Category Archives: repentance

discernment, Rant, repentance

Mea Culpa

As anybody reading this has noticed, I’ve taken a week off of writing here for some reason or other. At the beginning of the break, I didn’t know why I was doing it, only that I should.

In that time I’ve spent some time looking into my own motivations for things, which could easilly be considered navel gazing, save that I think I may have been going a very wrong direction in my posts and in my argumentation. Now, this doesn’t mean I’ve come to believe that atheism or the lack of spiritual discipline in the Churches is any less incorrect, or that my opposition to them was wrong.

The problem was more one of why I was  writing. Namely, to show off my own intellect and ability rather than talk about the Glory of God in Jesus Christ in all of this. I was happy to play language and rhetoric games rather than actually get around to talking about why Jesus is so valuable, and so compelling even to a semi-educated guy in the early 21st century.

My posts of late, as I read them, drip more of bitterness and self righteousness than speaking of the beauty of what God has done through Jesus. I was happy to tell the bad news, without telling the good news.

I hope that you, the few readers that remain, will forgive me for that.

I pray that in the future, even as I comment about the negatives in the world, that I will tell you even more about the great hope I have despite all of that. I believe that in all the suffering and negatives around, God is working a glorious redemption in those who will just accept him, and believe on him rather than just his gifts. That, contrary to what we see, there will be a glorious ending in which all these things will culminate in something good, and that none of our suffering will be wasted.

Soli Deo Gloria

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Atheism, Ethics, evangelism, Homosexuality, Rant, repentance, scripture, sin, textual interpretation, theology

The Death of Faith (or more properly, its murder)

Recently I’ve been frequently faced with the fact that some people face a death in their own faith.

Before I start ranting about it, I should point out that everybody has some form of faith, whether it’s faith in the overall meaning of the universe, or the ability of their own intellect to accurately understand reality, or faith in God, or specifically in my case, faith in Jesus Christ.

So when I say a death in faith, I can’t mean a death in the faith that everybody has, but rather the faith that people used to hold to. Indeed, my once atheism was a faith in the regularity of the universe eliminating the necessity of God, and it died a cruel death which I happily celebrate.

Others have been moving the other direction, and as with most, it leaves me sometimes wondering if I’m nuts. After all, I believe that the ground of all reality, and the ultimate ruler of the universe was incarnated in a human being who died for my sins, allowing me to stand faultless before the glory of God. Seems a little nutty if I focus on the  rationality of the belief without looking at the underlying reasons to actually believe it, such as the historic reality of the resurrection.

But more commonly, I’ve found that people have turned away from faith in Jesus for the same experiential reasons that others have turned to the faith. Namely, something has happened in their own life that makes their former faith in God untenable. This is usually coupled with artistic expression that resonates with them and essentially causes an emotive conversion to the loss of faith. Don’t believe me? Try being an  evangelical Christian hanging around a few drunk atheists or agnostics, you’ll see what I mean.

Of course, the people involved somewhat choose the atheism, but more often than not, they were helped, most notably by the Church. No, I do not mean by the Church’s hypocrisy (were that the reason, nobody would believe anything; hypocrisy is based on lies, and as Dr. House says, “everybody lies”), nor by the evils of the Church (again, were that the case Marx, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Hitler would have put paid to Atheism). More often it is by the church’s failures to act like a church in the realm of discipleship.

Discipleship is the means by which a convert to Christianity is brought to a mature faith in Christ. It is most importantly based on the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit (Phil. 1:6), but is also aided through the instrument of Church in teaching and discipline.

That the Church generally fails in these needs hardly be argued. While in academia, Mark Noll’s battle cry (in “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind”) of a decade or more ago has been somewhat answered by a plethora of intelligent and erudite Christian thinkers, this has largely not moved to the general congregation. This is evidenced by the purile and illogical arguments levelled against Christianity by the present batch of popular Atheists. That some of this sounds intelligent (or even intelligible) as attacks on Christianity is based on the fact that most Christians have gotten no further in their faith than “Me and Jesus”. Few, if any, have reflected on Pascal’s wager, or on Anselm’s inaccurately named ontological proof for the existence of God, or even know what a presuppositional apologetic would look like, much less know how to use one.

Even deeper, few Christians know what it means to be being sanctified, where the basis of our justification lies, or even basically what the central fact of the good news is, instead believing that the ultimate reason for Christ’s incarnation was to save me from sin (because I’m such a lovable guy…… despite that original sin thing).

This is compounded by the failure in Church discipline. I hate to say it, and many former Christians would debate me on this one, but the other common cause of atheism, after a failure to grow in the faith, is the embracing of open sin in the Church.  Why does this cause atheism? Simple. People have the law of God written in their hearts, and as they act against it, they become less likely to look to God; out of sight, out of mind.

This is compounded when the Church spends its time pretending that the Bible is inaccurate as a reflection of God’s will, and thus eliminating parts of the scripture in practice (like pretending extramarital sex is okay, or that women clergy are accepted by scripture, or that homosexuality is a good and noble expression of God’s will).

On the other side of the divide, we have charismatics failing to test every spirit and pretending that the Spirit of God is some kind of vending machine, or that it gives fortunes, or worst of all, that it gives “new revelations” of God’s will in contradiction to the written word of God.

Thus I believe that in large measure, the present atheism we see is partially to be blamed on the Christian Church, we have done that which we ought not to have done, and have not done those things we ought to have done, and there is no health in us.

Our only hope now is that it is always God’s property to have mercy. May He have mercy on us now.

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Jesus, Mission, repentance, scripture, sin, textual interpretation, theology

Bible Study comments 1: Knowing that faith is a gift of God moves us (among other lesser things) to Glory in Christ.

The Bible Study I attend in St. John’s is continuing to look into the Word of God, guided by a John Piper book, “When I Don’t Desire God” (available online by clicking on he link). Last week, they went through Chapter 4 of the book, Joy in God is a Gift of God: Doing Ourselves What Must Be Done For Us. There are many things in the chapter to comment on, but besides sharing the point of the chapter, I’ll leave you all to read it yourselves.

The Chapter is about, simply, the fact that the Bible seems to say that it is commanded that we have joy in the Lord, but similarly, that joy in the Lord is a gift given by the Lord. It’s the problem of dead sinners (sinners here meaning people who ARE sinners, rather than simply people who sin, we are not just people who do bad stuff, we are the kind of people that do bad stuff). We are in a very bad position vis a vis God, not simply because we’re doers of bad stuff, but because we desire the wrong things and thus do the bad stuff. The problem is not simply our actions, but the desperately wicked heart that drives the actions (See Jeremiah 17:9-10 for the relation of God’s judgment on deeds and the relation to the heart).

It is that rebellious heart that must come to rejoice in the Lord, which is the Lord’s work.

Now, I hear that there were two very good questions asked at the study. I want to give a stab at an answer for both, one today, and one whenever I next get time. The first is “Why does it matter that believing God’s revealed word about Himself is a gift that He has given?” and the second is “Should we be concerned with those who have not received repentance, and can we blame them for not repenting?”.

Why Does It Matter?

I think there are many reasons why it matters that God’s gift of faith in Him is a gift He Himself is given. I’ll give three of my anwers here.

1) Such knowledge keeps us from thinking of ourselves too highly. Humans have a habit of turning good things that we have into a means of boasting. That is the point of 1 Corinthians 1:23-31. I know in my own mind that I sometimes think of those who reject Jesus as stupid or ignorant, when in fact only God’s grace keeps me in faith. I have no right to boast over others, but rather have a need to boast in the Lord that saves me….from me.

2) Knowing that it is only by the gift of God empowers us to speak openly of Jesus to those who do not believe. Faith in God comes from God, and as such it keeps us from two opinions that might cause us to be silent about His grace around others. In the first place, we could be silent because we believe people are too far beyond the pale.

Indeed they are. Everybody we speak to is as dead in sin as we were, but God saved us, loving us while we were still sinners (1 John 4:10), and calling us to salvation and righteousnes while we were slaves to sin (Romans 6:17).

Do you think that your unsaved family member is too far gone to be reached by your words? Darn skippy! Sin has them enslaved, and sin is a powerful master. They are enthralled by the desires of the world, AS WE WERE. God can save them as He saved us, because we were not saved by our superior intellect or spiritual ability, or a “God gene” but by the sovereign grace of God!

Similarly, we can believe that we should not witness to our friends and family because we do not have powerful convincing words to move them. Instead we should just live holy lives and hope they see it in our lives. This is half true, we should lead Holy lives, like a city on a hill (Matthew 5:14-16), but we should also openly rejoice in God, and tell others. Indeed, not with hugely practiced words and powerful arguments, as that will only stoke the desire to be self righteous (and prove you to be self righteous at the same time), but with the words in your heart.

God may have saved you through an argument, or through reading or through the Godly life of another, but it was God who saved you, not you. In essence, in evangelism, you are not asked to be effective beyond your means, you are only asked to be faithful.

This does not mean you don’t learn arguments for Christ if you can, but do not worry if that is not your forte, God is going to use your faithfulness to save people, and it will be God’s work, so you don’t get to boast in it, you get to be part of what God does.

3) It’s important because it moves us to glory in Christ, our redeemer. Knowing that it is God in Christ who gives us the gift of faith, to understand His word, and to come to Him rejoicing in Him makes the joy in Him far greater. All things, whether it be the truth in Scripture, or a heart that seeks after God, or a Godly spouse and family, or Godly friends, or even our repentance itself, become conduits to praising God alone, feeling Him sweet, and valuable above all else. Honestly, I wanna sing now.

I will glory in my Redeemer
Whose priceless blood has ransomed me
Mine was the sin that drove the bitter nails
And hung Him on that judgment tree
I will glory in my Redeemer
Who crushed the power of sin and death
My only Savior before the Holy Judge
The Lamb Who is my righteousness
The Lamb Who is my righteousness

I will glory in my Redeemer
My life He bought, my love He owns
I have no longings for another
I’m satisfied in Him alone
I will glory in my Redeemer
His faithfulness my standing place
Though foes are mighty and rush upon me
My feet are firm, held by His grace
My feet are firm, held by His grace

I will glory in my Redeemer
Who carries me on eagle’s wings
He crowns my life with lovingkindness
His triumph song I’ll ever sing
I will glory in my Redeemer
Who waits for me at gates of gold
And when He calls me it will be paradise
His face forever to behold
His face forever to behold
His face forever to behold

Words and Music by Steve and Vicki Cook
© 2001 Sovereign Grace Worship (ASCAP).

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Ethics, Jesus, marriage, men, repentance, sin, theology

Online Reading

Calvinism: Mark Dever continues to ask where all these Calvinists came from.

Geo-politics: Phillip Yancey, quoting eminent theolgian Lamin Sanneh, points out (no doubt contraversially) guilt and projection concerning Christian history.

Harry Potter: I’m almost glad I’m nowhere near a book store tonight.

Books: Here’s an interview with Dave Harvey, who wrote “When Sinners Say I Do”

Property: SOCAN believes that hairdressers should pay to play music in their salons. I wonder if I’m feeling good about that cause I’m balding?

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Jesus, Mission, Rant, repentance, scripture, sin, theology

Saviour

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I think people seriously misunderstand what salvation is.

I was talking about this before, where God saves us from high interest rates, and the necessity of going to the doctor for the ingrown toenail rather than saving us from sin. But then, that’s only part of the situation.

The central problem we humans have is that we seriously misunderstand the nature of the universe. Any of us with half a brain and the ability to look at the universe realize pretty quickly that the universe is not about us. That’s a correct understanding. Many of us leave it at that because, well, we can’t get over ourselves. Like that guy in “About a Boy”, we see our lives as TV shows about us. When faced with the realization that self centered life is hollow, we find ourselves focussing on “society” or on “stuff” or anything to hopefully keep us believing that there is some meaning. It’s what Kierkegaard calls “despair”. Smart guy, Kierkegaard.

This stuff can only keep us so far, though, as when we look into the cosmos, and the vast expanses of interstellar pace, and the shortness of our own period of life here on this tiny ball, we learn that our short life spans are insignificant in the grand scheme of both time and space, and that there was a time with no life, and given the freakish improbability of life, there will probably be none when the sun finally gives out and we cease to be even as a race.

Most people give up here. They either invest all their time in convincing themselves that humanity matters, contrary to all the evidence, or simply give up and become those horribly depressing people who dress in black at coffee shops.

Indeed, those are the rational choices, based on the evidence I’ve given so far.

But then, there’s Jesus.

Contrary to some movies by the more loopy skeptic set, Jesus was a person who actually existed. Who actually taught during a historical period that is identifiable, and was falsifiable. A man who was crucified on a cross, and then, if the story is true, rose from the dead on the third day.

Many here say “but that’s impossible”, and I agree, if the premise is that the universe is as we’ve believed it to be. But then, that is probably a point of the resurrection. It’s impossible, unless we’re wrong.

And see, we’re wrong.

Jesus came into a place and time that told a story. That story is that the universe is indeed not about us, as the evidence suggests; that things have a point, as the evidence of our own hearts suggests, and our very desire to see a “point” in things suggests. Yet the point is not us. The point is a loving, powerful and just God. One great enough to create a universe, and good enough to create love. This God actually fits the evidence.

And the resurrection creates the dissonance to show that we are wrong, and the God that is the point is really there. A God who resurrected Jesus to validate what Jesus told us about a grander purpose; one where we are created….. created to love God….. and separated from God by a desire to BE God, to BE the point in the universe.

When we decided to BE the point, we live a lie, and we all know it’s a lie. We need a saviour, not from worthlessness, not from despair or immorality (those all those come from it), we need a savior from our sinful desire to be God, to make something that isn’t God into god.

We need a savior from us.

And into that story, that context, that grand sweep told through thousands of years of history in a single people in the middle east steps Jesus.

The Saviour.

He said “come unto me, all that labour (even labour to avoid despair) and are heavy laden (even with the realization that they are not central to the universe), and I will refresh you”.

He also said that those who see him, see the father, the real point of the universe.

He offers the real salvation, not a mediocre call to get rich and have 2.2 kids, but communion with a real God, that is infinitely worthy, who is the point, and who offers us the ability to enjoy him forever.

There is a saviour, He is Jesus.

So call on Him to save you.

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