Prior to going to Bible college, I had about a half-dozen opportunities to teach in my local church. In the first several, I went overboard on the application. It was all about what they needed to do, how they could be encouraged by doing, do do do, etc. With a lot of brainy stuff thrown in.

The last couple of times that I taught before school, I emphasized what was to be known about God, and basically told everyone that it was up to them and the Holy Spirit to figure out how to apply the teaching to their context. Fast forward two years, and I’m taking my first homiletics course at school. And what, at an independant fundamental Baptist college, would be emphasized? Application! There was a healthy amount of exegesis there as well, but we were told that it wasn’t truly expository unless the application was there and pointed.

As I continue to preach and teach, I find that this is incredibly true. My method in preaching and teaching is to provide hypothetical situations that people can relate to. This seems to be the best thing to engage people’s minds with the practical implications of Scripture. Doctrine becomes the spearhead for application, not the other way around.

More recently, I’ve heard quite a few teachers advocate a method of preaching that downplays application. Like I once did, they say that the Holy Spirit should apply the message as only He can, and we shouldn’t get in the way of that.

Is this a valid point of view? How do you present the application of Scripture in your preaching and teaching?

Book 1 Chapter 17 Sections 1-5

If God is sovereign, does that mean that Christians live a fatalistic life? “Since God is in control, who cares what I do.” Calvin heads these presumptions off at the pass and seeks to address the practical implications of God’s providence in the life of a believer. He notes three things that Scripture says about providence, more-or-less a summary of his previous work on the topic:

First, God’s providence must be considered with regard to the future as well as the past. Secondly, it is the determinate principle of all things in such a way that sometimes it works through an intermediary, sometimes without an intermediary, sometimes contrary to every intermediary. Finally, it strives to the end that God may reveal His concern for the while human race, but especially his vigilance in ruling the church, which he deigns to watch more closely.

God’s love is displayed towards the whole world, not just the church. But particularly, His love is displayed towards the Church. This is even evident in the Cross, where the pardon is offered to all but only applied to God’s sheep. Many in Calvin’s day argued against this level of providence (as he discussed earlier), and shows that the Church, if it will only stop and watch with eyes of faith, will see Him:

… the thought creeps in that human affairs turn and whirl at the blind urge of fortune; or the flesh incites us to contradiction, as if God were making sport of men by throwing them about like balls. It is, indeed, true that if we had quiet and composed minds ready to learn, the final outcome would show that God always has the best reason for his plan: either to instruct his own people in patience, or to correct their wicked affections and tame their lust, or to subjugate them to self-denial, or to arouse them from sluggishness; again, to bring low the proud, to shatter the cunning of the impious and to overthrow their devices.

Yet however hidden and fugitive from our point of view the causes may be, we must hold that they are surely laid up with him, and hence we must exclaim with David: “Great, O God, are the wondrous deeds that thou hast done, and thy thoughts toward us cannot be reckoned; if I try to speak, they would be more than can be told.”

All things do work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Calvin apparently ascribes to the “best possible world” point-of-view concerning God’s sovereignty, predating Leibniz in his arguments by a century-and-a-half. God has his “best conceived order to a right end.” To think that He preconceives and pushes everything in the direction that it should go in order to meet the end that He preordains for it… that’s a big God. Too big for humanity to conceive, too big for humanity to bow to and still retain autonomy. But this is what a Christian desires above all else…

… no one will weigh God’s providence properly and profitably but him who considers that his business is with his Maker and the Framer of the universe, and with becoming humility submits himself to fear and reverence.

Calvin is quick to note that the absolute nature of His will does not discount our responsibility: this is clear as one reads Scripture. God both commands the Israelites to change their hearts (Ezekiel 18) and promises that he will be the one to change their hearts (Ezekiel 36). 2 Chronicles 30:9-12 also shows that the Lord commanded all Israel to repent, but He had his hand upon the hearts of those who did repent, while the rest were still held responsible for their sin… even though God did not grant them repentance.

How does it happen that a provident [prepared] man, while he takes care of himself, also disentangles himself from threatening evils, but a foolish man perishes from his own unconsidered rashness, unless folly and prudence are instruments of the divine dispensation in both cases? For this reason, God pleased to hide all future events from us, in order that we should resist them as doubtful, and not cease to oppose them with ready remedies, until they are either overcome or pass beyond all care…

God’s providence does not always meet us in it’s naked form, but God in a sense clothes it with the means employed.

