Fatal assumptions

When I read through the Old Testament I am struck every time by the tension between the Law on the one hand, and the common state of godlessness on the other. And this tension occurs at more than one level. Let's consider some examples.

When Moses brought the Israelites to Sinai, the command to circumcise all males was very clear (Leviticus 12:1–4). This command really predates the Law entirely (see Galatians 3:15-17), going back to Abraham (Genesis 17:9–14). There's no question that circumcision was commanded and expected. However, when we get to Joshua 5, we find that those who came out of Egypt had been circumcised, but the nation had apparently not practiced circumcision while they were in the wilderness (Joshua 5:4-7).

It baffles me. There is no clearer command in the Old Testament than circumcision. And Moses had to have known how seriously God takes it, after the journey back to Egypt (Exodus 4:24–26). But the plain statement of Joshua 5:2–7 is that circumcision hadn't been practiced at all in the wilderness. I have trouble reconciling those things in my mind.

 

Here's another example: Saul sends men to watch David in his house and kill him the next day (1 Samuel 19:11–17). Michal, David's wife and Saul's daughter, tells David to escape through the window and she puts "the image" in the bed to make them think it was David (1 Samuel 19:13).  What is "the image?" The NASB clarifies, by rendering "the image" as "the household idol" (1 Samuel 19:13 NASB). 

So here's a puzzle: why does David have a household idol? And why isn't it ever mentioned again?

Were we to judge David based on what Scripture tells us of his peccadilloes, we would be right to conclude that David was a man of loose morals. If we're not convinced by anything else, we might be convinced by Tamar's opinion that David would sanction an incestuous marriage with her half-brother (2 Samuel 13:13).

Here's another example: if we compare the law of the king (Deuteronomy 17:14–20) to the description of Solomon's reign (1 Kings 4:1ff), it's difficult to reconcile the two. If Solomon had set out to deliberately disobey every single command God gave to the king, he couldn't have done a more thorough job. He literally does the opposite of what God commands: he multiples horses to himself (1 Kings 4:26) – horses from Egypt no less (2 Chronicles 1:16–17) – and wives (1 Kings 11:3-4). He multiplies silver and gold to himself (1 Kings 9:28) to the point where silver wasn't considered valuable (1 Kings 10:21).

I realize the point of the descriptions of Solomon's wealth was to show God's blessings on him, but the fact remains that Solomon did exactly the opposite of what God commanded the king to do, and God blessed him in it.

We could go on: we could enumerate the sins of David and Solomon and Moses and virtually every other Old Testament saint. But the point isn't to slander men (and women too) that God loved and loves. The point is first, that God shows each of them grace. Second, the point is that I find myself entirely unable to explain where God draws the line, so to speak. I cannot tell you why God acts against David in the case of Urijah and Bathsheba, but He doesn't act against David when he demands Michal back (compare Deuteronomy 24:1–4 with 2 Samuel 3:13–16). I can't explain why David's household idol gets no more than a passing mention, but Solomon's worship of Chemosh, Milcom, and Molech causes God to act against him (1 Kings 11:4–7).

Perhaps the most surprising thing of all is that scripture tells us David's heart was perfect (1 Kings 11:4) and he followed God fully (1 Kings 11:6).

 

Of course we see similar themes in the New Testament as well. 

I realized a while ago that Luke's gospel opens with descriptions of godly and upright people when the nation was in utter ruin: Zecharias and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, Simeon, and Anna. Luke is very careful to relate that four of these people are connected with the Temple in Jerusalem. Mary and Joseph are in Nazareth, so they're not so immediately connected with the Temple, but when the dedication of the Lord is mentioned, it's explicitly connected with obeying the Law (Luke 2:22–24).

Bear in mind, this is after Ezekiel 10:15–22. God's glory had left the Temple long before this. And this wasn't even the same temple! It wasn't Solomon's temple, nor even Zerubabbel's. This was Herod's temple. But Scripture treats it like it was the place where God had set His name. More shockingly, the Lord Himself referred to it as His "Father's house" (John 2:13–16).

And we might also remember the priests in Christ's day were Sadducees (Acts 5:17–18). They didn't believe in the resurrection (Matthew 22:23, Acts 23:8). That's a pretty big heresy. But the Lord acknowledged the Temple. 

