Eucharistic Meditations

¹⁴Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. ¹⁵I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. ¹⁶ The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? ¹⁷Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. ¹⁸Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? ¹⁹What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? ²⁰No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. ²¹ You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. ²² Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?   1 Corinthians 10:14-22   ESV

The Lord’s Supper is an occasion to reflect upon the sacrifice that the Lord Jesus Christ made on behalf of His people. When we partake of the bread and wine, we are given assurance of our salvation, and of God’s goodness towards us. But more often than not, we do not think of the Lord’s Supper as a reason to pursue purity and holiness. Let me explain.

When we come to the Lord’s Table, we thank God that He has forgiven us of our sins in Christ, and we commune with Him in our hearts by faith and thanksgiving, and are renewed to live a life worthy of the cross, a life that is holy. But when we come to the Lord’s table we tend to view it as the place where we can come to get cleansed from sin, and renew the terms of the covenant, and then on that basis, we seek to live a holy life. The Lord’s table in a sense becomes the jump off point, or the starting line, the re-starting line from where we take off and begin running the race again. This is good and true, because we always need to be rejuvenated and invigorated, and re-energized to keep running the race, and to keep fighting the good fight of faith. But I think that this passage of Scripture in   1 Corinthians 10 puts a slightly different slant on it.

Paul seems to indicate the opposite view; That the Lord’s Supper is not the starting, or re-starting line, but a finishing line. For Paul, the Lord’s Table is the goal and the reason why we ought to pursue righteousness, and holiness, and brotherly love, and to flee from sin and idolatry, because when we partake of the bread and the wine, we are participants in the body of Christ and in the Blood of Christ. For Paul then, when we eat, we are eating in the presence of Christ himself, which should then spur us on to holiness, so that we do not defile our communion with Christ at His table.

Now the really interesting thing about Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 10 concerning the Lord’s presence, is that he doesn’t even make an argument for it to try and prove his point, but He assumes it. It is a presupposition for Paul, one that serves as the basis of his argument for the Corinthians to not eat the food which is at the tables of the pagan gods, and to not drink of their cups. Why? Because, when they partake of the table of the pagan gods and partake of their cup, they become participants with demons!  What do I mean by “participants”? The NASB translation says, “sharers in demons.” The King James version says, “I would not that ye should have fellowship with demons.” Ah, we can understand the term fellowship. Sometimes after Church, we have meals together, and we talk with one another, and what not. And we call that, “fellowship.” Well Paul is saying to the Corinthians, when you eat at the feasts of pagan tables, in which their foods were sacrificed to idols, you are fellowshipping with demons.

And so, when we eat the bread and drink the wine, we are fellowshipping with Christ, who is indeed there among us. So Paul exhorts the Corinthians to not eat of those tables because demons are there, and Christ is indeed at His table. And, As Paul says, you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. When we do that, we provoke the Lord to jealousy.

But, that is not all. There is indeed something deeper that transpires when we partake of the Bread and wine at the Lord’s Table.

We are not only eating in the presence of Christ who is spiritually and mystically there among us, but we are partaking of Christ Himself and are being united to Him, and He to us. There is a mystical union that takes place between the person and the Lord Jesus. And the only way we can understand this is by way of the Incarnation.

Jesus Christ, through His life and especially His death and resurrection, which was performed in His human nature, in His human body, accomplished all that was necessary for the salvation of mankind. And since Christ worked out our salvation through His human body and human nature, the only way that we humans can receive the benefits of His saving work, is if we come into some kind of communion and union with the human nature, and indeed with the human body of Christ, in which all the work of our salvation was performed and accomplished.

And since it is impossible that we become participants in the benefits of Christ’s saving work without actually becoming participants with His person as well, when we eat the bread and drink the wine, we are engaging in the only way that this union can be attained, by eating His flesh and drinking His blood. And by doing this we are united to Christ Himself, and thus all His saving benefits of the New Covenant are ours.

And what happens when we eat of His flesh and drink His blood? What is the main benefit of the New Covenant? We are given eternal life. The Church is the Body of Christ is she not? And Christ is her head. But like a human body, what is the one thing that Body needs to survive? Blood. The Life of the body is in the blood, as Leviticus 17:11 says. So, Christ’s body, when it was broken, poured forth blood which is for the life of the body. So when we break the bread and drink the wine, we as the one body, because there is one bread, are kept alive spiritually, and are kept in communion with each other and with our Head when we drink the blood of Christ and eat His flesh.

And so, the Eucharist then, should not just be a starting line, but should be for us a finishing line, a goal to look forward to, our ambition to be pleasing unto Him, the aim of our daily lives,  in order to keep us pure, because it is at the Lord’s Table, in the Eucharist, we are actually receiving Christ Himself and His saving benefits via His flesh and blood.

Waters, Light, Darkness – Reflections on Genesis 1:1-7

¹In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. ²The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

The darkness was over the face, or surface of the deep. The deep, or the Abyss, is a simple reference to the ocean, or the seas. This is plain. But the Deep is symbolized later in Scripture as the place of Death, or the grave, or Sheol (Jonah 2). The picture we are given here is a place of “watery” death, and Darkness is what this “watery” death consists of, as well as chaos, confusion, and emptiness (“without form and void”). But above the deep darkness of “watery” death, we have the Spirit of God moving, hovering, providing hope.

³And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

God separates the light from the darkness, and it seems that since the darkness is related to the watery death, the light is related and separated unto to the Spirit of God. The Day then, symbolizes the Spirit of God, and the Night, symbolizes death and Sheol. Paul says in Romans 13:11-14,

¹¹Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. ¹² The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. ¹³ Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. ¹⁴But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

1 Thessalonians 5:4-9 also speaks of Christians as being “children of the light” and “children of the day.”  Here in the very first few verses of Genesis we see that God associates the Spirit of God with the Day and with Light. Daytime and Light are symbols then that God has embedded in His creation to reflect and represent God, particularly God the Holy Spirit.

⁶And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” ⁷And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so.

Notice that God in verse 2, in referring to the waters of the deep refers to it as “the deep”, which darkness is over.   But when discussing the Spirit of God hovering over the water, the water is referred to as “the waters.” There seems to be a difference and a distinction being made here between “the deep” that darkness is over, and “the waters” that the Spirit of God is moving and hovering over. Only when we get to verse 6 do we understand that “the waters”, which is related to the Spirit of God, are both simultaneously on Earth and in Heaven at the same time, and in the same place, i.e., on Earth. Not until the expanse, or firmament is established to separate “the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse”, do we see that “the waters”  were in Heaven and in Earth at the same time. In order for this to be so, Heaven and Earth must have been one before the firmament was created. The firmament therefore symbolizes for us the Transcendence of God, and though mankind has not been created and has not sinned yet in the story, the existence of the firmament also symbolizes the need for the Earth to be made one with Heaven once again. The simple fact that the second day is the only day that was not seen by God as “good” lends credence to such a view

We also are now presented with a picture of the world, one that says that Earth is to be like Heaven. The Spirit of God that moves over “the waters”  is both in Heaven and in Earth, which is now  separated as a result of the firmament being established. I think it would be a grave mistake to think that just because the firmament separated “the waters below” from “the waters above” that the Spirit of God departed only to sphere of “the waters above”, i.e. Heaven.

In Revelation 4:5-6 John is brought to the Throne-room of Heaven, and what does he see?

⁵From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, ⁶and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.

John sees the Spirit of God symbolized by fire, which gives forth light, and He is directly connected to the “sea”. Similarly, Ezekiel, though not taken all the way up into the throne room, sees something very similar. He sees a vision of the Throne-Room of Heaven in chapter 1 of his book,  except from underneath “the waters above”. He properly calls it the expanse, or firmament. He too sees the Light that is connected with the Spirit which is connected with the “waters above”, which is characterized by the expanse

²⁶And above the expanse over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. ²⁷And upward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him. ²⁸Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around.

Finally John closes the Revelation by seeing the restoration of what was true on the very first day of Creation, the reunion of Heaven and Earth.

¹Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ²And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. ⁴ He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

Here we see that with the abolition of the sea, death and the those things that correspond thereunto, are also abolished. The sea, in this respect refers to ” the darkness of the deep.” And since there is no more darkness of the deep, the light will continue to shine forever. But in the New Jerusalem, there is no need for light, which is the symbol of God, for God Himself will be the light, and the symbol will give way to the reality.

²²And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. ²³And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. ²⁴By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, ²⁵and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.

Subdue It and Have Dominion

“We will begin, then, with the creation of the world and with God its Maker, for the first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning. There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation; for the One Father has employed the same Agent for both works, effecting the salvation of the world through the same Word Who made it at first.” ~St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation

From the very beginning of man’s existence, God gave man a special work to do, namely, to have dominion, or rule, over all the creation. Man was originally created for this task, as can be seen in the fact that man was created in the image and likeness of God. In Genesis 1:26-28, after God says, “Let Us make man in Our image after Our likeness” God immediately describes the way in which man is to be like God, and what this image and likeness of God looks like fleshed out in creation, that is, dominion over the whole created order. Psalm 8:6 reiterates this theme when it says, “You have given him (man) dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.” Man, as God’s image bearer, was to carry on the same work as God, by virtue of his created position as king.

But the purpose of kingly rule as was originally intended was not domination, but glorification. We can see in Genesis 2:15 that man was to “cultivate” and “keep” the Garden of Eden. “Cultivate” means “to serve”, and “keep” means “to guard or preserve.” So man, in his position of kingly ruler over the Garden was given dominion over the Garden, which was to be a rule of serving and preserving, glorifying, not destroying. As we will see later, this serving role carries with it priestly duties. Thus man, in the garden, was to rule over it as king, but also serve as priest. Adam’s serving God as priest was manifested in his serving the creation. This concept of king/priest has interesting implications when Scripture introduces Melchizedek, a Priest of God Most High, and King of Salem (Gen. 14:18), who is typological of Jesus Christ.

Along with his Dominion mandate, man was also to subdue the creation. The word “subdue” in Hebrew carries with it the idea that the one being subdued is hostile and fighting against the one attempting to subdue it. According to Harris’ Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, “‘[S]ubdue’ in Gen 1:28 implies that creation will not do man’s bidding gladly or easily and that man must now bring creation into submission by main strength. It is not to rule man. However, there is a twistedness in humanity which causes us to perform such a task with fierce and destructive delight. Try as we might, we cannot subdue this.”

But just as soon as man began his dominion rule, he lost it when Adam, the first man, representative of all mankind after him, disobeyed God, and fell in to sin. He then lost his ability to bring the created world into subjection because the creation was now not only working against him and fighting against him as before, but now the whole created order was cursed, particularly the ground. The ground signified the realm of man’s work, the place that was given over to him for subduing and dominion (Gen. 3:17,18). Man was now subjected to death, and he would be placed back into the ground when he died, the place from which he was originally created. The ground was not only cursed as a result of man’s sin, but the ground, now symbolic of the place of man’s death, now even takes over man’s role of dominion, whereby it now subdues and  has dominion over man in man’s death. Thus, when man dies he is put into the ground, and the ground then, or the grave, the place of death, now rules over man.

According to many theologians, Genesis 1-4 is the foundation to the whole Biblical story. Everything that happens in the Biblical story is an outworking of Genesis 1-4. The major themes are repeated over and over again, but are flushed out more and more as redemptive history keeps moving forward through time. I mention this because I want you to see that along with the mandate given to man to have dominion, there is always a place given to man to work out this dominion. At first it was given to man in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:8).

