By Grace Through Faith or By Faith Through Grace?

When Did "Salvation by grace through faith..." (Eph. 2:9) become, "Salvation by faith through grace..." Mark Kielar of Cross Tv explores this unbiblical understanding of salvation,embraced by vast majority of Evangelicals today. 

9 Marks of a Healthy Parachurch Ministry

Parachurch ministries are everywhere and most of the time, they just assume the role of the church, forgetting the primacy of the church, the divinely chosen body for the expansion of the kingdom of God.  

Mack Stiles, an elder of Redeemer Church of Dubai has written an excellent article enlisting and explaining the 9 marks of a healthy parachurch ministry. Stiles, a longtime parachurch veteran lays out nine things that should keep a parachurch ministry faithful to the gospel.  Stiles explains his concern as, The standard cliché for parachurch is that it’s not the church, but an arm of the church. Yet historically, that arm has shown a tendency to develop a mind of its own and crawl away from the body, which creates a mess. Given the grand scope and size of many parachurch ministries, those which go wayward can propagate error for years: missionary organizations become gyms, heretical seminaries pump out heretical pastors, and service organizations produce long-term confusion between the gospel and social action.

The 9marks of a healthy parachurch are :

1: A healthy parachurch ministry knows that it exists primarily to protect the church.

2: A healthy parachurch ministry makes a clear distinction between church and parachurch.

3: A healthy parachurch ministry avoids acting like the church.

4: A healthy parachurch ministry does not pressure the church to act like a parachurch.

5: A healthy parachurch ministry humbly heeds the history of parachurch movements.

6: A healthy parachurch ministry understands the difference between the pragmatic and the principled.

7: The healthy parachurch has a counter-cultural understanding of management and money.

8: The healthy parachurch maintains a strong commitment to, and understanding of, the gospel.

9: A healthy parachurch ministry seeks accountability relationships with the church.

Stiles summarizes his points beautifully in his conclusion as follows:

Parachurch ministries are bigger and more influential than ever. And within the vast majority of them, God is at work for his kingdom in powerful ways. But we should never forget that his chosen method for the expansion of the kingdom is his church. So a healthy parachurch ministry keeps the primacy of the church front and center. It makes clear distinctions between church and parachurch, both avoiding the temptation to act like the church and refusing to pressure the church to act like the parachurch. A healthy parachurch ministry humbly heeds the history of parachurch ministries, takes hold of the principles of the ministry over the pragmatism of the world, maintains its commitment to the gospel, and seeks accountability relationships with the church.

Nine Marks of a Healthy Parachurch Ministry  Read

Fighting For Our Joy in Christ

Christians are new creatures who find their joy in Christ alone. The chief aim in their life is to glorify God and enjoy Him, or to put it in other words, it is to glorify God by enjoying Him. If God is nothing to you, chances are, you are not even a Christian. For the mark of a Christian is that He has come to know God in Christ Jesus and has started tasting His glory. Such a person cannot help but be joyful in Christ. Now it would be naive to say that this is always the case in our life. There is a battle involved and sometimes even genuine believers sink into a joyless, mere duty bound, sort of ritualistic Christian life.

What do we do in those times?

That is precisely what John Piper tries to answer in the book "When I don't Desire God?". Piper also preached on this during the Desiring God regional conference of 2005, which was based on this book. He explains some foundational matters regarding the Christian life, describing it essentially as one of enjoying God. Piper considers it an “apostolic mission” to help Christians find their joy in Christ.  He quotes Paul from  2 Corinthians 1:24 and Philippians 1:25 to justify this claim.

For those who have been skeptical about John Piper and his stress of finding joy in God, this sermon is a very good introduction to his theology. At the beginning of the message, Piper gives 4 clarifications on what he is not doing.  He says,

1. I am not coming with a health-wealth-prosperity gospel. I am not here to tell you that Christ will make you healthy, wealthy and prosperous in this life so that you can have joy. No that’s not my message. I am here to tell you that Christ will give Himself to you so that you do not need health, wealth or prosperity in order to have joy. But you can have so much invincible joy in the durable Christ that you can give up health, wealth and prosperity in the sacrifices of love, if God so calls.

