Night of the Living Bloggers

When I was a kid I was somewhat traumatized by a viewing of the horror film, Night of the Living Dead.  The story, such as it is, deals with a group of strangers locked in an old farmhouse seeking to survive the night against an onslaught of zombies who have surrounded the house.   As the film unfolds the drama shifts away from the zombies outside to the increasing tensions inside the house.  Before long, the struggle for survival is not so much against the monsters without, but, sadly, the monsters within.  As the tragedy unfolds, you eventually have the people within the house seeking to kill one another, rather than being united against the real threat from outside.

Believe it or not, I do have a point to make from all this.  The church has ever and always been surrounded by dangerous foes.  Chief among them is our adversary who roams about like a lion seeking whom he may devour.  We find the apostles warning about dangerous teachers, wolves, and other assorted heretics.  We find the dangers of the world looming large and seductively against the people of God.  We also find the great dangers that come from our own heart as we strive to put to death the deeds of the flesh and to increasingly put on the virtues of the new man in Christ.

With so many “zombies” on the loose, why is it that so much of our fighting happens within the house?   Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for lively discussion and even sharp rebukes within the house (see how Paul dealt with Peter in Galatians 2 for instance).  What I have witnessed, however, especially among bloggers (and I am dealing with Reformed bloggers, because they are the ones I generally read) is that the majority of their ammunition is fired at their friends and not their enemies.   It is my contention that if all true brethren had to cease their criticisms of one another for one week there would be tumbleweed blowing through the internet.   I confess there is no end the critical comments that can go on in my own heart.   You name a ministry, a church, a book, a preacher or teacher and I can find something negative to say about it!  But do I have to?  There is not a single preacher with whom I agree all the time.  The most popular writers and pastors and conferences speakers, on occasion, make me roll my eyes (thankfully someone always rolls them back to me).  If and when they do, must I share it with the world?  Sound the alarm?

Why have I saved some of my most savage comments for those within the body rather than for those without?  I’m not talking about heretics or even those who are on the far side of the theological spectrum—I’m talking about close allies.

There are real dangers and real threats to the body of Christ, and yet, too often I have been more concerned with what I have perceived to be the theological faults of true and useful brethren (he’s kind of  a dispensationalist-bang!, he’s a bit charismatic—bang, bang!, he’s postmil or premil—boom!,  he likes the Red Sox-yech!).

There are plenty of real zombies and I do not want to use my ammunition on those who are ultimately my friends and allies.

I don’t think Paul had zombies in mind when he penned Galatians 5:15, but it fits, “But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!”  I have not lost my will to fight.  I just want to fight real monsters.

Jim Savastio

Reformed Baptist Church of Louisville

The Lord’s Day

Consider carefully the following evidence that the redemption accomplished through Christ’s resurrection determined the day for Christian worship:

1. Jesus Christ arose on the first day of the week (Matt. 28:1). He entered into his rest from labor, not on Saturday (the seventh day), but on Sunday (the first day of the week). As Jesus entered into his rest on the first day, so he encourages us to begin the week by resting in the confidence that He will provide for all our needs for seven days with only six days of labor.
2. Jesus Christ appeared to His assembled disciples on the first day of the week, as well as to Mary and to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (John 20:10; Luke 24:13). By these appearances on the first day of the week, the resurrected Lord set a pattern for meeting with His disciples. They began expecting to meet with Him on the day of his resurrection, which is the first day of the week.
3. Jesus appeared to the assembled disciples one week later on the first day of the week, with doubting Thomas present this time (John 20:26). Already a new pattern of assembly for worship was emerging. God’s new covenant people were making it a habit to assemble together on the first day of the week, the day of Christ’s resurrection. Jesus honored these assemblies by appearing to the disciples at this time, and encouraged their faith in Him as the resurrected Lord.
4. The resurrected Christ poured out his Spirit on the assembled disciples exactly fifty days after the Sabbath of the Jewish Passover, which was the first day of the week (Acts 2:1; cf. Lev. 23:15–16). The word Pentecost means “fifty,” referring to the fifty days after the Sabbath of the Passover. Forty-nine days would span seven Jewish Sabbaths or Saturdays, and the fiftieth day would then fall on a Sunday, the first day of the week. So it would appear that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit came on the first day of the week, when God’s new covenant people were assembled for worship. So the pattern would be established more firmly. Both the resurrection of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit occurred on the first day of the week.
5. As Paul spread the gospel of Christ among Jews and Gentiles throughout the world, the first day of the week was used as the time for Christians to assemble for worship. In Greece, Paul and Luke assembled with the people of God to break bread and to hear the preaching of God’s word on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7). This was the day that the people of the new covenant assembled to hear God’s word.
6. Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth to establish the pattern for their presenting of offerings for the service of the Lord. He ordered the Christians in Corinth to follow the pattern that had already been set with the churches in Galatia (1 Cor. 16:1). On the first day of every week they were to consecrate their offerings to the Lord (1 Cor. 16:2). This schedule for honoring the Lord had become the pattern for God’s people throughout the churches. The churches were not to present their offerings any time they wished. Rather, on the first day of each week, all the Corinthian Christians were to follow the pattern that had already been set among the Galatian churches. The first day of the week was the designated time for the presentation of offerings to the Lord.

O. Palmer Robertson

Why on Sunday? New Horizons, March 2003.

Intense Concern for the Salvation of Others

“For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren.” Romans 9:3

Concern for the salvation of others is not prevented by a belief in what we call the doctrines of grace; is not prevented by believing in divine sovereignty, and predestination and election. Many persons intensely dislike the ideas which are expressed by these phrases. Many persons shrink away from ever accepting them, because those ideas are in their minds associated with the notion of stolid indifference. They say if predestination be true, then it follows that a man cannot do anything for his own salvation; that if he is to be saved he will be saved, and he has nothing to do with it, and need not care, nor need any one else care.

Now, this does not at all follow, and I will prove that it does not follow, by the fact that Paul himself, the great oracle of this doctrine in the Scripture, has uttered these words of burning passionate concern for the salvation of others, so close by the passages in which he has taught the doctrines in question. Look back from the text, run back a few sentences and you will find the very passage upon which many stumble: “Moreover, whom he did predestinate” — there are people who shudder at the very words — “them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”

Just a little while after he uttered those words from which men want to infer that the man who believes it need not feel concerned for his salvation or the salvation of others, just a little after, came the passionate words of the text. Nor is that all, for you will find just following the text, where he speaks of Esau and Jacob, that God made a difference between them before they were born, and where he says of Pharaoh that God raised him up that he might show his power in him, and that God’s name might be declared through out all the earth. “Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardeneth.” Some good people fairly shiver at the inference, which seems to them to be inevitable from such language as that. But I say the inference must be wrong, for the inspired man who uttered this language, only a few moments before had uttered these words of the text.

And whenever you find your heart or the heart of your friend inclined to shrink away from these great teachings of divine Scripture concerning sovereignty and predestination, then I pray you make no argument about it, but turn to this language of concern for the salvation of others, so intensely passionate that men wonder and think surely it cannot mean what it says. The trouble is in this and many cases that we draw unwarranted inferences from the teachings of the Bible, and then cast all the odium of those inferences upon the truths from which we draw them. Now, I say that whatever be true, for or against the apostle’s doctrines of predestination and divine sovereignty in salvation, it is not true that they will make a man careless as to his own salvation or that of others; seeing that they had no such effect on Paul himself, but right in between these two great passages come the wonderful words of the text.

John A. Broadus

[an excerpt from his sermon entitled, "Intense Concern for the Salvation of Others" in Sermons and Addresses (Hodder & Stoughton: New York, 1886)]

Is Your Preaching Wimpy?

A couple of days ago I commented on an e-mail sent by someone who claimed they were becoming Roman Catholic because of me. I mentioned that I have seen this kind of e-mail from various groups, and in the few times I have been able to press the person for meaningful interaction, I have always found the claim less than compelling. I mentioned some of the reasons then.

