Douglas Wilson Archives - Page 166 of 177

Romans 7: Glory, Honor, Immortality (2:6-16)

Christ Church on January 11, 2009

Romans 6: The Spirit of Accusation (2:1-5)

Christ Church on January 4, 2009

Introduction

God’s wrath is taught very clearly in Scripture. Our great problem with it is that we confound it with the spirit of accusation that belongs to the devil, and we show that we do not understand how righteousness, the real thing, interacts with sin. We think we know, but we tend to know only how self-righteousness would deal with unrighteousness.

The Text

“Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Rom. 2:1-5).

Summary of the Text

Having indicted the Gentile world, St. Paul turns to the Jews. But it is interesting that as he does so, addressing those who would approve of his treatment of the Gentiles, he speaks to them as “O man” (vv. 1,3). His point in the second chapter is that you Jews have the same problem with sin, “you are men after all,” and you have compounded it with the hypocrisy of a double standard. The Gentile pagan looking at the stars was “without excuse” (1:20). In the same way, this one who would judge the Gentiles is also inexcusable (2:1).Why? Because he does the same things himself. But the judgment of God rests on those who do such things (v. 2), and it is not possible to avert that judgment simply because you disapprove of them on paper. Do you really think, O man, that it is okay with God that you judge those who do such things, while doing the same, that God will let it go? That He will somehow not judge (v. 3)? The absence of judgment thus far is not meant to communicate that all is well. It is meant to lead to repentance (v. 4). To think otherwise is to despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance and longsuffering (v. 4). To resist the plain intentions of God in all this is to treasure up wrath for youself against the day of wrath and revelation of God’s righteous judgments (v. 5).

Before Getting on a High Horse

Paul knows that the despicable behavior of the Gentiles was atrocious in the sight of God, and he said so. But it also knew that it was atrocious in the sight of the Jews, but for completely different reasons. God disapproved of them the way God would.The Jews disapproved of their immoralities the way the devil would, in a spirit of diabolical accusation. Chapter one followed by chapter two was a Pauline set up, and it is a statement of our blindness that we still walk into it. Is the Gentile world, gay pride parades and all, without excuse? Absolutely.They are without excuse in the same way that their evangelical disapprovers are—those who live in the same kind of moral squalor, but with the furniture rearranged.

The Golden Rule Really Is

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, right (Matt. 7:12)? But this is not just a positive statement that can be applied to every aspect of life (Eph. 5:28).We have the most

trouble with the flip side of this expression of God’s character. Just a few verses before the Golden Rule, Jesus unloaded this on us. “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: anda with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again” (Matt. 7:1-2). Clearly, Jesus is not prohibiting any form of moral discernment; consider what He requires in v. 15 concerning the false prophets. He is prohibiting the double standard, which keeps others away from addressing my sin by bringing up their sin first.The best defense is a good offense, right? Wrong.

The Cross Conquers Accusation

God really is righteous, and when true righteousness comes into contact with unrighteousness there must be either wrath or mercy. But wrath is not fussy indignation, self-importance, and self-righteousness, the way the devil does. The righteousness of God is not the devil’s bony finger, pointing in accusation (Rev. 12:10). God is righteous.The devil thinks he is righteous.

The whole point of the diabolical is not the Miltonic “evil be thou my good.”The Satanic and diabolical is to believe that you understand righteousness better than God does. Religious people do this all the time, believing that their standards are better, righter, tighter, and more holy than God’s. But this was refuted and destroyed by the cross, when the “righteous accuser” let his hatred get away from him, and perpetrated a gross injustice by executing the world’s only sinless victim.Why would anyone believe the accuser now?Why would we even trust the spirit of accusation?

Remember, You Become What You Worship

This principle is clearly taught by Paul in the first chapter, and he is resting on a long prophetic tradition. This is a fundamental spiritual law. “And he gave them their request; but sent leanness intotheirsoul”(Ps106:15). “Theiridolsaresilverandgold,theworkof men’shands. …They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them” (Ps 115:4-8). “Thus saith the LORD, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?” (Jer. 2:5). “And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them” (2 Kings 17:15). “I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the firstripe in the fig tree at her first time: but they went to Baalpeor, and separated themselves unto that shame; and their abominations were according as they loved” (Hos. 9:10).

