Light and Heat: Miscellanies 20: On Church Health

Friday, March 12, 2010

Miscellanies 20: On Church Health

If church health is another way of saying godliness, then article 4 of section 2 of the "Preface to the Book of Church Order" (PCA) is instructive:

Godliness is founded upon truth. A test of truth is its power to promote holiness according to our Saviour's rule, "By their fruits ye shall know them" (Matthew 7:20). No opinion can be more pernicious or more absurd than that which brings truth and falsehood upon the same level.

On the contrary, there is an inseparable connection between faith and practice, truth and duty. Otherwise it would be of no consequence either to discover truth or to embrace it.

Here we see the affirmation that action follows understanding, practice follows faith. In other words, you cannot love what you do not know. This is true for individuals as well as the church.

The basis of church unity is the purity of her confession, and if "church health" is another way of saying "the well-being of church unity," then church health is based on the fullness and precision of her confession.

At the end of the day everyone knows this, but some suppress it. I'm reminded of this quote from David Hall's essay "The History of Westminster Assembly Commemorations" in volume 1 of The Westminster Confession into the 21st Century, ed. Ligon Duncan (Hall is quoting Edward Roberts):

A very penetrating thinker has observed, "When you hear anyone say, 'Away with creeds,' you know that what he really means is 'take mine.' Everyone has a creed. There is not a single exception. And we live according to what we really believe. How foolish then the prejudice against doctrine. Much of it is based upon ignorance (24).

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"Since then your serene majesty and your lordships seek a simple answer, I will give it in this manner, not embellished: Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason, for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradict themselves, I am bound to the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. I cannot do otherwise, here I stand. May God help me, Amen" (Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, April 18, 1521).

"A Christian is perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all" (Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian, A. D. 1520)

"To take no pleasure in assertions is not the mark of a Christian heart; indeed, one must delight in assertions to be a Christian at all" (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will).

"Either God makes mistakes in his foreknowledge, and errors in his action (which is impossible), or else we act, and are caused to act, according to his foreknowledge and action" (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will).

"We are beggars, this is true" (The last written words of Martin Luther, Luther died February 18, 1546).

"Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves" (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 1.1, A.D. 1559).

"Man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God's majesty" (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 1.3, A.D. 1559).

"I call 'piety' that reverence joined with love of God which the knowledge of his benefits induces. For until men recognize they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by his fatherly care, that he is the Author of every good, that they should seek nothing beyond him--they will never yield him willing service. Nay, unless they establish their complete happiness in him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to him" (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 2.1, A.D. 1559).

"He who is the boldest despiser of God is of all men the most startled at the rustle of a falling leaf" (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 3.2, A.D. 1559).

"The doctrine of Justification is . . . the principal ground on which religion must be supported. . . . For unless you understand first of all what your position is before God, and the judgment which he passes upon you, you have no foundation on which your salvation can be laid, or on which piety towards God can be reared" (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 11.1, A.D. 1559).

"How detestable I ask you, is this madness: that man, finding God in his body and soul a hundred times, on this very pretense of excellence denies that there is a God?" (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, "Book One: The Knowledge of God the Creator" Chapter 5, Section 4).

"God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ underwent the pains of hell for, either all the sins of all men, or all the sins of some men, or some sins of all men. If the last, some sins of all men, then have all men some sins to answer for, and so shall no man be saved; for if God enter into judgment with us, though it were with all mankind for one sin, no flesh should be justified in his sight. . . . If the second, that is it which we affirm, that Christ in their stead and room suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the world. If the first, why then are not all freed from the punishment of all their sins? You will say, 'Because of their unbelief; they will not believe.' But this unbelief, is it a sin, or not? If not, why should they be punished for it? If it be, then Christ underwent the punishment due to it, or not. If so, then why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which he died from partaking of the fruit of his death. If he did not, then he did not die for all their sins" (John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ)

"The essence of faith consists in a due ascription of glory to God (Rom. 4:20). This we cannot attain to without the manifestation of those divine excellencies to us in which he is glorious. This is done in Christ alone, so as that we may glorify God in a saving and acceptable manner. He who discerns not the glory of divine wisdom, power, goodness, love, and grace, in the person and office of Christ, with the way of salvation of sinners by him, is an unbeliever" (John Owen, The Glory of Christ).

"As there is no true religion where there is nothing else but affection, so there is no true religion where there is no religious affection. As, on the one hand, there must be light in the understanding as well as an affected fervent heart; where there is heat without light, there can be nothing divine or heavenly in that heart, a head stored with notions and speculations, with a cold and unaffected heart, there can be nothing divine in that light; that knowledge is no true spiritual knowledge of divine things. If the great things of religion are rightly understood, they will affect the heart" (Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections, A.D. 1746).

"'Tis plainly the design of the gospel to exalt God's free grace and love, and the excellency and fullness of Christ Jesus the Savior; and in order to that, to show us our own great and entire unworthiness and emptiness of all excellency in ourselves, and that it is not any proportion or manner of relation between our excellency that moves God to bestow upon us those great blessings of the gospel, but mere grace. And therefore those that think there is any proportion between any of their excellency and any of these blessings, they are far from closing with the design of the gospel" (Jonathan Edwards, "None are Saved by Their Own Righteousness").

"I assert, that nothing ever comes to pass without a cause. What is self-existent, must be from eternity, and must be unchangeable; but as to all things that begin to be, they are not self-existent, and therefore must have some foundation of their existence without themselves. That whatsoever begins to be, which before was not, must have a cause why it then begins to exist, seems to be the first dictate of the common and natural sense which God hath implanted in the minds of all mankind, and the main foundation of all our reasonings about the existence of things past, present, or to come" (Jonathan Edwards, The Freedom of the Will).

"All dependent existence whatsoever is in a constant flux, ever passing and returning; renewed every moment, as the colors of bodies are every moment renewed by the light that shines upon them; and all is constantly proceeding from God, as light from the sun. "In him we live, and move, and have our being" (Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin, 404).

"Few desires on the part of religious teachers have been more harmfully exaggerated than the desire to 'avoid giving offense.' . . .

"Christ will do everything or nothing, and the only hope is to throw ourselves unreservedly on His mercy and trust Him for all. . . .

"'Christ died'--that is history; 'Christ died for our sins'--that is doctrine. Without these two elements, joined in an absolutely indissoluble union, there is no Christianity. . . .

"Here is found the most fundamental difference between liberalism and Christianity--liberalism is altogether in the imperative mood; while Christianity begins with a triumphant indicative; liberalism appeals to man's will, while Christianity announces, first, a gracious act of God. . . .

"If the Church were led to wipe out all products of the thinking of nineteen Christian centuries and start fresh, the loss, even if the Bible were retained, would be immense. . . .

"Where the most eloquent exhortation fails, the simple story of an event succeeds; the lives of men are transformed by a piece of news. . . .

"The fundamental fault of the modern Church is that she is busily engaged in an absolutely impossible task--she is busily engaged in calling the righteous to repentance. Modern preachers are trying to bring men into the Church without requiring them to relinquish their pride; they are trying to help them avoid the conviction of sin. The preacher gets up into the pulpit, opens the Bible, and addresses the congregation somewhat as follows: 'You people are very good,' he says; 'you respond to every appeal that looks toward the welfare of the community. Now we have in the Bible--especially in the life of Jesus--something so good that we believe it is good enough even for you good people.' Such is modern preaching. It is heard every Sunday in thousands of pulpits. But it is entirely futile. Even our Lord did not call the righteous to repentance, and probably we shall be no more successful than He. . . .

"Jesus did not invite the confidence of men by minimizing the load which he offered to bear. . . .

"The truth is that if Jesus be merely an example, he is not a worthy example; for He claimed to be far more. . . .

"The Jesus of the New Testament has at least one advantage over the Jesus of modern reconstruction--He is real. . . .

"Liberalism finds salvation (so far as it is willing to speak at all of "salvation") in man; Christianity finds it in an act of God. . . .

"It never seems to occur to modern liberals that in deriding the Christian doctrine of the Cross, they are trampling upon human
hearts. . . .

"If a man has once come under a true conviction of sin, he will have little difficulty with the doctrine of the Cross. . . .

"Religion cannot be made joyful simply by looking on the bright side of God. For a one-sided God is not a real God, and it is the real God alone who can satisfy the longing of our soul. . . .

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Were we not safer with a God of our own devising--love and only love, a Father and nothing else, one before whom we could stand in our own merit without fear? He who will may be satisfied with such a God. But we, God help us--sinful as we are, we would see Jehovah. Despairing, hoping, trembling, half-doubting and half-believing, trusting all to Jesus, we venture into the presence of the very God. And in His presence we live. . . .

"If Christian faith is based upon truth, then it is not the faith which saves the Christian but the object of the faith. And the object of the faith is Christ. . . .

"The Church is the highest Christian answer to the social needs of man. . . .

"Truth cannot be stated clearly at all without being set over against error. . . .

"There is in the Christian life no room for despair. Only, our hopefulness should not be founded on the sand. It should be founded, not upon a blind ignorance of the danger, but solely upon the precious promises of God" (J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1923]).