A confession

Has a nation changed its gods,
even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory
for that which does not profit.
Be appalled, O heavens, at this;
be shocked, be utterly desolate,
declares the LORD,
for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.

I am a sinner. This means something. It isn't empty. It isn't some vague, amorphous, overly-spiritual proclamation. But that's what I've made it.
I am a sinner. It's meant nothing more to me than, there's something in me that doesn't seek God. It's let me hide behind spiritual words and the right answers. My sin isn't that, though. My sins are concrete. They are dirty. They have consequences. I am a liar and an adulterer. I am an idolator.

I have forsaken the living God, the only source of true delight. I've made for myself idols that can provide no real pleasure. I've willfully sinned in pursuit of these idols. I've harbored these sins in my heart. I've hardened it against God and his saints.

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

God's hand has been heavy on me, but still I have hidden away my shame and guilt. He allowed me to continue in my secret sin for a season, but no longer. God is laying bare my deepest secrets. He is bringing the light to shine on those dirty, secret sins I've kept. And it is hard. I don't like the consequences, but I have brought them on myself. It's hard, but it is good. It is necessary. It is how I am brought to repentence.

As great as is my sin, God's grace is greater still. His mercy abounds far more than I could ever imagine. It is new every morning when I rise, to cover over the new sins that rise with me. I can praise him as I have been unable to for so long. I can see that he is a truly great savior, who can cover over my great sin.

I am holy, not because of anything in me, but despite everything that was in me. I have said this so many times before, but I don't know if I've ever really believed it. God is good. He has covered me with the righteousness of Christ. He has put the seal of the Holy Spirit in my heart. He has declared me pure and righteous. He has put to death that sinner and has made me a saint.

Praise God and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself up for one such as I and all those who came before and will follow after in this great faith which he has written and is completing in us. We are unable to purchase for ouselves that which we most need, but God has given to us an invitation.

Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.

The great unspoken sin

To most people today, the word "romance" conjures up images of candle-lit dinners, against-all-odds weddings and hand-in-hand sunset beach-walks. It brings to mind a thousand cheesy chick-flicks and good first dates. A romantic is someone who has ideas that aren't in tune with what the world sees as reality. The word is often paired with "hopeless," as if to say that a romantic has no real chance in life. It is unfortunate, but to much of the world, reality isn't romantic and romance isn't realistic. There is a division between the two. What God has joined together, man has put asunder.

A great lie has infected the world. It's all around us. It seems as if everywhere you look, people have turned from the real world and are living in a fantasy. It's not a good fantasy, either. There is no fairy-tale ending, no prince coming to save the princess. Instead, it's all dragons and witches and tall tower-prisons. We ate the poisoned apple and forgot the rest of the story. Cynicism has taken over the heart of the world, including many who take for themselves the name of Christ.

It's easy to see why. This world isn't getting any better. Just look around, and you'll see a thousand atrocities every day. How can we look for anything good to come out of this world? Wars rage, people starve, children are kidnapped and forced to choose between killing or being murdered. It is apparent that the world is a cruel place, full of pain and hate and fear. But it wasn't always this way. It's not meant to be this way.

Once upon a time, the world was free from pain and suffering. The world was free from fear and death. It was a paradise, a utopia where man was free to do as he would, so long as he did not eat of the forbidden fruit. Obedience, freedom and happiness were joined together, but they didn't stay that way for long, at least not in the mind of man. The freedom of obedience was discarded for the bonds of free choice, the happiness of boundaries for the dangers of unlimited freedom. We left the garden behind, and made our way into what we knew would be a better tomorrow.

But our tomorrow wasn't better. Our free choices weren't nearly so free as we had believed. We walked out on perfection, believing that we could do better, and when we found that we couldn't, we despaired. Of course, not everyone believes that we can't do better. Some seem to think that we are moving back to paradise, but they deceive themselves. We are destroying our home, raping and killing our family, and spitting in the face of the one who created us. What other response than cynicism could there be to our predicament?

