Creeds: Wording

14 November 2010

It’s important, when reading a historical document, to understand what the authors mean by what they say.  Corollary to this, it’s dishonest to pretend that their words mean something they did not intend.

For example, Lewis Sperry Chafer always maintained that he believed in the perseverance of the saints.  But what he meant by “perseverance of the saints” was that the saints would persevere in being saints, which is to say, eternal security.  This is mildly dishonest, because the terminology “perseverance of the saints” goes back to the Canons of Dordt, which definitely did not mean only eternal security; they meant that the saints will persevere in acting like saints.

It would have been more honest for Dr. Chafer to simply say that he didn’t believe in the perseverance of the saints, but he did believe in eternal security.

When the wording in question is biblical, however, we do not have the option of simply abandoning it.

For example, take “He descended into hell” in the Apostles’ Creed.  Arguably, that wording, when first introduced in the Latin version of the Creed, meant no more than that Jesus went where dead people go.  They used the word “Infernus,” which repeatedly appears in the Vulgate as a translation of “Sheol,” the Hebrew term.  In the Hebrew cosmology,  all the dead go to Sheol — some to Abraham’s bosom, and some to torment, to be sure.  But Sheol was all of it.  That is, apparently, within the semantic range of “Infernus.”  (The Greek OT translated “Sheol” as “Hades” with similar connotations.)

Note that I said “arguably” above.  Later, in the middle ages, many Christians taught that after dying on the cross, Jesus spent three days in hellfire suffering for the sins of the world before He was raised from the dead.  There is some argument as to what the original framers of the phrase in the creed actually meant by it — just that Jesus really died, and really went where dead people go, or that Jesus suffered the flames of hell to really pay for our sin after He said “It is finished.”  Turns out, “Infernus” can mean either the place of the dead generally, or the place where bad people go to suffer for their sins.

So what does one do with the creed?  When I say it, I say “He descended into Hades” rather than “He descended into hell” because the English word “hell” has connotations of suffering for sin, which is the meaning I don’t endorse.  But many of my conservative brethren would ask: With that ambiguity in play, why would I be willing to say that phrase at all?

We cannot simply abandon “He descended into Hades” for the very good reason that it’s true.  Scripture speaks of the death of Jesus in just that way, albeit obliquely (Acts 2:31).  To say “He did not descend into Hades” is to say that He did not go where dead people go — which is to depart from Scripture, and the Christian faith.  We just can’t say that.

So we say the creed, and when we say the words “He descended into Hades” we know that some of the people who have said those words do not mean what we mean by them.  In fact, the people involved in framing that part of the creed may not have meant what we mean by it.  However, they would have justified the language by appeal to Acts 2:31, just like I would, and Acts 2:31 ultimately does not mean what they mean by it; it means what God means by it.  I affirm the biblical language wholeheartedly, and to the best of my understanding, I mean what God meant by it.

4 Comments | Classics, Controversies, Ecclesiology, Meditations, Speaking as God Speaks | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

“Descriptive, not Prescriptive,” part 4: Options and Patterns

7 November 2010

Before I begin this entry, I need to make something clear to you, dear reader.  Some of the examples I use here are indeed topics of discussion and continuing growth in my church, and I am using them because they are very much on my heart of late.  But I am not picking on my church.  As my church has been prodded toward obedience on these things, it has responded very well.  So as I talk about evangelical resistance to growth in certain areas, that is not a passive-aggressive way of calling out recalcitrant people in my own circle.  There aren’t any.  I mean just what I say — I see this resistance in the broader evangelical church, and I am seeking to address it as best I can.

Options and Obedience

Many believers will simply fail to notice a biblical requirement — say, the one to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.  They may have read those passages many times, but it simply doesn’t occur to them that they should do something in response.  The first time this dawns on them, it is because someone is pushing for a particular type of obedience — say, “We need to sing the Sons of Korah version of Psalm 148 in the service this Sunday.”   Upon being challenged as to why this is necessary, the speaker will respond with Ephesians 5:19.

The response at this point is pretty predictable.  “There’s nothing there that says we have to sing that particular song this particular morning.”

This is of course true.  The church could be in complete obedience to the biblical requirement and never sing any song by that particular band, ever. Unfortunately, too often what happens next is…nothing.

