Sermon Evaluation - Covenant Studies

SERMON
EVALUATION
LABOR OF LOVE / LABOR OF SMART
T. Hoogsteen
PREFACE
Opening up unmatched sermonic powers: in the New Testament space of the Church, the
Father chose to save those who believe because they listen to the Word. Cf. I Cor. 1:21 – “For
since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God
through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.” Due to preaching’s recreative
powers, we experience only vast difficulties in overestimating the Word proclaimed. That is, of
sermons. Sermonizing, of course, distinct from every Old Testament type of proclamation,
constitutes the foremost task of the post-Pentecost Church.
Salvation is:
1) the exclusive work of the Son in the name of the Father through the Holy Spirit to raise the
elect from death-in-sin to life-in-Christ for the new heavens and earth.
2) Christ calling and leading his own by way of the covenant out of the darkness of sin and
condemnation into the marvelous light of the new creation, thus to serve his Father forever.
Even though ‘sermon’ does not appear in the Bible, it has become part of the language of the
Church. Distinct from the many forms of proclamation in the Old Testament, post-Pentecost the
Lord of the Church intends that sermons explain and apply a preaching unit.
Motivational Notes
The tipping point to explain what makes a sermon a sermon came out of yet another
discussion with Herman Ouwersloot. This brother and friend in the Lord also struggles with the
same problem.
Living in these revolution-torn times, we find that poor preaching hardens the Church against
the Word as well as against life’s purpose: glorifying God. Moreover, despite the unprecedented
powers of the word of the Lord, we sense a spreading inability to discern good preaching from
bad.
Given the biblical powers involved in hearing the Word, an imbalance appears. For makersof-sermons, all sorts of literature on the craft are available, while more roll off publishing house
presses every year. However, with exceptions, 1 for listeners-to-sermons one finds very little for
assessing sermons. Hence, SERMON EVALUATION concentrates on listening to sermons:
within congregational dynamics to assess the quality of the contents of the spoken word.
Assessment of preaching, mostly informal, happens all the time – complaints, turned-up
noses, snide remarks, and absenteeism from worship services, all highly unbecoming exercises in
futility. Only when evaluation comprises clear, quiet thinking, critics confront the right people.
1
For instance:
Jay E. Adams, A Consumer’s Guide to Preaching: How to Get the Most Out of a Sermon (Wheaton: Victor, 1991).
Webb B. Garrison, The Preacher and His Audience (Westwood, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1954).
Reuel L. Howe, Partners in Preaching: Clergy and Laity in Dialogue (New York: Seabury, 1967).
William D. Thompson, A Listener’s Guide to Preaching (New York: Abingdon, 1966).
These men wrote out of academic circles and approached listeners-in-the-pew intellectually.
2
Either way, through knives-in-the-back or with helpful criticism, sermon evaluation frequently
begins with awareness of a decline in the quality of preaching contents.
Awareness of the low quality of preaching makes one look up, frowning, as in this instance –
“… from one who generally occupies the pew rather than the pulpit: the quality of most
preaching is shatteringly poor; and most of the laity would be greatly relieved to hear some talk,
however simple in level, about the biblical materials.” 2 A tad harsh? To accent the problem, a
similar evaluation. “One could show rather easily that preaching has lost its centrality in most
main-line white Protestant churches, although it has never lost its place in black Protestantism
and is being rediscovered in the Catholic Church. The white Protestant pastor who still devotes a
major block of his time preparing sermons … has been on the endangered species list for a long
time. Today it is administration that gets the lion’s share of one’s energy.” 3 For good measure, a
third. “One of the reasons for the inability of most churches to carry out the great work of God is
the absence of God-ordained preaching. Many sermons honor the man who preaches them
instead of honoring God.” 4 Over against such evaluation, calls for reformation of preaching
come - apparently to little effect.
Following out the awareness-raising accuracy of this triple witness with respect to
contemporary preaching, overall the weight of this tough issue comes to rest within the office of
the congregation.
The office of the congregation is:
1) the Christ-mandated responsibility to which he holds all his congregationally and individually
accountable for the eschatological wellbeing of the Church and the preaching.
2) the calling of the Church in Jesus Christ for believers to serve as kings, prophets, and priests
in the communion of the saints and throughout the coming of the Kingdom. Cf. I Pet. 2:9.
With path-breaking diligence, the Lord of the Church summons his own to exercise this
office of the congregation and insist upon optimum quality in the preaching.
Ministers reveal better quality in preaching when sermons begin with, center on, and end
with glory to God – the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. Such glory to God gives in our
living the primary evidence of salvation. Though we, listeners-to-sermons, tend to place
ourselves first, we may never fail to lose sight of the most important goal for hearing sound
preaching: the glory of the Father in Christ Jesus.
Sound preaching persuades us over and over that all glory be given to God and makes us
with full grasp of affairs consider the power of sermons for our salvation: faith comes by,
continues in, and arrives at its goal through the Spirit-driven ministry of the Word. Thus, our
2
James Barr, The Bible in the Modern World (London: SCM Press, 1972), p. 140.
Leander E. Keck, The Bible in the Pulpit: The Renewal of Biblical Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon, 1978), p. 15.
Worth noting: virtually every publication on preaching advocates renewal of this great work of the Lord in the
Church. Discouraging is, however, that every book and article on preaching seem to recommend a different reading
of the Bible, adding to confusion in the pew. These different signals of hope go beyond matters of style.
4
Justin Case, “The State of Preaching Today,” The Outlook, Vol. 47, #10, p. 4.
3
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interest in the prominence of the proclaimed Word and its transcendent power reflects the
submission of the Church to Jesus Christ for all coming ages.
Faith is:
1) the instrument by which the Spirit instills the Word into all thereto endowed.
2) Christ Jesus dwelling in our hearts, rooting and grounding us in love that we may have the
power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length, height and depth, and to
know Christ’s love, which surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of
God. Cf. Eph. 3:14ff.
3) believing the covenant promises in order to live the covenant obligations until Christ Jesus has
totally prepared us for the life of the new creation.
4) saying the Spirit-moved yes to all the Lord Jesus revealed in and as Scriptures.
Thus, SERMON EVALUATION’s aim is pertinent and contemporary. It means to provide
renewed levels of listening quality, meeting Apostle Paul’s standard, the proclamation of the
whole counsel of God, cf. Acts 20:27. This requires from thoughtful word-hearers sharper
proficiency to evaluate the word of the Lord spoken in worship services.
SERMON EVALUATION means to help increase processes of learning with key abilities to
recognize sound preaching. Acquiring these abilities involves a labor of love and at the same
time a labor of smart. Passion for sermon evaluation comes as a priority, since salvation depends
upon sound preaching. Smart follows upon recognizing how much long-term improvement our
listening skills require. In the presence of Jesus Christ, we, with steady industry may build up the
central function of every congregation: hearing the word of the Lord in order to live free and
unfettered lives throughout a stressful and tension-filled history.
May these large-scale reflections on sermon evaluation make all in Christ more accountable
to the Word and as one holy, Spirit-filled Church praise the Father – now and forever. For
consider: either sermons come to this goal, or they fail, and fall into tempting frippery and/or the
leaping logic of oratory.
Oratory is: sermons in response to itching ears and transitory likings of errant church
members. Cf. II Tim. 4:3f.
If ministers of the Word twist the word of the Lord into oratory, they curse instead of bless
all whom the Lord of the Church holds responsible for the Word. It is therefore imperative in
listening to become more and more aware of sermon quality. We are neither shoppers-in-a-mall
chasing salvation bargains nor browsers-on-the-information highway seeking human opinions on
the way of the Church. As Head of the Church, the Lord Jesus Christ wills that we, focused longterm, encourage all our sons whom he calls into the ministry of the Word to speak so that we
may hear always and only heart-building sermons.
To this end, the Apostle to the Gentiles wrote, cf. II Cor. 4:7 – “… we have this treasure in
earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.” The
exceeding greatness of this power calls on our part for much responsibility and care; by our care
we ensure the soundness of the preaching. To hear the Word means that ministers meet the
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biblical standard in preaching, namely, the widening horizons of the whole counsel of God.
Nothing less suffices. For saving all who believe, sermonic worth and joy increase in state-offlux generations as Christ Jesus directs history as we know it to its well-rounded closure. At that
time the Trinity receives all glory.
This means that we, to be able to evaluate sermons, need to know the Bible; knowing the
Scriptures is the main priority for judging whether or not preaching is indeed the word of the
Lord, and never the religious theatre of oratory.
In my last pastoral charge, pressures on preaching quality intensified in earnest. Since that
time, I have had many opportunities to hear and read sermons. Reflection upon this Christendowed means of communication led to SERMON EVALUATION.
Dedicatory Notes
To Conrad and Ann VanAndel:
For perseverance
Herewith I express appreciative gratitude to Jayne Hoogsteen for reading and critiquing the
developmental stages of this book.
Regulatory Notes
ISBN 978-09783932-1-2
© 2009 - T.J. Hoogsteen and M.A. Hogeveen
Throughout, Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copy
right © 1946, 1952, and 1971 by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA.
RSV rationale – acquaintance with its strengths and weaknesses, hence avoiding the
unfamiliarity of unmarked paraphrasing and dynamic equivalency often plaguing newer
translations.
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CONTENTS
PREFACE
2
INTRODUCTION
8
TECHNICAL PREPARATIONS
Scripture Selection………………………………………………………………………09
Scripture Version………………………………………………………………………..16
Textual Selection………………………………………………………………………..25
Convincing Brevities……………………………………………………………………29
Exegetical Passion………… ………………………………………………………….38
Serial Preaching…………………………………………………………………………81
Textual Perceptivity……………………………………………………….. … …….101
Illustrative Material………………………………………………………… ……….105
Hearing the Word………………………………………………………………………107
Heart Destination……………………………………………………… ….…………138
FIRST SUMMATION
141
FIRST EXCURSUS
To A Land Flowing with Milk and Honey
144
VOLATILE PREPARATIONS
Sinners and Hirelings……………………………………………………………………151
Mockery and Pedestaling…………….………………………………………………….178
Tyranny and Eulogy……………………………………………………………………..187
Deregulation and Division…………………………………………………
……….196
Constriction and Maturation………………………………………………… ………..201
SECOND SUMMATION
208
THEMATIC PREPARATIONS
Covenant and Predestination………………………………………………
….…….214
History and Redemption……………………………………………… ……………….219
6
Gospel and Law…………………………………………………………………………..227
Church and Kingdom……………………………………………… …………………..235
Office and Recreation…………………………………………………………………….244
Providence and Theodicy…………………………………………………………………250
Sin and Grace……………………………………………………………………………..261
Perseverance and Regression……………………………………………………………..267
Eschatology and Judgment………………………………………………………………..271
Justification and Sanctification……………………………………………………………278
Word and Sacrament………………………………………………………………………285
Life and Death……………………………………………………………………………..290
Light and Darkness……………………………………………………….………………..296
Heaven and Hell…………………………………………………………………………...299
Justice and Mercy………………………………………………………………………….303
Time and Eternity………………………………………………………………………….309
Freedom and Slavery………………………………………………………………………313
Assurance and Doubt………………………………………………………………………319
Hope and Despair……………………………………………………
………………..323
Flesh and Spirit……………………………………………………………………. …….326
THIRD SUMMATION
327
CONCLUSIONS
330
SECOND EXCURSUS
Seven Deaths By Hanging
333
Modern Liberty and Ancient Bondage
342
Choices between Good and Evil, Life and Death
353
Two Gates and Two Ways.
362
Key GLOSSARY Terms
371
BIBLIOGRAPHY
383
TEXTUAL INDEX
390
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INTRODUCTION
The revelation of Jesus Christ forms the beginning and the end of the Scriptures. Thus,
reflecting the centrality of Christ Jesus, every good sermon 5 leads off with a Christ-centered
introduction fitting the preaching unit. More than a token presence, Jesus’ Person and works fill
brief opening paragraphs. A sermon introduction defective in terms of the Person and work of
Jesus Christ reflects a minister of the Word, no matter how passionately committed to the central
task of his office, working with a wrong grasp of the text. A strong start also radiates a
Trinitarian atmosphere. A foggy hold on any preaching unit means that a minister starts a sermon
out in danger of pulpit oratory, that is, with inferior and/or apostate preaching.
With a strong Christological start and Trinitarian recognition, preaching from the beginning
magnifies the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. In this way, ministers, fully Christ-centered
and believing the unity of the Son, the Father, and the Spirit, faithfully honor ordination vows.
In contrast, sermons started with man-centered crumbs of relevance inevitably wind up in
ideological sins of allegorism, moralism, exemplarism, etc.; these, in turn, gradually broaden and
deepen rebellion in the Church; the same happens with topical preaching, which further
undercuts confidence in the Word.
Rebellion is: conscious and (often) organized opposition in the Church to overthrow Christ
Jesus’ headship for second-rate types of human rule, either ideological or idolatrous. Cf. Is.
63:10.
Cutting the problem of inadequate/apostate preaching open in another way: improper sermon
introductions subject congregations to rebellious ideas arising out of a preacher’s own nest of
opinions or seditious wants. Every wrong start places (generic) man first. Then we listen to
preaching that begins too low, therewith leading to mockery of the word of the Lord.
Sound introductions relevant to the preaching units show the Second Person of the Trinity at
the heart of one of a variety of scriptural doctrines. With proper and concise openings, ministers
fill introductions with this conviction: in Jesus Christ all things are from, through, and to the
Father, cf. I Cor. 8:6, work of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Such sharp-framed introductions
begin full-bodied preaching.
In brief, a Christological and Trinitarian start indicates that a minister knows the text, which
enables him to arrive quickly at the heart of the preaching unit. In corporate worship, every
minister enables us to tell sound preaching from inferior and/or apostate pulpit oratory. To
develop this theme, these issues – Technical Preparations, Volatile Preparations, and Thematic
Preparations.
5
Outside the community of believers, irreverent persons turn sermon and preaching into annoying language,
harangue, or tedious reproof.
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TECHNICAL PREPARATIONS
To assure that ministers proclaim the word of the Lord faithfully within the context of
corporate worship, various technical preparations apply. Knowing and working with these
preparations up builds the Faith for glorifying the Father of Jesus Christ. We need these
preparations as standards, or criteria, to discern sound preaching from other sorts. Then, in the
presence of the Holy Spirit we may hear the word of the Lord for the goal of our lives on earth.
At the same time we overcome in preaching what is conventional, outdated, rebellious, and
therefore destructive of our new life as well as of Christ’s missionary mandate for the Church.
The first technical preparation fixes attention on the suitability of Scripture readings that
ministers select for preaching.
SCRIPTURE SELECTION
Men whom Christ calls to the ministry read the Bible with the conviction that God’s Word
alone – all 66 books – serves for the regulation, foundation, and confirmation of the Faith. This
may be said with clear confessional language.
“We receive all these books, and these only, as holy and canonical, for the regulation,
foundation, and confirmation of our faith. We believe without any doubt all things contained in
them, not so much because the Church receives and approves them as such, but especially
because the Holy Spirit witnesses in our hearts that they are from God, and also because they
contain the evidence thereof in themselves; for, even the blind are able to perceive that the things
foretold in them are being fulfilled.” 6
Ministers, sons of the Church and persuaded of the Faith, speak to respective congregations
according to the Word. Since they live and move and breathe in the Church, clergymen too read
the Bible, convinced that this is the Word of God. Without a doubt, this crucial conviction
springs from Spirit-infused faith, which is preeminently decisive for the ongoing body of Christ.
The Faith is: the unity of Christian believing and living.
Bible Readings
Scripture readings that ministers select and from which they take preaching units may be
long or short. Readings too short consider the situation of the text insufficiently. Readings too
long take away from time necessary for other parts of the liturgy, such as the preaching. It is
necessary for us to mull over and judge that Scripture selections reflect much wisdom.
A minister’s Scripture reading(s) ought to be overall no more than two. Most of us have
enough with one on which to concentrate. Few of us muster enough strength of mind and
memory to work with more than two. Hence, one wise selection is normally enough. Two may
6
Cf. the 1561 Confession of Faith, Art. V.
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be necessary to bring out differences between the Old Testament and the New. As much as there
are basic continuities between the Testaments, also momentous changes appear – for Christ Jesus
fulfilled Old Testament promises and prophecies. To explain continuities and discontinuities,
here are six word-pairs (considered more fully in Thematic Preparations).
1) Some readings, Old Testament or New, directly express the covenant. The one covenant
the LORD revealed successively to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Israel/Moses, and David; then he
himself in person accomplished the promises. Continuity and discontinuity readily appear by
comparing the Testaments.
Case in point 001. Is Heb. 10:11-18, on New Testament revelation of the covenant, a
minister’s reading selection and vss. 16-17 his text, then Jer. 31:23-34 may serve well as the Old
Testament passage to influence a strong sermon on the covenant. These readings display
continuity and discontinuity between the Testaments.
A seasoned minister integrates supportive readings into the sermon. If he reads Jer. 31:23-34
without working this passage into the sermon on Heb. 10:16-17, this leaves us to guess at its
purpose in the liturgy as well as its relation to the preaching text. Instead, he reflects considerable
ministerial strength by explaining its purpose in relation to the text and the sermon. If he glosses
over the interaction of a support reading with the text, in the sermon not explaining its purpose, it
takes our attention away from listening to the word and we jump onto different tracks of thought,
wondering about the second reading. Then following the sermon’s development melts away.
Therefore, if a minister chooses two readings, one from which he selects the text, he also
skillfully tells us the purpose of the accompanying passage, how it fits into the preaching unit. So
he helps us stay focused on the sermon.
Case in point 002. A minister chooses for the main reading Deut. 4:15-31, a fundamental
warning against potential idolatry and concentrates on vs. 20 as preaching unit – on Israel as the
elect nation. We perceive the minister’s convincing wisdom when he conjoins Mt. 15:1-28, or
Eph. 2:1-10, or even Rev. 17:1-18:8 to the reading of the Deuteronomy passage.
The doctrine of election in the Old Testament period concentrated very much on Israel, the
people of the Church at that time known by this great covenant name. Therefore, the warning
against idolatry reveals the compelling force of the First Commandment. Now, in the vast
struggles of our times, Christ makes the inclusion of the elect Gentiles into the Church very
pronounced. So, as much as likenesses exist between the Testaments on election, we may not
close ourselves off from internal tensions and differences between the Testaments.
The Bible from beginning to end is the covenant book; the progressive thrust of the covenant
comes out in its revelation of predestination. Preaching units that reveal covenant and
predestination urge work with both these majestic and holy themes; this indicates in the Church
the openness to enlarge covenant membership.
2) In readings of a historical nature, the deeply committed Author of the Bible, the Holy
Spirit, reveals that, as Adam’s sin conceived and gave birth to fiercer works of evil, the gospel of
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redemption shone mightier with interests on things global. The increasing strength of gospel
revelation in the Old Testament comes into focus with Christ’s approaching victory. With text
selection that reveals the historically transparent development of the promise of salvation, a
biblically-grounded minister works well with creative tensions in two appropriate readings.
Case in point 003. A minister selects Acts 13:13-47 as the main reading and vss. 30-31 as the
preaching unit, on the history-changing fact of the Resurrection. In this situation the significance
of the progress in redemption requires clear emphasis. This emphasis may be supported by an
Old Testament reading such as Ps. 2, acknowledging amidst global tensions the origin of divine
laughter in the Church.
Case in point 004. Is Gen. 4:1-26 the main reading selection, on the first tyrant, and vss. 2324 the text, then an associate passage may be Mt. 18:21-35 in order to expose the fuller import of
Lamech’s seventy-sevenfold revenge; salvation from this revenge is life. Connected with this
text selection, a thoughtful minister also explains Gen. 4:15. Such a sermon sounds forth sure
punishment upon always current forms of abusive authority – from political to familial to
schoolyard bullying.
Case in point 005. Rom 5:1-21 and notably vs. 9 present a rich spectrum on grace. A Rom.
5:9 sermon wins us over more to the full force of redemption in the course of history.
Every passage on the historical-redemptive nature of salvation makes the progressive
development of the Gospel stand out. We journey on the humbling highroad to the future.
3) For sermons on the relation between Gospel and Law, a variety of passages apply, cf. Ex.
20:1ff./Deut. 5:6ff.; Gal. 3:6ff.; etc. The energies of this mighty theme may be caught early on in
a worship service, even before the minister finishes his main reading selection. We may thus
discern his wisdom when he makes due comparison between the two Testaments, which at the
same time increases our own understanding of Scripture, how the Testaments tie together. Our
heightened scriptural understanding definitely signals another laudable preaching goal.
Case in point 006. Is the main reading Mt. 5:1-26 and the text vss. 17-20, on the surpassing
worth of the Law in Jesus Christ’s teaching ministry, then, in order to bring out the Pharisees’
legalism, a collateral passage helps. We respect a minister’s discernment as he acknowledges
always applicable Ex. 20:1-17, or Deut. 4:1-14. Instead of hammering away at legalists in the
Church, he then uses the Law for uncovering our sins; more than that, he takes the Law to open
up the actuality of our gratitude for the new life in Christ Jesus.
Case in point 007. A minister may read Is. 40:1-26 and choose as text vss. 6-8, on the
Gospel’s power in the Old Testament – ready to break through to the New Testament
dispensation. He then husbands good by reading also a passage as I Pet. 1:13-25; such a New
Testament revelation points to the goal of Isaiah’s prophecy with respect to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.
Preaching on Gospel/Law themes discloses the progressive nature of the Gospel’s
development and the Law’s application, for both come to stand more in congregational light.
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4) In readings on the Christ’s headship over the Church and government of the Kingdom,
convictions start forming immediately with respect to the textual theme. Our initial train-ofthought momentum may jump to Satan’s attacks on the Church and the Kingdom, or how we
work at cross-purposes to Christ. However, moving beyond selfish concerns for ourselves, good
preaching builds up the Church and expands the Kingdom. For a sermon text on Church and
Kingdom, one reading may be sufficient, a second helpful, depending on ministers’ God-given
biblical insights.
Case in point 008. A minister’s choice of reading on the theme of the Church and the
Kingdom may be Eph. 2:1-22, and the preaching unit vss. 13-16. This revelation of the Christ’s
almighty reign at the right hand of his Father makes transparent a powerful New Testament
missionary text. Then an Old Testament supportive reading may be Josh. 6:22ff., adding Rahab
and her family into the covenant community, and taking note of the fact that Rahab became a
mother in Jesus’ genealogy. Cf. Mt. 1:5.
Case in point 009. Is a minister’s reading II Sam. 7:1-17, on the LORD’s rulership in and
over Israel, the Old Testament Church? This long-sighted account reveals another covenant
renewal. Is the text vss. 12-13, then John 1:43-51, or John 19:12-16 may be a helpful parallel
passage for a full-bodied sermon.
In sermons on the Church and the Kingdom, the development of both ought to appear clearly,
as well as fleshing out the sense of community between them, in order to magnify Christ’s work
and the Father’s glory. Also, then the solid conviction comes out that salvation is impossible
outside the Church and the Kingdom, even as acceptable worship and righteous service.
5) New Testament preaching on office bearing and recreation opens up awesome vistas and
daunting prospects in relation to the coming of the new heavens and earth. Of first importance
breathes Christ’s office; he is the King, Prophet, and Priest. In addition, the office of the
congregation comes through: together we serve as kings, prophets, and priests.
Recreation is: Christ’s work to reveal the new heavens and earth, the Kingdom in its fullness
and glory, beginning within the contemporary manifestation of the Church.
A text on office bearing and recreation may also concentrate on the three special offices
Christ gives for the work of the Church; elders, ministers, and deacons. Or a text condemns
abuse of these responsibilities. Cf. Jer. 23:1ff. Then one reading may suffice. However, to bring
into the sermon breathing room for the development of office and recreation found in the Old
Testament, a suitable reading selection from the New Testament may help.
Case in point 010. Is the reading Lk. 4:16-30 and the text vss. 18-19, how Jesus in his Person
fulfilled Old Testament prophecy, then Is. 61:1-11 certainly signals a good Old Testament
reference passage; this brings out one of the historical roots of Christ’s office – King, Prophet,
Priest.
Case in point 011. Suppose a minister selects Eph. 4:1-16 as the main reading and vss. 11-13
as sermon text, on the maturing of the Faith. Then he may use Jer. 23:1-8 or Ez. 22:17-31 to
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good advantage; both Old Testament passages contrast false shepherds to the Shepherd, and fight
damages corrupt prophets cause in Christ’s church.
Case in point 012 – on Is. 65:1-25, with vss. 17-19 as preaching unit. Here, in an eyebrowraising manner, the LORD revealed the coming of the new heavens and earth. Such a sermon
text aligns in a complex world the purpose for living here and now.
Sermons on office responsibilities and recreation motivate and persuade all in Christ Jesus to
get on with the vital work of the Church and the Kingdom, to glorify the Father of the Savior and
thereby apprehend the fullness of salvation.
6) One more – on the austere awesomeness with which the LORD foretells and forth tells all
to come, despite our fears in an anxious environment.
Foretelling is: prophecy structuring the future. Cf. Gen. 3:14ff.
Forth telling is: to pass on in the Church past events in new historical developments. This
forth telling the Author repeated often, for instance, with respect to the Exodus, Israel’s release
from Egypt. Cf. Hosea 13:4; Lk. 1:68ff.; etc. The rich ambience of the Exodus and the covenant
reformation at Mt. Sinai stretches powerfully through the Old Testament, preparatory for the
New Testament. Cf. Judges 6:7ff., the word of the LORD in a somber transition period and by
way of an unnamed prophet – “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt,
and brought you out of the house of bondage; and I delivered you from the hand of the
Egyptians, and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you, and gave
you their land; and I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God; you shall not pay reverence to the
gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not given heed to my voice.”
Readings and texts of this type are first forth telling; at the same time, each also has an element
of foretelling: this will happen, undeterred by all idolatries. The LORD entered the strong moves
of foretelling in order to establish hope in the Church then for recreation now.
Case in point 013. A minister may choose Mal. 4:1-5 as the main passage, on the momentous
arrival of the sun of righteousness after the long night of sin from Gen. 3 through Mal. 4. With
Mal. 4:2 as text, he may develop this prophecy on the imminent coming of the Word in the flesh
at the great and terrible dawn of judgment. With Lk. 1:67-79 or the first chapter of the Acts as
collateral reading, he is free to proclaim the word of the Lord focused on the majesty of the
rising of the sun of righteousness. With the mighty Roman Empire crumbling and the Kingdom
progressing to the Second Coming of the Christ, a minister overrides any present anxiety for the
future, at the same time calling the Church to have regard for the Eschaton.
The Eschaton is: the glorious complex of events in which Jesus Christ reveals the Father’s
reformation of the original creation, the new heavens and earth.
Sermons on prophecy and fulfillment bow to the intense pressure of the progressive nature of
revelation.
13
These six biblical themes 1) reach forward to the Third Part of SERMON EVALUATION,
and 2) display a little of the amazing variety of text selection possible in the Bible. If ministers
select readings wisely they hardly ever fall into undue repetition – such as choosing only legal or
prophetic passages, and dodging away from all others, especially difficult ones.
During Scripture reading in corporate worship, we immediately begin a process of
understanding the text in order to receive the sermon. In this crucial phase of the liturgy and
ensured of wise Bible reading, with a sense of confidence we make important first steps at
grasping the coming word of the Lord. Do we recognize the sort of reading the minister selected
and search out its primary theme, covenant and predestination, history and redemption, Gospel
and Law, Church and Kingdom, etc., we move ahead to hearing the word of the Lord.
Dual Disappointments
In this preliminary process at knowing the sense and purpose of reading and text, disquieting
disappointments may hurt in one of two grating and chafing ways, part of the smart in sermon
evaluation.
1) Our initial impression may be too weak or even wrong. This can happen when a passage is
new, strange, and/or controversial.
Initial impressions may also be wrong because we look in the reading for an answer to our
own needs and problems. Personal difficulties and pains may interfere with and influence first
perception of the Bible reading. A listener suffering from a terminal illness may seek too much a
promise of a miracle in many passages of Scripture. Again, someone sinking under with
marriage/family problems may look for hope and answer in every Bible passage. So a church
member who is overstressed at work. Or one with deep concerns over ecological chaos may want
every one present, the minister too, to be as involved. However, not every Bible reading speaks
to every situation in life. Each passage has its own meaning and application, which must come
out in the sermon, even if contrary to long-held erroneous beliefs.
Weak and/or wrong first impressions regarding the Scripture reading require that we, fleetfooted, run and catch up with the Scriptures and the minister in order to hear the word of the
Lord.
2) Also a source of disappointment during the beginning processes of coming to grips with a
text, as first impressions take hold and settle into place: a minister’s understanding of the reading
selection and text may be off kilter. Two instances awash with feminist confusion make a virtue
out of a vice.
Case in point 014. “In several places in the book, two preachers use the same text. This
device demonstrates the power and possibility of different interpretations. Each woman offers, in
her own voice, a fresh interpretation of the power dynamics within those stories.” 7
7
E. Lee Hancock, ed., The Book of Women’s Sermons: Hearing God in Each Other’s Voices (New York:
Riverhead, 1999), p. 8.
14
In addition to breaking with the Scriptural doctrine of headship, each person full of mystery
gas makes individual listeners hear what the text means to them and thus the word of the Lord
becomes a source of confusion.
Case in point 015 - on Mt. 15:21-28. “I’m also uncomfortable when I hear or read this story
because whether the real, historical Jesus insulted the woman or not, the insult reflects something
very true about the people of the early Jesus movement, people who are my spiritual forebears.
I’m not very proud of what I see, either.” 8
After breaking the Scriptural doctrine of headship, the preacher issues a personal
interpretation of a text, not its actual meaning in Matthew’s historical-redemptive setting.
These two sorts of shocking disappointments, weak and/or wrong understandings of a text,
roll out recurrent dangers in the Church, because we as well as ministers still yearn too strongly
for our own goals in life. Always on a disbelieving edge, we constrict biblical interpretation and
usage to preferential treatment, either ideological or idolatrous.
Messier Frustration
Upon these two sorts of disappointment, another drifts into focus – trends in Scripture
selection. We observe that ministers select preaching texts too much from the Old Testament or
too much from the New. However, every conscientious servant of the Lord strives for a fair
balance, perhaps more from the Old Testament, since its 39 books compose by far the larger part
of the Bible. They ought to, we find, take more preaching texts from the Old since it is
foundational to the New. But it is sorely frustrating when slow-motion ministers select readings
and texts exclusively either from the Old Testament or the New. Christians pay attention to this,
interested in and committed to the whole counsel of God.
It seems that ministers, left on their own, concentrate heavily on the New Testament under
the sketchy impression that its 27 books convey more relevance to present-day churches and
members. However, in the office of the congregation, we look for a proportionate balance from
both Testaments. Better balance avoids deadening trends tugging at one-sidedness and protects
ministers from bias, for or against the Old Testament.
Due to the importance of preaching (our salvation is at stake, and more, the glory of the
Trinity!) we have a ‘vested interest’ in ministerial wisdom when it comes to reading selections
and even the Bible translation he uses. Therefore, Apostle Paul instructed ministers of the Word,
cf. Titus 1:9, that each one “… must hold firm to the sure word as taught, that he may be able to
give instruction in it.” This begins with wisely selected Bible readings.
Whether Scripture readings run long or short, drawn from the Old Testament or the New,
every one ready to listen to the spoken word of the Lord can be aware and convinced of this fact:
well-chosen selections from the Rule of Faith establish the reference frame of the text. In this
way, we begin apprehending the word of the Lord.
8
Mary Lynnette Delbridge, “She’s in My Face,” in E. Lee Hancock, ibid., p. 79.
15
SCRIPTURE VERSION
In order to tell God-glorifying sermons from bad ones, it is important in our office of the
congregation to exercise a decisive voice in selecting a responsible Bible translation. “The Bible
does not belong to the guild of professional scholars; the Bible belongs first of all to the
church.” 9 Because so many different versions crowd book markets, we confront this mandate
with firm resolve and bold style. Otherwise, the soul of the Church, troubled by mass confusion
due to rival interpretations, turns into an acid lake. Without a sound and authoritative translation,
can we even tell whether or not the word spoken in the name of the Lord is in fact the word of
the Lord? Multiplication of versions may seem to enhance the Book’s ‘popularity,’ but does
more damage than good.
Translation Problems
Since the original 66 books of the Bible remain unavailable in bookstores at any price, we
have to do with a translation. Thus, it is for the glory of God and the good of the Church that we
face the changing landscape of current translation problems. These translation problems stem
from one cause: we allow experts and the business community to usurp from the Church a most
important responsibility.
Because we have left Bible translation to experts and book publishers, publishing houses in
particular, many versions of the Word now crowd bookstore shelves. This causes problems: out
of the many versions currently available, we have the responsibility to ensure that the one we use
in our churches faithfully adheres to the original scrolls, the autographa, which men as Moses
and Paul wrote under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we need one translation, which
comes from the oldest and best-preserved manuscripts archeologists unearth. However, instead
of one commanding version of the Bible, in this day and age, we have to choose from a chaotic
multiplicity of versions.
Numerous versions/translations/paraphrases roll off publishing house presses. These
businesses produce profits and enrich fickle stakeholders. However, the Lord of the Church gave
the Scriptures only to his church, not to rivaling business communities. These publishing houses,
with reputation-enhancing assistance from translation experts, keep producing diverse versions
of the Word. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, publishers came out with more and
more translations, unable to agree on one faithful edition, twisting the Church into a modern-day
Babel.
Diverse Versions
It is astonishing to note the numerous and diverse translations swamping the Church with
confusion.
9
Keck, op. cit., p. 13.
16
Our son and his wife had standing next to the Revised Standard Version (RSV) and the New
International Version (NIV), a Serendipity Bible for Groups, 10 and also The Personal Worker’s
New Testament and Psalms. Interestingly, the copy of The Personal Worker’s New Testament
and Psalms leaned against The Complete Home Handy Woman. On the same shelve they also
had stored paraphrases called The Toddler’s Bible and Taylor’s Bible Story Book. Such selection
represents well the spirit of the age.
A paraphrase is: restatement of the biblical text in order to legitimate eisegesis.
Eisegesis is: reading into the biblical text human preferences, the opposite of exegesis. “It is
so easy to slip ourselves into the text, so that the danger that Paul feared, of preaching ourselves
rather than Christ as Lord (2 Cor. 4:5), becomes real. There is so much to preach on in the Bible,
the New Testament, and the Gospels. We do not need to make things up.” 11 Yet this problem
crops up very often.
Exegesis is: reading out of each preaching unit all and only what is actually written.
At home, we have copies of the 1611 Authorized (King James) Version (KJV), NIV, RSV,
The New English Bible (NEB), The Living Bible, The Greatest is Love New Testament, J.B.
Philips, The American Standard Version (ASV), and the New King James Version (NKJV). At
least, these are clearly visible and readily accessible.
For a better look at translations available, I went to a small religious bookstore and asked the
lady behind the counter for permission to write down the names of versions in her establishment.
Curious, she gave leave.
The number of Bible versions at a quick glace along the shelves in the rear of the store
brought on an initial smirk of sarcasm. So many! Is this necessary?
On several shelves preened shiny copies of the venerable KJV – red-letter and slim line
editions. In this selection shone the following KJV variations: the Nelson Classic Personal Study
Bible, The Nelson Study Bible, The Quick Reference Bible, a Giant Print Bible, The Seniors’
Devotional Guide, The New Scofield Study Bible, The Life Application Study Bible, The Daily
Devotional Bible, The Tim LaHaye Prophecy Study Bible, The Scripture Reference Study Bible,
the King James Study Bible, The Classic Reference Bible, The Personal Size Giant Print Holy
Bible, The Reference Bible (Golden Edition), The World’s Thinnest Reference Bible, The
Classic Personal Reference Bible, Dake Annotated Reference Bible. Perhaps there were more,
but my mind spun. At least, the old KJV fares well.
Next to the KJV stood NKJV editions calling for attention – Holy Bible: Readers Edition, the
Nelson Quick Reference Bible, The Slimline Bible, The Nelson Study Bible, My Utmost
Devotional Bible, The Life Application Bible, The Scofield Reference Bible, The Extreme Teen
Bible, The Compact Reference Edition, The Extreme Word, The Little Lamb’s New Testament
10
In the margins of the Serendipity Bible, the editor(s) placed all sorts of exemplaristic and moralistic questions,
discussion starters. By such exemplarism and moralism, they indicate that they failed to know the Word of the Lord.
11
D. Moody Smith, Interpreting the Gospels for Preaching (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), p. 27.
17
with Psalms, as well as The Gift and Award Bible. At this point I stopped, head in turmoil and
heart in trouble, and moved over to shelves full of NIV editions.
Among NIV variations, I saw: The Women’s Devotional Bible, The Marriage Devotional
Bible, Mom’s Devotional Bible, The Seniors’ Devotional Bible, The Recovery Devotional Bible,
The Encouragement Bible, The Women of Faith Study Bible, The Couples’ Devotional Bible,
The Pocket Bible in One Year, The One Year Bible, The Evidence Bible, The Experiencing God
Study Bible, The New International Version Study Bible, the Full Life Study Bible, The
Cornerstone UltraThin Reference Bible. …. I had to stop with the NIV variations. This was too
much. Except in church the next Sunday, a 20-something parishioner followed the minister’s
Scripture reading from a NIV Teen Study Bible.
Still in the bookstore, somewhat apart, the manager had for sale copies of The Inspiration
Bible, The Amplified Bible, The New Living Translation, which were leaning against each other
for support. Below these, somewhat off in lonely exile on a shelf near the floor Roman Catholic
versions, like The New Jerusalem Bible, awaited touches of interest and a better home.
In other book outlets, 12 serving different clienteles, one finds the same fancy-dress
adaptations of RSV, NIV, NEB, NRSV, etc., available. Moreover, in used bookstores and on
yard sales, one finds all sorts of translations – The ASV, The Weymouth Version, the Moffatt
Version, the Reader’s Digest edition, etc. This says nothing yet of the many translations in other
languages also available. In another store, I ran across copies of the KJV The African-American
Devotional Bible, the NKJV Reformation Study Bible, The KJV-NKJV Cross-Reference Bible,
the NKJV Spirit Filled Life Bible, the NKJV Precious Moments Bible (in pink and blue), the
NKJV Christian Life Bible, The NKJV Smallest Bible, the KJV New Open Bible. Elsewhere, I
saw the Today’s NIV, the NIV – the New Adventure Bible: Study Bible for Kids, the NIV –
Classics Devotional Bible, The Amplified Bible (Mass Market Edition – promising to unlock
subtle shades of meaning), the Message (a paraphrase), and the New Century Version.
On this crowded field, translation wars compete openly to divide the Church with morbid
powers, bringing schism in the body of Christ. People gathered about the KJV hardly deign to
speak to NIV tribes, and the NIVers keep at a distance from the RSV and NEB clans. Making
this more ‘interesting,’ within each of the larger tribes and clans, controversial sub-groupings
thrive. Fundamentalists, Dispensationalists, ecumenists, liberals and conservatives divide and
divide again the larger groupings. Diverse versions of the Bible, instead of uniting the Church,
cause only more schism within schism – along sectarian lines.
Schism is: forcing the Church into factions and denominations, thereby dividing Christ. Cf. I
Cor. 1:12.
No blessing rests on preaching in a schismatic context, nor does the Holy Spirit give
assurance that what we hear is the word of the Lord. The many versions, translations, and
paraphrases lead all of Christ by the nose into postmodern relativism.
12
Elsewhere Mormon and Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Watchtower editions/interpretations are available. When publishers
of these books call them Bibles, they merely compound the confusion.
18
In postmodern relativism, people decide for themselves what they want or do not want to
believe, since ultimately faith has only private relevance.
Therefore, publishing firms do brisk business under the grand illusion of serving the Lord of
the Church. They produce moneymaking editions yearly, legitimating denominationalism,
tribalism, sectarianism, and schism. Now, when we choose a Bible version for corporate worship
we add to the schismatics of present times, that malignant shadow over the Church.
Morbid Confusions
Diversity of translations calls into question the very nature of the Bible, and brings about
confusion: this is not listening to the Word any more, only to our own respective choices out of
what translation experts and publishers want us to hear, or believe, about the Bible. Moreover,
this embarrassing glut of versions, fueled by market forces, undermines the doctrine of the clarity
of the Word, that is, the perspicuity of the Bible.
The perspicuity of the Bible is: the teaching that Christians, as one, may in the Spirit read
Scriptures believingly and understandingly.
In addition to the confusion caused by multiple translations, the many versions block our
eardrums to sound preaching and therefore obscure the Word throughout corporate worship.
Multi-faith perplexity, the result of postmodern wantonness, is bad enough under any
circumstance, but when it happens in the Church of Jesus Christ, its morbidity and relentless
backlash grieves the Holy Spirit; then he withdraws from the Church, Pentecostal enthusiasm
notwithstanding.
Suppose members of a congregation bring ten different variations of the Word into a worship
service and the minister an eleventh. During the preaching, only confusion results, for all
attention has to fall on sifting out different interpretations, rather than intensive listening to the
Word. Such a congregation degenerates into a paradise for cynics. Here Satan’s stratagem –
divide and conquer – overpowers the people of the Lord.
An insupportable argument, all fancy talk and flattery to excess, advocates that numerous
versions and paraphrases help members of Christ as well as interested outsiders to read along and
understand the Scriptures better. But this ivory tower solution covers up the overdosing
manufactured by religious publishers. Here is the essence of the contention: “The variety of
English translations available today is both astonishing and stimulating, and all to the reader’s
gain.” 13 This finds pleasing resonance only in churches riven by individualism and rampant
overconfidence, if not unchecked vanity. This assertion stretches credulity to the limit. Scurrilous
assertions claiming that many translations enrich biblical studies and understanding come
without necessary, that is, biblical support. Imagine each churchgoer coming with three or four
translations in order to get the ‘wealth’ out of the minister’s reading. These many
13
Peter J. Gomes, Sermons: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1998), p. xvii.
J.I. Packer, “Thank God For Our Bibles,” in Christianity Today, Vol. 41, #12, October 1997, pp. 30-31.
C.F.H. Henry through his God, Revelation and Authority, Vol. I-VI (Waco: Word Books, 1976-1983), reveled, it
seems, in every available version, quoting from many.
19
translations/versions/paraphrases only help rich people make more money, while leaving the
Church poorer. Any value to diversity in scriptural versions remains tenuous at best – except for
epigonic scholars in the carbon monoxide air of ivory towers internally quibbling with hot heads
and cold hearts; for them the multiplicity of Bible versions incites more unhinged fighting in the
translation wars.
Epigones are: second-rate imitators and followers lacking the essential grip on primary
issues.
For members of Christ many versions are nothing more than language barriers, if not
communications barriers. Normally, we have enough work with one interpretation; then
differences of interpretation only add confusion to our congregations and hearts. We become
mixed up by and tired of the languages of translation, which results in a religious mix of blankstaring apathy. Where such deadness of spirit tyrannizes us, interest in reading and studying the
Bible wanes, and we fall headlong into the pigheadedness of individualism and the wallows of
relativism, not rise to the corporate adoration of the Father in Christ Jesus.
Because slews of versions/translations/paraphrases crowd bookstore shelves, they 1) sorely
test us, and 2) make purchasing decisions come down to guess work, or cover appeal. Instead of
such mass confusion, we, the Church, need control over translation work. For we have a
responsibility in Jesus Christ as evidence of the Holy Spirit working among us to ensure,
congregation with congregation, that we have a single authoritative version for corporate
worship and preaching. In short, we need a translation with the authority the KJV enjoyed for
centuries, but of much better quality with reference to the original sources. Then the whole
church cooperates and unifies in a core issue of worship and life: a single sound translation.
Without this authoritative translation, preaching causes confusion, for it fails in the clear
trumpet/bugle sound of the Word. 14 As long as numerous translations trouble the Church, our
ministers will contradict each other and confuse the Body of the Lord, add to current sectarian
spirits, and procure systemic schism. All at a terrible price.
Translation Work
For a single sound Bible version to take the place of the many in a field more overcrowded
every year, we, all the Church in the office of the congregation, can come at least to appreciate
the basics of translating the Word. The deviousness of paraphrasing, which stretches Christian
license to the limit, we leave aside, unworthy of comment, since it only works to legitimate
eisegesis.
One approach is direct translation, word-by-word, as close as possible to the original,
whether Hebrew or (Aramaic) Greek. This way may be more wooden, but when ministers read it
well, they take away barriers to Word apprehension. Direct translation grants stronger, Spiritdivulged assurance that we are listening to the actual text and hear the language of the Bible.
The other approach consists of dynamic equivalency, which tends to go behind the text to the
‘real’ meaning, to what the author, Moses or Paul, actually intended to write. Then the thought or
14
Cf. Is. 58:1; I Cor. 14:8.
20
the truth behind the words, sentences, and paragraphs is important. The know-no-borders danger,
of course, with dynamic equivalency is that by this approach translators begin to read into the
text their own disputatious airs, which too is eisegesis.
Different from word-for-word translation, the goal of dynamic equivalency prefers a thoughtfor-thought approach, supposing experts know better than the Bible writers did. In fact, they
assume with fatal ambition to know even better than the Holy Spirit, the actual Author. In this
way, man-breathedness substitutes for God-breathedness, 15 ruining the doctrine of the inspiration
of Scriptures, no small apostasy ever.
Apostasy is: conscious renunciation of scriptural doctrines and commandments brought in
from outside the Church to magnify religiosity. Cf. Heb. 6:6.
We know the thought of Scripture only from the actual words and the truth of the Bible only
from the language the writers used. This is so always. It chafes when in conversation someone
begins to guess at or ‘read’ meanings into our words different from what we speak. Similarly, the
Holy Spirit has little regard for those who tell him what he meant when he already has clarified
both sense and purpose of his words as well as thoughts in and with the words of the Bible.
English versions of Eph. 1:3-14 example a typical contrast between the two Bible translation
approaches, a more literal and a more dynamic equivalency. In the original Greek, this is one
long sentence, building up into a climax with respect to our salvation and thus the glory of the
Father in Christ Jesus. The RSV abusively broke this long sentence into two. The NIV, however,
fractured this single thought-structure into eight shorter units, supposedly because ‘modern’
readers more ably absorb newspaper-snappy sentences. But this dynamic equivalency method
short-circuits the joyous climax of the apostle’s one sentence more than the RSV does.
To make the Bible opine like a contemporary newspaper unconscionably adds to the work of
the Holy Spirit in the Church. 16 Moreover, it fans impressionable flames into currency that every
one may do with the Bible what is right in his/her own eyes, which is paraphrasing. To make a
paraphrase out of the Word of God, devolution most damaging to sound preaching, shafts a care
for sermon evaluation. In the confusion, no one ascertains good preaching from bad.
The more knotty this confusion, the more Bible sellers take vantage of and profit from an
increasingly lucrative market. When experts and business communities undermine Scriptures and
the Church, then insecurity only keeps house. One way to fight insecurity with respect to the
Word comes by buying still another, and another, translation. However, as long as the plagues
and tribal passions of liberalism, conservatism, Arminianism, feminism, evolutionism,
fundamentalism, etc., run loose and split loyalty to Jesus Christ in the Church, confused
members, feeling the squeeze of an uncertain future, will purchase new translations. In black and
white, sometimes black and red, the existence of numerous translations attractively marketed do
impress the weak and immature.
15
16
Cf. II Tim. 3:16.
Cf. Prov. 30:6; Deut. 4:2; etc.
21
Variant ideologies want Bible versions to comply with respective philosophies. Liberalism
seeks a man-centered version. Conservatism wants to hang on to an old translation, such as the
KJV. Bullying Arminianism pressures for a translation that gives people sovereignty over
salvation. Intemperate feminism lobbies for inclusive language in the Bible. Evolutionism incites
to remove the ground from underneath the Cross. Fundamentalism bides by the KJV, or the
NKJV. Hidebound Premillenialism insists on a non-existent future. Dispensationalism wills the
division of history along ideological lines, thus to divide the Word rightly. In short, ideologists
do with the Bible as they please. Whether the one or the other, they treat the Word as a puppet,
which says only what a ventriloquist commands. They manipulate the Word like a wax nose,
subject to the monomania of Western pragmatism, and each wants to come out on top.
In obedience to the Word, however, choices must be made with respect to the many Bible
versions, particularly one choice. In this one choice, which involves congregation with
congregation, all in Christ select the single authoritative version for reading in corporate
worship. Sound translation of the oldest and best-preserved biblical manuscripts available
through archaeological research is crucial to apprehending the spoken word of the Lord.
Even without knowledge of original Bible languages and ability to translate, we can sort out
differences. Or fall into that flaring unbiblical mantra: we agree to disagree, and go on with
paltry lives of our own. But critical reading of versions soon makes clear where emphases fall,
either on God or on man. Therefore, all of us benefit from knowledge of translation procedures.
Humanized Language
With respect to translation work, we have to cleanse the Church from all possibilities of
confusion, until the preaching rings clear and unified throughout the entire Body of Christ. The
alternative? We remain mired in our dank ideological cellars called denominations.
To trust experts too much in the selection of one authoritative Bible version fatally wounds
the office of the congregation and therewith the work of preaching. The Holy Spirit did not give
the word to experts, nor to ministers, but to the whole church. And the final hard choice for
ensuring the truth and trustworthiness of the one translation rests with us, the people of the
Church, in order to gauge the soundness of sermons. Is not this our burden, for instance,
according to I Tim. 3:15? Out of the Word only, also with respect to translating the Bible, we
come to know how to (believe and) behave in the Church; she stands in the world as the pillar
and bulwark of the truth. In other words, she serves at the crossroads of salvation and damnation.
A troublesome phenomenon everywhere present, due to the plethora of translations fatal to
the wellbeing of the Church, catches us: Sunday-upon-Sunday we traipse and shuffle further into
an immense ‘modern’ Tower-of-Babel culture with a false sense of security. According to Gen.
11:1ff., the LORD said, “Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may
not understand one another’s speech.” The many Bible versions indicate our limited tolerance for
listening to the Word, and the Holy Spirit, taking the divine initiative by his absence, allows
personal preferences and money-hungry instincts to dominate in our own Tower-of-Babel
ideological spirits. Sharper, the Lord himself confuses the language of his disobedient church. In
the subsequent confusion, we lose the Word, lethally disastrous for our salvation. We merely
22
blend in with a hectic, uncertain world of mass miscommunication. Christ strikes us with rising
complexities of malcontention. Now, how shall we hear the word of the Lord?
Language confusion only devolves into anarchies of miscommunication. “At Babel … there
occurred the confusion of tongues as a result of earthly ambition and pride to build a proud tower
unto heaven in the plain of Shinar. Our unity to frustrate the divine purpose and will was
destroyed, and we were made the parochial captives of our own languages, divided by our
inability to hear or to be heard, to understand or be understood. The diversity we celebrate so
frequently and loudly was not a blessing but a curse, and it has served to do little in this world
but maintain the differences and erect a wall of ethnocentricism behind which we can hide and
from which we can protect ourselves against others.” 17 This happens through our own
inappropriate motives of reader preference with respect to Bible versions to mark the withdrawal
of the Holy Spirit from the Church.
Where the Spirit is absent, a variety of search methods comes out – personal, congregational,
or denominational ways of lax dominion. “I like it.” “It’s easy to read.” “I understand it.”
“Everybody uses it.” “I got a good deal on this version.” “It was on sale.” “Experts recommend
it.” “My translation sounds about right; this is what I want to hear.” As if these cynical sorts of
premises qualify before the Lord as exemplary submission to the Word.
As the Spirit withdraws himself from Christ’s Church, human-initiated religious theatre fans
the tumults of misunderstanding. For, so it is. They of KJV and NKJV persuasion fail to
understand those of RSV and NIV loyalties. They of NIV persuasion fail to communicate with
the several sorts of KJV peoples. In addition, those of NEB persuasion fail to communicate with
all the others, to say nothing of Roman Catholic versions. Moreover, somewhere among these
ambiguities coexist American Standard Version (ASV) kinfolk. Chaos of speech rocks Christ’s
church from one end to the other, proving disastrous to all.
This disorder points out one more reason why sermon evaluation breaks out in smart: we live
divided and squabbling. A sermon that sounds right in one denomination will be rejected in
others as false to the truth. From overconfidence at being able to choose the ‘right’ translation,
we fall into worse pride. Contrary to the truth, 18 we have become such individualists and
relativists, given to New Age fantasies. It shows in the many Bible versions on the secular
market.
This pride we may express by an one-stanza anti-hymn 19 suitable to postmodern moods.
“The Church’s strong divisions oppose her Christ and Lord.
We make denominations for embarrassing his Word.
We hide in our religions, by Satan’s strife made brave.
17
Gomes, Sermons, op. cit., p. 100.
Pierre Ch. Marcel, The Relevance of Preaching, tr. Rob Roy McGregor (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1963), p. 20 –
“Wherever he may be and whatever he may be doing, man never is or does anything alone. Scripture does not know
‘the self-sufficient man’ given to seclusion. God’s will is that every man take part in diverse groupings from his
birth to his death.” It must be emphasized that the Church is the primary grouping, more cohesive than family bonds.
19
Singable with the plaintive melody, Aurelia 7676 D.
18
23
At heart we’re Arminians; we aim our souls to save.”
These words capture sly currents throughout wide and wild worlds of denominationalism,
each a careless society stuffed with narrow and wrong-headed interests of regnant ideologies.
Unsound methods of choice for Bible selection place man first, as once on the Plain of
Shinar. Such ways of choosing lead into more worrying signs of irrelevancy in the Church.
When any one hard-headed human source recommends this approach, red lights of warning
ought to flash painfully in our hearts and heads. We may never contribute to a chaotic reality.
While political and capitalistic forces railroad unity throughout the world by means of globalism,
confusion in communication rips the Church schismatically apart. All our ideological ‘unities’
demonstrate wrenched-out-of-shape conditions caused by the absence of the Holy Spirit.
Responsibility for one sound version/translation is inestimable, which duty rests with the
Body of Christ as a whole. Inferior, and/or wrong translations lead more and more into language
barriers in preaching too; these walls, against which we have an active role, pretentiously prevent
apprehending the spoken word of the Lord.
Language Barriers
Here, from the Word, comes an expression of the problem of language barriers. Cf. I Cor.
14:10f. – “There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without
meaning; but if I do not know the meaning of the language, I shall be a foreigner to the speaker
and the speaker a foreigner to me.” A curious thing about this matter of estrangement appears
left and right between the various unglued KJV, RSV, NIV, and NEB tribes, as well as the
numerous sub-groupings within each. Because we speak Babel’s languages, we bulldoze ahead
on a collision course with the Lord of the Church, confronting a looming catastrophe, for today
no Pentecost miracle targets all to hear the Word, each in his/her own language. We hear only
what we want to hear, the exact opposite of the mighty, history-opening event recorded in Acts
2. Sharply put, confusion of language in the Church serves as Christ’s punishment upon our
unwillingness to listen to the Word – an over-arching and deep-reaching planetary-wide sin.
However ill-persuaded men and women may praise current translation diversities as a good thing
in order to take financial advantage of us, Christ is less than pleased with the way his Body, the
Church, behaves.
Because of language barriers build up higher by diverse translation sellers, all whom Christ
gathers to hear the word find themselves in meshes of so many sticky traditions. Translation
publishers – KJV, NIV, ASV, RSV, NEB, etc., each in a different way forms a cheap copy of an
original Tower of Babel language. Each seeks to rope consumers/customers together – to sell
more Bibles for mega money. Then, ministers revolutionize the Word into the oratory of the
great deceiver. In this manner, sin started in the first place – with a slight twisting of a command.
The serpent seemed to speak the same language as Eve, but it was an alternative-to-the-covenant
language, oratory, for this creature perverted a direct command of the LORD.
Elaborating on II Tim. 4:3f., the working definition of oratory, we not only accumulate
teachers to suit or own likings; in the breaking up of the ecclesiastical landscape, we also collect
24
translations to please and pamper ourselves. Then the sermons to which we listen are damaged
goods. The Spirit strikes us with institutional blindness, deafness, and dumbness.
To place barriers in the way of Christ and of the Holy Spirit in the form of inferior and/or
apostate versions of the Bible spirals us into a heinous sin. According to Mt. 12:31f., sinning
against the Holy Spirit bars us from hearing the word of the Lord, for we fail to cooperate with
one mind and heart in one of the fundamentals of sound preaching: the authoritative version of
the Bible.
However, with respect to Bible translation, Christ Jesus promised a new work of the Holy
Spirit, cf. John 16:13p – “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”
Jesus Christ first addressed this Pentecost promise to the Apostles, for its initial impact came
when they interpreted the Old Testament in the light of the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection,
and ascension fulfillment; then, still in the Holy Spirit, they wrote the New Testament, so that
now we have the complete Bible, the Word of God.
Jesus’ promise with respect to the work of the Holy Spirit achieved greatness with the
completion of the Bible. Hence, the Spirit works in the Church of all times and places by
working in and among us to maintain the clarity, or perspicuity, and integrity of Scriptures.
Through the Spirit, Christ always migrates his own into the truth of the Word.
Christ means to build his church through stronger congregational membership; this requires,
for one, an authoritative translation in order for all to apprehend the spoken word of the Lord, as
well as separate good preaching from bad.
Wrong and/or weak Scripture versions lead into evil, detrimental to the Faith. The right one
leads into the future, beneficial for all in the Faith. Bible translations shape our hearts and minds
for or against the Lord of the Church. Therefore, inferior and/or apostate translations destroy that
which the Holy Spirit builds up on the one foundation, Jesus Christ.
We need orthodox, Spirit-driven preaching based on the one soundest possible translation of
old scriptural manuscripts. Such a translation requires our time, attention, and input, especially in
times when many versions vie for our attention; as publishers hawk and praise their wares,
temptation yields to unbiblical selection methods and the making of a multi-faith environment in
the Church. The Bible is our only rule for God-glorifying proclamation, and we need Christwilled, solid conviction concerning the version we use in order to evaluate sermons.
TEXTUAL SELECTION
Within the widening range of technical interests for sermon evaluation belongs a focus on the
selection of a minister’s preaching units. Claimed M. Luther (1483-1546) – “Let him take care to
keep to the text and attend to what is before him and make people understand that.” 20 Christ’s
pulpit men reflect much Holy Spirit-given wisdom when they choose right texts for explaining
and applying the Bible in his name.
20
Hugh T. Kerr, A Compend of Luther’s Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953/75), p. 147.
25
A text is: a wisely circumscribed Bible unit for a sermon.
This definition is important, because a “… sermon should not be on a text but from a text.” 21
Ministers who skew text selection run sermons off into oratory. To avoid error at this stage of the
liturgy, we find that responsible ministers of the Word through fine-grained analysis make sure
of the text – a verse, a paragraph, a chapter, even a book – in its context.
Discerning Selections
Is a preaching unit incomplete or too large, its contents fail for adequate and lively
sermonizing, only to slither off into oratory. Text selection – part of a verse even – always
depends upon the measure of grace Christ gives his pulpit men. “Therefore,” given a correct
preaching unit, “it can be said that the sermon is the movement from this text to these people.” 22
If the given text reflects a thumbs-down choice, the sermon suffers from a sense of despair.
Case in point 016. Joshua 6:1 by itself comes short as a preaching unit, for its thought pattern
constitutes the beginning of a paragraph. Joshua 6:1-7 forms a complete and sage choice, on the
basis of which a minister may preach, developing its themes of covenant and predestination,
history and redemption, Gospel and Law, etc., in order to move a congregation further into the
fields of the new creation. Joshua 6:1 obviously fails as a responsible preaching unit.
Case in point 017. Eph. 6:12 forms a poor choice for a preaching unit, fraught with the
danger of missing the totality of its context. Eph. 6:10-17 constitutes a much better unit, or, if too
long, provides the basis for a glued-together two-part series. Upon reflection, you will agree that
Eph. 6:10-12 and 6:13-17, both evocative of the biblical war and peace motif, form a united pair.
Case in point 018. Splitting Ex. 17:8-16, a passage chronicling Israel’s first victory over the
Amalekites, into two separate sermon texts makes for a dubious choice, 1) on Aaron and Hur
holding up Moses’ arms, and 2) on the altar Moses built. Preached on separately, each leads off
too easily into the mercurial complexity of oratory. Actually, this reading as a whole forms a
knife-edged preaching unit – in the visionary view of the entire chapter.
Case in point 019. Mk 8:27-9:1, 13 verses, 23 is simply too long by a country mile. This text
selection requires a better balance, 4-5 serial units.
For evaluating the word, we need sensible conviction that ministers choose texts wisely: 24
every choice for preaching units ought to reflect wisdom of the first order, with insight into its
historical locale. Then, true discernment into its historical place makes clergymen avoid a lame
excuse on which the hang some human ideas and shabby notions, and call that a sermon; by
turning a text into a blarney pill ministers only earn our mistrust. For without true discernment
into the nature of the text and the context, the structural design of any sermon fails with the
21
David James Randolph, The Renewal of Preaching (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), p. 97.
Dietrich Ritschl, A Theology of Proclamation (Richmond: John Knox, 1960), p. 148.
23
D. Moody Smith, op. cit., pp. 45ff.
24
Donald G. Miller, Fire in Thy Mouth (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1954/76), p. 38 – “Someone has said that if texts
were smallpox, most modern ministers would never contract the disease.”
22
26
domino effect. The better the textual choice, the more we with fresh inspiration, upgrade our
ability to read the Bible and listen on rising levels to the spoken word.
Valid Responsibility
With respect to genuine discernment at choosing sermon texts, ought a minister alone to be
responsible? Or, may he now and then take recommendations from congregational members?
Perhaps he requires the assistance of a ‘liturgical committee’ to help organize a lectionary
months in advance. Different possibilities exist in relation to selecting texts.
A lectionary is: a synthetic list of Bible readings for liturgical usage. 25
With a lectionary, the impression gains ground to the effect that this deeply involves a
congregation in worship preparation. But textual choices may then also be the committee’s push
in a particular direction. It is common knowledge that committees of ‘experts’ tend to take on
separate lives far from beneficial to a congregation. Such a project team may prompt particular
ideological emphases rather than reflect the integrity of Scriptures, the glory of God, and the
prismatic needs of the congregation. Then, a standing committee throws a rancorous element into
our evaluation work, for we begin speculation about its members’ agenda.
Similar problems creep into focus with the usage of manuscript services, from which for a
fee ministers may purchase sermon profiles that require only a personal touch here and there,
minor adjustments to local moods and situations, plus a few goodies thrown in that suggest hard
work on the part of the minister. Such “canned” 26 and mass-produced sermons deny a minister
lively involvement with every preaching text and prevent him from declaring with Christ-given
right – “Thus says the Lord.” Put in a strong light – “Because every text does not fit every
situation, the preaching-text must be carefully selected if one is to do justice to both the text and
the needs of the local congregation.” 27 Text selection, thus, stands out as a long-term complexity
for our sermon evaluation and our involvement in listening.
As a good shepherd leads his flock to generous pasture, so a minister (mostly) ought to direct
the congregation in his charge to necessary preaching units. In other words, “… it should not be
forgotten that the preacher as pastor has both the freedom and the responsibility to select a text
according to the needs of his congregation.” 28 The freer he remains within the liberties of
ordination vows and the office of the ministry to exercise this obligation before Christ for
preaching units, according to the Spirit’s promise and guidance, the better. This too, however,
may be taken to extremes. For instance. “A wise old preacher and member of the … church
family told me: ‘Son, no matter how smart you become, you will never know as much as the
Bible. So every week, pick out some text you like, and do your best. If you do that, most the
25
David Buttrick, The Captive Voice: the Liberation of Preaching (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994), p. 7
– “… a second wave of liturgical renewal swept us into lectionary preaching. With a shared lectionary, groups of
clergy began to meet in American villages and together prepared sermons from scripture.”
26
Milton Crum, Jr., Manual on Preaching: A New Process of Sermon Development (Valley Forge: Judson, 1977), p.
24.
27
Sidney Greidanus, Sola ScrIptura: Problems and Principles in Preaching Historical Texts (Kampen: Kok, 1970), p.
169.
28
Ibid., p. 168.
27
people will get something from even your poorest effort.’” 29 Rather, throughout sound burden
sharing between shepherd and flock, the Third Person leads ministers where to go in Scriptures.
On the other hand, and taking nothing away from a minister’s freedom and mission, when
preparing to listen and when listening to sermons, we have to take in the fact that the Bible
‘belongs’ to the Church, also the responsibility for the preaching. We need to blow recognizable
life into this responsibility. For this reason. “The church’s professional ministry has become the
dominant and determining factor in the church’s work.” 30 To this may be added, “… we may say
that at least one value has been lost: the congregation’s sense of responsibility for the preaching
of the Word.” 31
The tail end of this loss-of-responsibility comes to a head on slippery roads, either of
tolerance or of laziness. “Even more disturbing about the person who places the entire
responsibility for preaching on the preacher is that he woefully misunderstands the church – its
nature and its function. According to the New Testament, the church is not the minister as the
head of a group of people. The church is the people, the ‘called-out ones,’ the members of
Christ’s body in the world.” 32 Saying this with due emphasis – “More accurately, the gift and
responsibility for preaching was given to the church, whose task it is to complete the saving
work begun by Christ.” 33 This responsibility applies to all work of the Church, also something
‘minor’ as more sensitivity to a minister’s text selections.
A minister’s primary responsibility for text selections brings out a not unrelated problem. We
easily flout Christ’s men for putting on one-man shows. However. “To preach the gospel, then, is
not merely to say words but to effect a deed. To preach is not merely to stand in a pulpit and
speak, no matter how eloquently and effectively, nor even to set forth a theology, no matter how
clearly it is stated nor how worthy the theology. To preach is to become part of a dynamic event
wherein the living, redeeming God reproduces his act of redemption in a living encounter with
men through the preacher.” 34 More pronounced – “… the sermon is becoming understood as
event, and event means encounter, engagement, and dialogue: the end of ‘monologue’ in the
pulpit. Preaching as a one-man affair is a thing of the past, to be replaced by that kind of
participatory experience in which those present know themselves involved, even though only one
man [is] vocalizing at the time.” 35 They who snub preaching for its monological character either
react poorly to despotism creeping into the office of the ministry or they erect a straw man to
clarify their own miserable turn of spirit. Whenever Christ’s critics denounce sermonizing in this
way, they evade the shepherd nature of ministry, of preaching as revealed in Scripture.
Also in text selection, when a minister moves from Old Testament to New, from the Gospels
to the Psalms, from prophecy to epistle, history to wisdom, etc., then true variety and living
29
Charlie W. Shedd, Brush of an Angel’s Wing (New York: Walker & Co., 1994/5), p. 101.
Thompson, op. cit., p. 35.
31
Ibid., pp. 35f.
32
Ibid., p. 31.
33
Ibid., p. 27.
34
D.G. Miller, op. cit., p. 17. Preaching as reproduction of God’s redeeming act is too Barthian by half, but the point
made remains valid: in every congregation, the Lord of the Church calls a man to speak for him. Despite the
Barthian paradox, another point retains validity: sermons involve the entire congregation.
35
Randolph, op. cit., p. 7. Barthian influences aside, preaching carries on as the word of the Lord.
30
28
incentives prevent wearing out our listening ability. Plus, on the right path, he always brings
more of the Bible into the open. Good for us. The more we know of the Word, the better we
evaluate his main work, taking nothing for granted.
At issue is an important matter for our office of the congregation: as brothers and sisters in
the pew, we gain more sensitivity regarding ministers’ text selection; we develop keen(er) minds
also for this aspect of the proclamation, lest the word subvert the whole counsel of God. Judging
sermons requires assurance that text selection bears out biblical wisdom, each preaching unit a
clean choice. As we sharpen this technical interest, we take a large step in the right direction of
evaluating the word of the Lord.
CONVINCING BREVITIES
After a minister announces and reads ‘his’ text selection, we find that a maturing pastor,
seasoned in office, proceeds quickly to the meat of the preaching unit.
Knowing Addresses
To assure that the sermon is for us, the entire congregation, the minister issues the address –
“Congregation of Jesus Christ” or “Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,” or variations thereof.
On Sundays in worship services and for preaching, ministers always address covenant
brothers and sisters, the entire congregation. It is most reprehensible for any minister to speak to
one particular member or grouping within the congregation, or over our heads to others not
present. The following is good advice to ministers from which we all learn. “Don’t preach at or
under or over the people, but to them and for them.” 36 To preach at, under, and over always
tempts each pastor. However, we make sure that every good man on the pulpit understands he
preaches the Word to the communion of saints of which he also is a member and within which
the Lord of the Church calls him to serve. As much as a sermon may apply to others elsewhere, it
is primarily for a specific congregation on a growing time line. This the address exemplifies –
centering the congregation in the light of the Word.
Pointed Beginnings
Upon the address, we hear an experienced minister begin with a brief introduction, a short
paragraph or two, related to the issue raised by the text. This may be a doctrine to learn and
believe, a crossroads struggle, 37 a contrast between faith and life, a problem to be solved, an
issue to confront, a solution to a conflict, a fear to overcome, an irony or paradox to investigate, a
parable to interpret, a tragedy to absorb, a Job-like pain to endure, a secret anxiety to fight, an
inner grief to lay before the Lord, a hate to resolve, a planetary issue to combat, a race to run,
etc., only whatever the text demands. Always, we recognize, this introductory stage ought to be
36
W.E. Sangster, The Craft of Sermon Construction (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1951), p. 197.
Cf. Joshua 24:15 – “And if you be unwilling to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether
the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell;
but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
Crossroads decisions may be made only within the covenant sense of community and in the presence of the Spirit.
37
29
Christological, Trinitarian, and covenantal in focus. Thus begins that persuasive work called
preaching and that demanding involvement called listening to the Word.
Some over-solicitous ministers begin sermons with wrong rules of engagement. They
comment about the weather, about road conditions, about the past night’s sleep or sleeplessness,
that morning’s breakfast, or lack thereof, about the quality of a coming luncheon, which have
nothing to do with the mandate to proclaim the Word and speak in the name of the Christ. Others
verbally charge at congregations with salvos of ‘biting’ questions to magnetize attention. Or they
try to tease and relax us into a receptive mood in order to pay attention. Whatever these ministers
may be thinking when introductorily they start with wrong rules of engagement, we came for the
Word and we are ready to listen. We arrived at our respective places of worship in the power of
the Spirit. What, with strange sorts of introductions, do ministers tell us? These introductions
indicate poor sermon preparations and forecast bad sermon contents.
1) With salvos of biting questions, if done consistently sermon upon sermon, as ‘soularresting’ as they may be, ministers either raise our guilt levels or bully us into submission; both
of these introductions tug at our sensitive heart strings to make us listen. To illustrate, first a case
in point to raise guilt, then one of bullying, and a third that does both, each one in its own way
stirring up irate unrest, or ought to.
Case in point 020. “Isn’t the acid test of a faith, after all, how much it changes us? Do we
radiate a difference where we live and move and have our being? If we are not different
husbands and wives and parents, if we are not different business and professional people, if we
don’t meet awkward situations differently because of what we believe, can our faith really be
said to mean very much?” 38
Case in point 021. “Why has mankind through all ages and all cultures yearned for immortal
life? Why have the noblest spirits been convinced in their highest moments that death is not the
end but only a passing through the door? Why do you and I, faced by the piercing reality of a
loved one’s death, feel sure that the beloved spirit must go on, and that, by the same token, we
too can be worthy of the after life?” 39
Case in point 022. “We live in a very exciting age, in spite of much suffering and anxiety that
fill it. What is to be our attitude toward these things that are happening around us? Are we to
bury our heads in the sand and let the world go by? Are we to say that men are just doing things
that they have no business doing, that they are tampering with God’s created work, and as a
result, will bring terrible judgment upon themselves? Are these the proper attitudes for Christians
to take? Certainly there are many thinking Christians who could never adopt such a position.” 40
38
Lee H. Bristol, “What Difference Does It Make?” in G. Paul Butler, ed., Best Sermons, Vol. IX, 1964, Protestant
Edition (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1964), p. 168.
39
Ralph W. Sockman, “Life Can Be Eternal,” in G. Paul Butler, ed., Best Sermons, Vol. VII, 1959-1960, Protestant
Edition (New York: Thomas Y. Crowel, 1959), p. 2.
40
Walker N. Stockburger, ‘The God of Outer Space,” in G. Paul Butler, ed., Best Sermons, Vol. IX, 1964,
Protestant Edition (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1964), p. 282.
30
With the one or the other, guilt raising or bullying, ministers show off subversive sermon
starts, which convince us they are off into oratory.
2) By attempting to tease or relax us into listening, ministers work with another type of
moribund start. This opens a question. “Ought [the preaching to which we listen] to be ‘from
above’ or ‘from below’? By ‘from above’ I mean starting with the biblical word from on high as
conveyed through the text and then relating that word to some contemporary situation. Sermons
‘from below,’ on the other hand, start … by constructing a human situation with which the
congregation can identify and then bring the biblical word to bear on it.” 41 Especially for ‘from
below’ starts, ministers need personal remarks, touches of humor, a few captivating observations,
a visual aid, anything with which to lock us down, they think, into a comfortable listening mood.
However, they thus shirk a main duty; instead of calling attention to the Sender, Jesus Christ,
they enter upon an elusive quest, ego building. A tricky job.
Case in point 023. “It’s a privilege to share some thoughts related to the theme: ‘Growing
Together in Christ By Love.’ For truly, love is the key. In fact, we’ve been having preaching and
praying about love at my church all year long. I’m a new pastor there, in Princeton, at an old
church.” 42
Case in point 024. “Someone asked me today from the Press if I thought that my sermons had
accomplished anything and I reminded him of a man that got on the aeroplane that I was on some
time ago in the United States. We were in New York and we got on the Eastern Airliner going to
North Carolina. And the fattest drunkest man I think I ever saw aboard an airliner got on with us,
and they couldn’t find a seat big enough for him, so they pulled out the middle partition and he
sat down in two seats. He was cursing all the time, and after a while he began to flirt with the
stewardess, and by the time we got airborne he thought he would go up and help the pilot run the
plane. Finally the stewardess had to go get the co-pilot, and he was quite a big man himself, and
he came back and put this man in his seat and someone whispered to him that I was sitting
behind him and he got himself up again and he turned around and said, ‘Are you Billy Graham?’
And I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘I want to shake hands with you because your sermons have sure
helped me.’” 43
Whether biting questions, humor, bonhomie, or shock technique, illegitimate introductions
distract us from our purpose in church: gladly to worship the Lord Jesus Christ and hear him, as
well as pray and sing together to the glory of the Father. When we come to church, we know
why. Our main reason is: the Holy Spirit draws us into corporate worship to hear the spoken
word of the Lord. We come by grace. We know that every other reason for church attendance is
minor, of little consequence. We come for the central means of grace, which begins with
biblically appropriate sermon starts.
41
Reginald H. Fuller, The Use of the Bible in Preaching (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), p. 38.
Felicia Yvonne Thomas, “True Love,” in Rhinold Ponder & Michelle Tuck-Ponder, eds., The Wisdom of the
Word LOVE: Great African-American Sermons (New York: Crown Publishers, 1997), p. 61.
43
Billy Graham, “Life’s Ultimate Situations,” in Hugh Montefiore, ed., Sermons from Great St Mary’s (New York:
Collins/Fontana, 1968), p. 83.
42
31
The means of grace are: the proclamation of the Word, the sacraments, and discipline. The
Holy Spirit works with these in the name of the Father and the Son in order to edify, nourish, and
increase a congregation in the Faith.
Of the means of grace, preaching comes first, sacraments and discipline second. However,
when preaching turns into oratory, the sacraments and discipline too suffer from abuse and
recklessness. In such a turn of events, sacraments precede the proclamation of the Word in terms
of importance, and discipline becomes a means to force believers, when they protest, out of
congregational membership.
Due to the significance of preaching, initial personal remarks, namedropping, weather
reports, political observations, flattery, intemperate remarks, etc., are out of place, even as humor
is. Inconsequential preaching starts puff up a minister’s image, cheapen the word of the Lord,
and leave us stuck with oratory. Instead of speaking in the name of the Lord, such ministers
address us out of human shallows instead of the biblical depths, radiating subtle messages of
self-importance as they struggle in the public eye with private ego issues. Upright men of the
Word, however, direct all attention in sermon introductions to Jesus Christ and his work as the
King, Prophet, and Priest.
3) Whether in an introduction or in a sermon’s body, namedropping too stands out as an
objectionable practice, detrimental to the honor of Jesus Christ.
Case in point 025. “Not long ago, I read a book on the uses of structuralism in biblical
exegesis or interpretation. (Those of you familiar with structuralism will know what that is
about; those of you who are not would scarcely profit from my explanation of it).” 44
Case in point 026. “Once I had a friend who was a famous and successful novelist.” 45
Case in point 027. “When I talk with some of my psychiatrist friends and some of my
psychologist friends and some of my medical and clerical friends, and even with the few legal
friends that I have, and we get down to cases, ….” 46
Case in point 028. “… the Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University and I engaged in one
of our frequent exchanges of pulpits, and each of us took an old sermon across the river to preach
in the other’s pulpit.” 47
Case in point 029. “I was walking along Fifth Avenue in New York when I met a friend
….” 48
44
Smith, op. cit., p. 57.
Frederick W. Norwood, ‘The Inclusive Name,” in G. Paul Butler, ed., Best Sermons (New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1946), p. 12.
46
Gomes, Sermons, op. cit., p. 77.
47
Ibid., p. 86.
48
Norman Vincent Peale, ‘The Tough-Minded Optimist,” in G. Paul Butler, ed., Best Sermons, Vol. IX, 1964
Protestant Edition (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1964), p. 254.
45
32
Such namedropping bloats up a preacher’s self-image that he wants to develop: he reads
difficult books, hobnobs with famous people, and visits important places. This self-imaging may
enhance his clout with more impressionable hearers, but namedroppers run into three
entanglements. 1) They lose respect, for who wants to communicate with a minister and hear this
conversation dispersed congregationally-wide, or even internationally-wide; 2) they alienate
’important’ people whom they fail to mention; and 3) they, poor fellows, want desperately to be
known as powerbrokers rather than men of the word toiling in relative obscurity under Jesus
Christ. Namedroppers harm preaching and give the word of the Lord a bad name.
4) One more item for this introductory array of concerns. Does each sermon at the beginning
require a (long) enquiry into the contents and purpose of the Bible book from which a minister
takes the preaching text? Such an explanation may be for educating many of us in the pew. It
may also be a time filler for the minister, Or, it may be that the minister wants to show that he
has really come to grips with the text and demonstrate that in his work room he truly prepared for
this sermon.
Case in point 030 – on I Thes. 1:5-6. The sermon runs five pages; only by the middle of the
third page this minister got around to verse five. Roughly half the sermon explained something
about I Thessalonians as a New Testament book. 49
This kind of beginning as a fixed rule makes an introduction unnecessarily and aggravatingly
long. If a minister requires exploration in the origin and composition of a Bible book, we may
tell him to locate the theme of that book, and use that for a sermon. If Galatians, for instance, he
may discourse legitimately on Gal. 1:6-7. If Romans, then grace, cf. Rom. 1:16f., to get a deep
hold on this robust book. If Luke, then the journey motif of the Third Gospel, Jesus’ traveling
from Nazareth to Jerusalem. The same applies to Judges, with its clearly given prism, cf. 17:6 or
21:25. Not every sermon, broadly speaking, needs introductorily a protracted profiling of the
contents and purpose of a Bible book.
In general, long introductions mark a minister’s sluggishness not merely in proficiency of
public speaking, but also in focusing on texts. Thus, he imposes upon, first, the Lord’s, and,
second, our longsuffering. Notice in the Gospels, how quickly everywhere Jesus got at his point.
An illegitimate sermon beginning, we realize time and again, ignites ideas separate from the
sermon body, messages before the message. Undisciplined starts show lack of control over the
preaching units. In fact, a measly initiative lays out a speed bump, which sends us careening
away from the text. Then already we begin clutching at straws. For meaning.
The point is: introductions ought to be succinct and brief, as well as Christological,
Trinitarian, and covenantal. 1) Brevity speaks for itself. 2) The Christological import shows that
the minister understands the text. And 3) the Trinitarian voice marks out that the Father and the
Holy Spirit through the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles revealed the
grand exposition of the Son shaped in the history of his incarnation, suffering, crucifixion,
resurrection, ascension, session, and final judgment.
49
Henry Allan Ironside, “The Thessalonian Epistles,” in G. Paul Butler, ed., Best Sermons (New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1946), pp. 117-121.
33
These introductory matters ministers well-established in the Scriptures reflect in brief
opening paragraphs to demonstrate that 1) they are off to a good start and 2) that they know the
heart, muscles, sinews, and skeleton of chosen texts. In addition, right away, we catch the
general direction of the sermon. Then all our attention focuses on the textual theme in order to
listen more quietly and intensely to the voice of the Lord, Savior.
Sermon Themes
1) Upon a concrete introduction, a minister presents the main thought, or theme, of a
preaching unit, and the mention of perhaps two/three points, or movements, 50 to be developed in
detail, that is, the legitimate subthemes of the text. In consideration of a specific Bible situation,
an upfront minister gives concrete evidence that he plugged into the text. “Because every
preacher so easily adds his own thoughts to the text or encases it in his own framework, strict
thematic preaching is necessary.” 51 We are to be on alert. “Every sermon is made up of ideas.
They come to the pew-sitters in all sorts of forms – statements, questions, stories, and so on. But
they are of two different kinds, main ideas and supporting ideas. First, we want critical
information to understand the main idea of the sermon.” 52 The clearly stated textual theme
immerses us immediately into the substance of the preaching unit.
Case in point 031. “The main idea of a sermon on the twenty-third psalm, for example, might
be: ‘The only real security in our uncertain world is the constancy of the Good Shepherd.” 53
As reasonable as this theme sounds and as much as it appeals, the focus of Ps. 23 differs from
the prosaic idea given above. Let’s try this – “The Good Shepherd leads his people through to the
end.” That was true B.C. 1,000. That is true 2,000 A.D.
The heart thought of the preaching unit controls the sermon itself in its several movements or
parts. This is to say: the theme to be developed in, with, and through the sermon must be whole,
summarizing the text totally. Else, a theme is dishonest. Aiming straight out of the heart of a
preaching unit, the beauty of a theme is: this in sum the Lord of the Church wills us to hear and
remember and live.
Thus, in stating the text’s theme, a minister declares not how he perceives the heart of the
preaching unit in its context, nor how he prefers to work with it. Brave and forthright, he
announces the actual essence, the cherished breakthrough into the heart of the preaching unit. In
its essence, the formulation of the theme is a work of the Holy Spirit. “A given text may, to be
sure, express more than one idea or truth. But every text makes only one primary affirmation.” 54
Anything else makes a sermon reprehensibly topical. We need to hear the actual essence of the
text. In every case, this requires deep and careful reflection also on our part. With living loyalty
to the Word, we then judge the accuracy and adequacy of the theme.
50
David Buttrick, Homiletic: Moves and Structures (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) finds points too static and
movements more lively.
51
Greidanus, Sola Scriptura, op. cit., p. 168.
52
Thompson, op. cit., p. 43.
53
Ibid., p. 45.
54
James Daane, Preaching With Confidence: A Theological Essay on the Power of the Pulpit (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1980), p. 62.
34
Case in point 032 – on Mt. 7:13-14, “Two Gates and Two Ways,” part of the Second
Excursus. The theme is – “Jesus orders all to the gates for the diverging ways.” Then follow
three points/movements/subthemes. We face the gates. We make the choices. We take the ways.
Questions may be raised with respect to this sermon essay. 1) Is the theme legitimate, fully
covering the contents of this preaching unit? 2) Are the subthemes, or supporting movements
inclusive, taking the entire text into consideration? “Sermons have supporting ideas too. You
have probably heard that sermons are supposed to have three points. You may even feel that you
are missing something if you can’t remember them. The whole notion of supporting ideas in a
sermon, however, is that they support – not that they stand up and call attention to themselves.
Some excellent sermons have only two chief supporting ideas; others may have five or more.” 55
Subsets, or supporting ideas, to be helpful, must be drawn from the text and ought to be
inclusive, that is, give each emphasis of the preaching unit a voice; nothing may be left out of the
text.
Without becoming involved in subsets, as important as they are, we stay with the function of
the themes.
Case in point 033 – on Jer. 2:1-3. A minister gave as theme – “Jeremiah must proclaim that
the future of the Church is sure and safe.”
However, with only a change of name, this thematic statement applies to a thousand texts;
assuredly, it runs as a major theme through the Bible and therefore fails as the essence of this
sermon text. More essential – “Jeremiah called the Church to remember her beginnings for
coming covenant life.” That gets at the heart of this preaching unit.
Case in point 034 – on Rom. 8:28-30. A minister shelled out as the heart of the text – “The
Church is sure of her salvation.”
Textual profiling so free fits numerous Bible places. Reflecting the heart of the text more
accurately – “The Father in the Son owns all salvation work.”
Case in point 035 – on Job 42:10-16. A minister gave as theme – “The Lord God reveals in
the book of Job that he graciously preserves all his saints.”
This is far too general and open-ended, an effort to take the book into consideration rather
than the specified preaching unit. Nor does this theme display a struggle with the text, to hold its
heart in hand. Rather, all Job-themes ought to reflect due humility. Better – “Through Job the
LORD revealed new dimensions of gracious government.”
Case in point 036 – on John 18:28-32. The following is weak and incomplete – “The Jewish
leaders surrendered Jesus to Pilate to be crucified.”
A more inclusive thematic statement? “By the Father’s will covenant people demanded that
Pilate crucify Jesus.”
55
Ibid., p. 46.
35
Case in point 037 – on John 20:24-29. A minister declared as theme of this text - “The risen
Christ cares for his apostolic church.”
That Christ cares for his church is true and appears in any number of resurrection passages.
The theme cited immediately above hardly breathes out thoughtful insight into this preaching
unit. What of this summation? “The risen Christ, starting with Thomas, overcame doubt
regarding the resurrection fact.” We can not have Thomas morphed into everyman.
Case in point 038 – on Ex. 34:10-16. A minister presented as theme – “In renewing his
covenant’s promises and demands, the Lord reveals that his name is Jealous.”
What to think of the accuracy of this theme? Does it call for tightening up?
Case in point 039 – on Eph. 6:10-20. What do you find concerned this thematic sum – “Be
strong in the Lord as you stand firm in the struggle against the Devil”?
Case in point 040 – on Lk. 10:25-37. “Almost on a daily basis we are faced with the reality
that there exists in our society a dichotomy between what we preach and teach about love and the
practical application of the principle of love when we are faced with opportunities to put it into
practice.” 56
Besides starting off on a topical sermon (more on which below), this thematic statement
promises little insight into the Summary of the Law.
Case in point 041 – on John 3:16. As the heart movement of the text – “The Greatness of
God’s Love (God’s love is great).” 57
Again, too vague, imprecise, far ranging, turning mental powers for concentration into a
frustration.
2) Case in point 042. Also, exasperating experiences happen when two ministers come up
with conflicting summaries of the same preaching unit. Is it legitimate to look at a text in two or
three different ways? Is it possible, due to richness of language or imagination, to claim the heart
of a text with opposing words? Try this. “We are in the middle of a series of sermons that deal
with serious social problems facing the church and our society. To each problem many of you
have said, ‘There are two sides to this question. I believe this way, but, on the other hand,
someone else believes differently.’ In fact, many of you have stated that ‘all of religious faith is
subject to personal interpretation. It really makes no difference what you believe as long as you
believe.” 58 However, this theme is either right or wrong, on or off the mark, whole or partial. As
the Bible reveals one central interpretation, so each individual preaching unit owns but a single
sound reading, which ministers ought to state directly and pointedly.
56
Floyd H. Flake, “Where Is the Love?’ in Rhinold Ponder, op. cit., p. 25.
Daane, op. cit., p. 70.
58
Forrest D. Haggard, “Love and Loyalty,” in C.E. Lemmon, ed., Preaching on Old Testament Themes (St. Louis:
the Bethany Press, 1963), p. 65.
57
36
With accuracy of interpretation in mind, M. Luther declared – “The Holy Spirit is the
plainest writer and speaker in heaven and earth, and therefore His words cannot have more than
one, and that the very simplest, sense, which we call the literal, ordinary, natural sense.” 59 With
all painful struggles to defeat our presuppositions and ideological pretensions of what a text must
say, if we in this always enrapt discipline can find the themes of sermon texts, so can Christ’s
men. If not, they launch a process of escalating textual violence by repeat offenses such as
moralizing and exemplarizing.
In opposition against Scripture’s simplicity, most frequently manifested by ideologues, we
adopt in the office of the congregation the freedom to read the Bible in the light of the Spirit.
These ideologues and -isms, like radioactive materials, however, kill not only the discipline of
evaluating the heart of every preaching text; they also fight against the revealing optics of the
Word. Moreover, each spreads confusion over the Bible.
Case in point 043. “Happily for the preacher and mercifully for the congregation, there are
always at least two ways of looking at any text.” 60
With this people-pleaser, one may argue the slippery topic of two or three different
interpretations of or workings through a text. If this exposes the riches both of the Bible and of
preaching, yes, then thumbs up to constant conflict and confusion of tongues. Such
disorderliness, however, overcomes only congregations immersed in sloth and death-like repose.
A dozy congregation permits a minister to tug all members into his corner, possibly for
adulation, possibly for tyranny, possibly for money, as long as all assume that a minister may
tease out of a preaching unit the frustrating mess of more than one meaning per preaching unit.
The deeper the insight into Scriptures the Spirit gives to the men whom the Lord calls into
the ministry and the more seasoned in exegetical passion they become, the more they grasp the
textual heart and call on us to apply the razor’s edge: judge the rightness or wrongness of every
theme. Thus, we, in Heb. 6:1 light, “… leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to
maturity.” For this, the Third Person reveals the order, precision, and accuracy of each theme. On
the way to maturity, then, we may ask the Lord of the Church for men who listen intently to the
Word and who begin sermons with true insight into every preaching unit.
3) Admittedly, holding on to the theme throughout a sermon requires interactive hearing and
alertness. I remember a man, an inspiration to many, who sharply recalled every theme and point
weeks and months after listening to sermons. He once collared by a rear exit an incumbent
minister who had preached in a rambling way; the preacher had tried to get away without the
powerful force of the textual theme. This churchman took the pastor to task for neglect of duty
and for misleading the congregation throughout the preaching. 61 The moral is: all of us ought to
develop an engaging vigilance at discernment of sermon themes, or the lack thereof.
59
Kerr, op. cit., pp. 18f.
Gomes, Sermons, op. cit., p. 92.
61
The man chose the wrong time and place for the critique, immediately after the worship service. Better wait for a
day or two; by Wednesdays ministers on the whole tend to listen more amenably to sermon weaknesses and faults.
60
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Ministers can and do err. “They sometimes perceive a relatively unimportant idea and
appropriate that idea for themselves. To do so is not, of course, entirely bad. In fact, I have
already suggested that you should try to get hold on one idea and make it your own. What I am
suggesting now is that finding the sermon’s main idea is better than singling out a random
idea.” 62 More to the issue at hand and for all of us to remember – “The theme is not a topic to be
discussed, not a concept such as love, righteousness, faith, hope, etc., but an assertion, a positive
declaration, ‘a combination of concepts.’” 63 Thus, “a theme is by definition an assertion, the
positive declaration proclaimed by the preaching-text.” 64 Anything else, and the sermon fades
away, another wishy-washy drop in an ocean of ignorance.
Adequate Conclusions
As introductions and themes, so conclusions. Concise and brief. The conclusion to a good
sermon sums up the theme of the text with a sound, soul-moving admonishment, a call to hope,
trust, a commitment, or a change-of-life decision, as specifically called forth by the preaching
unit. Such an ending, with a strong finish, concludes the persuasive mode of speech that is the
word of the Lord.
Right and wise closure, we find, reflects the sermon’s theme, without becoming an
opportunity for tacking on self-righteous morals or airbrushing in a minister’s arbitrary opinions.
All slim pickings out of grey zones lack wisdom at rounding off the word of the Lord. 65
So we in the pew grow in sensitivity to these brevities, that they be biblically true as well as
convincing. Sermons that begin and end scripturally, instead of tottering around on opinions, lay
claim to our hearts, building up our salvation to the glory of God.
EXEGETICAL PASSION
Preaching true to the Word grants us freedom to apprehend the spoken word of the Lord that
indeed is the spoken word of the Lord. To hear such preaching in Christ’s name fires the
perennial passion for exegesis, a labor of love difficult to underestimate in terms of value.
At the same time, exegetical passion fuels the lampstands, that is, each congregation, to burn
brightly, cf. Rev. 1:20; etc. In Zech. 4:2, the prophet declared – “I see … a lampstand all of gold,
with a bowl on top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps which are on
the top of it.” The presence of the lit menorah in the Old Testament dispensation revealed the
presence of the LORD. Even so, lampstands in the New Testament church constitute the
congregations in which the Lord Jesus wills that we hear his word. For this hearing, exercising
the office of the congregation, we require a measure of exegetical knowledge; with this
knowledge we can judge the actuality of the spoken word as the word of the Lord. Also, with
respect to exegetical rules, good trees bring forth good fruit.
62
Thompson, op. cit., p. 87.
Greidanus, Sola Scriptura, op. cit., p. 162.
64
Ibid., p. 163.
65
Cf. Prov. 18:2 – “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his own opinion.”
63
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Exegetical Sources
Tackling exegesis head on: passion for the soundness of the word makes us want to possess
at least a working knowledge of the basic rules of interpretation; for this honorable labor of love
(more than an interesting hobby) exist two main sources.
1) Growth in exegetical wisdom comes by incisive listening to the spoken word. There is,
however, listening and listening. The dawn of concentrated listening to the spoken word begins
at the moment when we also notice the exegetical guidelines ministers use throughout sermons.
“… one must learn to listen to the text. Psychologically, this is very difficult. Every preacher
must recognize the danger of coming to the text with preconceived notions of what it says.
Inevitably, one brings to the text whatever one possesses of a theological tradition, whatever
shaped one’s religious understanding growing up in a Christian home or attending Sunday
School.” 66 As much as this applies to ministers of the Word, we too come before the Word with
unchartable territories of preconceptions.
A preconception is: a negative or positive bias, or prejudice, formed before gaining actual
information.
Sound exegetical guidelines we receive particularly during a series on a Bible book, for
instance, Zechariah, or a distinct aspect of a book, possibly Gen. 37-50, Mt. 5:1-7:29, or Rev. 13. Then we can ask about and discuss in sensible company the legitimacy of exegetical rules
ministers apply to open up a text and bring our listening acuity to newfound levels.
Such questioning and conversation highlight continuing growth in exegetical vivacity. We
thus bolster, rather than fade away as a social class or company of the comfortable, the
groundswell of living membership in the Church. Therewith comes out the difference between
listening superficially and listening with all of heart, soul, mind, and strength.
2) Further growth comes by way of reading and studying responsible commentaries as well
as books on exegetics. It makes little sense to waste the Lord’s grace-executed time and our
limited energies on inferior exegetical guides. Beroean-like, cf. Acts 17:10ff., we refuse to
swallow anything without due consideration. This sort of reading and studying is not a pastime
for the rich, much less a time filler for bored retirees, and certainly no nostalgia for simpler eras.
The groundwork for responsible listening begins early, before the years of majority.
Advocacy for knowing and working with a secure purchase on such helpful guides has
historical roots deep in the third and fourth centuries A.D. “There are certain rules for the
interpretation of Scriptures which I think might with great advantage be taught to earnest
students of the word, that they may profit not only from reading the works of others who have
laid open the secrets of the sacred writing, but also from themselves opening such secrets to
others.” 67 Augustine applied this to theological students; however, all advocacy for sound
66
Daane, op. cit., p. 60.
Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian
Church, Philip Schaff, ed., Vol. II (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), p. 519.
67
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exegetics in its broadness magnetizes the whole church, lest exegesis devolve into work for
‘experts’ only, remote from the office of the congregation.
Our exegetical knowledge and experience increase responsible membership in Christ Jesus,
the impressive fabric in which our salvation as well as the recreation begins and matures. Then
as exegetes following the Exegete we pursue Paul’s caution given in Col. 2:7 – to be rooted and
build up in the Faith for the glory of the Father. Thus, we become less like silly little clubs or
morally fogged-up sects without a single bit of liberating wisdom, and more like lights reflecting
the Light. Then, established in the truth, we, active in the office of the congregation, abound in
gratitude. Always then we reinvigorate Christ-given ministers in exegetically progressive Bible
reading.
So far in the household of the Church two exegetical sources apply: we learn from the
preaching and from sound literature on the subject. This prepares us to work with bedrock
interpretative guides and, at the same time, crack down on perverse ways of knowing – by
surreal prejudices, biases, and preconceptions. Then we also avoid the practice of jumping to
conclusions. Whatever wrong interpretive method, each betrays the prostitution of a great gift.
Exegetical Guides
By keeping our fingers on the pulse of the Bible and ears tuned to the proclamation of the
Word, we move from simple inertia to entry-level listening. For that reason, we need interpretive
guides; these may be refreshers for some and new information for others. According to Heb.
5:12f., instead of turning from solid food to milk, all the Church progresses, generation upon
generation, from milk to solid food. Maturation indicates an integral movement of faith; its fire
masters even ordinary life forms of disbelieving.
1) Every preaching unit has one certain and simple sense. This Martin Luther asserted long
ago. “No violence is to be done to the words of God, whether by man or angel; but they are to be
retained in their simplest meaning wherever possible, and to be understood in their grammatical
and literal sense unless the context plainly forbids.” 68 To say the same with a more contemporary
ring, though hardly by one of Luther’s stature – “Exegesis is nothing less than the art of asking
fruitful questions of the text, and of doing so in an orderly way. This understanding of the matter
is simply the obverse of ceasing to take the text for granted.” 69 To hear the Word preached,
interpretation of the text concentrates on the written, ordinary, natural sense of the sermon unit,
the historical fact of each such unit, its “simple and genuine sense.” 70
This basic rule of exegesis – the literal reading and interpretation of every text – features the
grammatical-historical approach; in this way of the Scriptures we see and hear that ministers of
Christ respectfully treat history as history, prophecy as prophecy, wisdom as wisdom, etc. No
doubt, this represents a lofty standard – simply doing justice to Bible reading. “But we can only
avoid making this a purely academic exercise if we see exegesis as a first step toward something
68
Kerr, op. cit., p. 17.
Keck, op. cit., p. 50.
70
J. Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, Vol. I, tr. John King (Grand Rapids: Baker,
1984), p. 294.
69
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else, if we understand that establishing what the text meant is a first step toward deciding what
the text means. Exegesis, we might say, is the necessary preliminary to exposition (that is, saying
what the text means to us today).” 71 Then exegesis stands out as a living exactitude, 72 full of
integrity, honesty, and discipline – a source of awe. Ministers who recognize gospel as gospel,
law as law, etc., chalk up due respect for recognizing the preaching unit’s type of literature.
2) In the exegetical process, and one can check each sermon easily, two stages ought to be
evident, even if ‘hidden’ in the actual preaching.
- historical context
i) the fact of the text
- significance then
- contemporary context
ii) the sense of the text
- significance now
This thinking inside instead of about the text reflects a balanced and mature preacher who
knows he serves as a herald of Jesus Christ, called to speak for the Lord of heaven and earth. 73
Many ministers find the then-now thought processes supercilious, for they read/interpret the
Word through colored glasses of allegorism, Scholasticism, liberalism, Dispensationalism,
Fundamentalism, secularism, etc.; a whole raft of infamous brand names have sprung up to
submerge and sublimate the pain that comes from literally reading Scripture, literal then as
distinct from literalism, another sort of colored glass. As if the Holy Spirit puts customized
shades on all of the Church. Rather, colored glasses originate elsewhere, in the huge mall of
unbelief. They function as bland pagan helps to scupper Bible interpretation. The first instance of
colored glasses occurred in Gen. 3:1ff., when the serpent deftly changed the plain and genuine
sense of the LORD God’s command into something else, less demanding and superficially less
painful.
3) Further, Scripture is the interpreter of Scripture, known as the analogy-of-faith guide. 74
Sound interpretation, beginning in the pew, reads difficult Bible parts in the light of the less
difficult.
For instance. Temptations to overemphasize the human nature of the incarnate Son at the
expense of his divinity come from misrepresenting texts as I Tim. 2:5 – “For there is one God,
and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus ….” Sodden
misinterpretation of such texts, which exclude the Christ’s divinity, then leads to Adoptionism.
71
R.H. Fuller, op. cit., p. 20.
As also Charles S. Feinberg asserted, “The Rebuilding of the Temple” in C.F.H. Henry, ed., Prophecy in the
Making (Carol Stream: Creation House, 1971), pp. 92f.
73
A voice of opposition: Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 91 – “If we are to preach from scripture, we must
banish the then-now splits that disfigure sermons. We must wrestle with the Bible in the contemporary
consciousness and, in so doing, can encounter the God of our lives.” One asks, without knowing the text in its
original setting, how do we receive its due meaning for now?
74
Cf. Rom. 12:6.
72
41
Paul, for a reason, specified Jesus’ humanity without avoiding his divinity; in effect, the apostle
stressed both by “the man Christ Jesus,” but “the man” because of its position in the phrase has
extra weight. Stress on Jesus’ humanity revealed that he transcends in significance all classes
and races of peoples. Misinterpretation, however, reading through colored glasses, excludes
Jesus Christ’s biblically given divinity. To this day, Adoptionism seeks to make Jesus religiously
and socially acceptable in and to a flat-earth society. In this religiosity, always retrograde,
unbelieving inability refuses to read the Scriptures as the Word.
Adoptionism is: the teaching that God the Father adopted Jesus as a son, making him the first
divine man, a denial of the Son’s divinity.
Exegeting I Tim. 2:5 in its original context and time of writing requires also that we consider
the whole Bible with respect to Jesus’ dual natures – the divine and the human. Then, we give
adamant attention as well to, for instance, the angelic promises given Mary and Joseph, cf. Mt.
1:18ff., and Mary, cf. Lk. 1:26ff.
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
therefore the child to be born will be called holy,
the Son of God.”
The Bible-as-a-whole approach roots us also in passages as Is. 7:10ff., 9:1ff., which set boneheaded Adoptionism on its ear.
A gross case in point 044. According to a newspaper article, Jesus was – “… maddeningly
contrary; testy, defensive, prone to overreaction; a short, thin, one-time vagrant; an ascetic and
illiterate peasant who became an intense, in-your-face leader with a sharp wisdom and wicked
tongue.” 75 Moreover, the article’s writer suggested that Jesus, a social outcast, suffered from a
bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder as well as a touch of madness, by all counts an extremely
shallow man whom God ‘adopted.’ This crude eisegetical overemphasis on the humanness of the
Second Person leads to a question. What kind of god wanted this outcast and madman as an
adopted son? Actually, the assertions in this article throw the scriptural teachings also on the
Trinity into disrepute, plus unleashing desperate doubts with respect to the God-breathedness of
the Bible.
A gross case in point 045, also from a newspaper. “The new novel by one of Canada’s leading
authors depicts Jesus as a ‘bastard” conceived when his mother, Mary, was raped by a Roman
official.” 76 Jesus as a ‘bastard’ becomes socially and politically correct in a time when many
fathers allow mothers to bear and raise children out of wedlock. However, such fawning
reinterpretation contradicts the Scriptures, particularly Old Testament prophecies and New
Testament history, and is blasphemy.
Unless we stay alert and know this third interpretive rule, analogy by faith, anybody,
ministers included, can tell us anything, and we have no means of testing such assertions,
75
76
Ron Csillaq, “Ideas and Beliefs: ‘The Rabbi Jesus nobody knows,’” Globe and Mail, April 9, 2001.
Paul Gessell, “Ricci Novel Has Jesus as Child of Rape,” National Post, Vol. 4, #147, April 19, 2002.
42
interpretations, and conclusions. Then they put us, unexpectedly complicit in sin, on the hook for
tolerating eisegesis.
Breakages of this interpretive guide stem from presuppositions Bible readers carry within
themselves, dragging in outside ideas. Arminians want to read the Bible in Arminian ways.
Dispensationalists want to read the Bible in Dispensationalist ways. Liberals want to read the
Bible in liberal ways. Traditionalists want to read the Bible in traditionalist ways. Roman
Catholics want to read the Bible in Romanist ways. Lutherans want to read the Bible in Lutheran
ways. Calvinists want to read the Bible in Calvinist ways. Etc. This sectarian maelstrom of mealy
preconceptions and presuppositions buzzing about demands a hearing even in the Church; as
soon as these entrench themselves, their voices haggle for substandard exegesis and every wrong
interpretation, while guarding the gates against upright rules of interpretation.
Only in believing the historical actuality in Scriptures as a whole does its significance also in
our contemporary meaning-world gain overwhelmingly persuasive force. Without the original
heart of the action, however, sins of misinterpretation gain a hearing. Any such denial of the
historical actuality of the Incarnation drops interpretation into myth and legend – cheap escapes
from the simple and genuine sense of the text.
Therefore, this third guide forms a most determined rule for upright and fresh Bible reading,
specifically interpretation. “This is because it is not the preacher’s task to bring before the
congregation his own opinions, whether on religion or any other matter. It is precisely to allow
the Word of God … to speak to the congregation. Thus exegesis is a necessary preliminary task
for the preacher. Without it what he says in the pulpit will not be authentic proclamation.” 77 With
the analogy-by-faith rule, we then can check every minister’s interpretation system.
4) True exegetes perceive that the moving force of the Scriptures and therefore of each
preaching unit is the Person and work of Jesus Christ – even in the Old Testament. In the New
Testament, particularly the four Gospels, Christ Jesus stands out as the King, Prophet, and Priest,
the Mediator of the covenant, Head of the Church, Lord of heaven and earth, Lawgiver, the
Exegete. 78 The better we hear pulpit men speak the moving force of every text, the more we
learn in the Spirit to appreciate sound preaching. Ministers in the strength of exegetical freedom,
we agree, open and apply the Word as Jesus Christ intends.
Exegetical freedom is: the liberty with which the Holy Spirit moves all of the Church,
ministers of the Word included, to work only with biblically given rules of interpretation for
opening up the relevance of every preaching text.
This freedom stops ‘ordinary believers’ from all brash rights of eisegesis and makes for the
broader visions of originality in preaching because of the minister’s actual engagement with the
proclamation unit. Ordinary believers? This name gained popularity 300 years ago to express an
eisegetical commonplace. “By the eighteenth century this power of the ordinary believer to read
and understand the scriptures at their only significant level of meaning, the literal sense, would
77
Fuller, op. cit., p. 20.