Left in this situation, we would be right to be cynical. We would be right to lose hope. Despite our best efforts, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Truthfully, it's not despite our best efforts. Our best efforts picked up the basket and took off at full speed. We are a ruined people, rolling toward the horizon, believing that just out of sight, where the tracks converge, we will find our way out.

So this then is where we find ourselves - sliding into the abyss with no way out. On our own, we are hopeless and helpless. The world is right to quake with fear, to tremble and cry out, to despair.

But we are not on our own. The world was created, not full of cynicism, but full of wonder and romance. This life in which we find ourselves is real, but it is not Reality. The world was created, meaning that there was something or someone who created it, and that someone is the great Romantic. He has ideas of how things should be, and they don't line up with what we witness every day. This is not the life for which we were meant. It is not the life to which we are destined.

Just as the prince came for the princess, to save her from the dragon, so the great Romantic came for us, to save us from this sin that entangles and ensnares. He not only raised us from our poisoned-apple death, he ate the apple himself and shattered its power with his life. The witches and dragons have been defeated, and though they still rage and roar, they have no power over us. We have been freed from the chains of fear, death and cynisicm to the open fields of romance and wonder.

While we are still here, the enemy will continue to fight. The greatest lover of all, Christ, has gone on ahead, to prepare a place for our homecoming, but he has not left us alone.

So while we are still in this world, struggling with the powers of the devil, we must not give in to the cynicism that is all around us. Christ did not come and die for us to return to the attitudes and thoughts we had. He came to set us free unto romance and wonder and awe, unto Reality, not as we see it, but as it truly is.

God created perfection. He created hope and romance and ideals. What right, then, have we to settle for anything less? What right have we to lapse into a cynical attitude when Jesus Christ, God himself, took on our sin and died for us, that we would be free from our just rewards? What is more romantic than the lover who sacrifices himself for his bride?

Greater love has no man, and that is the life to which we are called. It is a life in these earthly bodies, serving a heavenly calling, waiting for the world to be returned to the perfection in which it was created. We have hope. We have more than hope. We have assurance that all will be well, that everything that hurts today will one day be set right, that these fallen bodies will be raised and glorified. How then do we become jaded about life?

We cannot hold to this redemption while still clinging to our cynicism in any area of life, whether relationships or churches or anything else. Love hopes all things. This life we live we live in Christ, the great Romantic, the greatest lover there ever will be. He has shown us what it means to live, and it is a life of romance and freedom and wonder and love lived in the flesh. Cynicism has no place in this life, in this romance of flesh and blood.

Barry J. Maxwell tells it

The man who played a huge part in my actually beginning to take my faith seriously, way back in my junior year of college, has posted something that I think many young people who are zealous for seeing God's glory and sovereignty upheld need to read.

There are matters of faith that demand a death grip. In Paul’s words, there are matters of food and there are matters of confession. However, holding certain convictions does not mean we kick off intruders while dangling from the top rung. Rather, we hold ever so tightly (or are held ever so tightly?) with one hand while offering our other hand to help God’s people to the next step.

Young, Reformed, inexperienced pastors (like myself) emerge from a renewed interest in historical and experiential theology. They charge off the line, sprinting to first place, flaunting their ability, and arrogantly leaving congregations in a wake of confusion. Their legacy is how strong they held their convictions rather than how gracious and patient God is with sinners.

The rest of his article can be read here. It's an older post, but I just got my computer back after not having it for 6 weeks, so I haven't been keeping up.

The Southern Baptist reformation rolls on

Years ago, a battle was fought in the SBC over the authority of Scripture. The conservatives won that battle, and the power and authority of God's word over Southern Baptists was upheld. Now, that fight appears to have continued well past the bounds within which it should have stayed. Not only is the Word of God authoritative over Southern Baptists, but so, apparently, is unwritten tradition.

A resolution was passed urging Southern Baptists to oppose the production and consumption of alcholic beverages. This resolution was based on the damage that alcohol has done and on what they claim is Biblical evidence that the consumption of alcohol leads to "physical, mental and emotional damage" and "the use of other kinds of drugs, both legal and illegal."