I did not, however, wish to leave the impression that such things should be unusual. In fact, I would like to upset a few apple carts with the following comments. Please read them all, and if you are going to misquote me, I can’t stop you–but I will be clear as to what I am saying.

When Paul spoke to the Ephesian elders in his final meeting with them, he said these words:

“Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. ” (Acts 20:26-27)

The true preacher of the Word seeks to have this as his ambition as well. God is not honored when men think so little of Him and so highly of themselves that they edit the content of the proclamation for the fear of the face of men and so that they may be considered “successful” in some worldly sense. It is a fearful thing to be unfaithful to the task of preaching “the whole counsel of God.”

Keeping this in mind, I would like to point out the fact that there are religious hypocrites in the church. There were even in the days of Paul, as he names some by name. But today one looks for the true believer as the oddity in evangelical churches filled with unregenerate men and women who have been fooled into thinking you can shake a man’s hand, say some magical words that are not joined with any kind of repentance or understanding of the gospel itself, and you have your “ticket punched” and you are on your way to heaven. The result is that any time you would dare to preach the soul-searching passages of Scripture that expose sin and hypocrisy and false faith you will hear the howl of the religious hypocrite from front row to back. Which is why you can observe major “ministries” today that are completely focused upon avoiding any form of offense of the natural man, just so long as they are there on Sunday morning and drop a little something in the plate to help you pay for your massive sports arena.

But even the best church will have false professors in its midst, men and women who, for various reasons, may well play the religion game quite well for an amazingly long time. Some do it for family reasons, some just because they were raised that way, some for acceptance–but in any case, they attend services, may even be involved in ministry, but their hearts are unchanged, their faith in word only.

Now, given these two things, there follows inevitably a set of conclusions that I have found are troubling to many. Here is where I ask you to listen carefully. Sound, complete, consistently biblical preaching will offend the natural man. Not an overly controversial statement, right? However, what do offended hypocrites do? What do unregenerate men who have been playing at religion do when the full-orbed preaching of the Word finally breaks through their hardened shell and hits them where it counts? What happens when their false attachment to the proclamation of the truth is broken for any number of reasons? Do they simply walk away and become pagans, non-religious people, living the ways of the world and the full expression of their unregenerate nature? Some do, surely. But not all. Instead, let me be bold:

Speaking the truth will inevitably drive some to profess faith in false religions, having once professed faith in the truth.

There is the controversial statement, but it really should not be so controversial. A lost man is a lost man whether he is lost while sitting under the sound proclamation of the Word or lost while sitting in a pit of heresy. Unregenerate men will express their rebellion in many ways, and one natural way for such a rebel to show his disdain for God’s truth is that, having professed it for a season, he denies it, even seeking to be seen as a great “convert” to some other, often directly contradictory, religious faith. Do we not see this often in the history of the faith? Do we not see it today as well? The “Paul on the road to Damascus” syndrome has been documented often in converts to Rome, or Salt Lake City, or Brooklyn–just think of Gerry Matatics, for example, or Scott Hahn.

So the question I have to ask of many who stand behind pulpits today is this: is your preaching so wimpy it would never trouble a religious hypocrite, and never result in such a person fleeing its proclamation so as to run to man’s religions for refuge? Do you pull back on those elements of God’s truth that are the most offensive to the natural man because you do not wish to see that disdainful look, that annoyed shaking of the head? Do you really distrust the ministry of the Spirit to make the Word of Christ to come alive in the hearts and minds of Christ’s sheep, so that you do not need to worry about those who find offense at His truth? Or have you embraced the spirit of the age which places man’s fragile emotions upon the seat of prominence, and have bought into the idea that to be “loving” means to never give offense to anyone (well, except for God–it is fine to offend Him by thinking yourself so wise you can edit out what shouldn’t be in the gospel in our day)? Would your teaching and proclamation allow a religious hypocrite to remain safely and comfortably ensconced in the congregation for years on end, never offended, never convicted? Finally, if such a hypocrite does leave and make a show of embracing heresy just to spite you, do you sting with embarrassment, or rejoice that God’s Word continues to work in the hearts of men and women, some to His glory in their salvation, and some to His glory in their damnation? Think about it.

