While the ministry of John the Baptist may not seem like it is important eschatologically, it contributes much to our understanding and to world history. First, his coming begins the cataclysmic and seismic shift from the old world of Judaism to the new world of the Kingdom of God. His coming signaled the end of the Old Covenant order and heralded the beginning of the Kingdom of God. What a monumental life and role that the Lord allowed this humble servant to have.

Hurry Up and Wait
It’s a rare occasion when only four words can summarize a major chapter of your life or the organization to which you belonged. But, “hurry up and wait” certainly fits that bill. From my earliest moments of hurrying up to wait at MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station); to the chaotic screams of drill sergeants prodding us urgently off busses, leaving us standing there for hours in an empty parking lot, leaving us wondering what was going to happen next and when would we get new orders; to the meticulous packing and shipping of all of our gear, thousands of miles away to Iraq, so we could sit in empty bedrooms waiting for the orders to come down. The military is a hurry up and wait kind of place.
Perhaps, this is how John the baptist felt as he was sitting in prison, soon to be executed. The LORD had called him to preach fiery, desperate, sermons to the apostate Jewish nation. Like the prophets of old, the Spirit of God had stirred up incendiary words within the vagabond prophet’s mouth, which did not make him any friends, but did bring him plenty of foes. To John, the warnings God told him to declare felt grave, pressing, and imminently dire and he certainly was urgent in speaking them. But now, sitting in a dank Jewish prison, John must have wondered when were all of these cascading judgments to come about.
Think about it this way. John was like a traveling geologist who was sent to warn a small mountain village of coming destruction. He had noticed that the rock structures above were unstable and that a deadly rockslide would soon destroy the town. So, he entered the city urgently, warning them, “flee from the disaster that is to come”, but few would listen to him. In fact, they became so annoyed by him, that they arrested him and threw him into the local prison. To add insult to injury, they viciously mocked the poor man, discrediting his “expert” opinion, leaving him to rot in the dampened cell alone. Before long they executed the man, believing his quackery had been disproven, as the city was lulled into a false sense of security and hope. For just a few months later, the deadly landslide consumed them all and there wasn’t a single survivor. This was the kind of ministry John the Baptist was called to. He was called to hurry up and wait.
John and the Prophet of Doom
As we learned last week, Malachi is often called the prophet of doom because of the calamitous prophecy he proclaimed against the belligerent people of God. He warned them that God was going to send a sudden devastation by fire that would overtake the nation (Malachi 3:3). This fire, according to Malachi, would coincide with the appearance of YHWH’s messenger, whom Malachi called “Elijah” (Malachi 3:1). That coming messenger, Jesus tells us, was none other than John the Baptist (Matthew 11:14). This means that John the Baptist would not only prepare the way for the Lord, who would save His people from their sins, but would also warn the rebels of the awful judgment that Christ was going to bring against them. John’s appearing as end-time prophet coincides with Malachi’s imminent eschatological judgment against the Jews.
Why is this so important? Because we tend to think of John the Baptist as Jesus’ eccentric first cousin, who shows up eating grasshoppers, dressed in camel skinned robes, with the role of introducing Jesus to the world. That is kind of true, but it misses the entire theme of imminent judgment that is so carefully woven into the narrative. When John steps onto the scene in Judea, his goal is to warn the people that the Christ has come. For those who repent, they will be saved. For those who resist, they will experience a kind of hell on earth.
John and the End of Apostate Judah
While we don’t have a panoply of quotations from John, we have more than enough information to validate what Malachi says about him, that he is the prophet who will precede imminent judgment. For instance, his father Zechariah (through the Holy Spirit) fully anticipated his boy would grow up to become “the messenger” of destruction foretold by Malachi (Luke 1:76-79). John, himself, believed he was the forerunner of the light-bearing Christ (Malachi 4:2; John 1:6-8, 23), who would bring healing to some and disaster unto others.
We know this was John’s focus, because the tone of his ministry is all about repentance (Luke 3:3; Matthew 3:1).
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This pair of amendments was drafted in light of the failure of Overture 2022-15 from the 49th General Assembly in response to Side-B homosexuality and the Revoice Movement. Many actions have already been taken to address this controversy in the PCA (i.e. a study committee on human sexuality, an SJC decision on the handling of Revoice, corrective responses concerning the Revoice Conference in Missouri Presbytery, and ratified amendments in BCO 16-4, 21-4, and 24-1). Furthermore, all of this has taken place in light of the church which sparked this controversy by hosting the Revoice Conference leaving the PCA (along with its ministers). Many hope this will be the last round of amendments concerning sexuality in the PCA (at least for now).

