December 6, 2011

My Liturgy Is My Litany Is My Liberty

By Pooka

This is another long one. If it’s too much, here’s one possible executive summary: We can’t think covenantally (read correctly) because of sin: We’ve made our covenant with ourselves and the rest of life in Christ is the removal of that lasting, bonded, covenant to self.

One of our great afflictions in this generation is the near extinction of a mindset that is vital to relationships and our correct view of just about everything. We’re missing the concept of commitment. The shadow of this problem has been growing for a long time, in many parts of our western culture for certain.

I’ve read and listened to thousands of words about how world wars have caused such devastation, being the ultimate manifestations of evil in the 20th century. The result that seems to be a common thread in WWI, II, and all the big, destructive conflicts surrounding them is that people have lost their sense of anything being worth it. Sometimes I’ve heard “where is God?” in response to the cataclysms but I think that more, there’s been a doubt that arises from this question that is more deadly. “Why should I commit to the God who isn’t there?”

Also, the increase in ease of life, communication, mobility have all sugar-coated this almost instant liberty from commitment by making us freer to choose (ironically). We can easily vacillate between what we want to do, what we can do and what we should do. We have no need to put down roots and abide somewhere, in something or on something, since picking up and trucking off are as simple as gassing up the infernal combustion machine and throwing a box of clothes in the trunk. We can now delete what we’ve said, obliterate the meaning of what we decide not to delete with an update, or even put meaningful, ambiguous half-speech before the masses that can be read any of a dozen ways none of which commit us to anything.

I’ll list some of the things I see as contributors: Cars, the Web and social media, phones, freeways and airways, free or near-free publishing. All of these are just pieces in the big Lego set of “freedom” that gives us choice. It can go back to the Framers in our American history, who laid the groundwork for protection of our liberties, but strangely enough opened the floodgates just enough that we could begin to define our liberties by greater leaps and bounds every day. Now we see public protests for any reason under the sun, laymen making commentary on anything and everything of which they know less than nothing (yers truly included) and completely unqualified candidates for positions that once required not just qualifications but the wherewithal to commit to the demands of the positions. I speak in generalities because it’s all over – I’m not criticizing just One or promoting an agenda.

Of course, it’s sin. Full rounded freedom to do just what we want is just what we all want. And so, with no commitments, no reason to commit, we define our own fiction, a story that casts us in the center of everything. The very circles in which we run are self-licking ice cream cones that uplift the individual so that each of us in a group can say that the group is us and we uphold the group. We’ve committed to just one thing, ourselves, which is precisely what Adam did in the garden, wanting his own edification and significance. All other bets are off. We’re free to clean out our Facebook friend list at any time, delete our Tweets, rebuild the Lego set as many times as we’d like or drop off the grid just by unplugging the idiot box, starting the car and driving off to a new place. Maybe a season at The Burning Man will do me good.

So we have this intense difficulty looking at the Bible with a frame of mind that truly understands it. We can’t seem to understand the concept of commitment because we’ve been raised free from the mandate of commitment. Billboards claim “your way” or “define yourself” or “rethinking you” while banks, stores, services and forums all call for us to contribute our thoughts and preferences in detail that reaches all the way to the packaging on a jug of milk. And so with the Bible, green, military, woman’s, child’s, MacArthur’s, Reformation, survivor’s, Purpose Driven, College, (enough yet?). Since we are free to choose anything, we cannot come to the Word of God and understand that we cannot choose anything. Funny that by driving ourselves to the point that we can choose all, we’ve bound ourselves in our lives to a litany of choice. Our liturgy is to pause in reflection before any event or action and consider not whether it is profitable or required, but whether it is good for me or worth my while.

So is it truly a wonder that we cannot see the continuity of the Scriptures and God’s work of redemption? Is it surprising that the New Testament is all about me and the Old is all about them? Is it surprising that we’ve created circles of dedication to the Jewish Nation, Theonomic Society, Two Kingdoms, Altar Calls and Bob Jones U. or other cultural identification that we can “identify with” and will have meaningful productivity for ourselves? Distinctives should bring about suspicion in many cases. Are they distinctives that set the Word of God above party preferences, or do they facilitate personal identity and alignment to a movement or other personality? I’m not knocking loving neighbor here, I’m condemning loving self, for that is what these all-about perceptions are all about. Our “destiny” is about telling God what’s what, and joining with our neighbors in a Babel Project that brings us to the heavens or at least frees us from commitment to what we were made for.

Continuity, you say? What does that have to do with commitment? I ran off the track right?

I don’t think so. I see this every day. I have the freedom to choose whatever I want. I can choose to leave or stay, paint or draw or write or read or vegetate. I can do my work or not. I don’t have a sense of duty or higher calling. And I’ve taught my kids the same thing. I watch passively as the schools do the same thing. I think that, other than this work here on Lord and Hearth, the occasional gatherings of our folk from church in various venues and (ultimately) Sunday worship, the concept of commitment is virtually nonexistent in an epistemological way (meaning concretely, it’s more than just a cursory glance or “living” covenantally). My view of things, though growing toward an understanding of covenants, is anti-covenantal. I don’t think in terms of my marriage vows or enlistment contract. Nor do I keep in mind that my kids are my ministry-handed-down-by-God-Himself. I don’t think about how much my beloved brothers and sisters in Church are a truly covenant people. I forget, for days on end, the vows to Church and Congregation, and in suit forget to review these with my family.

But our Lord does not forget. He does not make commitments, covenants, optional – for Himself or for us. So at some point, there will be a reckoning. Fortunately for us, we who are in His church, the bride of His Son, that reckoning is weekly and we are brought to His promises and fed His promises and we hear them, touch and see them. Discipleship and discipline are tutors in covenants. The whole point is to learn that our God is a covenantal being who deals in things like guarantees, places, commitments, promises, tangibles, relationships – all those things that are concrete and inflexible. He does not quibble over current fads and movements. He uses even these to implement reiterations of His promises. And we do well to ponder these things. The ultimate Promise is that He did, in creation, set up our redemption from the very beginning and that every aspect of our redemption is founded on promises, covenants, which He alone maintains. Jesus Christ the actor, the Holy Spirit the Official Seal, God the Judge; survey the titles that are everywhere in Scripture, all promise us His faithfulness.

