Written by David S. Steele |
Saturday, June 24, 2023
The dead guys I’m referring to are the ones who believe in the authority of Scripture and embrace the doctrinal foundations that fuel our Christian lives.  One of those dead men is none other than Charles H. Spurgeon (1834 – 1892) who died over 120 years ago.  He remarked, “I shall live and speak long after I am dead.” John Rogers is dead, yet he still speaks.  So what can the dead guys teach us?  And what is the rationale for learning from these dead guys? 

The smell of burning flesh hung in the air.  The villagers turned their heads and gasped.  Stray dogs fled.  The man’s wife wept bitterly.  His children watched in disbelief.  The stench was a vivid reminder of who sat on the throne.  Mary Tudor ruled with ironclad authority.  Her subjects were obligated to obey.  Any dissenters would pay the ultimate price.  The world would remember her as “Bloody Mary.”
 The day was February 4, 1555.  The man roped to the pyre was known well in the British village.  A man of humble origins.  A man with bold ambitions and simple obedience to match.  A man who dared to challenge the throne with two simple acts – preaching the Word of God and printing the Matthews-Tyndale Bible.  His name was John Rogers.  Pastor, father, martyr.  He was the first Christ-follower to pay the ultimate price of death during Mary’s bloody reign of terror.  He was the first of hundreds who would die at the hands of this blood-thirsty tyrant.
John Rogers stands in a long line of godly men; men who preached the truth, lived uncompromising lives, and finished strong.  Like Rogers, some were martyred.  Others died of old age or were tormented with disease.  Those who stand in the long line of godly men still have something to say.  Their courage emboldens us.  Their lives inspire us.  Their theology instructs us.
Hebrews 11 recounts the stories of some of the godly men and women of Scripture that were people of faith – people who still have something to say.  The Word of God says, “Now faith means that we have full confidence in the things we hope for, it means being certain of things we cannot see.  It was this faith that won their reputation for the saints of old” (Heb. 11:1-2, Phillips).  God’s Word says, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6, ESV).
The historical figures in Hebrews 11 received their commendation from God – that is to say they were recognized by the God of the universe.  The Bible says they were commended by God for their faith; for displaying remarkable courage under fire, resilience, and soft-hearted obedience.  Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Gideon, Samson, David, and Rahab were commended through their faith.
Hebrews 12:1 says that these heroes of the faith are a great cloud of witnesses  who surround us – giving us great impetus to “lay aside every weight, and sin which  clings so closely, and run with endurance the race that is set before us.”
Here is what’s intriguing.  All of these heroes (with the exception of Enoch) is dead.
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Biblical eschatology contemplates not that the kingdom of this world would be replaced by the kingdom of Christ, but rather a coexistence of two kingdom realities until the summing up of all things in Christ. (Ephesians 2:19ff; 1 Corinthians 15:22-28). What the Jews missed is something that too often escapes many evangelicals as well – that Christ’s kingdom is a present reality as the former things are passing away.

The four part drama of creation, fall, redemption and consummation is not just soteriological but eschatological and covenantal. This is to say, the whole of redemptive history is according to promise and fulfillment. Yet perhaps less familiar to many of us is that redemption in Christ has made the future now present.
With respect to promise and fulfillment, at the heart of God’s redemption is a foretaste of things to come – a spiritual reality that is enjoyed now in proportion to the extent in which it is perceived and believed. As we await the final adoption of our bodies on the last day, believers have already entered into the age to come. As enlightened believers who are born from above, the communion of saints on earth already taste of the heavenly gift, the word of God, and even the powers of the world to come as members of Christ’s body who share in the Holy Spirit. (Romans 8:23; Hebrews 6:4-5)
Back to the garden, a refresher on how it all began:
The first covenant God entered into with man was a covenant of works. (Hosea 6:7) Although life was promised to Adam and his posterity upon the condition of one man’s perfect and personal obedience, the terms of the covenant were nonetheless a matter of divine condescension. Adam was the recipient of unmerited favor by virtue of having been created in original righteousness, holiness and with natural religious affections. Perpetual faithfulness would have ultimately resulted for Adam and his offspring in further blessedness, perhaps even consummated communion with his Maker. Yet in God’s unsearchable wisdom, Adam fell from his original state of sinlessness according to God’s eternal and unchangeable design.
