Christian brotherhood depends on Christian faith. The New Testament often sets forth “the faith” as central to the apostolic mission, the pastor’s task, the Christian’s grasp of truth that is saving and sanctifying, and the true test of unity in the Christian profession. The first use of this phrase as a specific body of truth is in Acts 6:7, where it is written, “and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.” This involved a clear adoption of truth connected with the apostolic “teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ” (5:42). Had they not embraced that body of truth, there would be no evidence of faith. 

The word “faith” is used when the internal disposition of trust in the person and work of Christ is in view: “purifying their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:9); “a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:28); “so then faith comes by hearing, and hearing  by the word of God” (Romans 10:17); “the just shall live by faith” (Galatians 3:11); “through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith” (Philippians 3:9). This “faith” is generated by the Holy Spirit in the mind and heart of a sinner upon an effectual application of “the faith” to both mind and heart. 

“The faith” is the revealed body of truth according to which true saving faith is defined. The Gentile churches were strengthened in “the faith, and increased in number daily” by the ruling of apostles and elders concerning ceremonial law. One outstanding element that testified to the genuine conversion of Saul was that he “preaches the faith which he once tried to destroy;” that faith consisted of “the gospel … [that] came through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11, 12, 23). Paul defined his mission in terms of “obedience to the faith among all nations” (Romans 1:5) and “the faith of God’s elect, even the acknowledgement of the truth” (Titus 1:1). Paul warned Timothy against those who “resist the truth, men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith” (2 Timothy 3:8). Instead, he insisted on Timothy’s following “my doctrine, … faith.” One element of Paul’s confidence in his reception of the “crown of righteousness” was that he had “kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7, 8). Christian fraternity was defined by this when he wrote, “Greet those who love us in the faith” (Titus 3:15).

We see with profundity the interaction between “the faith” and “faith” when Paul wrote, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raise him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9, 10). The word “confess,” we see in this strategic passage, is vitally (in the arena of true life), connected with both personal trust and revealed doctrinal truth. John affirms this in saying, “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.” Conversely, he continued, “Every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God” (1 John 4:2, 3). An understanding of the incarnation of the Son of God, his true humanity and his eternal deity in one person, who came in such a way out of the necessities of redeeming a fallen humanity is implicit in this confession. Paul also, again, united the open confession of truth with the church’s position as the depository of truth, saving truth, in this fallen world. He gives a six-article statement concerning the vital and saving point of the incarnation, Christ’s righteousness, the preaching of this truth, the belief connected with it, and Christ’s ascension by introducing it with a word that means, “This is a matter of necessary and certain confession” (1 Timothy 3:15, 16). 

This combination of apostolic mission, revealed truth, and saving faith makes Rick Warren’s assertion about the Southern Baptist Convention puzzling, and, if taken seriously, destructive of the very mission he seeks to affirm: “From the start, our unity has always been based on a common mission, not a common confession. For the first 80 years of the SBC, we did not even have a confession because the founders were adamantly opposed to having one!” The serious fidelity called for to a confessional article on the nature of Christian ministry, Pastor Warren contends is the “death of the basis for cooperation upon which this body was founded.” Again he asserts, “That basis – a common mission, not a confession – was the founding genius that made the SBC great.” Forceful verbiage but quite wide of historical truth and the biblical standard of true Christianity. Warren’s open letter invites Southern Baptists to a missiological souffle. At least these four fallacies render his deep concern a destructive blunder.

Fallacy #1— A Confessionless Denomination

He wants a Confessionless Denomination. It is impossible. The very thing that defined Baptists from the seventeenth-century to the present is the rigor with which they set forth confessions to unite them with other Christians and distinguish them within the rank of Dissenters from Puritans and Separatists. We love our Presbyterian brethren, but could never consent to their confessional proposition, “infants descending from parents, either both, or but one of them, professing faith in Christ, and obedience to him, are in that respect within the covenant and to be baptized.” Upon examining their prooftexts and the way they developed a coherent argument in favor of infant baptism, Baptists came to a different conclusion and stated their view confessionally. The Second London Confession, in the context of a longer discussion of the church, the communion of saints and the ordinances stated, “Those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in, and obedience to our Lord Jesus, are the only proper subjects of this ordinance {baptism].” John Smyth’s “Short Confession” (1610) stated, “baptism is the external sign of the remission of sins, of dying and of being made alive, and therefore does not belong to infants.” John Spilsbery, the first Particular Baptist pastor viewed a confession of faith as one of the “constituting causes” of the church for a confession of faith declares the “fitnes of the matter for the forme.”  That is, believers in the gospel of Christ may unite to form a church. The power of the Gospel “shining into the heart of man” so convinces the sinner of its truth that its leaven “seasons and sweetens the whole man.”  The Word operates like a fire that “breaks forth and discovers itself” with such clarity in “such as have it,” that they delineate specific truths from that Word.  A confession of faith consisting of particular doctrines naturally develops so that others so prepared “come to one and the same minde and judgement in it.” Having agreed on the articles of faith, such believers may unite with each other in a church estate through the baptism of those who so believe. The confession of faith of the Tuscaloosa Association, Alabama, says, “We believe that baptism and the Lord’s supper are Ordinances of Jesus Christ, and that true believers are the only subjects of Baptism, and that by immersion is the Apostolic mode.” The confession of faith of the Mississippi Baptist Association states, “We believe that baptism, by immersion, is the only scriptural mode, and that believers are the only proper subjects” (1791). The confession of the Louisiana Baptists (1814) said that the church is constituted of those “who upon profession of their faith have been baptized by immersion in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost” (1814). Given the variety of confessional traditions already in existence when Baptists emerged, Baptists as a denomination would not exist apart from a clearly stated confession highlighting the distinctives that Baptists distilled from the Bible in contradistinction from other denominations. 

Fallacy #2— A Confessionless Unity

He wants a Confessionless Unity. In a fallen world and in the multiplicity of Christian confessions, unity without confession is a delusion. Our common domination by error calls for a reconstruction of worldview and truth-claims on the basis of divine revelation. A commitment to the coherence of divinely revealed truth mean the construction of doctrine on any subject set forth in Scripture—creation, providence, God, humanity, sin, salvation, the church, how it is formed, how it is taught, the end of this present order, judgment, eternity. Other subjects could be named, but you get the point. A confession simply is the organization of revealed truth into its related parts so that our minds will be conformed both in individual and corporate conduct according to its principles. A so-called common mission without common confession gives no standard by which conversions may be discerned and no goal for the growing conformity of believers into the perfection of Christ. God gave the pastor-teacher as a gift to men so that his church would “attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God” (Ephesians 4:13). Not only is faith the common experiential factor in forming the church, but the faith is the instrument by which we attain to the “measure of the stature that belongs to the fulness of Christ.” A confession witnesses to our corporate confidence in the unified nature of Scripture and guides the church, under God and his revealed truth, into greater corporate unity and focus on mission. The greater unity churches have in confession, the more profound and univocal in the “Amen” is their mission.

Fallacy #3— A Confessionless Mission

He wants a Confessionless Mission.  Pastor Warren sees the ideal of missionary passion as a corporate “NO to becoming a creedal denomination … and instead [a reaffirmation] that it is the Great Commission that draws us together, not doctrinal uniformity in every jot and tittle.” Set aside the obvious fallacy of a false dichotomy and the irony that the “jot and tittle” concern in support of fuzzy adherence to a confession arose from the words of Jesus; other implications are disturbing. These words were, in fact, Jesus’ assertion of the absolute necessity of the fulfillment of the Law—even heaven and earth would not endure beyond the importance of the conformity of his incarnational life and the lives of his disciples to every item of revealed truth (Matthew 5:18). Yes, the rhetoric is clumsy, but in its substance it is worse. The impact of mission is diminished, not increased, by a mixed message. Warren opines, “that our unity is to be based on giving total submission to Christ in our deeds and NOT based on mental submission to man-made creeds.” It is eerily similar to the call of one of the leading Modernists ninety-nine years ago (1924). Shailer Mathews in the Faith of Modernism wrote, “Orthodox Christians are now working for the world’s transformation. But the striking fact is that in so doing they are not stressing theological fundamentals. They do not deny them but they ignore them as moral and social motives. … The true watch-word of Christianity is not truth, but faith vitalized by love. … Creative minds care less for their father’s beliefs than for a faith that respects their increased knowledge and stimulates their will to serve” (12, 13, 14). Deeds not creeds bind together Warren and Mathews.Mathews did write a statement of “affirmations.” Mathews said, “While by its very nature the Modernist movement will never have a creed or authoritative confession, it does have its beliefs” (179). As Northern Baptists (now ABCUSA) embraced the social emphases of Mathews, their confessionless missions cared less for eternal salvation and more for present modernization.

