Sunday Meditation: Do It Again

Life may seem to be cyclical—that was how the ancient pagans thought of it, and how modern pagans still do—but those who think christianly understand that human existence and the universe itself have an eschatological trajectory. Most of us do the same things every day. My feet follow the same path every morning. I am conscious of the process. It is unvarying, but deliberate. There is an order to each of my actions in the dark hours as I make my way downstairs, a logic to what I do in sequence. God has ordered our lives this way.

Death follows birth. We rest on the Lord’s Day and then go to our work. We feast and fast. We marry and bury. Children are born and then launched like arrows. There is a liturgy to life, as in corporate worship. Called, cleansed, consecrated, communed, and commissioned, again and again, until we take our last breath in this world and step into the presence of the Lord of all worlds.

Chesterton writes of the repetition in creation as being deliberate acts of God, signs of his youth, arguing that it is sin that has made us grow old and resent monotony.

“Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE. Heaven may ENCORE the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of bringing forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life or purpose. It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, that they admire it from their starry galleries, and that at the end of every human drama man is called again and again before the curtain. Repetition may go on for millions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may stop. Man may stand on the earth generation after generation, and yet each birth be his positively last appearance.” –G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Life is not a cycle; it is a journey, but that journey involves many repetitions. Each night the camp must be made, a fight lit, food cooked and eaten, the beds laid and bodies upon them. Each morning we must rise to the same routine in reverse and set out again on our walk. You can resist and resent the sameness, or you can thank God for daily manna and that it tastes like wafers with honey rather than pickles. It is our sin that makes our souls grow old, and if that is so, then it is true that sanctification involves daily renewal (2Cor. 4:14-16), being made younger each day, even as our bodies grow older and wear out.

Tomorrow we will, our Lord willing, do the same things we do every Lord’s Day. God will summon us into his presence, and we will rejoice to be there. We will confess our sins, and he will assure us of his forgiveness, love, and favor. We will listen to his Word with reverence and gratitude, and he will form us more into the likeness of the Son as the Spirit applies that word to our hearts. Then we will feast at his table, receive his blessing, and go on our way rejoicing that the Triune God has blessed us with every good thing we enjoy.

You and I must choose whether to worship like children or like grumpy old people. The children rejoice to say, “Amen!” even if they do it a few seconds late. They are delighted to lift their hands and sing as the psalms instruct us all to do—no doubt the three-year-olds do so because of their stern commitment to the Regulative Principle. They listen to the “long preach” because they know the donuts are coming, and they will be able to get a gummy worm or three from Miss Nancy before, and maybe after, their presbyterian pastry. We are God’s children, so let us resolve to worship with the enthusiasm of youth. God is coming to meet us and bless us. Let us welcome him and pray that he will “Do it again.” --JME

Baptismal Meditation: Baptismal Waters

God has always used water as a sign to cleanse and consecrate His people. When He made the world, the Lord created a garden in which to place Man, and in that garden there was a river. The garden at the end of the Bible has a pure river of water of life in it too. When God judged the ancient world for its wickedness, he used water both to drown the ungodly and to bear up the Ark and deliver Noah and his family. The Lord brought His people out of slavery in Egypt and saved them from their enemies by leading them through the Red Sea. Forty years later He led their children into the Promised Land by leading them through the water of the Jordan River. In the days of Elijah, God withheld rain and then he gave rain in great abundance as signs of power, judgment, and salvation. Jesus turned water into wine, stilled stormy waters by the power of His word, and walked not through but on top of the sea. These and a dozen other stories like them are the background for what we are about to do today.

Baptism is a picture of judgment and of salvation. It is a sign to mark, cleanse, and dedicate God’s servants. It is a ritual by which we are brought into covenant with the Lord and made part of his family. It is a sacrament, a means of grace, whereby through the outward application of water, we are assured of God’s inward application of the blood of Christ which washes away our sins.

Baptism is sometimes administered by sprinkling, sometimes by pouring, sometimes by immersion. We are persuaded that any one of these modes is acceptable. Today water will fall upon our brother’s head just as the rain fell upon Noah’s Ark. It fell to destroy the sin in that ancient world, and it fell to save Noah and his family. The waters of baptism remind us that we are sprinkled with the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God. The application of water is like the anointing of a priest or a king, and we are called to be priests and kings in the service of our Lord. It is the Holy Spirit who descends upon us to mark us as the people of God. It will not take long for this water to dry, but the Holy Spirit and blessing of God which it signifies and seals will remain with you and upon you forever. --JME

Becoming “Federal Vision”?

