why-march-april-2014

vol.23 | no.2 | March-April 2014 | $6.50

Why?

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DO WE ALL WORSHIP THE SAME GOD? Every day voices are being raised in the public square that claim all religions are essentially the same. If you don’t know how to defend your faith, you are in danger of being swallowed up by the “coexist” spirit of the age. Join us for the second annual White Horse Inn Weekend where we will equip you to answer the question, “Do We All Worship the Same God?” R E G I S T E R T O D AY W H I T E H O R S E I N N.O R G / W E E K E N D

J U LY 24-26 2014

features VOL.23 | NO.2 | MARCH-APRIL 2014

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Why? Trusting God in a Suffering World

BY MI CHA E L S. HORTON

“Who Sinned That This Man Was Born Blind?”

BY KI M R I DDLEBARGER

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Why God Allows His People to Suffer (According to the Puritans)

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When Happiness Comes

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Our Redeemer Lives— And So Shall We: A Sermon on the Suicide of a Friend

BY BRI A N H. COSBY

BY RI CK R I TCH IE

BY MI CHA E L S. HORTON

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Theology On Tap.

DID YOU KNOW THAT WHITE HORSE INN RADIO ARCHIVES ARE AVAILABLE ONLINE? How do we make sense of suffering in the midst of a church whose main focus seems to be on having its best life now? What is the meaning of suffering and how should we counsel those who are going through hard times? What insight can we glean on this issue from the book of Job? Join the White Horse Inn hosts for this 7-part series as they discuss “Why We Suffer.”

VISIT W H ITEH O RSEINN.OR G/SUF FE RI NG.

departments 04 05

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

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THEOLOGY ›› Feeling More Sinful:

12 47 54 56

BY RYA N G LO MSRUD

ROUNDTABLE ›› May the Name of the Lord

Be Praised: Introducing the Book of Job

MICHAEL HORTON, KEN JONES, KIM RIDDLEBARGER, AND ROD ROSENBLADT

A Different Take on Sanctification

BY BRI A N LE E

THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD ›› The New

Testament Part II: The Herald of the King

BY Z ACH K E E LE

BOOK REVIEWS ›› B O LZ -WE BE R, BE A LE , DOW

GEEK SQUAD ›› Sovereign Compassion

BY CA RL R. T RUEMAN

BACK PAGE ››

If Job Had Lamented on Facebook Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Executive Editor Ryan Glomsrud Managing Editor Patricia Anders Assistant Editor Brooke Ventura Marketing Director Michele Tedrick Design Director José Reyes for Metaleap Creative, metaleapcreative.com Department Editors Ryan Glomsrud (Letter from the Editor & Reviews), Michael S. Horton Designers Tiffany Forrester, Harold Velarde, Ashley Shugart Copy Editor Elizabeth Isaac Proofreader Ann Smith Modern Reformation © 2014 All rights reserved. ISSN-1076-7169 Modern Reformation (Subscription Department) P.O. Box 460565 Escondido, CA 92046 (855) 492-1674 info@modernreformation.org www.modernreformation.org Subscription Information US 1 YR $32. 2 YR $58. US 3 YR $78. Digital Only 1 YR $25. US Student 1 YR $26. Canada add $8 per year for postage. Foreign add $9 per year for postage.

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LETTER from the EDITOR

RYAN GLOMSRUD executive editor

Surveying the evangelical landscape, those of us of Calvinist or Reformation conviction are supposed to be the intellectual types, the so-called smarty-pants always ready with an answer. At any rate, that’s our reputation. But what do we say when it comes to the difficult and intensely personal “why” questions that arise in the midst of suffering? This is our topic for this issue of Modern Reformation.

We begin with the White Horse Inn radio hosts in an introductory discussion of the book of Job. Here we learn that this story about suffering is actually a story about something bigger, though God doesn’t explain that larger perspective to Job. In this vein, Editor-in-Chief Michael Horton explores Jesus’ climactic sign in an article on the raising of Lazarus in John’s Gospel. The story “isn’t really about Lazarus,” Horton reminds us, but about seeing Jesus as “the end, and not just the means” of life in this mortal coil. Ultimately, Jesus did not really go to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead, “but to announce himself as the gospel.”

Later in this issue, pastor and WHI host Kim Riddlebarger takes

up two very curious passages of Scripture: Luke 13 about the tower of Siloam and John 9 about the man born blind. “Who sinned that this man was born blind?” the people ask Jesus. Here our Savior’s answer demonstrates the futility of trying to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between a particular sin and most suffering.

Instead, Jesus simply tells them of his larger purpose: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the words of God might be displayed in him.”

What are those works of God? Brian Cosby applies the wisdom of the Puritans in providing solid biblical reflections on these “what” and “why” questions. Then, Lutheran Rick Ritchie argues that in many—if not most—cases, it’s not so much that the “why” questions are definitively answered, as that they have a way of fading in poignancy as life moves on and happiness returns. This highlights God’s goodness and is even a sign pointing to the fulfilment of God’s good intention to one day restore all things. Also in this issue, Reformed minister Brian Lee asks what sanctification should feel like, looking to the Heidelberg Catechism for solid answers.

And Reverend Zach Keele explores the idea of a “soft opening” in relation to John the Baptist’s announcement of the arrival of the Lamb of God. Throughout we are reminded that we form a fellowship of sufferers, together with Christ in whom we find life, hope, and peace. But the glory of Christ was the way of the cross, or as Rev. Keele says, “Isaiah’s Servant was the Suffering Servant.” May we all arrive at the place where—in spite of the difficulties of this life—we declare with Job that the Lord’s name be praised, for we know that our Redeemer lives.

“THROUGHOUT WE ARE REMINDED THAT WE FORM A FELLOWSHIP OF SUFFERERS, TOGETHER WITH CHRIST IN WHOM WE FIND LIFE, HOPE, AND PEACE. BUT THE GLORY OF CHRIST WAS THE WAY OF THE CROSS.”

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R O U N DTA B L E

MAY THE NAME OF THE LORD BE PRAISED INTRODUCING THE BOOK OF JOB

A ROUNDTABLE DIS CUSSION

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R O U N DTA B L E

n a current White Horse Inn roundtable discussion, Michael Horton (MH), Ken Jones (KJ), Kim Riddlebarger (KR), and Rod Rosenbladt (RR) discuss the book of Job. You can follow the rest of the discussion at www.whitehorseinn.org.

MICHAEL HORTON (MH)

KEN JONES (KJ)

Job was a man deeply devoted to God, and Satan chided God for Job’s faithfulness: Why wouldn’t he be faithful? After all, he lived a charmed life— he was healthy, wealthy, and wise; his household was carefree. It was the ideal Norman Rockwell family. So God allowed Satan to test Job. There’s no getting around the facts of the case: God not only foreknew Satan’s testing, but he also sanctioned it. In Job 1:6–12, it’s pretty clear from the story that Satan couldn’t have had access to Job apart from God’s permission.

Disaster followed disaster, and overnight Job lost everything precious to him: his possessions and his children. Yet Job responded, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised.” Job refused to charge God with wrongdoing.

Satan returned to God and taunted, “But stretch out your hand again and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.” Job’s body became wracked with sores and pain until his own wife said, “Curse God and die.”

But Job still replied, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

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KIM RIDDLEBARGER (KR)

ROD ROSENBLADT (RR)

MH: Where do we begin with the book of Job? KR: You have to look at Job in its literary style, because it’s a Wisdom book, and the prologue tells us everything we need to know that Job himself doesn’t know. We know that Satan has been in the heavenly throne room and that God has said, “Consider my servant Job.” But when Satan is allowed to torment him, Job knows none of this. All he knows is that his children are dead and everything is destroyed.

MH: Like us in our suffering, Job didn’t have a prologue to his story. Ultimately, the center of the story is Job coming to that place where he doesn’t understand why he is suffering. He has no philosophical resolution to theodicy, the problem of evil. But he knows there’s a historical resolution when he says, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and in this flesh—which is rotting and falling off of my bones—in this same body and with these eyes, I will see my Redeemer standing upon the earth.”

KR: That’s the answer to the problem of suffering, though probably not quite the answer we want.

KJ: Job’s declaration, “I know that my Redeemer lives,” demonstrates the substance of his faith. In the following chapters, however, Job raises some serious questions—particularly, why all of this is happening to him. It’s important to note that in the King James Version, Job is described in the first chapter as being “perfect and upright.” Rather than looking at Job as this sinless individual, I think it speaks of his maturity: he is everything that a sinful, redeemed human being is supposed to be.

KR: In redemptive history, this introduces the theme that it will take the perfect obedience of someone to ultimately defeat Satan. Job is the epitome of human goodness and human righteousness, yet he can’t defeat Satan. It’s going to take the GodMan to come with a perfect righteousness to obey God’s law and to ultimately bring about victory.

KJ: We should also note that for all his full faith in the Redeemer, there are points in Job’s questioning where he sounds just like his friends: that is, he recommends to God his own virtue. He lists all the good he has done and then asks why he is suffering.

What’s going on here?

MH: Then he realizes that it’s not for any particular sin—despite what his so-called counselors try to get him to confess. What he does come to see, however, is that he is sinful enough in God’s courtroom to deserve this treatment and for God to be proved just. In chapter 16, he says, “Even now, my advocate, my defense attorney is in heaven. My advocate is on high; my intercessor is my friend, as my eyes pour out tears to God. On behalf of a human being, he pleads with God as one pleads for a friend.” Earlier, in chapter 9, he says: “If only there were a go-between, a mediator.” Once again, isn’t this the story behind the story of God vs. Satan?

The seed of the woman triumphing over the seed of the serpent?

KR: The story of Job teaches us that we can’t discern the meaning behind the evidence at hand.

What did Job do that caused this? That’s the question that often leads to difficulties. I think we see this in the second chapter when the three friends show up. Initially they just sit with Job for a week and say nothing because they saw his suffering, and

“THE CENTER OF THE STORY IS JOB COMING TO THAT PLACE WHERE HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND WHY HE IS SUFFERING.” during this time they bring him tremendous comfort. It’s when they start trying to figure out why Job is suffering that they become tormentors—going from quietly bringing Job comfort to opening their mouths and ruining everything. This is a struggle for me as a pastor when people ask for explanations as to why they’re suffering, but often I have no answer. We have to learn to do what Job’s three friends did: sit with the afflicted and not try to figure out why they’re under affliction.

KJ: We’ve entered into an age of evangelicalism where the assumption—especially for us Calvinist, “intellectual” types—is that we must have an explanation.

KR: The more times I’ve given into that temptation, I’ve become the tormentor. It’s a real struggle to keep my mouth shut.

KJ: I love the book of Job, because God never gives a reason for Job’s suffering and nothing is presented in a prescriptive way—that is, Job wasn’t told what he needed to do. Really, the crux of the story is in the first chapter. There is something cosmological, something greater at work and on display that we can’t fully grasp. God is in control and Satan is our adversary. God’s sovereign purposes include the presence of Satan, but he is not frustrated by it. There is much there that we just don’t understand. There is only this slice of human reality for those of us who trust the living God in a fallen world until he returns.

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THEOLOGY

FEELING MORE SINFUL A D I F F E R E N T TA K E O N S A N C T I F I C AT I O N

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by BRIAN LEE

o you ever feel like you’re more sinful today than you were yesterday or the day before? Me too. Perhaps you feel like your spiritual life never changes, that you’re stuck in neutral and not making any progress.

For most Christians, staying still feels like you’re moving backwards. It’s like you’re treading water in a river, watching the shore glide by while you float downstream—or down the toilet. Isn’t that what we’ve been told? If you’re not growing in holiness, you’re dying? If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward? All of which raises an interesting question not asked often enough: What should sanctification feel like? Reformation Christianity offers a surprising answer to this question. As we grow in holiness—and all believers do—we also grow in the knowledge of our sin. In other words, the holier we get, the more sinful we feel.

A M E R I CA , P R O G RE S S, A N D SA NCTI F ICAT IO N “Progress” is perhaps the most enduring myth of the modern world, and it is nowhere more deeply enshrined than in America. We assume progress as a fact of daily life—technological, cultural,

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economic. This myth of progress is ubiquitous, and it’s not surprising that it has slipped into the life of the church. Most of us are smart enough to debunk the extreme form of progress in the Prosperity Gospel—no, Jesus didn’t promise us a new Cadillac every two years.

