Through many dangers, toils, and snares,I have already come;’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,And grace will lead me home.

“Amazing Grace,” or “Faith’s Review and Expectation,” appeared in “Olney Hymns” in 1779, six years after it was first sung in the parish church at Olney. It was number 41 in Book One, devoted to “select passages of Scripture” the lone entry under 1 Chronicles. Newton viewed the prayer of David in that text, 1 Chronicles 17:16 and following, as a review of the operations of divine grace in his experience. David looked to the past, to the present, and then to the future. When the Christian contemplates the grace of God, he sees it in its seamless power, recognizing its effectual workings of the past, observing its sustaining power in the present, and confident of its immutable purpose in the future.

The text of “Amazing Grace” contains the word grace six times. Notably, verse two has the most direct exposition of the operation and effects of converting grace—grace to fear and grace for fears relieved. This is “grace upon grace” (John 1:16). John explains that the first grace was in this, “The law was given through Moses.” The grace that was layered on top of that was found in this: “Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). The powerful grace of the Spirit in using the law to teach the fear of God and the consequences of sin led inexorably to the grace of faith in the completed work of Christ. Led to biblical belief by the Spirit of God showing the glory of Christ, the believer finds such grace as precious when the assaulted conscience under the terrors of God’s curse on lawbreakers find release by the certainty of acceptance. Verse two captures it

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,  And grace my fears relieved;How precious did that grace appear  The hour I first believed!

Verse three continues with the emphasis on sustaining grace, the necessary concomitant to saving grace. All of it is of the same quality and necessary, not only for the power and effectuality of regeneration, but for sustaining faith in a world hostile to the gospel and those who believe it.

Through many dangers, toils, and snares,I have already come;’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,And grace will lead me home.

Verse four, five, and six look to the future of God’s sustaining grace in the believer’s life: “As long as life endures. … when mortal life shall cease, … will be forever mine.” Though the final three stanzas do not contain the word grace, the preciousness of the promises communicated find their origin and certain sustenance in sovereign omnipotent grace.

 Newton did not view grace as a cooperative power of God, but a unilateral and effectual exertion of power based on the eternal saving intent of God. In the preface to Olney Hymns, Newton made clear that he did not intend the hymn book to be an element of a polemical dispute with those who “differ with me, more or less, in those points which are called Calvinistic.” [Newton, 3:303] He was not out to promote controversy, but to edify the worshipper and convict the unregenerate of sin and absolute dependence on God. He claimed the freedom, however, as others of a different viewpoint claimed for themselves, to make his hymns as clear as he could on points of doctrine and Christian experience that glorified God and sent the sinner to the merits of Christ and the grace of God without reservation. “The views I have received of the doctrines of grace,” Newton explained, “are essential to my peace; I could not live comfortably a day, or an hour, without them.” As to any accusation that they promote carelessness and diminish evangelistic concern, Newton contended for an opposite viewpoint. “I likewise believe, yea, so far as my poor attainments warrant me to speak,” Newton averred, “I know them to be friendly to holiness, and to have a direct influence in producing and maintaining a Gospel conversation; and therefore I must not be ashamed of them.” {Newton, Works 3:303]

In a sermon entitled, “Sovereignty of Divine Grace Asserted and Illustrated,” Newton began his final paragraph with the encouragement, “Does it not appear from hence, that the doctrine of free sovereign grace is rather an encouragement to awakened and broken-hearted sinners than otherwise?” [Newton Works, 2:413, 414] Newton consistently encouraged his auditory to find in Christ not only a sovereign Savior, but a merciful and willing Savior. In 1800, preaching before the “Lord Maor, Aldermen, and Sherifs,” Newton closed a message on “The Constraining Influence of the Love of Christ” with an earnest appeal to flee from “everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord,” for “We have incurred the penalty annexed to the breach of this law.” [Newton 6:516]

To those who are sensible of their desert and danger, the gospel points out relief and a refuge. Jesus invites the weary and burdened sinner, and says, “Him that cometh, I will in no wise cast out. You have heard something of his glorious person, power, authority, and love. He is able, he is willing, he has promised to save to the uttermost all that come to God by him. Oh, that today you may hear his voice, and comply with his invitation! [Newton 5:516.]

When Newton, therefore, wrote of grace, he had in mind the sovereignly chosen, eternal disposition, of love toward sinners viewed as fallen and under just condemnation. From the unit of fallen sons of Adam, the triune God placed electing, redeeming, justifying, persevering love on particular individuals to bring them from being under a sentence of eternal damnation to inherit the status of sons of God and receive eternal life. In a hymn on Leviticus 8, Newton versed, “He bears the names of all his saints deep on his heart engrav’d; attentive to the states and wants of all his love has saved.” [Newton, 3:328] At the same time, that the gospel call is to be sent to all, Newton gave no pause. He wrote, “But Jesus invitation sends, treating with rebels as his friends; And holds the promise forth in view, to all who for his mercy sue.” [3:330] He used Samson’s lion to teach God’s protective grace for believers: “The lions roar but cannot kill; then fear them not my friends, they bring us, though against their will, the honey Jesus sends” [Newton, 3:333]. Contemplation on 2 Kings 2 in the story of Elisha’s healing the waters of Jericho with salt led to this verse. He emphasizes human depravity which can only be healed by grace.