Cf. Lk. 4:16ff., 24:27; etc. To follow Jesus Christ at exegeting remains the fascinating task of the Church,
ministers included.
78
43
be called ‘common sense,’ and would appeal to the humanistic ambitions of Protestant believers
unavoidably influenced by the principles of the Enlightenment.” 79 ‘Ordinary believers’
captivated by the common-sense principle of the Enlightenment tended to read the Bible in the
hardening glues of individualism and rationalism, in opposition to the work of the Holy Spirit in
the Church, thereby dividing the Body of Christ more than previously. In the Church, the Spirit
leads all to read and interpret the Bible in the same way. This prevents unnecessary arguing over
interpretation, wasting no more of Christ Jesus’ time, and frees us to work together glorifying the
Father of our Lord and Savior.
Within the last three centuries, individualism and rationalism have become associated with
‘ordinary believers,’ each ‘exegeting’ Scripture according to common sense and/or personal
preference. Max Weber from the vantage point of the idea of sociology 80 and R.H. Tawney from
the hill top idea of economics 81 showed the formation of individualism and rationalism as
eisegetical forces. “It is implied that the bad social practice of the age was the inevitable
expression of its religious innovations, and that, if the reformers did not explicitly teach a
conscienceless individualism, individualism was, at least, the natural corollary of their
teaching.” 82 This interpretation of the Reformation remains insupportable except with the
desperate hates of prejudice in favor of the gods of modernity.
A Zwingli (1484-1531), a Luther, and a Calvin (1509-1564), even in hottest contention over
Jesus Christ’s two natures in the Lord’s Supper, nevertheless, by way of exegesis, fought for the
unity of the Church, never the far too knowing expectations of ordinary believers.
It was the Enlightenment, which through little-known epigones of the Enlightenment in postReformation centuries, turned to individualism; from that time onward, the leaping logic of
denominationalism mushroomed, each doing religiously what was right in his/her own eyes, to
paraphrase the condemnatory theme of the book of the Judges. Confusions of denominationalism
brought to life more bastard forms of eisegetical liberty, all converging into the rise of
contemporary Baals. In these alternative freedoms of eisegesis, human beings blithely installed
themselves as the arbiters of every biblical book – insofar as they still read and consulted the
Book.
The Enlightenment is: an eighteenth-century philosophical movement that through
rationalism critiqued the accepted doctrines of the past by advocating a man-centered world – to
glorify human beings.
However, exegetical freedom, biblically conceived, knows Jesus Christ, not individualism,
not rationalism, as the moving force in every preaching unit.
Case in point 046 – on II Sam. 15:1-12. A minister used Absalom’s palace revolt to warn
against abuse of authority, that is, power grabs by governments, family members, and church
people; without abuse of power, he promised, all move into an oasis of historical calm. This
79
Peter J. Gomes, The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart (New York: Avon, 1996), p. 42.
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958).
81
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (New York: The New American Library, 1925/54).
82
Ibid., p. 75.
80
44
interpretation stiffs exegetical freedom by trying to squeeze as much moralistic relevance as
possible from the text, contrary to all exegetical guides. Such interpretation does not have Christ
at heart.
Literal reading in exegetical freedom of the passage in its historical setting sees Absalom
conspiring to sidetrack covenantal development by preventing Messiah’s advent. The LORD
God revealed to David, cf. II Sam. 7:12ff., that the line of royal succession had to run over
Solomon to the Christ. Absalom, therefore, committed high treason when he sought to take over
his father’s throne. Preoccupation with revolution did Absalom in, as well as thousands who
followed him. Once we grasp the basics of this account, the whole makes sense in terms of
Messiah’s centrality; then we quickly disqualify moralistic warnings, for some sort of relevance,
based on this passage against power grabs.
Case in point 047 – on John 20:17. All sorts of ministers with epigonic acumen and cherubic
insistence claim in the name of Jesus Christ that he appointed Mary Magdalene an apostle. By
jumping on the feministic bandwagon of ideas, they shove the Lord of heaven and earth aside in
favor of a dangerous stunt. All biblically oriented men of the Church recognize the impossibility
of the Magdalene’s ‘apostleship.’
Basic requirements of apostleship the Lord gave in John 15:27; Acts 1:21f. – “So one of the
men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us – one of these
men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.” Admittedly, Saul/Paul entered the
community of the Twelve through a different door. Cf. Acts 9:1ff. Mary Magdalene, however,
fitted neither basic requirement for apostleship, nor conformed to the headship mandate
characteristic of the Church and the Kingdom.
The more we learn to interpret Scriptures with exegetical freedom – foremost the centrality
of Jesus Christ in every preaching unit – the heartier we appreciate this Spirit-driven liberty; thus
the Lord and Savior stands forth as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of the goal
of creation. Only such preaching of Christ guarantees that in the Church the word remains
unfettered, cf. II Tim. 2:8f., free from clogged-up inventions and self-serving spirits of the times,
cf. Col. 2:8. This preaching overcomes every ideological invasion.
5) Sound Bible interpretation unearths the historical period and situation of each preaching
text.
In the life of this exegetical guide, we recognize – sensitively - the fact that every
proclamation unit fits into a historical context, one inescapably covenantal and predestinarian.
Within the covenant/predestination setting other themes show. The significance of the historical
moment in relation to the force of redemption. The relationship between the Gospel and the Law.
The progressive development of the Church and the coming of the Kingdom. The energy of the
office of the congregation and the appearance of the new heavens and earth. Etc. These the Lord
Jesus revealed since the beginning, and after the Fall, sovereignly in the seething unrest of
unrepeatable history.
45
In the historical setting of each text, Christ Jesus either before the Incarnation, that is, in the
Old Testament dispensation, or after, revealed himself the LORD, Messiah, the Word, in fact, in
every way according to the office of the King, the Prophet, and the Priest. Faithfully, then,
historical sensitivity on the part of Christ’s ministers opens up the real trends in salvation, which
sensitivity actually glorifies God the Father. This praise to the Father envisions the only purpose
of life on earth, indeed, of all creation. Therefore, reading/interpreting the Bible requires more
than full consideration of what is written. With equal measure the Spirit wills that we perceive
the how and when of the writing, in other words, the manner and the timing of the preaching unit
in its historical framework. The Author concerned himself with more than the contents of the
Word; he also gave the staging ground for each account. Failure to inquire into and elucidate the
processes of history allows for bullying with the preaching unit and/or for pointing a
congregation in the wrong direction.
Scripture texts are not simply loose stones, haphazardly lying about, which we must sort out
and rearrange in order to construct the Faith, the Church, and the Kingdom; that brooding power
of misperception evades the intricate goal for which the Lord of heaven and earth designed the
Word. The Holy Spirit cemented these precious ‘stones’ in particular places. Thus, the
construction of the Word, the manner in which books and texts join each other, is singular
prescience; the Author gave a very incisive structure to the Bible, which mapping we need to
know in order to read/interpret, and avoid mountains of harm to exegesis. With one-four, this
fifth exegetical guide, knowing the preaching structure of the Bible, canonics, also in details,
moves the Church ahead.
Working knowledge of the exegetical power tools lifts us up to the first level above unskilled
labor. This information places all of Christ in a position to hear the proclamation of the Word
and be sure that the word of the Lord is unfailingly the word of the Lord.
This working knowledge prepares us for deep listening – listening for one or more missing
exegetical rules; such deep listening is terribly tiring since it requires employing our eardrums on
two levels: listening to what is said and at the same time to what is abusively left unsaid.
One danger of deep listening must be mentioned: paying attention to what is unsaid while
missing what is said. Before deep listening becomes possible, as a responsibility in the office of
the congregation, the registry of exegetical guides ought to be firmly in place, forged through
years of experience.
Exegetical Benefits
Sensitivity to and working with biblical interpretative rules lights up hard work.
Appropriation, therefore, of these regulations proves highly beneficial, more than sagging-in-themind pew-potatoes dare dream about. Idling brains in the pew present distinct liabilities to Christ
for his church work. Yet, as his problem people we may realize that, cf. Lk. 12:48, because much
is given, also much is required – inclusive high priority responsibility for sound biblical
interpretation.
46
1) The specific standards of interpretation we may now teach the children of every new
generation. As from the Church’s pulpits both good and bad exegetical practices penetrate
beyond eardrums into hearts, we can point these out each to our children. Thus, in this way too,
we guard them against fading away from the Faith, domesticated for the toxic unbelief of the
times. If our children remain deficient in listening to the word, they with us may not even rail
against the darkness of outdated ideologies, an unflattering future.
If we refrain from telling our children that in church and at worship, they too find themselves
in the matrix of exegetical learning, they may disappear into the darkness, a fact with which the
Fourth Gospel begins. Therefore – “[a]ll Christians, including the so-called experts, learn to
interpret the Bible in the church. There we learn its message, its meaning, how it holds together,
and how it applies to our lives. We do not interpret the Bible as private individuals.” 83 Nor as
‘ordinary believers.’ But as members of Christ, bonded as people of the covenant. Thus, children
learn what rules of exegesis to embrace, what errors of eisegesis to abhor, and what to teach their
children and grandchildren. Leaving a sound exegetical legacy to coming generations stands out
as love for the Lord and for our children.
2) Under opening skies of exegetical awareness comes also this benefit: because of sound
preaching, we know that the Lord of the Church calls new believers with us to participate now
and forever in salvation – citizenship in the new heavens and earth.
3) The point of here-and-now participation in the exegetical work of the Church means that
we come to the purpose of our living, the glory of the Father in Jesus Christ. It is of the Holy
Spirit’s work in the always temperamental populace of the Church.
4) Once started on exegetical guides, incremental growth continues. When then on Saturdays
evenings we pray for Christ’s grace and blessing upon Sundays’ corporate worshiping with its
proclamation of the Word, the Spirit trains us to listen for and learn more of the exegetical ways
of the Church. Thus, competent to listen to the Lord, we apprehend the spoken word and Christ
Jesus leads us further into salvation, yes, into the panoramic scope of the new creation. Through
a ripple effect that begins with prayer, by way of sound preaching the Spirit persuades us to
believe and live the word in order, here and now, day-by-day, to serve our Father in heaven more
fully.
5) Because of our exegetical abilities, we serve as anchors against drifting away on waves of
“beguiling speech,” cf. Col. 2:4. Or, with another analogy: strong exegetical sensitivity functions
rudder-like to make sure that ministers handle the Word rightly. Together then, as congregations
and as the Church, in the Spirit we continually reform and purify the Body.
Wastage of these crucial benefits leaves an important responsibility to experts. It is, among
whirlings of living, a temptation to pass difficulties on to professionals. To each his own – to the
clergy the preaching and to the expiring laity the listening, as if this unsavory window dressing
for sloth bolsters a positive good. However, again, the Christ gave the Bible not to professional
83
D. Holwerda, Neo-Pentecostalism Hits the Church: A Study Guide (Grand Rapids: The Education Department of
the Board of Publication of the Christian Reformed Church, 1974), p. 35.
47
students; 84 he gave the Book to the Church. These benefits, even if expressed here in condensed
form, radiate like sunshine, lighting the Faith from within.
Therefore, it may, indeed, must be said: preaching according to sound explication/application
guides walks us through the sermon texts and brings out what the Holy Spirit wills, persuading
us to believe and live the Faith. True proclamation serves, in distinction from the shams of
oratory and even televangelism’s silly fabrications, within a limited context, a congregation, and
for a definite task. The task is for the entire congregation to ensure that the proclamation arrives
at its purpose, Sunday upon Sunday, till we live solely to magnify the Father.
Unless we own active and critical skills at exegesis, we qualify as extremely limited
members of Christ in analyzing bad preaching. In fact, without this skill, we may follow
eisegetically moved ministers into the very fires of hell, where also grief counselors rail against
hopelessness.
The aim of living begins with listening to exegetically sound preaching, which goes against
the welters of idolatry on the markets and in our hearts. However, to live the centering purpose
of life grants us more initial ability to discern good preaching from bad: intently we listen to this
purpose in sermons in order that the Lord Jesus build us up in the Faith. In this case, too,
ignorance is fatal: uncertainty whether or not the spoken word is indeed the sword of the Lord
melts down and destroys the Faith. Hence, we need to overcome a variety of exegetical
problems.
Exegetical Barriers
Keeping in mind the ways of sound exegesis, plus benefits, we carry listening to biblical
proclamation further and deeper to repel forces of eisegesis. Hearing and reflecting on sermons
with meanings forced into texts from extrabiblical sources or with significant facets left out calls
forth the wrath of Christ Jesus revealed at defining historical intersections. The wrath of the Lord
begins with the breakdown of salvation. One warning he issued at the time Israel waited to cross
the Jordan. Cf. Deut. 4:2 – “You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from
it; that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.” 85 A
second he gave for the end times – at the final fork in the road. Cf. Rev. 22:18f. –
“I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one adds to them,
God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if any one takes away from the
words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the
holy city, which are described in this book.”
84
There are experts who engage in analysis of language, linguistics, always an interesting vocation. Such analysis
answers questions as these: how do we know what we know, how does language influence what we know, and how
does language affect our behavior?
Analysis of biblical language also falls within the scope of that laboring with words. However, leaving to others
the responsibility for exegesis denies a covenantal duty and we place ourselves at the mercy of language technicians.
In effect, rather than walk in the way of redemption, we deprive ourselves of the remarkable benefits of exegesis,
thereby robbing the Father of his glory in Christ Jesus.
85
Cf. Deut. 12:32 – “Everything that I command you you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to it or take from
it.”
48
These warnings to abhor any adding to and taking away from the Word apply to all in the
Church, also for us to keep ministers strong, moving on the heights of exegetical freedom. For
the way we go they go and the way they go we go.
I
An exegetical barrier that adds to and/or takes away from the Bible comes with institutional
maintenance, in the form of tradition, or Tradition – Scripture and Tradition.
Western Traditionalism
At the outset this may seem only a Roman Catholic problem, one officially hammered in
place during the Fourth Session of the Council of Trent (1545-1563). Prior to this Council,
unwritten traditions, fruit of the Middle Ages, had taken a place next to the Bible for defining the
doctrine and life constitutive of Roman Catholicism. These unwritten traditions and Scripture,
the Council determined, were equal sources for authority and reverence – hence: Scripture and
Tradition. 86 “This sacred Tradition, then, and the sacred Scripture of both Testaments, are like a
mirror, in which the Church, during its pilgrim journey here on earth, contemplates God, from
whom she received everything, until such a time as she is brought to see him face to face as he
really is (cf. Jn. 3:2).” 87 From the Contra-Reformation age on Roman Catholicism worked and
works with two sources of revelation, however much the Tradition may originate in extrabiblical
sources. The fact that the Tradition may be placed before the Bible is telling with respect to the
force of Roman Catholic’s adding to and taking away from the Word. For in the Tradition,
Romanism finds the source and authority for Mariolatry, sainthood, the papacy with its ex
cathedra infallibility, and hierarchical ecclesial structure. And much more. Tradition adds to and
tradition takes away.
The lure of Tradition also captivates Anglicans/Episcopalians. Formally captured in the
Church of England’s 20th Article of Religion, it reads – “… this definition concerning the equal
authority of Scripture and Tradition was of evident importance in approaching such questions as
the number and Dominical institution of the Sacraments.” 88 In this instance too, Tradition adds to
and at the same time takes away from the Word, particularly curbing its authority and reverence.
However, not to point fingers only at Roman Catholics and Anglicans, or even Judaism, 89
Protestantism too suffers from uninformed bindings of tradition. This Protestant dilemma an
eminent theologian formulated. “On its behalf we may urge that the simple antithesis of
Scripture and tradition and the exclusive attribution to the former of divine truth, characteristic of
the more extreme Protestant sects, is false in theory and unworkable in practice. No Christian
86
J. Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, op. cit., p. 446, called the Roman Catholic
Tradition “the fictions of men.”
87
Austin Flannery, ed., Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents (Collegeville, MN:
Liturgical Press, 1975), p. 754.
88
Norman Sykes, The Crisis of the Reformation (London: Geoffrey Bless, 1938/58), pp. 101f.
89
To Torah, or legislative law, Judaism adds the oral, or judicial, law. This oral law consists of the Misnah and the
Gemara, which two form the Talmud. Torah and the tradition of the Talmud constitute the Jewish source of
authority.
49
community can regulate its worship and the lives of its members exclusively by Scriptural
precedent, and some non-Scriptural tradition come to be hallowed by them all.” 90 This concedes
that traditional influences and innovative conventions on Bible interpretation, individual or
shared, impose ‘unseen’ weights, if not bullying powers, on exegesis.
True, in every congregation and throughout the Church, conventions develop – hours of
worship, dress codes, catechetical instruction, sacramental celebrations, biblical translations,
doctrinal emphases; etc. Literally, hundreds of large and small, significant and minor traditions
grow to which we pay little conscious attention; these define normality, unless questioned or
challenged. However, whatever the sola Scriptura claims, loud or whispered, to bring out the
firm voice of Protestant tradition, I call out a trio of specifics – Church Order decisions,
confessional utterances, and liturgical practices.
1) Even though each Church Order case for adjudication must be made in the light of
Scripture, deference appears to precedent-setting decisions. In this manner we handled such and
such a disciplinary matter or settled such and such a situation then and do so similarly now.
Legal traditions develop, almost unnoticeably, ceding the authority of the Word to standardized
conventions. And the command to do justice falls by the wayside.
2) Appeals to confessional statements repeated mantra-like expect those addressed to know
the genius of these quotes, even if taken out of context; quotations from any such document
confirms claims of truth or settles matters of dispute. This type of confessionalism clarifies
another power of tradition within Protestant communities. Repeated jargon-like, religiously
correct, and striking a pious pose, every one supposedly understands subtle nuances apart from
any grounding in Scripture. Here custom – confessional traditionalism, if you will – prompts a
limiting code and separating force, if not in place of the Word, then next to the Word, a language
of Jerusalem. Only initiates understand this form of communication, unknowingly compromising
the sovereignty of the Scriptures.
3) Power to grow tradition appears in liturgical observances and practices: this way we have
worshiped since times immemorial; it is the way of our forebears. After the last liturgical
overhaul, never again. Breakages of liturgical traditionalism inspire fear of change. For that
reason, liturgical wars happen, cultural conflicts, because some members want changing or
retaining past rites, neither party acknowledging biblically the conventions of liturgy.
Thus, even communities that pride themselves on the mighty sola Scriptura fall victim to
blood-congealing traditionalism. In fact, the louder this sola, the stronger the customs and
traditions to mark the absence of the Spirit. Then, amidst shuffling-into-place conventions,
preaching follows and fails.
Tradition’s power is inescapable. “In the actual course of historical theology there has been
constant appeal to the authority of scripture. But this has operated in different ways. Quite often
the appeal to scriptures is not an appeal to the originating source of the particular theological
90
H. Cunliffe-Jones, ed., A History of Christian Doctrine (Edinburgh; T&T Clark, 1978/1970, p. 405.
Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 110 – “Can we begin to admit that the Bible is, in and of itself, insufficient?
The Bible is surely a gift of God, but it is not a magic book.”
50
conviction, but to confirmatory evidence for a conviction already reached.” 91 Tradition then
chokes the life out of the Church and out of the proclamation of the Word.
Pharisaical Traditionalism
Long ago, nervous about a world falling into ruins, Pharisees insolently demanded of Jesus,
cf. Mt. 15:2p – “Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?” The Lord
responded by pointing out that for the sake of their tradition Pharisees voided the word of God.
Mark passed on the same altercation, cf. 7:3ff., and Luke too, cf. 11:38ff. According to Mark,
this rattling traditionalism took away from the Word and lived on, with a terrible influence, as a
precept of man.
Paul also spurned the pharisaical “traditions of my fathers,” cf. Gal. 1:14. The negative
power of this tradition the Apostle to the Gentiles emphasized even more in Col. 2:8 as human
convention. When people of the Church, as the Pharisees were, ‘liberate’ traditions from
subjection to the Word, these ways of life take on a separate existence, before which the
Scriptures must give way. Then the formulation of Scriptures and Tradition appears, even
Tradition and the Word, resisting the invincible and lively sola Scriptura.
Traditions, or even Tradition, ought to be faithfully and rigorously subjected to the authority
of the Word. Is what we traditionally believe and do actually in accordance with the will of Jesus
Christ, the Head of the Church? Repeated examination and persistent subjection to Scriptures
only brings about sanctification, reformation, of traditions.
Tradition remains intimate to the Church, inescapably, both in doctrine and in life. Cf. I Cor.
11:2 – “I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions
even as I have delivered them to you.” Paul, as apostle, spoke therefore of “my ways,” cf. I Cor.
4:17. Much the same he wrote in his second letter to the Church at Thessalonica, cf. 2:15 – “So
then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word
of mouth or by letter.” In this way, traditions and conventions, in both doctrine and life live on in
the Church, uncorrupted by ideologies and idolatries.
Under the yoke of Christ, however, we judge even most reasonable and oldest conventions in
the light of the Scriptures by contrasting and comparing, lest what passes for legitimate doctrine
and life is “… not in accord with the traditions that you have received from us,” cf. II Thes. 3:6.
Lest traditions and conventions become eisegetical forces on the loose in the Church. In every
biblical critique of tradition appears a ‘self-renewing’ factor, if wielded in the light of sound
exegetical guidelines.
The matter of tradition applies very much to preaching; it is our custom to hear a sermon at
the heart of every worship service. We have to judge whether this convention loiters about on the
edge of the Faith or qualifies as a living tradition, first in form and content, fully subject to the
Word. Unexamined traditions take away from or add to the Bible, a sin avoided only when we
believe that Christ judges our customs and traditions as much as our hearts.
91
Cunliffe-Jones, op. cit., p. 14.
51
II
Amidst streams of unending social and economic changes in the Church, another add on/take
away eisegetical type invaded the Body of Christ, Higher Criticism. From this Higher Criticism,
which comes under a guise of objective/scientific clarity, we need to protect preaching.
Higher Criticism, opened up critically, alleges insight into every preaching unit. “One must
… apply sophisticated rules and tools of historical analysis to a given biblical text, because one
cannot understand the text without understanding it true context. Presumably anybody who
applies the correct historical tools will be able to understand the text.” 92 Higher Critical experts
with unbounded eisegetical conceit find the literal text of the Bible quite insufficient and
unscientific, misleading; they seek to go behind the Bible to prove that what is written reflects
less than the truth – in accordance with departing visions of 19th century scientific
preoccupations.
This Higher Criticism came in simple-sounding guises – Source Criticism, Form Criticism,
Redactional Criticism, etc. Each represents a snake pit of intertwining problems, one of which is
that Criticism remains the field of expertise and thus exercises hierarchical control over the
Word, which stifles exegetical passion in the Church. This hierarchical management leaves
biblical students mesmerized by deepening unease over the fact that though Christ calls us to
read the Bible we are unable. And if unable, eventually who cares even to try? This is how
Higher Criticism works with a preaching unit:
“One takes up a text with tweezers and looks at it from afar, under glass, and from every
possible angle, subjecting it to various tests and, like a good medical student performing the
tasks of dissection on a cadaver, taking great care to record the results and come to a judicious
conclusion or two, supported of course by the evidence.” 93
Due to prior determinations about a text’s meaning in terms of 19th century scientific
preoccupations, this fettering method of eisegesis erases Christ Jesus from the preaching unit; in
fact, seduced by pride, it makes a text a dead letter. Such counsel of discouragement trounces
trust in the Word and in preaching.
It must be said in distinction from all types of Criticism that another, more positive, overrules
the powers of negative thinking: literary criticism. This literary criticism works with the oldest
and best manuscripts copied from the autographa. It seeks the most original and authentic
reading of a preaching unit, especially were a discrepancy exists between readings based on two
scrolls.
Case in point 048 – on Hosea 6:7a. The RSV reads – “But at Adam they transgressed the
covenant.” An alternative reading in a footnote has – “But like Adam they transgressed the
covenant.” A word change makes the reading of one text go off into inscrutable darkness.
92
Stanley Hauerwas & William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: A provocative Christian assessment of culture and
ministry for people who know that something is wrong (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989), p. 163.
93
Gomes, The Good Book, op. cit., p. 340.
52
Literary critics seek to eliminate confusion by searching for the original wording in the oldest
manuscripts.
Distinct from literary criticism, however, Higher Critics, in order to choke off exegetical
passion, wander about with the text and try to tease out on a rationalistic footing its actual
meaning. Thereto, they ‘found’ various sources. One of these ‘original’ sources they named J,
another E, a third D, then a P source, and a Q. Finished categorizing the sources, they assumed
that out these J-E-D-P-Q sources various editors and redactors patched the Bible together. From
these sources, which no one ever found, Critics pontificate: Bible writers Moses and Paul ‘cut
and pasted’ what they wanted or needed to write the Word of God. Some parts of the Bible
supposedly came from a Jahwist writer, hence J; other parts from an Elohist writer, hence E; or
from a Deuteronomic writer, or from a Priestly source; the four Gospels, supposedly came from
a Quelle. The Holy Spirit makes these extrabiblical sources more difficult to find than the
Chronicles of the Kings of Judah and Israel; at least, those are mentioned, cf. I Chron. 29:29; II
Chron. 9:29; etc. Proponents of Higher Criticism, epigones really, vie for academic respectability
even while they upset honesty in Christ Jesus. To them one of Martin Luther’s maxims well
applies – “I should prefer all my books to perish that only the Bible might be read, for other
books take up our attention and make us neglect the Bible.” 94 This is very true with respect to
Criticism’s imaginary sources.
Christians, on the other hand, hold out the startling and holy conviction: with total
commitment and sincerity, we believe that through the inscripturated work of the Holy Spirit we
have the only extant Word with which to work. This Book actually exists and the Holy Spirit
persuades us with enlarging trust to believe that the Bible is the Word of God.
Whether Higher Critical experts function as language analysts, linguists, or highly qualified
translators, we weigh and measure their findings and conclusions, or as hapless losers swallow
whole even the worst of their errors. This weighing and measuring applies to ministers’
scriptural interpretation/application too, as the Beroeans evaluated Paul’s proclamation. Such
testing in this labor of love reflects exegetical sensitivity as well as maturing. Nothing may be
accepted as true because an expert has spoken, no matter how large his reputation, or how high
on a pedestal he stands, or how numerous a following trails him or her. Nor may any such
specialist instill in us the cowardice of silence.
Case in point 049 – on John 16:13p. Knowledge of and working with exegetical sensitivity
reveals first of all a labor of faith, which constitutes a working of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
Christ promised that the Third Person leads all his into the truth of the Scriptures. We may as the
Church discern, never individualistically as ordinary believers, a text’s structure apart from
Higher Criticism.
Case in point 050 – on Mt. 5:14-16. The Lord Jesus’ charge to his own to be lights fits as a
brick in the bridge between the two Testaments. The first part, obviously declarative and
descriptive, rewords Is. 58:8 and 60:1. The second part, prescriptive, reaches out to Acts 13:47 as
well as Eph. 5:1ff. Immediate recognition of these major distinctions within a reasonable
preaching unit, descriptive and prescriptive, enables us to begin listening. However, if a minister,
94
Kerr, op. cit., p. 16.
53
a Q-expert, shuffles in an extrabiblical source for interpreting and applying this text, how shall
we weigh the word he speaks, trusting it as the word of the Lord?
With Higher Critical looseness of documentation, any New Testament preaching unit may
still wind up buried under either the Primitive Gospel Hypothesis, the Fragment Hypothesis, the
Tradition Hypothesis, or the Utilization Hypothesis, 95 plus a feeling of numbness.
A hypothesis is: an assumption or speculation used as a basis for interpretation.
Hypotheses to support various Higher Criticisms represent nothing more than elusive haunts
for powers and principalities in the heavenly places. Once a minister mires a preaching unit in a
Criticism or Hypothesis, its meaning for the Church hides in troubled regions of ignorance,
accommodation, and compromise.
Case in point 051 – on Prov. 13:17. This preaching unit forms part of the rich heritage of
wisdom literature the Author grants the Church. Some wisdom sayings consist of contrasts, as
this text, others of synonymous parts, the second enriching the first. Recognizing wisdom
literature, whether in Proverbs, the Psalms, or elsewhere, helps grasp the spoken word, for we
distinguish one type of literature in the Bible from another. However, if a minister believes
through Higher Criticism that Proverbs was compiled after the Exile for an emergent Judaism, 96
that is, Pharisaism, then this text becomes suspect: it may be legalistic literature. One thing of
which we need less in the Church is legalism. Who on Christ’s watch dares to bring legalism
within a house of worship and thereby deny the grace of salvation?
Always, exegetical passion and sensitivity fight against eisegesis as opened up in the brood
of Higher Critical speculations and against hypothetical supports full of disturbing notions.
Obviously now, exegetical interests are far from a diversionary pastime.
III
Another type of eisegesis promising a false dawn distributes the interpretive triangle. This
currently popular approach to Bible interpretation considers three factors – the author of the text,
the text itself, and the reader. Of the three, the reader of course exercises the most determining
influence. “To read is to interpret. This is neither an esoteric nor a subtle point, but when it
comes to the reading and interpretation of the Bible it is a point that cannot be made too often or
too clearly. A text may have a life of its own, but that life depends upon the author who gave it
life, investing it with an intention, a purpose, and a meaning. The text therefore already
participates in something other than itself; it participates in, and at least initially gives expression
to, the intent of the author. To tease out the relationship of the text and its author is a responsible
task, but that of course is not the only task of reading, for there is also whatever the reader brings
to and finds in the text, and eventually takes from the text. This relationship among author, text,
and reader is known in the literary trade as the ‘interpretive triangle,’ and since readers seldom
read in isolation, and since texts, especially sacred or religious texts, are generally held in
95
Werner Georg Kummel, ed., Introduction to the New Testament, tr. A.J. Mattill, Jr. (New York: Abingdon,
1965/66), pp. 37f.
96
John Bright, A History of Israel (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1959), p. 424.
54
community, the interpretive triangle itself has a context, a set of circumstances that surround it
and to which it responds. This context we call the ‘community of interpretation.’” 97 The danger
of this ‘exegetical’ method, even allowing for the stabilizing influence of an escort ‘community
of interpretation,’ almost jumps off the page: the reader chooses the sense of the text, not the
Exegete, nor the Author.
The drivenness of this interpretive triangle may be stated more simply. “The dynamic quality
of scripture has to do with the fact that while the text itself does not change, we who read the
Bible do change; it is not that we adapt ourselves to the world of the Bible and play at recreating
it as a pageant or tableau ‘long ago and far away.’ Rather, it is that the text actually adapts itself
to our capacity to hear it. Thus we hear not as first-century Christians, not even as eighteenthcentury Christians, but as men and women alive here and now. We hear the same texts that our
ancestors heard but we hear them not necessarily as they heard them, but only as we can …. In
this sense, then scripture is both transformed and transformative; that is to say, our understanding
of what it says and means evolves, and so do we as a result. This transformation does not always
repudiate what was before, but it does always transcend it.” 98 The appealing premise of this
eisegetical method is simple: as soon as we settle the interpretive triangle in place, the reader, the
minister, ‘selects’ his own exegesis and application, according to a reductionist religious
tradition, belief system, or spiritual path with diminishing responsibility for the preaching unit.
And listening, we make up our own interpretation, multiplying confusion.
Every sort of interpretive triangle, though widely supported and acclaimed, remains but an
eddy in time. Each triangle in its own way pushes aside the Author as well as seeks to escape
from the text. If Moses and Paul, for instance, did not mean what they wrote, as insisted upon in
Higher Critical circles, and if the Gospels are subject to hypotheses, then the Bible turns into a
collection of irrelevancies, loose stones, hardly worth exegetical passion. With the interpretive
triangle the minister’s own opinions receive priority and authority. This too is eisegesis.
Taking stock for a moment: over centuries and through constant usage, various methods of
eisegesis gained legitimacy. Whether by way of Tradition, Higher Criticism, or interpretive
triangles, histories of interpretation developed, which emptied every preaching text of its
original, Spirit-intended meaning and purpose. Each manifestation achieves measures of
authority next to, or even in place of, the Bible, forming barriers to sound interpretation. These
hurdles and snubs to interpreting Scriptures seduce the Church to slave away with mystifying
alchemies, which infringe upon the foundational facts of sound preaching.
Eisegetical Attractions
Members of the Church given to sloth and thirsting for illusions of peace may never hear
various eisegetical barriers promoted as the word of the Lord. The indolent in respective
congregations prefer learning to live with and/or ignore illegitimate interpretation of the Word,
and application as well. They do not let eisegesis register even as painful background noise; they
are quite willing to adjust to frustrations and aggravation caused by pretentious ‘exegesis;’
throughout successive periods of Church History they have shown unwillingness to learn the
97
98
Gomes, The Good Book, op. cit., p. 26.
Ibid., p. 20.
55
way of the Lord with respect to the proclamation of the Word. Meanwhile, opponents of the Lord
Jesus, comfortably ensconced in the Church, push more eisegetical mystification of the Word;
everything in the Body of Christ in this way moves as they will. Because of the sordid history of
multiple absurdities of interpretation, all in Christ have a major calling.
The manner in which the prophets, including John the Baptizer, and the apostles interpreted
the Old Testament differs by far from the allegorization of the early church, from the
Scholasticism of the High Middle Ages, from 17-19th century liberalism, and radically now from
neo-Gnosticism and postmodernism. As much as the latter two are alive and kicking, the older
ones have by no means kicked the can. All to varying degrees cut deadly swaths of destruction
through the Church. Each inflames conceit, knowing better than the Holy Spirit. Each advocates
a narrowing view of the Bible. Each demands pride-of-place eisegesis. Each succumbs to thumb
sucking. Today, and this is a matter for deep smart, together these interpretive barriers establish
with all religious solemnity storm centers, which eisegesis is, it seems, by far preferable over
exegesis. Rather than stop and overcome crosscurrents of hostile influence, eisegesis hollows out
the Faith even more.
To clarify: out of many major eisegetical barriers to the Word, each has its own longer or
shorter history of biblical mismanagement. Each in its own way jumped to conclusions to secure
an eisegetical purchase on Bible interpretation and translation.
I
Allegorism in gripping ways offers stones for bread. This early interpretive system, with
outward righteousness, leaves a trail of dying and dead faith. Even though, ostensibly, it intents
to move members of the Church from elementary to maturing faith, the opposite takes place. To
wit:
“Certainly it is much more exciting for the congregation to hear an eloquent sermon on a
passage that they had no idea meant what the preacher is taking it to mean than to listen through
a careful exposition of what a passage plainly says!
In short, much allegorical exposition arises from the need for rhetorical effect. Unfortunately,
to the extent that the congregation learns thereby to look for ‘hidden meanings’ in the text, to that
extent the text is subjected to greater distortions or else it is removed from the common believer
who is unable to produce exegetical surprises.” 99
99
Moises Silva, ed., Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), p. 56.
Best, op. cit., p. 58 – “This method of interpreting literature was widespread in the ancient world. There were
those who, not wishing to abandon all connection with the ancient myths of the gods, took these legends and
allegorized them so that philosophical truth could be derived from them. Philo, the Alexandrian Jew, used the
method extensively in relation to the Old Testament. He even gave rules about where it should be used: the literal
sense is inadmissible where the text says something unworthy of God, e.g., uses an anthropomorphism, or involves
Scriptures in contradictions (Gen. 4:17: there are not yet enough people for a city to be built by Cain, where did he
get his wife?), or contains something which is manifestly allegorical, e.g., the speaking serpent (Genesis 3). The
early Christians took over this method from their contemporaries. We find Origen utilizing it extensively.”
56
Now, ministers with stranger-than-fiction insights draw surprises out of preaching units the
way magicians conjure up rabbits. This illegitimate sort of interpretation of biblical contents
appeals to congregants who do not, nor desire to know the Scriptures.
Allegorical preachers, other than from clearly stipulated texts (cf. Judges 9:7ff.; Ez. 17:1ff.,
24:3; Gal. 4:21ff.; etc.) seek to carve out of biblical units seemingly clever insights. However,
only desperate servants of the Word with pious solemnity find this subversive method attractive;
desperate, they have to make a text relevant. Preachers steeped in allegorical knowledge and thus
entangled in this eisegetical system 100 run “… away from historical relations into relations
entirely unhistorical and metaphysical.” 101 Allegorism supports badly-out-of-date readingbetween-the-lines adrift on human fancy and fantasy, easily demonstrated from a variety of
sources, which promote the authority of allegorical traditions.
Case in point 052 – on Lk. 10:30ff. Aurelius Augustine (354-430) plunged the parable of the
Good Samaritan into allegorical mode. In an abridged form: 102
“A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho; Adam himself is meant;
Jerusalem is the heavenly city of peace, from whose blessedness Adam fell; Jericho means the
moon, and signifies our mortality, because it is born, waxes, wanes, and dies. Thieves are the
devil and his angels. Who stripped him, namely, of his immortality; and beat him, by
persuading him to sin; and left him half-dead, because in so far as man can understand and
know God, he lives, but in so far as he is wasted and oppressed by sin, he is dead; he is therefore
called half-dead. The priest and Levite who saw him and passed by, signify the priesthood and
ministry of the Old Testament, which could profit nothing for salvation. Samaritan means
Guardian, and therefore the Lord Himself is signified by this name. The binding of the wounds
is the restraint of sin. Oil is the comfort of good hope; wine the exhortation to work with a
fervent spirit. The beast is the flesh in which he deigned to come to us. The being set upon the
beast is belief in the incarnation of Christ. The inn is the Church, where travellers returning to
their heavenly country are refreshed after pilgrimage. The morrow is after the resurrection of the
Lord. The two pence are either the two precepts of love, or the promise of this life and of that
which is to come. The innkeeper is the Apostle (Paul). The supererogatory payment is either his
counsel of celibacy, or the fact that he worked with his own hands lest he should be a burden to
any of the weaker brethren when the Gospel was new, though it was lawful for him ‘to live by
the Gospel.’”
100
Often placed in the same camp as allegory is typological preaching by means of which a specific biblical
personage becomes an example for the Church.
Ritchl, op. cit., pp. 167f. – “The typological approach is as old as the Biblical texts, for the Bible itself uses it. It
has been used since the time of the Early Church fathers, although almost always bordering on the dangerous
method of ‘allegory,’ with which it has often been identified.”
Best, op. cit., p. 62 – “Associated with allegorization as a method of interpretation is spiritualization. Blindness
signifies the closed mind, and so the giving of sight to the blind is understood spiritually as the opening of the mind
to God. Leprosy signifies sin, and so cleansing from leprosy is understood spiritually as cleansing from sin. Storm
signifies trial and persecution, and so Jesus’ quelling of the storm indicates spiritually the preservation of the Church
in peril and persecution. Notice that all these three examples have been drawn from Scripture. The method is widely
used in the gospels in relation to the great works of Jesus, and it is often the way in which it is advocated that the
miracles should be understood.”
101
Barr, op. cit., p. 59, #2.
102
C.H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1961), pp. 1ff.
57
Case in point 053. “I once heard a man preach on the Good Samaritan. Here were his truths.
… he said, the Good Samaritan is a type of Christ; the wounded man is the type of sinner; the
pouring in of the oil and wine is the type of the Saviour’s work; the inn is the type of the Church;
he gave him two shillings, which means ‘having food and raiment, be therewith content.’” 103
Case in point 054 – on John 2:1ff. “Even the seemingly innocent miracle at Cana is
interpreted in the form of anti-Jewish polemic, a fact that could easily be missed in our …
fascination with the matter of wine and water. At the hands of a good exegete, the wine that had
been exhausted quickly became the old covenant, the law, or the Jews; and the new wine, the
best, which was served last and caused the comment of praise and surprise, this was the gospel
now preached by Jesus. Within the very first miracle in this gospel the distinction is made
between those who followed the old way, the Jews, and those who were now the beneficiaries of
the new, the followers of Jesus, who became Christians.” 104
Case in point 055 – on Gal. 6:17. “In Bunyan’s timeless allegory of the pilgrim’s progress
toward the celestial city, Christian at the cross received four gifts from the angels – peace, new
garments, a mark, and a sealed scroll. The mark had to do with Christian’s appearance; it
distinguished him from worldly men and identified him as a follower of Christ. We too may have
distinguishing signs of God’s grace. Kindness and compassion, gentleness and goodness, honesty
and fidelity – these are some of the marks of Jesus that distinguish Christians and plainly exhibit
the grace of God within them.” 105
Case in point 056. “Take, for example, almost any typical sermon preached on the text,
‘They let out four anchors from the stern, and prayed for day to come.’(Acts 27:29).
Development of this text comes to focus upon the four anchors. There is no logical necessity for
the choice of any particular ‘anchor,’ so the outline of this sermon might be:
I Introduction: statement of background of text.
II Body: our need for anchors.
A. Faith.
B. Courage.
C. Christian fellowship.
D. Divine encouragement.
III Conclusion: challenge to listener to ‘cast out four anchors’ and find personal security.” 106
Case in point 057 – on John 21:5f. “Cast your net in some other area, in some other place.
Try something else, something new, something different, try responding to the invitation that
Jesus Christ gives us. For so many of us, living consists of maintaining unfulfilled lives, doing
what we do because we cannot imagine doing anything else. When Jesus says to try the other
103
G. Campbell Morgan, Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974), p. 75. In this mixing of allegory and typology the
misinterpretation of I Tim. 6:8, on food and clothing, adds to the ‘magic’ of allegorism.
104
Gomes, The Good Book, op. cit., p. 115.
105
Joseph A. Hill, “The Marks of Jesus,” in James W. Cox, ed., Best Sermons 1 (HarperSanFrancisco, 1988), p.
112.
106
Garrison, op. cit., pp. 158f.
58
side, he is offering new life to those who are trapped in making a living and not in making a
life.” 107
Case in point 058 – on Lk. 5:4. “Jesus told his disciples: ‘Launch out into the deep.’ Spiritual
rebirth means that we have to live the life of a mature individual person: we can no longer be
cushioned and protected and insulated against the heat and cold of life. Often one hears people
say: ‘If only we could rely on the authority of Mother Church and place ourselves unreservedly
under her protection.’ Let us be quite clear that such people are very far indeed from spiritual
rebirth. Indeed, they are going in the opposite direction.” 108
Case in point 059. “… a minister of an unnamed denomination who always got around to the
subject of baptism, no matter what the text he began. On one occasion he preached from the first
chapter of Genesis on the story of creation. He finally got around to the fact that God, in creating
the earth, had covered about three fourths of the earth’s surface with water. Since water bulked
so large in God’s mind, it was, therefore, most surely the divine intention that all men should be
baptized.” 109
Case in point 060. “One of my friends, a Lutheran, used to marvel at his pastor: ‘No matter
his topic, at the end, he always ties it to communion. Some weeks I’ve thought, No way. But he
always does it. He could tie biblical genealogies to the Lord Supper.’” 110
Case in point 061 – on Ex. 27:1, 30:2, 37:1-9, 38:1, 39:9; I Kings 7:30-34; Ez. 48:20; Rev.
21:16. “Praise the Lord! Do you see it? The redeemed of the Lord are to offer a foursquare
oblation before a foursquare altar, whilst gazing upon Jesus Christ our High Priest as He wears
upon His breast a foursquare breastplate, and at last through His infinite mercy are to be carried
to a Foursquare City to worship about the Throne before which the four and twenty elders bow
down, crying, ‘Holy, holy, holy,’ and around which the hundred and forty-four thousand lift their
voices in glad Hosannas to the glorious King.
Why all these ‘foursquares’? What is the meaning thereof? Foursquare stands for balance,
poise, solidity, strength and speed.” 111
Normal people listen with rapt attention to such allegoristic ‘discoveries.’ These intricate
manipulations of preaching texts surprise time and again. However, all in the Spirit, at hearing
such exploitation of the Word, experience rending shock.
Allegorists ‘find’ on thin conviction and less proof wonderfully odd and unsubstantiated
properties inside words, and thereby shatter the well-entrenched eschatological pattern of the
Word. “Given a wide-ranging typological or allegorical interpretation, such as has been practiced
during long ages of church history, the Bible can be made to mean things quite opposed to the
107
Gomes, op. cit., p. 84.
Hugh Montefiore, “Birth and Rebirth,” in Hugh Montefiore, ed., Sermons from Great St Mary’s (London:
Collins/Fontana, 1968), p. 68. This critique of a false crisis hits home the vagaries of allegorism.
109
D.G. Miller, op. cit., pp. 91f.
110
Mark Galli & Craig B. Larson, Preaching That Connects: Using the Techniques of Journalists to Add Impact to
Your Sermons (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), p. 129.
111
Aimee Semple McPherson, “The Foursquare Gospel – A Balanced Gospel” in Advance, Vol. 38, #3,
January/February 2002, p. 5.
108
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sense disclosed by a historical reading.” 112 It is a form of eisegesis, illegitimately waging war on
the literal sense of the Bible, moving away from historical facts and relations into unhistorical
and fantastic meanings, both in terms of analysis and relevance.
Apparently, this seemingly unhorsable method, old as it is, remains popular Sunday fare
because of a conjecture. “The assumption – namely, that every little swatch of scripture contains
some sort of Word of God – is that preachers and teachers squeeze moral and spiritual meanings
out of disparate passages, apparently under the illusion that any and every bit of scriptural
writing contains a magic God-message.” 113 With it ministers pry and hammer unwarranted
information from preaching units and conclude sermons with highly unlikely applications. With
respect to unfitting conclusions, some ministers no matter what the text concoct spiced-up altar
calls, solutions to marriage/family problems, necessities of meditation and prayer, the Church as
the place of security from secular controversies, the need for ecumenicity, reveling in universal
love, better race relations – whatever.
Allegorism is: despising the literal sense of Scriptures and extracting from any text
speculative meanings.
Finding that the literal sense of Scriptures yields only elementary faith, allegorists open up
what matters most – hidden meanings to secure listening attention. In other words, “… we may
define the method as requiring the presence of an elite group of interpreters – spiritual, mature
believers who alone are given the key to the deeper meaning of Scripture.” 114 Experts! This
dodges the perspicuity of the Bible and underrates the mettle of the office of the congregation.
Worse, allegorism blasphemes the Spirit.
In brief, allegorism espouses baseless ideals to belittle the temporal and spatial, to make
figurative language out of plain words, 115 therewith to construct walls of mistrust against
preaching, and consequently against the Lord of the Church. Gripping, this ominous eisegesis
offers stones for bread; with apparent righteousness and honed by constant usage, allegorists
leave a trail of death, even though, ostensibly, they intent to move members of the Church from
elementary to mature faith.
II
1) Scholasticism, unassailable throughout the High Middle Ages (1200-1400 A.D.), reads the
Bible as a book that contains various sorts of truth to supplement natural knowledge. This
eisegetical system by using pagan Aristotle’s philosophic categories, as interpreted by Thomas
Aquinas, endorses Scriptures’ truth. With Scholastic categories, one can prove fundamental
principles, such as the existence of God, through intellectual reasoning. Then the Bible informs
Scholastics with information regarding the characteristics of God.
Regarding the origins of Scholasticism – “… when truth was increasingly corrupted by the
speculations of philosophy and by the introduction of Jewish doctrines relative to ceremonies
112
Barr, op. cit., p. 128.
Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 16.
114
Silva, op. cit., p. 60.
115
Feinberg, op. cit., p. 94.
113
60
and the priesthood; when a certain reserve was injected into preaching and when this reserve was
considered a justifiable and wise instrument to be used to avoid offending anyone and to reach
the greatest number, according to the famous doctrine of economy; when the Church began to
use means and powers other than those of the word of God alone; when Christian worship
became cluttered with pagan rites and the people’s confidence turned from God and Christ to the
Virgin and the saints, then the shadows of night engulfed the Church, and the darkness became
increasingly heavy, until truth and light were almost totally obscured.” 116 This succinctly opens
the Scholastic problem – Tradition augments the Bible.
In Scholasticism, it is held, human intellect remains little affected by sin, which allows for an
elemental trust in the powers of reasoning. As such Scholasticism strongly signals an academic
discipline comfortable within various Roman Catholic schools of thought, which explain the
Bible by way of a closed, logical, and numbing system of thinking.
Scholasticism is: a rationalistic system of Bible interpretation dominated by Aristotle’s or
even Plato’s (d. B.C. 347) theological/philosophical ideas.
Case in point 062. “… Catholic faith combined a pretentious rationalism with its sense of
poetry. Any careful reading of the works of Thomas Aquinas must impress the thoughtful
student with the element of pretension which informs the flowering of the Catholic faith in the
‘golden’ thirteenth century. There seems to be no mystery which is not carefully dissected; and
no dark depth of evil which is not fully explained and no height of existence which is not scaled.
The various attributes of God are all carefully defined and related to each other.” 117
Scholasticism, original to Roman Catholicism, thus controlled and overshadowed the
Scriptures and, hence, developed preaching with a pagan rationalism.
2) Upon the 16th-century Reformation, second- and third generation reformers, epigones,
pursued scriptural interpretation according to the Scholastic tradition, Neo-Scholasticism, in
order to debate and compete with Roman Catholic scholars. With this Neo-Scholasticism, a
rationalistic maneuvering, balance-makers introduced the old leaven of intellectualism as the
dominant factor in reformation thinking, but then ceased to be reformatory. They who favored
this Neo-Scholastic rationalism interpreted covenant revelation according to Federal Theology.
Neo-Scholasticism is: a post-Reformation movement in Protestantism reviving the
interpretive methods of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 A.D.).
Federal Theology is: late 16th-century thinking that through Neo-Scholastic categories
devolved covenant revelation into conjectural covenants of redemption, works, and grace.
Circa 1550 A.D., this Neo-Scholastic rationalism found favor in the world of the
Reformation. “In the post-reformers more attention was given both to analytic and synthetic
form. The sermons of Luther and Calvin broke away with a certain joyous freedom from the
116
Marcel, op. cit., p. 23.
Reinhold Niebuhr, “Mystery and Meaning,” in G. Paul Butler, ed., Best Sermons - 1946 Edition (New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1946), p. 55.
117
61
trammels of the scholastic method. … Yet traces of the rigid analysis of the schools inevitably
appeared in the preaching of the Reformers; and the study of homiletics naturally tended to the
reinstatement of this method. As is often the case in such matters, a needed improvement went
too far. In much of the preaching of the period under review there is too much stiff and formal
division of sermons. Another characteristic of the later reformatory preaching is that it becomes
too theological and less expository. This was due to two things: (1) A natural advancement in
theological thinking; (2) The prevalence of dogmatic controversy. Thus after the free expository
methods of the earlier Reformers there arose a more topical and discursive style.” 118 PostReformers shackled themselves to Roman Catholic rationalism to meet opponents on their own
ground, a recipe for defeat. And, the Reformation expired.
At issue in both Scholasticism and Neo-Scholasticism moves the human need for a rational,
yes, a rationalistic basis, in order to harmonize the Faith, the Church, etc., according to
intellectualized principles. Even though Scriptures declare forthright that Christ Jesus is the only
foundation for the Faith and the Church, cf. I Cor. 3:11, or, to change this analogy, he is the
cornerstone, with the apostles and the prophets the foundation, cf. Eph. 2:20; Rev. 21:14, many
of the Body sought to rationalize revelation. Whether the one or the other analogy, Christ Jesus
alone determines the fundamentals of the Faith and the Church, everything beyond challenge
scripturally revealed. However, Scholastics and neo-Scholastics seek a human and rationally
harmonized foundation. To this end, Neo-Scholastics required a second foundation – a
naturalistic base for reconnecting to underachieving paganism.
Notice how in the following cases in point a rationalistic basis supports the Faith, the Church,
even Christology, according to the Scholastics’ eisegetical tradition.
Case in point 063. “We may approach the matter in no better way than by thinking of what
we may call the religious experience of Plato. That mighty Athenian turned from the transient,
unstable and unsatisfactory life about him to find something deeper and permanent and
satisfying. This he found in the eternal ideas. He dared to believe in an invisible perfection in
spite of the visible imperfections. And he saw the world of man and his experience as only a
mirage unless it participated in the reality of the eternal ideas. The faith in indestructible
goodness in the ultimate universe in spite of the evil in the world, in an indestructible beauty in
spite of the ugliness of the world, in an indestructible truth in spite of the falsehood in the world
is the very genius of Platonism. … The ideas must be alive in God. So they ceased to be
abstraction and entered the very fabric of perfect being. And at every deepest place in his life
man is related to this perfect being. Reality is in the perfect life of God and the shared life of
men. In man at his best you get hints of what God is perfectly and forever. The ultimate life is a
perfect reality of conscious being. And as he participates in that which comes from this perfect
life man finds his own life based on truth and beauty and goodness.” 119
Case in point 064. “Our country was established by men and women who believed in God.
They know it was belief in God that sets men free and keeps them free. When a man believes in
God no one thereafter can ever permanently enslave him. Erase that belief in God and anything
118
Edwin C. Dargan, A History of Preaching, II (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974), p. 12.
Lynn H. Hough, “The Religion of the Incarnation,” in G. Paul Butler, ed., Best Sermons: 1946 Edition (New
York: Harper & Brothers, 1946), pp. 65f.
119
62
can happen. I love my country. I believe most of you gathered here this morning do so as well.
We call upon you to come back to Him and His Church and His book. Help your country regain
its greatness, which cannot be measured by the size of its budget, not by the size of its national
debt, which is a disgrace, not by the number of bureaus, 120 which are increasing on every
hand.” 121
Case in point 065. “… Christ is only a manikin whom we dress up as we will. In time of war
the militarists place him a uniform. At any time the laboring man gives him overalls, the
advertising man a gabardine, the socialist a tuxedo, and the mystic robes him in the flowing
garments of an oriental sage.” 122
Other such ‘pictures’ in the same ‘Bainton’ sermon present him as a gentle Jesus, a business
man, a founder of modern business, a humanitarian, a contemplative, a great lover of all who
suffer. In fact, socialists want a socialist, revolutionaries a revolutionary, conservatives a
conservative, liberals a liberal, Arminians an Arminian, Lutherans a Lutheran, Calvinists a
Calvinist, Americans an American, etc. It is important to recognize that each of these pictures
confuses Jesus with a rational, intellectual idea, as Scholastic as any of the Scholastics,
practicing a form of magic with Scriptures. To continue with this fashion theme, if clothing
makes the Man, according to contemporary standards, the ‘picture’ of Jesus conforms to a Jew
comfortable everywhere.
III
Liberalism, or modernism, gathered steam in the 19th century. In the wake of the French
Revolution and the Enlightenment, this immense movement further restrained Jesus Christ’s
sovereignty ecclesiastically and publicly. “To the church’s detriment, modernity’s influence
pushed christian faith out of the public arena. The Enlightenment argued that there’s a public
world of science and reason, and a private world of belief and values; the church bought into
this. Faith then became ‘a heart religion,’ divorced from the real, empirical world… God was not
seen to be actively involved in the real world except in a private, subjective encounter within the
believer.” 123 Liberalism’s immediate roots and dubious purposes lie then in very man-centered
storminess of rebellion against Jesus Christ. Restlessly, modernists in the Church denied the
Lord of heaven and earth his rightful rule.
Case in point 066. “For some centuries the intellectual life of modern man has been
dominated by rebellion against Medieval faith. The main outlines of modern culture are defined
by modern man’s faith in science and his defiance of the authority of religion. This conflict
120
Bureau = office = department.
William S. Meyer, “The Anatomy of Freedom,” in G. Paul Butler, ed., Best Sermons, Vol. IX, 1964 (Protestant
Edition), (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1964), p. 227. Here, Americanism, of a revolutionary spirit, is foundational
to the Church; the Church stands and falls with the United States of America.
Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium (New York: Doubleday, 1998), p. 59 – “As
one man put it an Ohio church meeting during a debate on freezing the deployment of nuclear missiles, ‘You’ve got
to remember: we are Christians, but we’re Americans first.”
122
Roland H. Bainton, “Pictures of Jesus,” in G. Paul Butler, Best Sermons, Vol. IX, 1964 (Protestant Edition),
(New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1964), p. 162.
123
Graham Johnston, Preaching to a Postmodern World: A Guide to Reaching Twenty-first-Century Listeners
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), pp. 119f.
121
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between the faith which flowered in the thirteenth century and that which flowered in the
seventeenth and eighteenth century is a conflict between two forms of faith, which in their
different ways obscured the depth of the mystery of life and made the core of meaning too
large.” 124
Distinct from and contrary to the violently intolerant forces of the French Revolution (17891799), liberalism on a rational footing was fully committed to tolerate all sorts of religious forms
and ideas – in the spirit of the Enlightenment. By subordinating theological and confessional
differences, this tolerance arrived at a single proviso: all had to be in rebellion against the God of
the Scriptures, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in order that man take first place. Thus,
the main tenet, agreement to disagree on doctrines, had at its core a common unity, revolution.
Within quagmires of liberalism, Higher Criticism mushroomed, questioning the facticity of
biblical events. It came to dominate and carry the rebellion further, making the Word another,
albeit important, book among books. Miracles, by means of scientific reasoning were changed
into natural phenomena, leading to the denial of the Incarnation and the Resurrection. The
forcible development of evolutionism also came to take over all scriptural interpretation,
dissolving even more the power of sin amidst pious ambiguities in favor of social and cultural
improvements. 125 In short, liberals reduced Christianity to some basic and ‘reasonable’ truths,
such as the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men; they glossed over inescapable
confessional determinants in order, thereby, to douse the flames of age-old enmities. Anything
offending this rationalistic double-love the liberal tastemakers and shape-shifters condemned as
unworthy, superstitious, discriminatory, and intolerant.
Liberal pretentiousness reinvented itself during and after the Great War (1914-1918),
generally adjusting to the somber intellectual climate to affirm a divine immanence in history. In
this manner, modernism sought to preserve Christianity’s cultural heritage by further
accommodation to the sciences, particularly psychology, with subtle poisons dispensed as “the
triumph of the therapeutic.” 126 In explanation – “Though Freud’s career bridged the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, his impact did not begin to build in America until the 1930s with the
novels by Ellen Glasgow, the plays of Eugene O’Neill, and, of course, the sermons of Harry
Emerson Fosdick. Most sermons from most pulpits, particularly since 1950, seem to have been
aimed at an existential self in psychological awareness.” 127 Captured and enslaved by the
portentous psychological/psychoanalytical spirit of the times, therapeutic sermons, laden with
suave speech, became the rage for man-centered ministerial and congregational success stories.
Case in point 067. “The one thing that makes it worth while preaching this sermon is that
dual experience – accepting saviorhood for ourselves and then going out to be saviors – could
happen here now to some of us. Well, it had better happen to a lot of people, for, friends, we
124
Niebuhr, “Mystery and Meaning,” op. cit., p. 55.
Winthrop S. Hudson, Religion in America: An historical account of the development of American religious life
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1965), p. 364.
126
Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 13.
127
Ibid. Also – “The movement has culminated in a ‘positive-thinking’ pulpit on the East Coast, and a ‘possibilitythinking’ pulpit on the West Coast. But the truth is that most of our pulpits, Protestant and Catholic alike, have read
scripture but then preached psychological personalism for the past four decades, with sin as a psychological
dysfunction and salvation as inward good feeling.”
125
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cannot take civilization for granted any more – not any more! That’s what we have been doing
through many an optimistic decade – taking civilization for granted. Of course, civilization! As
one expected the sun to rise on the morrow, so one expected civilization. But look now at this
vast catastrophe and collapse of civilization! Now it is going to be a struggle, the most fateful
struggle in human history – sin against saviorhood, and saviorhood against sin – and the saviors
must first of all be saved themselves, as Moses met God alone at the burning bush before he
confronted Pharaoh in the public court. So may some of us this week face the cross of Christ, and
seeing there sin and saviorhood locked in that desperate encounter, choose – choose Christ’s
side!” 128
Case in point 068. “What a tragedy it is that many men appear to live and die with all their
possibilities still within them. There is in each of us, if you please, an imprisoned splendor. Years
ago I used to give a lecture on the subject, ‘Imprisoned Splendor.’ Of this I was reminded the
other day when I came across a little folder put out by a lecture bureau upstate some thirty years
ago when I was living and preaching in Syracuse, New York. It was a folder describing me and
my lecture, ‘Imprisoned Splendor.’ I must confess that I was impressed with my own picture on
the front page, if I say so myself. It was the picture of a young man, with head up, shoulders
thrown back, very young of face, and there was a light in my eye.
Now I remember what caused that light in the eye. I was a young preacher, and I believed
that I was commissioned by Almighty God to try and change men and human society in the
name of Christ. And I believed that I could persuade men that their lives could be better. So I
went around giving this lecture, ‘Imprisoned Splendor.’ The theme of the address was that
Almighty God had built a splendor into each of us, and that by the power of God it can be
released so that ordinary people can lead extraordinary lives and can become great souls.” 129
Craving internal complacency, post-World War II, liberalism/modernism, without too great a
change, delved deeper into human nature psychologically. “There was much traditional doctrine
and [Billy Graham] often spoke to the more personal needs of people. Here the stress was upon
the role of religion as a consolation which brings ‘peace of mind, peace of soul, peace of
conscience.’ This latter emphasis points to another prominent feature of the surge of piety in the
1950’s – the ‘cult of reassurance’ of which Norman Vincent Peale (b. 1898), minister of the
Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, has been called the ‘high priest.’” 130 Modernist
flexibility, true to its interior insistence, moved steadily away from glorifying God into satisfying
people.
Case in point 069. “The radio speaker that Sunday morning was a successful minister in one
of the major Protestant denominations. His text was Acts 5. His topic was ‘power.’ He spoke
eloquently of the many ways in which most of us misuse our authority. Parents abuse their
children by their negativity. Government leaders show insensitivity to the pains of those in need.
We destroy by our criticism when we should build up with our praise.
128
Harry Emerson Fosdick, “The Most thrilling Rescue Story in the World,” in G. Paul Butler, ed., Best Sermons:
1946 Edition (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946), p. 234.
129
Norman Vincent Peale, “Where Your Hopes Come True,” in G. Paul Butler, ed., Best Sermons, Vol. VII,
Protestant Edition (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1959), pp. 158f.
130
Hudson, op. cit., p. 386.
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As he approached the last part of his radio message, the preacher finally came to his text. In
the narrative of Acts he found a dramatic example of the misuse of power. Ananias and Sapphira,
weak Christians who had just given in to their temptations, were in need of reassurance and
upbuilding. The apostle Peter, in an ugly display of arrogance, abused his authority and
denounced their conduct with awful threats. Terror consumed each of them in turn, and they died
on the spot under Peter’s unbearable invective.” 131
Case in point 070. “And as we explore these conditions, I would like to suggest that modern
man really go all out to study the meaning of nonviolence, its philosophy and its strategy.” 132
Liberalism/modernism is: a diverse movement in Protestantism advocating human unity
within diversity and love for all humanity.
Mostly, this modernism comprises conventional and social wisdom, easily conforming to the
spirits of the times.
IV
Dispensationalism alleges to divide the Word ‘rightly,’ cf. II Tim. 2:15 (KJV). By means of
an unbiblical system, dispensationalists come up with six, seven, or more historical
dispensations; each timeframe promises a distinct way to salvation, which is contrary to
Scriptures. 133 In the Bible, Christ reveals the one way of salvation only.
The more favorite dispensationalist dividing methodology floated seven conspicuous
historical eras – stripped-down: the dispensations of innocence, of conscience, of human
government, of promise, of law, of grace, and of the Kingdom. This in post-World War II
widely recognized sevenfold arrangement of the integral structure of Scriptures stemmed from a
popular attempt at duplicity, The Scofield Reference Bible, first issued in 1906, then revised in
1909 and 1967. This starting point provided a favorite roadmap into a rank eisegesis.
Dispensationalism, or Darbyism, 134 through its mischievous method of understanding
advocates different approaches to salvation, one for Israel, one for the Church. “Thus, while the
principles of God never change, His dispensations, His dealings with men, do change from time
to time. This includes even the terms of acceptance with God. At first blood sacrifices were
required (Gen. 4:3-5, Heb. 11:4); then, later circumcision was added (Gen. 17:14); then,
obedience to the whole Mosaic law was demanded (Ex. 19:5,6, Rom. 10:5); then ‘the baptism of
repentance for the remission of sins (Mark 1:4, Acts 2:38) and today it is ‘to him that worketh
not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly; his faith is counted for righteousness’ (Rom.
4:5).” 135 The cursive part refers to the present church era. After the so-called rapture and for the
131
Silva, op. cit., p. 17.
Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Christmas Sermon on Peace,” in Ponder, op. cit., p. 15. Cf. p. 17 – “We aren’t going
to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”
133
Vern S. Poythress, Understanding Dispensationalists, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987/94),
p. 52 – “Classical dispensationalism is a whole system of theology. It has a great deal of internal coherence.”
134
John Nelson Darby (1800-1882).
135
C.R. Stam, Things That Differ: The Fundamentals of Dispensationalism (Germantown, WI: Berean Bible
Society, 1951/82), pp. 28f. Further, C.R. Stam insists that more dispensations than seven may come.
132
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alleged seventh dispensation, God will again in surviving Israel require fulfillment of the Law as
the salvation standard.
In the unusual conditions of the dispensationalist scheme of things, Armageddon-minded
proponents flog two distinct forms of salvation relative to Israel and the Church – the first by
law, the second by grace. Salvation by grace God reserved for the Church only and to-be-earned
salvation for the Jews. Within this human ingenuity, the dispensation of grace stands out for
special attention in different ways.
1) The first consists of the fact that dispensationalists tend to separate Apostle Paul from the
Twelve. Peter and the others purportedly ministered to the Jews and maintained the worksrighteous idea, perfect obedience to the Law. Paul alone, in and for the dispensation of the
Church, promoted salvation by grace. For dispensationalists, then, the actual New Testament
consists of the Pauline writings.
2) Second, dispensationalists prop up Premillenarianism. In Premillenarian readings of the
Bible, the Church will be raptured suddenly. Generally, proponents claim that this rapture
precedes the terrible period of coming tribulation, leaving the way open for the dispensation of
the Kingdom and the final attempt to save Jews by works of the Law.
Premillenarianism is: the speculative doctrine that Christ will return to rapture the Church
prior to or during the seven-year tribulation, then begin a 1,000-year reign over Israel.
3) Throughout the C.I. Scofield (1843-1921) dispensationalist/premillenarian view of reality,
one senses an attempt to modify, customize, Bible interpretation to allow Christians by a ‘shrewd
choice’ to escape the wild terrors and terrible sufferings of the tribulation. “Dispensationalism
was a class movement. The ‘betters,’ the ‘rich,’ the ‘proper ones,’ felt that the ‘any-moment
rapture’ would be a good idea to keep the middle and lower orders in line. They would not upset
the social and economic ‘applecart’ while they were expecting the ‘any-moment Rapture.’” 136
Such a balancing act affords participant upper classes a two-way preferential treatment – 1) on
earth freedom for kindred spirits from intermingling with lower classes and 2) at the tribulation
escape from unsavory suffering.
Dispensationalism is: within Protestantism a speculative dividing of history into a variety of
ages, each with its own way of salvation.
V
Fundamentalism, part of a larger complexity, namely, “… the Fundamentalist-HolinessPentecostal wing of Protestantism,” 137 reacted to 19th-century liberalism; this social conservatism
136
Joseph M. Canfield, The Incredible Scofield and His Book (Vallecito, CA: Ross House, 1988), p. 176.
John Hagee, Attack on America: New York, Jerusalem, and the Role of Terrorism in the Last Days (Nashville:
Thomas Nelson, 2001), p. 145 – “We know [the] battle over Israel will occur, and I believe it will result in the
Antichrist’s stepping in to offer Israel and its enemies a seven-year peace treaty. We also know the church will be
taken away before the Antichrist is revealed.”
137
Hudson, op. cit., p. 413.
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hardened into a fascination with the letter of the Bible to exclude the Spirit from Scripture
reading and interpretation.
Interest in biblical letters, literalism, became the fundamentalist ‘portrait’ recognized and
preserved by its adversaries. “In the late nineteenth century, the Bible, one of Christianity’s most
holy treasures, began to become an idol for many conservative American Protestants.
Fundamentalists, responding to the challenges to historical orthodoxy put forward by liberal
modernists, developed the principle of inerrancy which invested each and every word of the text
with scientific accuracy. For many, the Bible ceased to be a book containing God’s living word
which leads to life and became a doctrinal handbook which was to be wielded as a weapon to
bludgeon errant believers and non-believers alike.” 138 The commanding scientific, psychological,
and historical truthfulness of the Bible that characterizes fundamentalism 139 under stress
overreacted to unsympathetic liberalism. Nevertheless, opponents of this social conservatism
fixed a ‘picture’ in stone. “Fundamentalists are people of the book; but in their adherence to the
letters on a page some lost Christ in the shuffle. They fashioned an idol out of scripture and
worshipped it instead of the God that lay behind it.” 140 Again – “Fundamentalist biblical
interpretation and higher criticism of the Bible are often two sides of the same coin. The
fundamentalist interpreter has roots in the Scottish Common Sense school of philosophy
(fundamentalism is such a modernist heresy), which asserted that propositions are accessible to
any thinking, rational person. Any rational person ought to be able to see the common sense of
the assertion that God created the heavens and the earth. A Christian preacher merely has to
assert these propositions, which, because they are true, are understandable to anybody with
common sense.” 141 As much as critics may be liberals, finding that Scriptures ‘contain’ the Word
of God, nevertheless they make a considerable point against Fundamentalism.
Case in point 071. “My brother, if the Bible is not also scientifically accurate, it is not, to me
at least, the Word of God. I have a very plain reason for that. The Lord God who made this world
and all the scientific marvels which we are now discovering in it – that same Lord God knew all
these things from the beginning …. Now if the Bible is the Word of God, and if God inspired it,
then it cannot contain any scientific mistakes because God knew every truth and fact of science
from the beginning.” 142
Militant conservatives as W.A. Criswell (1909-2002) planned to save fundamentalism from
encroaching modernism and Darwinianism; in the process, however, they developed a rigidity
from fighting liberalism on its own ground and terms, the mathematical accuracies of the natural
sciences. Thereby, they wanted to dominate the Bible instead of listening to the Word of God.
Old ways of stating the Faith had to have scientific accuracy for believability.
In terms of reference, fundamentalists reduced the Faith to five bedrock essentials, which
scoffing liberals spurned: “… (1) the Holy Spirit so inspired the writers of Scriptures ‘as to keep
138
Kurt W. Peterson, “The Spirit Gives Life, But the Letter Kills’: Bible-olatry in American Protestantism,” Ex
Auditu, Vol. 15, 1999, p. 121. One may say, out of concern for truth, that this analysis reacts too narrowly.
139
Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 12.
140
Peterson, op. cit., p. 121.
141
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 163.
142
Harold Bloom, The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1992), pp. 220f., quoting W.A. Criswell.
68
them from error’; (2) ‘our Lord Jesus Christ was born of the virgin Mary’; (3) Christ offered up
himself as ‘a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice’; (4) ‘he arose from the dead, with the same body
in which he suffered’; (5) Christ ‘showed his power and love by working mighty miracles.’” 143
Quoting another source – “This use of ‘the fundamentals’ as a conservative slogan was echoed in
the Deliverance which the General Assembly of the Northern Presbyterian Church issued in
1910, while The Fundamentals were in process of publication. This Deliverance specified five
items as ‘the fundamentals of faith and of evangelical Christianity’: the deity of Christ, His
virgin birth and miracles, His penal death for our sins and His physical resurrection and personal
return.” 144 Direct liberal attacks on these fundamentals brought conservatives to strip down the
Twelve Articles to less than half and thus shape ambiguous reading and interpretation of the
Bible, particularly for preaching.
Fundamentalism is: within Protestantism a conservative reaction to 19th-century liberalism,
advocating for the ministry of the Word less than the whole counsel of God.
VI
Pentecostalism, or Neo-Gnosticism, at root comes from Gnosticism, going back at least as far
as Neo-Platonism (circa 3rd-century A.D.), if not to Plato.
Gnosticism is: an ancient religion with a gospel of knowledge promising the release of the
divine spark within each person’s body, an evil creation.
Because of the dominant influence of Gnosticism and Neo-Gnosticism within Pentecostalism
as well as post-World War II Neo-Pentecostalism, the people of this religious manifestation use
biblical words and thoughts to reach beyond the Word for direct contact with whom they allege
is the Holy Spirit. This runs contrary, for instance, to I Cor. 4:6 – “… not to go beyond what is
written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.” Gnostic elitism
appears, for example, in the NEB Ecclesiasticus 38:25f. – “How can a man become wise who
guides the plough, whose pride is in wielding his goad, who is absorbed in the task of driving
oxen, and talks only about cattle? He concentrates on ploughing his furrows, and works late to
give heifers their fodder.” This Pentecostal elitist, initially rooted-in-America, religiosity, 145
basks in a direct, fever-pitch contact with a spirit to circumvent Scripture and give Pentecostals
an eisegetical power over alleged gifts of the Third Person. They alone key in to the gifts.
Pentecostals, thriving worldwide, bring on stream a special insider status with which to
dominate and manipulate all who fail to reach up to first-class Pentecostalism. “Pentecostals
participate in miracle; nature, reason, and society are dwarfed by the apparent realities of
Pentecostal worship. The charismatic … is not merely a function of the leadership. Every man
and every woman is also his or her own charismatic. The ecstasy emerges from your own lips,
143
Lefferts A. Loetscher, The Broadening Church: A Study of Theological Issues in the Presbyterian Church since
1869 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1957), p. 98.
144
J.I. Packer, “Fundamentalism” and the Word of God: Some Evangelical Principles (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1958/85), p. 28.
145
H. Bloom, The American Religion, op. cit., p. 22 – “We are a religiously mad culture, furiously seeking for the
spirit, but each of us is subject and object of one quest, which must be for the original self, a spark of breath in us
that we are convinced goes back to before the Creation.”
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and where there is Baptism in the Holy Spirit, then prophecy, healing, and miracle must be
present as well.” 146 This cuts spiritual ‘christians’ off from carnal ‘christians.’ “Many NeoPentecostals assert that the gift of tongues, even though it may be the least of the gifts, is for
everyone. In fact, tongues is considered by many to be the initial and necessary evidence of
baptism in the Spirit. Thus, if a Christian does not speak in tongues, it is evident that he has not
been baptized in the Holy Spirit.” 147 Separation based on Gnostic doctrines divides the Church,
and those who want to be ‘spiritual’ tend to get carried away with themselves for short-term
welters of emotionalism, which dulls exegesis and limits preaching to favorite texts.
Pentecostalism is: a neo-Gnostic movement within Protestantism passionate for separating
and saving the more important spirit from the less important body.
VII
Karl Barth (1886-1968), presumably for a bold overhaul, reacted to stifling 19th-century
liberalism. Only, post-World War II, proponents of Barthianism attempted briefly to bring this
theological system into preachable format 148 and axe clogged up religious conventions – too late:
for liberalism’s harder edge had worn off, morphing into more attractive psychologism. Hence
Barthianism flamed out rather quickly.
In Barthianism, preaching was more than saying words; rather, it accomplished an Event or a
Deed – “… the actualization of redemption in the lives of men as the redeeming word is
announced and responded to in faith.” 149 This deed- or event-character of preaching, stemming
from an appealing God-centeredness and also a seriousness with respect to the Bible, considered
a sermon an announcement of redemption to which hearers (ought to) respond. If a preacher
missed God-centeredness and knowledgeable usage of the Bible, a sermon consisted only of a
man’s fluid words – sub-Christian sermonizing, windy words.
Barthianism’s God-centeredness stepped out of liberalism’s wayward shadows in this way –
“The Word of God in its preached, written, and revealed forms cannot be thought of apart from
God the Holy Spirit, God the Son, and God the Father. The ‘first form of the Word,’ the
proclamation, is the peculiar work of the Holy Spirit, through whom the Church hears and
proclaims the revelation of God in Christ.” 150 We may admire this God-centeredness in its
Trinitarian manifestation. We may also respect the source of Barthian-type sermons, that is, “…
the conviction that the Bible, as the record of God’s redemptive Deed, is the only valid, basic
source from which true preaching may be attempted.” 151 Initially, this unprecedented and stern
bell-ringing intersected with a stuffy liberalized society, causing some unruly consternation
among theologians.
146
Ibid., p. 175.
Holwerda, op. cit., p. 21.
148
One example: T.F. Torrance, When Christ Comes and Comes Again (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1957).
149
D.G. Miller, op. cit., p. 8.
150
Ritschl, op. cit., p. 25.
151
D.G. Miller, op. cit., p. 8.
147
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Something interesting and admirable jumps out from Barthian sermonizing, both its Godcenteredness and its seriousness with respect to the Bible. However, its God-centeredness and its
Bible-centeredness were also its weaknesses. Barth and Barthians steeped both pressing concerns
in Higher Criticism, thinking wishfully that the Bible is no more than a witness to revelation.
These flaws explain why this attempt at preaching lasted only briefly on the verge of greatness –
because of too many similarities to ill-inclined 19th-century liberalism.
With respect to its teachings regarding Scriptures, though called the Word of God, the Bible
contains only a witness to revelation, and is not the Word of God. This witnessing-form of the
Word tones down Barthian seriousness, since witnesses – Moses and Paul, for instance – were
fallible.
In addition, with respect to Barthian God-centeredness, another insurmountable and arresting
looseness occurs; it shifts too much responsibility away from the office of the congregation and
the ministry.
Case in point 072. “[The minister] is not ultimately responsible for his sermon, but God is
responsible for his ministry and, therefore, also for his sermon.” 152
To focus this God-centeredness in and for preaching even more – “Because it is the living
Christ who gives the call and the response, our response is concrete and immediate, not indirect
and derived. The Word of God is not a religious but a worldly word that comes to our world in
the incarnate Christ who makes Himself relevant to those whom He calls to respond.” 153 In this
way, preaching becomes God’s self-revelation, which overloads sound interpretation/application
of a preaching text.
Case in point 073 – on I Kings 16:19-33, 17:10-16; Mk. 1:29-39. “Jesus wants to sow seeds
and must do so, for faith has to be active everywhere, not just in one place. Thus, preaching is for
him the decisive factor. He believes that the word has power to create community, to accomplish
things, to nourish, and to produce growth; with him it is the kind of word that comes to
expression again and again in deeds and thus proves itself.” 154
A startling innovation comes connected to this allegedly Christ-centered Self-revelation. “In
a real sermon, Christ is the Preacher. The Preacher speaks through the preacher.” 155 Again –
“Jesus Christ is the Preacher who proclaims Himself. It is His will to make Himself known.” 156
However, before the Incarnation, Christ called prophets to speak in his name and after the
Ascension, he called first apostles, then ministers to speak as his heralds and deputies, or angels.
As much as the Christ was the Preacher during his three-year ministry prior to the Crucifixion
and as much as he remains our only Teacher and Prophet, nevertheless, he summons men to
speak in his name.
152
Ritschl, op. cit., p. 20.
Ibid.
154
Eduard Schweizer, “Who Is Supposed to Serve?” in Cox, Best Sermons 1, op. cit., p. 91.
155
D.G. Miller, op. cit., p. 17.
156
Ritschl, op. cit., p. 33.
153
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The more one enters into the complex interplays of Barthian preaching, the more its Godcenteredness takes away responsibility from ministers to preach true to the Word and from our
office of the congregation to evaluate the word of the Lord. Every sermon is a sermon: one runs
true to Scriptures in terms of interpretation and application, another false. The Christ summons
all ministers to speak in his name only, and their words we must weigh and judge, or succumb to
clerical rule. Or worse.
3) A third problem preparing the downfall of this sort of preaching not unconnected from the
second: the Deed-character of sermons in which Christ is the Preacher. Read this – “To preach is
to become a part of a dynamic event wherein the living, redeeming God reproduces His act of
redemption in a living encounter with men through the preacher. True preaching is an extension
of the Incarnation into the contemporary moment, the transfiguration of the Cross and the
Resurrection from ancient facts of a remote past into living realities of the present.” 157 Hence,
allegedly, in this way the stabilizing facts of the past blend unhistorically into the now, a
marvelous claim; there is a confusion of the process and progress of history by which “ancient
facts” through ‘true’ preaching pull together into “present realities.” As if, for instance, the
Crucifixion and the Resurrection were to happen in the Sunday hours ministers preach ‘true’
sermons. Something of the Roman Catholic mass adheres to this conception of preaching. As the
elements of the mass change into the flesh and blood of Christ, so a Barthian sermon turns into a
transcending copy of the Sermon, as if the Lord Jesus speaks, physically present.
For Barthian-type preaching, the Philips translation of II Cor. 5:20a seems custom-made –
“… as though God were appealing direct to you through us.” Ignored, it appears, is the force of
the “as though.” Ignored too, it seems, is the fact that Paul first spoke these words, not 20th-21th
century ministers of the word. If we, erring, shove aside these exegetical facts, we push with the
office of the congregation serving preachers into the background and on Sundays draw Christ out
of heaven down into thousands upon thousands of pulpits. “If it is true that the sermon is the
living Word in which Jesus Christ, the only true Preacher, wants to proclaim Himself, then it is
also true that the living Word cannot depend on us, but that we depend on the Word.” 158 Even
though Christ places preachers in the service of the Word, yet every minister’s call to service
suffers if Christ is the only true Preacher; then, facing the consequences, every minister is false.
As true as it is that the Christ wants to makes himself known, including his works, upon his
ascension he called apostles and then ministers to speak for him, an inarguably good fact that
may never be reduced to the sticky pull of sloth and complacency.
We need also consider in more depth the nature of a Barthian sermon, its Event- or Deedcharacter. Every sermon by its very nature is an event or a deed, unquestionably, distinct from
every other sort of communication. But Barthian-type preachers unplugged a penchant for
capitalizing on event and deed to add an unbiblical and unhistorical dimension to preaching, as if
a sermon becomes more than a sermon, an Event. If so, then – “A sermon is an act wherein the
crucified, risen Lord personally confronts men either to save or to judge them.” 159 Christ,
however, rules in and from heaven, at the right hand of the Father. As the Lord and the Christ, he
157
D.G. Miller, op. cit., p. 17.
Ritschl, op. cit., p. 20.
159
D.G. Miller, op. cit., p. 17. Also – “In a real sermon, then, Christ is the Preacher. The Preacher speaks through
the preacher.”
158
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chose to speak through ministers and hold them accountable for every word spoken in his name.
Barthian-type preachers, on the other hand, found a different interpretation of Scriptures. “The
function of the preacher is to announce to men amazing news so much greater than he is that men
shall lose sight of the preacher in the news. What is the news? ‘God himself is with us.’ The
redeeming God is actively present, judging and redeeming now in the solemn realities of this
moment. Then God really becomes the Preacher. The sermon is no longer the effort of a man to
speak moving words; it has become the Deed of God. True preaching is the reenactment of the
Deed of redemption as both the atoning love and resurrection power of Christ express themselves
once more through his Body, the Church.” 160 This pulls religious fogs out of the ground.
If true that Christ himself directly and physically presents himself within the earthly confines
of every true sermon, then he not only removes his preachers from their offices, but also shoves
the Bible aside, even its alleged witness-character recedes away in importance. For when and
where Christ himself speaks, new revelation occurs, which at least for the moment supersedes
the Scriptures in significance. “When preaching is understood as the proclaimed Word of God,
which is based on the written form of the Word, everything turns upon the fact that the Word is
truly God’s Word and therefore His action.” 161 Then, instead of interpreting and applying a
sermon unit, preaching miraculously turns into revelatory information beyond Scriptures – every
Sunday thousands upon thousands new revelations. True preaching, then, is not achieved until
the words of the preacher at rare moments miraculously turn into the Deed of God, which we
must await to happen with the runniness of impatience – perhaps once a month, once a year, or
never.
Barthian-endowed preachers ‘transform’ the Bible to the status of witness, and preaching
consists of the words of men, which Christ for Self-revelation, may or may not turn into Selfproclamation. This type of preaching reached a peak of sorts in the 1960s and waned as a future
movement amidst numerous bickering factions. In the Church of Jesus Christ, however, all sound
interpretation and application is the convincing and convicting word of the Lord.
VIII
Postmodernism reacted to modernism/liberalism, encouraging and advocating even more
subjectivism for biblical interpretation; in fact, this currently frontline movement instigates
further seismic shifts away from accountability for sound exegesis, in many ways a back-tonature religion, to Mother Earth, away from the somber rationalism of modernism. 162 Such
subjective believing proof texts with loose biblical references.
Subjectivism is: in the Church making human ideas the norm for believing and living,
eisegesis.
Whereas modernist Bible readers and interpreters through 19th-century types of Higher
Criticism rationally determined truth and supposedly accentuated this truth with the Bible,
160
Ibid., p. 19.
Ritschl, op. cit., p. 33.
162
Johnston, op. cit., p. 119 – “One of the errors of modernity was reducing individuals to the level of mechanized
creatures. Consequently, spiritual awakening became a hallmark of the new era known as postmodernity.”
161
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postmodernism eisegetically reshuffles the Word again: man with God determines the meaning
of a text. In some circles members call this unnatural pride contextual theology, panentheism. In
practice, the interpretive triangle does its work.
Contextual theology is: reading into biblical thought patterns the interpreter’s own ideas to
formulate religious teachings and practices.
Panentheism is: a philosophical movement in which human beings with the Holy Spirit
interpret Scriptures, thus making truth.
To highlight postmodern shape shifting with respect to modernism, and in this way register
its confounding relativism:
“1. They’re reacting to modernity and all its tenets.
2. They reject all objective truth.
3. They’re skeptical and suspicious of authority.
4. They’re like missing persons in search of a self and identity.
5. They’ve blurred morality and are into whatever’s expedient.
6. They continue to search for the transcendent.
7. They’re living in a media world unlike any other.
8. They’ll engage in the knowing smirk.
9. They’re in a quest for community.
10. They live in a very material world.” 163
In postmodernism, Bible reading crafts “… a process of interaction between readers, text,
author, and world. It is a process in which a text affords the reader a series of distant glimpses of
the author’s intentions and world as they are manifest in the world of the text. The reader
continually attempts on the basis of his or her own worldview – one’s knowledge, experience,
and perspective – to piece the glimpses together into a meaningful picture of the world of the
text. This involves continually examining and reexamining the glimpses for coherence not only
with themselves but also with the author’s world as it is known and with the reader’s own world,
repeatedly revising and rearranging the picture and, to a lesser extent, both consciously and
unconsciously revising the reader’s worldview.” 164 Brave words, these, a longer version of the
interpretive triangle.
In any postmodern sort of preaching, natural inclination always falls on the right-of-way for
the reader/interpreter’s world of meaning; it forms the exegetical, yes, eisegetically mirthless
atmosphere. For example. “In a recent ‘Doonesbury’ cartoon panel, a church-hopping young
couple is appalled to hear a preacher use the word ‘sinners.’ ‘We’re looking for a church that’s
supportive, a place where we can feel good about ourselves,’ the young wife explains. In a
church-management model, the congregation, its needs, its pluralism, its incipient faith can
reduce preaching to a positive, house-organ voice. At a time when mainline denominations seem
to be struggling for survival, preaching can be ordered by extravagant fantasies of church
163
Ibid., p. 26.
David D. Dockery, ed., The Challenge of Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement (Wheaton: Victor
Books/SP Pub., 1995), p. 133.
164
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growth. Let’s preach whatever the pollsters tell us the American soul craves.” 165 Call this
“unrestrained hedonism.” “Think about it. Isn’t the most generally applied standard of success
for a religious service whether or not people feel good in it and after it? The preeminence of the
‘feel good’ mentality in our world is what makes it impossible for many people now even to
imagine what Paul and his contemporaries accepted as a fact of life. Our communities and our
churches are thickly populated with people who are neurotic or paralyzed by their devotion and
willing bondage to how they feel.” 166 Tapping into this bizarre rhythm of the heart or craving of
the soul, postmodernism becomes the dominant voice in the interpretive triangle. As such, this
current world movement tramples the Christ-centered climate of and in the Church even more
into a wearisome consumer culture and Christianity into a media-age shopping trip – more than
we as members already do.
Case in point 074. “Sharecropping was the former slave owners’ revenge, against black
people for having attained their freedom. It’s no wonder that under such complete subjugation
and outright terrorism, which included rape, beatings, burnings, and being thrown off the land,
along with the entrenched southern custom of lynching, people like my parents sought succor
from any God they were forced to have.” 167
Postmodern types of preaching, subjective and relativistic, leave us with a fretful chaos of
polytheism; in fact, we are jerked back into a religious environment that in the 19th-20th century
was called unscientific, if not irrational. In this movement of unbelieving hearts, every minister
speaks in the name of gods drawn from out-of-control Mother-Earth religiosity –
reincarnationism, occultism, spiritism, spiritualism, feminism, shamanism, angelism, etc. Each
proclaimer of ‘truth’ with reckless indifference to the facts before the sovereign Lord of the
Church and in misguided collaboration with ancient gods advocates a plasticity of salvation
suitable for a time and a place in which every one does what is right in his and her own eyes.
“The end result is that people in a postmodern culture will gladly embrace aspects of Jesus and
view Him as one of many gods.
The mixing of pagan beliefs along with the self-revealing, creator God, finds steady rebuke
throughout the Old and New Testament. In reference to pagan idols, the God of the Bible is
contrasted as the ‘living God’ (Acts 14:15).” 168 However, postmodern forces quell passages as
Rom. 1:22f., while empowering cholesterol-rich vanities and treacherous man-made religiosities.
Claiming to be wise, they of postmodernism too exchange the glory of the immortal God for
images resembling mortal man/woman, birds, animals, and reptiles. “The American church has
overestimated the good that comes from mere scientific progress or doctrinal correctness, or
from social progress, missionary work, and evangelism. The church has been shaken to its
foundations by ideological, technological, and military movements on a scale never before
experienced by humankind, as it has been smothered by mass culture, mindless ‘prosperity,’
165
Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 47.
Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives (HarperSanFrancisco,
1988/91), pp. 99f.
Johnston, op. cit., p. 120 – “… postmodernity doesn’t discern the difference between faith and superstition. In
fact much of what passes as spirituality falls far short of the biblical model, allowing superstitions to fit with the
postmodern ethos of disliking constraints.” That is, authority.
167
Alice Walker, “Anything We Love Can Be Saved,” in Hancock, op. cit., p. 243.
168
Johnston, op. cit., p. 98.
166
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insipid education, and pseudo-egalitarianism. And as a result, the church at present has lost any
realistic and specific sense of what it means for the individual believers to ‘grow in the grace and
knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,’ as 2 Peter 3:18 expresses it. In fact, it has lost
sight of the type of life in which such growth would be a realistic and predictable possibility.” 169
This came with repercussions. “Today postmodernity says: All you can believe is what’s in your
own heart, count on intuition and faith, give up on the idea of truth, have an experience instead.
This shift in Western thinking is like the air that we breathe…. It affects the way we perceive the
world, think of ourselves, and how we understand reality or what is. Just because this revolution
didn’t begin with some battle cry does not make it any less dramatic.” 170 Undetected,
postmodernism entices members of the Church to worship creatures instead of the Creator in
order to develop and promote natural, people-friendly gods and religions. Hawking these shorton-marbles postmodernist opinions distracts all involved with polytheistic fears. As this
relativistic movement weighs heavily in Christ’s church, we face its ‘new and improved’
tensions of oratorical dangers. 171
Polytheism is: believing, worshiping, and satisfying many gods. Cf. Deut. 6:14.
Postmodernism is: searching for spiritual and personal values in a religiously and morally
relativistic environment.
Hungering for spiritual and personal values without constraints of biblical authority
diminishes life to a hotbed of ancient heretical ideas in contemporary dresses; at the same time, it
allows all possible eisegetical dreams in order to stymie sound preaching, the clear word of the
Lord.
These eight big-boy exegetical blockages to sound exegesis – allegorism, Scholasticism,
liberalism, dispensationalism, fundamentalism, Pentecostalism, Barthianism, and postmodernism
– provide a heavy smattering of the plethora of choices in any postmodern setting, a religious
frenzy in terms of errant meaning systems, which place us far below the salt. Other works of
religious activists may be added – metanarrativism, pantheism, Premillenialism, Arminianism,
liberation theologies, existentialism, theologies of play, dominionism, confessionalism,
sectarianism, Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, evangelicalism, Bultmannianism,
etc., each subject to the quirks of human folly, each an indication of human silliness. These
common ideologies and philosophies, pretending to be tectonic shifts rather than ugly scrambles
of upmanship against Christ in the Church, rise and fall through chronic reliance on religiosity.
Eventually, after a short shelf life, they slink away into failure foreordained. Ideologies and
idolatries live and move as hoaxes, each dwindling away to its own day of infamy.
Bottom-feeding interpretive traditions narrow down the total scope of Scriptures into design
deficiencies of “private interpretation,” which the Apostle stifled, cf. II Pet. 1:20, and elevate
themselves into patterns of finality, hampering the future of Christ from breaking through into
present reality. Even though these ideologies and philosophies start purportedly at the same
169
Willard, op. cit., p. 16.
Johnston, op. cit., p. 9.
171
Harold Bloom, Omens of Millennium: the Gnosis of Angels, Dreams, and Resurrection (New York: Riverhead,
1996), pp. 233ff. Here, H. Bloom presented a Gnostic sermon, a parody of preaching.
170
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place, the Bible, all fade into diametrically opposed directions of ignominious fame, each with
more or less vicious propensities, sometimes with gentle sensitivities, as reincarnationism.
If we, fearful of falling behind the times, give in to diverging currents of myths, or mythical
ideas, and find irresistible needs to hear these, or they enrapture us, this shows hearts darkened
by sin and filled with curiosity hungers. Desires for mythical preaching deny the reality of our
salvation and, worse, the glory of God. Errant interpretive traditions, often strong and exciting
catalysts for change, only open other ranges of choice, that is, schism. Until then, each one,
short-sighted, increases the cheese factor of the Church.
All who with an appeal to the unity of the Church even half-heartedly tolerate apostasy and
heresy thereby blur our very oneness in Christ. Then congregations as swarming fixations of lost
souls push false-to-the-Scriptures teachings to dishonor the God of truth for the breakdown of the
Church.
Ignorance, therefore, of exegetical strengths and eisegetical regimes exposes us to ministerial
license – the license of inferior and/or apostate sermons, a deadly legacy. The Lord of the Church
warns against this. Cf. II Pet. 2:1ff. –
“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among
you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them,
bringing down upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their licentiousness, and
because of them the way of truth will be reviled. And in their greed they will exploit you with
false words; from of old their condemnation has not been idle, and their destruction has not been
asleep.”
Do we ignore this warning and turn a deaf ear to similar passages, then we allow, if not
encourage, the very men whom Christ calls to the ministry of the Word to oppose him in the
name of some theological or philosophical monolith – a religiosity of the times. Then men of
Christ become false to the truth, dispensing with abandon the wretchedness of a forbidding
eternity.
In a warning similar to II Pet. 2:1ff., the Lord of the Church invoked another, cf. Jude 4 –
“For admission has been secretly gained by some who long ago were designated for …
condemnation, ungodly persons who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny
our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” Every such false prophet, if not called to account,
fatally scores the Church, doing so with our connivance. Under an umbrella of sloth, we allow
“fierce wolves,” “men speaking perverse things,” cf. Acts 20:29f., a voice in the Church
wherewith they haggle to remove the Christ from his headship.
Our connivance associated with ministerial license turns pulpit men into false prophets,
which lays divine wrath upon all the Church since we fail in the office of the congregation; we
fizzle out without opposing the pomp and circumstance of every idolatrous system and tiresome
misconception. However, Christ makes his own of sterner stuff, all with watchful care.
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Now the Holy Spirit in the name of the Son and of the Father moves in the Church. Where he
breathes and works, he wrings from us deepening commitment to the Word, and we take up the
responsibility for the soundness of the preaching. Even if opposition to the Word and the Spirit
blows heedless winds of revolution, as does postmodernism, we will biblically responsible
ministry of the Word. Once stricken by any wannabe theological monolith, all resent the
authority of Christ Jesus in the Church. 172 Still, where the Spirit moves in the Church, we
faithfully compare every sermon as a whole and in its parts to the one standard. Scriptures judge
exegetical controversies; they are the court of final appeal.
----Here, a brief and personal excursus on maturing in a powerful tradition:
I grew up in Reformed communities, proud of the sola Scriptura and historically aware of
fierce opposition against Roman Catholicism. Although few ‘remember’ the roots and causes of
the 16th-century Reformation, nevertheless, we beat the entrenched Romanists in uphill battles.
I grew up a Calvinist, proud to be such: we thrashed the Arminians at the 1618-19 Synod of
Dort with a better grasp of the Scriptures. In fact, we bested all other interpretive traditions and
in the spirit of Calvinism summed up the Word in terms of total depravity, unconditional
election, limited atonement, invincible grace, and the perseverance of the saints.
However, during processes of maturing, the Lord of the Church broke this pride and enabled
me to place the Five Points in historical context. The Canons of Dort, true to the Word, function
as explanations of doctrines held up in the 1561 Confession of Faith and the 1563 Heidelberg
Catechism, which the Arminians attacked. Late 16th-century Arminianism, the Protestant twin of
Roman Catholic Semi-Pelagianism, parodied Scripture on essential doctrines. To counteract, the
Five Points truly state biblical teachings within the covenant structures of Scriptures. Outside the
covenant revelation, these five turn into cold and lonely platitudes.
During this maturing process, the Lord, Jesus Christ, earnestly propelled me into the
covenant structure of reality and thereby into new riches of believing, minus pride, with a
willingness to learn more of and bow before the Word.
Though my respect and serious appreciation for John Calvin’s work grows, especially for the
Institutes, when Calvinism began to crumble in my heart, I knew pain; a yawning chasm of
forlornness and an abyss of tolerationism opened at my feet, dreadful periods. When I ‘found’
the biblical context for the Five Points within the two faithful biblical summaries, the Confession
of Faith and the Heidelberger, a new dawn and a fresh look broke open, the depths and the
heights of the Scriptures. Then all the power of Christ’s invincible grace shot light into what I
had considered light, but turned out to be only a dried-prune little confine of confessionalism.
Since 1995, the Lord of the Church granted me time and space to listen to and read many
sermons, as well as reach more deeply into the exegetical standards of the Word. Listening to
172
Johnston, op. cit., p. 107 – “Postmodern times come with suspicions about authority and objective truth. These
two suspicions are accompanied by a disdain for metanarratives or the grand scheme of things – the master plan that
gives meaning and resolution to the issues of human existence.”
78
and analyzing these standards brings accumulating awareness of the danger and prevalence of
religious invasions perverting the word of the Lord.
----As much as each grows up into an ideological tradition, to know the heart-freezing
limitations of such constrictions becomes the first step into the daylight of the magnificence and
beauty of the Scriptures. Then, with maturing come also the labors of love and smart connected
with the fundamental dynamics of sermon evaluation.
Labor of smart increases when we make a double connection in reality:
1) Eisegetical barriers to the word of the Lord own appeal: with them we extort manprojected securities and futures from within ourselves, from absurdities of covetousness.
2) Eisegetical barriers to preaching burn in Christ’s Church with intense self-preservative
pressures.
Once called into life, these barriers never die naturally; in fact, within the confounding wells
of sin, they help invent and reinvent others to achieve abnormal longevity. Allegorism may have
lost is initial vitality, but it lives. So does Scholasticism, even as liberalism, fundamentalism,
dispensationalism, etc. Many such unconscionable burdens the Church carries, which become
heavier through the ages, unless we show the itinerant carriers the doors to Hades.
Due to the longevity of these holy cows, it is helpful and necessary for the soundness of
preaching, the salvation of the Church, and the glory of the Father in Christ Jesus to face and
fight these barriers promptly and hopefully. Were they but childish ideas about religion, we shall
outgrow them. Were they but passing sensations, we will witness their passage into oblivion.
However, they are devilishly persistent and hardened attitudes, strange bedfellows, conquerable
only by way of repentance and maturing in Christ Jesus through the word of the Lord.
With the tooth of time, we recognize, preaching alters for the worse, deteriorating into
oratory; we want the word the Lord locked into eisegetical dead ends, that is, accommodation to
the spirits of the times, none a cause for which to live and die, but nevertheless awesomely
appealing. They provide temporary awareness that we control the present for the future.
However, the Holy Spirit energizes the Church with fervor of life and freedom to believe and
trust the Bible as the sole Word, which trust translates into hunger for sound preaching. When,
on the other hand, we want ideological mechanisms to control the Word, he withdraws, an
absence noted by the invasions of more eisegetical boosters of heresy and even apostasy; then
the preaching quickly drops into bewildering oratory. As interesting as this pulpiteering may
become, as with allegorism and feminism, each fabricates a dead end, and sooner or later crashes
into an accusation: abuse of the Word. Such abuse of the Word sharpens our task in the office of
the congregation to ensure responsible pulpit speech – preaching that is truly the word of the
Lord. The word of the Lord, Sunday upon Sunday, brings about reformation, whereas seductive
oratory makes revolution respectable.
79
With revolutionary spirits, we help incapable ministers pretend that they proclaim the whole
counsel of God, without testing them in the light of the only standard for all preaching. Then, as
we make Christ’s men strange birds in the Kingdom, we ‘invite’ them to invoke upon us all the
plagues described in the Revelation and take away from us access to the tree of life as well as the
holy city. In fact, unfazed, we willingly sit back, relaxed, and allow them to drain away our hope
of salvation and remove the main motive of life, the glory of the Father.
To avoid every revolutionary mindset, we face and accept responsibilities with respect to the
preaching: summon our ministers to say no less and no more than the Lord Jesus Christ
commands, lest they abduct the truth. It is our duty in the office of the congregation, however
much smart it may cause to make sure ministers do not go beyond the Scriptures either way, too
much or too little. We may never lose sight of that goal. Only what Christ Jesus wills is sound.
Cf. Rev. 1:3 – “Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those
who hear, and who keep what is written therein; for the time is near.” Much more follows in
Revelation, also horrid dangers with respect to taking away or adding to the Word. Cf. Rev.
22:18ff. –
“I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one adds to them,
God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if any one takes away from the
words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the
holy city, which are described in this book.”
As conflicted ages fade into history, these divine warnings of wrath fall upon all who abuse
the Book and all who allow this to happen. “Nothing is left to inference, however, so far as the
claims of the author are concerned … as he contemplates his Christian readers gathered for
public worship – where one leads in the reading of the sacred writings and others have come to
hear – he most solemnly pronounces a blessing upon the ones that read and those who hear the
words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written therein.” 173 Thus, our duty to the
power word becomes greater. It is not dark coincidence that Christ gave us a holy task and
teachable accountability.
More than a minor detail of life or time filler on Sundays, listening to preaching exacts no
little energy – till we arrive totally at our purpose in life. Hearing the Word commands equal
energy for building up the Faith, for missionary work, for raising our children, for learning to
take care of this world. If we fail to learn here and now how to care for this world, how shall we
then be able to live and work in the new creation? Listening to sound preaching makes us acutely
aware of the shallowness and perversity of oratory, windy words which nevertheless condemn.
Traditions, stuffed with ideologies, never merely neutralize or anesthetize; they destroy, ruin,
by bringing the faithless fashions of the day into the Church; during such times Christianity fares
worse than anyone indicted with a capital offense. Yes, we have a responsibility in the office of
the congregation.
173
N.B. Stonehouse, “Special Revelation as Scriptural,” in C.F.H. Henry, ed., Revelation And the Bible (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1958), p. 86.
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SERIAL PREACHING
The characteristic way to nurture exegetical passion comes through listening to serial
preaching. 174 Unhelpfully, however, many ministers wander aimlessly, crisscrossing the Bible’s
books opportunistically. We ought to call each wanderer to harvest Scriptures’ sermon
opportunities more systematically. In a rich variety of ways they may henceforth develop
preaching with diverse, Christ-provided talents and gifts.
Saying this in another way – “… if preaching is not to become a piecemeal exposition of
scattered documents one must have a view of the interrelatedness of the various passages of
scripture.” 175 The error in question ministers advocate, however silently, as they hop-skip-andjump all over the Bible, they minimize scriptural continuity; this piecemeal understanding they
then impose upon respective congregations. Possible, because they do not understand the unity
and order through the historical processes of the Word. Possible, because they project an
ideological agenda. Possible, because hirelings choose easier ways. In the office of the
congregation we have the duty to roll back and overcome also this disturbing error.
Serial Designs
Serial preaching may be done with unparalled choice and variety, either an entire book or a
specified theme. A minister who works sermonically through Genesis, for instance, or
Habakkuk, or the Revelation, opens up great exegetical guides. Sermons without interruption,
Sunday upon Sunday, concerning the last things as in the Revelation may make listening difficult
through stirring up demons of boredom; however, the Bible’s closing book may be covered in
seven distinct sections – chapters 1-3, 4-7, 8-11, 12-14, 15-16, 17-19, 20-22. Each of these parts
a seasoned minister may separate by a series distinctly different, a theme as the development of
the covenant. The covenant, beginning with Adam and continuing over Noah, Abraham, Moses,
and David to fulfillment in Jesus Christ, draws attention to wonderful initiatives for growing in
exegetical knowledge.
Other specific themes we may call upon ministers to develop? The history of Jerusalem from
Gen. 14:18 over II Sam. 6-12 to Rev. 21:9ff. Verse by verse the perseverance of the saints in
Heb. 11. The work of the LORD revealed in Numbers. The revelation of the LORD in Genesis or
Exodus. The contemporary significance of the sacrifices in Leviticus. The predestination line in
Romans. Stewardship in terms of planetary issues relative to the new creation. The witness of the
Church in relation to racism. The development of congregational life – as I & II Corinthians and
Ephesians. Age-appropriate education in terms of the Kingdom. Possibilities expand almost
endlessly, circumscribed only by the boundaries of the Bible. Or the sloth of a congregation. Or
the failures of a minister.
As we converse with our ministers, they soon know the strengths and weaknesses of
respective congregations in order to bring exegetical and pastoral preaching work into the open.
For such assessment, we pose our questions to them. What is the Bible? How to grow family life
174
According to Marcel, op. cit., p. 74, many ministers around 1650 opted to depart from series preaching and
introduced innovation – they chose scattered texts for the Sunday work of the Church.
175
Randolph, op. cit., p. 30.
