peace-on-earth-november-december-2004

ENTERING INTO REST ❘ CHRISTMAS SERMONS ❘ HEART MUSIC: CAROLS

MODERN REFORMATION

PEACE ON EARTH VOLUME

13, NUMBER 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2004, $5.00

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PEACE ON EARTH

14 Earth on Peace and Peace on Earth Ever since the Fall, the world has longed to restore peace on Earth. Unfortunately, history testifies that most of our efforts to bring peace have backfired and compounded suffering. In this “present evil age,” we are tempted to ask if God’s efforts have backfired as well. We dare say they have not. Here’s why.

by Shane Rosenthal Plus: Christmas Songs from the Heart

23 When Peace Seems Out of Reach Christians know we will experience perfect peace when we are glorified. But how do we experience peace today?

Where do we find rest in our chaotic lives and busy schedules? The author offers practical ways to take hold of the peace we already possess in Christ.

by Harold Senkbeil

27 Terrifying Peace In telling the Christmas story, we must be careful not to overshadow the Easter story. When we accept the calm peace offered in the baby Jesus at Bethlehem, we also accept the terrifying justice offered in the crucified man at Calvary.

The author reminds us that there can be no peace on earth without justice.

by Michael Horton

31 Christmas Proclamation COVER PHOTO B Y THE IMAGE BANK/GRACE KNOTT

At Christmas we celebrate the Word made flesh. Here are four sermons from friends of Modern Reformation that point our eyes back to the wonder of the Incarnation.”

In This Issue page 2 | Letters page 3 | Preaching from the Choir page 4 | Between the Times page 5 Speaking of page 9 | Council Counsel page 10 | Ex Auditu page 11 We Confess page 39 | Reviews page 40 | On My Mind page 44

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MODERN REFORMATION Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Managing Editor Eric Landry

How Long?

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ore and more, Christmas is carefully marketed as a time to remember the “good old days” of a simpler time and an easier life. Perhaps it is the old fashioned ornaments you can find at the Restoration Hardware store in your

local mall. Maybe it is the cookies and treats that you can make if you buy just the right products from Williams-Sonoma. Last year, over eighty percent of Christmas cards sold through Hallmark stores were “traditional,” recalling memories in word and image that most of us never even had.

This comfortable and comforting tendency to look back and recall manufactured memories is an easy one to understand. Who wants to think of a present filled with turmoil and pain? Who wants to dwell too long on over-extended finances?

Who wants to deal with the reality of a failing marriage, sick children, or a dead-end job? It’s peaceful to remember the past (however contrived it may be); it’s much more difficult to live in the reality of the present.

But the Christmas season loses proper focus unless it is also paired with the real longing of Advent. In churches that follow a church calendar, Advent is the season of preparation and anticipation. For four Sundays prior to Christmas the drama builds as the congregation relives Israel’s long wait for the birth of the Messiah. The songs, symbols, and Scriptures of Advent help us recall the first appearance of Jesus so that we—on this side of the Resurrection—might look for his Second Coming, as well.

This life, lived between two advents, is a life filled with remembering and expectation, of already and not-yet. This longing reflects the echoes of Eden that still resound in the human heart, according to White Horse Inn executive producer and staff writer Shane Rosenthal. Of course, humanity’s longing for ultimate peace is bound to fail because it is Christ-less, aiming to do no more than rid our lives of suffering. It is to a people who are on the verge of despair that the Christmas story must be told anew: not with the nostalgia of nonexistent memories, but with the hope and peace found in Christ and his Word.

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Lutheran minister Harold Senkbeil helps us grab hold of the peace of Christ in practical ways—perfect for an evening of decompression after a chaotic day trying to capture the “peace of Christmas.” When we lose focus on the advent yet to come, our carefully packaged expectations about this life are as meaningless as the festive dining room table display around which no cheerful family will ever gather. Reformed theologian and editor in chief Michael Horton reminds us that this tendency to lose focus and forget the tension can lead to horrific consequences: humans attempting to create a world of peace without the justice of Christ’s Second Coming.

The offense of the cross—an essential part of the faithful proclamation of “peace on earth”—does not fit the saccharine sentimentality of the Christmas season. But when paired with the expectation of the Second Advent, “peace on earth” becomes the foundation of hope for those who are oppressed. It is the strength that infuses the weary limbs of pilgrims. It is the word of welcome to strangers and aliens. It is the word of judgment to foolish kings, selfcentered religious leaders, and blinded citizens of this world. “Peace on earth” is the announcement that God has broken in and is among us and the world will never be the same again for his coming.

Eric Landry Managing Editor

Department Editors Brian Lee, Ex Auditu, Reviews Shane Rosenthal, Between the Times William Edgar, Preaching From the Choir Staff ❘ Editors Ann Henderson Hart, Staff Writer Alyson S. Platt, Copy Editor Lori A. Cook, Layout and Design Celeste McGhee, Proofreader Brenda Choo, Production Assistant Contributing Scholars David Anderson Charles P. Arand Gerald Bray S. M. Baugh Jerry Bridges D. A. Carson R. Scott Clark Marva Dawn Mark Dever J. Ligon Duncan Richard Gaffin T. David Gordon W. Robert Godfrey Donald A. Hagner Gillis Harp D. G. Hart John D. Hannah Paul Helm C. E. Hill Hywel R. Jones Peter Jones Ken Jones Richard Lints Korey Maas Donald G. Matzat Mickey L. Mattox John Muether John Nunes John Piper J. A. O Preus Paul Raabe Kim Riddlebarger Rod Rosenbladt Philip G. Ryken R. C. Sproul Rachel Stahle A. Craig Troxel David VanDrunen Gene E. Veith William Willimon Paul F. M. Zahl Modern Reformation © 2004 All rights reserved.

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Thank you for the timely issue on Covenant Confusion (July/August 2004).

As evangelicals, we’re always told; It’s grace alone to which we hold.

Saved by works, repulsive thought; Goes against all we’re taught.

But should we falter, lest we fall; We must remember, after all: Saved by works, indeed it’s true; They are Christ’s, and they are two.

In his life, from birth to death, Jesus walked Law’s perfect path.

On the cross, God’s wrath he knew; For our sin, the Son God slew.

Steal the one, the other stumbles; Without both, salvation crumbles.

Another gospel, of that Paul warns; Anathema! They’re wearing horns!

Russell W. Reynolds Diamond Bar, CA

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I was puzzled by George Hunsinger’s analysis of Jonathan Edwards’ treatise “Justification by Faith Alone,” and was astonished by his claim that Edwards taught that faith is a virtue that is rewarded with justification (“An American Tragedy: Jonathan Edwards on Justification,” July/August 2004). Edwards categorically denies this in his essay (page notations from volume one of Edwards’ Works, published in 1979 by Banner of Truth Trust). Edwards says, “neither salvation itself nor Christ the Saviour are given as a reward of anything in man: they are not given as a reward of faith” (640), and he repeats this conviction multiple times throughout his treatise (626, 627, 628, 646, 647). And when he talks about a rewardable “secondary and derivative loveliness” (645), it is in the context of an obedience that follows justification. It is unfair to argue that a non-ironic text implies something that it explicitly and repeatedly denies. Edwards goes on to explain that it is only because “faith is the soul’s active uniting with Christ” (626), that through faith Jesus’ righteousness is imputed to us. Although faith is a gift, it is also a subjective act, something we are called to do, a “work”, as Edwards freely admits (642). This is clear from all the active verbs associated with it in Scripture—to believe in, to receive, to come to, to open the door to, to do the work of God. But as Edwards explains “faith does not justify as a work” (642). This allows one to hold to sola fide without feeling the need to maintain (untenably) that faith is totally passive.

Albert H. Fink Jr. Swarthmore PA I have often found much of value in Modern Reformation. However, I feel I was significantly misrepresented by Michael Horton’s article “Deja Vu All Over Again” (July/August 2004). Horton is usually a fine scholar, but here I’m not sure he’s done all his homework. If the Federal Vision (FV) is [ C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 3 8 ]

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Reources and Reviews

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t is easy to get overwhelmed by the abundance of material available on the theme of

label also carries wonderful ancient Christmas music.

Christmas. Admittedly, much of it is either sentimental, or rubbish, or both. Still, in the area If you enjoy American Christmas music, Erato also of good quality, depending on what you may be looking for, there is still a lot to choose from. specializes in this material.

For example, their An If you are looking for a simple, general, but very American Christmas features carols, hymns, and helpful resource book which gives the background spirituals from 1770 to 1870. The disc includes of many of our best-known carols and hymns, start “Watchmen of Zion” (from Elkhart, Indiana, 1975), (from Newburryport, with Christmas Music Companion Fact Book, edited by “Kingsbridge” Dale V. Nobbman and Hal Leonard (Centerstream Massachusetts, 1771), and “A Christmas Hymn” Publications, 2001). Besides the fascinating stories (from the collection, The Village Harmony, Exeter, behind the music, it provides historical time lines, New Hampshire, 1798). Some of these are shapebiographies and trivia questions. On the Web, for note tunes, though not necessarily from the South.

On a different register, the Harvard University a useful research tool, try www.christmastime.com, although it lacks the depth of the book. Choir has produced a couple of first-rate CDs on Many music publishers have Christmas lines. the theme of Christmas. Their Carols from the Yard is One of my favorite catalogs featuring very the recording of a carol service with both music thoughtful Christmas music from various and readings. The more rarefied Christmas in the publishers is T. I. S. Music. Their website is Busch is a special concert the choir presented in the www.tismusic.com.

They carry lovely Adolphus Busch Hall of the Busch-Reisinger arrangements of composers such as John Jacob Museum. The room is the home of the great Niles, Max Reger, Alessandro Scarlatti, Peter Flentrop organ.

Finally, for something rather different, you Cornelius, and several French composers, such as Frank Martin and Claude Debussy (his “Noël des may enjoy the CD Christmas of Hope produced by Hope for New York, one of the ministries of enfants qui n’ont plus de maisons” is poignant).

Lots and lots of CDs are out there as well. Redeemer Presbyterian Church in that city. It Lovers of ancient or more traditional music will contains a soft-jazz rendition of a number of appreciate labels like Harmonia Mundi. They familiar carols. Proceeds for the purchase go to ten produce the marvelous Anonymous 4 Singers. For different evangelical ministries in New York. example, On Yoolis Night is an album of Medieval Merry Christmas! carols and motets, including “Gabriel, from hevenking” (sic), “Lullay, Lullay,” and the gorgeous William Edgar (Dr. Theol., Universite de Genéve), professor “There Is No Rose of Swyeh Vertu.” They also of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in publish A Festive Baroque Christmas featuring Paul Philadelphia, is the author of the recently released Reasons Goodwin and the Academy of Ancient Music. of the Heart (Grand Rapids: Baker/Hourglass).

Schütz and Gabrielli are at the forefront. The Erato label also carries very good traditional Christmas CDs. One of my favorites is Noël, Noël, which features French carols from the thirteenth through the sixteenth centuries. The Nonesuch

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Clarity Before Unity

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n October 4th and 5th, Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama, sponsored an important conference on ecumenism, “In One Body Through the Cross: The Gospel Imperative Toward Christian Unity.” The focus of the conference was The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity, a document formed over a period of three years by a group of some sixteen theologians meeting in Princeton, New Jersey, and organized by The Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology.

Many of the drafters, such as Carl Braaten, R. R. Reno, and David Yeago, assembled at the conference to discuss the issues the proposal raised. They were joined by notable theologians such as First Things editor, Father Richard John Neuhaus, Fuller Seminary president, Richard Mouw, and the Dean of Beeson Divinity School, Timothy George.

Lutheran theologian Carl Braaten, in his opening remarks to the conference, was quick to admit that the subject of ecumenism is in many quarters “regarded as a threat,” adding that many fear in this a “meltdown of our respective traditions.”

“However,” he went on to say, “Lutheran identity must not be allowed to trump Christian truth.”

Within the first few pages of the Princeton Proposal, homage is paid both to the findings of the New Delhi Assembly of the World Council of Churches (1961), and the work of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (1999) by the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation. The latter, according the Princeton Proposal, “consigned to oblivion the mutual condemnations of the Reformation era.” Nevertheless it also acknowledges that great divisions remain, and few see a way forward.

MR had the opportunity to talk at some length with Carl Braaten, Richard John Neuhaus, and R. R. Reno about a number of the issues on the table for discussion at this ecumenical conference. The following are mildly condensed versions of those conversations, and are offered here under the assumption that clarity is to be preferred before unity:

Carl Braaten, Lutheran theologian and editor of the Princeton Proposal MR: The Roman Catholic Council of Trent condemned Protestants for their view of justification, and given that Trent is still officially binding doctrine, how can there be any real ecumenism until either Protestants give up their view of justification or the Catholic side renounces Trent’s anathemas?

Braaten: The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification between Catholics and the Lutheran World Federation says that we don’t have to reiterate all the anathemas anymore. This was a high level doctrinal discussion which didn’t discount the importance of Trent or say that Lutherans are right and the Catholics are wrong.

Together they worked things out in such a way that the issue of justification is no longer church dividing.

MR: Was there an explicit recantation of Trent in the Joint Declaration?

Braaten: There was no recantation on either side, but they concluded that the way the churches are thinking about justification today, those old condemnations no longer apply.

They didn’t say that those issues didn’t apply at that time, so they didn’t recant anything. So history moves on, theology

changes, and we don’t have to stick with the old condemnations. Now, if we still believed that Roman Catholics are teaching heretical doctrine on justification, there would be no Joint Declaration.

MR: Which side moved from their original position, the Catholic or the Protestant?

Braaten: I think the right wing in both traditions think there was a sellout. For example, there are Lutherans who don’t accept the Joint Declaration. Those are cautionary words, but I think it is the best the two bodies could do at the time and it does help to remove the antagonism, lower the temperature, and make it possible to come to the next round of dialog without all this animosity. It’s not the end of the road, it’s just one little baby step along the way. And I don’t think it is the last word on justification by any means. I can find reasons myself why I wouldn’t say the formulation completely meshes with my own understanding of justification. But as long as we understand that our justification is in Christ, through faith, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, and then we have sufficient ground to come together. At least as much as is possible under the present circumstances. We don’t come together at the Table of the Lord; there’s no open communion. But we do come together in

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prayer and Bible study and in Bible centered worship. So a lot of things are going on now that would have never happened fifty years ago, and that’s because of the ecumenical dialogs.

Richard John Neuhaus, Roman Catholic priest and editor of First Things MR: Carl Braaten, at the opening of this conference called the issue of the pope, the big elephant in the middle of the room. Can you conceive of a scenario in which there would be visible unity of the various Christian bodies without the pope as its head?

Neuhaus: I think the expression “at the head” is perhaps not the best way to put it. If you ask, can one conceive of full communion among Christians that does not include the exercise of Petrine ministry clearly grounded in the New Testament and instituted by our Lord to be a center of strength and guidance for the brethren, then the answer to that is no, because that would be contrary to our Lord’s intention. Then if you ask, is there any other existing office in the world, present or past, that could exercise that Petrine ministry other than the bishop of Rome, then I think almost everybody would say no, there’s no other believable candidate. So, no, I think whatever you believe we envision will be one in which that ministry will be exercised by the bishop of Rome. But as he says, this will be done in a way that is very different from how it has often be exercised in the past, which has often been a source of disunity.

MR: The Council of Trent in 1564 declares that, “If anyone says that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins,...let him be anathema.” Now, if Protestants assert that justification by means of imputation is the heart of the gospel, how can there be any consideration of uniting with Catholics until this issue is resolved?

Neuhaus: First of all, Trent was very careful to not condemn anybody by name, but said that if someone says such and such, as we understand this term to mean, let him be anathema. Now, did they understand what Luther, Calvin, or other major Reformation figures meant generally? Sure, but did Trent anathematize the Reformation consensus on justification? I think the answer to that is no. And I think this is the point made by the Joint Declaration.

MR: So what in the Joint Declaration from your perspective, modifies Trent, or softens its blows against the Protestants?

Neuhaus: It’s not a question really of modifying Trent...

MR: Because it’s still in effect, right?

