Revolution Replacing Reformation (in the church)

One of my neighbors was ordained years ago to the office of Elder in the Reformed denomination of which I'm a member. Thankfully, he has since time aligned himself with a non-denominational Bible church. While still in his former denomination I remember this man saying to me in my dining room how he was looking to spend the church’s money in the hiring of an extremely talented non-Christian electric guitarist who would be paid to critique the church’s corporate worship style. This “consultant” would help the church become more “cutting edge” in their worship so that they might attract the lost.

A few years before that I attended a Reformed church (same denomination) in San Diego while away on business. Before the first song the minister apologized to the congregation by saying that although they would be standing to sing "because we are Presbyterian," he assured them there was no need to stand. This amendment was not intended to accommodate the aged but rather it was intended to communicate a laid back approach to worship. The elementary school aged boy in front of me took the minister up on the offer (and then some). He sat comfortably sprawled out in his chair as he read a racing car magazine. As the pastor paced the stage with his Big Gulp in hand, he drew the analogy in his sermon that the Savior on the cross was like the pastor’s daughter who had been held down by force on a hospital bed by her father as the doctor administered a painful needle. After several other misleading word-pictures including defining justification as "a fancy word for having a new heart,” the minister ended the sermon by singing the benediction in a rock style genre while strumming a guitar. His parting words boasted “be a Christian but live like a golfer.”

Today I attended a church (same denomination) by invitation because of a baptism that was to take place. Amazingly in God’s plan I was used to persuade the parents of the biblical case for covenant baptism – all the more reason I felt a happy obligation to worship away from my home church. Out of twenty five minutes of singing, no song except for the offertory was familiar to anyone in my family. The only familiar tune was America the Beautiful. Contemporary is one thing. Sectarian and esoteric is something else. To be so far detached from not only the historic Christian church but the church of this present age so as to sing all unfamiliar tunes to the well churched ear is, I think, problematic.

In today’s worship we were told that biblical repentance always brings forth fruit, but a Christian can be one who has not yet repented. After the service was over and the Senior Minister was walking down the aisle, the atmosphere was so casual that a prominent member felt at liberty to yell to the Senior Minister that the congregation agrees to pray and look out for the baptized children even though the minister had forgotten to take a show of hands, apparently a tradition of theirs that was overlooked that Sunday. The Senior Minister was seemingly embarrassed.

Much can be said about the casual approach to worship that is pervasive in the church today and more often than not accompanied by a corrupted gospel message, which is no gospel at all. It is good to be reminded from time to time that Moses takes off his shoes when he encounters God; Isaiah is undone; Job puts his hand over his mouth and repents in dust and ashes; Peter asks the Lord to depart from him because he is a sinful man; and John falls down as a dead man. Does our adoption as sons in Christ somehow diminish the sacred and the holy? Or is it true that a God who is not perceived as transcendent, but only worshipped as our friend, is not the true and living God? If joy without reverence is not God-inspired joy, then it must be the work of the flesh.

I believe the unsaved have a better intuitive grasp of appropriate worship than professing Christians do sometimes, which is why it breaks my heart to see un-churched relatives attend such “worship” services. Casual “worship” becomes a stumbling block to the lost (and the saved) because it is not consistent with who God is and what he has done in his marvelous works of creation, providence and grace. It seems to me that evangelicals were more outraged by the inappropriateness of Michelle Obama touching the Queen in 2009 than they are with casual worship before a righteous and holy God.

Even in the Reformed church I’m afraid, Reformation is being replaced by Revolution. There seems to be a concerted effort to overthrow corporate confession of sin; assurance of pardon; historic Trinitarian creeds; OT and NT Scripture reading; Psalm singing; hymns written by theologians, sung by the one holy, catholic and apostolic church; and expository preaching. How can this be deemed an improvement?

I know there is no perfect church, and I don’t think I’m looking for one – far from it I think. I’m just looking for decency and order for my household. Thankfully, we have much more than that at my home church. By God's grace we enjoy the elements of Reformed, Trinitarian worship.

Lord willing, we’ll worship at our home church this coming Sunday.

Corporate Confession of Sin

Here is a commonly used corporate confession of sin:

"Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent, for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen."

Yet too often these sorts of confessions are heard:

“As fallen sinners we hate your Word…We do not love our neighbor; holiness is burdensome to us and at every turn we prefer to go our own way…”

During a transition period at one Reformed congregation the corporate confessions that were being used could not be truthfully read by any believer, like the second one above; the confessions were a testimony that could only be recited by an unbeliever who somehow possessed a sanctified understanding of his own sinful condition.

