Do You Pray For Your Leaders?

With the election just days away, politics is on everyone’s mind.  Geneva Redux is not concerned so much with how you vote, but the fact that you pray for your leaders.  We are commanded to do so in Scripture.  1 Timothy 2:1:  ”First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,  2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.”  The context of 1 Timothy 2 is the corporate worship service.  These prayers are to be offered during the gathering of believers on the Lord’s Day.  

Before I became Reformed, I spent many years in Evangelical churches where I can only remember a few times when my pastors prayed for our leaders during the stated service.  These times were the starts of the first and second wars in Iraq and after 9/11.  There may have been more instances, I just cannot recall them.  It certainly did not take place on a regular basis.

At Oceanside United Reformed Church, our pastor leads us in prayer for our leaders on every single Lord’s Day, as is commanded in Scripture.  We pray for local, state, and federal officials.  Romans 13 tells us that our leaders are ministers of God.  He has sovereignly placed them in power and we are to pray for them.  At our church there is no political commentary offered during the service, unlike many churches that I have attended.  In accordance with the Regulative Principle of Worship, we only do things in worship that are commanded in Scripture.  This includes praying for our leaders.  It does not include offering political opinion or suggestions on how to vote.  

The next time that your pastor offers his political viewpoint during the stated service (whether you happen to agree with him or not), especially after failing to pray for your leaders, kindly ask him to only do what is commanded in the Bible and refrain from what is not commanded.  We do not need our pastors to be yet another political talking-head; we need them to be ministers of Christ who intercede for those in positions of authority.

Your Weekly Machen Fix: Servants of God or Servants of Men

The following is a commencement address given in 1934 to the graduating class of Westminster Theological Seminary at the height of the Presbyterian controversy.  It was reprinted in What is Christianity? in 1951 and can be found in the Selected Shorter Writings ed. by D. G. Hart.

You are seeking entrance into the Christian ministry.  At such a time it is proper for you to count the cost; it is proper for you to ask just what being a Christian minister means.  There is just one thing that I want to say to you in answer to that question.  The thing that I want to say to you is that you cannot be a Christian minister if you proclaim the word of man; you can be a Christian minister only if you proclaim, without fear or favor, the Word of God.  In the twenty-second chapter of 2 Kings, we read how a messenger who was sent to call the prophet Micaiah the son of Imlah coached him as to what he should say.  ”Behold now,” he said, “the words of the prophets declare good unto the king with one mouth; let thy word, I pray thee, be like the word of one of them, and speak that which is good.”  But Micaiah said: “As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak.”

You, my brethren, must be like Micaiah the son of Inlah; you too must say: “As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak.”  The Lord does not, indeed, speak to you in the manner in which He spoke to Micaiah.  He does not speak to you by direct supernatural revelation.  You are not prophets.  But he speaks to you through the supernatural book.  It is only when you proclaim the words of that book that you are a true minister of Jesus Christ.  Only then can you say: “Thus saith the Lord.”

The congregations for which you labor may, as the world looks upon them, be but insignificant groups of humble people.  But never forget that those insignificant and humble groups are the church of the living God, and that you as their ministers must proclaim to them the awful and holy and blessed Word.

If you obtain your message from any other authority than the Word of God, if you obtain it from the pronouncements of presbyteries or General Assemblies, then you may wear the garb of ministers, but you are not ministers in the sight of God.  You are disloyal to the Lord Jesus Christ: you have betrayed a precious trust.

Pick It Up, Read It

I finally got my copy of R. Scott Clark’s new book, Recovering the Reformed Confession.  The Westminster bookstore sold out of its copies the first day, so I had to wait.  I just finished the first chapter and already feel a lot smarter.  Lamenting the lack of boundaries on what it means to be Reformed, Clark clearly states, “It is the argument of this book that the Reformed confession is the only reasonable basis for a stable definition of the Reformed theology, piety, and practice.”  

