Transforming Grace

This description of the communion meal at St Giles church in Edinburgh under the ministry of Robert Bruce is quite astonishing and challenges the bare ritual of many contemporary churches:

We must make an attempt in this chapter to bring up to our minds the scene upon Communion Sabbath in St. Giles Church in the year 1590. In 1590 in St. Giles the communicants sat in successive relays at tables specially set apart for the purpose, which were covered with a fair white cloth. As many as twelve or even sixteen of these tables were provided, about one hundred people sitting at each one. Little tokens of metal were used, and these were handed to the officiating elder on his admitting to the table. The Session Records of St. Giles for 1590 show that not port wine but claret was used; the quantity consumed was astonishing.

Bruce’s sacramental theology is explained below. Prizes for anyone who can translate the old Scots dialect:

Quite in accord with this doctrine of the Church is the doctrine of the sacraments held by the Scottish Presbyterians. In the Scottish Confession of 1560 it is taught that “In the Supper rychtlie used, Christ Iesus is so joyned with us that He becumis the verray nurishement and food of our saulis.” Master Robert Bruce, who was a theologian and a student of the history of the Church, bases his teaching upon the sacrament on this Confession, avoiding on the one side extreme sacramental ideas, and on the other side that lax teaching of the opponents of High Churchism which finds in the bread and wine no more than a picture of the transactions of Calvary. Bruce occupies the ground of the Second Helvetic Confession (1566) and of the Thirty-nine Articles (1563), which was afterwards defined in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646). In his Five Sermons upon the Lord’s Supper the view represented by that strong composition, the Scottish Confession of 1560, is laid down with much vigour of intellect and variety of illustration. He steers a straight course between the Scylla of transubstantiation and what he regards as the Charybdis of a bare commemoration theory. In the words of his original, “We will neather wirschip, the signes in place of that which is signifeid by thame; neather yit do we dispyse and interprets thame as unprofitable and vane; but we do use thame with all reverence, examyning ourselfis diligentlie befoir that so we do.”, Or let Master Robert himself state the position: “Will ye speare at us, again, How Christ Iesus His true bodie and blood is present? We will say, That they are spirituallie present, reallie presente, that is present in the supper and not in the bread; we will not say that His true flesh is presente to the hands or to the mouth of our bodie, but we say it is spirituallie present, that is present to thy spirit and faithfull saull, yea even als present inwardlie to thy saul as the bread and wine are present to thy bodie outwardlie. Will ye speare then, Gif the bodie and blood of Christ Iesus be present in the supper? We answer in a word, They are present in the supper, but not in the bread and wine, nor in the accidents nor substance of bread and wine. And we make Christ to be present in the supper, because he is present to my saull, to my spirit and faith.”‘

[Robert Bruce, Minister in the Kirk Edenburg, Banner of Truth 1961, p71-81]

I’m sure many people are familiar with the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator. The bible provides three criteria for profiling people. These criteria are:

1. Salvation by faith in Christ alone
2. God’s law
3. Wisdom

People can possess any combination of these three criteria and we are only complete as created human beings when we possess all three.

Salvation is by God’s grace through faith alone in the completed work of Christ on the cross. Nothing can be added or taken away from what Christ has done to turn away God’s wrath from sinners.

God’s Law is a blessing to those who meditate on it and make it their delight (Psalm 1:1-2). The law instructs people on how we should and should not live and draws people to Christ as Saviour when we fail to match its requirements.

Wisdom is the God given ability (common grace) to receive, discern and understand the structure, order and purpose of God’s world and to act appropriately in within it.

Now, the types of people who occupy each section of the venn diagram.

1. Saved by faith – the immature Christian. This sort of person has got saved out of a messy background. Loads of faith in Christ and yet no conscious obedience to the law or wisdom. The bible describes people like this, they were called the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 5:1).

2. Then there’s the legalists. Cold, formal, godless moralists. This sort of person is like the self-righteous brothers on Harry Enfield…”then I said NO!”

3. Capable hedonists are generally wise, they are socially well adjusted, get on well with people but have no idea about Christ and little desire to obey God’s law. They do well at work, have a good social network are respectable and well behaved when necessary but blow out at weekends.