But the Bible clearly promises new life, growth in grace, and in bearing fruit. Surely, the Christian

has a reasonable expectation—even demand—for spiritual progress. And we have a pretty good mental picture of what this should look and feel like, fed by conversion stories that turn on the linchpin of transformed lives.

The sanctified saint, we imagine, has conquered most of his stubborn, indwelling sins. He’s filled with love for his neighbor and is always on the lookout for ways to help him. He delights in the things of God, loves to read his Bible, and loves to go to church. Temptation might flare up once in a while but is generally under control. That’s why he has such a big smile on his face.

Yeah, I’ve never felt that way either. Come to think of it, have you ever met any believer who spoke that way about sin, as something they had under control? At least, one you believed?

A REFO R M AT I O N L E S S O N ON SA NCTI F I CATI O N The Reformation has a radically different take on sanctification, grounded in a much more realistic view of the world and human nature. The myth of progress is just that—a myth. Through human history there have been vast centuries of little change, even decline, and the Reformation came at the end of such a long, dark period. Though itself born of great innovation—the printing press and new economic forces—the Reformation witnessed the war and plague that had decimated Europe for generations. It was not unusual, for instance, to have the population of a village cut by half. Laws were loosely and sporadically enforced, so human wickedness was on full display.

In the face of this dark reality, the medieval church offered, well, little. Though myriad pilgrimages beckoned, there was no guarantee of success.

“Saints” were the select few spiritual superheroes who were guaranteed access to heaven. The rest were consigned to a lifetime of doubtful striving, with no sure confidence about their eternal prospects.

In contrast, the Reformation gospel offered true comfort through assurance. Every sinner was simultaneously a saint through faith in Christ. The deep reality and stubbornness of sin was affirmed, as perfectionism was sworn off. But the hope of

glory—and the sinless perfection that awaited there—was universal.

Critics of Reformation spirituality have always warned that this gospel would weaken the motivation for holiness and result in license, but both history and the Reformed confessions tell a different story. After teaching the believer the shape of the Christian life by vigorously expounding the Ten Commandments, the Heidelberg Catechism (Q & A 114) provides the following cautious hope: But can those converted to God obey these commandments perfectly?

No. In this life even the holiest have only a small beginning of this obedience.

Nevertheless, with all seriousness of purpose, they do begin to live according to all, not only some, of God’s commandments.

The catechism does not forget the lesson of its first part—the magnitude of our sin and misery—when teaching how we are to show our thankfulness to God. True sanctification begins with a deep grasp of our sin and God’s holiness. It recognizes that our righteousness remains filthy rags before his spotless glory. This answer comforts us in the face of persistent sin and cautions us against wild expectations of spiritual bliss in the Christian life. God has begun a work in us, and he will complete it.

But the following question and answer (Q & A 115) provide an even more profound insight into the law’s role in sanctification and a rejoinder to those who think the Reformation doctrine of justification undermines the need for sanctification.

Why, the catechism asks, preach the law as rigorously to those who are unable to obey it perfectly?

Why demand what can never be fulfilled?

First, so that the longer we live the more and more we may come to know our sinful nature and therefore the more eagerly look to Christ for forgiveness of sins and righteousness.

Second, so that we may never stop striving, and never stop praying to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, to be renewed more and more after God’s image, until after this life we reach our goal: perfection.

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THEOLOGY

The strong preaching of the law is necessary, first, so that we may more and more come to know our sinful nature. The early Latin translation says, “So that we may more and more acknowledge how great is our natural propensity to sin.” This ever-deepening knowledge of our sin has two salutary effects. It inclines us to more eagerly look to Christ for forgiveness and righteousness—that is, to trust more in Christ and lean more heavily on him. In other words, it strengthens faith.

But this self-awareness is not merely passive.

It contributes to the second fruit of strong law preaching—namely, continual striving and praying for the grace of the Holy Spirit and greater renewal. That is to say, it strengthens faith. For as the faithful man’s confidence in his own abilities declines, so his trust and reliance on his Father in heaven increases.

Faith is central. Reformation sanctification is the deepening and strengthening of faith. Is this surprising for a tradition that says we are both justified and sanctified by grace through faith?

For a tradition that defines good works first and foremost as works done in faith, works done looking to Christ with grateful hearts?

The catechism tells us that while the mature believer day by day grows objectively more like Christ, he feels more sinful than when he began.

His confidence in his flesh has decreased, and his awareness of the pervasiveness, insidiousness, deceitfulness, and ugliness of sin has increased.

This is radical stuff. It is, I suspect, the opposite of what most of us assume about sanctification.

IS RE FO R MATI O N SA NCT I F I CAT IO N BIB L ICAL? But is this biblical? Christ, of course, could not grow in the knowledge of his sin. But we might say he grew in his knowledge of our sin, in his experience of it and its bitter fruits. Hebrews 5:8–9 tells us that he learned obedience through suffering and was made perfect.

The psalms often recount the psalmists’ suffering because of sin and speak of it in vivid detail.

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The catechism cites Psalm 32:5 in particular at this juncture: For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

The acknowledgement of sin deepens our faith, and since good works are works done in faith, it energizes our sanctification.

More relevant, perhaps, is the example of the apostle Paul, who speaks in Romans 7 about how he came to know sin through the law. Thus “sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.” The spiritual law teaches Paul that he is flesh and sold under sin, in bondage to it.

Paul doesn’t understand his own actions—his own sin—but he agrees with the law and hates what he does. Thus he comes to a mature view: “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh…but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Paul’s despair over sin is not evidence of a troubled conscience nor is his claim to be “chief of all sinners” mere hyperbole. It is the healthy fruit of mature faith and of a sanctified sinner. It is the considered reflection of a saint who, under both the law and God’s grace in the gospel, is coming to a deeper appreciation of the nature and depth of his own sin.

Note here an important corollary: We don’t truly come to know the darkness of our sins until we see them by the light of the gospel. Paul illustrates this in his Epistle to the Ephesians. Only those who are alive in Christ can look back and see how they were dead in their trespasses and sins (2:1). Only those who have put on the new man can put off the old man, and in so doing

recognize his futile mind, darkened understanding, and hardness of heart. It takes a new way of living—after Christ—to recognize the former manner of living as full of corrupt and deceitful desires.

Grace opens our eyes to sin. Since the sinner is self-deceived, we might even say that the new birth is the beginning of the awareness of our corruption, and that sanctification forces us to suffer the humiliation of coming to truly know our sin for the first time. Yet progress in the Christian life requires that this awareness continue to grow.

Martin Luther (the troubled soul) and John Calvin (the gloomy pessimist) both understood this.

Calvin concluded each of his sermons with a prayer, and they followed the remarkably consistent pattern of asking God to reveal our sin: Now let us fall down before the majesty of our good God, with acknowledgment of our sins, praying him to make us perceive them more and more. And may he enlighten us with the doctrine of the gospel that we may see our own sins and shamefulness and be ashamed of ourselves, and also behold the righteousness which has been shown us in our Lord Jesus Christ, and lean upon it with endeavor to be fashioned thereafter, so that we may daily come nearer and nearer to it, until we cleave thoroughly to it. (John Calvin’s Sermons on Ephesians, 446) THE F RU I T O F SA NCT I F I CAT I O N : C O M FO RT It sure doesn’t seem very joyous to contemplate the Christian life as a progression in the knowledge of our sin, even if it is accompanied by gradual progress in holiness. But we do well to recall the introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism, which tells us that there are three things we must know to live and die in the joy of Christian comfort: how great our sin and misery are; how I am set free from this sin and misery; and how I am to thank God for this deliverance.

This means that properly understanding sanctification is an integral aspect of true gospel comfort.

Primarily, this entails understanding that it is a form of gratitude and that our good works don’t contribute a thing to our salvation. But it also entails

“FAITH IS CENTRAL. REFORMATION SANCTIFICATION IS THE DEEPENING AND STRENGTHENING OF FAITH.” understanding what this sanctification looks like and how it occurs.

True Christian comfort requires us to use the law properly in our sanctification, which means proclaiming it as a bar we must always fail to attain, a standard that heightens, not ameliorates, our sense of sin. If ever the law is made light and bearable—a technique for happy living, a checklist for success, or a mere morality code—we are no longer preaching the law of God. We are using a man-made law, the law of Pharisees, to claim that we are without sin. That we must grow in the knowledge of our sin is not license to sin more. Both the gospel and the law forbid that, and a means of sanctification with the rigorous preaching of the law at its center can hardly be called antinomian.

But sanctification as gratitude frees us from the myth of Christian progress. It frees the tender conscience from doubt and fear. We can offer to God good works that are inherently sinful—and we discover new aspects of that sinfulness day by day. But we grow in our trust that God accepts them as the perfect works of his Son, and the sin that clings to them condemns us no longer. That is how growing in the knowledge of our sin—and our shame for it— allows us to behold more clearly the righteousness of Christ, bringing with it the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Rev. Dr. Brian Lee is pastor of Christ United Reformed Church in Washington, D.C.

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THE

G R E AT E ST STORY EVER TOLD

The New Testament

PART II

THE HERALD OF THE KING

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by ZACH KEELE

F Y O U A R E O P E N I N G U P a new

business nowadays, soft openings are a common way to go. With this soft opening, you can work out the kinks and begin building some hype. Then after a few months, the grand opening extravaganza explodes with sales and balloons. The soft opening gives the business time to get some publicity.

In a similar way, the birth of our Lord was a soft opening. Mary’s song did not get played beyond the ears of Elizabeth; the angels’ choir performed Handel’s Messiah, but a few scraggly shepherds were the only ones in the audience; and Herod’s massacre quickly squelched the tidings of the Magi.

The greatest news in human history dawned on the horizon, but it was a cloudy day. Instead of parades in Jerusalem, all we find is Mary treasuring these things up in her heart.

And this soft opening did not go viral. Instead, like fireworks in the backcountry, it gave its light and then went dark. The accounts in Matthew and Luke leap from infancy to adulthood, the socalled “lost” thirty years of Jesus. The King walked unknown among mortals. What was our Lord waiting for? He was waiting for the herald.

When in faith Nehemiah stood upon the newly sanctified wall, his telescope roamed the hills for those beautiful feet. His ears strained for the voice crying in the wilderness: Jeremiah promised

a return to the land—check; Isaiah foretold of a rebuilt temple—check. But where was that wilderness herald? Where was the voice preparing the way for the Lord, to mark the true end of exile, to announce the second and greater exodus redemption? Malachi dressed this herald in the mantle of Elijah. This herald had to come first; he was the grand opening of the Messianic advent. He was the trumpet of the glory of the Lord. As Nehemiah’s cry rose to heaven like smoke in the breeze, “We are slaves” (Neh. 9:36), this herald was out of earshot.

And so God’s people listened for this voice. Our Lord waited for the herald to cry out. Then the day arrived. East of the Jordan, dressed in camel hair, the herald mounted his pulpit, and the appearance of this herald shook the pages of history. Mark even borrowed language from Genesis by calling it the beginning of the gospel. Crowds of people flocked to John the Baptist; he was the one for whom they and their grandparents had been waiting. Thousands washed themselves in his baptism. They might have MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

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T H E G R E AT E S T S T O R Y E V E R T O L D

“THE WAY OF THE CROSS WAS THE GLORY OF CHRIST. THE PATH OF DEATH WAS HOW CHRIST SLEW OUR TRUE ADVERSARIES, SIN AND DEATH.” missed the soft opening, but they were camping out in line for the grand opening.

And what they heard from John’s sermons only excited them more. John the Baptist told them that the one coming after him was greater than he.

The coming one was mightier, baptizing with the Holy Spirit. When the priests and Levites questioned John about who he was, John could only answer with the words of Isaiah: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’” The implication was clear.

The one after John was the Lord himself. Goose bumps tickled the people as they dreamt of the splendor just around the corner. Goodbye, Rome.

Hello, glory! The grand opening was cracking up to be everything they expected, and more.

But then who showed up? Who came after John the Baptist? Jesus of Nazareth strode onto center stage. John took the spotlight off himself and pointed it on Jesus. And yet the people scratched their heads and exchanged curious looks: “A man from Nazareth? Where is the glory in this? The Scriptures says nothing about Nazareth. Surely we received the wrong memo.” Without a doubt, Christ’s healings and signs wowed the crowds.

They marveled at his authoritative teaching.

But something wasn’t quite right for the people.

After the five thousand were fed, they attempted to make Jesus king, but he ran away. Who does this? Even John the Baptist, using his one phone call from prison, asked, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” Jesus did

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not fit the popular expectations. His armor did not shine as they hoped.