Last Friday (Jan. 5th) a friend and fellow minister in our Presbytery called to tell me that he had received an email about me from two other OPC ministers who alleged that I am “trending in an FV [Federal Vision] direction.” Several days later our Session received copies of the two email threads in question. The emails were originally sent on January 1st. As of this date (Jan. 10th), neither of the original authors have contacted me or any of our ruling elders to share their concerns or inform us that they were forwarding them to members of the Presbytery.

The emails take issue with some of my sermons that the authors deemed unclear. For example, a concern was raised about one sermon which “has an unguarded expression ‘Your children are Christians, God's saints.’” The minister communicating the concern commented: “[Joel] is a little more sanguine about children than I am, though again, here his position is not all that different from Kuyper.” The same man comments at several places that my expressions are “not the usual way FV writers speak.” He concedes that he “might quibble here a bit… but [Joel’s] position on this point is hardly heretical.” He also notes a couple of places in which statements in sermons were “a little unclear.” At no point is a clear transgression of the Westminster Standards or chargeable offense identified.

The claim that I am “trending in an FV direction” arose from communication by an ROPC member who noted our use of covenant renewal worship, allowing young children to profess faith, my writing for Kuyperian Commentary, and my views on paedocommunion. One of the ministers who sent the emails said he knew me “when sounder” and had “come to have my concerns over him in recent years.” He says he knew I “was becoming ‘Moscow friendly’” and was not surprised I was moving further in that direction. He did not mention those concerns to me when we spoke in person in the last year.

The two men who compiled and sent these emails are well-known and highly respected OPC ministers in other Presbyteries. They are also moderators on a popular Reformed social media platform. Both of them are personally known to me. I have known one of them since 2017 and the other for about three years. Though neither have contacted me, their concerns have been formally communicated as indicated by the sender’s affirmation: “I hand this over to you as members of our brother’s presbytery.”

Am I becoming “Federal Vision”? I suppose that depends on what that allegation means. Some people say this or that is Federal Vision and expect Reformed Christians simply to accept that it is a compromise of the gospel, even if many of them cannot explain what “Federal Vision” theology is or why and how it departs from the biblical gospel and historic Reformed orthodoxy.

If this were 2003-2007, then I probably would be classified with the infamous “Federal Vision” camp. I share many of the emphases and concerns discussed by the men who were originally associated with the conferences and essays from which the name was taken. I affirm the content of the “Joint Statement on Federal Vision” put together in 2007. I believe many of the concerns those men raised are consistent with Scripture and with earlier forms of Reformed theology. I think what is often called “Federal Vision” is not a departure from but, in most cases, a faithful exposition of or at least consistent with the historic Reformed confessions. But “Federal Vision” has never been monolithic. I do not agree with everything or everyone associated with the Federal Vision, and the men originally associated with it do not agree on everything either. I do not believe men like James Jordan, Peter Leithart, Doug Wilson, Rich Lusk, and Steve Wilkens are heretics, and I do not believe denouncing them is required to prove one’s orthodoxy, but that is considered suspicious or objectionable by many critics of the “Federal Vision.”

There are some issues on which I have changed my mind in the last few years. There are other issues concerning which, although my convictions have not changed, my teaching and explanations have become clearer. There is a third category of issues regarding which my convictions have always been what some people call “Federal Vision.” I simply did not know it. I thought those positions were simply biblical and reformed orthodoxy. I still do. I have not always been consistent. For the first few years after I joined the OPC in 2016, I affirmed that Federal Vision theology was wrong, involving a hyper-objective view of the Covenant of Grace and sacraments. I did not understand what that meant—I thought I did—but I was sincere in repeating what I had heard men whom I respected say.

My teaching is public. ROPC has a large following online. It is not hard to find out what I believe or teach, and I am not hard to find. I hear regularly from men and women I have never met from all over the world who have listened to my sermons, read my articles, and have questions to ask or appreciation to share. I am disappointed that the OPC ministers who have decided I am “an FV problem in the OPC” did not reach out to me to share their concerns before informing men in my Presbytery. If and when they or others have questions and concerns they want to discuss, I will be happy to listen to and answer them.

