The Gospels depict the arrest and trial of Jesus in a way that shows us not only the insensibility of His accusers, but also His own steadfast faithfulness to the will of God through suffering and humiliation. Our Lord’s example shows us how to continue entrusting ourselves to Him who judges justly (1 Peter 2:23; 4:19).
Jesus, however, was not the only one who was on trial on this momentous occasion. The gospel writers highlight the events surrounding His abuse and trumped up charges, but they also record another trial that took place that night. This second trial was not center stage; rather, it took place in the shadow, not before the immediate presence of Caiphas the high priest, but in the outer courtyard of his residence.
This other trial does not give us any examples to follow, but it is filled with lessons about sin and grace. At the very time that Jesus was humbly enduring abuse and scorn by trusting His Father, Peter was failing miserably as his own faith was being tried.
The facts of Peter’s fall are well known to those who are familiar with the New Testament. All four Gospels tell the story in detailed ways.
Matthew reports that as Jesus was being taken to the high priest, “Peter was following him at a distance” (26:58). As He was being interrogated and abused inside, Peter “was sitting outside in the courtyard” (v. 69) when his own trial began to unfold.
Peter’s experience teaches us that Jesus Christ is a great Savior of great failures.
It started with a comment directed to him by a servant girl: “You also were with Jesus the Galilean,” which he resolutely denied (vv. 69–70). As he headed for the door another servant girl made the same observation, and then some bystanders cast doubt over his denials when they commented that his accent gave him away.
Peter’s anger rises with his fear, and the third time he is confronted about knowing Jesus he punctuates his disavowal of “the man” with curses (v. 74). He failed miserably, just as Jesus had warned him that he would.
The account of Peter’s denials is far more than a story of failure, however. It is also a story of great mercy and love. Peter’s experience teaches us that Jesus Christ is a great Savior of great failures.
To understand this we need to consider the story behind the story. When Jesus warned Peter about his impending failure, He explained what was happening behind the scenes: “Satan,” He said, “demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:31–32).
The high priest’s courtyard was a battlefield. The enemy had his sights on Peter, or more specifically, on Peter’s faith. Through the faithful intercession of Christ, Peter’s faith, though it was severely wounded, was not destroyed. The flame burned low, but was not extinguished — not because of Peter but because of Jesus.
The renewal of Peter’s faith begins immediately with the crowing of the rooster. When he heard it, he remembered Jesus’ words and he “went out and wept bitterly” (Matt. 26:75).
Repentance and faith are twin graces. Though they are distinct, they are inseparable. We see them operate in Peter’s life after his fall. Because his faith, though weakened, was kept alive, he was able to believe the word of Christ and in remembering that word, to experience deep sorrow for his sin and genuine repentance of it.
The record of the restoration of Peter by the risen Lord (John 21:15–19), as well as the testimony of his faithfulness throughout the rest of his life, demonstrates the fruit of his repentance.
This is a story of weakness and warning. Every follower of Jesus ought to take it to heart. None of us is as strong as he thinks he is, and no one — absolutely no one — is immune to being tempted to fall into great sin. “Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12).
Repentance and faith are twin graces. Though they are distinct, they are inseparable.
But this is also a story of grace and forgiveness. What happened to Peter highlights the mercy of our Lord. Jesus Christ is a real Savior of real sinners. Learning this lesson — and remembering it — will free us from the pressure to downplay our sin.
There is no attempt to whitewash Peter’s fall. In fact, there was no chronicler there to record these events. Peter himself is the source of our information. He could tell his story in all of its shame and sorrow because he had experienced the mercy and forgiveness of his Lord. He had no need to pretend to be anything other than he was — a great sinner who had been forgiven by a great Savior.
Peter’s story is recorded in the Bible to give hope to people who have done horrible and foolish things. Anyone who has ever failed greatly, who has fallen away from that which he knows to be right and good, can read this account of Peter’s fall and be encouraged.
The Lord will not allow the work that He begins in His people to be overthrown even by the most severe attacks of our enemy. And when His children fall, He is willing and able to restore them as they turn from their sin and trust Him for forgiveness.

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Four hundred years after the final word of revelation under the old covenant, the silence was broken when the Angel Gabriel spoke to Zacharias about the birth of his son, John (Luke 1.11-19). Gabriel put the birth of John in the context of Malachi 4: 5, 6 giving clear indication that the promises and prophecies of the old covenant were about to be fulfilled so that God would not “strike the earth with a curse.” This renewed revelation came to Mary, Joseph, and Elizabeth also. They were confronted with the initiation of coming events that would bring to completion God’s purpose of redemption. God would penetrate these events before, during, and after with revelation to explain their meaning, that “we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:12).
Within this flurry of renewed revelation, we find Simeon, a man “just and devout” as a channel of revelation (Luke 2:25). Simeon sought to live with equity according to the laws governing human relations in the law of Moses, wanting his worship to be sincere, fully consistent with a contrite heart. He grasped the spirituality of both tables of the law and lived transparently before God and man. He received the promises of God and held them with a heart of devotion. “The Holy Spirit was upon him” indicates that Simeon had revelatory experiences that had been confirmed to him in some undeniable way. He had been given such specific revelation that he knew that he would see the Lord’s anointed one, the very Christ. From the speech that he gives (Luke 2:28-35), the revelation to Simeon had been of a broad scope. This revelatory activity of the Holy Spirit was the first indication that the final prophecy of the Old Covenant was about to be fulfilled. The silence of God was broken and he was about to speak to us through the Son (Hebrews 1:1).
Apparently, Simeon understood clearly that the Holy Spirit prompted him to go to the temple with the expectation that the promise made to him personally was about to be fulfilled. Immediately upon seeing Joseph and Mary bring Jesus into the temple, he took the child from their arms and magnified the greatness of God. He spoke by the Spirit giving notice of how this child would affect the world.
Closest to home, as a personal note he said the striking words, “Now, Lord, you are releasing your bond-servant to depart in peace, according to your word.” Since this promise of seeing the Lord’s Christ had been fulfilled, Simeon could die in peace. He had no question of the certainty of this but believed the direct revelation that this babe was the child of promise. Condensing all the promises of deliverance for the people of God into the person and future work of the babe he now held and gazed upon, Simeon said, “Mine eyes have seen your salvation.” In this child, “Righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Psalm 85:10).
Simeon saw this salvation as prepared in the presence of all peoples. He had learned from Scripture that when the great work of restoration takes place, it is not a restoration of national glory to Israel but a restoration of sinners to God. All peoples are fallen in Adam; but through the glory of Israel, that is, the line of David (Psalm 89:19-29), people from all nations will experience this deliverance from evil. Nevertheless, thechile also constituted “The glory of your people Israel.” It is for this very reason that Israel existed as the people of God, that the Savior would come through their nation. The true glory of Israel was this: “from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.”
To Simeon was revealed that surrounding this child all would see the “rise and fall of many in Israel.” John later testified, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came to his own and his own received him not, but to as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name” (John 1:10-12).
The child also was “For a sign to be opposed.” The slaughter of the infants, the opposition of his home town to his preaching, and the cry of the crowds, “We have no king but Caesar.” (John 19:15) substantiated this oracle.
Simeon spoke a word of revelation to Mary. The mother of this new born heard Simeon’s prophecy, “A sword will pierce even your own soul.” She would stand beneath the cross as this firstborn child suffered the unthinkable cruelty of a Roman cross. She would mourn for him as he cared tenderly for her (John 19:25-27).
Not her thoughts alone, however, would be revealed, but the true character of the religious leaders of Israel would be laid bare by this Messiah. He caused great controversy by his words and his works so that when he was opposed for his purity and his truth, the hearts of many were revealed. Jesus revealed the unbelief of the religious leaders among Israel: “You know neither me nor my Father. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. . . .If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God” (John 8:19, 42-44). Also to the apostles Jesus granted the Spirit for this discernment of heart on certain occasions: “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:3); To Simon Magus Peter spoke, “You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God” (Acts 8:21); “Saul, who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him [Elymas] and said, ‘O full of all deceit and all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord?’” (Acts 13:9, 10). Jesus confirmed this in his own warnings to his disciples when he said, “There is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known” (Luke 12:2).
Those gifts of revelation were given specifically for the messianic period and the initial establishing of the church, the community of the new covenant, the pillar and foundation of the truth, during the time that the writing of Scripture was taking place. There was an overlap in special ministries of the Spirit and written instruction from the apostles (1 Timothy 3:14, 15; 1 John 2:20-22; 26-27). This period of special revelation has been fulfilled and now we rely on Scripture alone under the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:16-21).