It seems to me that opposing the production and consumption of alcohol and supporting legislation that does the same has already been tried. I don't believe it worked, which is why the 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition, was passed.

Next comes the argument that alcohol causes damage to families and lives. I won't attempt to say that alcohol has never played a part in the destruction of families or in health problems or in auto accidents or anything else. To do so would be ridiculous. I will, however, say that alcohol is not the ultimate cause of those things. The people who drank the alcohol are.

What of the other things that cause problems and damage to families? What of the internet? The internet can be, and often is, used for damaging things. Internet pornography is addicting and destroys lives. However, I don't see any calls for Southern Baptists to oppose the internet. That is because the internet is intrinsically neither good nor bad. People choose how they will use the internet, just as they choose whether or not they will use moderation in alcohol consumption.

Another argument is that Scripture, namely Proverbs 23:29-35, which is the only passage cited in the resolution, teaches that alcohol use leads to "physical, mental and emotional damage." However, reading the passage shows that it is not speaking of merely drinking alcoholic beverages. Verse 30 answers the questions of who has certain problems associated with drunkenness asked in verse 29. The answer reads, "Those who tarry long over wine." I do not think that having the occasional glass of wine or beer constitutes tarrying long over wine.

So what of the weaker brothers? Some people believe that alcohol in itself is evil. It would be unloving to simply drink around those people. Instead, they should be built up in the Gospel. We should abstain from drinking if it will cause a brother to stumble, but that is not what this resolution says. Instead, it seems to imply that consuming alcoholic beverages is not included in our Christian liberty. The resolution reads, "There are some religious leaders who are now advocating the consumption of alcoholic beverages based on a misinterpretation of the doctrine of 'our freedom in Christ'."

It appears to me that this statement is saying anyone who believes Christians are free to partake of alcohol is misinterpreting Scripture. Where is the other Scriptural evidence for this claim? If alcohol is not allowed in Christian freedom, why is it not explicitly prohibited in Scripture? All that Scripture prohibits is drunkenness. In fact, the Bible promotes the drinking of alcohol. In Deuteronomy 14:26, God tells Israel to go to the place that he tells them and to spend their money on whatever they desire, including "wine or strong drink", and to eat it before the Lord and rejoice. Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 5:23 not to drink only water, but to have some wine for his stomach. Proverbs 31:6 tells us to "Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress."

I have heard some argue that when the Bible refers to wine, it is actually grape juice. I find this argument to be without any merit at all. If biblical wine was actually just grape juice, then why are there so many passages that speak of being drunk on wine? Is it possible to get drunk by drinking grape juice? If so, then why draw a distinction between the two? Either we should abstain from both or from neither. Also, Numbers 6:3 refers to both wine and grape juice as two separate things.

So what do we do about those who struggle with this? It is true that people struggle with alcoholism, and to tempt those people by drinking in front of them would be both unloving and wrong. However, if this argument is going to be used to put an end to all drinking, it should be taken to its logical conclusion. Obesity is a huge problem in our culture. It creates many health problems. However, we still have potlucks on Sundays after church. Why is gluttony acceptable while drinking is not?

The Baptist Faith and Message says in Article XVII, "God alone is Lord of the conscience, and He has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are contrary to His Word or not contained in it." What then do we do with this resolution? When someone can convince me based on solid Biblical evidence that alcohol should be not just avoided, but opposed, by Christians, then I will accept the resolution. Until then, I am wary of anything that places more requirements on Christians and church leaders than the Bible does, that would keep Christ himself from serving on an SBC committee, and anything that would steal from the freedom Christ has provided in the Gospel.

Emergent and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea of a doctrinal statement

Tony Jones, the national coordinator of Emergent-U.S., has recently posted an article written by LeRon Shults, formerly of Bethel Seminary, on why the Emergent Church will not produce a doctrinal statement. The whole article can be read here.

