Loveland Protestant Reformed Church
709 East
57th Street; Loveland, CO 80538
Services: 9:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. June
through August)
Vol. 6, No. 19 Pastor: Rev. Garry Eriks Phone: (970)
667-9481
Homepage on Internet: http://www.prca.org
Content:
Preaching (2)
The Irresistible Call of the Gospel (2)
Where Do O.T. Believers Go at Death?
The most important thing that the Bible says about preaching is that it is the way in which God's people hear the voice of Christ Himself. Jesus tells us that we do hear His voice and must hear it in John 10:27.
That we hear His voice in the preaching, is clear from other passages (Rom. 1:16, 17; 10:13, 14; I Cor. 1:18, 23, 24; Eph. 2:17). Notice, for example, in Ephesians 2:17, that it is Christ who comes and preaches peace both to Jews and Gentiles. Even in the OT it was the Spirit of Christ who spoke through the prophets (I Pet. 1:10, 11).
This is of the utmost importance. If Christ does not speak through the preaching, no one will ever be saved by the preaching of the gospel. No man's voice can convict sinners and lead them to repentance. Only Christ's voice can do that. No one has power to convert sinners and bring them to God. Only Christ can (Jn. 10:27).
Because Christ speaks through the preaching and causes His voice to be heard, the gospel is "the power of God unto salvation" (Rom. 1:16). Indeed, the gospel is "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (I Cor. 1:23, 24).
That Christ speaks through the gospel also explains the fact that the gospel always has a two-part effect. It not only saves, but it also hardens. It is not only a savor of life, but also of death (II Cor. 2:14-16). No one can come so near to Christ as to hear His voice and be neutral! He will either by the grace of God love that voice and desire to hear it always, or he will hate its very sound and shut his ears and heart to it (Is. 6:9, 10).
When people stumble through unbelief, they stumble over Christ! He is the stone of stumbling and rock of offence - not the preacher, at least not if the gospel is preached and preached properly.
In order for Christ to be heard through gospel preaching, however, several things must be true. In the first place, only the Scriptures must be preached. They, and they alone, are Christ's Word to His people. Anecdotes, jokes, entertainment, and the preacher's own thoughts, however valuable they may be, are of no value in preaching. The Word alone must be preached!
Second, the preaching must be expository. Really that is just another way of saying that it is the Word which must be preached, but it needs emphasis, because so much preaching is only hung on a text of Scripture and Scripture itself is never explained, nor the text preached. There is a great lack of true expository preaching today.
Third, as we noticed in the last issue, the preacher must be sent (Rom. 10:15), that is, authorized and ordained by Christ's church (Acts 13:1-4 - notice that the sending by the church is equated with the sending of the Holy Spirit in verse 4). If the preacher is not sent neither he nor his audience have any guarantee that Christ will use him and speak through him, and what use is preaching in that case?
May God grant that Christ's voice be heard once again in the churches! Rev. Ronald Hanko
The Irresistible Call of the Gospel (2)
No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. John 6:44
The reader who sent in this text, submitted it without a question attached, and apparently would like to have some general comments made on the text. This I am happy to do because it is such a crucially important text in the Gospel according to John.
* * * *
Last time we discussed part of the broad context in which these words of our Lord were spoken. The part of the context which we discussed was the miracle of the feeding of 5000 men, the miracles that followed, and the determination of the people to make Jesus their king.
That same determination of the people to make Jesus king was the chief motivation in their opening words when they met Jesus the next day in Capernaum (vss. 22-25).
Jesus, however, knew what was in their hearts, and He immediately brought the whole issue into the open when He accused them of a terribly wrong idea of His kingship. They were thinking of Jesus as an earthly king; He was not any such king in any sense of the word. His rebuke is sharp and pointed: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed" (26, 27).
As the conversation proceeded, two things became increasingly evident. One was that the people had no desire for the kind of King Jesus really was: not a kind who would fill their stomachs, but a King Who would die for their sins; and, therefore, not a King Who would give them earthly bread, but Who would give them His own body to eat and His own blood to drink.
The other fact that became evident was that the disciples of the Lord were deeply disappointed in the refusal of their Lord to seize the opportunity to become king. They thought also in terms of an earthly kingdom. They were as carnal and unspiritual as the people themselves. And they could not understand why Jesus deliberately antagonized the throng, and in this way deliberately spoiled any chances He might have had to become their king. How foolish of the Lord, they thought. He was driving away the people.