2. I am not here to put the icing of joy on the cake of your Christian life. Joy in Christ is the cake and not just the icing.

3. I am not on a mission to put your joy above God's glory. Rather I am on a mission to put your joy in  God's glory. God is most glorified in you, when you are most satisfied in Him.

4. I am not on a mission to make you feel good about yourself. I am on a mission to make you feel so good about the greatness of God that you forget about yourself and live a life of love making others glad in God.

The sermon is specially recommended to all Christians who need sound encouragement to find their joy in Christ. If one does not find one’s joy in Christ, then one will find it in sin.  So beware of taking this battle for our joy in Christ as a light matter.

How To Fight For Joy  Listen | Download

To Continuationists, With Love

The Charismatic issue has been a highly debated one, with Christians of every denomination affected by it. The issue is over the continuation of the gifts of the Spirit especially the gifts of revelation – the word of knowledge, prophecy and tongues. Overt Charismatics and Conservative Continuationists believe in the continuation of all gifts where as Cessationists do not.  

Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia has a very simple, easy to read, yet very helpful and theologically astute article dealing with this issue.

Gaffin begins his article by making some clarifications about the label of “Cessationist”, for he believes this label carries a lot of baggage. He first asserts that Cessationists do not believe that God’s Spirit is no longer actively working in dynamic and dramatic ways.  He also clarifies that Cessationists are not against all the spiritual gifts for the issue is the cessation of a limited number of such gifts. The continuation of the large remainder is not in dispute.

Gaffin then moves onto his major arguments for being a Cessationist. He first focuses his attention on what we mean by the apostolicity of the Church, when we quote the Nicene Creed and say that the Church is Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. Gaffin’s answer is best summarized by him as, The apostolicity of the Church is not secured by an unbroken succession of officeholders that can be traced back to the apostles but by the uninterrupted possession and maintenance of their witness or tradition (2 Thess. 2:15), inscripturated in the New Testament. After establishing the temporary nature and cessation of the office of the Apostle, Gaffin challenges his readers to think through in the light of other New Testament teaching, what further implications this basic cessationist position may carry.  Gaffin argues that, Ephesians 2:20 clearly implies that prophecy was a temporary gift, given for the foundation-laying period of the church. Therefore, along with the apostles, the New Testament prophets are no longer a present part of the church’s life. Regarding tongues, Gaffin first points out that, interpreted tongues are functionally equivalent to prophecy. A close tie exists between prophecy and tongues. We may even say fairly that tongues, as interpretable and to be interpreted (1Cor vv. 13, 27), are a mode of prophecy. Secondly he says, tongues are revelation is plain from verses 14-19  in 1 Corinthians 14. Thirdly he points out that, Paul calls the content of the tongues,“mysteries”, which in the New Testament, always refers to revelation, more specifically, the redemptive-historical content of revelation (e.g., Matt. 13:11; Rom. 16:25-26; 1 Tim. 3:16)

Gaffin summarizes saying, the basic thread of the argument for the cessation of prophecy and tongues is this: By divine design, apostles and prophets have a temporary role in the Church's history and do not continue beyond its foundational era. The redemptive-historical "specs" of the church-house are such that they are not permanent fixtures (Eph. 2:20), and so neither are tongues, tied, as we have seen they were, to prophecy (1 Cor. 14). They, too, pass out of the life of the Church, along with the passing of the apostles and prophets (and other means of bringing God's Word).

Gaffin then spends some time on 1 Corinthians 13, which he says is the "gotcha" text of Non- cessationists.  Regarding 1 Corinthians 13, Gaffin argues that Prophecy and tongues are no doubt singled out given Paul's pastoral concern, within the wider context (chapters 12-14), with their proper exercise. But the time of their cessation is not a concern he has here. To insist on the contrary from verse 10 is gratuitous. His stress, rather, is on the duration, until Christ returns, of our present, opaque knowledge-by whatever revelatory means that knowledge may come (including, by implication, even inscripturation) and whenever they may cease.