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Neuhaus: Oh, well yes, there are a lot of things in the history of the church that a very orthodox Catholic is very free to say, indeed obliged to say, were not adequately expressed, or were expressed in a way that has to be understood in that particular historical circumstance. Thus, Catholics believe that through the magisterium of the church through the guidance of the Holy Spirit there is a constant and reliable further unfolding of the truth. So just as you can’t take one part of Scripture and play it off against another part of Scripture, likewise you can’t take one part of the magisterial tradition and play it off against others. We look at the sixteenth century and many of the things that were said by those chiefly responsible for the divisions on both sides reflect profound misunderstandings of what the other side was saying. And so, four hundred years later, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it’s possible for us to see the inadequacies of the expression of all sides. And so it’s an ongoing fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that he would send his Spirit to the church who would lead us into all truth. It’s sometimes a messy process, but we believe the promise is still being kept.

MR: But wouldn’t the first step toward closer unity between Catholics and Protestants be to have Rome issue a clear statement that the canons and decrees of the Council of Trent, which have anathematized Protestants, are no longer in effect? But to date, there has not been an official recantation of this position.

Neuhaus: That’s right. And there never will be a recantation of a council statement. See that’s a very Protestant way of thinking. You say, okay, how are we going to constitute our fellowship? On the basis of our agreements and disagreements?

Catholics understand that it is not doctrinal identity but a continuity of persons and office in the apostolic community that binds us together, and particularly as that is expressed sacramentally in the Eucharist. And within that community, over 2000 years, you’ve had a lot of schlock! I mean really bad stuff has happened, as well as the Holy Spirit keeping his promise through all of that stuff. You don’t go and say, okay, now we’re going to repudiate this part of our tradition, and change our anathemas and turn them around in the other direction. No, because that would be against the unity of the church.

MR: But Peter did this. He was willing to admit that he was wrong when he was confronted by Paul.

Neuhaus: Yeah, but they didn’t excommunicate one another. They continued in fellowship.

MR: But Peter did acknowledge his error.

Neuhaus: Absolutely, and Pope John Paul II has gone around acknowledging errors like mad.

R.R. Reno, recent convert to Catholicism and author of In the Ruins of the Church MR: The way the Protestants view it, the Council of Trent

condemned the heart of the gospel. Given that perspective, is it then wrong for a Protestant to attempt to re-evangelize a person of the Catholic faith?

Reno: Doctrinal affirmations are part of systems. They’re like ecological systems. The word justification in Tridentine theology is in a different eco-system than the same word in classic Protestant theology. Thus they condemned things from within their own ecology.

MR: But clearly, a Protestant, hearing Trent’s anathemas would feel condemned.

Reno: Of course. What it basically means is that God is going to save us in our bodies. That’s what the doctrine of purgatory is all about. Something real has to happen in your life, it can’t just be declarative.

MR: So how then does one proceed in the ecumenical task with those Protestants who still believe that justification is the article on which the church stands or falls?

Reno: With those people, I just throw my hands up. They need to believe that the Catholic Church rules out their position. They have to believe that. So, does that mean the church is infallible? Well, yes. At some level you have to see that even with the Biblical episode in which Peter does the wrong thing, it comes out right in the end. The teaching office of the church is not trustworthy propositionally, it is trustworthy spiritually. It will not do harm to your soul to let your life be formed by the church’s teaching.

life into the Methodist church, which he has called, “a geriatric institution.”

Willimon sees himself as an advocate for reform in his denomination, and is calling for “great preaching, vibrant worship and a church that has a heart for people.” In 1996 Baylor University named Willimon as one of the “Twelve Most Effective Preachers” in the English-speaking world.

Some are suggesting that Willimon’s appointment will help shake things up in the denomination with his sense of humor and no-nonsense approach. According to Richard Lischer, a fellow professor at Duke, “He’s very critical of the church always reaching out in a reflexive way toward relevance. He’ll say, ‘Forget relevance. Let’s work on truth. The truth will make us relevant.’”

Duke professor Stanley Hauerwas, speaking of Willimon’s recent election said, “It’s a sign that we’re not dead yet. It’s a wonderful vote of confidence in the United Methodist Church.”

William Willimon is author of some fifty books, including Peculiar Speech: Preaching to the Baptized, and is co-author with Stanley Hauerwas of Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony.

Willimon’s Words Willimon’s way with words has played a significant role in his success as a campus pastor and author. Here are a few examples.

“Vote for me and I’ll wreak havoc in your name.”

— Willimon’s slogan for his 1996 failed campaign for bishop “Very few people read my books; that’s helpful.”

— on why he has freedom to say or write the things he does “Jesus was crucified for what he said. The greatest sin Christians can commit is boredom.”

— on the importance of the gospel message “One of our institutional demands is to be interesting, because we’ve got an interesting God.” — on the mission of the Methodist church

William Willimon Elected as Methodist Bishop

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illiam Willimon has been a long time critic of the tendency of mainline Christians to accommodate the gospel to modern cultural trends.

“The culture in which we preach is just the air we breathe, the water we drink,” he told MR in an interview. “It has its way with all of us, and so the gospel becomes just another lifestyle choice or another commodity.” A lifelong Methodist, Willimon has served the Duke University faculty as the professor of Christian ministry since 1976, and as the Dean of Duke University Chapel since 1984. This past summer, however, Willimon gave up his post at Duke after he was elected bishop of the Northern Alabama conference within the United Methodist Church.

This particular conference represents approximately 860 churches with about 157,862 total members, but on average, it has lost around 1,000 members per year over the last two decades, part of a larger trend in the mainline denomination.

Thus, one of Willimon’s tasks, as he sees it, is to breathe new

Online Confessional n the age of the megachurch, some may feel that it is difficult to get “quality time” with Pastor Bob. So who is a person to turn to when times get rough, or when the soul is weak? Look no further! Thanks to that amazing thing we call the internet, we have DailyConfession.com!

Created by Greg Fox, a one-time director of live Disney shows in Orlando, Florida, DailyConfession is a site advertised as the “Get it off your chest and on the world wide web confessional.” Here you’ll find a nice cozy place to air all your dirty little secrets, in a private space that nobody but the

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entire world will see. Of course, visitors can confess their sins in total anonymity, which prevents someone from getting a call from an offended person in Helsinki.

When you log in to the site, ready to confess, you’ll be asked to select a category, the various choices of which make up the Ten Commandments, along with a few other options.

Fox most likely had had a Catholic or Lutheran upbringing, as there is no commandment listed against the use of graven images, and there are two commandments prohibiting coveting. Confessions under “Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods” range from one confiding, “I don’t believe in God anymore,” to another who writes, “I must confess that I do believe in God, but do not go to church or claim a religion.”

A recent convert to Islam also admits, “I confess that I can’t wait until the Day of Judgment for those to see the truth….”

The site was set up in 2000 as a place “where people could unburden their souls and receive honest and humane responses,” as it is the policy of the site to allow other visitors to anonymously respond with advice or comfort to the various confessions offered. Only four years later, the site now receives more than 8 million visitors per week. In fact, the DailyConfessions.com site has been such a hit that Greg Fox was recently asked to publish an edited compilation of some of the best and worst confessions that have been entered into his site over the past few years. The book, which debuted in August 2004, is titled Coming Clean, and was released by Andrews McMeel Publishing Company. According to one reviewer, “it’s a book that will make you both laugh out loud, and question the intelligence of the human race.”

Dennis Miller: Evil No Laughing Matter here are two essential truths in the universe. One: Evil really does exist. Two: Televison, for the most part, is a waste of time. Unfortunately, truth number one was under attack recently on Dennis Miller’s CNBC television show, which, incidentally, helps to furnish proof for the soundness of truth number two. In a discussion on September 7, 2004, about the terrorists who killed over 200 people at a Russian school earlier that month, Miller argued that it was right to call this act “evil.” A fellow comedian by the name of Kathleen Madigan disagreed. The following is an excerpt from the discussion that ensued, and is offered here as insight into the postmodern world in which we find ourselves:

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Miller: Isn’t it true, Kathleen, that Liberals, when they say the word ‘evil’ feel creeped out, because they tend to

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intellectualize it and...they don’t want to thump the Bible, so they won’t say evil. But when you shoot a kid 45 times…is there a place on the face of this planet holier than a grade school on the first day of school? We’ve got to go to the mat with these people!

Madigan: Evil. It’s just a word. Like, for me it just brings up Catholic grade school; nothing good comes up in my head. I say wacked, how about wacked?

Miller: No, evil. This is one time I can’t join the joke. We have to concede that these people…(interupted) Madigan: I’m serious! I just think that word has a connotation that brings too much religion to it in my head. Yeah, these are bad people, it’s awful, but when [President Bush] gets up there and goes ‘they’re evil and we’re the good guys’... I think it definitely brings this whole religion thing into it that he’s got going on in his head.

Guest: So what?

Madigan: So, that’s not what’s going on in my head, so I don’t agree with it.

A few decades ago the word “sin” became scarce in all but religious circles (with the one exception of the dessert menu).

Perhaps the word evil is heading in the same direction. What do you think? Email us with your opinion: BTT@modernreformation.org

SUM + of the = TIME

$835 Amount the average American spent on Christmas last year, according to a Washington Times report.

The

report also mentioned that the

total U.S. spending on Christmas in 2003 was estimated to be around $217 billion dollars.

Speaking of...

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he threat of Christmas hung in the air, visible already in the fretful look of passersby as they readied themselves for the meaningless but necessary rites of false jovialities and ill-considered gifts.

— Peter Dickinson, Play Dead

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ow many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, his precepts! O! ‘Tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.

— Benjamin Franklin

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e hear the beating of wings over Bethlehem and a light that is not of the sun or of the stars shines in the midnight sky. Let the beauty of the story take away all narrowness, all thought of formal creeds. Let it be remembered as a story that has happened again and again, to men of many different races, that has been expressed through many religions, that has been called by many different names. Time and space and language lay no limitations upon human brotherhood.

— The New York Times, December 25, 1937

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his, then, is how we must practice this doctrine, that we do not fail to come to our Lord Jesus Christ, although at first sight we do not find in Him what our flesh, that is, our natural senses, desire. But although He was wrapped in rags at His birth, and although He had been laid there in the manger, may we know and be resolved that He did not, however, cease to be Mediator to draw us to God His Father, to give us an entrance into the Kingdom of heaven from which we were entirely shut out. Still more today, although He does not rule in pomp, and although His Church is despised, and although there is a simplicity in His Word which the great men of this world reject, as for us, may we never cease on that account to cling to Him and to subject ourselves to His dominion in a true obedience of faith.

— John Calvin, The Nativity of Jesus Christ

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Kim Riddlebarger

Keeping Watch “What are the signs of the end and how do amillennial Christians interpret them?”

KIM RIDDLEBARGER

Senior Minister Christ Reformed Church Anaheim, California

Council Counsel is a column featuring questions from our readers and answers from the Advisory Council of Modern Reformation.

If you have a question you would like answered in this space, please send it to CC@modern reformation.org

Jesus’ disciples asked this very question. In the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21) Jesus answered three questions put to him by his disciples. When Jesus told them that the temple would be destroyed, they asked, “When will this happen and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? (Matthew 24:3). As they understood things, the destruction of the temple was such a cataclysmic event that if such a thing occurred, the end of the age must be at hand. To correct their misunderstanding about these things, Jesus spoke to them about the signs of the end.

In Matthew 24:4 Jesus begins to answer their questions. First, he warns them to be on guard for false teachers who will deceive the people of God. Jesus also warns them, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars.” There will be famines and earthquakes, which Jesus describes as birthpains (v.

8). This means that the signs of the end began in the lifetime of his apostles and will continue until our Lord’s return. If the signs are like birthpains, there will intermittent times of turmoil and peace and when the tumult reaches its zenith, our Lord will suddenly return.

Jesus tells his disciples about what lies ahead.

They will be persecuted and put to death–something fulfilled in their lifetimes (v. 9).

People will fall away, setting the stage for false prophets to come, causing people’s love to grow cold, and increasing strife and persecution. In verses 15-25, Jesus warns the disciples about the tribulation soon to come upon Jerusalem, a prophecy fulfilled in AD 70 when the Roman army sacked the city, subjecting it to the greatest upheaval in Jerusalem’s history.

Then in verses 26-28, Jesus leaps ahead to speak of the end of the age. “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the desert,’ do not go out; or,

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‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it.

For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” Immediately after the distress of the those days–which Jesus had described as characterized by birthpains of war, famine and earthquakes–we read in verses 29-30, “At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”

Why would Jesus speak of those signs which precede his coming and then in the parables of Matthew 25, tell us that his coming will be delayed (Matthew 25:5)? The reason is simple. Wars and rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, and false teachers will be present the entire time from our Lord’s death and resurrection until his Second Advent. The signs of the end are exactly that.

When we see them, we know our Lord will return.

But as Jesus told his disciples, “the bridegroom was a long time in coming,” so that God’s people must keep watch (Matthew 25:5; 13), because they do not know the day or the hour of our Lord’s return.

The signs of the end are the guarantee that our Lord will come again. But these signs are like birthpains, so there will be alternating times of trouble and peace, increasing in intensity before the end. Our inability to know when the Lord will return becomes the incentive to watch and wait in expectation. The tension between signs which precede our Lord’s return and the suddenness of his coming is certainly deliberate. Our Lord’s warning to keep watch means that we cannot set dates and the signs of the end remind us not to be idle.

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Genesis 1:1–2:3

From Creation to Consummation

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ince the rise of modern science perhaps no text of Scripture has birthed more

which often cloud the intended meaning of the text. questions and controversies than the first chapter of the Bible. I can only imagine But the primary question I believe Moses wanted to the questions that have been generated in a sanctuary filled with learned people as we answer was who created, and in chapter 1 it is supremely read it together. I don’t mean to disappoint, but I obvious who created. But do not intend to cover all the questions that arise Moses goes on in the first from this passage in this sermon.

Don’t three verses of the second From misunderstand me, the debates that surround the chapter to tell us three times TODD SMEDLEY creation account are wholly appropriate and that “God rested from the worthy of diligent study. However, they do not work he had done.” The naturally fit the purpose of a sermon that is meant opening chapters of the to proclaim Christ and to edify the body.

Scriptures leave us certain Associate Pastor Indeed, this text has undergone such great that creation finds its origin Fourth Presbyterian Church scrutiny that it has almost lost its edifying purpose in God. Bethesda, Maryland We also find that he and effect. But when seen in its own right we see created by the power of his that it is not intended to be placed on the laboratory spoken Word. Several times table but is to be read with solemn reverence as it reveals the grandeur of God’s power, freedom, and he spoke and it was so. His word was the allglory in his creative act. My hope this morning is effective instrument that brought about his created that we will capture the grand vision of God in his order. All he had to speak were the simple words, creative act as he reveals that all things are from him “Let there be … ” and it was. In contrast to the and through him and to him. And that to him will other Ancient Near Eastern creation accounts, the be all glory forever (Rom. 11:36). Even as he reveals Sovereign God of Israel is revealed as a God himself as the Alpha Creator, he gives us a glimpse without rivals. He does not compete against other of his purpose as the Omega Consummator. As he gods in order to create. He does not need to opens this story of stories, the opening chapter of his consult any gods, for he alone is God, and there is book called History, he gives us a view of what the no other. His power is not established through goal of creation is. What he has begun in all its struggle with other gods. The sun, moon, and stars splendor and majesty, he will finish and bring to its are not his rivals, but they find that their very glorious goal. By focusing primarily on Genesis existence flows from his sovereign decree. He is 2:1–3 we find that creation finds its origin in God, its revealed as absolutely free in his creative act. By relational order in God and its goal in God. his simple and straightforward decree, God shows forth his omnipotence. He needs no raw materials Creation Finds Its Origin in God or direction, for he gives the whole creation its It is so obvious that God created from these substance and form. It was created out of nothing, verses that it would be easy to gloss over this fact. ex nihilo. The entire chapter shows him effortlessly In our day many questions are thrust at this passage crafting this masterpiece that we call the universe.

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Both the heavens and the earth find their form and substance in him alone. He is creation’s divine architect.

Creation Finds Its Relational Order to God Only as creation recognizes its creator does it carry out its intended purpose. The creation account is not merely about beginnings, but about relationships. It displays the creation’s relatedness to itself and to its creator. Out of disorder and chaos, God brings order and beauty; all that he creates and orders he declares to be good. The creation reflects the goodness of its creator. It was hard to miss the rhythm of this passage as we read together, “there was evening and there was morning the (first) day.” Everything within creation has a proper function and a proper relationship. In the first three days, the day and night, the sky, land, and the sea are created as places to be inhabited or ruled. In days four

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(Rom. 1:19–20). Creation declares that there is a God, and he is free and sovereign. And so we learn from the very beginning of God’s spoken Word, that all that is seen and unseen is from the hand of the Lord. The universe owes its very existence to God, and thus it makes no sense apart from its creator.

