Archives for January 2017

Alan D. Strange writes:

We’ve just entered the year 2017, the five hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation. Many observances will mark the year, including reflections about what the Reformation achieved in the areas of church and state. Before the Reformation, two models tended to prevail: in the East, the emperor retained control over the church (the Byzantine Empire lasted until 1453); in the West, the church sought to maintain control of her own affairs in the face of attempts of the civil powers to control the church. The problem, however, with the Western approach was that the Bishop of Rome claimed a supremacy over the whole church and at the same time claimed that the church was over the state. Abraham Kuyper put it well with respect to the claim of supremacy over the whole church: “Rome stood up for the liberty and independence of the church, but at the expense of the liberty within the church” (“Church and State”).

With respect to the claim of church over state, Calvin and company clearly distinguished the church from the state, and argued, further, that neither should the church be over the state nor the state over the church. Many of the new Protestant rulers, reacting against Rome’s misguided claims of church over state, made the error of the East and embraced some form of the state over the church (Erastianism, for example, was just such an error). In Scotland, the faithful Presbyterians resisted these claims of the state over the church (as did Calvin in Geneva): they argued, in fact, for the spiritual independency of the church, while at the same time calling for a state covenanted to God to support the true church.

The spiritual independency of the church, as Calvin had taught and as was embraced in the 17th century by Scotsmen like Samuel Rutherford and George Gillespie, developed in America into the doctrine of the spirituality of the church. To be sure the doctrine was often used to keep the church out of the debate over slavery in America. Charles Hodge, professor at Princeton and the most influential Presbyterian of the 19th century, lamented this use of the doctrine, writing (in reflecting on the 1859 GA), “To adopt any theory which would stop the mouth of the church, and prevent her bearing her testimony to the kings and rulers, magistrates and people, in behalf of the truth and law of God, is like one who administers chloroform to a man to prevent his doing mischief.”

Hodge agreed that the church was not ordinarily to interfere in civil affairs, certainly not in areas that divided good men and at which no clear biblical principle was at stake. But he also wrote: “Let Caesar attend to his own affairs. But if Caesar undertakes to meddle with the affairs of God; if the state pass any laws contrary to the law of God, then it is the duty of the church, to whom God has committed the great work of asserting and maintaining his truth and will, to protect and remonstrate.”

Hodge believed that the prophetic voice of the church should not be silenced in the name of spirituality of the church. At the same time, he also believed that the church should not delve into politics. While church members were free to act in accordance with their Christian convictions as they deemed best in the civil realm, Hodge believed that the church as an institution did not act magisterially, as did Rome, but only ministerially and declaratively.

Hodge believed that the Word of God was clear that men ought to submit to duly-constituted civil government. When Gardiner Spring, by way of resolution, proposed to the 1861 GA that it should issue a call for support of the federal government, Hodge argued that the church was not competent to decide the political question of the preservation of the union then dividing the nation. Hodge, though politically a strong union man and supporter of Lincoln (as well as a proponent of emancipation), opposed the Gardiner Spring resolution as a violation of the spirituality of the church.

The church today must proclaim the whole counsel of God, even with respect to the magistrate, but she must resist the politicizing of the church and yield always to Him whose kingdom is not of this world. In a post-modern culture, in which power has replaced truth, it is easy to give way to the politicization of all of life. The church is a spiritual institution given to the preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments, and the discipline of her members, all conducted in prayer to God for his blessing upon the appointed means. Rightly construed, the doctrine of the spirituality of the church furnishes guidance for how the church both distinguishes itself from the world and how it gives itself to the world.

from The Spirituality of the Church

Martin Lloyd-Jones said:

“Possibly one of the most devastating things that can happen to us as Christians is that we cease to expect anything to happen. I am not sure but that this is not one of our greatest troubles today. We come to our services and they are orderly, they are nice — we come, we go — and sometimes they are timed almost to the minute, and there it is. But that is not Christianity, my friend. Where is the Lord of glory? Where is the one sitting by the well? Are we expecting him? Do we anticipate this? Are we open to it? Are we aware that we are ever facing this glorious possibility of having the greatest surprise of our life?