Because we need not sing that particular arrangement of that particular psalm this week, we don’t.  Also we don’t sing any other arrangement of that psalm.  Or any other psalm.  And in this way the fact that God gives us freedom in how we obey becomes the occasion for not obeying at all.

Patterns

This is where biblical patterns of obedience are so helpful to us.  The Bible not only gives us requirements to obey, it gives us patterns of obedience to emulate.  A particular example may not be the only way of obeying, but it is a way of obeying.  We don’t have to start from scratch.

The first problem evangelicals have with these patterns is failing to even notice them.  We notice that the early church successfully resolved an important theological disagreement in Acts 15, for example — but we pay no mind at all to how they did it.  We recognize the commands to be of one mind, to submit to one another, to contend earnestly for the faith, and so on.  And Acts 15 becomes a sermon illustration: “See, they stood up for the truth.  We should too.”

Yes, but how?  Are we acting in continuity with the way they did it?  We don’t know.  We never even checked to see how they did it.  We just take the goal that the requirement gives us, and improvise something that we think will get us there.

At some point, some observant soul may point out how they did it, back in the day.  “Look at what they did.  They appealed to another church with more theological ‘horsepower,’ they appointed a day to gather, they pursued the dispute until everyone had fallen silent, and then they responded, unanimously, to the issue.”

Most evangelicals respond to that observation in the same way that they do to the suggestion that we must sing this arrangement of this psalm this week.  That is, they say “Sure, that was a good way to do it.  But it’s descriptive, not prescriptive.  We don’t have to do it that way, just because they did.”

True, up to a point.  Every situation is somewhat different, and it is the province of God-given wisdom to appraise those differences and tweak our response accordingly.  This is to say that we will not respond in unison with our fathers at every point; sometimes we will be in harmony with them.

But what madness makes us suppose that we may simply invent an approach without regard for the examples that God gives us in inspired Scripture?  What makes us think that we may act out of harmony with the way in which our fathers obeyed?

Leave a Comment » | Chicken Bones, Controversies, Descriptive/Prescriptive, Ecclesiology, Meditations, Universals and Particulars, Worship | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

Happy Reformation Day

31 October 2010

On this day 493 years ago, Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to the door of Wittenburg chapel, and in so doing started a fire that has not yet gone out.

The medieval church was in many ways a praiseworthy institution, and it has many lessons to teach the church today.  However, corruption and doctrinal defection had also accumulated over time.  There had always been reformers who protested against the problems in the church, but in the early sixteenth century God used Luther and the other Reformers to bring these things to the attention of the church leadership in a way they could no longer afford to ignore.

This was Christ’s judgment on His church, and the leadership ought to have responded by repenting.  Indeed, repentance was exactly the response that Luther and the other Reformers sought.  They never conceived of themselves as starting a new church; they never intended to start a new church.  But the leadership hardened in their rebellion, and as a result the Protestant churches were born.

Today Christ’s church is fragmented into many pieces, most of whom do not think of themselves as part of one another.  But we have only one Head, and He has only one Body.  We believe — to put it in the old way — in  the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, and the communion of saints.  We also believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting, and on that day when we all stand in the assembled throng before God’s throne in heaven, there will be no fragmentation.  Even today, when the spirits of just men made perfect gather on the heavenly Zion, there is no division.

In fifteen minutes, my church body and I will ascend to the heavenly Zion and join them, as will many other churches in this town and around the world, and there, on that holy mountain, nothing will divide us — even if we don’t yet know it.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

“Descriptive, not Prescriptive” Part 3

24 October 2010

Every child in the world knows that you can learn how to live from stories.  And the biblical authors themselves teach us to read the biblical stories for instructions on how to live.  They get doctrine from narrative.  They treat the stories as prescriptive.
And so ought we to do.

Of course, we have to interpret them properly.  “Brothers, do not be children in understanding.  In malice be children, but in understanding be mature.”

So how does this work?  When we read Genesis, it teaches us.  The story of creation teaches us how the world is organized.  We have mostly disregarded those lessons since the Enlightenment, but let’s take one of the cases where we’ve gotten it right.  In the beginning, God made one man, and from his side, He brought forth one woman.  He brought her to the man and created the first marriage, an image of the Trinity: God unites man and woman.  It is, as the popular saying goes, Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.  Also not Eve and Charlotte, nor Adam, Eve, and Charlotte, nor any of the other permutations.