–Joel Ellis on behalf of the ROPC Session (January 10, 2024)

RE Bruce Blair, TE Joel Ellis, RE Rich Pudleiner,

RE John Shih, RE Michael Southard, RE Michael Williams

Charles Hodge on the Sabbath and "Christian Nationalism"

This is an excerpt from Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, pages 340-348. --JME

The Sunday Laws

It is very common, especially for foreign-born citizens, to object to all laws made by the civil governments in this country to prevent the public violation of the Lord’s Day. It is urged that as there is in the United States an entire separation of the Church and State, it is contrary to the genius of our institutions, that the observance of any religious institution should be enforced by civil laws. It is further objected that as all citizens have equal rights irrespective of their religious opinions, it is an infringement of those rights if one class of the people are required to conform their conduct to the religious opinions of another class. Why should Jews, Mohammedans, or infidels be required to respect the Christian Sabbath? Why should any man, who has no faith in the Sabbath as a divine institution, be prevented from doing on that day whatever is lawful on other days? If the State may require the people to respect Sunday as a day of rest, why may it not require the people to obey any or all other precepts of the Bible?

State of the Question

It is conceded, (1.) That in every free country every man has equal rights with his fellow-citizens, and stands on the same ground in the eye of the law. (2.) That in the United States no form of religion can be established; that no religious test for the exercise of the elective franchise or for holding of office can be imposed; and that no preference can be given to the members of one religious denomination above those of another. (3.) That no man can be forced to contribute to the support of any church, or of any religious institution. (4.) That every man is at liberty to regulate his conduct and life according to his convictions or conscience, provided he does not violate the law of the land.

On the other hand it is no less true,—

1. That a nation is not a mere conglomeration of individuals. It is an organized body. It has of necessity its national life, its national organs, national principles of action, national character, and national responsibility.

2. In every free country the government must, in its organization and mode of action, be an expression of the mind and will of the people.

3. As men are rational creatures, the government cannot banish all sense and reason from their action, because there may be idiots among the people.

4. As men are moral beings, it is impossible that the government should act as though there were no distinction between right and wrong. It cannot legalize theft and murder. No matter how much it might enrich itself by rapine or by the extermination of other nations, it would deserve and receive universal condemnation and execration, should it thus set at nought the bonds of moral obligation. This necessity of obedience to the moral law on the part of civil governments, does not arise from the fact that they are instituted for the protection of the lives, rights, and property of the people. Why have our own and other Christian nations pronounced the slave-trade piracy and punishable with death? Not because it interferes with the rights or liberty of their citizens but because it is wicked. Cruelty to animals is visited with civil penalties, not on the principle of profit and loss, but because it is a violation of the moral law. As it is impossible for the individual man to disregard all moral obligations, it is no less impossible on the part of civil governments.

5. Men moreover are religious beings. They can no more ignore that element of their nature than their reason or their conscience. It is no matter what they may say, or may pretend to think, the law which binds them to allegiance to God, is just as inexorable as the law of gravitation. They can no more emancipate themselves from the one than they can from the other. Morality concerns their duty to their fellow-men; religion concerns their duty to God. The latter binds the conscience as much as the former. It attends the man everywhere. It must influence his conduct as an individual, as the head of a family, as a man of business, as a legislator, and as an executive officer. It is absurd to say that civil governments have nothing to do with religion. That is not true even of a fire company, or of a manufactory, or of a banking-house. The religion embraced by the individuals composing these associations must influence their corporate action, as well as their individual conduct. If a man may not blaspheme, a publishing firm may not print and disseminate a blasphemous book. A civil government cannot ignore religion any more than physiology. It was not constituted to teach either the one or the other, but it must, by a like necessity, conform its action to the laws of both. Indeed it would be far safer for a government to pass an act violating the laws of health, than one violating the religious convictions of its citizens. The one would be unwise, the other would be tyrannical. Men put up with folly, with more patience than they do with injustice. It is vain for the potsherds of the earth to contend with their Maker. They must submit to the laws of their nature not only as sentient, but also as moral and religious beings. And it is time that blatant atheists, whether communists, scientists, or philosophers, should know that they are as much and as justly the objects of pity and contempt, as of indignation to all right-minded men. By right-minded men, is meant men who think, feel, and act according to the laws of their nature. Those laws are ordained, administered, and enforced by God, and there is no escape from their obligation, or from the penalties attached to their violation.

6. The people of this country being rational, moral, and religious beings, the government must be administered on the principles of reason, morality, and religion. By a like necessity of right, the people being Christians and Protestants, the government must be administered according to the principles of Protestant Christianity. By this is not meant that the government should teach Christianity, or make the profession of it a condition of citizenship, or a test for office. Nor does it mean that the government is called upon to punish every violation of Christian principle or precept. It is not called upon to punish every violation of the moral law. But as it cannot violate the moral law in its own action, or require the people to violate it, so neither can it ignore Christianity in its official action. It cannot require the people or any of its own officers to do what Christianity forbids, nor forbid their doing anything which Christianity enjoins. It has no more right to forbid that the Bible should be taught in the public schools, than it has to enjoin that the Koran should be taught in them. If Christianity requires that one day in seven should be a day of rest from all worldly avocations, the government of a Christian people cannot require any class of the community or its own officers to labour on that day, except in cases of necessity or mercy. Should it, on the ground that it had nothing to do with religion, disregard that day, and direct that the custom-houses, the courts of law, and the legislative halls should be open on the Lord’s Day, and public business be transacted as on other days, it would be an act of tyranny, which would justify rebellion. It would be tantamount to enacting that no Christian should hold any office under the government, or have any share in making or administering the laws of the country. The nation would be in complete subjection to a handful of imported atheists and infidels.