Gaffin concludes his article with a very practical and excellent observation, A dilemma confronts noncessationists. If prophecy and tongues, as they function in the New Testament, continue today, then the noncessationist is faced with the quite practical and troublesome implication that Scripture alone is not a sufficient verbal revelation from God; the canon is at best relatively closed. Alternatively, if, as most noncessationists insist, "prophecy" and "tongues" today are nonrevelatory or less than fully revelatory, then these contemporary phenomena are misnamed and are something other than the New Testament gifts. Noncessationists are caught in a redemptive-historical anachronism, seeking within the superstructure of the Church's history what belonged to its foundational era. They are involved in the contradictory effort of trying to maintain along with a closed New Testament canon the presence of those revelatory gifts that were for the open canon period when the New Testament documents were in the process of being written. Prophecy and tongues have ceased. What remains, supremely and solely sufficient and authoritative until Jesus comes, is "the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures" (Westminster Confession of Faith, 1:10).

Where Have All the Spiritual Gifts Gone? Read

Ordinary Christian

Most Christians are guilty of thinking highly about Christian leaders and godly men, whom the Lord has used for His glory. Most of us think of these men as great and having no issues with sin, the world and the flesh, like normal Christians. Moreover some schools of theology teach there are a higher grade of Christians who are better than the normal struggling saints. However the truth is, every single Christian experiences the battle against sin. Most genuine Christian leaders are honest about their struggles. Here is one quote from a very famous Christian leader:

  

I am convinced that some sins have always attended me, as if they made a part of my constitution; among these I reckon pride, or rather vanity,—an evil which I have detected frequently, but have never been free from to this day. Indolence in divine things is constitutional: few people can think what necessity I am constantly under of summoning all my resolution to engage in any thing which God has commanded. This makes me peculiarly unfit for the ministry, and much more so for the office of a missionary. I now doubt seriously, whether persons of such a constitution should be engaged in the Christian ministry. This, and what I am going to mention, fill me with continued guilt. A want of character and firmness has always predominated in me. I have not resolution enough to reprove sin, to introduce serious and evangelical conversation in carnal company, especially among the great, to whom I have sometimes access. I sometimes labor with myself long, and at last cannot prevail sufficiently to break silence; or, if I introduce a subject, want resolution to keep it up, if the company do not show a readiness thereto. [1]

Now who would have guessed the lamenting author of this quote is William Carey, the Father of the Modern Missionary movement and one of the greatest of all missionaries in Church history.  Carey wrote this in a letter to John Ryland to give some report of his experience and then lamented about his characteristic sins.

Ordinary Christian, take courage, you are not alone in your battle against sin. You are a normal Christian when you struggle against sin. Keep fighting in His grace.

Footnotes  

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[1] Eustace Carey, Memoir of William Carey D.D., 37-38

Election and Evangelism

It is often argued by some that a firm belief in the sovereignty of God in the election of His people would dampen one’s zeal for evangelism and missions. The question is often framed as, ‘if God has predestined, then why should we do any evangelism?’

Here is Mark Kielar of Cross Tv answering this question.

A Reformed Missiology

In 1987 John Piper preached at a missions conference on the importance of having a biblical foundation for missions. Piper’s presentation can be divided into three broad sections. In the first section, he argues from present day realities, the biblical mandate and historical facts, how missions need to have a strong doctrinal basis for its healthy progress. In his second section, Piper moves onto expounding a theology for missions from the gospel of John. After having developed a picture of missions from the Word, he comes to his final section of application. 

  

He began his sermon by considering the present status of missions across the globe. He lamented over three observations : i) the greatness of the unfinished task,  ii) the superficiality of the faith of professing Christians and iii) absence of strong leaders who can feed and fire the churches.  To all of these three problems, Piper suggests one crucial answer which is, The doctrinal basis of faith and missions is too narrow.