I may not be King Theoden from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and we are not on the verge of the Battle of Helm’s Deep, but I would like to make the observation that we in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) are beginning another significant event in the life of our Church. While Book of Church Order (BCO) amendments pale in comparison to the excitement caused by orcs laying siege to an impregnable fortress, they have significant importance as it relates to the work of the Church. What begins now is the voting season for the items passed by the 50th General Assembly held this past June in Memphis. Presbyteries all across the United States and Canada will have the next 9 months or so to offer their advice and consent about the amendments passed at this year’s Assembly. You can find overall results of the General Assembly here.After an amendment passes the Assembly, it is bundled together with other proposed amendments and together they are then presented as “items” according to their location in the Book of Church Order. These items must pass at least 2/3 (or 59) of the 88 regional presbyteries by a simple majority vote of each presbytery. Any amendment that reaches the 2/3 threshold will be considered for final ratification at the 51st General Assembly in Richmond, VA on June 10-14, 2024. This year, there will be three amendments for the presbyteries to consider (derived from Overtures 23, 26, and 27).  These proposed changes, respectively, clarify the sexual character expected of ordained officers in the Church, the use of technical titles for non-ordained laypeople, and an alteration in the procedure for a case without process. This article will include the language for each amendment, the history of the respective section in the BCO, and the rationale for each amendment. You can follow the progress of these amendments here (also linked on the Presbyterian Polity homepage).
Item 1: Overture 26
Overture 26 seeks to amend BCO 7-3 on church officers to address the usage of the titles pastor, elder, and deacon for those who have not been duly ordained for said office in the PCA. The amendment reads (underlined section):
7-3. No one who holds office in the Church ought to usurp authority therein, or receive official titles of spiritual preeminence, except such as are employed in the Scripture. Furthermore, unordained people shall not be referred to as, or given the titles of, the ordained offices of pastor/elder or deacon.
This amendment passed the assembly with about 75% support from commissioners with a vote of 1427-481. The relevant section in the BCO (Chapter 7) deals explicitly with the general classification of officers in the church. Section 3 concerns the scriptural authority and titles for those who hold office. Historically, this section grounds the authority of officer bearers to Scripture itself. Furthermore, it protects the church from “men usurping authority because they hold office in the church.”[1]The rationale for this amendment arises from misapplication of the titles pastor, elder, and deacon (e.g., unordained “youth pastors,” “music pastors,” but also those who are not ordained to the office of deacon receiving that title). Those in favor of this amendment hope that it will help to protect the Church from the unordained (intentionally or unintentionally) usurping the authority of the ordained by claiming the titles of those ordained by God. If this amendment is ratified, what was once implicit in the Church’s constitution will be made explicit.
Item 2: Overture 23
Overture 23 seeks to amend both BCO 8-2 on elders and 9-3 on deacons to require officers’ conformity to the biblical standards of chastity and sexual purity. The amendments read as follows (underlined section):
8-2. He that fills this office should possess a competency of human learning and be blameless in life, sound in the faith and apt to teach. He should exhibit a sobriety and holiness of life becoming the Gospel. He should conform to the biblical requirement of chastity and sexual purity in his descriptions of himself, and in his convictions, character, and conduct. He should rule his own house well and should have a good report of them that are outside the Church.
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Zanchi’s comments on the violent uprisings of fallen desire should be a great help to Christians who find themselves perplexed over how easily they can stumble into sin. How many believers have been completely overcome with guilt after giving in to sin, and upon becoming overwhelmed by their sin and the shame that follows, that they question how they could be believers to begin with if they could commit sin so easily? While he makes clear that no one is excused for their sin when these violent desires overwhelm us, the true believer is immediately led to repentance and turning away from sin, and this is a blessing of faith.

Sin is greatly confusing for believers. The apostle captures this in Romans 7 when he says “the things that I will not, these I do.” How could the apostle seem to speak in such a defeated manner with regard to sin in a believer who has been given the Spirit and the grace of repentance? And if such a double-minded “believer” could be conceived of in this life, is assurance of salvation possible?
To answer these questions, some have tried to explain Romans 7 as speaking of a man before conversion since a “defeatist” view of sin in the believer seems entirely out of accord with the New Testament teaching on regeneration and holiness. This answer would seem to take away any notion that a believer might so willingly enter into sin as a new creation.
Answers to this dilemma, however, have not always been helpful for Christians in their struggle against sin. There have been some who suggest that when the believer sins, God turns in anger against him and the impression is given that without the requisite degree of sanctification, salvation may absent or at worst, lost.
When John Owen wrote his famous treatise on The Mortification of Sin of the Life of Believers, he was pastorally concerned to help Christians with this dilemma. He began with a case of conscience:
Suppose a man to be a true believer, and yet finds in himself a powerful indwelling sin, leading him captive to the law of it, consuming his heart with trouble, perplexing his thoughts, weakening his soul as to the duties of communion with God, disquieting him as to peace, and perhaps defiling his conscience, and exposing him to hardening through the deceitfulness of sin—what shall he do?
Owen provides many helpful and practical ways for the believer to mortify sin in his life. But of first importance is to ask how the Scriptures help the believer to understand what is happening in his whole man with regard to his struggle against sin.
What believers need most in this struggle is to appreciate the way in which the Scriptures distinguish their struggle from that of unbelievers. When this is appreciated, a certain release is provided that untangles the believer from a servile fear of God toward a filial fear that actually promotes true assurance of faith and lasting mortification of sin.
Help From Girolamo Zanchi
In his great work Speculum Christianum or The Christian Survey of Conscience, Girolamo Zanchi addressed at length the Reformed view of Romans 7 as the regenerate man’s struggle against sin, a view he assures was held by all the learned divines. He makes a crucial distinction that in the regenerate is a double-man. The Christian, he says, has a fundamental quality that is different from that of the unbeliever. When a regenerate man sins, “he sins only in the flesh and not with the whole will and the whole heart.”
Zanchi claims to have been attacked by Roman writers and even some Protestant divines for this distinction, but he engages heavily with Bucer and many others to make his case. The believer does not sin “according to the spirit but according to the flesh and therefore not with full and plenary consent of will.” He makes a distinction between the outward and inward man.
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