Battle on The Horizon

This morning I face one of those “couldbes” of which I have been writing. Actually the trial began last night and my family and I are traveling the road of uncertainty today, at least until we hear one way or the other concerning the situation which has popped up.

It seams as though we all face a little skirmish here and there nearly every day, but it is only so often that the intense battles of affliction take form on our horizon. We can see them up ahead, yet we cannot veer out of their way because very God has set them on our path. We cannot turn around and travel the opposite direction because all that lay on the path behind us is the past, so we must trudge forward, knowing that we face trouble and possible heart-ache. That is where the couldbes come in—though the substance of a battle may lie ahead, outbreaks of fighting sorties spot our immediate landscape, so that a particular battle of affliction normally spawns itself into smaller manifestations which we’re bound to run into first; like tentacles, the battle extends its boundaries and we are attacked by preliminary forces so that we can actually consider the couldbes a type or shadow of the substance of the trial we see ahead. But God is good regardless.

Sometimes we travel the path God has laid out before us, and we know we can see the battle ahead, but as we come up to the crest of the hill we find a sharp turn in our own path, so that the battle we once thought was going to be ours was actually on another path but because we cannot see all the future we inevitably do not trust Him who can, so we make ourselves fight the sorties and outlying skirmishes of a battle that is not ours at present…but God is good regardless. I pray we shall only have fought the forays of this battle.

Here is a poem of which my present difficulties reminded me :

Holiness be to the Lord our God

The Mighty Savior of all creation!

He resists the pride of haughty men

but He comforts the weak and the afflicted.

Oh, how we praise His name

how we lift it up before the gods of earth.

Hallelujah He will save us

Hallelujah praise His name!

The name of the All Mighty we will proclaim

Sovereign over all His creation!

He is good and wise and powerful

yet He stooped down to share in our distresses.

Oh, how we praise His name
how we lift it up before the gods of earth.
Hallelujah He will save us
Hallelujah praise His name!

He came and died and He rose again
All creation must worship the anointed!

The Couldbes & The Shouldabens (part 5)

...continued
Statements about who I am:

1 Peter 1:17-25
And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for your sake, 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. 22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for "All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25 but the word of the Lord remains forever." And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

Christ Jesus has been raised from the dead so that our faith and hope are in God. And our obedience to the truth, exhibited by brotherly love, so proves the purification of our souls that it is said that our souls are purified by our obedience, or better yet, through it, and this must be done because we have been born again. As the apostle John also indicates:

1 John
2:5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. 3:3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. 4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 4:16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

I hope you see the connection between 1 Peter 1:21-22 and 1 John 3:3. Those who hope in the future glory are pure in heart, and with that hope we build hope, for if we do hope in Him then we have all the more reason to hope because that hope in the future of our glorified state with Him is that hope by which we are comforted, even in the stinking pit of this present exile: our fallen situation and the remnant of our sinful selves not withstanding that which is promised to us! Not that we simply hope in hope itself, but that the hope we have from God is based in verse 20 and 21 of 1 Peter 1: that we have faith and hope in God because He raise Christ from the dead. What follows in 1 Peter is the great contrast; that fantastic chasm between the imperishable Christ and the weakness of merely earthly things. Our hope must be in God because, not only do the created things in nature wither, but so do the trials we face. Even the strongholds of mountain ranges in all their apparent permanence will fall by God’s hand to be resurrected on That Day to a more perfect form, so too are the most difficult valleys of our experience, wherein we now morn, they likewise will one day show us their resurrected form in eternity: having born perhaps an unknown fruit in our lives which benefited our sanctification.