R. C. Sproul has spent years teaching about many things like the Holiness of God. One thing we should think about, regarding this subject is that God is the guarantee of Sproul’s work. Sproul has explained all about God’s holiness, but God is the one we must believe is going to be holy – it’s based on His Word, His clear declaration that Holy is what He is. So we have a guarantee of this. Where I can flip between personality traits, He will not. He has promised.

Reading the Word for the promises of God, for His faithfulness to make and provide for us a Savior, a satisfaction for our sin, a solution for our hopelessness, is bound to resolve many of the conflicts among us today. It is bound to “liberate” us with the freedom to seriously be committed to a beautiful goal that is depends on God’s promises rather than human frailty and fickleness.

I read an Old Life article today, which dovetails in right here (Even though the author isn’t going where I’m going). It speaks to me of more than just pastoral commitment while at the same time makes me more than a little thankful that my pastor, our pastor, has a commitment to God’s Word and the ministry thereof which takes precedent for our benefit.

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December 4, 2011

Salvation Has Come

By Pooka

The night is far gone,
those moments that filled our hours,
faded, our drunken waste that bound our feet.

We must wake, wake, the herald has cried,
flee, fire, foes!      Salvation has come.
It is near, near, within our souls

No twilight ‘ere the morn
has beset us in riddles and fear.
No, we have seen the sun rise o’er the hills.

The day is at hand,
this time ne’er to fade again,
tho a battle crests and falls round us.

There shall be no return,
so we gird our flesh and bones
in this armor of adamant light.

And heralds we become as well
flee, fire, foes!      Salvation has come.
We turn from the curse

and revel in the day,
free, free from death’s bonds.
We wait our Master’s pleasure.

Men, seek no taste of our foul days.
Salvation is nearer now to us
than at its first bright peals.

______________________________________________________

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. — Romans 13:11-12

The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.

Mark 13:37 “What I say to you I say to all, ‘Be on the alert!’”

1 Corinthians 7:29 But this I say, brethren, the time has been shortened, so that from now on those who have wives should be as though they had none;

1 Corinthians 10:11 Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

1 Corinthians 15:34 Become sober-minded as you ought, and stop sinning; for some have no knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.

Ephesians 5:14 For this reason it says, “Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you.”

1 Thessalonians 5:6 so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.

James 5:8 You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.

1 Peter 4:7 The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

2 Peter 3:11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,

1 John 2:18 Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.

Revelation 1:3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.

Revelation 22:10 And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

1 Corinthians 7:29 But this I say, brethren, the time has been shortened, so that from now on those who have wives should be as though they had none;

1 Corinthians 10:11 Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

2 Corinthians 6:7 in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left,

2 Corinthians 10:4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.

Ephesians 5:11 Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;

Ephesians 6:11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

Ephesians 6:13 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

1 Thessalonians 5:8 But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.

Hebrews 10:25 not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

James 5:8 You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.

1 Peter 4:7 The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

2 Peter 3:11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,

1 John 2:8 On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.

1 John 2:18 Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.

Revelation 1:3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.

Revelation 22:10 And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.

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November 30, 2011

Through The Wringer

By Pooka

I wrote about how we can’t do anything to earn salvation and that there’s no route we can take to lose our salvation. I asserted that God keeps the promises in our family and though He commands our affection, loyalty and trust, it is He who enables and moves us into those qualities. We don’t add to our salvation.

I didn’t go into our end of the program much. Strangely enough that’s the hard part. I think I begin to understand why. Theology may actually be easier than Me-ology because I can read, hear and understand what God says about Himself from a nice distance that enables a more objective, humble and careful study. Looking at me is always tainted with Sin. It looks like God is less affect-able by my sinful perceptions where I’m just plain messed up from the start.

So when I look at me, I’m aware of my sin and my need to do something about it. It’s easier to see and trust what God does about it and to understand that I can’t do anything, really, myself. I don’t even contribute. But there is still the command and desire to do things. God demands my works and I really want to do them. I want to be more like Him, to love Him and my neighbor. I want to discard my hang-ups and sins very much, and so I keenly search the Scriptures and the help of my contemporaries and elders for help.

But keeping in mind that I don’t do anything that earns or improves my salvation, life becomes hard. Especially when it comes to that lingering habit or obsession, I sometimes feel the tendency to toss it off as “oh well, that’s what Sunday is for.” This is fairly easily quelled with a self-imposed flogging or prayer, but it’s the fact that the tendency is there that kills me. I don’t want to think like that.

And all the above is part of assurance. This sort of discussion should be in our heads. Of course we should desire good works. Of course we need to seek our sanctification (working out our salvation with fear and trembling). Faithful Christians are not antinomians, believing that we’re free to live any way we like now that we’ve been saved. Actually, I said that wrong – We really are free to live any way we like. Before saved, we like to live in Sin or squalor or self-pity. When saved, we like to live out of sin and in the joy of our Lord. If the two are mixed up then there is something seriously wrong. Our hearts or minds are completely mixed up and in deadly peril.

Faithful Christians do not do good deeds or seek to grow in faith and truth in order to appease or please God. We, of course want to please Him. It’s our goal to glorify Him, and that is His great interest in His creation in the first place, His own glory. We want to be more like our God, not just because He commands it, but because we, having been saved by Him and knowing Him in the manner of being His children, have tasted the sweetness of His nature. Experiencing and knowing God’s goodness in His mercy and grace should bring about the desire to align with God’s nature.

