Thursday, May 2, 2013

"Judge not, that ye be not judged... " Mathew 7:1

"Judge not, that ye be not judged... " Mathew 7:1

"Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment." John 7:24

How do we as Christians reconcile these two apparently contradictory passages? While one says clearly not to judge in case we be judged ourselves, the verse in John's Gospel clearly assumes that we are to judge and simply adds the qualification that we must judge not according to a prima facie case but with all due care and consideration and then make a proper judgement.

Many people use the first verse in a way that goes something like this:
"Who are you to tell my friend what to do? You call yourself a Christian and yet don't you know what the Bible says: Judge not Lest you be judged!" 
or words to that effect. But let's not accept this accusation at first blush, let's have a closer look at what's going on. Let us observe what the second verse advises us to do. Hasn't the person making that statement cut off their own branch that they were standing on? Have they not judged you?  Have they not made a value judgement of the state of your soul? Well, yes they have, and they have pronounced on the basis of that statement that you are wrong.

Let's face it we all make judgement calls all the day long, they are simply unavoidable. If someone is really doing wrong then to make no evaluation at all -as some have said- is wrong in itself. To decide nothing in the face of evil is to decide for evil. The old adage applies : "All it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing." So what does the first verse mean, what does it say in context? In the context of that chapter it is that those who cast stones shouldn't live in glass houses! The context gives a clear warning not to be a hypocrite. So the warning is not so much about not judging full stop, but about judging with true judgement, not from a warped view of reality such as what happens when we ourselves are found to be doing the same things. The verse actually calls into question the motive behind the one judging- when they themselves are doing the same thing. When one has had the log removed from one's own eye, we are then qualified to see a speck in the other. In this way then, we see that this has reconciled the difficulty with the second verse. A perfect example of this is when we see Jesus say to the people who had loaded themselves up with judgemental stones to cast upon the woman taken in adultery: 
"So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." John 8:7 
Providentially, Christ being without sin, was the only one qualified to cast a stone and he chose not to- but he did tell her to go and sin no more. There needs to be a recognition that it is one thing to make a judgement about a behaviour, or a persons character, it is quite another to condemn the person, which really means to pass sentence on a person. And this is often where the confusion lies. Who knows, but that God may grant repentance to that person? They are not ours to write off.

Calling Christians "hateful" for pointing out sinful behavior is a tactic born of slick corporate image consultants, but it is not an argument. By declaring the intent of Christians either hateful or bigoted (i.e. sinful) for simply expressing what God teaches is to profoundly misrepresent the intentions and beliefs of Christians. Not to mention the fatal inconsistency of calling Christians "sinful" for their declaring certain behaviors as "sinful". How can one consistently say that anyone who calls someone's behavior "sinful" is sinful? Isn't this the pot calling the kettle black? Aren't you guilty of the very thing of which you accuse another? Furthermore, how do you know if Christians are wrong? What standard is being appealed to here?

This sinister scheme of marginalizing Christians for their beliefs actually promotes the most ignorant form of intolerance there is. For it pretends objectivity while giving a wholesale monopoly to secularists to determine for all of us, what is, and what is not, sinful ... thus making themselves into the new gods of the age.
Fact is, contrary to bumper-sticker wisdom, true Christians do not think they are more moral than others... we believe we are all in the same boat and many times much worse than you are. We believe the world that has been pulled over ALL of our eyes to blind us ALL from the truth. The truth revealed by God that we are ALL slaves born into bondage. We are merely sinners pointing other sinners to freedom and to bread ... and the intent, for the most part, is not from the vantage point of moral superiority, but rather one of love, to help mankind by pointing to their only hope for escape. Any so-called Christian who does it for any other reason is probably a moralist, or at least not being consistent at all with Christianity's central teaching of grace. For we believe that morality will damn just as much as immorality, apart from the Savior. (From Monergism Books)

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Book Review: The Bondage of the Will, by Martin Luther




I have to admit I read this book probably 30 plus years ago now and I still refer back to it occasionally. What prompted me to read it was because I had heard some quotes and his name was dropped into sermons and conversations often enough to know this guy was important in the history of the church- and I should read some source material. I certainly was not prepared for this book- it was both very difficult to read and I struggled with his concepts, no doubt due to a lack of ability in me to think critically as well as the fact that I was coming existentially and theologically from Erasmus's perspective. Erasmus wrote the book "De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio" commonly known as the "Diatribe" to which Luther responded with his book "The Bondage of the Will".

But I have to say that this book apart from the Bible and my own conversion is the most important thing that (from a Christian perspective) has happened to me since my conversion. I chose this title from among others quite randomly, not realizing it was in fact his magnum opus. The fact that it is written in response to Erasmus and not having his book in front of you makes it difficult quite apart from long sentences and some convoluted thought. He certainly was fiery and scathing.
                        "If with dung I am embattled, win or lose I am bespattered"
is one of the more colorful expressions I can still recall.

The proposition in question is whether or not humankind have "free will".

