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Reformed Politics (What is Reformed Anyway #6) (King’s Cross)
Grace Sensing on March 10, 2024
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Reformational Family (What is “Reformed” Anyway? #5) (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION

We live in a world that says you can be anything you want, anything at all – the more bizarre and perverse the better, just don’t be an ordinary, faithful man who marries an ordinary faithful woman, and have a pile of happy, ordinary kids and love and serve the Lord together. Anything but that. And the mischievous Tom Sawyer inside you should grin and say, “Well, now I’m going to normal even harder.”

A significant part of the Protestant Reformation was a recovering of the Bible’s teaching concerning the goodness and power of marriage, children, and family. Celibacy had come to be seen as the “higher calling,” and the duties and responsibilities of family as therefore lower and menial. The devil has always sought to lure people away from the glory of marriage and family precisely because when God’s blessing is upon it, it is such potent goodness. 

The Text: “And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him…” (Gen. 2:18-25)

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

In a striking contrast to all the “good” that God has made/seen before, God says it is “not good” for man to be alone (Gen. 2:18). This is not merely a statement about bachelors, it is also a statement about the goodness of family and community. The process of naming the animals was educational: Adam was naming their attributes and learning about how God made the world, concluding in part that other creatures had mates, which he lacked (Gen. 2:19-20). So God put Adam in a coma, removed a rib, and constructed the woman from the rib and brought her to Adam (Gen. 2:21-22). Using a Hebrew superlative, Adam spoke the first recorded poem, calling her the best version of his flesh and bones (Gen. 2:23). He also names the woman “eeshah” which is related to the word for “fire,” suggesting glory, and he simultaneously renames himself “eesh,” a glorified-man. For this reason, a man leaves his father and mother and becomes one flesh with his wife, and this union has no shame (Gen. 2:24-25). 

NUCLEAR MARRIAGE

It is perilously easy to take some ordinary things for granted. But one of the ways God tries to get our attention is through death penalties. Modern Christians are sometimes tempted to be embarrassed of the death penalties in Scripture for rebellious sons, adultery, or homosexuality, but even Jesus cited the death penalty for a certain high-handed dishonor of parents (Mk. 7). If you met the CEO of a nuclear power plant, and he told you they just “wing it,” you would be understandably concerned. If your neighbors announced one day that they bought some uranium and plutonium off the internet and they were going to be doing some experiments in their basement, you would be very concerned. And it should not give you any pause, when they ask why you care so much about what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home. 

We are living in the nuclear fallout of the sexual revolution. Skyrocketing crime, mass incarceration, substance abuse, suicide, sexual abuse, and 65 million dead babies and counting is our Chernobyl. It is not whether there will be death penalties. The only question is who will be executed. We have not actually repudiated capital punishment; we have simply reassigned it to the most innocent. While the death penalty is only mandatory for murder, other crimes do approach that harm to the image of God and therefore allow for death as a possible maximum sentence. And many of those crimes center on the destruction of marriage and family because that is where people are being made: immortal souls, images of God, that will live forever. 

REFORMED MARRIAGE

A reformed view of marriage understands the gift of marriage to be a great “good,” not an accommodation to human sin or weakness (Gen. 1-2). Sin certainly adds many difficulties, but marriage, sexual intimacy, and the fruitfulness of children were gifts given before the Fall. A reformed view of marriage also affirms the creational good of the original structure of marriage: the woman was made from the man and for the man, and she is therefore, the glory of man (1 Cor. 11:1-12). Closely related is the sacrificial leadership of the husband and the respectful submission of the wife to her own husband (cf. Eph. 5:22-25). All of this is bound by a covenant, enacted by public vows and sealed with sexual union, recognized by God and blessed by Him (Gen. 1:28, Mal. 2:14). This is why a man must love his wife as his own body. God really does make the two into one covenant body, and therefore what a husband/father does impacts everything. The covenant is a multiplier for good or evil. While each member certainly is responsible before God individually, the head is also responsible for the whole body. 

