Written by Bruce A. Little |
Monday, October 3, 2022
Although there is much to this story, one area especially concerning to Schaeffer was the subtle slide away from the commitment to the doctrine of inerrancy.  Now some thirty-five plus years later that disaster is on full display as Evangelicalism is awash in cultural relativism. Although doctrinal statements in religious institutions and churches remain the same the real accommodation has come in the area of hermeneutics (methods for interpreting the Bible). The change in hermeneutics has been powered by cultural pressure as evangelicals embarrassed themselves as they became obsessed with the desire to be relevant to the world.

Over the past several weeks I have been writing on ideas spawned by thoughts from Francis Schaeffer’s book True Spirituality. Regarding the book, Schaeffer tells us that although the book would not be published until somewhat later, the final form of the content was completed in 1964. This means, in a sense, this was Schaeffer’s first book (technically, his first published book was Escape from Reason in 1968) and served as the heart of his theological thinking and ministry until the end of his earthly life. Schaeffer claimed that without the truths set forth in True Spirituality, there would have been no L’Abri (established 1955). This supports the claim that the teaching in True Spirituality was central to the development of his ministry shortly after moving to Europe.
On the other hand, Schaeffer’s last book, The Great Evangelical Disaster (1984) details Schaeffer’s lament over the state of Evangelicalism in America in the 1980s. He indicted evangelical Christians in America for failure to stand against the great spiritual assault on the Christian view of truth and reality. The result was that the spirit of the age rolled “on and on claiming to be autonomous and crushing all that we cherish in its path” (310).
The battle was over two contradictory views of “truth and reality.” For Schaeffer this was truly a violent spiritual battle waged within the actualities of human history. He thought few Christians really understood the threat this spiritual battle posed to Christian theology and practice. However, it was not only that the spirit of the age was not lovingly confronted, but it was that evangelicals mindlessly accommodated to it. The consequences were what Schaeffer termed as the great evangelical disaster.
When the two books are juxtaposed, I think a case can be made that the evangelical disaster developed, in part, because the evangelicals ignored the very heart of the Christian life as explained in True Spirituality. Although there is much to this story, one area especially concerning to Schaeffer was the subtle slide away from the commitment to the doctrine of inerrancy.  Now some thirty-five plus years later that disaster is on full display as Evangelicalism is awash in cultural relativism. Although doctrinal statements in religious institutions and churches remain the same the real accommodation has come in the area of hermeneutics (methods for interpreting the Bible).
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Among what these principles teach is that when a parent loves his family first and foremost, he neither loves God nor his family aright. One loves his children above God by pursuing their happiness rather than their Godliness, their respectability rather than their need for righteousness in Christ. Even to seek equally both happiness and Godliness is to deny God. It is to deny the primacy of a biblical pursuit of God, and that all blessings beyond knowing Christ are incidental to seeking first the kingdom of God. It’s to pursue God’s favor apart from thirsting after Christ. What can be more subtly idolatrous for the Christian?

