Monthly Archives: March 2019

Grieving a Miscarriage

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Article by Rev. Ian Macleod, graduate of PRTS and currently pastor of the Free Reformed Congregation in Grand Rapids.

In trying to emphasize the unbreakable love and faithfulness God has to His people, the prophet Isaiah contrasts it to the strongest human affection he can find: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee” (Isa. 49:15). The contrast is so powerful precisely because of the strength of the mother-child bond. Therefore, what could be more unnatural and painful than that this bond should be intruded upon by death? Words fail to adequately express the aching loss a mother and a father experience in the death of “the son of her womb.” These are difficult questions: How do we learn to grieve a miscarriage? What comfort is there for those who have experienced the pain of miscarriage?

The answer to these questions is found in the Word of God. The loss of miscarriage throws up many hard questions in the minds of grieving parents. Why did this happen? Why now? It seems that most of the time the Lord answers these questions in a way similar to the way Jesus once replied to Peter : “What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter” (John 13:7). Yet the Lord repeatedly reminds His people in Scripture: “My dear child, what I am doing is good, it is for the best, and even when you do not understand why, understand that behind everything I do is infinite wisdom coupled with covenant love.” This is how believing parents are able to say, even from the depth and confusion of miscarriage grief, “In the multitude of my thoughts (anxieties) within me thy comforts delight my soul” (Ps. 94:19).

There is perhaps one question above all others to which the aching heart of the mother and father crave an answer: Is my child in heaven? The Bible says, “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17); “Hear and your soul shall live” (Isa. 55:3). The parent might reason: “But my child never heard the gospel. He or she never had the capacity to hear the word and exercise faith. Is it not just wishful thinking therefore to say my child is in heaven?” What comforts does the Word of God give to parents concerning the salvation of their child?

A first comfort to remember is that our children are conceived in sin. At first glance, this seems entirely paradoxical. How is this any comfort? Well, every comfort in the Word of God is based in truth. It is no comfort to say, “Your child is in heaven because they are innocent; they never committed any sin.” This is not true and so is no real comfort. Remember David; he was a child of the covenant, born in the tribe of Judah, born in the very line from which Christ would come, the man after God’s own heart, the sweet psalmist of Israel, and yet he confesses in Psalm 51:5, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Before we receive any gospel comfort, we must acknowledge this hard, hard truth: even our unborn children deserve everlasting death.

A second comfort is to remember the sovereignty of God. Because you believe your child is guilty of sin and deserves to die, and yet will never actually hear and respond to the gospel, you might well ask, How then can they be saved? But remember that, because God is sovereign, He works “when, and where, and how He pleases” (WCF 10:3). The great proof text for this is John 3:8: “The wind bloweth where it [wishes], and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” This truth reminds us that while God’s ordinary way of saving sinners is through using the means of grace, yet He is able to save sinners without these means as well. In the case of elect infants therefore, God works regeneration “by the immediate agency of the Holy Spirit on their souls.”1

A third comfort is to remember that salvation is by grace. Salvation does not depend on our effort or performance. No one is even saved because God realized they would believe. It is just as impossible for a sinner to believe God by his own strength and effort in his 40s or 50s as it is for a baby in the womb. But here is the great gospel truth that applies equally to elect infants as to the whole election of grace: “[God] hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (2 Tim. 1:9). The principle of salvation by grace alone is one of the most wonderful and undervalued doctrines in the whole Bible, and it is of immense comfort to grieving parents. God does not save us because of our good works; He saves us by the free gift of grace alone in Christ alone.

A fourth comfort to remember is that God is the covenant God. God’s covenant arrangement provides for the children of believers. His covenant promise is that “I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee” (Gen. 17:7). Of course, children of believing parents must be born again (John 3:3, 7). But we have already seen that God is able to work regeneration in the womb. When you take this truth alongside God’s covenantal commitment to be a God to believers and to their children after them, we find the strongest encouragement to believe that when the ordinary means of grace are denied to these children, God will work in an extraordinary and immediate way to save these children.

A fifth comfort is to remember the conception of Jesus Christ. The early church father Irenaeus said that Jesus Christ passed through every stage that He might sanctify sinners of every stage. Jesus needed no regeneration, but He is still the one who comes to sing to His heavenly Father, “I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother’s belly” (Ps. 22:10). No matter the age or the stage of life we are considering, it can still be said of Jesus, “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17). We can say even of our precious children who die in the womb, “These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God” (Rev. 14:4b–5).

When we combine all these comforting biblical truths, we conclude that the children of believers are not without God. In the case of children of believers, it must be true that before death intrudes into this child’s tender life, our faithful covenant God first interposes the precious blood of Jesus Christ, which washes the child’s sins away as far as the east is distant from the west (Ps. 103:12) and clothes him or her with the perfect righteousness of the Holy Child Jesus. Then, in a wave of sanctifying grace that makes the child perfect in holiness, his or her soul immediately passes into glory, and the little body, still united to Christ, rests in the grave until the resurrection (WSC 37). “Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (Rev. 7:15–17).

