He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”  (Luke 18:9–14, ESV)

From this passage, which man trusted God for his salvation?  Which one saw God at work in his life?  Most of the time the answer that is given is the second man because he cried out for God’s mercy while the Pharisee boasted of his own works.  But look at the Pharisee’s prayer, “God, I thank you…”  He indeed saw that it was God who had made him unlike other man.  It was because of God’s good gifts that he was able to do the things that he did.  However, he was trusting in what has become known as infused righteousness or an internal righteousness.

This Pharisee trusted in his own works, though given to him by God, for his salvation.  As Calvin puts it in his commentary on this passage, “Hence we infer that men are not truly and properly humbled, though they are convinced that they can do nothing, unless they likewise distrust the merits of works, and learn to place their salvation in the undeserved goodness of God, so as to rest upon it all their confidence.”  The fault of this man was not distrusting God for his salvation, but rather looking for God to create an internal righteousness that was sufficient to save him.

The tax collector however, does not trust in anything within himself.  Rather, he acknowledges his sin and cries for God to be merciful to him.  He does not point to any works of righteousness, God wrought or not.  He know that he has no hope of salvation from God’s judgment within himself.  Again, in theological terms, it could be said that he trusts in imputed righteousness.  That is a righteousness which comes to us from outside ourselves that is not ours, but is counted (imputed) as ours by God.  This righteousness is Christ’s that is imputed to us through his life, death, and resurrection.  Not only were our sins imputed to him, but his righteousness to us.

This should give us hope when we sin, knowing that as God’s redeemed our standing before God is not based on an internal, God-given righteousness, but on the unchanging and always perfect righteousness of Christ.  Also, it means that we can never “live the Gospel” or “be the Gospel.”  To do so would be to say that the good news is what God has done in us, rather than what God has done in Christ.  Instead of pointing people to an external righteousness in Christ, we would instead point people to our changed lives (see Objective Faith in a Subjective World).

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This can best be seen, I think, in the crucifixion of Christ. The people of Israel and the Roman rulers put Christ to death for sinful reasons. However, they did nothing that God had not predestined for them to do, “for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. ” (Acts 4:27–28, ESV, emphasis mine) Through the sinful act of these people, God’s plan to redeem His people was being moved forward.

The question then is not if you will be used by God, but how you will be used by God. Will it be to demonstrate his wrath and justice or will it be to demonstrate His grace and mercy (see Romans 9:22-23)? Will it be from a hardened heart acting in rebellion to Him (as Pharaoh in Exodus) or a willing, joyful, and obedient heart? So let us pray that God will give us a heart of flesh that we may be obedient to Him (Ezekiel 11:19-20). Also, let us not be overly discouraged when we do fail, knowing that God uses sinful people to accomplish his purpose.

Does God still call people today?

God does still call people today; His calling is primarily to salvation. While this call is mentioned many times, one of the clearest is in Romans 8:29-30, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” (ESV)

Notice the flow here: foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified. The call is based on the foreknowledge and predestination of God. The call results in justification and glorification. The call is effectual because it gives what it commands. Just as Jesus’ call for Lazarus to “come out” (John 11:43) gave Lazarus the life he needed to obey, so also the effectual call of God gives the right standing (justification) we need to come before God. Just as Jesus gave Lazarus life, but Lazarus did the living, so also those called by God willingly and joyously do the believing and obeying.

The Tower of Babel is God acting on this promise. God takes action against the growing pride of man by pitting evil against evil. By causing disunity amongst men, God has graciously prevented evil from reaching the level it did before the flood.

However, this disunity was reversed at Pentecost with the preaching of the Gospel – the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection – in many languages (Acts 2). Here at last was good news that inclined men’s hearts toward God. Here at last was something that man could unite over and not be lead into pride. Here at last was, and is, salvation from God’s judgment.

Today, however, our relationship with God is not based on any internal righteousness or perfect obedience. Rather, on the righteousness and obedience of Christ. Adam and Eve were guaranteed a relationship with God as long as they were perfect. We are guaranteed a relationship as long as Christ is perfect (forever). Adam and Eve had a Creator/Creature relationship. We, in Christ, have a Father/Child relationship.

