Written by Terry L. Johnson |
Monday, February 5, 2024
It appears that there no longer remains any behaviour which mainline Protestants are willing to call sexually perverse. It seems that the category of sin in sexual relations has disappeared altogether. The great old American Protestant establishment, the once wise mother church of most American Protestants, is pursuing a course of self-destruction. In Savannah respected churches with evangelical traditions are allowing practicing homosexuals to participate in leadership and even to teach in Sunday School and lead Bible studies.

The following article first appeared here on October 26, 2006. In the light of recent developments across many denominations, most notably the Church of England, it remains a most necessary and timely piece.
The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down. Proverbs 14:1
The mainline Protestant denominations (Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian) are discussing homosexuality with a view to transforming their bodies into more ‘tolerant’, more ‘diverse’, and more ‘inclusive’ organizations. This, any way, is how the advocates of the gay agenda present their programme for change in the churches.
What is the central issue? Simply this: shall homosexuality be normalized? Shall sexual relations between members of the same sex be viewed by the churches as legitimate, acceptable, even as desirable, in the same sense as are sexual relations between married people of the opposite sex? The full implementing of this principle of normalization would mean that homosexual acts would no longer be considered sinful, and practicing homosexuals would be granted full ecclesiastical equality, including the right to serve as ministers and church leaders. Further, children in the church’s educational program would not and could not be taught to prefer one “orientation” or “lifestyle” over another. Little Johnny and Suzie would be taught simply that Heather Has Two Mommies, as a proposed New York City elementary schoolbook famously and nonjudgmentally explained. Enlightened churches would define Christian virtue as loving and accepting those who are different. Conversely sin would be defined as the opposite: judging, condemning, or rejecting alternate lifestyles.
It is silly to argue that Scripture can be reconciled with these views. It can’t. The laws of God (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13) and the laws of nature (Romans 1:24ff), the Old Testament moral code and the New Testament law of love (1 Corinthians 6:9) unambiguously condemn homosexual acts as unnatural, corrupt, and perverse.
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If a bridge is out ahead when I’m driving on the road, being told in advance is a blessing not a curse. And so, rather than being contrary to God’s love, His judgments and warnings are actually manifestations of His concern and mercy! May we as His covenant people come to see all His warnings about judgment and danger as great gifts of grace.

On March 18, 1925, an outbreak of tornados in the Midwest killed nearly 750 people and injured more than 2,000 across three states with literally no warning. Today, thanks to God’s kind common grace and the advance of modern meteorology, such a surprise catastrophe is almost unthinkable. In the year 2022, residents in effected areas can be warned to take immediate shelter in just minutes.
Warnings can be life saving. However, our human stubbornness and pride often recoil when we are warned, especially coming from God’s word in relation to our sin. There may be no more dangerous epitaph and warning for human beings than in Romans 1:24-25, “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”
But what a gift of God’s grace to be alerted to what is coming, whether it’s a tornado, a flood, or God’s final judgement. Just as a loving parent warns their child not to touch the stove because they could be severely injured, so does our heavenly father warn His children of the consequences of sinful rebellion and disobedience. The minor prophet Amos is a wonderful case in point.
The message of Amos is primarily a message of judgement. God’s covenant people, particularly in the northern kingdom of Israel, lived in a time of great prosperity and ease, which manifested itself in an empty and godless religion. Those who worshiped Yahweh at that time were more concerned with merely “going through the motions”, than true devotion and obedience to God. Sadly, this is a reality for many in our own day as well. One can clearly discern through the entire prophecy how God had been extremely patient in the face of corruption, greed, injustice, idolatry, and immorality. However, His justice demands satisfaction, and Israel’s consequences for her sins would be soon to come. But like most prophetic warnings, Amos also offers the hope of new life and salvation for all who will turn to the Lord.
For almost two centuries the kingdom of God’s people had been divided into two nations – Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Israel was ruled by Jeroboam II (786-746 B.C.) and was enjoying, what it thought was, its golden years.
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Written by Matthew Y. Emerson and Brandon D. Smith |
Monday, September 16, 2024
Jesus’s lament comes in a covenantal context, a context in which he is the messianic Son chosen by Yahweh to deliver his people Israel by suffering on their behalf. God pours out his wrath on Jesus, yes, but as his anointed Son who suffers in his people’s place. Further, if we consider the other crucifixion scenes where different portions of Psalm 22 are either quoted or alluded to (e.g., Matt. 27; Mark 15; Luke 23; John 19), we see that they record various ways Jesus fulfills this psalm, pointing us back to the point that Jesus likely had the whole psalm in mind.

