Reformed theology

A reader asks:

As a Catholic I don't feel as if my will is sovereign _at all_. I'm so finite and wretched, just a dust mote in God's Creation. How could my will be sovereign compared to Our Lord's will and the fiery love of the Holy Spirit? At the center of everything is Jesus Christ, radiating out His Divine love and mercy. My greatest hope is to die to my own self and be filled to the brim by God, so that in every action performed I do His will. Even if it breaks my human body, so be it, as long I am His little child.

And of course, from what our friend writes, it appears she has at least a partial sense of the Biblical doctrine of Divine sovereignty.

At root, the test of sovereignty is simple. A sovereign rules. A sovereign is king. He acts. He governs. Others in his kingdom have wills as well. But his will rules. Their lives reflect his will.

Reformed Christians declare God to be solely sovereign in salvation. In claiming this we do not deny the wills of the governed. The king's subjects have wills. But sovereignty is not the mere possession of a will. It is possession of power and authority to enact your will. And in this sense, sovereignty in salvation is clear: God's will rules, God's will governs, God's will is the prime mover. God acts, men react.

Reformation soteriology (teaching on salvation) is "monergistic" (teaches that there is only one power at work in salvation). It teaches that God works salvation without prior human action or agency. Man responds to God's grace in regeneration with faith and repentance. Faith and repentance are fruits of regeneration, not its cause.

Conversely, Roman Catholicism and much of modern Protestantism hold to a "synergistic" (cooperative, two workers aiding each other) view of salvation in which God and man work together to effect regeneration.

Erasmus, the Roman Catholic counter-Reformation scholar and champion of the synergistic view of salvation tells the story of a father leading a toddler to an apple. He says the child, like the sinner with God, does very little:

The Canary in the Coal Mine

I've been asked why soteriology which emphasizes works is less than evangelical.

Reading Luther's Commentary on Galatians recently brought me across these comments by Luther about the false teachers opposing Paul in Galatia.

VERSE 2. Unto the churches of Galatia. Paul had preached the Gospel throughout Galatia, founding many churches which after his departure were invaded by the false apostles. The Anabaptists in our time imitate the false apostles. They do not go where the enemies of the Gospel predominate. They go where the Christians are. Why do they not invade the Catholic provinces and preach their doctrine to godless princes, bishops, and doctors, as we have done by the help of God? These soft martyrs take no chances. They go where the Gospel has a hold, so that they may not endanger their lives. The false apostles would not go to Jerusalem of Caiaphas, or to the Rome of the Emperor, or to any other place where no man had preached before as Paul and the other apostles did. But they came to the churches of Galatia, knowing that where men profess the name of Christ they may feel secure.

Luther's point is that false teachers prey on the Church. They don't conquer new ground with their gospel of works, they derail professing Christians.

Heresy is parasitical and cowardly. It doesn't go to the animists of Papua New Guinea, it goes where the Church exists in power and advances there by subversion. It goes to the heartland of the Presbyterian Church in America rather than to the RCC or the PCUSA or, for that matter, Islam.

Tim and I are wanting to send a friend from a Roman Catholic background several books which will provide a winsome introduction to Reformed/Puritan thinking.

Any suggestions on books? We're not looking for modern books. Older books are more what we'd like to send. Nor are we looking for heavy systematic stuff. Our goal is not to provide a systematic, but to give a picture of Puritan/Reformed spirituality and thought at its highest levels.

If such a book comes to mind, please add it via the comments.

Tim and I have several ideas, but would appreciate hearing the thoughts of others--especially from those who love the Puritans. Thanks. David

A response from Dr. Leithart to my unattributed quotation from him in my post on 1 Peter 3:21 can be found here.

More could be said on this, but not on a beautiful Memorial Day.

