The Parable of the Wicked Servant (Matthew 18:23-35)

Introduction
This week the world was shocked by the sudden death of Michael Jackson. He was just 50 years old and preparing for a new tour when he died of an apparent heart attack. Despite his personal eccentricities and perverse behavior, I have to say I have felt nothing but pity for him since his death.

One of the most shocking pieces of information to come out since his death was that he was hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, which is the main reason he was about to go on tour. It is hard to imagine how someone who has made as much money as Michael Jackson could be so broke, but as we have been reminded here in America in the last year, it doesn’t take long for huge chunks of wealth to evaporate overnight.

One of Jesus’ parables is about the very issue of debt, a parable often called the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant.

Let’s begin by reading the parable:

18:23 "Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.' 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, 'Pay what you owe.' 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you.' 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?' 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart."

This parable is so typical of the stories Jesus told: just a few main characters (a king and two servants), and a very basic point about forgiveness. And just as the parable of the good Samaritan was prompted by a question (“who is my neighbor”), this parable was triggered by a question from Peter about forgiveness.

Jesus had just explained to the apostles how to deal with sin among brethren.

18:15 "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

While we often focus on the punitive discipline in this passage, the withdrawal of association, clearly what Jesus wanted us to focus on was the prospect of winning that brother back who as sinned against us.

But how often do we have to extend this forgiveness? That’s what Peter wanted to know.

18:21 Then Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?"

The rabbis had an answer to this question. “If a man commits an offense once they forgive him, a second time they forgive him, a third time they forgive him, but the fourth time do not forgive him” (Joma 86b).

If this tradition was already current in Peter’s day, then by asking Jesus if he should forgive up to seven times Peter was doubling the number given by the rabbis, plus one! Surely that would be the limit of forgiveness.

22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.”

Some of your Bibles have a footnote that says “seventy-seven times” rather than “seventy times seven,” but clearly the point is not the literal total of 77 or 490. When I was a kid there was a guy in my neighborhood who was such a jerk that I started to count toward 490! Jesus’ point is that forgiveness is unlimited, that we must always be ready to forgive our brother when he asks us, which He then illustrated with parable.

One more point before we look at the parable. Jesus said this parable was about the “kingdom of heaven.”

23 "Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.

Sometimes in the Bible “kingdom” refers to the realm of God’s reign. In a concrete sense it can refer to the church, those who have made themselves subject to the reign of the eternal King. But other times it refers to the reign itself, the royal power and authority of the king. And that is what Jesus has in mind here. This parable will teach us how God reigns, specifically how He rules in the area of forgiveness.

What I would like to do is start toward the middle of the parable as we begin to draw basic lessons about forgiveness.

Lesson 1: When We Sin Against Each Other It Is Costly (18:28-30)

Let’s look again at verses 28-30.

28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.

A denarius was worth basically one day’s wages, so 100 of them would be worth a lot, between a third and a fourth of a year’s paycheck. And in the parable that is how Jesus illustrates the debt we owe to one another when we sin against each other.

I think it is important to acknowledge this point. When we sin against each other there is a price. It hurts. And it is costly in a currency that really can’t be measured, the currency of emotional heartache.

Some of you have paid a heavy price for the sins of others. You have been betrayed by an unfaithful wife or husband. You have been slandered by your brothers and sisters (maybe even your spiritual brethren). You’ve been lied to, cheated, ill-treated.

You know how David felt when he lamented the vicious attacks of his enemies:

Psalm 64:1 Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint;
preserve my life from dread of the enemy.
2 Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked,
from the throng of evildoers,
3 who whet their tongues like swords,
who aim bitter words like arrows

Or Psalm 41:
5 My enemies say of me in malice,
"When will he die, and his name perish?"
6 And when one comes to see me, he utters empty words,
while his heart gathers iniquity;
when he goes out, he tells it abroad.
7 All who hate me whisper together about me;
they imagine the worst for me.

As we will see, our sins against each other are no comparison to our sins against God, but we shouldn’t take that to mean they are trivial and inconsequential. When we sin against each other the wounds run deep, the pain is real, and the price is costly.

But this only serves to reinforce how much greater the price is when we sin against God.

Lesson 2: When We Sin Against God We Owe an Infinite Debt (18:23b-27)

Now let’s go back to the beginning of the parable.

23 Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.

Perhaps this is a king who has many governors or ministers, and in the administration of his kingdom he wants to audit their conduct. What he finds is astonishing, a scandal that dwarfs any of the financial crashes that have happened here. One of his servants owes him ten thousand talents.

A “talent” was the largest form of currency in the Roman Empire. I think the largest bill printed here in America was the $100,000 in the early 30s, but it has been long since discontinued. Well, a talent was the largest denomination of money in Jesus’ day.

And the number “ten thousand” was the largest named number (like billion or zillion for us). It is the Greek word we get “myriad” from.

So when Jesus combined the largest currency with the largest named number, what do you think His point was? The debt was astronomical! Infinite! Some of your Bibles may have a footnote trying to put ten thousand talents into modern equivalent dollars, but it is really impossible, and beside the point. This man owes a debt that is inconceivably enormous.

And in this parable, that represents our debt to God. Why do our sins place us in such liability to God? Think of it like this. Some of you may live in gated communities. If I decided to trespass into your complex or neighborhood, what penalty would I face? If there was a security officer at all he probably couldn’t do very much. Maybe at the most I would have a misdemeanor charge of some kind and have to pay a fine. Now, what if I did the same thing, but instead of trespassing in your apartment complex I snuck into the state capitol. That penalty would be a lot stiffer. And imagine if I tried to do get into the White House. I might be put away for a loooong time.

On one level the crime is the same, right? Trespassing. But the penalty, the debt, is much different depending on the rank of the authority whose property I am trespassing.

How could you put a price on trespassing the law of God? How could you measure what it means to disobey the Creator and Sustainer of the universe? You can’t – you could only illustrate it with the largest currency and the biggest number you could come up with. And that is what Jesus did here in the parable.

Jesus’ parables are tantalizingly short of details sometimes, and I would love to know how this man became so indebted. We don’t know how the man on the story became indebted, but we do know how we incur our debt – by sin. And just as with the servant in the story, there is no way we can pay it ourselves.

25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.

Indebtedness was one of the primary reasons people were enslaved in biblical times, and in many instances if the debt was worked off a slave could be released. But how long would you have to work to recoup billions of dollars? This man is going to be enslaved for life!

26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.

Do you think the king decided to forgive him because he was so impressed with the servant’s earnest promise to pay back the debt? Of course not – that was an absurdity! How could he possibly pay back that debt if he had a million lifetimes to work?

No, the reason the king forgave him was because of pity. It wasn’t because he was impressed with how noble the servant was, but how pathetic he was.

Which of course is why God forgives us. He forgives us not because we are so noble, because He is inspired by our sincere pleas to earn His grace. God forgives us because He sees our wretchedness without Him, and He feels for us because He loves us.

Eph. 2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved.

What is remarkable in the parable is not that a servant went into arrears billions of dollars, but that with the wave of a scepter the king forgave him. And it is stunning that God – because of love we could never understand much less deserve – forgives us our debt. We are utterly destitute – but God is rich in mercy because of His great love!

In fact God’s love is so extravagant that it not only cancels our eternal debt but transforms our character so that we become like Him. Or at least that is the affect it should have.

Yet when the first servant was approached by the one who owed him 100 days wages, he did not reflect this transformation:

18:29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you.' 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.

And this leads to the third major lesson we need to take away from the parable:

Lesson 3: If We Refuse to Forgive Our Debts to Each Other, God Will Not Forgive Us (18:31-35)

18:31When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?' 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers [some of your Bibles may say “torturers”], until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart."

The king hears that the first servant refused to forgive a substantial debt while he was forgiven an incalculable debt, and his emotions swing from the pity he once felt to anger. Why is he so angered by this? More importantly, why is God so angry when we refuse to forgive others?