Creation Finds Its Goal in God Genesis chapter 1 not only reveals God as the Alpha, but also as the Omega. He is the beginning and the end. After telling us explicitly who created, on the seventh day we discover why he created.

Even before the beginning of time God had the end in view, and he created with the purpose of consummating all things in his time and for his glory. We have noticed already that the first six days of creation all are intended to lead to that seventh day. Only this day is blessed and sanctified by God, setting it apart from the others. The he creation account is not merely about beginnings, but about first six days clearly begin and end, but the seventh day relationships. It displays the creation’s relatedness to itself and does not have an evening and morning—the seventh day has no end. Each of the first to its creator. six days are named only once by its number, but the through six we have those creatures that would seventh day is mentioned three times in 2:2–3. inhabit or rule over those places. The order and Moses, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, relationships are sovereignly orchestrated. has crafted this passage in such a way to show that But the pinnacle of God’s creative work was creation is ultimately designed to bring us into man, made in his image. This is the crowning work God’s rest, and that this in turn would bring him of his hand, and man was set up to rule and have the glory he deserves. And so Israel is given the dominion over the whole creation. All creatures law of the Sabbath—which finds its prototype in are given spheres in which they are to rule, with the life and works of God—that they might always man being at the top of that authority, but God know the intended goal of their existence. Israel does not stop there. The six days lead to the was to mirror God’s rest because he rested and is climatic seventh day, where God is seen as the resting. Here at the beginning of God’s Word we supreme Lord over all his creation. If man is to find that the ultimate purpose of our existence is to have dominion over the earth, God sets himself up enter into God’s rest and thus glorify him. God’s on that last day to have dominion over all creation. consummating rest shows man his goal; the The six days find their meaning in the seventh day, seventh day teaches us that the whole thrust of set apart for God’s glory alone. Creation and life creation is to bring everything into the glory of his make no sense apart from its submission to and rest. The seventh day not only reveals God as the recognition of its sovereign creator and governor.

Alpha Creator, but also the Omega Consummator.

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, tells us that This morning’s New Testament reading gives creation itself leaves mankind without an excuse more clarity by explicitly interpreting the seventh before a righteous, sovereign, and free God. He day for us: writes, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For Therefore, while the promise of entering his his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you and divine nature have been clearly perceived, ever should seem to have failed to reach it. For since the creation of the world, in the things that good news came to us just as to them, but the have been made. So they are without excuse” message they heard did not benefit them,

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because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” (Heb. 4:1–4) The author of Hebrews reminds us that the rest that awaits believers was promised from the beginning. The heavenly resting place awaiting the people of God partakes of God’s creation rest.

God’s rest is the goal of human history, in which he is glorified perfectly by his creation.

From the very beginning God desired that his people would enter into the everlasting rest he enjoys. But because Adam worshiped the creation rather than the creator, mankind has been banished from God’s presence, without hope of entering his rest. So too Israel was promised their own resting place, and looked forward to that day when God would usher them into Canaan. Several times in the Scriptures, the Promised Land is described as their rest (Josh. 22:4; Exod. 33:14; Deut. 3:20, 12:9–10). Our Hebrews text explains that the land of Canaan was never an end in and of itself, but was always meant to point to the reality that was to come, our heavenly rest. “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God“ (Heb. 4:8–9). The promise of entering God’s rest still remains for you and me.

The entrance of sin into human existence has made creation and life itself often feel like a cruel joke. Because of our struggles, trials, sufferings, and fears despair often characterizes our experience in this world. Hebrews tells us that “we who have believed enter that rest“ (Heb. 4:3).

Through Christ there is offered to us an eternal hope and ultimate rest from all our enemies, the Promised Land which the earthly promised land pointed toward. Furthermore, this promised rest is not just a future hope, but a present reality because we have already entered into rest with God through faith in Christ. The Second Adam has come and entered that rest for us, and secured for us an eternal inheritance that will neither perish, spoil, or fade, fulfilling the hope that was promised in the beginning. In the fulfillment of this hope the whole purpose of creation and consummation are united and find their center in Christ.

feel like a cruel joke, in the light of our struggles, trials, sufferings, and fears. Paul states it this way, “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:22–23). But in this life, we have the secure hope of the resurrection and the hope of an eternal rest where groaning will not be experienced. If your souls are disquieted and feeling the weight of sin, know that in Christ, the eternal rest which was promised from the very beginning is yours. Jesus himself said that he would give rest to all who are weary and burdened.

This is the hope that is yours and mine in Christ.

God’s crowning work is ultimately not creation in and of itself. From the very beginning, he has told us that he will bring us into his rest that he and his Son have been enjoying for eternity. In Christ, we have one who has gone into that rest and given us a sure hope that he is drawing us there. In Christ, all creation will reach its intended goal, the eternal rest of God and the everlasting glory that is due his holy and sovereign name. And when our Christ returns at the consummation to usher in his kingdom once and for all, the hymn to be sung will be, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Rev. 4:11).

Todd Smedley (M.Div., Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is an associate pastor at Fourth Presbyterian Church (EPC) Bethesda, Maryland.

Conclusion The entrance of sin makes creation and life itself

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P E A C E O N E A RT H

Earth on Peace and

Peace on Earth arly in Mark Twain’s classic work The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is an interesting scene in which Tom and Huck witness Injun Joe in an act of wicked deception. Twain writes that the boys stood dumb as they “heard the stony-hearted liar reel off his serene statement, they expecting every moment that the clear sky would deliver God’s lightnings upon his head, and wondering to see how long the stroke was delayed.”

On one hand, there is an admirable and refreshing sense of God’s holiness and justice in these words, for what child in our day would think along such lines? On the other hand, there is an implicit childishness here that needs to be considered and rejected. How often is it, after all, that people are judged by God immediately after committing a sin? Anyone who is familiar with the story of Tom Sawyer knows that Tom and Huck weren’t innocent little boys themselves, yet, curiously, they never sat dumbfounded wondering why God failed to end their own lives. Perhaps they only thought that God was concerned with “really big” sins, or as many would have it, the “really big sins of other people.” It is easy to see why such a view is opposed to Christianity, for if God judged everyone instantly, who would live long enough to turn to God in faith?

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It may be easy to spot Tom and Huck’s theological error, but similar, albeit more subtle, views abound in the modern world. You may have been asked at one time or another, If there is a God, why does he allow so much evil to go on? Do you see the connection? Twain’s characters were surprised that God’s judgment was delayed, that the wrong was not immediately righted, yet many people in our day have this view of God as well. They expect that if God exists, he must right all wrongs instantly, or perhaps even prevent the wrongs from ever coming to pass in the first place. Such a view, from the perspective of classical Christian orthodoxy, is basically a form of idolatry. Why? Because a person with such a view has created a God of his or her own imagining, whereas the God who has revealed himself is, simply put, not like that. On the one hand, he is infinitely holy and just, yet on the other hand, he has allowed sin and injustice to run its course throughout the history of the world.

This is a tough pill to swallow for many people.

Indeed, often it is difficult for believers themselves

to come to grips with this (see, for example, Job 21:7 and Jer. 12:1–2). Perhaps it is difficult because, though we are fallen creatures, we still bear the image of God. Though we have been expelled from Eden, we still long for heaven on earth.

U2’s Bono does a masterful job of making this point in his song “Peace on Earth” (included in their CD, All That You Can’t Leave Behind). The song was written about a terrorist bombing in Northern Ireland on August 14, 1998, in which 29 innocent people were killed. Bono writes, Heaven on Earth, we need it now.

I’m sick of all of this hanging around.

Sick of sorrow, sick of the pain, I’m sick of hearing again and again That there’s gonna be peace on Earth.

These words reflects the longing in human hearts for ultimate peace, liberation from evil, pain, suffering, and so on. Initially I found the last two lines to be cynical in tone, that Bono is sick of hearing there is

Christmas Songs

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neveryinstanceinthelyricalarts,butespecialyChristmasmusic,wesingwhatwefeel.Ifyouwanttoknow whatacertaingroupbelievesaboutthebiblicalmessage,gotoaChristmasserviceandaskwhyacertain repertoireischosen.Insomecasesthechoiceofold-fashionedmusicrepresentskeepingawallthat holdsthecongregationatasafedistancefromthetoughchallengesofdiscipleship.Occasionallythegenreof musicchosenbyaparticulargroupsimplydisplaysethnicpride.SometimessingingChristmascarolsmeans abreakwithtradition,rebellingagainstamoresober,décor-lessProtestantism.ButthewaywesingChristmas musicisalwaysastatementthatgoesbeyondthesimpleretellingofthebiblicalstory.Indeed,sometimesthequestionis whethertosinganyatall.

Christmas music did not emerge without controversy.

Although the Scriptures give us no sure date for Christ’s birth and the earliest Christians apparently did not mark the event, by the fourth century Christmas was celebrated in the church. It took considerable discussion before the date of December 25th was settled upon. A major reason for the choice was to give believers a Christian alternative to the pagan festival of the winter solstice.

From the twelfth century on, special Christmas music became a regular aspect of the church’s life, especially for the ordinary believer. Still, in every era there was always a minority, sometimes a sizable one, which protested both the carols and the feast day.

On the Continent, in the wake of the Reformation, a few, including Calvin, Knox, and other Reformed people, objected to the celebration of Christmas altogether. Yet, a majority of the reformers, Calvinists and Lutherans alike, were content to honor

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the tradition, insisting on reminding believers of the deeper meaning of the Incarnation that it signified. In Great Britain the Puritans and the Anglicans argued about Christmas. The Puritans thought the Sabbath to be the only red-letter day authorized in Scripture, while Anglicans argued that whereas feast days were always authorized in the Bible commemorating such particular events as the deliverance from Egypt, it made sense to celebrate Christ’s birth and other such occasions, for the “special recognition of these marvellous works,” as Bishop Joseph Hall, a Calvinist Anglican, put it.

In New England, many early settlers disapproved of Christmas. Samuel Sewall once noted that on December 25, 1685, “Carts come to Town and shops open as is usual.” Later, Harriet Beecher Stowe compared a dark and empty Congregational Church on Christmas Eve to the neighboring Episcopal church, decorated with greens and lighted candles, and filled with the sound of the “Te Deum.” By the end of the eighteenth century things were changing. William Billings and Nahum Tate composed special music for Christmas. In Claremont, New Hampshire, December 25, 1793, folks enjoyed singing Royal Tyler’s “Hail to the Joyous Day.” No tune is mentioned, but soon the hymn “Amherst” by William Billings became a favorite musical setting for Tyler’s words. The melody is typi-

going to be peace on earth because there never will be any. But recently I have come to see these lines as emblematic of this rock star’s impatience with words of promise about some coming future peace.

He wants peace now, rather than mere words about peace in the midst of the world’s suffering.

In their 2001 release titled Weathered, the rock band Creed joined in on the conversation. Their input did not amount to numerous questions about theodicy, however, but reminded us of the chief problem at the root of the human condition. In the song “Who’s Got My Back Now?” we find the following lines: Run … hide.

All that was sacred to us, Sacred to us.

See the signs, The covenant has been broken By mankind Leaving us with no shoulder … with no shoulder To rest our head on.

The imagery reminds us of the plight of our first parents who ran and hid from God after breaking his holy covenant (Hos. 6:7), the result of which was that we now have no heavenly shoulder upon which to rest. Expelled from Eden, humanity is now on its own. And as you may recall, very soon into this brave new world came murder, pride, and sins of every kind. This leads the band to repeatedly ask: Who’s got my back now?

When all we have left is deceptive So disconnected What is the truth now?

Unfortunately, this is the reality of the situation for life on earth. We each must look out for ourselves because some Cain out there may decide that the world would be better off without us. Perhaps, too, we can perceive Tom and Huck’s concern in these lines. After all, living in a world where deception rules the day, what becomes of truth if God is not present with us to arbitrate?

s from the Heart cally in the tenor: Hail to the joyous day, On which our Lord was born; Lift high the vocal lay, And sing the blissful morn.

Your voices raise!

To hail the morn On which was born The Lord of Grace.

Interestingly, the very earliest recorded Christmas song in North America is the Huron carol, “Jesus Ahatonhia,” by Jean de Brebeuf, the Jesuit missionary to Canada. The text was transcribed in 1750 by another Jesuit, Girault de Villeneuve, and then translated from Huron into French by Paul Picard, one of the last Native Americans left who still knew the native language. Finally, it was translated into English and published in the anthology America in 1953, to the ancient Breton noël, “Une Jeune Pucelle” [A Young Maiden].

As can be expected, Christmas music reflects (and encourages) the theological views and spirituality of the milieu that produced it. For example, the German Pietists have brought a certain feel-

ing into Christmas music, a genre in which they have excelled.

The best-known Lutherans with certain Pietist devotional leanings were Heinrich Schütz and Johann Sebastian Bach. Their larger oratorios conceal a warm-hearted, personal devotional style. German immigrants brought their customs over to the new country. On Christmas night, 1742, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Count Zinzendorf improvised “For Us No Night Can Be Happier.” Nicolaus L. Zinzendorf arrived in America in 1741, recommended to the Penns by George Whitefield. Though he returned to Germany just over a year later, he left a number of congregations and schools, and several Moravian hymns, throughout Pennsylvania and New York. Bethlehem has continued as a center for Christmas music in the German style ever since. According to the sensibility of many such carols, Jesus is an innocent babe, to be adored with appropriate tenderness.

Caspar Kriebel’s “Now Sleep My Little Child So Dear” was published in the 1762 Schenkfelder hymnal. It suggests that though we all were infants born in sin, only the Christ Child can save us.

A number of our favorite Christmas songs continued in this vein, the best known of which is surely “Silent Night, Holy

by WILLIAM EDGAR [ C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 1 8 ]

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Yet in the midst of all this pessimism, the band offers us a glimmer of hope: There’s still time.

All that has been devastated Can be re-created.

Realize We pick up the broken pieces Of our lives.

Giving ourselves to each other … ourselves to each other To rest our head on.

Here is our hope. The way for us all to overcome our estrangement from God is to band together.

We’ll watch each other’s backs and comfort one another while we’re here. But can this give us the rest that each of us ultimately seeks?

The Quest for Utopia riting around the time of Augustus Caesar, the poet Virgil wrote an amazingly powerful and engaging epic called the Aeneid, which is still regarded as one of

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Night.” Written in 1818 by the assistant minister of St. Nicholas Lutheran Church in Oberndorf, Upper Austria, to music by the church’s organist, Franz Grüber, it was originally scored for two voices, a choir, and a guitar. The story has it that the carol was hastily cobbled together because the organ had broken down. It soon took on a life of its own and was sung throughout the Tyrol, and then all of Germany. The first known English version is from 1858 in Brighton, England. It came to the United States in 1865.

And then it passed into the folk traditions of people quite literally around the world, from India to Africa to Latin America.

The nineteenth century saw a veritable flourishing of Christmas music in America and abroad. It was a time of expansion and exploration. In 1857, John Henry Hopkins, Jr., wrote the words and the music to “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” Hopkins’s father, a pioneer born in Dublin, was successively an ironmaster, a school teacher, a lawyer, a minister, the bishop of Vermont, and finally the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. His mother was a German from Hamburg, and both of them were considerable musicians. John Henry’s career was also quite diverse, taking him to Georgia and New York, but music was always prominent. As a minister and educator, he became a leader in the development of Anglican hymnody. Several of his hymn and poetry anthologies were best-sellers. Surely the journey motif in “We Three Kings” is a reflection of the American pioneer spirit.

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the world’s most treasured texts of the ancient world. In this classic work, Virgil creates a fictional history of Rome’s past, connecting his nation’s stock to the ancient Trojan bloodline, and revealing prophecies of their future world dominance. In Book One we find the following lines: The Romans, masters of the whole round world, Who, clad in peaceful toga, judge mankind. … Lo, Caesar comes! whose power the ocean bounds, Whose fame, the skies. He shall receive the name Iulus nobly bore, great Julius, he. … Then will the world grow mild; the battlesound Will be forgot … The dreadful gates Whence issueth war, shall, with close-jointed steel Be barred impregnably; and prisoned there The heaven-offending Fury, throned on swords, And fettered by a hundred brazen chains, Shall belch vain curses from his lips of gore.