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in a restless and nervous world? In what way to see the divine characteristics of love, power,
authority, unchangeableness, etc., in times of a mistrustful world? What is the connection of the
Trinity to currently active ideologies? As we start questions, this stimulates ministers in textual
selection, Old Testament or New. For ministers, too, series preaching remains the grand way for
themselves to reaffirm the exegetical standards of the Word as well as teach respective
congregations. Therefore, the better we learn to read the Word in order of historical sequence,
the more servants of the Lord minister by leading us into the purpose of life.
In this connection, we focus on matters of congregational needs. Not that these needs become
an exegetical power next to or in place of the legitimate. Some congregations have ‘needs’ for
security, others for tolerance, and others for status – whatever unbelievers drag in. These needs
become part of the address to which ministers direct sermons, stimulating them to choose serial
preaching units. “By preaching through the Bible, and applying it to modern life, the preacher
could cover (either directly or by implication) nearly every human need.” 176 As such, needs
factor in serial text selection. Congregations requiring the milk of the Gospel need fundamental
instruction in exegetics. Congregations eating the meat of the Gospel ought to be strengthened
and confirmed in the larger and deeper implications of exegesis. Thus, current congregational
‘needs’ bear upon ministers’ text selections, all the while never pandering to or wooing power
groupings.
By working on congregational needs (too much), a seduction exposes itself. Spokesmen for
the Lord Jesus may reinvent themselves into a variety of representatives for problem solving,
enabling, 177 care giving, running errands for a congregational faction; they may turn themselves
into “ecclesial entrepreneurs,” 178 life-coaches, therapists, psychological counselors, 179 managers,
traffic directors, coaches, spiritual advisers, worship leaders, or whatever charlatan analogy
catches attention. 180 Congregational needs must be real, uprightly circumscribed, and honestly
exposed before the Word, never allowed to eclipse the primary purpose of the pulpit ministry.
We may treasure the freedom of the pulpit and assist ministers in maintaining as well as
developing in the Church insight into the exegetical standards of the Word.
Through serial preaching done well, then, the indomitable works of the Father, the Son, and
the Spirit sound forth from the pulpits of the Lord. Ministers, instead of jumping hither and yon
in Scriptures, or even the Apocrypha, or taking just any appealing topic, as superficially
interesting as this sort of variety may seem, bring out more consistently necessary guides in order
that we learn to read the Bible, and then, in return, help strengthen the preaching. In serial
176
W.E. Sangster, The Craft of the Sermon (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1951), p. 35.
An opposing voice: Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 47 – “… ministers are to be enablers for a
congregation. Now the concept of the enabler has virtues; it acknowledges that ministry is something in which we
are all engaged.”
178
Ibid., p. 46 – “If you are competing for souls in a religious ‘marketplace,’ then preaching can be taken over by a
notion of congregational preference.”
179
Ibid., pp. 46f.; p. 110 – “The primary task of ministry is not caring, for all kinds of people can offer devoted care;
nor is it counseling, for there are able professionals who counsel; nor is it church management, for managers
abound. No, the primary task of ministry is meaning. If we are ministers of meaning, then we had better learn to
think theologically.”
180
Daane, op. cit., p. viii – “Many preachers these days do not even like to think of themselves as preachers, much
less to have others call them preachers. They think of themselves as ‘enablers,’ or ‘coaches’ and wish so to be
regarded by others.”
177
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preaching, text selection either opens up or shuts down the Spirit-build conviction that the Bible
is the Word of God. By opening the Word as the Christ wills and the Spirit leads, we learn how
to read the Book.
Errant Traditions
At this point, for the sake of honesty and testability, it is recognized: consistent development
of a theme or a book brings more directly into the open untrained ministers’ exegetical
weaknesses and eisegetical sins; they then expose these sins to our congregational scrutiny.
When they use unbiblical homiletic devices, we learn what guides for interpretation to reject and
shun as unworthy of the Church and for growth in the Faith.
This is to say: upright covenantal/predestinarian, historical/redemptive, etc., preaching
spurns morosely traditional and ancient sermonic errors, body blows to sound ministry of the
Word, which divert the Bible into a Janus-faced mask. These erroneous homiletical devices may
be called 1) topical, 2) moralistic, 3) exemplaristic, and 4) situational, each a common practice of
oratory, each full of osteo-arthritis, eisegetical bones grinding on eisegetical bones.
Topical:
Topical preaching is: an approach to sermonizing that uses texts as spring boards for oratory.
“It is obvious that the desire for ‘topical sermons’ arose mainly for two reasons. There is, first, a
desperation on the part of the preacher when he realizes that it is impossible to preach
‘everything in one sermon;’ the material must be limited, or else a twenty- or thirty-minute
sermon can simply not be preached. There is, second, the psychological consideration that one
single point would be accepted and remembered by the congregation much easier than many
points or thoughts.” 181 When an unsound congregation enjoys hearing a minister strong on this
sort of eisegesis, preaching runs aground, and therewith its purpose.
Warnings enough register against topical preaching, yet this sort of oratory tends to ‘grace’
many pulpits – simply because ministers do not know how to read the Bible. Men of Christ take
a text in order to convey their own opinions on this or that social issue – racism, feminism,
pacifism - or any currently fresh anxiety. “Too often, then, the sermon comes to say whatever the
topic happens to mean to the sermonmaker.” 182 This is unacceptable from heralds of Jesus
Christ, no matter how eloquent the delivery or interesting the topic. The sovereign Head of the
Church alone determines sermon content. Topical sermons, therefore, bury the preaching
mandate under irreconcilable tensions alien to the Word.
Another overarching observation with respect to topical preaching – “The custom seems to
be to get sermons out of the general treasury of one’s own ideas or the best current thought on
religious questions, and then, after the sermon is prepared, to search for an appropriate text to
attach to it.” 183 Exploring this topicality in another way, for instance, with respect to the
misnamed Sermon on the Mount - “How many … sermons have we heard urging people to be
181
Ritchl, op. cit., p. 158.
Daane, op. cit., p. 53.
183
D.G. Miller, op. cit., p. 37.
182
83
peacemakers, or meek, or feeders of the poor? The indicatives become moralistic imperatives,
new rules which lead to conventional forms of ethical activism, anguish, or security, depending
on the particular species of self-deception at work in the practitioner.” 184 This sort of preaching,
if it may be dignified as such, exemplifies one-way cross border trade: it is the manner and
method of the world recast in a religious form. “Too often a preacher fills a sermon with verbal
content which the preacher already knows and then seeks a text to validate what the preacher
wants to say.” 185 Business, academic, and professional speeches are topical; each one elaborates
on a particular issue, if done well, and each one gives out what the speaker thinks about the topic
at hand. Recast in a religious format, every topical sermon gives out what a minister thinks about
this or that, 186 always in dereliction of his office.
Actually, who cares much what any minister personally thinks on any given issue? If it
becomes necessary to find out what he thinks about war, pollution, safety net provisions, fashion,
politics, etc., a quick call, e-mail, or brief visit will quickly suffice. Every minister, as any
complex person, may be entitled to a slew of honorable opinions. A spokesman for Jesus Christ,
however, may only speak as directed by the Head of the Church.
To help identify topical sermons – “The topical sermon is one whose form is determined
largely by the wording of its title.” 187 In each such case, the title, claims Peter J. Gomes, “… is
by far the more interesting part of preaching.” 188 This is true, considering the rich variety of titles
in his 1998 Sermons. “The Art of Impatient Living.” “Hail, Mary, Full of Grace.” “Humbug and
the Christian Hope.” “The House of Bread.” Etc. The same sort of exciting variety appears in G.
Paul Butler’s 1964 Best Sermons. “What Manner of Man is This.” “Divine Condescension.”
“The Roots of the Reconciling Message.” Etc. Each title interests and arrests, a boomlet of
attention – following by human opinions, which or may not square with the preaching unit.
Saturday newspapers on religious pages print unenthusiastic varieties, warm and fuzzy –
anything to excite interest and get whimsical parishioners to come out.
“Fear Factor”
“A Good Sense of Trust”
“Persistence Pays Off”
“Potluck Meal Follows the Service”
“Made Right by Justice”
“The Righteousness of God”
“Shouting in the Ear of God”
“How to Get What You Want and Knowing What That Is”
“How to Deal With Your Past:
184
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 85. In the elided space, Hauerwas & Willimon have “moralistic” in recognition
of the fact that many topical sermons are exactly that.
185
Crum, op. cit., p. 18.
186
The books, for instance, edited by G. Paul Butler since 1946 praise topical preaching as the best available.
Similarly, Cox, op. cit.
There is one exception to topical preaching – thematic preaching: sermons based on a confessional standard,
more on which later.
187
Andrew W. Blackwood, The Fine Art of Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976), p. 28.
188
Sermons, op. cit., p. 127.
84
Dealing with Resentment in Your Life”
“Ten Points to Financial Freedom”
“Ten Secrets to Success”
“Seven Secrets of Success”
“More Than Enough”
Each topic implies that the speaker from his perch of opportunity will give an opinion on this
or that ‘important’ subject, with a Bible reading as a spin-off benefit.
What follows upon the titles begs for critical comment. The human opinions and bland ideas
dressed down as the word of the Lord hardly add up to spare change. So little opening of the
Bible takes place. So little actual exposition according to unmet exegetical standards. Ministers
given to topical preaching merely plough ahead with opinions and ideas on this or that
‘respectable’ subject, appealing to the classic middle. In each instance, any initial reference to a
scripture passage represents a convenient nail on which to hang a sermon. However, no
spokesman for Christ has the right to represent him on any pulpit with fashionable opinions and
tactful ideas. Such deceit may be expected only from hirelings, as defined. Cf. II Pet. 2:10ff. –
“Bold and willful, they are not afraid to revile the glorious ones, whereas angels, though
greater in might and power, do not pronounce a reviling judgment upon them before the Lord.
But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and killed, reviling in
matters of which they are ignorant, will be destroyed in the same destruction with them,
suffering wrong for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are
blots and blemishes, reveling in their dissipation, carousing with you. They have eyes full of
adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed.
Accursed children! Forsaking the right way they have gone astray; they have followed the way
of Balaam, the son of Beor, 189 who loved gain from wrongdoing, but was rebuked for his own
transgression; a dumb ass spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.”
Case in point 075 – on Lk. 7:2-10, Jesus’ healing a centurion’s servant. “Preachers could
preach on ‘The Healing Power of Jesus,’ ‘The Faith of a Soldier,’ ‘Living Under Authority,’ ‘We
Have Heard of Jesus,’ ‘The Secret of a Great Faith,’ ‘Just Say the Word,’ ‘Love for a Slave,’
‘True Worthiness: God and Country,’ ‘On Humility,’ etc.; the topics from any single pericope
can seem endless. Notice how the text offers some sort of controlling biblical authority for
preaching – to be exact, none at all.” 190 In fact, each of these multiple applications misses the
pericope’s point.
Case in point 076 – on Lk. 16:19-31, the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. ”You could
distil a topic from the text: ‘Beggars at Our Gates – The Problem of Urban Homelessness;’ or,
perhaps, ‘Rich and Poor: A Crisis in our World Today;’ or even, ‘Charity – Christ’s Call to
Compassion.’ The beauty of a distilled topic is that you have no decisions relating to the scope of
the text and, in addition, no exegetical homework.” 191 This example too illustrates the lackluster
189
Cf. Num. 22:1ff.
Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 81.
191
Ibid., p. 92.
190
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manner in which topical preaching conveniently misses-the-point of a legitimately circumscribed
homiletical text.
Because of the prevalence of topical preaching, a few more details may be helpful. Such
sermonizing, allegedly speaking in the name of the Lord Jesus, uses any text as a pretext for
hobby horses, axe grinding, personal conviction, social hot irons, or just any interesting idea –
simply to get a congregation to sit up and listen. For these sermons-of-the-day, ministers develop
what they want to say and then find a ‘suitable’ text, which text may or may not be germane to
the issue of the sermon. As such, topical preachers use biblical texts as launching pads for
oratorical ambivalence. Each such sermon reflects 1) lack of true insight into the preaching unit
within its context, 2) failure at sermon preparation, and 3) inability to speak in the Lord’s name –
all powers of eloquence, gifts of gab, and pious blandishments to the contrary.
To use another analogy: topical preachers merely belly flop into a theme, therewith splashing
about sudsy personal views and trivial thoughts. As if these gratify listeners. An exhausting
example of this is a thirteen-volume series by Clyde E. Fant, Jr., and William D. Pinson, Jr., 192
the vast bulk of which rolls out topical sermonizing.
Case in point 077, the sermon essay appended as Excursus One – “To A Land Flowing With
Milk And Honey.”
Case in point 078, on Lev. 19:10. “You shall not steal, or deal falsely, or lie to one another.”
The minister used the text as a springboard to raise moral levels of business dealings ostensibly
on a transnational plane, but actually to get at some sticky issues particularly in the congregation.
His main idea was: only in a honest society can we enjoy the good life and attain a higher
standard of living. However, as much as he sought to contemporize the text, he completely
missed the covenant context, and thus dampened down the significance of the preaching unit.
Case in point 079 – on Ps. 62. The minister claimed the psalm as his text, but in the sermon
skipped completely over vss. 3-4, the key to the psalm’s existence, an act of injustice in the Old
Testament Church at that time. “How long will you set upon a man to shatter him, all of you, like
a leaning wall, a tottering fence? They only plan to thrust him down from his eminence. They
take pleasure in falsehood. They bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse.” By
eliminating reference to the psalm’s meaning key, the unctuous minister made the sermon
topical, something about trust in the LORD. Afterwards, he explained that by screening out the
key passage of Ps. 62, he tilted the text to the congregation’s best interests. If such abuse of
Scriptures raises eyebrows, good!
Case in point 080 – on Mk. 14:26. “And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the
Mount of Olives.” The minister first read Ps. 116, a Hallel song, and claimed, probably true, that
the Old Testament Church sang the Hallel Psalms, 113-118, during Passover celebrations.
Without explaining “hymn,” or the actual word, ‘hymning,” the man presented a case for singing
psalms only during worship services.
192
20 Centuries of Great Preaching: An Encyclopedia of Preaching (Waco: Word, 1971). In Vol. 13’s Index of
Sermons, pp. 256-265, the editors list the topics.
86
Case in point 081. “September 11th shook my faith. But then ‘God showed up’ in the massive
outpouring of passion, compassion and determination of ordinary and extraordinary Americans.
Everywhere we looked, both here and abroad, people were doing whatever they could to comfort
the families and friends of those whose lives were shattered or lost. Those simple words, ‘God
showed up,’ spoken in a sermon at my church gave me comfort and a measure of confidence
amid all the uncertainty. How can parents explain to our children what happened? How do we
assure ourselves and those we love that goodness can and will triumph over evil?” 193
Topical sermons may come with world-class eloquence, but when everything is said and
done, these are still oratory. Such preaching may tickle ears, yet leave hearts and lives
untouched, unreformed. So we approach the bottom line – “’Topical preaching’ in its modern
sense is a different, and far more dangerous, thing. … It is not preaching, as we understand the
term, at all. It is most certainly not ‘a manifestation of the Incarnate Word from the written
Word, by the spoken word.’ It is usually a moral comment on the events of the day, i.e., the
topics of the hour. Whatever chances to be in the public mind and in the press is carried over into
the pulpit.” 194 Sangster further belabored topical preaching as a “… blatant mishandling of
Scripture in a way no honest craftsman could condone. It does deliberate despite to the Word of
God. It rips a phrase from its context and from the whole tenor of the Scripture, and often uses it
as a pretext for saying things that were not worthy saying in the pulpit at any time.” 195 But once
this elusive sort of ‘preaching’ fixes itself in congregational minds as normal and good, whatever
the outward allegiance to the Word, the downhill slide only moves faster.
Regardless of a minister’s standing or the height of his pedestal, we must at a minimum
protest all topical abuse of the Word.
Moralistic:
Moralizing is: making the Bible relevant without understanding the text or passage under
consideration.
When ministers fail to know the preaching unit in its interpretation and application, an alien
impulse of rebellion stands forth. “All too often, however, this impulse is so strong that the
preacher does not deal seriously enough with the text to be able to relate it to the present. The
sermon actually imparts the ideas and concerns that the text may have triggered in the preacher’s
mind. A phrase, a metaphor, a feature of a story, simply serves as a catalyst; the actual content of
the sermon is derived elsewhere and frequently could have been suggested just as well by a
fortune cookie.” 196 With utter sincerity as a covering for emptiness, men of the Lord may deliver
these sermons; nevertheless, the pathetic failure to deal honestly with Scriptures burns into all
with ears to hear.
Moralistic preaching appears as sermons with ‘relevance’ strewn throughout or at the end.
“There is, perhaps, no need today to warn intelligent men against labored moralizing – ‘Now the
193
Susan Ungaro, “America’s Big Heart,” Family Circle, Vol. 114, #15, November 20, 2001, p. 7.
Sangster, The Craft of the Sermon, op. cit., p. 57.
195
Ibid., p. 122.
196
Keck, op. cit., p. 101.
194
87
lesson of all this …,’ ‘The moral I want to draw out ….” We can still recall the extra boredom
which spread over us as children when the preacher got to that point.” 197 Such unwarranted and
irrelevant relevance, whether in the body of the sermon or as closure, speaks of ministers’
inability at exegesis. “Moralism comes up with a list of acceptable virtues and suitable causes,
the pursuit of which will give us self-fulfilment.” 198 However moralisms may be phrased
currently (hopefully less wooden than W.E. Sangster illustrated), they stand out in Protestant and
Roman Catholic traditions as glaring attempts to stop sermons from deteriorating into
gobbledygook.
Case in point 082. “In his sermon, ‘Life on Wings,’ Terry Fullam compares the Christian life
to that of an eagle’s:
1. You have to be born as an eagle; you have to be born again to receive the gift of salvation.
2. Mother eagles shove babies out of the nest to get them to fly; God shoves us out into the
world to mature us.
3. Eagles let themselves be lifted up by the wind currents; we should let the Spirit lift us,
strengthen us.
4. Eagles die while resolutely facing the sun; Christians can die with courage.
The sermon doesn’t have a centering text, nor does one point lead logically to the next.” 199
Deut. 32:11-12 and Is. 40:30-31 may give some credence to the above sermonic outline.
However, the four applications for relevance are moralisms, irrelevant to the eagle analogy. By
any reckoning, these moralisms mislead, for nothing of their sublime assurances appears in the
Bible.
Case in point 083. “Nahum says that a drought is to come. I am sure there are many of you
who remember the dust storms in this country in the 1930s. I have always felt that those storms
were a judgment from God. If there had been any kind of revival at that time, I am confident we
would never have had to fight World War II or to have been involved in all that we have since
then. But unfortunately, that judgment from God carried no message for this country at that
time.” 200
Case in point 084 – on Mt. 5:6, the punch line. “Are you filled? are you blessed in this sense?
are you hungering and thirsting? Those are the questions. This is the gracious, glorious promise
of God to all such: ‘Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall
be filled.’” 201
Case in point 085. Perhaps the best known moralism in all the world, a quintessential
American invention, consists of altar calls into which many revival-type sermons degenerate,
desperate for some sort of relevance, or pragmatic result. However inappropriate, penitents have
to lean on (renowned) preachers to make Arminian decisions-for-Christ.
197
W.E. Sangster, Power in Preaching (New York: Abingdon, 1958), p. 83.
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 90.
199
Galli & Larson, op. cit., p. 52.
200
J. Vernon McGee, The Prophets: Nahum and Habakkuk (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991), p. 25.
201
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959-1960/1991), p. 83.
198
88
Moralizing easily drifts into or expresses itself with sentimentality. “Sentimentality, after all
is but the way our unbelief is lived out. Sentimentality, that attitude of being always ready to
understand but not to judge, corrupts us and the ministry. This is as true of conservative churches
as it is of liberal. Sentimentality is the subjecting of the church year to ‘Mother’s Day’ and
‘Thanksgiving.’ … Sentimentality is ‘the family that prays together stays together.’” 202 In fact,
all moralistic preaching at heart lives on delusory sentimentality, a flawed rule for living.
Moralizing may involve marriage relations, family bonds, church attendance, clean living,
ecological challenges, anti-globalism, etc. Ministers thus want to make listeners-to-sermons
choose to be better people and at same time contribute to changing the world. Therefore, every
moralism states or implies: you ought to do so and so to be a better person and be better off than
before. “The problem is that moralistic and idealistic preaching is generally ineffective in
changing human behavior.” 203 Moralistic preaching is always defunct; essentially, it is a secular
tradition 204 by which the listening ethic drifts off into a coma.
Exemplaristic:
Similar to moralism, exemplarisms consist of forced applications from biblical or extrabiblical sources recommending whom to follow and not to follow; and alternatively, what lifeenhancing works to copy or life-wasting acts to avoid.
Exemplarism is: giving unwarranted exemplars to mystify doctrine and life.
Case in point 086. “… we can become like Christ by doing one thing – by following him in
the overall style of life he chose for himself. If we have faith in Christ, we must believe that he
knew how to live. We can, through faith and grace, become like Christ by practicing the types of
activities he engaged in, by arranging our whole lives around the activities he himself practices
in order to remain constantly at home in the fellowship of his Father.” 205
Case in point 087. “In the sermon about Joseph, after extending the development of one more
step, it says: ‘It could be said of Joseph that what he did speaks so loudly he did not have to say
anything. Joseph is a remarkably simple person, and he is simply remarkable in his obedience to
God.’
By this two-sentence transition, the preacher promises several things. He promises to show
us how Joseph’s life will apply to ours because Joseph was a simple person, a normal person,
202
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 120. Also – “… sentimentality makes ministry impossible. If the ministry is
reduced to being primarily a helping profession then those who take up that office cannot help being destroyed if
they have any integrity. For they will find themselves frustrated by a people not trained on the narrative of God’s
salvation, not trained to want the right things rightly, but rather a people who share the liberal presumption that all
needs which are sincerely felt are legitimate. Those in the ministry will then find they are expected to try to meet
those needs since, ‘Isn’t it nice that this is what the ministry is supposed to do since they have been freed from
having to earn a living?’”
203
Crum, op. cit., p. 17.
204
For example: Robert Bly, The Sibling Society (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1996). In the first part of the book,
the author, without a trace of humor, elaborated on Jack and the Beanstalk, moralizing on authority, broken families,
evil, giants, the human brain, etc.
205
Willard, op. cit., p. ix.
89
like most of us. He promises to show us remarkable (that is, surprising and interesting things
about how Joseph obeyed God.” 206
Case in point 088. “When you are tempted to doubt God’s love, go to Calvary. There you can
see Jesus Christ and, in seeing him, God. There you will see love beyond degree, love that melts
‘religion’ and recasts it in the mold of a joyous and loving devotion.” 207
Case in point 089. “… as middle age sets in, there are small but unmistakable hints in the
fragility and finality of this world. One senses the onset of physical and mental decline and
knows that it can only grow worse as time passes. Retirement is often a traumatic experience as
one interrupts the rhythms of a lifetime of regular work and is left with too much time to think
about the unpromising future. Though we know that this will happen and make plans for it with
insurance and payment into pension plans, it remains the unknown and generally unwanted land
of a threatening future. This is, in a very real sense, the mystery of the wilderness. Here we can
truly walk with ancient Israel as we are tempted to live in a reverie about the nostalgic past while
fearing the fierce ‘giants’ who loom ahead of us. We can also walk with Jesus as he becomes
ever more aware of the pain and suffering that await him in Judea.” 208
Of course, for a 20th-century congregation to copy Joseph, migrate with Israel through the
wilderness (for 40 years), and walk with Jesus to Jerusalem (for three years) are historical and
practical impossibilities. Exemplarizing, however, leaves the impression that we may ably step
into history at any arbitrary point, negating its once-for-all linear character, or that we simple
adopt characteristics of past persons for this day. Therefore, a caveat applies. “By preaching …
[exemplarisms] … the purpose is certainly not to persuade the hearers to believe that they
themselves ‘are’ Abraham, Jacob, Daniel, Mary, or Paul. Phrases such as ‘Are we not all like
Paul?’ or ‘Don’t you see that we are all in this boat with Jesus and the fearful disciples?’ indicate
that the preacher does not understand that God’s history is unrepeatable, and that it is not the
‘situation’ or the faith of God’s people which guarantees the continuity of God’s love and plan
with His people. We are not at all like Abraham or Paul; we are completely different.” 209 Looked
directly at, exemplarizing preachers signally fail at relevance.
Case in point 090. “In chapter 3 Nahum gives the cause for and justifies God’s destruction of
the city of Nineveh. Nineveh’s destruction is an example of the fact that ‘… whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he also reap’ (Gal. 6:7). This is also true of a nation. You will find that in many
ways God deals with individuals and nations in a very similar manner.” 210
Case in point 091. “You have felt faith strained to the point where it begins breaking down
into unbelief. It may be you have been brought quite near the breaking point, almost (humanly
speaking) to the end of your tether. You have experienced the same forsakenness as the Psalmist
knew, and Job and Elijah and Jeremiah. Be of good courage! For that is precisely the kind of
206
Galli & Larson, op. cit., p. 44.
Neil Babcox, “How to Enjoy God,” in Cox, op. cit., p. 53.
208
Demetrius Dumm, Flowers in the Desert: A Spirituality of the Bible (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), pp. 92f.
209
Ritschl, op. cit., p. 160.
210
McGee, op. cit., p. 49.
207
90
experience that gives God His best chance. It is far opener to His Spirit than any amount of glib,
facile religious profession.” 211
Case in point 092 – on Num. 11:7-9. “Although the biblical account suggests a miraculous
origin for the manna, it is believed to be droplets of sap secreted from the tamarisk tree and
hardened in the cool temperatures of the night. It can then be gathered in the morning and is
edible. In the tradition of Israel, however, this manna acquired a profound symbolic meaning: it
is the spiritual nourishment provided by God to sustain those who are making the journey of
faith.” 212
Case in point 093. “Martin Luther King, jr., as he was being taken up to glory, in the midst of
his eschatological joy, seeing our trepidation and fear, looked over his shoulder and flung down
his mantle. He gave us his dream. A dream of justice and equality.” 213
Case in point 094. “Because the Child of God has taken the form of a slave, because Jesus
came into the world of a lowly birth, because he ate with sinners and reprobates, we can dream.
Because he befriended the outcasts, championed the cause of the downtrodden, proclaimed the
release of the captives, because he set at liberty those who were oppressed, we are able to act
boldly as he did.” 214
Exemplaristic preaching, as all moralistic, has a long history in the Church, particularly by
way of biographical sermons – on the life of a biblical or extra-biblical person. “(Another) refuge
for the unprepared (minister) is a Biblical biography. It seems so easy to ‘get together.’ A
concordance and a Bible dictionary soon shovel all the known facts into a heap. Setting them in
order and drawing certain ‘lessons’ is not heavy labor. The people like the method because …
they feel near to life, and it is one of the widespread convictions of common people that the
pulpit and life seem far apart.” 215 In this fantasizing way not only men such as Abraham and
Joseph or women as Sarah and Mary become role models, but also politicians, social activists,
sport heroes, film icons, etc. Exemplaristic preaching, following rules of men, ingratiates.
Now, an even sharper focus on this problem preaching. “The sola Scriptura, so ardently
confessed in theory, barely functions in the practice of exemplary preaching: one hardly needs
the Bible for exemplary sermons. Ironically, the exemplary preacher, earnestly toiling to portray
the man in the text in his personal struggles, therewith the better to draw the line to the man in
the pew, could, methodologically, have saved himself the trouble and sketched merely the man
in the pew, for, motivated by the search for an analogy (relevance), he loses precisely that
distinctiveness which occasioned the appearance in the Bible of the man in the text.” 216 In its
manner, exemplarizing floods us with doled out ministerial irrelevance and incompetence. The
role models they thus preach compel us to do the tantalizingly impossible, thereby enforcing
despair. Or laughter. “Perhaps we might agree that, whether human nature changes or does not,
211
James S. Stewart, “Life’s Most Indispensable Possession,” in G. Paul Butler, Best Sermons, VII, 1959-1960
Protestant Edition (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1959), p. 23.
212
Dumm, op. cit., p. 97.
213
Toinette M. Eugene, “Liberating Love: Pass It On” in Ponder, op. cit., pp. 51f.
214
Ibid., p. 52.
215
Sangster, The Craft of the Sermon, op. cit., p. 75.
216
Greidanus, Sola Scriptura, op. cit., p. 70.
91
human situations do change, and the problems and difficulties of one age are not those of
another. When the modern church-goer is solemnly assured that he is in essentially the same
situation as the Prophet Moses, or Nicodemus, or Cornelius, he ought to burst out laughing.” 217
Point me!
Situational:
Life-situation preaching came as Harry E. Fosdick’s novelty, which since 1950 gained a
large following among ministers to escape alleged problems of irrelevant preaching. 218 “Those
who plead for life-situation preaching take the view that far too many sermons begin with a text,
dawdle with it in Samaria or Jerusalem, and quite often never get at the theme related to presentday life at all.” 219 This irrelevancy is real, admittedly, along with repeat pieties and platitudes
somehow to make sermons touch ground, psychologically. “The preacher is the historic
communicator of religion and is helping to make sure of the health of the Christian
community.” 220 Although Scriptures lack warrant for such vapid assertion, nevertheless
psychology became a powerfully eisegetical force post-World War II.
Reaction to traditional topical and exemplaristic sermonizing, especially overreaction, drove
ministers into a different problem, psychological counseling from respective pulpits. “Most
sermons from most pulpits, particularly since 1950, seem to have been aimed at an existential
self in psychological self-awareness.” 221 To make preaching more compliant with psychical
innovation, ministers rode the wave of psychological interest. To that end, they needed to
capture, explain, and resolve concrete life-situations – within less than 20-30 minutes. A minister
therefore had to “choose a problem common enough to be of interest event to those not actually
in it – but who may be in it some day. How does a Christian act in this emergency? What does a
disciple do now?” 222 “Harry Emerson Fosdick would have grounded [Acts 4:11 – on the stone
rejected by the builders] in human experience and he would have called attention to the fact that
civilizations and individuals have a tendency to lose their highest values, and to the need to
search in the rubble of life for those values again and put them at the head of life.” 223 Reading
such sermons now one senses palpable care for peoples and individuals in concrete situations.
Yet, two defects in life-problem preaching stand out like sore thumbs. 1) Situational
stridency surrenders to humanism – “… such sermons are likely to become mere psychological
treatises or clinical examinations.” 224 2) The mighty acts of the Trinity with respect to the
covenant, faith, the Church, the Kingdom stay behind, out of hearing, even as large social,
217
Barr, op. cit., p. 47.
Sangster, Power in Preaching, op. cit., p. 69 – “This has become very common in recent years. It was inevitable
that the new psychology should command the close interest of preachers. The light cast upon hidden motives, new
insights into the power of imagination and the shaping of ideals, shrewd guesses at the origin and fostering of fear,
and so on, could not fail to fascinate the minds of those whose great concern was conduct.”
219
Sangster, The Craft of the Sermon, op. cit., p. 59.
220
Clarence E. Lemmon, “Present-day Preaching” in C.E. Lemmon, ed., Preaching on Old Testament Themes (St.
Louis: Bethany Press, 1963), p. 11.
221
Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 13.
222
Sangster, The Craft of the Sermon, op. cit., p. 59.
223
Lemmon, op. cit., p. 17.
224
Ibid., p.18.
218
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political, and environmental issues. Thus, this type of preaching also starts too low, with people
instead of the Christ, and moves off into oratory. Fosdick’s pulpit legacy, however popular and
appealing, closes the door to the mighty acts of the Lord Jesus Christ. “Harry Emerson Fosdick
turned to psychological problems, and in his wake we have therapeutic pulpits across the nation.
Psychological analysis seems to have replaced theology in many, many churches.” 225 So we are
pushed and pulled into introspection rather than pointed at Christ Jesus.
Case in point 095. “The relationship of faith to feeling, rather than faith’s relationship to
mind, is with many people the more vital interest. The emotional results of faith are rightfully of
intense concern to everyone, for our feelings put the sense of value into life.” 226
Case in point 096. “Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but
reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy. But with sound
self-confidence you can succeed. A sense of inferiority and inadequacy interferes with the
attainment of your hopes, but self-confidence leads to self-realization and successful
achievement.” 227
Case in point 097. “You can precondition your mind to success. This is a basic principle of
positive thinking. You can actually forecast what your future failure or success will be by your
present type of thinking.” 228
Case in point 098 – on Prov. 3:5. “This text will help you avoid a nervous breakdown. It will
stimulate your recovery if you have had one.” 229
Case in point 099. “One farmer never bothered to sort [his] potatoes at all. Yet he seemed to
be making the most money. A puzzled neighbor finally asked him, ‘What is your secret?’ He
said, ‘It’s simple. I just load up the wagon with potatoes and take the roughest road to town.
During the eight-mile trip, the little potatoes always fall to the bottom. The medium potatoes
land in the middle, while the big potatoes rise to the top.’ That’s not only true of potatoes. It is a
law of life. Big potatoes rise to the top on rough roads, and tough people rise to the top in rough
times.” 230
Case in point 100 – on Mt. 5:5. “’Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’
Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? We live in a highpowered country called the United States of
America. Don’t we all know that it is the high-energy, powerful promoter – the big wheelerdealer – who gets ahead?” 231
225
Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., pp. 103f.
Harry E. Fosdick, The Meaning of Faith (New York: Association Press, 1917/1950), p. 176.
227
Norman V. Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking: A Practical Guide to Mastering the Problems of Everyday
Living (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1952), p. 1.
228
Norman V. Peale, The Amazing Results of Positive Thinking (New York: Fawcett Crest, 1959), p. 30.
229
Norman V. Peale, Inspiring Messages For Daily Living (New York: Fawcett Crest, 1950/55), p. 21.
230
Robert H. Schuller, Tough times Never Last, But Tough People Do! (New York: Bantam, 1983/84), p. 31. If this
is a law of life, where in God’s Word may we find it?
231
Robert H. Schuller, The Be (Happy) Attitudes (New York: Bantam, 1985), p. 75.
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 90, place Schuller’s books among moralistic types of preaching instead of life
situations. Schuller, however, obviously sought to follow the Fosdick-Peale trail into oblivion.
226
93
Case in point 101. “Mike Young spots an irony in [a] recent turn of events. In 1995 he
became pastor of a new church in Honolulu, and he wanted both to ‘confess’ his participation in
the Marsh Chapel experiment 232 to his new congregation and also to talk to them about what he
saw as the psychospiritual potential of psychoactive drugs. In a sermon on the subject, he
outlined some of the new research under way, and then concluded, ‘What a wonderful irony to
all of this: at the moment it is completely illegal for a religious leader to administer a religious
experience to you in this way. But it is quite legal for a scientist to administer a religious
experience to you in this way. The irony … is that we have indeed made scientists the high
priests of our technological society. Those same high priests are now finding that they are in fact
going to have to learn how to be priests for real.” 233
Each of these cases in point reflects and asserts psychological interests impossible to find in
the Bible, yet they were preached and advocated as the word of the Lord. As with the moralistic
and exemplaristic, this homiletic device of quackery too makes ministers spray opinions and
ideas and paltry thoughts all over the Church. Against us who sit back in the pew absorbing such
eisegesis applies the warning about believing private interpretations. Cf. II Pet. 1:20f. – “First of
all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own
interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the
Holy Spirit spoke from God.” The Apostle in Christ’s name separated the fatuous from constant
attendance on the Word.
Before moving on to more hopeful preaching, every one ought to note that the explicit and
implicit danger to topical, moralizing, exemplarizing and situational sermonizing is this: unless
you fulfill these conditions, you cannot be saved. These spiritual lessons expose us to ministerial
legalisms. They invite, challenge, or command us to fulfill with legalistic abandon to do the
impossible, and achieve autosoterism.
Autosoterism is: any method, fabricated, chosen to escape the wrath of God.
In effect, self-salvation – in any of hundreds of ideological ways. However. Cf. Acts 4:12 –
“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men
by which we must be saved.” Each autosoteric method and system, too neat by half, particularly
in the Church, beats hearts of flesh into hearts of stone.
Out-of-date ministers run for ideological movements, and, if permitted, for idolatries. Yet,
we call, pay, tolerate, even pedestal those who use mildewed, traditional, or fraudulent homiletic
stratagems. Because they miss out on the literal reading of Scripture and the analogy of faith,
such preachers add to or take away from the Word. Hence, they blithely ‘discover’ and pass on
spiritual lessons subject no more to sermon evaluation, simply because we no longer own
exegetical sharpness. In fact, twisting-in-the-wind homiletic devices hammer with their
mysterious ways deformable congregations into systems of tyranny.
232
This Marsh Chapel Experiment, also known as the Good Friday Experiment, took place in the early 1960s at
Boston University; it was an experiment with psychedelics to discover its influence on religious experience. Cf.
Russell Shorto, Saints and Madmen: Psychiatry Opens Its Doors to Religion (New York: Henry Holt, 1999), p. 202.
233
Ibid., p. 217.
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Since these ministers clog up interest in exegesis and make exegetical standards unnecessary,
they, insufferable scofflaws, bump the Church off to global sidelines. “Slick communication,
providing ‘instant relevance’, is not a property of the Bible, and is not desirable in any case.” 234
Therefore, all run-of-the-mill preaching through ecclesiastical inbreeding commits basic violence
to vigorous interpretation and sustainable application of the Word. Sooner rather than later, they
pass through the gates of no-return. “Failing …, the pastoral ministry is doomed to the petty
concerns of helping people feel a bit better rather than inviting them to dramatic conversion. The
pastor becomes nothing more than a court chaplain, presiding over ceremonies of culture, a
pleasing fixture for rites of passage like weddings and funerals, yet rites in which the pastor’s
presence becomes more and more absurd because the pastor is saying nothing that we do not
already know.” 235 Eventually they speak with more grimness than hope, caused by wayward
pulpiteering habits.
Sermonic Hopes
In place of preaching myopic visions (allegorism, Scholasticism, liberalism, etc.) and
deadbeat homiletic devices (topical, moralistic, exemplaristic, and situational), signs of dying
churches, more positive sermonizing calls for consideration. In the darkness of worn out,
decrepit, stones-for-bread preaching burn hopeful lights of expositional and redemptivehistorical sermons; in the Church, these shake out measures of hope.
Expository:
Innovative expository preaching moves us about in happier surroundings. Ministers who
engage the Bible in this manner promise to consider preaching units seriously and entirely. “It is
the high and sometimes hard task of making meaning clear. It specializes in the flavor of words
and phrases. It deals with the nuance and with the overtone and undertone. It is the particular
sphere of the linguistic scholar, though by no means his exclusive preserve. It aims to scoop the
sense from the chose phrase. Full success is achieved when the people depart after worship
knowing clearly the purport of that fragment of Scripture and how it relates to their own daily
lives.” 236 “In expository preaching the sermon ‘sets forth’ or ‘exhibits’ the truth of the selected
biblical text. Such preaching represents the assertions of the text in the form of a sermon. The
sermons must say what the text says.” 237 This is a far cry from earlier exposed defective, if not
craven, ideological barriers to Scripture.
Exposition is: setting forth, explaining, and thus interpreting the Word of God.
Therein, expository preaching is “… to explain in the simplest words what the text
means.” 238 More than merely interpreting a preaching unit by means of a running commentary,
expository work promises, according to D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, that each sermon has a decent
234
Barr, op. cit., p. 141.
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 123. Cf. p. 124 – “Pastors come to despise what they are and to hate the
community that made them that way. Because the church is not a place to worship God, but rather a therapeutic
center for the meeting of one another’s unchecked, unexamined needs, the pastor is exhausted.”
236
Sangster, The Craft of the Sermon, op. cit., p. 120.
237
Daane, op. cit., p. 49.
238
Ibid., p. 69.
235
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form and shape to achieve its goal. “A sermon is not an essay and is not meant, primarily, for
publication, but to be heard and to have an immediate impact upon listeners.” 239 These
characteristics of expository preaching no doubt all conscientious ministers seek and all
congregations of Christ insist upon, as painful as this may become.
In addition, expository sermons apply each preaching unit in its catalyst relevance to our
contemporary situations. Therefore, ministers in the expository preaching tradition pledge to take
the Bible seriously and make its application meaningful. Lloyd-Jones’ Studies in the Sermon on
the Mount stands forth as one illustration of this sort of preaching, commonly found among more
conservative ministers. However, though more positive, much more, in comparison to the
mundane traditions above, expository preaching trembles with problems. Often because
ministers fail to consider the Bible’s covenant/predestination, historical/redemptive, etc.,
character, this preaching tradition promises more than it yields.
1) Expository preaching starts too low. In the case of Lloyd-Jones’ Studies, the focus
constantly concentrates on the often abstract Christian man, the Christian in terms of his needs,
on order to find a point of contact. “Having seen what the Christian is, we now come to consider
how the Christian should manifest this.” 240 As apparent, in this tradition the Christian (whoever
this person of faith may be) instead of Christ Jesus takes over with heavy influence. 241
2) Expository preaching attempts to address all people indiscriminately, whereas in upright
pulpit speech ministers in the name of Jesus Christ speak only to specific congregations. This
common interest with liberalism always surpasses textual honesty.
3) Expository preaching too easily drops into moralizing and exemplarizing to achieve
practical instruction.
Case in point 102. “The great hope for society today is an increasing number of individual
Christians. Let the Church of God concentrate on that and not waste her time and energy on
matters outside her province. Let the individual Christian be certain that this essential quality of
saltness is in him, that because he is what he is, he is a check, a control, an antiseptic in society,
preserving it from unspeakable foulness, preserving it, perhaps, from a return to a dark age.” 242
Negative features, given its personable predilections, make expository preaching dubious at
best, defeating its positive note on interpretation; but at least such endowed preachers edge closer
to giving a measure of assurance that we hear something of the Word of God. 243
239
Lloyd-Jones, op. cit., p. vii.
Ibid., p. 149.
241
Greidanus, Sola Scriptura, op. cit., p. 95.
242
Lloyd-Jones, op. cit., p. 158. Preserving society, no doubt a laudatory effort, goes far beyond the Church’s
mandate, also for individual Christians. In fact, preservation of any human society opposes the Christ’s lordship in
every age with respect to the coming of the Kingdom.
243
Greidanus, Sola Scriptura, op. cit., p. 16.
240
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Historical-Redemptive:
At times, the imperative, “We must have historical-redemptive preaching!” has rung out,
even with authoritative surges of conviction.
Historical-redemptive preaching is: to summon the Church to believe the Word in its
historical and progressive revelation.
Sidney Greidanus, currently a foremost exponent of historical-redemptive preaching, 244
started against a backdrop of ministers bent on conjuring biblical texts into launching pads for
private and/or ideological dogmas and ideas, undermining thereby the sola Scriptura for
preaching, hollowing out the Faith, and destroying the Church.
Sola Scriptura is: the Bible (alone) for faith and life in Jesus Christ.
Again, as with expository preaching, historical-redemptive sermonizing also means letting
the text speak its specific sense, but with much more emphasis on historical placeness. “We
must, therefore, try to understand all the accounts in their relation with each other, in their
coherence with the center of redemptive history, Jesus Christ.” 245 The force and beauty of this
simple design confirms that ministers find and proclaim the specific contents of historical texts,
as for instance I&II Samuel and I&II Kings, or Matthew and I John. Redemptive history unifies
the sense and structure of the preaching unit with Christ as its tensive meaning and moving force.
Ministers committed to historical-redemptive preaching interpret historical literature in the
Bible in accordance with its own substance. Whether from Genesis or the Revelation, they
expose the progress of Christ’s work with respect to the Church’s redemption. Step by step,
through the ages the Lord Jesus moved the Gospel to its present fullness, for which grounded
men of God give account, lest sermons deteriorate into flagging oratory with moral and
exemplary lessons.
With this historical-redemptive preaching, ministers probe for the covenant environment and
energetic purpose of preaching units. The progressive history of the Gospel, beginning at Gen.
3:14ff., in the lively proclamation of the Church from the Old Testament into the New, makes us
hungry for more such sermons. “Redemptive history is so significant because it is intimately
related with God’s revelation; in fact, redemptive history is itself revelation.” 246 As God
progressively fulfilled the plan of our redemption on the horizontal plane in the history recorded
as Scriptures, so faithfully he moves the Church ahead – till times cease, and beyond. For this
reasons we may track the covenant promises of the past in order to walk farther into the future,
thankfully committed to our covenant obligations.
244
Greidanus, Sola Scriptura, op. cit., and The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1988).
245
Greidanus, Sola Scriptura, op. cit., p. 41.
246
Ibid., p. 121.
97
Apart from this historical-redemptive approach, ministers often, one finds, perceive the Bible
as a fragmentary book, perhaps a collection of biographies or dismissible religious reflections,
ripe for spiritual lessons.
1) One immediate limitation to historical-redemptive sermons catches attention: the Bible
consists of much more than historical accounts. Ministers may never misrepresent psalms,
proverbs, prophecies, and parables as historical literature, only as wisdom literature.
Nevertheless, these stand in and reflect a historical framework, which preachers position in the
development of such preaching units.
2) A second limitation to historical-redemptive preaching happens when ministers seek “…
to preach the facts behind the texts to the detriment of the preaching-text.” 247 Historicalredemptive preaching takes place only along the timing of factual chronology.
Hence, sermons opening up the unity of and progression in redemptive history make us more
aware that we are moving forwards in a real and coordinated history. For this reason, such senseof-place sermons disclose more than reality checks; they actually move us ahead – step by step –
into every tomorrow, persevering, constant in faith, less and less subject to always inappropriate
advances by rigid ideologues.
Exegetical Sharpness
To get at exegetical sharpness, we recognize two factors. 1) Errant eisegetical devices
(topical, moralistic, exemplaristic, and situational) shut down the good way of reading the Bible.
2) Actually hopeful biblical nerve paths (expository and historical-redemptive) lay open the way
and right reading of the Word. Into the latter, we ought to move (the formation of) ministers
more.
Next to ordination vows, nothing keeps ministers more on respective toes than our exegetical
awareness. The more ministers experience this keenness, the better prepared they come to church
to speak the word of the Lord. In other words, where the Holy Spirit moves in Jesus Christ’s
numerous congregations, there ministers sharpen and polish our exegetical instruments, as
happened in the Beroean Church, cf. Acts 17:10ff.; the members of that congregation eagerly
received the word of the Lord, then went home and examined the Scriptures; they tested what
they had heard from Paul and Silas. No one was going to pull wool over their eyes. With the
same careful reflection and calm reasoning, we may encourage as well as admonish Christ’s men
to stay true to ordination vows, thus with honest toil preaching the whole counsel of God.
Ministers moved by the Holy Spirit, true to ordination vows, and out of love for the salvation
of the churches they serve, will with joy of soul and travail of heart rush out of the scriptural
treasure house what is new and what is old, cf. Mt. 13:52. When they realize that we know
exegesis and that pagan homiletic devices backfire, they will speak the word of the Lord on
247
Ibid., p. 217.
98
Sundays – a prudent rule, contrary to all the noisy offerings of false gospels 248 and infiltrations
of satanic stratagems.
Yet congregants can be ignorant about sermons. Even if one, because of a wrong approach to
Scripture, turns out to be oratory, with all debilities of eisegesis, optimistic souls attempt to take
something good out of the preaching event. The minister spoke so well. The congregation was in
a good mood. The flowers stood out elegantly. Though eisegetically oriented preaching winds up
in the bonfires of vanity, each optimist may still claim: I take out of it what I can salvage, and
ignore the rest. A middling sort of listening-to-sermons comes out in the following nostrum. “It
is interesting to see that different people get somewhat different ideas out of the same session.
Maybe we hear what interests us most. Some of us probably take a point out of the sermon and
sort of write our own sermons.” 249 Such shabby listening to the word of the Lord, however, eats
away at and rebuffs responsibility in the office of the congregation for preaching. What if
children absorb only the bad? What of those still unable to discern oratory from preaching? What
of love for neighbors? What of converts? What of Christ’s approval?
Without love for Christ, without neighbor love, including love for ministers and concern for
the office the sovereign Lord entrusts to them, the congregational community fritters away into
the badlands of eisegesis. The missing high-grade lubricant of love encourages the rust of
boredom. Then we still may sit back, relaxed, responsibility-free, and good-natured, to receive
the Judge’s damnation for tolerating blasphemy and/or apostasy on the pulpit.
Horrors of eisegesis and pagan homiletic devices stand out sharpest in serial preaching. Soon
the foolishness of topical, moralistic, exemplaristic, and situational sermons no more impinge on
Christianized hearts and irritate our minds. Only where the Spirit moves in the Church, we begin
to denounce eisegesis and demand sound preaching. For with imprudent and impudent preaching
we with hardening attitudes slide away from the forefront of life and fail at progress in the way
of salvation, of sanctification.
Serial Sermons
Series preaching, each 3-7 units, one from the Old Testament followed by one from the New,
extracts reliable variety to bolster our listening interests, always with an eye on tomorrow.
Admittedly, it is difficult to listen Sunday after Sunday to sermons on Daniel’s prophecies; then
a congregation and the Faith slide downward into an unstable stage neither hot nor cold. Serial
preaching and balanced listening open the Word better than arbitrary preaching texts, ministers
skipping here and there for the word of the Lord.
Series of sermons allow us to grow in a definite area of the Bible, specifically in exegetical
wisdom. As we become sharper in exegesis and know how to read the Bible, listening to sermons
comes with new dimensions – for through the Holy Spirit we increase in strength, perceiving true
interpretation and application. Then also a soul ache comes, unstoppably: we become intelligent
of heart at spotting eisegesis and pagan homiletic stratagems. Nevertheless, sermons in serial
248
Gene E. Bartlett, The Audacity of Preaching: The Lyman Beecher Lectures (New York: Harper & Brothers,
1962), p. 83.
249
William L. Malcomson, The Preaching Event (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), p. 29.
99
sequence permit us in the office of the congregation to discern more intensely wholesome
preaching from oratory. For only responsible preaching builds the Church, salvation, and thus
glorifies God.
For series-sermons, consider confessional, or thematic preaching: ask for a miniseries on the
centuries-old Apostles Creed, which sums up the Bible. Such a 12-part series, though somewhat
long, makes a much-unified sequence. Because we know the Credo well, length ought not to
present much difficulty, whereas little-known biblical material will. The intrinsic value of an
Apostles Creed series is, of course, that is overarches Scriptures: without softening the hard
edges, this all Christian profess to believe. Further, with such an oversight of Scriptures, a
sequence of sermons on the Creed (re)establishes in our beating hearts and inquisitive minds the
framework for making informed decisions on sermonic quality.
This frontal thought, laying out the substance of the Bible in summary form, flows into
catechetical sequences. For instance, sermons based on the Heidelberg Catechism, every Sunday
the next Lord’s Day, run continuous, while each of the 52 sections filled with answers to ultimate
questions provides a training field in exegesis. There is already a rich legacy of preaching on the
Heidelberger, which preaching gives ongoing education in responsible biblical interpretation and
application. Repeat preaching on the Lord’s Days only builds up and increases sound and pivotal
insights into the grand ways of exegesis, and therewith a steadying surge in the Faith. Such series
preaching, done well, avoids boredom, never wearing out our interest in listening. Besides, new
generations and converts to the Faith need to be taught basic exegetical guides. And we, the
present generation, with catechetical, thematic preaching confront over and over the Lord’s
pervasive demand to reflect deeper on, unearth, and absorb more of the acute way to read the
Bible.
It must be said, openly, that confessional preaching is topical by definition or, rather,
thematic. Each part of the Credo, for instance, covers a specific theme, but different from the
abusive type illustrated earlier. Wrong topical preaching coughs up human ideas and current
thoughts from a largely silent biblical text. Thematic preaching, as on the Catechism, takes main
biblical themes or teachings in summary form, and develops them for sermonic purposes on 129
ultimate questions.
Through increased familiarity with and a passion for confessional preaching, serial sermons
form a strong, continuous chain for building up the Faith and life in the Church on the one
foundation – Christ Jesus incarnate, crucified, resurrected, ascended, and now ruling at the right
hand of the Father. Cf. I Cor. 2:14. Such foundational preaching animates growing up by
learning the way to read the Bible. Only members of the Church taught to read the Word hear
sound preaching consciously, then purposefully seek deliverance from the caprice of oratory.
Because of the nature of confessional preaching, all the great themes of the Scriptures come
out into the open – covenant/predestination, history/redemption, Church/Kingdom, Gospel/Law,
etc. Thus empowered by the Holy Spirit in the office of the congregation, our hopes for the new
creation grow to real advantage. Done well by summing up the whole counsel of God, thematic
preaching serves as a protective barrier against all types of ideologies, which ministers, under the
guise of speaking the word of the Lord, pass on to us. While such cramped preachers keep
100
themselves at a distance from preaching texts, we eschew all ‘sermons’ that shy away from
opening specific Bible passages.
As the great and mighty themes of Scriptures through series preaching energize our hearts
and minds, then also sound exegetical standards. As our passion for exegesis increases, series
preaching on biblical books and themes become richer, more influential, since we know the
fundamentals of the Word and actually hear the word of the Lord – all to the praise of the Father
in Jesus Christ, large-scale masterwork of the Spirit in the Church.
Capping this chapter: thus, by series preaching better than another method we learn to
interpret and apply the Word in our concrete circumstances. In the Spirit, through increasingly
more doable exegetical passion, we embrace the Faith in the present from the past for the future.
By means of serial preaching right and wrong interpretive standards stand out for our benefit.
Until we die, Christ gives us opportunity every Sunday to learn sound interpretation of the Word.
Now, however, to put some of this into practice, we move to a seventh important technical
preparation.
TEXTUAL PERCEPTIVITY
For growth in exegesis and hearing the word of the Lord to fuller benefit, we need keen
ability at text recognition; the quicker we perceive the literary type of a preaching unit, the more
ably we hear in depth the Word spoken.
Lively Sensibilities
1) Various conflicting approaches to the Bible developed over centuries make imperative our
quickness at discerning the literary structure of a text – history, wisdom, prophecy, etc.
Case in point 103 – on Ez. 40-48, an Old Testament prophecy targeting the new heavens and
earth. Biblical students amassed at least six different takes on this new temple/Jerusalem vision.
“An ordinary reader of the Bible would be amazed to find such a plethora of positions on these
nine chapters. They are named the historical-literal, the historical-ideal, the Jewish-carnal, the
Christian-spiritual or Christian allegorical, and the literal.” 250 Six basically contrasting and
therefore confusing impulses at interpreting one passage!
Ministers preaching a series on this mighty vision make exegetical or eisegetical decisions,
first of all, what is the critical literature of this passage? Now, if a man of the Lord chooses a
wrong approach and delivers that as the word of the Lord? Then, sermons on Ez. 40-48, no
matter how well thought out, formatted, and delivered, immediately deteriorate into oratory. All
oratory, pleasing to our ears, invites the wrath of God upon congregations who listen to such
assaults on the Word.
Case in point 104 – on the book of the Revelation. “There are four main schemes of
interpretation of the book: (1) the preterit – everything has already been fulfilled; (2) the
historical – the predictions are in the process of fulfilment; (3) the futurist – all predictions are in
250
Feinberg, op. cit., pp. 94f.
101
the future; and (4) the spiritual – the events described are only symbols of spiritual realities and
struggles without any literal or historical application.” 251 Again, what if a minister takes a bogus
approach and preaches that as the word of the Lord?
The same mystification applies to Genesis, the four Gospels, in fact, to every part of the
Bible, even to the Bible as a whole. Many different, unresolved kidnappings of the Word exist,
the contentions of hardened ideologues; and every one twists preaching into – often solicitous –
oratory.
2) Pro-active exegetical conception begins at recognizing biblical literature. We then respect
history in the Bible as historical, psalms as psalms, prophecies as prophecies, hymns as hymns,
gospels as gospels, epistles as epistles, wisdom as wisdom, prayers as prayers, allegories as
allegories, etc. Each type of literature and literary genre in the Bible requires make-its-mark
respect as such, in the simple and literal sense. This literal sense is far removed from literalism,
an ideology, in this case a human way to make the Word credible by reading the various types of
literature in the Bible literalistically.
Trustworthy recognition of the literary type with respect to the preaching unit, as the minister
announces the sermon text, reflects maturing in the Word. This maturing becomes highly
necessary in particular Bible books, such as Daniel, the Gospels, and the Revelation. These
books the Holy Spirit built up out a variety of literary forms – histories, psalms, hymns,
prophecies, promises, prayers, obligations, visions, warnings, condemnations, etc. Growing
awareness of literary types and motifs stimulates our ability to hear the word of the Lord.
Whether from the Old Testament or the New, maturing enables us to recognize the type of
literature of the preaching unit and therewith better apprehend the spoken word.
To develop our capacity at text recognition, various examples:
Case in point 105 – on Lk. 23:43, Jesus to the criminal on the cross beside him. “Truly, I say
to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Obviously, this constitutes a gospel promise. While himself dying, Jesus for all the world
about the cross to hear declared and demonstrated the unfailing sign of the Crucifixion.
Case in point 106 – on Ez. 36:37f. “Thus says the LORD God: This also I will let the house
of Israel ask me to do for them: to increase their men like a flock. Like the flock for sacrifice,
like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts, so shall the waste cities be filled with
flocks of men. Then they will know that I am the LORD.”
Is this a prophecy for the creation of the New Testament Church or a post-Exilic preparation
for further condemnation, as so much in Ezekiel? Obvious, this preaching unit comes in
prophetic form.
Case in point 107 – on Is. 8:20a. “To the teaching and to the testimony!”
251
Harold Lindsell, ed., The Harper Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988), p. 1862.
102
Agreed, this registers legal exhortation for renewal in gratitude. A single glance suffices.
Case in point 108 – on John 6:48. “I am the bread of life.”
This, quick to spot, is gospel, pure and simple. Such a text requires only explanation and
application in a way that makes us hunger to eat the Bread.
Case in point 109 – on John 6:48. One minister mangled this text into a legal requirement:
participate in the Lord’s Supper or face excommunication, which is eisegesis.
Case in point 110 – on John 19:17f., a wholly different sort of text. “So they took Jesus, and
he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which is in Hebrew
Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus
between them.”
Defining the literary type of this preaching unit requires a higher level of biblical insight and
in-depth reflection. History? Prophecy? Gospel?
When a minister points out and reads the sermon text, our ability at distinguishing between a
promise and an obligation, between a historical account and a psalm, between gospel and law,
etc., reflects maturing ability to discern the temper and quality of a text, which helps already
initially at hearing the word of the Lord.
Sensitive Discernment
Shall we not melt down the office of each congregation into a merely human equation of
community, our ability to discern the literary type of thousands upon thousands of preaching
texts, one at a time, requires some prominence. Continual exercise of this wisdom remains
always necessary, lest ministers preformat texts in order to rush headlong in violations of
exegesis. This danger exists constantly, for every minister lacks perfection; each of the men the
Lord Jesus calls to the ministry of the Word is near perfect as we are, the people whom Christ
summons to listen to sermons. In fact, ministers hardly differ from us, since the Lord calls them
out of the very same congregations of which we are members. Ministers stay as (in)sensitive to
the Word as we do.
To force a preconceived notion or a preunderstanding upon a text stands out as a recurrent
hazard. Then chosen preaching units must fit as guiding principle preformatted structures as sin,
judgment, and repentance. Or as sin, salvation, and service. 252 Or as creation, fall, and
redemption. Or as conviction of sin, compunction, and humiliation. 253 An early Puritan effort at
252
Herman G. Stuempfle, Jr., Preaching Law and Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), p. 14.
Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, in Perry Miller, ed., The Works of Jonathan
Edwards, Vol. II (New Haven: Yale University, 1959), p. 57. “There are three stages through which the soul must
pass: conviction of sin, compunction, and humiliation. Conviction is prescribed as an awareness or the
understanding, whereas of compunction it is said to be a ‘pricking of the heart’ and a sense of sin finding its seat ‘in
the affections and will.’” As Miller indicated in the same context, this also appeared to be the ‘preaching method’ of
one Thomas Shepard, Puritan, 1605-49 A.D. Both men forced each preaching text through this format in order to
evoke revival.
253
103
dealing with preaching texts consisted of three stages – doctrine, reason, and uses. 254 A
Renaissance type of prestructuring texts consisted of six stages – exordium, narration,
proposition, confirmation, confutation, and epilogue. 255 Another approach, more contemporary –
situation, complication, and resolution. 256 One more, a six-step process to define sermon
structure – concern, connection, confirmation, concretion, construction, and communication. 257
Historically an accumulation of approaches to misconstrue texts has been in vogue.
Case in point 111. “… the history of Christian preaching reveals three indispensable elements
in … ‘the good sermon … the biblical sermon.’ These elements are: (1) a description of and
warning about ‘man’s peril,’ (2) an announcement of ‘God’s promise’ standing over against our
threatened situation, and (3) the proclamation of ‘God’s act’ in Christ which gives effect to the
promise.” 258
This Lutheran structuring of sermon units indicates the force of hard patterning the word of
the Lord as much as all others. “In short, a trinity of peril-promise-agent should reach expression
in every Christian sermon.” 259
Therefore discernment, sensitivity, to read the text requires a sharp eye. It is easy for any
minister to force all preaching units into a straitjacket method. 260 Stable men of the Lord,
however, disclose the actual structure of a text in its context, lest violence be done to the Word
through the spoken word of the Lord. Necessary is, through the leading of the Holy Spirit, that
we perceive the type of literature and habitat of a preaching unit as quickly as possible, even
before a minister comes to the sermon introduction. At the same time we must have an ear for
the structure of the text, for some ministers tend to divide all texts the same way, a standing rule
and a habit of ease improper to the ministry of the Word.
Before listening to the Word, at the outset acute textual perceptivity and structuring
sensitivity help immensely in hearing the word of the Lord. Perceiving already in a preliminary
way the nature and form of a preaching unit we know where a sermon’s emphasis ought to fall.
Assurance before, during, and after every preaching event means we know that our ministers also
254
Perry Miller, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1954), p. 332.
Ibid., p. 336.
256
Fuller, op. cit., p. 38. Fuller explained this method as Milton Crum’s, professor of homiletics at Virginia
Theological Seminary. “There is something profoundly biblical about this structure. It is true to the Pauline
antithesis of law and gospel: we are sinners (situation); the law convicts us of sin and exposes our need of
redemption (complication); then comes the gospel message of salvation (resolution). I think this is an excellent way
of addressing the scriptural text to the hearers if and when the pericope itself follows this pattern, if … that is the
story line. … But I question whether the threefold structure should be made the invariable pattern for the sermon.”
257
Randolph, op. cit., pp. 22f. This follows in the tradition established by Karl Barth and suffers from all its
weaknesses, concerned with what the preaching does rather that what it is, a false dilemma.
258
Stuempfle, op. cit., p. 13.
259
Ibid.
260
Fuller, op. cit., p. 38 – “… one of the things I learned in Germany (this was directed against the popular division
of the sermon into three parts like ancient Gaul) is that the structure of the sermon should be determined by the
structure of the pericope. I am therefore inclined to say, by all means pattern your sermon according to the three
stages of the situation-complication-resolution when the pattern of the text itself demands it. But do not force that
pattern on the text, and when it does not have the pattern, take the opportunity to follow a different structure.”
255
104
in this way uphold the Bible as the Word of God, the only source of indisputable truth, selfauthenticating, and confirming the Faith.
ILLUSTRATIVE MATERIAL
Another technical matter surely worth our consideration for sermon evaluation involves
illustrations ministers use in preaching. For this purpose the Lord of the Church provides
parables, allegories, (auto)biographies, analogies, similes, metaphors, etc.; these clarify
Scriptures and function in servant roles for sermon illustration. To this end supportive flashes of
light serve in sermons as grace notes and adornments, accentuating themes. For illustrations the
Bible, the reliable source, gives original models as well as vibrant images – in contrast to
floundering sorts of illustrations, which strangulate textual design insight.
Harmful Portrayals
Irresponsible sorts of illustrations call attention to themselves, which is particularly true for
self-made or secular metaphors and similes, especially if excessive; anecdotes, sporting notes,
personal stories, and homemade parables have that disconcerting effect. “Listeners frequently get
carried away with a striking illustration and forget the point of the sermon.” 261 Untactful word
pictures deflect attention away from the word of the Lord.
Though self-serving figures may stir visceral interest and sweeten oratory, they too easily
devolve into gimmickry. “Instead of keeping the illustrations subservient to the thought and
calling for pictures only when the framework of a wellwrought sermon was in shape, [ministers]
strung together a few illustrations which pleased them and let the illustrations make the sermon.
‘Anyhow,’ they said, ‘it is only the illustrations which people remember.’” 262 A confusing and
lamentable bombardment of useless information, self-inflicted damage for the sake of cheap
attention-getting sucks the life out of preaching.
With the same perspective, only more incisive – “Some preachers major on the unusual,
novel, dramatic, even bizarre. This may appeal for a while, but the appeal will pass. It lacks
integrity and depth.” 263 Wrong and/or unduly wounding images simply deteriorate into time
eaters, which more than detract from the word; these also distract. The danger of slip-shot
exampling compounds the error of oratory. We may ‘remember’ the stories and figures, while
the Word goes in one ear and out the other – lost in forests of glitzy catchwords, bon mots,
pictures, and other reprehensible illustrations. Therefore, it bears repeating many times: the Holy
Spirit always works in, with, and through remembered sermons, that is, sound interpretations and
applications of preaching units. If poor and crippling images dominate, however, then the word
of the Lord suffers defeat.
Illustrations, even those drawn from Scripture, if badly deployed, may end up slanting
interpretation and application in ways far different from Christ’s intention. That stretches things
and loses the potential of a sermon. Thus, the demoralizing glitz of self-made illustrations, petty
261
Thompson, op. cit., p. 87.
Sangster, Power in Preaching, op. cit., p. 33.
263
Chevis F. Horne, Crisis in the Pulpit: The Pulpit Faces Future Shock (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1975), p. 67.
262
105
forms of personal sharing, and (gaudy) humor may be nice and entertaining to hear (relieves
boredom, you know), but what proof do ministers offer that these actually help interpret and/or
apply preaching units? What guarantee that such illustrations do not leave distorted impressions
on susceptible minds and hearts, and thereby evoke the Devil’s laughter?
If ‘entertaining’ stories, anecdotes, folklore, or reminiscences stand out in a sermon and that
is all we remember, the essence of preaching goes out the window. So what if ministers, with or
without liturgical committees, parade elephants, camels, lions, or lambs about the pulpit area to
underscore sermon points, or make the sermon points? This stuff actors use. It may be hugely
entertaining, but not even closely approach preaching the Word. Illustrative materials that
receive more attention than the Word stand in Christ’s way of speaking to the Church, and grieve
the Holy Spirit.
Case in point 112. A minister used a red/green traffic light ‘placed’ in ancient Judean hill
country to illustrate a sermon on Ezra 5. Such an analogy, a prochronism (the antonym to an
anachronism), situates a Western, 20th-century invention central to an Old Testament setting.
This clashes too much with the cultural context of that era; it is inappropriate, taking our
attention away from the sermon while imaging blinking stop-and-go lights for donkey traffic
long before the application of electricity.
The minister who used this inappropriate metaphor compared the attacks by Israel’s enemies
as red lights and the commands of the LORD to engage as green lights. With such an illustration,
orange lights ought to be flashing rapidly in our minds.
This point merits agreement: sermon ornaments, unless carefully selected, endanger our
hearing the word of the Lord; these then do not assist us in listening to and for the soundness of
sermons. Credible ornaments abide by the community standards of the Bible.
Rather than working with fitting illustrations, much unworthy exampling consists of
obsessive struggles to impress and entertain, to color ministers’ own reputations – “… one of the
sadder aspects of recent preaching.” 264 This stylish preaching, to fatal disadvantage, conforms to
current video mentalities that media cultivate to hold viewers captive or away from remote
controls. Instead of harmful portrayals, the prophetic hammer and fire 265 ought to restart from
our pulpits upon congregations that prefer such sweetening, especially in times of congregational
backsliding – when hard-nosed men recline at ease in Zion and socially respectable cows of
Bashan luxuriate in more than fair shares of wealth. 266
Presentable Illustrations
Distinct from malodorous illustrations manipulating sermons to side roads and dead ends, the
Spirit instills in our hearts and minds and ears the will to hear metaphors and similes that truly
illuminate sound preaching themes. He opens our ears well into old age to cultivate a respect for
avid illustrations and at the same time the ability to assess ornaments. Illustrations, like lights, do
264
Randolph, op. cit., p. 63.
Cf. Jer. 23:29.
266
Cf. Amos 6:1, 4:1.
265
106
not call attention to themselves, but illuminate sermonic themes, 267 casting fresh lighting on
expositions of the Word.
Christ’s spokesmen are now no Old Testament prophets or New Testament apostles inspired
to write God-breathed Scriptures. Far from that. Besides, the more they take illustrative materials
from the Bible, the more they demonstrate in-depth familiarity with the Word, and at the same
time ‘inspire’ us to know more in terms of Scripture. Then they also sensitize us to respond
responsibly to metaphorical language commensurate with preaching themes. “It is revealing to
note that the figures which Jesus used in his parables often have one mark in common; namely,
that they connote active, transforming power at work.” 268 Reading through the Bible indicates
that the Spirit makes literally hundreds and thousands of illustrations available.
Seasoned ministers give persuasive evidence that they select illustrations with care.
Sensationalism 269 or cuteness may provide a temporary sense of relevance; however, only
churchy members given to sluggishness appreciate such exampling.
Listening sensitively to clarifying materials means owning the ability to monitor and judge
whether such aids detract from or add to good sermonizing. At the same time, it provides a
bridge to hearing the Word. We need to halt trends in second-string ornamenting 270 - lest the way
of preaching be paved with cobblestones and pitted with potholes.
HEARING THE WORD
Intimately connected with and a crucial aspect of these technical preparations: the word of
the Lord requires our hearing ability, listening. This was so in the Old Testament dispensation,
cf. Deut. 5:1p – “Hear, O Israel ….” This was so in the New. Cf. Rom. 10:14 – “But how are
men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of
whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?” In many biblical
places the call to listen to the Word comes at us. Through this hearing the word of the Lord
enters through our minds into our hearts.
When listening intently, all ears, we hold the purpose of the preaching of the Word in mind.
“Preaching is the central, primary, decisive function of the Church.” 271 Of the Church! Not
merely of ministers. From members of the Church the Lord summons this odd assortment of men
to speak in his name. “It is through their living voices that God addresses his people either to
afflict or to comfort, and it is a great art to know which form of the Word is needed and how it is
267
Randolph, op. cit., p. 72.
Blackwood, op. cit., p. 89.
269
Ibid. – “Sensationalism is a loose, generic name for various devices which attract undue attention to the preacher
or the sermon.”
270
Two books, if read wrong, may indicate that illustration is everything, at the expense of courageous exegesis:
Jay E. Adams, Studies in Preaching, Vol. I, Sense Appeal in the Sermons of Charles Haddon Spurgeon
(Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1976).
Galli & Larson, op. cit.
If read right, both books contain separate pleas for proper illustration.
271
Marcel, op. cit., p. 18.
268
107
to be spoken.” 272 To come to terms with this design of the Word every Sunday, we pay attention
to our ears and minds – ears cleaned and minds attentive. As we listen to the spoken word of the
Lord, we keep before us the oral gravity of sermons.
Actual Hearers
Christ calls first all of the covenant, children included, to hear the word of the Lord. This
gives us the overarching Sunday work – listening to sound preaching. With this preaching the
Lord of the Church has much more in mind than harvesting souls, or enrichment of self-esteem,
or empowerment of private individuals, or whatever rapacious ideologues concoct to take over
the Church.
That the Lord of the Church destined the word for the people of the covenant appears clearly
in the Gospels. Even when he entered the district of Caesarea Philippi or the district of Tyre and
Sidon, he taught by focusing on the Twelve, cf. Mt. 16:13ff. When he spoke to others, Romans,
for instance, they were proselytes, thereby already covenant members, cf. Lk. 7:1ff. With limited
exceptions, Jesus remained within Israel’s physical and social boundaries. The exceptions were a
Syro-Phoenician woman and her daughter, cf. Mt. 15:21ff., a Samaritan woman, cf. John 4:7ff.,
and a Gerasene, the demon-possessed called Legion, cf. Lk. 8:26ff.
Jesus’ singularity of address came out sharply already in the Old Testament dispensation.
The LORD addressed Abraham, not surrounding peoples. The Church always remained the focal
address for the proclamation. In so far the LORD God addressed the Egyptians, it was through
Moses and Aaron. Later, several of the prophets sent missives to surrounding peoples, the
contents of which first built up Israel. The New Testament documents, unequivocally, the Spirit
also meant for the Church (and for the churches to sent out missionaries). After Pentecost Day,
he drew more into the future of Israel, the New Israel; then through mission work, he pulled
others into the future of the Church, not as proselytes, but as members. The Lord realigned the
Old Testament church boundaries by breaking down the dividing wall of hostility, cf. Eph. 2:14.
Upon this breach, he added many to the original 120 members, both from within and without
Israel, building covenant community from all nations and languages and races. Jesus himself,
however, with few exceptions, in his time addressed only those of the covenant.
Specifically related to the Church now, after the move from sabbath worship to First Day
work, sharply defined, the Spirit wills that all in Christ hear time-sensitive sermons in the
familiar bond of corporate gatherings. This listening to the Word on First Days came with a
serious care and caution. Sloppiness, woolgathering, and goldbricking during Monday-throughSaturday labors gain reproof and earn loss. The same applies to our main responsibilities on First
Days; only the reproof and punishment turn much more severe. 273 On account of the revelation
of salvation in the New Testament dispensation, the Lord Jesus insists upon appropriate gratitude
on First Days. In order to express this thankfulness, we must actively recognize the significance
272
Stuempfle, op. cit., p. 17. Presented in the typical Lutheran Law-Gospel dichotomy, this quote catches the “living
voice” necessity of the proclamation of the Word.
273
In the Old Testament, the LORD ordered the death penalty for all of Israel who dared break the Fourth
Commandment, cf. Ex. 31:14, 35:2f.; Num. 15:32ff.; etc.
108
of preaching in the ambience of corporate worship, in which the Christ confronts us with the
work orders of believing and living.
Preaching is: for a minister of the Word in Christ’s name to speak authoritatively and
persuasively on the basis of a sermon text, thus declaring the whole counsel of God in and to a
congregation. In other words, angels of the Lord tell the truth and shame the Devil. A Barthian
type of definition reads as follows – “Preaching is the event in which the biblical text is
interpreted in order that its meaning will come to expression in the concrete situation of the
hearers.” 274 The ‘event-nature’ of preaching, according to this definition, follows Karl Barth who
claimed that revelation probes reality at an invisible point.
Although the event-nature of sermons gained a measure of popularity post-World War II, its
dark moods soon fell apart, unable to break through the older and more misleading fixation on
popular moralizing and exemplarizing. Barthian Randolph exposed one of the internal stresses
by defining preaching as inciting revolution – “Preaching is the pivot on which the Christian
revolution turns.” 275 Since all revolution, as the 1917 Communist and the post-World War II
feminist, falters and fails, so did the event-nature of preaching. Despite the glimmers of hope and
a revolutionary aura, the Barthian way of preaching too remained totally out of touch with the
unbeatable reality of reformation; in truth every revolution remains with deadly certainty firmly
trapped in the past, even as the diversionary moralizing, exemplarizing, and situational.
Actually, a sermon is: an on Sunday and in a congregation spoken event consisting of a wellbuild and full-bodied interpretation and application of a biblical preaching unit. 276
One may, if not with the whole of Randolph’s book, at least consent to the following
sentiment – “What is needed is a fresh understanding, from top to bottom, of what the preacher is
about. Nothing less is demanded by the God who makes all things new and by the contemporary
man who has worked out the fashions of yesterday.” 277 The resonating event-nature of the word
of the Lord, that is, hearing him speak, remains Christ’s always-contemporary way of addressing
his congregations.
A congregation is: a body of believers Christ Jesus gathers in a specific place to hear the
Word, celebrate the sacraments, and practice mutual discipline for building up the communion of
saints. This elicits the Father-glorifying faith and life, all the while fulfilling the mission
mandate.
When we participate in corporate worship, truth be told, then we do so with a care for risk
assessment. For the word of the Lord is always the sword of the Spirit. Cf. Eph. 6:17; Heb. 4:12.
Within the community at worship, the Holy Spirit applies the Word either to build up on the one
274
Randolph, op. cit., p. 1.
Ibid., p. 3.
276
For some, definition gets over complicated. Cf. Thompson, op. cit., p 25 – “What is a sermon then? It is the Word
of God (Jesus Christ) who has been revealed in the pages of the written Word (the Bible) coming to the hearing of
people by the proclamation of the Word (preaching). To put it another way, the preaching of the Word is a divine
event by which God makes himself known in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, according to the witness of the
Bible. Preaching is God himself at work, confronting mankind anew.”
277
Randolph, op. cit., p. vii.
275
109
foundation and/or damn sin and sinners. All outside the Church ‘know’ their end. All of the
community hear the good and bad of the Judgment. Positively – “… the Word of God – also as it
comes in the sermon – is dynamically moving to create the new that will be. Words have
evocative power. They can call things into existence, change the old, undo what was, bring forth
the new. They can bring light out of darkness and joy out of tears.” 278 Hearing that recreative
force of sermons means life. Anything less or other brokers death.
Soft Revolution
However much freewheeling unbelievers, and at times believers too, may malign Christ’s
Body, the Church, with slurs, denigrating her to ‘organized religion’ or railing against her as
‘institutionalized religion,’ and however much they may seek to grow a postmodern, homebrew
spirituality of indecision and drift, one fact remains intact: Christianity complies with the
Christ’s organizational reality of congregations meeting on First Days. Pagans may, driven as yet
by impulses of hates, evolve fundamental opposition to corporate worship or propose instead
faddish spiritualizing movements to develop soul serenity, the unchangeable fact remains: Christ
Jesus gathers the Church on First Days for hearing the Word. “That God himself speaks through
the preacher is not a recently discovered truth, but rather a truth recently lost! The Reformation
… put the pulpit instead of the sacrament at the center of the church’s life and worship.” 279
Mastering this truth builds opposition to patronizing ‘organized religion’ and ‘institutionalized’
Christianity, those disinterested and disinteresting sociological euphemisms.
Spirituality is: humanly defined and motivated refractions of religion, religiosity.
As a prime effort at religiosity from outside the Church’s boundaries – “… your relationship
with God, and spiritual well-being would be attending to that relationship with God, paying
attention to it, so that there are no barriers blocking that relationship. You have to find moments
where you can empty yourself of the worries and cares so that God can come in and fill up that
space. The times when I feel well and when I border on depression or am feeling depressed is
because there is some issue that needs to be worked on that stands in the way of my relationship
to God. There is a direct correlation between my mental health and my spiritual health.” 280 This
defining contemporary search, with roots in psychology and sociology, comes out as part of doit-yourself religion 281 in massive proportions, post-World War II, typically postmodern.
Without underestimating this god (certainly not the Trinity), it may be anything transcending
human sensibilities, or perceived a such; each seeker individually determines the object or goal
of this spirituality. “The modern age is an age of revolution – revolution motivated by insight
into the appalling vastness of human suffering and need ….
278
Daane, op. cit., p. 21.
Ibid., p. 15.
280
Susan Woodhouse, “Defining Spirituality,” Network, 17, #1, Spring 2001, p. 13. As such, spirituality reopens the
commotions of precipitous religiosity with new safeguards against Christianity.
281
Thompson, op. cit., p. 121 – “The quest for spirituality is a personal affair. [We Clark] Roof concludes, ‘Today’s
spiritual quests are the working out of the tendencies deeply rooted in the Emersonian conception of the individual
who must find God in herself or himself, and of an experience with the divine affirming that she or he is known and
loved in a personal way.’”
279
110
Against this background a few voices have continued to emphasize that the cause of the
distressed human condition, individual and social – and its only possible cure – is a spiritual one.
But what these voices are saying is not clear. They point out that social and political revolutions
have shown no tendency to transform the heart of darkness that lies deep in the breast of every
human being. That is evidently true. And amid a flood of techniques for self-fulfillment there is
an epidemic of depression, suicide, personal emptiness, and escapism through drugs and alcohol,
cultic obsessions, consumerism and sex and violence all combined with an inability to sustain
deep and enduring personal relationships. So obviously the problem is a spiritual one. And so
must be the cure.” 282 This deliciously vague and postmodern-like probe into spiritual
development, as affable answer to all ills of the soul, runs away from Scriptures, reformation,
and the Church. Such aspiration enslaves short-sighted hearts outside the Body with easy-going
charm to vulgarize hearing the word of the Lord.
Whether seeker-services, 283 yoga exercises, or other frivolous forms of religiosity, the appeal
to draw pain-transcending powers from within human psyches warms up complex and base
appetites. “The stress in our lives is now so great and so insidious that more and more people are
making the deliberate decisions to understand it better and to bring it under personal control.” 284
Not from Christ Jesus at the right hand of the Father as he leads the Church by preaching into the
future and governs the earth through terribly adulterated and painful times, but ‘salvation’ must
be enticed from within darkened minds and souls through personal decisions in order to remain
in control, autosoterism.
Nevertheless, Christ Jesus, aware of all current fads, even soft revolution, gathers his
covenant people in the one and only free society to be actual hearers of oral preaching. “The
authentic sermons will draw those people to Christ whom He has called, and it will push those
away whose hearts He has hardened, ‘to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a
fragrance from life to life,’ (2 Corinthians 2:16).” 285 Through the Holy Spirit and by means of
the word, Christ, in a time and a world given to the unsettling circumstances of autosoterism,
takes our salvation to its address: those whom he calls into corporate worship.
Entire Submission
Reaching back to the definition of preaching and its authority: if “authoritative” offends,
indeed, repels anyone, consider Jesus Christ, the sovereign Lord of the proclamation of the
Word. This proclamation differs fundamentally from sharing, 286 (personal) experiences, 287
282
Willard, op. cit., p. viii.
Currently popular seeker-services give another twist to old-time mass evangelistic meetings of the Billy Sunday
and Billy Graham eras. By feeding into consumerist and television mentalities, ‘seekers’ get loads of religious fluff.
284
Jon Kabat-Zinn, “Cultivating Mindfulness,” Network, 17, #1, Spring 2001, p. 12.
285
Ritschl, op. cit., pp. 132f.
286
Daane, op. cit., p. 5 – “The very terms ‘preach’ and ‘preacher’ have fallen into disrepute. After announcing the
text – the traditional signal that what is to follow will be a proclamation of the biblical Word – the person in the
pulpit declares, ‘this morning I want to share with you ….’ If this is an act of humility, it is an ill-placed humility. It
is an indication that the evangelical minister has lost his identity and the evangelical pulpit its rightful function.”
287
Felicia Y. Thomas, “True Love” in Ponder, op. cit., pp. 65f. – “We need true love. For love is vital and necessary,
but it’s not always easy to recognize. Because it doesn’t always look like, and perform like, we think it ought to.
This is often the case in relationships. Sisters – I’m a womanist, but I believe in speaking the truth in love – there are
times when we are our own worst enemy, because we don’t want anybody really who’s going to be decent to us.”
283
111
invitations (to unbelievers and defectors to repent), (humorous) anecdotes, news mongering,
advertising, commenting on current events, glossolalia, metanarrating, book reviews, proposals
for discussion, 288 fulminating on this or that thought of the day, exploring a political theme, etc.
Nor is preaching, among others, a motivational speech, conversation, 289 generally talking, 290
enabling, facilitating, etc. Any such interpretation of preaching assumes an intimacy and
confidentiality on the horizontal level between congregation and minister unbecoming and
patronizing, certainly false, for heralds and deputies of the Lord Jesus Christ.
All of us listening-from-the-heart to the proclamation of the Word hear the living Christ to
whom the Father gave all authority and power in heaven and on earth. 291 We again refer to
Sangster – “… whenever preaching is a devout Biblical interpretation: It gives authority to the
spoken word. Never is the preacher more a herald than when he is down hard upon the Book;
never is it plainer that the word which he speaks is not his own but Another’s.” 292 “That is why
the Church in its wisest hours has always insisted that a man must have a divine call. The work
cannot be sustained on anything less.” 293 It is the sole form of speech that comes with the force
of the – “So says the Lord!” Thus, the authority with which commissioned spokesmen for Christ
address us may never be trampled upon and/or neglected, neither by us, nor by ministers the
Lord Jesus gives us. Listening then requires intense and humbling submission, a work of the
Holy Spirit in the Church contrary to the dull momentum of eisegetical habits and mixed bags of
oratorical tricks.
Because the Lord Jesus speaks to us, we require reverential humility. In the light of his
authority we face a serious task and a great responsibility in the office of the congregation: out of
gratitude for our salvation to hear Christ’s men in respective congregations. “The typical error
[on the part of ministers] is to underestimate what the congregation is capable of hearing.” 294And
more than hear them, we also share in the duty that they do no less than preach the Word in order
that we may hear them faithfully and thankfully, always persevering in the office of the
congregation.
Then, too, we may say – “Some of the church’s best preachers got their training right here
with us.” 295 In this light, II Cor. 3:5 opens up a congregational task in which all members share:
to double-check ministerial competence in courageous ministry, that each preaches
confidentially authoritative, prophetically adversarial, and priestly compassionate. “Ministers are
288
Alec Vidler, “Humanism and Christian Humanism” in Montefiore, op. cit., p. 287 – “All I aim at doing in this
sermon is to start a few conversations of that sort, which is what I think sermons ought to aim at doing.”
289
A voice of dissent: Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 2 – “Preaching is, after all, a kind of conversation at
table, a helpful word among friends of Christ.”
290
C.L. Franklin, “A Mother at the Cross” in Ponder, op. cit., p. 78 – “I want to talk with you this evening from a
passage found in the Book of St. John ….”
291
Howard G. Hageman, Pulpit and Table (Richmond: John Knox, 1962), p. 113 – “To what extend do we still
conceive of the sermon as a direct mediation of the presence of Christ with his own, a living Word spoken by him
through the lips of his servant the preacher? And to what extent have our sermons become words, explanations of
theology, expositions of the Bible, ethical discourses, psychological pep talks, religious meditations, commentaries
on current events?”
292
The Craft of the Sermon, op. cit., p. 36.
293
Ibid., p. 15.
294
Smith, op. cit., p. 56.
295
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 122.
112
called by God through the voice of the church, but they are nonetheless servants of God.” 296
With respect to preachers’ royal authority, the more necessary in precarious and unsettled times,
we face one of those postmodern danger points, anti-authoritarianism.
Anti-authoritarianism began seeping into the Church long ago, but certainly with the
sweeping changes post-World War II, specifically, the 1960s. The more kings (and queens)
become relegated to relics, and the more republicanism takes over hearts and minds, the less
Christ’s royal authority functions in the Church. This anti-authoritarianism brought with it a
miserable fallout upon the office of the ministry. Now, the more we engage in acts of
republicanism to escape from the responsibility of listening to and evaluating the spoken word of
the Lord, even if only with benign neglect, the greater the wrath of the Lord upon the Church.
Also because of flirting with complacency, to say nothing of bitter bouts of public opposition to
the Word, the Holy Spirit turns the biblical theme of authority again into a rich mother lode for
exegesis and preaching. Thus, we may listen more submissively, however much this grates on
the nerve paths of our rebellious and self-indulgent individualism.
Despite implacable forces of republicanism and individualism, two contemporary demons
stalking about in the Church, Jesus Christ out of love for his people, the congregations he
gathers, authorizes for us the harder path: out of thankfulness for salvation to submit to the pure
preaching of the Word. 297 He commands without exception that his ministers speak as heralds
with audible voices to his congregations the one legitimate interpretation and application of the
Bible, lest they do harm to the society of Jesus, stalling the coming of the Kingdom. We must
know that Christ bestows no mercy upon ministers and congregations conniving to add to and/or
take away from the Word. Is not this the thrust of I Cor. 3:17a? “If any one destroys God’s
temple, God will destroy him.” This warning against random malice and reckless indifference
rings loud and clear.
In the office of the congregation we exercise this duty with faithfulness and vitality to ensure
that Christ’s angels preach the entire counsel of God, or they undermine the Father’s glory, deny
the Son’s authority, and take away our salvation. They either faithfully exegete and apply each
chosen sermon text in our hearing, even when we decide to be difficult, or they knuckle under to
our pressure tactics to preach only what we want to hear. This common and constant eventuality
Paul already addressed by condemning members’ penchant for oratory. Cf. II Tim. 4:3. Due to
this inner prompting for glibness of tongue, we ought to recognize that the reforming character
and purpose of preaching begins in our respective hearts, the astonishing workplace of the
formidable Spirit.
Listen to a description of a congregation in which the word got biblically serious attention.
“The members of First Church are not pietistic, but they take their religion seriously. They are
intelligent and mature in their understanding of God and the faith. This theological sophistication
is the result of some solid religious education along the way. They are by no means Biblethumpers, but they do expect their pastor’s theology to be sound and rooted in scripture. They
296
297
Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., 46.
In the 1561 Confession of Faith, Article 29 lists such preaching as the foremost mark of true churches.
113
want substance from their preacher.” 298 This long-time sort of reputation ought to emanate from
every church, evidence that the Word comes through and puts the deadly cargo of rebellion on
the skids. “Perhaps preachers underestimate the congregation more than they overestimate it,
preaching too much to the lowest common denominator or to the person with the shortest
attention span. Maybe we tell too many stories, at best to drive home a point, at worst to
amuse.” 299 However, as the Word captivates our churches, the Church, and the Kingdom, we
find ourselves in congregations in which also our children may mature in the Faith – till we
totally honor and praise the Father, and all creation conforms to the new heavens and earth.
The common and constant eventuality for rebellion was actively present among the covenant
people whom the LORD led out of Egypt. Newly freed and with every reason for thankfulness,
nevertheless they chose to be stereotypically ungrateful; they complained and whined, at times
even threatening to kill Moses, the man the LORD had appointed to guide them to Canaan.
Moses, however, constant in resolve to his God-given commission rebuked, saved, and
reformed the people of the Old Church at that time by obedience to his mandate. If the fact that
Moses saved Israel sounds at first reading unbiblical and farfetched, look at Ps. 106:23.
“Therefore [God, the LORD] said he would destroy them – had not Moses, his chosen one, stood
in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them.” This refers to Moses’
intercession for Israel upon the sin against the Second Commandment, the fever-pitch episode
with the Golden Calf. Cf. Ex. 32:1ff.
Ps. 106 reveals deep and disruptive levels of rebellious desperation to shut out the LORD’s
commands for believing and living. Israel, in part or as a whole, often closed himself off against
comprehensive gratitude, making disobedience the ‘normal’ of life. Except for one occasion, cf.
Num. 20:2ff., Moses, of indomitable spirit before the LORD against all sorts of inside-theChurch pressures, still serves as a new-impetus prototype for our ministers, the sort of men the
Lord Jesus wants us to call and follow. This psalm, a sleeper text, mostly under-utilized, the
Church ought to sing more frequently in worship services that we know ourselves as the Lord
Jesus does.
The entirety of the Christian faith and life, or the lack thereof, begins with and depends on
the sermons we hear, or do not hear. This is so, not because ministers speak as gifted, goldtongued individuals, but because men resolute as a Moses and a Paul (both ill-equipped in the
mouth, cf. Ex. 4:10; II Cor. 10:10) proclaimed the Word. Sermons opening the Word recreate us;
if they are other, these damn us. Our ministers are first of all Christ’s servants; when they fail or
refuse to function as such, parents will not know what rightly to teach a generation ahe and all
will neglect reading the Scriptures. In the primary instance, the Head of the Church holds these
men responsible for the wellness of the sermons they deliver, and thereby for the soundness of
respective flocks; but we in the office of the congregation share to a large measure in this
accountability for the Word-opening character of the preaching. Imagine this situation Sunday
upon Sunday: we, actual hearers-of-sermons, listen to words by way of which the Christ
condemns us, because we called and encouraged unfaithful ministers. Ministers without
298
Marie M. Fortune, Is Nothing Sacred? – When Sex Invades the Pastoral Relationship (HarperSanFrancisco,
1989), p. 2.
299
Smith, op. cit., p. 62.
114
exegetical competence who then speak more or less, or other, than the Word are liars, though
they say what we want to hear, dragging us along into all horrors of eternal condemnation.
Frightening is that for this damnation we gladly suffer fools, as the Church at Corinth did. Cf. II
Cor. 11:19. And the Churches in Galatia. Cf. Gal. 3:1ff. We allow and pay them to preach
revolutionary sermons.
Saving Words
To magnify the glory of the Name, our Lord and Savior wills by means of First Day
preaching to save us who believe. Cf. I Cor. 1:21 – “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world
did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save
those who believe.” To save those who believe! Thus, the preaching of the Word is first for and
to the Church – not the world, nor primarily mission fields. The immediate context of I Cor. 1:21
makes Christ’s passionate appeal for saving the Church stand out even more.
“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved
it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness
of the clever I will thwart.’ 300 Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater
of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of
God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we
preach to save those who believe.”
To save those who believe by means of the transcendent word! Without any small print.
For the sake of the connectivity between past, present, and future, suspenseful, we hang on to
the exclamatory force of this revelation, to apprehend its unalterable significance. Saving all who
believe gives preaching teeth, as Paul with an eye fixed on evil men and imposters in the Church
instructed Timothy. Cf. II Tim. 3:14f. – “… as for you, continue in what you have learned and
have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have
been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through
faith in Christ Jesus.” Unless Christ’s cardinal rule for preaching thrives in the Church and on the
mission fields, all else goes awry - moving into ruins of hell.
This preaching to save all who believe reappears constantly throughout the Bible. Was not
Israel saved many times through LORD-issued words spoken by Moses? In the New Testament,
the Holy Spirit gave to establish congregations Rom. 1:16, 15:4, 9f., 16:1ff.; I Cor. 4:6; Heb.
9:28; etc. This is also the import of I Cor. 14:22 – “… prophecy is not for unbelievers but for
believers.” However, if we maneuver and support men on the Church’s pulpits to eisegete
Scriptures, concocting rogue words, we run afoul of Gal. 1:8f. –
“But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that
which we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, If
any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed.”
300
Cf. Is. 29:14.
115
Preaching consists of saving words spoken in the name of Jesus Christ, never salvation in
terms of one of numerous ideologies rampant in the world and in the popular thinking of the
Church.
Congregational Judging
With respect to the construction and content of preaching, the Word reads crystal clear – for
the most part. Cf. II Pet. 3:15f. To us in the office of the congregation Christ entrusts the solemn
and often demoralizing duty to judge whether our ministers speaks faithfully or unfaithfully. Are
they faithful, we must listen to them, for our very lives now and forever depend upon sound
preaching. Are they unfaithful and refuse to make real amendment, they must be dislodged from
office according to the Church Order for betrayal of trust and dereliction in office.
Christ will have the Word, inclusive the Old Testament, spoken in and to the Church. The
Lord addresses all parts of the Scriptures to the Church in her often confidence-sapping history
from Paradise into the new heavens and earth. Even short Nahum prophesied the immediate fall
of Nineveh to Judah, the covenant people then; in the name of the LORD, he promised the
Church before, during, and after the death throes of Assyria’s heart the eclipsing continuity in
grace and salvation. On first impression, this ‘minor’ prophet seemed to speak to Nineveh; upon
clearer reflection, he spoke solely to the Church coming out of a desperate international situation.
When, thus, our ministers preach from the Old Testament, we have to be sure they address us,
the covenant people, making also Nahum always contemporary.
The same is true for the New Testament – for the salvation of all believers. Every part of the
New Testament the Lord Jesus addresses to the Church moving through the present dispensation
– his 1,000-year reign at the right hand of the Father. Christ Jesus holds his own on the time line
into and through the Parousia. At the fulfillment of all things, Christ will save the elect from the
Judgment for the perfection of faith and life before the Father. How poignantly Paul stated this;
cf. Is. 52:7; Nahum 1:15; Rom. 10:14ff., especially vs. 17 – “So faith comes from what is heard,
and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.” This preaching of Christ arrives through
faithful ministers who thus not only initiate faith; they also build it up, fill it out, strengthen it for
the thriving in Christ Jesus that pleases the Father, remembering the Lord and Savior alone gives
the growth. Faith once generated requires hardy nurturing.
Over the years, in the Spirit our ability to judge sermons only increases in depth and breadth.
Due to our salvation and there through the glory of the Father, it is impossible, except in
unbelievers, to overestimate the significance of hearing sound proclamation of Scripture. Since
our faith comes by, continues in, and rises to its unbroken purpose only by Spirit-driven
preaching, more and more to magnify the Father by our believing, speaking, and working, our
interests to judge the proclamation of the Word in its transcendent power continues until Christ
reappears on the clouds of heaven. Then he will judge the living and the dead on how they
responded to faithful preaching. Then and only then he reveals the full sense of our salvation.
Until the Day, in respective congregations we judge every sermon and every preaching trend.
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More Rebellion
We circle back to I Cor. 1:21. Strong strains of strange movements belie the central purpose
of preaching. Several pools of discontented talent, dismissive, want an address for preaching
outside the Church.
1) One consists of those who claim that converting the world constitutes the primary goal of
preaching; these sorts of preachers and pushers thrive on harvesting souls, evangelism, making
sure to number the results. These see the fields white unto harvest, by misreading Mt. 9:37f.; Lk.
10:2f.; John 4:35. However, when Christ focused on these fields, he envisioned not mission
stations all over the world, only desperate sinfulness and unrighteousness within the then living
church. At that time, he prepared his disciples/apostles for the reformation of Israel. The result of
that reformation, or covenant renewal, became on Pentecost Day the start of the New Church
with initially 120 men and women in a Jerusalem upper room. They who insist (often with
Gnostic ability and agility) on evangelism as the focus of preaching to save the world indicate
that they, revolutionary winds, still frequent Christ’s church in disturbing ways.
2) In religious emptiness and doldrums of the late 19th century the likes of Walter
Rauschenbusch 301 (1861-1918) wanted a church for the world to install the kingdom of heaven
according to socialist lights. Many of the easily ignitable in the Church, overcome by these
rebellious spirits, dropped into this exciting and exiting experience. Because of its unbiblical
foundation and intent, the Social Gospel movement petered out in the havoc of World War I.
None too soon.
After World War II, however, with a cloning instinct, came the Church-For-Others
movement, a churchified and gentrified version of the earlier Social Gospel, initiated by J.C.
Hoekendyk. 302 Rebellious spirits and demons pulling together wanted a radical restructuring of
the Church, against an alleged unbiblical centrality of the Church for faith and life, that is,
against ecclesio-centrism. In doing so, the refurbished Social Gospel wanted to break with the
Christ instead of the world. The Church-For-Others failed miserably, unable to weather the
greediness of the 1980s. And died again. Mercifully.
This is to say: even in the recent past manipulative movements rattled about in the Church to
change the address of the Scriptures. “Unfortunately, an accommodationist church, so intent on
running errands for the world, is giving the world less and less in which to disbelieve.” 303 “In the
1960s people often said things like, “The real business of the church is in the world,’ and ‘the
world sets the agenda for the church.’ Most of those who made such statements depicted the
church as a sleeping giant, a great, potentially positive force for good in society if the church
could just be awakened out of its lethargy.” 304 Rather, the reverse is true. Due to an entirely
different agenda, the Church overcomes the world.
301
Robert D. Cross, ed., Christianity and the Social Crisis (New York: Harper, 1964) and A Theology for the Social
Gospel (New York: Abingdon, 1945).
302
The Church Inside Out, tr. Isaac C. Rottenberg (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966).
303
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 94.
304
Ibid., p. 30. Cf. p. 94 – “From a Christian point of view, the world needs the church, not to help the world run
more smoothly or to make the world a better and safer place for Christians to live. Rather, the world needs the
church because, without the church, the world does not know who it is.”
117
3) The 1990s entrepreneurial seeker-services, human inventions, wanted the world as the
main point of impact for the Bible. Strongmen, following in the tradition of fundamentalist
super-congregations, built ecclesiastical empires, modern-day denominationalism in the making.
By appealing to cultural familiarities with a doctrinal mix thrown in, these huge conglomerates
attempt to be churches, while accommodating to religiosity.
Much the same may be said for church-planting initiatives. After canvassing racially and/or
culturally cohesive neighborhoods for levels of interest, congregations take shape according to
what members want from Christianity.
More such faddish attempts at religiosity pop up to recommend that the Church exists for the
world. “The primary mode of preaching is obviously evangelical; we preach to the world.” 305
However, this opens a window on ridicule, not lost on critics ready to pounce: a minister on ’his’
pulpit speaking over the heads of ‘his’ congregation to an unseen and deaf abstraction called ‘the
world.’ This manner of address insults a congregation and more the Lord of the Church. Yet,
once an ideology, or a different manifestation of an old one, sees the light of day, only the fires
of the end times kill it. As long as these ideological fads live in the Church, they and their
adherents insult Christ Jesus more and more by countermanding his consistent purpose for the
preaching.
On Salvation
We return to I Cor. 1:21 and ask the same question: do all who believe need to be saved?
True proclamation of the word works for the salvation of the Church; the Holy Spirit by
means of the word fills Christ’s own with the Scriptures for believing and living. Ministers
motivated by the iron-willed Spirit persuade us in a 1,000 creative ways that our salvation from
beginning to end not only supersedes all ideological and idolatrous powers, but also that our
sanctification requires that our newness in Christ must to come to fullness. Therefore, sound
preaching is the wind of reformation, which recreates us first to magnify the mighty works of
and also witness of the same to the world at large of the Son, the Father, and the Spirit.
Salvation, far from collapsing us into placid creatures, means that from the moment Christ
Jesus justifies us and starts our regeneration, then our sanctification digs in for the long haul as
an always stronger walking in Christ, until he perfects us as our Father in heaven is perfect. For
this perfection, the Holy Spirit prepares us to live in the new creation. Thus, our salvation,
instead of being static, is dynamic, growing. For salvation transforms us by sanctification, the
issue in I Cor. 1:21.
Both the believing and the doing constitute the exclusive work of God the Son, in the name
of the Father, through the Holy Spirit. Thus, they raise the elect from death-in-sin to life-inChrist. The Christ calls and leads his own out of the darkness of condemnation into the
marvelous light of the new creation to serve the Father forever. Cf. I Pet. 2:9. Specifically,
salvation emancipates us from sin, transforms our whole persons, and gathers us for fellowship
305
Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 36. Cf. p. 37 - “’Go tell …,’ the words define our evangelical task; we are
to tell good news to the world.”
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in the Church to know the Trinity, preparatory to the full entrance into the new creation. For now
we may prefer the bloating embarrassment of a double standard – the blessings of Christianity
without its discipline; open and tolerant, we may want both the world and the Faith –
simultaneously. In this way we, complacent, escape the painfulness of sanctification. Cf. Heb.
12:11 – “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the
peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Preferences to bypass the
painful for only the pleasant lurk within all of us.
Sanctification is:
1) while overcoming sin, the continuous growth in faith, life, and commitment that make the
Church transcend the times.
2) life on the narrow way through cleansing from sin and renewal to life to serve the Lord and
neighbors.
3) a work of the Spirit, forming lives dying-to-sin and living-in-Christ.
The process of sanctification means striving to overcome sin, work for continuous growth in
the Faith in order that all members of Christ make the Church transcend the times. This life on
the narrow way through cleansing from sin and renewal in Christ to serve the Father also brings
out love for neighbors. As work of the Spirit in all congregations of Christ, sanctification moves
us onward into the fullness of the Kingdom.
Our salvation, eschatological in character, reflects the work of the Holy Spirit through sound
and upright preaching. The salvation we manifest from day to day 1) declares that we faithfully
believe the covenant promises and 2) thankfully live the covenant obligations – both to the glory
of the Father. Until the Christ completes and perfects our practical experiences of sanctification,
we are imperfect for the eternity of the new creation, and therefore still require salvation. In all
honesty, we, each one of us, still have a long way to go.
Typically, all people have faith; it is one of the constituents of human nature. Because of and
in the first Adam this faith searches for answers to ultimate questions among the ideologies and
idolatries. Faith, in fact, is an instrument. For the sake of salvation, Christ Jesus by grace turns
the activity of this instrument away from vanity toward himself. By means of faith he dwells in
our hearts, cf. Eph. 3:14ff., rooting and grounding his own in love that believers may have the
power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and
to know Christ’s love, which surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of
God. By faith then we believe the covenant promises and live the obligations till the Lord Jesus
has fully prepared his own for the life of the new creation. Through the mighty instrumentality of
faith, we say yes to all the Lord revealed as Scriptures.
Until the Church’s perfection, hope imbues and moves faith. Cf. Heb. 11:1 306 - “Now faith is
the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Without defecting from any
306
J. Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol. XXII, Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1984 reprint), in reference to Heb. 3:6; the author “… mentions their condition if they persevered in
the faith. For the word hope I take for faith; and indeed hope is nothing else but the constancy of faith.”
Calvin’s connection between faith and hope is biblical; his identification of Hebrews as a Pauline text is not; the
latter was a 16th century commonplace.
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obligation for the mission mandate of the Church, our upbuilding in the faith still requires
primary attention, which above all calls for honest-to-the-Scriptures preaching. As such, in
sanctification our faith and salvation reflect all of Christ’s redemption promises, which he
wrought in his life and particularly through his death. These promises include justification and
regeneration.
Justification is: the unmerited sentence of liberty from guilt and condemnation received at the
bar of divine justice: you are righteous in Christ Jesus! Cf. Rom 5:1.
Regeneration is: continuing rebirth to the new life through repentance, conversion, assurance
of forgiveness of sins, restored communion with the Father, rededicated citizenship in the
Kingdom, stronger awareness of partaking of the new food and drink, etc., a mighty work of the
Holy Spirit in believers. Cf. John 3:1ff.
Believers are: they who trust in the heart that the Lord Jesus calls them to covenant
community, staking all on the promises and submitting all to the obligations. Cf. I Thes. 2:13.
Beginning now, with the promise of eternal life, come assurance of election and sense of
place in the pending judgment, the whole impregnated by joys of faith. Whether in prosperity or
in adversity, in our eternal life we witness primarily to praise the Father and therewith salvation
in Jesus Christ to the world about us.
All the Spirit’s irrepressible works, from faith through salvation’s fullness, come to us first by
ways of faithful proclamation of the Word. Though the competency of preaching rings foolish to
all moving further into eternal death and raises the hackles of all slip-sliding hypocrites in the
Church, for believers this work of the Church means the long-range mainstay of life; believing
through Sunday-upon-Sunday preaching reinforces trust in the great promises and takes up the
total obligations until we fully live and love the mighty words of Rom. 1:16. “For I am not
ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew
first and also to the Greek.” (Greek = Gentile)
Therefore, I Cor. 1:21 and collateral passages assert that preaching saves believers and adds
to I Cor. 1:18 – “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are
being saved it is the power of God.” Salvation thus is more than an once-for-all fact; it includes
continuation, sanctification, durably seizing upon the word of the Lord until fulfillment.
