Judging Religion

This past weekend I had the privilege of taking my family to South Dakota and visiting my good friend, Pastor Cory Kitch and his family. While we were there Pastor Cory had the opportunity of ministering to a transient, Matthew, who was trying to get to Washington State.

During our time with Matthew we discussed a wide variety of topics. Being that Cory is a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you can probably guess what one of the topics was. At one point I asked Matthew for his views and major objections against the Christian faith.

He first talked about his own personal experience that “verified” to him that he has been reincarnated from a past life. Then he explained to us that all religions are based upon the improving of our lives (I suppose like traveling around the country to different parties and not doing a day's work to support yourself?).

In an unrelated conversation I had recently on Face Book with a good friend, I was told I was being judgmental by arguing that Reverend Wright (President Obama's former pastor) is not a Christian. Now we argue and judge things to be right and wrong all the time. He'll play the Devil's advocate on abortion while I defend the Prolife position. He'll defend President Obama and health care while I argue against the President's position. He judges Glenn Beck as being a con artist when it comes to buying Gold from certain companies (Right or wrong that is his view). So why am I now being judgmental?

The answer to this question is quite simple. In both conversations, religion is completely subjective and private. Therefore to judge anyone on their religious experience or beliefs is tantamount to climbing into one's mind and judging their experience.

Religion to the common everyday man is simply outside the realm of normal means of knowledge. We know science is true because we supposedly verify our claims of knowledge. Even other fields of knowledge such as history are to some degree verifiable.

Yet the natural man can not be consistent in his worldview. It is interesting to me how I am told I should not be judgmental. Yet in order to explain to me that I am being judgmental, I am being judged by a religious worldview. The contradiction is so obvious and blatant, it never ceases to amaze me that the non-Christian doesn't see it, or perhaps he does and just suppresses that truth as he does all of truth that comes from his Creator.

Now another source for this problem is that though many Christians claim that the moral relativism of our non-Christian friends is bad for our culture, do we not in practice perpetuate the "private religion" in the way we preach the Gospel? How many churches proclaim the Gospel in the context of Jesus can save your marriage or Jesus can get you off of drugs or Jesus can help your kids with their homework, so on and so on. Then we in turn claim that Jesus is the only way. Only way to what? Having a better marriage? Statistically, Christians have just as high if not a higher rate of divorce. So I guess the only way to be worse than our non-Christian neighbors is use the Jesus formula?

As I attempted to explain to Matthew last weekend is that the reason all of man's religions are similar to one degree or another is that God's Law is written upon all our hearts. Due to our sinfulness, we twist all of God's truth. Hence the multiplicity of "revelations" (reincarnation or whatever) that come from the twisted hearts and minds of men.

We instead need the Revelation of God in history, not a private revelation from men. The Israelites have given to us the Gospel. Starting with Moses and God delivering the Israelites from Egypt and culminating in Jesus of Nazareth delivering sinners by dying and being raised from the dead. We now have the testimony of the Apostles of Jesus Christ. They point us to not our futile minds and thinking, but instead point us to the historical events and a Divine Person.

Therefore, let us learn from the Son of God and His Apostles what our true need is and the true teachings we ought to follow. And we must do this by using our minds and judging what is good, right and acceptable according to God's own revelation. As Peter states in one of his letters to the Church:

2Pe 1:16  For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
2Pe 1:17  For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,"
2Pe 1:18  we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.
2Pe 1:19  And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts,
2Pe 1:20  knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.
2Pe 1:21  For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 

It's Even Worse Than I Thought

Update on yesterday's post. Apparently my little poking fun at the Rick Warren having baptized 800 marathon while talking about small groups really missed the mark. It is much worse than that! There was an actual attempt to reproduce the day of Pentecost with 3,000 baptisms. Here is the announcement.

Two thousand years ago - the Day of Pentecost was the first day of the Christian Church. Acts 2:41 tells us, "About 3,000 people were baptized and joined the church that day." If you'll join us this weekend, history could be repeated at Saddleback! Want to make history?

Which of these requirements do you need to complete this Saturday?

1. Open your heart to Jesus Christ. Click here to learn more.
2. Attend Class 101: Discovering Your Church Family. Sign up.
3. Sign our membership covenant (explained in class).
4. Be baptized the way Jesus commanded and modeled for us.
(Many of us were baptized as kids on our parent's faith. Jesus modeled believer's baptism at age 30 when he was baptized in the Jordan River) It would be my privilege to baptize you after Class 101.

YOU CAN FINISH ALL 4 REQUIREMENTS IN ONE DAY - THIS SATURDAY!

