Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Series: Misc. NT sermons

  • Van Til’s Analysis of Barth

    Van Til’s Analysis of Barth

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. NT sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 21, 1996.

    About this sermon

    Karl Barth held a particular view of inspiration, and Cornelius Van Til analyzed his theology at length. Van Til’s charge is specific: for all his orthodox-sounding language, Barth gives in to Enlightenment rationalism and naturalism. Barth’s own speech shows how familiar theological vocabulary can cloak real heresy, a warning that reaches well past Barth.

    More sermons from 2 Timothy · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Tonight we are reading from 2 Timothy 3. We are beginning at verse 14. 2 Timothy 3.14, give your attention to God’s infallible Word.

    You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word.

    Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. Be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

    For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearance.”

    O God, as this word of your unique servant Paul went out to Timothy, a pastor in your church, so, O God, may it by your Spirit continue to convict and strengthen those who would preach your word. even as they receive that word from you. We thank you, our God, for the apostolic word inspired, given to your church, that yes, your servants who proclaim that word may in fact do so in the very power of that word and with the truth of that word firmly in their grasp. But Father, we all would receive this word and be blessed by it, even as we are encouraged with regard to it through the proclamations and the teachings of those whom you have raised up. May we be pleased, O Lord, to pray for those who are given to the church as servants of the word. We ask this through Christ, who is himself the living word. Amen.

    You will notice that this is not the Gospel of John. Yes, I’ve done it one more time. I departed from the plan, and I do so this evening in the interest of the reading of the Confession which we have begun, and its opening chapter that has to do with the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures. You may not be all that familiar with the name Karl Barth. Karl Barth, B-A-R-T-H. He is truly one of the gargantuan theological personalities of this century. There are four others.

    Rudolf Bultmann, Friedrich Gogartin, Paul Tillich, and Cornelius Van Till. Of these names, That of Cornelius Van Til is most likely the one that you recognize, since he was a long-time professor of apologetics at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, and for over fifty years a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. If you didn’t know it, Dr. Van Til carried on a career-long battle with Karl Barth. In 1946, Dr. Van Til published a remarkable study on Barth’s theology entitled The New Modernism. it was a very, very high-level analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of Barth’s position.

    Barth had become very popular after the First World War because he had voiced sharp criticism of the full-party liberal optimism that had in no way prepared European Protestantism for the incomprehensible devastation of that war. But as if with willful blindness toward the potential evil, and that evil in reality within This European Protestantism actually, in so many ways, not only aided and abetted that war, but caused it. proposed a return to the simple, realistic truths of Scripture as taught by the Protestant Reformers. He proposed, over against the liberalism of his day, a return to the language of Orthodoxy. desperate, devoured Barth’s writings, beginning with his commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans, which Barth published in 1918. Europe, very much interested in this theologian, subsequently and quite consciously followed Barth’s career. especially as he later resisted very bravely, I might add, the rise of National Socialism in Germany. In 1934, Barth served the confessing churches in Germany as the chief architect of the Barmen Declaration. a document announcing the Church’s right over against the state, to individual judgment with authority over its own affairs, hardly subject to Hitler and to the Third Reich.

    This did not make Barth a very popular fellow in Germany with the ruling elite. Barth’s salvation was that he was a Swiss citizen. So he was removed from his theological chair at the University of Bonn and sent packing back to his homeland. he spent the war years teaching at Basel.

    From what I have said, you may be now wondering, what could be possibly wrong with this man? An enemy, self-proclaimed enemy of liberalism, an enemy of the Third Reich, a champion of the Reformation, he sounds like my kind of guy. How could Van Til possibly object? Is this not another example of OP contrariness? Of OP nitpicking?

    What Van Til discovered in Barth’s theology, however, was an essential commitment, a commitment at base, to the same ways of thinking that had informed the liberalism and the modernism that Barth said he was opposing. According to Van Til, Barth knew less than modernism. was dependent upon Enlightenment thinking from the 18th century.

    Now, what do we know about Enlightenment thinking? Well, we know that Enlightenment thinking was committed Above all, to the autonomy of the human mind. Autonomy means self-law. The autonomy of the human mind, that mind then standing independent of the judgment of all others, not coerced by tradition not coerced by former history, former attitudes, former judgments. In other words, the human mind, on the basis of proper observation, is the source of all definition and the final arbiter of truth.

    But beyond this, the Enlightenment mind was committed to the proposition that we can know nothing—we can know nothing—beyond the range of the human mind and intellect. Therefore, we can know nothing about anything supraphysical or metaphysical. we can know nothing about anything transcendent or anything up there in heaven.

    But if these commitments of the enrichment mind are true, what then are people to do? Well, many, of course, as you know, abandoned belief in God and in heaven. Others, claiming for themselves a Christian identity, presented their answers, answers which took various forms. Hang with me now. Immanuel Kant, the famous German Lutheran philosopher. He engaged in his philosophy as a confessed Christian.

    Immanuel Kant said, that we must postulate a higher world of meaning beyond our sensory and rational perception as a matter of moral necessity, in the interests of ethics, in the interests of human behavior. Let me state that one more time for you. Immanuel Kant said that we must postulate a higher world of meaning beyond our sensory and rational perception as a matter of moral necessity. Friedrich Schreiermacher, later than Kant, said that we must intuit the higher reality of meaning, or the higher world of meaning, by way of our deep religious feelings, generated by a natural sense of dependence in us. Hegel said we find the higher world of meaning by the forces inherent to history, forcing us then to an openness to the future. And Slytherin, Kierkegaard said that authentic existence is found by an irrational leap of that rejects all objective certainties and defies all mathematical and scientific absolutes.

    The odd thing about all these famous so-called Christian philosophers is that none of them ever challenged the fundamental position of the Enlightenment. Each one of them was committed to the autonomy of human consciousness, and they all began with the primacy of earthly existence, proposing their philosophies in the interests of living life in this world and coping with existence as we found it, hardly in the interests of eternal life in glory with God. In fact, eternal life in glory with God was something in which these philosophers had very little interest, and in some cases, something for which they had outright disdain. They couldn’t have cared less.

    It was Van Til’s conviction that Barthes, despite all his use of Orthodox language, despite all his dependence on the Bible, despite all his attacks upon rationalism of every kind, was actually committed to an Enlightenment frame of reference. So convinced of this was Van Til that he charged Barthes with the construction of a new liberalism in 1946, and then in 1962, he went further and indicted Barth in his book, Christianity and Barthianism. Now, I want you to note the significance of the title of that later work. The significance of the prior title is clear to us—the New Modernism, 1946—but I want you to note the significance of Van Til’s choice of a title for his 1962 book, Christianity and Barthianism.

    Do you remember J. Bresson Nation? Do you remember his book in 1923, his most famous book, Christianity and Liberalism? Mentioned by that title meant to juxtapose Christianity to liberalism. In other words, liberalism is no variation of Christianity, but an entirely different religion. Do you see then what Van Til is saying in his choice of title for his 1962 book. Barthianism is no variation on Christianity, it is an entirely different religion. That’s a bold claim. That’s a rather brassy accusation. What specifically leads Van Til to say this?

    Had not Barth spoken with conviction in light of the devastation of Europe in the early part of this century about human sinfulness and the fall of humanity? Had not Barth spoken with fresh zeal about the incarnation and about Christ’s resurrection Had not birth awakened, so he said from his dogmatic slumbers, to rejoice in the triumph of God’s grace in Christ? Had he not then awakened to rejoice with beautiful wonderment in the word of God? Had he not rediscovered the depth of religious expression in the Reformed tradition and the depth of religious expression in the ancient ecumenical councils, especially Chalcedon? Is this not then proof that Barth was free of the corrupting bondage of liberalism and modernism?”

    The tragic truth of the matter is, the answer to all of those questions leaves us in a negative position. For all the fine words, for all the brave appeals to the Bible, for all the signs of orthodoxy, Karl Barth had subjected the language of orthodoxy to a radical shift of consciousness so as to make orthodoxy a new orthodoxy or a neo-orthodoxy. Everyone who says they are orthodox is not orthodox. Van Til was saying this new orthodoxy is but the old liberalism dressed up in a new suit of clothes.