But grace, like the salt in the cruse,

When cast in the spring of the soul;

A wonderful change will produce,

Diffusing new life through the whole:

The wilderness blooms like a rose,

The heart which was vile and abhors,

Now fruitful and beautiful grows,

The garden and joy of the Lord.

[Newton, 3:349]

The present experience of grace forms the substance of verse three. Newton viewed that experience in two parts—the dangers, toils and snares, of struggle involved in present sanctification, and second, the settled assurance that grace will lead us home. That idea is an element of and leads into the internal dominant hope (1 John 3:3) energized by the “Blessed Hope” (Titus 2:13) we find in verse 4–“His word my hope secures; He will my shield and portion be as long as life endures.”

Newton described the “fears-relieved” kind of grace (verse 2) in a sermon entitled “Grace in the Blade” on Mark 4:28. Though punctuated with various manifestations of immaturity, lack of knowledge, fright, and terror before enemies, this is a time “remarkable for the warmth and liveliness of the affections.” [Newton 1:202] This new and enthusiastic believer Newton has named “A.”

The next stage, “B,” is “Grace in the Ear.” (Mark 4:28). Whereas desire and perhaps rapidly fluctuating joy and despair characterize “A,” Newton saw conflict as the state of “B” leading to a maturing understanding of the nature of the conflict caused by the operation of the flesh against the Spirit. “Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come.” The person denominated “B” knows that grace has brought him safe thus far.

Having felt the wrath of God pacified by the blood of Christ, having achieved some spiritual equilibrium, and having seen the deadly enemies of the past held at bay, B may think that little conflict will occur in his future pilgrimage. He learns otherwise very soon. “Alas!” Newton says.” “His difficulties are in a manner just beginning; he has a wilderness before him, of which he is not aware.” God’s operations of grace will include some severe tests to “humble and prove him, and to shew him what is in his heart.” Aiming toward the “latter end” of life with more sustained comfort and anticipatory joy, this stage is designed by God “that all the glory may redound to his own free grace.” [Newton 1:205]

B learns that he lives “in a world that is full of snares, and occasions, suited to draw forth those corruptions.” [206] He is wiling to endure hardship and knows from Scripture that his heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, but he could never anticipate how deeply he could fall if left to his own devices and strength. When he finds respite from breakthroughs of perversity and malicious sin, God gives occasions in which he still will discover “new and mortifying proofs of an evil nature.” Hezekiah and Peter had exalted manifestations of grace followed by events in which, left to their own strength and determination, they fell to a sensible and distressing experience of their own evil nature when unsustained by immediate grace. A variety of experiences will teach B to be more “distrustful of his own heart” and view the way before him with ever-increasing conscious dependence on grace and “to suspect a snare in every step he takes.” [209]

As Newton described his own pilgrimage as person B, he found “multiplied instances of stupidity, ingratitude, impatience, and rebellion, to which my conscience has been witness!” [208] The person in this stage of pilgrimage in grace has a mind is more thoroughly informed by Scripture truth concerning the call to “lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us” (Hebrews 12:1). Parallel to that, and with a maturing grasp of the coordinate operations of the “renewing of the mind” (Romans 12:2) and the “renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5), he has an increased awareness and admiration of “the rich sovereign abounding mercy of the covenant.” [209] “Through many dangers toils and snares I have already come. ‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far.”

When the result of grace is the “Full corn in the ear,” the Christian pilgrim can say, “and grace will lead me home.” Newton labeled this stage of pilgrimage as the experience of “C.” He more fully develops this in verse 4, but the threshold to that stage is introduced here. C recognizes more profoundly that whether living or dead, he belongs to Christ. He knows that even if he lives as long as Methuselah, and does not enter heaven for centuries, this will mean fruitful labor for him. It will involve opportunities for glorying in Christ before a wicked and perverse age. Like Paul, he desires to be with Christ, knowing that such a state is far better, but he has learned to be content in any condition in this life and to trust God’s wisdom as to the time and condition of his entry to the heavenly presence of Christ among the “spirits of just men made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23), for he knows that, by invincible grace, his place there is assured. “Grace will lead me home,” and that same grace will sustain me while I am here.

