The Lord Jesus acknowledged a truth that is hard for us to appreciate. Where Christian faith is increasingly trivialized the concept of grace becomes a trifle and references to it platitudinous. Sin is not to be taken too seriously and salvation is cheap. The grip of evil is not too keenly felt and the estimate of its influence is minimal. Life is fairly normal and as it should be, and religion is a comfort when circumstances slip out of kilter. Moral gravity is considered to be too gloomy and dour for the “victorious believer”. Who wants to be a kill-joy when life can be so happy-clappy? Jesus stuns us with the recognition that the author of evil is the ruler of this world. This is not concession to satanic sovereignty in any way but simply to say that Satan’s revolt against God has infected the souls of men and that we have now enlisted in his rebellion. There is a dark, all-pervading, force in this world that is the source of human enmity towards God. Satan’s power is the cause of all depravity and it is exceedingly destructive. By his wiles he has taken mankind into bondage, blinded their minds, polluted their affections, and manipulated them by his temptations and inducements. The world is in subjection to wickedness and evil would reign in total chaos and violence were it not for the restraining intervention of God.

  To a great extent and for a limited time the evil one is permitted to rule in the hearts of those he has taken into captivity. He is allowed an allotted period in which to exercise his stratagems and manoeuvres against the Prince of Heaven, of whom he is seethingly envious, until the Lord chooses to manifest his power and his justice in Satan’s utter defeat and confinement to the pit. Until then Satan has restricted license to wreak his havoc and harm. From all this God will prove his supremacy by transforming evil into good. Satan’s efforts are entirely negative; God’s are successful and ingeniously creative. But in the interim the devil is busily at work corrupting the minds of men, withholding them from God, and sowing woes and misery among them. His hatred for God, his hostility towards the Lord Jesus, and his malice towards humanity, cause sin and suffering in each of us. His tyranny terrorizes us everywhere and in every department of human experience. His agenda is the exact opposite of God’s and he pursues it relentlessly, and, in view of his dominance of our race in its antipathy to God, Jesus describes the arch- foe of heaven as the prince of this world (John 12:31). Through the misuse of our freedom and in our weakness he has overcome us and the consequences are dire. We are born his children and heirs of wrath. We have inherited his lying and hate-filled nature, and his greed for power and pre-eminence drives our ambition. It is a plight we cannot admit until divine light begins to illuminate our souls, trouble our consciences, and form our perceptions of reality. It is then that we see that the whole world lies in wickedness and that we are oppressed by a cruel tormenter who uses compliant individuals and knavish institutions as his savage instruments. The devil personifies the darkness that contended with Jesus from the moment of his birth (John 1:5). The devil is the originator of the great lie that deceives men from their birth, and he is the inspirer of that ubiquitous hate that turns people against each other so readily, so viciously, and so often (Titus 3:3). Jesus called Satan the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). Even a cursory glance at history or current affairs is sufficient to see how easily men succumb to and perpetrate death-dealing lies through godless ideologies crafted to produce cruel despotisms that have commanded whole countries and cultures, decimating vast populations with unspeakable barbarism. Inhuman, or, sadly, all too human fallacies in politics and social organization have proved fatal in every generation, plunging innumerable souls into despair, destruction, and perhaps damnation. Human history is primarily a catalogue of wars, greed, exploitation, and oppression. These evils and injustices are the inventions of Satan and with them he has infected and infested the nature of man. Who can doubt the tragic fact of original sin? Who can subscribe to the fiction of the progress or perfectibility of man? Who can avoid the conclusion of the apostle John that, “the whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19).

  Do we acknowledge the hideous character and activity of the prince of this world and his dominion over the hearts and minds of men? Can we comprehend the volume of wickedness committed in this world even for one day? All the information available to us confirms the observation of Paul, and we know and feel it in ourselves: “The mind of sinful man is death . . . the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God” (Romans 8: 6-8). Does the contemporary Christian mind really believe this? Do we have the slightest apprehension of the necessity of omnipotent grace to break this control, tame this hostility, and change our nature - which is what we are until our Creator – Redeemer reconstitutes and renovates us. Only God can change nature. Only God can snatch us from Satan. Only God can liberate us from our own sinful desires. Sin is serious. Wickedness abounds. Evil is all pervasive. For the moment the evil one is the ruler of a world at odds with God. There is no room for sentimentality. There is no excuse for turning our attention away from the horrors of the darkness that covers our world and all the evil that afflicts it so grievously from individual experience to national distress and international catastrophe. The media is witness to all this. History records our disastrous past. Man may progress intellectually, but not morally. We have little wisdom and our technological accomplishments are potentially the biggest threats to our happiness and wellbeing. We are perpetually beset by lies and violence to each other, sometimes on a horrendous scale. Look at the carnage of the 20th century alone. It hardly raises our hopes for human improvement and universal justice.