This utopian vision may seem a bit far-fetched to

The twentieth century brought a decidedly sobering tone, even in America. Thus, a more modern version of the Magi’s journey is expressed in Earl B. Marlatt’s “Through the Dark the Dreamers Came.” Written in 1927 with music by Mabel W. Daniels, it combines English and Latin words, in the meditative key of D minor. Marlatt held impressive degrees in religion from Boston University, the University of Berlin, and Oxford. He became dean of the School of Theology at Boston University, and then moved to the Perkins School of Theology in Dallas. But it may have been his experience as a lieutenant in the field artillery in World War I that definitively characterized his theological understanding of suffering and redemption. The last stanza of “Through the Dark” concludes: It was worth the journeying To the weary end; For they found their dream, a King And a friend.

Maxima, maxima, Gloria Dei Maxima.

Today, in keeping with globalization, our tastes are somewhat eclectic. There is still plenty of romanticism in our selections.

But we are generally moving away from a sentimental devotion to the baby Jesus, toward a concern for justice and help for the oppressed. We have been inspired by the churches around the

modern readers who know something of Rome’s barbarism, but Virgil was clearly tapping into the felt needs of the ancient Roman people who knew war as an almost constant and ever-present reality.

Some not only expected the line of the Caesars to bring an end to all wars, but in their view hellish Fury itself would be chained up and locked away, not merely for a thousand years, but for good!

Once again, the longing for heaven on earth is present, but how far the reality!

Virgil’s solution is similar to Creed’s. The Roman people would band together and, under the right leadership, would put an end to war and discord of every type; finally they would have rest.

This is the solution of many religious and political movements of our day as well. If we can just get the right person elected into office, if we can just get equal rights for all Americans regardless of race, sexual orientation, and more, if we can just band together to force global corporations to stop polluting our atmosphere, if we can just get people everywhere to stop eating meat! … then all will be well with the world. The irony of all these utopian efforts is that the more fervently one adheres to

a particular vision, the more one is willing to fight for that vision.

Thomas More’s Utopia hardly convinced anyone anywhere to do anything, but this was not the case with Karl Marx, whose vision of societal harmony by means of communism was simply “to die for!”

And so they did—by the millions. Hitler, too, had a vision, and he was the messiah to usher it in for us all. In our own day, we can think of Osama Bin Ladin. Here is a very religious man who longs for a world of peace defined according to his particular version of Islam, and September 11, 2001, was an indicator to us all of just how strong his convictions truly are.

At the end of the day we have to face the facts.

The desire to create heaven on earth has often created a living hell as people fight over their competing visions of earthly bliss. At best, the bandtogether solution is merely a Band-Aid fix for a terminal disease. Whether we unite by political philosophy, race, gender, peer group, nation-state, or whatever, we may watch each other’s back for a while, but we are still at war, if not with each other, then with a neighboring tribe. Though we long for

world to see beyond the “little town of Bethlehem” to the deeper significance of Christ’s coming for the blind and the captives (Luke 4:18).

Particularly poignant in many of our more contemporary carols is the contrast between the powerless child and the power of God to save. This theme is at the forefront in hymnals such as Carol Our Christmas: An Upside-down Christmas, a book and CD from New Zealand with lyrics by poets Joy Cowley, Eileen Duggan, and Peter Cape. Composers include David Dell, Colin Gibson and Roy Tankersley. Shirley Erena Murray, a fourth-generation New Zealander, a regular lyricist for recent hymns from the heart of Wellington, is the editor and executive secretary of the New Zealand Hymnbook Trust.

Several Christmas hymns in the collection are by Marnie Barrell. This one, written in 1995, can be set to several tunes, including “Obeisance” by Ian Redner or “Ashburton” by Colin Gibson.

All who would see God’s greatness, Draw near, bend down, look low: See how love appears among us As small as a child. Then go, Tell of greatness made so small, Tiny and hidden, God of all.

Would you receive God’s power?

Draw near, find strength in this: Laid open to all our violence Is love that will not resist.

This is our God, who chose to be Tied with our bonds to set us free.

If it is true, as Digby Mackworth Dolben said it, “Poetry, the hand that wrings, Bruised albeit at the strings, Music from the soul of things,” then it is especially true of the poetry of Christmas. This year, why don’t we try to think more carefully about what we sing? The soul’s health is at stake.

William Edgar (Dr. Theol., Universite de Genéve), professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, is the author of the recently released Reasons of the Heart (Grand Rapids: Baker/Hourglass). For more information on the New Zealand Hymnbook Trust, contact the organization at info@hymns.org.nz.

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peace, we are nonetheless built of Cain’s stock, which ensures that there will never be an earthly paradise apart from Tom and Huck’s expectation of some kind of divine intrusion.

Divine Intrusion n Daniel’s prophetic visions, we find an amazing description of the rise of Rome as a world power, hundreds of years before it came to be a great empire. This was to be a kingdom of “iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things” (2:40), though its leadership would be brittle as clay (2:41–43). In fact, this new world power would “be different from all the kingdoms, and it shall devour the whole earth and trample it down” (7:23), and would also make “war with the saints and prevail over them” (7:21). This is not exactly Virgil’s vision of peace and tranquility, but it’s accurate, nonetheless. Yet in that day, Daniel writes, “The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed…. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever” (2:44, 7:13–14). Here Daniel incredibly predicts the intrusion of an everlasting kingdom during the rise of the Roman Empire. But what intrusion can Daniel be thinking of? There isn’t a kingdom on earth that has continued without break for over two thousand years. Ahh, but

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now we’ll finally have peace on earth!

Peace on Earth, Can It Be? s Christ is born in Bethlehem, a large multitude of the heavenly host announce his advent and praise God, saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased” (Luke 2:14).

Now I don’t know about you, but I have just about memorized allthewordsoftheworld’s mostunlikelyChristmas duet between Bing Crosby and David Bowie titled, “Peace on Earth, A Christmas Wish.”

The song from 1977 begins as follows:

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Peace on Earth Can it be?

Years from now Perhaps we’ll see.

See the day of Glory See the day when men of Good Will Live in Peace Live in Peace again.

There are a number of important differences to point out between these lines and the text from Luke on which it is based. First, Luke’s passage in context is radically Christ-centered, whereas the song by Bowie and Crosby is fundamentally Christless. Second, peace on earth comes in this song to men of good will, whereas in Luke’s While all of man’s attempts at creating peace on earth will ultimately fail, account, it comes only to men with whom God is here we have something completely different. pleased, or as the NIV puts it, “peace to men on whom his favor rests” (see also John 3:8). In other words, it is not that’s just it. It is not an earthly kingdom! When a general peace experienced by the world at large, asked by Pilate whether or not he was a king, Jesus but a particular kind of peace for a particular people. responded, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it Again, this is what Daniel had prophesied when he were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest wrote not of the whole world indiscriminately, but by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from anoth- that “the saints of the Most High will receive the er place” (John 18:36). And Jesus, you may recall, kingdom and will possess it forever and ever (7:18). was born “in the days of Caesar Augustus,” Rome’s first official emperor.

The song continues: Thus, it was a real kingdom that Christ set up that has according to Daniel grown from a small Every child must be made aware stone into “a great mountain and filled the whole Every child must be made to care earth” (2:35). And it is also an eternal kingdom (2 Care enough for his fellow man Pet. 1:11). While all of man’s attempts at creating To give all the love that he can. peace on earth will ultimately fail, here we have something completely different. Daniel describes Now here’s a novel idea! The problem is an educathe stone which destroyed the mighty kingdoms as tional one. We don’t have peace, we don’t yet see rock cut “by no human hands” (2:45). He writes of utopia, because, well, our children just haven’t been “one like a son of man” graciously descending, and made aware of all the various problems that can bringing his kingdom with him (7:13–14). Perhaps sidetrack us, but now we’re going to take care of all

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that. We’ll teach them to band together with their fellow men, and sometime soon, we’ll bring in the day of glory in which men live in peace, because a few good men decided to get in there and take solid leadership roles. Hmmm. I think we’ve covered this ground already.

Of What Kind, Peace o what is the nature of this peace that the angels speak of? In his letter to the Romans, Paul does a masterful job of explaining the character and effects of the new peace we have been granted:

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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 into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (5:1–5) The rock band Creed at least diagnosed the problem correctly. Because the covenant had been broken, the human race was estranged from God. But now, because Christ has fulfilled the terms of the covenant for us and justifies us by faith, we can, once again, be at peace with our Maker. We were, according to Paul elsewhere, God’s enemies, but now have been reconciled with him and are presented as blameless before him (Col. 1:21–22).

One thing that is very clear about the Romans 5 passage is that Paul does not have in mind some kind of utopian vision. Yes, we have peace with God, but all is not yet right with the world. As newly adopted saints of God, we are called to rejoice in our sufferings. Obviously, therefore, we have not yet reached the end of all things in which all wrongs are righted and where peace reigns on every corner. But peace has begun to break through the cracks of this present evil age. Daniel’s vision hints at this as well. God introduces his everlasting kingdom, but his saints are persecuted for a time.

Finally, we should consider the words of our Lord. Though God has graciously granted peace, not to the world generally, but specifically to various individuals scattered throughout the world with whom he was pleased to give it, Christ makes plain in the following passage that the peace he is giving

is not to be confused with the worldly variety: Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. (Matt.

10:34–38) I’m just guessing, but these are probably not the verses Hallmark has chosen for its new Christmas card line this season. Perhaps we need to reintroduce our Lord to a world that doesn’t really know much about him anymore. Here in this text, even if our focus is on the family, Christ is, apparently, more important. And we also need to be willing to take up our cross and suffer with him. Clearly this is not “peace on Earth” as the world understands it.

The Wonder of Delay om and Huck wondered what delayed the stroke of justice. Indeed, many are impatient with enduring sin, evil, suffering, disease, and more. Even the disciples were ready at points to call down fire from heaven on a particular town, only to be rebuked by Jesus (Luke 9:54–55). So what is God waiting for?

Some see the delay as problematic. God either does not exist or simply isn’t concerned about evil and suffering in the world. There is a hint of the latter in another line from U2’s “Peace on Earth”:

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Jesus, can you take the time To throw a drowning man a line?

Peace on Earth.

Tell the ones who hear no sound Whose sons are living in the ground Peace on Earth.

No whos or whys No one cries, like a mother cries For peace on Earth.

Now there’s no question that some of the psalmists offer similar concerns to God in prayer. For example, Psalm 44 asks, “Why are you sleeping, O Lord?

Rouse yourself! … Why do you hide your face?

Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?”

Though it was not true that God was sleeping, it certainly is true that this sometimes appears to be

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the case from our vantage point, especially at times when our faith burns low. But the song continues: Jesus, in the song you wrote The words are sticking in my throat Peace on Earth.

Hear it every Christmas time But hope and history won’t rhyme So, what’s it worth?

This peace on Earth.

As I mentioned earlier, Bono’s lament is based on a 1998 terrorist bombing in Northern Ireland.

Because he is troubled by suffering and evil in the world, so he complains that the words “peace on earth” that he hears every Christmas time must not be worth much. Again, this is a classic mistake that many people make. Christ did not come to usher in a utopian kind of peace on earth in the here and now. The peace that he does bring does not rid the world of suffering, but ends the hostility between God and men. To borrow an illustration from C. S. Lewis, we are living in the time before D-day.

God’s new kingdom has been announced in advance over the wireless behind enemy lines.

Included in this message are announcements concerning the assured victory of the Allied forces and the terms of surrender for all enemies. We have words of hope and promise, but we still live in a time of war.

If Bono is right that hope and history won’t rhyme, then we are all doomed. The Christian faith is perhaps the only faith on the planet which asserts that the two in fact do rhyme. Our faith is not vague natural religion of eternal principles or aspirations, but it is a religion with the name of an ancient Roman magistrate embedded into our creed (he suffered under Pontius Pilate). Daniel’s hope and vision seems to rhyme with later world history, and Paul even writes that if Christ did not actually come back from the dead then our faith is useless. So, as he says, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Cor. 15:14, 32). The Christian claim is a faith founded on history, and our hope concerning the future will have a historical fulfillment as well.

So what’s God waiting for? Why does he allow terrorist bombings, plane crashes, mosquito bites, and hurricane after hurricane to devastate our lives?

First, if he were to allow us to create a utopia in the here and now, would we long for heaven? We must never fail to remember that something is wrong with the world, or we will never opt out of its system. This, in my opinion, is why faith is more difficult in opulent cultures, and why Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a nee-

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dle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Matt. 19:24). Material self-sufficiency easily mutates into spiritual self-sufficiency.

Second, God does punish evil, but in his own timing. Though wicked people may seem to prosper for a time, there will always be hell to pay.

God’s justice will be vindicated. Finally, the wonder of God’s delay is, for me, primarily a wonder of God’s grace. Immediate bolts of lightening leave no time for redemption. The fact that he is pleased to delay the culmination of all things shows he is continuing to have mercy on those he will have mercy (Rom. 9:15). There was a time, however, when God decided he would not delay his wrath and vengeance any longer, and we call this Good Friday. Here Christ played the part of Injun Joe in Tom and Huck’s wish, fully bearing the lightening bolts of God’s wrath agianst sin, wickedness and deception. And because the wrath was fully borne, it was fully extinguished and turned aside God’s wrath toward us. According to Paul, “This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:25). In the cross of Christ, God proved once and for all that he was not unconcerned about evil and injustice in the world.

Finally, Peter wrote that Christ was too busy adding to his church to end the world and usher in an altogether new and perfect reality, saying, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:8). Frankly, I’m at peace with that. ■ Shane Rosenthal (M.A., Westminster Seminary California) is executive producer of the White Horse Inn.

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When Peace Seems Out of Reach Silent Night, Holy Night!

All is calm, all is bright round yon virgin mother and child Holy Infant, so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace.

(Joseph Mohr, 1792–1848; tr. John F. Young, 1820–85) ill you catch it this year? That illusive feeling called the Christmas spirit? Usually it’s brought on by healthy doses of the familiar trappings of the season: twinkling lights on Christmas trees, gaily wrapped packages, strains of familiar carols. These all bring on annual waves of nostalgia, weaving their magical web in heart and mind. For some, in view of the agony and suffering of mankind, all that seems inappropriate this year. It’s not just the hardened Scrooges that are skeptical. You know the

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perennial complaint: “More than two thousand years have gone by, and still there is no ‘peace on earth,’ no ‘good will among men.’”

Outwardly it would seem the cynics have it right. As Christmas 2004 rolls around, the world is still filled with wars and rumors of wars.

Nation rises against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; still there are famines and earthquakes in various places. Still human hearts are fainting for fear of what is coming on the world.

Terrorism, disease, and death rear their ugly heads on every side.

In such a world, tinseled trees, mulled cider, and all the familiar cozy comforts of Christmas seem out of place. We’re menaced by unseen threats from unknown assailants. How can we proclaim “Joy to the world, the Lord is come” when there’s not much

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joy to be had? How can we sing “Silent Night, Holy Night” with our anxious world wrapped in encroaching darkness? How can anyone “sleep in heavenly peace” when it seems there’s no peace to be had?

A Different Peace hristians know a peace that surpasses all understanding. The peace of him who said: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27). Jesus Christ is our peace in the midst of an unsettled and very scary world. But his peace transcends ordinary peace. In fact, those whose hearts are anchored in him rest securely in peace even while surrounded by chaos and uncertainty. Yet Christian peace is not a mind game; it’s not purely an internal affair. The same paradoxical axiom applies as in other dimensions of the faith: the more external, the more internal. That is, the more objective the source and foundation, the more subjective its effect and result.

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and I are rebels by nature. “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God … ” (Rom. 8:7a).

Sadly, ever since the Fall, all mankind has been waging war against its Creator. Like our mother Eve, we’ve chosen to follow the delights of our own eyes and the inclinations of our own hearts rather than God’s good and gracious will. Like our father Adam, we’re all under the sentence of death because of our insolent pursuit of our own way rather than God’s.

His way leads to life; our way leads to destruction.

