Song 5:2-6, the Danger of Complacency

"I slept, but my heart was awake.
A sound! My beloved is knocking.
'Open to me, my sister, my love,
my dove, my perfect one,
for my head is wet with dew,
my locks with the drops of the night.'
I had put off my garment;
how could I put it on?
I had bathed my feet;
how could I soil them?
My beloved put his hand to the latch,
and my heart was thrilled within me.
I arose to open to my beloved,
and my hands dripped with myrrh,
my fingers with liquid myrrh,
on the handles of the bolt.
I opened to my beloved,
but my beloved had turned and gone.
My soul failed me when he spoke.
I sought him, but found him not;
I called him, but he gave no answer."

We often hear sermons warning the unbeliever that he shouldn't put off closing with Jesus as Savior. And it is proper that we do so. However, there is also the danger of the believer's being complacent, somnolent, when Jesus comes to him. Why does Jesus come to the believer? There are many possible reasons: to give instruction, to comfort, or to apply discipline, just for starters. We see it happening in the passage above. The Lord knocks at the door of His beloved, but she doesn't want to get out of bed. Then, when she does rouse herself, He is nowhere to be found.

My mind dwells especially on the line where the woman complains that she has already washed her feet, and doesn't want to get them dirty again. I think of the shallow Christian who believes his sins are forgiven, and now he doesn't need anything else from Christ. Isn't that the very attitude that is so commonly produced by today's altar-call evangelism? "Thank you Jesus; I'll let you know when I need you again."

This passage applies, whether we are talking of the individual believer or of an entire congregation. We see the latter in Revelation 3:20: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with Me."

In a sermon in 1840, Scottish Presbyterian Minister Robert Murray McCheyne explains, "To awaken out of sleep is to see sin as it is - your heart as it is - Christ as He is - and the love of God in Christ. And you can see all this by looking to Calvary's cross. O! it is an awful thing to look to the cross and not be affected, nor feel conviction of sin - not to feel drawn to Christ." We have a saying, "Opportunity only knocks once." What have we missed by snoozing when Jesus was at the door?

McCheyne on II Corinthians 5:14: The Heart of the Hypocrite

"For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died."

Robert Murray McCheyne was a minister of the Church of Scotland in the early XIXth Century.

"We have so choked up the avenues of self-examination - there are so many turnings and windings before we can arrive at the true motives of our actions - that our dread and hatred of God, which first moved man to sin, and which are still the grand impelling forces whereby Satan goads on the children of disobedience - these are wholly concealed from our view, and you cannot persuade a natural man that they are really there."

Ephesians 2:1 and the Erroneous Free-Will View of Man

"You were dead in the trespasses and sins."

Calvinism starts with a view of a spiritually-dead man, in whom God works by His sovereign grace to renew, regenerate, and justify. The various stripes of anti-Calvinist Christianity hold to a spiritually-able man who works his way to a relationship with God. To paraphrase, free-will Christianity teaches that a man is sick in trespasses and sins, while the Calvinist agrees with the Apostle Paul that the natural man is dead, completely unable to help himself spiritually.

In contrast to free-will Christianity, the Bible teaches that all of the initiative in salvation belongs to God, and none to man. Ezekiel 36:26 tells us, "I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." That is, God changes our hearts, from the dead heart described in Ephesians, to a new living heart. And verse 27 continues, "And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules." Now that He has given us a new heart, He sends His Holy Spirit to work in it, leading and enabling us to obey Him. For, as Jesus Himself says, "no one can come to me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (John 6:44). Unlike the free-willer, God says that we are unable to seek Him, so He draws us to Him by His own will and power.

But we believe and are then saved, right? Nope. Jesus died for us while we were still in our sins (see, for example, Romans 5:6, I Peter 3:18). We aren't saved because we believe; we believe because we are saved! But our part in salvation is to have faith, right? Nope, wrong again. Ephesians 2:8, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God." Even our faith, our response to what Christ has done, is given to us by God. And John 1:13 says that Christians are "born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God."

But I know the free-willer is still holding on to his dream of contributing to his salvation. He's asking, "Alright, but I take it from there in my sanctification, right?" Nope, not that, either. Philippians 2:13, "for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." God's sovereign grace continues its work in us, conforming us to the holiness of Christ. As Paul also says in I Corinthians 15:10, "by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me."

Only Calvinism is consistent with the teachings of Scripture that man is utterly helpless in his own salvation. Rather, it occurs - in every step - by God's grace and Holy Spirit.

The Apostle Paul, Member of Presbytery

We tend to think of the Apostle Paul as a spiritual Lone Ranger, single-handedly establishing Christianity around the Mediterranean fringe. And it is true that he only occasionally speaks of companions, such as Timothy, Titus, John Mark, and Barnabas. He only gives snippets of the ecclesiastical organization which he established along with the congregations. But I do believe that he gave us such information.

In I Timothy 4:14, the ESV reads, "Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you." That phrase "council of elders" is translated "presbytery" by the King James Version, the American Standard Version, and the New American Standard Bible, and "eldership" in Young's Literal Translation. "Presbytery" is a transliteration of the Greek word, while "council of elders" and "eldership" are translations. Either way, we see the church leaders joining together to ordain Reverend Timothy. I suspect that this same ceremony is what Paul intends in I Timothy 6:12, "Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." That is, Paul is urging Timothy to continue in the faith to which he testified in his examination by the presbytery.

