The Victory of Slaughtered Lambs

The invitation to contribute to this blog came with a question designed to stimulate me as to what I might write about: “Has a passage of Scripture really gripped you lately?” To be “gripped” by a passage, I take it, means to experience the Spirit embedding that Scripture into your heart and thereby strengthening your faith. That can happen when the Spirit “grips” or connects the Word with other life experiences, making the Word potently relevant and teaching us lessons that transform us. Such transforming instruction occurs when the Lord takes us to the extreme end of ourselves where the lines of our understanding and character are redrawn into greater conformity to Christ. But transforming lessons are usually painful experiences.

I experienced a convergence of Scripture, extremity and pain last August. It was my twelfth visit to Pakistan to minister at an Annual Pastor’s Conference and in the small church planted by Arif Khan and his dear wife Kathy. We concluded the conference with great encouragement. It was the fifteenth conference and once again a good number of men had come from all over the country and they gladly received the Word. Arif and I preached on matters concerning the pastoral ministry and biblical church life. I also ministered to his “little flock” on both of the Lord’s Days that book-ended the week of conference. It has been my habit during my visits, to attempt to encourage Arif and Kathy personally as well. On Tuesday, August 28, 2007 the three of us sat around the breakfast table as I devotionally delved into three verses which have gripped me, verses that I’ll never read the same ever again.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. (Romans 8:35-37)

We spent the bulk of that morning interacting with this passage. We examined the various components of the tribulation arrayed against us in v35. We contrasted the challenges faced by the church in the East and in the West. We spoke, using the metaphors of Revelation, of how the church in the East is being clawed by the Beast through economic, social, and even physical persecution. We bemoaned the languishing church in the West with its lethargy, compromise and apostasy, as affluent, indulged Christians nestle themselves comfortably on the voluptuous breasts of the Babylonian Harlot.

We read the entirety of Psalm 44 from which Paul quotes in v36 and entered into the Psalmist’s experience of bewilderment at the sight of the Lord’s army in disarray and apparent defeat in battle. We too, like the Psalmist, pledged our fidelity to the living God. We too swore our allegiance to fight the Lord’s battles using the Lord’s weaponry. Yet, we wondered why it seemed that for Thy sake we are killed all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered?

Then v37’s bold assertion confronted us: in all these things. Not “after” all these things, or “instead of” all these things, but in all these things. What things? The things listed in v35. In all these things we overwhelmingly conquer. How? Like slaughtered lambs. Our thoughts immediately went to the Lamb of God, even our Lord Jesus Christ. We turned to Isaiah 53 and read of His prophesied death: like a lamb that is led to slaughter (v7). We pictured that day by the banks of the Jordan when John the Baptist introduced Him: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). We recalled how Jesus invaded the kingdom of darkness and how He fought and triumphed by being obedient to death, even death on the cross (Philippians 2:8). We remembered that it was by His death, albeit while experiencing the fangs of the serpent digging into His heel, that He thereby crushed Satan’s head (Genesis 3:15). We confessed afresh that God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9). We reminded each other that the risen Jesus then commissioned His disciples to be His witnesses and to ransack the realms of Satan and rescue His sheep by the power of the Spirit. We rejoiced knowing that Jesus then ascended to the throne of God. We turned to Revelation 5:5-7 and saw His exalted enthronement. The angel announced the victory of the Lion of Judah. In our mind’s eye, we naturally pictured a valiant Davidic warrior, crusted with dirt, sweat and blood, emerging out of the mist of battle, clutching his blood-drenched sword with his dented shield relaxed at his side. But when we turned to see the One who has overcome, we saw a fluffy, little white Lamb with it’s neck slit open in sacrificial fashion and a rivulet of blood streaming down its pristine wool. Behold, the Overcomer! Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord is the worthy One! The Conqueror is the Lamb of God, who is now enthroned as our Priestly King and the supreme universal Sovereign.

