Godly, Courageous Leadership: The Need of the Hour
No organization will be healthier than its leadership. That is true in business, politics, sports, and education. It is also true in churches, Christian networks, and denominations. As a pastor that is a sobering reality that constantly challenges me never to lose sight of the Apostle Paul’s admonition in 1 Timothy 4:16 to keep a close watch on myself and on my doctrine. The reason that Scripture places far more emphasis on a pastor’s character than his gifts or proficiencies is because what a pastor is required to be is more important than what he is called to do.
When a pastor forgets this, he can easily drift into professionalism, relying more on mental muscle-memory than the Holy Spirit to carry out his responsibilities. That quickly devolves into trusting in gifts rather than grace and can result in a pastor operating on autopilot rather than walking and leading by faith. It is spiritually deadly—both for the man and the church he serves.
Good, courageous leaders—including church leaders—serve as stack-poles for those who follow them. They will stand if they have someone to lean on. Absent such leadership, good causes will go unsupported and bad causes will go unresisted. Good people often remain timid and uncertain when their leaders remain mute in the face of such causes—both good and bad.
This has been demonstrated time and again the last few years in the American evangelical world and especially in the Southern Baptist Convention. Key Christian leaders have refused boldly to support the good cause of seeking equal protection under the law for unborn babies. Some have even boldly opposed it. Too many influential Christian leaders have also failed to oppose the infiltration of godlessness and godless ideologies, including critical theory and feminism, into their churches, seminaries, and organizations. As a result, many Christian churches, organizations, and institutions are floundering, and many sincere Christians confused and suffering.
The need for godly, courageous leadership in our churches has never been greater. That’s why I deeply appreciate the insights of Alistair Begg on this subject. My wife and I are reading through volume 2 of his daily devotional book, Truth for Life, 365 Daily Devotions. The following is taken from his March 15 entry. May the Lord give more godly, courageous shepherds to His people in these needy days.
In the middle of the 20th century, the Church of England commissioned a report entitled Towards the Conversion of England. The goal was to discover what was taking place within the parishes of the Anglican Communion. In that report, the writers came very quickly to the topic of leadership, on which they observed, “A spiritual leader can often make an astonishing difference.”* The adjective “spiritual” is crucial. If the church is going to flourish in the world, it must have spiritual men in the position of leadership. Although we are distanced from that report by many years, and although a lot has changed since then, the strategic necessity for spiritually mature leaders, in whatever country or denomination we are in, has not changed. No church of Jesus Christ progresses beyond the spiritual progress of its leaders.
Every sports team has a captain or equivalent. Each member of the team may be equally valuable, but someone has to lead. Without a captain, a team loses direction and will often lack the discipline needed to win. The same is true in an orchestra: without a conductor, it risks losing coordination and any meaningful sense of harmony.
The necessary role of leadership is true in every area of life—and it’s no different with God’s people. Jesus was the leader of a group of twelve disciples. When He ascended to heaven, Peter and James appear to have become the leaders of the apostles and the church in Jerusalem. The apostles then established leadership in the local churches. When Paul wrote to Titus, he was very concerned that the right kinds of men were appointed to positions of leadership within the church (Titus 1:5-9). If an error was made in who was appointed, then the resulting damage would not be easily undone. And when he had limited time near Ephesus, it was “the elders of the church” who Paul summoned to Miletus in order to encourage and exhort.
Without good leadership, chaos easily follows. Many of the unsolved problems in the life of local churches can be traced back to defective leadership. Conversely, the resolution of problems almost always can be traced back to effective leadership.
If success depends upon the quality of leadership, then Christians should care deeply about leaders within their local church. Christ purchased the church with His own blood, and it is through the church that God intends to display His glory in the world and to the spiritual realms (Ephesians 3:10). Take time, then, to pray for your leaders. Consider how you can actively encourage them to faithfulness and in their labors. Be someone whom to lead is an occasion for joy and not groaning (Hebrews 13:17)—for your leaders’ sake, and for yours.
*Towards the Conversion of England (J.M. Dent, 1946), p. 3.
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The Resurrection of the Body
31:2. At the last day, such of the saints as are found alive, shall not sleep, but be changed; and all the dead shall be raised up with the selfsame bodies, and none other; although with different qualities, which shall be united again to their souls forever.
(1 Corinthians 15:51, 52; 1 Thessalonians 4:17; Job 19:26, 27; 1 Corinthians 15:42, 43)
31:3. The bodies of the unjust shall, by the power of Christ, be raised to dishonour; the bodies of the just, by his Spirit, unto honour, and be made conformable to his own glorious body.
