Jesus Christ

You're holding a sign that says "Pray for an end to abortion" and standing on the curb facing all the drivers waiting for the stoplight at one of the main intersections of your city. In the building behind you babies are being ripped apart and flushed down the disposal by Planned Parenthood. Up the sidewalk a little way are Roman Catholics praying to Mary. Also one solitary shy woman standing in the parking lot trying to talk to mothers intent on murdering their unborn child as they walk over to the abortuary.

Time passes and you notice things...

Christians should be grateful for the recent debate over order and being in the Trinity. Though the debate brings painful divisions to light, it will eventually prove helpful. Disagreements between Christians reveal where God's approval lies. This will prove the main benefit of the current controversy—though we shouldn't assume that God's knife will entirely avoid us or our own position.

Positive fruits from the debate are already evident. Among these are:

• Revision of complementarian language. Complementarianism (itself an ambiguous neologism) likes to speak of roles: roles of men and women, roles in the Trinity. But places in the Godhead are not roles, nor are men and women playing charades as men and women. Role language for the Trinity is wrong and misleading. Role language for men and women is only a bit less so. Differences within the Trinity are matters of personhood, not roles. So too with men and women. Role language reduces and dismisses fundamental differences.
  

Because I have affection and respect for Liam Goligher, and because other men are capable and willing to show the errors in the positions on God's creation order of man and woman he and Carl Trueman have staked out, I have taken down my previous post. Still, I do wait for Liam to correct his abuse of John Calvin in service of his own errors.

Let's celebrate Easter
with the rite
of laughter.
Christ died and rose
and lives.
Laugh like a woman
who holds her first baby.
Our enemy death
will soon be destroyed.
Laugh like a man
who finds he doesn't have cancer
or does but now there's a cure.
Christ opened wide the door of heaven.
Laugh like children
at Disneyland's gates.
This world is owned by God
and He'll return to rule.
Laugh like a man
who walks away uninjured
from a wreck
in which his car was totaled.
Laugh
as if all the people in the whole world
were invited to a picnic
and then invite them.

-Joe Bayly

On December 10, 2015, one month ago, the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews released a statement on the relationship of Roman Catholicism and Judaism titled, The Gifts and the Calling of God Are Irrevocable (Romans 11:29): A Reflection on Theological Questions Pertaining to Catholic-Jewish Relations on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of "Nostra Aetate" (No. 4).

What is this document whose 50th anniversary is being celebrated?

Nostra Aetate is a statement on interreligious relations which came out of Roman Catholicism's most recent ecumenical council, Vatican II. Nostra Aetate is most notable for laying a groundwork for the Vatican's recent and growing repudiation of evangelism of the Jews. Nostra Aetate exhibits the typical post-Holocaust pandering to the Jews in its declarations that "what happened in [Christ's] passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today."

Tell that to the Apostles preaching in the book of Acts.

Nostra Aetate also declares: "the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God." Also, "the Church believes that by His cross Christ, Our Peace, reconciled Jews and Gentiles. making both one in Himself."

Since Nostra Aetate, the Vatican has been undercutting the Church's historic call to Jews to repent of their part in the persecution and murder of their Messiah, and to turn and believe in His Name. Historically, the Christian Church has patterned our witness to the Jews after the Apostolic sermons preached to the Jews which are recorded for us in Acts. Take, for instance, this record of the sermon preached by the Apostle Peter...

Romans begins and ends with the phrase, "obedience of faith." Chapter one, verse five reads, "we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles." Then the Apostle Paul brings the letter to an end with these words:

Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen.  - Romans 16: 25-27

Intriguing, isn't it, that the Apostle Paul starts and ends his letter with this pairing "obedience of faith?"

We'd never word it this way. We'd speak of the confession of faith, the grace of faith, the blessing of faith, the certainty of faith, justification by faith, the assurance of faith—anything but the obedience of faith. As we see it, in Christianity faith has displaced obedience from the pride of position it holds in all man's religious schemes of salvation. Further, any talk of obedience is dangerous because man's pride is always chomping at the bit to turn away from dependence upon God's grace, returning to dependence on his own self-righteousness.

"It's all of grace! That's what it means to be Protestant and Reformed! Catholics and Arminians talk about obedience because they believe in salvation by works, but all of us know they're wrong. Grace is everything!"

And yet, there the phrase is at the beginning and end of the book of Romans: the obedience of faith. We must admit it surprises us. If we didn't know it was there, we'd not think it wise for the Apostle Paul to speak this way. We'd warn him that a phrase like this will be used by some people...

For those of us who find the SCOTUS decision something to be celebrated, we should remember Romans 14, where the Apostle Paul advises those of us with less scruples to be gracious towards our brothers and sisters with more. (The "weaker" brother language is unfortunate here, because it seems to suggest one is right and the other is wrong...)

- Brian Prentiss, pastor of Intown Presbyterian Church, Portland; member of Pacific Northwest Presbytery, Presbyterian Church in America; M.Div. Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, Mississippi; former Campus Director at Campus Outreach and Collegiate Director at Briarwood Presbyterian Church. (On LinkedIn, Prentiss is commended for his pastoral leadership by Andrew Field, former pastor at Redeemer (NYC) and present board member of CCEF—David Powlison, Steve Estes, Ed Welch, etc.)

The above is excerpted from a post on the Intown Presbyterian Church (PCA) web site written by her pastor, Brian Prentiss. The post is scandalous. When the Supreme Court issued its pro-sodomy ruling, Bergefell v. Rhodes, Pastor Prentiss decided not to battle the wolf in defense of the sheep, so he wrote a bunch of gobbledigook to cover his abandonment...

Just finished Boswell's Life of Johnson. After recounting Johnson's death, Boswell speaks of pious Johnson's sin, and this short section from the end of the greatest biography in the English language is God's gift to those of us who tremble at our sin as we face death clinging to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. It reminds me of Machen's last words: "I’m so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it."

* * *

My readers are now, at last, to behold SAMUEL JOHNSON preparing himself for that doom, from which the most exalted powers afford no exemption to man. Death had always been to him an object of terrour; so that, though by no means happy, he still clung to life with an eagerness at which many have wondered....

Joseph

It’s cold and drafty. She’s cold. Why couldn’t the boy have been born while we were still in Nazareth, instead of here, alone, no one to help. Only me, and I’ve never delivered a baby.

Fear not, Joseph.

I do believe God. I take him at his word. A baby. But not mine.

Take unto thee Mary.

Mary—how I love her. I love you, Mary. Here. Hold my hand. I’ll see that nothing goes wrong. No, God will see to that, he’ll take care of you. He’s got to—it’s his baby. Don’t be afraid.

She shall bring forth a son.

He’ll work beside me, help me smooth a yoke, build a house. I’ll get him a little saw, the boy and I will work together.

Call his name Jesus.

I like that name: Jesus, Joshua—he brought our people to this land. He was a leader, Joshua was. He was God’s man.

He shall save his people.

It’s beyond me. I’m just a carpenter, not a rabbi. How can he save, even after he comes of age? When Messiah comes…

…from their sins.

Things are so bad. People are so bad, not just the Romans, either. For that matter, I’m bad—I need a Savior. Mary, I’m here. Don’t be afraid—cry out, if you feel like it.