Reggie Weems Blog

In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins writes, “Isn’t it always a form of child abuse to label children as possessors of beliefs that they are too young to have thought about?” 

In our generation, it isn’t enough for 21st century atheists to live their own lives without a divine compass.  Acknowledging impotence in the fight to re-educate adults, modern atheists have now turned their sights on the next generation, separating children from their parent’s belief system and worldview.  And you’d probably be amazed at some of the things they’re saying.  Here’s a sampling to let you know that you are in the fight of your life for your children’s lives.   

Columnist Christopher Hitchens writes, “How can we ever know how many children had their psychological and physical lives irreparably maimed by the compulsory inculcation of faith?”  Hitchens goes on to charge Christian parents with seducing the “unformed and undefended minds of the young.”  Biologist Richard Lewontin has written that one of science’s main burdens is to “get them [children] to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual appaatus, science, as the only begetter of truth.” 

Author Sam Harris writes, “Atheism is not a philosophy….It is simply an admission of the obvious…..”  Research scientist Carolyn Porco recently stated, “Let’s teach our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty.  It is already so much more glorious and awesome - and even comforting - than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know.”   

Speaking of publically funded education, Dinesh D’Souza writes, “Isn’t it brilliant that they [atheists] have persuaded Christian moms and dads to finance the destruction of their own beliefs and values?”  No, that isn’t enough.  Even more, the modern atheists don’t even want Christian parents to have control over what is taught in the home or in the church.  When evolution won the day in the Scopes trial, evolutionists just wanted a place at the education and scientific table, a table for which there is now no room for Christians committed to God and His Word, not simply on the subject of creation and science but Christianity as a worldview.  (In case you don’t know, I’ll outline the basics and basis of a worldview later this week)  So, the idea isn’t simply to teach something else, something different; it is to discredit the belief of parents and “subject them to such scorn that they are pushed outside the bounds of acceptable debate” (D’Souza).  How is this going to be accomplished.  One college professor wrote, “we are going to go right on trying to discredit you [Christian parents] in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable. (cited from First Things:  A Journal of Religion, Culture and Life) Dawkins asks, “How much do we regard children as being the property of their parents?  It’s one thing to say people should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be free to impose their beliefs on their children?  Is there something to be said for society stepping in?  What about bringing up children to believe manifest falsehoods?  Isn’t it always a form of child abuse to label children as possessors of beliefs that they are too young to have thought out?” 

Daniel Dennett writes, “Parents don’t literally own their children the way slaveowners once owned slaves, but are, rather, their stewards and guardians and ought to be held accountable by outsiders for their guardianship, which does imply that outsiders have a right to interfere.”  And Psychologist Nicholas Humphrey states, “Parents….have no god-given license to enculturate their children in whatever wasy they personally choose:  no right to limit the horizons oftheir children’s knowledge, to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma and superstition, or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith.” 

More, now than ever, (I know everybody says that in every generation) Christian families need to understand the priority of teaching their children the Scripture, to gain a Christian worldview and to understand how to defend what they believe.  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” It’s clear that every Christian parent is in a fight for their children’s lives.

Today at Read With Me, I mentioned that John Owen’s “On the Mortification of Sin” has been updated and made easily accessible to 21st century Christians who, as a result of the Holy Spirit’s pressing toward Christ, long for holiness.  Anyone interested in a further investigation into the the vile and radical nature of sin; reflection on the absolute necessity of Christ’s death and how a Christian may progress in sanctification will be interested in reading the newly updated version of that book.  It is appropriately titled, “Overcoming Sin and Temptation” (orderd by clicking the book’s title) and is a must read for those serious about holiness.  Of course, you can also read the original by clicking it’s title above. 

