When is a Calvinist not a Calvinist?

When his theology and teaching are man-centered.

Calvinists believe that fallen, sinful, rebellious men and women (and children) are unwilling and unable to repent of their sin and to come in faith to Christ. We Calvinists believe that for someone to respond properly to the gospel God must first send forth an effectual call that gives the sinner both the willingness and ability to repent and believe.

Furthermore, the Calvinist believes that after a person is regenerated and converted to Christ, he is still totally dependent upon God’s work in him “both to will and to do of God’s good pleasure” – to live as a God-centered, Christ-exalting, Spirit-dependent and obedient Christian who reflects Christ in his life. In short, we confess with Paul, “By the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor.15:10).

The gospel of God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ is good news about what God does for sinners and in sinners and through sinners who are totally unable to do those things themselves. The Bible is all about this wonderful Savior and His saving work which alone can bring us to God and enable us to follow Christ in newness of life. In this new life we are “enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 35).

With such a God-centered theology and Christ-centered message, why would anyone descend to man-centered preaching and teaching? Such a ministry will be neither saving nor sanctifying (unless God is pleased to overrule it, of course).

What do I mean by “man-centered preaching?” I do not mean that the preacher does not know the Lord or desire to preach Christ. I do not mean (necessarily) that he is a heretic or a deceiver. I simply mean that in his ministry the Bible is approached in a very un-Calvinistic way. Such a ministry uses the Bible as a book of principles to be implemented and examples to be imitated. In the name of “practical Christianity” or “application in preaching” we are told that God blessed certain people because of what they did and if we do the same thing He will bless us. In fact, some go as far as saying (or at least implying) that we are not being blessed because we are not implementing the right principles or following the right examples. Then comes the guilt-trip to try to get us to do more.

As has been said in other posts (see http://jotzandtittlez.blogspot.com/2011/04/bible-what-its-all-about-1.html), the Bible is about God’s saving work through Christ, not about man’s self-saving or self-sanctifying work through the use of principles and examples. Even as a believer, I am still in need of salvation from the remaining darkness in my mind, the remaining perversion in my affections, and the remaining rebellion in my will. There is no quick fix to remaining corruption except suicide (which I am NOT advocating, of course). No amount of surrender, consecration, imitation, mystical expereinces or down home advice can deliver me from the sinning that my Savior alone can save me from. And that salvation does not come from considering what everyone else in Scripture did, but what God alone can do and does for His people. See Him in the Bible and preach Him in the pulpit. 

Preaching – Protestant or Not?

The “worship” of the Church of Rome focuses on the mass in which the priest magically turns a wafer and wine into the body and blood of Christ. The participant then partakes in a fairly passive way of what the priest has prepared for him. The central feature of the service is the priest. The “worshipper” goes home basically unchanged and none the better for having been at “worship.”

The Protestant Reformation rescued the Word of God from the obscurity it suffered at the hands of Rome and made it once again the central feature of true Christian worship and life. However, we Protestants are in danger of returning to the centrality of a man, in this case, the preacher, at the expense of neglecting the Word of God. How so?

Part of the problem stems from the philosophy both of preacher and congregation as to what constitutes a “message” from God’s Word. When you hear a preacher talking about “getting a message” for the Lord’s Day it can reflect the mentality that borders on the prophetic, in the biblical sense of the word. It can be common to refer to someone’s preaching ministry as “prophetic.” People expect to hear messages that are not only timely, but also speak powerfully to the things around them. They want messages that confound their enemies and speak to their needy nation, as did the prophets of old.

However, the prophets of Scripture “got messages” from God because He newly revealed them to them. Their messages were revelation in the strict sense of the word. They did not so much “get” messages; rather God “gave” them to them. However, the New Testament preacher (which we all are since the ascension of Christ) is in a different situation. The canon of Scripture is closed. There is no more new revelation. There is no ministry that is “prophetic” in the strict sense of the word. The office of prophet ceased with the last of the apostles. This means that God has said all He wanted to. This also means that the Scriptures themselves are God’s message. God preaches to us in His Word.

