The Great Man and the Local Church
If the ordinary believers in your church and mine were to stop mentoring the people they see each and every Sunday, the church would be devastated. The most crucial work of ministry has little to do with “out there” in the wider Christian world and everything to do with “in here” in the local church. It has little to do with the few and the famous and far more to do with the many and the unknown.
There is a way of telling history that focuses on the impact of the few great figures that rise up in any generation. This “great man theory” says that history can best be understood when we focus on the dominant figures of the time. History, it says, turns on the actions, decisions, obsessions, and natural abilities of the few and the extraordinary—the Luthers, the Napoleons, the Lincolns, the Churchills. Understand them, and you understand the world as it was and the world as it has become.
I think Christians sometimes understand the church through a similar grid. We assume that the few figures who rise in prominence at any time are the key to understanding the church as a whole—that they in some way represent the Christian faith at that time. Hence if we tell the story of the church in the early twenty-first century, we may tell it through the lives and ministries of Sproul, Packer, MacArthur, Stott, and Piper. We assume that if we understand them, we have gained a representative understanding of Christians and ministries during their time. Understand them, we think, and you’re understanding all of us.
The great man theory has generally fallen out of favor among historians for a good number of reasons, among them that it’s too simplistic and that it’s difficult (or even impossible) to prove. That’s not to deny, of course, that some people have an outsized impact on any generation. It’s simply to deny that history revolves around the few rather than the many. And it’s to deny that the church depends on the few rather than the many.
We are thankful for preachers of extraordinary ability—the kind who step up to the podiums at the major Christian conferences or whose voice goes out over the airwaves. We are grateful for their ministries and grateful for all the ways we have benefited from their words.
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“Crucified, Dead, and Buried”
Written by R. Fowler White |
Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Written descriptions of the act of crucifixion are rare. The more refined writers were hesitant to dwell long on an act so horrifying, brutal, and shameful. It is hard to describe a more cruel and unusual form of capital punishment.Continuing our reflection on article four of the Apostles’ Creed, we examine what it means to confess faith in Jesus Christ crucified, dead, and buried.
In the ancient world crucifixion was believed to be an effective way to maintain law and order. The Romans reserved it for dangerous criminals, slaves, and the populations of foreign provinces. In the province of Judea, for example, it proved to be generally effective against resistance to Roman occupation. Applied as a form of execution, it was so frequent, and its details such common knowledge, that people in the first century were all too familiar with crucifixion. Despite its frequency—or maybe because of it—written descriptions of the act of crucifixion are rare. The more refined writers were hesitant to dwell long on an act so horrifying, brutal, and shameful. Reading the NT Gospel accounts, we realize that none of them goes beyond the barest minimum when they describe it. All that they say is they crucified Him. It is hard to describe a more cruel and unusual form of capital punishment, but we will have to try.
Imagine the shape of the cross: X, T, and † were the most common. Imagine the height of the cross: ordinarily the victim’s feet were no more than two feet above the ground—to give wild beasts and scavenger dogs easy access to the dead body. Imagine the nails of the cross, the spikes used to impale the victim. Imagine the small wooden peg or block, often placed midway up the vertical post to prolong the victim’s agony by preventing his premature collapse.
Once impaled on the cross, the victim endured a seemingly endless cycle of pulling, pushing, and collapsing—pulling with his arms, pushing with his legs to keep his chest cavity open for breathing, then collapsing in exhaustion until the body’s need for oxygen demanded more pulling and pushing. The combination of flogging, blood loss, and shock from pain, all produced agony that could go on for days. The end ordinarily came from suffocation, or cardiac arrest, or blood loss. When there was reason to speed up death, the executioners would smash the victim’s legs. Death followed almost immediately, either from shock or from collapse that cut off breathing.
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Therapeutic-Gnostic Pentecostalism?