In other words, our preparations and foolhardiness are in the hands of God to work His purposes. Disheartening? Or incredibly freeing for the believer? Can we rest in His sovereignty… His control? Can we move, and take risks, and fight the good fight without fear of being cast out, or fear of His failure? He will accomplish His purposes on the earth, down to the last willful choice of man.

What about that willful choice of man? What about the wicked? Do they serve God’s will? Calvin tackles the question…

… I deny that they are serving God’s will. For we shall not say that one who is motivated by an evil inclination, by only obeying his own wicked desire, renders service to God at His bidding… if we contrive anything against his commandment, it is not obedience but obstinacy and transgression. Yet unless he willed it, we would not do it. I agree. But do we not do evil things to the end that we may serve him? Yet he by no means commands us to do them; rather we rush headlong, without thinking what he requires, but so raging in our unbridled lust that we deliberately strive against him. And in this way we serve his just ordinance by doing evil, for so great and boundless is His wisdom that he knows right well how to use evil instruments to do good…

… [God] works through them. And whence, I ask you, comes the stench of a corpse, which is both putrified and laid open by the heat of the sun? All men see that it is stirred up by the sun’s rays; yet no one for this reason says that the rays stink. Thus, since the matter and guilt of evil repose in a wicked man, what reason is there to think that God contracts any defilement, if he uses his service for his own purpose?

Book 1 Chapter 16 Sections 5-9

Jonathan Edwards, the pastor of Northhampton Church during the 18th-century, oversaw and encouraged an awakening of the people to realize their position before God. This was not what was commonly called the First Great Awakening, but a smaller “awakening” that preceded it in 1734 and 1735. Edwards preached on sin, judgment, and the glory and satisfaction of God. The intended effect was to help people turn towards God and away from themselves.

This didn’t always have the intended effect. On the morning of June 1, 1735, a prominent man in the community, Joseph Hawley II, slit his throat. In the sermon the Sunday before, Edwards had spoken about men’s consciences showing them that they were bound for judgment, and the need for them to repent. Although we do not know for sure, there is a good probability that Hawley latched onto the first, and not the second.

Hawley was Edwards’ uncle, and the news of his death absolutely staggered him. This effectively ended the “awakening”, and Edwards struggled to find an answer or reason for what he labeled “awful providence.” And in his mind it must be awful, because a sovereign, huge, omnipotent God who was directly or indirectly controlling all things must be in some sense responsible for Hawley’s death.

Edwards’ viewpoint on God’s sovereignty reflected a Calvinistic worldview, one that Calvin himself would have ascribed to. To Calvin, God’s sovereignty means not just a “permission” for events that take place in time, but a causality. Talking about Augustine’s view of God’s providence, Calvin writes:

How the term “permission,” so frequently mentioned by [Augustine], ought to be understood will best appear from one passage, where he proves that God’s will is the highest and first cause of all things because nothing happens except from his command or permission. Surely he does not conjure up a God who reposes idly in a watchtower, willing the while to permit something or other, when an actual will not his own, so to speak, intervenes, which otherwise could not be deemed a cause.

Calvin goes for the jugular throughout this section; his aim is to show that nothing, small or big, falls outside of God’s control. This is especially true concerning mankind, God’s chief creation. Calvin sums up his view of God’s providence over man:

… it is clear that the prophet and Solomon ascribe to God not only might but also choice and determination… It is an absurd folly that miserable men take it upon themselves to act without God, when they cannot even speak except as he wills!

To believe Scripture is to believe that God is actually God, not a deity that lacks power or accedes to chance. The rub comes in when dealing with the presence of evil. This is the question that Edwards had to struggle with after the suicide of his uncle. If God is sovereign, why does He let evil exist? Calvin declares that all contingencies and circumstances find their original source in God’s providence, which means that evil must exist at least by His “permission”… but even that is causal. So why does evil exist?

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

Evil exists so that we might not only see our need of mercy, but also see the extreme awesomeness of His goodness. The wicked are made “for the day of trouble” (Proverbs 16:4). Is your picture of God this big? That He can allow evil to highlight His goodness?

Two weeks back, Nat and I were given a couple of tickets to see the David Crowder Band in concert. It’s been about six years since I was at such a concert, and I believe it was one of Natalie’s first times at such a “worship” concert. The two acts prior to David Crowder were alright in their own right, although only one of them made any attempt to identify themselves as Christian, and that was only through the clear annunciation of the lyrics in one of their songs.