I am reminded of Hebrews 4:16 “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace…” (ESV). Adam and Eve, before the fall, could draw near to God in self-confidence. We draw near with confidence, but not in our self. It is a confidence that Christ “has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15 ESV) and that His righteousness has been imputed to us.

All this to say (while not minimizing the horror of sin) for us who are Christ’s, who trust in His righteousness rather than our own, we are indeed in a better state than Adam and Eve were before the fall. And what an even more glorious state we will be in when we are on the new earth, completely free from sin.

Introduction
Church Fathers
Creeds, Councils, Heresies
Cannon
Eastern Orthodoxy
Roman Catholicism
Crusades
Reformation (part 1)
Reformation (part 2)  and Puritans
Awakenings
American Cults
Liberalism
Retrospect and Prospect

Biblical Theology is the study of the history of revelation.

Kerux – A Primer on Biblical Theology

Biblical Theology approaches the Bible as an organic drama of God’s unfolding revelation through history. In distinction from doctrinal or systematic theology, biblical theology follows the progressively unfolding revelation of God’s words and deeds through history. This linear aspect of revelation unites each revelatory event and proclamation both retrospectively and prospectively. Geerhardus Vos described the organic continuation of revelation in history as a flower expanding from bud to blossom. The blossom is retrospectively united to the bud; the bud is prospectively united to the blossom. One of the tasks/privileges of the interpreter of Scripture is to draw out these organic prospective and retrospective relationships. At the center of this organic unity is the person and work of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Even as our Risen Lord related all of Scripture retrospectively and prospectively to himself (Luke 24:27), so Reformed biblical theology is preeminently Christocentric.

God spoke into history; God acted in history; God was incarnated in history. Vos described this vertical interface with history as the eschatological penetration of the history of redemption. In fact, Vos approached Scripture from the standpoint of the priority of the eschatological. Overarching the entire history of redemption was the eschatological arena. Every revelation of God in history was an invitation for the creature to possess the arena of the Eschatological/heavenly. This would only be accomplished through the saving work of the Son, Jesus Christ. Hence, Christ was eschatologically revealed throughout the history of redemption as the promised seed of the woman, seed of Abraham, seed of Jesse, etc. Even as God and man met in Jesus Christ, so the eschatological and the linear met at every point of God’s special revelation.

Graeme Goldsworthy – Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture

From the evangelical preacher’s point of view, biblical theology involves the quest for the big picture, or the overview of biblical revelation. It is of the nature of biblical theology that it tells a story rather than sets out timeless principles in abstraction. It does contain many timeless principles, but not in abstract. They are given in an historical context of progressive revelation. If we allow the Bible to tell its own story, we find a coherent and meaningful whole.

Many people when reading the above quotes will think that Biblical Theology and Systematic Theology are opposed to each other.  This is not true.  Rather they inform and strengthen each other.

I added another group that Owen didn’t talk about.  It is those who say that Christ’s atonement didn’t accomplish anything for believers, but merely set an example.  I think any Bible believing Christian can see that this is obviously in error.

Having emptied political life of moral content, we have as a nation been unwilling to accept the consequences.  If prophets tell us that our public life has been reduced to bare expediency stripped of altruism and idealism, we call them cynics.  We cannot endure the face cleanly and honestly what we have done in obliterating the moral criterion and the spiritual dimension from our manipulation of people in the spheres of political, public, and institutional life.  We have therefore invented a pseudo-value which will throw over decisions and actions that are purely expedient and pragmatic an air of respectability.  I mean the alleged virtue of loyalty, which is useful to give a bogus moral quality to a slavish acceptance of the party line.

It might be argued the the problem of loyalty is the key problem of our age — in this country at least.  Bertrand Russell is reputed to have said in a broadcast, “Loyalty is always evil”.  It is an exaggeration, of course; but it makes a profound point provocatively and, like so many of Russell’s judgments, does more for the stimulation of healthy thinking than a thousand pulpit platitudes.