As I look back on my own progress in the Faith and the particulars of my own track in sanctification, I have trouble discerning where I, myself, have had much success in changing my ways. Yes, there have been times when I’ve had to sort of pummel myself into a process or ordered practice, but even those are not of my own volition. I think I can say that every improvement has been, at a minimum, because I’ve seen the light – been convinced of a fundamental truth and thereby complied with what seemed inevitable. Mostly, things have changed for the better in my life because of gradual “evolution.” I haven’t just stopped in the middle of something and swerved back onto the path or into a new paradigm because I chose to. It just doesn’t seem to work like that. In fact, whenever there’s an abiding sin or sin-causing condition in my life, the more I stomp on it and intentionally try to snuff it out, the more it haunts me and eludes my efforts.

I’ll tell you what really makes the difference. Every place I’ve been in the last eight years has been an increase in the clear understanding of the Word. The exposure to sound Biblical teaching and my own studies has grown incrementally over six distinct places and a few churches, each building upon the other. And the impact has been greater at each turning, which culminates in an exponential way at this most recent stop in NLPCA. The thoroughly Reformed environment here has been like a sweat-lodge of theology and practice. It seems like every aspect of worship and fellowship has a real, tangible God behind the scenes and in the mix. That, if anything at all, has been my sanctification. It’s not mystical, but it is mysterious. The more I learn about God, the more I desire to be like what I’m seeing. The more I spend time with His people and in His place, the more I spend time contemplating Him and conforming to Him.

Antinomianism is a pagan problem. It is those liberal christians and rank pagans who enter the church by false profession and misguided pretense that inflict and suffer from antinomianism. I am willing to guess, though maybe I’m wrong, that a true believer may have significant challenges in obeying God and conforming to Him (I always do), but they will not be a true antinomian for long, if at all, if they are truly in Christ. We have, as in our conversion, no say in the matter. God pulls us, kicking and screaming, into His family (remember that Christ said “all whom the Father gives Me will come to Me“) and so He pulls us through the wringer of sanctification as well. We will be made in His image, progressively (painfully slowly for all of us, I surmise) in this age and immediately in the next.

Evidence of this may be found in the opposite approach to evangelization. When we Reformed proclaim the Gospel, calling that act our evangelization method, we are right and in accord with Scripture. Those who say that people are brought to the Faith by seeing the impact Christ has had in the lives of believers are, usually unawares, preaching a failed system of religion. When a pagan sees a Christian’s “changed life” and is converted, how is he convinced that God is real and Christ died for his sins? All he sees is a happy-trail. Is he not converted to a works-religion that fails on all parts? The new “believer” came in looking at the worldly benefit of salvation, not in the true Gift that God presents to His children. They see a trusting in Christ for relief of pressures, or a solution to marital problems. They see what we have and they want it (who wouldn’t), that sweet disposition, passion for the study of God’s things. It becomes a way out in marital strife and parenting, in job dissatisfaction and social injustice, to cast our cares upon Jesus and become “peacemakers” just as He said. But a Buddhist can pull all that off.

Just for the record, the sweetness and light Christian witness is going to crumble eventually. Those of us who are “in” know this, and we’re lying to ourselves if we go the route of “witnessing” by our “testimony.” Either to win new converts or to disciple others into greater knowledge and grace. Fooey!

I think we have to (seriously) consider how far down and how subtle the problem is here. A person in the church, who professes the faith, tries his darnedest to keep up and really desires to change may be under the impression that he’s really in there, has hit the spot. And yet the real trusting is not in Christ for the forgiveness of sins but for the relief, that “light yoke” of Christ’s burden. They come in, having heard the gospel of someone’s grand testimony (like mine on the about page) and believe in that rather than the Gospel of the Bible. We may all have that tendency from time to time, at least in a small dose. And it is deadly. It is so close to the Gospel. We trust something. We’re even able to say the words “not me but God” and believe them. But it doesn’t sink in that it’s salvation we’re looking for, not relief or a program. This misconception sure sounds viable to me. I think it is a result of us just not being able to conceive of Man as what he really is and therefore pinning our arms, disabling them so we cannot reach out to our Savior in belief and trust.

This is almost identical in our sanctification as in our initial salvation. We can be misled by a testimony that is not our Lord’s testimony.

That right there leads me to think that good works is a product, not a pursuit of the faithful. We want the works, we do the works, we do pursue them, but in the end it almost just happens. Remember the despair in Isaiah, and then again when Paul likens his righteousness and works to pure rubbish? When in Romans 7 he presents the Horrible Equation of the Christian life? I do what I don’t want to do and then I don’t do what I want to do? That is it, right there, for works. God works in us to will and to do His things. Even our decisions are dependent on His good will. Wretched men that we are, who will rescue us from these bodies of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; — Isaiah 64:6

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ. — Philippians 3:8

Experience didn’t save me. Experience won’t keep me saved. My comfort is most often in looking back, at the facts, of what has happened in my life. But the inspiration for continuing is my ongoing exposure to the Gospel and Sacraments. Perseverance and sanctification are supplied by God. Through His declaration, demonstration and application in my life. Not my experience and broken thumbnails.

So we come full circle to “what do we do?” We are in the church, in the brotherhood of the saints. We are in the sanctuary, receiving the gifts of God, His means of grace and fellowshipping with each other. We grow in grace and truth, faithfully yes, but in His faithful application. We increase in our trust and desire for Him, His ways and His Word which produces fruit. Yes, we worry and sweat over our salvation, grinding our teeth and fingers into the work set before us, but Christ’s burden truly is light, for in the end our efforts are fueled by Him. It’s a trust exercise, get it? Like closing our eyes, trying not just to know but to know that there’s a team behind us, catching us as we fall back off the stump. Man, it hurts to let go of balance and lean back, and it’s scary and painful in the air as we plunge to the depths of trust, unable to feel our way down. But the sweet, sweet refrain of trusting Him finally being realized, even in the little things, is ecstasy in the light of day.

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November 29, 2011

I Don’t Exactly Surrender All

By Pooka

 

So this is another long one. It’s an exploration one of the most popular themes from my yesteryear, that which failed to sink Gospel teeth into me. It’s probably not perfectly formed, so I’m up for clarifying critique. On with the show.