Courageous Works
Christ mandating and commissioning some of our sons to speak in his name commends them
with his blessing of courage. Cf. II Tim. 1:13f. – “Follow the pattern of the sound words which
you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus; guard the truth that has
been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.” Without the uplifting pattern of
sound words and commitment, in the ministry of the Word courage soon runs askew through
eisegetical loafing.
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Discouraging, when ministers of the Word with widespread resignation easily fall into the
work ethic of speaking to itchy ears. Simply put, we, ‘consumers’ of the word of the Lord,
contribute to their salaries, or stipends. Then, instead of warning, admonishing, chastising,
judging, promising, even shaming us by exposing our little faith as well as lives of disobedience,
they, faint-hearted, turn to preaching out of the shallows of ideology and idolatry.
Ministers do so for more than financial security. Few men hunger for compliments and
strokes of ego boosting more than servants of the Lord do. In the face of economic pressures
and/or under enchanting strokes from unbelievers, they easily and subtly resort to oratory, even
eloquent oratorical bags of tricks. If we even hint at withholding our financial contributions
towards their salaries or if we flatter them with the virtues of oratorical sermonizing, they with
agility and ability to feed complex egos speak more and more up our alley.
Such church–destructive cold facts, of course, defeat and overturn the Christ-instituted
purpose of preaching. In such devious ways, we shackle the freedom of the pulpit to whatever
power groupings in respective congregations may seek to coerce the Lord of the Church. Under
devilish pressures, ministers often quickly ignore the lesson Paul gave Timothy and instead
reproduce in a 1,000 different ways spirits of timidity, with a cosmopolitan flair, if necessary. Cf.
II Tim. 1:7. In fact, out of fear for economic hurt and/or for gain of adulatory glamor, they
anticipate twists and turns in popular thinking and current affairs in respective congregations 307
almost as quickly as secular pundits and editorialists who write with marginal effect.
We can lead ministers, men always sensitive to our vagrant wants and chilling wishes, by the
nose into whatever direction we ‘gently’ intimate. Do we want then to preach in an Arminian
way? Do we want them to uncork more New Age ideas? Do we want them to blend in with the
practices of ‘successful’ seeker-services? Limited in number are the ministers who, under the
impress of our hulking wants, refuse to trade Christ-given courage for a mess of pottage.
Of John Donne (1573-1631) it was said - “… the congregations which listened to [his]
analysis of sin and his pictures of the ‘various and vagabond heart of the sinner’ thronged to St.
Paul’s because the preacher was in tune with their own thoughts.” 308 He identified with the
values, norms, and attitudes of numerous congregants, hammering down on outcroppings of evil
and smoking embers of transgression.
When ministers identify with the passing hungers and random twists of soul within the
Church and speak bold in the grip of such values, norms, and attitudes, they pull out a false
courage for bogus evidence of greatness. In fact, when no courage is required they gain in
popularity with the people. Only, ministers who ‘follow’ congregants will find themselves, when
‘their’ people suddenly and inexplicably reshuffle religious psyches, left behind – stranded,
yesterday’s men, conservatives, out of tune with whatever errant fancy passing through the
307
Thomas More, Utopia, ed. Robert M. Adams, a Norton Critical Edition (New York: W.W. Norton, 1975), pp.
29f. – “… preachers, like the crafty fellows they are, have found that men would rather not change their lives to
conform to Christ’s rule, and so, …, they have accommodated his teaching to the way men live, as if it were a
leaden yardstick. At least in that way they can get the two things to correspond on one level or another. The only
real thing they accomplish that I can see is to make men feel a little more secure in their consciences about doing
evil.”
308
John Buchan, Montrose, The World’s Classics 555 (London: Oxford University, 1957), p. 3.
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Church. The reference to and evaluation of John Donne’s ‘contemporary’ preaching eyeing a
short-term popularity may be multiplied many thousands of times in self-destructive ecclesial
pulpit situations.
In the meantime, what ‘popularity,’ what standing do our ministers have before the Lord
Jesus, the Head of the Church, and the Commissioner of the preachers? Good question.
When with quicksilver rapidity our interests shift to other, more interesting dimensions of
human thinking, these ministers must follow, will they serve in an acceptable manner. As they
shift within our unrelenting currents, we recognize them for what they are: parrots. Once our
interest in a specific doctrine or issue fades and dies out, pliable ministers who cocksure made
names for themselves by means of puppet-speak find themselves mothballed, crowd-pleasers
relegated to unmemorable footnotes.
This old way of thinking ought to be excised from the Church, in the name of Jesus Christ.
Actively we put crowd-pleasing ministers in their place and stoutheartedly stand our ground
against man-honoring, consumer-oriented oratory on account of a majority’s or powerful
minority’s wishes – no matter how influential the expressed need. To say this more positively:
we have a responsibility in the office of the congregation to make sure that ministers do speak in
the name of Christ Jesus, and not orate ’effective sermons’ according to ideological and
idolatrous moods, that is, circles of death. We soon tire of men who parrot the boring thoughts of
human hearts.
Even when it rankles our hearts, upsets our moods, and drives us to mortifying anger, Christcentered courage in ministers exhilarates us with new life. Then, every sermon glorifies God and
saves through building up the Church – out of the conviction that Jesus Christ as the first judges
all sermons preached. With Holy Spirit-inspired and protracted commitment, we learn to judge
sermons similarly, that is, with the mind of Christ.
When we with commitment reflect courage in Christ, ministers will also, provided we uphold
two given qualifiers – God-glorifying and Church-building. Even if these two upset our
congregational apple carts, in this way ministers prepare us for service in the Kingdom and we
function as salting salt and lighting light in complex and deceptive worlds about us. When we
hold our ministers to the high standard of office revealed in Eph. 4:11ff., for instance, the bugles
on pulpits give a clear sound, until our every thought is captive in Christ and our way of life
reflects the new creation. This renders ministers daring workers in the Church – contravening
religiously correct distempers and currently popular processes of disintegration.
Given that the Holy Spirit inspires the purpose and goal of preaching in our hearts, ministers
will be bold, with all strength of character, to explain and apply the Word authoritatively, always
in the name of our Lord and Savior. This Martin Luther also taught with respect to every minister
– “… he should preach the pure Gospel, the true faith, that Christ alone is our life, our way, our
wisdom, power, glory, salvation; and that all we can accomplish of ourselves is but death, error,
foolishness, weakness, shame and condemnation. Whoever preaches otherwise should be
regarded by none as a servant of Christ or a steward of the divine treasure; he should be avoided
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as a messenger of the devil.” 309 May Christ then give us ministers unafraid to turn the tables on
our petty rivalries, religious fanaticism, willful blindness, base appetites, general wranglings, and
mortal sins.
Here an important distinction comes necessary in order to identify preaching. Whatever
biblical interpretation/application occurs outside corporate worship – in Scripture readings, study
groups, lectures, talks on biblical themes, conversations over the open Word – these by far do not
constitute preaching. Nor does meditative work. Nor admonishing erring children or wandering
in sin neighbors. Much less does nagging, though often referred to as such – “Don’t preach at
me.”
When ministers turns preachy, either hectoring or worrying a bone, let us point them to II
Tim. 2:23ff. “Have nothing to do with stupid, senseless controversies; you know that they breed
quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to every one, an apt teacher,
forbearing, correcting his opponents [in the Church] with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that
they will repent and come to know the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil,
after being captured by him to do his will.” Clergymen who subvert this revelation, even as
smooth talkers, give sermons and listening to the word a bad reputation, even while they pretend
to speak in the name of the Lord. In these ways, they depreciate the office of the Word, courage
oozing off into cowardice; thus, they tear down and hollow out respective congregations in order
to get their own way.
Only, and this cannot be repeated over much: the purpose and goal of all intrepid preaching
always focuses on building up Christ’s Church for the sake of the coming of the Kingdom. In
that unambiguous light, sermons, from time to time, ought to irritate us to no end – to shake up,
awaken, thereby heading reformation of hearts, souls, minds, and strengths in the communion of
the saints. In this way, we are reminded that the totality of salvation, the whole of the Church,
roots in Jesus Christ to the glory of the Father.
Because of the resolute goal and purpose of preaching, as well as our responsibility with
respect to the word of the Lord, we need to see to it that ministers remain courageous, indeed,
honest men, even in the face of ecclesiastical corruption, be that confessional, theological, or
moral.
Honest Men
God-grown ministers, upon close examination, fit into a middle-management position, first
of all responsible to Christ and then, for leftovers, to us. This requires new-creation honesty to
which we ought to hold them – since our salvation depends on sound preaching, and without
salvation our purpose in life falls apart, incongruous debris along the wayside.
Therefore, men of dynamic soul consider it beneath the dignity of the office of the ministry
to fall into the trap of aping this liberal or that conservative cause within the Church. Without,
309
Kerr, op. cit., p. 147.
123
however, our active involvement, ministers tend to become ideologues, 310 either conservative or
liberal. Christ Jesus wills by way of sermonizing to realize, now and in the future, all gratitude
for our salvation. Hence, to aim at honesty with Pauline exactness, cf. I Thes. 2:3ff. –
“For our appeal does not spring from error or uncleanness, nor is it made with guile; but just
as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please
men, but to please God who tests our hearts. For we never used either words of flattery, as you
know, or a cloak of greed, as God is witness; nor did we seek glory from men, whether from you
or from others, though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle
among you, like a nurse taking care of her children.”
This highroad for the preaching ministry we look for, the sign of candid men. Openhearted
preachers, we see with rising scrutiny, commit themselves to exegetical yeomen’s work, 311 thus
walking us through well-selected preaching units. If they use manuscript services, 312 plagiarize,
or plunder commentaries, we recognize with sinking hopes that they sidestep commitment to
ordination vows; with disregard for sermon preparation or only bare essentials thereof, they
concentrate too much on other essentials, without delegating such responsibilities. “Though a
man may be a minister of the Word, and sincerely believe himself called and commissioned to
preach, yet related occupations can work themselves to the forefront of his thought and rob the
public proclamation of the gospel of its rightful priority in all he does.” 313 Soon we can tell what
a minister thinks of preaching, and of us as congregation, especially if he likes to make himself
busy in the maw of peripheral matters. This easily happens, by either personal inclination or
congregational pushing. Overall, we like to see our ministers publicly busy, running around,
miming work, instead of wasting precious time preparing heart-hitting sermons.
To prevent one cause of exegetical abuse, we need from our ministers some assurance that
they have sufficient time and scheduling skill for sermon preparation. If they are unable to
prepare prayerfully and properly for the heart of corporate worship or are so pressed for time that
they have to crank out sermons at the last moment, we have to sit them down for reorganization
in time management sessions. Stressful work environments due to pastoral concerns to which
ministers are always vulnerable, may happens, but also many avocations nest in procrastination.
We may insist that ministers free up time to take the highroad with respect to preaching, which
builds up the Church of Jesus Christ.
From the ministerial highroad, we hear the Word preached, all Scripture, passages familiar as
well as difficult, known as well as unknown, positive as well as negative selections. We need the
310
Bartlett, op. cit., p. 64 – “When we [i.e., ministers] are not sure of our own ends, we take over someone else’s
standard of success.”
311
Morgan, op. cit., p. 23 – “Every sermon is characterized by two things – originality and authority.”
Originality comes from ministers’ own investigation into Scripture, primary exegesis. Authority comes from
ministers’ conviction that Christ Jesus actually called them to preach all they honestly exegete, and therefore refuse
to present human ideas and opinions, either liberal or conservative, as the word of the Lord.
312
The money-making schemes for mass produced ‘cheat sheets’ allegedly frees preachers for more important and
pressing duties of office: committee meetings, sick visiting, collateral reading, family time, institutional
maintenance, fund raising, neighborhood goodwill, television viewing, schmoozing, hobbies, skimming mystery
novels, etc.
313
Sangster, The Craft of the Sermon, op. cit., p. 12.
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negative too in the Church, fully cracking down on sin and sinners – beginning with ourselves.
Everything short of the whole counsel of God mocks the very purity of preaching and opens the
door to the liar from the beginning, who seduces foolish congregations with wicked stratagems.
The Devil has bags full of tricks – all reheated and recycled ideologies and idolatries imaginable.
Another way to keep men-on-our-pulpits honest: we endorse as well as maintain sound
standards of faith, 314 confessions that summarize the Bible. By insisting that ministers subscribe
to our standards, as we ourselves then do, we establish boundaries and balances that honest men
respect, and never break, not consciously. Without such boundaries, dishonesty endangers
honesty on the pulpits of the Church.
Our sons called to be Christ’s spokesmen from day one of ministry enter professionally the
learning curve of our convictions: we want to hear the whole counsel of God, one section at a
time, nothing short of or more than all Scriptures, according to the “pattern of sound words.” 315
And we make sure they do – for the very sake of our salvation and the purpose of salvation: the
glory of the Father in the Son. Everything else harms the glory of the Father, limits the fullness
of our salvation, prevents the evangelization mandate, and leads us into haunts of apostasy.
Easily discernable apostasy, or heresy, in preaching we catch rather quickly. Denial of Jesus
Christ’ divinity and/or humanity. Mockery of the Trinity. Assertion of universal salvation.
Disrespect for the Bible as the Word of God. Spiritual unity of all peoples. Promotion of stark
disobedience to God’s revealed will. These we may subdue immediately through disciplinary
procedures.
Other infractions against the Word will sneak in on cats’ paws. Sole concentration on
Christ’s humanity. Unwillingness to affirm the doctrine of the Trinity. Salvation as a human
prerogative, Arminianism in any of its untenable forms. Suspension of the doctrine of
predestination. Selection of only ‘safe’ preaching units. Advocacy of soul sleep. Mariology.
Angels as forces of salvation. Etc. Fro detection of such errors, only Beroean-incisive listening
suffices. In the stormy history of the post-Pentecost Day Church thousands of sorts of infractions
come out of the woodwork of unbelief.
Equivocating ministers, like angels garbed in liberalism or conservatism, carry these
deadweights of the past into respective pulpits. More dangerous, we allow such apostate forces to
sidle in because we are traditional comfortable on their home grounds – materialism, sexism,
subjectivism, private interpretations, among others. These mercurial twilight zones protect
realms rife with hidden gods and often we discover unmarked damages too late; these ministers,
dishonest, have wreaked havoc in the Church while we sat back in listening mode, models of
complacency.
314
Possibly the three Forms of Unity, to wit: the 1561 Confession of Faith, the 1563 Heidelberg Catechism, and the
1618-19 Canons of Dort. These true summaries of the Word lay out the reforming frontiers in every age and place.
This reopens larger issues. 1) Whether or not published standards of faith are necessary. 2) Which of many
confessions, old and new, conform to Scriptures.
Marcel, op. cit., p. 75 – “In our churches which have for various reasons reduced the weekly time of preaching to
the barest minimum – one twenty-five minute sermon per Sunday, and where the Sunday evening worship has been
suppressed, the believers no longer receive any systematic instruction in the catechism or the Confessions of Faith.”
315
Cf. II Tim. 1:13.
125
To beat back stealth raids and take-over bids by hidden gods, Christ wills straight talking
spokesmen, unashamed of professing him the Lord and Savior and fearless against unsubmissive
thrones, dominions, principalities, and authorities. Beginning in their ‘own’ congregations, when
our ministers stand up in Christ against fractious enemies of the Church we will too.
A reality check: listening to preaching takes place in this world’s turmoiling cultural and
social afflictions of apostasy and heresy. Any breakage with the Word may become so familiar
and comforting to our ears (as worn slippers) that when constantly proclaimed in the name of
Christ Jesus these sound biblical and true to fact. As this happens, real amendment of heart and
life becomes excruciatingly difficult, notably for coming generations.
Despite, however, all ideological and idolatrous temptations running around and invading the
Church, the Lord Jesus gathers his people and intends that we, remnants, first of all by means of
faithful preaching, quickly and purposefully engage, and expose, all spirits of the times. These
stalking spirits oppose the Holy Spirit and seek to draw us to the dark side of the fundamental
dividing-line by making sermons conform to standards other than Scriptures – to retard the
coming of the Kingdom and malign the glory of the Father. Starting in the Church, this whole
world must be subjected to renewal in preparation for the final unfolding of the new heavens and
earth, the whole of which begins in Christ-centered preaching. By sound sermons, Christ’s men
initiate battles against the complex works of darkness in the one perennial war.
Therefore, on account of the internal dynamic of all Word proclamation, we do well before
listening, while listening, and afterward also, to ask: from the key high ground of the Church,
what purpose do ministers give Sunday-upon-Sunday sermons? We must start this question, even
if a minister may be less gifted in speaking than others, or still weak in exegesis, or in need of
more pastoral maturing. Each, directly or indirectly, ‘reveals’ by sermon preparation and
preaching what he finds the overall sermonic aim. If a minister considers himself a
congregational employee, a ruler with proprietary rights in his own domain, a leader of an
ideological force, or errand boy for a dominant person, family, or faction, etc., he will reflect this
in preparation for and in the preaching itself. Without any surprise. We live in an revolutionary
age.
Without honest opposition to all revolution, ministers defeat preaching. “… it seems hard to
deny that certain influences have tended to rob proclamation of its inherent vitality. This vitality
is lost when the sermons are regarded as the transference of ideas from one mind to another, or
when a preacher fears that the hard word of Scripture may offend and therefore softens it, or
when a preacher wishes to give the impression of being so refined that it is beyond his gentility
to raise his voice about anything.” 316 We get used to such sins-on-the-pulpit and think it the way
Christ, the prophets, and the apostles also spoke. We live in times heavily fortified by painkilling
ideologies and idolatries against the Word. Honest men, however, with due diligence speak in
Christ’s name and know that each Spirit-moved sermon functions in a revolution-transcending
manner. For church building. For Christ honoring. To effect the coming of the Kingdom.
316
Randolph, op. cit., p. 33.
126
Authority Men
During corporate worship, we (see and) hear a mortal, one of our own flesh and blood. How
may we be sure that he, blessed with this holy calling, actually speaks as the voice of the
Lord? Another good question. The Lord of the Church wills that we hear in, with, and through
the voice of a man the authority of the Voice.
For that reason, Paul, writing to Timothy, warned ministers against abuse of authority in such
a way that we may maintain a regulatory watch. Cf. I Tim. 6:3ff. – “If any one teaches otherwise
and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching which
accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit, he knows nothing; he has a morbid craving
for controversy and for disputes about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, base
suspicion, and wrangling among men who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth,
imagining that godliness is a means of gain.” Cf. Tit. 3:9ff. All ministers who engage in
quarreling 317 and senseless controversies for whatever gain, that is, advocating ideologies and
idolatries in the name of Christ, make the Lord of the Church looks foolish, destroy salvation,
and take away the purpose of life – harming with proud autonomy the ministerial office in the
process. We therefore live on duty in Christ to stop stupid, senseless arguments from starting.
With what authority do ministers speak so that we listen, weigh, and believe most intently all
they say in the name of Christ? There is a saying, similar to Mk. 6:4 – “Easier to mock a prophet
than to listen to him.” 318 Including the last prophet, the Baptizer, all Old Testament seers endured
this pain of pains – rejection for the sake of Christ. Some paid with loss of life, cf. Mt. 23:37.
Killing the Christ’s prophets is an age-old ecclesiastical favorite in order that we, actively secure
in unbelief, remain comfortably wicked.
Ministers, men with Christ’s authority, 319 serve only as his servants and heralds; throughout
the Church he alone lays upon them by way of ordination the burden and task of proclaiming the
Word, and nothing more than the Word. Anything less will not cut it, nor anything more. Out of
gratitude for salvation and for maturing in the faith to achieve in a daily way the purpose of
living, but more because of Christ’s command, we hear these speaking men in our respective
congregations. Always we engage them to ensure that each sermon, from its place in Scripture,
conforms to the whole counsel of God, while challenging our ears and hearts. That tends to make
ministers lonely people and pulpits lonely platforms – for loneliness is a function of the
prophetic office; nevertheless, without in the least feeling sorry for them, we may hold them
317
Paul and Barnabas’ “sharp contention,” cf. Acts 15:39, mocked and undermined their authority.
Kathleen Morris, The Cloister Walk (New York: Riverhead, 1996), p. 32.
319
Horne, op. cit., p. 61 – “There is a reaction against authoritarian preaching in our time. Preaching today must be
dialogical, which means that there must be an interchange between pulpit and pew.” Again – “A preacher may reject
dialogical preaching because preaching is proclamation. He is like a herald announcing good news. We should never
forget that this is the essential nature of preaching, and, when it ceases to be proclamation, it ceases to be
preaching.”
“Authoritarian” ought to be ‘authoritative,’ for authoritarian has dictatorial over- and undertones.
This dialogical ‘preaching’ forms an earlier version of the interpretative triangle. The human part of the triangle
takes over and dominates the interpretation of the text, making the Author say words and convey meanings out of
context.
318
127
accountable. With our accountability, however, we limit this honorable loneliness through
sharing responsibility for the preaching of the Word.
Accountable in and to Christ, we endorse ministers’ authority for the Word - biblically
applied. Never hobbyhorses, cultic emphases, ‘favorite’ doctrines, or stupid controversies.
Everything not directly from or immediately inferable from Scriptures comes from the evil one,
the ‘affectionate’ liar until the end. This subordinate authority of the office of the ministry we
stand up for.
Troubling Caricatures
Since ministers of the Word live subject to the same tangles of sin and temptations as we do,
they also drift into caricaturing themselves, often unconsciously, sometimes purposefully, either
way into quirkiness impedes and shrinks our hearing the word of the Lord. Contrived distortions
tend to hug attention, thereby harming the authority of the office. 320
Every minister stands before a congregation. Some appear (rather) aloof – stern, solitary
figures with holy frowns, almost more than human. Others become (somewhat) jolly, 321 droll
lads wearing saccharine smiles, forcibly exuding humor and boisterous cordiality. A third sort of
posturing involves self-effacement, more humble than humble – Please, forgive me for speaking
to you. Out of a raft of self-caricatures possible, each man takes his own preference, which may
alter for better or worse as time goes on, always tempting targets for primordial malice.
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A minister may consider the work of proclaiming the Word a matter of pleasing the
congregation with platitudes and blandishments, himself a people-pleaser.
A minister may think of a sermon as a 20-minute work of entertainment and himself a
clownish figure, unaware of the complexities of the Word and of the congregation’s soul.
A minister may single out the pulpit for projecting personal frustration and simmering
failure upon a congregation. “Out of … unresolved guilt a preacher may develop an
unhealthy martyr’s complex. He may unconsciously seek pain from his own hands or the
hands of others.” “… the preacher may handle his guilt in another unhealthy way. He
may project it onto his people. Therefore he makes them suffer.” 322
A minister may try his hand at altars calls to harvest souls and gain some immediate,
tangible results for his efforts, and find himself a marvel of success.
A minister may autocratically attempt to steal as many responsibilities as possible from
the office of the congregation and build a hierarchy to make himself the hardest worker in
the congregation.
A minister, wimpy, fearful of members of the congregation or other office bearers, to
saturate a congregation with his kindness, may avoid stepping on toes, never raising the
Word’s hammer of justice.
320
In Part II appears a section on how and why we caricature men of the Word. The section here considers
autocaricaturing.
321
We need to remind jokers and stand up comics on Christ’s pulpits to consider Tit. 2:7, particularly the sense of
“gravity.”
322
Horne, op. cit., p. 40.
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A minister may fear for financial security and therefore circumvent serious exegesis to
regard himself a good businessman, thereby domesticating an overgrowth of
covetousness.
A minister, overbearing, may address over congregational heads groupings of the world;
as a self-made statesman he works with the unbiblical notion that Christ’s Church is for
the world. However – “A true sermon is an address to a particular people at a particular
time in a particular place; it is not a general word to the universe.” 323
A minister may commend simple faith 324 to enthrall a congregation with the fact that he
is a ‘notable’ peacemaker and peacekeeper. No serious exegetical work for him, nor the
painful process of congregational building.
A minister may set a private agenda, possibly for his own advancement, contrary to the
confessional standards of his congregation. He wants to be recognized as an enterprising
and innovative spiritual leader, a transformative figure.
A minister, rather safe than sorry, may busily please a majority or dominant minority
while consistently aiming at and singling out lesser sins of weaker members of the
congregation, thus establishing himself as a firm disciplinarian.
A minister may peddle legalism, conservatism, liberalism, or traditionalism, because,
self-protective, he wants status as a chameleon, a misanthrope not adverse to moving
with the times.
A minister may seek to be a prince of the pulpit by means of a boundless gift of the gab;
as long as he is known as a sought after speaker, his vanity knows no bounds.
A minister may clericalize and demand that the congregation follow him in his religious,
political, and social allegiances, if the members want to be saved.
A minister may with pious tone, sanctimonious manner, and holy airs, present himself as
a eunuch, removed from daily affairs and worries, vibrating on frequencies unknown to
the congregation.
A minister may turn himself into an ‘ecclesial entrepreneur” 325 of sorts competing for lost
souls in the religious market places to achieve church growth; he wants status as soulwinner.
A minister may concentrate on therapy of the soul and psychologize preaching units,
methodizing self-esteem, self-worth, and self-realization, and thus be recognized for his
sensitivity – as a spiritual adviser.
A minister may cast himself as an enabler. “An enabler can be a person who removes
inhibitions, blocks, hang-ups so that people may be free for self-fulfillment; thus, it can
have therapeutic meaning.” 326
A minister may occupy himself with institutional management and maintenance, “… an
executive who manages a corporate body so that people can be fully productive.” 327
323
Randolph, op. cit., pp. 44f.
J. Gresham Machen, What is Christianity? And Other addresses (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951), p. 120 –
“Knowledge, the advocates of that method seem to think, is quite unnecessary to faith; at the beginning a man may
be a Fundamentalist or a Modernist, he may hold a Christian or an anti-Christian view of Christ. Never mind; he is
to be received, quite apart from this opinion, on the basis of simple faith.” Cf. p. 156.
325
Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 46.
326
Ibid., p. 47.
327
Ibid.
324
129
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A minister may be an exaggerator, an advertiser for a good cause. “That is what
preachers do and that is what preaching is, exaggeration, the making of small points large
so that small people like ourselves can see them.” 328
- A minister may make preaching a subversive activity. “… preaching is ‘always a subversion, always a version, a rendering of reality that lives under the dominant version.’
But what is that dominant version? Is there an empire in the shadow of which we live
today?” 329 To be recognized as a revolutionary!
- A minister may concentrate on imagination instead of the heart. “Preaching is
fundamentally about shaping the imagination of the Christian community.” 330 Such a
minister stands out as a deep thinker.
- A minister may seek acclaim as a motivational speaker….
We perceive from nearby and from afar that ministers may go through all sorts of contortions
to flee the central responsibility of office. To make such hoop-jumping look legitimate, many
ministers ignore the specific make-up of the congregations they serve in the name of the Lord.
“Preachers are often surprisingly ignorant about the members of their congregations. They feel
that they know the members; often the truth is that they have general impressions about the
members which may be totally out of keeping with the facts of their lives.” 331As long as these
distracting distortions remain in place, ministers may and will caricature themselves, disruptively
bottling up reformation in preaching and person.
These and other camouflages, which ministers expose to us, incalculably harm preaching and
cast doubts on its purpose; in fact, through this autocaricaturing ministers give sermons a bad
name. Therefore, we as members of respective churches have a duty here, to help ministers stay
away from or overcome unbiblical behaviors in the office of the ministry.
Self-caricaturing prevents hearing the spoken word; such deformities and dislocations of
person ‘scream’ for attention; even very gifted men may develop pulpit manners and personal
antipathies to the office of ministry disruptive to the proclamation of the Word.
Numerous Petitions
That we may hear the proclamation of the Word, it is necessary first of all to pray for ‘our’
ministers. When we petition the Lord of the Church to bless them with the luminescence of the
Holy Spirit’s guidance, then he simultaneously opens us up with a mysterious vitality to hear the
spoken word.
Each minister in the congregation where Christ Jesus placed him to serve leads that flock in
place before the throne of grace, particularly during hours of corporate worship. “As priest, the
preacher presents his people before God, prays for them.” 332 With a soft and anti-elitist pastor’s
heart, he does this faithfully.
328
Gomes, Sermons, op. cit., p. 69.
Brian Walsh, “Subversive Preaching in a Postmodern World,” The Banner (Vol. 136, #13, June 18, 2001), p. 16.
330
Ibid.
331
Randolph, op. cit., p. 47.
332
Horne, op. cit., p. 77.
329
130
In the office of the congregation we indeed ought thankfully to exercise one of our
responsibilities in Christ – praying for our ministers.
To hear edifying, that is, upbuilding and reforming sermons, which transform creative
centers, we pray for our ministers. And for what shall we intercede before the Head of the
Church? In the name of Jesus Christ we ask the Father to bless and (re)equip our ministers with
due abilities for the main First Day work, the impelling reason for corporate worship. Our
prayers on behalf of ministers are always crucial to the proclamation and to our hearing the
Word.
When prayers and petitions for the indwelling Spirit in pew and pulpit mesh and resonate
with hope, good things happen. For us, we listen more intently and weigh sermons more
biblically; from the reading selection to the closure of the spoken word, we judge the opening
and application of Scripture from which we hear always unspeakably more of the grace the
Father revealed in the Son for our salvation, and how in gratitude to live to the glory of God.
“The preacher cannot manage this alone …, for no matter how able, articulate, or charismatic the
preacher may be, preaching works only if the listener together with the preacher enters into the
process of the sermon. It is thus a cooperative venture rather than one of the performer and
observer.” 333 Prayerfully, then, in the grace of salvation and the office of the congregation, we
overcome every inclination to light and sleepy listening, even distractions of dreaming. With
wholehearted prayer for our ministers, the Spirit opens our ears to and for pure preaching of the
Word, each sermon a defining landmark on the way through distractive fears and tough times
into the new creation.
In this respect, numerous petitions for Christ’s ministers remain too few.
Attentive Ears
Hearing with open ears the word of the Lord remains the greatest of blessings in this life. For
unbelievers and hypocrites alike, biblically crafted sermons weigh down as impressionable
curses.
Listening to the proclamation of the Word requires patience – patience to listen eagerly,
compassionately, and discerningly. For several reasons. One preaching unit may need less time
and another more for proper explanation and application. It is a fact – “Some subjects are
adequately dealt with in twenty minutes; others require forty.” 334 Besides, one minister says
more with fewer words than a colleague does. Whatever the case, we come to worship services
packed with patience, loaded down with compassion, fully prepared to make discerning
decisions with respect to the spoken word, the technical preparations as well as the believing.
True, the Holy Spirit may lead many congregants into corporate worship who limit the
proper length of sermons by time pressures – a roast in the oven, a social commitment afterward,
333
Gomes, Sermons, op. cit., p. xvi.
Sangster, The Craft of the Sermon, op. cit., p. 179.
Lloyd-Jones, op. cit., p. vii, noted that each of his covering the Sermon on the Mount lasted on average 40
minutes.
334
131
unlawful labors waiting, caffeine/nicotine/alcohol addictions, weariness of the flesh, TV
programming, sports events, or simply unwillingness to stretch one’s attention span. “Even in a
quiet church with a single stimulus – the preacher – we interweave our thoughts about the
sermon with worries about the roast, the brake linings, next Saturday’s date, or the increased cost
of living. The chief form this obstacle takes is ‘progressive tuning out.’ We tune out for a
moment, then back in, and out again.” 335 In this respect, conforming to a fast-paced life, clockwatchers find lengthy sermons reprehensible for optimum attention, but they have ears for other
sounds: they refuse to leave the boredom, confusion, and travail of everyday life.
Perhaps the following comes as an overstatement of the obvious, but just in case young, new,
and backsliding members of the Church need reinforcement: to hear the Word with open ears,
undue Saturday (evening) activities ought to be curtailed. If we arrive at church emotionally
drained by television programming or memory banks overloaded with video images, sports
scenes, fashion competitions, pornographic lusts, moneymaking schemes, or whatever, these
tend to erect inner fortifications against the Word, shutting down our listening capacities. All
who come with minds polluted by alcohol fumes find their ears poor conduits to the heart. Lack
of sleep too puts the hearing apparatus out of order. Nor does association on Saturdays with
reprobates and friends of questionable character dispose one to sound Word listening and then
weighing the exegesis.
Another point worthy our consideration: Christ gives each Last Day as preparatory to our
main First Day labors, that is, apprehending the spoken word. We may therefore consider Last
Days necessary speed bumps – slow down, prepare for First Days with serene reflection. With
loving concern for brothers and sisters intend on the Word, for ministers opening the Bible, and
for Christ himself, physically and mentally preparing ourselves remains a concern for all of the
Church. Out of love for those with us in the pew and the minister on the pulpit, and much more
for the sovereign Lord of the Church, we ought to ready ourselves to listen come Sundays. 336
A similar point for attention: to concentrate wholesomely on the Word, we ought to keep
First Days free from activities and commitments that menace deep, overriding concerns for
sensitive listening to the Word and thankful conformity to the Fourth Commandment – “Observe
the sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you.” Cf. Deut. 5:12. To
honor this well-founded commandment calls for focusing. “All kinds of things can happen to
keep you from concentrating. Some of them happen outside your control; others happen inside
you.” 337 Anything and everything that interferes with the purpose for which Christ gives us First
Days needs replacement by faithful observance of the Fourth Commandment.
Whether the one or the other stiff competition enters into corporate worship, each messes
with the receptivity of our eardrums; we become restless, inattentive, sleepy, and irritable, even
335
Thompson, op. cit., p. 78.
Ibid., pp. 56ff. Thompson offers various useable search engines prior to First Days:
- “Reflect deeply on the total meaning of preaching in your Christian growth.”
- “Determine to discover the relevance of the particular sermon for your life.”
- “Become familiar with biblical material and ideas – if possible, with the sermon text.”
- “Develop your listening skills.”
- “Remember that communicating is a reciprocal activity.”
337
Ibid., p. 77.
336
132
on account of the minute hand’s snail pace. “Pity the poor preacher who has to compete with the
movie magnate, the mass media, and the medicine man.” 338 Then we become nuisances and
obstructions to others, especially to the Lord of the Church. Christ Jesus grants us ears for the
first purpose: to listen to him, which in this day and age involves due preparation on Last Days in
order to be fresh, bright-eyed, and open-eared for the Word on First Days.
Necessity for open ears may sound trite, even didactic. However, the crucial function of our
individual and corporate listening capacities comes out with respect to a prophecy New
Testament authors repeated at several crossroad situations. Cf. Mt. 13:14f.; Mk. 4:12; Lk. 8:10;
John 12:39f.; Acts 28:26f.; Rom. 11:8. In the meantime, the prophecy lost no vigor and
relevance. Cf. Is. 6:9f. –
“Go, and say to this people:
‘Hear and hear, but do not understand;
see and see, but do not perceive.’
Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
By the stubborn fact that the Lord of the Church repeated this prophecy in New Testament
churches reveals that he still warns all whom the Holy Spirit gathers for corporate worship not to
come unwilling and ill prepared, sanctimonious, for listening. As much as Is. 6:9-10 calls for
fuller treatment with respect to hearing and seeing the Word, for now its alarm factor suffices.
Throughout, one potential for conflict remains indisputable: no one of the Church impugns
the freedom of the pulpit without incurring the wrath of God. Hampering and hindering this
freedom applies to poor ear preparation. To ministers, failing to listen to the Word, this applies in
terms of inadequate exegetical work; Christ’s men may use respective pulpits for one legitimate
reason only. To say this sharply – “Preaching is not merely a word about God and his redemptive
acts but a word of God and as such is itself a redemptive event.” 339 With that before us,
congregation and minister develop the cumulative impact of trustworthiness, the one saying, I
give you the word of the Lord, the other responding, We hear the word of the Lord. This
dependency marks out the humbling unity in the Lord Jesus Christ.
For now to hear and see that the Holy Spirit predisposes our hearts, souls, minds and
strengths to intensive listening through opened ears leads us into growing faith – measured by
increased knowledge of the Word, more assured trust in the covenant promises, and stronger
commitment to the covenant obligations; then we live thankfully in Christ Jesus according to the
Commandments for the glory and praise of the Father; we do this both within the Church and
throughout the expanse of the Kingdom. The incomprehensible worth of such hearing and its
beauty bears repeating many times. We may ask ministers to work out the explanation and
application of Isaiah’s prophecy on a regular basis.
While listening quietly and intently to known shepherds, the Holy Spirit takes the word of the
Lord within us, so that its words and sentences, thoughts and hopes, emphases and warnings
338
339
Ibid., p. 18.
Greidanus, The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text, op. cit., p. 5.
133
register deep in our hearts, and we believe with renewed vigors. Lest he shut our ears and
atrophies our eardrums, so that we hear and not hear, see and not see, utterly condemnable for
refusing to hear on account of hardness of heart – as he destined for us.
Familiar Shepherds
Listening to and absorbing the word of the Lord in congregational settings happens most
frequently by way of a well-known, trusted pastor/shepherd whom Christ places in a particular
communion of saints.
Communion of saints (familiar from the Apostles Creed) is: the fellowship of brothers and
sisters drawn together by Christ for mutual upbuilding through the office of the congregation,
which the Lord Jesus establishes for the best evaluatory vantage point to hear the Word.
In nuanced bonds formed between minister and congregation through ordination to and
installation in the office of the ministry, we soon center in on each other’s weaknesses and
strengths, he on ours, we on his; in this coexistence, continuity counts. “The power of preaching
… depends in part on its consecutiveness – the same man speaking to the same congregation
week after week.” 340 Diverse personalities and talents notwithstanding, aware of each other,
congregation and minister create the right pastoral continuity for the proclamation of the Word.
“Both our theology and our history make clear that the local pastorate, with all its encumbrances,
its distractions, and occasionally its irritations, is absolutely central in our ultimate Christian
concern. The local congregation is the distinctive form of Christian fellowship.” 341 And for the
preaching! The better ready rapport with our respective ministers and they with us, the more
‘effective’ the ministry of the Word.
Pastoral centers carry decisive weight. One may read the Bible as much as possible to
increase knowledge. One may peruse meditative works and published sermons. Or study
theology. Or hear biblically oriented radio broadcasts. Or be glued to TV religious programming.
And do all with benefit. However. Only when we listen to and directly hear the spoken word of
the Lord from the pulpit of the congregation of membership by a (known) shepherd come Holy
Spirit granted conviction and assurance: this is truly from the Lord for us. Such conviction and
assurance may come in the form of a covenant promise. It may come in the shape of a covenant
commandment, or a warning. Whether an exhortation to believe or a summons to grateful
obedience, proclamation of forgiveness or of condemnation upon our wrongdoing, the full force
of eternal salvation or eternal condemnation comes at us and to us from the pulpit. By listening
with sheer integrity in such pastoral locales, Christ draws us further and farther into the
Kingdom. Upon the narrow way we then discover that he by the power of the word does far
more abundantly than all we ask or think, both for benediction and malediction.
Given the rich significance of each congregation, preaching is not for radio or television
programming. The latter even more than radio panders to entertainment. Both media fail to
establish the communion of saints, while speakers/entertainers remain distant, larger than human
figures.
340
341
Sangster, The Craft of the Sermon, op. cit., pp. 23f.
Bartlett, op. cit., p. 65.
134
Radio speakers talk far removed from the pastoral setting of the communion of saints. On the
airwaves one finds no congregation of Jesus Christ, no calling of the Church, no consistory with
duties in relation to the ministry of the Word. One does not even find an invisible church on
radio. One does find programming geared to prospective financial returns. To demean a sermon
to the status of a program falsifies the proclamation of the Word, however well meaning and
money-hungry speakers may be.
Debilities in relation to preaching increase exponentially with television, true especially of
televangelists with global pretensions. All preachers who appear on the small screen immediately
morph into actors and entertainers. Entertainers dare not explain and apply the Word with
authority and clarity, fearful of losing all-important ratings, financial contributions, and
momentary gossamer fame. Only the ‘praiseworthy’ and ‘celebratory’ fits the box to appease
judgmental spectators. Whatever method television programmers apply to glue in place
pretentious bonds of intimacy with entertainers/actors/charlatans, the cold and impersonal soon
erodes warm feelings. Religious television may come with all sorts of bells and whistles to catch
the biblically uneducated, but on this communication medium exist no communion of saints, no
visible church, no office of the congregation, no oversight by elders, only entertainment value
balanced by fatal drops in ratings and moneys.
May then techno-inventions in communications not be received with thanksgiving, as Paul
instructed the Church, cf. I Tim. 4:4? Yes – for a reading, a lecture, a debate, a meditation, a
biblically based discussion on doctrine and life. Yes – for sound/video systems in church
buildings to expand internal congregational communication, pastor to flock. 342 No – if such
systems increase the distance in the worship setting between minister and congregation.
Christ Jesus wills that we, the Church, separated into congregations, listen to the oral word
spoken by the known pastoral-to-a-fault shepherd 343 of the congregation. He, forerunner of the
coming Lord, speaks in pastoral centers of corporate worship with Christ-given freedom and
authority to build up all in the communion of the saints. “Your personal relationship to the
preacher has a great deal more to do with your reception of his message than you probably
realize.” 344 In this same context we assist each other to come to deeper understanding and
application of the Word. The strong help the weak, the mature the youth, parents children, the
elders the congregation, even husbands respective wives. 345 In these Spirit-filled congregations
the great and powerful tenets of the Faith enlarge our hearts.
342
When a church auditorium requires a sound system because of the size of the congregation, the congregation
ought to separate into two-three distinct communions. Better work for mutual upbuilding according to the Word
happens then in an actually functioning communion of saints.
343
Sangster, The Craft of the Sermon, op. cit., p. 12 – “It would be hard to exaggerate all the gains to a preacher
from pastoral work faithfully done: the insight into people’s minds; the awareness of problems which perplex them
and temptations which test them; the opportunity to learn with intimacy from life – so necessary to a man whose
main learning is from books.”
344
Thompson, op. cit., p. 40.
345
Cf. I Tim. 2:12; I Cor. 14:35a.
135
True Forerunners
With sound preaching the Holy Spirit carries, as it were, the word into our hearts, and then,
by way of enkindled and rekindled faith works believing, understanding, acceptance, and living
the proclamation. We grow traction in the Faith until we stand in judgment before the Lord of the
Church, fully sanctified, cleansed of all unrighteousness. Christ’s promise with respect to this
work of the Third Person comes at us sure and true. At troubling crossroads of life, on the
journey to the Day, and into the totality of the new creation, the Word as the spoken word of the
Lord moves us to reformation, that is, sanctification.
Therefore, kerusso, to proclaim, 346 wherever it appears in the Bible, notably in the New
Testament, comes with the force of proclamation from a throne. Words delivered by a messenger
arrive on behalf of a ruler, in this case, the Ruler. Cf. Acts 15:21; Rom. 2:21; I Cor. 9:27, 15:12;
II Cor. 4:5; Gal. 5:11; I Thes. 2:9; II Tim. 4:2; etc. Kerusso comes at us and to us and in us with
awe-inspiring heft. “God uses contemporary preaching to bring his salvation to people today, to
build his church, to bring his kingdom. In short, contemporary biblical preaching is nothing less
than a redemptive event.” 347 Paying attention to the penetrating ways in which both the prophets
and the apostles addressed the Church, a minister may use a wide variety of approaches,
germane, of course, to the text. “He may exhort you, comfort you, teach you, challenge you,
berate you, compliment you, plead with you, bore you, titillate you, or inspire you.” 348 By taking
the tone and the mood of the preaching unit, a minister may not pervert, for instance, an
exhortation-text into a self-serving, angry diatribe, playing the fool, or a self-enhancing
humorous talk.
Kerusso is strong, so that when we hear the word we submit to everything declared in the
Lord’s name – no matter how much and many republican or egalitarian ideas turn about in our
heads and hearts. “The preacher – as preacher – is a herald. He is not offering his own comments
on life and events …. Every herald must know his monarch’s mind.” 349 This sober analysis
makes a sermon an event of immediate and lasting importance, which articulates the
unpretentious significance of the pulpit’s centrality – “the throne of the Word of God.” 350
Ministers with unabashed commitment to the grace of Christ Jesus 351 and with quiet dignity
serve as forerunners of the Word; as messengers of the Lord Jesus, they herald (kerusso) his
arrival on the clouds of heaven, and thus prepare respective congregations for the splendor and
fear of the Day, the Parousia, by means of sanctification.
346
G. Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, III (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), p. 711 – “The
word proclaimed is the divine Word, and as such it is an effective force which creates what it proclaims.” Cf. p. 713
– “Sending implies on the one side a restriction, but on the other an enhancement, of the power of the herald.”
Heralds, or messengers, speak for Christ Jesus who from the Father’s throne rules heaven and earth with all
authority for the sake of the Church and the coming of the Kingdom. Ministers need to be reminded – constantly –
of this servant status, or they with swollen heads will overrule respective congregations through ideological, if not
idolatrous, opinions.
347
Greidanus, The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text, op. cit., p. 9.
348
Thompson, op. cit., p. 13.
349
Sangster, Power in Preaching, op. cit., p. 97.
350
Sangster, The Craft of the Sermon, op. cit., p. 17.
351
Cf. II Tim. 2:1.
136
Much as Christ’s forerunners sermonize, only the Holy Spirit works preaching in our hearts
so that we trust the Word more, which trust appears in the constant renewal of our lives. Without
the Third Person’s applicatory work, preaching runs not to vanity, but to calamity. This
completes an Old Testament promise, cf. Is. 55:11 - the word never returns empty. Sermons
either bring salvation or enforce condemnation. All the while, tested ministers never presume to
take over from the Lord; they serve in his name to sanctify each congregation, and together the
entire Church.
Biblical kerusso in an older version of the 1561 Confession of Faith, Art. 29, means “the pure
doctrine of the gospel.” 352 As supports for this pure preaching, Arthur C. Cochrane added a
variety of texts, to wit: John 8:47, 10:27; Acts 17:11f.; Eph. 2:20; Col. 1:23. We may add Heb.
4:12. These texts in respective settings sharpen the nature of the proclamation of the Word. The
Lord Jesus Christ forbids just anything spoken in his name. Each of these texts, therefore, in its
own way points out the calling of the forerunners, and ours as well, that we may move with the
times into the open-hearted future of the word.
It is commonly assumed that major decisions with respect to life and death originate within
capital cities of the world, or out of the boardrooms of transnationals. True, mighty decisions
over life and death germinate in and issue from such synthetic beehives of activity in a
disquieting world, often with no regard for human beings and the ecological wellness of the
earth. However, the major decisions over life and death sound forth from Christ’s pulpits,
through awe-inspiring kerusso. After a time, governmental legislation and business decisions die
out, finished, categorically replaced by others. Judgments proclaimed in the name of Christ last
forever.
Therefore, due to kerusso, we must be on the alert against false prophets, preachers who,
inattentive to the Word, presume to speak in the name of the Lord, though he does not send
them. Cf. Mt. 7:15 – “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but
inwardly are ravenous wolves.” Wolves in this context are ‘ministers’ out for themselves, for
multifactor impulses of fame and/or fortune. Instead of serving respective congregations, these
deceptionists feed on the flocks in order to promote personal reputations. Cf. Titus 1:10f. – “For
there are many insubordinate men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially the circumcision
party; they must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for base gain
what they have no right to teach.” Cf. Jude 12a – “These are blemishes on your love feasts, as
they boldly carouse together, looking after themselves.” They follow in Baalam’s error, cf. Jude
11, at home in gullible congregations.
By making light of kerusso and hearing only what pleases us, that is, preferring oratory, we
make ourselves willing recipients of eternal condemnation, heading off after sunset into the
lengthening shadows of darkness and the flaming belly of second death. Cf. Acts 2:12, 17:32; III
John 10; etc.
352
Arthur C. Cochrane, ed., Reformed Confessions of the 16th Century (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956), p. 210.
137
With all said and done, through kerusso 353 the Holy Spirit since the beginning of preaching
brings the spoken word of the Lord through our ears into our hearts: kerusso penetrates into our
hearts for salvation or for condemnation, one or the other, no third possibility. For only in the
transcendent ministry of the Third Person do we hear the word with probing attention to believe
the covenant promises and as a result do the covenant obligations in the name of Christ for the
glory of the Father. In that same ministry of the Holy Spirit, others face the consequences of
unbelief in eternal condemnation.
Thus, in the steep learning curve of the office of the congregation we gain in temperament
and understanding of the way and the goal of preaching. Over time and throughout changing
circumstances comes the Holy Spirit-inspired growth in terms of sermon monitoring – by
bending under the yoke of Christ, first of all through listening intensively to the proclamation of
the Word.
HEART DESTINATION
Now the last of these technical preparations: the address of sermons that are not words of
man, however much spoken by men. The word of the Lord aims unerringly for the hearts of
believers, as Paul addressed the Church begun in Thessalonica. Cf. I Thes. 2:13 –
“… we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which
you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of
God, which is at work in you believers.”
Herewith, we come to each sermon’s destination – until our hearts totally and finally submit
to the Christ’s yoke, meanwhile aspiring to the outcome of our faith.
Right Addresses
Often enough sermons aim for an address next door to our hearts. Misguided and/or
immature clergy appeal to our rationality or emotionality. If they address sermons to our
rationality, they judge that we have pagan-stoic temperaments, which appreciate intellectually
driven pulpit speech. If they aim sermons at our emotionality, ministers judge that we have
pagan-epicurean motivations, fascination with emotion rousing talks. Whether the one or the
other next-door-to-our-heart address, both presuppose the finality of a disturbance in human
nature, either our minds or our emotions overreach and control our hearts in importance. Christ,
however, in calling ministers to this terribly influential office, commands that they speak to our
hearts as we sit in exposed pews.
A heart is: the essence of human nature, the creative center.
353
Ritschl, op. cit., p. 61 – “The herald is the witness who goes out as a messenger to proclaim and announce in the
streets and market places the coming of his king. His message is urgent; it cannot even be taught, for it must be cried
out. It is cried out in the authority of Christ the coming King. The call of the herald is a call for decision (in this and
perhaps only in this context can we use this dangerous word). ‘Today, when you hear his voice, do not harden your
hearts.” (Heb. 4:7) The Christian herald cannot give his own interpretation and opinion; he must say what his King
wants him to say. The words of a herald are not an explication of his own theology or a confession of his own
experience and Christian life.”
138
Sound preaching engages our hearts, and thereby our entire persons, the whole of soul, mind,
and strength. As all Scripture, so proclamation of the Word aims for our respective creative
centers, to which address comes the riches of actual preaching. This preaching as the word of the
Lord designs the central means of grace. In fact, sound preaching, as opposed to soothing
homilies, appealing apostasies, and captivating heresies, also engages our minds and grabs our
emotions. How else shall we hear? We experience thoughtful reflection, anger, repentance,
shame, joy, hope, etc. Each of these responses either works to build up the Faith or increases our
awareness of condemnation; such breakthrough responses reflect actual works of the heart. Read
only the Acts of the Apostles: see how people both inside and outside the Church reacted to the
strategically targeted proclamation of the Lord. Inside the Church, preachers thus work the
favorable soil of our undeserving hearts persuasively – to save all who believe and condemn all
who disbelieve.
Headlines indicate we live in serious times, actively involved in urgencies of the moment –
genocides, tragedies, wars, economic booms and busts; these outbreaks excite adrenaline rushes
and raise worry levels. However, despite visceral headlines, sermons of last Sunday and next
Sunday make the times more potent than any foreboding caption. By way of the preaching the
Lord of the Church, the Ruler of heaven and earth, beginning in the Congregation, prophesies
through his newsmakers, ministers, the shape of the times to come – in terms of world
development and destination. Only the coming of the Kingdom actually counts.
While preparing to hear the word of the Lord we may reflect on the very purpose of
preaching: to persuade us, to teach us, to convict us, to remonstrate with us, to admonish us.
Then at every tangled intersection of life between belief and unbelief, gratitude and ingratitude,
obedience and disobedience, reformation and revolution, etc., Christ Jesus conquers sin, our very
sinfulness, turning us from the broad way into and through the narrow gate for life. For that, he
upsets and fragments national/international histories to preserve the Church. For that, he beats
back violent ideologies and prominent idolatries in order that his people hear the word. Listening
to, believing, and living the Word represents the work of the Spirit in our respective hearts to the
glory of the Father. The actuality of the Spirit’s work persuades, teaches, remonstrates,
admonishes; he thus leads us to believe with increasing commitment and moves us with less
reticence onto the narrow way of the Kingdom.
The Lord of the Church appointed sermons as the central and pivotal persuasive means of
grace (distinct from the sacraments and discipline); the first means of grace remains by divine
decree Christ’s instrument by which in the Father’s name and through the Spirit he works all
powers of reformation, first in our hearts, to renew the essence of our human nature, that is, to
recreate the image of God within us. Then, from our new hearts outward, the power of the Word
reforms the one church, starting in each congregation. “The work of the preacher, as he expounds
the written Word to his congregation, must ever be the supreme method of God’s communication
with men.” 354 For this purpose, Christ created our redemption, to change us forever to conform
to his image. Is not this the burden of passages such as Rom. 8:29; Eph. 4:11ff., 22ff.; etc., until
he moves all creation literally through the intense wringer of reformation?
354
Sangster, The Craft of the Sermon, op. cit., p. 22.
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In respective hearts, two mighty intersecting lines meet and cross. The one line runs
vertically, representing the covenantal bond between the sovereign Son and the Church; it
reaches as high as heaven and as deep as Sheol. 355 The second line runs horizontally,
representing the covenantal bond between all of the Church; this one extends as far as the East is
from the West, the South from the North. At the fluid connecting point of these two intersecting
lines beat our hearts; here we live the alarming vortex of life, the conversion chamber in which,
because of the proclamation of the Word, we die to sin and live in Christ; or we die to Christ and
live in sin. Neutrality at this impressive point is impossible.
Due to wholesome preaching, wonderful and/or painful works happen in our hearts, joy of
eternal life or pain of eternal death; the latter takes over with religious hardening of the arteries.
Reforming Hearts
That we may know, preparatory to, while listening, and reflecting upon the word of the Lord,
what to expect from our ministers with increasing intensity; therefore the following. Cf. Col.
1:21ff. –
“And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now
reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and
irreproachable before him, provided you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting
from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which has been preached to every creature under
heaven ….”
Similar passages? Cf. Rom. 12:1ff.; I Cor. 12:12ff.; Eph. 2:1ff., 4:1ff.; etc.; each of these
extends far beyond the borders of our unstable expectations.
As much as Col. 1:21-23 stimulates thought processes and excites thankfulness for Christ’s
grace, perseverance in faith, and joy in the promised hope, the passage as such points at our
hearts – that in Christ we more and more shall be whole persons, cleansed of sin, living members
of the Church, and faithful citizens of the Kingdom. As living members of Christ we possess
renewed hearts, which beat rhythmically in every conscience, intellect, will, conviction, mind,
and attitude, that is, in our entire complex of personhood 356 - with unshakable conviction to exalt
the Kingdom and glorify the Name.
For this diligent activity the Holy Spirit through the ministry of the Word carries all the grace
of Christ into our hearts, therewith to bring about reformation on a daily basis. It is the saving
riches of heart-altering doctrines revealed in the Bible, whether covenant and predestination,
history and redemption, Gospel and Law, Church and Kingdom, office and recreation, or any
other. The Third Person enlightens and renews our respective heart spaces for the Word,
banishing the darkness of sin, and bringing to bear the wholesome Light of the world. Thus, in
355
Cf. I Pet. 3:19, with respect to Christ Jesus’ preaching in prison.
Horne, op. cit., p. 114 – “The gospel is addressed to the whole man because God intends to redeem the whole
life. Yet, often it is said, ’The purpose of the church is to get souls saved.’ And there is an obvious and important
truth in the claim. But it is a truth that has neglected other important and inseparable truths.”
356
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Christ we receive so much for one reason only: he wills to save all who believe in order that we
come to the goal of living here and now for then and there – in the unity of the Spirit.
The living witness of the Spirit is: oneness in listening and responding to the Christ.
Specifically, cf. Eph. 4:3 – “… eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
That is, to hear and absorb what the Spirit says to the churches. Therefore, he calls every
congregation to the openness of love – for God and neighbors – in order to hold up and strive for
what the Lord teaches the Church, never to stray from the truth, and thus to obedience in the
apostolic discipline. Cf. Phil. 2:12ff.
The Spirit moves all of Christ to the heart-conviction that the preaching in compliance with
the Scriptures serves reconciliation in Christ Jesus to the Father, and therefore a sermon, as all
sermons, belongs central to every worship service. With undivided attention to sound preaching
our salvation develops, expanding to perfection in the Day of Christ Jesus. This heart-growth
remains a secret process, which even with the mind of Christ we impossibly penetrate, for great
is the mystery of our religion. Cf. I Tim. 3:16. Yet this secret of the Faith growing in our hearts
and visible only in the manner by which we live before the Father here and now magnifies the
ministry of the Word, the kerusso.
In response to the totality of the saving riches of the Word of God, easily we walk into
ideological traps of simple faith, and therewith into ignorance. Then we are satisfied by merely
being ‘saved,’ or comfortable at having arrived, or at peace with doctrinal correctness, without
troubling ourselves overmuch with blessing and pleasing the Father of Jesus Christ in life and in
death. Familiarity with stagnation seems in many ways for now more preferable than steady
advancing on the narrow way for the work of the Church and the Kingdom; in all of us sloth and
sinfulness remain abundant, both overcome only with reformation of heart.
Thus, the primary means of grace, preaching, starts with recreating our hearts, conquering
sins, defeating the temptations of the world, and eventually overpowering Satan, ancient
adversary of Christ Jesus.
FIRST SUMMATION
Hearing and remembering the spoken word means engagement 357 on the frontline of life in
the most complicated and demanding form of communication. The complicated and reformed
demand of preaching comes from the fact that, different from other forms of communication, the
living Christ stands forth central. Listening to his men, therefore, is heart-changing, churchchanging, life-changing, world-changing – reforming or deforming. To make reformation happen
and done well the Lord Jesus bestows the office of the congregation upon us, in which calling
each and all together work away with steady industry not only to ensure that the preaching is of
Christ, but also to maintain this blessing of blessings. As the days pass by slowly and certainly,
we have to catch up with the Word.
357
Bartlett, op. cit., p. 43 – “If preaching is a real person-to-person engagement, then the listener is far from passive,
but indeed has his own active part to play.”
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Preaching requires strenuous standards for communicating the Word in words. Because we
all suffer to one degree or another from itching-ear syndrome, we easily prefer inferior and/or
apostate oratory: we want to hear what pleasures us, stimulates self-esteem, and leads to selfjustification. We are such psychological products of the times, if not victims of good feelings,
and hence confined to superficialities. However, responding to the Lord’s process of learning to
meet before him with all of the congregation in corporate worship at the beginning of another
and probably difficult week establishes no excuse to settle down, relax, and ‘enjoy’ the day of
rest on our troubling terms. Before agreed upon hours of worship we make sure that all our
faculties, primarily our hearts, are ready to hear proclamation, the open word of the Lord.
For this reason, a significant part of growth in the Faith over a lifetime means to gain
proficiency in evaluation and judging sermons. For that reason, then, these technical
preparations; to know ten means by which to listen more intently to and benefit more intensely
from the proclamation of the Word, enables at same time to teach generations ahead what to
expect from our ministers. Each day, then, in response to First Day work, we press on toward the
goal of the prize of the upward call of the Father in Christ Jesus, cf. Phil. 3:14. This growing up
includes proficiency in compliance with the above technical works.
If these technical preparations are taken negatively, it may appear that we come to church
only to criticize sermons and find fault with ministers by holding next to all sermons the ten
concerns expressed above. However, the opposite is true. For that reason we need to get answers
to a slew of anticipated questions off the ground. 358
-
How did the minister employ the exegetical standards to the best advantage of the
preaching unit?
Was the preaching unit well chosen?
Was the theme of the preaching unit comprehensive enough to include all of the text?
In what way may communal sermon discussion improve?
To what extent is “I like it” a sufficient measuring device for judging a sermon?
Are sermons constructed with the wrong homiletic devices believable as the word of the
Lord?
Even with these questions active in the above frame of reference, we struggle with small
beginnings, ministers too. Simultaneously, step by step, we strive for perfection. Ministers may
wrap themselves in the clothing of inviolability and resent any one even daring to be critical in
the most positive way. Too bad. There is more at stake with preaching than a sensitive
ministerial soul. In the office of the congregation, knowing and working with these technical
processes, with more appreciation for and understanding of the nature of preaching, we exercise
Christ-given responsibility. Then, we may also be more compassionate with our sons whom the
Lord of the Church calls to the ministry.
Without a doubt, Christ calls us to exercise the office of the congregation with on-site
inspections in order that we may gain every possible benefit from Bible-comprehensive
proclamation. A critical apparatus as these prime sources for listening to inclusive preaching
358
These are not for “sermon-tasters,” a derogatory J. Gresham Machen endorsed for insincere listeners, cf. The
New Testament, op. cit., p. 134.
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permits due examination of both weaknesses and strengths in our listening and in that to which
we have to listen. Better preparation to hear the word indicates that we know how to encourage
and how to admonish proclaimers-of-the-Word to greater service, till every sermon we hear is
full-bodied, strong in the glory of the Spirit. Our purpose as living members of Christ apprehends
more fully in the primary working space of the Spirit what it means to listen to the Word and
what to listen for in corporate worship.
A thought worth remembering – “It is a general rule that as it goes with the pulpit so it goes
with the people.” 359 Hence, this ‘risk assessment’ with respect to reformation or deformation.
359
Sinclair B. Ferguson in the Foreword to William Perkins, The Art of Prophesying (Edinburgh: The Banner of
Truth Trust, 1592/1996), p. xv.
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FIRST EXCURSUS
Deut. 8:1-20 (7-10)
TO A LAND FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY
Let us compare the whole earth to a garden stretching in many directions, as far as the eye
can see. Let us also in this global garden visualize many people horticulturally at work – spading,
sowing, weeding, hoeing, harvesting. All gardeners are determined to produce one kind of crop –
religious toleration. This one harvest comprises freedom of religion. Every religion must receive
equal breathing space and growing room, free from prejudice and fear of persecution, one of the
great ideals left over from the Enlightenment. A fantastic garden in the making! A completely
new world order in which none fights about religion, because each one carries within itself some
good seed of the truth. This utopian garden, multiculturally dressed, gains steadily more ground
under the auspices of the United Nations’ International Bill of Human Rights.
Implementation of this romantic venture falls very much on the children of the world,
following through upon soaring assumptions that whoever controls youthful minds and hearts
gains advantage over the future of the earth.
Before, however, covenant persons, especially children, work away at even a small part of
this ideological garden, in all seriousness and with an eye to the future, we consider four gardens
the LORD laid out in Scripture.
Layout of the First
For the first garden, we go back as far as possible in history. At that time, the LORD of
heaven and earth created Paradise, over which Adam, and Eve with him, received full
stewardship responsibility in order to produce one crop, i.e., righteousness, by living in the
covenantal bond. This primary freedom garden, as we read Gen. 1-2 in the presence of the Holy
Spirit, shone with eye-catching beauty and promised tremendous growth potential.
Adam, however, permitted another gardener into the sabbath peace of Eden. Once Satan set
foot in Paradise, the beginning of the end started. Now, not a trace, not even an old petrified root
of the first tree of life remains extant. The history of the initial Eden came to an abrupt
conclusion – without producing anything related to the crop of righteousness.
Once the first garden died, the Master-gardener developed plans for another.
Layout of the Second
In due time, the LORD began laying out a second garden, less beautiful and less fecund than
the first. Nevertheless, to Israel he described this garden as one flowing with milk and honey. Cf.
Deut. 8:7ff. –
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“For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of
fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and
fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread
without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose
hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God
for the good land he has given you.”
The covenant Lord promised this second garden to the people of Israel massed at Canaan’s
border, a garden not merely in contrast to the wilderness behind them, but more in contrast with
Egypt’s Nile Valley, which the younger generation remembered.
The land of the Pharaohs formed a garden of sorts all along the Nile, one in which many
religions blended together; all sorts of beliefs were welcome and found a home, except for the
one, which the LORD God revealed. For this religion no room existed along Egypt’s mighty
river. To exterminate the covenantal faith and life, pharaohs enslaved the men of Israel and threw
newborn boys to crocodiles; in this manner Egyptians sought to undercut believing and living the
promises originally granted Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and refused the growth of righteousness.
In differentiation from the past in Egypt and the wilderness, the LORD God revealed that in
the land of promise Israel had the freedom to believe and live according to the covenant; he
intended only covenant faith and life as the sole religion and reality.
For God’s people to live in freedom from discrimination and prejudice the new land before
them consisted of rare beauty and overwhelming bounty. The twelve spies whom Moses h sent
out, cf. Num. 13:1ff., returned carrying among other evidence a single grape cluster so heavy that
two men transferred it, and not because these spies were weaklings. This cluster of grapes
exampled the plenitude of the second garden, which the LORD vowed to grant his people.
Because of the land’s strong fecundity, covenant people needed not slave day and night for
bread alone, always struggling to gather enough sustenance. Instead, they were free to give
themselves wholly to producing the one good crop pleasing to the LORD: obedience in and
according to the covenant bond out of gratitude for receiving the land flowing with milk and
honey. Cf. Deut. 8:10 – “And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God
for the good land he has given you.” In this new freedom for all Israel, acceptable produce for
the LORD consisted of conformity to the First Commandment. Therefore, he commanded
through Moses – “Him only you shall serve.” Then they worked for righteousness.
At the time the LORD reiterated the promise of the good land, that garden still ‘belonged’ to
others – Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. But
because for centuries these peoples had grown the wrong crop, unrighteousness, disobedience to
the God of heaven and earth, by tolerating mixtures of religions, they were to be dispossessed.
The covenant LORD gave Israel command to remove, indeed, eradicate, these nations and tend
this garden anew – for harvesting righteousness.
Israel, as Adam earlier, erred grossly. God’s people refused to dispossess all indigenous
nations from the promised land. They to whom the LORD gave the second garden allowed room
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to other religions, despite an admonishing command. Cf. Deut. 8:19 – “And if you forget the
LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you
this day that you shall surely perish.” Israel suspended listening to the LORD. The people of the
covenant ignored dependence upon the LORD God and became proud; they allocated space
particularly to Baals and Asherah, eventually following these idols into religiosity out of a
conviction of religious toleration. One may say: Israel wanted to harvest a crop of toleration.
One of the worst gardeners among the Israelites was Solomon. Despite all his God-endowed
wisdom, in the end he was not a good gardener-king at all. Solomon built temples in and around
Jerusalem to honor other gods; then he encouraged Israel by nefarious example to worship in
these temples as well as, in addition, calling upon the Name of the LORD. Cf. I Kings 11:1ff.
The idolatrous plants he tended retained perennial roots in Southern Israel, Judah, for a long
time.
After Solomon, in Northern Israel, came another bungling horticulturalist, Jeroboam I, who
made Israel sin by ignoring the Golden-Calf history at the time of the Exodus, and crafted no less
than two for the Ten Tribes. After placing these in Dan and Bethel, he exclaimed, cf. I Kings
12:28c – “Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” In the wake
of Jeroboam’s error, fences against strange religions, religiosity, came down. Northern Israel
despoiled its part of the second garden, refusing to grow righteousness. They along with the sons
of Solomon on the Jerusalem throne permitted religious tolerance; all sorts of faiths, except one,
received room in the land of promise.
The more kings granted space to other religions, the more production of righteous living in
keeping with the First Commandment ground to a halt; other faiths took over and smothered the
one crop the LORD God wanted and willed from his people.
Eventually, therefore, as the LORD warned prophetically, through the Exile he removed
Israel from the land of promise. At the conclusion of the Old Testament era, the second garden
had become a wilderness of many competing religions – competing, that is, against the LORD
and the one true religion.
Layout of the Third
By human standards God ought to have given up on gardening; the gardeners he called to
work the land were of poor quality. They had allowed two perfectly good layouts for the growth
of righteousness to go to weed, once respect for the First Commandment withered in the field.
But already in the context of the second garden, cf. Is. 51:1ff., the LORD demonstrated once
again his love for gardening. In due time, therefore, he began to lay out the third garden, at first
hardly recognizable as such. It was a rocky place, resembling a skull, with only three trees. Two
of these three amounted to little. The third, in the middle, however, produced remarkable fruit, to
prove that the LORD was the Master-gardener.
We speak of Golgotha and the Crucifixion. This third garden, although in Canaan, did not
flow with milk and honey. In the harsh justice meted out, this garden produced the one crop God
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the Father demanded, blood, in order to recreate righteousness in his people, and his own grow
this righteousness all the days of their lives.
At the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, many of the covenant stood about Roman soldiers, the
troops commissioned for this murder. Some of these men, Pharisees and Sadducees, as they put
up with each other, tolerated with more or less good will other religions – the many Hellenistic
cults and Roman gods, the Caesars included; with respective gardening tools they intended that
toleration of all religions continue; they were determined to prove themselves right – with the
sword, if necessary. However, being fairly civil among themselves and agreeing that no one
religion dominate too much at the expense of others, they willed toleration for each others’
beliefs – Pharisees, Sadducees, worshipers of the Caesars, followers of Hellenistic cults.
Together, by crucifying the Christ, they sought to eradicate from the Place of the Skull the one
valid crop.
What needs to be added with respect to this third garden, notably the tree in the center, stems
from the fact that the LORD God gave at that time a mighty promise, a prophecy, concerning yet
a fourth garden – because of the covenant righteousness produced on Golgotha.
Layout of the Fourth
Portraiture of the fourth garden, the new oasis, the Lord Jesus revealed for the end times, cf.
Rev. 22:1ff. –
“Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne
of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the
river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of
the tree were for the healing of the nations. There shall no more be anything accursed, but the
throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall worship him; they shall see
his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads. And night shall be no more; they need no light
of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they shall reign for ever and ever.”
Because there shall be only one religion in the Eden of the future, the one and only staple
yield of this freedom garden (earlier pictured in Ez. 40:1ff.) shall be covenantal righteousness,
out of thankfulness.
But the Lord’s fourth garden, eternal Paradise, is incomplete at this moment, waiting for
many more gardeners. Until the completion date, we shall be journeying towards this new
destination, all the while learning to work perfectly under the Master-gardener forever. We now
travel through a wilderness, in a sense as Israel had from Egypt to the promised land. In these
wastelands of religious tolerance, the essence of which is a so-called freedom of religion, we find
over and again that the gardeners here plan this freedom of religion under the presupposition that
every religion is as good as the next. In fact, these pagan gardeners are convinced that colorful
catalogues for multiple multicultural gardens ought to be distributed – provided that each
religion be given sufficient growing room, all the while harvesting unrighteousness.
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Such condescending toleration means the right for every one to entertain any religious belief
openly, without fear of prejudice, hindrance, or reprisal. This human rights imposition, resilient
effort of generous souls, builds surface luster in wholesale defiance of the Lord God.
Too obvious to miss, the variety of religions is awesome. When one assumes that every way
of believing lives with equal validity – humanism, secularism, materialism, Hinduism,
Buddhism, vagaries of the New Age movement, Mohammedanism, Satanism, even Anglicanism,
Presbyterianism, Calvinism, Lutheranism, Dispensationalism, Evangelicalism, etc., or none at
all. However, as long as one is free to choose from among those mind-numbing traditions and
none is pressured, a sense of freedom prevails in this garden of the present. For none may coerce
or persuade any other of the rightness of any religion, especially not parents children, to leave
one religion and adopt another. Since all religions are equally valid and each person free to
choose, there is also no need for time-consuming and money-bleeding mission work.
In the wilderness of the present, pressure is on to complete the garden of the world as soon as
possible, to forestall the coming of the Lord’s fourth garden, that is, before he consummates
plans for the new paradise, and show up the poverty of any human garden sown with
multicultural toleration. Of course, the focus and the weight of the gardeners of this humanized
and secularized world order for religious peace champions the children. Can they be taught and
trained to accept this mentality as well as framework of life, they will in turn continue to work in
the garden to produce a global society in which, because of the absence of religious strife, there
is a peace of sorts and a freedom of sorts, an absence of war. In such a ‘free’ society, if children
can be persuaded to be tolerant of all religions, and respect none, there will be no more need to
fight wars, for all cultivate the fundamental rights and aspirations of fellow human beings. If all
rally to a single banner, that unity eliminates power struggles, human sorrow, terror, ethnic
conflicts, torture - for a universal morality of shared human values, plus the dreamed of
redemption of the human species as a whole. And if, in the meantime, one religion should get out
of line a little, uppity, the children of the world can sharpen hoes and spades and shears to cut
and trim and slash it back into a domesticated pattern.
Once this vision of a tolerant world gets into the blood lines of the children of the Church,
our fighting spirit dies, confusion enters, and uncertainty as to the purpose of life follows. Then
in the Church none explains who the Master-gardener is, nor what he came to do, nor why he
was on the central tree in the third garden layout, producing righteousness. Then there is no
requirement in the midst of the Church to be concerned about true religion. That, however, leads
directly to the error the first Adam committed, the apparent covetous legitimating of error. In the
spirit of that error, why bother with any religion, why really care to work out responsibilities of
Christianity, the production of righteousness? Then it may be better to join with all and strive for
one happy humanistic family, at the same time making sure that the fruit of infinite value on the
central tree in the third garden comes to nothing. Such magnanimity of soul earns its own
applause.
On our journey through the religious wilderness of the present, learning through hard
experience the deadening consensus of secularizing processes, the Lord Jesus however gives us
direction and destination. Moreover, he provides the space in which to learn how to garden in the
eternal Eden, forever producing righteousness.
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To each new generation of the Church, the highest love parents may give children stands
forth as the preparation for life in the fourth garden. These productive energies consist of more
than a few rules, some do’s and many don’ts. On this journey, in every place of rest, God calls us
to be apprentice-gardeners in at least two ways.
1) We are to keep Christ’s congregations, our homes, and schools free from every religion
but the true one, so that now we may begin to grow more of the one crop, covenantal
righteousness, till we do so perfectly, a hundredfold.
2) We are free to show and tell everyone that this planet will be part of the fourth garden, the
new heavens and earth, the eternal Eden, in which all serve only the Lord God. All the labor
spent on an undernourished and pointless multicultural garden shall go to waste. Such notice and
warning will give members of other religions time to back off and make room for the coming
Paradise – before the God of heaven and earth becomes angry with amateur gardeners for
producing mountains of unrighteousness, and with us for failing as missionaries.
Preparatory to the future, we are to be gardeners in our present places, people of the green
thumb, for advancing Christ Jesus’ kingdom.
One impressive aspect on first appearance of our paradisiacal hope: the Lord God gives us an
unusual gardening tool with which to prepare the ground and bring in the harvest. He grants us
the gifted sword of the Spirit. By using this one tool only we are to cultivate the earth and
prepare for the coming of the new garden, along with its eternally bountiful harvest.
Perhaps you have yet a tiny objection, minor tinkering with the boldness of the Christ’s
vision. This new liberty garden with only one crop may seem too narrow and monotonous,
boring, without free expression to our human aspirations and initiatives, especially if one
conceives of variety as the spice of life. Among the right people, this may be an attention-getting
objection.
But we are in the Church and the Kingdom; we are not working in and for a humanistic
garden of multiple religions and cultures. We are moving into and preparing for the Lord Jesus’
new paradise in which works to the glory of the Name will be more than sufficient variety. The
vision of the world garden of many faiths turns to refuse in comparison to the eternal Eden.
In due time, the whole world shall be part of this magnificent garden-in-the-making, the
second paradise, in which Christianity shall be the only religion, without the intolerant spirits of
the Enlightenment. There shall be no more fighting, no more war. We shall all be joined together
in the Faith to produce bumper crops of the righteousness, which please the Master-gardener.
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VOLATILE PREPARATIONS
Sermon evaluation, to apprehend to spoken word of the Lord, calls for readiness to confront
dark, sleepless forces; these also require painstaking attention. Therefore we delve into five
loaded and sinister facts about ourselves and ministers of the Word. This assortment of
destructive elements hampers and hinders our freedom to hear sound preaching. 360 At the same
time, recognizing each infernal spirit increases smart.
As we perpetrate sins and iniquities not only on a day-to-day basis, but also from generation
to generation, in the calling of the Church we may not hide our heads in fanciful sand or flee to a
utopian Tarshish. This shaky escapism begins when we pretend that the Lord’s solemn and
burning condemnation bypasses errant listeners-to-sermons or perverse makers-of-sermons.
Thus, instead of satisfying with oratory an unpredictable fondness for standard bromides and
filling up on strange pleasures by way of ideological fads, on First Days we confront turmoils of
spirit. When we prefer ease in Zion, or pseudo-relevance, the Lord of the Church calls us to
work. We, however, find retreat into sloppy listening easier than taxing the word of the Lord
head on. As Paul wrote to the dithering Corinthian Church, so to us - cf. II Cor. 11:3 – “… I am
afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a
sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” In listening to sermons and evaluating the spoken word, our
ear-devotion requires higher-level attentiveness, always, lest we turn into still balkier scofflaws
of the Word.
SINNERS AND HIRELINGS
Rather than retreat from taking sermons seriously, with all whom Christ calls to the Church
he wills that we spotlight and overcome bellyaching clutches of sin that envelop and hinder our
First Day work. Here, too, if not foremost to preaching, applies a heart-penetrating
admonishment. Cf. Eph. 5:11 – “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead
expose them.” The glory of the sovereign Lord and our common salvation underscore this
primary goal and first loyalty.
Therefore, starting within the Church, Christ shall test all our works with fire, cf. I Cor. 3:13,
also the manner with which we listen to sermons and the sorts of sermons to which we listen.
Duly convicted by this warning, we fight the good fight, beginning with the word of the Lord,
the sword of the Spirit. In all of life to the glory of Christ and our Father, nothing may disrupt the
proclamation of the grace of righteousness and holiness. The formidable fact that the Lord of the
Church calls us to verify the exegesis and application of the Word, which strong-spirited
ministers preach in the face of transient sinners, ought to upgrade unabashed commitment to
monitor the word of the Lord, Sunday after Sunday.
360
Hall, op. cit., p. 70 – “We all know that sermons are in trouble. There are very few good ones any more. Most
sermons carry the unmistakable marks of centuries of ecclesiastical and theological inbreeding.”
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SINNERS
Times of rapid and imposing fluxes –
crushing waves of post-modern beliefs,
broken values, dying customs, altering traditions, unbelieving oppositions, hardened attitudes –
court our irascible corruptions.
Lonely, scarred, broken, angry, frightened, confused, rebellious, tranquilized, proud, we awaken.
Suddenly wide-eyed in darkness of soul:
we are sinners.
Sinning Forces
Whatever rolls around in the world – dominant mood swings from liberalism to conservatism
and horrendous drops from complacency into bilious terror – quickly troubles the Church too.
Porous ecclesiastical walls, we concede, soak in everything passing by and roiling about; we do
not avoid the vast and fateful struggles of the times, nor the life-sucking battles over ideas.
At the same time, from inside ourselves, we face, upon self-examination, destabilizing
revolutionary spirits that translate into hard-line opposition to the Word. As well, we discover
that an anti-clerical wrangling comes natural – as natural as any opposition to authority. Within
our respective hearts, strongly self-protective and antiauthoritarian, forces resistant to sincere
analysis intend to manipulate the Word. Cf. Jer. 17:9f. – “The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” Then follows the non-perishable kicker, a blunt
truth.
“I the LORD search the mind and try the heart,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his doings.”
With excruciating effectiveness and for us embarrassingly many pastoral calls to repentance,
the LORD God since Old Testament times reveals that we, creatures of habit turning for the
worse, yearn to sin.
In a grasping, self-centered, busy, messy world, to escape divine judgment we make
revolutionary mobility more attractive: we absurdly pretend that the Church belongs to us and
overlook the rebellious essentials of human nature, the hungering preferences covetously
engaged at all times. However, the Lord of the Church spells out clearly our inmost workings.
Cf. II Tim. 3:1ff. –
“… understand this, that in the last days there will comes times of stress. For men will be
lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful,
unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous,
reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of
religion but denying the power of it.”
We live these last days. Our sins, defying in the main the First Table of the Law, infest
Christ’s war-ravaged Church. However, counter-acting the harsh reality of II Tim. 3:1-5, with
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Word-defying persistence we press into place more conservative and liberal buffer zones. Within
these helium-filled borders, we pretend to live productive lives on our terms. At the same time,
we make our advertising-agency haloes too light and too bright: acknowledging our sinning and
sinfulness become too much a good thing, entirely inappropriate and unpalatable under all
circumstances. Therefore, current forces of proclamation of the Word, if we still listen, must
establish us in the base appetites of our deceit and sullen corruption of heart. “Whether they
think of themselves as liberal or conservative, as ethically and politically left or right, American
Christians have fallen into the bad habit of acting as if the church really does not matter as we go
about trying to live like Christians.” 361 And not in America only. As a result, sound preaching
gets less and less attention, even while we sit and listen perfunctorily. “Almost any congregation
will tolerate a docetic, and ebionite, a gnostic, a synergistic, or even a philosophical sermon, as
well as almost any interpretation of a Biblical text, and even sermons without any Biblical
foundation at all.” 362 Given the friendly-service trends and the shrewd spirits of the times
operative in the Church, we take pride in natural resentment to the Lord Jesus’ time-framed
judgments.
About us and within us, undeniably, boil intensifying atmospheres of liberal or conservative
beliefs at best only superficially biblical. Within ecclesial immobility, these ideologies for
deregulation of biblical values, revolution, and secrets of hate, with all attendant restlessness, if
undisturbed, we agitate with nervous tension, confusion, and disorientation. We will hear what
we want to hear. Courting liberal or conservative conformist settings of impoverished hearts, we
settle down to ambivalent trends of downright cozy Sunday oratory, our responsibility in the
office of the congregation weighing less and less.
Lest we be held down by philosophies and empty deceits, 363 the Lord of the Church calls us
perennially to wake up. To fall asleep means we become duped throwbacks to another age,
behind the times. Our task with respect to the soundness of preaching remains one and
indivisible, in order not to quench the Spirit with secrets of hatred against the Word. Cf. I Thes.
5:19. However – “In our time […] most church members have lost sight of the Biblical and
doctrinal roots of their denominations. Instead there is a predominant interest in the outward
forms of worship, in the church furniture and the arrangements of it, and in the form of the
government of the church.” 364 Rather than so much superficiality to soften the impact of the
Word, as members of the congregations of Jesus Christ we owe our Lord and Savior collective
submission to his yoke, cf. Mt. 11:25ff., which without listening to sound preaching reaches for
the impossible, that is, salvation with the confines of conservatism or liberalism.
Hate Secrets
No less than in eras of wistful stability, but certainly in present tempests of transition, human
fears stir up the darkness within. Multiplication of world populations, hugely changing
demographics, greedy capitalistic ventures, technological upheavals, and electronic revolutions,
compounded by polarizing race fevers as well as planned obsolescence of life, etc., characterize
361
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 69.
Ritschl, op. cit., pp. 79f.
363
Cf. Hos. 8:7.
364
Ritchl, op. cit., p. 80.
362
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this ill-stirred era. Against the great love commandment, cf. Mt. 22:37-40, hate secrets resurface,
doubly potent through mass consciousness and communication. Selfishness, for one, in the form
of personal fulfillment. Greed, as another. Racism, too. Also, recurring distractions of
ethnophobia and xenophobia. Without one tangible benefit. It is simply fearsome to list all
penchants for fast-growing trends in hatred actual and possible.
To adapt congregations and defuse new assaults of hate, stress may be placed on a family
analogy – a hackneyed argument for hope and love. “The family model of church life has
developed in recent years in an effort to overcome the isolation of contemporary life and to build
intimate, caring relationships among church members.” 365 Intentions moving any such caring
family model may be sincere but, needless to stress, of human effort. Congregations as families
never escape, by no mountains of anti-depressants, increasingly corrosive secularity. “It is now
possible in this country to carry on the expected work of a Protestant congregation with no
reference to the Bible whatsoever. The worship services of the church can be divorced from
Biblical models and become the celebration of the congregation’s life together and of its more or
less vaguely held common beliefs in some god.” 366 These protective layers of downright
ignorance and snobbery, even entangled in a family analogy, never ultimately break up
confrontations with hate secrets, nor with the Lord of the Church. Yet, fickle we give the lie to
the Faith.
Whether morale-killing hatred for the Christ or, at the same time, against neighbors-in-thepew, the reality of a passage as II Cor. 11:4 places many congregations under a fire watch. “For
if some one comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a
different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you
accepted, you submit to it readily enough.” Out of overflowing secret hates, we, capricious,
congregation upon congregations, reflect much of the schismatic sins once rampant in the
Church at Corinth – to escape out of the thorough loop of Christ’s authority. In irregular
manifestations of autonomy and denominational traditions, a man-centered worship develops.
Through present eras of resurgent instability and unsettling moods, we want to be first and
foremost. As a result, we place the Lord and neighbors last, thus publicizing our inflaming
hatreds. In the process, we make the Church a strange land of supposedly semi-permanent
families, each dysfunctional at that.
As world foundations tremble with transcendent agitation and postmodern anticipation,
inclinations to hate God and neighbors produce iniquities that spurn the Bible as the Word of
God – we want to establish our own religious identity, in a public way recycling every popular
religiosity. “The modern age is an age of revolution – revolution motivated by insight into the
appalling vastness of human suffering and need…. Against this background a few voices have
continued to emphasize that the cause of the distressed human condition, individual and social –
and its only possible cure – is a spiritual one. But what these voices are trying to say is not clear.
They point out that social and political revolutions have shown no tendency to transform the
heart of darkness that lies deep in the breast of every human being. That is evidently true. And
amid a flood of techniques for self-fulfillment there is an epidemic of depression, suicide,
365
Fortune, op. cit., p. xiv.
Keck, op. cit., p. 19 – quoting Paul J. and Elizabeth Achtemeier, The Old Testament and the Proclamation of the
Gospel (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973), p. 13.
366
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personal emptiness, and escapism through drugs and alcohol, cultic obsession, consumerism, and
sex and violence – all combined with an inability to sustain deep and enduring personal
relationships.” 367 Given this painful cataloguing of dark life impinging heavily also upon the
Church, what good the love of rhetoric? All unseemly determination to the contrary, internal
pressures to sin turn off and away the word of the Lord.
However, the undeniable appeal of cool revolutionary spirits within us cannot be denied:
spurning the Bible occurs not only through daily neglect, or through flummery, or by smoldering
antagonism; it expands on a massive scale by production and usage of unfaithful translations.
Then moved by floods of oratory, we supposedly light up undecipherable darkness within
poorhouses called church buildings.
While collective experiences of quiet battles against the Word turn into Chinese puzzles, the
shibboleths and sibboleths 368 identifying the spirits mill about far more in our depths than we
willingly dare acknowledge. Under constant pressures in a capitalistic society, in precarious
times of stressful work environments, and fast evolving family needs, we audaciously stir up
more mundane quarrelsomeness to shred the Church into denominationalism. In this ‘modern’
setting, in contrast to the predictability and familiarity of toxic heresies, orthodox preaching
seems antiquarian, patently absurd, something once formidable in the stone and iron ages. “Most
of us who are white and over thirty were raised in a church where the main agenda of the church
was to help Christians adapt to the world as it is.” 369 One way of exemplifying this: ministers
turn into incompetent surveyors of public opinion. “How can any … prophet speak to people
whose sight is caught in a horizontal blur of speed and never has a chance to probe beneath the
surface of the thing seen, to the level where it may touch the substance in which seemingly
separate and discrete things are bonded together in a union of mystery and meaning?” 370 In our
apparent acceptance of secularism for societal wellbeing and color-coding religiosity of the Jesus
Seminar type, 371 the Church opts for the sort of spirituality that bases the Incarnation,
Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension on wobbly and nondescript human opinion. In such an
equivocating atmosphere, preaching wired to Halloween, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and
Valentine’s Day finds favor with much more than commercial gain in the common ground of our
dithering hearts.
Amidst mounting high-tech stresses and volatile terrorist fears, old escape routes into selflove grab with dark angelic appeal. This self-love with its semi-impressive sponginess excuses
its hates against the Word by invoking impaired hearing abilities and cursing boring sermons.
This reflects only deeper stains of heart. “For the most part, Protestants today have lost their
367
Willard, op. cit., p. viii.
Cf. Judges 12:5f.
369
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 150.
370
Samuel H. Miller, The Dilemma of Modern Belief (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), p. 34.
371
Russell Shorto, Gospel Truth: The New Image of Jesus Emerging from Science and History, and Why It Matters
(New York: Riverhead, 1997), p. 9 – “After the first proposition, whether Jesus was crucified, has been stated and
debated, a red plastic tray is passed around. It contains plastic beads of four different colors – red, pink, gray, black.
The scholars take turns dropping beads into a container. Red means ‘I believe this piece of the gospel story is
authentic.’ Pink means ‘Maybe.’ Gray is ‘Probably not,’ and black is ‘Definitely not.’ Deciding the fate of Jesus of
Nazareth by vote would seem to be bad enough, but color-coding their results in the editions of the gospels that they
publish is a deliberate play on the sacred Bible tradition of printing the words of Jesus in red ink.”
368
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confidence in the effectiveness of the pulpit. While Roman Catholicism is enriching its tradition
of church and sacraments by a new appreciation for preaching, Protestantism is impoverishing
itself by abandoning the one great asset of its tradition: faith in the proclamation of the biblical
message.” 372 Transitory times, if not more than the stable, hasten our hate against the Word by
way of revolutionizing fervors. One of these fervors shuns worship services; another willfully
neglects insisting on sound proclamation of the Word. Yet, if we absent ourselves, long for feelgood sermons, or demand ideologically correct preaching, then the Word condemns us. Once
short-tempered, personal demons of good feelings and active volcanoes of self-love erupt, who
shall police them?
Hate Ways
Acidic fears, doubts, and distrusts within us we translate into hates, eternities of secularity
within the blacked-out halls of power in our hearts. “First, secularity declares a freedom from
religious authority and institutions and seeks to establish autonomy in the various spheres of life.
Second, secularity looks to no dimension above man, his world, and his history. Man has no
resource to draw upon beyond himself. The universe is but the extension of the natural order
almost to infinity.” 373 From deep within our immorally hungry hearts, exceedingly more
predatory than e-coli mutations and the killer Ebola (exotic hemorrhagic virus), roils unbearable
self-love with nasty habits of quick, postmodern proliferation.
With unfenced networks of hate intensifying and multiplying, constantly tottering off into
unknown depths, in our self-love we no longer know who we are and why we are here, either
haters of Christ or lovers of sin. Here, too, the time lines and damaging impacts of Is. 30:8-11
imperil us.
“And now, go, write it before them on a tablet,
and inscribe it in a book,
that it may be for the time to come as a witness for ever.
For they are a rebellious people, lying sons,
sons who will not hear the instruction of the LORD;
who say to the seers, ‘See not’, and to the prophets, ‘Prophesy not to us what is right;
speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path,
let us hear no more of the Holy One of Israel.’”
As much as we may want to forget the fighting spirits of this prophecy, favoring deceitful
blandishments, disorientation in hate ways looms beyond powers of comprehension; then “… the
church, like all institutions, carries a mentality of institutional self-protection.” 374 Preoccupied
with liturgical wars to achieve comfortableness, caught up in protecting the good name of
respective congregations, satisfying harmonies of fellowship, or insisting upon security for a way
of life, we ape people of the world. This self-love, however, ignores the covert specters of more
disorientation, for the fabric of each congregation constantly changes in tempests of activity,
372
Daane, op. cit., p. 1.
Horne, op. cit., p. 129. Cf. p. 135 – “Secular man is lacking in mystery and wonder. Therefore, he is slow to
worship. There are no vaulted archways over his life. His ceilings are often oppressively low.”
374
Fortune, op. cit., p. xvi.
373
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which cause crises of trust. Nevertheless, we press on, sliding to lower and lower levels of what
is normal in Christ Jesus.
Hatred, born of biblical illiteracy, may dislodge no more than civil complaining and fatigued
spirit, closet criticism, and a fretting in the mind about the Church’s purpose and goal in life.
Disorientation in the Faith may also suddenly blow open during and after a critical illness, a farsweeping plague, a natural disaster, or a terrorist attack, when everything collapses, first in
depths of soul, again because of biblical illiteracy. In the Church, this illiteracy fixates on a
problem foundational to all others. “The appalling ignorance of the barest contents of the Bible,
to say nothing of its deeper meanings, on the part of the laity today is not a question of mild
humor but a cause for grave concern.” 375 From another perspective – “Lack of church accounts
for why vast portions of scripture are incomprehensible and nonsensical to many people
today.” 376 Ignorance of and willful blindness to the Word trundles out hate ways in alien,
unstable conflicts, a plunging into awareness of life as a constant death, and no more.
Then, in the parade of religiosity for the sake of self-preservation, auto-immunization against
the Word, and faith-degenerative preaching, we derail into the mass-consciousness of the world
and its familiarities. Hearts-of-deceit constantly tempt us to become like the self-loving cultureat-large, to which we easily yield. Slipping into and joining the world’s maelstrom of religiosity,
we misrepresent our Christian identity. Such obstructionism to the Word takes into its own life
the values of secular culture, sometimes the worst ones, such as the civic discord of class pride
and racial profiling, coupling these with the name of Jesus Christ. 377
Religiosity is: what people make of religion.
Rather than the Church transforming the culture outside her doors, or forming her own,
secular ways of life much more easily shape the Church – with our permission, if not
connivance. This secularizing image of the Church repels. “When you strip away the religious
verbiage and dismantle the ceremonial forms, you find the smiling face of culture.” 378 That is,
Western culture, the North American – “… particularly when the main social agenda of
Christians is to work to make the world a better place in which to live, particularly when
Christians think that the main service they render is to create ‘peace with justice.’” 379 Then, on
unraveling tangents away from the main road and with mystical capacities for self-gratification –
375
D.G. Miller, op. cit., p. 104.
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 128.
377
Eoin S. Mackay, Christianity Versus Religion: Meditations for Advent (1974), p. 2 – “The trouble with all this,
whether in its primitive or modern, civilized form, is that it all starts with man, with what man thinks about God and
with what man wants to succeed. It makes God a means to an end, the means to making sure that man’s will is done
on earth and that man’s purposes are successful in the world. It pictures God as a being who can be manipulated into
aiding the schemes of men if only men know and use the right religious gimmicks, as a being who is a kind of
spiritual convenience to be brought into life when He is considered necessary and left out of life when He is
considered unnecessary or even troublesome. He is, from this point of view, something like an umbrella – good to
have on a rainy day, excess baggage on a sunny day but comforting to have in the hall closet in case of need. In
other words, God is good to have as long as He doesn’t get in man’s way. The trouble here is that because the living
God often does get in man’s way religion so often becomes a method of getting and keeping Him out of the way by
worshipping and serving a god who is other than the true and living God.”
378
Horne, op. cit., p. 72.
379
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 151.
376
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in the world and of the world – in the approaching darkness a limiting option looms: death in the
cement box of life-eating self-interest.
Thus, we yield to elusive heart-voices summoning the manufacture of our own notionally
furnished cultural spaces of security. We, too pliant by half, want ecclesiastical spaces full of
convenience and ease, on foundations of quicksand ideologies with which we clog up our own
overheated centers of the universe.
Colliding images, doggedly determined, constantly and powerfully shape the Church with all
sorts of cloying freedoms; they tap into our pretentious ideals with sweet deals, and we entertain
these trivial panaceas – lest shallow we, not in the least embarrassed, with anxious anticipation
and common anxiety miss out on life apart from the Christ. As the noises of shrill ideals and
errant meaning systems drown out what Christ wants us to hear, the slowly unfolding slide into
pagan comforts and gratifications spins out of control. “The individual has experienced a kind of
freedom and liberation made possible by his society. He is freer to go, to do, and to achieve than
anyone before him, even those in his immediate past.” 380 Notwithstanding the third person
impersonality of this observation, it red-flags a modish wish fulfillment; in the Church we dream
of a ‘new and improved’ world of societal wellbeing and security into which we fit, not of the
coming of the Kingdom in concert with the glory of God.
Such short-on-marbles liberty, of course, with the reckless indifference of hate ways easily
falls for more off-track self-love undercutting the Word. For instance. “The image of Peter as
church leader in Acts 5 strikes hard against our conventional pictures of the ‘good’ pastor. What
has happened to compassion in this church? Where is grace? For Peter to have been a ‘good’ and
caring pastor, he should have dealt more gently with Ananias and Sapphira. With a good course
in pastoral counseling, Peter would have been able to see that, although they might be affluent,
here were a married couple who, like everybody else, had their own problems. Why didn’t Peter
enable them to find more meaningful and productive lives rather than confront them in such a
way as to shock them to death?” 381 So easily by listening to and swallowing this sort of drivel,
we double-cross the Lord of the Church; with such comfortable and pliable thinking, fogs of
religious sentiment out of the world become ours. Unwary, showing our true colors with singular
capacity, we short sell the Bible to outflank evaluating the spoken word; with long laziness we
slowly go through wringers of sensitivity training to gain more self-love for the sake of
customized satisfaction and handholding. This revolutionary power puts a chokehold on the
Word and listening to the spoken word. It is sin.
For customized satisfaction we grab at Gomes’ “interpretive triangle” 382 again: we want, we
insist, to tilt Scriptures in our favor till preaching strokes our vital center of good feelings. Each
congregation arrives at her own viewpoint and demands to hear what it already knows as well as
believes. In sweetheart deals between ministers and churches our hate ways win, and also the
spirits Jesus exposed in Mt. 12:43-45 and Lk. 4:36. However, the Lord of the Church’s way
differs from our stirring up and nailing down revolution as a permanent set of anxieties.
“Preaching can help set a healthy tone for parish life. It is true, …, that by sanctioning certain
380
Horne, op. cit., p. 94.
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit. p. 132.
382
Gomes, The Good Book, op. cit., p. 26.
381
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behaviors, the parish, as a social system often teaches with more authority than the preacher. Yet,
the preacher, by speaking officially to the people in the congregation, recognizes areas of
concern, authorizes certain levels of honesty, and legitimates vocabulary.” 383 This
underwhelming optimism for the power of the Word slants away into troubled life, far too good a
thing for revolutionary spirits loose in the Church.
Revolutionary Spirits
As current, daring revolutionary spirits pollute members of Christ’s congregations, things
happen: we desire to hear more about these temporary consolations for survival, security, and/or
autonomy. So we saunter into our own autism by profoundly withdrawing from the Word: with
gutsy reaction we want to listen less, and less, to what the Spirit says to the churches. We give
off distinct pheromones that little good goes on in the fatally flawed resources of our (stone)
hearts.
In fact, to keep the Word at arm’s length, we exercise the friendly fire of mouth power
‘legitimated’ by the interpretive triangle. Once settled in the cement of self-centering
gratification, we turn eisegetically enraged when the Word opposes us. This happened, for
instance, early on in the Second Gospel, cf. Mk. 2:6f., when church leaders pulling together for
self-destruction, charged Jesus with conflict-of-interest blasphemy, and later sought to kill him.
With loose lips and for real advantage, they attacked him when he broke into their sleeper-cell
somnolence and condemned the bottom-dwelling spirits within them.
Yet, however much we may be polluted by hawkish spirits of the times, fewer attend worship
services with some regularity – perhaps only out of habit, perhaps only on account of family
pressures, perhaps only to seek employment-related gains, perhaps only with smoldering
antagonism against the Word, perhaps only out of a “strange compulsion,” 384 or perhaps only
with a “good-natured tolerance” 385 to hear the tip of the week. In a world of postmodern
seductions spilling out into a deranging bedlam of sectarian strife, religious violence, and secular
noise, even while falling away, we still treasure some form of church membership, perhaps only
for self-advancement.
We attend corporate worship, ostensibly to hear the Word, yet full of self-serving notions,
which tie us in knots when Christ Jesus overrules our preferences for freedom with the
redoubtable liberty of the Holy Spirit. For instance, cf. Mt. 12:32 – “And whoever says a word
against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be
forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” Hardened souls, do we care? Coming with
passports out of countries of unbelief, we may with terrorist intentions work within the Church to
shrug off Christ and the Spirit, making sure that a minister preaches in the ordinary manner – “…
just a man giving his view on certain matters.” 386 Therefore, we assist in fulfilling Ps. 73:9 –
“They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth.” The word
of the Lord we perceive as irritating spam.
383
Crum, op. cit., p. 36.
Bartlett, op. cit., p. 37.
385
Garrison, op. cit., p. 197.
386
Sangster, The Craft of the Sermon, op. cit., p. 15.
384
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Disposing of kid-glove rules and veneered niceties, we become upset with the likes of
Apostle Peter. How can a shepherd in Christ be so cruel to well-meaning people, even if they
plod along somewhat off center. “Forsaking the socially acceptable vocation to help people like
Ananias and Sapphira live just a bit less miserably rather than much more truthfully, Peter
confronted them. He confronted them, not simply with their lies, but with a radical vision of the
sort of church God called them to be.” 387 As the Word grates on our intellectual slackness, the
grumble factor of the young as well as the old increases among all whom the Lord Jesus gathers
to be his church; the truth will come out. If he refuses to bend to our way, we will with
coordinated campaigns twist and tilt the word of the Lord to suit us.
Then follow dire consequences, capturing also third and fourth generations of all who hate
me, declares the LORD, cf. Ex. 20:5/Deut. 5:9. As we break with the Word, the outflow of sin
increases and even generations coming refuse to hear the word of the Lord in present
comfortable confines of self-interest and/or interfaith options. “In a day when the church has
been invaded by secular standards of conduct and ethical norms which are quite unrelated to the
gospel, a faithful minister finds himself under the necessity of raising issues against which the
natural man sets himself in revolt.” 388 Notwithstanding the LORD’s singular and sovereign
holiness, terrorists in the Church, sleepers as well as activists, hesitate little to obstruct the
Word; 389 with kamikaze intent they enter through the broad gate upon eternal damnation. For a
time in present climates of suspicion, xenophobia, and mass culture, they may scratch and scar
the surface reality of the Word, connive against, and with conscious awareness crack down on
sound preaching – whatever the resulting headaches, disarrays, and confusions in the Church.
During transitory and ambivalent ages, doubt and revolution foster manifold evil spirits; on
the sole Foundation, cf. I Cor. 3:11, they display allegedly autonomous powers of rebellion 390
aimed at thwarting sound proclamation of the Word. Searching for a reassurance and a stability,
they know all about the lure of compromising the Faith. Again, with reference to Ananias and
Sapphira – “… this episode in Acts 5 reveals our deceit. We say we tolerate Ananias and
Sapphira because we love them, because we are called to a ministry of service and compassion,
even when people are wealthy liars. In other words, we have more love than Peter had in Acts. In
truth, we deceive ourselves. We do not believe in Ananias and Sapphira as much as Peter
believed in them. For us, possessions are a life sentence to involuntary servitude. We cannot
imagine any means of breaking out of our materialism, so we dare not risk truthtelling like that in
Acts 5.
Peter told the truth, not so much because he believed that, deep down, if appealed to in the
right way, Ananias and Sapphira might show their better natures and base their lives on more
worthwhile values. Peter really believed that the gospel, and this community it produced, had the
power to convert even ordinary, selfish, materialistic people like us into something resembling
387
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 133.
D.G. Miller, op. cit., p. 102.
389
Reginald W. Bibby, Restless Gods: The Renaissance of Religion in Canada (Toronto: Stoddart, 2002), p. 13 –
“Simply put, Canadians [since the mid-1970s] were becoming increasingly fussy customers in all areas of life. And
they weren’t giving religion an exemption. More and more they were developing a pick-and-choose approach.
Religion a la carte was becoming highly pervasive, characterized by a belief here and a practice there, rites of
passage, and irregular appearances at church.”
390
Ibid., pp. 14f. – “Fragments of religion … were being opted for a simple reason: because they ‘work.’”
388
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saints.” 391 As our traffic of pomp and circumstance rises, rife with sectarian and insular spirits,
ease of selfishness settles in: we stay the course to hear oratory. This makes, however, the
Church a harsh environment.
When malfunctioning human connections, for protecting Ananias-and-Sapphira types, trap
the Church in other loyalties, then discerning right from wrong preaching becomes difficult.
True, we prefer the creature comforts of security, not the validation of terrible truth sounding
forth from pulpits and the consternation of heart this causes. Yet the truth must be spoken,
whatever fashionable opinion and best intentions, also with respect to Rom. 3:10-12’s close
proximity to us.
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands, no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong;
no one does good, not even one.”
In the boredom, confusion, tragedy, and terrorist chatter of every day social needs, the very
last thing we want to suffer? The blunt truth of another divine confrontation. Nor torrents of deep
shaking reformation. To be the silent wounded and living dead, articulate with multi-pronged
criticism of the word of the Lord, seems more preferable than intense, upgraded listening to the
Word, however inappropriate the behavior.
We want democracy – the will of the people and the consent of the addressed – in the
Church, thus anticipating a better future. The rule of Christ Jesus? “We are ‘secular’ in the sense
that we pursue the immediate goals of life, without asking too many ultimate questions about the
meaning of life and without being too disturbed by the tragedies and antinomies of life.” 392
Unless these affect us immediately and viscerally, as a fatal illness, disaster, or war, we move on,
blithely, with little concern. Fronting smooth and charming facades, with terrorist secrecy or
activist stridency, we strike against the Word – at select and opportune moments. “Worldliness is
a hard habit to break.” 393 Stubborn, we hold onto bulging temptations to disprove or improve on
the Scriptures 394 - all the while imagining ourselves perpetual motion machines of good works.
In times of breakaway violence, ethnic hatred, bloody genocide, and economic privation,
churches become preoccupied with institutional maintenance and termite jobs of wreaking the
Word. Then, selective listening takes over, which demands only that which pampers religious
preferences; if we listen to what pleasures us, we conveniently evade moving beyond the
clammed-up and childish ‘me, me’ stage of self-esteem. Not the glory of the Lord incites us, nor
391
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 133.
Bartlett, op. cit., p. 35, citing Reinhold Niebuhr, Pious and Secular America (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,
1958), p. 2.
393
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 96.
394
Bibby, op. cit., pp. 14f. – “The adoption of religious fragments reduces […] role conflict because it allows a
person to retain some central belief and practice elements without demanding a high level of role consistency.
