SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY 2020
 
COLLECT
Lord God, let your continual pity cleanse and defend your Church we humbly pray; and because it cannot continue in safety without your aid, always preserve and protect it by your help and goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
 
LESSONS
Ephesians 3 : 13 - 21
 
I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.
 
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom the whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
 
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
 
 
DIVINE DIMENSIONS - IMMEASURABLE
Our minds are locked into dimensions. Everything is a matter of size, proportions, mass, extension, area. We are constitutionally compelled to observe all things, visible and invisible by measure. That which is infinite is beyond our grasp. Our perception inevitably balks at limits and boundaries, and even if we attempt in our minds to leap over these restrictions toward a notion of the infinite we can only think in terms of successive stages, portions, degrees. Extension is irrelevant to infinitude, to the concept of unceasing endlessness because it cannot be curbed, cut short. Infinity rolls on continuously - width, length, height, depth. We are out of breath and our minds are befuddled by a reality we cannot assess or contain. The immensity of God in his being and attributes is immeasurable. All our concepts concerning the deity are practically diminishing of his unspeakable dimensions. The Lord is indescribably great. No mental telescope can detect the margins of his substance or essence. It is salutary to admit that he is beyond calculation or confinement. What a wonder it is to enter the realm of prayer as Paul does for the saints. Prayer has the motivating incentive of pressing on to the farthest limits of possibility for the Lord we call upon is the God of the impossible.
 
But is it a wonder that Paul kneels before God? Surely not. Our God is beyond our human capacity to know him fully. We are constrained to bow before him - incomprehensible, but through Jesus Christ the Word, knowable, and increasingly so.
 
Paul points to a God of Personhood who relates to us intimately in his radiant glory and rich goodness as Triune. The Father who adopts his elect as family grants them identity as his children. Great earthly families traditionally exhibit pride in their remarkable exploits, status, accumulation of honors, traditions and, in consequence of these, they glory in their famous names emblazoned upon their escutcheon.  Believers in Christ belong to the greatest family of all that encompasses the redeemed citizens of heaven and those who will join them from earth when their home going eventually occurs. Both segments of the people of God bear the most noble family crest of all through the privilege of special grace that links them with the Son of God with whom, in the mind of God, they have been associated before time was, “Chosen in Christ”.
 
Glorious and inestimable riches are available to this family; the wealth of God’s mercy and provision, wide and always, but particularly the wealth of the human spirit (inner being) as bestowed by the Holy Spirit. The bounty of God is liberally poured out upon us on earth prior to our gaining of our full inheritance in heaven, “the future state”. No benefit could be greater than the indwelling of Christ in our hearts. There are no quotas of blessing in the heavenly resident of our souls. He brings the fullness of God into our possession; He is the inexpressible favor granted to us by the Father. The Three-in-One closeting with us and caring for us.
 
Everything in this brief passage from the apostle proclaims boundlessness - the love of God that settles upon us and surges through us, that grounds us in the firm foundation of eternal affection and compassion; the mighty power that assures all the people of God that they are at the centre and surrounded by the love of Christ that cannot be gauged in its all-round, inexhaustible volume - experienced but never arriving at a point of expiration, a full supply that will never run dry, ever flowing, ever increasing, known in its beneficent nature and effects but surpassing our ability to sum up its length and strength. We are integrated into the sphere of divine love, an ocean of cherishing and endearment we do not have the means to survey.
 
And so grace is extolled to such an extreme extent to encourage us to request and expect great things in the cause of the kingdom, far beyond what we might ask or imagine. “Thou art coming to a king, large petitions with thee bring.”
 
I ask great things,
 Expect great things,
  Shall receive great things.
From The Valley of Vision, A collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions, Arthur Bennett, Banner of Truth - a superb compilation of uplifting and invigorating meditations.
 
Luke 7 : 11 - 17
 
Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out - the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”
 
Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.
 
They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.” This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.
 
Jesus entered a village called Nain (Pleasantville). Even the most pleasant locale or happy, vibrant home cannot exclude the coming of death, and sadness cannot be prevented from touching any human life.
 
As Jesus approached the gate of the attractive little town with its aspect of pleasing countryside the grim reality of death was closely encountered. It invades every environment and disturbs every heart. It knows no barriers and penetrates every defense and attempt at denial. We cannot hide from it.
 
Every funeral is a sorrowful occasion, even if only as a reminder of our own tenuous grip on life and our certain mortality.
 
The grieving party that Jesus providentially met was especially piteous. A widow was weeping over her only son. A large crowd was with her to extend silent comfort, but a stricken heart feels cold, empty, and distant from surroundings and onlookers, enveloped in the void of deep personal loss.
 
The Savior of the world looked tenderly upon the distraught lady before him and “his heart went out to her”.  The God-man expressed both human and divine tenderness together. His word of comfort availed. “Don’t cry.” It was followed by Jesus omnipotent command over the power of death. “Young man, I say to you, get up!”
 
The man sat up and was wonderfully restored to his mother.
 
In this poignant incident divine omnipotence was allied to gentle mercy. The sweet strength of God was so beautifully exhibited so that we might not hesitate to call upon him in trouble or distress.
 
His power is proven and our plight may be eased.
 
RJS

FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY, 2020
 
COLLECT
Guard your Church, O Lord, with your perpetual mercy; and because in our frailty we cannot stand without your support, keep us always from all that may harm us; and lead us to all that is profitable for our salvation, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
LESSONS
Joshua 24 : 14 -24
“Now fear the Lord and and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away your gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River, and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living, but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
 
Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve others gods! It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our fathers up and out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.”
 
Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”
 
But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the Lord.”
 
Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.”
 
“Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied.
 
“Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.
 
And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and obey him.”
 
On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he drew up for them decrees and laws.
 
Matthew 6 : 24 – 34
“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one, and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. 1You cannot serve both God and Money.
 
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
 
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even 2Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ Or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
 
1Certainly to be devoted to the increase of wealth. . . rules  out that devotion to God which alone is the ground of human integrity or wholeness. (H. Melinsky).
 
2Here the point is that the king was proverbial for magnificence. But not even that magnificence can compare to the way the flowers are clothed. One points to the basic unit; Solomon’s clothes could not compare to that of even one of the flowers. (Leon Morris).

LOYALTY TO GOD: WE WILL SERVE THE LORD

The fundamental condition of human nature is weakness. We are created for dependence upon the Lord - totally; he is to be our strength and our complete reliance is to be upon him. Our frailty as mere creatures is huge in every way. Physically we can only survive within very limited and congenial conditions that are moderated for our comfort. We have a well defined, confined range of adaptability and functional capacity. Under the force of various pressures and weights our bone structure is brittle and subject to fracture, and the flesh that envelopes our various vital organs and inner parts is very soft and tender. How vulnerable we happen to be. Humans can only prove to be strong in comparison with each other.
 
As a race we are all highly exposed to threatening dangers and hazards that can snuff us out in a moment and each of us eventually falls victim to the summons of death - brief life, earthly extinction. The best minds are ultimately delicate given the enormous strains and uncertainties in life that can be brought to bear, and the most resilient constitutions can eventually crack and collapse. In ourselves, under honest scrutiny, we are by nature extremely feeble. Most crucially, as a result of our breach with our Maker and Sustainer, we are fatally flawed and defective in a moral way, being also volitionally erratic, and subject to being easily swayed and unpredictable. It is only outlandish hubris that can cause us to be boastful and self-reliant. Written across our character in bold letters is the devastating description of the content of our hearts, “wickedness and inconstancy”.
 
It is our inconstancy, even as believers, that is addressed in our Scripture lessons for the day. With our speech we make great assertions and utter very solemn vows, but in fact our inner attitudes and outward behavior fall dismally low beneath the talk of the tongue, that instrument of falsehood and deception. It is even possible for we Christians to be unaware of the gravity of conceited, casual, insincere speech before God, and even directly in communication with him.

Joshua gives Israel opportunity to assess its genuineness of professed allegiance to its gracious liberator and deliverer. “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.” In reply Israel recites the benefits it received in covenant with the Lord, but Joshua knows the tendencies of the people to still cling to foreign gods they have discovered beyond the River and also currently adopted in the land they have by grace inherited. He declares their inability to cast these gods away. He knows that in spite of their profession of loyalty to God they remain untrue, and by intimating that in their hearts that they are wavering, he deftly touches on their inconstancy by posing an unavoidable decision: “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves. . .” Choices are determined by desires. The will of sinful man is not the arbiter of our deepest desires but their captive. Hence Joshua’s verdict on Israel’s verbal superficiality, “You are not able to serve the Lord.” The holiness of God, the claims and prerogatives of God do not appeal to the Israelites. Their false declaration acknowledges him but in their desires they abandon him.
 
Former idols of the heart may still beckon to us and stick to us annoyingly, and we can be tempted to cling to them and fall in line with their seductive suggestions - the acquisitions and ambitions fostered by the gods of gratification and worldly greatness are alluring, and may even take on a pronounced religious guise. We may wrongly perceive that “he is our God”, but he may simply be the figment of our own self-serving imagination and wants. Idols that are fabricated in the misled mind are, of all fancies, most dangerous. The Lord must teach us about ourselves as well as about himself. We must match together in a state of holiness. Serving the Lord is a costly, painful dying to self. We are not able, as Joshua recognized, to serve the Lord but by his grace and enabling alone.
 
The Lord Jesus is, of course, fully acquainted with our divided loyalties and inconsistencies, but he warns us that no one can really serve two masters, exercise a duality of devotion, or adhere to a plurality of allegiances. He specifically instances the ancient and yet very modern god, Mammon, a name which is now accurately rendered as Money. The pursuit of wealth and wellbeing for our own sakes and satisfaction is exceptionally perilous. Riches are not sinful in themselves. The moral issue to consider is how affluence is gained and as to how it is dispersed, but in our fallen state riches can cultivate many evils; failure in probity and rectitude, greed, arrogance, presumptuousness, social superiority, and that most fatal flaw of lack of reliance upon God.
​
Our secret interior idols are simply expressions of the inclinations of the heart. Pursuit of our own preferences and proposed glamorous and gratifying results is the essence of idolatry. The goals and gains of our self-will are images of our own selves usurping the sovereignty and supply of the Lord. Our hearts are the chapels of our own ungodly desires and devotion. We neglect the comforts and commands of the word of God, his speech of endearment and demand. We repel his companionship and wise control.
 
