Written by Ginger M. Blomberg |
Sunday, January 21, 2024
By teaching our children both law and grace, we can help them see the tragedies of both legalism and prodigalism. We can show them the beauty of God’s goodness and mercy through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son who loved us and paid the penalty for us. Once we see God’s grace to us, we can extend it to others in love.

Good Intentions
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever opens with this dire judgment: “The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world.” The book’s narrator then quickly runs through a list of just what made the Herdman kids so bad, saying, “They lied and stole and smoked cigars (even the girls) and talked dirty and hit little kids and cussed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain.” Later, the narrator also introduces Alice Wendleken, who wants very badly to play Mary in the church’s Christmas pageant. Alice plays Mary in the pageant every year “because she’s so smart, so neat and clean, and most of all, so holy-looking.” This year, though, Alice is stunned when she ends up losing the part of Mary to Imogene Herdman. Alice starts keeping a list of every naughty and irreverent thing the Herdman kids do, hoping that someone will realize how bad they are and kick them out of the pageant and out of the church.
As Christian parents, we want our kids to do the right things. Some of us have found, though, that in trying to avoid raising Herdmans, we are inadvertently raising Alice Wendlekens, kids who follow the rules not out of love but for control. How do we teach our children to be discerning, both to recognize and to do right, but at the same time to show God’s love and care for the imperfect people around them?
Law
It is vital for us to teach our children what is right, but it is also vital for us to examine our goals in teaching. An old comedy skit said, “Parents don’t want justice; they just want quiet,” and, oh boy, has that been true for me sometimes. I am sorry to say, I have sometimes taught my children the law because I just wanted them to act decently and not embarrass me at church.
But why did God give us his law? For one thing, he knows what is best for us, and he has revealed rules in his word to teach us to act in ways that may seem hard but will usually be for our good and the good of those around us. If we avoid lying, then most of the time people will trust us more. If we honor our parents, we are likely to have a good relationship with them.
Much more importantly, though, God gave us the law to reveal his character. Our God is holy, just, and good. He cares about people who are marginalized by society. He hates when innocent people are harmed. He loves when people do right and are kind to each other. His law teaches all these things about him.
In teaching us about God’s character, the law (and Israel’s history of trying to follow it) also shows so clearly both our need for God and our separation from him. Paul says in Romans 7:13 that through the law, “sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandments might become sinful beyond measure.” We need there to be goodness and justice in the world. We also need a way to get to it. God’s law shows the standard of his character and also how far we are from reaching it.
We want to teach our kids to follow the law, in the sense that we want them to know and do what is right. As Christian parents, and really just as humans, most of us want our kids to know enough to be happy and to be “healthy, wealthy, and wise” (as non-theological lawgiver Benjamin Franklin advises).
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Throughout the book, when John uses phrases like “after this” or “after these things,” he’s not denoting the historical chronology of the events he describes. Rather, he’s chronicling the order in which he saw a series of visions. The different angles display God’s judgment and ultimate triumph in Jesus Christ—the one great event of his return.
Imagine watching the final play of a football game from several different camera angles.
Angle one from the pylon cam: a player scores a rushing touchdown.
Angle two from behind the goalposts: he scores the touchdown and spikes the ball.
Angle three from the blimp: he scores a touchdown, spikes the ball, and the crowd rushes the field and fills the stadium.
Our understanding of this one event grows in intensity and meaning as it’s shown from multiple angles. In his classes at Reformed Theological Seminary, Michael Kruger uses this helpful metaphor to explain a biblical literary device called recapitulation.
Recapitulation is the act or instance of summarizing and restating a narrative to give a different emphasis or perspective. One biblical book that employs recapitulation with stunning effect is Revelation.
Seeing the World Through 7s
Revelation is notoriously confusing, but it doesn’t have to be. Yes, there are dragons, angels, antichrists, and (seemingly) multiple returns of Christ. But if we read this book through the lens of recapitulation, it becomes easier to understand.
It’s widely agreed that Revelation is structured by the repetition of sevens—seven churches, trumpets, bowls, and so on. But questions arise about the sequence and scope of the successive sevens. How do they hold together? When do they occur? How far does each one extend? Recapitulation helps us answer these questions.
Revelation isn’t meant to be read merely as a chronology of fantastic events. It should be seen as one set of events repeated seven times, each with increasing intensity. Revelation is apocalyptic—a genre defined by images, symbols, and references to the Old Testament and John’s ancient world. It’s intended to help the churches to whom it’s written see the world in a different way.
As Richard Bauckham writes, “The effect of John’s visions . . . is to expand his readers’ world, both spatially (into heaven) and temporally (into the eschatological future).” This accords with other ancient Jewish apocalyptic literature (like Daniel and some extracanonical books), but unlike extrabiblical literature, Revelation remains distinctly Christian and Christ-focused.
What Do the 7 Sections Depict?
The seven sections depict the two advents (or arrivals) of Jesus and the time between them. In different ways, they each tell the same story of Jesus returning to save and judge. Read this way, we see John’s clear and repeated emphasis on the final judgment, and we see the one event of Jesus’s return in its all-encompassing beauty.