  In the light of all this we witness in our time a burgeoning atheism and a dubiously hopeful humanism, ways of dealing with our existence and its problems without God. This is Satan’s most artful achievement in deceit. Karl Barth once wrote about the nightmare of atheism. The Puritan, Thomas Watson, identified atheism as our greatest enemy for it would deprive us of our God, whom we have found to be adorable and wholly good. How humanism can prevail after staring at the realities concerning human nature and behaviour is totally baffling. But it gratifies pride and suits our preferences. Many have had a flirtation with atheism and it is bleak territory. It does not wish to submit to God’s law. It is the most stubborn form of human rebellion. Atheists often do not analyse their atheism but it often emerges from some fundamentally bad experience or deprivation, or it conceals and excuses some form of moral waywardness that will not be surrendered. Russell and Byron were tortured by the memories of parental fear of hell. Sartre was pricked in conscience as a child stealing from his mother and from that point he resolved that God should not exist. The darkness envelopes us and the great lie seduces us with selfish reasons. Atheism is the cause of our contemporary nihilism. Humanistic literature, poetry and prose, is so doleful, and from many biographies of its best creative minds life without God is seen to be so desperate and destructive. Humanistic literature is often arrogant, irritable, angry, prurient, and void of hope. Christ conquers our atheism, real or desired. He corrects our forgetfulness of God. And thankfully Jesus has come to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). Here is our ultimate and lasting joy.

RJS

I am going there to prepare a place for you; John 14:2

 Scripture informs us that God plans. He is supremely prudent. Nothing is left to chance. Nothing is overlooked or omitted. His perfect wisdom is comprehensive and thorough. Nothing is accidental. Nothing catches him off-guard or surprises him. His wise providence encompasses all things. His ongoing action brings mercy or judgment continuously into the affairs of mankind without intermission. His sovereignty is indisputable in his determinations and ceaseless doings. His righteous will prevails. His decisions are fulfilled. As mysterious as they may be to us they are plain and settled to him. 

 It is only in the outcome that we shall begin to understand the mind of the Lord, and all eternity will give us scope to ponder his ways and praise him for them. Scripture unfolds a series of divine plans to us, which constitute one purpose to him.

 Our collect for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity discloses the central feature of that purpose as it affects us: Lord God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things that surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you that, loving you above all things, we may obtain your promises, which are greater than we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 Preparation is the ultimate expression of prudence. It is so in human life. We make preparation for joyful events with diligence and eagerness. We take precautions against possible disasters and we endeavour to be provident with regard to the future and its necessities. And so it is in the divine scheme of things – God prepares for all that he will accomplish. We notice his designs coming into fruition in installments that compose the historical narrative in the Bible. He knows the beginning and the end as a fait accompli.

 The extraordinary fact is that God has a plan of pure pleasure in mind for his people. It is the unique and ultimate pleasure of knowing him to the full. This pleasure transcends every earthly pleasure, even Eden itself, or anything else we could possible conceive. It will not be limited or carnal. It will be unending and spiritual. It is immeasurable and indescribable. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Corinthians 2:9). This glorious prospect exceeds our greatest expectations.

 What is more it will erase our deepest sorrows and regrets: “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:3-4). Our heavenly blessedness will compensate every earthly trial and all agony and disappointment experienced here. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). All believers may look forward to this blissful condition for the Lord himself has pledged it: “You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” (Psalm 16:11). As the collect avers in line with Holy Scripture, “Lord, you have prepared for those who love you such good things that surpass our understanding”.

 Here is the extravagant generosity of God. He prepares our eternal wellbeing with the utmost care and hospitality. He has laid out innumerable promises to this effect. All that he holds in store is inestimable. God’s goodness is incalculable. And it is there for those who love him.

 But is our love a qualification, a price, an inducement for God to favour us? Is it something that we summon up within our selves to gain the divine bounty that awaits us, this gargantuan prize that the Lord offers? Indeed not! As fallen beings we have no capacity to desire God or love him. Our love for him is a gift of his love to us. It is entirely responsive to his bidding – it does not originate in us. 

