Hudsonville Protestant Reformed
Church
5101 Beechtree
Hudsonville, Michigan 49426
Services: 9:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
Homepage on Internet: http://www.prca.org
Vol. 9, No. 3
Contents:
Christ’s Words Shall
Never Pass Away (2)
The Fear of
God
Is
Universal Atonement True? (8)
Christ’s
Words Shall Never Pass Away (2)
Christ makes the strong affirmation of the permanence of His words—"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matt. 24:35)—in Matthew 24 because, as we saw last time, He has been predicting events, some of which are so glorious and some of which are so terrible, that they are hard to believe.
Christ’s promise is all the more necessary today since almost 2,000 years have passed and He has not yet returned upon the clouds with His angels (30-31). The church is tempted to sleep and forget about her Lord’s second coming. Moreover, scoffers have arisen who deny Christ’s return (II Peter 3). Often these are world-respected professional men with academic qualifications. "Man has come of age. We are scientific. The bodily return of Christ is a myth." Thus Jesus’ words come to us: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." So hold fast to this truth and do not be shaken by the wisdom of the world for it is "foolishness with God" (I Cor. 3:19).
Jesus does not say, "These my words shall not pass away," as if He were speaking only of a particular utterance. Instead, He says, "My words [understood inclusively] shall not pass away." Christ’s words in Matthew 24 on His coming at the fall of Jerusalem and at the end of the world, all of Christ’s words and all of Christ’s words in their context (i.e. the four gospels) shall not pass away. The NT is the words of Christ by His Spirit too. And would God promise to preserve the NT and not also preserve the OT? Thus Jesus here assures us of the preservation of the complete Word of God, OT and NT.
Christ’s promise is absolutely trustworthy; no part of God’s Word has passed away. There was no fifth gospel which was lost. The epistle that Paul wrote to the Corinthians before he wrote I Corinthians (I Cor. 5:9) has not come down to us for it was not inspired nor intended for the church of all ages. Similarly Paul’s letter to the Laodiceans (Col. 4:16) was not God-breathed. The alleged gospels and epistles by various apostles (e.g., Thomas and Andrew) are spurious. It is not the case either that God wanted to tell us more about Christ’s childhood or the forty days after His resurrection or Paul’s life after Acts 28, but that these have accidentally been lost to us. We have today all that God inspired for our learning for Christ’s words will never pass away.
And it is not just the ideas of Scripture that are
preserved for us. Jesus said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matt. 4:4). And how can we live by
every word, if every word is not preserved? Beloved, every word of God is preserved
according to Christ’s promise. Feed on these words for this is your life! Rev. Angus Stewart
My flesh trembleth
for fear of thee; and I am afraid of thy judgments (Psalm 119:120).Wherefore, my beloved,
as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence,
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).There is no fear in
love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not
made perfect in love (I John 4:18).
The question sent in to
us in connection with these texts is: How do we harmonize these verses with respect to
"fear?"
The question arises out
of the fact that the Scriptures in these passages (and many more could be added) seem to
speak of fear in a contradictory way. Paul tells the Philippians to work out their
salvation with fear, but John insists there is no fear in love, that, in fact, perfect
love casts out fear, and that fear is torment. On the one hand, the believer is urged to
fear it; on the other hand he is warned against fear.
Both the Hebrew and the
Greek use an identical word for "fear," although it has two distinct meanings in
Scripture. (I ought to mention in parentheses that the Hebrew has many different words for
"fear," but the word most frequently used has the same two meanings as the
Greek.)
One meaning is
"dread" or "terror." This is the way it is most commonly used among
us. If I fear something, I am in terror of it.
The other meaning can
best be translated by words such as "reverence, respect, and awe." I myself
prefer the word "awe" and think this meaning comes closest to the Biblical idea.
In Psalm 119:120 the
Scriptures are clear on the fact that the term means "terror" or
"dread." That this is true is clear first of all from the fact that the Psalmist
sings of his "flesh" trembling for fear. Our flesh is our nature from the
viewpoint of the sin and weakness which characterizes it. That our flesh should tremble
for fear of God is understandable because God is a holy and righteous God who hates sin
and punishes it severely in this life and in the life to come. Our flesh dreads God!
But, in the second
place, it is clear that Psalm 119:120 means dread because the verse is an example of
Hebrew parallelism in which the first and second parts of the verse explain each other.
The second part reads, "I am afraid of thy judgments." One can easily see how
the two parts develop each other more fully.
In the NT the same idea
is found in I John 4:18. When the apostle speaks here of love, he refers to God’s
love for us, not our love for God. If we know the love of God for us, we need never be
afraid of Him. Nor can we be afraid of Him. How can we dread coming into the presence of
one who loves us? Love casts out fear. If, on the other hand, we do not know the love of
God, then we are afraid of Him because we are, in ourselves, sinners who will surely
receive our just punishment for sin. Fear torments us for the fires of hell lick about our
feet even while we are here in the world, only to consume us after death. But when the
love of God, revealed in the cross of Jesus Christ, is shed abroad within our hearts, then
that love casts out fear.
