Prayers for Good Friday

Date April 11, 2009 Posted by David N

Here are two traditional prayers for Good Friday.  Apologies for waiting until Saturday morning to put them up!  There will be prayers for Saturday and Easter Sunday as well.

From the Lutheran Book of Prayer:

O Christ, Lamb of God, slain for the sin of the whole world, with penitent heart I come to your cross, pleading for mercy and forgiveness.  My sins – and they are many – have added to the burden of Your suffering and have nailed You to the accursed tree.  For me You tasted the agony of the utter darkness that I might not perish, but have everlasting life.  Have mercy upon me.O Christ, Lamb of God, embrace me with Your love, and forgive me all my sins.  Your death brings healing to my soul, peace to my mind, cleansing to my heart.  If You would mark iniquity, I could not come, for my hands are unclean, my lips are sullied, and my heart is blackened by sin.  But beholding You bleeding, despised, forsaken, dying, pierced, I come to be cleansed and forgiven.O Christ, Lamb of God, grant that I may hate sin and wickedness more and more as I behold You in Your great agony.  My grateful heart today finds hope in Your words, comfort in Your promises, and salvation in Your finished work on the cross, by which You have overcome sin, Satan, and death.O Lord, have mercy.  O Christ, have mercy.  O Lord, hear my prayer.  Amen.

From The Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty God, we beseech thee graciously to behold this thy family, for which our Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, on God, world without end.  Amen.

World without end, Amen!

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Is Church Necessary?

Date March 22, 2009 Posted by Roger Overton

A friend of mine recently asked if I think church attendance is necessary for Christians. Below is my response. I’m sure more could be said, but this isn’t meant to be a theological treatise.

I think the Christian life can be looked at in two inter-related ways: 1) Glorifying and enjoying God 2) Becoming more like God. One of the primary ways we glorify and enjoy God is by becoming more like Him
(sanctification) and in order to become more like Him we must seek His glory and enjoy His goodness and beauty.

Within the context of these aims, the fellowship of the body of Christ is a necessity. It is not just commanded, but also explained in Hebrews 10- “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” The whole passage is about our assurance of faith, and encouragement between the saints is seen as a vital part of that. Elsewhere we see that church provides for the use of spiritual gifts (1 Cor 12, 1 Pet 4:10), accountability (1 Peter 5, Hebrews 13:17), and general love between believers (John 10:34, 17:20-21). These commands are meant to be followed within the body of Christ, and are typically neglected by those who cut themselves off.

There’s no such thing in the Bible as a “Lone Christian.” The letters in the New Testament are either to whole churches, or to leaders about churches. The expectation is that Christians will be meeting together regularly, and thus there is no instruction for those who do not.

I don’t think God has a checklist wherein He marks every Sunday we fail to attend. His concern, I believe, is about our heart in the matter. Why is it some have broken fellowship with others He has redeemed? The only explanation for someone who regularly excludes themselves from the gathering of the saints is sin- be it pride, selfishness, or whatever. Ironically, those are heart issues that are often confronted when people live in genuine community with other believers.

Dallas Willard makes a related point in the forthcoming book God & Governing, “People sometimes ask me why, since I’m such a ‘profound thinker'; I’m still involved in church. I sometimes reply, ‘Well, the Bible says you’re supposed to love your enemies and you’ll find a few there.’ I mean to be humorous, of course, but I sensed some recognition out there as I say that. Actually, however, that’s what the church is. It’s a place where you can get really mad at people and not run off and leave them. It’s a place where anger and contempt can be unlearned. It’s a place to learn the deep things of a fellowship in Christ that lovingly endures disagreement, anger and injury. ‘Churchmanship'; in that sense is important. It’s vital. It’s in God’s plan and nothing is going to take the place of it. The church is intended to be a school of love.”

The bottom line is that if we’re genuinely seeking after God and seeking to become more like Him, we will desire to be in community with His people, even when it’s difficult. If we lack that desire, then it’s likely that we are no longer seeking after God.

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Christianity’s Central Theme?

Date March 22, 2009 Posted by David N

Allen Yeh, a Professor at Biola Univeristy and tutor in the Torrey Honors Institute, has written an article in which he argues that missions is the central theme of Christianity.  The Bible, he says, is a means to an end, and that end is missions.

He offers many reasons for his choice of missions, such as the fact that all of the Apostles were missionaries, Jesus’ lasts words on Earth were a call to missions, there is a whole book (Acts) devoted to chronicling missionary activites (and on top of that, most of Paul’s letters are written in a missionary context), etc.