    But doctrine of human depravity and divine grace is in the interest of his commitment to a cosmic universalism, a doctrine accepted, received, widely because it proclaimed, according to Barth’s exposition of it, universal judgment and election in Christ. All men are reprobate, and all men are chosen. And thus, God’s final word to humanity is, If God’s word to man in man’s sin and reprobation is no, the final word to man through election is yes. All men are reprobate and all men are elect.

    One of the ironies of God’s position is that he was peddling this nonsense while he was fighting the Nazis. Is God’s final word to Hitler yes? Then he’ll further point it out. that Barth’s view of Jesus Christ and of the Bible is thoroughly informed by the philosophical thought emanating from the Enlightenment. For Barth, the man Jesus of Nazareth is not God in the flesh. He is not God in the flesh. At the same time, neither is the Bible the Word of God. However, says Barth, we are able to use such language about Jesus and about the Bible because each of them becomes the occasion for meeting the divine Word.

    Now, if this is very confusing to you, let me tell you a little story. A number of years ago now, my uncle, Robert Ruth, died. Uncle Robert was a lifelong Presbyterian, and he passed away as a member of the mainline Presbyterian Church in Alliance, Ohio. In those days, pastors being generated by mainline Presbyterian seminaries, if they had any interest in the scriptures whatsoever, were Barthians. I remember the pastor of my uncle’s church very well. I remember him rising at the funeral service to read from the Bible and introducing his reading with these words, Listen for the Word of God.

    There it is. That is classic Barthianism. Listen for the Word of God. Do you catch it? Do you hear it? The minister did not say, listen to the Word of God. He said, listen for the Word of God. You might catch it. You might have the necessary religious experience to encounter it. You see, the Bible is not the Word of God. But it may become the occasion when you hear the Word of God.

    In the same manner, Barth reasoned with regard to the man Jesus of Nazareth. Hearing his story, hearing about him, becomes the occasion for an encounter with the divine Word. But you must not think that Jesus of Nazareth was God-made man directly. I might add that this is what keeps Barth out of trouble when it comes to historical details in Scripture. Of course the Bible is full of mistakes. Pay it no mind, after all, the Bible is merely the fallible words of men in which we have opportunity to hear the higher divine word through a religious encounter. In Barth’s scheme, clever as it is, so than till perceived. The autonomous mind rules.

    First of all, in accepting reasons dictates about what can and what cannot be true in Scripture, but secondly, in postulating a divine word that is known only by the experience of the individual believer or in the collective experience of a group claiming faith.

    In actual fact, Barth has deepened the effect of the Enlightenment, and has offered the people of God no alternative to Enlightenment on belief. Van Til, on the other hand, will be charged with being a fundamentalist. Van Til is no fundamentalist. He is a representative of true orthodoxy.

    He points us towards the inspired and infallible scriptures, not the word of man, but the not a word that rises out of the experience or consciousness of man, but a word that sovereignly enters humanity’s consciousness and experience from beyond this universe. As Paul tells Timothy, all Scripture is God-breathed. That is, it issues forth from him who is above and apart from this creation, and it enters this world to teach, reprove, correct, and train in righteousness according to the counsels of heaven.

    And as Paul goes on to say to Timothy, this word is to be preached so that we all, like Paul himself, might fight the good fight, finish the course, keep the faith, and in the future receive the crown of righteousness which the Lord will give to us, despite what the sons of the Enlightenment say, in a transcendent heavenly world That is really there Let’s pray Our father it is apparently more and more difficult for those who would be known by your name and by the name of your son to figure out the complexities of modern religious and so-called Christian thought.

    It is increasingly difficult for the person who sits in the pew to be able to discern the nuances of expression, to be fully alert to the kinds of duplicity that have overtaken the world of theological thinking and expression. And Father, how difficult it is sometimes for your children in dealing with these matters, to side with those who are telling them the truth, and discern those who are not. For ourselves, O God, we pray that we might be patient with the many who are having trouble, even those who are in the mainline church. which has been so much influenced by the new orthodoxy. But Father, we also ask that we would stand our ground and be vigilant, always laboring with your word, with your truth, that we might see things as they are. To this end, O God, may we fight the good fight, finish the course, keep the faith. May we be finally brought to that transcendent heavenly world that is truly there. This by your word and in Christ, our Savior, who lives and reigns

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Salutations That Reveal God’s Heart

    Salutations That Reveal God’s Heart

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. NT sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, April 12, 1987.

    About this sermon

    Paul’s salutations, easy to skim, reveal the heart of God, and receiving them rightly takes discipline. In that greeting God’s heart gives the grace and peace of heaven to his saints. Faith is a discipline that grows over time, more than a feeling that simply arrives.

    More sermons from 1 Corinthians · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Our scripture reading is from 1 Corinthians 1. That will teach you to trust your bulletin. Something I have to explain to you about the bulletin. The bulletin is written on Monday. I preach on Sunday. It’s a long way from Monday to Sunday. So this is 1 Corinthians chapter 1.

    We’re reading the first nine verses, just the opening of this marvelous epistle of Paul. Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God. and Sosthenes, our brother. Unto the church of God, which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, call to be saints.

    With all that in every place, call upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours. Grace be to you, and peace. from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ, that in everything ye are enriched by him in all utterance and in all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that ye come behind in no gift waiting. for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you unto the end that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Lord, there are many dangers for servants of your word, not the least of which is their pride. Father, it is your word that is to be communicated and Lord we ask that throughout the world this day as your word is proclaimed that messengers of it would not in any way obstruct the power the efficacy of that word by their pride and this prayer is offered with regard to this pulpit and the preaching that takes place here. Lord, therefore, train me in humility that Jesus Christ may shine forth perfectly for the benefit of your elect. Amen.

    I have come to love the salutations of Paul’s letters. I didn’t always love the salutations of Paul’s letters, because I thought that those salutations were formal grievance, and rather empty, empty of any substance. I thought that they had something of a hollow sound to them, that they were somewhat perfunctory. What you would expect of a letter writer in the first century. So, when it came to the salutations of Paul, When I was reading through the Bible, I treated them like those genealogies in the Old Testament.

    I didn’t spend much time on them at all. But I have come to see them in a different light. I have come to see them as filled full of the greatest kind of comfort. the greatest kind of strength and encouragement for the people of God. Paul is not the kind of person to do things without thought. He was not the kind of individual to do things without his whole heart being involved. And I would say that with regard to what you find in the center of its epistles, but no less with regard to what you find at the outset.

    The simple greeting. The ancient world may well pass over these things as quite formal and just, even just a bit of polite foolishness. But you see, in them we have nothing less than a revelation of the heart of God, as that revelation is communicated by an official emissary of that God. And that’s why, when the salutation comes, when the greeting is heard, we should all sit up straight, and take it full face for its fullest benefit. Now there’s something here in addition to the revelation of the heart of God. There is as well a revelation of the heart of the Apostle, and a discipline that exerts itself upon that Apostle, and even further, a discipline that is then felt amongst those who have received the greeting. Yes, of glory for them, but also a discipline. with the revelation of the heart of God.

    You note the typical Pauline greeting. Here in verse three, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, the greeting isn’t Paul’s, it’s the Lord’s. The greeting isn’t from the earth. It’s not just a greeting from another letter writer. It is a greeting from heaven.

    And Paul is claiming to be the spokesman of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. He is claiming to have the authority to speak on their behalf and to extend on their behalf grace and peace. But we have said that this is a revelation of the heart of God. The heart of God being unveiled, opened up so that the people of God may see, may understand what God thinks. and even how he feels toward them, about them. Grace and peace through the Apostle is being extended to Corinthians here. in 1 Corinthians, but no less that grace and peace is being extended to you this morning. Church, congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what do grace and peace tell us about the heart of God.

    In understanding them, we may be sidetracked a bit, because we are used to thinking about grace and peace in very fundamental ways. Grace for us means God’s unmerited love, his undeserved favor demonstrated towards sinners. And we think of that grace as being connected with the inception of our faith, the inception of our journey with God and our relationship to Him. Therefore, invariably, we place that grace at the outset of our relationship with God and with Jesus Christ. For by grace are ye saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of words, lest any man should boast. That kind of grace God’s unmerited faith.

    And similarly, we think of peace. Peace being connected with what takes place initially when we come into a right relationship with God. Formerly we were enemies, now we are friends through Christ. Having therefore been justified by faith, we have peace with God. The animosity is gone. The hostility has ended. We have been reconciled. And whatever partition there was between us and God, that partition has been removed. That kind of peace.

    Grace and peace at the inception of our relationship with God. Liable to be sidetracked, but you see, We should not think that that grace and peace that pertains to the beginning of our journey with God any less reveals to us the heart of God, for it does, to be sure. But when we come to the greeting here, we’re not talking about a grace and peace that is being extended to those who might become Christians, or just became Christians, but those who have been Christians, who are Christians, and are living in the Church, living Christianly. It is not the grace and peace then that begins the journey, but the grace and peace that belongs to the journey, that is in view. Now, how are we to understand grace and peace in this frame? Still it is unmerited, still it is undeserved, but you see, it is something that pertains to the necessities of the experience of the children of God as they make their way in life, as they progress in their pilgrimage with God.

    The grace here might better be translated goodness. Here in mind is the goodness of God coming out of heaven, now being extended by this emissary of the Lord, the goodness of God, the wealth of God, the provisions of God, the abundance of God, the abundance of his kingdom, that being extended to all his subjects. Do you see how marvelous it is? The very wealth of heaven, the wealth of glory, the wealth that belongs to God is here being extended to all those who belong to God, as a testimony to the fact that God, in His heart, wishes nothing less than to give this goodness to those who are here. to give this prosperity, this abundance, to those who are His.

    Now let me say something to you at this point. Here we are dealing with an argument that moves from the greater to the lesser. You may be arguing with me now and saying, Look, it seems to me every sermon that you preach directs my attention to some other place, a place I can’t see, a place I have to take on faith, that it exists at all. You’re directing my attention away from this world to another world. But I want to know, what’s God going to do for me now, today? in my present circumstances, with my present predicaments, my present problems. Do you understand the power of this?

    It’s as if we are arguing from the greater to the lesser. Do you grab hold of it? If God’s heart is to give you the eternal unseen, How much more will he give you the things that you need in this world? If he gives you the greater things, he will certainly give you the lesser. Now do you have to run back and read the sixth chapter of Matthew? That’s the argument that Jesus is putting before his disciples there in the Sermon on the Mount. Why are you so anxious? Why are you concerned? Why do you fret so? Why is your stomach so tied up in knots all of the time?

    Do you not realize that if he gives you the greater things, he will give you the lesser things? If He gives you eternal breath, He will certainly give you your daily breath. Now, will you not believe Him? Will you not trust Him? Will you not place yourselves in His hands? Completely. Do you fret about your work? Do you think your work is more important than worship? You wouldn’t think of missing a day at work, but you do think about missing worship. Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you.

    Well, you see the connection then between the grace and the peace. You may want to spiritualize the peace that follows the grace, and that’s the direction that we go invariably with this peace, but not so. You see how connected that peace is to the grace. For if God has given you the eternal goodness that is heart, is determined to bestow upon you eternal blessings, then the peace invariably follows. Be anxious in nothing, but with prayer, supplication, thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God, and the peace of God that passes all understanding shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

    It’s true. Believe me, it’s true. I said to you as well that this was a discipline upon the Apostle Paul. Revelation of his heart, to be sure, because you see, when he extends this grace and peace to these Christians in Corinth, he does so as one who is in assent with them. He does so as one who consents with the sentiment expressed. He does so as one who wishes for nothing less for these saints than what God is extending to them. He wishes for them the full of grace and peace.

    And so it must be for everyone who insincerely would speak those words. in the name of the Emissary, who speaks on behalf of the Father and the Son. There is a discipline, not just for the Apostle here, as he must bring his heart into conformity with what the intention of Heaven is.

    There is a discipline at work in you, and we’ve already spoken about that discipline. Do you see into heaven, into the heart of God? Do you accept of him his intention with regard to you? Do you realize that this is what God wishes for you? Eternal goodness, prosperity, blessing and the consequent peace. A discipline of mind in you that will not allow you to believe anything less of God. That He stands right now extending to you the goodness the prosperity, the blessings of heaven, and its peace. Without faith, it is impossible to please Him.

    And that’s the discipline that comes to be exerted within you, that you by faith will latch hold of these things and believe them with all of your energy. You can’t step back as if you have some sort of Roman Catholic notion of faith, that faith works in and of itself, that it’s automatic, that it’s magical. It demands of you your energy and your concentration. And if you will not give it that concentration, if you will not expend your energy, in your faith, you do not have the faith, and truly, the peace that here is extended will certainly be denied you, at least that much will be denied you.

    How do you come to worship? You come sit and say to yourself, it has to happen to me. If it doesn’t happen to me, it can’t be real. If I have to exert myself in this thing, then it can’t be genuine. If I have to concentrate, it can’t be genuine. It has to reach out and grab me or it’s not real. That’s the devil’s trick. So, not half asleep, please. Not with your mind out the window, please.

    Observing yourself, concentrating, utilizing the faith that is given to you, and focusing upon its source, the Father and the Son, the open heart towards you, giving you all of the blessings and the consequent peace. Father, truly, the salutation comes to us as an extension of the marvelous mercy and grace and peace out of heaven. And Lord, may we receive this salutation with joy and thanksgiving, but as well, Lord, may we in our faith be exercised with regard to it that Lord we would not remain apathetic or indifferent we pray you Lord that we might strain even in our faith as we are benefited by the eternal blessings and the marvelous peace that are extended to us by you Encourage us, Lord, in this regard, that the full benefit of heaven might register upon our souls, and that those things in heaven being secure, we would not, in the least, worry about the things that are here on earth.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • What Suffering Is and Is Not

    What Suffering Is and Is Not

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. NT sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, August 6, 1978.

    About this sermon

    Suffering gets careful definition here, both what it is and what it isn’t, traced all the way back to Genesis 3:15’s enmity between the serpent and the woman’s offspring. Revelation 11’s two witnesses supply a further picture of suffering woven into the church’s own calling. A postmillennial view that expects suffering to simply diminish over history gets a direct refutation.

    More sermons from 2 Corinthians · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    2 Corinthians, Chapter 4, Verses 13 and 14. I know that some of you will have comments to make about working backwards, backwards through a chapter, or whoever did that. But here we are in Verses 13 and 14 of 2 Corinthians, Chapter 4. 2 Corinthians 4, 13 and 14.

    But having the same clear faith according to what is written, I believe, therefore I spoke. We also believe, therefore also we speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you.” Lord, we must await You and Your word, for there is no word given to man that is wise except Your word. And therefore, our God, we would wait upon You and that word, having received life and desiring to continue in that life, that our life themselves might be conformed to the word of life granted to us in this word and in Jesus Christ, the word of God incarnate. Now strengthen us, our fathers, and may we be open to what You have to say to us. Reform ideas in us that are not according to Your words. Grant us confirmation in those thoughts and sentiments in that spirit that is according to those words which You have granted from the Lord. This is great. This is You.

    We’ve been looking at the matter of affliction and suffering, and how much that plays a dominant part of it.

    In the workshop, we looked at the thirty-first song a couple of weeks ago, And there we try, in ourselves, to wrestle with that problem of how it seems that our own concepts of suffering and affliction oftentimes are all before us in what the words themselves say. There it seems to be that we encounter that occasion wherein the scholar puts back-to-back an affliction that seems to be due to an enemy, and an affliction And how often we have confused all of this, how we confuse it by suggesting that the affliction that we suffer is, after all, something that has to do with some sort of personal warfare going on inside of us, dealing with our own sin and ignorance. That’s fully his sense of that suffering and affliction that we endure in our day, placing it on the level of a battle with our own unsanctified aspects of personality. Now, of course, all of this is not to make light of that internal struggle, because we all know that it is much too real in our experience, spoken of by the Apostle himself in many portions of his letters. how it’s true that the spirit soars against the flesh, and vice versa, and how it’s important for us to understand that continuing problem of is-while-you’ve-been, as it has been taught, But in looking at the perspective of the psalmist, especially given to us in Psalm 31, we then realize that it wasn’t so much that the psalmist was equating his affliction with his sin, but rather to say, in effect, that his affliction due to his enemies was gaining the upper hand because he was exhausted by his own initiatives.

