Vol. 81; No. 11; March 1, 2005
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Meditation – Rev. James Slopsema
Editorial – Rev. Kenneth Koole
All Around Us – Rev. Gise J. VanBaren
Feature Article – Prof. David Engelsma
Grace Life: for the Rising Generation -- Rev. Mitchell Dick
Understanding the Times – Mr. Calvin Kalsbeek
Marking the Bulwarks of Zion – Prof. Herman Hanko
Taking Heed to the Doctrine – Rev. Steven Key
Contribution
– Rev. William Langerak
News From Our Churches – Mr. Benjamin Wigger
Meditation:
Rev. James Slopsema
Rev. Slopsema is pastor of First Protestant
Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan
The Cities of Refuge
The Lord also spake unto Joshua,
saying,
The land had been divided by lot to the twelve tribes, each one receiving its
inheritance.
Now was the time for the appointment of the cities of refuge. The Lord had given detailed instructions
concerning this through Moses. These details
are recorded in Numbers 35 and Deuteronomy 19. Under
Joshua these cities are now appointed.
In general we may say that these cities of refuge were havens of safety for those
who accidentally killed a neighbor.
These cities served as types or pictures of a greater refuge, Jesus Christ, in whom
both Old Testament Israel and the church of all ages find a refuge from all sin.
That this is true is evident from Hebrews 6:18, which speaks of the consolation of
those “who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.” Notice, the New Testament saints flee for refuge. This is an obvious reference to the Old Testament
cities of refuge. The New Testament saints
flee for refuge, even as the Old Testament saints fled for refuge in the cities of refuge. They do this by fleeing to Jesus Christ, in whom
they find the hope that is set before them. This
makes the Old Testament cities of refuge a type or picture of the refuge we have in Jesus
Christ.
To this refuge we must flee, as did the Old Testament saints when they fled to the cities of refuge.
Key to
understanding the cities of refuge is the avenger of blood mentioned twice in this
chapter.
The word “avenger” has the primary meaning of doing the part of a kinsman
or relative. This was to redeem his near
relative from difficulty or danger. The word
is most often translated “redeemer.” An
example of a person’s acting as a redeemer is the repurchasing of a field that a
close relative had to sell in time of great need. Another
example is the redeeming (or buying out of slavery) of a relative who sold himself into
bondage in a time of poverty. It was the
calling of everyone in Israel to be such a redeemer, should the opportunity arise.
In connection with the cities of refuge, we are talking about a redeemer who was a
redeemer of blood. His work of redemption was
to avenge the murder of a close relative.
Immediately after the flood, God informed Noah, “whoso sheddeth man’s
blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man” (Gen.
9:6). This establishes the principle of
capital punishment. One who takes the life of
another must forfeit his own life.
In Israel the responsibility of slaying the murderer fell to the next of kin of the
one slain. When a murder took place, a price
had to be paid. The price was the life of the
murderer. This price was to be exacted by the
next of kin. In this way he acted as
redeemer, not now to pay a price to help a close relative but to exact the price of the
life of the one who murdered his relative.
As the term “avenger of blood” suggests, this was an act of vengeance. It was not, however, to be an act of personal
revenge. This is repeatedly forbidden by the
Lord in Scripture. Romans 12:19, for example,
warns us, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath:
for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” From this we conclude that the next of kin who
shed the blood of the murderer was acting on behalf of God.
He was executing the vengeance of God. Today
God avenges the act of murder through the state. In
Bible times He did this through the next of kin.
God also regulated how His vengeance was to be executed. He did this with the cities of refuge.
The cities of refuge were designed to protect those who had killed a neighbor
unawares and unwittingly. The Lord made a
distinction in Numbers 35 between the one who in hatred lay in wait to kill another,
whether with a stone, a piece of iron, or a club, and the one who accidentally took the
life of another whom he did not hate and whom he did not seek to harm. The latter were afforded refuge and safety in
these cities of refuge. The former were not.