But after man was kicked out of the Garden, man became broken up in to two groups of people, the Godly line of Seth, and the wicked line of Cain. The Godly line of Seth, the line from which humanity was to be redeemed, came about after the first death was recorded. The wicked line of Cain was the descendants that came after the one responsible for the first death. We can see in this, the foreshadowing of Christ’s death and resurrection which would redeem humanity. Christ the righteous (Abel) was killed by the wicked (Cain), only to have redemption carry on through a new birth, or a “resurrection” (Seth).

We see that as Genesis 4 comes to a close, the blessed man went from a living in a Garden to being cursed and living in a city (Gen. 4:17). This is important because we see throughout Scripture God is always bringing man back into the Garden, restoring his position of dominion. At the same time we see that God’s people are constantly being opposed by those who build cities, (Cain’s city, Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, Egypt, Babylon, etc.)  I mention this strange idea that seemingly has nothing to do with dominion because as we see God bringing his people into cities, and into lands, God’s people transform those cities and lands, and gradually man’s dominion mandate is being restored, and it is often referred to in a manner that is similar to a return to Eden.

Joseph (the man whom God brought into the pagan city, over which he became ruler over all the land [Gen. 41:43]), in order to protect his family from the famine, provides his family the best land in all of Egypt, the land of Goshen (Genesis 45:18; 47:5-6,11,26). We are told that Egypt is even similar to the “garden of the Lord” in Gen. 13:10. Thus we can see God bringing his people to “rule” over the place that is “like the garden of the Lord.” Nonetheless, they are even brought into the very best part of the land, reminiscent of Eden, a mini dominion restoration story.

God then sends Moses to redeem the children of Israel from their bondage to Egypt, and He promises to bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey, another Edenic type land (Joel 2:3). On their journey, God provides them with the Tabernacle. Something interesting to note here is that the Tabernacle entrance was on the east side (Ex. 27:13-16). When man was cast out of the Garden of Eden, he was cast out of the garden from the east, and the cherubim were placed there with flaming swords to guard the tree of life (Gen. 3:24), which is the place where man met with God in communion and fellowship. Now, in the tabernacle, only one man, the high priest, who “served” the Lord in his “priestly” duties once a year, entered into the Holy of Holies, from the east, meeting God at the Ark of the Covenant, which was “protected” by two cherubim (Ex. 25:17-21), signifying a return to the Garden of Eden, the place where man has fellowship and communion with God, the place where God meets his people (Ex. 25:22).

Jesus Christ is now serving in the true tabernacle / temple in Heaven (Heb. 8:1-2) as the Melchizedekian priest (Psalm 110:4; Heb.7), making intercession on behalf of all those who can now draw near to God through Christ as a result of his death and resurrection (Heb. 7:25).

It was through the tabernacle and the giving of the divine law by which the Israelites were to be a kingdom of priests and a light to all the nations. This was to make them a distinct people, but not to be a reason for separatism. God redeemed them and gave them the law so that they might continue the dominion work, the expansion of God’s kingdom, on earth. Dominion was lost in the Garden because God’s Law was broken, therefore the restoration of dominion will carry with it obedience to God’s law, as is promised in the New Covenant (Jer. 31:31; Deut. 30:6; Ezek. 36:25-27).

This return to Eden and the restoration of man’s dominion was amplified even more so when the children of Israel were in the land of promise, the place of dominion, observing the holy festivals that God gave them. For example, during the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths the Children of Israel were told to, on the first day of the week of the celebration “take for yourselves the foliage of beautiful trees, palm branches and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days” (Lev. 23:40). This was to remind them that God was bringing them back into the garden.

Once the Tabernacle was replaced with the Temple, even more Edenic imagery occurs in the construction of the Temple.  In 1 Kings 6:29-36 we are told that Solomon, the King, has built a Temple for the Lord. And inside the Temple is was full of Edenic imagery: “Then he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved engravings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, inner and outer sanctuaries.” Solomon, the Wise King, whose reign was peaceful and full of rest (1 Kings 5:4), symbolizes what a return to the Garden will be like, peace and rest, while David, his kingdom reign was characteristic of war and violence. He fought against the enemies of God, the wicked line of Cain, in order to bring peace to the land, and to establish the Godly kingdom. David fought to bring about peace by killing off the enemies of God and God’s people. And Solomon, once peace was ushered in, brought the people into the presence of God, via the Temple with all of its “back to Eden” imagery.

Even when the Israelites were taken into captivity by the Babylonians, Daniel, who was a Joseph type character who had dreams and interpreted them for the foreign ruler in whose land he was in, brought about restoration even to pagan Babylon. Daniel and his three friends were exalted to ruling positions over Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 2:46-49). But even more importantly, God was exalted among the pagan Babylonians (Dan. 3:29). As a result of Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams which Daniel interpreted, as well as his humiliation, Nebuchadnezzar was converted and was shown “How great are His signs, And how mighty are His wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And His dominion is from generation to generation” (Dan. 4:3, 34). Babylon, which at that time was considered to be the kingdom of kingdoms on the earth, was shown that another kingdom was to come, and this kingdom, with all of its dominion restoration and ever increasing rule was coming with it.

In Daniel 2 and 7, two visions are given. In chapter 2, Daniel interprets a dream for Nebuchadnezzar in which he interprets a huge statue as symbolic of four kingdoms (2:31-45). The statue is destroyed by a “stone cut from a mountain without hands.” It was symbolic of another kingdom, that would never be destroyed. “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever” (Dan. 2:44-45).

A similar vision is given in chapter 7, except this time the four kingdoms are represented by four beasts. The four kingdoms are Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.“As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but an extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time.  13 “I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him.  14 “And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed” (Dan. 7:12-14). Here we see that not only is a new kingdom coming, but a new king, who is referred to as the “Son of Man.”  This king is given, by God, the Ancient of Days, dominion, everlasting dominion in which all peoples, nations, and languages would serve him. And his kingdom will never pass away.

I pause here to collect our thoughts about all that we have seen thus far. The concept of dominion in intrinsically connected with the garden, and a return to Eden, i.e. New Creation. Also God’s kingdom and priestly serving is all intertwined. I have not said all that could have been said, but I feel that I have sufficiently provided thus far the foreshadowing and typology that Scripture lays out for us, which is, as Our Lord Jesus spoke to those two men on the road to Emmaus, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27). And so, I shall at this time do the same.

Jesus Christ is the Second or Last Adam. He is the true image of God (Col. 1:15), the true Man. Just as man was given dominion and kingship over the creation, Colossians tells us that Christ was the one who not only created all other dominions, and thrones, and rulers, but that he created them for himself. I quoted Ps. 8:6 earlier to show that man was given dominion and that all things were put under his feet. This idea of “having all things put under feet,” is extremely kingly, as can be seen by the fact that it is directly related to Christ’s reign as King in 1 Cor. 15:27. In this verse Paul quotes Psalm 8:6 (and alludes to Psalm 110:1 earlier in verse 25), and reinterprets it/them to show that by nature of Christ’s resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God, all things are now put in subjection under his feet. Jesus Christ is the true King over all creation and has restored humanity back to his original position as kings, hence we are told that we will “reign with him” (2 Tim. 2:12; Rev. 5:10).

Man was created to be a king/priest to serve God, but as a result of the fall and death, he forfeited that role. Jesus Christ, as a result of his resurrection and defeat of death, now occupies that very same position that we lost. The upshot of his resurrection and ascension, Jesus Christ is now seated at the right hand of the Father, reigning as the Davidic King over all his enemies (Acts 2:22-36; 1 Cor. 15:22-26), who, like his father David, destroyed, except he did this via his death and resurrection (John 12:31; Col. 2:15).

In the garden we saw that man not only ruled as king, but served as priest. Hebrews 7 tells us that Psalm 110 is to be interpreted Christologically, and therefore when Ps. 110:4 says, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek,” we are being told that as a result of Christ living forever, via his resurrection and ascension, he is now occupying the position of the Eternal King / High priest. But he has also “made [us] to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and [we] will reign upon the earth.” Our position of serving God and the creation is restored in Christ, and we are to, as before, glorify and not destroy the creation. Our attitude toward the creation shows our attitude toward God, for he gave us dominion over the creation as a means of serving Him. If we, in our duty to subdue the creation “perform such a task with fierce and destructive delight,” and end up destroying it and polluting it, and exhausting its resources, and if we lack the wisdom and the know how to worship God by means of our dominion mandate, then we are returning back to our position of post fall man, and render the work of Christ meaningless, and we inevitably are spurning the work of God by not recognizing our “newness.”

We are told in Romans 8:19-23 that “the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Some people think that because the earth is going to be burned up in the end before the New Heavens and New Earth are ushered in, that caring for the environment is pointless and futile. But I believe that since we have been restored to our original position as kings and priests over the creation, even though the fullness thereof will be fulfilled in the New Heavens New Earth, I believe we will be doing the same thing there, so we should also be doing the same thing here not only as preparation, but to symbolize that we are redeemed people of a new creation restored back to our dominion mandate. I feel that by caring for the environment and by glorifying our surroundings we are glorifying God and acting like Him, and are living out our being created as the image of God, i.e. dominion over the creation as king priests.

Where the first Adam fell and brought death, the Last Adam, Jesus Christ, through his death and resurrection, like that of the story of Cain and Abel and Seth, brought life and restoration and redemption (Rom. 5:17). By virtue of Christ’s resurrection in particular, we can see that, just as death and the grave had dominion over man, Jesus Christ now has dominion over death and the grave, for Rom. 6:9 says, “We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.” And since we are now in Christ, death no longer has dominion over us. Yeah, we still die physically, but there will be a day when Christ will raise us up into glorified bodies, so that we can live and reign forever with Him in / as the “garden city” of the Heavenly Jerusalem (Rev. 21:10; 22:5).

In summary, we can see that man’s original created purpose was to glorify God by serving the creation and glorifying the creation. In effect, man was to turn the whole world into Eden. Man’s role of dominion over the creation was lost when Adam sinned, and the ground, the place of man’s work then had dominion over man in man’s death. God promised to redeem man, and throughout the Bible gave mini-redemption stories and used a lot of imagery which carried a lot of Edenic imagery, representing God was restoring man back to his original state. Jesus Christ came, defeated death, restored the image of God in man, reversed the curse of the fall by becoming a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). He resurrected from the dead, taking dominion away from the grave. He ascended to the right hand of God where he now reign as the Davidic King, and serves as High Priest to God for His people. He has everlasting Dominion as the Son of Man and his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. His people therefore, through Christ, are now restored back to their position as king/priests on the earth and are to serve God via dominion over all creation since Christ made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God and Father. In short, Christ is bringing in the New Creation (2 Cor. 5:17), and therefore we, as new creations, are to live accordingly, and are to reign and serve as kings and priests to our God and Father by virtue of our union with Christ, the Second Adam.

Bibliography

Chilton, David. Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion. Horn Lake, MS: Dominion Press, 2007.

Jordan, James B. Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World.Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt Pub, 1988.

