The BBC is celebrating KJV400.
The BBC is promoting the 400th anniversary of the publication of the Authorized “King James” Version of the Bible. In order to do so, they are airing a series of radio reports entitled, “King James Bible–History and Readings.” Here’s how they introduce the series:
The King James Bible is one of the great English literary works. On the 400th anniversary of its publication, a series of documentaries and readings explore its history and enduring appeal. Features James Naughtie, Simon Schama, Rowan Williams, Emilia Fox, Toby Stephens and others.
The first installment aired today, but you can subscribe to a podcast that follows this series by visiting their site at the link below:
BBC – Podcasts – King James Bible – History and Readings.
For your reading pleasure, peruse this site’s blogs posted under the category of “King James Version.”
Meet Dr. Liam Goligher
Tenth Presbyterian Church is truly one of the flagship churches of the Reformed tradition in America. Two especially prominent ministers have pastored it, namely, Donald Grey Barnhouse, more recently James Montgomery Boice and finally, Dr. Philip Ryken, who has recently moved to the presidency of Wheaton College. If you’ve never heard any of these men preach, you have missed a great blessing.
Justin Taylor blogged on the announcement of the new candidate to follow in these great preachers’ footsteps, Glasgow, Scotland native, Dr. William “Liam” Goligher. You can read his post here, and the announcement published by the Pastoral Selection Committee of Tenth Presbyterian may be found at the following link here.
2010 in review
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 4,200 times in 2010. That’s about 10 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 39 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 426 posts. There were 31 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 51mb. That’s about 3 pictures per month.
The busiest day of the year was August 20th with 91 views. The most popular post that day was You Have Not Because You Ask Not!.
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were stufffundieslike.com, facebook.com, fundamentallyreformed.com, networkedblogs.com, and kjvonlydebate.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for jack chick, captain headknowledge, john calvin, j frank norris, and “jack chick”.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
You Have Not Because You Ask Not! December 2008
25 comments
Jack Chick Earns the Respect of the Underground Comics Industry April 2010
4 comments
Meet the Godfather of Fundamentalism, J. Frank Norris June 2010
6 comments
“Extent” August 2010
24 comments
About Me September 2007
The Masculine Media Considered
Hope you’ve all had a merry Christmas, and I hope you all have a happy new year. During my Christmas vacation between these holidays, I’m currently reading (finally!) T. David Gordon’s Why Johnny Can’t Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers. It’s an awesome little volume (maybe too little, but I suppose it packs enough of a wallop that were it longer it might border on the uncharitable or abusive–something the author was concerned about, and which delayed his writing of it). I’m a slow reader, so I haven’t finished it yet. I just finished chapter two, “Why Johnny Can’t Preach, Part 1: Johnny Can’t Read (Texts),” and one passage in this chapter led me to consider something about the scriptural mandate that men (specifically, males) are God’s appointed medium in preaching. Concluding chapter two, Gordon writes:
In a sense, then, the few conversations there have been about preaching and preachers in the last generation have been relatively pointless. Whether a sermon is preached by a man or a woman is comparatively unimportant; whether it encourages a liberal or conservative sociopolitical agenda is comparatively inconsequential; whether its “how-to” advice or pop psychology is helpful or not makes little difference. What would make a difference would be Christian proclamation that is consequential, that is concerned less with current events than with the history-encompassing events of creation, fall, and redemption. What would make a difference would be Christian proclamation that did not panic every time a court rendered a decision on some pet geopolitical concern, but called our attention instead to the certain judgment of God, with whom we have to do. What would make a difference would be Christian proclamation that was less concerned with “how-to” and more concerned with “why-to,” why humans are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God. What might make a difference would be Christian proclamation that was less concerned with the latest news from the Beltway, and more concerned with the stunning and perennial good news that God in Christ is reconciling sinners to himself. But any one of these preferred alternatives requires a sensiblilty for the significant; a capacity to distinguish the weighty from the light, and the consequential from the trivial (pp. 59-60; emphasis mine).