 The collect recognizes this great truth and cries out for the enabling grace of God: “Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that loving you above all things, we may obtain your promises”. The promises are beyond our reach without first receiving the love of God that stirs up our desire for him and drives us to him.  His love triggers our quest and whets our appetite for God. He must allure us to himself by showing himself to us in all his beauty and we witness his charm and his worth. He gives himself to us so that we surrender ourselves to him in return. 

 Our salvation is the result of a courtship, a wooing of our souls to him. His appeal is irresistible to the soul enabled to gaze upon him. We are inevitably drawn to God in Christ and we sigh the words of Augustus Toplady, “Jesu, lover of my soul”.  Salvation is the story of a romance between God and man as it is portrayed in the Song of Solomon and captured so well in the sermons of Bernard of Clairvaux, so delicious to read. 

 Jesus sweetens our hearts with fondness for him. “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4: 9-10).

 The sublime pleasure afforded to the Christian comes through the pain and death of the Saviour. We were selected in him, sought by him, saved by him, and secured for divine fellowship. We sinners are wanted people. Traitors to God are now treasured by him and it is all due to the righteous obedience of Christ on our behalf, an obedience that redeems us and makes us righteous in reputation and reality. God is pleased to restore us to himself at infinite cost and though the efforts and endurance of his Son. The plan of God is centred upon the cross and he prepared the victim and the success to follow. 

 Soon, for every believer, will come the moment of enormous and thrilling discovery. The promises that God has given us will be infinitely larger than our small minds can encompass – greater than we can desire.  Our life with God will be exceedingly abundant to overflowing. For ever and ever our capacities will need to be increased to contain the store of God’s goodness poured out upon us, and then there will always be more.

 Heaven will be rapturous. God, the Three in One, will be our constant and complete delight. And we shall owe all this to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the guidance and protection of the Holy Spirit.

RJS

  An Anglican in our time might sometimes wish for a Countess of Huntingdon to provide us with a simple alternative to the confused and defective body our communion has become. Such a prospect or pipedream would be tempting but it would be a false option and a betrayal. Anglicanism is an attempted comprehensive expression of all that is best in historic Christianity. Its Reformers were skilled in the scholarship of the ancient church and the fathers, their expertise ranged through the gamut of medieval development, and they were in accord with the principal voices of the Continental Reformation. They were not innovators but advocates and guardians of revealed truth wherever it came to light in the thought and teaching of godly and Spirit-guided expositors of the word of God. They perpetuated what was sound in the catholic tradition and protested the truth of Holy Scripture against the deviation of Rome (see Jewel’s Apology). They were kin to every honest believer and proponent of grace in every generation that preceded them and they plundered the wealth of wisdom that was available to them. They even crossed the line that divided east and west in Christendom and acknowledged what was good and true in Orthodoxy (e.g. what Anglican does not honour the name and thought of Chrysostom, at least because of his prayer in the liturgy for Mattins . What informed Anglican does not admire the name and ministry of John of Kronstadt? What Anglican does not marvel at the conviction and courage of many of the Orthodox under Communist tyranny?). Reformational Anglicanism does not major in denominational exclusivity or superiority but rejoices in being a part of the universal Church of God into which its clergy are ordained and its members introduced. It reaches out toward and embraces Christians of every hue and doctrinal cry that is consistent with Scripture and the creeds (even where the latter are not formally subscribed or recited). Anglicanism is ecumenical and celebrates and craves the unity of the people of God in all their variety. Many strands comprise the character of Anglicanism.