(Acts 24:15; John 5:28, 29; Philippians 3:21)
Second London Confession, 31:2–3It was a cold, gray February afternoon when we buried my grandfather. The ground was still muddy from the snow that had melted earlier in the week. Every tree was bare. The small crowd under the tent shivered against the cold as the national guard officers folded the American flag they would present to my grandmother. But into the sorrow, the gathering of family members and friends read the Apostle’s Creed from the tiny bulletins issued to them by the Methodist minister: “…I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting, Amen.” I was struck by the power of that ancient Christian confession against that bleak backdrop. It was also struck by how few funerals I attend ever even mention the hope of bodily resurrection.
In most funerals I attend, and in most popular discussions about death I observe, the focus of the Christian hope falls almost exclusively on what theologians call “the intermediate state:” the promise that upon death, the believer’s spirit leaves the body behind to dwell in the presence of Jesus in heaven. On the one hand, this emphasis is perfectly reasonable, since it is the immediate hope of all the saints who die before the Lord’s return. We are right to celebrate Jesus’ assurance that, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43) We rejoice that “the spirits of the righteous” are now “made perfect” in the heavenly assembly (Heb 12:23) . We find unspeakable comfort in the truth that to be away from the body is to be at home with the Lord, that for the believers, to die is gain, and that it really is better by far to depart and to be with Christ (2 Cor 5:6; Phil 1:21, 23).
But while our immortal spirit’s reception into heaven is the believer’s immediate hope, the Bible teaches that it is not our ultimate hope. As wonderful as the intermediate state will be, it is, well, intermediate. An even great future awaits the people of Jesus! A hope even richer, more thrilling, more satisfying. It takes the whole story of the Bible to understand this audacious Christian confession: I believe in the resurrection of the body.
“To the dust you shall return”
The Bible’s first two chapters map out God’s design for human life: embodied human beings made in his image, living forever in fellowship with him in a perfect, physical creation. This, God says, is “very good.” (Gen 1:31). But by Genesis 3, the rebellion of those image-bearers has destroyed God’s beautiful design. Sin’s consequences are not only spiritual and moral, but physical: the once-submissive creation now rebels against its former caretakers, and bodily life is now marked by pain, sickness, weariness, and, ultimately, death. The man formed from the dust, made to live forever in face-to-face fellowship with God, must now return to the dust (Gen 3:19). The relentless recitation of the deaths proceeding from Adam in Genesis 5 bears grim witness to the awful wages of sin, and to the unyielding truthfulness of God’s Word: “in the the day that you eat of it, you will surely die (Gen 2:17; Rom 6:23).”
These opening acts in the biblical drama remind us that there is nothing “natural” about death. Death instead is an “enemy” (1 Cor 15:26), a sinister intruder on God’s good design for human life. The Genesis patriarchs wept over the bodies of their dead loved ones for good reason (Gen 23:2), and so do we. All human beings—whether they affirm the Bible’s account of reality or not—instinctively know that death is not the way it was meant to be. I can see it in the “gone but not forgotten” memorial decals on the pickup trucks in my hometown. You can sense it in the feverish attempts to stave off the aging process in fitness centers and cosmetic products. I can hear it in the quavering voice of the old bluegrass singer Ralph Stanley, pleading: “O death, won’t you spare me over til another year, won’t you spare me over til another year…”
The apostle Paul tells us that these are all so many manifestations of creation’s “groaning” under the unnatural curse of death; we long to be “set free from [our] bondage to corruption (Rom 8:21).” But will anyone hear these groans? Can anyone deliver us from death?
“…those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake”
Yes! Standing in the ruins of Eden, God not only pronounces judgment, but promises salvation: “I will put enmity between you and the woman,” God tells the Serpent, “and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Gen 3:15). God did not disclose the details of his plan, but he made it clear that he would one day restore the beautiful kingdom our sin had destroyed, and deal with the awful curse of death itself.
For the rest of the Old Testament, God’s people cling to the persistent, if shadowy, hope that Yahweh would overcome death for them. One catches the patriarchs’ hope beyond the grave in their insistence on securing burial plots in the land of promise (Heb 11:22). We hear it also in Job’s confession that, “after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another…” (Job 19:26–27)
The prophet Isaiah foresaw a day when the Lord would spread a feast for his people on Mount Zion, and “will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken (Isa 25:6–8).” Near the end of the Old Testament, Daniel articulates God’s coming victory over death explicitly in terms of a bodily resurrection: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever (Dan 12:2–3).” By the time Jesus comforts Martha at the grave of Lazarus, it seems Daniel’s expectation has taken hold among God’s people: when Jesus tells Mary that “your brother will rise again,” Martha immediately responds “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” (John 11:23–24)
One thing this brief survey indicates is that, the saints of old longed for more than a strictly spiritual “life after death.” Rather, they looked forward to the complete undoing of death, in a glorious, bodily resurrection at the end of history. They did not know that before that could happen, Someone would first blaze a trail through death, right smack in the middle of history.