Fallacy #4— A Confessionless Soteriology

Warren is inviting Southern Baptists to a Confessionless Soteriology. He does not do this with sinister motive or as a clandestine liberal, but by minimizing the importance of carefully stated propositions of saving truth. It is one of the purposes of a confession to give such a clear statement of gospel truth that we may discern whether the gospel preached is true or another gospel. Paul saw how quickly his churches could be led from the purity of his gospel into the falsehoods of the Judaizers. John saw how subtle were the heresies of proto-gnostics concerning the person of Christ and the devastating result such teaching would have on the nature of true “belief.” James saw how empty so-called faith was that did not involve a robust love of righteousness and good works. The writer of Hebrews saw the danger of failing to see that Jesus was the final sacrifice, the final priest, the reigning king, and the final prophet and that salvation depended without reservation on his completed work—“When he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3). A confession of faith gathers all of these New Testament arguments together to present clear biblical definitions of Christ’s person, repentance, faith, atonement, justification, adoption, sanctification, preservation, perseverance to serve as rails to remind us of the infinite importance of care and accuracy in our presentation of the gospel. The confession does not replace Scripture; the writers seek to present the biblical gospel taking into account all relevant passages to give a full, while concise, presentation of the biblical details that we might consistently be called to care and faithfulness in this most heavenly of all earthly activities, proclaiming the gospel that is worthy of all acceptation. The confession helps us obey the Pauline command, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5). A confessionless soteriology can begin to omit vital truths and soon become another gospel.

I do not doubt the right intent of Pastor Warren’s zeal for seeing the mission given by Christ finally executed in every country of the world. Nor do I doubt that same desire in those who have a deeply-held confessional conviction about the biblical passages stating the clear qualifications of those that Christ gives to the church of pastor-teachers. When a Christian finds that his mind disagrees with a clearly-stated confessional article and his conscience forbids operating in accord with it, the world is open to him. That person, so constrained in mind and conscience, may look for another place to minister more satisfying to his calling. Certainly it is not fitting to seek to convince others that their confessional concerns are trivial, unworthy of fidelity, or easily compromised for the sake of a more inclusive body.

The Southern Baptist Convention is an associational structure of churches. Is purpose is to carry “into effect the benevolent intentions of our constituents, by organizing a plan for eliciting, combining, and directing the energies of the whole denomination in one sacred effort for the propagation of the gospel.” The assumption behind the union was that each participating churches would be a  “regular Baptist church.” No Baptist church is forced to join an association of churches nor forced to stay. No association may exert authority over the internal affairs of a local church, but it may determine the terms of membership in the association. The church is autonomous; the association is autonomous. The church may select its own officers, receive and discipline its own members according to its understanding of Scripture, and choose to affiliate with other churches of like faith and order. An association of churches may govern its internal affairs according to the will of the associating churches and may adopt a confession of faith that expresses its understanding of the Scriptures. It may receive or reject churches into its associational structure on the basis of that confessional statement. A local church may not demand that an association of churches allow its participation while it holds doctrines out of accord with the association’s confessions. A church may not demand that an association change its confession to allow for its participation while dissenting from its doctrine. A church disagreeing with the confessional stance of an association may continue its autonomy independent of the association.

When the Philadelphia Association received queries from churches, a committee appointed to investigate the question would answer with pertinent Scripture and frequently would refer to a section of their confession of faith. In 1724, for a question on the Sabbath, one element of the response was “We refer to the Confession of Faith, set forth by the elders and brethren met in London, 1689, and owned by us, chap. 22, sect. 7 and 8.” In 1727 a question on marriage evoked the response “Answered, by referring to our Confession of faith, chapter 26th in our last edition.” A question about laying on of hands referred to the Confession in chapter xxvi, section 9. A question in 1735 about church membership of a person too far away to attend was answered by invoking the Confession of faith, chapter xxvii, and the Treatise on Discipline.

In 1743, the association heard discussion about a theological dispute that had developed in one of its member churches concerning the eternal generation of the Son. After the discussion, one person, Joseph Eaton, “recanted, renounced, and condemned all expressions, which he heretofore had used, whereby his brethren … were made to believe that he departed from the literal sense and meaning of that fundamental article in our Confession of faith, concerning the eternal generation and Sonship of Jesus Christ our Lord.” At the same meeting a “brother Butler” wrote an acknowledgement, “I freely confess that I have given too much cause for others to judge that I contradicted our Confession of faith concerning  the eternal generation of the son of God, in some expressions contained in my paper, which I now with freedom condemn.”

When Baptist associations opened formal correspondence with other associations, they determined their doctrinal purity through examination of their confession of faith. The Philadelphia Association minutes from 1788 read, “A letter and minutes which contain the sentiments of the Stonington Association, were received. From which it appears, that they have adopted the same printed Confession which this Association has heretofore approved. We shall therefore cheerfully concur with them in maintaining a mutual correspondence.”

OK, well, you get it. No need to multiply instances. The confession was important and no article would have been inserted unless there was good reason to believe that all the churches should affirm their conscientious acknowledgement of the biblical doctrines so stated.  A denominational confession necessarily includes doctrines deemed of secondary importance in relation to historic orthodox Christianity. If the Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed were all that we should confess, and we certainly should confess them, we would have no denominations, but we would have constant disagreement between and even within churches about those things that seem to be secondary—not saving truths—but still vital for the health and unity of local churches AND vital associational structures, as well as personal obedience to the Lord. Among these are the mode and meaning of baptism—surely anyone can see that this could rise to the level of a first order issue–,  the number, authority, and qualifications of the officers of the church, and the manner of church discipline.

An essay on the relation of local churches to an association appeared in the minutes of the Philadelphia Association in 1749. After affirming the autonomy of each local church, and the right and obligation to administer the biblical ordinances, receive and discipline its membership, set apart its officers “independent of any other church or assembly whatever,” it discussed the autonomy and powers of an association, or confederation of churches that unite on a voluntary basis. Though not a “superior judicature,” there is nevertheless a power that the association has over itself. “For if the agreement of several distinct churches, in sound doctrine and regular practice be the first motive, ground and foundation or basis of their confederation,” the essay premised, and then drew the inference, “then it must naturally follow, that a defection in doctrine or practice in any church, in such confederation, or any party in any such church, is ground sufficient for an Association to withdraw from such a church or party so deviating or making defection, and to exclude such from them in some formal  manner.”

Baptists have never believed that baptism, the Lord’ Supper, or the calling and setting apart of church officers are minor matters for they are part of divine revelation and are given in order to bring the church to a “unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God” (Ephesians 4:13). These are the doctrines that distinguished Baptists in their seventeenth-century emergence from English Puritanism and Separatism. Within the framework of the broader Christian confession of creedal orthodoxy and Protestant evangelicalism—both affirmed clearly by Baptists as necessary for true Christian faith—issues of church order and officers might be considered secondary or even tertiary, but for the distinctive identity of Baptists they are primary. Baptists consider their views of baptism, church membership, the continuing mandate of the great Commission, ecclesiastical non-establishment, and the qualifications of local church officers as essential elements of our quest for the purity and spiritual power of local churches.

Acceptance of regulating confessions of faith and even so-called creedal affirmation are not foreign to Baptist convictions in protecting their commitment to “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). James P. Boyce famously argued extensively for a governing confession in the founding of a theological seminary: “Let subscription to it[the confession of faith] on the part of each Theological Professor be required as an assurance of his entire agreement with its views of doctrine, and of his determination to teach fully the truth which it expresses, and nothing contrary to its declarations.” He also stated with conviction and clarity that it fit well—even necessarily—in the stewardship of a local church. After allowing for the broad spectrum of biblical understanding and doctrinal maturity of the members of a local church In light of the hopeful reality of the presence of recent converts, Boyce proceeded to argue, “But I cannot grant that such a test is without due warrant from Scripture even in the Church. The very duties which God enjoins upon the Churches, plainly suppose the application of every principle involved in the establishment of creeds” [Boyce, Three Changes 1856]. 