Perhaps I didn’t need to transcribe the entire paragraph, but it’s all such sorely-needed information, I decided not to resist the temptation. The main point of the paragraph is beside the point of this post. Like a poorly expounded text of Scripture, I’m going to launch off onto a question raised by only one minor aspect of the paragraph mentioned only in passing, and as only one item in a long list of other items. My question is raised by the highlighted reference at the beginning of the paragraph to the comparative unimportance of whether a sermon is preached by a man or a woman.
I, and most of my readers, are well aware that Scripture certainly does prescribe that in corporate Christian worship, a male is the appropriate kind of person ordained by God to preach. Gordon’s point is not to deny this divine prescription, but to argue that the content of the sermon is much more important than the sex of the preacher, as important as that is. This point, made this way by Gordon, moved me to consider the reason behind God’s stated reason (a dangerous exercise, I’m sure) for the command that women are to neither teach nor usurp authority from the man (1 Timothy 2:12). Verse thirteen of 1 Timothy 2 appeals to the fall of Adam and Eve, and hence ultimately to the roles of husbands and wives and their typifying of the hierarchy of roles between Christ and his Bride, the Church (cf. Ephesians 5:22-33).
Perhaps my question is simply an unnecessary reduction of the husband/wife hierarchy, but, is it simply that males are God’s ordained medium for preaching because of the authority which males inherently and by Scriptural injunction represent? R. C. Sproul in his series on Recovering the Beauty of the Arts explains the basic principle that “all forms are art forms, and all art forms communicate something.” Sproul makes this his fundamental point in arguing for the benefit of many of the traditional forms that have come down to us from previous generations in the context of corporate worship–for example, pulpits and other aspects of traditional church architecture. Thinking in terms of the communicative nature of forms, am I getting off track to ponder whether it is basically the authority a man conveys by virtue of his sex in the act of preaching that God has in mind when he prescribes specifically men to serve in the office of elder/pastor/preacher?
I assume that many who are conditioned by modern egalitarian sensibilities regarding the inherent nature of males versus that of females would challenge this whole line of reasoning. But consider another medium and its use of male and female images: television commercials. I’m convinced that it is safe to say that the vast majority of commercials advertizing, say, board games, portray the female winning a game played against a male. This image is just one of many ways the classic motif of David vs. Goliath plays out in probably all art, literature, television and movies. The “little guy” wins out over “the big guy.” I submit that the drama inherent in this simple motif is there because, among other reasons, males inherently represent authority or superordinate roles, whereas females inherently represent subordinate roles.
Although matriarchal cultures do exist, they are the exception, rather than the rule, and I think if the anthropologist were to examine such cultures to their foundations, he would find a point in their histories at which the matriarch replaced the patriarch as the head of those cultures. This is the case of at least one native American tribe in the Southwest. My family toured a village populated by this tribe (whose name eludes me), and the tour guide explained that this tribe was matriarchal, and that it wasn’t always so, but became so due to a lack of provision on the part of the males in that tribe. This also reminds me of the origin of the Full Gospel denomination, but that is a subject better taken up by Robert Godfrey of Westminster Seminary California.
Perhaps it’s going “beyond what is written” to ponder such things, but considering the reasons stated above, I hope you understand where I’m coming from.
Christianity and Liberalism Revisited
Here’s a conference I wish I could attend. Believe it or not, I first discovered J. Gresham Machen’s book Christianity and Liberalism in a catalog for Peter Ruckman’s bookstore in the mid-nineties (see also here and here), but I only read it about two years ago. Growing up I was conscious of my fundamentalist pastor talking about “modernism,” but only had a very vague notion of what that might be. So vague, in fact, I couldn’t then, nor could I now define with any certainty just how much I understood about it then.
It is so important that Christians understand that the most basic and foundational thing about Christianity is not how you live, it is what you believe. This is not a denial of the importance of how you live, just a denial that it is what makes you a Christian. Actually, how you live is the product or fruit of what you believe. If you live the cleanest life in the most loving and charitable way, yet deny the deity of Christ, the trinitarian nature of God, or the virgin birth of Christ, etc., then you are not a Christian. This is what liberalism is, although it is so much more at the same time. It exalts the necessity of works over the necessity of orthodox doctrine. That’s why Machen said liberalism is not another form of Christianity, it is an entirely different religion.
