Hudsonville Protestant Reformed Church
5101 Beechtree
Hudsonville, Michigan
49426
Services: 9:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
Homepage on Internet: http://www.prca.org
Contents:
The Great
Tribulation
Did
only “Many” Sin?
God’s Hammer (4): The
Origin of Scripture (Part 1)
Something much discussed
and a source of many differences between Christians, as well as something of great concern
to God’s people, is the matter of end-times tribulation. Is the great tribulation mentioned in Matt. 24:21
still to come or is it past? Will there be
tribulation when the end comes? If so, will
the church be subjected to this tribulation or will they be gone from the world before the
last tribulation comes?
Such questions as these are of great importance, for they affect our view of the future and of our own calling and the church’s with respect to the future. They weigh especially heavily as the end approaches and we ourselves and our children must face the possibility of persecution, if such is indeed coming.
We believe that persecution has been and will continue to be the lot of God’s
people to the end of time. This is the
testimony of such passages as Romans 8:17 and II Tim. 3:12.
We do not believe, therefore, that the lot of God’s people will improve as the
end times come or that there will be a long period of peace and spiritual prosperity for
them in which persecutions for Christ’s sake cease.
Nor do we believe the church will be raptured and gone when the last great
tribulation comes.
We believe, too, that the great tribulation mentioned in Matthew 24:21 is still to
come -- that times will not become better, but worse, for God’s people. To consign the whole first part of Matt. 24,
including verse 21, to the past, as some do, is to consign it to the dustbin. Also, the notion that God’s people will be
away, or that persecution will cease before the end does not harmonize with the passages
which follow.
Persecution is not something that we must simply endure. It is an integral and important part of our
salvation. Matt. 5:10-12 already indicates
this when it speaks of the blessedness and happiness of those who are persecuted for
Christ’s sake (cf. Acts 5:41). Phil.
1:29 tells us that suffering for Christ is a gift of God through Christ – one of the
gifts He earned for us by His death on the cross! Col.
1:24 says that these sufferings are part of Christ’s own sufferings (cf. I Pet.
4:13), that are left behind for us, for the church’s sake.
We know, too, that suffering, though never easy or pleasant, is for our good. It is not prosperity and peace which bring us
closer to God and purify us, but rather the fiery trials of our faith. This is the clear testimony of Psalm 11:5;
119:67,71 (note that the context of both these Psalms is persecution as also the following
passages), Romans 8:28, I Peter 1:7 and innumerable other passages.
The old saying that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church recognizes
this also. There is nothing in all the life
of the church that gives such testimony to the power and wonder of God’s grace as the
willingness of God’s people to suffer all things for the sake of the gospel and of
Christ. We must not only expect such
suffering, therefore, but we must be willing and even happy to suffer such things for our
own salvation, for the church and for Christ who suffered all things for our sakes.
Rev. Ronald Hanko
For as by one man’s disobedience many
were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Romans
5:19.
The questioner who writes us is puzzled over Paul’s use of the word
“many” instead of “all.” One
would expect that, in speaking of the fall of Adam, the apostle would have said “all
were made sinners.” But he doesn’t
do that. He says, “Many were made
sinners.” Why?
The problem is an interesting one because several verses in the preceding context
speak of ideas similar to those in vs. 19.
“If through the offence of one, many be dead; …the gift of grace…by
Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many” (vs. 15).
“As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men…, even so by the
righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men…” (vs. 18).
Vss. 16 & 17 have in them the same idea, although no specific mention is made
of “many” or “all.”
We must bear in mind from the outset that the emphasis of the apostle in these vss.
is not so much on who and how many fell in Adam, and who and how many are saved in Christ. While he mentions these ideas as well, his main
emphasis is on what is called the federal
headship of both Adam and Christ.
This is a doctrine about which no one thinks in our day. How many have heard a sermon on federal headship? How many have read articles recently written on
the question of federal headship? It is a
truth of Scripture forgotten and assigned to oblivion.
Most do not even know what it means.
Scripture teaches (in this very passage, beginning with vs. 12) that Adam was the
federal head of the human race. That means
that when Adam sinned, he sinned as the representative of the whole human race.
That truth, in turn, means that the guilt
of Adam’s sin was imputed to and became guilt of the all men ever born. You understand what that means, I hope. It means that every man, woman and child is justly
sentenced to hell because, even apart from his own sin, he/she is guilty of Adam’s
sin. That guilt is sufficient for eternal
condemnation.
It means, further, that I have no excuse for my inability to keep God’s law. I have no excuse for my totally depraved nature,
for it is God’s just punishment on me for my sin of eating of the tree of knowledge,
of good, and evil.