May I add, however, that I did not name Dr. Leithart initially simply because I do not view him as the foremost public advocate of the position I argue against. He is, however, a good writer, and his paragraph seemed the best summation of the view I oppose. There are two other PCA authors I considered quoting whose views are far more colorful and arguable, but use of them would have constituted a form of casuistry I want to avoid.

I tried to be equally fair in quoting from Calvin. There are sections of Calvin's commentary on 1 Peter 3 where, quoted out of context, Calvin could be made to sound entirely Zwinglian. That's not my view, nor is it fair to claim Calvin held a low view of the gracious and incorporative efficacy of baptism.

So, yes, I was quoting Dr. Leithart. Overall, however, as with Doug Wilson, I find Dr. Leithart's statements in these and other areas more nuanced and careful than those of many who claim him as a source of theological inspiration. This was my sole reason for not naming him. Also note his measured response to the Mississippi Valley Presbytery report here.

Sometimes it helps to know a person's past to grasp why certain things stick in their craw. Take my concern to carefully and precisely define the relationship between faith, baptism and salvation...

Four years ago in the midst of an entirely different context I found myself confronting the teaching of "Open Theism" at the college and theological school of the denomination I then served.

If you haven't yet seen it, check out this web site containing a growing collection of the writings of John Frame and Vern Poythress. The ultimate goal of this site is to be as complete as possible a repository of these two professors who stand out for their irenic and humble, yet principled, approach to Reformed theology.

This site was established and is now being filled out with material gathered from Professors Frame and Poythress by Andrew Dionne, one of my colleagues at Christ the Word.

I would especially recommend to those who are unfamiliar with these men Professor Frame's relatively recent article, Machen's Warrior Children.

With a few potential caveats (primarily in the "Role of Women" portion which strikes me as unnecessarily descriptive rather than prescriptive), this view of what constitutes true Reformed essentials broadly represents where we wish to stand at Christ the Word.

Note in I Chronicles 13 and 14 (the account of the ark's return to Jerusalem under David) that the regulative principle of worship (RPW) extends far beyond what we normally view as its parameters: acts of formal public worship.

When David says of the death of Uzzah, "The Lord our God broke out against us because we did not seek Him according to the rule," he is admitting that all that took place on the trip bringing the ark to Jerusalem was part of "seeking Him." Thus, under the regulative principle, far more than formal public worship is comprehended. And, David's dancing in the street is part of what the RPW permits.

In fact, we must understand that the RPW encompasses all of life, not merely life in God's house. It also governs private devotions, family worship and festival days. So, the attitude toward the RPW which simply uses it to regulate public worship is often shortsighted and overly restrictive because it fails to see that the RPW does not stop and restart on the way from home to church and back.

Yes, worship in the church contains certain elements that cannot be done in the home, and vice versa, but the regulative principle applies to both.

What the RPW does not demand:

1) That we forego great joy. Joy so great that it leads to physical expression, even ecstatic dance.

2) Liturgy that is, from a human perspective, deep and sophisticated. Liturgy in the O.T. and the N.T. is a liturgy of blood. The profundity of true worship is all centered in the holiness and grace of God rather than in the liturgical sophistication of man.

Some of the most trafficked Evangelical blogs are authored not by theologians or pastors, but by computer programmers, web designers, journalists and other laymen.

Evangelical Outpost, Challies, WORLD's main blog and Pyromaniac are among the most popular conservative Christian blogs and while theological themes are common fare on these blogs, none is authored by a pastor or theologian.

In fact, the silence of the theologians on the internet is deafening. With the exception of Doug Wilson, no major figure in the world of theology routinely writes on the internet.

Why is this? I suspect a number of factors lie behind this trend.

1. Appearance and sophistication are important on the internet. The most trafficked blogs are typically visually superior sites containing sophisticated graphics and creative design--handing a vast advantage to web designers capable of producing their own sites.

I've just finished teaching Galatians to the men in our pastors' college using Luther's commentary as our guide. It was a fascinating six weeks and I ended the course convinced that advocates of the New Perspective on Paul--and especially N. T. Wright--are dead wrong in their attacks on Luther's understanding of the fundamental Galatian heresy.

