Baptism as a Seal of Saving Blessings

There seems to be a lot of confusion of late surrounding baptism, and more specifically, what kind of salvific blessings can be attributed to the sacrament. In the minds of some, if things like union with Christ or forgiveness of sins are the results of faith, then we mustn’t give baptism any of the credit. After all, we’re not Federal Visionists, right?

I think the Westminster Confession is helpful here. We read in xxviii.6:

The efficacy of Baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, notwith-standing, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, and conferred, by the Holy Ghost....

So it appears that there is a thing called “baptismal efficacy,” but we are cautioned against insisting that baptismal efficacy takes place at the time of baptismal administration. What, then, is baptismal efficacy? In WCF xxviii.1 it says:

Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible Church; but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in the newness of life....

Baptism, then, is a seal to the believer of his union with Christ, his regeneration, and the forgiveness of his sins. Now the whole point of a “seal” is that it provides some sort of confirmation or authentication of something. In this case, the seal is baptism, which is meant to function for the believer as that which confirms his participation in the blessings of the entire covenant of grace.

Now here’s the kicker: If the Confession says that the efficacy of baptism is not tied to the moment of its administration, it stands to reason that there is a “moment” to which it is OK to “tie the efficacy of baptism.” Now, we would all agree that that moment is when we exercise saving faith. It follows, therefore, that it is perfectly valid for the believer (who has exercised saving faith), seeing his baptism as the seal of his regeneration, union with Christ, and forgiveness of sins, to attribute to that sacrament the blessings of the covenant of grace. In other words, he can say, “I have been united with Christ through baptism,” or “I have been forgiven of all my sins because I have been baptized.”

To deny this not only demonstrates a person’s suspicion of the language of confessional Reformed theology, but it also leaves him with little to say in response to the sacramental language of Scripture.

The Sign and the Thing Signified: Can You Tell Them Apart?

In Reformed debates about baptism (especially when Federal Visionists are involved), the biggest issue that arises is the degree to which we can echo the New Testament's language concerining the sacrament's efficacy, and how much qualification we need to offer when we do it. Ironically enough, I was recently accused of sounding like a Federal Visionist because of an article I just wrote for Tabletalk in which I said things like, "Baptism accomplishes this" or "Baptism produces that."

Consider these exerpts from Calvin's Strasbourg and Geneva catechisms:

Question: How do you know yourself to be a son of God in fact as well as in name?

Answer: Because I am baptized in the name of God the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Question: Is baptism nothing more than a mere symbol [i.e., picture] of cleansing?

Answer: I think it to be such a symbol that the reality is attached to it. For God does not disappoint us when he promises us his gifts. Hence, both pardon of sins and newness of life are certainly offered and received by us in baptism.

Now, everything in us is screaming that such language sounds way too Catholic (or Moscovite), but we must also admit that it also reflects the language of Scripture itself. Paul says that baptism unites us with Christ in his death and resurrection, Peter says that baptism saves us, and Ananias says that baptism washes away our sins.

How, then, are we to talk about the efficacy of baptism?

I maintain that the answer is found in properly relating the sign to the thing signified. If we can remember to carefully distinguish the outward sign whereby water is sprinkled on a person's head, and the inward reality of the sinner being cleansed by the blood of Christ, then we can go ahead and speak of the one as if it is the other.

There is, in every sacrament, a spiritual relation, or sacramental union, between the sign and the thing signified: whence it comes to pass, that the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other (WCF xxvii.2).

Think of the sign and the thing signified like you would twins: It's only after you've learned to tell them apart that it becomes safe to put them together.

From Eternity to Here: Baptism, Eschatologically Considered

Sometimes we Reformed paedobaptists spend so much time defending the confessional view of the status of covenant children that we forget that baptism is a way bigger topic than merely the mode or subjects of the sacrament. Sure, the sprinkling-water-on-the-baby’s-head part is integral to the baptism discussion, but to focus solely on the mechanics and beneficiaries of baptism is to exalt the trees over the forest, or to change the metaphor, it is to use the microscope to the exclusion of the telescope. To modify the words of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes 3, there’s a time to zoom in, but also a time to break out the wide-angle lens.

Peter’s words to the crowd on the Day of Pentecost have a much broader significance than we often realize:

Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself (Acts 2:38-39).

