sins are not equally grievous. There is none so small that it does not deserve damnation and none so horrendous that it exceeds God's power to forgive those who repent. The sin against the Holy Spirit (Mt 12:32; Heb 6:4-6; 1 In 5:16) is not one that exceeds God's power to forgive, but one that manifests such hardening of the heart in response to full enlightenment that no repentance may be expected from those who have hardened themselves to such a degree.

Repentance and Confession 15.5, 15.6 We should not be satisfied to make a general confession to God. However, it is important to review in prayer any acts of disobedience that we have commited. This will help us to remain penitent and to flee the paths of sin. In addition to our private confession to God we should be willing and prepared to acknowledge our faults to those we have offended and to make a public confession when our sins have been of public nature. Christians must forgive those who repent and confess their sins should be forgiven

by Christians even as they are forgiven by God. Chapters fourteen and fifteen of the Confession glorify God, who is the author of every good and perfect gift. 0 as 1: 17) These are intensly pratical chapters that should strongly influence our daily walk. Our profession of faith and conduct will glorify God if we live by the principles contained in them.

(Mt 5:16)

Dr. Roger Nicole is currently Professor of Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He served as President of the Evangelical Theological Society and is a contributing editor for Christianity Today.

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God glorified in ...

Justification

"In a world without God, everything is lawful."

This is the theme of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's b~ok The Brothers Karamazov, one of the great books of the Western world. It examines the arguments for and against the existence of God. The horror of a world where anything can be done with impunity is Dostoyevsky's clinching argument in favor of belief in God. God's judgment tomorrow is our only hope for a livable world today.

But what if the most terrible crimes in history are pardoned by God? What if the offenders get off scot free? Not just the truly sorry ones, but the deviants, the drive,by killers, the unjust tax collectors?

In a world plagued by evil, a message that says that God is glorified when he pardons wicked men appears to be an assault on morality. If God himself acquits the guilty, what hope do we have of creating a better world? How are we to thwart new Hitlers and Stalins? How are we to expect restraint from those who can get away with crime down here if there is no judgment awaiting them? Surely this is a dangerous message!

Two branches of Christendom, the Lutheran and Reformed, stand together in announcing this very message, the original message of the Protestant Reformation. The message that God justifies the wicked spread throughout Europe in a variety of forms. Among the common people, it appeared in the form of sermons and tracts; among the educated in the form of treatises and theses. The most enduring mold into which this message was cast, however, was the church confession, for in the confession the message that had been successfully promoted was institutionalized for generations.

While Lutherans are bound to subscribe to the one definitive collection of confessions that form the Book of Concord, the Reformed churches have many confessions that vie for their allegiance. In its original form, the Westminster Confession only had binding force on Presbyterians, but in modified versions it has also been the confession of Reformed Baptists and Congregationalists. There are important doctrinal differences that would prohibit Lutherans

from adopting the Confession as their own, but we must recognize in it a witness to doctrines that our churches hold in common-unlike the greater part of Christendom.

Confessionalism in Today's Church The words "We confess" are becoming rarer and rarer in the modem world. Not only is the confession ofsin absent from most worship services, the confession of faith has disappeared as well. Most Christians today look upon doctrine indifferently. The liberal theology of the last century has taken its toll on even the so'called conservative churches of today in ways most people don't recognize. The rationalism and pietism of yesterday's liberal churches are the sources of individualism and moralism of today's conservative churches.

Individualism tells us that the individual Christian is the primary reality; churches are merely human institutions organized to nurture the faith of individual believers. As such, they can be altered at will as the needs of the members change. Moralism tells us that our efforts, not God's accomplishments, deserve primary emphasis in the church. The Bible may then be seen exclusively as a guide for living, for getting along in the world, and not also a record of God's achievements for his people when they couldn't get along in the world.

Together, individualism and moralism have disarmed the church in its fight to keep true doctrine alive. In fact, the battle itself, which is a battle for the continued life of the church, has come to be seen as sinful. The very passages that could be used to show the importance of true doctrine are now themselves read moralistically. Warriors for truth enter the battle with blunted swords.

How different is the attitude of the New Testament! If today confessionalism is said to be narrow,minded bigotry and a threat to Christian unity, Jesus and the Apostles taught that the

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maintenance of sound doctrine was a serious duty. At the end of the most doctrinal epistle in the New Testament, Paul tells the church to "watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them." (Rom 16: 1 7) Instructing a pastor of his duty to distinguish truth from error, Paul warns Timothy that "if anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing." (1 T m 6:3-4) He exhorts the Thessalonians to "stand firm and hold to the teachings [he] passed on to [them], whether by word of mouth or by letter."

(2 Thes 2:15) What does today's church do with these instructions? Frequently, it either ignores them or misreads them. For example, when Jesus says to his disciples, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" On 8:31-32), today this is interpreted moralistically to mean If you follow my commands (to love each other, especially), then I will directly reveal my will to you, apart from scripture. Because they have been taught to read the scriptures like this, it is obvious to Christians today that doctrinal fighting is an unloving action we should avoid if we continue in Christ's word. Who needs doctrine anyway, if our obedience means that Jesus will speak to us directly through the Holy Spirit?

The very scriptures that .support confessionalism have been twisted into moralistic guidelines subverting confessionalism. A return to the confessions will not only tell us which scriptures are important, it will remind us how to read the scriptures in a God, centered way.

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Confessionalism In Yesterday's Church The church of Jesus Christ has never witnessed a golden age, whether under the Apostles or the Reformers. Yet there were ages that were less prone to certain shortcomings that characterize the church in our age. The Protestant church of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had its problems: parochialism, infighting, and lack of vision, to name a few. But it did guard its doctrine, leaving behind a legacy of clear gospel teaching from which we benefit even today.

When I, a Lutheran, approach the Westminster Confession, I find a document that does not reflect my beliefs. If I were to respond in typical twentieth, century fashion to this discovery, I would say "how narrow of someone to try to force his view of Christianity on me in order that I may join his church!" But that is not my response.

While I do not share all the Westminster Assembly's beliefs, I respect the fact that the Assembly held it necessary that Christians agree on such a wide platform of doctrine in order to be in church fellowship with one another. To do less is to ignore Paul and Jesus when they warned against false teaching. Any false teaching on subjects such as the Person of Christ, justification, the sacraments, or the church could be injurious to saving faith, so it is necessary to guard the church against false teachings by writing confessions and requiring that people subscribe to them. While a church body could make a mistake in identifying the right doctrine, it cannot make a mistake in identifying the need to guard what it believes to be the right doctrine. While I do not believe that in all cases the Westminster Confession expresses true doctrine, the Reformed churches that accepted the Confession were right in requiring

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people to hold to those doctrines, since they believed them to be right.

In Ephesians, Paul told his readers to put on the full armor of God. The descriptions of the pieces of armor require us to view knowledge of right doctrine as indispensable in our battles against the world, the flesh, and the devil. How can we don the belt of truth, if we don't know the truth? How can we take up the shield of faith if w~ don't know about the one whom we are to trust? How can we wield the sword of the Spirit if we don't know what the word of God says?

When we disparage confessions, we disparage truth.