One of the goals of corporate confession is that redeemed sinners agree with God about their sin, to the end that they might be confirmed in the forgiveness and absolution they have in Christ. The former pattern of confession makes way for affirmation and confirmation of this covenant promise held out to every believer in assurance of pardon. Whereas the latter pattern of prayer actually denies the power of the gospel through its implicit rejection of God's covenant promise to definitively and progressively sanctify those who are in Christ. 

The motive behind exposing sin through corporate confession so that it might not be cloaked is not in question.  Notwithstanding, the confession of sin being used should be soteriologically sound as it relates to the converted heart of every believer, and not undermine the intended goal of leading sinners to draw near to God in full assurance of faith. Hebrews 10:22

I’m grateful for churches that understand the biblical case for corporate confession and assurance of pardon. In the practice of this Reformed gospel principle, may we never diminish the believer's confidence in God’s promise to complete the work that He has already begun in the life of every believer! Philippians 1:6 

Let us confess our sin in a manner that is consistent with our utter need for Christ without denying His work of grace in our lives. False humility is no humility.

Women Worship Leaders - Just a Few Thoughts

May women lead in worship?

The answer to such a question should be obvious, but unfortunately the church has been influenced by the world and consequently the answer to what should be an easy question is no longer obvious to so many Christians.

Worship is often led by women even in churches that believe only men may be elders. Such a worship practice if consistent with the unique teaching role of elders presupposes that worship is not to be accompanied by biblical instruction. In other words, if women may lead worship yet not teach the congregation, then worship may be void of biblical instruction. Yet then how can women lead God’s people in biblical worship that engages the emotions through the mind? Is to lead worship simply a matter of hitting the right note? No, and women “worship leaders” appreciate that much, which is why they so often step out of their God-given comfort zone in order to exhort in their leading. Accordingly, when women lead in worship any adherence to the unique teaching role given to men is undermined.

The elders, if they do their job, will protect the congregation, including their women, from such an unnatural, demeaning practice. Yes, demeaning. It’s demeaning for a woman to do man’s calling, just like it would be demeaning for a man to submit to his wife in all things. Gender confusion is always ugly.

It is the pastor, in the representative service of the Lord, who is ultimately responsible for leading congregational worship on earth. The pastor who operates in the name of Christ is the worship leader. It's an indicative. It comes with the job. A worship leader should be prepared to exegete hymns and Psalms for the congregation, which a woman simply may not do even if she can. A great worship leader can be tone deaf but that is because he is not merely to lead the music but rather is to direct the hearts and minds of the congregants to the triune God who receives congregational worship in Christ.

The answer to the question should be obvious. Women may not lead worship because women may not lead God’s people. Let's be loving to our sisters in Christ and in humble obedience lead them out of such roles.

Truth, Delivery and Imperfect Ministers

"Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?" Saint Paul

Imagine a man caught in the act of adultery by his wife and then responding more severely to the manner in which she reacted to his infidelity than to his own guilt. Even if the wife’s knee-jerk reaction were not to have taken into account her own sinfulness - is there a place for a husband to turn the tables on his wife without first dealing with the wretchedness of his own premeditated behavior? If the husband were to deal with the plank in his own eye, wouldn’t any perceived speck in his wife’s eye disappear, at least from his sight? Now imagine people “caught” in sin through the ordained preaching of the word and then becoming more disturbed, even outraged, by the manner in which the pastor delivered the message than their personal guilt before God. It seems to me that what is at work in both such cases is an avoidance of truth through a conveniently cultivated seared conscience. When feeling good about oneself (or at least the desire not to feel bad about oneself) takes precedence over a longing to be sanctified, there can be little chance of experiencing true contrition, the sine qua non of God-sent repentance. I have found that all too often mortification through the gospel-means of heart-felt, Spirit-wrought remorse is replaced by focusing on perceived imperfections in the messenger. One must question whether the evangelical graces of repentance, spiritual cleansing and biblical restoration can be present in such cases.

