Veritas Aequitas

Ezekiel 3:5-7 “For you are not being sent to a people of unintelligible speech or difficult language, but to the house of Israel, nor to many peoples of unintelligible speech or difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. But I have sent you to them who should listen to you; yet the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, since they are not willing to listen to Me. Surely the whole house of Israel is stubborn and obstinate.”

I’ve just begun rereading-through the prophets. I started Ezekiel today, and in the initial monologue from God to his chosen messenger, Ezekiel, are these striking words!

As if to ward-off any unwillingness on the part of the unsuspecting Ezekiel (like Moses tried to argue with God), God tells him not to worry – His words will be with him, and He will protect him from the rebellious house of Israel who won’t heed his words.

The house of Israel should listen because it’s a prophet who has been among them. And yet they’re so hardened, that even the warnings, exhortations, and condemnations of the Lord Almighty will be ignored!

How many times has God sent to you and I messengers with His words that we’ve ignored? I can say it’s at least in the hundreds for me – all those Sundays I was in church, ignoring my Sunday School teachers, the pastor, parents, concerned church members.

Years of not caring, and sometimes willful refusal to listen. How fortunate I am that God is patient with us! I wasn’t converted till sometime in or after highschool – my mid to late teens.

But Israel – God’s CHOSEN people! Israel – the nation for whom God destroyed pagan cultures, nations, and peoples so they could have an inheritance promised to them. That Israel. The Israel who was in captivity in Babylon because of their sins was going to ignore yet another faithful messenger God was sending them.

God told Ezekiel he’d be ignored – but he still had to deliver his message. We know Ezekiel was faithful to his calling, because it has been recorded for us. But I shudder to think of the souls condemned who wilfully ignored and refused to listen to him when God Himself sent him to them!

God is patient, indeed – but His patience is not forever. Eventually, He gives those up who will not listen. Even when He knows they willnot listen, though, He still sends messengers to them pleading that they repent and turn to God! Israel was going to be liberated from their captivity in another couple decades, but how many souls were lost to eternity because they wouldn’t heed the Lord’s message?

3:17-19 “Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman to the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from My mouth, warn them from Me. When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself.”

Ezekiel was God’s warner in his day. Today we’ve been given pastors, teachers, godly parents, and friends – all of whom are trying to warn those around them of God’s coming judgement. Ezekiel was absolved of the blood of his countrymen because he gave them the warnings from God.

Are we taking heed to that warning issued to Ezekiel today? Are we engaging those around us, warning the of what is coming if they do not repent? Are we trying to talk to our neighbors, family members, friends, coworkers? Are we sharing the wonderful news of redemption through the sacrifice of Jesus? Or are we hoarding that news all to ourselves? Will we squeak into heaven when we die because we’ve thrown our sins on Christ, but nothing more? Or will be triumphantly presenting our captured souls before the Lamb – showing Him that we have been faithful servants, reinvesting what has been entrusted to us for the benefit and furtherance of the kingdom?

I came across this post by Dan Edelen yesterday, and want to share it with you.

How quick we are to presume we know the whole story! I never noticed the passage in Ezekiel before, either!

How many of the things in that list – arrogance, gluttony, apathy, uncaringness/unlovingness, haughtiness – are you and I guilty of?

Again how true is what Jesus says to his disciples: “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

There is no one sin that is any worse than another – we’ve all sinned and deserve death and punishment.

How awesome is it that God provided a way of escape through his Son!

Is there an appropriate age at which someone can be considered for baptism? Is there an “age of majority” that needs to be considered before allowing someone who professes faith to be immersed in the baptistery?

I am a firm adherent to believer’s baptism. When a sinner is saved by grace, it is both their responsibility, and their privilege to be baptized and join the church.

But at what age can a profession of faith be “trustworthy”? Is there something magical about turning 16, 18, 20, 21, etc that makes a statement about an internal change of heart more true or more believable? I was not converted until about when I graduated high school. I knew for a long time that I was playing by the rules so I didn’t get in trouble. So by the time I was a Christian, no church I knew of would have had an issue with baptizing me.

But what about people I know who were converted around age 6? Or 10? Or 13? What is about turning 16 or 18 that makes some churches think that now they can believe that a person is really saved? What must be going-on in a converted child’s mind when a church won’t let them be baptized for 8 years because they’re only 10? Does that not lead to a great deal of self-doubt and wondering if what they’ve learned and accepted and believed is really true?

