‘Theology’ Category

On Saturday, Dr. Michael Haykin led a conference on the Holy Spirit on Saturday on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit at Farmdale Baptist Church in Frankfort, KY.  The MP3s of the conference sessions and Q & A session are below:

• Session 1:  “The Holy Spirit and the Trinity”

• Session 2:  “The Work of the Holy Spirit”

• Session 3:  “Leaning on the Holy Spirit”

• Session 4:  Question and Answer Session

Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.

The statement is simple and has come from the lips of uneducated and scholar, Oriental and Occidental, wealthy and disenfranchised, African and European, male and female, adult and child—and it is the most important confession a human being in this age can make.

It is a sentence that has come in the security of being surrounded by friend and family. But it is also a declaration that has been made in the midst of foes, hungry for the speaker’s death.

It is a statement that moves heaven to joy and stirs hell to anger and hate.

It is simply this: Christianos eimi. Christianus sum. I am a Christian.

Oh, I am very biased: but I can conceive of no greater statement of identity that I could make. My whole being, what I am and what I have is bound up with these three English words (or two Greek or Latin words!).

On these words hang the whole future of the one who speaks them. And with the millions in the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant I am happy to let my soul rest there as well.

One of the deepest ironies of the Ancient World is that the Judaeo-Christian tradition, which has a manifest taboo about nakedity (outside of marriage), also has a deep respect for the body (it will be resurrected, for one), while Graeco-Roman paganism, which was shameless in its display of nudity, had a very low view of the worth of the body. The popular Greek saying sōma sēma, “the body is a tomb” well sums up this low view of the human body. In this respect, Gnosticism, with its overt hatred of bodily existence, is flat-out Hellenization. While orthodox Christianity, with its championing of corporeality, is proving its resistance to cultural accommodation on this issue.

The New Testament authors are frank about false teachers. Just to give a sampling from the Apostle Paul: false teachers are “wolves” (Acts 20:29); men who “by smooth talk and flattery” deceive hearts (Romans 16:18; cp. 2 Cor 11:1-4; Titus 1:10); “false apostles, deceitful workmen” (2 Cor 11:13); “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil 3:18); “dogs” and “evildoers” (Phil3:2); men with seared consciences (1 Tim 4:1-2), who speak “irreverent babble” (1 Tim 6:20); “evil beasts,” “detestable” and unfit for any good work (Titus 1:16).

This is but a sample. It is very strong language. Rightly are we careful in applying such texts to the present day. Moreover, I know that this list of errorists does not refer to the same type of problems.

But…we would be utterly naïve if we thought our generation above all others had managed to avoid this problem entirely, a problem that was clearly not rare even in the Apostolic era.

In this light, read this excellent post by Dr. Russell Moore: Serpent-Sensitive Worship.

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), one of the greatest of Renaissance artists, has a painting entitled Adam and Eve (1504) in which there is the most curious of things: a cat (for the painting, see http://www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/ho/08/euwc/ho_19.73.1.htm)! The cat, experts in artistic metaphor tell us, represents the choleric temperament in man. In Dürer’s rendition, the cat seems to be sleeping, while very close to it is a mouse, utterly unconcerned for its safety. The scene is pre-fall, and thus the fact that there is no danger for the mouse.

Now, what I find most curious is this: cats are never mentioned in Scripture. How strange in that case to find one at the feet of Dürer’s Adam and Eve. That other prolific western pet, dogs, are mentioned in the Bible, though they rarely come off well. But cats make no showing at all. It is a good reminder that Scripture is not to meant to give us an exhaustive encyclopedia of all human knowledge nor is it designed as a comprehensive guide to every conceivable human decision.

Should I buy a cat? Well, cats are not even mentioned! So, no way. If God had wanted me to have a cat, he would have told me in his Word.

No, this is a misuse of Scripture. There are principles of guidance about buying and selling—which, we must say, are utterly sufficient—but as to the specifics of the question above in relation to cats, no details. This, it seems, has convinced some in the western tradition that cats are evil. Otherwise, why no mention of them? No, cats are not inherently evil—our flame-point Siamese Chai is rambunctious, but hardly evil—they are part of the goodness of God’s creation which our Maker has given us to enjoy.

All of this is a good reminder that we must ask questions of God’s Holy Word it is designed to answer. And the most critical of those is how can a Holy God deal with the sin of us post-fall human beings and yet still love the creation he has made and do it good? This is a weighty question indeed (and we heard some good answers at this year’s T4G this past week).