So, enter David Crowder & co. If you haven’t heard about how his band got its start, its worth a read. Run over and wiki him to get the low-down. In short, it’s not like he’s just in it to make cash. He’s actually got a heart to direct people to worship their Savior and Lord. The execution… or more properly, the reception… is something else entirely. As David went through his litany of songs, there were many that were familiar to me, I’m sure all were familiar to the crowd. Sitting near the back, we saw most of the crowd at any one moment. David’s proclamation that we were going to “have church” didn’t quite ring true, and I knew why: the people weren’t there to worship God, they were there to be entertained.

When everyone is convinced that “worship” in wrapped up in emotion without thought, or emotion without action, then everyone can leave a “worship service” without thinking about the Christ who died for them. Without desiring to be His hands and feet to a lost world. And you know what? That’s exactly what I heard in the week after. “Wasn’t David Crowder great?” And for the life of me, I could not see anyone leaving that concert and the next day talking about how great their God was. Maybe it’s just me… but I doubt it.

As Rich Mullins said a few weeks before his death, we don’t go to concerts to worship. We go to be entertained. If we want to worship, we should go to church.

Book 1 Chapter 16 Sections 1-4

Moving on from man’s disposition and how it relates to God’s purposes, Calvin begins to discuss the sustaining of all things by God. As we might suspect, Calvin does not pull a Chris Rock and claim that God is “too busy” to pay attention to some things; God is radically and totally involved in every area of life. His sovereignty is total.

Man, even man devoid of God, perceives that the universe is sustained by something. In premodernism, this was most definitely considered divine, before the exaltation of man and reason that came along with modernism. So it’s clear that there is an eternally powerful and divine Creator; it is only by suppression that this truth may be bypassed or supposedly ignored. For many agnostics, the truth of Creation is never perceived.

But faith ought to penetrate more deeply, namely, having found him Creator of all, forthwith to conclude he is also everlasting Governor and Preserver – not only in that he drives the celestial frame as well as its several parts by a universal motion, but also in that he sustains, nourishes, and cares for, everything he has made, even to the least sparrow.

Calvin’s on the warpath again, clearly outlining the view of God that bears his name today.

No Such Thing as Chance

… it has been commonly accepted in all ages, and almost all mortals hold the same opinion today, that all things come about through chance. What we ought to believe concerning providence is by this depraved opinion most certainly not only beclouded, but almost buried… anyone who has been taught by Christ’s lips that all the hairs of his head are numbered will look farther afield for a cause, and will consider that all events are governed by God’s secret plan.

Calvin begins to describe the sun, which he readily admits causes life. And yet, even while looking at the sun which is the immediate source of heat on the earth, we must realize Who lies behind the creation of it. This is no God that hides in a box after creating the universe… instead He is personally involved in the creation and sustaining of the universe.

… a godly man will not make the sun either the principal or the necessary cause of these things which existed before the creation of the sun, but merely the instrument that God uses because he so wills; for with no more difficulty he might abandon it, and act through himself.

Which incidentally is the plan, it seems. Check out the last few pages of your Bible.

So chance has no real power in Calvin’s view. There is nothing random, but everything comes about by God’s governance. A hard teaching? Most certainly. But those who chose otherwise have no reason to “cast their cares upon Him” if He is not over all eventualities. If God is not sovereign is this way, He’s not God. So as we see all the so-called “chance occurences” taking place in disasters and accidents…

… it comes about that… fear is transferred from [God] toward whom alone they ought to direct it… Let him, therefore, who would beware of this infidelity ever remember that there is no erratic power, or action, or motion in creatures, but that they are governed by God’s secret plan in such a way that nothing happens except what is knowingly and willingly decreed by him.

In the next section of this chapter, Calvin continues to define God’s interactions with man in terms that can hardly befit Him, but at least give some indication as to His sovereignty.

Book 1 Chapter 15

Calvin moves on from the work of God in creation to anthropology, the study of man. For Calvin, talking about man is still talking about God. Man, he believes, is the pinnacle of God’s Creation, and if there is any battle to be won over the character of God, it must be won as we examine the nature and character of His utmost creation.

For many today, the ultimate proof that God cannot exist is all the death and suffering in the world. All of life is bound to the law of death… no one escapes from it. Many will look at this and claim that God’s goodness must be a farce due to all the pain in the world. Calvin (and many other Christians) would respond that the effect of sin on the world was not brought in by God, but by man. It was man’s sin that brought about God’s curse; God did not arbitrarily determine to place His curse upon the earth. The blame goes to man, not God.