In the first place, we are made in His image. And the way we treat each other as those who bear God’s image reflects what we really think of the one whose image we bear.

This is what James said about the hypocrisy of using our tongue to praise God but curse each other-

3:9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

Or as John said,

1 John 4:20 If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Very often little kids will bring me pictures they have drawn of me preaching. And it is always amusing to see what I look like to them. I can hardly be too critical, but that picture simply reflects the original. And in the same way, we can’t abuse and mistreat each other who bear God’s image and say that we really love the imager maker.

But there is another reason that God is so angry when we do not forgive. Notice what the master says in verse 33:

33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?'

From the king’s standpoint, his mercy was to have a transforming affect on the first servant; he was to be merciful “as I had mercy.” To fail to reflect this transformation means that the first servant must not have internalized and appreciated the magnitude of the gift he was given.

When you put this parable in modern terms this really becomes clear. Imagine that I was goofing around driving one day in the Shell’s new neighborhood, lost control of my car and careened right into their house and destroyed it. And I go to Allan and beg for forgiveness because there is no way I could work enough to pay off the debt. And he just says, you are forgiven. The next Sunday we all show up at church, imagine Austin owed me a quarter, and that I went over to him and asked for it, and when he couldn’t pay me back I pick him up by the throat and start choking him!

That’s absurd! That’s unbelievable! Or to put it in the language of Jesus in
Verse 32 – that’s “wicked.” I think “unmerciful” is too kind for this man. It is wicked not to forgive so little when we have been forgiven so much. Not that what people to do us isn’t costly – it is. But on the scale of what God has forgiven us, it is miniscule, and when we are unmerciful, we are wicked.

I told you last week that I ought to be disbarred for malpractice because of some of the Father’s Day sermons I used to preach, for subjecting the men in the churches where I preached to my own personal anger at my father for abandoning me. I can tell you when that stopped. It stopped when I realized there was no way I could preach to others about forgiveness, about the sin of bitterness, when I was consumed with it myself. So one Christmas (1995 I think) I tracked down my father’s address, and I wrote him. It was a very brief note, and simply said, “As far as I am concerned the past is the past, and if you would like to have a relationship I would be glad to have one.” Now he never responded, but that wasn’t the point. I didn’t write that for him; I wrote it for me, so that my relationship with my true Father could be what it should be.

Matt. 6:14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

To fail to do this is to lose the forgiveness God has given us.

Conclusion
Anytime I teach about forgiveness this question comes up – what if the person who has sinned against me doesn’t ask to be forgiven? Should I forgive them anyway?

It is clear in the parable, and in the context of what Jesus teaches in verses 15-17 that we forgive when the sinful person asks to be forgiven. So no, if a person does not ask to be forgiven, there is not indication that we just forgive them anyway.

HOWEVER- here is what the Bible does teach.

1. We must always be ready to forgive. This is what Jesus modeled on the cross when he prayed “Father forgive them.” Those at the cross were not forgiven until they confessed their sin to God, but Jesus’ prayer showed that He was ready to forgive, and wanted them to be forgiven. We must always be ready to forgive sins against us, and in fact should be hoping for that to happen.

2. We must not dwell on the offense. Once something happens it is always in the brain, and we cannot keep it from periodically popping up from the subconscious mind into the conscious mind. But we can choose not to dwell on it, and to think on good things of virtue and praise.

3. We must not be spiteful. If someone has sinned against you, and is unrepentant, that does not give you the right to be hateful toward them.

Matt. 5:43 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Back to my situation with my father, he has not asked to be forgiven. He has made no indication he wants to be, or that he wants anything to do with me. So I can’t treat him as if this never happened, not because I don’t want to, but because he doesn’t want to. But I let him know I am always ready, and I don’t dwell on it any more, and I prayed for him.

This teaching of Jesus is challenging. The extent to which we obey it depends on the extent to which we realize what God has done for us. And in fact there is one major element of what God has done for us that Jesus doesn’t mention in the parable. In the story, the king just canceled the debt, and no one had to pay the ten thousand talents. But God could not just wave away our sin-debt. He is holy and just. And for Him to be true to His own nature a price had to be paid.

To put it in the language of the parable, it would be as if the king then sent his son to prison to be tortured until the debt was paid. God’s forgiveness was not cheap or easy. It came at the cost of His Son.

1 Peter 1:18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

And it is our hope this morning that such love, such mercy and grace, would compel you to respond and accept the gift of forgiveness.

What Does the Bible Teach About Baptism? (A New Look at Old Questions - Part 4)

Introduction
One of my favorite movies released in the last few years is a quirky comedy called O Brother Where Art Thou. It is a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey, the classic from Greek literature, set in the Depression era American South. The soundtrack is phenomenal, and the characters in the movie are hilarious. The three main characters are fugitives from a chain gang, Pete, Delmar and Everett. While they are on the run they come across a baptismal service taking place in a river, and Delmar, the kindest of the three, splashes off into the water to get to the preach to be baptized.

Some of my favorite lines are what Delmar says when he slogs back to the other two guys. “Well that's it boys, I been redeemed! The preacher warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight-and-narrow from here on out and heaven everlasting's my reward!”

His skeptical friend Everett asks him what he’s talking about, and he says: “Preacher said my sins are warshed away, including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo!”

Everett asks, “I thought you said you were innocent of those charges.”

Delmar answers, “Well I was lyin' - and I'm proud to say that that sin's been warshed away too! Neither God nor man's got nothin' on me now! Come on in, boys, the water's fine!”

Well I suppose this morning’s sermons is really about how accurate Delmar’s theology was. Does baptism “warsh” away our sins? This one of the watershed issues that divides Catholics and Protestants. And it is an issue that frankly separates what I believe from both Catholicism and Protestantism. So this morning I want to accomplish three things:
-First, I want to set forth the basic positions of Catholic and Protestant theology regarding baptism.
-Second, I want to look at what the NT teaches about the topic.
-And third, I want to compare and contrast the biblical picture with those widely held views of baptism.

I. Baptism in Catholic and Protestant Theology

Let’s begin with Catholicism, which is easy since the official positions of the church are set forth in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

1213 Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit (vitae spiritualis ianua), and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission: "Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water in the word."

So in Catholic teaching, in baptism we find forgiveness of sins and fellowship with Christ and His church.

And because Catholic theology subscribes to the belief that babies are born guilty of sins, the church teaches that babies must be sprinkled in order to receive forgiveness.

1250 Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called. The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism. The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth.

So the purpose of baptism is the removal of sin, even for those who do not have any faith of their own.

This kind of sacramental thinking led to the Protestant Reformation, which emphasized the need for personal faith in Christ. In fact, Protestants argued that the biblical teaching on justification by faith meant that we are saved by faith alone, without any acts of obedience, such as baptism. And while it is impossible to paint everyone who claims to be a Protestant with this broad brush, I do think it is fair to say that the overwhelming percentage of non-Catholics believe that baptism plays no role in the conversion process, since we are saved by faith alone without any works.

I found this typical statement on the web-

While we should preach that all people are commanded to repent and be baptized (Acts 2:38), adding any other requirement to salvation by grace becomes "works" in disguise.

Even though numerous Scriptures speak of the importance of water baptism, adding anything to the work of the cross demeans the sacrifice of the Savior. It implies that His finished work wasn't enough. But the Bible makes clear that we are saved by grace, and grace alone,

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
—Ephesians 2:8-9

Baptism is simply a step of obedience to the Lord following our repentance and confession of sin. Our obedience--water baptism, prayer, good works, fellowship, witnessing, etc.--issues from our faith in Christ. Salvation is not what we do, but Who we have.

In fact, if you have virtually any study Bible, if you look at the commentary on any text that mentions baptism (like Acts 2:38), I would almost bet it says something like “baptism is sign of the forgiveness we have through our faith in Christ.”

