MILTON: On Clothing Naked Thoughts

John Milton, from writings At a Vacation Exercise in the Colledge:

Hail native Language, that by sinews weak
Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,
And mad'st imperfect words with childish trips,
Half unpronounc't, slide through my infant-lips,
Driving dumb silence from the portal dore,
Where he had mutely sate two years before:
Here I salute thee and thy pardon ask
That now I use thee in my latter task:
Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,
I know my tongue but little Grace can do thee:
Thou needst not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me I have thither packt the worst:
And, if it did happen as I did forecast,
The daintiest dishes shall be serv'd up last.
I pray thee deny me not thy aid
For this same small neglect I have made:
But haste thee strait to do me once a Pleasure,
And from thy wardrope bring thy chiefest treasure;
Not those new fangled toys, and trimming slight
Which takes our late fantasticks with delight,
But cull those richest Robes, and gay'st attire
Which deepest Spirits, and choicest Wits desire:
I have some naked thoughts that rove about
And loudly knock to have their passage out;
And wearie of their place do only stay
Till thou hast deck't them in thy best array;
That so they may without suspect or fears
Fly swiftly to this fair Assembly's ears; . . .

A STARK CONTRAST

While on vacation, I sat through a revivalistic-type service this morning that was heavy on therapy and light on theology. Here are a few of the lines I heard:

1. Jesus died to secure the possibility of our salvation.
2. Church membership has nothing to do with our salvation.
3. Baptism has nothing to do with our salvation.
4. The way to live the Christian life is not to try to suppress sin but to just surrender to God, then life will be a grand adventure rather than a morose burden.
5. When I am ministering to someone in a nursing home or studying the Bible I am not wrestling with the flesh, because I don't have time to think about it.

After studying the Reformed doctrine of worship these past few months, the contrast between proper, meaningful, biblical worship and what I witnessed this morning was stark. I love the brethren, so it is sad for me to see them picking over old 19th century bones when there is a rich feast with well-aged wine prepared for us at the table of the Lord. It also saddens me to have been left hungry this morning. The weighty calling of the pastorate seems heavier than ever.

WHAT SHOULD(N'T) WE DO ON THE SABBATH?

These past few months I've been studying the principle and practice of Reformed worship. My study has led me to withdraw the two exceptions I took to the Westminster Standards when I stood for ordination exams before the Missouri Presbytery (PCA) in January: (1) Against the teaching that forbids recreation on the Sabbath and (2) Against the teaching that the making of any representation of Jesus Christ is forbidden by the Second Commandment. I now take no exceptions to the Westminster Standards.

As my family and I have begun to practice Sabbath observance in keeping with the Standards a question has come up in conversations with others: What shouldn't we do on the Sabbath?

I just began Rev. Dr. Iain D. Campbell's 2005 book On the First Day of the Week: God, the Christian and the Sabbath. I am enjoying it very much. Here's an excerpt related to the question above (which perhaps would better be asked: What should we do on the Sabbath?):

Glen Knecht is right, therefore, to suggest that "the design of the Sabbath calls for a ceasing from our secular labours and our turning to the works that we shall be engaged in throughout eternity." For God's people, eternity will be an endless worship of God, in which we will marvel at all that God is. God's people will join with the elders to sing of the Lamb:

Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created (Revelation 4:11).

The things, therefore, that we expect to do in heaven, are the things which ought to characterize our Sabbath rest. We cannot simply draw up a list of proscribed activities, as the Jewish leaders did, and expect to please God by not shaving on Sunday, or not brushing our jacket, or not polishing our shoes. That approach is precisely what Jesus condemns. But we will please God, and we will enjoy his blessing, if we use our Sabbath to rejoice in God, in all that he is and in all that he has done. That will be for us a following of his own example at creation (57).