Loyalty may be said to be evil in the sense that if any action is defended on the grounds of loyalty alone, it is defended on no rational grounds at all.  ”I do this out of loyalty to my party” is irrational and amoral unless it is consequent upon, “My party is operating wholly and in every particular for the benefit of the human race”.  ”I do this out of loyalty to my leader” is irrational and amoral unless it is consequent upon, “My leader’s character, or purpose, or policy, is such that it ought to be supported”.  Loyalty is in itself not a moral basis for action.  Loyalty to a good man, a good government, a good cause, is of course a different matter.  But in these cases, where one stands by a man, or a government, or a cause, because it is good, one is standing by the good.  The basis of action in these cases is moral in that one is serving the good; and thus the concept of loyalty is redundant.  One can therefore say fairly that whenever the virtue of loyalty is quoted as a prime motive or basis for action, one has the strongest reasons for suspecting that support is being sought for a gad cause.  There is no need to drag the pseudo-virtue of loyalty if genuine values are being served in the course that is recommended.

That said, through the encouragement of my wife, I took up the challenge of writing an objective testimony that only used my story as support for the need of a savior. Below is the transcript of that. I got a lot of the content in the Isaiah 6 portion from a sermon by my pastor and commentaries from Young and Calvin.

Let me know what you think. I am especially interested if anyone agrees or disagrees with my dislike of testimonies in evangelism.

Testimony

Introduction

In giving my testimony I would like to do something different than most. I would first like to go through a section of scripture, looking at it in detail. The reason I want to do this first, before sharing my personal story, is because my story is not what is important. Rather it is the story of God’s work in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that matters. God does not require an experience for salvation, but faith. And this faith must be grounded in truth.

We are going to look at Isaiah 6 to see how the prophet Isaiah came realize his need for grace from God.

Isaiah 6

¹ In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. ² Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³ And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”

⁴ And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.

⁵ Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.”

⁶Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. ⁷ He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.”

Exposition

From this passage we can see the process of recognizing our need for grace in 2 stages.

God’s Holiness

The first stage that Isaiah goes through is seeing God for who he really is.

• Notice the language in verse one.
  • God is first described as sitting on a throne; he is a king and judge. God is both the ruler of the world – creating and controlling everything that happens, and judge – condemning those who rebel against his rule.
  • The next two words describe him as being lofty and exalted or “high and lifted up.” He is not just any judge or king, but THE ONE judge and King. He alone has the right to demand complete obedience to His rule from all people and he alone has the right to judge those who fall short and rebel.
  • That last few words of verse one describes where this vision is taking place. It is not a throne room as one would expect from a king and judge, but rather the vision is taking place in the temple. The temple was a symbol of God’s presence with his people. So while God is the high king and judge over all, he also condescends to his people, desiring to be present with them. He is not distant and inactive, but present and active.
• In verses 2 and 3 we are introduced to the Seraphim.
  • These creatures have no other purpose than to sing God’s praise without ceasing. Notice that they cover their face and feet with their wings. These are sinless creatures, yet even they cannot stand, unshielded, in the glory of God.
  • The song the Seraphim sing is “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.” The only characteristic or attribute of God that is repeated 3 times is “holy.” Never to do we see that God is “Love, love, love” or “Mercy, mercy, mercy” or “Justice, justice, justice.” This means that of all God’s attributes, his holiness is the one from which the others flow and are controlled. So what is his holiness? Holiness has two basic meanings, both of which apply to God in this passage.
    • First – it designates something that is pure, without flaw. Specifically something that is without sin.
    • Second – it designates something that is set apart.
• So in summary the first stage of understanding our need for grace from God is to understand His holiness. We must see how unapproachable he is, how complete separate from sin he is. We must also understand that He as ruler and judge has set a perfect law in place and has the right to demand perfect obedience.

Our Sin

The second stage of recognizing our need for grace is seeing ourselves for who we truly are. Specifically seeing our sin for what it truly is.

1. Notice in verse 5 Isaiah’s response to seeing who God truly is. He says, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.”
2. Isaiah was a good man by earthly standards. Already for 5 chapters we see that he has been working for God, delivering God’s word to his people. Compared to any of his peers he was the godliest. And yet, upon seeing God he pronounces woe or judgment on himself.
3. When Isaiah says that his lips were unclean he is not just talking about his lips, but by speaking about part of his body he was really speaking of the whole. Isaiah’s lips were not the only part of him that was unclean, but he was unclean in his entirety.

