Tales from the Ecclesiastical Post-Modern Crypt

Achilles had been trained has a minister in the flagship Seminary of APE (Apostolic Presbyterian Ecclesial) and had spent some 20 years in the Ministry. He was, by all accounts, well liked and successful as a Churchman and Minister.

Achilles had a standing appointment with his ministerial colleagues at the local pub. At the pub (named aptly “Haags Hall”) community ministers from liberal, yet diverse, backgrounds and denominational affiliations would show up to talk about their lives, their faith, and the times in which they lived. Usually matters were congenial. When hard disagreements did arise they were quickly followed by a shot and a beer which either made the various ministers gathered forget the disagreements or made them ready to fight. The ministers had a rule that if someone raised their voice in a discussion they would be forced to down a Boilermaker as discipline for their unseemly ministerial outbursts. This was supposed to keep hissing, clawing and pushing (what liberal ministers call “fighting”) at bay. Fortunately for all the ministers in attendance, ministers fight like Junior high girls and so little damage was done the very few times disagreements were raised to a level higher than what a Boilermaker could tame.

At this bi-monthly meeting Achilles decided he was going to probe the issue of gays in the church. He wanted to discuss, with his liberal counterparts, how it was that the Fundamentalists couldn’t see the necessity to accept the LGBTQ crowd into the Church. Achilles thought if nothing else the assembled clergy could have a good laugh at the way the Fundamentalist troglodytes read the Bible.

The Sherry, Margaritas and wine spritzers (the preferred drinks of liberal clergy) were flowing like the water off the head of a dozen baby baptisms. All assembled were in a good mood when Achilles tossed out the topic of conversation of “gays in the Church.”

The conversation went pretty much as expected. All the liberal clergy gathered drank to the health of gays. Many of them knew what good givers the LGBTQ crowd were at their local churches. They also knew that the quickest route to losing their positions was to stand up against the zeitgeist. And so they laughed and guffawed at their clumsy and backwards fundamentalist “brethren.”

After agreeing, over several rounds, at the nekulturny character of the fundamentalists Achilles piped up with a complaint about the few remaining old school Presbyterians that remained in his denomination,

“I think one of our problems in the Apostolic Presbyterian Ecclesial (APE) is that many of our Pastors belong to the intellectual class and they have this overwhelming necessity to be right. They sense that being right is of ultimate importance. They are always studying, always reading and so being right is important to them. And I think we must agree that is poisonous to the Church.”

All agreed but suddenly the waiter, who was serving up the girly drinks, couldn’t resist and asked,

“So, tell me Achilles, are you insisting that you are right about that observation you just made?”

This waiter was not unknown to the Liberal, Sherry-sipping clergy. This was the walking conundrum waiter they loved to tease good-naturedly. Christopher Roberts was an anomaly that the liberals couldn’t resist. They always insisted on his being their waiter. Christopher was a tent-maker minister who had no problem with an occasional stiff drink, salty phrase, or stinging pejorative. Christopher didn’t have a pietistic bone in his body and the only people he lampooned more than Fundamentalist preachers were the Liberal and “diverse” crowd that gathered twice a month during his shift.

Achilles was mute over Christopher’s question, and so he asked again, amidst the nervous laughter of the other assembled clergy.

“Achilles, you just noted that the problem with too many of the fundamentalist clergy in your denomination is that they insist on being right.”

“What I want to know Achilles, is if, whether or not, you are, as a non fundamentalist minister, insisting upon being right about the poisonous scourge that clergy are who have to be right?”

Achilles looked as if Christopher had just thrown a ice cold beer in his face.

All were looking on waiting for Achilles response.

Finally Achilles offered up,

“I don’t know.”

Christopher let out a booming laugh. The diverse and liberal clergy just stared at their waiter not getting the joke.

When Christopher looked at their puzzlement he doubled his laughter. Finally, upon regaining composure, Christopher, between continued intermittent peals of laughter, informed them,

“You liberals are hilarious. You can’t even see the delicious irony of Achilles answer. When Achilles says, ‘I don’t know,’ all you can hear is the idea that Achilles is being consistent with his statement on the poisonous nature of clergy on insisting on being right.”

“But,” Christopher continued, “the irony is that Achilles and all of you can’t see that Achilles and each of you, in the depths of your post-modern muck, can’t see the joke that you can’t even be certain in your decrying of certitude. You complain about Fundamentalists having to be right, but you can’t even own the fact that you are right in your complaint about them having to be right. You have to be uncertain of your claim on the wrongness of certitude. But are you even certain that you have to be uncertain about the claims of certitude?”

All stared up from their pretzel bowls and wine spritzer glasses with the look of a waitress that had just been goosed by an anonymous patron.

“And the really funny thing is,” Christopher continued, “is that all of you here are so dull that even after explaining this to you, you’re still either to dumb or to drunk on wine spritzers that you don’t have any understanding of what I just explained to you.”

“You complain about your Fundamentalist competition having to be right, but you can’t even be certain about your uncertainty … and yet you still have the moxy to complain, as if you were right, about the faults of other ministers, who you think, have to be right.”

“I could spend a week laughing at your idiocy, but other tables, who tip better then you guys do, are waiting to be served.”

“Let me know if you ever figure it out.”

Christ In The Psalms

Introduction

Christ familiarity with the Psalms

Psalm 31:5 —
Psalm 22:1
Psalm 69:21 , 22:15 — Echo “I am thirsty”
Psalm 22:31 — echoes “It if finished”

Also throughout his life we see familiarity with the Psalms

Psalm 6:8 — cited Mt. 7:23 — “Then I will tell you plainly, ‘I never knew you’ Away from me you evildoers”
Psalm 35:19, 69:4 — cited John 15:25 — “They hated me without reason.”
Psalm 118:26 — cited Mt. 21:13
Psalm 41:9 — cited John 13:18
Psalm 62:12 — cited Matthew 16:27

Christ was saturated with the Psalms. Today we want to look at the Psalms familiarity with Christ.

I.) Christ in the Psalms of Righteous Declaration

Psalm 24

Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?
Or who may stand in His holy place?
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol,
Nor sworn deceitfully.
5 He shall receive blessing from the Lord,
And righteousness from the God of his salvation.

Psalm 18

20 The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness;
According to the cleanness of my hands
He has recompensed me.
21 For I have kept the ways of the Lord,
And have not wickedly departed from my God.
22 For all His judgments were before me,
And I did not put away His statutes from me.
23 I was also blameless before Him,
And I kept myself from my iniquity.
24 Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness,
According to the cleanness of my hands in His sight.

Here we note that while David might have been able to pray these Psalms in a comparative sense, given our understanding of our sin nature, and of our sin by habit which is taught in Scripture there is no way that David could have prayed these in a absolute sense. No man can. And so we hear these Psalms and we are immediately reminded of the Lord Christ. The Lord Christ alone is the one who can stand in God’s Holy place as the one who has clean hands and a pure heart and who had not not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully. He alone can declare that “I was blameless before God.”

The good news in all this is that we are united to Christ and what is predicated of Christ is predicated of His people because we are in Christ. We have had all this described perfection put to our account. And so, because of the Lord Christ we also are blameless. No … not in and of ourselves but as we are reckoned in Christ.

II.) Christ in the Penitential Psalms

7 Psalms known as “Penitential Psalms”

Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143

But there are other Psalms that have snatches of penitence within them,

Psalm 69:5 O God, You know my foolishness;
And my sins are not hidden from You.

Psalm 6

O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger,
Nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure.
2 Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak;
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled.
3 My soul also is greatly troubled;
But You, O Lord—how long?
4 Return, O Lord, deliver me!
Oh, save me for Your mercies’ sake!
5 For in death there is no remembrance of You;
In the grave who will give You thanks?

How shall we handle these penitential Psalms in light of the reality that we see and hear Christ in them? Is it really the case that the Lord Christ would need to pray these prayers? Aren’t we doing the Lord Christ a disservice by suggesting He, through David, prayed in such a penitential manner?

The only answer that can suffice is that in these Penitential Psalms the Lord Christ, in His humanity, is identifying with His people. In point of fact He is so identifying with them that He confesses sin, through David, as if it is His own.

So, closely does Christ identify with us as sinners that He confesses sin in these penitential Psalms. Now, we know that Christ is the spotless lamb of God and we know that He was at all points tempted as us yet without sin but here in the Psalms we find the sinless God-man confessing sin. Thus does he identify so closely with His people. Such is His tenderness towards us. In such a way Christ demonstrates He was and is our substitute.

It was not without reason that the Holy Spirit could write in the NT,

“God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (II Cor. 5:21). As Peter says, Christ suffered as the “just for the unjust.”

Here then in the penitential Psalms we see the love of God and His Christ for sinners. So closely does the Lord Christ identify with us that He confesses sins.

Jonathan Edwards offers here,

“His elect were, from all eternity, dear to Him, as the apple of His eye. He looked upon them so much as Himself, that He regarded their concerns as His own; and he has even made their guilt as his, by a gracious assumption of it to Himself, that it might be looked upon as His own, through that divine imputation in virtue of which they are treated as innocent, while He suffers for them.”

Horne in his commentary on the Psalms offers,

“… Christ in the day of his passion, standing charged with the sin and guilt of his people, speaks of such their sin and guilt, as if they were His own, appropriating to himself those debts, for which, in the capacity of a surety, had made himself responsible.”

Elsewhere, in yet another commentary E. C. Olsen affirms again this line of thought,

“I am particularly impressed with the 5th verse of the 69th Psalm where the Lord said, ‘O God, You know my foolishness; And my sins are not hidden from thee.’ For 2000 years no man who has had any respect for his intellect dared charge our Lord Jesus with sin. But some might as, What do you mean when you say our Lord is the speaker in this verse? Just this: the fact of Calvary is not a sham or mirage. It is an actual fact. Christ making atonement for sin was a reality. The NT declares that He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. As Christ restored that which He took not away, that is, restored to us a righteousness which we never had, so Christ had to take your sins and mine, your foolishness and mine. These sins became such an integral part of Him that He called them “my sins and my foolishness.” Our Lord was the substitute for the sinner. He had to take the sinners place, and in so doing, He took upon Himself all of the sinner’s sin. In the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, ‘Surely He has borne our griefs, And carried our sorrows; … yet the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.’ The iniquity of us all was laid upon Christ. He bore our sins ‘in His own body on the tree.’ Can you fathom that? When you do, you will understand the mystery of the Gospel.”

In light of this great Love for His people, how can we, who are convinced of this love, ever violate such a compassion as was demonstrated by the Lord Christ towards us?

III.) Christ in the Imprecatory Psalms

We spoke some concerning the ability of God’s people to pray the Imprecatory prayers but we also must realize that it is first and foremost the Lord Christ Himself who prays the Imprecatory prayers.

The modern Church has this vision of effeminate Jesus. There he is in the Poster or a art sketch set against a backdrop of azure sky blue with fluffy white clouds around him in a long flowing white tunic with his shoulder length hair poofed perfectly and he is beckoning His people with outstretched hands. Or there he is at the door knocking … ever the gentle guest. A halo surrounds his head and you get the sense that the door knocking Jesus is so calm the door adores being rapped upon by Him.

The Jesus of the modern contemporary church poses no threat to sin or sinners. He constantly forgives in the face of epistemologically self conscious defiance and rebellion against Him and his cause. He forgives even in the face of being told that we have no reason to be forgiven. He is Jesus the effeminate wonder male.

We agree that the Lord Christ is gentle, meek, and forgiving, but He holds not those qualities without also being God who pursues God’s righteousness. He inveighs against the wicked. He holds the rebellious to account. In the Psalms, through the voice of David, the Lord Christ cries out for the blood of those who would oppose His Kingdom and His people. He is not God with whom we are to trifle.

