Pride Cometh Before the Fall
The “new” tolerance demanded in our current political and social milieu is not one that is concerned with the truth, but your truth. If one’s beliefs run counter to what you believe to be praiseworthy, it is an afront to your very identity and personhood—at least if what you believe to be praiseworthy is in line with the prevailing cultural dogma. It is decisively not something one can tolerate, nor can the free inquiry and exchange of ideas take place over such matters. If you don’t agree, you’re bigoted, racist, homophobic, and whatever other slur one might throw to try and get it to stick.
As we enter into yet another June pridefully bedazzled with rainbow rhinestones and glitter, I can’t quite help but think of the prescient words of Carl Trueman from ten years ago:
“…the beautiful young things of the reformed renaissance have a hard choice to make in the next decade. You really do kid only yourselves if you think you can be an orthodox Christian and be at the same time cool enough and hip enough to cut it in the wider world. Frankly, in a couple of years it will not matter how much urban ink you sport, how much fair trade coffee you drink, how many craft brews you can name, how much urban gibberish you spout, how many art house movies you can find that redeemer figure in, and how much money you divert from gospel preaching to social justice: maintaining biblical sexual ethics will be the equivalent in our culture of being a white supremacist.”
It has been interesting, to say the least, to see just how many darlings of the reformed renaissance have made their choice over the last ten years. Some have departed from the faith altogether, others have joined arms with the social justice movement, and some still seem to try and hold on to some semblance of the historic faith whilst integrating various philosophical and theological systems that are at odds with the faith they profess.
In one sense, I wonder how much more proverbial ink can be spilt in the Twitter wars before people simply move on within their respective camps. On the other hand, I know that you have to run a good smear campaign on conservative Christianity before the dust settles because the goal isn’t merely to get the broader world to see people as narrow-minded fundamentalists. That is fairly easy to do in a culture like ours and if we are keen on the times, we see that much has already been accomplished.
What Trueman was getting at here is at the heart of what Christ said when He told His followers to count the cost. In many ways, this has already reached the ivory tower of academia. Professors have lost tenure for refusing to bow the knee to one’s preferred pronouns, Biblical scholars have been maligned by their peers if they are seen as too stringent on things like gender roles within the church, and many a seminary institution is broadening their appeal to make up for low enrollment numbers by doing nearly everything but returning to fidelity to the Word of God. And yet, as it always does, what runs through the seminaries trickles down into the pulpits and through the pews.
While we may still have little “pockets of resistance,” so to speak, I believe the true test of fidelity to things like the biblical sexual ethic will be in the days to come. The cost of social credit is fairly low right now—but what will you and I make of it if and when the choice between maintaining a Biblical sexual ethic and putting food on the table for the little ones arrives? We are creatures of much comfort, after all, and nothing quite clamps the pressure down on you like the very real potential of losing your job because your convictions to Scripture limit your ability to affirm “diversity.” Notice I say “affirm” rather than “accept.” This is where I truly believe the line has already been drawn in the sand.
In another work that was well ahead of its time, Don Carson spoke of the Intolerance of Tolerance. First, with regard to what would be coined “traditional tolerance,” Carson said:
“This older view of tolerance makes three assumptions: (1) there is objective truth out there, and it is our duty to pursue that truth….”
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What A Record-Breaking Tornado in My State Taught Me About Being Prepared for Death
Though we know tragedies like these come to other parts of the world, it does not change the fact that fear and pain still come to our door in one way or another as products of suffering. We’ll suffer in this life, whether from a more notable event like a natural disaster that levels your home, the loss of precious life at the hands of a newsworthy accident, or something less dramatic and more common like the pain of severed relationships.
And here’s the kicker that keeps plaguing my mind in recent days: it would seem that no level of preparedness can be taken against suffering except to know suffering will come. It seems like all that one can do is lower the blow suffering delivers to victims.
With that being said, I want you to know that I think being prepared is wise. Finding ways to prepare yourself for moments in life can be a matter of life or death in several situations. As the strong winds approached my house on December 11, I was thankful for the times I practiced tornado drills with my five kids who are all under eight years old. The winds from the tornado crumpled the trampoline in our backyard like you and I might crumple a ball of twisty ties.
But even as we see the benefits of being prepared, we need to also see its futility. We could start collecting packages of water and emergency rations in the event of food supply shortages, but what do we do when the rations run out? We could buy every solar panel on earth for sustainable energy, but what do we do when the panels stop working? We could build a safe house, but what do we do when people find out about it?
