Fairbairn on Christianity: doctrine? Life? Both?

As I'm preaching through Titus I have occasion to use any of dozens of books. One lesser-known commentary on the Pastorals is by Patrick Fairbairn, better known for his works on prophecy and typology.

The title for my series is Titus: Living Sound Doctrine. It's my best shot at capturing the constant back and forth interweaving of the two themes in Titus, showing the interrelatedness of sound doctrine and sound living.

All that to introduce Fairbairn's apposite remark on Titus 2:1.

Christianity is primarily, indeed, a doctrine, but only that it may be in the true sense a life; and the two can never be kept apart from each other in the public teaching of the church without imminent peril to both.

[Fairbairn, P. (1874). The Pastoral Epistles: The Translation with Introduction, Expository Notes, and Dissertations (270). Edinburgh: T&T Clark.]

Reflections on hope

As I wrote over at Pyro today, hope is as necessary to the human being as food and drink. You can't really live without it.

I started to write "to the Christian," but that isn't true. Everyone needs hope, and everyone has it. The unredeemed man has his own hope, but it is a doomed illusion. Eve and Adam hoped to have God-like knowledge and freedom and autonomy. They acted in hope. But because they did not act in faith, which is to say according to truth, what they attained instead was guilt and shame and wrath and misery and death. And so is the lot of every child of theirs who follows in their footsteps. I wrote a lot more about that somewhere, and it isn't my focus here today.

Here I focus on the Christian and hope.

I lived for years without (or with very little) hope, as a Christian. It was a dark, horrid time. With the occasional clarity of retrospect, I see that the real lack was a lack of faith.

Don't love that phrase much because it's overused and abused, but it's the truth. Understand, though: by "lack of faith" I do not mean "lack of orthodoxy." I was perfectly orthodox. That's not a self-congratulatory statement; it's categorical. I affirmed the verbal, plenary inerrancy of Scripture, the truth of the Trinity, the truth of penal substitutionary atonement, and on and on. Affirmed them with all my heart, internally and with my mouth and fingertips.

The trouble was that I did not embrace for myself the sweetness that comes from those truths to believers. Here we camp a moment on Ephesians 6:16 — "In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one." I see the shield as a bit different from the rest of the armor. "The faith" probably does refer to the revealed body of truth. However, excepting the only the sword, all the other items of armor just stay on, once donned. Put on the helmet and leave it; strap on the sandals, and leave them; belt on the belt, etc.

But the shield doesn't do you a bit of good if you don't hold it tight and hold it close. Possessing a shield alone is of little practical value. The only way you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one is if you hold the shield and hold it tight and hold it close.

So for that period, I bristled with flaming darts and little hope, because I possessed the shield, but I didn't hold it close. John Piper's Future Grace helped me see that, and it combined with other facets of the Lord's patient dealing with me to turn me from despair to hope.

So hope comes from personal, appropriating, clinging, living faith, and that faith must come from revealed truth.

We need to have it, live it, speak it. Joni — who has known daily suffering for decades, to a degree few of us can imagine — speaks passionately, eloquently and movingly on the importance of hope. Parents need it, spouses need it, singles need it; all of us need it.

Worldlings have to make it up or materialize it. All of their hopes either are based on lies and illusions, or deal with things that thieves, moths and rust can destroy. They amount to a chimera. Barring repentance and saving faith in Christ, all their hopes are in the final analysis utterly and completely doomed. However good things are now, one day they will turn for the unimaginable worse, and will never improve.

The Christian's case is the precise and exact opposite.

Pastors should cling to and preach more hope. I've known pastors who show little hope; I've been a pastor who showed little. Pastors (most pastors, anyway, superstars aside) are exposed to such disappointment and sorrow and heartbreak. People fail, fall, betray, deceive, slander, malign, are ungrateful. Churches stubbornly refuse to grow. The hardened stay hard. Miracles are few and far, far between.

And you as a pastor may care more intensely than anyone else. Others drop by, go home, flick on the TV, and they're done. The pastor lives and dies with the church. He needs to have a hope that goes beyond how the church is doing this week, or how it's likely to do next week.

And more, the pastor really needs to hold it and preach Biblical hope. As I said, I've known pastors who've been so beaten-up by the church that the whole service has a doomed, gloomy feel. I'm not saying this either in harsh judgment (believe me!) or in lofty disdain (believe me!). I'm just saying it because it's true. My heart bleeds both for them and the church.

Those pastors need to find a hope that will lift their spirits and give them joy regardless of how faithful or faithless or feckless people are. They need that to lift them, and they need that hope to fill their preaching.

Yes, absolutely, preach the holiness of God and the fearful terrors of sin. But also and with equal passion (like Isaiah! like Jeremiah! like Ezekiel! like Paul! like Peter!) preach the sweetness and glories of the Gospel and its hope and promises.

I say this to you, and I say this to me.

Amen.

The difference between fearing God, and trying to be God

It only surfaces when God crosses your will, or your preferred way of thinking.

The God-fearer says, "God differs from me; I must be wrong, and I must change."

The God-wannabe says, "God differs from me; He must be wrong, and I must change Him."

Promises: God's and ours

Why do we break promises? We break them because we change, or circumstances do. That is, we make a promise in one mood; the mood shifts, and we break it. Or we make a promise, but it isn't of much weight to us, so we let it slip. Or we make a promise, then sin grips us and the promise becomes inconvenient and burdensome, so we drop it to cling to our sin.

Or circumstances change. We promise to give something, do something, be somewhere, but our resources or our life or our schedule changes.

Why does God never break promises? He never changes, and He controls circumstances.

Put it another way: at any point, God knows Himself exhaustively, and knows all circumstances in all time-frames exhaustively. The latter actually springs from the former.

Thus it literally is not possible that God should ever be caught short by either a change in Himself, or in circumstances. He is the Lord, and He does not change (Malachi 3:6; cf. Hebrews 13:8). He works all things after the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11). The categories that produce faithlessness in us simply are not meaningful to God.

I see three immediate implications:

First, the believer can rest unreservedly on God's word of promise. Christ says He'll never cast us out, and He won't (John 6:37). God promises that all things will work together for our good, and they will (Romans 8:28). Jesus promises that not one of His sheep will perish, and they won't (John 10:28).

Second, the unbeliever needs to deal with the complete hopelessness of his situation, as matters stand. God promises to judge all secrets in the day of judgment (Ecclesiastes 12:23). He promises that all artifices of human pride and rebellion — all rationalizations, excuses, and dodges — will be swept away like so many cobwebs (Isaiah 2:11; 1 Corinthians 2:19). He promises that every knee will bow, and every tongue admit that Jesus is Lord, and they will (Philippians 2:10-11). Confess the truth now, to your salvation, or you will surely confess it in that day, to your damnation.

Third, the believer needs to take God as his model. I imagine many in unrepented sin read the start of the post and thought "Yes! That's why I had to change my mind! Situations changed!"

Not so fast, Turbo.

The Israelites made a promise without a full knowledge of the facts (Joshua 9) — and God held them to it, regardless (2 Samuel 21). It is characteristic of the righteous man that he "swears to his own hurt and does not change" (Psalm 15:4).

Faith, repentance, preparationism, Spurgeon

We find it awkward sometimes to express the absolute necessity of repentance. I work at this very topic, at length, in the manuscript of my upcoming book. The issue is this: do we have to repent, to get saved?

Some would say "Well duh, of course we do."

To that, others would reply "So then, someone who is a slave of sin and dead to God has to go over all his sins — which he loves and in which he walks — and decide he doesn't want to do them anymore; THEN he turns to Christ; THEN he believes; THEN he is regenerated and gets saved? How is that not synergism? How is that not works-righteousness? How are we not saving ourselves?"

Is that what we want to say? Do we want the people to whom we tell the Gospel to stay away from Jesus, looking within themselves, working to convince themselves that they really do hate sin, and that they really do want to break with it, so that they can then — after that, after killing sin within themselves by themselves — and only then come to Jesus?

Enter Spurgeon, with his 6/13 am Morning and Evening reflection on Revelation 22:17, quoted as “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Spurgeon makes this plea (emphasis added):

Jesus says, “take freely.” He wants no payment or preparation. He seeks no recommendation from our virtuous emotions. If you have no good feelings, if you be but willing, you are invited; therefore come! You have no belief and no repentance,—come to him, and he will give them to you. Come just as you are, and take “Freely,” without money and without price. 

I think Spurgeon is absolutely right. A lot more could be said (and I do, in the book), but this hits at the heart of it. At bottom, we're not trying to get people to repent, per se, or to claim to have faith, per se. We're trying to get people to Jesus.

"Whoa," you say. "They can't get there without repentance and faith."

Totally agree. But take a look at what Spurgeon says. He never denies the necessity of repentance and faith. But he addresses the hesitating person, and says in effect, "You don't feel faith in yourself? You don't feel repentance in yourself? Don't let that stop you. Come to Jesus. Bring those lacks to Him. Go to Him, He's what you need."

The reprobate person with neither faith nor repentance will snort, and stay where he is.

But what if one does come? To "come," as Spurgeon says, he must see his need of Jesus. He must see that he can't stay where he is. He must see Jesus as being who he needs. He must have confidence (faith) that Jesus alone can give those things. And, in coming to Jesus, he must turn from where he is presently.

And what is that but faith and repentance?

Science, the Bible, and Presuppositions: a parable

A man once went into a room, in which he found a thin layer of dust and a jumble of furniture.

He moved all of the furniture exactly where he wanted it, then sat down and wrote a note. The note read:

I am the owner of this room. Over the space of one hour, I moved all of the furniture into the current arrangement.

He taped the note on the door into the room. Then he left.

Days later, a group of men came by and noticed the room. Glancing briefly at the note and shrugging, they walked into the room.

The men immediately gasped at the beautiful and complex arrangement of the furniture. They sat down and began making notes.

Another man walked by, paused at the door, read the note carefully, recognized the signature, and entered the room.

"What's going on?" he asked.

Eagerly the men responded, "We've been studying this room, and it's absolutely fascinating! Look at how intricately this furniture arranged itself! Look at the drag-lines! In a stationary room, we've calculated that movement of this sort had to have taken billions of years! Maybe kazillions!"

Puzzled, the man replied, "But the note on the door says the room's owner came in and arranged it. It only took him about an hour."

The men looked at the intruder with pity. "Owner?" they asked. "Do you see an 'owner' in here? Besides, if there were an owner, why would he deceive us all by this evidence, that clearly took billions of years to come into the current arrangement?"

"Huh?" the visitor returned. "How is it deception? Didn't you see the note? How is it deception when he tells you exactly what he did, and you just ignore it?"

Sadly, with an expression of infinite, condescending pity, the men say,

"Ah. You're not being scientific."



UPDATE: now, this is interesting. I've had this idea for some time, wrote it a bit back, and published it on the given date. Now today (2/13/09) I read for the first time this essay, dated January 30, 2009. Kevin T. Bauder, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary, does an excellent job of developing the same point along similar lines. Check it out.

Bruce Lee can beat you with....

All the YouTube commenters say this is fake. I (A) don't know how they know that, and (B) don't care too much (i.e. like I'm going to go out and try this?); because (C) it's fun!

If it's true, imagine how the opponents feel. "Dude... we just got smacked by a guy with nun-chuks."

Now, this does broach an interesting subject. Whether or not that vid is real and as-presented, it sure looks as if it is. If it's fake, it's an awesome fake.

That's interesting, isn't it? The Bible's view of truth is a correspondence view; that is, statements in the Bible are true because they correspond to reality. They aren't true because they work, because they make us feel good, because they feel real. Some Biblical propositions don't "work" as we'd wish them to on our timeline; some make us feel really bad; and some call us to believe things that don't feel real in the least.

But we believe them and do them because they correspond to reality. God's word condemned me as a sinner, and I was, when I didn't feel my sin in the least. And God's word declares me as righteous as Jesus Christ Himself, with that alien, imputed righteousness, when I feel nothing but guilt and reproach and regret and shame. I should have believed the first before I did, I must believe the second even (and especially!) when it's hard, because they correspond to reality.

"Seeing is believing," folks have said for decades or longer. But with video editing as skilled and seamless as it is today, isn't that proposition pretty bankrupt? One has to have a grounded conviction that goes beyond even mere sensory experience.

Only Biblically-faithful Christians have that.

Tested by the Word

In Psalm 105:17-19, we read that Yahweh

...had sent a man ahead of them,
Joseph, who was sold as a slave.
18 His feet were hurt with fetters;
his neck was put in a collar of iron;
19 until what he had said came to pass,
the word of the LORD tested him.

My interest is that last phrase: "the word of Yahweh tested him."

I take it that this "word of Yahweh" refers to the revelations Joseph had received in his youth. Yahweh had shown him that he would be prominent in his father's house.

Well, he'd been "prominent," all right: prominently hated. His brothers had loathed him, and couldn't decide which was the better idea — kill him outright, or sell him off to pagans and forget about him.

No doubt, this wasn't what Joseph had envisioned. He went down, down, down. Down into the pit, down into slavery, down into Egypt, down into the dungeon.

And all the while, that promise from Yahweh was "up there." I can imagine that what had started out as bright and hope-inspiring became very difficult. None could be surprised if Joseph had been tempted to bitter exasperation. "Some promise," he could have thought. "Some prominence!"

So this, I take it, is how "the word of Yahweh tested him." Joseph had a promise of greatness from God, yet here he'd sunk about as low as he could get. What would dominate his attitude, outlook, affections, perspective? Would the decisive factor be the word of the Lord, or would it be Joseph's circumstances?

It was a fiery test.

Clearly, Joseph continued to believe. Because he believed, he continued to trust. Because he trusted, he continued to hope.

How do I know that? I know it, for one, by how he responded to the temptations of Potiphar's wife.

Did he say, "Sure, whatever, might as well get whatever jollies I can get"? Did he say, "Yahweh sure isn't coming through in the 'happy' department, so, if you've got something, I'm in"?

Nope. You know his response: "How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" (Genesis 39:9). His hope — born of trust, born of faith — purified him.

And aren't we tested in much the same way?

We, too, have words from God that often go counter to our circumstances. We are promised suffering now (John 16:33; Acts 14:22, etc.). But we are also promised glory to come (Matthew 5:2-12; Hebrews 12:1-2). We are to fix our hopes completely on that ultimate, eschatological hope of deliverance in, through, and because of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:3-9, 13, etc.).

Sufferings and humiliation, now; glory and eternal joys in His presence, then.

And here's our test: do we believe them, or Him? When tragedies or setbacks strike, do we believe that they are the final word? Do we walk in gloom, bitterness, discouragement — disbelief? Is Satan more persuasive to us than God?

Because without hope, we're doomed. Without hope, we're no more fit for trials than Joseph would have been. The same dynamic applies to us:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure (1 John 3:1-3)

Hope will purify. Hopelessness will defile. Hope grants that endurance without which holiness is impossible.

And hope depends on faith; and faith depends on the Word of God, and what we do with it.

Or do we believe God? Do we believe that glory, and not groaning, is ultimate (Romans 8:18-30)?

The word of Yahweh tested Joseph.

It tests us, too.

Deity of Christ: archeology catching up with the Bible

Archeologists have uncovered a church in Megiddo, dating from the second or third century AD, which indicates that Christ was worshiped as God. Thus we have yet another extra-Biblical confirmation of Christians affirming this Biblical truth, well before the fourth-century Council of Nicea — when some moderns have fantasized that the doctrine was created.

Biblically-faithful Christians already knew that Christ demanded divine worship during His time on earth, on the Father's authority (John 5:22) — and that He received it (John 20:28).

But it's nice when science catches up.

What we learn hence: stay with the Bible to stay ahead of the curve.

Evangelicals not buying the Dems' "woojie-woojie-woojie?"

Mostly religion-related polls are depressing, for a Bible-believer. So it's nice to see one that is at least a little encouraging.

Apparently not too many churchgoing evangelicals (which should be, but isn't, a tautology) are buying the Dems' duplicitous outreach attempts. Nor are they buying the a moral hierarchy that puts the could-be/maybe/some-think of "global warming" over the immediate realities of jamming "gay" "marriage" down our throats, and of the torture-killings of inconvenient or imperfect babies.

And that's all a good thing.

Now, some more random thoughts prompted by the article:

1. I really wish pundits would stop saying/writing that McCain "is generally reticent about his own faith." First, nobody is really "reticent about his own faith." How you live and speak is your faith. This idea that someone can have a public life without ever referring to Christ or the Word of God, and then suddenly in some candid moment unveil his intensely private but deeply-held convictions — sorry, but baloney. How you speak and live is what you believe (Luke 6:43-45). So, second, I already know enough about McCain's "faith." It is in no way compelling to me. And finally, third, if McCain — who is the worse of the two relevant candidates running for president today, excepting only Barak Obama — were suddenly to claim that Jesus has been his Lord for decades, and the Bible is determinate for all his thoughts, values, decisions, and actions... I'd be insulted. Not appealed-to.
2. BTW, does anyone know when McCain plans to start campaigning?
3. So far, has there ever been a lamer campaign that McCain's?
4. I've said it before, I'll say it again: given what a complete insult Obama is, this election is John McCain's to lose — and, by jingo, he's the man who could do it!
5. The title's "woojie-woojie-woojie" is a reference to a very old cartoon, where (IIRC) a male frog tries to woo a reluctant female frog with the eloquent come-on, "Woojie-woojie-woojie?" She replies, pointedly, "No woojie-woojie-woojie!" And now, you know that.