Newton described this state of grace as characterized by humility, spirituality, and “a union of heart to the glory and will of God.” [214, 215] He learns humility in looking back “upon the way by which the Lord has led him; and while he reviews the Ebenezers he has set up all along the road, he sees, in almost an equal number, the monuments of his own perverse returns.” [212] He learns a deeper and more humble submission to the will of God in all circumstances. While he is impatient with his own failures in light of God’s immeasurable grace, he learns to bear with others as they also will stumble over the “snares of the world.” [213].

C learns more intensely how deeply rooted is the evil principle that clings to him in this life and thus learns to seek and value more profoundly the operations of the Spirit in mortification of the flesh. He learns how vain it is to cling to temporal things and how excellent it is to increase in the knowledge of God and conformity to Christ. As he looks with confidence to the grace that will lead him home, “He sees that the time is short, lives upon the foretastes of glory, and therefore accounts not his life, or any inferior concernment dear, so that he may finish his course with joy.” [214]

For C, grace still reminds him of the sinful pit from which he was lifted, and reminds him of the snares, dangers, and toils that once were more prominent and threatening than now. He still knows and feels the power of indwelling sin and yearns to be free of its hindrances. Increasingly diminished, however, is the fixture on oneself, and ever more prominent is a joy in savoring and contemplating the glories and beauties of God. “That God in Christ is glorious over all, and blessed for ever, is the very joy of his soul.” [216] They may have great grace for great difficulty and appear to make slow progress in their grasp of the glory of God. They may also have less intense outlays of grace for small difficulties and seem to advance rapidly. In both cases grace makes them endure.

Grace must sustain us from first to last.  Preceded by the grace of election, Christ’s condescension, and victorious resurrection, we are dependent on divine grace even prior to any experience of it in our hearts. Made by grace to fear the curse and brought by grace to embrace the cure, we find grace upon grace. Born spiritually by the Spirit’s grace and secured eternally by the Redeemer’s intercession, grace will lead us home.  The absolute and perpetual need of grace arises from the depravity of our hearts. We are humbled by this but not thrown down for an unending fountain of grace flows from the saving wounds of Christ “since Jesus is appointed to me of God, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; and since I find that, in the midst of all this darkness and deadness, he keeps alive the principle of grace which he has implanted in my heart.” [Newton 1:250, “On a believer’s Frames.”]

Last week our friends over at CrossPolitic (CP) posted a couple of podcast episodes that understandably offended large numbers of Christians who take God’s Word seriously. They did it in the name of “rowdy Presbyterianism,” serrated edge communication, and even brotherly love. Their original failure was bad enough. But their multiple follow-up defenses of their antics suggest that their mischaracterization of Baptists might be a feature, not a bug.
For the uninformed or slightly informed, what they tried to say is that the rampant individualism that permeates much of the Baptist and evangelical world can pave the way for transgenderism in America. But what they actually said is that Baptist theology “is the cause of” transgenderism. If you want to get up to speed you can go here to see the original source of the lingering stench they created when they intentionally stomped on some cow pies and then continued to track their mess throughout the reformed evangelical house. What they should have done once friends began to complain about the stink and collectively point to the source, was stop, remove their shoes, and start cleaning up the mess they made. That would have been both right and wise.
After all, that’s how Christians live, right? We are both believers and repenters. When the Corinthians became convinced by Paul’s rebuke that they had stepped in it what did they do? They grieved in a godly manner and repented and Paul commended them for it. “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter” (2 Corinthians 7:10-11).
Some may not judge what the CP men did as sin that needs to be repented of. Others understandably see the accusation as slanderous. In the spirit of 1 Corinthians 4:13, I would like to entreat my brothers to own what they have broadcast on their show and recant. Even if they cannot be convinced of sin, I hope they will at the very least realize that their words and actions have certainly catapulted way beyond the walls of wisdom and deep into the fields of foolishness. Either way, what was said should have been simply and plainly renounced.
Instead, they doubled down. “What stink? Let me explain to you why the sights and smells that you find problematic are really due to your hyper-sensitivity and not the poop on our shoes.” That basic thesis has been defended first by a follow-up podcast episode and then three (so far) written essays, not to mention various social media comments. The common theme in each is, “Hey, we didn’t do anything wrong. Why are your knickers in a knot?”
What They Actually Said
Gabe Rench has rightly appealed to people to “deal fairly with what we said.” I intend to do just that because burning straw men serves only to pollute the relational environment and is beneath the kind of good-faith engagement that should mark disagreements among Christians. Of course, the same is true about defending straw men when real men have actually been critiqued. More on that later.
In a CP show called, “From Slavery to Abortion to Transgenderism—The Church Led us to the Trans Movement,” David Shannon, Gabe Rench, and Jared Longshore were joined with video-guest, Jason Farley. Farley explained the rising transgenderism with its attendant mutilation of bodies with this statement (at 14:15): “This is just American Baptist Theology secularized.” At the end of that show, Shannon encouraged viewers to join the Fight, Laugh, Feast Club so that they could hear the rest of the conversation that would take place with Farley “Backstage.” Both of those shows are helpfully embedded in Gabe Rench’s article here.
Burning straw men serves only to pollute the relational environment and is beneath the kind of good-faith engagement that should mark disagreements among Christians.
That “Backstage” episode is entitled, “The Failure of Baptist Theology,” which precisely indicates that for which they actually argue during the next 27 minutes. That conversation, which continued without Longshore, opened with this exchange between Rench and Farley:

Rench: Let’s say I am Baptist Rench and you just said what you said.
Farley (laughing): I know. David gave me permission.
Rench: You came out and said that my view of waiting till my child is ready to confess faith in our Lord and then baptize them is, is related to the identity crisis found in transgenderism.
Farley: Yeah, I didn’t say “related to” I said, “is the cause of.”
Laughter by Knox & Rench
Rench calls that comment “a bomb” that Farley throws into the lap of faithful Baptist families, in essence saying to them, “you are the cause of the transgender problem.”
Farley: Yeah. Well, the pastor is, but yeah.

Farley goes on to talk about abortion being the church’s fault due to Christian parents because “we were the ones that started saying, “‘Not my kids,’ right?—that birth is not enough for me to say that, ‘Yes this is my kid’ because God doesn’t think in those categories. Right?”

Rench responds, “Right.”
Farely: Well, the categories that God thinks in are more real than any of the categories that I think in. So, if God looks at my kids and says,”‘Not my kids,” God is rejecting my kids before I ever do, then that’s a much deeper issue than [he does not finish his thought]. So then when the world comes along and says, “Well, look, they’re not even kids yet, right?”
Rench & Knox: Yeah
Farley: “We can kill them.” Just today, my 16 year old son who just got his driver’s license. We were driving home he was like, “Dad I was talking to my Baptist friend and I said, ‘So why aren’t you baptized yet?’ He was like, ‘Well you gotta make the choice and stuff.’ ‘Well, hurry up and do it.’ ‘Well, that’ s not really how it works, you gotta mean it and stuff.’
And he [Farley’s son] went on to say, “When your parents were adopted by God do you think that wasn’t going to include you? [Like God would say:] ‘I’ll take you but I don’t want your kids?’”
Rench: “Wow”
Farley quoting his son, who continues to speak for God: “‘I’ll be your dad but I won’t be your grandkids’ grandpa?’”
Rench: Right. Wow.

So here we have advocates of CREC theology applauding “God as grandfather” of “covenant kids.” More could be said but stop for a moment and just let it sink in a bit.
The grandfatherhood of God.
What about great-grandfatherhood? Are we to believe that when God adopts parents that He would seriously tell their grandchildren that He doesn’t want them? Does He really say, “I‘ll take you and your kids, but not your grandkids?” If yes, then why? If not, then…at what generation does the logic no longer hold?
I belabor this point for this reason: It makes clear what was actually said, affirmed, and commended by David Shannon and Gabe Rench and later defended by Toby Sumpter and Jared Longshore. You need to keep this in mind when you consider the defenses they offer when you listen to the 3rd video and read their written arguments. Because in the name of defending the points they actually made (as I’ve just documented) they actually try to defend that which they perhaps wish had been said.
What They Actually Defend
My purpose isn’t to critique every wrong thing that was said in this whole fiasco but rather to focus only on the foolish claims the CP guys made about Baptist theology and the problematic ways that they have responded to it once they were called to account. However, I do want to highlight the following comments by David Shannon. They added nothing to the purported explanation or defense of the erroneous and false accusations cited above, but they do reveal a wrong way of viewing the differences between Baptist and Presbyterian theologies (and therefore, practices).

Shannon: “I love my Baptist brothers more than they love me and I have evidence of that. I am part of a denomination, the CREC, that believes that Baptists and Presbyterians should not separate over the issue of baptism…. Every Sunday I am in communion and fellowship and membership with Baptists inside my Presbyterian church and we’re breaking bread at the table…. The way that Baptists view Presbyterians when it comes to be in relationship to them at the table in communion with them in membership in the church,… is that, ‘We’re friends but you can’t be a member of this church. You can’t have communion with us.’… Like if my children grow up and go to a Baptist church they have to be rebaptized.”

