discipline… an initiative of grace (2)

the grace of church discipline

One of the ways God graciously disciplines his children is through the local church.  Tragically, church discipline has all but disappeared from many evangelical churches.  For some, the very idea, shocks.  This shows how far we have drifted from NT standards.  There are a number of reasons why church discipline is in the doldrums.  Let me mention two.

insensitivity to sin

Accommodation to our western liberal culture has hardened our hearts.  We are insensitive to sin (in belief or behaviour) and treat it lightly.  There are many parallels between our culture and that of ancient Corinth.  Corinth was ‘materially prosperous, intellectually alert, and morally corrupt’.  Even in the pagan world Corinth had a reputation for debauchery.  The Corinthian church was a young church (no elders had apparently been appointed) but even given this they were inexcusably influenced by their culture and as a result allowed behaviour to exist among them that every spiritual instinct ought to have abhorred and rejected.  Paul writes,

1Cor 5:1-2 (ESV)
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

The church considered itself to have attained no mean level of spirituality (in knowledge, gift and experience) yet it had little moral sense or conscience.  It tolerated behaviour that even many in debauched Corinth would find shameful.  The Corinthian church is a mirror for contemporary Western churches.  All too often we tolerate or treat lightly what our renewed hearts ought to tell us is shameful and deeply sinful.  This may be, as it was in Corinth, sexual sin, or it may be other forms of unacceptable behaviour.  Paul cites a few in this chapter:

1Cor 5:11 (ESV)
But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler-not even to eat with such a one.

Elsewhere false teachers (teachers who deny the basics of the gospel) are another group who must be disciplined (1 Tim 1:20; Rev 2:14-16).  Notice that those who are disciplined in this case are excommunicated from fellowship.  This  means they are not free to come to the gatherings of the church,

1Cor 5:2,7, 13 (ESV)
Let him who has done this be removed from among you… Cleanse out the old leaven… “Purge the evil person from among you.”

but it also means that the Christians in the church should not befriend the disciplined member socially.  Paul is clear,

1Cor 5:9-11 (ESV)
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people- not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler-not even to eat with such a one.

‘Eating’ is not (as some bizarrely suggest) the Lord’s Supper, it is clearly social interaction; it is mixing with the disciplined believer in the world not the church that is in view.   In one sense, this exhortation should be obvious.  If someone is forbidden to attend church meetings as a means of discipline then it makes little sense for Christians to meet and fraternize with him elsewhere.  The excommunicated person is be avoided, even shunned (2 Thess 3:6-15).  They are to be deprived of Christian company (I assume the exception of close family).  Does this seem draconian to us?  It does.  Is it what the Holy Spirit teaches?  It is.  Why will become apparent later in this post.  But reasons apart, we must assume the Holy Spirit is the best judge of how to pastor such difficult situations. Certainly his wisdom is preferable to ours, and that of Western liberal culture (which has no success rate in checking sin).

Insensitivity to sin, therefore, is a principal reason why church discipline is in decline.  However, there is another reason, and an equally disturbing one, namely, an inadequate grasp of  grace.

insensitivity to grace

We have, as we noted in the previous post, dangerously mistaken ideas about grace.  C21 evangelical grace is too often soft and indulgent.  It assumes God is easy-going and accommodating and protests that we must not judge.  Bonhoeffer called it ‘cheap grace’.  He defined ‘cheap grace’ as

“cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”

But cheap grace is not true grace.   True grace desires the best for God’s people.  It is determined that they should deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and live self-controlled, godly, upright lives.  It is resolutely committed to purifying God’s people and making them a people in whom God’s rights are realized (Tit 2:11-14).  If this requires rebuke, correction, discipline, even church discipline, then so be it.  Grace will go to great lengths to train us in godliness for godliness is our best life now and our only hope for life in the future.  Grace will be as tough as necessary to bring us to glory.  As God says to his people in the OT, ‘You only have I known [loved and chosen] of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you’ (Amos 3:2).

Church discipline is neither  loveless nor unkind, but an initiative of grace.

grace for the church

God cares deeply about his people.  He is deeply protective of them. He desires their purity and godliness.    Purity and holiness though hard-won is easily lost.  Consequently they must be protected from all that will corrupt them.   Paul says,

1Cor 5:6-8 (ESV)
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 

The feast of the Passover in Israel was a commemoration of their redemption from Egypt.  Immediately following this feast of passover was the feast of unleavened bread.  For seven days after Passover  the nation ate only unleavened bread.  Leaven was an agent of corruption and so the seven-day feast of unleavened bread symbolised their rejection and expulsion of  all that was corrupting.  Paul reminds them of the cost of their redemption – Christ the passover lamb – and that this redemption was that they should be a holy people – a people who would put away from them all that corrupted and destroyed.  For sin among God’s people is intolerable, and if tolerated, is a corruption that spreads (Cf. Gals 5:9).   What one does (or believes)  others soon copy, especially if they see there is no consequence, and soon the whole church is deeply compromised (Cf. 2 Tim 2:16-18; 1 Tim 5:10).  If you doubt that this is true simply look at the sin that is widespread in churches where discipline is all but non-existent. The pattern is clear.  Sin that is not disciplined quickly spreads. What was initially condemned is soon condoned and  finally commended; such is the ready corruption of the human heart if left unchecked and unjudged.

God is jealous for the well-being of his people.  And so he graciously protects them from all that will destroy them.  This is why church discipline is so important.  When the church disciplines it is protecting God’s people from harm and spiritual danger.  Indeed it is simply preserving what they really are – ‘a new lump, as you really are unleavened’, a holy people.  The church is God’s distinctive counter-culture.  It is a people distinct from Egypt and Corinth and all other cultures intended by its very holiness and distinctiveness to praise the excellencies of God.  Peter writes,

1Pet 2:9-12 (ESV)
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light… Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. 

Incidentally, the danger of embracing these ‘passions… which war against the soul‘ is why those who belong to the church ought to have as little to do as possible with the person expelled.  Their own spiritual safety is at stake… we must avoid people who are dangerously compromised spiritually.  On more than one occasion Paul urges avoidance. The first two references below clearly refers to those who persist in teaching what is contrary to apostolic teaching, those who preach a false gospel.  The third text includes false teachers but goes much further – it embraces belief and behaviour that is contrary to the gospel.

Rom 16:17 (ESV)
I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.

Titus 3:9-11 (ESV)
But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned. 