The last two White Horse Inn episodes I’ve listened to, along with reading J.G. Machen have started me on another round of anti-navel-gazing ponderance. The questions posed in the gospel of pragmatism are whether our experience, or life story is the Gospel and whether making disciples can be a system similar to the process of a factory. Yep, back to the Finney Finish and Me-ism I go.

What should be amazingly easy, but we all seem to forget constantly, is that ever-present religion of Me-ism. It’s not just that we believe our personal testimony is the prime tool for bringing people to Christ, but that our very life is critical to everything in our Religion. I mean here that if I sin grievously, persistently, that my faith is in doubt. That I might not be saved. I also mean here that if I’m not living “as a Christian should”, that I have no witness to bear.

This is insane. If I sin grievously once or persistently over time, my faith could be in doubt. But that is missing the point. My salvation can not be in doubt, because God has promised me eternal life, salvation by Grace through faith, entirely being His gift. He has not promised me a cleaned-up, perfected life right now. If this was not the case, my baptism should’ve been a bit more dramatic in its results, I believe, and I should also be a very effective preacher, missionary or seminary prof by now. And a lot of other really awesome Bibley things. 

Salvation does not hinge on what I’m doing right now or late at night with my friends. It does not hinge on me falling off the wagon or getting on the wrong wagon. It hinges on me trusting in Jesus Christ. It hinges on me believing The Gospel and not, especially not, in the testimony of somebody else or the change in my life. And my believing the Gospel does not hinge on me! It hinges on God. Assurance is not me and is not subjective. It is God and His Word that assure me.

But we turn round again, at every turning, back to this doubt and sense of hopelessness that we are not saved, or that we have forsaken our right to the fellowship of the church. Garbage. Instead of us re- blanket training ourselves the Gospel has removed us from the sin blanket that makes us dependent on our own goodness to get in with God.

Getting all this Gospel-centeredness straightened out should lead to another amazing revelation. The Gospel is The Gospel. It’s not me and my long tale of conversion. The story I have put up in the About here at LAH is not the Gospel. Notice all the potential Me-ism in there. I put it up there not in hopes that somebody would come to faith by reading it but to show where I come from and where I’ve been, for relevance and sharing the joy of what’s happened. 

If I crash and burn tomorrow, falling into a pit of sinful misery at the bar in Thailand with two women, tequila, a doobie and a stolen car, my pretty story suddenly takes on  a new light. It begs the question, “What about now? All that awesome stuff really didn’t mean anything, did it?” And so my “witness” is shot. And in a majority of churches, I’d be suddenly out of grace, considered unsaved, reprobate, a false convert or maybe even just plain subject to losing my salvation. Garbage. In fact, based on what most Christian teaching implies, if I show up in church next Sunday after my vacation, reformed and confessing my sin, I’d better ask Christ into my life and forgive my sins, heck – even get baptized again, cause I wasn’t really saved last week. But that’s not it at all.

Now I hope and pray the Lord will forever protect me from such a demise. He’s definitely put in place a lot of safeguards that are very likely to limit the chances of me getting into such a situation. But that’s not it for the Gospel. The point here is that what I do is not critical to the Gospel. What Christ did is critical to the Gospel. It is the Gospel. And if I believe it, I’m saved. Not perfected. Romans 12:1-2 the whole New Testament is about believing the truth and then working it out, not hearing the truth and then meeting Joel Osteen.

Okay, so what can I look for, for indicators that I’m saved? If all the stuff above doesn’t clear any fog, maybe this might help a little: Here’s what changes, in varying degree and extent, for a Christian.

Before:  I loved to sin. I felt guilty because I knew I was doing wrong, sometimes, but mostly because of consequences. I constantly dug for reasons to legitimize my evil, self-centered desires and pursuits. I hated the idea of a judging God who set the rules and, regardless of my opinion, made them not-optional.

After: I hate being sinful. I hate that everything I do is tainted with Me-ism and weakness. I do as much wrong as I did before, only now it’s worse. Much of that obvious evil activity that characterized my life is now well hidden. Maybe some of it really is deleted from my programming, but most? Still here. I’m essentially the same dirty person. But I believe that God has promised me salvation. I believe that Christ did what is impossible for me and then paid the price for all that I have done (and will do). So I can rest in these things, thankful that everything I have that is good is provided, not by anything I’ve done, by God Himself.

I don’t exactly surrender all, rather I believe and increase in beliefs about what is true and what follows is a deeper love for God and His ways. That causes a deeper hatred of my ways and the world’s ways. But what everything returns to is the Message. Christ lived for my righteousness, died for my sins rose again for my life.

Sheesh

All to Jesus I surrender;
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.

Refrain:
I surrender all,
I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken;
Take me, Jesus, take me now.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
Let me feel the Holy Spirit,
Truly know that Thou art mine.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Lord, I give myself to Thee;
Fill me with Thy love and power;
Let Thy blessing fall on me.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Now I feel the sacred flame.
Oh, the joy of full salvation!
Glory, glory, to His Name!

Feeling? I can’t trust my feelings. Surrender? How can I give up this stuff of my own volition? Freely give? I think it’s better if He takes, so I’m gonna pray for that. Giving me to Christ? God gave me to Christ:

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. — John 6:37

Here’s what is good. I fight all day against my sin. At the end of the day I look back and usually I can dump out a decent bucket of sin onto the table for sorting and examining. Sometimes there’s a piece of sin that is not there, often one that is pretty familiar and usually in the mix. But not often. It seems that my evil just won’t diminish, in fact it seems to become more detailed heavy. And I can, by the grace of God, look at it and then at my Savior and know that I’m forgiven and that someday this mess is really going to be cleaned up. And then I look ahead to Sunday, always looking ahead to Sunday, and the reunion with the rest of my people who are just like me, gathered to worship the One we are not: The Saving God Who Keeps His Promises.

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November 27, 2011

Who’s The Moral Monster?