The assumption that a lower view of the importance of baptism is more loving than a higher view is unfounded. It is true that Baptist theology forbids any unbaptized person membership in the church. Of course, Presbyterian theology does the same thing—only those who have been baptized are proper candidates for membership in their churches, too. Baptists and Presbyterians are in complete agreement on this point.
Our differences are found in what constitutes baptism. Presbyterians practice paedobaptism. Baptists do not recognize that practice as legitimate baptism. We can fight (and, through the centuries, have fought) over what constitutes legitimate new covenant baptism, but we agree that only those who have been baptized can be members of our churches. There is nothing unloving to hold, following the clear teaching of the New Testament, the theological conviction that “Those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in, and obedience to, our Lord Jesus Christ, are the only proper subjects of this ordinance” (1689 Confession, 29.2). That means, in Baptist theology, only believers can experience biblical baptism. It has nothing to do with love but everything to do with biblical conviction. This is what causes Baptists to say that baptism is for believers alone.
Toby Sumpter doubles down on Shannon’s point a little later when he says that the practice of closed communion by a Baptist church is a “more extreme thing” than what Farley asserted about Baptist theology causing transgenderism. Both he and Shannon are confusing categories. Farley accused “Baptist theology” of causing transgenderism. A common practice for many (most?) Baptist churches for 400 years has been to fence the table against unbaptized people. The former is a scurrilous gratuitous assertion that scored points for being edgy and cool. The latter is rooted in careful exegesis of God’s Word that has resulted in deep doctrinal conviction that can be (and has been) debated. The effort to compare them and then to suggest that a long-held Baptist practice is “more extreme” than a silly assertion is a swing and a miss.
In Baptist theology, only believers can experience biblical baptism. It has nothing to do with love but everything to do with biblical conviction. This is what causes Baptists to say that baptism is for believers alone.
For what it is worth, I, a Baptist, have at times been uninvited to commune at the Lord’s Table with fellow Baptists while worshiping in their churches. By conviction, they regard the Lord’s Supper to be a local church ordinance for local church members. That is not my conviction, but I hardly find their practice offensive, unloving, or extreme. In fact, I rejoice that they actually care enough about it to take it seriously.
All this brings me back to my disappointment over the ways that the CP brothers have handled this whole unfortunate mess. Rather than deal with what was actually said, their defenses and explanations have centered on other things. For example, Shannon stated, “There are Baptist brothers who I don’t fit inside of the same box as American Baptist theological foundation system.” Gabe Rench echoed this defense in his written response to the controversy.

On our CrossPolitic show on Wednesday, my friend Jason Farley said the American Baptist theology turned-secular is why we have the trans culture that we have today (around the 14 minute mark). To be clear, I agree with Jason, and so did Knox and Pastor Toby. Also to be clear, we said the American Baptist theology, not Reformed Baptist theology. Distinctions matter, right?

Yes, distinctions do matter. Five minutes after Farley’s statement that transgenderism is “just American Baptist theology secularized” (in the original podcast) Shannon personifies the type of pushback that they anticipate that statement will evoke. Portraying Baptists who are trying to follow Christ faithfully he says,

There is a group of people that think that what they are doing—they are doing family worship, they are trying their very best, they are seeking to honor God in how they are raising their kids in every way, and saying, “We’re covenantal, we’re Baptist, but we are covenantal. Right?”

Which Baptists other than those who are Reformed would call themselves “covenantal?” It is disingenuous to suggest that Farley’s accusation was a sniper shot at “American Baptists” that excluded “Reformed Baptists” (or any other kind, for that matter) in light of Shannon’s characterization of the kind of Baptist that they are addressing. Further, the follow-up “backstage” episode during which they elaborate the charge is, as I mentioned above, entitled, “The Failure of Baptist Theology (my emphasis).” No distinctions. No qualifications. No exclusions. Just a shotgun blast with #8 shot.
On the episode that attempted to clarify their meaning (“Baptists vs Presbyterians? Christian Unity & Separation on Theological Issues”) Sumpter goes to great lengths to defend what Farley never said. After setting up his point by noting that Presbyterianism “can grow a certain kind of cancer” he remarks, “I’m a Presbyterian. I just hit myself.” For emphasis he added, “Were a bunch of Presbyterians white supremacists in the South? Yes.” Then he makes what he thinks is a valid point.

There’s really no difference in saying that and saying, “Does Baptist theology, can it grow mold? Can it grow cancer? Can it grow tumors? Can it become a corruption?” Who’s gonna say no? And, if Jason Farley says, “Hey, one of the tumors that Baptist theology can grow is radical individualism”…. James White is not even denying it; he’s saying non-confessional Baptist theology… is particularly prone to grow this kind of mold, to grow this kind of cancer. Does that lead to radical individualism… Does that turn into transgenderism? Yes.