4. Moving in to the overlapping sections of the diagram, cross salvation with the law and you get fundamentalists. They’ve got salvation and the law but no wisdom. Soap box fire and brimstone preachers and monks come to mind, but they can be more subtly disengaged from the world by being immersed in Christian sub-culture.

5. Then there’s salvation (or talk of it) and wisdom and you have the liberal. Christians who think deeply about the way the world works but are uncomfortable talking about the law, especially when it comes to sex.

6. The wise moralist is the person you’d want as a good neighbour. Easy to get along with and who would never dream of doing anything to upset his neighbours. No loud music at night or bonfires when you’ve got your washing out. The sort of person who’d run a neighbourhood watch scheme and everyone would feel safe. But God and Christ are no-where on the radar screen.

7. Then, last of all, the complete person, saved by faith in Christ alone. They are sorted with God and look forward to eternity. They know the law and seek to live it to the best of their ability. And, as they are soaked in God’s wisdom, they relate well to everyone they meet.

8. There’s one person missing. The fool. No fear of God, no wisdom and no law. A dangerous nuisance in society.

All types of people in the blue circle and possibly the orange circle will be members of church. Tracing my life I have moved from 3 (capable hedonist) to 1 (immature Christian). I then with good teaching I grew towards 7 (complete person) until sometime in Asia I was diverted to a mixed 4 (neonomian) where salvation and law got confused. I’ve managed to separate the two and am beginning to get wisdom so, by grace, should be moving toward 7 again, though I know I’ll never be complete this side of glory. As a minister, the question is, how should God’s word be ministered and applied to each personality type?

I’ve just finished John Piper’s book The Future of Justification (A response to N.T. Wright). Piper’s passionate pastoral reasons for keeping justification by faith alone central to Christian life and ministry state what I discovered the hard way and have tried to articulate on this blog at various times; if our works of love compete with Christ in our hearts and minds as the basis of our acceptance before God we rob the cross of its power to produce good works in our lives. Here’s Piper in his own words:

WHY THIS BOOK?
My ultimate reason for writing this book is to avert the double tragedy that will come where the obedience of Christ, imputed to us through faith alone, is denied or obscured. Inevitably, in the wake of that denial, our own works—the fruit of the Holy Spirit—begin to take on a function that contradicts the very reason these good works exist. They exist to display the beauty and worth of Christ whose sacrifice and obedience (counted as ours through faith alone) are the only and all-sufficient security of the fact that God is completely for us. That’s the first tragedy: In our desire to elevate the importance of the beautiful works of love, we begin to nullify the very beauty of Christ and his work that they were designed to display.

The other tragedy that I pray we can avert is the undermining of the very thing that makes the works of love possible. What makes radical, risk-taking, sacrificial, Christ-exalting works of love possible is the fact that Christ’s perfect obedience (counted as our righteousness) and Christ’s perfect sacrifice (counted as our punishment) secured completely the glorious reality that God is for us as an omnipotent Father who works all things together for our everlasting joy in him. If we begin to deny or minimize the importance of the obedience of Christ, imputed to us through faith alone, our own works will begin to assume the role that should have been Christ’s. As that happens, over time (perhaps generations), the works of love themselves will be severed from their root in the Christ-secured assurance that God is totally for us. In this way, for the sake of exalting the importance of love, we will undermine the very thing that makes them possible.

Yet the freedom and courage to love is what the world desperately needs to see in the church and from the church. The world does not need to see strident, triumphalistic evangelicals laying claim to their rights. The world needs to see the radical, risk-taking, Christ sacrifice of humble love that makes us willing to lay down our lives for the good of others, without the demand of reward on this earth. For the sake of this display of the glory of Christ, I plead for our allegiance to a robust, biblical, historic vision of Christ whose obedience is counted as ours through faith alone.

Racial segregation is troubling our government and there is a strong desire to do something about it, but what can the government do? I live in the multi-cultural constituency next door to the one where Enoch Powell was MP for 24 years. He left the Conservative party to join the Ulster Unionists in 1974 and made his infamous “rivers of blood” speech 40 years ago yesterday (20th April 1978).

Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), marked the 40th anniversary of Enoch Powell’s speech in an address on the matter of racial segregation in the UK. Phillips pointed out that Powell’s predictions of violence between races had not come true but that

we have seen the emergence of a kind of cold war in some parts of the country, where very separate communities exist side by side… with poor communication across racial or religious lines.