Written by R. Scott Clark |
Thursday, September 23, 2021
There is such a thing as a message of “cheap grace” and the Dela Cruzes would seem to be the poster children for it. Any preacher who only offers “free salvation” but who omits “take up your cross” as a consequence (not a prior condition) of that grace is a preaching a false, antinomian, Gnostic, therapeutic gospel.Julie Roys ran a story yesterday by Sarah Einselen about a new congregation, which apparently opened this summer, in San Diego. Living Faith Church is a small congregation pastored by a husband and wife team, Stephen and Angela Dela Cruz. The salacious part of the story is that she was (is?) a porn star and he is a business coach. They met at the former Bethany University, which closed in 2011, an Assemblies of God related school. Together they claim to run ten multi-million dollar businesses. They do not say of what sort. It is not clear whether Angela Dela Cruz is still active in the porn industry but the two are clearly capitalizing on her past to generate “buzz” and interest in this congregation. One social media ad identifies her as an “adult actress,” which is code for pornstar. Judging by what one can see from videos of the services the porn angle may be generating more outrage than new members. They are clearly meeting in a very small space with relatively few people. What is more impressive, however, is how formulaic everything is. We see three musicians on a platform singing the same awful “praise music” as every other would-be mega-church in America. The messages seem to be firmly in the middle of the American evangelical therapeutic religion. Stephen is the poor-man’s Joel Osteen and he is going to help you live your best life now.
Your Porn Life Now
For the sake of discussion, since they are clearly capitalizing on her life in the porn business, let us presume that the Stephen and Angela believe and are teaching others that a being a Christian and living a judgment-free successful life are entirely compatible. The congregation’s statement of faith looks as if it were written by students from an AOG “university” circa 2011. Whoever wrote the confession wants to be an orthodox, Arminian, Baptistic, Pentecostal. It has a relatively high view of Scripture:
The Bible is God’s Word to all people. It was written by human authors under the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit. Because it was inspired by God, the Bible is truth without any mixture of error and is completely relevant to our daily lives.
The Holy spirit is said to be given “subsequent to salvation” and the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” is a second blessing. “This immersion into Spirit-led living provides the Christian with the power to live a fruitful, victorious life, understanding of spiritual truth, and boldness in sharing the good news with others. He also gives us spiritual gifts. As Christians, we seek to live under His daily guidance.” If Mrs Dela Cruz is impenitent about her role in the porn industry, a major source of human trafficking and exploitation and a source of spiritual destruction for many, then they are proposing a definition of the victorious higher life hitherto unknown. Without a hint of irony their statement of faith unequivocally affirms the existence of a literal hell. Salvation is said to be by grace but the statement offers nothing on the doctrines of mortification of sin or vivification in the new life.
Therapeutic Gnosticism
If the mainstream of American evangelicalism has become entirely captive to what Christian Smith, in 2009, called “moralistic therapeutic deism” much of the rest of it has become a subsidiary: Gnostic therapeutic pentecostalism. In Deism God is largely absent. In Pentecostalism, especially of the sort being marketed by the Dela Cruzes, God is a cosmic Door Dash driver. This is not old-school Pentecostalism, which was rooted in the Holiness tradition. As Marx materialized Hegel (by turning the dialectical process of history into class warfare) so the real second blessing offered by the likes of Stephen and Angela Dela Cruz is an emotionally satisfying, financially prosperous life now. Joel Osteen has routed the Azusa Street Revival. Like all the other second-rate business coaches in the world they have the secrets to success. Mind you, unlike Warren Buffet and Jeff Bezos, they are not actually producing wealth themselves but they will show you how you can do it. Instead of cheesy late-night television commercials they are holding church services with the requisite praise music, which promises to give participants that shot of endorphins followed by a rousing pep talk.
This is fundamentally Gnostic because it offers a perverse salvation through secret knowledge (Gnosis). This, of course, is what the Gnostics offered in the second century. Like the Gnostics, they hijacked Christianity through redefining terms and changing the story dramatically. In Gnosticism the God of the Old Testament, Yahweh, was rendered a mean, demiurge tied to creation, which was said to be inherently evil. The immaterial, i.e., the spiritual, was said to be good. The key to deliverance from the material world is a secret known only to true Gnostics. They developed an elaborate hierarchy of being and promised to guide followers through the maze. The Jesus of the second-century Gnostic texts is not the Jesus of the Gospels.
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Westminster Kingdom Theology
Is reality outside the church a common realm that is unrelated to the kingdom of Christ? No, the moral division in this life is not between the kingdom of Christ and a common realm considered as two static domains with diverse locations. The moral division in this life is between the kingdom of Christ and Satan’s kingdom considered as two dynamic domains that can penetrate any sphere of life. Both these kingdoms are defined by moral orientation and ultimate allegiance.
I was at a Presbytery meeting listening to the examination of a candidate for ordination. When asked, “What is the kingdom?” the candidate simply answered, “The church.” I was surprised by the brevity of the accepted answer. I wondered at the time if the candidate was implying that there are no senses in which the kingdom is a broader concept than the church. I was later told that the question and answer were based on Westminster Confession of Faith 25.2:
“The visible church … consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ…”
The examination was thorough overall, and I am grateful for those who do this work. I am also grateful that this exchange motivated me to examine this subject more thoroughly.
As a general rule, the current members of the visible church and the citizens of the kingdom now alive are the same people. There is this degree of identity within this limited context. That doesn’t mean that the kingdom and the church are identical in every way and in every context. There are different nuances to being under Christ’s royal reign and being part of the gathered assembly of the saints. There are also contexts in which the kingdom is a broader concept than the church because Christ’s royal authority extends beyond the assembly of the saints.
In its commentary on the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come,” the Westminster Shorter Catechism refers to the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of glory. We are to pray “that the kingdom of grace may be advanced, ourselves and others brought into it, and kept in it” and “that the kingdom of glory may be hastened” (WSC 102). The kingdom of grace is here a reference to the visible church in this age, and the kingdom of glory, a reference to the invisible church in the full glory of a new creation after the second advent. The Westminster Confession of Faith mentions a related concept, the keys of the kingdom, which refer to the power to open and close access to gospel benefits and church privileges through administering the Word and through church discipline. This is a power wielded by church officers and not by civil magistrates (WCF 30.2; 23.5).
In their commentaries on the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come,” the Westminster catechisms mention a third kingdom: Satan’s kingdom, or the kingdom of sin and Satan (WSC 102; WLC 191). We are to pray for Satan’s kingdom to be destroyed. Jesus three times referred to Satan as the ruler of this world (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), and the Apostle John said that “the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one” (1 John 5:19). What are we praying to be destroyed, the world as a place or the sway of Satan over the world? I believe the latter, and this implies that the domain of Satan’s kingdom is not a static domain limited to any specific place but a dynamic domain defined by its moral orientation and ultimate allegiance. This understanding is further confirmed in that we are to pray the second petition “acknowledging ourselves and all mankind to be by nature under the dominion of sin and Satan…” (WLC 191). This is a reference not to humanity’s created nature but to humanity’s “corrupted nature, conveyed to all [our fallen first parents’] posterity descending from them by ordinary generation” (WCF 6.3). “This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified…” (WCF 6.5).
The Westminster Larger Catechsim mentions one other kingdom in its commentary on the second petition, the kingdom of Christ’s power. We are to pray that Christ “would be pleased so to exercise the kingdom of his power in all the world, as may best conduce to these ends” (WLC 191). “These ends” include the destruction of Satan’s kingdom, the fulfillment of certain duties of the civil magistrate and the rule of Christ in Christian hearts. These are objectives that are not totally confined within the boundaries of the church. The effective range is “all the world.” The power in play here includes God’s providential control within history. The Triune God who created the world preserves and governs all His creatures and all their actions (WSC 11). The question is whether God the Son now exercises this providential power as part of the power that was entrusted to Him as the God-Man when He was seated at the right hand of God the Father.