By Pooka

Machen claims there’s a better relationship to be had with the atheist than with liberal christians. Atheists hold that God is a moral monster, capricious and petty, even inconsistent between the Old and New Testament. Some liberal christians seem to have the idea that there are two different gods in the two Testaments, which puts them essentially in the same camp as the atheists. Well, except for the fact that atheists deny God outright and only render philosophical judgement of Christianity’s beliefs. Liberals deal viciously with the Christian religion at the same time as they pretend to uphold it. But they come to their pulpits with a demolished Gospel, misrepresented Christ and much more. Both they and the atheists get a lot in common when you pare it all down. Humanists, the lot of ‘em.

I think we should turn this all on its head, this conception of God. An honest look at Scripture must force a different God on the scene and therefore a different man than what men presume to understand.

Genesis 19 is a great place to start a case. We heard this chapter from the pulpit today, and it is a rich passage. It makes a very powerful claim that men, not God, are the moral monsters. Where He is consistent through all of Scripture (and History, believe it or not) we are the ones who are wandering around, blind and helpless. Men are without a moral compass and have been experimenting with the means of government, piety and morality for millenia without any great success to date.

Conversely, when God hates a thing, it is clear that He hates it. When God promises, He is faithful. When God requires, He does not lower the bar.

Consistency. The God of the New Testament, if anything, is even more intense than in the Old. He wipes out entire cities, countries, nations and even the whole world in the Old Testament. But in the New, He unleashes His full wrath on just one man. And not only that, the man who suffers is God’s Son, who deserves none of the punishment meted out. God is consistent in the small stuff too, taking care of Ananias and Sapphira, Herod through OT methods as well as blinding, muting, cursing, condemning and other things which certainly hail back a few centuries before the advent of Christ and Apostles.

Meanwhile, men are also consistent. In Genesis, we are vicious, intolerant toward right-thinking men, murderous to strangers and unfaithful to each other. In the New Testament, we’re unfaithful spouses, debauchers and drunks, hoarders, liars and unjust judges. We kill indiscriminately, free convicted criminals for innocent prisoners, wash the blood from our hands and pretend to be gods. We have no concept of sexual purity, legal propriety or familial honor in any place in history. We praise the corrupt man and seek to destroy the pure man.

Who is the moral monster? It’s us, not God. God knows His rules and abides by them. Not only that, but since they’re His rules, He expects us to abide by them too. I’ll call God consistent and faithful, how about you? An honest reader, whether Christian or not, should be able to see this in the Bible. Lamentably, it appears even our reason is ruined to the point where we cannot make sense of the most blatantly simple logic.

Thankfully, He is consistent and faithful. The real God is faithful enough that, knowing we are hopelessly bent and lacking any ability to break out of our condition, He promises help and then keeps His promise. Christ, the Son who suffered unjustly in our world, kept God’s requirements to the letter and then willingly assumed the position as the representative of all men of all times. God delighted to judge Christ as a sinner rather than us who deserve judgement, and Christ delighted to see that suffering. The delight is in looking at the results. The horror lifted our death sentence and freed us to cleave to Him, Jesus, and finally rest in hope of a day without missing God’s love, without missing His mark. We can see the tiny changes in a life that’s reborn because of Jesus. Believing this, we too will suffer and most of us will die, but we will, like Jesus, be brought back alive to reside with Him. God is consistent and keeps His promises. Someday, we who belong to God will no longer be moral monsters. We’ll be righteous sons and daughters, and God can already see us like that: for Him, we look like Jesus.

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November 23, 2011

Where we go, will you go?

By Pooka

Where you go, I will go...

Here is what Ruth said to Naomi:

“Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the LORD do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.”

Here is R.C. Sproul’s note on Ruth:

The Hebrew for clung in Ruth 1:14 is the same word used to describe the marriage relationship. In other words, Ruth clung to her mother-in-law in covenant fidelity, knowing that she was bound by her promise before the face of God to remain with and aid her mother-in-law, no matter how difficult it would be. This is the same devotion we are to have to the Lord’s people today. No matter our flaws, we Christians must love and serve one another.

And Matthew Henry’s Commentary:

Nothing could be said more fine, more brave, than this. She seems to have had another spirit, and another speech, now that her sister had gone, and it is an instance of the grace of God inclining the soul to the resolute choice of the better part. Draw me thus, and we will run after thee. Her mother’s dissuasions made her the more resolute; as when Joshua said to the people, “You cannot serve the Lord,” they said it with the more vehemence, “Nay, but we will.”

We might say today that no one can commit to such a thing as Ruth did without some move of the Spirit. This is an amazing speech from someone like Ruth, amazing and weighted with intensity. She’s entering into the covenant here. And we can’t think she doesn’t know what she’s saying, either. There is plenty of evidence that God’s covenantal structure was present in ancient non-Jewish traditions as well. This fine lady is dropping everything to align herself with Israel.

These are the membership vows we took upon joining our church. I’ve edited so they are personal and line up. The reference is the PCA Book of Church Order, Chapter 57.

I acknowledge myself to be a sinner in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure, and without hope save in His sovereign mercy. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and Savior of sinners, and I receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation as He is offered in the Gospel? I now resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit, that I will endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ. I promise to support the Church in its worship and work to the best of my ability. I submit myself to the government and discipline of the Church, and promise to study its purity and peace.

I wonder that Ruth 1:16 isn’t commonly considered in the basic introduction for new believers. I certainly never encountered it. I don’t think it was covered much in the years I was in the church as a kid, either. I think this is something to plumb out in discussion with those who frequently reach out in evangelism. When we follow-up with folks, should we not use such clear examples of covenant-making? I must admit, a die-hard Arminian can see the value in Ruth’s declaration here.

Someone could say that Ruth didn’t know what she was getting into here, and was just being expedient about the whole cleaving to Naomi. Ruth just needed something to hang on to, right? I doubt it was that easy, though certainly some pragmatism should be understood. Ruth wouldn’t have a naive approach to what she committed to, considering it was a Jewish family into which she’d married and a Jewish woman with whom she was returning to Israel. Though Alimelech had taken his family out from Israel, I highly doubt he could have conceived of taking Israel out of his family. The traditions and practices would’ve remained, and from first meeting to final words in that relationship, Ruth and Orpah would have been exposed to the richness of the Israelites’ relationship to God. No doubts she had the best introduction to what she was getting into well before she committed herself to Ruth and the One True God on the roadside.