Now, I agree with nearly everything that Dr. Yeh says.  Missions is an extremely important biblical theme, and it’s one that can tend to be denegrated among academic theologian types (like myself).  At one point, Yeh comments, “The center of gravity of Christianity has shifted away from the Western world, and most of the Christians in this world are now in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.”  This is no small matter.  Christianity is incurably multi-cultural and this is a direct result of its missional nature.  But is “missions” in and of itself really the “central theme” of Christianity?  If the Bible is a means to missions, might we ask if missions isn’t a means to something else?

Yeh does stop to mention a few other candidates:

scholars have proposed various possibilities for what might be the main theme of the Bible. Some people say it’s the Kingdom of God. Some say it’s God’s sovereignty. Others say it’s God’s love. Still others say it’s worship (one of the most famous proponents of the last is John Piper, as he says in his book Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t”). Other possibilities include: the two Greatest Commandments (love God and love neighbor); the Great Commission (there are actually five Great Commissions, one in each Gospel and one in Acts); the Covenant; the Promise; and the glory of God. While I think all of these are valid, again I would argue thatit is only mission that adequately encompasses all of these.

Later on, referring back to the reference to John Piper above, Yeh says:

One of the four identifying hallmarks of evangelicals is a priority on spreading the Good News… The articulation of this Good News is simply this: that God loves you, to the point that he would send his Son to die for your sins, and you ought to worship Him in response. As such, in contrast to Piper’s quote above, I would say that mission is not a predecessor to or separate from worship, but rather it is the first act of worship.

Now it is here that I believe Dr. Yeh falls into a common error that has plauged evangelicalism for a long time.  He places the proclaimation of the gospel exclusively in the realm of missions.  It is easy to see, then, why missions itself would become the central theme of the Bible.  A few paragraphs later, he says, “In most Protestant churches, the central part of the worship service is the sermon. The original function of the sermon was evangelism, as seen in the Greek word kerygma which means “proclamation” (of the Good News).”  Again, proclaimation of the good news is used here as a synonym for evangelism.  But this not how the Biblical authors treated the gospel.  Paul, in his letter to the Romans, begins (in chapter 1, verse 8) by thanking God for the church in Rome, because their “faith is proclaimed in all the world.”  They are Christians (and apparently Christians of amazing faith) not pagans in need of evangelism.  And what does Paul go on to do?  In verse 15 he says, “So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.”  The first thing Paul does is proclaim the good news, to those who are already Christians.  This is how the gospel is treated in Scripture.  It is not a one-time bit of useful information that, once responded to, is no longer necessary.  It is the heart and soul of all Christian teaching and worship.  This is something that the Reformers recognized, which is why the sermon did become so central to Protestant Christianity.  Thus it would probably be better to view Missions and the local church worship service as two seperate but equal “pillars” that are the foundation of Christianity.  Both are important, both are commanded by Christ, and both are acts of worship that encompass all the myriad themes found in the Bible.  Theologians may have a tendency to forget about the unreached (except as an abstract theological concept in their systems), but missiologists can also have a tendency to forget about the reached!

I also think Piper’s comment is worth returning to, because I think Yeh may have misunderstood it.  When Piper says, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t”, I doubt that he’s trying to say that worship per se is the central theme of Christianity.  Once again, worship is a means to an end, and that end is to glorify God.  It seems to me that missionary activity is also a means to an end.  It is a means to bringing people to Christ, allowing them to come into his presence and worship Him, and ultimately spend eternity with him.  And as Yeh pointed out, missions can itself be an act of worship, which would in turn be an act of glorifying God.  Thus missions is not only an act of glorifying God in itself, but a means to the end of furthering God’s glory throughout the world.  This is probably what Piper is getting at, and it seems to me to be the best understanding of the true central theme of Christianity.  Yeh is right to stress how important missions is, but we must always remember WHY it is so imporant (for the glory of God).

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2009 Ligonier Conference: Live Webcast

Date March 20, 2009 Posted by David N

This year's Ligonier National Conference, The Holiness of God, is being webcast live.  It will continue until tonight and pick up again early tomorrow morning.  Click here to watch!

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3 Reasons Evangelicals Should Accept The Essence-Energies Distinction

Date March 20, 2009 Posted by David N

Over the next year or so I will be exploring the concept of the “energies” of God.  This is an ancient Christian doctrine that goes back to the Early Church Fathers.  While it remains an integral part of the doctrine of God in the Eastern Orthodox churches, it never truly took hold in the Latin West and seems to have been almost entirely forgotten until the Reformers.  Both John Calvin and the Reformed Scholastics (such as Francis Turretin) made frequent use of the essence-energies (E-E) distinction in their theology.  Sadly, this began to fall out of practice even in Reformed circles, so that today virtually no Western Protestant has even heard of the energies of God.

