According to John Frame, “Repentance and faith are opposite sides of the same coin”^a, and thus although repentance is not the grounds of our justification before God, “yet it is of such necessity … that none may expect pardon without it”^b.

In other words, no one is forgiven by God because they have turned away from sin, yet no one will be forgiven by God without turning away from sin.

This raises a whole host of tricky theology questions. But the most pressing questions, it seems to me, are pastoral. For the simple fact is that change (for make no mistake, that is exactly what repentance means – a change of mind, heart, and life) is both extremely difficult and entirely indispensable.

This issue cannot be evaded by an appeal to the doctrine of divine sovereignty. For however much we insist (and insist we must) that repentance is a gift of God (Acts 11:18), it is a gift that is invariably and necessarily displayed by us in our lives precisely at the moment when it is given. We cannot wave the flag for the sovereignty of divine grace without at the same time recognising that we are called to work out the salvation that God is working in us (Philippians 2:12-13).

Regrettably, as Frame points out, we often have a hard time even admitting that we have a problem:

“All Christians confess in at least a theoretical way that repentance is important. We believe that all are sinners. Practically, however, we find it difficult to admit – whether to others, to ourselves, or to God – that we have personally done wrong and need to change.”

Frame highlights one strategy of evasion that we frequently grasp:

“When someone criticizes our behaviour, our first instinct is, too often, to defend ourselves. Although we confess in general terms that we have sinned, we don’t want anyone to think that we have sinned in any specific way.”

Thus we maintain a superficial image of piety, acknowledging the unavoidable biblical truth that all people – including we ourselves – have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, whilst simultaneously side-stepping the painful and humiliating necessity of actually identifying what we have done wrong.

Alongside this straightforward evasion, however, we sometimes employ another tactic. Rather than trying to evade the personal challenge of confronting specific sins, we sometimes embrace the criticism wholeheartedly, yet still in a manner calculated to avoid doing anything about it.

This strategy appears most often when people are confronted by a challenge to repentance over a sin that simply cannot be denied: “Hey Jenny, why don’t you stop frittering your life away on Facebook and get a job? Hey Jonny, why are you always 25 minutes late for church?” These are not the sort of sins that can easily be denied, since they’re obvious to so many people whose good opinion we value. Instead of denial, therefore, we simply embrace the pain and admit our fault, yet we do so in a way that identifies us primarily as victims rather than sinners.

For example, Jenny the lazy layabout can no doubt point to a whole host of painful and tear-inducing memories of past failures, humiliations, and disappointments which in truth probably weren’t entirely her fault, and which would make any but the hardest heart bleed with her. The effect of this, however, is merely to steer the conversation away from what she is doing wrong, and towards how others have wronged her. Already, Jenny has taken several large strides away from repentance.

To bolster her case, Jenny can probably point to a couple of friends who, like her, spend many long hours on the sofa, but for very good reasons – chronic illness, for example. The entirely legitimate justification for these friends’ comparative inaction will serve as an impressive and impermeable second-hand get-out-clause for her: after all, once you’ve found a godly friend who’s living (however superficially) the same kind of life as you, you’re off the hook.

Jonny, on the other hand, will need to portray himself as a victim in a rather different way. Unlike Jenny, he no doubt has an extremely busy job, a long commute, and countless other responsibilities at home and elsewhere that demand his attention. He’s a victim of circumstance, right? “I’m trying, I really am – but can’t you understand how difficult is it for me?”

Unlike Jenny, Jonny must studiously avoid drawing comparisons with others, for in his case such a comparison would undermine the justification he has fabricated for himself. The plain truth is that his church is full of people with lives no less hectic than his, most of whom manage to get to worship in time for the first hymn, rather than sneaking in half-way through the sermon. To maintain his case, Jonny must tacitly (never explicitly – that would blow his cover for sure) keep insisting that his is a special case. And so he wrings his hands in despair at his desperate circumstances: “Please believe me – I’d really love to change, but I just can’t.”