I wonder that our churches do not query us in the way that Ruth volunteered herself. I wonder if there’s anyone today who has been asked,

“Where we go, will you go? Where we lodge, will you lodge? Will our people be your people, and our God, your God? Where we die, will you die, and there be buried? Shall thus the LORD do to us, and worse, if anything but death parts you and us?”

It sounds a bit harsh for these modern days, doesn’t it?

So there’s another version:

1. Do you acknowledge yourselves to be sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure, and without hope save in His sovereign mercy?

2. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and Savior of sinners, and do you receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation as He is offered in the Gospel?

3. Do you now resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit, that you will endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ?

4. Do you promise to support the Church in its worship and work to the best of your ability?

5. Do you submit yourselves to the government and discipline of the Church, and promise to study its purity and peace?

Updated for modern parlance and conversant with the realized covenant of Grace, of course, but isn’t it quite similar? The God of Israel instituted the church; and it is Christ’s body, sustained by Him, founded on Him, with all members finding their place in Him. We can all agree on that, it being well-developed throughout the New Testament.

So I find that this pair of vows, in Ruth and in the church are important enough to make me wonder what in the world could possibly be right about a church that refuses to require this of her members? Shouldn’t that be cause for deep concern? That one who hasn’t committed to the people of God, to Israel, to Christ is seen as an accepted, acceptable part of the Body? Good Lord! What standard is there for communion if not this? It would be like the President just walking in after elections and taking over the Oval Office without first standing in front of the nation and taking the Oath of Office! Only worse! God’s people are in office for far more than 4 years in a country far larger than one nation. We’re eternally bound to God and His country! And in our commitment, do we not absolutely have to have a door into that commitment? Dare I say a public one?

I didn’t have a problem taking the vows of membership at New Life. Now, after a year here, having learned much more about what Reformed, Confessional, Creedal and Covenantal really mean, I would retake those vows in a heartbeat, and say them again with far more gravity than the first time. I realize that we have a situation very analogous to Ruth’s covenant promise when we come to Christ’s church. I don’t see how a church could survive otherwise, for without these covenant oaths, there isn’t even a door-keeper. Ruth understood that, and said the password – and I don’t for a minute assume she didn’t intend to make this in front of God as much as Naomi and then expect to have to maintain the same before the Israel she was about to encounter.

Sheesh. The severity of these oaths, the commitment God has delivered to us, in light of the salvation He has made for us, all should take our breath away. If the continuity of God’s covenants and the Biblical consistency of our own promises which we make in return isn’t obvious by now, where can we go? I guess the test really is, at some point, to look carefully and see if we can honestly say, along with Ruth,

“where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the LORD do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.”

If that can happen, then we’ve at least the satisfaction of the keepers of the keys to Heaven.

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November 22, 2011

Rolled Back As A Scroll

By Pooka

The Clouds Rolled Back

 

There are moments when things click for us. Moments, short as a breath atop the mountain, that seem to clear the view can hit once in a long while. We learn to look forward to them; hope for them. But they’re not only brief but few. I think that’s good, since too much of a good thing ruins the impact. I wait impatiently for those glorious times when I’m absolutely in love with my wife. Those are the times when everything seems just right, the world is good and there’s nothing raging for our attention to fix, mediate or put down. They aren’t often predictable, and there’s not much I can do to increase the odds. It’s like God knows just when to make the peace happen.

Another is that split second when I grasp the depth of my sin. There are not enough moments like this wherein I really get as small as I know I am. Head knowledge is not the same as heart knowledge. Sometimes, maybe in church though not always, there’s this sudden snap-freeze in my soul that shows me how thoroughly I need my Savior. That’s a painful thing, but it’s like pressing my hand against something sharp when I need to focus or maintain control of myself – almost ecstatic to realize the Real Truth about me, if just for a heartbeat. It’s always fleeting, probably because if, like Isaiah, I’d be undone to actually pursue the depths of what I’ve only barely tasted.

The glorious value of my Savior is one that hits from time to time. I’d like to cultivate this appreciation, maybe of all these, most. It probably goes hand-in-hand with grasping my sinfulness, but if that’s the case, so be it. Sometimes we’re in church, we pray, confessing our sin and in the moments between confession and absolution the lights come on. Or at the Table, the bread comes down in the minister’s hands and I connect that with our Savior coming down, being broken for us, His church. It’s not really a “spiritual” sort of feeling, it’s like a concentrated realization of truth that’s in the head just breaking through to the heart.

I’ve recently hit the same “high” in studying on these ideas of God’s relationship, covenant and promises with His people. It’s rather overwhelming, if you think about it, to start to realize how far-reaching His faithfulness really is. I wish I could grasp the fullness of the plan of redemption made in eternity past. It’s connections to all that we’ve been told in the Scriptures is just plain awesome (I sure wish the skater crowd of yesteryear hadn’t ruined the meaning of awesome, it would sound more awesome right now).

Christ died for us because He was promised to us. Long before we came around and before He came around, He was on the way to us, the Rescuer of rescuers. When we hear the sirens coming that mean we’re to be saved from the fire, we just know it’s all going to be all right. Christ is a thousand times more than that. We have nothing to fight the blaze that is consuming our souls and spreading the destruction to every soul we touch. We’re all on fire and the Water of Life came to quench our destruction. This is what tastes best at the banquet of this religion. The realization that salvation has come, is coming, was always coming and is still to come. Our God is from everlasting to everlasting and so are His mercy and grace.

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November 21, 2011

People Are Designed Covenantally

By Pooka

The following quotes are definitions of covenant and come from a .PDF created by Grace Community Churc in PA.