Fitful Frenzy f there’s any doubt about that, take an honest look at the unraveling world around you.

Peelbacktheveneeroftheimagesofsuccessinour frenetic society and you find a vacuous emptiness.

People live increasingly frenzied lives, caught up in an endless quest for more, bigger, and better.

Ultimately, though, it’s an empty quest.

Even the biggest and best of material goods can’t deliver the most basic of all human needs: love, quiet confidence, inner peace.

Many consider their frenIt’s true. The more I look into my own feelings and heart for peace, the harder zy just the price of admission to the kind of world we live in; an unfortunate by-prodit is to find. On the other hand, when I look to Christ and his promises, uct of life in the fast lane.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn then things are different. labels it a sickness: “The characteristics of modernity, It’s true. The more I look into my own feelings the psychological illness of (our age), is this hurand heart for peace, the harder it is to find. On the riedness, hurrying, scurrying, this fitfulness—fitfulother hand, when I look to Christ and his promis- ness and superficiality.” es, then things are different. When I hear his Word, when I consider how he has baptized me Sin-sick Souls ather than signs of achievement and marks into his death and resurrection, when I receive his of success, then, the stress and busy strains sacrament and hear him say, “for you, for the forwe all complain about are symptomatic of a giveness of sins,” then I find solid footing in a slippery and chaotic world. Then there’s a place for sick soul. The symptoms may be different for each faith to stand and thrive and live again. But when of us, but the recovery is the same. All of us find our health and healing in the infant Child once laid I focus on my own feet, I begin to slip and slide.

That’s also the way it is with the peace of God. low in a manger, crucified on a cross, risen and now Peace is not a do-it-yourself project; it can’t be con- exalted in eternal glory.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, jured up out of thin air. No wonder some consider such peace a pious fiction. It seems beyond their and I will give you rest,” said Jesus. “Take my yoke grasp because they’ve been going at it all wrong. In upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and reality, the peace of God is not a human achievement, lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls” but God’s. This peace is a done deal. It’s the result of (Matt. 11:28–29). Soul rest is just what the doctor a unilateral treaty, signed, sealed and delivered by ordered for the fitful, frenzied times in which we live. And souls do find their rest in Jesus. Not just God himself in the blood of Jesus Christ his Son. in heaven, mind you, but also here and now.

The Enemy Is Us rdinary peace is negotiated between God in Disguise feuding partisans, but not this peace; for hat’s what Christmas is all about. Not that we’re all culprits in this conflict. The coswe loved God, but that he loved us and mic battle began not with God, but with us; you sent his Son to be the payment for our sins.

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Christmas is the story of how God invaded this world to rescue and redeem his rebellious children.

Leaving his throne in glory, the Son of God lowered himself to descend among us. Coming in undercover, he disguised his divine majesty in lowly human flesh. “In Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,” St. Paul wrote (Col. 2:9). This is the central mystery of Christmas.

The shepherds were the first to hear of this mystery: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11).

Every faithful Jew knew the divine name by which God had disclosed himself to their father Abraham.

Out of reverence his holy name never crossed their lips, however. Instead, they substituted “Adonai” or “Kyrios” in Greek, or “LORD” in English. Keeping this in mind, the familiar angelic message packs a stronger punch: the Good News of great joy was that the baby born in a barn was none other than God, the Lord.

No wonder the shepherds left their sheep; they wanted to check out this miracle for themselves: “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us” (Luke 2:15). When they got there, they found the baby lying in a manger. Afterward, they related what they had been told concerning the child.

“And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them” (Luke 2:17). What was so amazing about this message?

Was it the quaint setting, perhaps? The angelic chorus, the sheep or the animals of the stable? We who have grown calloused by years of experience with “the Christmas spirit” are perhaps ill-equipped to grasp the central wonder of Christmas, its sheer awe, the absolute marvel that lies at its core:—unto you—a Savior—Christ, the Lord.

All too often we lose the impact of the mystery embedded in the angels’ praise: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased” (Luke 2:14; emphasis added). It’s the gracious favor and mercy of God, you see, that brings peace. “Those with whom He is pleased” includes the whole suffering world, including many who are too busy to notice. There is not one man, woman, or child left out of the plan of God to rescue and redeem mankind; it is his gracious pleasure to save them all. There is not one person left forsaken and unloved, not one sin that Jesus left unpaid. Peace is now established between God and all his rebellious children. His unilateral decree echoes in Jesus’ dying cry: “It is finished!” (John 19:30).

Peace on Earth een in this light, “peace on earth” takes on a whole new meaning.

The perennial quest for earthly peace continues

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unabated. Innocent victims still live in fear all the world around this Christmas. Terror still stalks the streets and lurks in human hearts around the globe, from Pittsburgh to Falujah. Human suffering, death, and destruction loom large again this year, as they have every year since the angels’ song rang through those Judean hills in the stillness of that quiet night.

But the peace they sang about is a different kind of peace. It’s much more than the absence of temporal hostilities; it’s the presence of eternal calm.

Every human treaty is temporary, and earthly peace is all too fragile. Only God’s peace lasts eternally, yet it’s accessible here and now. In fact, it is the present possession of all who trust in Christ: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1).

Getting a Grip ut where do we grab hold of this peace, and how can we hang on to it when life is so chaotic? Serenity is in short supply these days. Like most people, we find ourselves hurrying through life, scurrying like most everyone else, just trying to keep a lid on things. If we’re not careful, fitfulness and superficiality can engulf us just like it does a lot of others in these frenzied times. Three devotional habits build and maintain genuine peace and spiritual stability in the midst of turmoil.

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1. Look for God where he has promised to be found.

The shepherds followed the Word given them; they went to Bethlehem to see what had been made known to them. Not just any baby was the promised Savior, but the one “wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in manger” (Luke 2:12).

You see, lasting peace is compromised when we look in the wrong places. The Scriptures are the swaddling cloths and manger in which we find the Lord who came to bring us peace.

When we read and hear his Word, we come into contact with Jesus himself—actually, he comes to us. “Christ is closer to you in His Word,” Luther once wrote, “than your little son with his arms around your neck.”

2. Learn the art of meditation.

When heads are cluttered with fearful things, it’s no wonder that hearts become afraid. A sure antidote to fear and distress is to fill not just our heads, but also our hearts with the promises of God in Christ. The practice of meditation involves exactly that: “I will meditate on your precepts and fix my

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eyes on your ways” (Ps. 119:15).

To “meditate” is not just cognitive concentration on God’s Word. Study is vital, to be sure. But meditation involves much more.

Essentially, it’s rumination on the Word of God. It involves “chewing” the Word—orally, mentally, spiritually—repeating the words of Scripture out loud over and over until they take root in mind and heart, there to produce the fruits of God’s Spirit through faith in his Son. And chief among the fruits of the Spirit are not merely love and joy, but also peace (Gal. 5:22).

3. Learn to pray God’s Word back to him.

Our Father in heaven loves to hear from his children. Trusting in his promises, we bring all the fears and distress of our fitful lives to him in prayer. We certainly may cast all our anxieties on him, because we know he cares for us in Christ (1 Pet. 5:7).

There’s no one “right” way to pray. But if we use meditation as a springboard for prayer, we can learn to use the Word of God itself as the warp and woof of our prayers, weaving our petitions into his promises.

Every child learns to speak by listening to his or her parents. So also God’s beloved children learn to speak as they are spoken to, echoing his Word back to him, borrowing his words for their prayers.

Praying God’s Word or instance, there’s the wreath model for prayer Martin Luther recommended to his barber, Peter Beskendorf. In his own private devotion the reformer used to begin with oral meditation on the Word of God. Then he would begin to pray, using that same Word of God as the foundation of his prayer first as instruction, then thanksgiving; then confession; and only then as petition: “I divide each commandment into four parts, thereby fashioning a garland of four strands.

That is, I think of each commandment as, first, instruction, which is really what it is intended to be, and consider what the Lord God demands of me so earnestly. Second, I turn it into a thanksgiving; third, a confession; and fourth, a prayer.”

This model works well not just with the commandments, but with any text of holy Scripture.

Build your prayer around one Scripture selection, weaving a prayer of four strands all drawn from the same passage. You could use the following phrases to “prime the pump” for each of the four components:

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1. Instruction. “Here you teach me that ….”

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Rephrase the Scripture in your own words, echoing back to God what he says in this text.

2. Thanksgiving. “I thank you (for this) because …. “ Thank God for what he has promised or taught in this text.

3. Confession. “Please forgive me for ….” Ask God for forgiveness for how you have neglected or despised what he has promised or taught in this text.

4. Petition. “Please help me to ….” Ask God to give or produce in you what he promises, commands, or teaches in this text.

In Heavenly Peace any find themselves so distracted by the bustle of the season that they find little or no peace at Christmas. Others look within themselves or to the nostalgic customs of the season to find some semblance of peace—and come up empty. Those who look to Christ and his Word, however, find confidence for time and eternity. Genuine Reformation spirituality is not a self-help project. Rather, peace of mind and heart are a by-product nurtured in those who are justified by grace through faith.

When you cultivate the three habits of faith listed above you’ll find that the peace on earth the angels sang about is not of your own doing, but a gift of God. And it will continue long after the last decorations of the season are packed away.

Merry Christmas, then, and peace to you and yours in Christ! ■

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Harold L. Senkbeil (S.T.M., Concordia Theological Seminary) is Associate Professor of Pastoral Ministry and Missions at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, IN. Rev. Senkbeil’s quotation from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is taken from Ian Hunter’s essay “The Last Prophet,” found in Touchstone 16 (July/August 2003): 20. The discussion of Martin Luther’s wreath model for prayer is found in Luther’s Works, Vol. 43, Devotional Writings II, edited by J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald, and H. T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), p. 200.

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Terrifying Peace n the name of peace, the world brings terror on earth. In the name of justice, the baby in the manger brings peace on earth. It should not be surprising to us that we continue to think in worldly ways about this matter. Eight centuries before Christ, King Ahaz, refusing to trust the prophet’s promise that YHWH would protect Judah from Assyria’s ominous encroachments, took matters into his own hands and signed an alliance with Assyria. Rather than keep covenant with Judah’s only Sovereign, Ahaz turned to Assyria, a nation that God then used to bring about the Babylonian captivity.

Yet even in the midst of judgment, as in Eden with our first parents, God announces the gospel: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14 ESV).

We find it so tempting to sign pacts with the world to bring about peace, but appeasement and peace, as the British prime minister Neville Chamberlain learned the hard way, are hardly the same thing.

Ever since the fall, humans have accepted the ser-

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pent’s lie that we can create a perfect, peaceful, nonviolent and secure world as autonomous creatures. And we have accepted the further deception that we can undo the empirical effects of our socalled freedom by greater effort and collective will. In the modern liberal experiment, that has usually meant the peace, security, and justice for all through the glory of human sentiment, apart from the cross of judgment and justice. Yet even in that experiment there remains the lingering scent of an empty vase. Before rebuilding a bombed-out Europe, pockmarked with the shells of spiritual as well as material devastation, there must be the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi criminals. Before peace can truly come to the Balkan republics or Iraq, war criminals must be brought to justice. The very fact that we ignore national sovereignty to arrest, arraign, and imprison even former heads of state demonstrates that there is some residual sense of a law above our laws and that justice must be served before reconciliation and peace can be established. In South Africa, nearly a decade of justice work by the Truth Commission

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had to be done before reconciliation could occur and widespread civil war could be averted.

Despite these examples from international politics, contemporary theology is largely tethered to a liberal utopian sentimentalism that demands glory without the cross, justification without judgment, gospel without law. So Jesus’ mission cannot be treated as a substitutionary sacrifice satisfying divine justice but as an accident of Jesus’ compassionate ministry. His intention was not to die, we are told, but to form a new coalition of humanists to finally bring about a reign of love without violence. To suggest that our salvation required the death of an expiatory sacrifice is to legitimize violence, not dethrone it, at least according to many theologians and pastors today. The significance of Jesus’ life is the example that it provides to us to bring about a kingdom of love and nonviolence even if it kills us too in the process. A half century ago, H. Richard Niebuhr captured this sentiment admirably: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through a Christ without a cross.”

will not break and a smoldering candle he will not snuff out” (Isa. 42:3; Matt. 12:20). He is tender to those who break off their covenant with the world and its false security, embracing him as their peace, even if they are outcasts: prostitutes, perpetrators of violence, fraudulent tax-collectors, even Gentiles.

These go in, while the self-righteous remain on the outside. But there really is an outside and an inside to this kingdom. There is a covenant people and there is also a rebellious humanity that refuses to enter the safety of the ark, relying on other gods to save them.

And anyone who belongs to the latter “is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18). But this meekness is not opposed to justice. It is not a passive wink at sin and violence, a point that may offend wealthy citizens of developed democracies but is actually a comfort to those enduring tremendous oppression. In Christ, it is an active obedience to God’s law and a willing embrace even of its curses in our place. The cross is where justice and peace embrace and God’s will at last is done on earth as it is in heaven.

I’m not a fan of any images I’m not a fan of any images of our incarnate Lord, but I have sometimes wondered of our incarnate Lord, but I have sometimes wondered why there are no Good Friday cards at the mall. It would be jarring but intriguing why there are no Good Friday cards at the mall. It would be to see Christmas cards with a cross as well as a manger. jarring but intriguing to see Christmas cards with a cross as All of this fits comfortably with the sweet conso- well as a manger. Without stealing the joy of Christ’s lations of Christmas Muzak, but it corresponds nei- birth, the cross casts its shadow over his nativity: “For ther to the biblical testimony nor satisfies the aching this purpose I have come into the world” (John 12:27). suspicion that everything is still not right and that The Protestant reformers put to great use an earfor all of its warm sentimentality, the Christmas lier distinction between the state of nature after the story is basically irrelevant in the age of terrorism. fall (sin), the state of grace, and the state of glory.

The goal of my article, however, is to argue that Christmas recalls and celebrates not only Christ’s there can be no peace on earth without justice, no birth but the birthday of the new creation, includfinal defeat of violence without divine punishment, ing our translation from the kingdom of darkness to no reconciliation between sinners without the pro- the kingdom of God’s own Son (1 Pet. 2:9). It is a pitiation of God’s wrath, since ultimately all sins kingdom of grace, not yet of glory. So when the against other creatures is first and foremost a sin disciples argue over greatness (power) in this kingagainst God (see Ps. 51:4). But the good news is dom, Jesus rebukes them. It is about the cross, not that God has done what we could not do, either glory, at least not yet. When James and John want individually or collectively, and he has done this to call the fire of the last judgment on the heads of definitively, once and for all, in Jesus Christ. the Samaritans who rejected their preaching, Jesus We need not rehearse the myriad expressions of rebuked them sharply. They were simply following confidence in Jesus “meek and mild.” Nobody dis- the course of the Old Testament prophets, proseculikes this Jesus. This is the tolerable and tolerant tors of the covenant law-suit. But this was not the babe in the manger, who apparently always looks time for the last judgment and the restoration of all on the bright side and never judges. He pro- things. It is the festival of ingathering, not the feast claimed the best of universal human ideals, but his of trumpets. So while the last judgment was anticiuntimely death reveals how often the flame of love pated episodically in the Old Testament (the flood, is snuffed out by hatred. If only we would remem- Sodom and Gomorrah, the holy wars of Israel), the ber again this Christmas to live up to those ideals. theocracy was merely a type of the kingdom that There is, of course, some truth to this business has now come in Christ. And in its current phase it about Jesus being meek and mild: “a bruised reed he is a kingdom of grace, not glory; weakness, not

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power; cross, not consummation. This is why in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus announces a new covenant “politics” for his disciples in anticipation of that consummation. Whereas the men-of-war are honored in Israel’s history, in Jesus’ new covenant constitution, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9).

So all talk about greatness in the kingdom is out of place for the servants of the Servant. Jesus concludes his rebuke of the disciples with that famous statement, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). Jesus came on his first mission—his Christmas mission, if you will, not to judge the world but to save (John 3:15–16).

Yet even on this mission the kingdom of glory is anticipated in advance. The future glory occasionally breaks through Jesus’ meek and mild humanity, as at the Transfiguration, but also in the separation that will become finally realized on the Last Day. This is why, in Matthew 10, Jesus sends the Twelve out with the following instruction that is unlikely to be part of popular Christmas readings: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but sword” (v. 34). In case we thought he was kidding, Jesus adds more concrete detail: For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (vv. 35–39).

