forgiven-forgiving-march-april-2004

MEMORIES OF JESUS ❘ IS GOD MAD AT YOU? ❘ SMELLS AND BELLS

MODERN REFORMATION

FORGIVEN, FORGIVING VOLUME

13, NUMBER 2, MARCH/APRIL 2004, $5.00

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FORGIVEN, FORGIVING

17 Something God Cannot Do God can do anything, right? But can he forgive and forget? God’s forgiving and forgetting is rooted in the cross of Christ and apart from it, God cannot forgive.

by Michael Horton Plus: Forgiveness—The Hard Part

26 Why Should God Forgive Your Sins?

God does not forgive because you repented, nor because you prayed a prayer, not even because of some kind of generic divine love. There is just one earthly reason for God to forgive our sins— the sacrifice of the Lamb of God in real space and time.

by Donald G. Matzat Plus: The Freedom of Forgiveness

32 Whom Does God Forgive?

Sinner or saint? Who expects forgiveness? Who receives forgiveness? Allow yourself to be shocked—and relieved—once again by the scandalous nature of God’s sacrificial love.

by James R. White

36 “After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness?” T. S. Eliot’s Search for Salvation One of America's foremost poet's, Eliot's poetic chronicle of his own search for salvation echoes the language of Scripture and the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer.

by Patricia Anders

40 Remembering the Resurrection COVER PHOTO BY STONE/KENT LARSSON

How many memories does it take to go back in history to the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus?

History is much closer and more personal than some may think.

by Rick Kennedy

In This Issue page 2 | Letters page 3 | Between the Times page 5 | Speaking of page 9 Preaching from the Choir page 10 | Council Counsel page 12 | Ex Auditu page 13 | Resource Center page 24 We Confess page 43 | Reviews page 44 | On My Mind page 48

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MODERN REFORMATION Editor-in-Chief Michael Horton

A Fool’s Errand?

Executive Editor Mark R. Talbot

“Say you’re sorry.”

“Sorry.”

“Say it like you mean it!”

The first experience most of us had at asking for forgiveness was a surprising indicator of the difficulty we would have later in life granting forgiveness to those who injured us. Forgiveness and mercy are just plain difficult to exercise because they are counterintuitive. We don’t expect mercy. We expect justice. And through the experiences of our lives, we grow very adept at ensuring that we get what we “deserve” in work, school, relationships, and so forth. The whole notion of forgiveness is foreign to our nature. We are wired for the law and the gospel is always a surprise to us.

Forgiveness is at the heart of the foolishness of the cross. The very idea seems preposterous: God deigns to take on human flesh and dies a horrible death so that he might forgive those who hate him. Stripped of its religious connotations, an older generation would have called such a heavenly mission a “fool’s errand.” But the folly of God is the very thing that transforms our foolish lives, once lived according to law and justice, into righteous lives, now resting in and sharing the forgiveness that God imparts to us.

Reformed theologian and editor in chief Michael Horton begins the issue by saying that God cannot forgive—that is, he cannot just forgive. His forgiveness must always be understood in reference to the cross.

Lutheran pastor Don Matzat encourages us to look to the sacrifice of the Lamb of God to find the only assurance that our sins are

Next Issue: May/June 2004 A Good Church is Hard to Find: Have you gone church shopping lately? How have our culture’s marketing presuppositions influenced the way you choose a community of faith for you and your family?

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Managing Editor Eric Landry

forgiven. Baptist apologist James White overthrows our sensible expectations about those who are worthy of forgiveness and reminds us of the good news that God forgives the wicked. A survey of American poet T. S. Eliot's life and work by freelance writer Patricia Anders reveals the personal nature of knowing and understanding forgiveness. Sidebars by Robert Yarbrough and Shannon Geiger flesh out the relationship between our forgiving others and God forgiving us. An article by Rick Kennedy, professor of philosophy at Point Loma Nazarene University, uncovers some surprising information about the reasonableness of the Resurrection.

On our web site this month look for a special article by Ann Henderson Hart on the practice of Lent among different churches and an article on the Resurrection by Dennis Johnson, professor of practical theology at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, California).

Study questions have also been posted to help you read and understand the articles in this issue.

Our theme for this issue is the same as the annual Philadelphia Conference on Reformation Theology, which will be held March 26–28 (in Phoenix), April 16–18 (in Indianapolis), and April 23–25 (in Philadelphia).

If you haven’t already registered, it’s not too late. You can register online at www.AllianceNet.org or by calling 1-800-956-2644. Join Jerry Bridges, Sinclair Ferguson, Michael Horton, R. Albert Mohler, Philip G. Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips and learn to love as Jesus loved us.

Alliance Council Gerald Bray ❘ D. A. Carson Mark Dever ❘ J. Ligon Duncan, III W. Robert Godfrey ❘ John D. Hannah Michael Horton ❘ Rosemary Jensen Ken Jones ❘ John Nunes J. A. O. Preus ❘ Rod Rosenbladt Philip Ryken ❘ R. C. Sproul ❘ Mark R. Talbot Gene E. Veith ❘ Paul F. M. Zahl Department Editors Brian Lee, Ex Auditu, Reviews Benjamin Sasse, Between the Times William Edgar, Preaching From the Choir Staff ❘ Editors Ann Henderson Hart, Staff Writer Diana S. Frazier, Contributing Editor Alyson S. Platt, Copy Editor Lori A. Cook, Layout and Design Celeste McGhee, Proofreader Contributing Scholars Charles P. Arand ❘ S. M. Baugh C. Fitzsimmons ❘ Allison David Anderson Charles Arand ❘ S. M. Baugh Jerry Bridges ❘ R. Scott Clark William Cwirla ❘ Marva Dawn Richard Gaffin ❘ T. David Gordon Donald A. Hagner ❘ Gillis Harp D. G. Hart ❘ Paul Helm ❘ C. E. Hill Hywel R. Jones ❘ Peter Jones Richard Lints ❘ Korey Maas Donald G. Matzat ❘ Mickey L. Mattox John Muether ❘ John Piper ❘ Paul Raabe Kim Riddlebarger ❘ Shane Rosenthal Rachel Stahle ❘ A. Craig Troxel David Van Drunen ❘ William Willimon Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals © 2004 All rights reserved. The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals exists to call the twenty-first century church to a reformation that recovers clarity and conviction about the great evangelical truths of the gospel and that then seeks to proclaim these truths powerfully in our contemporary context. For more information, call or write us at: Modern Reformation 1716 Spruce Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 546-3696 ModRef@AllianceNet.org www.modernreformation.org

Eric Landry Managing Editor

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The article “Meaning and ‘The Music Itself’” (November/December 2003) raises two issues.

First, what the author is addressing needs to be addressed for sure. Churches are splitting over the issue of the meaning of music and I as one reader would be most interested in hearing some of the conclusions the author draws when the research is done. I have heard many who have had opinions but when it comes to defining what is and is not true there is always something that seems rather far from objective. I say that as one who is very traditional in my tastes in music and would like to agree with some who have argued for what I love to hear but I have been disappointed again and again in the lack of objectivity shown by my own camp.

I am not a musician myself, but my training is in science and I look for objective reality with regard to these issues. I hope there will be a book or something forthcoming when the research has been completed. Secondly, I am concerned about the view of worship. There seems to be an assumption that music is how people worship. Worship may well be a part of worship but true worship must come from the confrontation of the redeemed soul with the God who redeemed him.

That confrontation takes place in the Word and in a very special way through the preaching of the Word.

Rev. Glen Miller Calvary Bible Church Greencastle, PA

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In her article, “Meaning and the Music Itself” of the November/December issue of Modern Reformation, Ms. Mather states that music is not a universal language as it has no inherent meaning, only what a given society or a group of people assigns to it. Both the facts and the physiology of the human ear contradict that assumption. The facts show music affects humans regardless of their cultural bias: no culture would interpret a lullaby as a call to war or a military march as a lullaby, people in our Western culture use Hindu music to help them in transcendental meditation, rock music spread to the youth of all cultures and promoted rebellion against traditions, loud music with a driving beat is used by all idol-worshipping cultures to evoke ecstasy, etc. The anatomy and physiology of the human ear (regardless of ethnicity) closely relates to the strictly regulated, closed syntax of European polyphony based on the diatonic scale, so it’s not accidental that Schönberg ’s music based on chromatic scale never could become popular, or that heavily syncopated rock music causes the same brain chemistry changes as stress does. Finally, the Bible does not spell out what kind of rhythm, melody, etc. is pleasing to God, but the indirect references in Scripture and in God’s creation help us discern his general guidelines, such as harmony, order, and excellence, etc., Katalin Korossy, M.D. Kensington, MD

Olivia Carter Mather responds: If the physiology of the human ear were calibrated to favor European diatonic polyphony, then what shall we say about Indian ragas, the complex poly-rhythms of African drumming, and almost all written church music until the high middle ages?

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We imply that either the composers’ and listeners’ ears are poorly tuned or that their music does not meet some transcendental standard, which isn’t actually universal since only a subset of humanity has identified with it. I do not argue that anything goes in worship music – God’s Word instructs otherwise, as Dr. Korossy states – but that the details of musical style are often based on personal and cultural preference.

Korey Maas’s article on justification and the Trinity (“The Trinity from Canon to Creed,” November/December 2003) was a much needed article, not only for evangelicals, but also for the Reformed and Lutherans, as well. Maas not only showed the proper relation of justification and the Trinity, he also showed the proper relation between Scripture, tradition, and the church.

Along the same lines, I highly recommend your readers to pick up Keith Mathison's new book The Shape of Sola Scriptura. It has opened my eyes and made me see the importance of catholicity in the church. Like Mathison, Maas shows us that Luther and Calvin did not pit Scripture against tradition, but they used tradition to support their interpretation of Scripture against a novel interpretation that threatened to destroy the catholic unity of the faith. Thanks, Korey!

Jorg Stevensen Via Email

I deeply enjoyed your November/December issue on the Trinity. After reading all of the well written articles on it, I am still full of awe and feel there is an "unknowing" piece to the Trinity. This is frustrating but human. Regarding the opportunity you gave Dr. Paulsen of the Mormons to present his ideas on the Trinity, while I applaud your sense of inclusion for those faiths outside the "box," I think it is a dangerous thing for you to do without Dr. Paulsen's comments followed by a "wrapup" by Modern Reformation. The dividing line between the Mormon and Alliance position on the Trinity should be further defined, perhaps as a postscript. Dr. Paulsen is sly as a fox in presenting some of his church's concepts, some which are very similar to the Alliance's position. Some readers may think, What's the difference?

Michael Bollinger Via Email

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Amazingly, Mormon professor Dr. David Paulsen stated that he “had yet to see a presentation of LDS doctrine by a non-LDS writer that comes anywhere close to getting it right” (“Are Mormons Trinitarian? November/December 2003). One might wonder how his church has failed so dramatically to make its doctrines clear. In my experience with Latter-day Saints, they, too, have a hard time “getting it right,” and the reason is suggested by Dr. Paulsen’s opening sentence: “…Latter-day Saints have no official theology as such.” Mormon church members and missionaries avoid doctrines or have various opinions. Dr. Paulsen’s own statements of “our doctrines” may be accurate, but they cannot be confirmed by any authoritative, official source. Whether the religion is Trinitarian or not, whether it is monotheistic or polytheistic, whether God was once a man—these are not big issues for Mormons. Faithful Mormons accept the more basic idea of Mormon religion: Theirs is the only true church, and Joseph Smith and each of his successors is God’s sole “living prophet, seer, and revelator.” Mormons prove themselves worthy of eternal life by following the living prophet, joining the true church, and obeying its rules.

Robert E. Tozier Fairfax, VA

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Remembering Carl Henry Standard-Bearer for the Best of American Evangelicalism

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r. Henry arguably did more than any developed a network of friends that would other individual to shape modern become a virtual “who’s who” of post-War Evangelicalism, a movement about Evangelicalism: Billy Graham, Harold which Reformational Christians are Lindsell, and future U.S. Senate Chaplain frequently ambivalent.

Such mixed Richard Halverson. judgments notwithstanding, no defender of In the following two decades, Henry led the truthfulness of the Scriptures can be this group in defining a more thoughtful— ambivalent about Henry himself, a man of indeed more biblical—version of forceful intellect, of towering character, and Fundamentalism.

In helping found with an unrelenting passion to see Evangelicalism, he rejected charges that a Evangelicalism hold firm to and remain clear more world-embracing faith was a about the evangel. capitulation to liberalism. Instead, Henry It is simply impossible to understand forcefully argued, for instance in his stilltwentieth century Evangelicalism without Carl Ferdinand Howard Henry died readable The Uneasy Conscience of Modern understanding much about Henry, whom the in his sleep in Watertown, Wisconsin, Fundamentalism (1947), that believers should New York Times’ obituary rightly described as on December 7, at the age of 90. not shun this world that our Creator God the “Brain of [the] Evangelical Movement.” pronounced good. Christians should instead Born to German immigrants in New York City in 1913, Henry seek to serve as salt and light in the academy, in the arts, in grew up without any religious instruction of note. Beginning politics, in the professions, in protecting the environment. his journalistic career on the eve of the Great Depression, he Yet unlike many of his heirs in the movement to “integrate initially passed up higher education, working as a stringer for faith and learning” in Christian higher education, Henry did the New York Times and serving as the editor of a small Long not confuse creation and redemption. He affirmed that Christ Island newspaper by the age of 19. would ultimately redeem creation, and Christians should now Upon his conversion to Christianity in the early 1930s, he work to preserve it, yet the chief mission of the church does immediately became obsessed with understanding God’s self- not change based on the cultural needs of the moment. The revelation in Scripture and with the rational presentation of church exists to call individuals to repentance and to Christian doctrine. Henry rightly insisted that every Christian announce the hope that is found in the Christ who redeems is a theologian—a student of God and his work—whether and saves. Bible believers would defeat theological liberals, he professionally occupied with the task or not. The question is not insisted, not by outflanking them in the power struggles of whether each of us thinks about our God, but rather whether we this age, but by proclaiming the biblically revealed God, think biblically and consistently when we reflect on him. whether popular at the moment or not.

In 1935, Henry moved to Wheaton College, where he Ordained a Baptist in the early 1940s, Henry compiled an studied theology while teaching journalism. He quickly almost unbelievable resume: two doctorates; a key role in the

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founding of the National Association of Evangelicals; multiple professorships; first dean of Fuller Seminary in 1947; and in 1956, founding editor of Christianity Today—which in its early years aimed to challenge the liberal Christian Century for intellectual leadership of American Christianity.

Henry would leave CT in 1968 in his mid-50s, partly to turn more of his attention to theological problems related to the doctrine of God (this effort became his six-volume God, Revelation, and Authority), and partly because of concerns about the direction of the evangelical movement and its flagship institutions—especially CT and Fuller, in which he had invested so heavily.

An unwavering champion of biblical inerrancy, Henry continued to speak, write, and exert a major salutary influence until his late-80s, consistently pressing those in the movement he helped found that the only hope for sinners was the God who entered into history to save us. An occasional contributor to and correspondent with MR in his final years, Dr. Henry often worried that Evangelicalism was uncritically accommodating the broader culture. Yet he never lost faith in the power of the Word to redeem and reform us all.

The Spiritual Bazaar

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s Alexis de Tocqueville observed in the nineteenth century and countless New Yorker articles snickered throughout the twentieth, American clergymen frequently seem a little like used car salesmen. In a certain sense, this is a good thing. For it means that the men of the cloth on this side of the Atlantic—unlike the Europeans with whom Tocqueville was familiar—regularly engage people of all classes, challenging every individual created in God’s image with the theological truths of sin and grace. The impulse to outreach is an almost unavoidable by-product of America’s disestablishment (that is, the fact that the government does not fund religion or define orthodoxy); and it means that ministers must concern themselves with regular people and their beliefs, rather than with elite politicians and their appropriations committees.

On the other hand, the entrepreneurial nature of American religion prompts far too many preachers and parishioners to act as if religion is nothing more than a product, and the worship service little more than a consumer event. With surprising frequency, it is professing Christians in this country who take the lead in violating God’s commandment not to use his Name lightly. (Think of just a few of the tasteless t-shirts

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at the local megachurch bookstore: “Jesus Cola: Never Thirst Again”; “J.C.—The Eternal Firefighter”; or “GODZBAK Clothing: You are a Force to be Reckoned with, When God’s Got Your Back.”) The sentiment, apparently never scrutinized, is that if Nike is a good brand to tout on ballcaps and wristbands, Jesus is an ever better one.

LarkNews.com—a website well worth bookmarking—has been having a field day of late satirizing evangelical consumerism, with fictitious lead stories on which banking institution Jesus would trust with his paycheck; on congregations selling naming rights to corporate advertisers (e.g., “Doritos Cool Ranch Assemblies of God of Tustin, California”); and on the vacuous quality of goods to be found in most Christian bookstores and trinket shops (“TOP STORY: Near-tragedy: patrons of Bible bookstore found unconscious, overwhelmed by sheer boredom”).