2Tim 3:1-5 (ESV)
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

Is Paul an extremist?  The question itself is blasphemous.  For if he is then so was Christ for Paul’s teaching is simply an echo of what Jesus taught.

Matt 18:15-20 (ESV)
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” 

The context is narrower (it is an offence against an individual) the audience is not quite the same (Jewish followers before local NT churches existed) but the principle is made clear.  There are situations (in this case a hard, self-justifying, self-willed spirit that will listen to none) where someone  must be avoided; ‘And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. ‘  Jews shunned and avoided tax collectors and gentiles. Cf. 2 Thess 3:6-15

Moreover, notice that this discipline is imposed not simply by the elders but by the whole church.  It is the church  who ‘bind and loose’.  That is, the church has authority to accept or reject, to bring in or put out.  The church may consist only of a few (two or three) but these people have  the authority of Christ to receive or expel.  This is why, while it may be elders or spiritual leaders who are principally involved with the offender, if discipline must take place then the reason must be clear to all for it is the church that disciplines and not merely the elders.  1 Cor 5 corroborates this.  Paul writes to the church,

1Cor 5:3-5 (ESV)
When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

Equally, when someone is received into fellowship the whole church should be informed about their faith and spiritual journey.  The church receives and rejects (Cf 2 Cor 2:6).

Thus the case for not associating with the disciplined person appears to me to be overwhelming.  Paul’s language bears repeating:

1Cor 5:9-13 (ESV)
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people- not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler-not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.” 

However, Paul’s comment ‘a little leaven leavens the whole lump’ probably is even more forceful than stressing the spreading nature of sin.  He is probably saying that the presence of even a little leaven constitutes the whole as leavened.  Even if sin doesn’t spread, its presence taints and compromises the whole – consider Achan’s sin (Josh 7).  Certainly it takes only one tolerated sin to bring shame and dishonour on the whole church and so upon the name of God himself.  We must remember, we are the temple of God and God’s temple is holy.  So holy in fact that if someone destroys this temple God will destroy him, a warning given by Paul to false teachers in the first instance (1 Cor 3: 16,17).

Church discipline, then, is God acting in grace to preserve the purity of his people and the glory of his own name.

grace for the disciplined

When your child behaves abominably what do you do?  Do you simply ignore their behaviour and hope it will improve?  If you do you are stoking up trouble for you and the child.  You are doing him no favour.  Proverbs wisely observes,  ‘Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, ​​​​​​​but the rod of discipline drives it far from him (Prov 22:15). ​​​ It is neither wise nor loving to allow  a child’s self-will to be indulged.  Proverbs reminds us that ‘Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him’ (Prov 13:24).  Discipline, appropriately administered, is a response of love.  In the words of Proverbs, yet again,  ‘in the reproofs of discipline is the way of life’ (Prov 6:23).  The same is of course true of the children of God.

Church discipline, like God’s direct discipline, is not an act of condemnation but of confrontation and correction.  The discipline is intended to break self-will, impress upon the disciplined the seriousness of rebellious sinful behaviour, and how unacceptable it is in God’s children.  God will not indulge sons who disgrace his name.  He will not simply ignore children who sin with a high hand.  If they are to have a place in his family they must learn how unacceptable wilfully sinful behaviour is, and if this requires stern discipline then so be it.  This is precisely Paul’s point at the beginning of 1 Cor 5, note again these words,

1Cor 5:2-5 (ESV)
Let him who has done this be removed from among you.  For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

The purpose of discipline is plainly not retributive but remedial: it’s aim is ‘the destruction of the flesh’.  This of course is the purpose of all God’s disciplining of his people.  The discipline teaches the seriousness of our sin.  Delivering ‘to Satan’ it seems is exile from the warmth and joy  of church fellowship  to the world, the theatre of Satan’s power.  This exile is shock therapy for the soul.  The true child of God will feel keenly the loss of blessing.  His mind will contrast his past blessings among God’s people with his present exile and this will bring him to his senses.

This is why it is so wrongheaded for church members to socialize with any removed from fellowship (with such a one not even to eat).  It is undermining the discipline and doing the one disciplined no favours.  The child who is banished to his room for misbehaviour feels no effect if all his friends go to his room to play with him.  The discipline has little effect.  The banishment is intended to give time to reflect.  It is intended to make him aware of love abused and so for a time forfeited.  The weight of the wrongdoing is brought home by privileges withdrawn, especially the acceptance and approval of those loved.  This will bring the child to his sense and produce contrition and confession of wrongdoing.

For a repentance to be deep and life-giving rather than superficial discipline must take place and the whole church must uphold it.  And where it does, the true believer will respond.

Of course such discipline is drastic and severe.  Language like ‘the destruction of the flesh’ and ‘deliver to Satan’ makes this plain, but sometimes drastic surgery is vital.  In the church it is vital for the well-being of the body of Christ as a whole and it is vital for the person disciplined as well.  For the gracious intention is that discipline now will prevent destruction later (his spirit will be saved in the day of the Lord).  Proverbs gives us its wisdom again, ‘​​​​​​​​There is severe discipline for him who forsakes the way; ​​​​​​​whoever hates reproof will die’. ​​​ (Prov 15:10).  We should be in no doubt that blatant wilful unchecked sin  puts the perpetrator outside of salvation.  1 Cor 6 (the immediately following chapter) unequivocally warns,

1Cor 6:9-10 (ESV)
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

In Galatians the same grave warning is given.

Gal 5:16-21 (ESV)
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh… Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Ungodly behaviour like those catalogued banishes not merely from the local church but from the final city of God, the New Jerusalem (Rev 22:15) and makes our final destiny the Lake of Fire (Rev 21:6-8).

Rev 21:6-8 (ESV)
And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” 

The issues at stake are significant, of eternal significance (Cf.  Jas 5:19,20).  This is why church discipline properly administered is gracious and life-giving.  It teaches through present banishment the danger of eternal banishment, jolting the transgressor to his senses and repentance.

In 2 Cor we read of the success of such discipline.

2Cor 2:5-11 (ESV)
Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure-not to put it too severely-to all of you. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him… so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.

The discipline has had its desired effect.  The one who has sinned has come to feel his sin and has known ‘godly sorrow that leads to repentance’ (2 Cor 7), evident in that  the discipline is in danger of overwhelming him and doubtless to by the presence of changed attitudes and behaviour (Acts 26:20).  The time has come for reaffirmed love and acceptance (note, the implication, that discipline involves love withheld).  Discipline reveals the heart.  ‘​​​​​​​​Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, ​​​​​​​but he who hates reproof is stupid’ ​(Prov 12:1).  Where the transgressor is a true child of God, and all discipline assumes he is (1 Cor 5:11; 2 Thess 3:13-15), discipline will have its desired effect.  The words of the Psalmist in Ps 118 reveal the godly response to discipline: recognition it is from the Lord; no resentment but rather thankfulness; a desire to live in the presence of God; and an awareness that this presence is a place of righteousness (Cf. Ps 15; 24).