The WSC professor argues against the “Quest for Illegitimate Religious Certainty or QIRC, that is, the quest to know what God knows, the way he knows it.”  This is practiced by folks who want to fight to the death over issues that are not central to the Reformed confessions.  The other extreme is the “Quest for Illegitimate Religious Experience or QUIRE.  This is the pursuit of the immediate experience of God without the means of grace (i.e., the preaching of the gospel and the sacraments).”  Many of these individuals think that God speaks to them directly, whether audibly or a still small voice, apart from Word and sacrament.  How do we know it is God speaking and not just the effects of rumbly tummy?

Based on the first chapter, this book will rattle some cages in the Reformed community.  The only question is, are those who need to be rattled so busy knowing things the way that God knows them and having immediate experiences that they fail to notice?  Buy it here.

Your Weekly Machen Fix: On Jay Walking

With the election just days away, politics is on the mind of many Americans.  J. Gresham Machen was very active in local and national politics, writing many letters-to-the-editors and even testifying before Congress concerning the federalization of public-school education.  This is a letter to a Philadelphia newspaper in 1931, concerning new anti-jay walking laws.  To my knowledge it has not been republished.  Special thanks to D. G. Hart for this piece.  For Machen on the benefits of walking click here.

These anti-pedestrian laws are intended either for the protection of the pedestrian, or for the convenience of the motorist.  In either case . . . they are wrong. 

If they are intended to protect the pedestrian from himself, they are paternalistic.  I am opposed to paternalism.  Among other far more serious objections to it is the objection that it defeats its own purpose.  The children of some over-cautious parents never learn to take care of themselves, and so are far more apt to get hurt than children who lead a normal life.  So I do not believe that in the long run it will be in the interests of safety if people get used to doing nothing except what a policeman or a traffic light tells them to do, and thus never learn to exercise reasonable care.

I am sorry when I see people taking foolish chances on the street.  I believe in urging them not to do it.  If they do it in outrageous and unreasonable fashion I should not be particularly averse to fining them for obstructing traffic.  I rather think that might even be done under existing laws.

But I am dead opposed to subjecting a whole city because of the comparatively few incautious people to a treadmill regime like that which prevails in Western cities.  I resent such a regime for myself.  I have tried it, and I know that it prevent me from the best, and simplest pleasure that a man can have, which is walking.  But I resent it particularly because it is a discrimination against the poor and in favor of the rich.

That brings us to the real purpose of these laws, which is not that pedestrians should be spared injury but that motorists should be spared a little inconvenience.  I drive a car from the driver’s point of view.  I know how trifling is the inconvenience which is saved thus at the expense of the liberty of the poorer people in the community.  Indeed, I do not believe that in the long run it is for the benefit even of the motorist.  I think it is a dreadful thing to encourage in the motorist’s mind, as these laws unquestionably do, the notion that he is running on something like a railroad track cleared for his special benefit.  

After all, the most serious objection to these doctrinaire, paternalistic laws is the bad effect which they have upon the mentality of people.  I do think we ought to call a halt to the excessive mechanization of human life.  When I am in one of those over-regulated Western cities, I always feel as though I were in some kind of penal institution.  I should certainly hate to see Philadelphia make like those places.