Why was this? The people were reading the right section of Scripture; their scrolls were opened to Isaiah. But they were not reading carefully. They read only the good parts and skipped the not-so-juicy parts. In hope they memorized the upbeat portions of Isaiah’s Servant Songs, but they fast-forwarded through the slow songs.

The people could not admit to themselves that Isaiah’s servant was the Suffering Servant. The only enemy in their crosshairs was a political one, an external one. The crowds were blind to the real foe, the enemy within: sin. There was one line in John the Baptist’s sermons that fell on deaf ears, one balloon in his grand opening that burst off hard and pointy hearts. When John’s eyes first opened to Jesus, the sentence leaped from his lips: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Like a master jeweler, John set two sapphires in gold. The Lamb of God is the Paschal blood that shields from wrath and gives birth to a second and greater exodus. The Paschal Lamb sires the new and better covenant. Yet the “one who takes away sin” is the bull hide of the sin offering (Lev. 4) whereby forgiveness is received. And it was in this skin that the Suffering Servant was clothed (Isa. 53:12). This was the crown John beheld on the head of Jesus—a crown of death and blood, a crown of sacrifice and thorns. The way of the cross was the glory of Christ. The path of death was how Christ slew our true adversaries, Sin and Death.

Therefore, on the eve of his death, our Lord gave his own version of John the Baptist’s line: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for the forgiveness of sin.” Although the eyes of the world are blind to this glory of our Savior, may we behold with the eyes of faith this gospel grand opening, especially every time we bless the cup.

Zach Keele is pastor of Escondido Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Escondido, California.

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WHY? TRUSTING GOD IN A SUFFERING WORLD

“WHO SINNED THAT THIS MAN WAS BORN BLIND?”

WHY GOD ALLOWS HIS PEOPLE TO SUFFER (ACCORDING TO THE PURITANS)

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WHEN HAPPINESS COMES

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OUR REDEEMER LIVES— AND SO SHALL WE: A SERMON ON THE SUICIDE OF A FRIEND MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

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WHY?

TRUSTING GOD TRUST IN A SUFFERING WORLD

by MICHAEL S. HORTON

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n times of suffering, we sometimes cry out, “Why me?” More often, though, our cry is provoked by tragedies that happen to others—loved ones and even those in distant countries who are suddenly wiped out in devastating circumstances. We mourn the death of parents and grandparents, but the death of a child or the destruction of a populated region by storm or disease strike us as random and meaningless. The usual approach to processing such events lies between two extremes.

The first is the Stoic “stiff upper lip.” Death is a natural part of life. In its raw version (ancient Stoicism, Buddhism, Christian Science, and Word-Faith teaching), this approach counsels detachment and denial. Evil, suffering, pain, and even death are simply illusions. It’s only by believing that they’re real that your soul gets weak in the knees. Be independent. Don’t rely on anyone else for your happiness.

Don’t get too close to others. Then you won’t be disappointed. Of course, there are weaker versions, sometimes even bolstered by Bible verses taken out of context. The problem is that “don’t worry, be happy” is salt in the wound, as everyone who has experienced it knows.

The opposite extreme responds by drawing hasty conclusions from the way things appear to us. In this approach, it’s easy to discern from such circumstances that God is either punishing you (or someone else) or that there is no God (at least not one who cares).

The first approach never occurred to the people of Israel. The second, however, is the counsel of Job’s friends. With the exception of Eliphaz, they all have the same baseline theology: God blesses obedience and punishes disobedience, so figure out where you made a wrong turn, change course, and then your future will be brighter than your past. The whole episode will be forgotten in the radiance of the glory days to come. Now, this made more sense

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under the old covenant, when leprosy was a visible sign of God’s judgment. Barren wombs, fruitful vineyards turned into thornbushes, and like experiences were threatened as God’s curses for people failing to keep his covenant in his land.

All of this changed, however, with the coming of Christ. The types gave way to the reality—that is, to Christ. In this new age between Christ’s two advents, God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust alike” (Matt. 5:45). There are no promises in the New Testament guaranteeing that the godly will be prosperous and that the ungodly will be driven from the land with the sword or wasting disease.

The same truth is discerned already in the story of Job. I won’t recount it all here, but I take the decisive moment in the story to be Job’s confession: “For I know that my Redeemer lives. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” (Job 19:25–27). While Job and his friends were trying to figure out the God whose “ways are past finding out” (Rom. 11:33), the purpose of the whole episode became clear. No longer trusting in himself and relying on his own piety (as his friends encouraged), he cried out for a mediator. He realized he needed an “arbiter” who is both God and man (chapter 9). Satan meant it for evil, but God meant it for

“FOR HE MAKES HIS SUN RISE ON THE EVIL AND ON THE GOOD, AND SENDS RAIN ON THE JUST AND ON THE UNJUST ALIKE.” MATTHEW 5:45

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“FOR EVERYONE—EXCEPT FOR JESUS— THE STORY WAS ABOUT LAZARUS….

[BUT] THE SIGNS WERE NOT ENDS IN THEMSELVES …

THEY WERE MEANT TO LEAD THE WITNESSES IN FAITH TO THE REALITY, WHICH WAS JESUS HIMSELF.” good. Something more than temporal blessing was discovered by Job that day.

With this background we can explore Jesus’ climactic sign in John’s Gospel. This Gospel is organized around various miraculous signs identified with a specific title or self-description. Jesus heals on the Sabbath and announces himself as “Lord of the Sabbath”; he feeds the five thousand and then announces that he is “the Bread that came down from heaven.” All of these episodes provoke greater division. With the raising of Lazarus, however, the war between the serpent and the Seed of the Woman is brought to a boiling point.

DEATH O F A LOV E D O N E The home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus was home base for the Jerusalem phase of Jesus’ mission.

John stresses the intimacy of their friendship with Jesus as word is sent from Mary that her brother is dying: “It was that Mary who anointed the Lord” and “he whom you love” (v. 2). Martha was the tireless hospitality director, while Mary delighted most in sitting at Jesus’ feet as one of his disciples. The assumption here is that Jesus and Lazarus were so

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close that all Jesus needed was an announcement of his condition. Surely Jesus would come running.

Their plea was entirely understandable. But Jesus deliberately stayed away for two more days.

Lazarus died. Jesus roused the disciples to join him on the journey back to the same region where their most hostile enemies were lying in wait. Jesus emphasized that he was doing everything according to his schedule. When he would go to Jerusalem this time, it would be his “hour”—the time of his death on Golgotha. They thought it was a matter of building up enough steam in the outlying regions in order to bring in the kingdom to Jerusalem. But he knew what the trip to Jerusalem really meant. He would go when it was time, and that time was at hand. The death of Lazarus set everything in motion. Adding further confusion, Jesus announced Lazarus’ death with the statement, “And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him” (v. 15). “Lazarus is dead?” Thomas responded. “Then let’s go die with him.” It’s the bit of sarcasm we might expect from Thomas (v. 16).

They did go and Martha came out to meet Jesus.

With the meager data at her disposal, she could only have been utterly discouraged and confused at the apparent disregard on Jesus’ part. Jesus, of course,

had acted promptly before: in the healing of Jairus’s daughter or in the raising of the widow’s son in the middle of the funeral procession. Why not Lazarus whom he loved? And what did this say about his concern for her and her sister, who had been so devoted to his ministry?

IT WAS N ’ T A B O U T L A ZA RU S For everyone—except for Jesus—the story was about Lazarus. Martha expressed her confusion.

Lazarus had been dead for four days and Jesus was just now showing up? What could have been going through his mind? Yet she held back her questions and instead expressed her faith: “But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you” (v. 22). In other words, she believed that he could raise Lazarus from the dead.

But Jesus was not rolling up his sleeves to raise Lazarus yet. Something larger was going on here, something of greater importance than Lazarus’ untimely death and the grief of his friends. “Your brother will rise again,” Jesus tells her (v. 23).

“Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day’” (v. 24). She may have been wondering if this was a good time for a theology exam. Of course, he will rise again on the last day. Martha was orthodox.

Up to this point, the disciples had been convinced that Jesus was sent by the Father as Israel’s Messiah. The Father gave him whatever he asked for. But now they needed to realize that Jesus was not simply a means to an end—not just the greatest prophet in Israel’s history, but the incarnate God. Philip showed promise at first in his confession of Jesus, but then followed it up with the request, “Now show us the Father!” “Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

(John 14:19). The signs were not ends in themselves, he reminded Philip and the other disciples; they were meant to lead the witnesses in faith to the reality, which was Jesus himself (v. 11).

In similar fashion, Martha was being brought by Jesus to see him as the end and not just the means: “I am the Resurrection and the Life. Everyone who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live and

everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25–26). Notice that he says, “Though he die…” People would still die, but there was something larger, grander, and ultimate. This death of Lazarus was not the last word—not because Jesus would turn things around for him now just so that he could live a few years longer, but because Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. These were titles that, in a Jewish frame of reference, could only be attributed to Yahweh. So now he asked not simply whether she believed in the doctrine of the resurrection, but whether she trusted in the one standing in front of her as the source of everlasting life. “‘Do you believe this, Martha?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world’” (v. 27).

Ultimately, Jesus did not come to Bethany that day to raise Lazarus, but to announce himself as the gospel and by that announcement to create faith in the hearts of everyone who heard and who would hear, including Lazarus himself. Jesus had already indicated the purpose of the whole episode when he said that the purpose of his delay was “so that you would believe.”

J E SUS R A I SE D LAZ A RUS Job received his wealth and property and friends back with multiplied blessings, and Mary and Martha received back their brother. But in both cases, it was the gospel and the confession it produced that already proved that the Seed of the Woman was about to crush the serpent’s head.

Death would be conquered at last—not just one person’s death, but the whole regime of sin and death.

Called out of the house by Martha, Mary also expressed her amazement at Jesus’ delay. The one who cherished every word from Jesus spoke freely: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (v. 32). Mary should not be blamed here but respected for having brought her doubts, as well as her faith, to the Savior.

Jesus’ own soul now began to be drawn into turmoil as he saw the mourners and recognized the wake that death leaves. Suddenly, he found himself one of the mourners. Here he was not simply a miracle-worker who walked on the sea and calmed the storms, but a man who was suddenly overtaken by MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

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“ULTIMATELY, JESU JESUS DID THAT DAY TO RAISE ANNOUUNCE HIMSELF ANNO troubled emotions. His own love for Lazarus and his hatred for death overwhelmed him, even though he knew what he was about to do.

The verbs John uses are toned down in English.

The first verb, enebrimesato, means “to snort like a horse in anger,” but in English it is rendered “deeply moved.” The second verb, etaraxen, means to be confused, agitated, even fearful. It’s the verb used to express Herod’s response to the wise men who informed him of Jesus’ birth (Matt. 2:3) and the response of the disciples when Jesus calmed the sea and they became more afraid of him than the storm (Matt. 13:26). In English, it is simply “troubled.” Think of the news reports of funerals in the Middle East, with mourners wailing over the casket, and you have a better picture of how Jesus was behaving. It wasn’t your average “celebration of life” that has replaced a lot of funerals today. What’s remarkable is that Jesus behaved this way even moments before he knew he would raise Lazarus. Death was such a horrifying enemy that Jesus could not fail to be overwhelmed with anger, fear, and grief all at once. It was this vicious enemy he knew he would face on Golgotha, but this time as the bearer of our curse.

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This can help us understand our own experiences of suffering in many ways. As my own father lay dying in an excruciating way, he and the other patients daily had to see a giant tapestry that read, “The sunset is as beautiful as the dawn.” What rubbish to compare a maternity ward to this awful place! But this is the Stoic conception of reality— the denial of death—that is so much a part of our culture. Especially in Southern California, people aren’t allowed to die. They just “pass away.” At Lazarus’ tomb, Jesus overthrew this false conception of reality. Death is not a natural part of life, and his own anguish proves it.

As the biblical narrative was resolved, Martha removed the stone. Perhaps she had heard and recalled what Jesus had said, recorded in John 5:28: “For the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth” (John 5:28). Now she realized Jesus’ identity in a new way.

I B E LI EVE YOU A RE T HE C HRI ST Jesus raised Lazarus, but one day there would be mourners again at his tomb. Then it would be after

NOT COME TO BETHANY LAZAR AZARUUS, BUBUTT TO AS THE GOSPEL.” the resurrection of the Son of God, the dawn of the final resurrection of the dead. The division that day in Bethany was sharp. “Many believed” and many sought to kill Jesus (vv. 44–46).