In conclusion, all the doctrines of covenant love and grace combine to give the strongest encouragement for believing parents to believe that their children who die in infancy are saved by grace in Christ. This is a most marvelous exhibition of the redeeming covenant love and grace in Christ that saves sinners before they are conscious of existence. Believing parents who have lost precious children in the womb or in infancy can take great comfort and strong consolation. Indeed, as Vance Havner said, “When you know where something is, you haven’t lost it.”2 “In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul” (Ps. 94:19).

1. John Dick, Lectures on Theology (Philadelphia: Greenough, 1840), 3:265. 2. Quoted in Warren Wiersbe, Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines on the Old Testament (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books, 1993); 2 Sam. 12.

James Renihan on Impassibility

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James Renihan (PhD) is President of IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, TX. He has authored several books including True Love and Edification and Beauty. 

(original source here:
https://credomag.com/article/what-is-impassibility/ )

The doctrine of Divine Impassibility is an ancient Christian belief, confessed throughout the long history of the Church, and yet often misunderstood or rejected today. It reflects classical Christian theism, and its import is well-known by theologians and has been fixed for centuries. It is deeply rooted in the Christian tradition and confessed by every major English Protestant church—both the 1552 42 Articles of the Church of England and their 1563 revision known as the 39 Articles; the 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith; the 1658 Savoy Declaration of the English Congregational churches, and the 1677/89 Second London Confession of the Baptists, (reprinted in America with two additions in 1742 as the Philadelphia Confession). And yet over the past 150 years this teaching has been criticized, modified and rejected, so that today it is an unpopular doctrine among evangelical theologians.

Impassibility with an i

Before we begin our brief study, we must take note of two things. In the first place, since the word may be easily confused with a similar homophone, we must briefly speak about the spelling of the term. The theological word is impassibility (with an i in the middle), not impassability (with an a in the middle). The latter perhaps refers to the problem your Fiat 500 might have overtaking a Corvette on a highway, or to an impassable flooded road after a heavy storm, or perhaps to the impasse reached because of the inability of two sides to conclude a negotiation. But it does not refer to our doctrine!

Second and more importantly, we must remember that any examination of God and the teaching about Him recorded in Scripture must be done in the context of devotion. The words of Leviticus 10:3 provide the context for our study: “By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people I must be glorified.” Our discussions of theology must be carried on in this context.

The Way of Negation and the Way of Eminence

Impassibility may be defined in this way: “God does not experience emotional changes either from within or effected by his relationship to creation.”[1] It is a necessary complement to the doctrine of divine immutability, expressing the fact that God is unchangeable in his essence or being, and in his outward acts in the world.

Christian theologians recognize that there is a fundamental distinction between the Creator and the creature. God alone has life and immortality. He needs no one and is perfection itself. We are not like this. Humans are dependent beings, relying on him for life and all things. For this reason, Christian theologians have acknowledged that it is easier to say what God is not than what he is. This has been called the Way of Negation. Impassibility is one of many such negations. Just as God is infinite—not finite, immortal—not subject to mortality, incomprehensible—beyond our ability to comprehend and immutable—not changeable, so also God is impassible. He is not subject to passions.

On the other hand, when making positive assertions about God, our teachers have expressed the Way of Eminence. This principle teaches us that when God is described to us in terms of human virtues, we recognize that those virtues exist originally, eternally, essentially, and perfectly (i.e., eminently) in God. Since he is infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, he is perfect in all that he is. His love, mercy, justice etc. are infinite, eternal and unchangeable virtues. Our problem is that we forget this basic truth and impute human characteristics to God. This is the root of modern exceptions to the historic Christian doctrine. It makes God over in the image of humanity. God is love; divine love, infinite, eternal and unchangeable love. His love does not increase or decrease, it is what he is.

Without passions

One of the most famous statements of this doctrine may be found in the Westminster Confession of Faith. In its Chapter 2 we read,

There is but one only, living, and true God who is infinite in Being and Perfection, a most pure Spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most absolute . . .

The phrase “without … passions” refers to the doctrine of divine impassibility. It has been consistently confessed by Christians through the ages. At the time of the Reformation, the Church of England declared in 1552 and 1563 in its 42 Articles and 39 Articles that,

There is but one living, and true God, and he is everlasting with out body, parts, or passions, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the maker, and preserver of all things both visible, and invisible.