APPLICATIONS

One of the “doctrines of devils” is “forbidding to marry” (1 Tim. 4:3). And sometimes this happens through a kind of hardening that simply rejects the natural use of men/women (Rom. 1:26-27). Therefore, beware of celibacy movements. Nevertheless, encourage singles in chastity and faithfulness even as they bear this hardship. Related, generally aim for earlier marriage, but don’t overshoot. Just because early 20s is good, doesn’t mean that 17 is better. It is not buying into worldly feminism to want your sons and daughters actually prepared for marriage. 

To the married: do not deprive one another sexually (1 Cor. 7:3). There are relatively few warnings about Satan’s attacks, but regular intimacy is one way to guard against them (1 Cor. 7:5). The marriage bed is honorable and undefiled (Heb. 13:4). The Song of Songs is in the Bible.

Children are reinforcements (Ps. 127). Welcome and celebrate children. But a man with five kids and a wife who has had three miscarriages in a row is not necessarily becoming worldly to decide (humanly speaking) to be done having kids. But this is a private decision. So mind your own business, and husbands love your wives as you consider your resources (Lk. 14:31).

Every covenant brings with it blessings and curses. The central thing that God blesses is faith, but this faith is alive and it obeys. And therefore the instructions to family members are not arbitrary. Husbands love and lead like Christ. Wives respect and obey in the Lord. Parents teach and discipline. Children obey. The stakes are very high, but the blessings are very rich. 

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Reformed Worship (What is “Reformed” Anyway? #4) (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION

The 16th Century Reformation was a reformation of worship. Worship is at the center of human life, and therefore, we believe it is the most important thing we do as Christians. How we think about worship and offer our worship flows into all of life. 

In the beginning, God placed Adam in the Garden Sanctuary where Adam had direct communion with God, and from that Garden a river flowed out to the four corners of the world. In Ezekiel’s vision, a river flows out from under the altar growing deeper until it reaches the sea, bringing healing to the nations. What we do in worship impacts us and the whole world. 

The Text: “For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words…” (Heb. 12:18-29). 

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Having warned about bitterness, fornication, and rejecting God’s blessing (Heb. 12:15-17), Hebrews says that Christians have not come to the earthly Mount Sinai that thundered and burned with fire (Heb. 12:18-21), but rather, we have come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, where all the saints and angels are, to Jesus the mediator of the New Covenant (Heb. 12:22-24). This New Covenant worship is more sobering since Christ speaks directly from heaven and shakes heaven and earth until only God’s Kingdom which cannot be shaken remains (Heb. 12:25-27, cf. Rev. 21:2). Therefore, we must have His grace to worship acceptably with reverence and fear, since He is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:28-29).  

ACCORDING TO GOD’S WORD

The uniform testimony of Scripture is that God is a jealous God, and He is particularly jealous for His worship. Where He meets with His people is holy ground (Ex. 3:5), and the fierce holiness of Sinai was only a faint glimmer of His heavenly glory (Ex. 19, Heb. 12:18-21). When Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded, fire devoured them (Lev. 10:1-2). When David was bringing the Ark of God back to Jerusalem and the ox cart stumbled and Uzzah put out his hand to support it, God struck him dead (2 Sam. 6:6-7). These were various innovations that God had not commanded, but God’s fierce anger also burned against Israel when they went through the motions of what God had commanded, while harboring sin in their lives (Is. 2:10-20). When Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit, they died (Acts 5), and when the Corinthians were getting drunk and breaking into factions at the Lord’s Supper, some of them became sick and died (1 Cor. 11). And when Israel turned to blatant idolatries, sacrificing their own children to Baals, God says these evils were not commanded, not even contemplated (Jer. 19:5). 

At the same time, David rightly introduced singing and musical instruments into the worship of God (1 Chron. 6, 25-26), and Israel established the feasts of Purim and Hannukah, with God’s apparent blessing (cf. Esther 9, John 10:22). Putting these things together, the Reformers taught that worship must be according to God’s Word. Our central duty is to come before Him to do those things which He has explicitly commanded or which may be clearly inferred from His Word, and yet in that place of deep humility, we are to offer ourselves fully to Him and in that offering will be unique treasures that are pleasing to Him (Rev. 21:24-26).