The words of the Lord Jesus are powerfully striking and convicting, and they bring us to our knees in penitence and prayer:
 
“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one. And you shall love the lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
 

RJS

The New Testament in Its World Workbook: An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christian by Nicholas Thomas Wright & Michael Bird

For this person, the Bishop's Blockbuster has not the slightest appeal. Background information concerning the New Testament only has "saving value" if it is clearly in support of the New Testament Gospel. Apart from this the acquisition of historical and cultural knowledge is a time-consuming and futile pursuit.

Background knowledge, as advantageous as it may be under right circumstances, will not deliver the soul of sinful man, though it might fascinate the human mind, and swell the sense of superiority of readers over the common laity. If the principal author errs in that most vital area of justification by faith alone, and the nature of the atonement, the above volume will merely load the human brain with heavy verbiage and lighten the wallet of hard-earned cash.

Holy Scripture carries the message of divine redemption quite adequately and accurately on its own. It is sufficient for the communication of a complete salvation. The simplicity of the "way of salvation" is its cardinal quality as to its comprehension and magnificent charm. The Old Testament lays the basis for the Gospel and the New Testament explicates the welcome message to the full.

The cultural contexts of the various documents that comprise the Bible are of great assistance to our appreciation of the Word of God only when the Word is gratefully received in faith and humility. If the facts of historical events and cultural features are taught by those who dispute the teaching of Holy Writ in its primary assertions the scholarship, however elegant and exhaustive, is greatly diminished in its usefulness and spiritual benefit, and many, more modest publications than the above, abound for the education of sincere believers.

No culture at any time determines the content of the Gospel. We cannot be sure, even, of which strands of culture had any determining affect/effect upon the writers of Scripture, and in what sense they regarded and interpreted contemporary philosophy, literature and ideology, or what nature of nuance they employed from any vocabulary available to them.

N. T. Wright has already stolen the heart and essence of the gospel from those eagerly enquiring about it (Justification and Atonement). Atonement and justification are the keys to the kingdom and N.T. Wright has cast them away.

N.T. Wright's claim for his specialist expertise as being necessary for our accurate comprehension of the Bible's message has already stolen the Scriptures from those seeking to know the Word of God. The people of God must now rely upon a new priestly caste of professional scholars who alone are wise to the secrets of divine revelation and capable of conveying them to us.

N.T. Wright shadows the lines of Scripture with his proud, emphatically pedagogic "second digit" (it wags), repeating necessary terms as and because they arise, but distorting the meaning at many significant points.

N.T. Wright has promoted first century Gentile thought above the authority of the Old Testament. "The Scripture is that wherewith God draws us unto him. The Scriptures sprang out of God (expectation), and flow unto Christ (fulfillment), and were given to lead us to Christ (completion). Thou must therefore go along by the Scriptures as by a line, until thou come at Christ, which is thy way's end and resting-place." Scripture is sufficient in its role of conducting us safely to the Lord Jesus. --- William Tyndale

N.T. Wright has greatly reduced the personal spiritual intensity of intimacy with our Savior God to be enjoyed fully by the children of God as they trace the mystery of saving grace extended toward them individually through the eternal and infinite love of the Lord. (1 John 1: 1-4).

If most of us did not unduly defer to fame, success, and opaque scholarship we would have to concede that N.T. Wright is not a safe guide to eternal salvation and there has to be the issue of his intellectual resources which, sadly and inevitably, compromise our way to life in and with God.

This latest hefty tome is not the treasure it purports to be in all the recent hype. We hope its publishers, in the interests of the environment, printed it entirely on recycled paper, possibly reclaimed from previous NTW publications. However, its weight and dimensions would qualify it to serve as a handy doorstop, or even more suitably as a means of keeping a stout cathedral door ajar for the convenience of guests who may wish to enter the building.

With chirpy Michael F. Bird as his co-contributor it may be wondered if antipodean Anglican Reformational theology is about to crumble.


By Roger Salter
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
September 18, 2020

FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY, 2020

THE COLLECT
Almighty and everlasting God, grant that by your help we may grow in faith, hope and love; and so that we may obtain what you promise, make us also to love what you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
LESSONS
2 Kings 5 : 9 - 16
So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha’s house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” But Naaman was angry and went away saying, “Behold I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel. Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. But his servants came near and said to him, “My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash and be clean’?” So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him. And he said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel; so accept now a present from your servant.” But he said , “As the Lord lives, before whom I stand, I will receive none.” And he urged him to take it, but he refused.
 
Galatians 5 : 16 - 24
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. But those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
 
Luke 17 : 11 - 19
On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance, and lifted up their voices, saying. “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.

THEY WERE CLEANSED

In popular terms many skin ailments in the Bible were defined as leprosy. Various infections and diseases happened to cause the embarrassment and alienation of victims, and members of society were naturally afraid of close contact. Social distancing is an ancient policy for the preservation of sound health. Lepers were considered vile and unclean by the public which shunned them mercilessly.
 
Naaman, a successful military strategist and commander, was shamed by an ugly skin disorder that could well have brought him disrespect and exclusion from the social circles to which he felt entitled. News of Elisha’s miraculous healing power brought him to the prophet’s door. He came in grand style worthy of his eminence that would surely impress the man of God and elicit a famous display of deferential and ceremonial healing. Elisha was not having it. Any worthy approach to his Lord required genuine humility, and a mere messenger was despatched to greet the proud Syrian victor of recent success.
 
Instructed to bathe in the Jordan, “Wash and be clean”, Naaman concluded that such compliance was beneath his dignity and refused to comply. So much was at stake that Naaman’s servants persuaded him to obey the prophet, and dipping himself seven times in Israel’s waters the choosy leader of his army emerged clean. The experience of divine power through the command of the prophet, to whom he did not wish to defer, brought the arrogant Syrian to the point of reverence toward’s Israel’s God. He became convinced of the uniqueness and sovereignty of God. What followed, we can only hope, was a walk with God and the conversion of some of his men.
 
Walking to Jerusalem through terrain where Jews and Gentiles would cross paths Jesus was encountered by ten lepers, who, shouting from a safe distance cried, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us”. Jesus advised them to register with the priests as cleansed men. As they went they were healed. In the act of going they became knowing of the miracle that instantly restored them. It was a glorious discovery of the help of the Lord. Only one individual stopped to take stock of the situation, and gratitude overwhelmed his soul. He turned back, extolling God for his generous mercy, and fell joyfully and humbly at the feet of the Savior. Among the ten his praise and thankfulness were exceptional. And he was doubly despised; first as a leper, and then as a contemptible outsider - “Now he was a Samaritan” of whom nothing worthy was expected. The grace of the Lord Jesus is astonishing and immeasurable.
 
Paul addressed the Galatians with the description of the worst infection possible - the leprosy of the human soul. Its vile symptoms are enumerated by the apostle in shocking and convicting candor. His warning is that the uncured disease of sin definitely excludes the unrepentant, unregenerate from the wellbeing and blessedness of the kingdom of God. An internal cleansing and purification is necessary and its evidence is detected as the fruit of the Spirit, the marks of which he delineates for us. Our moral vileness, discerned in our uneasy conscience, is purified by the blood of Jesus shed on our behalf. A Substitute has borne the consequences of our many offenses. We are accepted and forgiven by God, and no longer under the condemnation of the law. And the Holy Spirit renews and refines our desires from here on.            
 
Naaman’s servants put him in mind of “the great word” spoken by Israel’s prophet. It was the remedy for his annoying plight. The people of God are now entrusted with the great word of the gospel, the only cure for the deadly pandemic of inborn sin that manifests itself in so many tragic and deadly ways in human life. By nature man is so often too proud to be reliant upon the merciful word of God, yield to the Lord Jesus Christ, and trust him for cleansing and cure. Our sinful ego must stoop before the Lord in faith and humility and trust the Redeemer who holds forth the only satisfactory remedy for the plague of human hearts.
 
It is spiritually and eternally fatal to repudiate the invitation of divine grace and forfeit life in the favor of God and everlasting communion with him. At this moment there is still opportunity for we lepers to cry out to the Lord Jesus himself, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us”. Martin Luther opines that faith and humility  are indissolubly united as one in the penitent heart.
 
RJS

THE TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY 2020
 
COLLECT
 
Almighty and everlasting God, you who are always more ready to hear than we are to pray, and are willing to give more than either we deserve or desire: Pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things that cause guilt within us, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. Amen.
 
LESSONS
 
2 Corinthians 3 : 4 - 9
 
Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant - not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
 
Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!
 
Mark 7 : 31 - 37
 
Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man.
 
After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.
 
Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”   

Miracles
 
I believe the miracles; but I believe in the miracles on account of Christ, instead of believing in Christ on account of the miracles.
 
If you dispense with the miraculous, there is a whole period of History (that of the Jewish nation), and a single transcendent Life (that of Jesus Christ), and one majestic Story (that of Christendom), which you’ve got to account for without it and you cannot. These three are inexplicable without miracle.
 
John “Rabbi” Duncan
 
 
A CLUSTER OF COMMENTS
 
The Collect
 
Collects, these brief weekly prayers adapted and arranged by Thomas Cranmer in the period of the English Reformation, constitute a treasury of doctrinal and devotional thought. They are choice nuggets of Christian desire and Scriptural understanding. They advise theological conviction and encapsulate reverent requests offered to God through the name of our Advocate Jesus Christ.
 
Collects express the yearning of our hearts corporately and individually in a manner and style that edifies our minds. Collects concisely summarize our approach to God on various occasions. If they were collated and compiled, literally collected together, they would provide us with a poetic systematic theology of great truth and beauty.
 
This week’s special prayer reminds us of the enormous generosity of the Lord who is ‘more willing to hear than we are to pray; more willing to give than we deserve or desire”. Our slackness and lack of expectancy in prayer ought to be dismissed by the belief of this amazing truth. We do not receive because we do not ask - certainly not with due faithfulness and fervor.
Unbelief and unresolved issues of conscience hinder and dampen our prayer. Our genuine unworthiness dissolves before the throne of grace when we approach our Father through the merits of Christ. He lays our petitions in the lap of the Lord.
 
