When God sent his Son into the world, he sent him with a name — with many names, in fact. And in his mercy, God was pleased to inscribe assurance in nearly every syllable. Some of Jesus’s names do speak directly of his greatness, calling forth fearful awe. He is the Lord who commands creation, the King who rules the nations, the Judge who sifts men’s hearts, the Holy One who terrifies demons. But in line with the revelation of God’s name to Moses, so many of Jesus’s names testify to the glory of his grace.

For a certain kind of Christian, assurance of salvation can feel as fickle as a winter sun. Here and there, the sky shines blue and bright, filling the soul with light. Far more often, however, the days are mostly cloudy, the sun shadowed with uncertainty. And then sometimes, the sky goes gray for weeks on end, and the heart walks heavily under the darkness of doubt.
From the outside, such Christians may seem to bear much spiritual fruit: friends may mark the grace in their lives, accountability partners may encourage them, pastors may find no reason to question their faith. But for those under the clouds, even healthy fruit can look pale and sick. So even as they read their Bible, pray, gather with God’s people, witness, and confess their sins, they usually find some reason to wonder if they really belong to Christ.
How does assurance sink into the heart and psyche of those prone to second-guess? The Holy Spirit has many ways of nourishing confidence in his people — not least by teaching us to recognize the fruit he bears. But for the overly scrupulous among us, for whom personal holiness always seems uncertain, the Spirit also does more: he lifts our eyes above the clouds to show us God’s unchanging character.
Among the divine qualities he uses to nurture our assurance, we may find one surprising: God’s infinite commitment to his glory.
For the Sake of His Name
At first, God’s commitment to his glory may seem to weaken, not strengthen, a doubting Christian’s assurance. If God does everything “to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:14), for the fame of his name, what hope do we have — we who daily fall short of that glory, who often dishonor that name? We would need to find assurance elsewhere, it would seem.
Yet those who pay attention will find God’s zeal for his name running like a silver thread of hope through all the Scriptures. When Israel’s army fell before Ai, “What will you do for your great name?” was Joshua’s cry (Joshua 7:9). When the nation sinned by demanding a human king, Samuel assured the fearful, “The Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake” (1 Samuel 12:22). When, later, Israel teetered on the brink of exile, Jeremiah pleaded, “Do not spurn us, for your name’s sake” (Jeremiah 14:21). And when the nation languished in Babylon, Daniel grounded his bold prayers on “your name” (Daniel 9:19).
Again and again, the guilty people of God appeal not only to God’s mercy, but to his unflinching allegiance to his glory. Save us, restore us, keep us, defend us — and do it for the sake of your name! So what did they know about God’s name that we may not?
His People, Their God
First, they knew that God, in unspeakable mercy, had condescended to put his name upon his people (Numbers 6:27). By making a covenant with Israel — taking them as his people, pledging himself as their God — he wrapped up his glory with their good; he wove his fame together with their future.
The surrounding nations knew, as Daniel prayed, that “your city and your people are called by your name” (Daniel 9:19). And so, when God lifted up his people, he lifted up his name; when God helped his people, he hallowed his name. Through Israel’s welfare, he trumpeted his own worth, showing himself as the only living God in a world of lifeless idols.
No doubt, God’s name proved useless to those who presumed upon it, who chanted “The Lord! The Lord!” so they could keep sinning in safety (Jeremiah 7:8–15). When Israel’s unrepentant ran to God’s name for refuge, they found the door locked. But for the humble repentant, God’s name stood like the strongest tower (Proverbs 18:10). They might be sinful and unworthy in themselves, but God had given them his name.
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Written by Reuben M. Bredenhof |
Sunday, November 13, 2022
Much more than remembering the good ol’ days when life seemed better, Asaph in Psalm 77 is remembering the Lord and his great works and loving ways. These days we call it self-talk, or maybe “preaching to yourself,” when we remind ourselves of the holiness and goodness and faithfulness of God. And it is a good thing to do, and often.

Long before we get to the end of Psalm 77, we know it will turn out well.
How? In the opening verse, Asaph says: “I cried out to God with my voice…and He gave ear to me” (v. 1). He was in trouble, but he wants to immediately reassure us: God heard him!