If a person has been truly saved, they can never become “unsaved” – but they can struggle with issues of assurance for years because someone they trust (a pastor, parent, Sunday school teacher, etc) has told them they have to wait.

All of the examples we have in the Bible of people declaring their faith in Jesus have them immediately being baptized as soon as a suitable source of water can be found. Yes – the apostles had special insights that our pastors can’t have today. However, even in the Jerusalem church were there found people who agreed to lie to the Holy Spirit about how much money they received for the plot of land they sold.

Were Ananias and Saphira false converts? I don’t know. But they didn’t show well in the only instance we have recorded of them in the Bible.

My personal conviction is that upon a credible profession of faith, any person should be baptized as soon as possible. As humans, we will make mistakes. We will occasionally recommend the wrong person to the church. Or misapprehend a profession as being what we want to hear, rather than what is really going-on. A verbal profession, followed by some [short] time of observation by both the person’s family, the church, their friends, and maybe coworkers ought to be enough to determine the likelihood of their statement being true.

But when that short observational time is done – and they’re still following what they claim to believe, withholding baptism from them becomes no longer a verification that they are what they say they are, but a way for the church to impose extra rules on top of the examples shown to us in the Bible’s account.

This is the first in a small series of posts on church membership.

I am not convinced that church “membership”, as implemented by most churches I have attended or visited through my life, is a Biblically-valid stance to take.

Certainly we are not to forsake the gathering of ourselves together. And in order to be a vital part of the bride of Christ, we need to be engaged with a local manifestation of that body.

But does that mean that a church can or should offer, let alone require, membership?

From observing many churches, membership is a formal process whereby a given professing Christian applies to become a part of a local church. They [generally] must agree to the church’s constitution and confession of faith. They [typically] must meet with the elder(s) in an interview who will probe their background, why they want to join this church, and then be submitted to the congregation to consider.

Once the consideration period is over, the new member generally reads their testimony in front of the congregation, and then is voted-upon for reception into membership by the current members.

Various churches have differing standards over aspects of this process: how old must the applicant be, what type of background they have, how new are they to the church, etc.

My question is why is there such a formal process of joining a church? Yes, I understand that if you are not a “part” of a church, church discipline doesn’t make much sense. I do not see any direct evidence that the early church practiced a “membership” process – though some of that may just be based on the relative lack of mobility amongst first-century people. Or it could be related to the likelihood that a given city or area might only have one church because they stood out so much from the surrounding society. And certainly, claiming to be a Christian in the first century AD was not something to be taken lightly.

We also see Paul commending certain people from one city to brethren in a different city to be accepted by their gathering if/when they come. We see in 1 Corinthians Paul calling-on the church to put away from their midst the sinning brother. We also see in 2 Corinthians Paul now urging the church to take him back if he’s truly repented.

If I am a member of a church, and I decide for whatever reasons to move to a different area, or find my convictions no longer lining-up well with the church I had been attending, I believe it is my responsibility as a Christian to find a body of believers with whom I can more readily identify and cooperate with. My duty as a Christian is first to my King and His work, and secondly to the local body I work with.

I’m not suggesting that if you don’t get along with somebody in the congregation that that’s grounds for just moving-on. Nor do I think it is a good idea to try to be engaged with more than one or two churches at a time. But I cannot see how the formal practice of membership is a healthy add-on to the Christian life.

It seems that the church as a whole has taken lessons from other organizations whereby you must join to be a part – such as the Elks or Freemasons. Joining the church happens when a person is converted and baptized. Once I was converted, I became a member of the universal body of Christ. My attachment to a local representation of that body took a while because the church I was in had draconian policies which had to be fulfilled before someone could be baptized and become a member. Such policies turned-off many of the people I grew-up with form wanting to join that specific church.

I’ve attended other churches that had completely no concept of membership or belonging… and I can see the issues with that, too. I do believe it’s important to belong to a church. But the concept of membership needs to be re-examined.

I attended the Metropolitan Tabernacle this past Sunday. For perhaps only the second time in my life was I in a church that had a mix of ages, colors, ethnic backgrounds, etc that I think really will represent how Heaven will look.