In fact, I find myself increasingly perplexed that any Reformed thinker would champion Wright and disdain Luther in this fundamentally important realm.

When you hear a role for works advocated in the area of justification, don't assume that the one advocating such a view actually possesses a high view of the Law. Yes, there are those who advocate justification by faith plus works. But they are usually satisfied with very meagre works, and their respect for the Law is usually equally meagre.

There are many who wish to reintroduce the Law into justification, who suggest that the message of the parable of the Good Samaritan is simply that we should do like the Good Samaritan to inherit eternal life, but do they actually respect God's Law? Are their churches notable bastions of righteousness where the Law is thoroughly preached, where repentance is urged and church discipline rigorously applied to law breakers? Are they themselves men who hold themselves to higher moral standards than other men?

No. The average Puritan who denied the Law a role in justification did a better job of preaching and applying the Law than such men. Martin Luther, whose view of the Law such men revile, would be ashamed to send out preachers so ill-equipped to call men to obedience and the sanctified life of repentance and love as these men.

This is what you need to understand: men who shout works and parade the Law in the realm of justification are not actually men who lead others to obedience to the Law. They're practicing bait and switch, a theological shell game in which they shout, "Law, law, law," but are actually thinking inside, "Sacraments, sacraments, sacraments."

Reintroduce law into justification and you open the door to faith-plus-something. That "something" is never legal righteousness. It always turns out to be sacerdotal power, the great grand priest in his robes and sacerdotal office holding forth like the Pope.

Understand this: whenever you hear a pastor arguing for works as part of justification, you hear a pastor seeking the office of Pope.

Roman Catholicism is the premiere example of faith plus works. And do you see much of holy works in Roman Catholicism? Does Roman Catholicism stand out for the piety and holiness of its adherents? Or does it rather stand out for the claims of its priests, for its sacerdotal answers to sinful failure to keep the Law?

Those who advocate works in justification care little for works, care little for God's Law, are not preachers of righteousness, are not pastors of churches notable for holiness. They are Pope wannabes, and nothing else.

Earlier, I mentioned how pleased I was that the elders of the church John Piper serves as pastor, Bethlehem Baptist, have proposed to allow fellow Christians to hold membership without being rebaptized if they received covenantal household baptism as infants or children. And in that same connection, I wrote that I am opposed to those who say that full immersion is the only legitimate mode of baptism. I'm equally opposed to Presbyterians who refuse to baptize adults by any method other than effusion.

Often, this controversy has seemed to me nothing but a "Nanny nanny poo poo!" contest between Baptists and Presbyterians. Something to the effect of, "You require immersion so we require effusion. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!"

Tomorrow morning we have the privilege of witnessing the public profession of faith and baptism of Justin Clampitt, a young man who has grown up in our church whose parents are of the Baptist persuasion. And I will be pleased to baptize him by full immersion, not feeling at all that I'm failing to spread my own Presbyterian doctrinal commitments. How can I say such a thing?

Read on for a very good explanation by Princeton Seminary's own B. B. Warfield, one of America's most eminent theologians. If you have a dog in this race, please read this piece. Thanks.

John Lightfoot has preserved for us a curious account of the debate in the Westminster Assembly upon the question whether the new Directory for Worship should recognize immersion alongside of affusion as an alternative mode of baptism, or should exclude it altogether in favor of affusion. The latter was determined upon; but Lightfoot tells us, "It was voted so indifferently, that we were glad to count names twice: for so many were unwilling to have dipping excluded, that the votes came to an equality within one; for the one side was twenty-four--the other twenty-five." The guarded clauses which finally took their places in the Westminster Directory and Confession of Faith, reflect the state of opinion in the Assembly revealed by this close vote; and, when read in its light, will not fail to operate to enshrine still a reminiscence of the earlier custom of baptism by immersion.

