Zonked

I ran across a gathering of Christians I was interested in checking out: they're an hour away from us, so we had to get going a little early this morning. But that's OK, we got the kids and everyone ready, made a big pot of coffee, and got out the door only 9 minutes after I had wanted to leave.  We drove an hour through the rainy NorthWestern spring to get to the place they gather just about 15 minutes before the time I had found online. In we went... to find them in full swing. A woman came out from the kitchen area and told us they had started an hour early today then would have a bit of a breakfast or lunch together (she'd been working on that). So instead of 15 minutes early, we were 45 minutes late.

It seemed a little rude to walk in about the time they were wrapping up and presumably join in on food, so we decided to leave. We had a nice second breakfast with hot chocolate at a McDonald's before coming home, and laughed about it pretty hard.

I hold no illusions that a 1-hour drive every week will be a workable solution. But finding a decent gathering that could be a once-a-month thing would be great. More importantly, it's possible someone there would know somebody closer to us, perhaps meeting in a home or something.  That would be great.

Confession

For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves; but these, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves with themselves, are not intelligent. ( 2 Cor. 10:12, Darby)

For do I now seek to satisfy men or God? or do I seek to please men? If I were yet pleasing men, I were not Christ's bondman. (Galatians 1:10, Darby)

I've been pretty quiet on this blog recently, partly because I haven't had a lot to say. I've long thought things would be so much better in general if people with nothing to say made it a point to say exactly that. But I've been thinking, praying and agonizing in private; and those are things that really don't work well in this medium. And frankly, some of my agonizing and prayer really isn't any of your business, so I've kept it to myself where it belongs.

But I've come to some tentative conclusions, and I feel some of them are worth speaking about. The most important is this: I have used the failures, sins, and hypocrisies of other Christians (most particularly "brethren") as an excuse to do things I have spoken out against. I've spent some time in some churches practising some of the things I spoke out against in my blog and elsewhere, and I excused myself by saying things like "brethren do the same thing."

I was wrong to do that. I have forgotten that I am to be Christ's servant, and that means I answer to Him. If I believe Scripture speaks against clericalism, then the fact that "brethren" have de facto clergy really is irrelevant. Others' failure to live up to their convictions doesn't give me license to compromise on mine. I have to answer to Christ, not to the Christians around me.

When we left the "brethren" a year and a half ago, I fell into the trap of allowing the things I had seen there goad me into turning my back on what I believed (and believe) to be what Scripture teaches about the Church. I took my family to visit any number of churches that practised the very things I had said were unscriptural. Some of that was legitimate, but some wasn't. Most of the time I wasn't being malicious. That's not the point. The point is, whenever I encountered a conflict between what I saw in Scripture and what I saw in practice; I rationalized it by pointing out that "brethren" are no better. And that's the problem: even if everything I told myself is true, the "brethren" aren't my rule of life, Scripture is (or ought to be).

I'm not saying everything I've done is wrong. I'm not saying the churches I visited are in sin, nor am I even saying Christ was not in their midst. I'm certainly not telling anyone else what they ought to be doing; particularly not the people who've commented and emailed me with similar experiences and exercises.

I'm saying I put my attention where it ought not to have been. I let my quest for the biblical church take some wrong turns because I ignored the "biblical" part and kept comparing myself to my brothers and sisters in Christ. I ought to have been looking at Him, not at them.

Play it again, John (pt. 3)

Among JND's greatest writings are the series of lectures he gave in Geneva in 1840, "The Hopes of the Church of God" (Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, Vol. 2 pp. 278--382). These are written in a clearer and simpler style than he generally uses, which is largely because they are transcriptions of lectures, rather than actual articles. It seems JND was a much better speaker than writer.

"The Hopes of the Church of God" contain eleven addresses, all of which are worth reading. But I draw attention to two that I think are extremely important to understand, if we want to grasp Darby's personal theology: "First Resurrection; or, Resurrection of the Just" and Progress of Evil on the Earth. (Yep, those are both on the STEM Publishing website.)

#5 "First Resurrection; or, Resurrection of the Just"
This is a study into the two resurrections. It demonstrates that the Scripture teaches there are two resurrections: one of the just to life, one of the unjust to judgment. Further, it demonstrates that the testimony of Scripture is consistently that these two resurrections are temporally distinct: they happen quite separately.