The sermon was on Deuteronomy 32:1-4, “Give ear, ye heavens, and I will speak; And let the earth hear the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain; My speech shall distil as the dew, As the small rain upon the tender grass, And as the showers upon the herb. For I will proclaim the name of Jehovah: Ascribe ye greatness unto our God. The Rock, his work is perfect; For all his ways are justice: A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, Just and right is he.”

At the end of his long and varied life – 40 years of being raised as a prince in Egypt, 40 years as a shepherd, and 40 years as the earthly head of Israel – Moses had this to say: “I will proclaim the name of Jehovah: Ascribe ye greatness unto our God. The Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice: A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, Just and right is He.”

After 120-plus years of walking the earth, Moses was still praising his God – THE God, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the one true, living God.

His confidence even in the final moments of his life was that he would proclaim the name of God. In 120 years he could not look back and see anything more worthy of comment than that his God was truth and faithful.

I issue a challenge to any who call themselves ‘Christian’ – can you say today that as you look back over your life, God has been truth and faithful to you? Not in the abstract, but in the personal.

If you were to die today, would the last words on your lips be “I will proclaim the name of Jehovah: Ascribe ye greatness unto our God. The Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice: A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, Just and right is He.”?

If not… why?

I Cor 9: 19-27: “For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”

I have a question to pose to any church, any pastor, any Christian: what are you saying about Christ, the Gospel, and your walk if you never change your practices?

Are you saying, “I’ve arrived, I don’t need to change”?

Are you saying, “I’m better than everyone else, therefore they need to catch up to me before I advance”?

Are you saying, “I don’t care about ‘advancing’, I’m satisfied with my progress”?

Or are you saying, “I am who I am, and I don’t have to change”?

I am not an advocate of change for the sake of change.

I am not an advocate of change if means compromising Truth.

I will advocate EVERY change that BETTERS myself towards God, and that brings more people to His Gospel.

What does it say about a pastor, church, or individual Christian if they refuse to change to society, when that change does not affect their walk with God? What does it say about a pastor, church, or individual Christian when they won’t listen to others who have Truth to convey, or who have received insights into God’s Holy Word that they haven’t yet?

Does it say that they are stubborn, and won’t hear what others have to say, won’t take the time to see if what they’re saying is out of line with the Bible, won’t come out of their ‘comfort zone’ because somebody else might know something they don’t?

Does it say that they’re staying with what they’ve become accustomed to that is in line with the Bible, but that they won’t move away from that ’safe zone’ because they’re afraid they might do something wrong in the process?

Or does it say that they are stagnating in their walk and no longer advancing along their Christian walk? That they’re happy enough with where they’ve gotten to; that they don’t need to get any further along their walk because they’re getting into heaven from where they are – and, after all, isn’t being “a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord” better than a thousand days elsewhere? After all, why get any further into God’s kingdom than I have to, because the world is fun? Why become a “choice servant of the Lord” if I can just be a servant?

The only belief system that must be right is that held by atheists.

It’s the only logical conclusion to draw from the available evidence: they are among the most vocal, most argumentative, most defensive, most worried group of people on the planet.

If I, a Christian, am wrong about the existence God, what have I lost? Time on Sundays, time reading the Bible, time trying to convert my friends… but only time. If a Muslim is wrong about the existence of Allah all he has lost is time. If the Jew, Hindu, animist, Mormon, etc are all wrong about the existence of any god they’ve only wasted time.

But if an atheist is wrong about the non-existence of any God, he’s in for a heap of hurt: eternal damnation, Hell, reincarnation as a rat, etc.

For the sake of the atheists in the world, I could pray there is no God. Of course, I don’t know who I’d pray to. But for the sake of those who believe there is no God – of any kind – I could hope they’re right, and that I’ve just been wasting thousands of hours of my life I could better spend on me.

I am convinced there is a God, though, so the only logical course of action I can take is to try convince others. After all, if I’m wrong, I just spent a bunch of time doing something that doesn’t matter.

But if I’m right…

We’re worried about peoples’ feelings – and not about being honest and faithful to their souls. We all act like we’re following Paul’s directive: “in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” And we all forget the first half of that verse: “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit”.

We live in a false humility when we are afraid to speak to one another honestly. “Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father. Treat younger men like brothers, older women like mothers, younger women like sisters, in all purity.” As Christians, we are a family – we are God’s adopted sons and daughters. In almost every physical family I’ve ever seen, there is a dynamic of communication and honesty that is sadly lacking in the church of God.