As we gazed upon the victorious Lamb, we saw how we too must overcome. Paul says we conquer when we learn to fight like slaughtered lambs. We looked into each other’s eyes that morning as we sat sipping on our chai, arrested by what the Spirit was saying to us by His Word. It is not without danger that Christ’s servants minister in lands such as Pakistan. It is not without disappointment that His servants labor in the West. We saw a sober determination in each other’s eyes; a knowing realization that we were in a dangerous battle. But we also saw the look of faith, the expectation of victory and the realization of something more wonderful than all the horrors of war. We experienced the presence of Him who loves us. While in tribulation, in the midst of the disorienting anomie of battle, in the midst of sacrificial slaughter, we yet experienced something more profound, definitive and enduring: we experienced being loved by Jesus Christ. We knew, experientially, that we were loved by Jesus with a love more extensive than all creation and more powerful than any created thing (Romans 8:38,39).

That evening we went out to a nice restaurant as has been our annual custom. Arif spoke to me in sincere and encouraging tones of how our devotional exercise that morning had ministered to his heart. The following morning, Wednesday, August 29th, I departed Pakistan to visit another servant of Christ who labors in another very challenging county. On Thursday, August 30th, the news came that Arif and Kathy had been murdered the night before. I held on to my skepticism, knowing that things are not always what they initially appear to be, especially in that part of the world. But it was true. Arif and Kathy had been shot in cold blood.

As the pieces came together I learned that after leaving me off at the airport, Arif had a normal day of work. That evening, he met with his little flock for their midweek prayer meeting. His heart was still feeding on the spiritual food we had eaten together the day before, and so he opened up Romans 8:35-37 to his people. While only a few moments away from his own death, Arif encouraged his little flock in the love of Christ and in the certain victory given to Christ’s slaughtered sheep. Together, they too experienced being loved by Christ.

After prayer meeting, he and Kathy opened their home to a disgruntled former member who, with his notoriously wicked wife, came ostensibly for counsel. Along with this couple came a stranger. With typical kindness, the Khans hospitably welcomed the three of them. The Khans were outnumbered and assassinated by the third man, who has since escaped to Waziristan, a hotbed of Islamic extremism and conflict. The couple was captured and await trial in prison in Pakistan. The details of the murders are sketchy, but I have heard nothing to dissuade me from concluding that the murderers were motivated by a hatred for the gospel that the Khans proclaimed and practiced.

When the news first reached me, I fell into the frightful fog of Psalm 44. How? Why? Grief, fear, and uncertainty overwhelmed me. I returned to the States stunned and sobered.

We buried the Khans in September here in New Jersey. The memorial service was a glorious celebration of their lives and ministries, but more so, a declaration of the victory of the Lamb. Pastor Albert Martin conducted the funeral and spoke at the grave site. The fog lifted and the exhilaration of victory filled my soul. Unexpectedly, the Khans were given two plots right next to the plot where Pastor Martin’s first wife, Marilyn is buried, which is right next to the plot reserved for Pastor Martin. There, virtually standing on the grave of his wife, just a couple feet from his own grave, Pastor Martin proclaimed the gospel and the resurrection victory of the slaughtered Lamb. Two slaughtered lambs lay in two caskets before us as a gospel minister declared our victory in Christ while standing on his own grave. Victory – in all these things. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death (Revelation 12:11).

I’m humbled having had the privilege of serving Christ with Arif and Kathy. I’m overwhelmed at having been given the honor of being Christ’s servant to them on the eve of their deaths. I cannot read Romans 8:35-37 now without remembering our first martyrs. I expect that we will see more martyrs. And I expect that the Lord will prepare and equip each of us who are His faithful servants to complete the work which He has given us to do, and being the faithful Shepherd that He is, He will guide us through this valley of death, to that glorious table spread for us because of the victory of His eternal death-conquering sovereign love.