  If the theological journey of Cranmer is taken as a lodestar we see the progress of the man, who so typifies the Anglican movement in its nature, devotional mood, and doctrinal persuasion, through several phases from Catholicism a la Rome to Lutheranism and Zwinglianism, eventually to rest in an agreement with Calvin soteriologically and sacramentally. Knowing that the terms “Calvinism” and “Augustinianism” are convenient indices to general theological direction and not avowals of blind idolatry or total submission to men or systems, we see that the Anglicanism of the last decades of the 16th century and the first two decades of the 17th century were solidly of the mind that grace was free, particular, and effective. The composition of the Lambeth Articles under Archbishop Whitgift is evidence of this, as is David Starkey’s observation (without approval) that in the reign of Elizabeth all the young and rising clergy were Calvinists (Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne, page 286). It was not only the bishops, scholars, and ministers of the church who sought to extol the doctrines of grace but many prominent leaders and members of society (e.g. Drake, Walsingham, his son-in-law Philip Sidney, and a bevy of Elizabethan poets such as Spenser, Fulke Greville, and Joseph Hall). Reformational theology and practice reigned in England as the country eventually rose to become the principal bastion of Protestantism. Under James 1 five delegates from the English Church (one Scottish) were commissioned to participate in the Synod of Dort and Joseph Hall, Samuel Ward, and John Davenant made significant and influential contributions. In their exchanged correspondence Hall and Davenant made it clear that the conclusions of Dort as to saving grace were in full accord with the teaching of their church.  Hall said: “I will live and die in the suffrage of that Synod of Dort; and I do confidently avow that those other opinions (of Arminians) cannot stand with the doctrine of the Church of England.” To which Davenant replied: “I know that no man can embrace Arminianism in the doctrines of predestinantion and grace but he must desert the Articles agreed upon by the Church of England.” There can be no dispute as to the theology of the Thirty-nine Articles and what its framers intended to convey. Bishop Ryle’s note on Perseverance at the conclusion of his volume entitled Old Paths ought to satisfy everyone as to the uncontestable Augustinianism of Anglicanism (Banner of Truth, Edinburgh, 1999, pages 518-521). Augustus Toplady’s “Historic Proof of The Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England” was regarded by Ryle as unanswerable. The pastoral cautions and consolations expressed in Article Seventeen would have little point to them if unconditional electing love were not the message. The noted Reformational scholar, A.G. Dickens, even went so far as to suggest that they were evidence of a strong supralapsarian position, though one would not necessarily care to  contend for that personally (see The English Reformation, Pages 280 281. Penn State Press, 1993).  Sir Maurice Powicke illustrates the predestinarianism of the English Reformers with a quote from John Bradford writing to his fellow martyrs Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, imprisoned at Oxford, concerning the free-willers: “The effects of salvation they so mingle and confound with the cause that if it not be seen to, more hurt will come by them than ever came by the papists – in so much that their life commendeth them to the world more than the papists…They utterly contemn all learning.” (The Reformation in England, O.U.P. London, 1961, page 68).

 As to all those cited previously (VOL July 21st) as proponents and defenders of the Augustinian view on grace prior to the Reformation there exists the awareness that many of them nuanced the doctrine of predestination differently and with varying degrees of emphasis (e.g. Prosper endorsed Augustine only with the proviso that a desire for the salvation of all “preceded” the decree. Most of the pre-Reformational Augustinians agreed with this order of priority when considering the mind of the Lord in the effectuation of the plan of salvation. In a later period Donne and Herbert had their differences with the Puritans but their view of grace was virtually identical [Herbert’s correspondence with the Presbyterian leader Andrew Mellville, see Two Gentlemen, The Lives of George Herbert and Robert Herrick, Marchette  Chute, Dutton, NY,  1959, page 119. Herbert wrote concerning divine sovereignty, God, “Who gives to man, as he sees fit} Salvation. Damnation.” And see Donne’s sermons on saving grace]. The Jansenists objected to Calvin but the papacy accused them of doctrinal complicity. All this is due to the subtlety of definition as to the volitional freedom of man in the process of effectual calling and the maintenance of the integrity of the human personality and its God-given faculty of free choice, but all agree that grace is ultimately effective (yes irresistible) in its wooing of the sinner and the change in inclination and affection that is accomplished by an overwhelmingly attractive revelation of Christ’s beauty and love)   -

   Why was I made to hear His voice
   And enter while there’s room;
   When thousands make a wretched choice, 
   and rather starve than come?
   ’Twas the same love that spread the feast,
   that sweetly forced me in;
   Else I had still refused to taste,
   And perish’d in my sin.”

John Newton quoted by C.H. Spurgeon

 Confessional integrity or revision is required within Anglicanism. All must deal with their conscience, under God, accordingly. But we must maximize our faithful adherence to the word of God. Hall recommended to the Synod of Dort that all should contemplate Romans chapter nine prayerfully and meditatively, and appeal for the illumination and guidance of the Holy Spirit. In doing so we, too, might discover what Paul actually said, and what Augustine read, and that which we must spread. At least in that way we would be imitating our great and godly forbear Archbishop Thomas Bradwardine and adjust our thinking from being man-centred to God-centred in the matter of our salvation – for salvation is of the Lord!


