Friday Features : Reformed Theology – 1

Theoblogy is setting apart Fridays for learning the theology and doctrines of the Bible in depth. Friday Feature will have gifted teachers of the faith who will teach core doctrines of the Bible. We live in a day which diminishes the importance of having right theology. Theoblogy wants to see the body of Christ instructed in sound theology. For the next few weeks, Dr. R.C Sproul, gifted teacher of the word will teach us the core doctrines of Reformed Theology. Dr. Sproul examines the distinctive doctrines that set apart Reformed Theology from the many theologies that have developed before and after the Protestant Reformation. Vast majority of Evangelicals rush to a judgment on Reformed theology without taking the time to learn it properly. May this series be an enlightening one.

Lecture #1 :  Introduction

In this lecture Dr. R.C Sproul explains the difference between theology and religion and how Reformed theology is essentially a theology – knowledge of God.

Video :  

Audio : Listen

Understanding The Parables in Matthew 13

In his insightful  essay on the parables of Jesus found in Matthew 13, Jonathan Pennington, Assistant Professor of New Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, explores the specific question of the coherence and function of the collection of parables in Matthew 13.  Pennington begins by considering how Jesus’ parables fit into his ministry and teaching overall.  The insight he draws from this consideration is that the parables are part of his work as a prophet of judgment and renewal. The parables are not simply teaching or informing or making a moral or religious point. They are instead the vehicle for the paradoxical and dangerous campaign which Jesus was undertaking, namely a redefinition of the people of God and a reorientation of the grand story of Israel’s hope. With this insight, Pennington sees Matthew 13 as a similar apocalyptic retooling of Israel’s self-understanding, namely, that the great separation of God’s people from those condemned is not based on ethnic Israel identity but faith-response in Jesus.

He then lays out the larger context of the book of Matthew in which we come across the parables of Matthew 13. He believes Matthew has structured his narrative as a clue to the purpose of the parables. The why of this parabolic ministry is explained by Jesus Himself, later on in Matthew 13 and to make sense of this explanation, it is important that one is conversant with the story so far in the first gospel.  It is this what makes Pennington deal with the narrative flow of the book of Matthew in this section.

After his summarization of the story so far, Pennington moves to Matthew 13 to catch a bird’s eye view of the parables.  He notes that, It is at the altitude of the whole chapter that we can discern a pattern in these parables. The divine crop-circles that he observes in Matthew 13 is summarized by him as, An opening parable about a sower of seed and its interpretation in relation to the kingdom, two other major parables about the separation of good and bad and their interpretation as the end of the age when the kingdom comes, and four little parables about the hiddeness and great value of the kingdom.

In his next section, he deals with the meat of the matter, working on the purpose and intention of this structure and pattern of the parables in Matthew 13. Pennington suggests three main threads that run through this entire chapter and structure that, when examined, pull it all together. These are the Sower, the Secret, and the Separation.  The parable of the Sower is the opening parable of this whole teaching section of Jesus in Matthew 13 and thus serves as the main or the big parable in this chapter.  Jesus Himself gave us the interpretation of the parable and the Sower is He Himself. Pennington observes that this parable is not  primarily an exhortation to be fruit-bearing ourselves but is rather an explanation of the mixed reception to Jesus’ kingdom message. … reading the parable in its context, it becomes clear that primarily this parable serves to explain why the Great Sower, Jesus himself, meets with such mixed results with most people not receiving and believing! This parable is primarily descriptive of what happens when the Gospel seed is sown, by Jesus himself and, by extension, by his disciples as well. After noting this descriptive aspect of this parable, Pennington asserts that this leads us to the second thematic thread of this chapter, which he calls the Secret.

By secret, Pennington is referring to the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven.  He notices how the disciples were perplexed by the teaching of Jesus in vague metaphors rather than his clear teaching so far. Pennington pictures this scene quite vividly as follows : To feel the weight of their confusion one must think back to the narrative that precedes this text… These fishermen and tax collectors and political revolutionaries are following Jesus because they have seen his God-given miraculous powers and because every time he opens his mouth they are amazed at his wisdom and authoritative and clear teaching… Nothing shows this better than the incredible teachings as summarized by Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount. What insight, wisdom, and clarity are found here, such that at the end of the Sermon everyone responds the same way: “Wow! He teaches as one with authority, not like our scribes!” (7:28-29). But now here in chapter 13 Jesus’ teaching seems crazy. What is this odd story? An apparently careless farmer goes out and sows seed very poorly. Most of it is wasted on the road and clearly bad soil for sowing, and then one little portion produces an astronomical, unheard of, fairy-tale like yield. What kind of sermon is this? What kind of story is this? What does this vague little story have to do with Jesus’ teachings as in the Sermon on the Mount? We can easily imagine the disciples’ perplexity: “What happened to that powerful, meaty teaching like Jesus used to give us?”  It is in reply to this confusion of the disciples that Jesus responds with a very crucial and shocking answer. It is from this answer that we gain understanding on the why of this parabolic ministry of Jesus. Jesus quotes Isaiah 6 to show how his parabolic ministry is a fulfillment of that which was told to Isaiah, to preach even though his hearers will not hear or perceive. Pennington reasons, This is why Jesus is now teaching in parables—not to reveal the truth of God to all, but to conceal. There is a mystery—the “mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” (verse 11)—that functions as a word of judgment. At the same time, Jesus offers an unprecedented word of blessing on his disciples: You are blessed because unlike many former prophets and righteous men, you do get to see and understand this mystery (13:16-17).  Pennington also notes that from this response of Jesus, we can see how the common tendency to see Jesus’ parables as His down to earth style of teaching is entirely wrong.  It is actually the opposite and is done with the purpose of preventing people with hardened hearts from understanding.  Pennington notes, It is not accidental that this shift occurs after the great opposition of chapter 12 and the religious leaders’ resolution to destroy Jesus (12:14). Jesus changes his teaching style to this prophetic double-functioning mode so that he can simultaneously judge and proclaim.  Pennington finally summarizes his understanding of this second thematic thread of secret as follows : This is the nature of parables: They conceal and at the same time reveal if one understands the interpretation. If one is not given the knowledge to understand (by God) then the meaning remains a mystery, a secret. If one is given the knowledge then understanding and perception occurs. Therefore, this whole parable section hinges on this idea of the revealing and concealing of secrets.