Survivals such as these prepare us to learn that here was a time when immersion was as universal even in the West as in the East.

There is a sense, then, in which we may say broadly that the present diversity in baptismal usage is a growth of time; and that, should we move back within the first millennium of the Church's life, we should find the whole Christian world united in the ordinary use of trine immersion. The meaning of this fact to us will be conditioned, however, by the results of two further lines of inquiry. We should inquire whether this universality of trine immersion was itself the result of ecclesiastical development, or whether it represents primitive, that is, apostolic practice. And we should inquire whether conformity to this mode of baptism was held to be essential to the validity of baptism, or only necessary to the good order of the Church...

We might well be thrown off the scent were we to read Calvinists to understand Calvin or Lutherans to understand Luther. There's a little secret shared by intellectuals and scholars called "primary sources," by which they make quite a nice living--in fact, a living in every way comparable or even superior to any of the ecclesiastical "livings" attacked by Good Man Kierkegaard. And they leave only the drippings for the poor souls in the pew, having thrust their forks into the pot and made off with the fat and choicest cuts of meat.

Educated or uneducated, wise souls will refuse to be left with with the bony and tough secondary sources and demand their full money's worth--namely, the words of Luther himself rather than his pedantic, formalistic, and antinomian descendants.

In that vein, from Luther's scribes we hear much of the "three uses of the law," and in all their discussions we might well never hear mention of what Luther himself labelled the "three abuses of the law." Well then, straight from the horses mouth, this wonderful summary of God's grace to sinners who have been saved by grace but still struggle with the law of sin and death within us:

(Galatians 3:23, 24) But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed.

We know that Paul has reference to the time of Christ's coming. It was then that faith and the object of faith were fully revealed. But we may apply the historical fact to our inner life. When Christ came He abolished the Law and brought liberty and life to light. This He continues to do in the hearts of the believers. The Christian has a body in whose members, as Paul says, sin dwells and wars. I take sin to mean not only the deed but root, tree, fruit, and all. A Christian may perhaps not fall into the gross sins of murder, adultery, theft, but he is not free from impatience, complaints, hatreds, and blasphemy of God. As carnal lust is strong in a young man, in a man of full age the desire for glory, and in an old man covetousness, so impatience, doubt, and hatred of God often prevail in the hearts of sincere Christians. Examples of these sins may be garnered from the Psalms, Job, Jeremiah, and all the Sacred Scriptures.

Accordingly each Christian continues to experience in his heart times of the Law and times of the Gospel. The times of the Law are discernible by heaviness of heart, by a lively sense of sin, and a feeling of despair brought on by the Law. These periods of the Law will come again and again as long as we live. To mention my own case...

The following was written over a year ago as my own personal mental discipline in response to a certain teaching elder within my own denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, coming out in a prominent national forum in favor of the repeal of all sodomy laws across our country. I have not published these thoughts on the blog or in any other forum. Now, though, I am putting them on this blog to assist others in fighting against this betrayal of God's Truth and the souls and lives of those vulnerable to sodomy. I would welcome E-mails from any who have additional sources or arguments to add strengthening this case.

Scripture:

Genesis 2:20-25 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man." 24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

God ordained the nature and meaning of sexuality prior to the Fall, and no human authority may separate what God has joined together: sex is to be within species and heterosexual (between man and woman). This is a universal truth rooted in the Creation Order and therefore binding on all men across all time. This is the teaching of Genesis 2 and other texts having to do with sexuality, and marriage only builds upon what Genesis 2 declares.

Exodus 20:14 You shall not commit adultery.

As the Westminster Standards teach, sodomy is prohibited by the Seventh Commandment. If, despite the teaching of this Commandment, the man of God is justified in opposing and seeking the repeal of the civil authority's laws proscribing sodomy, are there any sins against this Commandment the civil authority may proscribe?