As far as the armp r of God goes, the modem church has become a nudist colony. We flaunt our nakedness, thinking it to be a virtue.

Westminster on Justification While many elements in the Reformed confessions are a challenge to prevailing practice and teaching in the twentieth century, it is the teaching on justification that confronts today's church with forgotten truth of vital importance. The eleventh chapter of the Westminster Confession treats the doctrine of justification. Although there are statements in this chapter a Lutheran must disagree with, the remaining truth in it is precious. The teachings in this chapter we agree with are not merely those common elements ofChristianity that all parties claiming to be Christian

contrasting truth and error, it uses this method to teach the same truth Paul taught.

God freely justifies the Wicked••• The Westminster Confession makes the point that justification is a free act. God is not bound to justify -man on account of any good thing that he finds within man. It is common enough today for church people to say that we cannot make it to heaven by works, but a clear understanding of this statement is rare. Most people understand by this that a few good deeds here and there will not qualify one for heaven. In the back of their minds, however, they suspect something will: perhaps yielding to God, or maybe loving him enough. Works won't save, but something we do will.

Catholic theologians of the Middle Ages worked this double,talk into a theological science. They distinguished between two types of merit: condignant merit and congruent merit. Condignant merit meant that you got what you deserved. If you got into heaven it was because you had earned it by good works. Like most church people today, medieval theologians rejected this crass form of works, righteousness. Congruent merit, on the other hand, meant that you didn't strictly earn your way into heaven. In fact, if}esus hadn't died for you, you would be damned. But Jesus' death made it possible for

"In a world without God, everything is -lawful."

are familiar with. They are neglected teachings that the Lutherans and the Reformed have held alone against the greater part of Christendom for four hundred years. For this reason, I wish to set forth these teachings at length before examining my reservations.

The Westminster Confession uses antithesis to teach about justification. That is, it explains what is going on by making reference to what is not going on.

We learn this method from the Apostle Paul who, when teaching about free grace, said that it is a gift of God and that it is not of works (Eph 2:8-9) . This should be enough to refute those who say that we should just teach true doctrine and never mention false doctrine to combat it directly. (And if that's not enough, a re,reading of Paul's Epistles, and perhaps the Sermon on the Mount will be!) Not only does the Confession make use of Paul's method of teaching by

imperfect people to get into heaven. Now God could make a lower standard, and even make the attainment of that standard easier by helping people, through the Holy Spirit.

The Protestant Reformers saw in this teaching the subversion of God's grace. While this teaching gives a place to the work of Christ and the operation of the Holy Spirit, it still puts all the emphasis on what man did and did not do. The difference between one who was saved and one who was not saved finally rested on who did better with the help that God gave.

Those in heaven were there because they worked harder-or what's the same-they were more sincere, more open, or loved God more.

The problem with such teaching is its shallow view of the human condition. Man has a hostile will, is spiritually blind, and bound by the cords of sin. All man's faculties participate in rebellion against God.

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This being the case, how will mere divine aid improve the situation? Give a being in such condition spiritual sight and a knife to cut through sin's bond and what will happen? The hostile will seizes the knife and plunges it into the newly restored eyes. We need total rescue.

grace becomes something in our hearts, not in God's.

Weare then saved by infused grace, a power God gives us to earn his favor.

When the Confession said that God justifies freely and that he does not save by infusing something in us, it did this so that people would know that grace

How can we don the belt of truth, if

we don't know the truth?

To God's everlasting glory, the rescue is total!

God justifies freely. He saves us in spite of our hos.tility. The scriptures teach that, "when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son" (Rom 5: 10), and that "God justifies the wicked." (Rom 4:5) The fact that we do not deserve the gift brings glory to God. Paul says, "God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he might have mercy on them all." (Rom 11:32) God planned for us to be unable to merit salvation! If killing the possibility of merit was so important to God that he allowed the fall of man and the hardening of Israel, what excuse do we have for sneaking new kinds of merit into the scheme of sal vation? If God allows the human race to fall so that he may glorify himself, certainly we can teach free grace and risk the moral indignation of our fellow churchmen.

•. •not by infusing righteousness into them, .•.

The first way of confounding the doctrine of justification is by misunderstanding the meaning of the word "justification" itself. In the scriptures, it means "to declare just." It is a legal term. When the judge pronounces the accused innocent, he is said to justify him. A common misreading .of the term involves making the word "justification" mean "to make just." When this is done, people often don't notice that grace has been killed since God is still an active party. The problem is that we end up being the more active party since the only way to see that God has made us just is for us to do just things, and lots of them. We are back into salvation by works.

Another way to see the problem is to look at how the definition of grace changes when one misunderstands the word "justification." The word "grace" means "God's unmerited favor toward us." If justification involves God making us just, however,

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was God's unmerited favor toward us, not a power we would use to earn that favor.

•• •but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; ••• After explaining that justification is not an infusion of grace, the Confession states that God justifies us by pardoning us. The distinction is between pardoning and infusing. Note that pardoning and infusing are not just two ways of accomplishing the same end, that is, justification. They are separate actions: declaring people just versus making people just. The Confession contrasts salvation by inner change with salvation by legal declaration.

People often accuse this "legal" method of salvation with being abstract, cold, and impersonal.

But remember, that when you understand justification as a legal idea, you can view grace as unmerited favor coming from God's heart, not just an "abstract, cold, and impersonal" power you use to save yourself!

•••not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, ••• First the Confession makes a distinction between what God does and does not accomplish in justification (He pardons people; he does not renew them). Then it explains why God does and does not justify people.

This is crucial. It is possible for someone to understand the first distinction and still miss the point. After much debate, the proponent of works may break down and say, "Fine! Justification is a declaration. It is God pardoning sins. But he only pardons us because of our renewal." However, if we allow this line of reasoning to stand, justification will have been rescued, but free grace will have been lost.

•••but for Christ's sake alone.

The difference between salvation by free grace

,11odern REFORMATION and salvation by inner renewal is heightened when the Confession says that God justifies not for anything wrought in people or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone. The Confession makes it clear that not only is justification a pardoning of sins instead of a process of renewal; it is for Christ's righteousness' sake, not our own. Weare not declared righteous because we have made a good start, like the old adage "a job well begun is half done." It is not a foot race where Jesus takes o~r place when we are tired. Weare declared to have won the race when we were running as fast as we could in the wrong direction! Justification is God's work alone.

These two ' distinctions, pardoning versus renewing, and our righteousness versus Christ's, need to be remembered in an age when man,centeredness is prevalent. Our age needs this teaching even more than did the seventeenth century, when this confession was written.

Some Reservations For its ability to defend our common Protestant heritage against not only the crass works, righteousness of today, but from the subtler forms that it took in the past, Lutherans must admire the Westminster Confession. This said, Lutherans still cannot endorse

it wholeheartedly. The peculiar form in which certain theological questions were put to the Reformed churches of the seventeenth century cast some teachings of the common Protestant heritage into a foreign mold. In order to combat the Arminian teachings, the Westminster divines developed a system of theological categories and terminology that is alien to Lutheranism. The two beliefs that cause Lutherans the most difficulty are the doctrine of the two calls, and the definition of faith as a type of evangelical obedience.

