Three Offices

As you may have already heard, my friend Rev. Shane Lems was able to install an elder and deacon in Sunnyside, WA this past Sunday and thus his church plant became an organized church in the United Reformed Churches federation. Shane was a year ahead of me at Westminster Seminary and the amount of study and effort he put into seminary was nothing short of prolific.  Dubbed "Shane the Machine" by his fellow class mates, he regularly finished all of his papers before the semester even began (I was lucky to even get started the week they were due)! By the time everyone was cramming for finals, he was cruising around with the lasted Bavinck volume, reading just "for fun." But as we celebrate with our brother at the fruit of his labors, it may be helpful to pause and consider Biblically, the significance of this event.  

While Reformed theology has not made a proper church government part of the "essence" (esse) of the church, it certainly has affirmed that it is part of its "well being" (bene esse). In opposition to the hierarchy of Rome, as well as the radical anti-clerical stance of the Anabaptists, the Reformers sought to Biblically define a church government that was neither purely hierarchical nor egalitarian. The Belgic Confession of Faith, for example, states that according to the "spiritual polity which our Lord has taught us," there are three offices in the church: minister, elder and deacon (art. 30).  While there are differences of opinion over the exact number of offices in Reformed churches (for example, the PCA has the so called "two and a half" view), when compared to what is seen either in Rome or in broader Evangelicalism (their structures are strikingly similar) the differences are minute. 

In Romans 10, Paul is speaking about the message concerning "the righteousness based on faith" which declares that "whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will  be saved" (v. 13) His logic is simple, yet its impact is often overlooked; he reasons in verse 14: "How are they going to call on him whom they haven't believed? How are they going to believe whom they haven't heard? How are they going to hear unless one preaches? How are they going to preach unless their sent?" Paul speaks here about an official commissioning of certain individuals who are to go out to proclaim the message of the gospel, without which action, Paul does not foresee anyone getting saved.  Further significance of this crucial act of ordaining preachers may be lost if one relies only on their English translation of Romans 10.  The ESV, for example renders v.14b: "And how are they going to believe of whom they have never heard?" In the Greek, however, the "of" does not need to be their (see my paraphrase above). If this is the case, then what Paul is arguing is that when people listen to a preacher, they are not just hearing of Christ, but they are hearing the very words of Christ himself (see Second Helvetic Confession, ch. 1).  

Thus we see the significance in Eph 4 of Paul listing "pastors and teachers" as one of the "gifts" (arguably, the only continuing office listed) given by the risen Lord for the edification of his Church. This is not to knock "everyday evangelism" done by the typical Christians, but rather,  to establish it. 

Coming soon: more on elders and deacons...  

Jesus and the Psalms

I'm sure that there are many other reasons (some more significant than others) for numerous well-intended Christians to insist that the Psalms are just not enough for us to sing in church.  Perhaps the most important argument to deal with, is that there's hardly any mention of Christ and his work.  Sure, there's the numerous Messianic psalms (Ps 2, 22, 110... to name a few), but nothing in the Psalms revival the clarity and unambiguous nature of some of our great hymns ("When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," "Rock of Ages," "Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted," etc.). Why should we as believers living in the New Covenant, on this side of the cross and resurrection, be restricted to singing the Psalms which are full of only types and shadows? In response, let me first say that I am not an exclusive Psalmist.  Secondly, there are many New Testament songs that the church can and should avail herself of (the Magnificat, Zechariah's Prophecy, the song of Simeon, Phil 2, Rev 4 & 5, etc.).  

But to address the problem directly, I would have to assert that the Psalms DO NOT lack references to Christ, but on the contrary, that is who the Psalms are all about! The Psalms are Christ's Psalms, and I'm not just referring to the clear Messianic ones.  Granted, it's not always clear and it does take more work, so to speak, to fully appreciate them.  Yet, I think that with a little instruction from the pulpit (I typically say a brief comment before or after the singing of each Psalm) and a few general guidelines to follow, a congregation can fruitfully sing the Psalms with praise and appreciation for the person and work of Christ. Here's how: we need to see the Psalms in light of the big picture of Redemptive History.  Christ is to be seen as both the Lord and the Servant of the covenants.  Not only is Christ the "Good Shepherd" who watches over us (Ps 23), but he is also the triumphant Warrior who defeats all his foes (Ps 18).  He is also the Servant of the Covenant of Works who faithfully obeys God's law (Ps 1) as well as patiently suffers (Ps 22).  Sure, we can appreciate the original context (David's personal experiences, for example), but we must also follow the hermeneutic of the New Testament (eg. Acts 2, Heb 1-2) in finding the personal experiences of the Greater-than-David, our Lord Jesus Christ.  

