The Church is God's People
The following is taken from Vincent Cheung, Commentary on Ephesians (PDF, 73-78):
EPHESIANS 2:11-22
Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men) – remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Since I have already dealt with the main themes of 2:11-22 and 3:1-13 in what I have written so far in this book and in my other books, if you have been paying attention, then you should be able to understand these two passages fairly well. So in what follows I will provide only a summary, and briefly mention several details that are specific to these two passages.
With an emphatic "therefore," Paul connects what he is about to say to what he has already written. In other words, what he will say about the Gentile Christians being made one with the Jewish Christians as God's people in Christ is true on the basis of what he has explained so far about the doctrines of predestination and regeneration.
Before Christ came, those who were Gentiles by birth were called "the uncircumcised" by the Jews, who called themselves "the circumcised." Circumcision was the external sign of a covenant relationship with God, so that the rite made a sharp distinction between the physical descendants of Abraham and those who were "foreigners to the covenants of promise."
However, this does not imply that all the Jews were saved, or that all the Gentiles were unsaved. Paul is referring to the circumcision "done in the body by the hands of men," making clear that he is not necessarily referring to an inward distinction between the Jews and the Gentiles, but only to note that the Jews had the advantage of the external covenant sign. As for their inward condition, the previous passage has made it clear that both the Jews and the Gentiles were "by nature the objects of wrath," and there was no difference.
As early as in Deuteronomy, Scripture mentions a circumcision of the heart as opposed to one that affects only the flesh (Deuteronomy 30:6). In opposition to a purely external religion that is without sincere love and true holiness, Jeremiah states that just as the people of foreign nations were uncircumcised, the people of Israel were no better, because they were "uncircumcised in heart" (Jeremiah 9:26).
As Paul explains in his letter to the Romans, "A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God" (2:28-29). The only type of circumcision that makes any real spiritual difference is the inward kind, by which God himself operates in the heart of man to cut away his inward filth and remove his spiritual corruption.
This has been true all along. Whether we are speaking of the Old Covenant or the New Covenant, a person is regenerated and saved from sin only if he has been inwardly circumcised by a sovereign act of God. As Paul writes to the Gentile Christians in his letter to the Colossians, "In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ" (Colossians 2:11).
Under the Old Covenant, most of the Gentiles were left in spiritual darkness, although God regenerated and saved a small number of them. On the other hand, to the Jews were given the outward signs of the covenant and the means of grace, such as circumcision, the Scripture, and the temple. Under the New Covenant, God now releases the gospel of free grace to all people groups, without the cumbersome outward signs and rituals required under the previous administration of his grace.
Under the previous administration of grace, it was relatively difficult for the Gentiles to approach and to know God. They did not have the Scripture and the temple. They were uncircumcised. Without observing the numerous rituals and dietary laws, they were considered ceremonially unclean. Thus there existed a "dividing wall of hostility" between the Jews and the Gentiles.
Then, Christ brought "peace,"1 and "destroyed the barrier." He did this by fulfilling the types and shadows of the rituals and sacrifices, and thus abolishing their practice. It is important to remember that he did not destroy the moral laws, but only "the Law of commandments contained in ordinances" (Ephesians 2:15, NASB) such as the ceremonies and dietary regulations. Other than that, God's laws, such as the Ten Commandments, remain in full effect and continue to guide and govern the moral thinking and conduct of God's people, and to hold accountable all of humanity.2 Scripture destroys legalism without leaving any room for antinomianism.
As in 2:1-10, Paul first describes the former condition of the converts. His pattern of thinking is also the same with the previous passage, in that here he again shows that the unconverted were helpless, hopeless, and godless. And as in the previous passage, God did something to change the situation. The Gentiles did nothing, and could do nothing, to destroy "the barrier" that hindered them from approaching God and attaining salvation. They did not come near to God by their own free will – there is no such thing as free will in the first place – rather, they were "brought near through the blood of Christ." They did nothing, and they could do nothing – something was done to them by God and by Christ. They were brought to God by the blood of Christ, not by their free will or good sense.
The effect of what Christ has done is that he has created "one man out of the two, thus making peace."3 Of course, by saying that Jews and Gentiles are now united and at peace, we are not at all saying that believers and unbelievers are now united and at peace. Rather, we are saying that any Gentile can now become one of God's people by faith in Christ without submitting to the Law's rituals and ceremonies. And whether a person is Jew or Gentile, if he will not come to God by faith in Christ, he is not one of God's people, even if he observes all the Jewish rituals and ceremonies.
