Christ Our Hope PCA blog - Tony Phelps, pastor

Christless Christianity

Wow, it's dusty in here!  Haven't posted anything in a loooooong time.  So what's motivating me to break my blogging silence?  Michael Horton's new book, Christless Christianity (published by Baker Books).  I highly recommend it.  Last night, I read two choice paragraphs that I wanted to share here. 

When newcomers visit Christ Our Hope, things may seem a little different, a little foreign - especially to those who may have some history in evangelical church life.  What makes us different?  Why do we worship the way we do?  Why is the sermon shaped the way it is?  Why all this talk about Christ and the Gospel?  We're already believers, after all.  In these two paragraphs, Horton lays out two different visions of church life, which may help clear things up!

These paragraphs are from Chapter 6, "Delivering Christ - The Message and the Medium," pp. 189-191.

"Imagine two scenarios of church life.  In the first, God gathers his people together in a covenantal event to judge and to justify, to kill and make alive.  The emphasis is on God's work for us - the Father's gracious plan, the Son's saving life, death and resurrection, and the Spirit's work of bringing life to the valley of dry bones through the proclamation of Christ.  The preaching focuses on God's work in the history of redemption from Genesis through Revelation, and sinners are swept into this unfolding drama.  Trained and ordained to mine the riches of Scripture for the benefit of God's people, ministers try to push their own agendas, opinions, and personalities to the background so that God's Word will be clearly proclaimed.  In this preaching, the people once again are simply receivers - recipients of grace.  Similarly, in baptism, they do not baptize themselves; they are baptized.  In the Lord's Supper, they do not prepare and cook the meal; they do not contribute to the fare; but they are guests who simply enjoy the bread of heaven.  As this gospel creates, deepens, and inflames faith, a profound sense of praise and thanksgiving fills hearts, leading to good works among the saints and in the world throughout the week.  Having been served by God in the public assembly, the people are then servants of each other and their neighbors in the world.  Pursuing their callings in the world with vigor and dedication, they win the respect of outsiders.  Because they have been served well themselves - especially by pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons - they are able to share the Good News of Christ in well-informed and natural ways.  And because they have been relieved of numerous burdens to spend all of their energy on church-related ministries throughout the week, they have more time to serve their families, neighbors, and coworkers in the world.

"In the second scenario, the church is its own subculture, an alternative community not only for weekly dying and rising in Christ but for one's entire circle of friends, electricians, and neighbors.  In this scenario, the people assume that they come to church primarily to do something.  The emphasis is on their work for God.  The preaching concentrates on principles and steps to living a better life, with a constant stream of exhortations:  Be more committed.  Read your Bible more.  Pray more.  Witness more.  Give more.  Get involved in this cause or that movement to save the world.  Their calling by God to secular vocations is made secondary to finding their ministry in the church.  Often malnourished because of a ministry defined by personal charisma and motivational skills rather than by knowledge and godliness, these same sheep are expected to be shepherds themselves.  Always serving, they are rarely served.  Ill-informed about the grand narrative of God's work in redemptive history, they do not really know what to say to a non-Christian except to talk about their own experiences and perhaps repeat some slogans or formulas they may be hard-pressed to explain.  Furthermore, because they are expected to be so heavily involved in church-related activities (often considered more important even than the public services on Sunday), they do not have the time, energy, or opportunity to develop significant relationships outside the church.  And if they were to bring a friend to church, they could not be sure that he or she would hear the gospel." 

The first scenario Horton has described is a classical Reformed understanding of worship and the means of grace - where we come in faith to receive from God, through Christ, by the Spirit.  The second scenario is a thumbnail sketch of the evangelical landscape.  Our church aims to live out the first scenario (though imperfectly, no doubt).  So the fact that some who have only known the second scenario might find things a bit "different" at Christ Our Hope is not surprising!

On page 196, Horton offers a helpful table which presents the differences between what I've labeled broad evangelicalism and Reformed Christianity in "the mission and methods of delivering Christ." 

Evangelicalism                             Reformed Christianity
Law-Lite                                      The Gospel
God as Life Coach                       God as Judge & Justifier
Good Advice (Doing)                   Good News (Done)
Christ as Example                        Christ as Savior
The Bible as Instruction                The Bible as Unfolding Mystery
  Manual                                          of Christ
Sacraments as Means                   Sacraments as Means of Grace
  of Commitment
The Church as Self-Help               The Church as Embassy of Grace
  Resource (focus on our                (focus on God's service/ministry)
  service/ministry)
We Ascend to God                      God Descends to Us
We Send Ourselves                     God Sends Us

'Nuff said.  Please, take up & read!