So, what are the energies?  Crudely speaking, they are the “activites” of God.  Because God’s essence is wholly other, outside of the realm of space and time, incomprehensible, we cannot come into direct contact with it.  And yet God is a God who intervenes in his creation and enters into relationship with his creatures.  It is the energies of God that we come into contact with.  God’s glory and love and goodness are all energies.  According to Mike Horton:

God’s energies are radiations of divine glory, but are no more the divine essence than rays are the sun itself.  God’s uncreated glory emanates, but the essence does not.  …[The energies are] God-in-Action…  They are not God’s essence, but a certain quality of God’s self-revelation and saving love.
(Covenant And Salvation, 268.)

But we must also keep in mind that the energies are not ontologically separate from God’s essence, nor are they parts or pieces of God.  They are God.

This may seem a bit confusing, and I have not even begun to do the topic justice.  This is merely an introductory post that, I hope, will show that such a distinction is desperately needed in Western Protestantism today.  All that is important at this point is that idea that there is a distinction between God as He is in Himself (His essence) and God as He manifests Himself to His creation (His energies).

Now then, three reasons Evangelicals need to start thinking about this distinction:

1) Pantheism (or Panentheism)

There has long been a tendancy in the West toward a kind of Pantheism.  Medieval mysticism and its quest for the Beatific Vision was an extreme form of this.  If God is absolutely simple and “only” an essence, how do we come into contact with Him without in a sense become a part of Him?  What does the Apostle Peter mean when he says that we will “partake” of the divine nature?  Do we partake directly of God as He is in Himself?  At the very least, this seems to imply some sort of Panentheism, which is the belief that God is contianed within and permeates all of the natural world, as if He were the “world soul.”  By positing the doctrine of the energies of God, we can explain how it is that we come into direct contact with God and even partake of Him without falling into this dangerous tendency of Western theology.

2) Stoicism

This is not as dangerous of a problem for Protestants today, but it is always a potential.  If God is, as traditional Christian theology has always maintained, unchanging and impassible, not affected by his creation (as He says in Samuel, He is not a man that he should repent), one could easily come to the conclusion that God is like the great Stoic philosopher in the sky.  After all, impassible could mean “cold” and “unfeeling.”  Perhaps God is just an impersonal being from which all reality flows, a being who doesn’t care about us or love us (certainly not enough to save us from our sin).  Again, the E-E distinction saves us from such extremes.  God in His essence is simple, unchanging and impassible.  But his energies are manifold.  Through His energies He comes into contact and enters into relationships with his creatures, and in an analogous way He feels with them, responds to their pleas, etc.

3) Open Theism

I saved the best for last!  Of the three reasons I’ve given, this one is obviously the biggest potential danger for contemporary Protestantism.  After considering Stoicism, it should be easy to see how the E-E distinction will help here, since Open Theism is simply the opposite problem.  Open Theists want a God who can feel our pain, react to our cries for help, and genuinely respond to our prayers.  Ignoring for the moment that the incarnation of Christ solves many of these problems (Hebrews specifically addresses how Christ can empathize with our struggles with sin, for example), the E-E distinction does as well.  God’s essence can remain unchanging while  His energies remain manifold.  His essence is simple while His activities in creation are varied.

So, are you interested yet?  At any rate, I hope you can see how potentially important this distinction can be for the problems facing modern Protestantism.  As I said, I will continue to explore this theme in greater detail over the next year.  This is only the tip of the iceberg.  If I’ve managed to whet your appetite, you can hear more on the E-E distinction in Mike Horton’s systematic theology lectures (click here), specifically the most recent lectures on the incommunicable attributes of God.  For a slightly more detailed introduction to the topic and its relation to the early Reformers’ theology, check out the last section of Dr. Horton’s book Covenant And Salvation.

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Free Audio: Systematic Theology by Michael Horton

Date March 8, 2009 Posted by David N

Dr. Mike Horton is teaching a class on systematic theology at Christ United Reformed Church in Santee, California (where he serves as Associate Pastor).  The audio of the class is available online for free.  Dr. Horton will be coming out with a new, one-volume Systematic Theology for Zondervan next year, and this class is a sneak preview.  He's just finished the first section, “Prolegomena”, and is now a few weeks into section two, “The Incommunicable Attributes of God.”