The same we find in B. H. Carroll, the founder of Southern Baptists’ second theological seminary.  Carroll fully agreed with Boyce’s view of the stewardship of revealed truth through adherence to a confession and applied it to his attempt to give “safeguards” to the seminary. He also believed that hearty and hardy confessional adherence was fitting, in fact, required for a church. “A church with a little creed is a church with a little life. … the fewer its articles of faith, the fewer its bonds of union and compactness.” Carroll continued, therefore, with the warning, “Shut off the creed and the Christian world would fill up with heresy unsuspected and uncorrected, but none the less deadly.” When confronted with the claim of some that individual liberty would be challenged by the requirement of creedal authority, he responded, “We are entitled to no liberty in these matters. It is a positive and very hurtful sin to magnify liberty at the expense of doctrine. A creed is what we believe. A confession of faith is a declaration of what we believe. The church must both believe and declare.” Contemplating that Christ came to bear witness to the truth and that apostles would teach and write under the inspiration of the Spirit of truth, Carroll insisted, “To Christ and the apostles, false creeds were the most deadly things, and called most for the use of the knife.” The setting aside of men to the gospel ministry must conform, therefore, to this Christological and apostolical concern for truth: “The limit of ordination examination on doctrine is the maximum of church creed on doctrine. …  Unless ‘the faith’ is a needed creed of definite vital truth, there is no basis for examination looking to ordination and no standard up to which the convert must be developed” [Carroll on Ephesians 4].

One of the favorite tactics of the so-called and self-styled “moderate” wing of the Convention during the years immediately preceding and then during the conservative resurgence involved implying a dichotomy between adherence to strict orthodoxy and personal religious experience. One writer in 1978 warned against a growing tendency to “Creedal Subscription” and characterized the developing conflict as one between scholastics and pietists. He characterized the scholastic as the person who “wants to make the confession compulsory lest the faith become lost,” and the pietist as the one who “wants to make the confession optional lest the freedom for the vitality of faith become lost.” [Walter Shurden, R & E, Spring 1978, 231]. Pietism, not scholasticism,  the writer implies, should be the model for promotion of Baptist unity and mission

Another looked to positive lessons to be learned from American mystics who consistently asserted that “formal creedal authority was much less significant than the inner reality of the divine presence.” This heightening of inner experience disconnected from dogma “may be extremely useful” in providing “a unity beyond denomination and dogma which is the foundation of the Church universal, the mystical body of Christ.” [William Leonard, R & E, Spring 1978, 277.] 

Then in the midst of the fray, soon following the Glorieta Statement issued in 1986, a prominent Moderate spokesman pitted “scholarship” against “confirmation and indoctrination,” “authentic education” against “brainwashing,” “personal religious experience” against a “memorized religion,” and authentic education” against “indoctrination of students with predigested teachings.” [Roy Honeycutt, Risking the Arm, Convocation Address, September 1987]  In his infamous convocation sermon for the fall of 1984, Roy Honeycutt saw the “cosmic Christ” as making us free from any attempts at uniformity, particularly confessional uniformity, but asserted, “Communities such as this seminary and the Southern Baptist Convention should affirm not stifle or otherwise restrict pluralism.” Instead of uniformity, “we need to rediscover authentic, New Testament pluralism as an essential quality of the church on mission with God.” Certainly, we are not back to the practice of conceding that confessional infidelity is a sign of spiritual maturity, a deeper grasp of the mind of Christ, and educational superiority.

We know that this present concern about a confession of faith’s usurpation of the rights of conscience and the autonomy of a church is prompted by the question of the ordination of women to the office of elder/bishop/pastor-teacher. Again, the precedent of Baptist exposition on this issue shows that no assertion of lack of clarity either exegetically, ecclesiologically, or doctrinally need make a strong stance unwarranted. Carroll wrote in his exposition of 1 Timothy, commenting on 2:11-13 along with 1 Corinthians 14: 34, 35, “The custom in some congregations of having a woman as pastor is in flat contradiction to this apostolic teaching and is open rebellion against Christ our king, and high treason against his sovereignty, and against nature as well as grace. It unsexes both the woman who usurps this authority and the men who submit to it. Under no circumstances conceivable is it justifiable.” 

Likewise in his commentary on 1 Timothy in the American Commentary series, Hezekiah Harvey, considering the text carefully in the setting of Paul’s argument concerning creation, fall, and redemption says, “The passage plainly denies to woman the office of the ministry, or the function of prayer and instruction in the public assemblies of the church, on the ground that such an office, as it involves authority over the man, is inconsistent with the divinely-constituted nature and position of woman as subordinate to man.” Then again, after more detailed exposition he reconfirms, “These reasons [the ones Paul has given in the text], founded on the original constitution and nature of the woman, are plainly valid in all places and in all ages; and the rule excluding woman from the office of the ministry in the church, of which they form the ground, is consequently universal and perpetual.”

Neither exegetically, confessionally, nor ecclesiologically should this issue be a point of controversy among Baptists. The Bible is our sole authority; the confession gives clear expression to a coherent, canonically derived understanding of the Bible’s teaching; The churches obey the text in order to be found sincere and blameless, filled with the fruit of righteousness.

In John 7: 37-39, Jesus claimed that through coming to him one would receive the “living water” synonymous with the presence of the Holy Spirit.  By the work of Jesus, the Spirit will come in fullness and power to mark out the people of God by evidence of true belief. In John 4, Jesus had said that this water would “become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” This is a fulfillment of Isaiah. 44:1-5 and we find the image reiterated in Revelation 22:17. This ever-flowing stream of living water brings both the present reality and the sure future inheritance of eternal life. 

Has any ever received eternal life without this living water? Here in John 7 Jesus speaks of the Spirit’s coming in the fulfillment of the New Covenant, creating a people as a community, not by circumcision but by the new birth, creating a fellowship whose common trait is forgiveness of sins and the sanctifying operations of the Spirit. Israel was not that community, for they were marked off by ceremonies, particularly the ceremony of circumcision of males, not by the moral and spiritual perceptions peculiarly the mark of those called and sanctified by the Spirit. 

The Spirit had not yet been given in that way, as the creator of the community, but he had been given to individuals among the remnant of Israel and even to those elect among other peoples. All of those that had the persevering faith leading to eternal life could not have been void of the Spirit of God. Both faith and faithfulness are the fruit of the Spirit’s operations; both of these necessarily existed in those people of faith in Hebrews 11. The affections described there could not have existed without the operation of the Spirit of God. Noah’s “reverent fear” was a manifestation of the presence of the Spirit in his life; Abraham’s “looking forward to the city that has foundations” was evidence of the abiding presence of the Spirit; Moses’ “choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin” and his consideration of “the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt” show the secret but continual presence of the Spirit’s gracious work. 

None of these affections or loyalties is possible to exist on the one hand or to be maintained on the other apart from their being the constant production of the Holy Spirit. If these in the roll call of faith did not have the Spirit, they would have no principle in them that opposed the desires of the flesh, would be given over to those desires as are the reprobate, and would thus “not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:17-21). Paul wrote, “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Romans 8:9.) This does not refer to a superfluity of blessing, or the possession of a gift irrelevant to eternal life; it instead establishes a condition of moral necessity true of any believer in any age. If Abel did not have the Spirit of Christ, did he belong to him? If Joseph did not have the Spirit of Christ, he did not belong to him? If those “wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth” did not have the Spirit of Christ, even they did not belong to him. But they did belong to him, and that belonging was effected by the abiding presence of the Spirit. 

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). Is one that has no indwelling of the Spirit a spiritual man? If not, then he considers the things of the Spirit of God as folly. Did Moses consider the Exodus folly or the Passover folly? These were spiritual things, and Moses saw their significance as types of the redemptive work of Christ, the “reproach of Christ.” After Jesus had said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life,” Peter said, “We have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:65, 69). Did he believe this and confess this without an initiating and continuing effectual work of the Holy Spirit? Regeneration and indwelling are operations of the Spirit morally necessary for faith and perseverance in that faith. 

