Francis Chan

Normally, I couldn’t care less about young, charismatic, hyper-extroverted, hip, West Coast preachers — which Francis Chan totally is — but it seems that he actually read his Bible, with humility. This is what mega-churchianity looks like when it apprehends obedience.

ECT on Mary

If you have not already read the latest statement from Evangelicals and Catholics Together, you should. The topic is Mary. Most ecumenical statements are pretty bland and predictable. We’re all familiar with the conciliatory nuances involved with statements on soteriology or ecclesiology. But when it comes to mariology, it’s pretty hard to nuance “conceived without sin” or “bodily assumed into heaven.” So, we have the Evangelicals saying, more or less, “Nope, not gonna go there. What Bible are you reading?” Actually, they did a very admirable job of accommodating, albeit minimally, certain intentions enshrined in the Catholic position. For example:

Evangelicals find unnecessary and unbiblical the notion that Mary was preserved from the stain of original sin from the first moment of her conception. Still, we affirm much of what this teaching is intended to convey—that Mary was the object of God’s gracious election in Christ; that she was uniquely prepared to become the mother of our Lord; that she is an extraordinary model of the call to discipleship and the life of holiness; that her assent to the purpose of the Lord was itself the result of God’s unmerited favor toward her—an example of sola gratia; and that she should be honored and called “blessed one” in all places and by all generations.

The entirety of the Evangelical response is marked by a deep understanding of both the history and the theology behind the Catholic position. Thus, they rightly note the apocryphal sources as varying tradents, as well as the pious intentions in the trajectories which yielded the dogmatic formulas. I was very impressed. I would really like to know who was the principal writer for the Evangelical response — perhaps Professor John Woodbridge (TEDS) and/or Professor Kevin Vanhoozer (Wheaton), signers of the statement.

The Catholic portion of the statement was also well done. Of particular interest, the Catholic position makes it clear from the beginning that they are working with a “progressive revelation” of sorts (of course, they would never say “progressive revelation”). Thus, we read:

The Bible is the foundation of all Catholic teaching. Catholics also believe, in accordance with Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit to teach the Church all things (John 14:16), that, under the influence of the Spirit, the gospel of grace is more fully and completely understood. Thus the Catholic Church believes that in its listening to, praying with, and reflecting on the truth of Holy Scripture, the Spirit is active as a divine guide, leading to a rich and comprehensive consideration of God’s Word. The Spirit leads the Church to see the full implications of the gospel through the teaching of the early Fathers, through ecumenical councils, through prayer and liturgy, through the lives of the saints, and through the study of theologians. All of these help the Church to see more clearly the profound meaning of Christ’s message and the extraordinary role of his mother, Mary, in the history of salvation.

The key word here is “implications.” St. Thomas and others would say, “fittingness.” The bridge between fittingness and knowledge is the Roman Catholic magisterium. That’s the divide between Evangelicals and Catholics.

The balance-wheel of Christendom

A quote and my comment.

The Quote

“Should this type of [Calvinist] doctrine and this form of the religious experience disappear, Christendom would lose its balance-wheel. For it is no disparagement of the energy of evangelical Protestantism of all varieties, in the defense of the common faith, and the war upon the common unbelief, to say that the Genevan theology is always in the front whenever a fearless position has to be taken in behalf of an unpopular but revealed truth; whenever the Christian herald must announce the solemn alternatives of salvation and perdition to a sensuous, a pleasure-loving, and an irritable generation; whenever, in short, the stern and severe work of the perpetual campaign on earth against moral evil has to be done. The best interests of the Church require the continual existence and influence of that comprehensive and self-consistent creed which Augustine formulated out of Scripture, and Calvin reaffirmed and re-enforced. Evangelical Arminians who do not adopt it feel its influence, praying it in their prayers and singing it in their hymns; and Rationalists of all grades while recoiling from it acknowledge its massiveness and strength. It may, therefore, be confidently expected that whatever be the fortunes of a particular Church, or the tendencies of a particular time, this form of doctrine will perpetually survive in Christendom like the Scriptures out of which it was derived.” (William G. T. Shedd, Calvinism: Pure and Mixed, a.d. 1893, republished by Banner of Truth, 1986, pp. 150-151.)