Response to Machen Fix: Statement to the Committee to Investigate Princeton

This is the first time that I have added comment to the Machen Fix, but I think that the conclusion to his statement to the committee was profound and is still applicable to us today. Machen had the nerve to take on the Liberal wing of the Presbyterian church and they were uncomfortable with this. Before Machen voiced his oposition, many (not all) in the church simply tried to “go along to get along.” This was true of President Stevenson and Dr. Erdman. They were not outright liberals in the Fosdick sense; they were well-intentioned men who were trying to keep the Presbyterian church from fracturing. They thought that the best way to maintain unity was to be indifferent. This indifferentism was expressed in their reassessment of the Westminster Confession, a plan that Machen considered to basically discard the confession. This explains Machen’s assessment of them and his reason for not supporting Erdman for moderatorship at the General Assembly.
The response to Machen by Erdman and those in his camp was not to engage Machen on the issues; rather, it was to say that he was mean. They rejected his promotion to full professor, not on the grounds that he was unfit theologically or professionally, but that he was spiritually unqualified. What were their reasons for this judgment? It was because Machen did not keep his mouth shut like many of the other conservatives/confessionalists in the Presbyterian church. No one wanted to upset the apple cart and cry foul as the Liberals took over the church. They sat on their hands and hoped against hope that the Liberals would not win, all the while not taking a stand. Machen thought otherwise. He boldly took on the Liberals and won, at least the argument. They never answered his critiques in Christianity and Liberalism. Unfortunately for Machen, he lost the political element of the battle.
Surely things like this do not happen today. Ask Jason Stellman in the Northwest Presbytery of the PCA, who boldly wrote the recent minority report against Peter Leithart and his Federal Vision positions (read about it here and here). Unfortunately for Stellman (and the PCA), the presbytery found in favor of Leithart. Stellman was not alone in his battle, he had many allies including a few WSC grads (Jason is one as well). But in the end, the indifferentists (and sympathizers/closest FV supporters) won. According to the reports from those who were there, those in favor of Leithart did not engage the issues head-on; rather, they talked about being marginalized and becoming an irrelevant confessional outpost that could not engage the culture if Leithart was opposed. Sound familiar? The forebearers of these indifferentists made the same arguments in 1924.
While I have not yet heard it in Stellman’s case, be prepared if you take a stand for truth that you will be labeled a mean person. Rarely will those who fancy themselves as Machen’s Warrior Children be given the courtesy of an issues-based discussion. Indifferentists do not want to fight these battles over matters of substance. They want to talk about a spirit of unity and a can’t we all just get along-ness. Doctrine divides.
In the spirit of the original warrior, J. Gresham Machen, I encourage you, my confessional brothers in arms, FIGHT ON!

Your Weekly Machen Fix: Statement to the Committee to Investigate Princeton Pt 4

This is the fourth and final installment of one of Machen’s most personal writings.  In it, he defends himself against personal attacks and predicts the downfall of Princeton Seminary, a full five years before it actually took place.  Click here for Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

The reason for that attitude of the majority is quite plain.  Ever since 1920 Dr. Erdman had consistently favored an ecclesiastical policy to which the majority of his colleagues were conscientiously opposed.  The same consistency had appeared in the platform upon which he was nominated for the moderatorship.  ”We need a moderator,” said Dr. Stone in nominating Dr. Erdman at Grand Rhapids (see The Presbyterian Advance for May 29, 1924), “who stands for presenting a united front rather than the encouragement of controversy.”  That was said in a great crisis when agnostic Modernism as represented in Dr. Fosdick and his Presbyterian supports was contending for the control of our church.  I disagreed with that platform, and could not support anyone, no matter what his personal relations to me, who was nominated upon it.

Dr. Erdman not only stood upon that platform by accepting the nominating speech by Dr. Stone, but also himself had already enunciated the same principle.  In a despatch dated Princeton, N.J., April 29, 1924, and the Philadelphia Public Ledger, of April 30, it is said that “Dr. Erdman made public a statement in which he put forth a policy he would follow if elected.”  ”In making clear his position, Dr. Erdman said: ‘I want the constructive work of the Presybterian church to go on without interruption on account of any doctrinal controversy…’ “.  It would be impossible to put in any clearer way than is here done by Dr. Erdman the position of doctrinal indifferentism.  And it would be impossible to imagine a position to which I am more conscientiously and more profoundly opposed.  How can the constructive work of the Presbyterian church go on without interruption on account of any doctrinal controversy?  The thing for which the Presbyterian church exists, I hold, is the propagation of a certain doctrine that we call the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Only in that doctrine is Christ offered to men as their saviour.  The church might do many other things – it might tinker with social conditions, it might use all sorts of palliative measures with men who have not been born again – but only by persuading men to accept the blessed “doctrine” or gospel can save human souls.  The church, I hold, is in the world to propagate a message; and if its propagation of the message is not clear, then, whatever else it does, it cannot possibly be engaged in its “constructive work.”  