Covenantally and morally, therefore, never has there been nor will there ever be a believer who has not been loved and elected by the Father, unredeemed particularly by and with no perceptive knowledge of the Promised One, and not regenerated, led to receive the Promise, and indwelt by the Spirit of God. Every believer, of all ages, may pray with David expecting that this grace is sealed, “Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. …And uphold me by your generous Spirit” (Psalm 51:11, 12). They also may rejoice that their faith is the same as that of Abraham and is given certainty in the same way: “Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? … That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. … God gave it to Abraham by a promise. … Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. … If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 3:3, 14, 18; 5:16, 25). If Abraham lived by the Spirit (Has there ever been a believer who found spiritual life another way?), then also he walked in the Spirit.

Since the Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth, his operations in sanctification in the new covenant are more powerful and thorough than before the coming of Christ, for the shadows and types now are fulfilled and made clear by His appearing. The explanation of the person and work of Christ by the inspiration of the Spirit may now have full effect in securing for Christ a people of his own possession zealous of good works (Titus 2:11-14). As distinct from that remnant of true believers in Israel, these believers have the example of Christ, the teaching of Christ, the dying grace of Christ, the fullness of the revelation in Scripture, the community of saints to exhort, reprove, and encourage, and the variety of gifts granted to the church by the Spirit in Christ’s ascension (Ephesians 4:1-7). After Christ’s ascension this gift of the Spirit marked the new community and people that believed in him with corporate holiness, personal holiness, and gifts for teaching and order (1 Corinthians 12:3-13).  It is this context that we understand the inspired observation of the writer of Hebrews, “And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise [they did by the Spirit receive the promise in its truthfulness but did not the One who was the full substance, even the incarnate Promise], God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us” (Hebrews 11:39, 40).

We thank God for regenerating grace and persevering grace given believers in all ages by the Spirit; we thank him for the special gifts given when Christ was glorified putting us into a fellowship of  believers and granting each member of that believing body a gift of the Spirit so that we will “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly” (Ephesians 4:15, 16). 

This would be an interesting day for Jonathan Edwards. What appears to be a revival focused on the excellence of the person and work of Christ, the comfort of Scripture, the necessity of repentance, and the beauty of worship began at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky, and has spread to other college campuses. Laura Ingraham interviewed one student from Cedarville, who gave an articulate, joyful, bold, and clear testimony about the centrality of the cross of Jesus for what seemed to be central in the movement at her college. Incidentally, she had played the piano for about six straight hours as worship flowed from the mouths and hearts of the student body. Perhaps no one in the history of evangelicalism has studied, been more personally conversant, more optimistic and cautious, and more biblically analytical of revival phenomena than Jonathan Edwards.

He wrote four major works in order the give a detailed and deeply encouraging analysis of the phenomenon while issuing clear warnings about abuses intrinsic to such a plowing up of the human affections. His Faithful Narrative of Surprising Conversions  examined the revival in Northampton 1734-1736 and established his method for looking at every aspect of such a culture-shaper from the standpoint of historical setting, an empirical investigation of the spiritual experiences, comparison to a broadly-conceived biblical standard, and possible dangers to both supporters and opponents. Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God was followed by Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival, and finally a more intentionally and thoroughly theological inspection entitled A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections.

The second part of Distinguishing Marks contains five positive evidences that a movement is of divine origin. These are all taken from 1 John 4. The first evidence focuses immediately on esteem and affection for Jesus. A genuine operation of God’s Spirit raises esteem for the biblical Jesus born of the Virgin, who came in human flesh and nature, was crucified without the gates of Jerusalem, was buried, rose from the dead, and ascended bodily into heaven. Faith in him for salvation implies love to him for his personal excellence and his saving work. A true operation of the spirit will “beget in them higher and more honorable thoughts of him than they used to have, and to incline their affections more to him.” Second, this work of the Spirit operates against the interests of Satan’s kingdom (1 John 4:4, 5.  Cf. 1 John 2:15, 16).  It takes the mind away from corruptible things of this age. removes our affections from the accumulation of worldly profit, pleasure, and prestige and engages us to a contemplation of the future and eternal happiness. We will have awakened consciences that are “sensible of the dreadful nature of sin, and of the displeasure of God against it,” and are “sensible of their need of God’s pity and help.” We will earnestly seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness and relish the new heaven and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. The Spirit engenders deep affection for the “excellency of divine things.” Third, a mark of the Spirit’s work is a greater regard to Holy Scripture (1 John 4:6). “We are from God,” John wrote; “Whoever knows God listens to us.” The Spirit leads to a love for and obedience to the apostles and “all the penmen of Holy Scripture.” The spirit of error, the spirit of deceit, would not beget in them a high opinion of the infallible rule, and incline them to think much of it, and desire an ever deeper knowledge of it. In accord with that, the fourth mark is the Spirit’s operation as a Spirit of truth as opposed to a spirit of error – All that leads us to deeper discoveries of the truth and disposes our mind to seek it and to love it is of God. The light discloses evil in all its ugly and destructive contours (Ephesians 5:13). “If I am brought to a sight of truth, and am made sensible of things as they be, my duty is immediately to thank God for it.” The fifth distinguishing mark of a true work of the Spirit is this: it “operates as a spirit of love to God and to Man” (1 John 4:7 to the end of the chapter).  “There is sufficient said in this passage of St. John that we are upon, of the nature and motive of a truly Christian love, thoroughly to distinguish it from all such counterfeits. It is a love that arises from an apprehension of the wonderful riches of free grace and sovereignty of God’s love to us in Christ Jesus; being attended with a sense of our own utter unworthiness, as in ourselves the enemies and haters of God and Christ, and with a renunciation of all our own excellency and righteousness” (9, 10, 11, 19).

The traits, derived as they are from close attention to an apostle’s clear instruction to a people whom he loved and for whom he served as a teacher in truth and love, will be maintained and expand in influence if the present college revival is a work of the Spirit of God. The reports of seasoned and friendly observers seem to indicate that these traits are present.

Within this same time frame as the college revival phenomenon, Beth Moore, a well-known Bible teacher and preacher, has found this same Jonathan Edwards to be alarmingly perplexing. So did his contemporaries. He noted that many dismissed the revival as an occasion of unbridled enthusiasm fostered by ministers insisting on the terrors of God’s holy law, and “that with a great deal of pathos and earnestness.” Obviously referring to Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, or perhaps, The Wicked Useful in their Condemnation Only or, The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners,  Edwards countered with the transparently logical observation, “If I am in danger of going to hell, I should be glad to know as much as possibly I can of the dreadfulness of it.” He went on to say, “He does me the best kindness, that does most to represent to me the truth of the case, that sets forth my misery and danger in the liveliest manner.” 

Readers could find a series of tweets @BethMooreLPM that began with, “For the life of me, I don’t get the appeal of Jonathan Edwards to many.” Then she noted her response of years ago to a passage in Jonathan Edwards “Sinners” that said “But I have Jesus.” She had underlined the word “Jesus” and indicated that Edwards’s powerful and unnuanced presentation of God’s wrath somehow made her feel the need to “respond so curtly toward” Edwards’s picture of fearsome wrath like holding a spider “over the pit of hell.” She presented the impact of Edwards as discouraging to souls in need of the loving presence of Jesus.  Her response was designed as a correction to Edwards in his failure to do that. 

Edwards, however, is not deficient on the issue of the saving love of Jesus. In fact, in addition to the incomparable loveliness of his person as the God/man, the loveliness of Jesus is precisely commensurate with the infinite intensity of divine wrath. In The Excellency of Jesus Christ, Edwards made this important point. “Christ never so greatly manifested his hatred of sin, as against God, as in his dying to take away the dishonor that sin had done to God; and yet never was he to such a degree subject to the terrible effects of God’s hatred of sin, and wrath against it, as he was then. In this appears those diverse excellencies meeting in Christ, viz. love to God and grace to sinners.” 