RJS 

Divinely Wrought Reversals in Hosea

 Hope – genuine, heartfelt, confident hope – is often at low ebb in human experience. Hope in the Biblical sense is certainty based on trust in the Word of God, knowing that the Lord’s promises, pledges, and assurances will be upheld and fulfilled. Hope in the worldly sense is mere wishful thinking and vague longing with no guarantee attached. Such hope is easily dashed and often disappointed because human intentions usually fail or fall short of expectations and because human desire and purpose has little control over all the factors that prevail, and not infrequently the pledges and plans of men are riddled with deceit, incompetence, and lack of resources to attain projected ends. Our confidence in our fellow creatures is necessarily limited because their ability is limited and their trustworthiness is not absolute. The cry of the Christian can only be, “All my hope on God is founded”. There is no other reliable source of hope.

  Hope is one of the major themes of Holy Scripture. It runs counter to human self-reliance, and heals the pain of human inadequacy. Israel (OT) lived in the hope of a Saviour. The Church (NT) lives in the hope of eternal life that he has won for us. There was never anything unsure in God’s word of hope to Israel. There is nothing to doubt in God’s promise to those who truly believe in Christ. Human confidence may wax and wane because of our frailty, but God’s guarantees stand forever. Our moods and convictions fluctuate in strength. God’s sworn intentions are unchangeable.

  It is not only that God grants hope in circumstances that are favourable and filled with confirmatory signs, it is also true that God issues grounds for hope in situations that are desperate and where the possibility of good fortune is utterly dead. God delights in a pattern of behaviour that baffles human expectation and which calls for a faith that surmounts disaster, defeat, and death. God majors in performing that which we declare impossible. We are not able to determine or demand specifically where, when, or how, but we are to entertain hope from our side because we know that “God can”, and that in his sovereignty “he may”, effect a marvellous deed on our behalf. There is a dimension of divine activity beyond all that we can sense or see, and whilst, in awareness of his power and compassion, we cannot dictate any outcome, we may present our holy desires and urgent needs to him knowing that if our requests accord with the advancement of his kingdom he will deftly coalesce our prayer with his performance, for we regard him with Scriptural warrant as the One “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20). He can order external circumstances and also reach and move us in our internal reluctance or residual impediments of soul. He can make things happen through his personal and enabling intervention. Our particular plight may not point to the door of hope that he intends to create and open for us. Our efforts are often obstructed and frustrated by walls, but God opens doors for our deliverance where no way out can be perceived.

 Hosea was a prophet who proclaimed a message of divinely wrought reversals. The symbols of his “strange” message were geographical and domestic. They did not seem to admit of any hope, and yet he was to uphold symbols of hopelessness as examples of the hope that God would produce and perform from a faithful lovingkindness that would overrule the faithlessness and sin of his disobedient, undeserving people.

  The vibrant message of future hope that Hosea declaims employs the change of historical significance in place names, and the removal of negatives from his children’s names.

1)   Jezreel (1:4) Hosea’s son is to be called Jezreel as a reminder of the town where massacre and mayhem occurred in Israel’s violent history and where eventually the nation was undone by its own sin and God’s punishment. The name was a portend of the divine retribution that would occur where death was sown and crimson blood was spread over the soil, appearing ominously like some ghastly crop sown by the evil of man.  Jezreel (2:22) means, “God sows” and in that condemned and most unlikely place God avers that he will plant Israel once again as his precious possession and lavish favour upon her. God may sow life where death and disgrace prevails; where there was no expectation of the land receiving favour and yielding prosperity. The place of doom and divinely wrought destruction becomes a field where gracious salvation is the luxuriant harvest.

2)   Lo-Ruhamah (1:6) Hosea’s daughter bears the unfortunate name “Not Loved” as a sign that God has ceased to love his people because of their spiritual infidelity and promiscuity in religious devotion. The marriage covenant has been broken and God accepts the reality “as final”.

3)   Lo-Ammi (1:8)  Gomer, Hosea’s errant wife, had another son to be named “Not My People”, the notification of divine rejection, and in terrifying terms, the reversal of the covenant arrangement: “For you are not my people, and I am not your God”. This is the ultimate consequence of stubbornness in sin. It emphasises the human plight beyond help or hope and fixed in despair and destruction. And yet God reverses the irreversible curse, showing that although man is beyond any desert or expectation of deliverance (presumption disallowed) yet mercy cancels the decree of judgment: “Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one’ (2:1). The sinner is scarcely saved (1 Peter 4:18) yet lavished with divine forgiveness and love. God relents and, after all, chooses to recall men to himself as his purpose of grace unfolds throughout history (1: 10-11).