 

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Dr. Erdman said indeed: “I believe the question about Dr. Fosdick and those who agree with him should be settled according to the constitutional law of the Church.  If these men are not loyal, let the law act.”  

 

But what is meant by letting “the law act”?  A law never acts of itself; it does not act unless there is someone to enforce it.  And what part had Dr. Erdman ever taken in enforcing it?  So far as he was concerned, Dr. Fosdick would still be preaching in the First Presbyterian Church of New York.  It was Dr. Macartney and not Dr. Erdman who secured the enforcement of the law.

Dr. Erdman makes much of the so-called “Philadelphia Overture” regarding creed subscription on the part of members of the boards.  I never favored this overture, and I did not regard it as at all an integral part of the platform on which Dr. Macartney was nominated.  But I am convinced that the boards have little representation from the conservative or evangelical party in the church, and I have never observed the slightest effort on the part of Dr. Erdman to correct this evil.

When in the following year at Columbus Dr. Erdman was finally elected to the moderatorship, he stood consistently upon the platform which had previously been laid for him by Dr. Stone, and adhered to the position which he himself had expressly taken.

Thus Dr. Erdman was nominated in 1924 upon a platform to which I am conscientiously opposed, and he has stood consistently upon that platform ever since.  In opposition to it, I hold that the Presbyterian church is in deadly peril and that if the peril continues to be ignored, the evangelical witness of the church will soon – as was so nearly the case in 1920 – be destroyed.  It would be difficult to imagine a more important difference of principle…

Such are my ecclesiastical and theological views.  If they disqualify a man for a professorship of apologetics in Princeton Seminary, then of course I am not fit for the position.  If professors in our seminaries are to be made to conform to one definite ecclesiastical policy, with which I disagree, I cannot occupy such an office.  But if a veto of my election is determined upon, I only request that it should be based upon the true ground – that if the real objection to me is found in my ecclesiastical views and my consistent carrying out of the implications of them, my character should not continue to be maligned by making alleged “temperamental defects,” or harshness or bitterness or the like, the reason for what is done.  If zeal for the defense of the faith and for the maintenance of the witness of the Presbyterian church – even a zeal that many think excessive – disqualifies a man for a professorship of apologetics in Princeton Seminary, then I only ask that the fact should be made clearly known.

I venture, however, to hope that you will bring in no such report.  I venture to hope that you will either recommend that my election be confirmed next May, or else report that the Assembly had no legal right to postpone action and that therefore my election has already legally been confirmed.  I express no opinion upon the correctness of this latter position.  But if you do favor it, I venture still to ask that you do not content yourselves with a technical opinion but that you express your judgement regarding the charges that have been brought against me.  Whatever the form of your report with regard to the legal aspects of the case, I seek and respectfully request public vindication at your hands.

What I regret most of all is that I have been the occasion, though I think not the underlying cause, of a public attack by President Stevenson upon what is certainly the historic position of Princeton Seminary.  Must this institution represent all shades of theological opinion that are found in the Presbyterian church at the present time, or may it continue to represent, in its entirety and in the full historic sense, the Reformed faith as based upon the complete truthfulness of the Bible as the Word of God?  That is the really important question at issue.  It has been the issue for a number of years, and with regard to it President Stevenson stands opposed to his faculty.  If the issue is settled in accordance with the expressed desires of the president, then the distinctive history of Princeton Seminary is at an end.  That history has been a long and honorable one.  Even by men who are most opposed to our tenants, both at home and abroad, the “Princeton school” (as it is called) has been respected as a scholarly defender of a view that at least deserves to be heard.  And never were our opportunity and our prestige greater than just at the present moment.  All over the world, and in many communions, men are looking to us as never before for a clear and straightforward presentation of the Reformed faith, and for a defense of the full truthfulness of the Bible against widespread assaults.  Is our voice to be silenced?  Are we to be made to conform to tendencies that have prevailed in other seminaries of our church?  Or is our distinctiveness to be respected, even where it is not shared?  Is the Presbyterian church large enough to include one seminary that assumes a position like ours?