Romans 4:18-25
In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, "So shall your offspring be." 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. 20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness." 23 But the words "it was counted to him" were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

Abraham had all the worldly reason he needed to doubt the promises of God; in fact he failed to trust Him and took the matter of fulfilling God’s promise into his own hands. But God’s promise to Abraham was without condition, just like His promise to all of us who trust Him, it will never fail and like Abraham, the pattern of our lives should testify to future generations that we too, in the face of what appear to be impossible situations, will acknowledge that what is impossible with man is quite possible with God because, in the likeness of the faith that Abraham had, we see that our God is the one who created material out of immaterial, and thus we are enabled to believe God against the feasibility as things are rendered feasible in human considerations. God is not a man, but is spirit and He created all things great and small by the word of His power and thus with it, He also upholds the universe! How much more then is He capable of keeping the promise to Abraham and his offspring, of which we are also to be counted, that he would be heir of the world which promise did not come through obedience to the law, but by the righteousness of Christ obtained through faith, for as Paul stated earlier in His letter, this righteousness was counted to him before he was circumcised, and as it is elsewhere stated, “…so then it does not depend on the man who wills or who runs, but on God who has mercy”—and that mercy is grounded in the finished work of Christ, who does all things well and for our good. And finally, our hope in God is established by the statement, “It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”

And for further building up of our faith and trust, and hope in God:

Ephesians 1
11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

to be continued…

The Couldbes & the Shouldabens (part 4)

...continued
Statements about who I am:

1 John 1:5-10
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

So we may presume from the local of verse nine that Christians sin; If we say we have no sin, or that we have not sinned, we deceive ourselves and we make God out to be a liar and God’s Word—the Truth—is not in us; Christians are cleansed from all sin and we do walk in the light, however we do still sin.

The point is, God is faithful because He forgives the sins of those who confess them, and He is just in doing so. So, worry not about God’s faithfulness if you confess your sins; we have been cleansed if we find ourselves practicing the confession of our sins, then we can rest in the fact that God has cleansed us from all unrighteousness.

2 Corinthians 5:21
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

In the simple statement of the imputation of our guilt to Christ and Christ’s righteousness to us, we can find the most profound reason to trust God and not to worry in the midst of suffering or trial. What better reason for us to “count it all joy” than the realization of this precious truth in the gospel! Even as we morn the death of a parent, a child, or a friend, we can find joy in the faithfulness of God through the gospel. Whatever He does, He does for our good, and we can echo the words of Job when he said, “though He slays me, I will hope in Him.”

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

In Christ we are new creatures, ones capable of obeying God. The biblical statements of the permanence of our faith are the standard by which we must both measure our assurance and fill up the hope of our lives.

to be continued...

The Couldbes & The Shouldabens (part 3)

...continued
Statements about who God is:

Ephesians 2:14
For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility…

I know the context of this verse is much broader than just what a discussion on worry would permit, but the background of the hostility between the circumcised and the uncircumcised 2000 years ago (which quite frankly continues today) is quite enough to make one cry out for peace. So the statement about God being the one who has brought peace between those two groups seems impossible until we consider the peace that exist between all people groups when God gathers us into the fold of Christ. The God who is able to accomplish that peace is surely capable of bringing peace into our stormy lives. Not that He always calms the storm, even when our prayers persist that He do so, but that His peace remains through the storm; His peace is the ship that will carry us through the tempest.

1 John 4:4
Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

False teaching was plentiful in the early church and young Christians needed to be warned against it and protected from it (specifically in this passage the truth that Christ had come in the flesh), but the apostle John told us that God is greater than the spirit that leads those wolves who teach otherwise, and his readers overcame falsehood by listening to Him who is the Truth, and He remains the Truth today and is sovereign over His creation still and He remains greater than he who is in the world!

Jeremiah 23:6
In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: 'The LORD is our righteousness.'

The Lord Himself is our righteousness, none other can we trust,
He bore His trial so willingly and purchased life for us…

Ah, the doctrines of substitution and justification; the teachings on the atonement are as sweet as the honeysuckle; they caress the weary ear with divine harmony and sooth the wounded heart with a luscious salve. It is here I think that it is nigh impossible to separate “systematic theology” from “practical theology”. I dare say that if one who calls himself a Christian can read and meditate on these doctrines without being so moved to worship, that one calls himself a Christian wrongfully!