All of these strategies fall woefully short of the biblical picture of repentance. To repent means not merely to recognise that people generally do bad things; nor to include yourself among them; nor to feel sorry about your sins; nor to shed tears over them; nor to wax lyrical about the agonising personal psychology, family history, and present circumstances that lie behind them. It means quite simply to stop doing them.

Rev Dr Steve Jeffery is Minister at Emmanuel Evangelical Church, London, England (Blog, Facebook, Twitter)

1. Doctrine of the Christian Life, 331  (back)
2. Westminster Confession of Faith, 15.3  (back)

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“For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.”

–Luke 11:30

When asked what verse best summarizes the whole of Scripture, Edmund Clowney famously pointed to Jonah 2:9, “Salvation belongs to the Lord.” If I recall correctly, I’ve heard Bryan Chapell answer a similar question with the same verse. In terms of one verse standing on its own, I doubt one could improve on the answer given by Drs. Clowney and Chapell. However, if context can be considered, I’d say a better summation comes two verses later in Jonah 3:1, “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.”

You’ll remember, the word initially came to Jonah while he was in the Promised Land. While enjoying the peace and security that Yahweh’s presence provides, he was told to prophesy to the Assyrians. In a sense, Jonah was called to extend the boundaries of Yahweh’s rule from the little territory of Israel, to the “exceedingly great city” of Nineveh. From here, we know the story. Jonah rebels against the initial word. He “goes down” toward Tarshish, he “goes down” in the ship, he “goes down” in the fish, and is finally “driven from the sight of the Lord.” While in the belly of the fish, Jonah laments the fact that he is far from the temple, far from the presence of the Lord.  Rebellion against the first word brought exile from the temple; it brought spiritual death.

We can say Jonah 3:1 sums up Scripture because the Jonah story mirrors the biblical story in significant ways. In the beginning, God created the world through his Word. Adam and Eve were recipients of the good creation brought about through this “first Word.” Like Jonah, they lived in the peace and security of Yahweh’s presence. The land in which they lived functioned as a little “temple-garden.” Their mission: cause the boundaries of the garden to extend over the face of the earth. They were called to bring the order of the inner garden to the whole world, just as Jonah was called to bring the message of God’s order and justice to the foreign nation.While Adam and Even didn’t experience immediate physical death when they rebelled against the first word, they were “driven from the presence of the Lord.” To be sure, they were not in the belly of a fish. However, they were banished from the garden-temple. This was their “going down,” this was their death, just as it was Jonah’s.

God would have been perfectly just and right to end the story there. He was in no way obligated to speak His creative Word the first time, let alone a second time. His creation could have rightfully been destroyed. Yet, in his grace and providence, He established a plan to inaugurate a “new creation.” How was this new creation to come about? The same way in which the old creation came into existence: through the Word!  Inexplicably, the Word came to mankind a second time.

To be clear, a “second word” didn’t come. Rather, the same Word—the Word by which He created the world initially—came again, this time in flesh and blood. Jesus Christ—the incarnate Word—had a clear mission: extend the temple-presence of Yahweh over the face of the whole earth. God sent His Word into the world a second time that all things might be new, that salvation might explode over the face of the earth.

This expansive mission is also what the returned word to Jonah was all about. The rest of Jonah 3 tells the story of a foreign people, including their King, repenting and “believing God” (Jonah 3:5). To Jonah’s surprise (and dismay!) God had plans for the world which didn’t end with Israel. This “returned word” had a much bigger scope than Jonah had anticipated. It accounted for the far off city of Nineveh. Indeed, it accounted for the far off city of Nineveh’s cattle (Jonah 4:11)! This was an expansive, inclusive, all-encompassing word!