So on this, Catholic and Protestant teaching are diametrical opposites:
-Catholicism says, we are saved by baptism, without personal faith in Christ.
-Protestantism says we are saved by personal faith in Christ, without baptism.

Of course, Catholics would say that a sprinkled baby should grow up to develop their own faith, going through catechism class and confirmation to confirm what took place in their baptism, and Protestants would say that once a person has been saved they should be baptism as a good work of discipleship. But as to the purpose of baptism, they are in complete disagreement.

With these positions clearly marked out, let’s look at the NT to see what the text says about baptism.

II. NT Teaching About Baptism

First, the NT teaches that baptism is centered in Christ and what He accomplished in His death, burial and resurrection.

In Romans chapter six, the apostle Paul is refuting a possible objection to his strong message of grace – man is sinful, but God is even more gracious. The objection is that if that’s the case then we should just really live it up in sin, banking on God to be even more gracious. And his counter to this line of thinking is that Christ paid a horrible price to free us from sin, a price we personally identified with in baptism, and because of that deep identification with Jesus’ death we should never revert to the sinful life we once lived.

Rom. 6:3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Look at what Paul says in this passage.
-Baptism is Christ-centered. We have been “baptized in Christ.”
-And it is centered on what Jesus did in His death, burial and resurrection. Since we are “in Him,” we share with Him in His death – we were “baptized into his death” –we share in His burial – “we are buried therefore with him by baptism into death” – and we share in His resurrection: “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

And as Paul says in Galatians 3:27, this newness of life is so shaped by the character of Christ that when we are baptized “into Him” – just like changing clothes - we take off our life and put His on.

27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

So baptism is centered in Christ and His work on the cross.

Second, the NT teaches that baptism is our response of faith to Christ and what He did in dying and rising.

I just quoted from Gal. 3:27. Look at it again with the previous verse as well-

26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

In Christ we are sons of God through faith – for – here’s the reason why – we have been baptized into Christ and put Him on.

In this text faith and baptism are not mutually exclusive – they are inclusive and complimentary. As one Protestant commentator says:

“Some will no doubt have problems with the observation that faith and baptism are parallel expressions for Paul…baptism was in the early church the initial and necessary response of faith.” -Scot McKnight, NIV Application Commentary on Galatians, p. 198

Here’s another passage that links faith and baptism- but with completely different imagery. In 1 Peter 3 the apostle Peter makes a comparison between the salvation of Noah and is family and our salvation:

20 God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Whatever Peter says about baptism here, let’s first make the point it is Christ-centered – “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” And in particular, Peter says baptism is “an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Peter doesn’t use the word “faith” here; he says that baptism is an appeal to God, a prayer for a good conscience, and what better way to describe faith than a prayer or plea for help?

It is this inner dimension to baptism rather than the external – not the removal of dirt from the flesh but the appeal to God – that Peter says is the reason baptism saves us, just as Noah was saved.

To quote another commentary:

“Just as the flood spoke of judgment, which those in the ark were both saved from, and saved by, in order to enjoy a new world, so the water of Christian baptism speaks of the death which fell upon Christ, a death due to sinners, which believers into Christ are both saved from, and saved by, and through which they enter into the enjoyment of new life before God.”-A.M. Stibbs and A.F. Walls, Tyndale NT Commentary on 1 and 2 Peter, p. 144

Baptism is our response of faith – our appeal to God – centered on Christ and His death and resurrection.

Now for a third point in the NT-

Baptism is God’s work of salvation in response to our faith in Christ and His death and resurrection.

In Colossians 2 Paul uses another illustration for what happens in baptism – it is spiritual surgery-

Col. 2:11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Just as under the Law of Moses Jewish men were to be circumcised, Paul says that our sins are excised from us in a surgery not by human hands, but by Christ Himself, and that this happens when we are identified with Him in baptism.

As Anglican scholar NT Wright says:

“The transfer from the old solidarity to the new is accomplished in baptism. Such a statement alarms many Christians today; seeing the dangers regarding baptism as a quasi-magical rite through which people are automatically transformed, many draw back from the realism of Paul’s language, not only in this passage but in (for instance) Romans 6:2-11 and Galatians 3:27…But Paul’s thought is not to be forced into the ‘either-or’ of anachronistic Protestant -or, for that matter, Catholic - polemics.”
-N.T. Wright, Tyndale Commentary on Colossians and Philemon, pp 106-107

In other words, the extreme positions of salvation being either by faith or by baptism found in Catholicism and Protestantism is not something people believed in Paul’s day, and it is a mistake to read Col. 2:12 in that light. The answer according to this passage is not either/or but both.

And that leads me to my third objective this morning – to compare and contrast what the NT says with Catholic and Protestant teaching.

III. Baptism in the Bible and Baptism in Theology

First of all, what do these systems have right? Protestants are correct when they say that we must have personal trust in Jesus to be saved. Not only do many passages generally teach this (John 3:16), but as we have seen, many passages which discuss baptism specifically make the same point. We are sons of God by faith – we appeal to God for a good conscience – we are raised through faith in the working of God.

And Catholics are correct to acknowledge the clear link in Scripture between baptism and salvation. In passage after passage we have seen the NT connect the two together.

The mistake in both systems is putting asunder what God has joined together, denying the need for personal faith on the one hand, and assuming that faith and baptism are exclusive on the other.

I sympathize with the Protestant effort to protect justification by faith from the sacramentalism of Catholic practice. But the assumption that baptism can play no role in the conversion process because it is a human work, and relegating it to the category of a good work that we do as Christians, completely misses the point of what we have seen in these verses.

Think about the idea of baptism as spiritual surgery found in Colossians 2. When I lived in IL, one of the little girls at church had a flare up of appendicitis. Her mom called me, and I went up to the hospital to visit with the family. All of the sudden the nurse who wins the all time award for “Worst Bedside Manner Ever” came in and just blurted out, “We’re gonna have to take it out.” Well, little 10 year old Jasmin was petrified and started to cry. And I wanted to cry! But we explained to her that she needed to have surgery because there was something in her making her very sick, and it could even make her more sick if the doctor didn’t get it out. And thankfully the surgery went just fine.

Jasmin had a problem that only the doctor could remove, and she had to put her trust in him to do the surgery she needed. That was an act of faith. And what Paul is saying in Colossians 2 is that we all have something that is fatal – sin. And we need for it to be cut away. Only God can do that surgery, and baptism is when that happens. It is not a good work we do. It is a saving work that Christ does for us!

Conclusion
I think the best way for us to end this study is to compare our own practice with the biblical pattern, just as we critiqued Protestantism and Catholicism.

Since part of what prompted this series of lessons is the questioning of certain beliefs I have seen among former students of mine, and others, I think it is important to stress the view I have given you today of baptism is not just a recent innovation of “church of Christ preachers.” That is the reason I quoted so much today from various commentaries- something I don’t normally do. None of the authors I quoted are in any way connected with “the church of Christ,” but all of them acknowledged the clear implications of these passages about baptism, and some of them did so while deliberately offering the same critiques I did of Catholicism and Protestantism.

And if you are someone interested in history, you may be curious to know that the view I have presented today was held by the early writers in church history. And you don’t have to just take my word for it. As English Baptist authors Donald Bridge and David Phypers have written, “In their understanding of baptism the early Fathers stressed its connection with forgiveness more than anything else.” (The Water That Divides, p. 60)

So for those who are tempted to jettison the emphasis on baptism in conversion as a relic of 1950s church-of-christ-ism, please realize that you are not only abandoning the most straightforward interpretation of passage after passage, but also centuries of church history in which this same view was held.

Something else that I think needs to be said has to do with what we sometimes call the “age of accountability.” How old does a child have to be in order to be baptized? There is obviously no set answer to that question, but I do think we need to be really careful about letting kids be baptized too soon. It is very common for a child who is not even in double digits to want to be baptized, because if a child pays attention at all they will hear it mentioned a lot. And years ago someone told me they thought that if anyone, including a child, came forward to be baptized, that they should be immersed no questions asked. I profoundly disagree with that statement.