Now we must guard against singling out only those natural evils of man, lest we seem to attribute them to the Author of nature. For in this excuse, impiety thinks it has sufficient defense, if it is able to claim that whatever defects it possesses have in some way proceeded from God. It does not hesitate, if it is reproved, to contend with God himself, and to impute to him the fault of which it is deservedly accused. And those who wish to seem to speak more reverently of the Godhead still willingly blame their depravity on nature, not realizing that they also, although more obscurely, insult God. For if any defect were proved to inhere in nature, this would bring reproach upon him.

Calvin moves on from this initial consideration to the nature of man. Calvin is clearly a dichotomist (man consists of two parts, body and soul/spirit), and goes about proving his point. In the first part of the chapter, Calvin seeks to identify the “image of God” that was present in man at Creation. He believes that “the proper seat of the image is in the soul” and, quoting Ovid, says:

…while all other living things being bent over look earthward, man has been given a face uplifted, bidden to gaze heavenward and to raise his countenance to the stars.

This is Calvin’s take on the imagio deo… an ability to relate to the divine.

… although the soul is not man, yet it is not absurd for man, in respect to his soul, to be called God’s image… the integrity with which Adam was endowed is expressed by this word, when he had full possession of right understanding, when he had his affections kept within the bounds of reason, all his senses tempered in right order, and he truly referred his excellence to exceptional gifts bestowed upon him by his Maker. And although the primary seat of the divine image was in the mind and heart, or in the soul and its powers, yet there was no part of man, not even the body itself, in which some sparks did not glow.

It is not uncommon to hear this side in the debate over the imagio deo. Others think that it’s moral accountability, others think that it’s reason. Calvin here asserts that it is the ability to relate to God, which includes all the other viewpoints on the imagio deo. But Calvin doesn’t stop here…

… we do not have a full definition of “image” if we do not see more plainly those faculties in which man excels, and in which he ought to be thought the reflection of God’s glory. That, indeed, can be nowhere better recognized than from the restoration of his corrupted nature… consequently, the beginning of our recovery of salvation is in that restoration which we obtain through Christ.

… “we… with unveiled face beholding the glory of Christ are being transformed into his very image.” Now we see how Christ is the most perfect image of God; if we are conformed to it, we are so restored that with true piety, righteousness, purity, and intelligence we bear God’s image.

The image of God is being restored in us daily as we’re conformed to Christ. Truly there is a restoration taking place in the Creation, and that is part of the Gospel. But it’s not a restoration of the earth in some enviromentalist-friendly way. The Gospel is, in some sense, the restoration of God’s image in mankind.

From the discussion of the image of God in man, Calvin moves onto the constitution of men’s souls. Calvin believes that man’s mind directs the other parts of his psyche. Here Calvin moves outside Scripture, something unusual for the Institutes. No Scripture is mentioned to back all of this up. But it’s thoroughly Scriptural… our minds lead our emotions and actions. So we’re to set our minds on things above according to Colossians 3:2, and on the basis of that we’re to change out the old clothing of evil works for the new clothing of spiritual fruit. Our minds lead our emotions and actions!

… the understanding is… the leader and governor of the soul; and that the will is always mindful of the bidding of the understanding, and in its own desires awaits the judgment of the understanding… shunning or seeking out in the appetite corresponds to affirming or denying in the mind.

Finally, Calvin discusses “free” will and Adam’s original sin.

Man in his first condition excelled in… pre-eminant endowments, so that his reason, understanding, prudence, and judgment not only sufficed for the direction of his earthly life, but by them men mounted up even to God and eternal bliss. Then choice added, to direct the appetites and control all the organic motions, and thus make the will completely amenable to the guidance of the reason.

But upon the snake introducing a new thought, man’s appetite and will was bent to do what was evil. Why had God created man thus? Here, it’s too much for Calvin’s mind, as it should be for any Christian.

… the reason [God] did not sustain man by the virtue of perseverance lies hidden in his plan; sobriety is for us the part of wisdom. Man, indeed, received the ability provided he exerciser the will; but he did not have the will to use his ability, for this exercising of the will would have been follower by perseverance. Yet he is not excusable, for he received so much that he voluntarily brought about his own destruction indeed, no necessity was imposed upon God of giving man other than a mediocre and even transitory will, that from man’s Fall he might gather occasion for his own glory.