After having shown how not everyone responds to the Sower in the same manner, and how those who do respond, do so, because God has blessed them with eyes to see and ears to hear the Secret or the mystery of the Kingdom, Pennington moves to his third thread, which he calls the Separation.  Pennington notes how the parabolic ministry is aimed at sorting out those with understanding from others. He argues, The Four Soils is a separating of responses into four types. Even more pointedly, the purpose of the second and seventh parables (the Wheat and the Weeds and the Dragnet of fish) is to separate the good from the bad. This is apparent not only in the parable stories themselves but also in their explicit, eschatological interpretation. Both parables speak of a separating of the good from the bad at the close of age when the Son of Man, Jesus, comes and renders reward and judgment.  He then moves onto show how the theme of separation can be found in the quoted passage from Isaiah 6. On the basis of this he shows how the theme of the great separation finds its ultimate fulfillment and consummation in Jesus, who is the ultimate prophet who preaches the mystery of the kingdom of God—the mystery that God has come incarnate in Jesus himself—and who is calling to himself a chosen remnant who will be granted understanding and insight into the mystery or secret.  Concerning this remnant, Pennington notes, Unlike the tares amidst the wheat or the bad fish in the net or the first three soils, “Blessed are your eyes and ears,” Jesus says, “because they see and hear” (13:16).

Pennington summarizes his overall point concerning Matthew 13 as follows using these three thematic threads, Matthew 13 is a highly structured pattern of parabolic teaching. It is not just a concatenation of assorted parables to show Jesus as an interesting and engaging teacher. Rather, it is a set of parables which should be taken together as a whole. Woven throughout the whole chapter is a set of three themes which in concert speak a powerful truth: Jesus’ parabolic teaching is a sowing of the Word in the world. This Word from God is simultaneously a message of judgment on the unbelieving and a word of hope and blessing for the believing. The Word both reveals and conceals and in the process it performs a great separation of all people (cf. Heb 4:12), based on their response to the Son, the Incarnate Word.

Pennington is wise and godly to not end his essay with the above summary. Rather he has one more section dealing with our response if we have been given eyes to see and ears to hear the secret of the Kingdom. He warns us that Instead of seeking just to understand Matthew 13, we are called to a posture of standing under its message, lest we prove ourselves to be unfruitful soil. He then enlists practical implications of the three main thematic threads that he has discussed so far. Concerning the Sower and His sowing, he says,  This word of the kingdom, the “gospel of the kingdom” as Jesus calls it, is still going forth through us today as Jesus’ disciples…To be a disciple of Jesus means to do the same things he did, to live a life of self-sacrifice, serving others, …. and crucially, to proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom. Concerning the Secret, he calls us to be not be surprised when it [our proclamation] meets with every response from apathy to persecution. Pennington wants us to be confident in God’s election of some if not all of our hearers, who will be blessed with eyes to see and ears to hear. But just as with the four soils, the yield of even one fruit-bearer far outweighs any loss!. Finally concerning the Separation, Pennington calls all those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, who have been separated from the unbelieving, to - humble praise and thanksgiving to God. Pennington’s rationale behind this exhortation is indeed very God-glorifying and sweet to any saint. Here is his argument drawn from the text itself for why praise and thanksgiving is fitting for all those to whom God has revealed the mystery of His Kingdom, This is because we see in this text and we know in our hearts that our believing is not a choice on our part but is a revelation that is given. This is grace. We did not choose God. We did not reason in all our brilliance and decide that faith in God was an acceptable risk to take. We did not earn favor with God by our great faith and goodness and God-centered hearts and lives. Rather, we were dead in our sins and God made us alive through Christ Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. For no reason other than mysterious grace we have been granted to understand the divine secret of the gospel even in the midst of God’s just judgment on all of the world. If it were our choice it would not be divine revelation. For those who understand this, the only response can be praise and thanksgiving. Any response less than this fails to understand what the gospel is and the function of the parables as we see them in Matthew 13.  

Pennington thus concludes his essay by drawing every saint to his knees in rich adoration of the Almighty God and His grace in His Son, Lord Jesus Christ. If we are of the believing, then the parables of Jesus are aimed at our praise. It is hoped that this insight would draw out much praise and thanksgiving for our God, the next time the readers would come across the mysterious parables of Jesus. 