Singing Psalms

On the way to church I sometimes listen to a local alternative rock station that plays what they call: "Brunch with Bob and Friends," an hour or two of all reggae music.  Since most of these artists are adherents of Rastafarianism I am often struck with how many quotes and allusions there are to the Psalms in their lyrics.  Ironically, the Psalms are getting more "air play" on the local rock station on Sunday morning than in many of our own Reformed churches. 

What exactly is wrong with this scenario is lost on many, but there are two arguments in favor of Psalmody (singing the Psalms) that I'd like to reproduce here.  The first, is one based on principle, that is, the Regulative Principle of worship (RPW). This historically Reformed doctrine simply states that in our worship, we ought to do that and only that which Scripture commands. Even things that are perfectly fine for us to do outside of an assembled worship service are not to be done or practiced because Scripture has not expressly or implicitly told us to.  When the RPW is applied to the question: What should we sing in church?   The 150 inspired Psalms are the obvious answer.  It should be said that many Reformed Christians, who love and seek to uphold the RPW, do not apply it in this exclusive sense.  Even the Church Order of the URC does not specify exclusive Psalmody, but rather states that the Psalms are to be given "priority."

As you may have experienced for yourself, most people are not easily persuaded of arguments based upon principle (especially if they do not share your assumptions) like the above  argument. The next argument in favor of Psalmody is a pragmatic one.  It simply states that the Psalms are the "best" songs for us to sing in church.  I can't tell you how many times I've been in a worship service where the song lyrics are either false, misleading, or just plain cheesy that I have a hard time even singing along... You don't have this problem with the Psalms.  The Psalms are not just human in origin, but they are also Divine.  We never need to wonder how we ought to praise our Triune God, because he has already supplied the lyrics for us (contemporary tunes and arrangements are another matter). 

Why has Psalm singing declined in our society so that it is almost non-existent even in confessionally Reformed churches? Dr. Robert Godfrey, my Church History Professor and a Psalm "fanatic," has traced three developments that led to Psalmody's demise. One is Liberalism.  The classic Liberal take on Judaism and the Old Testament in general was one that adopted the developmental religion view.  Simply stated, this said that Biblical religion developed from pantheistic to polytheistic to monotheistic.  Using a Hegelian dialectic, they asserted that New Testament Christianity is a higher synthesis than its "barbaric" and "primitive" Old Testament counterpart. If this is true, why sing Psalms which speak about defeating one's enemies and other victories in battle? [This view which asserts the Old Testament reflects a lesser developed moral sense is one adopted by many Emergent thinkers. ]

Another development, ironically similar to the Liberal view, is that of Dispensationalism. Classic Dispensationalists assert that there are two people of God: national Israel and the Church.  The Psalms were largely viewed as something that belonged to Israel and, in their view, it seems odd for the church to sings the songs of Zion because that isn't their time and place.

The next development that led to the demise of Psalmody is that of Revivalism. One of Finney's new measures, which continues to be used today, is intensive singing.  Songs are sung to evoke an emotional response in the crowd and thus create a more moldable audience. Anyone who has regularly sung the Psalms knows that this is not the typical response one gets.  Sure we have Psalm 23 and 51, but those can't hold a candle to "Come Just as You Are."  

Finney's folly

The fear of formalism (having external religion without an inward conversion) led many in the 18th cent. to seek for intense religious experiences in order to confirm that they and others were truly converted (see post on Jonathan Edwards below). The seeking after conversion experiences often lasted months and years under much prolonged doubt and inner turmoil. This relatively arduous process was made quick and simple in the 19th cent. due largely to the "new measures" introduced by one man, Charles Grandison Finney. Finney was trained as a lawyer and even though he probably hadn't even read the Westminster Standards all the way through, was ordained a Presbyterian minister. He began to conduct "tent meetings," which were precursors to the modern day crusades we see done today by the likes of Billy Graham and Greg Laurie. Finney argued that divine grace was not necessarily needed in order for a revival to occur, but rather, the right use of means. These means or "measures" included prolonged meetings, often lasting days at a time, intense singing, emotional testimonies, and perhaps most effectively, the anxious bench, and area reserved in the front of the meeting hall where those who were feeling especially convicted of their sins were to make their way in order to receive further instructions about their conversion (AKA "the alter call").