For it cannot end badly when we begin with prayer. When we’re distressed or worried about something, we shouldn’t rationalize it away, or laugh it away, or drink it away, or find some other escape. No, we should pray. Pray at once. Pray, for our God in Christ has an open ear. He is sufficient to meet our concerns, and always willing to help. It was through giving voice to his despair to God that Asaph gained peace.
But first consider the trials of this lowly soul, recorded in verse 2:
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord.
Other Psalms mention a range of problems and concerns: the pursuit of enemies, a body wracked by illness, the heart oppressed by guilt. But not here. This child of God is overwhelmed, depressed and embittered, for some unnamed reason.
And saying so little of the cause opens up Psalm 77 to even more people. For everyone has some measure of trouble. We can mention the loneliness that God’s children experience, or the misery of chronic pain, or a flood of family disappointments, and conflict with other people, and anxiety over finances, and regret over the past. You can surely add your own.
In the day of trouble, we all know what to do. Asaph tells us, “My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing” (v. 2). This is the posture for prayer: reaching out for the LORD. Asaph is going to the right place. But notice a couple things about this prayer, things which reveal how deeply distressed he is.
First, he’s praying “in the night,” when he should be sleeping. Trouble can be so bad that it won’t even let a person rest. Instead of being a time of sweet relief and comfort, night-time can see us oppressed by our thoughts and unable to overcome our anxieties. In nervous fear, we toss and turn.
On the one hand, tomorrow can’t come soon enough because then we’ll actually be able to do something. But we also know that when tomorrow comes, the difficult situation will only confront us again. So the psalmist can’t sleep, nor even talk coherently: “You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak” (v. 4).
He’s praying, but it’s really difficult.
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What happens when the culture moves in a less theocentric direction?  The middle also moves with it. While William Childs Robinson may have been pugnacious in his defense of traditional Calvinism, he was right about the effects of loosening confessional subscription on the institution and the church. The story of Columbia Theological Seminary is mixed.  There were many days of greatness followed by mediocrity.  There were movements to improve the institution by moving in a more elite direction, but there was a loss of confessional stability.

Erskine Clarke, To Count Our Days: A History of Columbia Theological Seminary. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2019. Pp. 369.
Erskine Clarke, a former professor of American Religion at Columbia Theological Seminary, has written a readable and thought-provoking history of one of the preeminent seminaries of the Southern Presbyterian Church.  In its 369 pages, he gives the reader a critical view of the seminary.  What separates it from David Calhoun’s volume on Columbia, Our Southern Zion, is the connections with southern culture and his critical analysis of some of the theologians connected to the institution—especially over the issues of race.  Also, unlike Calhoun’s volume, he goes into the history of the seminary when it moved to Atlanta.  For Clarke, Columbia is a seminary that struggled financially and intellectually with its past.  He traces the changes to the seminary from strict Calvinism to a seminary that is now loosely associated with the Presbyterian Church and dominated by a theology of diversity.
Clarke begins his history with the founding of the seminary in Columbia, South Carolina.  While there are other histories of the institution that can give the names, dates, and synodical actions that brought the seminary into existence, Clarke goes beyond that by bringing out the influence of the plantation system and slavery in Columbia’s founding.
Ainsley-Hall, the centerpiece of the seminary, was a southern mansion whose physical characteristics pointed to an elitist institution that trained the gentlemen theologians of the south.  But the institution and the building were “to help hide the harsh realities of slavery and to help legitimize the power and wealth of slave owners and the social order that kept them powerful” (p. 7).  Clarke is somewhat justified in his opinion because the seminary was intertwined with the plantation system and its slaves.  The seminary in its early years may have had a brilliant faculty with John Henley Thornwell, Benjamin Morgan Palmer, and John Adger, but slavery was also there.  While some Columbia professors may have disliked slavery as an institution, they were still paternalistic towards African Americans.  The approach of the Columbia theologians as described by Clarke, was a middle way between abolition and radical proslavery opinions which was dehumanizing. But the middle way would be abandoned during the Civil War for an extreme position.
With the advent of the Civil War and reconstruction, the seminary suffered through poverty and destruction with the dismantling of the plantation system.  As a way to survive the war intellectually, John Girardeau and other faculty created a milieu in which they maintained southern culture and used language to preserve the “lost cause.”  Clarke sees this era as one of not only economic but also intellectual impoverishment.  He notes that John Girardeau’s theology represented a “theological shift.”  “Girardeau’s scholasticism represented a narrowing of the spirit that animated the seminary and that he shaped the tone of what was taught and learned on the seminary campus” (p. 111).  He contrasts Girardeau to Adger, who followed the sacramental mystery of Calvin.
