The day I deliberately taught heresy

Back in the summer term of 2001 I was working with University and College Christian Unions across Wales. At that time we lived in Swansea, and as well as leading the team of workers in Wales, I got to spend some time with the Christian Union at Swansea University. I have very fond memories of that time, and some of the students from those years are among the finest young Christians that I know. I can't think of them without giving thanks for them.

One of my weekly privileges was to lead the Bible study for the hall/small group leaders (who in turn would teach others also). We had spent some time studying Amos and decided to study 1 John for the summer term.

It was either during the first or second session of the new term that I decided, in the car on the way down to the beach, to teach them some heresy. Not to teach them about heresy, but to deliberately teach them serious error as if it were solid truth. I thought it best to do it with subtlety. I didn't want to be too obvious about it. I also decided that the best point of entry would be to probe some areas of Christian experience where my dodgy ideas would get a sympathetic hearing. I decided to play on the sense of being defeated by sin and temptation and began to explain how John taught a higher spiritual dimension of Christian experience.

I talked. Pens were poised. Notes were taken. Some eager faces looked back at me. But, not actually being a heretic, I decided that I needed to thin out the plausibility of my teaching and to ham up the whole thing. In the end a discerning voice began to ask questions about my doctrinal lies and I confessed to being a deceiver. Trouble was, until I got to that point, at least one student suspended his questions about what I was saying because, well, I was saying it. And if I was saying it he didn't think it could be wrong, even though it didn't sound quite right.

I have thought over that incident several times.

1. Error often comes from a place where you least expect it to

It catches us unawares. It comes from people that we have grown to trust and in whose judgement we acquiesce. Our guard is down because we don't think we will need to discern what they are saying. Now, I am certainly not advocating an overly scrupulous, suspicious, cynical approach to listening to preachers. But nothing seems more obvious than the entry of intruders where no guard has been posted. And of course we rationalise it based not on what they say (where discernment should focus) but on who they are, and how we feel about them.

2. Error often comes in small percentages

That is what makes it so subtle. Not only may it come from an otherwise faithful source, but it may make up, at first, but a small part of an otherwise orthodox whole.

This is a further reason why it seems so plausible to us. But a few tiny drops of arsenic should not be swallowed even if found in a large, tasty looking cake. This too is a test of our discernment. What ought to concern us is not the perfectly acceptable ingredients that make up the rest of the food on offer, but the precise nature of the unwelcome additives. It is not their size that matters but their nature. I've eaten a cake with some added garlic and chilli seeds, but I would hardly have eaten one with pieces of broken glass of the same size in it.

Heading to London

Tomorrow I will be on the train heading down to London. I will be speaking at the International Presbyterian Church Ealing from Friday through to Sunday. The first two days are the "at home" church weekend away. Paul Levy (above) is the minister. He is a Welshman, living in exile. Ealing of course was the home of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and I believe also of John Owen. In fact they both died there.

My theme is "Truth Matters" and we will be looking at "Why the Gospel matters" (Galatians 1), "Why the Word of God matters" (2 Tim. 3) and "Why the local Church matters" (Acts 20). I'm also doing a seminar on covenant theology.

Following that on Tuesday morning I will be a guest on Premier Radio's Inspirational Breakfast talking to John Pantry about Risking the Truth. Tuesday afternoon will be taken up with the Affinity theological team meeting. We are planning out our next theological studies conference, on the doctrine of Scripture, for February 2011. Greg Beale, Carl Trueman, Daniel Strange and yours truly are the scheduled speakers, with a few more to come.

Last orders

10ofThose.com are offering a special deal on Risking the Truth: Handling Error in the Church.

You can get it for £6.90 (that includes postage) between now and 1st October.

To order just email sales@10ofthose.com and quote "Downblog"

This offer is only available in the UK

Why not buy a copy for your pastor? And if you are the pastor, treat yourself.

Shut your mouth

Last Sunday evening I preached on Romans 3:9-20. The effect of Paul's argument ought to be the shutting of our mouths and the realisation that we are, personally, on account of our sins, liable to prosecution. Paul has presented the witness of creation, the witness of our moral constitution, and the witness of God's revealed commands to demonstrate that we are all guilty and without excuse before God and therefore all in need of the gospel.

I began the sermon with a series of questions that are vital to think through. Until we do so we will never understand ourselves, our Maker, and where we stand before him. I think that they are important evangelistic questions, and I first heard them asked ten years ago by a friend in a kebab shop:

One of the most important questions we can ever ask is “What does God think of me?”