Next look at II Timothy 1:6, "For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands." Notice the switch in Paul's choice of words. In I Timothy, the ordination is by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Then in II Timothy, it is by the laying on of Paul's hands. I think that the logical implication is that Paul participated in the ceremony of the presbytery.

I see in these verses the kernel of the early church government. It wasn't bishops; nor was it democratic congregationalism. It was presbyterian.

Psalm 51:10-12, a Dividing Line between Hypocritical and True Believers

"Create in me a clean heart, O God,
     and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from Your presence,
     and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
     and uphold me with a willing spirit."

In an earlier post, I defined a hypocritical believer as a professing, but false, Christian who has hidden from himself the reality of his spiritual lostness. I believe that the text before us reinforces that contrast.

In it, we see David after II Samuel 11. In that story, he had been looking out over the city of Jerusalem from his palace. He saw Bathsheba bathing on her roof. Stirred by lust, he had arranged for the murder of her husband, Uriah the Hittite, so that he could gain her for himself. After the Prophet Nathan rebuked David (II Samuel 12), David was overcome by sorrow over what he had done. Psalm 51 is the prayer he wrote, confessing his sin, and seeking a restoration of his damaged relationship with Jehovah, his God.

Consider also Psalm 38, another psalm by David. In verse 3, he describes the physical trauma caused by sin. In verse 6, "all the day I go about mourning." And verse 8, "I groan because of the tumult of my heart."

In both of these psalms, we see a man traumatized, sorrowful and cast down, because he is aware of his sin. That doesn't happen in a hypocrite. The hypocritical believer is self-satisfied with his spirituality, and would be quite insulted if anyone were to suggest that he isn't as holy as he imagines himself to be. He wears blinders, so he won't see the reality within him (though, of course, those blinders don't prevent him from seeing faults in others).

Further, even if a hypocrite were to recognize that maybe he isn't so spiritual after all, another aspect of his condition is that he won't consider his shortfall something to be concerned about, something that needs to be dealt with. And he certainly isn't going to respond positively if someone were to confront him about his complacency! Since he has no real relationship with God in Christ, he isn't conscious of lacking that relationship.

Prophets like Nathan make a true believer change. But they merely reinforce the blindness of the hypocrite. With just one exception: if the sovereign Lord sees fit to grant the hypocrite repentance (Acts 5:31 and II Timothy 2:25).

News: Baptists Turn Away Church for Being "Too Calvinistic"

News out of Owensboro, KY, reports that the Daviess-McLean Baptist Association has refused membership (by a lopsided vote of 104-9) to the Pleasant Valley Community Church. The story can be read on the Associated Baptist Press website. And the church's website can be seen here.

I especially want to bring to your attention the statement of the Association's credentials committee: "Our concern in the initial stages of our investigation revolved around the fact that Pleasant Valley Community Church’s confessional statement is one that (is) Calvinistic in nature. It affirms the doctrine of election and
grace." This is a stunning expression of ignorance, considering the Calvinistic roots of the Baptist churches. The London Confession of Faith (1689), a Baptist adaptation of the Westminster Confession, says in Article 3, "God has decreed in Himself from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things which shall ever come to pass," which is quoted almost word-for-word in the objected portion of PVCC's statement of faith (60 pages?!?). The Confession continues, "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ, to the praise of His glorious grace. Others are left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of His glorious justice."

Thus we can see that Calvinism is well-entrenched in Baptist roots. Doesn't this mean that the Association is aberrant, not Pleasant Valley? Consider this article on the tradition of Calvinism among Southern Baptists. And I chose the picture at the top for one very good reason: Charles Haddon Spurgeon, perhaps the greatest preacher in the English language, was both a Baptist and an unapologetic Calvinist!

I Timothy 2:1-7, Does Paul Teach a Universal Atonement?

First, a celebratory announcement: this is my 200th blog post. As always, my prayer is that it will be to the glory of God and the edification of His people.

"First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, Who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth."

This passage frequently comes up in debates about the extent of the atonement. With all Calvinists, I hold that Jesus died for all of the elect, and only the elect, fully redeeming them from the just judgment for their sins. In opposition to this view, Arminians hold that Christ died for every person in the world, throughout history, making their salvation possible, but not certain. Arminians claim verse four here, "Who desires all people to be saved," as supporting their view. But does it really?

First, I have just one simple, logical question for the Arminian: if God desires something, anything, who can refuse Him? Wouldn't your interpretation of this passage logically lead to the doctrine of universal salvation?

But to particulars: Let's look at the context. Verse one ends with that same phrase, "all people," but the sentence continues in verse two, referring to kings and others in authority. Then in verse seven, Paul refers to himself as called to be a teacher of the Gentiles. Thus, in context, "all people" here cannot refer to "every individual without distinction," but rather to "individuals of every class or ethnicity." God desires, effectually, for the Gospel to impact every level of society, and every nation. And in this desire, He attains that goal! The Apostle John envisions the success of the Gospel in this very fashion (Revelation 7:9): "After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands."

I can't speak for anyone else, but I prefer this vision of the success of the Gospel, over the Arminian view of potential redemption!