Believing in God means one can still have recourse to prayer; believing in life after death gives one a measure of
hope in the face of bereavement. But such beliefs do not necessarily require ethical correlates. Such selective
consumption is not an accident. People choose fragments not because there are no complete systematic options
available but because fragments are more conducive to life in our present age.”
392
161
thankfulness for salvation, but an answer to the question, What’s in it for me? This question
pagans ask with a finer grasp of affairs as they prostrate themselves before and bank on idols.
Out of charmingly poisonous and acutely sensitive selfishness, we tend to seek ministers who
preach to the manner born: to orate comfortableness 395 and security, which scratches the itchyear syndrome warned against in II Tim. 4:3f. “… having itching ears they will accumulate for
themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and
wander into myths.” Myths – quasi-religious foundational stories.
On the whole, we sway to issues as far removed from storm centers of reality as possible, to
the right or to the left, and make of congregations private gardens, as if therein lies salvation. In
such roofed-over barren places, we, miserable failures, feel empowered with bold disloyalties to
infringe upon the authority of the Lord of the Church – as the reborn church during the
wilderness journey. Then escalate the complaints and general wranglings, as recorded in
Numbers, to be “log-headed Christians.” 396 If Christian still applies.
While we revolutionize, then as docile-to-the-world congregations we seek windows of
insight in variant realities that distract attention from the Word. “What we call ‘church’ is too
often a gathering of strangers who see the church as yet another ‘helping institution’ to gratify
their individual desires. One of the reasons some church members are so mean-spirited with their
pastor, particularly when the pastor urges them to look at God, is that they feel deceived by such
pastoral invitations to look beyond themselves. They have come to church for ‘strokes,’ to have
their personal needs met. Whence all this pulpit talk about ‘finding our lives by losing them’?
What we call church is often a conspiracy of cordiality. Pastors learn to pacify rather than
preach to their Ananias’s and Sapphira’s. We say we do it out of ‘love.’ Usually, we do it as a
means of keeping everyone as distant from everyone else as possible. You don’t get into my life
and I will not get into yours. This accounts for why, to many people, church becomes
suffocatingly superficial. Everybody agrees to talk about everything here except what matters. If
confronted, Ananias and Sapphira are apt to tell their fellow Christians that, ‘This is none of your
business. It’s my own life,’ and so on. The loneliness and detachment of modern life, the way we
are all made strangers, infects the church too.” 397 From smatterings of reality that remain and
make us uncomfortable, such as biblical vocabulary, we turn to arbitrary, artificial angles of
vision, “talking idly.” 398 But what is life apart from the whole counsel of God? Many of the
Church have ‘discovered’ this revolutionary spirit on the broad way - into more weeping,
wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Once we direct respective congregations onto the parkways of
syncretism, we become unable to distinguish the wind of the Spirit from private and global
bravura.
Syncretism is: combining and reconciling disparate belief systems.
395
In this novel, Harold Bell Wright, The Calling of Dan Matthews (New York: A.L. Burt Co., 1909), has the
leading elders of Memorial Church consider “policy” and the “harmony of the brotherhood” more significant than
the Word; these elders and the majority of Memorial Church found security only in institutional maintenance and
brotherhood ideals.
396
Gomes, Sermons, op. cit., p. 80.
397
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 138.
398
Cf. Is. 58:13.
162
In many ways through identity theft, we convert the Church into a giant mall with expensive
boutiques and bargain shops, each for purchasing self-esteem and self-empowerment. Then, if
necessary, to synchronize tensions and double-cross the Lord of the Church, we bury our sins by
shopping for livelier forms of oratory. We will not be dragooned into doing forced labor for him,
even if it kills us.
Or, we alter the Church into a five-star hotel, the smorgasbord laden with attractive foods to
satisfy all sorts of trendy vanities and popular taste buds. This sort of storminess the Church
applies only to those who can afford the prices. For such, as written in Phil. 3:19, “their god is
the belly” and the food quarrelsome idolatries.
In another way, we make the Church resemble a dysfunctional family full of loneliness,
buried pain, walking wounded, the whole dominated by authority figures strong in background
litigation and pressure tactics – with Jesus a vague presence. To get ahead, every one has to go
along with potent-enough middle class social conformity in order, somehow, until even Paul,
Peter, and John fit in. Moses, too, if room allows.
By way of another analogy, we falsify the Church by taking a token bow before Jesus Christ.
We make her into a stressful and overloaded work camp; every one constantly labors under
pressure to accomplish more in less time – the obey, pray, and pay sort.
Given our remarkable capacity of whining for short-lived comfortableness, we conform
Christ’s church to panaceas of safety and security. Working as heartless members, we change her
to our situations and preferences – consciously making common cause against the whole counsel
of God, and therefore against sanctification. “Studies have shown that when a communicator,
such as a preacher, contradicts another person’s ‘commitments, dedications, and cherished
positions in highly evolved matters (matters relating to family, sex, role, religion, school,
politics, or profession),’ feelings of ‘uncertainty or anxiety’ will be produced; and the person will
denounce the source of the contradiction and try to eliminate it. When commitments and
dedications, which are central to a person’s life, are attacked, that person feels attacked and, by
taking ‘relentless and persistent, even … frantic measures, sets up a counterattack as the best
defense.’” 399 That is, revolutionary spirits shoot messengers of the Lord Jesus rather than work at
conversion. In the numerous strategic and practical struggles for control of the Church, it has
been thus for a long time. Cf. Mt. 23:37f.
Heartless Members
Due to uncomfortable members, amidst popular disgruntlement, stress-busting deformation
of the Church takes place; in our developing history of the modern era, sterile trends of legalism
and/or ‘exciting’ heresies of antinomianism jostle for dominance in order to turn the heart of the
Church into stone. Thus, we downgrade with religious calculations the mighty covenant promise
of Ez. 36:26 – “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take
out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” This Old Testament promise
Christ Jesus fulfilled on Pentecost Day. Yet, now-cultivated fashions of unbelief freeze our
hearts and deceitfully betray generations unborn. Cf. Rom. 1:28f. –
399
Crum, op. cit., p. 37.
163
“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to
improper conduct. They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice.
Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God,
insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless,
ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not
only do them but approve those who practice them.”
This pre-emptive admonition exposes our treasonous hearts. Cf. II Tim. 3:1ff.; II Thes. 2:3; II
Pet. 2:2; etc. But so often it falls on outraged ears, with demands for damage control. Or, it
bounces off hardness of heart, no one listening.
Paul and Peter in their generation wrestled with no sinful world at large, but prophesied to
various congregations constituting the Church then. As we move about in the Church, we find
that in this respect we are “… our own worst enemies,” 400 prepared to move in harm’s way. By
adopting arduous tasks of legalism and/or antinomianism, we find that Paul described also our
commitment to sinning. Legalism and antinomianism offer affordable term life insurance with
which to hide from the Word and forego even intense moments of spiritual refreshment. In fact,
we find deep within ourselves pent-up homilophobia – an unreasoned and unreasonable fear of
sermons, sermons that call us to live the Gospel and through unambiguous ways expose our
trafficking in sins.
Therefore, instead of seeking qualified ministers, we, heartless, deep down prefer to retain
hirelings, men who for wages do as we ‘instruct’ them. Do we insist upon the fancy stuff of
legalism or antinomianism? They will speak to our ‘comfort,’ ‘love,’ ‘peace,’ ‘joy,’ whatever. In
such unchurchly settings, we hold the form of religion high in order to deny its power.
To change Christianity always into bizarre shapes and forms, we need these peculiar men –
men whom Jesus forever branded negatively, cf. John 10:7ff. We may treasure such dollar-store
bargains, but the Lord of the Church already, long ago, held them up to the discerning and
disconcerting glare of public scrutiny, the last thing we want. Are they exposed, we will protect
them with counter-accusations of interference, harassment, even hostile take-over bids.
However, due to every congregational protective system and self-conscious outrage against
exposure to sins, ministers fuelled by our group-lobbying and naked horse-trading (we want to
be wickedly anachronistic for contemporary relevancy) will jump through hoops and speak as we
insist – even it this leads them and us into the grave-with-portent fires of the end times. At least,
unfazed, these men for money will throw their weight behind our conjoined delusions of
rectitude and holiness, Siamese twins of heartlessness.
To expose protective colorations of congregational sins, a pair of queries:
1) “In our day, has preaching become subservient to the church?”
2) “Has the congregation gradually become our ultimate authority?” 401
400
401
Felicia Yvonne Thomas, “True Love’ in Ponder, op. cit., p. 63.
Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 43.
164
Replies are profound. They show up internalized blind alleys within congregations and the
Church as a whole. All of us, whom Christ gathers to be his body, owe him continuous sermon
appraisal in answer to such questions, or we drift away to a perilous end. For that destination, we
hire men as ministers of the Word to massage our preferred identity, the face of self-deception
we hunger to find in concave and convex mirrors. Once we have turned a congregation into a
temporary haven of formidable adversaries to Jesus Christ, we want preaching to help us arrive
at our eternal and native habitat.
HIRELINGS
When we hunger for less than the pure preaching of the Word, not surprisingly our itchy ears
insistently call for immediate relief, whatever the costs, from the divine promises and
obligations. Congregations, even large federations of churches, like committees, easily adopt a
life of their own. They, then, slight or ignore with guilty pleasure the purpose of the Son’s
incarnation, suffering, crucifixion, death, resurrection, ascension, and his present session at the
right hand of the Father. “There is nothing more tragic than a church that is secular at the center
of its life, yet carefully insulated from the real life of the world.” 402 Then, unaware of its
dynamics of death, she becomes a mighty army with murmuring and whining in all ranks –
preachers following ecclesial mischief makers and vandals instead of proclaiming the whole
counsel of God. For churches, starving for secular approval, take on colorings and contours of
the world quickly. “Paganism is the air we breathe, the water we drink. It captures us, it converts
our young, it subverts the church.” 403 In these times, as in the past, not surprisingly, churches
turn anorexic and bulimic when it comes to the Word, especially those that think they stand
strong, unaware of or reading over top of I Cor. 10:12 – “… let any who thinks that he stands
take heed lest he fall.” Clergymen who improvise in the face of a congregation’s and/or a
denomination’s collective expression of hostility to the Word resort initially to a disingenuous
slippage. “The minister may not twist the text; yet he may tilt the text. He cannot bend the text to
suit his own wishes, but he may highlight aspects of the text to answer to the need of the
moment. It’s a very fine line.” 404 Ministers who implement this permissive pronouncement have
already succumbed to the murmuring and whining in the ranks. A question that comes to mind?
What difference between twisting and bending the preaching unit? Another question. What if
Peter had tilted the Lord’s judgment upon Ananias and Sapphira? Such tilting had made the
apostle a hireling.
To speak to Christ’s easily irascible collections of stone hearts, we prefer opportunists, any
one of a dime a dozen, who have a way with gossamer words and the gift of the gab. Thus we
receive spell-binding oratory, which does not bear the Lord Jesus’ scathing scrutiny well. When
we heartlessly permit spirits of the times to blow about contemporary delusions in his churches
without offering them (much) resistance, we initiate a hard-to-oppose fact: ministers of the
Word, will they serve, must conform to our wishes, and be hirelings. That power of conformity,
subtle or fierce, convulses the unorthodox pew. In the error of secular conformity we easily
phase out the truth that as many sinners as people, ministers included, populate each
402
Horne, op. cit., p. 79.
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 151.
404
J. De Jong, “The preacher as listener – the role of the hearer in the preaching of the Gospel,” (part 2), in Clarion,
July 20, 2001, p. 355.
403
165
congregation. By allowing sinners the freeway to the final say, in broad daylight we rob the
Christ of his authority and glory.
A hireling is: an ordained person working in the Church for money and/or self-advancement.
Compromised Servants
1) Christ-called spokesmen, in order to serve, must yield to our wreaking spirits, and many
capitulate with remarkable morale-killing smoothness. Disillusioned with preaching and bowing
to the exceedingly low expectations with which we regard sermons, they readily drop into our
fickle and lack-luster sermon expectations. “For every conscious or unconscious avowal of the
questionable merit of preaching, however, there are a thousand silent testimonies to it in the way
countless ministers relegate their pulpit work to a secondary role. It is impossible, they say, to be
preacher, pastor, counselor, educator, administrator, community servant, and denominational
chore boy all in one. … few are the ministers who rate their preaching at or near the top. If
something must come in for meager attention, let it be the preaching.” 405 “It is interesting to
observe that the ministers and church members in our time are far more concerned with the
questions of worship, liturgy, church life, and church government than with the Biblical and
dogmatical questions which arise out of our Bible study.” 406 Already time requirements to
micromanage ecclesial affairs force ministers to tilt texts and go rogue on the core rationale for
preaching. 407
Consider this: when pastoral conflicts and contradictions fester in a congregation in order to
sabotage the preaching, ministers find it easier to procrastinate on sermon preparation – until it is
too late in the week for serious exegetical and applicatory reflection. I have met ministers and
heard of others who lock themselves in respective workrooms sometime Saturday evenings to
emerge on Sunday mornings an hour or so before the first worship service. Then, they enter
pulpit areas with Saturday night specials.
405
D.G. Miller, op. cit., p. 14.
Ritschl, op. cit., p. 79.
Keck, op. cit., p. 41 – “… many preachers today have lost confidence in the importance of preaching. Preachers
are justified in feeling themselves, and this aspect of their vocation, to be victimized by cultural changes that they
cannot control or even moderate. To be concrete, the fundamental change in the rhythm of life has brought about a
decline in the importance of Sunday as the day of rest and church attendance. Between staggered work schedules, on
the one hand, and more long weekends devoted to recreation, on the other, regular church attendance has suffered
markedly, especially in urban and suburban areas. Moreover TV has made it ever more difficult for people to attend
carefully to merely vocal communication, except perhaps for sports on radio. Many people find it difficult to follow
a panel discussion unless there is sharp controversy. Unless the speaker has ‘charisma,’ his or her televised speech is
not likely to hold a viewing audience for long.”
407
For a ministerial reaction: Smith, op. cit., p. 18 – “Maybe such tough matters (as sermons) are avoided because
we fear the reaction and outcome. People may leave the church, but under harmless, unchallenging, sometimes inane
preaching people are leaving the church anyway. People continue to flock to fundamentalist, evangelical, or
pentecostal churches and sects. Why? Is it because they are ignorant, hostile, in need of emotional release? Perhaps.
But it may also have something to do with the fact that the emphasis on judgment and salvation in such churches
strikes, if obliquely, the note of eschatological urgency that pervades the Gospels and the New Testament
generally.”
406
166
Ministers’ temptations to ease off on sermon preparation increases in proportion to our
exceedingly cut-down expectations. For them to honor our calculated deafness to the Word, we
muscle men of the Lord, if they displease us, through subtle hints, cold shoulders, direct
confrontations, evil eyes, death ray stares, abusive telephone calls, hurtful e-mails, anonymous
letters, silent treatments, verbal sniping, satirical barbs, smear campaigns, whatever, until we
make them over into hirelings, beings who like us work for money. Under such pressure, what
minister in the face of destabilizing disruption can stay strong and committed to his calling? Yes,
preachers qualify as our expendable sons, dare they disagree with us. As much as we ourselves,
they too submit to ideology-conforming pressures that shape power-hungry emanations rising
from our hearts and congregations. We know that ministers are human, a truth easily abused and
tumbled into an abyss of faithlessness and scorched consciences.
2) Ministers, sons of the Church, serve in environments in which we raised them. Once in
office they step into positions of authority with which we expect they will maintain, if not
strengthen interests of our itchy ears. For the love of the laity, we count on them to proceed with
wayward teachings and slanted emphases wherein we brought them to adulthood. “In fact, those
who preach the gospel make a studied effort to preach Christ in such a way as not to offend
anyone.” 408 Under congregational duress and mesmerized by the same traditional sins as every
one, they will hardly dare finger our abuses of the Word, which are theirs as well. Then they are
our servants, comprised spokesmen for the Lord of the Church, speaking for hire. 409 If they do
speak against traditional and controversial sins, we register that as bleeding betrayal.
Horrible and horrifying accounts reveal behind-the-scenes stress-busting forms of
persecution to make ministers conform to congregational expectations. Gossip. Slander.
(Electronic) eavesdropping. Blackmail. Threats of firing. Telephone tapping. Anything to gain
control and ease our frustration with the sound word of the Lord. When ministers go beyond
rookie mistakes, we quickly teach them the error of their ways and direct them into super easy
paths of conformity to our unimaginably strong wishes and smiles of approval. We insist that
ministers make us feel comfortable and secure in the pew, carrying this over into the week with
chatty manners and more sugar fixes. Or we penalize them.
Let us be honest – “Nothing affronts human nature in the raw more than the assertion, ‘Ye
are not your own.’ Even when their doubts have been dissolved, and their problems are on the
way to solution, and their need of forgiveness all laid bare, there is that in human beings which
meets the offer of Christ by saying, ‘We will not have this man reign over us.’” 410 Out of our
volatile and unsavory selves, we want to control ministers in order to silence the Word in favor
of our own words. A minister may be an ecclesial ‘messiah,’ but we must possess him. Let him
stand in his lofty perch and look down on us – as long as we, bullying main players, untroubled
by any conflict of interest control him.
408
Daane, op. cit., p. 33.
Stuempfle, op. cit., p. 12 – “Have the words of your sermon given expression to that unique Word of which you
as preacher are the servant, or have they merely been echoes of voices from your own psyche or the surrounding
culture?”
410
Sangster, The Craft of Sermon Construction, op. cit., p. 54.
Cf. Lk. 19:12ff., parable of the pounds.
409
167
On the congregational surface, all may run well, even with spotlighted heroes and poster boy
ministers in our pulpits. Nevertheless, we concede victory to the world at large and the darkness
of heart within; together we fall short of the biblically stated goal of life. “The religious language
of the pulpit may have a soothing effect on some troubled souls but it really changes nothing, and
the next Sunday the same troubled souls hear the same soothing idiom of piety.” 411 Under a
canopy of pleasing sounds, we expect little or less to be done about our sin power and lack of
vision, to say nothing about the Church as a whole.
Apostle James called this short selling of the Word double mindedness, hypocrisy, cf. 1:8,
4:8. In his third chapter, he also warned that those who teach/preach shall be judged with greater
severity than we who listen to sermons. We have a responsibility here, lest our ministers come no
closer to heaven than the pulpits on which we allow them to stand. Because of us. In the
meantime, they garner illegal profits. “One of the great temptations of preachers is not to preach
the full gospel. We pick and choose those parts that are congenial to our temperament,
theological position, and church. When we do this, we preach a fragmented and broken
gospel.” 412 Because of us. “Many ‘successful’ pastors are happy only because they surrendered
so early. They let the congregation know that they judged the success of their ministry purely on
the basis of how well they were liked in the congregation.” 413 Because of us, irony-free, if then
ministers approach heaven no closer than pulpit heights, where does that leave us?
Taking ministerial weaknesses into consideration, when sons of the prophets conform to
congregational pressure and ‘policy,’ discreetly betraying their office, and still dare to speak in
the name of Christ through eisegetically modified sermons, they rake in for themselves Jesus’
hireling designation. When they pretend to be on the side of the angels to escape our pressure
tactics, we let them get away with it; they expect as little from the preaching as we do.
However, hirelings work contrary to the pure preaching based on inviolable exegesis of the
Word and dole out more and more ‘revelations’ of mind-boggling and congestive ignorance, 414
accommodation, 415 and compromise – three dark and broad doorways into apostasy.
Dark Doors
We look into these three gates of darkness, to weigh each obviously antagonistic-to-theWord force. An easy work. “Today’s preacher … lacks a prevailing theological framework
411
Daane, op. cit., p. 17.
Horne, op. cit., p. 114.
413
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 141.
Smith, op. cit., p. 18 – “… when students become pastors they may retreat from a critical perspective to a
position in which they preach only from safe texts or treat their texts in a moralistic, ahistorical, or quasifundamentalist way. The latter is likely to happen to students whose native piety had disposed them to be skeptical
of modern, historical methods of exegesis in the first place.”
414
Cf. Acts 3:17, revealing how far ignorance once carried.
415
Stuempfle, op. cit., p. 12 – “When we take time to subject our past preaching to theological analysis, we may be
astounded to discover that we have been purveying such strange doctrines as the perfectibility of man and society in
history, the immortality of the soul, or the demand to justify oneself before God by moral or spiritual achievement.”
412
168
because ours is a time of theological chaos.” 416 Here we have a glaring secret of the Church by
the throat.
Gate of Ignorance:
Formed by pride at anti-intellectualism and besotted by mental inertia, many congregations
promote ignorance of Scriptures; moreover, they want ministers who eloquently speak with
profound-sounding platitudes and superficial exegesis. This age-old sloth of heart actively
promotes and strengthens fraudulent sermons by means of making the Word malfunction.
Darkness for the shared goal of ignorance resonates with private keys to lock away biblical
knowledge and wisdom.
Ignorance is: uninformed faith and unstructured life in Christ.
Case in point 113. I will never forget a minister bustling with impunity about the pulpit area.
To bring a 30-minute sermon to closure, he declared, “You can forget everything I’ve said up
this point, if you remember this one thing.” At that, except for this one sentence, I wiped out
everything he said in the name of the Lord, fearing the shabby pit of ignorance opening at my
feet. To say this one thing, he wasted 30 minutes of the sovereign Jesus’ time.
Case in point 114. “[Jowett] preached yesterday in Chapel amidst intense excitement…. He
looked so fatherly and beautiful and brought out the best bell-like silvren voice with quite rich
tones that he had hitherto hidden in the depth of his stomach, and preached the most lovely little
practical sermon in a quite perfect style with the most wonderful grace. It was just Platonism
flavoured with a little Christian charity.” 417
Agreed, not all of us can become ministers of the Word and/or theologians. Nevertheless, the
Lord of the Church calls all his to be as kings, prophets, and priests who ought to know the
Scriptures inside and out in order to serve the Father en route to the totality of life. In the fullness
of the office of the congregation, we may allow no minister, a.k.a. hireling, of whatever stature
and with whatever gifts to lead us into falsely secure milieus of ignorance.
Long-time ignorance of the Bible, shaping current generations, too easily becomes a
keyboard on which incumbent as well as visiting ministers dominocratically play private and/or
ideological tunes, convinced that none in the flock discerns the difference between deplorable
oratory and sound preaching. In fact, with arid imagination, they convince themselves that we
prefer shifty oratory to the opening of the Word. Thus, they infuse us, zombyites, with a
preference for simple faith and simplemindedness. They will make us, once we place them in
that position, idle parishioners, proud of our communal lack of scriptural knowledge and
resentful of anyone who dares disturb reigning simple faith. Such ministers, either to hide their
own ignorance or to domineer, tap into the ambiguous appeal of belonging to a congregation
well insulated against the Word. An inexcusably naive congregation is like a wax nose.
416
417
Keck, op. cit., p. 45.
D.G. Miller, op. cit., p. 16.
169
Case in point 115 – on Lk. 24:13-43. “Even after that long talk on the way to Emmaus, he
was prepared to walk on. He doesn’t barge his way into our lives: he only comes if he’s invited
in. And when those disciples invited him to stay with them – when he was invited in – then they
realized who he was.” 418
In sheepfolds of ignorance, ministers may believe and preach whatever they wish, provided
they reinforce congregational pride in simple faith. Once clergy and congregations establish such
modish relationships, sweet talkers may unencumbered lead us by the nose to a mystical place,
any dystopia; by keeping us ignorant 419 with respect to, for instance, the encompassing biblical
theme of theodicy, the Lord’s invocation of justice to clear his name of our injustices.
Case in point 116 - the sermon essay on II Sam. 21:1-9 in the Second Excursus.
Once we hammer congregational strictures in place to protect our simplemindedness with
respect to the Bible, we comfortably ignore the fact that one day we shall stand before the throne
of justice, the divine tribunal, at which time Christ shall convict us of our ignorance with
eternally painful results. One fact in the present is undeniable: “People often complain that the
political agenda of conservative Christians looks suspiciously like the political agenda of
conservative secularists – the Republican party on its knees. And it seems inconceivable that an
agency of any mainline, Protestant denomination should espouse some social position unlike that
of the most liberal Democrats. The church is the dull exponent of conventional secular political
ideas with a vaguely religious tint. Political theologies, whether of the left or of the right, want to
maintain Christendom, wherein the church justifies itself as a helpful, if sometimes complaining
prop for the state.” 420 Locked into a political-ecclesiastical embrace, all churches must by
definition remain bound in simple faith, only to awaken eventually with shock. Historically, all
political states run into an ignominious fate, and then the churches with them. As a disincentive
to ignorance, to tie the Church to a direction-setting or rudder-controlling liberal or conservative
politic asphyxiates the Body of Christ through our own selfish ends.
The longer, from generation to generation, we shrug off ineptness at exegesis, ministers of
the Word may abuse basic doctrines, suppress the truth, mutilate the whole counsel of God,
undermine Christ’s glory, and flummox us with oratory. Thus, they empty the cross of its power.
For the same reason, they also confine and/or expunge our freedom to glorify the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. This happens because of our well-guarded inability at exegesis: we make
ourselves subject to propaganda and manipulation. When we know neither the Scriptures nor the
depth of doctrine, nor the essence of preaching texts, nor the frightening hollowness of simple
faith, we abandon ourselves to tyranny – beginning in the Church.
Let us face facts: ignorance, pining for a less complicated bible, shuffles about in our hearts
and churches as a mean and strong opponent, unwilling to be roused to confront tough doctrinal
418
Richard P. Hansen, “I Can’t Believe It!” in Cox, op. cit., p. 48.
Ritschl, op. it., p. 102 – “It would seem that preachers frequently underestimate the intellectual ability and hunger
of the ordinary church members, by using only well-known words and passages or – what is worse – by believing
that unintelligible words in the Bible would explain themselves mystically because they are words of the Bible! One
ought to look realistically at the lack of knowledge of the Bible and to consider at the same time the honest desire of
many church members to know more about the Bible and the teaching of the Church.”
420
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 38.
419
170
and ethical teachings. Once aroused, however, this implacable enemy only the Word throws
down on the mat for the count.
Gate of Accommodation:
Run-of-the-mill clergy make common cause with our pressures and special interests, that is,
they surrender to our ecclesiastical lobbyism. Confrontational men of Christ we hamstring and
make them preach in an acceptable manner. If any minister dares resist our wishes that he
accommodate the Word to our piteous standards, we become only more contentious and acerbic.
Accommodationism is: contrary to Deut. 4:6, twisting the teaching of Scripture to fit in with
all sorts of shuffling movements - allegorism, Scholasticism, liberalism, fundamentalism,
Pentecostalism, postmodernism, etc. Its signature styles run to topical, moralistic, exemplaristic,
and situational sorts of preaching.
In different condescending ways and before totting up the results, accommodation-centered
congregations repeat the provocative folly registered in Micah 2:6 – “’Do not preach’ – thus they
preach – ‘one should not preach of such things; disgrace will not overtake us.’” Cf. Job 21:14f.
Apparently, accommodationism comes with old credentials. Men called to the ministry, already
in far bygones days, learned from birth on to adjust to backwater groundswells of cultural and
social movements in congregations of origin. From early on, we tend to shunt them into ruts so
deep or buildings so high that we shut them away from the majestic panoramas of the counsel of
God.
Case in point 117. “The most distinguishing characteristic which separates Christianity from
all other religions lies in the personality of its founder. Hinduism is loyalty to an idea;
Confucianism is loyalty to a tradition; Shintoism is loyalty to a country, and, Islam is loyalty to a
code. Christianity is loyalty to a person. You may conceive of Christianity without an
organization; you may conceive of it without a ritual; you may conceive of it without a creed.
But to think of it without Christ is as anomalous as it is impossible.” 421
Case in point 118. “God is a woman, and she is growing older. She moves more slowly now.
She cannot stand erect. Her hair is thinning. Her face is lined. Her smile no longer innocent. Her
voice is scratchy. Her eyes tire. Sometimes she has to strain to hear. God is a woman … growing
older, yet she remembers everything.” 422
Case in point 119. “I challenge you, as his apostles, in this: to welcome the Spirit to lead you
to the wilderness experience over and over again in your vocational lives. You see, the
wilderness is not Union 423 per se, or the church, or even the world out there into which you are
commissioned forth, although it can feel that way when the wilderness is understood as a
Godforsaken place. Yet, the wilderness is anything but Godforsaken. The wilderness is the core
421
Joseph R. Sizoo, “What Manner of Man Is This?” in G. Paul Butler, Best Sermons, Vol. IX (New York: D. Van
Nostrand, 1964), p. 2.
422
Margaret M. Wenig, “God Is a Woman and She Is Growing Older” in E. Lee Hancock, The Book of Women’s
Sermons: Hearing God in Each Other’s Voices (New York: Riverhead, 1999), p. 256.
423
Union Theological Seminary, New York, NY.
171
of yourself – your soul and you are called to be wilderness dwellers – wild women – because
God has commissioned you to be your most natural self: the whole of you, the unbroken you, the
fearless you, the you who is bold enough to claim Jesus’ experience as your own ….” 424
These three accommodationist cases in point reflect, to our detriment, misrepresentations of
Christ in the name of Christ: ministers lacking courage will tilt and twist texts as far as necessary
to suck up to whomever necessary to gain approval for narrower, bleaker futures.
Added to hard-power, market-driven impulses starved of exegetical integrity, one senses in
ministerial souls the two-faced will to please power groupings in respective congregations and
also denominations. They go out of the way to avoid running afoul of our dominant sins and help
us make peaceful as well as balanced Sundays, which means in the contemporary church that
they never dare unbalance the upper hand of hedonistic tendencies. Pushed and pulled by the
main arteries of the Western way of life, the erosive effects of accommodationism on the Church
shake all into one miscalculation of the Word too many.
Within Westernization, according to its North American version, our appetites deserve
fulfillment; under the weight of this covetousness, members of Christ grind down with religious
aggression the entire counsel of God to eliminate confrontation with the Christ. But! “If nothing
vital happens within the hours of worship, training, and fellowship, nothing of significance is
likely to happen anywhere else.” 425 To make sure nothing effectual happens, that is, heart-andlife reforming, we wave the economic whip. As with everyone else, when it comes to economic
security and bliss, ministers have a financial breaking point. Biting the hands that feed may bring
tangible financial hurt, if not harrowing poverty. “It is very easy for a congregation to come to
feel that they ‘own’ their pastor, that he works for them; yet it is impossible to minister to people
who feel they own you. Ownership means having the right to control.” 426 “All our talk about
what a great adventure it is to be in the church seems to crumble when placed alongside the lives
of many of the pastors we know.” 427 They sway so vulnerably to our cynical membership
massages and manipulations. According to the terms of accommodationism, ministers make
headway only with a well-worn adage – better safe than sorry. Easily we make them, Baalamlike, 428 workers for hire, hirelings. Besides we muddy the waters for them: they may never
expect much from preaching to or at us.
Sooner rather than later, for all practical purposes, ministers learn to mimic a wait-and-see
approach: they need to sound out our attrition-in-the-ranks and our religiosity. Therewith they
learn the proper ecclesiastical motions, comfortable churchly ways, and pleasantly churchy
thoughts. “Culturally, we long for a different sort of God, a God for ‘the Hour of Power,’ a doall, cure-all God, who is adjunct to our needs or, better, our desires or, still better, our prides.” 429
In foot-dragging churches, candid proclamation of the whole counsel of God as defined by each
preaching text immediately raises aggravation; few of us in the pew and office of the
424
Teresa Delgado, “Calling All Wild Women” in E. Lee Hancock, The Book of Women’s Sermons: Hearing God
in Each Other’s Voices (New York: Riverhead, 1999), p. 89.
425
Horne, op. cit., p. 81.
426
Kinlaw, op. cit., p. 29.
427
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 112.
428
Cf. II Pet. 2:15.
429
Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 59.
172
congregation own maturity enough to cherish (if that is the right word) listening to divine
admonishment against and judgment upon our sins unless we repent. Repentance is hard and
painful, chafing to Western cultural foundations. Undefeated, however, we bounce back and
dispose of the unbiased word of the Lord with non-starters – celebrating this or that of our
bourgeoning religiosity.
Even if sin preaching occurs pastorally, “kindly to every one,” 430 with unwarranted Sunday
rectitude we seem to perceive repentance either impossible or unnecessary, lest we have to
reform. Ministers may beat black sheep in the congregation over the head with impunity and
castigate masses of sinners outside at will, but within our congregations and our dominant
groupings they better safely concentrate only on a working relationship with us. Else we voice
(severe) antipathy and knock them back on their heels with stunning reversal. Not that in the past
this power grabbing always succeeded. Many a time, Israel attempted to make Moses back
down, and men like sermon-savvy Timothy and Titus took pummeling in the face of tough
decisions over fateful turf battles: either Christ Jesus ruled the congregations they served or
special interests. 431
To exemplify prototypes of accommodationism, the Holy Spirit gave Pharisaism and
Sadduceism. Both factions in the Church attempted to make Jesus conform to their salvation
programs. Both fatal contradictions separately and together bristled at the Lord and Savior’s
warnings against them. When all efforts at accommodationism failed, they retaliated viciously.
To this day these two ideologies function as original types from which come biblical warnings
against controversial inroads of Pharisaism and Sadduceism.
Pharisaism is: an Israelite movement for strict observation of invented laws and easy
regulations, therewith providing a show of piety and sanctity in order to merit a salvation. Cf. Lk.
16:15 – “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts; for what
is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.” Thus, Jesus severely denounced a
large covenant-breaking power grouping in the Church in order to call them to repentance and
reformation. Always beleaguered by the truth, they nevertheless based salvation on legalism, that
is, self-made precepts. Cf. Phil. 3:9. As Machen (1881-1936) once observed – “… around the
written Law had grown up a great mass of oral interpretation which really amounted to elaborate
additions. By this ‘tradition of the elders’ the life of the devout Jew was regulated in its minutest
particulars. Morality thus became a matter of external rules, and religion became a credit-anddebit relationship into which a man entered with God.” 432 As Pharisaism developed, its leaders
erected secondary sorts of laws and rules more easily accomplished than the Commandments.
The Pharisees heaped up nearly impermeable barriers against the Word, the strength of which
became visible at Pentecost: in comparison to the total number then in the Old Testament Church
only a few believed in Jesus Christ; they the Holy Spirit gathered as the New Church.
430
Cf. II Tim. 2:24.
Cf. I Tim. 4:13; Titus 1:10.
432
J. Gresham Machen, The Origin of Paul’s Religion (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1925/65), p. 178. Cf. p. 179 –
“The Judaism of the Pauline period does not seem to have been characterized by a profound sense of sin. And the
reason is not far to seek. The legalism of the Pharisees, with its regulations of the minutest details of life, was not
really making the Law too hard to keep; it was really making it too easy. … The truth is, it is easier to cleanse the
outside of the cup than it is to cleanse the heart.”
431
173
Distinct from Pharisaism, at the end of the Old Testament Church period, Sadduceism,
centered in the Temple, banked on a strong position of influence and privilege. In A.D. 70, upon
the razing of the Temple and Jerusalem, Sadduceism ‘officially’ died off, but its broadly
accessible spirit hustled on, very much alive and captivating. By building political consolidation,
always accommodationist, Sadducee-like power groupings evade, delay, and short-change Christ
Jesus in his church-building global mission. Through power mongering, these sorts of
accommodationists nearly always build impregnable obstacles to the Word – as apparent in
liberalism of the pre-World War II decades and interfaith religious movements in the post-World
War II years. As old Sadduceism captured control of the Temple and political life in Israel to
consort with Roman power and Hellenistic culture, so liberalism and interfaith powers – pre- and
post-World War II – sought and seek control over the political connections of the Church. We
are unable to make these pomposities go away on their own.
Sadduceism is: in Israel an ecclesial cooperation with the world from a position of privilege
by supporting secular politics and by a vaunted love for God.
To hear in Pharisaic/Sadducean congregations, even with grandiloquence, accommodationencouraging sermons builds show cultures in the Church. With the mass appeal of fundamental
opposition and infatuation against the Word, these sorts of uncompromising ideologies squeeze
out only a hypocritical appearance of the Faith.
When in such ideologically enclosed social/intellectual systems daring ministers denounce
personal, congregational, and/or denominational sins, they only invite our plans for revenge.
Many of us, free spirits frightfully respectable and playing it safe, will cautiously admit to
imperfections, growing pains, and minor peccadilloes. But have ministers in the name of the
Lord publicly confront us with depths and acts of iniquity, even long-buried sins? With highminded fretting, we invoke a severe taboo and make no bones about our priggish religiosity. We
use ourselves as the measuring device to identify Christianity, not the Bible. And then, on top of
such insulting sermons, for ministers to summon us in the name of Jesus Christ to repentance?
How dare they! And to have these same men of Christ persuade us to open more fully to the
great doctrines of the Scriptures, even the larger truths of socially repugnant predestination and
total depravity? And also to obey the Commandments more thankfully, thereby to express our
gratitude for salvation? Ministers quickly discover our ingrained resistance to such preaching.
We are more difficult to control than greenhouse gasses.
Sound explanations and applications of sermon texts? We, flouters of the Word, love little to
hear upright exegesis of ’strange sounding’ doctrines or condemnation of personal/communal
responsibilities for slowly unfolding collapses of the Church. Our inbred aversion to
accountability means that honest exegesis builds seamy tensions in our congregations. When
silent stresses mount (over months and years), hectic power struggles emerge. As these start to
roll into the open, ministers must fear our retribution, unless they capitulate, conceding that our
preferences trump the Word. Regardless of bruising costs, we remove righteous ‘troublemakers’
from our pulpits, lest they disturb the collective equilibrium we carefully negotiate between
Christ’s will and Westernized demands.
174
When we, soul-destroying critics, start circling in earnest, ministers’ wives and children (in
congregational work, at schools, while shopping, or on playgrounds) absorb dirty looks, snide
remarks, jibes, nagging, cold shoulders, piteous stares, even ostracism, because husbands/fathers
fail to tune in to our wishes or refuse to practice cunning with the Word. If ministers then still
refuse to conform, we put the blade in and twist, until they too embrace our accommodationism –
for the sake of peace and getting on with life. Sinners never fight fair and with our anachronistic
fighting forces we strive to find ministers’ breaking points, one at a time.
Ministers who become a bit nervous, rather than lose lives and stipends for Christ’s sake,
avoid our trouble making by offering concessions, no more in sermons touching upon our points
of pain. Once we are that far (again) in our warfare against the Word, we shift the blame for lack
of liveliness in preaching and for inconsequential sermons onto our ministers. Accountability for
the collapsing church must have an address we choose; once we force ministers into our corner,
all the troubles have one concrete focus. “The fault lies rather in timid preaching of God’s
revelation by professional pulpiteers, in presumptuous tampering with God’s revelation by
contemporary critics, and with subtle evasion of God’s revelation not only in ecclesiastical
bureaucracies and in seminary class rooms but also in the lives of many who are churchidentified.” 433 We misplace blame for cop-out preaching, whereas it belongs to us, a fearless lot.
Naturally, we hate being disturbed and our even-keeled complacency dented by sound
preaching, a reaction to the Word old and well documented. 434 Therefore, ministers find it
preferable to accommodate themselves to our wishes and cultural appetites – in order for now to
skirt trouble for themselves and respective families. We make them come around to believe that
preaching on our terms protects main congregational stakeholders from scriptural abuse. We win
and expect ministers to be ready on Sundays with fact-fudging sermons, joining our deterioration
into a vast spiritual deadness.
Gate of Compromise:
Christ’s spokesmen at many points in ministry face profound struggles of soul on account of
secularizing influences in our congregations. Being the kind of people we are, we pressure them
to conform to our practical atheism, often with rare signs of compassion – for the hard work of
ministry, particularly the preaching. In this way, we grease the parkway for compromising with
respect to the Word.
We, subversive as ever, desire to open our own tortuous road into the future and therefore
tend to breed a dangerous familiarity with ministers until they preach and teach, for instance,
evolutionism instead of the creation account, pantheism and panentheism rather than Trinitarian
transcendence, human rights in preference to the Law, the humanity of Jesus Christ to the neglect
of his divinity, a universal love of God in favor of the doctrine of predestination, flippant anticonfessionalism above graphic ecclesiastical standards of faith, freedom of the will regardless of
the revealed bondage of the will, feminism instead of headship, North American security rather
than the Kingdom, etc., without recognizing the underlying absurdity of this peace negotiation
process. Undue familiarity resonates particularly well within upscale congregations, when
433
434
Henry, op. cit., God, Revelation and Authority, Vol. II, God who Speaks and Shows, pp. 22f.
Cf. Ps. 73:10ff.; Is. 58:1ff.; Mal. 3:13ff.; etc.
175
(hunger for) affluence grips hearts to conform to the world. The greedier we become, the more
we want ministers to lead us into the spirits of the times and exploit our self-defeating
permissiveness. As many as the mellowing spirits of secular attitudes and mass fictions in our
congregations, so many the ways of ‘decent’ compromise for ministers. Yet, when all is said and
done, compromise is compromise to egg on our innate sense of self-preservation – under Christ,
honorary CEO.
With inflated economic ambitions, we tend to prefer compromising ministers, schmoozers,
with ways of downgrading the office of the word enough to suit us. From generation to
generation, given money and status, we move our congregations socially into over-privileged
clubs, in which context we require perfectly bloodless and servile clergy - social workers,
psychologists, and handymen – active in counseling, fundraising, peace work, environmental
concerns, anti-racial issues (possibly), anti-abortion demonstrations (possibly), etc., “… mere
footnotes on the main text.” 435 Footnoted men rather than the Word, every one will admit, court
more manageable special effects than the main agenda of the Church, believing and living the
whole counsel of God.
As we, clever bullies, in the office of the congregation abuse our love duties to the Lord and
neighbors, then our ministers too must indulge in compromise on the proclamation of the Word.
We cannot afford clergy who believe and think and live economically different than we do.
Expertly we will see to it that they become more like us in every respect – until they, with a
penchant for betraying first loyalty, give us our religious flavor of the day. 436 As the powers that
be in every congregation, we want slackers who make a good fit, who take heart from the value
of our clever mollycoddling to help rezone the Church into a chain of financially affluent
religious spas.
Compromise is: settling confessional differences by making concessions.
In the Church compromising means consciously turning away from hearing the great
doctrines of Scriptures to preferring ideologically tainted sermons. As a ‘captive audience,’ we
find ourselves attentive to preaching that makes us more comfortable-in-the-world. Partisan
loyalties and ecclesiastical politics earmark all preaching to cool off the hottest danger spot, the
pew.
As we incite compromise with respect to pulpits, to say nothing of enforcing infidelity in
various forms, we expect Christ’s men to adapt to our religious situations and whims. In this
way, we have become salt that has lost its flavor, ready to be thrown out, and trodden underfoot,
which we like. Stricken with shortsightedness, we cross over onto polyglot ways of apostasy and
heresy.
435
Henry, op. cit., God, Revelation and Authority, Vol. II, God who Speaks and Shows, p. 22.
Daane, op. cit., p. 32 – “Never before has Jesus Christ been so widely presented to the sinner as someone who is
‘good for you.’ The potential convert is told that Christ will heal one’s hurts, give one peace of mind, and a positive
attitude, help one be successful, and enable one to find personal fulfilment and realize all one’s latent potential. In
such preaching – and there is much of it among evangelicals today – Jesus is projected … as very attractive and
appealing.”
436
176
Heresy is: leveraging in the Church religious opinion contrary to the Word with consequent
factionalism. 437
Rather than entertain apostasy and heresy, both of which poison atmospheric conditions in
the Church, we have God-given responsibility in the office of the congregation to hear sound
exegesis of the Word from every preaching unit – whether for individual problems, social
aberrations, fraternal injustices, or global issues within respective communions of faith, without
enticing ministers to pull punches at critical moments in the preaching. Christ forbids that we
turn his church, wherever in the world and regardless of circumstance, into infernal havens of
human opinion for our own momentary tranquility of heart and complexity of need, with
demands that ministers become partners in sordid crimes against the Word – for compromise,
accommodation, and ignorance.
Due to sinning, we make many issues of life complex and subject ourselves to long grinds of
suffering from invisible wounds. True also, because of our internal energies to twist the Word,
we turn biblical controversies into far-reaching schisms. Then, to sidestep personal and
congregational sins, we prefer on our ministers muzzles of ignorance, accommodation, and
compromise – to follow them with a death wish through dark doors. To that end, we walk the
broad way paved with (in)tolerance, mean-spirited partisan rhetoric, outdated custom,
longstanding tradition, and scandal. Rather an ignominious way and future than in the Light face
doctrinal and practical perplexities. It is a puzzle why Christ saddles himself with us as members
of the Church when there must be at least a few thousand worldwide better suited.
Clergymen, even princes of the pulpit, 438 full of the ego-thing, whom Paul called “superlative
apostles,” 439 may exude total control over preaching units with messages within messages of
human origination. Within these messages, we find our duplicities, deceits, bad habits, and
altering allegiances nudged into place to make us more comfortable with ourselves and more
secure within the Church. To this end we prefer hirelings who with the authority of Christ Jesus
lead us through several versions of the future to the slaughter – and so be it, to the sounds of
infernally smooth violations of the Word. “We turned off the spotlights that used to circle our
pulpits in darkened church naves and began to speak as ‘one without authority.’ After all, were
we not all ministers in a common ministry? Surely preaching must change and become the
articulation of our common faith, a speaking from the Spirit we all possess. Let preaching be our
word! The result has been a tempering of the pulpit. We preach to articulate the faith of the
community, or we preach to enable the church in missions. But the notion that preaching is
somehow the voice of God – well, such a supposition has all but faded away.” 440 So we, quietly,
with the fresh resolve of a fundamental change, declare war on Jesus Christ in order to hear
ourselves – the hydra-headed paganism of human religiosity – and turn the Church into a multifaceted garden of evil, forgetting that sermon quality is like air quality.
437
According to a note in the Harper Study Bible on Titus 3:10’s “factious” – “… factious is the Greek hairetikos
(from which Greek word the English word ‘heretic’ is derived). The word itself describes a man who refuses to
abide by generally accepted teaching, and holds stubbornly to different ideas.”
438
Sangster, Power in Preaching, op. cit., p. 87 – “… hypocrisy of faked feelings is not uncommon in the pulpit, and
it arises in this way: men recognize that preaching fails in power if it fails in passion, and when the feeling does not
arise of itself, some of them put it on.”
439
Cf. II Cor. 11:5ff.
440
Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 2.
177
MOCKERY AND PEDESTALING
As we, impoverished souls, come to church to hear ourselves, in a not very thoughtful
manner we are prone to abuse of the office of the congregation in other ways; in these too we
drown out everything that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord, contrary to Deut. 8:3. A
personal equation applies here: ears hear only what they bring to the hearing. To hear ourselves,
one diversionary tactic and continuing menace to believing the Word involves mocking servants
of the Lord Jesus Christ, another pedestaling these men.
MOCKERY
By mockery, we put ministers on the defensive and achieve another significant result; while
sliding into the abyss, as haughty pew sitters we overestimate ourselves.
Haughty Listeners
We refuse acknowledging that preferences for heavy-with-portent conspiracies of rebellion
smolder unseen beneath the surfaces of our skin, ready at all times to break out.
Then, when a minister proclaims the mercy and justice of God the Father in Jesus Christ
through the many majestic doctrines taught in the Bible and therewith condemns our sins,
whether denominational, congregational, or personal, bewilderment catches us. This
bewilderment soon turns into unsurprising resentment and anger at being found out both in our
unbelief and our disobedience. That stirs deep levels of aggression in order to mock the man on
the pulpit in terms of both his person and his office, to kill off as cheaply as possible any of his
surviving ambition to preach the word, except as we see fit.
To say this sharply – “… ministers have learned nice people don’t like ugly sermons.” 441 To
make the transcendent power of the Father shine forth in Jesus Christ, through the Spirit
courageous ministers do step on all tender toes – by way of doctrines still to learn, by correcting
wrong knowledge of mighty biblical teachings, and by calling us, broken things, to repent from
specified sins. Not many of us remain stable under such preaching. We are not robotics, much
less word processing machines. With initiation of hostilities, stern-faced, we poison the pastorcongregation bond with aging weapons of mockery. Behind his back, of course.
If not immediately (to maintain a modicum of decorum and gain time to garner factional
support behind the target’s back), eventually our resentments boil over. Who is he to tell us what
to believe and worry about? Ugly heads of gossip, slander, and conniving sprout from
undisclosed positions. For example – “… If I sit far enough back, I won’t have to pay attention
and he will never notice. … There he is, with that usual phony grin. Like he is asking, ‘Please
accept me, please applaud me, please say you need me.’ He’s my pastor, I don’t want to have to
be his. … Actually, I don’t like to think of him as my pastor. I would never go to him if I had a
real problem. He is nothing but one big problem himself. … Here we go with the prayer. Just the
441
Franklin H. Littell, From State Church to Pluralism: A Protestant Interpretation of Religion in American History
(New York: Macmillan, 1962/71), p. xiii, quoting one Waldo Beach.
178
right words. So glib. I wouldn’t mind prayer, if he didn’t keep getting in the way. …” 442 Yes, we
truckle to sly ways 443 of retooling haughtiness into congregationally fashionable excuses not to
listen to the Word.
Day by day, we put a damper on pain from wrestling personal demons to the ground,
preferably mollycoddling these dark devils. If he wants to shovel dirt on us, we can get down and
dirty too. If he wants to dig himself into a hole, we will provide a large enough spade. With keen
interest, we locate his weaknesses. We want ministers detached, minding their own line of work.
Rising and falling influxes of tensions against the Word, and so against the word, wander
about in us, dispossessed souls. Caught up as we are amidst demanding social and intellectual
systems of the world, every minister’s latest gaffe and sin confirm in our minds and hearts that
Christ’s spokesmen rank low in our pristine scale of ministerial effectiveness. Consciously aware
of these or not, cynical forces within us resist listening to the Word and prefer preaching
relegated to somewhere below a secondary role. With an air of superiority, we may then
concentrate more on beauties of liturgy, our own religiosity, our false-fronted security, the good
name of the congregation, the harmony of our brotherhood, etc. We try by systemic and
overbearing haughtiness to suppress the fact that together we are sinkholes of little rebellions
seeking negation of the Word, contrary to the great ministerial task given Christ’s men. Cf. II
Cor. 5:20 – “So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beseech
you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” Horrid storms of heart cut ties with covenant
promises, while we imagine, with sanctimonious satisfaction, that we actually fulfill all covenant
obligations. Is that not glaringly apparent by our honesty?
A ‘wise’ minister dodges irritating such congregational obstructionism and subjectivism as a
matter of survival, but unable to win. “If he clings tenaciously to the traditional image, he is
likely to find himself literally outside the life of his people; if he identifies himself with the life
of the times, he is likely to find himself outside the realm of anything substantially religious.” 444
In contrast, an upright minister, listening to the Word in order not to go off on tangents of
traditionalism or postmodernism, but in the carnal vise of negative judges, soon lands in trouble,
though he seeks the best for the flock in his care, even if it hurts. Yet working with patience and
compassion, he finds himself backing off under the damaging impacts of mockery.
Negative Judges
At first, often unconsciously, we judge every man of Christ; this is an entrenched fact of
church life. Much as citizens of a country show interest in politicians, so we debase the man
Christ calls to our pulpit. The longer he serves in our midst, the more transparent and hot the
commodities of his weaknesses, idiosyncrasies, and proneness to greed, power, and/or lust –
442
Malcomson, op. cit., p. 85. Mr. Malcomson recorded several pages of such internal bickerings.
Thompson, op. cit., p. 85 – “Keeping the switch on the ‘off’ position is yet another variant. Most of us are pretty
skilful at this. We tune out the sermon near the beginning and stay out. Not wanting to reveal our inattention,
however, we make it appear that we are listening – we ‘fake attention.’ We retreat to our own world of fantasy while
giving the impression of listening by a physical posture of attentiveness.”
444
Samuel H. Miller, op. cit., p. 96.
443
179
always worse than expected. And turning negative, how we pounce on such sins of the flesh!
Especially in crises – when the Word pushes our most precious convictions into a corner.
Ministers, of course, evaluate and judge congregations with respect to sins and virtues. But
when it comes to evaluating and judging ministers, we are no slouches. And ministers, we know,
fear negative attention and averse risks as much as politicians. Because of such fears, we have
them in an awkward position.
Almost immediately, we can tell from tone of voice and walk of life whether a minister
believes every doctrine he proclaims or merely teaches each one perfunctorily. When we
determine to “… live halfway between agnostic Christianity and frustrated churchmanship,” 445
we quickly sense whether he himself struggles with the issues of sanctification or imagines
himself insulated from the fray of contemporary crises of all whom the Lord places in his charge.
Whichever doctrine or sin, we compare his words spoken in the name of the Lord to his life and
work habits (including his wife and children’s). If a minister even once fails to practice what he
preaches, we confine him under holy frowns.
What is it that fascinates about watching some else, especially a minister of the Word,
stumble and fall?
On the other hand, if he believes what he preaches and teaches in fresh ways, we’ll get him
too, one way or another, a weakness somewhere. We, top-drawer ‘clients,’ lust after hair-raising,
Word-destroying, old-fashioned backbiting. We love to indulge in mean-spirited partisan
rhetoric. In this situation, strong exegetical integrity, which calls for the exercise of mind and
exposure of sin, both personal and congregational, arouses sullen exasperation, even animosity,
the very opposite of the true mark of a caring community in Christ. As we reverse the Word,
however, in common cause with all sorts of unbelievers, we more and more assume control of
life, men and women who sway things their way. To slam such a minister, the more maliciously
inclined among us leading the flock in negative judgments, we ask questions that are most
impertinent. This is to say: the more a minister taxes us to believe and grow in the knowledge of
particular doctrines or inveighs legitimately against our sins (relative to preaching units) for
upbuilding and sanctification, the more he forces us into a tight spot, and the chillier we respond
to him. We either grow in the knowledge of the word and repent of wrongs, or we fight back,
thereby manipulating a devious safety valve. If he is so busy instructing us, is he really growing
in knowledge himself, or is he merely rehashing what he learned during years of theological
education? If he steps on our sins and shortcomings, may we not know his (or those of his wife
and children)? If he is so busy with us, we may be busy with him. To wind up the rumor mill,
we, bellyaching, ask unending series of embarrassing questions – perhaps from his naïve
children. In this manner, we express a little of our old nature, the unforgiving soil of the flesh.
Instinctively we signal that he let up on his teaching and allow us to relax, ‘enjoy’ some
comforts of the pew, and get on with our worldly-wise life. Instinctively, we funnel the Lord’s
tolerance towards ourselves and insist that he pick on the sins of others, those outside the
Church, or black sheep in the congregation. But if he will not relax and himself be at ease in the
445
Hugh Montefiore, “After Muggeridge and Davis,” in Hugh Montefiore, ed., Sermons from Great St Mary’s
(London: Collins/Fontana, 1968), p. 244.
180
balanced living of Zion, we tilt the playing field in our favor – with old rules of vilification. Tit
for tat.
Separated Patterns
Our resentments build up particularly with respect to unobtrusive iniquities. Our ears do not
much like ministers to maul finer personal and/or congregational sins; then we gear up for
resistance. One minister may place our personal immoralities in the crosshairs of the Word, an
other systemic sins. The ‘popularity’ of irking personal sins fits into conservative traditions, any
focusing on humanitarian evils in liberal traditions. Whether the one bailiwick of rogue powers
in the Church or the other, each invites the same separated patterns of ruinous response. The
Lord of the Church, too obvious to miss, finds our deep-seated sinfulness a hard obstacle for the
Gospel. 446
Deep-seated patterning appears disingenuously across North America in the “Two-Party
System” 447 and exposes bankruptcy in Christianity, with members divided into liberals and
conservatives; both factions compel ministers to maintain a corrosive division, with the result
that “… each group of clergy produces an assessment fundamentally in accord with their
perception of the basic problems of human existence. For the orthodox, it is alienation from God,
sinful behavior in individual lives, and the adverse consequences resulting from these conditions.
All comport with individualist social theology and the new civic gospel. For modernists, with
their communitarian outlook, problems are essentially those of human community and the need
to build a just society, pointing naturally to issues of human welfare, international peace, and,
increasingly, the natural environment.” 448 However. “The conservative-liberal polarity is not
much help in diagnosing the situation of the church since, as presently constructed, we can see
little difference between the originating positions of liberals or conservatives. Both assume that
the main political significance of the churches lies in assisting the secular state in its presumption
to make a better world for its citizens.” 449 Now we tirelessly judge ministers according to
familiarity with wounded congregations and broken societies in which we live; these mixtures of
thought are either liberal or conservative, neither of which has a basis in Scripture. Through
sibling rivalry and civil war, both sides peddle the Bible and hawk preaching as forms of
political merchandize. We never want to confront, except by a nodding acquaintance, the dead
give-away of indifference to the Church’s utter brokenness.
When we, unfazed by the Word, impress ministers of Christ into biblically alien and
farfetched molds, as liberalism and conservatism, we impose human preferences upon them in
order that we may escape the Word. For one group of clergy, which we made, personal vices in
marriage/family, substance abuse, abortionism, millennialism, gambling, and the death penalty
loom large. These are issues of moral reform and personal renewal. Sins involving social justice
446
Pulpit manners, unusual behaviors, peculiar to a minister always catch attention for abuse – foibles,
idiosyncrasies, false smiles, little oddities, etc. These provocations need to be addressed as quickly as possible with
the minister in question, or such gestures and mannerisms with the pull of gravity draw attention away for the word
of the Lord.
447
James L. Guth, et al., The Bully Pulpit: the Politics of Protestant Clergy (the University of Kansas Press, 1997),
pp. 43ff.
448
Ibid., p. 82.
449
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 156.
181
remain marginal, never understandable. For the modernist ministerial faction, which we made,
issues of social justice and a humane society dominate. They in brief make ecumenical sins circle
the light in rough waters of hunger, poverty, civil rights, environment, international peace,
economy, jobs, women’s issues, racism, anti-globalization, etc. Due to our inbred shifts with
respect to priorities, we have compelled generation upon generation of clergy to follow our
wishes, which, visibly lifted out of context, have nothing to do with the Scriptures, except,
perhaps, tangentially.
Conservatives get the mocking goods on liberal ministers and liberals out of restless seas of
reaction despise conservative clergy. Such renegade interchanges, making for hardscrabble
religion and forcing arthritic church-joints to lock, occur much of the time. Due to the fact that
we have installed these barriers ourselves and must now maintain them (by way of theological
education), mockery and vilification continue, sometimes come raging into the limelight. This is
especially true as a ‘progressive’ secularization proceeds unabated and the open channels of
postmodern mentality drag the Church into the vagaries of the New Age movement. Mockery in
blame-the-messenger mode represents no more than our deep-seated and vastly imponderable
refusal to hear the Word. We, spinmeisters with the nasty words of gossip and slander, voice
surging resentments festering in our hearts.
PEDESTALING
In opposition to mockery, we also find pedestaling tendencies and temptations living
underfoot. Whether by many or by few, such diversions consist of aggrandizing a minister’s
worth. This implants another form of ‘successful ministry.’ That is, making him a mere actor, a
reduced man.
Pedestaling happens when we bind a minister with his connivance onto a celebrity pedestal,
above realms of reality. “Any preacher who becomes typed as an actor has great difficulty in
ever persuading his hearers that he is indeed earnest. If his real purpose is to move men toward
himself rather than the Kingdom; if he loves the praise of men more than the praise of God, his
personal triumphs cannot cover the nakedness of his real failure.” 450 If not the incumbent
minister, than one of the past or in a neighboring congregation, they want and we will give them
preferential treatment. So, we position ministers on pedestals, where they can do no wrong, in
this way too to outwit the Word, further substantiating the reality of our natural selves.
Placement on a pedestal is, of course, more preferential for ministers than falling headlong into
hot waters of mockery.
The Author of the Bible reveals a key dynamic of pedestaling in Gal. 4:17, where Paul
pointed out the nature of a bewitchment that made the members of Christ fall away from the
Gospel into the clutches of false-to-the-truth clergy. “They make much of you, but for no good
purpose; they want to shut you out, that you may make much of them.” Those alternative
apostles sought the obvious value of private glory and honor by having followers sculpt pedestals
for them. Pedestaled ministers require foolish congregations, giving members always larger
shovels for heaping praise on them and making churches temporal havens for vain adulation.
450
Garrison, op. cit., p. 39.
182
Unwarranted Praises
By pedestaling men-on-pulpits, we coax them to live beyond normal mortality. Thus we
elevate them above our daily trials and tribulations, even beyond recognizable sins, till in our
eyes with generous reasons they cannot commit sin. In this manner, we have turned them into
revered icons, useless in the Church, worthless in the Kingdom, all around liabilities before
Christ Jesus.
The corollary to this, of course, is that those spokesmen of Christ, who revel in ego-boosting
and standing-on-high, find themselves in a trade-off situation; they must exude the notion that
sin and biblical ignorance are not so bad; we, on the other hand, as a way of manipulation,
festoon them with more praises. So they call respective congregations to relax according to a set
schedule as they tilt the Scriptures in our favor. Such ministers, we find, are veritable assets for
all of the Church who want congregations to be asylums of good will degenerating into deadness.
Once they devastate a congregation that far, they rule over a ‘perfect communion.’ Both troubled
parties have what they want and call themselves Christian to boot. No unpredictable novelty
here, much less reformation. None now needs to consider severe processes and strategic
opportunities of sanctification or be required to don the armor of God, wield the sword of the
Spirit, and be involved for the Kingdom. It begins with a minister suspending the sins of the
congregation and the congregation overlooking the sins of a minister.
A sure way of achieving this, of course, comes by distinguishing the clergy from the laity, by
feeding into a praise that ministers love and which elevates them into being special. “When the
clergy claim some ‘specialness’ for their praying, witnessing, or caring, this serves to confirm
the deadly, erroneous concept that clergy are the only real ministers and that the laity exist only
to support and feed these real ministers – the clergy.” 451 The lesser status of the congregations
poses a threat to effective action in sanctification.
In every way, then, by means of seducing ministers to think that we like them, in the
engrossing trade-off we allow a mere man in his own function of place to expound almost any
doctrine with little scrutiny, none that an unmoving office of the congregation discerns. “When
the minister becomes the pivot around which his ministry revolves, the results are deadly. The
Lord will not be fully present in any ministry where the minister gets the glory.” 452 Allegedly, he
stands now above and beyond criticism, protected by indifference and irrelevance, his flabby
exegesis failing to keep up with the Head of the Church. As a congregation then wanes in terms
of the communion of saints, the minister finds that the last link with ‘his people’ becomes a
bottomless pit: he must please them more and more, lest they tumble him from this idyllic perch.
We find that every minister ‘owns’ enough investment in vanity to enjoy the banality of
adulation and cult of personality. Praise of men strokes the man, until in his own mind he
becomes an indispensable icon to a denomination, congregation, or faction within the Church.
When we give any minister the kiss of celebrity, we quickly sense that he loves the worship of
men and women, and give him more unwarranted, that is, banal glamor.
451
452
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 113.
Kinlaw, op. cit., p. 45.
183
Silent Transparency
What happens in situations of silent conniving and sweetheart dealing consists of most
natural occurrences – through ‘winks and nudges.’
1) By way of faceless agreement (possibly arrived at by trial and error) a spokesman for
Christ and a congregation achieve a balance. We will not criticize a minister (too much), if he
humors us by overlooking various sins (of youth) we enjoy, if he will please by stooping to
deeper levels of servility before the controlling caste group, if he with sermons refrains from
embarrassing anyone important, and if he always moves along with popular treatment of
preaching texts. Thus, if a minister ‘promises’ to be blind to our dominant sins, he may attack
weak members within the congregation at will or external social/political problems at any time.
Moreover, he may stress repentance and sanctification in general ways, provided he remains
discreet and still comes across in a broadly orthodox manner. With this exception: we determine
the life lessons of orthodoxy. Such sweetheart deals, where every kind of right and wrong carries
undeniable appeal, we appreciate.
Case in point 120. “Sermons are by their nature superficial and so, too, are preachers and so,
too, are congregations. Let us not kid one another.” 453
2) We like a minister who has canny abilities to cajole, browbeat, and/or blackmail us until
we provide due adulation of the man. We want him to convince us that he is the best ever.
Whether he comes across as selfish is unimportant. Important is that such a spokesman for Christ
pretends to be on friendly terms with the Almighty and that he cares about us as none other can.
If we do not do as he says, he threatens to move on, with only ravenous wolves as replacements.
3) We like to be half-silly congregations who suddenly find that the man who left was the
best ever, and we look fondly back on the good, old days when we had a minister who basked in
our adulation. Even though this ‘fame’ lasted but a short time, the man who left for greener
pastures was a better match for the congregation than the present one; the present one is not quite
right for our congregation, that is, not as gifted in pulpit speech, not as smooth as the past
incumbent (or as a neighboring minister), and we feel betrayed. If the present minister will not
knuckle under to our congregational culture, he (and his family) will have a hard time until we
drum him out over a different kind of hurdle. We prefer men of God who like aggrandizement
and quietly encourage such admiration. It strokes our beautiful minds, personal reputations, and
simple faiths to have a ‘good’ man with guiding influence in the pulpit.
We mean by such silent conniving to smoothen out the road of sanctification, thereby to
counteract John the Baptizer’s assessment of the Christ, cf. John 3:30 – “He must increase, but I
must decrease.” We want to increase. We intensify futile attempts at magnifying our own status.
If that means eventually an infernal end for us, we willingly ignore – for now. For the
present, by pedestaling, we silently carry on an all-out offensive against the Judge of heaven and
earth as well as the word of the Lord. Undisturbed by the fact that this judgment begins in the
453
Gomes, Sermons, op. cit., p. 213.
184
Church by way of the word of the Lord, we insist that our pedestaled ministers disarm preaching
units.
False Balances
In order to maintain and shore up congregational cultures, we impose ingenuous balances of
different weights – with the odds of temporary success stacked in our favor.
Whatever our immediate motives for pedestaling, ministers in a position to escalate adulatory
standing in the worlds of our churches avoid preaching units that may compel us to believe ‘new’
and ‘old’ doctrines in sounder manner, such as covenant and predestination, Church and
Kingdom, Gospel and Law, etc. They certainly will not, whatever the biblical text, implicate
sin(s) of power groupings and leading personalities. If not that, to avoid trouble, they tilt sermons
in an approvable direction. Pedestals and those standing on them must remain untarnished, if
they are to be made higher. Therefore, a knowing ministerial teacher/author wrote – “So much of
our preaching is full of human trivialities which in the long run do not matter very much.” 454And
preaching trivialities means ministers refuse hard work to mine the Word.
Case in point 121, a synopsis of I John 4:7-21 and Lk. 16:19-31, in which the author/teacher
identifies with the rich man, sometimes called Dives, rather than with Lazarus.
“I. Situation: Like the rich man in the Gospel lesson, we are beset with pleas from Lazaruses
for help; but, again like the rich man, we wish they would go away, and we refuse to give, in
spite of the torment we feel when we refuse.
II. Complication: And what prevents us from giving as we should is a two-pronged fear: a
fear of guilt for giving wrongly and a fear that, if we give of our resources, we may become
Lazaruses ourselves.
III. Resolution: However, the Epistle lesson assures us of God’s perfect love for us, which
casts out fear: a love which forgives us and uses our gifts even though we give wrongly and a
love which cares for us, even when we become Lazaruses, and promises us this care into eternal
life: and, in the assurance of this love, we can face the Lazaruses and make decisions about
giving, free from fear.” 455
Because of missing the elemental qualities of the text, this minister fumbled the decisive
moment. Of course, Dives is not the main character. Of course, Christ did not give this parable to
say there are many Lazaruses. Of course, this parable is not about the fear of giving. As such,
this synopsis runs over with human trivialities and an underground economy – giving in the hope
of a substantial return. This anemic synopsis encases a false balance.
A corollary to conspiratorial weighing that adulates ministers comes from the fact that the
longer a man of Christ serves in a particular congregation, with a decades-spanning career, we
454
D.G. Miller, op. cit., p. 100.
Crum, op. cit., pp. 32f.
Geffrey B. Kelly and F. Burton Nelson, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Theological Interpretation of Scripture For the
Church,” in Ex Auditu, Vol. 17, 2001, pp. 1-30. Cf. p. 18 – “Being honest demands that they and their churches
reflect on their attitudes toward the Lazaruses of German society in 1932.”
455
185
tend to speak more about ‘his’ church. Once we squeeze this sort of toothpaste out, a minister
blows up a triviality into a fantasy creature, as if the congregation’s very existence, and even
salvation, depend upon him. He, like similarly flawed men, may want to be a great preacher,
adulated far and wide, yet consider reality. “We cannot speak of ‘great preachers’ as if the word
of a ‘great preacher’ were more valid than that of a unknown minister, and as if another sermon
were needed. ‘Great preachers’ existed only in the minds of pious people in the nineteenth
century.” 456 Such unconvincing stereotypes, pulpit giants, unfold outlets of ecclesial ills, robbing
Christ of his glory.
For illusory powers on respective pedestals, our elephantine ‘love’ covers a multitude of sins
with all due dangers of familiarity inspired by men enamored of the spotlight. “It is almost
blasphemous to say it, but the holiest things are not exempt from the law that familiarity breeds
contempt. At least if it does not breed contempt, it robs them as they grow familiar of awe and
rapture. This familiarity is one of the occupational diseases of the ministry, and a man must
guard against it like a sane miner guards against pneumonoconiosis.” 457 Cumulative dangers of
familiarity work against a pedestaled minister; he can hardly year after year muster new highs
when ‘his’ congregation becomes fidgety. The point here: familiarity with a minister may gum
up listening to the word of the Lord and thereby in the community of the lost suppress
sanctification.
Balancing acts of popularity, flattering to all around, dampen the transcendent powers of
Christ in the preaching, turning sermons, his words!, into statements of condemnation. Through
false balances comes pretentious mastery over the Word, which tampering is as erosive as any
mockery of ministers, if not more so, because of its sophistication and underground connivance.
Whether then tyranny of mockery or flummery of eulogy, we intend to protect the good names of
our churches, even our own positions and postures in the Faith, instead of the name of Christ, the
Head of the Church.
When we tolerate high flyers and megastars of pulpits to morph into lords of the flocks, cf.
Jer. 25:34ff., who then with hypocritical affairs hold sway over the people Christ entrusts to
them, or when we spitefully vilify men of the Lord, in either case the spoken word of the Lord
increasingly hardens hearts and corrupts faith. In both instances, we tighten the screws against
open communication. Though a religion of sorts, a religiosity, remains, earthiness of speakers as
well as of hearers stands in the way of preaching and marks the further falling away in the weak
prospects of the office of the congregation.
Slowly, we fail to come to grips with ever-shrinking components of the abused and perverted
office of the congregation, as well as its authenticity. Instead, we bring on lower days for the
Church. Borrowing from Jer. 2:13, we become cisterns unable to hold water.
456
Ritschl, op. cit., p. 18. Cf. p. 132 – “A true preacher will feel ashamed to be called a ‘great preacher.’ He will
learn to view in a new light even the smallest beginnings of life and faith in his Church.”
457
Sangster, Power in Preaching, op. cit., pp. 91ff.
186
TYRANNY AND EULOGY
Carrying on, especially relative to pedestaling, we, active in the calling of the Church, own a
God-mandated charge to guard against other explicit preaching dangers.
TYRANNY
Tyranny is: dictatorial abuse of authority.
A spit-in-the-wind minister, seeking a pedestal, may foist upon a congregation, or a group
among us, his own version of neolegalism. This is dominocracy, hardly a winning humility. He
takes advantage of a poor-in-the-Bible and thus vulnerable congregation until his parishioners as
servile sheep, obsessed by a control freak, follow him onto his uncompromising stomping
ground.
Servile Sheep
By inflicting us with his laws, a strong and conniving pulpit personality hits us in a slovenly
dead zone, our Arminian nature. Once he probes and captures our Arminian dreams, he rubs in
how sinful we are and how often we have to accept Jesus to earn a personal relationship with
him. Such a minister makes guilt hang thick and heavy over congregational heads and thus with
base competence, often with surprising and overwhelming success, abuses all whom the Christ
entrusts to his shepherding.
When such guilt preaching perpetuates habitual Sunday upon Sunday ministry at the cost of
long-standing thematic considerations crucial to the Word, these fast-talking wannabe lords of
the pulpit, towering figures frequently, manifest dominocracy. They then pillory our faith and
life in Christ Jesus by execrating our imperfections in order to magnify and protect their own
interests. If we in our office of the congregation submit, demagoguery stalks us as a fearsome
swamp gas. And in the final analysis, Christ holds each of us accountable for any damage to his
church as inflicted by tyrannical overlords. We permitted decay of liberty in the congregation.
Simultaneously, the Lord himself holds each pulpit tyrant fully accountable and we do well
to acknowledge one of his forewarnings. Cf. Is. 10:1ff. –
“Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression,
to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!
What will you do on the day of punishment, in the storm which will come from afar?
To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth?”
To leave tyrants in pulpits scoring points for personal ambitions reflects little love for the
Christ and his church, nor does it show much concern for the Faith, and even less for neighbor
love. We may hold ourselves aloof from the festering problem, stick to our knitting, and let such
men ride roughshod over Christ’s congregations, but the unbearable damage they deposit reaches
unfathomable depths, affecting even third and fourth generations after us.
187
Church life under revved-up dominocracy consists of difficult to conceal brokenness and
pain. Therefore Apostle Peter warned against the use of human force, the search for shameful
gain, and domineering in the ministry, cf. I Pet. 5:1ff. Such high-cholesterol tyranny leaves
troubled waves of misery encompassing many beyond the walls of a congregation by giving the
Church a bad name. “And woe to the world when an orator gains great skill in use of techniques,
but has no constructive message to convey. It is inevitable that he should become a dictator or a
demigod, enticing multitudes toward emptiness or destruction like a modern Pied Piper.” 458
Ministers-out-for-themselves with a personally issued mandate, or mission statement, even if
they are uber-geniuses, may bluster and threaten, cajole and wrangle, to maintain unimpeded
domination over those whom Christ wills they shepherd; they may paint a grim picture if we do
not follow sheepishly and drive us into blank staring evidence of altered consciousness, but they
work contrary to the qualifications for office bearing given in I Tim. 3:1ff. and Titus 1:5ff.
Under the guise of ministry, but without the victory of the Gospel, dominocrats imply, if not
state outright, that we with open-eyed determination work out our own salvation according to
Arminian fashion. The allusion then, for instance, is to Phil. 2:12f., a passage taken out of
context. To fill inevitable tendencies toward emptiness of soul, we want to trust a dictatorial
minister more. “There is indeed an inclination to prefer an authoritarian preacher to an
authoritative preacher. This is a quite natural and very honest reaction to the world, which
frequently knows more honesty than the Church; for the world wants to have proof and
guarantee for the witness of the herald …. It wants to hear preachers who know how to persuade
people; preachers who are masters at minimizing the skandalon of the challenging Word of God;
preachers who make it easier to become Christians.” 459 Such authoritarian ministry, however,
blocks out the mighty works of Jesus Christ with auras of Arminian conditionality rather than the
totality of the Gospel. These tyrants, enforcing the final word on faith and life, inflict us with
works righteousness, to which all church members are extremely susceptible.
Conditionality is: Christ will have us only on the condition of native faith, good works,
and/or right connections.
Congregations enthralled by false rulers given to pharisaical dominocracy incapacitate grace
and gratitude. For such bossy men, masquerading as Christ’s heralds, lock us into any
ideological box to which they hold the key. They enforce unjust economic, political, racial, and
gender power relations with use of (verbal) violence to maintain them. What they lack in
arresting originality (straightforward exegesis), they make up by superimposing themselves over
Christ Jesus, who then becomes a secondary and lackluster figure, a titular head. We in
submission to false ideas and falsified ministry also collude in detracting from Christ’s glory.
Case in point 121. “Just the knowledge that wherever the Church has sought to retain its
privilege and power and sometimes spiritual tyranny over man that is worse than modern brainwashing, wherever Christians have been on the side of the oppressors and not the oppressed,
then we have erred, and we have nothing of which to boast.” 460
458
Garrison, op. cit., pp. 20f.
Ritschl, op. cit., p. 62.
460
Paul Oestreicher, “No Iron Curtain,” in Montefiore, op. cit., p. 280.
459
188
False Rulers
A second error relative to tyranny: maddeningly provincial religious authorities as Sadducees
seeking dominance through clericalism to oppose the Word of God. Thereby they also collapse
the office of the congregation, which Jesus Christ entrusts to us. Pretending to take the high road,
they lead us down the low road.
Clericalism is: servile support for clergy in political, ecclesiastical, and social issues to curry
favor and/or gain salvation.
These false rulers with our support define answers to dominant social, political, and
ecclesiastical questions – to some ideological program, feminism, for instance, or liberalism, or
interfaith unity; they do this purportedly to escape hulking dangers of irrelevancy.
Through clericalism, ministers form a super fraternity, copying the spirit if not the fetters of
Roman Catholic ecclesiastical structure. They divide the body of Christ into the teaching church
and the listening church, and foist convictions on us in order that we, servile sheep, must follow
them exclusively in doctrines, politics, as well as social visions, if we want salvation and/or their
attention. With whatever long shot effects this may have, these Sadducean-motivated clergy sap
(assurance of) salvation, pervert the nature of Christ’s church, and misdirect the coming of the
Kingdom in each generation. What we have to teach these Sadduceans among Christ’s wrangling
spokesmen is, cf. Ps. 84:10, that spry door keeping in the house of God exceeds all unseemly
penchants for dominocracy by far.
As patronizing Sadduceans controlled the Jerusalem temple and influenced religious, social,
political, and cultural identities for the people of the Lord, this old obsession became therein
tremendously powerful. All who submit to clericalism help and join these ministers by falling
with them into the bad habits of dominocracy out of which the 16th-century Reformation brought
rescue. We then gain ground in downplaying the significance of sound preaching as well as the
holiness of the Church for the sake of protecting and promoting low-ceiling institutional fictions.
In succumbing to powerful attractions of clericalism with its multitudes of harassing details
(for we allow others to think and act in our behalf, contrary to the contemplative mind of I Cor.
2:16), we seek a harvest on stony ground and pay in eternity the bulk of the price for this error.
Jesus Christ holds us individually and congregationally – as we slide into total torpor –
responsible for all woe done in and to his church.
Both errors, then, dominocracy and clericalism, immerse us among suicidal currents – with
loss of the spontaneity of the Faith.
EULOGY
In a variation of dominocracy, ministers, rather than tyrannize respective congregations
outright, resort to eulogy, therewith to dominate. For that reason, they preach man-centered
sermons, orientating the Word to human capabilities and expectations. They, then, to control,
skew Scriptures in diverse ways, each with its point of vulnerability.
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Eulogy is: undue praise, commendation, homage – with which to control congregations.
Honeyed Tongues
A first vulnerability. A eulogizer refuses to preach difficult doctrines drawn from Scriptures
and concentrates on easy-to-absorb themes – platitudes of God’s exclusive love for ‘his’
congregation, the ’comfort’ of his gospel, the ‘wealth’ of his ministry, the ‘certainty’ of heaven,
each directed away from pains of sanctification. Therewith he refuses to warn against errors in
doctrine and forces of secularization operative within ‘his’ congregation, above all not against
apocalyptic pressures, lest congregational angst turn against him. “We are not sure that our
clergy know where we are, much less where we ought to be, so how can they be expected to
know what they should be doing?” 461 Misunderstanding love, he joy rides about within
contentious issues of doctrine and life, particularly on the serrated edge of sin. Great biblical
teachings and congregational iniquities tend to be vinegary subjects, best capped or cushioned,
so that praise continuous to flow from pulpit men onto Pollyanna-land.
Under the guise of the Word and with a celebrity sense of office, these hirelings imply, if not
state outright, that their congregations consist of good souls. The goodness then consists of
native abilities to love each other, and the Lord too, apart from the Gospel and the Law. Tying it
all together, such off-kilter ministers exude (old) humanistic optimism. This comes out in some
slippery logic and sagging rules of exegesis. “Some people think the sanctified life is one in
which a person never errs; but when we seek God’s grace to live a holy life, we know that’s not
so.” 462 In contrast to this grace, however, and to the plain teachings of the Word shilly-shallying
sorts of hirelings let on, which we, middling listeners, too easily swallow, that whatever remains
wrong with the Church is of little moment; they will take care of the little problems, with a
smidgen of our cooperation. Tricky fellows, these sweet talkers. Buttery smooth, such
mountebanks - to pleasure us.
The ‘positive’ voice of eulogy barreled ahead under the huge impact of the Fosdicks, Peales,
Schullers, and the need for relatively peaceful congregations. With powers of psychologism,
these firebrands with numerous copycats strewed about ‘good feelings’ upon those whom Christ
entrusted to their ministry – allegedly God loves all and now all ought to love one another, that
is, tolerate every one without quarreling about the facts of the Word. In this unimaginative
atmospheric expectancy of temporal balm, racy with artificial sweeteners, they speak contrary to
the Bible, even oppose the Law. They lack every vision to achieve perfection on the way beyond
the narrow gate. These contrarians-in-the-pulpit decompose signature doctrines necessary for the
spoken word into words of man; their oral inflation contradicts and neutralizes the clarity and
truth of Scriptures. In fact, they downgrade the word of the Lord as well as the office of the
ministry – to pleasure us.
461
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 114.
Ritschl, op. cit., p. 62 – “The preacher cannot want to be understood as a genius in communication, presentation,
and application of the Gospel. He would be fighting against his own calling, should he desire to reach perfection in
these techniques. Time and again he will be tempted to concentrate on technique, and he will buy books which bear
ambiguous and promising titles because he seems to feel that the people in the church want him to be an eloquent
genius in interpretation and presentation.”
462
Dennis F. Kinlaw, Preaching In the Spirit: A Pastor Looks For Something That Human Energy Alone Cannot
Provide (Grand Rapids: Zondervan/Francis Ashbury, 1985), p. 46.
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Since World War II, tendencies to psychologize the Word abound in full tilt, glamorizing
experiences of feeling good in terms of humanitarian and communitarian self-esteem, self-worth,
and personal achievement. The achingly spurious Fosdick-regime lives on to turn us into goldmedal award winning congregations - to pleasure us.
Case in point 122. “… faith is tonic; the results which follow a change of heart from fear to
faith are miraculous; spiritual dwarfs grow to giants and achieve successes that before would
have been unbelievable. No verse in Scripture has behind it a greater mass of verifiable
experience than ‘This is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith’ (I John
5:4).” 463
Case in point 123. “Every person, if he is to have mental health and live successfully, must
move away from past failures and mistakes and go forward without letting them be a weight
upon him.
The art of forgetting is absolutely necessary. Every night when you lie down to sleep practice
dropping the day into the past. It is over, finished. Look confidently to the future with God.” 464
Case in point 124. “I learned, once more, how you move a mountain – one truckload at a
time. I learned how you take a big rock and turn it into a work of art – one chip at a time. I was
reminded again of what faith is all about. We chip and we chisel at life’s challenges with
confidence and hope until beauty emerges.
Dear God, thank You for giving me this faith. I will chisel away at my challenges one chunk
at a time.” 465
Any psychologizing of the Word carves out catastrophic emptiness within; at the same time,
its lack of biblical direction promises beyond irony a peace unfillable as bottomless pits and
unfindable as lotus lands.
In the final analysis, however, does Christ care much about our personal feelings of success,
worth, and esteem, except to make these also submissive to the Word? Basically, what the Father
through the Mediator and Redeemer thinks of us as members of the Church only counts.
Populist honeyed-tongues in the pulpit voice auras of perfectibility, if only we have more
faith, if only we try harder, if only we reach deeper into ourselves, if only we listen to them more
intensely, if only …. This is as tedious and empty and tiring and offensive as waiting in line.
Regardless of personal and congregational iniquities, sweet talkers remain ironically irenic,
‘comforting,’ appreciative of the many blessings of love. Such massaging les any congregation
onto ideological broad ways to which eulogists alone possess the map; and, despite, any
lingering unease, we own them allegiance shall we attain the fleeting destinies they appoint.
When pulpit eulogizers on vulnerable wavelengths ease us along strangely broad ways – in
the Church of all places – they tyrannize as all dominocrats.
463
Fosdick, The Meaning of Faith, op. cit., p. 179.
Peale, Inspiring Messages for Daily Living, op. cit., p. 40.
465
Robert H. Schuller, Toughminded Faith for Tenderhearted People (New York: Bantam, 1983/84), p. 136.
464
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Shifting Demographics
A second vulnerability. Further advocacy for eulogy oozes out of painfully growing
ministerial awareness that, field-tested, in the worldwide scheme of things, Christianity counts
for little.
1) Spokesmen for Christ in the plain inertia of successive congregations find the work pales
and tires after a while; the more ‘ambitious’ initiate escape patterns by schmoozing with the right
sort of people, by adapting to party lines, and by developing ‘good’ reputations. The latter they
work away at by less concentration on doctrine, particularly the one of sin. Out of adulating the
possibilities of the men and women in the pew, with a large measure of tolerance, hopefully a
career among para-church, denominational, or academic movers and shakers may open up. To
attain work outside the parish ministry, eulogizing prepares the way.
Academic-like critics often belittle Christianity – as another vapid form of organized
religion. In such disparagement, the ministry of the Word itself gains the musty smells of an old
building. As a result, in the Western world at least, few, perhaps a small minority, pay attention
to Christ’s spokesmen, except when scandals erupt. In this revolutionary time of aggressive
public power, negation of Christianity carries on, with fewer yet listening intensively to the
Church’s ‘worship leaders.’ Then for ministers a discouragement takes over, little faith.
As masses in demographic shifts push the Church and therewith the ministry of the Word
aside, many ministers after years and decades of pulpit work, which they come to perceive as an
anemic life, face the realization that this wear and tear is for the rest of their lives, and become
despondent, something like a mid-life crisis. One way out, to achieve higher personal profiles, if
possible, consists of climbing hierarchical ladders, usually in a bureaucratic head office setting or
in a para-church organization. This they attempt by regularly brown-nosing and sweet-talking –
to help escape from parish ministry.
2) In massive demographic shifts, as religions of man impinge upon each other
geographically and coalesce, wanting to drag also the Church into the void, spokesmen for Jesus
Christ find it more necessary to move along with trendy sloganeering to get noticed: God’s love
for all and brotherhood among men of goodwill. There lives all around little interest for the
sanctification of the Church and much more for a comfortingly predictable tranquility stemming
from racial, social, and economic stability. As the social decline in faithfulness looms imposingly
heavier, it seems so futile, even abrasively counterproductive, to preach in Christ’s name the
doctrine and life revealed in Scripture. For clergy to gain high(er) profiles by helping as much as
possible to stabilize world politics and promote global peace through interfaith super agencies
and ecumenical think tanks gains traction of soul everywhere. Besides, for a promotion to work
in a denominational hierarchy or ecumenical super agency, one may not be perceived as
negative, by speaking much about sin; only eulogizing that promotes the good of man ought to
be proclaimed and praised. Though this stifles and shrinks the realm of ministry and the coming
of the Kingdom, it makes gains by self-serving eulogy.
3) The last and great missionary confrontation with the religions of man occurred in the 19th
century, floating and carrying the Word across oceans and continents. But now, adherents of the
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religions of this world move into the heartlands of Christianity, imposing the impression of
fundamental shifts in reality. These shifts make defining the doctrine and life in Christ more
difficult, seemingly impossible, if not impractical. In order to get along, it is perceived better to
speak well of all people from a multicultural perspective and pursue a relativistic, ecumenizing
dream. These shifting priorities make a great platform for clergymen to receive accolades of
men, therewith raising personal profiles in order to gain ‘ministerial’ employment away from the
parish ministry.
At least until World War II, the Church across North America and thus the preaching
‘enjoyed’ an established respect, cherished memories tell us. Now, with the passing of decades
and in the increasing revolutionary fervor of the times, hugely interactive demographics with a
slew of novel situations threaten the Church’s sense of primacy – religiously, culturally, and
socially. Ministers and congregations easily then succumb to moving into multicultural
acceptance of parity, with sweeping declarations that all move along different paths towards the
same goal. Whatever kind of eulogy, on love or unity, clergy minimize living doctrines to less
than bare bones, and sin receives a man-centered, psychological and/or sociological orientation,
as weakness or as blame. It is the way for ministers who seek a final rest in paternalistic
bureaucracies, conferences, councils, and committees to engage in the primary production of a
life far distant from difficult congregations and parishes.
As now Kingdom Halls, Mormon Stakes, Hindu Ashrama, Islamic Mosques, yoga clubs, and
polyglot Faith Centers dot maps and proliferate where once, a short life time ago, stood only
church buildings, and make for a radically unfamiliar ground cover, Christianity must fight for
Lebensraum – by statutes and directives of revolutionary efforts; by eulogizing complex
multicultural religions and gods, it seems, rather than by promoting missionary incentives in
immediate neighborhoods, one gets ahead.
Rough Priorities
4) True, huge and daunting, even menacing social, economic, political, and technological
revolutions haunt this wee planet now. We are caught up in urban, industrial, ecological, and
murky human complexities, to say nothing yet of the religious and moral. Many ordeals to which
all human beings contribute, especial in eras of rapid changes and unprecedented revolutionary
shifts, hinder reforming the Church for the coming of the Kingdom within each generation. In
the quandaries of these times, then, eulogizing people for all sorts of activism seems to take
priority, even if this requires trivializing mighty biblical doctrines.
Trend-spotting ministers who catch the public mood of dissonance join the cause of religious
activism; they eulogize all religions – together we must overcome racial, economic, political, and
above all, religious barriers, to prepare for a more humane and gentler existence throughout the
third millennium. This head-over-heels activism (before its too late!) resembles somewhat the
Social Gospel of the late 19th-century, but modified, reinvented, without working for the
Kingdom. By including all religions, human blueprints for achievement in this gigantic effort
catch great encomia.
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Ministers of the Word who succumb through our overbearing pressures to help with this
shifting power crunch reinvent themselves; they encourage forms of practical atheism, or
panentheism, to ignore the transcendentality of the Trinity and pedestal religious activism in the
fields of an alleged new world order.
Congregations enveloped in the public moods of activist hope and despair encourage clergy
with more practical atheism and panentheism. At the same time, they still want ministers to
invoke the Name – to keep old and new in balance. On the other hand, they want praise to go to
all who invent, or reprocess, fabricated programs and rules for life (international human rights
for now) according to whatever ideas and notions and principles that fan the greatest good for the
largest number of people. In fact, we will eulogize men on pulpit heights who promise a utopian
heaven on earth, and do better than the King of kings, and the Lord of lords to wipe out all
problems.
When disingenuous spokesmen for Christ, individually and collectively, become our prized
mouth pieces for more contemporary revolutions to solve man-made problems, all praise must go
to those who do something, anything, to bring peace and unity worldwide. Then sin against the
Lord God seems less daring, even chic and classy. Besides, denunciation of sins of ecology and
economy and technology seem safer targets than failures at sanctification – without realizing that
extinction of species, pollution of water, air, and soil, warmongering, even workplace stress and
social loneliness derive from our uncomprehending revolutions against the Lord Jesus Christ. It
may even be hugely popular and convenient to trivialize or thrash scriptural doctrines and
commandments on our pulpits while activist works for a unified world receive praise, but the
results plod along accordingly: more revolutions.
These are strangely stirring times, with still more unformulated and rough priorities of the
Faith in the making, waiting on the sidelines, until all admiration goes wrong.
5) Dallying momentarily with these massively strange doings: the Church rebelliously
reopened cooperation with the world, entering the rights revolution started by John Locke (16321704). These allegedly natural rights represent no more than diversionary tactics in a reshuffling
phase of history. 466 In this time segment, man at the center of attention requires, demands more
praise, it seems, than ever.
Though these historically underfoot stirrings appeal to brilliantly imaginative powers, they
remain utterly at odds, incomprehensively, with respect to the Christ’s international purpose. As
praise-vacuuming man-centeredness evolves, unbelievers in the Church insist that spiritual
advisers also follow ways of least resistance. Thus, drawn into public moods and cultures, they
too cultivate honors for people. In this turmoil of the ages, the old P.P. question 467 pops up,
466
Pro-active rights activist Michael Ignatieff, cf. The Rights Revolution (Toronto: Anansi Press, 2000), p. 92,
admitted: “There is little doubt that the rights revolution of the 1960s is the product of the most sustained period of
affluence in the history of the developed world. The old virtues, the old limits, lost their legitimacy. The new virtues
– self-cultivation, self-indulgence, self-development – acquired the force of moral imperatives. This is the context
that explains why the old moral economy of self-denial began to lose not only its economic rationale but its moral
dignity as well.”
467
Cf. John 19:38.
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legitimizing postmodernism. The question is wholly sarcastic and, at the same time, typically and
perennially pagan.
6) During the 20th-21st century rollover of harsh confrontations - religious, economic, racial,
terrorist – many revolutionary forms of faith and life remain no longer ‘incarcerated’ within
ancient landmasses (Islam in the Middle East, Hinduism and Buddhism in the Orient, animism
and shamanism in Africa, etc.) With easy access to Western worlds through massive
demographic changes, an alien-to-the-present, broad-based discontent comes, which for now
fails even futuristic imaginations.
In this pulling and shoving of demographic and therewith religious destabilization, the office
of the congregation necessarily climbs into more significance – to its high status in the Church.
By prayer, encouragement, and admonition, based on sound exegetical understanding of
Scripture, we persuade all ministers consciously and exclusively to hold to the Word for the
works of proclamation and teaching. It is important always to acknowledge in the Church that
Christ Jesus, and through him the Father, receive all glory and praise. Despite roiling
demographic changes of deadly difficulties in out-of-joint times, we confess that the Church has
a different history and future than the world; only by recognizing this difference are we the light
of the world – the glory of the Father in Jesus Christ.
Simultaneously, our congregational officers, elders, stand as the first ready at all times to
encourage ministers to interpret and apply the insistent doctrines of the Word, or admonish those
of Christ who bypass and/or spurn these in order to stockpile eulogy for private benefit. We may
avoid spearheading condemnation of error, but Christ stokes the eternal fires for all officers and
members of the Church who fail at this primary responsibility. If we allow ministers to speak
contrary to the Word and if we permit the officers of the Church to be spasmodically slack in
respective duties, we too stand guilty before God the Father and each other for abusing Scripture,
the preaching, congregations, etc., as we assist in misdirecting praise.
Secular eulogy in every form, also its encouragement, exposes sycophants who seek to win
favor and/or advantage by flattery. In short, sycophants are servile egoists, more charming than
convincing, yet terribly destructive to the word of the Lord. All eulogists, supporters and
purveyors, want ‘contemporary’ preaching, thus joining with the religions of man, a process that
destroys the Church in order to get stuck in some sort of kingdom on earth.
So far, as a preliminary conclusion, one may say: in the office of the congregation less than
wise members of the Church trust ministers overmuch. These men too are prone to tyranny and
eulogy. Ministers who succumb to either fluency represent themselves and the liar from the
beginning; they are damaged goods, in obvious conflict with the Word. 468 In this respect, will the
third millennium be better than the last? The constant ticking of the clock will end for many,
when their faith-journeys stop, to exposure in the eternal fires.
As much as office bearers, ministers in particular, require our respect on account of their
calling, 469 nevertheless the I John 4:1 and I Thes. 5:21 pressures remain in effect – test the
468
Cf. I Tim. 5:20 – “As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in
fear.”
469
Cf. Phil. 2:29; I Tim. 5:17.
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spirits, also when unpleasant possibilities raise ugly heads. This rule begins anew every First Day
by evaluating the word of the Lord. We, average mortals, listen to sound preaching by
responsible-to-Christ ministers. Some marks appropriate to intriguing ministers Paul listed in II
Tim. 1:3-2:13, to wit – courage, willingness to suffer, headship, steadfastness, etc. Because of
these ministerial character traits, in Christ’s church we never remain passive in the face of
tyranny or eulogy. We dare not.
DEREGULATION AND DIVISION
During literally thousands of years sin was regulated and controlled by the Word, particularly
the Decalogue, or, through a more benign natural law system. However, when and where laidback people of the Lord call the Law in question, deregulation of the Commandments follows,
with severe implications and shared experiences for preaching – nowadays in terms of
unauthorized linkages to human rights classifications, for instance. With failure of the Faith, we
adapt the Law to rogue religious ideas by removing it from its scriptural/covenantal moorings.
Such deregulation bore down repeatedly on the Commandments, spreading havoc. Witness only
the history of the Old Testament post-Sinai Church and her adaptation to Baal-type legal
systems.
DEREGULATION
For preaching, the Word clearly defines the Law, thora in the Old Testament. However, a
belated discovery of human rights introduced another wildcard paradigm in the Church. The
terrifying beauties of human rights induce selfish emphases on toleration, self-assertion, and selfesteem – my rights, i.e., for what seems tolerated in confined and claustrophobic spaces of maninduced hopes. Every such iconoclastic seduction peculiar to this period appears more than a tad
quarrelsome before Christ Jesus.
Major Changes
Present devastatingly rapid changes consist of cultural revolutions. This restless anarchy,
however much it pulls at heartstrings, hardly establishes solid ground for the stability of the
Church. It is rather the context in which church people with disdainful ears exchange the rule of
gratitude for a mess of pottage, setting off the hard-won experience with a false choice in which
long ago Esau indulged. Cf. Heb. 12:15ff./Gen. 25:29ff.
Ministers, also unmistakably bred-in-the-bone conservatives, find they have to adapt the
Church to the world – going along to get along as the safer way. “The seminaries have produced
clergy who are agents of modernity, experts in the art of adaptation to the cultural status quo,
enlightened facilitators whose years of education have trained them to enable believers to detach
themselves from the insight, habits, stories, and structures that make the church the church.” 470 A
blasphemous task. Rather, the world ought to concede defeat to the reign of Jesus Christ, and
follow the Church leading the way through the narrow gate.
As again a different world emerges, now shaped and fashioned on the high altar of human
rights, ministers ape the secular processes of the times and cause deregulation of the Law among
470
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 116.
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the people of the Lord. However, they apparently fail to notice that this ‘latest’ peace with
secular values too will pass away into the mainstream of final decay.
1) In the meantime, with our support, wildly soaring human rights offer a point-of-contact
with secular preoccupations under the guise of: we are an agile generation keeping our place in
the sunlight of this world. By way of human rights and all that this humanism/secularism
presupposes, law becomes deregulated in the Church. Based on a slippery slope and without
losing nerve, all of Christ may now ‘officially’ decide for him/herself that which legitimates
human existence, makes stripped-down life meaningful, and establishes unthreatening personal
values as well as security – my rights against those of all others. Emergence of the human rights
landscape snakes into continuous turmoil of sin.
Adoption of human rights legislation imposes upon the Church a legal invention and
ideological adaptation out of a world chronically at war against the regnant Christ’s
unimpeachable reign; at the Father’s right hand and for the sake of his own, he rules heaven and
earth. With combative friction, scrabbling deregulators seek to meld the Church into the
lackluster religions of man by, for instance, talks and conferences on freedom of thought,
conscience, and religion. Therein, the deregulation of the divine law may for now raise a defiant
fist against the decay and death of this world. Alternatively, it may mean only preservation of
sad-sack middle class secularity, insularity, values, and autonomy. However, in the Church this
revolutionary mentality and its consequent life stand out as sinning with a high hand, regimechanging defiance against truth and unity in Jesus Christ, contrary to the essence and goal of
Christianity. Moreover, introduction of human rights for emancipation from the Lord brings
about fatal lopsidedness in the quiet strength of gratitude. For obviously, in the establishment and
practice of human rights, man legislates, fostering an obscene parody of the Law.
In this allegedly freeing construction of meaning, the dynamic presence of man (collectively,
but usually by a paternalizing few who think they dominate and thereby establish the pecking
order) determines a cruel doctrine of self-sufficiency. Based on human rights, now biting
pronouncements of condemnation fall heavily on all infractions of intolerance, which lately
perceived iniquity now soaks into the Church. Cold winter storms of language rights, marriage
rights, family rights, ecological rights, animal rights, political rights, civil rights, individual
rights, sexual rights, etc., slam about our ears, pitting all against all with disturbing thought
patterns.
Now, through exegetical preaching of the Law, we too quickly spit out – “Intolerance!” This
narrow self-interested reaction, work and result of the major changes secularists induced; these
sorry supplicants of but another supposedly open-minded world power face their own problems.
Cf. Rev. 18:9ff. As death throes of human rights emerge and multiply, more stressors against
reformation build up, buying into stronger desires of the flesh and efforts at false unity.
Through codifications of human rights, each member of Christ may select from
smorgasbords of man-made doctrines and life options according to personal tastes and pragmatic
interests. But for ministers through preaching based on the Word to call into question
homebrewed human rights concoctions induces warring charges of intolerance, for in this ‘newer
and gentler’ world true is false and false is true, however gapingly unbiblical these sins may be.
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When multiple congregations trade in the Law for human rights, they dig down deeper into
postmodern worlds of relativism – contrary to the testimony that Jesus Christ alone through the
sound preaching of the Commandments reveals right and wrong living. However, if advocates
for an alien legal system fail to make Jesus Christ also a ‘new’ postmodern world citizen, they
cut contact with him in favor of discordant voices of man for more confusion - some
congregations uphold the Law, others various rights revolutions. The latter provides an illusion
of freedom from injustices by way of rights legislation produced by the ice machines of
humanism/secularism, which unhinges bitterness and more perplexity in the Church. For no two
opposing legal systems may operate in the Church.
Introduction of human rights has brought about major changes and relativistic ways of life in
the Church; these stoke up unfulfillable freedom dreams and goals. In the deregulated wilderness
of postmodernity and New Age religious preoccupations, the orthodoxy of the Faith obviously
clashes with resultant notions that sin is a four-letter word. “After all, most of us professing
Christians, from the liberals to the fundamentalists, remain practical atheists in most of our lives.
This is so because even we think the church is sustained by the ‘services’ it provides or the
amount of ‘fellowship’ and ‘good feeling’ in the congregation.” 471 However, as deforming
changes multiply, without ever settling down, many in the Church believe that they themselves
may determine right and wrong. It is the distracting spirit of the times digging down deeper
among Christ’s people.
Broken Commandments
Even suggesting that Jesus Christ and the Father since the beginning and forever alone own
sole authority to reveal how all of the Church ought to believe and live in gratitude unfolds a
dangerous practice. Yet, this remains true for every time and place: the Son of man judges all
people, beginning in the Church, relative to the Law. Stubborn, silent protests and street
demonstrations to the contrary, many permissively condone and engage in breaking the
Commandments to determine for themselves the rules by which to live and love, redoubling
inappropriate behavior. Among such defiant lawbreakers, Christ’s spokesmen who dismantle and
disrupt the Law in favor of human rights move about as welcome speakers. So the dead speak to
the dead.
Because of ethical and legal deregulatory currents of death, which emanate so reasonably and
persuasively from pagan lips (via television screens and computer monitors for a flat-earth
culture), derangement of the Law makes more serious inroads in the Church: easily and
unquestioningly even ministers of the Word adopt post-Christian language and ideology of
human rights, plus its relativism and allegedly deep thoughts. As jargon consumes the languages
of Scriptures, with a diabolical twist we participate in removing the Word from the Church and
the Church from the Word.
2) Another way of doing this comes from the advancement of antinomian presuppositions,
which invariably result in ‘new’ laws of activism. Through this activism, which circumvents the
Law of the covenant, the Decalogue, new priorities are forced into place – rules against
substance abuse, rules for substance abuse, against abortion on demand, for abortion on demand,
471
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 120.
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against wastage of the environment, against euthanasia, for euthanasia, against incest, for
pederasty, against pornography, for eroticism, against family violence, for divorce, against
globalism, for transnational corporate business, against racism, against ecological destruction, for
urban expansion, etc. Tall fences, indeed. But if ministers of the Lord proclaim the whole
counsel of God, these and other sins already come to the fore, always in the proper covenant
environment. Antinomians, however, concoct divisive laws, conveniently submissive to
currently reigning ideologies expressive of human regulations. The polarizing stimulus of
activism, however, produces only different fissile materials of legalism.
We, the people of the pew, whom Christ calls the guardians of the Word, must be on the
alert against any and every recodification of the Law, each an incontinent legalism. Ministers are
prone as much as we, to aberrant ways, such as conformity to any swirling about ideology. Men
of Christ too find it difficult to oppose the world’s majority. The danger is: if ministers exegete
and apply the Law in terms of human rights or activism, thereby deregulating the Decalogue,
many in each congregation of the Lord unquestioningly follow such shepherds of the flock. Into
the far and dark depths of Tartarus. Cf. II Pet. 2:4.
One may take the sheep analogy too far and make of us a collection of helpless morons. We
keep abuse of this sheep analogy at bay by gainfully exercising with wise effort the calling of the
congregation.
In Christ, we ensure sound regulation of the Law: our ministers must declare that all in Christ
walk in the new life according to the way revealed most poignantly first through Moses, the Law
governing the Church’s gratitude forever also in the new heavens and earth. Simultaneously, we
own binding responsibility to move ministers to declare to all who blithely walk, or run, in the
ways of the world, obsessed by human rights, activism, or hypocritically hold to the Law, that
they face eternity in the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, in the outer darkness. Unless
they repent and make real amendment in the here and now.
Taking the office of the congregation seriously means we soon connect to a conundrum: to
criticize legitimately a minister, one greedy for activism and/or for proliferation of human rights
to shape our doctrine and life, earns us the label of troublemaker. In the Church, opposition to
errant streams of preaching many will denounce as divisive, unduly critical, unkind, even
hateful. However strong the sheep analogy in Scripture to follow shepherds of the flock, it breaks
the moment ministers summon us to believe and live contrary to the Commandments.
As the form of this world passes away, cf. I Cor. 7:31p, its modes of dying and its death
throes drag many down into fiery condemnation, especially when ministers of Christ adopt and
preach its precepts. “Perhaps we forget, in a time of tame churches, toned down preachers, and
accommodationist prophets, that there was a time when the church believed that though there
was nothing in Jesus we needed to kill for, there was something here worth fighting for, dying
for.” 472 Therefore, according to the holy calling of the Church, all of us harness sober alertness
and sharp discernment to the vital task of opposing oratory; its relativistic, discordant, and deadly
consequence, regardless of personal costs, must depart from Christ Jesus’ premises. Persecution
in never as bad at the end as at the beginning.
472
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 148.
