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Modern Reformation

vol.21 | no.6 | November-December 2012 | $6.50

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features vol.21 | no.6 | November-December 2012

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God at Work Through Us

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The Doctrine of Vocation: How God Hides Himself in Human Work

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God Glorified in Our Work

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Radio Revival: The Truth-Telling Parables of This American Life

44 Cover Photo by Teri Dixon

Q & A with Gene Edward Veith

by Gene Edward Veith

by Alan Maben

By Ethan Richards on

“Freer Than Thou” : How Wisdom Avoids Legalism and License

By Michael S. Horton

ModernReformation.org

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one subscription, 20 years ad of archives as a subscriber you’ll receive access to the entire Modern Reformation digital archive ­— for free VISIT mo der nr efo r matio n.o r g to Subs cri be today, a n d r e ad Mo d ern Refo rm at i o n o n your tabl et tom orrow.

departments 06 07

Letter from the editor

By ryan glomsrud

From the hallway ›› Holiness Wars:

The Antinomianism Debate

By Michael S. Horton

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Short essay ›› Guilty, Not Guilty:

16 51 60 62

Theology ›› Do You Believe in Hell?

Antinomianism in Church History

By Michael S. Horton

By Matthew Everhard

Book Reviews

John Jeremiah

Sullivan, Eric J. Bargerhuff, And Tom Perrotta

Geek Squad ››

Life East of Eden BACK PAGE ›› Gaining a Heart of Wisdom

By Terry Johns on

Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Executive Editor Ryan Glomsrud Managing Editor Patricia Anders Marketing Director Michele Tedrick Design Director José Reyes for Metaleap Creative, metaleapcreative.com Department Editors Ryan Glomsrud (Letter from the Editor & Reviews), Michael S. Horton Designer Tiffany Forrester Copy Editor Elizabeth Isaac Proofreader Ann Smith Modern Reformation © 2012 All rights reserved. ISSN-1076-7169 1725 Bear Valley Parkway Escondido, CA 92027 (800) 890-7556 info@modernreformation.org www.modernreformation.org Subscription Information US 1 YR $32 2 YR $58 Digital Only 1 YR $25 US Student 1 YR $26 Canada 1 YR $39 2 YR $70 Europe 1 YR $58 2 YR $104 Other 1 YR $65 2 YR $118

ModernReformation.org

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letter from the editor

Ryan Glomsrud executive editor

Johann Sebastian Bach and George Friedrich Handel, two of the great composers of the early modern world, signed their scores with the abbreviation, “S. D. G.,” standing for Soli Deo Gloria or “Glory to God Alone.” But it isn’t just the masters of high culture who bring glory to God. To give glory to God and enjoy him forever: that is all humanity’s chief and highest end, according to the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. In fact, whatever we do, whether working a lathe, kneading bread, cobbling a shoe, managing a computer database, developing pharmaceutical products, or preparing personnel training manuals—whatever our calling in this world­—we do and should ever strive to bring glory to God. In this issue we reflect on our work in this life east of Eden. Our theme is God’s common grace in giving every creature made in his image a calling and vocation. Vocation is a doctrine linked with God’s wise and providential rule, as we are reminded

by Lutheran scholar and provost of Patrick Henry College, Gene Edward Veith. In fact, it is how God “hides” himself in the world—working in and through our work, as well as our neighbors’, to sustain and govern all things. We aren’t just pushing a boulder up a mountain, explains Alan Maben, but

each and every kind of work is a calling from God filling a role in his world.

Living in a manner worthy of our calling in this life, however, requires a tremendous amount of wisdom. Editor-in-chief Michael Horton reminds us that we are all “on a long road to maturity,” and that we can glean insight and help from the most surprising places. The truth of this is on display in Ethan Richardson’s look into public radio “parables” of sin and salvation, brokenness and redemption, in the widely popular radio program This American Life. In our theology department, Pastor Matthew Everhard insists on the importance of declaring the whole counsel of God, even if this means a hard teaching such as the doctrine of hell.

Also in this issue, we tackle a controversial topic of the day, namely, the holiness wars. Prompted by evangelical Internet skirmishes over the place of God’s law in Christian obedience, Horton argues that while there are multiple idiosyncratic ways to explain the relationship between the gospel and Christian living for God’s glory, there is nonetheless one biblical and broadly Reformational approach, which is excellently summarized in the Lutheran and Reformed confessions. These are confessions of biblical truth that evangelicals desperately need to consider.

Reformers of all ages past and present should be uncompromising about the absolutely free grace of God found in Jesus Christ, as well as the necessity and usefulness of God’s law for living our lives in service to our neighbor. In the gospel, we are swept off the treadmill of trying to merit God’s blessing through our own good works, and freed to serve our neighbor through our vocations. Luther put it so well: “God doesn’t need your good works. Your neighbor does.”

“ whatever our calling in this world—we do and should ever strive to bring glory to God.”

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FROM t h e Ha l lway

Holiness Wars The

Antinomianism D e b at e

by Michael S. Horton

ModernReformation.org

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FROM t h e Ha l lway

uring a time of intense controversy and division within Reformed ranks, the English Puritan Richard Sibbes said that “factions breed factions.”

We are called to the peace and purity of the church, but when is the concern for peace a crutch for compromise, and when does our appeal to the church’s purity become a cloak for own pride and dogmatism?

Of course, we all say that we should find our unity around primary truth, but I know of no historical debate in which a partisan advocated schism in the name of “secondary matters.” Repeatedly these days, I hear church leaders dismiss important age-old debates because they are not “gospel issues,” as if we had not been commanded by our Lord to “teach them everything I have commanded you.” At the same time, some of the most divisive issues in our churches today concern matters not addressed clearly in God’s Word.

One issue, however, that is clearly addressed in Scripture is sanctification: the work of the Spirit through his Word in uniting us to Christ and giving us the grace to grow up into Christ, bearing the fruit of the Spirit. Given the centrality of justification to the Reformation debate, it is not surprising that Reformed, Lutheran, and other evangelical bodies are crystal clear on this point in their confessions and catechisms. In some circles, though, it is wrongly assumed in practice that our confessions aren’t quite as clear or as emphatic on sanctification. Reformation theology is great at defining the gospel, but when it comes to the Christian life, we need to supplement it with healthy doses of more “spiritual” or “practical” writers such as Thomas à Kempis, the Pietist Philipp Jacob Spener, John Wesley, or their contemporary voices.

In my view, this would be a tragic conclusion to draw. Before I make that case, however, it’s important to define the elephant in the room: antinomianism. After all, it’s one of those labels often

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thrown around carelessly today, as in previous eras.

After defining it, I’ll offer some contemporary reflections by drawing on the rich summary of Reformed teaching on sanctification in the Reformed and Lutheran confessions. In conclusion, I will discuss sanctification and its relationship to the gospel.

Defining Antinomianism(s) Literally “against law,” antinomianism is the view that the moral law summarized in the Ten Commandments is no longer binding on Christians.

More generally, antinomianism may be seen as characteristic of human rebellion against any external authority. In this sense, ironically, we are by nature antinomians and legalists since the Fall: rejecting God’s command, while seeking to justify ourselves by our own criteria. The modern age is especially identified by the demand for freedom from all constraints. “Be true to yourself” is the modern creed. The rejection of any authority above the self, including obvious biblical norms, is as evident in some denominations as in the wider culture. Antinomianism may also be understood in relation to its opposite, neonomianism, which is the view that the gospel is basically just a new law presenting new requirements for the Christian life, even necessary to win God’s favor.

In technical terms, however, antinomianism has referred historically more to theory than to practice. For the most part, few of those suspected of this heresy have been charged with dissolute lives, although the concern is that an error in doctrine will inevitably work itself out practically.

Antinomianism and Reformation Confessions While there have been some true-blue antinomians in church history, the charge is often made by those tilting in a more neonomian direction against faithful, apostolic, evangelical preaching. For example, despite the fact that Lutheran and Reformed churches have gone on record against antinomianism in no uncertain terms, that has not kept them from being accused of holding at least implicitly to antinomian tenets. It is therefore important to appeal directly to the Reformation confessions of faith.

The Lutheran Confession

In his Small Catechism, Luther begins with the Ten Commandments, concluding, “God threatens to punish all that transgress these commandments.

Therefore we should dread His wrath and not act contrary to these commandments. But He promises grace and every blessing to all that keep these commandments. Therefore we should also love and trust in Him, and gladly do [zealously and diligently order our whole life] according to His commandments.” Settling the controversies in its own circles, the Lutherans confess in the Formula of Concord (1577): For especially in these last times it is no less needful to admonish men to Christian discipline [to the way of living aright and godly] and good works, and remind them how necessary it is that they exercise themselves in good works as a declaration of their faith and gratitude to God, than that the works be not mingled in the article of justification; because men may be damned by an Epicurean delusion concerning faith, as well as by papistic and Pharisaic confidence in their own works and merits. (IV.2) After affirming the civil use of the law that curbs public vice, and the “elenctic” use of the law (viz., the law that drives sinners to Christ), Lutherans confessing the Formula of Concord defend the “third use”: Even after regeneration, Christians are not left to themselves but have the law as a fixed rule to regulate and direct their lives (VI.1). The following conclusions are worth quoting at length:

We believe, teach, and confess that, although men truly believing [in Christ] and truly converted to God have been freed and exempted from the curse and coercion of the Law, they nevertheless are not on this account without Law, but have been redeemed by the Son of God in order that they should exercise themselves in it day and night [that they should meditate upon God’s Law day and night, and constantly exercise themselves in its observance, Ps. 1:2], Ps. 119. . . . We believe, teach, and confess that the preaching of the Law is to be urged with diligence, not only upon the unbelieving and impenitent, but also upon true believers, who are truly converted, regenerate, and justified by faith (VI.2–3).

For although they are regenerate and renewed in the spirit of their mind, yet in the present life this regeneration and renewal is not complete, but only begun, and . . . [on account of this] it is needful that the Law of the Lord always shine before them, in order that they may not from human devotion institute wanton and self-elected cults [that they may frame nothing in a matter of religion from the desire of private devotion, and may not choose divine services not instituted by God’s Word]; likewise, that the old Adam also may not employ his own will, but may be subdued against his will, not only by the admonition and threatening of the Law, but also by punishments and blows, so that he may follow and surrender himself captive to the Spirit, 1 Cor. 9:27; Rom. 6:12; Gal. 6:14; Ps. 119:1ff ; Heb. 13:21 (Heb. 12:1) (VI.4).

Therefore, though it is sometimes alleged in evangelical circles that Lutherans do not believe in the “third use” of the law to guide the Christian life, the formula that shapes Lutheran theology and preaching rejects as an “error injurious to, and conflicting with, Christian discipline and true godliness” the view that this law is “not to be urged upon Christians and true believers” (VI.8).

The Reformed Confession

In the earlier Reformed confessions, the primary goal is to clear the evangelical doctrine of justification from the Roman Catholic (and Anabaptist) ModernReformation.org

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charge that it rejects any place for good works, rather than any direct threat of antinomianism within the ranks.

The Heidelberg Catechism begins its “Gratitude” section by asking why we should still do good works if we are justified by grace alone in Christ alone through faith alone. We do so “because Christ by his Spirit is also renewing us to be like himself, so that in all our living we may show that we are thankful to God for all he has done for us, and so that he may be praised through us. And we do good so that we may be assured of our faith by its fruits, and so that by our godly living our neighbors may be won over to Christ” (Q. 86). Conversion involves repentance as well as faith: dying to the old self and living to Christ (Q. 87–90). What, then, defines a “good work”?

“Only that which arises out of true faith, conforms to God’s law, and is done for his glory; and not that which is based on what we think is right or on established human tradition” (Q. 91).

This sets the stage for the catechism’s treatment of the Ten Commandments (Q. 92–113). “In this life even the holiest have only a small beginning of this obedience. Nevertheless, with all seriousness of purpose, they do begin to live according to all, not only some, of God’s commandments” (Q. 114). The law must still be preached in the church for two reasons: “First, so that the longer we live the more we may come to know our sinfulness and the more eagerly look to Christ for forgiveness of sins and righteousness. Second, so that, while praying to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, we may never stop striving to be renewed more and more after God’s image, until after this life we reach our goal: perfection” (Q. 115).

The same view is found in articles 15–18 of the Church of England’s Thirty-Nine Articles. However, the debates of subsequent decades brought refinement to the Reformed confession and finally appeared in sophisticated form in the Westminster Standards of Faith in 1647.

In the Westminster Confession we find the most mature reflection of Reformed churches on these questions. After a remarkably clear statement of justification, the confession treats sanctification,

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Defining our terms J. I. Packer offers one of the best summaries of the different varieties of antinomianism.

Dualistic Antinomianism Associated with Gnosticism, which treats the body (and its actions) as insignificant.

Spirit-centered Antinomianism Views the inner promptings of the Spirit as sufficient apart from the external Word.

Christ-centered Antinomianism Argues that God sees no sin in believers, because they are in Christ, who kept the law for them, and therefore what they actually do makes no difference, provided that they keep believing.

Dispensational Antinomianism Denies that in the “church age,” believers are obligated to the moral law.