COVENANT RENEWAL WORSHIP

The Reformers drew from covenant theology as they reformed worship. The fact that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are covenant ceremonies commanded by Christ helped explain Christian worship as “covenantal.” We are called to worship in Jesus’ name, as those who bear God’s covenantal name in our baptism, and Jesus said that we must celebrate the Lord’s Supper as a “memorial” of His death, the new covenant in His blood (1 Cor. 11). The language of memorial is covenantal: the rainbow was a memorial of God’s covenant promise to never flood the earth again (Gen. 9). The Feast of Passover was a memorial of God’s salvation from Egypt (Ex. 12). And the sacrifices and other feasts were constant memorials reminding God and His people of the covenant (e.g. Lev. 2, Num. 10). 

It has been pointed out that the covenant renewal at Sinai was a lot like a wedding, with Moses playing the part of the minister giving the vows, with the whole thing sealed with a feast (Ex. 19-24). In fact, the broad structure of that covenant ceremony are reflected in our worship: A Call to worship (Ex. 19:1-9), Confession/cleansing (Ex. 19:10-25), Word declared and explained (Ex. 20-23), followed by a feast, and a blessing (Ex. 24). Others have pointed out that when the three major sacrifices are offered together, they are always offered in the order of Sin Offering, Ascension Offering, and Peace Offering which also corresponds to our order of worship (Confession, Consecration, Communion). “Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice” (Ps. 50:5), and we offer our bodies and praises as living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1, Heb. 13:15). And we renew our covenant on the weekly anniversary of our Lord’s resurrection (Ex. 20:8, Rev. 1:10). 

APPLICATIONS

Family Worship: In the Old Covenant, God had commanded a morning and evening sacrifice, and this is what the New Testament is alluding to with “pray without ceasing” (Num. 28, 1 Thess. 5:17). While there is a greater freedom in the New Covenant, we should generally be aiming for daily Bible reading, prayer, and singing in our homes. And this is a great way to practice for Sunday morning worship. 

BIBLICAL FAITH & GLORY

The Church is the bride of Christ, and we are therefore required to be subject to Christ in everything, particularly in our renewal of His covenant (Eph. 5:24). While some Reformed folks draw a very narrow circle around what is acceptable, they are more faithful than those who simply want to make it up as they go along, whether with rock concerts or circus shows or medieval pageantry. We want to grow up into true Christian glory (2 Cor. 3:18), as we worship in Spirit and in Truth (Jn. 4:24), and at the center of that is a humble, evangelical faith. 

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Covenant Peanut Butter & Jelly (What is “Reformed” Anyway? Part 3) (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION

One of the great recoveries of the Reformation was the notion of covenant. The doctrine of the covenant steers a biblical “middle way” between sacerdotal mysticism on the one hand and subjective mysticism on the other. God’s covenant is His objective personal relationship with human beings in history, with attendant blessings and curses. And because God deals with us in this way, we also deal with one another broadly through covenants in our families and nations. 

The Text: “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Dt. 29:29).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The Bible teaches that there are inscrutable thoughts and ways of God far past our finding out, but His covenant Word to us is not one of those things. That Word is the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and it has come down to us by particular promises to particular people in history, sealed with sovereign signs, culminating in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh for us and for our salvation. This sure Word of the Covenant is for us and for our children forever that we might walk with God under His blessing. 

COVENANT OVERVIEW

In the beginning, God made a covenant with Adam commonly called the Covenant of Creation (also Covenant of Works/Life) in which Adam, as the federal head of the human race (Rom. 5:12-19), was promised life for obedience and death for disobedience (Gen. 2:15-17). When Adam disobeyed and broke that first covenant (cf. Hos. 6:7), God in His mercy made a second covenant, called the Covenant of Grace, in which He promised that the seed of the woman would one day crush the head of the seed of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). God demonstrated that grace in the substitutionary blood and skins of beasts by which God clothed and covered the nakedness and shame of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:21). This Covenant of Grace was renewed with Noah after the flood and signified by the rainbow (Gen. 9:9-13), with Abraham and signified by circumcision (Gen. 12, 15, 17), with Moses and signified by the law and the sacrifices (Ex. 19-24, Lev. 1-7), and later with David and signified by the kingdom and the temple (2 Sam. 7). 