I told you one story about Jasmin – let me tell you another. When she was quite young, one Sunday night she came forward during the invitation song. It was totally unexpected for me. So I sat down on the front pew with her and asked her why she came forward- and she said she wanted to be baptized. I said, “why?” And she said, “for the forgiveness of sins.” So then I said, “Are you a sinner?” And she shook her head no! Then I asked, “Have you ever committed a sin.” And again she shook her head no!

Now what if I had done what someone said and just took her and immersed her. How much faith was she putting in Christ’s saving work on the cross? None! How can you put your trust in a Savior to save you from your sins when you don’t think you have any? At that point she did not have faith in Christ – she had faith in baptism. And baptizing someone who has no faith in Christ is the very thing we condemn Catholicism for!

I don’t have any magic or easy answers for when a kid should be baptized. But we must make sure that what they believe about baptism is centered on Christ and His death and resurrection, or else all we are doing when we baptize them is getting them wet.

And that is true for anyone regardless of age. I will tell you that one of my greatest fears is that this church – or any church I have work with – is filled with people who think they are going to go to heaven simply because they punched their ticket by being baptized, but who never truly placed their trust in Jesus, never truly decided to forsake everything to follow Him. If we truly believe baptism is God’s work, His gracious rescue, then we should be profoundly stirred to live for Him. But if you think that your baptism was your work, that you climbed up the final rung of the gospel ladder, then how could you possibly serve God with a heart of gratitude and trust. If we believe baptism is God’s work, we need to live like it!

When Delmar got baptized in O Brother Where Art Thou, he was like a little kid he was so happy. He knew he was a sinner, and he couldn’t wait to tell his friends, “Come on in boys, the water’s fine.”

Do you remember when you were baptized? Maybe it was at the end of a service like this. Perhaps it was in the middle of the night. Do you remember why? Here’s what I hope. I hope that you recall being terrified – terrified because you knew you were a sinner and that God was holy and that you would face His wrath in your sins. And I hope you remember a conviction that only Jesus could take away your sins, and that you knew His word said that to be forgiven you needed to respond in faith, and repentance and baptism. And I hope you remember the joy, the feeling of a millions pounds of guilt lifting off of you when you came up. And may we never lose our sense of dread of our Holy God, nor our sense of joy at His grace.

Biblical Authority and Instrumental Music in Churches

Introduction
Those of you visiting with us today for the first time may have been struck by the absence of musical instruments. You may wonder why we don’t have them. It is not a matter of talent – we have lots of people here who play instruments very well. And you may wonder if it is just a peculiar custom or tradition. It is not, at least for me. It is a matter of principle.

However, I know that there is concern, maybe even skepticism, among some Christians about this position. I think that there are two basic beliefs which underlie some of the skepticism about opposition to instrumental music. First, the belief that God allowed them throughout the OT, which gives us reason to think they should be okay today. And second, the fact that this seems to be just a peculiar tradition of the “church of Christ.” If nothing else, today I hope to dispel those two assumptions.

What I want to do today is build on the lesson two weeks ago regarding the sufficiency of the Scriptures – sola scriptura – and the lesson last week on the authority of the Scriptures, and apply those principles to this topic.

Instruments in the Old Testament
Let’s begin with the use of instruments in the worship of Israel in the OT. I think I have always had this nebulous assumption that it was just “anything goes” when it came to instruments in OT worship. My assumption could not have been further from the truth.

The first instructions God gave Israel for instruments in worship was in Numbers 10:

1 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 "Make two silver trumpets. Of hammered work you shall make them, and you shall use them for summoning the congregation and for breaking camp. 3 And when both are blown, all the congregation shall gather themselves to you at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 4 But if they blow only one, then the chiefs, the heads of the tribes of Israel, shall gather themselves to you. 5 When you blow an alarm, the camps that are on the east side shall set out. 6 And when you blow an alarm the second time, the camps that are on the south side shall set out. An alarm is to be blown whenever they are to set out. 7 But when the assembly is to be gathered together, you shall blow a long blast, but you shall not sound an alarm. 8 And the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow the trumpets. The trumpets shall be to you for a perpetual statute throughout your generations. 9 And when you go to war in your land against the adversary who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, that you may be remembered before the LORD your God, and you shall be saved from your enemies. 10 On the day of your gladness also, and at your appointed feasts and at the beginnings of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings. They shall be a reminder of you before your God: I am the LORD your God."

I wanted to read that lengthy descriptions so you could see just how specific God’s instructions were:
1. The specific instruments, two silver trumpets.
2. Who it was to use them, the sons of Aaron.
3. When and how they were to be used.

Now as you know, the Law of Moses gives us an extremely detailed account of the construction of the tabernacle, every piece of furniture, clothing of the priests, and all the different offerings. But in all of the Law, the only instruments ever recorded that God designated for Israel to use in its worship were these two silver trumpets. God gave Israel these instructions in the time of Moses, around 1440 BC. And until the time of David, four centuries later, these are the only instruments God designated for use in the public worship of the nation.

David of course is introduced to us as a skilled musician, providing soothing music to King Saul. He was the sweet singer of Israel, and he put his keen musical skills to work by inventing more instruments for use in the worship at the tabernacle.

When the Bible describes the movement of the ark into the tabernacle at Jerusalem, the text says:

1 Chron. 16:4 Then he appointed some of the Levites as ministers before the ark of the LORD, to invoke, to thank, and to praise the LORD, the God of Israel. 5 Asaph was the chief, and second to him were Zechariah, Jeiel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Mattithiah, Eliab, Benaiah, Obed-edom, and Jeiel, who were to play harps and lyres; Asaph was to sound the cymbals, 6 and Benaiah and Jahaziel the priests were to blow trumpets regularly before the ark of the covenant of God.

Four centuries after the last instruction was given to use instruments (the two silver trumpets), David arranged for there to be instruments used in conjunction with those trumpets at the tabernacle.

At the end of his life, David was disappointed that God did not allow him to build the temple, but he did the next best thing. He helped lay out the plans for the new sanctuary that his son and successor, King Solomon, would build. And notice what David says as he turns the reigns over to Solomon:

1 Chron. 23:1 When David was old and full of days, he made Solomon his son king over Israel. 2 David assembled all the leaders of Israel and the priests and the Levites. 3 The Levites, thirty years old and upward, were numbered, and the total was 38,000 men. 4 "Twenty-four thousand of these," David said, "shall have charge of the work in the house of the LORD, 6,000 shall be officers and judges, 54,000 gatekeepers, and 4,000 shall offer praises to the LORD with the instruments that I have made for praise."

So David specifically claims to have invented the instruments which he then planned for the priests to use. Some opponents of the use of instruments have latched on to phrases like this to make what I think is a very bad argument, that David created these instruments on his own and was wrong. In Amos 6:5 the prophet pronounces woe on those who:

5 who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp
and like David invent for themselves instruments of music

A British Methodist named Adam Clarke, who lived in the late 1700s, made this comment on that passage in Amos:

I believe that David was not authorized by the Lord to introduce that multitude of musical instruments into the Divine worship of which we read, and I am satisfied that his conduct in this respect is most solemnly reprehended by this prophet; and I farther believe that the use of such instruments of music, in the Christian Church, is without the sanction and against the will of God that they are subversive of the spirit of true devotion, and that they are sinful.

While I agree with his view of instruments for churches, I do not agree with his assessment of David’s invention of them, because of what is stated in the account of the reforms of Hezekiah:

2 Chron. 29:25 And he stationed the Levites in the house of the LORD with cymbals, harps, and lyres, according to the commandment of David and of Gad the king’s seer and of Nathan the prophet, for the commandment was from the LORD through his prophets. 26The Levites stood with the instruments of David, and the priests with the trumpets. 27Then Hezekiah commanded that the burnt offering be offered on the altar. And when the burnt offering began, the song to the LORD began also, and the trumpets, accompanied by the instruments of David king of Israel.