Lutheran Reservation # 1: Effectual Calling In the first sentence of Chapter 11, we are told that "Those whom God effectually calleth he also freely justifieth." To the extent that this is a mere repetition of Paul's statement "those he called, he also justified" (Rom 8:30), Lutherans agree. It is the adverb "effectually" that causes us problems. In Lutheran theology, there is one single call to salvation.

In some individuals, the call is effectual; in others it is not. It is God's serious intent that it be effectual in all. In Calvinistic theology, in contrast, the ineffectual call differs from the effectual call in that God never intended it to produce repentance. According to Calvin, "experience teaches that God wills the

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repentance of those whom he invites to himself, in such a way that he does not touch the hearts of all" (Institutes, 3.24.15) According to Calvin, we learn from what happens what, in fact, God has willed.

Lutherans do not accept the doctrine of two calls. This militates against the objectivity of the means of grace. We agree that in the case of an elect individual, at some point the power of the gospel become effectual. What we cannot do is find the distinction in the nature of the call itself, for scripture tells us that the gospel "is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes." (Rom 1: 16) The gospel is preached by human mouths and heard with human ears. To say that there are two calls suggests that it is not the gospel itself that converts a person, but some secret operation of God alongside the gospel.

Lutheran Reservation #2: Defining Faith as Evangelical Obedience The other point of the teaching of justification that the Lutherans do not agree with is the definition of faith as a type of evangelical obedience. The Confession states that God justifies people not "by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience, to them, as their righteousness."

When faith is a type of evangelical obedience, it is clear why it cannot be imputed to us as our righteousness. To do so involves the surrender of the doctrine of grace alone. We would be saved by a type of obedience. Not only does this involve a legal scheme of salvation, but it undermines the law of God, for God would now require an ¡obedience that was less rigorous than the law. In rejecting the doctrine that faith is imputed as righteousness, the Westminster is guarding its adherents against Arminian heresy.

If faith had not been defined as evangelical obedience, these dangers would never have presented themselves in the first place. In the Augsburg Confession, for example, God is said to "regard and reckon this faith as righteousness," but these words are used after the language ofscripture. Melanchthon attributes these words to Paul, who uses them in Romans 3:21-26 and Romans 4:5. Melanchthon is careful to point out that this faith is not a work: "It is faith, therefore, that God declares to be righteousness; he adds that it is accounted freely and denies that it could be accounted freely if it were a reward for works." (Apology, 4.89)

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Faith is reckoned as righteousness, not because it is such a good work, but because it is an empty hand that grasps the righteousness of Christ. Melanchthon is able to guard against this becoming a form ofworks, righteousness by pointing to the fact that Paul says that accounting faith as righteousness is free, so cannot be reward for works. It is interesting that Calvin, like the Lutherans, holds that God reckons faith as righteousness, and that he safeguards the teaching in the same way: "Could [Paul] have spoken more clearly than in contending thus: that there is no righteousness of faith except where there are no works for which a reward is due? And then that faith is reckoned as righteousness only where righteousness is bestowed through a grace not owed?" (Institutes, 3.11.20) While our disagreement over the doctrine of effectual calling is a direct conflict between Calvinism and Lutheranism, our objection to the definition of faith as evangelical obedience, and the subsequent denial of the reckoning of faith as righteousness is not. It would have been better if the Westminster Assembly, like Calvin, had retained the scriptural language at this point.

Glorifying God Today Just as the clouds cannot dim the sun, but can only obscure the light between the sun and its object, so also we do not dim the glory of God. We do, however, obscure his glory, making it harder for people to see because of our teaching that clouds it.

Our confessions were good at dissipating clouds in their day, and can be again in ours. God will continue to glorify himself by justifying the wicked with or without our help, and on the Last Day, that glory will be plain to all. Until then, however, we owe it to God and those we teach, to glorify him by clearly teaching free grace, despite all opposition. God was willing to consign all mankind to disobedience, and then to become Incarnate; he suffered an ignominious death to show us his glory. Who are we to come along with our theological jiggery,pokery, to invent new kinds of merit that involve man in his salvation? Let us remember what the glory of free grace cost, and let us hold it dear. Weare not the subject in the drama of salvation.

Rick Ritchie is a staff writer for CURE and is a contributing editor to Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation. He is a graduate of Christ College Irvine and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.

1J1odernREFORMATION

God glorified in ...

San ctification

The Reformed' tradition has historically argued that God is glorified in transforming sinful men and women "after the image of God," and also that sinners "are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness." (Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 35) The sanctification of sinners is indeed a wonder of wonders. But the wonder of what God really does in sanctifying a sinner is completely obscured if we forget that the fundamental thing in all this is that sinful men and women are absolutely unable to transform themselves from children of Adam into glorified vessels fit to bring honor to God. For if left to our own strength, we have neither the willingness nor the power to accomplish this vital work. We cannot grow in grace and bear fruit of the Spirit. Bad trees cannot "make a decision" to bear good fruit. We are unable to break the strangle hold of sin and to end the dominion that it has over every part of our lives.

As slaves, we simply cannot decide to be free and then merely pronounce ourselves emancipated. The tyranny and power of our oppressor is too great.

Moreover, we will never live up to the absolute perfection that God requires of us. Weare by nature neither able nor willing to cooperate with God. The fact that God is glorified in sanctification just isn't seen to be the wonder that it is until one considers who is sanctified, and who initiates the process. Thus, a central motif underlying the Reformed conception of sanctification is the idea that it too, like our justification and adoption, is a work of God's free grace. In much recent evangelical discussion it has become too easy to think of justification in terms of faith and grace, and sanctification in opposite terms of works and our own natural ability. And of course, when we think of our sanctification in terms of works and natural ability, it is man who receives the glory of sanctification. For the sinner is now seen as his own sanctifier, and not God. In this view God merely provides incentives (rewards) and the power (through the Holy Spirit). All we must do is appropriate what God has made available to all, and

thereby somehow achieve sanctification under our own steam, with God helping us if only we ask him.

The Westminster Confession of Faith sets forth the Reformed doctrine of sanctification with unsurpassed clarity. Chapter 13 of the Confession, "Of Sanctification," is carefully placed by the framers of the Confession directly after the treatment of justification (Chapter 11), and adoption (Chapter 12). This is an easy point to overlook, yet one cannot fully understand the Confession's teaching on sanctification without noting that the Confession carefully treats the doctrine of sanctification in relationship to other aspects of the ordo salutis, or "order of salvation." Sanctification does not occur in isolation. As the Confession makes clear, sanctification rightly follows justification and adoption. So while sanctification is distinct from justification, it is nevertheless a necessary adjunct.

This means that no one who is justified remains unsanctified, and no one will be sanctified apart from prior justification. Just as we are justified by grace through faith because of Christ, so too, we are sanctified by grace, through faith, because of the work of the Holy Spirit.

It is easy to err, as many of our contemporaries do, by confusing sanctification with justification ("I will die justified if I am able to attain a certain level of holiness") or by separating the two as if they had no relationship whatsoever (that is, "I can accept Jesus as my 'Savior' without confessing him Lord as over every area of my life"). As the Confession points out, sanctification (which is a work of God in us), is closely related to effectual calling (Chapter 16) and good works (Chapter 16), and follows as an effect, the cause being justification. Every sinner who has placed his trust in Christ, and has the guilt of his sin imputed to Jesus Christ, who makes full satisfaction for it, and in turn has the perfect righteousness of Christ reckoned to him as if it were his own, is

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lnodern REFORMATION justified. This same person inevitably grows in sanctification.