Summary of Exposition

From this passage we have seen that Isaiah, though a good man by earthly standards, upon coming before God and seeing God for who he truly is, realizes his own sinful state and pronounces judgment on himself. Before, had he looked around at his peers, he could have had pride in his godliness. After all he was a prophet of God, a holy many by earthly standards. But now he can only cry out that he is ruined because he is unclean.

However, notice in verses 6 and 7 that God does not leave Isaiah in this state. God sends one of the Seraphim to Isaiah with a coal from the altar and touches his lips (again symbolic of his whole body). Through this transaction Isaiah is cleansed and made right with God. Notice how this is grace from God. Isaiah truly deserved the judgment he pronounced on himself, however, God, of his own accord, was pleased to forgive his sins and cleans him. Notice also, what Isaiah had to do to receive this grace…nothing. He didn’t even ask for it. God’s forgiveness and cleansing is always undeserved, that is what makes it grace.

Testimony

So what does this have to do with my story? I grew up in a Christian home. My parents were in fulltime Christian ministry, first as Christian camp directors here in the States and then as missionaries in France. I cannot remember a time when I did not trust Christ as my savior. Like Isaiah, in comparison to my friends I was much better. I prayed, I read the bible, I served in my parents ministry, I didn’t curse, I rarely lied, I didn’t sleep around, etc… If you had judged me according to the cultural average, if you had compared me to most of my peers, I would have come across as a saint.

However, when compared to God’s perfect law and holiness I was, and am, nothing close to a saint. My own works fall far short of God’s requirements. When I compare myself to God’s standard instead of my friends and coworkers I am not proud, but humbled and terrified of God’s judgment. Left on my own, without the grace of God, I deserve God’s holy and just judgment. The more I get to know God for who he is and the more I see my sin for what it is the more I fear God and loath myself.

This is where my story ends, fearing God’s wrath and judgment and self-hatred. But, if you remember at the beginning, I said there was another story which matters more. That is Christ’s story.

The Gospel

As we saw with Isaiah and myself none of us are able to live up to God’s perfect standard. Even those of us who seem good based on our outward appearance fall far short of being perfect when we come before a Holy God. Romans 3:23 teaches that “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

A friend of my wife recently remarked that Christians never live up to the standards they teach and are all hypocrites. When my wife asked me how she should respond I told her that what her friend had said was the core of Christianity. No human lives up to God’s standards; as such Christians never have and never will, in this life, live up to the standards they teach – as long as they teach God’s standards.

So this leaves us in a hopeless situation when we look exclusively at what we do. However, God, because of His great mercy has provided a way out. About 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ, the Son of God and equal to him in glory and power came to earth. As we saw in Isaiah, God wishes to live with his people. In the Old Testament that was through the Tabernacle and Temple. However, in Jesus, God in a very real way came to live with his people as God Incarnate – that is God in flesh. As both fully God and fully man Jesus was able to live up to all of God’s laws in our place and he received the judgment we deserve through his death. Through faith God will credit Christ’s holy life to us and credit our sin to Christ.

Christ now stands ready to receive all who will believe on him; all those who will stop measuring themselves by their own works and instead measure themselves by God’s holiness; all those who will see their sin for what it truly is; all those who upon realizing that they can never live up to God’s standard will cry out “Woe is me! God save me!”

If you have your doubts, please ask questions of me or any strong Christian. As I said at the beginning faith must be based in truth. If you come to a bridge and doubt its strength to hold up under your weight you will not sit down and look inside to see why your trust in the bridge is so weak, but you will instead investigate the bridge. Is it made of rotting ropes and twigs or concrete and steel? In the same way if you doubt that Christ is who he says he is or that his work on behalf of sinners can bear the weight of your sin then investigate the facts, study the bible, and talk with mature Christians. He is more than enough to carry your sin for you.

Prayer

Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you that it shows us that even good men like Isaiah are failures when compared to your perfect law. But you did not leave him, nor us without hope. Instead you provided your only Son, who you have loved eternally, to live the life we couldn’t and die the death we deserved. And now he sits at your right hand, having completed his work, ready to receive all who will come. Through him we can have forgiveness from our sins and become loved by you. I pray that if anyone here has doubts or questions that they not hesitate to find answers so that they may trust in you and the work of your Son. May our lives bring you glory. Amen.