It means, still more, that though I am conceived and born in sin, this is simply
because Adam’s sin is my sin, and this corrupt nature is part of God’s sentence,
“The day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” I ate of the forbidden tree 6000 years ago. I am now spiritually dead. That is what Paul is stressing here.
But the same is true of the work of Christ. Christ
is the federal Head of the elect. He
represented them when He died on the cross. What
Christ did on the cross in paying for the guilt and pollution of sin becomes our
responsibility and blessedness. We are truly
crucified with Christ.
Scripture makes clear that what is true of Christ’s cross is also true of His
resurrection, for we are not only crucified with Christ, but we are also dead with Him,
and are risen again when He rose. The
relation of the first Adam to the human race is the same as the relation of the second
Adam to the elect.
This judicial work of Christ is the legal foundation for all the actual salvation
we received.
It is understandable that anyone who speaks of an atonement of Christ for all men
head for head cannot possibly teach the federal headship of Christ. He must deny Romans 5:12-21. For, if Christ
represented all men on the cross, then the sins of all men are forgiven and eternal
life is merited for all men. Then all men
are saved.
Now, to turn more specifically to the question which a reader asked, we must
remember, first of all, that the word “all” in Scripture, when it is connected
with the death of Christ, never means every man head for head. When Paul writes: “For as in Adam all died,
even so in Christ shall all be made alive,” the meaning is that all who are in Adam
died when Adam died, and all who are in Christ were made alive when Christ was made alive.
Christ’s resurrection, as a simple fact, did not make every man head for head
alive. Not the crassest Arminian would hold
to that. Only Universalists would take such
an obviously unscriptural position.
But in Adam is the entire human race, which died in Him. And in Christ is the full number of the elect who
are made alive in him.
When Rom. 5:19 uses the word “many,” it means to emphasize that the
number of those who were made sinners through Adam’s disobedience was a very large
number. But the same is true of those who are
made righteous by Christ’s obedience. These
are not a few scattered people, an insignificant dropping from a vast host. The ones made righteous are also a vast number, a
host, which no man can number, a congregation greater than the stars of the heavens and
the sand on the seashore. God saves a
multitude. Not all men; but a multitude, for
all that. This multitude is the true human
race of sovereign elect, the “world” of John 3:16, the “all” of I Cor.
15:22, and the “many” of Rom. 5:19.
Prof. Herman C. Hanko.
In the last issue we saw that Scripture is the “more sure word” (II Peter
1:16-19). The Word is sure because its origin is not in man but in God: “the prophecy
came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by
the Holy Ghost” (21).
“Prophecy” (19, 20, 21) not only includes the Old Testament (OT) writing
prophets, such as Hosea, but it also refers to the whole of the OT from the perspective of
its predictions. From the mother promise of
Genesis 3:15, we see that all of the OT points ahead to Christ and His universal church. For example, the law predicts Christ as the great king (Num. 24:17)
and the Psalms prophesy His rule over the
nations (22:27-31) and return to judge the world (50:1ff).
Thus Peter is telling us that the whole of the OT (from the perspective of its
predictions)” came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (II Peter 1:21).
Let us be clear about it: man is not the originator of Scripture (OT or NT). Man did not determine what was said, nor how it
was said, nor with what words it was said, “For the prophecy came not in old time by
the will of man” (21). Do you believe
this? You must, for this is a first principle
in understanding the Scriptures: “Knowing this
first, that…the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man” (21). Without this as the key you will never truly grasp
the Bible or know the Savior revealed in its pages.
Higher critics rejected this first principle for understanding the Bible. They hold that the origin of the Bible is in man (though God maybe helped a bit). They challenge the date of the OT books especially
the prophetic books which they date after the event prophesied. They deny predictive prophecy because of their
prior commitment to naturalism. Whereas Peter
writes, “the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man” (21), they say,
“The Hebrew books came by the will of man often a lot later than they purport.” They hold that the Bible consists of
“cunningly devised fables” (16).
Since the Bible did not originate in man’s will, it is different from every
other writing. It is different from
newspapers and magazines, from school textbooks and novels.
It is different even from books written by Christians. All man’s books are written according to
God’s providence but the Bible alone is written by divine inspiration. Buddhism’s Dhammapada, Hinduism’s Bhagavad-Gita and Confucius’ Annalects (which do not claim to come by divine
inspiration) and Islam’s Koran (which does)
all come from the will of man. Thus the Bible
alone is God’s hammer.
Rev. Angus Stewart