Luke takes care to demonstrate Anna's godliness by describing how dedicated she was to the temple (Luke 2:36–38). If there was ever justification for writing off a temple, Herod's would be the one to write off. But the New Testament authors are careful to honor it, and Christ Himself acknowledged it.

 

Here's a final observation: Luke 24:13–34 tells us about two disciples walking to Emmaus after the Resurrection. They didn't know about the Resurrection, of course, but there they were, walking to Emmaus. They were going to wrong way: they should have been walking to Galilee (Matthew 28:7). But the Lord catches them up on the road, and He walks with them. Let's be clear about this: they're going the wrong way, and He goes with them.

 

All these stories might act as an antidote to pharisaism and puritanism, if we let them. If we think on them, meditate on them, and let them sink in, we might find some useful applications from them.

From the story of the circumcision in Gilgal we might learn something like: if you see a man entirely negligent of some fundamental observance, it might be he's more like Moses than you are. Leaving an entire generation uncircumcised is a big deal... but I'd love God to say the things about me that He says about Moses.

From the story of David and Michal we might learn something like: If you see a man with idols in his home, don't just assume he's not fully devoted to God. Don't forget a man whose heart was perfect with God had an idol in his home.

From the story of Bathsheba and Urijah we might learn something like: if you see a believer sin egregiously with no signs of repentance or remorse, don't forget God didn't send Nathan to confront David for about a year. It's possible for a true believer to live in the shadow of his sins for a very long time.

From the story of Solomon we might learn something like: just because someone burns incense on the high places doesn't mean that God isn't going to ask him what he wants. And just because God is blessing someone doesn't mean that he's walking uprightly. He could be enjoying God's blessings while at the very same time he's disobeying in every way.

From the story of Anna and Simeon in the temple we might learn something like: when we see someone faithfully attending a church built by a wicked man, run by godless heretics, don't assume God isn't counting that as genuine devotion. Even the church in Thyatira had overcomers, and there's not a word in Scripture to suggest they should have left it.

From the story of Christ cleansing the Temple we might learn something like: when we see someone going to worship God in a church built by a wicked man, run by leadership that doesn't even believe in the Resurrection, let's not assume Christ wouldn't go there too.  If there are as few as two or three gathering there for Him, then He's there (Matthew 18:20).

From the story of the two walking to Emmaus we might learn something like: when we see someone walking the wrong direction, let's not assume the Lord isn't walking with them. It's probably better to be going the wrong way alongside Christ than it is to be going the right way alone.

Now, I realize that there's a need for repentance. And I fully agree that when we see problems in our own lives, we aren't just to ignore them. We're to repent of them, turning to God from idols to serve the living and true God. I'm not out here trying to teach a lax attitude towards obedience. But if we learn nothing else from our Bible stories, let's learn that God almost never does what we expect Him to. 

That's pretty much the definition of "grace."

 

Not under law, but under grace

Romans 6:14 says we are not under law, but under grace. In my experience, that verse is easier to quote than it is to hear, believe, and take to heart. It is good for us to meditate on it.

Scripture is adamant that no one has ever been justified by works of law (Romans 3:20, 27–28; Galatians 2:16; Galatians 3:10). No one is justified in God's sight by obedience to law – neither the Law of Moses, or any other law. 

Someone once told me that when Scripture says we aren't under the Law (Romans 6:14), it doesn't mean that we don't have to obey the Law. Rather, he claimed, it means that we aren't justified by keeping the Law. That makes sense if you don't think about it too much. But once you start thinking about it, you realize that if our being "not under the law" means we're not justified by keeping the Law, then surely it follows that the Old Testament saints who were "under the law" were justified by keeping it. But that contradicts the plain teaching of the epistles, doesn't it?

The only way I can make sense of these two claims in the epistles is to conclude that the Old Testament saints were under the Law only as a rule of life – never as a means to justification –, so the epistles' claims that we are not under law must mean that we aren't under the Law even as a rule of life. I don't find evidence in the New Testament that we are to keep the Law for any reason: either as a means of justification, or as a rule of life. And yes, that includes the Ten Commandments.