In a word, what the apostle is inviting his hearers to do is something every bit as cataclysmic and profound as what happened to Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy when they dared to venture through the back of that magical wardrobe into the strange, new world of Narnia. Baptism represents an intrusion of the age to come into this present world, a breaking-in of the dynamic of heaven to the here and now. As the waters are applied, the sky is split and the pavement cracks, and all that we once were is forever changed. William Willimon writes:

In baptism, we are subsumed into a story of water and the word. A story of creation formed out of dark waters. A story of a God so righteous that he was willing to make war on the world he created.... A story of a people, created out of nothing, by a God determined to be worshiped rightly, led through waters into the desert as imperial chariots foundered. A story of a Jewish woman visited by God in a way that confounded her fiancé but caused her to sing. A story of a crazy man out in the desert proclaiming a new kingdom coming in water and fire. A story of One who saved by an issue of water and blood.[1]

The first thing that baptism accomplishes, claims Peter, is giving us a new past: “Be baptized... for the forgiveness of your sins.” The connection between baptism and forgiveness of sins is also made by Ananias in his instruction to the newly-converted Saul of Tarsus: “Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins” (Acts 22:16), and is echoed in the Nicene Creed’s statement that “We believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” “Do you not know,” Paul asks the Romans, “that as many of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” In the same way that Christ “died to sin,” so we who have been united to him participate in that death to all that once defined us.

In addition to giving us a new past, baptism gives us a new family in the present. As Peter’s words in v. 39 indicate, our earthly, familial ties are transcended—and in some cases trumped—by our baptismal union with “all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” Despite our modern and gnostic desire to maintain our personal relationship with Jesus apart from the awkward and inconvenient tie to the church (filled as it is with actual—and often annoying—people), the fact is that we can’t have the Head without the Body. Through baptism we are ushered into the middle of a tale quite long in the telling, a saga having been spun for thousands of years. This redemptive drama began with a married couple, then grew into a family of eight, then a tribe under the leadership of a chieftain, then twelve tribes that grew into a nation ruled by a king, until it eventually expanded into a truly worldwide and catholic Church with members from every kindred, tongue, people, and nation. Paul tells the Galatians that “As many of you as were baptized into Christ Jesus... are all one in Christ” (3:27, 28). And furthermore, whenever God’s people worship, we do so in the presence of this great “cloud of witnesses” together with whom we are summoned into God’s heavenly presence. Patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs, bishops and fathers, sinners and saints—all of them gather with us as we, together with innumerable angels in festal array, get a glimpse (albeit brief) of the glorious banquet at which we will sit with the Mediator of the New Covenant whose bloods speaks a more comforting word than that of Abel (Heb. 12:1, 22-24).

Lastly, baptism bestows upon us a new future. “Be baptized,” Peter insists, “and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (v. 38). The Spirit is always spoken of in the New Testament in terms that hearken us forward to the new age, the age to come that began to dawn on Easter Sunday and will be finally consummated when Jesus returns. “You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,” Paul writes to the Ephesians, “who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (1:13-14). The Greek word that is translated “guarantee” (arrabōn, used in modern Greek for engagement ring) denotes a down payment toward something that will be fully acquired in the future. Through baptism God the Father marks us off as his own, bestowing upon us the Spirit of the age to come whose role is to bring the dynamic of the “not yet” to bear upon the “already.” David Dark writes:

Whether it’s trees clapping their hands, stars falling from the sky, bloody red moons, or crystal seas—it’s as if the new world on the way requires constant re-articulation to best bear witness of its freshness and new-every-morningness, perpetually straining forward to what lies ahead.[2]

One of the ways this “new world on the way” is “re-articulated” in the here and now is through the sacrament of baptism. Living the Christian life, therefore, is tantamount to living the baptized life, for this ancient ritual serves to pull the future into the present, effectively bringing the believer from eternity to here.

[1] William Willimon, Peculiar Speech: Preaching to the Baptized (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 5.
[2] David Dark, Everyday Apocalypse: The Sacred Revealed in Radiohead, The Simpsons, and Other Pop Culture Icons (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2002), 12-13.

A Strange New World, Part One: Baptismal Initiation

I just began a new series of sermons at Exile Presbyterian Church on the topic of baptism called A Strange New World. The first message is titled "Baptismal Initiation," and can be downloaded here.

