The Sojourner

You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the sojourners who reside among you and have had children among you. They shall be to you as native-born children of Israel. With you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.  Ezek 47:22 (ESV)

We tend to think of Christmas as family time and indeed much joy is derived by close relatives anticipating getting together for dinner and gift-giving.  The biblical story that inspires this holiday tells us of a God who comes into a world as a sojourner, sometimes referred to as a stranger or an alien depending upon your Bible translation.  The Savior of the world comes to a human-inhabited planet in human garb, but is not welcomed by his own (John 1:11).   Jesus repeats this theme of being on the outside in the parable of the sheep and goats.  The true Israel found a stranger, naked, hungry and thirsty and welcomed him (Mat. 25:35).  The banished ones were those who could not see the sojourner as worthy of their time, their hospitality and a seat at their tables.  

On a crowded plane returning home to Alabama from Chicago, strangers held fast to their seats and with diverting eyes made it difficult for me and Lauren to find a seat (as we returned from visiting Wheaton College). A small inconvenience on a flight is nothing compared to the refusal to welcome and make space for Mary and Joseph as they sought a place for rest on their journey home.   Finally, they find a place among the common livestock of a sleepy village.  It was there in a small and forgotten corner of Bethlehem, that the Savior of the world came as a child, born of a woman, yet son of the Eternal God.  People still refuse to welcome him and to make room for the sojourner who comes to us, more often than not as an inconvenience to our schedules, or an unexpected guest, as Savior and Redeemer.  Even in the season of Christmas, if we are not careful we can ignore him once again.  If we do, then we forget that the stranger who came to Israel is the sojourner who comes to us not to disrupt our Christmas but to give it meaning and restore it to the biblical fulfillment that Ezekiel envisioned as when the stranger is treated as a native-born and the Kingdom is a river that runs to the sea and gives life to all.   

Finally, the sojourner of the Christmas story is the Savior King that awaits us on our journey home.   This season before Christmas has traditionally been a time to focus on what we long for and anticipate.  Not presents under a tree, but the final and blessed home with Jesus, who gave himself on a tree.  J.I. Packer said heaven is “an unknown country with a well-known inhabitant.”  Until then, we all are sojourners on this planet, and from time to time we find welcome among those who realize they are looking toward another home as sons and daughters of Abraham living in a foreign land but looking forward to a city and a home whose “designer” is God (Heb. 11:9-10).   

Justified by Faith for Love's Sake

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. (Galatians 2:15-16 ESV)

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (Galatians 2:20-21 ESV)

We make a decision every morning when we wake up.  It is a choice between two kinds of living and thinking.  One option is to believe that hard work, diligence and seeking to do our best will cause God to love us.   The other option, affirmed by Paul, is to live in light of the cross of Jesus.  It is a grace filled life that enters into whatever a day’s work may bring with the assurance of God’s love.  This is the only option for living in the freedom that came as a gift through the death of Jesus Christ.  How many of us chose the former?   We are bent on the need to perform and somehow we get deluded into thinking there is something we can do to get God to love us more. 

The Gospel breaks through this illusion of work’s value and brings us the promise that the starting point is a grace we do not deserve and lays the foundation for living and working in ways more productive, more rewarding and freeing than under the servitude of our sinful attempts at doing our best.   The life we now live “is by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”   Grace motivates us to be good, not “for goodness sake” as the popular Christmas song puts it, but for love’s sake. 

The puritan Thomas Watson describes this goodness without the gospel this way, “Morality is insufficient for salvation. Though the life is moralized, the lust may be unmortified. The heart may be full of pride and atheism. Under the fair leaves of a tree, there may be a worm... If morality were sufficient to salvation, Christ need not have died. The moral man has a fair lamp—but it lacks the oil of grace."

The Jesus of Testimony

The Jesus of Testimony

The Problem of Hypo-Calvinism

We often hear about the dangers of hyper-Calvinism in our Reformed churches, and without a doubt, too much emphasis on divine election without the twin truth of human responsibility can indeed lead to a dreadful view of God’s love that is nothing short of fatalism.  Such a distortion of election is a joy robbing and mission killing heresy that has nothing in common with true Calvinism. 
  