Matthew 13 and the Function of the Parables in the First Gospel  Read | Download

Footnotes  

----------------

[1]  All quotations from the featured article by Dr. Jonathan Pennington, SBTS Journal of Theology, 13/3 (Fall 2009)

The Heart of The Gospel

One doctrine that may rightly be called the heart of the gospel, so much so that if a church has it, it has the gospel and if a church loses it, it does not have the gospel, is but the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone.  Luther called it the "doctrine by which the church stands or falls"[1].  If that is true, then we have to lament over the fact that today, vast majority of Evangelical churches have fallen. For there is no deep and proper grasp of this fundamental and foundational doctrine either in the pulpit or the pew.  As a result of this horrendous condition, many a professing Christian is caught up in a performance driven Christian life. They claim to have peace and joy when they keep all the religious rules their denomination has taught them.  Or be drowning in gloom and doom, if they fail to keep up with it. On the one hand, they claim to live by faith in Christ and yet on the other hand, live like pagans trusting in their own works.

What is often forgotten by these legalistic Christians is, that no matter how sanctified one be, the righteousness one has, be it the Spirit-wrought righteousness, is not a perfect righteousness, that would give us the liberty to do away with the perfect righteousness of Christ. Unless one has some unbiblical notions of becoming perfectly sanctified while on earth, our righteousness, even the Spirit-wrought one, is never perfect and only progressing to be perfect. Hence all through our Christian life, we need to base our acceptance before God simply on the basis of Christ alone. Remember a legalist is not merely someone who is going around condemning people with erroneous understanding of the law, rather a legalist is anyone who trusts in his own obedience and not in the obedience of Christ for us. His death as our pardon and His life as our perfection is the exclusive and firm gospel-foundation, on which one needs to live the Christian life. It is quite grievous that most churches these days do not teach anything about this liberating and gracious goodness of the good news. They are all so caught up in heralding one imperative after another. 

D.A Carson, research professor of the New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, expounds Galatians 2:11-21 and unpacks in a very gripping manner this truth of justification in Christ alone. After his exegesis, he then moves onto real practical aspects of what it means to believe in our acceptance and standing before God on the basis of Another's Perfect Righteousness. It is quite alarming that this truth about Christ's imputed righteousness alone being our Perfection before God is not carefully studied or appreciated by today's pastors. Thus churches are full of people who are struggling to please God with their own works. Moreover these pastors who are ignorant of the gospel are rather preaching only rules, regulations, imperatives and obligations.  The role of the gospel in motivating us to good works is merely assumed or sometimes even forgotten. Thus the church is lost in this ocean of legalism, forgetting the gospel truth that our standing before God is not based on our righteousness. As John Piper said,  "our good works is never the root but the fruit of our justification."[2] 

Carson's exposition is rich with exegetical insights and theological precision. His  deep knowledge of the original languages and years of experience in exegesis in these languages, makes his sermon exegetically sound and sensitive. May this sermon awaken the hearts and minds of Christians who are lost in a paganistic understanding of living their Christian life. For as Carson says, “We are justified because 'Christ loved me and gave His life for me.' And everything else is paganism”. [3]

An Apostolic Disputation – and Justification  Listen | Download

Footnotes  

----------------

[1]  Traditionally attributed to have been said by Luther, though many modern scholars do not agree with this. However it could very well be a derivative of Luther’s writings on justification, like the one quoted here from his introduction to Galatians,

In this epistle, therefore, Paul is concerned to instruct, comfort, and sustain us diligently in a perfect knowledge of this most excellent and Christian righteousness. For if the doctrine of justification is lost, the whole of Christian doctrine is lost. And those in the world who do not teach it are either Jews or Turks or papists or sectarians. For between these two kinds of righteousness, the active righteousness of the Law and the passive righteousness of Christ, there is no middle ground. Therefore he who has strayed away from this Christian righteousness will necessarily relapse into the active righteousness; that is, when he has lost Christ, he must fall into a trust in his own works. (Martin Luther, Luther’s Works – Volume 26: Lectures On Galatians 1535, trans. Jaroslav Pelikan, p. 9.)

[2] John Piper, Did Jesus preach the gospel of Paul, T4G 2010.

[3] D.A Carson,  An Apostolic Disputation – and Justification, Clarus 2008

Covenant Theology In Scriptures

In his excellent introduction to the reprint of the classic, "The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man: Comprehending A Complete Body of Divinity" by Herman Witsius, renowned Anglican theologian J.I Packer enlists four features of the Bible, by which it forces its readers to covenantal thinking. They are :

First, by the story that it tells. The books of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, are, as was said earlier, God's own record of the progressive unfolding of his purpose to have a people in covenant with himself here on earth. The covenantal character of God's relationships with human beings, first to last, has already been underlined, and is in fact reflected one way and another on just about every page of the Bible. The transition in Eden from the covenant of works to the covenant of grace, and the further transition from all that was involved in the preliminary (old) form of that covenant to its final (new) form, brought in through the death of Jesus Christ and now administered by him from his throne, are the key events in the covenant story. The significance of the fact that God caused his book of instruction to mankind to be put together with the history of his covenant as its backbone can hardly be overestimated. Covenant relationships between God and men, established by God's initiative, bringing temporal and eternal blessings to individuals and creating community among them, so that they have a corporate identity as God's people, are in fact the pervasive themes of the whole Bible; and it compels thoughtful readers to take note of the covenant as being central to God's concern.