Alan Dunn, Pastor

Grace Covenant Baptist Church

Flemington, NJ

The Faulty Foundations of The Shack – Part 2

Having watched William Young’s TV interviews, I find myself empathizing with his background and experience.  I desire to put the best construction on the theology of The Shack.  I hope my critique is both gracious to Young and honest with The Shack.  I am compelled to be incisive in my assessment and to sound a warning as this Christian juggernaut is presently sweeping across the publishing landscape and looming on the horizon of your own experience.  You may read The Shack.  You will likely meet someone who has read The Shack.  It appears probable that a movie about The Shack will soon be showing at a theater near you.  We must theologically critique The Shack.

Advocates of The Shack demur negative theological criticism.  Young tells WORLD that “theological criticisms are overkill: ‘it’s a work of fiction that’s really focused on the journey of a human being to deal with the junk in his life that includes his misunderstanding of the character and nature of God.’”  Wayne Jacobsen, editor and publisher, defends The Shack against negative criticisms at http://lifestream.org/blog/2008/03/04/is-the-shack-heresy/ .  We are told that we should not criticize The Shack because it is just a story.  Certainly we must remember why it was written and acknowledge some legitimacy to Young’s defense that it is a work of fiction steeped in metaphor.  But The Shack must be analyzed with discernment because, in our Postmodern age, people no longer get their theology from doctrinal confessions, but from stories.  Postmoderns are suspicious of abstract principles and propositional assertions.  They would tell us that systematic theology is passé, a relic of the Enlightenment with all its logic and institutionalized authority; with all its arrogant presumption that one can actually know the truth.  God cannot be comprehended, because He is enshrouded in mystery.  What is commendable is not doctrinal certainty, but sincere seeking in one’s quest for spirituality.  What matters is the journey.  Young presents his theology as narrative, not doctrine.  He values “relationship” over “religion.”  The Shack tells a story of healing to a generation convinced that it needs therapy more than it needs theology. The Shack suits the appetite of our Postmodern age.  Eugene Peterson says “This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his.  It is that good.”  Like Pilgrim’s Progress, The Shack is an allegory. Young’s theology is taught by characters who represent the Trinity as they dialogue with Mack, the protagonist.  The question is “Is Young’s theology as sound as Bunyan’s?”  The promotions, interviews, everything about The Shack says “You’ve not understood who God is and you need to learn about Him from this book!”  How can such a theological allegory not be theologically critiqued?

Tim Challies gives a most helpful critique at http://www.challies.com/archives/book-reviews/a-review-of-the-shack-download-it-here.php .  Had I space, I would insert his critique into this analysis at this juncture.  You would do well to read Challies’s article.  Be aware that he, however, gives the story away.  Along with Challies’s concerns for Young’s deficient views of Scripture, the Trinity, and the work of Christ, I want to point particularly to what Challies calls “subversion” in The Shack.  The faulty foundation of The Shack is Young’s rebellious rejection of divine authority. 

Here is my critique of the Shack’s faulty theological foundations.  First, Young misunderstands the Fall.  Second, he consequently misunderstands God.  Third, he fails to give a clear expression of justification and hence presents a deficient gospel.  Fourth, his view of the Christian life is infected with antinomianism.  Young’s theology is simply too one-sided.  He emphasizes God’s goodness but neglects, even disdains, the notion of God’s holy righteousness.  His emphasis on “relationship” over “religion” brings to mind Jesus’ words I desire compassion and not sacrifice (Mt 12:7).  But the Lord also says in Proverbs 21:3 that to do righteousness and justice is desired by the Lord rather than sacrifice.  Indeed, compassion is preferred over religious ritual, but compassion must be characterized as being righteous and just.  Without righteousness and justice, there is no compassion.  Young neglects and even obscures God’s justice as the necessary foundation of God’s compassion.  The Shack is built on faulty foundations.