But there is another danger lurking around and yet seldom addressed and it is hypo-Calvinism.  In medical terminology, hypo is the opposite of hyper (too much),  so hypo-Calvinism is the problem of not enough of Calvin.   This is the diagnosis often over looked in the PCA today.    If we would read more Calvin and follow his teachings, as he reflected on the Scriptures, we would be more catholic, more liturgical, more sacramental, more Gospel focused, more confessional, more evangelistic and more engaged in our culture than we are in our current state.   Hypo-Calvinism is our biggest problem.   We need the balance and wisdom of Calvin in our churches, which claim him, but rarely read him.  

We should be more catholic than we often are, meaning we should reclaim the truth that the Reformers were both evangelical and catholic and that the two blend quite well together as an expression that the true apostolic Church which is founded and renewed by the Gospel.  Papal supremacy and its abuse of power and the Anabaptist impulse for autonomy are two great threats to the Church.   

Calvin restored biblical liturgy to the Lord’s Day service.  He got rid of the “bells and smells” of medieval appropriation of religious window dressings and went for the simple beauty of the true and the biblical.  Regulative worship is not being more “spontaneous than thou” or one historical frozen form.   Calvin’s theology of the sacraments was expressed in a strong connection of these sacred actions to the normal or “ordinary” routine of worship.  Many traditions that are heavy on sacraments end up being light or fuzzy on the Gospel of free grace.  Why that happens is a puzzle, except in my experience when a Reformed Church gets it “right” on this balance it is a beautiful thing, and so I believe we are in the best position to foster this kind of middle way between extremes.   

Finally, a robust confessional body of believers who take their confessional life seriously will provide an intellectually vacuous culture slipping into relativistic goop a place to stand, or as Captain Ahab cried out “something a person can hold onto in a slippery world.”  This is the kind of faith that can engage our culture, where we know where we stand and upon shoulders of faithful forbearers we can speak words of sanity.   

Forty Days (or More)

Jesus was in the wilderness forty days fasting and communing with his Father in prayer without anyone else to distract him.  And yet, distractions did come his way.  During this time of being alone with God, we find that Satan came to distract, tempt and discredit everything Jesus was about to do.  While we are not bound by traditions of men, the practice of seeking solitude with God and looking unto our Savior as the model and captain of the well fought fight against temptation is surely a worthy calling.   Perhaps you will take forty days (or more) to become more intentional in your faith to spend daily time in God’s Word, to mediate on it and to quietly and slowly reflect on its message as it relates to your soul.  This may be a good opportunity for you to reflect on the words and actions of Jesus Christ during his temptations in the wilderness and how he fought against the enemy.  

The focus is not on what we can do or give up to be more like Christ, but on allowing God’s Word through the work of the Spirit to “renew our minds” and change us more into the image of the Son (Rom. 8:29; Eph. 4:24).    Matthew 4:1-11 can be a rich text to ponder and reflect on as we look to Jesus as our only hope.  For endless praise, we do not have a Savior who “is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” Heb. 4:15.

It was in a well watered garden like paradise that Adam fell into sin and that Satan won a victory over the whole of Adam’s race.  So, it is the second Adam, Christ that goes into a desert to win back from the Tempter, by his perfect obedience, the ones that belong to him, his Church.   This is the gospel worth believing, worth trusting and worthy of our resting in!    

Abraham Kuyper - book note

Abraham Kuyper:  God’s Renaissance Man
James E. McGoldrick, Evangelical Press, 2000

The movement of Neo-Calvinism is closely associated with Abraham Kuyper and James McGoldrick’s important study of Kuyper’s life and influence is an insightful portrayal of Kuyper that is both sympathetic and critical in its analysis.  Weaving both a well researched biographical data with theological reflection, the book combines historical investigation with a balanced theological appraisal of Kuyper’s theological views and his enduring influence in America.  This is an indispensable introduction to the foundation of Neo-Calvinism as it continues to flavor the theological debates of the Reformed churches of our day.   