Jesus took the story of marriage’s very beginning and showed that it taught a lesson about divorce: “What God has joined together, let man not put asunder.”  Now, divorce is nowhere mentioned in the Genesis account of Adam and Eve.  There is no direct prohibition of divorce in the Genesis account of Adam and Eve; in fact, divorce is never mentioned anywhere in the whole story.  But a particular marriage can harmonize with the origins of marriage and fulfill what marriage is for, or it can be out of harmony.  Jesus’ prohibition of divorce is a call for individual marriages to harmonize with the paradigm case of marriage.  The exception He allows, in cases of adultery, is also in harmony.  The divorcer, in that case, is not putting asunder what God joined together, because the adulterous spouse has already done that.  In broad strokes, this is the way a true origin story can be applied.

So what origin stories do we have to work with?  Genesis 1 is the origin of the world, and man in it.  Genesis 2 is the origin of man in particular, and marriage.  The story of Noah is the formation of the geophysical world we now live in, and the origin of civilization as we know it.  Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the origin of Israel as a people, and Exodus is the origin of Israel as a nation-state.  Acts is the origin of the Church.

Wouldn’t it be something if our ecclesiology began to reflect that last one?  If our actual church practice began to harmonize with our origin story?  But that’s another post.

31 Comments | Chicken Bones, Controversies, Descriptive/Prescriptive, Doctrinal Inconsistencies, Ecclesiology, Meditations | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

“Descriptive, not Prescriptive,” Part 2

17 October 2010

So where does this “descriptive, not prescriptive” thing even come from?

It’s about fear.  It’s about being afraid that someone will take some horrible event in a story and decide that it’s God’s will to act it out.  Next thing you know, somebody’s trying to have multiple wives, and justify it because after all, David and Solomon and Jacob did.  Or speak in tongues, and justify it because it shows up in Acts.  Or dance, because Miriam and David did.  Or drink wine, or…pick your personal horror story.

And let’s face it: “that’s descriptive, not prescriptive” is an undeniably attractive solution.  By denying your opponent in the debate any recourse to the narrative passages of the Bible, you’ve effectively cut his legs out from under him.  It’s all very, very convenient.

It’s also ignorant, foolish, and unbiblical.  The one thing it’s not is childish–as we’ve seen, every child knows that stories teach.

The biblical authors make their points from narrative, and they do it constantly.  Imagine Paul making the argument of Romans 4 in a synagogue — as he must have done many times.  “Abraham was justified by faith, before he was ever circumcised!” he says to the crowd.  “The same thing can happen today.”
Now imagine one of his opponents rising to rebut him: “Our esteemed guest, Rabbi Paul, fails to realize that the Genesis account is descriptive, not prescriptive.”

Or imagine Jesus, teaching on divorce: “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts, but from the beginning, God made them male and female.  For this reason a man will leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.  Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
A scribe steps forward in the crowd: “That was true for Adam and Eve, but that’s descriptive, not prescriptive.”

This is just nonsense, and we all ought to know better.  Certainly the biblical authors regularly drew prescriptions from narrative.  If we are not to follow their hermeneutics, then what are we to do?  Just make something up?

That’s pretty much what we’re doing, and the effects are devastating.

The first and most obvious problem is that three quarters of the Bible is story.  God gave us the Bible so we would know how to live, and we’re trying to pretend that a person can’t learn how to live from three quarters of it.  That’s the kind of mistake that tends to issue in long-term disobedience out of sheer, willful ignorance.  Sorry to say, such disobedience is not in short supply.

Second, the most dedicated “description not prescription” guy gets the story about the kid playing in the street.  He will also immediately object, “But biblical stories are not nearly that simple.  They’re far more complicated.”

Of course this is true, but consider the ramifications.   When he pleads “descriptive, not prescriptive,” he is in effect pleading ignorance.  Jesus and Paul set the example, but this guy can’t follow them.  He is admitting that his hermeneutics have broken down, that he’s off the edge of the map.  “Descriptive, not prescriptive” is the hermeneutical equivalent of “Here be dragons.”  But this is just admitting that he doesn’t know how to read the story.

