If you live within striking distance of Ealing, in West London, then it would be very worthwhile to get along to the International Presbyterian Church this coming Wednesday evening.How do I know God exists? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.
For a true understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity three questions must be answered:Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics vol. 2 God and Creation, p. 298-300
What is the meaning of the word "essence"?
What is meant by the word "person"?
And what is the relation between "essence" and "person" and between the persons among themselves?
The divine nature cannot be conceived as an abstract generic concept, nor does it exist as a substance outside of, above, and behind the divine persons. It exists in the divine persons and it totally and quantitatively the same in each person.
The persons, though distinct, are not separate. They are the same in essence, one in essence, and the same being. They are not separated by time or space or anything else. They all share in the same divine nature and perfections. It is one and the same divine nature that exists in each person individually and in all of them collectively.
Consequently, there is in God but one eternal, omnipotent, and omniscient being, having one mind, one will, and one power.
Reeves: I would love to see real and peaceful agreement on justification between all who profess to be Christian. And in that sense I admire and applaud the efforts of those who have sought such unity. However. The simple fact is that while some individual Roman Catholics have come round to what looks something like a Reformation understanding of justification through faith alone, Rome’s doctrinal position has not changed.
Those statements that purport to show true agreement on justification simply fudge the main Reformation position, papering over the cracks that still remain between Rome and the Reformation (typically, by vague wording and agreeing that justification is by faith, but leaving out the key word ‘alone’). And if that is the case, then evangelicals and Roman Catholics who think they have come to a common agreement are deluding themselves. Oh, for Roman Catholics and evangelicals to find true agreement on justification as a declaration, made on the basis of God’s grace alone! But as things stand, that agreement is yet to be found.
Downes: How should Christians and churches develop a passion for church history?
Reeves: Simply read good church history and historical theology! There’s all sorts of wonderful stuff out there: I put a list of further reading at the back of the book, and there’s more to be found on the website (theunquenchableflame.org). But I’m so glad you asked the question, because it’s moronic to cut ourselves off from the wisdom and lessons of the bulk of the church. If we forget church history, we just leave ourselves victim to our zeitgeist. In fact it’s for just this reason that I’ve written another book, out in January. It’s called The Breeze of the Centuries: Introducing Great Theologians (IVP), and I’m hoping it can do something to rescue us from being prisoners of our age.
Downes: You say in the book that the Reformation isn't over. Why not?
Reeves: You’re giving things away! But absolutely I think that, and essentially because the Reformation was not a mere historical response to a problem that has now gone away. The Puritans especially saw how easily the reforming of the Church could go off-track or be forgotten, and how necessary it is for the Church to remain ever a creature of the word of God. Sinners need constant reformation by the gospel of God’s free grace, and that was what the Reformation was all about. It cannot, then, be over.
But I think there is also a particular and pressing need for the Reformation to continue today. My fear is that right now in bible colleges and theological institutions, future preachers are being bombarded with many confusing interpretations of what Paul meant by justification and ‘the righteousness of God’. And even if they are not lured away from what I am convinced is the biblical truth of the main Reformation position, I worry that they will come out confused. If that happens, then we will have a generation where the pulpits are silent on the gospel of God’s gift of righteousness. And thus the Church will wither terribly.
Given that, today is a day of days when preachers must drink more deeply from Reformation waters and boldly hold out that gospel.
Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. (2 Timothy 2:23-26)There is more at stake than the winning of an argument. In fact much more is needed than sharp reasoning and sound biblical evidence. These will be the instruments that God uses since the goal of this correction is that opponents will be lead to a knowledge of the truth. It will always be by means of persuasive, sound arguments that truth will win the day. One of the great literary examples of this is Thomas Scott's The Force of Truth. But who can free captives from the snare of the devil but Jesus Christ? Who can grant repentance but God alone?
If, indeed, they who differ from us have a power of changing themselves, if they can open their own eyes, and soften their own hearts, then we might with less inconsistency be offended at their obstinacy; but if we believe the very contrary to this, out part is not to strive, but in meekness to instruct those who oppose.They are of course culpable since they have chosen to embrace error, but they are also deceived. Now, what else but knowing that a change of heart is something solely God-given can temper the approach of the polemicist? What other explanation is there for patience and gentleness as appropriate dispositions? Coming to a knowledge of the truth has never been self-generated. Calvin wrote that:
When we remember that repentance is God's gift and work, we shall hope the more earnestly and, encouraged by this assurance, will give more labour and care to the instruction of rebels.Such gentleness and patience should not be confused with moral weakness and softness. We are to be passionate and inflexible about the truth, but also compassionate toward those tangled up in error and ensnared by the devil.
Downes seems to have a greater delight in building up the people of God than in endless debates and controversies. May God grant the same spirit to us.
Risking the Truth is one of the most innovative and interesting books I have come across this year. Structurally, I have never encountered a book quite the same: in addressing a unified question, that of heresy within the Church, it draws on the insights and contributions of many leading Christian pastors, teachers, and theologians across the world (and the selection of contributors, by the way, is absolutely superb!); and yet it is not exactly like any other example of multi-author works available.
It is not a collection of essays or chapters on assigned topics, but rather a series of one-on-one interviews, conducted by Downes, which make for a unique set of enjoyable benefits that I discovered to be consistently threefold at least: first is the benefit of a personal glimpse into the lives and ministries of humble and capable men of God; second, immense collective insight into how to discern and address heresy within the Church; and third, analyses and reflections upon specific modern errors and heresies by those who are leading experts in their particular fields.
TrinityDay Conference
at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, Swansea
Saturday 14 November from 10am, £10 including lunch. Creche facilities available.
My friend Steve Levy, the pastor there and author of Bible Overview, says that they can provide accommodation for anyone travelling from a distance. You can contact Steve and the church here.
Why is the Trinity so important?
Here's what Martyn Lloyd-Jones said about the Trinity and the Christian life:
“For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Ephesians 2:18)
…. Our chief trouble, and the whole trouble with the church, is that we do not realise the meaning of the statement like this. Were we to do so the Christian church would be revolutionised. Were we to do so we would be lost in wonder, love and praise. We should realise that the most marvellous, wonderful thing that can ever happen to anybody in this world is simply his becoming a Christian.
This is Christianity, this is what makes one a Christian. The Christian church really consists of people who realise that this is the whole object and purpose of everything – access by one Spirit unto the Father. We must meditate upon this , we must pause with this, we must look into it and we must take time to do so; for , as I will try to show you, we find gathered together in this one verse the most stupendous things that we could ever be told or can ever realise about ourselves.
There are certain things that stand out on the very surface of this verse. For instance, we are brought at once by this verse face to face with the mystery of the blessed, holy Trinity. Through Him (the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ) we both have access by one Spirit (the Holy Spirit, spelt quite rightly with a capital S in all the versions because it is a reference to the Holy Spirit) unto the Father.
Here is one of the great Trinitarian verses of Scripture, and we pause for a moment before this ineffable mystery. Do we realise, I wonder, as we should, that the doctrine of the Trinity is in a sense the essence of the Christian faith? It is this doctrine, of all others, differentiates the Christian faith from every other faith whatsoever.
We believe in one God. And yet we assert that the one God is three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. A great inscrutable mystery! We do not understand it, we assert it. It is taught here, it is taught in other places in the scripture. The bible teaches clearly that the Lord Jesus Christ is truly God, and likewise that the Holy Spirit is truly God and yet it says that there is but one God. God is one, and there is only one God, subsisting in three persons.
Do not ask me to explain it. But you do not begin to understand your bible, you cannot possibly understand the Christian faith, unless you accept it, believe it, and bow before it, and humble yourselves, and say, I worship, I adore, I praise thee great Jehovah, three in one.
It is vital, therefore, that we as Christian people should be constantly reminding ourselves of this. And as we do so, our services will be filled with reverence, with worship, with sense of awe, with a sense of glory, and with a sense of praise, true praise. Whenever we pray, whenever we come together to worship, we are worshipping the triune God.
We cannot conceive of the glory and of the majesty and of the greatness, but we must try to do so. We must prepare our spirits, we must meditate, we must ponder this matter, we must search the scriptures for it, we must see it; and having recognised it, like the men of whom we read in the scriptures, who have come near to God, we shall take our shoes from off our feet, we shall feel we are men of unclean lips, we shall be conscious of the ineffable glory.
… The three Persons in the blessed, holy Trinity are interested in us and are engaged together in our salvation. Now you see what I mean when I said that this is a staggering verse. That is exactly what it says, that the three Persons, eternal in their glory and their holiness and their might, the three Persons in the blessed holy Trinity are interested in you if you are a Christian, and are interested in your salvation.
The world talks about honours, and it is interested in honours and in privileges and in getting admission to clubs and positions and being introduced to great people. Here in fact: the three Persons inn the Trinity are interested in you and have done something about your salvation! What if every Christian realised that!
Downes: How do we explain the extraordinary changes that the Reformation unleashed?
Reeves: Chatting with a Roman Catholic priest recently, he charged the Reformation with unleashing extraordinary changes, but disastrous ones, especially years of religious wars between Protestant and Catholic. That’s a common accusation, but an unfair one, I think. What happened was that political rulers used what was a theological revolution for political ends. And something I tried to show in the book was how different a politically motivated Reformation looked to a more purely theological one.
At root, the Reformation was a matter of theology, of rediscovering God’s grace. That is something now commonly obscured in modern histories of the Reformation, and something I tried to remedy in mine. But that, I think, points us towards the answer I believe the Reformers would have given to the question: Why such changes? The power of the word of God purely taught!
Downes: In the book you say that "Justification was what made the Reformation the Reformation" and that "The Reformation was, fundamentally, about justification." What is justification by faith alone and why does it matter?
Reeves: Yes, acknowledging Scripture as the only sure foundation for belief was the formal cause of the Reformation, but justification was its matter. Luther’s discovery was that ‘the righteousness of God’ is not simply a description of how God is. If it were, that would be nothing but terrifying for us who are unrighteous. What Luther saw in Romans 1:17 was that ‘the righteousness of God’ is something God has that he shares with believers.
Justification, then, is much more than forgiveness. If it was mere forgiveness, then every time I sinned I would need to be re-justified (and isn’t that how too many Christians seem to think?). But justification is God’s declaration that a sinner is now clothed with the very righteousness of Christ himself. And, being God’s declaration, a gift of something he has, justification cannot be a process or something that I can contribute towards. It must be something I can only receive. It must, in other words, be through faith alone.
And why does it matter? Simply imagine the difference between being clothed with the righteousness of Christ and not. It means assurance or not, boldness in prayer or not, true love for God or not. Basically, it means spiritual health or not. If we lose justification by faith alone, the Church falls and turns, as Paul put it, to ‘another gospel’ (Galatians 1:6-9).
Downes: In the book you describe the reformers as "evangelicals" and the Reformation movement as "evangelicalism." Isn't that anachronistic? I would imagine that they would be horrified by big-tent evangelicalism with its glitzy techniques, indifference to truth, and accommodation of error. So why did you describe them as evangelicals?
Reeves: Yes, the Reformers must be turning in their graves at the things you describe. I used the term carefully, partly because for the first twenty years of the Reformation, before the term ‘Protestant’ was used, the Reformers were known as ‘evangelicals’. And that captures something important: they aimed to be, quite simply, gospel people.
Also, the Reformation was a project that many political rulers happily hijacked. They came to be seen as ‘Protestant’ rulers, and all their subjects naturally became ‘Protestant’, but that did not mean that they were necessarily anything like ‘gospel people’. And that was the essential impulse behind the Puritan movement: in the 1560s, when Puritanism began, England was officially a Protestant country; but for the Puritans, that was something different to true Reformation. They were after the reforming of hearts in churches that were not nominally Protestant but shaped in every way by the gospel.
Downes: How can the contemporary indifference toward doctrine be overcome?
Reeves: You ask deep questions! I think we need to know what’s happened historically. Before the Enlightenment it was normally believed that doctrine was essentially relevant because it would remake our very being – it would change how we think and act. Read theologians from before then and you see they couldn’t separate doctrine from pastoral care. Take John Calvin, writing his preface to the first edition of his Institutes, for example. Why did he write all that doctrine? ‘My purpose’, he said, ‘was solely to transmit certain rudiments by which those who are touched with any zeal for religion might be shaped to true godliness.’
But today, post-Enlightenment, the professional ‘theologians’ are commonly not preachers and the preachers are commonly not theological. And I think a good deal of the blame is to be laid on the Enlightenment, with its denial of divine revelation. For then, what is doctrine? No more than a titillating hobby, for it cannot be talking about real truth.
I think that myth has gone deep down in us, making us see doctrine as the plaything of picky nerds. And that conceals the fact that our minds are naturally full of doctrines, but doctrines taken from the world. So we need to explode the myth and be very clear that in Christian doctrine we are talking about absolute truth that by its very nature has the power to overturn hearts and the world. In fact, the only way for the Church to grow is to replace our natural doctrines with God’s. And that is what you see happening in the Reformation (and oh how it happened!): look at Calvin’s hours of wrestling with doctrine – they led to the conversion of millions, even in his own day.
Downes: Why did you write the book?
Reeves: Discovering the Reformation was a real turning point for me personally. It was Luther I found first, and when I did I saw gospel-clarity of a sort I had never seen before. I didn’t know it, but at the time I was pretty hazy on great doctrines like justification, and reading Luther was just life-changing. So I wanted to share what was for me a profound gospel discovery.
And I wanted it to be a bed-time story of a book, an easy read that anyone could pick up and enjoy, but through which they’d come to appreciate some of the key lessons of the Reformation: justification, the supremacy of the Bible, how (and how not) to reform churches and so on. Primarily, then, I wrote it for every Christian; but I also realised that a history book feels like safe reading for non-Christians, and I hoped that it could be the sort of book Christians could give to their non-Christian friends – harmless in feel, but full of the gospel.
Downes: Why is it important for us today to know about the Reformation?
Reeves: Often the Reformation is spoken of as a historical curiosity, as if the Reformers’ real issue was with a sixteenth century problem of corruption in the Church. I cannot stress enough how misleading that idea is. The Reformers themselves believed that the Reformation was not so much a negative movement, about criticising Rome (though they did do that); they were part of a positive movement, about moving closer to the gospel. As such, the spirit and message of the Reformation is the lifeblood of the Church’s health today.
Downes: Is the church scene today in any way like the church before the Reformation?
Reeves: There are, of course, substantial differences, but I have found teaching people about medieval Roman Catholicism extremely helpful pastorally. And that’s because the religion found there is the sort of distorted gospel of works rather than grace that Christians most naturally slide into. So in that sense there are great similarities, and they are worth being aware of to see how starkly the Reformers’ message contrasts with it.
Not only that, but there are theological camps today -- even deep within Protestant circles -- that stray into worringly similar territory. When, especially, good works are spoken of as being in any way a cause, rather than a consequence of our justification, I see great similarities.
Downes: What dangers are we in if we think that the Reformation is irrelevant?
Reeves: Well, take that essential issue of whether our works are a cause or a consequence of our justification: if we soft-pedal that by saying it is beside the point or that we don’t want to nit-pick over such doctrinal minutiae, we will see precisely the pastoral nightmares Luther experienced. Thinking he had to win God’s favour, Luther saw nothing in God to love. He thus confessed that, before his Reformation discovery, he hated God. And with his security dependent on his own performance he lived in constant terror of death. He lived the very polar opposite of Paul’s ‘For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’
But my worry is that we will see more and more such pastoral train-wrecks because of the widespread fear of doctrinal precision. Of course the sinful human heart always fears the harsh light of divine revelation and prefers the vagueness of theological waffle, but there is something in our age that seems especially prone to avoiding doctrine. And yet if the Reformation shows anything, it is the liberating power of good doctrine.
The Reformation also shows how easily people misunderstand how to go about reforming the church. Some, for example, thought that Reformation was essentially about getting rid of traditional ways or traditional beliefs, and those misunderstandings proved catastrophic. Ignorance of how church reformation can misfire is simply dangerous.
Later this month there will be a mailing to all churches connected to Affinity giving an update on Foundations (the Affinity theological journal). Let me give you an online heads up about our new consulting editors. They are:
A man may accept as the rule of his faith the same inspired books as yourself, while he rejects every important article of the faith you find in these books.Marcus Dods (of all people) quoted by James Bannerman, The Church of Christ Volume 1, p. 298
If, therefore, we are to know who believe as we do, and who dissent from our faith, we must state our creed in language explicitly rejecting such interpretations of Scripture as we deem to be false. Papists, Unitarians, Arminians, all profess to find their doctrines in Scripture; but they do not find them in the Westminster Confession.
No one calling himself a Christian will deny that 'Christ died for our sins;' but out of these words of Scripture a Socinian will bring a meaning which is utterly subversive of what we hold as essential to salvation.
The Church, therefore, gathers her symbol, and utters her Confession, in order that the truth contained in Scripture may be recognised and held in opposition to, or in distinction from, the errors which some have maintained, and which, while they claim to be found in Scripture, are really subversive of the truth therein delivered.
...for if, as Luther argued, I am given the righteous status of Christ without that status being in any way dependent upon the state of my heart or life, then there is no place for a purgatory where I am made worthy of heaven or indulgences to speed me there. (p. 180)And on this point a great gulf is still fixed between Protestant and Roman Catholic views of justification, even after a spate of recent attempts to narrow points of agreement and to work toward a jointly acceptable form of words. You can about right up to date conversations and tensions about this in Collin Hansen's recent Christianity Today article here.
Thus, while attempts to foster greater Christian unity must be applauded, it must also be recognized that, as things stand, the Reformation is anything but over. (p. 180)4. It is a recipe for revolution
To modern ears, the debates of the Reformation sound like rather pernickety wars over words. Is it, we ask, really worth squabbling over whether justification is by faith (as Rome agreed) or by faith alone (as the Reformers insisted)? (p. 182)That all depends on what is at stake. "They were hardly small concerns being debated," but issues of eternal consequence (p. 182). Where will I go when I die? How can I know? Is justification a process? Can it be lost? Will I go to purgatory? Can I confidently rely for my salvation on the finished work of Christ alone?
In 1519 the plague hit Zurich and nearly carried Zwingli off with it. It was just as epochal for him as when Luther was almost hit by lightning fourteen years earlier: brought to the edge of death's abyss he was forced to look into eternity. Only, where Luther had prayed to St. Anne, Zwingli found he could only rely exclusively upon God's mercy.Mike Reeves, The Unquenchable Flame, p. 64
When he recovered he was a changed man, a man on a mission to do something bold for God. Now he clearly saw that all trusting in created things, whether saints or sacraments, to be gross idolatry. He was going to lead peoples' hearts from idols to the God of mercy.
It consist in the rise and progress of a spirit of indifference to all doctrines and opinions in religion. A wave of colour-blindness about theology appears to be passing over the land. The minds of many seem utterly incapable of discerning any difference between faith and faith, creed and creed, tenet and tenet, opinion and opinion, thought and thought, however diverse, heterogeneous, contrariant and mutally destructive they may be.Ironically I am colour blind and can't figure out whether the number in the picture is 13 or 15.
Everything...is true and nothing is false, everything is right and nothing is wrong, everything is good and nothing is bad, if it approaches under the garb and name of religion. You are not allowed to ask, What is God's truth? but What is liberal, and generous, and kind?
Map of key places in the Reformation
Prologue: Here I stand
1 Going medieval on religion
The background to the Reformation
2 God’s volcano
Martin Luther
3 Soldiers, sausages and revolution
Ulrich Zwingli and the Radical Reformers
4 After darkness, light
John Calvin
5 Burning passion
The Reformation in
The Puritans
7 Is the Reformation over?
Reformation timeline