Proof that this is a Christian and Protestant Nation

The proposition that the United States of America are a Christian and Protestant nation, is not so much the assertion of a principle as the statement of a fact. That fact is not simply that the great majority of the people are Christians and Protestants, but that the organic life, the institutions, laws, and official action of the government, whether that action be legislative, judicial, or executive, is, and of right should be, and in fact must be, in accordance with the principles of Protestant Christianity.

1. This is a Christian and Protestant nation in the sense stated in virtue of a universal and necessary law. If you plant an acorn, you get an oak. If you plant a cedar, you get a cedar. If a country be settled by Pagans or Mohammedans, it develops into a Pagan or Mohammedan community. By the same law, if a country be taken possession of and settled by Protestant Christians, the nation which they come to constitute must be Protestant and Christian. This country was settled by Protestants. For the first hundred years of our history they constituted almost the only element of our population. As a matter of course they were governed by their religion as individuals, in their families, and in all their associations for business, and for municipal, state, and national government. This was just as much a matter of necessity as that they should act morally in all these different relations.

2. It is a historical fact that Protestant Christianity is the law of the land, and has been from the beginning. As the great majority of the early settlers of the country were from Great Britain, they declared that the common law of England should be the law here. But Christianity is the basis of the common law of England, and is therefore of the law of this country; and so our courts have repeatedly decided. It is so not merely because of such decisions. Courts cannot reverse facts. Protestant Christianity has been, is, and must be the law of the land, Whatever Protestant Christianity forbids, the law of the land (within its sphere, i.e., within the sphere in which civil authority may appropriately act) forbids. Christianity forbids polygamy and arbitrary divorce, so does the civil law. Romanism forbids divorce even on the ground of adultery; Protestantism admits it on that ground. The laws of all the states conform in this matter to the Protestant rule. Christianity forbids all unnecessary labour, or the transaction of worldly business, on the Lord’s Day; that day accordingly is a dies non, throughout the land. No contract is binding, made on that day. No debt can be collected on the Christian Sabbath. If a man hires himself for any service by the month or year, he cannot be required to labour on that day. All public offices are closed, and all official business is suspended. From Maine to Georgia, from ocean to ocean, one day in the week, by the law of God and by the law of the land, the people rest.

This controlling Influence of Christianity is Reasonable and Right

It is in accordance with analogy. If a man goes to China, he expects to find the government administered according to the religion of the country. If he goes to Turkey, he expects to find the Koran supreme and regulating all public action. If he goes to a Protestant country, he has no right to complain, should he find the Bible in the ascendancy and exerting its benign influence not only on the people, but also on the government.

The principle that the religion of a people rightfully controls the action of the government, has of course its limitation. If the religion itself be evil and require what is morally wrong, then as men cannot have the right to act wickedly, it is plain that it would be wrong for the government to conform to its requirements. If a religion should enjoin infanticide, or the murder of the aged or infirm, neither the people nor the government should conform their conduct to its laws. But where the religion of a people requires nothing unjust or cruel or in any way immoral, then those who come to live where it prevails are bound to submit quietly to its controlling the laws and institutions of the country.

The principle contended for is recognized in all other departments of life. If a number of Christian men associate themselves as a manufacturing or banking company, it would be competent for them to admit unbelievers in Christianity into their association, and to allow them their full share in its management and control. But it would be utterly unreasonable for such unbelievers to set up a cry of religious persecution, or of infringement of their rights and liberty, because all the business of the company was suspended upon the Lord’s Day. These new members knew the character and principles of those with whom they sought to be associated. They knew that Christians would assert their right to act as Christians. To require them to renounce their religion would be simply preposterous.