When subjective self-esteem becomes more important than developing objective Christian character, the crucified life becomes purely theoretical, an abstraction if you will. After all, wouldn’t one with a conscience that was laid bare before God be exceedingly more consumed with dealing truthfully and biblically with his own objective guilt than making an issue of any perceived flaw in the messenger’s bedside manner? Should not our first and greatest desire be to deal with our own sin before contemplating the imperfect instrument God is so often pleased to use to point it out? Indeed, would the manner in which the message was delivered be of any consequence whatsoever if we were in agreement with God and saw ourselves as we truly are, guilty before him? Not to belabor the point, but if the judge in the courtroom were even rude in the manner in which he interrogated a serial rapist, would we say the rapist "deserved" better? And assuming he did in some horizontal sense (i.e. creature to creature), would it not be true that if he were truly contrite he would not even notice - let alone complain about (!), the civility of the judge’s address? Of course not! If the guilty party were even in close proximity to thinking rightly about his sin, which is to say if he were dealing in reality, would he even notice any harshness at all, and if he did, would he not receive it as a divinely appointed, providential tempering of the justice deserved? If there were God-sent sorrow, would there even be any chance that the guilty party would become the messenger’s accuser? Sadly, in the church today this sort of thing has become all too common. When the Christian cloaks his guilt in the face of correction, the concealment is usually accompanied by the guilty party going on the offensive against God’s anointed; all in an effort try to extricate one’s own shame.

As David Wells rightly observes:

“To feel embarrassed because we were caught… deceiving, or (shamelessly)
self-promoting is an entirely good and healthy emotion! To argue, then, that we
need to be liberated from these uncomfortable feelings, that the ultimate
liberation is to become entirely shameless, is to sever our connection with the
moral law entirely.”

Unfortunately, all too often Christians are more concerned – even consumed, with ridding themselves - apart from any semblance of gospel formulation - of feeling shame. The objective reality of guilt is something that Christians are often pleased to live with as long as they don’t feel soiled. When shame is due to being found out by others, as opposed to agreeing with God’s objective verdict with a contrite heart, the cause of shame in the mind of the sinner is indexed to the messenger rather than to the holy demands of the Law-Giver. When one feels embarrassed and cloaks his guilt, the simple and obviously less painful solution becomes “kill the messenger!” The goal is to rid oneself from feeling bad. Contrition, something that is too often wrongly perceived as more Catholic than Protestant, is missing - otherwise the messenger would not be in danger!

I am aware of a pastor who (merely) stopped congregational singing in order to admonish the saints to sing out more loudly unto the Lord, as they were to have been engaged in the worship of the triune God. Yet sadly, there were some within the congregation who took great umbrage with the pastoral admonishment. Why was that? For those who were singing out as they ought, the correction obviously did not apply to them (other than being organically part of the whole congregation). However, for those who were not singing out, the correction was indeed appropriate. (I suppose if you throw a rock at a pack of dogs, the one who yelps the loudest is the one who gets hit most squarely.) Any number of examples could be cited. The general point is shouldn’t the guilty party be more concerned with receiving correction (and in this casing repenting of apathetic worship) than with the manner in which the pastor discharges correction? If a minister of God’s word dares to dare to speak the unvarnished truth, he better sugar-coat it and make sure to put the accent on his own need for grace. For a minister to reprove, rebuke or exhort without ensuring both in word and demeanor an acute understanding that he is the chief sinner, the one standing in need of admonishment might very well conjure up vain images (and assert them as dogma) of how far short the messenger falls from Jesus’ manner of conduct. Offense taken ends up being equated with an offense given, a monstrosity indeed. However, the ultimate deception results when the tables get turned, wherein the dismissal of guilt is exchanged for an attack on the messenger.

May God be pleased to protect his ministers and not allow them to cave into the pressures that would keep them from that part of their job description that requires them to be ready in season and out of season.

Ron

Counter since: 9/6/2006

"Developing a Trinitarian Mind" - Sound Observations & Advice from Robert Letham

In the August-September 2008 issue of Ordained Servant, a publication of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Dr. Robert Letham had these brief yet worthy words for the church of Jesus Christ, especially its ministers, to reflect upon and put into practice.