“In him was life”
From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus seems intent on nothing short of abolishing death (2 Tim 1:10). Beyond his seemingly endless reversals of leprosy and other terminal illnesses, Jesus repeatedly disrupts the funeral services of unsuspecting mourners. From the widow of Nain’s son (Luke 7:11–17), to Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5:35–43), to his friend Lazarus (John 11:38–44)—Jesus with only a mere word reaches into the realm of death to retrieving its prey. There was precedent for miraculous healings, and even resurrections, in the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, but Jesus’ sheer audacity in the face of death is entirely new. He bullies death. He takes for himself the brazen title, “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25–26). He makes the staggering claim that one day “all who are in the tombs” will hear the sound of his voice and come out to give an account to him (John 5:28–29). Never had anyone spoken like this man! (John 7:46)
But all of this is made to seem like just a sad delusion when Jesus succumbs to the curse of death himself. After an agonizing and humiliating crucifixion on Good Friday, the one who called himself “the Life” (John 14:6) is rendered a “corpse (Mark 15:45).” The dead body of Jesus is wrapped in burial clothes, anointed with spices, bathed in tears, and sealed in a tomb—presumably to return to the dust like every son of Adam before him. Yet there were also hints that, even in his violent death, “the Life” was still lurking—from his strangely victorious cry before his final breath (John 19:30), to the rending of the Temple curtain, to—least explicable of all!—the opening of the tombs of the Jerusalem saints (Matt 27:52–53)! Improbable as it seems, could it be that Jesus’s own death was in fact his own master strategy to empty the graves of God’s people once and for all?
Of course, this is precisely what his followers discovered to be true on Sunday morning. The tomb of Jesus had been vacated, his discarded grave clothes neatly folded and left behind (John 20:6–7). “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” the angels asked, “He is not here, he is risen, just as he said.” (Luke 24:5–6) Over the next forty days, the risen Jesus would himself appear to more than five hundred of his followers(1 Cor 15:6). As they heard his voice and touched his flesh, it was clear that this was the same Jesus they had known and loved before. “It is I myself,” Jesus assured them. (Luke 24:39) Yet Jesus was also unmistakably different. His resurrection wasn’t like that of Lazarus, or Jairus’s daughter, who returned from death the same, only to die again later. Jesus had passed into an entirely new state. His body, subject to ordinary limitations during his earthly ministry, now had amazing, supernatural properties: he appeared and vanished at will; he could pass through grave clothes, a sealed tomb, and locked doors. As Jesus would explain, he had not simply “survived” death; he had broken death (Rev 1:18).
And he had done it for them.
“Swallowed up by Life”
The apostle Paul helps us connect Jesus’s resurrection to our own future hope. Now ascended to God’s right hand, the risen King Jesus will one day return to us; when he does, he will transform our bodies to be just like his on that first Easter morning. “But our citizenship is in heaven,” he reminds the Philippians, “and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.” (Phil 3:20–21)
This transformation our bodies will undergo will be like that of a seed that has been buried in the ground. A seed goes into the soil as a bare kernel, but it bursts forth at harvest as a beautiful, golden shaft of wheat! It is the same seed you left covered in dirt, but its transformation leaves it almost unrecognizable! In the same way, these mortal bodies of ours will one day go into the ground, completely used up and expired. But on resurrection morning, Jesus will raise that same body in an entirely new condition: “What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. What is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” (1 Cor 15:42–44)
What assurance this gives us as our fallen physical bodies ache and age, get sick and grow weak. Paul compared life in these bodies to living in a “tent”—fragile, uncomfortable, temporary living quarters. In these tents, we often “groan,” longing for better, stronger, more permanent bodies. But instead of giving our hearts to bitterness, self-pity, or despair, Christians look with confidence to the resurrection bodies Jesus has promised us:
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. (2 Cor 5:1–5)
This new body is the destiny of every believer, even if we are still living at the Lord’s return. “We shall not all sleep,” Paul tells the Corinthians, “but we shall all be changed.” Jesus will outfit all of his people with a body like his, that can sustain the glory and joy of eternal life in a world made new. When the last trumpet sounds and the dead in Christ rise, those still alive will experience “the perishable putting on the imperishable,” and “the mortal putting on immortality.” It will be the work of a moment when Jesus appears—“in the twinkling of an eye”—but at the arrival of King Jesus, death will forever be swallowed up by life (1 Cor 15:50–55).
