Deep Creek Anglican Church Blog

Whatever your theological leanings (or ‘system’), Roger Olson’s article Regarding the love and justice of a God who unconditionally elects only some to save is worth reading.  The comments from readers are also worth considering.

As a young Christian I was attracted to Calvinism.  It was ‘internally’ logical. In fact my experience matches that of one of the readers:

“…the first theological books I read were by Calvinists, Piper and MacArthur. Piper especially provided a theological shot of growth for my walk with the Lord primarily in the cognitive realm. I just hadn’t read any solid Arminian theologians that really write well.”

But the more I wrestled with Scripture, the less comfortable I became with Calvinism’s both explicit and implicit portrayal of the character of God.

I also struggled with the inconsistency of many leading reformed ‘spokesmen’ who were quick to stress sola scriptura but effectively filtered all of the Scripture interpretation through a Calvinistic, systematic grid.  Not to mention their condemnation of the papacy and Roman Catholic tradition but manifested a certain blindness to doing the same with a few of their heroes of church history.  Rather than simply seeing the grace of God in using particular people, in quite specific historical settings who all had apparent flaws in Christian character and / or behaviour.

I think all Christians have a doctrine of election (whether or not formulated with accepted theological terms is not the point). And this doctrine appears to ultimately drive their composite view of God’s character.

The author of The Drama of Ephesians: Participating in the Triumph of God, Timothy Gombis, has recently begun his own blog.  Its a good read.  I have previously posted some comments by Gombis on election/predestination from The Drama of Ephesians.

On his blog, Timothy has posted on election: ‘Divine Election vs God’s Love’, ‘The Purpose of Divine Election’, ‘Deforming Divine Election’, Chosen in Christ and Divine Election: Summary & Conclusions.

The following comments on election from Gombis are perhaps the most sensible and biblical I have come across:

“Paul tells believers in Asia Minor that they were on God’s heart and mind from eternity past (Ephesians 1:3-14).  He set his love on them and pursued them to save them.  These “nobodies” in the world’s eyes are precious to God.

My point, then, is just to say that election language in Scripture functions very specifically to shape the identity of the people of God.  We are the ones who have our origin in the love of God from eternity past.  He set his love upon us and sought us out to reclaim us and redeem us.

That is the only function of election language in the Bible.

We pervert divine election when we take it out of the context of God’s love for his people and use it to speak of those outside of God’s love.  Now we have the “elect” and the “nonelect.”  We only end up with that latter category when we take election talk out of its biblical context as God’s love language for his people.  But the “nonelect,”—or the “elect unto damnation”—isn’t a biblical category.

When Scripture considers the group of people outside of God’s saving love, it sets election talk aside and picks up other sets of language.  Scripture talks about those to whom the elect are sent in order to demonstrate God’s love.  Scripture talks about those whom God longs to redeem.  Occasionally Scripture talks about those who are enemies of the gospel, perhaps those who have rejected God and are persecuting God’s people.

But the Bible does not consider “those whom God has chosen for damnation.”  When it comes to election, the two groups are the elect—those upon whom God has set his love in order to save—and those to whom the elect are sent so that they might also be swallowed up into God’s love.

We must be careful to respect the biblical function of election talk.  Too often election talk has been excised from its biblical contexts and put to use in doctrinal systems.  It does not belong there.  That move distorts the Scriptural depiction of God.”

The Apostle Peter writes in 1 Pt 5,

“⁶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. ⁷ Cast all your anxiety on Him because he cares for you.”

In the midst of deep and profound grief at the temporary departure of my dear wife last Tuesday night, 17th May, whose body finally succumbed to ravaging cancer, God’s care has been manifest in so many ways – to myself; our family; our church community at Deep Creek Anglican.  Let me give one illustration.

Each year I aim to have at least a five-week preaching series from the Psalms – for either one or all of the three congregations at Deep Creek.  It was mid-way through last year that I read the following review of Talking Back to God.  The book’s thrust really caught my attention; I purchased a copy and then there it sat on my ‘future reading’ shelf.

A suitable bone marrow donor was identified for Sheryl in July last year and from August on, life became intense with Sheryl’s pre-transplant procedures and then hospitalisation for one month.  Sheryl survived the critical first 100 days post transplant and during this time I gave more thought and prayer to the preaching program for 2011.