The solution, of course, is to learn.  But instead of learning, he treats his ignorance as an argument for not learning how to read the biblical stories. He wants to deny that it’s possible to learn how to read the biblical stories, and this is just silly.  It’s the equivalent of a frustrated six-year-old who claims that it’s impossible to tie his shoelaces on the grounds that he finds the process confusing.  In Solomonic idiom:  simple ones love simplicity, and fools hate knowledge.  The solution is to listen to Wisdom, turn at her rebuke, and seek for her like hidden treasure.  Blurting out “descriptive, not prescriptive” is a poor substitute.

The fact that conservative evangelicals have pursued ignorance for a few generations compounds the problem.  We have institutionalized the foolishness, and it now afflicts us as a blind spot for our whole community.  Now we have diligent, hardworking servants of God who have been trained to be happy with their ignorance.  Let me say that again: diligent, hardworking pastors are unable to read three quarters of the Bible well, and they’re completely okay with that, because we have taught them to be okay with that.

This is sin, and like all sin, the cure is as simple as it is painful and difficult: repent!

3 Comments | Chicken Bones, Controversies, Descriptive/Prescriptive, Doctrinal Inconsistencies, Ecclesiology, Meditations | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

River Evangediscipleship II: An Example

19 September 2010

Note: this post continues the line of thought from People of the River and River Evangediscipleship

When life is what you’re offering, there’s lots of opportunity to give.  What, specifically, do you offer to Rick, the guy you’re talking with right this minute?  Depends.  What is the opportunity before you?  Is he terrified that he will go to hell?  Offer him assurance of eternal life in Christ, and calm his fears.

But suppose Rick hasn’t said a word about heaven and hell.  He came over to talk with you about his marriage, which is  falling apart right before his eyes.  How do you offer Rick life?  Well, you’ve unfortunately had evangelism training, so you tell him that he needs Jesus, and you set out to share the gospel in the conventional way: heaven, hell, Jesus on the cross, all that.

“Look, man,” Rick says to you, “I’m already in hell.  Heaven will be when Trina and I can spend a whole day together without getting into a screaming fight.”  What do you say to a guy like this?

Isn’t it obvious?  A starving man in agony from a scorpion sting doesn’t really care, right that minute, that the starvation will kill him in a week or so.  In the abstract, food is more important — he might survive the scorpion sting, but lack of food will get him, for sure.  But so what?  If you’re responsible for helping the man, you give him the antivenin now, and then later, the food.

So you ditch your canned-spam evangelism training and just talk to Rick about his marriage.  You ask what the problems are.  He says he walks in the door after work, and five minutes later they’re screaming at each other and he can’t even remember how the fight started.  So you show him Ephesians 5.  You tell him that Jesus is his model, and he should be willing to die for his wife (by inches, if necessary) as Jesus died for us.   You tell him that this means when he goes home today, he must not counterattack, no matter what she says or does.  You warn him that the first thing she’ll do when he doesn’t counterattack is move in for the kill.  “Rick, man, I’m not gonna lie to you,” you say.  “This will probably be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.  But you’ve got to sacrifice yourself for her, and you’ve got to keep sacrificing until she realizes you’re not fighting with her anymore.”

Tell him that if he does not do this, he will kill his marriage.  On the other hand, if he can pull this off, then he will see things happen in his marriage that he’s never dreamed possible.  But there is a catch, you say.  Tell him, with a wink, that God will probably let him have enough success that he can see what a benefit it would be, if only he could really do it — but there’s only one way to really do this, and he can’t do it on his own; he won’t be able to.

“Naw, I get it now.  I see how it’s supposed to work.”  Rick is smiling for the first time in the conversation.  “I can do this.”

“Okay,” you say.  “Give it a try.  But I’m telling you, man, the day is coming where you can see where it would work if you just did it, but you just can’t bring yourself to sacrifice one more time — and you won’t do it.  When that day comes, don’t you come back and tell me this doesn’t work — I told you, right up front, that you can’t do it alone.”

Rick just grins at you.  “You just watch me.”

When you talk with him next, Rick is dejected.  “I just couldn’t do it, man.  I love Trina, but you can’t believe how she gets.  I couldn’t take it.  I had to tell her to back off, and as soon as I did, we were back into the screaming fight, just like before.”