Paul’s Thoughts on Confidence and Competence.
 
Apostolic ministry, and all subsequent ministry, is grounded in and performed through the power and enabling of divine grace. Licensed or lay, the service of the cause of Christ and his gospel should never be praised as human accomplishment.  Anything of benefit is always the result of God with us and in us, as Paul often states. “Not that we are competent in ourselves.” That is the admission of the people of God. “He has made us competent.” That is the confession of the true believer and sincere servant. There is no room for the self-congratulatory spirit among Christians. John Calvin is right to opine that the praise of men is theft of the glory of God.  Paul was by nature an inveterate boaster. It is evidence of great grace at work within him that he could wholeheartedly expresses entire reliance on the enabling and upholding of the Lord in his gospel endeavors.
 
Some folk of a wild disposition diminish the authority of Scripture by claiming that it is the dead letter, while their whims and hysterical action is of the Spirit. The fact is that the Spirit as author of the word will never contradict that word by creating uncontrolled excitement, self-will, personal display, and immoral action in any individual. The life of the Spirit is in the grasp of the meaning of Scripture and the obedience accorded to the book of the Lord. Paul is not attacking the literature of the Lord but the inability to listen to it in a vital and responsible way.
 
The Healing of the Man Who Was Deaf.
 
It was an act of kindness on the part of the people who brought the deaf man to Jesus for healing, and a demonstration of a degree of faith, certainly in the Lord’s power to heal. But the overriding expression of compassion, divine compassion, was exhibited by the Saviour. It is the close and direct concern and care of the Lord in dealing so personally with this unfortunate individual. He is taken aside from the crowd. Jesus’ interest in us is specific.
 
Jesus is not attracting attention as some sort of egotistical wonder worker. He even discourages publicity. Jesus’ concentration is upon the victim of serious handicaps in life. The man’s hearing is non-existent. Jesus places his fingers in the non-operative ears of the man for whom he feels genuine sympathy. Jesus touches the point of urgent need.
 
When Jesus aims to cure or console his aim is accurate.
 
The description of Jesus’ loosening of the tongue and the removal of the poor man’s speech impediment is graphic in relating the very committed involvement of the great Physician of human ills. With his own spit he moistens the invalid’s tied and almost silent organ of speech. This is an intimate gift of the capacity to vocalize from the Redeemer to a very frustrated human being.
 
The God-man looks upward to the source of his remarkable miraculous power: “He looked up to heaven.” His concern to heal is so intense that he emits a deep sigh. The Man of Sorrows identifies with the sufferer before him and who is looking to him. He issues the command of deliverance from infirmity. “Be opened!” The dysfunctional ears are opened and the tongue was released “so that he began to speak plainly”. The gracious action of the Lord is complete. The 1662 version of the narrative is striking: “The string of his tongue was loosed.” It causes you to feel the reality of what had occurred so wonderfully.
 
All our physical faculties are gifts from our marvelous Maker, thus with our senses we are equipped for awareness of God’s creation around us. We are able to make adventurous discoveries in the realm of the Lord’s material and visible handiwork.  But our stock of means of perception betoken something even more profound - the faculties of mind and spirit that are meant to perceive divine messages and meaning as he communicates them in his self-disclosure and the revelation of his mind. We have the eyes and ears of the heart, the taste for knowledge, we inhale the perfume of beauty as it wafts toward us, and we sense the sources of pleasure.
 
Our mental and spiritual functions correspond to physical functions, and through them we register experience more profound and intense than bodily sensation. That is why the word of God exhorts us to hear the truth it conveys, see the glory of the Lord it portrays, taste of his goodness that it describes, smell his proximity, and feel his love. and translate all awareness and experience to sweet communion with our Triune Maker and Redeemer.
 
RJS

ANGLICANISM AND JUSTIFICATION
 
James Buchanan in his magisterial work on the subject of Justification inveighs against the dangerous distortion of this Scriptural doctrine of prime importance. He does so with obvious pastoral concern for those deprived of the liberty and joy that this sublime truth confers upon believers and anxious inquirers eager for the assurance of salvation. There are many twisted versions of the meaning of justification abroad throughout Christendom and it is a gospel necessity to refute these errors concerning the way to life in step with God.
 
By deferring full justification to the end time, N.T. Wright seriously participates in the cultivation of spiritual anxiety in tender souls and he fosters the suppression of Christian liberty and felt confidence in the Savior in the children of God. NTW joins an array of false teachers who perplex the Lord's people with bold and baffling contradiction of the plain teaching of Holy Scripture. No wonder that John Newton opined, "I get more warmth and light sometimes by a letter from a plain person, who loves the Lord Jesus, though perhaps a servant maid, than from some whole volumes, put forth by learned doctors" (Christian History, Issue 81, 2004).
 
It is against the plethora of erroneous teaching on the way of salvation that Buchanan administers the consolation afforded us in the redemption wrought by our Lord Jesus Christ.
 
"These views are as injurious to the souls of men, as they are dishonoring to the work of Christ. They prevent many from 'receiving and resting on Christ,' at once and alone, 'for salvation, as he is freely offered to them in the Gospel;' and even when there is a yearning of heart towards him, and perhaps an incipient trust in him, they prevent all 'joy and peace in believing,' by spreading a veil over the eye of faith itself, and generating 'the spirit of bondage unto fear.' These obstacles to a simple, childlike, cordial, confiding reception of the Gospel as 'glad tidings of great joy,' can only be removed by a right apprehension of the completeness, and efficacy, of that satisfaction, which Christ has already made to the law and Justice of God."
 
NTW casts a veil over the simple, saving gospel, over the only trustworthy source of salvation truth - the word of the Lord Jesus Christ impressed upon the heart. Redemptive knowledge is his to impart: "By his knowledge my righteous servant (student Isa. 50:4-5) will justify many" (Isaiah 53:11b).
 
Buchanan devotes a chapter in his classic study of justification on the history of the doctrine in the Church of England. He outlines the various attempts at denying the confessional allegiance of the English Church to the principle of justification by faith alone and states that the family of Reformed Churches on the Continent regarded the Ecclesia Anglicana as being in fundamental harmony with themselves as to how salvation in Christ is to be grasped.
 
"When we turn to the Articles this one fact should be conclusive;- all the Protestant Churches, at home or abroad, Lutheran and Calvinistic, whether they be adherents of the Augsburg, or French, or the Belgic, or the Westminster Confessions, will cheerfully accept the 11th Article, and the 'Homily of Salvation,' as being in substance a sound and correct expression of their faith on the subject of Justification - provided only they be allowed to understand them in their plain and obvious meaning . . . At the era of the Reformation, therefore, the Church of England formed no exception to the unanimity which then prevailed in regard to the ground and method of a sinner's acceptance with God; And if the light of the Gospel, which dawned upon her at first so brightly, has often since then suffered a partial eclipse, she has always preserved her Articles and Homilies as the authorized exponents of her creed; and there have never been awanting, in any age of her history, some faithful and steadfast witnesses to the truth, such as Davenant and Downham, Barlow and Beveridge, Andrewes, and even the 'judicious' Hooker, - who continued to shine 'like lights in a dark place,' and transmitted a noble testimony to the generation following.' (James Buchanan, D.D.,LL.D., The Doctrine of Justification, Banner of Truth, 1961).
 
THE ANGLICAN FORMULARIES ON JUSTIFICATION
 
Article 11. Of the Justification of Man
 
We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings: Wherefore that we are justified by Faith only is a wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely expressed in the Homily of Justification.
 
Excerpts from the Homily on Justification
 
Part Two
 
But this saying that we be justified by faith only - freely - and without works, is spoken for to take away clearly all merit of our works, and being unable to deserve justification at God's hands: and thereby most plainly to express the weakness of man and the goodness of God; the great infirmity of our selves, and the might and power of God; the imperfection of our own works, and the most abundant grace of our Saviour Christ; and therefore wholly to ascribe the merit and deserving of our justification unto Christ only, and his most precious blood-shedding. This faith the Holy Scripture teaches us; this is the strong rock and foundation of Christian religion: this doctrine all old and ancient authors of Christ's Church do approve; this doctrine advances and setteth forth the true glory of Christ, and beateth down the vain-glory of man; this whosoever denieth, is not to be accounted for a Christian man, nor a setter-forth of Christ's glory: but for an adversary to Christ and his Gospel, and for a setter-forth of men's vain-glory.
 
Part Three
 
Truth it is, that our own works do not justify us, to speak properly of our justification: that is to say, our works do not merit or deserve our remission of sins, and make us, of unjust, just before God: but God of his mere mercy, through the only merits and deservings of his Son Jesus Christ, doth justify us. Nevertheless, because faith doth directly send us to Christ for remission of our sins; and that, by faith given us of God, we embrace the promise of God's mercy, and of the remission of sins - which thing none other of our virtues or works properly doth - therefore the Scripture useth to say, that faith without works doth justify.
 
Salient Comments
 
Justification by faith, according to the standards of constitutional Anglicanism, is "the strong rock and foundation of Christian religion" an assertion that equates to Luther's statement that justification is the doctrine by which the church stands or falls.
 
Dom Gregory Dix, eminent liturgiologist, remarks that Cranmer's Prayer Book is "the only effective attempt ever made to give liturgical expression to the doctrine of 'Justification by faith alone.'"
 
"Thomas Cranmer discovered the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone when he was a student at Cambridge University. When he became Archbishop of Canterbury, he used his considerable liturgical talents to ensure that this doctrine was incorporated into the official forms of worship of the reformed church of England (Owen Collins, Introduction, The Daily Book of common Prayer, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2000).
 
It is glaringly evident that NTW functions as a scholar and theologian at a far distance from the tenets of classic and authentic Anglicanism. He doesn't mind, of course, as he sees himself as a pioneer into clearer truth, but the fact remains that he is a renegade voice on the Anglican scene and a dismantler of its historic faith as are so many other deviant bishops in our time (Welby, Cottrell, Baines, etc) . The excuse for this state of affairs that is often proffered is that Anglicanism is a big tent. And of course, so it should be in the unity of revealed truth and faithful proclamation. But the license for untrammeled inclusivity has meant that our beloved Communion has become a mega-marquee of miry muddle. Many clergy ought to examine their consciences concerning denominational attachment, and especially those leaders culpable of lax doctrinal discipline.
 