    And because of that sin, he found himself worn out, unable to fight the fight, to resist, to endure, to hold out in the battle with the real enemy. But victory will come with triumph. But triumph has been realized in me. And there, not only is the one sinning, but also the sacrifice bearing upon himself and his people, according to the power of resurrection, over the enemy, bringing strength to even those above. We know our iniquities and sins were exhausted by the time we came to the end of the group of degrees.

    We went on from there and considered the momentary life afflictions of the second group in four-seventeen. Remember what we said about that. The momentary life affliction there is not the day-to-day aches and pains that we experience as we get out of bed at morning. Yet, as I said with regard to a little bit of transgression, this is not to make light of those everyday aches and pains.

    If God is unconcerned with us, he certainly is concerned with us. We have laughter, compassion, and disdain showered upon those who are stuck with us. Peter’s mother-in-law has a theme. And Jesus has compassion and heals him. We have the instructions of the Apostle James, that if anyone here is sick, let him call upon the elders of the Church, and they will lay their hands upon him and pray over him.

    Sins will be forgiven, and the sick will be healed. is concerned about the everyday aches and pains that we undergo, and the sicknesses and infirmities that we experience. But we need to learn something. of the death and peril of the Christian experience is what? What exactly were we getting into when we become Christians? By considering the death of this concept and description of affliction as it comes to us in the Word of God. Can I say something to you this morning?

    The affliction spoken of by the psalms in the 10th verse of the 116th Psalm The affliction spoken of by Paul in verse 17 of 2 Corinthians 4, the context in which the statement occurs, I believe, therefore, All these things—indeed, practically the whole tenor tone of Paul’s Second Synthesis is concerned yet with that element of Christian spirit which in this life there will not be any alleviation of.

    So if you don’t have the stomach for it, this isn’t the place for you. If you don’t have the heart for it, there will be no glory. This is the matter. This is the matter about which the comfortable American Christians cannot understand and cannot implement into their views of the gospel, because their tendency is to psychologize or to spiritualize every kind of reference to a glitching found in the Word. They become guilty of turning affliction into an internal battle, instead of a real conflict between ourselves and real souls. A conflict between the righteous and the wicked. I’m not embarrassed in using those terms.

    For the Word of God uses those terms. And why you can go so far as to say that it is this, the affliction of the saint, that characterizes them as saints, as the people of God. suffering not because of their own inequity, not because of some sort of emotional and psychological imbalance, suffering rather because they are put upon by those who are wicked and unrighteous, who know not God, and have no use for the things of the spirit. There is every kind of promise in this world, and in many ways, I suppose, a Christian can stand and be a part of those promises, and even glean from those promises, raise the wife and comfort her. These are the promises of the world, the promises held out for us that eventually, through genetic engineering, we’re going to experience the perfect humanity.

    What will we alleviate? It will be negative suffering, sickness will be overcome. There will no longer be any cancer in the world that is spoiling political life. We’ll be able to revitalize ourselves, regenerate ourselves biologically by organ transplants. We will be able to prolong life indefinitely.

    I being a Christian, do I have to step back and say these things are impossible? No. That the kind of suffering that is experienced in humanity in general is something that is beyond the capability of the science to resolve. Do I have to say that? I don’t think so. But one thing I can say to you with absolute certainty is that they will never come short of glory in which the saints will not be perfected. That suffering will always be there.

    This is why I have a great deal of impatience to see with the post-Moravians. The post-Moravians envision a day when that persecution and suffering will come to an end. This side of the world—I don’t read that in my Bible—the invitation of the Gospel will always be, until Christ comes again, one of union with Him in His suffering, so that we might be raised up in glory to Him.” What kind of evangelism is that? The kind of evangelism that we are accustomed to. and tell you what kind of experience is in store for you when you number yourself with those who believe that.

    Agony. Nothing less than agony. As said, there are a number of misinterpretations of what exactly the affliction and the suffering of the saints is in this world. And oddly enough, many of those misinterpretations are coming from the Church, or from Christians, who spoke about emotional or psychological trauma.

    That is a brilliant view here. This doesn’t mean we can’t be sympathetic, or that we can’t minister. It merely means that we be impressed with what the intent of the Word of God is saying. And if we’re going to apply things, apply things in the way He intended.

    We have interpreted affliction in terms of fluid. We have interpreted affliction in terms of the environmental condition of mankind, as if the condition of man is the enemy. Yet, essentialists, or some of them, have interpreted the affliction as being restraint. That which keeps me from making offensive decisions for myself on my own terms.

    Then there’s Thorin Kierkegaard, that Danish philosopher of the last century. If there was ever a man who had a philosophy of suffering, it would soar in his ear to God, but yet not a philosophy according to knowledge or according to the Word, even though he used the scriptures to support his views. He wrote a book entitled The Gospel of Our Suffering, but his understanding of suffering was this, to quote him, to walk alone and to walk on one’s own. Affliction, therefore, suffering, is equated with the life of loneliness. Some of you who know something about the life of a storyteller realize that, to a large extent, his philosophy was the result of unequated love. She wouldn’t marry him. The affliction and suffering, then, of an obstacle is not the life of loneliness. It isn’t illness, it isn’t psychological trauma, it isn’t environmental issues of man, it isn’t restrictions that are allowed.

    The affliction is ultimately traceable to Genesis 3.15, and the enmity, the hostility that has been placed, solemnly by God, between the feet of a woman and the feet of a servant.

    It is the hostility that arises in that warfare, Satan himself having been lacking in this world. who are intent upon resisting, and destroying, and oppressing, and making light of, and exploiting the righteousness of God and His Christ.” Psalm 2. Many of you know that by heart, but if you refer to it in your mind, that’s what’s in view. Literal oppression and affliction due to righteousness. the fact that, yes, there are kings in the world who are intent on stamping that righteousness out. It’s not just merely being indifferent to it, but resisting it in such a way as to obliterate it.

    Do you think that that kind of spirit is only abroad, in the socialist countries of this world? Do you think that that spirit is unfounded in this country in which you live? Please don’t be naive. You who think are more a minority than you imagine. even in this country.

    But these things are not ever can get us down. How interestingly, at the very beginning of the conquest, our God can make such promise that the head of the serpent will be crushed beneath the feet of his people. That promise being realized is what In the midst of it, in our response to these laws of incomprehension, I don’t understand why all these things are happening to me. I don’t understand why the Church is in this position. I don’t know why the Saints have to undergo all this kind of impunity. I can’t quite grasp it.

    Don’t be foolish. These are the very things that Christ told you to have. He has promised it to you, but He has also said that you, on the basis of your death and resurrection, can’t help certainly that through that secondary preservation, and that’s why you can never despair. That is why the apostle himself doesn’t despair. Turn to the first chapter of 2 Corinthians and listen to what he says there. He says in verse 8, for we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction.”

    There it is, our affliction, which came to Washington up in Asia, that we were burned excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despair even of life. Indeed, we have the sentence of death within ourselves in order that we should not trust in ourselves. God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will yet deliver us, he on whom we have set our oath.” Our situation is then not questioning God in His power, why is this happening to us, why are conditions this way, but instead rejoicing that our God, in all our afflictions, hears us, and answers us, and delivers us, if it is only with the resurrection.

    So we die. The issue, you see, Sam, is never one of survival. The issue is never survival in this world. I look at our congregations. The issue for this small, little flock is not survival. Everyone has sinned. It’s not whether we’re here five years from now. That’s not the issue.

    The issue is, do we love God? Do we obey Him, and do we affirm? in our faith in His poverty and in His Father’s power, that our thoughts can raise the dead and us included. That if the Church suffers in this way, the day will come when all things will be righted, and its glory will be seen, and it will be vindicated before the world.