As I looked at the flow of the new year, I felt led to follow the Kingdom Living series with a Psalms series, Talking Back to God.  I penciled this in for five weeks but did not at that time decide on which particular psalms to use.

Through January 2011, Sheryl was recovering well from the bone marrow transplant however three melanomas appeared on her upper body.  Not a good development.  They were removed and the clear post-surgery cat scan seemed positive.  Within weeks however Sheryl developed a very bad limp and pain on her left side.

Church-life was hectic in the run-up to Easter and one item that needed to be finalised was the preaching program post Easter.  I flicked through Talking Back to God with my open Bible and selected five psalms, with Ps 23 planned for Sunday, May 22nd under the title, ‘Talking Back to God: From Weakness to Strength.’

Sheryl’s condition continued to worsen and on Tuesday, 12th April she was admitted again to hospital.  Within 10 hours, a cat scan revealed extensive cancer in her bones.  She was confined to a wheelchair and the prognosis, from a medical perspective, was very bleak.

Sheryl was able to join us on hospital day leave on Sundays for corporate worship, including Easter Sunday.  We began the Talking Back to God series on 8th May, in the midst of both personal, family and church grieving over Sheryl’s health.  What a blessing!  The psalms speak so powerfully into all contexts, and the joys and sorrows of life.  The Lord used them powerfully to minister into our church community.

Sheryl passed into the Lord’s glorious presence last Tuesday night, only hours after surgery intended to improve her mobility.  Although I had had many years to prepare for her passing; notwithstanding her resolute faith in, and love for, the Lord; the grief in the immediate days following was overwhelming.  Probably contributed by so much health trauma over the last decade.

Did God care?  Most certainly.  I decided to attend each of our three services on Sunday, but not to participate up-front.  James Duff spoke from Ps 23 – and the Lord’s gracious, comforting, soothing ministry through the Word and His Spirit was awesome.

Was this a coincidence that last Sunday with our family grieving; the church community grieving; that the Lord cared for His people with the words of Ps 23?  A skeptic would say, ‘Yes, a coincidence.’

But I know differently.  I have seen the Lord’s gracious hand in my own life; in the family’s life; in the church’s life, innumerable times over the years.  But last Sunday was something to always be remembered.  Tears were streaming down my face as James preached – tears of loss (temporary yes, but still very real loss); tears of thankfulness for God’s grace in saving Sheryl; tears of thankfulness for her gentle gospel witness to me during those many years of my stubborn resistance to the love of God in Jesus; tears of thankfulness for God’s sustaining grace in her life, through enormous trials of suffering; tears of joy and thankfulness for the Lord’s awesome love for His church, that He would so superintend that Ps 23 would be our focus on that Sunday of deep grief.

Does God care?  Yes, the Shepherd cares so deeply for His broken world that He laid down His life.

Praise You, Father for Your love.

Praise You, Jesus for Your death and resurrection.

Praise You, Holy Spirit, for Your Word and ministry into hearts and lives.

Ravi Zacharias is one the great Christian thinkers and apologists of our time.  Late last year Ravi spoke at the annual Dundee Evangelical Church Alliance in Scotland.  It is a powerful address.

You can check it out on YouTube, recorded in four parts:

Part 1

Part 2 (at the 7min point, Ravi comments, “The love of God is something totally unmerited and yet so often squandered“)

Part 3

Part 4

We have been thinking about God whispering into our lives.  Here is a great story posted on the Jesus Creed.  It wonderfully reveals the Father’s love for His children.

‘If I can just figure out how to please God, then He’ll give me what I want.’ Ever tempted to think like that?  Brandon O’Brien, in an excellent post The Real Threat of Pagan Christianity, in Christianity Today’s blog comments that such thinking is like pagan religions where protocols are developed to control the power of the deities.

Provocative?  Certainly, but his thesis is flushed out in:

• the personal pain of infertility in his marriage and praying for children;
• the approach sometimes to take portions of Scripture that are not promises (eg. Proverbs) but apply them in fact as promises.  This is something currently much on my mind as I prepare to commence a preaching series from the Book of Proverbs this coming Sunday; and,
• our confidence, sometimes, in our human formulations of how God acts in the world and then starting to think in terms of how we can be sure He’ll behave the way we need Him to.