It was the view of humanist- Erasmus -that God has indeed endowed mankind with this freedom and -in contemporary terms -to Erasmus, this was an inalienable right. To the contrary, Luther argues in this book that this original endowment was forsaken and lost at the fall of Adam, thus comes the doctrine of original sin. Thus total depravity reigns supremely over humanity and enslaves him while he yet boasts of his innate freedom. Properly understood, total depravity does not mean one is totally evil or leads a life as evil as possible (as even personal experience can vouch for), but it means every facet of mankind, including his will -has been adversely affected by this event. So that Luther -like St Paul- speaks of the bondage and slavery of sin and its effect on the will as if it were a law at work just like the unavoidable law of gravity:
 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. (Romans 7:14-25, emphasis mine)


I remember one momentous night struggling with trying to understand him, and the penny dropped and I got it, I also got very excited. ( I was determined not to let the book gather dust because I had to import it from the USA and it was expensive)

It was at this point I finally was able to say "I understand" (This- even from memory- I can say is not from the Henry Cole translation I read, but it will suffice):
'I could wish, indeed, that a better term was available for our discussion than the accepted one, necessity, which cannot accurately be used of either man's will or God's. Its meaning is too harsh, and foreign to the subject; for it suggests some sort of compulsion, and something that is against one's will, which is no part of the view under debate. This will, whether it be God's or man's does what it does, good or bad, under no compulsion, but just as it wants or pleases, as if totally free. Yet the will of God, which rules over our mutable will, is changeless and sure - as Boetius sings, "Immovable Thyself, Thou movement giv'st to all;" and our will, principally because of its corruption, can do no good of itself. The reader's understanding, therefore, must supply what the word itself fails to convey, from his knowledge of the intended signification - the immutable will of God on the one hand, and the impotence of our corrupt will on the other. Some have called it necessity of immutability, but the phrase is both grammatically and theologically defective.'
This is typical of his forceful expression, this time from the Henry Cole translation:
'This, therefore, is also essentially necessary and wholesome for Christians to know: that God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable eternal, and infallible will. By this thunderbolt, "Free-will" is thrown prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces. Those, therefore, who would assert "free-will", must either deny this thunderbolt, or pretend  not to see it, or push it from them. But, however, before I establish this point by any arguments of my own, and by the authority of Scripture, I will first set it forth in your words.
Are you not then the person, friend Erasmus, who just now asserted, that God is by nature just and by nature most merciful? If this be true, does it not follow that He is immutably just and merciful? That, as His nature is not changed to all eternity, and neither His justice nor His mercy? And what is said concerning His justice and His mercy, must be said also concerning His knowledge, His wisdom, His goodness, His will, and His other Attributes. If therefore these things are asserted religiously, piously, and wholesomely concerning God, as you say yourself, what has come to you, that, contrary to your own self, you now assert, that it is irreligious, curious, and vain, to say, that God foreknows of necessity? You openly declare that the immutable will of God is to be known, but you forbid the knowledge of His immutable prescience. Do you believe that He foreknows against His will, or that He wills in ignorance? If then, He foreknows, willing, His will is eternal and immovable, because His nature is so: and, if He wills, foreknowing, His knowledge is eternal and immovable, because His nature is so.
From which it follows unalterably, that all things which we do, although they may appear to us to be done mutably and contingently, and even may be done thus contingently by us, are yet, in reality, done necessarily and immutably, with respect to the will of God. For the will of God is effective and cannot be hindered; because the very power of God is natural to Him, and His wisdom is such that He cannot be deceived. And as His will cannot be hindered, the work itself cannot be hindered from being done in the place, at the time, in the measure, and by whom He foresees and wills...'
For one more taste, again from the Henry Cole translation:
'The Diatribe is perpetually setting before us such a man, who either can do what is commanded, or at least knows that he cannot do it. Whereas, no such man is to be found. If there were such an one, then indeed, either impossibilities would be ridiculously commanded, or the Spirit of Christ would be in vain.
The Scripture, however, sets forth such a man, who is not only bound, miserable, captive, sick, and dead, but who , by the operation of his lord, Satan, to his other miseries , adds that of blindness: so that he believes he is free, happy, at liberty, powerful, whole, and alive. For Satan well knows that if  men knew their own misery he could retain no one of them in his kingdom: because, it could not be, but that God would immediately pity and succour their known misery and calamity: seeing that, He is with so much praise set forth, throughout the whole Scripture as, being near unto the contrite in heart, that Isaiah lxi. 1-3, testifies, that Christ was sent "to preach the Gospel to the poor, and to heal the broken hearted."
Wherefore, the work of Satan is, so to hold men, that they come not to know their misery, but that they presume that they can do all things which are enjoined. But the work of Moses the legislator is the contrary, even that by the law he might discover to man his misery, in order that he might prepare him, thus bruised and confounded with the knowledge of himself, for grace, and might send him to Christ to be saved. Wherefore, the office of the law is not ridiculous, but above all things serious and necessary.
Those therefore who thus far understand these things, understand clearly at the same time, that the Diatribe, by the whole string of its arguments effects nothing whatever; that it collects nothing from the Scriptures but imperative passages, when it understands, neither what they mean nor wherefore they are spoken; and that, moreover, by the appendages of its conclusions and carnal similitudes it mixes up such a mighty mass of flesh, that it asserts and proves more than it ever intended and, argues against itself.' 
Shades of "The Matrix" anybody?