If God did allow the Fall in order that the Cross might appear to be more glorious… does that cause us to balk? Do we proclaim the evil of a God who would exalt His own glory in our sin and salvation? Or do we shut our mouths when we realize that the cross is more supreme in God’s own mind than creation? In the cross we find the maximum display of God’s glory… in the cross we don’t just find the means of our salvation. We find the end of our salvation. God Himself.

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

1 Peter 1:20-21

Been about a month since I’ve posted; in that time, we’ve started a student outreach on Friday nights at church, we went to the island of St. Vincent and taught systematic theology, and we’ve looked to God for answers in going to seminary. I’ll be taking classes at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville part time this upcoming semester, with the intent of moving down this summer and taking classes full time.

In short, a lot has happened, and this blog has been greatly neglected. I’m planning (key word) on continuing through Calvin’s Institutes, even if it means I take five years to get it done. Reading through Calvin and A Theology for the Church again… after you’ve taught systematic theology, the big textbooks come alive again as you read them. I remember the first time I picked up Grudem’s Systematic Theology, and how impressed I was with the practicality of it all. Now I’m finding that to be even more true. It’s quite the blessing.

Looking forward to getting back to writing…

HT: Sacred Sandwich

You must be kidding me. Albert Mohler with some commentary on the Roman Polanski debate. Also, lest we think that the moral compass belongs to “good people”, there’s another article about home-grown morality and the Gospel’s distinctness. A snippet of that one:

Writing about his own childhood in rural Georgia, the novelist Ferrol Sams described the deeply-ingrained tradition of being “raised right.” As he explained, the child who is “raised right” pleases his parents and other adults by adhering to moral conventions and social etiquette. A young person who is “raised right” emerges as an adult who obeys the laws, respects his neighbors, gives at least lip service to religious expectations, and stays away from scandal. The point is clear — this is what parents expect, the culture affirms, and many churches celebrate. But our communities are filled with people who have been “raised right” but are headed for hell.

Morality is not a question of social liberalism versus social conservatism. It’s a question of the Gospel!

Book 1 Chapter 14 Sections 20-22

… let us not be ashamed to take pious delight in the works of God open and manifest in this most beautiful theater. For… although it is not the chief evidence for faith, yet it is the first evidence in the order of nature, to be mindful that wherever we cast our eyes, all things they meet are works of God, and at the same time to ponder with pious meditation to what end God created them.

What did the first moment of existence look like? Was it an amalgamation of particles and matter that resulted a huge bang? Was their an intelligence behind that? Was it random? Will we never know? Or does something lie behind the beginning that too wonderful for us to imagine, as Richard Dawkins has theorized? Or is the most wonderful thing imaginable… God’s words splitting through the dark, creating light?

For Calvin, the thought of God as Creator is the most thankworthy thing in the universe. That God would choose to create men at all is the first in a long list of natural graces given to us. The only thing that supersedes this in time is God’s choice to save us in Christ before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). So why, when Calvin has already gone through the nature of general revelation and creation, is he rehashing it? Here he’s not talking about the content of the revelation, but the spiritual benefits of meditating on and believing the doctrine of creation.

Calvin sees two chief steps in doing this: approaching the doctrine orthodoxically and orthopathically. In other words, thinking the right thoughts about these things, and then applying them to our own hearts.

The first part of the rule is exemplified when we reflect upon the greatness of the Artifacer who stationed, arranged, and fitted together the starry host of heaven in such wonderful order that nothing more beautiful in appearance can be imagined; who so set and fixed some in their stations that they cannot move; who granted to others a freer course, but so as not to wander outside their appointed course…

All of this is used to frame how much love is displayed in our salvation, which is the second step in this process. That God would start this grand master symphony with salvation already in mind and all the benefits thereof for us already in place… well, a picture doesn’t begin without a canvass. In this way God is good. God is good to make known His power and strength through creation, and his power and strength in our salvation.

… he willed to commend his providence and fatherly solicitude toward us in that, before he fashioned man, he prepared everything he foresaw would be useful and salutary for him. How great ingratitude would it be now to doubt whether this most gracious Father has us in his care, who we see was concerned for us even before we were born! How impious would it be to tremble for fear that his kindness might at any time fail us in our need, when we see that it was shown, with the greatest abundance of every good thing, when we were yet unborn!

Creation is intricately wrapped up in the story of redemption. God didn’t conceive creation apart from the fall and redemption. This realization, that creation would take place even though God foresaw the fall should bring us to worship Him all the more. Praise God!