When Protestant Christians came to this country they possessed and subdued the land. They worshipped God, and his Son Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world, and acknowledged the Scriptures to be the rule of their faith and practice. They introduced their religion into their families, their schools, and their colleges. They abstained from all ordinary business on the Lord’s Day, and devoted it to religion. They built churches, erected school-houses, and taught their children to read the Bible and to receive and obey it as the word of God. They formed themselves as Christians into municipal and state organizations. They acknowledged God in their legislative assemblies. They prescribed oaths to be taken in his name. They closed their courts, their places of business, their legislatures, and all places under the public control, on the Lord’s Day. They declared Christianity to be part of the common law of the land. In the process of time thousands have come among us, who are neither Protestants nor Christians. Some are papists, some Jews, some infidels, and some atheists. All are welcomed; all are admitted to equal rights and privileges. All are allowed to acquire property, and to vote in every election, made eligible to all offices, and invested with equal influence in all public affairs. All are allowed to worship as they please, or not to worship at all, if they see fit. No man is molested for his religion or for his want of religion. No man is required to profess any form of faith, or to join any religious association. More than this cannot reasonably be demanded. More, however, is demanded. The infidel demands that the government should be conducted on the principle that Christianity is false. The atheist demands that it should be conducted on the assumption that there is no God, and the positivist on the principle that men are not free agents. The sufficient answer to all this is, that it cannot possibly be done.

The Demands of Infidels are Unjust

The demands of those who require that religion, and especially Christianity, should be ignored in our national, state, and municipal laws, are not only unreasonable, but they are in the highest degree unjust and tyrannical. It is a condition of service in connection with any railroad which is operated on Sundays, that the employee be not a Christian. If Christianity is not to control the action of our municipal, state, and general governments, then if elections be ordered to be held on the Lord’s Day, Christians cannot vote. If all the business of the country is to go on, on that as on other days, no Christian can hold office. We should thus have not a religious, but an anti-religious test-act. Such is the free-thinker’s idea of liberty. But still further, if Christianity is not to control the laws of the country, then as monogamy is a purely Christian institution, we can have no laws against polygamy, arbitrary divorce, or “free love.” All this must be yielded to the anti-Christian party; and consistency will demand that we yield to the atheists, the oath and the decalogue; and all the rights of citizenship must be confined to blasphemers. Since the fall of Lucifer, no such tyrant has been made known to men as August Comte, the atheist. If, therefore, any man wishes to antedate perdition, he has nothing to do but to become a free-thinker and join in the shout, “Civil government has nothing to do with religion; and religion has nothing to do with civil government.”

Conclusion

We are bound, therefore, to insist upon the maintenance and faithful execution of the laws enacted for the protection of the Christian Sabbath. Christianity does not teach that men can be made religious by law; nor does it demand that men should be required by the civil authority to profess any particular form of religious doctrine, or to attend upon religious services; but it does enjoin that men should abstain from all unnecessary worldly avocations on the Lord’s Day. This civil Sabbath, this cessation from worldly business, is what the civil government in Christian countries is called upon to enforce. (1.) Because it is the right of Christians to be allowed to rest on that day, which they cannot do, without forfeiting their citizenship, unless all public business be arrested on that day. (2.) Because such rest is the command of God; and this command binds the conscience as much as any other command in the decalogue. So far as the point in hand is concerned, it matters not whether such be the command of God or not; so long as the people believe it, it binds their conscience; and this conscientious belief the government is bound to respect, and must act accordingly. (3.) Because the civil Sabbath is necessary for the preservation of our free institutions, and of the good order of society. The indispensable condition of social order is either despotic power in the magistrate, or good morals among the people. Morality without religion is impossible; religion cannot exist without knowledge; knowledge cannot be disseminated among the people, unless there be a class of teachers, and time allotted for their instruction. Christ has made all his ministers, teachers; He has commanded them to teach all nations; He has appointed one day in seven to be set apart for such instruction. It is a historical fact that since the introduction of Christianity, nine tenths of the people have derived the greater part of their religious knowledge from the services of the sanctuary. If the Sabbath, therefore, be abolished, the fountain of life for the people will be sealed.

Hengstenberg, after referring to the authority of the Church and other grounds, for the observance of the Lord’s Day, closes his discussion of the subject with these words: “Thank God these are only the outworks; the real fortress is the command that sounded out from Sinai, with the other divine commands therewith connected, as preparatory, confirmatory, or explanatory. The institution was far too important, and the temptations too powerful, that the solid ground of Scriptural command could be dispensed with.… It is as plain as day that the obligation of the Old Testament command instead of being lessened is increased. This follows of course from the fact that the redemption through Christ is infinitely more glorious than the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt, which in the preface to the Ten Commandments is referred to as a special motive to obedience. No ingratitude is blacker than refusing to obey Him who for our sakes gave up his only begotten Son.” He had said before that the Sabbath “rests on the unalterable necessities of our nature, inasmuch as men inevitably become godless if the cares and labours of their earthly life be not regularly interrupted.”