Situationist Antinomianism Teaches that love is the only rule and that duties (not just their application) will therefore vary according to circumstance.

Now it is most common to hear the term antinomianism whenever there is a perceived underemphasis on the pursuit of holiness in Christian living.

J. I. Packer, Concise Theology (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2001), 178–80.

faith, repentance, and good works in chapters 13–16.

Again, the Pauline emphasis on sanctification arising necessarily from election, effectual calling, justification, and adoption is evident.

Christ, “by his Word and Spirit,” destroys the dominion of sin, weakening and mortifying its desires while quickening and strengthening the new creature in “the practice of true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (13.1). Though “imperfect in this life,” there arises “a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.” Nevertheless, by God’s grace the saints will prevail (13.2–3).

Good works are those done according to God’s law, not human authority, zeal, or pious intention (16.1). They are “the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith” (16.2). Yet believers’ good works are by grace in Christ, through his Word and Spirit, “not at all of themselves” (16.3).

We cannot by our best works merit pardon or sin, or eternal life at the hand of God… [since even the best works of believers are still] defiled, and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection, that they cannot endure the severity of God’s judgment. Notwithstanding, the persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works are also accepted in him; not as though they were in this life wholly unblamable and unreprovable in God’s sight; but that he, looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections. (16.5–7) Chapter 19, “Of the Law of God,” distinguishes clearly between the way the law functions in a covenant of works (promising life for obedience and threatening death for disobedience) and in the covenant of grace.

Although true believers be not under the law, as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified, or condemned; yet it is of great use to them, as well as to others; in that, as a rule of life informing them of the will of God, and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly; discovering also the sinful pollution of their nature, hearts, and lives; so as, examining

“antinomianism has referred historically more to theory than to practice.

For the most part, few of those suspected of this heresy have been charged with dissolute lives, although the concern is that an error in doctrine will inevitably work itself out practically.” themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin, together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of his obedience. (19.6) Expanding on the law/gospel distinction that grounds it, the federal scheme (covenant of works/ covenant of grace) is crucial for avoiding legalism as well as antinomianism.

Confessional Wisdom for C o n t e m p o r a ry D e b at e s I have quoted Lutheran and Reformed confessions at length on this question, at least in part because I sense that in some circles today there is a dangerous tendency to rally around people, forming tribes around particular flags. Unchecked, this leads—as church history teaches us—to slander and schism.

There are several dangers to point out regarding this temptation to follow persons rather than to confess the faith together with saints across various times and places. There are personal idiosyncrasies attached to individuals, no matter how great their ModernReformation.org

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FROM t h e Ha l lway

insight into God’s Word. With themselves to submit to the cona clear conscience, Paul could sensus of a whole body rather than tell the Ephesian elders that he to promote their own distinctive had fulfilled his office, declarteachings, emphases, and correcing to them “the whole counsel tions. Those who were raised in of God” (Acts 20:27). This is our more legalistic and Arminian backgoal, too. Paul’s message came grounds may be prone to confuse directly from the ascended every call to obedience as a threat Tullian Tchividjian Christ, and yet his letters reflect to newly discovered doctrines of the particular controversies, grace. The zeal of those who are Jesus + Nothing = strengths, and weaknesses of converted from a life of debauchery Everything the churches he served. His or perhaps from a liberal denomi(Crossway, 2012) personality and emphases difnation may boil over into legalistic fered at times from those of fervor. As at the Jerusalem CounReminds us that other apostles, even Peter and cil, representatives came to Nicaea, absolutely everything James—sometimes to the point Chalcedon, Torgau, Dort, and Westthat is required for our of sharp confrontations. Nevminster with idiosyncrasies. Yet justification before God ertheless, the Spirit brought they had to make their case, parhas been accomplished a sweet unity to the apostolic ticipate in restrained debate, and in Christ our Lord. church as it gathered in a reptalk to each other in a deliberative resentative synod of “apostles assembly, rather than about each and elders.” In solemn assembly other on blogs and in conversain Jerusalem, the whole church tions with their circle of followers. received its marching orders Muting personal idiosyncrasies in for the proper view and treatfavor of a consensus on the teachment of Gentile believers. ing of God’s Word, these assemblies How much more, after the give us an enduring testimony for death of the apostles, is our our own time. Nothing has changed Lord’s wisdom evident in the with respect to how sinners are Kevin DeYoung representative assemblies of justified and sanctified. There has his body? It’s interesting that been no alteration of God’s coveThe Hole in at the Council of Jerusalem nantal law or gospel.

Our Holiness not even Peter was given preIf the growing charges and coun(Crossway, 2012) cedence over the body. Not tercharges of antinomianism and even Athanasius’s writings legalism continue to mount in our Reminds us that gospel were made binding at Nicaea, own circles, may God give us good grace produces genuine and Reformed churches do not and godly sense to recover the gospel gratitude. subscribe to anything written wisdom of our confessions as faithby Calvin. Jonathan Edwards ful summaries of biblical faith and did not sit at the Westminster practice. And may the Spirit direct Assembly. We are not obliged us to the fraternal fellowship of the today to these confessions because of great perchurch’s representative assemblies for mutual sons, but because they are great summaries of encouragement and correction.

God’s Word.

It can be as difficult for their followers as Michael S. Horton is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation. for prominent preachers and theologians

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S h o r t e s s ay

Guilty, Not Guilty

A n t i n o m i a n i s m in C h u r c h h i s to ry

by Michael S. Horton

The Westminster Assembly of Divines, illustration from The Church of England: A History for the People by H.D.M. Spence-Jones, pub. c.1910 (litho)

ModernReformation.org

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ike Moses (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18), Jesus taught that the whole law was summarized by the command to love God and neighbor (Matt. 22:37). He came not to abolish but to fulfill the law (Matt. 5:17–20). Nevertheless, Jesus was famously accused by the religious leaders as an “antinomian” for refusing to accord the same weight to the extrabiblical rules of the elders.

Evidently, Paul was also accused of “antinomianism” by his critics. “And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying” (Rom. 3:8; cf. 6:1). Encouraging believers in God’s grace, Peter nevertheless warned believers against “using your freedom as a cover-up for evil” (1 Pet. 2:16). He added that “lawless people” were using the gospel as an excuse for license; “ignorant and unstable,” they were twisting the Scriptures “to their own destruction” (2 Pet. 3:16–18). It should be noted that the charge of antinomianism and the reality of a lawlessness based on Scripture-twisting could arise perpetually throughout the church’s history only because the gospel of free justification in Christ apart from works is so clearly taught in Scripture.

Reformation Debates Martin Luther and his colleagues faced a “Christcentered antinomianism” in their day. Luther compared reason to a drunken man who fell off one side of his horse and got back on, only to fall off the other side. No sooner had the Reformers proclaimed the liberating power of God’s free grace than “certain fanatical spirits” announced that the law was no longer necessary for believers. Coining the term “antinomian” (against law) for the first time, Luther denounced Johannes Agricola and others who defended this view. (Agricola sued the Reformer for slander, but eventually dropped the suit.) While believers are free of its condemnation, the law

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remains God’s standard of living and plays a distinctive role together with the gospel in our lifelong repentance. Luther wrote, “Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever.…Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire!”

Antinomianism is a “blasphemy and sacrilege,” Luther thundered in his “First Disputation against the Antinomians” (1537). The debate reached its climax in 1539 with Luther’s book, Against the Antinomians.

A second antinomian controversy erupted in Lutheran circles when the “Philippists” (those who claimed Philipp Melanchthon, though with dubious warrant) denied the imputation of Christ’s active obedience and turned the gospel into a form of law while dispensing with the law itself. The fifth and sixth articles of the Formula of Concord affirmed the law-gospel distinction, rejected antinomianism, and affirmed the third use of the law (to guide believers), which Melanchthon had in fact systematized even before Calvin.

British Debates At the time of the Westminster Assembly, convened by Parliament in 1643, there were a few hyper-Calvinists suspected of an “enthusiastic” or “Spirit-centered” license. This version exhibits characteristics both of Spirit-centered and Christ-centered antinomianism. They were usually called antinomians because at least some of them held that the elect are justified from all eternity (even apart from faith), and they emphasized inner experience of the Spirit over all external ministry and freedom from the moral law’s direction. It should be noted that these views were not in the mainstream.

Later, as we have said, the charge was brought by those with a more legalistic bent—typically identified as “neonomians” for turning the gospel into a “new law.” Richard Baxter accused John Owen of antinomianism, and Owen returned the favor by warning about Baxter’s neonomianism. On the basis of the Reformed confession, there is no basis of any charge against Owen, though his appraisal of Baxter seems justified.

Another example of the antinomian charge being leveled by neonomians against classic Reformed pastors is the so-called “Marrow Controversy.”

Edward Fisher’s The Marrow of Modern Divinity (1645) enjoyed a wide readership among Puritans, including commendations from the likes of Jeremiah Burroughs. Aside from a brief polemic against the Sabbatarian position, the book reflected typical Reformed conclusions. By the early eighteenth century, the Church of Scotland was influenced by neonomianism and the “moderate” party by the Enlightenment. Scottish minister Thomas Boston reprinted Fisher’s book in 1718 with a preface from the great James Hog. The 1720 General Assembly, however, declared it “antinomian,” and despite the arguments of Hog, Boston, and ten other leaders— including Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine—this decision was reaffirmed in 1722. This led to a schism in the 1730s, forming the Associate Presbytery. Incredibly, a position that was considered standard Reformed orthodoxy in 1645, even by members of the Westminster Assembly, was declared half a century later by the Church of Scotland to be “antinomian.”

Calvinist and Wesleyan Debates Arminians had long vilified Reformed theology as either explicitly or implicitly antinomian. Arminius himself first provoked criticism by denying that Romans 7 could possibly describe the experience of a genuine believer, and his followers maintain that Reformed soteriology inevitably leads to carelessness and vitiates the seriousness of the call to holiness.

William Law argued the same in A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728) and A Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection (1726). Indebted to radical mysticism, Law denied justification and at times verged on Pelagianism. Though no Pelagian,

John Wesley expressed his debt to these works and sought Law’s personal counsel on various occasions.

In Wesley’s view, Calvinism led inexorably to antinomianism—a view he maintained especially in sharp polemics with Augustus Toplady (Anglican minister and author of the hymn “Rock of Ages”). His protégé John Fletcher carried forward the charge with his book Five Checks to Antinomianism (1770). The antinomian charge was renewed by Charles Finney and has been a staple of Arminian polemics to this day.

Yet Wesleyanism generated its own form of antinomianism. Drawing from Wesley’s doctrine of entire sanctification, the “Higher Life” (or “Victorious Life”) movement emphasizes the mystical rather than the activistic side of Wesley’s thought. “Let go and let God” is not a maxim Wesley would have countenanced, but it reflects the emphasis of medieval and pietistic quietism. The key Wesleyan ingredient is the idea of sanctification as a “second blessing,” a separate experience subsequent to conversion that makes it possible for believers to live above all known sin. Associated with the Keswick conferences in England and America, this movement emphasized that this blessing comes in “full surrender,” as the self of the believer is replaced with the indwelling Christ and his Spirit.

Dispensationalist Tangents In more recent years, a few writers from the dispensationalist camp have argued that these two blessings are not only separate events, but that one may make a decision for Christ (“making Jesus one’s personal Savior”) without bearing the fruit of faith in good works (“making Jesus Lord of one’s life”). In the latter view, a “carnal Christian” may no longer even believe in Christ yet be eternally secure. The call is to become a “victorious Christian” by “letting Jesus have his way,” but sanctification is not necessarily given with justification in our union with Christ. It should be added that in this construal, “eternal security” is based not on God’s unconditional grace of election, redemption, and effectual calling, but on the believer fulfilling the terms of God’s offer of salvation by making a decision for Christ.

Michael S. Horton is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation.

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theology

Do you believe in

Hell?

by Matthew Everhard

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t is taken for granted—in mainline circles, at least—that traditional belief in hell is a relic of the past. More liberal Lutheran and Reformed denominations imagine that the doctrine of God’s everlasting punishment is not only unnecessary but actually contradicts church’s confession. We will therefore begin our of the Reformed doctrine of eternal punisha proper view of God and his survey ment with a brief survey of the teaching of the Westgracious love as celebrated minster Confession of Faith (1647). by their confessions.

Summarizing the S crip tures Since I am a Presbyterian minister, I will obviously focus on this question by exploring the Reformed confession of the catholic Christian consensus. In short, I am convinced that a denial of hell assumes a faulty view of God’s justification of sinners; in other words, it denies the gospel as God’s free gift in Christ that answers the horrible prospect of everlasting death.

As a pastor who preaches expository sermons through books of the Bible, I have to confess that there are two topics I dread discussing: tithing and hell. The former sometimes causes me to feel like a televangelist; the latter makes me feel like a Bible-thumper. Nevertheless, Reformed Christians— including pastors—should be wary of being led by our emotions. On the contrary, our only foundation for faith and practice can be nothing less than the Word of God. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why we must preach the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27): we must preach and hold doctrines that confront our emotions directly.