With this “great change” accomplished, we will at last know that unbroken reunion between Christ and his people that our hearts ache for in this life. As we together rise to meet the Lord, we know that all the “former things” that parted us before have now “passed away.” All things have now been made new, and “we will always be with the Lord. (1 Thes 4:14–17; Rev 21:1–4)
The hope of bodily resurrection makes the “committal,” or graveside service of a believer into a sacred moment of worship and gospel proclamation. Here, we remind each other that Christians are right to grieve for their loved ones who have died in the Lord, as Tabitha’s friends did for her (Acts 9:39). But we do not grieve without hope, as the world does (1 Thes 4:13). Instead, our hearts brim with confident expectation at the graves of our brothers and sisters. We have not abandoned them to the ground; we have planted a seed that Jesus is coming to raise up new, beautiful, and permanent. Our relationships have not been permanently severed; their bodies have “fallen asleep in the Lord,” and on resurrection morning, Jesus is coming to wake them up. Through a Savior whose love is stronger than death (SOS 8:6), they will rise again, and so will we. And so we will always be with the Lord.
“Then comes the end”
The Bible’s grand story is not complete without the bodily resurrection of God’s people. It is blessedly true that the spirits of our loved believers who die before the return of Jesus will immediately be welcomed into his blessed presence upon death. But Jesus did not come merely to provide a detour around death for his people. He came to destroy death. To do this, Jesus invaded the tragic story of the first Adam as a “Second Adam,” a hero come to reclaim all that the first Adam lost of his Father’s “very good” world in the beginning. That mission remains unfinished so long as that sneering enemy, Death, claims the body of even one of his people. That is why the grand finale of Jesus’ victory will be the destruction of Death in the glorious, bodily resurrection of all who belong to him:
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. (1 Cor 15:20–28)
The scene Paul describes is breathtaking. Before the world began, God’s Son had accepted a dangerous and costly assignment from his Father: to rescue sinners and reclaim his Father’s world, no matter the cost (John 17:1–5). On other side of that completed mission, the Lord Jesus now stands before his Father in the company of all his redeemed, resurrected people. Every promise has been kept. Every enemy has been vanquished. Not one sheep is missing. All things are now in subjection to him, the world’s rightful ruler. Then, shining like the sun, we will watch in awe as that faithful, noble Son presents it all as a gift of love to his Father. I don’t know exactly what it will feel like in that moment when “God is all in all.” But I think it may be something like what C. S. Lewis tried to capture at the conclusion of his Narnia stories:
And as He spoke . . . the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.Tweet Share
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Remembering Jesus Christ In Our Suffering
This article is part 5 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)
Paul’s strong emphasis on the central points of Christ’s person and work is designed to elevate the thinking of Timothy above the concerns any might have for safety and acceptance in this life, if at the same time it means proving untrue to Christ. We must remember—see the eternal covenantal purpose of God as centered on Jesus Christ—so that nothing in this life can draw us away.
One specific concern that Paul has is the power of physical and political intimidation to make us forget. He already has admonished Timothy not to be “ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me his prisoner” (1:8). The “testimony of our Lord,” in light of this context could refer to the words of Jesus in Mark 8:38 where Jesus is explaining what is involved in denying oneself, or losing one’s life for the sake of Christ, in order to follow Christ. “Whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
That Paul in this instance has in mind physical persecution for the gospel as the challenge to the professing Christian is clear when he states, “for which I suffer hardship even to imprisonment as a criminal” (9). His suffering was well-known by Timothy (3:10, 11). Paul admonished him, “Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2:3).
Paul had a two-fold purpose in referring to his various sufferings for “my gospel.” One, his suffering sealed in his experience the absoluteness of the gospel. He was willing to lose all including life because of the “surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things.” He even desired to know “the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death” (Philippians 3:8, 10). He was, in fact, at that moment contemplating that soon his life would be taken for he knew that “the time of my departure has come” (4:6). Nothing, therefore, could dissuade Paul from his clear and convinced proclamation of the finality, absoluteness, and consummate truthfulness of “Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of a seed of David, as preached in my gospel.” He had come to believe, embrace, cast the very essence of his existence on the truth of the proposition that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). If the former enemy, willing to imprison and kill those who believed the gospel had changed so radically that he now gladly suffered imprisonment and the prospect of a martyr’s death, who could doubt the certainty of his conviction? Who, but the most irrational skeptic, could deny the truth of Paul’s message?
The gospel will not fail; it will prevail, and its power will be manifest in the faithful suffering of his people.
