Hotline from Heaven

I've been thinking about a comment J. N. Darby made in his (pedantic and over-written) "Familiar Conversations on Romanism." He was discussing the role of tradition in the Christian walk, and pointed out that if we really have the written Word of God, then everything else said, taught, or spoken in the time between its writing and now is really of secondary or tertiary importance.

This is a rather trivial observation in one sense, but it's profound in its implications.

If it's true, then there is a tremendous responsibility placed on each Christian to read, learn, know, obey, and live the contents of that Book. If it's true, then no person living in a place where Bibles are available has any excuse for not knowing what it says. And if it's true, then no individual Christian has the luxury of not judging what he or she is taught against the Scripture.


As I think back over the men and women I personally admire as Christians, it seems the revolutionary changes that have happened in the Church have been the result of someone sitting down with the Scriptures with the attitude that everything is negotiable in their light. That is to say, I am not taking anything off the table when I read Scripture: if what it says and what I believe aren't lining up, then I need to change what I believe.

I think of Martin Luther, who threw away most of his theological world when he finally concluded "the just shall live by faith" actually meant that God justifies the ungodly--- meant God is looking for faith plus nothing else rather than a life of gradual improvement.

I think of J. N. Darby, who walked away from his career as a clergyman when he realized that the Scripture spoke of assurance of salvation in simple terms, not complex propositions.


I've fairly recently (like in the last few years) realized some of the implications of the simple fact that justification in Scripture means "declaring to be righteous". It has changed a lot of things: it has clarified many issues, and created many more.

More than a decade ago, I realized that the evangelicals I had known used the words "salvation" and "saved" in a way very different from Scripture: they used it to mean "justified" or "born again"; Scripture uses it to mean "arrived". So Ephesians makes the famous claim "by grace ye are saved," a past tense. But Ephesians also declares that we're seated in Christ in the heavenlies. Romans, which contemplates us justified and waiting for the Lord to come, declares we shall be saved. That realization changed a lot of my opinions on things too.

I read John 6 afresh two or three years back, and realized eternal life is something we need to feed: that having a right to eternal life is not the same thing as enjoying the possession of it. How could that not affect me?


I'm no Luther, Darby, Cranmer, Calvin, or Nee. I'm OK with that. But I have to follow the same underlying principle: everything is negotiable in light of the Word of God.

And every once in a while, the Lord reminds me of that.