Reformed theology is, if anything, a biblical theology. The Reformation slogan sola scriptura was (and continues to be) the guiding principle of our theological systematics. At the same time, Reformed theology is also a confessional theology. By this we mean that Reformed people have historically drawn up confessions of faith that are intended to be subordinate standards to guard and protect our doctrines and the Scriptures from whence they derive. If a Christian wants to understand the whole Bible’s teaching on a topic, it is always helpful to begin with the summary of Scripture found in the Tondal’s Vision, detail of the burning gateway (panel) (detail of 61761), Bosch, Hieronymus (c.1450-1516)

The Westminster Standards make reference to the doctrine of punishment in general and hell in particular, in at least five primary instances. Let us briefly survey the language the divines used. The main confession itself speaks of the fate of the lost: “The souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. Besides these two places [heaven and hell] for souls separated from their bodies, the Scripture acknowledgeth none” (with reference to Luke 16:23 and 2 Peter 2:9).1 This statement is important because it immediately rules out any nonbiblical doctrines such as the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, which is altogether absent from the Old and New Testaments.

The fate of every man will be consigned to one of these two places. Those who are justified by their faith in the blood of Jesus, whose sins have been expiated and who have received the gift of the imputation of his righteousness, will be granted entrance to heaven. Conversely, those whose own wickedness is reckoned to them will be consigned to hell. In a similar manner, the Larger Catechism likewise describes the fate of the reprobate before the final judgment: “The souls of the wicked are at their death cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness: and their bodies kept in their graves, as in their prisons, until the resurrection and judgment of the great day” (Acts 1:25; Jude 6; Luke 16:23, 24).2 In the succeeding chapter of the main text, the divines amplify their description of this latter place of ModernReformation.org

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eternal fate by adding, “But the wicked who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power.”3 This language is important because it reveals what makes hell truly “hell,” viz., that the reprobate are cut off from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. The divines are reticent here to define exactly what comprises the torments spoken of in this place, other than to make explicit that it is “eternal” in duration.

If one might ask how it is possible that a sinner be made liable to the eternal destruction that is hell, the Shorter Catechism gives the following reply, “All mankind, by their fall, lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever” (citing Gen. 3:8, 24; Eph. 2:3; Rom. 5:14 and 6:23).4 Here, we see the inextricable link between the Reformed doctrine of sinful depravity and our view of the eternal state. The fall into sin is so serious that, excepting the intervention of a propitiating mediator, no remedy is given to fallen man. His relationship with God has been destroyed, his ability to uphold the covenant of works is nullified, and his creaturely status with God is placed in a position of damnable danger. In short, for the nonelect, his doom is sure. Surely, those who deny the historic doctrine of hell make the additional errors of ignoring the gravity of our sinful condition and truncating the holiness of God by minimizing its offense in God’s nostrils.

When the Larger Catechism turns to the nature of that punishment to which sinners are made liable, we find that the language of the divines, while characteristically concise, is frightening indeed: “The punishments of sin in the world to come are everlasting separation from the comfortable presence of God, and most grievous torments in soul and body, without intermission, in hell fire forever” (2 Thess. 1:9; Mark 9:43, 44; Luke 16:24, 26; Matt. 25:41, 46; Rev. 14:11; and John 3:36).5 At this point, we can see the nature of eternal punishment, as understood by

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Is Scripture Clear on Hell?

T

hat “the wicked . . . shall be cast into eternal torments, and punished with everlasting destruction from the pres-

ence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power” (Westminster Confession of Faith, 33:2). This is a summary of the following Bible passages: “ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matt. 25:41, 46) “ They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.” (2 Thess. 1:9) “ And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched." (Mark 9:47–48)

the Assembly, coming into clearer perspective.

This quotation adds a few things that have not yet been mentioned; to wit, the nature of the torment is both physical and spiritual (“both soul and body”), there is no opportunity for cessation of this punishment (“without intermission”), and the usage of the predominant New Testament metaphor for hell is “fire.”

Reformed Theology Like most of the Reformed confessions, our Westminster Standards draw upon and are influenced by the Magisterial Reformers in

general and John Calvin in particular. Calvin treats the themes of eternal destruction, judgment of the reprobate, and hell in his Institutes of the Christian Religion (especially III.25.12): As language cannot describe the severity of the divine vengeance on the reprobate, their pains and torments are figured to us by corporeal things, such as darkness, wailing and gnashing of teeth, inextinguishable fire, the ever-gnawing worm (Matt. viii.12; xxii.13; Mark ix.43; Isa. lxvi.24). It is certain that by such modes of expression the Holy Spirit designed to impress all our senses with dread….As we thus require to be assisted to conceive the miserable doom of the reprobate, so the consideration of which

we ought chiefly to dwell is the fearful consequence of being estranged from all fellowship with God.6 In this section, Calvin seems to stop short of saying that these images and metaphors are to be understood as literal (i.e., fire, worm), but that their scriptural usage is designed to “impress our senses with dread.” At the same time, we note that Calvin is in no way suggesting that the reality of hell is any less intense than the metaphors used, but rather that these appeals to the five senses (physical touch, smell, sight, hearing, tasting) are used in such a way that an indescribable agony—that of being separated from God—is made more tangible by human language. Again, Calvin seems to pull up just short of

Primary New Testament Imagery Regardin g Hell

10.5% 7%

13%

Bodily Pain

Mark 9:45

Death

Rev. 20:14

Other

Matt. 5:22

2 Peter 2:4

Weeping/ Emotional Torment Luke 13:28

5%

Sentencing/ Judgment

Luke 12:5

Matt. 8:12

16%

5.5%

Darkness

Gnashing of Teeth

31%

5%

Fire

Worm

Mark 9:48

5%

Matt. 5:22

2% Destruction of the Soul Matt. 10:28

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acknowledging a literal reality to the metaphors by adding, “Whenever the prophets strike terror by means of corporeal figures, although in respect to our dull understanding there is no extravagance in the language, yet they give preludes of the future judgment.”7 Nevertheless his position seems clear: the metaphors are designed to instill the greatest possible dread about the greatest possible reality—the torment of conscience, acknowledged separation from God and the personal bearing of his wrath.

Charles Hodge, representing the great Princeton tradition, takes a modest position with regard to the literality of the images: “There seems to be no more reason for supposing that the fire spoken of in Scripture is to be literal fire, than that the worm that never dies is literally a worm. The devil and his angels…have no material bodies to be acted on by elemental fire.”8 Yet after briefly acknowledging several unorthodox positions held by some (purgatory, annihilationism, and so forth), Hodge rejects them all and argues for the position of eternal conscious punishment in hell, as held by the Reformed as well as the church universal: The common doctrine is that the conscious existence of the soul after the death of the body is unending; that there is no repentance or reformation in the future world; that those who depart this life unreconciled to God, remain forever in this state of alienation, and therefore are forever sinful and miserable. This is the doctrine of the whole Christian Church, of the Greeks, of the Latins, and of all the great historical Protestant bodies….Any man, therefore, assumes a fearful responsibility who sets himself in opposition to the faith of the church universal.9 Final Thoughts In conclusion, Louis Berkhof distills the solidly biblical Reformed tradition with a careful approach to this doctrine: “It is impossible to

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determine precisely what will constitute the eternal punishment of the wicked, and it behooves us to speak very cautiously on the subject.”10 He does not, however, equivocate as to the meanness of the place nor the torment waiting for its occupants.

Some deny that there will be a literal fire, because this could not affect spirits like Satan and his demons. But how do we know this? Our body certainly works on our soul in some mysterious way. There will be some positive punishment corresponding to our bodies. It is undoubtedly true, however, that a great deal of language concerning heaven and hell must be understood figuratively.11 Berkhof concisely summarizes the Bible’s teaching on hell: a. a total absence of the favor of God; b. an endless disturbance of life as a result of the complete domination of sin; c. positive pains and suffering in body and soul; and d. such subjective punishments as pangs of conscience, anguish, despair, weeping, and gnashing of teeth.12 While not an easy doctrine to preach and teach, declaring the “whole counsel of God” surely requires presentation of these primary aspects of the nature of hell. May we encourage our people to flee to Christ, our deliverer.

Matthew Everhard is the senior pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.

1 WCF 32:1; citing proof texts Luke 16:23 and 2 Peter 2:9.

2 Larger Catechism, A #86; citing proof texts Luke 16:23, 24; Acts 1:25; and Jude 6.

3 WCF 33:2; citing proof texts Matt. 25:41, 46; 2 Thess. 1:9; and Mark 9:47, 48.

4 Shorter Catechism, A #19 (emphasis added); citing proof texts Gen. 3:8, 24; Eph. 2:3; Rom. 5:14 and 6:23.

5 Larger Catechism, A #29 (emphasis added); citing proof texts 2 Thess. 1:9; Mark 9:43, 44; Luke 16:24, 26; Matt. 25:41, 46; Rev. 14:11; and John 3:36.

6 John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, III.25.12, trans.

Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001).

7 Calvin, III.25.12 (emphasis added).

8 Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology: Volume III Soteriology (Grand Rapids: Hendrickson, 2003), 868.

9 Hodge, 869, 871.

10 Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1941), 736.

11 Berkhof, 736.

12 Berkhof, 736. Charles Hodge also has a similar list of primary aspects of eternal hell in his Systematic Theology: Volume III Soteriology, 686.

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The Doctrine of Vocation

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God Glorified Radio Revival “ Freer Than in Our Work Thou”

24 God at Work Through Us ModernReformation.org

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G o d at Wo r k T h r o u g h U s Q & A with Gene Edward Veith

G

ene Edward Veith Jr., provost and professor of literature at Patrick Henry College, is the author of several noted books on Christianity and culture, including God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life.

A lot of people are talking about the importance of a Christian vocation. Why is it always a relevant issue for Christians in their daily lives?

a.

People are concerned with how to balance family life with work life. The doctrine of vocation is a way to address all those things and a lot more.

What is distinctive about a Reformation approach, and why is it important? Why can’t we just say that people need to work and find good jobs? Do we need to have a philosophy of work?

a. First of all, many of those who talk about

vocation seem to be missing the biblical point,

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certainly the point that the Reformers made. According to Luther and the others who were writing about this, it’s not just a matter of what we do in our work, but it’s what God does in our work through others and through our different callings. Luther said that when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we ask God to give us this day our daily bread, and he does give us our daily bread through the vocation of the farmers and the bakers, the truck drivers and the factory workers, and the lady at the checkout counter of the grocery store and the waiter who brings us food. God is present in those tasks, and he’s working through human vocation to give us our daily bread. Luther says that when God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, God could have created more people out of dust; but instead he chose to bring new life through the vocation of husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. God does bring new life into the world and care for children, but he does it through

Daily bread photo series: photography and styling by Tami Hardeman,assisted by Abby Gaskins

human vocations. So the doctrine of vocation isn’t just about what we do in our work, or even doing everything to the glory of God; it’s what God does for us through other people. In the different tasks God gives us to do, God is working through us to love and serve our neighbors.

God Wears Masks God serves us, ministering to us through vocation.

Thinking of Matthew 25 where Jesus says, “When I was hungry, you didn’t feed me,” what did he mean by this statement?

a. This is Luther’s concept of the hiddenness

of God, how God hides himself in so many different ways. Some people talk about hiddenness related to asking where God is when bad things happen. But talking about God’s hiddenness is a way to talk about his presence. If a child is hiding in the room, he’s there; we don’t see him, but he’s there. Luther calls vocation “a mask of God.” In other words, God is working and is hidden in the vocation of the people who serve us in the high and low ways. From our perspective, as we live out our different vocations, Christ is hidden in our neighbor. Luther says, “Do you want to see Christ? Do you want to do something for Christ?

Look at your neighbor.”

Calvin said to his Roman critic Cardinal Sadoleto, “A person who is trying to save himself is going to confine all of his thoughts in this life to himself. And a person who is freed from having to strive for his own salvation is going to be freed for the first time to care for his neighbor.” Is this the concept we’re talking about here?

a.

Absolutely. Another great quote from Luther is: “God doesn’t need your good works—your neighbor does.” Our relation to God does not depend on our works; it’s completely what he does for us in Christ. Many who talk about vocation talk about serving God, and that’s true and profound; but interestingly, Luther attacked those who were trying to do things for God, such as

“… talking about God’s hiddenness is a way to talk about his presence. … Luther says, ‘Do you want to see Christ?

Do you want to do something for Christ?

Look at your neighbor.’” rituals and prayers that were supposedly giving them merit before God. His point to the monastics was: “You say those are good works? Who are they helping? A good work is something tangible that actually helps and benefits your neighbor.”

Good works, as God desires us to do them, become a response of faith, an expression of love for the other person, especially for the neighbor in need. It’s not doing things for humanity as a generic abstract; it’s the people you meet in your vocation. Luther says we have four kinds of vocations: 1. In the church as we’re called to faith; 2. In the family, which is really primary; 3. In the workplace where we are; and 4. In our role as citizens of a particular nation and culture.

