Derek Webb and the Good News

After reading the 9marks blog I was inspired to post an excerpt from an entry entitled, "Derek Webb on the Gospel." Caedmons Call, of which Webb has played an intregal role has always been a great example of both good music and doctrinal meat.

I'll let 9marks take it from here:

"But signs of late, at least with Derek Webb, have not been as encouraging. In a podcast interview Derek recently did, the interview host asks him to succinctly define the gospel. Here's Derek's answer:

What a great question. I guess I’d probably…my instinct is to say that
it's Jesus coming, living, dying, and being resurrected and his inaugurating the
already and the not yet of all things being restored to himself…and that
happening by way of himself…the being made right of all things…that process both
beginning and being a reality in the lives and hearts of believers and yet a day
coming when it will be more fully realized. But the good news, the gospel,
the speaking of the good news, I would say is the news of hiHs kingdom coming the
inaugurating of his kingdom coming…that’s my instinct.

In response to this the host simply replied, "Good."

Hmm...Webb is usually pretty solid in his description and explanation of the Gospel. It seems odd (and sad) to me that in "succinctly" summarizing the Gospel that he could leave out such essentials as 1) Creation of man to live under God's loving rule; 2) Sin as rebellion against God's rule; 3) Judgment; 4) Penal Substitution; 5) Resurrection & Enthronement of Christ; 6) Response of Repentance & Faith.

. . . to this I add nothing.

In his talk on Simeon, John Piper says that Simeon had little sympathy for uncharitable Calvinists. In a sermon on Romans 9:16, he said, "Many there are who cannot see these truths [the doctrines of God's sovereignty], who yet are in a state truly pleasing to God; yea many, at whose feet the best of us may be glad to be found in heaven. It is a great evil, when these doctrines are made a ground of separation one from another, and when the advocates of different systems anathematize each other. . . . In reference to truths which are involved in so much obscurity as those which relate to the sovereignty of God mutual kindness and concession are far better than vehement argumentation and uncharitable discussion" (Horae Homileticae, Vol. 15, p. 357).

Then Piper relates "how [Simeon] lived out this counsel is seen in the way he conversed with the elderly John Wesley. He tells the story himself:

“Sir, I understand that you are called an Arminian; and I have been sometimes called a Calvinist; and therefore I suppose we are to draw daggers. But before I consent to begin the combat, with your permission I will ask you a few questions. Pray, Sir, do you feel yourself a depraved creature, so depraved that you would never have thought of turning to God, if God had not first put it into your heart?

----Yes, I do indeed.

And do you utterly despair of recommending yourself to God by anything you can do; and look for salvation solely through the blood and righteousness of Christ?

----Yes, solely through Christ.

But, Sir, supposing you were at first saved by Christ, are you not somehow or other to save yourself afterwards by your own works?

----No, I must be saved by Christ from first to last.

Allowing, then, that you were first turned by the grace of God, are you not in some way or other to keep yourself by your own power?

----No.

What then, are you to be upheld every hour and every moment by God, as much as an infant in its mother's arms?

----Yes, altogether.

And is all your hope in the grace and mercy of God to preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom?
----Yes, I have no hope but in Him.

Then, Sir, with your leave I will put up my dagger again; for this is all my Calvinism; this is my election, my justification by faith, my final perseverance: it is in substance all that I hold, and as I hold it; and therefore, if you please, instead of searching out terms and phrases to be a ground of contention between us, we will cordially unite in those things wherein we agree. (Moule, 79f)

----To this, I add nothing.

Sinning Boldly: Just Not So Deadly

Americans are doubtless a religious people, but we don't believe in the hard stuff any more. Certainly not in the doctrine of sin, original or otherwise, which seems to have gone missing, even among evangelicals, sometime around the time hell disappeared.

Still, we seem to gravitate, in fascination if not faith, to the Seven Deadly Sins, those transgressions classified by Catholic thinkers from Pope Gregory the Great on as particularly hazardous to our spiritual health. Perhaps it is the enumeration. (Why seven?) Or the parlor game of ranking them. (Is lust worse than gluttony? Is pride the worst of them all?) For whatever reason, books and even movies on the Seven Deadly Sins appear with some regularity—far more often, to be sure, than those on the Seven Cardinal Virtues.