James White

Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church

No, Mr. President

Cramin’ in the Christ

As Jesus neared the end of His Galilean Ministry, the common consensus of Him was quite favorable.  It was thought that He was a prophet of old.  Herod was convinced that He was the resurrected John the Baptist who might be a tad miffed at Herod for having beheaded him.  Peter, however, got it right: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mt 16:16).  Peter correctly perceived Jesus to be the King.  Jesus received Peter’s confession and recognized it to be evidence of His Father’s grace in Peter.  It was the Father who taught Peter that Jesus is the Christ.  Indeed, all who are savingly taught of God confess Jesus to be the Christ.

Yes, Jesus is the Christ, the King – of what?  What did Peter expect the Messiah’s kingdom to be?  The feeding of the five thousand had recently occurred and, on that occasion, the people wanted to make Jesus king (Jn 6:15).  Jesus had sent His disciples off in a boat, away from the political fervor.  Were the twelve vulnerable to the common consensus that expected a Messiah who would set up an earthly theocratic kingdom?  Did Peter expect Jesus to be the King of an ethnic, national, economical, military kingdom with all the nations worshipping the Lord at the Jerusalem temple?  Did Peter imagine the biggest and best of all possible earthly kingdoms and see Jesus as King over it all?

If so, Peter would do well not to tell anyone about that.  Jesus warned and instructed them not to tell this to anyone. It was not the time to proclaim Jesus as Messiah until Jesus first defined and accomplished His Messianic Mission.  The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.

Pardon me?!  Did you say that the Messiah was going to be rejected – and that by the rulers in Israel?  No way!  Isn’t the Messiah going to reign over all such authorities on His Davidic throne?  This is the Messiah we’re talking about here, right?  We should expect the elders, chief priests and scribes to recognize and submit to the Messiah, right?  So what is all this be killed stuff?  A crucified Messiah!?  That’s oxymoronic – like fried ice or dry rain.  What will the Messiah do if not sit on the throne of David and elevate ethnic national Israel to be the most powerful and prosperous nation on earth?

A crucified Messiah simply did not, could not, fit into Peter’s expectations.

So Peter audaciously took aside the Man he had just confessed to be King and rebuked Him: this will never happen to You! How will You ever become King of a revitalized theocracy in Jerusalem and give the nation of Israel geopolitical primacy, economic prosperity, and military supremacy including liberation from Rome, if You’re… what did You say, killed!?  Impossible!  Inconceivable!  How could You get killed?  You’re going to be King in the world’s most grandiose kingdom!  Now, what do You think of that!  That’s great, eh Jesus?

Jesus had heard this line of reasoning before.  He had already rejected the offer of all the kingdoms of the world and their glory (Mt 4:8).  He had already been presented with the opportunity to become KING OF THE WORLD!  Alas, a fallen world.  A cursed world.  A world usurped by Satan whose enticement was again expressed by Peter.  Jesus’ response must have cut deeply into Peter: Get behind Me, Satan! (Mt 16:23).  Jesus called men unflattering names on occasion, but Peter was the only man He called Satan. Peter’s problem?  He was thinking according to man’s agenda, not God’s.

You see, man’s agenda for the Messiah is simply too small, too tiny, too… this worldly.  Men may mean well and think that they flatter Jesus by envisioning Him at the head of their concocted kingdom, but the Christ of God cannot be crammed into some limited, puny little this-age agenda.  Would we want to make Jesus… what?  Chairman of the Republican Party?  President of the United States?  Or perhaps, we, like Peter, hope that He will come back and be a King over a revitalized theocracy on a piece of real estate on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea?  All such desires appear to me to be “cramin’ in the Christ,” trying to stuff Jesus into a man-made agenda, conforming His Kingdom to the contours of that which falls short of the resurrection.  The Messiah’s Kingdom must be defined in terms of His resurrection.  All non-resurrection visions of Jesus’ Kingdom are truncated – just way too tiny.