Here the text specifically says that the instruments of David were invented according to a commandment from the Lord. They were not just David’s idea – they were God’s idea.
Further, notice the historical context here. It is the time of Hezekiah, when the nation of climbing out of apostasy. When the king wants to put the temple back in order, his guideline is what David commanded. And if you remember your Bible chronology, Hezekiah lived 300 years after David. Once again, it wasn’t “anything goes” in the use of instruments in the OT. They used only the instruments God commanded them to.

Now, jump ahead two hundred years to the time of the return from Babylonian exile (the time of Zechariah which we are studying on Wednesday nights). Once more there is a need to restore, or actually completely rebuild the temple.

Ezra 3:10 And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the LORD, according to the directions of David king of Israel.

And then the final wave of reform, when Nehemiah led the people in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem 80 years later:

Neh. 12: 24 And the chiefs of the Levites: Hashabiah, Sherebiah, and Jeshua the son of Kadmiel, with their brothers who stood opposite them, to praise and to give thanks, according to the commandment of David the man of God, watch by watch. I brought the leaders of Judah up onto the wall and appointed two great choirs that gave thanks. One went to the south on the wall to the Dung Gate. 32 And after them went Hoshaiah and half of the leaders of Judah, 33 and Azariah, Ezra, Meshullam, 34 Judah, Benjamin, Shemaiah, and Jeremiah, 35 and certain of the priests’ sons with trumpets: Zechariah the son of Jonathan, son of Shemaiah, son of Mattaniah, son of Micaiah, son of Zaccur, son of Asaph; 36 and his relatives, Shemaiah, Azarel, Milalai, Gilalai, Maai, Nethanel, Judah, and Hanani, with the musical instruments of David the man of God. And Ezra the scribe went before them. 45 And they performed the service of their God and the service of purification, as did the singers and the gatekeepers, according to the command of David and his son Solomon. 46 For long ago in the days of David and Asaph there were directors of the singers, and there were songs of praise and thanksgiving to God.

I have to tell you I am completely embarrassed that in all these years of study I have never noticed what is stated over and over and over again- Israel only used the instruments that God commanded them to: the two silver trumpets of Moses, and then the instruments given by David. And this was always in the context of tabernacle or temple worship.

The only exceptions I know of to this are three references to prophets using instruments (Ex. 15:20; 1 Sam. 10:5; 2 Kings 3:15). But in so far as Israel’s corporate worship was concerned, here is what we learn in from the OT:

1. Musical instruments were specifically legislated by God. Their use was not left up to the discretion of the people. Their use was commanded by God. To put it another way, why did they use instruments: because God told them to.
2. For the first four hundred years of Israel’s history all they used in tabernacle worship was the two silver trumpets. Why did they use those trumpets? Because God told them to. Why didn’t they use any other instruments? There was no word from God. If God had not commanded them to make the trumpets, they would not have used them.
3. For the next thousand years of history Israel only used what David had commanded. Why did David give them additional instruments? Because God commanded it.

With such a clear emphasis on the command of God as the reason to use instruments, the obvious question for us when we come to the New Testament is, has God given us instructions to use instruments when we assemble for worship?

Music in the New Testament
Of course, someone might assume that it doesn’t make a difference whether instruments are in the New Testament or not, since the fact that they are in the Old Testament is all we need to know we can use them today. And yet when you consider how closely instrumental music was linked to the tabernacle/temple, that is not a very good assumption.

In fact, as Jesus taught the Samaritan woman in John 4, one of the unique features of new covenant worship was that it would not be limited to one centralized location.

John 4:21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.

That was a radical statement for Jesus to make in light of the fact that for a millennium, since the time of David, there had been a central sanctuary at Jerusalem where the people were to worship. Jesus’ words can only mean there is a new covenant coming, with new arrangements for worship.

Further, as the Book of Hebrews teaches, through His death on the cross Jesus replaced the Mosaic system of tabernacle worship and ritual through His death on the cross.

Heb. 8:1 Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. 3 For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. 4 Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. 5 They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.

And while the NT does talk a lot about the church as the temple of God, it is of course a spiritual house compromised of Christians, living stones built on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ, offering spiritual sacrifices, like singing. Notice how the end of Hebrews makes a sharp distinction between the OT tabernacle and our service as Christians:

Heb. 13:10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. 11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. 15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

Since the NT emphasizes so strongly the difference between the old and new covenants, it is not enough for us to assume that just because Israel did something in response to God’s commands in the old covenant that we can do the same thing as His new covenant people.

In fact, in there is anything we should gather from the OT, it is that we should only do what God commanded, just as Israel only used the trumpets God revealed to Moses and the instruments God commanded David.

And this is the heart of the case against instruments for us. The New Testament gives us zero indication that the early Christians used instruments in their worship. There are many references to singing –

1 Cor. 14:15 I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.

James 5:13 Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.

Col. 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

So we are to sing from the heart to glorify God and edify each other. But nowhere in the NT did God give us the kind of instructions He gave to Moses or David, to incorporate instruments into our worship.

You may be aware that there is one passage that is sometimes used to support the use of instruments in our worship.

Eph. 5:19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.

There are two words in this verse that those who advocate the use of instruments argue support their case. First, Paul says that we are to sing “psalms.” Since many psalms mention instruments, therefore we can use them today. And indeed many psalms do:

Psalm 149:3 Let them praise his name with dancing,
making melody to him with tambourine and lyre!
4 For the LORD takes pleasure in his people;
he adorns the humble with salvation.
5 Let the godly exult in glory;
let them sing for joy on their beds.

But since the psalms were the hymnal of Israel, and Israel lived under a different covenant than us, we would expect that not everything in the psalms would be applicable to us in the same way that it was to Israel. Psalm 149 goes on to say:

6 Let the high praises of God be in their throats
and two-edged swords in their hands,
7 to execute vengeance on the nations
and punishments on the peoples,
8 to bind their kings with chains
and their nobles with fetters of iron

Does anyone here think that is church’s responsibility to take two-edged swords and slaughter the nations?

Or

18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
19 then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.

as Psalm 51 suggests?

Of course not. The wide mention of instruments in the psalms is what we would expect since the psalms were predominantly sung at the temple, but that proves nothing regarding worship under the new covenant.

Back to Ephesians 5, the other word in verse 19 that sometimes is employed to justify instruments is the Greek word psallo, translated as “make melody.” It is argued that since that word means to pluck the strings of an instrument that Paul is endorsing their use. Of course, if that is what the words means, Eph. 5:19 doesn’t just permit their use – it commands their use. And I don’t know anyone who takes that position. Nor do I know of an English translation that renders it “play an instrument.” Paul tells us what the instrument is in the text: “making melody to the Lord with your heart.” We are to engage the heart as our instrument when we worship.

When I was in grad school I took classes at a school where I would have had much in common with the faculty in terms of what I believed, except for this issue. And I got teased a little bit for being “anti-piany,” as they put it. One day we had taken a break in class, and one of the students said, “Let’s debate the use of instruments. Why do you think they are wrong?” I replied that since he thought they were right he should make the case for their use. And as soon as he started to use the psallo argument our professor interrupted him (who would have agreed with him by the way on the issue) and said, “That is not what the word means, and if it did mean that it would be a command and not an expedient. The final word on this question is that the Bible is silent about it.” He’s right.

The truth is that the word psallo did at one time refer to playing an instrument, but its meaning changed over time, from playing an instrument, to playing and singing, and then just to singing. We have a word in our language that went through a similar evolution. Today “lyric” refers to the words to a song. But it comes from the word “lyre,” which was a stringed instrument. It no longer has that connotation.