Enjoy.

I Like My Ecclesiology Salty and Subversive

Chapter Two of Dual Citizens: Worship and Life Between the Already and the Not Yet is titled "The Irrelevance of Relevance: Grits, Salt, and the Assembling of the Saints." I begin the chapter by drawing a contrast between grits, the southern delicacy that has no taste of its own but instead takes on the flavor of what is added to it, and salt, the condiment that Jesus described as "good for nothing" if it loses the distinctness of its flavor. The purpose of this culinary observation is to show that the Christian church should be more like salt than like grits; in other words, instead of chameleonically changing our colors to adapt to the world around us, the church should seek to retain its distinctiveness and peculiarity in the culture.

Our sacred activity, such as hearing God’s Word and receiving the Lord’s Supper, therefore, is about as unique and countercultural as we can get, while our secular activity is just the opposite—it is thoroughly common. It is primarily on Sunday, therefore, rather than on Monday through Saturday, that believers display their peculiarity and distinc­tiveness from the world.

This means that the church’s main task, as simplistic as it may sound, is to be the church, to be, in the words of Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon, “a new people, an alternative polis, a countercultural social structure.” They con­tinue: “The church does not exist to ask what needs doing to keep the world running smoothly and then to motivate our people to go do it . . . The church has its own reason for being, hid within its own mandate and not found in the world. We are not chartered by the Emperor.” This does not mean that the church ceases to be influential, but that the church’s influence is of an altogether different—and often unwanted—variety. “[We] seek to influence the world by being the church, that is, by being something the world is not and never can be.”

It seems to me that the evangelical church gets things precisely backwards at this point. Rather than being distinct from the culture on Sunday and part of the culture the rest of the week, they seek to be as distinct from the world as they can during the week, but as familar and non-threatening to the world as possible on Sunday. Hence the demand for Christian T-shirts and bumper stickers in order to stand out from the culture when they should be participating it it, and hence the market-driven desire to supply tailor-made worship experiences for Christian consumers (be they traditional, contemporary, or emergent) when they should be expressing their otherworldliness. Michael Horton is spot-on when he describes this approach as "ecclesial apartheid."

Darryl Hart has argued that the church's attempt to be relevant inevitably results in our sacralizing the secular and trivializing the sacred. Instead, argues Horton, "genuine relevance is found not when the church tries to be relevant, since repeating what people already think is rather boring. Genuine relevance is found in contradicting the wisdom of the world that we entered the church with on Sunday morning."

When the church fails to embrace this salty and subversive role in the culture, then, in the words of Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon (quoting Barth), "God is reduced to 'MAN!' said in a loud voice."

Borrowed Capital, Borrowed Liability

Continuing our look at Christianity in the public square, I'd like to direct our attention to Michael Horton's observation that:

"Because non-Christians are still wired for law, they can build decent civilizations. And because Christ-ians are simultaneously saint and sinner, there is absolutely no guarantee that a 'Christian nation' will be any better than a pagan one. In fact, it may well be worse precisley because of false ex-pectations derived from bad theology" ("Church or Political Action Committee?" in Modern Reformation, October/November 2008).

I know, I know: Everything in you wants to rise up in righteous indignation at such a seemingly preposterous idea, perhaps even suggesting that Horton move to Iran to test his theory out. But before we break into a spontaneous rendition of "God Bless America" complete with hand-holding and swaying back and forth, we need to reckon with a couple of things.

For one, there are plenty of (insert ominous music and thunder-clap here) European countries whose Christian witness has long-since died out, but whose citizens nonetheless somehow manage to resist the temptation to rape, pillage, and murder one another for their own amusement. In fact, violent crime is much less rampant in many post-Christian nations than it is in ostensibly Christian ones.

Further, the U.S., which is arguably the most outwardly Christian country on the planet, is hated by much of the rest of the world, and it's not for our freedom (!). Instead, we are looked upon as a bunch of obese, materialistic bigots who see no problem cloaking our war-mongering and greed (which are connected by the way) in sanctimonious religious rhetoric.

How can these things be if it is true that believing in Jesus supposedly gives us the corner of the morality market?