Ps 118:18-19 (ESV)
​​​​​​​​The Lord has disciplined me severely, ​​​​​​​but he has not given me over to death. ​​​ ​​​​​​​​Open to me the gates of righteousness, ​​​​​​​that I may enter through them ​​​​​​​and give thanks to the Lord. ​​​

These are simply a few reflections on church discipline.  For some they will undoubtedly seem mediaeval and monstrous.  Yet only a couple of generations ago these would have been virtually unquestioned evangelical orthodoxy.  But, gut-reactions aside, the question is – are they biblical?

Other aspects of church discipline have not been considered, for example, the duration of exclusion, the spirit of discipline (Gals 6:1,2), post-discipline consequences (1 Tim 3:10), and other less extreme forms of discipline  (1 Tim 5:20, Tit 1:13; Gal 6:1).  These were beyond the aim of the post, namely, to instil confidence in biblical discipline and to establish it for what it is, an initiative of grace.

an open mind

It is fashionable to celebrate ‘an open mind’.  However, as C K  Chesterton said,

“The purpose of an open mind, like an open mouth, is to close on something solid.

discipline… an initiative of grace (1)

a doxology to grace… a preamble

The gospel is the announcing of extravagant grace.  It proclaims to a disgraced, enslaved and hopeless world  how ‘the grace of God has appeared to all men bringing salvation’ (Tit 2:11).  In Jesus, the embodiment of grace and truth, God’s rescue plan for the nations is unveiled.  In Christ, God’s grace flows out in all its fullness and extravagance to  all who gladly submit to his reign.  In Christ, we receive grace upon grace  (Jn 1).  Christians rightly rejoice in grace.  We exult in grace.  God’s Kingdom, in Christ, is a Kingdom of grace. Its subjects stand in grace (Roms 5:2); live in the reign of grace (Roms  5:21); grow in the realm of grace (2 Pet 3:18)   The good news about the kingdom which we embrace is the ‘word of grace’ (Acts 20:32).  We are: called by grace (Gals 1:15); justified by his grace as a gift (Roms 3:24) ; and made alive by grace (Eph 2).   The fulfilment of all that is promised rests on grace (Roms 4:16)  For those who belong to God’s Kingdom, God is simply, ‘the God of all grace’.

Praise God.  Praise God for his love before time that chose rebels against his goodness, people corrupt and full of sin, forgave all their sins, and made them, in Christ, his sons and daughters and heirs of his glory.  Saving grace is God’s incomprehensible goodness and love to the undeserving, delivering them from a fallen world and all that is part of it.  It is every activity of the triune God in bringing many sons to glory.   It is glorious (Eph 1:6), immeasurable (Eph 2:7); surpassing (2 Cor 9:14); and, in the believer, more than sufficient for all his needs (2 Cor 12:9).  Praise God.

Praise God for grace.  Preach grace and glory in grace.  Live in grace.

distorting grace

But…

… preach grace as it is and not a romanticized, sentimentalized,  parody of grace.   In our effete society all too often grace is love that never hurts; giving that never expects; acceptance that never questions; and favour that never reproves.  Grace, is regularly a synonym for indulgence and spoiling, for pampering and coddling, a spiritual massage.  Grace, it would seem, is never outraged, never judges, never censures, never frowns, and never chastens.   Christ apparently is a King, a Lord, who neither demands not warns and God  is a Father who will not admonish and discipline.   Grace like this is simply a panacea, a fix, to make us feel good.  It is merely a soft toy for the soul.   Such views of grace are profoundly unbiblical and dangerously distorted.    They are caricatures, indeed counterfeits of grace.

disciplining grace

Grace, properly understood, is not only forgiveness of sins, it is the ongoing purifying redeeming activity of God in his people as he rebukes, admonishes, corrects, afflicts, remonstrates, warns, teaches, trains and disciplines.  One way or another grace will train us,’ to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works (Tit 2:11-14).  Grace is not simply a message from God we believe it is an activity by God in our lives we experience… and sometimes in ways that seem strange.

The believers to whom Peter writes were experiencing hard times.  They were suffering for their faith.  How does Peter encourage them.  Listen to his words:

1Pet 4:16-19 (ESV)
Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​“If the righteous is scarcely saved, ​​​​​​​what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” ​​​ Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. 

Peter sees persecutions as God’s  way of judging and destroying all that is sinful and wrong in their lives.  It is part of the discipline that God brings upon his children as he prepares them for glory.   It is a sign indeed that we are God’s children.  Indeed, it is integral to salvation and the reputation of God.  God, after all, can scarcely judge and condemn the unbelieving world if he does not make it his business to judge and destroy sin in his own family.  Such a God would be unrighteous.  A good father disciplines his children.

The same point is made by the writer of Hebrews.  The Hebrew Christians are also suffering for their faith.  Why?  Is it because the world is opposed to the gospel?  Certainly it is.  But that is not the only reason.  The world’s opposition is part of God’s refining, training process in his people.

Heb 12:3-11 (ESV)
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, ​​​​​​​nor be weary when reproved by him. ​​​ ​​​​​​​​For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, ​​​​​​​and chastises every son whom he receives.” ​​​ It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. 

Notice, this discipline is a discipline of grace; he disciplines us for our good that we may share in his holiness.  He disciplines us because he is our Father and loves us too much to simply let us do our own thing. God’s disciplines in a believer are not curses of law but corrections of grace.  They are not retributive but remedial and restorative.  Such disciplines are not to be feared but welcomed.  Welcomed, not in any masochistic sense, no-one wishes to suffer, but welcomed for what they produce.  Like the athlete welcomes the gruelling of training so the believer welcomes the training of grace.  Like the Psalmist, we say, ‘it was good for me to be afflicted’ (Ps 119:71). We must not feel threatened by difficulties in life or resent them.  Proverbs reminds us, ‘Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, ​​​​​​​but he who hates reproof is stupid. ​​(Prov 12:1).  We must not think that they come from a hostile God and are somehow opposed to the gospel and grace.  Far from it, God’s disciplines, his ‘severe mercies’, are not antithetical to grace, they are agents of grace, allies of grace, part of its apparatus.