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Vaccine mandates are real. As a Pastor, I’ve had too many conversations with faithful church members facing perhaps the biggest decisions of their lifetime.  God promises to give wisdom to those who ask (James 1:5).  I’ve been asking.  I’ve been encouraging those faithful church members to ask as well.  I’ve also been going to the Scriptures, a faithful storeroom of God’s wisdom for answers to help the brethren God has called me to serve.
Of course, I have also been speaking to faithful Pastors I trust and reading up on the latest offerings from faithful Pastors I trust, but do not know personally.  That pursuit has opened my eyes to a troubling reality.  In short, politicians pushing the mandates have been appealing to the Christian virtue of love to convince hesitant Christians to get vaccinated and shockingly, many of the so-called leading evangelicals of our day have been carrying their eisegetical water.
It recalls perhaps the most famous question of the mid—80’s: What’s love got to do with it?  The average Baptist church could wallpaper the fellowship hall with the sheer volume of articles written in defense of the mandates reminding Christians they must love others as Jesus taught, and therefore take the jab.  It seems a curious use of the term.  You see, while the Bible does command us to “love thy neighbor”, that command cuts both ways.  Simply stated, I can’t say I love my neighbor while forcing him to sin and truly love him at the same time.  What most people invoking love mean in this discussion is really the opposite of biblical love.
Let me explain.  Consider 1 Corinthians chapter eight.  Paul introduces a solution to a similar problem in Corinth.  The church in Corinth was divided and unloving, with members filled with pride and in conflict with each other. There were two groups of people in this church.  Those who knew food sacrificed to idols could be eaten freely because there is only one true God, and those who knew there was only one true God, but still believed it to be sinful to eat those foods given their prominent place in pagan worship.  One group was pro-food, and one group was anti-food.  One group had a weak conscience, and one group had a strong conscience.  The chapter is about the way Paul responded to the weaker conscience of those who believed it to be sinful to eat food sacrificed to idols.  This is where we should be going to learn how to love one another in the face of sharp, personal, and meaningful disagreements like we face today.
True love never asks someone to sin against their conscience.
I’ve read most of the available meat in Corinth had been cleansed of supposed evil spirits through some form of ritual dedication to a false god of some kind.  This meat was consumed in pagan temples and at times sold on the streets.  Dedicated meats were as immediate of an obstacle as any mandate and the church was divided on how to deal with it.
The situation is complicated by the sinful pride and the lack of compassion demonstrated by those who had no beef with eating dedicated meats.  They looked down on those who were abstaining, mockingly, as if they were inferior, weaker, and even foolish.  Sound familiar?  Interestingly, Paul rebukes them for their lack of love.  They were pressuring those Paul describes as having a weaker conscience to go against that inner God given guide and eat the dedicated meats.  He writes, “However, there is not in everyone that knowledge; for some, with consciousness of the idol, until now eat it as a thing offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled” (1 Corinthians 8:7). To the weaker brethren, eating these meats was tantamount to full blown idolatry, which having been delivered from through the gospel, wasn’t something they were interested in revisiting.
It’s a simple formula really. Though those Paul describes by default as having a stronger conscience could not understand it, and even disagreed with it, the brethren with the weaker conscience would literally be sinning against God if they ate the dedicated meats.  This is where I believe we have the most to learn.  A believer’s conscience represents his or her understanding of God’s will and Word, and what he or she believes to be right or wrong based upon their understanding of God’s Word.  To go against the conscience then, is to willingly do what you believe to be sinful.  Therefore, to go against one’s conscience is to sin against God (Romans 14:14, 23).
This principle led Paul to warn the meat eaters against embracing their liberty or pressuring the weaker brethren in a way that would lead them to sin against their conscience and eat the meats.  He writes, “But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak.  For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols? And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died. But when you thus sin against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ” (1 Corinthians 8:9-12). It turns out those with the stronger conscience are not free to sin against those with the weaker conscience.  This is because we are all connected, one body, with Christ as the head.  We are all accountable to one another.  We have a responsibility to one another.  Love comes before our knowledge and our freedom in this way.
Paul ends the chapter with an incredible display of love.  In fact, I would say this is the definitive verse in understanding how to truly apply the love of Christ to the current situation which divides so many God loving Christians.  He writes, “Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble” (v. 13). Paul doesn’t instruct those with stronger consciences to lecture those with weaker consciences on the theological truths behind this issue.  Paul doesn’t question their conscience or what has informed it either.  He accepts it, believing the best about their motives and intentions, and responds accordingly. The principle is clear. True love never asks someone to sin against their conscience. That’s it. That’s the principle. Who needs a conscience, when a conscience can’t be broken? We do, it turns out. Be like Paul, signal your love by refusing to ask (or supporting someone to ask) a fellow brother or sister to sin against their conscience, no matter your position on the issue.

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In the last chapter of Ecclesiastes, Solomon brought focus to the importance of strict attention to the written wisdom given by God (12:9-14). Solomon, from the beginning of this book, stated his purpose to employ all the talent and experimental method at his disposal in writing this book (1:13, 17; 2:3, 9). This is generally true of all the writers of Scripture. They do research, they reason on the basis of divine providence, and seek proper interpretation of already-certified Scripture. They look to their own encounters with God and his truth. According to the nature of revelation, many of the things that they set forth as revealed truth utterly transcend both their experiences and their self-conscious gifts. At the same time, they knew that at no point were they merely unconscious amenuenses. Instead, they were being used by God as he employed their peculiar gifts and experiences. Note how Peter said, “I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things” (2 Peter 1:15). This statement came in the immediate context of his testimony that his words were giving greater clarity to the revelation that had come before (19). He himself, was, like the prophets “carried along by the Holy Spirit” even in the context of his “effort.”  Solomon, in this task given him by God was “weighing and studying and arranging . . . with great care.” From a literary standpoint, he “sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth” (12:9, 10).
Though Solomon was engaged in the project as a conscientious literary artist, or closely reasoning philosopher, in the end he does not doubt that his product would be “words of truth.” He presented the image of goads and nails “firmly fixed” (12:11). This particular labor, though all others that he described were “chasing after the wind,” was of sober purpose and enduring value. These words, taken in the whole, embodied truth. Even as Paul before Agrippa and Festus, Solomon could use such language, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words.” (Acts 26:25). The writers of inspiration were aware both of the use of their labors and capacity as well as the perfect truth and authority given their writing by the Spirit of God. See Luke 1:1-4; Romans 14:14-21; 16:25-27; 1 Corinthians 2:10-13; Ephesians 3:1-13; 1 Peter 5:12; 2 Peter 3:1, 2; 1 John 1:1-4; Revelation 22:18, 19. In each of these scriptural testimonies, we engage both the transcendent character of revelation inscribed by inspiration and the writers’ consciousness that their own minds and perceptions stewarded that body of truth.
Solomon was also conscious that this book was superintended by God and that its teachings, understood correctly, are sure guides as part of a larger collection of inspired literature. The “collected sayings”(12:11) were given by one Shepherd.  When combined with other inspired writings, this contemplation of Solomon as the Preacher gives depth and contour to the entire picture of the divine purpose of God in glorifying Himself through the wisdom of the plan of redemption. The “collected sayings” refer immediately to the accumulated argument of Solomon in this book and the conclusion toward which it drove him. By extension, this refers to the entirety of revelation, the “collected sayings,” at the end of the inspiration to record revelatory truth is final. Though many people will write books, one must make sure that the teaching of another does lead him away from the truths revealed in Scripture—“Beware of anything beyond these” (12:12).
Many, many books, and a virtually infinite presentation of opinions will flood the world as author after author desires an audience either for material gain or for philosophical or political fame. Seeking to grasp all these opinions and understand the nuances of the thought of so many varying and contradictory opinions is indeed a “weariness to the flesh.” If an infatuation with such vanities and the thoughts of persons with such limited scope of understanding drives us away from the fullness of truth contained in divine revelation, then the warning is intensified for us, “Beware of anything beyond these.” Paul labored to bring “every thought captive to obey Christ” by destroying “arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:4, 5). For this reason Paul told Timothy, “Charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith” (1 Timothy 1:3, 4).
Solomon concludes his writing with a final statement of its purpose and a concomitant warning.  He has made observations about wisdom and foolishness, righteousness and unrighteousness, legitimate pleasure and dissolute living, this short life and the long home of death, authority and submission, freedom and judgment, divine sovereignty and human responsibility, time and eternity. Now he gives the conclusion that he has reached, under the guidance of the “One Shepherd.”  All of these things, considering the final vanity of everything  when viewed from the perspective of this life only, resolve into this infinitely important and compelling single duty: “Fear God and keep his commands.”