Thus the peace is accomplished and maintained in Christ alone, so that it no longer matters whether a person is a Jew or a non-Jew, but that all are alike and equal by faith in Christ, and there is no difference and no hostility between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. On the other hand, the spiritual difference and hostility between Christians and non-Christians remain just as sharp as before, if not even greater, now that Christ has come, and has been raised and exalted.
In fact, we have ground to believe that the spiritual hostility between believers and unbelievers has become much more pronounced than before. Although some Gentiles were indeed sovereignly regenerated by God under the Old Covenant, now that Christ has destroyed "the barrier," the application of divine grace has become broad and global. Likewise, although God held the Gentiles accountable for their sins (Romans 1-2), and condemned all unbelievers to everlasting torment in hell, God now sends his people to all areas of the world to explicitly demand faith and obedience to the gospel. As Paul says, "now he commands all people everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30). The only way to attain true peace between Christians and non-Christians is for non-Christians to become Christians, but there will always be enmity between the children of God and the children of Satan (Genesis 3:15).
Just as the unbelievers could not escape natural revelation in the past, and still cannot escape it, now the church has as one of its most important mandates to confront the people of all nations with the special revelation of Scripture. As Christ commands, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20). Thus Peter writes, "For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And, 'If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?'" (1 Peter 4:17-18).
Whether Jew or Gentile, there is no escape from natural revelation about God and his moral laws, and there is no excuse for rejecting Christ and his gospel. On the other hand, "through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit." Non-Christians need to know that there is no other way to approach God except through Christ; they must denounce religious pluralism, and all non-Christian religions and philosophies. Christians need to know this also; they must denounce all doctrines (the occult, other religions, etc.) that compromise the sufficiency of Christ.
Because we are Christians, we are "no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household." Some preachers are accustomed to speaking of the Jews (even those who call themselves "Jews" nowadays) as "God's people." But then, who are we? These preachers ignore the very "mystery" that Paul so earnestly preached and wanted his readers to learn. Many of them may acknowledge that we are indeed God's people in Christ, but that the Jews, whether they are Christians or not, are God's people in a special sense.
But to cite Paul again: "A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God" (Romans 2:28-29). As a Gentile Christian, I am more of a Jew than a Jewish non-Christian. Paul explicitly says that one who has not been changed by God's Spirit is "not a Jew." So non-Christian Jews are not Jews at all. They cannot be God's people in a special sense, because they are not God's people at all. Only Christians are God's people now, whether Jew or Gentile. Galatians 3:29 states, "If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Because I belong to Christ, I am a seed of Abraham, and inherit all that God promised him. So when preachers call the Jews "God's people," they are either contradicting Paul, or they must be talking about me.
This truth needs to be emphasized again and again among Christians today, because whereas it was one of the main revelations that Paul wanted to get across to his audience, many Christians have not learned it. The problem is especially pronounced among dispensationalists. Their fanciful eschatological schemes and false divisions of the biblical covenants and administrations subvert the simplicity of the gospel, divert the proper use of resources, and obscure the truth that Paul expounds in his letter. They make believers treat Jews as Jews, and as superior people, rather than as sinners "like the rest" (2:3). Some of them might even consider this teaching anti-Semitic, but Paul was its strongest proponent, and I doubt that he loved the Jews any less than the dispensationalists (Romans 9:3-4)!
God's household is constructed upon "the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone." Commentators disagree as to the precise meaning of "the apostles and prophets." We will briefly discuss the difficulties and their significance.
It would be convenient to understand the expression as referring to the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles. However, some contend that this is improbable because Paul would then have used the reverse order, saying, "the prophets and apostles" instead of "the apostles and prophets." A surer indication that Paul probably does not have in mind the Old Testament prophets is that he later writes, "the mystery…was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets" (3:5). Although the Old Testament prophets had hinted at this "mystery," it was not fully revealed until the coming of Christ and the preaching of his apostles. Although the Old Testament prophets had partial insights into this "mystery," Paul clearly intends to exclude them here, saying, "it has now been revealed…to God's holy apostles and prophets." Therefore, it appears that Paul is indeed referring to New Testament apostles and New Testament prophets.