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At Work in His Word
What is God’s goal as he works in us through the Scriptures? 2 Tim. 3:17. The goal is clear: you will be complete or mature, thoroughly equipped for every good work. We know that God has good works for us in every stage of life. But how can we be ready for them? The answer is easy. Get your nose in the Bible and get the Bible into you, relationally, so that God’s work will be done in your life.
As we enter February, there will be many new year Bible reading plans that are fading away. Perhaps the challenge of a full work schedule, combined with dark mornings, drains the motivation to be in God’s Word. Or maybe the second half of Exodus and Leviticus is proving too great a challenge. Whatever the reason, many will settle into a rhythm marked more by guilt than regular enjoyment of the Bible.
It is hard to relate to a God we cannot see, hear, or touch. And while we know that the Bible is his glorious gift of communication to us, it can often feel distant and disconnected from our everyday lives. How can we find motivation for a relationship with God that has the Bible at the centre?
The critical issue is right in the question itself. Do we experience the Bible in the context of a relationship? Or have we let the relational aspect drain away, leaving the Bible as an optional tool or merely an interesting document for our fascination with religious history?
In 2 Timothy 3:14-17, Paul gives us a critical passage on the nature of Scripture. In these verses, Paul points to the role of Scripture in our salvation and our growth to maturity. In these verses, Paul clarifies what Scripture is and how it works in us. Let’s look again at these verses and remind ourselves that God lovingly works in us as we are in his Word. To put it differently, the Bible is not just a “past tense” book for our studies. It is a “present tense” gift for our relationship with God. God lovingly works (present tense) in us as we are in his Word and as his Word gets into us.
Entering into a relationship with God, 2 Tim. 3:14-15. As Paul wrote to Timothy to encourage him in the challenges he would face, he wanted him to remember where his ministry all started. It started by coming to know salvation in the first place. Timothy had learned and came to believe in the sacred writings of Scripture from his grandmother, his mother, and Paul himself. His Bible exposure taught him about the wonder of salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Without the Bible, we would only be guessing about God, and our guesswork would never have led us into a relationship with him. God has taken the initiative in our salvation, revealing his character, plans, and great gift. There is no relationship with God if there were no Bible. But since there is, let us not lose the relational nature of our connection to him!
So, what is Scripture? 2 Tim. 3:16a. “All Scripture is God-breathed.” What a way to describe it! It comes from the very core of God’s being. He made sure that the authors wrote exactly what God wanted to be written. All Scripture, every last Word, was as he intended. On a human level, the Bible is astonishing – so many authors, different languages, different types of literature, and yet an incredibly coherent and consistent collection of documents. But the Bible is not written just on a human level – it is “God-breathed!” That means it is unique – no other book is in the same category. It also means it is a loving gift – God wanted it written for his people. It is a purposeful gift – God intended it to achieve something in us.
Based on what we know of God, what might we assume his Scriptures would do? Would God give us a mindless distraction to pass some time?
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A Big PCA Correction by a Small Text
Written by David H. Linden |
Friday, November 19, 2021
Great reluctance exists in the PCA to embrace the simple truth that all of God’s people are being made holy in sexual desires, and that believing in this powerful grace is our duty. In this life, we have the covenanted hope of moving holiness in the direction of completion…To exclude such change in the category of sexual feelings is to say that Paul is wrong…“BUT our holiness has not been brought to completion!” I reply, “No one in the PCA says it has been or will be in this life.” We simply say with Paul that it is being completed. Bringing holiness to completion cannot mean that holiness is already complete. So let us stop reducing sanctification concerning sexual attraction to select persons, select sins, and a time later than the present.One little text should settle the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) debate. When applied to Side B homosexuality, 2 Corinthians 7:1 speaks directly and with plainness. Here it is in 25 words:
Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
Advocates of the current error esteem abstinence from overt sexual sin, yet they accept its unchanging influence in the heart and soul of celibate homosexuals. Greg Johnson said in a recent SemperRef article, The Gay Threat to the PCA, that for 31 years he has daily turned from homoeroticism to Jesus. In he said further: “I believe in mortifying indwelling sin and in progressive sanctification.” This makes many of us in the PCA ask what effect progressive sanctification has on unchanging indwelling sin.
We also have TE Johnson’s word on a YouTube interview that his homoerotic orientation has “not shifted a millimeter.” [1] He testifies often that he has never fulfilled his same sex desires. Yet this sinful tendency, which he admits is sinful, has lived in his heart undiminished for decades. Greg tells us that God has not changed his same-sex attraction. But did not the Lord say, “… The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12:6)? In other words, the Lord is active to develop his children into the image of Christ.
