May 12, 2018 | Theology
Whenever I have put the word paedobaptist in Google, the first article linked is “Why I Am Not a Paedobaptist” by Tim Challies. One day maybe my little post here will come up high on such a search so people interested in the subject can get a competing argument, unless the folks at Google are against the baptizing of cute little babies.
In case you are not familiar with the term paedobaptist (in Greek, παιδί-paidí-means child), it means those who baptize infants, as opposed to believers baptism, i.e., baptizing someone on the basis of their decision to believe in Jesus. To many Evangelicals, baptizing babies seems positively Roman, as in Catholic—and counter intuitive. The typical response of most Evangelicals is, in incredulous tones, why, a baby can’t make a decision for Jesus! As if the central meaning of baptism is our choice. I know it’s practically heresy today to claim otherwise, but that is exactly what I’m doing.
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Mar 28, 2018 | Theology
In my last post I began to look at an Old Testament take on sin, and it’s not a pretty picture. Until we understand the gravity of sin, and its horrific consequences in human existence, we’ll have a hard time understanding and accepting that God could be angry about it, and that wrath is an understandable response of a holy God. We can’t know this through human speculation, although we all know the anger against horrible injustice when we see or experience it. Multiply that anger by infinity because God is omniscient, and he knows the ultimate injustice of every act of rebellion against him, in thought, word, or deed. Where human speculation ends, we must depend on God’s revelation to us in Scripture to educate us about sin, and his attitude toward it.
This gravity struck me, powerfully, when reading through Exodus several years ago, and an event recounted in chapter 4. There are no accidental words in the Bible, no fluff; everything is there for a reason. The story is about Moses, and the Lord has commanded him to go back to Egypt to confront Pharaoh. This is a big deal, the beginning of the Exodus of God’s people from 400 years(!) of slavery, and a powerful metaphor God used over and over throughout redemptive history to point his people to his power to deliver them from the slavery of sin. Then we read these bizarre words:
24 At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. 25 But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. 26 So the Lord let him alone. (At that time she said “bridegroom of blood,” referring to circumcision.)
Seriously? The Lord is going to kill Moses? And he was fully ready to do it? The same Moses he just commissioned to go to Egypt to set his people free? It sure looks like it.
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Mar 25, 2018 | Theology
In my previous post I explained how many of us miss what it means that we are forgiven of our sins because we only see it as being forgiven, and that’s it. As I said, since immersing myself in the Old Testament for several years, I realized that in the gospel God was literally saving us from himself. That’s why the gospel is such good news, such very good news. We rightly deserved his wrath and anger against our sin, the just wages of which is death. God could never have forgiven us simply because he wanted to without his justice being satisfied. That’s the way it is with any law that is broken, or any offense given; recompense must in some way be made. We live in a moral universe where right and wrong, good and evil, justice and injustice exist. Why would this moral dynamic not apply to the Creator of this universe.
One of the first things you’ll notice as you start reading the Old Testament is the serious nature of this thing called sin. Not even three chapters in and the whole thing goes to hell! Don’t eat of one tree, God tells Adam. All the rest, the whole of creation is yours to enjoy. But the devil tempts Eve (where was Adam?), she and Adam eat, and the rest is fallen history.
God tells Adam that the sentence for disobedience is death (“when you eat from it you will certainly die”), but when they ate they didn’t physically die right away. We get some sense of what kind of death this is from Adam and Eve’s response to “the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day”: they hid. This is what sinners by nature do; they want nothing to do with their judge, jury, and executioner. They, we, know, every one of us, that we are guilty. As I often say, we can’t even live up to our own standards, let alone those of a perfectly holy God. (more…)
Mar 17, 2018 | Theology
Every Christian knows that being forgiven from our sins is Christianity 101. But if you ask most Christians what it means to be forgiven from our sins, I would wager that very few could answer with any confidence. I think a common answer would be something like a tautology: well, being forgiven from our sins means we’re forgiven from our sins. This was kind of how I felt having attended a church for many years where a corporate confession was done weekly, and it was always announced after that our sins were forgiven. I always appreciated that this was included in every service because I don’t think it’s done in a lot of Evangelical churches, but I always wondered why it was never explained that there was more to the point than just forgiveness.
I didn’t realized just how much was missing until I heard Dr. Kim Riddlebarger, Pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Anaheim, CA, say on a White Horse Inn broadcast something I thought I already knew. Having a masters degree from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, I surely should have known it, and did, but for some reason it wasn’t at the forefront of my understanding of my relationship with God. Keep in mind that the key word in the phrase is almost invisible in most Evangelical circles. It is implied because of the centrality of the cross to our religion, but it is rarely spelled out. Dr. Riddlebarger simply said, and in passing:
God’s wrath is fully satisfied in Christ.
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Mar 4, 2018 | Theology
Skeptics are fond of mocking the idea that Jesus Christ had to die for our sins to reconcile us to God. Why can’t God, I’ve heard some of them say, and write, can’t God just forgive us. It can’t be that hard; we confess, he forgives, we’re good, right? No, it doesn’t work that way. If it did, our relationship to a holy God would be ground in his unpredictable whim, and nothing we could count on. Sort of like the God is Islam, who bears no resemblance to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I’ve done many things over the years to build into my children the plausibility of the Christian faith. Unless Christianity makes sense to them on a variety of levels, i.e., it’s plausible, why would I expect that they will embrace it when they leave mom and dad’s orbit? I wouldn’t. That’s why I’ve consistently explained to them how the crucifixion is at the center of our faith, and why it makes total sense in light of the reality we experience every day. How can I say that?
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Mar 2, 2018 | Theology
I often think of what a relationship with God means for me and those I love. I may be something of an aberration, but as far back as 12 or 13 years old I was wondering about my existence in this big vast universe and what it all means. Like many sinners (i.e., all human beings) I’ve always known I fall short, of what I was not always sure. But a favorite phrase of mine lo these many years later has become, we know we can’t even live up to our own standards, let alone a holy God. Why is that? Why do we all know we fall short? Maybe it’s because we actually do! Not a person on earth is immune to conscience, and we are all condemned by it. Even those who claim not to believe in God will admit they don’t live up to their own standards, but they will insist no real objective standards exist by which they can be judged. God’s word says differently.
Here is our dilemma vis-a-vis God: since we can’t live up to his standards, we are judged guilty, and the wages of what the Bible calls sin is death, both spiritual and physical. Like Adam and Eve after the fall, in our natural state when God comes “walking in the garden in the cool of the day,” we hide. By nature, we want nothing to do with our judge, jury, and executioner. The Apostle Paul says, by nature, by birth, we are enemies of God, and objects of his wrath. This is a problem, my friends, because we don’t seek to have a relationship with our enemies; we seek to defeat them, or run away. How can this problem be solved with our Creator? In a word, the gospel. What exactly is it, and how does it overcome the problem?
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