First, Young misunderstands the Fall (Gen 3:1-7).  Satan’s attack upon the first couple was an enticement to doubt God’s word: Indeed, has God said?  Satan advocated unbelief by arousing suspicion of God’s character in two ways.  First, Satan enticed the couple to suspect God’s kindness and goodness with the question You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?  The implication is that God is unkind having commanded them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Second, Satan enticed the couple to suspect God’s righteousness and justice in his bold assertion You surely shall not die!  This is a verbatim denial of God’s threatened punishment for violation of His law (Gen 2:16,17).  We see that Satan slanders God’s character in two ways: God is neither good nor kind, and God is neither righteous nor just.  Young has discovered God’s goodness and he wants to defend God’s character against the first aspect of Satan’s slander.  In his TV interviews, he says that God’s behavior may appear unpredictable, but His character is certain: He is essentially good.  “God is good and He is involved.”  Young, however, fails to defend God against the second aspect of Satan’s slander: that He is unjust.  Satan denies that violators of God’s law will be punished.  Young does not merely ignore this slander, he often advocates it.  Satan says in effect, “God is not concerned with commands and laws.  God will not judge you.  You can sin and not be punished.”  In many places in The Shack, Young articulates this line of reasoning.  But God’s relationship with man clearly has a legal component at its very foundation.  Our Creator God is also our Lawgiver and Judge.  We are accountable to Him to obey His commands.  He is totally just to condemn and punish us for our rebellious disobedience to His Law.  Yet this aspect of God as being righteous and just is obscured and distorted in The Shack.  This, no doubt, is no small part of The Shack’s appeal.  Fallen men have always wanted God’s blessing while denying Him His righteous prerogative to judge.  Like fallen Adam, men fashion religious fig leaves to hide from God’s judgment.  They use religion to deflect God’s judgment, praying as in Psalm 10:13, He (the wicked) has said to himself, “Thou wilt not require it.”  These words are mouthed as a prayer in which the wicked religiously deny God His right to judge.  Such fig-leaf religion is a psychological Band-Aid therapeutically placed over a convicted conscience.  The Shack is constructed on this kind of faulty fig-leave foundation.  

Secondly, Young consequently misunderstands God.  I am compelled to ask whether Young has succumbed to Satan’s second ploy to doubt God’s righteousness and justice.  On p.120 “Papa” (God the Father) tells Mack: “I am not who you think I am, Mackenzie.  I don’t need to punish people for sin.  Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside.  It’s not my purpose to punish it; it’s my joy to cure it.”  These words echoes Satan’s You shall not surely die!  If God is denied His authority to issue commands and to punish disobedience, then He appears to be a God other than the One revealed in Scripture.  To say that God does not punish but only cures sin, is to misrepresent God’s righteous response to sin and to misunderstand the utter sinfulness of sin (Romans 7:13).  Young’s god is The Great Therapist, not The Judge of all the earth who does right (Genesis 18:25).  To misrepresent God is to violate the second commandment.  I have a serious concern that the God presented in The Shack is a false image made by Young.  Young’s “Papa” is not about law or punishment.  He is all about love and relationship.  But Young fails to make it clear that the perpetually promoted “relationship” that “Papa” seeks with men is a reconciliation that has a forensic foundation.  For fallen sinners to have “relationship” with God, God must resolve our legal condemnation and guilt.  Young suggests that we can “return to relationship” with God but shows little concern for our sin, God’s violated law, or our exposure to His righteous wrath.  Young glosses over these legal concerns of God’s courtroom and thus builds his “shack” on yet another faulty foundation.

We’ll look at the third and fourth faulty foundations in the next article.

Alan Dunn, Pastor

Grace Covenant Baptist Church

Flemington, NJ

The Faulty Foundations of The Shack – Part 1

If you haven’t heard of The Shack, you will.  Its author, William Young, is getting a lot of exposure in Christian media as sales of The Shack skyrocket.  There is even talk of a forthcoming movie.  When “Christian” juggernauts sweep through our culture, I am compelled to ask, “What brand of ‘Christianity’ is getting all this attention?”  Does Young express biblical Christianity in The Shack?  What should be my response to those who either read this book or see the expected movie?  So, to make up for not having read Left Behind nor seen Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ, I read The Shack. I’ll try not to reveal too much of the story for those of you who might yet read the book.