The Lord through Moses specified that, upon entering Canaan, the people must pick
six cities of refuge. Before entering Canaan,
those who accidentally killed a neighbor could find refuge at the altar of the tabernacle
(Ex. 21:12-14). However, once the people of
Israel were in Canaan, distance would render successful flight difficult for many. Therefore God specified that six cities of refuge
be established in Canaan, three on each side of the Jordan River. Under Joshua Israel appointed Kedesh in Galilee in
mount Naphtali, and Shechem in mount Ephraim, and Kirjath-arba, which is Hebron, in the
mountain of Judah. And on the other side
Jordan by Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness upon the plain out of
the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out
of the tribe of Manasseh (Josh. 20:7, 8).
The regulations that the Lord laid down for refuge in these cities were simple. One who fled to one of the cities of refuge was to
receive temporary asylum until he could appear before the congregation to substantiate
that he was innocent of premeditated murder. If
found guilty of such murder, he was given over to the avenger of blood to be slain. If the congregation determined that he had killed
another by accident, the fugitive was received into the city. He was to stay there until the death of the high
priest. Were the avenger of blood to
encounter the fugitive outside the city, he could legally kill him. After the death of the high priest the fugitive
could return home a “free” man. He
could not be redeemed by payment to the family whose member he had accidentally killed. Only the death of the high priest could redeem
him.
All
this points to a greater refuge in Jesus Christ.
To understand Jesus as our great refuge, we must bear in mind that God is the
Avenger of blood. Through Moses God said of
Himself, “I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate
me” (Deut. 32:41). Now, normally, the
vengeance of God is spoken of in Scripture in the context of God’s taking revenge on
the wicked for what they have done to His beloved people.
But we may not forget that, by nature, the elect church is also the enemy of God. She forms the heart of the human race that fell in
Adam. The original sin of man corrupted her
as well, so that she is depraved and defiled with sin.
In her natural state she is no different than the world. She is the enemy of God, filled with hate, able
only to break every commandment of God. By
her sin she dishonors and offends the living God. She
also does great injury to her fellow man.
God is a just God, who must and will take vengeance on the sin of His church. Let’s not overlook this. God is the God of all goodness and perfection. He is the light, and in Him is no darkness at all. To maintain Himself as such, God must show His
complete disapproval against sin, all sin, even the sin of His beloved church. He does this by punishing their sin to the
extreme. For God to do anything less than
this would be to deny Himself and His goodness. Consequently,
God is the Avenger of blood against all those who fall into sin. He takes vengeance on all those who through sin
dishonor Him and injure their neighbor.
But God has provided a refuge for His people in Jesus Christ.
In addition to being the Avenger of blood, God is the Redeemer of the church.
He is this because He is the next of kin. God
has eternally chosen the church as His own. He
has even ordained the church to be His family, his sons and daughters. This makes Him their next of kin. As the next of kin, the Lord obligates Himself to
redeem His people from the vengeance of His own justice.
In this case redemption requires the payment of a price. The price is not silver and gold. That would be an easy thing for the Lord to pay,
since all the silver and gold are His. No, He
must find someone who will stand in the place of His beloved church, stand before Him with
the guilt of His people and bear all the vengeance of His wrath against their sin. There is only one who can do this — His only
begotten Son in our flesh. And so, in His
great love and mercy for His church, God sent His only begotten Son into our flesh. Upon His Son He poured out the vials of His wrath
and vengeance. All His life long, but
especially at the cross, the Son endured this wrath until it was all gone. There is now no more vengeance of wrath left for
the church. She is free from all vengeance.
This saving, redeeming work of Christ on the cross was typified in the Old
Testament by the death of the high priest. Only
when the high priest died was the manslayer in the Old Testament finally free from the
avenger of blood. This looked ahead to the
death of a greater High Priest, whose death would forever free the church from the great
Avenger.
In keeping with the nature of Old Testament types, what the church has in Christ is
much greater than what she had in the Old Testament cities of refuge. With the cities of refuge it was only the person
not guilty of premeditated murder who found refuge. In
Christ one can find refuge from the Avenger for murder and sin of every kind.
To
find safety from the avenger of blood in the Old Testament, one had to flee to the nearest
city of refuge. If the avenger of blood could
catch him, he could rightfully kill the manslayer before he was able to reach a city of
refuge. And should the manslayer stray
outside the city after receiving refuge, he could legally be slain by the avenger of
blood. It was only the foolhardy who failed
to flee to the city of refuge or who left it before the death of the high priest.