Second, Scripture forces covenant theology upon us by the place it gives to Jesus Christ in the covenant story. That all Scripture, one way and another, is pointing its readers to Christ, teaching us truths and showing us patterns of divine action that help us understand him properly, is a principle that no reverent and enlightened Bible student will doubt. This being so, it is momentously significant that when Jesus explained the memorial rite for himself that he instituted as his people's regular form of worship, he spoke of the wine that they were to drink as symbolizing his blood, shed to ratify the new covenant -- a clear announcement of the fulfilling of the pattern of Exodus 24 (Jesus echoes directly the words of verse 8) and the promise of Jeremiah 31:31-34. It is also momentously significant that when the writer to the Hebrews explains the uniqueness and finality of Jesus Christ as the only source of salvation for sinners he does so by focusing on Jesus as the mediator of the new covenant and depicts him as establishing this prophesied relationship between God and his people by superseding (transcending and thereby cancelling) the inadequate old covenant institutions for dealing with sins and giving access to God. It is also momentously significant that when in Galatians Paul tells Gentiles that their faith in Christ, as such, has already made them inheritors of all that was promised to Abraham, he makes the point by declaring that in union with Christ, as those who by baptism have "put on" the Christ in whom they have trusted so as to become his own people, they are now the seed of Abraham with whom God has made his covenant for all time (Gal. 3) . . . the covenant that brings liberty from law as a supposed system of salvation and full fellowship for ever with God above (Gal. 4:24-3 1). Such Scriptures require us to interpret Christ in terms of God's covenant, just as they require us to interpret God's covenant in terms of Christ, and this fact also alerts thoughtful readers to the centrality of the covenant theme.

The third way in which Scripture directs us to covenantal thinking is by the specific parallel between Christ and Adam that Paul draws in Rom. 5:12-18; 1 Cor. 15: 21 f., 45-49). The solidarity of one person standing for a group, involving the whole group in the consequences of his action and receiving promises that apply to the whole group as well as to himself, is a familiar facet of biblical covenant thought, usually instanced in the case of family and national groups (Noah, Gen. 6:18, 9:9; Abraham, Gen. 17:7; the Israelites, Ex. 20:4-6, 8-12, 31:12-17 (16); Aaron, Lev. 24:8 f.;Phinehas, Num. 25:13; David, 2 Chr. 13:5, 21:7; Jer. 33:19-22). In Rom. 5:12-1 8 Paul proclaims a solidarity between Christ and his people (believers, Rom 3:22-5:2; the elect, God's chosen ones, 8:33) whereby the law-keeping, sin-bearing obedience of "the one man" brings righteousness with God, justification, and life to "the many," "all;" and he sets this within the frame of a prior solidarity, namely that between Adam and his descendants, whereby our entire race was involved in the penal consequences of Adam's transgression. The 1 Corinthians passages confirm that these are indeed covenantal solidarities; God deals with mankind through two representative men, Adam and Christ; all that are in Adam die; all that are in Christ are made alive. This far-reaching parallel is clearly foundational to Paul's understanding of God's ways with our race, and it is a covenantal way of thinking, showing from a third angle that covenant theology is indeed biblically basic.

The fourth way in which Scripture forces covenant theology upon us is by the explicit declaring of the covenant of redemption, most notably (though by no means exclusively) in the words of Jesus recorded in the gospel of John. All Jesus's references to his purpose in the world as the doing of his Father's will, and to his actual words and works as obedience to his Father's command (Jn. 4:32-34, 5:30, 6:38-40, 7:16-18, 8:28 f., 12:49 f., 14:31, 15:10, 17:4, I9:30); all his further references to his being sent by the Father into the world to perform a specific task (Jn. 3:17, 34, 5:23, 30, 36, 38, 6:29, 57, 7:28, 29, 33, 8:16, 18, 26, 9:4, 10:36, 11:42, 12:44, 13:20, 14:24, 15:21, 16:5, 17:3, 8,18, 21, 23, 25, 20:21, cf. 18:37); and all his references to the Father "giving" him particular persons to save, and to his acceptance of the task of rescuing them from perishing both by dying for them and by calling and shepherding them to glory (Jn. 6:37-44, 10:14-16, 27-30, 17:2, 6, 9,19, 22, 24); are so many testimonies to the reality of the covenant of redemption. The emphasis is pervasive, arresting, and inescapable: Jesus' own words force on thoughtful readers recognition of the covenant economy as foundational to all thought about the reality of God's saving grace.  [1]

Footnotes  

----------------

[1]  J.I Packer, "The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man: Comprehending A Complete Body of Divinity". Herman Witsius. REPRENTED 1990. Escondido. California: The den Dulk Christian Foundation.

Comforting Covenant Theology

Covenant Theology is not just for theologians, it is for every single Christian. For it reveals the God of the covenants as the covenant keeping, faithful God. Pastors would do well in learning to apply covenant theology to their sermons, to not only show how the whole counsel of God hangs together, but also to bring forth the comfort of knowing the God of the covenants. Concerning the comfort of covenant theology, here is a brilliant excerpt from the Prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon, who applied the truths of Covenant theology on his text from Genesis 7:16: 

The great door of Covenant faithfulness is shut behind the Believer and he is surrounded by the power and Grace of God, even as Noah was housed within the strong timbers of the ark. There is no crack nor cranny through which the floods of wrath can penetrate—Omnipotent Love has shut us in! And the Lord did this not only necessarily, but graciously. I call your attention to the change of the names in the text, a very significant change indeed—“They that went in, went in male and female of all flesh: as God had commanded him: and the Lord”—that is, Jehovah—“shut him in.” Elohim, as the Creator and Preserver, takes care of living things to preserve them, but the Lord, even Jehovah, the covenanting God, interposes in great mercy to protect His chosen servant!

