Written by Nicholas T. Batzig |
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
The commitment of believers to see the propagation of the gospel spread to every corner of the earth is far more important than the quest for some particular manifestation of the implementation of biblical law into the government. The two may not necessarily be considered mutually exclusive; however, the former commitment must always have precedent over the latter.

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in “the Marrow Controversy”–an 18th Century theological debate that occurred in the church of Scotland over the nature of grace and the free offer of the Gospel. The controversy itself was fueled by a 17th Century work that bore the title, “The Marrow of Modern Divinity.” Those who consider the fight against both antinomianism and legalism to be foremost among matters in the Christian life consider this renewed interest in the Marrow Controversy to be a welcomed development.
A number of years ago, Sinclair Ferguson released The Whole Christ, a work that categorically breaks down the essence of the Marrow Controversy. Ferguson’s three lectures on the Marrow Controversy were the catalyst for generating a renewed interest in this subject. Phil Ryken, wrote a doctoral dissertation on the preaching of Thomas Boston–one of the renown Marrow Men, as well as the introduction to a reprint of The Marrow of Modern Divinity with Boston’s Notes. Ferguson, Ryken, Ligon Duncan, Joel Beeke, Tim Keller and William VanDoodewaard are among those who have written or spoken on the significance of the Marrow in our day.  While the nuances of the Marrow Controversy are essential for believers to come to grasp, the men involved came to be involved in yet another controversy in Scotland during the 18th Century–namely, the Burgher/Anti-Burgher schism.
Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine–from whom, the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church ARP, arose and, after whom, Erskine College and Seminary were named–were among the foremost of the Marrow Men. The Erskine brothers led the way in the 1730’s in seceding from the church of Scotland on account of their concern over doctrinal laxity in the church. After seeking to form their own Presbytery, the “Seceders”–as they came to be known–formed their own denomination, the United Secession Church. Sadly, more divisions were to follow. In 1747, the Secession Church divided into two groups, the Burghers and the Anti-Burghers over “the Burgher Oath.” The church required ministers to state whether or not they believe that the civil authorities (i.e., the Burgesses) were bound to profess “the true religion” (i.e., Protestantism) in order to hold office. The clause in the Burghers (or Burgess) Oath that caused so much consternation for the Anti-Burghers was as follows:
“Here I protest before God and your Lordships, that I profess and allow with all of my heart the true religion presently professed within this realm and authorized by the laws thereof; I shall abide thereat, and defend the same, to my life’s end; renouncing the Roman Catholic religion, called Papacy.”
The Erskine’s were among those who supported the Burgher oath; however, Ralph Erskine’s son, John, was among the Anti-Burgher faction–those who believed that it violated an individual’s conscience and the right of the state not to be put under compulsion by the church. In what is one of the saddest events among family relations in modern church history, John Erskine stood before his Presbytery and read the pronouncement of excommunication against his father-in-law for accepting the Burgess Oath. When Ralph lay on his deathbed, he called for his son to be reconciled to him. John refused to come and see him. This is the extent to which political differences can divide those who believe the same gospel and the same tenets of the Reformed faith.
Read More
Related Posts:

Both God’s natural revelation and his special revelation condemn us. They reveal to us our incompatibility as sinners with the holiness of God and the way he designed his universe to operate for his glory. Scripture explicitly teaches us that the payment for sin is death, it reproves and corrects us. It warns us, as David just affirmed in verse 11. It explicitly teaches us that if we confess our sins, Christ is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 Jn 1:6).