After our first parents plunged themselves and the human race into sin, misery and death, God revealed his eternal decree pertaining to the redemption of creation. In the protoevangelium God speaks into existence a deep seated enmity between two seeds, Christ and Satan. As a result of the fall and by divine fiat, the spiritual antithesis would now extend beyond the King of Kings and the prince of darkness unto their respective spiritual offspring – God’s ordained objects of divine mercy and wrath. (Genesis 3:15; 2 Corinthians 11:3; WSC 13)
Grace without the sacrifice of righteousness:
The second covenant, more commonly known as the Covenant of Grace, was established with the incarnate Son and, through eternal identification, those chosen in him. Christ, the second Adam by divine appointment, would be the chosen race’s new representative before God. It is Christ who would perfectly obey God’s law, even vicariously on behalf of those given to him by his Father. Accordingly, the terms of the second covenant were not discounted. There was nothing cheap about the second covenant compact. Christ would indeed earn the redemption of his people, even as life was offered to Adam beforehand. (Genesis 17:7; Galatians 3:16,29; Romans 9:8; WLC 31)
Similarities with striking differences:
Although the second covenant is called a Covenant of Grace, its gracious nature would not pertain to the second Adam but only to the recipients of his vicarious work on their behalf. The difference between the two covenants is all the more striking precisely because its righteous demands were not lessened. The incarnate Son took on the demands of the covenant of works on behalf of sinners, even in an oath of self-malediction. (Genesis 15:17)
Yet with the fall of man life alone could no longer be offered, for there were none righteous from below. Any offer of life would now have to be accompanied by an offer of deliverance from sin’s penalty and power. If life were to be offered, it would be accompanied by salvation through One who must come from above.
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The emergence of sexual liberation as a rising public value and an essential human right means that Christians are accused of “bigotry,” “hatred,” “homophobia,” “heterosexism,” and “heteronormativity.” As gay people believe that their gayness is “who they are,” an in-born aspect of their essential personality, there will be an inevitable clash between biblical truth and personal rights. Inevitably, the Christian view on sexuality will become a major reason for persecution of Christian believers. Rarely could two sides stand in starker opposition.

I recently heard a sermon that gave me deep concern. It was on 1 Peter 4:12–13, a text that predicts serious suffering for Christian believers. Peter, who was crucified upside down by the “civil” authorities of Rome, wrote: “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” Peter was writing to Christians under persecution for not worshiping the Roman emperor, who believed himself to be god. As I listened to the sermon preached in 2021, I couldn’t help wondering what Christians will suffer and are already suffering in our time and in cultures around the world.
A few days before hearing that sermon, I received an email from Christian Concern, a UK legal defense ministry similar to the Alliance Defending Freedom. The article described the experience of Rev. Dr. Bernard Randall, 48, an Anglican minister and a chaplain at Trent College, a Church of England school of “protestant and evangelical” traditions for children up to 18 years of age. A student had approached Dr. Randall, asking him to give a chapel talk on the subject of LGBT sexuality, since Dr. Elly Barnes, a leader of Educate and Celebrate, had been invited by the school to train staff on how to “equip you and your communities with the knowledge, skills and confidence to embed gender, gender identity and sexual orientation into the fabric of your organization.” In that training session, Dr. Barnes had openly called on the school to chant: “Completely smash heteronormativity.” We can hear cultural echoes of the Sixties chant by radicals and friends of President Obama, Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn’s slogan: “Smash monogamy.” Addressing the students from a different perspective, using a different tone, Dr. Randall stated:
Now when ideologies compete, we should not descend into abuse. We should respect the beliefs of others, even where we disagree. Above all, we need to treat each other with respect, not personal attacks – that’s what loving your neighbor as yourself means. By all means discuss, have a reasoned debate about beliefs, but while it’s OK to try and persuade each other, no one should be told they must accept an ideology. Love the person, even where you profoundly dislike the ideas.”
Dr. Randall nevertheless proceeded to argue principles:
But there are areas where the two sets of ideas are in conflict, and in these areas you do not have to accept the ideas and ideologies of LGBT activists. Indeed, since Trent exists “to educate boys and girls according to the Protestant and Evangelical principles of the Church of England,” anyone who tells you that you must accept contrary principles is jeopardizing the school’s charitable status, and therefore it’s very existence.