It was Jehovah who entered into solemn league and Covenant with His servant, Noah, that He would preserve him in the ark and float him into the new world in it. And as Jehovah, the Covenanting One, He shut Noah in.There is no security like that which is given us by the Covenant of Grace. The hand which was lifted to swear our safety has also been outstretched to effect it! The everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and sure, guarantees salvation to all who are represented by the great Head and Surety of that Covenant, even our Lord Jesus. Love and power cooperate with faithfulness and truth to keep the chosen from all danger. Dwell much upon the Covenant and note the immutable pledges by which it is secured and the immortal principles upon which it is founded! Try to suck out the delicious sweetness which is to be found in the hive of the Covenant, for if you are an advanced child of God, no form of the Truth of God can be more nourishing or refreshing to your mind.

The doctrines which spring out of the Covenant are peculiarly comforting to believing minds. The promises of God are yes and amen in Christ Jesus and can never fail nor change, since the Covenant stands fast forever and ever. Its tenure is free and Sovereign Grace and it cannot be disannulled. Here is a line of it, “I will put My fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from Me.” With such a promise does Jehovah shut us in with Christ Jesus in matchless kindness and unspeakable love. [1]

Footnotes  

----------------

[1]  C.H Spurgeon, Shut In Or Shut Out, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, August 14, 1881.

Why the God of the Bible is Not Same as the God of the Q'uran

Here is John Piper explaining why the God of the Bible and Allah of the Q’uran are not same. 

Why Justification Is Not By Works

The Bible is emphatic in its teaching that God’s justification of sinful mankind is not by works of the law, but by faith alone in Christ alone. Despite the clarity of the Scriptures regarding this most crucial doctrine, much of Christendom is caught up in a works-driven religion. Justification as a free gift appropriated by faith alone is truly a humbling doctrine for our proud race. 

  

Expounding Paul from Galatians 2:15-21, Jonathan Christman, pastor of Heritage Baptist church, Owensboro, Kentucky, states four main reasons why justification is not by works alone. Christman argues that justification by works of the law is first of all futile, secondly sinful, thirdly self-centered and finally blasphemous. This message is not just for unbelievers but also for believers to know what kind of salvation they have received. To fully grow in our salvation, we need constant reminders of our justification and how it is entirely by grace alone and through faith alone. This will help believers from drifting into a works based relationship with God and enable them to stand on Christ alone.  At the end of the day, none of us are accepted before God due to our piety or devotion or obedience. Rather it is only on the basis of the atonement work and  the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ alone. Grasping this truth is of utmost importance in a believers life. A believer who embraces this liberating truth of God’s gracious justification in Christ would make much progress in his sanctification, daily disciplines and in his ministry to others.

A large section of Christians sadly do not believe in preaching these gospel truths to believers. They have moved away from the gospel into some “weighty doctrines”, not understanding that we cannot divorce our teachings on the Christian life from the central message of the Bible – the gospel of God’s grace. At the center of this central message lies justification by faith alone in Christ alone.

Note To Self : Death To Self  Listen | Download

Why Say No To The Alpha Course

One of the most popular evangelistic tools employed by Christian leaders across the globe is the Alpha Course, a product of a highly Charismatic Anglican church. Alpha Course claims to be an evangelistic Bible study series aimed at teaching the essentials of the Christian faith. Though its intention is good, there are major theological and doctrinal flaws in its teachings. It is hoped that all thoughtful Christians, even those who are Charismatics, who love the gospel would find the below reasons compelling enough to say no to Alpha Course.

Firstly, whatever little gospel it preaches, it preaches a very faulty one. This should make even those churches which are Charismatic to stop using Alpha. The gospel which Alpha preaches is one that says “God loves each one of us so much and longs to be in relationship with us as a human father longs to be in relationship with each of his children.” Coupled with it, guests are told, man leads a meaningless and irrelevant life simply because he has no relationship with God. Now there are elements of truth in these, however what is astounding is not what Alpha is saying here, but what Alpha is not saying here. Through out the course material, there is no mention of God’s wrath hanging over unrepentant mankind. There is no mention of how we as sinners have incurred His wrath and how we need to seek peace with Him. Thus the problem to which the gospel is the answer in Alpha’s understanding is not God’s wrath against sinners. It is rather, poor human beings leading a meaningless life, when they can have fullness, significance and relevance if they have a relationship with God. This is a very faulty understanding of the character of God, the gospel and even man. God is not just love, He is also Holy. The gospel is not just satisfying to our hunger for meaning in life, but one which propitiates the wrath of God against us. Man is not just empty, but is in his very nature sinful and thus the object of God’s wrath. These fundamental truths of Christianity are never once taught by Alpha. Thus the gospel it preaches is a very faulty one. Alpha does not seems to be convinced that it is in light of God’s matchless holiness and furious wrath, that His free grace towards sinners in Christ is most loving, most satisfying and most meaningful. Indeed when God’s holiness is removed from our proclamation, we remove His love too.