In the immediate context of the verse above, God calls out false teachers (shepherds who scatter His sheep) for their wickedness and Jeremiah prophecies of a the time when Christ will come and, “…gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4 I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord. 5 Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely.” And we are told that this “Anointed One” whom God will send (and has already sent from our perspective) is called “The LORD is our righteousness”, so we conclude that, in the face of wicked shepherds who scatter the sheep, God’s prophet was instructed to remind the people of the coming Christ and the righteousness He is on our behalf. Might that we would meditate on the righteousness of Christ when we fail, when we are knocked down, and when we tremble before our accusers or those who would deceive us.

Take heart dear ones: the Lord our God delivers!

to be continued...

The Couldbes & The Shouldabens (part 2)

...continued
Statements about who God is:

2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Clearly, at least one of the reasons in God’s ineffable plans for our suffering is that when we suffer through an event, our experience will enable us to build up others in the household of faith; because we face a trial and endure it by God’s grace we can admonish others to do the same. We do this much in the same way Christ endured the suffering of His body and spirit through temptation so He could identify with us. As the writer of the book of Hebrew says, “4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” How much more can Christ sympathize with those who actually give in to their temptation, when He (being the God-Man) never gave in, nor could He, therefore He endured temptation to its highest degree, yet He did not fall. We endure trials and suffer, and we are tempted to sin while we endure those events, however, we may fall and give in to temptation. We can then identify with others in their suffering, just as Christ identified with us.

Whether it be by the grace God delivered which allowed us to overcome temptation in those trials, or the grace of God’s merciful forgiveness which we experienced during the temptation and after our sin, we can empathize with others who are presently afflicted with a similar suffering, or we can encourage persons who have fallen to hear the gospel once again and get up; our suffering is for that purpose at least.

Psalm 27:1
The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

We so often find ourselves in worry when we fear another’s authority over our lives. By God’s providence we find ourselves having to submit daily to earthly authorities who have been appointed by God Himself. Sometimes these rulers aren’t Godly and can cause us to fear for our future well-being, but God is, nonetheless, sovereign over even their godlessness and is thereby sanctifying us. The psalmist proclaims God’s work in his salvation and asks the rhetorical question, “therefore, how can I fear anyone but the Lord?” The Lord is my mighty fortress and the guard of my life; no one can take it unless He permits. Meditating on this truth, that God is our stronghold (not that He always protects us from discomfort) in whose hands our lives are hid, can help us to trust Him even when it appears that He has left us to fend for ourselves.

to be continued...

The Couldbes & The Shouldabens

I heard a fine line of literature today as written by Bunyan and spoken through the character called Christian in his masterpiece, The Pilgrim’s Progress: “Through His sorrow I have rest, and through His death I have life.” This statement was made after Christian approached the cross and his heavy burden was loosed and it fell from his back and was swallowed up by the sepulcher. What a fantastic picture of the removal of our own burden of sin? For us, Christ bore our stripes and was wounded by God to conciliate His wrath toward our sin so that, by His good life, God could credit that merit to our account and thus call us just.

The gospel contained in the above preface is an example of the type meditation we ought to pursue when we find our wearied minds wondering down the destructive path of worry. I can speak of this struggle against the sin of worry as one who experiences it first hand. And let us not forget just what it is, that it actually is sin to worry. More often than not, worry is that place we go when we are not meditating on the precious truth of God’s sovereignty, and His holy intentions in all that He does concerning the things He has created. Worry is that time we spend concentrating on those possible or those passed events that may or may not happen, or didn’t happen as we had hoped, and over which we have no control. Worry is that place to which we are taken by that residual, self reliant and self confident part of ourselves which remains even after we have been redeemed; practically speaking, we replace the All Mighty God, Creator of heaven and earth, who is capable of creating both light and calamity, with ourselves as the authority over past present and future things that concern our well-being. Vainly convinced, largely due to our lack of faith, that we are far more capable of handling these sorts of things than our Heavenly Father, we fail on those occasions to know our place and the place God occupies in the universe, thus we forsake the promises of God for the fading promises of this world. But what would our Father have us think on as we find ourselves near the stony cliffs of worry? Below are 15 passages to help alleviate our meditation on the “couldbes” and the “shouldabens”, and replace them with meditations on the “youares” and the “Ihavdones’:

Statements about who God is:

2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Psalm 27:1
The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

Ephesians 2:14
For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility…

1 John 4:4
Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Jeremiah 23:6
In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: 'The LORD is our righteousness.'


Statements about who I am:

1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

2 Corinthians 5:21
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

1 Peter 1:17-25
And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for your sake, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for "All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever." And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

Romans 4:18-25
In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, "So shall your offspring be." He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness." But the words "it was counted to him" were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.


Promises from God:

2 Corinthians 1:20
For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.

Romans 8:18
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Romans 8:28-30
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

1 Corinthians 10:13
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

Ephesians 1:3-14
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

To be continued...

Theology That Isn’t Practical Will Become Anthropology.

To tell someone that they need to focus on attaining their “best life now” necessarily contradicts the heavenward vision we are commanded to have now. Christ said,

John 12:25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

James 4:13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"—14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."

The fault of the “word faith” movement is not that it has persons seeking to better themselves in a material way, then thanking God for providing all that they have been given. No, the fault of the movement is that it is another gospel—not that there is another good news to be preached, but that the gospel of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was delivered for our trespasses and raised for our justification; by His stripes we are healed, is forsaken in that movement for what ultimately is bad news. Our faith is not a creative power at all; the image of God in us is not that we are capable of such creative works, but that image makes us volitional creatures whose choices are governed by our affections, and whose affections are rooted in our nature. Furthermore, the Christian life is not about pursuing our happiness in the things of this world: money, health, and fame, but quite the opposite, the Christian life is about becoming so frustrated with those lesser pleasures and our competing desires for them that we are driven to the “foolishness of the cross” and we take it up and follow Christ Jesus, fighting to find our joy in Him.

Those who teach such a doctrine as the word faith teachers are like the Jewish leadership in Christ’s day, they look for signs and miracles. Christ was a stumbling block for them then and such He is for those false teachers today—curse their wickedness and the falsehoods with which they fool those who would follow them into Hell! I believe this is all done in the name of practicality…"let us put flesh on the bones of our theological skeletons", some might think or say; "let us move from the abstract doctrinal teaching to the concrete teachings on how to live." My friends, doctrine and practice (while they are two different things) may never be so separated as to say one is possible without the other: practice is not possible without doctrine, and our practices prove that doctrine by which they are held up, so present teachers fail to make sense when they try to be more “practical” by being less theological or doctrinal. I say that one’s theology is in and of itself practical or it is, by necessity, not theology at all, but instead it is anthropology because it is no longer about God but about themselves.

Take for instance, the “preaching” of “the smiling preacher”. This man has so separated the disciplines of theological study from practical application that he has forsaken one for the other. My guess would be that, if “Smiley” didn’t grow up in, he has at the very least adopted a “Christianity” that “leaves the theology to the theologians”. Many of us have heard that said before that, "people just don’t get all that theological talk; they just want something that will get them through the week" Or this, "you just have to be relevant or you will be tuned out, that deep theology isn't relevant to my life in the here and now". Smiley and others do present a theology, but it isn’t one from the Bible. They consistently present a god who is waiting for you to think positively and assure yourself of your worth so he can give you the desires of your heart. In other words, false teachers replace the reality of God’s wrath against your sin with His image in you, and the reality of the much needed spiritual healing through Christ’s sorrow with the temporal healings of our bodies and the filling up of our pockets instead of our hearts. Not to say that we are not physical, we most certainly are, and that present reality does not have its end at the judgment, but the reality of the union of our bodies and spirits will by manifest to us in our resurrected persons as we inhabit a resurrected Earth.