A central doctrine of biblical Christianity is that God has revealed himself, and he has done so in two ways, both of which we can find in the first chapter of Genesis. The opening phrase of Scripture expresses the first form of God’s revelation: “In the beginning God created.” Creation itself is God’s revelation—it is God revealing certain things to us, which is why we sometimes call this God’s Natural Revelation or God’s General Revelation.
But then verse 3 of Genesis 1 expresses the second form of God’s revelation: “And God said.” And again in verses 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, and 26 of Genesis 1, we find God revealing himself through spoken words. And then in verse 28 after he created Adam and Eve, “God blessed them. And God said to them.” And then in Genesis 6:13, “God said to Noah.” And in Genesis 12, “the Lord said to Abram.” And in Exodus 3, God called to Moses out of the burning bush. And later at the foot of Mt. Sinai, God spoke the words of his law to his people. And as Hebrews 1 tells us, “long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” So God has revealed himself not only through what he has made, his natural revelation, but also through what he has said, what is sometimes referred to as God’s Special Revelation. And many of these words were written down by holy men as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet 1:21), compiled into the Holy Scriptures, which Paul says “are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus,” these Scriptures being “breathed out by God” (2 Tim 3:15–16).
So God has revealed himself, and he has done so both through his Natural Revelation—what he has made—and through his Special Revelation—what he has said.
Perhaps one of the most succinct and, indeed, beautiful articulations of these two forms of God’s revelation is found in Psalm 19. This psalm describes both God’s natural and special revelation in a strikingly vivid poem. In fact, C. S. Lewis wrote, “I take this to be the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world.”
Psalm 19 is unique for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its genre. In the Psalter, we might expect to find songs of praise or even songs of lament, but Psalm 19 is neither of those. In fact, it reads more like a Proverb than it does a psalm, which is why it is often referred to as a wisdom psalm. But another unique characteristic is its focus on God’s revelation, his Torah—Law. These unique features are found in only two other psalms in the entire 150, Psalm 1 and Psalm 119. These three psalms are wisdom psalms that focus on God’s revelation.
And so let’s consider what Psalm 19 says about God’s natural revelation and his special revelation, and then notice what it says about the proper responses we should have to God’s revelation.
God’s Natural Revelation
First, verses 1–6 express God’s natural revelation.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
This is the natural created order—heavens, skies, what God has made. And as these opening verses poignantly say, what God has made reveals certain things about him—creation is God’s revelation. It reveals his glory and his handiwork. And not just some of creation, all of creation is God’s revelation; the psalmist uses poetic expressions in verse 2 to communicate this:
Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
From morning till evening, day and night, what God has made reveals his glory and handiwork; nature is God’s speech and knowledge revealed to us. As Maltbie Babcock wrote, “This is my Father’s world . . . in the rustling grass I hear him pass; he speaks to me everywhere.”
But I want to stress one point here that I have said several times but that we often take for granted because we say it so often: Nature is God’s revelation. God created the heavens and the earth, and he did so intentionally to reveal himself. Nature is the voice of God. We know this; we affirm this. But I think sometimes, especially in our modern scientific, naturalistic society, we tend to view nature as apart from God, sort of doing its own thing.
No, nature is God’s revelation just like Scripture is, but it does differ from Scripture in a couple key ways, and they are communicated in this psalm.
First, nature reveals God without words. Notice what David says in verse 3:
There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.
It’s interesting—he just said in verse 2 that “day to day pours out speech,” so nature is God’s speech, but then he says just two phrases later, “there is no speech” in nature. In other words, David is clarifying what kind of revelation nature is. What God created is like speech—it reveals something about him, but it is not exactly speech. It is not actual words. We do not actually hear the audible voice of God in nature. When we sing, “in the rustling grass I hear him pass; he speaks to me everywhere,” we don’t mean that literally. There’s no audible sound or voice.
But that does not make nature any less God’s revelation. It just reveals God in ways other than words. God’s spoken revelation does do some things that his natural revelation cannot, which we’ll look at in a moment. But the fact that nature reveals God without words actually allows it to reveal God to us in ways that words cannot, which leads us to the next point:
God’s natural revelation is universal. That cannot be said for his spoken special revelation—you have to be able to read, or at least listen to Scripture in order to understand what God wants to reveal through Scripture. But what God reveals through what he has made is universal. This is what David communicates in verse 4:
Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
There is no place on earth, nor is there any person on earth where God’s natural revelation does not reach—it is universal. In fact, the apostle Paul quotes this verse in Romans 10:18 to argue that Israel has no excuse for rejecting God’s revelation, for
“Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.”
God’s natural revelation is universal. David uses the image of the sun to picture this beginning at the end of verse 4:
No one can escape the sun; it’s universal.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
The same is true for God’s natural revelation—nothing is hidden from it. Its voice goes out through all the earth, and its words to the end of the world. It is universal, which is why sometimes it is called “general revelation,” meaning it reaches all people in general.
So what then is the nature of this universal, non-verbal revelation from God? Verse 3 says its voice is not heard, but verse 4 says its voice goes out through all the earth. So what is this voice?
Well, the Hebrew word in verse 4 literally means “line,” which is often used of a measuring line, but that doesn’t really make sense in this context. It can also be used for a line of text, like a line of poetry, so that begins to fit a bit better.
But what’s really interesting is how the Greek translators interpreted this word. I mentioned a moment ago that Paul quotes this verse in Romans 10:18, but of course, Paul is writing in Greek, so he’s quoting the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. And the Septuagint (LXX) uses a Greek word for “voice” that means “musical sound.”
In other words, nature communicates revelation from God to us, not in actual words, but more like music—non-verbal communication of the beauty and order of God. Even ancient secular philosophers believed that music is the public demonstration of the harmony of heaven. They recognized an inherent order to the physical universe; they found that natural principles of physics and acoustics and geometry and astronomy all share an amazing unity and that music was one of the best representations of that unity. They believed that music harmonized the universe; the intervals of music ordered all things, even the planets—they called it the “music of the spheres.” They believed that the universe is characterized by a quality of interrelatedness that is highly evident in music.
And Christian theologians have long agreed with those early philosophers and considered music to be a particularly powerful expression of the order and harmony of heaven. One of the earliest theologians of the church, Augustine, defined music as “the art of the well-ordered.” God created the universe with an orderliness that displays his glory and handiwork universally to all people.
Natural Revelation is the music of God, a display of his nature and the order of what he has made, and because it is not dependent upon words, natural revelation is universal. What music communicates is not limited to one group of people like spoken language is; music communicates at a natural level universally because it is part of God’s created order, and this is what all nature does—it communicates naturally to all people regardless of language, ethnicity, or culture.
Paul highlights this universal power of general revelation in Romans 1 when he says,
19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
Read More