“Hey, Rick.  Remember how I told you you couldn’t do it alone?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well, here’s the rest of the story.”  You tell him that there’s only one person who ever could live that kind of life — Jesus Himself.  Only Him.  “But Rick, if you let Him, He will give you the ability to do this.  In a way, it won’t be you, it’ll be Him living His life in you.  He wants to give you life — eternal life, in fact.  Rick, man, you’re dying here. If you take what Jesus offers, you don’t die while you’re still alive, and even when you die, you live forever with Him.  All the hell that you’ve been going through, Rick, and all the hell that you’ve got coming to you in the future — Jesus took it all into Himself, died for you, was buried, the whole thing, so you wouldn’t have to go through any of it. And He rose from the dead three days later to show that it’s over — He conquered it all, and He’s alive, and He offers you His life.  He’s been offering you life this whole time, and He’s still offering it now.  When you trust that offer, Rick, it’s yours, and it’s yours forever, absolutely free.  You couldn’t earn something like this, and there’s not enough money in the world to buy it, but it’s yours, just for the asking.”

“Man, I’m desperate here,” Rick says.  “I’ll do anything.  What do I gotta do?”

“Rick, man, haven’t you been listening?” you say.  “It’s a gift.  You trust Him for it, it’s yours.  That’s the beauty of it.”

His brow furrows in confusion.  “Just like that?”

“You got a better idea?”  You punch his shoulder.  “Of course, just like that.”  You pause to let that sink in.  “If it makes you feel better, you can say something to Him out loud, but you don’t have to — He sees your heart.  Does that make sense to you?”

Rick’s brows are still furrowed up.  “Yeah, I guess so…” He looks up at you.  “It’s really free?  Seriously?”

You laugh.  “Of course it is.  You think you could buy it?  What do you have that God could want?”  Your face grows serious.  “Just trust Him, Rick.  He’s got it taken care of.”

“Okay,” he says.  “Okay.”  He nods.  “I think I do want to say something.”

“Go ahead.”

“God, I, uh, I don’t know how to pray, but nothing I do is working out, and everything I touch in my life turns sour.  This thing you give, this life–I want it.  I want all of it.  Please give it to me.”

****

A year later, Rick is a growing young Christian.  Trina has seen changes in Rick that she never thought she’d see.  She’s not convinced Christianity is for her, but she’s certainly interested.  They still fight, and sometimes it’s still pretty bad — but it’s not as frequent as it was, and Rick is quick to forgive, and to confess when he’s been wrong.

Do you know for sure whether Rick was saved that day when he first asked God for help?  Maybe not.  Did he really understand enough about what he was asking for?  There’s no way to know for sure.  But who cares?  We’re making disciples here, and that’s what Jesus said to do.

Leave a Comment » | Bare Minimum Gospel Foolishness, Ecclesiology, Meditations, Speaking as God Speaks | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

River Evangediscipleship

12 September 2010

River ecclesiology, which I sketched out in a previous post, also implies a particular take on Christian evangelism and discipleship.

First of all, they’re not all that separate.

You believe on Jesus, as the Scriptures have said, and therefore out of your belly flow rivers of living water.  First you drink, then the water multiplies, like loaves and fishes, and flows out from you.  Isn’t that the whole point of John 4?  You are a walking sanctuary, and your job is to be a conduit for the river that waters the world, everywhere you walk.  The river flows to the unbeliever and to the believer alike.  You offer abundant life to the dead, and the same abundant life to the living.  The living can’t live without it any more than the dead.

It’s all disciple-making; it’s all sanctification; and it’s all good.  Unbelievers simply have one step further to go.

Some of you Free Grace watchdogs out there are growling and muttering.  I can hear it now: “That sounds like Lordship Salvation.”

That’s exactly what it is.  In this life there is no salvation except in Christ, who is inescapably Lord.  In this life, there is no salvation apart from discipleship.  No deliverance from sin, no partaking in the divine nature, no experiential escape from the corruption that is in the world through lust, none of that, except through discipleship.  Apart from a life of discipleship, you have nothing to look forward to except hell on earth, walking around dead until your corpse rejoins the dust, the soul rotting long before the body.  You will submit to the Lordship of Christ, or you’re not living; you’re dying.  When your body gives out, of course, if you are God’s child, then you will incongruously enter His presence with shabby clothes, redolent with the stench of burning wood, hay, and stubble, saved (in that narrow sense) yet so as through fire, and called least in the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus did not come and die to populate heaven with smoke-stinking paupers.  Some will be there, and glory to God for His mercy — but that is not the point.  Jesus came into the world to save sinners, really save.  You can experience hell on earth, dead while you live, a rotting tatterdemalion puppet jerking and twitching through the decades, the devil yanking the strings all the way — is that salvation?  Is that what Jesus came to offer you?  No.  Jesus is not selling insurance, fire or otherwise.  He came that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly.