It was to this concern that the Lord addressed Himself in the words of verse 37: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." The Lord is saying, "You do not have to worry that I am deliberately doing things which make my work difficult, if not impossible. You do not have to worry that people will not come to me. All that the Father hath given me SHALL COME to me. Don't worry about that."
These are powerful words of the Lord.
All that the Father gives to Christ are the elect. They are given to Christ from all eternity. Here again is election in John's Gospel.
And thus the words mean: "Every elect shall come to me without fail."
But the words also mean: "None who are not elect will ever come to me." If people are offended at Jesus' words and go away (as the whole fickle multitude did [verse 66]), that is only because the Father never gave them to Christ.
And the disciples, who were also offended, did not go away only because they were given to Christ eternally. They had the opportunity. The Lord gave it to them: "Will ye also go away?" But they could not: "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life" (67, 68).
* * * *
Why could Jesus be so sure that all whom the Father gave Him would come to Him?
The answer is found in verses 44, 45. The Father Himself draws them. Not only is election of God. Not only is it true that every elect comes to Christ. It is also true that they come because of the irresistible call.
That is the basic meaning of this text.
But more next time. Prof. H. Hanko
Where Do O.T. Believers Go At Death?
That is the question for this issue. One of our readers has written: "Where did Old Testament believers go after death? I have heard of the doctrine of Sheol being the abode of the dead with upper (Sheol) for believers and lower (Sheol) for unbelievers, and this only ended after Christ had come. I don't know how to answer this."
This question focuses on a point where many who have the name "evangelical" have departed and are departing from the faith, that is, regarding the doctrine of heaven and hell, or eternal punishment and reward. This is the more distressing insofar as a denial of these Biblical teachings has in the past been characteristic of modernist unbelief.
Regarding the doctrine of hell, many are now teaching what is called "conditional immortality," that is, after suffering for limited time in hell, unbelievers are annihilated. They are punished but not eternally. John Stott is an "evangelical" who teaches this.
Leading to and supporting such teaching is the notion that the Hebrew word Sheol, and the Greek word Hades, both more often than not translated "hell" in the AV, do not in fact refer to such a place of eternal punishment at all. They refer, it is said, only to the place of the dead, the place where all go.
The NIV, the Bible of evangelicals, errs seriously at this point. It never translates Sheol as "hell" and rarely translates Hades as hell. The result is that hell is not mentioned in the NIV Old Testament at all, and only a few times in the NIV New Testament.
Along with this denial of hell (we intend to write more about it in the next issue), there are also those who are denying that heaven is the eternal abode of believers. The same argument is used regarding the words "Sheol" and "Hades."
Those who deny the traditional Biblical teaching regarding heaven seem to be found especially among the so-called "Christian Reconstructionists." For example, in a recent book, The Nature, Government and Function of the Church, Stephen Perks writes:
"I do not think it is appropriate at all for Christians to speak of 'going to heaven,' since this evidences more pagan ideas of the afterlife, of the purification of the soul by separation from the body, than it does of the Christian belief in deliverance from sin and fellowship with God through Christ" (p. 27).
He adds, "This world is Christ's inheritance, and as Christians we are co-heirs with him. The meek, we are told by Christ himself, will inherit what? Heaven? No. The earth (Matt. 5:5). From the way some Christians talk it seems they expect to inherit 'heaven.' They will be sorely disappointed. It's all going to be down here in the nitty-gritty of physical life. So you had better get used to it down here where for mankind life is lived" (p. 69).
Such foolish talk is part and parcel of the so-called Christian Reconstruction view of the kingdom of God and of Christ, i.e. that the kingdom is a Christian civilization and culture here and now, but it is nonetheless a serious error.
Not only do some Christians speak of "going to heaven." All do, including Paul, Peter and John (Phil. 3:20; Col. 1:5; Heb. 10:34; Heb. 12:22; I Pet. 1:4; Rev. 11:12; 12:10). Nor will those who speak in hope of "going to heaven" be disappointed. There they shall see and experience all that is promised in Revelation 21:3, 4. There they shall be with Abraham and other OT believers (Matt. 8:11; Lk. 16:22; Heb. 12:22, 23). R. Hanko
We have a special treat for those who are interested in the early history (first 12 years) of the Protestant Reformed Churches. The Rev. Martin VanderWal of the Covenant Prot. Ref. Church in Wyckoff, New Jersey has scanned in the first part of the "History of the Protestant Reformed Churches" by Rev. Herman Hoeksema. We thank him for his effort and invite the reader to see a book which has been out of print for many years. See: http://www.CovPRC.org/