In the midst of a number of posts by good men (including, I think, my own brother) criticizing the man of "solo Scriptura" sitting alone with His Bible coming up with theology without regard for others or church history, let us remember Luther's account of his conversion, the seminal moment of the Protestant Reformation.

Can we agree that at least on occasion we should be grateful for a man sitting alone with his Bible coming to theological conclusions outside the thinking of his church and day?

Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, "As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!" Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless, I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted.

At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, "In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, 'He who through faith is righteous shall live.' " There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, "He who through faith is righteous shall live." Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. Thereupon I ran through the Scriptures from memory. I also found in other terms an analogy, as, the work of God, that is, what God does in us, the power of God, with which he makes us strong, the wisdom of God, with which he makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God.

And I extolled my sweetest word with a love as great as the hatred with which I had before hated the word "righteousness of God." Thus that place in Paul was for me truly the gate to paradise. Later I read Augustine's The Spirit and the Letter, where contrary to hope I found that he, too, interpreted God's righteousness in a similar way, as the righteousness with which God clothes us when he justifies us. Although this was heretofore said imperfectly and he did not explain all things concerning imputation clearly, it nevertheless was pleasing that God's righteousness with which we are justified was taught. Armed more fully with these thoughts, I began a second time to interpret the Psalter. And the work would have grown into a large commentary, if I had not again been compelled to leave the work begun, because Emperor Charles V in the following year convened the diet at Worms.

I relate these things, good reader, so that, if you are a reader of my puny works, you may keep in mind, that, as I said above, I was all alone and one of those who, as Augustine says of himself, have become proficient by writing and teaching. I was not one of those who from nothing suddenly become the topmost, though they are nothing, neither have labored, nor been tempted, nor become experienced, but have with one look at the Scriptures exhausted their entire spirit.

Luther, M. (1999, c1960). Vol. 34: Luther's works, vol. 34 : Career of the Reformer IV (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

Twenty-five signs you're going hyper, as in hyper-Calvinist.

(Thanks, Doug.)

There are many reasons for Christians to honor and respect the physical nature God has endowed them with. Rather than disdain the body Christians should honor their physical natures and offer thanks to God for creating us as corporeal beings rather than spirits for the following reasons.

1. Christ became flesh. Had Christ not taken on flesh, no human flesh could enter heaven. Because Christ took on flesh, becoming God incarnate, our salvation is purchased. Flesh is so central to the work of Christ that Scripture warns us denial of Christ's flesh is rejection of Christ's work.

1 John 4:2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.

2. Scripture tells us the body should be nourished and cherished just as Christ loves His Church.

Ephesians 5:28-29 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.

3. The one-flesh union of man and wife was given mankind by God to serve as the source of our greatest earthly help and comfort. Without our physical bodies there would be no marriage, no sexual union, no children. God has blessed us in a manner denied the angels by permitting us bodies with which we may take part in the wonder of procreation. Isaac went into his mother's tent with Rebecca and was comforted there in the loss of his mother by the body of his wife.

4. Without the body how much less joyful life would be. No feasting. No ice cream! No back rubs! No body surfing! No exhaustion! No rest!

5. Without the body, the sacraments could not exist.

6. Though "the flesh" often stands for the sinfulness of this world in Scripture, one of Scripture's great promises is that God will give hearts of flesh in place of hearts of stone to those whom He loves.

Ezekiel 36:26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

7. The Bible promises us that through acting on the flesh God influences and cleanses the spirit.

1 Peter 4:1 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.

Those who disdain the physical significance of the sacraments rarely speak against the value of suffering in the flesh. Yet isn't the promise of spiritual fruit from physical deeds of 1 Peter 4:1 similar in principle to the promises attached to baptism and the Lord's Supper?

In the years I spent arguing (one-sidedly, admittedly) against Open Theism in general and John Sanders' "inclusivist" strain of Open Theism within my former denomination in particular, I often wondered if Sanders and his friends had ever really read the Old Testament--not just paged through it glancing at words, but READ it.