The public face of American society has become one full of political correctness – make sure you never say anything that might be offensive, and spend massive amounts of effort in qualifying what you are about to say so that no one could possibly misunderstand what you are trying to say. Though Paul was writing to a fellow minister of the Gospel, we would all do well to heed his words to Timothy: “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus … preach the word; … reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” It is the duty of every Christian to be watchful of his brother: unlike Cain, we may not come to God and say, “am I my brother’s keeper?” As members of the body of Christ, we must be concerned for every other member of that body – just like parents worry about their children and we are concerned that not only our hands, but also our ears and feet are healthy, we must be concerned for the other members of the church.

Jesus told us to “be innocent as doves but wise as serpents”. It is a false humility – indeed a failing of the command of Christ – to ‘only’ be “innocent as doves”. It is part and parcel of that command to likewise be “wise as serpents”.

In writing to the Galatians, Paul certainly didn’t hold back when he says, “even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” Or when he called Peter to the floor for hypocrisy: “when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?’”

The modern church has mostly lost this level of confidence and fearlessness to confront others when they are wrong.

I pray that if I have written or said anything amiss, that it would be forgotten and that I would be corrected. What I have written and said that is NOT wrong, though, needs to be taken to heart. On matters of opinion, I am happy to discuss, debate, and argue. But on matters of truth – there is no discussion. Truth cannot be argued with.

Indeed, “let God be true and every man a liar”: God’s Word as recorded in the Bible is unalterable and perfect. The modern church needs to come back to this and not be afraid of rumpling a couple feathers to present the Truth, to correct error, or to rebuke sin. Far better if a couple of your feathers are rumpled, but you finish the race of the Christian life and enter Heaven than if you’re molly-coddled and end up in Hell.

What is the chief end of man?

Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.

What is God?

God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.

If you have ever read the Westminster Shorter Catechism, you, no doubt, are familiar with these two questions, and their answers. Indeed, they are the 1st and 4th questions of that document, respectively.

Great. So, as mankind, our job is to glorify and enjoy this eternal, unchangeable, infinite, spirit that calls Himself God.

‘Unchangeable’ is pretty straightforward: it is immutable, permanent, unyielding, unwavering, unalterable, and unfaltering. ‘Spirit’ is also a relatively simple concept to understand: noncorporeal, ethereal, invisible. But what does ‘infinite’ mean? What does ‘eternal’ mean?

Eternal, quite simply means having no end point in time. And likewise, infinite means that there are no boundaries upon its existence. There is no measurable height, length, width, depth, or breadth. But, as creatures who exist in both time and space, the concept of eternality and infinity are difficult – at best – to understand: we, by definition, are finite. According to the Bible, men’s souls will exist onward into eternity, but as an individual human, we have a definite start point. The Bible also states that God existed before time (from eternity past) and will exist forever (to eternity future).

The God that Christians worship, then, has no boundaries upon His existence, in time or space. And, if He has no boundaries in time or space, then certainly He could have no boundaries upon His power or abilities.

As good, and wonderful, and awesome, and amazing as all that is, humans can’t understand it. I don’t claim to have some higher understanding of God’s infiniteness or His eternality than can be gained from His Holy Word. But I think that I might have a helpful construct in forming a [limited] understanding of His most unfathomable attributes.

Infinity is a concept that has many useful applications in our world and our minds. For example, from grade-school geometry, you recall that rays have a start point, but no end point. Lines, likewise, have no start or end. However, they have no start or end in only one dimension. “Lines”, as such, by definition cannot exist in two dimensions. Basic geometrical figures, such as triangles, quadrilaterals, hexagons, circles, etc may all exist in two dimensions, but a line, per se, cannot. The math adage pops to mind: “two points define a line; three points define a plane”.

A plane is an object which has a set up defining points, most typically represented by three X,Y,Z coordinates sets. And once those three points have been defined, the plane extends across all points in “straight lines” away from those points.

However, again by definition, a plane cannot exist in three dimensions: it has no “bottom” (or “top”). So, though like the line it is infinite, it can’t exist in the world in which we live: we live in a polydimensional world. This life is made up of height, depth, width, length, and time. We can comprehend the infinite natures of planes and lines because we exist in a dimension above them.