As my professor said, the final word on this matter is that the Bible is silent about the use of instruments in the new covenant. Even the most cynical would have to agree that instruments are conspicuous by their absence in the NT since all of the earliest Christians were Jews who had a long heritage of their use in the temple. This omission is even more glaring when you consider that most Christians in the first century were Gentiles, and instruments were widely used in Greco-Roman culture, especially in pagan rituals.

Well, someone may argue that since their use was so common in the OT that it was just assumed that Christians would use them. There is a way to test this idea. We have historical evidence we can look at to see if there are allusions to their use outside of the NT.

The Historical Evidence
Let’s begin with the period leading up to the NT. When the temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC and the Jews were dispersed around the world, worship as it had always been known was impossible. Instead, Jews in various places around the world began to assemble together for prayer and the study of the Law, meetings that came to be known as synagogue. Since this arrangement was not a substitute for the temple, the Jews did not carry over practices specific to the temple. They did not offer sacrifices in the synagogue; they did not make burnt offerings in the synagogue; and most significantly for our study, they did not use instruments in the synagogue. In fact there is some question as to whether they sang in all synagogues.

Even today Orthodox synagogues do not permit the use of instruments.

Services in orthodox synagogues are conducted entirely in Hebrew, with the exception of the sermon. Furthermore, singing is not accompanied by a choir or musical instrument. In Reform synagogues, services are carried out in a mixture of Hebrew and English and singing is sometimes accompanied by a choir or instrument such as an organ.

So what this means is that from the time of the destruction of the temple until its rebuilding a few years before the time of Christ – a period of over 500 years! - when Jews were gathering to worship in the synagogue they were not using instruments. And this information is especially telling regarding the use of instruments in churches, since everyone acknowledges that the early Christians adopted the basic format of the synagogue as the format for their worship.

Instruments are not in the NT, and they were not used in the five centuries before the NT. But what if they were used by the early Christians but just weren’t mentioned in the text. Well, again, all we have to do is read the historical evidence of early Christian practice.

And what the data shows is that not only did the early Christians not use them for the first six hundreds years of church history, but in the words of one music historian,

“The antagonism which the Fathers of the early Church displayed toward instruments has two outstanding characteristics: vehemence and uniformity.” (James McKinnon, The Temple, the Church Fathers and Early Western Chants).

At this point I could spend an hour just reading quotations from the early Christians expressing their adamant opposition to the use of instruments. But for now let me just summarize the evidence like this:
1. There is no evidence of any Christians using instruments in the worship assembly for the first six hundred years of church history – the first recorded use was in 670 in Rome.
2. Even then, they were not widely used for another 600 years. As late as the 13th century, Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote: “The Church does not use musical instruments such as the harp or lyre when praising God, in case she should seem to fall back into Judaism.”
3. In the Protestant Reformation, many of the key leaders were virulently opposed to the instrument.

So here is the point of all this evidence. Instruments are not found anywhere in the pages of the NT. They are not found in the 500 years before the NT. And they are not mentioned in the 600 years after the NT. In over a thousand years of history we do not have a scintilla of evidence that God’s people were using instruments. Nada –nothing.

Someone may say, “Well history doesn’t prove anything.” Well, if you are trying to advocate the use instruments, you better hope it does, because you sure aren’t going to prove anything by the NT. Those who dismiss this evidence should ask themselves if they would feel differently if the evidence were the other way around. What if there were all kinds of references to the early Christians using instruments? Are you trying to tell me that advocates of instruments would just ignore that? Of course not. Well neither can we ignore the unanimous testimony of history that Christians did not use instruments for a period that is three times as long as the entire history of America.

That has obviously changed by our own day and time, although there are still many fellowships that do not use the instrument (the Orthodox church, Primitive Baptists, some conservative Presbyterian churches, and until recently some Mennonite churches). In fact one of the most helpful books I have ever read on this topic was written in 2005 by an Baptist.

Conclusion
And his summary of this issue is right on target:

The issue before us is nothing less than a matter of sola scriptura. Will we look to the Scriptures alone to govern our thinking in regard to musical instruments in worship, or will we look to human reasoning? Will we leave this issue where God has left it, or will we add our own thoughts to His word? (John Price, Old Light on New Worship, p. 230).

If we are to go by what is only found in the Bible, and we are not to add to Scripture, it is difficult for me to escape the conclusion that since the NT makes no reference to instruments in worship assemblies that we as a church that wants to submit to the headship of Christ should not use them.

Since most of you hear probably already agreed with the position I have taken, I feel like I need to say something that would challenge you as well, so that no one can leave here today feeling like you are off the hook. Our worship cannot be defined simply by what we are against, or what we do not do. While the outward forms have changed over time, one constant in what God has always wanted from His people is worship that comes from the heart, passionate praise from people who are completely devoted to Him.

Look at this passage in Rom. 12:

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
This simple verse speaks volumes about genuine worship:

1. It says that worship is first and foremost about what we give rather than what we get. The NASB translates the last phrase “spiritual service of worship”. We are not to come here and sit around like spectators, or like customers who want to be served. We are coming to render the service. This is not a day off – its is the day when we do our most important work of all, serving as spiritual priests in God’s holy house.
2. It also means that what we do in our public assemblies should be a reflection of the kind of people we are all week. We don’t just offer this service once, like an animal sacrifice in the old covenant. We are living sacrifices, giving our bodies to God at all times. If you are one kind of person here today and a completely different kind of person the rest of the week, your worship is a sham, and while you might be fooling some of us, you are not fooling God.
3. And most importantly, this verse says that worship is promoted by what God has done for us. Paul’s appeal for worship stems from “the mercies of God.” Our worship is a reflection of our awareness of and appreciation for what God has done for us. If you don’t think much about what God has done for you, if you don’t dwell on the many mercies of God, then your worship will be infrequent, superficial, and insincere. But if your heart is aflame with love for God for what He has done for you, then your worship will be just what God wants.

And worship should always be about what God wants.

How Do We Establish Authority? A New Look at Old Questions (Part 2)

Introduction
This past week I found one of my oldest childhood friends on Facebook. I grew up in a great neighborhood, and his family was one of the main reasons why. One of the ladies in the neighborhood, Mrs. Cawood, had a huge back yard which we used for kickball, dodgeball, and all kinds of games. We spent many summer evenings playing in her backyard. And fortunately we all got along well.

And a main reason we got a long so well is because we all agreed on the rules we used. You had to decide how many foul balls were allowed before you were out, or how many outs there would be per inning. And the worst thing that could have happened is for there to have been that one kid who just had to change the rules all the time to suit them – or they would just take their ball and go home!

Last week I started a discussion with you about the authority of Scripture, in part because of a certain cynicism I think exists among Christians my age and younger about the ways this topic is addressed. And I think one reason for this cynicism has to do with the sense that we in the “church of Christ” just made up rules of Bible authority to suit us. When I was younger I often heard preachers say things like, “There are three ways to establish biblical authority – direct statements or commands, approved examples, and necessary inferences.” Well, says who? Who came up with that formula for authority?

And, though it was drilled into me that we must have authority for everything that we do, I could see lots of things we did that were not spelled out in Scripture: we had a building, we bought space in the newspaper for articles, we had organized Bible classes. But that was explained to me on the basis of generic authority – that since the Bible says we are to assemble, but gives no other specific directive, we could use a building; and since the Bible say we are to teach the Scriptures, using a newspaper column or organized classes are authorized under the general heading of teaching. Some things God has specified (singing as opposed to singing plus instruments; the elements of the Lord’s supper), but other things God has spoken generically about and we have freedom to choose how to carry out His general commands.

Well again, that sounds great, but who made these rules up about generic and specific authority? Or are those just clever ways to justify doing what we want to do while getting around what we don’t like?

I think these are good questions, and I hope to offer some good answers to them. By the very nature of this subject, today’s sermon will require very intense concentration, so I would ask that you shut out any distractions that might make it hard to think critically and carefully as we work through these issues.