I realize that Romans 6:14 is referring to law as a principle, not to "the Law" as a specific code. But that distinction might not be as significant as it seems at first.  No doubt "law as a principle" includes the Mosaic Law, that's self-evident. But it's not a stretch to extrapolate the Mosaic Law into "law as a principle" when we consider that it was given by God Himself. In other words, our problem with the Mosaic Law isn't that it's a defective law, but that the principle underlying it (or any other law) is not how God deals with us.

This is the fundamental claim in Romans 7:12–14. The Law is good, but I am not. 

Technically speaking, only Israel was ever under law: the law wasn't given to the Gentiles, but to the children of Israel at Sinai.  Romans 2:12 makes this clear: there are those who sinned "without law," who will perish "without law." On the other hand, those who sinned "under law" are condemned "under law." In this very simple taxonomy – only two categories! – both are condemned, but they aren't mixed up.

"Not under law, but under grace" means God deals with us, not on the principle of law (what we deserve), but on the principle of grace (He gives us freely what He desires us to have). 

Now, it's important to note that only one Man is justified on His own merit. For God to declare Him righteous is only acknowledging what He is in Himself. The rest of us have no hope for outside of God's grace. This is the plain teaching of Romans 4:1ff. Abraham and David – one without the Law (cf. Galatians 3:14–18), one under Law – are both justified entirely by grace through faith. God justifies us on exactly the same basis He justified them.

We more closely resemble Abraham than David in that we aren't under law as a rule of life. David was, we are not. But we don't entirely resemble Abraham either, because God dealt with Abraham as a man alive in the world. In this sense, both Abraham and David have a very different experience from us. We aren't alive in the world, but we have died with Christ. A believer who was once under the Law (and I think we can probably include an awful lot of people who grew up in Christendom here) has been freed from it in that he has died with Christ, and has now been freed from law.

And notice how careful the Scripture is about this: we have been freed from law so that we can bring forth fruit to God (Romans 7:4). We cannot produce fruit for God and maintain a relationship with law. The two are incompatible. Either we have law, or we are free to produce fruit for God. We cannot have both.

The problem comes down to this: law as a principle (and the Law in particular) is given to reveal sin (Romans 3:20). And notice it reveals sin, not sins. For many years I misread and misquoted that, thinking the Law reveals which things are sins, and which things aren't. But that's not what the text says; it says that law reveals sin. It reveals our own fallen-ness. It reveals that we are lost. It reveals that we cannot keep rules, even when they are good. It reveals that the mind of flesh isn't subject to the Law of God and cannot be (Romans 8:7).

And notice this is taught in the Pentatuech itself: Deuteronomy 29:4 makes it very clear that obedience requires an entirely new heart. Fallen men and women can't hope to please God (Romans 8:8). It's not merely that they don't want to (they don't), but that they cannot.

So law reveals my own sinfulness, and the Mosaic Law does it better than any other law can. It wasn't given for righteous men and women (1 Timothy 1:8–11). And here's where a lot of dispensationalists go wrong: the Law has not been abolished. Scripture doesn't teach that the Law has died, it teaches that I have. On the contrary, when we tangle with the Law, we find that it does exactly what it is supposed to do: it shows our own sinfulness.

There is coming a day when the Lord will have a people with new hearts, and He will write His law on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:31–34, cf. Deuteronomy 17:18). But that day hasn't come yet, and we're not those people. We haven't had the Law written on our hearts, we have died to it (Romans 7:4). The difference is striking.

I have no doubt that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us here and now (Romans 8:1–4). Notice, it's not that the Law is fulfilled in us, but "the righteousness of the Law" is fulfilled in us. It's not that we fulfill the Law, but we find ourselves walking in the very same righteousness the Law approves.

 

Four kings vs. five

It's Boxing Day. We had a solid week of snow leading up to the 24th, followed by a warm-up and rain for the last 48 hours. I hadn't been able to see the surface of the road outside much since November, but now it's a sheet of slush with pools of water, and the odd icy patch. Here and there, gravel peeks through the slush. That doesn't sound very nice, but I'm sitting next to the wood stove, the roof is doing its job, and I have hot coffee. So really, I've got it pretty good.

I've been contemplating Genesis 14 over the last week. At this point I only have scattered observations, but I thought if I were to write them down here, it might help organize them. And of course comments from others can be very helpful!