It is not that Christians should not be doing good works; that would be missing the second purpose of the law entirely.  However, a believer’s value is in his or her status as a co-heir with Christ, as an adopted son or daughter of God.  This is why Paul spends the first 11 chapters of his letter to the Romans describing their relationship to God as believers before he starts to exhort them to good works.  To do otherwise would be legalism.    Jerry Bridges in Transforming Grace puts it this way:

The realization that my daily relationship with God is based on the infinite merit of Christ instead of on my own performance is a very freeing and joyous experience.  But it is not meant to be a one-time experience; the truth needs to be reaffirmed daily… Having trusted in Christ alone for our salvation, we have subtly and unconsciously reverted to a works relationship with God in our Christian lives.  We recognize that even our best efforts cannot get us to Heaven, but we do think they earn God’s blessings in our daily lives… We are saved by grace, but we are living by performance.

And I would add that we are judging others by performance as well.

I think this trend can be reversed in two ways.  First, we must continually preach the Gospel of Grace to ourselves and others at every opportunity.   The Gospel is the sole motivation and source of power that can truly affect change in our lives.   In fact, it is only when we understand that we are not working for God’s blessing that we can rightly follow his commands.  Otherwise loving our neighbor as ourselves becomes loving our neighbor for ourselves.

Second, we need to recover the law/gospel distinction.  The Law is everything God demands of us, but the Gospel is everything God gives us.  And everything that God requires in the Law, He gives in the Gospel.  This distinction rightly puts what we do in its place — a joyful response to God’s grace through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

When talking with friends we are expected to pay attention and, for the most part, we do. However, when we come before God we worry about other things instead of focusing on the one from whom all good things flow. We need to approach God as we would a king, with awe, fear, and reverence. We never come into His presence in a worthy manner; we must always be in Christ. True we are sons and daughters and He commands us to come before Him in confidently (Heb. 4:6), but He is still king and we should never take it for granted that we can come before him. For me, I realized, I was coming before God still worrying about the things of life and refusing to cast my burdens on Him. Here is what Calvin said on this:

[Let] everyone in professing to pray turn thither all his thoughts and feelings, and be not (as is usual) distracted by wandering thoughts; because nothing is more contrary to the reverence due to God than that levity which bespeaks a mind too much given to license and devoid of fear…Here let us consider how unbecoming it is when God admits us to familiar intercourse to abuse his great condescension by mingling things sacred and profane, reverence for him not keeping our minds under restraint; but just as if in prayer we were conversing with one like ourselves forgetting him, and allowing our thoughts to run to and fro. Let us know, then, that none duly prepare themselves for prayer but those who are so impressed with the majesty of God that they engage in it free from all earthly cares and affections…The sum is, that the more liberally God deals with us, condescendingly inviting us to disburden our cares into his bosom, the less excusable we are if this admirable and incomparable blessing does not in our estimation outweigh all other things, and win our affection, that prayer may seriously engage our every thought and feeling. (emphasis mine)
(Institutes of the Christian Religion Book III.XX, John Calvin)

Ouch! In other words when my thoughts wander during prayer it is because I esteem those things more worthy of my attention, time, and affection than  God. My mind wanders becuase I do not understand His exaltedness and my lowliness.

Since reading this section of Calvin, whenever my mind wanders, I remind myself of whose presence I am in, of what He did for me through Christ, and who I am – an unworthy sinner. This doesn’t always work, but Christ’s grace is sufficient and through Him I am trying to over come this.

¹⁶ But the LORD of hosts is exalted in justice,
and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness.

This verse is found in a section detailing some of God’s judgments on the nation of Judah and specifically the city of Jerusalem.  In it God is lifted up and shown to be holy through his judgment and punishments of sinners.  Today we tend to present a God who is exclusively loving.  We think  that by excluding his wrath and justice we are truly lifting God up.  However, we are really denying his holiness and perverting the Gospel.

Instead we should point people to God’s law, show them his justice on those who do not follow it,  show how they can never fulfill the law, and then show them Christ.  We should demonstrate how he alone lived a life in complete obedience to God’s law and died, in our place, the death we deserved so that any who come to him can have his righteousness and he can take away their sin.