Of course, the story of a first word and a second word can’t sum up the biblical story any more than it can sum up the story of Jonah. To know Jonah, you must know the story of his “going down” and “coming up” from the fish. To know the story of Scripture, you must understand Jesus’ decent and assent from the grave. You see, in between the rebellion of the word and the radical salvation offered to the ends of the earth, there stands a chosen Israelite (Jonah 1:1-2; Mat 1:23). While it seems as though he is delivered to death solely by the hands of evil men (Jonah 1:15; John 19: 17-37), God is actually the primary agent of the man’s death, working according to His definite plan and foreknowledge (Jonah 2:3; Acts 2: 23). Death could not contain this man, however, and after three days he was resurrected from the deep (Jonah 2: 10; Luke 24: 1-12). This resurrected Israelite stood in the city of evil-doers, announcing the way of reconciliation with Yahweh (Jonah 3:4; Luke 24:27). God’s wrath may be spared, he announced; repent and believe, for God’s Word has come again! The story of Jonah, the story of Scripture, is the story of (1) the Word given, (2) rebellion against the Word, (3) death and resurrection, (4) the Word returning to extend the rule of God wider, longer, and deeper than anyone could have imagined.

If we look closely, we see that Jonah 3:1 not only summarizes Scripture, it summarizes our experience as individual believers. By nature we were each rebels of the Word—Assyrians by birth. Like the sailors, like the Roman soldiers, we find ourselves implicated in the death of the chosen Israelite. Yet, each of us heard the good news; the news that Christ was thrown overboard that the storm of God’s judgment might pass over our boat. Because Christ went down into the belly of death—cut off from the presence of the Lord—we can have eternal temple-access. Because Christ gave death indigestion, we can be spat up on to the shore of the new creation. Along with Jonah, we can gladly announce the good news, “the word of the Lord came a second time!”

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What kind of people are we called to be? We are called to be a liturgical people. Typically, these questions about liturgy entail the type or style of worship we are engaged in, but by liturgical people I have something else in mind. The term leitourgia, composed of the Greek words ergon (work) and laos (people) actually means “the work of the people.”To be liturgical in a church culture refers to the activity of the laity; of the parishioner.

So, when you hear people say, I don’t like liturgy, technically what they are saying is I don’t like to participate in the activities of the kingdom. It is not a matter of being liturgical, because to be liturgical is inescapable, but the question is what kind of liturgy you want to embrace. Ultimately, there are three choices: a liturgy of life, a nominalistic liturgy, or a liturgy of death. Those are the options.

In Malachi 3 Yahweh’s Messenger is going to offer himself as an offering pleasing to Yahweh. Jesus became an offering because he wanted a liturgy of life for the world. He wanted to be life in a world of death.

I met with someone recently who said his experience growing up as a Christian was a very nominal experience. The pastor may have seen him on Sunday morning, but there was no expectation to see him participate in the life of the body. In other words, he was satisfied with a nominal liturgy. Fortunately, he began to see that this was not producing the type of human being he wanted to be, so he decided to engage more and he found life as he began to immerse himself in the Bible and his community.

A dead type of liturgy simply indicates someone who has no inclination towards truth or righteousness. C.S. Lewis talked about this when he said that we don’t go to church to be entertained, we go to church to work through the structure of acts and words as we receive the sacrament, repent, supplicate and adore. Dead liturgy is pure entertainment; passive worship.

Liturgy, then, the work of the people, is sanctifying work. Hebrews 2:11 says that “for the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father.” So, as we approach the season of Lent, how does a liturgical life look like?

First, the liturgical man or the liturgical woman need to be aware of his role in the community. Every time I hear people say, “I love this community,” I think to myself: “This community was not created ex nihilo.” It takes your initiation and actions to make this a community a place where people are loved and desire to participate. It is incumbent upon those who are older in the community to set an example for those who are younger of what it means to live in community; what it means to live in a place where hospitality is second-nature and where encouragement and edification is a part of who we are.

Secondly, liturgical life is theological. It is hard to work, to act, to participate in the kingdom of God.  to be liturgically theological means that we need to practice the means of grace. They include, but are not technically limited to, prayer, which is contemplation of the Triune God; Scripture reading, which is discovering more about the Triune God, and worship, which is adoration of the triune God. These things are given to you so that you will become more like Jesus. How do you become theological? Far from an isolated academic exercise, a liturgical man is theologically communal. He seeks theology from the mouth of babes and the wisdom of the Church.