    I hear this hope of that. Not with some sort of spirit by thinking that I’ve associated myself with a loser. And I don’t want to be a part of such a thing. I’ll go down with it because, you see, the more I descend into that suffering and affliction that comes upon us because, yes, because we are maligned. The more I am assured that I am conformed with Christ, and the more that I am assured that I am conformed with Him, the greater is my faith that I shall be raised up in the name of the Father. If I share in His Son, I shall also share in His resurrection.

    Now, this isn’t only an individual thing, and I want to say this to you in conclusion. And I must say to you that I do have a rather unique perspective on Revelation 11, and if you don’t know about Revelation 11, I encourage you to go home and read it. That is actually about the two witnesses. I understand those witnesses not so much as individuals, but as the Church in a twofold aspect.

    Christian culture, the Christian city, and the Christian cult, or the Christian service of worship. The people of God is worship, and the people of God are God’s Word. The faith of the Church is the faith of her Lord, and as the Lord dies, so the Church shall die. And the world shall sing songs of praises and delight and merriment in that day, when the Church is here no longer and the effects of the Church are no longer felt in the culture and in the religious community of this world.

    But God, as Revelation 11 tells you, will raise up His witnesses in all the nations. And how it has been in every generation. The Church does, in conformity to her Lord, in no other time better than when she perceives the intent of her Lord’s work. Her life is no longer precious to her. She gives it up willingly. in conformity to Christ, casting herself completely upon Him, knowing that He will raise her up. And that is our vindication. Do you understand what I’m saying? The issue isn’t our sin. The issue is our faith. I believe, therefore I spoke. What did I do wrong? And even in my affliction, in my suffering, God heard me and helped deliver me.

    And you know that inside yourself, okay? Is this what you carry about with you? Yes, this is the dying of Jesus in your body, so that you might pray about Him. Is this what you’re like? Oh, you need this. You need this because it’s dangerous. If you don’t have it, the day of the Lord will bring change. Change. It’s terrible this way. It is. It means nothing.

    Lord Father, we pray that Jesus might become all-embracing, attractive, warm, even in suffering. And though no one would look upon him, this born being, without affectiveness, ugliness, twistedness, yet may we embrace him, even in his pain, that we conform to him. For righteousness, and that also, Father, we might have that power from the Lord whenever trial comes our way, and not place our faith in our survival, but in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and our resurrection and our new station before Him very strong. That, our God, is what we need. holy praise and thanks, Father, that you might mercifully flow us with your grace, pouring into our spirits the fullness of your love, into the fullness of your own Holy Spirit, that we might be those who exhibit the rewards of God in this perverse, wicked, adulterous generation. Holy Father, we pray unto you. Our final hymn is hymn number 223, 223.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Inheritance for Jew and Gentile

    Inheritance for Jew and Gentile

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. NT sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, May 4, 1975.

    About this sermon

    God extends Paul’s inheritance by grace to Jew and Gentile alike, and pagan Ephesus mirrors Canaan’s Gentile past, the same corruption Romans 1 describes. The redemption of the exodus shows what that inheritance cost to secure. In Ephesians 2 Paul’s teaching on Jews and Gentiles together assumes that shared, costly inheritance.

    More sermons from Ephesians · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Our scripture reading tonight is Ephesians chapter 2. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them, we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

    But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He hath loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not as the result of works that no one should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

    Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who were called uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision which is performed in the flesh by human hands, Remember that you were at that time separated or separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world, that now in Christ Jesus you who were formerly far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall. abolishing in his flesh the enmity which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in himself he might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. And he came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were for through him we both have our access and one spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saint and are of God’s household, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted together is growing up into a holy temple in the Lord. in whom you also are being built together into a growing of God from the Spirit.

    Let’s pray together. Father, it is the power of your word that confronts us with our own sin and need of forgiveness. It is your word, our God, as you by your Spirit convince us of our need of regeneration. And we call upon You for the quickening power of Your Word to work in our hearts, that we might be full of Your Spirit, that we might be born again, that we might be built up into this household of God that we read about in this passage. And we are asking, Lord, that we might not walk away from Your Word without becoming impressed with what is there for us. Burn it upon our minds, seal it to us in our hearts, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

    Last week we were considering the book of Hebrews, and this week we are looking at the book of Ephesians, a letter that Paul writes to a Gentile church, a church which was located in a city in Asia Minor on the western shore, a city which was known for its paganism and its heathen worship. And we read in the book of Acts about the pagan practices of that city.

    We read that there was a great temple to Diana. Diana was the goddess of love, and this wasn’t some sort of innocent Romantic cult that was going on. It was a religious practice that was full of every kind of debauchery. When we read about the pagan gods and goddesses of Greece and Rome, We shouldn’t be lulled into some sort of romantic ideology that we might gain from Homer, for instance. But we ought to see this as a spirit expressing itself religiously against everything that our God stands for.

    Involved in this worship were cultic practices of temple prostitution, legal selling, buying of sex, of such a terrible character that even historians in writing about these practices are as bold as they might be in describing the practices that went on in these temples during these days. It was a great embarrassment, a great source of outrage. For instance, to Paul, as he went from city to city in the Roman Empire, and he confronted these practices and the immorality that was associated with idolatry.

    You can get a pretty fair description of that in the first chapter of Romans. Anytime when you are tempted to become quite romantic about the gods and goddesses of the ancient world, Maybe to sober yourself up, you should read that first chapter of Romans and see just how offensive it was to God and his people.

    Well, I guess what I’m trying to say to you is that I’m going to draw a parallel to what is happening here with Paul entering these cities, and what happened when the children of Israel entered the land of promise. there is a similarity. For you remember that when the children of Israel entered the land of promise, the inheritance that had been promised to their father Abraham, they were commanded by God to put to death all of these heathen nations of the Canaanites, and not to even spare the women and the children. It sounds pretty horrible.

    But in those Old Testament times, we are getting a preview of the judgment of God in very vivid terms. The message of Paul is one which is completely controlled by grace. He is saying to us, in effect, that the wrath of God against the children of disobedience, whether they be Canaanites in the Old Testament or Romans in the New Testament, is being delayed. and it is the age of grace, in which God’s unmerited favor is being extended to all. That’s the structure of the book of Ephesians.

    It’s a book written to Gentiles by a Jew, a Jew with a unique perspective on what is happening in his day. Notice how he begins the letter. If we look at chapter one, you can see how he starts out. He first of all identifies himself, as he does in all of his letters, being called the Apostle of Jesus Christ, not by the will of man, but by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus, who are the faithful in Jesus Christ. He greets them with grace and peace from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of all the kingdoms of the earth. And then he goes into this section, verses 3 through 13, where rather, verses 3 through 12, in which he is showing to these Gentiles the new dimensions, the new dimensions that the Messiah has brought for a Jew such as himself. Notice the language that he uses in this first part of the letter.

    He talks about the blessing A blessing that would automatically turn our minds to the pages of the Old Testament in terms of that promise that was given to Abraham. The blessing that was to come according to the promises that were given to Abraham. But now we are seeing a new day, a new dimension. It’s as if the curtain has been drawn back and we’re seeing a whole new world, and that whole new world has been made possible through the Messiah, through Jesus. It’s a day of new blessings, of new blessings that are not isolated to a corner of the world, that don’t have simply in view some geographical location in a corner of the Mediterranean world. but rather these are blessings that are eternal in the heaven. For we are being blessed not with blessings that pertain to this earth, but we have now, in the Messiah, received blessings that pertain to eternity. These blessings are the blessings that God the Father has given to us in Christ Jesus, as He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing every blessing in the Holy Spirit, in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” he says in verse 3.

    These are new dimensions for the Jews. Here is a Jew writing, and he’s talking in Jewish language. He’s talking in language that would make sense to a Jew. He’s talking about a new vocabulary for Jews, or the old vocabulary with new meaning. It’s a new world. with new meanings, with new vistas, with new horizons. He sees beyond the land of Palestine.

    He sees Heaven, and the blessings that are eternal in Heaven. This is what was meant for the Jews in the Old Testament, but for the most part they couldn’t see it. But now Paul, in the fullness of time, a Jew reflecting on the work and ministry of Jesus Christ, sees it, and he declares it to these Gentiles. He is a Jew that has received these blessings that are eternal in the heaven. He is one who gains a new perspective on God’s choice, as he says in verse four, for God has chosen him before the foundation of the world, a Jew that he should be holy, blameless before him. He talks about God’s predestination.