Perhaps it may be objected that if we continue to be tolerated, we shall harm the church by an insistence upon the maintenance of a strict view of its doctrinal standards.  I think that just from the “Liberal” point of view there ought not to be any such fear.  The truth, after all, will prevail.  If we are wrong, we shall come to naught.  Surely it will be better to tolerate our teaching and to refute it in public discussion than to engage in a method of suppression which would clearly involved a breach of faith.

Your Weekly Machen Fix: Statement to the Committee to Investigate Princeton Pt 3

Apologies to those of you who are used to your Machen fix on Monday.  The urgency of the post on the Cubs trumped Machen this week.  This is Part 3 of a four part series where Machen defends himself against personal attacks by the liberal element of the Presbyterian church.  Click here for Part 1, Part 2.

In the first place, if I had supported Dr. Erdman in 1924, I should have been obliged to oppose Dr. Macartney; and that I certainly could not do.  It is unnecessary to debate the question whether Dr. Macartney was publicly mentioned for the moderatorship before or after the mention of Dr. Erdman.  My decided impression was that he was mentioned first.  But I am indifferent to the question.  What I am clear about, at any rate, is that ever since the General Assembly of 1923, Dr. Macartney was the logical – if I may so say, the inevitable – candidate of the conservative element in the church.  Prior to that Assembly, and at the Assembly itself, he had appeared as the spokesman for the overture regarding Dr. Fosdick; and as such, he was the spokesman for the evangelical or conservative party in the church.  Could I possibly refuse him my support?  I ask you, gentlemen, to put yourselves in my place and view the matter from the point of view of my convictions.  For many years I have been convinced that the Presbyterian church was in deadly peril; it was in imminent danger, I believed, of being controlled by that indifference to the central things of the Gospel which already had engulfed the larger Protestant churches of the continent of Europe, and unless all indications failed the larger churches of Great Britain.  Would the undermining process go on here unchecked, or would our church become aroused to its peril before it was too late?  

That question seemed to be answered by Dr. Macartney’s courageous act.  At last there was a strong, true word in defense of the witness-bearing of the Presbyterian church.  Other men might have come forward to speak the word that needed to be spoken, but as a matter of fact, for whatever reasons, they had not done so.  It was Dr. Macartney who, from my point of view, was the man of the hour.  

At the beginning he might have seemed to have little support, and twenty-two of the twenty-three members of the Committee on Bills and Overtures voted against the action that he had favored.  But a minority report by one member of that committee out of the twenty-three carried the day, and the movement was begun which finally led to the departure of Dr. Fosdick from his Presbyterian pulpit.  

"I have to have my Machen fix!"

To me it seemed to be the beginning of a new and better day for the church that I loved.  I hoped and prayed that the witness of the Presbyterian church might be restored.  And the instrument in accomplishing that end seemed to be the man who had so bravely taken the first step – a man of gravity and moderation, scrupulously fair to opponents, singularly free to unworthy personal motives, opposed to extreme or unconstitutional methods, and yet full of a holy zeal for the Word of God.  Under such circumstances it seemed to me quite inconceivable that any other person should be the leader of the conservative element in the church.  I confess that my whole heart went out to the man who had spoken so brave a word.  I was loyal to him with every fiber of my being, and in being so I was firmly convinced of being loyal to the Lord Jesus Christ.  

If that is a fault, I am certainly guilty of it still.  I think without any regret of the decision I made in those days when the Spirit of God seemed to me to be moving so mightily in the church.