Then, because the words "apostles" and "prophets" share one definite article ("the"), the question arises as to whether Paul is referring to only one group of people, so that the expression means something like, "the apostles who also function as prophets," or "the apostles who prophesy." However, other commentators deny that this is the necessary implication of the single article, but prefer to think that Paul is referring to apostles and prophets. Nevertheless, the use of only one article before the two nouns seem to at least signify a strong unity between the apostles and prophets.
In any case, the most important issue is the theological significance, or the real point that Paul intends to convey. He clearly intends to say that the "foundation" of God's household consists of the messengers of divine revelations, or more precisely, the divine revelations themselves. Whether he is referring to both Old Testament and New Testament messengers, or only the New Testament messengers, the point is that the foundation is biblical revelation, or the doctrines that God has revealed to us through these messengers, as recorded in Scripture. Therefore, this foundation is "the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints" (Jude 3). Nothing about it is to be modified or removed, nor is anything to be added to it; rather, our task is to guard, perpetuate, and propagate the doctrines of the apostles.
All of this was initiated by Christ and is founded on Christ, who is the "cornerstone." He holds an even more prominent place than the apostles. God's temple is being built outward and upward from this cornerstone, and each brick or stone finds its proper place in reference to him (Matthew 16:18). Turner correctly states, "The point would then seem to be that the temple is built out and up from the revelation given in Christ, through the revelatory elaboration and implementation of the mystery through the prophetic-apostolic figures." Christ is the starting point of our thought and conduct, and Scripture is our spiritual and intellectual foundation.
Thus verses 21 and 22 say, "In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit." Likewise, Peter writes:
As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame." (1 Peter 2:4-6)
Before the coming of Christ, the Jews were privileged "in every way," because "they have been entrusted with the very words of God" (Romans 3:2), that is, the Scripture. They also had the temple of God.
However, since the coming of Christ, the Jews have rejected God's fuller revelation, the completion of Scripture through the apostles. The only way they could do this was to abandon the very revelation that they had in the Old Testament. In addition, God destroyed the temple and raised up his true temple in his church. Therefore, Christians are now the ones "entrusted with the very words of God," and Christians constitute the very temple of God. As God says in Hosea, "I will say to those called 'Not my people,' 'You are my people'; and they will say, 'You are my God'" (Hosea 2:23).
Notes
1 Sometimes the phrase "he himself is our peace" (v. 14) is used to encourage believers to rely on Christ for their subjective peace and to attain peace of mind. However, as with many cases, here the meaning is clearly an objective and relational peace.
2 Vincent Cheung, The Sermon on the Mount.
3 Charles D. Provan, The Church Is Israel Now; Ross House Books, 2003.
Freewill Offerings and Human Freedom
Against a statement like, "Nowhere does the Bible say that man has free will," there are people who answer by saying that the Bible mentions "freewill offerings" in a number of places, and from this observation they assert that the Bible therefore teaches free will or that man has free will. (In the NIV, see: Exodus 35:29, 36:3; Leviticus 7:16, 22:18, 21, 23, 23:38; Numbers 15:3, 29:39; Deuteronomy 12:6, 17, 16:10; 2 Chronicles 31:14; Ezra 1:4, 6, 2:68, 3:5, 7:16, 8:28; Psalms 54:6; Ezekiel 46:12; Amos 4:5.)
This is one of the strangest objections against the denial of free will, and although I have known about it for years, I have never given a written response to it. This is because it is so silly that I feel embarrassed to even mention it, and to take it seriously enough to write about it. Nevertheless, I am occasionally asked about this by Christians who do not know how best to answer the objection, and I have responded in private to them. And since I have been asked about it at least twice in recent months, I am guessing that more people have difficulty with this question than I thought, and so I have decided to share my answer here.
The objection seizes upon the common English term, but here ends the similarity between the topic (of divine sovereignty and human freedom) and the verses usually cited. The term is not always rendered "freewill offerings," but in places where the NIV and NASB offer such a translation, the KJV sometimes says "free offerings," "voluntary offerings," and "willing offerings."
Freedom is relative — you are free from something. We say that man has no free will because in discussing divine sovereignty and human freedom, we are discussing the metaphysical relationship between God and man. To be specific, the question is the manner and extent that God exercises control over man's thoughts and actions. Thus in such a context, when we ask whether man has free will, we are asking whether man is free from God or from God's control in any sense. Since the biblical teaching is that God exercises constant and comprehensive control over all of man's thoughts and actions, the necessary conclusion is that man has no free will. He has zero freedom relative to God.