Truth be told, LarkNews could be almost as funny—and sad—without fabricating a single story, for the real examples of religious packaging on this-worldly stuff and the secular hawking of other-worldly claims are legion. Consider the following examples gleaned from the religious news over only a handful of weeks: $ Walter Hallam, pastor of Abundant Life Christian Center in La Marque, Texas, attempted to increase attendance during December by offering attendees chances to win a Harley Davidson motorcycle and a new Chrysler PT Cruiser, which were given away at the New Year’s Eve service. Said Pastor Hallam: “As a church, we have to use new methods to help take the old Gospel and give it to the new world.” $ Amichai Lau-Lavie, a 34-year-old Jewish performer, is

becoming one of the hottest acts in...that’s right, American synagogues. Having decided that simple readings from the Torah are “dusty” and “archaic,” Lau-Lavie has founded “Storahtelling,” a “theatrical Torah translation troupe.” He argues that the mere reading of sacred texts is “a very dry, functional ritual that’s lost its drama,” and he aims to train rabbis and other lay leaders in “prayerformance” theatrical techniques toward the end of overhauling weekly services. $ The financial statements of corporations like Hallmark released this quarter reveal that Ramadan (which wound down in late November) continues to explode as a new consumption holiday in the United States. The Muslim holy month, marked by fasting during daylight hours, is well known for its “sober period”—so, of course, Hallmark has found a way to cash in by selling greeting cards, banners, and balloons. $ Reuters, which owns the twenty-two-story electronic billboard in Times Square, has finally caved and will allow the United Methodist Church to place an ad on the prized stage better known for soda-pop logos and Victoria’s Secret models.

MR sympathizes with the UMC charges that Reuters’ previous rejection of their advertisement amounted to antireligious prejudice, but one nonetheless wonders why the Methodists would invest such effort in preaching from this platform when so many Methodist pulpits are so devoid of bold preaching. $ Lusting after the massive evangelical demographic which has simultaneously pushed Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life to the top of the New York Times’ “How-To Best-Seller List” for eleven months (with eleven million copies sold), and propelled countless children to the VCR with the latest VeggieTales video in hand, more and more New York publishers are creating religious sub-divisions to cater to the spiritual consumer. PBS’s “Jay the Jet Plane” cartoon, for instance, is also available with more Christian packaging and moralism, and is distributed to an evangelical audience by Tommy Nelson, the children’s division of Nashville-based Christian publisher Thomas Nelson. Time Warner, which owns HBO and produces “G-String Divas,” “Sex in the City,” and the “Sopranos,” has set up “Warner Faith” (a white evangelical division in Nashville) and “Walk Worthy” (which targets African-American Christians).

Doubleday is reportedly investing heavily in a new religious subsidiary and Ruder Finn, a leading public-relations firm, is starting up a special division to go after Christian consumers. $ Trinity Broadcasting Network is airing a new “Missionary Reality Series” on Tuesday and Saturday nights. William Decker, 28, and Timothy Scott, 24, will spend eighteen months covering 40,000 miles and twenty-five countries as they share the gospel—capturing everything on video. The producers of “Travel the Road” claim that the program could inspire “a new generation of missionaries.”

$ A January 10th Washington Times headline announced, “Church Opens Just for Yuppies.” The Times’ metro desk reporter may well have gotten a detail about the new congregation wrong here or there, but the founders of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) plant in question, Grace DC, can hardly deny that they aim to be known by their demographic strategy. Denominational officials in Atlanta and at a sister PCA congregation in Boston, CityLife Church, inform the press that more than two-thirds of their members are professionals under 30, and boast that their “people are involved in the real issues: AIDS, terrorism or the arts.” Other congregations, they explained, without “a world view that is [so] deep or comprehensive” often do not have a similar “depth and breadth.” MR can’t remember any instances where Jesus segmented the rich young ruler from his blue-collar fishermen, and Paul talked about the Body of Christ containing “neither Jew nor Greek.” Modern-day church-planters, by contrast, proudly announce to elite reporters, “We reach out primarily to post-everything professional urbanites...” $ The start-up magazine Risen, which has a national circulation of over 20,000 in only its third issue (January/February), is focused on the “spiritual component” of celebrities, especially surfers, skaters, and heavy metal figures such as Alice Cooper.

Risen is published by “Christian individuals” who believe that “God is on our side” in their journalistic endeavor, but they are leery of producing a “Christian magazine.” Instead, they want simply to “talk about God, and...send positive messages”

Say What!

“A Different Trinity: Respect, Freedom, Justice.”

— New advertising campaign for the Unitarian Universalists. Leaders of the officially creedless “church” say they want to find ways to utilize more religious language in their shrinking denomination’s outreach.

“After talking to Mr. Bush’s longtime acquaintances, I’m convinced that his religious convictions are deeply felt and fairly typical in the U.S.” — New York Times editorialist Nicholas Kristof, revealing yet again—by his surprise—how clueless coastal journalists (demographically the most secular slice of America) are about the breadth and depth of Americans’ religiosity.

“Go with your gut. Your gut could be God’s will calling you.”

— 18-year-old Patricia Massey, whose North Carolina Presbyterian church has elected her the PC(USA)’s youngest elder, explaining how she knew she was called to leadership.

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through their “lifestyle publication concentrating on the inner person and spiritual values.” $ Ammar Saadeh, a Michigan entrepreneur, has created Razanne, essentially a Muslim (and less curvaceous) version of the Barbie doll. With various versions of Razanne ranging in price from $9 to $25, Saadeh aims to capture the Middle Eastern market. Iran already has rip-off Barbie and Ken dolls, but most Muslim nations follow Saudi Arabia’s lead in outlawing sexually provocative toys. Saadeh hopes that Razanne, who can be purchased with a long hijab (head scarf) and “prayer gown,” will be more appealing to the authorities. $ You’ve heard of eco-tourism. Well, get ready for the “church-state battlegrounds tour.” Officials with the Alabama Supreme Court report that visitors are flocking to see the site where former Chief Justice Roy Moore’s five thousand pound monument to the Ten Commandments stood until August 27.

Steven and Bonnie Kukla, singing evangelists from Tulsa, “came specifically to see where the monument was.” Taking photos of the empty space, Bonnie confessed, “It’s a solemn feeling.” Vendors sell t-shirts depicting the monument and folks consistently gather to pray for the nation on the front steps of the court building. Timothy Lewis, the law librarian, reports that people have apparently come to think of the space as sacred in some sense. A twelve-year-old boy, for instance, regularly came to blow a ram’s horn—an Old

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4,000,000 Number of pilgrims who have traveled to the Toronto Airport Vineyard Church since the “laughing revival” (and

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revival) broke out at the small congregation ten years ago.

While many charismatic and Pentecostal leaders have hailed the movement as a modern-day outpouring of the Spirit, critics have judged it everything from mass hysteria to demon-inspired.

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Religious News in Brief… ÍRecent financial reports in both the mainline Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the more conservative Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) reveal an interesting trend: The laity are collectively giving much more money—up by $191 million year-over-year in the ELCA and up by $148 million over a four-year period in the LCMS—but the amount of money making it to the denominational headquarters is down precipitously. Some of the decline is a function of the simple fact that inflation means that individual congregations need more money to provide the same local services. But a larger part of the story is apparently that Lutheranism is becoming increasingly congregational and there is greater and greater distrust of the denominational officials. The lay leaders in the congregations appear to doubt the bureaucracies’ stewardship of financial resources, and they are tiring of the political fights that persist in both bodies. In perhaps the most telling sign of what some are calling the “denominational disconnect,” The Lutheran (the official ELCA publication) has seen its circulation decline from just over one million in 1990 to only 450,000 today.

Testament symbol for calling the believing community to worship—until the marshals drove him away. $ The U.S.’s largest Christian retailing chain, the Michiganbased Family Christian Stores, has decided to open on Sundays, citing the difficulties of competing with congregational bookstores, 96 percent of which are open on the Lord’s Day. In announcing the decision, CEO Dave Browne said that surveys show that 80 percent of Family’s customers are already shopping on Sunday anyway. Plus, “[c]ustomers tell us that they work Monday through Friday, are occupied with soccer and the kids’ activities on Saturday.” He said that “after prayer, study, and seeking the counsel of others, it became clear to us that the ministry opportunity of opening on Sundays vastly outweighed the operational preference of the status quo.”

Apparently, it didn’t occur to corporate leadership that opposition to having employees work on the day of rest might be biblically based rather than simply a knee-jerk defense of the “status quo.” Contrasting Family with other well-known Christian companies such as Chick-fil-A that remain closed on the day of worship, Browne explained, “No one is going to go to hell if they don’t eat a chicken sandwich on a Sunday.”

Speaking of...

T hough justice be thy plea, consider this,

That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy, And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy.

— William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice,” Act 4, Scene 1

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’m convinced that religion and spirituality can be really useful to help people forgive. But the way they teach people to forgive isn’t always practical. The point (of the study) is to make forgiveness simpler and more practical.

— Stanford researcher Fred Luskin on the goal of a $200,000 research project funded by the John Templeton Foundation, Palo Alto Weekly, February 10, 1999

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friendly neighbor hits your pet with his car. The pet will be OK, but is in pain for several weeks.

■ You cut off all contact with the neighbor.

■ You treat him as before.

■ You stop chatting over the fence with him, but you still pick up his mail for him when he’s on vacation.

— One of seven questions from the “How Forgiving Are You?” quiz to help you measure your capacity to forgive and forget (Beliefnet.com)

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am completely steeped in, and saturated with, the article of the forgiveness of sins. I am dealing with it constantly, day and night; and all my thoughts are of Jesus Christ, my only Savior, who has atoned and paid for my sin. I grant the Law—and all the devils—nothing. If only a man can believe the forgiveness of sin, he is a blessed person.

— Martin Luther, Tabletalk, 6:6827

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Leo Sowerby— Eclectic, Urbane, and Anonymous

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He was more than a choral composer, and wrote required, and we had a marvelous organist-choirmaster who considered himself an educator, beyond the sacred genres as well.

Like my teacher, not simply a church musician. One of his favorite composers was Leo Sowerby (1895-1968), Sowerby was both a performer and an educator. an American, arguably this country’s greatest He occupied the position of organist at St. James composer of sacred music in the twentieth century. Episcopal Cathedral in Chicago, and also professor My teacher rightly insisted that everything about of composition at the American Conservatory in this liturgical musician was worthy of admiration. the same town.

His contribution to the What was striking at the time, as we sang his pieces development of music for the organ is unparalleled. in the chapel choir, and confirmed throughout the In the period between the two great wars, the ensuing decades, was the naturalness of the music. organ began to emerge as an important part of For singers, while demanding, no strain was musical life. Even outside the church, the great required on the voice. Samuel Barber, far more organs made by Skinner and Austin, on the cusp of renowned, once asked Sowerby to help him new technologies, drew significant crowds to hear correct a choral work he had written, confessing, “I their massive styles. Sowerby discovered ways to wish I knew how to write for choir the way you render a richly varied musical discourse on the do.” He wrote over 200 choral works, out of a total instrument which ranged from the fiery bombast to repertoire of 550 compositions. the languid lament. The monumental Symphony in attended a small boarding school in New England during the 1950s. Chapel was

Resource Review For anyone interested in the serious study of hymns, few periodicals do better work than The Hymn: A Journal of Congregational Song. Published quarterly by the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, its headquarters are presently at Boston University’s School of Theology [www.hymnsociety.org]. This publication has been around for over half a century, and has undergone a number of changes over the decades. But it has always been of highest quality. The mission is threefold: for those who (1) believe that congregational song is an integral component of worship, (2) believe that the writing and singing of new texts and tunes needs to be promoted, and (3) value learning about the origins of the words and music they sing.

The magazine is intentionally eclectic, and while does not appear to have any particular theological orientation it has a certain Protestant feel about it. Articles are wide-ranging. They include historical reports, practical advice, and thematic studies. A recent issue carried a marvelous piece by Janet L. Janzen on “Hymns as Devotional Literature,” which plead for a proper interweaving of theology, poetry, and music in public and private liturgy (Vol 54, No 2, 2003). Janzen is herself a fine hymn writer, and specializes in meditative songs. Another had a fine tribute to the memory of Erik Routley, the author of so many excellent books on hymnody (Vol 53, No 4, 2002). Often the articles reflect on spiritual songs from all over

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G, rich, varied, urbane, is on a par with the symphonies of Marcel Dupré.

Sowerby came of age at the same time American music began to take on its own identity.

While still influenced by the European styles, such luminaries as Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, George Gershwin, and Virgil Thomson began to express something distinctly American in their melodies and rhythms. Like them, his music includes references to folk music, to jazz, as well as other American genres. His harmonies were complex, his textures full of color. He wrote tone poems based on landscapes and seasons. He set numerous Scripture passages, and also prayers from various traditions. He was eclectic in the best sense of the term.

It is impossible to pick a favorite piece, since there is so much. Few anthems are as moving as I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes. His cantata Forsaken of Man is a dark meditation on the Gospel of Matthew, in the tradition of the baroque passions. The tone poem Comes Autumn Time is a wistful, nostalgic study of later seasons in life. Although he occasionally came into the limelight, as he did when his Organ Concerto in C was performed by E. Power Biggs, with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, to open the new Lincoln Center in New York, his professional life was lived more anonymously, in the church and in the academy. How marvelous that is, in our age of celebrities and sound and fury, signifying very little.

On The Web Robert Webber in The Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World (Baker Book House, 2002) may be right to contend that the “contemporary” worship styles practiced by Willow Creek and Saddleback are giving way to the more “blended” preferences of younger Christians, and thus leaving Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) behind and replacing it with more eclectic music. But for many churches around the world CCM is still the mainstream. This being the case, two quality websites connected to fostering the broad array of worship styles, and its music, are good resources for church musicians.

The first, www.christianmusician.com, features reviews, tips, announcements, and ads of all kinds. If you have a sound program such as RealPlayer you can sample the tracks of important new CDs being published, simply by clicking a title with the “?” next to it. You can take a music lesson from a professional. For example, you may learn how to play drums in a manner that supports, rather than competes, with the band. The Christian Musician Newsletter is endorsed by top quality contemporary musicians Phil Keaggy, Paul Baloche, and Charlie Peacock, each having contributed enormously to the field. In a recent issue one could read a thoughtful, and humorous, article by Bob Kilpatrick on “How to Write a Really Mediocre Song.”

Worship Leader publishes a supplement called Worship Resources (www.songdiscovery.com is the on-line version) which publishes the scores of new songs for musicians to peruse, all with copyright indications appended. This site has more of a concern for culture than does christianmusician.com. The November/December 2003 issue had a first rate study of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ. Sometimes there are articles on art history. In recent years it is more open to a Reformed point of view.

Hughes Oliphant Old is a regular contributor. I am on the board of the magazine. Together, these two websites will keep everyone interested in “contemporary” and “post-contemporary” worship music well informed.

the world. Sometimes they are simply the equivalent of a master class, giving instructions on how better to accompany congregational singing, what difference a particular instrument makes, and the like.

The Hymn features numerous book reviews. One has to be astonished at the sheer quantity of books coming out all the time on subjects related to church music. All kinds of conferences and colloquia are advertised, some of them with photographs of locations which whet the appetite for travel. There is a book service. Doctoral dissertations are listed.

New and old hymns are displayed on the pages of the magazine. The Hymn Society also conducts hymn searches, that is, a call for new hymns “that fill some of the perceived gaps in existing hymnody.” A prize is offered for the best ones.

In addition to the quarterly magazine, the Hymn Society also publishes a semiannual newsletter called The Stanza, which brings news and views to the readers. Hymn festivals and new anthologies are publicized. There is even a humorous column entitled, “Some Attitudes Never Change.” In a recent one, a letter from a church member in 1890 complained that new hymns were unnecessary, citing the “particularly unnerving” case of a hymn introduced recently whose words were good, but whose tune “unsingable.” The hymn in question was, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

The Hymn Society sponsors an annual conference, various field trips, workshops, tours, and opportunities. The Society and the magazine aim at aesthetic excellence combined with practical wisdom. Church musicians and church leaders alike could greatly enhance their knowledge and skills through this excellent resource.

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Joy in the Morning Is God angry with Christians when they knowingly sin?

MARK R. TALBOT

Associate Professor of Theology Wheaton College Wheaton, Illinois

Council Counsel is a column featuring questions from our readers and answers from the Council members of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

If you have a question you would like answered in this space, please send it to modref@alliancenet.org

Today, we are likely to make one of three mistakes in answering this question. The first is to think that the Bible’s declaration that “God is love” means that he is never really angry with anyone, that God is always friendly and forgiving. But Scripture denies this: there are literally hundreds of references to God’s anger and wrath in the Old and New Testaments, with some emphasizing that God’s wrath will rest eternally on some human beings (see John 3:36; Rev. 14:9-11).