While many of Finney's contemporaries were impressed with the numbers that he produced, there were others who criticized his measures as a departure from the Biblical method of kingdom growth as it had been practiced in the Reformed churches for centuries. John Williamson Nevin was one of Finney's most ardent critics. Nevin was raised a Presbyterian and was a early graduate from Princeton Seminary. Even though he was not ethnically German, he took a call to teach at Mercersburg Seminary, which belonged to the German Reformed Church. He, along with his younger colleague, Phillip Schaff (the prodigious church historian), were proponents of what would be known as "Mercersburg Theology."

Nevin's main argument with Finney was that his methods of conversion (termed: "the bench") were in direct opposition to the truly Reformed and Biblical method, which he termed: the catechism. A catechism is a type of instructional tool written in a question and answer format designed especially for covenant children to learn about their faith. In Nevin's case (and mine), there was the Heidelberg Catechism, written in 1563. This method of teaching baptized children through repetition and memorization all led to the maturing of their faith where one day, when they were old enough to understand, the covenant child would profess his or her faith before the elders and then become communicant members of their local congregation. That's all there is to it, argued Nevin... no glitz, no glam, no fancy meetings or emotional appeals. He was arguing for a relatively slow, yet steady process which has typified the daily life of the church for millennia. So opposed were these two methods that Nevin would argue: "the bench is against the catechism and the catechism is against the bench." Their is to be no mixing of these endeavors, they are hostile to each other and to practice one is to do damage to the other.

Like all men used by God in history, Nevin was not without his faults. Much of his theology was left wanting, especially his disdain for predestination, as well as his formulations of ecclesiology. What positive lessons we can learn from him, however, is that he maintained the importance of the Church and her ministries. When so many in his day (even Old School Presbyterians) were drawn to the new ways of doing things, he stood for how it's always been done, the way it should be.

Clark and Van Til controversy

Anyone who is familiar with the life and work of Cornelius Van Til has probably heard about the Clark/Van Til controversy.  The typical way that this story has been told is that it really was a low point in Van Til's otherwise respectable career.  It may seem like an odd detour in his life where he was only being a controversialist wanting to engage in trivial arguments. John Muether, however, persuasively argues that not only was Van Til's arguments in this case of the greatest importance, but also that the whole scenario should be regarded as a high-point in his life. 

Gordon Clark was an OPC ruling elder and a popular philosophy professor at Wheaton College.  He and Van Til had mutual respect for one another and Clark even used Van Til's apologetics syllabus for his senior philosophy class.  Both were staunch Calvinists with regard to soteriology (so much so that Clark was ousted from Wheaton because of the school's Arminian leaning). 

The two men did have serious disagreements.  Basically, Clark espoused that the only difference between our knowledge of things and God's knowledge of things is quantitative. That is, we know things the same way that God knows them, except he knows a lot more. Van Til, along with the rest of the historically Reformed tradition, asserted that there is not only a quantitative difference between our knowledge and God's knowledge, but also a qualitative difference.  Because God is incomprehensible and because there is an infinitely vast Creator/creature distinction, we must not assume that we know things exactly the same way God does.  Van Til further described the way that God communicates with us his creatures by speaking of the doctrine of analogy. This is a development of Calvin's idea of God condescending to speak to us in "baby talk" so that we might understand.  Van Til taught that we must not assume a one-to-one correspondence between our language and God's ("univocal speech"), but also, on the other hand, we ought not assume that God's word is unreliable ("equivocal speech").  His revelation of himself is true and reliable, but this is done by way of analogy (of His choosing). For example, when the Bible says that God is loving, we ought not to assume that God's love is exactly the same as the love that we as humans experience.  Rather, we ought to believe that it is "like" the way we love (only perfect and infinite). Clark feared that this doctrine of analogy was nothing more than total skepticism.  He claimed that it robbed us as believers of any confidence in God's word and brought us to the same place as the modernists who questioned Scripture's reliability.  This, however, is a classic misunderstanding of a carefully stated doctrine.  We can be sure of God's word because he is the ultimate source of it and it is he who has chosen the analogies; it is not the opinions of man.