Irreconcilable Paradoxes

So in this clip, at 1:00, Pastor Mark Kielar stresses that Pastors and Teachers who claim that in Scripture there are Paradoxes that are not reconcilable “even by the human regenerate mind!”, are just tip toeing around the blatantly obvious conundrum that they want to so desperately avoid, and that is saying the Bible has Contradictions. According to Pastor Mark Kielar, if you make the claim that the Bible teaches two different things that the human mind cannot seem to reconcile, like that of Predestination and Human Responsibility, and claim these are not just paradoxes (an appearent contradiction that can be reconciled) but an Irreconcilable Paradox (an appearant contradiction that cannot be reconciled by the human mand, but can be by God), then, well you must be advocating Contradiction. Why is that Pastor Kielar? Oh yeah, that’s right, because any one who makes the claim that the Bible teaches (6:20) “two opposite truths which are both taught in Scripture, without error in the Infallible word of God, and are yet unable to be reconciled by the bar of human reason until we get to Heaven, is a contradiction itself.” So if my finite, and sin affected mind, despite being regenerate, cannot reconcile how God can be both 1 and 3, I MUST be advocating a contradiction, because the bar by which one is to determine the truthfulness of a doctrine in Scripture is not at all by the Infinite Wisdom of the Triune God, but, as Pastor Kielar says, by the bar of human reason. And if you cannot measure up to that bar, that infinitly high bar of human reason that God Almighty must ascend to in order to make sure that His creatures perfectly know and understand all that there is to know about Him, then you must be one of those stupid Van Tillians. God forgive me for thinking that the bar of reason which I was to appeal to was not my own fallen, finite, and time bound reason, but yours, the Infinite, and Eternal Wisdom of Yahweh. Please forgive me Lord for advocating that non-sense that the Apostle Paul muddered in that silly letter to the Romans:

Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom, and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways!

“For who has known the mind of the Lord,                                                    or who has been His Counselor?”

Perhaps Pastor Mark Kielar is up for the position of being God’s Counselor, or maybe an even better candidate would be John Robbins, or better yet, Gordon Clark! Oh, that’s right, Clark is in Heaven right now as we speak setting God straight, letting Him know how He has fallen short of the bar of Human Reason. Oooohhh God, you’re in trouble!!!!

Always Learning and Never Able to Arrive at a Knowledge of the Truth

Some people claim, mostly Deists, that we just simply cannot know the Truth about God because of who He is. He is Infinite, and we are finite; He is Pure, and we are sinful. Our fallen sinful human minds cannot understand the truth about God, and even if we could, even to the smallest degree, we are so corrupt that the message of who God is would get twisted by sinful man and then be used in such a way as to exploit people and make them slaves. These kind of people often have a very anti-government sentiment about them, not trusting any authority figures or powers, seeing them as the  manifestation of Big Brother, The Man, The System, The Beast, whatever they might label government, their attitude is self evident. Government cannot be trusted. Be Aware!

I have a friend who is very much like this, and I write this post in light of some of things that him and I have been discussing. Now what is so ironic about this is, that in rejecting the authority of the Bible, for it has been corrupted by man, and therefore is not trustworthy, authoritative, or a reliable source of divine Wisdom, he has set himself up as that very same authority that he so despises. He has now claimed for himself an attribute that he downright denies the possibility of existing anywhere else, especially in the Bible.

Allow me to demonstrate: He says that God, and Absolute Truth cannot be known because we are too sinful. But is he not making a claim concerning the Absolute Truth that he has already dismissed in his foundational presupposition? Has he not already said that mankind cannot know Absolute Truth? If that is the case, is it possible that we can actually know anything at all? If we can’t know the Truth, then what can we know? And how can we know that we can’t know the Truth? Does this not require an absolute knowledge concerning God’s revelation, a knowledge that is actually impossible to know according to his own presupposition?

Or allow me to say it like this: “Man cannot know God.” In order for this statement to be considered as true, my friend would have to possess all knowledge, or simply have access to all knowledge, i.e., God would have to reveal that truth to him. But since he already said that man cannot know God, he cannot know for sure that man cannot know God. He has shot himself in the intellectual foot, so to say.

All we can know, according to him, is our own experiences. But our own individual experiences cannot dictate to us the Truth, because so many people have so many different experiences. That would mean there could be more than one Truth. If there is more than one Truth, then wouldn’t my friend be a hypocrite for opposing the government who exploits and enslaves and manipulates people? I mean, he is trying to hold them to a standard that “he feels” is right and wrong according to his experience. But if the government is doing what they believe is right, according to their experience, then why is that wrong? If my friend seeks to hold the government accountable for their crimes, doesn’t he have to hold them to a standard of right and wrong that transcends all and that all men are accountable to? And where does he get that standard? From his own experience? Then we are back in the same boat again, for they could arrest him and say that he is an enemy of the State because he is opposing what they feel is the best for them and is most conducive to the benefit  of their experience, which dictates to them the truth.

Since my friend has a gripe against government for their “sins”, and believes that they should be held accountable to that very standard of right and wrong that he employs, he obviously does have a standard of right and wrong that does not generate from within himself and from his own experience, but from outside of himself, and is transcendent. This is his experience, is it not? Now if the truth is known by experience, then his experience now dictates to him that there is a transcendant standard or morality that is binding upon all men. Now the question is, what is that standard, and where does it come from? Historically people have claimed “Natural Law” as their basis for knowing right and wrong. That God created the universe to act in such a way, as well as mankind, that all men know instinctively what is right and wrong. This  is self evident. All we have to do is apply some reason, and we can know what the right and the wrong is.

But not all men reason the same. Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, they all “reasoned” their way to killing hundreds of millions of people. So then, if their reasoning is flawed, doesn’t that also then mean that there are transcendent Laws of Logic as well? And to what do they comport with? How do we know them?  Well these questions are getting a little further away from the topic than I intended. Suffice it to say that all these answers can be absolutely found in the Ontologial Trinity (see Ralph Allen Smith’s book, Trinity and Reality: An Introduction to the Christian Faith. Canon Press: Moscow, 2004).

So what is my point? That my friend does not have all his ducks in a row, to say the least. He has denied the possibility that men can know God, and yet his very experience, which he prizes and esteems so highly, necessitates that God has indeed revealed something about Himself, namely His Righteous Character and Nature, for that is the very thing that mankind sins against. To sin is to fall short of the Perfect Character and Nature of God Himself. And since my friend believes that sin is the reason we can’t know God and the Truth about God, we have another internal contradiction in his thinking, because sin, as I just said, is man’s deviation from God’s self revelation of His own Righteous Character and Nature to mankind. He has at the same time, rejected the possibility of God revealing Himself to man, because of the self revelation of God to man.

This is why the Incarnation of Jesus Christ is so important. Jesus Christ, accurately, truly, clearly, reveals to mankind the Truth about God. Jesus Christ, unlike sinful man, is sinless, and is not from below, not bound to the finite understandings and knowledge of mankind, but He is from above, and possesses Infinite knowledge of all things, especially who His Father is (John 8:12-20). Since He is God, He cannot lie. So whatever Jesus Christ testifies to concerning whatever, it is True. And as such, His testimony is binding upon all men. All men are required to heed the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, for He speaks with Absolute Authority over the whole creation, and that includes individuals, families, companies, schools and universities, and civil government, etc. He has laid down His perfectly righteous laws that all men are required to obey. His laws are Just, and His rule is just, and righteous, and good. He is the Good Shepherd, the Prince of Peace, it is a good and gracious thing to be under His authority and to be led into the ways of truth, which are like rivers of pure water that refresh the soul. It is a glorious thing to have the mind of Christ and to be able to think God’s thoughts after Him, and to see the world for what it is, and to know that there are true God given answers to the worlds problems. I thank God that this is so.

Now my friend, on the other hand, he yearns for this, and wishes this were true. His passions and desires are to see men come to a knowledge of the truth, and to see the wicked punished, and the righteous prosper. He yearns for beauty to flourish in all areas of life, and to see humanity be united. But the sad fact is, he has rejected the only standard of truth, beauty, and goodness that Truly exists, and rejected the very possibility that there could ever be true unity (which is found ultimately in the Trinity, and is manifested in the Church, which isthe Body of Christ). He is always learning, and nevr able to come to a knowledge of the truth (2 Tim. 3:7), because He has rejected the source of all knowledge, which is the fear of the LORD (Prov. 1:7). And he will never be able to come to the beginning of knowledge or wisdom, because he rejects the idea that man can know God (which is also to reject the ability of God to reveal Himself to man). To know God is to fear Him. And since he says He cannot know God, he cannot fear God, and therefore, he cannot know anything Truly. A sad state to be in, especially for one who is seeking to become a teacher. What good is a teacher who cannot even account for how he knows anything to be true at all, since his whole presupposition excludes the possibility of knowing the only One who knows The Truth about everything.

The Imago Dei and Homosexuality

“The Imago Dei and Homosexuality”

by Michael Shover

Outline

1. Introduction
2. Authority of Scripture
   1. Common Ground – God is Creator and Definer
   2. Total Depravity
   3. The Ever-Continuing Relevance and Binding Nature of the Law of God as Revealed in the Older and Newer Testaments.
3. The Imago Dei
   1. Male and Female
   2. Family, Dominion, and Society
   3. The Fall and Redemption
   4. Christ and His Church
4. Homosexuality in the Bible, and it’s Arguments Considered
   1. Sodom and Gomorrah
   2. Leviticus 18 & 20
   3. Romans 1
5. Conclusion
6. A Final Appeal

I. Introduction

The issue of homosexuality in the Church is one that does not seem to be leaving anytime soon.  I have thus decided to comment briefly on the issue in this paper, discussing in particular, how homosexuality is incompatible with the image of God in man, the Imago Dei.  There is nothing that stirs my soul into anguish more than the claims of those people who profess to be Christian, as well as Christian Churches and denominations, and yet espouse such a view as to purport that homosexuality is perfectly ethical, moral, and even Biblical in nature, and thus it is to be accepted as if it has the approval and sanction of God Himself.  Not only so, but to oppose such a view a person would be heaping upon themselves the condemnation of God Himself, because those whom He has created and loves, are being rejected by the very people who carry His name.  The whole situation has been turned upside down.  That which is bad, is considered to be good, and that which is good, is bad.  Right is wrong, and wrong is right, and it is all being done under the guise of “Christian Acceptance” and “Tolerance.”  These arguments must be dealt with Biblically, accurately, and with charity, with an outlook to soften the heart and to call people to repentance; not to the hardening of the heart that would lead people further into a lifestyle that is contrary to nature, the law of God, the betterment of society and culture, and the expansion of God’s Kingdom on Earth. By God’s grace I hope to accomplish such a task in this paper.

In this paper I am going to interact with the arguments of those people who profess to be Christians, and at the same time homosexual.[1] Before I begin, some preliminary ground work must be laid.  First, it must be understood that the Christian’s final authority ought to be the Word of God as is revealed in the Older and Newer Testaments.  Secondly, in light of the first premise, the Imago Dei must be considered and discussed in a positive manner, i.e., expressing in the affirmative what the Imago Dei is.  Also, how the Imago Dei was corrupted by the fall of humanity into sin, the restoration of the Imago Dei in the individual via union with Christ, and how the marriage relationship of man and woman represents a higher truth, namely that of the relationship of Christ to His Church, will also be discussed.  Thirdly, certain texts of Scripture will be examined that speak on the issue of homosexuality, and the arguments for the pro-homosexual position will be considered, analyzed, and evaluated as we go through these texts one by one.  Finally an appeal will be made to the “Christian Homosexual Community” and the denominations that support and defend it as being Biblically sanctioned.

Again, it is my desire that all this will be done in charity, love and respect. Charity, love and respect first towards God and His perfect and holy revealed Law-Word. Then from that first foundation, all genuine charity, love, and respect flows forth toward my fellow Image-bearers who have been impacted on every level of their existence by sin, and who need to trust in the grace of our God and Savior Jesus Christ for redemption, just as I and the rest of humanity.  For me to demonstrate any such charity, love, and respect that would be founded upon any other basis than love towards God, would only serve to illustrate that such virtues would be disingenuous and man centered, and would not be glorifying to God. God forbid I do such a thing.  Soli Deo Gloria.