This great principle is not altered if the idol is hidden away where no one knows about it, or pretends not to know about it. We think out “picture of Dorian Gray” is hidden away in the attic, but we can only keep up the pretence for a time.The idol may be hidden in the attic (Dt. 13:6), but our reflection of that idol’s characteristics are out there for all the world to see. You become what you worship, and what you are actually becoming is a public revelation of your true worship. What many call a mid-life crisis is simply idolatry catching up with you. If you are falling apart, don’t waste your time trying to catch and gather the pieces. Destroy the idol.

Now bring this back to Romans 2.The double standard that cheered when Paul lit into the Gentiles means what? It means that while the Gentiles were becoming like Baal, Zeus, and Moloch, the Jews were becoming like the devil. And there is a warning here for us.

The State of the Church 2008

Christ Church on December 28, 2008

Introduction
As we consider God’s ongoing kindnesses to us as a congregation, we need to be sure to grasp more than just the “facts.” We need also to have a biblical paradigm for processing those facts—otherwise we will radically misinterpret what is happening to us.

The Text
“But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets” (Acts 24:14).

Summary of the Text
In this place, the apostle Paul is giving a defense of his behavior before the Roman governor Felix. I want to draw our attention to one phrase that Paul uses in passing. He says that he is a follower of the Way, which they call a heresy. A better translation here would be sect.
In the early uses of the term in Scripture, the connotations of the word emphasized the distinctiveness of the group, and its separation from the mainliners. As the early history of the Church unfolded, the word came to include the damnable doctrines that “heretics” would use in order to bring about that kind of separation (2 Pet. 2:1). Certain men want to draw off disciples after themselves (Acts 20: 29-30), and what better way to do this than to emphasize “your distinctives”?

Sects and Churches
Assuming basic orthodoxy, and an absence of false teaching, we can still have a proplem with sectarianism. There is a fundamental difference between the concept of a sect and the concept of a church. The sect has tighter discipline, and is of necessity smaller. In fact, in many cases, the point is to stay small (and pure). The church has a tendency to take people as they come, and work with them there. The church therefore functions more as a people, while a sect functions more like a volunteer organization or a military unit.

Keeping Us Honest
A sect has a natural tendency to veer into various kinds of perfectionism, and the first thing you know, folks are being excommunicated for taking the pastor’s parking spot. A church has a natural tendency to give up on the demands of Christian discipleship that baptism confers, and the first thing you know, they are ordaining homosexuals. Sects struggle with rigorism; churches struggle with laxity. But as you have been reminded many times, God draws straight with crooked lines. God uses “heresies” or “sects” in order to establish who is actually approved by Him (1 Cor. 11:19). One of the ways He does this is by allowing the challenge of a rigorist group with fruitcake theology apparently living at a higher level of moral discipline than is present in an orthodox church. God is not above using a wingnut group as a goad.

Ideas and Children
Sects tend to cluster around rules and ideologies. A church, a people, are defined by generations, by children. In order to police his boundaries properly, sects usually have to limit their membership to those who voluntarily joined them as adults. In a church, people grow up in the church, and cannot remember a time when it was not “their” church. In a sect, everything depends on what you know. In a church, everything depends on who you know. When a sect is not around the bend, what you need to know is the gospel. When a church is not around the bend, who you know is Jesus . . . and the God of your parents. But obviously, temptations to gross sin are present no matter which way you go.

The Halfway Covenant
When the New England Puritans settled here in America, one of their great desires was to establish a pure church, and it has to be said that they began with a strong sectarian bias. They had a very clear set of criteria to determine who was converted (and who could therefore come to the Lord’s Supper). But they also baptized infants, which meant that children growing up in the church felt that they had some stake in it, even if they were not converted. They grew up, got married, and started having kids, without ever being admitted to the Table. But they believed the truth of the Christian faith, and they wanted to have their children baptized. Now, do you baptize the children of folks who are not communicant members because they haven’t been “converted,” but who have never been excommunicated? They are willing to make a statement before the congregation that they believe in the truth of the gospel, will bring their kids up in the faith, and so on. The Halfway Covenant said okay, and reveals as few other things could, the tension between sects and churches.