The first time Scripture calls someone a king is Genesis 14:1. Genesis 10:9–10 tells us Nimrod had a kingdom in Shinar, so we might argue that he's the first king in Scripture, but while Genesis 10 says that Nimrod had a kingdom, it doesn't say he was a king. The first king Scripture names is Amraphel, the king of Shinar. 

Scripture portrays Shinar as the center of earthly power, starting from Nimrod. Both Babel (Genesis 10:10) and Babylon (Daniel 1:1–2) are in Shinar.  And we sometimes forget that while Babel and Babylon are generally portrayed as opposing Him, God names Nebuchadnezzar "king of kings," (Daniel 2:37) and gives him dominion over the whole earth. No doubt Scripture uses Babylon as a symbol of wickedness (Revelation 17:5, etc.), but Babylon's place at the head of Gentile authority was by divine decree (Daniel 2:37ff).

Genesis 14 names the first priest too: Melchizedek, the king of Salem (Genesis 14:18). He's both a priest and a king, and we don't have to wonder whether he prefigures Christ, because Hebrews 7:1–3 is explicit. Melchizedek is a type of Christ.

All told, there are ten kings in Genesis 14: nine are named in the first two verses (Genesis 14:1–2), and Melchizedek is named near the end (Genesis 14:18).  The first four kings (including the king of Shinar) launch quite a campaign (Genesis 14:5–9) that comes to a climax with a four-against-five battle between Chedorlaomer and his allies against the king of Sodom and his allies.

I find it interesting that Scripture specifies (Genesis 14:9) that four kings prevail over five.

I find it interesting, too, that Scripture mentions several lands that fall to the four kings: there are seven named – including the land of the Amalekites – before we read about the battle at Siddim (Genesis 14:5–8).

After the battle, Chedorlaomer and his allies loot Sodom and take the people there captive, including Lot. That prompts Abram to action. 

Genesis 14:13 tells us Abram had three allies: Mamre, Eschol, and Aner. Although Scripture tells the story as though Abram and his 318 men fought alone, we find at the end that his allies were there too (Genesis 14:24). I assume the 318 men were only Abram's household; I assume the force Abram led was something like four times that many.

Scripture doesn't tell us much about Abram's neighbors. I suspect our concept of Abram being a more-or-less isolated pilgrim is not entirely accurate. Both Genesis 14 and Genesis 23 describe friendly relations with the Canaanites. At one time I had envisioned Abram living among hostile pagans, but his allies (Genesis 14:13), Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18), and Ephron and the sons of Heth (Genesis 23:10) all seem to point to a much less hostile environment. Certainly Scripture has only good to say about Melchizedek, although Joshua destroyed his successor four hundred years later (Joshua 10:1, 22–26). 

Melchizedek is a type of Christ, Hebrews 7:1ff is explicit. Darby points out ("The Melchisedec Priesthood of Christ", Collected Writings, Volume 2, pp. 64–73) that Melchizedek is a priest who doesn't offer for sins. His priesthood is characterized not be sacrifice, but by blessing: he stands between God and man and blesses them both. And he gives Abram bread and wine, foreshadowing the Lord's feeding us with His own flesh and His own blood (John 6:47–55).

And as Darby points out, "the Most High God" is a millennial title for God. Melchizedek points forward to a millennial Christ.  I don't want to push this point too far... we think of priests as offering for sin; the Levitical priesthood seems very much to center on that. But Hebrews points us to the more excellent ministry: enabling us to draw near to God. Christ has offered for sins once, and has done it in a way that never needs another offering (Hebrews 10:1–13). But that's not all a priest does. Melchizedek points us to a need that goes beyond the offering for sins: Melchizedek doesn't offer for sins, but he's a priest nevertheless, and a greater priest than Aaron (Hebrews 7:4–6).  Aaron points to Christ's finished work, Melchizedek points to His unfinished work.

We rest in Christ's finished work, but we "press on" (Hebrews 4:14–16) as a result of His unfinished work.

Of course the error of so many Christians is confusing those two things.  We have peace with God because of what Christ has done (Romans 5:1), and we are powerless to undo that.  We err when we try to get peace with God any other way. And we err when we think having peace with God means there's no need for pressing on. There's a ditch on both sides of the road, but as Alan points out, the deeper ditch is probably the first one.