Perhaps some of you have read the book Flatland. In it, Edwin Abbott follows the life and times of a square that lives in a land wherein there is no height. Everything is just flat – there are lengths and widths, but no height. As the tale wends its way through, a sphere appears in Flatland, and whisks the square off to see Lineland and Pointland, and then takes him higher into the world of three dimensions wherein the sphere resides. As established earlier, a square can’t exist in three dimensions. Of course, a sphere can’t exist, as such, in 2 dimensions. A sphere has a center point as defined by an X,Y,Z coordinate, and a radius: a way of establishing how far away from that center point, in all directions, the sphere extends. So, when the sphere appears in Flatland, he is visible as a constantly morphing circle, based on how much of himself he has “dipped” into the land.

We see in shadows. The shadow of a three-dimensional object is two-dimensional. If you don’t believe me, go stand in front of a light near a wall: your shadow has no depth: it’s flat. It has width and height, but no depth. (If it did, you would be able to grab it and move it, as it would exist in “our” dimensions.) The shadow of a two-dimensional object is a line or line segment – it has one dimension: length. Likewise, the shadow of a line is a point. It has no dimensions: just a point.

Because we exist in three dimensions, we can see the inards of two-dimensional objects. In Flatland, when the sphere descends into the square’s realm, he claims to be able to see the square’s “guts”. And when the square is raised from Flatland into the sphere’s world, he can now see the guts and inards of all of the inhabitant of his home world or Flatland.

In Flatland, you can touch and manipulate other two dimensional objects, because you are a two-dimensional “person”. This is rational since we can touch and manipulate other three-dimensional objects in our lives. But near the end of the book there is an interesting line of reasoning exposed by the square that the sphere has chosen to enlighten: certainly, if there is Pointland, and there is Lineland, and Flatland, and the world in which the sphere lives, must there not be a land in which you could “see the inards” of spheres, because you would exist in a higher dimension. And, carrying that logic to its reasonable conclusion, there is a land of five dimensions, six, seven, all the way through the Nth dimension.

Perhaps God is infinite to us, and to all who interact with Him, because He exists above the dimensions we can experience. If a planar projection is the shadow of a three-dimensional object, could it be that we, as three-dimensional objects, are projections or shadows of the fourth dimension in which we exist, that of time? And perhaps, since God created time for us, He exists in a realm above that of time. Certainly, if He has existed – eternally – since before time began, and will continue to exists eternally into the future, He can’t be bound by time (which would be irrational since He made it: you can’t really be bound by something you create).

I propose that God can exist in infinitely many directions, with infinite power in each of those directions, and perfect control in each of those directions precisely because he is above time – he is outside of our existence, looking-in and down upon us as we do upon those geometric representations we call shapes and lines and points.

…it’s what I’m for.

I’ve decided that denominations are a good thing – mostly. When they directly describe a confessional or creedal standpoint, they’re great. However, when they become a point to divide Christians over, they’re bad. Very bad.

I’m a baptist because I believe that only true believers in Christ should be baptised. I’m reformed because I believe that the entire point of being a Christian is to become more like Christ – to be reformed to His perfect mold. And I’m independent because I think a better association for churches is for them to be autonomous units fighting Satan in this world; they can (and should, maybe even must) work towards that goal in a combined fashion, and should (perhaps must) build relationships and fellowship with other Christians in other churches in both their own and other areas of the world.

Any time I can join another Christian in doing good or promoting the gospel, I will try my best to do so. Where we do not disagree on fundamental issues of doctrine and belief, I will try to both learn from them and show them my views as backed-up by the Bible. When they are promoting a heresy, I will do my best to call them to the floor, and show them their error – and if they won’t listen to words of Christ and the rest of the Holy Bible, I will do my best to ignore them and stop fighting – I’ll let the Holy Spirit do His work in them, if He wills. But when our disagreements are on trivial, non-moral (or non-primary) issues, I will work with them to reach the lost, and to grow in my walk with Christ.

Drawing lines of battle over whether or not I’ll even speak to you because you’re a Presbyterian and I’m a Baptist, or you’re a Southern Baptist and not Reformed – that’s just idiotic. We’re in this fight together. Where we can’t reach agreement, I will attempt to pass peacefully by. But in those vast swaths where we do agree, that denominational title hanging over our heads just gets in the way of fellowshipping and accomplishing Christ’s work on earth.