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DIVISION
In a passing away world, private preferences and pragmatic efforts dominate – each person
seeks to save him/herself. As epoxies of society and bonds of secularity give way, more divisions
erupt in the Church also. Among Christ’s people, who commit themselves to world unity based
on activism and human rights, rifts and breaks occur. As the Church follows the world instead of
her Head, we want fraudulent immigration visas for an alien country, following the prodigal son
into far away, only never return.
Sharp Noses.
Throughout the increased uncertainties of the present age, relativism does church invasion
and lends credence to more disunity where Christ Jesus wills only exclusive oneness of his body.
Because relativism pleases silent revolutions, we require functional noses to smell out this most
devastating force in the Church. If we allow ministers of the Word to exercise all too human
biases and preach only what we like to hear, then, as we sit back to listen, they carve up the word
like a turkey, giving in to our exceeding low expectations regarding the take-home value of the
word of the Lord.
Playing it safe, a minister soon ‘smells’ a congregation’s wants and preferences. If we in
conformity with this self-aggrandizing world want relativistic God-always-loves-you-for-whoyou-are types of preaching, human rights, activism, and even shadow boxing, then we get on our
plates what we want – Sunday after Sunday. Eventually, we arrive fashionably unprepared for
the wedding feast; then, at the door, mortally offended, we swallow the bitter pill of final
rejection. Cf. Mt. 22:1ff., 25:1ff.
Christ’s self-effacing spokesmen who legitimately (dare) contradict dominant trends of
congregational preferences and tastes constitute a precious lot. Such ministers lead churches into
legitimate division for reformation. “The proclamation of the message of salvation involves
separation and division. Cf. II Cor. 2:15f. –
“For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being
saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from
death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.”
To some it is deliverance, for others judgment.” 473 Such separation marks wholesome
preaching. Other ways of speaking the word of the Lord escalate into the ‘peace’ of personal
salvation, fear of losing a new generation, unity of the Church, jockeying for power, security, the
pedestal status of ministers, etc. – superficiality, hypocrisy. Essentially, these lame excuses
against preaching the whole counsel of God, inclusive the Law, cover up intentional holes in
exegesis, lusts of pride, and lures of the world.
As much as we exert sharp noses to detect lame excuses that cover up ministerial disloyalty
to the Word, we mind that clergymen have sharper; they sense trends, preferences, and
ideological pheromones before these consciously and comfortably settle in our pews – in order to
473
Kittel, op. cit., p. 711.
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adjust proclamation of the Word accordingly; they will serve up a smorgasbord range of
possibilities to satisfy our intake of secularizing stimulants. Again, however, Christ calls his own
to invoke the office of the congregation, lest a special-interests minority or a powerful majority
in collusion with the minister take over and install a heresy like inclusivism on the pulpit in order
to divide the congregation from him.
Due to influences as inclusivism, divisions break forth, for few agree on what misleads in
such laws. Thus, all sorts divisions may mushroom in the Church. Worse, as deregulation of the
Commandments takes hold, division between Christ and his people, 474 between ministers and
congregations, among members of a congregation, and between congregations and
congregations, reflect the jittery divisions of the world. Unless all gatekeepers and guards on the
walls of Zion, unsung, speak up for the whole counsel of God, the Church will perish,
congregation after congregation.
This fact stands in front of us: for all generations of the Church, Christ Jesus instituted the
Law, the only permissible standard for thankfulness and for denouncement of evil.
CONSTRICTION AND MATURATION
Another most obvious danger constantly presses in and, with our approval, spins out of
control. When ministers constrict proclamation of the word to some acceptable in-congregational
themes – conservatives within the malleable confines of conservativism and liberals to the
improvable ranges of liberalism – they compel congregations to live on the periphery of the
Word. Gorillas as conservatism and liberalism on the loose bedevil the Church of Jesus Christ
for long times.
As much as we comply with these conflictual contenders against Christ Jesus, since scriptural
orthodoxy and orthopraxy trouble us, nevertheless through the office of the congregation we
protest against such stalling tactics as liberalism and conservatism – unless we prefer forfeiture
of salvation and mothballing of maturation in the Faith. Any ideological posturing diminishing
the pure preaching standard builds comfortable worlds of exclusivity, walling off the Truth.
CONSTRICTION
When a minister constricts preaching to a few shreds, such as love, peace, and unity, or
family, spirituality, and church attendance, no matter how important these may be, he narrows
down and redefines the great range of biblical teachings to produce a famine of the Word; in
time, this famine becomes most harrowing. Malnourished congregants imperceptibly sink into
death – all the while thinking they eat the bread of life. Withering minds and hearts take strange,
wishful, and cultic turns of thought. Any restriction of preaching, conservative or liberal, so
conventional, may be a minister’s own risk-averse smallness of heart and mind; it may also
amplify his desire for closer ties to a congregationally dominant ideology and thus avoid the ire
of the agitated.
474
Morgan, op. cit., p. 35, quoting John Henry Jowett – “Human and Divine divisions of humanity are radically
different. Divine divisions are perpendicular, human divisions are horizontal.”
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Rogue Ambitions
Safeguarding smallness of heart or succumbing to wandering congregational demands, any
constriction of the Word shifts into unholy appetites. Recklessness limiting biblical teachings
may be of the minister’s manufacture or a congregation’s buying into little faith. Regarding the
second possibility, either we submerge under the cumulative effect of inferior/apostate
preaching, or we want nothing to disturb middleclass platitudinal meanings of life. Given either
precarious ambition, our insistence upon narrowness in proclamation reaches for one end: a
people-controlled, roving religiosity, which cuts Jesus Christ’s sovereign authority away from its
range of interests.
Quasi-Christian religions over time and geography, while indistinguishable from other
religious powers, blunder about with another pushback gesture also. By keeping Jesus Christ’s
sovereign authority at a distance, these blend in more with the world, rising and falling without
activating the office of the Church. Are we (monkey) trained to be familiar with only a handful
of biblical themes, some historical accounts in story form, and averse to the dividing-line, we
shut out formidable questions, which the Word addresses to the Church. Then we forestall
question-and-answer marathons called forth by the often contentious doctrine of sin, thereby
shutting out fearsome signals from and actual exposure to vast upheavals organized by this
‘civilized’ world.
These changing international demographics, pollutions of the earth, hungers and thirsts of the
marginalized, and pains of awareness help move the Church in her smallness of faith to a
foregone conclusion. Tendency, as understandable as inexcusable amidst the splinterings of the
Body of Christ, is to refocus and refocus the scope of preaching to scrunched up components of
little faith: the surrounding want and invading bitterness, visions, and hopes upon the globeencircling lordship of Christ Jesus die (for us) in ultimate confusions of religiosity. As the Spirit
withdraws from our congregations, one by one, he darkens first the flames on the lampstands. Cf.
Rev. 2:5b. Therein, the word of the Lord becomes more persistently the word of man.
Still, undeterrable questions spill out:
1) What is bad about wanting to constrict or tilt the proclamation of the Word (a little)?
2) What significance a few minor retreats, if only we live to fight another day, when the
balances of the war, of the Seed of the woman against the serpent’s, tip more favorably
our way?
3) What is good about Sunday-by-Sunday hermeneutical failure in sermons?
Opposing forces of constriction, Christ Jesus constituted the Church as the bulwark of the
truth against erosion of the faith, not for protection of little faith. In fact, he calls us together to
the frontlines of the battles against the Serpent’s seed. But as constrictive approaches to the
preaching, and therefore the Faith, take place at our behest, life narrows down to issues of selfpreservation. Beliefs are transmuted, creeds bereft of loyalty, and strengths of faith melt away.
“We suspect that the church loses its vitality when its speech is cleaned up, pruned down,
domesticated to ensure that our relationship to God is predictable and nice. Today’s church
suffers from suffocating niceness and domesticated metaphor, the result of modern interpreters
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of the faith who think they know more about faithful discipleship than whoever wrote Ephesians
6:10-20.” 475 Facing the reality of worldwide blood-congealing permutations, inferior and
apostate preaching diversifies our ecclesial highs: by way of reprobate ambitions, we may
concentrate and argue about the little things that move about in our congregations. Such affairs
of the heart ease listening to the word as well as ministers’ sermon preparation.
Devious Distractions
As dechristianization falls into a misshapen mass of strange attitudes and reduced
commitments, and as we realize that the Faith, worldwide, has been a misfit all along, more
vexations of soul distort attention within the Church with respect to the Word. Among conjoined
pressures of cultural and demographic shifts on the one hand and, on the other, our little faith,
seared consciences drift even beyond caring about ministers blaming flocks for evasions of the
Word and congregations blaming ministers for avoiding faith-building doctrines. Because of
generally intense preoccupations with our own besoignes, few comprehend the fact that
conforming to the Word by way of upright preaching compels us to face the eternal wrath of
Christ Jesus and the Father. Mostly, with surprising ease we conform to this world, through
preferment for our own religiosity, catering to the oratory of apostasy, and without probing
interest in the long-range consequences. 476 This, of course, marks out the way of death – by
escaping from self-examination, unaware and/or uncaring of dark undercurrents routing through
the Church.
During congregational death throes, we glance at the James 1:23 mirror and see blurred
shows of ourselves, always according to ideological specifications – good people, well-meaning,
kind, who find that today happens to be the wrong time for reformation; besides, by way of
comparison, we have almost secured what Christ means for us to be, and much more
sanctification wastes precious time from getting on with life. True, any nearly having arrived
consensual census, near stasis, clashes with the Word, but since we mean well, we may shade the
seriousness of our rebellion. All the while, just below the surface seethe festering wounds of a
troubled past and fears for a hopeless future. Once past the tactical parting of the ways, we
justify alienation from the Word as the entrenched normalcy of life in the Church.
Throughout such silent rebellions, we become more at ease in the religious, political, and
social forces strangling the Church and make no bones about saying so; to get on with life we
have to make the Church one more entity among many mundane broken things. Then propagated
postmodern/New Age heresies seem less dangerous and more appealing, especially because they
play out so popularly. 477 Ancient forms of religiosity profile themselves as new religious forces
ready to meet current challenges. In a time when macro-social and -political stressors
overwhelm, magic, witchcraft, fantasy, reincarnation, astrology, etc., invite a return to a more
personal means for gaining control over life. With religious pluriformity offering persuasive
options for each person, depending on personal tastes and inclinations, we continue in our own
475
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 149.
Horne, op. cit., p. 71, quoting one George E. Sweazy – “When a church dies, the last thing to be given up is the
assembly for worship and preaching.”
477
For evidence, Bloom, Omens of Millennium, op. cit., lays bare the popularity and propinquity of Gnosticism.
476
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little spheres of pseudo-Christianity and blunt preaching to make ourselves self-contained centers
of the world.
Under pressures from religions that put Christianity in the corner, perils appear and we want
ministers to limit the spoken word to congenial two/three themes with which every one is
comfortable. Reformation may be exciting, but hardly politically correct in times of massive
changes. Then under the leadership of men to whom the Lord entrusts the care of respective
congregations, on uncertain courses we become less and less committed to the office of the
congregation, at the same time more and more involved in alluring existential wishes of the
survival of the fittest – the lowest common denominator of religiosity.
So, ministers, full of mega-wishes, also begin to vie with each other to become figure heads
in the Church – by establishing credit ratings of being the least troublesome while leading the
largest churches. We like politically correct ministers, men who know what we want and for
what we will pay them. Thus, we hear preaching that blunts the impact of repentance and
transformation of heart, for a time allowing orators to control our lives and futures. All the while,
we pay for preaching pressed into the signature styles of world conformity, so that the
proclamation of the Word no longer moves and reforms us. Except, because Christ gives no rest
to the wicked, ministers must constantly bear down heavier on our consciences until we fall due
to hardness of heart into the hands of the living God. Nevertheless, only moxie preaching
satisfies our immediate fears.
Under looming welters of (fast-moving) religious and ethical revolutions, we too want to
prevent at all costs any sort of confrontation, and prefer to settle for a few comfortable
proclamation themes: salvation to the saved, unity among the unified, peace to the pacified, love
to the lovable, etc., no matter the preaching unit, with calls for good works thrown in to give
sermons spiritual stability. Since we have gone off the rails of reconciliation before the Lord,
pressing the Word for the world-destroying scope of the coming of the Kingdom involves
suffering; on such pain we put a damper, and call ministers to preach accordingly.
Alluring Wishes
As world tensions multiply, as an impending end to a Westernized way of life looms, and as
we consciously grope for escape from intolerable conditions, the time ripens for allurements of
demagoguery, the method by which chief ideologues enforce constriction.
Demagoguery is: obtaining tyrannical powers by way of passionate appeals to human
emotions and prejudices.
For ministers, temptations to demagoguery mean to accommodate preaching to restless
spirits of the times and by burying congregational sins of inattention to the Word. These men
want to stay on top; therefore, they encourage all to shy away from any I John 4:1 confrontation;
as long as church members fail to test the spirits of the preaching, clergy may offer band-aid
therapies rather than engage in radical surgery. Evilly pseudo-solutions - racism, or feminism, or
ethnicism, etc. - resonate well with and within sinners.
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Therefore, ministerial demagoguery easily subjugates congregations to different gospels, just
what we want in order to remain ensconced in ‘hear no evil, see no evil, tell no evil’ cocoons
with respect to ourselves. This occurs, naturally, only with the full agreement of all concerned,
which happens according to the burning issues of God’s plan. Beginning in the Church, he gives
up his enemies to reprobate minds. Cf. Rom. 1:24ff. –
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of
their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and
worshiped the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever!”
Rather than face up to Christ’s calling, ministers choose for demagoguery: they will lead
respective flocks to doom, provided they may whip up power benefits of ministry for a season.
And we tie our hopes to this sort of discontent.
As allegedly new and revolutionary powers rapidly change the social face of the earth and
move on to the decomposition of the Church, one effect is: orthodox preaching sounds moribund,
ancient. “… the influence of the accelerating secularity we have just outlined on religion and
religious thought has been immense. Some forms of Christianity and Judaism have sought to
ward off this influence, plus its collateral damages, and to preserve their traditional doctrines,
standards, and modes worship virtually unchanged.” 478 To no avail at the end of the line.
In this time, not the proclamation of the Word shatters constricting religious, political, and
social manifestations of evil, but the world secularizes preaching and the Church, making room
for demagogues on our pulpits. However impassionate they may be, and however strong
mutinous appeals to our prejudices, they discover more ways to hide from the wrath of God – for
now. By enforcing secularization, all involved directly and indirectly induce in the office of the
congregation routines of complacency and ecclesiastical passivity; thereby they mirror powers of
injustice and social utopianism.
Utopianism is: escape from divine wrath into erroneous social theories.
When we finagle a heaven on our level, leapfrogging ahead for a time with human ideals, all
goes wrong in the Church; then the world takes control (by slow stages), and orators or
demagogues lead the way to gut Christianity.
Constriction of preaching into worlds-of-its-own making, led by powerful strangers to the
Faith, must earn our unremitting protest, lest the consequences of secularization spreads its
deadly fumes even more throughout the Church. The following reflects the point of concern. “I
… have felt for a long time that we live in a spiritually bankrupt society which over-emphasizes
money, possessions, and status. In my opinion, our highly technological society is increasingly
adopting a narcissistic lifestyle with its shallow value system, and is leaving behind concepts
such as inner peace, dignity, compassion, forgiveness, and reverence for life, all in the pursuit of
power and control.” 479 Given this erosive process against the Christ and his sovereign authority,
478
Langdon Gilkey, Naming the Whirlwind: The Renewal of God-Language (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969), p.
73.
479
Marvin A. Tench, “Reader’s Comments,” Network, Vol. 17, #2, Summer 2001, p. 18.
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we in the office of the congregation are the only people in the world able to make a difference
against secularization and for the Word until all in Christ reach maturation in the stature of the
fullness of Christ.
True, this primary practice in the Church places operative weights of responsibility on our
resisting shoulders; nevertheless, we by the grace of Jesus Christ set the example and help others
to maturity through the major means available – sound preaching, here and now.
MATURATION
Faith-and-life challenges with which we grapple to overcome restrictions to the Word remain
daunting, to say the least. It is so easy to fall back, for instance, into the sleepwalking ease of
accommodationism. Without maturation in the Faith, whoever, such accommodationism is but
the least problem, only the beginning of enslavement to current satanic powers, the spirits of the
times.
Nevertheless, in the time frame of the present, the Lord of the Church exhorts all whom he
gathers for corporate worship to insist upon fullness in the preaching.
Growth Potentials
Of course, other pressing, tongue-wagging matters take attention away from maturation –
fearsome capitalistic urges, common selfishness, racist surges, evolutionistic pressures, tax
evasions, health worries, and ministerial gaffes – all sorts of bones of contention. Unless we
download these often world-size problems into the perspective of the Kingdom of Christ, and so
the last Judgment, they restrain the vigor and vitality of the inner fire on our way to and life on
the narrow path …
“… until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to
mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ; so that we may no longer
be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of
men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up
in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit
together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes
bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love.”
These resilient words of Eph. 4:13-16 reach far above and beyond ideological endeavors. Cf.
Col. 2:8. Also, by living Titus 2:10, we show entire and true fidelity to the Word.
One high-powered barrier to our maturation consists of a lurking disrespect for the present
lordship of Christ Jesus at the right hand of the Father; perhaps this resentment comes out as
little faith or as practical atheism. However pleasant emotionally these nasty-in-expression
revolutions of the heart, maturing in Christ never submits to it. Our growth in the Faith, the work
of the Spirit in the Church, wills sanctification within our congregations as well as apologetics,
so that we may make a defense to any one who calls us to account for the undeniable heart-hope
within us. Cf. I Pet. 3:15b. Instead of making a place for ourselves amidst Job’s ashes, by grace
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we receive victory as that blameless and upright man – less as individuals and more as the one
church.
After long millennia, at this moment in time the Faith may seem negligible, eclipsed at
ground level by denominational brokenness. Also, on account of so much inferior/apostate
preaching, the Church may not seem a priority. Nor may at times Christ Jesus’ lordship weigh
much on our consciences. Add to these negatives the persistent encroachments of man’s religions
into the Church, and Christianity may seem a lost cause. However, the Lord of the Church places
us in every generation before unprecedented challenges with growth potentials for maturation.
Freedom Yokes
Despite many quarrels and negations with respect to the Church, Christ always calls his own
to bow to him and shoulder the thankful yoke of obedience. Then, in each congregation, we 1)
walk free to further Christ’s rule by insisting on sound preaching; 2) stand free in the Spirit to
celebrate victory over demagogic powers of the flesh, the world, and the Devil; and 3) live free
in the demand that the Lord’s spokesmen inveigh against ideological and idolic powers until all
forces of the thus-says-the-Lord issue from each pulpit during the defining hours of preaching –
in the conviction that upright ministers speak indeed as the very mouth of Jesus Christ.
A fourth freedom? Ministers preaching with all conviction that they are Christ’s spokesmen.
“The preacher’s own unflagging interest in the Book incites an interest in others. What the
minister finds so fascinating, the people rightly suppose will have its fascination for
themselves.” 480 In return, as we kick sermonic tires, we help ministers oppose false teachings
and senseless controversies. Cf. II Tim. 2:14ff. Thus, in Christian freedom we mature – by steady
processes in proclamation.
Maturing is: completing the Faith by means of the word, sacraments, and discipline.
Landmark preaching brings on accumulating fullness, till we serve with the same mind, rise
to the same love, and live in unwavering trust before the Word. Cf. Phil. 2:1ff.
For the critical function and goal of the Church, Christ Jesus summons us to strive – with all
of heart, soul, mind, and strength. Amidst pressures of urban jungles, suburban hideaways, and
rustic backwaters where much of the power of the Word meets resentment, we baffle unrestricted
rumor mills by believing and living under the yoke. Never in the history of Christianity, it seems
– without sounding trite and repetitive – have we as members of the congregations of Jesus
Christ faced so many committed enemy forces at one and the same time, on every front.
As world populations multiply, as ideologies consume careless generations, and as Christ
prepares the Church for the Armageddon crunch, we submit ourselves more to the Word, always
under terribly adverse conditions. That, and with so little sound information about oppositional
day-by-day war plans, makes maturation in Christ less than feasible, humanly speaking.
480
Sangster, The Craft of Sermon Construction, op. cit., p. 36.
Thompson, op. cit., p. 102 – “Discussing the sermon in a group is another way to help you make an intelligent
response to the preaching.”
207
In this day and age, for enlarged powers of comprehension and heightened eschatological
hopes, we need more and stronger sermons with which to put on the armor of God that actually
fits, rather than be bowled over by constrictive oratory. Then, with the sword of the Spirit we
strive for perfecting the Church and enlarging the Kingdom, first by work on the preaching.
Meantime, though unworthy thoughts may be hidden and clever words deceive, the living and
ruling Christ knows our inmost mentations. He penetrates the words even before we form them.
Cf. Ps. 139:4. In our churches, we owe Christ to help ministers earn respective crowns of
righteousness, cf. II Tim. 4:8, by means of fierce loyalty so they will strive with Spirit-endowed
powers for the pure preaching of the Word in order to manifest the glory of our Father and edify
respective congregations.
The whole range of Scriptures envisions as well as realizes the world-encircling, indeed,
world-conquering Kingdom for which our faith must be large enough, strong enough, and
tempered enough through maturing proclamation of the Word. Cf. II Tim. 1:13f., 2:15, 22ff.,
3:14ff.
SECOND SUMMATION
Comes a pivotal question. Given these volatile preparations for hearing the spoken word of
the Lord, is apprehension of the word of the Lord possible at all?
By taking this second section of Sermon Evaluation the wrong way, apart from the grace of
Christ Jesus, it may seem that criticizing ministers, finding weaknesses and sins, stands out to an
overwhelming degree. A worshiping congregation then becomes jury, judge, and executioner at
an inquest of a clergyman. But Christian companies remain far removed from being flocks of
carrion vultures hovering with predatory intent over any of Christ’s spokesmen. Instead, we
build on the innovative and reformatory works of the Word.
Evil inclinations and phobic considerations with respect to the men whom the Lord God calls
to this office I only point out. With this concern: our sinful turnings and twistings of heart, also
burning within ministers themselves, makes apprehending the spoken word of the Lord difficult.
It is important to recognize this for two reasons. 1) To prosper with the Technical Preparations.
2) To rejoice in the Thematic Preparations.
Crestfallen, we acknowledge that significant hindrances to apprehending the spoken word of
the Lord trouble our ears. Only under Christ’s merciful sovereignty, however, with sharp
listening we engage many evil proclivities of heart, tribal allegiances, and external noise
generators. Not only of those called to preach. Foremost our own.
Factually put, considering our blockage systems, any apprehension happening at all amazes.
Hence, sound listening takes place only because of the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church; he
leads ministers to prepare better and stronger sermons, while he incites us to more thankful and
intense listening. Under the central authority of the Third Person, the applicability of Heb. 4:7b
for First Days continues. “Today, when you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” Because
the Lord Jesus spoke, the Church listened and listens.
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Since congregations largely make or break ministerial honesty before the Lord of the Church,
for upbuilding the Body of Christ consider the authority of the office of the congregation. On our
own, through localized pressures of humanistic preferences, bad ministers deliver exactly and
more of what we want; because of blinkered consciences we miss exercising this standard
function. Good ministers, on the other hand, lead us into the Beroean tradition and thereby
challenge us to the responsibility of the office of the congregation: consult the Scriptures, check
commentaries, analyze sermons, discuss exegesis, and judge the biblicality of preaching. As long
as the Lord of the Church commands that preaching is the heart of every minister’s work, it has
to be at the center of Christianity too.
A good minister, in the profound knowledge that always more of his flock engage in the
office of the congregation, recognizes that thus we remember sermons longer and that the Spirit
works through (recollected) sermons to bring about reformation, first within our hearts and
congregations. Therefore, the Lord of the Church calls for a highly advanced level of service in
every age and from every pulpit: the highest standard of excellence for true, creative, hopeful
manifestations of preaching. 481 In this manner we rise to the challenge of seemingly
overwhelming odds, both in the Church and in the world – in a season of ecumenical pluralism,
evangelical fragmentation, and nominal ecclesiastical affiliation. Covenant breakers appear to
have the upper hand.
To motivate critical faculties, it is wise to get other knowledgeable questions off the ground:
-
What actions does Christ command to overcome current weaknesses and sins in listening
to the Word?
How long will Christ tolerate our preferences for covenant breaking, first by
misapprehending the Word?
Why not believe the Bible as God’s Word?
To what purpose Christ’s longsuffering over inferior and/or apostate preaching?
In how far, beginning in respective congregations, does preaching address social
righteousness?
Given collective and individual proneness to sin with respect to preaching, both speaking
and listening, are honesty and integrity still possible?
“In our day, has preaching become subservient to the church?” 482
Are the sermons you hear worth critiquing?
Struggling positively and honestly with such questions of quality control indicates the lively
presence of the Spirit installing discernment with respect to our own conflicts of interest.
Each generation of Christ through historical awareness realizes that ideological church
invasions go on far into the future. In every ‘today,’ we find ourselves amidst rapid storm cells of
change, confronted with fearsome batteries of apostate challenges, and driven into known as well
as unknown temptations. Therefore, Paul already warned with prophetic insight against legalism
and antinomianism. Cf. I Tim. 4:1ff.
481
482
Cf. Mt. 13:52.
Buttrick, A Captive Voice, op. cit., p. 43.
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When by grace alone the spoken word rings out true and strong, we can respond to
fundamental alarms, address private preferences, and meet the challenges of each day thankfully.
“The winds of change and crisis are blowing the church from its safe and sheltered life, and these
winds are omens of hope.” 483 Due to hope in Christ, we owe our ministers prodding assistance to
strive for pure preaching of the entire counsel of God – that our Father be praised.
To that end, we considered this battery of volatile preparations, putting a human face on
these various preparations. By taking hold of these problems, i.e., sins, enables all in Christ to
reach ahead to the sweeping panoramas of the mighty doctrines of Scripture in a rapidly aging
future. Thus, the Spirit renews us for apprehending the spoken word of the Lord – for the
sanctification of salvation.
483
Horne, op. cit., p. 83.
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THEMATIC PREPARATIONS
Through the Spirit, preparatory to hearing the Word, knowing major biblical themes makes
for better listening to sermons. Growing intimacy with the instructive doctrines of the Word
helps apprehending each word of the Lord much more intensely.
Every proper preaching text reflects at least one of many dualities apparent in Scriptures,
dualities now arranged in linked sets, word pairs, or bipolar units. As follows:
Covenant and Predestination
History and Redemption
Gospel and Law
Church and Kingdom
Office and Recreation
Providence and Theodicy
Sin and Grace
Perseverance and Backsliding
Eschatology and Judgment
Justification and Sanctification
Word and Sacraments
Life and Death
Light and Darkness
Heaven and Hell
Justice and Mercy
Time and Eternity
Freedom and Slavery
Assurance and Doubt
Hope and Despair
Flesh and Spirit
These constitute inseparable combinations. Each of the 20, and many more, may be
subdivided into vibrant and intertwining personal, social, political, economic, gender, race, labor,
and ecological concerns. All in all, Spirit-filled reading of the Bible reveals its numerous
beauties of diversity. Fascinating, these bipolar units answer ultimate questions for the Church en
route in Christ Jesus, mostly with refreshing zest, at times for deepest agony of soul.
Even though the Bible is very much covenantal in nature, the listed word-pair arrangement
follows no prescribed order, much less a hidden agenda. However, for invigorative Christcentered preaching with its entire Trinitarian ambience, these and many others constitute major
thematic movements. This survey opens up listening to the word that truly struggles with the
whole counsel of God, so that we may better hear the spoken word of the Lord.
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The Biblical Sum
For listening to the word of the Lord every Sunday, we need the sum of the Bible. This one
singular theme has to be glory, glory to God. So it stands out, for instance, in the Psalms, out of
the heart of the singing church. Cf. Ps. 115:1 –
“Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to thy name give glory,
for the sake of thy steadfast love and thy faithfulness!”
This glory in its far-seeing context comprises the single, formative feature and focusing-forward
point of the canonical scriptures – to praise, to extol, to magnify the LORD.
Glorying in Jesus Christ magnifies also the Father and the Holy Spirit, since they revealed
him as the Son of God and the Son of man. Fundamentals of this wondrous magnification
emerged from the creation and from the more potent recreation, for in the latter the Lord Jesus
reveals his sovereignty and authority in eschatological creativity. In one way? Through the
covenant renewals for sanctifying the Church and the Kingdom. As such, therefore, boundless
energies of praise sound forth in doxology. Cf. Rom. 11:36 – “For from him and through him
and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever.” Thus the mighty works of our Lord and
Savior coalesce into 1) the upward, outward, stretching songs of the Church and 2) into the living
structures by the Commandments. Therewith impressive praises magnify the Christ, and the
Father, and the Holy Spirit.
Unbelievers, first those daredevils still in the Church, want acceptance for and tolerance of
sin and sinners, never the glory of the Christ; from the heart out, they insist upon having first
place. This inner turmoil comes through with confounding strength in Rev. 17:5 – love for the
great harlot. Babylon the Great, mother of harlots, knows how to approach church people and
sell them the slavishly fascinating and pointless wastes of first places under the sun. So, piteous
sinners by long-term growth in covenant breakage and deformation seek alternative worlds
alongside or in place of the Kingdom. Since the Fall, Church History bubbles and boils with
rebels in chaos, soul thrashing the biblical sum.
Upon Adam’s fall the way of people diverged into opposing springs of action under huge
pressures – according to the main dividing-line. The one runs onto the broad way, multiform
fellowship in idolatry and ideology: here sinners manhandle all glory, all praise, and all devotion
to front for strange assortments of gods. The other constitutes the narrow way, the way of glory
solely to the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. On this way, all praise, glory, and honor go to
the Trinity. Cf. II Cor. 3:18 – “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,
are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the
Lord who is the Spirit.” The global focus of the much-tortured narrow way hides nothing of the
difficulties – because of misgivings at self-denial and for the fact that we hate change for the
better. Even on the narrow way we express (deep down) a nervous response to the future in
Christ, an understandable reaction. To give all glory in Jesus Christ to the Father heart-engages
so much sacrifice from the Church – all of heart, soul, mind, and strength.
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In the powerful mainstream of the Spirit, however, journeying ahead, the selected bipolar
units start out manifesting glory to the Trinity. The closely aligned ones on which we focus cling
actually and truly inseparably to each other; nevertheless, they remain distinguishable for the
sake of learning, further analysis, and appreciating the Trinity’s superb monomajesty in order to
download biblical doctrine 484 and life.
The Biblical Foci
Preaching the whole counsel of God is: all that and only that which Christ Jesus has revealed,
the entire Scriptures in every part. This counsel of God thus maps out the lead role in
proclamation to develop the genius of the Faith for the close-knit glory of God, our (assurance
of) salvation, our sanctification, and mission work in the Bible books, chapters, and preaching
units – for the wholeness of the recreation.
1) Each duality listed above and worked on below thereto reveals strategically the revealedin-history attributes of the Son, the Father, and the Spirit, such as incommunicable eternity,
incomprehensibility, invisibility, immutability, omnipotence, omniscience, perfection, even as
communicable wisdom, justice, freedom, goodness, and love. These divine characteristics stand
out as moving factors in each well-chosen preaching unit. Whether incommunicable or
communicable, all scintillate exclusively to glorify the Trinity, while the communicable Jesus
promises all members of the one church. Thus, our ministers proclaim through wisely selected
preaching units the unprecedented groundwork for God’s transcendent and immanent glory, and
cut out from sermons befuddling obstructions. Then, in a world rushing helter-skelter 485 in every
direction, we hear the upwelling future.
2) As well, the sweeping in-history measures and penetrating actualities of the Incarnation,
Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, Session, and the coming judgment of Jesus Christ stand
forth in countless bipolar unities. They glow promissory in the Old Testament and shine factual
in the New. In the catalyst revelation of these penetrating actualities the meaning of the life,
suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, session, and judgment of our Lord and Savior for the
Church come first. All preachers exegete these stages of Messiah’s revelation with sheer
integrity in order that the Name be magnified and reformation break free, even if this calls for
seismic shifts in the Body of the Christ. “Every devaluation, depreciation, disregard, or discredit
directed toward the admirable work done for us by Christ, every attack made on his work or on
the fundamental facts of redemption strips preaching of its relevance, even and especially if the
preaching claims to be adapted to the fashion of the day and devoted to the theses called
‘historical,’ ‘scientific,’ or to the results supposedly ’acquired’ through human investigations.
484
Sangster, Power in Preaching, op. cit., p. 42 – “Doctrinal preaching is not easy preaching, but the people want it.”
Cf. p. 80 – “To what a pass do people come who lose a firm grasp on doctrine and whose only basis for duty is that
it is the ‘done thing’!”
More important than congregational expectations and wants, of course, the Spirit wills proclamation that opens
up the whole counsel of God.
485
Gilkey, op. cit., p. 4 – “The current ferment spans almost the entire range of religious concepts and concerns.
Every familiar Christian doctrine from those of the authority of Scripture, the Trinity, or the deity of Christ, to the
more fundamental question of the reality of God, has been questioned, in some instance in order to make room for
reformation, in others in order to abandon the conception altogether.”
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Such preaching is considered in scripture to be a perversion.” 486 Every tilting or bending of the
text, because it muddies Jesus Christ’s reputation and work, needs our solemn and persevering
condemnation.
3) Sermons that edify Christ’s congregations with due emphases on saving, warning,
teaching, comforting, establishing, disciplining from warranted preaching units merit our
effectual support.
Until all Scriptures perfectly fill our hearts, structure our thinking, oversee our emotions, and
light our living, we move on in the strength and wisdom of the Holy Spirit, disclosing the narrow
road of sanctification, often under unforeseen circumstances, more frequently under buffeting
conditions. Therefore, men of the Lord true to well-chosen texts nourish love for respective
congregations.
With the gathering conglomerations of postmodern religious movements prying into and
confounding the Church, Christ summons us to the highest state of alert. The attack patterns and
weapons of relativism on believing hearts to eliminate the Faith include a judgmental array of
dirty bombs distributing guilt – blaming the Church and Christianity, actually Jesus Christ, for
the results of communal sins. Meaninglessness. Loneliness. Insignificance. Estrangement. Pride.
Brokenness. Fear. Stress. Anxiety. Doubt. Racism. Xenophobia. Discrimination. Hatred.
Institutionalized blindness/deafness. Disease. Terrorism. Death. Genocide. Authoritarianism.
Consumerism. Ethnic violence. Boredom. 487 Poverty. Injustice. Oppression. Slavery. Hate
crimes. Global warming. Environmental degradation. Superstition. Tyranny. Sex trade. Nuclear
wastes. Corporate greed. Social cheating. Economic revolutions. Pornography. Contagious
diseases. Ethnic conflict. Water shortages. Hunger. Such numerous top-of-the-mind postmodern
weapon systems explode guilt in the Church - until woe rules.
As undernourished armies of religiosity invade, harass, and damage the Church, every one of
Christ’s spokesmen carries competitive responsibility, to which we ought to hold them, for
leading his people to maturity, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. As the many
stalwart writers who served the Holy Spirit throughout the Old Testament dispensation for
inscripturation continuously recounted the mighty acts of deliverance in every age, particularly
the Exodus, so our ministers proclaim the great themes of the whole counsel of God – humbly,
tirelessly, fearlessly, thereby progressively opening Christ’s future.
With these transparent observations on the biblical sum and foci in mind, we survey a variety
of specific dualities to work out the clear and coherent vision of Scriptures, thereby to finish
strong.
COVENANT AND PREDESTINATION
Covenant and predestination constitute central lines and themes in Scripture. From Adam to
Abraham all people, with the exception of Cain’s seed, belonged to the covenant community, in
which venerable milieu the LORD God already revealed predestination’s actuality.
486
487
Marcel, op. cit., p. 60.
Johnston, op. cit., p. 58 – “In a postmodern society … boredom may be deemed the greatest of all sins.”
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COVENANT
Scriptures’ covenantal frame of reference from Genesis to and including Revelation (minus,
of course, the Apocrypha) deploys the legitimate context for all ultimate questions, especially
ones regarding the thorny problems of purposefulness. After Adam, when in raging sinfulness
the covenant people squandered the purpose of life, the LORD God separated Noah from the
huge majority, cf. Gen. 6:1ff.; I Pet. 3:20; II Pet. 2:5, saving only eight out of violence-prone
multitudes then living. In this human-motivated debacle of life, the LORD reformed the
covenantal goal of existence, the glory of God.
Over Noah, the unflagging LORD God renewed the long-term promises and obligations of
the covenant originally granted Adam. However, with inside potencies for covenant breaking
escalating again the miseries of the Fall, the Tower-of-Babel fiasco dragged all down further into
the insatiable abyss of dispossessed souls; within this turmoiling wrath,God alone dominates to
manifest his glory.
Out of the masses living in the post-Tower of Babel chaos of languages, the LORD God
applied the Gospel to one man and his seed. In a way, transfigured Abraham and Sarah served as
the new Adam-and-Eve; only, due to total depravity, the historical ambit and the persons differed
radically from the original father and mother of the human race.
Upon calling Abraham, the father of all believers, the LORD God created the deep sources of
visible bifurcation in the human race: some he gathered as community of covenant keepers,
discernible as the ongoing church; all others he left outside the covenant community, covenant
breakers by definition. No third option exists even now. But within the newborn covenant
community the lines of election and reprobation gained currency; these resolute lines start in the
Church of all times and places.
For the sake of his great name and for mercy promised to Adam, Noah, Abraham,
Moses/Israel, David, Christ Jesus created a series of covenant reformations. The blunt truth of
these reformations energizes the history of the Bible as well as the world, eventually finalizing in
the Parousia.
Progressive Renewals
Specifically, beginning with Abraham, the LORD called and calls numerous people from far
and wide to round out solid covenant community with him.
In Old Testament eras this viable community consisted mainly of stalwart Abraham’s seed,
plus many others, the rabble grouping referred to in Ex. 12:38, Rahab and her family, cf. Josh.
6:25, Ruth, Kenites, cf. Judges 1:16, and those later accepted as proselytes. Israel in Old
Testament manifestation alone served as the covenant community. Often the Spirit revealed the
singularity of this people, the Church then, in variations of Deut. 7:6 – “… the LORD your God
has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples … on the face of the
earth.” The LORD excluded with leveling disposition all surrounding nations and peoples from
covenant community.
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Specific covenant generations from Moses over David received progressively more detailed
as well as gracious complexes of the same covenant promises and obligations, blessings and
curses. However, due to Israel’s monotonous sinning, the LORD prophesied in different places
of the Old Testament the all-defining and painstaking final reformation. One, cf. Jer. 31:31ff. –
“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers
when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they
broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant I will make with the
house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it
upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Another of the Old Testament-New Testament one-way bridges? Cf. Ez. 36:25f. – “I will
sprinkle clean water upon you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities
and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart.” Such prophecies served as preludes to and
bridges for the coming Messiah, the Mediator of the covenant. No one in the Church can break
the covenant and escape unscathed. Cf. Ez. 17:15ff. For covenant breakers, this is piteously
frightening. For covenant keepers, this is the Gospel.
Upon Pentecost, with considerable effect, the Lord Jesus again vividly revealed the covenant
community with the formative features of the New Testament church, fulfilling prophecy. Cf.
Ez. 36:27 – “And I will put my Spirit in you to follow my decree and be careful to keep my
laws.” As well, cf. Joel 2:28f. – “… I will pour out my spirit 488 on all flesh; your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see
visions. … in those days, I will pour out my Spirit.” Into such Spirit-filling congregations the
Christ gathers his people 1) via generational family structures and 2) through missionary
activities; by way of the latter, he joins many to local, leading-edge covenant communities as
(adopted) descendants of Abraham, the father of all believers.
Covenant Gratitude
Many historically progressive biblical texts profile the one covenant, thereby structuring the
Word entirely; each revelation comes in the form of promises and obligations, or the renewal of
these. After the Fall, promises consist of breakthrough salvation from rebellion, condemnation,
and the fury of the Judge’s wrath against unruly elements of disobedience within the Church.
Upon believing the promises, the obligations stipulate the thankful obedience formed by the
Commandments. Gratitude activates in every situation and for all times the works Christ calls us
to accomplish, which in full force reflect him working in us. Cf. Eph. 2:10; Phil. 2:12f. Since
salvation always involves the Church, individualistic types of salvation happen only in dreams
and in out-of-kilter congregations.
Within the deeper alliance of covenant community, however, intrinsic tensions emerge. Often
thankless and freeloading covenant members resort to ideology and idolatry, forming alternative
ways of life and death. Yet the Lord Jesus brings with rising expectation renewal by way of
488
RSV translators/redactors insisted on the lowercase; the same text quoted in Acts 2:17 indicates that Joel
prophesied of the Holy Spirit.
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remnants – as the 120 at Pentecost. We await the final installment of this mighty work by
entering accessible fields of grace. In the meantime, these intrinsic tensions establish the sober
setting for predestination, election as well as reprobation.
Some texts and passages concentrate more than others on the operating effectiveness and
maturing view of the four covenant aspects – promises and blessings, obligations and curses –
without ignoring the fact that the Bible as a whole publishes the primary covenant landscape.
Point is: to discern good sermons from bad, and to apprehend the spoken word of the Lord that is
actually the work of the Lord, ministers lead us to comprehend the permanent memorials and
sterling progress of covenant history within its historical framework, whether Old Testament or
New. Without sound covenant discretion in preaching, the spoken work obnoxiously degenerates
into troubling oratory and, worse, blasphemy, seriously at odds with the Word.
Due to the Bible’s covenantal frame of reference, this teaching requires top priority from our
ministers in order that it take root deeply and indelibly in our hearts and minds.
PREDESTINATION
Biblical teaching on predestination (election and reprobation) remain volatile on account of
our inner resistance and unfair stereotyping. Election does not, as popularly alleged, reject. On
the contrary. At the heart of the Gospel lives the doctrine of election – the high-priority summons
to believe the riches of the Father’s grace in Jesus Christ. Election only selects – based on
unmerited favor. In clear distinction from election, by reprobation the Lord Jesus bypasses,
leaves many rightfully, because of sin, in duly earned condemnation. Therefore, beginning with
sound preaching, the persuasive call to believe the doctrine of election instills in all whom the
Father gave the Son the assurance of unmerited favor.
True, out of the covenant community, Christ saves only some. He marked this undeniable
fact with the thoroughness of Rom. 9:6 – though all of the Church are Abraham’s descendants,
not all are his descendants. Plainly: not all Israel is Israel. Within the community manifested as
the Church, powers of elections and reprobation separate gold from dross, i.e., covenant keepers
from covenant breakers, the latter headed for unbearably dark and rough times. Because of the
Spirit, we see this actual and worthwhile news making through fascinated eyes.
Eternal Choices
Election alone explains the call to Abraham, an idolater, cf. Josh. 24:1ff.; before the LORD
summoned the man into covenant community, he served other gods. Nevertheless, the LORD
willed this man and his to come out of Ur of the Chaldees with due diligence into the land of
promise. Similarly, the choice of Isaac rather than Ishmael, Jacob rather than Esau. Cf. Mal. 1:2f.
None of the early men and women in the emerging plan of the covenant lived so pure of heart as
to merit election and therewith salvation.
After revealing the election process over three generations – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - the
LORD’s purpose in predestination throughout the Old Testament for the New became clearer.
Cf. Gen. 15:6; Rom. 9:11 – “… though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good
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or bad, in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because
of his call [Rebecca] was told, ‘The elder shall serve the younger.’” Never because of our works,
nor even human decisions. Election occurs only on account of the Father’s foreknowledge,
calling, justification, and sanctification in Christ Jesus. Cf. Rom. 8:28ff.
This comprises a passing difficult life lesson to believe – testifying of the Holy Spirit’s work
through upright preaching, in even difficult and defiant covenant communities; we want
salvation as a personal choice based on an alleged freedom of the will, which choosing then
functions as wages for our works. Arminians at heart, as a hedge against Christ’s sovereign
lordship over salvation, we are prone to prove the predestination doctrine wrong. But in a world
fallen into depths of depravity and on the verge of final destruction, long ago Christ revealed
powers much superior to works righteousness and/or what sloven Bible readers tout as freedom
of the will, by now a hoary fallacy. This shifting-sands freedom of the will functions as a socially
acceptable, if disconcerting, conviction in liberal and conservative communities as an excuse to
dodge total submission to Christ. Subtotal commitment to Christ Jesus indicates: I choose to
believe my personal relationship to him, nothing of which ever Scripture affirms.
Christ’s much maligned superior powers, promised already in Gen. 3:15, he manifested
during his three-year ministry in the covenant community. Cf. Mt. 11:25ff. –
“I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the
wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will.
All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father,
and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal
him.”
The Holy Spirit endorses the same in John 1:18 as well as, most poignantly, at the beginning
to the Ephesian letter.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his
sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace
which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”
In demonstration of divine holiness and blamelessness and through the inevitable preaching
of the predestination doctrine in the covenant community, Christ wills that we more zealously
confirm our call and election. Cf. II Pet.1:10. Since election and reprobation appear in the
surface activities of time and history, and take us out of our reactionary zones of preferment,
both serve as strong-spirited key players in preaching, to prepare first all of the members of the
Church for eternally diverging futures.
Eternal Beginnings
With varying rhythms of consternation and hope at the preaching of go-ahead predestination,
clearly, the disparate ways through the narrow gate or onto the broad way begin in the
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worshiping church. In fact, during the preaching, to the sensations and reverberations of the
formation of history, we step into eternity – either into the heart of light or farther into the
continuing menace of darkness.
Within the Church, the great cleavage between covenant keepers and covenant breakers
received early manifestation. We may begin with Lot’s greed-motivated betrayal of the covenant
community or the separation between Ishmael and Isaac. The later division between Jacob and
Esau also made uncompromisingly clear in covenant community that our entire salvation is
Christ Jesus’ unchangeable work – his alone. Cf. Rom. 11:29 – “For the gifts and the call of God
are irrevocable.” Here stands the redoubtable foundation of faith and life – without a double
standard, that is, part God’s and part man’s.
They who refuse to hear and believe such up-to-speed preaching or menace its sovereign
signification with banal speculation on free moral agency, plus detering ministers from such
sound proclamation, ensure that the narrow gate shuts tight against them and access to the broad
way opens wide. All such troublesome members of the Church in the magnitude of the situation
miss the calling to faith and the good life at the fundamental starting point, the preaching. They
excite the insidious impression that salvation devalues into a vaporous choosing, for or against.
This abuse of revelation, however, trivializes both covenant and predestination. And the word of
the Lord.
Congregations drawn together in the name of Jesus Christ by the Spirit before the Father
desire from the heart to know the origin of salvation as the Mediator revealed on the Cross.
Living members of the Church insist on sound proclamation, also with respect to the doctrine of
predestination, the more so when preaching units demand this. It is easy to concentrate with
telling detail on the gentle and lowly Son, plus rest of soul, peace, harmony, and unity, while
forgetting the predestinarian formation as well as the severe dividing-line Christ establishes with
the sword of the Spirit in the new Israel, the Church.
Covenant and predestination cohabit in biblical history; this bipolarity forms the basic
paradigm for and the heartbeat of sound preaching. In the progressively richer revelation of the
impenetrable powers of redemption, both election and reprobation stand out with superior clarity.
Such the Father reveals throughout the touching manifestation of his only-begotten Son, our
Savior. Great proclamation, work of the Holy Spirit in the churches, marks out and concentrates
on the remarkable predestination progress in the history of redemption. We, his possession, will
on recognition of upright exegesis hunger for more of this openness in order to believe and live
in greater devotion the process of maturing in the word of the Lord.
Due to the priority of ordering the teachings on covenant and predestination in the biblical
frame of reference, Christ subjected all other word-pairs to this one. Everything on covenant and
predestination, more than all other bipolar structures, shatters our comfortable worlds of
religiosity.
HISTORY AND REDEMPTION
History and redemption invigorate and stabilize the heart theme of the Scriptures. As
demonstrated above in connection with covenant and predestination, the Holy Spirit reveals in
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canonical history (now rounded off and inscripturated) the traceable progression of redemption,
changing the seemingly unchangeable. This history of redemption – and of condemnation –
enriches that of covenant and election, in fact, gives the social environment for covenantal and
predestinarian revelation. Christ Jesus by the ministry of the Third Person multiplied the powers
of eternal life first granted Eve; after the Fall, with remarkable forward movement, which only
working members of the Church appreciate, we recognize and insist upon hearing the movingahead history of redemption as recorded with exclusive claim in the Bible.
HISTORY
We receive more in-depth learning from full-bodied sermons proving that history proceeds
from the first day of creation through all fierce aberrations of the Fall to the climaxing recreation.
The Lord of the Church, by way of the covenant and with forthcoming labors, weaves a strong
future through every sin-mangled past.
Historical Successions
History proceeds as “… something more than a succession of a few great events. The great
events are interspersed with periods of almost imperceptible development; the great actions are
prepared for by long, level years of humdrum daily life.” 489 Before and after battered dividing
points in history, as the 11th-century East-West split, bisecting Eastern Orthodoxy from Roman
Catholicism, and the 16th-century Reformation, living moves along even as the earth rotates
about Sol – also in this manner commanding attention for the universality of Jesus’ reign.
History is: the linear time-space progression through which Christ Jesus by means of the
word and the Spirit, despite opposition from covenant breakers, moves the Church and the
Kingdom into the glory of the Father.
In this emerging process, each preaching unit fits into and duly reflects historical site and
sense. Textual situations Christ’s upright spokesmen proclaim to move the Church forwards in
reformation through covenant faithfulness. As sons and daughters of Abraham, we require
increasing historical awareness of mighty continuities in revelation. Through the Spirit we move
into the historical perspectives of scriptural knowledge; once so perceived, we refuse even to
tolerate heterodox exegesis wrapped in static or cyclical theories of history. No forces of
procrastination and/or laziness, even if right down our respective alleys, will divert us from firstduty knowing more of the will of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit given in the revelatory
progression of the Word.
The most fundamental time line in history appears as the covenantal movement from the Old
Testament to the New. One the one hand, there is discontinuity; the old is completed, the new
arrived. The covenant promises of the Old Testament with respect to the Christ are fulfilled. On
the other hand, in continuity, the messianic promises actually come to completion in Jesus Christ
and the outpourings of the Spirit, to be finalized in the Parousia, specifically in the Judgment and
the Recreation. Preaching, then, sounds forth the making of living history.
489
Machen, The New Testament, op. cit., p. 131.
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At issue in this: only one world history of the Lord’s progressively advancing revelation and
redemptive work exists. All other ‘world histories’ end in shame for being wrong, which,
therefore, provide unreliable guides into the future.
Progressive Sermons
Shall we apprehend the spoken word of the Lord as the word of the Lord, we require the line
of history through reliable preaching and then insist on much more of the same for the
strengthening of our salvation and for the redemption across generations. Then a text from
Deuteronomy or Ezekiel may not be exegeted, willy-nilly, to and in our contemporary
congregations without carrying each such preaching unit into and through the New Testament.
Every Old Testament preaching unit, as it were, respect-winning preachers draw through the eye
of the needle, i.e., the Cross. Nor may a New Testament text, from Romans or Revelation, be
preached without unearthing its deep historical roots in the Old Testament. We need the
progression of history, both discontinuities and continuities in terms of the covenant. As
progressive brothers and sisters in the pew, young and old, we elevate appreciation for the Spiritinspired Church History to know our times and places and purposes and destinies – with
cumulative sermonic impact.
Inferior preaching may make of an Ezra/Nehemiah preaching unit a history lesson with
(detailed) explanations of historical movements among nations threatening the Church in that
era, ploughing on till time runs out for applicatory meanings. In the pew we never opt for the
word of the Lord as a mere retelling of an Old Testament account, perhaps with brief references
to the promised Messiah (to give such a ‘sermon’ at least a Christological tinting), and at the end
provide spare contemporary relevance – a mere moralism such as that God controls history. Any
sermon so cheap mirrors but second-rate commentary and only lazy ministers with confused and
befuddled thinking in the heart dare deliver such as the word of the Lord.
Distinct from inferior forms of preaching, which merely skim across textual surfaces, other
dangers too receive stringiest warnings in different forms. Cf. Deut. 18:15ff., against false
prophecy. Cf. I Tim. 4:1ff., against appeals to deceitful spirits. Cf. II Tim. 4:1ff., against mythic
pretensions. Etc. Often in Scripture, the Author warns the Church to eschew departures from the
Word in order to walk on stomping grounds of heretical foundations. Preaching on elusive
grounds depreciates textual units’ historical contexts, twists covenantal/predestinarian complexes
into Arminianism, refuses the divinity of the Person of Christ Jesus, identifies the Kingdom with
the world, subverts the Congregation into a social affair, in each limiting sermons to themes
which have more to do with the harmful fruits of ideologies than scriptural contents. Many more
heterodoxies may come to light, but one radiant rule certainly hangs on: error occurs only where
truth prevails. Outside the divine sphere of truth, all historical perspectives bargain with
disobedience.
Heretical preaching may sound interesting, if not captivating, weighing in with fascinating or
mindboggling twists and turns – allegorical, moralistic, exemplaristic, situational; but in the
office of the congregation we insist upon preaching in which ministers recognize and duly
expose the historical progression of redemption. This applies also to ‘static’ texts out of Proverbs
or other wisdom literature; these ‘stationary’ preaching units possess a timeless quality, yet
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manifest roots either in the Old Testament or in the New. When men of the Lord distort the
historical context, we insist on real amendments from such idle wanderers in the pulpit, thus
scrapping erected sound barriers against the divine purpose in history.
In Christ Jesus we pray for sound historical preaching and commit every proclaimer of the
Word to this mighty work. “The proclamation of His Word will again create new situations in
the history of God’s people; the promise is that the Word will, literally speaking, ‘make
history.’” 490 Within exploitative apostasy/heresy, the Head of the Church hastens to recreate a
faithful remnant 491 - the emerging church in every controversial era to draw out the factual and
straight dividing-line of history into the Parousia, scrapping Hindu, Islamic, American, Russian,
Chinese, and other versions of history, despite their fearsome reputations. Christ will have the
dynamics of development in redemption in order that we live on progressive sermons for
tomorrow.
REDEMPTION
On account of the Lord God’s infinite wisdom and unconquerable mercy, he chose within his
unfolding history to work through the generations of the people of the covenant. This became
apparent throughout the Gen. 1-11 history, from Adam over Noah to Abraham. The LORD made
this most noticeable with his unmatchable promise to Abraham. Cf. Gen. 17:7 – “And I will
establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their
generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.”
This unambiguous development and growth of history appears in Scriptures again with respect to
Abraham’s descendants. Cf. Jer. 31:2f. –
“Thus says the LORD: ‘The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness;
when Israel sought for rest, the LORD appeared to him from afar. I have loved you with an
everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”
Every deployment of this divine faithfulness with public perception of the covenant promises
means advancement in the history of the Church and of the Kingdom, and therefore a
continuation of the history of the world, in fact, of the universe. In constructing covenant history,
he adopts also through mission work many Gentiles. Thus he gathers all whom he chose to
address with the promise of redemption into the one generational lineage initiated with Abraham.
Undeserved Promises
Throughout Bible history the promises of the one redemption not only multiply; they also
became stronger, conscious of the advancing historical environments, the closer the approach to
the totality of revelation in Jesus Christ. The Spirit formed these promises based on Gen. 3:14-19
more profoundly until with Pentecost he proclaimed the powerhouse of the Gospel. To assimilate
490
Ritschl, op. cit., p. 131.
Achtemeier, op. cit., p. 82 – “Inevitably the church must come to terms with history. By the nature of its creation,
the church is a separated people. It is a group of rebels against God, like the rest of mankind, who for no merit on
their part and for no reasons apparent to the rest of humanity are redeemed by God, given a new life, and drawn
together in a community subject to God’s lordship and commandments. The church is separated from all other
groups on earth and made servant to God alone. It’s life is one of lonely uniqueness, apart from the rest of human
history.”
491
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the whole of redemptive history against the weariness and stiff challenges of the flesh, we
apprehend the Word for building up the Faith in our respective covenant communities. Christ
always promises to increase the force and the pressure of redemptive reality, the Gospel, until in
faith we believe the full power of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, Session,
and Parousia. The key to redemption clarifies that he paid the ransom, thus saving us from the
condemnation we earn by sinning. Cf. Gal. 3:13 – “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law,
having become a curse for us.” Cf. Gal. 4:5 – “… to redeem those who were under the law, so
that we might receive adoption as sons.” 492 He merited our salvation.
Redemption is: Christ’s accomplishment of divine justice, thereby earning for all the Father
gave him divine blessings of salvation as well as the work of the Spirit in its application.
Real listening to and remembering sermons based on preaching units from anywhere in the
Bible means we bow in non-perishable awareness to Christ’s catholic reign; frankly, by listening
and remembering, we recognize the need to garner requisite knowledge of Christ’s increasingly
fuller revelation of redemption.
Historic Struggles
Progression in redemptive history occurs because of sin’s overtime powers; the more total
depravity settled in and took over thoughts of hearts and habits of mind, the more sin falsifies the
hopes of church members, to say nothing of covenantally disrespectful individuals, nor of
nations and races always undermining the fear of the Lord. In the meantime, the Lord fortified
the Gospel – that grace may abound. Therefore, he revealed successive covenant reformations.
Against encroaching and irascible powers of sin also in the more appealing community, with
conquering distinction Christ revealed progressive forms of the Gospel to initiate eclipsing stages
in the history of redemption. Gen. 3:14-19 reflected the first such renewal. Then, the line runs
over Noah, Abraham, to Israel. Cf. Ex. 20:2 – “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out
of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” So the Old Testament budded, to break out in
bloom in Christ Jesus, forcing future foreign occupations by sin to suffer numerous straight
losses. Rough stuff, this lesson in the Gospel’s resilience, initially for-go-with-the-flow church
members.
Clearly, solicitous angels at rare and defining moments of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, 493
Resurrection, and Ascension affirmed the fullness of grace. At the start of Jesus’ session, they
fell silent and expectantly awaited the new state in the history of the Gospel. Cf. Rev. 4:1ff. In
the prism of the unfolding Old Testament dispensation, and pertinently in the New, this truth
comes out: the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit totally work out our redemption, they alone.
In redemption the Christ is the key Person; he paid the ransom to recreate us in the redeeming
life, then leads his own over the trustworthy bridge of peace into the presence of the Father. Cf.
Mk. 10:45; Mt. 20:28.
492
493
The law in these instances referred to the Pharisaical tradition of the fathers, elsewhere the written code.
Cf. Mt. 26:53.
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Grace is: the unmerited favor with which Christ Jesus blesses the Church to believe and live
her redemption.
Despite simmering and rioting opposition in god-like ways from covenant breakers,
graciously the LORD revealed to Abraham the progressive nature of redemption. Cf. Gen.
12:1ff., 15:1ff., 22:18. Similarly, he revealed redemption by way of Isaac over Jacob to Judah. In
the hearing of the other patriarchs, the LORD God moved the promise concerning Christ-bearing
not to Reuben, elder son, but in prophecy to Judah. Cf. Gen. 49:10 – “The scepter shall not
depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs;
and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” Such received wisdom moved the preaching of
Christ forwards to the Parousia.
The Lord revealed redemptive progression also through the sacrifices and ceremonies, which
he willed in the first dispensation. Cf. Lev. 1:1ff.; John 5:46; Heb. 10:1ff.; etc.
Christ declared his progressive redemption much more through the far-seeing prophecies of
the men whom he selected for this office of the ministry. Cf. Is. 53:12ff.; Jer. 23:5f.; Micah
7:8ff.; Acts 10:43; Heb. 1:1; etc. Overcoming the often murderous pressure tactics of covenant
breakers, he burns the unholy lot, each in turn. The revelation of redemption, however, in its
totality appears in the New Testament war zone.
The two struggles visible throughout Scriptures consist then of the grace that skewers ever
stronger manifestations of evil and the daredevil spirits constantly seeking out endless
opportunities for ericating this grace - colliding most finally on Golgotha. The Christ is now
poised to reveal the totality of this collision in the Parousia, which assessment of the future
engulfs the disruptive influences of alternative historical projections.
Renewal Struggles
However, early or late, one central question reoccurs in the Christian history of listening to
the proclamation of the Word. What is the responsibility of a member of the Church in and with
the work of redemption? Men of the Reformation – Luther, Calvin, and Scottish Knox (15051572), following high profile Augustine, reopened this question, which Scholasticism had settled
by way of Semi-Pelagianism, a synthesis between the Lord and each member. Semi-Pelagians
taught and teach that God and man cooperate in salvation in such a way that man, in this one
respect more omnipotent than God, may accept or reject the alleged offer of salvation. This
mechanic of deceit still exploits one of the major fallacies in the Church, no matter how much
clutching-at-straws Arminians and Evangelicals presume to settle the matter in favor of Roman
Catholic’s semi-Pelagian arrogance.
Over centuries, it seems, many Protestant ministers diluted the biblical answer with toxic
waters of Arminianism, for, they know, this gospeling pleases us, though Scriptures clearly give
the actual answer, which we repeat in sound summaries of the Word. However, the final sermon
with the ring of assurance on this recurrent theme needs yet to be spoken. In the meantime, every
generation of the Church struggles (or ought to) with this deepest of religious concerns. Yet
often, rebellion sneaks in, contrary to and upsetting the Word. Then church members seek to
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establish a safer, more functional environment for shallow piety. Thus, totally flawed people,
restless within inner recesses, may presume to have the last word; they do this first by speaking
of an offer of salvation and second by deciding for or against this offer. In the Scriptures,
however, the Lord Jesus summons, commands, his people to believe, and the elect do.
Struggles on this score evolve frequently into less than the biblical answer, despite the fact
that sound preachers proclaim it constantly. Defiance of the answer centers on sins alive in total
depravity: it is very difficult to believe irresistible grace – for we want to contribute to our
salvation with a power-sharing arrangement, one incurably biased toward self-justification. In
the interior life of this general Arminian wrangling against irresistible grace boils the controversy
of sin and salvation. Therefore, the issue was, is, and will be as serious as inescapable, yet
constantly answered with courageous determination already by reciting the Credo, a most
remarkable digest of the Bible.
Twelve Articles
Part I of the Credo reads – “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and
earth.” The First Person of the Trinity – “eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, immutable,
infinite, almighty, perfectly wise, just, good, and the overflowing fountain of all good,” 494 – the
Judge, prompts the fear of the Lord. Sunday by Sunday, he holds all hearers of the Word
accountable for the word of the Lord.
Part II of the Credo reads – “I believe in Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son, our Lord; He
was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was
crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell. On the third day He arose from the de; He
ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty; from there He will
come to judge the living and the dead.” The Second Person of the Trinity and equal to the Father
in every attribute reveals the full scale of redemption; on the Cross, he purchased the salvation
for all the Father granted him. Cf. I Cor. 1:30 – “[The Father] is the source of your life in Christ
Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”
Hence, believers, no longer self-destructive, move onwards in the progression by which the Lord
Jesus already brought the Church a long way, living on the solid footing of the Gospel.
Part III of the Credo reads – “I believe in the Holy Spirit; I believe a holy catholic Christian
church, the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the
life everlasting.” The Third Person of the Trinity, equal to the Father and the Son in every divine
attribute, applies the work of redemption Christ Jesus merited for his own; the Spirit completes
our salvation, also by leading the Church into and through the Parousia.
The free-moving structure of the Apostles Creed speaks simply from the heart: redemption is
totally and finally the work of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit – by grace. This we confess
without an Arminian or Semi-Pelagian trace of sloppy Bible reading and religious thinking.
494
In this manner Art. 1 of the 1561 Confession of Faith begins. The Credo structures this Standard of the Faith.
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Alert Listeners
Because of grace (alone!) for salvation, as hearers of the Word, what then comprises our duty
in redemption?
The doctrine neither of predestination nor of total depravity undermines the fact that we,
hearing the Word, are duly responsible moral beings. To use a relevant expression, in the
presence of the Lord and Savior, we never escape into a “stocks and blocks” 495 mentality or
social enclave, absent the cherished element of responsibility. Christ obligates all whom he calls
to respond positively to the Gospel – to believe the covenant promises in our present life to
glorify the Father with thankful obedience for our redemption. Regardless of our state – Jew or
Greek, slave or free, male [and] 496 female – Jesus Christ entrusts to us the responsibility to
believe the covenant promises. Actually, the Holy Spirit works the hearing of the word of the
Lord as we listen to (and remember) the Word. Believing signs that we apprehend the spoken
word. As the Spirit works in us the will to believe, it is as if we, new creations, do this ourselves
– taking responsibility for hearing and believing the Word. In fact, where unbelievers foolishly
exaggerate a human ability, believers hunger to hear more of the totality of redemption and of
the Redeemer.
Answering this profound question regarding our responsibility in salvation, ministers ought
never degrade the Word into blank-cheque Semi-Pelagian works righteous, always a popular
illusion, for we cannot and never may attempt to accomplish our redemption, not even add a little
to it. Christ’s saving merit abhors (each trace of) works righteousness and every version of
freedom of the will.
Freedom of the will is: an alleged ability in salvation to choose for or against Jesus Christ.
This technically humanistic free moral agency hangs around as a 18th-century Enlightenment
leftover.
What comes through in the history of redemption, the closer to the New Testament age the
clearer: the Holy Spirit by way of the proclamation of the Word regenerates; he makes us new
creatures and we turn heartily willing and ready from that moment on to strive for the purpose of
life, glorifying the triune God out of gratitude for salvation.
All historical action pertaining to our redemption the Lord Jesus revealed progressively in
Old Testament covenant history and which he accomplished visibly on the Cross comes out
consistently - in line with the preaching text. This is to say: preaching true to the Word secures
unquestioningly historical-redemptive sermons, even when drawn from an unexpected source as
the Proverbs.
Sitting upright and alert in respective pews, we now listen intently, with an unfudging
question strong in our mental foreground. How do our ministers treat the historical-redemptive
structure of the Word? In a sense, we require the logistics of survival skills. Ministers are as
prone as we are inattentive to qualify preaching according to Arminian convictions. They
495
496
Cf. Canons of Dort, III/IV, 16.
Cf. Gal. 3:28. RSV redactors placed “or” here, possibly to carry through the parallelism of the text.
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surmise that we want a nonexistent freedom of the will reinforced; when exegetically lazy, they
gladly escape historical-redemptive preaching if we even whisper resentment against this
profound and fundamental reading of the Word.
GOSPEL AND LAW 497
Within the linchpin duality of Gospel and Law, we tend to insert corrosive twists, either
legalism or antinomianism. Corrosion comes from the way in which we play out the significance
of the Gospel against the functions of the Law.
Biblically, the functions of the Law are two: 1) by means of the Commandments the Lord of
the Church marks out the way of gratitude for salvation, cf. Ex. 20:1ff., and 2) by means of the
Law the Lord of the Church discovers the conflicts and contradictions of our sins, cf. Rom. 3:20.
With respect to the second – “The texts of scripture which present warnings, threats, and
sanctions are as much a part of the revelation as those which contain a promise or an
obligation.” 498 In perversion of these two purposes of the Law, legalism and antinomianism
manipulate the way of gratitude into sinful ends and damage the Gospel. Equally true, all
variations of legalism and antinomianism rattle and obscure the one gospel’s great dimensions
and deep reaches.
GOSPEL
With the Credo, the early church summarized the genuineness and directness of the Gospel
as revealed after Adam’s sin and promised everywhere in the Bible. It began with Gen. 3:14-19,
then purposefully, stepping strong and free out of the shadows, gained in dominance and clarity.
After Adam, the LORD God revealed the central covenant promises to Noah, disclosed these
more entrenched in redemptive history to Abraham, and brought them with Israel-uniting
dimension through Moses. Cf. Ex. 20:2/Deut. 5:6 – “I am the LORD your God, who brought you
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” Thereafter, he declared the whole gospel
even stronger to David, repeated its parts in a hundred heart-grasping ways by the astounding
flame of the prophets, and then fundamentally realized the Gospel in the name of the Father. This
dominical revelation the Twelve Articles summarize in the second part.
The Gospel is: the covenantal promises, believing which Christ Jesus by grace instills in all
the Father gave him for overcoming sinfulness.
Gospel Powers
The Spirit dispensed the Gospel in its first part by many and various ways, one of which is
Gal. 2:20, Paul confessing –
497
J.T. McNeill, ed., The Library of Christian Classics, Vol. XX, J. Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion
(Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), II.vi.1, note 1p – “The phrase ‘gospel and law,’ rather than the more
common ‘law and gospel’ is appropriate to Calvin.”
After the Fall, this is the biblical order – Gospel first, Law second. Thus Ex. 20:1ff. – first Gospel, then the
Commandments.
498
Marcel, op. cit., p. 77.
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“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and
the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself
for me.”
When our ministers aptly declare the Good News, then the Holy Spirit enkindles faith and we
believe the Gospel with increasing conviction and trust. In all whom the Father gave to the Son
then rises the confession with respect to the covenant promises. Now we believe and confess
Jesus Christ our only Savior, Mediator, and Redeemer. Our confession unfolds and galvanizes us
from the heart as he leads us out of darkness into the unfamiliar country of his marvelous light.
In fact, this life journeying out of darkness of sin into the light of salvation supplies sound
definition of gospel powers. Cf. I Pet. 2:9f. – “… you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you
out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people but now you are God’s
people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy.” The faith called for
in this multi-layered quote comes in response to the fundamental springs of action brought about
by genuine emancipation.
Christ Jesus in his Person 499 and through his office as the Priest took upon and absorbed in
himself the guilt and condemnation for our sinning, and thus revealed the awe-striking force of
the Gospel. In the light of the Good News we believe ourselves totally unable to make any
atonement to the Father for breaking the Law, notably the Decalogue.
Thus to accomplish generic Gen. 3:14-19, Christ in his execution by crucifixion took our
place with the grand result: God paid God for our transgressions of the Law. 500 The Father gave
his only-begotten Son and the Son freely, according to the plan of the Father, offered himself and
actively achieved our salvation in all its thoroughness, inclusive its believing.
Persistently, all Christians, as much as we aspire to wear a cloak of self-righteousness, sin
against the Father and his law. This sinning dishonors his name and opposes his justice. Hence,
all breakage of the Commandments requires satisfaction: every minor and major transgression
committed against the most high majesty of God must be punished with the most severe, indeed,
everlasting punishment of body and soul, 501 the precise sentence legislated as early as Gen. 2:17.
Under this inescapable burden, only Christ is the sufficient and efficient Redeemer, the Person
who on the Cross in his body revealed the disquieting and joyful fact of the Gospel. This truth,
salutary when preached, jars us out of any complacency with respect to our salvation, destroying
any notion of a free will with a (limited) responsibility for answering to the Gospel. Even our
response by faith is of Christ, work of the Holy Spirit.
The one gospel in myriad manifestation instills the Faith with respect to Christ’s redeeming
work – pardon for sins, everlasting righteousness, regeneration, eternal life, justification,
499
It is always necessary to maintain the Trinitarian connection: Jesus Christ co-eternal and co-essential with the
Father and the Spirit, one in truth, power, goodness, and mercy. Cf. the 1561 Confession of Faith, Art. XII.
500
Carl Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, VI, op. cit., p. 335 – “… the sacrifice is both provided by God and
offered to God; God offers himself in the gift of his Son to achieve a just and merciful forgiveness of sinners. It is
God himself who makes the complete sacrifice.”
501
Cf. the 1563 Heidelberg Catechism, Q/A 11.
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sanctification, assurance of salvation, conviction of election, perseverance in believing and
living, sense of place in the Church, as well as active citizenship in the Kingdom; in short, the
Gospel slowly gains victories in our respective hearts over sin, the world, and the Devil –
restricting entry to every power of hate in the new creation. In, with, and through the Good News
the Holy Spirit struggles in surrendering hearts of all elect in Christ Jesus and moves us, here and
now, onto the way of eternal life. Nothing added to the Gospel in terms of our prides of
disposition, work, decisions, status, wealth, poverty, etc., helps meriting the Faith.
Gospel Functions
1) By the vivid revelation of the Gospel, the Son of God created the distinction not between
nature and grace, 502 but between sin and grace. Nature never needs killing off. The world about
us the LORD God meant to thrive under Adam’s rulership, cf. Gen. 1:26 – “… dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and
over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” Now, sin in humanity and in nature
requires annihilation. For instance, cf. Col. 3:5 – “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you.”
This remains an important dynamic of the Gospel: it purges sin, even while making us alive in
Christ Jesus, the Gospel’s first function.
2) In, with, and through the Church’s ministry, Christ starts and matures our renewed-indominion life to the end that we deliver God-glorifying works. Cf. Eph. 2:10 – “For we are his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we
should walk in them.” By means of the Gospel, the Lord of the Church declares and imputes
upon repentance the promise of forgiveness of our sins: because of the Son’s suffering and
atoning death, the Father no longer holds believers accountable for the guilt of sinning and sins,
thus establishing our fundamental freedom for righteous working.
Therefore, the quiet strength and careful words of the one gospel must be proclaimed audibly
in all its riches and variations – as it began in Gen. 3:14ff. Later, the LORD called for the same
through the mass of ceremonial laws and sacrifices, and then through fearless prophets. Cf. Is.
52:13ff., 55:1ff.; Jer. 31:31f.; Ez. 36:22ff.; etc. The gospel current runs as a progressing stream
of lively waters through the Old Testament dispensation, always as messianic promises, now
manifested forever in the Person and work of the Son, always the same, 503 but as various as
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
In the economy of grace, the Gospel through the tireless fighting of the Holy Spirit enkindles
faith in Jesus Christ. By way of the Gospel we now embrace the Law in order through the many
parts of the commandment of love to witness to our thankfulness for salvation. This thankfulness
502
A Roman Catholic antithesis, particularly in the theology of Thomas Aquinas. Through Thomism the
nature/grace distinction misplaced the dividing-line. Clarified by the 16th-century Reformation, the actual and
biblical distinction places the dividing-line between sin and grace.
503
Marcel, op. cit., p. 77 – “Scriptures leaves no doubt that they who reject the gospel refuse not only to believe in
the divinely revealed facts and truths, but also resist the general work of the Holy Spirit concomitant with their
calling. There is no doubt that they render themselves guilty of the sin of obstinate disobedience, increase their
accountability, and amass for themselves a storehouse of wrath for the day of judgment (Matt. 3:7; 25:41; Luke 3:7;
I Thess. 2:16, 5:9; etc.).
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reveals that we actually believe the valued function of the Gospel. Cf. II Cor. 3:12ff.; Gal. 5:1ff.;
Col. 3:1ff.; etc.
The Gospel preached in its scriptural omnipresence transforms and matures us in the Faith.
Therefore, ministers of the Word proclaim it, Sunday upon Sunday, in every sermon, also to
force predatory, life-stealing gospels to yield. Thus, growing, we underscore by listening with
acute perception to the upright word that we are not ashamed of the Gospel. Cf. Rom. 1:16f.; I
Cor. 1:18ff.; etc. Instead of naturally instinctive shame, we reach out with thankful obedience in
response to Christ’s command that we believe and live the Good News only, and, alive, enter
into the new creation.
Is there any other way to hear and believe the Gospel than through sound preaching? Perhaps
– reading the Bible, studying pertinent literature, conversing with the intent to explain Scripture.
However, only by way of the living preaching of the Word can any one be assured that Christ
addresses us and inspires the faith with which to believe all promises of salvation. When he
commands us to believe, he also provides the Spirit to achieve faith. Seeking to believe in any
other manner involves pride of presumption. Through the preached gospel the Spirit gives life,
law-living. Cf. John 6:63p. 504
On the other hand, the Gospel strikes fear and/or derision into protesting hearts of
unbelievers, thereby confounding the malice of man too prone to invoke fouled spirits against the
Christ.
LAW
Faithful or unfaithful gospel preaching brings about not merely different, but bluntly
antithetical responses in our hearts and in the Church. Every malfunctioning proclamation
excites pagan openings to legalism or antinomianism – both to circumvent the sinfulness of sin
(to use a Puritan expression) and therefore the power of the Gospel.
Two Malfunctions
1) On account of unsure or inadequate gospel preaching, apostatizing ministers superimpose
legal requirements upon the Good News. Then the interpretation of the Gospel becomes: by
doing the works of the Law, either the Commandments or legal inventions, we either earn wholly
or contribute partly to salvation. If the first, earning, then through our own doings we merit the
right to believe the Gospel. But how many good works must any one do to achieve this right, or
privilege? If the second, by contributing to, then we assume that Christ left the Gospel
insufficient, crippled in some way, and we must add to the Good News in order to arrive at the
privilege of believing it. Both ways promote legalism, contrary to all Scripture. Cf. Gal. 2:1ff.,
3:10 – “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be every
one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.’” In fact,
504
The RSV redactors use lower-case “spirit,” but the context indubitably clarifies that Christ spoke of the Third
Person in the first instance of the use of the word – “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words
that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
In this case too the lower-case “spirit” suffers as a victim of translations warfare.
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honestly, we daily increase our sins rather than compete for anything additional to the Christian
gospel.
Legalism is: (life-long) efforts to negotiate a salvation by doing commandments.
Since the Lord Jesus forbids legalism, for this never was and is the Decalogue’s purpose, any
attempt to gain unearnable salvation runs into a wall. Any assumption to the contrary involves
the accusation that Christ Jesus left the Gospel incomplete – a reprehensibly contrary current.
Following Scripture, we rightfully accuse the Pharisees, ubiquitous throughout the New
Testament revelation, of legalism. However, cf. Mt. 23:1ff., they had evolved an alternative
system of laws, a neolegalism much easier to keep than the Commandments. Christ Jesus
exposed this legal high with cold solace, cf. Mk. 7:6ff., 11:15ff.; Lk. 19:9ff.; etc. Neolegalism in
the Church develops a further simplistic assumption: we hope that if we are pleased with our
legalics, the Savior will be also. Paul to the Galatian churches forcefully dispelled this
ideological drivel. The same applies to other neolegalics, old and new – the Code of Hammurabi,
Roman law, and human rights systems; none had or has Christ-approved standing in the Church,
whatever similarities to the Decalogue.
Neolegalism is: (life-long) efforts to earn a salvation by means of synthetic laws. 505
In the Church, every legalism and neolegalism harnesses heart forces that distrust the totality
and finality of our Lord and Savior’s atoning, mediating, and redeeming labors in his office of
the King, Prophet, and Priest, which compel us to seek salvation by legal works, laws chosen out
of cultural considerations to ease the emptiness of souls. These, warring systems run contrary to
Scripture and the very salvation awesomely promised.
Ecclesiastically, legalism and neolegalism, law-and-order movements, erode the Faith. In
each generation, rather than explicitly trusting the covenant promises with respect to salvation,
we attempt to earn the new life by way of works. Both methods obstruct the preaching of the
Word by human means, which dodge and dilute the sinfulness of sin and gain the whole of
salvation – because of a morbid lack of trust in the Gospel. Jesus Christ condemned salvation-byworks to good advantage when he forced the battered Pharisees and the Sadducees as well
outside the Kingdom. Cf. Mk. 12:1ff., the parable of the vineyard.
2) On account of bending the axiomatic bond between the Gospel and the Law, antinomian
forces throw up as barrier another towering conceit to living the Faith.
This other tradition developed later than legalism, coming into the open along two diverging
schools of thought, one negative, one positive. Negative practitioners of antinomianism assume
human inability to accomplish anything right in Christ Jesus before the Father; they elevate this
arid calculation into a law in its own right. For achieving this legal structure, they believe that
Christ Jesus fulfilled the Law and therefore have to do nothing in gratitude. Positive practitioners
of antinomianism too presume that Christ Jesus fulfilled the Law. However, in response to New
505
Volunteerism, church attendance, (random) good deeds, philanthropies, altruism, etc., may be considered other
ways of neolegalism.
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Testament commands to thankfulness, they choose to support current culturally prominent issues
in reaction to contemporary cultural perils – anti-abortion on demand, anti-euthanasia legislation,
anti-substance abuse campaigns, pro-human rights enforcements, pro-family aspirations, antistem cell research. The main driver for this gratitude does not necessarily originate in Scriptures.
Antinomianism is: a heart-force claiming freedom from the Law, thereby, freedom from
covenantal obligations for thankfulness in the Church and throughout the Kingdom.
Given that perception of reality, antinomianism, always a growing-in-importance
manifestation of the Zeitgeist, denies the Law its legitimate place in the Church and the
Kingdom. Therewith antinomians, misinterpreting the Gospel, fail to reveal due gratitude for
salvation; quarreling with Christ, they seek to retrain thankfulness on their own terms, apart from
the Law. Since they find the Gospel dispensed with the Commandments, they misshape the
structure of gratitude by way of invented rules; in fact, by this activism they move into another
sort of legalism.
Activism is: human-generated and militant activity to force a perceived good into an
ideology or idolatry.
Malfunctioning interpretations of the Law, both (neo)legalism and antinomianism, regress
into overactive disobedience; these dissenting movements deny the Gospel and undermine
salvation, involving irrationally all participants time and again in dishonoring the Triune God.
For both huge mutations of the Commandments rob the Christ of his glory and the Church of her
salvation by fragmentizing the relationship between Gospel and Decalogue, so contrary to the
Scriptures. Cf. James 2:17- “… faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” We need to master
these titanic deviations of gratitude lest they pollute the Church even more drastically than now.
Purposive perversions of the Law may establish temporary comfort zones and stress busters;
nevertheless, whether (neo)legalism or antinomianism, both perilous dangers distort the Gospel.
Therefore, these two aberrant approaches to gratitude obstruct the Good News at its most crucial
points – believing and living – since each in its own way produces neuropathy of soul. In short,
antinomians against the Law and (neo)legalists abusing the Law seek to evade the sinfulness of
sin by developing law systems in distinction from the Commandments.
Popular Negations
Gospel proclamation distorted by legalism, including the antinomian, sponges on all Jesus
Christ’s meritorious works. They want a salvation without the biblical obligations. In the church,
legalists of every stripe twist the totality and finality of the atoning, mediating, and redeeming
labors of our Lord and Savior in his office of King, Prophet, and Priest. Ministers with these
hostile attitudes compare favorably to “superlative apostles,” cf. II Cor. 11:1ff.; in effect, they
magnify a power-sharing gospel, the message that good works augment, if not replace, the
Gospel and thus merit salvation. Such pernicious messengers scoff at applicable obligations by
‘proclaiming’ freedom from the Law with clever provocation; in fact, they excise Christcommanded covenantal duties in the Church and the Kingdom from our office bearing as kings,
prophets, and priests. On a large scale, they desire to spread sheens of contemporaneity in
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churches given to lawlessness. (Neo)legally alien responses on account of unfaithful gospel
proclamation undermine and negate the Good News’ progress through the ages. It is so human:
hopefully building ruination.
In one era and/or place, congregations and ministers stigmatized by the discordant facts of
unbelief make the Law weigh more than biblically warranted. In a different period and/or
locality, churches and preachers assert antinomian works, making the Decalogue weigh less than
the Scriptures command. 506 Hence, in congregations committed by the Spirit to the Word heated
controversies may arise with respect to the Law against popular negations of the
Commandments, unless hard-skinned opponents of the Gospel, unconvertible, beat these
‘debates’ down into dull stalemates.
However, generations of living members of the Church, more discerning and standing on the
shoulders of the faithful of the past, cf. Heb. 13:7, insist that ministers of the Word bow to
Christ’s yoke until we all submit faithfully to gratitude preaching, and counteract flagrant
disobedience in the proclamation of the Commandments.
The New Commandment
In response to worthy-in-Christ gospel preaching, we contend that the Law, as the Lord
Jesus’ sole moral authority legitimate in the Church, must be heard in accordance with the depth
of nourishment in each preaching unit, whether from the Old Testament or the New.
The Law is: everything in Scripture codified as divine commandments or as divine
prohibitions.
Primarily, with respect to the Law, the emphasis falls on the Decalogue 507 and its numerous
applications, which the Author summarized and translated as the new commandment, cf. John
13:34; I John 2:7f. In Christ, we grapple with the Law’s sum alive and contemporary in every
time and situation of the Church – because thankful adherence to the divine code of ethics
springs up as our response to the Gospel.
In the Old Testament, Christ issued also many injunctions relative to sacrifices and
Tabernacle/Temple ceremonies; non-compliance with or breakage of these commandments
warranted the death penalty. Cf. Ex. 28:43, 30:20f., 33, 38; etc. This Nadab and Abihu’s
sacrilege, cf. Lev. 10:1ff., as well as the Korah, Dathan, and Abiram rebellions, cf. Num. 16:1ff.,
506
Gilkey, op. cit., p. 161 – “Here we shall not run through all the familiar problems that may beset religions of the
law – pride, despair, bondage, and so on – for these have been clearly spelled out in Paul, Augustine, Luther,
Kierkegaard, and a host of others.”
Paul snubbed these seedbeds of strife; cf. Rom. 2:17ff.; Gal. 3:10ff.; etc.
507
Iain Provan, “’All These I Have Kept Since I Was a Boy,’ (Luke 18:21): Creation, Covenant, And the
Commandments of God,” Ex Auditu, Vol. 17, 2001, p. 34 – “The Ten Commandments do not float about the realm
of history, nor are they devoid of literary connections. They are historically located, and they have a literary context,
or rather, two literary contexts. They are found in Exod 20:1-17, in the midst of the Exodus narrative and just prior
to the so-called covenant law code of Exod 20:18-23:19, and in the long prologue to the legal prescriptions of
Deuteronomy, in Deut 5:1-21. Good exegetical practice demands that their historical and their literary locatedness
must play their part in determining their meaning and significance.”
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painfully proved. Commandments and prohibitions with respect to the numerous sacrifices as
well as Tabernacle/Temple legalities the LORD revealed throughout the first dispensation; these
he, however, accomplished, fulfilling the bloody Old Testament sacrifices in his own. Consider:
1) With the coming of Christ the ceremonies and symbols of the Tabernacle/Temple no
longer possess a commanding place in the preaching and the Church; in this sense: no minister
may call us to repeat the ceremonies and symbols of altars, sacrifices, and temples. Neolegalists
may seek to reintroduce these, 508 yet, from the pew we join issue with wrong-headed ministers.
These laws, though not obsolete in terms of their original purpose, serve only for their truth and
substance in Jesus Christ, “… both to confirm us in the doctrine of the gospel and to order our
life in all honor, according to God’s will and to His glory.” 509 So, the Old Testament continues to
live for us as foundational to the New.
2) Christ Jesus is the goal 510 of the Old Testament, cf. Rom. 10:4. Through his life and death
he vicariously sustained all the duties of the Law for his people and merited the forgiveness of
sins, taking upon himself our guilt for breaking every commandment. At the same time, he
‘recreated’ the Commandments for their original purpose. This purpose lights up simply and
plainly the fact that by living the Commandments in the New Testament dispensation we express
our gratitude for the uncushioned challenges of salvation in Christ Jesus.
Throughout the New Testament, Jesus taught the permanent validity of the Law, cf. Mt.
5:17ff., as the only acceptable response to the Gospel; in this manner solely we express thankful
obedience, that is, gratitude for salvation. Thus the Christian rule of life lays out all duties in the
way of sanctification, which sanctification alone builds life to glorify the Father. “For this
reason, the commandment to love God is in Deuteronomy and in the teachings of Jesus the first
and great commandment. It is found twelve times in the book of Deuteronomy and it is made the
basis of all other commands. For if a man truly loves the Lord, he will willingly follow his
guidance.” 511 To this love for God, that we keep his commandments, cf. I John 3:4, 5:3, we now
match up our living. Cf. Rom. 7:4 – “Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the [written code]
through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from
the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.” And bearing fruit for the Father comes only
through faithful and thankful application of the Law. In fact, to put it sharply: the Father holds us
responsible for his commandments.
508
Grant R. Jeffrey, Armageddon: Appointment With Destiny (New York: Bantam, 1990), pp. 108ff. With others of
like sentiment, G.R. Jeffrey looks for the reconstruction of the Temple. With Temple reconstruction,
Dispensationalists also look for the rediscovery of the Ark of the Covenant. Mr. Jeffrey openly advocates return to
the Old Testament ceremonies. Cf. p. 112 – “They would also have to institute a complete Levitical sacrifice system
to complete the prophecy.”
They who of late seek a return to the Old Testament manifestation also shoulder completing the entire law in
order to gain salvation, notwithstanding its full weight. Cf. Deut. 27:26p – “Cursed be he who does not confirm the
words of this law by doing them.” Since Old Testament history proved the impossibility of fulfilling the Law in
terms of salvation, all who attempt the impossible for themselves or for the Jews enter into unending labyrinths of
autosoterism.
509
Cf. the 1561 Confession of Faith, Art. 25p.
510
David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary (Clarksville, Maryland: Jewish New Testament
Publications, 1992), p. 395, rightly recommends: “end” ought to be “purpose.”
511
Achtemeier, op. cit., p. 70.
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To show forth the reality of our redemption, all preaching on the Law inspires living to the
glory of the Father in the Church and in the Kingdom - throughout marriage/family, friendship,
politics, employment, education, recreation, ecology, etc. Thereby, we demonstrate that Christ
delivers us out of a horrible pit of miry clay and sets us upon a rock with a new song of praise in
our hearts and mouths. Cf. Ps. 103:1ff. The alternative? We fall back into all holding patterns of
sin or, consumed by vanity, fraternize with evil.
Proclamation of the demanding standards to which we may appreciatively listen explains
how we ought to live in every religious and social context of contemporary life, thankfully
responsive to the Good News. Without falling overboard either on the ideological left or right,
the exclusive claim of true preaching of the Gospel/Law polarity leads us further into
sanctification, that short-lived process ending in the comprehensiveness of salvation. Cf. I Pet.
5:10. Preaching dominated by the Gospel inspires in all of us the trademark resolve to begin here
and now by way of the universal ethic of the Law for the richness then and there.
In the office of the congregation, we, gratitude-bound and articulate, instead of veering with
the winds, ensure that men on the pulpit maintain proper balance between Gospel and Law, until
all proneness to legalism or antinomianism falls by the way side. Both devilishly appealing
human ideas circumvent the Gospel. Therefore, the Law must be heard in professional grade
preaching, not merely once, but consistently, closely aligned with the Good News.
CHURCH AND KINGDOM
The Son of God, from time’s beginning, in every generation gathers the Church. All whom
the Father gave him arrive either through a birth canal or a mission endeavor for living
membership. To that end, the Lord Jesus coordinates the preaching of the word and the working
of the Holy Spirit, who in, with, and through sound proclamation draws all whom Christ wills. In
the midst of Israel, the Old Testament Church, Jesus declared, cf. Mt. 16:18 - “I will build my
church.” Hence, the New Testament manifestation of the Church follows the lifeline begun in
Paradise and moves on until history’s end, and beyond.
From out of the Church’s bosom, Christ Jesus expands the Kingdom, cf. Mt. 16:19, to reveal
his exceedingly sovereign powers; this he first addressed to the Twelve – “I will give you the
keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and
whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” This binding and loosening, of course,
directly influences the Church, but remains Christ’s work. Therefore, the intimate bond between
Church and Kingdom, the latter expanding forth from the former.
CHURCH
Inferior and/or apostate preaching ‘legitimizes’ erroneous manifestations of the Church, such
as denominationalism, a movement corroborating schism, making the one body of Christ into
many branches and sects; these often break away into strange-to-the-Bible constructions called
chapels, worship centers, Gospel Halls, Christian centers, temples, tabernacles, lighthouses, etc.
In essence, denominationalists bespatter with shame the unifying name Jesus Christ gave his
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people, the Church. Now, in current welters of denominationalism, exacerbated by Tower-ofBabel confusions, what is the Church?
The Church moves about in reverse more fragmented than ever, less concentrated on and in
the Word, schismatically riven, entrenched in sin, despite all wishful thinking by pulpit
ideologues. Yet, though many desire the contrary, Christ wills his people to be one, in which
unity he reveals her through supportive communal names.
Multiple Names
The Church consists of all whom Christ calls together to hear in liturgical contexts the
spoken word of the Lord, and be partakers of all he earned throughout his life and especially in
his death, resurrection, and ascension. Now, during his session, even as he rules heaven and
earth, he mediates for us at the right hand of the Father. Everyone whom he joins into the
interconnectiveness of his congregations, he does so for the purpose of making us hear the
blessings of the life of salvation as well as the Father’s wrath upon all our little faith and
unbelief, until the Holy Spirit perfectly renews us.
Jesus applied ecclesia to the company he gathered about him. Cf. Mt. 16:18. From out of this
ecclesia he still, to this day, charges us to recognize him publicly as the Lord and Savior, in each
generation for the sake of the coming of the Kingdom and for the glory of the Father. It is the
work of the Spirit in the Church. As a result, unashamedly, despite the fact that schismatics,
hypocrites, and slanderers give the Church a bad name, therewith Christ Jesus too, we pull
together to do the right; we work away at this as living members of the Church. Within the
cloistered community of comparative religionists, a patronizing bunch, the Church may be
referred to as a religious institution, a social alternative, organized religion, or institutionalized
religion, which insults come under heavy punishment. To falsify the Church by shared and
traumatized assumptions of schism damages the name of her Head. Cf. I Cor. 3:17. The Church
and also the Kingdom form the first reality, to which all else exists as secondary, such as nations,
empires, businesses, families, schools, friendships, etc.
Christ Jesus by the work of the Spirit in the heart of the Church unites all whom the Father
grants him into covenant community. This was very apparent during the Old Testament
administration of grace. He, the LORD, did not divide Israel into 12 autonomous branches or
institutions – Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali,
Joseph, and Benjamin. He created Israel one, the Old Church. Cf. Deut. 4:13 – “… he declared to
you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the ten commandments; and he
wrote them upon two tables of stone.” Throughout the Old Testament dispensation, the LORD
God funneled this unity of the Church into the New Testament era. “Israel is restored and
renewed when God’s new covenant community, the church, results from the resurrection of our
Lord.” 512 So the LORD still addresses the New Israel, for this same covenant unity is equally
512
Achtemeier, op. cit., p. 142. Cf. pp. 132f. – “This new Israel will have a continuity with the old. He will be of the
seed of Abraham and share in the Davidic promise. Yet in his relationship to God the new Israel will differ radically
from the past. He will be everything that the community of the old covenant was meant to be, do everything that the
chosen people from the first were elected to do. The new Israel, in short, will fulfil the old Israel’s obedience. He
will perfectly manifest the lordship of Yahweh in his life.”
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apparent in the New Testament economy of grace. Cf. Heb. 10:16, in fulfillment of Jer. 31:33 –
“… this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my
laws on their hearts and write them on their minds.” The Mediator of the covenant, cf. Heb. 9:15,
calls all his to receive the emerging eternal inheritance. The Church then constitutes the covenant
community. 513
Another prominent designation in the New Testament for the Church consists of the Body.
Cf. I Cor. 12:27; Eph. 1:23; etc. To belong to the Body of Christ, membership in the Body,
means to acknowledge him as Head and accept our sense of place as components, or members,
of the Body, not in congregations as branch plants of the one church, but in each congregation as
a complete body of Christ, all joined by true faith functioning through identical confessional
standards, the first of which the Apostles Creed. Constantly, Christ Jesus revealed the Church as
his body, which he heads. Cf. Rom. 12:5; I Cor. 12:13, 27; Eph. 4:4; Col. 1:18; etc. Through his
sovereign authority, he condemns with finality all division makers in his body – the strange ways
of cliques, denominations, schisms, indeed, of every individualistic approach to churchmanship.
Rather, he imbues the whole of the Body with the leading sense of community, authenticity, and
brotherhood.
As well, the Church constitutes the temple of the Holy Spirit and of God in which they
choose to dwell. Cf. I Cor. 3:16; Eph. 2:21f.; I Pet. 2:5; John 14:23; etc. As the LORD God
indwelled the Tabernacle/Temple during Old Testament ages, now the Trinity inhabits the
Church, holy and inviolable, her members living bricks and mortar, of whom not the half has
been preached.
Moreover, the Church is the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven. Cf. Gal. 4:26; Heb.
12:22; Rev. 21:2ff.; etc. Essentially, she, heavy with hope, derives not from this world, much less
of human manufacture, but unpacks the beginning of the new heavens and earth, the aweinspiring heart of the Kingdom, the rule of Jesus Christ. Thankfully living the Lord’s
commandments, the Church reveals the urbanization of the eternal megapolis.
Truly, Christ Jesus constructed the Church for now and through all ages the pillar and ground
of the truth. Cf. I Tim. 3:15; she guards the Scriptures, which Christ and the Spirit entrust to her,
also in the 20th-21st century translation wars.
Continuing this naming procedure, the Church is the Bride of Christ, 514 longing and
preparing for the wedding. Cf. Rev. 19:6ff. To carry this heart-structuring analogy further,
513
Ibid., pp. 141f. – “… the New Testament sees in the death and more particularly in the resurrection of Christ,
God’s creation of the new Israel, and thus of a new mankind. If all men participate in the judgment of God when
Christ dies, then it is equally clear that all men will benefit from God’s vindication of Christ when he raises him
from the dead (Rom. 5:18-19). With the resurrection of Jesus, a new creation is begun (II Cor. 5:17), because that
Resurrection means that the judgment of God has been fulfilled, and the results of man’s rebellion have been
overcome (Col. 2:13-14).”
514
Ibid., pp. 115f. – “Throughout the prophetic writings … we find the most intimate figures used to portray the
relationship between Israel and his God. In Hosea, Yahweh is Israel’s husband, Israel is his wife, and the
relationship between them is to be one of marital intimacy, marked by the faithfulness and love of a couple who
know and cling to each other from the depths of their souls. Yahweh has betrothed Israel by bringing her out of
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following Old Testament nuptial rites: the Incarnation may serve as the betrothal, the Crucifixion
as the ‘dowry,’ the Resurrection as the beginning of the Groom’s wedding preparations,
inclusive establishing living arrangements, and the Consummation as the wedding feast. 515
Christ is the Husband and we, men as well as women, are the Bride. This love-bond analogy the
LORD embedded deeply in Old Testament prophecy. Cf. Is. 50:1ff., 62:5; Jer. 2:32; Hosea 2:1;
etc. In New Testament literature too. Cf. Mt. 9:15; John 3:29; II Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:32; etc.
In many ways, the Church also serves as the family of God. Cf. Mt. 12:49f.; Rom. 9:8; Eph.
4:14; Phil. 2:15; I Pet. 1:14; I John 3:1; etc. Only through sound preaching, that is, through Christ
and the Spirit’s work, does this family bond grow in respective congregations.
On earth, the Church constitutes very much a militant army, called unto and daily engaged in
the incessant warfare of opposing sin, the flesh, and the Devil. These invasive forces of darkness,
roving and roiling within and without, seek to bring the Christ down at least to the level of an
idol. Simultaneously with this militancy image, the Church already manifests triumph over the
Lord’s enemies and sings of victory. Cf. Eph. 6:10ff.; Is. 59:17; Rev. 15:2ff.; etc.
Currently, all who preceded us through death into heaven, now present at the source of
triumph over sin, the world, and the Devil, carry on the warfare begun on earth. Cf. Rev. 6:10,
7:10; etc. There the new song (of Moses) 516 rings so much better and clearer. Crowns of victory
fit and swords of war cut accurately. Battle cries turn into undefeatable shouts of joy. Whether on
earth or in heaven, the Church is both militant and triumphant.
The Church is also our mother and we are her children. Cf. Gal. 4:26. Away from her hope
for salvation, forgiveness of sins, and perseverance in faith die off. In her, we train for eternal
life. Cf. Joel 2:32; Rom. 8:37ff. Both Old Testament and New stress the purposeful fact that only
they of the Church, living members, receive salvation.
Always hands on: the Church forms the communion of saints through Christ Jesus’
application within her of three ecclesial marks – the practice of the pure preaching of the word,
the maintenance of the pure administration of the two sacraments, and the constant exercise of
Christian discipline for correcting/punishing sinners. 517 In the covenant bond as communio
sanctorum and as a distinct society, with bonding social interactions particularly on account of
wise preaching, we learn to exercise the office of the congregation with increasing diligence. 518
Egypt (Hos. 13:5). Israel is asked to live with her divine husband in faithfulness and knowledge and love (cf. Ezek.
16).”
515
W. Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1939/67), p. 216.
516
Cf. Rev. 15:3ff./Deut. 32:1ff.
517
Cf. the 1561 Confession of Faith, Art. 29p – “The true Church is to be recognized by the following marks: It
practices the pure preaching of the gospel. It maintains the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted
them. It exercises Church discipline for correcting and punishing sins.”
518
John Calvin was prone to call the Church the school of Christ, cf. Institutes of the Christian Religion, op. cit.,
Vol. I, pp. 6f. – “For he who knows these things (Scriptures, in distinction from philosophy) will be prepared to
profit more in God’s school in one day than another in three months – particularly as he knows fairly well to what he
must refer each sentence, and has this rule to embrace all that is presented to him.”
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The sword of the Spirit created the Church (in history far from perfect, by schisms rent
asunder, stricken by our ineptness, damaged by our faithlessness), and Christ leads us into all her
membership obligations. From the perspective of the Revelation, the envisioned conclusion to
his ministry in the world, Christ shows what the word accomplishes, and must still achieve.
Thus, the Church, the true fitness gym, 519 free of denominational fault lines, lives through
and by and in the Gospel: in his flesh, Jesus Christ accomplished the whole of our salvation; he
left nothing unfinished or to the imagination with respect to the sum total of our faith.
Through preaching, we soon hear how ministers value the Church, whether she is Christ’s or
merely a sort of volunteer organization, an institutionalized religion, a people’s church. We soon
learn too where they stand with respect to ideological undercurrents of hostility and outdated
segments of society, liberal or conservative, confusing Christ’s own.
Three Marks
In the times as revealed in the Acts of the Apostles, the Church was clearly recognizable,
with a specific address in every locality where Christ through apostles and evangelists instituted
a congregation. But now, because of many schisms (it is not too much to say that with respect to
the Church everyone does more or less what is right in his/her own eyes), we prevent and oppose
communications between many ecclesial bodies, and through our denominationalism hamper
Christ’s church-gathering work.
The Lord Jesus by the ministry of the word and the work of the Spirit defends and preserves
his church in the unity of the true faith. She resides where Christ gathers his own (on Sundays),
that is, where believers diligently apply the marks of the true church. Keeping in mind the
following. Cf. I Cor. 3:17p – “If any one destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him.” This
frames a response not only to the introduction of apostasy/heresy, but also involves every effort
to fawn upon schismatic disunity. As Christ gathers his church, he makes (very) clear where each
congregation must be found. No human ideas, much less postmodern preferences in doctrine and
life, may pervert the Truth with respect to the Church so that those whom the Lord Jesus calls
become mystified when looking for a specific area address. Schism, causing unregulated rift in
trust and community, vertical as well as horizontal, earns eternal condemnation.
To locate the Church by experience of place, we seek out the three marks, stark and strong
points of entry to her contemporaneity; where we in the Spirit insist upon, strive for sustainable
reformation, first within the proclamation of the Word, there she is, a thoroughly attested fact.
In this context, we need engagement to distinguished between two kinds of preaching easy to
identify – the one builds up the Church, the other destroys the Church. With respect to the latter,
the easier to put the finger on, inferior preaching brings about complacency, with preferences for
variations of a ‘we’ve arrived’ spirit emanating from sermons; throughout such an atmosphere,
we no longer care much about the nature of the Church, except as pew-potatoes eased into
519
Achtemeier, op. cit., p. 83 – “The church must inevitably learn to live with its nonchurch neighbors, while yet
preserving the uniqueness of its own life. The church must, in short, learn to be in the world and yet not of it.”
Cf. Phil. 2:14ff., 3:12ff.; etc.
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comfortableness and smug satisfaction for a place among the dead. Thereby, congregations
devolve into religiously tinted social clubs, ready for the ascension of ideological gods.
Essentially, inferior and apostate preaching work hand in hand, the former paving the way for
the latter. Both, running against the angels, reconcile all differences by means of tolerationism.
In this manner, we identify easier the grim procession of church-destroying sermons than churchbuilding proclamation of the Word.
Tolerationism is: living with and acquiescing in various heresies and apostasies to keep the
peace in and/or unity of the Church.
Apostate/heretical preaching subverts the meaning-making marks of the Church that the Lord
Jesus revealed in Scriptures, making her wellbeing dependent upon faint-hearted men and
women, parishioners. Both inferior and apostate/heretical oratory develop a homogeneity and
shoddy monoculture of a lengthening night congenial to all concerned; in tolerationism,
‘believers’ exchange the doctrines of the Word by, for instance, mundane, postmodern
propositions, the currently active strong hand of the New Age movement.
Living Members
In contrast to off-the-mark sermonizing, the much more difficult work of listening to and
absorbing sound preaching creates tenable congregations of living members; Christ summons us
Sunday upon Sunday to the same address, there, in the communion of the saints, to be blessed by
the proclamation of the Word. For that blessing, we fight against all trifling with and bungling of
the doctrine of the Church. Living membership primarily reveals itself in sharpening the first and
indispensable mark of the Church – attending to the thoroughness of sound preaching.
For intensifying this high-caliber mark, it is significant that we construct the Church, starting
with respective congregations, on the one foundation, contrary to those who envision an invisible
church. According to popular opinion and unexamined assumption, allegedly an invisible church
exists within or next to the Church, no doubt a doctrine drawn from an undetectable source, since
Christ reveals no such ‘thing’ in the Bible. Every congregation of Christ consists only of fleshand-blood members, each subject to public scrutiny and identification.
No two churches exist, a visible and an invisible, the latter too opaque to see. The Church the
Lord Jesus created and the Father sees, the one for which the Son gave his life, the same in
which the driving force of the Holy Spirit dwells, consists of congregations replete with all
whom the Lord and Savior calls into such holy gatherings. All of each congregation, inclusive
children, the Spirit wills into living membership, active communion of saints professing Jesus
Christ. A congregation may contain yet freeloading unregenerates as well as hypocrites (the
troubling disappointments of chaff among the wheat kernels, cf. Mt. 3:12, inedible fish with the
good, cf. Mt. 13:47ff.), but essentially every church represents a communion of saints, intolerant
of harboring public sinners, they who tolerate and/or promote the evils of heresy and apostasy.
Due to believing the Gospel and on account of living the Law, each congregation and all the
Church together motivate one new culture out of gratitude for redemption. This disquieting
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culture, of the Church and the Kingdom, shaped by submission to the Law, settles in and extends
far beyond aspects of race and human custom, no longer interested even in a lofty ideal as
transforming the cultures of this world, which was a silly idea to begin with.