The Comment

By the use of “balance-wheel,” may we suppose that the other forces, the non-Calvinist determinants in the broader Church, are likewise necessary? Is the “enthusiasm” of folk Protestantism, as found especially among the Baptists and Methodists, necessary for the vitality and general sustenance of Protestantism? Can Calvinism, with its anti-Romanticism, encompass the broad range of personalities necessary for a truly catholic church? Is the work of Michael Horton, D. G. Hart, R. Scott Clark, et al. just a (futile?) attempt to push the pendulum back toward confessional orthodoxy just so it can swing back toward the free church in the succeeding generation?

Ergo, Jonathan Edwards is awesome.

Edwards on “the pathetical way of preaching”

Jonathan Edwards on how to “beget true apprehensions” of God, in preaching:

“If the subject be in its own nature worthy of very great affection, then speaking of it with great affection is most agreeable to the nature of that subject…and therefore has most of a tendency to beget true ideas of it. …I should think myself in the way of my duty, to raise the affections of my hearers as high as possibly I can, provided that they are affected with nothing but truth …I know it has long been fashionable to despise a very earnest and pathetical way of preaching; and they only have been valued as preachers, who have shown the greatest extent of learning, strength of reason, and correctness of method and language. But I humbly conceive it has been for want of understanding or duly considered human nature, that such preaching has been thought to have the greatest tendency to answer the ends of preaching.” *

And, once again, notice that the end of preaching is to beget knowledge of God — knowledge which must include the affections and the will, as well as the intellect. Scholasticism (knowledge of God as the end of religion) and Pietism (the charity beget by religion) make love in the mind of Jonathan Edwards.

* Quoted in J. I. Packer, “Jonathan Edwards and the Theology of Revival,” Puritan Papers, vol. 2 (P&R, 2001), p. 27. Found in Jonathan Edwards, Works, 2 vols. (London, 1840), vol. 1, p. 391.

Picture (above) taken from the cover of The Preaching of Jonathan Edwards (Banner of Truth, 2008) by John Carrick.

contra Wright

There have been two noteworthy recent critiques of N. T. Wright’s latest book and his scholarly project in general. The first is by Paul Helm (Regent College) in a series of posts at his blog, with the most recent: “Why Covenant Faithfulness is not Divine Righteousness (and cannot be).” This is an excellent critical assessment of Wright — clearly written and clearly focused. In sum, Helm faults Wright for being a historian and not a dogmatician. Wright’s narrative trumps any substantive doctrine of God. Helm:

“Sure enough, God’s attitude to sin, his grace, the provision of forgiveness, the vindication of men and women by Christ – is part of what it means for God to be righteous. But this does not exhaust God’s righteousness, it (merely!) expresses it. God is faithful to the covenant of grace and redemption from sin that he has righteously established. It is for this reason that Piper thinks that Wright’s insistence that God’s righteousness is his covenant faithfulness is a ‘belittling’ of it, as Wright puts it (74). Rather, it must be filled out, by understanding God’s righteousness as an essential feature of his character. If anyone ‘belittles’ it is Wright, who reduces the righteousness of God to a set of God’s actions. But God acts (and must act) consistently with his nature.”

Helm goes on to relate this with Wright’s weakened and inadequate doctrine of justification.

The second recent critique of Wright’s book is from Gerald Bray (Beeson Divinity School) in the latest issue of Churchman, an evangelical Church of England journal. Bray’s editorial is more of a survey than a rebuttal. Nonetheless, he is not a fan of Wright’s work:

“Bishop Wright’s views on Paul, Israel and justification have been known for many years, and have often been debated in scholarly circles. As this latest book makes clear, those views have not been widely accepted — indeed, they have been openly opposed by almost everyone engaged in the field, from the most conservative Evangelicals to the most ardent liberals. In response to this, Bishop Wright has gone on digging his heels in ever deeper, and has defended his corner with great determination, despite the fact that his disciples seem to come mainly from the ranks of those who have not studied the subject in any depth. Many of them are students who are bored with traditional ideas that their elders expect them to absorb in parrot fashion, and who are therefore responsive to an alternative voice, like Bishop Wright’s, whose powerful rhetoric has carried them along and helped them across whatever hurdles may be thrown up by the facts.”

