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Yearly Archives: 2016
Keswick’s Biblical Strengths: where Keswick is Correct, in an Analysis and Critique of So Great Salvation by Stephen Barabas, part 4 of 4
piety … Keswick promotes pernicious errors.”
What Is Revival Anyway and Should We Be Looking For It?
I understand people’s desire for what I think they consider to be revival. It’s convenient really. First, you have a building or a tent, then people come to the building or tent, someone preaches, and multitudes of people actually get saved, truly converted. There are lots of great things about that described scenario, even if it isn’t actually happening — the thought of it sounds great. Many, many people came to hear preaching, for one. They wanted to come to hear it. Wow. Several of them believe it. Who wouldn’t want that? I would. Is it even something that we should expect though?
If you told people, the Bible will be preached, you could hear it, find out who Jesus is, and then be saved from sin and Hell, and they said, I want that — that would be wonderful. Let’s say it isn’t happening, even as I’ve noticed it isn’t. However, let’s also say that it could be happening if we prayed for it to happen, so we started praying. What do we pray? How long do we pray?
It would seem that you would pray, “Father, cause people to come in great numbers to gather together to hear the preaching of the gospel.” How long do you pray that? How many do you need praying for that for it to work? Let’s just say you prayed it every day several times and you got everyone praying it at least in your church several times a day. Is there a basis for believing that you would get what you were praying for? I’m talking just from two things, inviting people only on those terms with no hopes of anything else, and then praying that prayer. Would you get that outcome? If you were to get that, why not invite every single person in your entire region to come and then pray for every single person to come to that meeting, even by using the phone book to mention everyone by name? (Even though God knows everyone’s name, you would pray for everyone by name just to be sure God knows you mean every single person.) Do we have a biblical basis for believing that would work?
“Revival,” when you look at the Hebrew and even Greek words of the Old and New Testaments, is about people who are dead then being made alive. Speaking about spiritual revival, people must be spiritually dead, who are then made alive spiritually, that is, they are converted. A revival, however, seems to be when this being made alive experience occurs with a lot of people. If it were, let’s say, two or three, I’m thinking that isn’t revival. I have no reason to think just two or three being saved is revival, but my opinion is that “revival” (if what people called revival was actually something real) is seeing a whole lot of people actually get saved — not just make professions, but for them to become new creatures in Christ, just because you wanted that a lot and a lot of people prayed for it a lot of time. People, who didn’t even want the Bible or Jesus, suddenly now want both because they are overcome by some kind of supernatural coercion as a response to praying for this to occur.
I know in the history of mankind, there have been times where a relatively lot of people have been converted upon hearing gospel preaching. We see some of these times in Acts. One was on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2. We see one of these times in the colonial period of the United States under the preaching of George Whitefield. I accept that this has occurred. The Acts event is not a normative event, because it was accompanied by actual signs and wonders, but many did believe. However, compared to the number of people who did not believe, there were still far more who did not believe than who did believe. It was still a major threat to be a Christian in Jerusalem as seen in the resulting persecution. Then you can read in books about the Great Awakening and what happened there. I think it did happen.
I can admire and appreciate and enjoy reading about the times when many, many people were saved in a very short period of time. I’m glad for those occasions. I’m very, very happy that Jesus did miracles that indicated He was the Messiah. I don’t expect those signs today, but I’m happy He and the Apostles did them. As for me, I can still be fulfilled without seeing a lot of people saved in a very short period of time. Would I like it to occur? I would. However, I’m satisfied with preaching the gospel to as many people as possible and then seeing whoever wants to receive it, even if it is a small number. I don’t believe that I’m a lesser person or even a less powerful person because I don’t see one of these times of multitudes being saved like Acts 2 or the Great Awakening.
Remember what the psalmist prayed in Psalm 85:6? He was asking God if He would bring Israel back to life. I believe the answer to that question was, “Yes.” Paul wrote in Romans 11:26, “so all Israel shall be saved.” Let’s say that we asked the same question in a prayer? It’s not asking for revival, but we asked this question: “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” “Us” is the United States. Answer: I don’t know. “Us” is El Sobrante where I live. Answer: I don’t know.
The best way to find out whether people are going to be made alive is by preaching the gospel to them. Instead of praying for revival, we should obey the Great Commission. Instead of praying for power, we should assume we have enough. We should pray for boldness. We should pray that God would send out laborers. We should pray that we would have doors of opportunity open. That would be to do our job.
It seems to me that men are less interested in doing their job, and more interested in some big event that God doesn’t promise. Why do they want the big event? I believe that what God said to Baruch in Jeremiah 45:5 is apropros here: “And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not.” Men are seeking great things for themselves. They seek after signs. They seek after great numbers of conversions. They should obey and be content with the results. If they did obey and were content with the results, we would not be in the mess we are in today. We wouldn’t be.
The gospel is the power of God unto salvation, but people are actually ashamed of the gospel. They preach something other than the gospel in order to attain “revival.” They leave out unpopular features of the gospel to get results and then call it the gospel being preached. It isn’t and it wasn’t. The gospel is enough, but it is the part that is perverted. The necessary part for the revivalists is the emotion and the tent and the excitement and the music and the hollering and the momentum. These are attributed to the Holy Spirit, even though they are just fleshly means.
Think about this “revival” in Burlington, NC. They set up a tent. Why a tent? The “revivals” of Finney and the other 19th century revivalists were in tents. What does a “tent” have to do with it? It looks like what happened then. It seems like one of the conditions. The tent impersonates what happened then to align itself with what occurred with the thought that this was a necessary condition. It is parallel with the temples of Christendom, the ornate buildings that attracted men in the medieval period.
The hoe-down music and the physical incantations and shouting and emotionalism, what is stirred up by fleshly means, is not the Holy Spirit. The preacher is not so much interested in exposition of scripture, depending on its authority, as he is putting on a show. Part of preaching, it seems, is jumping up on one leg with the other lifted high in the air, and shouting into a portable microphone. Actually, it’s a similar activity as giving an inspirational speech at a pep rally in order to “fire everyone up.” One of the ways you act like you’ve got the Holy Spirit is lifting up your hands or your Bible, staring skyward with a glassy gaze, or shouting. The entire purpose of setting a date, picking a place with a lot of seating, packing a crowd in through promotion, and then manipulating an event has no scriptural parallel.
Anybody who is in his right mind should think that this stuff they are witnessing is crazy. The point is not to be in your right mind though. The entire production is to disengage from the mind and allow yourself to be manipulated. The emphasis is on the experience you’ll have, which is caused to make you feel the Holy Spirit is doing something.
The Burlington, NC meeting postponed for a week so that the speaker could move to a Carolina Youth Camp. The revival moves to camp and then back to the tent the next week. At the end of the session, the number of results are declared with the names of the decision makers, for instance with such-and-such teenage boy “asking Jesus into his heart” and this girl “asking God to save her” and “another boy asking Jesus into his heart.” This is not a biblical doctrine of salvation. This is not how you see people saved in scripture.
I’ve met men who say they were saved while hearing the preaching of Oral Roberts. Others testify to salvation in the ecumenical preaching of Billy Graham. I hope they are saved. I would compare it somewhat to someone throwing up the full court shot. You hope he makes the shot. If he does make it, you don’t want him to keep shooting full court shots. If the ball goes in, you are happy about that, but that doesn’t justify the strategy of shooting full court shots. I said “compare it somewhat” because the methodology of revivalism is worse. It is permissible to shoot full court shots in basketball. It isn’t permissible to function in an unscriptural way for evangelism. You still rejoice in the salvation of souls, but that doesn’t justify what those people are doing. In the long run, less people will be saved the wrong way. What I’m describing is a matter of discernment. You don’t accept the method while rejoicing in the soul saved.
Praying for Revival or Not Praying for Revival
In response to my first post of last week, entitled, “Reports of Revival in America,” someone wrote, who was critical of this one question, “Can we stop looking for revival across America?” The critic thought that question or statement to be very, very bad, not good at all, terrible. So the question follows, should believers be praying for revival? And perhaps previous to that question, one must answer, what is revival?
For revival being such a big deal according to many for those in the church, the New Testament doesn’t once use the word “revival.” Actually, the English word “revival” doesn’t occur once in the King James Version of the entire Bible. If “revival” were so important for Christians, and something they should expect and be praying for, one would think, it seems, that it would appear in the Bible one time.
On the other hand, the English verb “revive” (revive, revived, and reviving) does appear in both the Old and New Testaments. Here are the usages:
“Revive”
Nehemiah 4:2, And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?
Psalm 85:6, Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?
Psalm 138:7, Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.
Isaiah 57:15, For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
Hosea 6:2, After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.
Hosea 14:7, They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon.
Habakkuk 3:2, O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.
“Revived”
Genesis 45:27, And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived:
Judges 15:19, But God clave an hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore he called the name thereof Enhakkore, which is in Lehi unto this day.
1 Kings 17:22, And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.
2 Kings 13:21, And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.
Romans 7:9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
Romans 14:9, For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.
“Reviving”
Ezra 9:8-9, And now for a little space grace hath been shewed from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage. For we were bondmen; yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the desolations thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.
The only time any form of “revive occurs in the New Testament is in Romans 7:9 and Romans 14:9, the Greek word anazao, which means, “to come back to life.” That Greek word is also found in Luke 15:24, 32 and Revelation 20:5. Here are those usages:
Luke 15:24, For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
Luke 15:32, It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.
Revelation 20:5, But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
The Hebrew word translated “revive and revived” is always the verb, hayah. It is very common, found 357 times in the Old Testament, translated first “living” in Genesis 1:24, and then “beast” in Genesis 1:25 (living thing). Sometimes it is translated “lived,” as in Genesis 5:3, “And Adam lived.”
In the few times the King James Version translates hayah, “revive,” it is found in each instance the piel, except for Isaiah 57:15, where it is in the hiphil. The qal form of hayah translates “revived” in all four instances. Hayah means “to be alive” in the qal, the piel is “to cause to be alive,” and the hiphil is “to cause to live.”
The two usages of “reviving,” both in Ezra 9:8-9 translate a different Hebrew term, mihyah. It is not a very often used word, only eight times in the entire Old Testament, always a noun and in addition to “reviving” translated “preserve life,” “quick,” “sustenance,” “victuals,” and “recover” in those instances in the King James Version.
I want to look just at the English usages, because those are the ones from which the critics are receiving their doctrine. The only times the word surely means something spiritual, whether “revive,” “revived,” or “reviving” are in Psalm 85:6, Isaiah 57:15, Habakkuk 3:2, Ezra 9:8-9. Neither of the two in the New Testament are a spiritual reviving. Two of the four in total are in prayers, both of course in the Old Testament.
First, of the two that are not prayers, God speaks in Isaiah 57:15 and promises that He will preserve the humble and contrite, as Matthew Henry writes,
He will give them reviving joys and hopes sufficient to counterbalance all the griefs and
fears that break their spirits. He dwells with them, and his presence is reviving.
Second, Ezra 9:8-9 do not use the same Hebrew word, as I referenced above. Nonetheless, the “reviving” is encouragement from the Lord to keep going, despite their opposition to completing the task God has them to do as returning captives. Neither these first and second examples correlate to the almost exclusive idea of revival especially promoted by revivalists.
The two classic “revival” texts, to which are most commonly referred, come from Psalm 85:6 and Habbakkuk 3:2. They are both prayers, the former the request of God to revive people and the second to revive God’s work. They are quoted above, but here are the two again:
Psalm 85:6, Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?
Habakkuk 3:2, O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.
It is important not to superimpose over these two usages what someone already thinks or perceives about revival. The wording of Psalm 85:6 reads as lamenting a condition. It is a request, but spoken in a negative way: “Wilt thou not revive us again?” Is this the state in which we will be left? Do we have no hope? It is not so much a prayer for revival as it is a prayer to be informed as to whether this present state is going to end. Yes or no, are things going to end this way or are You going to give us some hope that would bring us joy in this desolation and discouragement?
Psalm 85 looks to have been written concerning an exilic or post-exilic Israel, who seemed herself to have been left for dead with no hope of future restoration either to the land or to her former state. Israel was under God’s wrath and was looking to be returned to her former condition. This psalm could allude to any period where Israel would be brought back to the place of God’s original intention for her. No doubt, Israel’s poor state as a nation related to her faithless departure from following the Lord. She suffered under God’s chastisement and she cried to God to return her to her former condition.
Israel had a basis for a prayer of restoration. At the dedication of the temple, Solomon prayed to God in 2 Chronicles 6 for the right or privilege to pray to God during times of judgment or chastisement. He asked God if Israel could pray toward this temple with hope of restoration. In answer to this prayer, God gave him the familiar promise of 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” The United States of America does not have the same promise given to it.
Habbakuk 3:2 is similar except for the obvious. Habbakuk does not pray for the reviving of the nation itself, but of God’s work. If you consider the model prayer of Jesus in Matthew 6 and Luke 11, you read the request, “Thy will be done.” If you replaced “will” with “work,” it would read, “Thy work be done.” Men need and desire the work of God. Israel was defined by the work of God. Without the work of God, she was nothing. God had promised Israel a future, so Habbakuk had a biblical basis for praying it. God’s desire for Israel was also Habbakuk’s desire.
I don’t see a New Testament equivalent to the above mentioned prayers in the Old Testament. God gave certain promises to Israel and the psalmist and Habakkuk prayed according to those promises. God would return Israel to its former place. God had promised. They were requesting according to the will of God, which is what every believer should do when he prays, that is, pray for the will of God.
Believers should not be praying, like revivalists, for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit or that the Holy Spirit would come down and meet with them in a special way — those types of prayers. They are praying for some event accompanied by some indication that something amazing is occurring, a quasi-sign of some sort. Then they produce the cause for the effect with the music and the style of speaking. This was nothing like the great awakening with Whitefield in the colonial period.
No one should pray for the Spirit to come, since He’s already here. No one should pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, because He has already been poured out. These are second blessing prayers. These are Keswick prayers. They are actually faithless prayers. Why would someone pray for something that already occurred? Why not just believe that it occurred? They want more of these events, these signs, these occurrences as a validation. They are seeking after signs.
God’s Word is powerful. The Holy Spirit will work through God’s Word. God has promised. We should, like the apostles, pray for boldness in preaching the Word of God. Pray for doors of opportunity. Are these two prayers, boldness and opportunity, big events? They are obedience to God. We should look at obedience to God as a big enough event for us. God is already working providentially all around and all over. God’s power is immense and He wants us already to acknowledge it, not seek for more.
Instead of praying what the revivalists pray, believers should pray like what the Apostle Paul did for the church at Ephesus in Ephesians 3:16: “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man.” Believers have all the power of the universe within them in the Person of the Holy Spirit. However, there is still the struggle to sin that Paul reveals at the end of Romans 7. Believers have the Holy Spirit, but they need to be strengthened by the Spirit in their struggle over sin. Prayer is one of the ways they have that victory not to sin. This is parallel with the request in the model prayer in Matthew 6:13 and Luke 11:4: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.” This is a prayer believers ought to pray for themselves and for others.
Jehovah: The Meaning of the Name
pronounced Jehovah, as it is rendered
in the Authorized Version (Exodus 6:3; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 12:2, etc.). A previous post discussed some of the evidence for this fact, but did not elaborate on the
meaning of the Name. Revelation 1:4-5,
explains the significance of the Tetragrammaton as oJ w·n kai« oJ h™n kai« oJ
e˙rco/menoß, ho on kai ho en kai
ho erchomenos, “He who is, and who was, and who is to come.” Likewise, the Hebrew Yehowah (hODwh◊y) is the fusion of yehi howeh hawah (hÎwDh
hRwøh yIh◊y), “He was” (Qal perf 3ms) “He is” (Qal part ms) “He will be
(Qal impf 3ms [same as juss]),” into one word, as recognized by a number of
modern scholars, such as “Hölemann in
his Bibelstudien . . . in common with Stier
and others.”[1] The vocalization Jehovah, unlike the corrupt modern alternative Yahweh, thus properly represents the eternal self-existence of the
one true God and is in accordance with the inspired explanation of Revelation
1:4-5, 8. Wilhelmus a Brakel explains
the classical interpretation of the significance of Yehowah or Jehovah as
follows:
be called—a name which would indicate His essence, the manner of His existence,
and the plurality of divine Persons. The name which is indicative of His
essence is hDOwh◊y or Jehovah, it being abbreviated as hDy or Jah.
The name which is indicative of the trinity of Persons is MyIhølTa or Elohim.
Often there is a coalescence of these two words resulting in hIwøhTy or Jehovi.
The consonants of this word constitute the name Jehovah, whereas the
vowel marks produce the name Elohim. Very frequently these two names are
placed side by side in the following manner: Jehovah Elohim, to reveal
that God is one in essence and three in His Persons.
This practice of not using the name Jehovah initially was perhaps an expression
of reverence, but later became superstitious in nature. In its place they use
the name yÎnOdSa or Adonai, a name by which the Lord is frequently called in His
Word. Its meaning is “Lord.” When this word is used in reference to men, it is
written with the letter patach, which is the short “a” vowel. When it is
used in reference to the Lord, however, the letter kametz is used, which
is the long “a” vowel. As a result all the vowels of the name Jehovah are
present. To accomplish this the vowel “e” is changed into a chatef-patach which
is the shortest “a” vowel, referred to as the guttural letter aleph. Our
translators, to give expression to the name Jehovah, use the name Lord,
which is similar to the Greek word ku/rioß (kurios), the latter being a
translation of Adonai rather than Jehovah. In Rev 1:4 and 16:5
the apostle John translates the name Jehovah as follows: “Him which is,
and which was, and which is to come.” This one word has reference primarily to
being or essence, while having the chronological connotation of past, present,
and future. In this way this name refers to an eternal being, and therefore the
translation of the name Jehovah in the French Bible is l’Eternel, that is, the Eternal One. . .
Jehovah is not a common name, such as “angel” or “man”—names which can
be assigned to many by virtue of being of equal status. On the contrary, it is
a proper Name which uniquely belongs to God and thus to no one else, as is true
of the name of every creature, each of which has his own name. (pgs. 84-85, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, vol.
1)
the critical Hebrew text very frequently corrupts the Hebrew Yehowah or Jehovah into Yeh-wah,
contrary to the true meaning of the Name and the preserved Hebrew Textus Receptus. If we use a corrupt modern Bible version
translated from an inferior Hebrew text, let us set it aside for the Authorized
Version. When we see the word “Jehovah”
in the Authorized Version, or see “LORD” or “GOD” in all capitals, let us think
on the glorious self-existence of the covenant-keeping Jehovah, and be stirred
up to give Him the holy reverence and love that He so richly deserves.
more on the subject of the Hebrew vowel points, please read the essays on the subject
here. More specifics on the validity of the name Jehovah is here.
Hillary Clinton, Legal Relativism, and the Church
Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust.
Here’s the applicable statement from FBI director James B. Comey:
Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
You will notice that the law says nothing about intent. This does not mean, of course, that a prosecutor could not have proven intent. I believe intent would have been easy to prove in this case. Why did Hillary Clinton have a private server? She needed to be able to cover for illegal activities — that is very easy to see. However, the law doesn’t require a demonstration of intent. Yet, Comey says, “we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton…intended to violate laws.”
Comey did say there is evidence Secretary Clinton was “extremely careless in [her] handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” the very definition of “gross negligence.” Concerning what Comey was doing, Andrew McCarthy again writes:
It is a common tactic of defense lawyers in criminal trials to set up a straw-man for the jury: a crime the defendant has not committed. The idea is that by knocking down a crime the prosecution does not allege and cannot prove, the defense may confuse the jury into believing the defendant is not guilty of the crime charged.
Comey set up “intent” as a straw man, one not necessary to convict Hillary Clinton of a felony.
Since Comey came down with his explanation of the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton, as would be expected, most of her supporters are happy. One, they are a crowd of people who do not care if she violated the law or threatened the security of the United States. Two, they can take laws and make them mean whatever they want them to mean. This system of interpretation has been called “loose constructionism,” a fruit of progressivism and postmodernism.
Institutionally, the United States has departed from God, and, therefore, absolute truth. Beyond saying anything is right or wrong anymore, this nation cannot say what anything means. The naturalist believes only nature, matter in motion, exists without God, so is also left without an explanation for the laws of logic.
My family and I went whitewater rafting today on the Colorado River, and while we floated through the canyon along highway 70, our guide explained how that the river wore this ravine over a period of 15,000 years. Our family met that comment with silence. For one, I knew that naturalists say more like 15 million years, so I was laughing to myself about the 15,000 versus 15,000,000. I asked him where all the sediment went from all of these deep caverns, and he said it went to Lake Powell. I asked and exclaimed, “All of it went into that one lake? Wow!” He wasn’t sure on that question. What I’m saying is that people can make up whatever they want when they are naturalists.
Without assuming the existence of the laws of logic, no one has any meaningful way of communicating, reasoning, or proving anything. Words mean whatever is convenient for whatever preference someone wants to take. In the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Richard A. Epstein writes in his “Linguistic Relativism and the Decline of the Rule of Law”:
Both the narrow and broad conceptions of the rule of law presuppose that the tools of ordinary language are powerful enough to allow judges and scholars to formulate legal rules that make implementing the rule of law possible. Unfortunately, many scholars despair that the tools of textual analysis are not strong enough to meet the persistent challenges of the linguistic skeptic.
How or why did this change? Epstein later in the same article gives some examples of how or why the change:
[T]he writers in the progressive tradition (who first ushered in and then defended the Court’s New Deal jurisprudence) [took] the general position that . . . key constitutional words [were] deeply plastic and filled with inherent ambiguity. . . . [D]oubt paves the way for the rise of the Fourth Branch of Government—the independent administrative agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and the National Labor Relations Board—whose “duties,” Justice Sutherland said, “are neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative,” without giving any idea as to how these novel terms map onto the constitutional structure. Once this degree of linguistic freedom is given, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to distill clear meanings from established texts whose meaning had once filtered through a set of shared historical experiences.
Linguistic relativism leads to legal relativism. Epstein continues:
So why then the legal relativism—that is, some notion that there are no independent grounds for preferring one outcome to another—which surfaces in different ways in different contexts? The simplest explanation is the best. Let a judge assume that there are fixed meanings to controversial terms, and the scope of judicial discretion in interpreting statutes or constitutional texts is necessarily limited. For progressive law professors . . . those linguistic straitjackets would reduce the opportunity to transform constitutional doctrine.
Now I want to go straight to my major point of this post. Conservatives decry the perversion of law through linguistic and then legal relativism. The uncertainty of language and then laws results in the sanction of illegal activity. The criminals play games with words and the law, like “it depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” Evangelicals might say they hate the linguistic relativism. Do they?
God is One. His Word is One. The meaning is perspicuous. It’s plain. We do not have a linguistic excuse with ordinary meaning of the language of scripture. What has evangelicalism done?
Evangelicalism (and much of fundamentalism) plays Clintonian games with scripture in numbers of different ways. I could point you to several, but I want to focus on one: the new and unbiblical approach of essentials and non-essentials.
Intent is not found in the federal law violated by Hillary Clinton. Conservatives act like they can know that. It’s ordinary language. It’s really easy to understand “gross negligence” equal to Comey’s “extremely careless.” Any right thinking of ordinary language in the law know she is a felon.
How much more sad is the violation of God’s law than the violation of United States federal law? Evangelicals justify disobedience with their “essentials and non-essentials.” They assume that language cannot be understood. They make God unclear. To evangelicals, He is less clear than human law, federal law, therefore, their people are required only in a very short list of essentials. Most of what God has said has been reduced to non-essentials. The non-essentials are in there, but they don’t have to be kept. For all intents and purposes, even the conservative evangelicals are linguistic relativists.
Judgment must begin in the house of God. If we can’t obey God, His Word, in the church, why would we expect obedience to lesser laws? The doubt and uncertainty in the church justifies what’s happening in our nation. Our churches are full of spiritual criminals. Church leaders allow them to get away with it. They justify it with linguistic relativism that is not characteristic of the clarity of God.
Reports of Revival in America
In the 2000 years of Christianity, American churches seem unique at having blended big special calendar events with the assembling and worship of a church. If America were ever to end, churches won’t keep trying to integrate church with July 4th. It wouldn’t work any more.
Whitefield didn’t need a song man, building the atmosphere with his stirring music. Whitefield exposed scripture with dense salvation theology. He gave strong biblical explanation of the gospel.
You might hear, “They prayed fifteen years for this and now it has come.” The parallel in the theology of revivalism is that saints prayed in Jerusalem for a period and then got the answer in Acts 2, attempting to make that event normative as a revival. You hear the same language: the Holy Spirit has come down, has visited, has been poured out. Part of the scenario is also a meeting. It has to be people traveling in to meet. Some sort of daring, bold, abnormal consciousness is reached, alive in an atypical fashion.
Can we stop looking for revival across America, like this is part of our national heritage, and start looking for believing the Bible and obeying it? Revivals will come when they come. If they don’t, all you’re left with is believing the Bible and obeying it. That’s enough.
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As an addendum to this post, I have experienced “revival.” My senior year in high school, I attended a large Christian school that began a fad at the time (it might still be happening) called “school camp.” The entire school would pack up and go to camp the first week of school and hear revivalist preaching morning and evening. The camp schedule left very little time for sleep, so everyone would be very weary. Besides “preaching” with a main emphasis on emotional manipulation, there was the use of the invitation.
As I look back at my high school years, a majority of 150 or so students were unconverted. Out of the 45 graduates in my class, I’m the only either pastor or missionary. My experience was that many of the students in our school were worldly and ungodly.
During the week of school camp, by the estimations of many, we experienced revival. Seventeen students made professions of faith. At the end of the week, there were many very emotional testimonies to how God had changed their lives. As I lived through the rest of that senior year, I guarantee you that very little changed, including in almost all of the lives of those who made professions of faith. However, we had “revival.”
What I’m saying is that I know what “revival” looks like. I mean “revival,” and not actual revival. What people call revival and seek in the way of revival, I experienced that.
Keswick’s Biblical Strengths: where Keswick is Correct, in an Analysis and Critique of So Great Salvation by Stephen Barabas, part 3 of 4
peculiar possession of the Kewick theology.
Moral Narcissist*
I just want all of you to know that I’m really, really against immorality. Immorality is bad. It’s heinous. I’m hugely against it. I’m not sure anyone is against it more than me. Just a second while I take a moment to tweet that out. Oops, I can’t blog how much I’m against immorality and tweet it at the same time, despite my skill at multi-tasking. I do have an appropriate picture that will show everyone that I know how to tell how much I’m against immorality. It’s not one of me, because, of course, I’m very, very moral. The picture is of Jerry Falwell, Jr. and his wife with Donald Trump in front of a framed photo of Donald Trump on the cover of Playboy. It would be immoral to show the photo. In addition, I don’t have that image right this moment to portray how much I’m against immorality. However, I’m asking you to imagine it with me for the purpose of understanding how against immorality that I am.
Pause with me a moment while I tell you how immoral Donald Trump is. He is. Hugely immoral. If I were on twitter for you to follow me, you would be receiving incessant tweets informing you of how immoral I think Donald Trump is. You need to know. He is. I think he is. It’s been a very well kept secret, which you couldn’t have known, that Donald Trump is immoral. It’s important for you to know that I think that he is too. Me. That I’m a major opponent of and exposing agent of the immorality of Donald Trump, something along the lines of John the Baptist confronting Herod’s immorality, except for the fact that I’m using a form of social media to tell the whole world how immoral I think Donald Trump is. I’m applying that example as my basis for writing and tweeting against Donald Trump’s immorality. I’m not threatened in any way like John the Baptist, but if I could be threatened, I would be. It’s scary to think he could be president, and then he’d be looking back at people’s tweets to see who wrote them, and he might cut my head off (he believes in torture).
I’m not voting for Donald Trump. My conscience just won’t allow me. You might interpret that as my having a very scrupulous conscience. You would be right. Instead, I’m pulling the lever for Junior Samples. If “Your Conscience” were running, I’d vote for him, and I still might vote for him or at least “My Conscience.” My conscience stays completely silent, purrs like a pigeon with bread crumbs, when I consider my vote for Junior Samples. On the other hand, my conscience twists and spins and screams like a Harley at even a whiff of a thought of voting for Donald Trump, mainly because of, of course, my hypersensitive morality. I have a moral gag reflex to Trump that whiplashes me into major vertebrae damage. When the light came on, Pavlov’s dog salivated, and when Trump comes on, I dismount in the crunch position.
Boris Johnson, prominent British politician who favored Brexit, said, “I have as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as of being decapitated by a frisbee or of finding Elvis.” Junior Samples has an exponentially less chance of being president than Johnson does being Prime Minister, but I’ve got to make a major, huge point about how much I’m against immorality with my vote.
Don’t read into this too much, but here’s the point. My morality says a few things. One, blow up the Republican party, salt it like the Romans did Carthage, napalm it so that nothing will grow for millennia. Two, dare Hillary to become president, two terms, three terms, constitutional amendment for more terms even, whatever it takes to teach Republicans a lesson they won’t forget. Three, for good measure, get a Supreme Court with, I don’t know, seven liberal justices, two conservative just to watch them suffer — blow torch gun rights, the right to life, property rights, whatever, important protections of rights, right out of the constitution, turn that document into so many hot fudge sundaes, just so that people will know how seriously we (“I am”) are against immorality.
I so hate the immorality of Donald Trump that I could almost vote for Hillary, but only to show him, actually show me, but you get what I mean — show everyone, me. I can’t vote for Hillary though. I can make sure she wins the election with the hyper morality of the deniability that I actually caused it. I didn’t vote for her. “Did you vote for her?” they’ll ask. I’ll say, “No.” No way. No. I wouldn’t do that. I didn’t cause that. Nope. She’s president and my conscience is intact. Yesirree. Bill in the White House again, elevating the racketeering an embarrassment even to banana republics. Not my fault though. I didn’t vote for her.
As I foresee my crucible of the ballot box in November, in reality my absentee 95 thesis on the Wittenberg kitchen table several weeks earlier, I can’t very well say I’m glad that I’ve got several months to keep telling you how morally repulsed I am, except that I am. I just can’t say it. You’ll know it though….and know it and know it and know it. And I’ll keep telling you long after Hillary and Bill Clinton are president — through every form of moral social media Mark Zuckerberg has ever invented.
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*Term taken from this article. I hadn’t thought of the term, but it fits something I’ve seen perfectly.
Russell Moore, Exhibit One in Ingratiation of Gospel Hipsterness
Do not hate your instinct to restrict Islam in the United States. You should dandle that in your mind like the ambulation of a lozenge in your mouth. At the 2016 annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the public-policy arm of the SBC, intelligence shames common sense for the cool guys at school.
As I write this post, I go to the Russell Moore twitter page for a very typical sample from him.
I am on a beautiful, sunny beach, poring over Brexit returns on my phone. Something is wrong with me.— Russell Moore (@drmoore) June 24, 2016
Modern evangelicalism promotes such sycophantic navel gazing.
If I were to evaluate based on my observation of Moore, I would see the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commision as the division of pandering for the Southern Baptist Convention. Moore has the not very difficult task of finding a way to present the SBC in the most politically and theologically correct fashion, left leaning and effeminate. To the beavis giddiness of his culturally relevant fanboys, his zeal for the Southern Baptist house erupts on the old right with its regional twang. He saves his indignation for gay reception refusals, confederate flag waving, and Muslim mosque opposition. With no shame, he retweets, “This week, we talk with hip-hop duo @socialclubmsfts.” This constitutes a new kind of courage, one that chooses to “stand” where it’s obvious he’ll receive the greatest amount of applause.
I don’t believe the Muslim mosque issue in the video above correlates to either a Baptist distinctive or the gospel. Baptists support freedom of religion, but Islam is a difficult decision, contrary to Moore’s pandering. It’s not a Baptist distinctive to support Mosque building. Moore received a lot of publicity for this answer. I saw references to it all over. I watched the second half of his answer at least ten times. I still don’t know what he’s talking about. It was biblical and theological gibberish. I can only interpret the crowd as cheering for expert political fawning. They remind me of the crowds at a Bernie or Hillary rally.
Moore said, “the bigger issue is that we’ve been called to the gospel of Jesus Christ.” I can only guess here. Regulating Mosque building undermines the gospel, and fully tolerating Mosque building promotes the gospel?
A mosque in your neighborhood might mean people are there plotting violence where you live. People blown up by a bomb can’t be saved any more. I’ve noticed that. I can’t preach the gospel to strewn body parts. You have to be able to breathe to hear the gospel. If you try to preach the gospel at a mosque in the United States, several mosque adherents will threaten your life. If they kill you while you preach to them, you can’t preach the gospel to anyone any more. I can find a crowd of saved people, ones who preach the gospel every week, who would clap loud and long for this paragraph.
A greater enemy of the gospel in the SBC is its hunger for relevance. The gospel and its real effects are replaced by the pretend Christianity of which Moore speaks. The gospel doesn’t need designer glass frames. It doesn’t need the perfect stance on mosques and their construction.
Brexit Validation
Please read Thomas Ross’s post below.
This isn’t a post per se. Back when I wrote this post, Brexit wasn’t even on my radar. I hadn’t heard the term, although it had been around, it seems, since 2007. I said, however, this was an election about globalism versus nationalism. Some are also claiming that British nationalism right now is xenophobic. A whole post could and should be written on just that type of terminology. If you are going to preserve or conserve a nation or a culture, one of the threats are foreign nations and cultures. Anyone at this moment should say, “Duh.” That doesn’t make you xenophobic.
Of great interest to me are the United States bandwagon supporters of Brexit, who don’t get it, absolutely don’t get it. They can’t seem to make the application.
In the post I wrote on May 24, I said this:
Where there is no absolute truth, you can’t be better. If no one is greater than anyone else, then borders don’t matter. You have no culture to protect. It doesn’t make any difference. The future won’t be very bright for a country that doesn’t see a reason for its own existence.
I ended with this question:
If nothing can be better, than why conserve anything anyway?
People, pundits, voters, citizens need to decide where they come down on this. You can parse through every other aspect of this election, but I believe in our present situation, this is how basic this is. It’s not about things more complicated, albeit still simple things. If you don’t understand this, then you will be a participant in turning the country over to globalists.
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