The Irish Articles of 1615 followed suit in almost identical words, and the great Puritan confessions continued this trajectory. These confessional documents establish a tradition of the doctrine of God which specifically incorporates the doctrine of divine impassibility.[2] It is a necessary component of classical Christian theism. Herman Bavinck said,

Those who predicate any change whatsoever of God, whether with respect to his essence, knowledge, or will, diminish all his attributes: independence, simplicity, eternity, omniscience, and omnipotence. This robs God of his divine nature, and religion of its firm foundation and assured comfort.[3]

Expressions of effect, not affect

To deny the doctrine of divine impassibility is to open the door to heresy. In the seventeenth century, this was expressed by a group of people known as Socinians. John Owen responded to them:

Quest. Are there not according to the perpetuall tenor of the Scriptures, affections and passions in God, as Anger, Fury, Zeale, Wrath, Love, Hatred, Mercy, Grace, Jealousy, Repentance, Grief, Ioy, Feare? Concerning which he [Owen’s Socinian opponent, John Biddle] labours to make the Scriptures determine in the affirmative . . .To the whole I aske, whither these things are in the Scripture ascribed properly unto God, denoting such affections & passions in him as those in us are, which are so termed, or whither they are assigned to Him, & spoken of him Metaphorically, only in reference to his outward workes and dispensations, correspondent and answering to the actings of men, in whom such affections are, and under the power whereof they are in those actings. If the latter be affirmed, then as such an attribution of them unto God, is eminently consistent with All his infinite Perfections, and Blessednesse, so there can be no difference about this Question, and the answers given thereunto; all men readily acknowledge, that in this sence the Scripture doth ascribe all the affections mentioned unto God.[4]

Here, Owen seeks to employ the Way of Eminence. While Scripture in some places does seem to attribute emotions to God, we must look past the human language to the perfections they signify. For example, love is in God as an eternal perfection, not as a passion brought about by an encounter with the creature. Theologians have often said that when God is described in the language of human emotion, these are expressions of effect, not affect. In other words, we are reading about the effects God causes us to experience of himself, not effects that we have caused God to experience in himself. If we read of them in the same way that we experience human passions and affections, we diminish God, making him only a greater version of ourselves.

Do not tinker with it

More recently, Clark Pinnock wrote,

Impassibility is undoubtedly the Achilles heel of conventional thinking. It was as self-evident to our ancestors as it is out of question for us, but as soon as one tinkers with it the edifice trembles.[5]

Pinnock, who denied impassibility and became an advocate of Open Theism, acknowledges that repudiating impassibility necessitates a complete revision of the classical Christian doctrine! Divine impassibility must be maintained, or the church will lose its identity.

Writing nearly 340 years ago, the great Puritan John Owen could say of the doctrine of divine impassibility:

It is agreed by all that those expressions of “repenting, “grieving,” and the like, are figurative, wherein no such affections are intended as those words signify in created natures, but only an event of things like that which proceedeth from such affections.[6]

Our prayer is that these words may be written again today.

Endnotes

[1] Samuel D. Renihan, God Without Passions: A Primer (Palmdale: RBAP, 2015) 19.

[2] Some portions of this article are taken from my chapter “The Doctrine of Divine Impassibility: “Pre-Reformation through Seventeenth-Century England” in Ronald S. Baines, Richard C. Barcellos, James P. Butler, Stefan T. Lindblad and James M. Renihan, Confessing the Impassible God (Palmdale: RBAP, 2015).

[3] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, gen. ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003-2008), 2:158.

[4] John Owen, Vindiciae Evangelicae Or, The Mystery of the Gospel Vindicated, and Socinianisme Examined (Oxford: Printed by Leon. Lichfield, 1655), 73. This page is incorrectly numbered 65 in the original. The spelling is original.

[5] Clark H. Pinnock, Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2001), 77.

[6] John Owen, The Works of John Owen, 23 vols. (Edinburgh; Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1965-1991), 21:257, emphasis added.

Bavinck on Impassibility

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“Scripture itself leads us in describing God in the most manifold relations to all his creatures. While immutable in himself, he nevertheless, as it were lives the life of his creatures and participates in all their changing states. Yet, however anthropomorphic its language, it at the same time prohibits us from positing any change in God himself… In fact, God’s incomprehensible greatness and, by implication, the glory of the Christian confession are precisely that God, though immutable in himself, can call mutable creatures into being. Though eternal in himself, God can nevertheless enter into time and, though immeasurable in himself, he can fill every cubic inch of space with his presence. In other words, though he himself is absolute being, God can give to transient beings a distinct existence of their own. In God’s eternity there exists not a moment in time; in his immensity there is not a speck of space; in his being there is no sign of becoming. There is nothing intermediate between these two classes of categories: a deep chasm separates God’s being from that of all creatures. It is the mark of God’s greatness that he can condescend to the level of his creatures and that, though transcendent, he can dwell immanently in all created being. Without losing himself, God can give himself, and while absolutely maintaining his immutability, he can enter into infinite number of relations to his creatures.”

  • Reformed Dogmatics: Volume 2

Testimony: A Jehovah’s Witness trainer reached

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Dr. John MacArthur (transcript from a sermon):

The law of the Lord is perfect, comprehensive, sufficient for the total transformation of the whole inner person.

Whenever I preach this (Psalm 19:7), I always think of this one man named Tim Evalina. I was preaching in Sebring, Florida many years ago. And at the end of the message that I gave in this church, he came up to me, introduced himself. He said, “I have to tell you my story.” He said, “My entire family are Jehovah’s Witnesses. In fact, my family is responsible for the leadership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses throughout the state of Florida. My job” – he says – “is, has been for years, to train all the Jehovah’s Witness leaders. I go from location to location to location training them.” But he said, “I have to tell you what’s happened to me.”