The resurrection of the church is a thing of itself, because the church participates in the resurrection of Christ we are raised, not only because Jesus Christ will call us from the grave, but because we are one with Him. It is by reason of this unity, that, in partaking of faith, we are already raised with Christ, raised as to the soul, but not as to the body. The justification of the church is, that it is risen with Christ. (p. 304)

Observe, in the passages concerning the resurrection, not one speaks of a simultaneous rising of just and unjust; and those which refer to the resurrection of the just speak of it always as of a thing distinct. All will rise. There will be a resurrection of the just, and a resurrection of the unjust, but they will not take place together. I will cite the passages successively, which refer to it. It is at the coming of Christ that the church will rise; Phil. 3: 20, 21; 1 Cor. 15: 23. (p. 305)

If you google "Plymouth Brethren" or "John Nelson Darby," you find a multitude of online resources attacking the idea of "secret rapture". It seems every second-year student at any given Reformed seminary has written a paper repeating the slander that JND took his idea of the return of Christ from some ecstatic utterances of a young Irvingite girl. Nonsense. Darby's view of the "secret rapture" was based in the Scriptural teaching that there are two resurrections.

Interestingly, what Darby held to be the hope of the Christian, the resurrection of the just, "brethren" themselves moved away from very quickly, talking about "rapture" where Scripture talks about "gathering together unto Him" (2 Thess. 2:1, KJV). I have found in my own experience, non-biblical terminology can be very, very dangerous.

But the repeated attacks on JND and the teaching of two distinct resurrections are alone enough to make me think he was really onto something. As he himself might point out, it is always resurrection that proved the point of disbelief in the Acts. Paul on Mars Hill was interesting to tha pagans, until he mentioned resurrection. Then some scoffed, but some wanted to hear more. Resurrection is the watershed of the Gospel: the point that divides faith from unbelief.

If the first resurrection - that of the just - is not to be taken literally, why should the second - that of the unjust - be so taken? As the object of our hope, and source of our consolation and of our joy, it is but a small thing to know that the unjust shall be raised; but the precious thing - the essential - is to know that the resurrection of the just will be the consummation of their happiness; that in it God will accomplish His love towards us; that, after having given life to our souls, He will give life to our bodies, and will make of the dust of the earth a form suitable to the life which has been given to us on the part of God. We never read in the word of God of glorified spirits, but always of glorified bodies. There is the glory of God, and the glory of those who will be raised. (p. 309)

I would say this is probably the most important prophetic paper by JND.

#4 Progress of Evil on the Earth
This paper presents Darby's understanding of the Church in Ruin. You must grasp this idea to make any sense of his ecclesiology. This is the idea he first presented in his 1828 paper "Considerations on the Nature and Unity of the Church of Christ" (Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, Vol. 1). It is this one idea that really drove "exclusive brethren" in their ecclesiology: that the Church had become apostate, and that the apostasy would not be cured until God Himself judges it at the end of the age.

What we are about to consider will tend to shew that, instead of permitting ourselves to hope for a continued progress of good, we must expect a progress of evil; and that the hope of the earth being filled with the knowledge of the Lord before the exercise of His judgment, and the consummation of this judgment on the earth, is delusive. We are to expect evil, until it becomes so flagrant that it will be necessary for the Lord to judge it. (p. 310)

This one paper contains a wealth of teaching that mainstream Dispensationalists have really neglected. I would say this one paper presents most clearly what the difference is between mainstream dispensationlism and the [more Scriptural] simpler dispensationalism of early "brethren".

In brief, the consistent dispensational approach JND took predicted a growing apostasy in the Church. Apostasy began in the Apostles' time, and really grows without remedy until the Lord judges it. He saw the presence of the church on earth as really no different than any other period of God's earthly dealings: it fails early and irrevocably, then there is judgment.

Of course this flies in the face of both Amillenianlism (including full Praeterism) and Postmillenialism: it denies that there will be any such thing as a righteous society on earth until Christ Himself establishes it after His physical return.

This is a great paper: it's well worth the 30 minutes to read. In fact, this whole collection is worth your time.

Play it again, John (pt. 2)

I want to share some more of "The Best of J. N. Darby". So today we're going to the very first volume by JND I would recommend someone try reading: Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, Vol. 12. This is a collection of Darby's gospel messages, and it is really required reading for someone wanting to see first-hand what this Darby fellow was all about.

There are three papers in this one volume to which I particularly want to draw attention: "God's Grace and Man's Need," "Two Warnings and an Example," and "Wilderness Grace."

#8 "God's Grace and Man's Need" (available from STEM Publishing)

The first might be Darby's best gospel message. It's short, gets right to the point, and makes the case very simply that God offers justification freely to man, because man has nothing to offer God. It was always God's plan not to demand from man, but to offer forgiveness freely, based on the One Man's offering Himself without spot to God.