(Edited to fix some spelling and grammar mistakes, I rushed through proof-reading this one, I'm afraid)

 

Fatness

Jeremiah 11:15–20 uses the image of a green olive tree to give a prophetic picture of our Lord. The green olive tree is destroyed for the sins of the houses of Judah and Israel (Jeremiah 11:17), and the men of Israel and Judah set out to destroy him, as a lamb led to the slaughter (Jeremiah 11:19). 

This isn't the only place where the image of a green olive tree is used to describe the Lord Jesus. We've talked before about Deuteronomy 24:19–21, Hosea 14:6–7, and Psalm 52:8–9. It's not the most common image, but it shows up a few times.

If we want to understand how the people of the Old Testament understood the image of an olive tree, we can turn back to Jotham's parable in Judges 9:7–20. In his parable, the trees offer the kingdom first to the olive tree, and it replies,  "Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to wave over the trees?" (Judges 9:9). So we understand that – at least to the people in Old Testament times – the olive tree represents fatness. And we understand that fatness to be a blessing to both God and man.

J. N. Darby points out that Melchisidec doesn't offer for sin ("The Melchisidec Priesthood of Christ", Collected Writings, Volume 2, pp. 64–73). Instead, his priesthood is characterized by standing between God and man and blessing both. I don't mean to say, of course, that our Lord did not offer for sins. But the fact remains that the greatest priest in the Old Testament – indeed the first priest Scripture mentions – is not offering for sin, but blessing both God and man.

It's reasonable to say that the Levitical priesthood prefigures Christ offering for sin, and is thus characteristic of His first coming. But Melchisidec's priesthood prefigures Christ in a more permanent ministry: sin having been put away, He continues to bless both God and man.

The image of the olive tree is like that of Melchisidec, but it reveals a different facet. It's not only the Priest who can bless both God and man – by the olive tree's "fatness," others ("they") can too.  There is a ministry for us here.

I heard one brother say something to the effect that our first and highest calling is to bless God (Ephesians 1:3ff). I have no doubt he's correct. And I have no doubt that we have a ministry in proclaiming the Gospel to lost sinners. But I think there is another ministry too: there is a ministry of blessing lost men and women, regardless whether they repent.

I recognize there's a danger here of a "social gospel" that leaves the Cross behind. But that danger shouldn't be an excuse for us not to be a blessing to those around us, even if only in this life.

And to be clear: I don't believe we can claim to be blessing man by the olive tree's fatness if we leave the olive tree behind. The "social gospel" and its ilk are characterized by a Christ-less, Cross-less, God-less "christianity." Sadly, people seem to fall for that. But it's not a gospel at all, it's an anti-gospel. "You don't need Christ" isn't a meaningful message, but it's exactly the message that progressive Christianity seems to preach.

God is kind, and is kind to His creation. He blesses in big ways (forgiveness of sins, eternal life), but in small ways too (see Acts 14:15–17). He gives rain both to the just and to the unjust (Matthew 5:45). We, too, should be a blessing to those around us. But we don't pretend we have anything to offer the fallen world that isn't from and through and because of Christ.

Masters and employees

As long as I can remember, I've heard Christians teach "how Christians should behave in the workplace" lessons from the Epistles' instructions to slaves and masters. I really cannot count the number of times I've heard someone say, "We don't have slavery today, but these verses apply to employees and employers too."

Do they?  I've never heard anyone quote 1 Corinthians 7:21 in connection with being an employee.  I keep wondering how that would apply. Would that mean something like, "If you are employed, and you have an opportunity to be unemployed, take it?"  Possibly that would mean something like, "If you have an opportunity to be self-employed, take it." But I prefer the first reading, to be honest. I mean, there are some days...

Still, it's remarkable how quickly people forget their let's-apply-this-to-employees rule of interpretation when they get to 1 Corinthians 7:21. I can't recall anyone ever bringing it up. That seems dishonest.

I'm not saying there's nothing to be learned from reading through the instructions to slaves and masters in the Epistles. I'm not even saying that there are no applications to be made to employees. I am saying that a need to find some sort of application to ourselves in the text every Sunday is fundamental error, and will lead to all sorts of trouble.

As a very simple example, let's start with Galatians 4:1ff. Are we really to believe that an underage child is, "no better than an employee?" Would we take anyone seriously who said something like that?