Meredith Kline (1922‐2007)

…a berith (Hebrew word for covenant) is a legal kind of arrangement, a formal disposition of a binding nature. At the heart of a berith is an act of commitment and the customary oath‐form of this commitment reveals the religious nature of the transaction. The berith arrangement is no mere secular contract but rather belongs to the sacred sphere of divine witness and enforcement. The kind of legal disposition called berith consists then in a divinely sanctioned commitment. In the case of divine‐human covenants the divine sanctioning is entailed in God’s participation either as the one who himself makes the commitment or as the divine witness of the human commitment made in his name and presence.

J. Ligon Duncan

Now, berith in the Old Testament signifies a binding, mutual relationship with mutual obligations, a binding mutual relationship with attendant obligations.

Michael Horton

So what exactly is a covenant? Anticipating the definition in the next chapter, we can start by saying that from the most commonly used Hebrew word for this concept (bent), a covenant is a relationship of “oaths and bonds” and involves mutual, though not necessarily equal, commitments. As we will see shortly, some biblical covenants are unilaterally imposed commands and promises; others are entered into jointly. Some are conditional and others are unconditional. In other words, under the overarching concept of oaths and bonds we encounter a substantial variety of covenants in Scripture.

Something that I wonder at is how covenants are insanely far reaching. I think that this idea stems from God’s eternal perspective and, though we are “in time” where He is “outside time”, there is a reflection of our Lord’s span of attention. God steps in and does things that are temporal, of course, but we look at the first recorded covenant and see that it is one that comes before creation.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,

This is the classic predestination verse, right? It’s covenantal language. There’s a word study on this that I think is fitting: Ephesians 1:4 and that leads to another verse, 1st Corinthians 15:22 which talks about another covenantal impact (Adam’s federal headship).

When God declares or sets a covenant, it’s not a short-deal. It lasts. The first one He made with Adam is still killing us today. The second one, about the snake and the heel? Took us right to Christ.  The promise for Noah – still on: no water apocalypse. Moses? Law still here, though in Christ we’re freed from it. Redemption – always been in God’s agenda and as soon as it was served to us in Christ, became permanent backwards and forwards.

I’m just thinking about how we, as God’s creation, were first introduced to relationships by lasting relationships, or covenant agreements. And when we tried to sidestep or violate the covenants, retribution was swift and disastrous. But the covenants were there and in force, irrevocable and lasting.

Just because men were dispersed after the garden, Babel and then reset at the flood doesn’t seem to have eradicated the existence of God’s covenants. They, we might say, are in the blood. People are designed covenantally. The effects of the fall is that we become covenant breakers.

There is no point in history where we are found free of God’s promises, threats, commitments or agreements. What is happening, though, is that we’re getting worse about the whole thing. Our sin nature is denying God’s framework more and more fanatically which brings us to today where we’ve tried to delete the concepts entirely.

I don’t know how useful this line of thought really is. It doesn’t give me much to work with. Now, it’s helped me greatly in getting what I think is an improved understanding of our weekly Covenant Renewal, which is Sunday worship. It’s helped me understand baptism and the Lord’s Table better. It’s definitely built a bit more sense of responsibility and dedication to my family. But so far as “doing something” I’m not sure there actually is something to do. Perhaps this increased understanding is a thinking-changer rather than an imperative generator.

Maybe comprehending God’s covenant system is likened to the Gospel? The Gospel is a proclamation, not a to-do list. Understanding covenants is not the same as making covenants. I’m sure that, should I encounter another relationship commencement in my lifetime, I’ll look upon it differently, but I don’t think I’m going to be taking action in my local church to affect some system of covenant-making gunk. Besides, whatever I do, as a natural covenant-breaker, isn’t going to pan out much anyhow.

It looks like, just as God created our relationships, He also sustains them and there ain’t much we can do about either. All we’re doing, as I see it, is hitching along for the ride. Elbow grease is always in response to something God has done, not to get God to do something. And He supplies the motive power for the response, too, right?

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November 18, 2011

How To Get That Old Time Religion

By Pooka

Based on yesterday’s LONG post, here’s a shorter one.

Remember this part?

A few weeks ago, I put up a little bit about how painful it must have been to be one of the convicted Pharisees at Peters Big Sermon at Pentecost (I should rename the post “Cut To The Heart Thrice“). Think about this:

When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”

All the people answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!”

Those Pharisees were almost certainly thinking of what they had done to their families! When Peter said this (emphasis mine):

“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

We know what happened:

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Look again at Peter’s response:

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

Imagine their response to Peter. Here, I’ll help.

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved

But think about this. If I’m right and the Pharisees were deeply grieved in their awareness of the vast curse they’d brought upon their families, how much more the impact on their souls when Peter gave them the absolution they so needed to hear. They changed radically because the seeds were already planted. Their lineage (think Abraham and how important that theme means) was saved! That is, if you understand the covenantal undergirding of this exchange between Peter and the Jews.

Now,

Think about this: We can best understand how Christ saved us by this very same covenantal perspective. How can He save us if there is no such thing as the covenant that Adam broke, Abraham received, Moses continued, Prophets and Judges and Kings and Priests maintained and returned to year after year? It’s The One Thing that best explains all this. God imputed Christ’s righteousness to His Children! He has died for us and our children – all those God has chosen for His Son.

Now how do we deny the same thing for our children? They’re God’s to do with as He pleases. According to the Bible and its covenants He pleases to have them brought to the sacraments of our church and to be a part of the covenant community.

How did Moses think about the prediction God gave him at the end of his days?

Then the Lord appeared at the Tent in a pillar of cloud, and the cloud stood over the entrance to the Tent. And the Lord said to Moses: “You are going to rest with your fathers, and these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them. On that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed. Many disasters and difficulties will come upon them, and on that day they will ask, ‘Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is not with us?’ And I will certainly hide my face on that day because of all their wickedness in turning to other gods.

Maybe he was a covenant type? I wonder what he thought about the demise of Israel?