Developing a Trinitarian Mind

Robert Letham

In one of the chapters of my book, The Holy Trinity, I describe at some length how the worship of the Western Church has been truncated by the comparative neglect of the doctrine of the Trinity. For most Christians—and I include members of Reformed churches—the Trinity is merely an abstruse mathematical puzzle, remote from experience. Despite our reservations about many aspects of the Eastern Church, Orthodoxy in contrast has maintained a pronounced Trinitarian focus to its worship through its liturgy, which has roots in the fourth century. This is no incidental matter; worship is right at the heart of what it means to be Christian and what the church should be doing. The sole object of worship is God. The God whom we worship has revealed himself to be the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three distinct persons in indivisible union. I have argued elsewhere that this is his New Covenant name (Matt. 28:19-20). It follows that our worship in the Christian church is to be distinctively Trinitarian. Yet if we were to thumb through any hymnbook, we would be hard pressed to find many hymns that contain clearly Trinitarian expressions, while many of our favorites could equally be sung by Unitarians—think of "Immortal, invisible" or "My God, how wonderful thou art." As for the average person in the pew, why not try a random survey next Sunday—ask a haphazard selection of half a dozen people what the Trinity means to them on a daily basis, and see what results you get? Then compare your findings with the words of Gregory of Nazianzus, who wrote of "my Trinity" and "when I say God, I mean the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

If this problem is as real as is generally recognized but yet as important as I have presented it, how do we go about seeking to redress it? There are no easy, slick solutions. This is not a matter to be resolved by a quick twelve-step program or in an adult Sunday school class. It will take much thought, careful teaching, and a concerted plan to put right what has for so long been askew—since I argue this has been a problem for centuries, with notable exceptions, at least since Aquinas. What is needed is to instill in our congregations a mindset directed, as of second nature, to think of God as triune. From there will come ripple effects on the way we think of the world around us, and of the people with whom we mix. What we need is to develop a thoroughly Christian view of God, the world, the church, ourselves, and others.

The first, and indispensable, steppingstone is ourselves as leaders of the church, and in particular those who are ministers of the Word. It is of the utmost importance that we saturate our minds with reflection and meditation on God, for we stand in the pulpit as no less than his representatives in speaking his Word. It means our consistently contemplating God in Trinitarian terms. John Stott has been accustomed to begin each day with a threefold greeting to the Holy Trinity; how far are your own prayers and thoughts of God shaped in this way? It takes disciplined thought and prayer, consistently day in, day out deliberately to think of God biblically, theologically, and ecclesially as triune. As leaders of the church you are called by God to do this. You cannot expect the congregation committed to your charge to follow suit unless you are leading the way. It means your being shaped and driven not by some man-made purpose or by the concoctions of management gurus but by the truth of the triune God himself drawing and molding you.

There are definite and particular ways in which your congregation can be taught to develop its grasp of the Trinity. The first such avenue is in your preaching and teaching. How often have you preached on the Trinity? The Church of England, in following the church year, has Trinity Sunday the week after Pentecost; this can provide an opportunity to draw attention to the Trinity at least once a year, as Advent is a reminder of the incarnation, Good Friday of the atonement, Easter Sunday of the resurrection, and Pentecost of the coming of the Holy Spirit. However, this is a bare minimum—just about starvation rations. Perhaps a short series may help, providing it is not something that is forgotten as you move on to other things. Much better is, on top of that, to refer consistently to God not always as "God" or "the Lord" but as "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," always bearing in mind that he is three in indivisible union.

The same principles apply to praying as to preaching. You may not be able to preach on the Trinity every week—it would be unbalanced if you did!—but you can pray every week. When you pray, pray "Our Father in heaven." What an amazing way to address God! It means that we, through Christ the Son, have been granted by adoption the same relationship to the Father that he has by nature! It immediately throws us into the context of prayer to the Father by the Holy Spirit (see Rom. 8:26-27) through the mediation of Christ the Son. We should bring this to expression regularly in our public prayers. We should show the congregation that this is the way we pray. We should show them that in prayer we are saturated in a Trinitarian atmosphere, given to share in communion with the triune God. We should impress upon our people that in the Holy Spirit, God the Trinity has come to dwell with us, indwelling—better, saturating—us and making his permanent residence with us (John 14:23).