Balm for Believing Victims of Christianity
The following is a sermon by Lutheran (Missouri Synod) Seminary professor, Dr. Rod Rosenbladt, who is also co-host of The White Horse Inn radio show. The title of the sermon is “The Gospel for Those Broken by the Church.” He addresses two kinds of believers who have given up on going to church: the “sad,” who feel they couldn’t measure up, so they quit trying; and the “mad,” who’ve been “used up and spit out” by the church, or who have been justly scandalized by Christianity’s many historic misdeeds. Dr. Rosenbladt’s premise is that the good news of Christ’s cross and blood shed for sinners will save not only the pagan unbeliever, but also the wounded believer who, for whatever reason, has given up on Christianity.
In some ways, Dr. Rosenbladt’s presentation may come off a bit academic, but if you hang with him, you’ll find that the heart of the message is clear as a bell. If you’ve got friends or relatives who are mad or sad at the church, please forward this post to them.
Did Jesus Even Exist?
There’s a growing trend in the realm of skepticism to claim that there is no historical proof that Jesus ever existed in the first place. They believe the contents of the canonical Gospel narratives to have developed during the century following whatever may have actually happened in the first century that caused a group of men to scatter across the Roman Empire and start claiming that the Jewish Messiah had arrived, bringing the kind of Kingdom no one expected–one that would encompass all nations. Technically, the eyewitness accounts that initially testified of his life, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension are sufficient. But usually, only Christian believers and honest historians accept the four Gospels as historically reliable. Others demand supplementary evidence. There’s plenty. Until the late twentieth century, the evidence that currently stands satisfied the demands of historical scholarship. Now, some radical skeptics have imposed a double standard on Jesus and raised the bar, just so they can feel their arguments have more merit. When one’s argument is weak, sometimes the only way it can survive is by putting down the other side.
Anyway, I found an awesome series of YouTube videos presenting some of the major extra-biblical historical references that have provided the evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. It also defends these citations against common “skeptical interjections.” I think the man who made these did a terrific job. These videos were apparently produced by the folks who run a website called “The Divine Evidence.” I know little about them other than the good job they did in this video presentation, but you can read their “About Us” on the homepage for more info.
On with the show…
Gospel-Driven: From Doctrine to Discipleship
Dr. Michael Horton and me
New St. Peter’s Presbyterian Church in Dallas hosts an annual Reformation Conference the weekend before Reformation Sunday. This year saw their fourth such conference, “Gospel-Driven: From Doctrine to Discipleship,” featuring the teaching of Dr. Michael Scott Horton, Associate Pastor of Christ United Reformed Church of Santee, CA (see Dr. Horton’s Adult Bible Class page), J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California, host of the White Horse Inn radio show (and podcast), Editor-In-Chief of Modern Reformation Magazine, and author of an ever-growing number of books, three of which were the subject of this year’s conference (see his Wikipedia entry for more info).
Two of the three books have already been published, but the third, on which Dr. Horton spoke, is to be published in the coming months. These books are (in order), Christless Christianity, The Gospel-Driven Life, and I think the title of book three will be The Gospel Commission. The first volume addresses the heart of the problem with all of contemporary evangelical, even Reformed, Christianity–an exchange of preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ for the preaching of self-salvation by self-improvement in a variety of manifestations–preaching “good advice” at the expense of preaching the good news. The Gospel-Driven Life addresses why preaching the gospel (along with regularly receiving the Lord’s Supper) is essential for Christian growth and sanctification, not just evangelism. Finally, The Gospel Commission (if that is it’s actual title) will go into how the church is to obey the imperative Great Commission out of a conscious response to the gospel indicative of the complete authority over heaven and earth given to the Lord Jesus Christ by his Father (Matthew 28:18).