The fact is that Scripture very carefully distinguishes free men and women from slaves, and it does so with purpose. Christ hasn't set us free to be slaves (Galatians 5:1). Scripture doesn't confound employment with slavery, and neither should we. It's unrighteous.

At the root of many evangelical errors is the notion that there must be a modern-day equivalent for everything in the Scriptures. If we take that perspective, we end up wreaking all sorts of havoc with the context of each verse. All Scripture is breathed by God, but not all applies to me. There is something to be learned from all of it, and in all of it. But a desperate attempt to read myself into Scripture will lead into chaos.

Here's an idea, if we must read ourselves into those master-and-slave verses, why not do it from the perspective that we are God's slaves? That has the advantage that it's expressly taught in Scripture (Romans 6:19, Romans 14:4, 1 Corinthians 7:22). And it might be interesting to see how Christ is the perfect Master (and, for that matter, the perfect Slave). And it might be useful to consider Paul's own life as a "slave of Christ Jesus" (Romans 1:1). 

The Scriptures are written around Christ (John 5:39–40), not around me.  Trying to find a way to "apply this to our lives" is frequently just code for finding a way to put ourselves at the center.

 

Part of an elect nation

Dispensationalists frequently defend their view by saying something like, "God has made promises to Israel that He has not fulfilled. Therefore we trust that He will fulfill them at some future date." That seems to be a recurring theme among dispensationalists. And I agree with that whole-heartedly.

At the same time, I recognize that there is an issue we need to address in this argument. There is an elephant in the room.  When we consider Romans 9–11, we find that Scripture also recognizes there's an issue. The issue is something like this: we know that God has made promises to Israel that went unfulfilled to those specific people. For example, very few of the children of Israel that came out of Egypt made it into the promised land. Most of them died in the wilderness.

So did God really fulfill His promise to them?

Romans 9:6–8 addresses this question with the assertion that, "not all [are] Israel which [are] of Israel; nor because they are seed of Abraham [are] all children."  So this is a guiding principle when it comes to God's election: it's possible to be part of an elect people, without being an elect individual. Notice Romans 9:15 quotes Exodus 33:19. That's the story of the golden calf, the first time the Scripture talks about Israelites falling in the wilderness.

That's a point worth repeating: it's possible to be part of a chosen nation and not yourself be chosen. 

So when it comes to Israel, dispensationalists calmly assert that God will, indeed, restore Israel, but that doesn't mean that any specific Jewish person will be included in that.  And I fully agree with that statement.

Of course this has application to us. If we object to amillennialism on the grounds that we believe God can be trusted, then surely we need to consider carefully how His trustworthiness is displayed in light of Romans 9–11. Which is a really clumsy way of saying, if it's possible for individual Israelites to fall short of what God promised the nation, is it also possible for individual Christians to fall short of what God promised the church?

Without diving too deep into controversy, let's just say that everyone who has been baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit has a claim to call themselves "Christian." That doesn't mean everyone baptized has been born again, or that they're truly regenerated. But it's reasonable for them to think of themselves as Christian.  And we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking all of the unregenerate baptized were baptized as infants!

And we don't really even need to talk in terms of baptism. What about those who were born into Christian homes and so think they're Christians? What about those who grew up in Sunday school, but were never born again?  I really don't think they're entirely wrong to think of themselves as "Christian."  But it doesn't at all mean they're born again.

So yes, there are lots of people who are part of the elect nation, but aren't themselves elect.

When the Lord Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, He told him point-blank, "you must be born anew" (John 3:3–8). There's no question that Nicodemus was part of the elect nation, but he still needed new birth.

So if you're part of an elect nation, if you were baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, you still need to be born again.  The question for you isn't, "Was I baptized?" The question for you is, "Do you believe God?" Because in the end, God justifies the one who does not work, but believes (Romans 4:5).

And notice, Scripture doesn't tell us we have to be sure we're elect before we come to Christ. 

By exactly the same token, Scripture doesn't say that God justifies the one who can remember a conversion experience. It says God justifies the one who believes. So let's not fall into the trap of telling people they need to have a "salvation experience." 

But the fact remains, being part of the elect nation doesn't mean that you will receive that God has promised. God doesn't work that way: it's the children of promise, not the children of flesh, who receive what He promises (Romans 9:8). 