But Philippians 2:12
speaks of fear as a necessary virtue in the working out of our salvation because he refers
to fear as reverence or awe. Both words (reverence and awe) fit beautifully here. We work
out the salvation God has graciously given to us. We do this with reverence because we do
this before God’s face as an act of worship of the Most High. And we work out our
salvation with awe because we are filled with awe at the greatness of our God who has
given us such a glorious salvation.
Because Scripture uses
the same word with such diverse meanings, there must be a relationship between the two
meanings. I find this relationship to lie in the following ideas.
Because we know that we
justly deserve God’s most terrible judgments and punishments for our sin, we stand
before Him in reverence and awe. We marvel that He has, out of mere grace and without any
merit on our part, made us the objects of His love and given us Christ, His own Son, to
make us His people. As we ponder what blessings are ours because of His love, that
reverence and awe increase.
If we should be involved
in a plot to kill the queen, only to be caught and found guilty, we would be filled with
terror as we are dragged into her presence; but if our queen not only pardoned us but also
made us an heir to the throne, we would be in awe of such unmerited kindness and we would
be unable to speak of the queen with anything but reverence. God has done infinitely
greater than that for us.
The second relation
between the two meanings of the term is this: Even when saved from our sins and in awe at
the greatness of God’s mercy towards us, a certain dread remains in our hearts. Even
saints, when confronted with God’s holiness felt a certain terror (cf. Isa. 6). That
terror properly manifests itself in reverence and awe. Fear is, therefore, to be so afraid
of offending God by our sins, after He has done so much for us, that we are careful to
obey Him in all we do. This is why "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom." Thus we "do his commandments" and sing his "praise" (Ps.
111:10). Prof.
Herman Hanko
Is Universal
Atonement True? (8)
(18) If Christ died for absolutely
everybody, then why are not all actually saved? Romans 6 makes it clear that those who are
united to Christ in His death are dead to sin (6-7) and "alive unto God"
(11), and will be raised bodily to glory (5). But many spend all their days "dead in
trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1) and will rise in the "resurrection of
damnation" (John 5:29). We can only conclude that they were not united to Christ in
His death (i.e., Christ did not die for them). For if the reprobate were united to Christ
in His death (i.e., if Christ died for them), they would live unto God.
Scripture teaches that both faith (Eph. 2:8-9; Phil. 1:29) and repentance (Acts 5:31; 11:18; II Tim. 2:25) are gifts of God's grace. Faith and repentance are instances of "spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Eph. 1:3). God's blessings in Christ come through Christ's cross (Rom. 8:32; Gal. 3:13-14). But "all men have not faith" (II Thess. 3:2) nor do all repent (Rev. 16:11). Thus faith and repentance were not purchased for everybody head for head on the cross and so Christ did not die for all.
Titus 2:14 explains that Christ's purpose in His redemption on the cross is the sanctification of His own "peculiar people" that we would be purified and be "zealous of good works." But many die "filthy" (Rev. 22:11) because of their "ungodly deeds" (Jude 15). Since the purpose of the omnipotent God always stands (Rom. 9:11) and can never be resisted (II Chron. 20:6), it was not Christ's purpose to sanctify and redeem the reprobate by His cross. Thus He did not die for them.
(19) If Christ shed His blood to redeem everyone head for head, then the creeds of the Reformed churches, on the continent and in the British Isles and all around the world, teach false doctrine at this point. The Canons of Dordt—the most international assembly of Reformed Protestants ever—clearly state that Christ redeemed the elect "and those only" (2.8) and that those who teach that He died for absolutely everybody speak "contemptuously of the death of Christ" and "bring again out of hell the Pelagian error" (2.R.3). B. B. Warfield writes that the Canons were "published authoritatively in 1619 as the finding of the [Dutch] Synod with the aid of a large body of foreign assessors, representative practically of the whole Reformed world. The Canons ... therefore ... [possess] the moral authority of the decrees of practically an Ecumenical Council throughout the whole body of Reformed Churches" (Works, vol. 9, p. 144). The Westminster Confession of Faith states, "Neither are any other redeemed by Christ ... but the elect only" (3.6; cf. 8:1; 11:4; 13:1). These articles were copied in the Savoy Declaration and the Baptist Confession. Thus the creeds of Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists all teach Limited Atonement or Particular Redemption. Remember too that all who recite the Westminster Shorter Catechism confess that Jesus Christ is the "only Redeemer of God's elect" (A 21). As we have seen in the last few issues, the Reformed creeds simply set forth the Bible's teaching on this subject. Let us hold fast to Scriptural truth and honor the crucified and victorious Christ!
Rev. Angus Stewart