There was, indeed, one source of sorrow in the midst of my thankfulness and joy.  It was found in the fact that our faculty was not a unit in defense of a position that Princeton Seminary had maintained hitherto throughout all of its history, and that it was not a unit in support of the movement which had been initiated with such promise and of the man who had already become its leader.  Dr. Erdman, in particular, instead of supporting Dr. Macartney, allowed his own name to be put forward as a candidate.  In making that decision he did not at all consult me; he did not at all ask for my support or permit me to state to him the reasons why I could not give it.  If he had consulted me, it is quite clear what I could have said.  In the first place, I could have told him that because of the issue as it had been raised at the previous Assembly, Dr. Macartney was for the moment the logical candidate of the conservative element in the church.  Then I could have asked for Dr. Erdman’s support, and if he had given it my attitude toward his own candidacy in some future year would have been very different.  I could also, however, have asked him whether his attitude toward the Plan of Organic Union and similar movements had remained the same as that to which I had such strong objections in 1920.  And in general I could have asked him about the platform upon which he was to be nominated in the ecclesiastical policy which he would pursue if he were elected.  

"You postponed Machen for the Cubs?"

I do not at all mean to say that Dr. Erdman was bound to seek any such conference, but what I do affirm is that such a conference was absolutely necessary if faculty unanimity in such matters was so necessary as apparently it has been thought to be by Dr. Erdman’s supporters in the church.  The majority of the faculty was opposed to the ecclesiastical policy advocated by Dr. Erdman, and in favor of that advocated by Dr. Macartney; and if collective action was desired, it could be obtained here as always only through the principle of majority rule.  

As a matter of fact, I do not think that such collective action is at all necessary.  Every member of our faculty should, I think, be free to act in ecclesiastical matters in accordance with his own individual conscience, and such freedom of action is, I think, entirely consonant with mutual respect.  So Dr. Erdman was entirely free to depart from the ecclesiastical position held by the majority of his colleagues, and such departure did not necessarily interfere either with the high regard in which we held him personally or with our appreciation of his services as professor in the seminary.

But if the opposite view is held-if it is maintained that public divergence in the council of the church among the members of our faculty is undesirable – then it was Dr. Erdman and not I that was at fault, since the majority agreed with me and not with him.  

 

Why Every Calvinist Should Be A Chicago Cubs Fan

The Chicago Cubs were recently swept in the National League Playoffs after posting the best record in the league.  I am completely convinced that everyone who believes in sovereignty and election should be a Cubs fan.  There is certainly no good reason to choose to be a Cubs fan by exercising free will.  All quotes under Calvinists are from the Canons of the Synod of Dort.

Total Depravity - Calvinists- Third and Fourth Heads of Doctrine, Article 3:  Therefore all men are conceived in sin, and are by nature children of wrath, incapable of saving good, prone to evil, dead in sin, and in bondage thereto; and without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, they are neither able nor willing to return to God, to reform the depravity of their nature, or to dispose themselves to reformation.

Cubs-  All Cubs are granted futility, weakness, and the ability to choke upon their arrival to the team.  They are incapable of reforming their depravity of talent until they are traded to another team, whence they become productive players and perhaps Hall of Famers (see Lou Brock, Joe Carter, Rafael Palmeiro, etc.).

Unconditional Election - Calvinists- First Head of Doctrine, Article 10: The good pleasure of God is the sole cause of this gracious election; which does not consist herein that out of all possible qualities and actions of men God has chosen some as a condition of salvation, but that He was pleased out of the common mass of sinners to adopt some certain person as a peculiar people to Himself…

Cubs – Cubs fans do not choose their team; they are chosen to be fanatics of the Chicago National League Ball Club.  No one is free to make himself a fan of the Cubs.  Who would chose this life of misery?