So far, so good. But how does a preacher obscure God’s message and make himself the central feature of Christian worship? It comes back to “getting a message” for the Lord’s Day. Preacher, you already have your message – it is Scripture. You don’t have to “get” it; rather you have to study it in order to pass on what God has already said to us in the text you will preach. The text is the message; God preaches it to us. Your mission is to understand the text to the best of your ability and to “repeat” it, or to explain it to the congregation. That is all the “getting” there is (apart from the Holy Spirit’s leading as to which text to preach).

The text is the message. You don’t have to traipsing all over the Bible to pull together various threads to make a garment. The garment is fully made in the text. It may be illustrated in various biblical passages, but the thought of God is the text itself. You may need to bring in instruction from other passages and explain theological concepts used in the text, but the message itself is the text itself.

The problem comes in with the expectation of preacher and congregation. What is a “message” as far as they are concerned? Is it what God has already said in His Word, or is it what the preacher puts together from often disparate sources on a “timely” theme? Is it the plain meaning of the text or is it a compilation of timely thoughts or even good doctrinal statements that “spring” from the text? I say “spring” because a text is often a “springboard” that a preacher uses to get to the “timely thoughts” he already has in mind for his congregation. He might as well use Luke 7:40 as his text, “I have somewhat to say unto thee.”

When a preacher concocts a message from various texts or uses a passage for a purpose other than what it was inspired by the Holy Spirit to fulfill, the congregation is entirely dependent on that preacher for whatever he is going to impart. The message reflects the preacher’s own mind and not the text. There is no way the congregation could ever reread the message in the text because the message did not reflect the text. They must depend on note taking (which is not a bad practice in itself) and perhaps on a catchy alliterated outline to remember anything that is said. However, when they read the text again in their regular Bible reading what the preacher said is only a distant memory at best.

The worst thing about all this is that the congregation did not hear from God. They heard from the preacher. They might have heard truth and they might have heard some sort of helpful “ought to” for their Christian life. However, they did not hear God speak from His Word. They may have heard God speak in spite of the sermon, but they did not hear His voice through the sermon. The logic of the sermon came from the preacher’s mind, not from God’s mind.

The result of such an approach to preaching is that the central feature of the worship service is not the Word of God, but the preacher. The participant listens in a fairly passive way to what the preacher has prepared for him. The central feature of the service is the preacher. The worshipper goes home basically unchanged and perhaps none the better for having been at worship.

Two Extremes: Head and Heart

Throughout the history of the church the pendulum of Christian experience has swung between the extremes of Scholasticism and Pietism – between an emphasis on the head and a focus on the heart. Scholasticism was prevalent in the generation after the Reformation. The followers of the Reformers turned heartfelt faith into a matter of the intellect. They had not had the heart-rending experiences of their spiritual predecessors. The faith they inherited was a new system of understanding Christianity that had put them outside the Roman Church and had founded new churches in their respective countries. The ground was fertile for the development of the great cardinal truths that had been so recently unearthed. However, their enthusiasm often carried these new theologians far into the realm of the speculative. The warmth of a personal knowledge of God faded into the background as unity based upon creeds came to the fore. Along with an intellectual focus came a stress on church attendance, reception of the sacraments and learning the catechism. All this was done to educate the masses, but the effect was to produce a sterile state church.

The most notable movement of Pietism (from which we its name) came as a reaction to the dead orthodoxy of German Lutheranism. This view of Christianity took its beginning with the individual. The Pietists focused on personal conversion and faith. Personal experience of God’s saving grace led to baptisms of adults and the gathering of believers into fellowships. The gospel spread from these groups and people from all classes of society were converted. There is much to cheer about with Pietism.

However, the important point to note with Pietism is the individualistic nature of this version of Christianity. Pietism can easily lead one into thinking that life is all about himself. The Bible becomes a book of personal feelings and experiences. It becomes a book that is full of “examples” to imitate. The pietist goes to the Bible looking for himself. The words of Scripture are taken to point us to the thoughts and “lessons” of the authors, not to the message of God. The key hermeneutical (interpretative) questions are, “What did this person feel, experience or think?” and “Why did he do what he did?” not “What does God say?”  Of course, the authors were inspired to write the thoughts of God and were themselves learners of these thoughts. However, the Bible is a message that comes from God, not from men and their inward (e)motions.

Dr. Michael Barrett has well said, “all study is devotional.” That statement is a balanced perspective between the two extremes outlined above. We who are dead in our trespasses and sins definitely need a life-giving experience to become Christians at all. Dead orthodoxy never raised any sinner to newness of life in Christ. The regenerating ministry of the Holy Spirit is irreplaceable. However, the Book that God inspired is not “all about us.” It is all about Him. It is God preaching and revealing His thoughts to us, which are higher than our thoughts. The words, the grammar, the syntax (how words are put together to form sentences and paragraphs), the genre (type of literature a particular text is), and the historical background are all parts of God’s “sermon.” These elements require serious and strenuous study. If we are to hear God speaking in His Word, then the literary elements listed above must all be taken into consideration by those who would teach us and preach to us. The Bible is not about what I “feel” it is, about some warm fuzzy feeling I get from it, or about the “message” I might “get” as an experience in prayer. God has already spoken. The message is already there. The role of the teacher and preacher is to let God speak through His already-given message. Teaching and preaching will simply pass on to others what God has already said. That is the only message that will bear fruit. That is the only message that God will use to change peoples’ lives. 

Preaching: Restoration in Christ

God graciously restores sinners to Himself through Jesus Christ.

            Some theologians draw the plan of salvation in three broad strokes: Creation, Fall, and Restoration (or Redemption). If we think of salvation as simply “gettin’ saved,” we can miss out on a lot of the work of Christ as He restores the image of God in His people. When Adam sinned, the image of God in him was terribly marred. Moreover, all Adam’s children are born with the same “birth defect.” By “ordinary generation” we are born not only with a bad record (guilt), but also with a bad heart (depravity), with sins continually flowing from it. God’s saving work in Christ not only answers to our guilt, but also to the issue of our sin-sick heart. God not only restores us to a right relationship with Himself, but also restores in us the family likeness – His love and holiness. Restoration begins with the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit and continues with His work of sanctification. This wonderful process will continue to advance until the grace that began it is swallowed up by the glory that completes it.

            This truth of restoration has momentous application when it comes to Bible interpretation and preaching. If God’s work in the believer is that of restoration, then the aim of Bible interpretation and proclamation should be the same. Mere information, theological disquisitions, or sentimental musings fall far short of the target. Rehearsing the same doctrines and pet applications ad infinitum does the hungry sheep no good. Neither does it help the as-of-yet fully unrestored sheep. As Bryan Chapell explains in his book Christ-Centered Preaching, the Scriptures are given to us to restore us from our fallen condition. They address those areas that are still unrenewed in us and show us the restoration in Christ that He purchased for us in His redeeming death. While it can be pleasant to sort out theological knots, or to get a “warm fuzzy” from Scripture, the sheep need to have their issues diagnosed and exposed, and their diseases treated.

            Let us approach the Word of God to see Christ and His saving work. Anything short of this is a waste of time. Among other things, this will mean detailed exposition of those “practical” parts of Scripture that tell us in no uncertain terms how we are to live – how we are to express our love God and to others. There are no clearer diagnostic tests than the plain statements of exhortation applied to every heart – our own first of all.

            God help us be good “medics” on the battlefield! 

Preaching: Text or Theology?

If the Bible is not a theology Book (see previous post), then what is it? The Bible is God preaching. It is not just information; it is proclamation. The aim is to address sinners about what God has done in Christ, and to call them to “repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). Whether Old Testament or New, we read about God’s salvation through Christ. Therefore the grand theme that is controlling all the revelation in the Bible is “God’s gracious salvation of sinners through Christ.” That could really be the subtitle on the title page of your Bible. It is the controlling factor for all that the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of Scripture to include in their texts.

All of the Bible is what can be called “occasional” literature. That does not mean that we can read it once in a while. It means that it was written for a specific occasion to address particular people about particular needs. So then, when it comes to a particular book of the Bible, we first ask what part the book plays in developing the grand theme of redemption. That is why it was written in the first place. It was not written to give 21^st Century man “lessons” or “principles” about life. It was written to address sinners who are in need of a Savior, and to call them to repentance and faith in Christ.

Furthermore, when it comes to a particular book, we ask what God’s message was to those people in the context of His redeeming work. The Old Testament is not simply a history of God’s dealings with Israel. It is the story (sermon) of God’s unfolding work of redemption as seen in His dealings with Israel. When we read a particular text in the OT we need to keep in mind what God was doing at that particular time so we can understand what contribution the particular book or even passage of the book made to the overall picture. That sounds like a lot of work! It is. It is a lot harder than just getting “lessons” out of an ancient text to apply to modern hearers. But it is also a lot truer to God’s original intention in the Book.

More to come, God willing…

The Bible is God Preaching (1)

Theology or the Bible?

            This idea was solidified for me while reading a book by Sidney Greidanus entitled Sola Scriptura: Problems and Principles in Preaching Historical Texts. I believe this was Greidanus’ doctoral dissertation and the first of a number of stimulating books on preaching the content of Scripture. I say “the content” to distinguish it from preaching the doctrines of Scripture. Greidanus’ thesis is that to truly preach the Word of God according to the Reformed doctrine of sola scriptura (which means that Scripture alone is our authority in things pertaining to God) one must preach the message of the biblical text and not just a compilation of ideas that come from various texts on a certain theme. A discourse explaining a particular topic of theology is not preaching the Word of God. The discourse may be orthodox and helpful, but the topic, or even an outline of the topic is not the message that is contained in the text one has selected for preaching. The text is a message from God to us.

This is not to say that theology has no role in preaching. It has a very important role: that of the guardrail that keeps us from going off the road. However, theology is not the road itself, to continue the metaphor. The road itself is the text of Scripture. The message of Scripture is the message of the inspired biblical text, not the message of theological treatises. This is because theology, however good, is still the work of man. The categories are selected by man, however well they may fit the data of Scripture, and the definitions are man-made syntheses of various texts from Scripture. Again, this is not to say the theology has no place in the life of the Christian. It is a helpful fence to keep us from going too far afield. But it is not the Word of God. Only the Bible is God’s message to us. Theology analyzes that Book and gives us helpful information about the truths found in that Book, but it is not the Book itself. The Book itself is God’s message to us.

Perhaps an illustration would be helpful here. When we are eating fish, we have to be very careful to remove all the bones so that we do not choke. When we are eating filet mignon, we simply cut and eat. Reading theology, as is true for any book written by man, is like eating fish: eat the meat and throw away the bones. The Bible, however, has no bones. But you cannot eat it without chewing (thinking, studying, meditating, etc.). You must work at understanding Scripture, not just read it for a blessing.

God’s Message

            The biblical text is God’s message to us. The character of the Bible is more than just information; it is proclamation. The text addresses us and charges us to believe and obey not only the gospel, but also the whole revelation of God for our lives as Christians. This is true not only of those portions that are easier to apply, such as the epistles, but equally true of all of Scripture. Through the length and breadth of the Bible God is preaching to us. We can understand this very easily from 2 Timothy 3:16. Paul tells us that the aim of the Scriptures is to “equip” the “man of God” for his work of “teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness.” These God-breathed Scriptures aim not only to inform us, but to reprove us, correct us, and transform us into people who have learned to walk with God according to His Word. God is preaching to us. That is something not theology book can do. 

More to come, God willing...