To have a listen, click here. 

(Dr. Horton is also host of The White Horse Inn, a weekly radio show about theology and culture).

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The Joy of Being Hacked… for Christ’s Sake

Date February 24, 2009 Posted by Roger Overton

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11-12)

Earlier today a hacker took over most of my online identity. I believe they started at www.rogeroverton.com, which was a Drupal-based site. They took out my content and put in a link to a virus. (I have since removed the entire site.)

Using the password from my website, they proceeded to take over my Facebook and Hotmail accounts, and changed the passwords. On Facebook, they deleted all of my picture albums and put pornographic images on my profile. When Amy posted a comment on my wall to warn others that my account had been hacked, the hacker began sending her inappropriate messages.

On Hotmail, they began sending messages to everyone on my contact list telling them to visit my site, where the link to the virus was. They also started deleting my emails (more than 600 of them).

Thankfully, when I got home I was able to quickly get back into my accounts through password recovery options and clear out the garbage that had been posted. I don’t believe anything inappropriate was on my profile for more than 40 minutes or so, though it did take Facebook awhile to cycle the updates out of their news feeds.

The obvious, immediate question is why would someone do something like this? What’s the point of hacking into someone’s accounts and posting inappropriate content? There may be a number of reasons, including total depravity. But there is one particular reason that was given by the hacker. They left me a note in my hotmail account. Among other things it said, the hacker called me a “stupid f**ing religious faggot.”

So as best as I can tell, the motivation for all of this is that I am an outspoken Christian. When I read that, I immediately thought of the promise that we would be persecuted because of Christ, and I take great joy in that. I have many shortcomings, and there are times I wonder about the quality of my witness. But apparently there are those in the world who have identified me with Christ and one person in particular who decided to take their hatred of Him out on me.

I have lost my website (a site I was never satisfied with), my Facebook photo albums, 3 or 4 Facebook friends, a pile of email I probably didn’t need and a few hours of sorting through the damage. All in all, it could have been much worse. Those things can be dismissed and/or replaced. What I have gained is of great value- a better understanding of the importance of web security, and (more importantly) a deeper sense of joy in my affiliation with Jesus the Christ.

PS- If you run a Drupal based website, take extra care to protect your password files.

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The Virtuous Case for Christ & C.S. Lewis

Date February 22, 2009 Posted by Roger Overton

A couple of years ago I wrote a paper called “The Virtuous Case for Christ: How C.S. Lewis’s Theological Virtues Should Aid Christians Living in a Postmodern Culture.” I presented it first at the “C.S. Lewis: The Man and His Works” conference at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC October 27, 2007. I also presented it at “Standing Against the Tide: C.S. Lewis as Philosopher and Critic in the Postmodern Era” conference at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, CA August 9, 2008.

Each time I promised to post the audio from the presentation. Well, six months after the last presentation, I’ve finally done it:

“The Virtuous Case for Christ: How Lewis’s Theological Virtues Should Aid Christians Living in a Postmodern Culture” (9.32 MB)

I’m planning on developing the “Virtue Apologetics” concept for an ETS/EPS paper this year, and eventually into a book. I welcome your feedback.

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John Saw the Light of the World

Date January 28, 2009 Posted by Roger Overton

Each of the synoptic gospel accounts begins in a rather historical, matter-of-fact way. One begins with genealogy, one with a brief prophecy and John baptizing in the wilderness, and one with an explanation of how historical it is. The Gospel According to John is profoundly different and the difference runs through more than just his account of the gospel, but also his letters and apocalypse.

In some sense, the other writers said simply, “This is about Jesus. Here’s what happened…” John couldn’t do that. He couldn’t simply say Jesus and go about his narrative. The incursion of God into humanity must have demanded a far more dramatic introduction:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world…” (John 1:1-9)

It’s not until verse 14 that the reader is told that this Word was the Son of God, and not until verse 17 that He’s identified as Jesus. Perhaps that sweet name is not the most important thing about Him.
John did something similar at the beginning of his first letter. Again, he could not simply mention Jesus without expressing a grand vision of what he meant when he spoke of Jesus:

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:1-5)

By the way, in case you missed it, John saw Jesus with his very own eyes! He only had to mention it four times. (Erik Thoennes did a great job of addressing this in his sermon on the passage.) So many years later, John still maintained the excitement of having seen God incarnate. He not only saw God, but touched Him and heard from His lips a great message. The message? God is light.