Yet Scripture also teaches God’s people to look forward to a future “day of wrath” when God’s righteous judgment will be fully revealed and their faith will be vindicated (see Ps. 96:10-13; 110:5-7; Rom. 2:1-11). This does not mean, however, that Christians should not fear God’s anger and displeasure, for it is by such fear that we come to hate evil and get our other fears into proper perspective (see Prov. 8:13; Luke 12:4-7; 2 Cor. 5:911). As the Psalmist says, God’s “wrath is as great as the fear that is due” him (Ps. 90:11, NIV). This fear grounds all wisdom and God-honoring behavior (see Ps. 111:10; 2 Chr. 19:7-10). We need it to avoid succumbing to the kinds of immorality and impurity and greediness that are improper for God’s holy people (see Eph. 5:3-21). So we should cultivate holy fear, for otherwise we may make a second mistake—a mistake that often dogs those who consciously embrace sola fide—which is to act as if our righteous standing before God in Christ means that we need not fear his anger when, by Ephesians 5 standards, we are being profane.

Granted, no New Testament text states outright that God is angry with Christians when they sin. But the analogy of Scripture—that is, Scripture’s total message, when all of it is considered—implies it.

Everywhere Scripture assumes that God by his very nature must be angry with sin and with those who sin; he cannot even look at wrong (see Hab. 1:13). True,

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God is now our loving Father. Yet just as a human father may be angry with his children when they do wrong even while he continues to love them, so God may be angry with us. The writer to the Hebrews suggests as much when, after quoting Proverbs 3:11 and 12 to remind us that “the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives,” he goes on to observe that it is only the “bastards” whom God ignores (Heb. 12:8, KJV).

Yet we must always remember that God’s reactions to us as his saints and children are fundamentally different than his reactions to everyone else. In particular, we must remind ourselves that Christ has suffered God’s wrath so that we won’t. Once we have “put on Christ” through baptism (Gal. 3:27), he is our righteousness and God will never again be angry with us in a wrathful, damning way (see 1 Cor. 1:30; Rom. 8). As Paul declares, “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:9).

To forget this is to become liable to a third mistake—the mistake of being tempted to think, when God is chastising us, that he is going to be angry with us forever (see Ps. 85:5; cf. 31:22; 77:49). But our Father will not always strive against us.

When we are experiencing God’s displeasure for our sins, we must remind ourselves, as David said, that for God’s saints “his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime” (Ps. 30:5; cf. Hos. 14:4-7; Mic. 7:18-20). God is angry with us when we sin— and especially when we knowingly sin—and he may then discipline us until we weep; but, as David goes on to affirm, joy will come to us in the morning.

Mark R. Talbot (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania) is associate professor of philosophy at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, and vice-chairman of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. He is the co-author of Should We Leave Our Churches? A Biblical Response to Harold Camping (P&R Publishing, 2003). Dr. Talbot is also executive editor of Modern Reformation magazine.

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Romans 5:12–21

Justified by the Righteousness of Christ Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned … so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. (Romans 5:12, 18) A Shocking Assertion The Apostle Paul begins Romans 5 by reflecting on the assurance provided to us by the doctrine of justification, his subject since chapter 3. Paul sums up in verse 10: “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” The latter half of this chapter Paul picks up on the theme that life is found in Christ, wrapping up his teaching on justification by using a new line of reasoning that is perhaps the most powerful in all the Book of Romans.

Paul begins this new argument with a shocking assertion: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Paul’s claim is that one man, Adam, brought sin into the world and through that first sin came death as well.

This is the teaching of man’s fall into sin from Genesis 3, when God commanded Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Westminster Confession explains this in terms of the covenant of works that God made with Adam: “The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam; and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.” Adam failed that covenant, eating the forbidden fruit. He was cast out from the Garden and cursed with the punishment of death, and with him all his offspring.

The controversy here is what Paul means by saying, “And so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Is he saying that death came to all mankind simply because of Adam’s one sin? Or that death came to all because through Adam we all became sinners and our own sins cause death?

Paul seems to have anticipated this quandary, pausing to clarify his point in verses 13 and 14. Verse 13 says, “For sin indeed was in From the world before the law was RICHARD D. given, but sin is not counted PHILLIPS where there is no law.” His point is that between the time of Adam and Moses people sinned, but there was Senior Minister no law to justly condemn First Presbyterian Church them until the time of Moses.

Margate, FL “Where there is no law,” it is not just to condemn and yet these people still died. Therefore, they did not suffer death for their own sins.

Verse 14 expands on this: “Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.”

People were dying between the time of Adam, to whom God gave a command on penalty of death, and Moses, to whom God gave the law with its penalties of death. Even those “whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam,” that is, although they sinned they did not do so having received direct commands from God as Adam did, even so death reigned over them.

What is Paul driving us to? Paul is specifying his statement of verse 12 that “death spread to all men because all sinned.” He does not mean that people have fallen under the curse of death because of their own sins but because of Adam’s one sin.

When Adam sinned, he sinned for us; as his descendants we were in him even as he sinned.

Not only, therefore, did Adam’s corruption pass on to us by natural generation, but his guilt was imputed by God to us all. Death was God’s punishment for Adam’s sin; sin came into the world

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through Adam, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mankind because in Adam we all sinned and thus receive sin’s punishment.

Adam the Type of the One to Come In verse 14, Paul makes another statement that requires its own clarification. He concludes that verse by saying that Adam “was a type of the one who was to come.” The Greek word tupos refers to a die or stamp that leaves an impression in wax. Likewise, Adam signified Christ in at least some aspect; he is thus a lens for viewing the person and work of Christ.

This passage makes clear two ways in which Adam was a type of Christ. First, he was a covenant head for the people he represented, namely all his offspring in the human race. We call this federal headship because of the analogy to the way an ambassador represents his country, acting on behalf of his country’s citizens in a binding manner. Should that ambassador’s behavior start a war, citizens who had nothing to do with his conduct would nonetheless pay the price. Some people object to this because it offends their commitment to individualism, but this begs the question whether such individualism is biblical.

God appointed Adam to be our federal head, and appointed us to stand or fall with him, whether we like it or not—indeed, we have no reason to believe we’d perform any better than sinless Adam.

Furthermore, he was a type of Jesus Christ in the manner by which his success or failure would pass on to those he represented, namely, by imputation.

Imputation means that the merit—or in Adam’s case, the guilt—of the covenant head is reckoned to those in him. It is an accounting term, speaking of the crediting to an account. That this is Paul’s way of thinking is made explicit in verse 13, where he says that “sin is not counted [i.e., imputed] where there is no law.” Paul uses this same word when he tells Philemon that he will cover any expenses incurred by his newly converted runaway slave, Onesimus: “If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account” (Philem. 18).

A number of scholars deny that this passage teaches that Adam’s sin accrues to us by this method. Instead, they argue that verse 12 means that Adam led us all into sin and our own sins cause us to die. N. T. Wright represents them, saying in The New Interpreter’s Bible that “Paul offers no further clue” as to how death might have come to all men.

But Paul does give more than a few clues in the verses that follow. Paul has said that Adam was a type of Christ, and here he spells it out specifically in terms of imputation. Verse 15 says, “Many died through one man’s trespass.” Verse 16 adds, “The judgment following one trespass brought

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condemnation.” Verse 17 says, “Because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man.” Verse 18 continues: “One trespass led to condemnation for all men.” Verse 19 concludes: “By the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners.

Paul could hardly be more clear that Adam’s offspring did not receive the punishment of death because of their own sins but because of his trespass. John Piper explains, “The judicial consequences of Adam’s sin are experienced by all his people not on the basis of their doing sins like he did, but on the basis of their being in him and his sin being imputed to them.”

The Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness Why, you ask, is Paul telling us this? The reason is that Adam is presented in comparison to Jesus Christ, as the covenant head of all who look to him in faith.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains, “As we are all related by nature to Adam, so we who are Christians are related by grace to the Lord Jesus Christ.” Piper puts this in terms exactly parallel to our situation in Adam: “The judicial consequences of Christ’s righteousness are experienced by all his people not on the basis of their doing righteous deeds like he did, but on the basis of their being in him and his righteousness being imputed to them.” This is the straightforward teaching of verse 18, in which Paul completes the analogy begun in verse 12: “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

The doctrine of Christ’s imputed righteousness is widely denied today in evangelical circles, and even in the Reformed community. Many insist that the merit/works principle on which imputation relies threatens the grace/faith principle taught in the New Testament. Norman Shepherd is prominent among those who argue this. He states that if we accept that God grants righteousness on the principle of merit, “then we have to grant the good works of the believer are indeed meritorious, allowing us to boast in our own personal achievement, or we have to deny that the good works of the believer are really good. The problem with this argument is that the Bible most certainly does teach the merit/works principle of justification. Paul wrote back in Romans 4:4 that “to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.” Furthermore, the clear implication of God’s command to Adam in the Garden was that by obedience he would merit life. Our passage tonight also demands this merit/works principle: Verse 18 says that Christ’s “act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.”

The reason why the merit/works principle does not threaten the grace/faith principle of the gospel

is that it applies only to the covenant heads to whom the covenant of works was offered. It is the covenant of works that contains the merit/works principle. There are only two men to whom the covenant of merit and works was presented, first to Adam and second to Christ, who is elsewhere called by Paul “the last Adam” (1 Cor. 15:45).

The merit/works principle fits with the grace/faith principle in this way: By God’s grace, through faith, we who merit death receive life instead through Christ’s fulfillment of the covenant of works on our behalf. We are saved by works, so that our righteousness and justification are indeed merited in the courts of God; they simply are works performed by Christ for us and merited by Christ on our behalf. The faith by which we are justified is therefore not one that is faithful in itself or otherwise merits justification on its own—as those who deny the covenant of works and imputed righteousness have no option but to conceive it—but it is a faith that consists of, as the Westminster Confession puts it, “accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone.” It is only by this principle that we can sing of our faith, “Nothing in my hands I bring; simply to thy cross I cling.”

Any who doubt the Bible’s teaching of the imputed righteousness of Christ to believing sinners need only consult 2 Corinthians 5:21, which says, “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” There is a parallelism here between how Christ receives our sin and how we receive his righteousness; the identical language is used of each. Jesus did not take on our sin by infusion; sin did not become inherent to him. Our sin was imputed to him, who himself knew no sin.

Likewise, we who were not righteous became the righteousness of God in the same way, by the imputation of Christ’s perfect righteousness. As Paul says in Romans 5:17, we receive from Christ the “free gift of righteousness”; it is not something in us or inherent to us, but something outside of us that is provided as the gift of God’s grace.

The critics of imputation claim that it compromises the glory of God’s grace, but in verses 15 and 16 Paul shows how imputation actually magnifies the grace of God. Here the imputation of the guilt of the trespass is contrasted with the “free gift,” the imputation of the obedience of Christ.

The parallels between the two do not obscure the “much more” character of the latter—Christ’s gift abounds in exceeding grace. The judgment of all men was truly appropriate and fitting in the light of Adam’s sin, but no matter how appropriate, God did not let this judgment have the last word. So great is his grace that it overflowed the flood of sin

that had brought death to the world. No matter how numerous or how foul your sins, Christ merited a righteousness that can by faith make you whiter than snow.

Justification and Life Paul pointedly does not stop at justification in this passage. “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.” Adam’s trespass led to judgment and condemnation with the result of death. Christ’s obedience provides us the righteousness that leads not only to justification, but to “life for all men,” that is, for all who come to him in faith. Great though justification is—central and vital though it is—it is not the end of the Christian faith and life. Had Adam not sinned, he would have remained in the Garden to eat from the Tree of Life. We attain to this same blessed hope in Christ, to the eternal life that is of God. The church is the place where life reigns. Adam in the Garden was to be fruitful, to cultivate that which God had given him. So too are we to abound in the fruit of the Spirit, in the fruit of good works, and in the cultivation of beauty and things that are useful for godliness.

Notice the transformation: “If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” In Adam it was death that reigned through sin. But in Christ, we are the ones who reign in life through Christ. We are to reign—to rule and defend and cultivate and bless—with the “abundance of grace” and the righteousness that comes to us in Christ. Paul concludes the whole passage by identifying God’s ultimate purpose: “As sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Richard D. Phillips (M.Div., Westminster Theological Seminary) is senior minister at First Presbyterian Church of Coral Springs/Margate, Florida.

In this sermon, Richard D. Phillips has quoted from The Westminster Confession of Faith, VII.2 and XIV.2; N. T. Wright’s commentary on Romans, in The New Interpreter’s Bible, 12 vols. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), p. 527; John Piper’s Counted Righteous in Christ (Wheaton: Crossway, 2002), pp. 101–102; D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s Romans 5: Assurance (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1971), p. 189; and Norman Shepherd’s The Call of Grace (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Press, 2000), p. 62.

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FORGIVEN, FORGIVING

Something God Cannot Do an God make a rock so big that he can’t lift it? Is there anything that God cannot do? According to Scripture, God cannot violate his own character. He cannot sin or tempt people to sin. And, Scripture declares, he cannot acquit the guilty. That is, he cannot just forgive— he cannot just let bygones be bygones when his justice, holiness, and righteousness are at stake.

We live in a sentimental age. Love has become the pretext for all sorts of infidelities between friends, parents and children, and even spouses. In past eras of church history, sensitive consciences were often driven to despair of finding a loving, gracious God. But now most preaching, teaching, worship, evangelism, and pastoral care seems unable to grasp the reality that fueled that despair. Today the knowledge of God as just and righteous and holy seems as lost among evangelicals as among the liberals they used to berate. Now pandering to the church consumers’ felt needs brings to all-too-tragic light William James’s claim, “God is not worshiped; he is used.”

In All is Forgiven, Marsha Witten produced an illuminating survey of forty-seven sermons on the prodigal son that were delivered in mainline and conservative churches from 1986 to 1988. Her research adds to the mounting evidence that there is a feel-good deity in the Protestant pulpit across the denominational divide.

For example, Andrew Greeley reports that nearly three quarters of respondents in a survey in the mid-1980s preferred the image of God as “friend” to that of him as “king.” Surveys by the Gallup Organization show that most Americans think of God as loving them, and only a small minority say they have ever been afraid of him.

And James Hunter has documented the tendency of the popular evangelical literature he studied to stress God’s therapeutic role, to downplay notions of sin, and to highlight the accessibility of forgiveness and conversion.

Witten observes that our culture’s reduction of religion to a private matter has gone hand-in-hand with accommodation to the pragmatic and therapeutic aspects of our

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culture as well as to the pluralistic belief that all religions are equal. To illustrate the aspect of this reduction that concerns us here, she nicely juxtaposes nineteenth-century philosopher/theologian Søren Kierkegaard and televangelist Robert Schuller: God and man are two qualities between which there is infinite qualitative difference.

Every doctrine which overlooks this difference is, humanly speaking, crazy; understood in a godly sense, it is blasphemy.

(Kierkegaard in Sickness Unto Death) Affirm OUT LOUD: “I am God’s friend.

God loves me. If God has chosen me for His friend, I must be a marvelous person.“ (Robert Schuller in Believe in the God Who Believes in You) As Witten’s sermon survey indicates, “God as Daddy, Sufferer, and Lover” has replaced older and more adequate conceptions in both mainline and conservative Protestant contexts.

Of course, the preaching of the cross has always been “folly to those who are perishing” (1 Cor.

1:18), but this is especially true now. Here I want to show why the cross is the only answer to the question, How can God forgive? This is now necessary even in our own circles because, regardless of what we hold on paper, the cross has increasingly become a symbol for the love and forgiveness that God supposedly inevitably gives. In contrast, I want to show that Christ’s cross work is the only way in which God can be both just and the justifier of sinners.

Who God Is od’s simplicity is a divine attribute that is easy for us to overlook. Basically, his simplicity means that God is not composed of various properties but is loving, merciful, just, holy, gracious, kind, omnipotent, and everything else he is altogether and all at once. This means that we can’t just pick out our favorite attribute—whether sovereignty or love, justice or mercy—and define God by it. God’s power can never be divorced from his goodness, or his love from his holiness.

This also means that when God runs into what from our vantage point appears to be a conflict, he

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alvin surely got this much right: “But if there is anything in the whole of religion that we should most certainly know, we ought most closely to grasp by what reason, with what law, under what condition, with what ease or difficulty, forgiveness of sins may be obtained!” (Institutes III.IV.2) Happily, Jesus taught his disciples to pray for forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:12). Then he died on the cross so this prayer could be answered. For by Christ’s death Christians are forgiven. And because of his death they can forgive.

So forgiveness of sins can be taken for granted, right?

Well, that seems to be happening. A religious catalog just arrived in the mail, and the trivialization of the Jesus whose very name bespeaks forgiveness of sins (Matt. 1:21) is staggering.