Jesus’ own resurrection would be the “firstfruits of those who sleep” (1 Cor. 15), but this resurrection of Lazarus was in a sense the prelude to that great inauguration of the last day. Nobody, except for Jesus, knew why Lazarus died. And few knew why Jesus died, except for the Holy Trinity and those given to know by the Holy Spirit. Even Satan thought he had crushed the Messiah’s head. But in fact, he had only—and unwittingly—set into motion the death that would put the Lord’s inheritance into effect for us and make him the firstborn from the dead.

The good news in all of this is that “the last enemy is death” and “the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” By bearing our curse, he has removed death’s sting—its ultimate power over us (1 Cor. 15:56). This means that Jesus accomplished everything in his mission on earth for our complete redemption and glorification.

Death is not a portal to life. Death is not a benign friend, but a dreaded foe. It is not a natural part of

life, but the most unnatural part of life you could imagine. But in his resurrection, Jesus crushed the serpent’s head, vanquishing the “last enemy” of every believer.

If the gospel disallows any Stoic interpretation of suffering, it also wreaks havoc on every attempt to interpret God’s ways in and through our suffering. Because the legal sting has been taken out of suffering and death, we cannot draw a straight line from obedience to temporal prosperity and from disobedience to punishment. Whatever God is doing, it is leading us into his story that is greater than our own or those terrible headlines of tragedy we routinely encounter. There is a story behind every story, and like Job, we don’t have the first chapter to tell us what it is. But we do have the story of Christ’s triumph, and on the basis of that utterly public and unmistakable historical act of God, we can entrust ourselves to the One who “works all things together for good” for his people (Rom. 8:28).

Michael S. Horton is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation.

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“Who sinned

that this man was � born blind?

by Kim Riddlebarger

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A

lmost every culture—whether it be ancient or modern—possesses a common superstitious belief that whenever anything bad happens to someone, it is because the person has done something to bring about the tragic event. It is common for people to ask themselves (or even ask others) what the victim did to cause God (or fate or karma) to bring the calamity down upon them. The underlying assumption here is largely correct: bad things happen to bad people.

But the conclusion is not correct: that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between bad things and specific sins. The fact is that the one questioning why something bad happened to someone else is equally guilty before God as the person about whom they are wondering. Two examples from Scripture come readily to mind.

M IXING B LO O D A ND THE TOWE R O F SILOAM In Luke 13:1–5, we learn of two tragic events that occurred in first-century Israel and created a great deal of speculation among the people about the cause.

The first of these calamities is mentioned in verse 1 when we read of those “who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” We do not know exactly to what historical event this was referring (we have no known record of it), but the implication seems to be that Pilate ordered certain Galilean Jews to be killed at the time of the Passover sacrifices, in effect “mixing blood.”

The scene is an important one because the Pharisees commonly taught that bad things happen to people as a consequence of personal sin, based upon Old Testament texts such as Job 4:7, “Remember: who that was innocent ever perished?

Or where were the upright cut off?” The notion that the Galileans’ blood was mixed with their sacrifices is addressed directly by Jesus in the form of a rhetorical question. In verse 2, he asks, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?” In verse 4, Jesus even adds an example of another tragic event apparently known to his audience: “Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?”

After acknowledging the connection made by

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his hearers between calamity and divine punishment, Jesus corrects this erroneous assumption that these people (the Galileans and those killed in Siloam) had committed some specific sin that brought about the event that killed them. Twice (vv.

3, 5) Jesus emphatically answers “no” regarding any connection between the calamity and the victims’ personal sins. But twice Jesus speaks of the need for repentance on the part of all.

Jesus’ point is that sinners who tragically died were no guiltier than any of the others of Adam’s fallen race. Instead of speculating about what others may have done to bring about their demise, those listening to Jesus needed to carefully consider the guilt of their own sin before God and then repent of those sins before they too faced God in the Judgment. “ W HO SI NNE D? ” In John 9, we read of an encounter between Jesus and a man who was blind from birth. In verse 1, we read that “as [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.” This man was well known in Jerusalem and regularly begged for alms from passers-by.

Since the man’s infirmity was obvious, the disciples asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (v. 2). The disciples’ question reflected a view held throughout Israel that if someone suffered from such an infirmity there must be a cause. Since it was believed that God did not inflict people with such maladies, then the cause must be found in human sin. The only possibilities were that the man himself had sinned or else his parents had done something that led to the birth of a blind child.

The disciples may not have known that the man had been blind from birth. Later on in the chapter after Jesus heals the man, the parents disclose that their son was indeed born without sight. If the man had done nothing to bring this about (having been born blind), then perhaps his parents had committed some grievous sin; or as Jews at the time believed, the man’s mother may have sinned while pregnant resulting in the blindness of her child. In either case, the unwillingness to consider the man’s blindness through the lens of God’s providential purposes (however mysterious these purposes may be) led to the judgmental self-righteousness apparent in the disciples’ question to Jesus. If the man

“IT IS NOT THAT THIS MAN SINNED, OR HIS PARENTS, BUT THAT THE WORKS OF GOD MIGHT BE DISPLAYED IN HIM.” JOHN 9:3 is blind, then someone must have done something wrong for such a terrible thing to happen.

Jesus’ answer to their question, followed by the Pharisees’ anger at the man and his parents after Jesus heals him, reveals the futile efforts of sinful men and women who attempt to establish a causeand-effect relationship between a particular sin and the man’s blindness. Jesus informs his disciples of a bigger purpose in view in matters such as these: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (v. 3). Jesus’ point was that God has his own purposes in such things. We know from many other passages that when Adam sinned the human race was subject to all the consequences and maladies of a sinful race. But to attempt to establish a causeand-effect relationship between some specific sin and an illness overlooks the fact that all people are born in sin.

In the case of this particular blind man, Jesus

said that this man’s infirmity would lead to a display of the works of God. Unknown to the disciples, Jesus was about to heal the man—the sixth of his miraculous signs recorded in John’s Gospel—as a demonstration that he is both Israel’s Messiah and the Son of God. No doubt, Jesus’ miraculous healing of this man born blind (vv. 6–7) was intended to point ahead to Jesus’ ultimate glorification upon the cross (when he paid for the guilt of human sin) and in his resurrection from the dead. When Jesus healed this man, he pointed us ahead to the moment when he would be raised from the dead, which was the guarantee that all the consequences of human sin, including blindness, would be forever removed from the human race. And for that God be praised!

Kim Riddlebarger is pastor of Christ United Reformed Church in Anaheim, California, and cohost of the White Horse Inn radio broadcast.

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WHY GOD ALLOWWS ALLO HIS PEOPLE TO SUFFER (ACCORDING TO THE PURITANS)

by BRIAN H. COSBY

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he Puritans are best known for their works of practical theology— works that express a profound grasp of biblical knowledge, channeled into tangible and helpful application for the believer. Foremost among the subjects of practical divinity is the relationrelation ship between human suffering and divine sovereignty. abandonThe American church is always in danger of abandon ing a robust biblical theology of suffering, and it would behoove us to consider the voices of the past—of those who not only tasted bitter afflictions, but also those who have so skillfully One of the greatest Puritan expositors of a theology of suffering was John Flavel (c.1630–1691) applied the balm of gosof Dartmouth. Flavel experienced severe suffering within his own lifetime with the loss of three pel promise to those who wives, a son, his parents, ejection from the Church of England, and continual persecution from state would receive it by faith.

J O H N F L AV E L

officials. Because many of his writings deal directly with the theme of suffering and because of his own experience with it, Flavel is a significant resource for understanding a Puritan theology of human suffering and divine sovereignty. This essay presents Flavel’s eight responses to the question: “Why does God sovereignly permit the suffering of his people?”

1

TO REVEAL, DETER, AND MORTIFY SIN

When sufferings press against us, we may see true inclinations, which Flavel believes are often full of sin. He writes, “I heartily wish that these searching afflictions may make the more satisfying discoveries; that you may now see more of the evil of sin, the vanity of the creature, and the fulness of Christ, than ever you yet saw.”1 These “searching afflictions” are meant to reveal sin to the sinner so that it might both

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deter the sinner from sinning further and so that it might mortify that sin exposed. God will lay “some strong afflictions on the body, to prevent a worse evil.”2 Flavel also contends that God ordains suffering to mortify sin: “The design and aim of these afflictive providences, is to purge and cleanse them from that pollution into which temptations have plunged them.”3 This “discipline” comes from the hand of a loving Father to his children, not from a tyrant toward his slaves.

2

TO PRODUCE GODLINESS AND SPIRITUAL FRUIT

Not only does sin need to be removed, it also needs to be replaced by those things that are pleasing to God. When believers please God by faith-filled good works, they are filled with happiness and bring glory

to God. Suffering is the ground from which God brings forth fruit from his people. Flavel explains: “The power of godliness did never thrive better than in affliction.”4 Suffering, then, is the breeding ground of spiritual fruit; so God plants the believer into the soil of suffering to produce godliness.

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TO REVEAL MORE OF THE CHARACTER OF GOD

Flavel understands that one of the reasons why God works through suffering is to reveal his own attributes and character, not objectively, but experientially to the suffering believer.

He writes, “Hereby the most wise God doth illustrate the glory of his own name, clearing up the righteousness of his ways by the sufferings of his people.”5 God’s glory, Flavel maintains, is displayed or illustrated by suffering. Consider God’s response to the apostle Paul as he struggled with his thorn in the flesh: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).

Echoing Paul, Flavel writes: “By exposing his people to such grievous sufferings, he gives a fit opportunity to manifest the glory of his power…and of his wisdom.”6 Suffering reveals the glory of God’s manifold attributes, which is viewed by faith individually through particular afflictions.

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TO RELINQUISH THE TEMPORAL FOR THE ETERNAL

God ordains suffering to loosen the believer’s grip on temporal and earthly things: “Be careful to…mortify your inordinate affections to earthly things.” Rather, “Exercise heavenly mindedness, and keep your hearts upon things eternal, under all the providences with which the Lord exercises you in this world.”7 God has “blessed crosses to mortify corruption…and to wean us from the world!”8 Similarly, “Sanctified afflictions discover the emptiness and vanity of the creature.”9 Or to put it another way, “Thy affliction is a fair class to discover [the creature’s vanity]; for

the vanity of the creature is never so effectually and sensibly discovered, as in our own experience of it.”10

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TO PRODUCE A SINCERE FAITH, DEVOID OF HYPOCRISY

God orders suffering to produce a sincere faith in the believer, devoid of hypocrisy. But it can also distinguish the believer from the unbeliever. The effect is seen, therefore, in how one responds to suffering, as a sort of “test.” Flavel understands suffering to clear out the corruptions of the heart so as to leave it more faithful and sincere unto God. In sufferings, he explains, you have “an opportunity to discover the sincerity of your love to God.”11

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TO ENCOURAGE FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD THROUGH WORD, PRAYER, AND THE SACRAMENT OF THE LORD’S SUPPER

Flavel believes that a Christian may develop and cultivate a deeper and more meaningful relationship and fellowship with God, especially in times of suffering. Affliction “drives them nearer to God, makes them see the necessity of the life of faith, with multitudes of other benefits.”12 Turning to Scripture for communing with God is especially important during times of suffering. God applies his Word to the believer’s soul in affliction so as to “sanctify,” thus making them “sanctified afflictions.”13 Suffering also “awakens” the believer to “pray more frequently, spiritually, and fervently.” 14 Flavel understands prayer to be the “best way” for the Christian “to ease his heart when surcharged with sorrow.”15 He adds, “I am sure the sweetest melody of prayer is upon the deep waters of affliction.”16 God also ordains suffering so as to encourage the believer in Christ to cultivate greater fellowship with him through the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Flavel sees a direct relationship between the sufferings experienced by Christ—the benefits of which are MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

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READING AS SOLACE

G

rief requires process time. Immersed in your

confessions, and then the deeper doctrines, we learn

favorite book with your favorite music play-

that God’s eternal Word points true north during times

ing in the background, you sense a tiny bit

of deep grief and pain. The books lining my library wall

of stability amid the vortex of pain. An insistent rap-

provide a firm foundation by helping me understand

ping startles and then draws you to your front door.

and study the Bible, the most important of all books.