This was an exciting opportunity for me to meet the man who first introduced me to Reformed theology. Back in 1991 Dr. Horton published his first book, Mission Accomplished (later revised and republished as Putting Amazing Back Into Grace). In the providence of God, Dr. Horton was invited to promote the book on a morning talk show on, of all places, the Trinity Broadcasting Network! During this interview, Dr. Horton had the unique opportunity to introduce Calvinism to the constituents of the Word of Faith heresy of Kenneths Hagin and Copeland, Benny Hinn, Oral Roberts, and more recently Joyce Meyer, John Hagee and Joel Osteen, myself among them. I recall mostly his emphasis on how the doctrine of election and predestination, far from squashing evangelism, actually motivates it. I found my introduction to Reformed theology and its benefits fascinating and exciting. At the time Dr. Horton was leading a ministry called Christians United for Reformation (CURE). I subscribed to CURE’s newsletter for a short time–I found it equally fascinating and really cool, but I also found it to be waaay over my head. So I got on with my life, marrying my first wife, moving off to Missouri to study to be an Independent Baptist missionary (which plan would change), living life between my initial and later providential and interesting encounters with Reformed theology.
I brought my copy of Mission Accomplished with me to the conference to get it autographed by Dr. Horton, along with the copy of The Gospel-Driven Life which I purchased at the conference. It was my joy to be able to personally thank him for his introducing me to Reformed theology, and when I mentioned that I saw him on TBN, he grimaced with shame as if a deep, dark secret had been exposed, and we all enjoyed a laugh at the stark irony of his television debut. Then as he opened my book and began writing on the first page, he informed me that the host of that talk show was fired not long after that episode. He assured me that the fact that he had been a guest on the show “was not unrelated” to his firing–WOW! But it makes perfect sense, considering that it would not be long before Dr. Horton would edit an expose of the Word of Faith movement, The Agony of Deceit. But just think, that TBN host’s firing may have just been one of the best things to ever happen to him. I consider it a noble sacrifice for the cause on his part. I just wish I could remember that host’s name so I could search for videos of his interviews on YouTube in the hopes of finding his interview of Michael Horton. Now that would be a blast!
If you’ve never listened to the White Horse Inn, then you are not aware of just what a heady, yet eminently edifying and motivating speaker Dr. Horton is. The way he helped us understand the covenantal nature of God’s relationship to Old Testament Israel and the New Testament Church simply boggles the mind with how it brings together so many aspects of the biblical revelation of redemption and also highlights the importance of the doctrine of justification by grace alone (sola gratia) that is received by faith alone (sola fide). He even mentioned how Pope Benedict XVI has admitted that the Bible’s use of the form and content of ancient Near Eastern Suzerainty/Vassal treaties in his covenantal dealings with his people makes it understandable that the Reformers taught what they did about justification. Horton observed that when the Pope sounds more like the Reformers than contemporary Evangelical theologians, you know you are living in a Salvador Dali painting!
You can download the audio of the messages below (PS–I hear there’s a video in the works, but haven’t heard if and when it’ll be released):
- Christless Christianity: The Problem
- Gospel-Driven Life: The Solution
- Gospel Commission: The Application
- Questions and Answers with Dr. Horton
- The Missionary Servant: The Sermon
God’s Law Reveals Your Misery
3. How do you come to know your misery?
A. The law of God tells me.1
1. Romans 3:20 “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”
Romans 7:7-25 “What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
“Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”
4. What does God’s law require of us?
A. Christ teaches us this in summary in Matthew 22: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind [and with all your strength—KJV].1 This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.2 All “the Law and the Prophets” (the Old Testament) hang on these two commandments.
1. Deuteronomy 6:5 “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
2. Leviticus 19:18 “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”
5. Can you live up to all this perfectly?
A. No.1 I have a natural tendency to hate God and my neighbor.2
1. Romans 3:9-20,23 “What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one;no one understands;no one seeks for God.All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;no one does good, not even one.’Their throat is an open grave;they use their tongues to deceive.’‘The venom of asps is under their lips.’‘Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.’ ‘Their feet are swift to shed blood;in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.’‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’ Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
1 John 1:8,10 “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
2. Genesis 6:5 “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
Romans 7:23-24 “but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
Romans 8:7 “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.”