Piper says, The depth and breadth of doctrinal understanding thought to be important for Christians and missionaries has been too shallow and too narrow. This low standard of biblical understanding is then passed on to the younger churches. The result is that the initial enthusiasm has no deep roots, and leadership in biblical study is not prized, and nominalism sets in.  The erroneous notion prevails that a broad and deep understanding of biblical doctrine is for the advanced saints or, perhaps, just for scholars, but not for simple missionaries and certainly not for their converts. But this is not true. Paul says in Ephesians 4:13-14 that the only way ordinary people will cease to be children tossed to and fro by winds of false teaching and by the cunning of men is if they come to full manhood in knowledge—the knowledge of the Son of God. This is not the goal of an elite, educated few! It is the biblical mandate for every believer! You!

He then goes onto list 11 values of biblical truth as follows :

Biblical truth frees from Satan (John 8:32; 2 Timothy 2:24-26).

Biblical truth mediates grace and peace (2 Peter 1:2).

Biblical truth sanctifies (John 17:17; 2 Peter 1:3, 5, 12; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Biblical truth serves love (Philippians 1:9).

Biblical truth protects from error (Ephesians 4:11-15; 2 Peter 3:17-18).

Biblical truth saves (1 Timothy 4:16; Acts 20:26-27; 2 Thessalonians 2:10).

Biblical truth is the ideal of heaven (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Biblical truth will be resisted by some (2 Timothy 4:1-5).

Biblical truth is the duty of elders (Titus 1:9).

Biblical truth is approved by God (2 Timothy 2:15).

Biblical truth should continually increase (2 Peter 3:18; Colossians 1:10; Hebrews 5:12).

Piper then argues from history how the state of affairs were different in the bygone age, especially during the beginning days of the modern missionary movement. He illustrates this using William Carey’s experience in India and then notes,  So the modern missionary movement got its start in an atmosphere of strong doctrinal commitments. They were the commitments of the great American pastor and theologian, Jonathan Edwards. Edwards wrote the Life of David Brainerd, the young New England missionary—a biography that deeply influenced Carey….The keynote of Edwards' and Carey's theology was the centrality of God and the glory of his sovereign grace. The origin of Baptist missions sprang up among pastors in England who were decidedly doctrinal in their life and preaching. Andrew Fuller, Samuel Pearce, John Sutcliffe and William Carey were all of this sort. Their majestic view of God moved them to lay claim to the nations on his behalf and the modern missionary movement was born. Later on such names as David Livingstone, Adoniram Judson, Alexander Duff, John Paton, etc. were driven by the same vision. They were what some people call Calvinists though none of them cared for labels. They loved the historic doctrines of Biblical Christianity, and if Calvin taught them so be it.

In the next section of his sermon, he focuses on the gospel of John and develops a doctrinal basis for doing missions by knowing the God of John’s gospel, Whose sovereignty, Piper argues,  is the glorious and gracious foundation for missions.  His key text is John 10:16 and Piper argues that to understand this missionary promise of Christ we have to take notice of at least six things in the context of John 10.

The six observations are  :

1) Jesus calls himself a shepherd.

2) This leads to the second observation, namely, that in John 10 some sheep are Christ’s and some are not.

3) A third observation: The reason some sheep belonged to Jesus so that he could call them his own is that God the Father had given them to the Son.

4) A fourth observation follows: Since Jesus knows those who are his, he can call them by name; and because they are already his, they follow.

5) But that is not all that Jesus does for his sheep. Verse 11: I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

6) And on the basis of this sacrifice Jesus gives eternal life to his sheep and it can never be taken away.

Piper summarizes his observations as follows : The picture we have in John 10 is of a great shepherd who sovereignly saves his sheep. The Father gives them to him. He dies for them. He calls them by name. He gives them eternal life. And he keeps them safe forever. What a great salvation we have! What a great Savior!

Piper then moves on from exposition to application and begins with a word of warning that this teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ does not leave any room for complacency.  He condemns the Hyper-Calvinistic error and warns that the doctrine of election and predestination in John’s gospel cannot be twisted into an in-house, elitist doctrine for the private comfort of the chosen few, with no burden to reach the nations of the world.