The question you always have to ask is, “Who is my neighbor?” For a husband in that vocation, his neighbor is his wife, and he is to love and serve her in his marriage. For the wife, her neighbor is the husband, and she is to love and serve him. As parents, their neighbors are their children, and parents love and serve their children. Being a child is a vocation, according to Luther, and they are to love and serve their parents. In the workplace, your neighbors would be your customer, your fellow employees, your boss. As citizens, ModernReformation.org

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our neighbors are our fellow citizens in our society whom we are to love and serve. In the church, we are to love and serve one another. Vocations are multiple. The Bible talks about how any given person may be a master and how he should treat his servants, but then that same person may be a servant to his boss. Even a CEO is a servant to the stockholders. In the family, one person may be the husband of his wife, the father to his children, and a child to his parents if they are still living. In Luther’s Smaller Catechism, he talks about the table of duties where the doctrine of vocation is set out. He presents these in terms of relationships: master and servant, husband and wife, parent and child—each of those has a role to play.

Do non-Christians have vocations, too? If so, why is that?

we are missing, especially among many evangelicals. The reason we don’t see the unbeliever as also maintaining a vocation is because we have so many points of disconnection when it comes time to stand on the doctrine of providence. But God works through secondary means. Does my doctor have to be a Christian? No. But God’s providence is such that this unbelieving doctor understands medicine enough to bring about healing and therefore be a means by which God heals someone.

a. The realms of medicine, science, and nature

belong to God. A non-Christian businessman, who doesn’t care about his workers and is just in it to try to make money, is very likely sinning against his vocation. And yet, God is still able to use him to employ people, to help them take care of their families. He must be creating some good or service that his neighbors find helpful;

a.

Was the farmer who grew the grain in the bagel I had this morning a Christian? God gives his rain on the just and the unjust, and he gives food and cares for his whole world. Now, some theologians make a distinction between vocation and office. Some say that a Christian has the vocation; he has been called by God and will approach that task in a different way. But still, non-Christians can be said to have an office or an estate. In Romans 13, we learn how God works through ungodly rulers. They are his agents, even his ministers. God creates law and order and protects us through the police and the legal system and everything else.

The doctrine of vocation helps define how Christians should think and live in their culture.

That’s a big problem today, because we live in a society that is not Christian and not typically informed by Christian ideas. How are Christians to live in a world like that? The temptation is to either separate—“This is ungodly, so we will draw into our own Christian culture”—or to take it over, to conquer the culture for Christ, as if that were possible. But we forget just how big God is and that he is sovereign, even among those who don’t know him.

Recommended reading Recommended books on vocation

by Gene Edward Veith:

God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life (Crossway, 2011) Using a biblical framework, Veith helps us see the meaning of our vocations.

Family Vocation: God’s Calling in Marriage, Parenting, and Childhood Written with Mary J. Moerbe

(Crossway, 2012) With his daughter, Veith explores questions about Christian vocation and its applications for family life to move away from common confusions and dysfunctions to persevere in love.

What stands out here is how intimately vocation is linked with providence. This seems to be what

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otherwise, they wouldn’t buy it and he’d go out of business. Despite our sinful human condition, God works through the vocation, because those vocations are from him. God also works through a non-Christian couple to bring new life. In my own experience, sometimes just being a parent pulls something out of you that you didn’t know you had. All a sudden, you put that child first and you really love and serve him. It’s not something you would normally do of your own nature, but because the vocation is from God, he uses that, even for non-Christians.

Confessing the Faith I. God, the great Creator of all things, doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.

Work Well with Your Hands II. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things

When Jesus healed the demon-possessed man in the graveyard, the man said, “I want to follow you; I want to be your disciple.” Jesus told him, “No, go back home and tell your family and your friends of the mercy and goodness of God.” So you’re following a biblical pattern. The church and ministry have broken up far too many families to be credible. Paul says to the Thessalonians, “Work well with your hands, and that’s enough.” You don’t have to be in your prayer closet all day. You don’t have to hang up an “I Love Jesus” sticker in your cubicle so people will ask you about Christ. Just do your work and don’t be a busybody. A lot of Christians say, “I’m going to evangelize on the job.” But Paul says, “No, mind your own business, work well with your hands”—and here it comes back to your point about neighbor love—“so that you may have something to give to your neighbor in need.”

a.

In the Middle Ages, they talked about the doctrine of vocation, but only as it related to church work. If you’ve been called or have a vocation, that means you’ve become a priest or a nun or a monk, and it’s still that way in Roman Catholic theology. I think a lot of today’s evangelicals actually have that same mentality: that the only calling, the only vocation that’s spiritual, is to do church work. Whereas the great insight of the Reformation, among many others, was to see that a person’s calling as a farmer or as a businessman or as a mother or as a father is likewise a divine office. He uses the same

come to pass immutably and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, he ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.

III. God in his ordinary providence maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure.

The Westminster Confession of Faith (5.1–3)

language to talk about them as he does to talk about the pastoral ministry.

What is the difference between a Christian and an unbeliever who have the same vocation?

a. For Christians who know that this is a call-

ing, what they do for their families or on the job is transfigured, because it’s all seen in light of faith.

It makes a huge difference if they are Christians, whether they know the one who has called them to this work. It changes the way you look at it. A non-Christian is doing exactly the same thing, but it’s not done in faith and is just another occasion for selfishness and sin, even when he’s doing things that are beneficial. Once Christians understand the doctrine of vocation, it changes the way they see their everyday lives.

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T he

D octrine o f V ocation

How God Hides Himself in Human Work

by Gene Edward Veith photography by Tami Hardeman

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T

he word calling, or in its Latinate form vocation, had long been used in reference to

the sacred ministry and the religious orders. Martin Luther was the first to use vocation to refer also to secular offices and occupations. Today, the term has become commonplace, another synonym for a profession or job, as in vocational training.

But behind the term is the notion that every legitimate kind of work or social function is a distinct “calling” from God, requiring unique God-given gifts, skills, and talents. Moreover, the Reformation doctrine of vocation teaches that God himself is active in everyday human labor, family responsibilities, and social interactions.

To take one of Martin Luther’s examples, we pray in the Lord’s Prayer that God give us our daily bread, which he does. He does so, not directly as when he gave manna to the Israelites, but through the work of farmers and bakers—and, we might add, truck drivers and retailers. In effect, the whole economic system is the means by which God gives us our daily bread. Each part of the economic food chain is a vocation through which God works to distribute his gifts. Similarly, God heals the sick. While he can and sometimes does do so directly, in the normal course of things he works through doctors, nurses, and other medical experts. God protects us from evil with the vocation of the police officer. God teaches through teachers, orders society through governments, and proclaims the gospel through pastors.

Luther pointed out that God could populate the earth by creating each new generation of babies from the dust. Instead, he ordained that human beings should come together to bring up children in families. The offices of husband, wife, and parent

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are vocations through which God works to rear and care for children.1 In other words, in his earthly kingdom, just as in his spiritual kingdom, God bestows his gifts through means. God ordained that human beings be bound together in love, in relationships and communities, existing in a state of interdependence. In this context, God is providentially at work caring for his people, each of whom contributes according to his or her God-given talents, gifts, opportunities, and stations. Each thereby becomes what Luther terms a “mask of God”: All our work in the field, in the garden, in the city, in the home, in struggle, in government— to what does it all amount before God except child’s play, by means of which God is pleased to give his gifts in the field, at home, and everywhere? These are the masks of our Lord God, behind which he wants to be hidden and to do all things.2 God, who pours out his generosity on the just and the unjust, believer and unbeliever alike, hides himself in the ordinary social functions and stations of life, even the most humble. To use another of Luther’s examples, God himself is milking the cows through the vocation of the milkmaid.3

Demonstrating Love of Neighb or All vocations are thus channels of God’s love. Gustaf Wingren, the Swedish theologian whose book Luther on Vocations is probably the best book on the subject, summarizes the point: In his vocation man does works which affect the well-being of others; for so God has made all offices. Through this work in man’s offices, God’s creative work goes forward, and that creative work is love, a profusion of good gifts.

With persons as his “hands” or “coworkers,” God gives his gifts through the earthly vocations, toward man’s life on earth (food through farmers, fishermen and hunters; external peace through princes, judges, and orderly powers; knowledge and education through teachers and parents, etc., etc.). Through the preacher’s vocation, God gives the forgiveness of sins. Thus love comes from God, flowing down to human beings on earth through all vocations, through both spiritual and earthly governments.4 Thus God is graciously at work, caring for the human race through the work of other human beings.

Behind the care we have received from our parents, the education we received from our teachers, the benefits we receive from our spouse, our employers, and our government stands God himself, bestowing his blessings.

The picture is of a vast, complex society of human beings with different talents and abilities. Each serves the other; each is served by others. We Americans have an ideal of self-sufficiency and often dream of being able to grow our own food, build our own homes, and live independently of other people.

But our proper human condition is dependence. Because of the centrality of love, we are to depend on other human beings and, through them, ultimately on God. Conversely, other people are to depend on us. In God’s earthly kingdom, we are to receive his blessings from other people in their vocations.

The purpose of one’s vocation, whatever it might be, is serving others. It has to do with fulfilling Christ’s injunction to love one’s neighbor. Though

“every legitimate kind of work or social function is a distinct ‘calling’ from God, requiring unique God-given gifts, skills, and talents.” justification has nothing to do with good works, vocation does involve good works. The Christian’s relationship to God is based on sheer grace and forgiveness on God’s part; the Christian’s relationship to other people, however, is to be based on love. As Wingren cites Luther, “God does not need our good works, but our neighbor does.”5 Certainly, human beings still sin in vocation.6 We violate God’s law and neglect our responsibilities to love and serve others selflessly in our work and offices. Though we resist God’s project of working through us, there is something about vocation itself that makes good things happen despite ourselves.

There is, as Wingren shows, in fact a great conflict and irony between our generally selfish motivations and the way the masked God works in vocation: Here we come across what for Luther is the decisive contrast between God’s self-giving love and man’s egocentricity. The human being is self-willed, desiring that whatever happens shall be to his own advantage. When husband and wife, in marriage, serve one another and their children, this is not due to the heart’s spontaneous and undisturbed expression of love, every day and hour. Rather, in marriage as an institution something compels the husband’s selfish desires to yield and likewise inhibits the egocentricity of the wife’s heart. At work in marriage is a power which compels self-giving to spouse and children. So it is the “station” itself which is the ethical agent, for it is God who is active through the law on earth.7 ModernReformation.org

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The vocation of marriage causes selfish human beings to care for each other and support each other more than they would on their own. The vocation of parenthood causes normally selfish adults to sacrifice themselves for the well-being of their children.

By the same token, the owner of a company may have no interest in loving his neighbor or serving others. His sole motivation may be greed. And yet, because of his vocation, he manages to give jobs to his employees so that they can support their families, his company provides products that other people need or enjoy, and he is inadvertently a blessing to his neighbors.

Beginning Where We Are How do we know our vocation? Strictly speaking, a vocation is not something we choose for ourselves; rather, it is given

by God, who “calls” us to a particular work or station. Talents, skills, and inclinations are part of one’s calling. So are external circumstances, which are understood as providentially arranged

by God. Since vocation is not self-chosen, it can also be known through the actions of others. Being offered a job, elected to an office, finding someone who wants to marry you are all clues to vocation.

Essentially, one’s vocation is to be found in the place one occupies in the present. A person stuck in a dead-end job may have higher ambitions, but for the moment that job, however humble, is one’s vocation. Flipping hamburgers, cleaning hotel rooms, emptying bedpans all have dignity as vocations, spheres of expressing love of neighbor through selfless service in which God is masked. Perhaps later, another vocation will present itself. Vocation is to be found not simply in future career decisions, but

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in the here and now. Nor can one use the excuse of “not having a vocation for marriage” for getting a divorce, or claim “not having a vocation for parenthood” as a way to dump child-raising responsibilities. If you are married, that’s your vocation. If you have children, they are your vocation.

Vocations are also multiple.8 Any given person has many vocations. A typical man might be simultaneously a husband (serving his wife), a father (serving his children), a son (serving his still-living parents), an employer (serving his workers), an employee (serving his bosses), a citizen (serving his country). Note how a person at a particular job can be both a “master,” charged with supervising subordinates, and at the same time a “servant,” answerable to superiors, whether a CEO or stockholders. Leadership and submission may both play a role as the various vocations make their claims.

When we work outside of our vocation—that is, without regard to our God-given abilities, authority, and station in life— we usually bungle the job or, more seriously, violate the moral law. It is possible, and common, to pursue occupations for which we have no aptitude.

I have taught many students who choose their majors in college based on which jobs pay the most, regardless of their own gifts. They turn themselves into accountants or managers or engineers, though they end up hating their work and not being very good at what they are trying to do. Their true vocation might be music or art, but they are trying to be “practical”—as if vocation were self-chosen— and they deny their true God-given gifts to pursue talents they do not really have. There are people in the teaching profession who do not really have gifts

“The purpose of one’s vocation, whatever it might be, is serving others. It has to do with fulfilling Christ’s injunction to love one’s neighbor.” that enable them to be good teachers. There are politicians who just are not cut out to be rulers. On the one hand, people in those stations do have a responsibility to serve as politicians or teachers, but they would do better to build on their own specific gifts.