Monday, April 29, 2013

Book Review: "The Apologetics of Jesus" by Norman Geisler and Patrick Zukeran



This is a much needed book and  serves to answer two basic questions. First: Just what is Christian apologetics? Second: Why should we be interested or involved?

The stark reality is that Christian apologetics suffers from bad press. Even the word "apologetic" is confused with apologizing for something, or is misunderstood as a state of mind in which remorse is felt.

 Apologetics is the discipline of defending the faith, (just as hermeneutics is a discipline of theology).

Also it may well be tied up in the common perception that Christianity and faith is anti-intellectual and these writers are justifiably concerned to dispel that myth. Renowned Christian evangelist, author and apologist (and one time student of Norman Geisler)- Ravi Zacharias laments:
 "Here," (in the West)," we believe that religion is an amputation of the brain" 
Sadly this mistaken attitude is not only promulgated by atheists but is even preached from Christian pulpits, I have been a witness of this myself when we as congregants were instructed to "leave our brains at the door" because it "gets in the road"!


From "Think Why" a ministry of Dr. Steve Kumar: 
Christian sociologist Os Guiness observes, “Anti-intellectualism is truly the refusal to love the Lord our God with all our minds as required by the first of Jesus’ commandments. God does not bypass the mind on the way to the heart. Our hearts cannot rejoice in faith if our minds are full of doubts, for the heart cannot believe what the mind rejects as false.” The great thinker St. Augustine declares, “For who cannot see that thinking is prior to believing? For no one believes anything unless he has first thought that it is to be believed.”

Many imagine that such fideistic ideas as embodied in the catch-phrases "blind faith" and faith caricatured as "a leap in the dark" is an accurate portrayal of what Christianity is all about- and nothing could be further from the truth. And for Christians to acquiesce and perpetuate this false belief is to play right into the hands of strident atheists who love to portray Christianity as a blind faith in childish superstitions and myths. It is time that Christians stood up and realized the inheritance we have been given in Christ and that is what this book is about.

Even non-believers commonly accept Christ as probably the worlds greatest teacher. Christ is our supreme example of the master apologete and we are told in Philippians 2:5
"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:"
So that whatever we do, we should look to Jesus as our example for life. This book shows how Jesus in his relations with people from every background and station in life was able to use a sophisticated variety of ways in which he challenged people and their assumptions in a dialogue that was respectful and yet unrelentingly purposeful and pointed.

Many will be familiar with the verse much used and perhaps not fully appreciated found in Hebrews 11:1
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." King James Version.
This is perhaps an unfortunate translation but we see the sense better when compared with another translation:
"Now faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
 In the Darby Bible Translation we see that the word has been translated "substantiating" which means "To support with proof or evidence; verify" (cf. Dictionary.com)
Clearly then- that 'faith' is not a "leap in the dark" but faith is that which substantiates, or makes real that which is hoped for, it is the evidence for unseen realities.

From the introduction to "The Apologetics of Jesus" :
"...it is strange indeed that no one has written a major work on the apologetic methods of Jesus. This book is an attempt to correct that serious omission.
Those who oppose apologetics in favour of a leap of faith without evidence will be disappointed in Jesus. Nowhere does he call on any one to make an unthoughtful and unreasoned decision about his or her eternal destiny. Everywhere Jesus demonstrates a willingness to provide evidence for what he taught to every sincere seeker. Indeed, the Law and the Prophets ... inform us of a God who says, "Come now let us reason together" (Isaiah 1:18)... And those who were taught by Jesus exhort us to "give the reason for our faith" (1 Peter 3:15) and not to make a leap of faith in the dark but rather to take a step of faith in the light- in the light of the evidence he has provided in nature (Rom. 1:19-20), in our hearts (Rom2:12-15), and in history (Acts 17:30-31).

It has become increasingly evident that the church of the "West"  is in rapid retreat. Even while some churches are growing, some by questionable methods, it has become marginalized from society and has dropped the ball as far as her sacred duty lies in keeping Christ as a credible and worthy voice alive in our multicultural climate. Retreating into a "holy huddle" is not a viable option, and she must linger no longer on the margins being unfaithful in many respects to maintain that sacred mandate to engage in society and make disciples from among all nations.

Sadly the reason is not only that militant atheists have, as a minority prevailed with great success in strategic use of media campaigns to convince the public at large that Christianity has nothing to offer but, Christianity has largely failed to take up the challenge. As I pen these words my wife informs me of an internet headline:
  "Famous atheist author Richard Dawkins has been named the world's top thinker in a global vote that counted 10,000 voices from over 100 countries."  
 Thankfully there are those who, by learning from their Lord and Master, have taken up the sword of the Spirit and consistently defended the faith against all odds 'casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" midst a secular and antagonistic cultural backdrop.

I repeat a quote from Alister McGrath's book "Heresy" which deserves careful consideration, it is written by:Austin Farrer lin “The Christian Apologist”(1904-1968)

“For though argument does not create conviction, the lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.”