He said, “I was driving across Florida listening to the radio in a rental car; and I turned on the radio, and you came on. I didn’t know who you were. And you made one statement. You said, ‘Jesus is God.’ And I said, ‘That’s a lie,’ and turned it off. And then I turned it right back on again because I was curious. And you went on to show from the Bible that Jesus is God. That was on a Monday.” And Grace To You happens to be all over Florida, so if you keep moving you can find us. He said, “I listened five days that week to your program, and all week you were showing that Jesus is God. By Friday I was seriously grappling with that issue, because Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe that.

“Monday was the second week of the series, I listened five more days. Friday I knelt down beside a bed and I said, ‘O God, Jehovah, whom I thought I served, if indeed Jesus is God the Son, show me.’ That night my head was cleared, my heart was cleared, my soul was transformed, and I embraced Jesus Christ as my Savior.

“Now,” he said, “I had a problem, because I was going around training the Jehovah’s Witness leaders. So,” he said, “I had to do some retraining. So,” he said, “I started back trying to tell them all that Jesus is God. I was in odds with my wife, three sons, and my parents and extended family, and everybody in my whole world. I was called on the carpet, tried as a heretic, and excommunicated from the movement.” He said, “My life is transformed.”

You ask the question, “How do you reach a leader in the Jehovah’s Witness movement?” Just let the truth of Scripture do its mighty work. There’s no subtle way to do that. I can’t orchestrate that. He said, “Pray for my family. Please pray for my family.” This has only been a few weeks.

Got a letter from him some months later telling me his wife and all three sons were in Christ, they were redeemed. Serious dent in the JW system in Florida. This is only an anecdote, but it illustrates the amazing power of the truth to do its own work, energized by the Spirit in the heart. I always think of him when I think of that statement in verse 7.

The Value of the Westminster Standards

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While I am a Reformed Baptist, much of what is communicated in this brief article “Maintaining Unity in the PCA – The Usefulness of the Westminster Standards” by Pastor Nick Batzig would equally apply to the Baptist Confessions and Catechisms I hold to (original source here – http://gospelreformation.net/maintaining-unity-pca/):

In his short essay, “Is the Shorter Catechism Worthwhile?” B.B. Warfield told the following short story about the importance of loving the teaching of the Westminster Shorter Catechism:

A general officer of the United States army…was in a great western city at a time of intense excitement and violent rioting. The streets were over-run daily by a dangerous crowd. One day he observed approaching him a man of singularly combined calmness and firmness of mien, whose very demeanor inspired confidence. So impressed was he with his bearing amid the surrounding uproar that when he had passed he turned to look back at him, only to find that the stranger had done the same. On observing his turning the stranger at once came back to him, and touching his chest with his forefinger, demanded without preface: “What is the chief end of man?’”On receiving the countersign, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever”—”Ah!” said he, “I knew you were a Shorter Catechism boy by your looks!” “Why, that was just what I was thinking of you,” was the rejoinder.

My initial exposure to the Westminster Standards (i.e., the Westminster Confession of Faith, and Shorter and Larger Catechisms) was a significantly less advantageous experience. As a new convert, I was surrounded by a number of seminarians who seemed to principally appeal to the Standards in order to critique and correct the erroneous theology of others. This fostered in me the perception that the Standards were fundamentally polemical in nature. I began to view the Westminster Confession of Faith as a restrictive and contrarian document—as something akin to legal documents rather than a theological document full of spiritually rich expositions of biblical truth. Additionally, I have met numerous ministers in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) who have expressed almost a sense of embarrassment when speaking about the Standards on account of their antiquated origin and language.

Over the years, however, I have come to view the Westminster Standards, not through the lens of early pejorative experiences but through the lens of ongoing Christian experience and pastoral ministry. I now have a deep love for the Standards as being a succinct exposition of biblical truth and articulation of the doctrines of the Protestant tradition. The Standards are a doctrinal outline of the Christian faith—full of both doctrinal and experiential truth.

A Standard?

The Westminster Standards have long served as the doctrinal standards to which ministers and churches in Reformed Presbyterian churches adhere. While the Standards have been a staple of Reformed Presbyterianism for centuries, they were first and foremost ecumenical documents—the product of 120 of the greatest theologians in all of church history. The members of the Assembly, who themselves served in different ecclesiastical fellowships (having quite a number of differing theological opinions among themselves!) sought to walk together as far as they could for the sake of biblical fidelity and doctrinal unity. Meeting over 1,130 times in 6 years, the members of the Assembly have given us one of the most careful articulations of the Christian faith even written.