In like manner must we flee to the refuge God has given the church in Jesus Christ.
We flee to this great refuge by faith. True
faith leads one to a godly sorrow over sin, to a proper confession of sin, and then to
cling to the cross to lay hold of Christ’s payment for sin. This is how we flee to the refuge of God.
Let us flee to God’s refuge daily.
Those who are foolish enough not to flee to this refuge will be pursued by the
great Avenger of blood and be destroyed.
Those who flee to this refuge in the wisdom of faith will find safety and the hope
of eternal life.
Editorial:
Rev. Kenneth Koole
Previous
article in this series: February 15, 2005, p.
220.
Marriage and the Culture
of Divorce (2)
The Church Infected
Last issue we considered the factors
contributing so heavily to the increased number of divorces plaguing society in general,
and, sad to say, the Christian church to the same degree.
We stated that there were three main factors:
first, the adoption of lenient (no-fault) divorce laws by our society; second, the
number of women, and in particular mothers and wives, out in the workforce rather than
being ‘keepers at home’ (Tit. 2:5); and third (but not least), television, with
its pernicious and pervasive influence in the home.
We turn now to the central reason why the state of marriage of professing
Christians is essentially no different today than that of unbelieving society. It is not difficult to discover. It is the twenty-first century church’s
willful ignoring of Christ’s clear words concerning divorce and remarriage.
One would think that, whatever the law (the legal allowance) of the land, be it
no-fault divorce, making divorce easy to obtain, it ought have little effect on Christian
marriage. After all, Christians are governed
by a higher law, the law of Christ Jesus, the great bridegroom, and His Word. This should be the great restraint for Christians
against the temptation of imitating the world and seeking to ‘solve their marital
problems’ by filing for divorce.
So one would think!
But this is not the case. The one
great dyke needed to stop the present-day flood of divorce from drowning the church’s
life and witness, needed to separate and protect marriages of professing Christians from
the violent storms wreaking havoc on worldlings’ marriages, has been leveled and
ignored.
The present situation in Christendom is this:
her church pews are filled not only with those who are divorced, but also with many
divorcees who are remarried. Those who have
abandoned their families and spouses and proceeded to marry the new love of their life
remain as members.
All admit that this is not ideal. So,
what to do? Today, churches content
themselves with a ‘confession.’ “Yes,
looking back I can see that I was guilty of sin in my dealings with my other spouse(s). I now humbly admit that. As a sinner I am sorry. (But let him who is without sin cast the first
stone!)”
That having been said, absolution is granted, and life within the church goes on. (Everybody is called to be ‘so
forgiving’ you know. Even that young
mother with three young school-age children sitting three rows behind her ‘ex’
with the new ‘love of his life.’)
The reality is this, churches do not believe and teach that marriage is for life. “Till death us do part” is, they
acknowledge, the biblical ideal. But it is
only an ideal! In real life it is different. Believers cannot be held to the ideal, not if one
judges that he or she needs to start all over again.
So, common practice has become this: one
has freedom of conscience within the church to determine his own need for a divorce (Judge
not!), and whatever remarried person desires yet to have communion within the church,
perhaps having confessed “I am a sinful man, O Lord!” is received into
fellowship again.
The problem with such a ‘confession’ is that it is not a repentance. If the new relationship is the result of sin and
is itself, according to God’s Word, an adulterous one, one does not put things right
by continuing in that forbidden relationship. One
is called to leave it. That is repentance. Not saying, “I admit what I have done was
sin, so now I can continue this way.” But
such is ‘repentance’ these days.
What it comes down to today is this: whatever
is allowed by the state, the church recognizes as valid and as having the approval of God. The argument is that the church is compelled to
recognize all these divorces and remarriages. After
all, we live in a divorce-prone society. Allowances
must be made.
Christ’s teaching on divorce and remarriage is markedly different. He did not, for expediency, adopt the prevailing
practice and ‘legal allowances’ of His day.
He went directly against its current.