Unfortunately, the truth of the matter (as Horton points out) is that we Christians, despite our faith in Christ, are every bit as likely to cheat, divorce, or ignore suffering as anyone else (though sometimes this takes a different form for us). But fortunately, the pagan, despite his hatred of Christ, is every bit as likely as anyone else to seek to promote a society that is fair, just, and peaceful.

What is really tragic is when our "Christianity" makes us less peace-loving, compassionate, and family-oriented than those who have to borrow those traits from the theist's world-and-life view. Yes, the pagan borrows capital from the Faith, but it is also true that the believer borrows plenty of liability from the world.

Observant Protestantism

The pietist/confessionalist taxonomy has been the occasion of considerable debate and disagreement here (for a concise explanation and defense of this paradigm for classifying American Protestants, see D.G. Hart's comments after the thread below [his is #52 in case you're counting]).

Confessionalism, rather than focusing narrowly on the use of confessions per se, is actually just code for "churchly Protestantism." A confessionalist, then, is a Protestant whose faith is not divorced from its corporate, liturgical practice (be it in an Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, or Reformed church).

This gives rise to an interesting linguistic phenomenon which Hart alludes to elsewhere: Why is it that Jews and Roman Catholics are usually described as observant or non-observant while Protestants are classified either as true, genuine Christians or formal, dead ones?

This type of nomenclature betrays the latent pietism of much of evangelical Protestantism, for rites and practices like baptism, church membership, corporate worship, and communion are all dismissed as incidental, if not inimical, to "true Christianity."

"The fact that American Protestants do not use the nomenclature of observance," writes Hart, "demonstrates just how complete the triumph of evangelicalism has been" (Recovering Mother Kirk, 247).

But if being Reformed is more than just a state of mind but actually involves participating in certain corporate, religious ceremonies, then perhaps formal, observant, churchly Christianity isn't the bane of Protestantism after all.

And if you think about it, confessionalism's insistence that the Christian faith not be divorced from its ritualistic practice means that the pietist's distinction between creed and deed is not only not a temptation for us, it's not even an option.

Conversion, Covenant, and the Communication of the Faith

The next question in our ongoing comparison of evangelicalism to Reformed theology addresses the issue of the faith's communication from one generation, or one person, to another.

In the thinking of most of our evangelical brothers and sisters, the passing on of religion is almost invariably supernatural and miraculous rather than natural and ordinary. Now, I'm not suggesting that the miraculous element is absent from or de-emphasized in Reformed circles, but what I am saying is that, in the evangelical mindset, the threshhold through which a sinner-turned-saint passes is conversion, and this conversion is usually a cataclysmic and powerful experience.

To believers coming from the Reformation tradition, on the other hand, this is not necessarily the case. While adults coming out of pagan backgrounds may indeed experience such a seismic shift in loyalties, this ought to be the exception rather than the rule. The Christian faith, normally speaking, is passed on from parent(s) to child by means of the baptism of infants. When the child is thus initiated into the covenant community, she is then nurtured in the faith by parents and pastors who treat the child as a believer unless given a reason to do otherwise.

Is it unfair to say that the evangelical insistence upon miraculous conversion experiences demonstrates a latent suspicion of the natural and ordinary means through which God often works? And turning the tables, can Reformed believers legitimately be accused of minimizing the supernatural work of the Spirit?

Here a Sacerdotalist, There a Sacerdotalist... Everywhere a Sacerdotalist

We have seen that evangelical and Reformed believers offer very different answers to the question "How does one 'get religion'?" The next question we will ask to determine the nature of the relationship between these two branches of Protestantism is, "What does the Christian faith look like once it is acquired?"

Again, not surprisingly, the answers differ. While the evangelical may dismiss "sacramental faith" (whether in its Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican, or Roman Catholic versions) as too institutional, "churchy," or sacerdotal, the fact is that his faith relies on sacraments a-plenty, just not necessarily the ones Jesus came up with.

For example, practices such as daily quiet times, altar calls, listening to Contemporary Christian Music, and attending "afterglows" are all considered important - yea vital - to growing in the Lord. In fact, even pastors themselves have become sacraments in some megachurch contexts. After all, the authority of the pastor's message often rests upon his witty personality, godly life, and dynamic speaking style (you know, the things that Paul deliberately did not employ, much to the disappointment of his Corinthian audience).