II. Authority of Scripture

Being that this issue is one that is between professed Christians, the sole foundation upon which we are to judge all our arguments, experiences, feelings, rationale, and inclinations, is the Bible.  This is where the battle ground is, and where the war is being fought.  This is why we must strive for hermeneutical precision and accuracy, taking into account all that has been revealed, in both the Older and Newer Testaments.  We must be consistent and see to it that our foundation is based on the solid rock of God’s unchangeable Word.  What God has revealed to us concerning the character and nature of Himself, mankind, creation, sin, redemption, ethics, sexuality, and all other things, has to be based upon what God alone has revealed to us, and not what we think or how we think things ought to be.  God is the only one who has perfect knowledge of all things, and that would include our present study concerning the Image of God in Man, and the nature of human sexuality.  God’s wisdom must be heard and heeded if we are going to live in His world with His Divine covenantal blessings upon us.  The authority and infallibility of His Word must be regarded in this matter as of first importance.  Any deviation from this foundation will lead us into complete and utter foolishness, and will bring us under the wrath of Almighty God.  

God is Creator and Definer

The first thing is first, and that is this: God is the Creator of male and female, and as such, He alone has the authority and He only has the say as to what it means for humans to be male or female.  God alone is the architect of gender, as well as sexuality, and the sexual relations that occur between these two genders of male and female, and what the intended purposes for sexual relations should be.  In short, we know that whatever it is that we do here on earth, we are to do all for the glory of God.  In light of that, we must know what it is He has said is good and well pleasing to Him, as well as what is good and healthful for us His creatures.  God is the one who determines right and wrong, and any failure to obey God is an attempt to establish our own standards of right and wrong, which is to set ourselves up as God.  This is the original sin that the Serpent tempted Eve with, telling her “You shall be as God knowing (or, determining for yourself what constitutes) good and evil” (Gen. 3:5).[2] Greg Bahnsen explains it like this:

The Creator gives created things their essential identity and function and defines man’s proper relationships.  Man’s sexual function has been defined by God as male-female behavior.  This fact refutes the claims of homosexual apologists who say that all human beings have the right to self-definition.  Such an existential rationale (existence preceding freely chosen essence) reflects an autonomous desire to replace God’s intended distinctions and created design for man with the relativistic will of the creature, who would be worshipped as his own creator.[3]

It is this very sin that caused all humanity to now fall into sin, which is the second issue that must be dealt with.

Total Depravity

Sin is transgression of God’s holy law.  We as human beings who now live after Adam are born into a state of sin.  It is not that we simply do various kinds of sins, but the reason and the foundation that we do these sins is because we are sinners by nature.  We all have been born as sinners, and thus, we are born from the womb with an aversion toward God and His laws, and an inclination toward sin.  Some would attempt to doubt this, but the Scripture affirms this truth in numerous places.  David himself proclaims that he was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did his mother conceive him (Ps. 51:5).  St. Paul describes humanities plight when he declares that even before the law of Moses was given, sin was in the world, because sin came into the world through Adam, and as a result of sin, death came (physical and spiritual death, i.e. separation from God), and so death spread to all men, because of which, all men now sin (Rom. 5:12).  Because Adam sinned, physical and spiritual death spread to all men.  As a result of spiritual death, i.e., separation from fellowship and communion with God, all men now by nature sin and are sinners.  Thus, we are sinners by nature.  Isaiah also affirms this horrible truth when he tells us that our sins have separated us from God, so that His face is now hidden from us (Isa. 59:2).  Jeremiah lamentably decries the horrible condition of man’s heart when he informs us that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9).  This is completely in line with the condition of man before the flood of Noah, that every thought and intention of man’s heart was only evil continually (Gen. 9:5).

The importance of a proper Biblical knowledge of sin is paramount for the discussion.  We must lay the foundation of God’s Law-Word as the authoritative standard for humanity because our whole being has been affected by sin.  As R.J. Rushdoony has accurately said,

Every aspect of man’s being is affected and governed by sin.  Mind and body, reason and emotion, will, sexuality, and all things else are changed, altered, and warped by the fall…To ignore this fact is to sentence ourselves to impotence in dealing with men.  We will then trust in our reason, or in some other humanistic idea of common ground, rather than in the effectual word of our sovereign God.[4]

It is this very outcome that we should seek to avoid at all costs.  Because our whole being has been affected by sin, our definitions of what is right and wrong, good and evil, pleasing and abhorrent, must come from Him who is perfectly good, holy, pleasing, and who always does what is right because He alone is the standard for what He decrees to be such.

The Law of God Revealed in Both Older And Newer Testaments

Scripture is replete with God’s commands. It is noted that there are 613 laws in the Older Testament.  All 613 laws reflect in some shape, way, or form the character of a completely holy God who, by nature, hates sin and loves purity.  Now in this current debate, the issue of homosexuality is dealt with in the Older Testament by looking specifically to the account of Sodom and Gomorrah and Leviticus 18 and 20.  We will investigate these passages in due time, but suffice it to say for now, that the way these passages are handled by the homosexual provides a way for escape so that they can then flee to Jesus.  The argument is then made that Jesus never even brought up the issue of homosexuality therefore it could not have been that important.[5] The implication of such an argument is obvious, Jesus is not against homosexuality, and therefore Christians shouldn’t be either.  Such an attempt to “de-contextualize” Jesus and make Him the product of some kind of modern day Gnosticism where the Older Testament and the Newer Testament are dichotomized to the effect that there is no continuity of message, in some kind of Marcion-like manner, does violence to the veracity, perspicuity, and perpetuity of God’s Word and strips Jesus of His reason for coming to Earth in the first place.

Let us now briefly consider a few of the Bible’s teachings about the character and nature of God and His word.  First we must note that God is Immutable and Unchangeable (Mal. 3:6; Heb. 6:17; James 1:17), and so is His Law (Isa. 40:8; Ps. 111:7-8; Matt. 5:18).  God is Holy (Lev. 11:44; 1 Pet. 1:15f) and so is His Law (Mic. 6:8; Rom. 7:12, 16; 1 Tim. 1:18). God is Perfect (32:4; Matt. 5:48), and so is His Law (Ps. 18:30; 19:7; 119:160; James 1:25).  God is Good (2 Chron. 5:13; 30:18; Ezra 3:11; Ps. 100:5), and so is His Law (Rom. 7:16; 1 Tim. 1:18).   As a matter of fact, God is so good that His goodness is the reason He instructs sinners in the way of His law (Ps. 25:8-10). Thus, to perform that which is always good, holy, and perfect, we must seek to obey all of God’s commands. God’s Law is forever binding since they will endure forever (Ps. 119:152, 160), and because of which, it must be understood that nothing could ever be subtracted or abrogated from the law of God (Deut. 4:2; Matt. 5:17).

Just in case some people would be tempted to make the argument that the Mosaic Law was only binding for ancient Israel, and thus Gentiles are not obligated to obey it, let us take note that in the Older Testament God holds non-Israelite nations accountable for breaking His Law and being wicked.[6]

Interestingly, the first place we see the word “wicked” being used is in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Other nations and non-Israelite peoples were condemned as “wicked” and worthy of judgment as well when they broke God’s law.  God cast out the pagan peoples in Canaan because they practiced divination, sorcery, fortune telling, etc (Deut. 18:9-14).  God pronounces judgment on Babylon in Isaiah 13, and even declares that He will “punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity” (13:11).  God tells Joel to prophecy against the nations for trading Israel’s boys into prostitution, which is a violation of Deut. 23:17.  Jonah proclaimed God’s judgment to Nineveh, and by God’s grace they repented. There are more examples, but I think these examples prove the point sufficiently enough to show that God held non-Israelite nations accountable to His Law.  And if one were then tempted to argue that the Church is not “under the law but under grace”[7], let that person look to the New Testament and he will see that there are commands here as well. The Bible is one book, in unity, and it is not to be chopped up in order that one might find reason to support their antinomian tendencies.[8]

And if it is not clear enough, Paul tells us in Romans 3:19 that the law holds those accountable who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world would be held accountable to God! This is because the world learns righteousness when God’s judgments are in the world (Isa. 26:9). When God reveals His Law and He judges law breakers, God’s righteous standard is revealed. This is in agreement with Deuteronomy 4:6-8, which states that Israel was given the law so that the surrounding nations would see the wisdom of their righteous statutes, rules, and laws. This principle is carried right on over in the Newer Testament when Jesus gives the Great Commission and declares that, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded  you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20). The principle is the same in the New as in the Old. That is because there is continuity between the testaments, and not discontinuity. Everything that is commanded in the Older Testament is carried over into the Newer Testament, unless otherwise expressly stated, such as Sabbath keeping (Col. 2:16-17).

Therefore to entertain the notion that: “Because Jesus never spoke of homosexuality, it must not be that important” is an improper handling of God’s Word.  Jesus Himself declared that He did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.  Not one jot or tittle of the Law will pass away until all is accomplished. Accordingly then, anyone who annuls[9] even the least of the commandments, or even teaches others to annul them is considered the least in the kingdom of heaven. On the opposite side is the affirmative:  Anyone who does the least of the commandments and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  Greg Bahnsen has maybe the best exegetical study of Matthew 5:17-19 in his book Theonomy in Christian Ethics, in which he says this:

A technical analysis of Matthew 5:17-19 can secure a proper understanding of its teaching.  Mh. nomi,shte is a prohibition (expressed by means of an aorist subjunctive and the negative); it means “do not think.”  If Christ’s enemies had basely slandered Him by stating that His teachings were at variance with the Law this is not indicated in the text, for the aorist tense gives the verb an aggressive force: “do not (begin to) think,” as opposed to “stop thinking” (which would require prohibition expressed in the present tense).  The implication is that Christ knew the danger that His hearers or scribal opponents might misunderstand or willfully distort His doctrine of the law, so He commands them not even to start thinking that the Messiah abrogates the law.[10]

Geerhardus Vos also succinctly summarizes Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount when he states:

He once more made the voice of the Law the voice of the living God, who is present in every commandment, so absolute in his demands, so personally interested in man’s conduct, so all-observant that the thought of yielding to him less than the whole inner life, the heart, the soul, the mind, the strength, can no longer be tolerated.  Thus quickened by the Spirit of God’s personality, the law becomes in our Lord’s hands a living organism…[11]

It must then be made perfectly clear before we proceed into the next section of this paper, that any claim made by the homosexual that, because Jesus did not speak of homosexual behavior he did not think it was important, is an attempt to not only annul the commandment of God in his favor to give him allowance to continue his sinful acts, but is also an attempt to make Jesus say and do the exact opposite thing that He claimed to do. Jesus Christ did not arise in a historical vacuum. He came from a lineage that has its historical roots all the way back to Adam and on through the patriarchs, and right on through Israel, through David down until the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4). Jesus stands in the long line of the history of God’s law in the world, as one who came to fulfill every last jot and tittle of it, not to abrogate it and invalidate it. He is the end of the Law, the telos, the goal which the end was pointing and moving to, not so that it could be done away with, but so that, in fulfillment of the New Covenant, He would send the Holy Spirit to live within His people, and to cause them to walk in His statutes, to be careful to obey His rules (Ezek. 36:27), by writing His law on their hearts (Jer. 31:33) so that they might live wholly unto God. Jesus even told us, that if we loved Him we would keep His commandments (John 14:15). And those who keep Jesus’ Commandments will be loved by the Father, and Jesus promises to manifest Himself to them. St. John also encourages us with these words,

Let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as He is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning since the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.[12]

One of the worst ways we cannot love our brothers is by teaching them that what is wrong is right, and that the commandments of God are null and void. Jesus said that whoever causes even a little child to sin, it would be better for him to have a millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea (Matt. 18:6)! The words of Jesus are full of commands to abstain from sin and to press on toward holiness, even to the point of taking drastic measures to ensure that sin does not ensnare a person. As such is Jesus’ teaching in Matt. 18:8-9, wherein He states:

If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire.  If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell.