The Confession is clear about the relationship between sanctification and other doctrines. G. I. Williamson summarizes the main points that the Confession makes about sanctification: Chapter 13 teaches us that the regenerate nature in believers is,

by God's Word and Spirit, enabled to develop, that in this development the believer dies more and more unto sin and lives more' and more unto righteousness, that this work of sanctification pervades the whole man l that complete victory over sin is not attained in this life, but that genuine progress is made in that all true believers do strive to perfect holiness in the fear of God. Many evangelicals reading the Confession for the first time may be somewhat surprise to not'L.L-~0'WCvvllUere~nt sounds from teaching on sanctification in many Bible churches.

The focus in the Nor ASCENJ;,.

Confession is on God acting upon us and God acting in us through specific means. There is no list of things that we must do to sanctify ourselves, and there is no. corresponding list prohibiting those things that American evangelicals historically have found to be evil. This is strong evidence of just how far evangelicals have departed from historic Protestant, biblical teaching, and why evangelicals so desperately need the historic Protestant confessions. Too many Christian leaders try to reinvent the theological wheel; they don't do as well as their theological forebears. Instead, the focus of the Confession is strictly theological.

First and foremost, the Confession makes it clear that sanctification is a continuation of our regeneration. God not only begins the Christian life with regeneration, he brings it to fruition. "They who are effectually called and regenerated, having a new

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heart ¡ and. a new spirit created within them, are farther sanctified really and personally, through virtue of Christ's death and resurrection, by his word and Spirit dwelling in them." (13.1) Once God begins the process in the new birth, he brings it to completion through sanctification. As A. A. Hodge points out, "the grace implanted in them [is] developed more and more." Notice, too, that sanctification is directly connected to the word of God and to the ~ indwelling Holy Spirit.

The Confession is careful to associate the operation of the Holy Spirit in bringing the power of Christ to us by the reading of the Word. Therefore, man, made rules and techniques for increasing personal holiness are not only useless in bringing true sanctification, but they are hindrances to it since they must obscure the primary means of sanctification that is the word of God. Next, the Confession defines what sanctification actually entails. "The HIS DESCENT.' dominion of the whole body ofsin is destroyed, and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified, and they more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to the practice of true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." Here perhaps more clearly than anywhere else, the Confession focuses on the meaning of sanctification, rather than on applications and practices to attain it. Some perfectionist schemes argue that only a few of God's people, spiritual lites, can attain the level of holiness expected by God. But the confession makes it clear that the promise of sin's broken dominion is for all Christians. Our sinful nature is steadily weakened and diminished, in what Reformed theologians call progressive sanctification.

Since the dominion of sin is completely broken at conversion, every Christian is already sanctified in a sense (1 Cor 6: 11), and this is why the Bible expressly

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calls all Christians saints (Rom 1:7 ). This is what is known as definitive sanctification.

The confession points out a third aspect of sanctification; that is, it extends to the entire person.

There is no part of us that God leaves unsanctified.

God not only sanctifies the soul, he sanctifies our minds, emotions and wills as well. There is no radical dichotomy in our sanctification, where God supposedly sanctifies the spiritual part of the Christian, and then leaves the rest of the person completely corrupted by Adam's fall. Since God indeed sanctifies the entire person, new birth and sanctification inevitably manifest themselves in a cooperative effort with the grace of God. A. A. Hodge makes the point nicely. "It must be remembered that while the subject is passive with respect to that divine act of grace whereby he is regenerated, after he is regenerated he cooperates with the Holy Ghost in the work of sanctification.

The Holy Ghost gives the grace, and prompts and directs in its exercise, and the soul exercises it. Thus while sanctification is a grace, it is also a duty; and the soul is both bound and ertcouraged to use with diligence, in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, all the means for its spiritual renovation, and to form those habits resisting evil and of right action in which sanctification so largely consists." The fruits of sanctification are good works because God has changed us in regeneration, as it were, from a bad tree that can only produce bad fruit, into a good tree, that can begin bearing good fruit. There is a corresponding change from someone completely unwilling and unable to cooperate, into someone who does. By sanctifying the entire person, God continually works in us so that "it is the work of God, and it is the work of man, assisted by supernatural grace."

The Confession discusses a fourth quality of sanctification-it is never perfected in this life. That is, there is no such thing as "Christian perfection" as taught by John Wesley, or "entire sanctification" taught by Charles Finney. Closely following the language of Paul in Romans seven, the Confession explains that while "sanctification is throughout in the whole man, yet imperfect in this life; there abideth still some remnants of corruption in every part, whence ariseth a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh." (13.2) Every Christian is made new and wants to do good, ana yet there exist the dethroned, but highly destructive remnants of indwelling sin, which will

oppose this new self to the death. Williamson accurately describes this war with indwelling sin.

"The dominion of sin is broken, though the presence of sin is not entirely eliminated... .sin no longer commands the heart. The main lines of communication have been destroyed. The control center is in the hands of God. But the alien force still carries on harassment of all kind of skill, cunning, and desperation of a defeated foe ... .It is a noteworthy fact that the greater progress one makes in sanctification the more will he be distressed by the sin that yet is present with him." The sinful nature is not completely eradicated. Though defeated and weakened, it remains, and becomes the source of much struggle and misery in Christian life. For while the dominion of sin is broken, there will be constant guerilla warfare until the believer is finally united with Christ. Some may question whether or not they have ever really trusted in Christ, because they continually struggle with specific and problematic sins. The struggle itself is the very sign that God is indeed sanctifying them.

The Confession stresses that all Christians will make genuine progress and growth in holiness. "In which war, although the remaining corruption for a time may much prevail, yet, through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part doth overcome; and so the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." (13.3) Since it is God who regenerates us and sanctifies us, he will ensure ultimate victory over sin.

Though we certainly may feel in the midst of the struggle that we will never have victory over sin, God promises that in the end, every Christian will be sanctified. Paul himself makes clear, "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Phil 1:6) When we see sanctification from the perspective of the Westminster Confession, we see that it is indeed a wonder of wonders as sinful men and women are transformed from children of wrath into vessels of glory. Since God is the author and finisher of this process, he receives all the glory. God is glorified in the sanctification of sinners!

Kim Riddlebarger is the executive vice president of CURE and a contributing author to Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation and Power Religion: The Selling out of

the Evangelical Church.

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lJloderl1 REFORi\1ATIOl\

God glorified in ...

Our

Calling

When it comes to 'work, many Christians feel as though they have much in common with the mythological figure Sisyphus. Sisyphus, having angered the gods, is condemned by them to the task of eternally pushing a boulder up a mountain. As soon as. he reaches the summit with his burden, the boulder rolls past him down the slope he just ascended. Sisyphus returns to the valley to repeat his pointless and wearisome efforts.