To turn for a moment to the use man made of the law, in contrast with God's purpose in it: God used it, as we have seen, that the offence might abound - that sin might appear exceeding sinful. Man set about to make himself righteous by the very thing by which God was proving him a sinner, and sin exceedingly sinful. This you are doing, if you are seeking to satisfy the demands of God's righteousness by your own ways. Man seeks to save himself by the righteousness of the law; but God's use was not that, for He never thought of saving any but by Jesus.

#7 "Two Warnings and an Example" (available from STEM Publishing)

This is a brief study of three main characters in the Garden of Gethsemane: the Lord Jesus, Peter, and Judas Iscariote. It's well worth a read, as it contrasts the unregenerate, the carnal Christian, and the Perfect Man in under stress.

When Christ was praying, Peter was sleeping; when Christ was submitting as a lamb led to the slaughter, Peter was fighting; when Christ was confessing in suffering, Peter was denying Him with cursing and swearing. This is just the flesh: sleeping when it ought to be waking; in energy when it ought to be still; and then denying the Lord when the time of trial comes.

#6 "Wilderness Grace" (available from STEM Publishing)

This is an interesting study: it contrasts God's dealings with Israel from the time they crossed the Red Sea until Sinai, with His dealings with them once they received the Law.

To bring into the wilderness, and not at once into Canaan. Being in the wilderness implies all sorts of trials. It may seem strange to sight, that they who had just been singing the song of triumph and deliverance (chap 15) should be allowed to be three days in the wilderness without water; and then, when they came to water, should find it so bitter that they could not drink of it. But God permits these trials, in order that we may see our own need and prove His faithfulness. From the Red Sea to Sinai Israel proved the grace which belongs to us now.

If you are at all interested in reading Darby, you really need to start with Volume 12 of Collected Writings. It gives perspective to everything else he wrote, as well as being the most readable and approachable of his writings.

Play it again, John

I've wanted to post a "Best of John Nelson Darby" for quite some time, and haven't really gotten to it. But there's no time like the present.

I started reading JND when I was in University, largely out of curiosity. I figured someone so widely reviled but also widely adulated must be worth a read. In the last ten or fifteen years, I've read a little over half of Darby's work. I've read the first 24 volumes of The Collected Writings of J. N. Darby cover-to-cover, and I've browsed and dabbled in a good deal of the rest.  This doesn't make me a bona fide expert on Darby, but it means I've read a good deal more of what he actually wrote than the vast majority of people who talk about him.

Darby had some flaws, but I would have been honoured to meet him. I still consider him among my favourite authors.  It was he who wrote in a letter, "The eyes see farther than the feet go." He realized he understood more than he actually walked out. Would that I did half so well as he!

I'd like to offer a list of "Darby's Top Ten". But I'm not sure how easy or feasible it will be, so I've decided to post about several of my favourites, one or two at a time. I'll list them as some sort of ordered list, but please understand at the outset that the listing is largely arbitrary. #1 today might well be #7 next week.

#10  "The Melchisedec Priesthood of Christ" (Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, Vol. 2)

This is listed in the "Prophetic" volumes of CW, but it's possible it ought to have been listed in the "Doctrinal" section. It is available STEM Publishing.

Melchisedec is one of the "mystic figures" of Scripture. He appears in Genesis 14, is forgotten until Psalm 110, then fades away again until Hebrews.  Like Elihu in Job, Melchisedec  comes from nowhere, makes astonishing statements, and disappears again. Hebrews says Christ is like him, "having neither father nor mother,"  etc.

Interestingly, Melchisedec is the first priest named in Scripture, but he doesn't do what we most associate with priests: he offers no sacrifice. He gives Abram food and drink, blesses Abram and God, accepts a tithe of Sodom's spoils, and disappears. This is in contrast with the Levitical priesthood, which centers on sacrifices.

JND draws comparisons and contrasts between Melchisedec and Aaron, and discusses the place the Christ plays in His role as Priest, with insights drawn from Melchisedec's actions in Genesis 14.

#9 "The Sabbath: or, Is the law dead, or am I" (Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, Vol. 10)

Available from STEM Publishing. 

This paper discusses the role of Law in the Christian life. It is unfortunately slightly rambling---one gets the impression it might have been a discussion over coffee, rather than a published article---but it's actually very good, if one is patient in reading.

JND presents the core of Dispensationalism very succinctly in it:

Without law [flesh] is lawless; with law it transgresses; with Christ it rejects and slays Him, and in him even who has the Spirit as a believer, lusts against it. (p. 276)

Dispensationalism centers on the idea that God tests man; not to find out whether man is good, but to prove he isn't. 