Well from our perspective, the gospel IS that “theological talk” that receives so much disdain today in pop-christian teaching. And the gospel is the most relevant issue in any of our lives. What could be more relevant than to have the problem of our sin exposed and the solution presented in the gospel? I hope the answer is obvious, because the answer is--nothing; nothing could possibly be more relevant and practical. Moreover, your sin can’t even be presented without such “theological talk” by discussing "theology proper"; the holiness of God and His just wrath, therefore Smiley and others substitute your REAL needs are for some silly, vaporous, *%&$^# that inoculates your soul to the true salve of God’s Word…and that is completely impractical! False teachers like that remove the “gospel talk” (which is practical) from their “speeches” and replace it with something about you and supposedly for you. That, my friend, is anthropology, not theology.

Debate & Dialogue

In the last few years I have enjoyed listening to Elder James White and I have, through him and others more recently, learned the value of a well organized debate. For instance, last October White debated his Presbyterian friend Bill Shizco on the issue of baptism. Both men consider this a debate among Christians and their intent was not to “poison the well” against what the other believes, or burn straw men, or argue against red herrings, but their intent was to provide meaningful information about the content of their beliefs so as to provide a contrast between the two so the hearers may more accurately define what they believe and why.

This leads to the distinction between dialogue and debate. Much of what is commonly referred to in America today as debate, as far as I am concerned, is actually only dialogue. Take the presidential “debates” for instance; as we approach the beginning of November every fourth year, we can look forward to the candidates answering a predetermined set of questions asked by an “unbiased” media personality. Each candidate answers the question candidly and then usually offers a quick stab at his opponent’s position by saying something like, “…but my opponent will tell you…”. Without cross-examination, what we end up with is little better than the pithy (and often snide) prerequisite monologues with which we are pelted from our TVs in the form of “political ads”. This is symptomatic of the deep rooted problem—commercialism. Even our politicians have been reduced to a product to be consumed by the masses (at least they would hope), and our political system has traded truth for popularity as the chemical agent in the litmus test for a candidate’s legitimacy.

What is so sad is that this type of presentation has been adopted by members of the Church; some, in an attempt to bolster their opinions have employed worldly “debate” tactics such as, “poisoning the well”. What’s worse is that these men will often enlist fallacious argumentation to “prove” their opponents wrong. As Christians we are called to a much higher standard than that—we are called to present that which has set us free from the bonds of our slavery to sin—truth.

There actually are biblical categories for such fallacious argumentation: poisoning the well could be considered slander or gossip, setting up straw men and not fully availing oneself to primary sources or making sure one understands his opponent and thus representing him accurately are paramount to neglecting what Proverbs 18 says: “15 An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” Verse 17 says, “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” And verse 20, “From the fruit of a man's mouth his stomach is satisfied; he is satisfied by the yield of his lips.” Thus the thrust of this entry is to state that: cross-examination turns a dialogue into a debate. There is nothing inherently wrong with dialogue, in fact dialogue is a useful form of communication that allows us to begin to understand one another, but for the sake of truthfulness let us not call it debate unless cross-examination is employed.

Why do I say this; what is the big deal? After a monologue is given (wherein statements are made about one’s own position and about one’s opponent’s position) if the other party is given an opportunity to cross-examine the statements that were made, then many times the Truth can be promoted as illogical arguments and misrepresentation are brought into question. Because we are fallen creatures still (simul justus et peccatore) we sometimes cannot see our own self-contradictions nor how we are misrepresenting an opposing position due to our misunderstanding of it’s sources. There are often times others who couldn’t care less if they have misrepresented another’s position because they simply desire to negatively influence whatever audience they have been afforded and are willing to utilize the most pragmatic tactics to indoctrinate instead of educate and inform. Such tactics and strategies are manifestly sinful, nonetheless we are all guilty of having done it at one time or another, be it in a formal debate setting or with our husbands and wives.