Unsure if you need to read a book about overcoming sin and temptation?  Then first read Stephen Charnock’s chapter on “Practial Atheism.”  You can read it online here but exercise caution.  Read it at a time when you can read the entire chapter in one sitting, alone and in a time and place that affords you privacy for tears, confession and repentance.  This chapter will convince you that most Christians are practical atheists - believers in name but atheists in practice - and it will certainly convict you of that possibility in your own life.  It will also yield a humble desire to seek a genuine Christian life that sincerely seeks after God.  This particular chapter is on my ‘must read before you die’ list. Of course, the chapter is from Charnock’s classic “Existence and Attributes of God” (also from Amazon by clicking the book’s title); a once two-volume set now concisely placed in one volume.  I’ve taught E&A at Heritage several times as a Life University course and it always draws a crowd of people who desire to know God.

In today’s message from John 4 you and I saw the absolute necessity of discussing sin in evangelism.  Were it not for sin there would be no gospel message.  It isn’t it amazing how our great God can get something so “really, really,” good (Romans 8:28) out of something so horrible.  Through redemption we gain holiness and righteousness; something even Adam and Eve never enjoyed (innocence yes, but righteousnes is only by the blood of Christ and cannot be lost - - holiness is only by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit conforming us to the image of our Savior).

There can be no ‘good news’ if there is not a reason for the news to be ‘good’ - and it is good!  As Jerry Bridges says in “Respectable Sins,” the gospel is really, really good news!  As well, there would be no gospel message without the wonderful news about the cross.  If sin was a disease a doctor could cure us, ignorance and a teacher would suffice, a deficiency and science could work wonders, unmet needs and the local psychologist would do just fine.  But sin is sin, an offence against a righteous and holy God.  The only cure is a Savior Who is both God and man, Jesus Christ. 

 Were not the right man on our side,
The man of God’s own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he,
Lord Sabaoth is his name,
From age to age the same,
And he must win the battle. 

He has overcome sin’s penalty by His death and we overcome sin’s power by His life.  Let there then, be no room for any sin, respectable or not!        

Born in 1834 of Dutch ancestry, Charles Spurgeon was destined to be called “the prince of preachers.”  His grandfather and father were both nonconforming (outside the church of England) pastors and young Spurgeon was the benefactor of both of their libraries during his formative years.  His favorite books were those that have influenced many people toward Christ; Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Richard Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted and and Joseph Alleine’s Admonition to Unconverted Sinners.  However, in spite of such major influences in his life, young Spurgeon remained uncoverted until this day in 1850. 

At the age of fifteen Spurgeon stepped into a Primitive Methodist church, partially to escape a wind driven snow.  The day’s weather had kept the pastor from his normal Sunday duties in the pulpit such that, in his place, a layman stood to deliver God’s Word that morning.  His text was Isaiah 45:22 - “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth!  For I am God, and there is no other” (ESV).  As Spurgeon retold the story it becomes easy to understand why he firmly believed in the power of God’s word throughout his ministry. 

“He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter…he looked at me…fixing his eyes on me…he said, “Young man, you look every miserable…And you will always be miserable - miserable in life and miserable in death - if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved….Young man, look to Jesus Christ.  Look!  Look!  Look!  You have nothing to do but look and live.”  I saw at once the way of salvation.  Oh!  I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away.  Oh that somebody had told me this before.”

So it was that through a simple person and a simple verse and a simple presentation that the “prince of preachers,” the most profound pastor and one the greatest evangelist of the 19th century was born again.  At twenty-three, Spurgeon was preaching to more than 10,000 people each Sunday at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, England.  His printed sermons were read world-wide and his influence remains even until today, perhaps growing as the decades pass.  Only eternity will fully reveal the extent of his ministry.

In Spurgeon’s salvation experience, great hope is provided to every person who longs to be influential for the kingdom.  People are indeed “born again…through the living Word of God (1 Peter 1:23).  Our treasure verse at Heritage this week, John 7:37, reminds us that salvation is a gift, offered only in Jesus Christ.  So, let us, trusting only in the power of the Word, go into the world and share the gospel knowing that it is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).                