Second, Paul not only used his suffering to glory in the truth of the gospel, but also its power. “The word of God is not chained, imprisoned, or bound in any way” (9). The divinely-ordained harmony in the use of means in service of absolute sovereignty must be contemplated with reverence when we read, “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of the elect, those who are chosen, so that they also, along with me, may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory” (10). Elect in Christ in eternity past, saved in Christ in this present age, secured in Christ for undiminished joy for the eternal age yet to be. The gospel will not fail; it will prevail, and its power will be manifest in the faithful suffering of his people. Even in the face of heresy, Paul can affirm, “Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, ‘The Lord knows those who are His.’”(19).
The gospel proceeds into the world through suffering, succeeds through suffering, and gives power to endure suffering. The gospel certainly will succeed, and Christ will lose none of his sheep; not a one for whom the Shepherd has died will fail to enter the sheepfold. But such certainty arises and is perfected in suffering: Christ suffered and died; the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church; and believers will choose eternal life in Christ even in the face of the threat of death for believing. “How unworthy it is,” Calvin proposes, “that we should think more of the fleeting life of this world than of the Holy Name of the Son of God.”
Paul summarizes this amazing integration of certainty secured through endurance by means of a confession or hymn called a “faithful saying” used in the apostolic church to teach this truth. It has a memorable pattern of rhyme and rhythm in Greek. Responses and results of true belief are set in parallel with responses and results of faithlessness to Paul’s gospel. The one whose faith arises from the electing purpose of God endures; the one left to his own faculties, will wilt under pressure.
For if together with him we die, also together with him we live;
If we endure the load, we will also reign with him.
If we shall deny him, also that very one He will deny.
If we prove to be without faith, He remains faithful,
For to deny Himself he is unable.
Dying with Christ refers to His propitiatory substitution for his people and implies their willingness to share his earthly suffering. Atoned for objectively and suffering experientially means that we attain the resurrection of the just. The other points of the confession naturally follow. It ends with the strong affirmation of the unperturbed eternal decree of God and the immutable truthfulness of his threats toward unbelief.
The gospel proceeds into the world through suffering, succeeds through suffering, and gives power to endure suffering.
This hymn also is reminiscent of the words of Jesus when he commissioned and instructed the twelve prior to their mission including warnings about persecution: “Whoever confesses me before men, him will I also confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32, 33). Jesus words were meant for the hearer and the preacher, of whom one was Judas. Remarking on this passage in 2 Timothy, Calvin wrote, “His threat is directed to those who from terror of persecution give up their profession of Christ’s name.” The admonition that has led to this sobering discussion is “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of a seed of David, according to my gospel.”
In discussing this passage with a PhD student from SBTS, Michael Carlino, he sent the following response after looking at both the language and the entire theological context of the hymnic confession. I found his remarks helpful and faithful to the text. “It would seem irresponsible exegetically to suggest that God will be faithful to the faithless by granting salvation in 13, because Paul is explaining in 13 why God is just and good in denying the apostate. For God to not deny the one who doesn’t endure/denies him, would be for God to deny his own character/nature. And it would then take away from the glory of verse 11, which promises that those who share in Christ’s sufferings will indeed reign with him. For, if God can deny himself and grant salvation to the apostate, the elect who endure unto death have no confidence in God’s trustworthiness. In other words, Paul is teaching that God’s denying of the apostate flows from God’s immutable character, just as the assurance of God’s receiving of his saints flows from God’s immutable character.”
Those who are apostate, those who fall away from what they have professed, have never had the root of the new birth. That heaven-wrought transaction shifts the affections from the world to the glory of God as seen in Christ. Something else—arising from threat, covetousness, intellectual fascination, or flattery—has shown that their most abiding affection is for the world and not Christ. Paul assures us that “He who began the good work in you will bring it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).
Again, we see what a pervasive and existentially profound theological admonition Paul gives in saying, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of a seed of David, according to my gospel.”
This article is part 5 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ.
Join us at the 2024 National Founders Conference on January 18-20 as we consider what it means to “Remember Jesus Christ” under the teaching of Tom Ascol, Joel Beeke, Paul Washer, Phil Johnson, Conrad Mbewe and Travis Allen.
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Reassembling the Wreckage of Religious Freedom: Why Now *Is* The Time For Urging Liberty of Conscience and Supporting Those Seeking Religious Exemptions
Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.— Romans 14:4 —
On the backside of a Sharp Top Mountain in Southwest Virginia lies the wreckage of World War II vintage air craft. On a training mission in February 1943, five airmen lost their lives as they flew a “low-level nighttime navigational” mission, a mission that ended with tragedy and the debris of a B-25 littered throughout the wooded hillside.