Psalm 69:23-28

23 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see;
And make their loins shake continually.
24 Pour out Your indignation upon them,
And let Your wrathful anger take hold of them.
25 Let their dwelling place be desolate;
Let no one live in their tents.
26 For they persecute the ones You have struck,
And talk of the grief of those You have wounded.
27 Add iniquity to their iniquity,
And let them not come into Your righteousness.
28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living,
And not be written with the righteous.

J. H. Webster in his book, “The Psalms in Worship” has this to say

David, for example, was a type and spokesman of Christ, and the imprecatory Psalms are expressions of the infinite justice of the God-man, of His indignation against wrong-doing, of His compassion for the wronged. They reveal the feelings of His heart and the sentiments of His mind regarding sin.”

In Psalm 109

Let his days be few,
And let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless,
And his wife a widow.
10 Let his children continually be vagabonds, and beg;
Let them seek their bread[b] also from their desolate places.
11 Let the creditor seize all that he has,
And let strangers plunder his labor.
12 Let there be none to extend mercy to him,
Nor let there be any to favor his fatherless children.
13 Let his posterity be cut off,
And in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

This Psalm, throughout Church History became known as the Judas Psalm because it is quoted concerning Judas in the NT.

Professor Fred Leahy of Belfast Ireland wrote concerning Psalm 109

“… the view which limits Psalm 109 to David and one of his adversaries is altogether to short-sighted because it ignores the typical nature of David and His Kingdom and overlooks the interpretation of the imprecatory psalms in the NT, where their ultimate fulfilment is seen either in the judgment of Judas or in the apostasy of Israel (cf., Rom. 11:9-10),. In the Christian church Psalm 109 soon became known as the Psalmus Ischarioticus — the Iscariot Psalm.”

The modern contemporary Church in the West today needs to hear again Christ praying with these imprecations against those who have set themselves against the Lord and His anointed. The modern contemporary Church in the West today needs to be reminded that those with designs to cast off their chains and arise to the place of the most high will be thoroughly cast down.

And why would we insist that the Christ praying the imprecatory prayers must come forward again? First because we love the Lord Christ and desire to protect His reputation but also because we love people. We do those in rebellion to Christ no favors … we show them no love, if we do not warn them concerning the wrath of the Lamb of God. In point of fact if we refuse to speak of these realities we show our scorn and hatred of those outside of Christ. The love of Christ and love for those outside of Christ compels God’s servants to take up this hallowed theme, fully aware that we ourselves are only saved from the wrath of God because of the work of the Lord Christ to pay for our sins.

What we find here in the Psalms is what we find in the Revelation. The Christ speaking through David these imprecations is the Christ spoken of in the NT

Rev. 19:11 Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. 12 His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had[a] a name written that no one knew except Himself. 13 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean,[b] followed Him on white horses. 15 Now out of His mouth goes a sharp[c] sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

Conclusion

George Horne, who wrote a commentary on the Psalms in the 19th century wrote,

“The Primitive Fathers … are unexceptional witnesses to us of this matter of fact, that such a method of expounding the Psalms (the Method of reading them Christocentrically) built upon the practice of the Apostles in their writings and preachings, did universally prevail in the church from the beginning. They, who have ever looked to St. Augustine, know, that he pursues this plan invariably, treating of the Psalms as proceeding from the mouth of Christ, or of the Church, or of both, considered as one mystical person. The same is true of Jerome, Ambrose, Cassidore, Hilary, and Prosper … But what is very observable, Tertullian, who flourished at the beginning of the 3rd century, mentions it, as if it were then an allowed point in the church, that almost all the Psalms are spoken in the person of Christ, being addressed by the Son to the Father, that is, by Christ to God.”

Connecting Providence to Meaning

The conviction concerning God’s overweening Providence yields to His people a unified working reality. Our conviction that God rules over the seemingly random particles of motes and atoms in every sunbeam carries over into our conviction that it is God’s providence that gives meaning to all of our labor, all of our language, all of our life. Were it not for God’s Providence we would live in a time + chance + circumstance world where meaning, sexualitiy, and truth would be random and shape-shifting. The God whose Providence orders the dance of the motes and atoms in a sunbeam is the God whose Providence gives stability and meaning to all of reality. God’s Providence is the only thing that makes this post makes sense.

Apart from the conviction of divine providence fallen man must concoct a human providence to replace divine providence. When man does this then man seeks to make his providence as sweeping as God’s providence and the result is centralization, command and control, and Tyranny.

Providence then is an inescapable category. Either we will submit and play in God’s providence or we will overthrow His providence for a humanistic providence that seeks to lock God’s exhaustive control out of His world.

God’s Providence … no hope without it.

A Man With An Experience Is Never At the Mercy Of A God With A Revelation

A short examination of a minister who is trying to hard to be deep and insightful and who thinks he succeeds at it.

Preacher Conway (PC) writes,

I hope to explore how I read and understand Scripture, to wonder together what it is to pick up this book and to wrestle with it. I begin here because this continues to be one of the most challenging and dynamic facets of my faith. What does it mean to say that God is revealed by Scripture? What does it mean for me to be intellectually honest as a scholar and as a human being and yet trust that the Bible is more than just any other book?

Bret responds,

1.) Note the implied difficulty in being both a scholar, a human, and taking the Bible seriously … as if it is just such a labor to square this circle. Nevermind that it is a circle that has been squared by intellectually honest Scholars for millennium. Did Augustine, Anselm, the Cappadocians, Aquinas, Bonaventure, etc. take the Bible seriously? Were they scholars?

2.) I don’t want to over extrapolate here, but it sure seems, that right out of the gate, there is a hint of the glory in uncertainty. Look at how much angst I’m in, given all the uncertainty I have. Look how I have to wrestle the uncertainties of God’s revelation. How noble it is to be uncertain.

PC writes,

I begin here because this is a fundamental presupposition of my faith: our experience of faith and understanding of Scripture does not exist in a vacuum. Whenever we talk about God, Scripture, Jesus, etc. we stand on the shoulders of giants. Our modern understanding of faith has been molded and shaped by a conversation that has been happening in homes, churches, and the halls of academia for centuries. Our individual and collective experience of faith enters into a small part of this dialogue, a small branch of the bigger conversation about who God is, about the world He created, and about how we live, move, and have our being on this planet we call earth.

Bret responds,

1.) Note that our understanding of Scripture is totally immanent. Our understanding of Scripture is totally subjective. Our understanding of Scripture is not accounted for by any Objective or transcendent categories. There is no reference to the God breathed nature of Scripture. No mention of the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit. All there is, is human conversation.

This is not to deny the subjective dynamic of understanding Scripture. It is merely to contend that if all we have is the subjective then there is nothing objective there to understand except some kind of wax nose Bible.

2.) If all we have is the subjective then who is to say which subjective is the one true subjective? Why is Calvin right and Kierkegaard wrong? Why should we subscribe to the TFU or Westminster and not the Schleitheim confession? Why prefer the Historic Church and not the Cathars?

3.) He begins with “our experience of faith” and then insists that “our experience of faith” is conditioned only by our experience in talking about the faith with others. It is experience, and only experience all the way to the bottom. There really is no authoritative Transcendent word.

4.) Allow me to submit that the only Giant’s shoulders PC has been standing on is a German chap named Schleiermacher. He was another bloke who knew a thing or two about subjectivism.

PC writes

“I begin here because I must acknowledge something that causes fear and consternation among many Christians. Yes, as I have come to understand more about the world around me, about, say, evolutionary biology or the dominance of patriarchy, my understanding of Scripture has also undergone a transformation. Some Christians will immediately throw their hands in the air in disgust at this and immediately conclude that my faith has acquiesced to the world. The world as I perceive it has shaped my faith rather than vice versa. God is unchanging and His Word is eternal, some may say, so how can you let your faith in this unchanging God be shaped by the shifting theories of science?”

Bret responds,

1.) PC acts as if his understanding of the world around him is unmediated by faith / theological / Worldview categories. PC speaks as if his mind was tabula rasa and with his tabula rasa mind he understood reality quite apart from any beginning theological-faith presuppositions or axioms. He speaks as if he arrived at facts apart from a philosophy of fact.

2.) So, my question is, “What theology did PC employ in order to understand the world around him?” I mean, PC’s understanding was mediated by some theology. “Understanding of the world” does not come to us theology free. The reason that Aleister Crowley understood the world one way and that Cornelius Van Til understood the world in a different way is because the lens (beginning axioms) through which each looked at the world were dramatically different.

3.) As such, a Biblical Christian theology would have helped PC to conclude that “evolutionary biology” is a myth, and that “biblical patriarchy” was and is good and proper. You see, Biblical presuppositions then work to interpret one’s experience as opposed to having one’s autonomous experiences interpret Scripture. This is the heart of PC’s problem. He is allowing his own putatively autonomous experience (and not really autonomous because all experience is pre-interpreted by some theological grid) to trump the perspicuous teaching of God’s divine revelation.

Paging Dr. Schleiermacher.

4.) Interesting that PC never answers that last question in that paragraph above that he has hypothetically presented to himself.

PC writes

“No matter how we formulate our faith, regardless of the conclusions at which we arrive regarding such issues, our understanding of God and Scripture have been shaped by our experience in the world, by our upbringing, and by a host of other environmental factors. To find ourselves asking questions about Scripture because of experience in the world is not itself a bad thing. On the contrary, these questions may have the potential to bring us to a deeper and fuller understanding of God and our relationship with Him.”

Bret responds,

1.) Notice it is “we who formulate our faith,” and not “the faith that formulates us.”

2.) Notice how it is our understanding of God and Scripture which is shaped by our experience and not our experience that is shaped by God and Scripture. Notice how environment trumps God and this in spite of the fact that it is God who predestined our environment that men “would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.”

3.) Asking questions about Scripture is good as long as the answers we arrive at are formed and shaped by Scripture.

Look, it has always been a staple of the Reformed faith (PC and I are both Reformed) that God is always prior.

PC writes,

“At some point in our lives, for instance, we all must come to grips with the realization that God’s answer to our prayers does not necessarily come in the form in which we expect or want. Such experiences help us come to a more complete understanding of verses like Matthew 7:7-8: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” The point of this example is not to explore a theology of prayer; rather, my hope is to demonstrate that our experience in the world impacts the way in which we approach and articulate our faith.”

Bret responds,

Is PC concluding that God doesn’t answer prayer the way PC wants it answered? Amazing insight there. Generally, Biblical Christians take for granted that the problem is with them and not with God.

PC writes,

“The reality is this – while experience does not dictate the answers at which we arrive, our lived experience in this world often prompts our questions, and questions, it seems to me, are rarely a bad thing.

I begin here because this is perhaps one of the most unacknowledged challenges we have when it comes to reading Scripture – the Bible is a complicated, multifaceted book. Whether we like to admit it or not, the way in which we describe the central themes of the Bible have been shaped by our experience. This is not to say that experience trumps Scripture.”

1.) PC has spent the whole piece more than hinting that experience trumps Scripture and now at the very end he merely asserts that is not the case. Go figure.

2.) Given everything that PC has said up to this point how can it be that “experience does not dictate the answers at which we arrive?”

3.) I will agree that questions are not a bad thing.

In the end PC does not have Scripture. He has a Gestalt empty chair he calls “a Bible,” and a Rorschach Ink blot he calls God’s revelation.

One wonders what PC does when his experience is over and against that of his Council or one of his congregants? Who’s solipsistic experience ‘wins’ the argument?

Given this kind of “reasoning” is it any wonder that churches are just one big “encounter group”

Brief Observation on all types of Libertarianism

I’ve come to think of libertarians and R2K advocates as moral free-riders. They want to enjoy the stability, trust and cohesion that is the result of a Christian Worldview that was incarnated as legislated Christian morality and which provides them with the stability, trust, and cohesion in their social order, but without themselves being culpable for its direct upkeep.