Without using either term pejoratively here, baptist theology tends to be sectarian, and paedobaptist theology creates all the pressures that a church undergoes. And paedocommunion takes all those pressures, calls, and raises them ten.

Christ Church
We have been practicing infant baptism for about sixteen years now. We have a congregation with many hundreds of members. Stated in bald terms, this means that children I baptized as infants are now old enough to drive drunk, use drugs, get pregnant, get somebody pregnant, refuse to do their schoolwork, run away from home, and so on. They get old enough to meltdown at some point. They are also old enough to be honoring their parents, learning a trade, progressing well in their studies, and so on. This is what the great majority are doing. But in the early years of our congregation, we didn’t have to deal with any of this—this was because we were much more like a sect than a church, and secondly, ninety percent of the children were under three feet tall. When children grow up in a church, as the next generation grows up in a people, it can create very interesting pastoral roblems. Churches have to deal with the problem of generational faithfulness.

As we are dealing with this stage in our congregational sanctification, keep certain principles in mind. The first is that while we do not want to be on a sectarian hair trigger for discipline, we do practice church discipline, and this discipline must include the next generation growing up in our midst. Secondly, be aware of the fact that God is not mocked, and that a man reaps what he sows. This is no less true within his household than it is out in his barley field. Many times it is not possible to address the spiritual needs of a troubled young covenant member without addressing the state of the family. Third, the sowing is often visible to others at the time of sowing, but some just won’t listen. And fourth, be grateful that the church, even with all these troubles, is a profound engine of social and cultural change. When we contend with our enemies in the gate, we want our sons to stand there with us, and not just random volunteers.

We have spent a good bit of time considering the applications of the prophet’s words to his original audience, to the Israelites in the northern kingdom of Israel. Lord willing, we will spend two weeks considering how those words may legitimately be applied to us as Americans. This is not a topical sermon so much as it as a topical application.

A Star Out of Jacob

Christ Church on December 21, 2008

Introduction
One of the most familiar elements of the Christmas story is the star of Bethlehem. But at the same time, it remains one of the most unknown features of the story—because unlike the wise men, we don’t really look straight at it.

The Text
“I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth” (Num. 24:17)

Summary of the Text
As you know, the prophet Balaam was a covetous and sinful man (Jude 11; 2 Pet. 2:15). But at the same time, even though he was not of the nation of Israel, he was a true prophet. The Spirit of the Lord really did come upon him (e.g. Num. 24:2). Balak, king of Moab, had Balaam summoned in order to put a curse on Israel. In spite of everything, the Spirit of the Lord refused to let Balaam prophesy disaster for Israel—it kept coming out as blessing (Micah 6:5). Balak was understandably peeved with Balaam (Num. 24:10), but Balaam calmed him down by giving him some very practical and carnal advice . . . for a fee (Rev. 2:14). The women of Moab enticed the Israelite men into idolatry and fornication, and God dealt with them severely (Num. 25:1-3). Balaam was eventually killed by the Israelites when they invaded the land (Josh. 13:22). Judging from the number of times it is referred to explicitly, both in the Old Testament and the New, this is a very important story. And in the Christmas story, we most likely have an implicit reference to it.

At the end of his exchanges with Balak, Balaam gave the words of our text above, and as a prophecy of blessing for Israel, we should be careful to ask what it means. The first fulfillment of these words came with the reign of King David four hundred years later. He was the one who struck Moab (v. 17), not to mention Edom (v. 18). David was the king who was a type of the great king, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus—so Jesus is the antitype, the final and complete fulfillment of this word. A star shall come out of Jacob and a scepter out of Israel, and He will establish his reign. The scepter would stay with Judah until Shiloh came, and He would be the one who would gather all the people to Himself (Gen. 49:10).