Jesus speaks of the Kingdom He anticipates: when the Son of Man comes in His glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels (Lk 9:26).  His kingdom is not of this world (Jn 18:36), it is glorious!  James, John and Peter are about to get a glimpse of the King’s glory on the Mount of Transfiguration (Lk 9:28ff).  Try cramin’ the transfigured Jesus into one of your earthly kingdoms!  Just picture it… the United Nations has convened and the transfigured Jesus comes onto the platform to address the ambassadors.  Are you kidding?  The angelic host bow before Him overwhelmed by His majestic holiness!  Men might think they do Jesus honor by conceiving Him at the head of their envisioned utopias, but Jesus anticipates, not the glory given by men, but by His Father.  And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was (Jn 17:5).  Men would give Jesus the glory of men.  Jesus anticipates the glory of God.  The idea of Jesus being contained as head of a mere earthly kingdom or even as head of all the earthly kingdoms, is an insult to our King, and a satanic insult at that.  Jesus the Christ is just way too big to fit into anything other than the KINGDOM OF GOD.

The way to that kingdom is through the cross.  Jesus the Conquering King has defeated  death by His death and He was raised up on the third day. Yes, the kingdom is manifest in this age by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit who given to the sons of God by the resurrected and exalted King as the down-payment of our eternal inheritance.  The kingdom is evident even now in the transformed lives of God’s people as we form communities of grace and take the gospel to the ends of the world to gather in all the called of God.  When this kingdom community accomplishes the King’s commission, when the church is finally cruciformed in union with the crucified Christ, then the King will return in the glory of His kingdom.  And then, O what glory!  Then this cosmos will be liberated from the curse.  Then we shall see Him as He is.  And they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory (Lk 21:25).  And we shall be like Him – resurrected, transfigured, shinning forth as the sun in the kingdom of [our] Father.  He who has ears, let him hear (Mt 13:43).

Alan Dunn, Pastor

Grace Covenant Baptist Church

Flemington, NJ

Who Needs A Stay-At-Home Mom?

He makes the barren woman abide in the house As a joyful mother of children. Praise the LORD! (Psalm 113:9)

The mother is the hub of the home, holding all the spokes in place.  Without her being at her post, the family spins out of control and falls apart.  When her husband hears the predawn alarm clock, she knows he is emotionally emboldened by her tenderly squeezing his arm in appreciation.

From then on, she is the nucleus of the day’s family activity.  She needs to nurse feed one, rouse out of bed another, review a spelling list with yet another, change a diaper, prepare a breakfast, pray God’s blessing on the day, tie shoes, write out a check for a class trip, pack a lunch, check on progress regarding an upcoming book report, read and comment on a verse from Proverbs, discuss a peer conflict while chauffeuring to school, pick up Dad’s suit at the dry cleaners, shop for groceries and household items at the store, sign up for soccer at the Recreational Department, read a story before putting one down for a nap, teach one phonics sounds and letters, make beds and clean up the kitchen, show how to sweep properly, search the internet for good pictures of frogs, deal with a lying problem by spanking, talking, and praying, and prepare lunch.

That’s just the morning.

Then in the afternoon, she’s called to teach lyrics of a song about a pirate named Patch, take a field trip to the park down the street, talk about sharing apple slices with others, explain to her child why he’s not permitted to throw tantrums like others in the park, catch and analyze a grasshopper’s physiological structure and functions, return home for a naptime preceded by a storybook, sit down for personal devotions and prayer, call an appliance repairman about a strange-sounding washing machine, drive to school and talk with a teacher about a child’s performance in math class, talk about the day on the drive home, purchase a well-fitting pair of soccer cleats, assign and supervise the weeding of the flower garden, give out popsicles to the handful of neighborhood children playing in the yard, prepare dinner, embrace her husband and briefly share mutual experiences of the day, enjoy a nutritional supper and discussion together as a family, sit and listen to her husband lead in family worship, direct the clean-up after dinner, help with math homework, bake a batch of sweet-smelling chocolate chip cookies, wash bodies in the bathtub while singing about a pirate and a Savior, rock a little one in a chair, rub a back in bed while giving advice about an argument that took place during recess, pay bills on the internet, wash, fold, and iron shirts, counsel her husband about a relational conflict at work, and enjoy her husband rubbing her arm in bed.