In stark contrast to this stands the faith as understood by confessional Reformed theology. To those of this persuasion, the Christian life follows a regular, Sabbatical pattern that centers upon the corporate worship of God by his gathered people on the first day of the week. Like their evangelical brothers and sisters they too place great emphasis upon sacraments, but only upon those instituted by the Lord himself. Baptism, then, initiates us into the household of faith, and that faith is nurtured and strengthened by means of the bread and cup of Communion.

I would even venture to suggest that the nature of confessional Reformed Christian living, particularly its dependance upon the ordinary ministry of the local church, when contrasted with the high-octane, subjective quest for spiritual experience so characteristic of evangelical pietism, is such that the former respresents what Luther called a "theology of the cross," while the latter betrays a "theology of glory."

Are dangers reserved solely for one or the other? Are these systems necessarily opposed? If so, does this mean that Reformed believers have no place for subjective piety?

Of Tulips and Altar Calls: How Does One "Get Religion"?

The comments on our last thread have been interesting, particularly those concerning the relationship of Reformed theology to evangelicalism.

When we consider the relationship between these two branches of Protestantism by posing such questions as: 1). How do we "get religion"? 2). What does it look like once it is acquired? 3). How is religion cultivated? 4). How is it passed on?, the two systems appear quite distinct and even antithetical to one another.

In answering the first question, for example, the evangelical response to how religion is acquired (if such terminology would even be granted in the first place) would center around the extra-curricular evangelistic activities of Christians, while the Reformed believer would focus more upon the local church's official mandate to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments.

Do both sides have a valid point? Does Christ's Great Commission have a broad application to all believers, or is it intended solely for the church's ordained officers?

Borrowed Liability

Having just preached on Paul's determination to "know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (I Cor. 2:1-2), I find it striking that not only did Paul insist upon preaching the cross exclusively, he insisted on being consistent when he did so.

How can cross-focused, Christ-centered preaching be inconsistent with itself?

According to I Corinthians 1:17, when the gospel, which is a foolish message characterized by weakness, is presented in the garb of earthly power and worldly wisdom, "the cross is emptied of its power." In other words, when either the wrong message is preached, or the right one is preached in the wrong manner, the cross is eclipsed by whatever signs or wisdom the Jews and Greeks respectively desire.

Don't misunderstand me -- wisdom and power are good things that Scripture tells us to seek, but when we refuse to allow the cross to define those things for us (which it does in a way that is antithetical to the world's notion of them), then whatever you call it, it's not Christanity.

Moreover, when our definition of power or wisdom is borrowed directly from the dictionary of this age, then we subtly undermine with our methods what we proclaim in our message.

Yes, unbelievers enjoy plenty of what Van Til called "borrowed capital" from the Christian faith. But it's the borrowed liability that we saints receive on loan from the world that concerned Paul.

Jesus: Less Attractive Than Tony Robbins, and Less Popular Than the Beatles

Speaking of Jesus' appearance, Isaiah writes, "He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him" (53:2). For this reason C.H. Spurgeon remarked that Paul "determined only to know Jesus Christ, and him crucified, and just to set him forth in his own natural beauties unadorned." "Alas for that wisdom," Spurgeon continued, "which conceals the wisdom of God! It is the most guilty form of folly."

The problem today, however, is that in the subtle estimation of many, the cross was fine for Jesus to die on, but not us. How else can we interpret the fact that the primary goal of many churches these days is to not appear weak, irrelevant, and foolish in the eyes of the world (you know, the way Jesus looked)?

Word and sacrament (the means that God has ordained for the growth of his people), are ordinary means "that from the world's perspective aren't very noble or glamorous... but the great and mighty redemptive power of God is packaged or conveyed in a flimsy and unconvincing form" (D.G. Hart, Mother Kirk, 121).

John Lennon was right, "The Beatles are more popular than Jesus." His words were eerily prophetic, though, since both he and Christ were murdered. But the earthly vindication of Lennon's boast was demonstrated by the fact that, just after his shooting, his vigil gathered a lot more mourners than a measly 120 (Acts 1:15).

Will we, as the church, ever collectively figure out that earthly power and influence is directly antithetical to the power of the gospel? And if we insist on continuing to proclaim a message of foolishness using the means of worldly wisdom, is that not a denial of the cross more dangerous than stem cell research and gay marriage?

