The Perseverance and Preservation of the Saints

Michael Horton explains that when teaching the biblical doctrine of eternal security for the Christian, The Perseverance (or Preservation) of the Saints is a more accurate term than “once saved, always saved”:

Some who believe that Christians are eternally secure give their doctrine the slogan “once saved, always saved,” but that slogan is very misleading. The slogan suggests that once persons make a decision for Christ, they can then go off and do their own thing, fully confident that no matter what they do or how they live, they are “safe and secure from all alarm.” That simply is not biblical.

 

The new birth, to be sure, is an event. In other words, at some point in your life, the Holy Spirit moves and creates new life in your soul. But salvation is more than that. Justification, too, is a one-time declaration, but salvation also involves a process of, over time, becoming righteous, which is called sanctification.

Sanctification is the Christian life, the daily pursuit of God and the transformation of the heart, mind, and will. Our priorities and our view of life are drastically altered, revolutionized, and reversed. We did not cooperate in our justification. But we must cooperate with God in our sanctification.  Continue at Eric T. Young

Risen Indeed!

Every Easter affords fresh opportunities for national news magazines to take up the question of Jesus’s resurrection. It’s difficult to point with any firmness to a “consensus” in Jesus scholarship any more than in other studies. Nevertheless, even liberals recognize (and lament) a trend in New Testament scholarship away from many of the “assured results” assumed by their predecessors only a generation ago.

 

Many factors have contributed to this more conservative trend, but two are worth mentioning. First, there has been a trend toward earlier dating of the Gospel accounts, which undermines the critical presupposition that the most obvious reports of Jesus’s bodily resurrection and deity are later interpolations. Second, especially since the last 40 years or so, there has been a trend toward placing Jesus in his Jewish milieu and this has led—generally speaking—to greater suspicion of the quite Gentile (Greek) biases that have dominated higher-critical (i.e., liberal) scholarship.

It’s helpful for us to return to the “facts of the case.” Here, speculation is useless. It does not matter what we thought reality was like: whether we believed in thirty gods or none. It doesn’t matter what we find helpful, meaningful, or fulfilling. This is not about spirituality or moral uplift. Something has happened in history and we cannot wish it away. It either happened or it didn’t happen, but the claim itself is hardly meaningless or beyond investigation.   Continue at Michael Horton

The Active & Passive Obedience of Christ

Dismissing his doctor's orders, J. Gresham Machen, beaten down by a career of struggling for the Faith even within his own communion, kept his commitments to a small circle of Orthodox Presbyterian parishes in South Dakota. "I have too much to do," he insisted, as his chest was even then tight from pneumonia. The next day, however, Machen was hospitalized. On New Year's Eve, the host pastor visited this infamous opponent of Liberalism on his deathbed and the elder statesman related a dream he had enjoyed that made him long for Heaven. "Sam, it was glorious, it was glorious," he said. "Sam, isn't the Reformed Faith grand?" Just before he passed into the next world, Machen dictated a telegram to John Murray, professor of systematic theology at Westminster Seminary. These last words read, "I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it." (1) 

Once more we are reminded of just how practical and relevant doctrine can be in our deepest crises. When all is well, we can dispense with such questions, but not when the truly great issues of life are staring us in the face. But what is this "active obedience of Christ" to which Machen referred and why was it such a remarkable comfort in his dying hour?

John Murray, the recipient of that famous telegram, wrote eloquently of this great biblical doctrine. "Early in our Lord's ministry we have his own witness" to being the promised "Servant of the Lord" in Isaiah, says Murray. When John the Baptist questioned the propriety of him baptizing the Messiah, Jesus answered, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness" (Mt 3:15). (2) It was our Lord's great pleasure and duty to "fulfill all righteousness" down to the least stroke of the Law: "I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me" (Jn 6:38). Calvin observes, "Now someone asks, how has Christ abolished sin, banished the separation between us and God, and acquired righteousness to render God favorable and kindly toward us? To this we can in general reply that he has achieved this for us by the whole course of his obedience." (3) 