I agree with this completely. “Who’s gonna say no?” But that is a different conversation from the one provoked by Farley’s broadside. Sumpter seems to think that Farley spoke in the subjunctive: “If Jason Farley says, ‘Hey, one of the tumors that Baptist theology can grow is radical individualism….,’” If that is what Farley had said, then no harm, no foul. Play on. But Farley spoke in the indicative. He asserted a statement as a fact. What he actually said is that the Baptist conviction of baptizing only those who confess Jesus Christ as Lord “is the cause of” transgenderism.
I wish someone would actually try to defend what he actually said and not what they might have wished he said. If the theological convictions and practices of Baptists are responsible for the transgenderism in our culture then at least try to make an argument to demonstrate it. Don’t take the worst examples of a theological position, or worse yet, a perversion of a position, highlight its deficiencies, and then claim to have made your case. If Baptist theology is the problem, then at least marshal some theological arguments.
The lack of such argumentation underscores another weakness of all the responses thus far, and that is the lack of any biblical engagement at all. I know some Presbyterians think my Baptist impulse to want actual biblical texts to undergird theological arguments and positions is a quaint type of biblicism. But if you are going to charge “Baptist theology” with failure and with causing the transgender movement in our culture, is it too much to expect at least a modicum of actual biblical exposition showing the error of that theology? If that is a request too great to bear could we at least have some proof texts cited? As I read the written responses and watched the videos it became increasingly evident that if the Bible were a virus then the CP shows and defenses would be in no danger of catching it.
If you are going to charge “Baptist theology” with failure and with causing the transgender movement in our culture, is it too much to expect at least a modicum of actual biblical exposition showing the error of that theology?
Well, much, much more could be said about the failures of the CP brothers in how they have handled the stink they have created. Rather than simply acknowledge the facts—that Jason Farley laid an egg with a slanderous statement that should be walked back—they have doubled down, tried to convince us of what we should have heard, suggested that those who find his accusation scurrilous and indefensible simply don’t know how to communicate like men, with a serrated edge, or especially like Jesus. As one young pastor friend graciously put it, these responses are “honestly close to gaslighting.”
While some might be impressed with all these moves, I, and I am guessing many others, have seen this play before. Rather than take the “L” and move forward, the typical way that most contemporary Christian organizations respond to legitimate concerns is to dismiss them as missing the point, being untoward, or having no relevance. Then the wagons are circled in hopes that the news cycle passes quickly.
Such responses always leave me cold because they are no different from those who have no Savior. Christians have no reason to resist owning our sin and failures. Our Lord was crucified and raised from the dead. We don’t have to pretend that we live sin-free lives or try to obfuscate or coverup when sin or shortcoming in our lives and ministries come to light. We can own it, repent, make things right, and move on in faith.
But that doesn’t seem to be the evangelical way anymore.
I hope better for the CP men.
After writing this I learned that both Jeff Wright and James White have responded to this fiasco. Both are worth your attention.

Follow Tom Ascol:

Tweet Share

“Thou shalt love the Lord the God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” (Deut 6:5) In this manner the Bible commands the chief of all duties. No reasons are assigned for the requirement. No proof is adduced that God exists, or that he possesses such perfections as entitle him to the supreme love of his creatures. Jehovah steps forth before the subjects of his government, and issues his command. He waits for no formal introduction. He lifts us his voice with majesty. Without promise, and without threat, he proclaims his law, and leaves his subjects to their responsibility.

From the manner of this announcement, we may derive instruction. It is not necessary that we should enter into a formal demonstration that God exists, or a formal investigation of his attributes, before we begin the duty of loving him. We already know enough of him for this; and to postpone the performance of the duty until we have completed our investigation, is to commence them with unsanctified hearts, and in rebellion against God. From the dawn of our being we have had demonstrations of God’s existence and character, blazing around us like the light of noonday. The heavens and the earth have declared his glory; his minister and people have proclaimed his name; he is not to us an unknown God, except so far as our minds are willfully blind to the displays of his glory. If, therefore, we withhold the affections of our hearts, we can have no excuse in the plea that more evidence is needed. And with hearts so alienated from God at the outset, all our religious inquiries are likely to be unprofitable. What probability is there that further proof will produce its proper impression and effect on our minds, if that which is already in our possession is unheeded or abused? If, from what we already know of God, we admire and love him, we shall desire to know more of him, and shall prosecute the study with profit and delight; but, if we have already shut him our of our hearts, all our intellectual investigation respecting him may be expected to leave us in spiritual blindness.

The duty required corresponds, in character, to the religion, of which it is an essential part. Heathen gods could not claim the supreme love of their worshippers; and heathen minds had no idea of a religion founded on supreme love to their deities. To some extent, they were objects of fear; and much that appertained to their supposed character and history, served for amusement, or to interest the imagination; but the conduct attributed to them was often such as even heathen virtue disapproved. Hence, they could not be objects of supreme love; and no one claimed it for them. The requirement of supreme love demonstrates the religion of the Bible to be from the true God; and when we begin our religious investigations with the admission of this obligation, and the full recognition of it in our hearts, we may be assured that we are proceeding in the right way.