Can Divinity Be Mastered?

"The minister," writes D.G. Hart,

"... does not hold authority because of special gifts... nor does the minister speak with power because he is telegenic and winsome. Rather, authority resides in the ministry because of the office of the pastor itself. The office, no matter who holds it, is authoratative." (Recovering Mother Kirk: The Case for Liturgy in the Reformed Tradition, 113.)

Crucial to a confessionalist view of the Christian faith (over against a pietist one) is the importance of the ordained ministry of Word and sacrament. The blatantly anti-egalitarian and anti-democratic nature of the confessionalist position makes it seem utterly foreign and even backward when compared to all the stuff that makes America tick (a dissimilarity that, when coupled with a healthy sense of the separation between church and state, shouldn't be a problem).

In our day, however, the idea that anyone's opinions about what God thinks about a particular issue are more trustworthy than another's is ludicrous, especially "when every Tom, Dick, and Sadie with a strong D average in high school has the right to express an opinion" (Ibid., quoting John M. Timmerman). But when we're grappling with something that's really important like, say, cancer, then all of a sudden the expert's opinion actually matters.

Is the fact that the instruction of M.D.s in white coats carries more weight than that of M.Div.s in black gowns a possible indication of where our priorities lie?

Or to put in more simply: Are our souls so much less important than our bodies that the spiritual health of the former can be diagnosed by anybody with a Bible, while the physical health of the latter requires some actual expertise?

And just what does "Master of Divinity" mean anyway?

A Tale of Two Pieties

In his book lamenting the so-called "new measures" employed by nineteenth-century revivalist Charles Finney (which were characterized by an early version of the "altar call" in which people could come forward to the "anxious bench" after the sermon to receive instruction concerning conversion), John Williamson Nevin wrote:

"The old Presbyterian faith, into which I was born, was based throughout on the idea of covenant family religion, church membership by God's holy act in baptism, and following this a regular catechetical training of the young, with direct reference to their coming to the Lord's table. In one word, all proceeded on the theory of sacramental, educational religion." (Nevin, The Anxious Bench, quoted in D.G. Hart, John Williamson Nevin: High Church Calvinist.)

According to Nevin, there are two systems of religion at work in Protestantism: the "system of the bench," and "the system of the catechism." These two systems "involve at the bottom two different theories of religion. The spirit of the Anxious Bench is at war with the spirit of the Catechism.... They cannot flourish and be in vigorous force together." And in case his readers misunderstood his message, Nevin then added, "The Bench is against the Catechism, and the Catechism is against the Bench."

It is hard to believe that there was a time when religion in this country was characterized by the ordinary ministry of the local church, with her worship, liturgy, preaching, and sacraments (and admittedly, this period didn't last long).

What we need to recover today is just such a view of the local church's role in the life of the believing family. Rather than the slick program-driven and desperate attempts at "relevance" (which the world gets to define, by the way), we need a ministry that will simply open the Scriptures and preach Christ crucified from them, and then give the bread and the cup to hungry and thirsty pilgrims.

Anything less than a bold refusal to pander to the whims of the worldly is to sell our birthright, like "that profane man Esau," for a bowl of beans.

But will it work?

Sola Scriptura?

This is something of a post script to my last installment on "application" in preaching, but I beg your indulgence nonetheless....

I have been wondering lately whether or not the faithful exposition of a passage of Scripture is sufficient in and of itself, or does the exposition's legitimacy only appear when its relevance to my life is demonstrated?

For example, I will be preaching soon on Ephesians 1:3, which says that "all spiritual blessings in heavenly places" are to be found "in Christ." Now, if I show from this verse (and others like it) the folly of seeking any blessing from God apart from the Person and work of Jesus, and conversely, that Christ is the fountain of all of heaven's treasure, is that enough? Does the ordinary church-goer see that point as being particularly relevant, or do I need to add something like, "Now for you stay-at-home moms out there..."?

My hope for the evangelical church today is that a faithfully-preached gospel would provide sufficient manna to satisfy God's pilgrim people, but my fear is that, like the wilderness wanderers of old, the delicacies of Egypt seem far more appealing.

God and Coppertone

One of the touchiest areas in preaching is the part that is usually tacked on at the end of the sermon: application. Now you may be thinking, "What's so hard about application? Just tell me how to put the biblical passage into practice." But God is not like Coppertone -- he's just not that easy to apply.