We are told in Scripture that Jesus Christ was both human and divine. Because of this union of the divine with the human nature, "he grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man" (Lk 2:52). In fact, he "learned obedience from the things he suffered" (Heb 5:8). This is not at all to suggest that our Lord was sinful, but in his humiliation he was truly and fully human. That is, just as he grew up physically, so too he progressively obeyed God throughout his life. At no point did he fail to respond positively to his Father's will, so his growth was perfect and complete.   Continue at Michael S. Horton

“Charles Finney: The Greatest Distorter of Christian Truth in Our Age”

Dr. Michael Horton, Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California, wrote an article for Modern Reformation Magazine back in 1995 titled “The Legacy of Charles Finney.”  Growing up in evangelical, Southern Baptist and Church of God circles, Charles Finney was always a man to be praised.  Horton however exposes Finney’s unbiblical and unorthodox theology.  Here are some quotes from Finney and Horton’s responses:

Who is Finney?

Charles Finney (1792-1875) ministered in the wake of the “Second Awakening,” as it has been called. A Presbyterian layover, Finney one day experienced “a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost” which “like a wave of electricity going through and through me … seemed to come in waves of liquid love.” The next morning, he informed his first client of the day, “I have a retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ to plead his cause and I cannot plead yours.”Refusing to attend Princeton Seminary (or any seminary, for that matter); Finney began conducting revivals in upstate New York. One of his most popular sermons was “Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts.” [Emphasis Mine]

Denying the Perseverance of the Saints (Eternal Security)

First, in answer to the question, “Does a Christian cease to be a Christian, whenever he commits a sin?” Finney answers:

“Whenever he sins, he must, for the time being, cease to be holy. This is self-evident. Whenever he sins, he must be condemned; he must incur the penalty of the law of God … If it be said that the precept is still binding upon him, but that with respect to the Christian, the penalty is forever set aside, or abrogated, I reply, that to abrogate the penalty is to repeal the precept, for a precept without penalty is no law. It is only counsel or advice. The Christian, therefore, is justified no longer than he obeys, and must be condemned when he disobeys or Antinomianism is true … In these respects, then, the sinning Christian and the unconverted sinner are upon precisely the same ground (p. 46).”

Horton responds,   Continue at Jared Moore

Review of Jesus Calling

As far back as you can recall, you’ve started or ended the day with a time of personal meditation on God’s Word and prayer. Only this time, you try something different. You want to hear Jesus speak to you personally. So you take out pen and paper and record the results. As she tells us in her introduction, this is what happened when Sarah Young sought a deeper sense of the presence of Jesus. The result is the daily devotional, Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (Thomas Nelson, 2004). The book has taken off since it was first published. It now includes a variety of supplements and has even been turned into a NKJV study Bible.

The author states up front that, unlike Scripture, the words she reports from Jesus are not inerrant. Nevertheless, she presents them as first-person speech from Jesus himself. “I knew that God communicated with me through the Bible,” she says, “but I yearned for more.” “Increasingly, I wanted to hear what God had to say to me personally on a given day.” That “more” was “the Presence of Jesus,” something beyond the ordinary means of grace. “So I was ready to begin a new spiritual quest,” beginning with Andrew Murray’s The Secret of the Abiding Presence. After reading God Calling, she relates, “I began to wonder if I, too, could receive messages during my times of communing with God.” 

Preparing for an interview today on the topic, I read through Jesus Calling. A few reflections: first touching on the method and then on the message.    Continue at Michael Horton

How Did We Get Here?

"A God without wrath brought men without sin into a world without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross." In this famous and more than slightly scolding description of Protestant liberalism in the 1950s, Yale's H. Richard Niebuhr actually put his finger on the perennial heresy of the human heart since humanity's fall in Adam. In this article, I will lay out in very broad terms the rationale for the theme we have chosen for 2007: "A Time for Truth."  