The simplicity of the requirement is admirable. No explanation of the duty is needed. Forms of worship may be numerous and various, and questions may arise as to the forms which will be most acceptable. Many outward duties of morality are often determined with much difficulty. Perplexing questions arise as to the nature of repentance and faith, and the uninformed need instruction respecting them. But no one needs to be told what love is; the humblest mind can understand the requirement, and may feel pleasure in the consciousness of rendering obedience to it; and the learned philosopher stand in the presence of this precept as a little child, and feels its power binding every faculty that he possesses. This simple principle pervades all religion, and binds all intelligences, small and great, to God, the centre of the great system. Between it and the power of gravitation in the natural world, which binds atoms and masses, pebbles and vast planets, a beautiful analogy may be traced.

The comprehensiveness of the precept is ot less admirable. From it rises the precept, love thy neighbor as thyself; and on these two all the law rests. We lve our neighbors because they are God’s creatures, and the subjects of his government, and because he has commanded us. We love God supremely, because he is the greatest and best of beings; and we love other beings, according to the importance of each n the universal system of being. One principle pervades both precepts, as one principle of gravitation binds the earth to the sun, and the parts of the earth to each other. Tis law binds angels to the throne of God, and to each other; and binds men and angels together, as fellow-subjects of the same sovereign. The decalogue is this law expanded, and adapted to the condition and relations of mankind. Love is not only the fulfilling of the law, but it is also the essence of gospel morality. All Christian obedience springs from it; and, without it, no form of obedience is acceptable to God. He who loves God supremely, cannot be guilty of that unbelief which makes God a liar, and he cannot reflect on the sins which he has committed against God, without sincere penitence.

We must not overlook the tendency of this precept to produce universal good. Every one knows how much the order and happiness found in human society, depend on love. If all kind affections were banished from the hearts of men, earth would be converted at once into a pandemonium. What love is left on earth renders it tolerable, and the love which reigns in heaven makes it a place of bliss. Perfect obedience to the great law of love is sufficient to render all creatures happy. It opens, within the breast, a perennial source of enjoyment; and it meets, from without, the smile and blessing of an approving God.

Though the religion of love is clearly taught in the book of God only, yet, when we have learned it there, we can discover its agreement with natural religion. It will be useful to observe how the moral tendencies of our nature accord, on this point, with the teachings of revelation.

The wickedness of man has been a subject of complaint in all ages. The ancient heathen complained of the degeneracy of their times, and talked of a golden age, long passed, in which virtue prevailed. In modern heathen nations, together with the depravity that prevails, some sense of that depravity exists; and everywhere the necessity or desirableness of a more virtuous state of society is admitted. In Christian lands, the very infidels, who scoff at all religion with one breath, will, with the next, satirize the wickedness of mankind. It is the united judgment of every nation, and every age, that the practice of men falls below their own standard of virtue. It is, therefore, necessary, in order to acquire the best notions of virtue that nature can give us, to turn away from the practice of men to those moral sentiments implanted in the human breast, which condemn this practice, and urge to higher virtue.

It is well known that men judge the actions of others with more severity than their own. Our appetites and passions interfere with the decisions of conscience, when our own conduct is the subject of examination. Hence, the general moral sense of mankind is a better standard of virtue than the individual conscience. In looking to the judgment of others, with a view to determine the morality of our actions, the judgment of those is especially to be regarded who are to be benefited or injured by our deeds. Hence, natural religion approves the rule—Do unto others as you would, in like circumstance, that they should to unto you.

When the vice of others interferes with our happiness, we are then most keenly sensible of its existence and atrocity. However vague our notions of virtue may be, we always conceive of it as tending to promote the happiness of others. Yet it is not every tendency to promote happiness which we conceive to be virtuous. The good that we eat, and the couch on which we lie, tend to promote our happiness; yet we do ot ascribe virtue to these inanimate things. Virtue belongs only to rational and moral agents; and the promotion of happiness must be intentional  to be accounted virtuous. There is still another limitation. Men sometimes confer benefits on others, with the expectation of receiving greater benefits in return. Where the motive for the action is merely the benefit expected in return, the common judgment of mankind refuses to characterize the deed as virtuous. To constitute virtue, there must be an intentional promotion of happiness in others; and this intention must be disinterested. Natural religion does not deny that a higher standard of morality may exist; but it holds that disinterested benevolence in virtue, and it determines the morality of actions by the disinterested benevolence which they exhibit.

