Happy Reformation Day!

On this day 489 years ago, a monk by the name of Martin Luther posted a theological article in a public place. A fairly insignificant action in itself, but one that would change the world! When Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, to use Arthur Wallis's analogy, the cracks spread out across the reservoir wall. The flood that was released when the walls collapsed is what we now refer to as the Reformation.

This revival, for revival it was, was not so much a revival of power, but of truth. Revealing the eternal truth in God's word is just as much the activity of the Spirit of God as the manifestations of power. It recaptured the truth at the very heart of the gospel - that man can do nothing to earn or merit salvation; grace is a free gift of God extended to all who are dead in sin, and unable to save themselves, that through faith alone they may become alive to God because of what Jesus alone has done.

As with all moves of God, and men of God that have preceded us, we are indebted to Luther and the Reformation. We would not be where we are today without them. But equally we have an obligation to take the lessons learned and move on. Luther fought his fight of faith to free the church from the bondage to unbiblical traditions, not to replace them with a new set! Being "Reformed" is not fundamental to the essence of the church, though through the Reformation essential truth about what it means to be the church was reclaimed. An important distinction. We have an obligation to remember the past - not to live in it!

The principle of Sola Scriptura - applying all doctrines and practice in the church upon the authority of the Scriptures alone, is as vital today as it was in Luther's day. When men deny the power and operation of the gifts of the Spirit based on their experience and church traditions; when homosexual men are put in positions of church leadership based on current culture and opinions; when the church can be governed by any man-made scheme as long as it is not the model of Apostolic delegation seen in the New Testament - it's time to recapture what Sola Scriptura really means. Not to look back nostalgically at the ground that was taken 500 years ago, but to take up the baton and press into all that it means to be the Church of Jesus Christ revealed in God's eternal word today!

Ever since the light was almost eclipsed in medieval times, God has been working to restore to the church the light, the purity, and the power that are her birthright and that characterized her in the first century. The affairs of God’s house must be re-established as He instituted them at the beginning. The ways of apostolic Christianity must be recovered or the church of the latter days will never ride the storms that already threaten to engulf her. God has used revivals to this end.

During such times, new light has broken from the sacred page, and out of such times new expressions of the church have evolved, recovering (in most cases) something more of the mind of God. Only when the new truth became central and the work was built around it, instead of around Christ, and only when believers became more diligent in holding fast to the new truth than in holding fast to Christ, did the movement become denominational and sectarian.

Although the revivals of the future will surely reveal that there is yet more land to be possessed in this respect, let us never forget what we owe to the spiritual momentum derived from the movements of the past. And let us be ready to walk in whatever new light may break forth when once again God is pleased to manifest His power and glory.

~ Arthur Wallis

The Big Picture - Part 1

This is the man who puts out the chairs
And frees the pastor from such cares
To preach a word with power and grace
And fill God's people with fresh faith
To spread to the corners of the land
The works of an almighty hand.

That this nation may be set aflame
All for the honour of Jesus' name.
And those throughout the earth abroad
May know the glory of the Lord

So as he sets out row by row,
He knows he helps the church to grow.
This job does not define his worth,
For he's seen God's glory fill the earth!

— Chris Hamer-Hodges

Carrying the Baton

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. — George Santayana


Hugh has asked a really interesting question of his fellow bloggers in this post.

"Other than the Bible, which book has recently made the most difference in your life and why?"

I have to confess, I am not a great reader. I love reading the Bible, and read it at least twice a day, but apart from when I am on holiday I tend not to read a great deal of other books. To give you an idea of my general pace of reading, it took me nine months to read Moby Dick (but it was worth it).

The book I have chosen is "The History of the Church, by Eusebius." It may strike some as odd that an ancient history book, rather than a modern inspirational Christian paperback can be lifechanging, but let me explain why. First, I read it in response to the Holy Spirit. I felt very stongly stirred that I needed to know more about the history of the early Church. Not for an intellectual exercise, but because if it was not for them we would not be here. As Eccelesiastes says: There is nothing new under the sun. Many times in our debates in theology we are just reinventing the wheel that was crafted by masters many centuries ago. If we learn how these early heroes of the faith stood firm from such pressures both from without (horrific tortures and deaths) and from within (from insidious heresies) and remained true to the faith, it will inspire are stir us and save us from going round the same mountain again and again, when we should be pressing into new land.

I read the account of the Gallic Martyrs at the time a member of our church was tragically killed in a motor accident. It really brought home to me that this life is fleeting, and that what really counts is the mark we make on eternity. This book is full of giants of faith, who carried on the baton from the first apostles. Now, down through the centuries, the baton has passed to us. All that they fought for, all that they lived for and all that they died for, now rests on us. We did not begin this race. God's plan was not in trouble before we came along. If we fail God will raise up others to pick up the baton and run. But we have this awesome privilege to be part of this race, and we owe it to our Lord, and to all who have gone before us to run with all our might. We have come to the Kingdom for such a time as this. We are part of the great eternal History of the Church that is still being written.

[Well done Hugh for bringing blogging monologues into a fruitful dialogue. I'd like to see much more of this type of blogging.]

Sovereignty and Free will

I was very disturbed yesterday, very disturbed indeed. I visited a website of a well known ministry, whose teaching has been in circulation in our congregation, only to find that one of the basic foundations for his doctrine is a denial of the total sovereignty of God.

"The widely accepted doctrine that God controls everything is a deception. If Satan can confuse and deceive you on that issue, he’s got you!"