Thus any attempt to diminish one’s perception of the wrath of God against sin and its overwhelming and just hatred against sinners as sinners at the same time necessarily diminishes the grace that Christ has shown to sinners. Ms. Moore indicated that the main attraction of Jesus to her was the promise of dealing with the extremity of her internal brokenness. “I was so broken & self-loathing & ensnared in my sins, such preaching would’ve made me feel like dying. Like running away, not running toward God.” Then she adds, “I would’ve wondered how he could go straight to loving someone like a son after he had abhorred them like a spider.” Of course, she was exactly right to put the sentence, “But I have Jesus” at that point. Only Jesus can do wretched sinners good.  At the same time, she missed the fundamental relationship between Law and Gospel that establishes the necessity to flee to Jesus from deserved divine wrath with an expectation that he will receive us. Only he can receive us for he alone has borne that very wrath of God the description of which she has indicated would drive her away. Recall Edwards’s remark about the Spirit’s operation through truth: “If I am brought to a sight of truth, and am made sensible of things as they be, my duty is immediately to thank God for it.”

Ms. Moore found many elements of her life—messed-up kid, terrible decisions, shame, boundary-less home—that made her seek some point of stability and gain a sense of self-worth. “What drew me to God,” she testified, “was merciful, beautiful Jesus.” Of course, this is right and good and a sound perception as far as it goes, but one must not focus on by-products such as self-worth and dignity but on the reality that we are by “nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3), and Jesus alone saves us “from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). She probably would find a great sense of wonder, emotional satisfaction, and expansive awareness of the greatness of Jesus if she would spend some more time in Edwards. For example, I imagine she would relish this passage from Edwards:

And yet he will at the same time appear as a Lamb to his saints; he will receive them as friends and brethren, treating them with infinite mildness and love. There shall be nothing in him terrible to them. … What is there that you can desire should be in a Saviour, that is not in Christ? Or, wherein should you desire a Saviour should be otherwise than Christ is? What excellency is there wanting? What is there that is great or good; what is there that is venerable or winning; what is there that is adorable or endearing; or what can you think of that would be encouraging, which is not to be found in the person of Christ?

Such an engaging description of Christ’s gentleness with his people and such an entreating call to see his beauty gains fullness of power in seeing, hearing, and believing his appearance as a Lion: “He will then appear in the most dreadful and amazing manner to the wicked. The devils tremble at the thought of that appearance; and when it shall be, the kings, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bond-man, and every free-man, shall hide themselves in the dens, and in the rocks of the mountains, and shall cry to the mountains and rocks to fall on them to hide them from the face and wrath of the Lamb. And none can declare or conceive of the amazing manifestations of wrath in which he will then appear toward these; or the trembling and astonishment, the shrieking and gnashing of teeth, with which they shall stand before his judgment seat, and receive the terrible sentence of his wrath.”

Moore puts herself in the position of obscuring the true greatness of God’s condescending love when she writes, “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m no big theologian but I just don’t think you’re a spider. And I don’t think God abhors you.” Maybe an edge into Moore’s awareness that she might benefit from a larger knowledge of Edwards would be his treatise on the spider, in which one of his corollaries said, “Hence the exuberant goodness of the Creator, who hath not only provided for all the necessities, but also for the pleasure and recreation of all sorts of creatures, even the insects.” An even greater door of edifying knowledge would be a serious engagement with the expansive treatments that Jonathan Edwards gives of the dying love and grace and continued intercession of the Jesus who was set forth as the propitiation for our sins in order that God might be just even in justifying those who trust in him. 

What Christian would not agree with Beth Moore in writing, “I have found exactly ONE in whom I feel completely safe, completely loved, completely known, and completely helped.” I would recommend that her sense of safety, love, knowledge, and help could be expanded in a profound and edifying way—not only to her but to the many who benefit from her Bible teaching—by a serious engagement with the biblical, experiential, and doctrinal insight of Jonathan Edwards.

The ageless Edwards might still instruct us in such a time as this.

Duty is defined as “that which one is morally or legally bound to do.” That defines duty in an absolute sense. Another definition is “action or conduct required by one’s profession or position.” That might, often does, involve absolutes, but the particular actions required are relative to the skill, qualification, interpersonal relations, and professional office of a person. My duties to my children are different from my duties to the children of others but are not on that account less than absolute.

On occasion, public speakers, including preachers of the gospel, will belittle “duty” as if it is an inferior motivation for action or compliance to standards. Delight is seen as a superior motivation while duty is—Well, if I have to do it, OK—synonymous with begrudging action. One brings his wife flowers because it is his delight to do so, for he is delighted with her. If he gives her flowers presenting them to her out of a sense of duty, this is connoted as a lackluster action deserving scorn. But this tendency to diminish the excellence of a sense of duty is misguided. It is a moral error. The husband’s duty is to love his wife as his own body, for he who loves his wife loves himself (Ephesians 5:28; Genesis 2:22, 23). To treat one’s wife tenderly, to look to her desires and happiness, to bring her flowers, to live with her according to knowledge is to love her, to delight in her, and at the same time to do one’s duty.

The bifurcation between duty and delight is one of the sinister results of the fall. That one can feel duty to be a burden is one evidence of how the flesh lusts against the Spirit. In Galatians 5, Paul investigates the relationship of the law to love and the operations of the Spirit. Through love, we serve one another (13). By the flesh, we “bite and devout one another” (15). The whole law, that is, the whole duty of one person to another, is fulfilled in this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” So how does one overcome the antipathy of the flesh to the law of love? “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (16). The Spirit, law, and love unite in giving expression to human duty. When one walks by the Spirit and bears the fruit that the Spirit produces (5:22, 23), he does nothing contrary to law but walks aligned with the law. God’s law constitutes the duty of man and at the same time is the perfect expression of love.

I will not seek to investigate vigorously the relation between benevolent love and complacent love but only this.  God loves sinners out of benevolent love as far as his knowledge of their sin and rebellion is concerned and their consequent worthiness of eternal wrath. There is nothing lovely in us that would give God pleasure in loving us.  He does nurture, however, a complacency in his unmerited favor toward sinners, for he does this to the praise of his glorious grace and the demonstration of the “depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God” (Ephesians 1:6; Romans 11:33). His benevolence toward us, therefore, finds it foundation in true complacence toward himself. On our part, both benevolent love and complacent love is due to God, first, foremost, and unstinted and then to all other things on his account. He has the most of being and is in fact the only thing that has being in and of himself, the only self-existent entity, and infinitely so, in all of reality—so benevolence is due him above all things. In addition, his being not only is large and indestructible but is beautiful, the sum of all goodness. Jonathan Edwards argues, “For as God is infinitely the greatest Being, so he is allowed to be infinitely the most beautiful and excellent.” Real virtue then, the faithful expression of duty, “must necessarily have a supreme love to God both of benevolence and complacence” at its core. All is derived from him and is absolutely dependent on him and his “being and beauty are, as it were, the sum and comprehension of all existence and excellence” [Works, BOT 1:125]. God’s comprehensive and infinite excellence, therefore, establishes the consuming duty of all intelligent creatures to love him in seamless devotion of all our parts.

Resistance to duty is resistance to moral perfection and resistance to love—both for God and man, neighbor and family. Nurturing selfishness and personal pleasure at the cost of loving service equals lawlessness rather than obedience, flesh-following rather than Spirit-walking, irregularity rather than duty. In the unfallen state of man, obedience to the law written on the heart was the supreme delight of Adam and Eve. To expand their vision of God’s attributes and to be more maturely conformed to his beautiful perfection was the goal that drove their obedience. This moral propensity was used perversely by Satan to entice them to disobedience—“His mercy is greater than his law and this act is the very path to be like him.” Such reasoning deceived Eve to take an independent path to these goals and brought about the fall. As uncorrupted image-bearers, however, their duty was their delight and the prospect of unwavering obedience their true happiness. Andrew Fuller stated in his confession of faith, “I believe if Adam or any holy being had had the making of a law for himself, he would have made just such an one as God’s law is; for it would be the greatest of hardships to a holy being not to be allowed to love God with all his heart.” In the unfallen state, they loved the duty that was theirs; the obligation that was perfectly commensurate with the righteousness set before them was no burden but their holy hope.

Presently, fallen creatures have no regard for God. Instead, they shut off from their contemplation the power and perfection that should be obvious from the witness of every created thing around them. Duty is reprehensible because the concept of divine beauty, power, and prerogative conflicts with the corrupt mind in its self-centered, rather than God-centered, goals. If any sinners are to be converted, each must come to grips with the distance between their affections and their duties. 

