On the Priesthood of the Believer

Michael Horton on the Priesthood of the Believer

In the medieval church, the Sacrament of Holy Orders entered those who were really “sold out” for the Lord into “full-time Christian ministry.” Christians were separated into “secular” and “religious” callings, as though those who decided to work for the church or Christian ministries were somehow more spiritual than those who engaged in “worldly” vocations. Luther records, “Whoever looked at a monk fairly drooled in devotion and had to be ashamed of his secular station in life.”10 To be sure, not all believers are ministers; God has called some to hold offices in his church. However, those who are not are no less committed to God in their secular vocations. Against this “sacrament,” the Reformers launched their biblical notion known to us as “the priesthood of all believers.” This doctrine insists that the milkmaid has as God-honoring a calling and contributes as much as any priest, though in a different way. One need not be a monk (i.e., an employee of a Christian organization). Christians ought to be involved with the world, as salt and light. “For the right faith,” urges Luther, “does not make people give up their calling and begin a ‘spiritual’ one, like the monks do. They imagined that they were not truly Christian unless they appeared different outwardly from other people.”11 Each Christian, whatever his or her calling, serves God, and that person’s calling—whether making shoes, practicing law, dressing wounds, caring for children, or plowing the fields—is a ministry to the community on God’s behalf. What a revolutionary idea! It can be again. If even a pagan ruler can be described as ministering on God’s behalf (see Rom. 13:4), surely believers can see their secular work as fulfilling an important task in God’s world. We still need pastors, elders, and deacons, but these are special offices, not special people in the kingdom. Through these officers the whole body is equipped by the Spirit to grow up together into its Head and to brings its witness and service to the world. The Reformation produced great artists who were liberated from the almost exclusively religious themes commissioned by the church. Until that time, the best way to make a living as an artist was to create images of God that are expressly forbidden in the second commandment. The Reformation shifted the emphasis from the church to the world. Ironically, the demand that art serve the interests of religion, piety, and worship downplayed the goodness of creation, the common realm of culture, and secular vocations. Yet the Reformers argued that you did not need to justify such cultural activity in terms of its evangelistic, moral, and devotional usefulness. A cobbler could glorify God, said Luther, by making a good shoe and selling it at a fair price. J. S. Bach’s chief ambition was to represent the Reformation in music both in secular as well as in church scores. In fact, he signed all of his compositions (secular and religious) with the Reformation slogan Soli Deo Gloria, “To God Alone Be Glory.” Rembrandt, the Dutch master, brought the reality of this world to the canvas. Medieval artists consistently depicted the light in a scene emanating from heavenly rays or from the halos of the biblical heroes and saints. But for Rembrandt, and for many of the Protestant painters, there was natural light. For instance, in medieval paintings of the Nativity, the source of the light was Christ and the holy family; in Protestant baroque art, the source of light was more often a beam of light coming in through the window from the sun or moon. These subtle differences marked a shift in the way people looked at the world and their place in it.There was a tremendous sense among the Reformation’s adherents that this world is terribly important, too. To be sure, heaven is the believer’s ultimate hope, but it is in this world where God has chosen to reveal, act, redeem, and restore. As one hymn puts it, “This is my Father’s world.” Where are today’s Bachs, Handels, Miltons, Rembrandts, Dürers, Cranachs, Herberts, and Donnes? Some of them might be found working two or three jobs to put food on the table. Others have been intimidated by well-meaning but ill-informed brothers and sisters who are convinced that unless artists are producing something useful for the church (i.e., an evangelistic tract, shirt, or bumper sticker or a church bulletin), art is a waste of God’s time. Once again, the “full-time Christian ministry” thing, which the Reformers knew as “monkery,” is the criterion for determining the legitimacy of a Christian’s work. Painting, singing, playing an instrument, composing, writing, directing, acting, sculpting—these activities are callings which require no evangelistic justification. All God requires of a Christian is the very best, most creative, and most profound work he or she can produce. The response of one young man in a study of the evangelical subculture by Randall Balmer captured the new monasticism. This man gave up his calling to make films for what he was convinced were godly reasons:   I said, “Lord, all I want to do is what You want me to do. If You want me to make church movies for the rest of my life, then praise God, hallelujah, I’ll make church films. I just want to do what You want me to do. I don’t want to make theatricals if You don’t want me to.” The time came when I had to make a decision, so I got down on my knees. In the end, it wasn’t difficult. All I had to do was choose God first, and the rest would fall into line. I told them, No, I wouldn’t do it.12 In the church I used to pastor, we had a member who had trained some of Hollywood’s leading actors and directed the graduate drama studies at Yale and Stanford. When he came to Southern California to an evangelical college, he had a dream to help Christians fulfill their callings. But he soon learned that, unlike the serious students he was used to, many of his students now were bent on using drama in church or in evangelistic ministries. For many, the thought of actually going into Hollywood and acting on a “secular” stage wasn’t even a passing fancy. My friend was hounded for doing “worldly” plays, until, eventually, he realized the dream was not to be, at least not yet, not here. Of course, liberating the laity with this “priesthood of all believers” includes all callings. The band Loverboy, mentioned earlier, sings about “working for the weekend.” Too many Christians work for the weekend; in fact, I know many who feel guilty if they don’t do some volunteer “Christian work” on the side. But Christians are called by God to work for the week! The Reformation is credited with the Protestant work ethic, sometimes called the Puritan work ethic. You see, if you are a priest—not only on Sunday, but throughout the week, and not only in the church, but at work or at home—what you do during the week is not a job but a calling. This term, calling, appears again and again in the Reformers’ writings. Calvin writes, “The Lord bids each one of us in all life’s actions to look to his calling.” This is necessary, he says, because we are fickle and require a steady vocation. We ought not to transgress our calling, he says, and meddle where we have neither the calling nor the expertise:   Each will bear and swallow the discomforts, vexations, weariness, and anxieties in his way of life when he has been persuaded that the burden was laid upon him by God. From this will arise also an impressive consolation: that no task will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God’s sight.13 Luther argued that God is more impressed with the milkmaid, milking her cow to the glory of God, than with all the lavish and pious exercises of the monks. Unfortunately, Christians don’t have the best reputation in some circles of employment. My dad, himself a devout Christian, used to say he would prefer to hire a non-Christian or to take his car to a non-Christian mechanic because of past experiences with believers who did not take their work in this world very seriously. In my area, we have the Christian Yellow Pages, a phone book with ads for Christians in business; I remember overhearing a businessman at church one day cynically remarking to his wife, “Honey, grab one of those; I’ve got to see who I won’t do business with.” What a tragedy! There are horror stories of employers who want to strangle Christian employees who read the Bible, pray, or evangelize on company time. And sometimes these brothers and sisters don’t even put their effort and energy into the job when they are working. The Protestant work ethic has deteriorated even in Christian circles, it seems. But God expects Christians to think hard, to work hard, and to play hard during the breaks he has provided for our refreshment. When Christians begin to see that it is as godly to be a businessperson, lawyer, homemaker, artist, garbage collector, doctor, or construction worker as it is to be a missionary, evangelist, pastor, youth leader, or employee of a Christian organization, they will once again become salt and light. Once a young Christian woman realizes it is just as spiritual to sing for the Metropolitan Opera as it is to sing in the church choir, we will begin to see a new generation of liberated Christians calling attention to their Maker and Redeemer. The doctrines of the Reformation produced leadership in the arts, in education (Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, Brown, Rutgers, and Princeton were founded by Reformed believers), in industry, and in the crafting of democratic states. When all believers become priests once again, we will see the end of full-time Christian ministry as a separate and superior calling. Horton, M. (2011). Putting Amazing Back into Grace: Embracing the Heart of the Gospel (pp. 216–220). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

Who Saves Whom?

Who Saves Whom? by Michael S. Horton

‘God casts His vote; Satan casts his, but you must cast the deciding ballot’?
The touchstone question in the running debate between Jesus and the Pharisees, Paul and the Judaizers, Augustine and Pelagius, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, the Reformers and the medieval Roman Catholic church, and the Calvinists and Arminians is this: Who saves whom?
In this article I want to offer some brief scriptural responses to the common objections concerning the doctrine of election. If one does not believe in the doctrine of unconditional election, it is impossible to have a high doctrine of grace. As Luther told Erasmus, ignorance of this great truth is in a real sense ignorance of the Christian gospel. ‘For when the works and power of God are unknown in this way, I cannot worship, praise, thank, and serve God, since I do not know how much I ought to attribute to myself and how much to God.’ This distinction is essential, he added, ‘if we want to live a godly life.’ Further, ‘If we do not know these things, we shall know nothing at all of things Christian and shall be worse than any heathen.’1 As Luther pointed out in his debate with Erasmus, this issue of free will and election is essential in maintaining the doctrine of justification by eliminating any element of human decision or effort as a foothold for merit. Therefore, let’s take a brief survey of the biblical support for this important doctrine by considering one of the principal passages: Romans chapter nine.