There is nothing more amazing than the grace of salvation conferred to those who are afar off. And although conversion of covenant children is no less a matter of grace, pious parents ought not to doubt the election and subsequent conversion of their children.
Because covenant children are not among those who are afar off but are holy in Christ and members of his church, they are rightful recipients of the sign and seal of engrafting into Christ. Indeed, discipleship begins at the font.
Believers who are mindful of their vows and careful to do the commandments, statutes, and rules that God commands may have confidence God will visit their seed with the grace of salvation. (Exodus 20:5-6; Deuteronomy 7:9,11; Nehemiah 1:15) These same covenant blessings may not be anticipated by believers who are not diligent to pursue Christ and his precepts. Whenever God saves out of obscurity it’s always amazing; yet when God grafts out covenant children, it’s not nearly as surprising.
Grace begets more grace:
Believers have broken all God’s commandments. On a scale of the faithful – from the least at one end to faithful-Christ at the other – believers are compressed toward the least of the faithful relative to Christ. In that respect, all believers are in indistinguishable when compared to Christ. Notwithstanding, because God causes one to differ from another, we may not deny that one indeed does differ from another! In other words, obedience wrought in faith is a peculiar grace that we may expect to culminate in everlasting reward in Christ. (Mark 10:37,40; 1 Corinthians 4:7)
Sowing and reaping and spiritual adultery:
God is not mocked and is often pleased to operate according to a sowing and reaping principle with respect to spiritual blessings. Accordingly, when God saves the children of believers, he is often pleased to grant positive spiritual influences (usually parental) resulting in the training up of covenant children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Sadly, these formative influences sometimes come by way of examples of church members denying the faith. As tragic as that is, the grafting out of the seed of believers can be the pedagogical means by which God gets our attention and teaches parents to protect their own from the harmful influences of this present age. The manifestation of Scripture’s warnings culminating in the apostasy of covenant children works for the good of those who love God, those who are called according to his purpose.
Examples and warnings of a perishing seed are replete in Israel’s history up to this present day. Yet such examples of apostasy are often needful for faithful Christian parents, for without which they can lose motivation to persevere and not be as intentional about avoiding covenant curses for their own households.
All believers will be tested for steadfastness and perseverance; yet those who seek but do not receive are valued by God as having wrong motives. Moreover, believers are regarded as spiritually adulterous when their pursuits entail friendship with the world and behavior that is becoming of the enemies of God. (James 1:3-4; 4:3-4)
God’s decree and our responsibility:
We must be careful as we reconcile God’s predestinating grace with parental responses to God’s covenant promises. God’s covenant of grace cannot fail for it is established with Christ and the elect in him. (Genesis 17; Romans 9; Galatians 3; WLC 31)
The faithful who run in the ways of the Lord can expect their children to be fed with the heritage of Jacob as they grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful parents can expect their children are indeed elect, will come to faith in Christ, and persevere until the end. Whereas those who as a manner of life seek their children’s interests more than God’s can claim no greater than God’s abandonment of their offspring.
God’s covenant blessings are often released by the means of parental faith and obedience, though they are not ultimately based upon faith and obedience. When God sets his sights on visiting the future generations of believers with salvation, he is often pleased to grant the commensurate parental responses to receive the promises and blessings that the covenant of grace contemplates. Although not a quid pro quo, wisdom is nonetheless vindicated in her children.
Calvinism, not fatalism:
Because God’s decree cannot be thwarted, only those chosen in Christ will be saved. From that premise, Calvinists often wrongly assume that the non-elect could not have been saved had other gospel influences come to bear. That’s fatalism, not Calvinism. It is to miss that God’s ends do not fall out apart from their appointed means. God, according to his own purposes and most wise and inscrutable counsel, has withheld the election of some covenant children accompanied by the ordaining of unfaithful parents (and spiritual overseers) whom God will hold accountable along with those who have fallen away.
We must not confuse God’s decree with God’s assessment of human culpability.

The apostle Paul was innocent of the blood of all because he faithfully declared the whole counsel of God. (Acts 20:26-27)
Jesus warns that we can cause others to stumble from the kingdom of God. And although such demise will come to pass as God has determined, woes are preached to those by whom they come. (Matthew 18:3-7)
Lastly, Jesus would have gathered the children of Israel as a hen gathers her brood under her wings if not for the sins of their parents. (Matthew 23:37)