Christ’s view of marriage and divorce is quite simple. #1 — Marriage is for life, a permanent bond
as long as both still live. #2 — There
are not many grounds and God-approved reasons for divorce, but one and one only, namely,
adultery (the unfaithfulness of one’s spouse). And
#3 — Divorce does not dissolve the marriage bond, not even if granted for the
biblical reason of adultery. One’s
God-given spouse remains one’s spouse, though living as divorced, that is, in
separated fashion. The divorced Christian
must continue to live singly, or be reconciled to that spouse. God alone has the power to terminate one’s
marriage, namely, through death. Men’s
laws and pronouncements cannot undo and unravel what God has put together.
To put it as succinctly as possible — Did you make a lawful vow to another in
marriage? God will hold you to it until one
of you has died.
This, we are convinced, is Scripture’s teaching for the New Testament
believer. To be sure, it is high, it is
demanding, but it is what the Lord of the church plainly requires, and what the apostles
taught as well.
It is also completely out of step with almost everything that is taking place in
the arena of divorce and remarriage in Christendom today.
Or, more accurately, everything taught and allowed today is out of step with the
Lord’s teaching on this matter. As out
of step as the Jewish nation was (including Christ’s own disciples at first) when
Christ first uttered these words back then. “It
hath been said…, but I say unto you….”
There are four main passages in the gospel accounts that record Christ’s own
teaching on the matter of divorce and remarriage. The
first is found in Matthew 5:31, 32 (in the well-known Sermon on the Mount). Matthew 5 is where you have Christ’s list of
“You have heard that it hath been said in old times…, But I say unto
you….” In Matthew 5 Christ sets
down the ‘new’ laws that are to bind His New Testament church and kingdom.
The second is found in Matthew 19:3-12. There
are found the significant words, “What therefore God hath joined together, let not
man put asunder” (v. 6). It is not the
law of the state that is to govern New Testament believers in the matter of the bond of
marriage, nor yet Moses’ law (Old Testament allowances), but God’s Word through
His Son. This goes back to the original
marriage ordinance at the beginning.
The third significant passage is recorded in Mark 10:2-12, which passage,
significantly, comes immediately prior to the incident of the Lord Jesus taking the little
children into His arms and blessing them. Anyone
who does not see the purpose of the gospel writer in putting these two things in closest
proximity, namely, Christ’s forbidding of divorce with an eye to the right to
remarry, and putting His arms around little children in His compassion, is willingly
blind.
And the fourth is Luke 16:18. A
strange text in some ways. It reads: “Whosoever putteth away his wife, and
marrieth another, committeth adultery: and
whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.” This is as straight forward as it comes.
The strangeness is the context. What
Christ has been talking about to this point seems to have nothing at all to do with
marriage. One is mystified why Christ would
insert a word against divorce and remarriage here. Why
did He do that?
The explanation has to do with a Lord Christ bristling with anger. He has just charged the Pharisees with serving
“mammon” (material wealth) rather than God.
They have responded by deriding Him (v. 14). In
anger, Christ charges them with justifying themselves before men, and He speaks of that
which is an abomination in the sight of God. In
this context He inserts these words against divorce and remarriage. He is indicating an area where they have most
angered the God of the covenant. It had to do
with the scandal of their marriage teachings and the treatment of their vows as a
consequence, to say nothing of their spouses.
Let the church be warned. You want to
make your Lord good and angry? Adopt the
Jewish view of marriage and ignore Christ’s teachings on divorce and remarriage.
What is significant about the above four passages for our day and age is the
historical context in which they were stated. They
were stated in the context of a nation and a church where divorce and remarriage was
common practice, as it is in the church of our own day.
We read in Matthew 19:3 that the Pharisees came to Jesus tempting Him and asking,
“Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?” This was the practice of the church at that time. It amounted to ‘no-fault divorce’ as far
as the husband was concerned. All that was
needed was to go to the temple, state your unhappiness with the wife (irreconcilable
differences), and secure a bill of divorcement. Once
signed by the priest, it was all legal and recognized.
One was free to marry again. Little
different from today.
The Pharisees claimed that this was permitted by Moses, so why should Jesus condemn
them?
Without getting into the reasons why God instructed Moses to permit divorce and
remarriage in Old Testament times (having to do with the hard-hearted in that nation),
this much is indisputable, that Christ Jesus, the new Lawgiver of the New Testament
church, was not going to allow this practice to continue in the New Testament kingdom. It was to cease in the church with Christ’s
coming.