After his warning, Piper offers four things in John 10:16 that should fill us to overflowing with confidence in our missions dreaming and planning and labor.  These are his concluding applications from the key text.

They are  :

1) Christ has people besides those already converted—other people besides us…“I have other sheep that are not of this fold.” It is a promise full of hope for those who dream about new fields of missionary labor.

2) The verse implies that the “other sheep” that Christ has are scattered outside the present fold… So we may be sure on the authority of God’s Word that among all the peoples of the world we will find people who belong to God's flock. That is a great encouragement to get on with the task of frontier missions and to reach the hidden peoples.

3) The third encouragement in John 10:16 is that the Lord has committed himself to bring his lost sheep home. He promises to do it….So we can take heart: all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to the Son of God and he declares, “I must bring in my other sheep.” He will do it.

4) Which implies the final word of hope from the text: If he brings them, they will come! “I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice.” None of Christ’s sheep finally reject his word. What else can keep you going in a hard and unresponsive place of ministry except the confidence that God reigns and that those whom the Father has chosen will heed the voice of the Son?

Piper ends his presentation with a prayer for Christians to take this Reformed missiology seriously and launch out into frontier missions for the glory of God. Piper prays for God to, deepen and broaden the biblical foundation of your vision for the world. May he open our eyes not only to the fields that are white to harvest, but also to the majesty and splendor and glory of his sovereign grace. And may we be carried over all the obstacles and discouragements by the great confidence that the Lord himself will gather the ransomed from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

Amen.

A Theology for Missions  Read

Footnotes  

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[1] All quotations taken from John Piper,  A Theology for Missions, Conference on Missions Education, September 19, 1987

Dying Hard For Christ

More and more I am persuaded from Scripture and from the history of missions that God's design for the evangelization of the world and the consummation of his purposes includes the suffering of his ministers and missionaries. To put it more plainly and specifically, God designs that the suffering of his ministers and missionaries is one essential means in the joyful triumphant spread of the gospel among all the peoples of the world. [1]

With these words, John Piper begins his bio-sermon on Adoniram Judson, Jr. (9 August 1788 – 12 April 1850), the first significant missionary[2] to Burma. At the age of 25, Adoniram Judson became the first Protestant missionary sent from North America[3] to preach in Burma. In his sermon, Piper explores the sufferings and success in the life of Judson to show the cost he had to pay in bringing Christ to Burma.

Piper argues in his sermon, how this Calvinistic Baptist missionary’s death to his earthly life lead to much fruit.  Piper notes, Our Lord Jesus said to us in very solemn words, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). Then he adds this: "Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" (John 12:25). In other words, a fruitful life and an eternal life come from this: dying like a seed and hating your life in this world. What overwhelms me, as I ponder this and trace the life of Adoniram Judson, America's first foreign missionary, is how strategic it was that he died so many times and in so many ways.

Today the Myanmar Baptist Convention has 3,700 congregations with 617,781 members and 1,900,000 affiliates, which Piper calls is  the fruit of this dead seed.

The outline of the sermon is as follows :

1.  God's purpose to spread the gospel to all peoples.
2.  God's plan to make suffering a crucial means to accomplish this purpose.
3.  The position we are now in with regard to world evangelization.
4.  The pain of Adoniram Judson as an illustration of the truth.
5.  A plea to you to be a part of what Judson and Christ died for. 

In the first three sections, Piper lays down key principles to understand the design of God for missions. In his fourth section, he moves onto biography and uses the life and ministry of Judson as an illustration of all these principles. The final section is a plea on the basis of these biblical principles, seen in Judson’s life.  The biography section is the lengthiest one and the most moving. If you are unfamiliar with the pain of Adoniram Judson, then you will be shocked to see how a man suffered so much in his earthly life. Here is an overview of his pain, from Piper’s sermon :

• They (Adoniram and Ann Judson) were married a year and a half later on February 5, 1812, and sailed for India 12 days later with two other couples and two single men divided among two ships in case one went down. After a time in India they chose to risk Rangoon and arrived there July 13, 1813. There began a life-long battle in the 108-degree heat with cholera, malaria, dysentery, and unknown miseries that would take two of Judson's wives and seven of his 13 children, and colleague after colleague in death. 