For the beliefs on marriage, sexuality and gender, he pointed to the Church of England’s public liturgy, especially the Book of Common Prayer and Canon Law, specifically naming heterosexual marriage as an essential Christian belief.[1]
How was Randall’s balanced approach received by school authorities? Following an interview with the headmaster, the school reported Dr. Randall to the government’s counter-terrorism watchdog, Prevent, which seeks to “prevent people being drawn into terrorism.” The Rev. Dr. Randall is being treated as a potentially violent religious extremist. He was also reported to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) as a danger to children (essentially treating him as a pedophile). At the next staff training day, the school announced that it had fully adopted the “LGBT inclusive curriculum” including a section for 3–5 year old nursery children, proposed by the afore mentioned expert and well-known lesbian, Elly Barnes. Approval of homosexual practice is spreading like an out-of-control virus throughout the Anglican Church of England. Previous church disputes were over the two natures of Christ and other weighty theological issues; now this historic church is split over sexuality.[2]
This could not happen in America, right? Al Mohler in his Briefing of August 17, 2021, described the powerful push for LGBTQ+ training in all schools, whether private or public. Children are being taught the various methodologies of sexual intercourse and how to intelligently watch pornography! An article in USA Today asks: “…do we teach our children what is true in reality and history and nature, [regarding] queer, inclusive sex, or do we teach them what we want them to know?”[3] The choice is proposed between objective LGBTQ+ reality and parental closed-mindedness.
This emphasis on sexuality is international. The current US State Department is in league with the United Nations Human Rights Council, which affirms the “fundamental duty of [each] State…to recognize every human being’s freedom,…including children of any age…to determine the confines of their existence, including their gender identity and expression and the human right to alter their gender entirely by self-identification.”[4]
PROGRESSIVE SEXUAL IDENTITYIdentity politics has emerged as a major point of conflict in both the culture and the church. Specifically, sexual identity is one of the most important aspects of a person’s life. Clothing itself in the contemporary moral values of diversity and social difference, homosexual identity presents itself as an expression of Critical Race Theory. An oppressed “sexual minority” does no harm in its good-hearted celebration of all things queer. Each individual is understood as having the inviolable right to determine his, her, or “their” own sexual option. Even non-religious conservatives like Tucker Carlson never say a public critical word of the LGBTQ agenda, whatever they think in private. Scores of conservative politicians sent an amicus brief to the Supreme Court supporting same-sex marriage.
The emergence of sexual liberation as a rising public value and an essential human right means that Christians are accused of “bigotry,” “hatred,” “homophobia,” “heterosexism,” and “heteronormativity.” As gay people believe that their gayness is “who they are,” an in-born aspect of their essential personality, there will be an inevitable clash between biblical truth and personal rights. Inevitably, the Christian view on sexuality will become a major reason for persecution of Christian believers. Rarely could two sides stand in starker opposition.
A massive 2019 study that analyzed DNA samples and lifestyle information from 477,000 people (the largest such study to date) found “no clear patterns among genetic variants that could be used to meaningfully predict or identify a person’s sexual behavior.” [5] This study indicates that “non-genetic factors—such as cultural environment, upbringing, personality, nurturing—are far more significant in influencing a person’s choice of sexual partner.”[6] This surely means that the only biological determinant is heterosexuality. Other forms are self-imposed or chosen. Homosexuals often say they are “born that way,” but this is not true when it comes to biology, though some people struggle with homosexual attraction from a very early age.
Neither objective biology nor the rights of God as the divine Creator are recognized in our increasingly anti-biblical contemporary society. Sexual identity has become the ultimate expression of human autonomy. Identity politics cannot be questioned. “It’s none of your business!”