So what is biblical Christianity?  O’Brien answers:

“Biblical Christianity is trusting that God will make those things happen (or He won’t) not because of what I do, but because of His love for me in Christ. And that’s something I can’t manipulate.”

^{John 3:16} “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Jerry Vines in his ‘Sermon on John 3:16′ in Whosoever Will tries to put into words the magnificence and magnitude of God’s love:

“God’s love is not like a trickling stream; instead it is like a flooding river.  It is not like a leaky faucet; instead it is like a bottomless ocean.  It is not like a flickering lightning bug; instead it is like a blinding sun.”

Chapter Seventeen: Our Mission from the Risen Jesus

Mission should always be at the forefront of our prayers and activity as followers of the Lord Jesus.  It is particularly so as I read chapter seventeen of Raised with Christ, having just completed our Sunday series on the Acts of the Apostles.

Our Mission from the Risen Jesus is Adrian Warnock writing at his best.  His obvious love for the Lord and joy of being part of God’s saving mission shines forth in paragraph after paragraph.  Here are some highlights (but make sure you read the chapter for yourself!):

• the church (“Jesus now lives on earth through His Body”) has been formed and empowered by the resurrection – so let’s declare and demonstrate it!
• the church is the only Jesus the world will see until He returns
• the Spirit gives us an infectious hope and joy – so share it!
• Jesus should thrill us more than anything or anyone else
• Jesus will accomplish the Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20) – He sends us out as a “direct command  of the ruler of the universe.”  It is not simply a suggestion
• “Jesus leads us to plunder the enemy’s kingdom, pushing forward in eager anticipation of what God will do through us”
• making disciples?  We need to train other Christians to love Jesus.  When we love Him, His commandments will not be burdensome
• Jesus is with His people to accomplish a specific goal – “if you want Jesus to go with you, than go and make disciples”

What’s the bottom line?  ”If we love, honour, and glory in Christ, we will find that we want to talk about Him with others.”

As we come towards the end of Raised with Christ, we’ll briefly look at two chapters:

Chapter Fifteen: A relationship with the Risen Jesus?

Chapter Sixteen: Assured by the Resurrected Christ

At the end of Chapter Fifteen, Adrian Warnock suggests we ask ourselves: “Do I really love Jesus?  Am I aware of His love for me in such a way that I have a strong desire to be holy?  Am I devoted to Jesus?”  These are very pertinent questions and ones that, although perhaps phrased a little differently, regularly cross my mind.

Our author notes that the goal of the Apostle Paul’s life was a relationship with the resurrected Jesus.  The testimony of Scripture and that of saints of old is that we can experience living in resurrection power.  Martyn Lloyd Jones dismisses a purely intellectual approach to the faith as “dead orthodoxy” and warns against setting experience and doctrine against each other.

In Chapter Sixteen the focus is on the ministry of the Holy Spirit in believers’ lives.  It was the risen Jesus who gave us the Holy Spirit.  Adrian emphasises a truth that I often chew on: we receive the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead.

Our author then gets into a discussion about receiving the Spirit, baptism with the Spirit and receiving the Spirit.  In wrestling with these important aspects of the Spirit’s work, I find the following works particularly helpful:

• God’s Empowering Presence by Gorden Fee, and
• He Who Gives Life by Graham Cole.

I really connect with Adrian’s appeal towards the end of the chapter:

“Let’s resist becoming sidetracked by our various differences over these matters and instead simply cry out to God for more awareness and evidence in our lives of the power that raised Christ from the dead.  Then we will know the joy of living our lives not in our own strength but in God’s enabling.”

Here’s a short post on a really helpful section at the very end of:

Chapter Eight: Life Between the Cross and the Coming.

Graham Cole highlights three ‘commissions’ that Christians are to obey, as we live for Jesus in the world:

1. Creation Commission (Gen 1:28).  Our exercise of dominion is one of both care and control (eg. Gen 2:15).  I would put it this way: care for the environment is one aspect of being a follower of Jesus and a citizen of God’s Kingdom.
2. Discipling Commission (Matt 28:18-20).  God calls His people to make disciples – of all nations.
3. Moral Commission (Matt 22:37-39).  The Creation and Discipling Commissions are “to be shaped by love of God and love of neighbour.”  Indeed, as Graham rightly concludes: “Without love, creation care and discipling others become vacuous.  We gain nothing (1 Cor 13:1-3).”