Today, if you leave the trail on Sharp Top and look for the fuselage, engine, wings, and other parts of the crash site, you will find a plaque memorializing the event. On an otherwise unmarked hillside, this memorial is the only sign explaining the mangled metal left standing in the woods. Yet my point in bringing up this piece of atlas obscura is not to focus on the plane crash, but to liken it to the state of our religious liberty today. Today, we can find scattered pieces of religious freedom in our country, but by and large most Christians do not know how they got there, how to assemble them, or how to make them fly. For instance, the recent TGC article undermining the sincerely held beliefs of Christians is a prime example.
In that article, Christian lawyer, John Melcon, explains “Why Your Employer Can Deny Your ‘Religious’ Vaccine Exemption.” In the article, he explained the way “religious exemption laws” work and cited three bad arguments for seeking a religious exemption: (1) personal autonomy, (2) my body is my temple, and (3) abortion complicity. In his estimation, the abortion argument “is perhaps the strongest case,” but by comparison to the welcome use of other drugs (e.g., “Tylenol, Claritin, or their favorite anti-aging skin cream“), he insists that this argument is most likely an example of great inconsistency. (N.B. For a quick response to the Tylenol retort, see this Liberty Counsel post).
In his other two arguments, however, the claim is not inconsistency, but denying that personal autonomy or bodily choice is a truly religious reason for seeking a religious exemption. For Melcon, this leads him to reserve religious exemptions for later, greater threats to the Christian faith. It is this argument that I want to address. Instead of addressing his three examples, which are presented with a striking likeness to someone headed for the Emerald City, I want to consider whether waiting for some later crisis is the best strategy. Even more, I will argue that the increasing statism of our country is coupled with a religious fervor that does not call for patient endurance, but bold witness to the truth.
This Really Is a Religious Liberty Issue
As I have written recently, the presidential mandate for Covid vaccines is one motivated by religious interests. With a religious belief in science, those in power are using the force of the state, the threat of job loss, and the fear of disenfranchisement to coerce public and private employer and employees to get the vaccine. Instead of convincing the public of the vaccines beneficial effects, the state is taking a page from Nike’s playbook coercing people to “just do it.” And sadly, Christians thought leaders are playing right along.
Last week, John Piper made the argument that Christian freedom should lead those who are fearful of getting the vaccine to get the vaccine. But ironically, that fear focused not on the anxiety caused by the adverse effects of the vaccine, or the medical concerns, or the uncertain side effects or long terms effects. The fear focused on those who feel pressured to not get the vaccine. But what group of people is putting fear into the heart of Christians not to get the vaccine? I am sure there could be some, but those individuals do not have the force of the federal government behind them.
In this case, I think Piper is misreading the field. The pressure mounting upon Christians is going in the other directions. And Piper’s article is only, if unintentionally, contributing to that pressure. Still, his article is benign compared to that of John Melcon who calls to question the arguments some are putting forward in an attempt to seek a religious exemption. Indeed, Melcon’s article is one of many Christian hit pieces putting pressure (read: binding consciences ) on those who conscience is bound to not get the vaccine. With sophisticated legal speech, Melcon gives cover for employers and the powers that tax them, as it persuades Christians that it is fool’s errand to seek a religious exemption. But is it? Is it really out of bounds to seek a religious exemption for the Covid mandate? And should we strategize to hold off on seeking a religious exemption now, in order to seek it later?
I wouldn’t be writing this article, unless I disagreed. And I am not the only one. In a short string of tweets, lawyer, professor, and ERLC legal fellow Sam Webb had a few things to say in response to Melcon’s article. Stripping out the Twitter formatting, here’s what he said in response:
Article XVI of the New Hampshire Confession—a Baptist confession used 150+ years—states: “We believe that civil government is of divine appointment, for the interests and good order of human society, and that magistrates are to be prayed for, conscientiously honored, and obeyed, except only in things opposed to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only Lord of the conscience, and the Prince of the kings of the earth.”
If a Christian who holds no settled convictions against this Confession … cannot in good conscience—or, put differently, in good faith—submit to a government-mandated, employer-enforced vaccination because that Christian believes such mandate, action, or vaccination is “opposed to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ”for any number of reasons, then such objection is, in fact, a sincerely held religious belief and an exemption is warranted.
To cause such Christian to act contrary to conscience—even if ill-formed conscience!—is to claim lordship over the conscience which is further violation of that Christian’s sincerely held religious belief that “Jesus Christ…is the only Lord of the conscience.” Even more, what cannot be done in good faith is sin (Rom. 14:23) and so to force vaccination against conscience is to cause sin.
Let’s end the crusade of binding the consciences of brothers and sisters in Christ on disputable matters and let’s love our neighbor by advocating for the freedom of conscience—even if we disagree with the exercise of such conscience.
