Classic: Baptism

Dr. Piper opens up the can of worms at his church again by beginning a series on baptism and church membership.

The long-time readers of this blog know for a fact that this topic is near to me and dear to me -- because it's one of the topics I have blogged about most often. And in that, I think I am more a Baptist for it today than I was 3 years ago.

I respect Dr. Piper and the elders of his church wanting to have an open door at their church for all believers in Christ -- for wanting, as they have said, to keep the front door of the local church as wide as the front door of the universal church -- namely, all who believe in Jesus Christ.

Dr. Piper's message yesterday delivered a stirring call for the importance of church membership -- one with which I would agree almost entirely. Almost.

He says this in the middle of his message:

One of the key convictions behind the elder proposal (that was made and then withdrawn) is that excluding from membership a truly born-again person who gives credible evidence of his saving faith is a more serious mistake than receiving into membership a true believer who is not biblically baptized though, according to his own conscience, he believes he is. But that conviction assumes church membership is really important, so that excluding a person from it is very serious.

So one of the arguments against the elder proposal was that membership in a local church like Bethlehem does not matter very much—certainly not as much as baptism—because a non-member can worship and take the Lord’s Supper and go to Sunday School and be a part of a small group and be visited by a pastor in the hospital; or he can simply go to another church that shares his view of baptism.

So if membership is not that important, then excluding someone from membership will not seem a serious problem. That would mean that the elders are trying to solve a problem that doesn’t really exist. This is one of the most crucial issues we need to think through as a church: How serious is it to say to a regenerate person: “You are not permitted to be a member of this church”?

Let me say frankly that this is not a matter either of subjective belief or of merely-judicial or -authoritarian caveat. This is the place where the reasoning at Bethlehem goes of the rails, in my opinion, and let me explain briefly why I would say that.

In Acts 19, Paul finds the "disciples" at Corinth who had received John's baptism but not the baptism of Jesus. Those people there sincerely believed they had been baptized, but in fact they had not been baptized into Christ. That example speaks clearly, I think, to the question of whether or not what one thinks about one's baptism is what we should weigh when we are considering them as members of our fellowship and churches. We are not saying they are not disciples: we are saying they are not baptized, and they should hear that call plainly for what it is: a call to be obedient to what God has ordained for the church and for the believer.

In that way, we are not questioning anyone's status as being regenerate or not regenerate. We are calling them to do what God has called them to do. The excuse, "I think I already have done it," is dispelled by they fact that they did not, in fact, do it -- it was done to them before they could agree or decline. What they have had done is not objectively the same as what we are calling them to.

By saying that, we are not saying to a regenerate person, "your salvation doesn't matter to us and you cannot join our church." We -- that is, the church and specifically its elders -- are saying what the elders ought to say in the name of Jesus Christ: if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Baptism is a commandment from God for the believer. And without overstating this matter, it is the charge of the elder to exhort the believer to do what God has commanded, and not merely settle for what seems good to every man in his own eyes. Someone who doesn't want to do what God has commanded is someone, I think, who is not under the authority of the elders but on his own program.

I really love that Bethlehem Baptist church is thinking deeply about this matter. But one of the most deeply-resounding themes of its preaching pastor is the matter of obedience to God out of love and joy for what God has done for us. Is it really such a hard thing, in that context, to tell those who want to fellowship in an assembly which hears the Lord commanding us to baptize the believer that this is their first step in truly desiring God?

Needs to be said

Piper says it.

Imonk may not enjoy the echo chamber, but I do.

How not to waste your life

Piper and Mantra

John Piper, John 1, and the Gospel, all of which plainly tackles the question of whether or not yoga is a Christian pursuit.

And you thought the Iron Man video was cool.

We should be so lucky or blessed

Let's hope and pray that God will bless the memory of us with this kind of fondness in the next generation.

iMonk podcast 87

This is, honest to pete, the last post I'm going to make on this topic from last week's imbroglio about the Piper video, and it's about iMonk's podcast this weekend. I have a HUGE stack of stuff on the next wave of baptist prohibitionist propaganda, and I'd rather do that as it is the season.