With this, I have just skimmed the surface of her day.  Remove the hub of her tireless labors, and her family flies apart, her husband is a frazzled wreck, and her children are greatly diminished individuals.

“Oh,” but one might say, “This is the case only with mothers of young children.  When they’re older and all off to school, the mother’s role in the home is no longer all that crucial.”  Such a notion is sorely mistaken.  I contend that a mother’s most intense and demanding efforts are required during the teen years.  Frog and grasshopper preoccupations have graduated into boy and girl infatuations.  Rocking a little one in a chair early in the night has advanced to counseling a big one in the master bedroom well past midnight.

During the summer of 2006, we had everybody home for the last time.  Twenty-two-year-old Jared was home from architectural school and working for a design firm.  Twenty-year-old Calvin was doing an internship with a local brokerage firm and working a second job in the evenings.  Eighteen-year-old Austin was working almost full time delivering truck tires.  Fourteen-year-old Abigail and twelve-year-old Nathan were busy with swarming summer activities.  An ignorant onlooker might have suggested, “Surely there’s no need here for a stay-at-home mother.”  Oh so wrong!

These were my bride, Dianne’s, most demanding hours, as each child was passing through a crucial season of life involving a new girlfriend, or a complicated situation with an old girlfriend, or a vocational selection crisis, or an academic preparation issue, or a health problem like a broken leg and an emergency appendectomy with its related recovery time, or a peculiar spiritual/emotional trial.  Dianne would make sure to rise early in the morning in order to be in the kitchen when each one ate breakfast and gathered their things to head out into the world.  She’d ask them questions about where they were last night and with whom, and to whom they talked on their cell phones, and what their plans were during the day, all the while taking their spiritual pulses and administering words of wisdom in season.

She’d inform me of the development of each, seeking my counsel.  Then, she’d often have follow-up contact with them during lunch, or later in the afternoon when they’d return from work and be off to some other social or work activity.  She was a maternal air traffic controller, directing and nurturing the lives of her offspring who were now making crucial decisions that would determine the courses of the rest of their lives.  Both the stakes and the stress levels were higher than they’d ever been.

She would talk to me in the evenings.  I’d follow up sometimes with long late-night walks and talks with them about themes on which I’d been briefed by my helpmeet informant.  Without her maternal perceptions and observations, I’d have been clueless.  With them, our parenting labors were on the stretch as never before.  We spent many nights crying out to God in prayer for their long-term prosperity.  It was my wife’s finest hour as a mother.

Mark Chanski

excerpt from Womanly Dominion; More than a Gentle and Quiet Spirit, pp. 110-112

A Plea for Solid Reflection on the Meaning of Baptism

Michael Haykin encourages us to reflect upon the rich baptismal thought of our Baptist forebears.

Read it here

Preaching is the First Mark of the True Church: Why Faithful Pastors Matter So Much

John Calvin, in his Commentary on 1 Timothy, expresses the foundational importance of pastors to the church. They are the ones who propagate, defend and spread the truth. They are charged with great responsibilities, and must fulfill them for God’s glory. Likewise, the claims of Rome are foolish and blasphemous.  Here is a wonderful exposition of 1 Timothy 3:15.

15 How you ought to conduct yourself: By this mode of expression he commends the weight and dignity of the office; because pastors [Margin: “Bishops, that is, pastors of the Church.”] may be regarded as stewards, to whom God has committed the charge of governing his house. If any person has the superintendence of a large house, he labors night and day with earnest solicitude, that nothing may go wrong through his neglect, or ignorance, or carelessness. If only for men this is done, how much more should it be done for God?

In the house of God There are good reasons why God bestows this name on his Church; for not only has he received us to be his children by the grace of adoption, but he also dwelleth in the midst of us.

The pillar and foundation of truth No ordinary enhancement is derived from this appellation. Could it have been described in loftier language? Is anything more venerable, or more holy, than that everlasting truth which embraces both the glory of God and the salvation of men? Were all the praises of heathen philosophy, with which it has been adorned by its followers, collected into one heap, what is this in comparison of the dignity of this wisdom, which alone deserves to be called light and truth, and the instruction of life, and the way, and the kingdom of God? Now it is preserved on earth by the ministry of the Church alone. What a weight, therefore, rests on the pastors, who have been entrusted with the charge of so inestimable a treasure! With what impudent trifling do Papists argue from the words of Paul that all their absurdities ought to be held as oracles of God, because they are “the pillar of truth,” and therefore cannot err!

First, we ought to see why Paul adorns the Church with so magnificent a title. By holding out to pastors the greatness of the office, he undoubtedly intended to remind them with what fidelity, and industry, and reverence they ought to discharge it. How dreadful is the vengeance that awaits them, if, through their fault, that truth which is the image of the Divine glory, the light of the world, and the salvation of men, shall be allowed to fall! This consideration ought undoubtedly to lead pastors to tremble continually, not to deprive them of all energy, but to excite them to greater vigilance.

Hence we may easily conclude in what sense Paul uses these words. The reason why the Church is called the “pillar of truth” is, that she defends and spreads it by her agency. God does not himself come down from heaven to us, nor does he daily send angels to make known his truth; but he employs pastors, whom he has appointed for that purpose. To express it in a more homely manner, is not the Church the mother of all believers? Does she not regenerate them by the word of God, educate and nourish them through their whole life, strengthen, and bring them at length to absolute perfection? For the same reason, also, she is called “the pillar of truth;” because the office of administering doctrine, which God hath placed in her hands, is the only instrument of preserving the truth, that it may not perish from the remembrance of men.

Consequently this commendation relates to the ministry of the word; for if that be removed, the truth of God will fall to the ground. Not that it is less strong, if it be not supported by the shoulders of men, as the same Papists idly talk; for it is a shocking blasphemy to say, that the word of God is uncertain, till it obtain from men what may be called a borrowed certainty. Paul simply means what he states elsewhere in other words, that since our “faith is by hearing,” there will be no faith, unless there be preaching. (Romans 10:17) Accordingly in reference to men, the Church maintains the truth, because by preaching the Church proclaims it, because she keeps it pure and entire, because she transmits it to posterity. And if the instruction of the gospel be not proclaimed, if there are no godly ministers who, by their preaching, rescue truth from darkness and forgetfulness, instantly falsehoods, errors, impostures, superstitions, and every kind of corruption, will reign. In short, silence in the Church is the banishment and crushing of the truth. Is there anything at all forced in this exposition?

Having ascertained Paul’s meaning, let us return to the Papists. First, by applying this eulogium to themselves, they act wickedly; because they deck themselves with borrowed feathers. For, granting that the Church were elevated above the third heaven, I maintain that it has nothing to do with them in any manner. Nay, I even turn the whole passage against them; for, if the Church “is the pillar of truth,” it follows that the Church is not with them, when the truth not only lies buried, but is shockingly torn, and thrown down, and trampled under foot. Is this either a riddle or a quibble? Paul does not wish that any society, in which the truth of God does not hold a lofty and conspicuous place, shall be acknowledged to be a Church; now there is nothing of all this in Popery, but only ruin and desolation; and, therefore, the true mark of a Church is not found in it. But the mistake arises from this, that they do not consider, what was of the greatest importance, that the truth of God is maintained by the pure preaching of the gospel; and that the support of it does not depend on the faculties or understandings of men, but rests on what is far higher, that is, if it does not depart from the simple word of God.

James M. Renihan, Dean

The Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies

www.reformedbaptistinstitute.org