God’s judgements in our lives come in many shapes and forms. For some they involve persecutions for others they may mean sickness, bereavement or some other form of loss.  God’s disciplines are as varied as the experiences of life.  And they are all part of his training in righteousness.  They all shape character and produce maturity of faith.  They prepare us for heaven.  Even Jesus, who was without sin, grew in wisdom and maturity, through suffering (Hebs 2:10).  Through suffering he became perfectly equipped to Shepherd his people (Hebs 2:17).

In our lives there is the added complication of sin.  Sometimes we do not hear the ‘word of grace’ that comes to us through God’s word.  Sometimes the prompting of the Spirit in our hearts is ignored and defied.  Such foolishness may require a great storm to get us back on course.  We may have to be plunged into God’s waves and billows before we come to our senses (Jonah 2).  Some prodigals have to find themselves destitute, feeding swine, before they think of returning to their Father.  Such are God’s ways with his people.

Perhaps most solemnly of all, God’s disciplines may even mean the loss of life.  In 1 Cor 11 Paul says,

1Cor 11:27-32 (ESV)
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. 

The ‘unworthy manner’ Paul refers to was thoughtless even cruel behaviour towards other believers at the Lord’s Supper.  At their love feasts, fellowship context in which they ate the Lord’s Supper, the rich were feasting lavishly while the poor had comparatively little.  Instead of the Supper being an experience of fellowship and oneness it was an exhibition of differences.   The wealthy indulged and were indifferent at best to their fellow brothers and sisters.  The poor were humiliated.  The result was sickness and death among them, judgements by the Lord.  But, yet again, note, these judgements were disciplines of grace – they were disciplined of the Lord so that they may not be condemned along with the world (Cf. 1 Jn 5:16; Jas 5;14,15; Job 33).

We ought to judge ourselves (that is deal with sin in our lives) so that we need not be judged by the Lord for what is sure is he will not simply allow his people to be careless about their sin.  Careless, casual attitudes to sin in his people he will judge, his grace will allow no less. 

… and heals all our diseases

Luke 5:12-26 (ESV)
While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him. And he charged him to tell no one, but “go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.  On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal. And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. And when he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, “Why do you question in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”-he said to the man who was paralyzed-“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.” And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God. And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen extraordinary things today.” 

Jesus heals diseases and forgives sins.  Indeed his ability to heal diseases authenticates his power to forgive sins.  Moreover, it points forcefully to his true identity… as Jesus intends.  The Lord is among them.   Psalm 103 was being fulfilled before their eyes.

Ps 103:3 (ESV)
 ​​​ ​​​​​​​​who forgives all your iniquity, ​​​​​​​who heals all your diseases

Little wonder they were amazed and glorified God.

faith works

ear piercing and bondslaves

What is the difference between the obedience Law demanded and that which Christ displays?  It seems beyond coincidence that the answer is signalled in Exodus immediately upon the giving of the Ten Commandments, the pulse of the Mosaic Covenant.  In Exodus 21 we read:

Exod 21:1-6 (ESV)
“Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.

Having received from Yahweh the Ten Words of the Covenant in Ex 19, 20, Moses begins to develop its civil and ceremonial implications.  First comes legislation regarding slaves.  There are, of course, many questions that press in upon us when we consider the Bible and slavery, but these are not for this post.  Here, I want to flag simply the Christotelic aim of the text.

Israel, understood slavery all too well.  The people had until very recently been little more than a rabble of slaves in Egypt.  They may have been God’s people but they had yet to develop real national identity.  It was only in leaving Egypt and subsequent journeying in the wilderness that national identity (and dignity) began to be shaped and the stigma of the past erased.  Yet it was never quite erased.  Israel never quite forgot her past.  Actually, the Lord did not let her forget.  As the Law is about to be reiterated for the second time on the eve of entering into her inheritance (the Promised Land) she is reminded:

Deut 5:6 (ESV)
“‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

Some 500 or so years later he is still reminding them of this (Mic 6:4).

Yet, while God rescues them from slavery in Egypt there is a sense in which their slavery continues.  They are no longer slaves in Egypt but are now slaves of Yahweh.  There is a sense in Scripture in which we are all slaves.  Slavery cannot be avoided, the only question is who we serve.  In Ex 19,20, the Lord, the great King-Warrior who liberated them from Egypt,  spells out the implications of their redemption.  As their liberator (according to the customs of ancient civilizations) he had rights over those he liberated; they were obligated to him.  In the Covenant of Sinai, of Law, Israel was bound over to serve the Lord.  His authority was of a different kind but the fact remained, he was their Lord; he was their ‘Master’  and ‘Owner’ (Isa 1:3; Jer 3:14; Mal 1:6) and this Israel must never forget.   In the NT, this covenant of Sinai, the Law,  is called a ‘yoke of slavery’ (Gals 5:1, Cf  Gals 2:4).

Israel was enslaved to the Lord like the purchased Hebrew slave.  In redeeming her, she was rightfully his – he was her legal Master.  He had rights of life and death over her.  She was responsible (on pain of death) to obey his Law.  She must serve him.  There was nothing voluntary about this.  Israel had no option but to accept the covenant; all, under Law, were involuntary slaves (Cf Gal 4).  She, like the Hebrew slaves among her, was indentured and must serve (six years – the number six is often associated with human responsibility in Scripture) until the promised freedom of the year of Jubilee.

If, upon the year of Jubilee, the slave did not wish to be free, if his love for his Master and family was so great he refused his freedom, then he was to be taken to a door-post (probably that of his Master) and his ear bored through with an awl.  The bored ear symbolised his commitment to his Master (an ear ever open and devoted to his commands).  He made himself a slave for life, forever.

We must all serve, but there are different kinds of service.  There is the involuntary service of legal duty and there is the voluntary service of devoted love.  The difference is as absolute as Law and gospel.  In Law we have involuntary service; in gospel we have voluntary service.  The difference is all-important.  Gospel service is the service of Christ.  Christ, although born ‘under law’ didn’t serve simply within the relationship of this covenant.  He introduced a new way of serving.  The service of Christ was never mere legal duty.  His was service of an altogether higher kind.  It was the voluntary service of love and devotion.  Love always delights to serve. It was the service of one whose  ear was bored through with an awl.  This is precisely the figure used  of Messiah in Psalm 40 (and cited in Hebs 10).