Ephesians 2:1-3 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
Titus 3:3 “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.”
Memoir of the Rev. John Brown, part 5
Lithograph of the Reverend John Brown of Haddington
In his employment as a shepherd–a calling so much ennobled in the patriarchal age, and so universally celebrated both in the ancient and modern pastoral–he enjoyed more leisure, and better opportunities, for prosecuting his favourite studies, than could have fallen to his share in almost any other business; nor did he neglect to improve such promising circumstances. In a very short time he left far behind him many who had the advantage of every thing calculated to quicken their progress,–proper books, leisure to study them, and the best masters for their instructors. Left to his own resources, however, he acquired the knowledge of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, with a rapidity that attraced the attention of the neighbourhood, and became the general topic of conversation. But while this procured him many friends, it at the same time hurt the pride, and excited the malice, of some of his outstripped rivals in the race of literary fame. It was, accordingly, whispered, that the progress he was making in his studies, in the absence of all instruction, bearing no proportion to the powers of the human mind, could only be accounted for by supposing that his unaccountable progress was effected by the agency of the devil; who, with a similar temptation, had seduced the mother of mankind, and has, in all ages, taken the advantage of the studious and scholastic habits of individuals to entangle them in his snares.–“Report ye, and we will report: come, let us smite him with the tongue.” Notwithstanding that this malevolent slander had absurdity deeply imprinted on its forehead, it was eagerly laid hold of by the ignorant and credulous, and so widely circulated, that the innocent victim felt it extremely distressing, and more especially since even Mr. Moncrieff appeared, for a season, to be influenced by it, and withdrew his countenance from him–a thing which, he afterwards admitted, was very cruel and unkind. For although the charge of diabolical intercourse was no longer admissible in the criminal courts of the country, yet the superstitious notions and prejudices handed down from the dark ages of popery were, at that period, so far from being eradicated from the minds of the people, especially in sequestered corners of the country, that such surmises were still capable of ruining a man’s peace, and inflicting a serious wound on a mind of even the most ordinary feeling. To one so ardent in the prosecution of knowledge, and so anxious to attain the qualifications necessary for a minister of the gospel, it must have been no common affliction to have all his pleasing anticipations thus cruelly blighted in a moment; for, as he apprehended, the immediate tendency of this foul reproach was to blast his religious character, and counteract his whole purpose, by shutting against him the door of the divinity hall. On those who were best acquainted with him (the members of a praying society with which he was connected,) the slander had no impression; they continued his steady friends, and their attachment seemed to strengthen in proportion to the anguish he suffered from such an unmerited calumny. In the narrative already quoted we find him speaking thus: “The reproach was exceedingly distressing to me; however, God was gracious, for I enjoyed remarkable mixture of mercy and affliction. At the beginning of the trial these words, ‘The Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life,’ were peculiarly sweet to my soul.”
Memoir of the Rev. John Brown, part 4
Brown’s Self-Interpreting Bible (1859 edition)
We resume our biography of the Reverend John Brown of Haddington (1722-1787), as he joins the Scottish Secession Church and teaches himself Latin and Greek while a humble, rural shepherd, preparing himself to one day become a shepherd of souls. We are also treated to a providential encounter that wins the young Brown the gift of a Greek New Testament.