The same thought occurs to me today as I read modern critics of a substitutionary and propitiatory atonement suggest that God would not cast the sins of all men on one Man.

What Bible do these men read? I know they pay lip service to the scapegoat and sacrifices of the Old Testament, but they fail to see in these a specific act of substitutionary propitiation. And perhaps legitimately so, because the sin of man could never be borne by goats or bulls. Substitionary penal atonement can be seen only in type in the Old Testament's sacrifices.

But what about those passages which specifically refer to transfer of sin and guilt in the Old Testament? In Numbers 18 the LORD says to Aaron, "You and your sons and your father's household with you shall bear the guilt in connection with the santuary, and you and your sons with you shall bear the guilt in connection with the priesthood."

And in Numbers 9:13, the Law states of the person who fails to observe the Passover, "...that man will bear his sin."

At such points Scripture is no longer speaking typically. This is not a picture, this is a clear statement of the transfer of sin.

The real problem at the heart of modern rejection of the substitutionary, propitiatory view of the atonement is not a distaste for the substitutionary violence of God against His Son, but a low view of sin. Advocates of newer views of the atonement hate the high regard for sin inherent in Scripture's sacrificial system. Their problem really, is an unwillingness to accept the Biblical picture of depravity, not a substitionary and propitiatory view of the atonement.

Another exercise in discernment: please join this work. Resistance is not futile.

In the godly, fear and love embrace.

Dear readers, my brother, David, and I have often written here that our work on this blog is an extension of our calling to serve as shepherds of God's flock. And although we recognize this calling is primarily to particular congregations in Toledo and Bloomington, we approach this blog as an extension of our local ministry and work to serve as shepherds here, also. In fact, a high proportion of our readers are present or past members of our congregations. Whether the medium is the telephone, E-mail, church newsletters, or blogs, David and I are working to correct, encourage, and rebuke, with great patience.

At times we give in to the temptation to waste these words on inconsequential matters, but we hope not too often. Seeing the title of my recent post, "The World Cup, racism, and the reprobate," some likely wondered why I was squandering time on soccer? But the post wasn't really about soccer, but rather the sin of racism, and the failure of pastors and elders who connive at this sin in their congregations.

Why this lengthy preamble?

Here is a link to a piece I believe to be terribly dangerous. I've considered whether it's too dangerous to be circulated, but I think we need to read it. It's a sermon by Lutheran scholar Marcus Borg, titled "The Character of God," given at Calvary Episcopal Church in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 24, 2000.

Professor Borg is leading the souls he's teaching in a liberal and academic context to a place that is similar to the place Covenant Theological Seminary graduate and PCA pastor, Greg Johnson, takes us in his piece , "Freedom from Quiet Time Guilt: The Rare Beauty of Weakness Christianity." Sure, Pastor Johnson uses terminology and arguments that would appeal to conservative reformed, rather than liberal Lutheran, academic types. But both pieces, I believe, lead souls to presume on God's grace and allow no place for the fear of God...

Women and children first?

July 6-24, the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University put the following question to 1,010 men and women:

You may recall that male passengers on the Titanic agreed to give up their places on the lifeboats for women and children. If there were a similar situation today, do you think men should be expected to die and allow women to live, or is this an old fashioned idea?

Among men, 63% of men agreed to die for women; 23% thought the idea was old fashioned; and 14% couldn't make up their minds. "Quick, the boat's sinking, Mr. Bayly: What'll it be--you or your wife?"

"Well um... Ahem... On the one hand..."

Among women, though, 43% said men shouldn't bother sacrificing for them while only 39% still thought it was good for men to give up their spots in the lifeboats for women; 18% were undecided. "Quick, the boat's sinking, Mrs. Bayly: What'll it be--you or your husband?"