I write wondering how such claims can be made by a Christian role model with high office in the church when 2 Corinthians 7:1 speaks so directly of cleansing not only the body but also from defilement in our spirits. But let us begin where the text does.
Seeing we have these promises This is a throwback to 2 Corinthians 6, where God promises to be our God, and declares that we are his people. In new covenant promises we are assured of the cleansing of our hearts, and of a soft heart in the place of the hard heart of an unregenerate person (Ezekiel 36; Jeremiah 31). Further, the Spirit writes his law on our hearts and produces real obedience to it in this life. When Paul said that we have these promises, he spoke of what supports a hefty transformation. We should believe these promises and expect this kind of change in persons who are called to be “ministers of a new covenant.” (2 Corinthians 3:6). Such change we must teach and exemplify.
Beloved Paul expresses his love for the Corinthians in this epistle as vigorously as in any other letter, and here maybe even more so. In that church, and more precisely in that location, sexual sin was rampant. He speaks strongly of it in other writings, but in Corinth he battled it. And still he loved them – a vibrant evidence of his own transformed heart. Calling for their pursuit of holiness in 2 Corinthians 7:1 was just one more way that Paul loved them.
Let us cleanse ourselves Usually, when sin is the topic, we think of the cleansing being done by the Lord. In regeneration he does the washing, as does the Word ever after. Forgiveness is not a lonely gift; cleansing from all unrighteousness always accompanies confession in 1 John 1:9. Cleansing from every kind of sin is a wonderful promise. Our Confession rightly insists that sanctification is “throughout the whole man.” This includes our sexual nature and all our secret sins. We cannot really believe that there is the active work of the Spirit in our hearts if there is not a millimeter of progress, as in the case of Pastor Johnson. The Holy Spirit does better than that. Progressive sanctification has progress, or it is not progressing. Such an unbearable contradiction indicates either the Spirit’s failure – an impossible thing – or that salvation has not begun in that minister. Salvation absent would explain the absence of progress.
Paul calls on us to cleanse ourselves. His exhortation assumes realistic fear of the power of sin, and our need for confession and renouncing every form of our depravity. Sin snares; if we give it an inch, it will take a mile. So we, properly warned and authoritatively instructed, fight every dirty thought, every temptation, every source and opportunity of defilement, as we dutifully cleanse ourselves from it by resorting to the blood of our Savior. He can cleanse; he does; he will; and he will not mock us for our weakness. Through our Lord we find great grace at the throne with that name, because our great high priest has offered for us. We find not forgiveness alone, but grace to help even in our internal battles. This is just gospel, plain and simple. The cleansing is there, and we are to help ourselves to it by repentance, faith, and the means of grace.
Simply fighting our sins is not in itself terribly encouraging. Relishing the promises, works, and kindness of God comforts our hearts. The Lord said, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23). This is a cheerful word indeed. But we must not forget that bringing holiness forward requires cleansing our defilements, even though such cleansing will take a lifetime, and awaits the Lord’s appearance to complete it. It is an enormous inconsistency to have praise for partial cleansing, while leaving in place the defilement of unlawful sexual feelings, as if offset by good behavior. In spite of this discrepancy, some Side B apologists consider celibate gays to be outstanding models of Christian discipline – models, please note, which report no progress. Under such fiction, a veneer of no-sexual-follow-through has under it a core of corruption. Peter urged souls to be purified by obedience to the truth so that love can proceed earnestly from a pure heart (1 Peter 1:22).
From every defilement I am saddened to read that the Missouri Presbytery has adopted a novel distortion of the sovereignty of God the Spirit. (See here and here.) In contrast, we have these promises and are assured that we may be cleansed, and we may cleanse ourselves, and we must. Such sanctification goes on in every believer every day in some way whether we see it or not. So it is with alarm that we discover that God supposedly has some inscrutable and undisclosed right to leave a child of his to wallow in sexual sin, as he may chose. We are told of a divine choice not to sanctify, a divine right exercised now and then concerning some (or many, or most?) who suffer from same-sex attractions. That is a mockery of genuine sanctification, because it has God breaking covenant. (That presbytery needs to repent.) Our cleansing is supposed to be from every defilement, not just most of them. No minister should broadcast that he has no change in his spiritual growth away from sinful sexuality, and then have his presbytery defend that defilement as the Lord’s secret prerogative in his particular case. We do not believe is some oh so special sin. Let us never overturn 2 Corinthians 7:1 by slogans which present God as unresponsive, such as the Lord’s failure when some seek to “pray the gay away.” Such arguments shock the angels, none of whom ever had a sin forgiven. They must now marvel at the patience of God while some in the PCA neglect cleansing grace and cleansing duty as they churn up justifications for sins not being weakened.