The first bit is this: I appreciate Michael's spirit and message in that podcast. No question. The "simul justus" thing is exactly what I was arguing two weeks ago when the fundies were trying to say something false about regeneration, and I appreciate that iMonk got e-mails that were, frankly, misunderstanding what I had written and he was willing to make clarifications.

The second bit is this: iMonk is right that the church culture in which the "know that you know that you know" "invitation" is the so-called "revival" message is broken. I am 100% confident that Dr. Piper wiuld agree with that.

Here's the place where, I think, iMonk and I part company -- and we have to, or else all kinds of people are going to get raptured and the world will be thrown into end-times chaos: assurance drives us to something other than mere solace.

Now, before I say another word, it is possible that this end part of the conversation is a function of people just talking past each other, and I'd be willing to see where we are disconnecting here.

In his podcast, iMonk makes a connection to Lutheran theology to say that we gain assurance through the sacraments and the preaching of the Gospel. Fair enough: stipulating the differences between Lutheran and Baptist sacramentology, I'd agree with him as far as that goes. But what does that assurance mean? Does it only mean that we are, as the olde hymn says, standing on the promises of God? Or does it mean that we have a basis for advancing our sanctification?

See: this is Piper's point, and my point. When iMonk makes the point that perfectionist doctrine goes nowhere, it seems like he and his cohorts/supporters/readers overlook the part where they are willing to admit that someone who is an adulterer in a "glib" way (as he said in the podcast) has a false assurance.

I mean, if you're going to go Luther, even he says, "[the Holy Spirit] works and promotes sanctification, causing [this community] daily to grow and become strong in the faith and its fruits which He produces." If you are willing to say that the adulterer is "glib" in his confession of faith. you have to be willing to ask if anyonbe's sanctification which has stalled out is "glib".

Now, why? Is it because you're (as someone said in the meta last week) trying to snap the bruised reed? Oh good heavens. Listen: there's no question that we will not be finished with sin until the last day -- but think about that in this way: should we be therefore finished with our concerns about sin until the last day?

It is my belief, and my hope, that iMonk would agree with me that the answer is "no way". And the call to die daily to sin is still the Biblical admonition.

Discuss.

I Heart Piper

Before this week, I think I'd say, "mixed bag" when it comes to reader of this blog and Piper and leave it at that, but in the meta this week I've seen something I didn’t expect: I didn’t expect to se readers of my blog – or visitors from TeamPyro, which many of you have been – to be merely last-generation evangelicals who would hold to a Billy Graham Crusade view of conversion where a pastor who says that people who prayed a prayer might not be saved is castigated as a trouble-maker.

Here's what Sled Dog (a reader and commenter in the meta) said last night:

[Dr. Piper said] “You gotta make this an issue Sunday after Sunday so that they feel scared that they're not saved."

For me, that's the line that goes over the edge.

The call of the pastor/preacher is to communicate the Word...the whole counsel of God.

The role of the Holy Spirit is to convict.

If I start thinking about scaring people in regards to assurance...that's beyond the call of duty. The Word and the Spirit handle that task much better than I could ever dream of.

Now, let's be very intentional here. This is what Dr. Piper said:

Catch on to the affectional nature of Christianity, conversion. It is not merely a decision to believe a fact. It is a heart treasuring Christ and His glory more than football, sex, money, power, play, toys. You gotta make this an issue Sunday after Sunday so that they feel scared that they're not saved.

You know, I think some pastors are so afraid that somebody might walk up at the end of the service and say, "you really jostled my assurance this morning." If we don't -jostle- people's assurance when they're not saved, we send them to hell.

We must preach in such a way so that people can test -- Test Yourself! 2 Cor 13:5 says, "test yourself to see if you are in the faith". Well, one of the tests is do you love Football more than you love Jesus? Do you love Golf more than you love Christ? What does your heart say about Christ? Late at night, all alone, in front of an internet screen, mouse ready to click, what does your heart say about Christ over pornography?