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November 17, 2011

Let’s Presuppose A Few Things

By Pooka

Courthouse

Part 3. The first two in this line of thoughts on covenants, community and our relationships are here: Anti-Covenant and Individualism  and I Might Just Need To Be A We

At first, this may appear to be more of a formal apology for Covenant Theology, but bear with me. Also, I’m quite sure this has all been said before, so I can’t claim any originality here. That’s safer anyway since any time we deny the last 2,000 years of church history, we’re claiming that our current religion is the only one that is Christian throughout all history. Scary thought, eh? And what I’m about to discuss reaches back just a bit farther than Tertullian or Irenaeus or even Pentecost. Maybe a few thousand years past that. This is long, but I hope it has good returns. And I hope I’ve portrayed this accurately and understandably.

This doctrine of covenants is not pure theology. It’s not a tight, air-less doctrine that we can take or leave and not be deeply affected by the ramifications of the choice. It is hugely important. Once the barrier of modern presupposition is torn down, the other conflicts will start to resolve themselves fairly easily. That’s my own experience, at least.

Let me make the claim about this presupposition thing. There’s all sorts of discussion about presuppositional hermeneutics and theology. And it is absolutely correct to presuppose there are presuppositions required in the study of the Word. Which presupposition, or assumption if you will, is correct is vital, of course. And here’s the basic premise: The Bible is not speaking in the context of the 21st Century, modernity, the Reformation or even back in the days of Augustine. The Bible’s context is the Biblical eras. Get that and you’re on your way to 1st base.

Next, the Bible itself is filled with assumptions. Do you know the importance of Boaz heading out to the city gate when he’s checking on the status of Ruth’s availability? The Bible doesn’t add a footnote or aside comment to plumb the depths of this significant event. It assumes the reader knows what’s going on. The history and cultural importance of what’s going on at the city gate amongst the elders of the community is far more than what some consider just a civil affairs court setting.  Lot’s story was another one with that gate thing going on. But let’s put all that in the back of our minds. We’ve got to go deeper to make better sense of this.

The Bible assumes Covenant Theology. Really. No joke. It assumes the stuff I’ve been writing about in the last few days. We’ve heard all the debate over baptism, the Lord’s Table and Israel’s future so many times. There are conflicts that are so persistent they’ve lasted hundreds of years. I think they’re more heated today than ever. And it’s because, primarily, we have lost the sense of community and covenantal relationships that are assumed in the Bible.

Look at this language:

The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off–for all whom the Lord our God will call.

When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

And then look at this list: And Your Children and Household

Everybody wonders or fights over these sorts of passages. The Covenant guys extrapolate a connection to things like baptism of infants and the Baptist guys extrapolate the non-existence of infants. All sorts of ideas come up to try to explain this. Sometimes, I wonder if some of the Covenant guys are just as disrespectful of the text as the Baptists when trying to explain their position through use of household and your children. Does the Bible explain what is meant by these sorts of terms? No, not any more than with the gate-court thing in Ruth or Genesis.

Here’s why it’s confusing in the New Testament: When these terms are used, they’re repetition of Old Testament Language. And no, that’s not to “bring” the Old Testament way of thinking back to these Jews of the first century. It was to remind them of the significance of events past that correlate to current events. In all that was changing around in the New Covenant, there was going to be some conflict. Pharisaical law, gentile inclusion, realized forgiveness and justification, missionary trips, diaspora – all these things were new and scary and confusing. People needed to, get this, hear that everything hadn’t just stopped or fundamentally altered!

Peter and his fellow apostles were using this language because the Jews understood it. This means that we cannot presuppose our own 21st century opinion, which is grounded not in the Scriptures but in modern, pagan, non-covenantal thinking. We must look at this language as the Jews did. That’s why we don’t get an explanation in the Bible about what gate-courts, households and your children mean. And that’s why we don’t get a greater development of what the Table and Baptism mean right out of the text. It’s in there, absolutely, but in a, wait for it… presupposition.

I’ll say it again. This is all so hard because we aren’t looking in the right place. The Bible started out its narrative in the context of covenants – relational, promise-keeping, life-sharing, trust-bearing covenants. We are the ones who have changed over the millennia, not the Bible and not at the triumphant entry of Jesus Christ whose birthday celebration we are fast approaching. We have lost the perspective the Jews had.

I’m not calling for a return to Judaism or tossing our technology so we can wear robes to tear each time we’re cut to the heart. I’m not interested in raking dust for a few measly rows of fava beans and wheat sheaves. I like my Pollo Loco too much and I’d much rather have easy access to the last 2,000 years of theology right here on my infernal machines. I’m calling for us to look at Scripture in the historical, cultural frame in which it’s set. No helicopters in Revelation. No civil affairs court for the young moabitess. No ditching of infants until they’re old enough to say they believe.

Side comment: Refusing baptism of our kids is telling them that they are no different from the other kids across the block (the ones who have Wiccan parents right over there). We’re destroying their identity in a Christian family! No sacraments = no sense of being in the family of God.

A few weeks ago, I put up a little bit about how painful it must have been to be one of the convicted Pharisees at Peters Big Sermon at Pentecost (I should rename the post “Cut To The Heart Thrice“). Think about this:

When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”

All the people answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!”

Those Pharisees were almost certainly thinking of what they had done to their families! When Peter said this (emphasis mine):

“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

We know what happened:

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Now look again at Peter’s response:

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

That’s reaching all the way back to things like:

They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they and their descendants with them.

The OT said this in Deuteronomy 12:

Be careful to obey all these regulations I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the LORD your God.

Here’s what changed when Christ fulfilled the Law, died in our place and rose again: I’ll grossly paraphrase this:

Be careful to believe this good news I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the LORD your God.

Nowhere is the concept of covenants, community and our relationships altered in the New Testament. It’s ratified by simply not changing the language.

End of story? We have to look at the Bible and realize that our presuppositions that make us unwilling to include our children in sacraments, unwilling to include them in worship are modern insertions to the Scriptures. Also, equally important are the concepts of family solidarity, congregation solidarity, discipline, submission, faithfulness and loyalty to our heads, elders and rulers. These things are assumed to be normal in the Scripture even more than they are overtly commanded. Dropping the concept of covenantal theology kills more than just National Israel’s future and sprinkling babies. It can kill our faith, folks – by confusing the message and hiding the promises God has made to us (and our children).

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