Ps 40:6-8 (ESV)
​​​​​​​​In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, ​​​​​​​but you have given me an open  [dug, bored, pierced] ear. ​​​​​​​ Burnt offering and sin offering ​​​​​​​you have not required. ​​​ ​​​​​​​​Then I said, “Behold, I have come; ​​​​​​​in the scroll of the book it is written of me: ​​​ ​​​​​​​​I delight to do your will, O my God; ​​​​​​​your law is within my heart.” ​​​

The ‘opened ear’,  as in Isa 50, is a signal of dependence, but ‘opened’ also means ‘digged’ or ‘bored’; as in Ex 21 where it is a symbol of devotion; an ear ever open to obey.   It spoke of one who rejoiced in God’ will, who had this will engraved on his heart.  For him sacrifice and service was never merely duty, but delight.  He did the things that pleased his father because he loved him.  His meat, that which nourished his being, was to do obey.  He would hear no will but the will of the One who sent him (Jn 6:38).  And he came voluntarily.  He entered voluntarily into bond-slavery and did so forfeiting complete freedom.  Being in the form of God he took the form of a bondslave for this was his father’s will.  No-one but God could ‘take the form of a servant’ for everyone else was a servant.   Of course, here relationships begin to overlap.  For Christ, his God is his Father.   He becomes a bondslave but is always a Son.    His devotion to his God, his Master, is devotion to his Father: ‘but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father has commanded me, thus I do’ (Jn 14:31). And it is a devotion ‘unto death, even the death of the cross’.  He will not be free.  He loves his Master.

And he will not go free because he loves his wife and family: having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. (Jn 13:1).  When the heavens were established Christ, the divine wisdom, was there beside God, like a master workman, ​​​​​​​and was daily his delight, ​​​​​​​rejoicing before him always, ​​​ ​​​​​​​​rejoicing in his inhabited world ​​​​​​​and delighting in the children of man (Prov 8).   Here is mystery.  What is man that the Lord should care for us  (Ps 8)?  Why should he set his love upon the children of men?  Yet he does.  Christ will serve gladly,  because he loves the church and will sacrifice himself  fully for her (Eph 5).  In love, he will lay down his life for her (1 Jn 3:16).  Like Jacob he will serve as long as necessary that he may win her and make her his own.  Love bears all things, and endures all things.  Love never fails. Love never abandons.  Love, once awakened, is as strong as death; it is irresistible and unquenchable.  It will have its way.  Love exclaims, ‘I love my wife. I will not go free’.  And so he took a towel and girded himself.   He came among his people as one who served and gave his life a ransom for the many.  He proclaims in resurrection to his God,  ‘Behold I, and the children you have given me’.  He does not take up the cause of angels but lays hold of the seed of Abraham; his delights are truly with the children of men.  He loves his wife and children. He will not go free.

Of course, we too are bondslaves.  Having been set free from sin we have become slaves of God (Roms 6).  Our kiss of vassal allegiance to the Son was a confession of such.  It effectively said:

“Pierce my ear, O Lord, I pray;
Take me to Your door this day.
I will serve no other god;
Lord, I’m here to stay.
For You have paid the price for me;
With Your love you ransomed me.
I will serve You eternally;
A free man I’ll never be.”

Paul says, let this attitude be in you which was also in Christ Jesus… he took the form of a bondslave… he made himself nothing.  We are ‘sanctified to the obedience of Christ’ (Hebs 2).  And like Christ we serve not in the old way of the letter (Law and mere imposed duty) but in the new way of the Spirit.  Like Messiah the law is engraved on our hearts.  Ours is the slavery of sons.  Our nature is to love for to be born of God is to love for God is love.  Love is the nature of the life of Christ within, the fruit of the indwelling Spirit.  Our renewed hearts gladly recognise that nothing we have is our own.  Our possessions, our talents, our life, our all… we hold them for the giver.  And such bondservice gladdens the heart of God.   The God who in selfless love gave his Son as a propitiation for our sins and freely along with him gives us all things wants more than obligated love, he wants unconstrained love, chosen love, reciprocated love.  Who loves, who does not wish to be loved in turn?

And, in love too we serve one another.  In the gospel we are called to freedom. Only we do not use our freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another (Gals 5:13).   If he, our Lord and Master, has washed our feet then we, in his spirit and by his Spirit, will wash each others feet.  And so we gird our loins.  In love we consider others before ourselves.   In love we avoid behaviour that would make others trip.  We carry each others burdens.  We outdo each other in showing deference and honour.  We contribute to the need of the saints and show hospitality.  Whatever gifts we have been entrusted with we use for the building up of the body of Christ.  We walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us as a fragrant sacrifice to God.   Such service delights God.  The service of the elected slave who says,  ‘I love my Master, I love my family (the people of God) I will not go free’.

Of course, we fail.  Even as I write this, I see how poor my service is.   This is a reason for regret but not for dismay or fear for my acceptance does not lie in the quality of my service.  At best, should we do all we ought, we will be unworthy bondslaves.  Only Christ was the perfect servant and, gloriously, my acceptance rests in his vicarious, God-vindicating, sin-eviscerating, Satan-vanquishing, infinitely valuable and voluntary bondserving death, not my vapid bondserving life.   Yet, despite our failure and in our failure, with its bitter taste fresh in our mouth, we come gladly to the throne of grace for mercy and help and say with bishop Handley Moule,

My glorious Victor, Prince Divine,
Clasp these surrender’d hands in Thine;
At length my will is all Thine own,
Glad vassal of a Saviour’s throne.

 
My Master, lead me to Thy door;
Pierce this now willing ear once more:
Thy bonds are freedom; let me stay
With Thee, to toil, endure, obey.

 
Yes, ear and hand, and thought and will,
Use all in Thy dear slav’ry still!
Self’s weary liberties I cast
Beneath Thy feet; there keep them fast.

 
Tread them still down; and then, I know,
These hands shall with Thy gifts o’erflow;
And pierced ears shall hear the tone
Which tells me Thou and I are one.

justification, justice, jesus, and mission

One of the best posts I have read on mission is to be found here.  Sane, solid, Scriptural sense.

‘In a recent post someone suggested that the church has often become divided between those who focus on justification and those who focus on justice. But the primary focus of the New Testament is on neither. It’s on Jesus.’

new year and christian hope

May I wish all who from time to time drop into this blog a Happy and Prosperous New Year.  It is a belated wish I grant.  I hope for you the New Year holds many blessings.  It is right of course to look forward in hope.  Hope, in a rather hopeless world, is a profoundly Christian blessing.