Wolverhampton has been described as less of a city and more of a collection of tribes and villages, with around 80 ethnic groups. Our local community action group organises an annual fun day, where community groups set up stalls and promote their activities. There is the the scouts (white, middle class), the Caribbean association, various Asian ladies well-being groups, an Asian dance group, a gospel choir and others. At the last two fun days St Luke’s church was the only multi-cultural group. I don’t expect it to be different this year.

they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” (Revelation 5:9-10)

There is little or nothing the government can do. This multicultural government wants social cohesion without God. This will not happen because faith and cultural identity are so closely entwined in many ethnic groups. In Malaysia it was said “to be Malay is to be Muslim”. In Blakenhall, to be Sikh is to be Punjabi. The Church of England is hardly an exception to this rule. I am regularly embarrassed by how white and middle class the members of the clergy are and this is reflected in our churches. There are signs of change at the top and at the fringes. The most famous bishops in the country are arguably Michael Nazir-Ali and John Sentamu.

Churches in multi-cultural settings need to work hard so that they don’t become homogenous but instead reflect the reality of Revelation 5. As Christ redeems people by his death for their sin he makes them members of kingdom so his reign is seen on the earth.

Tim Keller said churches need to work hard on making the leadership of churches multi-cultural. Our church wardens are Jamaican and God has been pleased to answer our prayers for ministry trainees who are not white and middle class. One is coming from Ghana and the other is an Asian South African. It will be much harder work for the leadership to understand each other due to a lack of shared cultural assumptions, but the hard work will be worth it for Christ’s sake and glory. Perhaps, then, the government will take notice.

During lent this year, we used C.J. Mahaney’s The Cross Centered Life in our growth groups. The book is brilliantly simple at uncovering legalism, condemnation and a subjective faith. It then takes those who suffer such things (like me) back to the cross and gives helpful ways of keeping the cross central.

One obvious symptom of legalism, condemnation or a subjective faith is a corrupt and impure heart (conscience). Thomas Watson provides some great tools for diagnosing whether our heart is pure or not. I found the third point particularly helpful. Watson shows that the avoidance of sin can stem from motives other than the pure heart which results from a proper grasp of Christ’s imputed righteousness.

Watson’s work needs to be set in the light of the work of Christ, so:

Since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:21-22). To the pure all things are pure (Titus 1:15).

I shall next show you the signs of a pure heart.

1 A sincere heart is a pure heart: ‘In whose spirit there is no guile’ (Psalm 32:2). There are four characters of a sincere-hearted Christian.

(i) A sincere heart serves God with the whole heart.

(ii) A sincere heart is willing to come under a trial. ‘Search me, O God, and try me’ (Psalm 139: 23).

(iii) a man of sincere heart dares not act in the least against his conscience.

(iv) a sincere heart is a suspicious heart. The hypocrite suspects others and has charitable thoughts of himself. The sincere Christian has charitable thoughts of others and suspects himself.

2 A pure heart breathes after purity. A gracious soul is so in love with purity that he prizes a pure heart above all blessings.

(i) Above riches.

(ii) Above gifts.

3 A pure heart abhors all sin. A man may forbear and forsake sin, yet not have a pure heart.

(i) He may forbear sin as one may hold his breath while he dives under water, and then take breath again.

(ii) He may forbear sin for fear of the penalty.

(iii) He may forbear sin out of a design. He has a plot in hand and his sin might spoil his plot.

4. Again, a man may forsake sin yet not have a pure heart. Sin may be forsaken upon wrong principles.

(i) From morality: moral arguments may suppress sin.

(ii) From policy: a man may forsake sin, not out of respect to God’s glory, but his own credit.

(iii) From necessity. Perhaps he can now follow the trade of sin no longer. The adulterer is grown old, the drunkard poor.

5. But he is pure in God’s eye who abhors sin. ‘I hate every false way’ (Psalm 119: 104).

Here’s two quotes, the first from Total Church and the second from Jonathan Fletcher’s recent Reform paper (it arrived in the post yesterday) Back To The Future. Reforming The Church of England - Learning From The Past, both highlighting the same problem…evangelical ministers are scared of the inner city.