The Glory Story: Why Pelagianism Always Makes Sense

 

A British monk named Pelagius arrived in Rome and set about to initiate a widespread moral clean-up operation. Augustine, a North African bishop of great standing in the church, stood in his path. Hardly uninterested in holiness, Augustine himself had been set free from a licentious life. Nevertheless, he knew that the power of that liberation was the gospel of God's free grace. By the time the fracas was over, Pelagianism, with its denial of original sin and rigorous demand that people save themselves by following Christ's moral example, was condemned by more church councils than any heresy in church history. Nevertheless, it has remained the most constant threat to the gospel. Why does it keep growing back so quickly right after it has been cut down? Because Pelagianism just makes sense to us. It's the "glory story."

Following Luther's Heidelberg Disputation, which was following Romans 10 and 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, the Reformation contrasted the theology of glory with theology of the cross. As Gerhard Forde nicely summarized,

The most common overarching story we tell about ourselves is what we will call the glory story. We came from glory and are bound for glory. Of course, in between we seem somehow to have gotten derailed-whether by design or accident we don't quite know-but that is only a temporary inconvenience to be fixed by proper religious effort. What we need is to get back on "the glory road." The story is told in countless variations. Usually the subject of the story is "the soul." ... The basic scheme is what Paul Ricoeur has called "the myth of the exiled soul."     Continue at Michael Horton

Joel’s Not So Bad After All? Mark Driscoll on Joel Osteen

So says YRR (Young, Restless, and Reformed) leader Mark Driscoll in an interview (regarding his forthcoming book) published by the TGC:

Q: You observe that “appreciated people” exchange grumbling for praying, competing for celebrating, bitterness for thankfulness, performing for serving, and boasting for encouraging. What’s an “appreciated person”? Isn’t that what Joel Osteen wants me to be?

A: I am aware of the theological differences that exist between our tribe and Pastor Joel. I also know my Reformed brothers like to treat Pastor Joel like a piñata, but there are worse things than being happy and encouraging at a time when the most common prescription medications are antidepressants. A few guys in our tribe could learn to talk about something other than painful, arduous suffering once and a while—if nothing else than for the sake of variety. Our identity is not in our joy, and our identity is not in our suffering. Our identity is in Christ, whether we have joy or are suffering. 

So, there are two utterly competing accounts of Joel Osteen’s message before us.  Either Osteen’s is a false gospel or he has been misunderstood. James Gilmore, author of The Experience Economy, has produced a scorecard by which to evaluate Osteen’s message. The key phrases under the Osteen column are telling. More pointedly, Mike Horton writes:  Continue at R. Scott Clark

Interpreting Scripture by Scripture

As Paul reminded Timothy, "All Scripture is inspired by God and is [therefore] useful for teaching, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16)--all Scripture, not just our "life verses."

At the same time, the Westminster Confession properly reminds us that not everything in Scripture is equally plain or equally important. We have to interpret the more difficult passages in the light of clearer ones. Scripture interprets Scripture, and we learn the whole meaning of Scripture by studying its parts and its parts by learning the whole. You need the box-top and the puzzle-pieces. 

Of course, there is disagreement about which verses are "difficult" and which are "clear," as well as which are more important. I think we'd all agree that the meaning of Christ's descent into hell is less clear and less important than his incarnation, active and passive obedience, resurrection, ascension, and return. Nevertheless, on a host of other points the roads diverge. Most evangelicals would place church government in the "Who Cares?" category. Far from being at the core of the faith, such a view was at least important enough to divide the Reformed tradition over Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Congregational polities. For Eastern Orthodoxy, episcopacy is essential to the very existence of the church, and Rome takes it one step further, insisting on the primacy of the bishop of Rome. 

Even when it comes to the gospel, there are quite different assumptions at play. Eastern Orthodox churches think that the clear and important passages emphasize theosis--a process of being conformed to Christ-likeness that leads to final salvation through a combination of grace and free will. Roman Catholics have traditionally maintained that the clear and important passages teach the reconciliation of humanity in the church through its management of the treasury of merit. 