For many, the future, looked at without Christian hope, is fairly bleak.  Even in our cushioned West, future well-being is anything but certain.  The economic slump (self-inflicted it would appear, as most of our woes self-evidently are) promises a difficult year.  Add to this the normal vagaries of life and Christian hope is vital to combat a sinking pessimism that life itself can so easily inflict.  I need only glance at the lives of various friends to see how the New Year promises fresh troubles.  Some have health problems, others marital problems or money problems, others church problems, and in many cases no obvious solutions present themselves.  For these  folks  hope must lie outside of circumstances and personal understanding. Their hope must lie in God.

And to have our hope in God is to have it precisely where it ought to be.  True wisdom teaches us to trust in God and lean not on our own understanding.  God, is the God of hope (Roms 15), who as we share in the hope he holds out for us in the gospel (Col 1:23) fills us with joy and peace in believing (Roms 15:13).

The gospel is God’s message of hope.  In the gospel promises that sustained men of faith since the beginning of time are fully revealed and realized.   Every possible source of joy is promised and perfected in the gospel.  For the gospel is Christ in whom all God’s promises find their confirmation and certainty.  We are blessed, the gospel reminds us, with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  Everything the human spirit could intelligently desire and hope for is found in Christ.  God gives us Christ and with him freely gives us all things that are for our good and blessing.

Life in a world East of Eden, is hard.  It is a valley of disillusionment and death.  Despite advancing technologies man that is born of woman is still of few days that are full of trouble.  To say this is not to be pessimistic, but realistic.  More than that, it is to think biblically.   Hope, believers have always understood lies only in God.   In Christ we find ourselves rejoicing in the ‘hope of the glory of God’ (Roms 5:2).  Our hope is no small thing for God’s promise is no small thing.  It is no less than sharing in God’s own glory.  Glory, indescribable glory, is my hope.

Nor is this hope mere wishful thinking for it is a hope we have already begun to realize in our hearts through the Spirit of the indwelling Christ; Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith is the hope of glory; its first instalment.

How will this New Year be for us ‘happy and prosperous’?  Through faith that lives in the hope of the gospel.

When I get out of bed each morning I can live with myself, my failure and sins because of the gospel.    I rejoice that my sins are forgiven and that one day soon I will no longer have sin in my members staining my humanity but I will have a body of glory where sin is banished and no more.  Never again will I be tempted to that which destroys happiness but will delight eternally and fully in God.  I go out and face the frictions of life, the family squabbles, the theological wars, the opposition of the world  knowing that these are not forever, but only for a time.  ‘Forever’ is a new world where heaven and earth are one, where the dwelling of God is with men and he shall be our God and we shall be his people, where wars of all kinds shall cease and weapons of war will be turned into tools for prosperity.  This body that each morning tends to drag me down with its frailty and fragility will have given way to a body of glory without corruption or weakness.  My hope in Christ is of a future without fear, failure, fragmentation, fatigue, futility and folly.   Weariness and wastedness will be no more.  This is the hope that lies before and nerves me today to run the race.

I invite you this year to live in this hope.  Such hope fills us with boldness (2 Cor 3:12) for the glory is not simply ahead it is realized by faith now as I lift my eyes from the difficulties and traumas of life and see Christ in heaven, reigning and glorified.  My spiritual intelligence tells me my sins are gone, my life is secure and safe in him.  I wonder and rejoice at the glory I see there.  Here  there will be troubles and disappointments, many tests of faith,  but when, even through these, I look up at Christ I am consumed with joy unspeakable and full of glory. And the joy of the Lord so experienced becomes our strength.  We weaken because we fail to nourish our souls in Christ.

Happiness and prosperity of spirit is realized as by faith we meditate upon Christ in glory.  This is what I wish for us all in 2012.  May we who have hoped in Christ (Eph 1)  have the eyes of our understanding opened to see the hope to which we are called and the inheritance that is ours in Christ (Eph 1:18) and as by faith we experience these just now may we also with patience  await their full realization  (Roms 8:24).  May we continue steadfast in faith not shifting from the hope held out in the gospel (Col 1:23).  This is the victory that overcomes the world in all its forms, even our faith (1 Jn 5:4).  And what is faith but ‘the assurance of things hoped for and the realizing of things unseen’ (Hebs 11:1).

1John 3:1-3 (ESV)
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he [Christ] is pure. 

Titus 2:11-14 (ESV)
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. 

can calvinists and arminians church together?

Well, the short answer is that in the church to which I belong both have for many years.   Some in the church, if labelled, would be ‘moderate Calvinists’ and others ‘moderate Arminians’.  I suspect both are ‘moderate’ because the influence of the other has protected from extremes.  This does not mean there are no discussions  and exploring of differences, there are, sometimes ‘ardently’.  But we have never lost respect for each other and  differences have never surfaced in any aggravated way publicly.  We disagree, agreeably. Why is this?

I think a number of factors contribute to the Spirit enabling unity in the face of potentially divisive issues of faith.

recognising that unity of the faith is a goal and not a given in any church

A church is a body of believers who are united in the Spirit by belief in a common gospel.  Paul calls all believers to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph 4:1).  Unity of life in the Spirit is the basis of all fellowship among God’s people.  It is the starting point.  Believers may be immature and muddle-headed about many things but through belief of the gospel they are one in Christ.  From this starting point a goal lies ahead – what Paul calls, ‘the unity of the faith’ (Eph 4:13).  This is an unity we are to ‘maintain’ (as with the Spirit) but a unity we should seek to ‘attain’ or ‘reach’ (4:13); the unity of life in the Spirit from which we start has as its goal a maturing in the ‘unity of the faith’ and as Paul says,

Eph 4:13-16 (ESV)
… of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. 

In other words, church allows for growth in understanding, wisdom and holiness.  It doesn’t insist we display this maturity right away.  It doesn’t demand we all think the same from the word go.  It doesn’t require signing up to a full blown theology as a basis for membership.  It allows that it may take many years, in fact, a lifetime, for the kind of maturing that is its goal.  One reason I am uncomfortable with Confessions of Faith is that they seem to demand ‘unity of faith’ as a starting point rather than an end point; a body of divinity to which one may hope new believers eventually arrive becomes a binding force on their conscience  from the beginning.   This allows little room for growth and development.  One must accept the whole system fairly early on or be out in the cold.  Worse, inevitably a confession, every confession, any confession, even a good confession, is narrower and more circumscribed than Scripture.  Its very purpose is to remove ambiguities, delimit and proscribe.