First, Chester and Timmis:

A church in a prosperous town with 27,000 inhabitants received over 60 applications for the post of assistant pastor. At the same time a church in the north of England with an established evangelical ministry serving a city of several hundred thousand people could not get one application for the post of assistant pastor. People sometimes claim it is a question of calling. They do not dispute the validity of ministry to the poor, but feel their calling is to the rich. That is not Luke’s pitch to Theophilus. And it does not explain why God apparently calls far more people to prosperous areas than he does to the poorer areas of the nation! In reality the only call in the Bible is the call to the way of the cross, the way of service, sacrificial love and suffering. (Total Church, p80)

And Jonathan Fletcher:

By the same token, it is rather sad that evangelicals have got a bad reputation of not going to Urban Priority Areas, such that when St Nicholas’ Tooting was advertised as an evangelical church only two people applied for it. We will not win the country unless we can stick with those sorts of places. The model that Holy Trinity Brompton in London has given us of planting in existing parish churches that are about to close and giving them new life is remarkable. We must not lose those opportunities.

If enough leaders say this, perhaps an increased number of ministers will get a heart for the inner city. On the other hand, as Paul writes, how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? (Romans 10:14).

The figures quoted above, in light of the gospel, should bring tears to our hearts, if not our eyes, and move us en masse to the inner city.

Having been to the Children Desiring God conference at Oak Hill on 5th April (I had meant to blog my notes but my Palm crashed!) we have started memorising their Fighter Verses starting with the foundation verses. We’ve just learnt No one can serve two masters (Matt 6:24a). Here’s Thomas Watson on why serving God and money doesn’t work, it’s all about the purity of the heart:

A covetous heart is an impure heart. The earth is the most impure element. The purity of the heart lies in the spirituality of it, and what more opposite to spiritualness than earthiness? Covetousness is ‘the root of all evil’ (1 Timothy 6: 10).

(i) Covetousness is the root of discontent.

(ii) Covetousness is the root of theft.

(iii) Covetousness is the root of treason. It made Judas betray Christ.

(iv) Covetousness is the root of murder.

(v) Covetousness is the root of perjury.

(vi) Covetousness is the root of necromancy (connecting with the dead). Why do persons indent with the devil, but for money? They study the black art for yellow gold.

(vii) It is the root of fraud in dealings.

(viii) Covetousness is the root of bribery and injustice.

(ix) It is the cause of uncleanness.

(x) Covetousness is the root of idolatry: ‘Covetousness which is idolatry’ (Colossians 3: 5).

(xi) Covetousness is the cause of unprofitableness under the means [of preaching, reading, praying, the sacraments etc].

(xii) Covetousness is the root of penuriousness and baseness. It hinders hospitality.

This post is on a controversial issue. I will declare from the outset that, due to my understanding of the function of the two trees in the Garden of Eden within the Adamic Covenant, I hold to the view that Hell/Hades/Sheol is an intermediate state equivalent to death row, where those who die apart from Christ consciously await judgement and execution by divine decree. My basis for this is explained in this post but readers will benefit from reviewing the background work on the Garden of Eden and the distinction between natural death and judicial death at the fall.

There are broadly three Christian views on the sentence handed to the wicked on judgement day.

The first is eternal conscious torment and physical torture. The resurrected bodies of the damned are thrown into a lake of fire (Rev 20:14) where their bodies are not destroyed but tortured by fire and worms (Isa 66:24) and where their consciences are tormented eternally.

The second is annihilationism which, in its simplest form, states that mortal death is judgement and that the person simply ceases to exist.

The third, which has been confused with simple annihilationism, is death-row executionism. The wicked die and are held in a place of conscious torment where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth as they await judgement and sentencing. The sentence they know and expect from Genesis 2:17 is to miss out on the promise of eternal life by being summarily executed by royal decree.

The second view is unbiblical as man is destined to die once and after that face judgement (Hebrews 9:27).

The first and third views are hotly debated with respect to the nature of the sentence. I have considered arguments for and against both views. I am yet to come across an argument which properly takes into account the initial conditions in the Garden of Eden. Most arguments start with proof texts or philosophical constructs about the nature of God or the nature of man. I believe two initial conditions at creation support the death-row executionism view.