The new birth involves a reconciliation of affections with duties. The faith that adheres to justifying righteousness approves God’s righteous law, righteous judgment, righteous atonement, and righteous reconciliation. Saving faith admits that our duty toward such righteous expressions of divine goodness infinitely transcends and is radically other than our pursuit. Sanctification progresses in proportion to the affections’ realignment with intrinsic duties. Again, Andrew Fuller presses this truth into a confessional article: “I believe that such is the excellence of this way of salvation, that every one who hears or has opportunity to hear it proclaimed in the gospel is bound [italics mine] to repent of his sin, believe, approve, and embrace it with all his heart; to consider himself, as he really is, a vile lost sinner; to reject all pretensions to life in any other way; and to cast himself upon Christ, that he may be saved in this way of God’s devising. This I think to be true faith, which whoever have, I believe will certainly be saved.” One’s being “bound” to these responses mean that every stage and trait of justifying faith arises from duty. Reconciliation with God necessarily involves reconciliation of our highest desire with our highest duty.

When one grasps accurately the moral loveliness that requires the devotion of all moral beings, it is impossible to dismiss duty as an inferior motivation for action; rather one sees duty as a moral disposition, an aesthetic judgment, a true perception of fitness, a consent to perfect being, and a joyful submission to expressions of order, law, love, moral symmetry, infallible purpose, transcendent wisdom, and divine revelation. Duty permeates the entire calling of the minister of the gospel and the message that he preaches. Again, listen to the confession of Andrew Fuller:

I believe it is the duty of every minister of Christ plainly and faithfully to preach the gospel to all who will hear it; and as I believe the inability of men to spiritual things to be wholly of the moral, and therefore of the criminal kind, and that it is their duty to love the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in him for salvation though they do not; I therefore believe free and solemn addresses, invitations, calls, and warning to them to be not only consistent, but directly adapted, as means, in the hand of the Spirit of God, to bring them to Christ. I consider it as a part of my duty which I could not omit without being guilty of the blood of souls.

Why does Fuller say that it is the sinner’s “duty to love the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in him for salvation.” The first concerns the fullness of the law; before all things and with all the energy of the mind, the will, the understanding, and the affections the Lord Jesus, in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells, is to be loved. Having fallen short of that in Adam and in personal transgression, sinners need a path to righteousness and thus life. In Jesus that righteousness has been perfected and the merit of eternal life is found in him alone. A complete resting of the soul on his work (trust) as alone worthy unites the soul to him. He is the Lord, and, also, he has loved the Lord his Father with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength. He is the goal of the law and he is the perfect doer of the law. The duty, therefore, to love him absolutely and to trust him for salvation is based on the same moral excellence involved in both. 

Duty, in reality, as indicated above is prior to love. The focus of love is determined by the duty implied in the excellence of the object. The greater the excellence, the greater the duty; the greater the duty, the higher and more focused the love. The infinitely perfect being calls forth our devotion and admiration; the law of such a being establishes our duty. That all things exist by his will and serve his purpose gives us varying degrees of duty toward all that he made and sustains. “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created” (Revelation 4:11). Though varied in degree, all duty is absolute. We have a duty to our pets as well as our parents, but the latter is of a higher degree of duty that the former. How the glory of God is manifest in each thing and in each relationship determines the intensity of duty involved. Food and drink are good and are partaken with gratitude and to God’s glory and with a fully-approving conscience, but may be omitted for the sake of the conscience of a brother (1 Corinthians 10:29-33). Fundamental to love, therefore, is the level of duty that defines each relation.

Articles in this edition of The Founders Journal treat those areas of duty that are of the highest order. The first is from the opening chapter of John L. Dagg’s Manual of Theology and explores the duty to love God. On this duty hang the reality and peculiar relevance of all other duties. 

Another article by Paul Taylor deals with the duties of church membership. Christ has died for the church, has called and gifted every member and united all these members in one common goal to achieve the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” {Ephesians 4:13). There is a duty, therefore, that each part of  this body do its work which “causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:16). 

Another article, by Ryan Denton, concerns the ongoing witness of the church, corporately and individually, with a view to the conversion of sinners. This is to occur until the final elect one is called. Benjamin Keach stated that the “task and calling of the minister as an ambassador” is “to persuade sinners to receive and embrace the Lord Jesus.” The truths of Christ’s seeking and finding all of his people should stir up ministers “to do their utmost in order to the conversion of sinners.” They should not be weary, nor faint, nor be discouraged even when reproached by men and Satan for “God has appointed preaching as his great ordinance, for the … conversion of lost sinners.”[i]  And though the minister has no power either of virtue or persuasion to change a heart and bring a sinner home, but only Christ alone by his Spirit can do that, nevertheless,  ministers “are to do what they can, they are to invite them, press, them, entreat and persuade them to come.”[ii]  A faithful ministry “will do what the Lord commands them to do” with the confidence that “in God’s heart is room enough for millions of souls; and in God’s house there is not only bread enough, and to spare, but room enough also.”[iii]  A minister of Christ, in order “to accomplish his Ambassy, and to bring the King’s Enemies to accept of Peace,” must pray, entreat,  and “beseech Sinners to be reconciled to God.”  In fact, like the apostle who cried tears over the lost, “Faithful Ministers art willing to spend their Lives to win Souls to Christ, yea, to die upon the spot to save one poor Sinner.” Ryan Denton reminds us, in Keach-like fashion, that this duty cannot be transcended in demonstrating love to God and man.

Concluding this edition of the Founders Journal is a brief resume of the Nature of True Virtue by Jonathan Edwards. This work is perhaps the most profound discussion on duty—its true beauty and its intrinsic ethical absoluteness—in American evangelical literature. We pray that each of these articles and the impact of the whole will give unction for holiness and faithful service.

[i] Benjamin Keach, Parables., 368-370.

[ii] Keach., 546.

[iii] Keach, 546.