In the Ancient Church a Christian was a person who turned from idols and embraced the living God as he had revealed himself definitively in the crucified and risen Christ (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10). What made him a Christian? Faith, which was rooted in the electing work of God (see Acts 11:18; 13:48; 15:7-9; 16:31).

None of the early New Testament authors believed that the act of baptism alone saved anyone (thus Mark 16:16). Baptism is the way a person with a good conscience (to see what this is and how one obtains it, read Hebrews 9:14) responds to the saving work of God. Thus 1 Peter 3:21 means that the baptism which saves is that which is “the pledge of a good conscience toward God.”

These convictions must be asserted afresh today for the upholders of the so-called Federal Vision maintain that the baptism of infants makes them Christians—a position that is simply taking us back to the disastrous confusion of the medieval Church. As a Calvinistic Baptist I have deep admiration for many Reformed paedobaptist brothers, though I would disagree with their argument that infant baptism is a covenantal sign that must be affirmed later in life. But such brethren do not argue for trust for salvation in the baptismal rite. There must be conversion.

But this position is quite different from the affirmation that a human rite in itself and by itself saves. The Apostle clearly rejects this latter argument in 1 Corinthians 10:1-5. If participation in the ordinances saved, then surely those who followed Moses out of Egypt would have entered the Promised Land. But they did not—for baptism (and the Lord’s Table) do not save.

God will not give the glory of being the Saviour of his people to another person or thing!

So perverse is the human heart that even when a person grows up under the constant sound of the gospel and hears the Word preached regularly, and has surrounding him or her godly models of the Christian life, unless God acts in sovereign grace, there will be no saving faith in the heart. Well did John Calvin put it in his Treatise on Eternal Election (1562): ‘It is not within our power to convert ourselves from our evil life, unless God changes us and cleanses us by his Holy Spirit.’[1]

[1] CO 8:113.

Given a lifetime of going to school–first as a student and then as a teacher–it should not be surprising that I view the autumn, not the new year in January, as the time of fresh beginnings. All across this continent seminary students and professors stand on the threshold of a new year. The best of them have come together to spend time reading and meditating on Holy Scripture, studying theology and the history of the church, learning Greek and Hebrew, worshipping and praying together, and learning how to serve the church. These schools do so in the hope that their communities would be two things: places of truth and Christian integrity and places of Christian love and genuine community.

The eighteenth-century Baptist theologian Andrew Fuller once brought both of these things together in a beautiful passage when he observed that it is not by “converting the pulpit into a stage of strife…that truth is promoted.” Rather, it is “by reading, by calm and serious reflection, by humble prayer, and by a free and friendly communication of our thoughts to one another in private conversation, that truth makes progress.”[1]

Of course there is a time for clear proclamation that does not shrink from controversy–Fuller knew this better than anyone of his day. But it is noteworthy the means he cited for the advance of the truth. Truth advances by:

· reading
· reflection/meditation on what has been read
· prayer
· fellowship.

Where did Fuller learn about the importance of truth? From Scripture. For example, one of the results of the outpouring of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost was the fact that those who were converted on that day “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine” (Acts 2:42). The teaching and preaching of the Apostles became food for their souls and a light for their path.

And many years later, when the Apostle Paul came to write what was his final letter to Timothy, he urged his close friend to guard jealously the treasure of apostolic doctrine that had been committed to his care, and to do this in reliance upon the Holy Spirit who indwelt him (2 Timothy 1:13-14). After a lifetime of ministry Paul well knew that the faithful transmission of orthodox doctrine from one generation to another cannot be done without the keeping power of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, in urging Timothy to rely upon the Spirit for help in this regard, Paul is obviously convinced that doctrine matters to the Spirit of God and that when he comes to indwell a man or a woman he gives that person a concern for truth and doctrine.

Finally, it is not at all fortuitous that our Lord calls the Holy Spirit “the Spirit of truth” (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13). He is the One who imparts the truth in the Scriptures to the people of God, illumines it for them, and enables them to put it into practice.

Looking at this from the perspective of subjective experience, we can say that the New Testament bears eloquent witness to the fact that solid doctrine is essential to sound spirituality. In the words of Charles Haddon Spurgeon: the coals of orthodoxy are ever necessary for the fire of spirituality.[2] Where orthodox doctrine is regarded as unimportant, the fire of Christian piety will inevitably be quenched.

[1] “Remarks on Two Sermons by W.W. Horne” (Complete Works, III, 582).