Arminians think that the clear and important passages teach the primacy of God's love (over other attributes), the universality of grace, and the libertarian free will of human beings. While Reformed theology never teaches God's sovereignty (predestination) as a central dogma from which every other doctrine is deduced, the love of God and a libertarian view of free will do function that way in standard Arminian systems. Arminians often acknowledge a stand-off: Calvinists enshrine God's sovereignty and predestination, while they make God's universal love and human freedom normative. "You have your verses and we have ours," is the oft-heard shrug that can only weaken the believer's confidence in the unity, consistency, and reliability of Scripture.   Continue at Michael Horton

A Dangerous Christmas?

It is a fact that Christianity is not a religion. It is a philosophy,” according to Bill O’Reilly. As part of his “war on Christmas” focus, the talk-show host faced off with the head of an Atheist organization in a recent interview. (For a different take, see this article from  the Washington Post.) According to his guest, government-supported celebrations of Christmas constitute the state’s privileging of one religion. If I understand him correctly (and I don’t take that for granted), Mr. O’Reilly counters the argument by suggesting that while particular denominations are “religions,” Christianity itself is not a religion but a philosophy. In fact, he takes this as a settled consensus. Oddly, he includes Judaism along with Methodism and Roman Catholicism as “religions,” although Judaism is arguably distinct from Christianity.

 

I confess that I am not a regular Fox News viewer and only catch Bill O’Reilly when friends shamelessly forward clips like these. Although the political aspect of the debate is important, my concern here is the religious aspect.

How far will some go to protect the vestiges of cultural Christianity in our increasingly secular society? Is this civil religion so deeply ingrained that we are willing to redefine the very nature and message of Christianity in the name of Christendom? Perhaps Mr. O’Reilly has given us that answer.

Could it be, ironically, that the atheist had a better idea about the nature of Christianity? To be sure, the danger of Christmas for him is mainly political, as its benefit seems to be for Mr. O’Reilly. But at least he gets that it’s about a specific religion and its central claim.

For many today, Christianity is indeed a philosophy—an ideology, a culture, and a set of ethical principles. It may come with different specifics, depending on whether it hails from the left or the right side of the aisle. However, if I may so bold, those who take this view should probably not celebrate Christmas at all.

Christianity is first and foremost an announcement that God our Creator is also our Redeemer; that “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him will never perish but have everlasting life” (Jn 3:16). This announcement is proclaimed in the gospel and sealed by baptism and the Lord’s Supper. It is explained in the ecumenical creeds, especially the Nicene, and shapes our common as well as private prayer, devotion, and life in the world. Christ did not come to be the world’s greatest philosopher or social reformer, but to “save his people from their sins” (Mat 1:21).   Continue at Michael Horton

Are We Required to Attend Church on Sunday?

The very fact that we have to address this question, even in evangelical circles, demonstrates the true measure of the church’s worldliness. It is not a superstitious attachment to days, but respect for the Lord’s generous service to us, that gives us one day in seven to be swept into the drama of redemption. When the holy day is reabsorbed into the common week, the church is bound to be reabsorbed into the world’s bloodstream.

In the Old Testament, the weekly Sabbath is anchored in creation (Ex 20:8-11) and God’s redemption of Israel from Egypt (Dt 5:12-15). The apostolic church met on Sunday, “the first day of the week,” also identified as “the Lord’s Day” (Jn 20:19, 26; Ac 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2; Rev 1:10). 

After the apostles, the twin dangers of Antinomian neglect of the weekly assembly and “Judaizing” legalism already reared their head. Addressing the latter problem, Ignatius reminds the Magnesians, “If then, those who lived in antiquated customs came to newness of hope, no longer keeping the Sabbath but living in accordance with the Lord’s day—on which also our life arose through him and his death (though some will deny it), and by this mystery we received the power to believe…(Mag. 9:1). At the same time, the Lord’s Day continued to occupy its princely status in the weekly schedule. Constantine declared it an official day of rest in 321, launching a civil application of the fourth commandment that lasted even into twentieth-century Europe and the United States.