More serious confusion comes when those with one vocation trespass on the prerogatives of another vocation. Again, private citizens have no right to “take the law into their own hands,” nor do rulers of the state have the right to take over the rearing of children, which is the vocation of parents.

Luther was particularly vehement when earthly rulers presumed to tell pastors what to preach, expressing himself in a way that should put to rest the accusation that he was servile to secular rulers: “You fool,” he told them, “you simpleton, look to your own vocation; don’t you take to preaching, but let your pastor do that.”9

using their gifts in service to the church. The notion that “everyone is a minister,” however, is a confusion of vocation.10 There have been times when I have had church obligations every night of the week—sometimes to the neglect of my vocation as husband (I need to spend time with my wife) and my vocation as father (I need to spend time with my children). Those vocations are “my ministry,” more so than explicit “church work.” To be sure, laypeople need to witness to their faith; but we can be most effective in doing so, not when we do the same things a pastor does, but when we witness in our vocation. At the workplace, we are in contact with people the pastor may never see. In the family, we can witness to our spouse and children. As we serve people in vocation, we can help bring them into the church. But to think that the “church work professions” constitute the only true service of God is to repeat the mistakes of the medieval church, which exalted “the religious orders” but considered the secular orders—including marriage and ordinary productive work—as having less spiritual value.

Thus making a living, going shopping, being a good citizen, and spending time with one’s family is the “ordinary routine” and all are spheres in which God is at work through human means. In a time when we define ourselves by our work and yet question its significance, when we crave family values but are confused about our social roles, the doctrine of vocation can transfigure everyday life.

Gene Edward Veith is the provost and professor of literature at Patrick Henry College, the director of the Cranach Institute at Concordia Theological Seminary, a columnist for WORLD and

Calling and Ministry

Tabletalk, and the author of eighteen books on different facets of Christianity and culture.

All Christians are “called” by the gospel into faith.

The pastor’s “calling” is, of course, a vocation of particular importance. Through the pastor’s preaching, teaching, shepherding, and administering of the Sacraments, God himself is working, bringing sinners to himself through the work of a human being.

Laypeople, too, have vocations they can bring into the life of the church—playing the organ, administering property, singing in the choir, helping with various committees and programs, and otherwise

1 “Exposition of Psalm 147,” quoted by Gustaf Wingren, Luther on Vocation (Evansville, IN: Ballast Press, 1994), 138.

2 Wingren, 138.

3 Cited by Wingren, 9.

4 Wingren, 27–28.

5 Wingren, 10.

6 There are some occupations—such as robber, drug dealer, hit-man, or pornographer—that are not vocations at all, since they are intrinsically sinful and incompatible with the love of neighbor, aiming to hurt and corrupt rather than serve.

7 Wingren, 6.

8 Wingren, 5.

9 “Exposition of John 1 and 2,” quoted in Wingren, 114.

10 See Modern Reformation, March/April 1997, especially Michael Horton, “What About Bob?” 8–15, and D. G. Hart, “Recovering the Keys of the Kingdom in an Age of Equipped Saints,” 16–20.

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God Glorified in Our W o r k

by Alan Maben photograph by Tami Hardeman

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hen it comes to work, many Christians feel as though they have much in common with the mythological figure Sisyphus. Having angered the gods, he was condemned by them to the task of eternally pushing a boulder up a mountain. As soon as he reached the summit with his burden, the boulder rolled past him down the slope he had just ascended. Sisyphus returned to the valley to repeat his pointless and wearisome efforts. Albert Camus, the existentialist writer, comments, “[The gods] had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.�1

Distant myth or personal reality? This scenario of meaningless drudgery too often describes our experiences on the job. We have an inner certainty that our need for meaningful, purposeful, and satisfying labor contradicts our experience of the daily grind. Charles Colson relates how this contradiction between despair and meaningless work, and our need for purpose, affected prisoners in a Hungarian concentration camp during World War II: The Nazi officer commanded [the prisoners] to shovel sand into carts and drag it to the other end of the plant. The next day the process was repeated in reverse. They were ordered to move a huge pile of sand back to the other end of the compound. Day after day they hauled the same pile of sand from one end of the camp to the other‌.One old man began crying uncontrollably; the guards hauled him away. Another screamed until he was beaten into silence. Then a young man who had survived three years in the camp darted away from the group. The guards shouted for him to stop as he ran toward the electrified fence. The other prisoners cried out, but it was too late; there was a blinding flash and a terrible sizzling noise

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as smoke puffed from his smoldering flesh. In the days that followed, dozens of the prisoners went mad and ran from their work, only to be shot by the guards or electrocuted by the fence. The commandant smugly remarked that there soon would be “no more need to use the crematoria.”2 In the face of such despair, living purposefully and meaningfully demands that who we are, the imagebearers of God, be directly related to what we do.

Even our systematic theologies reflect this relationship between work and people as image-bearers of God. We find importance of person and work from our Creator’s person and work. After all, we are his workmanship. He is actively involved in his Creation, and he is the one who calls us to be coworkers with him. “Calling” and “vocation” are identical as applied to our earthly responsibilities. Particularly in the Bible, the term carries the meaning of being called to a specific purpose: “God is at work within us, both to will and to do for his good pleasure” (Phil.

2:13). He does this in our earthly calling as well, by equipping us with desires and abilities to perform tasks here on earth.

Even unbelievers recognize the relation between who we are and what we do. After World War II, the General Assembly of the United Nations approved the universal Declaration of Human Rights. Among other issues, it declared in Article 23 that the right to work is a human right. This is not an insignificant concern among international thinkers. In response to World War II, the organization of American States published the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. Chapter 1, article 14 reads: “Every person has the right…to follow his vocation freely, in so far as existing conditions of employment exist.” Chapter 2, article 37 of the same document says: “It is the duty of every person to work, as far as his capacity and possibilities permit, in order to obtain the means of livelihood or to benefit his community.”3 American culture has taken this concept of vocation or calling and shaped it after its own image. In his comments on Benjamin Franklin’s attitudes and impact on the subject, Max Weber concluded that “the earning of money within the modern economic order is, so long as it is done legally, the result and the expression of virtue and proficiency in a calling.”4 Virtue and proficiency in a calling are useful

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“It should not be forgotten that [the fourth commandment] is the commandment of labor as well as rest. ‘Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work’ (Exod.

20:9). The day of rest has no meaning except as rest from labor.” because they bring financial success to the worker, as even a cursory glance at Franklin’s autobiography makes clear.

Some people consider that performing one’s work is the answer to the question, “What is the meaning of life?” Once a prisoner himself within a Nazi concentration camp, Victor Frankl asserts that one must rely upon the accomplishment of one’s “mission in life” to give meaning to existence, rather than searching for an abstract “meaning of life.”

Frankl writes, Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it….

The majority, however, consider themselves accountable before God; they represent those who do not interpret their own lives merely in terms of a task assigned to them but also in terms of the taskmaker who has assigned it to them.5 Frankl’s comments leave unanswered the question, “What meaning to labor exists if there is no God who gives it?” Frankl’s idea that a completed mission is the meaning of life offers no assurance, psychological or otherwise. To his

credit, he acknowledges the only other viable option— a Creator who enlists us to work for his glory. His conclusion differs from Franklin’s success system, where virtue and proficiency are useful because they bring financial gain and social status. In our day, the status of calling is imperiled by such errors and from the secularization of a segmented industrial culture. Sociologist Robert Bellah explains: In the context of a calling, to enter a profession [was] to take up a definite function in a community and to operate within the civic and civil order of that community. The profession as career was no longer oriented to any face-to-face community but to impersonal standards of excellence, operating in the context of a national occupational system.6 The lack of a crucial link between the individual and the general community weakens our sense of “connectedness” and the importance of our living and working in creation. As social creatures, we benefit from work. “Employment offers to the individual not only economic viability but also an experience of community and a sense of social belonging, a source of structure and continuity in life, and a means of developing his or her talents and potentialities in contributing to the well-being of society as a whole.”7 Turning to the Westminster Confession of Faith, we may ask if there are any clues in it for establishing a biblical basis for the value of work. Although there is no section devoted to vocation, the doctrine is implied throughout. For example, in “Of God and of the Holy Trinity” (2.2), we find: “To [God] is due from angels and men, and every other creature, whatsoever worship, service, or obedience, he is pleased to require of them.” In the Garden, Adam and Eve rendered to God the service of identification and maintaining order. Genesis 1:26–28 twice affirms a relationship between the fact that man is made in God’s image and that he has been called to exercise dominion over the earth. Because man is made in the image of God, after his likeness, he is capable of ruling over the rest of the created order. Similarly in Genesis 2, man is given charge of the environment; thus maintaining, ordering, and organizing is fundamental to God’s purposes for human life.8

Reformed theologian John Murray argues that labor is decreed and is included in the Ten Commandments. He states that about “the fourth commandment, it should not be forgotten that it is the commandment of labor as well as rest. ‘Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work’ (Exod. 20:9).

The day of rest has no meaning except as rest from labor.”9 God designed work for Adam and Eve before sin entered the world, and God judged work, a part of his creation, to be “very good.” As a matter of fact, Genesis makes it clear that Eve was a coworker with Adam.10 God did not make labor a curse when Adam disobeyed him, although the curse did include difficulty and frustration in man’s work: “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return” (Gen. 3:17–19).

Note also that when God expels Adam and Eve from the Garden for their own good, the Bible says that Adam must still work the ground (Gen. 3:23).

Work is actually a gift of God. The author of Ecclesiastes realized that “it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him, for this is his lot. Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God” (Eccles. 5:18–19). Work, paid or not, glorifies God. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward” (Col. 3:23–24; see also Eph. 6:7). Our employer is ultimately God, not a fallen human being. Hence, labor is for God. Work carries with it the possibility of satisfaction in its performance. After listing various manual occupations, the author of the apocryphal work Ecclesiasticus has this to say: All these trust to their hands; and everyone is wise in his work. Without these a city cannot be inhabited; and they shall not dwell where they will, nor go up and down; they shall not be sought for in public counsel, nor sit high in the ModernReformation.org

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congregation; they shall not sit in the judge’s seat, nor understand the sentence of judgment; …But they will maintain the state of the world, and all their desire is in the work of their craft.

(Ecclus. 38:24–25) Others may, and should, benefit somehow from what we do, but we steal the honor and glory due to God when we think of our labor as valuable or meaningful only when acknowledged by our earthly employers or as we are able to gain financial or personal success. In this way, we violate the first and the eighth commandments.

The section on providence (5.1) in the Westminster Confession clarifies the importance of vocation: God, the great Creator of all things, doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most holy and wise providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.

By calling believers to specific tasks in the world, God enlists us to be coworkers in glorifying him. In our labor, we imitate God and his providential care and governance. He instills within us abilities and desires to perform diverse tasks, and we reflect our Creator’s workmanship when we perform tasks with our abilities and interests. We work from our varied abilities because God works from his varied abilities; we are created in his image. His sovereignty ensures that all things in this fallen world will ultimately glorify himself and benefit us too. Whatever our circumstances, we fulfill our purpose as salt and light in this world as we love God with our lives.

God is not the author of confusion. He orders all things for his glory. Calvin based his idea of vocation on the organic, natural order he saw in God’s glorious theater, his Creation. The relevancy of such a doctrine was obvious to Calvin. John Walchenbach explains: “The conviction that one is called gave courage to people in a society in dramatic flux. In sixteenth-century Geneva, structures from medieval society had broken down, peasants were given new powers, refugees streamed into the city fleeing persecution, and a feeling of uncertainty pervaded the changing order.”11

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Calvin was not trying to stifle or control people for his own ends; rather, he saw society as a natural part of Creation, with an organic structure of interdependence to it. He also knew too well how we desire our own good above that of our neighbor. Given free reign, this sinful pride would cancel any meaning or benefit of society. John Murray makes an important observation on the importance of the relationship between work and order: When Paul enjoins the Thessalonian believers to withdraw themselves from every brother who walked disorderly and not after apostolic tradition (2 Thess. 3:6), we might think that what he has in view is false doctrine…. [However] the particular kind of disorderliness that the apostle has in mind in this case is that of idleness along with its companion vice of being a busybody. “For we hear of some that walk among you disorderly, that work not at all, but are busybodies” (2 Thess. 3:11).12 Murray echoes Calvin here when he sees Christians’ idleness as disruptive: [Calvin argued that] the Lord bids each one of us in all life’s actions to look to his calling. For he knows with what great restlessness human nature flames, with what fickleness it is borne hither and thither, how its ambition longs to embrace various things at once. Therefore, lest through our stupidity and rashness everything be turned topsy-turvy, he has appointed duties for every man in his particular way of life.

Therefore each individual has his own kind of living assigned to him by the Lord as a sort of sentry post so that he may not heedlessly wander about throughout life.13 We are stewards responsible to God in a fallen world. According to Calvin, the apostle “rather condemns that restlessness, which prevents an individual from remaining in his condition with a peaceable mind, and he exhorts, that every one stick by his trade, as the old proverb goes.”14 Hence, our worries about whether we are doing God’s will by working in a certain job receive comfort here. Nor are we stuck in one particular job all our life. “Now it were a very hard thing if a tailor were not at liberty to learn another trade, or if a merchant were not

“His sovereignty ensures that all things in this fallen world will ultimately glorify himself and benefit us too…. God is not the author of confusion. He orders all things for his glory.” at liberty to betake himself to farming.”15 Paul is clear about the importance of working.