I've said it time and again: "brethren" weren't a movement about church order or prophetic interpretation. As a movement, "brethren" arose out of an understanding of personal salvation and  sanctification that stood at odds with the sacramentalists on the one hand, and the staunch Reformers on the other.  This is the same balance Cranmer and Hooker had tried to maintain two centuries earlier.

Modern dispensationalists have really turned away from dispensationalism in every realm except (possibly) prophecy.  But early "brethren" took the Dispensationalist position in its entirety, including and emphasizing the conclusions relating to sanctification and Christian living. 

Flesh may remain in us, as the old stock in the grafted tree, as a thing hostile to the Spirit, for exercises and humbling profit, so that we may overcome, and have our senses exercised to discern good and evil; but it is never formed into a new (till glory changes all); it is as a nature hostile and condemned, and only that; not subject to the law of God, nor can be; enmity against God, where it has a mind at all. The second Adam is, morally and spiritually speaking, substituted for the first, does not restore and recover it. Without law it is lawless; with law it transgresses; with Christ it rejects and slays Him, and in him even who has the Spirit as a believer, lusts against it. (p. 270)

It is because men have believed in a recovery of man in flesh — and so a continuance of law, which applies to men alive in flesh, only spiritualized and suffused into a new system of grace — that they have argued for the maintenance of law; while others have sought to prove that the law was dead, and did not bind, Christ having abrogated it and introduced something more suited to man. Both are alike wrong. It may seem presumptuous to say so; but the word of God has authority above all men, as I am sure the great body of those I refer to would cordially acknowledge. (p. 278)

I... produce from Scripture the testimonies which shew that we are not under the law; yet not because the decalogue or law is abolished or buried, but because we are dead, buried, and risen again in Christ; because we are a new creation, redeemed out of the position we were in in flesh. That we are redeemed from its curse no one denies, so that I do not argue that point, all important as it is: that we are not justified by it is admitted in terms, but I think not really known and held, and is closely connected with our argument: still it is admitted in terms, and hence I do not argue it here. (p. 279)

    

This is the key to the dispensationalist of denying the Law is the Christian rule of life: not that the Law has been abolished (it most certainly has not), but that the Christian has been done away with, and is now a new Creation, one to which the Law has never been applied in Scripture.  Of course, dispensationalists themselves have departed from this, saying the Law has ended with the Cross. This is untenable in the face of 1 Timothy 1, but I digress.

So those are the first two "Best of JND" articles on the list. I have several others I want to share, but I'll reign in my enthusiasm for another day.

Apostasy, then and now

I recently had an email conversation with my good friend Chuck. We were discussing various issues surrounding the Church in the 21st Century, and I thought some of that might be worth sharing here.

 O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of face, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee. O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness; for we have rebelled against him; neither have we obeyed the voice of Jehovah our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.  (Daniel 9: 7--10, ASV)

I've repeatedly made the claim that the Church is apostate.  What I mean by that is, the Church as a whole has left what the Scripture teaches, and has gone off on her own. I am convinced the Scripture foretold this: Christ and the Apostles predicted general falling-away, "when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8, ASV)  I am further convinced that the Epistles build on this theme, so there is a general downward trend in them.
This is what "brethren" mean when they talk about the "ruin of the Church". You see, I am still dispensationalist.
But over the last couple years, I've begun to question the "brethren" response to the ruin they saw. I think it's fair to say they've generally responded to apostasy (real or perceived) by trying to separate from it in a corporate sense; and I am not at all sure (anymore) that is the Biblical course of action.

I start in Daniel 9, because Daniel 9 is to me the ultimate apostasy chapter. It's the prayer of Daniel when he looks into the prophets (specifically into Jeremiah), sees the Lord predicted a 70 year captivity, and realizes it's been 70 years since Jerusalem was taken. Daniel realizes the the Babylonian Captivity is coming to a close, and he responds by covering himself in sackcloth and ashes and praying what is probably the longest prayer of repentance in the Scripture.

Daniel 9 is well worth examining, but I want to point out what is to me the most outstanding feature: Daniel was personally guilty of none of the things he confessed. Daniel himself had not committed the idolatries and immoralities he confessed; he had been only a boy when taken from Jerusalem by the Babylonians, and had an impeccable track record when in Babylon. Further, he was decidedly separated from the rest of Israel while in Babylon. But despite his personal blamelessness in the sins he confesses, he insists on saying "we".

I find this striking, because my experience in "brethren" has been precisely that they see themselves as somehow blameless in the current state of things, because they "walk in separation".  But Daniel---one of only a couple men of whom the Scripture records not one sin---falls to his knees and says "we".

