2nd London Baptist Confession: Concerning Justification

Because I cannot seem to come up with any creative thought on my own, I thought I'd quote something beautiful from the 2nd London Baptist Confession of 1689 regarding justification. This is article 11 Sections 2 and 6:

Faith which receives Christ's righteousness and depends on Him is the sole instrument of justification, yet this faith is not alone in the person justified, but is always accompanied by all the other saving graces. And it is not a dead faith, but works by love.

The justification of believers during the Old Testament period was in all these respects exactly the same as the justification of New Tesatment believers.

What do you think of that? If you'd like to view the confession's full dealing with justification to try and figure out how sections 2 and 6 of article 11 fit together, you can check it out here.

Burning Our Noodle Part 4

Two nights ago, I was awakened at 4:30am by the sound of sirens that heralded the coming of devastation. While I tried to go back to sleep, my wife watched and listened intently to the news to see where the tornado was headed. By the grace of God, the storm passed us by unscathed, and yet not everyone was spared. As of today, the casualty count from that storm registers 55 persons, some entire families being wiped out by the dreadful storm.

I propose that there are generally two ways to view such catastrophes. One, we can believe that God was unable to stop the tornado from wreaking havoc and claiming lives, or two, we can believe that God was able to stop the tornado but did not choose to do so. Any Christian worthy of the name will believe the latter.

I want to take it a step further and ask this question: Is it possible that God ordains such disaster for the glory of His name and for the good of His people? I believe that it is not only possible, but that this is precisely the reason that things occur the way that they do. I truly believe that "for those who love God all things work together for good" (Rom. 8:28:). This may be hardest to swallow in the face of tragedy, but I believe that it is precisely then that these words are most precious. Consider this quote from one of my mentors, John Piper:

It's worth asking as a parenthesis here how a good God can be happy when the world is shot through with suffering and evil. It's a huge and hard question. Two things help me. One is that it doesn't help much to save God's reputation by saying that he is not really in charge. If someone had tried to comfort me in December 1974 when my mother was killed in a bus accident, by saying, "God didn't will this to happen; you can still trust him; he's good," I would have answered by saying, "My consolation does not come from thinking that God is so weak he can't divert the lumber on top a VW van." My God is sovereign. He took her in his appointed time; and I believe now and someday I will see that it was good. For I have learned in Jesus Christ that God is good. The biblical solution to the problem of evil is not to rob God of his sovereignty.

John Piper's mother died instantly when a piece of lumber came through the windshield of the bus and struck her. Could God not control the trajectory of the lumber? Could he not have altered the course of the bus? Certainly He could have, but He did not. Would you rather have a God who allows such things to purposely take place, or would you rather have the solace of knowing that even in the darkest night of tragedy that God is good, that He is close, and that He is working even this circumstance for your good and for His glory. Do you trust Him enough for that?

I sleep comfortably at night knowing that God holds the wind in His hand, that He commands the waves and the water, that not one sparrow falls to the ground outside of His sovereign notice, and that He has numbered my days and the days of my family. I trust Him with every detail, and I know that each has been sovereignly ordained to bring me into conformity to the likeness of His son and that all things are working together for my good and for His glory. I may not understand all things, but I know why all things happen. So the proper question for me in the face of tragedy is not, "Why did God let this happen?" Rather, it is, "Do you trust the Lord, even now, even when the pain is great and the grief a burden?" Joachim Neander, who died at only 30 years of age, expressed this truth aptly in the late 1600's in his great hymn, "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty." He wrote:

Praise to the Lord, who o'er all things so wonderously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen How they desires e'er have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?

May God grant us the wisdom to see this truth in the difficulties of our past, and may He give us the wisdom to believe He will do the same in the future.

Burning our Noodle Part 3

I want to ramp things up again for the sake of our sanctification and return to our discussion of God's ordination of all things that come to pass. This is a most frightening thing for us humans, and it can make us feel insignificant and even "robotish" if not handled with care. After all, if God has already predetermined all things, what becomes of human responsibility and free will? While good and natural questions, such thoughts must be answered after we have established whether or not God has ordained things. If He hasn't, then the point is moot.

I want to further suggest that, upon reflection, we will all be much happier and the universe will make far better sense, and that we can have tremendous peace knowing that God is in control and does indeed ordain all things that come to pass. Consider the alternative! That God is not in control of all things, that certain things happen for no reason, and that terrible evil may be propagated without consequence or from which no good arises. That, beloved, is a horrid thought.

So let us examine a few passages that indicate that God has indeed ordained things, even evil things, so that He may receive the glory and that He might triumph over sin and the very evil that was committed. (I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Why would He ordain an evil simply to overcome it?" We'll deal with that in a later noodle burner dealing with human responsibility.) Here are some verses to consider, and do yourself a favor, actually read them and think about the implications before we move on:

Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. (Gen. 15:13-16).

For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. (Acts 4:27-28)

Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. (Acts 13:48)

Studied over those few examples yet? If you are skimming and trying to get the gist of this, go back and read them! Now you're done? Good.

In the first example, we see that the time of Israel's captivity in Egypt was ordained of God. It would last exactly 400 years, and at the end of that 400 years, God would set them free. Their freedom would come at precisely the right time as well because that would mark the time when their inquity would be complete. We further see that Abraham was promised to have a full life and die in old age, which he did. Every day was numbered and determined by God, and although God does not will that His people be hated and abused, He ordained that very thing by the hand of the Egyptians.

In the second example, we see that it was determined before that Herod, Pilate, the Jews and the Gentiles would mock and crucify the Son of God. Bar none, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is the most heinous atrocity ever perpetrated by man, yet we see that it was predetermined that this would take place, and that Herod and Pilate would play a part.