To this party (the Secession Church) our shepherd considered it his duty to join himself; and, anxious to become a shepherd of souls in their communion, he prosecuted his studies with incredible ardour and perseverance, and soon acquired a considerable acquaintance with the Latin and Greek languages. In these difficult studies he had no instructor, excepting that, on some occasions of rare occurrence, he could find an hour to call on one or other of two neighbouring clergymen, namely, Mr. Moncrieff of Abernethy, and Mr. Johnston of Arngask, father of the late Dr. Johnston of North Leith, who kindly assisted him in surmounting any formidable difficulty that threatened to arrest the progress of literary pursuits. Having now obtained such an acquaintance with the Greek language as enlivened his hopes that he should ultimately succeed in his darling object of acquiring the necessary qualifications for preaching the blessed gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, he pressed forward with renovated vigour and growing confidence. But amongst the many things wanting to accelerate his motion, he was, at this time, anxious to obtain a Greek Testament, that he might have the satisfaction of reading, in the original language, the character and work, the holy life and vicarious death, of Him who feedeth his flock like a shepherd, and laid down his life for his sheep. Buoyed up with these hopes, and excited by this anxiety, after folding his flock one summer evening, and procuring the consent of his fellow-shepherd to watch it next day, he made a nocturnal trip to St. Andrews, distant about twenty-four miles, where he arrived in the morning. He called at the first bookseller’s shop that came in his way, and having inquired for the article in question, the shopman, on observing his apparent rusticity and mountain habiliments (dress characteristic of his occupation), told him that he had Greek Testaments and Hebrew Bibles in abundance, but suspected an English Testament would answer his purpose much better. In the mean time some gentlemen, said to have been professors in the university, happened to enter the shop, and learning what was going on, seemed much of the shopman’s opinion. One of these, however, ordered the volume to be produced, and, taking it in his hand, said, “Young man, here is the Greek Testament, and you shall have it at the easy charge of reading the first passage that turns up.” It was too good an offer to be rejected: the shepherd accepted the challenge, and performed the conditions to the satisfaction and astonishment of the party; and Mr. Brown very modestly retired with his prize.
Memoir of the Rev. John Brown, part 3
“Abraham Offering Up Isaac” from Brown’s Self-Interpreting Bible
In the year 1733 a serious rupture took place in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, in consequence of an act of Assembly passed in 1730, by which it was enacted, that reasons of dissent against the decisions of the judicatories of the Church should not be entered on the record; an enactment which prevented all who dissented in any case from exonerating their consciences by recording their dissent. This gave rise to much righteous indignation on the part of the godly ministers in the Church—an indignation which was augmented when, in 1732, the most solemn remonstrances against intrusive settlements were not so much as listened to. Along with these harsh dealings it was made a cause of censure for any minister to animadvert on the proceedings of the Church courts. Several ministers—inasmuch as they were bound by solemn engagement to the truth as expressed in the subordinate standards—found that they could not, as faithful servants of Jesus Christ, submit to censure for what appeared to them their obvious duty. Accordingly, Mr. Ebenezer Erskine, having freely animadverted on the growing defections of the Church, in a sermon delivered before the Synod of Perth and Stirling, in 1732, was called to account before said Synod, where he was found liable to censure in terms of the enactment aforesaid. To this decision, however, from a sense of duty, he peremptorily refused to submit, both before the Synod and General Assembly. Mr. Erskine was at this time joined by Messrs William Wilson, James Fisher, and Alexander Moncrieff: who, after due deliberation, finding that they could not, with a good conscience, continue in the communion of the church under these circumstances, seceded from her ecclesiastical jurisdiction, on the following grounds:–1st. The sufferance of error without adequate censure. 2d. The infringement of the people’s rights in electing their ministers, under the law of patronage. 3d. The neglect or relaxation of discipline. 4th. The restraint on ministerial freedom in opposing error and maladministration. 5th. The refusal of the prevailing party to be reclaimed. On these, and other solemn considerations, stated at large in their Testimony, they constituted themselves into a distinct presbytery, fully persuaded of the lawfulness of their separation.
“Extent”
John Owen (1616-1683), thanks to ReformationArt.com
Time for our first break from Brown’s Self-Interpreting Bible. How about if we dabble in the doctrine of particular redemption?
I ran across, once again, the famous quote by Puritan theologian par excellence, John Owen (1616-1683), from his book, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. Among statements in defense of the Reformed doctrine of particular redemption, this one is literally viral in the Reformed blogosphere. This quote is Owen’s logical critique of general redemption, and is worth thinking through and searching the Scriptures about if you’ve never taken the time.