Defilement of body and spirit We encounter an intractable contradiction in the Side B homosexual position. Its supporters drive a wedge into salvation from sin by hailing holiness in external life, while sinful sexual desires sit in the inner man as unchanged as ever. This partitioning of a Christian’s life disparages the wonderful work of the Holy Spirit whose primary strategy is to change the heart. They downgrade God’s promise to produce Christ’s likeness in us. They decline relevant new covenant promises, which are the foundation for cleansing ourselves from every defilement of spirit. Instead they offer a lesser cleansing which overlooks sexual sin in the human spirit. External holiness is not real holiness. Reducing promises by limiting their application is just old fashioned unbelief. God does not know how to break a promise, and we cannot teach him. If the Son sets us free, we do become free indeed (John 8:36).
Satan whispers that cleansing in our spirits is not needed, that sexual desire is unchangeable, and that only in behavior can cleansing be expected. Further that relief from it is so rare, we may give up hope and let it go for this life. After all, it is only an attraction, and God will fix it later, not now. Such teaching in the PCA is disgraceful.
In this context, it is indefensible to describe ministers as faithful who have not found any cleansing from this defilement. When a minister has a lifelong sexual appetite for another male we are not supposed to question whether he is a holy man. This is theological baloney. When no progress within is even claimed, the debate is over, or it should be.
Sin in the heart will emerge; it is not so weak as to have no effect on us. All the sins in us will find expression, but our Savior died to deliver us from our evil “inclinations,” no matter how much a part of us they may be. Meanwhile many men, who tried so hard to be just good Side B gays, succumb and become the husband (or wife) of some male partner. Sexual sin in the pressure cooker of the heart will find a way to get loose. 2Corinthians 7 teaches cleansing must reach into the inner man.
Bringing holiness to completion Our view of the Christian life is so out of whack these days that if you say to some that personal cleansing of ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit is part and parcel of bringing holiness to completion now – they will wonder what you have been drinking. Words like perfectionism, the error of Wesley, and triumphalism will erupt. You will be told that you fail to account for remaining sin, and that your doctrine of sanctification is over-realized. Sentences like “cleanses us from all unrighteousness,” though resisted, will not be objected to when recognized as Scripture. What causes heartburn is the idea that every believer is being strengthened to some degree, and every sin is being weakened to some degree. Arguing for this essential element of reformed doctrine irritates the enablers of homosexuality in the pulpit.
Great reluctance exists in the PCA to embrace the simple truth that all of God’s people are being made holy in sexual desires, and that believing in this powerful grace is our duty. In this life, we have the covenanted hope of moving holiness in the direction of completion. This is just good Westminster and Biblical thinking. To exclude such change in the category of sexual feelings is to say that Paul is wrong. At this point fervent objection may rise, such as: “BUT our holiness has not been brought to completion!” I reply, “No one in the PCA says it has been or will be in this life.” We simply say with Paul that it is being completed. Bringing holiness to completion cannot mean that holiness is already complete. So let us stop reducing sanctification concerning sexual attraction to select persons, select sins, and a time later than the present. The same man who wrote 2 Corinthians 7:1 wrote, “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). That is not triumphalism; it is just Paul on the extent of our salvation.
In the fear of God We should fear that a publicly proclaimed testimony of unmitigated sin (as in not “a millimeter” of improvement) contradicts salvation itself. The Lord warns, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me” (John 13:8). (Greg, you should pay attention to that verse.) To some he will say one day, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of iniquity.” God will not be mocked by anyone boasting of no change in any sin and getting away with it. We have a deficient fear of God. In our day, our majestic God has become a lightweight in our minds. But the Lord who made heaven and earth says, “… This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2). In the fear of our holy God, let us be about cleansing from all of our defilements. The verse is short but says much. Here again are these 25 words from the Lord: “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”
David Linden is a retired Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America; he lives in Delaware.
[1] Rev. Johnson often speaks of a shift to heterosexual desires, and he can claim that in his case that that has not occurred. My point is that the desires he would change from are sinful desires and are current according to his own confession of a homoerotic inclination. It is not a sin when a man is not attracted to a women. It is evil for a man to be sexually attracted to another man.