In the medieval church, myriad regulations—civil and ecclesiastical—had been attached to the Lord’s Day, along with a host of celebration, holidays, and rituals that Scripture does not authorize. The Reformers rejected this return to the shadows of the law. In fact, Luther tended to distinguish sharply between the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day. Yet he called each Lord’s Day “a little Easter.” It is not the day itself that sanctifies, but the ministry of the Word. For that very reason, though, his Larger Catechism insists upon the regular participation in the weekly assembly.

Calvin saw a threefold purpose for the Sabbath institution: 1) as a sign of the final rest that would come with Christ; 2) to maintain church order, and 3) to offer relief for workers. Calvin’s view (Institutes 2.8.31-32) is essentially the same that can be found in Luther’s Large Catechism.  Continue at Michael Horton - make sure you read the comment section as well.

Your Own Personal Jesus

Citing examples from TV, pop music, and best-selling books, an article in Entertainment Weekly noted that "pop culture is going gaga for spirituality." However,

[S]eekers of the day are apt to peel away the tough theological stuff and pluck out the most dulcet elements of faith, coming up with a soothing sampler of Judeo-Christian imagery, Eastern mediation, self-help lingo, a vaguely conservative craving for 'virtue,' and a loopy New Age pursuit of 'peace.' This happy free-for-all, appealing to Baptists and stargazers alike, comes off more like Forest Gump's ubiquitous 'boxa chocolates' than like any real system of belief. You never know what you're going to get. (1)

The "search for the sacred" has become a recurring cover story for national news magazines for some time now; but is a revival of "spirituality" and interest in the "sacred" really any more encouraging than the extravagant idolatry that Paul witnessed in Athens (Acts 17)? 

Not only historians and sociologists but novelists are writing about the "Gnostic" character of the soup that we call spirituality in the United States today. In a recent article in Harper's, Curtis White describes our situation pretty well. When we assert, "This is my belief," says White, we are invoking our right to have our own private conviction, no matter how ridiculous, not only tolerated politically but respected by others. "It says, 'I've invested a lot of emotional energy in this belief, and in a way I've staked the credibility of my life on it. So if you ridicule it, you can expect a fight." In this kind of culture, "Yahweh and Baal-my God and yours-stroll arm-in-arm, as if to do so were the model of virtue itself."

What we require of belief is not that it make sense but that it be sincere....Clearly, this is not the spirituality of a centralized orthodoxy. It is a sort of workshop spiritu-ality that you can get with a cereal-box top and five dollars....There is an obvious problem with this form of spirituality: it takes place in isolation. Each of us sits at our computer terminal tapping out our convictions....Consequently, it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that our truest belief is the credo of heresy itself. It is heresy without an orthodoxy. It is heresy as an orthodoxy. (2)

While European nihilism denied only God, "American nihilism is something different. Our nihilism is our capacity to believe in everything and anything all at once. It's all good!" All that's left is for belief to become "a culture-commodity." 

We shop among competing options for our belief. Once reduced to the status of a commodity, our anything-goes, do-it-yourself spirituality cannot have very much to say about the more directly nihilistic conviction that we should all be free to do whatever we like as well, each of us pursuing our right to our isolated happiness. (3)  Continue at Michael Horton

See also: 

Protestant Gnosticism Reconsidered

Gnostic Worship

 

Joel Osteen and Family Feud

On Friday, July 13, 2012, Joel Osteen made an appearance in Cleveland, Ohio.  Fourteen thousand people filed into Quicken Loans Arena that evening to take in “A Night of Hope.”  I had no desire to attend, but I did want to head downtown and do something outside the gathering as an act of quiet personal protest. 

For weeks prior to the event, I pondered what to do.  So one night, to find some inspiration, I tuned in the weekly broadcast from Lakewood Church.  When channel-surfing I will sometimes briefly watch Osteen, but on this occasion I committed myself to watching the entire show.  Within minutes, I knew what I should to do: So I paused the channel, went to my home-office, and returned with a pen and pad of paper.  I started writing down the key words and phrases I heard Osteen emphasize in his talk.  By the end of the hour, I had over twenty items on the list. 