The Wise Men
Balaam was a prophet, but he was not a prophet of Israel. He was from the east, and was of the heathen nations there. The wise men who came to search for Jesus because of the star were also from the east. It is likely that Balaam’s words had been preserved outside of the Hebrew Scriptures—and note how the wise men speak of this (Matt. 2:2). They appear to have much more information than could be gleaned from looking at a star in the sky, even if they were serious astrologers. Balaam had prophesied of a king, one with a scepter. The wise men asked about a king. Balaam had specified that this king would be from Jacob, and the wise men asked about a king of the Jews. Herod, the man they asked about it, was an Edomite, one of the peoples that this prophecy described as being conquered by the coming king. And, most noticeably, Balaam spoke of a star, and the wise men came in response to a star. Incidentally, we don’t know for certain that there were three wise men—that is simply an inference from the three types of gifts they brought (Matt. 2:11).

Led By the Star
One of the reasons we don’t look too closely at what the text says about our star is that it might mess with our modernist cosmology too much. The text says that the star, the same one which they had seen in the east, led them from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, a distance of about eight miles, and that the star then stood still over the house where Mary and Jesus were (Matt. 2:9, 11). Picture a star leading you to Pullman, and then pointing out a particular house.

Either the wise men were being “led by” the star in some astrological sense, meaning that they were doing some serious math on the back of their camels (also unmentioned in the text, by the way), or a star actually came down into our atmosphere and did some very un-starlike things. But why should this be a surprise? A whole host of stars did the same thing for the shepherds (Luke 2:13).

Not What We Were Expecting
Now if we don’t accept the astrological math option, then that means the star came down into our sky, and stood over a particular house—fifty feet up, say. Does faithfulness to Scripture require us to accept absurdities? That a flaming ball of gas, many times larger than our entire earth, came down into Palestine in order to provide first century mapquest services? And that it did so without incinerating the globe? We need to take a lesson here from our medieval fathers in the faith, brought to us via Narnia. “In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.” “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.” If we can leave our bodies behind when we go to heaven, why cannot a star leave its body behind to come to earth? But any way you take it, the Christian faith flat contradicts the truncated cosmology of moderns. Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.

Remember What the Star Meant
Balaam is talking about what will happen to all the tinpot monarchies when the real kingdom arrives, when the true scepter is established. In the book of Revelation, Jesus identifies Himself with His ancestor and subject, King David. He is the root and offspring of David, and He is the bright and morning star (Rev. 22:16). Balaam was talking about what was going to happen in “the latter days” (v. 14), and he is very clear about the rise and fall of nations before the Messiah would come. First, the Amalekites would perish forever (v. 20). After them, the Kenites would go down (v. 22). They would be followed by invaders from Kittim (the Greeks, under Alexander), which is what verse 24 is talking about. But then the Greeks would fade away (v. 24), which is what happened with Rome in the ascendancy. And thus it was that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed (Luke 2:1).

So Caesar gave the command in order to tax the whole world (v. Luke 2:1). The star gave the command that magi from the east would voluntarily come, bearing gifts (Matt. 2:11). Augustus won his throne through a great deal of killing at the battle of Actium. The Lord Jesus won His throne at the battle of Golgotha, where He conquered and crushed the devil by dying. The star in the east, the one the wise men followed, was a star that declared a coming kingdom, a kingdom that will never end. This is the kingdom of the true king, before whom the most magnificent kings in the history of the world were but flickering types and shadows.

The star of Bethlehem is therefore the regal emblem of a scepter, a scepter of neverending glory.

Romans 5: Vile Affections (1:26-32)

Christ Church on December 14, 2008

Introductions

Recall that we have learned that the wrath of God is revealed in the world, and it is revealed as God “lets go”of a culture, allowing them to run headlong into various suicidal and fruitless practices. In this text, we find a deepening expansion of the point Paul has already made.

The Text

“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (Rom. 1:26-32).

Summary of the Text

The wrath of God, considered in this light, is certainly not limited to homosexual practices. But Paul certainly places that particular perversion at the center of his argument. Notice that men do not embrace vile affections, despite everything that God could do. No, it says that God “gave them up unto” these vile affections (v. 26). The reason we have gay pride parades is that God is doing something to us. As a result, Paul argues, even the women gave up the natural use of man (v. 26). And the men did the same, turning in unseemly desire toward one another (v. 27). Just as they did not want to retain God in their knowledge, so God let them not retain Him in their knowledge (v. 28). As a result, they then filled up with all kinds of spiritual sludge (vv. 29-31). Sins are like grapes; they come in bunches. This happened despite the fact that they knew it to be the judgment of God (v. 32). This means their suppression of the knowledge of God did not really work. They did not want to retain the knowledge of God, but they still knew the judgment of God (v. 32). That judgment is that sin warrants death, as they well know, but they insist on becoming cheerleaders for that way of death (v. 32).