THE STANCE OF NTW
 
NTW states that the resolve to adhere to historic creeds and confessions of the church is imitative of the Roman Catholic attitude. He thinks it odd that conservative Protestants should be of a similar mind. Obviously, everything depends upon the quality of tradition being upheld and conserved. Imprecision is a tactic of NTW when he endeavors to remove an orthodox obstruction to the many novelties he intends to impose upon Christian comprehension. "Come on", he remarks, the word, God's word is sufficient." But that is not enough to claim "the word, the word" when it is recognized that the word of God, even when appealed to, is often perverted, and pastoral concern for the integrity of the gospel, and the wellbeing of the flock of Christ determines that the church must guide and clarify the deposit of truth entrusted to it.
 
The Church is the witness and keeper of Holy Writ (Article 20). By the guidance of God the Church establishes safe steps to truths that are sure (the Trinity, the Deity of the Lord Jesus, the efficacy of his blood-shedding) that need to be mapped with clarity. Statements of faith must be formulated, agreed and disseminated. NTW showers us with many. The mind of the Church matters and it seeks to harmonize with the mind of the Spirit in Holy Writ. In its confessions the Church submits to examination and avoids equivocation, a popular device with those bent on disruption. With the clamor of many voices falsely claiming to be speaking for the Lord creeds and confessions are a necessity.
 
John Robinson, Calvinist dissenter ministering in Holland in the 17C, despatched a company of like-minded believers emigrating to the New World in the interests of religious freedom, with an encouraging word of farewell: "God has more light yet to break out of his holy Word" - a message of enormous comfort to this "key-tapper" in a time of pastoral need. NTW sees himself as a luminary shining forth this "more light". So, also, do many other errorists. Claims of new light need to be rigorously checked. Robinson was referring to brighter, fuller, streams of continuous pure light - not to a change of filaments or bulbs. Robinson was looking to genuine, useful light and not to sudden flares and sparks that indicated problems with apparatus. Robinson did not envisage new light, but more light already recognized and enjoyed, and increasingly strengthened. Certainly, In his case Robinson was not envisaging change in the key principles of the gospel but confirmation of truth emphasized more fully in the effulgence of the Spirit's shining navigation through the deeper mysteries of God.
 
When NTW is critical of a doctrine he seeks to restyle he does so dismissively with over -simplification and the charge that its adherents are hopelessly naive. Their retention of justification by faith, now that he has corrected their mistakenness, is hopelessly pathetic. He sets them up as people lacking substance (straw men) and then peppers them with cheap shots in pursuit of his role as cleric of confusion combining heresy with hubris.
 
NTW's explanation of justification by faith is not simply a dilution of the gospel, but rather, a denial: "This, then, is Paul's famous doctrine of "justification by faith." It is not that "faith" in the sense of a "religious awareness" is somehow a kind of human experience that is superior to others, but that those who believed the gospel and were loyal to the One God it unveiled were to be known, and were to know themselves, as the single worldwide family promised to Abraham. And that meant a new community sharing a common table despite all differences: neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, no "male and female", since all "all are one in Messiah, Jesus" (Paul, p161).
 
This is such a lame summary of the powerful doctrine of justification by faith - forgiveness from God; acceptance with God - for rebellious and wretched sinners! NTW has stated that justification is not a "salvation" term. What conviction of sin and rescue does the man enjoy? Essentially a universal community under God seems to the sum of his message - Jewish ethnic and religious symbolism removed for the admission of Gentiles. A woeful evacuation of the gospel from teaching, too tepid to stir the hearts of those seeking "real Salvation and the true Knowledge of God'.
 
It is remarkable that the lessons for the Sunday ahead at time of writing (The Eleventh Sunday After Trinity) boldly refute the miserable views of professor Wright.
 
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you - unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with Scriptures . . . (1 Corinthians 15: 1-3).
 
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, "God be merciful to me, a sinner!" I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. (Matthew 18:13-14).
 
No wonder the collect for the day draws near to our heavenly Father in these words expressing the divine preference for mercy upon his people: Lord God, you who show your almighty power most of all in showing mercy and pity: Mercifully grant us such a measure of your grace, that in obeying your holy commandments we may obtain your gracious promises, and share in your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
There cannot be any doubt as to the nature of the gospel of justification by faith in the quote from St Paul. It declares salvation from sin as being of "first importance". We are assured of the gospel of Paul. It was not merely concerning a universal community, but a rather specific community - those justified by faith.
 
The tax collector mentioned by the Lord Jesus, the one who merits and grants our salvation, is a mightily humbled, importunate sinner (just like Luther). The Author of our salvation declared him justified before God - not merely a candidate for a universal community, but again a very particular community - those justified by faith.
 
Surely the Lord Christ and the apostle Paul are trustworthy voices! That is why the doctrine of justification by faith is "famous"!
 
By the way, if only the tax collector did not look "up to heaven'. It is the wrong direction according to NTL, branding all who use the expressions as benighted literalists. O, we are all so wrong until we meet the Sage of Sarcasm - the mood in which Luther is censured:
 
"Once gain the problem has been the wrong framework. If we come with the question, "How do we get to heaven," or, in Martin Luther's terms, "How can I find a gracious God?" and we try to squeeze an answer to those questions out of what Paul says about justification, we will probably find one. It may not be totally misleading. But we will miss what Paul's "justification". is all about. It isn't about a moralistic framework in which the only question that matters is whether we human beings have behaved ourselves and so amassed a store of merit ("righteousness") and, if not, where can we find such a store, amassed by someone else on our behalf. It is about the vocational framework in which humans are called to reflect God's image in the world and about the rescue operation whereby God has, through Jesus, set humans free to do exactly that." (Paul: The Challenge of Paul).
 
The passage above does nothing to Wright's credit. It is, frankly, quite childish and ultimately quite revealing of its author's spiritual state of insensibility to the basic gospel. Believers do not desire "to get to heaven" in some childish fairy tale sense. They are desirous of fellowship and close communion with God. They long to lodge with him everlastingly. They do know how to deal with figurative language. Knowing their unworthiness, wretchedness and guilt their overwhelming desire is to find "this gracious God" whom they have wantonly offended, who appeals for their safe return to him. There is no need "to squeeze" with great pressure justification by faith from the content of Scripture. It is plainly to be seen. They have not simply drifted into misbehavior. The have sinned against the Lord with hostility and seriously grieved him. Wright has scorned the imputed righteousness of Christ and scaled down the great deliverance he has wrought for us, diminishing the infinite compassion and glorious kindness of our dying Lord whose atoning work annihilates sin and death.
 
Psalm 143:2 cited in the introductory service of Morning Prayer in BCP 1662 (O how we need such verses at the outset of our trite approach to worship) puts us in mind of our dire need of justification: Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.
 
Modern rendition: Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you. NIV.
 
Our predicament is that we have no righteousness now or potentially. It is already too late and impossible to strive for it. We need the righteousness of another afforded to us in the Gospel.
 
N.T. Wright is not only far inferior to Luther as a pastor. He is no true pastor at all.
 
A quote for July 14 from the excellent and highly recommended daily devotionals from Luther Alone edited by James C, Galvin Zondervan, 2005
 
"Don't make the mistake of thinking that Christians are people who never sin or feel sinful. Rather, because of their faith in Christ, God simply doesn't attribute their sin to them. This teaching is comforting to those who have terrified consciences. For good reason we often try to impress on people that sins are forgiven and that righteousness is attributed to believers for the sake of Christ." (Galatians 2:16).
 
"He shed his most precious blood for you."


By Roger Salter
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
August 21, 2020

 
END

THE VERDICT

N.T. Wright is brashly dismissive of the soteriological theology of Martin Luther, whose thought, and particularly his doctrine of justification by faith, he does not appear to have pondered afresh, impartially and deeply for several decades, according to sources readily available. Yet NTW compares himself to Luther in the radical effect he has had upon contemporary Christian doctrine and claims equality with the Reformer at least in the identical circumstances that attend his cause i.e. one man correcting the convictions and piety of former generations of errant and misguided believers. Was Luther a welcome and necessary wake-up call to the Church? So, too, does NTW consider himself. Was Luther considered a "novelty" pitted against the traditional majority? Likewise, NTW regards himself as the heroic champion of truth in our time, standing alone as the titan of newly discovered orthodoxy, delivering us from a medieval mentality.

The milieu of each of these two Christian leaders is distinctly dissimilar from the other as to formative factors, and issues at stake, when carefully examined. That examination is not the purpose here nor is academic appraisal. Wright and Luther are being compared as pastors; those who actually nourish and edify the people of God for the wellbeing and safety of their souls.

All those who handle Holy Scripture are to do so pastorally with the ultimate aim of enabling believers to "grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18).

From parish pulpit, seminary podium, and conference platform the Bible is opened, principally, to point the Way to the Gate of Life - eternal fellowship with God. NTW's suspicion of Luther's pursuit "to find a gracious God" (considered obsessional) is indeed an odd thing for a New Testament specialist to query. It causes you to wonder what the constantly published professor's view of sin happens to be, serious or superficial - What is this blight? What is its remedy? Cannot angst be an element of genuine conviction of sin?

Perhaps he is so tied up with the culture of the first century AD, and so enamored of pagan philosophy that the apostolic gospel has not yet broken through to his comprehension. The propositions of Old Testament instruction, which condition the message of the New Testament, have been eclipsed by subsidiary and dubious theory emerging from the priority of guidance from secular society and custom without realizing, that like John, apostolic discourse can be adaptive and creative in integrating contemporaneous vocabulary without sacrificing basic Hebrew concepts that are the ground of divine declaration. Perhaps the apostle is not as culturally conditioned as is alleged, and the focus on the discourse and nomenclature of the Pauline era has for some folk corrupted the heavenly wisdom received and so wondrously dispensed by the man transformed from worldly student Saul to spiritual scholar Paul.

Language can be static and wooden in its usage in one sphere and significatory, flexible, and of celestial (spiritually inspired) import in another - "We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age . . . No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory . . . but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit . . . no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God . . . This what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in wisdom taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truth in spiritual words" (1 Corinthians 2: 6 -13 cf14). The heart of Paul's message is Christ crucified, not explained "with words of human wisdom" (1 Corinthians 1:17).