As creatures made in God's image, we are "wired" for law. By this I mean that, unlike the gospel, which is foreign and counterintuitive, the law is in us by nature. Whether it's "Five Simple Steps for Victorious Living" or "Ten Ways to Improve Our Marriages," the fact is undeniable that the imago Dei in us craves instruction, and the American in us believes that if we put our minds to it, by golly, we can accomplish anything.

When we add to our moral self-confidence the fact that we are hopelessly self-obsessed, practical application becomes even more tricky. You see, the notion that the Bible is not actually about us, but about Jesus Christ, is rather offensive to our fragile egos. Hence the promise on the websites of our megachurches that the messages given contain helpful principles that can be used in the "real world" (which means my world). But when all the minister does is talk about Jesus and what he has done the complaint quickly arises, "But what does all that have to do with ME?"

I'm not suggesting we jettison practical application, but I am suggesting that we alter our approach to it. Rather than viewing God as a commodity that religious consumers use to improve their lives, ought we not reorient our lives to make them useful for him and his purposes? And instead of reducing God to a "co-pilot" whose occasional advice helps steer the ship of our lives, shouldn't we see ourselves as hopelessly shipwrecked without him, and him alone, at the helm?

It is only after we humbly acknowledge that we are but small parts of something much greater and grander than oursleves that we will ever be ready to be told what to do.

Moralism, Character Studies, and Daring to be a Daniel

In my last post I used the oft-employed sermon title “Dare to be a Daniel” as an example of moralistic preaching. Let me explain....

When reading the Old Testament, the temptation arises to try to relate directly to the biblical characters in order to make the passage relevant to our lives today. “Daniel didn't back down in the face of pagan adversity,” we think to ourselves, “and therefore the message of this text is that I shouldn't back down either.”

This hermeneutic is perfectly illustrated by the lyrics and cover art of Keith Green's album No Compromise. The cover depicts an ancient scene in which a multitude of people is bowing before a pagan ruler, with one courageous man in their midst standing upright in defiance. The lyric says, “No empty words, no white lies, no token prayers, no compromise.”

Now please do not misunderstand me. I’m not saying that Old Testament characters like Daniel provide no examples for us to aspire to. What I am saying, though, is that drawing the line directly from them to ourselves is a misguided and dangerous method for devotional reading, hermeneutics, and (especially) Christian preaching.

The fact is that Daniel, brave though he may have been at times, was still a fallen prophet. Moreover, his ministry of pointing Israel to the soon-to-be-realized deliverance from captivity resulted in a return to the same Mosaic economy that was powerless to prevent their exile in the first place.

The “line,” therefore, must be drawn from Daniel, through Christ, and then to us. When we read the prophet from this side of the cross and empty tomb, we realize that he applies to our current situation because he both points to, and demonstrates the need for, the true “Prophet whom the Lord God would raise up from among his brethren” (Acts 3:22; cf. Deut. 18:15), the very Prophet who was “not without honor save in his own country” (Mark 6:4), and who alone among the children of men stood tall amid the onslaught of the serpent’s temptations (Matt. 4:1ff; cf. Gen. 3:1ff). The Lord Jesus Christ, not Daniel, is the One who dared not compromise, but chose rather to be obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

When the central Figure in all of Scripture is marginalized or altogether forgotten, all the hearer is left with is the courageous example of a fallen man in a sermon that could just as easily have been preached in a synagogue, mosque, or Promise Keepers convention.

When Jesus Doesn't Jump Off The Page

OK, we've established that any exposition of a text that neglects to set forth "Christ and him crucified" ultimately falls short of being a Christian sermon. But how is the preacher to (legitimately) find Christ in an obscure Old Testament text? Genesis 22 or Isaiah 53 are easy, but what about less obviously Christological passages?

Let me provide an example from a portion of Scripture where Jesus doesn't exactly jump off the page at you: Ezra 3:10-13.

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In this passage, the newly-returned exiles have begun to rebuild their temple, but upon the laying of the foundation, the emotions of the people were mixed. Many cried out for joy at God's faithfulness, but others (particularly the elderly who remembered Solomon's temple) lifted up their voices and wept, so that "the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping."