Limited Atonement - Calvinists- Second Head of Doctrine, Article 8:  For this was the sovereign counsel and most gracious will and purpose of God the Father that the quickening and saving efficacy of the most precious death of His Son should extend to all the elect, for bestowing upon them alone the gift of justifying faith, thereby to bring them infallibly to salvation;

Cubs – The draw of Cubs fans extends to Cubs fans alone.  There are no fair-weather Cubs fans who temporarily feel the draw and subsequently fall away.  If a fan receives the draw, he can rest assured that the draw is for him and only him.

Irresistible Grace - Calvinists- Third and Fourth Heads of Doctrine, Article 9:  But that others who are called by the gospel obey the call and are converted is not to be ascribed to the proper exercise of free will, whereby one distinguishes himself above others equally furnished with grace sufficient for faith and conversion (as the proud heresy of Pelagius maintains); but it must be wholly ascribed to God, who, as He has chosen His own from eternity in Christ, so He calls them effectually in time, confers upon them faith and repentance, rescues them from the power of darkness, and translates them into the kingdom of His own Son;

Cubs – A fan who is chosen to be for the Cubs does not exercise his own free will in ascribing his allegiance to the North Side team; rather, he is effectually drawn to the delights of Cubdom and is incapable of resistance, thus being brandished a Cubs fan for life.  The Cubs fan is irresistibly drawn to Wrigley for sub-freezing games played by a team with hapless talent.

Perseverance of the Saints - Calvinists- Fifth Head of Doctrine, Article 3: By reason of these remains of indwelling sin, and also because of the temptations of the world and of Satan, those who are converted could not persevere in that grace if left to their own strength.  But God is faithful, who, having conferred grace, mercifully confirms and powerfully preserves them therein, even to the end.

Cubs – By reason of the ineptitude of the team and the temptations of the more winning teams in Major League Baseball, those who are converted to the Cubs could not persevere as Cubs fans if left to their own strength.  But the draw of the fan is faithful, who having received grace, will powerfully persevere even to the end.  Perhaps it is due to self-hatred and masochism, but he will remain a fan for life and not desert to the greener pastures of the South Side or St. Louis.

In addition to the five points, Cubs fans also have other aspects in common with Calvinists.

Suffering - Calvinists – For much of the history of the movement, Calvinists have been persecuted, often violently. 

Cubs – The Cubs have not won a World Series since 1908.  They have not appeared in the World Series since 1945.  There have been too many last place finishes to count.

Humility - Calvinists have never had the majority position in Christianity.  They have always been marginalized and relegated to the fringes of the church at large.  The movement has never experienced wide popularity outside of a few Dutch towns and in Geneva for about 100 years.

Cubs – The Cubs have never been close to a winning franchise.  Cubs fans have had to watch the White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals win World Series in 2005 and 2006, respectively.

Villians – Jacob Arminius – He was raised a Calvinist and educated by Theodore Beza in Geneva.  He later abandoned the doctrines and formulated his own theology centering on the freedom of man’s will.

Steve Bartman – He was raised a Cubs fan but later cost the Cubs the 2003 pennant when he interfered with Cubs’ left-fielder Moises Alou on a foul ball, costing the Cubs the out and a chance at the World Series.

Wrigley Field – St. Peter’s Cathedral

Chicago – Geneva

Harry Caray – John Calvin

Bleachers – Church pews

Ivy – Tulips

I was born a covenant child, not of the Reformed faith but of the Chicago Cubs.  I would not choose this of my own volition and have often times wished that I could desert my team for a better one.  However, I have been chosen for life and will continue to be a Cubs fan in good times and… wait, there are no good times.  I will continue to be a Cubs fan in bad times and worse times.

Don’t You Reformed People Just Spiritualize the Text?

 

Before becoming Reformed, I attended a dispensational seminary where I often heard that those who hold a covenental (rather than dispensational) view of Scripture “spiritualize” the Old Testament text.  By this, they mean that a covenant theologian virtually ignores the original transmission of the text in its historical context and conjures up an interpretation that illegitimately points to Jesus.  It does not matter one bit to the covenant exegete what the text meant to the original hearers.  The only thing that matters is the “spiritualization,” which comes virtually out of thin air.  The covenants of redemption, works, and grace have no exegetical support whatsoever and have been imposed on Scripture by overly-philosophical scholastics.  The original recipients of Scripture would have no concept of these convenants, so say the dispensationalists. 