EIGHT REASONS TO JOIN THIS SATURDAY & NOT PROCRASTINATE:

1. I'm personally teaching Class 101 for the first time in ten years.

2. I'm personally baptizing after Class and you'll receive a photo & baptism certificate.

3. You'll get a free one year subscription to Purpose Driven Connection magazine. (Never offered before)

4. You'll get free copy of The Purpose Driven Church book.

5. Your name will be included in the historical list of Saddleback Pioneer Members who joined in our first 30 years. (This Easter is our 30th Easter and I want you included in this list.)

6. The class is 1 hour shorter than normal. You can watch session 3 here online now.

7. You'll be a part of making Christian history! The largest membership class ever!

8. We love you & want you in our family. There is no good reason to procrastinate.

I was asked, "Rick, If you could wish for anything to celebrate your 30 years of service at Saddleback, what would you dream of?" I said, "To experience a repeat of Pentecost - and see 3,000 people affirm their faith and join our church family on a single day." Will you be a part of making this a reality?

And here is the ending,

This is going to be fun. You're the greatest. See you Saturday!

Rick Warren
Saddleback Church
Purpose Driven Network
P.E.A.C.E. Coalition

I guess the necessity of preaching that actually brings about conviction of sin and true conversion of the soul is simply out of touch with reality. Well, at least it will be fun.

Female Pastors

Yesterday, Al Mohler blogged about the controversial subject of female pastors. He noted:

"The feminization of the ministry is one of the most significant trends of this generation. Acceptance of women in the pastoral role reverses centuries of Christian conviction and practice. It also leads to a redefinition of the church and its ministry."

To which he concluded in the same paragraph:

“Once women begin to fill and represent roles of pastoral leadership men withdraw. This is true, not only in the pulpit, but in the pews. The evacuation of male worshippers from liberal churches is a noticeable phenomenon.”

Now this is something I have noticed for a long time. I remember when I first sat in a Baptist church in where a woman stood in the pulpit. To say this event in my life shattered the stereotypes and images of what a Baptist church is would be an understatement.

What really was interesting was the fact that there were only three men in the congregation, two of which included visitors, my friend and me! The congregation was far too small to be able to sustain a pastor. Yet, they seemed to trudge along.

ABPNews reported in June of 2006:

“About 28 percent of the chaplains and counselors in the CBF and ABC-USA in 2005 were women…”

American Baptist Women in Ministry states on the website:

“This year there are a total of 374 women senior/solo pastors. Last year there were 361 recognized. The information provided demonstrates a steady increase in the placement of women in ministry in ABC.”

I spoke with an American Baptist pastor a year ago (via email) as to why his church was leaving the denomination. He stated that there are more women in seminary than men. That was enough for him.

A few years later I asked a godly Christian woman (my wife’s grandmother) what she thought of female pastors. The idea of female pastors is nothing new and certainly is not restricted to Baptists. Yet I could only see churches being decimated by the trend (of course there are always exceptions). Her response validated what seemed intuitive to me. She basically said churches generally would not flourish. I asked her why she thought this to be the case. Her response again was simple. God didn’t ordain things to function with women over men. It doesn’t work in marriage. It doesn’t work for the church to think it is equal with Christ. It doesn’t work within the church membership either.

Over the years, I have grown to agree. The Scriptures are certainly not able to support the idea of female pastors. The hermeneutic is flawed and doesn’t take the Word of God at the level which conservatives generally view it. I think Mohler is right when he continues in his next paragraph:

“Furthermore, the issues of women's ordination and the normalization of homosexuality are closely linked. It is no accident that those churches that most eagerly embraced the ordination of women now either embrace the ordination of homosexuals or are seriously considering such a move.

The reason for this is quite simple. The interpretive games one must play in order to get around the Bible's proscription of women in congregational preaching and teaching roles are precisely the games one must play in order to get around the Bible's clear condemnation of homosexuality.

Put another way, once one is satisfied to relativize the biblical texts limiting the congregational teaching office to men, one can (and almost surely will) be satisfied to employ those same strategies on texts condemning homosexuality. In both cases, the texts are relativized by postmodern ideologies.”

“Relativize” seems to be the keyword. Again, hermeneutics or how we interpret the bible will certainly give away our true belief about God’s Word. Men do not want a female pastor. I certainly do not think men want mushy gushy theology. I am not sure why a denomination such as the American Baptists push for a trend they know is losing members in droves. Liberalism in general and Feminism in particular want to change men as to how they think. Odd that the church is 20 years behind in failed philosophical fads.

Jer 13:23 "Can the Ethiopian change his skin Or the leopard his spots?

Fisk and Owen

In appendix D Fisk recognizes that Reformed writers, such as J. I. Packer, have claimed there has never been a refutation of John Owen’s, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. Fisk claims that such is not the case. He refers us to works such as Robert P. Lightners, The Death Christ Died, A Case For Unlimited Atonement as being sufficient to refute Owen’s argumentation.