A Christian world view is bubbling over with resources to satisfy the aesthetic and dramatic needs of every human person.  It is more capable of doing this than any other view of the world. I am not asserting that only Christians can write good literature, tell a good story, make beautiful art, or write beautiful music. Such certainly is not the case. I am saying that the Christian view of the world—“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof”– provides such a comprehensive and inescapable view of reality that any literature or other art form that reflects that view of reality has the intrinsic possibility of satisfying the emotional and aesthetic requirements of the human spirit. I lay no claim to possessing absolute insight into this area.  Rather, I am an amateur and run the risk of manifesting more aggressiveness than good sense in this assertion. Nevertheless, one need not be a great novelist or musician to discern that artistic expression is a vital area of human need. In addition, a bit of serious thought may really impress the thinker that the Christian faith embraces a multitude of possibilities for serious artistic inspiration.
Out of a staggering number of possibilities for productive interaction, elementary literary theory will provide the framework for our testing of the aesthetic power of the Christian faith. My intent is to illustrate that literary theory finds within the Christian faith a solid foundation for its assertions. One could also contend, though I will not seek to demonstrate this, that the Christian Faith provides the richest, most comprehensive background as well as the most fertile soil for the actual content of literature and other artistic expressions among the world views open to us.
This glance at literary theory obviously is not exhaustive, but only suggestive and tentative. One of the most fundamental concepts in literary theory is the idea of plot. Harry Shaw, in his Dictionary of Literary Terms has defined plot as “A plan or scheme to accomplish a purpose.” He says, “In literature, plot refers to the arrangement of events to achieve an intended effect.” He then describes a plot as “a series of carefully devised and interrelated actions that progresses through a struggle of opposing forces” (that is conflict) and conclude with a climax and a denouement. Shaw also points out the difference between plot and story. He employs the distinction of E. M. Forster. A story is a narrative of events arranged in their time sequence while a plot is a narrative of events in which the emphasis falls on causality. Forster illustrates: “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot.
This definition of plot with its differentiation between story and plot focuses our attention upon causality.  The idea of cause and effect is a fundamental characteristic of plot.  In plot we do not see one event haphazardly following upon another event without any ultimate connection between the two things.  If that phenomenon persists in a book, we soon lay it aside or place it on the coffee table which contains books that no one reads anyway.  A plot must build and increase in intensity and complexity by introducing different sets of causes which have logical, though sometimes strange, effects.  This same literary critic, Harry Shaw describes cause and effect in this way:
Much of what one reads is the result of cause-and -effect relations.  When we read an answer to the question “Why did this happen?”  We are dealing in causes.  When we read the question “What will this do?”  The answers involved deal with effects.  A cause, therefore, is that which produces an effect, the person, idea, or force from which something results.
After giving examples of topic sentences in paragraphs which lead to cause and effect discussions within the paragraph Shaw concludes:
All life — and consequently all good literature — is concerned with why something begins to exist and why it exists the way it does.  A cause is the reason.  An effect is the result of the operation of a cause.  Cause and effect are necessarily related: Shakespeare’s Macbeth killed Duncan because of ambition and greed; the effect of the murder is the substance of a tragedy that leads to Macbeth’s total ruin.  Such a statement about Macbeth indicates that the total cause of any event is complex and involves an intricate joining of preceding forces and events; the total effects of any given cause extend beyond immediate results.
Therefore, in a good story an author will develop his plot by introducing a multiplicity of factors which we could define as causes, he will make clear to us the resultant effects of these causes, and will bring them all together finally in a coherent conclusion, every cause and every effect having its proper and well-defined relationship to the final solution of the story.  The author who cannot accomplish this in a credible fashion has failed to produce a good work of literature.
I would propose that the reason our minds demand that sort of organization to a plot is that God has created the world to work that way, and his making humans in his image has established n the mind the necessity for all things finally to resolve into a worthy purpose. The Bible begins with the cause of all the stories when it asserts “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth.”  When Scripture affirms in Ephesians 1:11 that God works all things after the counsel of his own will, and in Romans 8:28, “We know that all things work together for the good to them that love God and are the called according to his purpose,” then we indeed do know that all things have their designated place.
Such confidence results from the Christian doctrine of Providence.  In itself it is an assertion that eventually all causes and all effects will resolve themselves into the purpose of God, the author of this story. No loose ends will remain dangling, no factors will have been brought in that do not play their own part in the development of the plot.
I am not saying that God has accommodated himself to our view of what plot should be; I am saying that we have inescapably produced an understanding of plot based upon the way the world is and our minds are only satisfied when the story is told as it really should be, that is, in accord with the way God made the world.
According to Shaw, a plot includes a “a series of carefully devised and interrelated actions.”  An author must be careful to devise his actions carefully and interrelate them properly because he must bring them to a proper resolution.  The Bible represents all the events of the world as reflecting the relationship and interaction of man the creature with God the Creator.  Everything contributes to our understanding of the complexity of man’s involvement with sin and the ingenuity of his depravity but ultimately relates to the simple concept that man is in rebellion against the God who owns him. As this theme develops in complexity and force, a counter but complementary theme of redemption is introduced. It finds simultaneous development along with man’s depravity. It becomes so intricate that we see God’s redemptive purpose developing in the midst of man’s deceptive wickedness and even using it to bring the redemptive theme to a successful consummation. The story of Joseph’s being sold into Egyptian bondage by the evil intent of his brothers compels a complex interaction of emotion, outrage, understanding, and sympathy at the human level. Parallel to that, moreover, is the recognition that this very action on the part of his brothers was the plan of God for saving his chosen family from starvation. Through that preservation, the messianic nation is formed. We also see the interrelationship of these apparently disparate parts in Peter’s affirmation at Pentecost “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23).  How much greater illustration do we need of the eventual resolution of two seemingly irreconcilable themes.
Scripture consistently presents the world story as developing a “series of carefully devised and interrelated actions.”  Reality works that way, because God, though infinite and ultimately incomprehensible in his intelligence and wisdom, is consistent and purposive. The human mind cannot rest satisfied with a fallacious picture of reality; we therefore require carefully devised and interrelated actions in any story, or plot, but especially in the story.
The second element of this definition of plot insists that this series “progresses through a struggle of opposing forces.” A plot cannot progress without conflict of some kind.  It may be severe internal strife on the part of a tragic hero. It may be the good guys vs. the bad guys, or the clever and sinister insinuation of a fiend trying to spoil the goodness and innocence of a heroine, or the opposing force may simply be the ridiculous and incongruous developments of a situation comedy. No matter what the story, some degree of conflict is necessary for resolution. That description exists because it is impossible for us to conceive of a tale of interest or of real accomplishment without conflict of some sort being involved.
For example, the following story would hold very little interest for the listeners (though indeed it may be extremely significant for the teller). “Yesterday I went to the post office and mailed my letters and went back home and drank a cup of coffee.  I also read the paper and really had a nice day.” Now it is wonderful to have a day like that, but not too wonderful to tell about it. Consider this option: “While on the way to the post office yesterday I had a flat tire.  When I stepped out of the car, I was abducted by two escapees from the State mental asylum who thought that I was an airplane. They were convinced that they could make a quick trip to beautiful downtown Shawnee, Oklahoma, if they could only find the proper runway from which to take off. I could not convince them that I wasn’t an airplane and so only escaped the trip to Shawnee by convincing them that I had already been flying all day and my arms were too tired for another trip. Eventually they were taken into custody by a couple of officers from the asylum who refused to believe that I too was not a resident of the asylum since I had spoken so convincingly about having flown all day. When they discovered their mistake, they were so chagrined that they fixed my flat tire and treated me to a cup of coffee. By this time the post office was closed and I had to wait until the next day to mail my letters. This upset my wife who was sending a special birthday card to her sister. That evening she had to call and explain why the card would not be on time. In the conversation, she was reminded that the birthday was not till next week, and was relieved that she had not been so early with the card as to muffle its joyful impact. She forgave me and was happy I had had such an unusual day.”
This is hardly an engaging literary style but the story is worth telling and the element of conflict provides a greater degree of interest than the lack thereof.  One who has read Tolkiens’ Lord of the Rings, or Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia or his Space trilogy or, Cormack McCarthy’s Blood Meridian can readily see how numerous are the possibilities for developing conflict as a necessary, literary device.  The element of conflict is a continuing reality in the Scripture from the subtle but vicious temptation of Eve by the Serpent until the twentieth chapter of Revelation when “the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10).  The walk of the Christian is represented as a walk of conflict in which he wears the whole armor of God, for his warfare is against principalities and powers in heavenly places.
So, on the one hand, the biblical record grandly illustrates this literary principle; but even more important, it is the truth at the back of this biblical conflict that has given rise to our understanding that a plot progresses through a struggle of opposing forces.  We feel it in our bones and see it all around us, because that is the way things are.
The next element of plot is climax.  The climax is that point in the play, in which it becomes clear that the central motive will or will not be successful. It becomes clear which force is going to emerge victorious in the conflict.  One characteristic of many modern plays and movies is the significant absence of climax and denouement. This may not be a weakness in itself but is merely a confession on the playwright’s part that he does not know which side of the conflict should win and much less how the victory would finally be resolved into a satisfying conclusion. We see such a phenomenon in the movie of some years back called Kramer vs. Kramer. It ends the only way it could end; but the audience has some degree of frustration because both parents had compelling characteristics that won their sympathy and both had significant weaknesses. However, the very fact of frustration with that sort of ending is evidence that one’s mind does not stop there but recognizes the need for absolute judgment somewhere that will make clear what really should have happened.
The same thing would be true of the trial of Jesus if it were left at the stage of his condemnation. “When He was reviled, he reviled not in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but he trusted to him who judges justly.” That is true not only in the case of the trial of Jesus, but it is an aesthetic requirement of our minds. When climax fails to materialize in the story, our minds even unwittingly commit that judgment to the one who judges justly.
This tendency, in fact makes us restless until we can find answers to the unresolved questions that plague us. The question that we all have asked, “Did Scarlet get Rhett back or did she really not deserve to have him” gave rise to an attempt to resolve that aggravating uncertainty.
There are hundreds of examples, however, in which the climax is set forth very forcefully in the story, and the author who is successful in it and makes all the readers or onlookers feel that it justified, has the matchless gift of creation. Climax in the biblical account and in the real story of the world comes in the cross. When Jesus cried in a loud voice, “It is finished” the climax to all of history had come. In the cross the conflict between Jew and Gentile was over, God and man were reconciled, death was turned backwards, and all the demonic powers arrayed against God were put to flight. This is the victory that must occur or the world is senseless; this is the victory that must occur or every high hope and aspiration of our most noble moments is crushed to the ground and all is vanity. That unspeakable conflict entailed in the highest of all God’s creatures rebelling against the holy, righteous, and just creator and involving another of God’s high creations, man, in the rebellion came to its climax in the cross. That part of literary theory which demands climax within the plot finds its most irrefutable rationale in God’s action in the cross.
The final element of the plot is denouement. This word refers to the solution or the final untangling of the intricacies of a plot. What are the implications of a victory that is won.  The made-for-TV lawyer Perry Mason did this by explaining how he discerned who was the real culprit and tying all the bits of evidence together for the astounded viewer.  In Tolkien it is done by describing the righteous rule of the rightful king of middle earth, the cleansing of the shire, and the fading away of yesterday’s heroes with the sense that their purpose had been well fulfilled. Lewis sees all history culminating in the land of Narnia, and a train wreck, perhaps interpreted as tragic by those in England was not tragic at all but merely the door to Narnia, and more than Narnia, Aslan’s own country.  Denouement comes in the Bible story as Christ is resurrected to defeat death and its causes and returns in glory and splendor, and he will display such matchless beauty and such awesome power that every knee shall bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God the Father. Again, the final issue of this is described for us in the book of the Revelation.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life bearing twelve crops of fruits, yielding its fruit each month.  And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.  No longer will there be any curse.  The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.  They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night.  They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light.  And they will reign for ever and ever.  – Rev. 20:1-5

