Doctrine
We must train Christians and even ourselves to know—and to defend—the law of God in all its fullness. But we must also understand how the indicatives of God’s Word ground and inform those imperatives, lest the message that we bring to a dying world not be as compelling or beautiful as it ought to be.
Given the intensity of the unfolding ethical crisis in the Western world today, the church must redouble its efforts to learn doctrine. We, of course, must continue to encourage Christians to live out the Christian life and to speak out in favor of God’s gift of marriage and God’s creation of men and women in His image. We must thoughtfully address the sad fact that public knowledge of the chief end of man is systematically suppressed in a world where people are assaulted, aborted, and consumed with fine food, junk food, more sex, better screens, free drugs, and worldly dreams. But we especially need doctrine.
J. Gresham Machen wrote his classic book a century ago when the church was facing, among other things, enormous ethical challenges, some of them greater than he himself could conceive. In his day, ministers posing as prophets insisted that the real task of the church was to address the urgent need for improved democracy, civility, and moral reform. He himself insisted that a faithful church, especially a church in crisis, must believe and teach doctrine.
But why doctrine? Before and since Machen’s day, the church, especially in the face of social turmoil and ethical ambiguity, has often been tempted with tastier-looking options than Christian doctrine. Some teachers insist that the church has no creed but the Bible. People in the pew have no need for doctrinal excess and the subtlety of seventeenth-century confessions or catechisms. This has a certain plausibility. And as Machen says, speaking of the common man in the pew, “Since it has never occurred to him to attend to the subtleties of the theologians, he has that comfortable feeling which always comes to the churchgoer when someone else’s sins are being attacked.” But as Machen explains, after one hears about the dead orthodoxy of the creeds or the Puritans, and then turns to read the Westminster Confession of Faith or John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, “one has turned from shallow modern phrases to a ‘dead orthodoxy’ that is pulsating with life in every word.” What is more, Machen points out, under the guise of critiquing crusty old confessions, those opposed to doctrine are often opposing the Bible and its most basic teachings. And, we might add, those teachers most opposed to doctrine often set themselves up as the standard to follow.
Machen was principally dealing with people who had devious motives for opposing doctrine. They claimed to oppose doctrine in general because it was easier to sell than the honest admission that they had problems with some doctrines in particular: the virgin birth of Christ, His bodily resurrection, and more. But others have opposed doctrine because they are trying to follow Jesus, and Jesus Himself “just told stories.” Some scholars have added that this is the main approach of the whole Bible: it presents narrative and poetry, not systematic theology. Certainly narrative—or better, history—is important for Christians. We have a historical religion: Jesus taught this in the way that He spoke about the Old Testament; early Christians valued this, as we can see in Luke’s explanation of his own research; and the Apostle Paul announced this when he reminded the Corinthians of the historicity of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection (1 Cor. 15:1–8).
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Warfield on Jesus’s Anger at the Death of Lazarus
The spectacle of the distress of Mary and her companions enraged Jesus because it brought poignantly home to his consciousness the evil of death, its unnaturalness, its “violent tyranny” as Calvin (on verse 38) phrases it. In Mary’s grief, he “contemplates” — still to adopt Calvin’s words (on verse 33), — “the general misery of the whole human race” and burns with rage against the oppressor of men.
One of B. B. Warfield’s most profound and widely read essays is “On the Emotional Life of Our Lord” first published in 1912. In the essay (originally written for a Princeton Theological Seminary faculty publication and republished many times since), Warfield considers all of those instances in the gospel accounts in which Jesus demonstrates deep and abiding emotions. It is at once a beautiful and moving essay, while at the same time a powerful statement that Christ’s true human nature brings forth true human emotions—ranging from compassion to anger. You can download the essay for free here, but there are new published versions (in booklet form with updated text and with introductions) here and here.
Since we are now in Easter week, I thought it would be a good time to consider Warfield’s discussion of Jesus’s anger upon learning of the death of his dear friend, Lazarus.
Warfield writes,The same term [for anger] occurs again in John’s narrative of our Lord’s demeanor at the grave of his beloved friend Lazarus (John 11:33, 38). When Jesus saw Mary weeping — or rather “wailing,” for the term is a strong one and implies the vocal expression of the grief — and the Jews which accompanied her also “wailing,” we are told, as our English version puts it, that “he groaned in the spirit and was troubled”; and again, when some of the Jews, remarking on his own manifestation of grief in tears, expressed their wonder that he who had opened the eyes of the blind man could not have preserved Lazarus from death, we are told that Jesus “again groaned in himself.”
But is “groaning,” as in the Authorized Version translation too tame?
The natural suggestion of the word “groan” is, however, that of pain or sorrow, not disapprobation; and this rendering of the term in question is therefore misleading. It is better rendered in the only remaining passage in which it occurs in the New Testament, Mark 14:5, by “murmured,” though this is much too weak a word to reproduce its implications. In that passage it is brought into close connection with a kindred term which determines its meaning. We read: “But there were some that had indignation among themselves . . . and they murmured against her.” Their feeling of irritated displeasure expressed itself in an outburst of temper. The margin of our Revised Version at John 11:33, 38, therefore, very properly proposes that we should for “groaned” in these passages, substitute “moved with indignation,” although that phrase too is scarcely strong enough.
We all know that “Jesus wept” is the shortest verse in the New Testament. But Warfield says “wept” will not do!
What John tells us, in point of fact, is that Jesus approached the grave of Lazarus, in a state, not of uncontrollable grief, but of irrepressible anger.
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Be Honest About Your Perspective on Christ
Do not be satisfied to live in the shell of Christianity with all the forms and religious talk without truly believing. Remember what Jesus said, “You are my disciples if you abide [remain] in what I have said. And you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” (John 8 ). Live honestly. There is a way forward if you do.
It is oxymoronic that a person can happily claim the title of Believer in Christ, while simultaneously not fully and happily accepting as true the actual words of Christ and of his apostles and prophets which is explicit in that title, and must be true if there is any actual benefit of belief.
If you are a believer, then believe and follow unashamedly. Don’t pretend not to believe for fear of others who are skeptical. You have nothing to be ashamed of if you believe, say, in the way the Apostle Paul did, do you?
But if you are only an interested observer, do not take the title of believer until you do. If you are a curious but doubtful, then be that openly and humbly until things change. If a seeker, then seek the truth until you find it.
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Teach Your Children Well
According to Barna’s research, those who believe the following are very likely to live a faithful, Christian life: God is the all-powerful, all-knowing, loving, just, merciful, reliable creator who is also our companion and unerring guide for life. All human beings are sinful by nature; every choice we make has moral contours and consequences. Jesus Christ is the sole means to individual salvation, accomplished through our acknowledgment and confession of our sins and complete reliance on His grace for the forgiveness of those sins. The entire Bible is true, reliable and relevant, making it the best moral guide for every person, in all situations.
The decline of religion in the United States is now well documented. According to a 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center, 29 percent of Americans now identify as having no religion up from 17 percent in 2010 and 8 percent in 1990 . The religiously unaffiliated population is now one of the largest religious groups in the United States, surpassing white mainline Protestants.
In a new book called The Great Dechurching, the authors share that while most people who leave religion officially do so as adults, the departure from faith begins much earlier. It turns out having Christian parents isn’t enough for children to grow up to be Christians. A specific kind of Christian parent is required. According to the Institute for Family Studies, “Millennials are one of the largest birth cohorts in recent history or since, and their parents were uniquely unsuccessful at passing on their faith to their children.” Why?
A recent survey from George Barna may help answer this question.
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