Iron Ink

All Saint’s Sunday Sermon

³⁹And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, ⁴⁰since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. 12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ²looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Today is All Saints Sunday. Throughout much of Western History the Church celebrates this day in recognition of all our Brothers and Sisters, Fathers, and Mothers in Christ who have gone before us and who now comprise the Church at rest. We take this day to remember and commemorate the Saints, just as the writer of the book of Hebrews remembers and commemorates the Old Testament Saints in Hebrews chapter 11. The writer of Hebrews holds up these long departed as positive examples of faith and models these saints before the congregations as examples of the kind of faith that the Hebrew congregation is to have.

In terms of remembering and honoring the long dead we do the same thing in our broader culture, as we are doing here on this Lord’s Day. In our broader culture we have days like “Veteran’s Day,” and “Memorial Day,” where the purpose is to honor those who have gone before in a general sense. “All Saints Day” is to the Church of Jesus Christ what Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day is to us as Americans.

On “All Saints Day” we are reminded that we are who we are because we are in Christ and being in Christ we have been given a Christian History as lived out by those who have gone before.

This is a celebration you will seldom find in Reformed churches. The Reformation was known for getting rid of the idea of saints because the idea of saints had become a business with praying to saints, and a calendar full of holidays for saints and and the blasphemous idea that dead Saints could intercede for those still living. The Medieval Church thought they were honoring the Saints in such a way but in point of fact they were dishonoring Christ as our alone Mediator with God by lifting departed saints to such an exalted positions.

But I think the Reformed Church needs “All Saints Day.” The Bishop of Rome has no property of rights over 2000 years of Christian heritage. If the danger 500 yeas ago was to worship the Saints or to make them silly by giving us things like “A Saint for oversleeping,” (St.Vitus), or a Saint for Ice Skaters ( St. Lidwina) or a Saint for caterpillars ( St Magnus). then our danger today is forgetting our History. our story, and those who have gone before.

And So we come to the first necessity of “All Saints Day,”

I.) By Restoring “All Saints Day” to our Calendar we can reconnect with our Past

Notice what the Writer to the Hebrews does here in Hebrews 11 & 12. He invokes the Saints of the past and their faith hoping to connect the Hebrew congregation with a living and dynamic past. The Hebrew congregation is in danger of returning to the Old Covenant because they are weary and what the writer to Hebrews does is to bolster their faith by recalling the faith of the Patriarchs.

Here we see a linkage between the past and the future that much of the modern Democratic Western Church has forgotten.

When a Church cuts itself off from its past and forgets those who have gone before it becomes rootless and so prone to being blown around by every stranger wind of doctrine. The writer to the Hebrews, much in keeping with the idea of “Honoring our Father and Mother,” seeks to bring forth the History of the Hebrew congregation so as to root them again in their undoubted catholic Christian Faith.

This desire to root them in the past is done so as to propel them into a Christian future. The past and the future are thus intertwined. In the way we comprehend our past is the way we will seek to craft our future. If our past is characterized by faithful men and women who have gone before we will see that as the ideal and so will seek to live ourselves as men and women with the same kind of faith as those who have gone before. And so an embrace of our Christian past will be a mighty stimulant to creating a God honoring Christian present and future.

The idea of “All Saints Day” then is not so that we can live in the past. The idea of “All Saints Day” is that by recognizing and honoring those who have gone before who finished the race well, we might be inspired ourselves to be the kind of men and women those Saints were to the end that eventually the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.

So … “All Saints Day,” is not about the Past without, at the same time being about a future oriented people. When we get cut off from our past then we lose our identity in Christ who is the author and finisher of the Faith of all Saints — past, present, and future. When we get cut off from past then we run the danger of having our Christian faith reinterpreted for us through a historical prism that is not particularly Christian.

When the Church loses its self understanding of its past it immediately loses its vitality for the future. This is what was happening to the congregation of the Hebrews. They had lost their identity and so the writer to the Hebrew parades their History before them…. the History of the Saints.

Without a strong sense of those who have gone before and of our past we will eventually adopt a different past in our thinking and so will end up have having a different future. Those with an agenda will insert a different past that will serve their humanist agenda for the future.

This is what is happening with the advent of Multiculturalism and Political Correctness. Strip the past of its nobility. Bespatter our Christian forbears with scurrilous lies. All seeking to make us repent for a noble and Christian past.

So in order to reconnect with our glorious past we celebrate “All Saints Day.” We realize that if we don’t revitalize our Christian past and the Saints who made it (Historical theology) we will suffer grave consequences.

1.) A diminished short term future

Unless we can convey the same conquering faith that characterized the Saints who have gone before our future will be diminished. We will become pariahs fit to only pay the Jizya tax of some Muslim overlord. We will become economically limited and socially isolated.

2.) The probable loss of our children to the faith

If we can not esteem the Christian past to our children we will not be able to convey the meaning of the Christian faith as being much more then fairy tales. The Christian faith, in order to be sustained in our children must make a deep imprint in terms of how Christianity has shaped those who have gone before into Heroes. Without that reality the Christian faith will lose its substantive meaning and so other faith systems will intrude themselves upon our children’s thinking.

3.) Finally the death of the Christian West

If we will not conquer the world by a faith informed by the past and the Saints who have gone before we ourselves will be formed by alien faiths. We are seeing that happen daily all about us. Either Christianity will absorb and convert on the strength of its undoubted catholic Christian faith as lived out by the Saints who have gone before or we will be absorbed by the faith of aliens and strangers.

So what must we do in order to recapture our Christian Past. Well we must engage upon the very same thing that the writer to the Hebrews is doing. We must keep telling about the Saints who have gone before. This is something St. Paul did as well. Using the OT Saints as a negative example he wrote,

11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.

We must give our children Christian History. Full of heroism, struggle, triumph and loss. Christian history that inspires all ages with resolve, tenacity, and confidence in Christ. We must give them a history that gives them a reason to believe and keep believing that Christianity is both true and is superior to all other faiths.