Secondly, since God’s holy wrath is never taught as mankind’s biggest problem, Alpha teaches a Cross which lacks the full glory it deserves. The lack of teaching on penal substitution results in Alpha getting in a muddle at this stage. For it wants to teach that Christ died as substitute, and indeed does teach this, and yet because it is not taught that Jesus died as penal substitute, bearing upon himself the wrath of God, we are left without any understanding of why Jesus had to die at all. Thus the cross of Christ ends up being little more than a visual aid that proves that God is self-sacrificial and loving. As Hand says, 'Christ's work on the cross is demoted to being a rescue act to save us from our problems rather than fulfilling the righteous demands of the holy law and appeasing the wrath of God'. The death of Jesus is presented as an act of love but without any connection with the reality of God's holy anger. We are left thinking that Christ sacrificed Himself to rescue us from the consequences of sin because that was required by some impersonal and rather arbitrary justice system. [1]

Thirdly, for those who have no idea, from where Alpha is coming, its history need to be told. Alpha Course began in UK, when a member of Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB), Charles Marnham, set up an informal home group to present answers to basic gospel questions. Nicky Gumbel, HTB curate, transformed the course into what we see today. Holy Trinity Brompton is an exteremely Charismatic Anglican church, well known for importing the weird manifestations of the Toronto Blessings to the UK. For those who blindly give a green signal to the Alpha Course, not knowing from which camp it is coming, you need to watch the below clip, taken at the Toronto Blessing.

In the Alpha Course, substantial amount of time is spend on HTB's experiences of the Toronto Blessing and associated ministries, novel exegeses of various Biblical passages common amongst pro-Toronto preachers, calls for unity despite truth and an over-emphasis on the Holy Spirit, all of which are less than helpful, to say the least, to potential Christians. [2]  Eleanor Mumford of the South-West London Vineyard church brought the Toronto Blessing from the Toronto Airport Vineyard church in Canada to HTB through Nicky Gumbel in May 1994. In video 3 and talk 9, Gumbel says, "Ellie Mumford told us a little bit of what she had seen in Toronto... .it was obvious that Ellie was just dying to pray for all of us.. then she said 'Now we'll invite the Holy Spirit to come.' and the moment she said that one of the people there was thrown, literally, across the room and was lying on the floor, just howling and laughing....making the most incredible noise....I experienced the power of the Spirit in a way I hadn't experienced for years, like massive electricity going through my body... One of the guys was  prophesying. He was just lying there prophesying. . ." [3]  Alpha participants are told all of this as the normative in Christianity, with no caution or warning to test the spirits and be discerning. Alpha, though claiming to be evangelistic spends less time on the gospel and more on such freaky manifestations of the Third Wave. The overtly Charismatic agenda of Alpha can be seen by comparing the amount of pages it has dedicated for each doctrine. It has one small paragraph on “Baptism”, two pages on "Holy Communion," eight pages on "speaking in tongues" and sixteen pages on "healing," [4]

Fourthly, after the initial two evangelistic session, Alpha considers most of its guests as Christians and changes the tone to that of discipleship. They are told to seek the Holy Spirit, speak in tongues, seek assurance etc without any careful examination of whether or not they are regenerate. The supposedly successful evangelistic tool produces testimonies like the ones below.  The lack of focus on Jesus is seen very clearly in the testimonies people give, testimonies. which Alpha quotes with approval in its literature. The first of five main Alpha testimonies in Telling Others is particularly revealing. It reads:"The one thing that stuck in my mind was how the work of the Holy Spirit was described as of paramount importance. I knew in my heart I had to have this power in my life at any cost so I found out where the church was, enrolled on the course and focused on the weekend. I felt like a dying man waiting for a life-saving operation. Never mind the weeks o f pre-med, I just had to get into the operating theatre ... I looked at the order of play, saw that the third session (which I had identified as the main one) was at 4.3O pm and simply hung on like a marathon runner weaving his way up the final straight with nothing but the finishing tape as the focus of his attention. I'll never forget that session. I felt as though I was being torn in two. Halfway through I just couldn't stand it any more. The prize was so near but we were getting there so slowly! I literally wanted to scream out, 'Do it now! Do it know! I couldn't hold out any longer. I'm not exaggerating when I say I was in agony. Then God came and then came the relief'. Having no idea who this person is, we have to say that this is deeply troubling. They regard the talks on 'Who is Jesus?' and 'Why did Jesus die?' as 'pre-med'. The focus of their attention is specifically identified as being not the Lord Jesus, not the Cross, not even the Holy Spirit, but the third session, 'How can I be filled with the Spirit?' Sadly such a testimony is repeated again and again. This is hardly surprising given that guests are taught, 'Physical heat sometimes accompanies the filling of the Spirit and people experience it in their hands or some other part of their bodies. One person described a feeling of 'glowing all over'. Another said she experienced 'liquid heat'. Still another described 'burning in my arms when I was not hot'. Still another said, 'I didn't want to come to the weekend and I did. But I would call myself a Christian now. I would say that I felt the Holy Spirit. I was feeling I was loved. It was really a tremendous overwhelming feeling of love'.  [5]

Thus Alpha teaches a God who has no wrath, a Jesus who simply dies to communicate how loved we are and a Spirit who gives a feeling of being loved. Whereas the Bible teaches God who is not just love, but Holy and Just, Whose righteous wrath against us was borne by the Son, Jesus to redeem us and the Spirit who comes to glorify the Son. How different a gospel and Christianity the Alpha breeds. The doctrine of freewill has lead many a ministers to seek man-made methods and manipulations in evangelism rather than simply trusting the efficacious working of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the undiluted Word. Alpha is just another man-made alternative to the true Spirit-breathed evangelistic proclamation.