Recalling an interview (was it on CNN?) in which Michael Horton called Osteen’s teaching “Cotton Candy Christianity,” I wrote that term as a heading above the list.  I then thought about what alternative words or phrases might be listed alongside each item on the Osteen list.  I found this all too easy—and in less than two minutes, I had my companion set of terms representing “Historical-Biblical Christianity.”  I returned to my office and typed up the list.  Once completed, all I needed was a heading for the flyer.  Also easy: “The JOEL OSTEEN Scorecard.”  (Download a PDF file of the final product.)

On the morning of Friday the 13th, I printed 250 copies of the scorecard on pink paper (pink struck me as the appropriate color).  In the afternoon, I read Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, and I prayed that should God give me occasion to talk to anyone, that I would speak the truth in love.  And then early that evening, also equipped with seven copies of Christless Christianity that I had ordered for the event, I headed for “the Q” (or “the Loaner” as one Cleveland friend of mine likes to call it), most curious about what I would encounter.  Continue at White Horse

4 Disturbing Trends in the Contemporary Church

According to several studies, American evangelicals generally do not know what they believe and why they believe it. Consequently, most share with the wider culture a confidence in human goodness and a weak view of the need for God’s saving grace in Jesus Christ. According to these reports, most evangelicals believe that we are saved by being good and that there are many ways of salvation apart from explicit faith in Jesus Christ.

Here are a few of the disturbing trends that need to be checked and reformed in contemporary church life:

1. We are all too confident in our own words

We are all too confident in our own words, so that churches become echo chambers for the latest trends in pop psychology, marketing, politics, entertainment, and entrepreneurial leadership. We need to recover our confidence in the triune God and His speech, as He addresses us authoritatively in His Word.

2. We are all too confident in our own methods

We are all too confident in our own methods for success in personal, ecclesial, and social transformation. We need to be turned again to God’s judgment and grace, His action through His ordained means of grace.  Continue at Michael Horton

5 Myths about Reformed Theology

There are a lot of misconceptions about Reformed theology. I tackle these at length in For Calvinism. Here I’ve been asked to address a few of these in a nutshell.

1. “Reformed Theology Is Arrogant and Prideful”

There are several impressions bound up with this critique.

First, the very name suggests that we hold up John Calvin more than Jesus Christ. Truth is, “Calvinism” was coined by critics who wanted to marginalize Reformed teaching, when actually Calvin didn’t teach anything unique that you can’t find, for example, in Augustine or Luther. Furthermore, as important as he was, Calvin was one of many shapers of the Reformed tradition. Our confessions and catechisms (none of them written by Calvin) set forth what we believe. As Charles Spurgeon said, “Calvinism is just a nickname” for what we should call “the doctrines of grace.”

Second, sinful attitudes and behaviors come from our own hearts, not from the word of God. Reformed theology exalts God and his grace, while laying ourselves low as helpless sinners and rebels who are on the receiving end of his generosity. Puffed-up pride is about the most contradictory response one can imagine to the deepest convictions Reformed churches confess.   Continue at Michael Horton

Horton on Same-Sex Attraction and Homosexuality

Mike Horton was asked by the folks at CT to respond to Alan Chambers (the president of Exodus International).  A link to his essay is now posted on the White Horse Inn blog.

If this is not a great argument for the importance of understanding the nature of sin, the wonders of grace, and the role of the church in dealing with people struggling with sin, I don't know what is.  Great stuff! Read it HERE

The Illusion of an Infallible Magisterium

In an article entitled, “Who’s in Charge Here? The Illusions of Church Infallibility” Dr. Michael Horton writes:

In my experience with those who wrestle with conversion to Roman Catholicism—at least those who have professed faith in the gospel, the driving theological issue is authority. How can I be certain that what I believe is true? The gospel of free grace through the justification of sinners in Christ alone moves to the back seat. Instead of the horse, it becomes the cart. Adjustments are made in their understanding of the gospel after accepting Rome’s arguments against sola scriptura. I address these remarks to friends struggling with that issue.