    He talks about being predestined as a son. for these sons are adopted now into the family of God.” Language that makes sense on the background of the Old Testament, language that was full of meaning for any Jew, because he recognized that the Jewish nation were the adopted sons of God. They were adopted in the Exodus. When the children of Israel came out of Egypt, they were adopted as the sons of God, crying out to their father for deliverance. But now they have been introduced into a new adoption, an adoption through Jesus Christ himself. And this is an adoption that issues in freedom, a new kind of freedom, a new kind of liberty for all the sons of God, as he says in verse 6.

    He, as a Jew, reflects upon redemption. We know what redemption means. It means to buy back. The great act of redemption in the Old Testament is when God buys back his people from slavery. They were in bondage in Egypt. He redeems them. He redeems them with the blood of the lamb that is slain on the Passover Eve. He redeems them with a sacrificial system as the lambs and the goats are led to the slaughter for the sins of the people.

    But now there has been a new redemption work for the people of God through the blood of And it is this redemption that brings forgiveness of sins according to the riches of God’s grace, which He has lavished upon all of the Jews who believe in Christ. But this is a new day of revelation as well. This is a new day of revelation. You remember the great revelation of the Old Testament was at Sinai.

    There God descended upon the mountain, and the people were full of fear. They wouldn’t come up to the mountain because they were afraid. And God spoke, and the people said, we don’t want to hear the voice of the Lord, because we’ll die. Therefore, let him speak only to Moses, and Moses will tell us what God says, and then we will do it. But here is a day of new revelation, a day which is spoken of here in verse 9.

    He made known to us the mystery of His will according to the kind intention which He purposed in Him. in view of an administration suitable for the fullness of time. Now God is not just calling unisolated people to Himself, mainly the Jews, but He is involved in summing up all things unto Himself, summing up all things in the Messiah, in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.

    And as there was an inheritance in the Old Testament, so there’s an inheritance now in the New Testament. In the inheritance that’s spoken of in verse 11, in Christ, in the Messiah, we now have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who are the first to hope in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. All that Paul is saying there is that salvation is first extended, the inheritance is first extended to the Jews. and then to the Greek, to the Jew first, and then the Gentile. That’s the pattern of Paul’s missionary journeys. He goes to the Jew first, and then he comes to the Gentile.

    But the salvation is meant for all, as in the Messiah. All things are being summed up, brought to their conclusion. Everything is being finalized in Him. Things in heaven, things in earth. This is the salutation of a Jewish Christian to Gentile Christians. And he’s talking in language that means so much to him.

    Do you get a special feeling in yourself when you hear the word inheritance? Does it mean anything to you? Does it mean anything to you when you hear language about God’s choice, His election, His predestination? Does it mean anything when you hear language about redemption, forgiveness of sins through the blood of Christ? Does it mean anything to you when we talk about the full revelation of God, the full unveiling God that were held secret from the very foundation of the world.

    These things meant something to a Jew, and they meant something to the Gentiles that Paul spoke to. And he is pressing these Gentiles that they might mean more and more and more to him. That’s why he goes on. In verse 13 he says, “…in this Messiah you Gentiles also, after listening to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed in addition to us Jews, you were sealed in the Messiah with the Holy Spirit of promise.”

    When you hear about the promise, does it mean anything to you? You talk to a Jew about the promise, and you watch his face. You talk to a Jew about the inheritance, and you watch his face. I had the privilege one time to sit in the company of a Jewish Christian and to hear him talk about the inheritance. It was like a whole new world. It doesn’t mean to us what it means to them. That’s their life. And Paul is shaping these Gentiles, and he’s telling them that everything that that promise of the Americans means to him, it can mean to them. Everything.

    We, Gentiles, in addition to the Jews, have been sealed in the Messiah with the Holy Spirit of Christ. The promise that was promised to the Jews has now been extended to the Gentiles. And the Gentiles have been given a pledge of the inheritance with the Jew, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession through the praise of His glory, because God not only owns one nation of the world, He owns all the earth. The whole earth is the Lord’s and the fullest thereof, the world and they that dwell therein.

    Everything belongs to God, and His program of redemption, that has begun with Abraham, in the blessings of the covenant, in all of the language that meant so much to Abraham, and every Jew, is now being extended to all the nations. This is how your Bible begins to become meaningful to you. When you start draining these words of their meaning, and you get emotionally involved in them, the inheritance, The promise is mine. I am God’s possession, and He is reclaiming me by redemption, through the blood of the Messiah, through whom He is bringing all things together, things in heaven and things on earth. All things are His.

    Well, this is a salutation from a Jewish Christian to some Gentiles. And he speaks in Jewish language. Language that means a great deal to a Jew. But he wants so much for this language to mean just as much to his Gentile ears. So notice what he does. Notice what he does in verse 15.

    He starts to speak about praying for them. For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you while making mention of you in my prayers.” And what does he pray? He tells you that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.” Why, that’s just what he talked about up there as being the special possession of the Jew. Notice what he said there? Notice what he talked about in verse 8 at the end? “…in all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will.”

    And now he is praying for these Gentiles that they, too, might have the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and of knowledge, the knowledge of God. And I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of your calling. What is the hope of your calling? What are the riches of the glory of His impertinence in the saints?” He’s praying that the Gentiles might begin to think along Jewish lines. That you, that they, might understand their Old Testaments when they read them, and that those Old Testaments might have meaning for them.

    The inheritance doesn’t belong just to the Jew, The inheritance belongs to all who believe, and that’s exactly what he goes on to say. And what is the surpassing greatness of his power to us who believe, to all of us who believe, whether you are a Jew or a Gentile? These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might, which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places. above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And He has put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave this Christ, this Messiah, as head over all things, to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all things.” his promised land, when the Jews entered into that land under the leadership of Joshua.

    But now we have a greater Joshua, we have Jesus, and this Jesus has done battle with all the forces that live and dwell in the spiritual realm of our inheritance, and he has conquered them. And we need not fear anything, because Christ is the victor, and as we enter in upon the train of this Joshua, This new Savior, we are given our lot, our inheritance, among the saints. The lines are fallen unto us in pleasant places. The boundaries of our inheritance are sweet. And this is the fullness that each one of us desires for our lives. the fullness of the inheritance of God and the promises that he has made for us.

    He goes on, and he, in chapter 2, delineates the fact that this is a Jew-Gentile thing. It ain’t for the Jews alone, and it ain’t for the Gentiles alone, it’s for both against. And it’s always by God’s grace. What is God’s grace? What is unmerited favor is undeserved of us. It is undeserved for the Jew, and it is undeserved for the Gentile. We all are saved through faith by grace, by God’s grace. It is a gift of God.

    As much as that promise of the Spirit in which we have been sealed is our gift, as much as our inheritance is a gift, as much as the promised land in the Old Testament was a gift, so our salvation through faith is a gift. It’s not by words. lest when you reach the gate you can boast before God and claim by your own merits you are worthy to enter into that inheritance. You are not worthy to enter into that inheritance by your own merits, because as Paul says in verse 1 of chapter 2, you were all dead in your trespasses and in your sins. Every one of you.

    But now, in Christ Jesus, we have been raised with Him, and we have been seated with Christ in the heavenly places. The heavenly places are our inheritance. That’s where we’re going, that’s our destination. He’s there already, and because He’s there, we are there in Him.

    That’s what He has told us. that we have been raised up with Him,” in verse 6, and seated with Him in the heavenly places in our Messiah, in order that in the ages to come He might show forth the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness towards us in the Messiah, Jesus. For by grace, God’s unmerited favor, you have been saved, whether Jew or Gentile, through faith, and that not of yourself. It has always been, it still is, and it always will be a gift of God, not the result of your own works, lest any one of us should boast.” He goes on to say a few more things here in concluding this whole business.

    He is trying to impress these Gentiles with the fact that they are now come into the fellowship of the redeemed. They have now come into the commonwealth of Israel whereby they were excluded before. They were strangers to the covenant of promise. In verse 12, they had no hope. They were without God in the world.