 

Caricatures Abound

Somehow I missed John MacArthur's series, "Why Every Calvinist Should Be a Premillennialist" when it came out. I found a reference to it on the testing 5-2-1 blog, and thought it would be a worthwhile listen. Was it ever! It was a remarkably good sermon series. I've listened to it twice now.

But...

In the first message, he talks about J. N. Darby (the transcript is available here), and it wasn't the most flattering. He didn't hit too hard on Darby, but his tone toward dispensationalists was more than a little dismissive.

Now, it's fair to point out that dispensationalism became (or maybe "has become") a nesting place for some of the unclean birds he mentions: newspaper exegesis, and Revelation 9 helicopters are two examples he gives. And I'll agree with him that those are wrong. It seems obvious to me that a lot of credibility was lost by some of that.

At the same time, to accuse dispensationalists of teaching "two ways of salvation" is a caricature at best, slander at the worst. And to be clear: MacArthur's not the only one I've heard make that accusation in the last year. 

I don't own a Scofield Bible, so I'm not going to attempt to defend it. I don't go in for Scofield-ism myself, I think it's a little brittle. But I've read a whole lot of Darby's writing, and he absolutely did not teach two ways of salvation. In fact, I'm pretty sure he didn't teach seven dispensations either.

I've mentioned before that the first big effect reading Darby had on me was to push me away from Scofield's dispensationalism.

For whatever reason (and I can think of a few), people love to beat on Darby. Oddly enough, it's hard to find someone with strong opinions on Darby who has read more than a snippet in a pull quote. I suppose he's in good company: people like to expound scripture without apparently reading it too.

So no, much as I think MacArthur makes some excellent points, his caricature of Darby seems to have nothing but the name in common with the man himself.

It's self-evident from his writings (especially his letters) that Darby didn't always think too hard before he acted. "Brethren" love to talk about how he never married, thinking he would be more effective as a single man. Twenty-five years after I first started reading him seriously, I've come to the conclusion that marriage would have been an improvement: it might have taught him to think first.

But even while I lament he acted terribly at times, I have to say he is one of my heroes. Why? Because I have never read, or heard from, or spoken to another person who bowed to Scripture and treated it like God's actual words like J. N. Darby did. 

Maybe Martin Luther. Maybe.

What I learn from J. N. Darby's writings is that Scripture is not only infallible, but it's also sufficient. The latter is what I see so lacking amongst all Christians. We all agree that Scripture is infallible, but very few seem to think it's sufficient. We all long to go back to Rome and have co-authorities with God's words. But Darby held tenaciously to Romans 3:4, "let God be true and every man false."  Darby recognized what others simply cannot accept: that the Word of God doesn't need help.

I've mentioned Kelly before, he was one of the campus chaplains when I was a student. Kelly once told me a story he'd heard from someone else: 

Imagine you're lying in bed at night and someone kicks in your door. You grab your pistol from the nightstand and point it at the housebreaker, who tells you he doesn't believe that gun can stop him. Guns don't actually work, he says, they're just a myth. What do you do? Do you try to explain ballistics to him? or do you just squeeze the trigger?

That's a pretty telling scenario. I'm afraid Christians as a whole have been trying to explain ballistics my whole life, when they should just have been squeezing the trigger.

Darby understood that in a way perhaps even someone like William Kelly didn't.

If people really heeded the word of God, and took simply from Scripture what Scripture states, such things would never be said.

Nor do I talk about private judgment on such things; between man and man that is all very well, reasonable enough, but do you think if God has spoken to me, I am to talk of private judgment on what He has said?

Why, it is blasphemy.

I can understand an unbeliever not knowing what is God's mind, and reasoning about what is written; but man by reasoning never got faith at all; and man's reason is perfectly incompetent to judge about God and His words.

If my mind could judge about God, then God is the subject matter, and my mind is the master of the subject matter.

It is a mistake altogether. You want a word from God to reach conscience, that is the first thing. I grant you man's mind is the measure of all the truth he can have, but the first thing I want is a hammer upon conscience.

Suppose I knock you down, does it not make an impression upon you? You are acted upon. This is what conscience needs. But people think it must be the activity of their own minds.

I do not take a candle out to see if the sun is shining!

("Detached Memoranda from a Reading Meeting")

 

So while I hope I act with more prudence than Johnny D., I aspire to his view of Scripture, his knowledge of it, and his earnest zeal in searching it.