Culture is: the way of life in Christ, or, in opposition, the way of life compelled by an
ideology or idolatry. Characteristically, each culture reveals an identifiably different heartbeat,
habits of mind, social cohesion, language pattern, legal tradition, and eschatological vision.
By living in Christ, we spurn human innovations, traditions, romantic hopes, and silly-putty
animations of fashion to implement the very historic way of life in Christ Jesus shaped by
thankful obedience to the Commandments. Thus, we engage all covenant obligations. As
community of those who believe the Gospel for sanctification in Christ, joined to him as the
Head, we resolve to follow the actually new way – on often-unknown roads into the future, the
more to glorify the Father.
Undeterred Fighters
In effect, the Church constitutes the covenant community, subject to the promises and
blessings, the obligations and curses the Lord Jesus revealed. Within this community and for
mission work as well, the magnificence of the Gospel ministers must proclaim – without
ignoring all terrors incumbent upon soon-to-be-sheepish unbelievers. With the fire of his voice,
Christ processes redemptive history apace. For maturing in that history we want to hear the black
and white issues of the Scriptures, the full force of the dividing-line too, on the bright side of
which sheep for the glorious heavens, on the dark side of which goats for the hellish recesses of
despair.
Ministers must proclaim the distinctive features of the mighty gospel, we enjoin, echoing the
Christ, to make clear in every generation that he gathers his church out of this pained-andpuzzled world of covenant breakers into his community for covenant keeping. We must hear, we
insist, the fullness of redemption realized on Golgotha and the glories of the Parousia. Attractive
as the world may be, despite awesome seismic tremors underfoot, this dying kingdom of Satan,
its iron and clay hopelessly mixed and confused, only apes that which Christ Jesus recreates by
means of the Word, and not so well at that.
As covenant members, we pray and fight for staunch improvement in preaching, following I
Cor. 2:2 – for salvation and sanctification only Jesus Christ and him crucified. We therefore
ensure that proclamation of the Word never exceeds boundaries imposed by Scripture. With
neglect and subversion of this rule, we devolve into legalism, antinomianism, and complacency.
What we observe faithfully in the Word we will with respect to preaching. Cf. Rom. 15:4 – “For
whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that by steadfastness and by
the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.” Further, cf. I Cor. 4:6 – “… not to go
beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.” Else,
secular sociologists and the history of religion people win: the Church is nothing more than
organized religion, spilling religiosity everywhere.
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Religiosity, 520 what covenant-breaking people make of religion, 521 carries over unguarded
border crossings into the Church the grim satisfaction of the burden and baggage of unachievable
self-righteousness and works-righteousness.
Forever opposed to religiosity, preaching Christ and him crucified, dead, buried, descended
into hell, resurrected, and ascended to the Father’s right hand constitutes the fight of faith and the
creation of reformation. With reformation, accelerated expressions of sanctification, as, for
instance, the reforms under Josiah, cf. II Kings 22:1ff., the Holy Spirit suffuses us until we take
up all our covenant obligations perfectly for the coming of the Kingdom and the glory of the
Trinity. In the meantime, we mortify all cohabitation with evil in the Church and, for expanding
the Kingdom’s boundaries, put on the armor of righteousness and compel ministers to wield the
sword of the Spirit.
KINGDOM
Jesus declared that he broke open the continuous history of the Kingdom anew under his
office bearing, but not in such a manner that unfaithful members in the Church perceived its
processes of expansion. Moreover, he forbad his followers to listen to unbelieving finger pointers
claiming they saw the kingdom, cf. Lk. 17:23 - “’Lo, there!’ or ‘Lo, here!’” Instead, he declared,
cf. Lk. 10:9 – “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” This is to say: from within the
Church, Jesus sovereignly taught the swelling currents of his governance, presenting reality
imbued with world-conquering authority. To be difficult, however, false advertisers and galling
hoax makers in the Church claimed flanking kingdom versions in which they displaced Christ
Jesus with life crimping rulers.
Kingdom Signs
The Church lives as the heart of the Kingdom as well as the initial contours of the new
heavens and earth. In this revelation, the Christ’s royal rule ranges much farther than all his
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Eoin S. Mackay, Christianity Versus Religion (1974), pp. 1f. – “The plain truth which it is so important for us all
to face and to understand is that religion is the main enemy with which Christianity has to contend. For religion is
what men do to express their ideas about God and to get and keep the favour of God, try to insure that the blessing
and help of God will be given to what they want to succeed, to harness the power of God in the achieving of human
objectives. This is not only true of the religion of primitive, uncivilized people who torture themselves to atone for
their sin and perform weird ceremonies to avoid the disfavour of their gods and keep them in a friendly and cooperative mood. It is also true of the religion of many modern civilized people who go to Church because they think
God will be angry with them if they don’t go and more kindly disposed to them if they do; who go to Church to gain
peace of mind or the strength to survive in the mad, competitive rush and battle of life; who support the Church
because they regard it as the chief bulwark against communism or in fact against anything that in any way questions
or threatens the status quo; who regard the Church as the chief sanction and support of the present order of things
which they want to keep pretty much the same as it now is.”
Interpret religion as religiosity, and the man made the point.
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J. Calvin, Commentary on Genesis (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), p. 223 – “This is particularly worthy of notice,
because Satan contrives nothing with greater care than to adulterate, with every possible corruption, the pure
invocation of God, or to draw us away from the only God to the invocation of creatures.”
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congregations combined. Wherever we go upon exiting church doors on Sundays and live the
Commandments, there the Lord Jesus manifests his rule, the new creation’s appearance.
Christ’s kingdom, eschatological in manifestation on the axis of time, spreads out from the
Church to the nearing ends of the earth; its fundamental revelation in the second dispensation
constitutes a recreation of the Old Testament theocracy that began with David, cf. II Sam. 7:12ff.
The Kingdom differs much from a democratic strength or any political paradigm realized
through good laws, sophisticated civilization, progressive education, social engineering, and
activist reforms, which stake out sentimental and uninhabitable utopias.
Primary emergence of the Kingdom of God arrives through preaching the rule of God the
Son, thus establishing in our hearts the Third Person’s powerfully regenerative works. As such,
Christ’s rule, cf. Rev. 5:1ff., beginning in heaven, reveals its mandate with sovereign authority in
the Church, envelops the earth, and culminates in the Parousia. Cf. I Cor. 15:28 – “When all
things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things
under him, that God may be everything to every one.” Therefore, Christ with clear-cut design
completes all revelation of the Kingdom, though in our eyes his legacy quest for universal
wholeness makes minimal progress, if any.
Christ’s government appears through the creative power of sound preaching until we,
regenerated for renewal, believe the covenant promises to the full and seize each obligation. Cf.
Eph. 2:10 – “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” In church, at home, during school, through
employment, with friendship, by earth care, we make even least important and most troublesome
chores serve the coming of the Kingdom in our times.
Where and as in covenant community we walk in Christ’s way to implement the will of the
Father, the Kingdom expands. For now, the Kingdom boundaries fluctuate, either expanding
through our thankful obedience or contracting because of our disobedience; every obligation,
however insignificant, counts. Provided we acknowledge: the Kingdom ignores and surpasses all
man-made boundaries – political, racial, and social; these unruly elements, deep wells of
insecurity and loftily superior warring camps, eventually pass away, as do garbage dumps.
In due time the whole earth, truly all creation to the farthest galaxies, will bow joyfully in
Jesus Christ. Cf. Rev. 21:1ff. This our Father accomplishes. Cf. Eph. 1:19ff. –
“… the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe, according to the working of
his great might which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made
him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and
dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to
come; and he has put all things under [Jesus Christ’s] feet and has me him the head over all
things for the church, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all.”
In this manner, Christ constitutes our hopes for the Kingdom radiating out from the Church,
not by ostentatious apocalyptic explosions and bizarre violence, but by the unfolding of his plan
for the Parousia. This comes per the Revelation.
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Emergent Powers
Christ manifests overarching royal rule over against the inappropriate opposition of Satan
and his minions, both twisted spirits and treacherous men, even unbelievers and hypocrites he
gathers within his congregations.
Despite our sins, especially toleration of perversion in the offices of the congregation and the
ministry, the Kingdom comes. If necessary, Christ will create children of Abraham out of stones,
cf. Lk. 3:8, if we through wrong preaching build with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay,
straw on the one foundation – inept victories soon out of favor. For now, as Christ’s spokesmen
sincerely and honestly preach the coming of the Kingdom out of true faith, resistance may
increase, since enemies refuse to yield voluntarily. Nevertheless, Jesus’ rule shall be established
with total authority and rising expectation through the keys of the kingdom, first the
proclamation of the Word.
At this time, any sober fixation of the boundaries of the Kingdom may be difficult, since
these still fluctuate. However, Christ Jesus with dominical teaching declared for here and now
the reality of his rule. He took hold of his eschatological kingdom from the Old Testament ages,
then with renewed prominence in teaching and through the Resurrection clearly revealed its
ongoing realization, and its universal character. With exceedingly great power, he marshals us to
realize the Kingdom and greatly increase its scope – to exalt the glory of the Father. It belongs to
the Church’s ministry to further the Kingdom. Cf. Mt. 24:14 – “And this gospel of the kingdom
will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will
come.” Sovereignly and immutably, he promised the blessed hope of the future completion of his
government – like the rolling stone Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream. Cf. Dan. 2:34ff. Only in the
end will Christ without any limitation realize the final boundaries of his rule. By then all other
congruencies of kingdoms and empires he will have pulverized, wiped off the map.
To make the Kingdom radiate out from the Old Testament, he brought about renewal of the
longtime Davidic reign, recreating his rule, now imbued with the Pentecost Spirit and moved by
preaching the entire Scriptures. He establishes the vitality of his Father’s glory.
In the Church, the factuality and hope of the Kingdom belong to the basics of preaching – to
relate the strong bond between the two. All in close-knit covenant community ensure that
ministers preach on First Days this duality with power, given the proclamatory unit. Thus, we
live in the most exciting place, daily probing the great frontiers of life, as remote from the
diminishing returns of sin as possible.
OFFICE AND RECREATION
Early on, the Word in the name of the Father and by the Spirit created Adam and Eve office
bearers – as kings, prophets, priests. Cf. Gen. 1:26 – “Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness.” He structures each person according to this image=likeness and our every task has to
reflect or express at least one part of this threefold office. To this day, the office conserves the
actuality of the critical roles of the image of God in every man, woman, and child, which fact
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makes people people with a continually down-to-earth sense of purpose. Therefore, the Lord
Jesus recreates us into the persons whom he wills. However, …
OFFICE BEARING
… before entering upon the recreation, we plow through the sin bequeathed by Adam.
Because of the Fall, he perverted this office, without deleting the fundamental structure of human
nature. Even in total orientation to sin, office bearing continues, increasingly polluted and
distorted, horrifically through dictatorship, idolatry, murder, slavery, incest, marital abuse,
ecological wastage, fraud, slander, bullying, etc. Emergent systems of this evil affect entire
lifelines, not only as ignorance, error, and blindness, but also much worse, as unrighteousness
and moral perversity, with all attendant guilt and condemnation. To escape this misery, death,
and eternal destruction, covenant breakers mesh office bearing into the inertias of ideology and
idolatry – without being able to tackle this intractable and ongoing controversy; they only
proceed on the long slog of grinding down creation and themselves. By serving as kings,
prophets, and priests in idolic worlds of religiosity, opposing the Lord Jesus, idolaters fight
against and take issue with popularly objectionable sins, only finding old problems reemerging.
Idolatry is: betraying the purpose of human beings into serving creatures rather than the
Creator.
Three Offices
High-profile perversion of office, self-destructive folly, started in and with the Fall. Except
for some, all commandeered life and property for selfish ends – part of which now profoundly
visible in abortionism and environmental degradation. Except for some, prophesying became
distorted speech on behalf of idols – part of which now painfully audible through deafening
decibels of incessant chattering and information overload. Except for some, priestly work turned
life into offerings for idols – parts of which now profoundly tactile in materialism and hungers
for hedonistic delights. This is to say: the office remains, however fused into lumbering
deformities for enormous wastes of human resources. In the Church, hiding behind ideological
walls, all abuse of office runs personal and institutional arrogance into more deformation.
For our recreation, the Father appointed and the Spirit anointed Christ to the threefold office
for the work of salvation involving all creation. This finds its explanation in the fact that the
Father originally intended human beings for this office bearing; now, basic to salvation Christ
Jesus recreates, in distinction from soul saving, our human nature into its eschatological care first
for humanity and the earth. Soul-salvation fails to address and incorporate our royal, prophetic,
and priestly responsibilities.
1) Christ, the King, recreates his people to be like him in the royal office, under him during
this life to learn and practice in the Church and throughout the Kingdom the stewardship over
life and the earth. Cf. Ex. 19:5f. – “Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my
covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you
shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” For one thing, in the Church this ensures
true preaching and in the Kingdom this installs the good life for homes, educational institutions,
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indeed, for industries, labors, businesses, governments, until the whole of our existence as
members of Christ beats with mercy and justice according to the Commandments. In effect, we
begin exercising dominion over every aspect of the new creation. By putting on the armor of the
Lord and wielding the sword of the Spirit we already now make modest steps in faithfulness,
eventually to shift into visionary strides.
2) Christ, the Prophet/Teacher, cf. Lk. 4:18f., came to recreate the prophetic office in all
whom he claims his own, instructing us how to confess his name and speak on his behalf even
stronger and more fluently than Adam and Eve originally. In effect, through our recreation we
represent the Trinity to each other and the world, speaking languages (in)formed by the Bible.
To prophesy requires with necessary grace to hear the industrious preaching of the Word, so
that in response we may teach one another works of chastisement, exhortation, conversion, and
edification – with respect to the future of the Church, the Kingdom, the world, yes, the universe.
For the whole of the prophetic office, we keep in the fear of the Lord an eye on the final
judgment, even the whole of the Parousia. Because preaching in the congregation addressed had
tumbled end over end into Judaism, the author of Hebrews, chastising, declared the Gospel with
prophetic urgency. Cf. 5:11f. – “About this we have much to say which is hard to explain, since
you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need
some one to teach you again the first principles of God’s word.” Such prophesying/instructing in
its inspiring framework constitutes a basic to this office Christ Jesus entrusts to us.
3) Christ, the Priest, by his teaching and poignantly through his death revealed the one
sacrifice of his body for the totality of our redemption. This redemption, crucial to the Gospel,
salvation, the Church, the Kingdom, and the entire recreation of all things institutes eternal life.
Cf. Heb. 10:14 – “For by a single offering he has perfected for all times those who are
sanctified.” He gave himself in his priestly office completely on the Cross to the work of the
Father – for us; he is the Sacrifice, with the result that we as innovative priests represent in direct
relationships each other sacrificially in the presence of the Father.
To be able to sacrifice ourselves for each other in the work of Christ Jesus requires serious
knowledge of the Word according to given grace; also for this, we need unrelenting daily
upgraded skills and lifetime learning. Thus, we surrender all of heart, soul, mind, and strength to
works of the priesthood of all believers, as well as mediate on behalf of neighbors outside the
Church in fights for justice and in manifestations of mercy. Cf. Ps. 51:17; Rom. 12:1f. – “I
appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to
this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will
of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Such creative sacrificing merits broad learning
with bridging initiatives and social skills for upbuilding the Church and expanding the Kingdom,
a much too arduous task for all but believers.
These three practical outlets of love for the Lord Jesus and neighbors, without indolent
scruples, define and further the shared values as well as tactful attitudes of office bearing,
fundamentals of the office of the congregation.
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A Single Stamina
In the office of the congregation, all whom Christ Jesus drafts for eternal life apply the
interconnectiveness of the royal, prophetic, and priestly duties of stewardship into a single work,
the calling of the Church. This calling commands our attention and labor for the coming of the
new heavens and earth. Through this all-encompassing work, only glory to the Father in Jesus
Christ counts.
To that end, Christ Jesus, by anointing with the Holy Spirit, makes us as kings, prophets, and
priests for service in the varied and unfinished social good associated with gratitude. This the
LORD already revealed long ago, in the Old Testament church. Cf. Deut. 14:2 – “For you are a
people holy to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his own
possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.” Cf. Deut. 26:19. Every labor
to which we rightfully apply ourselves fits into one or more works of this one office; else we
pervert the very formation of what it means to be Christian among the deadly
ideological/idolatrous betrayals of this world. Therefore, through the Spirit we seek in all our
doings the honor and veneration of the Father in the Son. All our present strivings eye the
installation of the majestic and now yet impenetrable glories of the coming heavens and earth.
In this light, we recognize the hard stamina of the office of the congregation in all current
processes of ecclesiastical decay and apostasy: Christ Jesus holds us, members of each
congregation, fully accountable for damages done in his church through our abuse or neglect of
office bearing. In effect, the buck stops with us, members. Punishment for bad preaching, for
allowing this, comes to rest on us. In this way, at first, the office of the congregation reflects a
most enigmatic environment, for how many of the Church recognize long-term this duty?
Rather than believe and live office bearing, we build firewalls behind which we string along
our curious alliances with the clergy, conservative or liberal, to minimize friction in our own life
pursuits. We prefer reclining in fields of dreams and surrendering to rosy schemes, at the risk of
having the Lord Jesus pile up charges of irresponsibility, carelessness, and sloth against us. As
long as we, for a time by abuse of office bearing, may rummage about at ease in Zion, never
answering even echoes of the call to office bearing.
Hardcore duties of office bearing, however, remain a most pressing trademark of
Christianity. To leave responsibility with the clergy alone not only impoverishes our
congregations in faith and life, pushing away the unsearchable riches in Christ, but also, worse,
makes us culpable before the Judge: the Holy Spirit grants the Bible and its usage to the Church,
not to an office such as the ministry only, or to smooth talking ideologized pitchmen. Escape
from key issues in the calling of the Church constitutes denial of the work of the Spirit, which
grieves him.
The Bible, uniquely designed for proclamation, reveals the source and circumference of
office bearing. II Tim. 2:15 impressed upon a maturing minister – “Do your best to present
yourself to God as one approved, a workman who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling
the word of truth.” To ensure that our ministers rightly handle the Word, we have a life-long
task: through listening to sound preaching only to inch, if necessary, toward the goal of total,
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sinless office bearing; present lack of efficient action without repentance leads nowhere good,
only to a morgue-like future.
Bound in Christ to submit in the light of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit endows us with
knowledge and wisdom, righteousness and holiness, in order to pursue life’s singular purpose:
office bearing throughout the growing historical distance since the Ascension. We then speak as
well as sacrifice ourselves in order through the preaching to ensure that in Christ the Father is all
in all. This means everything for the office of the ministry. Men whom we choose as special
office bearers, along with elders and deacons, unless fully acquainted with and indelibly
impressed by the calling of the Church, start ill-prepared, if not malformed and blinkered, for
leading Christ’s congregations into more lively office bearing.
Some texts more than others reveal the office of the congregation. Therefore, our requisite
ability helps immensely to discern from the study of the preaching unit how the Spirit intends to
move the contemporary calling of the Church. This discernment happens, if not immediately,
then in the course of listening to the proclamation of the Word, or upon further reflection.
Hence, we prepare in the office of the congregation for evolving our service in the Kingdom,
insisting upon preaching that opens up and displays the three-fold office. Here and now we learn
to care for the coming creation.
RECREATION
With the Fall, Adam polluted the entire creation; his and Eve’s disobedience corrupted the
Creator’s initially very good work. The LORD, patiently, majestically, with vastly extensive time
management, started within the instabilities and forebodings of sin the new and perfect creation,
like the Eden garden, only larger and more glorious. Comparison between Gen. 1-2 and the
sweeping panoramas of Rev. 21-22 clarifies the distinctive features of both creations. In Christ’s
recreating of all things, our personal agendas fare poorly, busy as we are with covetous plans. In
grace, however, Christ Jesus erases our day-timers and writes in new scheduling.
Office Labors
The recreation the Father promised through the Seed of Eve, Christ Jesus. As the King,
Prophet, and Priest, he accomplishes the magnalia Dei, the mighty works of God, by renewing
our management skills in the office of the congregation. All the while, the Lord of the Church
defines the frontiers of the new creation; therefore, he intends that we engage the Word at our
workstations in respective congregations, firmly committed to our office bearing.
Now, individually and collectively in Christ, our life as members of the Church constitutes
progressive preparation for the coming of the new heavens and earth. Cf. Is. 60:19ff., 66:22f. –
“For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me, says the
LORD; so shall your descendants and your name remain.
From new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship
before me, says the LORD.”
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This prophecy patterns only the Old Testament sense of orientation in hope. Always Christ’s
own begin this flow of life anew across generations – building on the work of forefathers, while
attentive to transcending the lure of the mundane. Cf. Col. 3:1ff. Through expansion of kingdom
work, we implement the new creation. In each age, with mounting pressure, we will through
preaching that this hope and work be strengthened and multiplied, to strive to move forward as
kings, prophets, and priests – always on the narrow path as runners out front in the larger, far
from imaginary race.
The Church, frequently flippant with nonsense, more often than not permissively flirts with
ways of life contrary to the Word. Then, troubled by low ceilings and limited worlds of unbelief,
all whom Christ gathers to be his own pool in little faith social forces, intellectual perils, and
environmental stresses. Market-shaped and media-driven to concentrate on selfish wellbeing,
they do not see the future in every day. How many members at any given time consciously
consider the glorious recreation coming, to be perfected in the Parousia? Much of the time,
contrarian movements – idolatries, feuds, cliquishness, fratricidal wars, hatreds, schisms –
ricochet about in careless congregations. These alchemies of hot heads/cold hearts tarnish,
indeed, squelch hopes and works of office bearing, they even elicit recriminations to keep up the
fighting. In desperate states of emergency and/or under the sway of antithetically restless souls,
these harbingers of doom harbor only rumblings of death; however, aberrations doctrinal and
moral without and within the Body of Christ eventually crash, and crash horribly. Concentrated
attacks of unbelief, notably those in the Church, that inflict damaging human notions upon
Christ’s own regarding the new creation will end, faced with long pains of accountability.
However, through the revelation of the offices, Christ Jesus called forth the remnant in each
generation, cf. Is. 10:20; Acts 1:15, to leave behind unbelievers, backsliders, and hypocrites.
These of the Church as the first he consigns to fearful fires, which light up their unbelieving
darkness in the end times. In the meantime, across coming generations of the Church, the faithful
Lord and Savior leads his own into the Parousia. Therefore, believers in Christ worship and live
on the Foundation to persevere at eternal life, duly releasing the hope of the Gospel from within
through the indwelling Spirit. We aspire in living membership to the beauties of the new heavens
and earth, the opposite of escapisms – liberalism, conservatism, etc. These common collusions
and pie-in-the-sky religiosities are only evasive maneuvers. For now yet, many of the Church
with push-button ease summon self-destruction, at the same time dragging others with them. In
one way, stricken with selective hearing, they tolerate all types of worldviews; only they fail to
realize that for them too Christ Jesus kindles fires of destruction. Under current and acute
pressures of the unstoppable coming of the Day, they remain bound by covetous impulses.
By hopes and duties of office bearing, however, the living Christ reveals recreation; he
purposefully transforms this earth, now passing away, by the preaching in each congregation and
constantly renews our parousiac longings, also by the same word of the Lord. For this hope,
Christ Jesus directed attention to, cf. Mt. 19:28, “the regeneration,” at times called “the new
world’ approaching. Herewith we face an inescapable paradox: this world passing away, cf. I
Cor. 7:31b, and the new Jerusalem coming down, cf. Rev. 21:2. Thus Acts 3:21 speaks of the
restoration of all things in an era of deteriorating environments – ‘… the time for establishing all
that God spoke by the mouth of his prophets of old.” Cf. Heb. 12:26 - “Yet once more I will
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shake not only the earth but also the heaven.” The Author of Scripture declares to us, persons in
transition, the vast extent of II Pet. 3:11ff. –
“Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives
of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of
which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire! But
according to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness
dwells.”
Until the hour the new Jerusalem in fullness gloriously descends from heaven, the Church by
sound preaching engages office bearing to inhabit the future now. Unbelievers may detestably try
to water down and douse the fires of the Parousia with alternative futures; however, Christ will
speak the final word regarding New Jerusalem’s glories.
Renewal of the present creation after numerous centuries of discrimination against the Christ
begins in and with the Church on earth; through works of office bearing come the recreation
within this evil world. Cf. Ps. 102:26f.; Amos 9:11ff.; etc. This heart-altering process of radical
transformation, including sun, moon, and stars to the farthest galaxies, opens up the entirely
golden reality. Cf. II Pet. 3:7ff.; Rev. 20:11, 21:1; etc. Through faith incentives, this
ecclesiastical hope breaks us free from all confining and idolatries/ideologies manipulations in
the earth.
In his time, Christ bestows his hard-won vindication of our efforts. Cf. Mt. 25:31ff. He will
also expose the false cultural, social, political, and economic assumptions deeply entrenched in
the Church, finally replacing these with the way, the truth, and the life. Unless all of us scrutinize
the preaching that implements office bearing in Christ, ministers too easily adulterate our driving
expectations for the future of the new creation into this-worldly trivialities and scanty dreams.
They then limit us to the pushy selfishness of our generation, the worship of hidden gods in
dangerous places. The Lord of the Church, however, calls us to a better hope.
AUTHORITY AND THEODICY
Teachings on divine authority and government run powerfully through the Bible, holding our
attention. In each instance, they start ultimate questions, which stimulate answers in preaching
we hear. This searching for light also envelops theodicy. Questions of divine authority and
justice involve the revelation of the Father’s, the Son’s, and the Spirit’s glory, the whole of
which structures the major business of many a sermon.
AUTHORITY
Scriptures reveal the divine authoritative government over the universe. The Father in Jesus
Christ rules over the work of his hands, particularly the earth, and upon this planet, the Church.
This rule starts questions. Why the Lord Jesus calls only some to church membership. Why some
believe the Gospel and others turn disrespectful noses up at the Good News. Why many live
poorly and few amass more wealth. Why many die in old age and a lot die young? Why
catastrophes kill some and leave others surviving. Why terrorists indiscriminately murder some
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and miss others. Why epidemics strike here and not there. Such disturbing questions beg for
positive attention in sermons.
The Son’s rulership and authority shone readily enough in the Old Testament through
moving the covenant community forwards in time and history. However, upon the Ascension
and for Christ’s session at the right hand of the Father, the Father granted the Son of man/Son of
God, resurrected and ascended, all authority in heaven and on earth; this he publicly symbolized
by means of a scroll. Cf. Rev. 5:1ff. This scroll, intricately written, contains Christ’s mandate to
govern all creation for the glory of his Father and for the salvation of the Church. As much as
God the Son ruled authoritatively throughout the Old Testament dispensation, as the Son of
man/Son of God, by way of this scroll the Father assigned him the authority of his office. Now
we possess every assurance that the Christ rules the whole of creation for the sake of his people.
Cf. Eph. 1:22 – “… and [the Father] has put all things under [Christ’s] feet and has made him the
head over all things for the church.”
In the light of secretive forces of life and death, belief and unbelief, natural disasters and
killer epidemics, coming and falling monstrosities of empires, rising and fading civilizations,
abuse of and care for ecological sustainability, war and peace, however, we ask how the Son,
Lord and Savior, manifests his authoritative rulership.
Awesome Works
The Son’s ageless exercise in divine authority to preserve all creation operates in every event
and directs all to appointed ends in the Parousia. Without being the Author of sin, the Son
controls the whole and its (minute) parts, death included, however much this biblical teaching
may raise unbelieving backs. Nevertheless, we confidently sing Ps. 103:19 –
“The LORD has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all.”
This constitutes the essence of authority. Despite malignant forces of evil, dissolution, and
death, Christ’s continuing dominion over heaven and earth in the name of the Father and by the
Holy Spirit moves the history of the world, indeed, of the universe from age to age. Even
calamitous and injurious forces ‘inherent’ in nature bow to his indivisible will. In an age and
among people given to gambling, however, illusive Ladies Luck and Fortune curiously seem to
have a winning hand, without actually managing to control any jackpot.
Authority is:
1) Christ Jesus’ ultimate rule over heaven and earth.
2) Christ-given responsibility for a specific task.
It is written: the Christ governs all – the universe at large, cf. Dan. 4:34f.; Eph. 1:11; etc.; the
rise and fall of nations and empires, cf. Job 12:23; Pss. 22:28, 66:7; Acts 17:26; etc.; punishment
of the wicked, cf. Pss. 7:12f., 11:6; etc.; and especially care for the apple of his eye, cf. Pss. 6:8,
33:18; John 6:39; etc. No accidental or blind forces of fate or chance outstrip and imperil his
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rule. The Lord Jesus’ care for and government over the universe safeguards the Church’s
salvation for accomplishing the new creation.
Authority relates to Jesus’ inscrutable will. Throughout Scriptures he reveals the eclipsing
ray of light that penetrates dark mysteries; he clarifies the whereto of past, present, and future
events, however small. For the Christ rules everything since the foundation of the world with
everlasting decrees. Only the foolish and the vain ‘interpret’ this as determinism, or, to be
difficult, fawn over relativism. Christ preserves from dissolution and controls the whole of the
fallen-in-Adam creation with all royal and prophetic powers. He compelled even pagan
Nebuchadnezzar, within the monstrosity of his empire, to acknowledge this. Cf. Dan. 4:34 – “…
for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to
generation.” This universal authority includes the daily rising of the sun over the evil and the
good, as well as the falling of rain on the just and the unjust, inclusive numbering head hairs.
Without this majestic authority, we experience the disturbing loss of place in reality.
Divine government rules totally and absolutely, without however incurring responsibility for
the least sin, a paradox to be explained from our pulpits thousands of times, lest we be rattled and
fractured by searing doubts and insecurities of soul.
Authoritative Blessings
Christ in the name of the Father and through the working of the Spirit preserves the entire
creation, administering every part of the universe for the glory of the Name, the wellbeing of the
covenant community, and the demolition of unsettling enemies. Cf. Deut. 33:26f. –
“There is none like God, O Jeshurun,
who rides through the heavens to your help, and in his majesty through the skies.
The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.
And he thrust out the enemy before you, and said, ‘Destroy.’”
Similarly, from a different perspective, cf. Acts 17:28 – “In him we live and move and have
our being.” With awesome revelation, he discloses omnipotence and omniscience with respect to
divine authority and government. To this end as well as for clarity of purpose, also for minutest
details, we receive his governing attention, even to the ways of ants and leeches. Cf. Prov. 6:6ff.,
30:15.
Miracles involving healings, coins, resurrections from the dead, the Resurrection, etc.,
display powers with which he asserts his authoritative rulership. These honored biblical places
provide many preaching units, which reveal Christ’s authority and awareness of his majestic
divinity.
A miracle is: a breaking forth of the coming new heavens and earth into current conditions of
this embattled world for the sake of the Church and the Kingdom.
Divine government reveals the Father, the Son, and the Spirit’s sovereignty; all creation
absolutely depends on the Trinity for existence and meaning. This rulership continues work
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revealed in many ways, even as promised to Jacob, covenant bearer after Abraham and Isaac. Cf.
Gen. 28:15 – “… I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to
this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have spoken to you.” Much the
same underpins I Tim. 6:14ff., with outstanding glory –
“… I charge you to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the
appearing of our Lord Christ Jesus; and this will be made manifest at the proper time by the
blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and
dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and
eternal dominion.”
Divine government thus reveals authority in all its mystery of omniscience and omnipotence.
The Lord Jesus has, as it were, starting with the Church, the whole of recreation in his hands. To
be precise: the Father granted the Son of man/Son of God supreme dominion for the sake of the
covenant community. Cf. Mt. 28:18; Rev. 5:7. In effect, the Second Person now governs heaven
and earth with exclusive powers over life and death, preserving this world for the Judgment and
the Congregation for the glory of his Father, much in ways even at the highest peaks of faith we
cannot penetrate or trace; his footsteps and ways surpass discovery.
In authority and government, the Lord Jesus disclosed divine sovereignty, a kingship and
kingdom not of this world, cf. John 18:36, always freed from sinful manipulations, always
perfectly just.
THEODICY
Biblical teachings on divine authority lead directly and forcefully into theodicy. Since the
Lord through absolute government rules all events and because of ultimate questions with regard
to sense and purpose, we inspect proclamation of the Word for this powerful impulse at
justification. If you will, the Lord Jesus Christ, bright with the vitality of divine glory, at every
progressive move of covenant and redemption and in every circumstance, justifies his actions in
history. These major meanings often remain hidden in preaching units until exposed by
purposeful sermons.
An easy illustration, cf. I Sam. 15. In the progress of the covenant formation under Moses to
the new under David, the LORD condemned King Saul. In this historical context, how did the
LORD, Jesus Christ, justify this monumental change?
Biblically soft souls in the Church’s pulpits easily take a sullen turn and accuse the Lord
Jesus of wrongdoing when he denies them justification for their ideological/idolatrous twistings
of mind. Or they tempt him to substantiate their own inner darkness. Cf. Mt. 12:38. Nonetheless,
in all instances the LORD vindicates his works. In the name of the Father, he always revealed the
justification of his works and wills through the spoken work clarification of his actions.
Therefore, for pastoral preaching, ignorance in theodicy is deadly.
Discerning Wisdom
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In theodicy, four constants appear – the glory of the Father, the salvation of the Church, the
coming of the Kingdom, and the reversal of roaming imaginations in opposition to the Word.
Through Spirit-provided discernment and wisdom, ministers of the Word demonstrate in
preaching units this glory of the Father in Jesus Christ.
For the second theodic justification, the salvation of the Church may journey over strange-tous mountains and through humanly unpredictable valleys. Take Gen. 3:14-19. By punishing the
serpent, that is, Satan, the LORD glorified the Father whose very good creation the wily
adversary had attempted to usurp for exercising dictatorship. The first covenant reformation
defused the Devil’s conspiracy. By chastising Adam and Eve, the LORD honored the warning
given as Gen. 2:17. By promising Eve seed, in fact, the Seed, the LORD in effect out of grace
saved the Church then from the brokenness of creation and terrors of hell for the coming of the
Kingdom. Thus he set back satanic imagination. Theodicy in its four components saturate this
preaching unit – glory of the Father, salvation of the Church, refounding of the Kingdom, and the
condemnation of the Devil’s ways. To be precise, theodicy gives the inner sense, the manifest
motivation, of every redemptive act; this justification we perceive, eventually, provided the first
constant, the glory of the Father, shapes our wisdom.
To extract and clarify the doctrine of theodicy in more detail, various examples.
Cf. Ex. 12:1ff., Israel’s freedom journey out of the land of slavery.
Obviously, the LORD’s mighty work of deliverance invoked the glory of the Father, the
salvation of the Church, and the revelation of the Kingdom. The fourth, to everyone’s surprise,
cataclysmic punishment upon pharaonic Egypt by way of the plagues and the drowning of the
Pharaoh’s army revealed the LORD’s avenging hand upon this pagan nation for enslaving Israel
and for Egyptian flaunting of polytheism, as if these many gods superseded the LORD God.
Thus, the Exodus revealed the LORD’s quadruple stimuli for theodicy.
Cf. Deut. 28:58f. – “If you are not careful to do all the words of this law which are written in
this book, that you may fear this glorious and awful name, the LORD your God, then the LORD
will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and
sicknesses grievous and lasting.”
One of the dynamic tensions of theodicy jumps up from this text. How does the inner sense
of these words glorify the God the Father? Secondly, where in this instance does the LORD
reveal the Church’s salvation? Thirdly, where the forwards-progress of the Kingdom? Fourthly,
what motivation for the punishment of sin committed by the LORD’s enemies in the Church?
With respect to the first theodic constant, the LORD in his care for that manifestation of the
Old Testament church revealed the glory of his Father by working the new creation through
Israel. Moreover, as Israel, rather than any other, were his people, every act of covenant breaking
also reflected on him. Outsiders to the Church mocked him if his people refused to follow in his
commands and be grateful for his benefits, first, the Exodus. This opens the second and third
constants: the LORD issued this warning to keep the Church on the straight and narrow of
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salvation, out of gratitude for the deliverance from Egypt in order to advance the Kingdom. As
for the fourth, righteous punishment followed upon disobedience, if unrepentant.
Cf. Ps. 74:22 –
“Arise, O God, plead thy cause;
remember how the impious scoff at thee all the day!”
The theodicy of this petition, similar to Ps. 74:18, aims at a foreign invasion that forced the
covenant people as a whole and Jerusalem in particular into a defensive reaction. The occasion
may have been invasive King Shishak of Egypt’s threat, cf. I Kings 14:25ff., or Assyrian
Sennacherib’s malicious conquest, cf. II Kings 19:1ff.; II Chron. 24:23ff., 32:1ff., or Babylonian
Nebuchadnezzar’s brutal razing of Jerusalem and the Temple. The prayer implores for Israel’s
deliverance and there through vindication of the LORD’s glory, first in Israel.
Cf. Is. 48:9 –
“For my name’s sake I defer my anger,
For the sake of my praise I restrain it for you,
that I may not cut you off.”
Similar mercy declarations among others with respect to the Church, the Holy Spirit
inscripturated as Is. 48:11 and Ps. 78:38. Given the LORD’s restraint, nevertheless his rough
anger at Judah’s divisive sinning prior to defeat under Babylonian military boots served as a
warning: repent now, or else! To preserve the glory of the Name, bring about deliverance of the
Church and the Kingdom prophesied explanatorily the terrifying defeat suffered by the
Babylonian monstrosity.
Cf. II Kings 19:35ff. – “And that night the angel of the LORD went forth and slew a hundred
and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men arose early in the morning,
behold, these were all dead bodies. Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went home,
and dwelt at Nineveh. And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech
and Sharezer, his sons, slew him with the sword, and escaped into the land of Ararat.”
Even though the LORD commissioned idol-ridden Sennacherib as a punishing instrument, cf.
II Kings 18:25, nevertheless the Assyrian monarch exceeded his mandate with unnecessary
brutality. His stunning defeat at the hands of the angel of the LORD, Christ Jesus, saved the
remnant of the covenant community, thereby manifesting the glory of the LORD over a
blasphemous alien ruler. Not Assyrian gods ruled heaven and earth, but the LORD alone.
Cf. Ez. 20:40ff. –
“For on my holy mountain, the mountain height of Israel, says the LORD God, there all the
house of Israel, all of them, shall serve me in the land; there I will accept them, and there I will
require your contributions and the choicest of your gifts, with all your sacred offerings. As a
pleasing odor I will accept you, when I bring you out from the peoples, and gather you out of the
countries where you have been scattered; and I will manifest my holiness among you in the sight
of the nations. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I bring you into the land of Israel,
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the country which I swore to give to your fathers. And there you shall remember your ways and
all the doings with which you have polluted yourselves; and you shall loathe yourselves for all
the evils that you have committed. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I deal with
you for my name’s sake, not according to your evil ways, nor according to your corrupt doings.
O house of Israel, says the LORD God.”
The LORD displayed his incentive for theodicy, that is, the justification for his act of
returning Israel out of Exile to the land promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – for his name’s
sake, for the glory of the Name alone. Consequently, this only merited Israel’s salvation and the
process of the Kingdom. Plus, as punishment, actually chastisement, he made his repenting
people remember with contrition all past evils. Moreover, for the glory of the Name, he placed
Israel again as his witness among the nations. In these ways the LORD clarified his theodic
motive: by delivering Israel from the Exile he 1) declared he had punished Israel for sins
committed, and 2) simultaneously declared his guiltlessness, for Israel by sinning had brought
his name into disrepute.
Cf. Ez. 36:21 –
“But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel caused to be profaned among
the nations to which they came.”
When Israel sinned, individually and collectively, they brought shame upon the LORD God,
made him a cause for mockery among the nations. In Ez. 39:25 he revealed his jealousy with
respect to his international reputation.
Cf. Acts 9:1ff. – Christ Jesus’ conversion of Saul/Paul en route to Damascus. By way of this
miracle, the Lord enriched the salvation of the New Church, both in number and in faith, for the
coming of the Kingdom. By turning one Pharisaic enemy into an apostle, Christ Jesus at the right
hand of the Father revealed his glory; he meant to vindicate the Incarnation, Crucifixion,
Resurrection, and Ascension. At the same time, he inflicted heavy remorse upon the man.
Cf. I Cor. 3:16f. –
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If any one
destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you
are.”
The theodic motif appears readily enough – God, Christ Jesus, refused to tolerate any damage
to his church, not even from within the membership. Thereby he justified the unilateral truth of
his glory and majesty – stamped unforgettably upon all blessed with Christian conscience.
Cf. Lev. 19:18; Deut. 32:35a; Rom. 12:19; Heb. 10:30 –
“For we know him who said, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will
judge his people.’”
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The Lord Jesus Christ, to whom the Father gave all judgment, alone discerns justice totally;
when we take revenge upon wrongdoers, much goes askew. Therefore, the Lord condemns
recalcitrants, saves his people from sinning, and manifest his royal glory by true judgment.
These ten passages, as all preaching units, demonstrate the firm foothold of theodicy in
Scriptures.
Theodicy is: the Lord’s invocation of justice to clear his name from association with sin.
Multiple Manifestations
Everywhere in Scriptures, because of his divine freedom, the Lord reveals the inner
motivation for his acts and words; in effect, he justifies himself to the Church, even to the
nations. Theodically, he vindicates the glory of the Name, saves the Church from eternal
destruction, engages the Kingdom’s advance among his people, and scorches the unrepentant
inside as well as the reprobates outside with the fires of the end times.
1) With respect to the unrepentant and reprobates, it may sound strange at first that the Lord
Jesus Christ actually punishes these human beings for the sins they commit. In our acute
awareness of reality, law enforcement officials catch only some criminals; many live on with
impunity. Similarly, numerous church-destroyers do well in terms of high standards of living.
Nevertheless, surveying the scene, the mystery of the divine will in theodicy resonates in
multiple manifestations throughout the multitudinous affairs both of the Church and of the world,
even in every-day, obscure issues. They who deny the Lord’s government and therefore sin may
imagine a moral power vacuum, or the reign of a remote deity, or push the conditioning opinions
of determinism, relativism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Hinduism, etc. Some Davidic enemies
thought so too. Still the son of Jesse, in the name of the LORD, commanded Solomon to exact
vengeance, cf. I Kings 2:1ff., for Joab and Shimei received due justice. This occurred in the
covenant community.
In Bible reading, questions regarding theodicy start immediately in various ways and
contexts. Take Josh. 11:20 with respect to indigenous Canaanites at the time the LORD God
gave Israel the land. “For it was the LORD’s doing to harden their hearts that they … come
against Israel in battle, in order that they … be utterly destroyed, and … receive no mercy but be
exterminated, as the LORD had commanded Moses.” In the runniness of tolerationism, that is,
co-existential live and let live, this may seem genocidal, eradicating peoples and nations. Even
though the Canaanites had lived for centuries in that land, completing “the iniquity of the
Amorites,” cf. Gen. 15:16, the LORD revealed the day of recompense. For many centuries he
had overlooked the multiple corporate idolatries of these martial peoples; at the conclusion of the
Exodus, the LORD revealed theodicy, death foretold. By attacking Israel, the Canaanites resisted
him. And he took vengeance.
Extermination of the Amorites came when they overflowed the measure of sinfulness by
striking out at the LORD of heaven and earth. Moreover, they refused to believe that he had
granted the land solely to Abraham’s seed, the covenant nation. Above all, the LORD magnified
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his name above polytheistic Canaanites and thereby compelled Israel to see, hear, and believe his
sovereign dominion in all the earth. Shorn of sentimentality, the theodicy of Josh. 11:20 reveals
the LORD’s determinant justice in the extermination of his enemies.
The death of the Baptizer, cf. Mk. 6:14ff., called out achingly human questions. Why did
Jesus Christ not take this last Old Testament prophet into his company of the Twelve? Were this
decapitation and its immediate causes necessary for the Lord to achieve the Gospel? And what of
the murderers, Herod and Herodias?
Theodic awareness rises up, page after biblical page. Ministers who waffle here, even failing
to acknowledge theodicy’s existence, hurt the Church, lower the level of the Faith, and, worst,
with long repercussions dishonor the Lord who calls them to speak in his name.
2) As the Lord Jesus vindicates his holy name progressively to achieve in the fullness of time
the final conquest over evildoers and evil, he reveals much, primarily, that he leaves no sin
unpunished. Also, he clarifies that theodicy involves explanations for catastrophes; these furies
of wind, drought, fire, water, and quake never destroy by chance. Unless asleep in the pew, we
too struggle with the sense, the whereto, of disasters, illness, and death. For instance. If Christ
reigns omnipotent, why does he not prevent destructive forces? On the other hand, if Christ
loves, why permit devastating powers? These ancient questions always recycle through the
generations of the Church. Answers to the limits of revelation belong at the heart of preaching,
lest we in reckless moods doze of, at ease with catastrophes – provided these happen to others,
far away from our private spaces. When catastrophes strike, however, Lies Luck and Fortune as
well as Mothers Earth and Nature, caught off guard, stand deadly cold over against suffering;
stripped of lofty pretensions, the four, they of touching Pollyanna imagination, miss out on the
last laugh.
Theodic questions concerning divine omnipotence and mercy appear also in progressions of
evil. Ministers never avoid these issues, or the Lord Jesus’ justice in manifesting divine wrath
upon transgressors of the Commandments. Adam sinned and all people, beginning with his
children, suffered the results. Noah’s Ham sinned and his children absorbed for multiple
generations the shame of punishment. Abram broke the Seventh and Hagar’s son, Ishmael,
became the father of a people, which since warred against the covenant community.
Before the final punishment, all sins have consequences, unexpected, unforeseen. It is so with
respect to the Tenth Commandment. When an automobilist, momentarily careless, intent on a
covetousness need, loses control, then physical hurt and death may happen, plus property
damages. When corporations fold because of leadership greed, employees and investors suffer.
One multiplies situations. Every long-running revolt against the Trinity requires exposition
through the preaching.
Courting dangers of repetition: congregational refusal and/or fear to confront theodic matters
in depth turns ministers revolutionary; they then spurn to proclaim also this that belongs to the
whole counsel of God. In the office of the congregation, any affront against the holiness and
righteousness of the Trinity meets – sooner or later – serious retribution. Negligent covenant
communities die, however tediously, as the actuality of the promise of salvation slides down into
the horrors of divine wrath.
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In the proclamation of the Word, Christ’s spokesmen do more than hint at or toy with the
existence of the doctrine of theodicy. For the sake of ‘peace’ in a congregation or miss offending
the simple faith of parishioners, a minister of the Word may ignore the significance and rightness
and freedom of the Lord to execute a key Old Testament issuance. Cf. Ex. 20:5f. – “ … I the
LORD am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and
fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who
love me and keep my commandments.” A daunting task, preaching on this and similar texts, one
easily skipped over. A doubly daunting task to listen and believe, one preferably shoved aside
and replaced by little delusions.
All of us read these seemingly theodic imponderables; however, one question remains the
same: what right does Christ have to execute punishment upon the disobedient and bestow
salvation upon sinners to clear his name from association with sin? Scriptures clearly enough
testify with energetic conviction that the Lord Jesus coordinates history justly free and
authoritative to act according to his holy will. And who will find fault with or in him? Ministers,
except the antiquated and deluded, investigate the depths of theodicy, preparatory to sound
preaching, in order to build respective congregations in the Faith.
Specific Concerns
Sin and punishment, even as grace and salvation, burst out of many preaching units.
Therewith come, of course, difficult sequences concerning theodicy. In the divine authority and
government over the universe concentrated in the Church and extended to all the earth basic and
intense questions appear, perhaps with caught-off-balance irritation.
-
-
Why did the Creator God come down so heavy on Adam for eating fruit from the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil?
Was this sin sufficiently severe to impose total depravity on every human heart?
To what purpose did the LORD choose Noah’s Eight, while causing multitudes to perish
in the Flood?
For what goal did he impose grievous destruction upon Egypt to achieve the Exodus?
What justification did the LORD use to compel Israel to wander 40 years in the
wilderness between Egypt and Canaan?
What was so evil in Israel’s lapse of judgment recorded as Num. 14 in comparison to
many others?
Wherefore Moses’ command to destroy all Canaanites upon the Church’s entry into the
promised land? Were the covenant people any better religiously and morally than the
Canaanites? What about ‘good’ indigenous peoples?
Whereto did the LORD God built the dividing-line between Israel and the nations?
To what liberty the dividing-line between the Church and the world?
What warrant for the severe punishment upon David and Israel for a census? Cf. II Sam.
24:1ff.; I Chron. 21:1ff.
What defense for the Exile, which showed that for a time the accidental gods of the
nations superseded the historic coming of the Messiah?
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-
What vindication for the total annihilation of the nations at the Parousia, before the
completion of the new heavens and earth?
What justified God the Son to take upon himself the guilt for the sins of all the Father
gave him?
While struggling with the above, what justifies the divine demand that we be holy as the
Father is? Cf. Lev. 11:44; I Pet. 1:16. What motivation for threats of punishment at failure or
disobedience to this holiness command? Answers to all of the above and many more in the
preaching prepare us, slow at maturing, to face even the most horrendous conflicts, situations,
troubles, and persecutions.
Intensities of theodicy do get under the skin; its frustrations appear over and over in
variations of Ex. 34:6f. 522 – “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation.” In stressful seasons of
individualism, humanism, and tolerationism, of broken families, schismatic churches, polluting
societies, and New Age solutions, Moses’ words may sound strange and impractical, even unfair.
We want all the benefits of license called freedom of religion, freedom of belief, freedom of
conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of privacy – on our free-for-all terms. However, never
to please any ideological or idolatrous penchant for freedom from his rule in and over the
Church, the LORD God issued declarations as Num. 14:18 to make separation among his own by
means of the dividing-line. Nowhere did this imposing authority sink in more deeply than on
Golgotha. According to the genius of place, the Lord Jesus, crucified, distinguished between the
life and death of two covenant men, therewith to reveal his separating powers. This impassionate
revelation of theodicy still sounds forth in the Christ’s, cf. Mt. 27:46p – “Eli, Eli, la’ma sabachtha’ni?” Hearing this cry in Scripture reading from the pulpit makes pressures of theodicy
intensify. On the Cross, the Son of man eternally separated two crucified with him. Cf. Lk.
23:39ff. The one covenant man he bypassed, the other no-less-guilty-of-slander he saved,
therewith demonstrating the purpose for which he had come into the Church.
Unless ministers preach theodicy conscientiously, without unchrist-like speculations about
the infinitely remote and hidden things of God, the whole counsel of God misses out in a crucial
area of sermonizing. Then, again, we hear inferior, if not apostate preaching. This happens when
we in droves fall asleep in church and choose to overlook difficult and/or painful revelation in
order to thwart the word of the Lord. Yet, in uprightness of the congregational office we insist, in
obedience to the Word and with sensitivity, without suppressing the stress of such questions, that
all Christ’s spokesmen struggle in the pulpits of the Church with the freedom of God to vindicate
his justice, bringing about reformation in some covenant members and destruction to others. 523
Else, singing the Lord’s songs, as Ps. 97:2, turns into blasphemy.
“Clouds and thick darkness are round about him;
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.”
522
523
Cf. Num. 14:18; Ps. 103:8ff.; etc.
Cf. Second Excursus, “Seven Deaths By Hanging.”
260
An incisive enunciation of theodicy, stripped of unnecessary nuances, is John Calvin’s. “…
when we are unjustly wounded by men, let us overlook their wickedness (which would but
worsen our pain and sharpen our minds to revenge), remember to mount up to God, and learn to
believe for certain that whatever our enemy has wickedly committed against us was permitted
and sent by God’s just dispensation.” 524
We may yield grudgingly to theodic preaching, but in the reforming church matters of final
retribution come across hugely relevant and intense. Always, biting issues of theodicy go on,
crying for insight.
SIN AND GRACE
Sin and grace, as the other word pairs above and below, no matter how familiar these seem,
turn into proclamation staples – until Christ Jesus initiates the consummation of all things. As
long as we sin, the Savior’s abounding grace will astound us.
Therefore, on Sundays our ears ought to burn with innovative summonses to repentance from
private and corporate sins. Also, the corporate, inclusive the congregational. “We frequently
interpret sin in terms that are too individualistic. There is such a thing as corporate guilt, while a
political party, an industry, or the nation may feel scarcely any guilt at all. However, the truth is
that corporate man is frequently more immoral than individual man. Men will frequently indulge
in behavior together which would be repugnant to them personally.” 525 Thus, when a
congregation as a whole consciously and lucidly sins, possibly with upraised hand, whatever the
different disguises for disobedience, the LORD called early for vengeance. Good preachers,
blessed with vitality of thought, dig deep into and uncover also congregational sins, the systemic,
in order to infuse sermons with the glow of divine grace.
SIN
To the last Bible page, sin intrudes upon grace, a most pertinent matter. Christ, nevertheless,
targeting the blameworthy, holds none who keep breaking commandments guiltless. He judges
the actuality of moral evil as transgression of the published divine laws and, more significantly,
condemns every transgression in terms of revolt against him, and through him against the Father
as well as the Spirit. No matter how much we may seek to hide from, cover up, and excuse being
out of moral alignment, its affront against God and neighbors sounds forth in the true
proclamation of the Word, or ministers eviscerate the sole gospel of its authority and power,
favoring darkness and death in respective congregations. As we bog down in the drawn-out war
for control of Christ’s congregations, members in pews and men on pulpits against the Lord
Jesus Christ, mixed signals flash dangerously – we want grace and we still want sin. Under a
skin of delusion, this denial and trivialization of the seriousness of rebellion against the Lord of
the Church spreads damnation left and right.
Heart Sins
524
J. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Westminster, MCMLX),
I.xvii.8. Cf. III.iv.32.
525
Horne, op. cit., p. 103.
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With heart, soul, and mind we prefer ministers of the Word who keep sin in wastelands of
generalities (out of sight, out of mind). We want pulpit men who appreciate our sensitivities,
preaching all have sinned in Adam, paying lip service to the doctrine of total depravity, and
treating sinfulness at best as a truism. We want to close eyes and ears to the alarming reality of
accountability and pulpiteers have to be unwilling to finger sin concretely. Rather, they have to
imply or accent our essential goodness, promote our ability at autosoterism through works of
community service and self-congratulatory moral character. We want orators who place sinning
outside our definition of the Church, among liberals or conservatives, depending on which side
of this bristling fence we worship. Liberals or conservatives are then the wicked world out there.
In our own way, we place corporate and structural masks over the Church as a whole and over
congregations, which thereby become local idiosyncrasies. We comfortably hide behind our
conventional facades, sliding collective as well as individual guilt-makers into lapses of
judgment and states of forgetfulness.
Whether we define ourselves as liberals or as conservatives and whether we play up the
popularity of corporate sins or denounce the moral failings of others outside our ideological
biases, we resemble porcupines. These large rodents, confronted by danger, roll themselves into
balls, at the same time defensively sticking out hundreds of long, sharp quills at the ready in
many directions. Similarly, whether conservative or liberal, we raise our hackles if any one,
Christ Jesus included, dares accuse us of sinning. When a minister, perchance, speaks in the
name of the Lord to convince and convict us of our sins, conservative or liberal, we quickly erect
our defensive systems. These sharp quills to protect territorial demarcations we find even the
Lord Jesus trespasses only with unthinkable damages to himself.
From behind defense systems, it is pleasant to sit back voyeuristically and for the sake of
entertainment watch others squirm inside the results of iniquity. Thus conservatives scoff at
liberals and liberals mock conservatives, round and round, in endless cycles of incrimination.
In these matters of sinning, our hearts churn desperately corrupt and put on determined
resistance: it is easier to listen to preaching comfortably bland on iniquity and supportive of our
congregational energies, personal as well as corporate forms of self-realization. Warm with the
spirits of Pharisaism or Sadduceism, we naturally and expertly justify ourselves. In this matter,
lacking acuity of perception, we coddle ourselves, ignoring one fact: we are fairly simple and
predictable people, lethargic in righteousness and holiness.
For instance. Throughout the parable of the banquet, cf. Lk. 14:16ff., Jesus fingered the spirit
of Pharisaism by way of those who refused to heed his call; for they justified themselves. Fearful
of a growing competition, they sought to come out ahead of the Lord of the Church at the
expense of salvation. Passions of ingrained covetousness superseded divine commands.
For instance. By taking a corded whip to cattle dealers, pigeon sellers, and money changers
in a Temple compound, cf. John 2:13ff., Jesus interrupted and disrupted a profitable source of
income also for the priestly caste in Jerusalem. Instead of heeding Jesus’ command to repent of
gross covetousness, the Levitical priests took umbrage at the Lord of the Church. Passions of
ingrained greed disposed them to further rebellion.
262
In contrast, preaching well done confronts us with our problems of human evil – personal,
corporate, systemic. Exposing and condemning our mysteries of sin also belongs to the authority
of Word proclamation, without the use of quasi-impenetrable jargon. Upright preachers spell out
pastorally the specificity of sin and its manifold, devious apparitions, though we prefer to restrain
them by issuing a gag order.
For the record:
- Sin start in our hearts.
- Sin misses the mark of righteousness and holiness the Lord Jesus demands and thus consists
of deviation from the right way he commands for living gratitude.
- Sin is want of integrity and rectitude, departure from the appointed way. Cf. Mt. 10:32f.,
12:30; Lk. 11:23; James 2:10; etc.
- Sin is revolt, denial from the heart to bow before true authority. Cf. Prov. 4:23; Jer. 17:9;
Mt. 15:19f.; Lk. 6:45; Heb. 3:12; etc.
- Sin is hate, trampling upon and conflicting with the love of God.
- Sin is transgression of the Law and therefore covenant breakage.
- Sin is unfaithfulness and treason.
- Sin is vanity.
- Sin is the evil course we deliberately follow. Cf. Gen. 3:1ff.; Is. 48:8; Rom. 1:18ff.; I John
3:4; etc.
- Sin is active opposition to the Lord Jesus, who holds us accountable.
- Sin is ….
Sin incurs guilt, and therefore eternal damnation. Manifold in form, disobedience in every
generation opens up largely unexplored landscapes, with plenty of feasible work ahead for all
ministers of the Word. In this respect, the old tensions of Is. 10:15 still speak volumes –
“Shall the axe vaunt itself over him who hews it,
or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?
As if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood!”
In answer and with confirmation, preachers counter sin and evil with the uniqueness of the
grace Christ Jesus revealed. With this exquisite faithfulness of grace we need more than a
nodding acquaintance.
Strong Facts
No gray space exists between sin and grace. The fleshly stimulants of sin, insatiable, crave
increasing moral pollution and guilt. Pollution compromises our lot and guilt unpacks our
burden. When repentance is wanting, this anti-social burden in the Church compounds sinful
corruptions, until its dreadful and horrible conclusion. Cf. Job 14:4; Mt. 7:15ff.; Rom. 8:5ff.;
Eph. 4:17ff.; etc. However, we move ahead with increasing awareness that this calamity did not
ambush us unawares; we find that in Adam, first representative, we consciously chose this
covetous course: to denounce the LORD God’s holiness, to poison life, to break down further the
original bond of goodness which he created in Adam. Apart from the Word and the Spirit we
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seek always more effective hiding places (privately or among erring companions) and
contemporary sounding excuses to disobey the Commandments and avoid the disarray at being
caught out. For self-protection, we burrow deeper into and cover up iniquity with available
ideologies and idolatries, thereby to deadlock the progress of the Gospel. This much is clear even
in darkest hours of rebellion: confrontation with our sins in the light of the Word and the Spirit
calls for … real amendment.
Contrary to all individualism, relativism, and other unregulated efforts at revolution, sound
preaching lays bare the fact that for transmission of evil the human race was potentially and
actually represented in Adam when he ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. We sinned when he sinned. When he became corrupt, we became corrupt. Moreover, before
the face of God, we daily increase in that corruption. This teaching, on any given Sunday, meets
strong resistance from all who brush aside the sinfulness of sin, except even then we fail to
escape the force of Scripture. Cf. Rom. 3:10ff., 5:1ff.; etc. Such resistance, however, declares
clearly where Christ will place us, on his left hand, when he gloriously returns.
Clear and unequivocal preaching exposes all our evil in every manifestation. Thus the Christ
with authority disarms the wild-card damages sin wreaks upon the love of God, the nature of the
Church, the communion of saints, the coming of the Kingdom, the glory of the Father, and the
enabling factors of the Spirit. True in Jesus Christ, such exegesis of the Word, regardless how
wimpishly or brutally we respond, requires all the power of the open pulpit. Lest the Head of the
Church lays the blame for our straying and eventual eternity in damnation before negligent
ministers of the Word – while we as guilty with bad planning delay, dissemble, deny, and
procrastinate.
GRACE
As much as we temporize listening to biblically-sound sermonic displays of our iniquity of
heart, so much more we hug wholeheartedly preaching on wonders of the sovereignty of grace
and refuse to budge on this sermon staple. The proclamation of grace transcends in seriousness
life, death, and oxygen.
Optimal Stresses
But grace means so little, unless aggressive and unrelenting ministers preach it in order to
conquer our sinfulness. To that end, our Father in Jesus Christ through the Spirit revealed all
saving power of grace – for our salvation, for the liveliness of the Church, and for the coming of
the Kingdom. Christ Jesus wills the Gospel spoken to covenant breakers in the Church as well as
on the mission fields, to move the covenant keepers to living gratitude. In every sermon grace
appears as light bursts of growth for the Faith. Where grace fails in the preaching, ministers
obviously missed bonding with the texts.
Grace constitutes, with cords of compassion, the highly omnipotent gospel. The active,
working passion of divine favor upon sinners draws us into the righteousness and holiness of the
triune God. Whether our sins are 1) missing the mark of righteousness and holiness of God, 2)
want of integrity and rectitude, 3) revolt, or 4) outright treason, Christ always reveals grace as his
unmerited revelation. The Holy Spirit dispenses it through sound proclamation of the Word in
264
the Church for the coming of the Kingdom. This holy donation serves as the lifeblood of the
covenant. Therefore, it is said of our Mediator: he appeared full of grace and truth. Cf. John 1:14.
And the Third Person, the Spirit of grace, imputes this gift irresistibly to all elect by means of the
word. As such, grace 526 functions as the active ingredient of the covenant promises manifested in
the Son’s works. Cf. Gen. 6:8, 19:19, freely bestown, cf. Lk. 1:30, 2:40, 52; Acts 2:47, 7:46; etc.
It conveys intense consideration, which in regeneration, forgiveness of sins, and reformation of
life reveals the vibrant character of wholeness.
Grace, therefore, signifies unmerited works of mercy that the Christ reveals for the salvation
of his own, freeing all from corporate and personal sin; alone in this liberty of covenant
community, through knowing the works of redemption in history, trusting the Gospel, thankfully
obeying the Law, establishing membership in the Church, and citizenship in the Kingdom, we
find the assurances of our election. Grace thereby liberates us for the office of the congregation
and colors our mandate for the recreation of all things. Once grace infuses and inundates our
hearts, we can speak of bilateral cooperation and mutual commitment between the Lord Jesus
and all in him, for now we desire out of the root of our new nature and moral stature to work in
the Church and throughout the Kingdom. In this manner, grace is all-powerful, taking over total
heart commitment. Otherwise, we remain in the treachery of our sins. Simple.
Unearned Grace
Through the totality of his operations, the Spirit of grace reveals the unmerited favor of the
Gospel. As the Father’s free and sovereign love amplified in the Son for our liberty of faith, it is
called, historically, sola gratiae. The biblical expression constantly deploys “by grace,” but
because of much virulent and debilitating Semi-Pelagianism and Arminian misuse, the sola had
to be added.
1) This Semi-Pelagian/Arminian danger we confront perennially as freethinking and silly
notions of resistibility to grace. Our inborn proclivity wants proclamation that minimizes the
omnipotence of grace and maximizes the rule of human potentiality: responding to such
sermonizing, we become the final arbiters for or against this divine gift. Yet, we need Spiritinspired, feisty passion for grace-informed preaching to rectify broken bonds, never sermons
promoting free moral agency.
For cantankerous sermon judges, under whom the ground always shifts, an old and evil
argument bears weight: sola gratiae makes for careless, wicked, and hypocritical church people.
Is salvation totally of grace and God eventually draws the elect to himself, why even bother with
the Gospel? Or seek membership in the Church? Or obey the Commandments to express
gratitude for salvation? Yet, the answer to these questions ought to jump at us sermonically with
blinding obviousness and life-bending force.
Believers find it impossible, responding to sound preaching, to deny the Gospel’s power over
sin in order to bring forth fruits of gratitude. Cf. Mt. 7:18; Lk. 6:43ff.; John 15:15; etc. Still,
teaching on the all-sufficiency of grace makes for a volatile zone in the Church.
526
In some biblical places, grace has the sense of beauty. Cf. Prov. 22:11; Lk. 4:22; Col. 4:6; etc.
265
In and for conquest of sin – personal, federative, congregational, familial, structural, the sola
gratiae sounds forth with total strength, never letting up. In Christ, we assert that in the Church’s
pulpits no room or function exist for wrong-hearted Semi-Pelagian/Arminian pride, that is, that
sinners must concur, agree with grace before Christ may begin or continue his salvation works.
Whether the work is redemption or sanctification, such prior concurrence consists of empty
gestures. Biblically, first the sovereignty of grace, then our works of faith.
2) Sometimes, improperly informed people even assert with sub-optimal care for facts, that
salvation constitutes the work of God for the full 100 percent and also our work for the full 100
percent, that is, for those who want to believe the Gospel. However, salvation is entirely of the
triune God. Only upon regeneration do we begin cooperating with the Third Person and
implement the totality of our new being in the work of the Church and for the coming of the
Kingdom, together to glorify the Father. Regardless of innate Arminian tendencies, the grace of
regeneration comprises solely the influx of the Trinity; the Spirit even formulates the patterns of
our sanctification, with which sanctification we want to cooperate. And we do.
As such, grace instills very humbling, turning-of-the-cheek powers, especially in clearly
marked preaching units. Cf. Eph. 2:8ff. –
“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own
doing, it is the gift of God - not because of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which
God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Thus, the totality of this Spirit-wrought dependence upon grace for the Faith shines through
in the preaching, enkindles gratitude, indeed, confirms our lives of thankfulness. From here we
move ahead in the way of the Commandments into the glory and honor and praise of the Father.
Grace, then, constitutes the comprehensive name for all sovereign and unmerited blessings 527
of salvation wrought in our churches, hearts, and lives through the work of the Spirit by means of
the proclamation of the Word. Cf. Acts 11:23, 18:27; II Cor. 9:14; etc. Salvation, moving
through pains of repentance, is never by works of any kind, not even the action of starting faith,
whatever superior attitudes and sentimental powers of unleashed Semi-Pelagianism and
Arminianism in the Church.
Sin, beginning in the heart, interferes in our worlds, congregations, and lives, as smoking
fields of fire, consuming reprobates with intense bitterness and spiteful hate. Then again,
disobedience, moving out from the heart, slides into our lives, congregations, and worlds, as
palpable glaciers of ice, crushing sinners with cold indifference. These deep-burning fires and
soul-eroding glaciers manifest themselves as turf wars against the Christ. Opposing all sin, in the
Church first and beginning in the heart, the conquering powers of grace working through faith,
527
Daane, op. cit., p. 40 – “One way in which those who preach the gospel have tried to remove the possibility of
offense is to present the message in such a way as to suggest to the non-Christian that he or she is being presented
with options. The sinner is thus led to think that a real choice is involved in which one is free either to accept or to
reject [Jesus Christ].”
266
depose the ‘authority’ of Satan, the great Adversary, the world, and covetousness, for the
majestic reign of the Christ.
PERSEVERANCE AND REGRESSION
Perseverance and lapsing form another persuasive duality necessary to distinguish sound
preaching from other sorts; the biblical teachings on both, whatever forlorn SemiPelagian/Arminian insinuations of falling totally from grace, uphold the sovereign work of our
Lord and Savior.
PERSEVERANCE
Specifically, the alleged danger is: perseverance-starved and powered-down members of the
Church can fall completely and definitively from grace. Of this lapsing, the Spirit never gave one
illustration in the Word, other than that unbelievers leave the Church behind, if not willingly,
then unwillingly by disciplinarian measures. Therefore, maintaining this retreat from the Faith as
an option for believers means that we ourselves then first defeat the free and sovereign work of
the triune God in salvation, in the building of the Church, in the coming of the Kingdom, and in
the recreation of all things. Is lapsing from the faith biblically supportable, then puny mortals
may apparently overcome the Christus in nobis, (to use the rolling Latin cadence for Christ in
us), do we so desire and choose. Then persistence in the Faith turns over into our work and we
control this most crucial aspect of our salvation. This is untrue. Even Judas Iscariot, a devil, 528
though of the Church and among the Twelve, never believed; the Lord Jesus exposed him as a
reprobate.
Better. In the proclamation of the word first Christ disturbs and destroys so great and
abhorrent a transgression as lapsing among his own; he fights this failure in perseverance off on
the frontlines of the Faith by the most decisive means at his catholic command: the sword of the
Spirit applied by the office of the ministry. Through sound preaching, he dispels such mythic
allegations as personally motivated breaking down from grace.
Strong Forces
Perseverance, or more essentially, the persevering of the saints (as opposed to heroic
endurance or fatalistic trust), constitutes another great doctrine perspicuously revealed in
Scripture; that is, all whom the Father foreknows, predestines to be conformed to the image of
his Son, justifies, and glorifies, receive the following assurance through the preaching of the
Word and the working of the Spirit: no power on earth, or in hell, or of the flesh can finally
withstand divine mercy and grace. The divine will for the Church and our lives despite even ugly
stains of grievous sins moves ahead irresistibly. All of us in whom the Spirit through sound
preaching enkindles the Faith shall certainly persevere to the end and eternal salvation. Election
is forever.
It may happen, as we survey the ecclesial scene, that faith goes dormant, seemingly, due to
our evil and disobedient preferences, but through the Word and the Spirit, it lives again. The
528
Cf. John 6:70.
267
Spirit blows on live coals hidden in the ashes of sin to free the fire of faith. This is as true of
individual members as of the Church. Jacob, for instance, gave little evidence of the Faith until
near the end of his life, when the LORD prepared him with his family to enter Egypt and meet
Joseph. Cf. Gen. 46:1ff. Upon the Exile, the LORD brought forth out of many only a remnant,
the ongoing church. Cf. Ezra-Nehemiah. With respect to thankfulness, at times we resemble trees
in winter or dormant seeds in fallow ground, ready only through cleansing from culpability to
burst into new growth.
On the one hand, clearly defined, this perseverance of the saints, when consistently preached,
provides all-encompassing strengths to believe and live to praise the Trinity even in most
difficult circumstances; that is, we conquer ecclesial apostasy, secular turmoil, temptations of the
flesh, hypocrisy, persecution, even powers of death beginning within our respective
congregations. Lingering and misleading impressions of autosoterism we show the door,
unimpressed by these satanic wrecking crews. Within the Church, all Christ-forbidden powers
may not gain ground and evolve paths to legitimacy. Preaching the biblical teaching of
perseverance in the faith, thankfully, produces backbone in our believing and living, another
foresighted work of the Holy Spirit.
On the other hand, if inconsistently preached, any lack in the proclamation of this doctrine
validates complacency and eventually a demonic thought pattern: Christ Jesus requires our
assistance in his work of salvation. Hence follows lapsing into speculative swamps of SemiPelagianism/Arminianism. In that regression, overbold pride assumes that salvation depends
upon human concurrence by way of a folly called freedom of the will. Uncertainty in salvation
kills.
At heart, the teaching of the perseverance of all saints 529 means that everyone called and
regenerated shall never finally cringe within the turbulent anxiety levels of damnation. In other
words, to decide the issue: they whom Christ Jesus justifies and regenerates can neither totally
nor eternally fall away into sin, but shall certainly persevere in faith and life to the end, and be
eternally saved. Though many of the Church may repeat variations of the journey of the prodigal
son, no one and nothing ultimately conquers the powers of grace; for it is by grace. Therefore, in
this perseverance of the saints our irresistible and sustainable response moves us to the head of
the race, going for gold. Cf. I Cor. 9:24 – “Do you not know that in a race all the runners
compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.” Even if this has to be in
a wheelchair or on crutches.
Reforming Saints
As such, this doctrine may be preached not only amidst severe strains and tedious
difficulties; in fact, it ought to be taught and developed at all times, also when we slow down in
its support and seek to wiggle out of gratitude. Then our ministers need to jolt us to the life of
thanksgiving imperative to living covenantal obligations. Cf. John 10:27ff.; Rom. 11:29; II Thes.
3:3; etc. Cf. Phil. 1:6 – “And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to
completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” When the Father in Christ Jesus regenerates us, we never
529
Paul addressed several letters to saints, that is, believers, Christians.
268
fail to attain the fullness of redemption, though evil overcomes us and we fall frighteningly far –
as David’s murder of Uriah the Hittite 530 and Peter’s denial of knowing the Christ. 531
Preaching the perseverance of the saints makes none careless; through the Spirit of grace, it
redoubles our will to serve the Father in Christ Jesus, more work of the Spirit in the Church. In
effect, this doctrine animates, desires reformation, and conformation to the Commandments in
order to express the gratitude instilled by the Gospel, transforming respective congregations and
honest efforts throughout the Kingdom. Perseverance may be more difficult in prosperous
seasons than in adverse, although saturation in grief brings its own temptations to rebellion. Cf.
Prov. 30:7ff. –
“Two things I ask of thee; deny them not to me before I die:
Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’
or lest I be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God.”
Whatever our circumstances, sermons on perseverance serve as epoxy to hold our
congregations together, indeed, the entire Church in Christ; together we strive and struggle to
promote gratitude with resolve and endurance in response to sovereign grace, regardless of hardhearted opposition, internal or external.
Strengths in preaching perseverance of the saints renders no believer indifferent or
complacent, though many may fall into seditious sins - as individuals, families, and
congregations. Upon repentance, they will bear the chastisement of the Lord and carry the
sorrowing burden of conscience. To prevent travesties in transgression and backsliding, we push
ministers for specific biblical teachings on perseverance. Such sermons connect with the
doctrines of covenant and election, Church and Kingdom, Gospel and Law; etc. Moreover, this
proclamation of the Word demonstrates the effectiveness of the merits and intercessory powers
of the Christ, incessant work of the Spirit, love of the Father, and assurance of salvation. Cf.
Heb. 3:14, 6:11, 10:22; II Pet. 1:10; etc. Men then who preaching with plethoras of confidence
the perseverance of the saints bear fruit in serving stronger congregations, precisely what all in
Christ seek. These sermons marshal believers in Christ into active service. Perseverance
therefore blocks any neutral stance, sitting on the fence or living on power-save.
BACKSLIDING
Ministers of the Word who refuse to preach the perseverance of the saints, or benignly
neglect this teaching, play with matches. They set fire to false impressions. 1) Members of the
Church and citizens of the Kingdom at will choose for or against the continuity of salvation. 2)
Any necessary resolve to remain within salvation members of the Church and citizens of the
Kingdom dole out from private resources. When ministers of the Word leave these impressions
in the pews, they provide strong evidence of biblical illiteracy, a disgraced in and to the Church
of Jesus Christ, specifically, to the Lord himself, which requires from us strong objection.
530
531
Cf. II Sam. 11:14ff.
Cf. Mt. 26:75.
269
Sincere Warnings
Against sermonic blood thinners, which renounce or neglect the power and authority of the
Gospel also with respect to the perseverance of the believers, warnings enough supply preaching
texts. Cf. Mt. 24:12; I John 2:6; etc. When we willingly or sleepily hear this mighty doctrine, we
hide salvation in the basket case of moral free agency – a strategic plan to undermine Christ’s
rule and, therewith, the assurance of salvation. Ministers with assurances of equal access for all
to and departures equal for all from the grace of the Lord and Savior pervert and renounce
Scripture relative to the perseverance of the saints.
All of us who gloss over this stone-hearted sin from the pulpits of the Church, since we
easily give in to preaching that strokes our pride, find the Spirit withdrawing, surrendering all but
a remnant (which proves the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints), to temptation,
transgression, lawlessness, vanity, and damnation. As we lower the bar on gratitude and turn
church buildings into grow operations for Semi-Pelagian/Arminian vanity, we make
congregations fluid and volatile environments in which each has to save himself or herself, that
is, sliding back into pagan ways.
Once this sin ascends in power, first tiptoeing across an unnoticed line, it may seem that the
grace of justification and sanctification, indeed, Christ’s authority with respect to salvation, has
been eclipsed. Whom the Son and the Father through the Spirit then still save, dragging them out
of and away from prodigal journeys, must live with seared consciences: I/we have grievously
sinned against God, always a heavy baggage for the remaining years on earth. After persecuting
the Christ, Paul bore a heart-straining burden. 532 Nevertheless, the Head of the Church
sovereignly returns each of his to the fold that they persevere in the Faith – on his terms. Though
backsliding at any given time in the Church runs on illegal, Christ always sooner than we are
ready brings cleansing and reformation.
Many of the Church, however, on prodigal journeys into the unseemly comforts of ideology
and idolatry, proceed on the way of the unpardonable sin. All who recant the Faith find that this
backsliding began in earnest by not calling ministers of the Word to account for the perseverance
of the saints, preaching this mighty teaching with more than passing familiarity.
The Church as a whole and our congregations individually provide no ambiguous enclaves of
security against lapsing in the faith. I John 2:19 indicates how severe and detrimental
apostatizing may become, though it started innocently enough, through pleasant indolence; a
number of stalking antichrists had risen up in the congregations John addressed and took many
on prodigal journeys from which they never returned, walking into the massive intimidation of
judgment, too late to turn about.
Eternal Destinies
532
Cf. I Tim. 1:13.
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Strong federations, congregations, and members have fallen very deep, never to bounce back,
never noticing any unusual goings on. Except for a remnant. Christ redeems his own by the grace
of repentance from every deep abyss of defeat in sin and brings all back to the sheepfold. The
truth of his shepherding authority appears when living members of the Church fight public and
private indolence, resist public and private license, and condemn public and private immorality –
first by insisting upon sermons with biblical emphasis on the perseverance of the saints in order
that we believe through the spoken word the commanding grace of Christ more persistently.
How else shall we experience perseverance in the faith while polluting the Church and this world
with disobedience?
Against lapsing in the faith and falling for current spiritualities, we may expect, truly, ask for
due warning against such regression and recantation. Christ wills that we make progress along
the narrow way, move beyond basic concepts of the Gospel, and mature. Though we go through
many tribulations, cf. John 16:33, and face the Satan’s devious stratagems, whether from the
world or through our flesh, until we want to botch the reality of grace for ourselves and others,
nevertheless the Lord Jesus wills and works our perseverance in the faith, which belongs innately
to preaching the living Christ.
Then, in dependence upon sound proclamation of the Word, we persevere in faith and life.
The alternative, about which nothing is magical, consist of adulterating the Word: through
inferior and/or apostate preaching with respect to the perseverance of the saints we join enemies
of Christ and perish on the widening parkway leading to damnation. Once on the broad way,
people in the pew find they are harder to win over than Hell’s Angels are.
We need persistent preaching as warning against lapsing into rule-by-the-members sinning,
the congregation determining which infractions merit censure. These dissolutions of the divine
standard over time enlarge and consume faithfulness. Nowhere in the Word does the Judge
whitewash even small sins.
Preaching that disturbs and overcomes traditional sinning - sinning as evidence of long-time
lapsing in the Faith - gives victories to the perseverance of the saints and defeats every regression
in the Faith. Nothing may cheapen the transcendence of sovereign grace, lest we fight against
God’s will.
ESCHATOLOGY AND JUDGMENT
Eschatology lays out the biblical revelation of ultimate matters involving the purpose of life,
death, judgment, heaven, hell, and the new creation. The Father wrote with fundamental strength
and wisdom the future upon a scroll, cf. Rev. 5:1ff., which in the new dispensation the Son of
God/Son of man executes with global awareness. To block misunderstanding: eschatology,
beginning on Day One of the creation, suffuses every biblical teaching. Christ Jesus as God and
man carries this through until beyond the Parousia.
From the beginning, the Creator directed history eschatologically to its goal. In that now
broken history, all plans for nations and empires fail; however large or small, weak or strong,
they may be, their makers and shakers dismiss and oppose the Kingdom. For punishment, these
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alternative kingdoms return to disinteresting dust, even after hard-fought contests. Historically
lawless Assyria, Babylon, and Rome with misplaced trust found out the hard way.
With the initial judgment recorded as Gen. 3:14-19, the Creator God in mercy realigned the
historical connections to the major judgment, the Crucifixion, and then moved on to the final
judgment. The Day the Son of man reappears with the overwhelming glory of international
authority, cf. Acts 1:11, he shall fulfill all outstanding prophecies, Old Testament as well as
New, then publicly reveal the pledged scope of our salvation that he merited on the Cross for the
praise of the Father. Then he will also reveal the total condemnation of unbelievers. At that time
he returns the Kingdom to his Father, accomplishing the stunning victory of the Church in the
Parousia over all principalities and powers. From beginning to the end of history, Christ puts the
bite in eschatology.
ESCHATOLOGY
As recorded in Gen. 1-2, the Creator made his kingdom to last eternally, to be God to Adam
and his progeny forever. But Adam injected total depravity into all descendants and compelled
the LORD God to move eschatologically in a new way. Responding in grace, unexpectedly and
dynamically Christ Jesus swept the creation inexorably onwards to the first judgment, the
Crucifixion, and now sweeps history towards the final judgment, and therewith the revelation of
the new heavens and earth, more glorious than the first creation.
Unexpected Answers
Now, we ensure with extra scrutiny that ministers of the Word unabashedly work out basic
concerns of the past into the present for the future – for the Church and the Kingdom. Since each
preaching unit has its eschatological signifier, in this proclamatory labor, members of Christ
spurn chiliastic and millennialistic miscues: these mystify history into totally unwarranted
passages of time.
Chiliasm is: a speculative idea stating that the Christ upon his return institutes a 1,000-year
reign.
Millennialism is: a speculative doctrine that Christ Jesus upon his return will reign in peace
over the earth for a 1,000 years.
Both chiliasm and millennialism, loose-jointed, balk indecently at the lordship of Christ
Jesus; these ideological movements misrepresent Rev. 20:1-5 with heavy dosages of eisegesis.
Rather than answering any ideological/idolatrous urges to misinterpret the Word, each man
called to the office of the ministry clarifies in Christ’s name the breathtaking answers to always
living questions, at the same counteracting multiple injuries caused by chiliastic/millennialistic
interpretations at odds with history. These unsettling questions ministers answer:
-
Whence do we come and whither do we go?
To what purpose are we here now?
What is the destiny of the Church and to what goal moves the Kingdom?
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-
How does the Parousia look from here?
Frontline ministers proclamatorily busy also damage an ambivalent present into which we
easily as well as comfortably migrate; our inclinations settle too easily for an eschatologicallyresistant existence in which our interests receive priority and in which life and death, heaven and
hell, Church and Kingdom, sink into seas of indifference, at best circumferential preferences. As
Christ Jesus breaks up our existentialist boats of creaturely comforts and public apathies; our
preferences for quick fixes and sweet little lies in sermons go to waste. Rather, his
eschatological teachings move us constantly into unfamiliar landscapes – as Noah onto a
cleansed earth, Abraham into Palestine, Israel into Canaan, etc. In the pew, these rising tensions
unsettle us for all states of preparedness.
Sound eschatological preaching reopens in the Bible the constitutive element of history by
which the Father and the Spirit move all circumstances and events and peoples forwards to the
final judgment, with the Consummation of the Christ and the Congregation in the offing. Cf.
Rev. 19:7f. –
“’Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and
his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and
pure’ – for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.”
At the Consummation, then, the stunning and vibrant glory of the Trinity shall be wholly
vindicated, the divine counsel realized, the royal rule of Christ crowned with immaculate
splendor, and, as a final touch, the damned cast forever into the outer darkness, where surge and
roll and echo harsh sounds of wailing and gnashing of teeth. To use another analogy for hell, the
eternity of the reprobate becomes the intolerable lake of fire burning with sulfur, the second
death. Cf. Rev. 21:8.
To the public rhythm of consummation and damnation stimulated by covenant reformations
beats the mighty pulse of history (impatiently, cf. Rom. 8:22). Historical tensions steadily mount,
for none knows the day of Jesus Christ’s return. To preempt the Christ, nations as well as
empires seek greater control before losing all serious stuff of authority before the Judge. We
have the creative activity of the Son’s assured foretelling that he comes in glory on the clouds of
heaven for judgment. This, through the fear of the Lord, puts the past into perspective and with
heightened awareness aligns us for the future.
History consists of neither endless evolutions nor tiring cyclical movements. For this reason,
many biblical references point to the Eschaton. Cf. Is. 62:2; Micah 4:1; I Pet. 1:20; I John 2:18;
etc. Here and now, on Sundays, men of the Lord tell us where, on Christ’s right hand or left, we
shall stand then and there; through the proclamation of the Word, the Spirit convinces us of the
place where we shall live eternally. Primarily by sound preaching, the Lord Jesus grants his own
wisdom and assurance with respect to living conditions past the Judgment. Minds and hearts of
the lethargic he darkens. What the early church already taught regarding the Return of Christ, the
resurrection of the dead, the final Judgment, and eternal life either in heaven or in hell sensitizes
all of the Lord Jesus in terms of historical understanding. Eschatology stands out as an overriding
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constitutive element of the Bible from Genesis to, and including, the Revelation, also of the
history since the closing of the Canon.
On closer inspection, without due eschatological emphasis on and uphill compliance with the
optimal outcome of Christ’s rulership in many sermons, congregations in large swaths derail and
run off into one of dire ideological dead ends. Without both eschatology and submission, how
shall we live under the looming sprawl of smooth paganism, except under duress to swat away at
anxiety and bemoan indifferent slumps of despair?
Highly integrated eschatological preaching builds with bold steps forward congregational
awareness of and commitment to the Scripture-shaped doctrines of covenant and predestination,
history and redemption, Gospel and Law, Church and Kingdom, office and recreation,
providence and theodicy, sin and grace, perseverance and backsliding, justification and
sanctification, Word and sacrament, life and death, light and darkness, heaven and hell, justice
and mercy, time and eternity, freedom and slavery, assurance and doubt, hope and despair,
assurance and doubt, flesh and Spirit, etc. With always-renewed social consciousness, the Lord
moves history onwards. This is to say: all scriptural teachings and therefore sound preaching
open up rallying eschatological visions.
Disparate Directions
For all moving towards the Day, every nightfall completes one more decisive and irrevocable
step laden with hope or burdened by execrable despair, the latter however ideologically and
idolatrously cushioned. The Lord Jesus prepares the divinely appointed conclusion in the
Parousia with awesome vindication; within the thriving Apocalypse flows the critical bifurcation
– the glorification of the righteous and the condemnation of the unrighteous, to the praise of the
Father. Facing sticky points of the new reality, none may now go on sinning with impunity, to
fall through carnal and mental stimuli into sensations of loss and emptiness.
Eschatology is: the revelation of the Father’s historical plan in Jesus Christ for the
Recreation, at the same time cleansing away sins and sinners.
Therefore, Christ in the real world of feuding titans and poor losers points to his return with
relentless persistence. Cf. Mt. 24:30, 25:19ff.; John 14:3; etc. Angels too. Cf. Acts 1:11.
Moreover, the apostles assessed the impact and announced the immanence of the Parousia. Cf.
Acts 3:20f.; Phil. 3:20; I Thes. 4:15f.; II Thes. 1:7ff.; Titus 2:13; Heb. 9:28; etc. In places, the
Spirit spoke of unveiling, apocalypse, elsewhere of epiphany, appearance. Cf. II Thes. 2:8; I
Tim. 6:14. Often he worked with the sense of parousia. 533 Cf. Mt. 24:3, 27, 37; I Cor. 1:7, 15:23;
I Thes. 2:19; II Thes. 1:7; etc. Compounding matters, the Lord of the Church also reveals
mysterious entities, deservedly contemptible, right fearsome, specifically the plagues and beasts
in Daniel and the last Bible book.
Unbelievers may for now blasphemously erect barriers more treacherous than black ice and
sneakier than osteoporosis, and raise devilishly difficult questions. Cf. Mal. 2:17p – “Where is
533
Machen, The New Testament, op. cit., p. 119 – “All through the Epistles the thought of the Parousia – the
‘presence’ or ‘coming’ of Christ – appears as a master motive.”
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the God of judgment?” Cf. Is. 40:27. They want a steady power shift from Christ to themselves,
wherewith the secular status symbols of authority – silly little idolatries and ideologies with
designs on the future. In the Church, however, preachers take on and put down even gloomiest
oracles predicting the Christ’s defeat. We listen for the defeat of these pagan power plays too.
Rising to the occasion, when we eagerly insist in sermons upon the unveiling of the whole
counsel of God, we also strain for the final revelation of glory. Therefore, this too ought to be a
strong preaching component, far more than a teasing influence.
JUDGMENT
In dramatic shifts to finalize world history, Jesus Christ, the Lord, immediately post-Fall,
introduced for the proclamation of the Word the revelation of the Judgment. At that time, he
conveyed to Adam all covenant promises and obligations, the constituents by which he separates
people into disparate groupings, always the intense dividing-line in between. Finally, in public as
never before, he shall reveal with lasting impact in the name of the Father and through the power
of the Spirit the standard of acquittal for the righteous and the deadly retribution for the
unrighteousness, none able to cross the dividing-line either way.
Preparatory to the final form of the Recreation, Christ, bringing all people to book, promises
to separate covenant keepers from covenant breakers; coming as a thief in the dark of night,
unexpectedly in the wear and tear of time, he gathers sheep on his right hand, goats on the left.
Solemn Provisions
Contrary to stifling contemporary moods, daft societal attitudes, modern prejudices, and
unendingly smug conceits of postmodernist toleration disguised as friendliness, Christ here and
now prepares the Church for the Judgment – Scriptures truly and definitively teach that
punishments for evil and rewards for good remain incomplete until the Day. Though presently
the Lord God visits evil with vengeance and rewards good with blessing, neither are total. For
example: neverending condemnation of covenant breakers awaits further damnation. Cf. Deut.
9:5; Pss. 9:16, 37:28, 59:13; Prov. 11:5, 14:11; Is. 32:16f.; Lam. 5:7; etc. This is to say:
judgments issued now prescribe the coming of fulfillment. Therefore, current acts of sentencing
point to the concluding judgment. For a time we may allow fickle preachers to throw shadows
over and cast doubts upon Christ’s forward planning with respect to a definitive historical
conclusion, nevertheless the Judge shall speak the final word in his time and at his place. Despite
ravages by pulpit ideologues and apparently inconclusive judgments, good sermons call us to
reconsider our shrewd attempts at hiding from the Judgment.
Hence, in Christ Jesus, the Father moves all history to the immanent finale of the Parousia
when all resurrection of the dead occurs. Then beginning with Adam, the angels shove and
collect and pull the many populations in the earth before the Judge of heaven and earth. With that
in mind, we confess with the time-tested Apostles Creed the Christ’s return to judge the living
and the dead. It is a mercy that the Lord Jesus judges, also finally; even then he will be the
Mediator of the covenant, remembering his decision in the first judgment, the Crucifixion, that
pivotal cross section in history, and then hand down sentences accordingly. This he already
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prophesied in the first dispensation. Cf. Dan. 12:2 – “And many of those who sleep in the dust of
the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”
This eschatological revelation gathers in sharpness during the second dispensation. Cf. John
5:28f.; Acts 17:30f.; etc.
Listening to and remembering sermons true to the Word involves agonizing over evil that
sometimes (often?) manipulates a contemptuous presence in the Church without apparent
liability. Therefore, Mal. 2:17, worth repeating, recognized the growth spurts of insolent sinners.
When ministers, undeterred by that kind of interference, expose their subtle ways, they exegete
the proverbial question - “Where is the God of judgment?” In the next chapter, 3:14f., this
arrogance, born of articulate puffery, exposes even more its power to harness members of the
Church. “What is the good of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the
LORD of hosts? Henceforth we deem the arrogant blessed; evildoers not only prosper but when
they put God to the test they escape.” Granted, the full force of theodicy hits here also, but the
hammering fact stays: the necessary and promised finality of judgment remains outstanding. As
do Job-like struggles with sensitive expectations of the righteous and Asaph-like pains of
expanding consciousness revealed in Ps. 73, everywhere the Lord God teaches preachers to make
us look to the final judgment. The overwhelming savor of the Judgment comes out in sermons,
and therefore in our faith and life, even though we may hope that the final decision turns into a
washout.
At the center of the historical judgment, Christ reveals actual closure to all biblical warnings.
Until then in the Church, second-rate preaching may hide many unpunished sins and unresolved
crimes because, it seems, we outlive condemnation.
Take the LORD’s long suffering before and during Noah’s times. In that age of erring
violence, to all intents and purposes the LORD was unwilling and/or unable to crosscheck that
evil generation. More, from the moment he issued righteous Noah the command to build the ark
to the day the Eight entered the church-saver a hundred years passed. Cf. Gen. 5:32, 7:6ff. For
another century, blasphemy and sinning as survival strategies increased. Then, unexpectedly,
always in control of history, the LORD God poured out the Flood.
The LORD’s admonishments relative to righteous condemnation neither failed nor faltered.
Cf. II Pet. 3:3ff. – “First of all you must understand this, that scoffers will come in the last days
(into the Church) with scoffing, following their own passions and saying, ‘Where is the promise
of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from
the beginning of creation.’ They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens
existed long ago, and an earth formed out of water and by means of water, through which the
world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens
and earth that now exist have been stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and
destruction of ungodly men.” The Lord Jesus Christ sovereignly ruling at the right hand of the
Father exercises disproportionate patience with scofflaws in lieu of rushing to judgment, in our
eyes to a fault.
Agonies still erupting from Ps. 73:2-3 seize hearts and minds.
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“But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had well nigh slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”
Those offending and insufferable members of the Church, the covenant community then,
prospered quintessentially in evil. Until the LORD revealed judgment to this introspective
psalmist. Cf. Ps. 73:17f. –
“… I went into the sanctuary of God; then I perceived their end.
Truly thou dost set [sinners] in slippery places; thou dost make them fall to ruin.”
Thus, the LORD God warned his own repeatedly against covenant breakage. In his time and
at his place he intended due vengeance for all eternity.
The driving force and bold agenda of this judgment prophets and apostles consistently
prophesied. Cf. John 5:25ff.; Acts 10:24; Rom. 2:5ff., 16; Heb. 9:27, 10:27ff.; II Pet. 3:7; Rev.
20:11ff.; etc. The Judgment comes, a truly unbiased event concluding the historical process. Cf.
Deut. 4:24/Heb. 12:27ff. –
“This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of what is shaken, as of what has been
made, in order that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving
a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence
and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.”
The Return of Christ Jesus in glory, the resurrection of the dead, plus the renewal of heaven
and earth, shall be a fearful event for frantic multinational and still foot-dragging covenant
breakers, but for covenant keepers the glorious hour in which life becomes life.
The Judgment comprises a work of the Trinity, but Scriptures ascribe it particularly to Christ
Jesus. Cf. Mt. 12:36f., 25:31ff.; John 5:24, 27; Acts 10:42, 17:31; I Cor. 4:5; Phil. 2:9f.; II Tim.
4:1; etc. The honor and social significance of judging the living and the dead the Father confers
on the Son, our Mediator, as reward for his atoning work and as part of his exaltation. Moreover,
this judging reflects the crowning honor to the historic forces of his kingship. It is a mercy for
covenant keepers, a truth worthy of repetition, before we are knotted up inside and refuse to
listen: the Judgment is Christ’s.
Active Longings
Capital preaching transmits the sole standard by which Christ conducts the Judgment; this intouch-with-the-future criterion consists of the revealed will of the Father, particularly the nature
of the Judgment handed down from the Golgotha cross, free from any overshadowing millennial
and/or premillennial hoaxes. Proclamation of the Word with respect to the Judgment devolves
neither into Arminian compromise nor into postmodern carelessness. In the light of preaching,
we (come to) know our respective eternal destinations, heaven or hell, eternity in the presence of
the Trinity or eternity in suffering the absence of grace.
The creation, now groaning in labor pains, cf. Rom. 8:23, moves forward according the
divine plan, even as the stone Nebuchadnezzar saw rolls inexorably onwards to fill all the earth.
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Pushed by this stone, the Kingdom, preaching sensitively, reaches forward to the glorious
exaltation of the Church in Christ, our Lord and Mediator. This hope clings to no ill-managed
escapism, much less utopian dreaming, heaven forbid, but to rock-ribbed desires of the heart for
the manifestation of eternal life; these active longings of the heart, Spirit-endowed, influence
sound preaching. For in eternal life, begun in the here and now on account of biblical pulpit
proclamation, we shall totally serve and glorify the Trinity. Therefore, we expect and insist upon
preaching that opens the Judgment as we strain our eyes to see beyond hazy horizons.
The Judgment is: Christ Jesus’ (final) condemnation, therewith to cleanse unrepentant
sinners, corporate law breakers, and unrighteous social systems from the Church and the earth,
simultaneously ushering all covenant keepers into the new creation.
Case in point 125. “Darkness on the earth; earthquakes; God’s judgment poured out on his
holy Temple; the resurrection of the dead. These were events that were expected to happen at the
end of time, when God would bring the dominion of Satan to an end and inaugurate his own
dominion of righteousness and peace on earth. By picturing such events as occurring at Jesus’
death, Matthew is saying that already in that death a victory over Satan was won and the new age
had broken in. The moment of Jesus’ death, then, was not only a moment of destruction but also
a moment of revelation.” 534
In the inexorable and value-conscious approach to the Day, the Father resolved in Christ
Jesus to bring the whole of heaven and earth together under the one Head. This mighty end
time’s conclusion occurs in and with the Judgment. Because of this unity, Christ’s forward
planning bodes ill for changeable day timers, which deploy our own attention-short plans for the
future. Does not the Judgment begin in and with the Church? Cf. I Pet. 4:17. This mighty,
searching question muscles past our personally and socially installed perimeters about hearts and
churches. And demands answer. Next First Day.
In our critical thinking skills applied to sound preaching, we find that the Lord’s men prepare
us for the Day. They envision now the divine glories enveloping us totally, the entire church
believing all covenant promises and fulfilling Scripture-given obligations. In every generation of
the Church this gratitude starts off again by way of the resilient processes of sanctification, that
is, reformation, preparing for the Day.
JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION
For apprehending the spoken word of the Lord we constantly absorb graphic description of
two inseparable doctrines: justification and sanctification. Both clarify basics to proclaiming the
Word. All whom Christ justifies he also sanctifies. On the other hand, all whom the Lord
sanctifies through the spoken word he has justified. The one constitutes a legal, forensic act, the
second a moral and tangible process beginning in that regeneration visible in ongoing
conversion, different from unrealistic expectations of revivalism.
534
Joel Marcus, Jesus and the Holocaust: Reflections on Suffering and Hope (New York: Doubleday, 1997), pp.
112f.
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JUSTIFICATION
Justification, the articulated sentence of liberty from guilt and condemnation received at the
divine bar of justice, constitutes the biblical declaration of unmerited grace. Cf. Rom. 4:1ff.
By the punishment of sin Christ Jesus absorbed in his body for us, he merited our pardon of
guilt. Men of the Word, showing spine, proclaim this promise in 1,000 similar ways: you are
righteous in Christ before the Father. Justification by grace informs the heart of preaching,
especially where textual units demand this. They who believe this doctrine know the voice of the
Shepherd and follow him only.
Judicial Acts
The grace of the righteousness Jesus Christ remains a much-disputed doctrine – as between
all of the Reformation and legions of Arminians/Semi-Pelagians. In a way, understandably so.
Given our sinful nature, the flesh, we prefer men on the pulpit who lobby for leaving the greatest
of decisions – whether or nor we want salvation – with us. Because of our unscrupulous
priorities and innate efforts at this legalism, each must then suffer the consequences of his/her
own sins. However, either Christ Jesus is the total Savior, or he is not. Those who inject even an
iota of autosoterism into salvation must, as a result, absorb the fullness of divine punishment.
Arminianism/Semi-Pelagianism at heart denies that the Mediator absorbed this punishment by a
divine act, vicariously. That complete and vicarious atonement runs against our adverse and
cantankerous heart forces as well as deep-down secular thought structures: 535 we want the
controlling voice. This corruption of heart excites arrogance in human ability at autosoterism,
downplaying justification by faith alone. Nevertheless, cf. Rom. 3:21ff. –
“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and
the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who
believe. For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they
are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God
put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s
righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he has passed over former sins; it was to prove
at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus.”
The Lord Jesus by the word burns this key pro-reformation and anti-Arminian promise into
every renewed heart. Justification, fundamental to salvation, is totally his, not merely an option
or a possibility.
The forensic sentence of justification never immediately produces a palpable change of heart.
Change of heart, soul, mind, and strength comes with the long haul of the Faith, as regeneration
and then also sanctification gain traction, which belong more directly to the Spirit’s working
535
Machen, The Origin of Paul’s Religion, op. cit., pp. 277f. – “Without the slightest question Paul did maintain a
forensic view of salvation. The believer, according to Paul, is in himself guilty in the sight of God. But he is given a
sentence of acquittal, he is ‘justified,’ because Christ has borne on the cross the curse of the Law which rightly
rested upon those whom Christ died to save.” True, justification does not make righteous, but declares righteous.
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sphere. Justification first declares our forensic freedom from eternal condemnation, a covenant
promise we believe by faith.
Justification inheres in the Gospel pronouncement: the Father imputes to us the righteousness
our Redeemer merited in his life, suffering, and death. Faith functions as the instrument by which
we hear our justification and believe this awesome sentence. As such, Christ’s hard-won
justification overpowers and envelops the epicenter of our beings instantaneously and totally.
None may strive, however surreptitiously or pharisaically, to offer any further (measure of)
satisfaction for sin, even if our originally Arminianized or Semi-Pelagianized hearts scream or
beg for the contrary. Deploying any human-made satisfaction for sin and removal of guilt
destabilizes with malice aforethought the Gospel and the Church, and comes with painfully
disappointing results.
Justification with respect to the Gospel and the Church calls for more explanation. As with a
net, cf. Mt. 13:47ff., Jesus in every generation draws many into the Church, then subjects every
one to a continual sorting process. Some fish he ‘justifies,’ that is, declares good. Bad fish he
throws, some quicker than others. Justified fish are they who consequently by grace recognize
the increasing guilts of sin from which they fail to extricate themselves. By grace, they submit to
the sheer scope of the truth that transgression of the Law earns damnation, eternity under the ban
of destruction.
Final condemnation is: eternal suffering in the fires and/or outer darkness where echo only
the gnashing of teeth and the wailing of frustration.
As the fish, which Jesus Christ declares good, hear their sentence of justification, the Holy
Spirit instills in them the actuality of this declaration of righteousness. Throughout the divine
economy, this declaration of righteousness belongs to the life blood of preaching: Christ Jesus on
Golgotha merited the righteousness he imputes to his own. All declared righteous believe this
justification before the Father, never squaring off against the Savior with Arminianized or SemiPelagianized layers of unbelief.
In the hour we consciously hear and believe our justification, in faith our regeneration starts.
Cf. Acts 3:21, 10:42; Gal. 6:7; etc. From experiencing pains and frustrations of guilt in the flux
of condemnation, suddenly or slowly, through the Gospel, Christ Jesus brings us into his liberty,
ending, for instance, all anxious striving to earn the good graces of some idol, find peace in some
ideology, or accept Jesus Christ as a personal savior, or merely assume Christianity as a rightful
inheritance; some may even find church membership a civic duty. Bad fish are those church
members who find they have to contribute to their justification, sort of push the Lord Jesus
along, in case in his sovereignty he makes mistakes or overlooks worthwhile candidates for
salvation.
In the continual speaking of the word of the Lord, justification happens but once in the lives
of all whom the Father calls. During that hour, the Spirit secures the peculiar intensity of this
forensic declaration. Despite the onceness of justification, to hear this gospel fundamental
repeatedly preached reinforces the assurance that the Christ indeed declared us righteous before
the Father. Better yet, we long to hear this good news repetitiously, lest we become proud and
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find a futile reliance in idling faith, habits of mind, work, personality, poverty, or wealth – cool
contributions why the Christ in the first place ‘justifies’ us.
Justified Adoptees
To be sure, justification constitutes Christ’s judicial act and declaration; through the Gospel
he declares that on the basis of his righteousness we merit satisfaction respecting the Law,
having accomplished its demand rightfully. By unmerited favor, the Gospel therefore works our
redemption, for justification alters our legal status before the Father on account of the pardon of
sin and welcome to divine mercy. Cf. Rom. 5:1ff., transmissible only to adoptees.
Thus Scriptures teach and ordained men with overriding loyalty to the Lord preach – openly,
volubly, and vividly that the pronouncement of justification promises the removal of the guilt of
(original) sin and leads to the adoption as children of the God the Father. This glorious act of
justification occurs apart from us and our works (it is unmerited!), the sentence handed down in
the divine court of law. However often preached, it remains for each in Christ the blessed and
unrepeatable, a once-for-all event. 536
To clarify more concisely our adoption in Jesus Christ through justification: 1) preachers on
good ground declare the remission of our guilt for sinning; they do so on the basis of the atoning
work of the Lord and Savior. All in whom the Spirit refuses to enkindle this sin consciousness
find that the promise of lifting the totality of this burden means little, if anything, a surface war
of words, more an aggravation of and an interference with the infrastructure of human life,
disturbing privacy to boot. But to all repentant whom the Father in Christ promises the pardon,
justification means life and freedom: guilt of past, present, and future sin cleansed away, the
penalty of damnation lifted. Cf. Ex. 24:8; Deut. 25:1; Ps. 103:12; Prov. 17:15; Rom. 4:5ff.,
5:18f., 8:1, 32f.; Gal. 2:17; Heb. 10:14; etc. Because of this forgiveness of sins, Jesus Christ
exempts us from condemnation, and we enter upon the life of adoption in the new family.
Also, 2) believing this promise of adoption through listening to the word of the Lord, the
Father through the Son draws us to himself as sons and daughters, another major legal
transaction, which initiates all in Christ into the family of the Father. This new status stands
complete, for adoption carries the deeper sense that we, adoptees, are born of God, regenerated.