Command, Example, Inference

I’d like to ask you to turn with me to Acts 15, to a critical debate that took place in Jerusalem over the issue of Gentiles and circumcision. In the previous two chapters, Paul and Barnabas engaged in the first extensive preaching effort made in predominantly Gentile territory. This upset some of the Jewish Christians back in Jerusalem, because Paul and Barnabas did not require the Gentiles they taught to be circumcised. You can understand why this would have been a concern. All of the first Christians were Jews, which meant that they were all circumcised. It is easy to see how some Jewish Christians, particularly those from a Pharisaic background, could have concluded that all Christians must be Jews first – must be circumcised first.

Acts 15:1 But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." 2 And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. 3 So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. 4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. 5 But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, "It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses."

To deal with this issue, Peter and James joined Paul and Barnabas in contending against those insistent upon circumcision. What I want you to see is how they reasoned in this debate.

The first speaker was Peter, which makes sense since he was the first apostle to preach to Gentiles, to the house of Cornelius in Acts 10.

15:6 The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. 7 And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, "Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, 9 and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. 10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will."

So here is Peter’s argument:
-I went to preach to the Gentiles (uncircumcised). That’s verse 7.
-God gave the Holy Spirit to them, to these uncircumcised Gentiles, just like He did to us (meaning either the Jews in general or the apostles in particular, who of course were Jewish). That’s verses 8-9.
-What was his point in bringing this up? Isn’t Peter point that if God gave the gift of the Holy Spirit to Cornelius and his house without their being circumcised that no Gentile has to be circumcised to respond to the gospel?

Well, obviously! Peter’s argument here consists of drawing a necessary inference from the example of what happened at Cornelius’s house.

The second speakers were Paul and Barnabas, whose comments consisted of a review of the work they did on their first journey.

15:12 And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.

Once again you have an appeal made to example. God clearly approved of their ministry because the Lord enabled them to do signs and wonders among them. And since they did not insist on circumcision for these converts, and since God clearly approved of what Paul and Barnabas were doing, bearing witness in the signs and wonders, there is clear divine approval through the example of Paul and Barnabas not to circumcise Gentiles.

Paul and Barnabas, just like Peter, were deducing conclusions based on the implications of the approved example of the first missionary journey.

The final speaker was James, and his speech consisted of an appeal to a direct statement of Scripture.

15:13 After they finished speaking, James replied, "Brothers, listen to me. 14 Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. 15 And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,
16 "'After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins,
and I will restore it,
17 that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord,
and all the Gentiles who are called by my name,
says the Lord, who makes these things 18 known from of old.'

The specific text James uses is Amos 9, which pictured the house of David as a fallen tent, and the restoration of the Davidic dynasty as the rebuilding of that tent. And according to Amos, when the Davidic kingdom was renewed it would be open to “the remnant of mankind.” In other words, what Simeon (Peter’s Hebrew name) experienced that day at the villa of Cornelius was nothing less than the fulfillment of a direct promise of the Old Testament, the inclusion of the Gentiles into the Messiah’s kingdom.

Here in Acts 15 in the context of a debate about the meaning of Scripture, the apostles employed arguments drawing logical inferences based on direct statements from Scripture and divinely approved examples.

Now think with me about what we can learn from Acts 15, in light of some of the common questions and criticisms of “command, example, and inference” today.

First of all, preachers in the “church of Christ” did not make up “command, example, and inference” as a means of establishing authority. No one did! "Command, example and inference" are descriptions of how all communication occurs.

Let me illustrate it like this. We all believe in the "law of gravity." Sir Isaac Newton did not wander into a clearing one day and find a stone tablet that said "what goes up must come down." The law of gravity is not a prescriptive law; no one prescribed it for us like the Ten Commandments. Rather, the law of gravity is a description of what he observed about how things work. What goes up must come down. It is a "law" in the sense that it is a helpful and accurate description of the nature of objects in motion. The fact that the law of gravity is descriptive rather than prescriptive makes it no less valid. What goes up will come down regardless of whether anyone ever used the phrase "law of gravity," because it is simply how things work.

The same is true with command, example and inference. These three methods are descriptions of how we get information, IN ANY CONTEXT. If no one ever used the terms "command, example, and necessary inference" it would not change the reality that we all reason in these ways.

As a matter of fact, I have never heard anyone take issue with “command, example, inference” without appealing to either a direct statement or command, or an example, or by drawing inferences.

For instance, a friend of mine who would be in the camp of those who dismiss the concept of “command, example and inference” wrote this on one of my blogs some time ago:

“Yes we need God's authority. But command, ex, necessary inference wouldn't hold up in a court of law. It is flawed and inconsistent in its application. I don't read my Bible with that filter. The argument for authority isn't laughable, the hermeneutic is, and yes it should be thrown out…I think that we are to be Christ followers. That being said, if Jesus did it or talked about it, then we can do it… So my means of establishing authority is simple. If the principle is found in Scripture, we have freedom to apply that principle.”

So “command, example and inference” are flawed? And yet the very first thing my friend did in this post is draw an inference- he INFERS that since we are to follow Jesus, what Jesus did or talked about we can do. THAT IS AN INFERENCE. And what Jesus did is – His EXAMPLE - or what He talked about – HIS DIRECT STATEMENTS OR COMMANDS - we can do!

In trying to repudiate “command, example and inference” my friend employed them! He wouldn’t call what he did by those terms – but it is what he did, because those concepts simply describe the way any of us think and communicate.

And as such it is not “church of Christ” dogma. Almost four hundred years ago some of the Protestant Reformers encapsulated their view of authority in very similar language:

“The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.”
-Westminster Confession of Faith 1646

More recently, a Southern Baptist writer named Mark Dever wrote:

“Everything we do in a corporate worship gathering must be clearly warranted by Scripture. Clear warrant can either take the form of an explicit biblical command, or a good and necessary implication of a text.” -Mark Dever, The Deliberate Church

People who are trying to take the Bible seriously as their guide to faith and practice will reason in these ways because that is how we are wired.

Nor is this way of thinking limited to the realm of religion. My friend said “command, example, inference” wouldn’t hold up in a court of law. What in the world does he think goes on in a trial? When the Supreme Court hears a case the lawyers argue on the basis of what is directly stated in the Constitution, or what precedents have been established by prior Courts, or by what the Constitution necessarily implies.

So I want to be clear in saying that not only are “command, example, inference” a valid way to think– there is no other valid way to think. Anyone who reads the Bible to learn what it means to be a Christian and what a local church is supposed to be will get information the same way Peter, Paul and Barnabas, and James made their case in Acts 15.

Having said that, I think that a lot of times we have made a mistake by declaring, “There are three ways to establish authority,” as if these three terms are the missing 11th, 12th and 13th commandments. Remember, they are descriptive, not prescriptive. Further, there is actually a lot of overlap between the three. Peter referred to an approved example and drew an inference. Paul and Barnabas cited an approved example and drew an inference. James quoted a Scripture, applied it to Peter’s example and then drew an inference.

When Are Examples Binding?

Since this is so clear, why do so many people object to what is frankly obvious? I think the reason is because, as my friend said, “It is flawed and inconsistent in its application.” It is the issue of consistency that is troubling.

So for instance, I believe that we are to follow the example Jesus set with the apostles and observe a memorial of His death with unleavened bread and the fruit of the vine. But according to John 13, at the same time He instituted the Lord’s Supper Jesus also washed the disciples feet, and even said:

13:14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.

So why do I think we should take the Lord’s Supper, but not wash feet? And some people who take biblical authority very seriously think you should, and that I am wrong for not practicing it.

So, how do we decide which examples to follow and which ones not to follow? When are they binding? This is a crucial issue when you read Acts, which contains all kinds of examples of the actions of the early Christians. How do we know when what they did is what we are supposed to do?