Albert Camus, the existentialist writer, comments, "[the gods] had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and :!: , : hopeless labor."1 :::, Distant myth or personal ' : : : reality? This scenario of:: :: meaningless drudgery too often describes our experiences on the job. We have an inner certainty that our need for meaningful, purposeful, and satisfying labor contradicts our experience of the daily grind.

Charles Colson relates how this contradiction between despair and meaningless work, and our need for purpose affected prisoners in a Hungarian concentration camp during World War II. The Nazi officer commanded [the 'prisoners] to shovel sand into carts and drag it to the other end of the plant. The next day the process was repeated in reverse. They were ordered to move a huge pile of sand back to the other end of the compound. Day after day they hauled the same pile of sand from one end of the camp to the other....One old man began crying uncontrollably; the guards hauled him away.

Another screamed until he was beaten into silence.

Then a young man who had survived three years in the camp darted away from the group. The guards

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shouted for him to stop as he ran toward the electrified fence. The other prisoners cried out, but it was too late; there was a blinding flash and a terrible sizzling noise as smoke puffed from his smoldering flesh. In the days that followed, dozens of the prisoners went mad and ran from their work, only to be shot by the guards or electrocuted by the fence.

The commandant smugly remarked that there soon would be "no more need to use the crematoria."2 In the face of such despair, living purposefully and meaningfully demands that who we are, the image,bearers of God, be directly related to what we do. Even our systematic theologies reflect this relationship between work and people as image bearers of God. We find importance of person and work from our Creator's person and work.

After all, we are his workmanship. He is actively involved in his Creation, and he is the one who calls us to be co,workers with him.

"Calling" and "vocation" are identical as applied to our earthly responsibilities. Particularly in the Bible, the term carries the meaning of being called to a particular purpose. "God is at work within us, both to will and to do for his good pleasure." (Phil 2: 13) He does this in our earthly calling as well, by equipping us with desires and abilities to perform tasks here on earth.

Even unbelievers recognize the relation in us between who we are and what we do. After World War II, the General Assembly of the United Nations approved the universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Among other issues, it declares in Article 23 the right to work is a human right. This is not an insignificant concern among international thinkers. In response to World War II, the organization of American States published the American Declaration of the

1110dern REFORMATION Rights and Duties of Man. Chapter 1, Article 14 reads: "Every person has the right ... to follow his vocation freely, in so far as existing conditions of employment exist." Chapter 2, Article 37 of this same document says that work is a duty. "It is the duty of every person to work, as far as his capacity and possibilities permit, in order to obtain the means of livelihood or to benefit his community."3 American culture has taken this concept of vocation or calling and shaped it after its own image.

In his comments on Benjamin Franklin's attitudes and impact on the subject, Max Weber concluded that "the earning of money withifl the modern economic order is, so long as it is done legally, the result and the expression of virtue and proficiency in a calling."4 Virtue and proficiency in a calling are useful because they bring financial success to the worker, as even a cursory glance over Franklin's Autobiography makes clear.

Some cons ider that performing one's work is the answer to the question, 'What is the meaning of life?'

Once a prisoner himself wi thin a Nazi concentration camp, Victor Frankl asserts that one must rely upon the accomplishment of his "mission in life" to give meaning to existence, rather than searching for an abstract "meaning of life." Frankl continues, "Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone's task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it....The majority, however, consider themselves accountable before God; they represent those who do not interpret their own lives merely in terms of a task assigned to them but also in terms of the taskmaker who has assigned it to them."5 Frankl's comments leave unanswered the question, "What meaning to labor exists if there is no God who

gives it?" Frankl's idea that completed mission is the meaning of life offers no assurance, psychological or otherwise. To his credit, he acknowledges the only other viable option, a Creator who enlists us to work for his glory. His conclusion differ's from Franklin's success system, where virtue and proficiency are useful because they bring financial gain and social status.

In our day, the status of calling is imperiled by the errors mentioned above, and from the secularization of a segmented industrial culture.

Sociologist Robert Bellah explains: "In the context of a calling, to enter a profession [was] to take up a definite function in a community and to operate within the civic and civil order of that community. The profession as career was no longer oriented to any face,to,face community but to impersonal standards of excellence, operating in the context of a national occupational system. "6 The lack of a crucial link between the individual and the general community weakens our sense of "connectedness" and the importance of our living and working in creation. As social creatures, we benefit from work.

"Employment offers to the individual not only economic viability but also an experience of community and a sense of social belonging, a source of structure and continuity in life, and a means of developing his or her talents and potentialities in contributing to the well,being of society as a whole."7 Since this issue ofModem Reformation celebrates the Westminster Confession, we may ask, Are there any clues in it for establishing a biblical basis for the value of work? Although there is no section devoted to vocation, the doctrine is implied throughout. For example, in Article 2, ii, Of God and of the Holy Trinity, we find: "To [God] is due from angels and men, and every other creature, whatsoever worship,

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lJzodernREFORMATION I

service, or obedience, he is pleased to require of them." In the Garden Adam and Eve rendered to God the service of identification and maintaining order. Genesis 1:26-28 twice affirms a relationship between the fact that man is made in God's image and that he has been called to exercise dominion over the earth. Because man is made in the image of God, after his likeness, he is capable of ruling over the rest of the created order. Similarly in chapter two, man is given charge of the environment­ maintaining, ordering, and organizing it is thus fundamental to God's' Imrposes for human life. 8 Reformed theologian John Murray argues that labor is commanded; it's included in the Ten Commandments. Murray stat~s that about "the fourth commandment, it should not be forgotten that it is the commandment of labor as well as rest." "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work." (Ex 20:9) "The day of rest has no meaning except as rest from labor."9 God designed work for Adam and Eve before sin entered the world. Before the world plunged into sin, God judged work, a part of his creation, to be "very good." As a matter of fact, Genesis makes clear that Eve

was co~worker with Adam. 10

God did not make labor a curse when Adam disobeyed him; although the curse did include difficulty and frustration in man's work. The curse is recorded in Genesis 3:17-19: Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

Note also that when God expels Adam and Eve from the Garden for their own good, the Bible says that Adam must still work the ground(Gn 3:23).

Work is actually a gift of God. The author of Ecclesiastes realized that "it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him, for this is his lot. Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work-this is a gift of God." (Eccl5:18­

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19 ) Work, paid or not, glorifies God. "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward."

(Col 3:23-24; see also Eph 6:7) Our employer is ultimately God, not a fallen human being. Hence, labor is for God. Work carries with it the possibility ofsatisfaction in its performance. After listing various manual occupations, the author of the apocryphal work Ecclesiaticus has this to say: All these trust to their hands; and everyone is wise in his work. Without these a city cannot be inhabited; and they shall not dwell where they will, nor go up and down; They shall not be sought for in public counsel, nor sit high in the congregation; they shall not sit in the judge's seat, nor understand the sentence of judgment; ... But they will maintain the state of the world, and all their desire is in the work of their craft.

(Ecclus 38:24-25) Others may, and should, benefit somehow from what we do, but we steal the honor and glory due God when we think of our labor as valuable or meaningful only when acknowledged by our earthly employers, or valuable only as we are able to gain financial or personal success.

In this way we violate the first and the eighth commandments.

The section on providence in the Westminster Confession clarifies the importance of vocation.