“The Father Turned His Face Away”?
The crucifixion is a good case study in showing how a careful Trinitarian framework can help work through thorny issues related to the Trinity and salvation. Not only does it bring to the surface the difficult question of what the Father was “doing” (or not doing) while Jesus hung on the cross, but it also raises the question of the Spirit’s seeming absence during the event.
When Jesus quotes Psalm 22 on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34), what does this mean? Thomas McCall helpfully frames the issue surrounding this “cry of dereliction”:
Such a question surely comes from someone who has been unfaithful—and who now blames God for their abandonment. . . . But this question, of course, does not come from someone who has been unfaithful. It does not come from a pious person who simply isn’t theologically astute enough to know better. It comes from the lips of none other than Jesus Christ. It comes from the one who has been utterly faithful. It comes from the one of whom the Father said, “This is my beloved Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). It comes from the one who is the eternal Logos (John 1:1), the second person of the Trinity. So these words ring out like a thunderbolt.1
Did the Father turn his face away? Put another way, was there some sort of break or rupture between the persons of the Trinity on that fateful day on Golgotha? These answers require carefully handling the biblical text and retrieving sound theological method from the early church. Unfortunately, though a beautiful hymn, lyrics from “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” have perhaps shaped our view of this verse as much as or more than the biblical text and Christian history.
In popular Christianity, lyrics such as those found in this contemporary hymn are often taken to confirm what many already suspect about the cross, that it is a moment of separation between the Father and the Son. The cry of dereliction in such songs is Jesus’s cry of abandonment, meant to communicate an existential angst, a torment of soul rooted in some kind of spiritual distance between the incarnate Son and his heavenly Father due to the latter’s wrath being poured out. To say it a bit differently, many view the cross as a moment in which the Father pours out his personal wrath on the Son, and this is felt by the Son at a spiritual level and communicated via the cry of dereliction. Let’s briefly work through the issues with the ultimate goal of understanding the unity and distinction in the Godhead. Three considerations help us.
First, there is a Trinitarian consideration: anything we say about the cry of dereliction needs to retain the oneness of the Godhead, both with respect to rejecting any ontological or relational division between Father and Son and with respect to affirming inseparable operations. The cross does not produce division between Father and Son, and it is not only the Father who acts in the crucifixion. It is appropriate to talk about the Father pouring out his wrath, but according to the doctrine of appropriations, ascribing an action to one person of the Trinity does not deny that the other persons are acting inseparably. It is not only the Father that pours out wrath; the Son and the Spirit, as the other two persons of the one God, also pour out the one wrath of the one God. It is, after all, God’s wrath against sin spoken of all throughout Scripture.
On the other hand, we also remember that the Father sent the Son; he did not send himself. The Spirit was active in the incarnation at conception but did not himself put on flesh. So we need to dispel any notions of other Trinitarian persons dying on the cross. This helps us avoid the ancient heresy of patripassianism—the teaching that the Father himself became incarnate and suffered on the cross. Moreover, since we know that God is immutable and incapable of change (Mal. 3:6; Heb. 13:8), it would certainly jeopardize fundamental affirmations about the doctrine of God to assert that the cross initiated a complete three-day (or even a one-millisecond) loss of Trinitarian relations.
One Person, Two Natures
Second, there is a Christological consideration: anything we say about the cry of dereliction needs to retain the oneness of the person of Jesus Christ. He is one person with two natures, divine and human, and he goes to the cross as one person. He is not half God and half man, but rather fully God and fully man. 
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