Thus, it is difficult if not impossible for a believer whose understanding is of an Arminian bent to accept the authority of a Calvinistic confession, and vice versa, though both will happily accept the authority of Scripture.   Believers, united by the same Spirit, members of the same body, find it impossible to share church fellowship because confessions insist on beliefs in certain areas that belong at best to a mature ‘unity of faith’ and even then involve tensions.  We should, in my view, trust the Holy Spirit through the teaching of the Word to guide the church into spiritual maturity in belief and behaviour.  After all, if the Lord does not build the house, then who can?

loathing stereotypical labels

I hate labels.  Labels divide.  Labels segregate.   Labels are all too often partisan and destructive.  Their purpose is generally to vilify or glorify and rarely to enlighten.  In fact they cannot enlighten.  They are inevitably caricatures.  They take rounded people and make of them flat and wooden images.   Labels do not define people, they diminish them and distort them.  And people’s views, if guided by Scripture, do not neatly fit into pre-packaged theologies, for the truth of Scripture is inevitably bigger than our systems and labels.  Labels impose and imply a theology, and even if it is a generally good theology it is inevitably a theology that demands more sophistication than is the basis for gospel unity in the Spirit.  Labels mean a theology that leaves other believers out in the cold; they create fences not fellowship.

The more we resist taking and giving labels then the easier it will be for ‘Calvinist’ and ‘Arminian’ to live together as fellow members of the body of Christ.

displaying some theological grace

Now I am aware in our postmodern age ‘theological grace’ can be abused.  Some want certainty where the Bible is silent and uncertainty where it clearly speaks.  I do not support this.  There are many areas where we must be firm and say ‘thus says the Lord’.  I am not by any means advocating a trampoline theology that can bounce in every direction that we please.  There is a faith ‘once and for all delivered to the saints’.  Having said this we must remember the firm words of Paul,

1Cor 8:2-3 (ESV)
If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. 

We should all remember that our knowledge is limited.  And nowhere more so than before the inscrutability of God’s sovereignty working in and through the history of the world.  At the end of the day, each view must confess there are mysteries in this topic that none can answer.  This is because we are humans and not divine, men and not God.  It is our privilege to go as far as God reveals and no further.  We must leave some issues with God.  We must, in the final analysis, allow God to be God and simply trust where understanding is withheld (Roms 9:19-22; Job 38-42).  Humility about our understanding, especially here, is all too appropriate.

We should remember too that while knowledge is important, it is not all-important.  In fact, knowledge is not the truest criterion of Christian maturity of relationship with God, love is.  Knowledge that does not act in love simply ‘puffs up’ and is conceited.  Love is never conceited.  The knowledge that is mingled with love will not insist on its way.  It will not expect others to understand things exactly as we do, to cross our particular ‘t’s and dot our ‘i’s.  Love will bear with slow apprehension, even the misapprehension, of others.  It will welcome those that Christ has welcomed but not for the sake of an argument.  It will not despise the other who holds some of the recognised tensions of Scripture differently.  It will not judge, but leave all judgement to the Lord.  It will not seek to quarrel and debate over matters that are not clear-cut and not of the essence of the gospel (Roms 14).  It will not force its will and opinion but wait upon the Lord.  Truth exists to promote love not destroy it and where truth is used to bash believers we must ask whether what we are pressing is truth and certainly whether it is ‘spoken in love’.

speaking with grace and seasoned with salt

Much aggro can be avoided just by a little grace in how we say things.  Too many who wave a flag for one or other of these positions (Calvinist or Arminian) insist in force feeding them on others.  They use confrontationary and extreme terms to make their point.  They push debate to philosophical and logical conclusions that stretch Scripture and sometimes go beyond it.  They leave their opponent (that brother for whom Christ died) with no wriggle room for individual conscience.  We must distinguish between persuasion and coercion, between verbal appeal and verbal brow-beating.  We should work at presenting our views in ways that are honest but as palatable as possible.  We should judge how able our audience is to ‘hear’ and ‘receive’ what we wish to say.  We should aim to give as little offence as possible without compromising truth. Belligerent and bellicose Arminians and Calvinists do not defend truth they betray it.

listening with love

Do we listen with love and forbearance?  Do we make allowances for infelicities of language?  Do we make allowances for different presuppositions?  When my Calvinist/Arminian brother expresses a prayer in a way that doesn’t quite gel with my theology do I make allowances and simply mentally transpose where necessary?  Do I focus on the 95% that we share in common and refuse to get out of perspective the 5%  on which we differ?   Christian love and forbearance can cover a multitude of sins.  The reality is, when we do listen respectfully to each other and avoid unnecessary abrasion then we even begin to move towards each other.  Love and respect win over those who differ from us, often much more effectively than the force of argument.

recognising scripture’s differing perspectives

A great deal of the heat is taken out of the controversy when we recognise that Scripture works with two perspectives that need to be held in tandem and tension.  Some NT writers focus on God and his grace while others focus on man and his faith.  Now these are never presented in opposition.  Nor is one ever stressed to the exclusion of the other, however, in any one book, one position is normally principal and the other subordinate.  For example, in a books like Romans and Ephesians,  God’s grace and initiative in salvation is primary while faith though important is secondary.  In other books, such as Hebrews and the Catholic epistles,  the imperative of faith is primary and the grace of God is subordinate.

The issue is not the relative importance of each.  Nor is the issue (as some suggest) that some NT writers have Calvinistic leanings and others Arminian. What is written, is written by the Spirit of God and is unified truth.  It has dimensions and perspectives but no contradictions.  No, the differing perspective  or emphasis is due not to different theologies but to different pastoral concerns.  The pastoral purpose determines the theological perspective.  If, as in Romans, the pastoral purpose is the proclamation that God’s promised salvation has broken into the world uniting Jew and gentile in Christ then the emphasis will be on God’s initiative in grace.  Faith will be there and vital, but it will be subordinate to God’s activity in grace.  If, however, the pastoral issue is a potential failure in faith then the stress will be on the human need to persevere in faith drawing from all the grace of God in the gospel to do so.  In each case, to repeat, the pastoral problem determines the theological perspective.

It is always thus in Scripture.  Where the issue is the trustworthiness of God then God and his grace is to the fore.  Where the issue is the responsibility of man then man and his faith is centre stage.  The object determines the subject.

Now, I am not naive enough to think that recognising these differing perspectives eliminates every difficulty and brings immediate harmony between Calvinist and Arminian, far from it.  However, I do think it helps to ease many of the tensions.  Indeed, it seems to me, that if we recognise these two perspectives and give them full credit then many of the more contentious issues disappear.  The differences that remain belong more to the realms of systems and logic where we ought in humility and grace bear with each other.

