Written by K.J. Drake |
Friday, July 7, 2023
To modify the core message of the gospel in order to receive what we think of as a proper hearing will lead to unfaithfulness. There are temptations within the evangelical church to compromise at the same places where theological liberalism was found defective: the doctrine of sin, character of God, and the accomplishment of the cross. The theocentric vision of salvation cannot be substituted for a human-centered mode of self-help or moralistic pursuit.

From Machen’s intervention in this now century-old controversy (see Part 1), twenty-first century American Christians should heed his warning and avoid temptations of minimizing or modifying the concept of salvation. We should reject adjusting the atonement, sin, and our view of God to meet the tastes or fads of the day, but rather have a clear-eyed focus on sin and the cross as the core of the gospel. Likewise, the dangers of sentimentality, now in therapeutic form, must be avoided and replaced with clear theological speech. Machen’s proper ordering of the doctrine of salvation and ethics should be imitated without giving into quietism or utilitarian applications of Christian doctrine. While theological liberalism is certainly not dead and gone, few are enticed to adopt it wholesale;[1] the more persistent danger is the unwary or unwise taking steps down the path liberalism tread ignorant of its inexorable downgrade towards unfaithfulness. In this article, I will offer a few entailments of Machen’s warning for the contemporary church.
Resist Accommodation
The beginning of the road to theological liberalism came with the attempt to accommodate the concepts of Scripture to modern values. What we have received in the Word of God is meant to be the guide to faithful life under Christ and by the Spirit for all ages. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). To modify the core message of the gospel in order to receive what we think of as a proper hearing will lead to unfaithfulness. There are temptations within the evangelical church to compromise at the same places where theological liberalism was found defective: the doctrine of sin, character of God, and the accomplishment of the cross. The theocentric vision of salvation cannot be substituted for a human-centered mode of self-help or moralistic pursuit.
See Sin Rightly
As with the failure of theological liberalism, the problems of the Church in late modernity begin with a distorted view of sin, which has been detached from the holiness of God. Sin, and therefore the forgiveness of sin, has increasingly been expressed in the therapeutic register. Carl Trueman has expressed the prevailing environment as “the cultures of psychological man: the only moral criterion that can be applied to behavior is whether it conduces to the feeling of well-being in the individuals concerned. Ethics, therefore, becomes a function of feeling.”[2] On this view, sin is that which makes me or others feel bad. This therapeutic faith can be traced partially to the liberal preaching that Machen challenged in the 1920s. As a historian of the social gospel has noted, “In many ways, Fosdick epitomized a broader movement toward exploring the psychological implications of religious faith, a movement that helped to spawn the wider development of therapeutic religious models in the aftermath of World War II.”[3] Such modifications can be observed in the contemporary Church through the popularity of pop psychologists like Brené Browne and her emphasis on shame, Jordan Peterson’s Jungian-tinged emphasis on personal responsibility, or the broader shift to speak of “brokenness” to the exclusion of guilt. These trends have a truth to them, but also error.
For instance, God does address our shame, and sin does cause brokenness. However, failure to see sin in a fundamentally theocentric frame, as Machen does, papers over its severity and cost. Sin rejects God, despoils our nature, and corrupts us entirely. Sin is the antithesis of all that is good, right, and true. Sin deserves death. Sin is not limited to the “really bad stuff,” but all thoughts, words, deeds, and inclinations of the human heart against the perfect divine will. One grasps the goodness of the gospel only after the terrible verdict against sin. “The account of that work is the ‘gospel,’ the ‘good news.’ It never could have been predicted, for sin deserves naught but eternal death. But God triumphed over sin through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[4] Accounting for the multifaceted nature of sin is necessary and a helpful way of communicating the word of God to our culture, but we must not fail to speak of its fundamental revolt against the Holy God.[5] Preaching about sin must account for the whole life and bring all our collective and individual violations of the divine will to light. No room ought to be granted to “respectable sins” either of the culture or the Church.
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Look at verse 22, “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being.” One of the proper uses of the law – and a part of heartfelt obedience to the law – is to love it. To delight in it. To cherish it. To derive actual pleasure from the righteousness, holiness, and goodness of it. Obeying the law means enjoying the law.