This is why Jesus simultaneously rebukes James and John for wanting to inaugurate the last judgment and announces it himself, as here in Matthew 10 but also throughout the Gospels, most notably in the Olivet discourse (see, for example, Mark 13:24–27). Jesus brought with him to the cradle in Bethlehem a sword of judgment and justification, conviction of sin, and the announcement of everlasting reconciliation with God in him. But the next time we see him, he will bring a sword of vengeance and execute once and for all that justice that is necessary for bringing about the complete restoration of all things and the everlasting reign of Sabbath righteousness, glory and peace that even Adam never enjoyed.

This second coming is mentioned in the Epistles as well. In fact, the delay in this judgment

is read by the scoffing world as evidence that it is all a sham, while in fact God’s purpose in the delay is to allow time for even these scoffers (like us) to be brought into the kingdom of grace. But the apocalyptic imagery returns literally with a vengeance in the book of Revelation, aptly named the Apocalypse. There, the kingdoms of this world—with whom even the church has made its ignoble alliances, are razed and in their rubble the City of God finally descends and the announcement is given that God’s dwelling is finally and forever established among us.

After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” Once more they cried out, “Hallelujah!

The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”

And then they sat down with the twenty-four elders—the heads of the tribes of Israel and the apostles of the new covenant, at the great marriage feast of the Lamb (Rev. 19:1–10).

The false prophets of Jeremiah’s day were indicted for preaching a false comfort: “They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush” (Jer. 6:14–15). The same is true not only of the world, but of much that goes by the name of the church today. We take sin too lightly in our comfortable towers of Babel, thinking that our security lies in the provisions of the benevolent gods of technology, democracy, and ideologies of the left and the right. We assume that there can be Christmas without Good Friday, Sabbath rest without the work of Christ, an easy peace without terrifying justice.

Theologian Miroslav Volf, who was raised in the Balkan conflicts, offers an alternative to this pervasive tendency which actually undermines the hope of justice for which victims cry out: My thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many Christians, especially theologians in the West. To the person who is inclined to dismiss it, I suggest imagining that you are delivering a lecture in a war zone (which is where a paper that underlies this chapter was originally delivered). Among your listeners are people whose cities and vil-

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lages have been burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. The topic of the lecture: a Christian attitude toward violence.

The thesis: we should not retaliate since God is perfect noncoercive love. Soon you would discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God’s refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die.

And as one watches it die, one will do well to reflect about many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind.

Viewing Christmas in the light of Good Friday means also seeing it in the light of Easter. Jesus’ suffering was not something he passively endured, but actively embraced in view of the Resurrection and the hope of glory. Ironically, if Jesus’ life were merely an example for us to follow, it could be used to justify, for example, a woman’s passive acceptance of violence from her husband. But as Nancy Duff has argued, it is precisely by recognizing the uniqueness of the cross as an unrepeatable sacrifice—something that God did for us, not something designed for our imitation, that we can keep from celebrating passivity: If faith does not acknowledge God as fully God and fully human, the connection between Christ’s death on the cross and our involvement in suffering becomes distorted.

When the church confesses the incarnation and the subsequent doctrine of Christ’s two natures, the cross cannot rightly be interpreted as something God required of or did to Jesus, but something God did for us. Furthermore, because Christ is the Messiah, fully divine and fully human, the salvific nature of his death has a uniqueness and finality that cannot be repeated. No other person is required—or able—to do what Christ did. Therefore, the logic of the cross is not that we are to become victims consistent with Christ hanging on the cross, but that Christ became a victim to release us from the powers of sin and death.

The abused wife does not “represent Christ” through exemplary self-sacrificial love. She is not the incarnate God suffering on behalf of sinful humanity. Rather, Christ on the cross represents her, reveals God’s presence with her, and uncovers the sin of those who abuse or neglect her. Christ makes known to her and the world that her suffering represents the opposite of God’s will.

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What is truly amazing is that we can watch the Twin Towers collapse in a burning heap and call God to account. Talk about changing the subject!

Such violence demonstrates our evil, not God’s. But nothing demonstrates this darkness of our hearts than the way we treated God when he came to us.

We were inhospitable to him from the moment of his birth. It is not the collapsing World Trade Center that presses us to face the depth of human depravity most severely, but the suspension of the God-Man on the scaffold of our greatest scorn.

True, no one who died in those tragic events of September 11, 2001, was in any way worthy of the sin committed against them, but with Jesus Christ we encounter our elder brother who was nevertheless without guilt for any sin and yet was the constant focus of our hatred. Furthermore, this is a victim who keeps walking with outstretched arms toward the very perpetrators of his misery, measuring both the greatness of his mercy as well as our own sinful contempt for it. If we want to talk about justice and peace, then, we have to talk about the cross. If we think that we can bring about peace on earth, then we have forgotten what we did to God when he came to bring it.

The good news is that Christ is coming again, and this time not with a kingdom of weakness, grace, and cross, but of power, judgment, and glory. Those who have cried out, “How long, O Lord!” will be answered. Those who have suffered violence and oppression will be vindicated and the unrepentant perpetrators will be judged.

The goal of the cross is not simply forgiveness, but chesed—covenantal loyalty between God and humans, humans and humans, humans and the non-human creation, in the everlasting sabbath of true righteousness, justice, freedom and love. God is satisfied by the cross not merely as justice is served by the conviction and sentencing of a criminal, but because through the cross God is able to bring about for human beings what human beings, even Christian ones, have never brought about and will never bring about themselves. ■ Michael Horton (Ph.D., Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and the University of Coventry) is Professor of Apologetics and Theology at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, California).

In writing this article, Dr. Horton has quoted from Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace (Abingdon, 1966), pp. 298, and Nancy J. Duff, “Atonement and the Christian Life: Reformed Doctrine from a Feminist Perspective,” Interpretation, vol. 53, no. 1 (January 1999), p. 27.

P E A C E O N E A RT H

Christmas Proclamation

The Incarnation Hebrews 10:5–7

by KEN JONES As we begin our preaching pilgrimage in this season of Advent when we celebrate the birth of our Savior, I thought it fitting to begin with this particular text because in my mind it establishes the context and parameters of the birth of Christ. Furthermore, this passage gives us a remarkable insight into the mindset of the eternal Son of God as it relates to the Incarnation.

Among the things that makes this such a remarkable passage is the fact that these words taken from the 40th Psalm which was written by David are ascribed to Christ himself. Elsewhere we see the inspired words of others concerning the Incarnation. For instance the prologue of John’s Gospel 1:1-18 climaxed in v.14 “And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us” or Paul’s declaration in Gal. 4:4 “But when the

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fullness of time was come God sent forth his son to be born of a woman.” Both passages make it clear that Christ was existent before his Incarnation and was sent forth by God the Father. But in our text, by ascribing Ps. 40:6 to Christ, the writer of Hebrews gives us a transcript of a dialogue between God the Father and God the Son. “When he came into the world he said…” “He” obviously speaking to the Father, “sacrifice and offering you did not desire but a body you have prepared me.”

Let us consider three things from this passage as it relates to the Incarnation.

First, the Incarnation substantiates and fulfills what was presented in shadow form in the animal sacrifices. The “therefore” of verse five points back to the first four verses of the chapter where the writer speaks of the law as “a shadow of the good things to come and not of the very image of the things.” He goes on to elaborate what animal sacrifices could not do, ultimately these sacrifices could not take away sins (v. 4). This is the basis of the two negative statements concerning animal sacrifices in the text “sacrifice and offering you did not desire” (v 5) and “In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure” (v 6). Of course this does not mean that the animal sacrifices of the Mosaic Law were of no value (see 9:13), but the efficacy of these sacrifices was in the faith of those who offered them as they anticipated the substance and the one to who the sacrifices pointed. This is why when John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him, he declared “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Jesus came in the flesh to do what the blood of bulls and goats could not do, he was the substance and fulfillment of all to which they pointed.

Second, we learn from this passage the importance of the human body. In verse five after the words “sacrifice and offering you did not desire” are ascribed to Christ, he is then credited with saying “but a body you have prepared for me.” This echoes the sentiment of Samuel’s words to Saul in I Samuel 15:22 “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?” – verse seven of our text gives the reason for Christ assuming a human body – to do the will of God.” Heb. 2:14 says “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared in the same…”

Christ came into this world to do the will of God as man is supposed to do, therefore it was necessary that he take on a human body. Contemporary evangelicals have a tendency to downplay the significance of the human body, as if it were inherently evil. Hedonists, on the other hand have a tendency to overplay the pleasure and sensations of

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the body. The human body is neither inherently evil nor is it built solely for pleasure. Our bodies were intended for the will of God and our pleasure is to do his will. Christ is our substitute in that he has come in human flesh to do what is incumbent upon us as the image bearer of God, he has indeed borne the penalty of our sins, but he has also performed in the flesh all that God has required of us.

It is because his obedience is credited to us that we can now yield our body as an instrument of righteousness. Furthermore, we have the blessed hope of resurrection bodies that will be renewed and conformed to the likeness of Christ our Savior.

The Incarnation not only means that animal sacrifices have ceased but it also means we can now offer the sacrifice of praise because our bodies are included in the redemptive work of Christ.

Finally this passage emphasized in verse seven that the person and work of Christ are the primary focus of Scripture. “Behold I have come – in the volume of the book it is written of me – To do your will, O God.” The volume of the book centers on Christ—this is what Jesus demonstrated to the disciples on the Emmaus Road in Luke 24. Christ is the Seed of the Woman that will bruise the head of the serpent in Genesis 3:15; he is the one that ascends to the hill of the Lord in Psalm 24; he is the chosen one of the Lord; he is the Son of David and the Lord of David; he is the sacrifice that spared Isaac; it was on him that the Spirit was fully given and he distributes gifts to men. The Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Second Coming are all the result of the fact that Christ assumed the body that was prepared for him and in it he did the will of God. Through his obedience we have salvation.

As we look forward to his Second Coming let us also celebrate and rejoice in the fact that he has come the first time. ■

Ken Jones is a graduate of Pepperdine College and the senior minister of Greater Union Baptist Church in Compton, California. Rev. Jones is also a co-host of the White Horse Inn radio program.

A Meditation at Christmas b y PA U L F. M . Z A H L In some ways, Christmas decontextualizes the historical Jesus more than any other time. We do not know at what time of the year he was born. There was almost definitely no snow on the ground in Judea.

And there is no proof, beyond strong and early tradition, that Christ was born at Bethlehem. Even David Flusser, so normally reverent in his handling of the Gospels, thinks Christ was born at Nazareth.

Yet I cannot give up on Christmas. Far from it, for Christmas captures basic elements in the centrifugal force of Jesus of Nazareth. It has for many hundreds of years carried, inside the long train of its tradition, signals of Christ “as he really was.” Christmas bears the saving theme, the theme of human lostness, the theme of the smallest seed growing to stature, the centrifugal “magnitude of weakness” (Christopher Smart).

The continuity of every time with the discontinuous Christ of that particular time is expressed undyingly through two nineteenth-century American Christmas carols. These are still sung and heard today, from ice-skating rinks in Tokyo to almost all Christian churches in English-speaking countries to airports worldwide in December to shopping malls and Cracker Barrel restaurants.

They are Phillips Brooks’s 1867 hymn, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and Edmund Hamilton Sears’s 1846 hymn, “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.”

Each of these carols is a pure example of the living centrifugal force of the historical Jesus.

Phillips Brooks wrote his hymn for a children’s play in Holy Trinity Church, Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia. He envisaged the contextualized Bethlehem, a town which he had in fact recently visited, in decontextualized terms: “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” In theology, this is called “salvation-history,” a phrase coined by the Germans.

It means that Bethlehem has significance beyond its particular existence. Its historical existence is given by virtue of Christ’s birth, universal existence and significance. Christianity holds the concrete and the general here in perfect tension.

Bethlehem is a town like no other. At the same time it is a town like all others, in which all other towns exist representatively.

In the third stanza of his hymn, Phillips Brooks, who was a liberal Evangelical Episcopalian, carries forward the main centrifugal idea of Jesus’ historical ministry: No ear may hear his coming, But in this world of sin, Where meek souls will receive him, Still the dear Christ enters in.

The world consists of sin. The two are almost synonymous. Jesus’ damning anthropology is in force. It is at work in the idea. Brooks, despite his generally optimistic worldview, cannot deny the fact. Yet, too, the humbling repentance of the one to whom Jesus addresses his Word is evoked. It is the “meek souls” who receive him. It is not the “righteous” and “those who have no need of a physician.” The Physician, the “dear Christ,” comes to those who require his services. Repentance equals meekness. The world equals sin. The “dear Christ” is the Man Between, the One who is still “here” in force, because the second Son of Man has not yet come. The gospel of the historical Jesus is entirely, concentratedly represented here.

The hymn concludes with a prayer, the poet’s response to the time- and place-breaking statement of universality springing from context: O holy Child of Bethlehem!

Descend to us, we pray; Cast out our sin and enter in, Be born in us today.

Context, be universalized right now! Like the old ones who needed a physician, who needed an exorcist, “Cast out our sin.” Save us to the extent of rebirthing us body and soul.

This is a recognition of Original Sin and a statement of the human problem to the furthest degree. We must be born again. Phillips Brooks’s Evangelicalism is in perfect harmony with the One whom he believed had called him. The hymn is a classic case of the First Christian’s extended universal reach.

Edmund Hamilton Sears was a clergyman affected by the Unitarian controversy in New

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England, which so influenced American “high culture” before the Civil War. Sears wrote several hymns, but his most familiar one is a second, almost perfect example of the centrifugal force deriving from Jesus the Christian.

It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old, From angels bending near the earth To touch their harps of gold: “Peace on the earth, good will to men, From heav’n’s all-gracious King.”

The world in solemn stillness lay To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come, With peaceful wings unfurled, And still their heav’nly music floats O’er all the weary world; Above its sad and lowly plains They bend on hov’ring wing, And ever o’er its Babel-sounds The blessed angels sing.

The context is “of old,” yet “Still … they come”!

The world is a tainted, troubled, guilty place, “its sad and lowly plain.” Yet “ever o’er its Babel sounds, the blessed angels sing.

Sears’ anthropology is Christ’s, but the stage is Maine, 1846: Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long; Beneath in heav’nly strain have rolled two thousand years of wrong.”

Sears was an early “Social Gospel” man. He discerned the social or sociological factor in the (collective) heart which Jesus had described in the words concerning “purity control.” Sears’ context was “early New England liberal”; Jesus’ was what it was. The two mesh perfectly because of the universalizing energy of Christ’s centrifugal force.

At the same time, Sears knew the personal, individual side of the anthropology. Mankind is burdened and oppressed, the individual man is burdened and oppressed. Original Sin is social, but it is also personal.

O ye, beneath life’s crushing load, Whose forms are bending low, Who toil along the climbing way With painful steps and slow, …

Look now! For glad and golden hours Come swiftly on the wing; O rest beside the weary road And hear the angels sing!

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This stanza, the fourth, is omitted in most hymnals today. It is considered individualistic. I don’t know. I do know that it was in the 1940 Episcopal hymnal but was dropped from the 1982 edition. I do know that it is not to be found in most collections of Christmas carols. Sears’s anthropology is clear. The oppressed lamed bent man is the one who hears.

For lo! the days are hast’ning on, By prophets seen of old, When with the ever-circling years Shall come the time foretold, When peace shall over all the earth Its ancient splendors fling, And the whole world give back the song Which now the angels sing.

Sears’s last verse enters into the “open-ended” atmosphere of Christ’s eschatology. One day, the “Peace on earth” spoken once at Bethlehem, the “salvation-historical” greeting that made Bethlehem a representative context: one day the “peace on earth” will address the whole world in implementation rather than hope. Then “shall come the time foretold.”

We live in the second chapter of a three-part plan. We are deep in the second, stuck in it, stuck in the middle of it. There is time to hear, time to agree, time to give up, time to accept the Christ’s diagnosis of total depravity, time to reckon ourselves among the tax collectors and sinners, time to resign from the company of all who have no need of a physician, time to join the sinners, the impious whom Christ justified by his intent and first presence.