²²What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, ²³in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

The key to this is that the vessels of wrath bring glory to God because they  demonstrate his wrath and power when He destroys them.  However, we as believers are vessels of mercy.  We have a relationship with God and enjoy bringing glory to Him because of what He has done for us and because of who He is.

Merriam-Webster defines relevancy as “having significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand.”  For Christians this means that we must communicate a message that speaks to people’s true need.  That need hasn’t changed at all in the last 2000 years (and even before then) of the church.  It is the need for a savior to pay for our guilt before God so that we can be saved from God’s just punishment.  People may not feel this as a need, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.  Someone with cancer can live months or years without know he has it.  When it is discovered, the need for treatment becomes clear. That does not mean, however, that the need was not present before it was felt.

I think that much of the big push to make church relevant to our culture today stems from a confusion of the visible church with the invisible church.  It is true that today many more people grow up outside of the church and thus are confused by what the church does.  However, I do not think that the gap between an unchurched person today and someone who wasn’t saved but grew up in the church of a few generations ago is all that large when looked at from the standpoint of the invisible church.  Both are dead in there sins, unable to come to Christ without the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 1:18 says “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  I would argue that this means that if you were to grab 50 random people from the streets and bring them to your church one Sunday and all or most of them thought that your church was relevant to them and would help them from Monday to Saturday, then your church is probably not proclaiming the whole gospel (or maybe you providentially grabbed 50 people in the “being saved” group).  To those who are not elect the gospel will never appear as relevant, but as foolishness.  This does not mean that we shouldn’t communicate the gospel to all in the clearest contemporary language possible.  It is this presentation that the Holy Spirit uses to regenerate a person.  However, we should not see ourselves or our churches as failures when we are rejected as being irrelevant.

So what should the church do to ensure that it is relevant?  First, we must make sure we are communicating the true gospel.  It is true that people are hurting, that their marriages are falling apart, that they don’t know how to parent, grandparent,  and husband, and that they are addicted to things like drugs, alcohol, and pornography.  However, if all we do is offer insights from the Bible on how to overcome these problems and sins to the exclusion of presenting the gospel then we are being irrelevant.

Second, don’t completely shape your message to the culture.  History shows that “[Christian] groups that shape their message completely to current trends…do not prosper” (Mark Noll, p. 460, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada).  This is because people are looking for something different from the culture.  They have tried that which the culture has to offer and it has failed them.  If church is just like that which has failed them then they assume it is no different.  I think that over the next 20-50 years we will see an unprecedented growth in the Catholic and Orthodox churches because of this.  People will feel comfort in these churches because they are structured and different from their everyday life.

Third, when we do present the gospel to someone, we need to make sure that it is done in the clearest most contemporary language possible.  Words and phrases like “propitiation”, “substitutionary atonement”, and “Supralapsarianism” shouldn’t be used.  These words are great for quickly defining theological positions and ideas, but are not understood and meaningful to someone outside of the church.  When we present the gospel we need to make sure we present 4 things in order.  First, we need to present who God is, what it means that he is holy, and what it means that he created the world.  Second, we need to present who we are, what it means that we are sinners, and how that affects our relationship with God.  Third, we need to present Christ, what he did for sinners, and how that reconciles those who believe with God.  Finally, we need to answer the question “what must I do to be saved.”

A Definition of Tradition

Traditions are a set of beliefs or actions held or done by a group of people (families, churches, fraternities, businesses, etc…) over a period of time.

Types of Traditions

• Traditions of Belief
  • What is held as being true by a group of people over time
  • Examples: “Christ as savior”,  “Mohamed as Allah’s prophet”,  “God is Holy”, “The Bible as the true word of God”
  • Tests: Must be checked for truthfulness.  For the Christian this means against scripture.

• Religious Traditions of Action
  • Acts that are done on a reoccurring basis by a group of people over time for a religious reason
  • Pull their meaning from traditions of belief
  • Examples: Worship styles, the sacraments, pilgrimages, church government, religious holidays
  • Tests: Must be checked to see if the tradition of belief it is based on is true, if the tradition is authorized in scripture, and if it is helpful.