The Covenant
Running throughout the Old Testament and into the Gospels is the concept of covenant. Although God is the sovereign ruler of all creation and, therefore, quite capable of ruling merely as a dictator, he nevertheless condescends to enter into a covenant with fallen creatures, binding us to him, and himself to us.

This is the background of Paul’s letter to the Romans in general, and chapter nine in particular. Paul has raised the issue of faithfulness. Because we are, individually and corporately, foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and anticipate glorification, nothing ‘shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Ro.8:39). But that raises an important question, especially for the Jewish believers reading this letter: If God has failed in his promise to save Israel, as many thought Paul was implying in his ministry to the Gentiles, why should we have confidence in his determination to save us?

The apostle then launches into his discussion of the ‘true Israel.’ Even in the Old Testament, not every fleshly descendent was a child of God (Is.6:9-13, etc.). At one time, even Esau was a part of God’s covenant people, as he grew up beside his brother Jacob. In fact, Esau, according to fleshly descent, was first in line to carry on the Abrahamic inheritance, but God chose to bless Jacob and curse Esau, ‘before the twins before, having done nothing either good or bad, in order that God’s purpose according to election might stand, not because of the one who works, but because of the one who calls’ (v.11). This is the most obvious demonstration that God’s gift of grace depends on his own generosity in election rather than on natural descent, racial privilege, or moral righteousness (see Dt. 9:4-6; 29:2-4). ‘As it is written, ‘Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated” (v.13).

Objections Answered
Paul realizes that he isn’t going to get away with this so easily. It is a declaration from the mouth of God himself, but it is going to take some explaining: ‘What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion” (vv.14-15). Salvation in general and election in particular are due to something in God, not in us. There is a pernicious idea floating around the evangelical world these days, owing more to pop-psychology than to religion, that if we want a basis for self-esteem we ought to remember that Jesus Christ thought we were worth his death. According to Scripture, however, Jesus Christ died for us because ‘God so loved…’ (Jn.3:16). In other words, there was something in God–an inherent compassion, mercy, and love, which moved him to save us while there was absolutely nothing in us that attracted him. Even conservative evangelicals sometimes sound as though God is compelled to show mercy, as though love were his only attribute, but this passage reminds us that God is free to show mercy or withhold it according to his own good pleasure, since mercy, by definition, is not deserved.

After explaining how God is not dependent on his creatures in any sense, Paul concludes, ‘So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy’ (v.16). There are few clearer declarations of monergism (i.e., the idea that God alone saves) than this. In one sentence the apostle excludes any human activity, either volitional or physical. There is absolutely nothing our decisions or actions contribute to our own salvation. So much for the popular Arminian maxim, ‘God casts his vote for your soul, Satan casts his, but you must cast the deciding ballot.’ Gone is the decisional regeneration that makes the new birth dependent on an exercise of the human will: ‘You did not choose Me; I chose you and appointed you to bear fruit that would last,’ Jesus told his disciples (Jn.15:16). We ‘were born not of the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God’ (Jn.1:13), ‘…having been predestined according to the plan of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will’ (Eph.1:11).

Notice, too, that this exclusion of ‘willing and running’ takes into its scope not only real, but foreseen decisions and actions on our part. Many will concede that God chose people, but based on his foreknowledge of their own choice. However, this is excluded in the sweep of Paul’s statement in verse 13, as in verse 11: ‘for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand….’ If God’s election depended on our foreseen decision, this not only raises a question concerning God’s grace (i.e., foreseen merit is merit nonetheless), but also concerning human sinfulness. After all, if God looked down the corridor of time what would he have seen in us besides sin and resistance? How could he foresee an exercise of the will that he himself did not grant, since ‘no one can come to the Father unless the one who sent me draws him’ (Jn.6:44)?

Of course, this raises three principal objections. The first and most obvious one is the issue of fairness.

It is a measure of our sinfulness and pride that we would use God’s gracious initiative in election as an occasion for placing his righteousness and justice in question. If we are, as a race, in as serious shape as Paul has been telling us, especially in the first three chapters, there should not be one reader who would seek God’s justice in his or her own case. God’s justice–giving us what we deserve–demands our execution. God’s mercy, therefore, is owed to none. Paul refers God’s mercy to his freedom. Since all deserve judgment, the mere fact that many will be spared is cause for astonishment rather than for wondering why God did not elect everyone.

To illustrate this freedom, Paul recalls Pharaoh to the witness stand: ‘For this very purpose,’ God declares, ‘I raised you [Pharaoh] up, that I might show my power in you and that my name might be declared in all the earth’ (v.17). No Jewish reader needed to be reminded how negatively Pharaoh figured in Israelite history. While it might be excessive to compare him to Hitler, there is no doubt that the Egyptian ruler who had held Israel captive for slave labor was the last person first-century Jewish Christians would have wanted Paul to use as an example of God’s freedom. Nevertheless, the apostle reminds them of the words of Exodus 9:16, that God had raised him up. Later, he will also recall to their attention the fact that ‘There is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God’ (13:1).

Amos called upon a forgetful and apathetic generation to realize God’s sovereignty over history: ‘If there is a calamity in a city, will not the Lord have done it?…A lion has roared! Who will not fear?’ (Am.3:6). In Daniel four we have Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, interpreted by Daniel. The proud king was humiliated by God until, in the ruler’s own words, ‘I lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me.’ He realizes for the first time that ‘All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; he does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?” His conclusion? ‘His ways are just and those who walk in pride he is able to humble’ (Dan.4:34-37). Isaiah 45:1-7 points up God’s use of yet another pagan ruler, Cyrus, ‘that they may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things.’ In short, the telos or design of history is the glory of God. Each of us exists because it happens to serve God’s design for glorifying himself. He saves us because the exercise of his love and mercy brings him honor, not because there is anything in us that moves him to respond.

Another reason Paul brings up the example of Pharaoh is the circumstances surrounding God’s instructions to Moses in the first place. In Exodus 4:18-23, we read that God commanded Moses to return to Egypt. ‘And the Lord said to Moses, ‘When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.” In other words, God is going to hold Pharaoh accountable for his hardness of heart even in the face of Moses’s signs and wonders, and yet God intended to harden Pharaoh’s heart all along. It’s a tough passage, but there it is.

The second objection picks up where the first leaves off: How can God blame us for what he determined? After all, ‘Who can resist his will?’ (v.19). How could God blame Esau, Pharaoh, or my unbelieving neighbor if they were only fulfilling his plan? This is the essence of the objection Paul anticipates. The belief that God’s will ‘cannot be thwarted’ (Dan.4) is not a peculiarity of Reformation thought, nor indeed of Christian thought. It is a basic declaration of theism! If one believes that God is dependent on human beings in any sense (either their willing or running), they are not merely Christians of a different color; they are following an essentially non-Christian and non-theistic interpretation of God’s nature. Contemporary evangelical scholars such as Clark Pinnock and Richard Rice realize this and call for a rejection of classical theism for just that reason.
But this idea that God’s ultimate intentions and designs cannot be frustrated or overturned creates tension. Paul does not resolve it, as God does not care to reveal it even to an apostle. Calvin warned, ‘The curiosity of man is such that the more dangerous the subject, the more willing he is to rush boldly into it…Let this, therefore, be our sacred rule, not to seek to know anything about predestination except what the Scripture teaches us. Where the Lord closes his holy mouth, let us also stop our minds from going on further.’2 Paul does not reply with a sophisticated line of metaphysical reasoning. He simply says, ‘Who are you, a mere human, to answer back to God?’ In other words, to demand that God defend himself in our presence on this matter is the height of arrogance. Is there any reverence for God anymore? Is the Sovereign God allowed no secrets, no privacy in his heavenly chambers? Must every corner of his rooms be ravaged by our naive and fallen speculations? No, here, to switch metaphors, we come to the end of the precipice and to take a single step farther is to fall hopelessly into despair and confusion.

Next, Paul appeals to another Old Testament allusion: the potter and the clay. In Isaiah 29:15-16, the prophet declares, ‘Surely you have things turned around! Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay; for shall the thing made say of him who made it, ‘He did not make me’?’ But Paul changes the last question to read, ‘Why did you make me thus?’ Out of the same lump (i.e., the same mass of fallen humanity), God chooses to make vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy, one to bring him glory by demonstrating his justice, the other to glorify him for his compassion and mercy. There is no distinction, as all are taken from the same group. Therefore, the elect cannot be proud.
Notice that this will of God is not capricious or arbitrary, a view that many Arminians suppose and hyper-Calvinists encourage. This, it must be said, is a view of God that has more in common with Greek philosophy than with Christianity. It is fatalistic and hopelessly at odds with the biblical picture. Rather, God’s will is connected to his nature and attributes. In this sense, as Jonathan Edwards pointed out, no being (including God) has a free will. The will serves the nature and God is moved to elect, redeem, justify, and save not because of an arbitrary decision or whimsical display of power, but in order to show mercy and compassion. Remember, these are ‘vessels of mercy.’ He ‘will have mercy on whomever he will have mercy.’ In other words, God is presented in this passage as electing men, women, and children out of an already condemned and ruined race. Their condemnation is just, so God is not responsible for the resistance, disobedience, and hatred of those who are rejected, but only for the salvation of those who do embrace the forgiving grace of God.
Finally, it is essential that we point out what Paul labors to make clear elsewhere, especially in Ephesians chapter one: All of this is ‘in Christ.’ We are chosen, predestined, redeemed, justified, called, sealed, and so on, ‘in him.’ One of the great New Testament emphases, recovered so clearly by the Reformers, was that election should only be taught and understood in the context of one’s relation to Christ. In other words, we cannot search for our election in an abstract philosophical manner. To be chosen is to be ‘in Christ’ and to be in Christ is to be united to him through faith. We find our election not in our performance, race, success, or outward signs–for this was Israel’s folly, but in Christ’s cross and resurrection.

If these answers are not good enough for the reader, Paul concludes, the alternative to election is immediate judgment for all human beings (vv. 22-23).

The final question that is likely to be asked is this: Aren’t we really talking about the nation Israel? Many of us were raised with the explanation that Romans nine was dealing with Israel’s election, and not ours. This meant that Romans nine could be ruled inadmissible for use in the debate. But as Paul made clear here as elsewhere, the true Israel is created by grace, not by human descent, decision, or duties. Thus, there is no true Israel apart from faith in Christ. Only those who cling to him in faith are chosen; the rest are judged along with the Gentiles (Ro.11:5-10). ‘Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham,’ Paul instructed the Galatians (Gal.3:7). There are no Jews who ever have been saved, are now saved, or who ever will be saved who were not chosen members of the church in both testaments–the ancient (Old Testament) church looking forward to Christ and the modern church looking back to Christ and forward to his return.

Nevertheless, to emphasize that he is not speaking merely of the nation of Israel, Paul adds, ‘even us whom he called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles,’ (v.24) drawing on Old Testament prophecies pointing to the ingathering of the elect Gentiles together with the Jewish remnant in the formation of one body.

The Basis of Reprobation
Much could be said about the other side of the coin. As there are vessels of mercy that are chosen, so there are the vessels of wrath that are rejected. All Paul the apostle wishes to say about this matter is this: No one is reprobated by God without just cause. ‘What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why?’ Does Paul answer, ‘Because they weren’t chosen’? No, the blame is squarely on their shoulders: ‘Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law’ (vv.30-33).

One of the surest ways to be confident that you are not one of the elect is to pursue a righteousness that you have created by your willpower and effort. The elect are simply those who have put down their swords of war, their shovels for digging out their own righteousness, and have placed themselves at the mercy of this God who has promised to have compassion on all who seek him. They are to be comforted by the fact that if they are seeking him it is because he himself has first loved and drawn them to himself. However, unbelievers are not to look to their election, but to Christ, whose offer of forgiveness extends to all people everywhere: ‘Come unto me, all you who work and are loaded down and I will give you rest.’

Thus, this doctrine is calculated to drive home the idea that God saves us by grace alone because of Christ alone. Many are willing to accept that they were justified freely, but their resistance to this doctrine reveals an unwillingness to fully accept the idea that their salvation is not conditioned on anything in them. May we all, regardless of our traditional perspective, take this passage from Paul’s Magna Charta seriously and employ this doctrine of election not merely in the service of theological debate, but in grateful appreciation and thanksgiving.§

Notes
1. Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975, p. 117.
2. John Calvin, NT Commentary on Romans Nine.

Author
Dr. Michael Horton is the vice chairman of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and is associate professor of historical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in California. Dr. Horton is a graduate of Biola University (B.A.), Westminster Theological Seminary in California (M.A.R.) and Wycliffe Hall, Oxford (Ph.D.). Some of the books he has written or edited include Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, Beyond Culture Wars, Power Religion, In the Face of God, and most recently, We Believe.

Reformation Essentials - Five Pillars of the Reformation (5 Solas)

Reformation Essentials - Five Pillars of the Reformation

by Michael Horton 

 

In May, 1989, a conference jointly sponsored by the National Association of Evangelicals and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School was held at the Trinity campus in Illinois. Dubbed a consultation on Evangelical Affirmations, the meeting revealed more than it settled. In the published addresses (Zondervan, 1990), Carl F. H. Henry, the dean of American evangelicalism, sets the tone for book with his opening line: "The term 'evangelical' has taken on conflicting nuances in the twentieth century. Wittingly or unwittingly, evangelical constituencies no less than their critics have contributed to this confusion and misunderstanding." He warned that "evangelical" was being understood, not according to Scriptural teaching and "the theological 'ought,'" but according to the sociological and empirical "is." In other words, Henry was disturbed that evangelicalism is increasingly being defined by its most recent trends rather than by its normative theological identity. Author after author (presumably, speaker after speaker) echoed the same fears that before long "evangelical" will be useless as any meaningful identification.

The term itself derives from the Greek word euangelion, translated "Gospel," and it became a noun when the Protestant reformers began their work of bringing the "one holy, catholic and apostolic church" back to that message by which and for which it was created. People still used other labels, too, like "Lutheran," "Reformed," and later, "Puritans," "Pietists," and "Wesleyans." Nevertheless, the belief was that the same Gospel that had united the "evangelicals" against Rome's errors could also unite them against the creeping naturalism and secularism of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. The so-called "Evangelical Awakening" in Britain coincided with America's own "Great Awakening," as Wesley, Whitefield, Edwards, Tennant, and so many others centered their preaching on the atonement. Later, of course, Wesley's zeal for Arminian emphases divided the work in Britain, but the Reformation emphases were clearly and unambiguously articulated in the Great Awakening.
Out of this heritage, those today who call themselves "evangelicals" (or who are in these churches, but might not know that they are in this tradition) are heirs also to the Second Great Awakening. Radically altering the "evangel" from a concern with the object of faith, the Second Great Awakening and the revivalism that emerged from it focused on the act and experience of faith, in dependence on the proper "excitements", as Finney and others expressed it, to trigger the right response. In our estimation, this Second Great Awakening was the most important seismic shift in American religious history. Although the Reformation emphases of sin and grace continued to exercise some influence, they were being constantly revised to make the "Gospel" more acceptable to those who thought they could pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

Only in the last decade of this century have many of the movement's mainstream leaders considered the loss of an evangelical substance. No longer is the evangel the focus of the movement's identity, but it is now known more by a sub-culture, a collection of political, moral and social causes, and an acute interest in rather exotic notions about the end-times. At a loss for words, one friend answered a man's question, "Who are the evangelicals?" with the reply, "They're people who like Billy Graham."
It is at this point that those of us who are heirs to the Reformation--which bequeathed to evangelicalism a distinct theological identity that has been since lost--call attention once more to the solas (only or alone) that framed the entire sixteenth-century debate: "Only Scripture," "Only Christ," "Only Grace," "Only Faith," and "To God Alone Be Glory."

Sola Scriptura: Our Only Foundation
Many critics of the Reformation have attempted to portray it as the invitation to individualism, as people discover for themselves from the Bible what they will and will not believe. "Never mind the church. Away with creeds and the church's teaching office! We have the Bible and that's enough." But this was not the reformers' doctrine of sola Scriptura--only Scripture. Luther said of individualistic approaches to the Bible, "That would mean that each man would go to hell in his own way."
On one side, the reformers faced the Roman Church, which believed its teaching authority to be final and absolute. The Roman Catholics said that tradition can be a form of infallible revelation even in the contemporary church; one needs an infallible Bible and an infallible interpreter of that sacred book. On the other side were the Anabaptist radicals, who believed that they not only did not need the teaching office of the church; they really didn't seem to need the Bible either, since the Holy Spirit spoke to them--or at least to their leaders--directly. Instead of one Pope, Anabaptism produced numerous "infallible" messengers who heard the voice of God. Against both positions, the Reformation insisted that the Bible was the sole final authority in determining doctrine and life. In interpreting it, the whole church must be included, including the laity, and they must be guided by the teachers in the church. Those teachers, though not infallible, should have considerable interpretive authority. The creeds were binding and the newly reformed Protestant communions quickly drafted confessions of faith that received the assent of the whole church, not merely the teachers.

Today, we are faced with similar challenges even within evangelicalism. On one hand, there is the tendency to say, as Luther characterized the problem, "I go to church, hear what my priest says, and him I believe." Calvin complained to Cardinal Sadoleto that the sermons before the Reformation were part trivial pursuit, part story-telling. Today, this same process of "dumbing down" has meant that we are, in George Gallup's words, "a nation of biblical illiterates." Perhaps we have a high view of the Bible's inspiration: 80% of adult Americans believe that the Bible is the literal or inspired Word of God. But 30% of the teenagers who attend church regularly do not even know why Easter is celebrated. "The decline in Bible reading," says Gallup, "is due in part to the widely held conviction that the Bible is inaccessible, and to less emphasis on religious training in the churches." Just as Rome's infallibility rested on the belief that the Bible itself was difficult, obscure, and confusing, so today people want the "net breakdown" from the professionals: what does it mean for me and how will it help me and make me happy? But those who read the Bible for more than devotional meditations know how clear it is--at least on the main points it addresses--and how it ends up making religion less confusing and obscure. Again today, the Bible--especially in mainline Protestant churches--is a mysterious book that can only be understood by a small cadre of biblical scholars who are "in the know."

But we have the other side, too. There is a popular trend in many "evangelical" churches to emphasize direct communication with the Holy Spirit apart from the Word. In these circles, tradition and the teaching ministry of the church through the ages are not only treated as fallible (as the reformers believed), but as objects of mockery. The sentiments of Thomas Muntzer, who complained that Luther was "one of our scribes who wants to send the Holy Ghost off to college," would find a prime-time spot on the nation's leading evangelical radio and television broadcasts. Calvin said of these folks, "When the fanatics boast extravagantly of the Spirit, the tendency is always to bury the Word of God so they may make room for their own falsehoods."

Christianity is not a spirituality, but a religion. Wade Clark Roof and other sociologists have pointed out that evangelicals today are indistinguishable from the general cultural trends, especially when it comes to preferring to think of their relationship to God more in terms of an experience than in terms of a relationship that is mediated through words. Ours is a visual or image-based society, much like the Middle Ages, and yet Christianity can only flourish through words, ideas, beliefs, announcements, arguments. There can be no communication with God apart from the written and living Word. Everything in the Christian faith depends on the spoken and written Word delivered by God to us through the prophets and apostles.

Further, sola Scriptura meant that the Word of God was sufficient. Although Rome believed it was infallible, the official theology was shaped more by the insights of Plato and Aristotle than by Scripture. Similarly today, psychology threatens to reshape the understanding of the self, as even in the evangelical pulpit sin becomes "addiction"; the Fall as an event is replaced with one's "victim" status; salvation is increasingly communicated as mental health, peace of mind, and self-esteem, and my personal happiness and self-fulfillment are center-stage rather than God's holiness and mercy, justice and love, glory and compassion. Does the Bible define the human problem and its solution? Or when we really want facts, do we turn somewhere else, to a modern secular authority who will really carry weight in my sermon? Of course, the Bible will be cited to bolster the argument. Political ideology, sociology, marketing, and other secular "authorities" must never be allowed priority in answering questions the Bible addresses. That is, in part, what this affirmation means, and evangelicals today seem as confused on this point as was the medieval church.

Solus Christus: Our Only Mediator
In the Middle Ages, the minister was seen as having a special relationship with God, as he mediated God's grace and forgiveness through the sacraments. But there were other challenges. We often think of our own age as unique, with its pluralism and the advent of so many religions. But not too long before the Reformation, the Renaissance thinker Petrarch was calling for an Age of the Spirit in which all religions would be united. Many Renaissance minds were convinced that there was a saving revelation of God in nature and that, therefore, Christ was not the only way. The fascination with pagan philosophy encouraged the idea that natural religion offered a great deal--indeed, even salvation--to those who did not know Christ.

The Reformation was, more than anything else, an assault on faith in humanity, and a defense of the idea that God alone reveals Himself and saves us. We do not find Him; He finds us. That emphasis was the cause of the cry, "Christ alone!" Jesus was the only way of knowing what God is really like, the only way of entering into a relationship with Him as father instead of judge, and the only way of being saved from His wrath.

Today, once more, this affirmation is in trouble. According to University of Virginia sociologist James Hunter, 35% of evangelical seminarians deny that faith in Christ is absolutely necessary. According to George Barna, that is the same figure for conservative, evangelical Protestants in America: "God will save all good people when they die, regardless of whether they've trusted in Christ," they agreed.

Eighty-five percent of American adults believe that they will stand before God to be judged. They believe in hell, but only 11% think they might go there. R.C. Sproul observed that to the degree that people think they are good enough to pass divine inspection, and are oblivious to the holiness of God, to that extent they will not see Christ as necessary. That is why over one-fourth of the "born again" evangelicals surveyed agreed with a statement that one would think might raise red flags even for those who might agree with the same thing more subtly put: "If a person is good, or does enough good things for others during life, they will earn a place in Heaven." Furthermore, when asked whether they agreed with the following statement: "Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and others all pray to the same God, even though they use different names for that God," two-thirds of the evangelicals didn't find that objectionable. Barna observes "how little difference there is between the responses of those who regularly attend church services and those who are unchurched." One respondent, an Independent Fundamentalist, said, "What is important in their case is that they have conformed to the law of God as they know it in their hearts."

But this cultural influence toward relativism is not only apparent in the masses; it is self-consciously asserted by some of evangelicalism's own teachers. Clark Pinnock states, "The Bible does not teach that one must confess the name of Jesus Christ to be saved. The issue God cares about is the direction of the heart, not the content of their theology." For those of us who have some inkling of the direction of their heart (see Jer 17:9), that might not be as comforting as Pinnock assumes.

To say solus Christus does not mean that we do not believe in the Father or the Spirit, but it does insist that Christ is the only incarnate self-revelation of God and redeemer of humanity. The Holy Spirit does not draw attention to himself, but leads us to Christ, in whom we find our peace with God.

Sola Gratia: Our Only Method
The reason we must stay with the Scriptures is because it is the only place where we are told that we are saved by the unprovoked and undeserved acceptance of God. In "The Sound of Music," Maria (Julie Andrews), bewildered by the captain's sudden attraction to her, rhapsodizes, "Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could. So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good." Deep down, human nature is convinced that there is a way for us to save ourselves. We may indeed require divine assistance. Perhaps God will have to show us the way, or even send a messenger to lead us back, but we can actually follow the plan and pull it off.

The Law is in us by nature. We were born with a conscience that tells us that we are condemned by that Law, but our reason concludes immediately that the answer to that self-condemnation is to do better next time. But the Gospel is not in nature. It is not lodged somewhere in our heart, our mind, our will, or our emotions. It is an announcement that comes to us as foolishness and our first response, like that of Sarah, is to laugh. The story is told of a man who fell off a cliff, but on his way down managed to grab a branch. He broke his fall and saved his life, but before long he realized that he could not pull himself back up onto the ledge. Finally, he called out, "Is there anyone up there who can help me?" To his surprise, a voice boomed back, "I am here and I can help you, but first you're going to have to let go of that branch." Thinking for a moment about his options, the man looked back up and shot back, "Is there anyone else up there who can help me?" We are looking for someone to save us by helping us save ourselves. But the Law tells us that even our best works are like filthy rags; the Gospel tells us that it is something in God and his character (kindness, goodness, mercy, compassion) and not something in us (a good will, a decision, an act, an open heart, etc.) that saves us.

Many in the medieval church believed that God saved by grace, but they also believed that their own free will and cooperation with grace was "their part" in salvation. The popular medieval phrase was, "God will not deny his grace to those who do what they can." Today's version, of course, is, "God helps those who help themselves." Over half the evangelicals surveyed thought this was a direct biblical quotation and 84% thought that it was a biblical idea, that percentage rising with church attendance at evangelical churches.

On the eve of the Reformation a number of church leaders, including bishops and archbishops, had been complaining of creeping Pelagianism (a heresy that denies original sin and the absolute need for grace). Nevertheless, that heresy was never tolerated in its full expression. However, today it is tolerated and even promoted in liberal Protestantism generally, and even in many evangelical circles.
In Pelagianism, Adam's sin is not imputed to us, nor is Christ's righteousness. Adam is a bad example, not the representative in whom we stand guilty. Similarly, Christ is a good example, not the representative in whom we stand righteous. How much of our preaching centers on following Christ--as important as that is--rather than on his person and work? How often do we hear about his work in us compared to his work for us?

Charles Finney, the revivalist of the last century, is a patron saint for most evangelicals. And yet, he denied original sin, the substitutionary atonement, justification, and the need for regeneration by the Holy Spirit. In short, Finney was a Pelagian. This belief in human nature, so prominent in the Enlightenment, wrecked the evangelical doctrine of grace among the older evangelical Protestant denominations (now called "mainline"), and we see where that has taken them. And yet, conservative evangelicals are heading down the same path and have had this human-centered, works-centered emphasis for some time.

The statistics bear us out here, unfortunately, and again the leaders help substantiate the error. Norman Geisler writes, "God would save all men if he could. He will save the greatest number actually achievable without violating their free will."

Sola Fide: Our Only Means
The reformers said that it is not enough to say that we are saved by grace alone, for even many medieval scholars held that view, including Luther's own mentor. Rome viewed grace more as a substance than as an attitude of favor on God's part. In other words, grace was like water poured into the soul. It assisted the believer in his growth toward salvation. The purpose of grace was to transform a sinner into a saint, a bad person into a good person, a rebel into an obedient son or daughter.

The reformers searched the Scriptures and found a missing ingredient in the medieval notion of grace. To be sure, there were many passages that spoke of grace transforming us and conforming us to the image of Christ. But there were other passages, too, that used a Greek word that meant "to declare righteous," not "to make righteous." The problem was, the Latin Bible everyone was using mistranslated the former and combined the two Greek words into one. Erasmus and other Renaissance humanists "laid the egg that Luther hatched" by cleaning up the translation mistakes.
According to Scripture, God declares a person righteous before that person actually begins to become righteous. Therefore, the declaration is not in response to any spiritual or moral advances within the individual, but is an imputation of the perfect righteousness that God immediately requires of everyone who is united to Christ by faith alone. When a person trusts Christ, that very moment he or she is clothed in his perfect holiness, so that even though the believer is still sinful, he or she is judged by God as blameless.

This apostolic doctrine, proclaimed to Abraham and his offspring, has fallen on hard times again in church history. Not only do most Christians today not hear about the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone, many cannot even define it. Although justification is the doctrine by which, according to the evangelical reformers "the church stands or falls," it has been challenged. Finney openly declared, "The doctrine of an imputed righteousness is another gospel. For sinners to be forensically pronounced just is impossible and absurd. The doctrine of an imputed righteousness is founded on a most false and nonsensical assumption, representing the atonement, rather than the sinner's own obedience, as the ground of his justification, which has been a sad occasion of stumbling to many."

In our own time, Clark Pinnock wonders why we cannot even embrace the notion of purgatory:
I cannot deny that most believers end their earthly lives imperfectly sanctified and far from complete. [Most? How about all!] I cannot deny the wisdom in possibly giving them an opportunity to close the gap and grow to maturity after death. Obviously, evangelicals have not thought this question out. [We have: It was called The Reformation.] It seems to me that we already have the possibility of a doctrine of purgatory. Our Wesleyan and Arminian thinking may need to be extended in this direction. Is a doctrine of purgatory not required by our doctrine of holiness?

Russell Spittler, a Pentecostal theologian at Fuller Seminary, reflects on Luther's phrase concerning justification: simul iustus et peccator, (simultaneously just and sinner): "But can it really be true--saint and sinner simultaneously? I wish it were so. Is this correct: 'I don't need to work at becoming. I'm already declared to be holy.' No sweat needed? It looks wrong to me. I hear moral demands in Scripture. Simul iustus et peccator? I hope it's true! I simply fear it's not."
The Wesleyan emphasis has always been a challenge to the evangelical faith on this point, although in his best moments Wesley insisted on this heart of the Gospel. To the extent that the consensus-builders and institutional abbots of the evangelical monasteries have attempted to incorporate Arminianism under the label "evangelical," to that extent, it seems to me, it ceases to be evangelical indeed.

Soli Deo Gloria: Our Only Ambition
The world is full of ambitious people. But Paul said, "It has always been my ambition to preach the Gospel where Christ was not known." (Rom 15:20). Since God has spoken so clearly and saved so finally, the believer is free to worship, serve, and glorify God and to enjoy him forever, beginning now. What is the ambition of the evangelical movement? Is it to please God or to please men?
Is our happiness and joy found in God or in someone or something else? Is our worship entertainment or worship? Is God's glory or our self-fulfillment the goal of our lives? Do we see God's grace as the only basis for our salvation, or are we still seeking some of the credit for ourselves? These questions reveal a glaring human-centeredness in the evangelical churches and the general witness of our day.
Robert Schuller actually says that the Reformation "erred because it was God-centered rather than man-centered," and Yale's George Lindbeck observes how quickly evangelical theology accepted this new gospel: "In the fifties, it took liberals to accept Norman Vincent Peale, but as the case of Robert Schuller indicates, today professed conservatives eat it up."

Many historians look back to the Reformation and wonder at its far-reaching influences in transforming culture. The work ethic, public education, civic and economic betterment, a revival of music, the arts, and a sense of all life being related somehow to God and his glory: These effects cause historians to observe with a sense of irony how a theology of sin and grace, the sovereignty of God over the helplessness of human beings, and an emphasis on salvation by grace apart from works, could be the catalyst for such energetic moral transformation. The reformers did not set out to launch a political or moral campaign, but they proved that when we put the Gospel first and give voice to the Word, the effects inevitably follow.

How can we expect the world to take God and his glory seriously if the church does not? The Reformation slogan Soli Deo Gloria was carved into the organ at Bach's church in Leipzig and the composer signed his works with its initials. It's inscribed over taverns and music halls in old sections of Heidelberg and Amsterdam, a lasting tribute to a time when the fragrance of God's goodness seemed to fill the air. It was not a golden age, but it was an amazing recovery of God-centered faith and practice. Columbia University professor Eugene Rice offers a fitting conclusion:
All the more, the Reformation's views of God and humanity measure the gulf between the secular imagination of the twentieth century and the sixteenth century's intoxication with the majesty of God. We can exercise only historical sympathy to try to understand how it was that the most brilliant intelligences of an entire epoch found a total, a supreme liberty in abandoning human weakness to the omnipotence of God.

Soli Deo Gloria!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Michael Horton is professor of apologetics and theology at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, California).
© Modern Reformation
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you do not make more than 500 physical copies. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be explicitly approved by Modern Reformation.
Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: This article originally appeared in the Mar / Apr 1994 edition of Modern Reformation and is reprinted with permission. For more information about Modern Reformation, visit www.modernreformation.org or call (800) 890-7556. All rights reserved.

The Law & The Gospel

The Law & The Gospel
by Michael S. Horton


In order to recover the sufficiency of Scripture we must once again learn to distinguish the Law and the Gospel as the "two words" of Scripture. For the Reformers, it was not enough to believe in inerrancy. Since Rome also had a high view of Scripture in theory, the Reformers were not criticizing the church for denying its divine character. Rather, they argued that Rome subverted its high view of Scripture by the addition of other words and by failing to read and proclaim Scripture according to its most obvious sense.

At the heart of the reformation's hermeneutics was the distinction between "Law" and "Gospel." For the Reformers, this was not equivalent to "Old Testament" and "New Testament;" rather, it meant, in the words of Theodore Beza, "We divide this Word into two principal parts or kinds: the one is called the 'Law,' the other the 'Gospel.' For all the rest can be gathered under the one or other of these two headings." The Law "is written by nature in our hearts," while "What we call the Gospel (Good News) is a doctrine which is not at all in us by nature, but which is revealed from Heaven (Mt. 16:17; John 1:13)." The Law leads us to Christ in the Gospel by condemning us and causing us to despair of our own "righteousness." "Ignorance of this distinction between Law and Gospel," Beza wrote, "is one of the principal sources of the abuses which corrupted and still corrupt Christianity."1

Luther made this hermeneutic central, but both traditions of the Protestant Reformation jointly affirm this key distinction. In much of medieval preaching, the Law and Gospel were so confused that the "Good News" seemed to be that Jesus was a "kinder, gentler Moses," who softened the Law into easier exhortations, such as loving God and neighbor from the heart. The Reformers saw Rome as teaching that the Gospel was simply an easier "law" than that of the Old Testament. Instead of following a lot of rules, God expects only love and heartfelt surrender. Calvin replied, "As if we could think of anything more difficult than to love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength! Compared with this law, everything could be considered easy...[For] the law cannot do anything else than to accuse and blame all to a man, to convict, and, as it were, apprehend them; in fine, to condemn them in God's judgment: that God alone may justify, that all flesh may keep silence before him."2 Thus, Calvin observes, Rome could only see the Gospel as that which enables believers to become righteous by obedience and that which is "a compensation for their lack," not realizing that the Law requires perfection, not approximation.3

Of course, no one claims to have arrived at perfection, and yet, Calvin says many do claim "to have yielded completely to God, [claiming that] they have kept the law in part and are, in respect to this part, righteous."4 Only the terror of the Law can shake us of this self-confidence. Thus, the Law condemns and drives us to Christ, so that the Gospel can comfort without any threats or exhortations that might lead to doubt. In one of his earliest writings, Calvin defended this evangelical distinction between Law and Gospel:All this will readily be understood by describing the Law and describing the Gospel and then comparing them. Therefore, the Gospel is the message, the salvation-bringing proclamation concerning Christ that he was sent by God the Father...to procure eternal life. The Law is contained in precepts, it threatens, it burdens, it promises no goodwill. The Gospel acts without threats, it does not drive one on by precepts, but rather teaches us about the supreme goodwill of God towards us. Let whoever therefore is desirous of having a plain and honest understanding of the Gospel, test everything by the above descriptions of the Law and the Gospel. Those who do not follow this method of treatment will never be adequately versed in the Philosophy of Christ.5

While the Law continues to guide the believer in the Christian life, Calvin insists that it can never be confused with the Good News. Even after conversion, the believer is in desperate need of the Gospel because he reads the commands, exhortations, threats, and warnings of the Law and often wavers in his certain confidence because he does not see in himself this righteousness that is required. Am I really surrendered? Have I truly yielded in every area of my life? What if I have not experienced the same things that other Christians regard as normative? Do I really possess the Holy Spirit? What if I fall into serious sin? These are questions that we all face in our own lives. What will restore our peace and hope in the face of such questions? The Reformers, with the prophets and apostles, were convinced that only the Gospel could bring such comfort to the struggling Christian.

Without this constant emphasis in preaching, one can never truly worship or serve God in liberty, for his gaze will always be fastened on himself--either in despair or self-righteousness--rather than on Christ. Law and Gospel must both ever be preached, both for conviction and instruction, but the conscience will never rest, Calvin says, so long as Gospel is mixed with Law. "Consequently, this Gospel does not impose any commands, but rather reveals God's goodness, his mercy and his benefits."6 This distinction, Calvin says with Luther and the other Reformers, marks the difference between Christianity and paganism: "All who deny this turn the whole of the Gospel upside down; they utterly bury Christ, and destroy all true worship of God."7

Ursinus, primary author of the Heidelberg Catechism, said that the Law-Gospel distinction has "comprehended the sum and substance of the sacred Scriptures," are "the chief and general divisions of the holy scriptures, and comprise the entire doctrine comprehended therein."8 To confuse them is to corrupt the Faith at its core.9 While the Law must be preached as divine instruction for the Christian life, it must never be used to shake believers from the confidence that Christ is their "righteousness, holiness and redemption" (1 Cor. 1:30). The believer goes to the Law and loves that Law for its divine wisdom, for it reveals the will of the One to whom we are now reconciled by the Gospel. But the believer cannot find pardon, mercy, victory, or even the power to obey it, by going to the Law itself any more after his conversion than before. It is still always the Law that commands and the Gospel that gives. This is why every sermon must be carefully crafted on this foundational distinction.

As he watched the Baptist Church in England give way to moralism in the so-called "Down-grade Controversy," Charles Spurgeon declared, "There is no point on which men make greater mistakes than on the relation which exists between the law and the gospel. Some men put the law instead of the gospel; others put gospel instead of the law. A certain class maintains that the law and the gospel are mixed...These men understand not the truth and are false teachers."10

In our day, these categories are once again confused in even the most conservative churches. Even where the categories of psychology, marketing and politics do not replace those of Law and Gospel, much of evangelical preaching today softens the Law and confuses the Gospel with exhortations, often leaving people with the impression that God does not expect the perfect righteousness prescribed in the Law, but a generally good heart and attitude and avoidance of major sins. A gentle moralism prevails in much of evangelical preaching today and one rarely hears the Law preached as God's condemnation and wrath, but as helpful suggestions for a more fulfilled life. In the place of God's Law, helpful tips for practical living are often offered. (In one large conservative church in which I preached recently, the sermon was identified in the program as "Lifestyle Perspectives." Only occasionally was one reminded that it was a church service and not a Rotary meeting.) The piety and faith of the biblical characters are often preached as examples to imitate, along with Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. As in Protestant liberalism, such preaching often fails to hold Christ forth as the divine savior of sinners, but instead as the coach whose play-book will show us how to achieve victory.

Sometimes it is due less to conviction than to a lack of precision. For instance, we often hear calls to "live the Gospel," and yet, nowhere in Scripture are we called to "live the Gospel." Instead, we are told to believe the Gospel and obey the Law, receiving God's favor from the one and God's guidance from the other. The Gospel--or Good News--is not that God will help us achieve his favor with his help, but that someone else lived the Law in our place and fulfilled all righteousness. Others confuse the Law and Gospel by replacing the demands of the Law with the simple command to "surrender all" or "make Jesus Lord and Savior," as if this one little work secured eternal life. Earlier this century, J. Gresham Machen declared, "According to modern liberalism, faith is essentially the same as 'making Christ master' of one's life...But that simply means that salvation is thought to be obtained by our obedience to the commands of Christ. Such teaching is just a sublimated form of legalism."11 In another work, Machen added, What good does it do to me to tell me that the type of religion presented in the Bible is a very fine type of religion and that the thing for me to do is just to start practicing that type of religion now?...I will tell you, my friend. It does me not one tiniest little bit of good...What I need first of all is not exhortation, but a gospel, not directions for saving myself but knowledge of how God has saved me. Have you any good news? That is the question that I ask of you. I know your exhortations will not help me. But if anything has been done to save me, will you not tell me the facts?12

Does that mean that the Word of God does not command our obedience or that such obedience is optional? Certainly not! But it does mean that obedience must not be confused with the Gospel. Our best obedience is corrupted, so how could that be good news? The Gospel is that Christ was crucified for our sins and was raised for our justification. The Gospel produces new life, new experiences, and a new obedience, but too often we confuse the fruit or effects with the Gospel itself. Nothing that happens within us is, properly speaking, "Gospel," but it is the Gospel's effect. Paul instructs us, "Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ..." (Phil. 1:27). While the Gospel contains no commands or threats, the Law indeed does and the Christian is still obligated to both "words" he hears from the mouth of God. Like the Godhead or the two natures of Christ, we must neither divorce nor confuse Law and Gospel.

When the Law is softened into gentle promises and the Gospel is hardened into conditions and exhortations, the believer often finds himself in a deplorable state. For those who know their own hearts, preaching that tries to tone down the Law by assuring them that God looks on the heart comes as bad news, not good news: "The heart is deceitful above all things..." (Jer. 17:9). Many Christians have experienced the confusion of Law and Gospel in their diet, where the Gospel was free and unconditional when they became believers, but is now pushed into the background to make room for an almost exclusive emphasis on exhortations. Again, it is not that exhortations do not have their place, but they must never be confused with the Gospel and that Gospel of divine forgiveness is as important for sinful believers to hear as it is for unbelievers. Nor can we assume that believers ever progress beyond the stage where they need to hear the Gospel, as if the Good News ended at conversion. For, as Calvin said, "We are all partly unbelievers throughout our lives." We must constantly hear God's promise in order to counter the doubts and fears that are natural to us.

But there are many, especially in our narcissistic age, whose ignorance of the Law leads them into a carnal security. Thus, people often conclude that they are "safe and secure from all alarm" because they walked an aisle, prayed a prayer, or signed a card, even though they have never had to give up their own fig leaves in order to be clothed with the righteousness of the Lamb of God. Or perhaps, although they have not perfectly loved God and neighbor, they conclude that they are at least "yielded," "surrendered," or "letting the Spirit have his way"; that they are "living in victory over all known sin" and enjoying the "higher life." Deluding themselves and others, they need to be stripped of their fig leaves in order to be clothed with the skins of the Lamb of God. Thus, Machen writes,A new and more powerful proclamation of law is perhaps the most pressing need of the hour; men would have little difficulty with the gospel if they had only learned the lesson of the law. As it is, they are turning aside from the Christian pathway; they are turning to the village of Morality, and to the house of Mr. Legality, who is reported to be very skillful in relieving men of their burdens... 'Making Christ Master' in the life, putting into practice 'the principles of Christ' by one's own efforts--these are merely new ways of earning salvation by one's obedience to God's commands. And they are undertaken because of a lax view of what those commands are. So it always is: a low view of law always brings legalism in religion; a high view of law makes a man a seeker after grace.13

We must, therefore, recover Law and Gospel, and with such preaching, the Christocentric message of Scripture, or no good will come of our work, regardless of how committed we are to inerrancy. We cannot say that we are preaching the Word of God unless we are distinctly and clearly proclaiming both God's judgment and his justification as the regular diet in our congregations. To recover Scripture's sufficiency we must therefore, like the Reformers, recover the distinctions between Law and Gospel.

NOTES:
1 Theodore Beza, The Christian Faith, trans. by James Clark (Focus Christian Ministries Trust, 1992), 40-1. Published first at Geneva in 1558 as the Confession de foi du chretien.
2 Calvin, 2.7.5 -1536 Institutes, trans. by F. L. Battles (Eerdmans, 1975), 30-1; cf. 1559 Institutes 2.11.10.
3 Calvin, 1559 Institutes, 3.14.13.
4 Ibid.
5 Battles edition of 1536 edition, op. cit., 365. Delivered by Nicolas Cop on his assumption of the rectorship of the University of Paris; there is a wide consensus among Calvin scholars that Calvin was the author.
6 Ibid., p. 366.
7 Ibid., p. 369.
8 Ursinus, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism (Presbyterian and Reformed, from Second American Edition, 1852), p. 2.
9 Ibid, p. 2.
10 Charles Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit, vol.1 (Pilgrim Publications, 1975), p. 285.
11 J. Gresham Machen, Christianity & Liberalism (Erdmans, 1923), p. 143.
12 J. Gresham Machen, Christian Faith in the Modern World (Macmillan, 1936), p. 57.
13 J. Gresham Machen, What is Faith? (Macmillan, 1925), pp. 137, 139, 152.

The Trinity Gospel, thanks Spurgeon

The Blood of the Everlasting Covenant

  From Reformed Baptist Fellowship  

Rev. C. H. Spurgeon

“The blood of the everlasting covenant.”—Hebrews 13:20.

And now, what were the stipulations of this covenant? They were somewhat in this wise. God had foreseen that man after creation would break the covenant of works; that however mild and gentle the tenure upon which Adam had possession of Paradise, yet that tenure would be too severe for him, and he would be sure to kick against it, and ruin himself. God had also foreseen that his elect ones, whom he had chosen out of the rest of mankind would fall by the sin of Adam, since they, as well as the rest of mankind, were represented in Adam. The covenant therefore had for its end the restoration of the chosen people. And now we may readily understand what were the stipulations. On the Father’s part, thus run the covenant. I cannot tell you it in the glorious celestial tongue in which it was written: I am fain to bring it down to the speech which suiteth to the ear of flesh, and to the heart of a mortal. Thus, I say, run the covenant, in lines like these: “I, the Most High Jehovah, do hereby give unto my only begotten and well-beloved Son, a people, countless beyond the number of the stars, who shall be by him washed from sin, by him preserved, and kept, and led, and by him, at last, presented before my throne, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. I covenant by oath, and swear by myself, because I can swear by no greater, that these whom I now give to Christ shall be for ever the objects of my eternal love. Them will I forgive through the merit of the blood. To these will I give a perfect righteousness; these will I adopt and make my sons and daughters, and these shall reign with me through Christ eternally.” Thus run that glorious side of the covenant. The Holy Spirit also, as one of the high contracting parties on this side of the covenant, gave his declaration, “I hereby covenant,” saith he, “that all whom the Father giveth to the Son, I will in due time quicken. I will show them their need of redemption; I will cut off from them all groundless hope, and destroy their refuges of lies. I will bring them to the blood of sprinkling; I will give them faith whereby this blood shall be applied to them; I will work in them every grace; I will keep their faith alive; I will cleanse them and drive out all depravity from them, and they shall be presented at last spotless and faultless.” This was the one side of the covenant, which is at this very day being fulfilled and scrupulously kept. As for the other side of the covenant this was the part of it, engaged and covenanted by Christ. He thus declared, and covenanted with his Father: “My Father, on my part I covenant that in the fulness of time I will become man. I will take upon myself the form and nature of the fallen race. I will live in their wretched world, and for my people will I keep the law perfectly. I will work out a spotless righteousness, which shall be acceptable to the demands of thy just and; holy law. In due time I will bear the sins of all my people. Thou shalt exact their debts on me; the chastisement of their peace I will endure, and by my stripes they shall be healed. My Father, I covenant and promise that I will be obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. I will magnify thy law, and make it honourable. I will suffer all they ought to have suffered. I will endure the curse of thy law, and all the vials of thy wrath shall be emptied and spent upon my head. I will then rise again; I will ascend into heaven; I will intercede for them at thy right hand; and I will make myself responsible for every one of them, that not one of those whom thou hast given me shall ever be lost, but I will bring all my sheep of whom, by thy blood, thou hast constituted me the shepherd—I will bring every one safe to thee at last.” Thus ran the covenant; and now, I think, you have a clear idea of what it was and how it stands—the covenant between God and Christ, between God the Father and God the Spirit, and God the Son as the covenant head and representative of all God’s elect. I have told you, as briefly as I could, what were the stipulations of it. You will please to remark, my dear friends, that the covenant is, on one side, perfectly fulfilled. God the Son has paid the debts of all the elect. He has, for us men and for our redemption, suffered the whole of wrath divine. Nothing remaineth now on this side of the question except that he shall continue to intercede, that he may safely bring all his redeemed to glory.

On the side of the Father this part of the covenant has been fulfilled to countless myriads. God the Father and God the Spirit have not been behindhand in their divine contract. And mark you, this side shall be as fully and as completely finished and carried out as the other. Christ can say of what he promised to do, “It is finished!” and the like shall be said by all the glorious covenanters. All for whom Christ died shall be pardoned, all justified, all adopted. The Spirit shall quicken them all, shall give them all faith, shall bring them all to heaven, and they shall, every one of them, without let or hindrance, stand accepted in the beloved, in the day when the people shall be numbered, and Jesus shall be glorified.<sup>[1]

[1]</sup> Spurgeon, C. H. The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons. Vol. 5. London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1859. Print.

Mark Driscoll's Problems & Ours

Mark Driscoll’s Problems, and Ours

the crisis of leadership in American Evangelicalism

by Carl R. Trueman

The recent revelation that Mars Hill Church in Seattle paid an outside company to boost sales of its pastor’s books has raised questions not simply about personal integrity but also about the very culture of American Evangelicalism.

As an English Presbyterian living in the States, I am never quite sure about whether I am an “Evangelical” by American standards. Back home, I am Evangelical without question, but here it is more complicated. I certainly hold to a traditional, orthodox Protestant faith with a strong existential twist. But American Evangelicalism is more (and sometimes much less) than that. The political commitments of the movement are, on the whole, a mystery to me. And, while the celebrity leadership of the movement is comprehensible to me in sociological terms, I find it distasteful and arguably unbiblical. It too often seems to represent exactly what Paul was criticizing in 1 Corinthians 1.

For those unfamiliar with recent American evangelical history, some background: Six or seven years ago, Calvinism became cool. More than that, Calvinism became so cool it started to become a very marketable commodity and to attract big money. A broad, eclectic, and dynamic movement emerged, dubbed that of the “Young, Restless and Reformed,” after the title of a book by Collin Hansen. Calvinistic churches seemed to be thriving as mainline churches continued to struggle. Recruitment at Reformed seminaries remained buoyant even as it declined elsewhere. Young people read serious theology and sought to connect their faith to all areas of their lives.

As a professor at a Reformed seminary and as a pastor of a Presbyterian church, I certainly rejoice in the renewed interest in the teaching of the Reformers which this movement helped to generate. I have personally benefitted from the movement in many ways. Its advent was at the time most welcome. As the poet said, “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, / But to be young was very heaven!”

Yet the movement, such as it was, soon started to show signs of strain. Mark Driscoll and James MacDonald shared a Christian platform with T. D. Jakes, a prosperity preacher and a minister in a non-Trinitarian denomination. As a result, they stepped down from the Gospel Coalition, the movement’s flagship organization, with best wishes for their future ministry but with strong hints that behind the scenes the departure had been less than amicable. Then, other issues came to light: It emerged late last year that Mark Driscoll used ghost writers to produce some of his books, and that material had apparently been taken from other authors without citation. Finally, last week, came the revelation that his bestselling marriage book had been made into a bestseller with the use of more church funds than many congregations have in their entire annual budget.

Mark Driscoll is one person, a uniquely talented individual. Yet he is also a function of structural problems within the new Reformed movement itself. Despite its distinct and in many ways sophisticated theology, the “young, restless, and reformed” movement has always been in some respects simply the latest manifestation of the weakest aspects of American Evangelicalism. It was, and is, a movement built on the power of a self-selected band of dynamic personalities, wonderful communicators, and talented preachers who have been marketed in a very attractive manner. Those things can all be great goods but when there is no real accountability involved, when financial arrangements are opaque in the extreme, and when personalities start to supplant the message, serious problems are never far away.

The overall picture is one of disaster. Within the church, I suspect most pastors look with horror at the amount of money involved in some of these projects and will turn away in disgust. Outside the church, people know sharp practice when they see it, no matter what the strict legality of such might be. The reputation of the church suffers, and sadly it does not suffer in this case unjustly.

And then, finally, there is the silence. The one thing that might have kept the movement together would have been strong, transparent public leadership that openly policed itself and thus advertised its integrity for all to see. Yet the most remarkable thing about the whole sorry saga, from the Jakes business until now, has been the silence of many of the men who present themselves as the leaders of the movement and who were happy at one time to benefit from Mark Driscoll’s reputation and influence. One might interpret this silence as an appropriate refusal to comment directly on the ministry of men who no longer have any formal connection with their own organizations.

Yet the leaders of the “young, restless, and reformed” have not typically allowed that concern to curtail their comments in the past. Many of them have been outspoken about the teaching of Joel Osteen, for example. In their early days, when the Emergent Church was vying with the new Calvinism for pole position in the American evangelical world, they launched regular, and often very thorough, critiques of the Emergent leaders. In retrospect, however, it is clear that these were soft targets. Their very distance made them safe. Problems closer to home are always much harder to speak to, much more likely to earn opprobrium from one’s friends, and thus much more likely to be ignored. The result, however, is that some leaders become very accustomed to always doing things their way. All of us who are thought of as Evangelical or Reformed now live with the bitter fruit of that failure of leadership.

Carl R. Trueman is Paul Woolley Professor of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary.