These older administrations can all be referred to as the “Old Covenant/Testament,” types and shadows pointing to the coming of Christ, and now fulfilled in Christ. We call this new administration of the Covenant of Grace the “New Covenant/Testament” in His death and resurrection, and His heavenly rule and ministry for us and for the whole world, and it is signified by baptism and the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 10-11, Heb. 8-10). So we usually speak of one overarching Covenant of Grace with two administrations (Old and New Covenant). 

COVENANT PRINCIPLES

Woven into this broad storyline is a pattern of God’s dealings with people as corporate bodies, specifically as families and nations. The Bible calls marriage a “covenant” and children are the natural, organic fruit of that covenant, such that Joshua can speak on behalf of his household (Prov. 2:17, Mal. 2:14, Ps. 127-128, Josh. 24:15). Every husband is the covenant “head” of his wife just as Christ is the head of His bride, the Church (Eph. 5:23). We see this covenant structure still in force when the promises of the covenant are applied to Gentile kids in Ephesus (Eph. 6:1-2). This is also why Job can pray and offer sacrifices on behalf of his grown children (Job 1:5). Peter preaches the gospel promises for “you and your children” (Acts 2:39), and Paul tells the Philippian jailer that if he believes, he will be saved and his household (Acts 16:31). 

On the political side, Abraham made a “covenant” with Abimelech (Gen. 21:27), Isaac did the same (Gen. 26:28), and Jacob made a covenant with Laban (Gen. 31:44). Later, Jonathan and David made a covenant (1 Sam. 20:16, 23:18), as did Ben-Hadad and King Ahab (1 Kgs. 20:34). While Israel was a uniquely “holy nation” prefiguring the church (1 Pet. 2:5-9), there was also a civil aspect of the covenant renewed by faithful kings, re-committing to be faithful as a nation to God, as did Ezra and Nehemiah (2 Chron. 23:16, 34:31, Ez. 10:3, Neh. 9:38). All of this implies that while there is one, overarching Covenant of Grace administered through the Church, God has also established the covenant entities of family and nation, which are bound together by particular oaths and constitutions, according to their assignments under Christ.

APPLICATIONS

You Are Not Your Own: One of the central temptations of the Devil has always been toward self-centered individualism. Follow your own heart, find yourself, look out for number 1 are all slogans of this false gospel. If you try to find your own life like that, you will most certainly lose it. But if you lose your life in Christ, you will surely find it. And you will find it in your various covenant assignments to your family, church, and nation. You are who God says you are (Ps. 100:3). This world is what God says it is: marriage, justice, truth, goodness, and beauty.

Objectivity of the Covenant: Everyone born from Adam is born objectively under the death-curse of his covenantal disobedience. Just as God objectively marked Abraham’s descendants with a sign of His intention to save, so He does the same thing with baptism in the New Covenant. What is outwardly signified must be inwardly embraced and affirmed, but no amount of denial can erase that mark of God. This is how we may speak of faithful covenant members and unfaithful covenant members. And all of this means that we can trust His word. Let God be true and every man a liar (Rom. 3:4). You can hold God to His personal Word.

Real Blessings & Curses: Sometimes, friendly critics might accuse us of finding “covenants” everywhere and pretty soon we will be talking about covenant peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (and why not?). But the real point is that there is no neutrality anywhere. Everything is either pleasing to God or not. This is God’s world. While it is true that for all those in Christ, the curse of death has been taken away (Gal. 3:13), there are still blessings and curses in the New Covenant (1 Cor. 10-11). But this is a matter of great comfort for all who believe: “let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Gal. 6:7-8).

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Chestertonian Calvinism (What is “Reformed” Anyway? #2) (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION

Pastor Wilson has used this phrase “Chestertonian Calvinism” for a number of years to describe the flavor of Calvinism we are aiming for. It’s a riff on something C.S. Lewis once said about the Puritans: “On many questions, and specially in their view of the marriage bed, the Puritans were the indulgent party; if we may without disrespect so use the name of a great Roman Catholic, a great writer, and a great man, they were much more Chestertonian than their adversaries.” 