MILTON: On Instructed Tears

My family and I are traveling home to Georgia tomorrow afternoon. We'll be there two weeks. While away I plan to plunge headlong into the poetry of John Milton. Tonight I peaked in a bit and found this stunning stanza from his unfinished work The Passion:

Mine eye hath found that sad Sepulchral rock
That was the Casket of Heav'ns richest store,
And here though grief my feeble hands up-lock,
Yet on the soft'n'd Quarry would I score
My plaining vers as lively as before;
For sure so well instructed are my tears,
That they would fitly fall order'd Characters.

ATTEMPTED AXIOM: Contra Ad Hominem

The truth of an argument does not depend on the one who makes it.

AN AWESOME THING

CHILDREN AT THE LORD'S TABLE?

Yesterday I read Cornelis P. Venema's 2009 book Children at the Lord's Table?: Assessing the Case for Paedocommunion. It is very good. I am certain it will be the standard treatment of this subject for many years to come.

Dr. Venema assesses the case for paedocommunion in four distinct spheres: (1) Church History, (2) Reformed Confessions, (3) Old Testament, and (4) New Testament. Ultimately, as he demonstrates, our understanding of admission to the Supper must be based on the New Testament teaching, and that is precisely where Venema's work excels. His interpretation and application of John 6 is superb. He also thoroughly examines the text at the center of this debate: 1 Corinthians 11.

One point that persuades me to align with the traditional reformed view of admission to the Supper is summarized in this excerpt from Venema:

Since [John 6] describes the manner in which believers partake of Christ's boby and blood, it is significant for the manner in which this participation takes place through the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. If the sacrament is a divinely appointed means whereby its recipients enjoy a true participation in Christ's body and blood, the description of the nature of any such participation--which is given in this discourse--is of particular significance for answering the question of who may receive Christ sacramentally at the Table of the Lord.

The implication of this passage is expressed well in the Belgic Confesson, which declares that "the manner of our partaking [of Christ by means of the Supper] is not by the mouth, but by the Spirit through faith" (Article 35). Without specifically citing John 6 as a proof text, the Belgic Confession echoes the teaching of Jesus' discourse when it insists that "we . . . receive by faith (which is the hand and mouth of our soul) the true body and blood of Christ our only Savior in our souls, for the support of our spiritual life." The point of these affirmations is to emphasize that those who commune with and partake of Christ by means of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper do so by the mouth of faith. There is no communion with Christ apart from a believing appropriation of the gospel Word that declares Him to be the Word become flesh for us and for our salvation. Unless the Father grants a believing response to the gospel in the hearts and minds of people, they will not be able to come to Christ to eat His body and drink His blood. The necessary prerequisite to any participation in Christ is this divinely worked response of faith. If this holds true for any participation in Christ, it holds true for any sacramental participation in Him and His saving work (98).

Furthermore, Venema distinguishes between historic federal (or covenant) theology and what has recently been termed the Federal Vision, which includes a paedocommunionist perspective:

Some contemporary advocates of paedocommunion claim that all covenant members without exception--believers and their children who are recipients of the covenant promise and the accompanying sacrament of covenant incorporation, baptism--enjoy a full and saving union with Christ. Though Reformed theologians traditionally have distinguished between those who are "under the administration" of the covenant of grace and those who truly enjoy the saving "communion of life" that the covenant communicates, some proponents of what is sometimes termed the "Federal [coveanant] Vision" reject any such distinction between covenant members as inappropriate.

In the traditional language of Reformed theology, a distinction has been made (using a variety of expressions) between the covenant in its historical administration, which includes all professing believers and their children, and the covenant in its fruitfulness as a saving communion of life. This distinction was drawn in order to account for the biblical teaching that not all recipients of the covenant of grace in its historical administration are "elect" according to God's sovereign purposes. Among those who are under the administration of the covenant, some are non-elect and never come to true faith so as to enjoy the saving benefits of Christ's redemptive mediation. Despite the privileges and benefits of their participation in the covenant in its outward administration, these members of the covenant community ultimately prove to be unbelieving and impenitent, and so fall under the greater judgment of God. In order to preserve the biblical teaching regarding God's sovereign and gracious election, and to account for the perplexing circumstance that not all those who are recipients of the covenant promises are "children of the promise" in the same sense (cf. Rom. 9:6), Reformed theologians ordinarily have articulated the doctrine of the covenant in a way that allows for the inclusion of non-elect people within the adminitration of the covenant (139-40).

LAURA HOUGH: On the Twilight Series

My friend Rev. Brian Hough is Youth Pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Overland Park, KS. His wife Laura recently posted an excellent review of the Twilight series. I remember many of the youth talking about it when we first arrived at Twin Oaks back in November (only seven months ago!). Laura makes some excellent points for young ladies who might be captivated by its theme. She writes:

Like I said, the love story was intense, and I would venture to say too intense for high school students. Even though there’s no premarital sex (I think the series prides itself in that), it was still very, for lack of a better word, “passionate.” I wouldn’t want my daughter reading about the physical longings that are deemed ok. I know this is fiction, I know it’s entertainment, but it still made me sad that girls are wanting this and thinking if they can just find their “Edward” everything else will be peachy and every longing they have will be filled in him. Problem is, they are looking for an “Edward” when they should be looking for all those things in Christ.

A FEW EXCELLENT POSTS

Thanks to Jeff Waddington at FOC for pointing readers to two articles recently published online at Ref21. One is a wonderful biblical theological analysis of Jesus's baptism and wilderness temptation by Rev. Nicholas T. Batzig entitled "God's Obedient Son." Nick's work is excellent! It reminds me of the rich biblical theological works of the best Puritan divines, Christ-focused, deeply covenantal, with an obvious concern to help readers worship the triune God who has been at work to redeem his creation ever since the Fall. Nick explores profound Christological themes in plain language and elegant style. Here is an excerpt:

In every way that Israel proved to be the unrighteous son, Jesus proved that He was the righteous Son. The obedience of Christ is the emphasis of the temptation accounts; and, failure to see this fact, will inevitably lead to a failure to see His glory in redemption. We need a covenant keeper who has fulfilled the demands of the law for us. His obedience is credited to us, because, just as He represented us in His baptism, so also He represented us in His temptation. Here we find the "good news" of the Gospel. It is not simply His death on the cross--as detached from His obedient life--that justifies us. No, that death is attached to every subsequent act of obedience the Son of God placed on the divine scale for our salvation. God the Father was pleased with the Son at His baptism, He was pleased in His overcoming the attacks of the devil, and He was pleased with Him through the entirety of His obedient life, "even (and especially) to the point of death on the cross."

Another artricle is by Rev. Dr. Carl Trueman entitled "Look, It's Rubbish." Dr. Trueman recalls a "worship" service gone bad, making some insightful points regarding the principle of biblical worship along the way. Here's an excerpt:

Ironically, not all conservative services are much better than their liberal equivalents. Now, the difference is that liberal theology should inevitably lead to liturgical nonsense in a way that orthodoxy should not. After all, orthodox theology grew out of the worship and liturgy of the ancient church, so it should be no surprise that the collapse of that theology connects to the collapse of worship and liturgy. After all, it is hard to see the musical genius of Kenny G giving birth to the Nicene Creed, or, for that matter, providing an atmosphere in which the same might be sustained. When theology is, after all, merely the projection of human aspirations, church services become merely a collage of human artifacts (though the thought that Kenny G is a projection of humanity's deepest psychological aspirations is too worrying to contemplate for any length of time). When God is mere man (or woman, or both) writ large, transcendence vanishes and triviality can only be resisted by an immense act of the will.

And finally, a recent post by Rev. Dr. Iain Campbell at Creideamh entitled "Is There Worship Without PowerPoint" is excellent. Rev. Campbell speaks to circumstantial issues in worship, namely the use of technology, with pastoral wisdom and theological rigor. Though recognizing the usefulness of technology when applied appropriately, he writes:

But I still won’t be in a hurry to set up digital projection equipment for my worship services. For one thing, getting the stuff onto the computer in the first place takes an inordinate length of time – at least for novices like me. There are better things to do with preparation time for worship. Images need to be located, downloaded (after checking copyright, of course), sized, placed, edited and contextualized. Words need to be typed, formatted, coloured, emboldened and put in the right place on screen. I tell you – it’s hard work, that could more profitably be spent on our knees. Less PowerPoint and more Prayer would probably serve us much better.

For another thing, there is a huge risk in using visual images to illustrate biblical points. It was not without reason that God gave us a Word, not a Picture, to proclaim. Images often make for distraction, and lead our minds to wander away from the point that is being made. Word pictures, on the other hand, force our minds to concentrate. When I read ‘a sower went out to sow…’ it is far more profitable for me to imagine that scene in my mind than to be forced to conform my thinking to the internet picture before me.

THE SCOTTISH REFORMED CONFERENCE 2009

Messages from the Rev. Dr. Sinclair Ferguson and Rev. Eric Alexander are posted at the SRC website.

(HT: Creideamh)

WITH REVERENCE AND AWE

Today I read D.G. Hart and John R. Meuther's 2002 book With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship. It is very good. Hart and Muether do a fine job of developing an historical-theological account and defense of Reformed worship in contrast to contemporary trends within the tradition.

Several things about it were particularly helpful to me: (1) the emphasis on maintaining a proper distinction between the world and the church, (2) the correlation demonstrated between the quality of our Sabbath observance and the quality of our worship, (3) the correlation demonstrated between our confession and our liturgy, (4) the explanation of the dialogical nature of covenantal worship, (5) the emphasis on the ordinary means of grace, and (6) the explanation of the categories of element, form, and circumstance in worship.

This quote from Calvin was particularly striking (from his work entitled The Necessity of Reforming the Church):

I know how difficult it is to persuade the world that God disapproves of all modes of worship not expressly sanctioned by his Holy Word. The opposite persuasion which cleaves to them, being seated, as it were in their very bones and marrow, is, that whatever they do has in itself a sufficient sanction, provided it exhibits some kind of zeal for the honour of God. But since God not only regards as fruitless, but also plainly abominates, whatever we undertake from zeal to his worship, if at variance with his command, what do we gain by a contrary course? The words of God are clear and distinct: "Obedience is better than sacrifice." "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (1 Sam, 15:22; Matt. 15:9). Every addition to his word, especially in this matter, is a lie. Mere "will worship" (Col. 2:23) . . . is vanity. This is the decision, and when once the judge has decided, it is no longer time to debate (81).

Also, on the correlation between Sabbath observance and worship Hart and Muether write:

When American Protestants changed their observance of the Lord's Day, they also developed a peculiar form of spirituality, a particular understanding of how spiritual growth should take place. This form of piety is connected to the cultural context of religious disestablishment. Since the War for independence, American churches have found themselves in a religious free market where the most successful competitors are those that offer the most attractive product to religious customers. Without financial support from the state, churches have been forced to adopt market strategies to grow and develop.

How do religious freedom and the disestablishment of churches shape Christian piety? The answer can be found in much of the corporate life of contemporary evangelical churches, which consists of highly programmed activities conducted throughout the week for all ages and interest groups. Without such activities potential members may look for another church with the right mix of programs for mom, the kids, teens, and dad, as well as singles and seniors. With a "seven-days-a-week" church, Sunday worship can be reduced to just one more program, no better and no worse than other church activities" (64).

ATTEMPTED AXIOM: On Anarchy

Anarchy is autonomy without pretense.

SUMMARIZING THE TIMES

Perhaps this is the proverb that best summarizes the times in which we live:

"A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion" (Prov. 18:2).

O Father, would you grant your people understanding according to your Word in our times, starting with me?

TERRY L. JOHNSON: Reformed Worship: Worship that is According to Scripture

Tonight I am reading Terry Johnson's 2000 book Reformed Worship: Worship that is According to Scripture. Here's a nice historical-theological distinction from Johnson:

Many modern historians of the Reformation period have allowed the dominant personality of Luther and his struggle to faith to overshadow the heart of the Swiss and Calvinistic Reformation. For Luther and the Lutherans the focus was justification. "How may a man be just before God?" was their primary question. But for Zwingli, Calvin, and the "Reformed" stream, the focus was not justification, as important as they agreed it was. Their focus was worship. "How is God to be worshiped?" they asked. For Lutherans the enemy of faith was works. For the Reformed, the enemy of faith was idolatry (17) (emphasis mine).

REV. DR. IAIN CAMPBELL: "The Song of David's Son"

If you haven't yet listened to the latest CTC podcast I encourage you to do it. This week's discussion is on the interpretation of the Song of Solomon with the Rev. Dr. Iain D. Campbell. Items discussed are allegory, typology, and covenantal hermeneutics. Listen to it here.

MONDAY EDWARDS EXCERPT: On Corruption

From Freedom of the Will:

'Tis common for the corruptions of the hearts of evil men, to abuse the best things to vile purposes (374).

This is one reason why the Reformed doctrine of the Regulative Principle of worship (cf. WCF 21.1) is so very important. We need regulation by God in even the best of things (perhaps, especially in the best of things).

STAND WITH OUR EVANGELICAL BRETHREN IN THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND

Submit your name here.

CRAIG BIEHL: The Infinite Merit of Christ

Today I finished Craig Biehl's 2009 book The Infinite Merit of Christ: The Glory of Christ's Obedience in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards published by Reformed Academic Press. It is excellent!

One thing that often frustrates me with books about Edwards is that they lack so much of Edwards. Biehl's book is wonderful break from the norm. It is thick with the thought of Edwards! Dr. Joel R. Beeke of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary says it well:

While setting the record straight on Edwards theology through leaning heavily on his own writings (800 quotes from Edwards!), Biehl's work is also a tour de force for the confirmation of Reformed orthodoxy in the midst of ongoing debates about justification today.

Here are two of the quotes Biehl pulls from Edwards that struck me as simply beautiful:

Christ's love in making him willing to offer himself up on the fire of God's wrath, and carrying him through the torments of that flame, even till it was extinguished, did as it were conquer and quench it. Never was there such a gift of love and labor of love as this. It as more exceeds all the expressions of love in any man or angel, than the treasures of the most wealthy prince exceed the stores of the meanest peasant (201).

The heart of Christ at that time was full of distress, but it was fuller of love to vile worms: his sorrows abounded, but his love did much more abound. Christ's soul was overwhelmed with a deluge of grief, but this was from a deluge of love to sinners in his heart sufficient to overflow the world, and overwhelm the highest mountains of its sins. Those great drops of blood that fell down to the ground were a manifestation of an ocean of love in Christ's heart (220).

And demonstrating Edwards's view that Christ's obedience unto death is infinitely meritorious as an infinite condescension (the heading of the section), Biehl puts this thought from Edwards together beautifully:

At the time of Christ's sufferings, "he had that depravity set before him as it is, without disguise," in its "true nature" and "utmost hatred and contempt of God," "in its ultimate tendency and desire, which is to kill God." "He felt the fruits of that wickedness. It was then directly levelled [sic] against himself, and exerted itself against him to work his reproach and torment," giving "a stronger sense of its hatefulness on the human nature of Christ." Yet,

He was willing to die for his enemies at the same time that he was feeling the fruits of their enmity, while he felt the utmost effects and exertions of their spite against him in the greatest possible contempt and cruelty towards him in his own ignominy, torments, and death; and partly in that he was willing to atone for their being his enemies in these very sufferings, and by that very ignominy, torment, and death that was the fruit of it. The sin and wickedness of men, for which Christ suffered to make atonement, was, as it were, set before Christ in his view (211-12).

COMPATIBILIST MIDDLE KNOWLEDGE?

Some time back a friend emailed me about Dr. Bruce A. Ware's adherence to a doctrine called Compatibilist Middle Knowledge. I didn't have time to research the issue at the time, but Paul Helm did recently. He posted on it today over at Helm's Deep.

WHY JOHNNY CAN'T PREACH: A Review

Last night I read Dr. T. David Gordon's 2009 book Why Johnny Can't Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers. Adapting his title from the 1966 book Why Johnny Can't Read and the 1990 book Why Johnny Can't Write, Gordon demonstrates compellingly why most evangelical and Reformed preaching today is so wanting. "The problem ... is not that we don't have 'great' preachers," writes Gordon, "in many circumstances we don't even have mediocre preachers" (14).

So what is to blame? Dr. Gordon suggests "societal changes that led to the concerns expressed in the 1960s to 1980s in educational circles--societal changes reflected in a decline in the ability to read (texts) and write--have led to the natural cultural consequence that people cannot preach expositorily" (15). Those societal changes have been primarily moved along by the shift in our dominant media from being text-based to being image-based. We've lost the ability to read and write.

But it's not that our culture is illiterate. Most people can after all read. Our culture is aliterate. Most people simply don't read. What we do read is generally focused on simple content transfer, emphasizing what is said. There is very little emphasis on how something is said. In other words, we've lost view of the heights of beautiful literature, so that we now find ourselves swamped by the mundane.

Reading verse rescues us from the mundaneness of life; it permits us to observe again with wonder, and shocks us out of our cynicism and joylessness. After a day in which we have been consistently distracted by electronic devices grasping for our attention, or numbered by a "to-do" list that makes even our PDA sigh with despair, we read Robert Frost's "Birches," and we are alive again--alive as humans, alert to beauty, to creation, to play (52).

Furthermore, we have lost the art of written composition. Very few people ever write anything today that requires serious planning and reflection.

A corollary to the cultural shift which has undermined good preaching is the loss of the ability to distinguish the meaningful from the trivial. We no longer have a well-developed sense of significance.

Here, the shift of dominant cultural media has been profound, because television, in contrast to poetry, is essentially trivial. Everything about it is trivial, and it is the perfect medium for the trivial. Because its pictures must move (and indeed, even camera angles must move, on average less than every three seconds), it captures best those things that are kinetic, that have motion. Yet few of the more significant aspects of life involve much motion: love, humility, faith, repentance, prayer, friendship, worship, affection, fear, hope, self-control. Most of what is significant about life takes place between the ears, as we make sense of life, of our place in it, and of our failures and successes, our joys, our sorrows, our fears, our loves. This world of the mind and soul is essentially a linguistic world, a nonkinetic world; a different world from the world of rapidly changing moving images (53).

After briefly addressing the issue of content, which should at its base be Christ and him crucified, Dr. Gordon ends by offering his readers direction and hope. He directs them to read verse, compose writings, and learn to reflect on what is truly significant, offering this warning:

As long as the typical congregation runs its minister ragged with clerical, administrative, and other duties; and as long as such a congregation expects the minister to be out five or six nights a week visiting or at meetings, the minister will not have time in his schedule to read, write, or reflect. In short, those sensibilities essential to effective preaching will remain uncultivated (107).

But cultural shift notwithstanding, there is hope for todays ministers. As Dr. Gordon concludes:

Johnny is still fearfully and wonderfully made in God's image; and any particular Johnny could develop those sensibilities necessary to being a competent preacher. Our culture, at this moment, will not develop those sensibilities, and so Johnny will cultivate them only if he makes some self-conscious and deliberately countercultural choices about how he wishes his sensibilities to be shaped. My hope and prayer in writing this brief volume is that some will accept that responsibility, and begin or continue the process of shaping those sensibilities requisite to preaching well (107-08).

I am glad Dr. Gordon wrote this book. I have been very encouraged and instructed in the reading of it and plan to put it in the hands of those young men I am blessed to know who are called to preach.