First, Adam and Eve were not created with immortality. God had not promised that they would live forever. The promise of immortality would be sealed as they ate by faith in God’s word from the tree of life. Eternal conscious torment assumes either that:

1. the human soul is created with immortality and so must suffer eternally as it cannot be destroyed.
2. God will raise the bodies of the dead and impose immortality on them in order to torment and torture them eternally.

Plato and Aristotle, who have arguably influenced biblical scholars, taught that the soul is immortal but there are no texts in the bible which explicitly support this anthropology. Indeed, the bible clearly states that God alone is immortal (1 Tim 6:16) and that God will destroy the body and soul in hell (Matt 10:28). Unless explicitly stated we should not assume that immortality is a communicable attribute.

Second, and more importantly, the sentence for rebellion announced by God in Genesis 2:17 was execution by royal decree. Adam and Eve knew explicitly that should they eat from the prohibited tree God would summarily execute them. There was no sentence of eternal conscious torment and physical torture for disobedience in the Garden. If we change the nature of the sentence we make God out to be a liar. God does not lie (Heb 6:18). If he says “I will summarily execute you for rebellion” then that is what God will do. Put simply, “The wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

I am yet to find a defence of eternal conscious torment and torture which deals satisfactorily with either of these initial creation conditions. The executionist view of the sentence at judgement on the wicked and their conscious torment on death-row (the intermediate state) makes best sense to me of the controversial passages in scripture, both the apollumi (destruction) and waling/gnashing passages. More on these passages will follow later.

The Christian circumcision party in Crete would not take the gospel to liars, evil brutes and lazy gluttons because they were afraid of being defiled (Titus 1:12-15). They were afraid of being defiled because they were unbelieving (Titus 1:15). But to the pure all things are pure (Titus 1:15). The purity of the believer, through faith in Christ’s atoning work on the cross, enables believers to go into the hard areas. Work with drug addicts and prostitutes is possible because we know nothing can defile us. What is hard when ministering in such areas is remaining pure in heart. How many well intentioned ministers go off the rails when working with liars, evil brutes and lazy gluttons?

Thanks again to Thomas Watson, whose section on “blessed are the pure in heart” provides motivation to remain practically pure in heart as well as by grace:

(i) Because if the heart be not pure, we differ nothing from a Pharisaic purity. The Pharisees’ holiness consisted chiefly in externals. Theirs was an outside purity. They never minded the inside of the heart.

(ii) The heart must especially be kept pure, because the heart is the chief seat or place of God’s residence. God dwells in the heart. He takes up the heart for his own lodging (Isaiah 57: 15; Ephesians 3: 17), therefore it must be pure and holy. …Let that room be washed with holy tears.

(iii) The heart must especially be pure, because it is the heart that sanctifies all we do. If the heart be holy, all is holy – our affections holy, our duties holy.

See here what is the beauty that sets off a soul in God’s eye, namely, purity of heart. You who are never so beautiful are but a spiritual leper till you are pure in heart. God is in love with the pure heart for he sees his own picture drawn there. …How may this raise the esteem of purity! This is a beauty that never fades and which makes God himself fall in love with us.

If we must be pure in heart then we must not rest in outward purity. Civility is not sufficient. A swine may be washed, yet a swine still. Civility does but wash a man, grace changes him.

Much has been written about the UK suffering a lack of identity and about how multi-culturalism fuels sectarianism and segregation in society. Christians have long spoken about church being a place where people of all tongues, tribes and nations worship together (Rev 5:9). But we must not make truly diverse churches the goal or an end in themselves. Multi-cultural, ethnically diverse and class inclusive churches will result as a product of the message of the cross. If our churches are homogeneous in a multi-cultural, multi-class area we need to ask, “are we really preaching and living Christ crucified for sin?” Timmis and Chester make this observation in Total Church:

The big question is why the church in the West is failing to reach the poor and marginalized in our society. If our churches do not reflect the reality Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 1, then we have to ask ourselves whether in the message we have proclaimed, the way we have proclaimed it, the church cultures we have created, the expectation we have of church members, in some or all of these ways we have not been true to the message of the cross. We have left room for boasting. Instead of nullifying status, intellect and wealth, we have valued these things too highly and so nullified the message of ‘Christ and him crucified’ (2:2). Conservative Christians are right to oppose any downgrade in the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. But we must examine ourselves to see whether we too are robbing the cross of its power. (p81)