    But now in Christ Jesus, they who were formerly far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. It is Christ who has made peace with Jew and Gentile. as if you have the Jews coming up to those heathen nations in the land of promise in ancient Palestine, and instead of doing battle this time with them, the walls of Jericho are torn down by Jesus Christ, and peace is established between those who are inside and those who are marching around the walls. And the Gentile unbeliever and the Jew share in the peace that Christ the Messiah has brought It’s a new day.

    It’s a new day. And what is the work that we are all involved in now? It’s not a work at which we are driving out the Gentiles from the land of promise, you see, setting up our little politic practices in Jerusalem, building our tabernacles and our temples there. No! Now they’re being a temple built that is far superior to any of the temples of the Old Testament, even Solomon’s. And this is the temple that is made out of human beings, out of Jews and Gentiles alike, as he concludes this section and tells us that we, the Church of Jesus Christ, Jews and Gentiles, saved by grace, are a building which God is erecting as a dwelling for Himself in the Spirit. There is no difference now. between Jew and Gentile. God-free, barbaric Scythian, name-thief, but we are all one, and Christ who is all, if you know.

    I don’t know whether you appreciate What this meant for a Jew who was schooled to hate the Gentiles all of his life until he met Jesus Christ. Who do you hate? Is it true that maybe in your heart you believe that there is no place for someone or some group in the Church of Jesus Christ. That is a lie. It’s not true.

    For Christ the Messiah is summing up all things in heaven and in earth to the praise of the glory of the grace of God. Father in Heaven, we thank you for the grace that has been extended to certainly the Jew first, but also the Gentile. We rejoice, Father, that we have been included, and that the language that meant so much to Paul as an Old Testament Jew means so much to us now as New Testament believers, that he has been the vehicle of your revelation, whereby you are able now to make plain to us the height and depth and the riches of the inheritance that we have with the saints in glory. We are praying, Father, that we would rejoice in these things that He speaks so movingly about, and that we would embrace them to our hearts, and that we would look longingly to the fullness of the inheritance that has been promised to us and been guaranteed to us through the reception of the Spirit by grace.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Whose Right to Educate?

    Whose Right to Educate?

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. NT sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, April 13, 1975.

    About this sermon

    The First and Tenth Amendments bear on Christian education, and they weigh against any claimed inherent right of the state to educate children. State education is anti-Christian in its basic assumptions, and the problem runs deeper than poor execution. Responsibility for a child’s education belongs to the family.

    More sermons from 2 Corinthians · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    The reading this morning is taken from 2 Corinthians chapter 10, 2 Corinthians chapter 10, the first five verses. But now I, Paul, myself, urge you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I will meet when face to face with you, but bold toward you when absent. I ask that when I am present, I may not be bold with the confidence with which I propose to be courageous against some who regard us as if we walked according to the flesh.

    For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. For we are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Lord, it is only in your word that we see the light that you have for us. For coming in that Word is the powerful effect of your Spirit, for your Spirit and Word always work together, bearing witness to Christ the Savior and exalting Him our Father. We are asking this morning that your Word may be preached and that we may hear and that the faith of our souls may be the faith of men.

    The firm is on Christian education this morning, so this last week I went out and bought a new pair of glasses so I looked the part. A couple of weeks ago I received a phone call. The person on the other end of the line was issuing to me an invitation to participate in the dedication of the new wing of the Farrakhan Elementary School, Heidi Klein. And I’d like to explain the reason for that this morning to you. And in doing so I hope to make clear my own position with regard to education, and particularly Christian education.

    I also want to say at the beginning of this that I’m not on a personal crusade of any kind. And I know that there are here this morning many who have given their lives to public education. And I know that in your hearts you have never once compromised your faith and allegiance to Jesus Christ. And you would never do so, even if it meant your job.

    And so I hope that no one will interpret my remarks this morning as an indictment against anyone. but merely an explanation of my own position in hopes that you may understand my position and why I say some of the things that I do at particular times. All right.

    The reasons for turning down the invitation to participate in the dedication service this afternoon to Ferriton Elementary School. I was told that it would be on a Sunday, and I had just turned down an invitation from the Cub Scouts, the very pack which this church sponsors, to participate and attend their Pinewood Derby, which was also going to be held on a Sunday afternoon. Now, I do have some definite opinions about Sunday and the use of the Lord’s Day. And it’s not my purpose to get into a discussion about that this morning. I’m hoping, the Lord willing, to reserve those comments for April 27th.

    So we’ll leave that item where it lies. The other matter was the fact that I was invited to pray. And knowing that there would be many there that had no relationship to Jesus Christ whatsoever, being aware that there were administrators, members of the board, teachers, and others connected with the school who had no love for the Savior, I felt that I would be tempted to turn my prayer into a sermon. And I didn’t think that that was proper.

    Also, I feel finally, and I believe this to be the most basic point, that there is an inherent inconsistency at work in a school that is run by the laws of the state, which forbids any specific and definite mention of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, in inviting a minister of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to pronounce a blessing in Christ’s name over a building that does not recognize his Lordship, and has no desire to do so. That leads us to consider what is state education. Basically, state education is a publicly funded, compulsory system of education which is bound by the law of the state and by the Constitution of the United States of America.

    In the Constitution of the United States of America, there are two amendments that are important for the public school system. The first one is the Tenth Amendment, and that Tenth Amendment provides the basis for the legitimacy of the state being involved in education at all. What does that amendment say? It says that powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states, respectively, or to the people. On the basis of the Tenth Amendment, I almost said the Tenth Commandment, on the basis of the Tenth Amendment, the state has declared that it has a legitimate right and even obligation to educate all the children within its boundaries. It has declared that it has an inherent right by law to educate our children. The second amendment that is of importance to us in this regard is the First Amendment, and we all know what that amendment is.

    This is the amendment which prohibits the Congress from making any law respecting the establishment of religion. And according to recent interpretations of the First Amendment, any facility which is operated by the state is prohibited from supporting either directly or indirectly any particular religious doctrine or cause. When I start praying to the Father in the name of the Son, that’s pretty particular. That’s definite religious doctrine, and I am involved in a religious cause, that of spreading the gospel and honoring the Lord Jesus Christ.

    Now, up to this point, you may say, I don’t see the problem, because you, like myself, believe basically in the separation of powers, and that’s what is at the heart of the First Amendment. The Church is not to rule the State, and the State is not to rule the Church. But you see, it isn’t the matter of the First Amendment and the separation of powers that is the problem. It is really the implementation of the Tenth Amendment that is the problem.

    Really the question that we are asking ourselves is, does the state have an inherent right to assume the responsibility of educating our children? Or have they usurped that right, a right that is not theirs? Have they gone beyond a true legal boundary, a legal boundary which would be inscriptious? That’s the question. For you see, the conclusion of the matter is simply this.

    If the state is to become involved in education, By the very nature of the case, by law, according to the Constitution of the United States, that education must be, it has to be, it can’t be anything else but an education without God. At least for God it matters. a definite God, the God of the Scriptures, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because then, you see, you would be involved, the state would be involved in establishing a religion, and it cannot do that. As I say, we are not arguing about the separation of powers, We are arguing about the legitimacy of the right of the state to assume the responsibility to educate our children.

    You may not be unduly concerned yet, but let’s consider the consequences of this approach to education for a minute. The consequences are simply this. First of all, and probably most importantly, we cannot kid ourselves. An education without God eventually must become a godless education. A godless education in the sense that it must eventually become morally perverse and corrupt. How can I say something like this?

    I say on the authority of Jesus Christ himself, who said that there is no neutral ground with regard to himself. You cannot stand on the fence and say that you’re going to have a neutral middle ground from which God is not going to be included, into which God is not going to be included, or from which he is not going to be excluded. To merely claim neutrality, a middle ground, Jesus Christ says, he who is not for me is against me. If you claim neutrality with regard to God, to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as far as God is concerned, you are against Him.

    Not for Him, but against Him. The ultimate result of this is that education without God is against God, And in the end it must become godless. To say it even more pointedly, it must become anti-godless by its very nature. And in the end, you see, also it imbibes of that spirit of the Antichrist. For he was not with Christ as against him. There is no neutral ground. There is no middle position. That’s the first consequence.