When I was in grad school I had a seminar on the Book of Acts, in which each of us would write two papers and then defend them in class. The professor of the class wanted to have some fun, so he created awards, like “Best Defense,” “Best Question,” and “Golden Axe Award.” That was the award for the question that demolished someone’s paper.

Well, there was this guy in class who loved to bully other people and try to get the Golden Axe award. So I decided when his turn came to defend his paper I was going to exact some revenge for those he abused. It so happened he wrote a paper in which his basic thesis was that no examples in the NT are binding on us today. Since some examples were not binding, none were. So when his day came, I asked him this question-I got the idea for this questions from someone else by the way– if your point is that since some examples are not binding then none are binding; since some commands of Scripture are not binding on us, does the same logic mean that no commands are? His answer was “homina homina homina” and the victims in class rejoiced!

Not all commands are binding. After all, the commands we read in those letters were made to other people. All we really have are the examples of what the apostles commanded others. I don’t same this to be dismissive of the letters - the apostles were self-consciously setting a pattern for churches to follow. When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians he was dealing with specific questions and problems at Corinth. And yet he says:

1 Cor. 4:16 I urge you, then, be imitators of me. 17 That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.

So when we read 1 Corinthians, we are reading an example of what Paul instructed Corinth. So how do we apply those commands? In fact, how do we apply any of the commands of the Bible? I think that the same principles we use to apply the commands contained in Scripture will guide how we apply the examples (since what we are reading is really the record of what the apostles commanded others).

Well of course we would begin with the basic principles of good Bible study. We would want to know what the text says (observation), to understand what the text meant to its original readers (interpretation), and to understand what the text means to us (application).

Some of the key questions we would ask as we decided how commands apply to us are:
1) Does the context limit who the command was made to? Was it a command only to Israel? To the apostles?
2) Is the command is a reflection of specific social setting? Romans 16:16 contains a command to greet one another with a holy kiss. How do I decide how that command is applied? Wouldn’t I ask, what did that mean to them? And deciding that the issue is not the kiss, but the greeting in holiness, and then apply that to the way we greet each other?
3) Is the command was qualified by other information in the text? In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul says it is better not to marry. Is that a universal command? I think the context limits that command to a specific situation, the “present distress,” and that qualification means the command is not for all people of all time.

So, when I read about what the early Christians did, wouldn’t I use these same principles to decide when their actions were normative and binding pattern?
1) Is the example specific to a particular person? In Acts, who gives people the ability to do signs and wonders? Only the apostles. Suggests that example is limited to the apostolic period.
2) Is the example a reflection of a specific social setting? The washing of feet was a cultural practice of hospitality, requiring true spirit of servanthood and humility. It had practical component in the days of dirt roads and sandals. The feet would get dirty – John 13:9 Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" 10 Jesus said to him, "The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. We live in a different social setting in which we have other ways of practicing the eternal spiritual truths of humility and servanthood.
3) Is the example qualified by other information in the text? Jesus ate the supper with the disciples in the upper room. Does that mean we have to? Well, other information in the biblical text indicates that Christians met in a variety of places.

So this means that we have to do some digging and thinking and challenging. But if we believe God’s word is important we have no choice but to give it careful attention.

Maybe one of the underlying concerns that some of my friends have is that this kind of agonizing over the text is just part of the baggage of being “church of Christ.” If that is the case, I can tell you as someone who spends a lot of time reading what people from other backgrounds have to say about the Bible that that is completely false.

One of my favorite authors is a Methodist scholar named Ben Witherington. A couple of years ago he wrote an excellent book that deals with a lot of the same issues I am in this current series. And one of those topics is how do we know when the narrative sections of the Bible, the examples of the early Christians, how do we know when that becomes a pattern we are to follow? When is it the norm? And his answer is the same as mine: “My suggestion would be that one looks for positive repeated patterns in the text.”

This issue – and that answer – are common to Bible students from a wide variety of backgrounds.

Specific and General

So far I have made the case that command, example and inference are descriptions of the way anyone would learn anything from the Bible, and that we have to use the same basic principles to decide when examples are binding for us as we do to decide when commands are binding on us.

But look around you today. You can see lots of things that are not found in Scripture – songbooks, powerpoint projector, a building. There is no command in the Bible to use a songbook or projector or building – no record of these things in the life of the early church in Acts. So on what basis can we say we try to follow the Bible and yet use these things?

What I was taught as a youngster was that there is something called specific authority and generic authority. When God specifies something, that excludes all other options. He told Noah to build an ark – that excluded building a temple. But on the other hand, God did not specifically say what tools to use. Since God did not specify what tools to use, the authority to use hammers, saws, chisels was included in the general command to build. Specific authority is exclusive; generic authority is inclusive.

Here again I think we sometimes are victims of our own terminology. We intuitively understand that all statements have specific and generic features, and when we talk with each other we make decisions about what is specified and what is not. Friday night a few of us went out to eat then over to the Shearer’s to play cards, and Max sent Andrew and the boys to get something sweet for us to snack on. “Go get us something for dessert.” That sentence is both specific and general isn’t it? It is specific with regard to what to get – “something for dessert” – as opposed to a side dish like spinach or lima beans. Anything but dessert stuff was excluded. On the other hand, there were generalities in saying, “Go get us something for dessert.” Cookies? Brownies? Candy? All kinds of dessert were included in the general statement to grab some dessert.

So when we read the Bible, we have to make decisions about how specific God is versus how general He is, and act accordingly.

In the NT we read that the early Christians assembled regularly, and specifically on the first day of the week to remember Jesus’ death. But we also see that they met in a variety of locations: the temple, homes, a school, a riverbank. From that data I draw the conclusion that God is concerned about when we meet - the first day of the week, but not concerned about where we meet.

And we have to use discernment to make these judgments as we seek to honor God and edify each other.

Conclusion
These are not strange, exotic principles only used by those connected with the church of Christ. It is a part of the wrestling with the text of the Bible everyone does who thinks it is important to follow the Bible carefully. Nor are these sophisticated principles of hermeneutics. It is the way anyone communicates and understands anything.

I do not mean to imply that everything in the Bible is as straightforward as “go build an ark.” We of course must be humble and careful as we try to apply what the Bible says, acknowledging our own ignorance and imperfections. But the fact that some questions are more difficult than others to unravel does not invalidate the principles of interpretation used to deal with the tough questions.

Praying for Peace and Justice in Jerusalem

With the exception of the Likud Party in Israel and the neo-cons and "Christian Zionists" here in America, it seems to me that most everyone in the world agrees that the Palestinians should be given a state, and that the Palestinians have a right to make east Jerusalem it's capital. This is really a simple matter of justice, and until it happens there is no realistic chance for peace in the Middle East.

Yesterday the new Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, reaffirmed his insistence that "United Jerusalem is Israel's capital," and that "Jerusalem was always ours and will always be ours. It will never again be partitioned and divided."

The notion that Jerusalem has always been the property of Israel is false, biblically and historically. The first mention is "Salem" (assuming that is a shortened form of Jerusalem) in Scripture is in Genesis 14, and its king was the enigmatic Melchizedek, who ruled the city long before there was an Israel. Centuries later, in the days of the conquest described in Joshua 1, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin tried to drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem, which mixed results. In fact, it was not until the time of David (around 1010 BC) that Jerusalem was finally conquered and designated the capital of the nation (2 Samuel 5). In recent history, Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan until the Six Days War in 1967, when Israel annexed the eastern section of the city.

In an ideal world, a new Palestinian state would share east Jerusalem with Israel, and extremists on both sides of the question would be silenced. Sadly, it is difficult to imagine this will ever be the case. There are Israelis like Netanyahu who refuse to acknowledge the need for a genuine two-state solution, and of course there are many Arab extremists who will not be satisfied until Israel is driven into the sea.

BUT - if history has proven anything it is that the unexpected can happen. And I don't think Christians should lose faith that God in His providence can bring about a just solution. So please pray for peace and justice in a region roiled with violence, hatred and injustice.