What Dr. Piper did not say is that people should walk around the world wondering if they are saved or not – which is the impression one gets when one views that one sentence out of context, and is the impression guys like Sled Dog are giving in the meta.

Dr. Piper's point is the wholly-scriptural point that the believer is called to test himself, and see if the faith which he claims he has is a faith which is changing him. As someone pointed out in the meta, it's a matter of knowing by one's fruits what kind of branch one is.

But apparently that's out of line. Some will call it legalism, and others will call it "works-based faith", and some will simply turn their noses up at the idea that people ought to have a little bit of concern over whether what they say is actually what they mean. You know: when I say that I am a child of the living God, adopted into His Household rather than left for punishment where I belong – and that, bought at the price of the blood of God's one and only son – maybe I should act like that really happened and not like it's a political slogan, a talking point, or a t-shirt.

Maybe I should act like there's a real God who really did this stuff and I'm, at least, grateful.

Think about this: if Donald Trump, who is a billionaire egoist, drove through your town and stopped at your house because he saw your posts on my blog, and he rang the doorbell, invited himself in, and handed you the closing papers on your house, the title for your car, and receipts for 10 years worth of utilities to your house paid in advance, what kind of person would you be?

That is, what would you feel? You'd feel something – maybe stunned at first, or embarrassed. But my guess is that you'd feel grateful. You'd feel grateful – and then the question is what to do about that.

And what Piper is asking here, exhorting here, is that Christ has done more for you than the billionaire egoist can do for you, and if you don't feel grateful, maybe you haven't really received the gift. It could be other things – maybe you haven’t considered the gift; maybe you haven’t examined the gift. But to do those things, you have to be somehow awakened to the fact that you ought to make sure you received the gift.

You know, I drove my first car for 14 years, and the morning it wouldn’t start anymore I was a little put out, but a couple of weeks later my wife bought me my new car. And you know something? Every time I get in it, I wonder if it's really mine, and if I deserve it, and if I will take care to show that I am grateful. Not to the car: to my wife – even though I'm the breadwinner in the house. And for the record, I thank God for his generosity that I have it.

For a car. How much more should we think that way about our salvation? And why on Earth would anyone think that challenging people to examine whether or not they are still grateful, and whether that gratitude has any spiritual bearing on them, is wrong? It's not hardly wrong.

Think about who you are this weekend. Be in the Lord's house with the Lord's people on the Lord's day and let your assurance be challenged – because unless your assurance is changing you, unless it is putting your treasure in things which cannot rust and thieves cannot steal, you have a false assurance.

Jesus Hearts Piper

Here's the thing with this "Piper goes to far" battalion: they are simply trying to force Dr. Piper to say things which it cannot be demonstrated that he is saying.

In the last few days, the other side of this hoopla have tried to say that Piper's view somehow thwarts God's sovereignty because Piper is here instructing pastors to "make people feel" like they need to be saved. Unlike, I guess, Peter at pentecost, where the folks listening were cut the the heart and were pleading with him, "what shall we do to be saved?"

I guess.

But here's the thing: that troublemaker Jesus was also on about how our affections relate to our standing before God. There are a couple of places I think this is demonstrated pretty clearly, but here's one that is simply to obvious to ignore.

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. [ESV, Mat 6]

Right? And this version of this statement is even less invasive than the parallel passage in Luke 12, amen?

Where your -treasure- is, there your -heart- will be. Jesus' words here say explicitly that your treasure -shows- where your heart is.

See -- God's sovereignty is not hardly at stake here: your ability to measure yourself is at stake here. And while we would all affirm -- Dr. Piper included -- that the foundation of our salvation is the finished work of Christ, and the basis for being assured is that Christ saves, our hero Mark Dricosll made a keen point about Grace in his recent "Ask Anything" sermon on the topic.