    Now, to greater or lesser degree, this can be seen in the public education system today. There are some tremendous pockets of resistance, and they deserve our praise and our commendation. and we should offer them any help and assistance in our prayers that we can. There are pockets where people are standing up for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and telling the state that they have no right to undermine the authority of their homes by teaching their children something entirely different than is taught to them at home by their own parents. What is the second consequence of this approach to education by the state? This assumption that the state has the inherent right to educate our children. Second consequence is this. This education must end playing a charade. It must end in a hopeless hypocrisy.

    For not only has it declared neutrality with regard to the matter of God, we’re going to stand on the fence, and we’re not going to try to influence anyone one way or the other. But it must now claim neutrality in the classroom with regard to every subject that is taught.

    God has nothing to do with arithmetic. And if he does, I can’t tell you, because that is forbidden by the state. God has nothing to do with language, arts, with sociology. He has nothing to do with biology so that we can have sex education courses that teach you the mechanics. The charade and the hopeless hypocrisy is simply this.

    We are being told by the state educators that in the classroom we are not to have teachers who impart value and make moral judgments or interpretations upon the facts that they are presenting. The teachers are to be neutral, the materials to be neutral. You’re just to tell the facts. You’re not to interpret them, you’re not to evaluate them, you’re not to make any moral judgments about them at all. Now, such a view of education is completely impossible. And I know the teachers here this morning didn’t tell you that. I knew exactly where my 6th grade teachers stood on the Civil War. I knew exactly where my senior high civics teacher stood on the election of 1960. I knew who he was going to vote for.

    It was impossible for him to hide that from us, from the remarks that he made in class. I know that my 10th grade biology teacher believed in evolution. And even though it was a theory, he presented it as a fact. as a fact of science. I knew that my 10th grade history teacher hated Jonathan Edwards. And everything that snowed was a pureness. And we had a raging battle going between us throughout that whole 10th grade experience of life. It is impossible to teach without making value judgments. It’s impossible to teach without interpretation. It’s impossible to teach without making moral judgments.

    The sexual attitudes of the health teachers in our public schools will become evident to our children as they are subjected to these teachers in the classroom. If the teacher is promiscuous, it will come out, and the student will know it. The most important thing is to keep yourself from some communicable social disease. But if you love one another, what harm is it? That’s what I heard.

    The interpretation The evaluation of the facts are a part of education, and there is no education without them. As a matter of fact, this is what the charade is, because you see, the teacher cannot help but impart his own values, his moral judgments, and his own interpretations to the child.

    It’s an impossibility. It cannot be done. And to claim that it can, is a lot. Alright, we have the first two consequences and the final one is the clincher. Such an approach to education cannot educate. It’s very basic. And it’s something that is becoming increasingly evident in the educational systems of our nation. We are graduating illiterates. We are graduating people who cannot cope, who cannot deal with reality. Something is wrong.

    It is a self-defeating system because It is a system that is directed not for God, not even in neutrality towards God, but against God. It is a system that is dedicated to interpretations that are not consistent with the Word, nor neutral to it, but against the Word of God. And finally, as we even called ourselves to worship this morning by quoting from those passages in the Old Testament that said, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. Here is the true perspective to education. It has to be moral. There have to be judgments made. You have to evaluate. You have to interpret. What is necessary is that we have the interpretation that God gives. Basically, in his word. You have his values. You have his moral judgments.

    What alternatives are there then to the state-run educational system? There have been a couple that have been developed, and we’ll just run through them, trying to end on an upbeat, I hope. The first approach was the approach of the church, seeing that it was losing its children to the school, and they devised a program called Release Time, where students would be released to go and receive religious instruction during school time. What was the result of this? The result of this was that Johnny became a schizophrenic. He became a split personality.

    Because, you see, what he was being told, in effect, is that God has everything to do with the Church. He has everything to do with this education here, which I am experiencing during this release time. But he doesn’t have anything to do with this education that I’m experiencing here for the most part of my day. He has everything to do with the Church, but he has nothing to do with the subjects that I am learning in the public school.

    Johnny ends up a very confused boy. He doesn’t understand, and his religious life becomes quite compartmentalized. Certain aspects of his life belong to God, But there are certain aspects that don’t belong to God or that are in a gray area. And I have no responsibility to God there. Sundays belong to God. Monday through Saturday belongs to me or to the state. All right, that’s one alternative. What’s another alternative? Another alternative is the parochial school. What’s the position of the parochial school?

    Parochial school is merely doing the same thing that the state is doing. The state has said that it has an inherent right to educate your children, and it has usurped that right. Here comes the parochial school. It says, the church has the right, the inherent right, to educate your children. You can’t find that nowhere in the Bible. The church’s job is to preach the gospel. The parochial school is not the answer. And I say this against both Catholic and Protestant parochial schools. What is another alternative? I believe that the other alternative is the one that is sanctioned by the Word of God.

    And that is that the inherent right to educate resides in the parent. as he is part of a community. The community that the Christian belongs to is the covenant community that has claimed God’s promises, not only for himself, but for his children. And when I take a vow in baptism to raise my child in the nurture and the admonition I am recognizing some responsibilities that have to do with the whole covenant community of God’s people. It’s bigger than just a little church on a corner in one little town. It involves a whole area of people with a common concern to see their children raised in a way that is consistent with the scripture, and it is honoring to God the Father and to our Lord Jesus Christ. Parents binding themselves together in covenant to see that their children are educated in a way that does not undermine their authority.

    In a way that ensures that if I am teaching my child at home that man is a creature of God, he is not going to go to a school where every textbook in science tells him differently. Every textbook. There is no exception. Well, I am assured that the name of Jesus Christ will not be a swear word, nor an oath, especially on the mouths and lips of teachers and administrators. For I can be assured that those who have been given the responsibility to run the school, to lead God and claim his promises, and who are not declarably atheistic or agnostic.

    This is the structure that demonstrates itself from beginning to end in the scriptures. Covenant people are given the responsibility by Moses to bring up their children to know the law, to teach their children well. The Book of Proverbs is the education of a father to his son, where he is passing on the wisdom that he has gained to his child. That is the structure.

    The structure is the education of God the Father of God the Son. It even has divine sanctity and a divine replica. parental responsibility in educating the child. The state does not have the inherent right to educate my child and he does not have the inherent right to educate your child. The church does not have an inherent right to educate your child. That is not the purpose of the church. It is your job to educate your children. In the context of a community where you can be assured that the things that you believe in your home will be honored in the school that you send your child to.

    Here we have a completely unique view of what education is, because the community that we are dealing with is the regenerated community of God’s people. The people who have received the Spirit of God and by grace they have been transformed so that they are separate from the natural man, For they have divine understanding of the things that pertain to life. That means now that everything is different. The Christian sees the world differently than the non-Christian. The Christian school must see the world differently than the public school. It has a different view of reality, of the world and man.

    It has a view of the world that begins with Psalm 24, verse 1. tells you that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and day that dwell therein. The world is God’s creation. And Johnny must know and learn that the tree that he sees outside the window is a God-created tree, and when he studies those When he studies those slides in biology class, he must be impressed with the fact that what he is looking at is something that is there because God made it so. Because of creation. And only if he understands the tree, as a God-created tree, does he really understand the tree. He doesn’t know what a tree is unless he sees it as a God-created tree. Man is a creature of God, made in his image.

    We are told that in Genesis 1.27. He is crowned with honor and glory. He is made a little lower than the angels. There is a unique view of man, you see, that is inherent to Christian education that cannot be a part of the public educational system. Man is a sinner. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That cannot be preached or taught in the public school. We can teach that man has faults, he has errors, but that he is a sinner answerable to God, that cannot be taught.

    And we also teach that the creation is experiencing a new day in Jesus Christ through him, in which all things are being made new. and that we are like a new and mighty army. As Paul himself has said in this passage that we read this morning, we are engaged in a new Christian endeavor in which we are claiming the Lordship of Jesus Christ throughout all of the world and all of life. For Paul says, we are destroying speculations on every lofty thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God. And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. The Christian approaches mathematics differently than the non-Christian.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.