• Eight years into their mission Ann was so ill that the only hope was a trip home. She sailed on August 21, 1821. She returned on December 5, 1823, two years and four months later. And when she arrived he had not heard from her for 10 months. If you are married and you love your wife, this is the way you die day after day for a greater good and a greater joy. 

• In 1823 Adoniram and Ann moved from Rangoon to Ava, the capital, about 300 miles inland and further up the Irrawaddy River. It was risky to be that near the despotic emperor. In May of the next year the British fleet arrived in Rangoon and bombarded the harbor. All westerners were immediately viewed as spies, and Adoniram was dragged from his home and on June 8, 1824 and put in prison. His feet were fettered and at night a long horizontal bamboo pole was lowered and passed between the fettered legs and hoisted up till only the shoulder and heads of the prisoners rested on the ground. Ann was pregnant, but walked the two miles daily to the palace to plead that Judson was not a spy and that they should have mercy. 

• The daughter, Maria, had been born..  and Ann was almost as sick and thin as Adoniram, but still pursued him with her baby to take care of him as she could. Her milk dried up, and the jailer had mercy on them and actually let Judson take the baby each evening into the village and beg for women to nurse his baby. 

• On November 4, 1825 Judson was suddenly released. The government needed him as a translator in negotiations with Britain. The long ordeal was over - 17 months in prison and on the brink of death, with his wife sacrificing herself and her baby to care for him as she could. Ann's health was broken. Eleven months later she died (October 24, 1826). And six months later their daughter died (April 24, 1827). 

• In July, three months after the death of his little girl, he got word that his father had died eight months earlier. 

• The psychological effects of theses losses were devastating. Self-doubt overtook his mind, and he wondered if he had become a missionary for ambition and fame, not humility and self-denying love…. He wrote in one letter home to Ann's relatives: "My tears flow at the same time over the forsaken grave of my dear love and over the loathsome sepulcher of my own heart." 

• He married Sarah Boardman, a missionary widow, on April 10, 1834, eight years after Ann died. They had eight children. Five survived childhood. She was a gifted partner and knew the language better than any but himself. But 11 years later she was so sick that they both set sail for America with the three oldest children. They left the three youngest behind, one of whom died before Judson returned. Judson had not been to America now for 33 years and was only returning for the sake of his wife. As they rounded the tip of Africa in September, 1845, Sarah died. The ship dropped anchor at St. Helena Island long enough to dig a grave and bury a wife and mother and then sail on.   

•  ...The old sicknesses attacked Adoniram one last time. The only hope was to send the desperately ill Judson on a voyage. On April 3, 1850 they carried Adoniram onto the Aristide Marie bound for the Isle of France with one friend, Thomas Ranney, to care for him. In his misery he would be roused from time to time by terrible pain ending in vomiting. One of his last sentences was: "How few there are who . . . who die so hard!"  At 15 minutes after 4 on Friday afternoon April 12, 1850 Adoniram Judson died at sea, away from all his family and Burmese Church. 

 When he died, the ship that was carrying him had a pagan crew. No prayers were therefore offered for him, but they just dislodged the coffin to the port and moved on. It would take four more months for the news of his death to reach his family. Judson’s life was thus all about ‘falling into the ground and dying like a seed’ for the sake of Christ.