First, I would like to say that I have no problem with the Emergent Church not releasing a doctrinal statement. My understanding of the movement is that it is just that—a movement. It is not a church or a denomination. However, I believe that the reasons set forth in the article are wrong, and, if followed to their logical conclusions, can and will destroy true Christianity among those who hold to them

The first argument Shults puts forth is that a doctrinal statement is unnecessary.

Jesus did not have a “statement of faith.” He called others into faithful relation to God through life in the Spirit. As with the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, he was not concerned primarily with whether individuals gave cognitive assent to abstract propositions but with calling persons into trustworthy community through embodied and concrete acts of faithfulness. The writers of the New Testament were not obsessed with finding a final set of propositions the assent to which marks off true believers. Paul, Luke and John all talked much more about the mission to which we should commit ourselves than they did about the propositions to which we should assent.

It comes as a surprise to me, as well as to others, I am sure, that Jesus and the New Testament writers were not highly concerned with doctrine. Is it not a doctrinal statement when Christ says, “this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins?” What about “heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will not pass away?” The first chapter of John certainly appears to be doctrinal. However, I will admit that these are not doctrinal books. They most definitely contain doctrine, but they are narratives, not statements of faith.

The epistles, however, are another story. When Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 of the gospel he preached, that Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead in accordance with the Scriptures, what is this if not a doctrinal statement? If Christ is not raised from the dead, then our faith is futile and we are still in our sins. Not only that, but we are misrepresenting God also. “If anyone is preaching a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.” How are these not a “set of propositions the assent to which marks off true believers?” The New Testament is full of doctrine, and to claim otherwise is either to be blind to what the text actually says or to ignore it.

The next argument is that it is inappropriate to formulate a doctrinal statement. Shults’s argument here stems from his post-modern view of language. He asserts that you cannot create a statement of doctrine that would hold true for all cultures and contexts. It would seem to me that this argument doesn’t really hold much water. If a single statement of faith cannot be true for all cultures and contexts, then why wouldn’t he want to create a statement for the present culture and context? Also, and more importantly, he claims that

The truly infinite God of Christian faith is beyond all our linguistic grasping, as all the great theologians from Irenaeus to Calvin have insisted, and so the struggle to capture God in our finite propositional structures is nothing short of linguistic idolatry.

So what exactly is the Bible? Is it idolatry to view the Bible as the revelation of God? And what about all that the great theologians wrote about God? If they truly believed it was “linguistic idolatry” to use “finite propositional structures” in discussing God, would we have Calvin’s Institutes? I know of no one who claims that God has been captured in words. That is a ridiculous statement. God is not in the words of any doctrinal statement, or even in the words of the Bible. God is greater than any words, but he has chosen to reveal himself to us in words, and therefore it is not wrong to write about God. In fact, one could say that to argue that writing about God is idolatry is to accuse God himself of idolatry. After all, he put his revelation of himself into words before any of the rest of us ever dreamed of our statements of faith.

This argument is truly dangerous to Christianity. If God transcends the written word to the point that no true knowledge of him can be acquired in that way, then on what basis do we claim any knowledge of God? If we cannot claim any knowledge of God, then we cannot know that we have been saved. We can’t even know that we need to be saved. We can’t know that God created the world, or that there is only one God, or anything at all about him. We are left to our own devices, and the Bible becomes just another book about what people think about God. We’ve already been down that road, and we need only look at the liberal denominations to see that it leads to a religion that isn’t Christianity at all.

The third and final argument set forth by Shults is that it would be disastrous to have a doctrinal statement. On this, I think that I agree. It would indeed be disastrous to a movement that is “dynamic rather than static” to set its beliefs down on paper. It could very well lead to “excluding people from the community” or “excommunication from the community.” When the primary focus of your organization is to “facilitate a conversation among persons committed to living out faithfully the call to participate in the reconciling mission of the biblical God” and to “provide a milieu in which others are welcomed to join in the pursuit of life ‘in’ the One who is true,” then anything that might exclude someone should be avoided.