In conclusion I want to reiterate the fact that cross-examination is important; it is a safeguard afforded to us by God’s common grace to help point out sin and protect us from sin while we communicate with one another; this is especially so in the Church. When we confuse a simply, and perhaps preliminary dialogue for debate, we may very well miss out on this very useful form of communication, in fact we may not communicate truthfully at all if this precious safeguard is forsaken. One last thing to remember is that we are all guilty of miscommunication and where it is sinful, this entry should remind me in particular of the long road toward glorification that is yet to be traveled.

By Faith through Grace?

The five “solas” of the Protestant Reformation were: sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia, sola Christo, and soli Deo Gloria.

The regular articulation of the resultant soteriology was that we are saved “by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone”. Founders pastor Douglas Shivers had this to say about the doctrine of justification and the Southern Baptist's confusion of it and how to make it clear,

“When preachers cannot distinguish and articulate these truths, and then cannot find help to do so in a sound confession, the task is made much more difficult. Recovery of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone ought to be our priority.”

Christians by necessity are confessional, therefore our creeds ought to be as clear statements of our beliefs as possible. Sadly, what we find in a quick overview of at least American Christianity is that the vast majority of persons calling themselves Christians cannot articulate the doctrine of justification and its immediate theological context. What’s more is that many of them don’t even think that is important! Just check out some of the polls conducted by Shane Rosenthal at “The White Horse Inn”.

One symptom of this nonsense is contained in Rick Warren’s latest offering where he says that (paraphrase) we need to participate in a second reformation; the first was about reforming creeds, but this present one is about the reformation of deeds. This sloppy handling of the distinction between law and gospel is born out of a mishandling of the doctrine of justification. In a theological environment influenced by the likes of Zane Hodges and his model of sanctification, it should surprise no one that Warren and others stomp out the mantra about deeds. The problem isn’t that we have truck loads of Christians who have all their theology straight and simply need to reform their deeds (and we all certainly should do that every day) but what we do have is truck loads of persons who are only professing to be Christians who actually need to repent and believe before they make any attempt at behavioral reformation.

The denial of creeds and the adoption of behavioral reform outside of Christian discipleship are for some, the symptoms of a semi-Pelagian view of regeneration and for others, they are the disease that causes them to embrace a semi-Pelagian view of regeneration. But as far as the Reformation is concerned, both the grace of regeneration and the faith by which it is received are contained in the gospel, but today instead of hearing the biblical statement from Eph. 2:8-9 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”, what we actually hear is exactly backwards, because so many have forsaken God’s sovereignty over regeneration many have a theology that states that: the simple faith of man obliges God toward his regeneration, in other words, …for by faith you are saved, through grace, and that grace not of yourselves: that grace is the gift of God.

The problems that lie therein are both deep and wide!

Eight Revealing Questions: Intro: Installment #2

Revealing Questions Concerning the Will of God Over His Creation:
Installment number two

1. Does God know our future choices?
2. Were our choices really free?
3. Can I be forced to choose something I do not want?
4. Why do we choose what we choose; what factors determine or cause our choices?
5. Could we actually have chosen differently; can I choose against the decree of God?
6. Was my choice determined?

Above are some questions I have asked myself as I consider the depths of the topic of compatibilism. There are eight questions in six different venues, if you will. But I should begin with a brief definition of the term compatiblism. Consider this definition from J. W. Hendryx, author of "Just Because Eleven (11) Reasons to Reject Libertarian Free Will."