To our question on enduring such excruciating sufferings, Piper gives the answer by showing the Calvinistic roots of Judson and his family. Piper notes, Judson was a Calvinist, but did not wear his Calvinism on his sleeve… Adoniram inherited a deep belief in the sovereignty of God. The great importance this has for my purpose here is to stress that this deep confidence in God's overarching providence through all calamity and misery sustained him to the end. He said, "If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings." … When her second child died, Ann Judson wrote, "Our hearts were bound up with this child; we felt he was our earthly all, our only source of innocent recreation in this heathen land. But God saw it was necessary to remind us of our error, and to strip us of our only little all. O, may it not be vain that he has done it. May we so improve it that he will stay his hand and say 'It is enough.'" In other words, what sustained this man and his three wives was a rock-solid confidence that God is sovereign and God is good. And all things come from his hand for the good - the incredibly painful good - of his children.

 

A robust faith in the sovereignty of God was thus the source of sustaining grace in the life of Judson. In other words, for Adoniram Judson, Calvinism, contrary to all misrepresentation, was not a hindrance to missions but the source of hope for perseverance in missions. It is hoped that this will challenge pastors to see how a radical belief in the absolute sovereignty of God over all things including the salvation of sinners and the suffering of his ministers, is a fuel for missions and not something which kills it. The whole modern missionary movement was lead by men for whom the Reformed doctrines were central and nourishing to their preaching and missionary efforts.

How Few There Are Who Die So Hard!  Listen | Download

Footnotes  

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[1] All quotations of Piper from : John Piper, How Few There Are Who Die So Hard!, 2003 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors

[2] Adoniram Judson is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the first missionary to Burma, but he was actually preceded by James Chater and Richard Mardon who arrived in 1807. They were followed by Felix Carey. However, since those who came earlier did not remain very long, Judson is remembered as the first significant missionary there, as well as one of the group of the very first missionaries from America to travel overseas.

[3] Robert Torbet, Venture of Faith: The Story of the American Baptist Missionary Society

The Sovereignty of God in Missions

One of the characteristic feature of popular missionary movements today, is sadly, a great lack of proper appreciation of the gospel message. Most missions make appeal to Christians to join their cause, by showing how much earthly need - spiritual or physical, there is among the people groups they are serving. Rarely does a missionary organization appeal to the glory of the gospel message and inform the hearers the radical and joyful implications of it - to take it to the ends of the earth. In reality, if someone gets gripped by the message of the gospel, he needs little prodding to be zealous for the Great Commission. 

It is in this matter that Reformed Christians have a distinct approach to missions. Reformed Christians work out their zeal purely by working hard on their theology. For if one properly understands and appreciates the theology of the Bible, then not only would one know that he ought to be taking part in the missionary work of the church, but also would have the proper, biblical, needed and liberating motivation for doing it.  A lot of cheap zeal without knowledge that is so rampant in popular missionary movements can thus be avoided by us.

Dr. Michael Horton, the J. Gresham Machen professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Westminster Seminary California, has written a very excellent article, explaining the rationale for the imperative of the Great Commission to "Go into all the world". Horton seeks to show how the purposes of God are based on the promises of God, by focusing on the triumphant indicative given by Jesus Christ, before He commanded His disciples to go, namely, “All authority in Heaven and Earth has been given to Me”.

Horton begins his article by noting how raw zeal can trump the content of what we have been given to communicate [1] and let the message be subordinate to the mission and the evangel to evangelism. He notices the danger of taking sides on this issue of zeal and knowledge, by noting that if "zeal without knowledge" is deadly (Rom. 10:2-3), then knowledge without zeal is dead. He warns us that the Great Commission doesn't give any quarter to either of these extremes.

In the next two sections, Horton beautifully explains the relationship between the purpose of God and the promise of God, grounding the imperative to “Go” on the triumphant indicative of Jesus' sovereign authority.  He shows how the whole Bible points to God's missionary purpose and how the church's role in missions is purely a derivative of the former. He then goes through the book of John to show how the Father, the Son and the Spirit are equally involved in the historic unfolding of the eternal covenant of redemption. Horton summarizes from the passages in John as follows, The Father chose a people in Christ from the mass of fallen humanity, giving them to Christ as their Mediator, with the Spirit as the one who will give them faith and keep them in that faith to the end. Not one of those whom the Father gave to the Son will be lost.  Horton then appeals to the unity of the Bible and uses this understanding of the covenant of redemption from John to understand what Jesus meant in the Great Commission. Horton argues that the entire covenant of redemption finds it efficacy in the sovereignty of God. It is precisely because Jesus alone has the authority to save and to condemn that there is a Great Commission.