This conclusion gives literary satisfaction and objective justification to the thesis of our text: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.” Holiness and righteousness will inhabit the final resolution which will be brought about because “the Lord of hosts, … the King of glory” has come in. This is the model for and the foundation of all denoument. Nothing but such an infinitely excellent conclusion to all things can satisfy the mind. It is that story-ending than which a greater can not be thought. It is the truth.

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This edition of the Founders Journal gives attention to Psalm 24. In his inspired reflections on the Mosaic account of creation, David begins with the beautiful, but definitely counter-cultural assertion, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein..” The omnipotent sovereignty of the Lord in verses 1 and 2 as manifested in his orderly and purposeful arrangement of all things presses forward to the perfect holiness of the Lord in verses 3-6. He dwells in “his holy place.” Those verses call for “those who dwell therein” (1) to approach him only with perfect holiness and righteousness. This righteousness comes to them in the gracious blessing of salvation (5). Pointing to Jacob (6) reminds us that God’s covenant rules the approach to God. Verses 7-10 describe a scene of the glorious splendor of living in the presence of the Lord “strong and mighty” who defeated all his foes in the great battle for salvation. His ascent to heaven, bringing a host of captives in his train, allowing sinners to revel in his glorious presence, culminates in his placing all things under his feet.
Scott Callaham gives an exposition of the Psalm with the skill of an experienced linguist and biblical exegete and with the sensitivity and passion of one truly adores the Lord of glory. Dr. Callaham lectured in Hebrew and Old Testament for the International Chinese Theological Seminary and has served as lead editor of World Mission: Theology, Strategy, and Current Issues. He is author of Biblical Aramaic for Biblical Interpreters in both English and Chinese. He also curates Daily Dose of Aramaic.
Dr. Mark Coppenger, retired professor of philosophy at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a former professor at Wheaton has given us an excellent study of how God’s lordship in creation lays the groundwork for aesthetics. Mark is an effective writer and author, an engaging teacher, has served in numerous positions of service among Southern Baptists at the national and state levels and also been pastor of churches. Since the triune God is Creator and Sustainer and Owner of the earth, it is impossible that every aspect of it not reflect some element of his glory. The existence of everything is dependent on him and his power, intelligence, beauty, purpose, and glory. The study of aesthetics is the investigation of principles underlying our perception of beauty. This could be applied to art, music, poetry, physics, chemistry, or the mere pleasure of standing in awe of natural things. Mark has given a narrative of how aesthetics has its foundation in the realty that “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.” He has shown the confluence of nature and art in how the beauty, symmetry, and power of the one inspires the other. His article itself is an engagement with aesthetics of language.
I have written an article on drama as an expression of God’s ownership of the world. His revelation in Scripture in the unfolding of the eternally conceived covenant of redemption worked out in connected stages in history determines the elements of story. I seek to show how all good stories that grip the heart, challenge the intellect, and convict the moral consciousness find their patterns in the flow of the biblical story.
A review article of The Mystery of the Trinity by Vern Poythress is a fitting inclusion in this Founders Journal. His argument that the Trinity is “ontologically basic” perfectly fits the Psalmist’s affirmation that “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.“ Fallenness has corrupted the mind and thus the process of reasoning making  special revelation necessary for any proper understanding of general revelation. For knowledge, therefore, of God and his world, the Bible is “epistemologically basic.” His argument on this issue is clearly and powerfully relevant to sorting out differences within the Evangelical/Reformed community over the subject of natural revelation vis a vis natural theology. And so, where does David’s revealed observation, “The earth is the Lord’s” lead us in that discussion?
Several critical passages of Scripture dealing with how God’s created order necessarily declares his glory, his eternal power and godhead, his beauty and excellence, and his knowability also affirm the blinding effects of human sin. Consequently, for knowledge uncluttered by innate rebellion, creatures have an absolute dependence on special revelation; because knowledge of God is not only a matter of cognition and mental perception but purity of affections, these scriptures emphasize the necessity of holiness and righteousness and consequently redemption.
Psalm 8 early establishes the reality that only those who come to him as children and babes truly see the majesty of his name; this is set in the context of foes and avenging enemies and the eventual rightful dominance of God’s redeemed image-bearers. Psalm 19, after showing the irrepressible universality of God’s revelation through nature, shows its ineffectuality without divinely revealed law leading to conviction of sin, love of holiness, consistent awareness of a deceitful heart, and constant dependence on the revealed word. Psalm 24, our text, shows that the knowledge of God embedded in his creation will become effectual only to those who find holiness and righteousness in salvation and that that comes in the triumphant work of Christ.
Acts 17 unfolds layers of revelation in the created order and in providence and God’s intention that humanity should search for him and find him through induction uncorrupted by moral prejudice. Instead, fallen humanity makes idols of created things arising from fallen imaginations rather than enlightened consciences. Consequently, man cannot know God, though he is not very far from any of us, apart from repentance based on the finished redemptive transaction accomplished by Jesus Christ.
Romans 1 begins with a stern statement that among the things revealed from heaven in this world is divine wrath because the aboriginal moral instinct of man is suppression of the truth. The clarity and power of divine revelation through the “things that are made” leave humanity without excuse. The intrinsic knowledge of God along with the extrinsic compelling evidence of God’s holy power is so mangled by human sin that it leads only to blatant idolatry and ongoing moral perversion.
The most sophisticated societies in philosophy and political organization have failed to produce anything in their religion that comes close to the God of the Bible. Both empirical science and human rationality have failed and cannot even be prolegomena to a true knowledge of God.
What our senses have failed to understand—what eye has not seen and ear has not heard–, and what our philosophy has miserably fallen short in perceiving—what has not entered into the heart of man–, these things God has revealed to us by his Spirit for the Spirt searches all things; yes even the depths of God.
But when grace opens the mind and the heart and one finds the wisdom of God in the face of Jesus Christ, the earth and all that is in it is transformed. Everything becomes a witness to God’s power, his infinite excellence, his love, his mercy, his grace. And all that, as lovely as it is and as increasing as it is in delightful testimony pales in brilliance and glory beside the infinite wonder of redemption through the Son of God.
The editor and the contributors pray that this edition of the FJ will prompt renewed delight in seeing the joyful and exuberant power of God through the things that are made. Right thinking guided by revealed truth can unfold from general revelation abundant data for delight and marvel. The consideration that such a knowledge in all its expansive possibilities is immeasurably below the knowledge of God in the one who “made foolish the wisdom of the world” by the cross of Christ should enhance the delight we sense in the “hope of eternal life.” All things should lead us to a posture of wonder, love and praise.

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