Reformation Christians can agree with Augustine when he said that he would never have known the truth of God’s Word apart from the catholic church. As the minister of salvation, the church is the context and means through which we come to faith and are kept in the faith to the end. When Philip found an Ethiopian treasury secretary returning from Jerusalem reading Isaiah 53, he inquired, “Do you understand what you are reading?” “How can I,” the official replied, “unless someone guides me?” (Ac 8:30-31). Explaining the passage in the light of its fulfillment in Christ, Philip baptized the man who then “went on his way rejoicing” (v 39). 

Philip did not have to be infallible; he only had to communicate with sufficient truth and clarity the infallible Word.

For many, this kind of certainty, based on a text, is not adequate. We have to know—really know—that what we believe is an infallible interpretation of an ultimate authority. The churches of the Reformation confess that even though some passages are more difficult to understand, the basic narratives, doctrines and commands of Scripture—especially the message of Christ as that unfolds from Genesis to Revelation—is so clearly evident that even the unlearned can grasp it.   Continue at John Samson

Which Church Would the Reformers Join Today? Avoiding a False Choice

It doesn’t really matter in the final analysis whether Luther and Calvin would find the average evangelical church in America today more or less congenial than Rome. Yet it does suggest an interesting point of departure as we think about the reasons why some find the latter attractive.

Many of us were raised to believe that we had all the answers (whatever they were) and that Roman Catholicism believes in Mary and the pope rather than Jesus and the Bible, in salvation by works rather than grace. And yet, as the surveys demonstrate, we didn’t really know what we believed or why we believed it—beyond a few slogans. If one asked the question in the correct form, we could possibly give the right answer on the big ones at least. However, a rising generation now is indistinguishable in its beliefs from Mormons, Unitarians, or those who check the “spiritual but not religious” box. “Moralistic-Therapeutic-Deism” is the working theology of most Americans, including evangelicals, we’re told. So when it comes to authority and salvation—the two issues at the heart of the Reformation’s concern, Protestantism today (mainline and evangelical) seems increasingly remote from anything that the Reformers would have recognized as catholic and evangelical faith and practice. 

In my “cage phase” (when emerging Reformed zealots should be quarantined for a while), I read from a sixteenth-century confession the section on grace and justification. The audience was a rather large group of fellow students at a Christian college. “Do you think we could sign this statement today?”, I asked. Several replied, “No: it’s too Calvinistic.” That was interesting, because I was quoting the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent, which anathematized the Reformation’s teaching that justification was by Christ’s merits alone, imputed to sinners through faith alone. I didn’t quote the whole section, but only the part that affirmed that we are saved by grace and that our cooperation in the process of salvation—even our will to believe—requires God’s grace. 

You have to dig beneath the sweeping slogans and generalizations; its precisely in the details—where many eyes glaze over—that the massive differences between Rome and the Reformation appear.  Continue at Michael Horton

Growing in Grace & Knowledge

Knowledge and truth have fallen on hard times in contemporary American culture. We are distracted from thinking deeply about anything because we are too busy focusing on ourselves and our own entertainment. Sadly, this problem is not merely “out there” in the world. Overnight, contemporary churches have become entertainment centers and purveyors of self-centered spirituality. Encouraged by smiling television preachers to have our best life now, modern Christians have almost lost sight of Jesus and his saving work. We desperately need to follow the advice of the apostle Peter, who encouraged believers to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pet 3:18). R. C. Sproul joins the panel for this special edition of White Horse Inn recorded before a live audience in Orlando, Florida.