Horton then moves onto discussing the new birth and shows how new birth is only possible for fallen sinners, due to the authority that Christ has to give eternal life to all those whom the Father has chosen. Horton notes, All authority in heaven and on earth is in Christ's hands. If it were in the hands of a despot, we would never be free. If it were in our hands, we would never be saved. Because Christ has the power of life and death, however, there is not only the possibility but the assurance that there will be a church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

After having thus established the truth that the rationale for the Great Commission is the sovereignty of God in Christ, Horton draws some massive implications for those who are involved in missionary work. For that he picks Apostle Paul as his example and observes, After explaining that God "saved us...not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began" (2 Tim. 1:9), Paul—on the verge of his execution in Rome—assured Timothy, "Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory" (2 Tim. 2:10). The greatest missionary in the history of the church was driven by the gospel indicatives. Because God chose sinners from a mass of spiritual death, Christ saved them, and the Spirit gave them faith through the preaching of the gospel, Paul could go on, enduring persecution and knowing that God's purposes would be realized. Not Caesar, nor the Jewish leaders, nor the sinners to whom he preached, nor Paul himself held the personal power to save or to condemn.

Horton then exhorts us to believe in the infallible surety of the success of God’s mission of gathering His elect in Christ Jesus, through our preaching of His gospel.  He says, Because Christ accomplished his mission, ours is guaranteed success—defined by God's purposes, not ours. It is this confidence that motivates a missionary in Saudi Arabia to labor for years before witnessing a single conversion… The Father's decision is irrevocable. Christ's mission is accomplished already, and the Spirit will be just as successful in his labors. Therefore, the Great Commission cannot fail.

Even though all true Christians who embrace this truth of the sovereignty of God over all things including missions can be joyfully optimistic, we should be aware of the fact that there will be oppositions to face and persecutions to endure.  Here again Horton comes with a comforting word from the same truth of Christ’s victorious work. He says, Caesars may still rule and demand the proper temporal allegiance of their subjects (Rom. 13:1-7), but they rule at the pleasure of the Sovereign of the universe. Disease may stalk and death may claim our bodies, but it no longer has the last word: "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (1 Cor. 15:55). Our fate does not lie in the impersonal forces of nature. We are not at the mercy of insurance companies and health-care providers. Jesus Christ—not the invisible hand of the market—is Lord of all powers and principalities.... Are you rattled by the magnitude of opposition to the gospel, increasingly even in the nations once nominally committed to a vaguely Christian culture? Does the Great Commission seem threatened by the gathering forces of secularism, militant Islam, consumerism, violence, and moral relativism? These are among the "principalities and powers" that Christ has vanquished objectively, although their effects have not yet been finally and forever eliminated.Oscar Cullman compared Christ's resurrection and return in glory to "D-Day" and "V-Day" during World War II. There was first of all the landing assault that broke the back of the Nazi forces, but insurgent battles raged until victory in Europe was fully realized. Even now, Christ has crushed the head of the serpent and is setting prisoners free. All authority in heaven and on earth is given to him. Are you distressed by your lack of understanding, zeal, or faithfulness in your own discipleship, much less in your appreciation for the Great Commission? Christ is Lord! He has forgiven you all of your sins and has given you a new heart. In spite of every setback, you are assured that your Shepherd-King has already won the war!

Horton concludes his article with an appeal to pause, ponder and wonder at the glorious, triumphant indicative of the gospel before there can be any mission or evangelism. All Christians would do well in taking heed to Horton’s words of wisdom.

The Great Announcement Read

Footnotes

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All quotations taken from :

[1] "The Great Announcement" , Modern Reformation, Jan./Feb, Vol. 20, No. 1 2011, Pages 12-19