That’s pretty harsh, but I think this and the rest of his assessment is correct.

I’m old school in my atonement theology (I agree with Drs. Helm and Bray), but I hope this wave of criticism does not result in a new fashionable dismissal of all things “historical,” “narrative,” “biblical theology,” “redemptive history,” and so on. Surely we have learned a lot from these approaches, even if we find them (some of them) inadequate.

Wilberforce

I am currently reading Eric Metaxas’ biography of William Wilberforce, and it is most enjoyable. Metaxas is a gifted and lively writer. I wish every biographer was this good. The blurb from Bookpage on the back cover says it well, “Metaxas tells Wilberforce’s story with a charm and energy reminiscent of a favorite history professor, painting a captivating picture of this era of social reform that revolutionized the world.” Yet, hero-worship and over-romanticization is thankfully avoided, and a scholarly attention to social context and secular forces is well-balanced in conjunction with due recognition of faith and the work of God. Buy it and enjoy! The movie is good too.

God Punished Jesus

Edward John Carnell has a very strong doctrine of God’s wrath and its correlate, penal substitutionary atonement. His approach is unique and further highlights, in my opinion, the essential nature of this doctrine. He focuses on the effect of sin to cause a breaking of fellowship, because sin is a loss in the dignities — capacity for love and trust — which makes a man a man. Malice, lies, adultery, pride, etc. break the bond uniting friends and lovers. The necessary and proper result is hatred against the sin(s) which break the bond, which hinder fellowship. A person who does not hate and condemn the evil, that breaks the fellowship of love and trust, is not a person who truly valued the fellowship.

But, much more does God value the fellowship between himself and his creatures, and much more does God hate the evil that disrupts the mutual communion of love and trust that should exist between God and man. On man’s side, sin elicits a profound sorrow and grief once he realizes — and to the extent that he can realize — the holy God, the Father of Jesus Christ. Christ himself was the one who wholly bore this sorrow and grief, because he was the one who wholly bore the sin and evil that breaks fellowship.

That sets the stage for Professor Carnell’s exposition. This is some strong language, but rightly so:

It was this type of sorrow which Jesus Christ passed through as he bore the pains of the second death. When the sins of the world were laid on the Son, the Father obliged to turn away, crying, “You are morally blameworthy; I cannot look upon you.” For this reason the Son cried out in agony, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The loss of the Father’s fellowship was infinitely painful to the heart of the Son.

The Son, who from everlasting was the object of the Father’s supreme pleasure, empirically felt what it meant to have that fellowship cut off on the ground of the guilt which he had taken upon himself as the Second Adam. As in the Old Testament, where the priest laid his hands upon the head of the goat, making it the scapegoat for the sins of Israil (Lev. 16: 21-22), so “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (II Cor. 5:21)

The spirit within man quivers at even the thought of the Son of God passing through the agony of hell, that he might redeem a holy church unto himself. We must put our hands over our eyes to keep from being blinded by this sacrificial splendor. At the moment Christ endured the second death, the only person the Father could see on the cross was one full of sin — sin which was not Christ’s own, but of which nonetheless he had become the vicarious agent. The sword in the heart of the Son was the withdrawal of the Father’s fellowship. In the instant when the guilt and transgressions of the world were transferred to his cross, the Son (as it were) beheld the tears in the eyes of the Father. There was guilt in the heavenly family.

Abraham had raised the knife to slay Isaac, but he was spared the grief of the lad’s death because God supplied the ram. But in the case of Christ, the Father was pleased to sacrifice his Son, for love knew that only through Christ’s taking sin upon his cross could justice flow from God to the race of sinful men.