Some have maintained that self-love is the first principle of virtue, its central affection, which, spreading first to those most nearly related to us, extends gradually to others more remote, and widens at length into universal benevolence. This system of morality is self-contradictory. While it claims to aim at universal happiness, it makes it the duty of each individual to aim, not at this public good, bt at his own private benefit. Whenever the interest of another comes in conflict with his own, it is made his duty to aim at the latter, and to promote that of his neighbor only so far as it may conduce to his own. It is true, that the advocates of this system being in reason as a restraining influence, and suppose that it will so regulate the exercise of self-love as to result in the general good. According to this system,, if we, in aiming at our own happiness, practice fraud and falsehood with a view to promote it, and find ourselves defeated in the attainment of our object, we may charge our failure, not on the virtuous principle by which it is assumed that we have been moved, but on the failure of our reason to restrain and regulate it so as to attain its end. If it be said, that conscience will not permit us to be happy in the practice of fraud and falsehood, and that self-love, aware of this, avoids those practices so inconsistent with our internal peace, it is clearly admitted that conscience is a higher principle of our nature, to the decisions of which our self-love is compelled to yield.

As virtue aims at the general good, it must favour the means necessary for the attainment of this end. Civil government and laws, enacted and executed in wisdom and justice, are highly conducive to the general welfare, and these receive the approbation and support of the virtuous. Were an individual of our race, by a happy exception to the general rule, born with a virtuous bias and were this virtuous bias fostered and developed in his education, he would be found seeking the good of all. His first benefits conferred, would be on those nearest to him; but his disinterested benevolence would not stop here. As his acquaintance extended into the ramifications of society, his desire and labour for the general good would extend with it, and civil government, wholesome law, and every institution tending to public benefit would receive his cordial approbation and support; and every wise and righteous governor, and every subordinate individual, aiming at the public good, would be an object of his favour. If we suppose the knowledge of his individual to increase, and his virtuous principles to expand, widening the exercise of universal benevolence; and if, at length, the idea of a God,, a being of every possible moral excellence, the wise and righteous governor of the universe, should be presented; how would his heart be affected? Here his virtuous principles would find occasion for their highest exercise, and would grow into religious devotion. This glorious being would have the highest place in his admiration and love; and the discovery of his universal dominion would produce ineffable joy. Such are the affections of heart which even natural religion teaches, that the knowledge of God’s existence and perfections ought to produce.

In God’s written word, we learn our duty in a reverse method. We are not left to trace it out by a slow process, beginning with the first exercise of moral principle in the heart, and rising at length to the infinite God; but the existence and character of God are immediately presented, and the first and chief of all duties is at once announced: “Thou shalt love he Lord thy God with all thy heart.” How sublime! How appropriate! The virtuous mind is open to receive such a revelation; and its perfect accordance with the best teachings of natural religion, recommends it to our understandings and our hearts. The second commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” is introduced, not as leading to the first, but as subordinate to it. It takes the place which properly belongs to it in a revelation from the supreme authority.

Love has been divided into benevolence, beneficence, and complacence. This division may at first appear inconsistent with the simplicity which ahs been ascribed to love. Benevolence is the disposition to do good to an object, and beneficence is the conferring of that good. The latter is not properly love, but the effect or manifestation of it. On the other hand, complacence includes the cause of the love together with the affection itself. Love may be exercise toward an unworthy object, as when God loves those who are dead in trespasses and sins. But it may be exercised toward those whose moral character renders them fit objects. In this case, the love being connected with approbation of the character beloved, is called complacence. When love has an inanimate thing for its object, as when Isaac love savory meat, the term refers to the deriving of enjoyment; but when the object of love is a sentient being, the term always implies the conferring of enjoyment, even when some pleasure has been received, or some enjoyment in return is expected.

Love to God implies cordial approbation of his moral character. His natural attributed, eternity, immensity, omnipotence, &c, may fill us with admiration; but these are not the proper objects of love. If we worship him in the beauty of holiness, the beauty of his holiness must excite the love of our hearts. As our knowledge of these moral perfections increases, our delight in them must increase; and this delight will stimulate to further study of them; and to a more diligent observation of the various methods in which they are manifested. The display of them, even in the most terrible exhibitions of his justice, will be contemplated with reverent, but approving awe; and their united glory, as seen in the great scheme of redemption by Christ, will be viewed with unmixed and never-ceasing delight.

Love to God includes joy in his happiness. He is not only perfectly holy, but perfectly happy; and it is our duty to rejoice in his happiness. In loving our neighbor, we rejoice in his present happiness, and desire to increase it. We cannot increase the already perfect happiness of God, but we can rejoice in that which he possesses. If we delight in the happiness of God, we shall labor to please him in all things, to do whatever he commands, and to advance all the plans, the accomplishment of which he has so much at heart. Love, therefore, includes obedience to his commands, and resignation and submission to his will.

Love to God will render it a pleasing task to examine the proofs of his existence, and to study those glorious attributes which render him the worthy object of supreme affection. Let us enter n this study, prompted by holy love, and a strong desire that our love may be increased.