Listen to pastor Chris Hand of Crich Baptist Church, UK, for a more in-depth analysis of the Alpha Course. His address is very gracious, straight forward and illuminating.

The Alpha Course - A Critique (1)  Listen | Download

The Alpha Course - A Critique (2)  Listen | Download

Footnotes  

----------------

[1]  BEC, The 'Alpha' and the 'Christianity Explored' Course, "Foundations", Issue no. 47 Autumn 2001 pp.36-44

[2] Tricia Tillin, Looking at - THE ALPHA COURSE,  Banner Ministries

[3] Ibid

[4] Questions of Life, pp. 155-163; pp. 199-215.

[5] BEC, The 'Alpha' and the 'Christianity Explored' Course, "Foundations", Issue no. 47 Autumn 2001 pp.36-44 

Why Hermeneutics Matter For Pastors

During a new church plant function, a local Charismatic pastor from Kerala, India, told his church members that if they believed, God would cause miracles to be wrought through their handkerchiefs and aprons, just like God did using that of Paul, as written in Acts 19:12. While this was being taught by this pastor, in a nearby church, another local Word of Faith pastor, took the people to Genesis 1 and taught them how they can also create blessings by speaking out the word like God did, when He created all things by speaking out the Word.

Where have these two pastors gone wrong?

The answer to that question in technical terms would be - in their hermeneutics. In other words, it is in their interpretation of scripture that they went wrong.  Their science of interpretation also known as hermeneutics, does not see any difference between descriptive passages and prescriptive passages in the Bible. Both of them took passages in the Bible which are descriptive in nature and preached them as prescriptive. Thus what God does in creation is no longer descriptive, but prescriptive – something which we are also to do. Thus even though no believer in New Testament days imitated the apostles and sent their handkerchiefs to heal anyone, the passage in Acts 19 becomes a prescribed pattern for today’s believers.

Hermeneutics matters as God’s truth matters. The above mentioned error is a common error made by pastors, especially those who have no background in serious theological education – whether formal or not. This error has caused untold damages to Christianity. The constant hunger of Christian leaders to preach mere-moralistic prescriptions has lead to the development of many faulty understanding of and teachings from the Scriptures, especially in the area of sanctification.

In grammatical terms, these two natures – descriptive and prescriptive are explained in terms of verb moods, as indicative and imperative. All pastors should know the difference between the two while interpreting scriptures.

The mood of a verb designates the relationship of the verb's action relative to reality. The following is a simple list of moods of verbs in the New Testament and what they generally signify:

• indicative - mood of certainty, actuality

• subjunctive - mood of probability

• optative - mood of possibility

• imperative - mood of command

As the list indicates, the New Testament uses indicative statements when discussing what God has done, is doing or will do. Imperative statements are used when saying what we should do. It is important to realize, not only that both moods are present in the Bible, but that there is a specific relationship between these two moods in the area of sanctification. Namely, what God commands us to do (the imperative) is based upon what he has done, is doing or will do (the indicatives). God is signifying by this consistent pattern that sanctification depends on God, but involves human volition and cooperation. [1]

Examples :

In the following examples, the imperative mood is underlined, while the indicative is in italics.

Ephesians 4:32 : Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Philippians 2:12b-13 : work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

I Corinthians 5:7 : Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

Romans 6:12-14 : Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Sinclair Ferguson exhorts pastors to preach the gospel imperatives as rooted in the glorious indicatives of the gospel. He says,

The great gospel imperatives to holiness are ever rooted in indicatives of grace that are able to sustain the weight of those imperatives. The Apostles do not make the mistake that’s often made in Christian ministry. [For the Apostles] the indicatives are more powerful than the imperatives in gospel preaching. So often in our preaching our indicatives are not strong enough, great enough, holy enough, or gracious enough to sustain the power of the imperatives. And so our teaching on holiness becomes a whip or a rod to beat our people’s backs because we’ve looked at the New Testament and that’s all we ourselves have seen. We’ve seen our own failure and we’ve seen the imperatives to holiness and we’ve lost sight of the great indicatives of the gospel that sustain those imperatives. Woven into the warp and woof of the New Testament’s exposition of what it means for us to be holy is the great groundwork that the self-existent, thrice holy, triune God has — in Himself, by Himself and for Himself — committed Himself and all three Persons of His being to bringing about the holiness of His own people. This is the Father’s purpose, the Son’s purchase and the Spirit’s ministry. [2]

This explains why most of the New Testament Epistles begin with explaining the doctrine and then moves onto practical applications of truth. Apostles first made the hearts of their hearers believe the doctrinal truth and then instructed their minds to apply it practically. In other words, indicatives first and as the foundation of the then coming imperatives.

Pastors do you follow this Apostolic pattern and gospel logic while you preach?

Footnotes  

----------------

[1]  Gary DeLashmutt and Dennis McCallum, The Indicative and Imperative Moods

[2] Sinclair Ferguson, Our Holiness: The Father’s Purpose and the Son’s Purchase, 2007 Banner of Truth Conference.