It is a well-intentioned visitor stopping by to drop off

After the Bible itself, the first priority must go to our

a book he would like you to read on suffering. You

church’s confessions. These Reformation-era docu-

oblige him, but the book is awful. Your whole world

ments still sizzle and crackle with the wild voltage that

slows. Time stands still. You stare down at the book.

is the gospel of our Trinitarian God. With such strong foun-

What will you say when you

dations, we are equipped

see your friend again?

At times like this, I am

appropriately. We are

reminded of my first pastor

unperturbed by the sirens

back in Lansing, Michigan.

of our time. Never more

He would often hold babies

will we be tossed here

that , according to him,

and there by the false

looked about as endear-

doctrines dispensed by

ing as a gnarled grapefruit.

the Oprahs and Chopras

“Now that’s a baby!” he

of our current era. We

would exclaim, and the par-

orient to the truth and

ents would titter together in

gibber put such childish gibber-

a giddy way, certain of their

ish behind us. com Now, with our com-

wise pastor’s affirmation of

pass properly calibrated,

their new baby grapefruit.

As I cradle the book in my

we read and recommend

hand, I pause and think of

reflect superb books reflect-

my pastor’s loving wisdom.

ing riches found in both

I take a deep breath and say

common grace and

to my friend, “This is quite

saving grace. We eagerly

a book, isn’t it?” I hope my bookish friend’s reply allows me to softly segue to some

THE MOST HELPFUL BOOK DURING MY GRIEF WAS A GRACE DISGUISED: HOW THE SOUL GROWS THROUGH LOSS BY JERRY SITTSER (ZONDERVAN, 2004).

explore worlds living between the pages of exquisite writing. We

unrelated topic. If he insists on discussing the book,

walk on the wild side of old England with Dickens;

I simply smile and nod. This politeness seldom fails,

we trudge the enchanted desert lands with Elliott;

though friends occasionally do a double take when I

we soar among the Everest peaks with Krakauer.

close our conversation with, “I find myself unable to

We enjoy and embrace the truth and beauty of our

adequately express my gratitude for this book.”

Creator, whatever the origin. While our hearts heal

If we guard our time, we gain precious hours

and we try to find our balance, it seems good to rest.

to devour not just good books but great books.

Well appointed with wisdom gathered across the

Intentionally ignoring calls to mediocrity may gain

ages, we head to our favorite reading nook and, for a

us the opportunity to read words that dazzle and

season, ignore visitors tapping at our front door.

delight the soul.

Coming to our Christian life, we are like untrained babies clutching a compass. As we learn our Bibles, our

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Mark A. Green is president of White Horse Inn.

represented and sealed in the Lord’s Supper to the believer by faith—and the sufferings experienced by the Christian.

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TO BEAR WITNESS TO THE WORLD

In the seventh response, Flavel understands a twofold interrelated witness to follow from God’s sovereignty over suffering. First, there is a witness to the reality of the gospel in the believer’s life and its call to an unbelieving world to repent and believe in Christ for salvation. Flavel writes, “The frequent trials of grace…prove beyond all words or argument that religion is no fancy, but the greatest reality in the world.”17 In a section titled “The Design of God in the Trial of His People,”18 Flavel explains the correlation between the suffering of God’s people and their witness in that suffering to the watching world: “But behold the wisdom and goodness of God exhibiting to the world the undeniable testimonies of the truth of religion, as often as the sincere professors thereof are brought to the test by afflictions from the hand of God.”19 Second, it also bears witness against those who remain in their unbelief. As those “frequent trials of grace” prove that the Christian faith is “the greatest reality in the world,” so also do they “exhibit a full and living testimony against the atheism of the world.”20 By this, Flavel understands that judgment remains upon the unbeliever.

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TO CULTIVATE COMMUNION WITH CHRIST, THE GREATEST SUFFERER

Finally, through suffering Christians may commune with Christ, the greatest Sufferer—who suffered on their account. Not only does Christ know and understand the affliction of the elect, the elect can—in a mystical sense—commune with Christ because he suffered for them. Christ, he explains,

“A CHRISTIAN MAY DEVELOP AND CULTIVATE A DEEPER AND MORE MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIP AND FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD, ESPECIALLY IN TIMES OF SUFFERING.” “looks down from heaven upon all my afflictions, and understands them more fully than I that feel them.” 21 And one of the best expressions of the believer’s union and communion with Christ comes through the experience of suffering: “In all your afflictions he is afflicted; tender sympathy cannot but flow from such intimate union.”22

Brian H. Cosby is pastor of Wayside Presbyterian Church (PCA) on Signal Mountain, Tennessee, and author of Suffering and Sovereignty: John Flavel and the Puritans on Afflictive Providence (Reformation Heritage Books, 2012).

1 John Flavel, A Token for Mourners in The Works of John Flavel, 6 vols. (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1968), 5:605–6.

2 Flavel, Divine Conduct, 4:400.

3 Flavel, Divine Conduct, 4:407.

4 Flavel, A Saint Indeed, 5:448.

5 Flavel, Preparation for Sufferings, 6:9.

6 Flavel, Preparation for Sufferings, 6:9–10.

7 Flavel, Divine Conduct, 4:429–30.

8 Flavel, Divine Conduct, 4:442.

9 Flavel, Navigation Spiritualized, 5:251.

10 Flavel, A Saint Indeed, 5:443.

11 Flavel, A Saint Indeed, 5:463.

12 Flavel, Navigation Spiritualized, 5:252.

13 Flavel, Divine Conduct, 4:482.

14 Flavel, Divine Conduct, 4:482.

15 Flavel, Preparation for Sufferings, 6:64.

16 Flavel, Preparation for Sufferings, 6:11.

17 Flavel, The Touchstone of Sincerity, 5:583.

18 Flavel, The Touchstone of Sincerity, 5:579–83.

19 Flavel, The Touchstone of Sincerity, 5:583.

20 Flavel, The Touchstone of Sincerity, 5:583.

21 Flavel, The Method of Grace, 2:46.

22 Flavel, The Method of Grace, 2:46.

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WHEN HAPPINESS COMES

by RICK RITCHIE

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ot long ago, I taught an online apologetics course for a Christian college where class was held in a chat room. The students were required to attend for a specified period of time and then were free to leave, though they were also free to stay around if they wished. Often, two or three would continue discussion with me after class. When it got down to one student, the subject was always some version of the same topic: the problem of evil. And these were not abstract questions. The students were really struggling with something difficult—perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime difficulty, something set apart from everyday life. This impressed upon me just how important a subject this is. And from observation, I know it is often handled poorly. Now there are a couple of sides to this. The first is whether the answers given are good ones—solid, biblical, cogent.

The second is whether the answers given are helpful—pastoral, sensitive, timely. They should be both.

Poor answers are common, often in both categories: bad theology given in insensitive ways. Scripture warns us against both kinds of errors.

UNH E L PF U L “ HE L P E RS” The unhelpful answer can often be identified by its tone. I get the impression that some who try to “help” fancy themselves to be like the kid on the playground who knows there is no Santa Claus and wants to spread the word to others. There’s a selfcongratulatory presentation of personal toughness.

Now if only the listener could embody the same toughness, then everything will be okay.

This flies in the face of what has been revealed to us of the human condition. The Fall of man occurred when the first couple tried to make a power grab that would have placed them outside of any need for God. They were not created for it to work this way.

The solution to this problem involves, among other things, a recognition of need. To try to make toughness the solution is to try to avoid the recognition of the problem. The “realistic” solution is actually a denial of reality, and the reality is that we are needy.

We need things to be good and they aren’t, and suffering makes us more aware of this. “Tough” people are often those who have found ways to mask one or another kind of pain that reality has thrown at them, and so imagine they can do this in the face of any

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kind of pain. Or at least they imagine they can do this in the face of your pain, which to them is probably less than that with which they have dealt. They think they know what you’re going through, and this usually involves a lack of imagination. Healthy people imagine they can live without their health.

T HE OT HE R “AN SWE R”: HA P P I NE SS Often what makes the problem of evil easier to bear is just the pain going away. We want answers to our questions so that we can bear up better. But when the pain ends, or is mitigated by happiness from a new source, our need for an answer might go away with the pain. This seems like a trick—or a sham.

At the end of the book of Job, we find him getting all sorts of good things in his life once again. Modern readers point out that this doesn’t make sense. You can’t just replace people with other people. Maybe this helped an ancient person who never bonded with anyone very deeply, but it won’t work for us!

But as correct as that is, I think there is truth in the account. When we’re happy, we stop questioning—or at least our questions recede to the background. The question may still exist, and it may still exist unanswered for us. But we don’t need the answer as badly. I do not say this as an answer for those in the midst of suffering. At least, it is no answer for them now. But it is worth knowing that this is sometimes how things get resolved. The universe no longer looks so dark.

Happiness is like this. It sounds less serious than an answer to our questions, but it changes things.

Most of us have seen this in lesser ways—say, after the stomach flu. It seems as if we’ve been sick forever and nothing will ever feel right again. Then we’re better and food is good again, and maybe even tastes better than before. Again, I don’t think this is why things happen—to recharge our appetites—but this is often how we are. New happiness salves old wounds, and it comes out of the blue.

This is as much part of human experience as the evils we endure. And it does say something about the goodness of God, even if we still have questions of justice.

In some ways, happiness as an “answer” to the problem is fitting. Ultimately, the answer to evil will be that God abolishes it. So in the short run, having evil fade when happiness comes is a sign

of the shape of the final answer. When God wipes away every tear on the last day, we will be satisfied.

While I think all will be explained, I think many of us would be happy at the restoration of all things, even without an answer. And our current experience seems to suggest this.

Happiness in this life is a sign. It is not all we need. It is a pointer to the fulfillment up ahead.

There are some who may not have much earthly happiness before them. This is not a sign of disfavor, but rather an opportunity for God to show his power later. The biblical stories point to this. Zacharias

and Elizabeth appeared to be cursed: his lot to serve in the temple never came up and she was childless; the neighbors must have asked themselves what notorious unconfessed sin they had committed. Did God do this to show disfavor? No, this was to show his power, that he is mighty to save, and they were given a child in their old age. But in a fallen world, even these signs have a bad side to them: they have a son and are blessed; he is famous and dies a horrible death.

Any good thing we have in this life will probably be tainted. While earthly happiness is a sign, it is not

“THE SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM INVOLVES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A RECOGNITION OF NEED. TO TRY TO MAKE TOUGHNESS THE SOLUTION IS TO TRY TO AVOID THE RECOGNITION OF THE PROBLEM. THE ‘REALISTIC’ SOLUTION IS ACTUALLY A DENIAL OF REALITY, AND THE REALITY IS THAT HA WE ARE NEEDY.” HAT MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

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the solution. God’s perfect gifts are up ahead. If you have had earthly happiness withheld, it was not out of divine miserliness. God had his reasons to make you wait. They probably had little to do with you.

They probably had little to do with anything you were being taught (in my thinking, most people’s ideas of lessons that God might be teaching us seem hardly worth the cost).

They had to do with out-workings of mercy I won’t venture to imagine, because I know I’m too clumsy and small minded to do so.

Hebrews tells us that he would be ashamed to be called our God if he didn’t do better than what we see in this life. He has good plans, and since they are past finding out, none of us can imagine them. So if they seem a little unreal to you, it’s because you cannot picture them. None of us can, beyond the glimpses given in Scripture. You may go to your grave with only the dimmest sense of this. God may even prefer it that way. This is not about your faith. Many pictures of faith are like the “toughness” I mentioned earlier. They really amount to a disguised picture of a human lack of neediness, an ability to feel good even when things are awful.

No, when things are awful, we need them to be better. Faith holds onto the God who can make them better, but not in such a way that we don’t need anything. It doesn’t fulfill our needs in the present; we do need things to be better. God is faithful and he will make it better for you, if not in this life, then up ahead. The worse your lot, the bigger a challenge he will have in doing this. He will live up to it.

“HAPPINESS IS LIKE THIS. IT SOUNDS LESS SERIOUS THAN AN ANSWER TO OUR QUESTIONS, BUT IT CHANGES THINGS.”

THE F E L LOWS HI P O F LO N E L INE S S One surprising passage is found in Hebrews: “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety” (5:7). Some might be tempted

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to say this was mostly about Jesus’ intercession for us, which is possible. But we do know that in Gethsemane we have a recorded prayer in which Jesus asks the Father if there might be another way out. This is worth pondering at length. We often hear about the resignation, “Nevertheless, not my will but thine.” This is a prayer we are asked to pray.