"Well um... Ahem... I don't know--Tim's the man of the house; let him decide."

We all know the world has lost its way on the meaning of sexuality, but what about the church? I'm reminded of two experiences in my own denomination, the PCA, where the state of affairs became clear.

Several years ago, I served on a study committee of our general assembly assigned to produce a study paper on women in combat. As you might guess, I was agin' it but there were a number of pastors and elders on the committee who would have fit right into this poll. Some were military officers (chaplains, sadly), while others were pastors of local churches. Just short of half our committee believed..

Note from Tim Bayly: The following is written by Rev. David Wegener, a missionary with Mission to the World who teaches theology at the Theology College of Central Africa in Ndola, Zambia. Mr. Wegener and his family are supported by the missions budgets of both Christ the Word and Church of the Good Shepherd.

This year the Wegeners are on home assignment and David has been teaching the men of the Reformed Evangelical Pastors College. I asked David to make some occasional contributions to the blog and this is his first. (If your congregation is looking for an excellent mission work and family to add to your support list, I commend David's work and family to you and suggest you send me an E-mail asking for David's contact information so they can visit you or your church.)

* * *

One of the great joys of my life has been reading the books written by Iain Murray. Pastor Murray was the former assistant of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones at Westminster Chapel in London. He also pastored churches in England and Australia, as well as working for the Banner of Truth publishing company. I could list all of Murray's books and tell of the impact they have made on my life but that would take too long.

Recently, I've enjoyed reading one of his books, Wesley and the Men Who Followed (Banner, 2003). He answered some questions I've had about John Wesley for many years.

Wesley's conversion was a difficult process, one that John himself struggled to understand. Though brought up in a pastor's home, he went off to Oxford University as an unconverted man...

We've had a good discussion of the use of fermented or unfermented grape juice at the Lord's Table. Before it ends, here are a few resources for elders and pastors debating this matter. This page provides more historical context, and this page more polemics, for this debate than you ever thought existed. Finally, this page establishes the superiority of grape juice for all those who, like Prophet Gore, are willing to allow science her rightful position as final arbiter of true morality.

I’ve recently been struck by similarities between the arguments made by champions of baptismal efficacy in Reformed circles and advocates of the altar call in Baptist and fundamentalist circles.

In my early years as a pastor I served a church where an altar call was expected at the conclusion of each sermon. When I questioned the need for the altar call I was told (by those who could provide any defense at all) that the altar call was simply a form which permitted obedience to Scripture’s command, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

No one denies that confession of Christ as Lord is a Scriptural hallmark of regenerate life. But what those who focus on the efficacy of baptism often seem to forget is that Scripture just as frequently and overtly ties salvation to verbal confession as to water baptism:

Romans 10:9-10 … if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

1 John 1:7-9 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 2:23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.

1 John 4:15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

Matthew 10:32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven…

When I would ask older parents in that church the spiritual state of their children they would routinely describe lives of tragic sin and rebellion against God: "Donald's had some trouble with alcohol. He's losing his license to practice law. He's about to get his third divorce...." Yet when I would go on to ask Mrs. Smith if she would like me to pray for Donald's salvation she would answer, “No, Donald's not an unbeliever. He went to the altar when he was eleven and I just know he’s a Christian.”

It's often suggested that Matthew 25 teaches a final judgment according to works. I question the accuracy of such language in reference to Matthew 25. In fact, Matthew 25 does speak of a final judgment in accord with what we do, but the basis of that judgment isn't works in the plural sense, the basis of that judgment is said by Christ to be one deed (or work), whether good or ill.

Christ is describing the final judgment before His throne where the sheep will be separated from the goats.

Speaking to the sheep, Christ says, the King will say:

Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.

This clearly sounds like the scenario described by those who propose a final judgment on the basis of works. But then Christ adds further details fundamentally important to understanding this judgment. First, he tells us that the sheep will not understand their acquittal: