Thanks to Stand Firm for posting this response by the Church of England Evangelical Council to the TEC.
I think we make the issue of sexual sin so much more complicated than it really is. The only unity in the church will be based on repentance and not affirmation of sin. The British Evangelicals say it so well:
"Jesus Christ unites people from different races, cultures, economic groups, genders and sexual inclinations into a true inclusivity based on repentance, faith and the gift of the Spirit. This is the true diversity of the transforming gospel. In effect TEC′s approach to inclusiveness excludes the majority of Anglicans from other provinces who are faithful to Biblical teaching. We affirm as the will of God the biblical teaching that we are called either to heterosexual marriage or celibacy." [emphasis mine]
Showing posts with label Holiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holiness. Show all posts
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Friday, October 5, 2007
If that's true, then Christianity is False, or A Popular Lie in the Lukewarm Church
As I've read debates on certain blogs and as I've talked with many professing Christians, I've come to see that one of the chief lies promoted by many in the church today is that because no one is perfect, there can be no expectation of freedom from sin in this life and that there should be no standard of holy living when it comes to selection of church leadership.
I actually debated once with a liberal pastor whom I worked under and she used this argument to justify acceptance of practicing homosexuals in church leadership. She said that since she was divorced and remarried, she was technically living in adultery according to Christ's words, so how could she judge a homosexual? I was, of course, unimpressed by her argument but I didn't have the courage right there to say, "well maybe you shouldn't be a pastor." Ultimately her argument was that because certain things described as sin have become acceptable to many in the church, that we had no right to choose other sins which would bar one from positions of leadership in the church.
If freedom from sin does not come with conversion to Christ than I say that Christianity is proved to be a false religion. Jesus said, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.(Matt. 5:48)" Is Jesus calling us to something that is not possible? And what does Jesus mean by perfection? In the context of this call to perfection we see the Sermon on the Mount, we see teaching on anger and reconciliation with brothers, sexual morality, marriage, oaths, retribution and love for enemies. We also see in Matthew where a fundamental part of Jesus' message is repentance. We read, "From that time on Jesus began to preach, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.(Matt. 4:17)'" So it is obvious that Jesus was calling his followers to leave sin behind and follow him. If all of this talk of repentance and leaving sin behind and holiness is not reflected at all in actual followers of Christ then I say the whole thing is a sham. And yet it seems that many believe and teach that there is no real change in the life of a Christian other than maybe a new hope or some warm feelings. In fact, maybe the only life change encouraged by the liberal is abstinence from ever making a judgment call that something is actually sinful or contrary to God's will. Even in evangelical circles you can see the theology of praying the "sinner's prayer" and then everything is a-okay. This theology doesn't match the New Testament, or the Old Testament for that matter, though. If you take a verse in isolation here or there you can argue for that theology. If you only read John 3:16 then maybe you could believe that no repentance is required but if you read it in the context of the entire gospel of John you see calls to repentance in both 5:14 and 8:11. The Gospel of John also contains some of the most sublime writing on the promise of the Holy Spirit. In connection with this promise we read Jesus' words, "When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment...(John 16:8)" It is claimed in the New Testament and in the testimonies of multitudes of believers that the Holy Spirit really has come into the lives of many. So if this testimony is true and if Christ's words are true, then what is the point of the Holy Spirit convicting of sin if there is no change in the life of a Christian?
So is Christianity a big lie? Well, I don't think so. It follows that I believe that there is a real life-change in Christians that is supernaturally enabled by the work of the Holy Spirit. There is real sanctification and freedom from sin in this life. God in His grace has freed me of things that many don't even think a person can be freed of. Am I entirely sanctified? No. But God is working on me and I have a blessed hope for entire sanctification and Christian perfection in this life. And for any who scoff at terms like "entire sanctification" and "Christian perfection," I say, how dare you limit God! How dare you answer Jesus "no thanks, I don't think it's possible," when He says to you in His Word "Be ye Perfect." This freedom from sin will come differently to different people but it always requires patience, perseverance and a willingness to lose one's life for the sake of following Christ.
And for those who perpetuate the lie of the "carnal Christian," Jesus warns, "But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.(Matt. 18:6)" The lie that there is no supernatural life-change when a person in converted to Christ keeps many today in sin. If revival is ever to take place we must break free of this lie.
Amen
I actually debated once with a liberal pastor whom I worked under and she used this argument to justify acceptance of practicing homosexuals in church leadership. She said that since she was divorced and remarried, she was technically living in adultery according to Christ's words, so how could she judge a homosexual? I was, of course, unimpressed by her argument but I didn't have the courage right there to say, "well maybe you shouldn't be a pastor." Ultimately her argument was that because certain things described as sin have become acceptable to many in the church, that we had no right to choose other sins which would bar one from positions of leadership in the church.
If freedom from sin does not come with conversion to Christ than I say that Christianity is proved to be a false religion. Jesus said, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.(Matt. 5:48)" Is Jesus calling us to something that is not possible? And what does Jesus mean by perfection? In the context of this call to perfection we see the Sermon on the Mount, we see teaching on anger and reconciliation with brothers, sexual morality, marriage, oaths, retribution and love for enemies. We also see in Matthew where a fundamental part of Jesus' message is repentance. We read, "From that time on Jesus began to preach, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.(Matt. 4:17)'" So it is obvious that Jesus was calling his followers to leave sin behind and follow him. If all of this talk of repentance and leaving sin behind and holiness is not reflected at all in actual followers of Christ then I say the whole thing is a sham. And yet it seems that many believe and teach that there is no real change in the life of a Christian other than maybe a new hope or some warm feelings. In fact, maybe the only life change encouraged by the liberal is abstinence from ever making a judgment call that something is actually sinful or contrary to God's will. Even in evangelical circles you can see the theology of praying the "sinner's prayer" and then everything is a-okay. This theology doesn't match the New Testament, or the Old Testament for that matter, though. If you take a verse in isolation here or there you can argue for that theology. If you only read John 3:16 then maybe you could believe that no repentance is required but if you read it in the context of the entire gospel of John you see calls to repentance in both 5:14 and 8:11. The Gospel of John also contains some of the most sublime writing on the promise of the Holy Spirit. In connection with this promise we read Jesus' words, "When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment...(John 16:8)" It is claimed in the New Testament and in the testimonies of multitudes of believers that the Holy Spirit really has come into the lives of many. So if this testimony is true and if Christ's words are true, then what is the point of the Holy Spirit convicting of sin if there is no change in the life of a Christian?
So is Christianity a big lie? Well, I don't think so. It follows that I believe that there is a real life-change in Christians that is supernaturally enabled by the work of the Holy Spirit. There is real sanctification and freedom from sin in this life. God in His grace has freed me of things that many don't even think a person can be freed of. Am I entirely sanctified? No. But God is working on me and I have a blessed hope for entire sanctification and Christian perfection in this life. And for any who scoff at terms like "entire sanctification" and "Christian perfection," I say, how dare you limit God! How dare you answer Jesus "no thanks, I don't think it's possible," when He says to you in His Word "Be ye Perfect." This freedom from sin will come differently to different people but it always requires patience, perseverance and a willingness to lose one's life for the sake of following Christ.
And for those who perpetuate the lie of the "carnal Christian," Jesus warns, "But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.(Matt. 18:6)" The lie that there is no supernatural life-change when a person in converted to Christ keeps many today in sin. If revival is ever to take place we must break free of this lie.
Amen
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Calvin on Holiness
I love this quote from Calvin's Institutes.
Now what is to be learned from the law can be readily understood: that God, as he is our Creator, has toward us by right the place of Father and Lord; for this reason we owe him glory, reverence, love, and fear; verily, that we have no right to follow the mind’s caprice wherever it impels us, but, dependent upon his will, ought to stand firm in that alone which is pleasing to him; then, that righteousness and uprightness are pleasing to him, but he abominates wickedness; and that, for this reason, unless we turn away from our Creator in impious ingratitude, we must cherish righteousness all our life. For if only when we prefer his will to our own do we render to him the reverence that is his due, it follows that the only lawful worship of him is the observance of righteousness, holiness, and purity.
John Calvin, Institutes 2.8.2
Now what is to be learned from the law can be readily understood: that God, as he is our Creator, has toward us by right the place of Father and Lord; for this reason we owe him glory, reverence, love, and fear; verily, that we have no right to follow the mind’s caprice wherever it impels us, but, dependent upon his will, ought to stand firm in that alone which is pleasing to him; then, that righteousness and uprightness are pleasing to him, but he abominates wickedness; and that, for this reason, unless we turn away from our Creator in impious ingratitude, we must cherish righteousness all our life. For if only when we prefer his will to our own do we render to him the reverence that is his due, it follows that the only lawful worship of him is the observance of righteousness, holiness, and purity.
John Calvin, Institutes 2.8.2
Friday, July 27, 2007
Love or Wrath?
In vain the first-born seraph tries to sound the depths of love divine.
-Charles Wesley
-Charles Wesley
I was in Portland a few days ago with my friends Josh and Lacie, eating Thai food, and we started talking about God's "attitude" toward us. Josh had had a conversation with a friend who tends to emphasize the wrath of God. It seems that there are real, orthodox Christians who tend to emphasize either wrath or love. I'm certainly not talking about liberal "Christians" here who like to talk a lot about "love" but who pervert it into license and affirmation of what God calls detestable.
When we were at Bethel, one of the things that the pastors there liked to say is that "God is in a good mood." I know this post could get into the whole question of divine impassibility. I happen to accept divine impassibility in submission to the thought of the majority of the Church throughout history but I realize that many faithful brothers and sisters reject this doctrine in what they see as submission to the witness of Scripture. As I was preparing this blog, I found a good article on impassibility here. Affirming that "God is in a good mood" should not really be too problematic for anyone though because the joy of the Lord is strongly affirmed in Scripture and the idea that we will "enjoy God forever" is a basic theological affirmation for all Christians whether it's stated in a confession or not. Jesus said, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete."(John 15:10-11) One thing that might be said about God’s joy is that it is far above a “mood.” God’s joy is an eternal aspect of who He is. When we say “mood” we tend to think of a feeling that can easily be lost. Of course this joy of the Lord and our enjoyment of Him must be seen in light of the cross where this reconciliation between man and God was made possible. For there God's wrath against us was poured out upon God Himself, the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity who became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. God was, of course, joyful even before the cross but humanity could not take part in that joy without first being reconciled to God through Christ’s work on the cross.
I have wrestled with the reality of God’s wrath for a long time and one conclusion I have come to is that God’s wrath must be seen as a part of his love. I think saying love and wrath are contrary to each other or that they can’t be simultaneously believed-in is a false-dichotomy. I believe the over-arching aspect of God in his relation to humanity is love and that wrath must come under the over-arching reality of love. So how is God’s wrath really love? We are made to know God and to be in intimate relationship with Him. We are also made to be in right relationship with one another. Sin always destroys our relationship with God and with each other. Therefore the wrath of God is against anyone who willfully does things (sins) which destroy rightly-ordered relationship, the very fabric of creation. Through the out-working of God’s wrath, the things which destroy right relationship, that is, demons and unrepentant humans, will have their ability to influence reality destroyed. They themselves will not be destroyed but will suffer in separation from God and from the redeemed for all eternity. That was their choice when they chose to rebel and not to repent.
In our conversation, I came to another conclusion, some of the apparent disagreements among Christians are a result of over-simplifications of reality. I know that many Christians want to affirm an extreme simplicity in the nature of reality. And in some ways, reality is simple. God made man, man rebelled, God sent Christ that we might be reconciled, the choice is ours. Simple, right? In one sense it is simple but when we explore more deeply into the nature of reality we see that it is anything but simple. I love C.S. Lewis’ affirmation of the complexity of reality in Mere Christianity. Unfortunately, my copy is stowed away somewhere or else I would quote it here. So there is the temptation that in trying to make things simple, we only talk about God’s love or his desire for intimacy. In doing so, people aren’t even abandoning orthodox Christianity. They still believe in the cross and in the reality of hell. They just see the more fundamental reality being God’s love and his desire for relationship. I think they are correct in affirming that God’s love is a more fundamental property of reality than God’s wrath. But I also think that to never mention God’s wrath, which is mentioned often in Scripture, is an over-simplification of reality with negative results. One negative result, and I think the result that was seen in my friend Josh’s conversation with the guy who perhaps over-emphasizes wrath, is that there is an over-reaction among some to what they see as too much of a de-emphasis of God’s wrath. In reacting against those Christians who don’t want to talk about wrath, they become fixated on the wrath and salvation becomes most fundamentally a ticket out of hell instead of the beginning of a relationship of love with our Creator. So in reaction to an over-simplification, there is another over-simplification. In saying that salvation is a ticket out of hell, the wrath-affirmers are not wrong, but they are certainly missing the bigger picture.
Our conversation went in a number of directions. One of which was that without a strong affirmation of God’s love, what then is the motivation to obey Him? We could obey out of fear of hell but if God doesn’t really love us then heaven probably really isn’t all that great either. If we are ever really going to seek holiness with the right attitude, it must be out of trust in God’s love and therefore the knowledge that what God is calling us to is really best for us. Many seem to view God as having this attitude toward us where he just doesn’t want anyone to have too much fun. But if we accept that God loves us and that he calls us to holiness out of his love we must also realize that the results of this holiness, the enjoyment of God made possible by holiness, is better than any “fun” thing we might be called to leave behind on earth.
Friday, June 29, 2007
For All Men From All Sin
As I said in my post yesterday, doing construction gives me a lot of time to think. Today I was thinking about what is central to the faith. I don't claim to have gotten some revelation, but I feel like God was messing with me. I was thinking about what I would be willing to break fellowship with a person over. I became convinced that a lack of commitment to holiness would be one of the first things I would break fellowship over. I would break fellowship over the issue of holiness before a lot of other theological issues that I also feel strongly about.
Holiness is central and many Christians have forgotten it or just don't want to deal with it.
I think that the only kind of Christian there can be is a radical Christian. Anything less and I think a person is risking, "Lord, Lord, did we not prohesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.'" Do we not believe that the road is narrow leading to salvation? Have we forgotten "unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." Anyone who is not seeking utter obedience to God is condemned by Christ's words, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching." What was Christ's teaching on sin? To the woman caught in adultery he said, "leave your life of sin." He says the same thing to all of us. Do we love him enough to do it?
Is this holiness easy? Do we just get saved and have no desire to sin? Perhaps some have experienced entire sanctification at conversion but most do not. So what does this mean? It means that the Christian life is a constant battle against the flesh. It means that there are things in us, things that seem to be central to who we are that must be renounced and rejected in obedience to and trust in God. Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Self-denial, cross bearing - not things that feel good but things we MUST do to follow Christ. There is no other way. These are the basic values that liberal "christians" utterly reject and that many other true Christians try to ignore.
We must also trust that it is out of God's love that he calls us to this holiness. If God becomes our portion, that is, if we truely experience the Presence of God in this life then I think that all the things we are called to leave behind will appear weak and ugly compared to what we gain in God.
Did Jesus' death and resurrection free us from needing to be holy or did they allow us to become holy? On a plaque outside of the chapel at Asbury College is written, "Salvation For All Men From All Sin." I believe it. Christ frees us from sin. That is what he calls us to. He didn't just die to give us a ticket to heaven. Heaven can begin now and there is no sin in heaven. 1st John 3:4-6 says, "Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him."
Amen
Holiness is central and many Christians have forgotten it or just don't want to deal with it.
I think that the only kind of Christian there can be is a radical Christian. Anything less and I think a person is risking, "Lord, Lord, did we not prohesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.'" Do we not believe that the road is narrow leading to salvation? Have we forgotten "unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." Anyone who is not seeking utter obedience to God is condemned by Christ's words, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching." What was Christ's teaching on sin? To the woman caught in adultery he said, "leave your life of sin." He says the same thing to all of us. Do we love him enough to do it?
Is this holiness easy? Do we just get saved and have no desire to sin? Perhaps some have experienced entire sanctification at conversion but most do not. So what does this mean? It means that the Christian life is a constant battle against the flesh. It means that there are things in us, things that seem to be central to who we are that must be renounced and rejected in obedience to and trust in God. Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Self-denial, cross bearing - not things that feel good but things we MUST do to follow Christ. There is no other way. These are the basic values that liberal "christians" utterly reject and that many other true Christians try to ignore.
We must also trust that it is out of God's love that he calls us to this holiness. If God becomes our portion, that is, if we truely experience the Presence of God in this life then I think that all the things we are called to leave behind will appear weak and ugly compared to what we gain in God.
Did Jesus' death and resurrection free us from needing to be holy or did they allow us to become holy? On a plaque outside of the chapel at Asbury College is written, "Salvation For All Men From All Sin." I believe it. Christ frees us from sin. That is what he calls us to. He didn't just die to give us a ticket to heaven. Heaven can begin now and there is no sin in heaven. 1st John 3:4-6 says, "Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him."
Amen
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