This is the great failure of "brethren" in my mind: that having seen the deplorable state of the Church, they have refused to humble themselves and confess it as "we". They've been quick to separate from sin they see, even if it means separating from other Christians; one would think that might mean they understand the seriousness of sin. But they have refused to acknowledge that we are all One Body, what one member does, all feel. Their fine-tuned rules of fellowship and separation have sprung from an admirable sense of wanting to avoid evil: but they have failed to see the big picture; we are in this together.

There are practical concerns, of course---there is a difference between attending a church that has openly apostasized and attending one where the Word of God is still respected.  And on the other side of the coin, "brethren" are pretty much guilty of the same things they have "separated" over. I have personally heard reports from various "brethren" assemblies of all the evils we condemn in everyone else. There is, as I have said before, not a lot of point in "leaving the camp" just so we can set up an exact replica of it elsewhere.

But all that aside, I have come to question whether Scripture actually teaches that we can just wash our hands of the Church and the problems therein and set up our own new lump. It seems that we have spent a good deal of the last 200 years arguing that those sins aren't our problem, we've separated from them. But I look at Daniel, and I have to say that wasn't his reaction. Daniel got on his knees and confessed the sins he saw as if he himself had committed them. 

I notice also that Daniel makes no effort to distance himself from the group. He doesn't point to his (very real) separation from Israel and argue that he's left the camp. He doesn't decide he's going to henceforth be a new denomination of Israelite. No, he identifies completely with Israel, without any qualification or caveats. 

So I have to ask, when we look around and see apostasy, do we confess it as our sin? Or do we attempt to claim innocence on the grounds that we have left the camp? Worse, do we leave and set up our own group, only to do the very same things we claim to have eschewed?

"Brethren" history pretty much declares that is exactly what happened.

When I look in the last seven Epistles (Revelation 2 & 3) I see the same thing. I see that every church in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Philadelphia, and Laodicea---every church---has an "overcomer". They are in Thyatira and Laodicea just as certainly as they are in Philadelphia. And interestingly, not one word is said to hint that the overcomer in Thyatira or Laodicea should leave and go over to Philadelphia. Not one word. The overcomer is a fixture in each church: the one overcoming in Thyatira keeps overcoming in Thyatira. The one overcoming in Philadelphia keeps overcoming in Philadelphia.

But when I think back over my 20 years with "brethren" I see a repeated message that overcoming means leaving them and coming to join us. This is not Scripture: it is merely arrogance.

I'm more and more becoming convinced that the real purpose of an assembly---any assembly---is a place to worship the Lord. It's where I go to worship and remember Him.  In principle, I'm not there because I agree with the doctrinal statement, nor because I like and get along with the people. I'm there because He is there.

And to quote "brethren", if two are three are there, gathered in His name, then He is there too (cf. Matthew 18:20).

So I've started to see that doctrine is not unimportant, but it is far from all-important. There is a very real sense where my personal walk with the Lord ought not to be completely tied into the gathering where I worship. He is there, so I go there to worship Him.

The corollary to that is, that I don't prop up my faith on the group. I walk with Him, and then with them. Yes, there is mutual comfort, love, and encouragement with one another. But the primary relationship is vertical, not horizontal.

I'm starting to see that true Christianity is essentially apostasy-proof. That one who is justified by faith (alone) in Christ (alone) is irrevocably His. The eternal life that the Son shares with us is not some fragile thing that we need to jealously protect. It's bigger than that.  

Do we withdraw from iniquity? Of course we do! I am not suggesting we throw it all away in a glorious gesture of Antinomianism. But I am starting to think that the Scripture calls for us to walk with Him first where we are. Like Daniel, we're not free to just take our ball and go home: we need to take our place in His work down here. And that might well mean sitting in a place with a name over the door that makes us a little queasy.

In the 21st Century, we have a problem Timothy didn't have: he was in Ephesus and there was only one Church. I completely agree there were probably many gatherings in Ephesus, but they were all "in fellowship". There was only one church in Ephesus, though it may have met in many different places. But the point is, Timothy didn't have to choose a church.

Today, there is a multitude of places that claim to be a church in the city. Some of them are utterly blasphemous, some are relatively faithful. That means I'm perhaps over-simplifying a little. Since there is actually some choice, perhaps I ought to choose something better, right? 

And I think that is probably true. But once I was looking for the perfect assembly: now I am looking to see where the Lord wants me to worship. That's not at all the same thing, and I frankly have no idea what that will look like.

Thirds

It occurred to me the other day, I can sum up my entire life in two lessons:

1. the first 2/3 of my life were spent learning I am not a good person


2. the last 1/3 has been spent learning that God is

That's certainly a summing-up: some might even call it an oversimplification. But I think that's basically all I've managed to learn in 36 years: God is good, I am not.