I don’t have a problem with referring readers to other works for more in depth study, yet it would have been nice to read an example of how Owen was wrong. Does he deal with Owen’s very strong case of Christ’s office as High Priest or Mediator or Substitutionary sacrifice? Not at all!

Instead Fisk challenges Owen’s argument against Universal Atonement without Universal Effect Because of Unbelief [my own title of that argument]. Owen argues basically in the Death of Death, that if Christ died for all sin then all must go to heaven. But the Arminian will say that men go to hell for only unbelief. Therefore Christ’s death did not atone for all sin if unbelief is a sin, or unbelief is not a sin that sends men to hell.

Here is Fisk’s counter argument:

“In answer to this argument, the sin of unbelief is always associated with the completed work of Christ and thus assumes a specific quality and is treated in a particular way in Scripture. Owen’s argument may be reversed and the problem stated this way: If Christ’s death apart from any other considerations included the sin of unbelief, why does God ask men to believe since they would not be lost for not believing? A request from God for faith to apply the benefits of the cross becomes redundant. Why should God ask men to believe if that is not the sole condition of salvation?”

This is pure Semi-Pelagianism. It rings of the Pelagian controversy in that Pelagian himself argued that God would not command men to obey the law if man could not do it. Basically, Fisk wants man to be morally neutral or have God remove man’s sinful and inability to obey before God may truly judge a man in his sin! Or in other words, it is the “It’s not fair” argument.

Fisk does not seem to realize that the Penal Substitutionary Atonement belief taught in scripture is a Reformed doctrine. It is not a belief held historically by those who are not Reformed! Dr. White writes in The Potter’s Freedom:

Historic Arminians saw that believing in the idea of substitutionary atonement would not fit with their system of theology. Even though Arminians today may use this terminology, it does not strictly “belong” to them. Arminian scholar J. Kenneth Grider asserts that the idea of ‘substitutionary atonement’ is foreign to Arminian thinking:

A spillover from Calvinism into Arminianism has occurred in recent decades. Thus many Arminians whose theology is not very precise say that Christ paid the penalty of our sins. Yet such a view is foreign to Arminianism, which teaches instead that Christ suffered for us. Arminians teach that what Christ did He did for every person; therefore what He did could not have been to pay the penalty, since no one would then ever go into eternall perdition. Arminianism teaches that Christ suffered for everyone so that the Father could forgive the ones who repent and believe; His death is such that all will see that forgiveness is costly and will strive to cease from anarchy in the world God governs. This view is called the Governmental theory of the atonement.

Fisk goes on to assert in his argumentation that “The sin of unbelief is a problem for the limited redemptionists, for if his view be carried through consistently it would mean the elect would not even be born in sin and thus would not be subject to the wrath and condemnation of God before they believe, nor would they ever need to be forgiven…”

I first heard this argument from a local pastor at the First Christian church here in Scott City. It seems that Fisk and many others see Calvinism as being equal to “Eternal Justification”. In other words, they see Calvinism as making the elect of God already forgiven at the cross; therefore there is no need to apply the work of Christ since they are already saved.

I conclude that these men do not understand Calvinism nor do they understand the Penal Substitutionary Atoning work of Christ. They also must deny God’s eternal decree and how it is worked out in time. They reject Christ’s perfect atoning work, His perfect mediatorial work, and His perfect intercession on behalf of His people. He must deny Christ, as the Great High Priest, who is able to perfectly secure those for whom He died.

If Fisk is going to be consistent, then he must recognize that man is not a slave of sin. He is not enslaved to Original Sin, a doctrine that he must now repudiate. Is this not what we see in much of Evangelicalism? Does not Caner’s interaction with White last year demonstrate this?

The Penal Substitutionary Atonement is a Reformed Doctrine. It is only consistent in a reformed understanding. After several centuries, Owen’s work still stands unrefuted.

Jerry Fails

News of Jerry Falwell referring to Limited Atonement as heresy from Friday the 13th has been making the rounds at different apologetic websites. James White posts a clip. Watch here:



Notice carefully what he says at the end of the video. He says, "We are not into the particular love or limited atonement. Matter of fact, we consider it heresy"

Now I would love to ask Jerry if he loves his wife with a particular love or does he love all women in the same way? Would Jerry love all women in a fashion that he would lay down his life for them, even at the cost of his own family?

I would also like to ask Jerry if he is a universalist. He would obviously say "no", since he believes only "whosoever wills" will come to Christ to be saved. Yet isn't that still limiting the Atonement? Instead of limiting the scope, he limits its efficacy. He says that Jesus actually died for every single person but then takes away its actual power to save in the next breath by limiting it to "whosoever wills".