Since God is the absolute reference point, to say that man has no freedom relative to God is also to say that man has no freedom in the absolute sense. Whether man possesses freedom in a relative sense, or freedom relative to persons and things other than God (people, objects, and forces, etc.), is another question, and one that does not necessarily have to be addressed in the discussion about divine sovereignty and human freedom. However, for the sake of completeness, we can affirm that man has some freedom relative to other creatures. No human being can control me in a way or to an extent that even comes close to God's absolute control over my thoughts and actions. But this does not mean that I have "free will," since again, in our context, we are talking about our relationship with God, and not with other creatures.
Here is where popular Calvinism confuses the issue. It affirms relative freedom from other creatures and from external forces, and then it connects this with our absolute responsibility toward God. The truth is that if responsibility presupposes freedom, then our absolute responsibility toward God must presuppose an absolute freedom from God. But then, if our freedom from God is absolute, why are we responsible to him at all? But responsibility in fact does not presuppose freedom, and more than that, responsibility presupposes the opposite of freedom. We are responsible to God precisely because we are not free from God. This confusion, I suppose, is also one of the reasons why some Calvinists fail to discern the sophistry inherent in the objection that I am addressing here. They fail to see that freedom is a relative term, that relative to God we are not free, and that the verses cited by our opponents refer to a freedom that is not relative to God, but to something else.
The "freewill offering" is "free" because the Law does not require it as it does the other regular and occasion offerings, so the freedom is relative to the Law, and the freedom related to this offering exists only in this sense. The people are "free" to give or not give the offering from a legal or ceremonial perspective. These verses do not address the metaphysical perspective, so that they can neither establish nor refute metaphysical human freedom. But when referring to "free will" in the context of divine sovereignty and human freedom, we are talking about whether we are free from God — and this is about metaphysics. We are talking about whether God has complete control over man's thoughts, actions, and circumstances — he does, and therefore man has no free will, no freedom relative to God. In one instance, we are talking about man's relationship (of moral obligation) with the Law, in the other, about man's relationship (of cause and effect) with God. Only the English term happens to be the same, and not even all the time in the English versions, but they are in fact two different subjects of discussion.
There are passages that teach the same relative freedom but do not use the term. Here is one example: "Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God" (Acts 5:4, KJV). When Peter says that the property was "thine own," and that the money was "in thine own power," he is referring to property ownership relative to Peter himself and the other Christians — that is, Ananias did not have to sell the property or give the money to them. But this relative ownership or freedom has nothing to do with divine determinism — they are two different subjects. Peter is not saying that Ananias had ownership of the property or money relative to God, but only that he had the right, or the freedom if you must, to withhold the property or the money from other people, and that from a legal or moral perspective, not a metaphysical one. Peter is certainly not saying that Ananias could have kept the property or money from God in a metaphysical sense! But metaphysics is what we are talking about when we discuss divine determinism.
Another verse sometimes cited is Philemon 1:14. In the NASB, it reads, "…but without your consent I did not want to do anything, that your goodness should not be as it were by compulsion, but of your own free will." Aha! Paul says that Philemon has free will! But this verse is even more obviously irrelevant than the others, since those involved are explicitly mentioned. Paul says that "I" (Paul) did not want to do anything without "your" (Philemon's) consent. He did not want Philemon to act out of "compulsion," but this compulsion is relative to Paul, and thus also the so-called "free will." The freedom is relative to Paul. The verse refers to the social relationship between two creatures, Paul and Philemon, but it says nothing about the metaphysical relationship between God and Philemon.
Popular Calvinism fails to make a clean break with the unbiblical thinking of our opponents when it comes to this matter of human freedom. For this reason, it is unable to clearly demonstrate the difference and to avoid confusion. It teaches that divine sovereignty and human freedom are "compatible" because man always acts according to his strongest desire, that he is never forced, by God or anyone else, to think or act against his will. But if, as Scripture teaches, God's control over man is so immediate and exhaustive so that he directly controls man's will and desire, then man is not free from God even though his will is never forced against his desire. He is never forced not because he is free, but because he is so not free, so completely controlled by God, that even his will and desire are controlled by God, so that there is nothing left for God to force.