Finally, we see in the Acts passage that everyone who was "appointed" to eternal life believed the gospel. If we cannot discern the sovereignty of God in Acts 13:48, I am at a loss as to where we will find it! To these examples we could add many more, and if your curiousity is aroused over this I heartily recommend you avail yourself to this article by John Piper entitled, "Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained that Evil Be?". Let me quote from that article some examples he gives:

God often expresses his will to be one way, and then acts to bring about another state of affairs. God opposes hatred toward his people, yet ordained that his people be hated in Egypt (Genesis 12:3; Psalm 105:25 – "He turned their hearts to hate his people."). He hardens Pharaoh's heart, but commands him to let his people go (Exodus 4:21; 5:1; 8:1). He makes plain that it is sin for David to take a military census of his people, but he ordains that he do it (2 Samuel 24:1; 24:10). He opposes adultery, but ordains that Absalom should lie with his father's wives (Exodus 20:14; 2 Samuel 12:11). He forbids rebellion and insubordination against the king, but ordained that Jeroboam and the ten tribes should rebel against Rehoboam (Romans 13:1; 1 Samuel 15:23; 1 Kings 12:15-16). He opposes murder, but ordains the murder of his Son (Exodus 20:13; Acts 4:28). He desires all men to be saved, but effectually calls only some (1 Timothy 2:4; 1 Corinthians 1:26-30; 2 Timothy 2:26).

Tomorrow, God willing, I will continue this by drawing out why this truth of God's Sovereignty is a precious doctrine will bring peace into the suffering of life, especially in the face of unexpected tragedy. After that, we will deal with human responsibility in the face of Divine Sovereignty. I conclude this section with the quote from the 2nd London Baptist Confession of 1689:

God has decreed in Himself from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things which shall ever come to pass. Yet in such a way that God is neither the author of sin nor does He have fellowship with any in the committing of sins, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

Burning our Noodle Part 2

It is nearly universally accepted by Christians that God knows everything. We call that God's "omniscience." We have no problem grasping the idea that God knows every person on earth, the atomic structure of an atom, how many stars there are in the galaxy, and how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop. However, our meditation on God's foreknowledge rarely goes beyond such basic thoughts. The problem comes in when we realize that God's knowledge of the facts may actually create the facts themselves. Let me elaborate a bit.

We tend to make God like us, and so when we think of God knowing something, we think that He knows it like we do. That is, we tend to think of God knowing geometry like we do. He simply has a set of truths and facts memorized and He uses those facts to build things. The problems is that those geometric facts and truths cannot exist outside of God. God does not memorize a set of facts, the facts come into being by His will. Without God willing it, there is no geometry.

This trouble is part of the problem we have with God's foreknowledge of human events. We have the idea that God, somewhere back in "time", started this thing called "creation." After He created things, He sort of looked down the corridor of time into the future to see what would happen. The problem with that is that God did not simply create "Creation" and let it go. He actively ordained whatever comes to pass. Indeed, things cannot come to pass apart from His will because it is by His will that all things consist and hold together (Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3; 2:10). God is actively sustaining the universe at this very moment, and it cannot exist independently of His will. So God's foreknowledge of something cannot simply mean that God is simply seeing how things will "play out." He has decreed everything that comes to pass.

Another thing that Christians ought to agree on is that everything comes to pass precisely the way God means for them to, and that the end result of the universe is assured. Think on the implications of the Book of Revelation. John saw, over a thousand years ago, what will certainly come to pass at some unknown time in the future. He saw all of the future redeemed, indeed, he saw the full number of them. Each individual that John saw must certainly be there, and every tongue and tribe and nation will certainly be there. The end is assured. Every redeemed soul that John saw will certainly be redeemed, and every condemned soul will certainly be condemned.

The natural question that arises is to wonder, if God has indeed scripted the history of the universe and everything turns out precisely as He means them to, then how can man be said to be free in any real way? And how does our involvement affect the outcome? And where, if God has ordained all things, does evil come from?

While confusing at first, God's sovereignty in all things will turn out to be a great source of hope if understood correctly. Today we have not answered any questions, we've just made the questions a little clearer. Soon, we'll take a look at some evil things that God predetermined to take place and how that harmonizes with human responsibility.

This Will Burn Your Noodle

I want to submit a quote from the 2nd London Baptist Confession of 1689. I happen to agree, but that does not make the concept any easier to grasp:

God has decreed in Himself from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things which shall ever come to pass. Yet in such a way that God is neither the author of sin nor does He have fellowship with any in the committing of sins, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

Let's break this down since we don't all speak the good English of 1689. First, God decreed all things from eternity, and His decision on how things would be were of His own will and without coercion or being dependant on any creaturely input or action. That's pretty easy to grasp I think. God has decided everything that has happened and will happen and everything will happen just as He meant for it to. The next section makes this clear: Although God knows everything which may or can come to pass under all imaginable conditions, yet He has not decreed anything because He foresaw it in the gurture, or because it would come to pass under certain conditions.

Here's where it gets difficult: if God planned everything, then that include the Fall, sin, famine, hurricanes, tornados, murder, mayhem, and everything else. How can we say that God has planned for, indeed that He decreed all these things, and still come away with a good God? And if that is not enough to burn your noodle, try and imagine the alternative, which is particularly awful: God did not ordain all things that come to pass, and some certain events are random and even gratuitous! That is, some events, particularly tragic ones, serve no redemptive purpose at all.

Think on these things and we'll come back to look a little more into second causes and man's volition. Hope you've got your coffee/tea in hand for this!