Article by Phil Johnson at this link.
Regarding “Sexual Orientation,” Evil Desire, and the Question of Moral Neutrality
Reply
Monthly Archives: May 2018
Confusing Pleasure and Joy
Article by Dr. R. C. Sproul (original source here)
When I was a boy, my parents made me go to church every Sunday morning. I had no desire to go. I found the worship service boring and could not wait for it to be over so I could go play. But even worse than Sunday morning worship was the weekly catechism class, which was held on Saturday morning. That was the lowest point of my childhood experience in church. I had to go through a communicants class, then I moved on to the catechism class, where I and some other boys and girls had to memorize the Westminster Shorter Catechism. I endured it all just to become a member of the church and finish the course so my parents would be satisfied. I was not converted until several years later.
When I did become a Christian, I found myself wishing I had paid more attention in my catechism class. The only thing I remembered from the Shorter Catechism was the first question and answer, and the only reason I remembered that question was because I never could make sense out of it. The question was this: “What is the chief end of man?” The answer that we were required to learn and to recite was this: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” I just could not put those two things together. I understood, even as a child, that the idea of glorifying God had something to do with obeying Him, something to do with the pursuit of righteousness. But that was not what I was most singularly concerned about. It was not my chief end to be an obedient child of God by any means. And because it was not my chief end to be an obedient son to God, I could not understand how there was a relationship between glorifying God and enjoying Him. To me, the two seemed antithetical, incompatible.
My problem was that I was confused about two foundational ideas. I did not know the difference between pleasure and joy. What I wanted was pleasure, because I assumed that the only way I could have joy was by the acquisition of pleasure. But then I discovered that the more pleasure I acquired, the less joy I possessed, because I was seeking pleasure in things that required that I disobey God. That is the attraction of sin. We sin because it is pleasurable. The enticement of sin is that we think it will make us happy. We think it will give us joy and personal fulfillment. But it merely gives us guilt, which undermines and destroys authentic joy.
My conversion was fundamentally an experience of the forgiveness of God. If there had been a fire hydrant where I was when I was saved, I would have jumped over it, because I experienced the difference between pleasure and joy. I discovered in my own conversion the same thing John Guest discovered.
Psalm 51 is the greatest example of repentance that we find anywhere in Scripture. In this psalm, David, under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, is brought to repentance for his sin with and against Bathsheba. He is broken and contrite in his heart, and he comes before God and begs for forgiveness. He says, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation” (v. 12a). Those who have experienced the forgiveness of God and the initial joy of it always need to have that joy restored, to have the guilt of their continuing sin removed so joy may return. As we seek forgiveness from God on a day-to-day basis, we return to the beginning of our joy—the day we discovered that our names are written in heaven.
Untold billions of people have never experienced the joy of salvation. If you are one of them, I say to you that there is nothing like it in the world. Just imagine having every sin that you have ever committed erased by God, having all of the guilt you have accumulated and the attendant feelings of guilt removed. That’s what Christ came to do. He wants to give us joy, not power or success. His gift is the joy that comes from knowing that our names are written in heaven.
What Is the Church?
Article by Dr. Derek Thomas (original source here)
In the language of the Westminster Confession of Faith, the church comprises the “whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be, gathered into one, under Christ the Head thereof” (25.1). This is otherwise known as the invisible church. In another sense, the church is the body of the faithful (1 Cor. 12:27; Eph. 2:21–22; Rev. 21:2, 9), consisting of those throughout the world who outwardly profess faith, together with their children (WCF 25.2). This is otherwise known as the visible church.
The Greek word that is translated as “church” in the Bible is ekklēsia. Conscious as we should be of the etymological fallacy (the idea that a word means what its composite root means), in this case it would seem to have merit. Thus, ekklēsia translates the Hebrew word qahal, the noun form meaning “assembly” or “congregation” and the verb essentially signifying “to call.”
Often in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word qahal is translated synagōgē. Common to both Hebrew and Greek words is the idea of assembling together before the Lord. Thus, the Bible translation of Paul’s day (the Septuagint) rendered Deuteronomy 4:10 (“assemble the people before me”) using the word ekklēsia — the gathering together of the Lord’s people as a covenant community before their covenant God.
Taking this etymological clue, we can expand what the word church in the New Testament means along three lines of thought:
First, the preposition ek (or ex) in ekklēsia suggests a particular dimension to the meaning of the word: the church is an assembly of people called out of the world. The church comprises those who are “called to be saints [holy ones]” or, possibly, “the holy called ones” (Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2), just as their Old Testament counterparts were called “a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). As the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (381 AD ) affirmed, the church is “one, holy, catholic and apostolic.” We are “set apart as holy” (2 Tim. 2:21); we are chosen to be holy (Eph. 1:4); we are “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved” (Col. 3:12), “a holy priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5), “a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9), and “a holy temple” (1 Cor. 3:17). Brutally honest as we must be about the unholiness of the church, “the church is so holy that every one of its members is a saint” (Philip Graham Ryken).
Second, the church is an assembly called together into a homogenous, integrated unity. Several perspectives reinforce this in the New Testament. The church comprises the “family of God.” Each member of the church has become an “adopted son” (huiothesia; Rom. 8:15; 9:4; Gal. 4:5; Eph. 1:5). Now we are “members of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19), in which Jesus Christ is our elder brother. Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers (Heb. 2:11). We come to God in prayer, saying, “Our Father” (Matt. 6:9). To those whose experience of family is dysfunctional in this world, the experience of belonging to a community of brothers and sisters is redemptive and restorative, particularly when they experience the loving concern (fellowship [koinōnia]) of “those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10).
Third, the church is comprised of those who are called into fellowship with the Lord. The church of God lives in God’s presence. Paul, addressing the issue of the need for orderliness and interpretation in the use of the Apostolic gifts of prophecy and tongues, adds the remark that when these gifts are correctly used, an unbeliever will be forced to declare that “God is really among you” (1 Cor. 14:29). From the very beginning, the community of the Lord’s people was called together in order to worship the Lord (Ex. 3:12). The primary relationship is vertical, not horizontal.
This brings us to the nature of the church as both here and there, on earth as well as in heaven: “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb. 12:22–24).
The church, then, consists of those whom the Lord has called out of the world into union and fellowship with Christ and into communion with each other. And, as John Calvin (citing the church father Cyprian) says, “To those to whom he is a Father, the Church must also be a mother.” (Institutes 4.1.1). I wonder if you would agree with him.