Christmas is always the First Time, in Bethlehem of Judea, and always also the Last Time, maybe. “For lo! the days are hast’ning on.” The universality of the Jesus-context broken and stretched and pulled out further to reach newly appearing contexts, will at one point of time become a single context. In retrospect, the universal context of the Christ at Bethlehem will be changed into the Christ of a single period of history, the period that lasted from his coming at the time of John to the Final Coming in the time of the Son of Man. After that, there will be no new contexts to inform. All contexts will disappear forever, as at the end of the Divine Comedy.

They will all be swallowed up and out-shone by a blinding single lamp that is the Son of God. ■ Paul F. M. Zahl (Dr. Theol., University of Tübingen) is Dean of Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

The preceding sermon first appeared as an epilogue in The First Christian: Universal Truth in the Teachings of Jesus by Paul F. M. Zahl (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans and Cambridge, U.K., 2003).

Tr u s t i n g G o d through Impossibilities

by JOHN NUNES In the “Advent” portion of his poetic oratorio, W. H. Auden chiseled words about the Word becoming flesh: We who must die demand a miracle.

How could the Eternal do a temporal act, The Infinite become a finite fact?

Nothing can save us that is possible: We who must die demand a miracle.

Captured here is a miraculous truth: that to save us, God’s infinite Son emptied himself, humbled himself (Phil. 2:6-8), even placing himself under human reproductive processes (Gal. 4:4). This is the miracle we dying ones demand. Beware of this word demand! We dare not claim to make any claim on God. Rather, by demand we mean that without the Father’s intervention, our fatally flawed condition is irreversible.

God did exactly that—directly intervening.

Impossible! God who cannot die personally entering the human drama of death. This specter of impossibility hangs behind Abraham’s rhetorical question, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”

(Gen.18:14). This confidence echoes in Jesus’ response to Peter and the mystified disciples: “with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26); this truth sounds stunningly similar to the Virgin Mary’s faith-filled acclamation: “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). The miracle of Christmas forms the matrix of this impossibility.

This world’s system has not only skewed the meaning of Christmas, it has also high-jacked and demeaned the meaning of these biblical references about the impossible. The Holy Spirit meant these verses to direct us to Bethlehem, God’s ultimate impossibility: the breaking-in that redeemed a sinwrecked humanity. Our sin is not a minor misstep, nor a psychological quirk, nor a slight slip up, nor a fleeting episode. Sin kills. Catastrophically!

Cataclysmically! Completely! Self-recovery is impossible.

In the inner city community where my wife, Monique, is Lutheran school principal, Olivia Neubauer is renowned for teaching reading to kindergarteners as a very veteran teacher. I say very because, though born in 1912, Mrs. Neubauer effectively and actively teaches at 93 years of age.

Amazing? Certainly, but certainly not scientifically impossible. It’s nothing like conceiving a child as a nonagenarian like Sarah, or becoming a mother as a teenage virgin like Mary. Sarah was definitely post menopausal. Her Abraham was way past the peak of potency. In terms of fertility, this couple had expired. Abraham, the archetype of hope, fell to the ground in hysteric laughter at the apparently impossible promise that their good-as-dead bodies would produce offspring as plenteous and prodigious as the stars in the sky.

Yet, in spite of what Abraham and Sarah endured, their “miracle” wasn’t at all about reproductive capacity, but was about seed—that collective noun pointing directly to Jesus—“Come O long expected Jesus, Born to set your people free.”

Come to us, totally exiled from God with no way back. Except, praise God, Jesus made a way out of no way. “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36). No liberating miracle deserves louder proclamation: We were banished by sin until God himself became our cosmic emancipator.

Yet there are some who domesticate this enormous salvation. “For God all things are possible” does not describe God making our impossible financial dreams come true; or God helping us succeed relationally against impossible odds; or God cosigning on our hopes for physical healing to the extent that he violates his own natural order in order to “bless” us. Yes, God indeed blesses us; and yes, God does heal, God does care about our down-to-earth needs; yes, all good comes from God; but no, the first, best, and greatest success we need achieved for us is freedom from killer sin.

Mary knew, by faith, when the power of the Most High overshadowed her (Luke 1:35) it was

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not to bring celebrity status or to give her future popularity replete with streams of “Hail Marys.”

Her only purpose was God’s saving agenda, in spite of impossibility, or unpopularity, or cost, or consequences. Can you imagine the cold-hearted attitudes some had about Mary when she reported her “premature” pregnancy? “Yeah right, you haven’t ‘been with’ a man yet. Now you say the Messiah is gestating within you.” Since Mary was fully human, like us, Jesus was like any other child—except for disobedience. But because God the Holy Spirit was the conceiver, Jesus was fully the Son of God— which is why humble Mary is rightly called “the Mother of God.” Impossible! Ah yes, here’s where it applies: “For nothing will be impossible with God.” Annually, this world’s system misrepresents Christmas. Scripture is epidemically misinterpreted. The Messiah is missed altogether. But ethicist Samuel Gregg has reminded us, the “primary way of combating the system is choose to live in truth—whatever the consequences.” By faith, Abraham, Peter and Mary—and we—ultimately choose to glorify God, even when we are mired in life’s systemic maze of dire impossibilities.

John Calvin sums up, “Let us remember that we are all in the same condition… Our circumstances are all in opposition to the promises of God. He

promises us eternal life, yet we are surrounded by death; He declares that He considers us justified; yet we are still covered with sins. He testifies that He is forgiving and good towards us; yet outwardly all we see is His anger. What then are we to do?

We must close our eyes, and disregard ourselves so that nothing may prevent us from believing that God is true.”

We believe God through seeming impossibilities because not one word has failed of all the good things that the Lord our God promised concerning us (Josh. 23:14). And since Jesus was born, was crucified, and was resurrected for us, wrong people like us are born into a right relationship with God; dead people like us are born again by the Word from above; detached people like us are reattached to the family of God through baptism; shadowy people like us are overshadowed by the Holy Spirit making us shine with the glory of God; righteousless people like us have born within us the very righteousness of God. Mary was right: “For nothing will be impossible with God.” ■

John Nunes (M.Div. Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary, St. Catherines, Ontario) is research associate in urban ministries at Wheat Ridge Ministries in Chicago, IL.

Rachel, D r y Yo u r Te a r s b y P H I L I P G R A H A M RY K E N There is a dark side to the Christmas story. My son discovered it when he was only three years old.

His mother read him a paraphrase of the Christmas story from Madeleine L’Engle’s book The Glorious Impossible. The book is beautifully illustrated with full-color reproductions of Giotto’s paintings of the life of Christ from the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua.

As they read, my wife and my little boy came to a painting entitled “The Massacre of the Innocents.”

In it Giotto depicts King Herod’s soldiers searching for the baby Jesus and putting the infants of Judea to the sword. The results of their grisly labors lie underfoot, a naked jumble at the bottom of the page.

“What are those from, Mommy?” my son asked.

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Rachel Weeping for Her Children old in all its gruesome detail, the Christmas story is hardly suitable for children. Matthew tells us that the wise men went back to the East another way: “When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi” (Matt. 2:16).

This is the dark side of Christmas, the raw wound of the Nativity. Army boots tromp and stamp across the manger scene. While the Christ is born and rescued, the babes of Bethlehem are slaughtered and buried.

For Matthew, the tragedy brought to mind a

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prophecy from the Old Testament.

Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” (vv. 17–18) The quotation ends almost in despair. Rachel weeps while Mary rejoices. Her grief is inconsolable; she pushes away her comforters. Her children are gone, never to return, and she will weep the rest of her days.

Who is Rachel? The biblical Rachel was the wife of Jacob (Gen. 29:28). While she was traveling from Bethel to Bethlehem she stopped near Ramah. There “Rachel began to give birth and had great difficulty.”

She delivered a son in anguish and named him with her dying breath: Ben-Oni, meaning “son of my trouble (Gen. 35:16–20), although Jacob renamed him Benjamin. In addition to Benjamin, Rachel’s offspring among the tribes of Israel were Ephraim and Manasseh, the tribes of the north. On the southern edge of Ephraim’s territory lies Bethlehem, or Ephrata. Therefore, Rachel represents every mother in Bethlehem. She died in Ephraim, just outside Bethlehem, so when Herod killed the baby boys in the vicinity of Bethlehem, it reminded Matthew of Rachel, who went weeping to her grave at Ramah.

Rachel represents every mother who has ever suffered for her children. Her story touches the heart of every mother who has had a miscarriage, lost a newborn or buried a child in the prime of youth. She stands for every mother who lies awake at night worrying for her wayward children. Why must the Rachels of the world suffer these inconsolable losses?

A Voice in Ramah eremiah did not have all the answers to the problem of suffering, but he did know where to turn for comfort. By the grace of God, his prophecy does not end in tears, but laughter.

Rachel will be comforted after all.

Matthew understood what comfort Jeremiah had to offer. When the writers of the New Testament quote from the Old Testament they do not just refer to a single verse. Usually a single verse is all they quote, but they refer to that verse in its context. The quotation is intended to call to mind an entire Old Testament passage. Therefore, when Matthew quotes Jeremiah about Rachel weeping in Ramah, he also has in mind the verses that follow:

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“Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears,

for your work will be rewarded,” declares the LORD. “They will return from the land of the enemy, So there is hope for your future,” declares the LORD. “Your children will return to their own land.”

(Jer. 31:16–17) Sorrow and grief do not have the last word, either in Jeremiah or in Matthew. A mother may refuse to be comforted, but God will comfort her nonetheless.

“Rachel’s tears were not in vain and not forever.”

To understand God’s comfort, one must first understand Rachel’s loss. Jeremiah could hear the sound of Rachel’s sobbing in Jerusalem, coming all the way from Ramah. Ramah was a transit camp for refugees. The Babylonians dragged their prisoners five miles from Jerusalem to a staging area at Ramah, where they were chained together for the long march to Babylon. It must have been a place of despair, of fathers chafing against their chains and mothers lifting their voices in lamentation.

Their children, their babies, were gone! Some had starved during the siege. Others had been put to the sword during the invasion. In the confusion of battle, still others had been ripped untimely from their mother’s breasts, never to be seen again.

With her children dead or lost, it was only natural for Rachel to weep. But eventually she must dry her tears. The Bible is honest about the misery of the human condition, but it never gives in to it. Even those losses that seem inconsolable can be consoled.

Not in this life, perhaps, for we carry some griefs to the grave. But by quoting Jeremiah, Matthew wanted us to know that the Messiah came to bring comfort and joy, even to the Rachels of the world.

Tidings of Comfort and Joy hy should Rachel be comforted? A careful study of Jeremiah 31 shows that God offers her at least ten forms of comfort: joyful worship, answered prayer, preservation from danger, the gift of repentance, forgiveness for sin, guidance for the future, a good shepherd, daily provision, ransom, and redemption. So when God tells Rachel to dry her tears he is not just saying, “There, there, it will be all right.” He is promising to make things all right. The comfort God offers is real comfort, and the joy he promises is real joy. Weeping will last only for the night; then morning comes, full of song.

Matthew was honest about suffering. He did not conceal the dark side of the first Christmas.

Jeremiah was equally honest, using all the different Hebrew words for grief to show that the sufferings of life are many and various. But the prophet and the

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evangelist both knew that those who mourn will be comforted. Matthew quoted Jeremiah so that Rachel would know God’s grace in her suffering. It was his way of saying that the Messiah has come to bring all the comfort and joy Jeremiah promised.

Jesus came to make our worship joyful and to answer our prayers. He came to forgive us and preserve us. He came to make us sons and daughters of God. He came to guide us and provide for us.

He came to redeem us and to give his life as a ransom for our sins, just as Jeremiah promised.

We still see great suffering in the world. We still suffer ourselves. There may even be times when we refuse to be comforted. But God has comfort for us. The day will come when all will be made right with the world, when suffering will come to an end, and when even Rachel will dry her tears. ■

Philip Graham Ryken (Ph.D., Oxford University) is senior minister of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In this article, Dr. Ryken has quoted from Derek Kidner, The Message of Jeremiah: Against Wind and Tide, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1987), p. 109.

Letters [ C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 3 ]

is worth critiquing, it’s worth taking the time to really understand it. I’m not sure that’s happened in this situation. For example, Horton presented my view of justification as a rehashing of Tridentine soteriology, when in fact I had clearly argued for a forensic justification, based solely on our union with Christ in his death and resurrection, totally apart from any merit on our part. By taking quotations out of context, Horton was able to create a caricature of me. I found it ironic that right after Horton’s article critiquing me, there was a piece by Simon Gathercole. Gathercole’s non-hypothetical view of Romans 2:13 (found in his book, Where Is Boasting?) is probably far closer to mine than to Horton’s. That Horton would condemn me and publish Gathercole in the same issue is further evidence that the perceived alliances and opponents in the current FV affair are quite arbitrary. It seems the whole controversy has been created out of politics and personalities. We will all do better if we learn to listen to each other more carefully, charitably, and sympathetically. There are differences of viewpoint in the Reformed world, to be sure, but Horton’s article did not properly identify them

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with respect to the FV controversy. Those that it did identify, it magnified out of proportion, overlooking wide swaths of common ground. It was also troubling to me that Horton did not provide bibliographic data or page references to allow his readers to judge for themselves if he treated my material fairly. If a magazine format doesn’t allow that courtesy, then neither is it the ideal place for serious theological critique. I have a written a couple of responses to Horton and the controversy in general. Those interested in pursuing the matter further should consult my essay “Rome Won’t Have Me” at http://hornes.org/theologia/.

Rev. Rich Lusk Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church Monroe, LA

Michael Horton responds…

In my article I repeatedly qualified the similarities between various forms of “covenantal nomism” by recognizing that they are not all the same. The Federal Vision theology is not identical to the position of Trent at every point, but on the point of justification, it is more like Trent’s than the Reformed view confessed in our representative statements. In the source I cited (“The Auburn Avenue Theology: Pros & Cons,” edited by E. Calvin Beisner), Rev. Lusk denies the imputation of Christ’s righteousness (141). He argues two moments or types of justification: by grace alone in baptism, by our works at the Lord’s Supper (146, n. 73). Trent also affirmed that in our baptism we are justified by grace alone, and then on the last day are justified finally by our works. On these and a variety of related points, Paul’s opponents in Galatia, the medieval church, and contemporary “Protestant” denials of justification share a common tendency toward what E. P. Sanders has coined “covenantal nomism.”

None of the views I criticized is brazenly Pelagian, but then neither was the Council of Trent. Like many of his colleagues, Rev. Lusk complains that he is misunderstood. To many of us, these revisions are simply confused and confusing.

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We Confess…

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The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man’s nature, with all the essential properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin; being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.

— Chapter VIII, The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), “Of Christ the Mediator”

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o then we confess that God fulfilled the promise which he had made to the early fathers by the mouth of his holy prophets when he sent his only and eternal Son into the world at the time set by him.

The Son took the “form of a servant” and was made in the “likeness of man,” truly assuming a real human nature, with all its weaknesses, except for sin; being conceived in the womb of the blessed virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, without male participation.

And he not only assumed human nature as far as the body is concerned but also a real human soul, in order that he might be a real human being. For since the soul had been lost as well as the body he had to assume them both to save them both together.

Therefore we confess, against the heresy of the Anabaptists who deny that Christ assumed human flesh from his mother, that he “shared the very flesh and blood of children”; that he is “fruit of the loins of David” according to the flesh; “born of the seed of David” according to the flesh; “fruit of the womb of the virgin Mary”; “born of a woman”; “the seed of David”; “a shoot from the root of Jesse”; “the offspring of Judah,” having descended from the Jews according to the flesh; “from the seed of Abraham”— for he “assumed Abraham’s seed” and was “made like his brothers except for sin.”

In this way he is truly our Immanuel— that is: “God with us.”

— Article 18, The Belgic Confession (1561), “The Incarnation”

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. We teach that in the fullness of time the eternal Son of God was made man by assuming, from the Virgin Mary through the operation of the Holy Ghost, a human nature like unto ours, yet without sin, and receiving it unto His divine person. Jesus Christ is therefore “true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary,” true God and true man in one undivided and indivisible person. The purpose of this miraculous incarnation of the Son of God was that He might become the Mediator between God and men, both fulfilling the divine Law and suffering and dying in the place of mankind. In this manner God reconciled the whole sinful world unto Himself, Gal. 4:4, 5; 3:13; 2 Cor. 5:18, 19.