The actual controversy was sparked when the Presbytery of Philadelphia (of which Van Til was a member), ordained Gordon Clark in a somewhat hasty manner, even though he lacked any formal ministerial training. The 1945 General Assembly launched an investigation about whether Presbytery had made a procedural error as well as formed a study committee to discuss whether Clark's doctrine of divine and human knowledge really protected the Creator/creature distinction so clearly taught in Scripture.  It is important to note that Van Til WAS NOT a member of this committee.  Perhaps the most well known member of the committee (and also the reason why Van Til felt confident that he didn't even need to serve on it) was his colleague and close friend Dr. John Murray.  Nevertheless, the committee did use Van Til's arguments and terminology, thus it is typically called the Clark/Van Til debate.  The reason why things got so heated is mainly due to Clark's supporters who were in favor of turning the OPC in a different direction than where Van Til and others (like those at Westminster Seminary) had been taking it.  Those who sought to approve Clark's ordination did so, not necessarily because they agreed with him, but because they wanted the OPC to become more a broadly minded Evangelical body, compared to the more narrow, confessionally Reformed identity that it has maintained. Even though Clark kept his ordination, he and many who fought for him eventually left the OPC; being dissatisfied with the confessional Reformed identity that prevailed. In this way, while Van Til, Murray, and others may have lost the battle, but the war was one. 

Consistent Calvinist

John Muether opens his new biography of Cornelius Van Til by stating that while he was alive, his readers could be separated between those who did not agree with him and those who did not understand him.  All Van Til was trying to accomplish, however, was constructing an ardent defense of the Christian faith that was consistent with his Reformed theology.  This is especially ironic today, as Muether notes, as there are many self-styled "Van Tilians" in mainline and non-Reformed denominations and yet there are also those even within his own denomination (OPC) that are not. Van Til's logic was simple: if we are going to believe all the aspects of Reformed theology, why would we ever want to use an apologetic that was not consistent with, and even detrimental too, historic Calvinism.  

Thus Van Til's "Reformed apologetics" (he was not in favor of attaching his own name to it) were in stark contrast to the "Classical apologetics" that are widely used by Roman Catholics and Evangelicals.  Rather than attempting to find "common ground" with the unbeliever by appealing to autonomous human reason (and thereby validate his or her unbelief), Van Til wanted to confront this unbelieving world with the message: "God has spoken."  Self-consciously a circular argument, Van Tilian thought attempts to undermine the unbeliever's assumptions (or "presuppositions") with a better starting point: the triune God has revealed himself in his word and we would do well to listen.  Muether's main contribution to Van Til studies with his biography is to show how he developed his thoughts, not in some lofty ivory tower, but in the trenches, as it were; that is, in his newly adopted denomination, the OPC.  

Like the great Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck, whose first "Dogmatics" volume was published the year he was born, Van Til was raised in an environment that reflected the two main conservative Dutch Reformed movements: Kuyper's "Doleantie," as well as the "Afscheiding," which had broke away from the state-controlled church years earlier.  Not only did Van Til draw from the Neo-Calvinists from his homeland, but he also had immense respect for the professors at Princeton: J. Gresham Machen, Geerhardus Vos, and B.B. Warfield, who died at the age of 69, the same year Van Til started studies there. 

After earning four degrees in five years at Princeton (ThB, MA, ThM, and PhD!!!), Van Til took a call to minister to a CRC congregation in Spring Lake, MI. This did not last long, however, as he took a position as apologetics professor at Princeton.  This move was consistent with the way he saw his calling as a minister. He felt that every minister, in addition to whatever degrees he has earned, held the most important: "V.D.M." that is "Verbum Dei Minister" (minister of the word of God). So whether he was behind the pulpit or in the seminary classroom or writing in his study, Van Til saw himself a spokesperson for the Triune God.  

When Machen started Westminster seminary, he wanted to establish an institution that would truly continue the "old Princeton" tradition of Alexander, Hodge, and Warfield, and even though he was committed to an Evidencialist apologetic, he knew that Van Til would be a perfect fit.  Van Til had always thought that he would end up teaching at either Calvin College or its seminary (which institutions were ran by his CRC denomination), however, there was something persuasive about Machen and Westminster that caused him to take the position.  Even though Van Til had many invitations to become a professor at Calvin Seminary (where he would have taught alongside of theologian Louis Berkof and New Testament scholar William Hendrikson), he continually decided to stay at Westminster to further its cause.

Had there been a CRC congregation in Philadelphia when Van Til went to Westminster, he and his wife Rena would no doubt have become members there.  When, however, Machen and others were basically kicked out of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and they formed the OPC, Van Til felt it best to join the new denomination as well. Although he maintained lifelong affinities with the CRC, he continued to labor in the OPC to continue to build and strengthen her witness.

How is knowing God like knowing your auto mechanic?

Dr. Esther Lightcap Meek is scheduled to speak at Westminster Seminary in Escondido on Oct. 14 at 10 AM. Dr. Meek is a philosophy professor at Geneva College and she is author of the Book "Longing to Know," a book which deals with the question of how we know what we know (or "epistemology").  Her book is "user-friendly" and she seems to be pretty down-to-earth, so I think that it should be a good lecture to hear for most of us.