There was a guy who was a member of Mars Hill Church, and he was a serial adulterer. Married one grrl (that's how they spell it in Seattle), cheated on her, and married that one with whom he cheated. Did it a second and a third time. When Driscoll sat down with the guy, his response was classic: "Jesus forgives all my sins."

Driscoll's response is also classic: "Dude, while I can't see your heart or your soul, in my professional opinion, you do not know Jesus."

That statement is not legalism. It is the assessment that this guy's affections are not Christian affections. He wants worldly sex, not Godly sex. His treasure is laid up in the lap of women who are not his wife, and not at the feet of a savior who paid the highest price for his sin.

This is what Piper is talking about. This is how he is talking about it. Encouraging other pastors to talk about it this way is not hardly a vice -- because it turns out that this would actually be the most serious sin of the American church.

And I'll line that out, and finish up this Pyro-free week on this topic, tomorrow.

UPDATED:

Piper speaks for himself, and if you don't understand him after this, I'm not sure I can help you. The really-vigilant will listen to the audio as it has nature embellishments that the text here doesn't necessarily represent.

Hosea Hearts Piper

See: yesterday I gave the short form of Moses giving Piper some air support for the idea that our affections must be God-centered, and two objections have come back from that. The first is this, from brother Stefan:

No argument with the substance of your post. Strictly speaking, however, the passage you cited—verses 10 to 14— follows immediately after the Sh'ma (verses 4 to 5, as cited by Jesus in Mark, followed in Jewish religious practice by verses 6 to 9, 11:13-21, and Numbers 15:37-41).

He brings that up because I said "Sh'ma" and technically the part I listed was not the Sh'ma.

Fair enough. Why make that mistake? I mean, was it a mistake, or was it my point?

See: the passage I cited was the reason for the Sh'ma. God is saying to Moses here, "Dude, I'm about to take you people into a land which, frankly, has all the comforts of home. But when you get there, you will forget that you didn’t dig the wells, or plant the orchards, or put the roofs over your heads. It's easy to forget God-who-delivers when your tummy is fat and happy."

The exhortation to "love God" comes as a warning in spite of circumstances. We should love God when it doesn’t take a miracle to get water from a rock: we should love Him when we have received the blessing and don’t see our needs quite so clearly.

Love. God.

But then there's the second objection, which is really the original complaint, that if God is telling this to Moses, isn’t this the Law? Isn’t it a standard that we can't live up to, so we only get conviction from it?

Yeah, no.

Listen: Hosea knew a little bit about love, and God told him to say this --

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Look at the comparison there: the burnt offerings are the requirements of the Law, and they are contrasted with what the KJV calls "mercy" and the ESV here calls "steadfast love".

God doesn’t want your penance, or your religious work, or your bulls and sheep and rams: God wants your love, dude. And love, it turns out, is not a fruity emotional cocktale – even in that little snippet from John Piper which is getting so many angry eyebrows this week. Setting our affections on God is not the same thing as sending Him a Valentines Card every day. It is also not, as some have intimated, somehow a dismissal of God's sovereignty.

We'll talk about that tomorrow.

Moses hearts Piper

Since the meta template ate the red pill or something yesterday, and the conversation there went nowhere as far as I'm concerned, I have a second volley on the question of whether or not John Piper is preaching some kind of emotive legalism.

This one comes from Moses:

And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— for the LORD your God in your midst is a jealous God— lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.[Deu 6, ESV]

And this is interesting because when Jesus gets questioned about the greatest commandment, this is the one he cites, right? "Love the Lord your God"? Go open your Bible and check it out, in case you don't repeat the Sh'ma to yourself every morning.

It's Moses who starts that crazy idea that men owe their affections to God, and Jesus signs off on it.

So when Dr. Piper says that people who love football more than God might not have faith in the savior of men, maybe what he means is that Moses knew something about faith in God which the rest of us would do well to reconsider.

More on this tomorrow.