— Section 8, Doctrinal Position of the Missouri Synod (1932), “Of Redemption”

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BOOKS | WhoWeretheEarlyIsraelitesandWhereDidTheyComeFrom?and

OntheReliabilityoftheOldTestament

Matters of Fact

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heory will always color the outcome of the analysis of texts, including the Old

ultimately unsatisfying to the reviewer.

In contrast, Testament. This is evident in two new important books by Kenneth Kitchen and Kitchen’s volume is a fullfrontal assault on recent William Dever addressing the historical reliability of the Old Testament. minimalist biblical scholars and other latter-day Dever, a well-respected archeologist, was rationalist critics. Years ago, Professor I. Howard inspired to write this book by the flurry of media Marshall prodded Kitchen to write a counterpart to attention accompanying his first book, What Did the F. F. Bruce’s The New Testaments Documents: Are They Biblical Writers Know, and When Did They Know It? Reliable? This new book is the long-awaited (2002). Much of the new book continues where product of that prompting, and the result is a the last one left off, and is written primarily with a formidable tour de force, a magnum opus, at least as far popular audience in mind. It is helpful insofar as it as his contributions directly to Old Testament provides a needed chastening for the “minimalists,” studies are concerned. the intellectual heirs of French philosopher Michel Kitchen’s organizational method is very Foucault, who question the historicity of ancient different than Dever’s, starting with the latest biblical literature and working backward. He Israel as recorded in the Bible.

Dever answers the first question of his title— begins by discussing material around the Who Were the Who were the Israelites?—by means of the grid of Babylonian exile, and then trods through the Early Israelites agrarian frontier land reform. Agrarian land corridors of time back to the book of Genesis. and Where Did reform, according to Dever, was the primary Although Kitchen has been clear in thought, he’s They Come motivation behind the early Israelite movement. not always gentle in manner. After establishing his From?

Thus, the Israelites were mostly indigenous impressive credentials—“over half a century’s

by William G. Dever Canaanites, mixed perhaps with some nomads and experience in reading texts … in over a dozen Eerdmans, 2003 a few Semitic slaves escaping from captivity in languages”—he then proceeds to severely spank 241 pages (hardback), $25.00 Egypt. He answers the second question—Where did the “New Literary Criticism and its willing dupes in they come from?—by telling us that there was no biblical studies” (469–70). Kitchen writes with Israelite conquest coming from outside the land of obvious conviction—in fact, this reviewer stopped On the Canaan. Concerning the earlier event of the counting the use of exclamation points in the book!

Reliability of Exodus from Egypt, he turns to a kind of Kitchen shows little patience for “overspeculative, the Old minimalism himself with respect to its historical factually Testament disadvantaged sociological veracity. He writes that “there is little history in anthropologists” who have spun theories that he

by K. A. Kenneth these books [Exodus and Numbers] although there believes have no factual foundation whatsoever.

Kitchen may be some vague memories of actual events” and Will this kind of rhetoric ultimately result in all his Eerdmans, 2003 500 pages (hardback), $45.00 “the miraculous, larger-than-life story of the assiduous labor being reduced to merely preaching Exodus as it now stands in the Bible cannot be to the choir? One hopes not. corroborated as factual history.”

One of the most interesting aspects of Kitchen’s Though Dever provides a useful check on the tome is his discussion of Covenant, Law, and minimalists, his answers to these questions are Treaty (283 ff.). Supplementing and building on

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his earlier published work in biblical studies, Kitchen marshaled evidence from some eighty to ninety treaty/law and covenant documents to demonstrate patterns and changes through two thousand years of history. For Kitchen, the book of Deuteronomy, which is a linchpin to the Old Testament, is earlier than often assumed. He writes that the “basic correspondence between Sinai and the Hittite corpus is clear beyond all doubt …

Sinai and its two renewals—especially the version in Deuteronomy—squarely belong within 1400–1200 [b.c.]” (286–87).

Dever concludes his volume by noting that “there are facts; facts matter; and some facts matter a great deal.” Yet when these two books are read side by side it becomes evident that what matters more are our observations, interpretations, and the construction of those facts. For example, Dever constantly asserts late-dating for the composition of the Hebrew Bible, whereas Kitchen lets his immense erudition in ancient Near Eastern studies do his heavy-lifting toward promoting an early date for many of the books of the Old Testament.

Or, consider another major difference. In his reconstruction of ancient history, although Dever often suggests a dialogue between the biblical text and artifacts, he definitely gives archaeology primacy over the biblical text. Kitchen, however, one time after another, uses independent archaeological evidence to establish the reliability of the biblical record. Paradigmatic is what Kitchen writes, “All manner of details find correspondences in both the biblical and external documents.”

Despite its shortcomings, Dever’s book, if read critically, provides a nice companion volume alongside of Kitchen’s. Kenneth Kitchen’s book should leave a deep and profound appreciation for the cultural setting of the Bible upon the reader.

Both authors, however, could have demonstrated more forthright admission as to how pervasive previous theoretical commitments are in shaping their construction of the evidence and their understanding of the history represented in the text.

Bryan Estelle Westminster Seminary California Escondido, CA

Harvesting Martin Luther’s Reflections on Theology, Ethics, and the Church edited by Timothy J. Wengert Eerdmans, 2004 260 pages (paperback), $30.00 A collection of thirteen essays first published in Lutheran Quarterly, this little book quite literally harvests Martin Luther’s reflections on a variety of topics—Luther on greed and poverty, on spirituality and worship, on baptism and righteousness. The result is an often enlightening collection of essays that would serve as a useful introduction to Luther’s thought from angles not often considered.

One such angle that is particularly compelling and is addressed in several essays is Luther’s reaction to changing economic and social relations in early modern Europe. Carter Lindberg’s essay explores Luther’s early and frequent criticisms of capitalism, pointing out that his criticisms were directly tied to the way nascent capitalists neglected the poor. Luther argued that this contradicted Christian teaching on love for one’s neighbor and on the interconnectedness of society.

Similarly, Ricardo Willy Reith observes that, for Luther, greed spawned by early modern capitalism was a spiritual problem, an issue of idolatry and unbelief. Greed moved the heart from clinging to God alone to finding security in property and wealth. Scott Hendrix looks at the primary social relation of marriage. He discovered that although Luther held that marriage belonged to the realm of creation, not redemption, he still desired marriages to express Christian love and duty. He also gave a great deal of thought toward preserving marriages from the onslaught of divorce and abandonment.

Essays relating to the church’s worship are also useful. Mark D. Tranvik exposits Luther’s understanding of baptism and how it jibed with his insistence upon justification by faith alone. Luther saw the Word of promise proclaimed at Baptism awakening and nourishing “child-faith” in the infant to be baptized. The child was thus justified at baptism by faith created by the Word and signed and sealed by Baptism. This understanding caused Luther to proclaim that “baptism is a full and complete justification” (28). In his essay, Helmar Junghans argues that Luther’s approach to the reform of worship was gradual, seeking to be responsive both to the demands of Scripture and the needs of the people. And Carl Axel Aurelius demonstrates that Luther’s faith was rooted in a Christian and prayerful use of the Psalter.

There are also essays that appeared to be off the beaten path and yet still are insightful and thought

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provoking. Dietrich Korsch’s treatment of Luther’s seal as a means for understanding his theology is a compelling way of getting at his thought.

Commenting on the seal’s red heart overlaid by a black cross, Korsch observes that “the uniformity of Christ and the human in faith, which expresses itself in the original duality in the center of Luther’s seal, leaves theology as an alternative to the opposition between a salvation history of objectivism and a believing subjectivism” (67).

Also, Gregory J. Miller usefully sets Luther’s perspective on Islam in the larger political context of early modern Europe and of Luther’s eschatological understanding. For Luther, as for some contemporary evangelicals, the advance of Islam in the Western world represented yet another sign pointing to the end of the age.

I find this book to be consistently excellent throughout, which is unusual for a collection such as this. Not only do the essays point to directions not often considered by those who read Luther, but they cause me to turn time and again to the major Lutheran confessional documents and to Luther himself. As a result, this book might also serve as an avenue for increased mutual understanding by Reformed and Lutheran evangelicals. Such can only result in a greater appreciation for each other’s traditions and hopefully will advance further reformation in the church.

Sean Michael Lucas Covenant Theological Seminary St. Louis, MO

The Lord’s Service: The Grace of Covenant Renewal Worship

by Jeffrey J. Meyers Canon Press, 2003 448 pages (paperback), $21.00 In this lengthy and ambitious book, Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) pastor Jeffrey Meyers, summons biblical, theological, and historical arguments to make a case for wellordered liturgical worship. Significantly, Meyers argues for the sort of structured corporate worship that most conservative Protestant congregations eschew in favor of either a populist informality or a Spartan neo-Puritan minimalism. The result is a wide-ranging book that could be an enormous help to almost any pastor or elder, especially (but not exclusively) those in the Reformed tradition.

Meyers anchors his argument for a particular liturgical order in Covenant theology. In particular, he understands Christian worship to be

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a logical development of the Covenant renewal ceremonies described in the Old Testament.

Meyers explains that one can avoid the contemporary confusion regarding worship “only by identifying a biblical purpose that includes everything we experience and do in Christian corporate worship. God’s covenant provides the key. Simply stated, the purpose of the Sunday service is covenant renewal. During corporate ‘worship’ the Lord renews His covenant with His people when he gathers them together and serves them” (33). Consequently, according to Meyers, Christian worship should correspond to the following order or shape (86): God Calls Us—We Gather Together and Praise Him God Cleanses Us—We Confess Our Sins and Are Forgiven in Christ God Consecrates Us—We Respond in Prayer and Offering God Communes with Us—We Eat God’s Food at His Table God Commissions (Blesses) Us—We March Out to Serve God The proper order of these elements is not, contrary to popular assumptions, a matter of indifference, nor should it be determined by the whim of individual pastors.

Since sacrifice was central to the Old Testament covenant, Meyers contends that it should also be the crux of Christian worship, though clearly Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross transforms the church’s understanding of her proper offering.

Meyers argues that some Protestants may have excluded too much of this sacrificial theme from worship in their reaction against the medieval church’s mass sacrifice. He proceeds then to provide a detailed explanation for every part of his home congregation’s Sunday worship service.

Along the way, The Lord’s Service answers a host of common objections to liturgical worship. Just because Roman Catholics observe a particular practice is not a valid reason for Reformed believers to avoid it, especially if there is considerable biblical warrant for its observance (accordingly, using wine in communion and kneeling for prayer merit restoration). Perhaps most importantly, the author shows how set forms if used carefully can promote truly corporate, participatory worship that best reflects the great Reformation principle of the priesthood of all believers.

Meyers has written a valuable guide to Reformed worship that is well researched and catholic in the best sense. The bibliographical essay at the end of the book is a precious resource

on its own. Although not all scholars would agree with Meyers about the formative character of the covenant renewal theme, most would probably endorse the shape of the order he advocates— arriving at a similar spot via rather different routes.

This reviewer was unhappy about some of the sacrificial language Meyers appears prepared to apply to eucharistic worship (see especially pp. 68, 70, 96). The reformers rightly took pains to stress that, as sinners, we do not enter into Christ’s self offering (although we are certainly beneficiaries of it) and that the only sacrifice the faithful offer in the eucharist is the purely responsive offering of praise and thanksgiving. Nor will all be convinced by his argument for young children receiving communion based upon an exegesis of 1 Corinthians 11:28 ff. Still, The Lord’s Service is an excellent contribution to the sort of rethinking Reformed Christians need to do if they are truly committed to the principle of semper reformanda. It merits a wide readership.

Gillis Harp Grove City College Grove City, PA

courageously says what others fear to say: Christianity is not a form of Judaism for non-Jews.

It is not Jewish monotheism without specific ethnic boundary markers. It is not a Torah-based Gentile covenant with the Father. Rather, the religion Jesus inaugurated climaxed its antecedent by way of a type/antitype fulfillment of a metanarrative concretely illustrated by national Israel. The result: Israel has been reconstituted and redefined and Yahweh has been consummately revealed in and through Jesus the Son’s representation, supremely on the cross. That which separates Christianity from Judaism is implicit in the man Jesus himself (8).

Quite conscious of the disquieting implications of his thesis, Zahl achieves an important but sensitive corrective that is altogether accessible to the nontechnician. A catalyst for orthodox theologizing about the Christ, the church, and biblical anthropology, The First Christian should not be omitted from any thinking Christian’s reading list.

John J. Bombaro Dickinson College Carlisle, PA

The First Christian: Universal Truth in the Teaching of Jesus

by Paul F. M. Zahl Eerdmans, 2003 138 pages (paperback), $16.00 From the pen of Paul F. M. Zahl, formerly Dean of Cathedral Church of the Advent (Episcopal) in Birmingham, Alabama and now dean of Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, comes a provocative, yet timely, Christological meditation. Zahl argues for a Jesus of Nazareth who was essentially dis-continuous with Second Temple Judaism and who inaugurated in his person and work a new covenant religion of grace, namely, Christianity. Hence the title: The First Christian. One immediately senses the relevance and potential explosiveness of Zahl’s concise but theologically mature paperback upon a moment’s reflection on the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, particularly the tirelessly repeated accusation of anti-Semitism.

With Holocaust-guilt pricking the conscience and the dictates of philosophical pluralism setting the cultural agenda, many Christians are falling over themselves to underscore early Christianity’s continuity with Second Temple Judaism and to reJudaize a de-Christianized Jesus. But Zahl

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W. Robert Godfrey

Chicken or the Egg?

T

he August 16, 2004 issue of Time magazine suggested that 2004 will probably be

Christian living. But only the gospel will produce faith in the year in which Protestants for the first time in the history of the United States Jesus.

Ursinus, the principal will cease to be a majority of the American population. author of the catechism, reminds us that the clear One reason for the decline of Protestantism, presentation of the gospel is a central task of the which we will probably not see mentioned in the pastoral ministry: “The duties of the ministers of press, is a simple one: Protestant churches often the church include in general, 1. A faithful and have failed to preach the gospel. Many mainline correct exposition of the true and uncorrupted churches began to drift away from preaching the doctrine of the law and the gospel, so that the gospel of the Bible in the late nineteenth century church may be able to understand it.” As Christians and replaced it with various social and political we need to hear the gospel especially from those concerns. In our day many evangelical churches whom God has called and set aside for the work of preach moral progress, pop psychology and self- preaching. And those preachers need to be sure W. ROBERT GODhelp programs rather than the gospel. that we hear the gospel with clarity, consistency FREY The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) – one of the and vitality.

The most important task before Protestant greatest summaries of Reformed Protestantism ever President and Professor written – asked in question 65 the question that churches today in America is not to regain majority of Church History American Protestant churches ought long to have status or to have great cultural impact. Status and Westminster been asking. “Since, then, we are made partakers of influence are at least as much temptations and Seminary California Christ and all his benefits by faith only, whence distractions as they may be blessings. The great Escondido, CA comes this faith?” The answer is crucial: “From the responsibility of the churches is to preach the gospel.

This responsibility does not derive from a Holy Spirit, who works it in our hearts by the preaching of the holy gospel, and confirms it by Reformation tradition or the teaching of a catechism. The Reformation simply embraced the the use of the holy sacraments.”

The catechism rightly states that true faith is a gift of teaching of the Bible. Our Lord Jesus commissioned the Holy Spirit worked in our hearts by the preaching his disciples to go into all the world preaching the of the holy gospel. The stress here in terms of the work gospel. The Apostle Paul repeatedly in his letters of the church falls on the gospel and on preaching. highlights the importance of preaching.

Notice that the catechism does not say that faith Perhaps Paul’s clearest and fullest statement on the comes from the preaching of the Word of God or of relation of faith, the gospel and preaching is found in the Bible. The authors of the catechism certainly Romans 10. There Paul teaches: “But how are they believed that the whole counsel of God as revealed in to call on him in whom they have not believed? And the Scriptures ought to be preached. They knew that how are they to believe in him of whom they have people needed to hear the preaching of the law with all never heard? And how are they to hear without of God’s righteous demands. But they also knew that someone preaching? And how are they to preach the preaching of the law does not lead to faith. The law unless they are sent?” (Rom. 10:14f). Here is a golden may prepare for the hearing of the gospel in a number chain linking preaching to faith and salvation. Here of ways. The law may guide faith in concrete issues of is the great evangelistic method for the church today.

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