This leads us to the nature of church worship and the structure of the service. In all the works of God he takes the initiative. He created in accordance with his free and sovereign will; no one was there to advise him. In grace, the Son became incarnate "for us and our salvation"; this too was the result purely of the grace of God, undeserved, unprompted. In our own experience, God himself brought us to new life by his Spirit; our faith and repentance is a response to his prior grace. We love him because he first loved us. Is it any different in worship? Is that primarily something we do? No, first of all God goes before us. He has called his church to himself. He is there to greet us. As we gather, it is to meet with him, but first he has drawn us. Moreover, our acts of worship are accepted because they are offered in union with Christ. He, in our nature, is at the Father's right hand. From this it follows that the elements of worship are a dialog in which the holy Trinity takes the initiative. Through his ordained servant, the Father through his Son by the Holy Spirit calls us to worship. He speaks to us in his Word read and proclaimed. He receives our praise and prayers. He communes with us in the sacrament. In the benediction he dismisses us with his blessing—which is far from a pious wish or prayer that such things might be, if it is the will of God. Rather, the benediction is a declaration of a real state of affairs, undergirded by his covenant promises. This is a dynamic view of worship, one that follows squarely in the Reformed tradition and is rooted in biblical teaching. Our congregations need to hear it, they need to understand it, they need to imbibe it and be permeated by it. At my previous church, our regular bulletin expressed this. Periodically we would draw everyone's attention to it and sometimes produce a written two-page memo explaining it, so as to keep it fresh in mind.

The call to worship is a good place to begin. I often use a congregational response to the call. It is based on Ephesians 2:18, where Paul says "For through him [Christ] we ... have access by one Spirit to the Father." These words impress on the mind the point that our worship can only be Trinitarian. So too does the famous passage in John 4:21-24, where Jesus says that those who worship the Father must worship in spirit and in truth. Every occurrence of πνεῦμα (pneuma, spirit) in John, except two, is a reference to the Holy Spirit, while the truth is consistently a reference to Jesus (John 1:9, 14, 17, 14:6). Hence, acceptable worship of the Father is in the Holy Spirit and in Christ, the Son. It is important that this is stamped upon the service right from the start. Christian worship is worship of the holy Trinity, nothing less.

The church where we now attend has, immediately after the call to worship, a short Trinitarian doxology which the congregation sings in response; it is varied from time-to-time so as not to get monotonous. Then the first hymn is very often, if not invariably, Trinitarian, a practice I have come to use myself as often as I can. Calvin thought this was the most appropriate way to begin too, so we are in good company. However, as I remarked, there is a considerable lack of explicitly Trinitarian hymns. Many from the ancient and medieval church have this focus. Our former music director in Delaware, Peter Merio—a graduate of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki who also taught there—brilliantly arranged one gem from the fifth century that we dug up from the English Hymnal, edited by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1933; but there are very few in Reformed circles with his capabilities. Some recent favorites try hard but fall into heresy—an ever-present danger in this area. The hymn "There is a redeemer," which I have heard sung in the OPC, is generally excellent but has a refrain, "Thank you, O our Father for giving us your Son, and leaving your Spirit till the work on earth is done." The Father does not leave the Holy Spirit; the Eastern and Western Churches divided over arguably less.

We have looked at preaching and teaching, prayers, the call to worship and benediction, hymns; there remain the sacraments. Baptism is into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Dare anyone say the Trinity is a recondite matter for advanced philosophers when every single member of the Christian church has the name of the Trinity pronounced over him or her? According to Matthew 28:18-20 it is the foundation for Christian discipleship. Similarly, in the Lord's Supper we receive and feed on Christ really and spiritually; this is by the Holy Spirit who makes the sacraments efficacious. Moreover, since the works of the Trinity are indivisible, in feeding on Christ by the gracious enabling of the Holy Spirit, we are given access to the Father in the unity of the undivided Trinity.

In short, every aspect of Christian worship is an engagement with the Trinity or, rather, a way in which the Trinity engages us. As leaders of Christ's church, we have the indescribable privilege of leading his people into the realization of something of what this entails. It is a task far beyond our capacities; we are utterly ill-equipped to deal in such transcendent matters. The Bible records that, when given a revelation of the veiled glory of God, human beings are brought to their knees, overcome, broken (e.g., Isa. 6:1-5, Ezek. 1:1-3:15, Acts 9:1-9, Rev. 1:9-18). Yet in his grace our God has admitted us to fellowship, communion, and union with him as his adopted children, so that we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another by the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18). The Father and the Son have made their permanent residence with us in the person of the Holy Spirit (John 14:15-23). As ministers of the Word, we have been co-opted as instruments by which the flock of Christ are changed into his image by the Spirit so that Christ will be the first-born among many brothers. Doesn't that thrill you? Doesn't it make you want to know him better? Doesn't it impel you to develop a mind shaped by the knowledge of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and to lead your congregation on to that goal too?

Robert Letham, a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, teaches Systematic and Historical Theology at Wales Evangelical School of Theology. Ordained Servant, August-September 2008.
Counter since: 9/6/2006