But I have said all of this before, so I will just end with my usual doxology: God is sovereign and man is not free. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
– Recommended –
From vincentcheung.com:
Creatures Cannot Initiate Motion
From rmiweb.org:
Learning by Experience
The following is taken from Vincent Cheung, Prayer and Revelation (Preface):
In his book, With Christ in the School of Prayer, Andrew Murray writes, "Reading a book about prayer, listening to lectures and talking about it is very good, but it won't teach you to pray. You get nothing without exercise, without practice."1 This is a most foolish thing to say. If reading, listening, and talking about prayer "won't teach you to pray," then how are these activities "very good"? If I get "nothing" without practice, then why should I read his book?
His book is supposed to contain insights about prayer drawn from the instructions and examples of Jesus.2 But the statement quoted implies that "practice" or experience is a superior teacher than the very words and acts of Christ. The horror of the situation dawns on us when we realize that it seems most people share Murray's view about learning spiritual things.3 They say that you can read about it and talk about it, but experience is the best teacher. However, if experience is the best teacher, then Jesus is not the best teacher, and Scripture is not the best source of information. This is blasphemous.
The truth is that experience is the worst teacher, especially when it comes to learning spiritual things.4 Our culture exalts learning by experience, and many Christians assume such a view even though it contradicts their professed allegiance to God and Scripture. Against this popular view, I urge that we must dethrone experience and exalt revelation, that is, the words of Scripture. This means that reading a book can really teach you a lot about prayer,5 and since I would like to show you some of the things that Scripture teaches about the subject, it makes sense that I have written this book.6
Notes
1 Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer; Bridge-Logos Publishers, 1999.
2 We can learn from the "examples" of Jesus only in the sense that the words of Scripture tell us about the prayer life of Christ, so that we are still learning through reading, listening, and thinking, and not experience or observation. The Bible does teach that we should be examples of what it teaches, but this is very different from saying that we should teach by examples. Since we are not perfect, how can a person know what to imitate and what not to imitate from us, unless he already knows what is right and what is wrong by reading, listening, and thinking about the words of Scripture? But if he already knows, then our examples at best serve as encouragement to contemplate and follow the words of Scripture, so that the examples do not themselves convey information about how a Christian should live. The information taught comes only from Scripture, not from experience or examples. There are no infallible examples for us to learn from today except those described and interpreted by the words of Scripture. Although Jesus was sinless, so that all he did was righteous, when he set an example in John 13:15, the disciples still did not understand it until he taught them in words. Thus the lesson was in the words, not in the act itself. The example itself at best served to illustrate the words. Likewise, 1 Corinthians 10:6 refers to the Israelites under Moses as examples, but the lesson was in Paul's interpretation of their lives.
3 For example, Whitney states, "There are many good resources for learning how to pray, but the best way to learn how to pray is to pray"; Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life; Navpress, 2002; p. 69.
4 Please see the chapter, "Prayer and Experience," for more about this.
5 But many books on prayer are destructive because they exalt experience at the expense of theological depth and accuracy.
6 Reading about prayer is not the same as praying, so I am not saying that you should read about prayer instead of praying. But when it comes to learning about prayer, we should read about it, talk about it, and think about it. That said, perhaps most people should indeed pray less, but spend more time reading, talking, and thinking about it. Reverence demands that we learn how to approach God in the manner prescribed by him, and we learn that from Scripture, not from experience or observation.
New PDF: "Sufficient and Profitable"
"Sufficient and Profitable" is now available as a PDF file at:
http://www.rmiweb.org/other/suffprofit.pdf
As mentioned, "Sufficient and Profitable" (2 Timothy 3:14-17) can function as a prequel to the much earlier "Preach the Word" (2 Timothy 4:1-3). I recommend both of them to you. "Sufficient and Profitable" is in fact longer than "Preach the Word," but the latter is listed as a "book" at www.rmiweb.org because it has been released as a paperback as well. I might combine the two in the future and release them together as a paperback, but I will let "Sufficient and Profitable" circulate by itself for a while first.
If I can find the time, I might revise or delete some of the past blog entries. Some were written to address things that were happening at the time, and could be revised to make them more suitable for general use. Others are just regular ministry announcements that are no longer needed or relevant, so I might delete them.
Moreover, the changes that I announced earlier will now be implemented. Again, there are transitions behind the scenes that will serve to extend this ministry's reach and influence while actually reducing our workload. As for how this site will be affected, you will probably notice fewer updates but longer posts. Most of these will be short sermons and articles. This site will no longer follow our longer projects; instead, they will be announced and distributed here when completed.