This is a confirmation of all the Law and the prophets, to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. To fear God includes viewing him with a sense of awe and wonder in light of his holiness, a holiness that is seen as the essence of beauty and loveliness. If holiness is the sum total of his attributes (or if holiness gives unity to each of his diverse attributes), it is eternal and immutable, never-changing, never diminishing, never augmenting. But to creatures, though God never changes, he is incomprehensible. Because incomprehensible, never will there be a time in eternity when there are not more expressions of beauty unfolding even though nothing can be added to his eternal infinite attributes. Both in unity and eternal diversity God will be displayed in eternally unfolding layers of beauty, joy, pleasure, and exuberant happiness. When viewed in this way, an accompanying affection is love, for one cannot look upon infinite holiness, impeccable righteousness, and condescending mercy with the proper sense of fear and wonder, without at the same time being engulfed with a complacent love for the perfection of the character of such a Being.
To fear God includes viewing him with a sense of awe and wonder in light of his holiness, a holiness that is seen as the essence of beauty and loveliness.
Solomon’s words, “Keep his commandments” (12:13) brings us immediately into the realm of the purpose of the Law. God requires an absolute obedience to his law for those that will enjoy eternal life in his presence. “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them” (Deuteronomy 27:26 cited in Galatians 3:10) and “If a person does them, he shall live [achieve the goal of eternal life] by them” (Leviticus 18:5 cited in Galatians 3:12). Paul says “For it is not the hearers of the Law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified” (Romans 2:13).
Solomon also has established the fact that, though created in innocence and righteousness, the single great reality of the present human condition is his sinfulness. It is original, it is personal, it is progressive, it is destructive. (Ecclesiastes 7:20 ,29; 8:11ff ; 9:3) We are, therefore, in consistent violation of the supreme duty that is absolutely incumbent upon us.  None of our actions, our thoughts, will be invisible to God in the day of final reckoning. “God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (12:14) Though at times, Solomon’s language seemed to despair of any meaning to anything, he now sets forth this great truth, that, viewed from the standpoint of eternity and the perfection of God’s moral nature and the legitimacy of his law to his creature, nothing in the view of eternity is empty but all will come before him for commendation or blame. His perfect standard will not be compromised but will be the inflexible guide and will be viewed as holy and just so that every mouth is stopped and the whole world held guilty before God.
In this light, we again see that the Law is a schoolmaster, or guardian, to lead us to Christ in whom alone is that perfection of righteousness called for by the Law. The Law, this law approved by Solomon, holds before us both righteousness and judgment until “Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24) In his coming he accomplished righteousness and received our judgment so by submitting with perfect resignation to his atoning work, we are given union with him for both the removal of judgment and the imputation of righteousness.
Solomon’s solemn and thorough investigation of life here in the light of eternity pushes forward the design of God’s redemptive revelation. The revelation of how absurd and utterly vain all existence would be if viewed only from a temporal standpoint serves as a foundation for the clear revelation given to Paul, “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:14),
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Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.— Romans 14:4 —
On the backside of a Sharp Top Mountain in Southwest Virginia lies the wreckage of World War II vintage air craft. On a training mission in February 1943, five airmen lost their lives as they flew a “low-level nighttime navigational” mission, a mission that ended with tragedy and the debris of a B-25 littered throughout the wooded hillside.
Today, if you leave the trail on Sharp Top and look for the fuselage, engine, wings, and other parts of the crash site, you will find a plaque memorializing the event. On an otherwise unmarked hillside, this memorial is the only sign explaining the mangled metal left standing in the woods. Yet my point in bringing up this piece of atlas obscura is not to focus on the plane crash, but to liken it to the state of our religious liberty today. Today, we can find scattered pieces of religious freedom in our country, but by and large most Christians do not know how they got there, how to assemble them, or how to make them fly. For instance, the recent TGC article undermining the sincerely held beliefs of Christians is a prime example.
In that article, Christian lawyer, John Melcon, explains “Why Your Employer Can Deny Your ‘Religious’ Vaccine Exemption.” In the article, he explained the way “religious exemption laws” work and cited three bad arguments for seeking a religious exemption: (1) personal autonomy, (2) my body is my temple, and (3) abortion complicity. In his estimation, the abortion argument “is perhaps the strongest case,” but by comparison to the welcome use of other drugs (e.g., “Tylenol, Claritin, or their favorite anti-aging skin cream“), he insists that this argument is most likely an example of great inconsistency. (N.B. For a quick response to the Tylenol retort, see this Liberty Counsel post).
In his other two arguments, however, the claim is not inconsistency, but denying that personal autonomy or bodily choice is a truly religious reason for seeking a religious exemption. For Melcon, this leads him to reserve religious exemptions for later, greater threats to the Christian faith. It is this argument that I want to address. Instead of addressing his three examples, which are presented with a striking likeness to someone headed for the Emerald City, I want to consider whether waiting for some later crisis is the best strategy. Even more, I will argue that the increasing statism of our country is coupled with a religious fervor that does not call for patient endurance, but bold witness to the truth.
This Really Is a Religious Liberty Issue
As I have written recently, the presidential mandate for Covid vaccines is one motivated by religious interests. With a religious belief in science, those in power are using the force of the state, the threat of job loss, and the fear of disenfranchisement to coerce public and private employer and employees to get the vaccine. Instead of convincing the public of the vaccines beneficial effects, the state is taking a page from Nike’s playbook coercing people to “just do it.” And sadly, Christians thought leaders are playing right along.
Last week, John Piper made the argument that Christian freedom should lead those who are fearful of getting the vaccine to get the vaccine. But ironically, that fear focused not on the anxiety caused by the adverse effects of the vaccine, or the medical concerns, or the uncertain side effects or long terms effects. The fear focused on those who feel pressured to not get the vaccine. But what group of people is putting fear into the heart of Christians not to get the vaccine? I am sure there could be some, but those individuals do not have the force of the federal government behind them.
In this case, I think Piper is misreading the field. The pressure mounting upon Christians is going in the other directions. And Piper’s article is only, if unintentionally, contributing to that pressure. Still, his article is benign compared to that of John Melcon who calls to question the arguments some are putting forward in an attempt to seek a religious exemption.  Indeed, Melcon’s article is one of many Christian hit pieces putting pressure (read: binding consciences ) on those who conscience is bound to not get the vaccine. With sophisticated legal speech, Melcon gives cover for employers and the powers that tax them, as it persuades Christians that it is fool’s errand to seek a religious exemption. But is it? Is it really out of bounds to seek a religious exemption for the Covid mandate? And should we strategize to hold off on seeking a religious exemption now, in order to seek it later?
I wouldn’t be writing this article, unless I disagreed. And I am not the only one. In a short string of tweets, lawyer, professor, and ERLC legal fellow Sam Webb had a few things to say in response to Melcon’s article. Stripping out the Twitter formatting, here’s what he said in response:
Article XVI of the New Hampshire Confession—a Baptist confession used 150+ years—states: “We believe that civil government is of divine appointment, for the interests and good order of human society, and that magistrates are to be prayed for, conscientiously honored, and obeyed, except only in things opposed to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only Lord of the conscience, and the Prince of the kings of the earth.”
If a Christian who holds no settled convictions against this Confession … cannot in good conscience—or, put differently, in good faith—submit to a government-mandated, employer-enforced vaccination because that Christian believes such mandate, action, or vaccination is “opposed to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ”for any number of reasons, then such objection is, in fact, a sincerely held religious belief and an exemption is warranted.
To cause such Christian to act contrary to conscience—even if ill-formed conscience!—is to claim lordship over the conscience which is further violation of that Christian’s sincerely held religious belief that “Jesus Christ…is the only Lord of the conscience.” Even more, what cannot be done in good faith is sin (Rom. 14:23) and so to force vaccination against conscience is to cause sin.
Let’s end the crusade of binding the consciences of brothers and sisters in Christ on disputable matters and let’s love our neighbor by advocating for the freedom of conscience—even if we disagree with the exercise of such conscience.
This is the exactly right! As I have counseled and signed off on multiple religious exemptions, I have not necessarily agreed with every one of the arguments being made, but I have, after listening to the formulation of the believer’s argument, perceived what their sincerely held, biblically-informed belief is. And because of that recognition of sincerely held beliefs, I have supported those Christians who have put their livelihoods in jeopardy in order to follow their Lord. I have urged them to count the cost, but I have not tried to shame them or bind their conscience. This, after all, is what Romans 14:4 calls us to do, and this is what John Melcon has failed to do.
Let’s end the crusade of binding the consciences of brothers and sisters in Christ on disputable matters and let’s love our neighbor by advocating for the freedom of conscience—even if we disagree with the exercise of such conscience.