In Reformed Presbyterianism, the Westminster Standards are just that—the standard by which we vow to test our doctrinal formulations. Ministers and members alike are to appeal to them to express what we believe to be biblical teaching and to reject what lies outside the bounds of confessional orthodoxy. They are not inspired and inerrant documents. God has reserved those categories for His breathed-out Word. The Standards can, by proper process, be amended by our denomination—a process to which God’s Word may never be subject. While we acknowledge that the Westminster Standards are human documents—subject to revision—one old Southern Presbyterian professor stated so well the importance of the theology of the Westminster Standards when he said, “The theology of the Confession of Faith is not perfect; but, it’s better than yours; and, you can have your theology corrected by a diligent study of it.” That sentiment captures the high regard that Reformed Presbyterian ministers have had for the Westminster Standards.

The Usefulness of the Standards

Despite the fact that the Standards have always held a uniquely important place in Presbyterian church history, many American Presbyterian ministers have either denied their teachings, ignored their usefulness, or simply given lip service to the vows that they took to uphold and teach their truths. Downplaying the importance of the Westminster Standards lay at the root of the Old School/New School division in the 19th Century—a division that resulted in the toleration of doctrine and practices that opposed the clear teaching of Scripture and the Standards. Additionally, it was a neglect of confessional orthodoxy and a denial of the integrity of the vows that Presbyterian ministers took that led to an embrace of theological liberalism at the turn of the 20th Century in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America and at Princeton Theological Seminary.

There will always be those who deny the teaching of the Confession, ignore its usefulness, or give lip service to the vows that they have taken to uphold and teach its truth. The last of these dangers is perhaps the most subtly pernicious. J. Gresham Machen explained that those who tolerated the shift towards theological liberalism in the Presbyterian Church, in the name of unity, were more dangerous than the theological liberals who were pressing for the diminution of doctrinal fidelity and confessional orthodoxy. In Christianity and Liberalism, Machen wrote:

Many indeed are seeking to avoid the separation. Why, they say, may not brethren dwell together in unity? The Church, we are told, has room for both liberals and for conservatives. The conservatives may be allowed to remain if they will keep trifling matters in the background and attend chiefly to “the weightier matter of the law.” And among the things thus designated as “trifling” is found the cross of Christ as a really vicarious atonement for sin.1

The tendency for ministers to utilize the subtlety of arguments that press for unity as over against truth (or, unity as being “weightier” than truth) ought to alert us to our own need to be diligent in defending confessional integrity in the PCA. Real and lasting unity is rooted in truth. We are far from immune to a shift toward theological liberalism. To think otherwise would be the height of foolish self-confidence.

This ever-present danger is intensified by the fact that we live in a day and age when men and women treat the vows that they have taken before God with little to no solemnity. Individuals throw away their marriage and walk away from local churches over the most inconsequential issues. The Scriptures are clear about the seriousness with which God deals with the vows that we take before Him. In Ecclesiastes 5:4–6, Solomon explained,

When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?

Both ministers and members of PCA churches take vows to “maintain…the purity and the peace of the church” (BCO 5-9 (i.3), 21-5 (6) and 57-5). Those of us who have taken ministerial vows must seek to keep those vows with the utmost seriousness. If we treated the quest for unity in our marriage as being more important than the quest for truth, duplicity, deceit, and infidelity would run rapid and ultimately destroy any and all unity. It is unimaginable that any Christian would desire anything less than loving unity in truth with his or her spouse. How equally zealous ought we to be for loving unity in truth in the Church of God, the bride of Christ which He purchased with His own blood! After all, ministers in Christ’s church have been entrusted with the great stewardship and principle task of maintaining the peace and the purity of the bride of Christ.

A consideration of our own experiences, the nature of the Standards, the history of American Presbyterianism, and the biblical teaching on vow-making should help awaken in us a desire to pursue confessional integrity in our own lives and ministries. Here are four ways that we, as ministers in the Presbyterian Church in America, can pursue such confessional integrity:

  1. Incorporate the Westminster Standards into our regular devotional and theological diet. We do ourselves an enormous disservice by failing to read the Standards regularly and devotionally. Whenever I have recognized such a deficiency in my own life and have returned to a meditative study of the Standards, I have come away sensing the enormity of the benefit derived. There is almost no theological subject upon which they do not touch. Additionally, the Standards have experiential warmth that is meant to stir the hearts of men and women unto a greater love for Christ and a deeper commitment to seeking after God.
  2. Assimilate the Westminster Standards into our regular preaching ministry. There is no better source of theological definitions than those we will find in the Westminster Shorter and Larger Catechisms. For instance, if we are preaching from the Scriptures on the subject of regeneration, justification, sanctification, adoption, faith, or repentance, we will find no more careful and succinct definitions than those which we find in the Shorter Catechism.
  3. Integrate the Westminster Standards into the ministries of our congregations. While some will have an initial reversion to it, one of the best things that we can do in our children’s ministries is to have our children memorizing the Shorter Catechism. A systematic approach enables us to cover nearly every precious doctrinal truth of Scripture with our covenant children. This is not to say that it should be a replacement to Bible memorization or teaching. However, there is no better supplement. After all, as Warfield expressed, we want our sons and daughters to grow up to be Shorter Catechism boys and girls.
  4. Defend the Westminster Standards in the courts of our denomination. We who have taken ministerial vows to the Standards should be diligent to defend their teaching in the courts of our church. This means that if we serve on theological examination committees (i.e., committees appointed for the examination of men for licensure and ordination) we should test all theological answers against the clear teaching of the Standards we have vowed to uphold.
  1. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman’s, 1923), 160.