NTW's comments on the atonement in The Day The Revolution Began place a question mark over his interpretation of the heart of the gospel - the cross and its achievement (see John MacArthur's comments in sermon excerpt recorded on Youtube). No academic of whatever degree of fame or favor can fathom the meaning of Holy Writ by virtue of their own acumen or range of ancillary knowledge.

The humility of a scholar in dependence upon the Holy Spirit is essential for the probing of the divine word. It is also salutary to note that concerning the most necessary protection of the elect from the deception of false messengers of Christ, these agents of falsehood will be characterized by compelling plausibility and engaging charm. No apparent novelty in theological thought or teaching should be furtively smuggled into the church's body of divinity.

The extent to which the apostolic documents defer to the authority of the writings of the former covenant and assert their true fulfillment in the discourse and elaborations of the New Covenant is massive. The basics of the gospel of God appeared BC. The secrets and mysteries adumbrated by the prophets are resolved in the second more enlightening installment of salvific revelation delineated in gospels and epistles.

We are all, to the end of our lives, students of the word of God, and there is always much to be learned by each of us (open to the humble). But the essence of the gospel (its heart) is not a puzzle to be solved exclusively by elite minds and seasoned experts and specialists. It is a clear message addressed to all and understandable to a child, and a sincere, prayerful seeker after truth will gain the sense of Scripture and experience the joy of its message quite apart from the doctors of divinity. That is why the teaching of Luther is so thrilling and authentic. He is never pretentious. His teaching chimes in with the widespread yearnings for a gracious God, the desire for forgiveness and a cleansed conscience, and the following of a new path in companionship with him. The state and influence of the conscience, Luther's legitimate concern, is prominent throughout the Bible e.g. Psalms, Hebrews, Peter. Doctor Martin is the expert physician of the wounded conscience.

Luther is a pastor par excellence because he endured torrid ordeals of mind and soul, (which took their toll psychologically and physically in attitude and action in later life). But also, and obviously, he registered profound and heartfelt relief through the consolatory redemptive work and effective ministry exercised upon him and within him by the Lord Jesus Christ present in the heart personally by his word and Spirit. Here is the seal of truth - the witness of the Spirit and the believer's entwining with the Saviour. The message of Luther emits the precious grace of God. He doesn't lecture in abstruse terms; he converses. He comes alongside, uplifting and supporting the Lord's little ones without a shadow of condescension. [A daily walk with the saint of Saxony may be enjoyed through a variety of volumes containing well selected excerpts from his writings and addresses, but an excellent publication happens to be the following: Faith Alone, A Daily Devotional, updated edition, James G. Galvin, General Editor, Zondervan. Herein, the warmth and vitality of Luther's pastoral wisdom and concern is sweetly encountered].

Luther was especially shaped as a theologian through the providence and by the hand of God. His task was immense (beyond our common realization) and its accompanying dangers and trials severe and exhausting (beyond our common experience). He was by no means a comfortably placed, nor pampered, university don, whose life was eased by modern conveniences and smoothed by flattering public deference. His theological sagacity, profoundly hammered out by hardship and the rigors of divine discipline, was suited alternately to bold exhortation and encouragement, or to the administration of reassuring solace. Luther was a man of spiritual strength and versatility, yet not of himself, solely of the Lord. It was the impress of grace upon his life and person that accredited his ministry. Justification by faith alone is his main and enduring legacy to the people of God until the end of time. The freeing effects of the gospel that he articulated must be preserved at all costs. Those harmed by recent revisionism need to be restored by the tonic of faithful, reverent teaching.

LUTHER AS THEOLOGIAN

No one is more stimulating than Martin Luther. Other theologians may equal him in value or even excel him in depth and worth. But none are more soul-stirring and enlivening in the truths of the gospel. Luther is a real theologian who orchestrates mind and heart in warm and eager assent to the gospel of free grace. It is salutary to notice Luther's own definition of a theologian: "It is living, dying, and even being condemned which makes a theologian - not reading, speculating and understanding." This is rhetoric that cites the appropriate mood and mien of the person who engages in theology - stripped of egotism and self-confidence in discerning the truth of God.

Alister McGrath comments, "When I first read these words of Luther, I found them baffling. Surely theology was about reading Scripture, and trying to make sense of it? What was Luther complaining about? Now I know, and I am convinced that Luther is right. To be a real theologian is to wrestle with none other than the living God - not with ideas about God, but with God himself. And how can a sinner ever hope to deal adequately with his God?

"If you want to be a real theologian, Luther insists, you must have experienced a sense of condemnation. You must have had a moment of insight, in which you realize just how sinful you really are, and how much you merit the condemnation of God . . . Luther suggested that he (Melanchthon) ask the so-called prophets who were then confusing the faithful at Wittenberg the following question; 'Have they ever experienced spiritual distress and the divine birth, death and hell?' . . . It is very easy to read the New Testament as if it were nothing more than any other piece of literature. And Luther reminds us that it is only being aware of our sin, and all its implications that we can fully appreciate the wonder of the electrifying declaration that God has forgiven our sins through Jesus Christ." (The Renewal of Anglicanism, SPCK, 1993, pp 87/8.

The gospel is only grasped and cherished by those who penitently and humbly crave its message from the heart, those who are awaiting its power. Any other approach is simply indulgence in historical/grammatical games and theological conundrums that appeal to those who deem themselves as super smart, and this greatly weakens the Christian testimony and evades its saving intent. To blur, muddle or erase the concept of justification by faith alone is to perpetrate an act of criminal theft and deprivation against the family of Jesus Christ our actual and compassionate Justifier who is due infinite gratitude for putting us right with God through an atonement (even disparaged by NTW. See The Day the Revolution Began). The efficacious understanding of the divine method of justification by the human mind is of supernatural origin. Otherwise it cannot be perceived by the intellect of any individual no matter how great that intellect boasts itself to be. Godly teaching is reserved for those who truly fear the Lord and lean on him.

A book conveniently near to hand at the present moment summarizes the true interpretation of the teaching of the apostle Paul on the topic of justification, the doctrine that Alister McGrath regards as the great salvation theme of New Testament (citation seen but not yet retrieved), and which Luther himself considers to be the essential mark that differentiates the true Church of Christ from the false church enmeshed in error.

"Christ's death on the cross, then, was a fulfillment of the law's sentence against sin: a maintenance of its inviolability, and homage done to it in the place of the sentence due to us. Christ suffered on our behalf in order that we might be forgiven and blessed while yet the law was not broken. It is no doubt the law of the old covenant as given to Israel that Paul has directly in view; but he cannot mean to say that only Jews needed to be redeemed, or were redeemed, by Christ. The law of Israel represents for him the divine law in general, and there is no way for anyone, whether Jew or Gentile, being free from its curse but through him who was made a curse for us . . .

In the Epistle to the Romans Paul gives substantially the same explanation, only in more general terms, with reference not merely to God's law, which might be conceived as a specially Jewish and positive institution, but to his justice, which is an essential attribute of his being, and his moral government of all men alike. He shows how all have incurred God's wrath by sin: the Jews by not having kept the law in which they have boasted, and the Gentiles by transgressing the law of nature written in their hearts; how neither can be justified by works of the law, but how both alike may be justified freely by God's grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth as making atonement in his blood, for a demonstration for his righteousness on account of the passing over of the sins of the past in forbearance, with a view to the demonstration of his righteousness in the present, that he might be just and the justifier of him who is of faith in Jesus (Romans 3:24-26) . . .

Another remarkable saying of Paul is that in 2 Corinthians 5:21: "Him who knew no sin, he made sin on our behalf, that we may be the righteousness of God in him." Here it cannot be a moral change in Christ that is meant, but it points to our Saviour having been made the representative of sin on our behalf, just as in the Levitical law the special sacrifices for sin and guilt were called by the names "sin" and "guilt" themselves. The purpose stated, "that we may be made the righteousness of God in him," points to our being accepted as righteous because by faith we are in him, the Righteous One." (The Christian Salvation, James S. Candlish, D.D. T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 1899). A truly admirable echo of the soul-saving cry of Martin Luther.

The gist of this worthy exposition is that in his achievements of atonement and justification the Lord Jesus Christ was dealing decisively with the sin of the human heart (the broken moral law) and not with the ceremonial law that distinguished Jewish ethnicity from that of the pagan peoples i.e. "the divine law in general" and the reality of sin for we evildoers universally. NTW misfires repeatedly on ministering to the heart. He cannot rouse it to a buoyancy of spirit with the thrill and emotion of the news of salvation. He clutters his work with technicalities cultural, philosophical and off-centered theology. He opposes the notion that justification and assurance of salvation must await the Day of Judgment and only the law abiding will win the reward of life. From whence comes this law abiding disposition and capacity?

Given his message with the paucity of grace it implies and the life-long uncertainty of personal qualification for full justification Wright's recommendation for Christian life and divine approval must mask an incipient semi-Pelagianism absent of spiritual relief. Is our righteousness before God, and necessary for fellowship with him, equally wrought partly by ourselves with a percentage of divine aid? O, sorry ally of Gabriel Biel. What medieval uncertainty embodied in Biel and his comrades was countered by Luther!

The Lord himself supplies our righteousness. "I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:20). Humanly speaking none were more righteous than the Pharisees. The teachers of the law could quote reams of Holy Scripture and their invented legal regulations. A more lofty righteousness was necessary than any human attainment or virtue. Here, the Lord treats of the human heart and its ineradicable inclination to wickedness. He bestows our qualification for inclusion, we who can never cease "giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light (Colossians 1:12). How? Through redemption and justification! (Colossians 1:13). "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." Jesus justifies us. Justification is through the merits of Christ. Justification includes forgiveness and acceptance.


By Roger Salter
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
July 30, 2020


TO BE CONTINUED...

Wright's Radical Dismantling of the Gospel

Theologians can never be cavalier in their communication of ideas. Nor should they be ambitious in the quest for originality and notoriety. In our time rigorous revision is proposed for everything that has constituted trusted tradition - doctrine, interpretation of ecclesiastical history, and the comprehension of eminent Christian lives; their significance and worth to subsequent generations.