Finally, a liturgical person, it is obvious, is a person who treasures Jesus as his most precious treasure. Hebrews 2 says:

              For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, ¹²saying, “I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.”

Our Lord is not ashamed to be engaged in our family neither should we be ashamed to carry His name wherever we go. To be more precise, we should not be ashamed to proclaim his name in the assembly. You can’t be liturgical and not participate in the liturgy. As we near the Lenten Season, prepare your hearts to be with one another, to sing with one another, to join one another in this congregation praise. We are brothers and sisters. We are a family in the most biblical of ways. While the biological family will no longer exist in eternity, the church family endures forever. So, treasure worship, desire it, work in it, add your voices to it, help the visitor find his place in the service, help the mommy with three or ten little kids, show up, call, e-mail, text, pray, facebook, love, appreciate, and seek the well-being of your community.

This is how we become liturgical people. This is how we work well as liturgical beings and by doing so we become a liturgy of life to the world.<>объявления яндекс директghjdthbnm nbw

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I recently had the opportunity to interview popular speaker, writer, blogger, and Dean of Boyce College, Dan DeWitt. The questions focus around his most recently novella, The Owlings.

Messer: Why did you set out to write a “Worldview Novella?”

DeWitt: I’ve had the idea of a worldview focused story with talking owls for some time now, but it was after watching an interview with Richard Dawkins that I made up my mind to get to work. Dawkins published his book “The Magic of Reality” a few years ago, but I recently stumbled upon a video of him in which he flippantly dismisses anyone who believes the Bible as “stupid” and says that his book is aimed at helping young readers understand, and adopt, a naturalistic worldview.

Messer: Obviously, you have an interest in propagating the Christian worldview. Yet, you didn’t write a book full of propositional statements (i.e. Naturalism says X; Christianity says Y). Rather, you wrote a beautiful, compelling story. What value does “story” have in our worldview formation, and why did you choose this medium over another?

DeWitt: In the back of the book, I mention in the discussion guide for parents, “Every person has a worldview and every worldview is a story.” Every worldview has a belief about the beginning, the current moment, and even the end. Each worldview has an author, chance in the case of naturalism, and God in the Christian narrative. In the end it is not about what story is the most compelling, but which is actually correct. The gospel is simply a better story but it also has the added advantage of being true.

Messer: While the book is appropriate for a young audience, you do address some pretty complex issues (including the quantum vacuum!). Why should we go out of our way to discuss such “heady” things with our children? 

DeWitt: That is a perceptive and funny question. I actually had forgotten that I mention the quantum vacuum in the book, but it was more for parents who might read this with their children than for their children themselves. Though I don’t explain it in any amount of detail, I want a discerning parent, perhaps a skeptic parent, to see a reference like this and perhaps realize that this is a part of a thought out, though brief, contrast of two worldviews and not just an easy stab at convincing children. But there is also an element that I want young readers, my twin boys who are eight years old for example, when they are exposed to what the Apostle Paul describes as “plausible arguments” (Col. 2:4) to think to themselves, “I’ve heard about this before and remember that there are some problems with this theory and that there is a Christian response.” A mentor of mine once called this the “law of first mention,” which he explained to me as the authority someone holds when they are the first to introduce a significant or controversial idea. I want to be aggressive in establishing the position of “first mention” because of the explanatory power of the Christian narrative.

Messer: The Owlings centers around a boy, Josiah, who has a deep love and connection with nature; specifically, his family farm. Josiah grapples with the question “did I come from nature or God?” In school, he’s taught that there is only nature. The reflex of a parent who has a child being taught Naturalism in school might be to downplay nature. You do the opposite; you speak of nature as being “clues” to “beyond nature.”  Further, without giving too much away, Josiah doesn’t ultimately sacrifice his relationship with the nature he loves. Why should a parent embrace the dignity and complexity of nature in response to their child’s naturalistic education?