"Compatibilism is the belief that we make choices for a reason, that the will is not independent of the person and we will always choose what we want (Deut 30:16, 17, 19; Matt 17:12; James 1:14). It means that we can act freely (without coercion), not independent from God or free from our desires, but free to act according to our desires and nature. In other words, a self-determining will (to choose to act as we please) is compatible with determinism."

The first biblical passage I personally like to point out regarding this topic is Genesis 50:18-20.

18 His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, "Behold, we are your servants." 19 But Joseph said to them, "Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

In my subsequent posts on this particular topic, I intend to submit answers to these questions. Ultimately, these questions are an attempt to require persons to seriously consider the way they think about God’s omniscience, the nature of the choices we make, and God's ability to do as He pleases. Feel free to comment with your own answers to these questions.

Revealing Questions Concerning the Will of God Over His Creation

Installment number one

Do you believe that God's deity is established by His radical freedom or that man's humanity is established by his radical freedom?

As I consider just exactly what 4 and 5 point Arminians and other various folk who deny the truths present in what we call "the doctrines of grace", I think I can boil the observation down to a difference over "rights". We speak a great deal about rights in America: religious rights, the freedom of speech, the right to an attorney, to name a few.

We American evangelicals unfortunately don't segregate our fight for our rights to an exclusively political realm, no, we (due to our total depravity which is often denied) often see that fight going on even between believers and their God...not that God has to fight to defend His rights over His creation, but that we creatures often play the fool in an attempt to impress our will on God. Certainly this is a mistake made in the books of theology of many who call themselves Christian, even evangelical (whatever that means anymore), but perhaps even more importantly, this is a mistake made even in the theological lives of those who call themselves Reformed or Calvinistic. This is nothing new, nothing uncommon, and nothing that will be relieved before glory, but it actually IS the struggle of the Christian life, the struggle Paul spoke of in Romans 7 that even believers practically attempt to usurp the mighty will of God; replacing His will with their own and lesser joys for joy in the Great Benefactor. Think of this: when we worry (sinfully meditate on something that may or may not happen rather than meditating on God's love for His children, His absolutely perfect knowledge of all things past present and future, and His sovereign ability to do as He pleases) we are practically rejecting those precious truths, and don't fool yourself, you probably do it more often than you would care to admit...I know I do.

Those who reject God's sovereignty (though they give lip service to the word) ultimately and inevitably try to overcome the will of God with their own. Regarding the diagnostic question I asked above, the reasonable man constrains his theology and anthropology by the Words of Scripture and determines that God's very deity is established by the biblical fact that He is able to do, though constrained only by His characteristic holiness, whatever He pleases. On the other hand, others reject the biblical revelation and assert that God has limited His sovereignty (a manifest absurdity to be sure) and that the very image of God in man and man's very humanity is established by man's "radical freedom", his ability to do or to do otherwise without any constraining element from without or within. Typically those who espouse that view necessarily don't even give God that privilege, and the bible and logic both clearly present God's will as being subject to His holiness and His ability to impress His will over His possessions, all creation...

first time out...

Well I finally decided to dive into the blogoshere. Please note that the aesthetics here may shift from time to time as I am familiarizing myself with the editing tools (not to mention the fact that I like such a change from time to time).

Just a little about the title of my blog: simul justus et peccatore is a Latin phrase used at least as long ago as the German reformer, Martin Luther, and brought to my attention about 4 years ago by R.C. Sproul, a man who emits the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The phrase encapsulates the idea that the apostle Paul put forth in Romans 7 as he described the Christian situation as, having been made no longer slaves of sin, yet remaining sinners, but as Christians always struggling against that sin nature.

Another tid-bit of information about myself, what I call my "digital signature", that name I use to sign my comments on other blogs, and emails, etc. jAsOn - I use it as a consolidation of the closing "In Christ" and my typical signature "Jason", so that in my name (the representation of myself) I have Christ (represented by the Alpha and the Omega). Christ spoke of this in John 17:

22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world

That's all for now, just an intro, but more to come if the Lord wills.

jAsOn