First, Kuyper’s life is viewed in the backdrop of the Dutch Reformed Church and the ongoing struggles it had with liberal theology and the growing influence of the Secession churches.   Kuyper was raised and educated in the tradition of the Reformed Church having all the doors of academic higher education open for his intellectual capabilities.   As the national schools were increasingly liberal and producing liberal pastors, the rank and file members were often the case, influenced by revivalism known as the Réveil and the piety of past Dutch influences of the puritans and the mystical orientation of the Brethren of the Common Life.    These influences would soon clash to produce a second wave of secessions in which Kuyper would attach his efforts and leadership.  

 

There were other influences at bay in the Dutch Reformed Church.   There was the strong influence of the school at Groningen, which while not as radically liberal like the University of Utrecht, did embrace an accommodating approach that married biblical faith to enlightenment thinking popular among European elites.   It was in many respects similar to neo-orthodoxy, with a reluctance to deny the faith, but reluctance to hold on to traditional orthodoxy.   The Ethicals were another branch of teaching that was started by Daniel Chantepie de la Saussaye, which embraced many liberal views regarding the faith and the Scriptures but put an emphasis on the inner life of the believer.   Finally, a third group is mentioned, the Moderns.  Founded primarily at the University of Leiden and associated with Scholten, they were importing much of the liberal higher critical thinking of the German schools, which rejected all traces of supernaturalism and made natural religion the key to all assertions about God.   

This strange mix of toxic elements was the stew in which Kuyper came to see would result in the death of the Reformed camp.  The church therefore needed the salt of truth and the work of the Spirit to renew it and bring it to a place of life altering vibrancy.   It was Kuyper that God had to shape and redirect for this great task and God opened his heart when at his first congregation, Pietje Baltus, who had the gumption to confront Kuyper, challenged him to read Calvin’s Institutes.  This proved to be pivotal and the occasion of conversion for Kuyper and he would from then on keep a picture of Baltus on his desk.   It was Kuyper’s move to Utrecht that would in many respects move him right into the mouth of a den of lions.   His academic record and background gave him the position at a notable cathedral, perhaps one of the most important churches in Holland.   Expecting the famed church to be a stronghold of orthodoxy, Kuyper discovered to the contrary that the first work he would face would be to bring the work of renewal to his own flock.   Facing the challenges of renewing the national church put Kuyper at odds with those in charge.  Eventually moving to Amsterdam and gaining the platform of a key pulpit, Kuyper would use his talents in leadership, writing and tireless efforts at seeking to reform the national church.   While for many years a critic of the Secessionists, it was only a matter of time that Kuyper would come to see that the only way forward was to work outside of the National Church.   For Kuyper, fighting the effects of heresy was a many headed hydra, which required not simply a pietistic reaction that withdrew into solitude, but a full engagement with all of society through establishment of schools, working in politics and applying God’s truth to all of life.  Because of the influence of the French invasion, and King William’s reluctance to move the schools towards the Reformed faith, Kuyper saw the need to establish Christian Schools committed to the Confessions of the Church.   He promoted a view that would seek to establish a “free model” of education not controlled by the State, yet fully accredited.  This required work in politics to change laws so that his dream of Christian education could become a reality.  Eventually going into politics and working as a journalist, Kuyper would put his greatest effort at laying a foundation in which he believed would establish future generations of Christian leaders who could face the challenges of modernism with a capable and informed, educated mind.   

In 1880, the Free University of Amsterdam would open, much to the credit of its founder Kuyper.  He would serve also as a professor for about ten years when he would step down in order to work in the political realm, becoming eventually the Prime Minister of the Netherlands.  An observer of Kuyper’s achievements and prodigious work will rightly conclude that Kuyper made a significant impact on the Reformed world.  McGoldrick takes the second half of the book to review the theology of Kuyper and consider the legacy he has through his teachings.   Here it is harder to discern whether this legacy has been all together positive.   