In my view, if we work with these dual perspectives and live with the above principles of Christian love and forbearing we shall discover that our opponents (Calvinist or Arminian) miraculously morph from a demon with red glowing horns into my brother or sister in Christ, believers like us who by grace are being transformed into the image of Christ, fellow pilgrims to and fellow citizens of the Kingdom of  God.

Wouldn’t it be marvellous if this Christmas the ‘peace among men’ which the angels announced knew part of its realization in Calvinist and Arminian brothers and sisters in Christ sharing together the joy of church fellowship celebrating the birth of their common Saviour and Lord.

rabbi sacks and the soul of europe

Cranmer writes:

Every so often a sermon or lecture is delivered which merits being published in its entirety. In truth, the Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks delivers them all too frequently, but the pithy brevity of the blog is hardly the optimum medium for dissemination. This one, on the question of ‘Has Europe Lost its Soul?’ was delivered today at The Pontifical Gregorian University. It is replete with wisdom and insight (for those who don’t have the time to read it, His Grace highlights some salient points). Lord Sacks’ grasp of history, theology, philosophy, politics and economics is profound.

‘Let me begin with a striking passage from Niall Ferguson’s recent book, Civilisation. In it he tells of how the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was given the task of discovering how the West, having lagged behind China for centuries, eventually overtook it and established itself in a position of world pre-eminence. At first, said the scholar, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we concluded it was because you had the best political system. Then we realised it was your economic system. “But in the past 20 years, we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West has been so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.”

The Chinese scholar was right.’

Regarding capitalism he comments.

‘Instead of seeing the system as Adam Smith did, as a means of directing self- interest to the common good, it can become a means of empowering self-interest to the detriment of the common good. Instead of the market being framed by moral principles, it comes to substitute for moral principle. If you can buy it, negotiate it, earn it and afford it, then you are entitled to it – as the advertisers say – because you’re worth it. The market ceases to be merely a system and becomes an ideology in its own right.

The market gives us choices; so morality itself becomes just a set of choices in which right or wrong have no meaning beyond the satisfaction or frustration of desire.’

The whole summary can be found here.  His analysis of the malaise  is excellent; his solution is naturally somewhat lacking since being of Jewish faith he stumbles over the stumbling stone.   For Sacks, the ‘soul of Europe’ lies in recovering creation rather than pursuing redemption.  He concludes,

‘Stabilising the Euro is one thing, healing the culture that surrounds it is another. A world in which material values are everything and spiritual values nothing is neither a stable state nor a good society. The time has come for us to recover the Judeo-Christian ethic of human dignity in the image of God. ‘

For him, salvation lies in an ethic, in rediscovering our dignity as made in the image of God; it is the ancient  Judaistic doctrine of works that caused them to stumble over the stumbling stone.  He does not grasp that this image is hopelessly defaced and can only be renewed in Jesus Messiah.  He is the  true image of God made in true righteousness and holiness (unlike Adam) and only by submitting to his Lordship in redemption can we become through grace God’s sons and bearers of his image (Roms 8).  New birth in the Spirit is vital.  Sacks is a ‘teacher in Israel’ but apparently does not know these things (Jn 3).   The only healing for Europe’s ‘soul’ lies in the people of Europe embracing the gospel to the saving of their souls; they need a righteousness of God that is by faith, not of works lest any should boast.  As God’s people, we must pray that in his mercy the people of Europe will yet again hear the gospel and respond, including Jonathan Sacks.

the shadow of the cross

To identify with Jesus creates a divide between two opposing worlds.  Even before his birth this divide was signalled.  An angel came to Mary, a virgin betrothed to Joseph, and said,

Luke 1:28-33 (ESV)
“Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 

Mary’s response to the angelic announcement is submissive faith

Luke 1:38 (ESV)
“Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

She rejoices in her privilege and in faith exults that future generations will call her blessed.  How much she grasped at this point that her own generation would despise  her as a fornicator is not clear but despise her they did.  Thirty odd years later people still remembered that Jesus was born ‘of fornication’ (Jn 8:31).  Mary’s reputation was in tatters and would never really recover.  Joseph too would forever be a cuckold husband.  In a shame culture (foreign to us today) such ignominy was hard to live with, especially for godly people innocent of wrongdoing.

But such is ever the cost of the Christ.  He forces a choice between reputation on earth and reputation in heaven.  He presses upon those he calls a divide between the approval of two opposing worlds.   His call always costs this world for those who submit.  Mary’s (and Joseph’s) world was turned upside down.  The shadow of the cross was over them before the son who would die upon it was even born.  The message to all who would follow Mary’s Son by faith accepting his Messianic identity was plain – do so and the world will always look at you askance.

Mary embraced the shame and like her son and Lord despised it.  She did so because of the joy of the coming Kingdom that she saw by faith.  She was content to be of no reputation for God had exalted her  And so her soul magnifies the Lord.  She believes his promises and rejoices in his salvation.  She treats as realized what is yet to come.

Luke 1:46-55 (ESV)
And Mary said, ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​“My soul magnifies the Lord, ​​​ ​​​​​​​​and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, ​​​ ​​​​​​​​for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. ​​​​​​​For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; ​​​ ​​​​​​​​for he who is mighty has done great things for me, ​​​​​​​and holy is his name. ​​​ ​​​​​​​​And his mercy is for those who fear him ​​​​​​​from generation to generation. ​​​ ​​​​​​​​He has shown strength with his arm; ​​​​​​​he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; ​​​ ​​​​​​​​he has brought down the mighty from their thrones ​​​​​​​and exalted those of humble estate; ​​​ ​​​​​​​​he has filled the hungry with good things, ​​​​​​​and the rich he has sent away empty. ​​​ ​​​​​​​​He has helped his servant Israel, ​​​​​​​in remembrance of his mercy, ​​​ ​​​​​​​​as he spoke to our fathers, ​​​​​​​to Abraham and to his offspring forever.” ​​​

In the face of a cold disapproving world this is ever the way to stand firm and triumph – the assertions of faith.  This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith (1 Jn 5:4).  Faith gives assurance of things hoped for and  evidence of things not seen (Hebs 11:1).  In the words of Peter,

2Pet 1:3-4 (ESV)
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

studying hermeneutics?

If you are studying principles of biblical interpretation (hermeneutics) you will find a wealth of material here and here.