DeWitt: Because nature is God’s handiwork. Because it displays his glory and because it invites our reflection and directs our attention upward. In Romans Paul says that God has revealed his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature. We should allow nature to do its job well and beckon us to worship the Creator. We can learn something of God in studying nature; as Johannes Kepler once said, studying the natural world allows us to “think God’s thoughts after him.” Studying nature allows us to revel in God’s power, mourn the curse and its effects upon creation, and long for Christ’s return and the new creation. The Christian story allows for an appropriate response to nature understanding its beauty and also its ugliness, the peaks of the Rockies and the despair of a tsunami.

Messer: What does Clive the owl mean when he refers to senses beyond smelling, hearing, etc…?

DeWitt: The human experience is either the greatest hoax ever or it is the most profound clue in understanding the nature of reality. Either our moral inclinations, our religious longings, our sense of beauty, our perception of our own personhood, are all real, which the Christian account allows for, or they are illusions caused by chemical reactions in our brain. Bertrand Russell once said something like “What science cannot teach us man cannot know.” This is, of course, self contradictory since it is not a scientific value but a philosophical one. Russell’s worldview doesn’t allow for non-scientific categories which eventually erodes the foundations of nonphysical values like morality and even human optimism. I believe our greatest senses are non-physical. They certainly point to the most important truths.

Messer: In the study guide you quote Carl Sagan as saying the Cosmos is “all there is, or ever was, or ever will be.” What sort of effects does such a worldview have on a society? 

DeWitt: In some ways it does very little because most people aren’t concerned with making sure their value systems are consistent with their worldview commitments. Duke University philosophy professor Alex Rosenberg, in his book The Atheist Guide to Reality, does a good job, in my opinion, of giving a mostly honest depiction of what reality looks like if the cosmos is all that exists. He concludes that personhood, moral distinctions, and free will are all illusions hoisted on us by evolution to aid our survival. In the final evaluation, if the cosmos is all that is we will lose the very foundation of what it means to be human.

Messer: Josiah is mentored by a parliament of owls which includes such characters as Dorothy, Clive, Gilbert, and the intimidating Reuel. You’re known for teaching classes on the literature produced by the Inklings. Tell us what role the namesakes of these owls have had on your personal development. 

DeWitt: I’m thankful you noticed. Many readers don’t pick up on this, which surprises me because I feel it’s pretty obvious. The “owlings” are my depiction of what these great authors would in animal form. Much like Balaam’s donkey, I see the owls as spokespersons. I just thought I would add a little personality in and what better candidates than Dorothy Sayers, Clive Staples Lewis, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, and John Ronald Reuel Tolkien.

Messer: At one point, it’s said of Josiah and his friend Addi that they love to “bask in their imagination.” You are the Dean of a college which requires every major (Biblical Studies, Business, Education, etc.) to have a firm foundation in the Great Books. Why are Homer, Dante, Thucydides, and Milton valuable for a 21century imagination?

DeWitt: God has made us as whole persons. To ignore the imagination is to disregard a central part of the Imago Dei. In my experience, it is what both captures my intellect and captivates my imagination that leaves the greatest influence. The only way to develop and hone this skill is to linger in the thoughts and words of those whose stories have a proven track record of opening the eyes of the imagination to greater realities. I don’t claim to be a teacher in this domain, but I do hope to be a consistent student.

Messer: In this installment, Naturalism is addressed. What sort of themes do you hope to address in future installments?

DeWitt: My current goal is to write a total of five books in this series. I plan to systematically move through the worldview questions in James Sire’s important book The Universe Next Door. Though he has a total of seven categories or questions that he deals with, I think it will be best if I simplify it a little. The next book will touch on epistemology and the one after that on what it means to be human. My goal is to publish a book each fall and then in the spring offer a related Bible study that goes deeper on the particular topic of the respective book.

Messer: Thank you for your time!

DeWitt: My pleasure. I’m honored by the depth of questions. <>аудит продвижения астатистика поиска ключевых слов google

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Yesterday, the boy who came back from heaven admitted in a letter that he made the whole thing up. Setting aside the prescience of the boy’s name (Malarkey), and the fact that this whole debacle is remarkably similar to the Boy Meets World episode in which Cory has to come clean about the fire he supposedly helped put out, there are actually some valuable lessons to be learned. Indeed, the boy’s letter is full of courage, humility, and good-sense.

At the end of the day, the issue has never been about whether one particular boy was lying or being truthful. Actually, the problematic issue isn’t even whether it’s possible to go to heaven and come back. The problem is with the culture which glorifies such heaven-encounters; a culture which places a higher premium on human experience than divine promises. The problem is a product of a church which has so conflated one’s “testimony” with the “gospel presentation,” that the wilder the story of “coming into the Kingdom of Heaven,” the more assurance one can have.

Ultimately, this subjective-experientialism is not a publishing problem; it’s a worship problem. We go to church and see baptisms which claim to have little to do with God’s covenantal promises to the one being baptized, and everything to do with man’s promises to God. The sacraments have become the rainbow we offer to God, promising to never flood Him with our betrayal. What’s more, we’ve traded songs about God’s immovable, great, mighty character for songs about our great, immovable, mighty affection for Him.

Of course, it’s appropriate to sing songs about our love for God; and the sacraments are certainly “communal,” thus have an anthropological dimension.  The problem, as B.B. Warfield might say, is that we’ve become a people who think of ourselves as saved by faith alone, rather than saved by faith in Christ alone.  Our hope has shifted from the object of our faith to the subjective experience of the object. Is it any wonder our children think they have to drum up a “heaven” experience to have any assurance of faith?

Naturally, there are many ways in which to answer the question, “how did evangelical worship get to such an anemic state in the first place?” One historian shows the line going back to the mid-20^th century:

“The leaders of the neo-evangelical movement of the 1940’s hoped to give new significance to the word and in so doing did not spend much time thinking about one aspect of the Christian life—namely, worship—that has remarkable power to unite believers across generations and cultures on a weekly basis. They relied instead on the repertoire of worship practices inherited from American revivalism, which depended heavily on music to rouse seekers to walk the aisle and believers to ratchet up their devotion.”[1]

In other words, through “rousing” and “ratcheting,” through experience, our worship became an attempt to emotionally go up to God in heaven, not experience Him coming down in word and sacrament. Certainly, adaptations of 19^th century revivalistic methods in the 20^th century are a good place to start. However, as far back as the 17^th century Matthew Henry was dealing with a church-culture trying to go up to heaven. Says Henry in his March 6, 1692 sermon:

“Believe the revelation of the Word concerning the riches of Christ and his readiness to give it out to us. Say not, ‘How shall I go to Christ into heaven?’ No, the Word is nigh you (Rom. 10:8). ‘Tis Christ in the promise that you are to be close with. Come to him as Joseph’s brethren, to him for corn, humbled, submissive. Receive Christ and his fullness, give up yourselves to him.”[2]

Of course, the problem is even older than the 17^th century. The problem goes back to the people Moses found when he came down from Mount Sinai. Unsure as to when he was coming down with God’s word, they built an idol to worship in the meantime. It goes back to Babel, when the people attempted to build a mechanism tall enough to reach heaven’s door. Indeed, ever since being banished from Eden, man has attempted various self-rescue projects.  Man is more comforted by his own efforts upward than God’s action downward.

So, what’s the solution to our “going to heaven” problem? Well, in the same sermon Henry offers the means of grace as a crucial component to the solution. He calls the “ordinances” the “golden pipes by which the oil of grace is conveyed.” The evangelical church must recover a liturgy which respects the ways in which God has chosen to commune with His people.

You see, we don’t need a vision of heaven, or even an incredible experience at a retreat, to have assurance. We can have assurance because God has come down to us. In His Son, God climbed down Jacob’s latter. Contra Plato, the solution to the human predicament was not physical flesh becoming an ethereal “word.” No, the Word became flesh.  We don’t go to heaven, heaven comes to us. To go to heaven, to be anointed with the oil of grace, one must stop trying to find golden pipes other than the ones God has provided. Until such reforms are made in our worship, we can only expect more Boy Meets World reruns.

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