I first read about The Shack in the June 28 — July 5, 2008, WORLD magazine.  I’ve since watched Young give several TV interviews: on The 700 Club at www.cbn.com/700club/guests/bios/Paul_Young_030708.aspx ; on Atlanta Alive at www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsOeILVa3wQ ;and I especially recommend his most candid interview with James Robison at http://www.lifetoday.org/ (see the archives for July 14 & 15, 2008).  These interviews divulge a lot about Young that the reader would otherwise not know.  William Young is in his midfifties.  He is the son of Christian Missionary Alliance missionaries.  He went to Bible School and Seminary and then went into the Christian ministry.  His religious activity, sadly, proved to be a mask that his wife removed in 1994 when she discovered that Young was having an affair with her best friend.  With the help of a therapist, he spent the next decade rebuilding his marriage and his faith.  The Shack is a condensation of the lessons Young learned during that time.  He wrote it for his six kids to give them perspective on all that they no doubt witnessed growing up in the Young household.  The Shack is a metaphor for the place where we “get stuck” in life, where we “hide our failures and our shame.”  Young’s “shack” was his failure to live up to the rules of his “legalistic religion” and the shame of his marital infidelity.  The Shack is about how Young came to reject his pharisaic upbringing, to resolve his shame, and to restore his relationships with his wife and his God.  Young expresses a desire to tell his readers that God is good.  In his TV interviews, Young says that his message is simple: “God is good and He is involved.”  Evangelicals are applauding this message which is resonating with readers as evidenced by soaring sales and glowing testimonials.

Whenever professing Christians get the public spotlight as writers, entertainers, politicians, or preachers, I find myself asking: “Are they true Christians?  Do they clearly express the gospel of justification by faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone?”  So, does Young clearly articulate the gospel in The Shack?  Sadly, he does not.  Nevertheless, I want to put the best possible construction that I can on his novel.  Of the many scenes in which Young discusses doctrines related to the gospel, there is one scene where he uses explicit gospel terms, although even then with a characteristic lack of clarity.  Components of the gospel can be deciphered in the climactic scene where God compels Mack, the protagonist, to forgive the story’s central criminal (Young 224-228).  In this scene, Mack discusses forgiveness with “Papa” (the character depicting God the Father).  Readers who already know the gospel will recognize a reference to the work of Christ as having solved the sin problem: “because of Jesus, there is now no law demanding that I bring your sins back to mind,” says “Papa.”  A clear presentation of the atoning work of Christ, His resurrection, and the essential issues of justification by faith is not given.  The theological terms “law,” “sin,” “confess,” “repent,” “forgive,” and “redeem” are uncharacteristically employed in this scene.  Such precise terms have been conspicuously absent in previous scenes.  If you’re looking for the gospel, you can decipher its faint outline submerged beneath this dialogue.  The presentation is not clear, but you can graciously give Young the benefit of the doubt, and determine that what is lurking beneath it all is the biblical gospel.  So, there it is – kinda: the gospel.  I think.  As I proceed, I will accept Young as my brother in Christ, but his characteristic lack of doctrinal clarity and his emphasis on certain errors are troublesome.  Because of these weaknesses, I fear that The Shack will do more harm than good.

So what good does The Shack do?  First, The Shack rightly identifies the Triune Godhead as the source of love.  Second, Young repeatedly appeals to us to have a vital, loving relationship with God, and not to settle for a religion consisting of perfunctory engagements in external legalisms.  Third, Young also wrestles with theodicy: defending God’s goodness in the face of sin and suffering.  He wants the reader to know that “God is good and He is involved.”  He presents God as being in control and working all things for good.  Fourth, I am impacted by the way The Shack is affecting readers.  The Shack’s success is due, in large measure, to Young’s emphasis on God’s compassionate goodness and love.  Seeing the public’s reaction to Young has caused me to wonder whether I, as a son of the Most High, sufficiently emphasize my Father’s kindness and mercy to ungrateful and evil men (Luke 6:35,36).  I fear that I too often come across as a son of thunder, ready to call down the fire of judgment, forgetting that the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them (Luke 9:53).

So now that you know that I’m eager to recognize the grace of God in Young (Acts 11:23) and receptive to the good that I can derive from The Shack, you’ll perhaps hear my critique in the spirit in which I give it.  There are real and serious problems with the theology propounded in The Shack.  I hope that I can speak to these deficiencies as Priscilla and Aquilla spoke to Apollos in the hope that Young  might mature in the way of God more accurately (Acts 18:26).  Young is perhaps just that: young – a younger brother in Christ who has genuinely experienced real restoration and discovered the kindness of God in a very powerful, life-transforming way.  However, his experience of God is held within the context of doctrinal deficiency and some of what he espouses is actually dangerous.  Young has obtained some very poignant and penetrating insights into God’s love but has expressed them in some jarring (can I say juvenile?) ways.  His depictions of the interactions of the Persons of the Godhead, for example, are sometimes silly and even verge on the sacrilegious.  This is childish.  In his TV interviews, Young says he wants to be a child and to enjoy the childhood he never had.  He would also likely remind us that we are to be like children to come to Christ.  True.  But too many biblical injunctions urge us to mature in doctrinal and experiential knowledge of Christ to justify remaining culpably immature like children, tossed about by every wind and wave of doctrine (Ephesians 4:14).  That is what I fear for the readers of The Shack: that many immature, doctrinally untaught and undiscerning readers will be blown out to doctrinal sea by the emotive power of Young’s book.  I want to validate what appears to be Young’s genuine personal  transformation by God’s grace, but I fear that The Shack will produce yet more doctrinally confused professing Christians who are trusting in a defective gospel.  I hope this critique will alert you not to become one of them.

Alan Dunn, Pastor

Grace Covenant Baptist Church

Flemington, NJ

Why Did You Do That, Lord?

Sometimes when The Lord circumstantially spoils our personal plans, we think He’s treating us as an enemy, when in truth, He’s acting as our best friend.

The legend says that Genghis Khan, the Mongol king of the 13th century, was out hunting one hot summer day with his favorite hawk perched on his wrist.  Parched with thirst, the king sought out a source for a cool drink.  At last, to his joy, he saw some water drop by drop trickling down over the edge of a rock cliff.  The king leaped from his horse, took a little silver cup from his hunting bag, and held it so as to catch the slowly falling drops.

It took a long time to fill the cup; and the king was so thirsty that he could hardly wait. At last it was nearly full.  He put the cup to his lips, and was about to drink, when all at once the air whirred, and the cup was knocked out of his hands, spilling the precious water on the ground.  It was his pet hawk who’d spoiled his drink!  It flew back and forth a few times and perched on some high rocks.  The king picked up the cup and again held it to catch the trickling drops.  When it was half full, the thirsty king lifted the cup to his mouth.  But before it touched his lips, the hawk swooped down again and knocked it from his hands.  Now the king was angry.  He tried again, and for the third time the hawk kept him from drinking.

This enraged the king.  “How do you dare act so?” he screamed.  Then he filled the cup again, but before he tried to drink, he drew his sword, and when the hawk swooped down, the king struck his bird with the blade.  “That is what you get for your pains,” shouted the king.  But this time his cup had fallen out of reach between two rocks.  So the king climbed up the cliff to drink right from the source. At last, he reached the top and beheld a pool of water.  But what was lying in the pool, and almost filling it?  It was a huge, dead snake of the most poisonous kind.  The king stopped, forgot his thirst, and thought only of the dead bird lying on the ground below him.  “The hawk saved my life!” he cried, “and how did I repay him?  He was my best friend, and I have killed him.”

Our Father sees all from His heavenly throne, and often sends His circumstantial hawks to keep us safe.

For He will give His angels charge concerning you,

To guard you in all your ways. Psalm 91:11.

The Lord is your keeper; . . .

The Lord will protect you from all evil; He will keep your soul.

The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever. Psalm 121:5, 7-8

We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

Mark Chanski