Follow up video:

The Usefulness of the Westminster Confession | Nick Batzig & Nate Shurden from Gospel Reformation Network on Vimeo.

What’s at stake in our interpretation of Genesis?

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Article “Taking Genesis at Face Value” by Dr. John MacArthur – original source: https://thinking-biblically.masters.edu/posts/taking-genesis-at-face-value/

I realize, of course, that some old-earth creationists do hold to the literal creation of Adam and affirm that Adam was a historical figure. But their decision to accept the creation of Adam as literal involves an arbitrary hermeneutical shift at Genesis 1:26-27 and then again at Genesis 2:7.

If everything around those verses is handled allegorically or symbolically, it is unjustifiable to take the description of Adam’s creation and fall in a literal and historical sense. Therefore, the old-earth creationists’ method of interpreting the Genesis text actually undermines the historicity of Adam. Having already decided to treat the creation account itself as myth or allegory, they have no grounds to insist (suddenly and arbitrarily, it seems) that the creation of Adam is literal history. Their belief in a historical Adam is simply inconsistent with their own exegesis of the rest of the text.

But it is a necessary inconsistency if one is to affirm an old earth and remain evangelical. Because if Adam was not the literal ancestor of the entire human race, then the Bible’s explanation of how sin entered the world is impossible to make sense of.

Moreover, if we didn’t fall in Adam, we cannot be redeemed in Christ, because Christ’s position as the Head of the redeemed race exactly parallels Adam’s position as the head of the fallen race: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). “Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:18-19). “And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45; cf. 1 Timothy 2:13-14; Jude 14).

So in an important sense, everything Scripture says about our salvation through Jesus Christ hinges on the literal truth of what Genesis 1-3 teaches about Adam’s creation and fall. There is no more pivotal passage of Scripture.

What “old-earth creationists” (including, to a large degree, even the evangelical ones) are doing with Genesis 1-3 is precisely what religious liberals have always done with all of Scripture — spiritualizing and reinterpreting the text allegorically to make it mean what they want it to mean. It is a dangerous way to handle Scripture. And it involves a perilous and unnecessary capitulation to the religious presuppositions of naturalism — not to mention a serious dishonor to God.

Evangelicals who accept an old-earth interpretation of Genesis have embraced a hermeneutic that is hostile to a high view of Scripture. They are bringing to the opening chapters of Scripture a method of biblical interpretation that has built-in anti-evangelical presuppositions. Those who adopt this approach have already embarked on a process that invariably overthrows faith. Churches and colleges that embrace this view will not remain evangelical long.

The Deity of Christ and the Early Church

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Article: Did the Early Church Believe in the Deity of Christ? by Nathan Busenitz (source – https://www.tms.edu/blog/did-the-early-church-believe-in-the-deity-of-christ/)

Ask your average Muslim, Unitarian, Jehovah’s Witness, or just about any non-Christian skeptic who has read (or watched) The Da Vinci Code, and they’ll try to convince you the answer is no. From such sources we are told that the deity of Christ was a doctrine invented centuries after Jesus’ death — a result of pagan influences on the church in the fourth century when the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as its official religion.

Emperor Constantine, in particular, is blamed for being the guy who promoted Jesus to the level of deity, a feat of cosmic proportions that he managed to pull off at the Council of Nicaea in 325. As Dan Brown put it (through the lips of one of his literary characters): “Jesus’ establishment as ‘the Son of God’ was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea. . . . By officially endorsing Jesus as the Son of God, Constantine turned Jesus into a deity who existed beyond the scope of the human world, an entity whose power was unchallengeable” (The Da Vinci Code, 253).

So how can believers answer such allegations?

The best response, obviously, is to demonstrate from Scripture that Jesus is God. We can be confident that the early church affirmed Christ’s deity (and that we should do the same) because the New Testament clearly teaches that truth. The biblical case can be made from many places. Without going into detail in this post, here is a small sampling of texts that teach the deity of Christ: Isaiah 9:6; Matt. 1:23; John 1:1, 14, 18; 20:28; Acts 20:28; Rom. 9:5; 1 Cor. 1:24; 2 Cor. 4:4; Php. 2:6; Col. 1:15–16; 2:9; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:3, 8; 2 Pet. 1:1; 1 John 5:20.

But what about church history outside of the New Testament? Did the early church fathers affirm the deity of Jesus Christ? Or was it only after the fourth century (and the Council of Nicaea) that Christian leaders began to articulate their belief in God the Son?

Though it’s not an exhaustive list, here are 25 quotations from a number of ante-Nicene church fathers demonstrating their belief in the deity of Jesus Christ (with portions underlined for emphasis). These early Christian theologians all lived before the time of Constantine and the Council of Nicaea. As such, they provide incontrovertible proof (from post-New Testament history) that Constantine was not the first person in church history to affirm this doctrine. Rather, the early church embraced the truth that Jesus is God from the time of the apostles on.

1. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH (C. 50–117)

For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived by Mary according to God’s plan, both from the seed of David and of the Holy Spirit. (Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, 18.2. Translation from Michael Holmes, Apostolic Fathers, 197)

2. IGNATIUS (AGAIN)

Consequently, all magic and every kind of spell were dissolved, the ignorance so characteristic of wickedness vanished, and the ancient kingdom was abolished when God appeared in human form to bring the newness of eternal life. (Ibid., 19.3. Holmes, AF, 199)

3. IGNATIUS (AGAIN)

For our God Jesus Christ is more visible now that he is in the Father. (Ignatius, Letter to the Romans, 3.3. Holmes, AF, 229)

4. IGNATIUS (AGAIN)

I glorify Jesus Christ, the God who made you so wise, for I observed that you are established in an unshakable faith, having been nailed, as it were, to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 1.1. Holmes, AF, 249)

5. IGNATIUS (AGAIN):

Wait expectantly for the one who is above time: the Eternal, the Invisible, who for our sake became visible; the Intangible, the Unsuffering, who for our sake suffered, who for our sake endured in every way. (Ignatius, Letter to Polycarp, 3.2. Holmes, AF, 265)

6. POLYCARP OF SMYRNA (69–155)

Now may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the eternal high priest himself, the Son of God Jesus Christ, build you up in faith and truth . . ., and to us with you, and to all those under heaven who will yet believe in our Lord and God Jesus Christ and in his Father who raised him from the dead. (Polycarp, Philippians, 12:2. Holmes, AF, 295)

7. EPISTLE OF BARNABAS (WRITTEN C. 70–130)

If the Lord submitted to suffer for our souls, even though he is Lord of the whole world, to whom God said at the foundation of the world, “Let us make humankind according to our image and likeness,” how is it, then, that he submitted to suffer at the hands of humans? (Epistle of Barnabas, 5.5. Holmes, AF, 393)

8. JUSTIN MARTYR (100–165)

And that Christ being Lord, and God the Son of God, and appearing formerly in power as Man, and Angel, and in the glory of fire as at the bush, so also was manifested at the judgment executed on Sodom, has been demonstrated fully by what has been said. (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 128. Translation from Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, I:264)

9. JUSTIN (AGAIN)

Permit me first to recount the prophecies, which I wish to do in order to prove that Christ is called both God and Lord of hosts. (Ibid., 36. ANF, I:212)

10. JUSTIN (AGAIN)

Therefore these words testify explicitly that He [Jesus] is witnessed to by Him [the Father] who established these things, as deserving to be worshipped, as God and as Christ. (Ibid., 63. ANF, I:229)

11. JUSTIN (AGAIN)

The Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God. And of old He appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the other prophets; but now in the times of your reign, having, as we before said, become Man by a virgin. (Justin Martyr, First Apology, 63. ANF, I:184)

12. JUSTIN (AGAIN)

For if you had understood what has been written by the prophets, you would not have denied that He was God, Son of the only, unbegotten, unutterable God. (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 126. ANF, I:263)

13. TATIAN (110–172)

We do not act as fools, O Greeks, nor utter idle tales when we announce that God was born in the form of man. (Tatian, Address to the Greeks, 21. ANF, II:74)

14. MELITO OF SARDIS (D. C. 180)

He that hung up the earth in space was Himself hanged up; He that fixed the heavens was fixed with nails; He that bore up the earth was born up on a tree; the Lord of all was subjected to ignominy in a naked body – God put to death! . . . [I]n order that He might not be seen, the luminaries turned away, and the day became darkened—because they slew God, who hung naked on the tree. . . . This is He who made the heaven and the earth, and in the beginning, together with the Father, fashioned man; who was announced by means of the law and the prophets; who put on a bodily form in the Virgin; who was hanged upon the tree; who was buried in the earth; who rose from the place of the dead, and ascended to the height of heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. (Melito, 5. ANF, VIII:757)

15. IRENAEUS OF LYONS (120–202)

For I have shown from the Scriptures, that no one of the sons of Adam is as to everything, and absolutely, called God, or named Lord. But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth. Now, the Scriptures would not have testified these things of Him, if, like others, He had been a mere man. . . . He is the holy Lord, the Wonderful, the Counselor, the Beautiful in appearance, and the Mighty God, coming on the clouds as the Judge of all men; — all these things did the Scriptures prophesy of Him. (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.19.2. ANF, I:449)

16. IRENAEUS (AGAIN)

He received testimony from all that He was very man, and that He was very God, from the Father, from the Spirit, from angels, from the creation itself, from men, from apostate spirits and demons. (Ibid., 4.6.7. ANF, I:469)

17. IRENAEUS (AGAIN)

Christ Jesus [is] our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father. (Ibid., 1.10.1.ANF, I:330)