"NOT that, but THIS"

Reformed theology is a wonderful thing.  For many Christians who "discover" the riches of Reformed theology - after many wandering years in the Semi-Pelagian wilderness - it's almost like a second blessing...  A necessary part of Reformed theology is what we can call the apostolic "NOT that, but THIS."  Read Paul's epistles - and then read the likes of Luther and Calvin - and you'll see what I mean.  The Gospel is counter-intuitive.  Men - even redeemed men - have a tendency to diminish the radical corruption of sin, and as result, the radical wonder of God's grace to us in Christ.  Paul must tell the Galatians, and even the Corinthians, "NOT that" (your varied distortions or denials of the Gospel, with the raising up of your own righteousness), "but THIS" (the glory of the grace of God to us in Christ crucified - who alone is our righteousness).  Reformed theology, likewise, in an effort to be faithful to the apostolic Gospel, must say, "NOT that" (Joel Osteen, Arminianism, fundie legalisms, etc), "but THIS" (Christ's Cross and Righteousness alone). 

However, a sad reality is that many who make the pilgrimage into Reformed theology seem to trade their old self-righteousness ("I don't smoke or chew or dance with girls who do," etc), for a completely inappropriate NEW self-righteousness ("I thank you, God, that I am REFORMED, and not like those awful Arminians, fundies, and Pentecostals").  In other words, their supposedly new gains in theological maturity do not translate into a grace-driven spiritual maturity.  One legalism is swapped for another. 

What's the remedy?  Perhaps it is to recognize that the "NOT that" of Reformed theology is not the heart of the matter; the "but THIS" is the most important thing.  The negations are necessary, but not sufficient for spiritual maturity.  At the heart of the "but THIS" of Reformed theology is THIS:  I am a GREAT SINNER (radically depraved, helpless and hopeless to save myself), and Christ is a GREAT SAVIOR (the radical wonder of His grace and mercy to me).  God have mercy on me, a sinner.  Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am chief.  Amen.

A post-modern confession: "I'm spiritual, not religious"

In David Wells' The Courage to Be Protestant, he makes the following apt analysis of post-modern spirituality on p.69:  "In an eye-catching reversal [of the rationalism of the Enlightenment]..., by the 1990's, 78 percent of Americans were describing themselves as 'spiritual.'  The problem with much of this spirituality... is that so many of these 'spiritual' people are stripped of any reference points outside of themselves, whether in the past, in the present, or in a God external to themselves.  What is sacred is within and indistinguishable from the self.  It arises within the self and is accessed from within the self and asks nothing the self is unwilling to give. This kind of spirituality really is a sanitized version of Hinduism, there for the taking in America by its affluent and self-indulgent.  And it really does not change the fundamental inclination of Western postmodern societies to think that there is nothing that stands over against the self and calls it to account." 

Of course, the Gospel stands in radical antithesis to this new/old idolatry.  It declares that there is a God, our holy Creator, who will call us to account.  It warns us that our self-made spiritualities, our self-righteousness, and our other sins (!) are just the varied forms of our rebellion against His rule.  And it declares the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God sent by His Father, who invaded human history to save sinners such as us.  Salvation is not about looking within, but looking outside ourselves in faith to Christ, whose Cross & righteousness alone reconcile us to God

I think some Christians make the mistake of presenting Christianity as a better "spirituality" than its competitors, by highlighting subjective religious experiences such as getting "born again," being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, enjoying subjective feelings of peace & joy, finding a sense of meaning, personal worth, living in "authentic community," etc.  While some of these are consequences of believing the Gospel, they are not the Gospel.  And if we present them as the Gospel, we have presented another gospel - and have potentially left people to perish in their idolatrous and self-centered "spirituality" now deceptively re-labeled as "Christian."  The Gospel is the message of Christ crucified and risen for the salvation of sinners - not a "new & improved" spirituality product.  

Counting the cost, closing the loop, and Calvin's Institutes

Somewhere, Someone said something about "counting the cost."  That would be in the New Testament, Jesus speaking, and specifically Luke 14:28-33.  In the context, Jesus teaches about counting the cost of discipleship.  He used the metaphors of someone building a tower, or a king going to war, and failing to consider whether they would be able to follow through and bring it to completion.  Alas, a less universal metaphor might be a church-planting pastor naively planning to post blogs on Calvin's Institutes without first counting the cost. 

So, here I am, confessing my failure to my faithful blog readers (i.e., brother Nathan!).  But I thought I would close the loop in a hopefully helpful way.  I am continuing my re-study of the Institutes, using a very helpful book:  Analysis of the Institutes of the Christian Religion of John Calvin, by Ford Lewis Battles (published by P&R).   Battles was an important 20th Calvin scholar and English translator of the Institutes.

For those who are reviewing Calvin's magnum opus, or are just starting their journey, this book is an indispensable companion.  It's essentially an analytical outline of the Institutes, and serves as a clear guide to Calvin's thought.   The outline is thorough - the book is 421 pages long!  But it is also concise when compared to the 1700+ pages of the two volume Library of Christian Classics edition of the Institutes.

Here's an example of the work.  This is Battles' outline for Book 1, Chapter 1 of Calvin's work:

Chapter 1:  The Knowledge of God and That of Ourselves Are Connected, and How They Are Interrelated

1. Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God
  a. our real wisdom is confined almost entirely to
    (1) knowledge of God
    (2) knowledge of ourselves
  b. our rich blessings, acknowledged as from God, reveal our poverty and
      ruin which in turn compel us to look Godward
    (1) to seek what we lack
    (2) to learn humility
  c. we cannot seriously aspire to knowledge of God before we begin to
      become displeased with ourselves.