The crafting of theological thought is a service to Christ the Lord and to his Church. It is not the pursuit of glory in the academy, or in the professional sphere of education and research. It is not a parade of intellectual gifts or literary versatility. Theological endeavor is never to be stimulated by rivalry and competitiveness. Theology is a reverent and holy discipline fostering a deeper knowledge of God and his ways in wonderment and worship. As is often recognized, theology is a doxological enterprise, an opening into the glory of God in order that the human mind may perceive divinity aright, the heart may be stirred to praise, and the observer persuaded to absolute trust in the Lord who discloses himself. Theology is intended to furnish a well-informed and reasonably intelligent faith.

Theology ought to be the most humble of sciences and the least patronizing. Whether at the podium or in the pew the theologian, however much celebrated, is to be lowly among the little folk of God, for there will be many inconspicuous believers much closer to the One whom the specialist seeks to discover and describe (1 Corinthians 1:26ff). Only the grace of the Spirit reveals the Lord, and there are many theologians who work without modesty and the resources of grace. Their heart does not feel that which engages the intellect. The supposedly high things of heaven, that should deflate any tendency to arrogance, actually elevate the oversized ego that credits itself with exceptional acumen. By virtue of theological skill, so say, there are some academics who exist in a rarefied zone and exude an air of superiority as if long lists of publications guarantee admission to paradise as a reward. Any goals they achieve academically, that may be good and useful, are in consequence of a divine gift. But in some persons knowledge puffs up (1 Corinthians 8:1-3; 2 Corinthians 12:1-10). Love for the Lord himself is the receptacle of true knowledge which love then dispenses.

Whatever may be the achievements of theology they are for the benefit of the whole church for its ministry in the world, and hence the task is supremely pastoral (helpful), making the Lord God thoroughly and thrillingly accessible to those who seek to know him. Edification is the purpose of the theologian, preparation of nourishment for every member of the flock that has an appetite for the food of the soul. The true theologian leads the sheep into the lush pastures of the Lord's ever fresh word. Preacher and professor proclaim the word of the Lord. The adept theologian assists the pastor (ordained or lay) in his appointed role. Every element of theological understanding contributes to the promotion of a full-orbed gospel, for all truth points to God and every elaboration of the nature of reality drives us further into contact with him, his vastness and verity.

MINISTERING IN THE CONGREGATION: Article 23

No man is permitted take upon himself the office of public preaching or ministration of the Sacraments before he has been called and appointed to fulfill this office. And those persons should be accepted as lawfully called and appointed who have been selected by men entrusted with public authority in the Church to call and send ministers into the Lord's vineyard (APB, PBS USA, 2008).

The ordained or licensed Anglican preacher or theologian has two considerations in mind as he performs his ministry. He is not a lone, unaccountable individual in a field conducive to experimental and private notions in contradiction of the Scriptural standards of the body in which he serves. If he disagrees with or dissents from the essential truths of the way of salvation (for this is the key message of the Church of Christ) then he must question his conscience and if he is convinced that he cannot conform he must quit his attachment. He must be able to walk in concert with the settled mind of the Church with its foundation in divine revelation derived from the Bible. Of course, things are lax in this age due to the general departure from doctrinal discipline. Our low condition is self-caused. Anglicanism is a city without walls.

Furthermore, the location of Christian ministry is in the Lord's vineyard. It is no one else's property, and is reserved and run for his pleasure, conformity to his will, and for the kind and quality of produce that he desires. Deviant doctrine, disposition, determinations, and practice are nothing short of theft allied to audacious rebellion.

The minister must adhere to his Master's manual in his toil in the vineyard, and must observe the boundaries. He must render faithful and reverent service and avoid behaving in the manner of a renegade. Therefore, every wind of doctrine that is strange to the people of God must be adjudged as to whether it is ill or fair, that the teachings swept toward us are fine or foul (Ephesians 4:14-15).

Novel teachings, erroneous doctrine, re-hashed heresy is presented repeatedly in the history of the Church. For its protection the Church, and the individual Christian, need to cultivate a sound historical perspective. Alertness is essential. Peddlers of mischief are always recycling pre-used wares of ancient devilish manufacture cheaply titivated for current acceptance. Revised teaching warrants close examination. It is possible that a new emphasis may arise that is an amplification of the truth, an aspect that is consistent with the core of orthodoxy, more light from the original source shining more brightly on some particular or other. But the way of salvation to be gained through Jesus Christ is simply spelt out and so plain as to be unchanging.

"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." Trust entirely in the crucified and the blood shed for our salvation. Faith is the inner eye that gazes upon Jesus our Justifier. Faith is not of itself our salvation, but rather the One whom faith apprehends. Faith as the gift of grace, relies on Messiah himself as our justification perfect and complete. Nothing remains to be done. Christ's atoning work is finished. It is Luther who sums up the gospel in these terms: there is nothing to do or contribute. The Gospel is not do, but done! Receive salvation freely! Faith is the evidence of justification, and the mark of grace, and the assurance of election. It is not of our own creation. Faith and repentance are entwined. Each accompanies the other. Neither are works of the flesh. They are inwardly wrought by the Holy Spirit through his change of our nature.

N.T. Wright seriously disputes this way of salvation. It is often difficult to determine what he does believe. Offer an objection to what appears to be a plain statement and he denies its clear and inevitable grammatical sense. He is indeed a clerical chameleon. Nonetheless, the drift of his message counters the truth of justification by faith alone. He swoops and soars in rhapsodic verbosity, issuing sweeping asseverations that are simply and wildly untrue after a moment's analysis (e.g. Current Christians are asking 16C questions, whereas we should be 21stC Christians posing 1st C questions. Where lies his authority or credibility for such a blanket and silly expression?). He is dramatically rhetorical but at depth he is flagrantly denunciatory of the simple folk he deigns to correct (old fellas, country preachers, the theologically illiterate), but strictly speaking he is heretical with regard to the divine method of salvation (faith, atonement, regeneration) and the nature of both sin and grace.

His teaching is masqued in an element of biblical terminology (so that recipients drop their guard), laced with bombastic novelties of interpretation (if one were really smart the term "fancy hermeneutics" should have been utilized). When he utters ideas that are controversial he magically resorts to loopholes that afford a route of escape. His respectable academic critics are far too polite, for his errors are far more than mere academic irregularities - they are disasters in a soteriological sense. They are potentially hazardous to salvific benefit. There is fiction contrived from Scripture, show-off pagan allusions, and a stealthy foundation of Pelagianism. He lectures on bringing heaven to earth, mocks the convenient language of the three-storey universe (of which the Bible itself is guilty with prepositions such as "above" & "up") and regards those who think in terms of three dimensions as simpletons - "most Christians", he says.

But of course, sophistication is an essential ingredient in his ambitious theological construction. (Where did you inadvertently mislay your copies of Heiddeger, Cicero, or Seneca?) His linguistic panache is spellbinding. Look closely for misrepresentation and his preening of himself in new light, falsely appealing to John Robinson: "God has more light yet to break out of his holy word". Every false teacher can abuse this wonderful observation. The principal value in godly reading is William Cunningham's axiom: "Does it save?" Measures of culture, philosophy, sciences etc. are improving, intoxicating, but not to be controlling. We love to advertise our learning in the interests of one-upmanship, but only sound knowledge, true and simple, of the gospel will point us "whether upwards, sideways, stationary on earth" to heaven. Many will rue immersing themselves in the Encyclopedia Britannica for most of their lives rather than opening Matthew Henry's Commentary.

NTW's major evaluations are suspect. Citing them at any length is tiresome. Read him for yourself and ponder honestly and prayerfully. See if he really does square with Scripture under the Spirit's tutelage. Rigorously apply "the analogy of Scripture" principle for understanding. Taste as to whether your soul is wonderfully fed and satisfied. Does he truly reach the inner man? Does he fruitfully pastor the soul? Does he engage the eager heart with the Word of God?

Some quotes to think about:

*It's important to say that I haven't seriously read Luther for about 20 years.

*Luther comes to the question, /How can I find a gracious God? ". . . This we do know - his antithesis of grace/works or faith/works, or faith/law, was very strongly conditioned by his own soul struggles, the struggles to be an obedient monk and what he thought this all hinged upon. This was all routed in the world of late medieval Catholicism. Luther, then, is reading Paul looking for the bits and pieces that will help him resolve this particular question".

*And I want to say, as I said with regard to Aquinas, if you come with this question and you look at it within his worldview, this is the right answer! But, just like the matter of transubstantiation, the problem here is that this has led us down some pretty murky paths.

*I can see how frustrating it is for the preacher who has preached his favorite sermon all these years on the imputation of Christ's righteousness from 2 Corinthians 5:21 to hear this is not the right way to understand it but I actually think there's an even better sermon waiting to be preached. You can always preach one on 1 Corinthians 1:30 so long as you do wisdom, sanctification, and redemption, all three." NB Reformed preachers have presented this kind of sermon "doing wisdom, sanctification, and redemption" for centuries. A little modern history wouldn't go amiss!
The Reformation & Revival Journal Interview, Vol II, Number I, Winter 2002

*The language of "salvation' and "glorification", central to Romans, Paul's greatest letter, was assumed to mean the same thing: being "saved" or being "glorified" meant "going to heaven," neither more nor less. We took it for granted that the question of "justification," widely regarded as Paul's principal doctrine, was his main answer as to how salvation worked in practice; so, for example, "Those he justified, he also "glorified" meant, "First you get justified, and then you end up in heaven." (What a crass, inept, simplistic caricature of traditional belief - so demeaning and flawed. So intolerably pompous). Looking back now, I believe that in our diligent searching of the Scriptures we were looking for correct biblical answers to medieval questions. Paul, Introduction, pages 7-8.

*If we come with the question, "how do we get to heaven," or, in Martin Luther's terms, "how can I find a gracious God?" And if we try to squeeze an answer to those questions out of what Paul says about justification, we will probably find one. It may not be totally misleading. But we will miss what Paul's "justification" is really all about. It isn't about a moralistic framework in which the only that matters is whether we have behaved ourselves and so amassed a store of merit (righteousness") and, if not, where can we find such a store, amassed by someone else on our behalf. It is about the vocational framework in which humans are called to reflect God' image in the world and about the rescue operation whereby God, has through Jesus, set humans free to do exactly that.