4)   The Valley of Achor (2:15) Achor (trouble) was the place where Achan, having grievously sinned against God by stealing and concealing the plunder of holy war, was punished for withholding the spoils of victory (devotion) that were due to God alone in acknowledgement of his glory (Joshua 7: 18-26). Hosea is caused to proclaim that the place of trouble and administration of divine wrath – Achan’s miserable end – will no longer represent the inescapable displeasure and vengeance of God upon the rebellious, but afford the prospect of hope and great rejoicing in restoration to fellowship with God and the enjoyment of his blessing.

  Believers are the beneficiaries of divinely wrought reversals or supernatural changes. God’s hatred of the offender converts to love through a sovereign and unconditional decision.  The sinner’s nature is transformed from evil to holy. The sinner’s direction is altered from taking him away from God to turning toward God in repentance. The believer’s impossibilities vanish as God shows his hand and bears his arm, and cul-de-sacs become doors to hope through divine command of difficult situations.

  Hosea shows us that what is lost may be restored, what is wasted may be retrieved, what has been forfeited may be re-found, not through human ability and endeavour, but because of God’s irreversible love that threatens abandonment but cannot bear to his give his chosen ones up (11:8a). “My heart is changed within me: all my compassion is aroused (11:8b).   God alarms us as to our condition, fills us with dread at our desert, and overwhelms us by his compassion.

RJS

The innate and incurable pride of human nature creates within us an inveterate tendency to boastfulness and self-display. The interior plea of the heart is, “Look at me!” That is the ineradicable source of rivalry and ambition. It is right to excel for the right reasons, but often the impetus is the desire to rise above others. The braggart exaggerates his merits and the bashful offer excuses for mediocrity, but all are concerned as to how they appear, perform, and succeed in their efforts. All of us have a “front”, a façade we present to the world, and a carefully guarded image that we seek to enhance with some distinction or other. Self-love and self-elevation are symptoms of the infection of our souls that we identify as original sin. Our perversion is evident in the fact that we seek to display the counterfeit glory of the creature in our doings rather than reflect the true glory that is God’s alone. The goal of excellence is good but the motive of its achievement is often awry. Everything that shines within human competence is meant to redound to the splendour of God who enables our exertions. We exist to serve his praise and acknowledge his worth but we direct our energies toward self-exaltation and thereby imitate the dark master of our fallen spirits who vaunts himself in false light before the creation in competition with the Lord. Lucifer (a name he does not deserve) is gleeful at the little candles we light in honour of self. His aim is to rob God of his glory and we are hoodwinked into participating in his crime. When we are awakened to his game, and see ourselves as his hapless pawns, we are nauseated at the arrogance of man and sickened by ourselves. Who can deliver us from the foul habit of self-worship and the exhibition of our own contemptible glory? This is the very essence of sinfulness, to withhold our adoration of God and praise and parade our own excellence. We know that the world, even when tempered by the general grace of God, strives for the goals of greatness and gratification without reference or deference to God, but how much does the Church of God, at the various levels of its life, function from the craving for prestige? How much does boasting, carefully masked, dictate our aspirations and boost the momentum of our actions?

  Are we, the weak, endeavouring to prove our strength? Are we, the poor, pretending to be rich? Are we, the kin of the lowly One, operating with a detestable loftiness of spirit? We boast so much, forgetful of the modesty with which we ought to conduct ourselves. And we can’t help ourselves. Pride is our native, natural, fundamental characteristic. It flows from an unstoppable fountain, forms a putrid pool within in which we vainly search for a flattering reflection of self, rather than occupying ourselves with mirroring the magnificence of God and ascribing all credit to him. We are to be wholly offerings to the Lord but we are off-centre in terms of our vocation before him. Our existence is askew. The ungodly are unaware that this malady of conceitedness is the clue to their lives and all that they enterprise. Our vanity consumes us, our time, our assets, our occupations, our aspirations. Life is the beauty parlour in which we adorn ourselves for the admiration of others. It makes us self-conscious instead of being God-conscious, and our real self, when it is permitted to emerge, makes us miserable. It can do no other when our makeup is removed. The loathsome ego always dogs us, feeding our illusions and fuelling our illness of heart. Even the godly are terrorized by this monster, this tormentor from the deep that we cannot ourselves fathom. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9). Redemption or wrath must meet us at this point in ourselves. We cannot defile God’s domain forever. Our inner evil must arrive at a terminus eventually through renewal of our entity or divine rejection forever. Our dependence on grace is total. Our plea for grace must be earnest.