"God, the great Creator of all things, doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most holy and wise providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy." By calling believers to specific tasks in the world, God enlists us to be co~workers in glorifying him. In our labor we imitate God and his providential care and governance. He instills within us abilities and desires to perform diverse tasks. We reflect our Creator's workmanship when we perform tasks with our abilities and interests. We work from our varied abilities because God works from his varied abilities; we are created in his image. His sovereignty ensures that all things in this fallen world will ultimately glorify

!nodern REFORMATION himself and benefit, us too. Whatever our circumstances, we fulfill our purpose as salt and light in this world as we love God with our lives. God is not the author of confusion; he orders all things for his glory. Calvin based his idea of vocation on the organic, natural order he saw in' God's glorious theater, his Creation. The relevancy of such a

it

is false doctrine ....[However] the particular kind of disorderliness that the apostle has in mind in this case is that of idleness along with its companion vice of being a busybody. "For we hear of some that walk among you disorderly, that work not at all, but are busybodies." (2 Thes 3: 11)12 Murray echoes Calvin here when he sees Christians' idleness as disruptive. Calvin argued that "the Lord bids each one of us in all life's actions to look to his calling. For he knows with what great restlessness human nature flames, with what fickleness it is borne hither and thither, how its ambition longs to embrace various things at once. Therefore, lest through our stupidity and rashness everything be turned topsy~turvy, he has appointed duties for every man in his particular way of life. Therefore each individual has his own kind of living assigned to him by the Lord as a sort of sentry post so that he may not heedlessly wander about throughout life."13 Weare stewards responsible to God in a fallen world.

BLeSSED VJ~K,.'~

doctrine was obvious to Calvin. John Walchenbach explains: "The conviction that one is called gave courage to people in a society in dramatic flux. In sixteenth~century Geneva, structures from Medieval society had broken down, peasants were given new powers, refugees streamed into the city fleeing persecution, and a feeling of uncertainty pervaded the changing order."!!

Calvin was not trying to stifle or control people for his own ends, rather he saw society as a natural part of Creation, with an organic structure of interdependence to it. He also knew too well how we desire our own good above that of our neighbor.

Given free reign, this sinful pride would cancel any meaning or benefit of society. Reformed theologian John Murray makes an important observation on the importance of the relationship between work and order: When Paul enjoins the Thessalonian believers to withdraw themselves from every brother who walked disorderly and not after apostolic tradition (2 Thes 3:6), we might think that what he has in view

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According to Calvin, the apostle "rather condemns that restlessness, which prevents an individual from remaining in his condition with a peaceable mind, and he exhorts, that everyone stick by his trade, as the old proverb goes."!4 Hence, our worries about whether we are doing God's will by working in a certain job receive comfort here. Nor are we stuck in

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IHodern REFORMATION

one particular job all our life. "Now it were a very hard thing if a tailor were not at liberty to learn another trade, or if a merchant were not at liberty to betake himself to farming."15 Paul is clear about the importance of working.

"For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: 'If a man will not work, he shall not eat.' (2 Thes 3: 10) We must also provide for our families. Paul writes in 1 Timothy 5:8, "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and e'specially his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." Again underscoring the importance of actively participating in our responsibility to work in Creation, he writes; "make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody." (1 Thes 4:11­ 12) This will also proclaim God the Creator worthy of honor and glory. "Let your light so shine before men that, they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." (Mt 5:16) In the Confession, Section 26, ii, Of Communion of Saints, draws upon the priesthood of all believers"...in performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification; as also in relieving each other in outward things, according to their several abilities and necessities." God does not distinguish between professional Christians and the rest of the group. We all are responsible for the service of "loving our neighbors as ourselves." This love is the basis for Paul's admonition in Ephesians 4:28, "He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need."

The quality of our work reflects on our Creator.

If we believe that our work glorifies God, then "quality control" will become internal. This concern with quality before God is clear in Luke 10:7 "The worker is worthy of his wages," which echoes Leviticus 19:13 and Deuteronomy 24:14-15. Work, then, is an obvious way of showing good works. C.S. Lewis tells it this way: "When our Lord provided a poor wedding party with an extra glass of wine all around, he was doing good works. But also good work; it was a wine really worth drinking."16 Work is a gift and a commandment of God to glorify him. It reminds us that we and our labors are meaningful. Work also provides for ourselves and our families, benefits others by maintaining order in society, and shares with those in need. Our labor

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must always please God, and not men. The daily drudgery that oppresses us is the consequence of trying to please human masters. When we please people rather than God, we are willing to do whatever is necessary to gain approval, even to the point of disobeying God. 17

Alan Maben is a staff writer for CURE and serves as CURE's corresponding secretary, answering readers' theological questions. He is a graduate of California State University, Long Beach and Simon Greenleaf School of Law.

1. Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (New York: Vintage Books, 1959), 88.

2. Charles Colson, Kingdom in Conflict (Zondervan Publishing House, 1987), 68.

3. The European Social Charter also sets forth the right to work. John W. Montgomery notes that Islam belief includes the right to work, and even to join trade unions, as asserted in the Koran, noted by John W. Montgomery in his work Human Rights and Human Dignity (Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 115.

4. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (N ew York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958), 53,54.

5. Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy (New York: Washington Square Press, Inc., 1966), 172.

6. Robert Bellah and others, Habits ofthe Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1985), 119,120, 66.

7. R. K. Harrison, ed. Encyclopedia of Biblical and Christian Ethics (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1987), s.v.

"Employment," by M. D. Geldard.

8. Encyclopedia of Biblical and Christian Ethics, ibid., s.v.

"Work," by M. D. Geldard.

9. John Murray, Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1957), 83.

10. Encyclopedia of Biblical and Christian Ethics, ibid.

11. Donald K. McKim, ed. Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992), s.v. "Vocation," by John R. Walchenbach.

12. Murray, 84.

13. Calvin's Institutes 3.10.6.

14. John Calvin, Commentary on 1 Corinthians 7:20.

15. Ibid.

16. C. S. Lewis, "Good Work and Good Works," chap. in The World's Last Night and Other Essays (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1960), 71.

17. Murray, 88.

IJlode rl1 REFORMATION

God glorified

In...

Our Worship

Perhaps nothing proves more divisive to achurch than disagreement about how worship should be conducted. Some find it ironic or even scandalous that believers should be at odds about worship.

Assembly to praise and glorify God ought to be a source of unity. But, of course, this concern ignores the fact that Christian worship must be true worship, and if believers have sincere disagreements about how true worship should be conducted, then they must attempt to resolve their differences.

Disagreement itself is not scandalous, but sometimes the manner of it is. Anathemas are more numerous than serious argument.

Catholic theologian John Courtney Murray has observed that true disagreement is a great achievement. In other words, it takes a lot of work for two parties to come to the point where they have a mutual understanding of the precise nature of their differences. The history of wrangling about worship indicates that disagreement is rarely achieved.

The Westminster Confession of Faith addresses the question of worship in several ways. The chapter on Christian liberty (20) mentions worship in the context of protecting the consciences of believers from being encumbered by obligations that go beyond scripture.

Chapter 21, "Of Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day," is the largest section on worship. This chapter insists that although certain things about God can be known from nature, "the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may

not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestion of Satan, under any visible representation, or any way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture." Only God establishes the terms of true worship.

Chapter 21 echoes Chapter 1, "Of the Holy Scripture" in which the Confession eagerly defends the unique role of the Bible in defining the Christian life. This includes worship. It, too, begins with the assertion that certain things about God are knowable from "the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence," but that the knowledge necessary for salvation is not known apart from scripture.

By beginning with the doctrine ofscripture, rather than the doctrine of God, or with the reality of the Christian experience as do some other confessions, the Westminster Confession is clearly concerned that the source of authority in the Christian religion be not compromised. By contrast, the Thirty, Nine articles of the Church of England commence with a declaration of the doctrine of the Trinity, moving to Christology, the Resurrection, and the Holy Ghost before discussing the sufficiency of Scripture.

In asserting that knowledge about salvation and the divine expectations of human worship is only available from scripture, the Westminster divines were clearly not despising the availability ofknowledge

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from "the light of nature." In fact, there are even matters pertaining to worship that must be gleaned from general revelation, as Chapter 1, paragraph 6 indicates that "there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed."

The allusion to circumstances that are "common to human actions and societies" deserves some attention, especially in view of the Confession's repeated appeal to "the light ofnature," and the course of Western culture since the Westminster Assembly completed its work.

Cultural critics who discuss how modern culture differs from premodern cultures are almost unanimous in concluding that the modern social order has a radical dehumanizing effect. From the effect of machines and mass production to political obsession with rights, equality, and power; to the outright opposition to humanity of many modern ideologies, modern culture is as much an assault on the identity of man as it is on the person of God. Modern culture is suicidal because it is dei~cidal and anthropocidal.

Today what is "common to human ' actions and societies" is no longer ordered by the light of nature, as the Westminster divines assumed it always would be. Our contemporaries no longer believe that nature has any light. Perhaps one reason for this is the uncomfortable fact that, as the divines understood, one does learn a lot about God from the light of nature, including that he deserves to be feared, praised, and served.

Human societies, pagan and Christian, were once unanimous in their convictions that children obey and respect their parents, that sexual adventurism be stigmatized and punished by the community, and that public displays of blasphemy were not healthful.

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Our society, among others, no longer gives consent to these expressions ofwhat might be called natural virtue.

One must ask if, by the phrase "common to human actions and societies," the Westminster divines meant to refer to circumstances that were commonplace in any time or place, but contrary to the testimony of the entire human race concerning human nature and the nature of human society.

Writing in the seventeenth century, the Westminster divines could never have predicted how inhuman some human societies would become. What would they have made, for example, of drive, in churches? Certainly, the convenience of not leaving , . one s car IS a common feature ofmodern life. One can bank, shop, and eat without ever leaving the car. Why shouldn't one be allowed to worship there? (I've always wondered if the sacrament is served by carhops on roller skates at drive,in churches.)

There are no biblical provisions prohibiting drive' in worship, and there are no biblical requirements of pews or buildings. The best argument against the drive,in church is that it dehumanizes worship.

Worship involves the church as the assembly of God, a community of faith, and parking lots don't establish community. The drive,in church offers a depersonalized and detached experience that may meet the minimum requirement for prayer and preaching. But the church is an assembly of human beings, and human beings don't experience community without being closer to one another than drive,in services allow. Worship in automobiles is not really social. Christian prudence and the light of nature suggest that drive,in churches aren't good ideas.

The drive, in church also lacks any sense of gravity about worship. The "come,as,you,are" mentality presents worship as requiring less commitment and discipline than buying a Coke. But of course, we live in a zero,gravity age. Weightlessness characterizes almost everything about modern culture.

Inode rnREFORMATION The scriptures do not dictate for us rules defining gravity or reverence, but they are clear that worship should exhibit such a quality. In Hebrews, we are warned that, "since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and ~we, for our God is consuming fire."

Exactly how we should display reverence and awe is never defined, but it is obviously possible to be irreverent and insouciant, or the writer of Hebrews would never have been so graphic in describing the wrath that awaits the irreverent. Once again, we must consider the light of nature and Christian prudence. How do people behave when they take something very seriously? How do they display respect and deference? Usually through formalized behavior. Talk to someone who understands protocol in international diplomatic gatherings, and you'll find that despite the cultural differences, certain ways of behaving are almost universally ill mannered and presumptuous. Formalized action has always given weight to an event, be it the slow steps of a bride in a wedding, the measured rhetoric of a political figure, or the centering of words on a greeting card.

Ritual is thus part of human nature. It is not peculiar to religion; it is part of being human. The rejection of ritual is almost impossible, since actions and gestures have a way of becoming formalized even when we don't try to formalize them. But the effort to overturn all ritual is a wonderful way to identify with the dehumanizing tendencies of modem culture; a wonderful way to reject the assumption that there are things common to human actions and societies.

Here I must ask respectfully if the Puritans' distaste for ceremonies and rituals was really consistent with their convictions about the universality of human nature and the necessity of taking the light of nature seriously. One early twentieth,century Lutheran noted that the New England Puritans possessed a "rigid Calvinistic hostility to everything that is studied or uniform in religious ceremony, and for a century or more they seemed to glory in the distinction of maintaining church song in the barbarous condition that this art has ever suffered since the founding of Christianity." The Puritans' purge of liturgy began with the worthy goal of liberating Christian consciences from false obligations imposed by the Roman Church. But one must ask if they didn't err in condemning any effort to structure the experience of worship in ways that accord with created human nature.

Ceremony per se is not a problem. After all, the strictest Reformed churches still structure their services somehow, still have ushers walk in sync when delivering offering plates, and still allow pastors to use certain archaisms when praying. There are hidden rituals in many allegedly ritual, free churches. These hidden rituals simply lack formal names; often they came into being without any thought or care, usually being products of pastors' personalities.

The Reformers and the Puritans faced a different cultural climate than we face today. Where their contemporaries were burdened with a sense ofreligious obligation that stifled Christian liberty, our contemporaries are obsessed with liberty; they desire no sense of obligation, either as Christians or as human beings. Political philosopher Michael Sandel calls ours the age of "encumbered selves"­ autonomous individuals with no sense of duty, authority, reverence or awe. It is a great task to order worship so that it is guided by scripture and rediscovers and reinforces sanctified humanity.

Those who value the legacy of the Reformers and the Puritans would do well to heed the warning of J. I. Packer, who recognizes the danger of asserting our spiritual ancestors' infallibility. "We can make a wrong application of their teaching," warns Packer.

"We can parrot their language and ape their manners, and imagine that thereby we place ourselves in the true Puritan tradition. But the Puritans would impress on us that that is precisely what we fail to do if we act so. They sought to apply the eternal truths of scripture to the particular circumstances of their own day- moral, social, political, ecclesiastical, and so forth."

Obstacles to true belief and discipleship are not what they were in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Word of God has not changed, nor has human nature. Most discussion about worship based on the Westminster Standards takes the Word's permanence seriously. It is time for hard reflection on what nature's identity and constancy tells us about how we must worship the King.

Kennneth A. Myers is the host of the Mars Hill Tape Audio Cassette Magazine about Christianity and culture and the author of All God's Children in Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and the Popular Culture. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland and Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1993

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27

1110dern REFORMATION

Glosssary o/Terms

Adoption The reason for adoption is given in Eph 1:5, "In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will." It is not due to his nature of merit that the Christian is adopted (and thus receives the Spirit and the inheritlmce, Eph 1:14-15), but to God's will acting through Christ. Adoption is a free grant to undeserving people solely from God's grace.

Confession The Hebrew yada and Greek bomologeo convey the idea ofconfession, acknowledgement, and praise of God's character and glorious works, often with expression of man's confession of faith in God and in his Son, Jesus Christ; also man's confession to God of his sins and wicked works. In the early church the word was used to describe the testimony of martyrs as they were about to meet their deaths. Its most common usage, however designates the formal statements of Christian faith written by Protestants since the earliest days of the Reformation. As such, "confessions" are closely related to several other kinds of brief, authoritative summations of belief.

Effectual Calling The developed biblical idea of God's calling is of God summoning men by his word, and laying hold of them by his power, to playa part in and enjoy the benefits of his gracious redemptive purposes.

Glorification This refers to the time when those who died in Christ and the living believers will be given the resurrection of the body, a final and full "redemption of our body" (Rom 8:23), preparatory for and suited to the final stage of the Christian believer.

Glorification, therefore is only for believers, and consist of the redemption of the body. At that time "this perishable" will "put on the imperishable," and "this mortal," the body, will "put on immortality." (1 Cor 15:53) Then death, the Christian's last enemy (1 Cor 15:26), will be swallowed up in victory (1 Cor 15:54).

Imputation A broad concept finding its theological center in the atonement. The latin imputare literally means "to reckon," "to charge to one's account," and is an adequate rendering of the Greek term logizomai. In the New Testament, Christians are said to receive the "alien righteousness" of God as a "free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ." (Rom 5: 15) Just as God reckoned Abraham as righteous on the basis of Abraham's belief alone (Gn 15:6; Rom 4:3), so others are similarly blessed as the Lord does not impute their iniquity to them. (Ps 32:1-2; Rom 4:3) This divine judical act is based, not on human merit, but on God's love.

Ordo Salutis (Order of Salvation) In the Reformed view the application of the redemption wrought by Christ on the cross is an activity of the Holy Spirit, and is to be traced in a series of acts and processes until perfect blessedness is reached. The Reformed order may be taken as (1) effectual calling, issuing in (2) regeneration, (3) faith, leading to (4) justification, and (5) sanctification, ultimately resulting in (6) glorification. Luther's order of salvation consisted simply in repentance, faith, and good works; but the Lutheran order was elaborated by later theologians into something closely resembling the Reformed order. It rests, however, upon the assumption that Christ's death on the cross was intended to save all men and that grace is resistable.

Pietism A recurring tendency within Christian history to emphasize more the practicalities of Christian life and less the formal structures of theology or church order.

Regeneration Regeneration or, new "birth, is an inner re-creating of fallen human nature by the gracious sovereign action of the Holy Spirit. On 3:5-8) Regeneration in Christ changes the disposition from lawless, God-less, selfseeking, (Rom 3:9-18; 8:7) which dominates man in Adam, into one of trust and love, of repentance for past rebelliousness and unbelief, and loving compliance with God's law henceforth.

Revelation Divine disclosure to all persons at all times and places by which one comes to know that God is, and what he is like is known as general (natural) revelation. While not imparting saving truths such as the Trinity, incarnation, or atonement, general revelation mediates the conviction that God exists and he is selfsufficient, transcendent, eternal, powerful, wise, good and righteous.

Special revelation is redemptive revelation. The gospel is news that the incarnate Logos has borne the sins of doomed men, has died in their stead, and has risen for their justification. This is the fixed center of special redemptive revelation.

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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1993

l}loderll REFORMATIO:\

c

Book Review

by Jeffery Bearce

Desiring God: Meditations ofa Christian Hedonist John Piper

G

The idea of finding delight in God has been central to Christian spirituality for millenia. This is perhaps nowhere more clearly reflected than in the Westminster Catechisms, which begin by inquiring into the purpose of human existence. The answer given to this inquiry in the Shorter Catechism is that "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever."

John Piper makes this answer the subject of his liberating study, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. Herein, Piper sets forth a vision of the Christian life that is at once biblically faithful and existentially satisfying. He maintains the revolutionary theses that man's very highest pleasure is at the heart of Christian worship and obedience; hence the seemingly incoherent concept, "Christian hedonism." Piper finds inspiration for this idea in men no less than C. S. Lewis, Jonathon Edwards, and ultimately in the writings of Scripture.

Some, rightly alarmed by the narcissism of our society and the Church itself, will object that seeking pleasure in the Christian life is selfish and ungodly. But Piper asks us to consider what it could possibly mean to speak of a person doing anything at all without desire and self interest. God himself does everything for his glory, and Christ's humiliation, Paul tells us, was undergone "for the joy that was set before him." In all action, the agent acts to achieve some good, something valuable to that agent, even if that good is the well being of others. It is simply impossible that it be otherwise.

Imagine further, Piper asks, people serving with absolutely no pleasure in doing so. Would we say that their hearts are involved? And what is worship or service without the heart? Scripture calls it hypocrispy.

The mistake then is not self, interest but selfishness. The real problem with us, says Piper quoting Lewis, "is that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half, hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." The key then, is to be most pleased by that which is most worthy: the infinite, glorious God. And serving God for the pleasure derived therein is the supreme way to glorify him; it is to affirm and acknowledge him for what he is.

Piper takes appropriate time to delineate the foundations and implications of his theses. The ultimate basis for Christian hedonism is the case of God himself, as mentioned earlier. God does all things ultimately for the delight he has in glorifying himself; this is a central tenet of Reformed theology. It is no surprise then to see Piper explaining in the second chapter that God alone brings fallen persons, who naturally hate God, to delight in him.

This discussion about regeneration lead naturally to discussion of the active results of new spiritual life. He includes insightful chapters on worship, love, the place of scripture and prayer in fueling our delight in God, the proper use of money for advancing God's glory, marriage as a relation in which to model the same kind of delight we have in God, and even a chapter on missions as a means of multiplying one's joy and delight by advancing the glory and will of God. An epilogue and three appendices nicely supplement the main text. . This work is replete with scriptural references and welcome interaction with church history and historical theology. The endnotes are copious and well referenced for those who wish to study further. Piper writes very smoothly and accessibly while offering some solid treatment of complex matters. I suspect those who will benefit most from Piper's work here are those who have come to see obedience and worship as empty drudgery because they believe that they are not to be motivated in these activities by desires for joy, happiness, and delight.

Desiring God is published by Multnomah Press.

.SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1993

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29

- .' ,~

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. ":\'''\.

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o

o

It is now illegal to post the Ten Command­

ments on the walls of a public school

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The real problem is that the Command­ ments have also vanished from the interior walls of our hearts.

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Back to the Ten Commandments.

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Theology, he contends that the

Commandments are not merely

relevant for today, but necessary.

They are not a roadblock to spiritual

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So pick up a copy today for

yourself or someone you know.

Play by God's rules and see Him

transform you into all He created

you to be. Available at your

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MOODY

The Name You Can Trust