But as with so much teaching these days, the immediate move is to ask how we can be like Jesus before seeing what he has done for us. That should not be our first focus. To do so is to adopt what Martin Luther called a “theology of glory.” Peter did this earlier that night when he announced his resolve to follow Jesus, even to death. He did indeed do that, but first he had to fail. Jesus is Savior before he is example. Hebrews is also clear on this and offers the passage as a comfort rather than a formula. It tells us about our High Priest, who does for us what we cannot do. And look at his humanity: Jesus enters his trial without an absolutely clear map of what will take place. On some level he does know, but I think we err when we imagine he’s

dipping into divine knowledge directly to find out how this will all happen. Rather, I think, he learned about it as we do—from the Scriptures.

Consider how Jesus had to grow in wisdom (Luke 2:52). As the Second Person of the Trinity, he possessed all wisdom. Yet as the second Adam, he had to grow in it—likewise with knowledge. There are some things he did not know (Mark 13:32), though his divine nature knows all. His human nature was limited and went through a process of learning, as do we. The natural reading of Jesus’ prayer to the Father in Gethsemane suggests limited knowledge.

He seemed to know how some things must happen, but without certainty. The Father knew what was possible (Matt. 26:39) in a way that the Son did not according to his human nature.

According to Jesus’ own reading of the Scriptures, he could not see another way, but he knew this was not definitive. This tells us a lot. When he became our substitute, Jesus signed on not only to the physical suffering, but also the psychological suffering.

There were two parts to this. The first was an ability to hope for better than what would happen.

This sounds good, but it also involves disappointment when the false hope fades. The other part was being in the dark, not knowing what was in store.

When we endure evils, this is often the worst part.

We can also imagine further evils that never come to pass. As bad as the cross was, Jesus was likely tortured with many imagined scenarios that never took place. And how vulnerable he was to the loneliness!

There is loneliness in suffering that most of us know but often forget. When suffering hits, we’re suddenly alone. Even when surrounded by a caring congregation, we feel alone—perhaps more so.

While in the past we’ve been able to come to church and join in the praise of God, we are no longer able to feel caught up in it. God has abandoned us to something we never pictured. The words of praise we now either feel to be false or, worse yet, only true for others. God is beautiful to them, but not to us. God is with them, but not us. We feel apart.

Something is wrong. How did we get so removed from those gathered, and so quickly?

I suggest that this should be seen as a part of what Paul terms the “fellowship of his sufferings” (Phil.

3:10). This sounds like a happy thing: fellowship is togetherness, something we all desperately long for.

We think of it as a happy bond that we’ve known

around the campfire at summer camp, or during some church gathering after a major event in the life of the church. No, we don’t fail to note a spiritual dimension. We might feel this most strongly after preaching. Some text brings to light our unity in the Lord.

But as true as this is of fellowship, it appears that the fellowship of sufferings is something else. I don’t think St. Paul knew what he was praying for when he prayed. Did he know that he would later be reporting, “At my first defense no one supported me, but all deserted me” (2 Tim. 4:16)? His prayer was to be part of a fellowship, and it took the form of being deserted. This is no sign of divine disfavor.

If there is a fellowship in this, things are very different from how we picture them. And it goes further.

In Jesus’ cry of dereliction, we find that he knew not only what it was to be forsaken by men, but also how it was to be forsaken by God. When we have times of feeling forsaken by God, in a paradoxical way, we have been let into a fellowship of suffering, a fellowship of suffering with the God we imagine we are far from.

TO T HE RE A DE R To my happy readers, this may sound grim. Should you be searching for ways to make this happen? No, don’t look for unhappiness. Perhaps the Lord has a different course in mind for your life. I will say, however, that on the Last Day there will be a bond of fellowship that the sufferers share.

To my sad readers, this may or may not make things better for you now. “I could believe this might be true of me if it made me feel better.” It doesn’t matter. You can go to your grave bitter and still find that something was working for you that you could not see. The Father knew that the sufferings of this life were not worthy of being compared to the glory up ahead. And part of that glory, for you, will be the fellowship of suffering. Your earthly afflictions, and even your feelings of being abandoned by God, will be a bond with your Lord.

Rick Ritchie is a long-time contributor to Modern Reformation.

He is a graduate of Christ College Irvine and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

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OUR REDEEMER LIVES–AND SO SHALL WE A SERMON ON THE SUICIDE OF A FRIEND

by MICHAEL S. HORTON

E DITO R’S NOT E A few years ago, Michael Horton was asked to deliver the funeral message for Don, a long-time Christian friend who—having encountered a number of family, career, and health difficulties that led to a deep depression—committed suicide. Being concerned to avoid speculation about questions that cannot be answered, while affirming Scripture’s answers to our hardest questions, Dr. Horton turned to the book of Job. The willingness to leave some questions unanswered provides assurance to thoughtful Christians that their reticence to accept simplistic or sentimental answers about tragedy is acceptable to God—not a betrayal of faith. The determination to provide answers that Scripture gives to other questions provides assurance that there is hope beyond human explanation—hope that is the essence of true faith. The result is a humble and articulate confession of what cannot be answered and a bold declaration of what must be said about the sovereign mercy of God that provides comfort beyond reason and triumph beyond tragedy.

“HE REDEEMED MY SOUL FROM GOING DOWN TO THE PIT, AND I WILL LIVE TO ENJOY THE LIGHT.” JOB 33:28 42

“Yet if there is an angel on his side as a mediator, one out of a thousand, to tell a man what is right for him, to be gracious to him and say, ‘Spare him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom for him’— then his flesh is renewed like a child’s; it is restored as in the days of youth.

He prays to God and finds favor with him, he sees God’s face and shouts for joy; he is restored by God to his righteous state.

Then he comes to men and says, ‘I sinned, and perverted what was right, but I did not get what I deserved.

He redeemed my soul from going down to the pit, and I will live to enjoy the light.’”

(Job 33:23–28) In this passage, Job’s friend Elihu began to understand something of the comfort Job needed in the midst of his great loss and burden. But after Job’s friends finished their sermons—and after Job finished his own commentary on his situation—God finally spoke up and preached for himself. Out of the whirlwind, he answered Job: “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?

Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand” (Job 38:2–4). After listing a litany of divine actions that illustrate his wisdom and power over the universe, God shut the mouths of Job and his well-meaning friends. For they all assumed that they had access to the divine filing cabinet. They all operated under the assumption that they could discern the mind of God. How easily we attempt this when suffering strikes us or our loved ones! We immediately set out to discern the purpose behind it all. But God refuses to be figured out in these matters, and his counsel is hidden to mortals. God asks all the human commentators in the book of Job, “Can you make a pet of [me] like a bird or put [me] on a leash for your girls?...Any hope of subduing [me] is false; the mere sight of [me] is overpowering.…Who then is able to stand against me? Who has claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me” (Job 41:5, 9, 10b–11).

After God’s defense of himself, Job was left without excuse. In spite of his superior theology, his

experience led him to question God’s sovereignty and goodness. Because he could not comprehend how his pain could be reconciled with his view of God, he concluded that God had no answers for him.

But God reminded him, as he reminds all of us, that just because we don’t have all the answers, this doesn’t mean that no answers exist.

Job’s friends thought they had all the answers: Job’s suffering was the effect of his sin or his failure to claim victory over his circumstances. Refusing to buy into their works-righteousness and hollow platitudes, Job became an existentialist, preferring no answers to wrong answers. Much like Jean-Paul Sartre after the despair of two savage world wars, Job concluded that suicide might be preferable to enduring his suffering. Again and again he cried out to God for an end to his life.

For those who are tied to the high masts of suffering, there is often a fear that is greater than the fear of death. It is the fear of life. It is the fear of the next morning, and the morning after that. In the face of deep despair, the temptation is great to either turn away from God because the suffering is somehow credited to his wrath toward personal sins, or to turn toward him because one knows that one is at peace with God. This is why Job said he would be able to turn toward God in this situation if only he had a go-between, an advocate. Gradually, he came to greater confidence in this mediator: “Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God; on behalf of a man he pleads with God as a man pleads for his friend” (Job 16:19–21).

Whatever was wrong in Don’s life, he had an unshakable conviction that his witness is in heaven.

He knew that Jesus Christ was his intercessor, a friend to whom he could pour out tears to God. And he knew that Jesus Christ, his Elder Brother, was pleading on his behalf with God as a man pleads for his friend. Don knew the meaning of Paul’s despair over his ongoing sinfulness in Romans 7, where the apostle laments, “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.…What a wretched man I am!

Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (vv.

15, 24). But also like the apostle Paul, Don knew the answer to that question: “Thanks be to God— through Jesus Christ our Lord!...Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 7:25–8:1).

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So why didn’t this confidence keep our brother from ending his life? We cannot answer that question any better than perhaps Job’s friends could resolve the riddle of their friend’s suffering. But I can say this: Even if we are too weak to hang on to Jesus, he is strong enough to hang on to us. Even though we may not be able to face tomorrow, Jesus has already passed through death to the other side and has taken away death’s sting for us. Like Job, who knew that his Redeemer lives and that he would see him in the very body that was at present covered with bloody and painful sores, the apostle Paul declared, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.…If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (1 Cor. 15:14, 19).

Christianity is not true because it works. In many cases, it does not work. That is to say, it does not solve all of the problems we think it should solve. Those who become Christians because they were told it would fix their marriages, only to find themselves in divorce court, might well give up on Christianity. Those who expected to be free of sinful habits and desires, after a conversion in which “sudden victory” was promised, may find themselves disillusioned with God altogether soon after, when they realize that they are still sinners saved by grace. And there are, no doubt, many in this city and in other places who will say, “If Christianity didn’t work for someone like Don, how can it work for me?” It is an honest question, an understandable question. But it assumes that Christianity fixes everything. It doesn’t fix everything, at least not here and now. Christianity does promise that everything will be fixed at the end of history, but in this wilderness experience we are on a pilgrimage to the holy city. Some pilgrims will find the journey much more difficult than remaining back in Egypt, in unbelief.

Don was not one of those pilgrims who turned back to Egypt. Don and his wife were towers of strength to me in my own pilgrimage, as I watched them meet successive disasters by turning again and again to God and his gracious promise. But Don was a pilgrim for whom the hike to that eternal city had become so heavy that he looked for a way out. He was longing for a better city, but he was unwilling to wait.

We are not called here this afternoon to judge God. God didn’t promise any of us health, wealth,

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or happiness. In fact, he tells us that we who expect to share in Christ’s glory will also participate in his sufferings. Christianity is true, not because it works for people in that pragmatic, utilitarian way, but because nearly two thousand years ago, outside the center city of Jerusalem, the Son of God was crucified for our sins and was raised for our justification. This historical event may not fix our marriages, our relationships, or our messed-up lives in the way and timing that we would like, but it saves us from the wrath of God to come. Surely, in view of this, all else pales not into insignificance but into secondary importance to that great issue; for “it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27).

We are not here to judge God today, but neither are we here to judge Don. No one can justify his action, but Don is justified before God. Being accepted before God is not a matter of what we have done or left undone, or we would all be lost. It is a matter of trusting in that which Jesus Christ has done, for he has finished the work of our redemption. He has paid the ransom for our sins and satisfied the justice our guilt required.

The perfect righteousness that God requires of us was possessed by only one man who ever lived, the Redeemer to whom Job and Paul and every other saint has looked for shelter from death and hell.

The moment we trust in Christ and renounce our own claims to holiness and acceptability, stripping away the fig leaves of our own making, God clothes us in the robe of Christ’s righteousness. Because of Christ’s life of obedience, his sacrificial death, and his triumphant resurrection, we are accepted by the Father and made his heirs, given the Holy Spirit, and promised the resurrection of our own mortal flesh. This means that it is safe to look up at God again. Just as Job said that if only he had an advocate, a mediator, he could lift his eyes up to God in his suffering, so all of us can cry on our Father’s shoulder this afternoon because we have nothing to fear. It is not his wrath that has sent us pain and suffering if we belong to him, for he intercepts Satan’s designs and fashions even sin and evil into messengers of grace.

With Job and Paul, Don knew that his Redeemer lives, even though he himself did not think he could go on living here below. With the Redeemer, there will be no death, no suffering, no pain, no disease, or disappointment. Even now, Don is awaiting his new,

“AND FOR ALL OF US HERE WHO ARE AFRAID OF DEATH, OR OF LIFE, THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT THIS MAN IS STILL AT GOD’S RIGHT HAND, THIS ADVOCATE WHO PLEADS OUR CASE.” glorified body while his spirit is already enjoying the immediate presence of God. If God’s grace is greater than all our sin—even than this sin of suicide—then surely every one of us is warmly invited by the risen Christ: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).