Some answer yes to this question. This means that the kingdom of grace, the kingdom of glory and the kingdom of Christ’s power are all complementary aspects of a unified kingdom under the royal authority of the resurrected, glorified and ascended Christ seated at the right hand of God the Father. This understanding is found in Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology:
“Christ has what theologians are accustomed to call his kingdom of power. As Theanthropos and as Mediator, all power in heaven and upon earth has been committed to his hands. … This universal authority is exercised in a providential control, and for the benefit of his Church. … Under the present dispensation, therefore, Christ is the God of providence. It is in and through and by Him that the universe is governed. This dominion or kingdom is to last until its object is accomplished, i.e., until all his enemies, all forms of evil, and even death itself is subdued. Then this kingdom, this mediatorial government of the universe, is to be given up. (1 Cor. xv.24.) (2.600-601; cf. 2.635-638)
The kingdom of Christ’s power is here defined as one of the temporary elements of Christ’s mediatorial kingdom. There are other temporary elements as well. “Christ executeth the office of a king in subduing us to Himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all His and our enemies” (WSC 26). The only element in this list that is not temporary and thus lasts into the kingdom of glory is Christ’s ruling His people as their King.
The positive answer to our question does not limit the power given to Jesus as the exalted God-Man to His power and authority over the church. This is consistent with the statement of the Westminster Larger Catechism that “Christ is exalted in his sitting at the right hand of God, in that as God-man he is advanced to the highest favor with God the Father, with all fulness of joy, glory, and power over all things in heaven and earth” (WLC 54). In addition, Jesus’ execution of His office as a king includes His “restraining and overcoming all [His people’s] enemies, and powerfully ordering all things for his own glory, and their good; and also in taking vengeance on the rest, who know not God, and obey not the gospel” (WLC 45). The Scriptural evidence also points in this direction. Hebrews 2:8 says, “For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him.” Ephesians 1:22 says, “And He put all things under His feet…” In Matthew 28:18, Jesus said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” 1 Corinthians 15:27 implies that all has been put under the rule of the exalted God-Man except God Himself:
27 For “He has put all things under His feet.” But when He says “all things are put under Him,” it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted.
This understanding is also consistent with the Bible’s teaching that Jesus is not only the Head of the church but also the ruler of the kings of the earth (Revelation 1:5; cf. 2:27).
This understanding does not require a Lutheran explanation of Jesus’ exaltation. Many are familiar with the Lutheran teaching that the physical body of the exalted Christ experiences some form of omnipresence. Such thinking is not necessary to explain how Jesus administers the kingdom of His power as the exalted God-Man. One can explain the ministries of the exalted God-Man “without conversion, composition, or confusion” of the two natures (WCF 8.2). No one questions that Jesus exercises His priestly ministry as the exalted God-Man. Yet His priestly ministry also has challenges that are beyond finite human capabilities. As our heavenly high priest, Jesus hears untold numbers of prayers every minute of every day. This does not mean that the human mind of the exalted God-Man now possesses some form of omniscience. Similarly the exalted God-Man exercises His kingly ministry without His human nature possessing some form of omnipotence. The Westminster Larger Catechism explains how this is possible without confusing the two natures:
Q.40. Why was it requisite that the Mediator should be God and man in one person ?
A. It was requisite that the Mediator, who was to reconcile God and man, should himself be both God and man, and this in one person, that the proper works of each nature might be accepted of God for us, and relied on by us, as the works of the whole person.
Returning to our question as to whether God the Son now exercises this providential power as part of the power that was entrusted to Him as the God-Man when He was seated at the right hand of God the Father, some answer in the negative. This means that the kingdom of Christ’s power is not related to Christ’s current heavenly session and thus is in a different category from the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of glory. With this understanding, God the Son exercises His providential power apart from His exalted humanity even as He did before His incarnation and exaltation.
In summary, Westminster kingdom theology includes two antithetical kingdoms, the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of Satan. Within the kingdom of Christ are three divisions: the kingdom of grace, the kingdom of glory and the kingdom of Christ’s power. Some hold that all three of these are part of the mediatorial kingdom of the exalted God-Man. Others separate the kingdom of Christ’s power as a providential rule apart from the mediatorial kingdom. In any case, the exercise of the kingdom of Christ’s power “in all the world” implies that the concept of the kingdom is broader than the concept of the church, even though there are also senses in which the kingdom and the church can be identified.
This broader understanding of the kingdom is taught by others as well.
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