For Paul, therefore, questions of "sin" and "salvation" are vital, but they function within worldview different from the one Western Christians have normally assumed. For Paul, as for all devout Jews, the major problem of the world was idolatry. Humans worshipped idols and therefore behaved in ways that were less than fully human, less than fully image-bearing. That was a core Jewish belief, and Paul shared it. What he did not share, as he thought through his tradition in the light of Christ and the spirit, was the idea that the people of Israel, as they stood, constituted the answer to this problem - as though all one had to do was to become a Jew and try to keep the Torah , and all would be well not only with Israel, but with the world. Paul knew that view, and he firmly rejected it." (ibid) Page number not cited.

The biography of Paul is serviceable as a primer to the theology of NTW. It is only fair to advise those interested to read it. Most library systems will surely possess copies available on loan.

Some Personal Comments in Closing Part 5

Paul evaluated Jew and Gentile as equally parted from God, observing, "No, a man is a Jew if he was one inwardly, and circumcision is circumcision of the heart by the Spirit" (Romans 2:29) i.e. new birth facilitating justification by faith, a state not attained through the written code (human obedience). Such a man's praise is not from men, but God" (hence being right with him).

External circumcision does not count in this crucial instant of reconciliation between the Lord and the believer: "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness" (Romans 4:3) cf "For all have signed and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ" (Romans 3:23-24).

It is crystal clear that Abraham was justified by faith through Christ as his promised Justifier. Genesis and Paul are dealing with deliverance from the morass of moral corruption.

"Most Christians" were probably not so naive as NTW alleges as regards the matters of salvation, life as Christians, and the future hope of cosmic renewal - about which he instantly expounds in the pages mentioned above. In addressing the matter of heaven, it was understood as fellowship with God forever. Change was expected on a colossal scale - the pure, just, loving kingdom of God. Total Transformation.

The essential true religion of Christ may be beneficially explained by experts, but it does not depend on them. Academic arrogance has led many adherents into a murky ditch of doubt and despair.

Klaas Runia

"Because Luther and the other Reformers placed all their faith in the declaratory act of the justifying God and rejected any possibility of human contribution at this point, they had a firm basis for assurance. Because man's salvation in no way rests on anything he himself does, not even on his faith, but rests solely on that wonderful justitia aliena [strange righteousness] of Christ, such a man may know for sure that his sins are truly forgiven and that, in spite of the sinfulness that remains in him, he will never fall out of the hand of his gracious God. 'At once justified and a sinner' is not a Lutheran one-sidedness, but it touches the very heart of salvation. Solus Christus [Christ alone], and sola fide [by faith alone] belong together in unbreakable unity, and because of this unity the last word is and remains: soli Deo Gloria [to God alone be the glory]!"

Justification and Roman Catholicism, Right With God: Justification in the Bible and the World, edited by D.A. Carson, p215


By Roger Salter
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
May 20, 2020


TO BE CONTINUED...

Luther's Interpretation of Scripture and Pastoral Skill

When Luther was made a Doctor of Theology, he made a solemn vow: "I swear manfully to defend the truth of the Gospel."

During the ARCIC discussions, debates, and group studies between Anglicans and Roman Catholics in England over recent decades it was customary in Church of England circles to hear apologetic or disparaging comments about the great Saxon Reformer. He was either a religious fanatic or psychologically deranged. He was, in softened voices, described as rash, obsessive, and abusive. Lutherans were politely and well thought of, but "their master" was so problematic. Some of us wished that there were more Anglican clergy who were as mad as Luther!

But given his flaws and unfortunate tendencies which cannot be justified, and considering the factors that affected his temperament (the hazards he faced, the poor health he endured, the tensions, burdens, and constant strains of his high profile ministry) some degree of leniency must be allowed. Luther was a vulnerable and sensitive soul and not the ironclad super hero that many suppose. John Osborne captures his doubt and distress in his play based on Luther.

Luther's humanity is so clear to see; his godliness evident. All of us can rage under sufficient pressure. All of us are driven by prejudice if the opportunity to vent presents itself. Those who rail against Luther are almost imitative of the character they deplore. He arouses hatred attributable to something beyond personality and behavior. He wields the sword of the Spirit with such adroitness that minds are disturbed and consciences wounded. Man's self-reliance and pride are offended.

Intimacy with Luther discovers his dominant side. A wholehearted servant of Jesus Christ, a humble student of the Word, a sensitive administrant of the consolation of the Gospel. A good way to meet him on a frequent and convenient basis is through James Galvin's "Faith Alone, A Daily Devotional, Martin Luther", Zondervan. Luther excites, uplifts, convicts, encourages, emboldens, strengthens, reassures as a pastor virtually unequalled. He transports you to the Gateway of Heaven. How? Because he has fought hard as an embattled soul, and been found by Christ. He knows the darkness of evil, the depths of the sinner's plight. He knows his theology, but beyond that he really knows Christ, and Christ knows him as he knows so many great sinners - perhaps even ourselves if grace seeks us out. Luther did not know a painted Christ, a stained-glass figure, nor a Christ portrayed merely in print and words. He knew Christ himself through the Spirit and that is why he chimes with troubled spirits everywhere.

There is nothing abstruse in his gospel, nothing medieval but truth timeless in the tradition of the faith before his time and beyond it. Luther speaks to the human heart because he had a large and generous heart, and a converted one. You can't sit stock still with Luther. You don't pore, mystified, over a baffling, tedious manual that leads you through a maze of muddled ideas. He stirs your soul, moves your body, and activates your voice. Praise the Lord! No one preaches grace better than Luther. He banishes the misery and mists of doubt. Look to Jesus, for Christ is our justification. Luther is a pastor not a perplexity! He could controvert with Erasmus and compose pastoral notes to his barber. He could criticize the pope and care for his people.

"When I preach I regard neither doctors nor magistrates, of whom I have above forty in my congregation; I have all my eyes on the servant maids and on the children And if the learned men are not well pleased with what they hear, well, the door is open."

A life could be spent in reading the thought of Luther - great commentaries, treatises, sermons, his favorite work on the Bondage of the Will, his wonderful counsel, his hymns, and his intimate thought preserved in Table Talk. None will agree with him totally, it is suspected. But the way of salvation is vividly, accurately delineated. He could be quoted endlessly. His publications are readily available. NTW should not have neglected him for so long. Better acquaintance would have led to a better assessment.

Luther can fire you with exuberance and inspire you toward ecstasy as his doctrine of justification by faith takes its hold upon your mind and cheers your heart.

BIBLE

It is most certain that the Holy Scriptures cannot be fathomed by study and scholarship alone. Therefore, your first duty in approaching the Bible is to begin to pray, and to pray to this effect:

That if it please God to accomplish something through you for his own glory, and not for your own glory nor that of any other man, that of his grace, he will grant you a true understanding of his words. The reason for this is that no master of the divine word exists, except the author of these words, as Christ himself says, 'They shall all be taught of God.' Therefore, you on your part must stand in complete despair of your own industry and scholarship, and rely solely and utterly on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Believe me, I know the truth of this in my own life.

GRACE

I am seeking, searching, thirsting for nothing else than a gracious God. Yet God continually and earnestly offers himself as a God of grace, and urges even those who spurn him and are his enemies, to accept him as such. The promises of grace are all based on Christ from the beginning of the world, so that God promises his grace to no one in any other way than in Christ and through Christ. Christ is the messenger of God's promise to the entire world. Grace consists in this: that God is merciful to us, shows himself gracious for the sake of the Lord Christ, forgives all sins, and will not impute them to us for eternal death. This is grace: the forgiveness of sins for the sake of the Lord Christ, the covering up of all sins. Grace makes the Law dear to us. And then, sin is no more there, and the Law is no longer against us, but with us.

CHRIST THE WAY TO GOD

No man can obtain Christ, the Bread of God, by dint of his own efforts. Neither will he find him by studying, hearing, asking, seeking. If we are to know Christ all books are inadequate, all teachers incompetent, all intellects incapable. It is the Father himself who must reveal him, as Christ himself taught. 'No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the Last Day.'

JUSTIFICATION

By the one solid rock we call the doctrine of justification by faith alone, we mean that we are redeemed from sin, death, and the devil, and are made partakers of life eternal, not by self-help but by outside help, namely, by the work of the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ alone. God does not want to save us by our own personal and private righteousness and wisdom. He wants to save us by a righteousness and wisdom apart from this, other than this: a righteousness which does not come from ourselves, is not brought to birth by ourselves. It is a righteousness which comes into us from somewhere else.

It is not a righteousness which finds its origins in this world of ours. As men without anything at all, we must wait for the pure mercy of God, we must wait for him to reckon us righteous and wise. As long as I recognize that I can in no way be righteous in the sight of God . . . I then begin to ask for righteousness from him. The only thing that resists this idea of justification is the pride of the human heart, proud through unbelief. It does not believe because it does not regard the word of God as true. It does not regard it as true because it regards its own understanding as true, and the word of God runs contrary to that.

The dean of Reformed theology of the 20th century, Holland's G.C. Berkouwer, enthusiastically endorses the doctrine that Luther derives from the New Testament. "Whenever Paul speaks of the justification which has come to us, there is a single refrain - Christ has not died in vain. All striving and grasping makes sense only when it has been taken hold of by Christ (Phil 3:12). Our contribution amounts to precisely zero. Faith knows this and is thus true faith, given by God. For it knows that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8.10).


Justification on the ground of nothing is not a one-sided juridical concept. It is the preaching of grace, sheer, unalloyed, unmerited grace (Faith and Justification, Eerdmans, page 89).

"Faith is the 'yes' of the heart, a conviction on which one stakes one's life"

"When by the Spirit of God, I understood these words [The just shall live by faith. Rom 1:17] I felt born again like a new man. I entered through the open doors into the very Paradise of God!"

"Your faith comes from God, not from you. And everything that works faith in you comes from him and not from you."

"God creates out of nothing. Therefore, until a man is nothing, God can make nothing out of him."

"Certain it is that man must completely despair of himself in order to become fit to receive the grace of Christ."

"It is pleasing to God whenever you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart."