One of the first books Teana and I are reading together in the new year of 2008 is Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins and we’re encouraging our congregation to read along with us and participate in an on-line conversation concerning the book.  Jerry has done the church of Christ a favor by writing “Respectable Sins,” (ordered from Amazon by clicking the book’s title).  If you haven’t already ordered your book, do so asap and you’ll still get in on most of the conversation. 

From Jerry’s perspective, the world doubts God’s love because our love for one another and our love for sinners is not evident.  It’s absent because we easily recognize, point out and condemn the world’s sins while ignoring sins that Christians condone; sins that break God’s heart - hence the book’s subtitle, “Confronting the Sins We Tolerate.”  Jerry lists these sins as ungodliness, anxiety, frustration, discontentment, unthankfulness, pride, selfishness, a lack of self-control, impatience, irritability, anger, judgemenalism, envy, jealously and sins of the tongue. 

One only has to be around the church for a short time to be shocked by the way Christians behave, (and perhaps some people are not actually Christians) and all without any sense of remorse or wrongdoing.  Conviction, brokenness, confession, repentance and humiliy should be the hallmarks and high marks of the church.  Such an attitude will have at least three results.  First, we will walk closely to God in thankfulness for His mercy and dependence on His grace.  Secondly, we will shower one another with God’s love just as Jesus prayed in John 17 and thirdly, we will have great compassion on a world gripped by sin’s power.   

 I’m encouraging everyone to read only two chapters each week so that the Holy Spirit will have the opportunity to work in our lives, sanctifying us into His likeness and deepening our walk with Christ.  We’ll read one chapter Sunday-Wednesday and then a second chapter Wednesday-Sunday.  Through the “Respectable Sins” blog you can log on and see how God is working in other members’ lives, as well as pose your own thoughts, questions and journal your own experiences.  This is a first for Heritage and I am confident it will be a richly rewarding experience, well worth our time and effort.  Link here to the “Read With Me” blog and then save it in your “favorites.”  (By the way, this same link was in the bulletin today.)  Once at the “Respectable Sins” site, you’ll see that Teana and I have already commented on the first chapter.  Read it sometime early this week (perhaps even today as you ’sabbath’ in God) and then on Wednesday you’ll find a post for chapter two.  We’ll converse every week and “as iron sharpens iron” help each other walk humbly and holy in Christ.      

This kind of reading will certainly generate holiness, “without which, no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). 

“The greater and more abundant the mercy that we enjoy, the greater and the viler is the sin of murmuring.” ~Jeremiah Burroughs~

There is no question that God is love and that everything God does is motivated by love.  Equally however, God is holy and everything God does is motivated by His holiness.  God is also righteous, forgiving etc.  He never acts out with His attributes out of balance or with one attribute overwhelming the others or at the expense of one attribute to show another.  With all this in mind, does God ever do anything that contradicts what looks like human love?  Certainly, but just because it appears to be contrary from our human perspective doesn’t mean that it is.  Steve is correct on this issue and writes,  “Although God is love, this doesn’t exclude the possibility of him eventually acting in judgement… if God is love, then anger is a legitimate, indeed intrinsic, expression of that love. But because God’s anger is born of pure love, it is never fickle or malicious” (p.62).
 

In that single sentence Steve contradicts the book’s intent and undermines the book’s foundation.  God could show both love and wrath at the cross, demonstrating wrath toward mankind in the vengeance of His anger and love toward mankind in the appeasement of His wrath once and for all.  And He could show love for His Son Who, through the cross, inherits all things forever, even eternal glory and wrath toward His Son, Who not only died for sin but became sin, Who not only died for sin but as sinners.  In fact, according to Paul, it is at the cross that God is proven to be both just and the justifier (Romans 3:26).  It’s a truth that causes Him to break out in doxology at the wonder of God’s amazing redemptive work (Romans 11:33). 
So Steve is ultimately caught in His own contradiction. He can’t deny God’s anger but is seriously intent on redefining God’s holiness (p. 173).  Yet anger is a legitimate expression of love.  C.S. Lewis recognized this.  He cautioned sinners who learned that God is a God of love that this knowledge was not good news to them.  Why not?  Because, by definition, a “good” God must hate wickedness and even the wicked (Psalm 5:4-5; 11:5, 7).  God’s righteous wrath will spare no one outside of Jesus Christ, our Ark of safety in the midst of God’s angry judgment (Rom. 1:18ff, 2:5-11; Eph. 5:3-6).  “God’s love is not a moral weakness.”  All sin either has been punished in Christ or will be punished in sinners.  And this is exactly where we rejoice in penal substitutionary atonement. 