Or let me put it like this. You may feel and say — as many do — ‘I was converted and became a Christian. I’ve grown — yes, I’ve grown in knowledge, I’ve been reading books, I’ve been listening to sermons, but I’ve arrived now at a sort of peak and all I do is maintain that. For the rest of my life I will just go on like this.’

Now, my friend, you must get rid of that attitude; you must get rid of it once and for ever. That is ‘religion’, it is not Christianity. This is Christianity: the Lord appears! Suddenly, in the midst of the drudgery and the routine and the sameness and the dullness and the drabness, unexpectedly, surprisingly, he meets with you and he says something to you that changes the whole of your life and your outlook and lifts you to a level that you had never conceived could be possible for you. Oh, if we get nothing else from this story, I hope we will get this. Do not let the devil persuade you that you have got all you are going to get, still less that you received all you were ever going to receive when you were converted. That has been a popular teaching, even among evangelicals. You get everything at your conversion, it is said, … and nothing further, ever. Oh, do not believe it; it is not true. It is not true to the teaching of the Scriptures, it is not true in the experience of the saints running down the centuries. There is always this glorious possibility of meeting with him in a new and a dynamic way.”

~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones, on John chapter 4

by G.I. Williamson

It’s a matter of first importance that we hear the truth of God. You might just as well hear no gospel at all as to hear a false gospel. The apostle Paul said that “even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse” (Gal. 1:8)! And having said it once, he said it again (v. 9). It’s only by hearing the truth that we may believe to the saving of our souls.

But it’s almost as important to take heed how we hear, as it is to take heed what we hear. “So pay attention to how you hear,” says our Lord. “To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them” (Lk. 8: 18) .

Those who are careful with respect to what they hear – who won’t attend or belong to a church that doesn’t uphold the truth of God – seem to have the true faith. Yet the words of Christ clearly disclose to us the fact that the soul’s true welfare is not absolutely sure from this one fact alone. If we don’t take heed how we hear, we may have taken away from us even that which we now seem to have.

How then ought we to hear the Word of God? Certainly the first thing is to be sure that we hear it regularly. When the Bible speaks of not neglecting our meeting together, as some do (see Heb. 10:25), it indicates what our constant practice should be. The person who’s not diligent and faithful in being present to hear the Word of God may be concerned about what he hears, but he is not concerned about how he hears. How faithfully do you hear God’s Word?

Second only to this is the need to concentrate. We must give God’s Word the consideration it deserves. Much of the benefit that we ought to receive from the preaching of God’s Word is lost because the mind is occupied with other thoughts. We read that the noble believers of Berea “listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth” (Acts 17:11).

They didn’t go home from the service to bury the Word of God under news, or sports, or entertainment, or other diversions. They gave the whole day to the due consideration of what they’d heard. We ought to examine what we hear carefully. We ought to meditate on it quietly and intently. And when we’ve compared what we’ve heard with other parts of Scripture that we know, we ought to strive to “take it to heart” and correct ourselves accordingly. “So we must listen very carefully to the truth we have heard, or we may drift away from it” (Heb. 2:1).

Finally, we ought to hear the Word of God in the humble posture of prayer – asking God to convict and cleanse us, to renew and strengthen us according to his Word. We hear much about the weakness of the pulpit today. We ought to hear more. May God speed the day when those who now sleep in the pews may wake up and demand the pure Word of God from every pulpit in the land. But in the meantime, I venture to suggest that not a little of the cause for the spiritual weakness of our day is the fact that even in such churches as do still preach the pure Word of God, many people do not take heed how they hear.

Doubtless both pulpit and pew need to pray more earnestly for each other. We need zealously to pray that God will send forth from the pulpit of our church his Word with power and authority. And we need to pray that it may then be received “not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe” (1 Thess. 2:13).

If Jesus himself were to speak from the pulpit next Sunday, you wouldn’t have any time for or interest in other things. His message would be on your mind and in your conversation all day. May God grant that Jesus Christ himself will indeed speak to you next Sunday as his servant proclaims his Word. Pay attention, then, to how you hear.

reprinted from The Presbyterian Guardian May 1962 (slightly edited)
https://www.opc.org/cfh/guardian/Volume_31/1962-05.pdf