Thanks for your loyal readership and support.
Sufficient and Profitable (43)
Many Christians have no idea what they are fighting for. They claim to reject all forms of theonomy, and that they want total religious freedom for everyone, but then they would fight for the government sanctioned public display of the Ten Commandments. Do they not see that there is no such thing as the "Ten Commandments" in the abstract? What are these ten commandments? If they are fighting for the right to display two tablets of stone with ten Roman letters engraved on them, then they are not fighting for the biblical ten commandments at all. They frequently speak of how our laws are based on "Judeo-Christian values." But there are no values in "I, II, III, IV…."
The Ten Commandments are not just the words "Ten Commandments," but there are actually ten commandments that God revealed to Israel in the midst of a spectacular display of his power and glory. To cite only the first commandment would be sufficient to make my point: "You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3). To fight for the government's permission or sanction to publicly display the Ten Commandments is not to fight for the right to display two blank tablets of stone or the words "The Ten Commandments," but the actual ten commandments, including this first one. To fight for "Judeo-Christian values" is not to fight for a meaningless expression, but to fight for the moral laws revealed in the Bible, including the first commandment.
What is the meaning of all this? It means that if you are fighting for the Ten Commandments as a mere abstraction, instead of fighting for the government's sanction to declare and enforce the actual ten commandments, then it is not worth the effort, since you are fighting for a cause that is without meaning and without content, and that has nothing to do with Christianity.
On the other hand, if you are demanding the government to sanction and sponsor a public declaration of the Ten Commandments as the actual ten commandments, beginning with "You shall have no other gods before me," then understand that you are not just fighting to make room for Christianity as one option among many, but you are fighting for the right – by the government's sanction, on the government's property – to publicly condemn all non-biblical religions, all non-biblical philosophies, and all their adherents, and to exalt Christianity as the only true religion and the only legitimate basis for human civilization. Now this is a cause I can support.
For the government to admit that it is founded on Christian principles is also to declare that its very foundation condemns all non-Christian ones, as such a condemnation is fundamental to Christianity. And although such a government might not actively persecute them, all non-Christians living under it are nevertheless regulated and judged by explicitly Christian principles. This is what we demand our government to tell the world when we call for it to acknowledge its Christian roots. And what a grotesque monster our government would seem, if from Christian roots it grows not only Christian, but also Muslim and Buddhist fruits. The Bible is sufficient and profitable to build a nation, and if the foundation is truly Christian, then exclusion must be part of this foundation.
(end of series)
Sufficient and Profitable (42)
Speaking of the government, there is much discussion and debate about the separation of church and state. The controversy in this country has much to do with the meaning and interpretation of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. On this point, I agree that the First Amendment is meant to protect the church from the state, or at best from each other, but not to eliminate religion from all government sponsored programs and activities, such as the public school system.
However, the First Amendment has only a local, legal, and practical relevance. It has no direct relationship with whether something is right or wrong from the perspective of God's absolute revealed standard. The prior question is whether the First Amendment is biblical in the first place. If it is unbiblical, then it is wrong, and believers must oppose it. But if it is biblical, then it is right, and believers should advocate what it says even if there is no such amendment in the Constitution. Regardless of what human law actually says and means, the more important, universal, and spiritually relevant issue is what the Bible teaches about the proper relationship between the church and the state.
Now, suppose we agree that the church and the state are two different institutions with different functions, and that one should not usurp the other's authority. For example, the church has the power to excommunicate a murderer, but it has no right to execute him. This indeed answers some questions, but sometimes people miss the larger point, and therefore arrive at erroneous conclusions about how the government should operate. They tend to forget that just because the church cannot control or replace the government does not mean that the government is free from God's authority, or what is the equivalent in this context, the Bible's authority.
Lawmakers, politicians, judges, police officers, and so on, are all human individuals, and as such, they are never exempt from believing the gospel and behaving as Christians. They are not morally free to be atheists, to ignore biblical precepts, or to follow non-Christian religions and philosophies just because they work for the state. Every unbiblical law and every unbiblical opinion is sinful when found in any context and in any person, and will be judged by God according to the standard that he has revealed in Scripture.
Thus a government is either for Christ or against him. Just as no human individual can be neutral toward Christ, neither can a government, which consists of human individuals, be neutral. Any government that claims to be religiously neutral has already set itself against Christ. In fact, as is true with human individuals, any government that fails to explicitly pledge allegiance to Christ is an enemy of Christ.