We must tell them about the great Captain of the faith; the Lord Jesus Christ. We must tell them of the Saints in Scripture and History who were what they were because of their being rooted in Christ. We must tell them of the Saints in Church History. The Mission of St. Patrick and then the Green Martyrs. We must tell them of Augustine and his writings. We must tell them of Perpetua and Polycarp. We must tell them of Charles Martel, Jean LaVellette, and John Sobieski. We must teach them Geert De Groote and the Brethren of the Common life. We must teach them of Jan Comenius and his resolve to teach the Christian faith. We must teach them of Huguenots, Covenanters, Pilgrims, and Voor-Trekkers. We must teach them of Henry Martyn, Raymond Lull, and Samuel Zwemer. We must tell them of Faithful Christian wives and Mothers like Monica, Susanna Wesley, and Katharina von Bora. We must tell them of how Ambrose denied to communion to Emperor Theodosius, how Calvin denied communion to enemies of Christ, and how Gergory VII humbled Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV at Canossa. We must tell them of the saints Columbus, Cortez, and Henry Hudson.

We must tell them of Christian Grandparents and great Grandparents and cousins and Aunts and Uncles. We must let them know that theirs is a Saintly lineage and that to be a Douma, or a Bacon, or a Matens or a McAtee is to be a Christian. Because of God’s covenantal faithfulness to a thousand generations our lineage is sainted.

So, we are reminded by the celebration of this day then that to be a Christian is thus distinct from being an American. After all, those Americans who have no interest in Christ and His Church are not celebrating this day today. We as Christians have our own History and the celebration of “All Saints Day,” communicates that.

This is our Faith and unless we pass it on with all its regal history we will rightfully lose our children.

II.) By Restoring “All Saints Day” to our Calendar we can Emphasize the Communion of the Saints

When we talk about “All Saints Day,” of course we are talking about the Communion of the Saints. The holy catholic church of which we speak of in the Apostle’s creed corresponds to the church visible while the communion of saints corresponds to the church invisible. The communion of saints means that inward and spiritual fellowship of true believers on earth and in heaven which is based on their union with Christ. It is their fellowship with God the Father the Son and the Spirit (comp. 1 John 1:3 1 Cor 1:9 Phil 2:1) and with each other a fellowship not broken by death but extending to the saints above. A most precious idea

The saints in heaven and on earth
But one communion make
All join in Christ their living Head
And of his grace partake

Here are all these Saints who have gone before listed by the writer to the Hebrews and yet a relationship exists between the living and the dead even though the living comprise the Church Militant and the dead comprise the Church at rest.

In the confessional tradition of the Reformation, as expressed in the Augsburg Confession, the Book of Common Prayer, the Belgic Confession, the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, and the Cambridge Platform, the members of the church are said to have a blessed union and communion with one another and with Christ.[7] The Second Helvetic Confession says that those “who truly know and rightly worship and serve the true God, in Jesus Christ the Saviour, by the word and the Holy Spirit, and who by faith are partakers of all those good graces which are freely offered through Christ … are sanctified by the blood of the Son of God. Of these is that article of our Creed wholly to be understood, ‘I believe in the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints.’ “[8] Question 55 of the Heidelberg Catechism teaches that “the communion of saints” means “First, that believers, all and every one, as members of Christ, have part in him and in all his treasures and gifts. Secondly, that each one must feel himself bound to use his gifts, readily and cheerfully, for the advantage and welfare of other members.” Calvin recognized that the phrase expressed that the church is a community of heart and soul, a diversity of graces and gifts.[9] Although the Reformed creeds encourage us to imitate the faith of deceased saints, they never promote venerating, invoking, or praying to them.

So, to celebrate “All Saints Day” is to magnify Christ. There is only one reason we or they are or were saints and that is due to the finished work of Jesus Christ. All the Saints have been grafted into and united with Him and so we have fellowship with one another. Christ is the champion of this day. He is the one who has formed this Holy body by His work of turning aside the Father’s wrath. He has given us a reason to live besides material comfort. Being a Saint is NOT a result of being super Christian. It is merely the result of being found clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

We cherish then, the honored dead
Magnifying our Covenant Head
Ours is a living faith that gives the lie
That faith or Saints can ever die

Happy All Saints Day.

In Defense of the Family

Recently someone pointed me to this article from 2010 from an OPC Minister. I think it particularly bad and will spend some time pointing out its problems and hopefully correcting them.

http://opc.org/os.html?article_id=226

OPC Minister (Hereinafter OPC)

Families Are of this World, but the Church Is of the Next

We begin by observing that marriage is a temporary, for-this-life-only institution. Although marriage is given us by God for several reasons, its main purpose is to symbolize the relationship between Christ and his church, as the Apostle Paul teaches in Ephesians 5:25-32. This primary and exemplary purpose is more central to the institution of marriage than childbearing, which is the means by which a marriage becomes a family.

Bret

We would note in our hymnody we sing of families being reunited in the next life,

Thus to the parents and their seed
shall thy salvation come
and numerous households will meet at last
in one eternal home

But beyond hymnody the speaks of the coming day when the circle of family will be unbroken Scripture gives us reason to think that families exist beyond this life. In the book of Revelation there is the repeated mention of Nations present in the new Jerusalem. Now, as Nations are constituted in the Scriptures as a people with a shared lineage (Genesis), a shared history (Exodus), having a common law (Deuteronomy) sharing a common land (Joshua) and having kin leadership (Judges) it seems obvious that when the book of Revelation speaks of Nations in the New Jerusalem that families, like the Church, are of the next world.

Revelation 22:1 Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Revelation 21:23And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it…. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.

Rev. Kingsbury seems to think that the new Heaven and Earth is an existence that is largely discontinuous with this life. It is better to think that what is to be expected of the new Heaven and Earth is a transfiguration of this life with all the expected continuities and discontinuities. The result of the consummation then is not abolition of this world but rather redemption of it including the redemption of a family structure that exists in the next world.

Second, on this point, though the Ephesians 5 passage does teach that Christian Marriage is analogous of Christ and the Church, Ephesians 5 nowhere explicitly teaches that this analogy is the main purpose of Marriage. Now certainly, the primary purpose of Marriage, like the primary purpose of all things that we as Christians do is to glorify God but to say that the main purpose of Marriage is to symbolize the relationship between Christ and his church goes beyond what Ephesians 5 teaches.

OPC

What do the Scriptures say?

Interestingly, no text in Scripture teaches that bearing children is a universal purpose of marriage, that is, something which should characterize every marriage. While Psalms 127 and 128, among other passages, say children are a blessing, they do not say every marriage ought to produce children.

Bret

So, what is being advanced here is that Scripture does teach that children are a blessing from God but that some marriages do not need or want to be blessed by God?

OPC

Genesis 1:28 records the “dominion mandate” given to the first married couple: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Some assume, therefore, that married couples ought be about the business of filling the earth with more people. However, God gave Adam and Eve this commandment not because they were a married couple, but because they were the married couple—that is, all mankind. Hence, the dominion mandate is given to all humanity and is to be carried out by humanity as a whole, but not necessarily by every human being. To put it another way, if Genesis 1:28 means every marriage ought to produce children, then every marriage ought also to be dedicated to agricultural productivity.

Bret

1.) Where in the text of Genesis does Rev. Kingsbury find that the reason for God’s command to be fruitful and multiply was “because they were the married couple—that is, all mankind”? Of course, that is eisegetical work on th part of Rev. Kingsbury.

2.) How is the dominion mandate given to all humanity, and to be carried out by all humanity as a whole without individual humans carrying out the dominion mandate?

3.) Genesis 1:28 does not say to Adam and Eve to be farmers, though Adam likely was a tiller of the ground. Genesis 1:28 teaches a cultural mandate that requires that all men, as God’s sub-regent, to have dominion over creation. That command to be God’s sub-regent unto godly dominion remains, just as the command remains that all men be fruitful and multiply.

OPC

Marriage’s symbolic function will be moot in glory when we have perfect union with Christ, and so it will pass away: “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage” (Matt. 22:30). If marriages pass away, then so do families. The family, in its nuclear form, grows out of and depends on a marriage for its existence; therefore, whatever is true of the greater (marriage) is true of the lesser (family).

Even in this life, families are temporary. They are regularly broken up and reorganized as children marry and form their own families. In fact, whenever children grow up and go out into the world, their parent’s authority ends. For practical purposes, this also effectively dissolves the family. Of course, I do not deny the enduring nature of kinship ties which persist as family members go their own ways, or even when a divorce occurs. When I speak of family dissolution here, I am using the word “family” in its most narrow, technical sense, i.e., the nuclear family.

Bret

1.) The fact that in the resurrection that “they neither marry, nor are given in marriage,” does not mean or prove that family disappears in the eschaton. If indeed future marriage passes away that does not mean that past family realities disappear. Given Kingsbury’s reasoning we might also say that since they neither marry nor are given in marriage therefore gender passes away in the eschaton. If marriage passes away, then so does gender. Gender is necessary for marriage and marriage depends on gender therefore since there will no marriage in the eschaton therefore there is to be no gender. Whatever is true of the greater (marriage) is true of the lesser (gender).

Rev. Kingsbury’s reasoning is curious.

2.) A family that extends into new family units does not mean the end of families, per Rev. Kingsbury, but rather their continuance. One problem is that Rev. Kingsbury thinks in terms of “nuclear family,” while the Scripture speaks of families in their Trustee capacity. Family is not defined, per Scripture, as the Nuclear unit, but rather more in terms of what we might refer to as clans. So, Christian families are not broken up with the advent of the marriage of children and the arrival of grandchildren but instead are strengthened and extended.

OPC

Families are like the rest of this world: impermanent and continually passing away. Therefore, families have a diminished importance within a Christian taxonomy of values, especially when compared to the church. While the church is eternal and will not find her perfect expression until glory, she has begun and lives out that life already, in the here and now. The church manifests the eternal and heavenly in the middle of a temporary and earthly world. Because she is eternal, the church is more important than the temporary family.

Bret

We established earlier that Christian families are not impermanent but pass into the eschaton therefore the fallacy of this argument is obvious.

The argument that the Church is more important than the family is like arguing that the left leg is more important than the right leg when it comes to walking. It is a non sequitur argument. The fact that the Church and the family are bound up together in importance is seen in the Baptismal font. God claims our familial generations as His own and in Baptism ratifies His claim upon His and our seed. Baptism speaks of God’s faithfulness to His promise to the generations.

To argue that the Church is more important than family is like arguing that pregnancy is more important than sex. Pregnancy may well be more important than sex but without sex no ones getting pregnant.

Secondly, while I understand that “Word and Sacrament” belong uniquely to the Church I’m not sure why the Church alone is able to manifest the eternal and heavenly in the middle of a temporary and earthly world. The permanence of matters eternal can incarnate themselves in family worship and in Christian families.

OPC Minister

Because the eternal church has precedence over the earthly and temporary family, Jesus demands loyalty to himself first and last. In a decision between Jesus and his church versus the family, Jesus wins. This is simple when parents are unbelievers and guilty of obvious sin, but less obvious when one has Christian parents who attempt to usurp the church’s authority.

Bret

Of course the Lord Christ is the priority above all priorities. Who could ever disagree with that? However, lest we fall into some kind of ecclesiocentrism I would be careful about perfectly equating the Lord Christ and the Church as if the voice of the Church is always the voice of the Lord Christ. While it is true “that in a decision between Jesus and his church versus the (errant) family, Jesus wins,” it is also true that in a decision between the Lord Christ and an errant Church demanding departure from a faithful family, the family standing with the Lord Christ wins.

Rev. Kingsbury misses the close interdependence of Church and Family. For examples Elders are not qualified to serve in the Church without managing his family well. This provides insight into the interdependence of Institutional Church and family. Elders are to be husbands of one wife thus again drawing linkage between leadership in home and church.

In a time when the family is being viciously attacked from all sides it really does us little good for representatives of the Church to be “reasoning” like this. Now, certainly, it is possible to lift the family above the Church so that it is wrongly prioritized but the answer to that is not to tear down the family but to show that the Church has its proper place in God’s economy.

Reformation Day 2015 — The Priesthood of All Believers

I Timothy 2:1 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;²For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. ³For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; ⁴Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. ⁵For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

1 Peter 2:9 — But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

In the first Passage we learn that Christ alone is our Mediator … our high Priest, between God and men. From that we conclude that no other Mediators or Priests are needed when in comes to the matter of who we confess our sin to and when it comes to the matter of who alone can deal with sin. The Protestant answer has always been Christ alone. This is why the language changed in the Reformation. Protestant clergy were never called “Priests,” but instead took up the title of Minister, or Pastor, or Shepherd.

In the second passage we learn that we ourselves, as members of the body of Christ, are priests under Christ’s Priesthood. This is to say that all that we do we do as God’s representatives.

Together these two ideas form the idea of the Reformation doctrine of “Priesthood of all Believers.”

I.) The Priesthood of All Believers and Salvation

As it comes to the first idea that Jesus Christ is our alone Great High Priest … our alone Mediator between God and Man we note that men are forever trying to outsource the role of priest to other people. For example, Anthropologists tell us that man, in man made religions and in his attempt to avoid God, is forever trying to outsource his religious obligations to other people. Man has no desire to face God in Christ and so he creates religious hierarchies to deal with the supernatural realm so he doesn’t have to. And so you have the medicine man, or the witch doctor, or the Shaman, or the Priest. All are designated to take care of the supernatural realm so everyone else does not have to bother with it.

So, men in creating man made religions want other Priests and religious hierarchies. It relieves them of having to come face to face with God. But in Biblical Christianity man does not have this option. Man can not outsource his responsibility before Sovereign God. All men must realize that their is only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

By the way … in our own cultures, outside the Church, modern man does much the same thing here. Modern man, though not Christian, still outsources his religious responsibilities. But Modern man has made the Shrink his equivalent of the Shaman, Priest, Witch Doctor, or Medicine man. When Modern man has something wrong with him he can’t figure out he doesn’t go to a Christian Priest but he does go to a pagan Medicine Man — The Shrink — in order to find a cure by way of preforming confession.

In the Christian religion you may go to a Minister but a good Minister will take you to the Word of the Great High Priest as found in Scripture. A good Minister will remind you that you can’t pay for your own sins. A good minister will not require you to say “10 Hail Mary’s” or 10 “Our Fathers,” but instead will tell you that Christ is our alone High Priest and will tell you that you must confess your sins to Him and then realize that forgiveness is found in Christ alone.

Christ, in His death and resurrection eliminated the need for other mediators and Priests. He eliminated the need for us to work off our sin since He Himself worked off our sin by His perfect life and His propitiatory death in our stead.

In the Reformation the emphasis was placed on the once for allness finished work of Jesus Christ. There is no continuing need for other mediators to provide forgiveness. No need to go to Priests to confess our sins as if sins could not be forgiven without those priests. No need for the ongoing mediatorial work of Priests in their preforming the Mass. All this was cleared off the Table again with the Reformation. Christ is our once for all forgiveness and so their is no continuing need for this Priestly function. In point of fact given the Mediatorial work of Christ any ongoing work of official mediators that somehow function to remove sin today is indeed blasphemy against God’s finished provision in Christ. This explains, in part, why there remains such a divide yet today between Rome and Reformation.

II.) The Priesthood of All Believers and Vocation

In the medieval Church, the sacrament of Holy Orders was one of seven of Rome’s Holy Sacraments. This sacrament was reserved for those who were the super Christians … for the Clergy, (Monks and Priests) of the Roman Catholic Church. These were those employed in “full time Christian work,” as if all other work done other than priest or Monk was secondary or not really Christian work.

In the Medieval Church Christians were divided into “religious” and “secular” callings. In this context Luther noted that “Whoever looked at a Monk fairly drooled in devotion and had to be ashamed of his secular station in life.”

This kind of thinking continues on today. I saw it just last week in the Nursing Home I was visiting. I engaged a conversation with another visitor there. She had a son who was a missionary. She told me that she knew when her son was young that God had a special call on her son for the ministry. That her son was never going to go into anything but the “Lord’s work.” As if the doing of anything but a missionary or a minister, , in terms of a career, was automatically something other than “the Lord’s work.”

Against this mindset, and against the “Sacrament of Holy Orders” the Reformers gave us “the priesthood of all believers.” This Reformed doctrine sought to eliminate the idea of first class and second class Christians based upon their career callings. This doctrine insisted that all vocations before God are Holy. Luther said,

“The prince should think: Christ has served me and made everything to follow him; therefore, I should also serve my neighbor, protect him and everything that belongs to him. That is why God has given me this office, and I have it that I might serve him. That would be a good prince and ruler. When a prince sees his neighbor oppressed, he should think: That concerns me! I must protect and shield my neighbor….The same is true for shoemaker, tailor, scribe, or reader. If he is a Christian tailor, he will say: I make these clothes because God has bidden me do so, so that I can earn a living, so that I can help and serve my neighbor. When a Christian does not serve the other, God is not present; that is not Christian living…”

You see in the Reformation mindset all redounds to God’s glory as all is done to serve God in serving others. The Priest, while important to God, is not singularly important to God as if the Priest’s work was Holy and all other Christian’s work was secondary and comparatively unimportant.

Again, according to a quote commonly attributed to Luther though unverifiable captures the essence of this doctrine,

The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays—not because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps but because God loves clean floors. The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.

The 16th century Reformation of the church released the laity from the oppression of Rome’s sacerdotalism and sacramentalism. Direct access to God through faith in Christ and through their own reading of Scripture became a reality for many who were able to realize their responsibility before God to live as a holy priesthood, offering the sacrifices of lives devoted in service to Christ and humanity.

With this Biblical doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers all of life was leavened with the leaven of Christianity. No longer was it simply the case that one could speak only of “Christian sermons” or “Christian Art,” or “Christian Church order,” now one could speak of being a Christian Prince or a Christian Soldier or a Christian Printer. With the doctrine of the Priesthood of all Believers all vocations in life could be lived and handled as Christians … all vocations could be reinterpreted through a Biblical grid and plied in order to advance God’s Kingdom on earth.

With this Biblical doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers, believers were forced to ask, “how is it that I may handle my vocation in such a way that is pleasing to God.” In the field of Music for example, Bach desired to represent the Reformation in both the music he wrote for the Church and the music he wrote for that which would be preformed outside the Church. Bach would sign all of his compositions, “Sola dei Gloria” — the Reformation slogan — “To the glory of God.” As a Christian Musician Bach sought to get the music of the heavenly spheres into all his music. All his music would be Christian … not because it had Jesus notes in it but because it was objectively beautiful.

With this Biblical doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers Christian princes could rule as foster Fathers for the Christian faith and Christian Queens could rule as Nursing mothers to the Christian faith. They could bring their Christianity into the civil sphere because they could rule according to God’s standard of Justice.

The doctrine of the Priesthood of all Believers allowed all of life to sizzle with vocation as done before the presence of God and for God’s glory and as pursued for the benefit of all of God’s people.

Another impact of this doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers was that the natural found its proper place alongside the supernatural. In the Medieval world the supernatural was everything and the natural was nothing. This was seen in the sacraments. The sacraments were everything because they partook of the “supernatural.” Bread into the Body of Christ. Wine into the blood of Christ. This was seen in the order of Monks and Priests — those who were serving the supernatural realm. Everyone else in the natural realm …. not so much.

The supernatural was in the ascendancy and the natural was considered unimportant. This was also seen in Medieval art. Medieval artists, when they desired to show light in this paintings, had light emanating from a supernatural source…. perhaps from a beaming heavenly ray coming down from heaven or from one of the Halo’s over one of the saints or over one of the Holy family members in the painting. However, with the Reformation, the Natural realm was given its place alongside the supernatural realm. The sacraments were stripped of their magical quality. Paintings were now done where light was drawn from natural sources such as sun or moon. These are subtle shifts that testified to an epoch worldview shift.

The Reformation understood that heaven is the ultimate hope of the Christian but it restored to its proper place the importance of this world … a world we testify to in song as “This is my Father’s World.” If not for the Reformation and the doctrine of the “Priesthood of all believers” we would still be divide all vocation up into “Full Time Christian Ministry,” and “Everything else we poor schleps do.” If not for the Reformation and the doctrine of “The Priesthood of all Believers,” we would still think that if something were really important it would have to be directly connected to the Institutional Church in some way. If not for the Reformation and the doctrine of the “The Priesthood of all Believers,” we would still be subject to Priest-craft and convinced that our salvation was dependent upon human Priest who intercede for us instead of dependent upon Christ alone who is our alone Priest and whose intercession alone can provide relief to confessing sinners.

A Short Treatise on the Biblical & Historical Foundation For Self-Defense

This morning we turn our attention to an issue that likely won’t be touched upon in one in 10,000 pulpits across the Nation this morning. We are going to spend just a few minutes, in light of the events of the last week, speaking about the Scriptural and Historical background of the obligation of self defense and the right to keep and bear arms.

We might find such a subject odd but there was a time when such an examination from the pulpit on such a subject was routine. That this is true is testified to by Will Durant, author of several volumes of World History. Will and his wife Ariel were no friends of Christianity and yet they could write,

“In Protestantism the preachers became journals of news and opinion; they told their congregation the events of the week or day; and religion was then so interwoven with life that nearly every occurrence touched the faith or its ministers. They denounced the vices and errors of their parishioners, and instructed the government as to its duties and faults.”

-Will Durant,
The Reformation

And we take up the duties and faults of the Government in its desire to dilute the Christian duty and obligation of individual self defense.

When we turn to Scripture we find in,

Exodus 22:2-3 –“If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed. If the sun has risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed. He should make full restitution; if he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.”

This idea of self defense … defense of family, hearth, and home compels us to ask, along with Rev. Samuel West, in a sermon from 1776 if we really believe “that people please God while they sit still and quietly behold their friends and brethren killed by their unmerciful enemies without endeavoring to defend or rescue them.” West asked if the sin of murder, as committed by the pacifist by way of the sin of omission in not pursuing self defense, is any nobler than a sin of commission that finds someone involved in the butcher of unjust wars. West insisted that both sins were “great violations of the law of God.”

Certainly Exodus 22:2-3 compels us to conclude that a threat to our life is to responded to with appropriate force. To not respond in such a way would find us guilty to self murder or murder of the judicially innocent who were under assault.

Further the idea of self defense, as found in Exodus 22:3, when combined with the New Testament teaching from Timothy which teaches that a man who neglects to provide for his family has implicitly denied the faith and is worse than an infidel forces to ask, along with Colonial minister Simeon Howard,

“in what way can a man be more justly chargeable with this neglect, than by suffering himself to be deprived of his life, liberty or property, when he might lawfully have preserved them?”

Defense of self and family is the duty of the Christian man and if the Christian man is stripped of this God ordained duty by the State’s attempt to repudiate the Second Amendment than that Christian man is disobeying God by neglecting to provide for his family. We must obey God rather than man.

When we consider Exodus 22:3 further it is clear that self defense looks differently in different situations. Not every situation requires full lethal force. We are to be defenders of our selves and what God has given us headship over and not those who act on vengeance or without mercy. In this passage after “the sun has risen” seems to refer to a different judgment than the one permitted at night. At night there is more confusion and more uncertainty about what is going on. There seems, thus, to be more latitude given to the necessity of self defense. During the day time matters are clearer and a higher standards for lethal self defense obtains.

In Proverbs 25:26, we read: “A righteous man who falters before the wicked is like a murky spring and a polluted well.” Should we allow our God given — and therefore non retractable by any government — right to keep and bear arms to be seized from us we are the example of the righteous man who falters before the wicked being like a murky spring and a polluted well.

Certainly it is simple to see why the righteous man who falters before the wicked is so described. It can hardly be considered the essence of civilization for good people to falter before the wicked. No one really believes that it is virtuous to allow the schoolyard bully to have his way. To believe that that righteous should falter before the wicked is to believe in Nietzsche’s little shop of horrors where the ubermensch might makes right.

That this Biblical view as barely highlighted as been the track record of Western Christian civilization can be seen by a quick glimpse of our history.

In the three preceding articles we have taken a short view of the principal absolute rights which appertain to every Englishman. But in vain would these rights be declared, ascertained, and protected by the dead letter of the laws, if the constitution had provided no other method to secure their actual enjoyment. It has therefore established certain other auxiliary subordinate rights of the subject, which serve principally as barriers to protect and maintain inviolate the three great and primary rights, of personal security, personal liberty, and private property….

5. The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute 1 W. & M. st. 2. c. 2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.

Wm. Blackstone
English Jurist

J.L. De Lolme, an eighteenth century author much read at the time of the American Revolution[3] pointed out:(p.286)

But all those privileges of the People, considered in themselves, are but feeble defences against the real strength of those who govern. All those provisions, all those reciprocal Rights, necessarily suppose that things remain in their legal and settled course: what would then be the recourse of the People, if ever the Prince, suddenly freeing himself from all restraint, and throwing himself as it were out of the Constitution, should no longer respect either the person, or the property of the subject, and either should make no account of his conversation with the Parliament, or attempt to force it implicitly to submit to his will?–It would be resistance … the question has been decided in favour of this doctrine by the Laws of England, and that resistance is looked upon by them as the ultimate and lawful resource against the violences of Power.

To nineteenth century exponents of limited government, the checks and balances that preserved individual liberty were ultimately guaranteed by the right of the people to be armed. Without an armed citizenry Republican mixed Government, with its complex and interlocking checks and balances could not be successful apart from a legitimate means of resistance. The preeminent Whig historian, Thomas Macaulay, labelled this right to keep and bear arms “the security without which every other (security) is insufficient,”

In the Republican system, with its equal parts Monarchy, aristocracy, and Democracy, as envisioned by our Christian forefathers it was the Sate that had to convince an armed and sovereign citizenry that its ideas were not oppressive. In the system we have now it is the subject citizens that has to convince the Sovereign State that they should be allowed to have their weapons.

It is true that when you look at Western Civilization you can find epoch where gun control was advanced. In 1920 in England for example, in the context of being un-nerved by the Bolshevik threat Parliament debated a bill that sought to restrict arms from the citizenry. In that debate a member of the Commons … one Colonel Kenworthy, stood up and objected to the bill before the House. Colonel Kenworthy pointed out that historically the right to keep and bear arms had been necessary to maintain other existent political rights that the people enjoyed precisely because keeping arms allowed the citizenry to resist an out of control state. A Major Witherington objected to Kenworthy stating that it was just that kind of distrust of the state by just those kinds of people that demanded the Bill be passed.

Conclusion,

How do we turn this all then to the essence of our Christian faith? The essence of our Christian faith is Liberty from sin. This idea of being set free by the finished work of Christ for sinners such as us from the bondage and tyranny of sin in order to be free to serve Christ ended up being translated into every area of life. If a man was free from the bondage and tyranny of sin then that same man was to be free from all other tyrannies and bondage. This included political liberty. The Biblical Christian realizes that the implication of being free from the tyranny and bondage of the Devil means likewise being free of the tyranny and bondage of Usurpers who would work to put a people into the bondage of a law system and Lordship that was contrary to Christ’s Lordship and Law…. a Lordship and Law that is the essence of Liberty.

Those who have been freed from the devil are not inclined to come under the bondage of the Devil’s political henchman.

There have been those throughout history who have understood this point that I’m seeking to establish. Protestant Christians, being spiritually set free, were not going to come into other unbiblical bondage.

Historian John Patrick Diggins writes that American historians have concentrated on political ideas while underplaying “the religious convictions that often undergird them, especially the Calvinist convictions that Locke himself held: resistance to tyranny….”

One simply can’t understand the insistence by traditional Reformed folk on the issue of the right to self defense without understanding how their macro theology is connected to and drives that visceral desire against being subjugated. Having been loosed from the Devil by the finished work of Christ from their sin they will not become chained to or by anti-Christ magistrates.

Edmund Burke is another chap who could connect the dots between the Macro theology of the Protestant Faith and the micro refusal to be subjugated.

In 1775, the Burke tried to warn the British Parliament that the Americans could not be subjugated:

“the people are Protestants, and of that kind which is the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion.” While the Catholic and Anglican Churches were supported by the government, and were inclined to support the state, the American sects were based on “dissenting interests.” They had “sprung up in direct opposition to the ordinary powers of the world, and could justify that opposition only on a strong claim of natural liberty. Their very existence depended on the powerful and unremitted assertion of that claim. All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement of the principle of resistance: it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion.” 4

The fact that these quote may sound so foreign to our hears is because we have been so denuded of the convictions of our Reformed and Calvinist forefathers…. we have been stripped of their Biblical Christianity. We no longer have the ability to move from the Macro of being set free from our sins to the micro resolve that we will not be put into subjection of those political Masters who serve the ends of the one we have been set free from. We can no longer see that if one believes where the Spirit of the Lord is there is spiritual Liberty therefore it must also be the case where that Spiritual liberty works itself out in corporeal space and time reality.

Mark 9:33-48

Markan Sandwich

Story 1 (Mark 9:33-37) — Argument over who is the greatest results in Jesus’ declaration that greatness will be defined by who is last and servant of all, represented in a small child.

Story 2 (Mark 9:38-41) — The disciples are uptight over an unknown exorcist wielding the power of the kingdom.

Story 1 continued (Mark 9:42-50) — Warnings about those who put a stumbling block before any little one who would believe in Jesus.

Mark sandwiches (intercalates) these accounts so that the reader understands them and interprets them together.

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I.) The Disciples Issue

Mark 9:38 — “Does not follow us” — hearkens back to the issue of status or greatness (33). It was not that the man in question was not a follower of Jesus, but rather it was a matter of not having the proper credentials. It appears here the concern of the Disciples here is a concern about their position and status. The chap in question who was casting out Demons wasn’t licensed or ordained by the official disciple club. The Lord Christ teaches here that the support and fellowship of all who champion His cause and name should not be censured.

There seems to be a motif here that is captured by the proverb, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Taken together with the issue of “who would be the greatest” in vs. 34f as combined with the issue of position and status of sitting at the Lord’s right hand as given in Mark 10:35-45, vs. 38 reminds us again how important honor was in that society and culture. The Lord Christ does not overturn the notion of honor or hierarchy but He does alter its trajectory so that position and status is connected with serving as opposed to being served. We know the Lord Christ maintained positions of honor and hierarchy just by virtue of the fact that He chose 12 to be His disciples from among many candidates, and then of those 12 He chose 3 (Peter, James, and John) as an inner circle. Honor and hierarchy are thus maintained. However something is changed in this issue of honor and hierarchy. What is changed is the purpose of leadership, and hierarchy.

The Lord Christ does not eliminate position or hierarchy of leadership. He is not a leveler who erases all distinctions between leaders and rank and file but what He does do is He teaches and models in such a way that it is made clear that any position of leadership is understood as a position of leadership to the end of serving. The Lord Christ, Scripture teaches, came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. Those who lead really do lead but they understand that leadership does not mean everyone serves them but rather that the Leader servers everybody in his leadership.

This is made clear when the Lord Christ says,

“If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” (Mark 9:35)

This is made clear when Jesus takes the towel in John 13 to wash the Disciples feet.

This is made clear in Luke 22 when Jesus says to the disciples, who are again arguing over greatness,

“The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors.²⁶But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. ²⁷For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.

The Church in the West, what little remains of it, desperately needs to hear again this word regarding status mongers and ladder climbers. Is the goal of leadership in the Church of the West to be fawned over and adulated? Are we looking for status via our positions? Are we seeking to parlay our leadership positions to the position of being famous for being famous? The Lord Christ offers a leadership example that demonstrates leadership by being concerned for the flock and its needs. It is the leadership of the towel, the table-waiter, and the sheep dog.

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II.) The Counsel of Christ

^{Mark 9:40}For the one who is not against us is for us.

^{Matthew 12:30}Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

Note the repeated insistence we find in Scripture that there is no neutrality. There is no tertium quid where one can have a foot in both the enemy’s camp and in the camp of God’s company. Christ speaks in black and white with no gray area. If you are not against Him you are for Him. If you are not with Him you are against Him. If you do not gather in His cause you scatter against His cause. No neutrality. In theological jargon this is the “Reformed Antithesis.”

Perhaps the best 20th century example of pushing the Reformed Antithesis was J. Gresham Machen.

Machen’s fundamental insight was that the Reformed Antithesis applied to “Christianities” that were Christian in name only. Machen insisted that Orthodox Christianity and Liberal “Christianity” were not two slightly different Christian theological positions such as Calvinism vs. Lutheranism but rather were two radically opposed systems of thought and religions that each competed over the possession of the Christian nomenclature, words, concepts and phrases. They each talked about God, Jesus, the Spirit, sin, salvation, the cross, but they each poured such different linguistic content into those words though remaining the same words in the hearing they were different words as to the meaning. Because of these vast differences of meaning and definition then, Machen concluded that Theological Liberalism was not Christian at all but was fundamentally opposed to Christianity as it comes to us defined in Scripture and history. Machen concluded that Theological Liberalism was against Biblical Christianity and not for Christ.

So, the thrust here seems to be the necessity to discern our enemies from our friends. Those who are genuinely advancing Christ’s cause, though they may not be of our club or tribe are to be supported, while on the other hand we are to reject those who are wolves in sheep’s clothing … those who use all the right jargon but who are using it with the intent to deceive.

So, on one hand we admit that there are Lutherans, and Reformed Baptists, and others we can come along and support and wish well but on the other hand there are those who may have an exalted status so that speak to Kings and Potentates in the name of a Christ who we are unfamiliar with because we are unfamiliar with their Christ. This business of knowing who is against us and who is for us is not always as easy as it might seem.
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III.) The Promise of Christ

vs. 40 — Note that service to the Lord Christ that indicates that one is on the Lord’s side come in all shapes and sizes. It can be the widow’s mite or it can be a cup of water generously given. Our service rendered to the Lord Christ and His people does not need to be splashy and ostentatious. Here the Scripture teaches that God notices what we might think are the most insignificant things. A cup of water to relieve thirst will not lose its reward.

God is debtor to no man. Service rendered to Him will be remembered. That is the kind of generous King that we serve. His generosity extends to the point of being generous in providentially providing opportunities wherein we can be of service.
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IV.) The Warnings of Christ Against Stumbling

vs. 42 –“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,^[g] it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

Commentators note that there are several catchwords repeated frequently throughout these verses, such as “name,” “scandal,” “fire,” and “salt.” In particular, the Greek word skandalon is used in each verse from 42 to verse 47. A skandalon is an obstacle that people trip over, and is usually translated “stumbling block” due to the decidedly moralistic tone the word “scandal” has taken in modern times. Jesus could not be more clear: he is talking about the danger that his own followers can do, and he uses the dire image of drowning to get his point across. Better to drown (be thrown into the sea with a millstone around one’s neck) than do harm to “these little ones.”

It is an open question as to whom the “little ones” are that the Lord Christ refers to. The “Little ones” can refer either to the little child mentioned in vs. 36 or to those of seemingly lesser importance mentioned in vs. 39. Or it could be purposely nebulous so as to refer to both. Whoever the little ones are the point is that being the instrument by which someone struggles and stumbles in their faith who is young or tender in the faith is a costly proposition.

If we take the context seriously we would have to conclude that the Lord Christ is pointing this warning at the Leadership. Jesus lays bare the minefield of leadership in the church, and speaks of real dangers within Christian community particularly between more mature disciples and “the little ones.” The followers who are closest to Jesus in these verses, ie, the disciples, carry a huge responsibility as a result of their intimacy with Christ. Others look to them, follow their examples, are susceptible to their claims and practices, are perhaps especially vulnerable to their critiques and conflicts. Carelessness in discipleship can do irreparable damage to those most vulnerable within the body of Christ.

Elders in Christ’s Church can do both great good and great harm.

As a Elder in God’s Church when you teach wrongly or engage in unseemly behavior you risk not only yourself but you risk the faith of others.

Illustration — In High School I knew of a popular area Youth Pastor who had a dalliance with someone in his congregation and the result was a good deal of stumbling. More recent examples could be easily adduced.

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Next the Lord Christ turns from warning against causing others to stumble to warning against those things which cause individuals to stumble. The language that the Lord Christ uses is hyperbole and is intended to make a point about doing all it takes to avoid sin and enter into life.

The point here is to not actually cut off limbs because of course it is never hands, feet, or eyes that “CAUSE” us to sin. The cause is our fallen natures. Hypothetical people who cut off appendages would not solve their sin problem by cutting off the appendages. Our human body parts are only the vehicle through which our fallen-ness is expressed. The point here is to take sin seriously and to wage war with sin.

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IV.) The Consequences for Unchecked Sin

The reality of Hell

The New Testament speaks openly and repeatedly regarding the reality of Hell. It is,

The final abode of those condemned to eternal punishment (Mt. 25:41-46, Rev. 20:11-15)
Described as a place of fire and darkness (Jude 7, 13)
Described as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt. 8:12, 13:42, 50, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30)
Described as a place of destruction (II Thes. 1:7-9, II Peter 3:7, I Thes. 5:3)
Described as a place of torment (Rev. 20:10, Luke 16:23)

Of course Hell is one of those doctrines that have fallen on hard times. Universalists deny hell.

What I want to do now is just give a few observations surrounding the denial of Hell.

1.) The denial of the eternality of Hell is all the more dangerous because on the surface it seems so benign. This denial is not like the denial of the Resurrection or the Virgin Birth. No one doubts that someone who denies Hell can be in Union with Christ. (Though I would insist that such a view leaves them open to the charge of having low views of Scripture.) I do insist though that people who are Annhilationists aren’t looking under the hood of that denial to see the implications of what they are denying.

2.) The denial of the eternality of Hell is another example of putative Christians or unlearned Christians or immature Christians attempting to make God out to be nicer than He makes Himself out to be. It is an attempt to save God from being God. It is sentimentality trying to rescue the alleged mean glowering character of God. It is another example of do gooders, who by doing their good, end up making Christianity crueler then any Devil could. This denial of the eternality of Hell is taken up by those who, at the very least think, “My God would never be that mean.” It is the argument which attempts to make God “reasonable.”

3.) Annihilationism, does not seem to comprehend that by altering the anchor example of God’s eternal justice (The condemnation to Eternal punishment for those who rebelled against God and His Christ) that the effect is a relativizing of temporal justice and punishment. If the anchor of justice is set loose and diminished in the Cosmic Divine realm the effect is to set adrift any ideas of absolute justice in the temporal realm. If God’s justice is altered in terms of Hell and / or its duration then justice is the realm of man can be relativized and altered as well.

4.) Those who insist upon the conditionality of Hell or deny the eternality of Hell are those who will, in themselves or in their generations, become those who rebel against the whole concept of fixed Justice. When we deny the proper required Justice applied (eternal Hell) against those who commit crimes against God’s character and who do not find forgiveness in Christ, we will, over the course of time, deny the proper required justice against those who commit other lesser crimes. If the required proper punishment is denied, in our thinking, against those who commit the greatest of all crimes (unrepentant rebellion against the Character of God) then the consequence of that will eventually be the denial of justice implemented against all other lesser crimes.

Getting rid of the eternal character of Hell guarantees the eventual arise of Hell on earth.

5.) The Holiness of God is infinite and as such rebellion against God’s Holiness requires eternal punishment for those who do not close with Christ. The denial of the eternality of Hell is a denial of the august and majestic character of God. Low views of Hell insure, and in turn cause, low views of God.Envision my point this way. If one was to change the penalty for murder from the death penalty to a $100.00 fine the obvious impact would be to cheapen the value of a life. Just so when we argue that Hell is not eternal punishment but only ceasing to exist we cheapen the value of God’s Majesty, Holiness and Transcendence.

The doctrine of Hell is a case where the punishment fits the crime. Any lesser punishment would suggest a lesser crime. The suggestion of a lesser crime would suggest that an offense against the person of God is somehow an offense that shouldn’t have the fullest possible consequences. The eternality of Hell corresponds to the Majesty of God and His Law.

6.) Another way to frame this is to note how a threat on a President’s life brings greater punishment then that same threat levied against a homeless drunk. There is a greater punishment because the President is a greater person. The same principle applies here. When we offer up lesser penalties we communicate that God is more like the homeless drunk then He is like the President.