As a disciple, you offer this abundant life to the world.  First thing, right off the bat?  As a practical matter, you can’t give what you don’t have. But what about the woman at the well?  What did she have?  A belly full of living water flowing out.

Nobody accepts a miracle cure for leprosy from a leper, and nobody accepts a promise of life from the devil’s rotting puppet.  Jesus will take you out of here-and-now slavery to sin and death, but you’ve got to let Him do it.  Once you do, people start listening.

Researchers Fight to Keep Implanted Medical Devices Safe from Hackers

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Freely Give

8 August 2010

Evangelical fundamentalists are my people.  Some of them wish they could disown me, and some days I wish they could too, but our relationship is a fact of history–which is to say that it is God’s Providence.  It is among these people that God has called me to serve, and to serve not just as a sheep, but also as a shepherd.  Jesus is the Chief Shepherd, of course.  All the sheep are really His, and all His people are His sheep.  But some of us are also shepherds, under His direction.  The Church being what it presently is, there are a lot of different sub-flocks, divided both by geography (which is fine) and by doctrine/history (which is not).  There are Anglican shepherds, Methodist shepherds, Baptist shepherds, Eastern shepherds, and so on.  I am an evangelical shepherd.

I have friends in other traditions who urge me to convert to their tradition.  They argue that in my tradition, the sheep are  sick.  In their traditions, they say, there is medicine for this sickness.  (Of course their traditions have their own weaknesses, but let’s leave that aside for now.)  Granting the correctness of the diagnosis–and at some points it is correct–how could I leave for that reason?

What kind of a shepherd leaves a flock because it is sick?  A good shepherd heals the sick, and is willing to accept medicine from whoever has it to give.

“You have no right to this medicine,” says the stingy traditionalist, “unless you come serve in our corner of Christ’s great flock.  This medicine belongs only to us.”  But no.  What do they have, that they did not receive as a gift?  And if they received it as a gift, why do they boast as though they did not?  If the medicine heals, then it comes from Christ the Great Physician, and if it comes from Christ, it is for all His sheep: “Freely you have received; freely give.”

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Water in Unexpected Places

31 July 2010

In my various reading, I came upon the following prayer:

O my plenteously-merciful and all-merciful God, Lord Jesus Christ, through Thy great love Thou didst come down and become incarnate so that Thou mightest save all.  And again, O Saviour, save me by Thy grace, I pray Thee.  For if Thou shouldst save me for my works, this would not be grace or a gift, but rather a duty; yea, Thou Who art great in compassion and ineffable in mercy.  For he that believeth in Me, Thou hast said, O my Christ, shall live and never see death.  If, then, faith in Thee saveth the desperate, behold, I believe, save me, for Thou art my God and Creator.  Let faith instead of works be imputed to me, O my God, for Thou wilt find no works that could justify me.  But may my faith suffice instead of all works, may it answer for, may it acquit me, may it make me a partaker of Thine eternal glory.  And let Satan not seize me and boast, O Word, that he hath torn me from Thy hand and fold.  But whether I desire it or not, save me, O Christ my Savior, forestall me quickly, quickly, for I perish.  Thou art my God from my mother’s womb.  Vouchsafe me, O Lord, to love Thee now as fervently as I once loved sin itself, and also to work for Thee without idleness, diligently, as I worked before for deceptive Satan.  But supremely shall I work for Thee, my Lord and God, Jesus Christ, all the days of my life, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.  Amen.

Now, what do you think?  Does a person who prays this way believe in salvation by works?

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Posted by Tim Nichols

People of the River

21 July 2010

In the beginning, in Eden, God planted a garden to the east.  In the west was a mountain sanctuary, where the unfallen Lucifer Himself walked back and forth in the midst of the fiery stones.  A river flowed out of the sanctuary to water the garden, and from the garden it divided into four rivers and watered the world.  After the fall, Adam and Eve are sent further east, away from the sanctuary and out of the garden.  The way back into the presence of God is upriver, westward, but it is blocked by an angel with a flaming sword.

In the end, the New Jerusalem descends from heaven to earth, and a river of the water of life flows from under the throne of God and of the Lamb.

The river that waters the world flows from the sanctuary; the life of the world flows from the focus of worship.   This is true in the beginning, and it is true in the end.  But what about in between?

In between, there is development.

In Abraham’s time, there is no river.  He travels a desolate land, digging wells, building altars and sitting under trees.  He worships God at the altars, and God hears him.  But there is only still water in his wells, and only temporarily.  After  time, he has to leave the well and move on to the next place.  The water does not flow.

In the Tabernacle, there is once again a sanctuary, and the laver provides a portable well.  It’s not a river; it’s just still water.  At least it travels with them, but the water does not flow.

In the Temple, the sanctuary stays in one place.  The bronze Sea provides water, and arrayed in front of the Sea, extending toward the east, is a double row of water chariots.  It’s a picture of a river, of flowing water.   But even so, the “river” doesn’t flow outside the temple—if you want to see it, you have to come in; the water doesn’t come to you.

And then on that great day of the feast, Jesus stood up and cried out, “He who believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.”  John adds that Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit.

Through the Holy Spirit, the life-giving river is restored to the world.  Every believer is the sanctuary, and from every sanctuary, the living water flows.  The Body of Christ on earth waters the world, and will do so until the day that our Head, the Lamb of God, sets His throne in Jerusalem, and the water pours from under His throne.

The river flows from the sanctuary, and wherever you find the river flowing from, there is the sanctuary.  Where the people of the river congregate to worship, there you find the church, and where you find the church, you will find an outpost of the Church.

The continuity of the Church is not a continuity of ordinations, as Rome would have it, nor even a continuity of baptisms, as some of the Reformed (e.g., Doug Wilson) would have it, nor yet a continuity of litmus-test scheme of spiritual stages, as though becoming Christlike were like becoming an Eagle Scout.  It is a continuity of experience, the experience of living water, an actual relationship with the living Christ.  It’s the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and we ought to guard it as Paul instructed us.

This is my ecclesiology.

****

The water appears in surprising places.

I have met a man who was desperately concerned that every last jot and tittle of his doctrine be in order, precise and technically correct to the last syllable.  Given what he knew, he ought to have been a fountain, and yet his every word was poison.  I have met a muddled, confused believer who hardly knew anything, and knew it, and yet the water gushed from her in torrents.

Watch these two for a year, or five.  The second one will be less confused, more knowledgeable, and still a spring of life-giving water.  The first one, unless God intervenes dramatically, will still be making converts twice as much a son of hell as himself, and his doctrine will grow steadily more perverse.

The water is the first thing.  With it, we grow.  Without it, we die, and too often, we take others with us.

The water flows from the saints of past ages, men and woman who walked with God.  Many of them were deeply confused, or just plain wrong, about things that seem quite obvious to us.

No doubt they would say the same of us — and they’d be right, just as we are.   “He who believes in Me, as the Scriptures have said” Jesus cried, “out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.”  The criterion here is not perfection; if it were,we would qualify no better than anyone else.  Thank God, it’s much simpler than that: believe in Jesus.

Many do, in many traditions, and the water flows from them, as Jesus promised.

****

My friends in other traditions are certain that I will convert.  No one can think so highly of the Book of Common Prayer and not become Anglican, one friend will say.   “Five years,” another says, “and you’ll be Eastern Orthodox.”  (The first time someone told me that was ten years ago.)  A third friend says that because I believe in miracles and answered prayer, I’m a charismatic in my heart.  I ought to quit kicking against the goads and just come to his church, he tells me.

On the other hand, a number within my own (evangelical fundamentalist) tradition are equally certain that I am converting to something else — the Roman church, the emergent church, a generic postmodernism…

I am not.  I intend to stay right where I am.  So why do I drink deeply from so many sources outside my own tradition?  Am I discontent?  Well, yes; my tradition needs reform.  But I am not seeking to turn my tradition into some other tradition, nor am I trying to assemble some unholy pomo-pastiche of “the greatest hits of Christendom,”  as though I could get it right where all other traditions have failed.  I am doing something much simpler than that:  Christian fellowship.  Where the water flows, I drink — and the water flows in the most surprising places.  Wherever God graciously permits me to find it, I take it and share as much as I can with the people among whom God has called me to serve.  I can do no more, and in good conscience neither can I do any less.

5 Comments | Ecclesiology, Meditations | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

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