 

This does not mean that all dispensationalists caricature covenant theology in this way.  I was taught by some fine dispensationalists at Moody Bible Institute who did not misrepresent covenant theology.  Unfortunately, there are other dispensationalists who are not as careful to present an opposing view accurately.  To be fair, some covenant theologians do make the same mistake when they depict dispensationalism in an unfair light.  The goal for everyone should be to present an opposing view in such a way that someone who holds that view would say, “Yes, that is what I believe.”

 

Heinrich Bullinger, author of the Second Helvetic Confession

So what do Reformed exegetes believe about interpretation of Scripture?  Maybe instead of caricatures, we should actually read what they have to say.  The Second Helvetic Confession (1566), chapter 2, “Of Interpreting the Holy Scriptures; and of Fathers, Councils, and Traditions”:

 

The True Interpretation of Scripture.  The apostle Peter has said that the Holy  Scriptures are not of private interpretation (II Peter 1:20), and thus we do not allow all possible interpretations.  Nor consequently do we acknowledge as the true or genuine interpretation of the Scriptures what is called the conception of the Roman Church, that is, what the defenders of the Roman Church plainly maintain should be thrust upon all for acceptance.  But we hold that interpretation of the Scripture to be orthodox and genuine which is gleaned from the Scriptures themselves (from the nature of the language in which they were written, likewise according to the circumstances in which they were set down, and expounded in the light of like and unlike passages and of many and clearer passages) and which agrees with the rule of faith and love, and contributes much to the glory of God and man’s salvation.

The fact is, proper Reformed exegetes always interpret the text in light of the original context.  This is the first job of the exegete.  To accuse Reformed exegetes of not really being concerned with the original historical context is a complete fabrication.  Some dispensationalist may say, “Sure, you say that you’re concerned with the text in its original context, but in reality all you care about is the ‘figurative’ meaning.”  They say this because, while Reformed exegetes first determine the interpretation concerning the original context of the text, we do not stop there.  We believe in a canon of Scripture.  God has given us revelation in the Old and the New Testaments.  We are foolish if we do not look to the authors of the New Testament for their interpretation of the Old, in light of their position on the other side of the cross.  To ignore the New Testament’s interpretation of the Old is non-Christian, it is Jewish. 

I was actually told at my dispensational seminary that I could not look to the New Testament to aid in interpretation of an Old Testament text, because the original recipient of that text would have had no idea of the New Testament.  They called that eisogesis, or reading into the text something that is not there.  I call that learning how to interpret the Bible from the Bible, rather than my own Enlightenment hermeneutic.  The dispensational method of interpretation actually began in the Enlightenment when exegetes who denied the inspiration of the Scriptures, and therefore denied a complete canon, interpreted each individual text solely in light of its original context.  No later revelation could be used to interpret a particular text because the Bible is not inspired and has no inherent unity.  God cannot use later revelation to shed light on earlier revelation because God did not write the Bible, so says the Enlightenment.  For some reason dispensationalists, some of the staunchest defenders of the inspiration of Scripture, have adopted this Enlightenment hermeneutic. 

Reformed exegetes believe that the entire Bible is about Jesus.  He is not not limited to the New Testament and some Old Testament messianic prophecies.  Christ is to be found on every page of Scripture.  After all, He wrote it.  Jesus, Himself practiced this hermeneutic when He spoke to the disciples on the road to Emmause.  Luke 24:27, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”  So, would you rather interpret the Bible like Jesus did or come up with your own “literal” method?

Special Opportunity from the White Horse Inn

Michael Horton and the White Horse Inn are issuing his new book, Christless Christianity, at a special price only for the month of October.  I have already pre-ordered my copy.  Get yours here.