Therefore, at least from this perspective it is irrelevant that the state is a separate institution from the church, and that the church has no legislative authority over it – the government is directly under the threat of divine curse to follow all that the Bible commands in all that it does. The fact that it is not accountable to the church makes no difference, since it is still directly accountable to God, and God condemns all laws, all opinions, and all actions other than those that he approves and permits through Scripture. Thus if the government does not learn its obligations to God from the church, it must still learn it directly from the Bible.
Many Christians are wary of theonomy, but how can the state rationally justify laws against murder, theft, rape, perjury, or any such thing without appealing to Scripture? In fact, how can the government justify its very existence apart from the Bible? Here we do not have to discuss the rights and wrongs of Reformed Theonomy, but there is no denying the fact that the government cannot justify its own existence, understand its own purpose and mandate, or define the various crimes and the severity of each crime without the Bible.42 If we must call this a form of theonomy, then so be it.
Notes
42 To defend this statement, we only need to apply our usual approach of biblical-presuppositional apologetics to the area of politics. If all non-Christian worldviews fail at the start, then there can be no rational justification for any non-Christian theory about anything, and this includes politics. See Vincent Cheung, Ultimate Questions, Presuppositional Confrontations, and On Good and Evil.
(to be continued)
Sufficient and Profitable (41)
An even larger sphere than the church is the world. By the world, we can refer to all human beings in general, including both Christians and non-Christians, or of non-Christians in particular. Sometimes we may be referring to a circle that is outside of the church, but might include both Christians and non-Christians, such as the school, the office, or the government.
The Bible draws a clear line separating the church and the world. It tells us to remain in the world but not to be contaminated by it. Reacting against hermitism, many believers throw themselves into the world, participating in almost all that it has to offer. As a result, they have ended up on the other extreme, that of befriending the world, and using as an excuse the claim that they are embracing God's creation and functioning as salt and light to the world. If this is what they are really doing, then the world would either change, or vomit them back out. But the world is comfortable with them because they are the world. Let us not deceive ourselves. The Bible says that we must remain in the world so that we may preach to it, to be a witness against it, to lead people out of its darkness, but not so that we may play with it.
The Bible is sufficient to address all people, even hostile unbelievers, scoffers, and apostates. It supplies sufficient materials for a full system of apologetics, and a complete method and message for evangelism. But as we are speaking of all things outside the church, the Bible is not only good for apologetics and evangelism, but it defines and rules over all aspects of all people. This means that it is the defining standard for art, science, commerce, and even government.
(to be continued)
Sufficient and Profitable (40)
Then, as mentioned, the church's primary task is to preach and enforce the word of God, that is, the Bible. It is "the pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15). Under this general description, there are many tasks that it must perform. The Sunday sermon is obvious, but it should also provide individual counseling, theology classes, and ministry training.
These are just different ways of applying the sufficient word of God in different contexts, on different levels, and toward different people. But the sufficiency and usefulness of Scripture do not only imply that these things should be done by the church, but also how they ought to be done. For example, because the Bible is sufficient to fully equip the man of God for every good work, secular theories and methods are unnecessary and even undesirable in church counseling. If the filet mignon is just right, spreading horse manure on it would not make it taste any better.
Moreover, since the Bible itself claims that it makes the man of God complete, and fully equipped for every good work, then the church should be able to train its own ministers without sending them to seminary. Whether the seminary serves a legitimate purpose is a separate question, but it should not be necessary. If the seminary is necessary to fully equip the man of God, it can only mean that the church is not effectively teaching the whole word of God.
In this case, the solution is to fix the church, and not to build a seminary. And it would not do to say that it takes a seminary-trained person to fix the church, since this argument would work for one generation at best – if the seminary-trained minister fixes the problem, this deficiency in the church should no longer exist in the next generation.
Now, if the seminary is only an extension of the church, then I would have no problem with it. However, it would then be unnecessary to even call it a seminary – it would just be part of what the church is doing to train its own ministers. Also, it must then actually operate like part of the church. It should not charge any tuition,40 and it should be overseen by church elders, not deans and directors. It should be taught by actual ministers, not just professors. Instead of granting degrees, it should issue personalized letters of recommendation attesting to both the orthodoxy and the character of the disciples it promotes to eldership or sends forth to other places. In addition, church discipline should be enforced, and those who affirm heresies or persist in known vices must not be allowed to "graduate." It should be a discipleship program (with the most rigorous academic training), not an academic program. The truth is that most seminaries are not like this, but their entire system is patterned after secular institutions, and most of their graduates are unfit for ministry.41
Notes
40 However, the church might require a faithful pattern of giving from its students as part of their character training and to help them become good examples to others.