Why Theology Matters For A Church

It is perhaps considered normal these days for churches to have a non-theological or even anti-theological stance. However this does have very many consequences, all of which are dangerous for the health of the church. Sure crowds can still be won and pews can still be warmed, however if 'church' is defined by the Scriptures, then to have that church, one needs to have sound theology. 

Here is an excellent excerpt from “The Quiet Revolution - A Chronicle Of Beginnings of Reformation in The Southern Baptist Convention” by Ernest C. Reisinger & D. Matthew Allen, where this point is driven home powerfully. Read the waterfall model of what the authors are proposing as the effects of having bad or weak theology.Though written in the context of Southern Baptist churches, the case is very much applicable for the wider Evangelical scene.

First, many of our churches have a weak theology. Consider, for example, the doctrine of salvation. In many Southern Baptist churches, regeneration (or being born again) has simply lost its meaning. No longer does it refer to a divine act of the Holy Spirit in giving a sinner a new heart and a new life, and bringing that person from spiritual death to spiritual life. Instead, being born again is simply a synonym for what happens when a person "makes a decision to accept Jesus Christ into his heart as personal Savior." Or worse, it means to "come forward" or "walk down an aisle."

This was driven home to one of us (Allen) forcefully recently when a friend casually mentioned that his brother-in-law wanted to get saved, but he had to wait until Sunday when he could go to the local Baptist church and "walk forward" to the front to receive Christ. It apparently did not occur to him that he could believe and repent and be converted in his own home. Still further, the common twentieth century Baptist view of eternal security is fundamentally flawed. We dip ‘em and drop ‘em, and take comfort in the fact that they are saved even though they never darken the door of a church again. After all, "once saved, always saved." In this way, we ignore – to the eternal loss of many – that the flip side of God’s preservation of the saints is the biblical teaching of the saint’s perseverance in Christ. We have forgotten the historic Baptist belief that those who do not persevere are not carnal Christians; they are not Christians at all!

Predictably, this weak theology leads to weak evangelism. Much of what is called evangelism in our Baptist churches is shallow, manipulative and decision-focused. The principal tools of the trade are altar calls (in which the pump is primed by well-placed counselors who set the example in walking to the front of the church) and the "sinner’s prayer," in which the person "invites Christ into his life." Then, we give immediate assurance to the person who prays the "sinner’s prayer" that he or she is eternally secure in salvation. Never mind the life and practice tests of 1 John. (Cf. 1 John 5:13; "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.").

Of course, the inherent result of a weak soteriology and weak evangelism is a weak membership. We base membership on a "profession of faith," rather than evidence of a changed life. Our churches baptize preschoolers and accept professions of faith from couples living in open sin. By inviting so-called carnal Christians into our fellowships, we populate our rolls with unregenerate church members.

The result of a weak membership is a demand for weak worship. Our congregations have not learned to go beyond the pabulum of shallow praise choruses so prevalent in our worship services today. The self-centered nature of these choruses is manifest. The one doing the praising is more central than the one praised in such choruses as "I Bless You," "I Just Want to Praise You," "I Only Want to Love You" and so on. This is not God-exalting worship! It is man exalting! Woe to those who are more impressed with our "love for God" than God’s love for us!

One newspaper advertisement for a church in Tampa, Florida boasts of its "casual worship." What an oxymoron this is! How can worship – acknowledging the "worth-ship" of Jesus Christ, the Holy One, God of very God, light of very light – be casual? This type of worship approach is defended as an attempt to be all things to all people. What it really represents is an attempt to co-opt the world’s values. For churches that have lost their biblical moorings, adapting worship practices to the world is not an irrational response to a worldly church membership. The problem, of course, is that it is an acutely unbiblical response.

Given these appalling facts, is it any wonder that the greatest segment of converts to the Mormon church comes from Southern Baptist congregations? And, is it any wonder that most of our Southern Baptist churches have a stagnant or declining membership? The Wall Street Journal reported in 1990 that, of the 14.9 million members of Southern Baptist churches (according to an official count), over 4.4 million are "non-resident members." This means they are members with whom the church has lost touch. Another 3 million hadn’t attended church or donated to a church in the past year. That left about 7.4 million "active" members. However, according to Sunday School consultant Glenn Smith, even this is misleading, because included in this "active" figure are those members who only attended once a year at Easter or Christmas. The only conclusion to be drawn is that our Southern Baptist Convention is a denomination of unregenerate church members!

This, then, is the diagnosis: contemporary evangelical churches as a whole, and a large number of Southern Baptist churches as a subset (dare I say the majority?), are devoid of biblical and theological thinking, have abandoned a high view of the sufficiency of Scripture, and have traded in biblical values for modern notions of modernity. In our judgment, evangelicalism is collapsing of its own weight. [1]

Thus weak theology leads to weak evangelism, which in turn leads to weak membership, which determines the worship of the church, which thus ultimately affects the glory of God in the church. Thus theology matters as the glory of God in the church matters. For those who are indifferent to the theological shallowness of the Evangelical pulpit and does not see it as a grave issue, remember  the glory of God is at stake. If the glory of God is not worth fighting for, then there remains nothing worth fighting for.

Footnotes  

----------------

[1]  Ernest C. Reisinger & D. Matthew Allen, A Quiet Revolution A Chronicle Of Beginnings Of Reformation in The Southern Baptist Convention,  Ch. 2