This is the exactly right! As I have counseled and signed off on multiple religious exemptions, I have not necessarily agreed with every one of the arguments being made, but I have, after listening to the formulation of the believer’s argument, perceived what their sincerely held, biblically-informed belief is. And because of that recognition of sincerely held beliefs, I have supported those Christians who have put their livelihoods in jeopardy in order to follow their Lord. I have urged them to count the cost, but I have not tried to shame them or bind their conscience. This, after all, is what Romans 14:4 calls us to do, and this is what John Melcon has failed to do.
Let’s end the crusade of binding the consciences of brothers and sisters in Christ on disputable matters and let’s love our neighbor by advocating for the freedom of conscience—even if we disagree with the exercise of such conscience.
With no appreciation for how Romans 14 works or any concern that he might be binding his brother’s conscience, Melcon’s argument results in a pressuring Christians to drop their sincerely held beliefs, because after all, it hurts the rest of us. Unfortunately, this is the same logic that governments are rolling out in this country and across the world (think Australia): “You need to think of the collective good and stop resisting on personal grounds. After all, there is no religious reason not to get the vaccine. It’s just medicine.”
For those who are most sensitive to the issues of religious liberty, however, all coercive arguments will fail. And should fail. As Lutheran writer Matthew Cochrane has observed, “Our government has forgone convincing us and has instead resorted to bullying, censorship, abuse, and coercion. But threats and propaganda do not absolve us of the God-given responsibility to make our best judgment based on the information available to us—even the information government bureaucrats, Big Tech, and corporate interests hide because it casts reasonable doubt on the vaccines.” And unfortunately, many Christian leaders are not far behind them in their tactics or persuasion. And this, I believe, is because they don’t see the bigger picture.
The Bigger Picture: Our Secular State Is Not Irreligious
What’s the bigger picture? Namely, the way that the vaccine mandate—not the vaccine qua vaccine, i.e., the vaccine as a medical prophylactic—is a religious sacrament and a by-product of America’s growing statism.
For the last decade, Charles Taylor’s magnum opus, A Secular Age, has been a constant reference for understanding the “immanent frame” of our world. The Gospel Coalition even published a book in Taylor’s honor, and for good reason. Taylor, in his terminology, has explained how the secular world has lost its sense of divine transcendence and God’s place in our world. Accordingly, the modern secularism has made it is easier to disbelieve than to believe. Whereas Christendom explained the world in spiritual terms and religious practices, the five hundred year project which resulted in today’s secularism has left a vacuum where God once stood.
Christians know that God is not absent. As Francis Schaeffer put it, he is there and he is not silent, but in today’s naked public square, arguments for God are not permitted and this partially explains why religious exemptions are not appreciated. It was a different day when the language of the first amendment was penned. At that point, religion still possessed honor as a civic good. Today, however, religion, and especially Christianity, is seen as a nuisance and a source of bad behavior. This is why the Equality Act and SOGI policies are on a collision course with Christianity. Sexual liberty has become the new religion and that means that religious protections are now being transferred from people of faith to their secular offspring.
If we are to enjoy any religious liberty going forward, we cannot take a strategy that waits for worse cases to arise.
This is also why Melcon makes the case the way he does. He thinks that by playing our religious exemption card later in the game we will be better off. But what he doesn’t consider—in addition to binding consciences—is the fact that the government is not a religiously neutral or interested in well-timed religious liberty. Rather, it is actively carrying out a religious crusade, albeit one that speaks with scientific and not sacred speech. This is the point that needs to accompany Taylor’s observations. Our world has not only adopted a secular worldview, but in the absence of Christianity, and its secular offspring (i.e., civil religion), secular individuals have deified the state to celebrate and support their hedonistic desires. As Zygmunt Bauman has noted in his book Liquid Life, modernity is not only “presented as a time of secularization (‘everything sacred was profaned,’ as young Marx and Engels memorably put it) and disenchantment.” It is also a time where the enlarging state has adopted and enforced religious values. He continues,
What is less often mentioned, however, though it should be, is that modernity also deified and enchanted the “nation,” the new authority—and so by proxy the man-made institutions that claimed to speak and act in its name. “The sacred” was not so much disavowed as made the target of an “unfriendly takeover”: moved under different management and put in the service of the emergent nation-state. (Bauman, Liquid Life, 44; cited in Peter Leithart, 1 and 2 Kings, 64)
This is what most of our Christian leaders have not sufficiently appreciated. With the election of Joseph Biden, we have seen an unending array of executive orders and economic decisions that have further tied the citizens to the state (think: government bailouts) and forced the state on the citizens (think: all the policies of the CDC). Topping the list of government intrusions is the vaccine mandate. And because this mandate have come with all the trappings of a religion, we now have a state that is forcing its religion on its citizens.