With no appreciation for how Romans 14 works or any concern that he might be binding his brother’s conscience, Melcon’s argument results in a pressuring Christians to drop their sincerely held beliefs, because after all, it hurts the rest of us. Unfortunately, this is the same logic that governments are rolling out in this country and across the world (think Australia): “You need to think of the collective good and stop resisting on personal grounds. After all, there is no religious reason not to get the vaccine. It’s just medicine.”
For those who are most sensitive to the issues of religious liberty, however, all coercive arguments will fail. And should fail. As Lutheran writer Matthew Cochrane has observed, “Our government has forgone convincing us and has instead resorted to bullying, censorship, abuse, and coercion. But threats and propaganda do not absolve us of the God-given responsibility to make our best judgment based on the information available to us—even the information government bureaucrats, Big Tech, and corporate interests hide because it casts reasonable doubt on the vaccines.” And unfortunately, many Christian leaders are not far behind them in their tactics or persuasion. And this, I believe, is because they don’t see the bigger picture.
The Bigger Picture: Our Secular State Is Not Irreligious  
What’s the bigger picture? Namely, the way that the vaccine mandate—not the vaccine qua vaccine, i.e., the vaccine as a medical prophylactic—is a religious sacrament and a by-product of America’s growing statism.
For the last decade, Charles Taylor’s magnum opus, A Secular Age, has been a constant reference for understanding the “immanent frame” of our world. The Gospel Coalition even published a book in Taylor’s honor, and for good reason. Taylor, in his terminology, has explained how the secular world has lost its sense of divine transcendence and God’s place in our world. Accordingly, the modern secularism has made it is easier to disbelieve than to believe. Whereas Christendom explained the world in spiritual terms and religious practices, the five hundred year project which resulted in today’s secularism has left a vacuum where God once stood.
Christians know that God is not absent. As Francis Schaeffer put it, he is there and he is not silent, but in today’s naked public square, arguments for God are not permitted and this partially explains why religious exemptions are not appreciated. It was a different day when the language of the first amendment was penned. At that point, religion still possessed honor as a civic good. Today, however, religion, and especially Christianity, is seen as a nuisance and a source of bad behavior. This is why the Equality Act and SOGI policies are on a collision course with Christianity. Sexual liberty has become the new religion and that means that religious protections are now being transferred from people of faith to their secular offspring.
If we are to enjoy any religious liberty going forward, we cannot take a strategy that waits for worse cases to arise.
This is also why Melcon makes the case the way he does. He thinks that by playing our religious exemption card later in the game we will be better off. But what he doesn’t consider—in addition to binding consciences—is the fact that the government is not a religiously neutral or interested in well-timed religious liberty. Rather, it is actively carrying out a religious crusade, albeit one that speaks with scientific and not sacred speech. This is the point that needs to accompany Taylor’s observations. Our world has not only adopted a secular worldview, but in the absence of Christianity, and its secular offspring (i.e., civil religion), secular individuals have deified the state to celebrate and support their hedonistic desires. As Zygmunt Bauman has noted in his book Liquid Life, modernity is not only “presented as a time of secularization (‘everything sacred was profaned,’ as young Marx and Engels memorably put it) and disenchantment.” It is also a time where the enlarging state has adopted and enforced religious values. He continues,
What is less often mentioned, however, though it should be, is that modernity also deified and enchanted the “nation,” the new authority—and so by proxy the man-made institutions that claimed to speak and act in its name. “The sacred” was not so much disavowed as made the target of an “unfriendly takeover”: moved under different management and put in the service of the emergent nation-state. (Bauman, Liquid Life, 44; cited in Peter Leithart, 1 and 2 Kings, 64)
This is what most of our Christian leaders have not sufficiently appreciated. With the election of Joseph Biden, we have seen an unending array of executive orders and economic decisions that have further tied the citizens to the state (think: government bailouts) and forced the state on the citizens (think: all the policies of the CDC). Topping the list of government intrusions is the vaccine mandate. And because this mandate have come with all the trappings of a religion, we now have a state that is forcing its religion on its citizens.
No Religious Liberty Without Liberty of Conscience
If you don’t see how the secular state is instantiating its religious point of view, I encourage to open your eyes. Again, I have outlined this point in a previous article. For now, let me simply connect the dots from religious liberty to liberty of conscience.
Returning to the wreckage on Sharp Top Mountain, we should consider that it would be impossible to know what it was or why it was there without a memorial explaining the crash. Such is the case with religious liberty as well. Many can see the fuselage, the wings, and the engines of religious liberty scattered throughout our country. But very few can put all the pieces together and understand how it works and how it got here.
How many who have read the Bill of Rights, if they have read the Bill of Rights, know what it took for James Madison and the Founding Fathers to make a place for religious liberty? How many critique a religious exemption understand the connection to Romans 14? Evidence for our inability to understand Romans 14 has been seen for the last year. Too many evangelicals have interpreted Romans 13 as a divine imperative to do whatever the government tells you, without considering first who gives the government their authority. Then, interpretations of Romans 14 continue in confusion, because Christians are not trying to protect their brothers freedom. In Melcon’s case, he is (unintentionally) siding with the state to bind other’s freedom. And why? Because now is not the time to raise religious concerns.
All in all, we have lived off the rations of religious liberty for nearly two and half centuries, and it is time to relearn how all the pieces got there and how to reassemble them so that that religious liberty might fly again. Unfortunately, arguments like the one offered by John Melcon and John Piper and countless other Johns demonstrate that even the most lucid among us still don’t quite know how this thing flies.
If we are to enjoy any religious liberty going forward, we cannot take a strategy that waits for worse cases to arise. Rather, we need to reintroduce, rewaken, and reinforce the arguments for religious liberty. This must be done in the public square and in countless conversations with Christians and their neighbors. In fact, this is one of the growing benefits of the religious exemptions. In our local church alone, I can report countless opportunities Christians have taken to share the gospel and their religious convictions about the vaccine.
And you know what? It has had effect, not just on other Christians, but on atheists, and agnostics who have seen the merit of personal liberty of conscience and the demerit of forcing people to get a vaccine against their will. This is what it will take for religious liberty to gain a hearing in public, as well as Christians being willing to suffer for their beliefs. This is what turned James Madison’s heart, when he saw the six Baptist pastors jailed for their faith. And this is likely what will turn other hearts today, witnessing people willing to suffer for the sake of conscience.
Yet, such conversations and suffering will not come if we continue to bind the consciences of other Christians. And this is the other place we need to talk about religious liberty: in the church.
In the church, we need to encourage Christians to form their consciences around God’s Word. But we must also permit Christians to form their consciences differently. When we fail to do that, however, we fail to follow Romans 14, and we further fracture the witness of the church, not to mention hurting individual members who are trying their best to follow God with all their heart.
We must make biblical arguments on the subject, learning afresh how Christians have resisted tyranny, so that we can recognize and resist tyranny in the present.
In such cases, the path of another might not be your path, but it is the path that some servants of the Lord have taken and will take. And in that time, we should as Sam Webb put it, “end the crusade of binding the consciences of brothers and sisters in Christ on disputable matters and let’s love our neighbor by advocating for the freedom of conscience—even if we disagree with the exercise of such conscience.”
This is what Melcon’s argument does not do. It may understand the legal ramifications of religious exemptions and it purports to know what will happen if people seek them. But it does not demonstrate an appreciation for liberty of conscience itself. And the point I am making is that if we are going to see religious liberty in public, it will require the church in America to grow up in its understanding of liberty of conscience among its own members. This means pastors teaching on the subject, Christians standing firm for the truth, and other Christians—whether they share the same conviction about Covid vaccines or not—supporting others who are willing to suffer for their beliefs. Indeed, there have been many Christians in church history who have held different beliefs on different Christians practices. But one thing that has benefitted the Church in America has been the freedom to exercise their religion without the coercion of the state.
Today, with the state taking on its own religious practices, we are not in a place where we can wait for a better time to exercise what remains of our religious liberty. No, teaching the church and our neighbors how to recognize the scraps of religious liberty is where we must begin. We must make biblical arguments on the subject, learning afresh how Christians have resisted tyranny, so that we can recognize and resist tyranny in the present. Indeed, now is the time for us to connect religious liberty with liberty of conscience, and to stop making arguments that aid the state by leading Christians to sin as they ignore their consciences.
If we fail to do that now, we will have little hope of standing later. And for that reason, for those who are standing up and submitting religious exemptions, we need to pray for them and promise them that we will hold them up as they follow their Lord and our Lord—whether or not they are doing it in the same ways that we would. Such is the way of liberty of conscience and the way Christians need to truly affirm the faith of their brothers and sisters.
Soli Deo Gloria.

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“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. . . . And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.” (Romans 1:18, 28, ESV).
It is worthy of more than passing notice that some quite capable minds have seen the twentieth century—a century which could be seen as particularly characteristic of the modern era—as one which sought to banish God from human consciousness and human life. The first phrase of Romans 1:28, quoted above, could be said to provide a fitting epigram for the century, a phrase aptly rendered by Greek lexicographer J. H. Thayer: “they did not think God worthy to be kept in knowledge.”[1] The significance of such a designation is that the twentieth century has perhaps been—among all the centuries of human history—the most willfully destructive of human life, the most stridently expressive of the human rebellion against the moral order instilled by God in the universe, and the most perversely detrimental to human culture and human flourishing. The twenty-first century is merely seeing the continued outworking of these tendencies.
Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield, writing in the first decade of the twentieth century, describes the influence of the “modern naturalism” which had arisen in the late seventeenth century with English Deism and had recently come to full fruition (“it has at length run to seed in our own day”).
It has invaded with its solvent every form of thought and every activity of life. It has given us a naturalistic philosophy (in which all ‘being’ is evaporated into ‘becoming’); a naturalistic science (the single-minded zeal of which is to eliminate design from the universe); a naturalistic politics (whose first fruits was the French Revolution, and whose last may well be an atheistic socialism); a naturalistic history (which can scarcely find place for even human personality among the causes of events); and a naturalistic religion, which says ‘Hands off’ to God….”[2]
In retrospect, Warfield’s observations seem prophetic of the entire century.
No less an intellect than the great Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, attempting to identify the salient characteristic of the twentieth century, put his finger on human forgetfulness of God. In his Templeton Lecture (delivered in London in 1983), after mentioning the disaster which had befallen his homeland in the Russian Revolution, Solzhenitsyn continued: “if I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entiretwentieth century, here too I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: ‘Men have forgotten God’”—a Russian saying recalled from his youth. He went on to affirm, “The failings of human consciousness, deprived of its divine dimension, have been a determining factor in all the major crimes of this century.”[3]
Solzhenitsyn’s suggestion finds support in the later work of Peter Conrad, an Australian literary scholar, lately of Oxford University. Conrad defines the project of the twentieth century, displayed in its art, as the banishment of God and God’s replacement by man. As the twentieth century began—under the influence of the mighty changes of the nineteenth century—“its plot seemed radiantly clear: in the future, men would replace God.” But along the way, it became apparent that “The older version of human nature . . . was far from obsolete, and history seemed to demonstrate that man remained a savage.”  On the last page of the book, Conrad concludes, “Modernity had a single, simple project, carried through in all fields of mental endeavor. Declining to give God credit for creation, it took the world to pieces.”[4] It is striking that a cultural historian, with no apparent religious axe to grind, should identify anti-theism or the “death of God” theme as the central feature of twentieth-century culture. He mentions it not merely at the beginning and the end of his account, but repeatedly throughout.
That this anti-theistic outlook was the driving force of the twentieth century is lent credibility by a review of the origins of the disastrous and destructive events of that century. The first half of the century was marked by two horrific world wars and communist revolutions in Russia and China. Both world wars (1914-18; 1939-45) arguably originated with Germany, which in the preceding century had adopted and advanced a destructive intellectual movement, historical criticism of the Bible, which was based on naturalistic premises and required the elimination of a personal and infinite God from any explanation of the origin of the Bible and the events it records. The second of these wars involved the explicit effort to eradicate European Jews, the people who were instrumental in giving to the world the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament), including the Ten Commandments. The two communist revolutions (Russia in 1917, China in 1949) were both explicitly atheistic, as Marx’s ideology prescribed. Taken together, these two wars and two revolutions resulted in the deliberate deaths of untold hundreds of millions of human beings, making the twentieth century the most deliberately deadly in all human history. All this was undertaken against the background or in the interest of the banishment of God—the God of the Bible—from human consciousness.
The same tendency was evident in the internal cultures of the nations of the West during the first half of the century. Historical criticism of the Bible became the accepted mode of removing the biblical worldview from serious engagement by educated people in both Europe and the United States. Its advance was somewhat delayed in the U.S. by the broad and common acceptance of biblical authority by large portions of the American population, but by the 1920s and 1930s the naturalistic view of the Bible was beginning to prevail among educated Americans.
The second half of the century was marked by a cultural and intellectual revolution (motivated by the same anti-theistic impulse) which now runs the risk of destroying Western civilization. A personal account of this cultural revolution, fitting nicely within the latter half of the century, is provided by Alvin Kernan, an academic who was the product and employee of elite educational institutions. Kernan (who does not at all seem to have been operating from a Christian perspective), writing at the end of the century, reports beginning his academic career believing in something like absolute truth: “I did not think that truth remained to be discovered; I believed that in the main it already had been found and that I had not yet been informed of the results.”[5] He records his personal journey through academia, observing in the process the decline of higher education from rationality, absolutes, objectivity, and political liberalism into the irrationalism, relativism, subjectivity, and revolutionary radicalism which now reigns on most American university campuses. Kernan was arguably more optimistic about the outcome than the situation warranted, as witnessed by the events of the quarter-century since his book was published, leading to the current state of higher education in the West, which might aptly be described as indoctrination in radicalism.
The significance of all this is not difficult to discern: it is not accidental that a century which sought to banish God also saw the callous destruction of human life, a precipitous decline of Western culture, and a culminating (and continuing) rebellion against historic moral standards.
IMPLICATIONS
This briefest of surveys suggests some appropriate conclusions.
First, these historical developments arguably represent the outworking of the logical and natural consequences of the anti-theistic ideology. As J. Gresham Machen argued in 1923, “the true way in which to evaluate a spiritual movement is in its logical relations; logic is the great dynamic, and the logical implications of any way of thinking are sooner or later certain to be worked out.”[6] The banishment of the God of the Bible from human consciousness and from all practical and social considerations leaves the Western world without the metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical foundations on which it was built. The “death of God” resulted in the loss of the unifying center of the Western worldview, the loss of a sure basis of knowledge, and the loss of absolute morality (as the scientific concept of relativity was improperly transferred to the moral concept of relativism). Without the foundation of the Bible’s authority and intellectual content, the result was that the Western superstructure of ordered liberty, self-regulating behavior of the populace, and limited government was bound to collapse in due course. This is precisely what has been observed during the twentieth century. While the underlying intellectual developments which shaped the twentieth century were framed in the nineteenth (destructive biblical criticism; Marxism; Darwinism; the humanistic triumphalism of Nietzsche; Freudianism), and their roots may be traced back to the Renaissance (“man the measure of all things”) and the Enlightenment (rationalistic materialism), yet their fruit was borne in the twentieth century. During that era we observe humanistic society organized into mass movements in opposition to biblical theism (symbolized in the Bible by “Babylon”) for purposes of national aggrandizement (World War I) and for the perpetration of evil (Germany under the Nazi regime in World War II) or subjugated to the atheistic ideology of revolutionary utopian deceptions (Soviet and Chinese communism), or in the current setting, the promotion of a Neo-Marxist vision of “social justice” through the division of humanity into competing power blocs which vie against each other for political and social control. The result has been the collapse of humane values and the loss of both civilized behavior and millions of lives. We continue to see the increased influence of socialistic ideologies and the diminishing of human liberties. All this has been enabled by the culture-wide loss of the authority of the Bible and the resulting collapse of acknowledgment of the biblical worldview and moral standards, and by the absence of the influence of the biblical gospel of human reconciliation with God as churches fell (and continue to fall) into promulgation of a “social gospel”—in short, in all this, by the attempted banishment of God from human life and society.
Second, given the truthfulness of the biblical account of things, this leaves the world exposed to the judgment of God. “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men…” (Rom. 1:18). What biblically informed person can deny that the devastations we are currently observing (and those of the twentieth century) have likely come at the hand of an omnipotent and holy God who is exercising his wrath?  Paul’s statement continues: “…who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” The root cause of the exercise of divine wrath is human rejection of the truth of divine revelation and the resulting belief of “the lie” (the attribution of divinity to the creature; Rom. 1:25, NKJV) and corresponding corruptions of human worship and life. The root of culture is “cultus,” the worship and religious life of a society. If the latter (the cultus) is corrupt, so will be the former (the culture), making it ripe for God’s judgment. In Romans 1, the judgment of God takes the form of judicial abandonment in which God “gives them over” (1:24, 26, 28, NASB) to the effects of their own idolatrous tendencies, as we are witnessing in our own day.
Third, this anti-theistic outlook pervades the cultural atmosphere and provides the context in which we must minister. Practically, this means, first, that the secular elites of our day continue to seek the banishment of God from the public square, thus making the environment more hostile toward faithful Christians who seek to base their stance upon the God of the Bible and his revelation. There will be opposition to an openly theistic viewpoint for which we must be prepared and which we must be determined to resist. This atmosphere means, secondly, that many among the secular ruling elites (even at the local level) cannot begin to grasp or even imagine that some of their fellow-citizens would base their actions upon theological considerations or upon high ethical principle. This is inconceivable to them and will lead them to conclude that these poor (Christian) people are either ignorant or are irrationally acting against their own best interests or are trying to establish a theocracy; such deluded people must of course be stopped and re-educated. Those who seek to be consistently Christian will be met with an attitude of condescension and hostility, in response to which will be required a significant measure of fortitude, patience, and grace as they seek to communicate the gospel and to live accordingly amidst a perverse culture.
Fourth, God alone can pull Western societies out of the abyss into which they have fallen. Recovery is beyond human grasp and ability. There is a great need for the beneficial effects of the gospel (the humbling of human pride; a sense of dependence on God; conformity to divinely-given ethical standards) and the shaping force of the biblical-Christian worldview. But typically the latter (the culture-wide influence of the biblical worldview) does not prevail without the former (individual renewal), requiring the conversion to a Christian stance of a critical mass of the population who will then impact the whole of their society. This type of conversion has often occurred in the past as the result of revivals (the Reformation; the Great Awakening or Evangelical Revival; the 19th-century awakening). In the present, it appears that nothing short of a divinely-wrought revival, fueled by prayer and the preaching of the gospel, will prevail to effect the changes needed to overcome the deleterious ideologies of the nineteenth century and their disastrous consequences as exhibited in the twentieth. Such is the direction and outcome, Solzhenitsyn reminds us, of a century which forgets God.

[1] Joseph Henry Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976 [reprint edition]) 154.
[2] Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, “The Present Day Attitude toward Calvinism: Its Causes and Significance,” in Calvin and Augustine(Philadelphia, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1956), 504.
[3] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “Templeton Lecture,” in The Solzhenitsyn Reader: New and Essential Writings, 1947-2005 (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2006), 577.
[4] Peter Conrad, Modern Times, Modern Places (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 13, 736; originally published by Thames and Hudson as Modern Times, Modern Places: Life and Art in the Twentieth Century.
[5] Alvin Kernan, In Plato’s Cave (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999), 2.  While Kernan provides a telling description of this cultural decline in an academic setting, the potential reader should be aware that the book contains accounts of his sexual escapades and some vulgarities of language.
[6] J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1956 [reprint edition]), 173

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The book of Job consists of waves of expressions that indicate a desire for and the necessity of divine revelation for true knowledge. The entire book is a plea for knowledge from God. God cannot be known if he does not speak and his ways and purposes remain a mystery until he speaks. We find this expressed in several key points in the progress of the discussion in Job.
Something totally unexpected happened to Job. Having conducted himself with punctilious religious observance (1:5), purity (31:1) compassion, generosity (29:12-16; 31:16-23), and wisdom (29:7-11), he finds himself under a severe scourge-“God has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes . . . You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me” (30:19, 21). Though clear on the sovereign prerogatives of God (26:7-14), Job declares that God “has taken away my right” (27:2). Job was desperate for a word from God. He knew he could not understand his situation apart from God’s meeting with him. “Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,” Job asked, “whom God has hedged in?” (3:23). Only God knows. “Let me know why you contend against me” (10:2).
Why God sends suffering to the lives of saints calls for revelation. Zophar knows that the answer to Job’s protests lies in the mind of God himself: “But oh, that God would speak and open his lips to you, and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom.” It becomes clear that Zophar believed that such revelation would reveal a peculiarly deep guilt and hypocrisy on the part of Job. Job’s call was for a revelation as to why the innocent, godly, sincere, and compassionate are put to the test in such sufferings. Dealing with the ways of God with men calls for a wisdom that dwells only in the mind and purpose of God. The way to understanding is “hidden from the eyes of all living” and only “God understands the way to it, and he knows  its place” (28:21, 23). If sin lies at the basis of Job’s suffering, he asks for a revelation from God of it: “Let me speak, and you reply to me. How many are my iniquities and my sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin” (13:22, 23).  Elihu affirmed that only by revelation from God could the entire situation and questions surrounding Job’s suffering be resolved: “It is the spirit in man, breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand. . . . God speaks in one way, and in two, though man does not perceive it, in a dream, in a vision of the night” (32:8: 33: 14, 15).
In the midst of a desire for revelation of God’s purposes, we find that the language of Job is a marvel of revelatory inspiration.  Several speeches manifest the Romans 1:19-21 grasp of revelation in that God’s power of creation and his control of nature in its every particular is affirmed. The moral implications of such power and wisdom are extended into the ongoing discussion—both sides of the encounter seek particular applications. In the narrative of these observations and arguments, we find some of the most picturesque and striking linguistic images in all of literature. It is not just a literary triumph, but the substance implied behind the images gives powerful insight into the ways and wisdom of God, laying the foundation for Paul’s revelatory affirmation in Colossians 1:15, 17, “By him all things were created, . . . and in him all things hold together.” Elihu expressed the dependence of all creation on the initial creative power of God and his continual and immediate operation of sustaining: “He covers his hands with the lightning and commands it to strike the mark. . . .  By the breath of God ice is given, and the broad waters are frozen fast. He loads the thick cloud with moisture; the clouds scatter his lightning” (36:32; 37:10, 11). Job emphasizes his sense of utter despair and helplessness by comparing himself negatively to a dead tree: “For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. Though its root grow old in the earth and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant. But a man dies and is laid low; man breathes his last, and where is he?” (14:8-10). Also, we find beautifully crafted language in service of a plain expression of the central moral issue involved, another point of revelation given in conscience (Romans 1:32; 2:15). “God is clothed with awesome majesty. The Almighty–we cannot find him. He is great in power; justice and abundant righteousness he will not violate” (37:22, 23).
As the interchange proceeds and becomes more sarcastic and acerbic, we find the necessity of revelation to clarify the assumptions of both sides of the contest. The friends hold some propositions that are true but apply them in a wooden way as if the immediate manifestations of this present life will perfectly consummate God’s displays of both justice and reward. They are careless in their examination of the phenomena involved—Job is quick and thorough in pointing that out (21:29-34)—and  are unfailingly confident in their applications of general principle. They fail to recognize that further revelation would unveil some of the mystery that surrounded Job’s wrenching dilemma. God said that the disasters were “without reason” (2:3), that is, without any particular act of outrage or injustice to provoke immediate divine reprisal,  but Job’s friends increase throughout the book in the certainty of their knowledge of the “reason” that calamity invaded the life of Job. Applying the true principle of punishment for sin and life for righteousness, Eliphaz instructs Job, “If you return to the Almighty you will be built up, if you remove injustice far from your tents” (22:23). In a particularly vicious speech against Job, Bildad said, “Shall the earth be forsaken for you? [Will the immutable principle of iniquity-brings-judgment be suspended because of your complaints?] . . . Indeed the light of the wicked in put out . . . He is thrust from light into darkness, and driven out of the world” (18:4, 5, 18). Zophar used graphic language in his obvious disdain for Job’s contention of innocence: “He will suck the poison of cobras; the tongue of the viper will kill him . . . a fire not fanned will devour him;   . . .  This is the wicked man’s portion from God” (20:16, 26, 29).
Throughout all these, and more, Job was in a state of resistance to their “empty nothings” (21:34). “Surely there are mockers about me, and my eye dwells on their provocation” (17:2). He assaulted them with sarcasm (“How you have helped him who has no power! How you have saved the arm that has no strength!”). His clear-headed and determined rejection of their extrapolations of principle did not solve the mystery. He addressed God, “I cry to you for help and you do not answer me” (30:20). He knew that wisdom to discern the meaning of the ways of God with man lay in the deep recesses of God’s mind: “God understands the way to it, and he knows the place” (28:23). Job knows that God has given a summary of all wisdom that should prevail in every situation: “And he said to man, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn from evil is understanding’” (28:28).
Job’s struggle led him into a provocative engagement with the justice and goodness of God. By an infusion of the Spirit with his reasoning, Job, and to a greater clarity Elihu, came to set forth the need for a ransom. This revelation came through reasoning from settled truths and a particular existential situation to a proposal consistent with both. God is just and will not compromise the standard of absolute righteousness as the qualification for eternity in his beneficent presence. Throughout the discussions and recognized perplexities, therefore, we find real advances in revelatory truth that prepares for a more comprehensive grasp of gospel realities. Job had asked, “If a man dies, shall he live again?” (14:14). In the gargantuan struggle with the seeming meaninglessness of righteous-living in the face of God, with the specter of suffering pressing him more harshly every moment, he edged forward with a confident assertion of something apparently revealed: “Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! . . . For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold and not another” (19:23-27). And indeed, they were written! This came as a further manifestation of revealed insight that had been stated in 16:19-21: “Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and he who testifies for me is on high. My friends scorn me; my eye pours out tears to God, that he [my witness] would argue the case of a man with God, as a son of man does with his neighbor.” By the secret and painful operations of God’s revelation, Job knew that he must have one who was in sympathetic harmony with man and ontologically identified as man but could speak familiarly with God. Elihu provided another step of revealed truth wrought in the context of this heaven-ordained turmoil. “If there be for him an angel, a mediator,” Elihu proposed, “one of a thousand, to declare to man what is right for him [the revelation of the just way out of the experience of wrath] and he is merciful to him, and says, ‘Deliver him from going down into the pit;’ [He has delivered us from the domain of darkness] I have found a ransom.” Certainly, the Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many.
When the Lord himself confronts Job with the impertinence of his resolute confidence in his ability to question God and provide succinct and credible answers to him, he provides no answer other than the magnificence of his presence and the impenetrable nature of his doings. Job understands the series of questions and concludes that indeed he “hides counsel without knowledge” and uttered what he did not understand. The experience brought renewed perspective to Job and changed his insistence into repentance. God told the three friends “You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” Job’s resistance to their incorrect and simplistic conclusions was right and, by revelation, his knowledge that he needed a mediator who could plead his case was an insight to be fulfilled only in the incarnation of the Son of God.
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The elders of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida have produced the following documents to serve the members of our church as an increasing number are facing vaccine mandates at their places of employment. We have drawn on the wisdom of many others in this process and have particularly benefitted from the labors of other churches and elder bodies. Due to the unique responsibility to shepherd this particular flock in which the Lord has made us overseers we have written the following document with specific consideration to our context, confessional documents, and commitments as a church. We are happy to share the fruit of our work with others who might benefit from it and encourage them to use and/or adapt it for their own purposes with or without attribution—whatever serves them best. We view this document as the result of the collaborative efforts of many. Special thanks is due to Pastor Chad Vegas of Sovereign Grace Church in Bakersfield, California for sharing helpful insights from their elders. Pastor Graham Gunden of GBC, Cape Coral, did the bulk of the research and original drafting of this statement in behalf of all of the Grace elders.

The members of Grace Baptist Church stand within the two-thousand-year Christian tradition. We are committed to the doctrinal standards of our church constitution and the supremacy of the Holy Scriptures. Because of this, we affirm our religion’s principles of liberty of conscience as expressed in our confession of faith, which is the Second London Confession of 1689 (see chapter 21, paragraph 2). We are committed to honoring and preserving human life from conception to natural death and teach that individuals and families bear full responsibility for making medical and healthcare decisions in the fear or the Lord. We also affirm that an individual’s conscience is a gift from God and is answerable to Him alone who is Lord of the conscience.
Therefore, Scripture teaches that any act a person believes to be sin is in fact sin for that person, whether it is intrinsically sinful or not. “For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23). “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6). Furthermore, our church confession states that, “subjection, in all things lawful commanded by them ought to be yielded by us to them, in the Lord.” (2nd London Confession of 1689, Chapter 24, paragraph 3). Mandatory medical procedures do not conform to that which is lawful, i.e. that which conforms to the eternal law of God.
These mandates fall outside the jurisdiction of the divinely instituted authority of the state or employer. Therefore, individuals are under no moral obligation to comply with such mandates. Furthermore, these mandates fall outside the jurisdiction of the government according to the first amendment of our own constitution.
Therefore, we state our unequivocal support for the right to refuse, on the basis of religious conviction, mandatory medical procedures (including vaccinations), whether ordered by a branch of civil government, an employer, or any other institution to which an individual is subject or dependent. In addition, the Holy Scriptures teach Christians that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own” (1 Corinthians 6:19). Stewardship of our bodies before God necessitates being free to make decisions about health and medical treatments according to Scriptural principles, the light of nature, and the dictates of individual conscience. Therefore, the refusal to obey mandatory medical procedures may also be based on an individual’s sincere belief that his or her (or his or her child’s) life, health, welfare, or ethical integrity is potentially endangered by such procedures.
We affirm that our Christian religion protects the liberty of individuals and families to refuse any medical procedure or product on the basis of sincerely held concerns for known or unknown side effects, experimental or emergency uses, potential involvement in fetal cell lines whether in development or testing, or medical and/or political corruption or coercion. The sixth commandment—“You shall not murder”— makes every person responsible “to preserve our own life, and the life of others” and prohibits “the taking away of our own life, or the life of our neighbor, unjustly, or whatsoever tendeth thereunto.” (The Baptist Catechism, Q72-73.) Many Christians believe, in good faith, that involvement in such medical procedures violates this commandment.
Therefore, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we uphold the rights and responsibilities of the members of Grace Baptist Church to make responsible medical decisions for themselves and their families, including their right to refuse vaccinations or gene therapies on religious grounds. And we hereby call upon all authorities: political, governmental, organizational, or otherwise, to respect these deeply held religious convictions by upholding this religious liberty and/or providing religious exemptions as requested.
On Behalf of the Elders of Grace Baptist Church of Cape Coral,
Thomas Ascol, Senior Pastor

To Whom It May Concern:
The elders of Grace Baptist Church are writing on the behalf of _______________, a member in good standing of our church since _____, to confirm that his/her sincerely held religious beliefs prevent him/her from receiving a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination. He/she is sincerely convinced that to take the vaccine would violate the law of God as found in the Holy Scriptures as well as in our church’s Confession of Faith (Romans 14:23; Hebrews 11:6; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, 21.2; 24.3; The Baptist Catechism, Q 72-73). Our church teaches that to take any action one believes in conscience to be contrary to the law of God is to defy God’s authority and is therefore not permissible. Our eldership affirms the right (and where applicable, the obligation) for each member of Grace Baptist Church to take religious exception to mandatory vaccination by governmental authorities and/or employers on this basis. Our church has also issued a statement confirming this right and obligation according to our doctrinal standards and Scripture.
____________’s application for religious exemption is, therefore, not merely a matter of personal opinion or philosophy, but of bona fide religious conviction with the support of his/her church. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.
Sincerely,
Thomas Ascol

Grace Baptist Church – Statement on Religious Exemption to Mandatory Medical Procedures

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As the fight against Critical Theory rages, my concern is that we have forgotten a battlefront that, if ignored, will lead to a short-lived victory.  That is the front for the hearts and minds of our young people.  My father used to tell me that high school was for learning facts, but college is where you learn how to think.  Now, Critical thinking skills have been replaced by Critical Theory mandates.  Free thought, according to North Korean defector and Columbia University graduate Yeonmi Park, has been replaced by a conglomeration of sinister, ideological, monoliths whose oppression of free thought rivals and even exceeds that of North Korea…sounds like a lovely place to send our children.  Sadly, this is not limited to the secular institutions of higher learning, as even those institutions that were once a bulwark of Godly values are now becoming closer to Athens than Jerusalem.
Psalm 119:9 starts with a very important question for us to consider. How do we assist our young adults in keeping Biblical fidelity as they venture through some of their most formidable years?  How do we keep Critical Theory from robbing our young people of Gospel hope, joy and freedom and replacing it with anger, chaos and oppression?  In short, I propose that we need to learn to treasure our young people enough to teach them how to treasure God’s Word.
Treasuring Our Young People
Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  An accurate description of how we’ve been preparing our youth in the church.  Too often children’s and youth ministries are led by people who are untrained and under equipped. When our youth get to college they have had little discussion as to truth, Christian identity or purpose.  They have been given absolutely no Biblical skill set to deal with the subjects of justice, identity, or gender roles, even though they most definitely will deal with those in college, and yet we still wonder why they get blindsided when they get on campus.
Psalm 119 echoes the rest of Scripture in the importance of training our youth to have a love for God and His commands (Deut 6:4-7; Prov 22:6).  Young people at this age are full of potential and very pliable as they decide who they are and what their guiding principles will be going forward. The world has recognized this for years, and thus, consistently start their revolutions at the institutional level.  This is true whether it be the sexual revolution of the 1970’s or the current Critical Theory revolution of today.  The ideas they set forth are like explosives placed in the minds of our youth who are then sent back to our churches to detonate and destroy.  This is the importance of keeping a young man’s way pure.  This section of Psalm 119 shows the value in getting to our children early and to show them how to keep a life that is pure and faithful to God before bad habits or bad ideologies are able to get a foothold.
Treasuring God’s Word becomes priceless in learning how to please our Creator and have a relationship with our Father.
Treasuring God’s Word
Approximately 172 of the 176 verses in Psalm 119 make reference either to God’s Word directly or as a synonym of God’s Word.  God’s Word is imperative, as all knowledge of life and Godliness must be revealed from God to us.  When man rebelled in the garden in Genesis 3 thinking he could be like God, God could have left us to find our own way.  But in His infinite grace and mercy, He instead chose to reveal Himself to us in His Word. The very Gospel itself is only known through God’s Word which is why treasuring God’s Word becomes priceless in learning how to please our Creator and have a relationship with our Father.  Hiding it in our hearts may begin with memorization, but it goes beyond the mind and instead resides in our hearts where it changes us. It becomes the standard of defining who we are and how we view the world.  Hiding it in our hearts puts it in a place where we can access it at any time, in any circumstance, and cherish it.  In this place we learn to value, appreciate, and use God’s Word as the standard by which all else is measured. Obviously, this ultimately is through the work of the Holy Spirit, but I can think of no greater goal than to get our youth to truly treasure the Word of God, because in doing so, they treasure God Himself.
Put It Together
It’s time we bring this fight to where the heat is and to where long lasting change will take place.  Our young people need to be taught to treasure God’s Word.  They need to be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within them.  They need to be in churches where God’s Word is taught to them skillfully, accurately and ultimately treasured preeminently.  Our young people need to be in churches where they are treasured enough to be taught God’s Word and prepared for the coming battles.

Earlier this summer, after the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) convened in Nashville, a number of SBC pastors in Colorado reached out to fellow pastor, Sean Cole (Emmanuel Baptist, Sterling, CO). We expressed our concerns of what we understood to be the trajectory of the SBC. Two issues in particular grieved us. First, seeing God’s good design dishonored and distorted by women serving in the role of pastors. Second, seeing the tentacles of the godless ideology of Critical Race Theory unnecessarily divide Christ’s blood-bought people. Those distortions and those tentacles were being observed in our own backyard.
We saw it on SBC church websites here in Colorado that listed women as co-lead pastors and women preaching before Christ’s gathered church. We saw it in publicly posted essays written by Colorado pastors using the divisive language of CRT.
We decided to address this publicly at our annual convention of churches using the resolution process. I wrote a resolution entitled, Resolution on the Title, Office, and Function of Pastor (which would be labeled Resolution #3 by the Resolutions Committee). Pastor Cole modified a resolution submitted in Nashville for here in Colorado entitled, Resolution on the Incompatibility of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality with Scripture and the Baptist Faith and Message (which would be labeled Resolution #4).
Pastor Cole submitted these to the Resolutions Committee several weeks before our convention that was held October 11-12.
Days before the convention, the committee went public with the resolutions. They significantly modified Resolution #3 that addressed the office and function of pastor. Where I had clearly stated the office, role and function of pastor is for biblically qualified males only, the committee changed it to state the qualification of being a male applies only to the “senior/lead” pastor.
After talking with fellow pastors, I agreed to offer amendments the committee’s Resolution #3.. My proposed changes included striking any reference to “senior/lead pastor” and inserting the statement that “WHEREAS there is no biblical distinction of senior pastor under whose authority a female may serve in the office or function of pastor.”
To the Resolutions Committee credit and the acting president of the convention, they played fair. Knowing pastors were preparing to challenge the resolution as it was presented, they asked for my amendments in advance which were then posted on screen for the messengers to see.
As expected, my amendments were challenged—by a well-known pastor. A couple of messengers came to the microphone in support of what I proposed. Pastor Cole spoke with boldness, telling the messengers of the conversations he’s had with pastors who are greatly concerned about this matter and are “close to walking. What we want is clarity in our Convention,” he told the messengers.
Others apparently wanted clarity as well. When it came time to vote on the amendments, several messengers requested a counted vote, which the acting president granted. In place of a voice vote, messengers were asked to stand if they were in favor of the amendments. The amendments passed. I do not have the official tally, but several have estimated it was about 60/40. The final vote on the amended resolution was a voice vote and it passed with a majority.
Three summary observations
First, the chairman of the Resolutions Committee told the messengers the committee could change submitted resolutions to “what we feel reflects the heart of the Colorado Convention.” I can only assume that’s why the committee changed mine. What I find telling is that while Resolution #3 was saturated in Scriptural arguments and included multiple biblical references the committee changed it according to ‘what we feel reflects the heart of the Colorado Convention.’ That wording reflects the pragmatism that has plagued the SBC for decades. Further, the final vote suggests that the Resolutions Committee is not as in tune with Colorado Baptist churches as they thought they were.
Second, it was greatly encouraging that messengers wanted clarity about the title, office and function of pastor for our Colorado churches. That the ‘aye/nay’ method of voting on a non-binding resolution got changed to an actual count—at the request of messengers—indicates that for many present, this topic is no shibboleth, nor an insignificant matter. I rejoice that messengers were willing to challenge their fellow Baptists to clearly indicate what they believe about who is qualified to serve as pastors.
Third, where to from here? The pastor who had opposed my amendments from the floor, afterwards conveyed to Pastor Sean and others of us who had decided to address these matters, that “the convention has spoken and we will move forward and in that light joining hearts and hands and heads to continue to make an impact in Colorado.” I am grateful for this statement and look forward to Colorado Baptists working together to impact our state for Christ as we joyfully operate under the authority of God’s Word.
What will “moving forward” look like? Colorado Baptists already have a confession of faith that states the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture. We claim that we are already convinced that “Scripture is totally true and trustworthy… and is the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried.”
Will our state Credentials Committee be assigned the duty of lovingly confronting Colorado churches that have women identified as pastors or operating in the function of elders/overseers? When Colorado Baptist churches have women stand before Christ’s gathered church and speak in such a way that is authoritative and doctrinal in content (i.e., preaching), will sister churches call them to repent? Afterall, “the convention has spoken.” Is that what “joining hearts and hands and hands” will look like?
May God give our churches grace and clarity and courage to be the pillar and support of the truth (I Timothy 3:15).
Resolution #3 Resolution on the Title, Office, and Function of Pastor
Adopted by the Colorado Baptist Convention, 2021
WHEREAS, our Creator God has blessed His image bearers with fulfilling His mandate for them by creating them as male and female (Genesis 1:26-28), and,
WHEREAS, males and females, while equal image bearers of God, have been given by Him unique roles, abilities, and responsibilities, defined biologically and by the creation order, (Genesis 1-3; I Timothy 2:12-13), and,
WHEREAS, since sin has entered the world through Adam and sin spread to all, defying, distorting, and defiling in every generation both our perception of maleness and femaleness and our unique roles, abilities and responsibilities as males and females (Gen 3:16b, Romans 1:24-32; Ephesians 2:1-3), and,
WHEREAS, both God’s Law and His Gospel reveal and confirm the blessing of the distinctions of males and females and summon sinners to repent of their defying, distorting, and defiling of what He has blessed (I Timothy 1:8-11; I Corinthians 6:9-11; I Thessalonians 4:1-5; Ephesians 4:17-24; 5:22-33), and,
WHEREAS, the Church’s Head, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, has commissioned His local church to be the pillar and support of the revealed truth of God (I Timothy 3:14-15; I Peter 2:9-12; I Thessalonians 2:13), and,
WHEREAS, our Lord Jesus Christ through His apostles has decreed those males who meet specific qualifications shall minister in His local church in the office and function of pastor (overseer, elder) (I Tim 2:12-15; 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9; I Peter 5:1-5; Acts 14:23), and,
WHEREAS, this distinction of the office and function being for males only is rooted in the creation order of males and females prior to sin having entered the world (I Timothy 2:12-15; Genesis 2-3), and,
WHEREAS, there is no biblical distinction of senior pastor under whose authority a female may serve in the office or function of pastor, and,
WHEREAS, autonomous Baptist churches, cooperating according to the doctrinal convictions expressed in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, which states: (the local church’s) scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture, and therefore be it
RESOLVED, Colorado Baptists Churches shall commit themselves to proclaiming, explaining, and modeling the Divine blessing of image bearers being male and female and their unique roles, abilities, and responsibilities, and be it finally
RESOLVED, Colorado Baptist Churches, will strive to be the biblically rooted pillar and support of the truth in our state and communities, by reserving the title, office, and function of pastor, elder, overseer for males only who meet the qualifications of I Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9; I Peter 5:1-5.

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