In those moments when the Bible falls flatly on us, yes, it could be because it’s poorly applied, yes it might be because it was mis-timed, but God wants us to cultivate an attitude that unquestioningly assumes the correct-ness and relevance of his word to our situation. It might well take some time for God’s word to “get through”. We can go days, weeks, months, and even years feeling in the dark spiritually, and it’s not simply our fault. But we must remind ourselves that, whatever it feels like, whatever it looks like, God’s word is always, always going to help. 

Have you ever felt depressed and had someone remind you of Philippians 4:4 – “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice”? Or perhaps you’ve been in the thick of conflict and had someone read Ephesians 4 to you: “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (v.32). You hear what the verse is saying, but the hurt of being wronged, and the other person’s lack of apology makes the verse bounce off you. I remember lying in a hospital bed after surgery, with my brain all foggy on morphine, and a well-meaning friend bringing a bunch of sermons for me to listen to; It wasn’t the right time. Christians can trot out glorious verses, like Romans 8:28, like they’re handing out sticking plasters to someone who’s lost their leg in a car accident.
There are times when it feels like the Bible isn’t helping. Christians can experience a huge gap between “life” and what the text says. What should we make of that? Can that be right?
i) The Bible itself recognises that experience. There is such a thing as poor application of Scripture. That’s what Job’s comforters show. Job had experienced unthinkable tragedy, and his comforters are all basically quoting the Bible to him. They preach biblical sermons to him. Some of their sermons are excellent – I wish I could preach like Zophar; he has big God theology (Job 11:7-11) and his imagery is fantastic (Job 20). Paul clearly considered Eliphaz’s doctrine to be orthodox, and has no problem quoting it (see 1 Cor 1:19; Job 5:12). But Job’s friends miss the point. Their timing is all wrong. Their application of truth to Job’s circumstances is mistaken. So, Job says: “Miserable comforters are you all” (Job 16:2). That’s also God’s verdict on their counsel at the end of the book (Job 42:7). The Book of Job demonstrates to us the real possibility of misusing, and mishandling biblical truth, in ways that are unhelpful. Job could honestly and fairly say to his friends: “The Bible isn’t helping!”.
ii) But the moment in which it feels like the Bible isn’t helping me is also a point in which I need to be very careful. Pastorally, those moments are critical.
Read More
Related Posts: