He has always been the Father

One of the blasphemies of fourth century Arianism, and every theology that has mimicked it ever since, involved the denial of the eternal existence of the person of the Son. They regarded him as the greatest of creatures, but finite, and therefore liable to change and to sin.

As a super exalted creature the Son's knowledge of the Father is greater than ours, but it is not the knowledge of an infinite Father known and rejoiced in by an infinite Son. The Father remained ineffable to the Son. The maxim that "the finite cannot comprehend the infinite" is true not only for ourselves, for the saints in heaven, and for angels and archangels, but also for the Son.

On the Arian view the Son of God was made, and not self-existent as God. "There was when he was not" was a differentiating article that separated Arian heresy from Christian orthodoxy. Of the eternal existence of the Son the Nicene Creed affirmed that the Son was "begotten, not made."

Indeed the Nicene Creed set out the following statement on the errors to be rejected and the consequence of holding to them:

But as for those who say, There was when he was not, and, Before being born he was not, and that he came into existence out of nothing, or who assert that the Son of God is from a different hypostasis or substance, or is created, or is subject to alteration or change--these the Catholic Church anathematizes.

If the Arian view held true then not only would the deity of the Son be a mistaken idea but the very Fatherhood of God would also disappear. That is the logical consequence of denying the eternal Sonship of the Son. When did the Father become the Father? When he had a Son.

When the Arians pulled back the curtain and peered into eternity they wanted to say that God was a Father, but their claim wouldn't hold true when you peered all the way back into the very deepest recesses of eternity. When you looked that far back there was no ultimate personalism about God, no eternal Fatherhood, for there was no eternal Son.

Was there love and relationship at the very heart of the universe? Not at all. For the Arians there was an impersonal God, all dressed up in attributes, but with no one to love. When he created a Son, he then became the Father, but this was not the deepest truth about him. The personal nature of God needed an act of creation in order to flourish. Before there was a Son, what can be said of the personal nature of God is so thin and diminished as to be of no real worth.

Arianism was not only found wanting as an inadequate explanation of the being of God, a failure to explain the truth as it is in Scripture, it was also found to be chilling as a faith to live by.

Hilary of Poitiers set this out as follows (I will also include his prefatory remarks that touch on matters raised in the previous post):

But the errors of heretics and blasphemers force us to deal with unlawful matters, to scale perilous heights, to speak unutterable words, to trespass on forbidden ground. Faith ought in silence to fulfil the commandments, worshipping the Father, reverencing with Him the Son, abounding in the Holy Ghost, but we must strain the poor resources of our language to express thoughts too great for words. The error of others compels us to err in daring to embody in human terms truths which ought to be hidden in the silent veneration of the heart.

For there have risen many who have given to the plain words of Holy Writ some arbitrary interpretation of their own, instead of its true and only sense, and this in defiance of the clear meaning of words. Heresy lies in the sense assigned, not in the word written; the guilt is that of the expositor, not of the text.

Is not truth indestructible? When we hear the name Father, is not sonship involved in that Name? The Holy Ghost is mentioned by name; must He not exist? We can no more separate fatherhood from the Father or sonship from the Son than we can deny the existence in the Holy Ghost of that gift which we receive.

Yet men of distorted mind plunge the whole matter in doubt and difficulty, fatuously reversing the clear meaning of words, and depriving the Father of His fatherhood because they wish to strip the Son of His sonship. They take away the fatherhood by asserting that the Son is not a Son by nature.

On the Trinity, Book 2, sections 2-3

Defending the deity of Christ

I'm currently reading through, for my own edification, On the Trinity (De Trinitate) by Hilary of Poitiers (315-367 AD). Alongside Athanasius, Hilary was one of the great defenders of the deity of Christ in that period following the composition of the Nicene Creed.

There are several striking features about this work that I will write about in due course. Let me mention two that made an impression on me as a reader.

1. Again and again Hilary chides the Arian heretics for their fear of God's infinitude and their wicked attempt to reduce the sheer greatness of God to more intellectually manageable proportions. In other words his opponents were reductionists and rationalists when it came to their doctrine of God.

2. Furthermore he exposes them as bad expositors of Scripture and unmasks their false doctrine by demonstrating from the Word of God that God is eternally and necessarily one in being and three in person. He does not hold back from pointing out to the reader how poor and perverted the approach to Scripture offered by the heretics proved to be.

On this latter point he is insistent that even the Old Testament knows of no solitary divine person who alone is God, but that the One God is Father, Son and Spirit. In fact it is this insistence that is so strikingly odd to modern readers. I mean, who on earth would set out to defend the deity of Christ from the Old Testament? The answer? Hilary of Poitiers did. And he did so in order that the bogus claims of the Arians would be refuted from one end of the Bible to the other.

Take a look at some of the highlights. He may not convince you by his use of every single text, but there are many that are so irreducibly Trinitarian in scope that it is hard to evade their meaning without either slipping into a stubborn perversity or by reaching for a priori reasoning about how they could not possibly have known about distinct persons in the Godhead in the Old Testament.

Book 4, section 15

Let us see whether Moses, who announced to Israel, The Lord thy God is One, has also proclaimed the Godhead of the Son. To make good our confession of the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ we must employ the evidence of that same witness on whom the heretics rely for the confession of One Only God, which they imagine to involve the denial of the Godhead of the Son.

Book 4, section 22

We do not forget that the assertion is true in the sense that there is One God, from Whom are all things; but neither do we forget that this truth is no excuse for denying the Godhead of the Son, since Moses throughout the course of his writings clearly indicates the existence of God and God. We must examine how the history of God’s choice, and of the giving of the Law, proclaims God co-ordinate with God.

Book 4, section 24

In this passage [Gen. 16] the one Deity is first the Angel of God, and then, successively, Lord and God. But to Abraham He is God only [Gen. 17]. For when the distinction of Persons had first been made, as a safeguard against the delusion that God is a solitary Being, then His true and unqualified name could safely be uttered. And so it is written. And God said to Abraham, Behold Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as far Ishmael, behold. I have heard thee and have blessed him, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve nations shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. [Gen. 17:19-20]

Is it possible to doubt that He Who was previously called the Angel of God is here, in the sequel, spoken of as God? In both instances He is speaking of Ishmael; in both it is the same Person Who shall multiply him. To save us from supposing that this was a different Speaker from Him who had addressed Hagar, the Divine words expressly attest the identity, saying, And I have blessed him, and will multiply him. The blessing is repeated from a former occasion, for Hagar had already been addressed; the multiplication is promised for a future day, for this is God’s first word to Abraham concerning Ishmael.

Now it is God Who speaks to Abraham; to Hagar the Angel of God had spoken. Thus God and the Angel of God are One; He Who is the Angel of God is also God the Son of God. He is called the Angel because He is the Angel of great counsel; but afterwards He is spoken of as God, lest we should suppose that He Who is God is only an angel. Let us now repeat the facts in order. The Angel of the Lord spoke to Hagar; He spoke also to Abraham as God. One Speaker addressed both. The blessing was given to Ishmael, and the promise that he should grow into a great people.

Book 4, section 26

What blind faithlessness it is, what dulness of an unbelieving heart, what headstrong impiety, to abide in ignorance of all this, or else to know and yet neglect it! Assuredly it is written for the very purpose that error or oblivion may not hinder the recognition of the truth. If, as we shall prove, it is impossible to escape knowledge of the facts, then it must be nothing less than blasphemy to deny them.

This record begins with the speech of the Angel to Hagar, His promise to multiply Ishmael into a great nation and to give him a countless offspring. She listens, and by her confession reveals that He is Lord and God. The story begins with His appearance as the Angel of God; at its termination He stands confessed as God Himself. Thus He Who, while He executes the ministry of declaring the great counsel is God’s Angel, is Himself in name and nature God. The name corresponds to the nature; the nature is not falsified to make it conform to the name.

Again, God speaks to Abraham of this same matter; he is told that Ishmael has already received a blessing, and shall be increased into a nation; I have blessed him, God says. This is no change from the Person indicated before; He shews that it was He Who had already given the blessing. The Scripture has obviously been consistent throughout in its progress from mystery to clear revelation; it began with the Angel of God, and proceeds to reveal that it was God Himself Who had spoken in this same matter.

Book 4, sections 29-32

And now there falls on Sodom and Gomorrah the vengeance of a righteous judgment. What can we learn from it for the purposes of our enquiry? The Lord rained brimstone and fire from the Lord. It is The Lord from the Lord; Scripture makes no distinction, by difference of name, between Their natures, but discriminates between Themselves. For we read in the Gospel, The Father judgeth no man, but hath given all judgment to the Son. Thus what the Lord gave, the Lord had received from the Lord.

You have now had evidence of God the Judge as Lord and Lord; learn next that there is the same joint ownership of name in the case of God and God. Jacob, when he fled through fear of his brother, saw in his dream a ladder resting upon the earth and reaching to heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon it, and the Lord resting above it, Who gave him all the blessings which He had bestowed upon Abraham and Isaac.

At a later time God spoke to him thus: And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to the place Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of thy brother[Gen. 35:1]. God demands honour for God, and makes it clear that demand is on behalf of Another than Himself. He who appeared to thee when thou fleddest are His words: He guards carefully against any confusion of the Persons. It is God Who speaks, and God of Whom He speaks. Their majesty is asserted by the combination of Both under Their true Name of God, while the words plainly declare Their several existence.

Here again there occur to me considerations which must be taken into account in a complete treatment of the subject. But the order of defence must adapt itself to the order of attack, and I reserve these outstanding questions for discussion in the next book. For the present, in regard to God Who demanded honour for God, it will suffice for me to point out that He Who was the Angel of God, when He spoke with Hagar, was God and Lord when He spoke of the same matter with Abraham; that the Man Who spoke with Abraham was also God and Lord, while the two angels, who were seen with the Lord and whom He sent to Lot, are described by the prophet as angels, and nothing more.

Nor was it to Abraham only that God appeared in human guise; He appeared as Man to Jacob also. And not only did He appear, but, so we are told, He wrestled; and not only did He wrestle, but He was vanquished by His adversary. Neither the time at my disposal, nor the subject, will allow me to discuss the typical meaning of this wrestling. It was certainly God Who wrestled, for Jacob prevailed against God, and Israel saw God.

And now let us enquire whether elsewhere than in the case of Hagar the Angel of God has been discovered to be God Himself. He has been so discovered, and found to be not only God, but the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. For the Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses from the bush; and Whose voice, think you, are we to suppose was heard? The voice of Him Who was seen, or of Another?

There is no room for deception; the words of Scripture are clear: And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire from a bush, and again, The Lord called unto him from the bush, Moses, Moses, and he answered, What is it? And the Lord said, Draw not nigh hither, put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. And He said unto him, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob [Exodus 3:2-6].

He who appeared in the bush speaks from the bush; the place of the vision and of the voice is one; He Who speaks is none other than He Who was seen. He Who is the Angel of God when the eye beholds Him is the Lord when the ear hears Him, and the Lord Whose voice is heard is recognised as the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. When He is styled the Angel of God, the fact is revealed that He is no self-contained and solitary Being: for He is the Angel of God. When He is designated Lord and God, He receives the full title which is due to His nature and His name. You have, then, in the Angel Who appeared from the bush, Him Who is Lord and God.

Book 5, section 11

Thus the Law, or rather God through the Law, wishing to indicate God the Son as a Person, yet as bearing the same name with the Father, calls Him the Angel, that is, the Messenger, of God. The title Messenger proves that He has an office of His own; that His nature is truly Divine is proved when He is called God. But this sequence, first Angel, then God, is in the order of revelation, not in Himself. For we confess Them Father and Son in the strictest sense, in such equality that the Only-begotten Son, by virtue of His birth, possesses true Divinity from the Unbegotten Father. This revelation of Them as Sender and as Sent is but another expression for Father and Son.

Dearly, We're bought

"Thus every whisper of blasphemy is silenced": Hilary of Poitiers

Here are some great words from Hilary of Poitiers (d. 367) found in Book One of his work On the Trinity:

For he is the best student who does not read his thoughts into the book, but lets it reveal its own; who draws from it its sense, and does not import his own into it, nor force upon its words a meaning which he had determined was the right one before he opened its pages.

Since then we are to discourse of the things of God, let us assume that God has full knowledge of Himself, and bow with humble reverence to His words. For He Whom we can only know through His own utterances is the fitting witness concerning Himself.

At the close of Book One, Hilary offers the following prayer:

I know, O Lord God Almighty, that I owe Thee, as the chief duty of my life, the devotion of all my words and thoughts to Thyself. The gift of speech which Thou hast bestowed can bring me no higher reward than the opportunity of service in preaching Thee and displaying Thee as Thou art, as Father and Father of God the Only-begotten, to the world in its blindness and the heretic in his rebellion.

But this is the mere expression of my own desire; I must pray also for the gift of Thy help and compassion, that the breath of Thy Spirit may fill the sails of faith and confession which I have spread, and a favouring wind be sent to forward me on my voyage of instruction.

We can trust the promise of Him Who said, Ask, and it shall be given you, seek, and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you and we in our want shall pray for the things we need.

We shall bring an untiring energy to the study of Thy Prophets and Apostles, and we shall knock for entrance at every gate of hidden knowledge, but it is Thine to answer the prayer, to grant the thing we seek, to open the door on which we beat.

Our minds are born with dull and clouded vision, our feeble intellect is penned within the barriers of an impassable ignorance concerning things Divine; but the study of Thy revelation elevates our soul to the comprehension of sacred truth, and submission to the faith is the path to a certainty beyond the reach of unassisted reason.

And therefore we look to Thy support for the first trembling steps of this undertaking, to Thy aid that it may gain strength and prosper. We look to Thee to give us the fellowship of that Spirit Who guided the Prophets and the Apostles, that we may take their words in the sense in which they spoke and assign its right shade of meaning to every utterance.

For we shall speak of things which they preached in a mystery; of Thee, O God Eternal, Father of the Eternal and Only-begotten God, Who alone art without birth, and of the One Lord Jesus Christ, born of Thee from everlasting. We may not sever Him from Thee, or make Him one of a plurality of Gods, on any plea of difference of nature.

We may not say that He is not begotten of Thee, because Thou art One. We must not fail to confess Him as true God, seeing that He is born of Thee, true God, His Father. Grant us, therefore, precision of language, soundness of argument, grace of style, loyalty to truth.

Enable us to utter the things that we believe, that so we may confess, as Prophets and Apostles have taught us, Thee, One God our Father, and One Lord Jesus Christ, and put to silence the gainsaying of heretics, proclaiming Thee as God, yet not solitary, and Him as God, in no unreal sense.

Knowing the Truth & Risking the Truth

Earlier this evening I was a guest on pastor Kevin Boling's program Knowing the Truth. As well as talking about my book Risking the Truth there was also a live call in. You can have a listen to the broadcast here.



The book is available in the UK here

And in the US here, here, here and here

And in Australia here

Horton's review of N. T. Wright

If you happened to miss the multi part review of N. T. Wright's most recent book on justification by Mike Horton then you can download the whole thing as a pdf document here

There is also a review in the latest edition of Themelios here

Whatever happened to the Angel of the Lord? (1)

This week I will be posting some extracts from an address that I gave at the "Trinity Day" at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, Swansea:

I am going to focus on the identity of “the Angel of the Lord” who is none other than the pre-incarnate Son of God.

We need to keep in mind that in the Old Testament there are many different titles given to the Son of God. He is the Commander of the Lord’s army who appears as a man but is worshipped as God (Joshua 5:13-15), the Messiah and Son of God (Psalm 2), the Son of Man (Daniel 7:13), God (Psalm 45:6-7), the Messenger of the Covenant (Malachi 3:1), Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14), David’s Lord (Psalm 11:1), the LORD (Yahweh) sent by LORD of hosts (Zechariah 2:10-11), the Mighty God and the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). Many of these titles are repeated in the New Testament and applied to the incarnate Christ.

But one of the rich titles that belongs to him is the Angel of the Lord. This is not only an important title that belongs to Jesus, but it is used of him in several Old Testament passages where we see him in action as the One sent by God, as the One who reveals God, and as the One who redeems and protects God's people.

But as we do that, we encounter a problem. My title for this session is “Whatever happened to the Angel of the Lord?” In a day when Christians are more and more used to hearing Bible overviews the Angel of the Lord has been largely forgotten and too often explained away.

But throughout church history many Christians believed that the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament was none other than the pre-incarnate revelation of Christ. In fact when some of the early church fathers who met at the Synod of Antioch (268 AD) wrote a letter to the heretic Paul of Samosata they said that the “Angel of the Father being himself Lord and God...appeared to Abraham, and to Jacob, and to Moses in the burning bush.”

H. P. Liddon in his Bampton lectures on the divinity of Christ said that:

The earliest Fathers answer with general unanimity that he was the Word or Son of God himself. (p. 56)

The great Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck also wrote that:

The church fathers before Augustine were unanimous in explaining this Angel of Jehovah as a theophany of the Logos (cited by Douglas Kelly, ST: Vol. 1, p. 465)

John Currid in his commentary on Exodus writes:

Some commentators argue that the Angel of the LORD is the Second Person of the Trinity, a pre-incarnate Christ. As John Calvin remarks, 'But let us enquire who this Angel was?...The ancient teachers of the Church have rightly understood [it to be] the Eternal Son of God in respect to his office as Mediator'.

That view, which as I will show you, can be found in church history has been largely left behind.

Helm on J.I. Packer and Evangelical Anglican comprehensiveness

If you have not spotted this yet you may be interested in reading Paul Helm's recent post on J. I. Packer's Evangelical Anglican comprehensiveness and it's relevance to the rupture in his working relationship with Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

It should also be noted, because you will miss it in all the printed assessments of these matters, that Packer continued to have very warm personal relationships with those in the so-called "Lloyd-Jones circle."

Here is an extract:

One reason for putting together this piece is to redress the present imbalance that may arise as a result of the state of the of evidence. Dr Lloyd-Jones is dead, and his several defenders have access to the full range of his correspondence.

Dr Packer is alive, and quite naturally his personal correspondence, and maybe other documents, are not available in the same way, even though as we shall see there are published fragments of letters and addresses.

The second reason is that somewhat surprisingly, as far as I know, Packer has never published an account of his own outlook specifically addressed to those who were and are pained by his stance.

I believe it is possible to offer a perfectly understandable explanation of this failure to be convinced, one that is in line with full Christian integrity, but it rests on grounds that are somewhat unfamiliar to the people who level the charge of compromise: How can a man organise a Puritan conference and not himself be a Puritan?

What follows is very largely a defence of J.I. Packer’s position vis-à-vis Anglicanism to the extent that it attempts to convey the coherence and strength of that position as (I believe) he sees it, and the bearing that these reasons have on ‘principles of co-operation’. In the next post I shall make some remarks on these reasons.

You can read the whole thing here

Gratitude

I'm grateful to God for:

Safety in travel

The weather in Wales has been horrendous this weekend and I spent thirteen hours on the road from North to South, back to the North, and then across and back again to the West coast of Wales.

A loving family

One of God's greatest gifts. In my case I have the wonderful Mrs Downes and two daughters who missed me over the weekend. I praise Him for his kindness to me.

A day conference on the Trinity

What a privilege to be one of the speakers. The sight of 150 others on a wet and windy Saturday in Swansea eagerly listening to the doctrine of the Trinity being taught from Scripture and Church history was brilliant. The glory of the triune God is the fuel of worship.

Saints who persevere

In many cases this meant bumping into old students of mine now into their careers, serving God in their churches, and raising families. I can hardly put into words how grateful I am for their faith and love.

Generous giving

I'm involved in the organising of a small conference for new pastors that will kick off one week from today. I'm deeply grateful for the publishers and individuals who have given generously so that these pastors will have good books and audio resources for free. I won't quote the figures, but when we started adding them up it was quite humbling. All of which communicates the highest regard for the work of the ministry.

Heresy: a history of defending the truth

Guy Davies draws my attention to the soon to be released Heresy: a history of defending the truth by Alister McGrath and published by SPCK (with a foreword by Rick Warren). I will look forward to reading it.

But here's a curious line from the Amazonian blurb:

McGrath's provocative thesis is that the categories of heresy and orthodoxy must be preserved by the church today.

Go on, read it again, only this time slowly. Provocative? Would that not have received a blank stare, or a furrowed brow, from the apostles, early church fathers, medieval schoolmen, reformers, and the puritans?

The disappearance of the categories of orthodoxy and heresy is something of a litmus test for churches. It indicates the presence, or absence, of seriousness about the living God. It discloses whether we are humble pupils being schooled by Scripture, or whether the locus of authority has shifted from the Word of God to the subject, or the community. As one writer expressed it "A church that cannot experience heresy probably doesn't have any commitments, any identity, any character. The possibility of heresy is simply the negative expression of a church's having a confession of faith."

I suppose that it is a provocative thesis if you have allowed the church to be overrun by theological relativism, but not if you take the New Testament seriously. What else are you supposed to do with Galatians 1 or 1 John? Who knows, perhaps the book is intended to be a persuasive tract for those who have abandoned the very categories of orthodoxy and heresy. If that is so it is much needed.

Thomas C. Oden made the following helpful remarks about the categories of orthodoxy and heresy in his article "Can we talk about heresy?" (April 1995 edition of the Christian Century):

An interloper who steals property must be caught and charged. Thinly disguised atheism and neopaganism are interlopers in liberated church circles. They have engaged in the theft of church property. The stolen property must be reclaimed and the thieves brought to justice.

To point this out means raising the issue of heresy. But in the "liberated" church circles of oldline denominations heresy simply does not exist. After centuries of struggle against recurrent heresies, Christians have found a quick way of overcoming heresy: they have banished the concept altogether. With absolute relativism holding sway, there is not only no concept of heresy, but no way even to raise the question of where the boundaries of legitimate Christian belief lie.

This is like trying to have a baseball game with no rules, no umpire, and no connection with historic baseball. Only we continue to insist on calling it baseball because a game by the name of baseball is what most people still want to see played.

By "liberated" church circles I refer to the sexual experimenters, the compulsive planners of others' lives, the canonical text disfigurers, and ultrafeminists (as distinguished from the great company of godly Christian women who are found at many different points along the scale of feminist reflection). The liberated characteristically understand themselves to be free from oppressive, traditional constraints of all sorts and shapes. "Liberated" is not a term applied from outside, but a term they frequently apply to themselves. By liberated they usually imply: doctrinally imaginative, liturgically experimental, disciplinarily nonjudgmental, politically correct, muticulturally tolerant, morally broad-minded, ethically situationist, and above all sexually permissive.

The intellectual ethos I am describing is not liberal in the classic sense of that word, but intolerant and uncharitable when it comes to traditionalists of any sort, all of whom are capriciously bundled under the dismissive label of 'fundamentalists

Have a read of Gresham Machen's common sense thesis drawn from an observation of the New Testament and church history:

a large part of the New Testament is polemic; the enunciation of evangelical truth was occasioned by the errors which had arisen in the churches...At the present time, when the opponents of the gospel are almost in control of our churches, the slightest avoidance of the defense of the gospel is just sheer unfaithfulness to the Lord.

There have been previous great crises in the history of the Church, crises almost comparable to this. One appeared in the second century, when the very life of Christendom was threatened by the Gnostics. Another came in the Middle Ages when the gospel of God's grace seemed forgotten.

In such times of crisis, God has always saved the Church. But he has always saved it not by theological pacifists, but by sturdy contenders for the truth.

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity & Liberalism, p. 174

Knowing the Truth: Radio Interview

God willing I will be a guest on the Knowing the Truth Radio Progam on Tuesday 17th November.

The host Pastor Kevin Boling will be asking me about the issues raised in the book Risking the Truth: Handling Error in the Church. You can get more details here. The broadcast is at 1pm Eastern Time, so that's 6pm here in the UK. There is also a phone in during the show.

By all accounts it is the most listened to Christian Talk Radio Program in the South East US and recent guests have included R.C. Sproul, Albert Mohler, D.A. Carson, J.I. Packer, Jerry Bridges, Joel Beeke, Ligon Duncan, Steve Lawson, Russell Moore, Richard Phillips...

Trinity Day Conference in Swansea this Saturday

Just a reminder about this. The church is very close to the train station and by visiting Swansea you can treat yourself to a Joe's ice cream too.

TrinityDay Conference

at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, Swansea

Saturday 14 November from 10am, £10 including lunch. Creche facilities available.

• Paul Blackham will present two sessions on the Trinity in the Pentateuch.
  

• Richard Bewes will speak on the pastoral implications of the Trinity.
  

• I will be speaking on ‘Whatever happened to the Angel of the LORD?’
  

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 in the Trinity are interested in you and have done something about your salvation! What if every Christian realised that!

Knowing Your Muslim Neighbour: An evening with Jay Smith

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.
The church is hosting an evening with Jay Smith on "Knowing your Muslim neighbour."

It will be informative, challenging, and encouraging. I live too far away to go, but having heard Jay before, if I lived close enough I wouldn't think twice about whether or not to go. Details are on the poster.

Don Carson: How do I know God exists?

How do I know God exists? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

"He can only become a problem for certain minds as to His existence and the divinity of His revelation, as a result of a spiritual rupture of the moral nature, impairing the moral judgement."

Auguste Lecerf

"If to provide a proof means a kind of knowledge that requires a principle more profound than He whom we wish to demonstrate, then there is no proof for God."

Clement of Alexandria

Don Carson: How can God allow suffering and evil in the world?

How can God allow suffering and evil in the world? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

Don Carson: How can God be loving and yet send people to Hell?

How can God be loving yet send people to hell?

From A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

Trinity

I could gladly spend every Sunday, and every conference I go to, listening to sermons about the Trinity.

Here are some helpful thoughts from Bavinck:

For a true understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity three questions must be answered:

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.

Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics vol. 2 God and Creation, p. 298-300

"Remember, remember..." An interview with Mike Reeves on the Reformation, part 3

This is the third and final part of my interview with Mike Reeves.

Mike is the theological advisor for UCCF:The Christian Unions, the power behind the throne for Theology Network, and the author of The Unquenchable Flame: Introducing the Reformation (IVP). UK readers can get the book for the bargain price of £7.20 (that includes p & p) here. A US edition of the book will be out on 1st April 2010 and will be published by Broadman & Holman.

Downes: Some evangelicals and some Roman Catholics have worked toward joint agreements on justification. What do you think about this?

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.

The Behind the Scenes DVD

Reading 2 Timothy 2:23-26 is a bit like having a behind the scenes DVD for a war movie.

Not that I normally ever have the time or inclination to watch disk two and find out how the film was made. But when Paul gives Timothy instructions about how to handle false teachers, and how to handle himself in a theological fight, he gives him a behind the scenes view of what is really going on. And it is essential viewing. For behind the scenes there is a great spiritual battle going on:

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?

Knowing this should temper a worldy approach to apologetics and polemics. Patience, gentleness, kindness, and a refusal to be quarrelsome are the fruit of consciously knowing that there is a great spiritual battle going on. John Newton provided solid counsel that echoes Paul's concern:

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.

You give love a bad name

The trouble with being interested in heresy, and the trouble with having a blog called "Against Heresies," is that it gives off the impression of ungracious, smug negativity.

Of course, heresy hunters do give love a bad name with all their carping. But really, I don't spend my time trawling the internet looking for error that I can then criticize. For one thing there's too much out there. For another heresy is boring and joyless. And thirdly, it is not profitable to get sucked into ungodly chatter and foolish controversies.

I'm a pastor, not a heresy hunter, and in that respect part of my responsibility is to refute error as well as to teach sound doctrine. Princeton Seminary really got it right by having a professor of didactic and polemic theology (and it must be in that order). I've also wanted to invest time and effort on particular areas of study, and one of those areas has been in the theology of heresy (what it is, where it comes from, why we are suckers for it, how it affects us etc. etc.), and that because I had questions that I couldn't find immediate answers to.

I'm glad to say that even with a title like Risking the Truth: Handling error in the church, which may give off the impression of ungracious, smug negativity, that's not the impression lots of readers have had. I dare say that some won't like where lines have been drawn but that will always be the case when you are dealing with orthodoxy and heresy, truth and error.

That said, Nathan Pitchford's recent review at Monergism really gets what I am about:

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.