This is because God justifies those who believe, by his grace by setting forth His Son as a propitiation or covering for sin (Rom. 3:25; 4:5).  It was God’s mercy that motivated Jesus to be and make a propitiation for the sins of the people (Heb. 2:17).  Love is ‘not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins’ (4:10). God’s love saves sinners from His own wrath through the death of Christ (Rom. 5:8-9).  The wrath of God is gone (Genesis 15) evidenced by a smoking furnace seen in the light of Christ’s life, death, burial and resurrection.     

God’s wrath toward sin is not “repaying evil for evil” as Steve contends but repaying righteousness for evil.  This is clearly taught in Romans 12:17 & 19 where Paul wrote, ‘Repay no one evil for evil… Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord”‘.   Vengeance does not belong to individual people because people can never be wholly righteous in their retribution.  No one but God knows the human heart.  Even still, the state is given the limited right and responsibility to punish wrongdoers, ‘For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer’ (Rom. 13:4).

Steve’s sincerity may be real and he may be well intended (okay I’ll take a lot of flak for giving him that much credit).  Like Gregory Boyd and the “openness theory,” he seeks to interpret God for a 21^st century audience but in the process makes God a human being and subject to humanity’s flaws.  But to consider so sacred a doctrine as penal substitution as ‘cosmic child abuse’ is a poorly chosen phrase that “portrays God as committing unspeakable evil.”  In the process we are left with a god Who is too much like us, a god subject to our same emotional shallowness, mental finiteness and subjective experiences and responses.  He is not encouraging our hearts to trust in the God of the Bible but teaching us to trust in a god unworthy of our trust.  His god is inconsistent at best and impotent to control Himself at worst. 
It is not the first time the doctrine of penal substitution has been attacked from within our own apparent ranks.  And it won’t be the last.  But who can stay the hand of the Lord, who has been His counselor, who has instructed him in righteousness or informed him of a better way?  No one.  He is the everlasting, ever-present, all-sufficient God in Whom we trust to the betterment of our own souls now and forever.  Penal substitution does not make us worry about God’s intent but verifies His intent.  It does not make us fear that He will dislike us but assures us that He loves us.  It does not weaken our hearts toward Him but fills them with passion and worship.    
“They (liberal preachers) speak with disgust of those who believe ‘that the blood of our Lord, shed in substitutionary death, placates an alienated deity and makes possible welcome for the returning sinner. Against the doctrine of the cross they use every weapon of caricature and vilification. Thus they pour out their scorn upon a thing so holy and so precious that in the presence of it the Christian heart melts in gratitude too deep for words. It never seems to occur to modern liberals that in deriding the Christian doctrine of the cross, they are trampling on human hearts.” (J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1923, p.120.)

After Sunday’s message previous to Christmas someone asked if the “example” theory of the cross was prevalent in modern Christian thinking.  It may not be prevalent but it has a growing number of adherents, moved primarily through Steve Chalke’s (UK) book, “The Lost Message of Jesus” (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003).  Convocations and debates are being held in Christendom, among Christians, to determine the validity of what the church has historically known as the penal substitutionary death of Christ.  In this doctrine the church has always believed and affirmed that Jesus judicially exchanged places with sinners, and voluntarily endured the punishment their sins deserved.  In this fashion, Christ, on the cross, propitiated the wrath of our God Who was (and is) justly angry at sin. This single doctrine is the gospel and what some consider “defining belief of the evangelical faith” which separates us from all other religions.  Only the cross of Christ answers the sin question BUT, if the “example” theory is true, then we are, as Paul would say, “still in our sins.” In a press release concerning the book, Steve claimed that penal substitution is ‘a theory rooted in violence and retributive notions of justice’ and is incompatible ‘at least as currently taught and understood, with any authentically Christian understanding of the character of God.’

Basically, the whole controversy boils down to one question in Steve’s book.  He asks how modern Christians have ‘come to believe that at the cross this God of love suddenly decides to vent his anger and wrath on his own Son?’ (p.182).  Steve considers this contrary to Jesus’ teaching about refusing to pay evil with evil, loving your enemies and the biblical statement that God is love (p. 182).  And then Steve uses the phrase that has generated all the heat…exclaiming that the cross is not “a form of cosmic child abuse - a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed” (p.182).  In other words, although he uses the term in the negative, if penal subsutitionary atonement is true then the term is used in the positive sense.  If God did punish His Son for the humanity’s sins, then the cross is cosmic child abuse.  According to Steve, the cross isn’t a form of cosmic child abuse if Christ died as our example but if God punished Christ on the cross for sins He did not commit, then the cross most certainly is cosmic child abuse.  For Steve, the cross is reduced to only a symbol of love, a demonstration of how far God is willing to go to prove his love (p.182).

For Steve, Christians have always misunderstood Jesus’ cry, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Matt. 27:46).  Jesus’ cry was not one of abandonment as He became sin itself  but simply ‘mirrors those of countless millions of people who suffer oppression, enslavement, abuse, disease, poverty, starvation and violence’(p.185). In other words, (contrary to what I preached the Sunday previous to Christmas) Calvary wasn’t unique. For Jesus the cross became a way of sharing the experience of all who feel abandoned by God in their own suffering.  By means of the cross, we can now know that God is always right there with us in our suffering (p.185-6) in spite of how we may feel in our darkest moments.   
As well, ‘On the cross Jesus took on the ideology that violence is the ultimate solution by “turning the other cheek” and refusing to return evil for evil, willingly absorbing its impact within his own body’ (p.179).  Oh, the resurrection you ask?  The resurrection is the reversal of all that is wrong in the world.  It is the triumph of love over hate good over evil, light over darkness, as the God of love takes on the powers of dark evil (shades of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader) and wins the day (p.l87). 

Steve’s Bible “never defines God as anger, power or judgement-in fact it never defines him as anything other than love” (p.63).  If anyone reads the Bible without love’s lens, they “risk a terrible misrepresentation of his character, which in turn leads to a distortion of the gospel” (p.63).  Yet both the Old and New Testaments affirm that God is a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24; Heb. 12:29), and dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim.6:16). The sight of God’s holiness filled Isaiah with dread and made him conscious of his guilt (Isa. 6:1-5) and Christians are called to holiness not impurity (1 Thess. 4:7).  God’s attributes are diamond-like in that He is always and only all of them simultaneously and forever.  He is never more one than the other or at any time, less one than the other.  Steve’s misconstruction of God’s attributes creates a biblical world in which “Yahweh’s association with vengeance and violence wasn’t so much an expression of who he was but the result of his determination to be involved with his world. His unwillingness to distance himself from the people of Israel and their actions meant that at times he was implicated in the excessive acts of war that we see in some of the books of the Old Testament.” (p.49).   For Steve, the conquest of Canaan was accomplished in God’s name but not at His command or with His consent. But this is in direct contradiction to Deut. 7:1-2,16, 20, 22-26; 9:1-3; Jos.6:15-21; 10:40-42.  Yikes!  In the “example theory” God never judges anything; He only provides an example toward a better life.  It’s easy to see how one’s theory of the atonement affects every other area of a person’s theology, belief and even practice.  This deeply theological doctrine touches every aspect of how we think and behave in daily living.