Anyway, here’s a breakdown of his complex argument from Reformed.org:
The Father imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son underwent punishment for, either:
- All the sins of all men.
- All the sins of some men, or
- Some of the sins of all men.
In which case it may be said:
- That if the last be true, all men have some sins to answer for, and so, none are saved.
- That if the second be true, then Christ, in their stead suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the whole world, and this is the truth.
- But if the first be the case, why are not all men free from the punishment due unto their sins?
You answer, “Because of unbelief.”
I ask, Is this unbelief a sin, or is it not? If it be, then Christ suffered the punishment due unto it, or He did not. If He did, why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which He died? If He did not, He did not die for all their sins!”
I’ve looked at this many times and have until now always had trouble keeping the whole train of thought on the rails in my head, if you know what I mean. Finally, the other day, I decided I’m going to have to do with this what I do with Scripture verses and catechism questions that I want to memorize–put it to music!
The following is the result. It’s roughly based on the tune to the children’s song “I’m in the Lord’s Army,” although there are some divergences. Do what you will with it. So, without further ado, I give you . . .
Extent
by John D. Chitty
Did Christ die for
all sins of all men
or all sins of some men
or some sins of all men?
If Christ died for
some sins of all men,
then all die
for those he did not.
But if Christ died for
all sins of some men,
that’s what we believe,
all th’elect of all the nations!
But if Christ died for
all sins of all men,
why are not
all men saved?
You will answer
“Because of unbelief”–
Is unbelief a sin or not?
If not, why then,
for it give account?
Either for it
Christ was punished, or not!
If he was, then,
why does unbelief
prevent salvation
more than other sins he died for?
But if he did not
die for unbelief,
then for all sins of all men
Christ did not die!
So Christ died for
all sins of some men,
those the Father
gave to His Son!
I’m from Geneva, and I’m here to help!
Memoir of the Rev. John Brown, part 2
About the eleventh year of his age his father was removed by death; and in some short time after, his loss was doubled in the death of his mother, and he left a poor orphan, without friends who could render him any essential service in his forlorn situation. But another ingredient was still wanting to fill up the bitter cup of adversity. About four months after the death of his mother, he was seized with a fever, four attacks of which rapidly succeeding each other, rendered his recovery almost hopeless: but his Master had employment assigned for him in his church; and having, by a series of afflicting circumstances, impressed his mind with the ineffable importance of eternal things, and rescued him from the jaws of the grave, provided the homeless orphan with a friend and protector. An elder in the parish of Abernethy—an aged shepherd and an eminent Christian, respectable also for his intelligence, though so destitute of education that he could not so much as read—cheerfully embraced the opportunity of supplying the deficiency under which he laboured, by engaging the homeless orphan, to assist him in tending his flock, and in reading for him as opportunity allowed. It will appear strange to many, that men, of considerable talents and religious intelligence, should have been so utterly neglected in their education, particularly in a country so famed for her public seminaries as Scotland has long been. To account for this, we have only to consult the history of the reigns of Charles II and his brother James, where we find that, during that persecuting period, the laws and social regulations of the country were greatly deranged; and that, under the then prelatic ascendancy, the parochial schools, established by our forefathers, were utterly neglected—a fact which shows how nearly allied the prelacy of the times was to popery—nor were they restored by law till eight years after the Revolution of 1688. The young generations, rising during that long period, must, therefore, have been either partially or totally deficient in point of instruction, with the exception merely of those who could afford a very uncommon expense. John Ogilvie, the elder, whose kindness to young Brown we have just mentioned, had felt the privation of parochial instruction. But the connexion with the orphan boy was peculiarly advantageous to both parties, who, well pleased with one another, set to work and constructed a small hut amongst the hills, to protect them from the rain and the storm, where they read and conversed with one another, and sent up their joint supplications to him who fills the hungry with good things, while the rich are sent empty away. During this reciprocity of kind offices and congenial feelings, by a strict attention to the dispensations