With such drastic and explicit teaching on the nature and devastating effects that sin has, and the measures one would do well to take in order to avoid such sins, it is utterly remarkable to me, that those people who call themselves Christian, and yet read the very words of Him whom they are named after, heed not His commands.  How can one call Jesus Lord and not obey Him? Or even worse, how can one call Jesus Lord and diametrically oppose the clear teachings of Jesus, and then commence to instruct others in the same way?

III. Imago Dei

Man was created in the image of God. There have been many inquiries into the doctrine of the Imago Dei, and what exactly that means.[13] In this section I am going to give my own understanding of what the Imago Dei is, by seeking to derive my understanding chiefly from the text of sacred Scripture.

Male and Female

The first thing to note in Genesis 1 when God first creates man, He states, “Let Us make man (singular) in Our image after Our likeness. And let them (plural) have dominion…”[14] Also, in verse 27 it says,

So God created man in His own image,

in the image of God He created him (singular);

male and female He created them (plural).

The point I wish to make here is simple. When looking at these two verses in Genesis chapter 1, we see that the image of God in man (or human kind) consists of not just the individual male, or the individual female, but both male and female together make up the image of God in man (human kind). That is why God says in verse 26, “Let Us make man (human kind, singular) in Our image…”, and then goes on to describe what the function of the image of God in humanity will look like displayed in the world (i.e. dominion), in which He then describes by first saying “them” (plural). The text then says it again in verse 27, showing that man (human kind) in God’s image consists of male and female.  Thus, God’s image in human kind, for our sake here in this paper, is to be understood firstly as male and female together, unity in diversity, or an expression of the one and the many.[15] This is the first thing that we need to see in order to get a proper understanding of what proper biblical sexuality is to look like, and the purposes for it in God’s world, which is what we will look at next.

Family, Dominion, Society, and Culture

The proper role and purpose for which God created male and female together should seem obvious; procreation.  Immediately after God created man as male and female, He blessed them. After He blessed them He commanded them saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion…”  In this command, we can see very clearly that the main purpose for humanity in the world was to live out the Imago Dei by being creators of life. God is the ultimate Creator, but He gave mankind the ability to create life as well, under Him.  And so, the very first command is to procreate. “Be fruitful and multiply.”  The command is not to just multiply though, but to be fruitful.  Before man can even obey the command to multiply, he must be endowed with the ability to multiply, and so God says, “Be fruitful.”  He gave man, male and female together the ability to procreate, and then issued the command to perform what He had given them the ability to do. This is the first thing that must be acknowledged in this section of our discussion.

The implications of this are as plain as day. Homosexuals cannot perform either of these tasks. God cannot make two males or two females “fruitful.” This is not how He designed the created order. Multiplication relies on fruitfulness. The ability to bring forth fruit is not possible in homosexual relationships, and as such, the command to multiply is then disregarded, broken, and left undone.  Homosexuals cannot even perform the most basic functions of human activity as God created it, and as such, they are in sin and rebellion against the very first of the commands of God.

The issue of the sinfulness of the homosexual’s inability to procreate should not be diminished and the guilt then transferred by appealing to heterosexual couples who do not have the ability to have children.  A woman or a man might not be able physically to have children due to impotence or some other physiological and biological problem. This is a tragedy due to the effects of sin. The person who has this problem is a victim of sin in this case, and is not guilty of committing the sin of unfruitfulness.  The Heterosexual who is not able to procreate does not break God’s law by their inability.  But the homosexual is guilty of the sin of unfruitfulness because he/she purposefully put him/herself in the position of not having the ability to multiply by purposefully rebelling against the created order, which God Himself blessed.  So then, their sin is actually two-fold; (1) purposefully acting against the blessing of God to be fruitful by turning it into a curse, which then, (2) makes the command to multiply an impossibility.  This sin is heinous in God’s sight not just because of the two mentioned sins alone but also because of the purposes that God had in view for procreation, namely, the cultural mandate as through the medium of the family.

What is the purpose of family? To populate the earth with people, and to fulfill the cultural mandate. God gave the command to “subdue the earth and have dominion.”[16] He also placed Adam in the garden to “work it and keep it.”[17] This is a priestly aspect. Man is given a role to rule over the earth as king in his dominion, and also to perform the work of a priest and to keep it holy and preserve it.  God wants the world to be filled not only with people who exist, not for their own purposes and who live according to their own standards, but for the chief end of glorifying and enjoying Him above all else and are dedicated to living according to His purposes, but also institutions, organizations, governments, relationships, arts and sciences, and etc.  This dedication to God is to be reflected in every single area of life and every single place on earth. Man in his priestly capacity was to spread the Garden of Eden throughout the whole world, making the whole world aestheticly pleasing and God-honoring.[18] This is known as the Cultural, or Dominion Mandate.

Why did God give this command to Adam and Eve? Well, for the same reason, ultimately, that He does everything else: for His own glory. God’s glory is that beautiful, intense light that shines out from Him when He makes Himself visible to human beings. In the beginning, God created us as His “image and glory” (1 Cor. 11:7). So He wanted Adam’s family to spread that glory through the whole world. Adam was not to rule merely for himself, but for God, glorifying God in all he did. So culture is based on a divine command. Adam must develop culture because that is God’s desire. Culture is for God’s sake. So it is subject to God’s commands, God’s desires, God’s norms, God’s values.[19]

So if the cultural mandate is for the purpose of glorifying God in society, and everyone is commanded to do so, then it can be accurately understood that the homosexual is not fulfilling that commission, but is working against it. The homosexual community is directly breaking God’s commands in this regard because they are advocating a position that is directly contrary to God’s purposes, not only in marriage, but in culture.  In lobbying the state and federal governments, as well as churches and other organizations, and requesting “tolerance” and “equality” and “rights”, the homosexual community is performing a perverted form of the dominion and culture mandate.  Homosexuals are taking what God has blessed and are turning it into a curse.  “It is scandalous to suggest that men can enter the kingdom or promote its ends in society while rebelling against the standards of the King.”[20] God will not bless the land that does not abide by His rules and does not seek to live under His blessings. Notice that the effects that sin brought to the creation after the first curse were primarily in the sphere or realm where the cultural/dominion mandate was to take place; over the land: “cursed is the ground because of you…thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.”[21]

The implications of this are terrifying.  If the homosexual community continues seeking to develop their own cursed cultural mandate, then we would do well to pay attention to the words of Hebrews 10:26-31, which are terrifyingly fitting for this situation:

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,  ²⁷ but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.  ²⁸ Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.  ²⁹ How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?  ³⁰ For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” And again, “the Lord will judge his people.”  ³¹ It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Redemption in Christ

Adam was created a king. He was to subdue the earth and have dominion over it. His kingship, however, was not absolute; Adam was a subordinate ruler, a king (prince) under God. He was a king only because God had created him as such and ordered him to rule. God’s plan was for His image to rule the world under His law and oversight. As long as Adam was faithful to his commission, he was able to have dominion over the earth.

But Adam was unfaithful. Unsatisfied with being a subordinate ruler in God’s image, applying God’s law to creation, he wanted autonomy. He wanted to be his own god, making up his own law. For this crime of rebellion he was cast out of the Garden. But, as we have seen in the preceding chapters, this incident did not abort God’s plan for dominion through His image. The Second Adam, Jesus Christ, came to accomplish the task which the First Adam had failed to do.[22]

And accomplish He did.  Jesus Christ, by His death reconciled all things to Himself, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.[23] For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him, and in Him all things hold together.[24] All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Him, and so He commands us to make disciples of all nations.[25] And since He has commissioned His Church with the mission to make disciples of the nations, and has empowered her with the omnipotent Spirit of God for accomplishing this task, we can then understand better that Christ, who is the head over all things, desires to have all things throughout the entire world to be filled with the fullness of Him who fills all things through His Church.[26] The mission of the Church then is to not just make people Christian, but to make all things Christian.  That includes sexual relationships.

Why are sexual relationships to be restored? As we have seen in Genesis, it is in the proper relationships of man and woman that the Imago Dei is lived out in the world. Yes, the image was tarnished and perverted due to sin,[27] but Christ has reconciled all things to Himself, and made whole those things which were broken, and perfected and healed those things which were marred. This means that the Imago Dei in man has been restored in Christ, because Christ Himself is the true Image of God. As Paul says, in Colossians 1:15: “He is the image of the invisible God.” Christ continues to work in His people by the Holy Spirit and therefore the image and likeness of God in us is being renewed daily as we behold the glory of God. This is the process of sanctification. We continue to be conformed more and more to the image of Christ, which is our predestined inheritance.[28] Thus, when we are “saved”, or “born again” or “redeemed” or whatever other soteriological terms that we use to describe salvation, we are to understand that the Imago Dei has been restored in us. We no longer bear the image of the man of dust, Adam, but the image of God is continually being  restored and renewed in us until that day when we will perfectly bear the image of the man of heaven, who is Christ.[29]

Christ and the Church

We learn from Paul in Ephesians 6:32 that the relationship of man and woman actually refers to Christ and the Church.  In the same way that the image of God was made complete in humanity when male and female came together, the image of God is made complete in individuals when they come together with Christ. Our Imago Dei is restored when we are united to Christ on an individual level.  Also, the Imago Dei is made complete as the collected gathering of individual saints is united to Christ as the Church.  The relationship of male and female represent Christ and the Church.  Thus it is of the upmost importance for Christians to pursue heterosexual marriages because the male-female relationship represents a greater and higher truth, namely that of the relationship between Christ and His Church.  Man and woman are united to form the Imago Dei in the world for the purposes of the cultural mandate. Christ and the Church are united together to form the renewed Imago Dei in the world to fulfill the re-instituted cultural mandate, also known as the Great Commission, as per Matthew 28:18-20.

If people are to profess faith in Christ and maintain that their homosexuality is approved by God, they are deceiving themselves. They are fighting against the very purposes of God in the world, and are seeking to pollute and destroy and pervert His symbolic representations of His Image in the world. In the male-male homosexual relationship, it is symbolically representing a horrible distorted truth.  Christ died for His bride, the Church. He is married to her. Male homosexual relationships perverts that image of the marriage between Christ and His bride, and would show that maybe Christ is then married to a male. This also has implications for headship. Christ is the head of the Church, but if two males were in the relationship, this would represent some kind of power struggle and a frustrated Lordship. This is too horrible to even think of, but that is exactly what the male homosexual relationship does. The female homosexual relationship shows then the Church being married to Herself. There is no Lord, no headship, no sacrifice, no forgiveness of sins.

The theological implications of these two positions are too horrible to consider even further. Suffice it to say, that if the male-female relationship is to represent Christ and the Church, then that relationship is to be maintained and demonstrated and represented at every level that God intended it to.