“For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat’” (2 Thess. 3:10). We must also provide for our families; as Paul writes in 1 Timothy 5:8, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” Again underscoring the importance of actively participating in our responsibility to work in Creation, he admonishes believers to “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody” (1 Thess. 4:11–12). This will also proclaim God the Creator as worthy of honor and glory. “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16).

The Westminster Confession “Of Communion of Saints” (26.2) draws upon the priesthood of all believers “in performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification; as also in relieving each other in outward things, according to their several abilities and necessities.” God does not distinguish between professional Christians and the rest of the group. We all are responsible for the service of “loving our neighbors as ourselves.” This love

is the basis for Paul’s admonition in Ephesians 4:28: “He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.”

The quality of our work reflects on our Creator. If we believe that our work glorifies God, then “quality control” becomes internal. This concern with quality before God is clear in Luke 10:7, “The worker is worthy of his wages,” which echoes Leviticus 19:13 and Deuteronomy 24:14–15. Work, then, is an obvious way of showing good works. C. S. Lewis tells it this way: “When our Lord provided a poor wedding party with an extra glass of wine all around, he was doing good works. But also good work; it was a wine really worth drinking.”16 Work is a gift and a commandment of God to glorify him. It reminds us that we and our labors are meaningful. Work also provides for ourselves and our families, benefits others by maintaining order in society, and shares with those in need. But our labor must always please God and not men. The daily drudgery that oppresses us is the consequence of trying to please human masters. When we please people rather than God, we are willing to do whatever is necessary to gain approval, even to the point of disobeying God.17

Alan Maben is a graduate of California State University, Long Beach, and Simon Greenleaf School of Law. 1 Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (New York: Vintage Books, 1959), 88.

2 Charles Colson, Kingdoms in Conflict (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), 68.

3 The European Social Charter also sets forth the right to work. John W. Montgomery notes that Islamic belief includes the right to work and even to join trade unions, as asserted in the Koran. In Montgomery, Human Rights and Human Dignity (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 115.

4 Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans.

Talcott Parsons (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958), 53–54.

5 Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy (New York: Washington Square Press, 1966), 172.

6 Robert Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (New York: Harper and Row, 1985), 119–20, 66.

7 R. K. Harrison, Encyclopedia of Biblical and Christian Ethics (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1987), s.v. “Employment” by M. D. Geldard.

8 Encyclopedia of Biblical and Christian Ethics, s.v. “Work” by M. D. Geldard.

9 John Murray, Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), 83.

10 Encyclopedia of Biblical and Christian Ethics.

11 Donald K. Kim, ed., Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), s.v. “Vocation” by John R. Walchenbach.

12 Murray, 84..

13 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion III.10.6.

14 John Calvin, Commentary on 1 Corinthians 7:20.

15 Calvin, Commentary.

16 C. S. Lewis, “Good Work and Good Works,” in The World’s Last Night and Other Essays (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1960), 71.

17 Murray, 88.

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Radio Revival

The Truth-Telling Parables of This American Life

by Ethan Richardson

T

he facts of experience support this conclusion.…What now can reason propose that is right, when it is thus blind and ignorant? … or, rather, what can the will pursue, when reason can propose to it nothing but the darkness of its own blindness and ignorance? Where reason is in error and the will turned away, what good can man attempt or perform?1

Most people claim that Martin Luther had Erasmus on his mind when he penned this passage from The Bondage of the Will. But I think he had just listened to episode 462 of This American Life, titled “Own Worst Enemy.” The show kicks off with the story of Dan Blumberg, an employee at WBEZ Chicago, and his inescapable devotion to the very thing that will kill him: crabmeat. Despite his severe allergy, Dan continues to partake of his favorite

seafood. After one particularly dangerous incident, host Ira Glass asks Dan if this near-death experience is enough to make him stop. “Of course not,” Dan says, it’s just made him take further measures. The next time he goes to the crab restaurant, he brings his entire bathroom cupboard: a mountain of Benadryl, an inhaler, and, yes, an EpiPen, in case it gets bad.

Dan: But the poisoning myself, it’s not that bad. Like I said, I get sleepy from the Benadryl. That’s the worst part; I get really tired.

Ira: But if you find yourself saying the sentence, the poisoning myself is not that bad…

Dan: Yeah, I mean, I think there’s something probably to that. You know, I like it.

What can I say?2

Ekco radio (mixed media), English School (20th century) / The Sherwin Collection, Leeds, UK

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Did you catch that? Not only was Dan’s close call not close enough to keep him from eating crab again, it pushed him to take further precautions so he can go back again. He literally and willfully poisons himself—and finds ways to continue doing so.

This was just the prologue of the episode. The rest of the radio hour was spent talking with other original sinners: chronic pizza eaters and smokers, professional baseball aces gone rogue, people unstoppably sabotaging their careers and their relationships. An ER doctor interviewed said that nearly half of all hospital entrants are obstinately aware of what they’ve done to themselves. As the show’s host says, “They simply cannot help themselves when they do it.”

This is a story we all know too well. We can surely name our own inner conspirators. Like a nervous tic, we cannot still the hand, mind, or mouth that works against us. In that one area of our lives where every time the cock crows thrice, we find ourselves back at the entrance of the ER, asking for a doctor, with a guilty look on our faces.

These are the kinds of inner stories stirred every week by the public radio program This American Life. They are stories that span the scope of all relationships: stories about enemies, “frenemies,” unconditional love, and break-ups; you hear people crying, laughing, praying, shaking fists, gossiping, changing, trying to change and not changing, and hoping above all hopes. Each hour-long program brings listeners into some strange—and strangely familiar—world of human experience.

Since its birth on the airwaves in 1995, This American Life has repeatedly been the number one most downloaded podcast on iTunes, boasts over 1.7 million listeners each week, and has received every radio award imaginable. Its creator, producer, and host, Ira Glass, is the face of the show, and has even become the face of contemporary radio altogether.

How does the program work? Each episode is loosely configured into a series of “acts” (a format that inspired its original “playhouse” name), each one revolving around that episode’s particular theme—for instance, “Scenes from a Recession,” “Amusement Parks,” “Lockup,” or “My Experimental Phase.” The act spins its own rendition of the theme under discussion. For example, an episode titled “Break-Up” had four acts: an eight-yearold’s perspective on her parent’s divorce; a writer’s break-up and the break-up song she composed with

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the help of Phil Collins; an interview with a “Divorce Mediator”; and a humorous dog’s-eye segment called “Divorce is RRRUFFFF!” Doing it this way allows This American Life to foster a remarkable sense of playfulness and humility. An episode’s theme is the firm ground upon which the various acts play, with the emphasis on play. Yet the playfulness is not at the expense of honesty, which is why the show has made such an impression. Ira Glass and company have created a show that tells stories that are interesting of their own accord, without the need to bend the facts or pivot an angle. The show provides a kind of journalism that tells a story as it is, which thus connects with listeners because it meets them as they are— which is usually a place of vulnerability, embarrassment, or guilt.

Its honesty and playfulness also make This American Life an irresistible source of illustrations for the Christian faith. Despite the fact that the show does not remotely embrace a Christian framework (Glass himself is vocal about his atheism), its interest in truth-telling guarantees, to the extent it’s doing its job, that the show will unwittingly touch on ultimate truth, even the One who is Truth. In other words, in seeking to tell “human interest” stories well, This American Life often finds itself pointing to a Christian understanding of love, mercy, forgiveness, and grace in such overt and powerful ways that not writing about them proves

“We can surely name our own inner conspirators. Like a nervous tic, we cannot still the hand, mind, or mouth that works against us.”

“in seeking to tell ‘human interest’ stories well, This American Life often finds itself pointing to a Christian understanding of love, mercy, forgiveness, and grace in such overt and powerful ways that not writing about them proves impossible.” impossible. Thus This American Gospel: Public Radio Parables and the Grace of God was born, a twelve-act tribute to the parabolic and illustrative power of the radio show. The book is laid out in twelve chapters, each one an essay based on a specific act of a specific episode of This American Life.

We look deep into stories of the bound sinner—bingers, purgers, obsessive list-makers, drunks; we look deep into stories where mercy in the face of deserved judgment bears remarkable fruit.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that any of the stories on This American Life are watertight metaphors for the gospel, or that we should reduce the historical truth of the death and resurrection of Christ to abstractions. Heavens no! The hope here is simply to provide some new pictures for the Old Story, to talk about where these touching testimonies are ultimately pointing, and maybe even have some fun doing so. We need to hear the gospel every day; and in a well-defended world, who of us couldn’t use a few more avenues for that good news to travel home?

In conclusion, consider the following example from “Long Shot,” episode 398, wherein a life-sentenced prisoner named Don is denied parole for the last time. No amount of good behavior has been able to erase his past transgression or earn him a pardon.

Yet, at his darkest moment, the wild mercy of a new judge comes to his rescue. Out of the blue, a new law

is passed, one that recasts Don’s predicament, independent of any participation or striving. Don receives the benefit of a victory won by someone else.

And it literally covers his irreversible guilt: Don: [The new judge] read the law and said, “This man fits this perfectly.” And then the [prosecutor] just said, “We don’t have anything.” The attorney general also admitted, had to admit to her, “We don’t have anything. The governor had nothing and we don’t have anything either.” And the Judge said, “Well, why are we here then?”…The judge said, “Well, I’d like to close this hearing.” It was over! It was over. And we won!

This is our good verdict from God in Christ Jesus— the old story of the reversal of an irreversible guilt.

Ethan Richardson is the author of This American Gospel: Public Radio Parables and the Grace of God (CreateSpace, 2012). He studied at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville where he now lives and writes for Mockingbird Ministries.

1 Luther, Martin. The Bondage of the Will (Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell, 1992), 281.

2 “Own Worst Enemy,” This American Life, episode 462, aired April 13, 2012 (WBEZ Chicago), http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/462/transcript.

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“Freer than thou�

How Wisdom Avoids Legalism and License

by Michael S. Horton

Illustration by Jesse lefkowitz

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e are so good at being legalists. One minute we’re the “older brother” in our Lord’s parable, resentful of the father’s lavish grace showered on the prodigal son; the next minute we cast ourselves as the younger brother—only, unlike him, lording the father’s indulgence over our brother’s head. To reverse the roles in another parable, gospel-liberated heirs can be, rather ironically, like the Pharisee who prayed (at least in my version), “Lord, I thank you that I am not like this Pharisee. I know that I’m totally depraved and am justified by grace alone.

I’m so glad I ‘get it’—of course, thanks to you alone (sort of ).”

One way of asserting this superiority, waving the “I’m-one-of-those-who-get-it” flag, is to turn the taboos of our past on their head. We’ve discovered liberty in “things indifferent,” adiaphora, or things not identified in Scripture as sins. Don’t get me wrong; this liberty is precious. In fact, Calvin went so far as to call it “an appendix to justification.” As he said, to bow the neck to a yoke of slavery in practice is to deprive oneself and others of the joy of the gospel. Yet, as the Reformer also observed from Paul, love is the rule. Because of the weaker brother or sister, we restrain our liberty; but we will not surrender that freedom for which Christ died to those who would exercise tyranny over consciences.

What’s interesting in the Lord’s parable is that the prodigal son never once expressed superiority toward his older brother. The father had enough love and forgiveness to go around for both brothers—enough to unite them in fraternal bonds. We’re

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all on a long road to maturity. The problem is that when I behold the holy and generous Father, I can only confess with Isaiah, “I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips.”

Not that long ago, there was a shared culture of propriety. Even unbelievers who swore like a sailor with their buddies on a fishing trip held their tongues in check around women and children, and they weren’t foul-mouthed in business meetings. Today, however, there is a culture of baseness. The lowest forms of cultural expression have become the most pervasive, tearing down the dividers between “appropriate there, but not here.” Even middle-aged people sometimes try to mimic the youth culture.

We see this not only in the sloppy dress that has now become de rigueur, but also in church services that borrow from the trivial banalities of pop culture—as if pop culture could authentically convey the riches of Christ from generation to generation.

Even pastors sometimes say they use foul language in the pulpit as a missional device, but the justification sounds eerily familiar, like that of the shockjock looking for ratings. It lacks discernment. And when it involves swearing while speaking in Christ’s name, it’s sacrilegious. Most non-Christians I know understand that. They’re not impressed by preachers who share their sex life in vivid detail; it sounds like someone who just discovered that sex isn’t a sin.

“Oh, Grow Up!” In the pendulum swinging between making a rule and breaking a rule, what we’ve lost is wisdom or prudence. There are some rich words in the older Christian vocabulary that tag along with these pregnant terms. One is circumspection, from the Latin compound meaning literally “looking around”: the art of using one’s own judgment (discernment) to apply general biblical teaching and common sense in specific contexts where there is no universally applicable biblical rule.