Luther does not sound unscriptural by any means. He doesn't sound unhinged in the least. He hasn't had to squeeze anything out of Scripture at all, as someone well known alleges. "No one understands Scripture unless it is brought home to him, that is unless he experiences it." For Luther Scripture came home to him by the grace of God and his rich experience is enviable. It is communicable because he is human like us. His knowledge of God and grace is infectious.

Luther's Prayer On his Deathbed

O heavenly Father, God of all comfort, I thank thee That thou hast revealed to me thy beloved Son, Jesus Christ, in whom I have believed, whom I have preached and confessed, whom I have loved and praised . . .

I pray thee, dear Lord Christ, let me commend my soul to thee.

O heavenly Father, If I leave this body and depart this life, I am certain that I will be with thee for ever and ever, and that I can never, never tear myself out of thy hands.

So God loved the world that he gave his only Son, Jesus Christ, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life (repeated thrice).

Father into thy hands I commend my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, thou true God. Amen.


By Roger Salter
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
May 12, 2020


MORE TO COME...

Whom would each of us prefer as our pastor?
The New Testament Speaks

The reading of Holy Scripture requires great care and prayerful humility. The Old Testament spells out the basics of two natures - the nature of God and the nature of man. God in all his power, wisdom, and goodness is the author of creation. Man, in his creature-hood is dependent upon the strength and compassion of his Maker. God is glorious and sovereign. Man, as the spectator of divine majesty is given the capacity to admire the Deity, acknowledge his supremacy, enjoy his favor, and worship and work with him as a Friend. In this partnership the Lord is lofty and man duly lowly. The relationship is designed to be harmonious and affectionate. It is to be characterized as holy for the purpose of compatibility. God is intrinsically holy, and man endowed with pristine integrity at his origination is disposed to imitate and obey the Lord in willing likeness to him.

Genesis records the tragic rift between God and man through an act of prideful defiance on the part our first parents. The writings of the former covenant describe the continuous rebellion of our race and the opening measures of the Lord to recover us to himself. An accurate comprehension of the content of the first Testament is determinative of a clear understanding of the New. The history of redemption is one, recounted in two phases. They match in the basic matter of human salvation and vary only in the temporal details of the development of the scheme of our rescue. The central concentration of both Testaments is trained on the great Figure of our Restoration, the Messiah of Promise who is the Christ of eventual appearing.

In Christ the two installments of the drama of salvation merge in united testimony to the will and ways of the Saviour God and the formation of the Israel of God, also styled as the Body of Christ. The way of inclusion in this people, this body, is delineated in the Gospel, and the preservation and presentation of this gospel is of the utmost importance. This is why the reading of Scripture is a matter of great care and holy caution. We are to detect, as Tyndale advises, the themes, motifs, lines that run through Scripture that lead us to correct thoughts of Christ and salvation so that he might be grasped in good sense and with confidence.

Students of the Bible are notorious for forcing their own preferences of meaning upon the text. None of us are entirely clear of this tendency, but the meek are subject to kindly and judicious correction. God's word is not under the control of man, and no man has truly mastered it in its complete sense. We are always learners, and the danger is to jump ahead of ourselves, claiming maturity where we are really novices in any knowledge acquired.

When we fall in love with any particular theory, one that seems to be a fresh discovery and world-enlightening, we defend it ardently until our preference becomes predominant in our thinking. We have to check ourselves as honestly as we can before the Living God and adopt a posture of modesty before him. We want his word from Scripture and not the echo of our invented ideas. The word "heresy" comes to us from the originally innocent term from the Greek meaning merely preference or difference (1 Corinthians 11:19), but in the Church it has evolved into any theological notion that imperils salvation. Differences in interpretation are common among believers but they are usually located in the realm of "adiaphora" (things indifferent, or of the second order of belief) and do not affect eternal destiny (sacraments, millennial views, legitimacy of ceremonies etc.)

However, the word of God warns us of that dangerous distortion of vitally important doctrine that can have serious effects that may jeopardize the gaining of salvation if soul and mind are given-up and surrendered to them. Where trust is misplaced the place of safety is missed. Paul alerts us to the human perversion of the gospel and goes so far as to say that if even "an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned" (Galatians 1:8). His anxiety for the Galatians is immense, "You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?"

Bewitching teaching is abroad in so many ways and from so many people of high repute in all sectors of the Christian community. Their approach is ingenious and their message plausible. False prophets will be so convincing as to be able to deceive even the elect - if that were possible. They will be so inordinately clever and confident as to win wide acceptance and acclaim. But although the bait they dangle before the people of God is enticing their deviation from the truth will soon manifest itself as their ever-so-subtle teaching veers away from the simplicity of Scripture in a welter of confusion and obfuscation. Their thoughts seem to run parallel to Scripture but their deceit is in the detail and the wiliness of their definition. Truth is never merely parallel to Scripture. It runs on the very track of biblical revelation. The parallel path breaks down in so many parts of the terrain of Scripture and is proven false by many features so clear to the eye. Error tends to jar with the resort to the analogy of Scripture. Error is discordant with the sweet melody of pure grace. There may be difficulties in Scripture, it is true, but the understanding of the essential gospel is not dependent upon the expertise of high-flying academics.

It is a principle of Holy Scripture that the elect can never finally defect from the way of salvation: "Fundamentally and finally the elect cannot possibly be deceived . . . but God in worst times reserved a remnant, and at all times will not see nor suffer any of his to miscarry" (John Trapp, Matthew 24:24). The disposition to trust Christ exclusively is too deeply embedded in the soul even where there might be a degree mental confusion and inconsistency of expression.

The Old Testament in a multiplicity of ways prepares us for the thrilling concept of justification by faith. However much Paul may have been familiarized with the thought of other cultures at the University of Gamaliel, and from other possible sources, it is indisputable that in his complete fascination with the Lord Jesus as the substance of the Promise made to Israel, the word of God conveyed to his ancestors through the writings of the former covenant would have been supreme in the shaping of his mind and message. "Paul's basic concepts are drawn, as we have seen, from the Old Testament, and Paul had learned the Old Testament in the context of the Judaism of his day" (Paul: The Man and His Letters, An Introduction to the New Testament, Carson, Moo, and Morris, Zondervan).

What is pre-eminent in our consideration of the source of Paul's gospel is that it was not determined by any tradition of interpretation per se, any human individual however influential, or from his own inventive mental powers: "I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ" (Galatians 1:11-12). Paul strenuously counsels the Galatians not to exchange his gospel for any alien ideas imposed upon it. His authority is Jesus Christ, which tops any other authority.

It is impossible, utterly futile, to attempt to obliterate the now "protestant" teaching on justification by faith from the letters of St. Paul. Any impartial, objective, cumulative perusal of the texts makes it plain that the apostle is asserting that the believing sinner is pardoned and declared righteous by virtue of trust in the shed blood of Christ on their behalf. Imputation of the merit of Christ to the penitent offender appealing for mercy before the Lord is a necessary and inevitable conclusion from a fair scrutiny of the teaching of Paul as we encounter it. It is too much of a strain to argue otherwise. There is only one mean by which we are put right with God. Any muddying of this divinely revealed fact is unholy mischief to be shunned.

Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses. Acts 13:39

For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith." Romans 1:17

But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through his blood. Romans 3: 21

However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven; whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him." Romans 4:5-8

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." [The curse is leveled against a serious moral offense. It is deadly condemnation preceding doom. Jesus lifts the curse from God's people evidenced as such by faith]. Galatians 3:13

What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. Philippians 3:8-9

So that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. Titus 3:7

After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty of Heaven. Hebrews 1:3b

So that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death - that is, the devil - and free all those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. Hebrews 2: 14-15

For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful high priest in service of God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Hebrews 2:17

The above selection of biblical quotations makes it absolutely clear that human nature is condemned as evil; that we are enslaved by the Evil One; that mankind needs a work of atonement wrought on its behalf by a blameless High Priest; that an alien righteousness is necessary for its reattachment to God; that an advocate is essential to commend us to God. That access to complete and permanent salvation is only available through a grace that bestows repentance and faith.

Sin is a profoundly grave matter; it emanates from our heart and courses through our veins; it pollutes our minds totally; it degrades our affections; it collides fatally with the beautiful holiness of God; our guilt merits eternal death; our condition is utterly hopeless, our capacity to make amends is nil. What else can avail? Only Christ Jesus in whom alone we can trust if God grants us the confidence to do so. There is no other alternative. It must come from gracious divine intervention. Nothing within, nothing under the sun can help us. Aid is beyond our reach. Assistance must reach out to us and fix its grip upon us. Christ is our only hope. He donates the good sense to call upon him, and then there follows the full range of mercies that confirm us in salvation. God places us in the strong and enfolding arms of his Son for full deliverance and safety for evermore: "It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God - that is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption." 1 Corinthians 1:30. (Divine initiative; Divine inducement; Divine provision)

The most compelling statement in which justification by faith is averred is in Luke's retelling of a parable of Jesus. It has nothing to do with NPP*, or NTR's* cockeyed and faddish point of view. It is Jesus' pronouncement on this vital topic relayed by Luke. Luke, who was Paul's devoted and constant companion, no doubt discussed many things as a fellow intellectual with the apostle, including the teaching of Christ and the philosophies of the pagans. Having most likely completed his writings circa AD 62, and knowing the mind of Paul (died approximately AD 64), that it was shaped by Christ (Gal 1:11-12) the evangelist must have observed the perfect agreement between apostle and Redeemer on the nature of justification, and also known, as a Gentile, precisely the teaching on Justification that Paul presented to the non-Jewish world of the first century.

Comparing the dispositions of the Pharisee (self-righteous) and the tax collector (unrighteous) in the temple before God (Luke 18:9-14) Jesus remarked of the spiritually bankrupt tax official, "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God." And how Luther-like the tax collector was under the weight of his sin. At a distant point in the temple and miserable in his unworthiness. Downcast and not daring to look heavenwards. Beating his breast as Martin would have beaten his in the monastery. Conviction of sin was anguished and pain of conscience acute. And the medieval era was centuries away! All the tax collector could do was admit his debt of sin and, like very awakened offender before God cry, "God have mercy on me a sinner."


*NPP - New Perspective on Paul
*NTW- Nicholas Thomas Wright


By Roger Salter
Special to Virtueonline.org
www.virtueonline.org
May 9, 2020

TO BE CONTINUED...