Natural Use

God created mankind, male and female, in His image (Gen. 1:27). This means that attempts to rearrange how everything goes are foundational attempts at trying to make a heretical theology stick. By defacing the image, we assault the reality. By rearranging the components, rebellious mankind is trying to recreate God, trying to make Him into something other than what He is. Homosexual actions are therefore a high profile revolt against the Trinity. All sins do the same, but this shows up the problem is stark relief.

Remember that God does not just reveal Himself in Scripture. He reveals Himself in nature, and the natural use of the female for the male, and the natural use of the male for the female, is an important part of that revelation. Homosexual practice is contrary to the design of God, not just because God says so in Scripture(Lev. 20:13), which He of course does, but also because we discover in the natural world that the parts don’t fit. This is not just physiological, although it is that. If you keep all the nuts in one bag and all the bolts in another, you won’t ever build anything. But “the parts” don’t fit anywhere else either. They don’t fit spiritually, mentally, emotionally, or culturally. Homosexual advocates like to represent this point as a cheap laugh line from “traditionalists,” but Paul shows it to be a cogent point, an unanswerable argument.

Vile Affections

When Paul says that God gave them up to “vile affections,” he does not just mean that they are vile from “our perspective, though others might differ.” Remember that this is at the very center of God’s judgment. When men desired to think as though God were not there, God granted their wish in judgment, and gave them over to a reprobate mind (v. 28). This is how we know that wrath is occurring—God gives them up, God gives them over (vv. 26, 28). Remember that Paul is echoing the judgment themes found in Ps. 106, and here is another one. God granted their request, but He sent leanness to their souls (Ps. 106:15). God judges in wrath by saying yes.

A Grim List Indeed

The sins that follow are not just sins that the culture in question dabbles in. They don’t just happen from time to time. When God’s wrath is being poured out, what happens? The pouring corresponds to a filling. “Being filled with all unrighteousness . . .” (v. 29). This particular cultural jug is filled with all unrigheousness (v. 19), sexual uncleanness (v. 29), wickedness of various kinds (v. 29), covetousness and wanting (v. 29), malice and spite (v. 29), green envy (v. 29), murder of course (v. 29), disputes and tangles (v. 29), lies and more lies (v. 29), a surly malignity (v. 29), whispering campaigns (v. 29), backstabbing (v. 30), God-hating (v. 30). contempt for others (v. 30), overweening arrogance (v. 30), boasting and bragging (v. 30), evil inventors (v. 30), disobedient to parents (v. 30), stupidity and stupor (v. 31), oath-breaking (v. 31), without natural affection (v. 31), hard-hearted (v. 31), and unmerciful (v. 31). And please note the ironic twist, in the modern parlance, to oppose the root that produces all this kind of corrupt fruit is called “hate.” Yeah, right, whatever.

Cheerleaders of Death

Those who know God, suppress the knowledge of God in unrighteousness, but nevertheless retain their awareness of the judgment of God (in which they live), persist in their rebellion. They know that sin is worthy of death, but nevertheless do them, and take pleasure when others follow the way of death along with them. Truly the words that Wisdom speaks in Proverbs are manifestly true in this instance. All who hate wisdom love death (Prov. 8:36).

And this is how we know that America is under judgment. Note again, we do not know in the abstract that America, like all nations, is headed for judgment if . . . We are dealing with a very concrete situation, not an abstract one. Suppose there was a nation awash in consumer goods, a nation that gained the world, but which lost its own soul (Matt. 16:26). Suppose that nation cut off its future by slaughtering over 40 million of her own citizens. Suppose further that this was urged as a noble and constitutional thing to do. Suppose that this nation began to sanctify sodomite marriages, and laughed at every form of righteousness. Suppose that there were millions of Christians in this country who longed for America to deliver herself by returning to her noble, true self, instead of longing for Christ to save her from her corrupted, wicked self.