It’s all about growing up. When we’re children, we learn the basic words, teachings, stories, and rules of God’s Word. Then we look for connections and ask questions about what we believe and why we believe it. It’s like learning to ride a bicycle: focusing on the pedals and steering without falling off. Or learning to play the piano: focusing on the placement of our hands and looking at the notes on the page. Then we press on to maturity, where we’re actually riding the bike, attending directly to the road rather than the pedals, and actually playing the music instead of focusing on our fingers and the notes. Growing up into Christ is a lot like that.

Legalism causes problems because it keeps us from growing up, from going on to that stage where we’re practicing the faith we profess. It keeps us looking at our fingers and the notes. How far can I go with my girlfriend? What’s the line I can’t cross in doing my taxes? These are the sorts of questions the Pharisees asked Jesus. And yet it is also motivated by a kind of self-indulgence (antinomianism). It’s no longer about loving God and neighbor, but about making a rule or breaking a rule: How far can I go in selfishness before I get zapped?

If we are drawn to the lowest forms of culture, we shouldn’t be surprised when even non-Christians respond, “Is that all you can sing?” or “Are your vocabulary, life experience, and imagination so limited that you have to shock people with vulgarity?”

Even in areas where we’re free, there is wisdom.

And in any case, Christians are not free to violate standards of propriety that Scripture does in fact directly condemn.

In Reformed circles, it’s often called the “cage phase”: that familiar introductory period when neophyte Calvinists ought to be held in

a medium-security facility to ensure the safety of others and themselves. Not only is there the obvious theological revolution that occurs and generates a certain excitement, as well as a sense of being let down by one’s churched background; there is, for many of us who came from fundamentalist or evangelical circles, a newfound Christian liberty. Where once the little legalist inside us loved to wave the flag of superiority by parading our dedication to rules not found in Scripture, we now do the same by parading our liberties. A cigar and a beer aren’t just a cigar and a beer, but banners unfurled for all to see.

It’s just legalism of a different sort. In either manifestation, it’s childish.

Growing in wisdom is a lot more difficult. It’s like becoming a vintner, an artist, a musician, or an athlete: it takes time, attention, meditation, and art. It requires submitting to expertise—something we as Americans especially shy away from in our egalitarian culture where everybody is as competent as the next person.

“The Charioteer of all Virtues” Not surprisingly, most of the references to prudence in Scripture are found in Proverbs. Prudence is distinguished from wisdom as a species is from its genus. If wisdom is the general capacity for evaluating and following the Good, the True, and the Beautiful (which, Proverbs tells us, begins with theology—i.e., the fear of God), then prudence is that particular exercise of wisdom that involves discrimination. One does not need to exercise

Defining our terms Circumspection is from the Latin compound meaning literally “looking around”: the art of using one’s own judgment (discernment) to apply general biblical teaching and common sense in specific contexts where there is no universally applicable biblical rule.

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discretion in deciding whether to love God and one’s neighbor. Discretion is required, however, when deciding on a vocation for that aim, in the week’s bustling priorities, and how best to fulfill it. You can’t learn to ride a bike just from reading a manual; you have to do it, informed by a biblical outlook and common sense, and when you fall you have to get back on and ride.

Here the specific context, not the general rule, guides moral reasoning: “I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge and discretion” (Prov. 8:12). One is expected not only to do prudent things, but prudent things are also done by a prudent person. The goal of character, Christian or otherwise, is to develop habits of picking up on both general biblical wisdom and particular, immediate contexts. We know a prudent person when we see one: “A fool’s wrath is known at once, but a prudent man covers shame” (Prov. 12:16). “The heart of the prudent acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge” (Prov. 18:15). If our only categories are “right” and “wrong,” then we will miss opportunities to develop a moral conscience—the character of a prudent person. This isn’t just about Christian practice, but also the wisdom that goes with the grain of our created nature.

In Phaedrus, Plato calls prudence “the charioteer of all virtues,” but Aristotle develops this notion in a direction that many regard as remarkably consistent with Scripture. And why not? Aren’t we talking about civic righteousness and common grace?

Even Luther, who generally disliked Aristotle, said he was “very good in the area of moral philosophy” (Luther’s Table Talk, #411). In Book 2 of his Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes virtue as being of two kinds: intellectual, formed by teaching (experience plus time); and moral, formed by habit. He writes that in Greek, ethike “is formed by a slight variation from the word ethos (habit).” People become builders by building, musicians by playing, and so forth. Aristotle emphasizes the fact that we are responsible not only for our actions, but also for our lives—our character, who we are, and who we become. Again, we’re not in the realm here of redemption, but of common grace. Our culture today is starving for this sort of moral discourse, especially when the idea that we are passively shaped by our environment is so rife.

I think Aristotle would tell a mother who is worried about her children engaging with questionable

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movies or books or hanging out with the wrong crowd, “Give them an alternative prize.” In other words, it is at least in part up to us as parents to provide an environment where Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are known and experienced in depth. If they are gripped by the truth, they will less likely believe the latest lie. If they become intimate with what is good, noble, and worthy of respect, they will be less inclined toward the shallow narcissism that feeds immorality in the first place. If they are familiar with the lives of great men and women who were shaped by integrity and wisdom, they will at least have something with which to contrast the trivial characters they see promoted in the culture. (By the way, this doesn’t mean moralistic novels that expunge the R-rated scenes, but rather great literature, music, and art that trains us toward excellence.) We and our children will only come to recognize the inferiority of what is ugly by being familiar with what is beautiful. Prudence is thereby molding character in such a manner that even where there is not a specific rule or defined expectation in a given situation, they will be able to size

“If wisdom is the general capacity for evaluating and following the Good, the True, and the Beautiful … then prudence is that particular exercise of wisdom that involves discrimination.”

things up and make a mature decision. A rule-oriented existence usually stunts the moral growth of people and communities.

Granted, this is more difficult. It would be great if wisdom were just a matter of acquiring information and applying it. That’s how a lot of people actually think about discipleship: it’s something you can get out of a catalogue. But you can’t buy it; it’s not on sale anywhere. In our modern culture, calculative or instrumental reason (what Aristotle calls techne or “know-how”) has swallowed the horizon. You can’t do an Internet search on “winemaking” or buy a kit and think you’ll give a renowned winery like Stag’s Leap a run for its money. The difference between pop culture and serious culture is not “common person” versus “elitist,” but values dominated by consumption versus creation, distraction versus attentiveness, and passing fancy versus caring.

“The Tender Reed Do N ot Break” The Puritans were brilliant at “cases of consciences.” These were fat volumes of ministerial counsel in concrete, specific circumstances. It was neither “situation ethics” nor Kant’s categorical imperative (“Act in such a way that you would decree that act as a universal law”). Most cases that pastors face aren’t answered in black-and-white laws that can be applied universally. In some extreme cases, divorce is counseled, while in others not; the difference is the specific set of circumstances. A wise person has to understand the situation by asking questions, evaluating, and spending time on the matter, while also seeking the advice of others in similar positions of spiritual authority. As Albert R. Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin explain the approach, “The prudent person is aware that although the final end of human life is fixed by divine providence, the means to achieving that end are ‘of manifold variety according to the variety of persons and situations’” (The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988], 68, 130).

The Puritans’ goal was to educate the conscience, drawing on both the light of nature and the light of grace. Anglican and Puritan divine William Perkins’s Whole Treatise of Cases of Conscience (1606) represents a major contribution. He begins by

“The difference between pop culture and serious culture is not ‘common person’ versus ‘elitist,’ but values dominated by consumption versus creation, distraction versus attentiveness, and passing fancy versus caring.” saying that such an exercise is essential since many Christians struggle with a heavy sense of guilt and “have either growne to phrensie and madness or els [sic] sorted unto themselves fearfull ends, some by hanging, some by drowning.”

Godliness surely requires meditation on God’s revealed Word: his law and his gospel. Indeed, Scripture informs every aspect of our lives. It provides us with a new framework for interpreting everything.

And yet, many of our daily decisions—which collectively shape our habits into a certain kind of character—are nether required nor rejected by Scripture.

At this point, we gather as much as we can from general revelation, common sense, contexts, and examples to inform godly judgment. This is where we must resist the easy path of either making new laws or breaking the taboos to show our liberty. Look around and let love prevail.

Michael S. Horton is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation.

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book reviews

Pulphead: Essays

By John Jeremiah Sullivan FSG Originals, 2011 384 pages (paperback), $16.00

I

t’s time for those of us who thought Twitter was a passing fad to admit we were mistaken. Indeed, the 140-character social media forum seems to be only picking up steam with each well-documented and commented-upon day. And while it remains as resistant as ever to rhetorical subtlety, the communicative juice it wrings from its ration of letters is nonetheless more varied and substantial than one might have thought. In a world that seems to favor headlines and sound bites over attenuated reflection, is the long form essay (or “long read” as it’s come to be known) an endangered species? The answer, probably, is yes.

That is, unless you’ve just read John Jeremiah Sullivan’s superb collection, Pulphead.

It’s rare indeed that a single work contains enough gravity to rejuvenate an entire art form, and certainly it would be a premature assessment here. But these fourteen essays, taken as a whole, do make a convincing case, at least as far as the younger demographic goes. Sullivan possesses the same knack that all great essayists do: he can make something uninteresting interesting. He can take something we don’t care about (e.g., obscure American naturalists and MTV’s The Real World) and find a way for us to do so. More than a few reviewers have noted the similarities in tone to the late David Foster Wallace, and one can certainly see where they’re coming from. Like Wallace, Sullivan invests himself fully in his pieces, subverting the cynicism of his generation to deconstruct himself as much as any of his subjects, and in the process, reaches behind readers’ defenses to their lonely,

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beating hearts. The net effect is a deeply humanizing one. Plus, he is extremely funny.

Also like Wallace—indeed, like any honest writer born after 1960—Sullivan’s language and frame of reference are inescapably pop cultural. But that doesn’t make them any less sophisticated. In fact, pop icons such as Michael Jackson and Axl Rose inspire a number of Pulphead’s most touching moments and memorable turns of phrase. These men are as self-defeating, controversial, and hard to love as they come. Yet rather than approaching them with journalistic detachment, unmitigated irony, or sentimental curiosity, Sullivan comes at them from a predominantly empathetic standpoint. The pieces almost function as illustrations of Roland Bainton’s famous comments on Martin Luther in Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Abingdon Press, 1987): Those who are predisposed to fall into despondency as well as to rise into ecstasy may be able to view reality from an angle different from that of ordinary folk. Yet it is a true angle; and when the problem or the religious object has been once so viewed, others less sensitive will be able to look from a new vantage point and testify that the insight is valid (283).

In reference to Michael Jackson, for example, Sullivan observes that “his physical body is arguably, even inarguably, the single greatest piece of postmodern American sculpture,” before going on to reflect on how MJ also came to symbolize the “pathology of pathologization.” When it comes to the contemptuous Rose, Sullivan rightly dubs him “the only indispensable white male rock dancer of his generation,” before recounting an absurdly reprehensible episode that landed the teen Axl in jail. Sullivan traces the

“[Christ’s] breakthrough was the aestheticization of weakness. Not in what conquers, not in glory, but in what’s fragile and what suffers—there lies sanity. And salvation.” inheritance of sin in the singer’s life and does so without letting Rose off the hook for his complicity, discounting the cards that were so clearly stacked against him, or overlooking the towering gifts and charisma that God nonetheless bestowed upon him.

It’s not an adoring portrait or a self-righteous one: it’s a compassionate one.

For our purposes, however, the real virtue of Pulphead—indeed, the reason for expending valuable space here—lies in the opening essay about Sullivan’s trip to the Creation Festival, or what until recently was known as “The Nation’s Largest Christian Music Festival.” It’s a piece he originally wrote for GQ under the title “Upon This Rock,” yet it remarkably lacks even a trace of the animalsin-the-zoo condescension (and/or barely disguised disdain) that characterizes almost all such attempts to report on evangelical subculture. Even when he’s composing what may be the most incisive critique of the contemporary Christian music genre ever put on paper—he calls it “the only excellence-proofed genre”—his matter-of-fact tone and irenic reasoning are refreshing in the extreme. Who could argue with the following?

responsibility—one the artists embrace—to “reach people.” As such, it rewards both obviousness and maximum palatability (the artists would say clarity), which in turn means parasitism.

Still, it’s one thing to sympathize with the mechanics of the much-maligned genre, but quite another to do so with the hand-waving Biblethumpers themselves. And to adopt Sullivan’s candor for a moment, he is a lot more generous with what he finds at Creation than most Reformation Christians would be—certainly this reviewer.

Instead, Sullivan gets to know his fellow attendees. He sits with them, he laughs with them, he eats with them, and most importantly, he listens to them.

In other words, he allows himself to be vulnerable.

In one of the most beautiful sections of the book, Sullivan recalls his own “Jesus phase.” But, as he writes, “a phase is supposed to end—or at least give way to other phases—not simply expand into a long preoccupation.” That is, he doesn’t harbor the usual emotional baggage or resentment. “It isn’t that I feel psychologically harmed. It isn’t even that I feel like a sucker for having bought it all. It’s that I love Jesus Christ.… [Christ’s] breakthrough was the aestheticization of weakness. Not in what conquers, not in glory, but in what’s fragile and what suffers—there lies sanity. And salvation.” Amen!