Christianity is an exclusive religion. Jesus himself taught that no man comes to the Father but through him, and that he came not to bring peace but a sword. Any religion that seeks to bring in others at the expense of the truth and exclusivity set out in Scripture is not Christianity, but something else. That being said, this isn't the first time the true Church has been forced to deal with this sort of doctrinal relativism, and it possibly won't be the last. We should deal with those who would propogate this belief with love and with prayer, that God might call them to himself and establish them in the "faith that was once for all delivered to the saints."

Apology for my recent writing

My most recent post, concerning the fate of those who die in infancy, has been greatly misunderstood. I now realize that my writing is not clear. I was responding to this. Apparently my attempt at satire did not work as I had hoped, so I feel that I should clarify a few things. I was writing to show the ridiculousness of those who would say that there is no biblical warrant for the idea of an "age of accountability" (although I greatly dislike that term). In my writing, I presented several biblical arguments that support this idea, but then simply dismissed them as human sentimentality without any real scriptural support. This is the argument that I have seen put forth by those who are strongly against this belief. They insist that their own belief is correct and do not deal with the biblical arguments of those who believe otherwise. I was attempting to show this, but apparently I have done so badly, because only one person who read it without actually discussing it with me first realized that it was meant to be satirical.

What about his modest proposal?A response to Mr. Pfost's recent writing

Dear Mr, Pfost,

First, I would like to congratulate you on your progressive thinking. For too long we as Christians have simply uttered such inane and outdated phrases as ‘Abortion is murder” or “God is pro-life” or whatever other cheeky response we can come up with when faced with the hard decisions of our reproductive responsibilities without truly examining both sides of the issue. We all know that it is just not that easy.

You have said that abortion is a sure way to fill heaven and advance the kingdom of God. However, I must kindly and humbly disagree. Anyone who uses their mind at all can easily see that the Bible teaches that all infants are damned to Hell. After all, Paul clearly states in Romans 5 that “death spread to all men” because of Adam’s sin (v. 12) and all men are condemned because of that same sin (v. 18).

Now, some may try to say, as you have done, that God actually sends these babies to Heaven. I ask, where is the biblical evidence for this assertion? It is at this point that your people may point to passages such as Revelation 20:12 and 2 Corinthians 5:10. They will try to argue that, while Adam’s sin has created in us a sin-nature that precludes our coming to God on our own, we are not judged based on that sin. Instead, they would say, we are judged and condemned based on our own sins, which we commit in the body.

How can one argue with these people? They are obviously giving in to mere human sentimentality and ignoring the clear teachings of Scripture. When you tear down these proof-texts of theirs, they will flee to yet more context-less verses.

They will say that David proclaimed that he would go to be with his dead infant son after his own death (2 Samuel 12:23). “How can this be if babies go to Hell? Surely David, a man after God’s own heart, did not go to Hell too,” they will assert. Shall we then give in to this argument? No! We must continue to strive for the truth.

They will answer, “What about the nation of Israel wandering in the wilderness? Did not God say that the children of Israel would be allowed to enter the promised land because they ‘have no knowledge of good or evil’ (Deuteronomy 1:39)? Why would God punish infants today, who have no more knowledge of good or evil than did those children, for their sins when he allowed these to go unpunished?”

They may even appeal to our precious Westminster Confession. “Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth” (12.3). How can some infants be saved if the only way to salvation is by believing in Christ’s death and resurrection, as is clearly seen in the Scriptures? The answer, I belive, is quite evident.

I am sorry if my words are too harsh toward your position. I believe that those, like you, who believe that God can save infants who are obviously damned for Adam’s sin and do not have the ability to make a conscious decision to come to Christ give Him far too much freedom in salvation. As God’s holy Word clearly teaches that all men are born sinners, and the only way to salvation is through Christ, it is impossible for these infants to be saved. They lack the necessary knowledge of their sins and the knowledge of what Christ has done for sinners at the cross.

Again, I pray that you will accept my apologies for my harshness and the possibility that I have misrepresented your position. I look forward to the day when we will have no need to debate these issues that divide us, when we enter the kingdom of God as the children to whom it belongs (Mark 10:14).

Your humble brother in Christ,

Matthew Newman