What is missing from contemporary American culture is a sense that something is missing from this world. There is little awareness here of the incompleteness and unsatisfactoriness that Augustine took for evidence of another life, and that saints from Mary to Mother Teresa have taken as a charge to make this life conform to our imaginings of the next. Quoting Baudelaire, Flannery O'Connor once wrote that "the devil's greatest wile …is to convince us that he does not exist." If this is true, these are perilous days.

Say what you want about the vices of the dogma of sin, one of its virtues has always been to remind us that we—all of us—live between the animals and the gods, that one of the underappreciated challenges of human life is to somehow become a human being. Of course, there are myriad ways to avoid this task, one of the most popular being to imagine that you are in some important respect (morally perhaps?) superior to your fellow human beings. The doctrine of sin reminds us that this path leads to individual and collective ruin.

But this doctrine need not only humble us. It can embolden us, too, lend us the power to talk back to power, to remind those who denounce others—other races, other nations, other religions—as evildoers that we are all evildoers. This is a hard truth for any culture, harder still for an optimistic culture tethered only to the sky. But it is one that we ignore at great cost.

"On Predestination"

The following poem appeared in The Continental Journal on March 11, 1779. It was entitled “On Predestination.”

If all things succeed as already agreed,
And immutable impulses rule us;
To preach and to pray, is but time thrown away,
And our teachers do nothing but fool us.
If we’re driven by fate, either this way or that,
As the carman whips up his horses,
Then no man can stray --- all go the right way,
As the stars that are fix’d in their courses.
But if by free will, we can go or stand still,
As best suits the present occasion;
Then fill up the glass, and confirm him an ass
That depends upon Predestination.

Two weeks the same newspaper published an answer by another writer:

If an all perfect mind rules over mankind,
With infinite wisdom and power;
Sure he may decree, and yet the will be free,
The deeds and events of each hour.
If scripture affirms in the plainest of terms,
The doctrine of Predestination;
We ought to believe it, and humbly receive it,
As a truth of divine revelation.
If all things advance with the force of mere chance,
Or by human free will are directed;
To preach and to pray, will be time thrown away,
Our teachers may be well rejected.
If men are deprav’d, and to vice so enslav’d,
That the heart chuses nothing but evil;
Then who goes on still by his own corrupt will,
Is driving post haste to the devil.
Then let human pride and vain cavil subside,
It is plain to a full demonstration,
That he’s a wild ass, who over his glass,
Dares ridicule Predestination.

Somebody Free Will...Please.

I have no idea who Will is. I have no idea where he is or what he did to get there. All I know is that everybody wants to free Will. And the funny thing is, nobody else knows who Will is either. For someone who gets so much recognition, it sad more people don't get to know this guy.

What if we spent all this time trying to justify our campaign to "Free Will," and he didn't even want to be freed? What if someone proposed the preponderous assumption that maybe Will doesn't even need to be freed? Maybe Will sucks. Who knows?

So that was lame. But seriously folks, what's up with "free will"?

Before you read this post any further, please read Matthew 12.33-37.

I think the best way to understand man's responsibility and the sovereignty of God can be summed up in this sentence: Man's will is not his Hope. Christ Jesus taught that the tree must be made good. Man must be renewed in his entire character. He must have a new heart to bring forth good fruit; the will cannot make the tree good; it may only exercise the freedom to be what the tree already is. The will cannot reload the treasure chest with a new kind of goods; it may only freely bring forth what is there. The will cannot cleanse the fountainhead; it may overflow only with the waters available in the soul.

Any gospel preaching that relies upon an act of the human will for the conversion of sinners has missed the mark. Any sinner who supposes that his will has the strength to do any good accompanying salvation is greatly deluded and far from the kingdom. We are cast back upon the regenerating work of the Spirit of the living GOD to make the tree good. Unless GOD does something in the sinner, unless GOD creates a clean heart and renews a right spirit within man, there is no hope of a saving change.

If we hold to a libertarian view of free-will, many of our prayers would just be absurd!

Here's another little ficticious conversation for you.

Student: Can we finish this conversation concerning free-will after we pray? I'm starving.
Teacher: We sure can.
(Prayer ensues and a conversation regarding the free-will of man ensues.)
Student: So what were you saying about free-will and prayer?
Teacher: Well, just think about the prayers about ourselves that do involve our free will.
Student: Ok.
Teacher: Suppose we ask the Lord to help us be more faithful in Bible reading, prayer, and witnessing. Or suppose we pray that the Lord will help us treat our family or neighbor better.
Student: That's easy.
Teacher: I'm gonna say that if libertarian free-will obtains in our world, these are to a large degree absurd requests.
Student: Why would you say that?
Teacher: Well, what are we asking God to do?
Student: What?
Teacher: In order for me to be more faithful in Bible reading, prayer, and witnessing, won’t I have to decide to do these things?
Student: Yeah. So...
Teacher: But if I have libertarian free-will and am allowed to exercise it, how can God fulfill my request?
Student: Um...
Teacher: If he doesn’t override my libertarian freedom, he cannot guarantee the fulfillment of my request. So what am I asking him to do? Override my freedom? Make it the case that I freely decide to do these things?
Student: But if God brings those things about and makes the case for you, you're not doing it freely. Why would God want me to engage in these spiritual exercises because I’m forced to do so? Doesn't God want my love and devotion to flow freely from my desires?
Teacher: Let's think about this now. If what you're saying is true, shouldn’t I, then, pray to myself in an attempt to convince myself to do these things? After all, only I can freely effect what I choose to do, given libertarian free-will.
Student: No way. We pray to God and God alone.
Teacher: But if I did pray to myself, wouldn’t that usually mean I had already decided to do these things, and if so, the petition becomes unnecessary?
Student: I see.
Teacher: Do you see why this is so crucial for us to understand? Unless we really want God to override our freedom, what we ask him in these cases is absurd. If he doesn’t tamper with our libertarian free-will, he can’t do what we ask; only we can, but petitioning ourselves engages us in the absurdities we've been mentioning...

To steal from a previous post on Election:
I think the best way to understand and explain the doctrine of [free-will] can be summed up in this: If you wrestle with the doctrine of election long enough it creates a problem that was always there and you didn’t see it. And the denial of election, or disagreeing of it, doesn’t get it to go away.

Here's some closing statements (paraphrased from J.I. Packer):

• I will proclaim a God who saves, not a God who enables man to save himself.
• I will proclaim the three great acts of the Holy Trinity for the recovering of lost mankind—election by the Father, redemption by the Son, calling by the Spirit—as directed towards the same persons, and as securing their salvation infallibly, not a view that gives each act a different reference (the objects of redemption being all mankind, of calling, all who hear the gospel, and of election, those hearers who respond), and denies that man’s salvation is secured by any of them.
• I will regard faith as part of God’s gift of salvation, not as man’s own contribution to salvation.
• I will give all the glory of saving believers to God, not divide the praise between God, who, so to speak, built the machinery of salvation, and man, who by believing operated it.

While addressing the wills of men in the blogsphere, university, the street, or in the church, we need to be reminded that they are wills bound in the grave clothes of an evil heart. But as we speak, and the Lord owns His word, we can reast assured that sinners will be quickened to life by divine power. His people are made willing in the day of His power [Psalms 110.3]. All who are adopted as sons of GOD were 'born not of the will of man, but of GOD.' [John 1.13] Let us stand to preach with no power to make the tree good. The 'trees' before us cannot make themselves good, so no gimmicks or policies of men can persuade them to make the change. But our glorious God, by inward, secret, transforming power, can make the tree good, the treasures good, the fountain good. Thus all glory be to God and to the Lamb! Salvation is of the Lord!

And that's the way Will likes it.

What's Up With Election?

What’s up with the doctrine of election?

As far as I know, the doctrine of election states that all human beings given 100 chances or 1,000 chances or an infinite number of chances, will always choose, because of their desires and such, to be their own lord and savior and they will never choose Jesus. And so God opens the eyes of some so that they can see the truth, but he doesn’t open the eyes of everybody.

The first question to face, which is the easiest, is: What do other Protestant churches believe about it? The fact is that the Protestant churches have been split over it for a long time. For instance, in the church that I am a part of (Independent Baptist), we tend to “major in the Majors.” What is meant by this is that the belief in election sometimes underlines and informs the things that are said, but nobody is going to be saying that you have to tow-the-line on this particular doctrine to be a member of the church.

Martin Luther taught election very strongly; however, his followers kind of backed away from it. So the Lutheran’s are pretty split on this issue. Presbyterian and Reformed churches have always taught it, and the Baptists have been split on it too. For the first 50-100 hundred years of America’s history, all Baptists believed in this doctrine. That’s the reason why the Baptists who didn’t were called “Free Will Baptists.” However, today, the average Baptist wouldn’t believe in election.

I think the best way to understand and explain the doctrine of election can be summed up in this: If you wrestle with the doctrine of election long enough it creates a problem that was always there and you didn’t see it. And the denial of election, or disagreeing of it, doesn’t get it to go away.

If you believe that years and years ago, at the beginning of time, God said, “I see that the human race is going to sin. So here’s what I’m going to do, I’m gonna go out and save a quarter of them.” Aww! That sounds awful! However, if you say, “No. What I believe is that years and years ago God said, ‘Aw, the human race is going to sin. I will send my Son and I will give everybody free will.” But since he is God, he immediately knows, if he does it like that, who will believe and who will not. So in other words, either way you have an action of God in the deeps of time that automatically consigns some people to heaven and some people to hell.

So we’re all in the same boat. Because here’s the issue: God looks like he can save everybody (we think), he says he wants to save everybody, but he doesn’t save everybody. Why? Nobody has an answer for that. Nobody. And everybody has got the same problem.

When we first hear of election we question the fairness of God. “He’s unfair. He could save everybody, but doesn’t.” My question is: Well, how do you get out of that, even if you don’t believe in predestination? The usual answer I hear is that, “Well, I don’t believe God would violate my free will.” Why not!? What’s the big deal!?! If I’m going to go to hell, then by all means necessary I want God to violate my free will. I need God to violate my free will. He can throw it away for all I care. I don’t want to go to hell.

Another concern then arises, “God doesn’t want robots. He wants people who freely love him.” This concern is usually borne out of a sincere and heartfelt compassion for the lost; however, it is also tainted by a completely twisted view of the doctrine of election. The doctrine of election doesn’t say that God made man as a robot. It says that God opens the eyes of men so that they can see spiritual Truth, which enables us to choose him freely. Imagine a bunch of people who are blind-folded running into a pit of fire and you say “Stop!” And they say “Why?” You then say, “You’re going to die!” Then they say, “No. We’re on our way to the beach. We can feel it getting warmer.” “No. You’re going to die!” And so you grab someone and take their blindfold off. Then the person says, “Oh my word. Thank you. I didn’t want to run into that.”

Is this forcing someone’s will? Not a bit. That’s all the doctrine of election says.

We all have the same problem: God opens the eyes. True. Why doesn’t he open them all? I don’t know.

The reason I believe in election is this: I have all the same problems that you do, but there’s one thing I need. The Bible tells me that I am saved by grace, not by anything better or good in me. I am saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

The truth is simple,but the implications are huge. Follow this ficticious conversation.

Student: I don’t believe in predestination.
Teacher: Fine. Have you thought about that in regards to it’s implications on grace?
Student: Why?
Teacher: Is your roommate a Christian?
Student: No.
Teacher: Why are you a Christian and she isn’t?
Student: Well, because I received Christ and she didn’t.
Teacher: Ok. That’s fine. Why did you receive Christ and she didn’t?
Student: Well, because I repented.
Teacher: Fine. Why did you repent and she didn’t?
Student: Because I humbled myself.
Teacher: Fine. Why did you humble yourself?
Student: Um.
Teacher: Are you really saying that somewhere, someplace, the real reason you are a Christian and she’s not is because something a little smarter, a little more open, a little better, a little…Are you really saying that basically you are the author of your salvation because Jesus didn't do anything more for her than he did for you, and it’s all the same?

Predestination has all kinds of problems for me to work through, but the one thing it is true to, is my experience: that my salvation has nothing to do with me being smarter or better at all. This is radical and unconditional grace…and it creates problems. But if you believe in a less-radical grace…you’ve got more questions that you can bear to answer.

On Baptism...

From soteriology to epistemology, dispensational to covenantal, the doctrine of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, no matter how you slice it, doctrine is inescapable. And so is controversy; however, both are necessary in the life of the Church, and the believer. The sad truth is that all to often we forget that both carry with them the potential to be lethal.

In my attempt to express why I believe the doctrine of baptism is important in the life of the believer, I want to convey the attitude and conviction that controversy is both necessary and lethal: necessary in "defense and confirmation of the gospel,” and lethal where prideful egos squelch Christ-centered worship and adoration (Phil. 1:7). We must always remember what Paul said in 1 Timothy 1:5 that "the goal of our instruction is love."

Christians have long differed with one another on both the meaning and the practice of water baptism. This short post will not be an end-all by any stretch of the imagination; nevertheless, I hope it will spark in you a renewed attitude of reverence for precious biblical doctrine and annihilate any speck of complacency that may have crept in undeterred.

In my limited understanding of Scripture, baptism in the Bible always follows faith. In every New Testament command and instance of baptism, that I have read, repentance and faith precede baptism. This is one reason why I do not believe infants should be baptized. Infants are not capable of repentance or faith; and also, the notion that a person should inherit the blessings of a Christian or be considered a Christian by virtue of his parents' faith or work is contrary to New Testament teaching. It must be confusing to someone who reads the Bible to see infants baptized when they don’t have faith. In the NT those who are baptized are said to be dead to sin and risen with Christ. But infants aren’t dead to sin, nor are they risen with Christ. Even more important, perhaps, is what happens in the church. Now infants are considered to be members of the church, even though they are unregenerate.

(I know that although the lack of mention in the NT concerning infant baptism does not rule out the fact that it may have been practiced, but I believe it is important to note.)

I just happen to be reading through the book of Colossians in the month of January and I can't help but mention chapter 2.

• Colossians 2:11-12
  11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which [i.e., baptism] you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

Because I hold to a "believer's baptism," I believe that baptism is an expression of faith, and the raising with Christ that happens in baptism happens by virtue of baptism's being an expression of faith - which infants cannot perform.

I have heard it said that "Baptism saves!" and I believe it does--insofar as it is the appeal to God from a broken and contrite heart. The appeal always precedes the act of baptism. It is an outward expression of the inward reality--the work of the Holy Spirit.

The question to ask then is, "But what about the sign of the covenant made with the children of Israelites in the Old Covenant?" (Genesis 17:7-13)

Heidelberg Catechism:
[Infants of Christian parents] belong to the covenant and people of God . . . they also are to be baptized as a sign of the covenant, to be ingrafted into the Christian church and distinguished from the children of unbelievers, as was done in the Old Testament by circumcision, in place of which in the New Testament baptism is appointed.

Westminster Directory for the Public Worship of God
The seed and posterity of the faithful born within the church have by their birth an interest in the covenant and right to the seal of it and to the outward privileges of the church under the gospel, no less than the children of Abraham in the time of the Old Testament . . .

So why is baptism not administered to the children of Christian parents in the New Covenant as circumcision was administered to the children of Jewish parents in the former covenant? This is typically a question I hear from my more "Reformed" brethren...and rightfully so.

The main problem I have with this question is that I believe it to be a wrong assumption about the similarity between the people of God in the Old Testament and the people of God today. It assumes that the way God gathered his covenant people, Israel, in the Old Testament and the way he is gathering his covenant people, the Church, today is so similar that the different signs of the covenant (baptism and circumcision) can be administered in the same way to both peoples. This is a mistaken assumption, and in my opinion, downplays the importance of baptism and the work of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

There are differences between the new covenant people called the Church and the old covenant people called Israel. And these differences explain why it was fitting to give the old covenant sign of circumcision to the infants of Israel, and why it is not fitting to give the new covenant sign of baptism to the infants of the Church. In other words, even though there is an overlap in meaning between baptism and circumcision (Romans 4:11), circumcision and baptism don't have the same role to play in the covenant people of God because the way God constituted his people in the Old Testament and the way he is constituting the Church today are fundamentally different.

The people of the covenant in the Old Testament were made up of Israel according to the flesh - an ethnic, national, religious people containing "children of the flesh" and "children of God." (Paul speaks extensively about this in his epistle to the Romans, and also in Galatians) Therefore it was fitting that circumcision was given to all the children of the flesh.

But the people of the new covenant, called the Church of Jesus Christ, is being built in a fundamentally different way. The church is not based on any ethnic, national distinctives but on the reality of faith alone, by grace alone in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Church is not a continuation of Israel as a whole; it is an continuation of the true Israel, the remnant -not the children of the flesh, but the children of promise. Therefore, it is not fitting that the children born merely according to the flesh receive the sign of the covenant, baptism.

I believe that just as circumcision was administered to all the physical sons of Abraham who made up the physical Israel, so baptism should be administered to all the spiritual sons of Abraham who make up the spiritual Israel.

My prayer is that any believer who has not entered into the waters of baptism will consider, for themselves, the blessing of being baptized in Christ. And I pray that everyone who witnesses their next baptism will experience a rekindling of love to God for all he has done for us in making us part of the new covenant people through repentance and faith.