Chapter 9 looks at Kuyper’s theology of God and Revelation.   In the area of defending Christian orthodoxy as it was attacked by liberalism’s explicit denial of Scripture’s truthfulness and a robust Trinitarian theology, Kuyper did a masterful job and was a defender of traditional orthodoxy (pg. 110).    Innovation in his theology came in the area of Justification, where he taught an eternal justification removing it from an order of salvation on the application of the believer upon faith and putting in the eternal non historical realm of God’s decree.   This would lead to a strong supralapsarian tendency, as well as his view that the sacrament of baptism was given to children of the covenant because of an “assumed regeneration.”   These rather novel and idiosyncratic views would have a lasting impact on those who later follow Kuyper in a direction of confusion about the application of these doctrines.   McGoldrick does point out that not all the inconsistencies in the thought of Kuyper are ones that we see him pursuing to logical ends to the degree that his followers did.  Kuyper still held to the orthodox views of conversion and the importance of faith.  He valued the distinction of the Church and the unbelieving world. 

 

 He has a lasting legacy when it comes to affirming Common Grace and the discussion about Spheres.   Kuyper held a strong view that truth is known only through Christ and his Word, this truth stands in contrast or is the antithesis to the knowledge of the world because of the extent of sin upon fallen humanity.  This important concept is a key counterpoint to his view of Common Grace.   One cannot see Kuyper’s work; to bring all of life in obedient to Christ, and not see that he had a strong advocacy for common grace, where God is at work in his created world.   This positive affirmation of the Christian engagement in the world, however, is tempered with Kuyper’s appreciation for the devastating impact of sin.  When evaluating the lasting legacy of Kuyper, I agree with McGoldrick that one can appreciate his work and tireless effort to fight Modernism and his affirmation of the Lordship of Christ over all the earth, but there are hints of theological novelty that are troublesome to Reformed orthodoxy.  When considering his mysticism and his full engagement with politics and the reforming of the culture, one has to be cautious to be whole heartedly a “Kuyperian” in outlook.  It would be best, in my view to be thoroughly Biblical instead.  

Time & Eternity

Ecclesiastes 3: 11
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

 “I know what time is until someone asks me to define it.” St. Augustine


We are told in Ecclesiastes that God is at work in time bringing about His good purpose in our lives (see also Rom. 8:28).  While we are confined to time, as creatures in time, we have been given an inward sense of eternity.  This means that time has significance for the Christian in light of eternal reality.  Here are a couple of things to note about what the Bible teaches us about time.

Time is always experienced as now.  Time is just the successive events of what we experience as now.  Right now as you read this, wherever you are, you are in the now of time.  When we look back at what has just happened, it now belongs to the past.  The future is still to come.  For Christians the future is anticipated as a glorious hope.  We have hope because we know that God has all time in His hand, and we have the promise of His salvation, which entails, the past, the present and the future.  As Paul states in Titus: “a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time.” (Titus 2).  Therefore time is a gift and not a right.  C.S. Lewis wrote in the Screwtape Letters about the man who thought “time was his own,” and was very distraught over those “interruptions” that “stole” his time away.  Looking forward to a quiet evening at home and then interrupted by an unexpected visitor.  Feeling that his time was stolen, this is thought as an intrusion into his rights.  For the believer, God has given us time as a gift and there are no claims to our time.  It is God’s time.  Where you are now, and whatever interruptions or the persons who needs you now, is not a violation of your rights, but an invitation to live in God’s now -present time.

There are two Greek words for time used in the New Testament.  One is the word Kronos, which means measured time, or calendar time.  It is where we get the word chronology.  The second word is Kairos; it is not measured time, but momentous time.  It is the time not measured or predictable, but the opportunities God gives us to obey, to respond to Christ, to say yes to God.  It is the word most used in the New Testament.


The pop rock group, Chicago in one of their songs asked the question, “does anyone really know what time it is?”  For the Christian, that is not the primary question.  What is important is what you are doing with “your” time.  Right now is God’s time and it belongs to Him.