Cf. John 1:12; Rom. 8:15f.; Gal. 3:26f., 4:5f.; etc. This rebirth, or regeneration, opens the
floodgates to the reality of the eternal life. Cf. Rom. 8:17; Gal. 3:14, 4:6; etc. As adoptees, Christ
grants us all merited benefits of salvation.
SANCTIFICATION
536
C. Hodge, Systematic Theology, III (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), p. 152 – “The question, How shall man be just
before God? had been sounding in the ears of men from the beginning. It never had been answered [until the
Reformation]. Yet it must be answered or there can be no hope of salvation.”
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Upon justification and adoption, while listening to faithful preaching, we discover how
much corruption still lurks and festers in our hearts, the enormous influence of covetousness, for
instance; this makes day-by-day cleansing necessary – from capital sins, hidden agendas, bad
plans, obscured transgressions, forgotten evils, etc.
Daily Constrictions
In distinction from justification, a once-for-all forensic declaration, sanctification comprises
numerous moral processes of renewal with ambitious, Spirit-inspired visions; these gradual
transformations start in regeneration, or conversion, which in time, particularly at the Parousia,
lead to perfect gratitude. Sanctification, a process of renewal in holiness, engages us on the basis
of the covenant promises to always more obedient living. Since sanctification upon regeneration
involves us in-depth, it demands our fullest cooperation, though remaining a work of the Spirit in
the Church. 537 Once we believe our justification, we desire from the heart total cleansing of all
pollution and sin to be achieved over time – beginning with intense listening to the proclamation
of the Word.
Sanctification, according to biblical directions, removes through prerequisite repentance
countless accumulations of guilt and renews us in conformity to the recreated image of God.
Through this renewal, we become what Christ made us in justification, blameless, 538 measured
by the Commandments. Over respective life spans, were it not for monotonously lapsing into
sins, we thus experience a continuous history of regeneration. Hence, tomorrow’s transformation
starts today.
Sanctification occurs, beginning in the heart, with the open door policy of our full
cooperation, eventually to affect our whole being – heart, soul, mind, and strength – until we
attain perfection in obedience. Meantime, this compliant process of cleansing under investigation
requires our patient and persevering persistence in listening to the Word, hearing Sunday
sermons, despite the temptations of a cynical fast food and ego-fueled dog-eat-dog culture to
forego any sort of biblical performance evaluation.
With other words, sanctification puts the brakes on sinning and engages us in a continuous
process to attain perfection in Christ Jesus, perfection measured by the Commandments. Cf. Eph.
4:15ff. - “… speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the
head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with
which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds
itself in love.” Sanctification, the Church living on the narrow way, remains incomplete in this
life, a humbling awareness. Nevertheless, we strenuously seek to attain perfect gratitude for our
537
Hodge, op. cit., pp. 215f. – “Predominantly sanctification is referred to the Holy Spirit, as His peculiar work in
the economy of redemption. Hence He is called the Spirit of all grace; the Spirit of joy, of peace, of love, of faith,
and of adoption.”
538
C. Henry, ed., Prophecy in the Making, op. cit., p. 39 – “To be blameless is the negative aspect of holiness. Just
as the sacrificial animals in the OT rituals had to be free from blemish, so the Christian is to aim at a life that rises
beyond criticism. No one can share the unique, sinless perfection of Christ Himself, but through the sanctifying
work of the HS it is possible for us to display the integrity of character far surpassing the mediocre standards of this
permissive age and even the noblest achievements of unaided man.”
It is to be noted: neither the values of this age nor natural nobility comprise the measurement for sanctification.
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redemption. At liberty, we run the race, cf. Phil. 3:12f., convinced of winning, not as individuals,
but as members of the Body together.
Frequent Falls
1) Alerted by preaching, we experience continuation of sin after justification, individually
and corporately. Cf. James 3:2; I John 1:8; etc. We frequently fall into grievous patterns of daily
transgressions too numerous to list, each with full corrosive effect. In sin, we draw up boring
excuses and newish attempts as self-justification, but for holiness the Spirit confronts us in the
proclamation of the Word. Ministers declare to us that sanctification, as much as it engages our
full cooperation, complies with the work of the Third Person in the Church and in our hearts. On
a ceaseless basis, he disturbs the comfortableness and attractiveness of our sins, breaches our illconceived security barriers, and reforms our vulnerable sense of the meaning of life, specifically,
its purpose.
Hence, in the Spirit on the basis of the verbally spoken justification we pray in the name of
Jesus Christ for pardon, always with the high assurance that the Father will cover our guilt. Cf.
Pss. 32:5, 51:1ff., 130:3f.; Mt. 6:12; etc. Only in this manner do we arrive at sinlessness, that is,
purged of sinfulness and holy as God the Father is. At times, we move through dramatic ground
shifts of reformation, at other times by incremental steps, to achieve the epitome of hope.
Through justification the Father indeed promises removal of guilt, but the culpability for sin,
inherent proneness to transgress the Law, must be dealt with on a day-to-day, in fact, sin-by-sin
basis, to staunch its massive growths.
Lest we disappear and hide in widening cracks of disobedience, the Spirit checks our rule
breaking with troubling awareness of guilt, alienation from the Father, and sorrow for denying
Jesus Christ. When we grieve the Third Person, we tear apart the congregation of membership,
muzzle thankfulness, and defect to treacherous places. However, overwhelmingly fascinating is:
through the powerful range of preaching, the Spirit incites and moves us to confessions of sin
and pleadings for pardon. Then, as result, words of repentance flow from the heart, tumble out of
the mouth. Cf. Ps. 25:7 Remember not the sins of my youth, or my transgressions;
according to thy steadfast love remember me, for thy goodness’ sake, O LORD!”
The emanating actuality of our pardon in sanctification implements hope as well as the need
for more cleansing in order to face complete gratitude. That gratitude our sinning disturbs and
obscures. As we work towards the same goal, we press holy footprints into the lengthening
history of the Church.
2) Daily forgiveness and constant renewal in the exercise of faith grant us assurance of the
inheritance promised. Cf. Acts 26:18 – “… to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness
to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a
place among those who are sanctified by faith in [the Christ].” This patrimony, duly preached,
eclipses times of ignorance and passages of little faith.
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Blessed with the assurance of the inheritance, awareness of the dividing-line between
adoption as children on the one hand and, on the other, constant falling into sin makes us pray for
the Holy Spirit and the word of the Lord to reengage more wholehearted moral, recreative works
beginning in the heart. Because the Lord Jesus justifies us, we seek to live more and more by
faith alone, even if this requires cross bearing. The Father sends out the sanctifying Spirit of his
Son into our hearts to deliver us more decisively from the power of sin, to enable us to attain the
good – the good that comes out of true faith, is governed by the Commandments, and serves the
glory of the Father till he fills all in all. This grace induces in us real capacity for service, also to
neighbors, which in turn builds the conviction that we do not exist in vain, bereft of hope; but in
the Spirit, we walk further in major transformations of life.
Sanctification too, as preached, constitutes a work of God. Cf. Eph. 3:16; Col. 1:11; etc.
From small beginnings, we deploy the faith in the uphill struggle born in us through regeneration
for increasingly holy living. This stands in opposition to hapless living and dithering heroically
before multiple barriers to salvation.
Right Means
In the Spirit’s office of sanctification, we engage in the expected cooperation. As he works in
us, we strive to hear the word of the Lord and live in Christ’s service. Thus, sanctification
unfolds and increases. If preaching stays inferior and/or apostate, clogged with idolatry and the
cultured allures of this world, living degenerates into the dominant sin that once characterized
the grave and grim era of the Judges. Under a pall of dishonor, every covenant person falls away
into doing what seems rights in his/her own eyes, everyone on treadmills preoccupied with minor
affairs of self-preservation, without sensing danger. Despite such outspoken individualism and
postmodernism in the Church, the Spirit supersedes in Christ’s own with transformative
sanctification, which makes apprehending the spoken word of the Lord more important. Cf. John
15:4; Gal. 2:20, 4:19, 5:22; I Thes. 5:23; etc. Cf. Heb. 13:20f. –
“Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great
shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that
you may do his will, working in you that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to
whom be glory for ever and ever.”
In all who belong to Jesus Christ, this sanctification pushes on – despite pagan information
overloads, institutionalized deformations of the Religion, sectarian notions regarding the Persons
of the Trinity, crumbling international peace structures, demographic upheavals, terrorist justice,
ecological poisons, broken social programs, deep-seated collaboration with sinning, etc. In
reformation, we discern two major aspects, although they remain inseparable; both happen
continuously and contemporaneously – mortification and revivification.
Mortification puts to death the old nature, the flesh, which sin controls. All evil, which
staggers and perverts the image of God in us, must be crucified. Crucifixion of our old nature, a
conflict-ridden interior battlefield, cf. Rom. 6:6; Gal. 5:24; etc., constitutes one of the major
aspects of sanctification. These rights of the mighty against Christ Jesus we dismantle and kill.
To this end, whistle blowing sermons smoke out most sins.
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The other major aspect constitutes revivification of the new nature, constantly rebuilding the
recreated image of God in all Christians. Purposeful enlivening of our new nature too depicts
work of the Spirit, reforming the disposition of our hearts in order to persevere in sanctified
living and the promotion of the new course of life. Instead of sitting on our hands, as
congregations are raised with Christ from the dead, cf. Rom. 6:1ff.; Col. 2:12, 3:1ff.; etc., we
rethink and redeploy our indispensible responsibilities and maximize holiness of office.
Body language of mortification and revivification provide proof of progress in sanctification
and evidence of maturing faith. Thus, we gain credence in terms of integrity and the high ethical
standards of the Word.
As sanctification reforms long histories of wrongs by the right means, the unglamorous
process involves body and soul entirely; this displayed living begins in the heart, cf. Jer. 31:34;
John 6:45, and formidably affects our whole person as the work of the triune God, more
precisely in the progressive environments of the Spirit. Cf. Rom. 8:11, 15:16; I Pet. 1:2; etc.
Putting on the new nature, also corporately, means that Christ clothes us with his righteousness
and holiness. Cf. Gal. 5:22; Col. 3:12.
Benchmark doctrines of justification and sanctification may be carefully distinguished, but
remain inseparably connected; sanctification follows immediately upon justification through
building up the Church and expanding the Kingdom. Both constitute preaching staples, upon
which we insist, with all moral earnestness in the office of the congregation, from Christ’s pulpit
men.
WORD AND SACRAMENT
In living churches the first component of the Word and Sacrament duality stands out as the
much more crucial, while in breaking-down and off-balance congregations the second gains a
communication-clogging weight. The word and the two sacraments are instrumental either for
salvation or for condemnation – according to the will of the Lord for the Church. However,
knowing this word pair with ambitious passion embraces most intimately the first part – the word
of the Lord, which includes both the Gospel and the Law. Because of the Gospel and Law
components of the word of the Lord, two linked sets intertwine in this section – Word and
Sacrament, Gospel and Law. With sound preaching, then, both Gospel and Law in dynamic
tension come at us, each with its own function and zone in Christ’s economy of grace.
Joint Features
Christ’s Church receives all blessings, salvational and well as legal, only out of the eternal
fountain of divine goodness. We acquire these blessings based on the merits of Jesus Christ and
through the working of the Spirit. To say this as strongly as possible relative to the Third Person:
normally he communicates the will of the Father for salvation and condemnation by
proclamation of the Word, either as Gospel or as Law. Whether Gospel and Law meet faith or
faithlessness, sermons never return empty; they purpose that for which Christ Jesus with the
glory of all divine perfections sends the word into his congregations.
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Each sermon comprised of Gospel and Law opens up for a minister various freedoms of
movement: motivating, indicting, reasoning, commanding, warning, pleading, teaching, and
prohibiting. Since ministers speaks authoritatively in the name of the Christ, we, too clever by
half, reject the proclaimed word at peril to our salvation and, worse, damaging the Name.
As such, Christ’s spokesmen never share, offer, suggest, or invite congregants to believe the
Gospel and do the Law. Whatever they share, offer, suggest, or speak as invitations may be
received or rejected as any other polite discourse. Polite discourse from the pulpit conveys the
impressions that we control the Word. But competent sermons must be believed and acted upon.
Each constitutes Christ Jesus’ call, a summons to faith and life or to unbelief and death. Thus,
due to the high significance of preaching, so different from conversations, inspirational speeches,
and lectures, we test the spirits of and within sermons, lest ministers vilify the spoken word of
the Lord and twist it into oratory, inferior and/or apostate. Honorable and fair assessment of
sermons as Gospel and Law escapes a most dangerous trap – over-familiarity.
Through the Spirit, ministers address sermons to us, congregations, that is, visible
manifestations of the one church. In respective pews, we hear discernibly both Gospel and Law.
For this reason, the Spirit gathers us in holy worship on Sundays, so that by way of the word we
hear and receive in the heart the will of the Father in Jesus Christ, also, if necessary, the terrible
condemnations that issues to each who cripples living up to the word of the Lord in its joint
features of Gospel and Law, to the crude costs of our undoing.
Dual Actualities
1) The strategic breakthrough of the sweep and the depth of the Gospel embraces, as
indicated above, all that pertains to the divine work of reconciliation, the seeking and redeeming
and recreating love of the Father in Jesus Christ, which began in the historical context of Gen.
3:14-19. Therefore, the Gospel remains so sensitive and significant.
Through the Gospel, the Spirit works faith, and by way of faith: election, justification,
regeneration, conversion, repentance, hope, love, gratitude, knowledge, spiritual warfare, and
(assurance of) salvation, that is, uncompromising trust in the covenantal promises. For hearing
the Gospel, Christ and the Spirit gather us physically before the Father in order that we believe
(more firmly) the covenant promises. By means of the Good News, the Father through the Son
and the Holy Spirit moves his own to love him above all and neighbors as ourselves, thus
cementing an eternal legacy.
Therefore the Lord Jesus wills on First Days that his ministers of the Word speak the Gospel
with reverberating passion within the contemporary intensity of the Fourth Commandment. The
Fourth serves as the wake up call throughout the Church: it is time again to appear before the
Lord of the Church and listen to the Gospel. This listening, whether from the Old Testament or
the New, displays the range of the Gospel’s authority for transforming the history of the Church,
indeed, of the earth, and beyond.
2) The Law reveals God’s will in terms of our obligations before him: commandments and
prohibitions. Each of these with the resilient sense of the past and the articulate view of the
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future stands out as real as the Decalogue, which the LORD himself wrote. Cf. Ex. 31:18. All
told, this makes every pew a volatile resting place, upsetting mediocrity and hypocrisy. Without
living the Law, we give no evidence of believing the Gospel.
Through the Gospel, the Holy Spirit strengthens every function of the Law so that our works
of faith (no works/no faith – understanding thereby that Christ determines both actuality and
quality of the works) increase in prevailing gratitude. Keen knowledge of and deepening
commitment to the Law reveal the formidable patrimony of regeneration in every part –
conversion, repentance, hope, love, prayer, warfare, knowledge of Scriptures, care for the earth,
etc. Every honest doing of the Decalogue steps forward into further assurance of salvation and
the praise of the Father in Jesus Christ, thus building the Church and expanding the Kingdom.
So, in Christ Jesus, we honor the covenant obligations more, until we serve our Father deepheartedly and totally in the way of sanctification, overcoming many perils, obstacles, and pitfalls
of sin, all the while breaking out of the claustrophobic tensions and major letdowns of
institutionalized religion.
The point is: the Gospel and the Law constitute the Word, each part of which contributes to
sound proclamation.
True Judgments
Christ revealed patterns of judgment with respect to the Gospel and the Law. They who hear
sermons with both parts and then (politely, hypocritically, angrily, mockingly, heretically)
‘decline’ to believe, he cuts down with his two-edged sword. Sometimes, we complain, mystified
by an old lie: we get nothing out of sermons. Impossible! Worth repetition: the Holy Spirit
applies condemnation to covenant breakers even as he issues strengthening in the Faith to
covenant keepers. That explains, for example, the impact of the parable of the dragnet. Cf. Mt.
13:47ff. If, however, ministers trade off right exegesis and application for addictive public
opinion and ideology, they suffocate the Word and condemn with flashy truthiness everyone
within range of hearing.
On this note we believe while listening to and remembering sermons that these in and of
themselves never confer either the grace of salvation or the vengeance of condemnation. Christ
alone, through the instrumentality of preaching, distributes salvation and condemnation; in
communication of grace as well as disgrace, the Son in the name of the Father and through the
Spirit works sermonic effects. Out of the fountainhead, Scriptures, and through the sermons, he
applies eternal judgment both for salvation and damnation – made clear, for instance by cryptic
Heb. 4:12. This tactical impact with respect to preaching tosses out every magical and pseudoChristian force field we may attach to them. Sermons never possess any inherent power in
themselves; they always function instrumentally. Willful and disobedient neglect in any way of
the primary means of divine communication in and to the Church leads into the unforgivable sin.
The Word preached in the name of Christ and by virtue of divine commissioning (ordination)
highlights the primary instrument of grace. True preaching promotes (more) Bible reading and
study at home, sounder instruction in schools, more perseverance in life, greater depth in prayer
as well as meditation, stronger expressions of gratitude in terms of obedience to the
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Commandments’ social and ecological involvement. At the same time, the word of the Lord
registers precise condemnation in the hearts of unbelievers, shown through greater lawlessness.
Whether for salvation or damnation, cooperation prevails between the Spirit and the word.
The Spirit operates through the word of the Lord and the word of the Lord exudes power, a savor
of life to life or death to death; it cuts sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division
of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of sin-battered
hearts. So sermons shape the future – of congregations, of members, of the Church, of the
Kingdom, and therefore of the history of the world.
Biblical Servants
To be precise, both Gospel and Law on a ceaseless basis prepare us to be II Tim. 2:20 vessels
full of potential, bisecting church members for noble or ignoble usage in the house of God.
While hearing and remembering the Gospel, the Holy Spirit works (increasingly stronger)
faith in Jesus Christ; responding to the command to believe, we seriously seize the covenant
promises and engage the concomitant obligations. Grace consciousness, trust in the mediatorial
Person and his labor of redemption, issues into lives of hope and freedom, both eternally
founded. By faith, measurable as thanksgiving, we share in all of Christ’s benefits, while the
Spirit boosts our believing also with the sacraments.
Therefore, hearing and remembering the Law, we receive 1) sin consciousness on account of
our transgressions and vanities, 2) demands for repentance, and 3) growing heart desires to live
thankfully according to the Commandments. Cf. Mt. 5:17ff.; Rom. 8:4, 13:9; James 2:8ff.; I John
3:4, 5:3; etc. In this sense, the Law, an imposing tutor, leads to Christ, and seeks more of the
Gospel, since our gratitude, hating to fail, hungers for perfection in service.
Both Gospel and Law serve the same ends – salvation to serve the Father of Christ (for from
him and through him and to him are all things more than words express), or to the degrading
tumults of damnation. Therefore, we never allow ministers to mess with this duality.
God’s word holds sway as the primary instrument of grace, but also of condemnation; in both
ways, sermons consisting of Gospel and Law speak until we willingly and ably spend our lives
for Christ’s sake.
SACRAMENTS
Sacraments derive significance with or after proclamation of the Word. Bonded to the
preaching, Baptism and the Supper, make the Gospel visible and palpable by symbolizing the
Person and work of the Redeemer, the Mediator, as well as the stability of salvation. This occurs
under the quiet, driving force of the Holy Spirit. Loosening sacraments from the spoken word of
the Lord displays deviation from the Word.
1) In the economy of grace, Christ Jesus adapted the Word to the ear, the sacraments to the
eye and the touch. He added the sacraments to counteract weakness of faith and hardness of heart
of the strongest believers, to say nothing of others. Therefore, to minimize and back away from
the sacraments imperils not only all who downgrade these institutions, but others also, for this
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abuse of the sacraments threatens the whole congregation, indeed, the Church, by disobeying the
Christ. Christians never disconnect the sacraments from the preaching.
Another serious inroad against Christ’s command to participate in the sacraments abolishes
the bond between the spoken word and these institutions, reducing Baptism and the Lord’s
Supper to convention or superstition. Romanticizing the sacraments in this manner twists both
into sacramentalism.
Sacramentalism is: the belief that participation in the sacraments conveys grace and eternal
life.
Biblically, both sacraments represent the preached gospel and shore up commitment to the
works of faith: believing election, regeneration, conversion, repentance, hope, love, liberty,
peace, etc., for doing repentance, love, prayer, warring, etc. Maturing faith thus sparks living the
Commandments. In this way, we praise the Father in Jesus Christ. Hence, the word of the Lord,
inclusive the Gospel, always comes at us anterior and superior to the sacraments, which the Lord
Jesus endowed with complementary efficacy.
2) Christ’s spokesmen administer Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which we receive humbly
and thankfully by faith and in faith. If administered and received out of custom and superstition,
or, in the case of the Lord’s Supper, without due discernment of the body, each sacrament in its
own way becomes an insufferable institution, a divine trend setter for condemnation. With
respect to the Supper, cf. I Cor. 11:28 – “Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and
drink of the cup.” Unbelievers and hypocrites who treat sacraments as security blankets or as
ecclesial safety nets beg for personal condemnation, with dire results also for respective
congregations.
Unbelief is:
1) conscious refusal to trust the covenant promises and live the covenant obligations; as well as
2) persistent rejection and/or abuse of the means of grace.
Hypocrisy is: simultaneously believing one thing and publicly saying/living the opposite with
the intention to deceive.
Believers, through the sacraments, never forgetting human fragility and inborn proneness to
sin, receive from the Lord of the Church strength upon strength in believing the mighty doctrines
of the Faith for living the Commandments to glorify the Father. Such is work of the sovereign
Spirit in all living congregations.
Through sacraments administered and received in faith, we become stronger participants in
the grace revealed in the Word and preached as the spoken word of the Lord. To that end,
Baptism’s water and the Supper’s elements function as signs and seals. The signing depicts the
sureness of the promises and the sealing enforces the surety of grace. Christ keeps promise. Both
signing and sealing state unequivocally the significance of the Holy Spirit for faith and life in the
mediatorial and redeeming labor of the Christ.
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As significant as Jesus Christ made Baptism and the Supper, for salvation neither is
absolutely necessary; yet he commands us to participate in both. Willful abuse or neglect,
however, brings on spiritual impoverishment and congregational destruction on account of
sacramental disobedience.
In preaching and with the celebration of the sacraments, the unending movement of each
becomes stronger in the forward progression of the history of redemption, also in expression of
the irrevocable dividing-line between the grace of salvation and the vengeance of condemnation.
To lead in the administration of the means of grace, therefore, we need men of more than
inconsiderable stature, unafraid for themselves.
The word, then as Gospel and Law, is mandatory, while the sacraments remain supplemental
to and supportive of the spoken word. Nevertheless, the two, sermons and sacraments, stand
inseparably connected.
LIFE AND DEATH
Each duality, above and below, despite theories on the evolution of language, exposes major
covenant vocabulary; only in the community of the promises and obligations are these word pairs
not only believable, but also understandable, their potentials communicated and attained. Outside
the covenant community, this word pair, as the others, loses meaning and disintegrates into
welters of dispirited opinion.
Life and death, too, however common to all humanity, Christ Jesus gave as contrasting
modes of existence, constitutive covenant eternities. Therefore, his spokesmen preach life and
death to glorify the Father, build the Church, expand the Kingdom, encourage believers in living
the Commandments, and cautioning unbelievers with respect to the darkness of eternal death.
LIFE
The Lord God made Adam and Eve to live forever in his blessed and holy presence.
Nowhere in the Scriptures, particularly not in the landscape of Gen. 1-2, did the Author of the
Word even intimate, contrary to accepted opinion, that the first people had to earn eternal life
through ticking off items on some checklist of obedience or works-righteousness.
Protracted Living
With the original righteousness, holiness, and wisdom of the image of God, the Creator
LORD bound Adam and Eve to the only source of life and blessedness. From Day One, he
ordered all life, most directly Adam and Eve’s, to give spontaneous glory to him, loving him
with totality of heart, soul, mind, and strength. Only in communion with him, the LORD, they
lived. And the two briefly lived the Creator’s command. He had created Adam and Eve to work,
that is, serve him, the Maker of life. The LORD God, therefore, fashioned the man and woman of
the beginning in his image, according to his likeness, that they then exercise dominion over all
other living creatures, the land as well.
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In response to the gift of life, abdicating, Adam and Eve chose death over the enduring merits
of living in the presence of the LORD; they willfully ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. Of this fruit the LORD had declared that in the day they ate thereof, death
turned off the lights in their living. Rom. 5:12ff., as one biblical place, pushed back the bullying
powers of the original sin and the growing menace of this sly, devious evil.
Immediately upon the Fall, with the promise of the second Adam, that is, the woman’s seed,
actually, the Seed, the Creator Lord revealed recreated light and life to supersede the already
superb quality of the one that the first Adam spurned and despoiled by eating forbidden fruit.
This protracted life in the presence of God became even more intimate and glorious than Adam’s
in Eden.
Initially, beginning in the engaging nucleus of Gen. 3:14-19, this new life seemed anything
but better than the suddenly antiquated first. Eve, for instance, experienced increases in
childbearing pain and further submission to her husband. Adam, in turn, as provider, paid the
heavier price by experiencing arduous difficulties in cultivating land for food; he worked amidst
competing thorns and thistles, laboring in the sweat of his brow, plus awareness of eventual
death – dust returning to dust – with no immediate rescue effort in sight.
Yet, due to the LORD God’s mercy and covenant faithfulness, neither Adam nor Eve died in
that day of serious bruising; glimmerings of the eternal life shone through the burden and curse
of sin. The two continued to live, and on account of Eve’s Seed, received the freshly minted
promise of the life that transcends death. All they had to do (in the Spirit) was by grace to believe
the promises of Gen. 3:14-19, backed up by committing themselves to the daunting task of living
the covenant obligations.
Progressive Life
Urgent powers of regeneration superseded diverse stratagems of the big loser, the Enemy,
sending trembling ripples of new life first through the Old Testament church manifestation.
Stronger than death became the eclipsing delight to live according to the will of God in all good
works. Cf. Ps. 51:12; Is. 57:15; Rom. 5:1, 6:10f., 14:17; etc. The promise of regeneration
conquered the inexcusable and insufferable realities of sin, both daily pollution and eventual
death.
The foundational promise of regeneration the LORD God moved ahead through the roughride historical spans over Noah upon the world-cleansing flood, then over Abraham summoned
out of the communication chaos after the Tower of Babel fiasco; further, he moved the promise
over Isaac, Jacob, and Judah. In the road-tested history of redemption, Christ revealed the lively
and imperishable promises progressively stronger with respect to the Gospel. The advancing
revelation appeared therefore with surging powers manifested as regeneration and the new
creation.
Moses through the Spirit put the choice to an ever-sinning Israel, cf. Deut. 30:15ff., by
placing the entire covenant community on notice; before exclusive decisions of life and death,
the LORD God alone made separation among his people, drawing the dividing-line between the
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faithful and the unfaithful. Arguably, the Holy Spirit gave far too many references to and
explanations of this life in order to mention each one. Therefore, for preaching, only a few of
these viable Old Testament indications. Cf. Ps. 16:11p – “You have made known to me the path
of life.” Cf. Ps. 36:9p – “For with you is the fountain of life.” Cf. Prov. 8:35 – “For whoever
finds me finds life and receives favor from the LORD.” Cf. Prov. 12:28, 14:27; etc. Similar
promises appear in the Prophets. Cf. Jer. 21:8p – “See, I am setting before you the way of life
and the way of death!” And a hugely successful one, cf. Ez. 37:1ff., the vision of a valley filled
with dry bones. In the Old Testament, regenerating promises and prophecies of life multiply – to
reveal Messiah’s authority for cleansing with redemptive work. He also moved over every
generational divide the increasing guilt of sin punishable by death.
No less than in the Old Testament, so in the New, we find multiple promises with respect to
the new life. Cf. John 1:4; II Tim. 1:10; etc. Only, recreated life becomes more actual, based on
the Resurrection. Cf. John 3:36 – “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever
rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” Cf. John 3:1ff., 5:24; I Pet.
1:3, 23; I John 2:29; etc. Poignantly, resurrected life resides in Jesus Christ only, in the incarnate
and majestic Son of God. Cf. John 10:10p – “I came that they may have life.” Cf. John 10:28p –
“… and I give them eternal life.” Cf. John 11:25f. – “I am the resurrection and the life. He who
believes in me will live, though he dies, yet shall he live; and whoever lives and believes in me
shall never die.” Cf. John 17:3 – “And this is eternal life, that they may know thee the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” Cf. John 14:6, 10:28, 20:31; etc. The Author of the
Word maintains that the gift of God reveals eternal life. Cf. Rom. 6:23, that the Spirit gives life,
cf. II Cor. 3:6; Gal. 2:20, that the recreated life, far from being a vacant hope, now yet hides in
Christ, cf. Gal. 3:3, that the Priest sacrificed his life to grant us powers of indestructible life, cf.
Heb. 7:16, that this life projects holiness and godliness, cf. I Pet. 3:11, that Christians passed
from death into life, and that we shall eat from still largely mysterious trees of life, cf. Rev. 2:7,
etc. Preaching this eternal life provides substantial food to stimulate higher levels of gratitude
throughout formidable and fragile times.
Mighty Hopes
1) Now, in mighty hopes, we move into the presence of the Father, forever serving him in the
Son and through the Spirit. Eternal life starts here and now in living out of true faith, according
to God’s Law, and for his glory. Any other preaching of life produces famines of faith, hope, and
love, moving into crippling and dying forces of existence. Therewith goes also any suicidal
appeal as escape from the glory of the face of the Lord.
With and in the Parousia comes our resurrection from the dead, as church members confess
in the Apostles Creed; then the firm infrastructure of the symbolic 144,000, cf. Rev. 7:4, shall be
complete and we enter the Father’s glory permanently and totally. Cf. Rev. 21-22. At that time,
the Christ shall summon his out of physical death, perfectly restored in the image of God,
thereupon to exercise dominion over the totality of the recreation in righteousness, holiness, and
wisdom. Totally regenerated.
Obviously, sound preaching sustains and enlivens this hope; ministers who leave the doctrine
of the resurrection aside and congregations that permit this to happen, find within a generation
themselves bound to the gyrations of this life and this world.
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2) In the meantime, one of our inveterate fears centers on inevitable dying and death, plus
end-of-life decisions, living wills, funeral arrangements, and unplugging life-sustaining
equipment. These tough calls, elongated by longevity, medications, and technological
innovations, deny nothing of the reality of death. Still, dying in Christ and through the Spirit puts
an end to sinning; in the Church, then, death stands as the doorway into fullness of eternal life.
Cf. John 5:24; Phil. 1:21ff.; I Thes. 5:9f. In all turmoil and anguish of the unfair advantages of
death, ministers in Christ hold before our eyes a breakthrough promise. Cf. Ps. 116:15 –
“Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.” This removes the lid off our fears
and in Christ we confront our vulnerabilities.
Because eternal life begins in the sphere of the present (spiritual) death, as a cardinal rule
ministers proclaim the recreated life in terms of the coming resurrection of the dead. In Christ we
insist they do so – in order that we struggle more to live, glorifying the Father in the here and
now.
Perhaps the better approach at this point involves summarizing matters by saying in and with
Christ we overcome death by participating now in his righteousness, already he raised us up with
him in holiness, and in due time he shall resurrect us from the dead, rejoining body and soul in
the totality of the great congregation. Then we serve as living persons before the Father,
undeterred by sin.
DEATH
Our unnerving corruption in sin ends in the observable reality of death, which Scriptures
teach persistently. Cf. Gen. 6:5; Ps. 14:3; Rom. 7:18; etc. Total depravity never means that we
fall at once as thoroughly perverse as possible, or that we please to the limits every enticement to
disobedience. This not to say that some do not try. Cf. Is. 57:17b; Jer. 3:5b. However, barriers
exists, such as the Commandments, ecclesial office bearers, and governments, cf. Rom. 13:1ff.,
against every towering figure of iniquity and against every stagnating sinner.
Christ’s sovereign government prevents total corruption from happening – only for the sake
of the Church still in this world. Everyone may be angry with and frustrated by the handwringing reality and tangible effects of death, or passively sink into this unnatural situation – not
that our reactions to or fears of death add up too much. Only what the Word reveals concerning a
still major menace to life counts, which ministers preach with persistently conscientious
endeavors.
Three Mortalities
Death is death. Many ways lead to this fearful moment with its erasure of social calendars
and life plans – aging, sickness, suicide, murder, disaster, terrorist strikes, abortion, war,
ecological poisoning, etc. Endless, the ways into death.
Jesus Christ does not redeem all people out of Adam’s transgression, revolution, and death;
many with iniquitous lives enter totally and irredeemably into its gaping maw – spiritually,
physically, and eternally – without leniency or mercy. No reprieve exists for the reprobate, that
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is, all inveterate covenant breakers. Living, they bravely attempt to get along within the
sprawling confines of ideologies and/or idolatries, dead in sins and trespasses. Perforating this
wild growth of death belongs to sound preaching too, given textual warrant, if only to alert
reprobates in the Church to the consequences of ongoing rebellion.
1) Spiritual death signals in the first place time-bound unwillingness to please God. Nothing
done from within human standards of goodness arrives to the surface out of true faith,
conformity to the Law, and for God’s glory; whatever conformity to the Law done in this state of
spiritual death remains superficial and trite at best, through cultural and social conditioning. Any
superficiality with respect to obedience reprobates may consciously accomplish, they do to
escape the finality of condemnation, hoping to lower the bar of divine justice. The loss of
communion with God that is spiritual death stresses less the loss of the image of God in us (for
people remain people even in the Fall) and more the perversion and pollution of this likeness.
With Adam, original goodness became wickedness, righteousness corruption, holiness pollution,
and wisdom vanity – hardly a sound basis for self-esteem and self-development, much less for
salvation.
All who remain in the Adamic state of brokenness, away from, or even on the periphery of
the sole source of life, cf. John 1:14, 14:16; etc., stay spiritually dead; they live and die
consumed by the wrath of God. Notwithstanding moments in the sun, elusive pleasures, and
fleeting satisfactions, these human beings suffer defeat. Given growing discontents of selfishness
and greed, many fight to survive the root cause of evil, only to collapse into worldly grief at
having been found out in the fundamental corruption of living. Cf. II Cor. 7:10.
Only negatively do reprobate men, women, and young ones inside the Church give glory to
God, as vessels for ignoble usage. In respective congregations, they may hypocritically shout and
sing, “Lord, Lord!”, cf. Mt. 7:22, and in spiritual deadness claim to trust covenant promises and
conform to the obligations (even live exemplarily). However, daily, they confront and finally
absorb the underestimated wrath of God. Cf. Eph. 2:1, 5, 12, 4:18; etc. Everyone so bound in
thralldoms of sin may be conscious of pollution, sense shame at being found out in wrongdoing,
know guilt for breaking community standards, confess to abuse of natural law, admit to trusting
multicultural human rights, but still: sin, the hijacking of righteousness and holiness, separates in
the most profound division the Christ from these members of the Church, these members from
Christ, and these members from members. For the Lord of the Church pulls the dividing-line
through the Body according to the covenantal standards.
In the total depravity revealed as spiritual death, contagion of sin spreads through each
reprobate person and by the carriers of reprobation to the Church as a whole. No part of human
nature remains untouched, they find out too late, for damaging ecclesiastical culture. The whole
of reprobation spilled over into every faculty of their persons, inclusive the will.
2) Within the confines of spiritual death, unbelievers also age, and die. Physical death means
a body’s return to dust and a soul’s descent into hell. Benign pagans may diplomatically describe
death as the natural end to living, thus temporarily offsetting the impact of the definite
conclusion to existence on earth. They, at times, fall back on the complex timetable of
reincarnationism or they modify the harshness of death with the euphemistic notion of eternal
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sleep, or they believe the annihilation of the person. However, the Word supersedes such
fallacies. All apart from Christ Jesus find that dying and death enforce intrusive loss of life, even
for those who amount to little in terms of power and wealth. Whether death comes ‘naturally,’ or
through violence, the sorrow, pain, and grief of unbelievers left to mourn point to the
hopelessness of escaping a similar fate. Loss of life scatters waves of disquieting emptiness
among the living dead, no matter how beautiful the celebration of the life of deceased persons.
Physical death, now an unavoidable aspect of humanity nature, rapaciously surged into the
world through sin, cf. Rom. 5:12, distributing the wages of sin, cf. Rom. 6:23. Stripped of all
pretense, cessation of heart beats unwraps a most visible and experiential conclusion, which for
reprobates must be regarded as (part) punishment for covenant breaking; it signifies transition
into eternal death with all its unattractive sufferings.
Murder – whether in the commission of a crime, through abortion on demand, euthanasia,
suicide, asymmetrical warfare, environmental pollution, or reckless driving – compels those thus
robbed of life to stand ‘prematurely’ before the Judge of heaven and earth. This constitutes the
actual cruelty of breaking the Sixth Commandment. Whoever kills, even as an accomplish, faces
little-valued consequences in the guilt of murder.
3) The sheer scope and longevity of eternal death commences upon the Judge’s general
resurrection of the death, reunion of body and soul, then to be cast forever into eternal fire and
impenetrable darkness, two metaphors illuminating life in the absence of the grace and love of
the Lord, life under the full weight of divine justice. Scriptures purposefully describe this finality
as the second death, perishing forever in the lake of fire and sulfur. As a result of the Judgment,
the Lord executes saturation of punishment upon sinners. Cf. Rev. 20:14f. – “Then Death and
Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and if any
one’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” As
culmination of and continuity in spiritual death, sinners shall inhabit the same painful
environment into which the sovereign Christ will cast toothless Satan, the beasts, and the false
prophet. It is eternal punishment, existence in which to curse the maddening grind of death. It is
the deadly reality of corruption in sin, under full damnation. It is, cutting to the heart, divinely
just wrath. Cf. Rev. 14:11; Mt. 25:46; Mk. 9:43, 48; Lk. 16:26; etc. It is hell – against which
imaginative life insurance underwriters fail to offer interesting policies.
Sound preaching awakens Christ’s own out of the old system of triple death – death prefaced
by petty pieties, moral superiorities, and relaxed assumptions. The word of the Lord summons as
an alarm clock, no once, but often, at improbable hours. Only in this manner do believers escape
the insatiable scythe of eternal death, however appealing the fascination with apostate preaching
that produces passports to a terra incognita of unrelenting anguish. Repeatedly, we must hear this
life-and-death word-pair, lest we quickly fall into deeper sleeps of complacency amidst alleged
comforts of ideology and idolatry.
Superficially, for many: life is life and death is death, sharply separated, though with feeble
mountains of support for this conventional imagining. However, upon death all cross from this
life to another. Cf. John 5:24; Phil. 1:21f.; I Thes. 5:9f.; Dan. 12:1ff.; etc. Death, whatever
militant violence to the contrary, never equals eternal sleep, annihilation, or non-being.
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Now, thought-provoking, intensified contrasts press in between covenant life, life in Christ,
life to the glory of the Father, and reprobate life, covenant breaking, the latter concluding in
eternal death. In Christ, therefore, we count on ministers honestly to confront us with heated
questions regarding life and death; they refuse to leave us with a possibility of riding out the
storm or of encasing ourselves in equally problematic sleeping in quietude, pietistic fatalism.
On Sundays, for faithful preaching, through explanation and application of honestly
circumscribed sermon units, we listen to the revealed meanings of life and death in order to
believe and live the eternal hope. Cf. I Cor. 15:14, 20. Unfaithful sermons, like bad planning,
close life off, so that while we listen, they give a foretaste of eternal death.
LIGHT AND DARKNESS
In Genesis, contrast between light and darkness broaches another dominant thematic duality,
starting at the serenely majestic and sovereign – “Let there be light.” Afterwards, the LORD God
created the sun to rule by day and the moon with the stars by night. Upon Adam’s sin, however,
the pall of the dark night of sin overtook the earth; in that life-strangling darkness, Christ, at the
primary renewal, created new light, the Gospel. Cf. Gen. 3:14-19.
LIGHT
After Adam, Scriptures drew attention to Noah, then Abraham, both walking in the light of
the Word; successively, the LORD spoke to these men with the supreme forces of covenant
renewal. Through the same gospel, Moses and Israel moved across the lay of the land, guided
and protected by the Lord’s pillar of cloud. The Almighty shaped the Old Testament history until
he himself, the Light, entered for the New Testament revelation of the Church.
Light Words
In praise of the light, the Author records much. Cf. Ps. 18:28 – “Yea, thou dost light my
lamp; the LORD my God lightens my darkness.” Cf. II Sam. 22:29; Ps. 27:1p – “The LORD is
my light and my salvation.” Cf. Ps. 37:6 – “He will bring forth your vindication as the light, and
your right as the noonday.” Cf. Ps. 43:3p – “Oh send out thy light and thy truth.” Cf. Ps. 119:105
– “Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.” Cf. II Sam. 22:29; Ps. 119:130 – “The
unfolding of thy word gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.” Cf. Ps. 139:11f. – “…
the darkness is not dark to thee, the night is bright as the day; for darkness is as light with thee.”
Cf. Prov. 4:18 – “But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter
and brighter until full day.” Cf. Prov. 13:9p – “The light of the righteous rejoices.” Cf. Eccl. 11:7
– “Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to behold the sun.” Cf. Is. 45:7p – “I form light
and create darkness.” Cf. Micah 7:8 – “… when I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to
me.” Cf. John 1:4 – “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Cf. John 3:19p – “And
this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather
than light, because their deeds were evil.” Cf. John 5:15, 8:12; Acts 13:47; II Cor. 4:4p – “… the
light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God.” Cf. I Pet. 2:9 – “But you
are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the
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wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” Cf. I John 1:5
– “… God is light and in him is no darkness at all.” Cf. Rev. 21:23 – “And the city has no need
for sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” Cf.
Rev. 22:5. Worshiping in the revelation of the Light wells up more praise – for his majesty and
sovereignty in overcoming the darkness. Cf. Mt. 5:14ff.; Lk. 1:75, 16:8; Eph. 5:8; I Thes. 5:5f.;
etc.
Whenever our ministers, strong in valor, select a light unit for the proclamation of the word,
its superseding greatness comes out in our living destiny despite daily realities of sin. Rays of
light shining throughout the Bible reveal the sovereign superiority of the Light of the world.
Foretelling Lights
For prophecy, the light theme declares its progressive winning over darkness, often as the
dawn of the new day in which Jesus Christ sovereignly reigns. Cf. II Sam. 23:4p – “… he dawns
on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth upon a cloudless morning.” Cf. Ps.
97:11 – “Light dawns for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart.” Cf. Is. 58:8p – “Then
shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily.” Cf. Is. 60:1
– “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.” Cf. Is.
60:3; Mal. 4:2 – “But for you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing
in its wings.” Cf. Is. 9:2/Mt. 4:16 – “… the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” Cf. Lk. 1:79p – “…
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” Cf. Lk. 2:32 – “… a light
for the revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel.” Cf. II Cor. 4:6 – “For it is
the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Cf. I John 2:8p – “… the darkness is
passing away and the true light is already shining.” Etc.
Unabashed prophetic displays of the Light against painful-to-watch darkness of heart and
deviant ecclesiastical cultures reopen in sermons the conquering dominion of the Lord Jesus.
Whether drawn from the Old Testament or the New, with firm biblical grip ministers enlighten
us more brightly than the original lights of Genesis, and break open the future, or seal the
enshrouding darkness more stolidly.
Legal Lights
For commandment, too, light shines in the darkness of this world to mark out the way or
walk of life. Cf. Prov. 6:23 – “For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the
reproofs of discipline are the way of life.” Cf. Is. 2:5 – “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in
the light of the LORD.” Cf. Is. 42:6p – “I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to
the nations, to open the eyes that are blind.” Cf. Is. 49:6/Acts 13:47. Cf. John 12:35 – “The light
is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you; he
who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.” Cf. Acts 26:18p – “… to open their
eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God.” Cf. II Cor.
6:14p – “Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” Cf. Eph. 5:8 – “… for once you were
darkness, and now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light.” Cf. Eph. 5:14; I John 1:7
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– “… but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and
the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” Etc. So, repeatedly, sensible impressions of
light shine forth in commandment form, to walk in it. Close observers of Scripture admit and see
its capable authority and ministers of the Word seek it out for preaching.
Preaching the manifestation of light, reflective of the Light, reforms us consistently and
constantly – on the way to perfection of love in the new heavens and earth, for the glory of the
Christ in his victory over the fractious forces of darkness, and for praise of the Father.
Luminous revelations of the light, given the sermon unit, come to the fore regularly, lest
proclamation of the Word at a very high cost conforms to the darkness.
DARKNESS
In the tough match of this duality, deep darkness consumes light successfully where church
members neglect or refuse preaching in the Light. Without faith and obedience, massing forces
of the darkness of sin settle upon the Church – with this understanding: what we do not want,
ministers of the Word will not speak as the word of the Lord. However, in texts that struggle
against the world and the forces of evil, the Author of Scripture drubs and dispels religious and
moral blindness, which curry favor with the darkness; he places a lamp shining as in dark places,
cf. II Pet. 1:19, that we may as yet, daily, see the extreme limits of evil, penetrate unlighted
badlands of the heart and market places of human ideas, to perceive the unleashed passions of
opposition against the Light.
Here, as everywhere, our needs for understanding covenant vocabulary reach ahead – since
darkness comprises a covenant word.
Dark Causes
After the terribly impermeable darkness of sin fell over the world, cf. Gen. 3:1ff., the
absence of light manifested divine punishment: the LORD God temporarily ‘allowed’ Satan’s
dominion tiresome opportunities for exploitation.
Much on darkness confronts the Church in the Bible, only some of which needs mention for
illustrative purposes. Cf. Ps. 44:19 – “… that thou shouldst have broken us in the place of
jackals, and covered us with deep darkness.” Cf. Mt. 27:45 – “Now from the sixth hour there was
darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.” Cf. Mk. 15:33/Lk. 23:44. Cf. John 3:19p – “…
men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Cf. II Cor. 4:4 – “In their
case the god of this world had blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the
light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God.” It belongs to the office of
the ministry to spell out the root cause, gravity, and attitudes along with the behaviors of the
darkness, of idolatry and ideology’s titanic hungers and urges.
Revelation of seductive darkness functions as cautionary warning to the Church, first for the
reprobate within, even as we respect them as serious members. Cf. Job 24:17 – “For deep
darkness is morning to all of them; for they are friends with the terrors of deep darkness.” Cf. Is.
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8:22 – “… and they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of
anguish; and they shall be thrust into thick darkness.” Cf. Jer. 13:16 – “… while you look for
light he turns it into gloom and makes it deep darkness.” Cf. Joel 2:1f. – “… for the day of the
LORD is coming, it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!”
Cf. Mt. 6:23p – “If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” Cf. Mt. 8:12 –
“… the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness; there men will weep and
gnash their teeth.” Cf. Mt. 22:13, 25:30.
Massing darkness, calling up heavy-handed afflictions, summons due alarm, considering how
often its pressures of sin in the ebbing past settled over the Church. In this darkness, God
manifests his frontal displeasure at and searing hatred for sin(ners), while pointing out the hard
life of damnation. With great longsuffering, Christ wills the Church to live in the light, lest the
darkness lures members and melts their perseverance away in shows of consuming death.
Everywhere in the massive and mighty turf war between the Light and the darkness, at the very
center of its time-space coordinates, Christ leads the Church in battle upon battle.
Only in Christ Jesus, as we push and pull faithful ministers to front-line duty, comes release
from darkness of death, cf. John 1:5. Thus, in the Light of the world we, lesser lights, oppose
darkness, lest the shadowy night of sin envelop the Church with fatal portents of catastrophe.
The beginning of this erupting cataclysm gathers strength throughout the ages while satanic
charmers practice benign crowd control – widespread ignorance and a false sense of security.
Light and darkness, too, consist of core issues steadily streaming through the Scriptures; all
living in the latter find eternal death, all in the breaking Light find life. Cf. Ps. 139:9ff. Blessed
are all who receive due preaching on the common ground of this duality.
HEAVEN AND HELL
Upon the clockwatching Christ’s final summoning of the peoples into the Judgment, all shall
stand centered and awestruck before him, seated on the great throne. Then he shall direct the
goats far to the left, into the everlasting misery of hell, and he shall lead the sheep into eternal
blessedness and glories of the new creation. This Judgment, cf. Rev. 20:1ff., and final bifurcation
of the human race need never surprise any of the Church, not even tough guys. Cf. Mt. 25:38f.
Wherever the Spirit enkindles faithful preaching, the narrow gate and the broad gate open up,
ready to allow all through the portals of either life or death. Nothing wishy-washy suffuses the
basics of this word pair either.
HEAVEN
The final glory for all who live the Gospel, build the Church on the sole foundation, expand
the Kingdom according to the covenant obligations shall be preceded by the passing away of this
present world. In the community confronted by the preached heaven immense and immediate
life-and-death ranges of interest bounce up.
New Realities
In the cataclysmic death of this world, cf. II Pet. 3:10, the Christ reveals the new creation,
i.e., the transformation of this world into (part of) the new heavens and earth; sinners, sin, even
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trace effects of evil embedded in cultures, he shall have cleansed away, by far exceeding the
worst of the Flood.
Scriptures provide various descriptions for Christ’s open and integral reformation of all
reality. Cf. Mt. 19:28 – “the new world” or “the regeneration.” Cf. Acts 3:21 – “establishing all”
or the transformation of all created reality. Cf. Heb. 12:27; II Pet. 3:12f. – “… new heavens and a
new earth in which righteousness dwells.” Cf. Rev. 21:1 – “… a new heaven and a new earth.”
These revelations of what arrives in, with, and through the Parousia abound and ‘beg’ to be
preached by ministers of ultimate integrity to lay open before listening congregations the
eschatological architecture of Scripture and Christianity.
Divine works of building the prestigious heavens remain in progress until the finish of the
Parousia. Cf. John 14:3p – “I go to prepare a place for you.” Cf. Acts 3:21 – “… Jesus, whom
heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy
prophets from of old.” Cf. Rev. 21:2p – “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down
out of heaven from God.” This provocative process, which Christ Jesus completes in the fullness
of the times, ends only when he has prepared a place worthy of all who follow him into the
daunting task of praising the Father forever. And forever.
Promised Glories
This coming of the main-energy glories of heaven accomplishes prophecy. Cf. Is. 65:17,
66:22; Ez. 40-48. These foretellings prepare the Church for the new temple, city, earth, and
heavens. Cf. Rev. 21-22. Of this the Lord’s own, in hope responding to the word of God, sing.
Cf. Ps. 102:25ff. –
“Of old thou didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands.
They will perish, but thou dost endure; they will wear out like a garment.
Thou changest them like raiment, and they pass away;
but thou art the same, and thy years have no end.
The children of thy servants shall dwell secure; their posterity shall be established before thee.”
With such wind-in-the-back inspiration, we send our hopes and prayers to the Father, until he
in Christ Jesus and through the Spirit, reveals the totality and glory of the new heavens and earth
– far surpassing all consummate beauties of the original Eden. The first answer to these prayers?
Preaching that opens in the here and now of corporate worship the intervening distance to the
new creation and strengthens one of the fascinations belonging to the Church: all through
Scriptures the new heavens and earth commence within present structures of reality, Christ’s
congregations.
The coming of the new heavens and earth constitutes a broad process to be completed in the
Parousia. For now, the recreation expands where Christ Jesus governs heaven and earth, by
establishing salvation and reformation, for finalizing the Kingdom’s boundaries and authorities,
and for glorifying and praising the Father. In due time, when times cease, the whole of creation,
except for hell, shall undergo the transformation into the new heavens and earth.
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Transition Processes
Presently, Christ moves the Church through the initial stages of the new creation All
members compose the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven; that is, the Church
circumscribes the Lord Jesus’ beginnings in every age of the transformation. What Adam
dragged down into bear pits of revolution, the Son of God/Son of man escalates into the
exaltation.
For the duration, in processes of often painful transition preparatory to the Parousia, the Son
draws within the Church whom he chooses and excludes all others. Cf. Eph. 1:3ff. Eventually,
only the justified, whom he now sanctifies, shall inherit the new creation for exercising the
image of God in its totality – dominion over all creation in the name of the Father.
Eternal Praises
For living throughout the new heavens and earth, all foreknown, predestined, called,
justified, and glorified receive the reward for faithfulness, a reward at times described as eternal
life. In evidence of this eternal life, believers do everything out of true faith, in accordance with
the divine law, and for the glory of God. Considering the good times coming, there will be no
more imperfections, no more sin-caused distortions, absent also any satanic interferences. Cf.
Mt. 25:46; Rom. 2:7; etc. Compliant with the reward, Christ-earned, our perfected communion
fills the essence of eternal living, parting company with covetousness, then to behold and serve
the Father in Jesus Christ.
Reward is: receiving by faith all Christ Jesus merited for the Church.
For the accomplishment of the recreation, Christ also reunites our bodies and souls; then, we,
the Church, in totality shall rejoice. All together, as one, we will behold face to face what we
now perceive in a mirror darkly; then faith becomes sight, for which we receive reformed eyes.
When times cease, joy shall be continuous and entire. This reformation of sight begins here and
now – in the Church through warranted preaching.
Ministers direct preaching to the end that all the Church, sanctified, shall enter the joys of the
new heavens and earth, and we allow none to shirk this duty. Where laxness on this score occurs
in pulpit speech, even the righteous may sink into moping complacencies, self-absorbed.
HELL
In sharp contrast to the new heavens and earth, Christ Jesus also ‘creates’ a state of eternal
punishment for the unconverted. This final resting place for the condemned – those whom he
bypasses in foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification, and sanctification – he leaves
stuck in time warps of dangerous delusions, ideologies and idolatries. In every today of history,
the Lord Jesus ‘perfects’ this destination and locality for the wicked. To that end, he now kindles
conditioning pains of absolute estrangement. Nevertheless, in the Church, ministers because of
our outsized desires for ‘positive’ preaching, may experience difficulties focusing on the second
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part of the heaven-and-hell polarity. We find such allegedly negative sermonizing sends chills
into our waffling disaffections and quirky whimsies concerning eternal damnation.
Inflexible Sufferings
Sufferings of the reprobate within and without the Church begin presently. By harnessing
themselves to postmodernism and relativism, they legitimate worship of idols, hiding within
ideologies, particularly humanism and secularism, thereby seeking to escape their destination in
fiery torment and cold darkness. These major causes of revolution – however pleasant with
respect to materialism and hedonism – for now collect and identify unbelievers through apostasy,
heresy, idolatry, ideology, Mother Earth allegiance, even by passive resistance to the Word. The
reprobate, whether in the Church or outside, crowd the longest-living mortuary society.
The forged-for-darkness import of hell the Holy Spirit undergirds with various designations
to demonstrate its existence in terms of ‘real estate,’ such as Sheol, Hades, and the Pit. In the
New Testament, specifications become more affirming. Cf. Mt. 8:12, 22:13 – outer darkness
with weeping and gnashing of teeth. Cf. Mt. 13:42 – the furnace of fire with weeping and
gnashing of teeth. Cf. Mt. 18:8f. – the eternal fire and gehenna of fire. Cf. Mk. 9:43ff. – hell,
gehenna, unquenchable fire. Cf. Lk. 8:31 – abyss. Cf. I Pet. 3:19 – prison. Cf. II Pet. 2:4 – hell or
Tartarus. Cf. Rev. 20:14f. – lake of fire. Cf. Rev. 21:8 – the lake that burns with fire and sulfur,
life in the second death with legions of devils, lacking access to even a cooling drop of water, cf.
Lk. 16:24.
They of the Church who must abide eternally in this place of torment experience its horrors
in body and soul, which pain starts under faithful preaching; now they receive the initial weight
of the wrath of Christ upon sinning, then the total absence of Christ’s providential care, the
doubly-earned domination of anguish, pangs of conscience, and despair for each transgression
committed. Cf. Mt. 18:8; II Thess. 1:9; Rev. 14:10f., 20:10. In every present begins the wrath of
God.
Along with side winding hypocrites, Christ excludes already (some of) the wicked from the
Church, cf. Mt. 22:13; I John 2:19, and from the Kingdom to start their continual existence in
hell; the present life prepares unbelievers for the place of eternal torment, getting ready for the
final shift. Cf. Mt. 24:5, 25:30, 46; Lk. 16:19ff. The eternities of punishment begin here. With
whatever sense of dread the words eternal and everlasting may be used with respect to hell,
duration is forever. In unquenchable fire during which the worm of the wicked never dies, all
reprobates face the impassable, unbridgeable chasm that separates burdens of the wrath of Christ
from his love and mercy. Cf. II Pet. 3:17 – on the fateful day the nether gloom of darkness claims
the lost for the ultimate place of horror.
Hell, too, hardly a favorite target for believers, much less for unbelievers, 539 belongs to the
basics of preaching. 540 However, all in the pew responsible for the Word demand that sound
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Carl McColman, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Paganism (Alpha/Pearson Education, 2002), p. 91 – “Most
pagans consider the concept of ‘hell’ as a place of eternal punishment to be absurd.”
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Robert A. Peterson makes this point with respect to Jesus’ ‘sermons,’ cf. Hell On Trial: The Case For Eternal
Punishment (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1995).
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sermons include specific warnings against every evil which terminates in hell, even though we
listen and react with a clear reluctance. Listen: may our ministers do less or other than the
Christ?
As much as other dualities, heaven and hell belong to the staples of sound proclamation;
without these, we settle into nebulous complacency and walk into a failed life beyond the broad
gate. As the preaching is faithful to the Scriptures, there comes no end to the blessings for the
righteous and no end to the isolating punishment for the reprobate. Both blessedness and
punishment begin in this present. With quiet determination and clear vision we will hear and see
the two, unwilling to perish unruffled due to shoddy pulpit ethics.
JUSTICE AND MERCY
The Father reveals his justice in Christ Jesus and through the Spirit in doing righteousness as
well as mercy in the distribution of goodness. Within the Body of Christ, that is, the Church,
spokesmen proclaim divine justice and mercy, without calling up conflictive images, in order
that all whom Jesus Christ gathers may by way of the spoken word know the eternity of his
mercy and the omnipotence of his wrath. Both justice and mercy make vital contributions to the
fullness of the Scriptures and, thence, to the proclamation of the Word.
JUSTICE
Christ Jesus reinforces justice fairly, without mercy to all apart from him and the covenant
community; they live condemned by the ominous standard of righteousness, the Law. All hidden
abuse, unsolved crimes, cover-ups, ecological pollutions, and protections of the guilty by the
Church shall duly stand in the harsh and penetrating light of divine justice.
Due Righteousness
It must be proclaimed faithfully, we in the office of the congregation insist, that the Father
manifests his justice in Christ by giving each person due reward, treating all righteously and
impartially. Cf. I Pet. 1:17 – “… if you invoke as Father him who judges each one impartially
according to his deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.” In the
name of the Father, Christ Jesus judges each of the Church according to his works. The
fundamental issue of righteousness – doing that which is right – Christ reveals as the strict
adherence to the law of gratitude; he tracks down every person in his congregations, as he once
did Adam and Eve, who breaks the Commandments. Those of this world he has condemned
already. That is understood. In the Bible, harsh words fall on all unrepentant inhabiting the
Church.
Separated in Christ from the world, we come in view as the primary address for the
proclamation of justice. Cf. Rom. 3:10ff. – “None is righteous, no, not one ….” This horrible
sentence is fairly meted out. Who among us thinks and lives sinlessly? Or perfectly? Here, too,
we tap into strong and strange currents of the soul, far beyond diverting peripherals and mocking
labels.
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Justice is: deserved and legally sound recompense for breaking the divinely revealed will
with respect to believing the promises and doing the obligations of the covenant. In his
righteousness and impartial distribution of punishments upon sinners, Christ misses none.
This justice may burn legalists who refuse the promises, yet seek to live ‘good’ lives and
protect ‘good’ reputations; in competitive image making contests, they seek to prove an unstable
spirituality among and to themselves.
Divine justice may infuriate antinomians; though dwelling on gratitude, they neglect or
refuse the covenant obligations. At peace in the Church, these members seek to manifest
thankfulness by means of other than biblical standards.
While resisting the Father, indeed, the Trinity, they who use the Church for devious purposes
– self-righteousness or self-affirmation – shall in the Day face the intractable Judge. Ecclesial
games of legalism and antinomianism, double attractions of this age, run on temporary pseudoreligions of survival; for such of the Church the Christ appointed an unenviable destination.
Wherever we read in Scripture, the Author manifests the Father’s justice in Christ Jesus. A
few examples suffice. Cf. Ps. 36:6p – “Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God, thy
judgments are like the great deep.” Cf. Neh. 9:8p – “… thou hast fulfilled thy promise, for thou
art righteous.” Cf. Rom. 3:5 – “But if our wickedness serves to show the justice of God, what
shall we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way).” Everywhere
in the Word, the Author infallibly and legibly stresses divine justice and teaches the conclusions
to the manifold iniquities with which hardened sinners contaminate themselves and the Church,
distorting thereby the integrity of Jesus Christ.
In the Church and through decisive moves of sound preaching, divine justice stands forth
immutably, also in allegedly grey zones – fashions, alcohol consumption, vacationing, displays
of wealth, etc. Cf. Job 34:12, 36:6; Pss. 7:11, 119:37, 145:17; Neh. 9:33; Jer. 12:1; Lam. 1:18;
Dan. 4:37, 9:14; John 17:25; I John 2:29, 3:7; Rev. 16:5, 7; etc. For the preaching, Christ wills
we hear and absorb this theme: in the Church due righteousness in justice comes to us.
Just Hopes
Divine rectitude, starting in the covenant community, spreads over both the good and the
evil, with justified hopes for the righteous in Christ Jesus. Cf. I Pet. 4:17; Lk. 10:12, 23:31; Heb.
6:6, 10:26ff.; Jer. 26:1ff.; etc. Cf. II Tim. 4:8 – “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to
me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” Cf. Heb. 9:27f. – “And just as it is appointed
for men to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear
the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are
eagerly waiting for him.” Waiting for Christ means something entirely different than sitting
around; it burns mental and physical energy by active involvement in building the Church and
expanding the Kingdom through conscious application of justice.
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As the Ruler and Lawgiver, Jesus Christ revealed the moral government for his rule. At first,
the Kingdom incorporated the entire world; now temporally, due to Satan’s covetousness and
domineering, sin limits the frontiers of the Kingdom. Under Christ, however, Satan met defeat
and royal boundaries expand to the entire creation.
In the Old Testament dispensation, with intensifying interests, the LORD spoke out as the
Lawgiver and Judge of the Church then, cf. Ex. 20:2; Deut. 4:8, 32:4; Is. 33:22, which revelation
also sweeps through the new dispensation. Cf. James 4:12. With mighty encomia, we now voice
our praises. Cf. Ps. 99:4 “Mighty King, lover of justice, thou hast established equity;
thou hast executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.”
Holy rectitude constitutes more than a staple for the singing church; basic to good preaching,
which escapes all traditions of pietism and spiritualism, it demands due attention. Through
preaching in this way, we need to know ourselves in the application of divine justice.
Since Christ is the Lord of righteousness and justice, both communicable attributes come to
us as metaphorical clothing. Cf. Eph. 4:22f. – “Put off your old nature … and put on the new
nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Amos much earlier
and following another metaphor, had declared, cf. 5:24 – “… let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” Cf. Pss. 33:5, 89:14, 16; Mt. 5:20; I Tim. 6:11; II
Tim. 3:16; etc. If a preacher now opposes Deut. 12:8, adding to or taking away from Scriptures,
he imposes the evil of the Judges’ period upon Christ’s people. Cf. Judges 17:6, 21:25. Doing
what is right in his own eyes, he invokes just condemnation upon his own congregation,
incontrovertibly. How shall we, the articulate community of Christ then put on the image and
likeness of God? Unless every minister of the Word proclaims both in a timely manner, we
suffer the uncomforting reproach of Jesus Christ as revealed in letters to churches, cf. Rev. 2-3.
As the Father infallibly stands by the Commandments, so he requires his people in Christ to
follow the way of justice, the Way, most obediently – out of gratitude for salvation. His demand
for adherence to the Law and its perfection even in details, according to the letter and the spirit,
administers justice for establishing the righteous community of the new heavens and earth. His
holy rectitude spreads over and connects with all in Christ; consequently, we know how we
durably transform in terms of living.
Miserable Failures
Since justice enforces precise conformity to all divine precepts given in the Old Testament 541
as well as the New (according to the standard of righteousness), any failure or deviation brings
retribution, damnation: infliction of due penalty as expression of divine wrath. The revelation of
wrath, beginning at Gen. 2:17, holds a prominently permanent place in preaching worthy the
name. The world, in comparison to the Church, Christ condemned already. Rom. 1:32 clearly
states this – “Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they
not only do them but approve those who practice them.” Cf. Rom. 2:9. But we live and breathe
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At this point, the significance of the many Old Testament ceremonial and civil laws may be left aside.
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and have our being in the Church, not under a pseudo-roof protecting us from nasty surprises of
the wrath to come; Sundays we sit in unprotected pews for apprehending the spoken word, taking
to heart that the primary purpose of the punishment of sin fulfils the righteous satisfaction of the
Father’s justice.
Because Christ reveals impartial justice, fearful Rom. 12:19, on retribution, perforates sin’s
rising competition – “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” Cf. II Thes. 1:8; I Tim.
1:9; etc. All punishment on account of sin, even stacked up sanctimonious successes, we justly
deserve. Actual distribution of justice preachers must emphasize in order that we bow before the
living and abiding Word. Without this assurance of justice, we, sluggish failures in the light of
justice, collapse before loaded pressures and coy temptations of futility and moral relativity.
Job asked, cf. 9:2p – “… how can a man be just before God?” Ministers of the Word owe
respective congregations due answer, or be counted guilty of obstructing justice.
Christ’s rectitude and moral clarity in executing the justice of the Law solely causes the
righteous distribution of rewards and punishments. Cf. Is. 3:10f.; Rom. 2:6; I Pet. 1:17; etc. His
righteousness sustains strength and perseverance in the raw, rushing traffic of life and death. He
breaks up our private and cultural serenities, even false familiarity with the Scriptures.
Mercy Aspirations
The Father in Jesus Christ and through the Spirit also remunerates justly in mercy. Among
the humbling evidences of this great truth stand Hab. 2:4; Rom. 1:17p – “He who through faith is
righteous shall live,” or “The righteous shall live by faith.” Cf. Deut. 7:9, 12; I Sam. 26:23; II
Chron. 6:15; Ps. 58:11; Micah 7:20; Mt. 25:21, 34; Rom. 2:7; II Cor. 5:21; Heb. 11:26f.; James
3:18; etc. In revelation of justice, time-honored mercy matters greatly – in the sense that mercy
overcomes justice. Cf. James 2:13, 4:6.
Before going further and deeper, four questions, achingly human, with respect to justice:
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Did Adam receive justice for spearheading the original rebellion against the LORD?
Did David receive justice for an act of murder to cover an act of adultery?
Did Peter, fearful of Roman law, receive justice for denying the Christ?
Did Saul/Paul, fronting for Pharisaism, receive justice for persecuting Christ Jesus?
The biblical answer to these 1) reveal the difference between justice and mercy, and 2) in
sermons uncover the resolution of our sins. Without answering questions as these, ministers do
no justice to relevant preaching units.
Since the Judge reveals justice first within the covenant community, his strategically
preeminent mercy builds high spirits of hope. Preaching stimulates this integral-to-Christianity
aspiration a thousand times, lest we build upon sandy foundations of despair. When justice in
sermon upon sermon predominates over mercy, then we either rise up in rebellion or collapse in
forlornness. Men of Christ know, whether churches are full of lonely and isolated members or
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crowded with proud and self-satisfied parishioners, that the Lord Jesus, Shepherd, opens the
massive doors of mercy to his own.
MERCY
Scriptures’ Author communicates that mercy supersedes justice – in this manner: the Gospel
assures and reassures in the Church the mercy that wins over justice; else, simplified, all
succumb to divine wrath.
Mercy is: the intractable divine good pleasure by which Christ Jesus saves the living
members of the Church from damnation.
Mercy Actualities
Mercy acts according to the inscrutable merit Messiah earned; he absorbed in his body the
totality of divine fury for all who belong to him. Cf. Gen. 18:19; Pss. 1:6, 37:29, 68:3, 71:15,
92:12, 97:11; Prov. 4:18, 10:7, 16, 28; Lk. 17:10; etc. Cf. I Cor. 4:7 – “For who sees anything
different in you? What have you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you
boast as if it were not a gift?” In Jesus Christ, the Father’s mercy registers love and grace
springing from the covenant promises, which we believe by faith, a work of the Spirit.
None merits the mercy Christ distributes in the Church by the Spirit and the word. But, front
and center, mercy wins over justice (it bears repeating in sermons a 1,000 times), for by mercy
Christ absorbed physically on the Cross for us the wrath of his Father’s justice. Cf. I Pet. 4:1.
However, mercy stands out only in its great worth against the dark, deep, and stormy background
of vengeance, however much this annoys our Arminian hearts, and therefore our counterfeit
social conditioning and composure. None in the Church mocks the indispensable preaching
component that is justice. None of Christ’s own shove aside the wondrous freshness of actual
mercy. All bow in humble gratitude to the Gospel.
Of course, buoyed by a sense of superiority, one may cry, ‘Foul!” If sinners fail to receive the
full weight of justice for every act of disobedience, then injustice prevails.
Though we deserve to bear the inevitable consequences for our own sins, personal and
corporate, proficiency in which appears as the all too human contributions to a polluted planet,
we merit cataclysmically hard times, an eternity of condemnation. The Father perceives all of the
Church lamentably and guiltily burdened – morally and environmentally, racially and martially,
pornographically and covetously, etc. Yet in the Church alone the Son wills the spoken word of
deliverance from condemnation, bestowing mercy by means of sermons: though justly
condemnable, in mercy he makes known his compassion to all whom he gathers
congregationally. The Father, then also through Jesus Christ regards us as a people to apprehend
mercy by means of spoken word. He looks at us – men and women, sons and daughters – with
compassion and steadfast love.
In congregations joined before the Word by the word he grants bounteous mercy. Cf. Deut.
5:10 – “… showing steadfast love (i.e., mercy) to thousands of those who love me and keep my
commandments.” Cf. Ps. 57:10 – “For thy steadfast love is great to the heavens, thy faithfulness
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to the clouds.” Cf. Ps. 86:5 – “For thou, O LORD, art good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast
love to all who call on thee.” Who, then, of all the Spirit congregates may believe this spirited
mercy?
This steadfast love refracts in all who fear the LORD by thoroughly obeying the
Commandments. Cf. Deut. 7:9 – “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful
God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love and keep his commandments,
to a thousand generations.” Cf. Lk. 1:50 – “And his mercy is on those who fear him from
generation to generation.” This stable preachers of the Word speak in order that we, listening,
may know and possess the freedom to sing Ps. 145:8f. – “The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is
over all that he has made.” Thus, Christ patterned the integral characteristic of mercy throughout
Scripture – for the long history of speaking the word of the Lord. Mercy, so that Author of the
Word informs the Church, comes with characteristic longevity, enduring forever. Cf. I Chron.
16:34; II Chron. 7:6; Ps. 136:1ff.; Ezra 3:11; etc.
Loving Cares
Love intimately interacts with mercy. In the distribution within the Church of this loving
kindness upon sinners, the Father in Christ Jesus reveals the communicable attribute of love to
conquer our vagaries of sin. He communicates his love to the Church, for Christ puts us before
himself. Cf. John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever
believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Cf. Phil. 2:1ff. Cf. John 16:27 – “… for
the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from the
Father.” Cf. Rom. 5:8 – “But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ
died for us.” Cf. I John 3:1p – “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called
children of God.” His love for us, whom he knows in the Son, supplants justice with his
compassion. Without this love a real crisis boils up in the Church.
Love is: commitment from the heart to place others before ourselves, as Christ Jesus
exemplified and commanded.
Gracious Merits
Connected to divine goodness, the Lord, Christ Jesus, manifests his grace. 542 This unmerited
favor constitutes the consignment of God’s goodness to all who lack the right to claim it. In fact,
we who receive this grace even forfeit it by constantly engaging in reckless acts of sinning.
Grace, however, provides the substance of forgiveness of sins and the new life of the recreation.
With other words: the Father’s justice demands punishment, which he exacted not from us, but
from the Christ; his death was substitutionary, the acceptable divine sacrifice for our sins. This
undeserved favor comes to bear heavily in the proclamation of the Word, as pardon upon due
repentance. In effect, Christ Jesus intervened in our punishment: he took upon himself what
rightly belongs to us.
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When a person manifests grace to another, it denotes favor, cf. Gen. 33:8ff., 39:4; Ruth 2:2; I Sam. 1:18, 16:22;
etc.
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Grace stabilizes the source of all covenant blessings addressed to sinners. Cf. Is. 26:10; Jer.
26:13; Eph. 1:5ff., 2:7ff.; Titus 2:11, 3:4ff.; etc. By way of this grace, God reveals the full extent
of redemption. Cf. Rom. 3:23f. – “… since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” Cf. II
Cor. 8:9; etc. This grace, presented in promissory words, also informs the missionary endeavor.
Cf. Acts 14:3. By grace, sinners addressed receive in Jesus Christ this lasting donation of grace
itself. Cf. Acts 18:27; Eph. 2:8; etc. Of justification - cf. Rom. 3:4, 4:16; etc. Of spiritual
blessings - cf. John 1:16; II Cor. 8:9; II Thes. 2:16; etc. Of the inheritance of salvation - cf. Eph.
2:8; Tit. 2:11, 3:7 – “… so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of
eternal life.” In this sense, all redemption depends upon the grace of the Father in the Lord Jesus.
Batteries of God’s goodness revealed as mercy, love, and grace, however biblically
expressed and rightly translated, constitute the Father’s revelation to the Church and needs
abundant proclamation connected with and separated from divine justice. For all in whom the
Spirit enkindles faith believe the Father’s goodness. This dominant and joyful word structures
sermons in thousands of ways. Without mercy, compassion, love, and grace, preaching
deteriorates into ideological rhetoric. To legalists in the Church, the Father’s goodness may seem
small change. For antinomians in the Church, the Father’s goodness may seem an unnecessary
bonus. For believers this goodness seats the foundation of the new life.
TIME AND ETERNITY
All of the Trinity’s revealed works occur in time for eternity, that is, in historical-redemptive
sequences, each of which reinvigorated and reinforced by covenant renewal. Whether pressed
down by divine justice or lifted up by divine goodness, under the Lord Jesus’ government we
live in time-space configurations. This is lifelong learning in history. Mystics and Pentecostals
may seek to escape these confines by means of alleged immediate communion with and from
God, but they stumble along ways of alien religions, ideological fallacies. There is only one way
– from the Father through the Son to the Church in the historical-redemptive process, and from
the Church through the Son to the Father.
For real men and women of the Lord, inclusive sons and daughters, in time our every action
comes laden with eternal consequences. Both, the continuum of time and imminent eternity,
because the Holy Spirit demonstrates their actuality and social significance on biblical pages,
belong to the basic requirements of preaching, and we ought to monitor sermons to make sure
that every minister works within the timeframe of each preaching text. Interactive time factors
structure all with the rapidity of eschatological change revealed in the Word.
TIME
Times and seasons advance under Christ’s government for good or evil. For good he
promised Israel at the crossover into Palestine, cf. Deut. 33:27p – “… underneath are the
everlasting arms.” Therefore David confessed, cf. Ps. 31:15p – “My times are in thy hands.”
Given the needful preaching of time-explicit texts, ministers through the word of the Lord
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persuade us often to make the most of the days. Cf. Rom. 13:11; Eph. 5:16; Col. 4:5; etc. In
Christ Jesus, we redeem the time 543 – the hours, days, and years of our lives, a provoking
thought, a demanding endeavor. Bestown with covenant energy, time and history vehicles serve
the Church to transcend increasing distortions and discontents of the immediate future, i.e.,
persevering in living the Commandments.
Time Patterns
Time is: a created entity patterned by sun, moon, and star trajectories to form days, seasons,
and years. Cf. Gen. 1:14ff.
Development of time patterns structures the linear history of the world, of every nation, of
every person, and particularly of the covenant community, the Church. For instance, in time,
according to the divine plan, Isaac came after Abraham, Jacob after Isaac. The reformation at the
time of Abraham preceded the later one at the Sinai. Babylon followed Assyria in its rise and
fall. This leading feature of time and stability may not be reversed. Nor the progress from the
Old Testament to the New. With linear design and for redemption of time, the LORD since early
on moves the seasons ahead through all states of emergency and shocks of flailing danger, the
Church always at the cutting edge.
In every respect, time and history unroll eschatologically, and at the Parousia achieve the
goal the Father set in Jesus Christ, which all believers eye with spirited interest. The createdness
of both, time and history, shall in the Day pass away, and be no more. Until then, however, the
development of time in history remains blessed by the promise with which the Creator entitled
hours, days, and years. Now all in Christ serve with ambitious visions to arrive at living in the
glory of the Father.
Within the firm rules of time and history, the Lord God gave life and mandate to Adam and
Eve. Adam, however, chose disobedience and death, to force time and history to glorify man.
After the Fall, then, time and history continued developmentally, much abused by the crown of
creation through sinning. Adam foundered and made the most of the time by serving himself,
and his descendants by serving idols, the ideologies and idolatries corrupting history with shortsighted harbingers of death – crushing pains of fear, greed, anger, pollution, hunger, etc.
In the Adam-corrupted linear progression of time, the Christ revealed the Gospel. By means
of the Gospel, the LORD shaped to this day the history of the world for the sake of the coming of
the Kingdom. Due to barrages of injustice and manifold transgressions, the surface activity of
this world passes away, making room for the peace-building recreation. Only on account of
divine goodness, he excites the social responsibility of the Kingdom and the Church’s
communion of saints for eternal glory, successfully reforming both in compliance with the new
heavens and earth.
Eternal Hopes
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Cf. Eph. 5:16; Col. 4:5; etc.
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In the manifestations of redemption, which actually structure world history, Christ Jesus
with total sovereignty completed in our place the covenant promises as well as obligations.
Whereas believers during the Old Testament eras amidst transformational changes longed for
Messiah, now he opened up the reality of eternal hope, which transcends time and history.
Though the Old Testament Church contravened the covenant by abuse of the obligations
and neglect of the promises, to obstruct progress in hope, in time the Father planted the Cross on
Calvary and crucified his Son at the hands of sinful men. Cf. Acts 2:23. Out of the Old
Testament conclusion, Jesus himself evolved the New Testament Church, making the transition
at Pentecost by means of 120 people, and then beginning with global breadth the missionary task
for the expansion of the Kingdom.
Unquestioningly, we bog down the Church and the Kingdom with cascades of sin and
submissions to alien allures. Nevertheless, Christ Jesus only moves history forwards and opens
the future. To manifest Spirit-inspired hope, believers bow before the lordship of Jesus Christ to
draft the coming history of the Church – for the sake of the Kingdom and the glory of the Father.
All in Christ Jesus desire from the heart his rule over the world and, indeed, the universe. At the
same time and in the same hope, we insist that Christ’s men apply the Word in the present for the
future, proclaiming the bursting powers of the Gospel from generation to generation. In this
hope, preached, we accomplish the work of the Church as well as the international breadth of the
Christ’s rule, until he returns the Kingdom to the Father, who then becomes all in all. Cf. I Cor.
15:24ff.; Eph. 1:15ff. Therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ leads the Church into the future, despite
formidable omens of opposition, for protracted eras of hope. All the while, the Spirit plants these
reforming aspirations within the Church so that in faith the Lord’s own look for the coming again
of the sovereign Savior and Mediator on the clouds of heaven. Then he shall accomplish making
all things new.
Christ, the source of stability, came in the fullness of time, cf. Gal. 4:4, during another fragile
and unstable section of history to infuse contagious hope. When dangers of lapsing finally into
any of 1,000 accommodations to the times threatened the members of the Church, he inspired
and enlisted engaging newness, though at first only in 120 charter members. Through this hope,
which stretches beyond time and history, he transforms believers into contributing members with
abilities to adapt the Faith to worlds of work. At history’s end, when time has served its created
function and be no more, we will be caught up, raptured (to take a fascinating word from I Thes.
4:17), into the eternity of the Father – to live and serve before Jesus Christ throughout the new
heavens and earth. All others shall at his command forever fall away into hell. For now we live
in time temporarily, even though the Lord Jesus adds century to century and we prefer to keep
the snooze button up.
ETERNITY
Negatively, eternity is: timelessness. Positively, in defining an aspect of creation beyond
time, the infinity of hope catches us.
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Eternity is: the ageless present in which the glory of the Trinity shapes the all in all for the
praise of the Name.
Misuse of eternity makes it function as an escape – oblivion for the suicide-committed, or
lifeless bliss for cranked-up pie-in-the-sky religionists, or annihilation for atheists. However, far
from being a misdirected getaway out of a hand-wringing, tear-stained, or blood-soaked present,
eternity begins here and now in terms of church membership and kingdom service. Never a
fanciful flight from reality, eternity envisions no return to the paradise times of Gen. 1-2, a
supposed golden age. Nothing that tacky. The LORD God deleted that way forever.
Eternal Visions
The Revelation, major future-knowing source, grants majestic panoramas of glorious
eternity, each rooted in the Old Testament. The first of these visions? Christ Jesus governing all
creation at the right hand of the Father for the sake of the Church. He completes working out the
history written on the scroll his Father gave him, all the while gathering the praising multitude no
one can number, but simply enumerated as 144,000. The reigning Lord Jesus gathers these every
today from each nation, tribe, and people; on earth, he calls these the Church. Throughout the
transitioning history of the Church, many fell asleep and now live about the throne and the
Lamb, clothed in white robes; with palm branches in hand, they envision the future in song. Cf.
Rev. 7:9ff. – “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” There,
after the eschatological day, will the Christ gather all his, uplifted, the redeemed Church, with
the angels, declaring throughout the new heavens and earth with melodious acoustics: from God
and through God and to God are all things. Then, all in Christ shall rule with him eternally,
grounded in the goal of life.
This praise and glory single out the heart of eternal life, which begins in the present. Cf. Mt.
19:29; John 3:16, 12:25, 50, 17:2f.; Acts 13:48; Rom. 2:7, 5:21; Tit. 1:2; I John 2:25, 5:13, 20;
etc. Eternal life comes to its wholeness – shalom – in the absorbing presence of the high and
lofty One who inhabits eternity.
The final chapters of the Bible reveal in visionary form, distinct from the first paradise, the
coming garden and city of God, the New Jerusalem, the eternal habitations, cf. Lk. 16:9, the river
of life, the trees of life, and the Light. Cf. Rev. 21:23 – “… the city has no need of sun or moon
to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” This new creation
shall continue forever – whatever ‘continues’ discloses within timelessness. Thus, the Christ in
present moments creates the coming Eden.
Praise of the Father and his glory rise up in eternity after the second death imposed upon all
reprobates. Cast into the lake of fire/sulfur, cf. Rev. 20:2; Mt. 18:8, 25:41, and in company with
Satan, ever a pretentious kingmaker, and his discredited minions, they experience forever all
volatile torments of divine justice and wrath. In the forever they too must ‘praise’ the Trinity - in
the way hell distorts praise.
Time and history articulate vast-in-scope subjects, but nothing in comparison to the
landscapes of eternity. These three also belong to sound covenant preaching. And we of the
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Church exercise the office of the congregation in the forward press of time and history to hear all
that which belongs to eternity.
FREEDOM AND SLAVERY
Distinction between freedom and slavery for upright preaching runs deeper and broader,
higher and wider than many realize. When we struggle more with ministers of the Word on
liberty and bondage, leaving them little wiggle room for defaulting, then this appropriate word
pair too will sound forth with bursting clarity and formidable insistence. As we carry with us into
worship services the knowledge that freedom and bondage constitute covenant terminology, we
seek to hear more in sequence on the infrastructure of this duality. Outside the biblical
vocabulary, such words lose much, if not most weight to fat-laden selfishness – self-realization,
self-discovery, and self-expression, holy cows of a postmodern world obsessed with selfdetermination.
FREEDOM
Freedom is: life wholly to the Father for salvation in Jesus Christ. Cf. Gal. 5:1 – “For
freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of
slavery.”
Bondage is: life evermore enthralled by the Devil, the world, and the flesh.
To ground both freedom and bondage biblically, cf. Heb. 2:15 – “… and deliver all those
who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.” “Fear of death” and “lifelong
bondage” capture insular spaces of ideological and idolatrous enclosures. Deliverance, of course,
promises freedom. The Exodus in a large way brought the Church then to experience sharply and
profoundly the honored dividing-line between bondage and freedom.
Within this polarity, Desiderius Erasmus (1466?-1536) and Martin Luther 544 drove storms of
controversy to contentious heights; with sharp words they laid bare the dividing-line within the
Church. These emblematic giants of the Reformation century early on squared off, Erasmus for
the freedom of the human will, Luther for the bondage of the will. During the 18th-century
Enlightenment, anti-authoritarian thinkers transmuted the freedom of the will into a philosophic
nightmare called free moral agency, a freethinking pinnacle of human pride; they declared all
human beings free moral agents, every one with ability at rational self-determination. The more
the weights of this freethinking entice the glory of man, the less the penetrating light on the
knowledge of and gratitude for the freedom in Jesus Christ before the Father.
Initial Freedoms
The Creator revealed himself the Maker of all things, thereby, the work of creation forever
the beginning of revelation. They who found origins in mother lodes of myth, legend, saga,
fancy, reverie, fable, and fiction opposed Jesus Christ. According to the entitlement of creative
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John Baillie, et al., eds., The Library of Christian Classics, Vol. XVII, Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and
Salvation (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1959).
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works, by virtue of the genesis start, heaven and earth, plus all these contain, belong to him. In
the majesty of divine freedom, the Son, in the name of the Father, and the Spirit created and
governed all reality for the covenantal relationship with Adam and descendants. With absolute
authority over hosts of heaven and inhabitants of earth, the LORD God reigned in and for the
freedom of his people.
In his freedom, the Creator God called Adam and Eve to believe the promises and live the
obligations of the covenant; in Gen. 1-2, he revealed the prominent pattern of the promises and
demands, including the one prohibition. These three factors root the essentials of freedom and
structure the reformations recorded in Gen. 3:1ff., 8:20-9:7, 12:1ff.; etc. This patterning of the
promises and obligations as the constitutive elements of liberty within the unpredictable tumults
of disobedience honed the awing majesty of grace.
An overt fact: by imposition of obligations, the LORD determined the ends to which all
covenant members must serve in order to move forward in freedom. That is, liberty lives in total
submission to the Word. He, the King, rules in the most absolute sense. Covenantly, all creation
depends upon him and for freedom serves him – within the parameters of the promises and
obligations. Subverting the creation work, sanctimonious Satan on his first stealth walk, sirenvoiced, ingratiating, dangled another freedom, freedom from ‘bondage’ to the LORD God, the
key starting point for sin. To convince Eve of this alternative liberty, however, he hitched a ride
on a covenant word – freedom. Satan’s freedom, an always elusive vanity, fascinating on first
hearing, comes in numerous disguises of devilish-in-the-details revolution, copycatting Christ’s
rule. Outside the now war-scarred covenant framework, as an evil octopus, only larger than life,
slavery moils and roils in captivating kinds of mutations, the ideologies and idolatries.
Three Promises
In order to believe and live the vitality of freedom, Christ Jesus prepared covenant revelation
for preaching, first the foundational promises. Surveying the lay of the scriptural lands, sermon
listeners gather in the fundamentals of the Gospel, therewith to appreciate sound preaching.
1) In the creative context, the LORD God spoke the initial promissory word, a prophecy
immediately fulfilled, cf. Gen. 1:26a – “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Male
and female he created the most auspicious creatures to show the lively capacity with which
human beings execute the image and likeness as laid out in Gen. 2, with Adam as representative
head and Eve as help meet for him, jointly working in righteousness, holiness, and wisdom.
These attributes of new-created believers belonged to the making of Adam and Eve.
2) Also, the Creator promised and provided abundant sustenance. Cf. Gen. 1:29 - “Behold, I
have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree
with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.” Cf. Gen. 1:30. Food resources made up a
fundamental covenant promise.
3) Moreover, God also promised and provided living space, all the earth, first limited to
Eden. Cf. Gen. 2:15 – “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it
and to keep it.” Room to live also belonged to the basic promises.
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These front-and-center charter promises – life, sustenance, and space – consistently engaged
the basics of the covenant promises throughout the six reformations as the glory of the Creator,
for praise of the Maker of heaven and earth.
Three Obligations
In order to live the promises, the LORD revealed the covenant duties, each in its own way
involved dominion expressive of the image and likeness. Rulership established the first
distinctive human trait, forever separating people from animals.
1) Plainly, the LORD God installed the dominion mandate in Adam and Eve. Cf. Gen. 1:26b
– “… and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” Cf. Gen.
1:28b. This dominion informs the heart of the image of God with righteousness, holiness, and
wisdom.
2) The second obligation commanded procreation. Cf. Gen. 1:28a – “Be fruitful and
multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.” The Creator LORD willed Adam and Eve to populate
the earth, one child at a time, with globally oriented citizens, who generation upon generation
were to live before the LORD God in the freedom of righteousness, holiness, and wisdom.
Concerning these basic obligations – image bearing and office bearing for dominion and
procreation: God did not create Adam and Eve liable to sin. Far from that. He gave these
stipulations for the work of the sabbathing begun on the Seventh Day. He, forming the
groundwork for history, created the human pair to accomplish the obligations perfectly. Hence,
to believe the promises and consequently do the obligations inspired freedom in its most
elementary as well as universal sense.
3) In order that Adam and Eve walk free to serve and praise him, the LORD God singled out
a specific sanction. Cf. Gen. 2:17 – “… you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” This era-appropriate sanction was not an
option, but a command, establishing the original forbidden frontier.
With this command, the Creator placed a boundary about the freedom of the covenant –
beyond which lay unrighteousness, bondage, pollution, vanity, and death. When Adam
inexplicably chose for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he made and
distributed covetousness – a betrayal of and a discontent with the progress of freedom.
Covenant Renewals
As Adam withdrew into bondage and sought dependency in Satan’s rogue rulership, the
LORD God renewed the covenant, reworking the promises and the obligations for a freedom
greater than possible in Eden. In time and history, he also involved Noah, Abraham, Moses,
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David, and finally himself for reformation. With majestic faithfulness, the LORD reformed the
covenant fundamentals initially revealed in Gen. 1-2.
When Adam and Eve unexplainably transgressed the sanction and stepped beyond the
dividing-line, life on the wrong side involved them with disastrous impact – bondage in spiritual
death. In this suffocating sphere, each person and every generation revolts against the LORD
God, revolution apparent by making history a volatile lair of spiritually rebellious ideologies and
idolatries. Each ideology and idolatry, overzealous and indefensible, offers an escape hatch from
covenantal freedom and thereby, paradoxically, enslaves all.
In the divinely mandated sphere of death, the LORD God without advance notice revealed
the Gospel to recreate the covenant Adam broke. In that fine moment he reequipped both the
man and the woman to proceed with renewed hope for completing the promises and obligations.
1) The first promise, the destabilizing curse on Satan, in effect prophesied the victorious
redemption and deliverance from death for the woman and her seed. Cf. Gen. 3:14f., to the
serpent – “… I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her
seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” The stark fact of this redemption
and deliverance revealed 1) the depth of the Fall, 2) the beginning of the drawn-out war for
control of the universe beginning on earth, and 3) the redefined life for Adam and Eve to
reengage faithfully both image bearing and office bearing, constituents of freedom, however
much hampered by sin’s ruthless exploitations.
Promise of food appeared in Gen. 3 as well, except now among corruptions of sin, for the
LORD cursed the ground so that it brought forth aggressive thorns and thistles; among these
agricultural hindrances, Adam, in the sweat of his brow, had to till soil outside the Garden and
produce sustenance. All cultivated vegetation the LORD gave to him and Eve for food.
At the same time, the LORD reasserted the space promise, now in the bleak days after the
Fall; all the earth, beginning outside Eden’s gate, was Adam’s.
2) Obligations of renewed covenant keeping continued, though subject to competitive
interference from the original transgression, covetousness, which inflicted slavery to sin.
The first duty of thankfulness at believing the renewed promises in the more dangerous world
outside Eden involved procreation, a variation of Gen. 1:28. Cf. Gen. 3:16, the LORD God to
Eve – “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children,
yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” The obligation to multiply,
now more pain-ridden, cradled a world population.
The seminal obligation, dominion or lordship, the LORD also moved ahead, to match the
times. Cf. Gen. 3:17ff., to Adam – “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and
have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground
because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring
forth to you, and you shall eat the plants of the field.” Difficult as dominion became, for Adam it
redefined his life mandate.
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At an alarming rate and with a vivid presence sin corrupted freedom. Through reformation,
however, the LORD commanded recommitment to magnify the divine glory. This purposed
creation. This carried on the large life of the recreation, only more sharply, eventually excelling
the original in beauty and permanence.
In addition, the LORD God replaced the first sanction: he forbad Adam and Eve, children
too, never to return to the Garden, on pain of death. Cf. Gen. 3:22f. Disobedience invoked
sudden vengeance at the hands of cherubim stationed by Eden’s closed entry.
Similar promises and obligations occurred in the later reformations, always magnifying the
glory of the LORD. For Noah and his family this commenced freedom in a cleansed world. For
Abraham, this granted freedom in Canaan. For Moses and Israel, this attested to freedom in the
wilderness and the promised land. Cf. Ex. 20:2/Deut. 5:6. By living the Decalogue out of
heartfelt gratitude, Israel experienced before the face of the LORD God the liberty of the
covenant. For David and Israel this opened a reforming vision of the Kingdom. For Christ and
the Church, this involves the freedom of his rule, the approach to the recreation.
When our Lord and Savior promised freedom, cf. John 8:32, he fulfilled, for instance, Ps.
146:7f. – “The LORD sets the prisoners free; the LORD opens the eyes of blind.” Cf. Lk. 4:18f.
So much in the New Testament too reveals the heart source of liberty in Christ. Cf. Rom. 5:15,
6:18; II Cor. 3:17; Gal. 2:4, 3:28, 5:13; I Pet. 2:16; II Pet. 2:19; etc. Therefore, this freedom, we
insist, ought to be another signature theme to be preached for firming up the Faith.
SLAVERY
On the surface of life, the human way into slavery arrives by casual and/or determined
disobedience to the divine obligations. Plastic, dehumanizing subjection to sin, thoroughly
confusing and scotching all hopes of freedom, good men of the Lord Jesus raise in sermons with
necessary alarm.
Primary Confusions
Superficially, when the members of the Church believe hollow promises, either ideological
or idolatrous, they do what is right in their own eyes; then they grow religious and social thorns
of contention. Sinning may seem freedom – freedom to live on ideologically or idolatrously
based promises and obligations. However, this approach to living offers liberty only on the
surface. Cf. John 8:34; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:3; II Pet. 2:19; etc. It is slavery.
Slavery is:
1) confinement in spiritual, physical, and eternal death;
2) suffering under often cruel authority from god-like human beings. 545
545
Substance abuse fits here, even all forms of addiction.
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Jesus exposed slavery in its ultimate sense by condemning Pharisees, church leaders. Cf.
John 8:44 – “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was
a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in
him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
The Pharisees, leading the Church into falsehood, chose to be protest pilgrims on the way against
freedom in Christ. In this sense, people in slavery and bondage listen to the reductive and
ingratiating voice of the ultimate charmer.
Sinners defy covenant promises and therewith the Christ-mandated purposes of life, food,
and space. These members of the Church break covenantal obligations with a will – dominion
and procreation through the instigation and/or adoption of ideologies and idolatries. They seek
dominion to get ahead for themselves and beget children to promote selfish desires. Always in
the mode of damage control against the Word of the Lord, they will alternative religions
according to the messy facts of humanism, secularism, New Ageism, paganism, etc., preoccupied
with glorifying creatures to escape from the wrath of God. Our preachers, aghast at these
encroaching power-mongers, ask as frequently as answer questions as Ez. 17:15p – “Can he
break the covenant and yet escape?” Jeremiah, with a litany of idolatry-caused damages, called
covenant breakers “prey.” Cf. Jer. 2:14. Were they of the Church fail to remember and meditate
on the Word, much less can they respond in faith. That Jeremiah in his ministry forced to the
surface.
Judah, the continuation of the promises and obligations, enslaved covenant brothers and
sisters. Cf. Jer. 34:8ff. Long before, the LORD God instituted slavery in Israel of Israelites as a
social policy against destitution, one suitable to that age in terms of love for covenant members.
Cf. Ex. 21:2; Lev. 25:1ff. The princes of Judah, of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all
the people of the land forsook this law of the LORD with respect to the seventh year and the
fiftieth, which hardness of heart they proved by breaking covenant: they found it economically
and socially expedient to enslave weaker brothers and sisters for private ends. 546
Slavery to sin and enslavement of others spurn the sovereign power and majestic will of the
LORD God through serialized error with respect to covenant and predestination, history and
redemption, Gospel and Law, Church and Kingdom, office and recreation, providence and
theodicy, sin and grace, perseverance and backsliding, eschatology and judgment, justification
and sanctification, etc. High-drama abuse of God-given freedom tramples down the covenantal
sanctions, limits the Kingdom, demeans the Church, blasphemes the Trinity, and calls for more
intimidating death – spiritual, physical, and eternal.
In and for freedom, Christ Jesus recreates and condemns; this bipolar unit requires serious
and frequent preaching. For thus the Head of the Church accomplishes his ends. Then our liberty
in him becomes reality, however mean and violent recurrent forces of slavery.
ASSURANCE AND DOUBT
546
Peter J. Gomes, for one, elaborated on enslavement from a North American perspective. Cf. The Good Book, op.
cit., pp. 84ff.
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Against often silent ravages of doubt, the Holy Spirit gives assurance as a frequent sermon
requisite. Doubts come – regarding the Bible as the Word of God, the reality of the Trinity, the
solemn worth of the Church, the coming of the Kingdom, the promises of the covenant, etc. To
strengthen inner longings for assurance, Christ Jesus calls in the first place for regular and true
proclamation of the Word.
ASSURANCE
Believing the covenant promises starts assurance, strong support for the Faith. The Holy
Spirit speaks of the certainty of the faith wherewith he dismisses even most virulent, disruptive,
or buttoned-down skepticism or agnosticism.
Basic Trusts
Assurance is: unquenchable conviction founded upon the divine truth of the Covenantmaker
and his promises.
Through assurance, the testimony of the Spirit witnesses with our spirits that we, adoptees,
trust the reliability of the Bible, the truth regarding the Trinity, the continuous record of the
Church, the historical actuality of the Kingdom, the sincerity of the covenant promises, the
purpose of the covenant obligations, the goal of living, the sense of the earth, the silent
movement of the Milky Way, etc. Assurance springs up alive in all commitments of Christian
living.
Spirit-moved proclamation of the Word arranges the primary means to swing fights against
doubt in favor of the assurance of faith. Directly coupled with hearing the word of the Lord, the
Head summons his own to faithful participation in the sacraments. Christ’s goal with these
means of grace helps make our calling and election sure. Thus, we hear and commemorate
covenant promises of divine faithfulness in all bipolar strengths of the Scriptures. Thus, the Spirit
builds up certainty, always installing more reliance on the Word. Thus, in grace, we believe and
live with stronger vigors the assurance of Christ’s satisfaction for our sins as well as his constant
intercession for us before the Father. To live the basics trusts, we willingly hear the word,
partake of the sacraments, and receive therewith the Spirit’s infusion of assurance.
Readiness in duty and desire to hear the Word joined with participating in the sacraments
reflects vibrant evidence of sparkling trust with respect to the Father’s presence in love, of
Christ’s grace, and of the Spirit’s working in our hearts.
Closely associated with the main means for assurance of faith, Christ promised to mediate
the prayers of his own before the Father and guide the life of thankful obedience in the way of
the Commandments. Cf. Rom. 8:34, 26f. – “Likewise the Spirit helps in our weakness; for we do
not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep
for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because
the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Conscious praying reflects
escape from the sticky tentacles of insincerity in the Faith and gives larger-than-life evidence of
great assurance; we stop running around in circles of doubt, no longer keeping company with
fatal illusions.
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In sharp contrast to sustainable assurance, we may harbor false convictions, masks with
which to deceive – ourselves, neighbors, even the Judge. But his promise to us rings true:
manifestation of certainty and certitude on the basis of the promises leads to stronger faith, more
sincere expression of love, and a consistent walk of life. This we show in the fear of the Lord –
accountability for saving knowledge, true repentance, and gracious love. Therefore, we may trust
that the Judge eventually exposes feigned faith, ousts undue moral wavering, and slags spurious
distrust with his overriding assurance of faith.
Fake Trusts
Again, we distinguish assurance from false confidence, the sorts based on sensational
emotions or proud assumptions, even efforts at self-persuasion, which gnaw away at confidence
in Christ. Such aggressive behaviors treat assurance as a commodity: I have large measures of
assurance locked in safe storage of mind or soul, possibly in the circus of impoverished
imagination, ready in case of necessity.
Rather than selling out to doubts and investing in jello-jiggly shenanigans of hypocrisy, in
Jesus Christ we enforce patterns of sincere self-examination. Cf. II Cor. 13:5 – “Examine
yourselves, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that
Jesus Christ is in you? – unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” Cf. Ps. 139:23f. For this
examining, uncovered, we apply ourselves to the means of grace and gain greater assurance in
the faith.
In the strong position upon the sole foundation, the Rock, assurance grows, stimulated by
sound preaching. Such confidence of undivided hearts the Spirit always authenticates. In fact,
spirited trust he continually instills by the means of grace. We find, when we under siege by
doubt and pressured to make sense of the tumults of the times, that Christ moves in until we trust
him and the Father’s compassion totally, constantly aware of the Spirit’s presence. The Third
Person builds the enduring conviction, puts the fire into doubtless certainty that the Christ
revealed the Scriptures and will do as he promised. He realizes from within the Church
overflowing measures of hope. Cf. Heb. 6:11.
DOUBT
Doubts slither in unbidden, like depression, as crises in confidence during times of sickness
and pain, grief and oppression, disobedience and pride, prosperity and poverty, unrest in the
Church and calamity in the world, association with unbelievers and neglect of the means of
grace. Then we find the ground shifting under us. We may suppress initial hesitations by
indulging in complacency, or seeking out comforting routines, or hiding in ideologies, or bowing
to idolatries. However, the trickling and seeping away of assurance manifests its invisible legacy
soon enough over the long term. Then come baffling devastations of falling glaringly short in
believing and living the essentials of the Faith.
Wracking Distrusts
320
Doubt is: manifold lack of trust in the Covenantmaker and his promises, thereby impugning
the Name.
Lack of trust, often shrouded in secrecy, prowls in soul-shriveling ways as a minion of the
Devil, the outcomes of which diverge in brazen forces of agnosticism, atheism, and paganism,
each a public rival to the Christ. Doubt then sorts out unavoidable questions.
-
Is the Bible the authoritative Word, wholly inspired by the Spirit?
Does God exist, and why believe the Trinity?
Is the Church more than a religious association in a world full of religiosity?
Is assurance of election obtainable?
Can we be sure that Christ grants the grace of his sacrifice and satisfaction to the right
people?
Do I believe Christ’s sacrifice as revealed in Heb. 10:5ff.?
Do I have faith?
Why do I lose heart when confronted with the doctrine of reprobation?
In a polytheistic world, what future for Christianity?
Does the purpose of life have a real face?
Is there long overdue meaning to suffering?
Do the bragging rights of agnostics, atheists, and pagans present better handles on life?
The last question plunges us into an urgent reality: many, particularly followers of Karl G.
Jung (1875-1961), pasted the label ‘postchristian’ on the present. Allegedly, all struggle “in the
wake of Christianity.” 547 With a trendiness, postchristians sanitize the world with
multiculturalism, the flagship appeal of New Age relativism. Hence, also the Church confronts
“an entirely new situation,” with a “tremendous revolution of values.” 548 In this pessimistic era,
with its self-convincing mantras, doubts breed uncontrollably, calling forth a frenzy of trials by
strength, the Christ against the ideologists and the idolaters. Losers find themselves in the lowest
depths of despair.
Also, the last question enlarges the atheism generated during the Victorian Age (1876-1901).
“It no longer takes courage to disbelieve. … we Christians have given atheists less and less in
which to disbelieve! A flaccid church has robbed atheism of its earlier pretensions of
adventure.” 549 As church vitality dies, atheism fades away, its reason for existence negligible.
However, in the vacuum left by a dysfunctional and bloodless atheism the rival forces of Islam
gather, giving this ‘postchristian’ world something different, the result of the collective selfdestruction stemming from doubts stimulated with respect to the Head of the Church, the Gospel,
the Scriptures, etc.
Surrender to the massive appeals of ideologies and the boiling hostility of idolatries
eventually subjects the Church to cruel taskmasters who tyrannically demand multiple measures
547
Elizabeth C. Rohrbach, Jung’s Contribution to Our Times: The Collected Papers of Eleanor Bertine (New York:
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1967), p. 50.
548
Erich Neumann, Depth Psychology and the New Ethic, tr. Eugene Rolfe (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1969),
p. 12.
549
Hauerwas & Willimon, op. cit., p. 50.
321
of obedience to alien doctrines and mass atrocities. Given time, nothing remains of Christianity,
except extraordinary dullness and painful memories. As the stimulants to doubt transfix the
Church, grounded-in-Christ assurance falls away. “The preacher knows that many of the people
in the pew wrestle with the same doubts and uncertainties as he … does. It is tragic that often this
does not draw pastor and people closer together because whatever doubts the people may have,
they often want their preacher to believe it all, and to do so undeviatingly. They expect the
preacher to be the super-Christian, and perhaps do their believing for them so that some of his …
faith will rub off on them. In any case, they go to church not to have their doubts and
uncertainties confirmed by the preacher but to have them addressed and dealt with. It is no
wonder that the preacher soon masters the art of role playing; it is a matter of survival.” 550
Snowballing torments of doubt, even in strong comforts of routine and mind-numbing traditions,
eventually spin out of control, also congregationally, by causing division and schism.
Under demonic pressures, our assurances waver through neglect of the means of grace,
purposefully falling into sin, wounding our conscience, and grieving the Spirit. Then, by this
reverse-flow tendency, we force surety of faith underground and/or out of existence.
Mastered by cares of this world and lusts of flesh, forces of rebellion and religious diversity
emanate from the heart. As they sally forth for perilous ventures and con