What does he think about my life? My attitudes? My actions and reactions? The way I treat people? The way that I treat him? Have you ever asked those questions? Do you think that he approves of you? Does he consider you and your ways acceptable? Have you ever seriously thought about those questions?

Actually most people spend their time considering what other people think of them (what they wear, how they look, what they think of you as a person). We want to know how we measure up in the eyes of others. In fact for some people that is a major source of tyranny, the concern with having someone else's approval.

But, when you think about it rationally, how could that compare with knowing what God thinks of us? Shouldn't that be of much greater concern to us?

What does my Maker think of me? What is his assessment of my life?

John Calvin in the Valley of the Shadow of Death

The following article (based on his conference address from earlier this year) by Garry Williams has been posted on the Banner of Truth site. It was a privilege to hear it and I am sure that you will benefit from reading it. Calvin, as the author says, was a suffering Reformer.

Here's an extract:

Calvin married Idelette de Bure in 1540 and from the little we know they appear to have been very happily married. Yet their only son Jacques died shortly after he was born on 28 July 1542. Calvin expressed his grief to Pierre Viret: ‘The Lord has certainly inflicted a severe and bitter wound in the death of our infant son. But he is himself a Father, and knows best what is good for his children.’ In 1545 Idelette herself became ill, and in March 1549, after just nine years of marriage and with Calvin still under forty, she died. Calvin expressed his grief in a letter to Viret just over a week later:

Truly mine is no common source of grief. I have been bereaved of the best companion of my life, of one who, had it been so ordered, would not only have been the willing sharer of my indigence, but even of my death. During her life she was the faithful helper of my ministry. From her I never experienced the slightest hindrance. She was never troublesome to me throughout the entire course of her illness; she was more anxious about her children than about herself.

A few days later he wrote to Farel: ‘I do what I can to keep myself from being overwhelmed with grief.’

Go read the whole thing here

Dr. Garry Williams is the Director of the John Owen Centre for Theological Study. Find out more about the John Owen Centre here

You cannot share the limelight with the Son of God

Probing words for preachers from the pen of John Brown:

There is something incongruous and disgusting in one whose mind ought to be habitually employed about the glory of the Divine character--the order and stability of the Divine government--the restoration of a ruined world to purity and happiness--the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of God--the transforming and consoling influence of the Holy Ghost--the joys and sorrows of eternity--and whose grand business it ought to be to bring these things, in all their reality and imp0rtance, before the minds of his fellow-men--it is incongruous and disgusting in such a man to appear primarily anxious to draw men's attention to himself--seizing every opportunity to bring himself into notice--exhibiting the truths of the gospel chiefly for the purpose of displaying his own talents--calling men's attention to them more as his opinions than as God's truth, and less ambitious of honouring the Saviour, and saving those who hear him, than of obtaining for himself the reputation of piety, or learning, or acuteness, or eloquence.

This is truly pitiable; and if angels could weep, it would be at folly like this.

John Brown, Galatians, p. 53-4

A razor's edge but a world of difference

Doctrinal precision matters. Clarifying what we mean, and don't mean, by our theological terms matters a great deal. And it simply will not do to dismiss the importance of this by thinking that it is merely nit-picking. Take the phrase "justification by faith." What do we mean by justification in that statement? How does faith justify? What is faith? What role does it play in justfication? If this truth, expressed only in this minimalist form, is agreed on by different parties, how do we know if they mean the same thing by it?

Here are some snippets from James Buchanan's clasic work The Doctrine of Justification:

It has been justly said that, in controversies of faith, the difference between antagonist systems is often reduced to a line sharp as a razor's edge, yet on the one side of that line there is God's truth, and on the other a departure from it. (p. 136)

The fundamental error of the Church of Rome consisted in substituting the inherent righteousness of the regenerate, for the imputed righteousness of the Redeemer. (p. 116)

There can be no honest compromise between the Popish and the Protestant doctrine of Justification, --the one is at direct variance with the other, not in respect of verbal expression merely, but in respect of their fundamental principles,--and any settlement, on the basis of mutual concession, could only be made by means of ambiguous expressions, and could amount to nothing more than a hollow truce, liable to be broken by either party as soon as the subject was brought into serious discussion. (p. 137)

Name that legalist: a game the whole church can play

OK, this is round one of "Name that legalist: a game the whole church can play."

Who wrote this?

Therefore it is not without reason that the Old Testament command was to write the Ten Commandments on every wall and corner, and even on garments. Not that we are to have them there only for display, as the Jews did, but we are to keep them incessantly before our eyes and constantly in our memory and to practice them in all our works and ways.

Each of us is to make them a matter of daily practice in all our circumstances, in all activities and dealings, as if they were written everywhere we look, even wherever we go or wherever we stand.

Thus, both for ourselves at home and abroad among our neighbors, we will find occasion enough to practice the Ten Commandments, an no one need search far for them.

Don't consult google. Have a guess. Here are the usual suspects:

The answer, of course, was d) Luther

a) Marcion

b) Pelagius

c) Augustine

d) Luther

e) Calvin

f) Wesley

g) Finney

Well done to Messrs Walker and Bennett. Luther of course was no legalist, unless you count saying anything positive about God's law and the Christian life as a form of legalism.

Phil Ryken's introduction to The Marrow of Modern Divinity

Over at Ref 21 Phil Ryken has posted his introduction to the reprint of The Marrow of Modern Divinity. This highly significant book has been reprinted by Christian Focus and has much to say to the contemporary evangelical world. William MacKenzie was here earlier and told me that it is a really, really well produced edition.

Ryken says:

My purpose in this introduction is to answer to a simple question: Why is this old theological book still good and useful to read today?

Perhaps the best way to begin to answer this question is by mentioning two equal but opposite errors that have plagued the church since the days of the New Testament. On the one hand, some congregations tend to be overly legalistic. They have a performance-based approach to the Christian life, in which Christianity is reduced to a list of rules. A good Christian is someone who does certain things and avoids doing certain other things. The only way to gain favor with God is by leading a good life. Somehow churches like this never manage to outgrow their "inner Pharisee."

Yet there is an equal error in the opposite direction, the sin of lawlessness, or what theologians like Thomas Boston would call "antinomianism" (which simply means to be "against the law"). Churches like this tend to be overly permissive. They take the question that the apostle Paul asked in Romans 6:1 ("Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?), and answer in the affirmative rather than the negative. They use their Christian liberty as an excuse for license. They may even use the grace of God to legitimize bad behavior.

Both legalism and antinomianism are perennial dangers for the church and for individual Christians. When we begin to think of the Christian life primarily as a list of "dos" and "don'ts," we are under the sway of legalism. When we begin to think that it is okay for us to go ahead and sin, because God will forgive us anyway, we are feeling the temptation of antinomianism.

Filled with quotations from the great reformer Martin Luther and from the worthy Puritans, The Marrow emphasizes biblical, evangelical doctrines such as the sovereignty of God in the covenant of grace, the free offer of the gospel, assurance in Christ as the essence of faith, and sanctification by grace rather than by the law.

You can read more here

His steadfast love is better than life

Our response to changed circumstances reveals a great deal about what we value the most. This is especially so when our material comforts are taken away. We may then find that we have been resting on them, finding in them our security in this world. Of course, this is not restricted to material things. We can find ourselves resting and relying on our position, or our reputation.

At these times adversity is like a litmus test. We find out where our security really lies. But some things cannot be shaken. Some things cannot be taken away. Do we really value them as much as we ought to?

The only true source of our happiness is in the knowledge that God loves us and that we are his children. Without this knowledge, all the prosperity in the world is of no value to us.

God may afflict us with many sorrows, and at such times we need to value his grace above everything else; it should content us, even if everything else were taken away. As we have already said, if we live in comfort, surrounded by all kinds of pleasures and delights, we will still be miserable if we do not have the peace of conscience which comes from knowing that God loves and accepts us.

John Calvin's Sermons on Galatians, p. 17, 18-19

The Banner of Truth Blog

Check it out here and bookmark it

HT: Iain D. Campbell

Speaking of sequels: The Gospel-Driven Life by Mike Horton

This is the follow up to his Christless Christianity which is a terrific read and an important book (R. C. Sproul's review is here).

Horton writes:

The goal of this book is to reorient our faith and practice as Christians and churches toward the gospel: that is, the announcement of God's victory over sin and death in his Son, Jesus Christ. The first six chapters explore that breaking news from heaven, while the rest of the book focuses on the kind of community that this gospel generates in our world. It is not merely that there is a gospel and then a community of people who believe it; the gospel creates the kind of community that is even now an imperfect preview of the kingdom's marriage feast that awaits us.

Sample pages are available here.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Dan Brown's beautiful prose

The Telegraph selects twenty clumsy phrases from the works of Dan Brown

A Generous Orthodoxy?

Permit me to share some reflections on reviews of Risking the Truth.

Perhaps the most frequently used word has been "unusual." The format, interviews rather than essays, certainly is that. But I have also had the impression that the tone of the book has been a surprise too. Rather than finding the book to be a munitions dump for trigger happy heresy hunters it has been described by some pastors as "wise" (Kevin De Young), "practical, Christ centred and heart warming" (Jonathan Thomas), "the pastoral and relational emphasis that permeates the book makes dealing with a difficult topic a relatively encouraging task" (Gary Ware), and as possessing the "tenderness of pastoral wisdom" (M. Jay Bennett). Not, of course, that it holds back in calling a spade a shovel.

But if you are dealing with theological errors you need to be passionate about the gospel, grateful for the work of the Holy Spirit, thorough in your research, precise in your analysis and critique, vigilant in your care for the church, and compassionate toward people.

He became obedient unto death

It is perfectly legitimate, and, for some purposes it may be useful, to distinguish between the active and passive obedience of Christ, as constituting together his one entire righteousness, and also between the pardon and acceptance of the sinner, as constituting together the one entire privilege of justification.

We are naturally led, even, to make use of such distinctions, in order to illustrate the relation which the constituent elements of Christ's righteousness, and also those of our own justification, bear respectively to the penal and preceptive requirements of the divine Law; but we should ever remember, that two things which are distinguishable in idea, may be inseparable in fact.

It will be found impossible to separate his atoning death from his holy obedience, so as to admit of the one being imputed without the other; for his death was the crowning act of his obedience--"He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

James Buchanan, The Doctrine of Justification, p. 333

Truth Matters with IPC Ealing

In a couple of weeks I will be heading down to London to speak at the IPC Ealing (International Presbyterian Church) on "Truth Matters." My friend and fellow Welshman Paul Levy is the minister of the church there. You can visit the church website here.

As well as preaching five times over the weekend I'm also due to take a seminar on covenant theology.

Sin lite

Rejections and revisions of the great doctrines of the person of Christ, the penal substitutionary work of Christ, and the justification of sinners by grace alone through faith alone ought to be examined not only on their own terms but also in relation to the doctrine of sin.

It is possible to so minimise and pare down the doctrine of sin, in relation to its effects on human nature and its just condemnation by a holy God, that really there is no need, or desire, or reason to suppose that Christ is both God and Man, and that his work has an essential legal character.

Sin? No problem, God will forgive it. No incarnation needed.

Sin? No problem, God is love and accepts you as you are. No Mediator needed.

Sin? No problem, just repent of it and follow Jesus' teaching. No atonement needed.

Sin? No problem, just stop doing bad things and start doing what God wants. No regeneration needed.

Sin? No problem, just start over again and keep trying. No justification needed.

Sin? No problem, stop beating yourself up. No eternal consequences. No wrath no come. No hell to avoid. No Saviour needed.

Don't neglect the biblical doctrine of sin or you will go astray on the biblical doctrine of the Saviour and his work.

This is but a 21st Century echo of that wise, learned, godly Scottish theologian William Cunningham:

All false conceptions of the system of Christian doctrine assume, or are based upon, inadequate and erroneous views and impressions of the nature and effects of the fall,--of the sinfulness of the state into which man fell; producing, of course, equally inadequate and erroneous views and impressions of the difficulty of effecting their deliverance, and of the magnitude, value, and efficacy of the provision made for accomplishing it.

Historical Theology Vol. 2, p.43

The Wages of Spin: The White Horse Inn

Carl Trueman was recently interviewed on the White Horse Inn. You can catch the programme here. You can find out more about Carl's book here.

Over the summer we started a Curry Club for men at our church where we have ended the meal by listening to an episode of The White Horse Inn and having a discussion together about the issues raised. Great food, great listening, and plenty to discuss. I recommend it.

Interview with Darryl Hart

David Strain give us the final part of his interview with Darryl Hart here

Driven by fear

We are attracted to some heresies because of what they offer. They pander to our sinful cravings. They do things for the Pelagian within us, or for our inner Rationalist. We are drawn to some errors, however, not by their mock spiritual worth but by the threat of adverse consequences. We are driven by fear. The classic New Testament example of this comes from Galatians, and the corresponding section in Acts 15. There was a compulsion to accept the ritual of circumcision on pain of exclusion, not merely from God's people, but from salvation (Acts 15:1-2; Galatians 6:12).

No wonder then that Paul's opening salvo is directed to those who "trouble you" and want to "distort the gospel of Christ" (Gal. 1:7). The deviant influence of the false teachers was not only upon the gospel but also upon the spiritual well being of the Galatian churches. "Filling them," wrote John Brown, "with doubts and alarms as to the safety of their state while they remained uncircumcised and unsubjected to the law of Moses."

As much as errors can come to us laden with promises of blessings they may also, at the same time, speak threatening words if we refuse them.