What a great comfort we receive in the knowledge that we belong, in both body and soul, to a sovereign God, who is by his very nature a merciful, gracious, loving God. His promises are for the good of His people. We may suffer in this life, and often we do. God does not promise that life will be easy. What God does promise that that He is faithful to His decrees.

Now a certain man drew a bow at random, and struck the king of Israel between the joints of his armor… and the king was propped up in his chariot, facing the Syrians, and died at evening.  (1 Kings 22:34-35)
The archery reference in this passage may be obscure at first glance, and yet the background is very familiar to us. At this point we see Ahab, the king of Israel in cooperation with Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, both at war against the nation of Syria. Prior to this battle, the prophet of the Lord had warned King Ahab that if he went into battle, then he would be killed.
Now we remember Ahab as the weak and wicked husband of Queen Jezebel, the same royal family which vigorously sought to destroy the Prophet Elijah. God had promised to punish Ahab for his wickedness. Scripture tells us the pride precedes destruction (Pr. 16:18); in the case of Ahab, his pride told him that God had no authority over him, and on that same day he was killed.
Ahab had a plan; he would go into battle as a common soldier, and asked the king of Judah to be dressed in full royal apparel. The scheme was that Syria would mistake Jehoshaphat for Ahab, and the result would be that Ahab would live, while Jehoshaphat would be killed.
A brilliant plan! But a plan that makes God to be small and man to be great.
A certain man drew a bow at random. What an interesting line!
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The regulative principle of worship suggests and bolsters a regulative principle of everything for the church. Doctrine, order, and doxology are a three-legged stool. When present and sturdy, these legs will bear great weight; when any are missing or compromised, collapse is imminent. Calvin would seem to agree with this thesis according to his famous statement about worship and soteriology in “The Necessity of Reforming the Church” (admittedly written before the presbyterian government was fully developed).

Thesis: No confessional presbyterian church will long remain confessional or presbyterian if it loses Reformed worship.
First, some definitions:

Confessional: orthodox soteriology and doctrine (doctrine of God, Christology, covenant) according to the Reformed confessions
Presbyterian: government by ordained male (per scripture) elders organized in accountable, graded courts
Reformed worship: scripturally regulated (RPW), simple, ordinary means of grace worship—a Reformed bucket to carry Reformed water.

Why will unscriptural, man-centered, culturally conditioned, over-contextualized worship undermine confessional orthodoxy? Because worship by its very form (which ought to be according to spirit—uppercase and lowercase— and truth) communicates certain things about the nature of God and man, thus theology proper and anthropology can’t help but be warped by unbiblical worship. Theology proper and biblical anthropology are the foundations of soteriology, which will also be warped by unbiblical (e.g.: revivalist or sacerdotal) worship.
Why will unscriptural, man-centered, culturally conditioned, over-contextualized worship undermine biblical, presbyterian church government? Because free-form, optional, variable worship forms suggest free-form, optional, variable ecclesial forms…or little form at all. And when worship is no longer led by ordained elders, government by ordained elders seems less plausible. Presbyterian order is not hierarchical, but neither is it excessively horizontal. Rolling it out too thin leads to its disintegration.
The regulative principle of worship suggests and bolsters a regulative principle of everything for the church. Doctrine, order, and doxology are a three-legged stool. When present and sturdy, these legs will bear great weight; when any are missing or compromised, collapse is imminent.
Calvin would seem to agree with this thesis according to his famous statement about worship and soteriology in “The Necessity of Reforming the Church” (admittedly written before the presbyterian government was fully developed).
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Written by R. Fowler White |
Thursday, September 26, 2024
The sin in Hebrews 10 is aggravated by the fact that the offense against Christ by the apostate in that text is worse in its character than the offenses of the crowds and the Pharisees against Christ in Matthew 12. In Matthew 12, the crowds were sinning against Him in thought and word, but it seems most probable that we’re to understand that they did so in some ignorance since the process of revealing His identity had not yet reached its culmination. On the other hand, the Pharisees were sinning against Him in thought and word too, but were also doing so in deed by conspiring to destroy Him (Matt 12:14).

Heb 10:29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?
Matt 12:32 And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
During a recent small group Bible study, a good question came up about the two passages above. Both passages describe sins against Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Strikingly, however, the offender against Jesus in Matt 12:32 will be forgiven, while the offender against Jesus in Heb 10:29 will be everlastingly punished. Do these two statements contradict one another, or do they harmonize with each other? If they harmonize, how do they harmonize? Here’s my take.
As a first step, it might help us to refer to two passages, 2 Pet 2:20-22 and Rom 2:4-5. In 2 Peter, Peter describes apostates. What stands out to me is 2:20, where Peter states that the last state has become worse for them than the first. I understand him to mean that the last state of apostasy is worse than the first state of (simple) unbelief, and that last state is worse because there is neither renewal from nor atonement for it. Turning to Romans 2, Paul says to the hardhearted and unrepentant hypocrite that you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath (2:5). For the hypocrite who continues in unbelief, God’s wrath against him only accumulates (and presumably gets worse by being compounded) for him over time. What I gather from those descriptions in 2 Peter 2 and Romans 2 is that unbelief is a state (condition) that may vary from bad to worse.
Another step that seems to help us is to keep in mind WLC Q/A 151, in which we are taught that sins may be aggravated by who the offender is, who the offended party is, what the effect of the offense is, what its character is, or when and where it happens. These factors, I believe, assist us to sort out some differences between Matt 12:32 and Heb 10:29. As I see it, though both passages record offenses against Christ, the sin in Heb 10:29 is aggravated in three ways that are not present in the sin in Matt 12:32. Those aggravations seem to clarify why the sin against Christ in Heb 10:29 is unforgivable, but the sin against Christ in Matt 12:32 is forgivable.
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