  In the meantime our pride, so subtle in its manifestations, so guileful in its disguises, enfolds us in a sense of security and smugness. The godly may congratulate themselves on their supposed stability and degree of sanctification. The election of grace soon becomes misinterpreted as preservation by merit. Salvation to purity becomes qualification for privilege and misled believers, bathing in the favour of the power of God, infested with presumption, so identify themselves with the purpose of God and their centrality to it, that they become pompous and consider themselves ever prosperous through the divine dealings on their behalf. Peter assumed a strength in himself that he never had. He crowed about it until he was corrected by the call of a rooster. His accurate confession of Christ was a gift (Matthew 16:13-20). He met head on with his frailty in his craven disowning of Christ before a serving girl and a stranger. His fallibility appeared again when Paul rebuked him for his disregard toward Gentile believers, having received such emphatic intimation from God that Gentiles were fully integrated into his people. Paul himself, a notoriously boastful individual, had to be humbled continually by a “thorn in his side” following an extraordinary revelation of God imparted to him in the third heaven. If we are witnesses of apostolic arrogance, given the grace accorded to them, we must be watchful over our own inclinations that can gain a grip and move apace before we know it. We live in continual need of forgiveness and renovation.

  No writings anywhere surpass the Psalter in its insight into the human condition, the corruption and motions of the heart, the helplessness of our condition, and our only ground of hope in God. The psalms acquaint us with ourselves and point us to God introducing us to his kind awareness of our plight and disposition to deliver.  They speak truth to every phase of our experience and every attitude of mind. They monitor the seasons of the heart wintry or wonderfully bright. They follow the fluctuations of our moods and chart our passage through varying circumstances. They astonish us with their pertinence and wisdom. Through godly poets they are God’s description of our internal state and our intellectual, emotional, and spiritual leanings. The author of Psalm thirty is shrewdly familiar with our habit of smugness and complacency: “When I felt secure, I said, ‘I will never be shaken’. O Lord, when you favoured me, you made my mountain stand firm; but when you hid your face I was dismayed” (vv6-7). We only stand when God supports us. Our only strength is his. He makes our foundation firm. When we are pleased with ourselves and in self-congratulatory mood his disciplinary withdrawal can leave us shattered and humbled. He punctures the puffed up spirit. When we have recognized our folly we turn to him for mercy. We forsake our bragging for his blessing which is only bestowed upon the humble and not those who feign humility.  Haughtiness within Christians and among Christians is a total contradiction of the character of Christ, especially the tendency to talk down from the heights of super-spirituality or superior knowledge (head only). Our confidence is in God exclusively and is cautious of self-importance. It avoids self-sufficiency. “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it why do you boast as though you did not?

RJS

(Petertide – June 29th, 2012)

 Roman Catholicism evinces many impressive features but its fundamental distinctives from other forms of Christianity are provably spurious. At best the Roman Catholic Church is a part of the world-wide Christian Communion, afflicted with numerous defects. Its very best thinkers and theologians are repudiated at many crucial points of their overall doctrinal declaration. Essential Catholicism, in its broadest and original sense as appertaining to the universal people of God, is rooted in Holy Scripture and in a historical sense moved forward in and at the wise direction of Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354-430). The early church fathers may not be claimed as exclusively Roman Catholic. Such a claim is boldly anachronistic. They were the formers, organizers, and pastors of the Church of Christ in the post-apostolic era as it set out upon its mission to the world and the defining and defence of the faith that they held. The papacy in its full-blown sense moved at a slower pace than the more general congregation of faith and gradually usurped the authority of Holy Scripture and Spirit-led ministry. Many eminent devotees of Rome preserved the ancient faith and proclaimed it accurately although more or less contaminated by medieval fallacies. So-called Evangelical Christianity is much impoverished without an appreciation of the wisdom of the fathers, the ecumenical creeds, and the great doctors* of the church who laboured prior to the Reformation. Each of these worthies conserved the truths of Augustinianism and pioneered, through their longstanding influence, the way to reform. The historic Protestant movement is best described as Reformed Catholicism – the Universal Church put back on track according to Scripture, the ancient creeds and the best insights of the fathers. Heirs of the Reformers have a galaxy of forbears who acknowledged the authority of Rome but who also stood out as exceptions to its most grievous wayward trends. Champions of the doctrine of Grace and the truth of the Gospel rose up in every generation of Rome’s dark dominance over the Christian world, and even dim traces of saving truth were sufficient to draw many into union with the Saviour. He may capture souls with cords thick or thin.