• Secular Traditions of Action
  • Acts that are done on a reoccurring basis by a group of people over time for a non-religious reasons
  • Often the same thing as culture
  • Examples: Birthday parties, pancakes on Sunday night,  greetings,  thank-you notes,  blue for boys and pink for girls, clothing styles.
  • Tests: Must be checked to see if tradition is ethical and if it is helpful.

Some Benefits of Traditions for Christians

I see traditions like roads.  With a road, someone at some point decided to invest time and energy making it  easier to get from one place to the next.  This person, or persons, found the best path between the two places, avoid dangers (cliffs, swamps, rivers, etc…), removed obstacles, and smoothed the ground.  Once a road is finished it allows others to benefit from the work and get to the location quicker.  Traditions like roads allows Christians to “travel” quicker to the intended end.  Traditions were often designed to help Christians avoid what were seen as dangers.  As long as the intended end is Biblical then these traditions are helpful.  If the end is not Biblical then they are like roads that head in the wrong direction.

 I believe that most Armenians would say that love is God’s primary motivation.  In other words they hold that God’s ultimate goal is to love and be loved in return by free agents who have chosen to love him.  From this belief proceeds much of Armenian teaching.  This is, in my opinion, why many Armenians get upset about God sending some people to hell.  It directly contradicts their view of who God is and what He is trying to accomplish.  They see double predestination as cruel and unloving.  Why, they ask, would a loving God send some people to hell when His main goal is to love all and save all?

It is because of this view that Armenians are such strong advocates of free will.  By free will I mean the ability of sinful man to, of his own ability, have a saving faith.  They advocate free will because they believe that if God unconditionally elected men for salvation, then their love would be a false or forced love.  From this thought flows the obvious and logical conclusion that man cannot be completely dead in his sins (a dead person cannot choose) and that grace can be resisted (or else it would not be a free choice).  And flowing from these is the belief that if man can choose faith in God then Christ would have made payment of sins available to all.

On the other hand, Calvinists hold that God’s own glory is God’s chief goal.  Piper reworded the Westminster Catechism to answer this.  He said God’s chief end is to “glorify Himself and enjoy Himself forever.”   From this viewpoint it is not hard to see scripture teaching that God send some men to hell (to display the glory of his wrath and justice) and some to heaven (to display the glory of his love and mercy).   

This is the way I see it.  I would be very interested in other views on this topic.  Leave a comment if you have any thoughts.

First, in studying church history it is obvious that every generation has thought that Christ would return during their time.  These beliefs were not just held by extremist on the fringe of Christianity, but by many of the church fathers.  Many had good reasons for believing what they did, but they were all wrong.

Second, the book of Revelations was written as a letter.  This means that it had a specific meaning to the people to which it was written.  If we interpret it in a way that they could not have (i.e. Banks merging, computer chips in hands, etc…) then we are misinterpreting it and not presenting God’s meaning accurately.

The message of Revelations and other End Times passages is for believers today, whether or not Christ will return in our life time.  It is a message of hope, encouragement, and joy.  We know that Christ has won already and that he will return someday and we will live with him for eternity.  It should also motivate us to be prepared becuase we don’t know when he is returning.  

Here are three sermons on this topic which I think are very good.  

Revelation – Introduction Part 1

Revelation – Introduction Part 2

Revelation – Introduction Part 3

You can see all the sermons at http://www.spiritempoweredpreaching.com/sermons.htm

1. It’s a record of God’s leading his visible church
2. To see the great variety God uses to accomplish his purposes
3. To realize that each generation is a product of its own time and we must know what was happening then and understand the times to understand what was happening
4. To learn the lessons of the past in order that we might not repeat them
5. To recognize that we are a part of a great stream of people and thinking which we can not just put aside and that much of this stream of history is affecting the church today
6. To recognize that even though the church went through many “dark periods” it still was and is God’s witness and he always has a remnant in it
7. To realize that God has a plan for his church and that he will bring it through all the issues until Christ’s return.  It is his church not ours
8. To learn what God wants is faithfulness in his people and also to look at and review the many good examples
9. To learn that controversies aren’t necessarily bad and that the church was sharpened and shaped as a result
10. To realize that we are creating our own history and we will be studied someday