And with Job and Paul, Don will reign with Christ because his Redeemer lives. Because Christ’s tomb is empty, Don’s grave will also be empty on the last day.

With Job, Don can say, “I will see him in my flesh,” in the very body that, at eighteen years old, fell seventy-five feet while rock climbing, leaving him with a broken back and reconstructed feet; in that body that witnessed the death of his brother from leukemia and his father’s death while Don was in college.

It is in that body that held children with severe learning disabilities as gifts from God, and in the body that just four months ago was injured in a train accident, that Don will see God. It will be a body reconstructed, not by the skillful hands of doctors below, but by the hand of his Creator, the Great Physician—and so Don’s body will be perfectly mended and free from pain. On that day, Scripture assures us, God “will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

Until then, Don is in God’s presence without his body, awaiting that triumphal entry of God’s liberated captives, arriving in triumphant procession together through the gates of the eternal city after a long, hard winter through the wilderness. Indeed, Christianity does “work” after all, for all of us who believe, just where and when we needed it most.

Perhaps some of you here, like Job, have thought, “Since I am already found guilty, why should I

struggle in vain?...He is not a man like me that…we might confront each other in court. If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him” (Job 9:29, 32–35). Don would want to remind all of us that we have this arbitrator, this mediator, who has removed God’s rod from us so that his terror frightens us no more. Now we can speak up without fear of him because he calls us children instead of enemies.

To the family, I know you have lost your husband, son, father, and brother. Although I myself have lost one of my closest friends, I cannot begin to know your suffering, but God knows what this is like—for he also lost a dear one, his one and only Son. God committed his Son to dreadful suffering and a cruel death because through it he could save people who hated him and make them his own sons and daughters. You can turn to him as your Father, not only because he knows how you feel, but because his loss secured your adoption into his family and made Don a coheir with Christ. And for all of us here who are afraid of death, or of life, the good news is that this man is still at God’s right hand, this Advocate who pleads our case. His name is Jesus Christ, and if your faith is in the Rock of Ages and in this Mighty Fortress, he will be your friend in this world and in the world to come.

This sermon was originally printed in The Hardest Sermons You’ll Ever Have to Preach: Help from Trusted Preachers for Tragic Times, ed. Bryan Chapell (Zondervan, 2011), and is reprinted by permission of Zondervan Publishing Group.

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book reviews “The very best thing we can do for each other is talk honestly about being wrong.”

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BOOK REVIEWS

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint

BY NADIA BOLZ-WEBER Jericho Books, 2013 224 pages (hardback), $22.00

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think it’s a safe bet to assume that Nadia Bolz-Weber isn’t the only female pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. I would even venture to guess that she is not the only female pastor with tattoos! And, having been around Lutherans for a number of years now, her “earthy” language certainly isn’t unique. So, what is it about Nadia Bolz-Weber that has sent her new book Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint to the top of the best-seller charts? It’s because we don’t often hear the following from tatted-up female clergy in mainline churches: I am not the only one who sees the underside and God at the same time. There are lots of us, and we are at home in the biblical stories of antiheroes and people who don’t get it; beloved prostitutes and rough fishermen. How different from that cast of characters could a manic-depressive alcoholic comic be? It was here in the midst of my own community of underside dwellers that I couldn’t help but begin to see the Gospel, the life-changing reality that God is not far off, but here among the brokenness of our lives. (9) I was stunned that Good Friday by this familiar but foreign story of Jesus’ last hours, and I realized that in Jesus, God had come to dwell with us and share our human

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story. Even the parts of our human story that are the most painful. God was not sitting in heaven looking down at Jesus’ life and death and cruelly allowing his son to suffer. God was not looking down on the cross. God was hanging from the cross. God had entered our pain and loss and death so deeply and took all of it into God’s own self so that we might know who God really is. Maybe the Good Friday story is about how God would rather die than be in our sin-accounting business anymore. (86) I really hate that Jesus’ Gospel is so much about death. I hate it. I wish that Jesus’ message was, Follow me and all your dreams of cash and prizes will come true; follow me and you’ll have free liposuction and winning lotto tickets for life. But obviously he’s not like that. Jesus said, “Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” He says, “The first shall be last and the last infushall be first,” and infu riating things like “if you seek to find your life you will lose it but those who lose their life will find it.”

And every single time I die to something—my spenotions of my own spe cialness, my plans and desires for something to be a very particular way—every single distime I fight it and yet every single time I dis cover more life and more freedom than if I had gotten what I wanted. (187) Bolz-Weber seems to grasp the Reformation’s hundred-proof message of grace, and sadly that’s not something we in the sideline churches expect from our mainline cousins anymore. We expect to hear a lot about gender inequality in the church

“BUT WHEN THE SAME PEOPLE WHO SEEM SO WRONG ON SO MANY THINGS ALSO WRITE SO ELOQUENTLY ABOUT THE THEOLOGY OF THE CROSS, WE’RE CONFLICTED! THAT UNSUSPECTING TURN IS PART OF WHAT MAKES BOLZ-WEBER’S BOOK SO INTERESTING.” (and Bolz-Weber also talks about that in her book).

We expect to hear a lot about the church’s role in promoting social justice (and Bolz-Weber also talks about that in her book). We expect to hear a lot about the full-inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons in the life of the church (and Bolz-Weber also talks a lot about that in her book).

But when the same people who seem so wrong on so many things also write so eloquently about the theology of the cross, we’re conflicted! That unsuspecting turn is part of what makes Bolz-Weber’s book so interesting.

Pastrix is essentially a story of Nadia BolzWeber’s life and current ministry. There are seriously funny parts, like when she thinks back on her profession of faith in a Church of Christ congregation: “Twelve-year old Church of Christ kids experience a wave of devotion like a Great Awakening comprised only of sixth graders.” As a church planter, I also appreciated her reflection on the difficulty of starting a church and the disappointment church planters often feel when their good ideas for growing the church don’t amount to much: “I had decided the event was a failure since there wasn’t the right number of people and no one chipped in any money. How small.” As local news outlets in Denver began to take notice of Bolz-Weber and her congregation, House for All Sinners and Saints, she started to receive speaking

invitations. If you’re familiar at all with the “conference circuit,” the presentations are always supposed to be about the successes that you too can enjoy if you slavishly adopt the speaker’s model.

Thankfully, Bolz-Weber realized during one seminar that “the very best thing we can do for each other is talk honestly about being wrong.” These are the parts of the book that endeared her to me and made me think she would be an interesting person to talk to about life and ministry.

One recurring theme throughout Pastrix is the struggle that Nadia Bolz-Weber has with not putting people into categories of good and bad, realizing that every time she does her categories are blown open by someone who does not quite conform to them. Bolz-Weber wants the same courtesy extended to her, responding to her profile in the Washington Post via Twitter that she is “kind of neither” a liberal nor a conservative. After reading the book, I think it’s pretty clear that she is only conservative insofar as she professes an orthodox belief in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

But even there I wonder if she has any room in her system for seeing sin as more than just horizontal mess—does Jesus’ death on the cross actually atone for personal sin against a holy God? She is definitely liberal in the modern theological sense of the word by seeing the Bible as a culturally conditioned book that is only valuable insofar as particular passages MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

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“IS THERE ANY NORM OUT THERE THAT CHALLENGES HER EXPERIENCES—EVEN THE ONES THAT SEEM PROFOUNDLY TRUE?” line up with her own ideas about God. She is also liberal in her sexual ethics, writing about living with her husband before they were married but while he was still in seminary. Her rejection of biblical sexual ethics extends naturally to her acceptance and approval of homosexuality as a legitimate expression of human experience for Christian laypeople and clergy.

But the old tropes of “liberal” and “conservative” are tired and worn out. They don’t really work to pigeonhole people the way we have used them in the past. Partly that’s because in “postmodernity” (also a tired word), we don’t ascribe to systems of belief that in turn form us. Rather, we create our own systems—sometimes even self-contradictory systems—based on our experience of reality, and that’s my main concern about this book and Bolz-Weber.

The book reflects her struggle to understand God: first as a child of the church, then as a rebel, then as a grateful recipient of God’s grace, and now as a preacher of that grace to others who feel marginalized by the church. That story is fascinating, but it is a story based firmly in BolzWeber’s own experience. From that experience she sifts Scripture and tradition looking for those parts that affirm her experience and are true “for her.” So, while parts of her gospel message will deeply resonate with Reformation-minded readers, there will be other parts of her message that

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give us whiplash. I am left to wonder at the end of her book if her message will change and evolve over time in response to her changing experiences. Is there any norm out there that challenges her experiences—even the ones that seem profoundly true? Is she formed by something bigger than her own experiences, or is everything ultimately up for grabs?

I enjoyed reading Pastrix. Many of the parts I liked best were those that resonated with my own experience, either as a church planter or as a person in need of grace. But I leave this book not confident that what Nadia Bolz-Weber believes God offers to those down-and-outers to whom she ministers are the same things that I believe God offers to those who despise their own righteousness and cling solely to the righteousness of another. Maybe I’m reading my theology into her narrative. If we believe and preach the same gospel, then despite her radical departure from historic Christian belief, especially in the areas of gender and sexuality, she will be a force to be reckoned with in and out of her own mainline circles. If, as I fear, her conception of grace is smaller than the Bible’s message of God’s cosmic rescue plan for rebels, then her challenging message and personality will quickly be eclipsed by the banality of a dying mainline theology.

Eric Landry is the pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Murrieta, California.

Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Exegesis and Interpretation

BY G. K. BEALE Baker Academic, 2012 192 pages (paperback), $17.99

G

regory Beale has written a gem of a handbook for pastors, scholars, and all those concerned with a serious engagement of the New Testament’s reading and use of the Old Testament. Beale is known particularly for his work on quotes and allusions of the Old

Testament (OT) that appear in the New Testament (NT). This book demonstrates how he goes about his craft.

Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the various debates surrounding the NT’s use of the OT. Beale correctly begins by noting that the most important controversy entails whether the NT use of the OT appreciates the original context of the OT text alluded to or cited. This necessarily introduces the subject of whether NT authors respect the literary and historical context of the OT passage evoked and elucidated, or whether they extend notions inchoate in those OT passages, or even whether the NT authors use the OT passages in some creative and new manner with little or no attention to the original context. He then highlights a number of areas where scholars have disagreed and debated this mega-issue.

However, the most important subject he introduces here is the debate over typology, to which I will return below. The fundamental question is this: Can we reproduce the exegesis of the NT authors when we read the Bible? Most significantly, Beale answers in the affirmative.

Quotations and citations are more easily identified in the NT than allusions.

Allusions in the NT to an OT passage demand more explanation and justification, and chapter 2 is written to explain how allusions to the OT in the NT can be validated.

The heart of the book is found in chapter 3 where Beale provides a nine-step process for determining how various NT authors might be using a given OT text. Exegesis is as much an art as it is a science, says Beale. He recognizes this and also the potential liabilities of providing such a list. Nevertheless, he suggests that if this ninefold approach to interpreting the use of the OT in the NT is followed with discernment and care, then thicker, as opposed to thinner, understandings of the biblical text will result.

Chapter 4 is a survey of how the NT writers use OT citations and allusions. Beale discusses twelve

different ways. A major strength of this chapter is Beale’s further discussion of typology and its various uses with examples. Again, Beale delineates the various criteria for the essential elements of a type: analogical correspondence, historicity, escalation, predictability or “pointing-forwardness,” and a retrospective stance on the part of the NT author. In chapter 5, Beale draws the reader’s attention to the presuppositions that NT writers hold. This is crucial to understanding how any given NT writer may be interpreting an OT passage or book.

Chapter 6 elaborates on chapter 3 by providing further details on one of the nine points for interpreting the NT’s use of the OT: a survey of Judaism and its use of particular OT texts. Here Beale extends his discussion on that subject and has two purposes in mind. First, he provides an annotated bibliography of Jewish sources. This is an invaluable part of the book.

A briefer section on early Christian literature is covered as well. Second, Beale uses an illustration to help the reader perceive how these resources (especially of early Jewish background) can have some value for helping an exegete see how NT authors may be using an OT text. For this he chooses the Sinai theophany to elucidate the “tongues of fire” phenomena at Pentecost in Acts 2. Chapter 7 provides a case study of how one should apply the principles in the book. For such an example, Beale chooses the use of Isaiah 22:22 in Revelation 3:7.