 The Ecclesia Anglicana was blessed with the restoration of the pure gospel in the 16th century. In its time, and as it was meant to continue, it was a beautiful expression of Reformed Catholicism. It established reform and aspired to continuing reform as more light was shed forth from the Word of God. Over the subsequent centuries, since the Archbishopric of William Laud, historical occurrences have impeded the cause of Reformational loyalty and proclamation within Anglicanism, and even reversed many of its noble Biblical gains. The Church of England and its once colonial, now Episcopalian/Anglican offspring in many overseas provinces, hardly resemble the church envisioned by Cranmer, his collaborators, and near contemporaries of the 16th and early 17th centuries. “All we like sheep have gone astray” is a fitting description of Anglicanism in a broad sense. Our Communion has wandered far from the classic Anglican Way as derived from Scripture and stated in our standards compiled in the Book of Common Prayer (1662 strongly preferred). Some of the fold have scurried back to Rome, others have strayed into the wilderness of liberalism and scepticism, and most wander about dazed and distraught “as sheep without a shepherd”. The almost daily fluctuations in fortune of Anglicanism are confusing and debilitating. After many disappointments and let-downs proposed new developments are met with increasing cynicism. The English alphabet will soon need to be enlarged to accommodate sufficient acronyms for the mushrooming movements that represent so many aspects of what is considered to be essential Anglicanism. Our inclusiveness and diversity has led to the destruction of a clear identity, so much so that we are now plagued with do-it-yourself-Anglicanism that bears little relationship to the real thing. Its origins are not understood, the authors of its Confession are not consulted or comprehended, and its characteristic aims in worship and witness are discarded for the sake of modern modes and methods designed to make the faith more palatable in slick and superficial ways that sacrifice gravitas, reverence, and the deep joy of an understanding heart tempered by substantial truth rather than trivialities that amuse.

 The means for the recovery of our senses are near at hand. It is not a useless antiquarian exercise to return to our roots. Nor will a return to our roots prevent further growth. It will simply pare away all that is parasitical or diseased and guarantee good growth. The essence of our historic faith is found in a humble restoration of Sacred Scripture to the centre of our individual and corporate life, not simply as something routinely read and scarcely attended to with distracted minds, but as the speech of God deliberately heard, and the source of his wisdom into which we immerse ourselves continually. It is the Word pondered and prayed that conveys the mind of God and which creates a new heart of understanding and obedience. Original Anglicanism was soaked in Scripture, and for love of Scripture, soaked in blood also. Renewed Anglicanism must be drenched with Scripture, receive it in total submission, and discard corporate mentality and procedure in terms of leadership and the eagerness to promote itself through a “with-it” image and catchy gimmicks. These formulaic methods of functioning and growth (worldly wisdom) supplant the patience of faith in Word and Spirit as we seek to hasten and take credit for the work of God in the hearts of human beings too easily swayed by emotion, celebrity, and excitement. We live in shallow times.

 The liturgy of the BCP is designed to be an instrument under God for thorough conversion and mature discipleship through what has been described as the steady triple beat of sin, grace, faith, engendering the deep earnestness of the sinful soul before a holy God. Everything that comprehensive ministry requires is found in the BCP from evangelism to the continual edification of the people of God. Mission, in every aspect, is written throughout its pages, and it affords pastoral care for every season in human life from birth to burial. It equips the soul for every major event in human experience, it serves as a springboard for every encounter in ministry, and its beautifully composed collects furnish the mind with matter for sincere prayer. The Anglican Way expressed in liturgy, ordinal, and Articles of religion, was composed to bring lost sheep home to God by way of his truth and to ensure, “that we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal”.

 Anglicanism seeks to embody a true Catholicism derived from the word of God and aided by the sound reflections of the sages of God given to the church for its spiritual benefit. We must recapture our past in order to press on with integrity and effectiveness. In our rich heritage, in danger of being forsaken, we possess the divine message and the mentoring of great and godly saints. Now we must exercise the courage and candour to heed them in an hour of enormous crisis and need.

RJS

*The likes of Augustine, Prosper, Fulgentius, Gregory, Isadore, Gottschalk, especially admired by Archbishop Ussher, Ratramnus who persuaded our Reformers away from the Roman doctrine of the Mass, Anselm, Bernard, a favourite of Luther and Calvin, Peter Lombard, Bradwardine, 14th century Archbishop of Canterbury, Gregory of Rimini, Wycliffe, Huss, and many others. Evangelical doctrines are not a novelty.