Yikes! This is such a serious error! If God is not sovereign, then he is not God. If he is not Lord of all, he is not Lord at all. This is the most ancient of all heresies: Dualism. The belief that God does not have total control, but that Satan or some other power has a competing portion of the total sovereignty of the Universe. This view is the one caricatured by the image of God and the Devil playing chess for the souls of men -- it's only because God is so much smarter that he is going to win.

The root of this problem is also age old. It's the apparent contradiction between the sovereignty of God and the free will of man. In human logic it must be one or the other. If God is sovereign then human free will is just an illusion. If men truly have free will, then God is not in total control. The argument gets even more complicated when you throw in the problem of evil. If God is totally sovereign does this mean he is responsible for all the evil in the world? If God is not sovereign over evil does this mean we have a weak or complicit God who is unable to exert his will over Satan?

The argument has been played out down through the centuries of Church history. Between St. Augustine and Pelagius; Calvin and Arminius. It's a sad comment on our ignorance of church history that the same old debate is coming around again -- if we do not learn from our history we are destined to repeat it.

The Bible teaches both God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. If we ignore one or the other we wander into error, and even blatant heresy. If we ignore the free will of man, then the inevitable result is fatalism and passivity. Why evangelise, if the elect will get saved anyway, and the damned never will? Why pray if God is going to do what he has predestined to do whether we pray or not? But even more serious are the errors we fall into if we deny the sovereignty of God: Satan becomes a little-god, and God becomes no god at all. If you worship a God who is not totally sovereign, then you do not worship the Sovereign Lord of the scriptures -- you are an idolater! Sorry to put it in such stark terms, but these things need to be said. Peter puts it in even stronger terms:

But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves. (2 Peter 2:1)

So how can God be sovereign, and man's responsibility not be diminished? Well it is a mystery. God wouldn't be God if you could totally understand him would he? But there are some analogies in nature. How can an electron be both a wave and a particle? How is it that when you pop a balloon, each molecule of air continues to do its own thing in total ignorance to the state of the balloon, and yet the air always flows out. How can it be that the individual radioactive decay of an atom is one of the securest forms of pure random data in the world, and yet radioactive half-lives can be calculated with accuracy down to fractions of a second? Did you know that your right eye and your left eye see two conflicting two-dimensional views of the universe? Yet we would have no concept of the world's true three-dimensional nature if they saw exactly the same thing.

But ultimately our best recourse is to the scriptures themselves. If you are struggling to understand the true meaning of God's sovereignty, let me prescribe a good dose of Romans chapter 9.

Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, `Why did you make me like this?' " (Romans 9:18-20)

Why does the best medicine taste bitter?

Hello again. I have been away in Scotland these past days, visiting my family; hence the absence from Blogging.

I have been reading the works of St. John Crysostom today. I am convinced of the value of learning from our fathers in the faith. Not just those who started the journey (the Apostles), and not just those who passed the baton to us (our spiritual fathers in the faith) - but all those who went between.

Solomon said "There is nothing new under the sun." If we do not learn from our history we are destined to repeat it. This is particularly true when it comes to doctrinal controversies. True - all that we need is in the Bible, but just as a wise lawyer will refer to past cases as well as the law itself when he argues his case, rather than reinvent the wheel; so we too should not despise the wisdom of our forefathers or think we are the first to face such issues.

Take the problem of suffering and sickness. There are some who have tried to do a P.R. job on God, and attribute all such activities to the devil. But what is the consequence? We no longer have a sovereign God, but a beleaguered candy-covered deity who looks on in despair, as through parted fingers, at what goes on in the world. Such a God may neatly fit into our small theological box, but is robbed of his divine majesty. Such a God would never have expelled man from paradise, would never have sent the flood to wipe out mankind, would never have taken away the gift of oneness of speech at Babel. Indeed such a God would never have endured to see his one and only son suffer so much on the cross. As such this theology is a form of idolatory, as it puts forward a God who is not the God revealed to us in the pages of scripture.

God is good - all the time. But we must be careful in our definition of what "good" means. God will never do anything that is morally corrupt, but he will sometimes use the "bitter medicine" to cure our ills.

John Crysostom had much to say on this issue. He lived in a time when many thought the world was over-run by the power of demons, rather than in the hands of a sovereign God.

Not only when he confers benefits but even when he chastises God is good and loving. For even his chastisements and his punishments are the greatest part of his beneficence, the greatest form of his providence. Whenever therefore thou seest that famines have taken place, and pestilences, and drought and immoderate rains, and irregularities in the atmosphere, or any other of the things which chasten human nature, be not distressed, nor be despondent, but worship Him who caused them, marvel at Him for His tender care. For He who does these things is such that He even chastens the body that the soul may become sound. Then does God these things saith one? God does these things, and even if the whole city, nay even if the whole universe were here I will not shrink from saying this. Would that my voice were clearer than a trumpet, and that it were possible to stand in a lofty place, and to cry aloud to all men, and to testify that God does these things.

For the physician is not only to be commended when he leads forth the patient into gardens and meadows, nor even into baths and pools of water, nor yet when he sets before him a well furnished table, but when he orders him to remain without food, when he oppresses him with hunger and lays him low with thirst, confines him to his bed, both making his house a prison, and depriving him of the very light, and shadowing his room on all sides with curtains, and when he cuts, and when he cauterizes, and when he brings his bitter medicines, he is equally a physician. How is it not then preposterous to call him a physician who does so many evil things, but to blaspheme God, if at any time He doeth one of these things, if He bring on either famine or death, and to reject his providence over all? And yet He is the only true physician both of souls and bodies. On this account He often seizes this nature of ours wantoning in prosperity, and travailing with a fever of sins, and by want, and hunger, and death and other calamities and the rest of the medicines of which He knows, frees us from diseases.