The kicker of the piece, indeed of the book itself, comes in a phrase that I’ve found myself repeating ever since I read it—one that’s come in handy both in my own thinking and in my dealings with others. In reference to the faith that he’s gradually let go, Sullivan admits, “One has doubts about one’s doubts.” It’s as good a rephrasing of Mark 9:24 (“I believe! Help my unbelief!”) as one is likely to find in the pages of GQ—at least this year. What’s more, the sentiment is indicative of Sullivan’s contribution to our increasingly (and perhaps irredeemably) fractured conversation about Christianity: namely, he writes in the gracious tone of its founder. And that, my friends, is something to tweet about.

David Zahl is the director and founder of Mockingbird Ministries,

[Christian rock] is message music for listeners who know the message cold, and, what’s more, it operates under a perceived

a nonprofit dedicated to connecting the historic truths of the gospel with the realities of everyday life. He also serves on the staff of Christ Episcopal Church in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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book reviews

The Most Misused Verses in the Bible: Surprising Ways God’s Word Is Misunderstood

By Eric J. Bargerhuff Bethany House, 2012 172 pages (paperback), $12.99

A

t the end of a recent Ultimate Fighter Championship match, the victor looked into the camera and said, while pointing to a very large tattoo of a cross on his arm, “I can do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens me.” I’m pretty sure St. Paul did not intend for these words written to the church at Philippi to be used as motivation for bashing the head of an opponent for sport, but it does highlight just how often particular verses of the Bible are ripped out of their literary and historic context and applied to a contemporary situation not even remotely connected to the original intent of the passage.

I read a lot of books each year as part of my vocation, and every now and then one comes along that makes me think, “I cannot believe it took this long for someone to write this book.” Such is the case with Eric Bargerhuff ’s latest, The Most Misused Verses in the Bible: Surprising Ways God’s Word Is Misunderstood. By looking at the most commonly used and abused verses of Scripture, Pastor Bargerhuff brings clarity to these passages, and in doing so provides his readers with the accompanying benefit of an applied hermeneutics text.

Through numerous personal examples and in an easy-to-read fashion, the author shows how important the context of a passage is to its particular meaning—both then and now. For example,

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many believers take the promises of Jeremiah 29:11–13 (“For I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper you and not to harm you”) and apply them as a life verse for their material success. This is particularly true in charismatic circles and popular strains of evangelicalism. The author asks a good question: “Is it an appropriate use of this text to put God on the hook for a life of prosperity and blessing that fits my timeline and my definition?” (35). By backing up a few chapters and reading the whole narrative in context, we find that these promises are delivered by the prophet to the Israelites from Judah, and not directed to any particular individual, let alone one living in the twenty-first century. Here God is promising to restore his people Israel, to bring them back from Babylonian captivity in seventy years. In other words, the only people who could truly apply these promises are the future children and grandchildren of those currently living in exile at the time of this prophecy. This is not to say that contemporary Christians do not live with the promises of a blessed heavenly future, but using this particular passage for such a thing is to misuse it by ignoring the historic setting in which it is given.

In the end, the author wants his readers to hold to a high view of Scripture, which means that we do not settle for surface readings but dig deeper, interpreting Scripture with Scripture and allowing clear passages to assist the cloudy ones.

These hermeneutical principles are not new, of course, but each generation needs to be reminded of them. And in this book, they are delivered in a creative way rather than a dry textbook.

While I enjoyed this book, I would point out that there are places where a Lutheran or Reformed interpretation of a passage will

differ from that of the author, who is a conservative Baptist. This is especially the case regarding baptism as mere symbolism in chapter 15. While I commend Bargerhuff’s desire to defend monergism, he ignores the means by which God has chosen to deliver salvation, and therefore renders baptism as a human-centered act of obedience rather than an act of God by which he makes disciples, as Jesus makes abundantly clear in Matthew 28:19.

With this said, the author and publisher are consistent with their Baptist roots, so the interpretation of these passages is typical of other notable Baptists such as D. A. Carson and John Piper.

Nevertheless, the author often leaves out two key hermeneutical principles that Reformed and Lutheran Biblical scholars utilize. First, he ignores the covenant context of baptism, particularly rich in the sermons and narrative of Acts, connecting it to the promises of the Old Testament. Second, he fails to read the Bible with the church. We have the benefit of over two thousand years of Christian tradition from which we can draw. An important question for any interpreter to ask is, “How has this passage been understood in the past?” This is not to say that every saint who has gone before got it right, but it is arrogant to think we cannot learn from historic interpretations of the Bible going all the way back to the early church.

Despite my problems with this particular chapter, it is otherwise a good book that would make for an interesting Sunday school study. I found this book to be on par with and similar to the old Hard Sayings series by F. F. Bruce, but updated to meet contemporary concerns.

Brian W. Thomas serves as the vicar of Grace Lutheran Church in San Diego, California.

The Leftovers

By Tom Perrotta St. Martin’s Press, 2012 384 pages (paperback), $14.99

T

om Perrotta’s novel is about the crisis that arises from a lack of faith or understanding. What happens if the “Rapture” occurs and there are actually some Christians left behind?

What if, like last night’s spaghetti dinner, you’re a “leftover”? What if people are “taken” who weren’t even officially believers in Jesus Christ?

Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and Jews and atheists and animists and homosexuals and Eskimos and Mormons and Zoroastrians, whatever the heck they were…. As far as anyone could tell, it was a random harvest, and the one thing the Rapture couldn’t be was random.

The whole point was to separate the wheat from the chaff, to reward the true believers and put the rest of the world on notice. An indiscriminate Rapture was no Rapture at all. (3) Since no one in the story feels this event can be called the “Rapture”—given Perrotta’s tongue-incheek description above of those who disappeared— this mysterious 14th of October is dubbed “The Sudden Departure.”

Obviously, this is not a “Christian” novel (and certainly not one that Harold Camping, Jerry Jenkins, or Tim LaHaye would necessarily appreciate). And even though it does poke fun at those who seem to go a bit overboard on the idea of the “Rapture,” it probes into some deeper questions— questions Perrotta never intends to answer for us.

How would any one of us respond if the loved ones in our lives were suddenly and inexplicably taken from us? Would we react with hatred, violence, confusion? Would we abandon faith, hope, and morals (who cares what happens now?). Or would we react with natural perplexity and grief, but try to press on with life as best as possible? These are some of the scenarios Perrotta poses for us—scenarios for which we couldn’t predict our response until it actually happened to us.

The first group of those left behind takes to silence, dressing in white, and chain smoking as a type of “sacrament” (“Let us smoke” instead of “Let us pray”). Their task is to feel guilty and to make everyone else feel guilty. Teamed in pairs, they stalk those who need to be reminded of just how depraved they really are, handing out cards that read on one side: “We are members of the Guilty Remnant.

We have taken a vow of silence. We stand before you as living reminders of God’s awesome power. His judgment is upon us” (4). On the reverse of the card is their website: www.guiltyremnant.com.

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book reviews

Their guilt results in self-destructive behavior, and they abuse their bodies hoping somehow to purify themselves (not too unlike the overly penitent monk Martin Luther)—smoking excessively and dressing in thin layers during bitter weather. As the novel progresses, however, we discover their ultimate goal and it isn’t pretty.

Another group is “The Barefoot People.” As you can imagine, they don’t wear shoes and look pretty much like the standard unwashed hippie or flower child of the 1960s. “Eat, drink, and be merry,” “free love,” and “do whatever feels good” pretty much sum up their philosophy.

Akin to this is the “Healing Hug ” movement led by a “guru” known as “Holy Wayne.” Whereas The Barefoot People are relatively harmless, Wayne Gilchrest has a strange cult following—to the point that his “disciples” believe that his teenage “bride” (one of many, which his wife doesn’t seem to mind) is about to give birth to a sort of new messiah—or is Mr. Gilchrest merely hoping to replace his young son who disappeared on that bizarre and painful day in mid-October?

Although we have these groups with various reactions (“I hate myself,” “Party, dude,” and the latest version of “The Groovy Guru”), Perrotta presents a detailed and touching narrative of what we would consider more “normal” people— the third group who just want to get on with life.

I found myself sympathizing with their pain and confusion. Just how does one cope in the face of such inexplicable great loss? This is where the “Sudden Departure” story becomes extremely human and “up close and personal” as it rips apart some lives and brings others together.

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Throughout the novel, Perrotta presents a sensitive analysis of humanity.

The trick for Modern Reformation readers is to not view this book as an apologetic against the “Rapture” (though Perrotta does have some fun)—or really anything to do with Christianity or religion in general. It would probably be helpful here to point out that The New York Times reviewer for Perrotta’s book was Stephen King—the master of apocalyptic epics such as The Stand: in this now-classic book of worldwide plague in the last days of civilization as we know it, the good people take up shelter in Colorado and the bad people go—of course—to Las Vegas.

An expert himself in imaginative strangeness, King writes of The Leftovers: Perrotta has delivered a troubling disquisition on how ordinary people react to extraordinary and inexplicable events, the power of family to hurt and to heal, and the unobtrusive ease with which faith can slide into fanaticism. The Leftovers is, simply put, the best Twilight Zone episode you never saw— not “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” but “The Monsters Are Us in Mapleton.” That they are quiet monsters only makes them more eerie.

Monsters? Well, yes, some of them—and some of us, I suppose. But it is in these types of life crises that we discover who we really are and what it means to be human—to love and to go on, despite the unanswered questions and an unknowable future.

Patricia Anders is managing editor of Modern Reformation.

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ocations are grounded in creation itself and are symbolized in Scripture with commands to fill the earth and subdue it—that is, family and work (Gen. 1:28). These creational gifts from our benevolent Father remain in effect even after the Fall, though in that sinful moment they were distorted and transformed, or more appropriately “malformed,” by the curse. In other words, while family and work remain at the center of the ongoing “Cultural Mandate,” now childbirth and labor are affected by pain and toil. Having died spiritually, we are all headed toward physical death. This is life exiled from the Garden, “away from the presence of the LORD . . . east of Eden” (Gen. 4:16).

Cultural Mandate in Creation

Fill the Earth

Subdue the Earth

Work

“To the woman he said, ‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children’….And to Adam he said, ‘Because…you have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, “You shall not eat of it,” cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.’” (Gen. 3:16–17)

The Fall

The Curse 60

Family

“ And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over… everything that moves on the earth.’”

(Gen. 1:28)

Pain in childbirth

Pain in work

Family Work

A life of toil

After the Fall, the gospel comes as something new, something added, something purely gracious and well beyond the blessings of creation. The gospel isn’t to be confused with the ongoingbut-altered cultural mandate, even though it relies upon (requires even) God’s common grace in prolonging life, giving it purpose and meaning after the Fall. Life continues after Adam’s transgression, and the world is now, as Calvin wrote, a theater for God’s creational and redemptive glory. The gospel promise of Genesis 3:15 resulted in the coming of a Second Adam in the fullness of time. It was he who labored in a new kind of work, a work of redemption for the sins of the whole world, obeying where Adam disobeyed.

Cultural Mandate Continues

Kingdom The Garden

Fall

“ Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth…. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away.” (Rev. 21:1,4)

the return

GOSpel: God’s redemptive grace

Covenant community living in the midst of the fallen common grace looking forward to Christ’s return (Gen. 3:15)

God's Common grace

Sustaining Creation despite the Fall (Gen. 4:15-17)

Refracted by/through the Fall, the cultural mandate is no longer holy work. It is profane though legitimate and common and valid for all creatures created in God’s image.

Exile

Return

Life East of Eden (Gen. 3:24)

New Heavens and New Earth (Rev. 21)

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b a c k PA G E

G a i n i n g a h e a rt o f w i s d o m

by Terry Johns on

216

psalms or hymns learned (at one per month)

The Bible will be read

4.5 times

(at one chapter per day)

1,404 hours in family worship

Intercede on behalf of others

Every day

over the

course of

18 years

5,600

times for family worship

based on a 6-day week

Confess their sins and plead for mercy

Every day

I

78 hours per year in family worship (at 1.5 hours per week)

f your children are in your home for 18 years, you have over 5,600 occasions (figuring a 6-day week) for family worship.

If you learn a new psalm or hymn each month, they will be exposed to 216 in those 18 years. If you read a chapter a day, you will complete the Bible 4.5 times in 18 years. Every day they will affirm a creed or recite the law. Every day they will confess their sins and plead for mercy. Every day they will intercede on behalf of others. Think in terms of the long view. What is the cumulative impact of just 15 minutes of this each day, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, for 18 years? At the rate of 6 days a week (excluding Sunday), one spends an

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Affirm a creed or recite the law

Every day

hour and a half a week in family worship (about the length of a home Bible study), 78 hours a year (about the length of two weekend retreats), and 1,404 hours over the course of 18 years (about the length of eight week-long summer camps). When you establish your priorities, think in terms of the cumulative effect of this upon your children.

Think of the cumulative effect of this upon you, after 40 or 60 or 80 years of daily family worship.

All this without having to drive anywhere. 

Terry Johnson is senior minister at Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah, Georgia. This excerpt is from his Family Worship Book (Christian Focus, 2003).

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