It was with a loud cry that Christ released the agony of his heart, not just a mild registration of uneasiness. He bore the scourging with equanimity; the spitting and the nailing were taken in course; but when the Father withdrew fellowship on the grounds of the Son’s guilt, the pain was too great to be contained. The Son of God shrieked in sorrow.

Edward John Carnell, A Philosophy of the Christian Religion (Eerdmans, 1952; Baker, 1980; Wipf & Stock, 2007), pp. 382-3.

D. L. Moody: Conversion and Delight

“I thought the old sun shone brighter than it ever had before. I thought it was just smiling upon me. Do you know I fell in love with the birds? I had never cared for them before. It seemed to me I was in love with all creation.”

That’s Dwight L. Moody on his conversion. And here is an excerpt from his sermon, “The Work of the Holy Ghost,” on love:

Now the work of the Holy Ghost is also to impart love. Just turn to Romans 5:5: “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.” The real fruit that we look for in a young convert is love…. Go into a society of young converts. If you could have been in our meeting last night you would have seen love and joy in every face, except a few inquiring ones. They all tell the same story. They were of different nationalities, perhaps, but they had only one story to relate. They loved every one, and told how much love and pity they felt for all. And if a man gets up and talks bitterly against any one, and professes to be a young convert, you may believe it is a spurious conversion. It is counterfeit. It has not got the ring of heaven in it, because a man when he is converted will love every one. Not only that, but I have noticed this, that when a man is full of the Holy Ghost he is the very last man to be complaining of other people. He loves everybody too tenderly. He loves even a cold church, and is anxious to lift them up and bring them to a kinder feeling and sympathy.

And I want to say here that I think a good many people have gotten into this habit of coldness. A man told me the other day that he felt it to be his duty to go up to a certain church and open on them when he got a chance for their lukewarmness, and I thought if he could just get a look at these young converts here he would feel differently. For when a man is himself cold he looks upon everybody else as cold too. When a man is himself warm he will talk about everybody else in the same view as of himself; he will talk about the love of God that is in our hearts, and that is what we want. If we only just felt filled with love, how easy it would be to reach man! All these barriers between us would be broken down. If you can only convince the greatest blasphemer and infidel in New York that you really love him you can reach him. What we want, therefore, is this love, and that is the work of the Holy Ghost to impart; and let us pray today that the love of God may be shed abroad in all our hearts.

A Treasury of Evangelical Writings, edited by David Otis Fuller, pp. 415, 419.

“A sin unto death” (Forsyth on 1 John, pt. 2)

In the first part, Forsyth is dealing with the contradictions (paradoxes) in 1 John, to wit, he who abides in Christ does not sin, yet we continue to sin and require daily confession (as also taught by Jesus in the Lord’s Prayer). Now, Forsyth finds the solution to the contradictions in the two types of sin briefly mentioned in chapter 5. These are classic proof texts for the Catholic doctrine of mortal sin, which is not entirely discounted by Forsyth’s presentation. As per usual, Forsyth is in top form in his biblical exposition, and this is far better than anything you will find in the current academic commentaries on the Johannine epistles.

The Unlikely Disciple

Liberty University

Books & Culture has posted a book review of Kevin Roose’s The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University. The review is insightful, and the book seems to be very fascinating. Roose is a student at Brown, who decided to spend a semester at Liberty, the Baptist university founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell. Coming from a run-of-the-mill liberal Northeast household, Roose was curious to understand the “other side.” Thankfully, he is generous, open-minded, and objective (something that typically eludes the average “liberal” inquirer into evangelical faith and culture). Check out his YouTube trailer for the book.

The greatest testament to Liberty is his overwhelmingly positive impression of the students, their embodiment of the love of Christ. I’m not too surprised. I was raised in a Baptist church and school that was pretty much Liberty University in microcosm. The students from my school that went to Liberty, or similar colleges, were among the most devoted to Christ, insofar as these things can be surmised. We can, and should, criticize continuing remnants of fundamentalism at Liberty, but the most important thing — as God will judge us — is our faith in Christ, our trust in Him, and the love from this fount that extends to our neighbor. Higher education, typically, knows nothing of holiness as an academic telos.