There are multiple pages of baubles (pencils, plastic snow men, paddleballs, punch balls, hats, and scarves) sporting slogans like “Jesus loves you snow much,” “Jesus warms my heart,” and “Jesus is deer to me!” (“Deer” as in “reindeer” as in “Santa Claus” as in “Jesus.” Get it?) If you are in a summer mood, how about this for July 4th: a “USA Cross Gemstone Pin”? It’s a cross pendant studded in red-white-and-blue “gems” to make it look like the

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American flag. Others may prefer a “Jesus Loves Me” kazoo in order to “make a joyful noise.” (To quote Dave Barry, I’m not making this up.)

Yet this is not all about feeling good: the stern memory of Jesus’ death is evoked by the cross mounted prominently on ... lids of one-ounce bottles of bubble-blowing liquid? On second thought, maybe it is.

No, forgiveness is not to be taken for granted. Like most things Jesus taught his disciples, forgiveness is hard. Why? A few snapshots from Jesus’ life point to answers.

First, forgiveness is hard because it frequently does not occur to us that we need it. Consider the incident of the sinful woman who anointed Jesus’ feet and was silently condemned by Jesus’ dinner host Simon (Luke 7:36–50). Jesus announced that this woman was forgiven, so great was her love for the One preaching the kingdom message of repentance and faith. But Simon wasn’t even on the same planet spiritually: while the woman was gaining eternal life (Luke 7:50), he was fuming in petty indignation (7:39). His sins remained, because he remained blind to their glaring dominance. Who hasn’t played the Simon in analogous circumstances?

does not—in fact, cannot—decide to be one thing (say, loving) at the expense of another (say, just).

In every act he must be all of whom he is—that is, an undivided, wholly integrated personal God. Therefore, he cannot ignore his justice and holiness and then simply forgive the guilty. As the prophet Nahum declared: The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty…. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him. (Nah. 1:1–3, 6) As God said through his prophet Isaiah: “I cannot endure iniquity” (Isa. 1:13).

Would we want God just to forgive the guilty, even if he could? What would you think of a judge who acquitted a serial murderer? A rapist? A thief?

An extortionist? A child molester? To be sure, a judge can personally forgive another person who has stolen her own car, but if she were to forgive a thief for stealing someone else’s car while she is in the courtroom acting as a judge, then we would be filled with righteous indignation that justice had not been served. In fact, we know that we cannot in principle object if an absolutely just judge refuses to forgive anyone’s trespasses, including our own. Yet while we all believe that some people sometimes deserve condemnation, do we really acknowledge that this also includes ourselves?

Almost all Americans believe in hell, but only 11 percent think they could go there.

Perhaps it is understandable that those who reject Christian orthodoxy object to such a stark possibility. For instance, in commenting on Anselm’s argument for why Christ became a man, Oxford University theologian and former evangelical Keith Ward asks, Is it not a slightly odd view of a morally perfect God that the divine nature can be so slighted and offended by what human beings

The Hard Part Second, forgiveness is hard because people can be so ornery.

The behavior of John and James is instructive. When they felt Jesus was being slighted by some Samaritans, they wanted to call down heavenly fire to burn them up (Luke 9:54). That isn’t very forgiving. But they should get credit for at least asking permission. More true to human nature, probably, is an incident in Chicago in January 2000. A man waiting on a train platform was poked with a snow shovel by a homeless man who was badgering him and others. So he poked the homeless man back—with a knife, in the neck, fatally. He got twenty years, since reduced to six. The urge to kill can overwhelm the capacity to forgive. (This happened to Jesus the day he was crucified.)

Third, forgiveness is hard because in the end it is something only God can do (Luke 5:21). Sure, common grace ensures that there is some measure of forgiveness among people at large, like there is some natural capacity to love no matter how benighted a nation, tribe, or family. For this we give thanks. But forgiveness of the magnitude and quality modeled by Christ, and called for by the gospel—that’s another matter. Stephen at his stoning, like Jesus on his cross, asked forgiveness for his executioners. That is either lunacy—curses and calls for revenge would make perfect

sense—or God-grade benevolence. To choose the later is to affirm a quality of forgiveness for which the Bible’s God is justly renowned—and which Jesus prayed his followers would faithfully exercise.

This points to the hardest part of forgiveness: to do it we must receive it. To receive it we must own our need and confess in Christ our sole hope. This is beyond mere flesh and blood. It’s easier to be judgmental, in denial, or vindictive. It’s a good thing that with God all things are possible, even forgiveness of hard-bitten recalcitrants like us. And then as we freely receive, we may freely give.

Robert Yarbrough (Ph.D. University of Aberdeen) is associate professor and New Testament department chair at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. His publications include Encountering the New Testament (with Walter Elwell), John (Everyman’s Bible commentary), and numerous shorter studies and translations of German works. He teaches twice annually at Emanuel University in Romania and at the Center for Biblical Studies in Khartoum, Sudan.

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do? … Anselm’s idea is that the penalty must be paid in full; but is this really compatible with belief in the mercy of God? Secondly, even if one can accept that the sinner must pay such a tremendous penalty, how can it be just for someone else to pay it for me? …

God shows love by healing, forgiving, suffering for us. God gives us love by placing his Spirit in our hearts. God places before us the ideal of the Christ life, and forms it within us as we contemplate it. But there is here no substitutionary death, no vicarious justice, and no literal death of one person in place of another.

gelistic tracts or in popular preaching, but they are unmistakably biblical. The law found in Scripture is not external to God; it is not arbitrary or a mere reflection of human convention; indeed, it is a revelation of God’s very person. Scripture establishes that God is not angry by nature, but he is just, righteous, holy, and true. And thus he becomes angry when his nature or character is attacked or violated. This world isn’t ours but God’s. How we act in it is equivalent to how we are acting toward God. So we ought to expect that if we violate God’s law then he will be angry with us. If you were to violently attack your host in his own home, would you expect tranquil acquiescence?

On the basis of his righteous nature, God can This is sentimentalism and a kind of sentimentalism only say, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and that assumes that God is not simple and that he be blameless” (Gen. 17:1) and “Who shall ascend can, consequently, decide to act in terms of only the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his some of his attributes. Such sentimentalism is not holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure new, but it is surprising that it is so pervasive even heart” (Ps. 24:3–4). Of course, some might try to in churches that confess orthodox theology. But dismiss these declarations by pointing out that perhaps even this should not be so surprising, since they are from the Old Testament. But, in fact, the Charles Finney and a host of American revivalists New Testament actually ups the ante. I have always found it strange that of all the portions of Scripture to choose from, lib[God] would himself become a sinner if he simply tolerated our transgressions… erals tend to choose the Sermon on the Mount. After all, what we find there in Jesus is not a kinder, gentler would agree with Ward that the cross shows us Moses, but the strictest interpretation of the law how much God loves us and perhaps how he found anywhere in the Bible—“For I tell you, unless upholds his moral government but that it is hardly your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and possible for one person to die for another’s sins. Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of Many evangelicals would be careful not to explic- heaven” (Matt. 5:20). In the Sermon on the itly repudiate the biblical view, but the sad reality is Mount, not only wrong outward actions but wrong that most of what we actually get out there is the inward affections and motives are considered sinful: “You have heard that it was said to those of old, view that Keith Ward offers here.

‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be What God Must Require of Us liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone f we are to avoid this kind of sentimentalism, we who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgmust be very clear about what God, in his sim- ment” (Matt. 5:21–22). “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to plicity, must require of us.

The kind of righteousness that God requires of you that everyone who looks upon a woman with us is the very kind that he created us as capable of lustful intent has already committed adultery with attaining. But after our first parents refused to her in his heart” (Matt. 5:27–28). Even what it attain that righteousness, a just God could not sim- means to be a loving person is now redefined not ply set aside the law that he gave to human beings, by what you do for your friends, but by how well since that law was actually nothing but the expres- you treat your enemies! (see Matt. 5:43–48). sion of his own moral character. He would himself “Yes,” some will say, “but God looks at the become a sinner if he simply tolerated our trans- heart.” But this hardly brings good news: “The gressions, as Scripture repeatedly affirms: “You … heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately are of purer eyes than to see evil and [you] cannot sick; who can understand it? ‘I the LORD search the look at wrong” (Hab. 1:13). “The boastful shall not heart and test the mind, to give every man accordstand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers” (Ps. ing to his ways, according to the fruit of his deed5:5). These are not frequent proof texts in evan- s’” (Jer. 17:9–10). It is not comforting to know that

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while we only look on outward appearances, God judges the heart. It is the heart that brings forth lies, hatred, malice, adultery, and all other sins (see Matt. 15:10–20).

Early in Romans, Paul tells us the truth about our situation—the truth that we are unwilling to tell ourselves: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Rom. 1:18). When we, as Jews or Gentiles, try to justify ourselves and rationalize our wicked lives, God’s law stops us in our tracks (see Rom. 3:19–20). Jesus is making the same point in his parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector: the law is and always was intended to be for sinners a measure of their sin, not a way of salvation (see Luke 18:10–14). God’s law offers no way out, no possibility of time off for good behavior. In his justice, God is incapable of flexibility or accommodation because he would be less than God if he were to “bend the rules.”

God’s law, consequently, measures the seriousness of our predicament. Standing before it, we discover that we who were just moments ago talking about how nice we all are, how well-intentioned and helpful we have been to our neighbors, and perhaps hearing how the good news offered in church is that we can have better families if we just follow the “owner’s manual,” and realize who we really are. As Isaiah exclaimed as he stood before the majestic throne, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isa. 6:5).

So How Does God Love Us? f we are sinners who deserve a holy God’s wrath, and if God’s simplicity means that he cannot deny what his holiness demands, then how can God love us?

Scripture answers back, only justly and mercifully.

Consequently, if God is going to justify the wicked (which he is not obligated to do), then it will have to be in a way that is consistent with his whole nature.

This is what God accomplishes through Christ’s cross work. God can be both just and merciful through the cross of Christ. In other words, through Christ’s work God can be both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).

Scripture teaches us that God’s motive for the atonement lies in his own pleasure and love (see Isa. 53:10 [KJV, NAS] and John 3:16). In other words, the atonement originates in God’s nature and not simply in some arbitrary will. Yet God’s pleasure is linked not just to one or another of his attributes—like his love or his kindness—abstract-

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ed from the rest of him. God’s pleasure arises not merely from his exercising his love, but also from his exercising his justice, from the fact that he is both “just and the justifier” of those who look to Christ on the cross. For in the cross, God is pleased to be both gracious and righteous simultaneously (see Rom. 3:24–25). Emphasizing only God’s justice can lend support to critics of substitutionary atonement that God’s requiring such a sacrifice was cruel and vindictive. Yet the fact that “God gave up His only begotten Son to bitter sufferings and to a shameful death cannot be explained on the principle of His love only,” as Louis Berkhof says. According to the “moral government” theory of the atonement that Socinians and Arminians have held, God could relax or entirely set aside his law in pardoning sinners. And even to this day the stiffest resistance to the biblical doctrine of the atonement comes from the charge that it is too judicial in its orientation, requiring the satisfaction of God’s justice. Liberal theology, represented by Friedrich Schleiermacher and Albrecht Ritschl, broke entirely from any juridical understanding of the atonement; God’s need to satisfy his justice dropped entirely out of sight. As Berkhof notes, with Schleiermacher and Ritschl “and with modern liberal theology in general atonement becomes merely at-one-ment or reconciliation effected by changing the moral condition of the sinner.” Some liberals, as Berkhof goes on to note, “speak of a moral necessity” for the atonement, but all of them “refuse to recognize any legal necessity.”

Today, these positions are retreaded by feminists and even some evangelicals. They accuse those who hold the biblical view of Christ’s substitutionary atonement with providing a basis for sanctioning violence. Church fathers like Anselm, they argue, with their judicial understanding of the atonement as a substitutionary sacrifice, present a distorted view of God. Luther, Calvin, and other Protestants then supposedly followed them. As Anabaptist Dennis J. Weaver recently wrote, Building on the stress Martin Luther and John Calvin placed on Christ’s death as penal suffering—the suffering by Christ of divine judgment on behalf of sinners—the divines of Protestant Orthodoxy in the following centuries developed the satisfaction theory within a strong legal and penal framework … What Christ’s death satisfied was the divine law.

With satisfaction aimed at the law, the role of God was conceived in the mode of the trial judge who exacted the penalty demanded by the law, or as the prosecuting attorney who

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powers share is their objectivity. That is, they focus on something that God has done for us. The moral influence and moral government theories that are now so prevalent in theology and preaching are, by contrast, subjective. They deny that the atonement has anything to do with reconciling God to sinners or propitiating his wrath and are exclusively conIronically, nearly every line in this definition of the cerned with what effect the atonement has on us. substitutionary atonement is easily supported by Although in Scripture the substitutionary motif numerous biblical texts taken at face value. is central, it is not everything. The church has To be sure, some presentations of the atone- rightly seen in Christ’s work transformative as well ment have reduced Christ’s saving work to its judi- as legal aspects. Paul brought these aspects togethcial aspect, neglecting other important aspects— er especially in Romans 5, where he writes that for instance, the cross as victory over the powers through Adam we inherited both guilt and corrupthat hold us captive, the cross as a moral influence, tion and through Christ both justification and new and even the cross as the measure of God’s love and life. This chapter forms the basis for his transition as proof of God’s moral government.

In from the more legal, justificatory aspect of the atonement in chapters 3 and 4 to the more organic, bapThe case against us in the cosmic courtroom has thus been settled in our favor, tismal language in chapters 6 and 7. To be united to Christ leaving no basis for Satan's accusations, and thus no final claim for demonic in the likeness of his death obtains our forgiveness, and powers over our lives. this entails union with him in the likeness of his resurrection, involving a new, obediColossians, at least the first two of these aspects of ent way of life (see Rom. 6). Christ’s substitution the atonement are held together: “God [has] made remains, however, the only biblical basis upon [us] alive together with [Christ], having forgiven us which the other things we can say about his atoneall our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt ment are true.

It is only because the offering of Christ is expiathat stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed tory—that is, actually atones for our sins—that the the rulers and authorities and put them to open cross is a symbol of love. According to the classic shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Col. formulations of the moral influence and moral 2:13–15). Here the atonement involves God’s tri- example theories, the cross simply expresses God’s umphing over the powers that have held humans love, and this can be sufficient to induce sinners to captive by his having nailed to the cross “the repentance. Such views, however, rest upon a record of debt that stood against us with its legal Pelagian view of human nature, involving both a demands.” The case against us in the cosmic court- low view of God’s righteousness revealed in the law room has thus been settled in our favor, leaving no and a high view of human moral capacity after the basis for Satan’s accusations, and thus no final claim fall. The result is a view of salvation where human for demonic powers over our lives. repentance rather than divine redemption becomes Sometimes critics of substitutionary atonement the basis for forgiveness and reconciliation. And reject Paul’s courtroom by attributing it wholly to the yet, once the expiatory character of the atonement influence of Roman jurisprudence. But this is wrong. is sufficiently appreciated, the cross can indeed be Paul’s courtroom is the courtroom where Adam was recognized as the most obvious demonstration of convicted and pardoned (see Gen. 3:17–21). It is the God’s love and as a model for true friendship in our courtroom of the altar’s sacrifices and of the Holy of relationships with others. Finally, if, as the soHolies where Isaiah, beholding God’s enthronement called moral government theory has it, Christ’s in a vision, was “undone” and where atonement was death simply reestablishes God’s justice as the made for his cleansing (see Isa. 6:1–7). It is also the world’s ruler, apart from rendering a payment for courtroom where Joshua the high priest was justified, sin on behalf of human beings, how could this be despite his filthy clothes and Satan’s prosecution of anything more than the mere assertion of justice by the case against him (see Zech. 3:1–10). an act of arbitrary will? Yet in the substitutionary What the atonement considered as the satisfac- work of Christ, God himself “plays by the rules.” tion of God’s justice and as his conquest over the God establishes justice throughout the earth by charged sinners with violating the law….

Common to this family of views in any of its versions is that the death of Jesus involved a divinely orchestrated plan through which Jesus’ death could satisfy divine justice or divine law in order to save sinful humankind.

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submitting himself to the justice that he himself is in his very being.

Only within the broader context of sacrificial analogies, then, can the cross be seen both to encompass and satisfy the whole being of God and the need of humankind. Justice at the expense of love reveals a deity whom the unjust can fear but never trust. Love at the expense of justice worships love as God instead of God as love. Within such sentimentalism, the cross can hardly be seen as a sign of anything but arbitrary cruelty. For if, once he has decided to redeem, God does not need to satisfy his justice through the work of his Son, then the cross loses its moral rationale. What kind of deity is revealed if the death of the beloved is simply an object lesson? What then does that death really teach?

The Good News he good news is not that God has provided an overwhelming picture of his love to induce us to repentance. It is not that thinking about the cross will help us do better in the future. It is that God has done for us what we could not do for ourselves: The righteousness that God requires has been given to us as a gift because Jesus Christ has lived a perfect life in our place, died for our sins, and then been raised for our justification (see Rom. 4:25). The good news is not that God offers us a clean slate and a fresh start— although he does. The good news is far greater than that! It is nothing less than the blessedness about which Paul speaks in Romans 4: “And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (v. 5).

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Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God…. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. (Rom. 5:1–2, 8–9)

fiction,” because Christ has perfectly kept the law for us and his righteousness is truly credited to us as if we had done it ourselves. But God only justifies the wicked. He justifies the wicked as wicked.

He does not leave them in their wickedness, but he does justify them while they are still wicked on no other basis than the life, death, and resurrection of his own Son. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?

Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? (Rom. 8:31–35). ■

Michael Horton (Ph.D., Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and the University of Coventry) is professor of apologetics and theology at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, California), and chairs the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

In this article, Michael Horton has quoted from Marsha Witten’s All is Forgiven: The Secular Message in American Protestantism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 15ff. The quotation from Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1938) is found on pp.

368f. The quotation from Dennis Weaver's Nonviolent Atonement (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2001) is found on pp. 60-65.

If you are a criminal, it is easy to trust a judge who acquits criminals. But God does not acquit criminals. He justifies them. He does not pardon them even though he still considers them guilty; he declares them righteous, so that, as far as justice is concerned, they have perfectly satisfied all requirements of the law. This is not (as some say) a “legal

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In Print March/April Book Recommendations Dying to Live: The Power of Forgiveness Harold Senkbeil In our age of religious consumerism, confused theology and shallow piety, many Christians are searching for something more. The vital, Christ-centered spiritual life cultivated by the Reformation is often overlooked. In this book, Pastor Harold Senkbeil recovers the rich heritage of Reformation spirituality.

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On Tape From the Alliance Archives

TSTUDY BIBLE HE

Forgive Us Our Debts What relationship exists between our forgiving others and God’s forgiveness of our own sin? Join Michael Horton, Kim Riddlebarger, and Rod Rosenbladt as they discuss the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer on the White Horse Inn. C-WHI-217, $5.00

Parables of Judgment Jesus’ parables of judgment paint a vivid picture of the nature and necessity of salvation. Join Dr. James Boice as he preaches through these hard words from Jesus and learn what it means to forgive and to be forgiven.

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Repentance and Forgiveness of Sins Sin is a serious problem and the believer is responsible to grapple seriously with sin through repentance. In this address from the 1989 Philadelphia Conference on Reformation Theology, Rebecca Pippert addresses the confusion that sometimes exists between our responsibility to repent of sin and God’s free promise of forgiveness.

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Lift High The Cross Dr. Paul Jones hosts this Alliance broadcast, A L L I A N C E now available on CD, which takes an indepth look at the suffering, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ through classical songs and hymns.

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FORGIVEN, FORGIVING

Why Should God I

f you were to ask evangelicals, “Why should God forgive your sins?,” you would probably receive several answers. Most would probably say, “God forgives me because he loves me.” But others might reply, “God forgives me because I repented of all known sins.” And still others might answer, “God forgives me because I prayed the sinner’s prayer.” These are nice pieties,

but they do not answer our question accurately.

Perhaps if you were to push the issue, these Christians might come up with better answers but, as it is, they probably don’t understand the “why” and “how” of the forgiveness of sins.

Should this concern us? Within the whole scope of Christianity, how important is it for us to understand the forgiveness of sins?

Martin Luther understood this issue better than most. The truth of the gospel was rediscovered and the Reformation occurred because Luther went through deep pangs in seeking peace of conscience and the assurance of God’s love and forgiveness. He was seeking a loving God; and he finally found one in the forgiveness of sins through Christ Jesus. Regarding the importance of this issue, Luther wrote: If the great, sublime article called the forgiveness of sins is correctly understood, it makes one a genuine Christian and gives one eternal life. This is the very reason why it must be taught … with unflagging diligence and without ceasing, so that people may learn to understand it plainly, clearly, and discriminately. For to do so is the one, supreme, and most difficult task of Christians. As long as we live here below, we shall have enough to do to learn this article.

No one need look for anything new, anything higher and better.

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If Luther is correct, then we must conclude that someone’s failure to comprehend the “how” and “why” of the forgiveness of sins raises questions as to whether or not he or she is really saved. That’s serious!

Forgiveness and Sacrifice in the Old Testament he primary focus of the Bible, Old and New Testaments alike, is upon the forgiveness of sins. In the Book of Leviticus there is an elaborate system of sacrifice whereby the sins of the people of Israel, sins of every variety except brazenly defiant ones (see Num. 15:30–31) would be forgiven. If we could ask the Old Testament Israelites, “Why should God forgive your sins?,” I am sure we would get a very clear and precise answer. If we could put ourselves in their place and experience what they experienced, then we would have no doubts about why God forgives our sins.

To see this, put yourself in this story:

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It is a Sabbath morning in the wilderness.

One Israelite family—father, mother, brother, and sister—is preparing to go to the Tabernacle. As they are preparing to leave, the father says to his little boy, “Go out into the sheepfold and get a lamb.”

The little boy knows very well what that means. When you go to the Tabernacle on a Sabbath morning with a lamb, you will be returning home without it, because that lamb is going to die.

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Forgive Your Sins?

So the little boy enters the sheepfold to pick out a lamb, perhaps with his sister in tow. Perhaps these lambs are their pets. For the little boy it may be a very sad and disturbing moment. With great regret he picks up a little lamb and takes it to his father.

On the way to the Tabernacle, the little boy asks his father, “Dad, why does this little innocent lamb have to die?”

“Well,” his father explains, “didn’t you disobey your mother this week when she told you to clean up your part of the tent?

Remember how many times you and your sister got into squabbles? Mom and I also didn’t love each other this week the way the Lord wants us to and do you remember when I hit my finger with the hammer? I took the Lord’s name in vain. These are sins against the Lord God, but they are only a few. If we would remember very carefully how we lived this last week and everything that we did and said, we would know that we have sinned greatly against God.” “I know that,” the little boy replies. “I know that I do some bad things, but why must this little lamb die?”

“Would you rather have the Lord God punish you and our entire family because of our sins? The Lord God is holy and sin offends him. Because the Lord loves us he has provided for our forgiveness by allowing us to put our sins upon this little lamb so that the lamb can die in our place. If you don’t want the lamb to die, then don’t do anything wrong. Stop sinning!”

“Dad!” the son exclaims, “I always do

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things wrong! I can’t help it!”

“So, my son,” the father replies compassionately, “that is why this little lamb must die.”

When the family arrives at the Tabernacle, they are met by a priest who takes the lamb from the father. The father lays his hands upon the lamb’s head, thus transferring the sins and guilt of his family to the lamb. Then the priest takes out a knife and slits the lamb’s throat, gathering its blood in a basin. The blood is then sprinkled on the altar and the lamb becomes a burnt offering.

On the way back home, the little boy asks his father, “Dad, can I be sure that the Lord God has forgiven my sins?”

“Did you see the lamb die?” the father asks. “If the lamb died, then your sins are forgiven.”

For the children of Israel, this sacrificial system was

the heart and core of their relationship with Yahweh. Without sacrifice, they could not stand before him. God was holy and righteous, and so every sin demanded a payment. The lid on the Ark of the Covenant was called “the atonement cover,” the place where God met human beings and forgave sins because the blood of the sacrificial animals was shed. Every sin demanded a specific sacrifice.

Can you imagine the effect of this system on the Israelite psyche? God had declared, “If you sin, then an animal must die!” Greater sins demanded greater sacrifices. Imagine how the killing of these animals must have influenced the children who knew that their misdeeds required the bloody sacrifice of a little lamb! The people of Israel must have had a very real sensitivity to sin and a definite understanding of what forgiveness required. If we asked them, “Why should God forgive your sins?,” the answer would be, “Because the lamb died!”

The Freedom

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recious few seem alarmed by the amount of pain and anger that has emerged over the last thirty years in the hearts of adult children of divorce. In the United States alone, one out of every four adults under the age of forty comes from a broken family.

No matter what was said by our parents about love and commitment in marriage, what many of them modeled was an unwillingness to forgive—not so much the sins of infidelity, violence, and drug use, but more common faults like neglect and lovelessness.

In The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce—The 25-Year Landmark Study, Judith Wallerstein argues that because adult children watched their parents refuse to reconcile, they fear a future mate will refuse to reconcile with them. As a result, many either never marry or live with a number of people before they do. She also reports that teens from broken homes engage in sexual activity, drugs, and alcohol at a higher rate than their peers from intact families; that divorced parents focus on themselves, their new careers, and new lovers rather than on their children; and that very young children of divorce feel lonely, scared, and uncertain about the future.

Yet the biggest problem may be that these children turn into adults who, like their parents, are unforgiving. National studies now warn that the unresolved anger that children carry with them out of divorce may underwrite an adult generation’s refusal to care for their parents as they age. If hell has no fury like a woman

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scorned, it may be that anger has no apathy like children of divorce.

I, too, am an adult child of divorce—well, almost. Right before my parents’ divorce was final, my depressed mother locked herself in the bathroom and shot herself in the head. I grew up with my dad and a stepmother who arguably neglected me in various ways. My three brothers and I disappeared into a cloud of church activities and school achievements, but during college I came home one semester because of a financial setback. I was lonely and afraid, bulimic and overwhelmed with a sense of personal failure; but I had my undiscovered rage to keep me company.

Thank God a dear friend wrote saying that unless I asked my stepmom and dad to forgive me for the lack of love I had shown them, I would never be free. I was incensed! I had expected her to commiserate and sympathize with my plight, but instead she was rebuking me.

After reading and rereading her letter my pride got the best of me and I decided it was “right” and “charitable” for me as a Christian to forgive them (even though this was not what my friend was urging me to do). I then tried to stand up to go talk to them, but I couldn’t. My own hate had nailed me to the ground.

I was like the servant in Matthew 18 who started choking those who owed him. The debts against him were real and probably deeply felt. The servant could rightly accuse his debtors, just

Can you imagine the uproar there would be in our supersensitive, “kinder,” and “gentler” culture if animal sacrifices were still required for the forgiveness of sins? The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals would be picketing the temple! When we put ourselves in the place of these Old Testament people, we must conclude that the Old Testament’s sacrificial system was horrendous.

Imagine the sounds and smells in the temple when all the lambs were being slaughtered for the Passover celebration! Yet, from living in that system, we would develop an understanding of the seriousness of sin. Sin requires sacrifice! If being forgiven by God required no more than saying the Lord’s Prayer three times or shouting “Hallelujah!” or getting “slain in the spirit,” then we could conclude that God did not take sin very seriously. But sin is a serious matter. The writer to the Hebrews declares, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb. 9:22).

The Lamb of God in the New Testament he New Testament understands the forgiveness of sins no differently than the Old Testament. Forgiveness is produced by blood sacrifice. The forgiveness of sins is not given freely. It must be earned. There is a price that must be paid for sin. Martin Luther wrote: “If God’s wrath is to be taken from me and I am to attain grace and forgiveness, this blessing must be earned from Him by someone. For God cannot be kind and gracious to sin, and cannot remove punishment and wrath, unless sin has been paid for and satisfaction has been rendered.”

Of course, the Old Testament sacrificial system merely foreshadowed the great sacrifice for sin offered once and for all to the Father through the death of his beloved Son, Jesus Christ. This was the Messiah’s work. The angel told Joseph that he would be called Jesus—that is, the Greek form of the Hebrew name “Joshua,” which means “the

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of Forgiveness as Satan, the accuser, is right when he accuses us of various sins.

Pathetically, though, the servant lacked the internal power to pardon. He was a prisoner of his own nature, a child of wrath, a son of disobedience, as Paul puts it in Ephesians 2. His natural inclination to judge and to love conditionally and self-protectively kept him from showing mercy. Until he seeks forgiveness for that, he will live in torment and eventual torture forever.

Slowly, on the floor in my room, I began to recall verses that I didn’t need before—verses about being an enemy of God when Christ reconciled me to him, about needing Christ to forgive me for my cruelties when I had no intention or ability to ask for forgiveness. I began to realize that it wasn’t my mom, dad, or stepmother who needed me to pardon them. I needed to know how much I had been pardoned.

I did ask for forgiveness that day. I also gave it, but that was the day I began to realize that the power to forgive is nothing natural. It is supernatural, as supernatural as understanding my own need for forgiveness, as supernatural as my own salvation.

In Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, Oskar Schindler tells Nazi Commandant Amon Goeth, while Goeth is in a drunken stupor, that true power is the ability to pardon. Goeth likes to shoot workers in the concentration camp from his balcony at random, killing them for walking, breathing, or carrying out orders in a manner that doesn’t please him. After sobering up, Goeth points his finger in front of a mirror and practices saying, “I pardon you

… , I pardon you ….” He later pardons a boy who makes a mistake and then waves him away; but in a matter of minutes, he is drawn back to his powerless nature and shoots the boy in the back.

Needless to say, in my ongoing pilgrimage to pardon, unforgiveness along with its children—rage, entitlement, blame, depression, cynicism, apathy, and terror—knock loudly on my door, particularly during holidays or at any significant rite of passage. But just when I am about to let them in, the Lord graciously gives me a glimpse of the insane judge who paces back and forth on the balcony of my soul—the “me” he is slowly transforming into the likeness of his image—even as he also gives me a glimpse of the One who is seated upon his mercy seat who alone has the power to pardon and the righteousness to judge, and I am undone. At least for a little while.

Shannon Geiger (M.Div., Westminster Theological Seminary), along with her husband, is church-planting for the Presbyterian Church in America in the Latino community of Dallas, Texas.

In this article, Shannon Geiger has cited Judith Wallerstein’s The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce—The 25-Year Landmark Study (New York: Hyperion Publishers, 2000), pp. 75-76, 138-139, 298-299, 333-334.

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LORD saves”—“for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). Isaiah prophesied the Messiah’s coming, describing his ministry in terms of the sacrificial system: Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and by his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before her shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. (Isa. 53:3–7)

silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death. He has done all this in order that I may belong to him, live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as he is risen from the dead and lives and rules eternally.

This is most certainly true.

Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he told his disciples, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46–47). The essence of Christianity is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the essence of the gospel is the forgiveness of sins. Being a Christian means that your sins are forgiven by God on account of Christ. Although it is that simple, the truth of the forgiveness of sins is profound.

Then the writer to the Hebrews declares: “For if Since it is God’s very purpose to bring the Good the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of News of the forgiveness of sins to all people, it is goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanc- not strange that Satan, the gospel’s enemy, uses tifies for the purification of the flesh, how much every means at his disposal to cause Christians to focus on other issues or to doubt the truth that God graThe essence of Christianity is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the essence of the ciously forgives their sins for Jesus’ sake. It is not strange gosepl is forgiveness of sins. Being a Christian means that your sins are forgiven that in a “kinder and gentler” culture the seeker-sensitive

by God on account of Christ. church avoids concentrating upon the bloody cross where the forgiveness of sins was more will the blood of Christ, who through the earned. It is not strange that human beings are nateternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to urally more eager to learn principles for improving God, purify our conscience from dead works to their lives than to submit to the truth that the death serve the living God” (Heb. 9:13–14). of God’s Son was required as a payment to forgive When Jesus began his earthly ministry, he came their sins. Such a truth does not produce selfto John the Baptist to be baptized. When John saw esteem. It is not strange that some churches infectJesus coming, he declared, “Behold, the Lamb of ed with “church growth” mania won’t display a God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John cross in their buildings. It is consequently also not 1:29). So how do we, as New Testament Christians, strange that many Christians today are unable to know that our sins are forgiven? The answer is quite answer correctly the question, “Why should God simple: the Lamb of God took away our sins and the forgive your sins?” This is the fault of preachers sins of the whole world by offering himself as a sac- who get into their pulpits each Sunday to preach rifice for sin by dying on the cross. their little principles-for-living sermons or to comIn explaining the second article of the Apostles’ mend conservative politics or to tell people what Creed, Martin Luther wrote: they should do to be really good Christians. They do not declare with John the Baptist, “Behold, the I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotLamb of God, who takes away the sin of the ten of the Father in eternity, and also a true world!” human being, born of the virgin Mary, is my Proclaiming the Cross in Our Time Lord. He has redeemed me, a lost and conome years ago I did a radio interview with a demned human being. He has purchased noted evangelical author who had written a and freed me from all sins, from death, and book about the cross of Christ. It was Good from the power of the devil, not with gold or

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Friday. My final question to him was, “If there are people listening to us today who are not certain of their forgiveness, what would you say to them?”

“Well,” he replied somewhat hesitantly, “I would want to know if they had truly repented of all their known sins.”

I was taken aback and highly disturbed by this foolish response. Since there were only a few minutes left in the program, I hastily thanked the man for being my guest and disconnected the phone line. I had a mess to clean up. In the remaining minutes I told my listeners, “Listen very carefully.

The forgiveness of sins is not about you and what you have or haven’t done. If you are not sure that your sins are forgiven, look to the cross of Jesus Christ. Did the Lamb of God die or didn’t he? If the Lamb died, your sins are forgiven.”

The forgiveness of sins through the shed blood of God’s Lamb is a finished reality. Our faith does not accomplish our forgiveness nor does faith add anything to it. Rather, our faith grasps and clings to the truth that God has forgiven us for Jesus’ sake.

Once I said to an evangelical Christian that my sins were forgiven because Jesus died. He quickly responded by saying, “Yes, but you must believe it.”

“What did I just say?” I replied. “My sins are forgiven because Jesus died on the cross. Is that or is that not a statement of faith? This is not about me.

It is about Jesus!”

Our sins are forgiven propter Christum—that is, on account of or because of Christ. Faith is the instrument that grasps the finished work of the cross. If someone preaches the convicting law of God so that hearers clearly apprehend that they have sinned against God and are thus brought to contrition, the gospel can be preached without any mention of faith (see, for example, Peter’s Pentecost sermon as it is recorded in Acts 2:14–41). The heart that is burdened by the reality of sin is prepared to hear the gospel, the Good News that sins are forgiven. As Luther put it, “Hunger is the best cook.”

Many years ago I spoke with a young woman who, having had an abortion as a teenager, was certain that she was going to hell because God would not and could not forgive her. As far as she was concerned, what she had done was so bad that it was beyond forgiveness. She did not understand the basis for the forgiveness of sins or why it is that God did forgive her. My response to her was very simple and adamant, “Are you saying that your sin is greater than the redeeming power of the blood of Christ, the very Son of God? If that is what you are saying, you either have a very high estimate of yourself and your ability to sin or a very low estimate of the power of God. To deny that your sins are forgiven is to say that God is a liar.”

She went home that day clinging to the forgiveness of sins.

The forgiveness of sins is not about you. You are not forgiven because you prayed the sinner’s prayer or because you went forward to get saved.

You are not forgiven because you have faith or because you have repented of all your known sins.

You are not forgiven because you have pleaded with God to forgive you or have been sincere in your contrition and sorrow over sin. Your sins are forgiven for just one reason—the Lamb has died!

In one of the parishes I served there was a young girl who attended an evangelical summer camp.

Before heading for camp, she wanted to speak with me. She was concerned because in the evening the campers would gather around the campfire and sing songs. One of the songs was titled, “Name the Day When You Were Saved.”

“Pastor,” she said, “After they sing that song they point their finger at someone and that person has to name the day when they were saved. If they point at me, I wouldn’t know what to say. On what day was I saved?”

“Well,” I responded, “If they point at you and want to know on which day you were saved, tell them Friday. If they want to know which Friday, tell them Good Friday, the day the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, shed his precious blood on the cross for your forgiveness and salvation!” ■ Donald G. Matzat (M.Div., Concordia Seminary) is an author, a former radio host (for Issues, Etc.), and currently serves as the pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Bridgeville, PA. Pastor Matzat’s first quotation from Luther can be found in Ewald M. Plass, What Luther Says (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), Vol. 1, pp. 514f., and the second quotation can be found in the same book, p. 516. His quotation of Luther’s explanation of the second article of the Apostles’ Creed can be found in The Book of Concord, edited by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), p. 355.

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FORGIVEN, FORGIVING

Whom Does God Forgive? orgiveness.” “Redemption.” “Freedom from the soul-destroying, peacerobbing guilt of sin.” “Peace with God.” Only someone who has been truly convinced of sin can even start to understand the excitement of these words. But who receives divine forgiveness? Human religions put a price on forgiveness, a very high price. Holding it out like the proverbial carrot in front of the suffering sinner, they demand works and deeds before forgiveness is offered—and then it is usually only a partial, uncertain forgiveness, liable to be lost at the first misstep.

Our Lord illustrated who actually receives forgiveness as well as those who think they do and yet do not. For his example of a “religious” person he chose a Pharisee—a strict observer of the law, a “man of the Scriptures”—and thus someone many New Testament Israelites assumed to be right with God. To represent someone vile he chose the dreaded and hated Roman tax collector. With this contrast in mind, hear the Lord’s words:

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Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.” But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” I tell you, this man went

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down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. (Luke 18:10–14) They tell you in seminary not to use illustrations that will cause your audience undue discomfort, but our Lord violated that rule. He turned the “norm” on its head, offending the “godly” and presenting the “ungodly” as finding God’s favor. Everything in this story strikes at human religion. The Pharisee was in the right group; he did the right things; he lived an outwardly moral life. He engaged in religious ceremonies unashamedly. He even tithed!

Anyone putting a Pharisee beside a tax collector could say, “See, the Pharisee is godly, the tax collector is not.” And, in a sense, that would be right.

The tax collector was a traitor to his people, a minion of an occupying government, and thus the very definition of an outcast. He had nothing to show in the way of religious accomplishments, no “good works.” And he knew it! That was what separated him from the Pharisee in the final analysis. The tax collector came to God without a single positive thing to say about himself. He offered no excuses, claimed no self-righteousness. He did not say, “I’m not as bad as some tax collectors I know!” He confessed the truth: he was the sinner. He did not even challenge the Pharisee’s reference to him, for he knew it was true. He came to God as an ungodly man, begging for mercy. And he received it.

It is those who beat their chests and say with true conviction, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!,” who find God gracious. But Pharisees who think highly of themselves, who think that their gifts and works and activities are so valuable in God’s sight, find no mercy. They leave the temple precincts utterly oblivious to their spiritual plights and still under God’s wrath.

From the human viewpoint, this is the great irony: God forgives the ungodly, not the “godly”! Of course, this is a matter of perspective—from God’s holy viewpoint, there are no “godly” people at all.

All human beings have sinned, all of us fall far short of God’s glory (see Rom. 3:23). But only those who see and acknowledge their state before God find forgiveness. Those who, like the Pharisee, continue to point to their “good works” only prove that they have no sense of the depth of their sin.

Closed Mouths he Apostle Paul addressed this same issue when he presented the gospel to the church at Rome. Before he proclaimed the gospel’s words of hope, he drove home the “bad news” of man’s sin and his fallen state (see Rom.

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1:18–3:20). Many today rush to proclaim forgiveness and eternal life, but Paul soberly lays out our need in the light of God’s righteous wrath. He stresses that the condemnation of sin extends to all of Adam’s posterity, Jew and Gentile alike, and then brings his argument to a head by stringing together a series of quotations from the Old Testament in Romans 3:10–18. He finally concludes: Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be closed, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Rom. 3:19–20) This passage is often overlooked, sandwiched as it is between verses 10–18, with their bleak commentary on humanity’s condition, and the fantastically hopeful summary of the gospel of grace that begins at 3:21. But we must not overlook it, for here Paul describes the demeanor of those who are ready to hear about the forgiveness of sins, the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Paul’s word-picture is very evocative. Why has he emphasized the universal guilt of sin? “So that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.” Both phrases describe the proper posture of a guilty party as he stands before the judge. We have all seen the opposite posture on television: sometimes people continue, even after a guilty verdict is delivered, to protest their innocence, to question the court’s fairness, and to assert their basic goodness and selfrighteousness. The mouths of these people are still open, filled with complaints and bitterness and self-promotion. “I’m not as bad as that person! I’ve done this good deed and that good deed! I’m being treated unfairly! This isn’t just!”

Paul’s words portray the exact opposite. Instead of an open mouth, filled with claims of self-worth and righteousness, the mouth is closed and the head is down. The defendant’s very posture acknowledges the verdict’s correctness. “Yes, I am guilty. I await my punishment.” His eye does not dare to meet the judge’s face. There is no thought of challenging his right to pronounce judgment, no rejection of the court’s authority to impose sentence. The defendant admits his guilt and confesses his sin. The battle is over. He surrenders to the authority of him who has pronounced him guilty.

We must see this truth. Self-righteous people have no claim upon God’s forgiveness. God does not justify those who claim to be righteous. Just as the Pharisee found God’s ear closed to his recita-

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tion of his self-righteous deeds, so those who stand before the Judge in self-righteousness will face nothing but wrath. But when the mouth is closed, as it was with the tax collector, and no excuses are offered—when instead there is the heart-felt acknowledgement, “I am the sinner. I am guilty before God,” and accountability is admitted—then the message of grace, redemption, and forgiveness can find a place. Mercy can meet the guilty sinner, but not the self-righteous.

This is why the Scriptures refer to those whom God justifies as “the ungodly.” Obviously it is not God’s intention that they remain ungodly or that as believers they live ungodly lives. But the key issue

some notion of grace, but they cannot allow salvation to be all of grace, for that precludes all human boasting. As long as the final outcome rests in our hands, God’s grace can be praised to the heights, but to what end? It still can’t take effect without human action, human accomplishment.

Thus we see the importance of the Reformed faith with its motto, soli deo gloria. To God alone be the glory in everything, but especially in the gospel. If God’s glory in the proclamation and acceptance of the gospel must be shared with human beings, then we must have some final and decisive role to play in our own salvation. And when we are given that power over God’s grace and purpose, the result is inevitable: we construct sysAnd when we are given that power over God's grace and purpose, the result is tems of religion where we are not truly undone, where we inevitable: we construct systems of religion where we are not truly undone, are not truly powerless, and where we are not utterly where we are not truly powerless, and where we are not utterly dependent on God. dependent on God. Through this door self-righteousness enters in all its is the attitude of the heart of those who find mercy hideous forms. Man-made religions create strucat God’s hand. As Paul says: “And to the one who tures to “control” God’s grace while multiplying the does not work, but trusts him who justifies the ways in which we can obtain righteousness with ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness God through prescribed acts and activities.

(Rom. 4:5). “For while we were still helpless, at the Inevitably we are taught that we possess, through right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). our own efforts, some degree of righteousness in Justification is a divine act. God justifies the God’s sight, some standing with him, just like the ungodly, not those who have cleaned themselves Pharisee. Mercy and grace, then, are paid to those up or who can claim a certain level of self-wrought who earn it.

The depth of our sinful desire to control God’s “righteousness.” The ungodly are described as “helpless,” as those who do not work but rather grace and cultivate self-righteousness is glaringly believe. Romans 4:1–8 contrasts the attitude of the apparent in Joseph Smith, the founder of one who is justified with those who do work and Mormonism. To study Smith is to be struck by the thus receive a wage. Those who think their works fact that he had no meaningful concept of grace. can make God a debtor who must then “reward” Indeed, his Book of Mormon contains amazing them (even if they insist that their work depends statements like this: “Yea, come unto Christ, and be on God’s grace) have yet to understand the true perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodnature of saving faith. Saving faith comes to God liness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodwith empty hands. No claim to even the slightest liness, and love God with all your might, mind, and amount of self-righteousness is allowed. strength, then is his grace sufficient for you” (Moroni 10:32).

Self-Righteousness is Central to Man-Made Biblically, it is by grace that we are saved in spite Religions of all we’ve done, and if Christ’s grace only becomes aul describes Christ’s gospel as something sufficient for us after we have rid ourselves of all that offends and trips up those who are per- ungodliness and have come to love God perfectly, ishing (1 Cor. 1:18, 23; 2 Cor. 2:15–16). then what, exactly, does God’s grace do? Nowhere One of the main reasons it does this is that it robs is Smith’s “God only forgives those who clean unbelievers of all grounds for boasting. Grace by themselves up first” more apparent than in his own definition must be free, unmixed with human mer- “version” of the Bible (“prophets” are allowed to itoriousness. As Paul says, “But if it is by grace, it is issue such versions in Mormonism), for when he no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace encountered the free, gratuitous justification of the would no longer be grace” (Rom. 11:6). ungodly in Paul’s gospel, he simply could not underHumanity’s religions almost always make room for stand it. So he changed it. Here is his version of

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Romans 4:5: “But to him that seeketh not to be justified by the law of works, but believeth on him who justifieth not the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

I have emphasized the altered elements (needless to say, there is no basis in any ancient manuscript for such a rendering). Smith’s god does not justify the ungodly! He removed the very heart of the good news removed because he never understood the depths of our guilt and hence the glory of the grace of God in Christ. How tragic that the religion Smith founded now has nearly twelve million followers!

A Word to the Introspective hom does God forgive? The answer by now should be quite clear. God does not forgive the self-righteous. His mercy and grace cannot be purchased or earned.

Indeed, we affront the sovereign King when we offer him the pittance of our sin-tainted works in the place of the full and free redemption that he has provided to us through the work of his Son at Calvary. Spurgeon said it well:

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As for myself, I know that I was born in sin, and I know that in me—that is, in my flesh— there dwelleth no good thing. I know also that I once tried to purge and cleanse my own heart, and labored at it, I believe, as honestly as any person that lived. I went about to seek a righteousness of my own, and I endeavored to get quit of sin; but my failure was complete. I do not advise any other person try self-healing. It brought me to despair; it drove me almost to the loss of reason. Therefore speak I of my own experience; and, taught by my own failure, I cannot urge any man to seek cleansing by his own doings or efforts, but I urge him to accept that cleansing which God has promised in the covenant of grace.

What about you? As an elder, I have met some with sensitive hearts who can find themselves wondering, “Have I truly been forgiven?” To such I say with Spurgeon: Look away from yourself! Look to Christ! You cannot bring anything in the empty hands of faith. You cannot bargain with God; you cannot earn his favor; you cannot purchase forgiveness by your works or your labors. You cannot clean yourself up and then hope to find redemption. Your every effort outside Christ is but a stumbling block to peace with God. Do you want peace with the heavenly judge? This is the only way: “Therefore, since we have been justified by

faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). We are justified and made right with God by faith, and not by anything we can do. The justified person alone has peace with God—true peace, shalom, wellness of relationship, which includes the pardon and remission of sin.

So whom does God forgive? Forgiveness, full and free, is the precious possession of those who stand with the tax collector and cry out, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” Those who stand before God making no pleas to self-righteousness but who instead trust in the God who justifies the ungodly are those who find God not to be an unyielding judge dispensing wrath but an ever-merciful Savior, full of long-suffering and compassion and ready to forgive.

This precious truth not only undergirds salvation by grace alone but also helps us to understand that we are not only saved by grace but kept by grace as well.

We do not find God’s forgiveness initially by faith alone and then toil away at a works-righteousness for the rest of our lives. No, the forgiveness found in Christ is always full and free, for those who seek him are those who are graciously joined to Christ as his people by the Father’s eternal decree, and it is the Son’s joyous duty, in obedience to his Father’s will, so save them completely, to the uttermost (see John 6:37–39; Heb. 7:24–25). In Christ, we stand complete, possessed of his righteousness, with no need to add to his work in our place! Whom does God forgive? All who come to him and plead nothing but Christ and him crucified! Hallelujah, what a Savior! ■

James R. White (Th.D., Columbia Evangelical Seminary) is the president of Alpha and Omega Ministries, an apologetics and outreach organization based in Phoenix, Arizona (www.aomin.org).

Dr. White’s quotation from Charles Haddon Spurgeon may be found in Spurgeon’s Gold, Edmond Hez Swem, ed. (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1996), p. 96.

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FORGIVEN, FORGIVING

“After Such Knowledge What Forgiveness?”

T. S. Eliot’s Search for Salvation Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice.

April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers.

homas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1888, the last of seven children in a transplanted Bostonian/English immigrant family.

Among his esteemed ancestors were a missionary preacher, a Harvard University president, and the founder/chancellor of Washington University. His father was a prosperous brick-maker. His mother, a poet and deeply religious, raised him to practice self-denial to the point that he felt guilty for enjoying any pleasure, harmless as it may be, for the rest of his life. Suffering from a congenital hernia, young Eliot turned his attention to his books

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instead of social sports and games. From the beginning, Eliot was painfully aware of his own sinfulness and the need for atonement. Yet it would take him years of battling the angst, skepticism, and disillusionment prevalent in the early twentieth century to find the peace that had eluded him.

O let thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint. If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss: O Lord, who may abide it?

There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And yet time for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea.

Eliot attended Harvard, completing his bachelor’s degree in 1909 and his master’s in English Literature in 1910. In 1911, he visited London, Munich, and Italy, finishing The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Portrait of a Lady. After a year at the Sorbonne University in Paris, where he befriended Jean Verdenal, Eliot returned to Harvard as a philosophy graduate student, completing his Ph.D. coursework and beginning his doctoral dissertation on F. H. Bradley. In 1914, he attended Marburg University in Germany. And then the Great War began. The world as Eliot knew it was about to be shattered.

Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Forced out of Germany, Eliot moved to England and continued his doctoral studies at Merton College, Oxford University. In 1915, quiet Tom Eliot married flamboyant Vivienne Haigh-Wood, who refused to travel across the war zone of the

Atlantic to meet his family, creating a gulf with them as wide as the ocean itself. She was, however, his “muse” and he published several key poems during this time. After settling permanently in England, news reached him that his friend Jean Verdenal had been killed at the Dardanelles in France. By the end of the war, ten million would be dead and millions more traumatically affected. The philosophy, religion, and art of the nineteenth century—with its triumphalism and near glorification of European high culture—were trampled in the mud and blood of frontline trenches. All that remained was a “heap of broken images” for those who survived the war, who were left to pick up the shattered fragments of what was thought as unbreakable.

After such knowledge, what forgiveness?

In the midst of life, we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour?

Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many […].

There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson!

“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!

“That corpse you planted last year in your garden, “Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?”

Eliot submitted his doctoral thesis to Harvard, which was accepted, but his voyage back to Boston was cancelled at the last minute. Taking this as “a sign,” he never returned to give his oral defense.

Leaving his doctorate uncompleted (although he would be awarded many honorary doctorates), he turned to lecturing. Short on money, newlyweds Tom and Vivienne moved in with philosopher Bertrand Russell. While living under the same roof, Russell had an affair with Vivienne who, always nervous and suffering from ill health, became increasingly unstable and hysterical. Russell wrote, “She is a person who lives on a knife’s edge, and will end as a criminal or a saint; I don’t know which yet.”

Eliot, however, continued to be devoted to his wife.

For there is mercy with thee: therefore shalt thou be feared. I look for the Lord; my soul doth wait for him: and in his word is my trust.

“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.

Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.

What are you thinking of? What thinking?

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What?

I never know what you are thinking. Think.”

I think we are in rats’ alley Where the dead men lost their bones.

In 1917, due to financial necessity, Eliot began work in London at Lloyd’s Bank and became assistant editor of The Egoist, while continuing to lecture.

Virginia and Leonard Woolf published his Poems 1919 and became friends with the Eliots. In 1918, Eliot tried unsuccessfully (due to his hernia) to enlist in the U. S. armed forces. To add to his sorrows, his father maintained his disapproval of Tom’s literary career, his move to England, and even his marriage to Vivienne; they remained estranged up to the elder Eliot's death in 1919. What little part of the estate the will awarded to Tom was put into a trust that reverted back to the estate after Tom’s death. In essence, his father left him nothing. The war ended, but a sickness of soul pervaded the hearts and minds of all who survived. In 1920 through 1921, Eliot published more poems, began working on The Waste Land, and launched a new literary review, The Criterion—all while continuing to work at the bank. Vivienne grew worse. In the midst of the physical war without and the war of disillusionment and skepticism within, searching

This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper

but not yet able to recognize the Risen Christ on his own road to Emmaus, Tom Eliot was on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown.

My soul fleeth unto the Lord: before the morning watch, I say, before the morning watch.

Here is no water but only rock Rock and no water and the sandy road The road winding above among the mountains Which are mountains of rock without water If there were only water amongst the rock Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand If there were only water amongst the rock […]

Who is the third who walks always beside you?

When I count, there are only you and I together But when I look ahead up the white road There is always another one walking beside you Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded I do not know whether a man or a woman But who is that on the other side of you?

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Per doctor’s orders, Eliot retreated to the seaside town of Margate—though, against doctor’s orders, Vivienne accompanied him. Not finding the rest he needed, Tom left Vivienne at a sanatorium in Paris and traveled on to Lausanne, Switzerland.

With the help of fellow poet Ezra Pound, Eliot managed to finish The Waste Land, and with this poem became a predominant voice of the postwar “lost” generation.

O Israel, trust in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy.

“On Margate Sands.

I can connect Nothing with nothing.

The broken fingernails of dirty hands.

My people humble people who expect Nothing.” la la To Carthage then I came Burning burning burning burning O Lord Thou pluckest me out O Lord Thou pluckest burning In 1925, Eliot joined the London publishing firm of Faber and Gwyer (later Faber and Faber), publishing The Hollow Men—inspired by Joseph Conrad’s psychological novel of depraved humanity, Heart of Darkness.

Eliot accepted the doctrine of Original Sin (the truth of which had become painfully clear to him), but he still stumbled at the conclusion of the prayer that would cost him, “not less than everything.”

Lord, have mercy. Kyrie elesion. Christ have mercy. Christe eleison.

Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper Lord, have mercy. Kyrie elesion. Christ have mercy. Christe eleison.

After searching and struggling all his life, Eliot finally surrendered to the “peace which passeth all understanding.” In 1927 (at the age of 39), he became a Christian and was baptized at the parish church in Finstock, a village near Oxford. Soon afterward, he became a British citizen and Journey of the Magi was published. Virginia Woolf would later write to her sister: “I have had a most shameful and distressing interview with poor dear Tom Eliot, who may be called dead to us all from this day forward […]. [He] believes in God and immortality, and goes to church.”

And with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his sins.

This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and Death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

Ash Wednesday, the public proclamation of his Christianity, was published in 1930, followed two years later with the first edition of Selected Essays.

He returned to the United States to lecture and, unable to bear the relationship any longer, separated from Vivienne. She died in 1947 in a mental asylum; he remarried ten years later.

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name.

And pray to God to have mercy upon us And I pray that I may forget These matters that with myself I too much discuss Too much explain Because I do not hope to turn again Let these words answer For what is done, not to be done again May the judgement not be too heavy upon us […]

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death

Pray for us now and at the hour of our death […].

Teach us to sit still Even among these rocks, Our peace in His will […]

Suffer me not to be separated And let my cry come unto Thee.

Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice.

After a lifetime of poetry, critical essays, and plays, T. S. Eliot received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1948. Between 1949 and 1959, he finished his career with Notes Towards a Definition of Culture, and three more plays. He died in 1965 at the age of seventy-seven and was memorialized in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey. The one who had survived “the waste land” of his own pain and questioning among the vast suffering of humanity, searching for that living water out of the rock, found forgiveness “after such knowledge” and died at peace with the God who had “plucked him out,” with the hope of “blooming” into life everlasting.

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

We thank Thee who hast moved us to building, to finding, to forming at the ends of our fingers and beams of our eyes.

And when we have built an altar to the Invisible Light, we may set thereon the little lights for which our bodily vision is made.

And we thank Thee that darkness reminds us of light.

Light invisible, we give Thee thanks for Thy great glory!

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. ■

Patricia Anders (B.A., University of Southern California) is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing and a Master of Arts in English literature at Chapman University.

She has also studied at Wheaton Graduate School, the University of Chicago, Yale University, and Oxford University. She is currently employed at Biola University.

In this article, Patricia Anders has quoted from T. S. Eliot: The Wasteland and Other Poems (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1962), the Book of Common Prayer (1662 and 1789 editions), and Psalm 130 (KJV).

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FORGIVEN, FORGIVING

Remembering the Resurrection n history, only twenty or so people in succession separate us from the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ Resurrection. Wendell Berry, in his novel Jayber Crow, has Jayber, an aging village barber, reminisce:

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History grows shorter. I remember old men who remembered the Civil War. I have in my mind word-ofmouth memories more than a hundred years old. It is only twenty hundred years since the birth of Christ. Fifteen or twenty memories such as mine would reach all the way back to the halo-light in the manger at Bethlehem. So few rememberers could sit down together in a small room.

Our modern schools do much to undermine the closeness of history. Our history textbooks encourage us to think of ourselves as separated from the past. We are taught to assume the past to be a foreign and exotic place.

A vast distance is supposed to exist between us and the eyewitnesses to the Resurrection. Trusting the reported events in the New Testament is considered a “leap” of faith, something risky, possibly unreasonable. But Jayber Crow is right. A small room of people is all that is needed to link us personally to the eyewitnesses.

No leap is necessary.

The New Testament writers knew well that spreading the story of Jesus’ Resurrection throughout the world and into the future would depend on trusting eyewitness accounts and subsequent

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chains of rememberers. Human senses or self-evident intuition cannot communicate unique historical events. To keep alive a historical fact, Christians turned to standards established in Greek and Roman schools for the proper handling of oral and written testimony. Luke, in the classical tradition, is careful at the beginning of both his Gospel and Acts to make it clear to his readers that though he was not an eyewitness, he had interviewed eyewitnesses and investigated their stories. Paul, declaring the centrality of the historical event of the Resurrection, rehearsed for his readers the critical foundation of eyewitnesses: Peter, the twelve, the “more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living,” and last of all “he appeared to me also” (1 Cor. 15: 3–8).

Eyewitnesses were the first rememberers. The Gospel and letter writers were either eyewitnesses or early hearers of eyewitness reports who wisely created a strong bond between oral and written testimony that could pass across deserts and seas and on into the future. Confident knowledge of the event of the Resurrection could pass through time and space by human links of people trusting each other’s memories with the additional support of the New Testament as a memory aid. A testimonial succession of rememberers could reach through the centuries to us. To reach us, a minimum of twenty or so trustworthy and nongullible people are all that is needed.

One of Christianity’s modern intellectual problems is that academic society has done much to downgrade the authority of eyewitnesses and responsible hearsay witnesses, both in oral and written form. Modern education enjoys teaching distrust. Richard Marius in A Short Guide to Writing About History writes that “Skepticism is one of the historian’s finest qualities. Historians don’t trust their sources…. They question everything. . . . The writing of history is a brave business because good historians are willing to question all the evidence and all the assumptions.” Marius recommends to the student, “Come to history as a doubter.”

Nowhere in his book or in any other history methods textbook is the student taught the reality that historians have to trust more than doubt and that a methods course should teach more about the responsibilities and techniques of reasonable trust than heroic skepticism.

This academic romance with doubting hinders our ability to listen well and trust responsibly— especially when dealing with an extraordinary alleged event such as the Resurrection. An influential academic source for downgrading the authority of historical testimony is John Locke, who took upon himself what he thought was a sober duty to

downplay what he believed was the overly optimistic trust in witnesses and hearsay evidence presented in the most popular logic textbook of the era: The Port-Royal Logic (1662). The Port-Royal Logic was extraordinarily popular for two hundred years and offered several arguments supporting the reasonableness of trusting reports of the Resurrection of Jesus and later miracles in church history. Locke thought The Port-Royal Logic to be too naïve. He worried that it encouraged gullibility. He did not want to undermine people’s faith in the historical Jesus; however, he wanted to emphasize the weaknesses of trusting eyewitness testimony passed down through history.

This story gets complicated by the way both The Port-Royal Logic and John Locke looked to mathematics to help their arguments. The PortRoyal Logic was famous for introducing mathematical probabilities into decision making—especially to support the reasonableness of Christianity.

(What we call Pascal’s Wager was first published in this famous logic textbook. Pascal’s Wager encourages a decision for Christ by equating eternal salvation with mathematical infinity, then introducing infinity into a probability equation, unavoidably causing the formula to indicate that a decision for Christianity is anyone’s best bet.) In order to encourage trust in historical facts, The Port-Royal Logic used the example of the way a deed of land comes down through time. A copy of a deed is signed by two notaries who attest that the copy maintains the information of an original. Since it is highly improbable that the notaries would be lying or bad at their job (the improbability, says the book, would be something like 999 to 1), it is mathematically reasonable to assume that the deeds contain correct facts (IV.15). The principal facts in documents and copies of documents passed through time and attested by conscientious people along the way should be trusted—the mathematical improbability of error or deceit should give us confidence.

John Locke, however, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) chose to respond by presenting an alternative mathematics. He presented a sobering formula for diminishing credibility of historical reports. It is good to read Locke’s exact words on this: “any testimony, the farther off it is from the original truth, the less force and proof it has.” An eyewitness is credible, “but if another equally credible, do witness it from his report, the testimony is weaker; and a third that attests the hear-say of an hearsay, is yet less considerable. To that in traditional truths, each remove weakens the force of the proof: And the more hands the tradition has successively passed through, the less strength and evi-

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dence does it receive from them” (IV.xvi.10).

Against the Port-Royal authors, Locke, using mathematical analogies, asserted that information, at every stage of being passed on, becomes proportionally less credible. Locke extended this formula to both oral and written testimony. As for deeds and copies of deeds, “the farther still it is from the original, the less valid it is, and has always less force” (IV.xvi.11).

John Locke’s sobering attempts to undermine the confidence taught in The Port-Royal Logic. We have become accustomed to teaching the image of a “leap” of faith, of jumping a chasm, rather than the more prosaic image of simply conscientiously passing on what has been passed to us. We have too easily fallen into John Locke’s seemingly mathematical reasonableness that says that credibility diminishes proportionally through time.

The nice thing about Jayber Crow’s historical As Christians founded upon the historical fact of the Resurrection of Jesus, insight in Wendell Berry’s novel is that it bridges the we need only twenty or so conscientious people linked through time to give us gap between both The PortRoyal Logic and John Locke’s the confidence of listening to the eyewitnesses.

Essay. Even if you agree with Locke and think historical The Port-Royal Logic had emphasized the credi- credibility diminishes in proportion to the number bility of historical reports coming to us down of people it passes through, Jayber Crow points out through history through a chain of people. John that the story of Jesus only has to pass through Locke, on the other hand, emphasized the weak- twenty or so people to get to you and me. ness of historical reports and went so far as to cre- Credibility can’t have diminished that much even ate the rudiments of a mathematical formula for by this time. On the other hand, if you think of steadily diminishing credibility. Ten years after twenty or so people who have attested like a notary Locke published his Essay, a theologian named to the basic facts of the written gospel story, we can John Craig tried to develop a more exact Lockean claim, at minimum, the confidence of a real estate formula for the diminishing credibility of New deed coming down to us through time.

A few years ago my grandmother gave me a Testament history. In his Mathematical Principles of Christian Theology (1699), Craig proposed an exact Griswold #8 frying pan when she was packing to proportion of diminishing credibility and conclud- move into a place where she would not have to ed that the New Testament story of the cook. She told me that my grandfather gave that Resurrection would have zero credibility in the frying pan to her on their first wedding anniversary. She was born in 1911 and the pan would have year 3150.

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- been given in 1931. I am forty-five years old now, turies there was much academic debate about and my kids are not yet in high school. If I pass mathematical analogies for the credibility of his- that frying pan and story on to a future grandchild, torical testimony; however, in the long run Locke’s that pan and true story could easily still be passed position won out in American schools and culture. on almost two centuries after the fact having gone It became standard in our schools to emphasize the through only two people: me and my grandchild. weakness of testimony—especially the diminishing A good and true story can easily be carried over credibility of historical reports passed down hundreds of years by just a few people who want to through time. Although Locke wrote about this in tell a true story. To help my memory, my grandterms of mathematicians and probability, his ideas mother also wrote down the story. Even if my have mostly come to be taught as common sense. memory of the story gets fuzzy, I can attest to her Although the American practice of economic and written testimony as what she had initially told me. contract law teaches the confidence in deeds and As Christians founded upon the historical fact of oaths attested by notaries through time, it has the Resurrection of Jesus, we need only twenty or become common to teach distrust and diminishing so conscientious people linked through time to credibility for history. “Come to history as a give us the confidence of listening to the eyewitdoubter,” says the teacher. In general, our forward- nesses. And to give us greater confidence, we have looking culture has enjoyed diminishing the hold the written attestations that have been passed along to keep the testimony on track. that the past has on us.

Jayber Crow is not offering a Christian apoloFor Christians, however, it behooves us to remind ourselves that the past presented in the getic; rather, he is simply meditating on how history Gospels is not so long ago and not too far away. [ C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 4 7 ] We Christians have erringly been caught up in

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We Confess…

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his sign is therefore attached to this petition [“And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”], that, when we pray, we remember the promise and reflect thus: Dear Father, for this reason I come and pray Thee to forgive me, not that I can make satisfaction, or can merit anything by my works, but because Thou hast promised and attached the seal thereto that I should be as sure as though I had absolution pronounced by Thyself. For as much as Baptism and the Lord’s Supper appointed as external signs, effect, so much also this sign can effect to confirm our consciences and cause them to rejoice. And it is especially given for this purpose, that we might use and practise it every hour, as a thing that we have with us at all times.

— The Fifth Petition, Martin Luther’s Large Catechism, 1530

Public Confession of Sins Make confession to God the Lord, and let everyone acknowledge with me his sin and iniquity: Almighty, eternal God and Father, we confess and acknowledge unto You that we were conceived in unrighteousness and are full of sin and transgression in all our life. We do not fully believe Your Word nor follow Your holy commandments. Remember Your goodness, we beseech You, and for Your Name’s sake be gracious unto us, and forgive us our iniquity which, alas, is great. Amen.

Public Absolution of Sins This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). Let everyone, with St. Paul, truly acknowledge this in his heart and believe in Christ. Thus, in His name, I proclaim unto you the forgiveness of all your sins, and declare you to be loosed of them on earth, that you be loosed of them also in heaven, in eternity. Amen.

— Strassburg Liturgy, 1539

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hat is the fifth petition? “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” That is, for the sake of Christ’s blood, do not impute to us, miserable sinners, our many transgressions, nor the evil which still clings to us, as we also find this evidence of Your grace in us, that we are fully determined wholeheartedly to forgive our neighbor.

— Lord’s Day 51, Heidelberg Catechism, 1563

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BOOKS | What Does It Mean To Be Saved? Broadening Evangelical Horizons

Sight Seeing

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What Does It Mean To Be Saved?

Broadening Evangelical Horizons

by John G. Stackhouse, Jr. Baker Academic, 2002 203 pages (paperback), $21.99

hat Does It Mean to Be Saved? consists of a scholarly collection of seven essays

his admired expertise in the fields of systematics and and two responses occasioned by a 2001 Regent College conference that historical theology. Blocher effectively argues for a asked select academics to “open up new vistas” for North American conscious evangelical embrace of the neglected evangelicals who “need their “victory of the Lamb” motif in theological discourse. [soteriological] horizons expanded” (p. 9). He also encourages the integration of that motif The book’s stated goals are to serve as a with the widely recognized doctrines of vicarious catalyst for constructive conversations on punishment (propitiation) and atoning sacrifice neglected dimensions of human living (satisfaction) for a more holistic and robust where the fingers of Christ’s redemption theology of the cross. And D. Bruce Hindmarsh, reach and, further, facilitate evangelical well-known for his contributions in the field of discussions about “what the Bible teaches eighteenth-century evangelical history, posits a about salvation in all its glorious stimulating reflection on the evangelical concerns complexity and scope” (p. 10)—an of the eighteenth century, which were “much ambitious undertaking to be sure. broader than merely getting souls saved and on Contributors to this endeavor include their way to heaven” (p. 46). Hindmarsh uses John Vincent Bacote, Henri A. G. Blocher, D. Wesley as an example of evangelical social and Bruce Hindmarsh, Amy L. Sherman, Rikk economic activism rooted in redemptive principles.

E. Watts, John Webster, Loren Wilkinson, Yet neither these three essays—nor any of the Jonathan R. Wilson, and newcomer Cherith Fee others—say anything that is not presently being Nordling. The essays that emerge from this said elsewhere within Evangelicalism, especially in distinguished group clearly reflect their academic the context of confessional, Reformational specializations, which both adds to and detracts traditions. Unfortunately, the contributors and editor do little in this volume to establish a context from the value and purpose of the overall project.

Three essays stand out for honorable mention by identifying precisely who these “evangelicals” are and reflect the eclectic nature of the collection. and why they (we?) need to have their horizons Rikk Watts produces a masterly biblical theological broadened. As a result, What Does It Mean to Be perspective on salvation by extrapolating the Saved? may leave readers with the distinct themes of creation/exodus—new creation/new impression that its authors have hastily written a exodus. Watts inculcates within the reader the mottled prescription to “broaden horizons” without maxim, “eschatology recapitulates protology” (i.e., first charting a diagnosis for its mystery patient. consummation entails new creation), and Prognosis for readership: not good. therewith effectively guides one through a variety This problem is exacerbated by the fact that of soteriological ideas and movements within academic specialization so narrows the field of biblical history and theology. Likewise, Henri each essay that the grand endeavor of broadening Blocher’s piece (entitled “Agnus Victor”) evidences horizons is lost to compartmentalization. After

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each chapter one wonders whether the primary thesis of this particular essay is essential to a broad and proper understanding of the experience of salvation. Furthermore, the reader is given no guidance as to how to relate one chapter with the next. Simply put, the project openly suffers from a lack of cohesion and (surprisingly) relevance.

Aside from several of the essayists opposing the prevailing notion that salvation is about individual souls “getting to heaven,” there stands little continuity among the essays. The tempered responses of Webster and Wilson note the lack of focus, and the editor’s rather disobliging preface adds little to the unity. Consequently, the book proves a disappointment with respect to its stated value and purposes, notwithstanding the scholarly merit and quality of the individual essays.

More importantly, at a time when classical Pauline soteriology is under attack, the doctrine of justification is being compromised vis-à-vis Roman Catholicism, and the doctrine of God is being modified, neglected, and outright denied within the ranks of Evangelicalism, one wonders if the essayists could have broadened evangelical horizons by defining and defending some of the more fundamental elements of salvation. Perhaps evangelicals need to be reminded of such soteriological topics as the triune God’s accomplishment and application of redemption through the person and work of Jesus Christ, empowered by the Spirit; the role and function of the church as the Trinity’s organ for dispensing saving and sanctifying grace to the world; and the article on which the church stands or falls, justification by grace through faith alone. These topics can hardly be taken for granted today, and articles addressing them are sorely lacking in this collection.

John J. Bombaro Dickinson College Carlisle, PA

The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth am I Here For?

by Rick Warren Zondervan, 2002 334 pages (hardcover), $19.99 Last spring, Hugh Hewitt, the host of the appropriately named radio talk broadcast, The Hugh Hewitt Show, speculated on the air that because The New York Times had not reviewed Rick Warren’s best seller, The Purpose-Driven Life, the newspaper’s editors were guilty of bias against evangelicals. How else

to explain the paper of record’s neglect of such an overwhelmingly important book? As Hewitt explained on The Weekly Standard’s website, “The news weeklies and the major book reviews convict themselves of the worst sort of prejudice when they refuse to recognize a phenomenon of this magnitude.”

Hewitt’s explanation is by no means airtight but it does help to put Warren’s book in perspective.

The talk show host’s comments, in fact, raise two important questions: First, what would a reviewer for the Times do with this book? Second, what accounts for the book’s popularity? Answers to these questions turn out to yield important measures of Warren’s amazingly popular book.

The average book reviewer for The New York Times would likely be a non-Christian. Even if he or she were a believer, reviews for the Times need to be accessible to its non-Christian readers. The readership of the Times means that the newspaper is primarily an organ of the American public, a body that is religiously mixed. Reviewing Warren’s book then could be likened to reviewing the Bible in the Times. Asking a nonbeliever to review an explicitly religious book is not impossible, but it is uncomfortable.

No matter how popular Warren’s book, then, his audience in Purpose-Driven Life is not the general American public but Christians, and specifically evangelical Protestants. This is clear from the preface where Warren gives advice on how to use the book. He expects readers to devote forty days, one day for each of the forty chapters. He also observes that forty days comprise a period that God often used to prepare his greatest servants (e.g., Noah, Moses, Jesus). Read this way, Warren assures, “The next 40 days will transform your life” (p. 10). (Imagine a secular reviewer claiming the book failed because the reviewer’s life had not been changed.) The book also comes with a covenant page on which readers may sign their names (along with a partner) over Rick Warren’s own signature in order to discover God’s purpose. This is no ordinary book, at least in conception and sales.

Yet, the transformation promised seems upon reading the book to be remarkably abstract.

Purpose-Driven Life is the evangelical equivalent of the golf technique book. Golfers spend most of their lives looking for that one “swing thought”— such as “keep your left elbow straight,” or “shift your weight to the ball of the right foot during your backswing,” or “let the club do the work,”— that will enable them to hit the ball long and straight all the time (except around the green).

Warren’s book gives Christians what amounts to a different swing thought for forty days running. It

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is not clear what Christians are supposed to do after the forty days. But it is clear that carrying around forty different swing thoughts would harm even the best of golf swings. The analogy also works for the Christian life. So how does the reader of Warren’s book take this collection of how-to tips and channel them into a purposedriven life? The author leaves the impression that the decision and willpower implicit in signing the covenant with Warren is as important to a transformed life as any of the life tips conveyed in the book.

Some of the “points to ponder” are hardly objectionable. For instance, Day 3 gives readers this: “Living on purpose is the path to peace.” Day 18 advises: “I need others in my life.” Day 30 says: “I was shaped for serving God.” These are all true but hardly life changing. In fact, when tallied up, most of the points amount to truisms that most readers would readily encounter either from listening to their pastor or reading any best-selling Christian book. The five overarching themes that give shape to these daily points to ponder run as follows: “You were planned for God’s pleasure”; “You were formed for God’s family”; “You were created to become like Christ”; “You were shaped for serving God”; and “You were made for a mission.” The subject of these purpose statements is telling” They are all you.

Indeed, the greatest objection to the book is that it gives little substance on the why’s and wherefore’s of the Christian religion before moving on to the how-to’s of the Christian life. For instance, in Day 11, “Becoming Best Friends With God,” Warren starts with the “intimate” friendship that Adam and Eve enjoyed with God, then passes briefly over how the Fall ended that friendship, thus making Christ’s redemptive work necessary.

Warren writes, “Jesus changed the situation. When he paid for our sins on the cross, the veil in the temple that symbolized our separation from God was split from top to bottom, indicating that direct access to God was once again available” (p. 86).

This is all true. But it is hardly the whole story.

And by explaining the history-changing work of Christ in the context of being best friends with God, Warren trivializes the profundity of the gospel. In fact, his book reflects an unwillingness to consider how the deep and mysterious truths of Christian doctrine actually contribute to the transformation of lives. To understand as Martin Luther did the sufficiency of Christ is to know the only adequate basis for serving God and loving neighbors.

But as ordinary as its content is, Purpose-Driven Life’s author is not an ordinary minister. And this is

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key to answering the question about why the book is so popular. Thanks to his numerically successful congregation, Saddleback Valley Community Church, and his first best seller, The Purpose-Driven Church (1995), Warren is an evangelical celebrity, thus tempting publishers such as Zondervan to open the marketing vault to launch and publicize his books. Here is how a story on the Forbes magazine website described the kind of media blitz that stars like Warren attract: When it came time to launch his book …Warren used Pastors.com to invite churches to participate in a “40 Days of Purpose” event…. The 40-day-long event attracted 1,562 churches and was kicked off with a simulcast broadcast to all those churches. Some 267 radio stations ran a “40 days campaign” during the same time period.

And a CD of “Songs for a Purpose-Driven Life” featuring well-known Christian artists was also released. From the start, the books and CDs were distributed in mass-market retailers such as Wal-Mart … Costco …

Barnes & Noble … and Borders. It quickly became a New York Times best seller and has already sold 5.8 million copies, outselling Billy Graham and making it one of the most successful book promotions in Christian publishing history.

In other words, this is more than a book: It is a marketing phenomenon. Anyone who doubts this need only turn to the last two pages of PurposeDriven Life, which are advertisements from the publisher for The Purpose-Driven Life Journal, The Purpose-Driven Life Scripture Keeper Plus, and, not to be forgotten, The Purpose-Driven Church.

Despite the hype, the effects of Purpose-Driven Life will likely be that of many a diet plan. Readers with the best of intentions will try to implement Warren’s advice, and some may even regard changes in their lives as life-transforming. Would that these same readers would attend to the truly transforming words of Scripture, both read and preached each week, the very means that Christ himself promised to use to change his own people from those dead in trespasses and sin into those alive in him.

D. G. Hart Intercollegiate Studies Institute Wilmington, DE

To Live in Peace: Biblical Faith and the Changing Inner City

by Mark R. Gornik Eerdmans, 2002 261 pages (paperback), $21.00 Chapter four of Mark R. Gornik’s To Live in Peace: Biblical Faith and the Changing Inner City exemplifies both its greatest weakness and, more importantly, its enduring value. Gornik offers a “reading” of Nehemiah (pp. 127ff), which applies it to the modern task of urban revitalization. Here, as elsewhere, Gornik too blithely interprets Scriptures about the church as speaking to “the city” (pp. 103ff). Nonetheless, he persuasively demonstrates that the Spirit’s work in the church is holistic; that is, as he transforms hearts, he transforms lives. Accordingly, the church must be not only an occasional gathering of worshipers, but a community of faith which transforms the community in which her members live. When the church determines to live as a biblical community, the city is revitalized (pp. 74ff). Gornik’s heartening ecclesial emphasis suggests a better subtitle: “The biblical church in the inner city.”

Operating from a biblical definition of injustice as harm inflicted on society’s most vulnerable members (p. 51), he argues that poverty is not a consequence of personal choice, but of broader social conditions (pp. 35ff, 222–23). As a result, Gornik may give too much weight to social causation; he demonstrates an odd reluctance to describe the sins of poor persons as such (pp.

97–98, 223). The remedy to injustice, counter intuitively, is the gospel of justification by grace alone. While generally conceived in terms of individual salvation, it has social implications because converts enter into the church community and are set free from all the powers of this world, spiritual and societal, which oppress them (pp. 55, 61–63). Community renewal ought to flow from the church’s proclamation of God’s free grace in Christ (p. 231).

This leads Gornik to point out an obvious scriptural truth usually overlooked in the American church: Christ identifies with the poor (p. 28) and so his church ought to identify with and be composed of the oppressed and excluded (pp. 66, 73). Following the (surprising?) example of Nehemiah (Neh 1:6), Gornik and his friend Allan Tibbels determined to individually repent for corporate sins of oppression by relocating to the Sandtown neighborhood of Baltimore (pp. 167ff).

This action eventually led to the founding of New Song Community Church, whose corporate life

forms the experiential spine of this work of theological sociology.

This book is not a handbook for doing urban ministry. Rather, it is an attempt to describe how the local parish can be the church in the inner city and thereby renew it. In this regard, To Live in Peace applies not only to urban Christians. By offering a vibrant picture of what can happen when the people of God determine not only to worship together but to live together, it challenges all its readers to believe and act on the Spirit’s power to transform all aspects of human life and society, to give up commuting to the most ideologically pure pulpit, and to commit to serve and love the brethren in the local congregation so it may become a true community of faith.

Matthew W. Kingsbury Pastor, Park Hill Presbyterian Church (OPC) Denver, CO

Remembering the Resurrection by Rick Kennedy [ C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 4 2 ]

is so close and personal. Our schools want to make history too hard. They want us to over-think it by a half. Jayber is not promoting gullibility; rather, he stands in the classical tradition of knowing that history is linked to us by humans. John, who stood at the base of the cross, calls to us in his first letter to trust him as a testifier to what he has seen, heard, and touched so that we can have fellowship with him (1:1–3). He calls not from long ago and far away, but only from across a small room of friends and family. ■ Rick Kennedy (Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara) is professor of history at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California. His most recent book is A History of Reasonableness: Testimony and Authority in the Art of Thinking (forthcoming from the University of Rochester Press).

In this article, Rick Kennedy has quoted from Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow: A Novel (Washington D.C.: Counterpoint, 2000), pp. 352-353; Richard Marius, A Short Guide to Writing About History 3rd ed.(New York: Longman, 1999, pp. 48, 67; and John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689).

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The Box Canyon of Ecclesiology

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t has been true for several decades now that American evangelicals are attracted to high-

“dialogue”. Yet it all conceals power. It conceals agendas church versions of Christianity. It is the darndest thing: liturgy and “smells and bells” and not rooted in weakness but rooted, rather, in power vestments have become a tractor-beam for people in reaction to supposed biblicism, politics. ECUSA has given us contempt for the Global individualism, and colorlessness in worship.

South. It has given us affirmation without transI understand the attraction. But I do not formation. It has given us exclusion under the sign sympathize with it. Not for a New York minute, I of inclusion. When the truth came out on August don’t. This is because I have lived the haunted 5, 2003, at Minneapolis and on November 2, 2003, sleep of ecclesiology all my life, as a member and in New Hampshire, all that was left was the then a minister of the Episcopal Church. It is all a disembodied grin of the Cheshire cat, with vanishing lubricious dream, this dream of high vampire’s teeth. Killer Klowns from Outer Space. ecclesiology, which, when you get close to it, I write vividly because I am pleading with you, crumples, leaving behind the disembodied smile of so that you, like the Who, “won’t get fooled again.” the Cheshire cat.

If I could only show my free-church evangelical PAUL F. M. ZAHL American Episcopalians were co-opted long brothers and sisters, like the Ghost of Christmas ago by a phenomenon known as “liberal Future, what lies ahead for them if they fall for high Dean of the catholicism.” “Liberal catholicism” is the species of ecclesiologies.

What lies ahead for you, or, to quote the Cathedral Church of the church life that appears catholic and transcendent, Advent (Episcopal) but conceals a high anthropology married to a low enormously successful horror movie What Lies Birmingham, Alabama soteriology. It is in fact what our forebears knew Beneath for you, is church at the expense of gospel, it was: a form of religion without the power seeming at the expense of being, form at the expense thereof (2 Tim. 3:5). Liturgies of bell, book, and of substance. Like a sadder but wiser Scrooge, I candle without the great catholic doctrines that have seen the “ecclesiological” option. It is once anchored them are theater. They are the ECUSA. Unless, that is, you wish to follow things theater of Schein without Sein.

If you don’t believe me, I present to you, ladies through to their honest finish. Then you will and gentlemen, The Episcopal Church in the become …Roman.

United States of America (ECUSA). We have loved our numberless “holy eucharists,” our lex orandi, lex credendi, and our flapping “cassock-albs” (Pajama Game!). But where is the center to it? What is it all about?

These people have given us Gene Robinson and same-sex blessings. They have given us the supposed “three-legged stool” of Scripture in equal balance with reason and tradition. These people gave us “conversation” and “telling your story” and

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