[2] This phrase is attribted to Spurgeon by David Kingdon, “C H Spurgeon and the Downgrade Controversy” in his et al., A Marvelous Ministry. How the All-round Ministry of C H Spurgeon Speaks to Us Today (Ligonier, Pennsylvania: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1993), 128. See also the remarks of Robert M. Bowman, Jr., Orthodoxy & Heresy. A Biblical Guide to Doctrinal Discernment (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992), 18-20.

In all of the activities of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers and in the life of the Church is there one thing above all other things he is seeking to do? Is there, in other words, a centre to his work and ministry in the lives of Christians?

An answer to these questions can be readily found in John 16:13-14, verses which record important words that Jesus spoke to his disciples on the night of his betrayal.

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

In the surrounding context Jesus is assuring his disciples that they will not be left alone when he returns to the Father after the cross and resurrection. Jesus will still be present with them, but not now via his Incarnate presence but rather by means of his Holy Spirit. He is thus helping them understand something of the ministry of the Holy Spirit after what we call Pentecost.

Now, in the words “He will bring glory to me,” we have set forth for us what J. I. Packer has rightly called the “Holy Spirit’s distinctive new covenant role,” namely, “directing all attention away from himself to Christ and drawing folk into the faith, hope, love, obedience, adoration, and dedication, which constitute communion with Christ.” This ministry of the Spirit in relation to Christ is what Packer goes on to call “a floodlight ministry.” [Keep In Step With The Spirit (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1984), 64, 65. A slightly revised edition has just been released by Zondervan (2005).]

Since 1985 I have had the privilege nearly every year of teaching at Séminaire Baptiste Évangélique du Québec, in Montreal, Canada (SEMBEQ), the French Fellowship Baptist seminary in the west end of Montreal, located on Gouin boulevard. The building that houses the seminary used to be a school and is located in a very prestigious area of the West Island of Montreal. I recall vividly one summer night after I had taught all day. I had decided to go for a walk in the neighbourhood. I noticed that a good number of the owners of the wealthy homes in the area had strategically placed floodlights around their homes so that passers-by like myself might ooh and aah about their achievements in stone and brick.

Now, if instead of focusing on the homes which were lit by the floodlights I had instead concentrated my attention on the floodlight themselves—“Oh, that’s an interesting-looking floodlight; I wonder where they bought it” or “what a lovely light that floodlight is giving; I wonder how powerful it is”—I would have missed the whole meaning and purpose of the floodlights. The owners of the homes had put the floodlights out in front so that I should look at their homes, not at the floodlights, the source of illumination.

So it is with the Spirit’s ministry. He has been sent by God the Father to focus our attention to Christ, to kindle in our hearts an unquenchable love for Christ and for his purposes, and to enable us to reflect faithfully his person and character. The Spirit has not come to primarily speak about himself. He has not been given to us so that we should focus primarily on him and his work. He has come to inhabit these mortal frames so that we should love Christ and adore him, and that we should seek to live each day in obedience to Jesus. The work and ministry of the Holy Spirit has this one indispensable genuine mark then: it is Christ-centred—it is designed to exalt him and glorify him in the minds and hearts of men and women, and boys and girls. As the great nineteenth-century Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) once put it:

“If we do not make the Lord Jesus glorious; if we do not lift him high in the esteem of men, if we do not labour to make him King of kings, and Lord of lords; we shall not have the Holy Spirit with us. Vain will be rhetoric, music, architecture, energy, and social status: if our one design be not to magnify the Lord Jesus, we shall work alone and work in vain.” [The Greatest Fight in the World (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1891), 64].

Not finding Advent and Christmas explicitly named in the Bible, many of our Evangelical forebears refused to celebrate it. Some of my heroes, the Calvinistic Baptists of the 18th century, are a good example in this regard. But while we must learn from the past—a deep-seated conviction I live my life by—we don’t live in those days. It is today we must seize for Christ. And it is Scriptural to set apart days—even seasons—to reflect on God’s goodness and mercy, and to seek his face. And the Advent—blessed are all those who long for Christ’s appearing—and Christmas seasons are a marvellous time for such reflection and such seeking.

PS It is very interesting that many of those remarkable brothers and sisters of the 18th century were adamant about celebrating the Fifth of November—the anniversary of England’s deliverance from the Gunpowder plot in the first decade of the seventeenth century and then of the landing of William III in England in 1688, “King Billy,” who brought religious toleration.

I think, for example of Caleb Evans’ great sermon on British Constitutional Liberty given on November 5, 1775 or Evans’ The remembrance of former days (Bristol, 1778).

Was that hypocrisy? Not at all. I simply think Advent and Christmas are more important than November 5—though I do value religious freedom (see previous post!).