All that to say, election presupposes how the chosen are led to Christ.
The principle of not growing weary in well doing pertains all the more to parents who have been charged (even vowed) to lead their children to Christ.
For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. And then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. GALATIANS 6:8-10
Although one cannot lose his salvation, the branch of future generations is often cut off and thrown into the fire because of spiritual neglect, over confidence, and even willful disobedience. (John 15:5-6; Romans 11:19-22)
Because being careful to keep God’s commandments is the way of grace, parents play a prominent role in leading their children to close with Christ. That God is pleased to save the children of Godly parents should induce parents unto Godliness, not complacency. Conversely, it is God’s prerogative to graft out those born of believing parents whom God has not seen fit to ordain unto the grace of parental diligence and fidelity.
Practice to reflect reality:
Scripture and life-experiences teach that God delights in saving the children of faithful parents who strive to live out the reality of their children’s positional holiness in Christ. Because covenant children are set-apart in Christ and members of the visible church, faithful parents seek to nurture a home-life that’s commensurate to the spiritual reality that covenant children are born into.
Because Christian parents are to protect the deposit of faith, parents who believe their children are set-apart can have that gospel conviction vindicated by providing a well guarded home suitable for spiritual flourishing. Parents who recognize that a child’s heart is soil for the word of God will treat it ever so tenderly and do all within their earthly power to make it fertile. This includes vigilant prayer and helping to keep one’s child unspotted from the world with all appropriateness.
Faithful Christian parents have a sanctified vision for their children and strive by grace to raise them according to their biblical convictions. The pious parent loves his children by loving God more than them. He is single-minded, and sometimes the object of extended family and Christian ridicule. (Such a parent’s reward is great!)
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. MATTHEW 6:33
The prophet Malachi proclaimed that God had cursed the offspring of the priests for not honoring his name. Judah profaned God’s covenant, yet wonders in tears and groaning as to why they have fallen out of favor with God. They had fallen out of favor with God because parents did not pursue the one thing God was seeking, a Godly offspring. (Malachi 2)
Eli honored his sons above God, which resulted in his household being cut off. His failure as a father was that he esteemed his sons more than God. This resulted in Eli’s sons being counted as worthless men for they did not know the Lord. (1 Samuel 2)
Jesus taught that anyone who loves their child more than him is not worthy of him and his inheritance. (Matthew 10:37)
Among what these principles teach is that when a parent loves his family first and foremost, he neither loves God nor his family aright. One loves his children above God by pursuing their happiness rather than their Godliness, their respectability rather than their need for righteousness in Christ. Even to seek equally both happiness and Godliness is to deny God. It is to deny the primacy of a biblical pursuit of God, and that all blessings beyond knowing Christ are are incidental to seeking first the kingdom of God. It’s to pursue God’s favor apart from thirsting after Christ. What can be more subtly idolatrous for the Christian than pursuing the gifts more than him, the giver?
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Since the Bible is the very words of God (it doesn’t merely contain the word of God), it comes to us with the authority of its primary author, God himself. Those for whom the book of the Bible are named, tell us that Bible is God’s word written, and that it must be seen as divine speech given through human agency. And this speech instructs, corrects, and trains us in righteousness, because it repeatedly points us to its central character, Jesus, the Son of God who came to save us from our sin.

In Genesis 1:1 we read “in the beginning was God.” Echoing the opening declaration of the Bible, in John 1:1 we read that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” But John goes on to say “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The fact that God chose to reveal himself in the person of Jesus Christ (the eternal word made flesh) brings us to the subject of the inspiration and authority of the Bible. This is where God primarily chooses to reveal himself and his purposes to his people—in a collection of sixty-six written books which tell the story of God’s mighty deeds and words of explanation, all of which point to Jesus, the Word made flesh.
The Bible never claims to be an “inspirational” book which grants its reader greater spiritual insight or self-enlightenment. The Bible was not given to motivate us to live better lives, or to do great things. The Bible is given to us by God as a testimony to the Word made flesh (Jesus), who came to save us from our sins. This is what the various human writers of the Bible say about the Bible itself. What kind of book is it? What do they testify about it?
Paul says in his second letter to Timothy that “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” Although the term “inspiration of Scripture” is often used to describe God’s revelation of himself to us in written form, modern translations of the Bible (such as the ESV) correctly note that the word which the King James Version famously translated as “inspired” (theopneustos) is better translated as “breathed out” by God.
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