Another event was the James Woodrow affair which was a retreat from openness to science.  Woodrow was called to the Perkins Professorship of Natural Science in Connection with Revelation which was established in 1859.  The scientifically trained Woodrow was to show that there were no conflicts between biblical revelation and science.  Woodrow was a proponent of evolution and “insisted science was neither religious nor irreligious…” (p. 119).  But for R. L. Dabney and other southern theologians, the ramifications were an assault of modernism.  Clarke believes that the real issue was that Woodrow called into question not only the received orthodoxy, but also “Their self-understanding as white Southern Presbyterian” (p. 123). It was a further narrowing of the intellect.
The fortunes of the seminary changed in the twentieth century with the re-emergence of the south’s economy.  The seminary moved from Columbia to Atlanta in 1927 and with significant changes.  The architecture changed from a southern mansion in Columbia which was its main building to architecture that was reminiscent of Cambridge and Oxford.  The physical plant resembled a college which gave the tincture of elite academics. Under the long serving president McDowell Richards, there was a move towards academic professionalization and a broader perspective as new faculty was hired.  Eventually, Columbia turned to Neo-Orthodoxy, feminism, and diversity.  The seminary that once saw itself in service to the Southern Presbyterian Church loosened its ties to Presbyterianism and in 2012 its revised mission statement said that “Columbia Theological Seminary exists to educate and nurture the faithful, imaginative, and effective leaders for the sake of the Church and the world” (pg. 285). Clarke sees Columbia now as “post-denominational” (p. 285).
Conservatives during this period are not portrayed positively.  William Childs Robinson is portrayed as arrogant and overly zealous in his defense of traditional doctrine.  George Manford Gutzke comes off as an academic lightweight. As the 1960s approached with the problems of segregation, conservative students were seen as intolerant when it came to the issue of race and theological liberalism.  Some of those students included the founders of the P.C.A., such as Morton Smith and Kennedy Smartt.  In the epilogue to his volume, Clark asks the question whether Columbia is trying to rid itself of its tradition which was heavily influenced by antebellum southern culture only to be replaced by a cosmopolitan culture (pp. 291-292).
This book should encourage readers to ponder Erskine Clarke’s work due to his investigation of the influence of culture on seminary education.  As one reads about the impact of slavery and racism, one cannot help but mourn.  And while one may focus on the glories of the southern presbyterian tradition, one may want to also groan over its shortcoming.
Yet, while conservatives have their own sins to bear, progressives also have much to ponder. The loss of confessional fidelity has led the seminary away from it primary mission of not just equipping ministers for the Presbyterian church, but also its own unique Christian witness.  Besides vocational training, Columbia’s modern ethos makes it more like a modern university.  One set of cultural values has been exchanged for another.
There are issues that some readers will take issue with this volume.  Clarke comes close to stating that the adoption of Old School Calvinism contributed to the establishment of slavery.  He writes that the “theological traditions taught at Columbia offered students and their parishioners’ explanations of the incongruent and contradictory character of life in a slave society and provided ethical standards for living in such a world” (p. 25). To some extent this may be true, but it also needs to be kept in mind that there have been a variety of responses to slavey amongst the proponents of Old School Theology even during the Civil War period.
While this volume gives some idea of the changes that occurred theologically at Columbia, it makes the reader ponder how the seminary wandered so far from its past.  Perhaps part of the reason is that Columbia, according to the author, tried to forge a “middle way” between extremes.  During the Civil War, they didn’t follow that mindset.  With the recovery of the south after the war, that genteel mindset may be a significant reason for the change. What happens when the culture moves in a less theocentric direction?  The middle also moves with it. While William Childs Robinson may have been pugnacious in his defense of traditional Calvinism, he was right about the effects of loosening confessional subscription on the institution and the church.
The story of Columbia Theological Seminary is mixed.  There were many days of greatness followed by mediocrity.  There were movements to improve the institution by moving in a more elite direction, but there was a loss of confessional stability.
Dr. Jerry Robbins is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Warrington PCA in Pensacola, Fla.
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