In other words, far from the morose and harsh caricatures, the legacy of John Calvin is joy and gladness, astonishment and relief, and the early accusations were that, if anything, they were too celebratory when it came to the gifts of bed and board.  

So as we go over the basics of what has come to be called “Calvinism,” we want to do so in an obedient and humble way, which is to say: the right kind of humility before these high doctrines ought to result in a robustly earthy joy. 

The Text: “Moreover all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee… Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things” (Dt. 28:45-47).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

These verses come in the midst of a fierce litany of promised curses ranging from their cities to their fields to their bodies, weather, plagues, war, insanity, pestilence, and famine (Dt. 28:15-44), concluding with horrific descriptions of sieges, disease, homelessness, and slavery (Dt. 28:48-68). And here at the center of these terrible warnings is the explanation: a joyless disobedience. The curses will be God’s sign to the world of their sin (Dt. 28:46). And the central sin would be a failure to serve God with gladness of heart, with hearts overflowing (Dt. 28:47). 

WHAT IS CALVINISM?

John Calvin lived from 1509-1564, spending most of his life and ministry in Geneva, Switzerland after being converted through the influence of Martin Luther’s preaching and teaching spreading to France. Calvin’s most famous work is his Institutes of the Christian Religion which is a lengthy commentary on the Apostles’ Creed. Calvin’s system of doctrine included Bible teaching on worship, sacraments, church government, civil government, family life, as well as salvation and prayer. But in popular parlance, people sometimes refer to the “Five Points of Calvinism,” which were actually the result of the Synod of Dort in the Netherlands from 1618-1619. Calvin certainly taught what the Synod concluded, but his teaching was much broader.

The primary concern of the Synod was to settle a controversy began by the teaching of Jacob Arminius (1560-1609), theology professor at Leiden University. After Arminius’s death, 43 of his followers presented Articles of Remonstrance to the States General of the Netherlands in 1610, seeking government protection for their teachings that 1) election is based on foreseen faith, 2) the universality of Christ’s atonement, 3) the free will and partial depravity of man, 4) the resistibility of grace, and 5) the possibility of a lapse from grace. The Canons of Dort are the confession that resulted, answering each of those five points with the Bible’s teaching on the 1) Total depravity and inability of man to choose God, 2) the Unconditional election of God’s grace, 3) the Limited or definite atonement of Christ’s work, 4) the Irresistible or efficacious grace of God, and 5) the Perseverance or preservation of the saints (hence the shorthand “TULIP” acronym). And the central thing is that at every step of salvation, God gets all the glory.  

CHESTERTONIAN JOY

G.K. Chesterton himself either misunderstood Calvin or had the misfortune to only interact with the worst sorts of Calvinists, and therefore took routine potshots at the name in his writings. But there is a strong case to be made that he was actually far more Calvinist than he realized, and at the very least Calvin and his descendants were far more “Chestertonian” than he knew.

What do we mean? First, Chesterton’s conversion was coming to an almost giddy, childlike joy in God and how He ruled His world: “A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality… they always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough… It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening ‘Do it again’ to the moon… In short, I had always believed that the world involved magic: now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician… I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller.” 

Calvinism simply affirms the same point and that the Magician, the Great Story-Teller has reached down into their sorry, sinful lives and made them alive by His sheer grace. Perhaps the word that best describes what a true Calvinist ought to feel is astonishment – that begins with the sheer grace of eternal life and overflows: “In whom [Christ] also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will…” (Eph. 1:11). “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:28, 32)

APPLICATIONS

Bacon & Beer: Yes, God chose you from before the foundation of the world, and He chose you so that you would rejoice before Him for the abundance of all things: this includes forgiveness, adoption, and Scripture, but also bacon, beer, and the marriage bed in this life, and infinite joy in the world to come. “In Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11). True biblical Calvinism results in deep gratitude for all of God’s gifts. 

This is our Father’s world: All the nations belong to Christ. He made them. He purchased them with His blood. He governs all things for our good and His glory. We are more than safe; we are more than conquerors (Rom. 8:37). Far from turning this world into a grim, faceless, grinding machine, the sovereignty of God turns the world into the greatest adventure story, and we get to be bit parts. True biblical Calvinism delights in serving the King in every area of life.

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