Coupled with this obviously "small beginning" and the lingering trouble posed by Israel's enemies outside the camp was a palpable sense of anticlimax that clung to this whole venture. Yes, Israel was back in the land, but they were still laboring under the same covenant that had both threatened and foretold the exile from which they had just been liberated. In a word, they were in no better a position than they were in before their captivity. The law, the temple, the priesthood -- indeed the entire Mosaic Covenant -- screamed at them "DO THIS AND LIVE!" If Israel obeyed, they were promised blessing and long life in the land. But if they failed (again), a threatened curse loomed on the horizon. The law could command, but it could not renew. Hence the bittersweetness of this building project.

So was this it? Was this the promised restoration that God's people had been longing for? Was it their fate to forever worship him under the constant threat of disinheritance?

Absolutely not! About 560 years later, in that very spot on the temple mount, a Man stood and cried, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (which his disciples later learned was a reference to his resurrection). And concerning the physical temple that then stood, he simply said, "Do you see this temple? Not one stone will be left upon another which shall not be thrown down."

God's people no longer labor under the harsh tyranny of the law which, metaphorically speaking, commanded bricks to be made while providing no straw. Rather, we worship under a New Covenant, the blood of whose Mediator speaks better things than that of Abel. The law commands "Do this and live," while the gospel cries out, "It is finished!"

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The more we read the Bible Christocentrically, the more we'll see him on every page. And pretty soon we'll become so trained to expect Christ to be preached in every sermon that the usual moralism ("Dare to be a Daniel!") and therapeutic pop psychology ("Ten Steps for Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World") will no longer suffice. God's children need to feed on the Gospel of the crucified and risen Christ, not on the Law of a kinder and gentler Moses.

Tell Me the Story

In U2's version of a lament psalm ("Wake Up Dead Man") Bono pleads,

Tell me,
Tell me the story;
The one about eternity,
And the way it's all gonna be.

This is a common theme in the biblical canon as well. It seems like God is constantly in the business of performing redemptive acts and then talking about them. Virtually every time he addressed his people in Old Testament times he began by reminding them, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Deut. 5:6). Entire chapters of Scripture are devoted to rehearsing God's mighty acts in history (Ex. 15; Ps. 78).

In the church today, however, we often hear that the pastor's message must be "relevant" and "applicable to daily life." God, it seems, is a character in my drama, rather than the other way around.

But when God's people today corporately gather around Word and Sacrament, it is not to re-align God's priorities to match our own, but to re-align and re-orient ourselves to him. He has taken our plotless and pointless lives and rescripted them, writing us into his cosmic drama of which he is the Playwright and Director, and in which Jesus Christ, and not we, has the starring role.

Christ-centered preaching, therefore, does not force the Savior into the sermon or cleverly leap from an obscure text to Jesus, but it takes the trees (the verses being expounded) and properly situates them in the forrest (the larger story of redemption). In a word, faithful preaching addresses a "people who were once not a people" and re-constitutes them as "the people of God" and as newly-added characters in the epic tale that he is telling.

Christ-Centered Preaching

Proponents of "Christ-Centered Preaching" (such as Bryan Chapell, President of Covenant Seminary, and Michael Horton, Professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California) argue that the Person and work of Jesus Christ is the central message of the Bible, and therefore any sermon that fails to do justice to Scripture's central message necessarily fails in its primary task.

The New Testament abounds with evidence for the Christ-centeredness of God's revelation; Luke 24:27, 44-45 is a characteristic example:

"And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.... Then he said to them, 'These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.' Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures."

But the matter is far from settled.

There are those who argue that, while Christ is certainly to be preached from passages where he is explicitly mentioned or typified, to force him into every text is an unnatural imposition that does damage to the message of that particular passage.

There are others who agree with Christ-centered preaching in theory, but have difficulty making the transition from the (perhaps obscure) text to Christ. The result is often an awkward jump from "Samuel hacked Agag into pieces" to "Sick of being 'hacked to pieces' by the world? Come to Jesus!"

And finally, evidence suggests that the majority of evangelical pastors consider messages focusing on the cross and resurrection to be irrelevant to modern church-goers. The Gospel is great for unbelievers, but once they're "in," they need practical messages that are useful in "the real world."

Into which category do you fit?