1. Revelation 1:1–3:22
From the beginning of the book, the number seven holds symbolic weight. Bauckham argues that the seven spirits before the throne (1:4) symbolize the Holy Spirit in the fullness of his power and presence to the churches. Moreover, Jesus addresses seven churches. These churches represent all churches that will exist in the inter-advent period, or the period between Jesus’s first and second comings.
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The fact that the session views as “attacks” the criticism that Memorial Church and Greg Johnson have received, since hosting the 2018 Revoice conference, is very telling. It’s telling because it reveals the session’s mind set as being highly defensive of its position, instead of being open to counsel from Christian brethren. It also shows why Memorial’s session has not moved from their theological error despite all their prayer and fasting.

We have read the report that the congregation of Memorial Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, on November 18, 2022, voted by 92% to withdraw from the PCA. This was recommended by their session and agreed to by their pastor, Greg Johnson, who indicated that he will be leaving with the congregation.
The article noted that the session informed the congregation that their recommendation was coming “with a mixture of sorrow and hope … after fifteen months spent fasting, praying, waiting, consulting and listening.” The reason for withdrawing, the session explained, was “continued attacks” from within the denomination which were distracting the church from its mission.
The session’s statement is troubling to me. They claim to have spent fifteen months “fasting, praying, waiting, consulting and listening,” but still seem to have ended up with the same erroneous views as the ones they started with, namely, approving and promoting Revoice ideology in the church. Where is the repentance for, not only introducing the sinful impurity of Revoice into the PCA, but also violating the principle of maintaining peace in the church, by creating years of conflict trying to justify themselves. All their praying and fasting seems not to have had the corrective effect it should have had. Could that be because what they were praying for was not the will of God?
The fact that the session views as “attacks” the criticism that Memorial Church and Greg Johnson have received, since hosting the 2018 Revoice conference, is very telling. It’s telling because it reveals the session’s mind set as being highly defensive of its position, instead of being open to counsel from Christian brethren. It also shows why Memorial’s session has not moved from their theological error despite all their prayer and fasting. I believe that on this particular error, their minds are locked into what Paul describes in Romans 1 as truth suppression, where they’ve become futile in their thinking.
Critics have not been on the attack, but rather have been seeking to persuade Johnson, his session, Missouri Presbytery, and any others holding similar views, by speaking the truth out of love, in an effort to halt the slide into liberalism and return the PCA to the truth. There has been a noticeable movement in recent years of PCA slippage downward in a progressive direction. This has been led by progressives in the PCA who take an approving stance toward homosexuality, gender identity and other such priorities. Their support, even celebration, of Revoice is proof of that.
The Bible commands us to “speak the truth in love” (Eph 4:15), which is what critics of progressive views and actions are seeking to do in the present conflict. However, you can’t speak the truth in love, without having the truth. Truth comes first, then you can speak it in love.
Progressives reverse the biblical sequence when they, in loving concern for homosexuals, seek support in Scripture for teaching that agrees with their pre-conceived beliefs. Matthew Vines’s book, God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships, is a case in point. Note that starting with homosexuality, Vines seeks to show biblical support for it. He argues that homosexual orientation and committed same-sex relationships are consistent with a “high view” of the Bible and evangelical Christianity. I believe he is badly mistaken about that. There simply is no biblical teaching supporting the LGBT agenda; the reverse is true. Revoice doctrine on homosexuality is constructed to meet the need; but being constructed opinion, it isn’t biblical, and it isn’t true, objectively speaking.
PCA progressives are simply repeating and extending the same discredited biblical arguments as Vines did in their efforts to justify the Revoice movement, and in their opposition to conservative efforts to restore the PCA to biblical soundness, after some serious slippage in recent years.
Progressives appear to be post-modernists. As such, they have a fluid, subjective view of truth and reject the concept of absolute truth. They receive the Revoice doctrine subjectively as “their truth” even though it’s been refuted objectively as false. Francis Schaeffer used to distinguish objective truth from post-modern, subjective truth by calling the former true truth, in contrast to the false constructions of “my truth” or “your truth” or “their truth.” The post-modern view is aptly foreseen by the prophet Isaiah (59:14) as truth stumbling in the streets, and by Daniel (8:12) as truth cast to the ground.
Thus, when progressives seek to speak the truth in love to homosexuals, they are speaking “their truth” to homosexuals, not “true truth.” You can see the big problem here for progressives, because it’s never loving to speak falsehoods to someone to whom you are trying to express loving concern. It’s like quoting Ephesians 4:15 to say: “speaking falsehoods in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”
Obviously, that’s bafflegab. It’s perverting to God’s Word and actually unloving to homosexuals. Yet that is what progressives get by starting with what they think is loving concern for homosexuals and then looking for supporting Scripture truth, which they can’t find because it isn’t there. They have to resort to post-modern hermeneutical gymnastics to construct their own truth. Hence, unsound Revoice doctrine.
The real sorrow here is that Greg Johnson and the elders of Memorial Presbyterian Church seem blind to the realities of Scripture, and bent on continuing to pursue the destructive course they’ve been on. Since they have refused to repent and desire to persist in error, it is no doubt best all-around that they withdraw the PCA.
Douglas B. Ostien is a member of Chestnut Mountain Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) in Chestnut Mountain, Ga.
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