In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, the French reformer and pastor John Calvin wrote that there are three “uses of the law” for today. Calvin wasn’t the first to articulate the enduring value of the Mosaic Law (Calvin himself quotes liberally from his spiritual forebears), but he has become the name most associated with the so-called Three Uses of the Law.
Though other reformers ordered these uses differently, Calvin’s three uses of the law can be listed as:

Exposing Sin in Everyone (Institutes, 2.7.6–9)
Restraining Sin in Non-Believers (Institutes, 2.7.10–11)
Teaching Obedience to Believers (Institutes, 2.7.12–13)

To put it another way: 1) The law shows you how sinful you are by showing you the righteous standard you can’t meet, ultimately driving you to Christ as your Savior. 2) Additionally, the law, when it’s known by unbelievers, causes them to fear judgment for breaking it externally, so they sin less, and society is more inhabitable. 3) But the “principal use” and “proper purpose” of the law, according to Calvin, is its instruction and exhortation to obey God’s will as revealed in the law, and effective only for those whom the Holy Spirit had made willing to obey God through the gospel.
The apostle Paul captured all three of these functions of the Mosaic Law in Romans 7. In the midst of his discussion on sanctification, Paul delineates all three uses of the law in this one chapter.
Paul also shows us that there is yet another use of the law (or, better, an extension of the third use of the law), and it is a critical function of the Old Testament in your life, believer. If Calvin were here writing this article (he’s got better things to do now), he’d give a hearty “Amen” to the last fraction of the use of the law. Christians need the law not only as a spotlight (Use 1), a bridle (Use 2), and a teacher (Use 3), but also as honey.
Let’s look to the text and see Paul’s 3.5 uses of the law in Romans 7.
The First Use of the Law in Romans 7
The law unmasks us. We all assume we’re cleaner than we are, and so avoid a good Scriptural bath with the normal excuses. But when, through the law, we come into contact with actual cleanliness, true purity, and the moral perfection of God, we realize that we stink. And we need to.
That’s Paul’s argument in Romans 7:7. He writes, “What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’”
Paul calls himself “alive apart from the law” (v. 9). In his own perception, without the holy standard of God to rain on his parade, Paul could get away with thinking he was a pretty stand-up guy. But then God exposed his heart of sin with the tenth commandment – don’t covet – and all that external religion started looking suspiciously like the cover-up it was.
He goes on to write in verse 13, “Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.” The phrase rendered “in order that” describes intentional purpose. So, was it the purpose of sin itself to be shown to be sin? No, sin wants to hide in a dark corner and remain unseen (John 3:19-20). Then, who purposed that sin would be shown to be sin through the law? Answer: God, who wrote it. God designed the law to rip off our masks and show us the ugly, sinful motives underneath.
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If SPU were to change its employment policies with regard to sexual orientation, the consequences would be immediate. “If the University changed its employment policies to permit employment of Christians in same-sex marriages, the University would be automatically disaffiliated from the Free Methodist Church,” the lawsuit states. “The University would no longer be a denominational institution. Disaffiliation would occur whether the University made this change voluntarily or under compulsion of law. This would result in the loss of a religious affiliation that has existed for over 130 years.”

Washington state Attorney General (AG) Bob Ferguson, who became well known for hounding Christian florist Barronelle Stutzman into retirement for her biblical beliefs about marriage, has now set his sights on Seattle Pacific University (SPU), a Christian educational institution affiliated with the Free Methodist Church.
In June, Ferguson’s office sent a letter to SPU saying, “I am writing to inform you that the [Attorney General’s Office] is opening an inquiry to determine whether the University is meeting its obligations under state law.
“Specifically, we have learned of information that suggests that the University may utilize employment policies and practices that permit or require discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, including by prohibiting same-sex marriage and activity.”
Wait. That’s not controversial at all. And it shouldn’t be.
A Christian university that requires its faculty to abide by principles of the Christian faith is exactly what you should expect from such an institution. There are plenty of secular colleges and universities to work at or attend if you’re not particularly fond of the Bible.
SPU has a statement of faith that includes human sexuality and the school requires its faculty and staff to both affirm it and abide by it.
The school’s right to do so is protected by the religion clauses of the First Amendment, according to Lori Windham, an attorney with the Becket Fund, which represents the school in a federal lawsuit seeking to put an end to the attorney general’s investigation.
“At the heart of the lawsuit is religious autonomy, Windham, told World. “The Supreme Court has guaranteed that right several times. It has said the First Amendment protects churches and religious groups’ right to decide what they believe and who should lead them.”
The lawsuit explains the expectations that SPU has for its employees.
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