Decent answers to common questions and arguements - Nine Objections to Unconditional Election Answered

Nine Objections to Unconditional Election Answered

Note:  I preached last Sunday in Lynchburg on "Unconditional Election" in our Doctrines of Grace series.   Since I didn't get that sermon recorded, today I posted a podcast that covers the same teaching material.  Below are nine objections or queries challenging the doctrine of unconditional election that I mention in the message:

1.       Does election in the Bible refer to God’s election of individuals to salvation or to something else?

This question often takes one of three forms:

First, some might ask, “Could passages that speak of God’s choosing refer to the election of nations or groups and not to individuals?”

Response:  Scripture clearly assumes God’s sovereignty extends not merely over corporate bodies but also over individuals (see Prov 16:9; Psalm 139:16; Matt 10:30).  Paul says in Ephesians 1:4 “he chose us.”  He was writing to a specific group (the saints at Ephesus in 1:1), not a generic or hypothetical audience.  We should also not forget that groups and nations consist of individuals. It seems odd that some evangelicals who stress the importance of personal evangelism or “soul-winning” will make appeal to this argument, avoiding the most natural interpretation of the texts cited above.  God chooses individuals for salvation!

Second, some might ask, “Could these passages refer to God’s election (choosing) of Christ?”

Response:  Although it is clear that Christ, as the second person of the Godhead is appointed in the secret counsel of God to the work of incarnation and redemption according to the covenant of redemption, the language of election is applied repeatedly and specifically in Scripture to the people who are to be redeemed.

Third, some might ask, “Could these passages refer to God’s election of believers to sanctification and not to salvation?”   In this regard, particular appeal is often made to Romans 8:29 which speaks of believers being “predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.”

Response:  It is agreed that full sanctification (glorification) is the final stage of salvation.  All those who are saved eventually achieve a state of final sanctification commencing either at their deaths or at the Lord’s coming and finding consummation at the final resurrection.  In places like Romans 8:29-30, Paul is addressing the entire process of salvation.  The process of sanctification, however, does not proceed until one is saved.  So, the issue of election to sanctification for the believer cannot be used to sidestep the necessary beginning point in the entire process of salvation, which is election.  

2.      Does election mean that God’s choice of those who will be saved is merely random?

Some critics have falsely described the doctrines of grace as a version of the children’s game:  “Duck, Duck, Goose!” with the God of Calvinism making it “Duck, Duck, Damned!”  Scripture affirms, however, that God’s choices are never arbitrary.  God’s election is according to his own mysterious purposes and counsels.  Indeed, these are often hidden from us, but all his decisions tend toward the end of God’s own ultimate glory.  The Lord spoke through the prophet Isaiah, saying, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,’ says the Lord.  ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isa 55:8-9).  The pagan king Nebuchadnezzar, after being humbled by God, likewise affirmed, “All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.  No one can restrain His hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’” (Daniel 4:35).

3.      Could it be that God simply foreknows those who will freely choose Christ and then elects them?

First, note that Romans 9:11 specifies that the election of Jacob and Esau was not according to their future actions.  Romans 8:29 (“For whom he foreknew, he also predestined…”) is often cited  by those who suggest the “foreknowledge” explanation of election.  In response, the point needs to be made that “foreknowledge” does not merely refer to awareness of future factual events but to relationships.  The Bible often speaks of a man “knowing” a woman (e.g. Gen 4:1:  “Now Adam knew Eve his wife….).  This does not mean that he possesses factual information about her actions, but that he has an intimate relationship with her.  It is this understanding of “knowledge” that should guide the interpretation of Romans 8:29.

Finally, the “foreknowledge explanation” really does not solve the problem of divine responsibility.  If God foreknows that some will believe in Christ while other will reject Christ, why does he not alter circumstances so that those who reject him will instead respond in faith to Christ?  The responsibility for salvation remains firmly with God alone.

4.      What about those who are not saved?

There are at least two views on this question.

The first position is to argue that God actively elects persons both to salvation and damnation (cf. John 12:37-40; Romans 9:22-23; 2 Tim 2:20; 1 Peter 2:7-8; Jude 1:4).  God elects (chooses) both the saved and the reprobate.  This is called double predestination.

The second position is to argue that God is active in electing the saved but passive in allowing the wicked to persist in their sinfulness (see Rom 1:24; Eph 4:17-19).  Those who reject Christ are not actively damned by God, but they are passed over and left in their self-chosen sin.  This view is generally reflected in the major Reformation era confessions and their successors.  The Second London Baptist Confession (1689), for example, states that some are predestined to eternal life to the praise of his glorious grace while “others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation to the praise of his glorious justice.”

It is also certain that God is glorified in both the damned and the saved.  Those who are unsaved are the fit objects of God’s wrath and glorify God’s justice for eternity.  The saved, however, glorify both the justice of God, as their sins have been laid upon Christ, and his gracious mercy in saving them through no merit of their own. 

5.  Is this doctrine unfair?

Those who raise this question usually do so on the basis of two false assumptions.  On one hand, they assume that there are people who want to be saved who are not saved, simply because God did not choose them.  This view does not take seriously the damage that sin has done to the spiritual life of mankind.  No sinner wants to be saved unless God first changes his heart.  Paul notes that apart from God’s grace “there is none who seeks after God” (Romans 3:11).

On the other hand, some suggest that the doctrine of election means there are people who do not want to be saved, who are saved.  Again, such a hypothetical person does not exist.  No one is pulled kicking and screaming into the kingdom.  Once a sinner experiences the new birth he gladly trusts and follows after Christ.

The apostle Paul anticipated the charge of unfairness in Romans 9:14:  “What shall we say then?  Is there unrighteousness with God?  Certainly not!”  Paul reminds his readers that God is sovereign, having mercy and compassion on whomever he will (see Rom 9:15).  Likewise in Romans 9:19, Paul anticipates the objections of some:  “You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault?  For who has resisted His will?”  Paul then silences the critics with these words:  “But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God?  Will the thing formed say to Him who formed it, ‘Why have you made me like this?”’ (v. 20).  

The problem with the fairness argument is that it places a human view of justice above the revelation of God’s sovereignty.  Scripture affirms the Godhood of God.  Whatever God chooses to do is by definition the very standard of everything that is good, right, just, and true.  Once more look at the words of Nebuchadnezzar:  “No one can restrain His hand or say to Him, ‘What have you done?’” (Dan 4:35).

6.      What about human responsibility?

The doctrine of election is not inconsistent with human responsibility.  The Second London Baptist Confession notes that God decrees “whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby God is neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature….”  Those who are not saved are completely responsible for their own end.  The wicked pay the due penalty for their sin.  No one in hell will protest that God has treated him unfairly.  The sinner is responsible for his own sin and his own rejection of Christ.

On the other hand, those whom God chooses to save have their sinful will renewed.  Those who are saved must repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Without repentance and faith they will not be saved.  They respond in faith to Christ knowing that God alone deserves all praise for their salvation.

7.      Couldn’t God intentionally limit his will and then choose men for salvation conditioned on their free will choice of him?

First, this is essentially a philosophical argument rather than a Biblical argument.  Where in Scripture do we read of God’s self-limitation with regard to salvation?  Where in the Bible do we find the framework for this theory?

Second, this view again errs in its overly optimistic view of man’s free will.  It assumes that sinful, unregenerate man is seeking to know, trust, and worship the God of the Bible.  Scripture notes that no man, in his current sinful condition, will freely choose to bend the knee before the God of the Bible and his Christ.  As a proverb in 1 Samuel 24:13 puts it, “wickedness proceeds from the wicked.”

8.      Does this doctrine create pride and elitism in those who believe they are among the elect?

This is certainly possible.  Pride is a perennial and fundamental sin in all men.  The doctrine of election properly understood, however, does little to promote pride in those who embrace it.  The believer who affirms this doctrine understands that he was not saved because of any merit in himself, but purely through the grace of God.  He was not more intelligent, more spiritual, or more upright than other men.  He was simply the object of Christ’s affection through no merit of his own.  A right understanding of this doctrine deposes pride and develops humility in the Christian’s heart.

9.      Will this doctrine dull our zeal for evangelism?

Scripture teaches that God not only ordains the recipients of salvation in election, but he also ordains the means for their salvation.  In Romans 10:14-15 Paul gave this charge to preach the gospel:

14 How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

15 And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!”

The apostle then adds:  “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom 10:17).  All those who are chosen for salvation must have the gospel preached to them, so that they might hear and believe in Christ.  The orchestration and coordination of this is in God’s hands.  We do not know who will respond to the gospel.  We do not choose who will be saved.  We discover those whom God has chosen as we watch the elect respond in faith to gospel preaching.

In the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20), Christ ordered his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the triune God, and teaching them to obey all of the Lord’s commandments. The doctrine of election, far from quenching zeal for evangelism, gives us great confidence and boldness that we will be successful in this task.  If we preach Christ, God will draw all kinds of men to himself (see John 12:32).  The greatest cross-cultural missionaries in the evangelical world have been those who held to these doctrines, starting with William Carey, the father of the modern missions movement.