18. IRENAEUS (AGAIN)

Christ Himself, therefore, together with the Father, is the God of the living, who spoke to Moses, and who was also manifested to the fathers. (Ibid., 4.5.2. ANF, I:467)

19. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (C. 150–215)

This Word, then, the Christ, the cause of both our being at first (for He was in God) and of our well-being, this very Word has now appeared as man, He alone being both, both God and man—the Author of all blessings to us; by whom we, being taught to live well, are sent on our way to life eternal. . . . . . . The Word, who in the beginning bestowed on us life as Creator when He formed us, taught us to live well when He appeared as our Teacher; that as God He might afterwards conduct us to the life which never ends. (Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen, 1. ANF, II:173)

20. TERTULLIAN (C. 160–225)

For God alone is without sin; and the only man without sin is Christ, since Christ is also God. (Tertullian, Treatise on the Soul, 41. ANF, III:221)

21. TERTULLIAN (AGAIN)

Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled.  . . . That which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one. In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence—in position, not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb, is in His birth God and man united. (Tertullian, Apology, 21. ANF, III:34–35)

22. HIPPOLYTUS (170–235)

The Logos alone of this God is from God himself; wherefore also the Logos is God, being the substance of God. (Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 10.29. ANF, V:151)

23. CAIUS (180–217) [IN RESPONSE TO THOSE WHO WOULD QUESTION THE DEITY OF CHRIST]

Perhaps what they allege might be credible, did not the Holy Scriptures, in the first place, contradict them. And then, besides, there are writings of certain brethren older than the times of Victor, which they wrote against the heathen in defense of the truth, and against the heresies of their time: I mean Justin and Miltiades, and Tatian and Clement, and many others, in all which divinity is ascribed to Christ. For who is ignorant of the books of Irenaeus and Melito, and the rest, which declare Christ to be God and man? All the psalms, too, and hymns of brethren, which have been written from the beginning by the faithful, celebrate Christ the Word of God, ascribing divinity to Him. (Caius, Fragments, 2.1. ANF, V:601)

24. ORIGEN (C. 185–254)

Jesus Christ . . . in the last times, divesting Himself (of His glory), became a man, and was incarnate although God, and while made a man remained the God which He was. (Origen, De Principiis, Preface, 4. ANF, IV:240)

25. NOVATIAN OF ROME (210–280)

For Scripture as much announces Christ as also God, as it announces God Himself as man. It has as much described Jesus Christ to be man, as moreover it has also described Christ the Lord to be God. Because it does not set forth Him to be the Son of God only, but also the Son of man; nor does it only say, the Son of man, but it has also been accustomed to speak of Him as the Son of God. So that being of both, He is both, lest if He should be one only, He could not be the other. For as nature itself has prescribed that he must be believed to be a man who is of man, so the same nature prescribes also that He must be believed to be God who is of God. . . . Let them, therefore, who read that Jesus Christ the Son of man is man, read also that this same Jesus is called also God and the Son of God. (Novatian, On the Trinity, 11. ANF, V:620)

Did the Church Create the Bible?

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Michael J. Kruger (original source here: https://www.michaeljkruger.com/did-the-church-create-the-bible/ ):

The perennial question in the debate over sola Scriptura is whether the church is over the Bible or the Bible is over the church.

The latter position is (generally speaking) a Protestant one—the Scriptures, and the Scriptures alone, are the only infallible rule and therefore the supreme authority over the church.

The former position (generally speaking) is a Roman Catholic one—the church decided the canon and also, through the pope, decides how these books are to be interpreted.  In this way, the authority of the Bible rests on the (prior and more foundational) authority of the church.

Of course, Catholics would not word it quite this way.  The Roman church insists that the Scripture is always superior to the Magisterium.  Dei Verbum declares, “This teaching office is not above the Word of God, but serves it” (2.10). However, despite these qualifications, one still wonders how Scripture can be deemed the ultimate authority if the Magisterium is able to define, determine, and interpret the Scripture in the first place.

Regardless, this question of whether the church is over the Bible also comes up in the world of critical scholarship.  Critical scholars will often make the point that, historically speaking, the church essentially created the canon sometime in the fourth or fifth century.  The canon is merely a human product.

So, there is unexpected common ground here between the Roman Catholic view and the historical-critical view.  While the former believes these books are divinely inspired, and while the latter believes they are not, they both agree that the church is the cause of the Bible.

Now, it should be acknowledged that there is a sense in which this is true.  The Bible was written by divinely-inspired individuals who were part of God’s covenant community (i.e., the “church”).  And later Christians (also part of the “church”) recognized these books as from God.

But, we have to be careful not to confuse the proximate “cause” of Scripture (human beings) with the ultimate “cause” (God himself).  From a divine perspective, the church could not in any way be regarded as the cause of God’s divinely-inspired speech.  On the contrary, God’s divinely-inspired speech always stands over the church and governs her.

For more discussion of this important topic, and a very (!) brief defense of the Protestant position, here is a video Michael Kruger filmed with Don Carson

Why you can rely on the canon?