No Religious Liberty Without Liberty of Conscience
If you don’t see how the secular state is instantiating its religious point of view, I encourage to open your eyes. Again, I have outlined this point in a previous article. For now, let me simply connect the dots from religious liberty to liberty of conscience.
Returning to the wreckage on Sharp Top Mountain, we should consider that it would be impossible to know what it was or why it was there without a memorial explaining the crash. Such is the case with religious liberty as well. Many can see the fuselage, the wings, and the engines of religious liberty scattered throughout our country. But very few can put all the pieces together and understand how it works and how it got here.
How many who have read the Bill of Rights, if they have read the Bill of Rights, know what it took for James Madison and the Founding Fathers to make a place for religious liberty? How many critique a religious exemption understand the connection to Romans 14? Evidence for our inability to understand Romans 14 has been seen for the last year. Too many evangelicals have interpreted Romans 13 as a divine imperative to do whatever the government tells you, without considering first who gives the government their authority. Then, interpretations of Romans 14 continue in confusion, because Christians are not trying to protect their brothers freedom. In Melcon’s case, he is (unintentionally) siding with the state to bind other’s freedom. And why? Because now is not the time to raise religious concerns.
All in all, we have lived off the rations of religious liberty for nearly two and half centuries, and it is time to relearn how all the pieces got there and how to reassemble them so that that religious liberty might fly again. Unfortunately, arguments like the one offered by John Melcon and John Piper and countless other Johns demonstrate that even the most lucid among us still don’t quite know how this thing flies.
If we are to enjoy any religious liberty going forward, we cannot take a strategy that waits for worse cases to arise. Rather, we need to reintroduce, rewaken, and reinforce the arguments for religious liberty. This must be done in the public square and in countless conversations with Christians and their neighbors. In fact, this is one of the growing benefits of the religious exemptions. In our local church alone, I can report countless opportunities Christians have taken to share the gospel and their religious convictions about the vaccine.
And you know what? It has had effect, not just on other Christians, but on atheists, and agnostics who have seen the merit of personal liberty of conscience and the demerit of forcing people to get a vaccine against their will. This is what it will take for religious liberty to gain a hearing in public, as well as Christians being willing to suffer for their beliefs. This is what turned James Madison’s heart, when he saw the six Baptist pastors jailed for their faith. And this is likely what will turn other hearts today, witnessing people willing to suffer for the sake of conscience.
Yet, such conversations and suffering will not come if we continue to bind the consciences of other Christians. And this is the other place we need to talk about religious liberty: in the church.
In the church, we need to encourage Christians to form their consciences around God’s Word. But we must also permit Christians to form their consciences differently. When we fail to do that, however, we fail to follow Romans 14, and we further fracture the witness of the church, not to mention hurting individual members who are trying their best to follow God with all their heart.
We must make biblical arguments on the subject, learning afresh how Christians have resisted tyranny, so that we can recognize and resist tyranny in the present.
In such cases, the path of another might not be your path, but it is the path that some servants of the Lord have taken and will take. And in that time, we should as Sam Webb put it, “end the crusade of binding the consciences of brothers and sisters in Christ on disputable matters and let’s love our neighbor by advocating for the freedom of conscience—even if we disagree with the exercise of such conscience.”
This is what Melcon’s argument does not do. It may understand the legal ramifications of religious exemptions and it purports to know what will happen if people seek them. But it does not demonstrate an appreciation for liberty of conscience itself. And the point I am making is that if we are going to see religious liberty in public, it will require the church in America to grow up in its understanding of liberty of conscience among its own members. This means pastors teaching on the subject, Christians standing firm for the truth, and other Christians—whether they share the same conviction about Covid vaccines or not—supporting others who are willing to suffer for their beliefs. Indeed, there have been many Christians in church history who have held different beliefs on different Christians practices. But one thing that has benefitted the Church in America has been the freedom to exercise their religion without the coercion of the state.
Today, with the state taking on its own religious practices, we are not in a place where we can wait for a better time to exercise what remains of our religious liberty. No, teaching the church and our neighbors how to recognize the scraps of religious liberty is where we must begin. We must make biblical arguments on the subject, learning afresh how Christians have resisted tyranny, so that we can recognize and resist tyranny in the present. Indeed, now is the time for us to connect religious liberty with liberty of conscience, and to stop making arguments that aid the state by leading Christians to sin as they ignore their consciences.
If we fail to do that now, we will have little hope of standing later. And for that reason, for those who are standing up and submitting religious exemptions, we need to pray for them and promise them that we will hold them up as they follow their Lord and our Lord—whether or not they are doing it in the same ways that we would. Such is the way of liberty of conscience and the way Christians need to truly affirm the faith of their brothers and sisters.
Soli Deo Gloria.Tweet Share