41 See Vincent Cheung, "Church and Seminary," in Doctrine and Obedience.
(to be continued)
Sufficient and Profitable (39)
The social spheres that we will discuss are the home, the church, and the world. It is within these contexts that we must use the Scripture to teach, to refute, to correct, and to educate ourselves and others, and to promote salvation and sanctification.
The home, or the family, is the smallest circle on our list, but it is also the building block of the others. The Scripture is authoritative, sufficient, and profitable to define the family's relationship with God, the church, and the world, the authority structure between the members, the relationship between the husband and the wife, the relationship between parents and children, the authority and responsibilities of the parents, how widows within the family should be treated, and all other related issues. It should also regulate the family in the areas of education, work, money, sex, food, health, time, recreation, and entertainment.
In other words, Scripture's authority and usefulness touches every aspect of family life. Most families do almost nothing to enforce biblical teachings in the home. There is much more to going to church together, praying together, and reading the Bible together. For example, most men probably know nothing about dealing with ungodly in-laws other than to practice the most general biblical principles such as love, forgiveness, or "a soft answer turns away wrath," and more often than not, even these are misunderstood and misapplied by them. This is why families must deliberately study and apply what the Bible has to say about how the home ought to operate.
Although the family is the building block of the church, it usually functions in connection with and even under the influence and authority of the church. Yes, the family can operate in relative independence from the church as a self-contained unit, so that a church that seeks to exercise absolute authority over a family is really a cult, but the Bible's command to obey church leaders and serve the interests of the covenant community applies to the individual families that make up such a community.
Moreover, the church is where the word of God is authoritatively preached and enforced. Of course, the word of God is also preached and enforced in the family, but the church is a larger institution that preaches and enforces the word of God to the family. Whereas the husband is the final court of appeal in the home, if the need arises, special appeals could be made to the church, so that under the authority of Scripture, the church may offer counsel or render a verdict, and in extreme cases, even excommunicate the offender.
For example, the husband could appeal to the church if his wife persistently refuses to obey him, or the wife could appeal if her husband abuses her – that is, not as she defines abuse, but as the Bible would define it. Feuding families that cannot settle their disputes by themselves may also appeal to the church. This can work very well even when the families involved belong to different churches, that is, if both churches are committed to enforcing the biblical principles of church discipline. However, it is difficult for many families to find any church that even knows about what the Bible teaches on the subject, not to mention one that would enforce it. This contributes to the way that Christians often disgrace the kingdom of Christ before the world's court, as if the church cannot even settle the smallest matters among its members.
(to be continued)
Sufficient and Profitable (38)
b. Spheres of Application
When it comes to the sufficiency of Scripture, we have said that the Scripture itself must define both the questions and the answers. Scripture tells us what subjects are important and then it tells us what to believe about them. And although it is sufficient for everyone, it specifies various categories of people so that we may be more conscious and deliberate in our application of biblical teachings.
The same is true with the utility of Scripture. Because Scripture tells us about its own various uses – such as to teach, refute, correct, and educate – we can be much more deliberate in our application, and we are much more likely to become aware of our negligence and imbalance.
For this reason, it would benefit us to also consider the different spheres in which the Scripture can be applied. By "spheres," we refer to the social contexts or circles in which people function. A simple dictionary definition would be "place in society" or "walk of life." For example, the school and the office represent two different social spheres or circles.
The various spheres accommodate different types of relationships and operate by different rules, and they present different opportunities as well as difficulties, challenges, and temptations. Of course they overlap, and what happens to a person in one social sphere carries over to another. Nevertheless, they are often well-defined enough to be discussed separately and specifically. Again, this enables us to become more deliberate in our application of Scripture, and also more aware of our negligence.
Although we have already affirmed that the Scripture has universal application, and that it demands every person's attention and obedience, as with categories of people, it also acknowledges different social spheres. Here we will discuss three major ones, but only in brief, and only to raise some of the issues that must be addressed. These must be addressed by applying what we have already discussed above, and by reflecting on the whole teaching of the Bible regarding each of these areas of life.
(to be continued)