BIBLICAL EVIDENCEProclamation of the gospel requires a clear description of the human person as a glorious, though fallen, being made in God’s image. The human being is so noble that the eternal God sent the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, to enter into the human lot, take on human form, and save us from our sins by his atoning death. Part of the glory of God’s image is his creation of both male and female, a warm and amazing reality that reflects both unity and distinction, just as the divine Trinity expresses both unified love between the three persons and distinct functions. Distinction is essential; humans carry within themselves an expression of the deep distinction between themselves as created beings and God, their totally “other” Creator. This binary value, what I have called “Twoism,” is the basis of all creation. Sexual complementarity is bound up in our biology as male and female, in our genetic make-up as either XX or XY. This is what both Jesus (Matthew 19:1–6) and Paul (1 Corinthians 6:9 and 16 and Ephesians 5:31–32), taught, referring back to God’s creative act in Genesis 1:27: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them; and Gen. 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Both Jesus and Paul understood that the “image of God” is expressed both in sexual unity and in sexual distinction. They understood that since we are specks in a vast universe (which we did not make), we cannot begin by defining reality by how we feel. With gentleness and understanding, believers must find a way of telling gays that sexual sameness is not who they are, even though they believe it represents the deepest part of how they feel. We need the wise approach of Dr. Randall, but remember how he was treated!
A CAUSE FOR SERIOUS PERSECUTIONTacitus (AD 56–118), an early Roman orator and public official, is often described as the greatest Roman historian of the ancient world. I have often wondered why he, of all people, called the Christians of the second century “haters of humanity” (Tacitus, Annals 15.44), even though Christians were known as honest citizens who took care of the sick and rescued abandoned babies. Some believe this harsh judgment was because of the exclusivity of the Christian faith, but it may also have been because Christians refused to celebrate the Roman norms of homosexuality, abortion and adultery. The ancient world everywhere honored homosexuals as religious shamans because they affirmed Oneism or sameness in their sexuality— that is, the pagan notion of human sameness with the divine, thereby denying the Twoist image of God.[7] As we become more like the ancient Roman culture and as Washington’s Potomac and Rome’s Tiber meet head on,[8] the subject of sexuality becomes increasingly sensitive and deeply controversial. On one side, progressives assert the autonomy of human beings and are incensed by the very idea that a Creator could determine human behavior. On the other side, biblical Christians make equally massive statements about human sexuality, based on their understanding of its relationship to the being of God the Creator. In this sense, sexuality is an unavoidable issue in Christian witness and will doubtless grow as a cause of opposition and eventual persecution. The Equality Act, which the Democrats are planning to pass, legalizes the LGBTQ+ agenda and imposes it everywhere, while specifically denying on this subject any religious freedom of opinion. Thus, a serious clash with Christian orthodoxy seems unavoidable. In their discourse regarding the being of God the Creator and the nature of created human beings Christians cannot be silent (though we must not generate unnecessary antagonism as in the Westboro Baptist’s—”God hates f…s” approach). The gospel does not pick out one sin, because while presupposing the dignity of all human beings, it affirms that we are all sinners. At the same time, all sins must be named, including sexual behavior that opposes the will of God the good Creator—A Father who desires human flourishing.
May God grant the church of the twenty-first century understanding, clarity, boldness, courage, humility, and compassion as it enters days of great persecution. “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.”
Dr. Peter Jones is scholar in residence at Westminster Seminary California and associate pastor at New Life Presbyterian Church in Escondido, Calif. He is director of truthXchange, a communications center aimed at equipping the Christian community to recognize and effectively respond to the rise of paganism. This article is used with permission.

[1] See https://www.newsweek.com/uk-chaplain-sues-college-discrimination-after-his-dismissal-sermon-questioning-lgbt-policy-1590269.
[2] Virtue, David W. Who Blinks First? Rowan Williams Challenges Peter Akinola on Homosexuality (10 Aug 2021). https://virtueonline.org/who-blinks-first-rowan-williams-challenges-peter-akinola.
[3] https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2021/08/05/sex-education-importance-lgbtq-inclusivity-
[4] https://outlook.office.com/mail/deeplink?popoutv2=1&version=20210802002.13
[5] Kelland, Kate. “No ‘gay gene’, but study finds genetic links to sexual behavior.” Reuters (29 Aug 2019). https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-sex/no-gay-gene-but-study-finds-genetic-links-to-sexual-behavior- idUSKCN1VJ2C3.
[6] Kelland, “No ‘gay gene.’”
[7] See my article: Androgyny: The Pagan Sexual Ideal; https://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/43/43-3/43-3-pp443-469_JETS.pdf
[8] Stephen D. Smith, Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac (Emory University Studies in Law and Religion, 2018).