2. Without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self
  a. if we hypocritically confine our contemplation to ourselves and do not
      go beyond to contemplate God, we complacently laud our own virtues
  b. but the moment our thoughts rise to God and His excellencies, we see
      our "virtues" as wicked, foolish, and weak

3. Man before God's majesty
  a. scriptural examples of man's painful awareness of his lowly state when
      confronted by God's majesty:  Job, Abraham, Elijah, etc.
  b. proposed order of teaching:
    (1) knowledge of God
    (2) knowledge of ourselves

So take up & read!

Does God still speak via new revelation today? (part 2)

Continuing Budgen on 1 Cor 13:8-13:
6. The word used for the cessation of the revelatory gifts is very strong (Gr. katargeo) - meaning "destroy."  It is used in v. 8 re: prophecy &  knowledge and in v. 10 in reference to all these gifts.  He quotes Judisch:  "The cessation of the prophetic gifts was to be a complete obliteration beyond recall.  Paul left no room for any thought of a temporary lapse and revival.  If the prophetic gifts ever ceased, they ceased for all time.  But that they did cease at one point or another is clear from history.  Therefore they have ceased for all time." 
7. "Perfection" is a fitting description of the Scriptures, i.e. 1 Pet 1:22-2:2 which contrasts the living, abiding, eternal Word of God (the gospel) with that which is fading, and 2 Tim 3:16-17 which presents the God-breathed Scriptures as fully sufficient for doctrine, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness to meet the ministry needs (good works) of the "man of God" (that is, the one who proclaims the Word of God). 

Does God still speak via new revelation today? (part 1)

Someone inquired recently about how to show from Scripture that God no longer gives new revelation today - contra charismatic views of on-going revelation via tongues / prophecy.  He cited the following from Westminster Confession of Faith, and asked whether 1 Cor 13:8-13 is the best passage to appeal to:

1.1. Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manner, to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His Church; and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing: which maketh the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now ceased.

Here's my brief initial response:

'The two passages I go to first to show that God's special revelation is now completed are Heb 1:1-2 and Eph 2:20.  First, we need to understand the WHY of revelation.  God has spoken in history in order to save us. Revelation serves God's plan of redemption. It's not simply divinely revealed information.  It has a saving purpose.  One theologian put it this way, in reference to Heb 1:1-2:  "As God's saving acts are complete [in Christ], so also is the verbal revelation that explains them" (P. Adams, New Dictionary of Biblical Theology).  Eph 2:20 shows that the church is built on the FOUNDATION of the apostles and prophets, i.e., that foundation was laid once for all in the apostolic era.  The apostles and prophets are agents of God's Christ-centered revelation, which is now complete. 

'The 1 Cor 13 passage has good reformed pedigree, in defending the position that God's Word-revelation is now complete.  Jonathan Edwards gave exposition of it to argue that the "perfect" refers to the completion of biblical revelation which was completed at the close of the apostolic era. Others more recently have argued against this view by understanding the "perfect" to refer to when Christ returns.  Personally, I think Edwards argument still has merit and should not be lightly dismissed.'

A modern defender of this traditional interpretation of 1 Cor 13:8-13 is Victor Budgen in his biblical & historical assessment Charismatics and the Word of God (Evangelical Press).   Here is a summary outline of his defense that "the perfect" means the completed revelation of the NT (75-86):

1) When the apostle Paul speaks of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge, he is "speaking of supernatural God-given revelation."  Budgen approvingly cites John Wesley's suggestion regarding the gift of knowledge may have been "'...an extraordinary ability to understand and explain the Old Testament types and prophecies" as James did in Acts 15:12-17. 

2) In 1 Cor 11:26, Paul declared in Spirit-inspired words that the Lord's Supper would be continued "...until He comes."  Why not similar language in 1 Cor 13:10, if he intended to convey that special revelation would continue until Christ's return? 

3) Likewise, in 1 Cor 15:24, Paul unambiguously describes the language of Christ's return as "the end." 

4) By God's superintendence, Paul used the Gr. word to telion in verse 10 for "perfection," which means "a completed thing."  Used 18x in the NT, it never refers to heaven or the return of Christ / consummation.  It is often translated as "mature" (i.e. 1 Cor 2:6). It also conveys the sense of coming to maturity or completion. 

5) "Therefore it is the full development and maturing of prophecy, other languages and knowledge that is in view.  These gifts are the three gifts whereby God communicates supernatural, authoritative, infallible truth.  At the time when 1 Corinthians was written he did this in a partial but not imperfect way through the gifts.  What is the final completed form of God speaking supernaturally, authoritatively and infallibly?  Is it not beyond all doubt the NT Scriptures?  These are the prophecy to end all prophecies and are frequently termed as such (Rom 16:26; 2 Peter 1:19; Rev 22:18)" (76).  The NT is now the key to understanding God's prior revelation in the OT, and how it is fulfilled in Christ and His Church. 

(to be continued...)