of Providence, by pondering over the books he read, and the sermons he heard, the young man was brought under very impressive apprehensions of the majesty of God, the hatefulness of sin, the love of Christ, and the utter insignificance of all earthly enjoyments, when contrasted with the glories of heaven; so that the pleasure of his secret devotions was greatly augmented, while he felt his conscience daily becoming more tender, and his walk and conversation more assimilated to that of his Lord and Master. His mountain was now strong, and his state prosperous; but sun and shade are not more vacillating, in the natural world, than hope and fear, joy and sorrow, are in that of the spiritual. His pastoral friend and companion relinquished his mountain occupation, and settling in Abernethy, Mr. Brown was again out of employment; and wishing to provide for himself things honest in the sight of all men, he found it necessary to enter into the service of a neighbouring farmer, whose premises were much more extensive, and his domestics more numerous, and, as it would appear, whose lives were less exemplary than that of his former friend. Here he soon began to feel a sensible decline in his spiritual attainments, and a general lukewarmness and indifference in the exercise of religious duties, though his external deportment was still distinguished by manifold virtues, and particularly by the ornamental grace of meekness, patience, and Christian forbearance, under the most irritating provocations, with a spirit of Christian charity, ever ready to forgive.—A fellow shepherd, who, in his youthful gaiety, had taken a malicious pleasure in ridiculing and otherwise annoying the young man in his devotions, after observing for some time the unalterable serenity and interminable patience with which he endured the unprovoked insult, blushed himself into repentance; nor could he find rest in his own mind till he had acknowledged his fault, expressed the shame and sorrow he felt for what he had done, and had received an assurance of a frank forgiveness. This led to an intimate and cordial friendship, which lasted during life; and the same individual, when on his death-bed, declared that the admonitions and religious instructions he received from Mr. Brown, during their intercourse as fellow-servants, had laid him under obligations which no language could express.
The Misadventures of Captain Headknowledge 
Heresy in Defense of the Fundamentals
Council of Chalcedon, AD 451
“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Hebrews 2:14-15 ESV).
Recently, I heard an Independent Fundamental Baptist preacher comment that he believes in salvation “by the blood of Christ, not his death.” One who heard this comment with me registered his shock at the statement. Having discussed this issue with this particular preacher in the past, I knew what he meant by it, and was able to fill in my companion. The following bullet points are a summary of the things I shared with him.
Suffice it to say that there is a segment of Independent Baptist Fundamentalism that so wants to defend the “literal” interpretation of Scripture that it will often deny simple figures of speech in Scripture to the extent that it begins to distort the very fundamentals it intends to defend. One such fundamental of the faith that has suffered such distortion is that of the hypostatic union of Christ’s human and divine natures, of which the historic conciliar statement produced by the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) expresses the Biblical doctrine quite thoroughly and has served the church well in defining the orthodox position. Although an appeal to the so-called “Definition of Chalcedon” as an expression of Scriptural teaching on the matter falls on deaf fundamentalist ears, it does not change the fact that, historically speaking, for the Protestant as well as the Roman Catholic, to dissent from this Ecumenical Council on the hypostatic union is to be led by blind guides into the ditch of formal heresy. Sad to say, this is the fate of the kind of irresponsible Biblicism that often goes on in the Fundamentalist movement.
I’ve posted on this topic before here and here. The names I’ve used for this fundamentalist heresy are “Divine Blood” and “Celestial Flesh.” These titles describe the ways in which fundamentalists blur the distinction between Christ’s human and divine natures to a possibly heretical extent. This explains the use of these terms in the following bullet points:
I found an excellent, but lengthy, treatment of this doctrine by an Irish Reformed minister. If you’ve ever heard of this doctrine before, and are the least bit concerned about it, please invest the time in reading “Fundamentalists and the ‘Incorruptible’ Blood of Christ” by Martyn McGeown of Covenant Protestant Reformed Church in Ballymena, North Ireland. Although it’s by an Irish writer, much of his essay interacts with American fundamentalist contributions to the controversy as well.
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