IV. Homosexuality in the Bible

Finally we get to the section where the traditional passages concerning homosexuality will be examined, along with some of the pro-homosexual arguments. We must remember our very first premise that we started with, that God is the one with ultimate authority, and as such, He is the one who is the ultimate interpreter of Scripture. This truth is understood in the maxim, “The best interpreter of Scripture is Scripture.” So we must seek to let Scripture, and the Christ of Scripture to be our guide into interpretation.

Sodom and Gomorrah

We already discussed the creation account, so we will get right into the very next passage that deals with the topic at hand.  The passage concerning the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah has traditionally been read and understood as condemning homosexual behavior.  Today, the Christian homosexual community would have us to believe that homosexuality was not the sin at all, but the sins were completely different. By appealing to a passage in Ezekiel 16:48-50, one argument is made that homosexuality was not the sin committed. The passage says this:

⁴⁸ As I live, declares the Lord GOD, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. ⁴⁹Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. ⁵⁰They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it.

The implication then is that the sins that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah were the sins of pride, selfishness and social injustice.  Another interpretation says that the sin was one of inhospitality. When the men of Sodom stated that they wanted to “know” the men who came to Lot, all they wanted to do get acquainted with them, as was the ancient near eastern custom of that time. As a result of their inhospitality towards Lot’s visitors, God reduced the city to ashes.[30] A third view is simply that the sin was their interest in gang rape.

I believe that we can safely address all three of these interpretations at once by actually looking at the text. First, it must be noted that before the angels even arrive in Sodom, God has already said that the city was “wicked.”[31] This means that they were already practicing some kind of wickedness before the angels arrived, so the sin is not simply limited to “inhospitality.”  It is also unlikely that Lot did not understand the procedures for hospitality of new visitors to the city since he was a righteous man who “sat in the gate”, a place where he would sit either as a judge, or at least a prominent social figure in the community.[32] His ignorance of the customs seems to be lacking merit for this argument. Besides, if the social custom was for the visitors to be introduced to the residents, then the sin would have been on Lot for refusing to abide by the custom. But this is not the case at all. For when the men of the city come to Lot’s door in order that they might “know” Lot’s visitors, they do not charge Lot with wickedness, but the other way around. Lot begged the men to not “act so wickedly”, and then sought to satisfy their request by giving them his daughters who have not “known” a man. I doubt that a man who sat in the gate of the city never introduced his daughters to the people and did not abide by the cultural procedures. No, it is quite clear that the context indicates that the men of the city wanted to “know”, or have sexual relations, with Lot’s visitors. Lot attempted to appease their lust by then offering his daughters who have never “known” a man. They were virgins.  Now if the sin of the city was simply an interest in gang rape, and not specifically homosexual gang rape, then why did they not take Lot up on the offer of his daughters? These views of inhospitality and gang rape do not stand up to any analysis whatsoever.

Now concerning the sins of pride, selfishness, and social injustice, these indeed were some of the sins that they committed, as Ezekiel 16 states. But apparently those were not the only sins. Jude 7 gives us the Bible’s own interpretation of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah:

…just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire,[33] serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

The Sodomites are described as indulging themselves in sexual immorality and pursuing different flesh, or unnatural desires.  This seems to be the Bible’s way of describing homosexual behavior.  It seems pretty clear in the text of Scripture as to what was going on in Sodom and the surrounding cities.  But to say that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah has nothing to say about homosexuality “as we know it today”, is a seriously flawed statement.[34] To even assert such a statement simply shows that a person is willing to go to even the greatest lengths to justify their beliefs, even to the extent of denying the clear teaching of the Bible regarding Sodom and Gomorrah.

The phrase “as we know it today” is also just as insulting to God and His Word.  This phrase seems to be used to justify and defend the belief that homosexuality “today” is now acceptable because we know more about it. It is argued that we have science on our side, and it has been proven that homosexuality is not a mental disorder, but a biological trait, and so it is now somehow to be understood as acceptable. Also the difference is in relationships. The way that the homosexuals relate to one another is different today than it was back in the times of the Bible. Today there is loving homosexual relationships, back then people just did it out of brute sexuality, and so that was wrong.  This might seem to some as reasonable, and it might seem like a set of well chosen words for the justification of such homosexuality. But this is not at all acceptable in God’s sight, and is insulting to His person.  As I tried to make the case earlier, God is the one who defines all things, and all things get their definition from God. God has determined that same sex relations of any kind are unlawful and wicked. To attempt to justify homosexuality by appealing to our knowledge today, we are insinuating that God did not know something back when the Bible was written. It also insinuates that God has changed His mind as well as His moral righteous standard. But the Lord never changes, and His law abides forever. God knew then what He knows now. And this attempt to try and re-define the definitions by appealing to some superior knowledge that we have today that God did not have back then is dangerous, unscriptural, heretical, unbiblical, and blasphemous. God deserves more honor than that. But then again, when man wants to be his own god and determine for himself what constitutes good and evil, define things for himself in relation to himself instead of in relation to God, we can only expect such sinfulness to abound, and to be reckoned as virtuous.

Leviticus 18 & 20

These passages might just be the clearest in all of Scripture concerning God’s view toward homosexuality, and yet, somehow, there is still a debate.

“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”[35]

“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”[36]

You would think that just reading the texts would bring the debate to a close, but unfortunately, people will go the greatest lengths to justify their sins.

Leviticus is the ancient Israelite Holiness Code.  It is argued that the Levitical Law was meant simply to keep the ancient Israelites separate from the other pagan nations. Some of those pagan practices were cultic fertility rites associated with their worship. God wanted the Israelites to stay clear from such idolatrous worship that involved prostitution, male and female.  The passages before us then are interpreted as referring to those pagan rites only and so only  apply to the area of worship, and not necessarily private life. While this actually did become a problem for Israel later on their history,[37] which was a direct violation of Deuteronomy 23:17-18, I do not think that it can be limited to pagan idolatry alone, and thus has no place in non-cultic contexts, and is therefore approving of it. The context of the passages speaks nothing of cultic fertility rites of the pagan Canaanites, and even if it did and that was the concept, it seems that God would abhor homosexuality all the more because of the connections to idolatry.

Another reinterpretation of the Levitical passages suggests that homosexuality was looked down upon because of the Israelites pre-scientific understanding concerning male semen.

Because the Hebrew pre-scientific understanding was that the male semen contained the whole of life. With no knowledge of eggs and ovulation, it was assumed that the man’s sperm contained the whole child and that the woman provided only the incubating space. Therefore, the spilling of semen without possibility of having a child was considered murder.

The Jews were a small tribe struggling to populate a country. They were outnumbered by their enemy. You can see why these ancient people felt it was an abomination to risk “wasting” even a single child. But the passage says nothing about homosexuality as we understand it today.[38]

So because it had to do merely with the value of semen in the uneducated Israelites understanding, homosexuality was therefore so severe that it was punishable by death because homosexual acts then were in the end a waste of semen, and was murder.  Well let’s think through this logically. If their population was so small that the semen of a man was so precious, then why would they kill the man who spilled his semen if the man is the producer of the semen. The man can regenerate more semen again, and try to have another child again if he is kept alive. But if he is dead, then that only diminishes the chances of population increase, and makes them even more susceptible to the enemy’s sword. That does not make sense, for one. For two, it is again assuming that God Himself is ignorant of the human body. If it had to do anything with wasting semen, it was not because of some ignorance concerning the biology of the human body. If anything, it had to do with the direct rebellion to the command to “be fruitful and multiply” as I discussed earlier.   And three, this would also suggest that the law was derived from the Israelites themselves and not from God. If the law to not commit homosexual acts was put into law by the Israelites because of an improper view of semen, then sure, that law might be abandoned as not applying to today’s context. But the law was given not by the Israelites, but by God to the Israelites. Therefore, as I have said earlier, God’s law does not change.

Romans 1

Again, this would seem like a passage that is clear as crystal, and yet, the lengths that some people go to defend their homosexuality as not being condemned by God in the Bible is staggering.  In verses 18 – 23, Paul is describing why the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man. The reasons are that they suppress the truth about God that they already knew which was made evident to them in creation, and in so doing they dishonored God, and committed idolatry and worshipped creatures rather than the Creator. Now because of their sinful idolatry, verse 24 informs us of the wrath of God upon mankind for their sins. The strongest part of the verse is, “God gave them up.” God gave them up to what? In God’s wrath and curse due to men because of their sin, God gave them over to the lusts of hearts in impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. Here we see that the wrath that is revealed from heaven is God giving men over to their depraved hearts and letting them run free to seek the impure lusts of their hearts and the dishonoring of their bodies. This is the wrath of God revealed from Heaven, when God takes His restraining hand of grace away, and He allows sinners to follow the path that their sin will take them in.

Again, why did God give them over the sinfulness of impure lusts of the heart and the dishonoring of their bodies? As verse 25 explains: “because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!”  Idolatry is the sin that caused God to give them up to their sins. Paul reiterates this again in verse 26, and then goes even further in his explanation as to what it means for God to have “given them over in the lusts of the hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies.” Paul now calls it in verse 26, “dishonorable passions”, which he then describes in the rest of verse 26 and 27 by saying:

For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; ²⁷and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

This is clearly referring to homosexual activities. There is no escaping this understanding. God’s wrath is revealed from heaven when He gives them over to homosexuality. Homosexuality is not a virtue that ought to be celebrated, and lobbied for, and fought for. It is the most grievous of sins that should bring a nation to repentance.  Homosexuality is the outworking of the wrath of God on a society who “did not see fit to acknowledge God.”

“But”, the argument goes, “there are Christians who are homosexuals. How can they be said to have committed idolatry to the point that God gave them over to homosexuality? “The homosexuals I know have not rejected God at all; they love God and they thank God for his grace and his gifts. How then, could they have been abandoned to homosexuality as a punishment for refusing to acknowledge God?”[39] The rationale behind the argument is that just because somebody cries “Lord, Lord”, they therefore love God and His truth.  But Christ Himself told us,

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²² On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ ²³ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” [40]

A person’s salvation and subsequent love for God is not revealed in their confession alone, but in whether or not they keep the law of God.  Jesus’ indictment against such people is due to a false profession. They claimed that Jesus was Lord, and yet they are called “workers of lawlessness.”  They practice lawlessness.  They do not keep God’s commandments, they do not consider His law to actually be His true righteous standard. Instead, the commit idolatry by formulating their own standards of morality. Hence, “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” How did they exchange the truth of God for a lie? They suppressed the truth in their unrighteousness [41] and became futile in their thinking, their foolish hearts were darkened. [42] They did not think God’s thoughts after Him. And concerning the creature, it does not necessarily have to be a beast or an animal, but it could very well be themselves.  Homosexuals who practice their homosexuality are seeking to satisfy their own ungodly lusts, and attempt to justify it by submitting themselves to their own standards of law, and thus, have set themselves up as their own gods, which is why Paul also uses mortal man as an example of their idolatry. They know that it is not pleasing to God, they know God’s law forbids it, and they even know the punishment they deserve for such sins. As Paul says, “Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”[43]

Another argument is made, to the effect that Paul is condemning homosexual lust and promiscuity, and not homosexual love and devotion. This is quite the stretch. Indeed, another example how far people are willing to go to justify their sins.  If Paul were not making a complete sweep across the board concerning any and every kind of homosexuality, then anything can be made permissible in Scripture.

Scripture cannot be interpretively shaped to fit the contours of sin, and homosexuality cannot be cleverly domesticated within a divinely approved lifestyle. There is no more a Christian form of homosexuality than there is a Christian form of adultery or bestiality or rape, etc. Romans 1 makes no room for any kind of homosexuality whatsoever, for it is plainly and simply “error,” a wrong lifestyle. If Paul’s words can be twisted to allow for homosexuality under certain conditions, the same line of thought can be taken with all the sins elaborated in verse 28-31– indeed, with any sin whatsoever![44]

Bahnsen makes a very good point.  Is there an appropriate way to not acknowledge God? Is there some way in which it is acceptable in God’s eyes to be filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice? Is it ok in some circumstances for Christians to be full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness? How about gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless? I’m sure that if God can make an exception to certain circumstance of homosexuality, He can also make exceptions for these other sins that He Himself gave the people over to in the first place in order that He might demonstrate His wrath against them. Such thinking is completely illogical, unscriptural, anti-Christian, anti-God, antinomian, and blasphemous.  These people who are professing faith in Christ want to be forgiven of their sins, and at the same time want God to approve of the very sins that Christ came to die for.

Concerning the argument that states that homosexuality was not a choice for them, but they were born homosexual, and therefore, for them to have homosexual passions is “natural” for them, I have only a few words. If they were to commit heterosexual acts, that would be “unnatural” for them. Therefore the implication is that the heterosexual act that the homosexual would commit would be sin. I only have a brief word to comment on this.

Such argumentation is exactly the sin that got us into this mess in the first place. Adam and Eve became their own gods by determining for themselves what constitutes good and evil. They set themselves up as their own standard, and they since then interpreted all things in light of themselves, instead of looking to God for proper interpretations concerning all things. To say that God’s created order is then “unnatural” and that which God actually said is “unnatural” is “natural” is an extremely heinous sin in God’s eyes, one that God takes very seriously and will punish.

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil.

Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble,
and as dry grass sinks down in the flame,
so their root will be as rottenness,
and their blossom go up like dust;
for they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts,
and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
²⁵Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against his people,
and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them,
and the mountains quaked;
and their corpses were as refuse
in the midst of the streets.
For all this his anger has not turned away,
and his hand is stretched out still.[45]

For a thing to be “natural” or “un-natural” is in comparison to God’s created order, and not in comparison to how certain people are born.

V. Conclusion

In conclusion, we have seen that God is the one who is the ultimate definer of all things. He is the Creator and therefore He has the right to say what sexuality is, and what His purposes for it are in the world. We need God to tell us what the truth is because we are sinful and our minds are corrupted and are set bent against His Law. Both the Old and New Testament is the normative guide that God has given us sinners to know His will concerning matters that He has addressed.

Next we have seen that the Imago Dei, the image of God in man was made evident in the relationship of man and woman coming together to form one flesh. God declared that the purposes for which man and woman were created was for the sake of fulfilling the cultural mandate and making every aspect of the whole world God centered. Homosexual relationship cannot bring about this command due to the inability to be fruitful and multiply. Because of the fall into sin, the Imago Dei was corrupted in us, but in Christ it is now restored. Now, those who have faith in Christ are having the image renewed in them every day for the purposes of ultimately becoming like Christ in glorification, and now, for the sake of spreading the gospel of the kingdom of God throughout the world to fulfill the great commission, which is simply an extension and reiteration of the cultural mandate issued in Genesis.

Male and female marriage represents the relationship between Christ and the Church. With the image renewed in man, the truth is to be symbolically represented in the marriage of man and woman, as well as for the actual progression of God’s purposes on earth. Homosexuality provides a perverted image of the relationship of Christi to His Church, and inherently fights against God and His purposes.

Finally a few passages of Scripture were analyzed concerning the issue of homosexuality. Suffice it to say, none of the interpretations that the homosexuals provided are accurate, theologically sound, Biblical, God-honoring. The bible clearly does not teach that homosexuality is pleasing in God’s sight, but it is a sin that occurs as a result of the wrath of God due to man’s failure to worship God.

VI. A Final Appeal

There are a lot of times in this paper when I have expressed thoughts in a manner that might not seem to be consistent with my introductory preface I made, that I was going to do all this with charity, love and respect. If I have not succeeded in that department, that is due to my own sinfulness, and for that I would ask for your forgiveness.  The main thing that is important though, is not so much if I wrote this paper in a manner that is rhetorically pleasing, but is it true? Is it Biblical? Have I been true to the Scriptures own teaching?  I believe that God is my witness that I have done just that.

Now a brief word to the Christians, and Christian denominations who support and defend the sin of homosexuality. Stop it.  God has spoken clearly on the matter in His word. His word never changes, His standard of righteousness never changes, not one jot or tittle of His law will pass away, or has passed away until all is fulfilled. Do not raise yourselves up over against the clear teaching of the infallible and inerrant and absolutely authoritative word of God.  If you continue to do so, you can expect the strong arm of God’s judgment to come upon you, for judgment begins with the people of God first. And as a matter of fact, in light of Romans 1, it is evident that you need to repent of your sins, and exalt Jesus Christ as Lord of all in your churches, denomination, families, relationships, and individual lives.  The very fact that you are supporting and defending the homosexual position is proof of God’s wrath already upon you. Please, for the sake of His name, please, repent, and ask for forgiveness.

Now to those individuals who are homosexual, I say this: If you know that the Scriptures do teach that homosexuality is a sin, and yet, you also feel that you were born homosexual, there is hope. I do not presume to understand what you are going through emotionally, physically, biologically, but I do know what it is like to lust after women.  I do know what it is like to have the strongest temptations to sin. But more importantly, so does the Lord Jesus. He was tempted in every way as we are, and yet without sin. He can sympathize with our weaknesses.  But that does not mean that He approves of such sin, even if we were born with such inversions to it.  He is the one who died to free us of our captivity to sin and who promised to give us a new heart, one that loves Him and hates sin.  The Holy Spirit of God can make you a new creation. Do not harden your heart and insist on continuing in your state of sin because it is easier to just go with your inclinations than to fight against them.  The job of the law of sin is to oppose all things godly and true, and good, pure, and holy.  But if you are a true believer, you have inside of you the law of the Spirit of life to combat the law of sin. Please, continue to fight the good fight against sin. Ask God to give you a holy hatred toward that which He hates, and a love for Him that surpasses all earthly sexual pleasure. Our only refuge in a time of trouble is in Christ. If you love Him, you will abide in His word, and you will keep His commandments.  Please, ask God to help you defeat this sin. He is there for you, call upon Him today.   Soli Deo Gloria.

Bibliography

Bahnsen, Greg, Homosexuality: A Biblical View. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979.

________. Theonomy in Christian Ethics. Nutley: Craig Press, 1977.

Chilton, David. Paradise Restored. Tyler: Dominion 1994.

Hoekema, Anthony. Created In God’s Image. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986.

Jordan, James B. Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World (Brentwood, Tennessee: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1988), 133-141.

Frame, John. “Christianity and Culture”: Lectures given at Pensacola Theological Institute, July 23-27, 2001. Available at http://thirdmill.org/files/english/hall _of_fame/Frame.Apologetics2004. ChristandCulture.pdf (accessed February 14, 2009).

Rushdoony, Rousas John.  Systematic Theology, Vol. 1. Valencito: Ross House, 1994.

Soulforce Inc. “Christian Youth: An Important Voice in the Present Struggle for Gay Rights in America” 2004. Available from http://www.soulforce. org/pdf/youthstudyguide/pdf (accessed December 27, 2008).

White, Mel. “What the Bible Says – and Doesn’t Say – About Homosexuality.” Available at http://www.soulforce.org/pdf/whatthebiblesays.pdf (accessed on February 14, 2009).

Vos, Geerhardus. The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951.

End Notes

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[1] In my paper I am going to be using the term “homosexual” to refer to male and female homosexuality, thus lesbianism is in view as well. I will not be directly interacting with people who identify themselves as “transgendered”, but I believe the arguments provided will be applicable to those who identify themselves as “transgendered.” Bisexuals will fall into the realm of this paper, being that homosexuality is part and parcel of bi-sexuality.

[2] Rousas John Rushdoony, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1. (Valencito: Ross House, 1994), 446.

[3] Greg Bahnsen, Homosexuality: A Biblical View (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 28-29.

[4] Rushdoony, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, 445-446 (italics mine).

[5] Soulforce Inc. “Christian Youth: An Important Voice in the Present Struggle for Gay Rights in America” 2004. Available from http://www.soulforce.org/pdf/youthstudyguide/pdf (accessed on December 27, 2008), 19.

[6] Psalm 1 informs us that wickedness is characterized by not delighting in the Law of the Lord. Consequently, those wicked people will not stand in the judgment.

[7] Also, a proper interpretation of that text in Romans that states we “are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:14) should not lead one to interpret that the law is not binding on the Christian, but to correctly assess, that the punishment that the law distributes as a result of sin is no longer binding on the Christian since he is dead to the law of sin and alive in Christ. A proper understanding of the text must be understood in the context of the whole section of chapter 6 in Romans.

[8] This is the great error of the Dispensational hermeneutic. This erroneous teaching has been refuted over and over again. I wave my opportunity at this present time to do so, again for the sake of focusing on the main issue at hand. To read about the errors of Dispensationalism, please see the following books: Ronald M. Henzel, Darby, Dualism, and the Decline of Dispensationalism (Tucson: Fenestra, 2003).  Keith A. Mathison, Dispensationalism: Rightly Dividing the People of God? (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1995).  Greg L. Bahnsen and Kenneth Gentry, House Divided: The Break-Up of Dispensational Theology, (Tyler: I.C.E. 1989).  Oswald T. Allis, Modern Dispensationalism, Darby to Scofield : a historical and critical study of the “parenthesis” method of interpreting Scripture (Nutley: P&R, 1944).  John Gerstner, Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism; second edition, corrected and expanded. (Morgan: Soli Deo Gloria, 1991).  Daniel Fuller, Gospel and Law: Contrast or Continuum?: The Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980).

[9]According to the Luow-Nida Lexicon on BibleWorks7, the verb lu,w which is translated as ‘annuls’ in the NASB, means “the failure to conform to a law or regulation, with a possible implication of regarding it as invalid – ‘to break (a law), to transgress.’”

[10] Greg Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, (Nutley: Craig Press, 1977), 46-47.

[11] Geerhardus Vos, The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951), 109.

[12] 1 John 3:7-10.

[13] See Anthony Hoekema’s Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 33-66 for a brief historical survey of some Christian thinkers and theologians and what they believed the Imago Dei to be.

[14] Gen. 1:26 (italics mine).

[15] Just a thought; This male and female union, who have been created to represent “one” humanity, or as it is later said, become “one flesh”, could reflect the image of God by way of the philosophical argument known as “the one and the many” or “unity in diversity.” God being by nature Triune and One, He is the ultimate expression of “the one and the many”, and therefore man is created to reflect the image of God (the one and the many) in that he exists as male and female, and together they are both one.

[16] Genesis 1:28.

[17] Genesis 2:15.

[18]James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World (Brentwood, Tennessee: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1988), 133-141.

[19] John Frame, “Christianity and Culture”: Lectures given at Pensacola Theological Institute, July 23-27, 2001. Available at http://thirdmill.org/files/english/hall_of_fame/Frame.Apologetics2004.ChristandCulture.pdf (accessed February 14, 2009).

[20] Greg Bahnsen, Homosexuality, 14.

[21] Genesis 3:17,18.

[22] David Chilton, Paradise Restored, (Tyler: Dominion, 1994), 67.

[23] Colossians 1:20.

[24] Colossians 1:16-17.

[25] Matthew 28:18-19.

[26] Ephesians 1:22-23.

[27] Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 83-85.

[28] Romans 8:29.

[29] 1 Corinthians 15:48-49.

[30] Bahnsen, Homosexuality, 32.

[31] Genesis 18:16-33.

[32] Bahnsen, Homosexuality, 32.

[33] Literally, “different flesh.”

[34] Mel White, “What the Bible Says – and Doesn’t Say – About Homosexuality.” Available at http://www.soulforce.org/pdf/whatthebiblesays.pdf (accessed on February 14, 2009), 12.

[35] Leviticus 18:20.

[36] Leviticus 20:13.

[37] 1 Kings14:23, 24; 15:12; 22:46; 2 Kings 23:7; Hosea 4:14.

[38] White, “What the Bible Says – And Doesn’t Say – About Homosexuality”, 14.

[39] White, “What the Bible Says”, 16, quoting Lewis B. Smedes from the video There is a Wideness in God’s Mercy. Available at http://www.soulforce.org/article/lewis-smedes-video (accessed February 14, 2009).

[40] Matthew 7:21-23.

[41] Romans 1:18.

[42] Romans 1:21.

[43] Romans 1:32.

[44] Bahnsen, Homosexuality, 50.

[45] Isaiah 5:20, 24-25.

Christians in the World

This is an excerpt from the so-called Letter to Diognetus, c. 124 AD

“For Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language or customs.  ²They do not live in cities of their own; they do not use a peculiar form of speech; they do not follow an eccentric manner of life.  ³This doctrine of theirs has not been discovered by the ingenuity or deep thought of inquisitive men, nor do they put forward a merely human teaching, as some people do.  ⁴Yet, although they live in Greek and barbarian cities alike, as each man’s lot has been cast, and follow the customs of the country in clothing and food and other matters of daily living, at the same time they give proof of the remarkable and admittedly extraordinary constitution of their own commonwealth.  ⁵They live in their own countries, but only as aliens. They have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign land.

⁶They marry, like everyone else, and they beget children, but they do not cast out their offspring.  ⁷They share their board with each other, but not their marriage bed.  ⁸It is true that they are “in the flesh,” but they do not live “according to the flesh.” ⁹They busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven.   ¹⁰They obey the established laws, but in their own lives they go far beyond what the laws require.  ¹¹They love all men, and by all men are persecuted.  ¹²They are unknown, and still they are condemned; they are put to death, and yet they are brought to life.  ¹³They are poor, and yet they make many rich; they are completely destitute, and yet they enjoy complete abundance.  ¹⁴They are dishonored, and in their very dishonor are glorified; they are defamed, and are vindicated.  ¹⁵They are reviled, and yet they bless; when they are affronted, they still pay due respect.  ¹⁶When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; undergoing punishment, they rejoice because they are brought to life.  ¹⁷They are treated by the Jews as foreigners and enemies, and are hunted down by the Greeks; and all the time those who hate them find it impossible to justify their enmity.

6 To put it simply: What the soul is in the body, that Christians are in the world.  ²The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world.  ³The soul dwells in the body, but does not belong to the body, and Christians dwell in the world, but do not belong to the world.  ⁴The soul, which is invisible, is kept under guard in the visible body; in the same way, Christians are recognised when they are in the world, but their religion remains unseen.  ⁵The flesh hates the soul and treats it as an enemy, even though it has suffered no wrong, because it is prevented from enjoying its pleasures; so too the world hates Christians, even though it suffers no wrong at their hands, because they range themselves against its pleasures.  ⁶The soul loves the flesh that hates it, and its members; in the same way, Christians love those who hate them.  ⁷The soul is shut up in the body, and yet itself holds the body together; while Christians are restrained in the world as in a prison, and yet themselves hold the world together.  ⁸The soul, which is immortal, is housed in a mortal dwelling; while Christians are settled among corruptible things, to wait for the incorruptibility that will be theirs in heaven.  ⁹The soul, when faring badly as to food and drink, grows better; so too Christians, when punished, day by day increase more and more.  ¹⁰It is to no less a post than this that God has ordered them, and they must not try to evade it.

John Owen, The Preterist

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. ¹¹Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, ¹² waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! ¹³But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”        ~2 Peter 3:10-13 ESV

John Owen provides a very interesting read of this passage, one that has been largely neglected since his day, but by the grace of God is becoming more of the predominant view, and is being understood as the truth of Scripture in many places, especially here at cross+words.

Here is just a brief portion of a sermon in which Owen postulated that the New Heavens and New Earth are essentially the New Covenant.

1. It is certain, that what the apostle intends by the “world,” with its heavens and earth, verses 5, 6, which was destroyed by water; the same, or somewhat of that kind, he intends by “the heavens and the earth” that were to be consumed and destroyed by fire, verse 7. Otherwise there would be no coherence in the apostle’s discourse, nor any kind of argument, but a mere fallacy of words.

2. It is certain, that by the flood, the world, or the fabric of heaven and earth, was not destroyed, but only the inhabitants of the world; and therefore the destruction intimated to succeed by fire, is not of the substance of the heavens and the earth, which shall not be consumed until the last day, but of persons or men living in the world.

3. Then we must consider in what sense men living in the world are said to be the “world,” and the “heavens and earth” of it. I shall 134only insist on one instance to this purpose, among many that may be produced, Isa. li. 15, 16. The time when the work here mentioned, of planting the heavens, and laying the foundation of the earth, was performed by God, was when he “divided the sea,” verse 15, and gave the law, verse 16, and said to Zion, “Thou art my people;” — that is, when he took the children of Israel out of Egypt, and formed them in the wilderness into a church and state.

Then he planted the heavens, and laid the foundation of the earth, — made the new world; that is, brought forth order, and government, and beauty, from the confusion wherein before they were. This is the planting of the heavens, and laying the foundation of the earth in the world. And hence it is, that when mention is made of the destruction of a state and government, it is in that language that seems to set forth the end of the world. So Isa. xxxiv. 4; which is yet but the destruction of the state of Edom. The like also is affirmed of the Roman empire, Rev. vi. 14; which the Jews constantly affirm to be intended by Edom in the prophets. And in our Saviour Christ’s prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem, Matt. xxiv., he sets it out by expressions of the same importance. It is evident, then, that, in the prophetical idiom and manner of speech, by “heavens” and “earth,” the civil and religious state and combination of men in the world, and the men of them, are often understood. So were the heavens and earth that world which then was destroyed by the flood.

4. On this foundation I affirm, that the heavens and earth here intended in this prophecy of Peter, the coming of the Lord, the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men, mentioned in the destruction of that heaven and earth, do all of them relate, not to the last and final judgment of the world, but to that utter desolation and destruction that was to be made of the Judaical church and state; for which I shall offer these two reasons, of many that might be insisted on from the text:—

(1.) Because whatever is here mentioned was to have its peculiar influence on the men of that generation. He speaks of that wherein both the profane scoffers and those scoffed at were concerned, and that as Jews; — some of them believing, others opposing the faith. Now, there was no particular concernment of that generation in that sin, nor in that scoffing, as to the day of judgment in general; but there was a peculiar relief for the one and a peculiar dread for the other at hand, in the destruction of the Jewish nation; and, besides, an ample testimony, both to the one and the other, of the power and dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ; — which was the thing in question between them.

(2.) Peter tells them, that, after the destruction and judgment that he speaks of, verse 13, “We, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth,” etc. They had this expectation. But what is that promise? where may we find it? Why, we have it in the very words and letter, Isa. lxv. 17. Now, when shall this be that God will create these “new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness?” Saith Peter, “It shall be after the coming of the Lord, after that judgment and destruction of ungodly men, who obey not the gospel, that I foretell.” But now it is evident, from this place of Isaiah, with chap. lxvi. 21, 22, that this is a prophecy of gospel times only; and that the planting of these new heavens is nothing but the creation of gospel ordinances, to endure for ever. The same thing is so expressed, Heb. xii. 26–28.

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This sermon can found here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/owen/sermons.iv.xiii.html.  Have fun!!!!

You can also see a series of videos featuring Kenneth Gentry about a Preteristic interpretation of Revelation at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjOThGeEnyc&feature=related

 

Some Thoughts on Contemporary Worship Music and Evangelism

The other day was a beautiful day. Both my Daughters were Baptized into the Covenant Family of God. So naturally we called our friends and family to join us in celebration for this joyous occasion.

It was a combined service (usually we have two, one more “contemporary, the other more “traditional”), and naturally there were more people in the sanctuary than usual. The music began, and the drums started pounding, guitars started playing, and people began clapping.

For some, this is a regular experience in their worship, and they whole heartedly approve of it. I myself am more of a “traditionalist” I guess you could say, and, if I might have the audacity to interject my own thoughts and “preferences” in choosing a ”style” of worship, I suppose that I am more of a hymn kind of guy.

Now before I get tinto my little rant concerning the use of of Contemorary Christian Music (CCM) in Church services, let me first begin by saying that I am not against CCM outside the church context. I myself am frequently blessed by the medium of Christian Hip Hop, and sometimes listen to other Christian rock bands as well. So right from the start, I wanted to state that I am NOT anti-CCM. And I am not even necessarily against the use of drums and guitars and the like in worship services. I believe God should be glorified by the use of all musical instruments (Psalms 98, 150).

So what am I getting at? Just that I think it is Ironic that alot of CCM is used for the sake of making unbelievers or non-churched peoples “comfortable”, as in the seeker sensative movement, and yet, I believe that the use of CCM in church services actually HINDERS evangelism and evangelistic purposes for which it was originally intended because it makes people feel uncomfortable. Shoot, it makes ME feel uncomfortable. And this is exactly what happened the other day in church.

When the music began and people began clapping, I felt uncomfortable, knowing that unbelievers were there. Unbelievers are most likely expecting to hear hymns and the like and would probably not feel as uncomfortable. I know it makes them feel that way because I was told by a person that it made him feel uncomfortable. I don’t blame Him.

I just think that when unbelievers come in to our churches, we should be looked upon by them as “wannabe” wordly rockers with a Christian flavor. We should sing hymns and Psalms, and maybe even chant. This would actually make the unbeliever feel more comfortable in a worship service because this is what He is expecting. Solemnity, reverence, awe, and seriousness (note: I am still not advocating for making worship service “seeker friendly” when I say this, I am just noting the irony).  Just some thoughts, maybe I’m way off in left field. Or maybe not.

Reformed Catholicity

When we say we are “Reformed”, what does that mean? What is being ”Reformed”? The Reformers understood the word as an adjective describing their catholicity. They were “Reformed Catholics.” Since then it has become a noun, we are “Reformed.” That needs to change. Moves toward ecumenism is not a bad thing, and understanding that Jesus wanted His church to be unified might help us become more unified under the banner of catholicity.

We need to stop seeing and living our Christian experience through the lens of the Liberal/Fundamentalist controversy of the early 1900’s. We need to stop attacking each other on every single possible doctrinal issue, attempting to make every other Christian church denomination or person conform to our interpretation and tradition of Scripture. The amount of energy expended on such pursuits could be put towards greater issues of importance, than whether or not someone holds to all 5 points, or views justification as forgiveness of sins instead of imputation of active obedience. Doctrine is important, we need to know the truth and teach the truth, but at what expense?

“Sorry I wasn’t feeding and clothing the poor and homeless, and loving my enemies, and working to see your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven Lord, I was too busy being engaged in meaningless theological debates that produced anger and malice amongst my fellow Chrsitian brothers and sisters. I know that you would be proud of me.”