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A Permanent Address

One of the stories my much older brother tells me about the old days recounts the day when the family had just moved to a Los Angeles suburb. I should say, another L.A. suburb, since, all told, we moved about thirty times over the course of my childhood. No, my father was not in the military, nor was he on the lam. He just had wanderlust. The grass was always greener just up over that hill up yonder. So here we were (according to my brother, who is not always a reliable source), driving through the new neighborhood. Passing the elementary school, my dad said, "Look, that's where Mike will be starting kindergarten," to which my brother replied, "No offense, Dad, but who are you kidding? Mike will never see the inside of that place." He was right: I never did set foot on the property before we packed up and moved again. Yet no matter where we moved, the family was a constant. There are plenty of kids who grow up in the same place, but their parents are a million miles away in actual practice. Some, in fact, are so disappointed or even scarred from their childhood that when they leave home, it's for good. 

We call the church a family-the family of God. And like any family, it has its pluses and minuses. We know that there is an ideal church consisting of all the elect-the so-called invisible church-but precisely because it is invisible, affirming its existence does not mean that we can point to it and say, "There it is." The only church we know is the visible church, by whatever form of church government we call it (local, regional, national, international, or all of the above). And we have to admit that if seeing is believing, we might be hard-pressed at times to identify the church we know with the uncompromised church in glory. 

Jesus promised that when he left, he would send the Spirit to testify concerning him, bringing conviction and forgiveness through the gospel proclaimed. In the meantime, our Lord went "to prepare a place" for us to be together forever (John 14:3). It will be a permanent address at last. At its best, the church below is the staging area for the things to come: a kingdom of grace, not yet a kingdom of glory; a church militant, not yet the church triumphant. So the wheat and the weeds grow together until the Son returns to gather and make the final separation (Matt. 13:24-30). Until then, there is no pure church, but only churches more or less pure. For now, it is a "mixed body," with no doubt some sheep outside it and some wolves within.  Continue at Michael Horton

Are Churches Secularizing America?

Several years ago, a mainline theologian told me of his experience at an evangelical megachurch. He was visiting his children and grandchildren during spring break and then Easter Sunday arrived. Nothing visibly suggested that it was a Christian service, but this distinguished theologian tried to reign in his judgments. There was no greeting from God or sense that this was God's gathering. The songs were almost exclusively about us, our feelings, and our intentions to worship, obey, and love; but it was not clear whom they were talking about or why. He concluded, "Well, evangelicals don't really have a liturgy. They put all of the content into the sermon, so I'll wait." 

His patience, however, was not rewarded. Although it was Easter, the message (with no clear text) was on how Jesus gives us the strength to overcome our obstacles. Lacking even a benediction, this theologian left discouraged. He had come to an evangelical church at Easter and instead of meeting God and the announcement of a real victory over sin and death by Jesus Christ, he encountered other Christians who were being given fellowship and instructions for making their own "Easter" come true in their life. 

Pressed with leading questions by his son-in-law as to his reaction to the service (like, "Did it touch your heart?"), the theologian broke his silence: "I assume you're trying to 'evangelize' me right now," he said. "But there was no 'gospel' anywhere in that service that might convert me if I were unconverted." He concluded, "Not even in the most liberal churches I've been in was the service so devoid of Christ and the gospel. It's like 'God who?'"

Since then, a mainline Methodist theologian told me of an almost identical experience-curiously also at Easter-in a conservative Presbyterian church that was known around the university for its "Bible-believing" and "Christ-centered" ministry. He too left disappointed (the sermon was something about how Jesus overcame his setbacks and so can we), further substantiating his appraisal that evangelicals are as likely as mainliners today to talk pop-psychology, politics, or moralism instead of the gospel.

Over a century ago, Princeton theologians Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield observed that according to the system of revivalism associated especially with Charles Finney, God was not even necessary. If conversion and revival are "simply the philosophical result of the right use of means" rather than a miracle of God's grace, all you have to do is find the right techniques, procedures, and methods that work across the board: in business, politics, and religion. A lot of the church growth literature of the past few decades assumes the same outlook. Could evangelicalism grow and experience success even if God didn't exist?   Continue at Michael Horton