Perhaps even years later, John saw Jesus again. But again, John couldn’t just say he saw Jesus…

“Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long rode and a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white like wool, as white as the snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in the furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.” (Rev. 1:12-16)

Sometimes I wonder if those who doubt the same person wrote each of these documents have actually read them. There are a number of similarities, but one especially stands out: God is light. I don’t think any other biblical author speaks to God as light as often as John. In his account of the gospel we learn that darkness cannot overcome this light, and similarly in John’s letter we are told there is no darkness in it at all. Furthermore, in Revelation, Jesus is described as “white as snow” and as “the sun shining in full strength” (neither of these have darkness either).

What would lead a man to speak so dramatically of someone in this way? Who could sustain this man’s interest, excitement, passion, devotion, and adoration for some sixty years? What thought could send this man into a frenzied abundance of joyful recollections, theological metaphors, and zealous praise? I fear that too often I speak of Jesus as theological and historical fact, but not often enough as magnificent light and creator of all things. Father, inspire us, as you inspired your beloved disciple, to speak not so simply about your Son; but fill us with such awe and wonder that we cannot contain it,

We’ve been digging into 1 John at Grace EV Free and I highly recommend Dr. Thoennes’s sermons thus far:

1/11/09: The Word Came and Changed Everything

1/18/09: God is Light

1/25/09: Walking in the Light

The rest of the series will be posted on Grace’s mp3 page

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Book Review: All Old Testament Laws Cancelled by Greg Gibson

Date January 28, 2009 Posted by Roger Overton

The relationship between biblical laws and the covenants or testaments has been the centered of much debate through church history. Today views range from there being no laws that apply to Christians to the view that every law in the Bible is still enforced. All Old Testament Laws Cancelled by Greg Gibson offers a version of the New Covenant Theology view. Gibson contends that “All Old Testament laws are cancelled, and all New Testament laws are for our obedience.” (p7)

In the first part of the book, Gibson entertains nine objections to his thesis that all Old Testament laws are cancelled. These include the notion that the Ten Commandments are the eternal “moral law” of God, that Christ did not come to abolish the law, that there is only one covenant of grace, and that all scripture is God-breathed and useful. The second part of the book provides eight reasons why Gibson believes all Old Testament laws have been cancelled. They include the claim that the Decalogue is the foundational document of the Old Covenant, that the law cannot be divided, that the Jerusalem Council did not require obedience to the law from gentiles, and that the Decalogue had an historical beginning and end.

Part three moves on to the second part of Gibson’s thesis; that all New Testament laws are for our obedience. He responds to antinomian arguments that we’re not under law, but under grace and that the only law is love. He then provides four reasons why Christians must obey the New Testament laws. He cites the mere presence of hundreds of commands given after the cross, points out the sin is lawlessness, and focuses on the praise the Bible has for the law of Christ.

The book’s conclusion centers on the issue of sanctification. Gibson argues that sanctification must by Christ-centered instead of law-centered. At the end of the book are two appendices. One considered that objection that New Covenant Theology allows for beastiallity and incest and the other offers thirteen ways we should still use the Old Testament.

All Old Testament Laws Cancelled makes many good arguments based on the Bible, and these good arguments make the book a worthwhile read for those familiar with the debate. However, I believe there are at least two significant problems with the book, and these are reflected in the title. It really should be “All Old Covenant Laws Fulfilled.”

The first problem is that Gibson is not persuasive that all Old Testament laws are cancelled. In Genesis 9:6 God gives a law against murder to Noah. This law is clearly pre-Sinai and therefore not part of the Mosaic Covenant. Jesus is the priest of a “better covenant” according to Hebrews, not a better testament. Hebrews tells us that with a new priest there is a change in the law and the old covenant is obsolete. Gibson fails to show how a law (such as Gen 9:6) in the same testament as a particular covenant (such as the old covenant) is subject to the same conditions as laws actually given within that covenant. His logic would lead us to expect God to flood the earth again since His promise to Noah is in the Old Testament and must have been cancelled by Christ.

The second problem has to do with “cancelled.” We journey into dangerous territory when we replace biblical terminology. The Bible never refers to the Old Covenant (or Testament) laws as cancelled. Instead, Christ is
described as having fulfilled the law and prophets. Christ being born in Bethlehem did not cancel the prophecy that He would be born there- His birth fulfilled it. Changing the terminology in this way does something to Christ’s vicarious death on our behalf. Christ’s fulfilling the law for us is far more valuable and precious than if He were to simply cancel the law. Cancellation often implies incompleteness, and there is nothing incomplete about Christ’s work on the cross.

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