I have heard many pastors use this incoherent thinking. Inconsistency is the sign of a failed argument. Jerry just failed.

BTW: Notice how he uses a typical straw-man argument. He makes the "Elect" something different from "those whosoever will". In other words, he trying to say that there are many people who want to believe but are turned away because they are not of the Elect.

This kind of argumentation may persuade the faithful follower in his congregation, but it will not satisfy the thinking person who looks to Scripture as his final authority. The Elect are those who believe ("wills"). Why would anyone who is not of the Elect believe?

The Christian Sabbath

So I thought I had it all worked out. The Sabbath is just not for Christians. We are freed from the Law of the Old Covenant. Christ is the substance of things predicted to come. We now have our rest in Christ. Yet consistency just won't go away.

Having rejected Dispensationalism long ago I have come to understand a Covenantal view of theology. Christ has not abolished the Law but has changed how that law is applied in the New Covenant. Christ is Lord, therefore He is able to establish the New Covenant as He sees fit.

What has troubled me over the years prior to my accepting Covenant Theology is the Ten Commandments. How do they fit in the New Covenant? Do we accept the first three? Do we accept the last six? Then on what consistent basis do we reject the fourth, the Sabbath Commandment? As Uncle Paul said, "It is probably the one commandment we consistently break."

After having read some articles in the RBTR on the Sabbath under the Old Covenant I spoke with the author of those articles, Richard Barcellos. He was kind enough to email me some articles that may never see the light of day in the journal, but nevertheless are written well enough that they need to be published.

I took some of the arguments presented in these series of articles and presented them on an e-mail list for discussion. I was amazed at how many rejected the arguments out of hand. At one point I made the statement, "If there is no Christian Sabbath, isn't it at least ironic that Christians all over the world worship on Sunday and have done so since Christ's resurrection." I received no response to such a glaring historical fact. It is as if the Christian Sabbath teaching was waving a flag saying, "Hey, I am right here silly."

In fact, I was overlooking something as plain as day in my own New Hampshire Confession. Read this statement:

15. Of the Christian Sabbath

"We believe that the first day of the week is the Lord's Day, or Christian Sabbath Acts 20:7; Gen. 2:3; Col. 2:16-17; Mark 2:27; John 20:19; 1 Cor. 16:1- 2; and is to be kept sacred to religious purposes Exod. 20:8; Rev. 1:10; Psa. 118:24, by abstaining from all secular labor and sinful recreations Isa. 58:13-14; 56:2-8; by the devout observance of all the means of grace, both private Psa. 119:15 and public Heb. 10:24-25; Acts 11:26; 13:44; Lev. 19:30; Exod. 46:3; Luke 4:16; Acts 17:2, 3; Psa. 26:8; 87:3; and by preparation for that rest that remaineth for the people of God Heb. 4:3-11."

And again in the London Baptist Confession of 1689:

7. As it is of the Law of nature, that in general a proportion of time by Gods appointment, be set a part for the Worship of God; so by his Word in a positive-moral, and perpetual Commandement, binding all men, in all Ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a (e) Sabbath to be kept holy unto him, which from the beginning of the World to the Resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week (f) which is called the Lords day; and is to be continued to the end of the World, as the Christian Sabbath; the observation of the last day of the week being abolished.

8. The Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering their common affairs aforehand, do not only observe an holy (g) rest all the day, from their own works, words, and thoughts, about their worldly employment, and recreations, but also are taken up the whole time in the publick and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties (h) of necessity and mercy.

And again with the Philadelphia Confession of 1742:

7. As it is the law of nature, that in general a proportion of time, by God's appointment, be set apart for the worship of God, so by his Word, in a positive moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men, in all ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a sabbath to be kept holy unto him, which from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week, and from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which is called the Lord's day: and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath, the observation of the last day of the week being abolished.

(Exod. 20:8; 1 Cor. 16:1, 2; Acts 20:7; Rev. 1:10)

8. The sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering their common affairs aforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all day, from their own works, words and thoughts, about their worldly employment and recreations, but are also taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.

(Isa. 58:13; Neh. 13:15-22; Matt. 12:1-13)

Here it is plainly obvious what our Baptist forebears believed. They believed that the Christian does have a Sabbath to observe. That day is the Lord's Day, a Day of His possession. As Jesus said Himself, He is Lord of the Sabbath.

I would like to give a rough outline of Barcellos' argument for a Christian Sabbath in the next post. For now I would like to leave you with a sermon I just heard the other day. God's Providence could not have been more timely in my thinking about this topic.

Here is Don Fry's sermon on the Lord's Day from Revelation chapter 1.