This book is well organized and clearly written.

The author and publisher are to be commended for an excellent volume that should provide a useful tool for many generations to come. This reviewer found no typographical, spelling, or enumeration mistakes in the book. Even so, there are two areas in which this book is open to criticism.

First, in biblical studies there is a tendency to appeal merely to other biblical scholars working recently in the area of citation and allusion.

Beale’s book is no exception. The fact of the matter MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

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is, however, that biblical scholars could greatly strengthen their theories on allusion by engagement with literary scholars who have worked in these areas. Second, it would have been helpful if Beale had given his readers some further orientation to German Old Testament scholar Gerhard von Rad’s overall scheme of typology and theology, especially since Beale cites von Rad positively in his book. Von Rad heroically resisted the rise of National Socialism (Nazism) during his productive career, and he was comprehensive in his ambitious projects by trying to rescue the OT from the expunging tendencies of Hitler’s theologians; von Rad even suggested his own form of typology. However, in the process he denied supernaturalism. Typology for von Rad became a mere human way of going about our cognitive tasks; that is, by trying to understand one’s world on the basis of concrete analogies.

Essentially, for von Rad, understanding the OT became an obsession with identifying putative traditions. In short, some treatment of how to use or appropriate von Rad for evangelical purposes would have been helpful. Nevertheless, these brief comments should not detract from the book’s value as a whole.

Bryan D. Estelle is professor of Old Testament at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido.

Virtuous Minds: Intellectual Character Development

BY PHILIP E. DOW IVP Academic, 2013 208 pages (paperback), $16.00

P

hilip E. Dow has written an engaging, thoughtful, and timely book titled Virtuous Minds. In this book Dow, a Cambridge-educated school administrator in Kenya, attempts to make a unique contribution to the field of character education, focusing on the traits of “virtuous thinking” or “intellectual character building.” The thesis of his book is that

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“BEFORE THERE CAN BE VIRTUOUS ACTION IN LIFE, THERE MUST FIRST BE VIRTUOUS THINKING THAT PRECEDES THE ACTION.” before there can be virtuous action in life, there must first be virtuous thinking that precedes the action (22). The book then identifies the cardinal intellectual virtues and makes recommendations on how to acquire those virtues. Dow identifies the audience of this book as “students, educators, and parents” (16). I believe it also would be useful in a ministerial ethics or religious education class at the college or seminary level, and pastors could certainly gain much from it.

It is structured around four main categories. First, it describes the intellectual virtues: intellectual courage, carefulness, tenacity, fairmindedness, curiosity, honesty, and humility.

Each chapter develops these ideas and explains their nature and character. Second, the book develops the ramifications of cultivating these virtues, proposing to define the fruits of a wellfurnished mind. As Dow sees it, if we cultivate intellectual virtue, we accrue unmistakable benefits, which he enumerates as decreased suffering from the consequences of poor choices; increased enjoyment from good choices; the living of an interesting life; and finally, greater personal influence among our peers and more meaningful friendships (81–109). Third, Dow provides a “road map” of sorts—explaining just how it is

that virtuous thinking is to be cultivated (113–24).

Finally, Dow provides some helpful appendices: a book study guide with critical thinking questions for the chapters; curricular guides; and other documents from academies and schools where this plan has been put into place, including a sample syllabus for teaching the virtues; and even a charter school petition for a school built around the quest for teaching the intellectual virtues.

There are many merits to the thesis of the author.

Several Bible verses support his contention that virtuous thought will precede virtuous action. Among them is Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect, ” which is cited in the foreword (14).

Additionally, we know that cultivating a virtuous and pure thought life is certainly something that Scripture approves, as Philippians 4:8 makes clear: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

I feel that Dow has done an admirable job in this book, and his content is fresh and timely. He clearly is a well-read, experienced educational practitioner.

Throughout the book, there are many anecdotal stories from history, as well as the Bible, that illustrate his points well. Dow was a teacher of social studies, and this shines through at several points in his meaningful interactions with historical examples.

He peppers his writing with helpful and solid quotes from a wide variety of sources, and his endnotes and bibliography provide many important suggestions for further reading.

I found Dow’s descriptive work in the first seven chapters to be among the most compelling

chapters in the entire book. The way he describes the intellectual virtues should make any sincere and genuine believer long to have those traits of mind. After I read the first seven chapters, however, I wondered, “How are these particular virtues fulfilled in Jesus Christ? How is he the embodiment of these traits?” That is not an area deeply explored by the book.

I believe it can be safely said that Dow ’s approach is largely an application of the “third use of the law.” His writing style is practical, didactic, and hortatory. Dow sets the bar high and encourages the pursuit of intellectual virtue in strong terms: “It is my hope that this book will encourage in all of us an uncompromising pursuit of truth and a commitment to becoming intellecpeople of virtuous intellec tual character” (143).

Since the primary audience of the book is intended to be believers, though, I wondered referwhy there was little refer ence to the work of the Holy Spirit, especially in the “how to” section. I often wondered what Dow might say about the role of the Holy Spirit in our intellecacquisition of these intellec tual virtues. There were a few points where a deeper discussion of the imputed nature of the Christian’s righteousness, granted to us through the atonement made by Jesus at the cross, could have been helpful, especially as it regards the life of the mind.

Dow has given Christian educators a commendable, thoughtful, quality book that merits wide readership, especially for those interested in intellectual character development. Works of this kind, especially from a Christian perspective, are truly needed, and his book is a valuable contribution to the field of literature on character education.

Christopher Beckham is a presbyter in the Reformed Episcopal Church (Diocese of the Central States) and teaches history and philosophy of education at a state university in Kentucky.

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GEEK S QUAD

S OV E R E I G N C O M PA S S I O N

H

by CARL R. TRUEMAN

yper-Calvinism, like so many “ism” words, is hard to define. It is sometimes said that a fundamentalist is that person on the Christian spectrum who is slightly to the right of you. Thus “hyperCalvinist” is often used as a pejorative by those who are just a tad more Calvinistic than the one using the epithet.

At a more technical level, hyper-Calvinism typically refers to those who emphasize one aspect of the Calvinist system to the detriment of the others. This produces a theological imbalance.

Perhaps most typically this has been manifested in an emphasis on limited atonement or total depravity, stressed in such a way that the free offer of the gospel or the need for evangelism is denied. When Spurgeon criticized “hypers,” it was typically this kind of theology he had in mind.

In recent years, however, it has become arguable that a new kind of hyper-Calvinism has emerged, one that does not so much impact evangelism, but does lead to some strange statements and conclusions. This is the emphasis on God’s

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sovereignty in the face of suffering to the exclusion or radical relativizing of everything else.

We need to parse this issue carefully. Clearly, God is sovereign and nothing therefore happens outside of his will or in such a way that his will is frustrated. Yet there is a pastoral dimension to this truth that is often missing. Many of us have experienced some dark moment in our lives where the response of a well-meaning Christian friend has simply been, “Well, it is God’s will.”

At the national level, there have been a number of natural disasters over recent years that have elicited similar responses from evangelicals, sometimes even on Twitter.

Now the complexities of evil in a fallen world

“GOD’S GLORY IS ULTIMATELY DEMONSTRATED BY PASSING THROUGH TRAGEDY TO RESURRECTION, NOT BY DENYING THE REALITY OF THE TRAGIC.” are scarcely susceptible to adequate discussion within the character limits of a tweet. Moreover, they cannot be adequately addressed simply by a blunt assertion that God is sovereign. Such a response ignores the richness of biblical teaching on God. Take, for example, the later chapters of the book of Job. Elihu, the young comforter, steps forward and offers a quite brilliant assessment of God’s sovereignty and transcendence. Yet God still has to speak after he has finished, and while not criticizing him as he does the other three, he does supplement Elihu’s argument by pointing to his very personal and active control over the forces of evil, personified in the Behemoth and the Leviathan.

True, God comes twice in the whirlwind to Job, and whirlwinds are typically signs of judgment in the Old Testament; but, first, this is God and not a human being who speaks. For God to declare his sovereignty is one thing; too often we can declare God’s sovereignty as a trite, simple answer. More important, God’s speeches offer more than a mere reassertion of his blunt sovereignty. Elihu simply declares that God is metaphysically sovereign, so deal with it. God himself has somewhat more to say to his servant, bringing to the fore the majestic power of God in specific examples.

We see the complexity of the relationship between God and suffering even more clearly in the

Psalms. The Psalms were the hymnbook of ancient Israel. In them, the Lord provided his people with a language that allows for full human lamentation, for the laying bare of the agony of the soul before God. That God is sovereign did not apparently prevent him from inspiring men to compose poems of great beauty and emotional complexity as they wrestle with the disconnections between their knowledge of who God is and what they experience.

Then, throughout scriptural narrative, we see how God acknowledges the legitimacy of lament and how his servants do not simply respond by pointing sufferers to God’s overarching will. Take, for example, the Shunammite in 2 Kings 4. She throws herself at the feet of the prophet; he does not rebuke her in any way at all; rather, he acts to help her. Then, perhaps supremely, we have Christ standing outside the tomb of Lazarus and weeping.

Christ knows about the resurrection to come; he also knows about the miracle he is about to perform; he even alludes to the fact that Lazarus had been allowed to die in order to show the glory of God. Yet still he weeps. Divine sovereignty does not negate the emotion of the moment, nor does it relativize the agony of death or lead Christ to spout aloof and trite platitudes at a moment of devastation for Lazarus’s family. Yes, he cites the glory of God; but he also weeps. Here, sovereignty is not allowed to swallow up compassion. God’s glory is ultimately demonstrated by passing through tragedy to resurrection, not by denying the reality of the tragic. His sovereignty is revealed eschatologically, which relativizes but does not eliminate the agonizing pain of the present.

The next time there is a human catastrophe or natural disaster, beware of those who think they can answer the problem in 140 characters or less. They cannot. Those who simply assert that it is all part of God’s will give such a small part of the truth as to be misleading. And that is what hyper-Calvinism is but one example of: a small part of the glorious truth of God’s sovereignty, presented in such a way as to hide or obscure the true riches of the biblical teaching on God.

Carl R. Trueman is professor of church history and vice president for academic affairs at Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia).

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B A C K PA G E

I F J O B H A D L A M E N T E D O N FAC E B O O K Eliphaz Job Chin up, bro—bad things don’t happen to good people! #confess Job Tell me about my chin when you lose your kids, health, and income IN THE SAME DAY.

Bildad Job Dont despair buddy—God doesnt punish the richous; confess and everything will b AMAZING God loves u dude! #repentalready Job How many people do you know that are actually righteous before God, Bildad?

Zophar Job You want to sue God? Really?

Job That’s right, Zophar; I forgot—YOU know what’s REALLY going on. SHUT. UP. Eliphaz Seriously, this isn’t hard—REPENT. Wicked = pain, righteous = no pain!

Job God has literally torn me in his wrath, and you people scorn me. #miserablecomforters Bildad So were bad friends and sinners dont die alone because you dont think this is how it works. OK. Job Whatever. I know that my Redeemer lives, and I shall see God for myself.

Zophar All I know is, the wicked man dies in his own poo and everything he leaves behind will burn.

Just sayin’…

Job If by ‘dies in his own poo’ you mean ‘dies in his mansion in power and glory’, then yeah, sure.

Eliphaz 1) You deprived the poor of clothing, 2) you refused to help widows and orphans, 3) you insult God’s judgment, and you wonder why you suffer?

Job 1) I delivered the poor who asked for help, 2) I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy, 3) God knows my integrity; let HIM answer me Elihu so I know you guys are like way older than I am but you suk you should have told job to shut up hes totally wrong I know its rude to corect your elders but I cannt keep quite. Job your not richous no one is – gods not wickid; he punishes the wicked but he saves them to we cant understand everything he does he doesnt need you to understan.

God Job ANSWER THE FOLLOWING: 1) Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? 2) Do you determine what time the sun rises? 3) Where does light come from? 4) Where does hail come from? 5) What about the rain? 6) Do you move the stars? 7) Can you send forth lightning? 8) Can you feed the lion?

Job Um, no, thank you?

God Job If you can make yourself glorious and punish the proud and wicked, then I’ll acknowledge that your ‘righteousness’ can save you.

Job I didn’t know what I was talking about. I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.

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