In both Matthew 19 and Mark 10, Christ points out that from the beginning it was
not so: “What therefore God hath put
together, let not man put asunder.”
First, what Christ is saying here is not merely that it is wrong to attempt to
loose two from each other (really, trying to loose them from their vows), but that really
it is impossible. What God has done, let not
man think that he can undo. The word
translated “hath put together” means literally “hath yoked together.” So, let not man think he has any right or power to
undo that yoke. If he presumes to, he sins. The yoke remains until God removes it.
Second, what Christ is saying in these passages is that the church, in her new
spiritual maturity, is going to return, now that the great Bridegroom has come, to what
God intended from the very beginning. What
came with Sinai in this area is abrogated and done. Let
it be understood from now on that once you take a vow of marriage before the face of God,
you are yoked together for life.
Does that give you pause before you yoke yourself to somebody for life? Good! That’s
the point. It is not easy in, easy out. After all, we all make mistakes. No, you are committed for life. It is for better or for worse, remember?
What Jesus had to say about the permanency of the marriage bond was so new and
sharp and foreign to the disciples’ ears that, as we read in Mark 10:10, the
disciples asked Him again of the same matter. In
other words, “Lord, did we hear you right? Do
you really mean what you said?” You did! And I do. At
this point He pointedly states, “Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry
another, committeth adultery against her.” How
much plainer can Christ be!
The question is, are we, as twenty-first century Christians, to take Him seriously,
at His word, so to speak? Well, the apostles
did, that’s for sure.
Before ending this article, there are three points we want to make in connection
with Christ’s doctrine of divorce.
First, it is plain from the passages referred to, that according to Christ there is
but one lawful ground for divorce, namely, adultery.
Matthew 5:32 declares that “…whosoever shall put away his wife, saving
for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery.” Matthew 19:9 makes the same allowance: “except it be for fornication” (sexual
unfaithfulness). Christ explicitly, in direct
contrast to the prevailing practice of His time — divorce permitted for every reason
— refused to allow any other consideration as a God-approved ground.
This is not saying that one must divorce his spouse if he has been
unfaithful. Adultery is not the unforgivable
sin, not when it is confessed and turned from. But
one may (has the right to) divorce in the instance of adultery. It is the only God-approved reason.
Nor does this leave a wife with no recourse if a husband is abusive, nor a husband
with no recourse if the wife is abusive to the children.
In such circumstances one may, for safety purposes, move for temporary separation,
for instance, a restraining order. But this
is not yet divorce, which allows for a permanent separation due to past misdeeds.
Second, this divine refusal to countenance divorce has everything to do with the
character of God. As God stated already in
the Old Testament to Malachi, when divorce was becoming common amongst the very priests
themselves, “…and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he
hateth putting away” (2:15). This,
Christ makes plain, has not changed in New Testament times.
And third, as we said previously, divorce does not end the marriage in the sense of
dissolving the marriage. If it did, why
would Christ say in Matthew 5:32, “…and whosoever shall marry her that is
divorced committeth adultery”? Evidently,
though divorced, she still has a husband. If
not, the new husband would not be guilty of adultery.
(This matter of forbidding remarriage even when properly divorced we intend to
address more at length next time.)
In this connection a question still needs to be answered. But what about those who are divorced, who did so
for an unbiblical reason, but due to a certain ignorance and with the approval of
one’s church? The deed is done. It cannot be undone. What now? Is
there no remedy or hope with God?
Yes, there is. The remedy is to make
confession of one’s sin to God, informing both one’s church and spouse that it
is so, and then doing what one can to seek reconciliation with one’s spouse. It may be too late for any realistic hope for that
to occur. Still, one has tried to put matters
right. One may then have a good conscience
that one did attempt to undo one’s wrong and honor God’s Word. Such a one may have peace with God and full
acceptance by the church of Christ.
…to be continued.
All Around Us:
Rev. Gise VanBaren
Rev.
VanBaren is a minister emeritus in the Protestant Reformed Churches.
The Year
That Was
By the time
this article is printed in the Standard Bearer, a
good portion of the New Year will have passed. There
is, however, a real need to reflect on the year past—2004. News commentators last year, in their reporting on
some terrible “disaster” in the realm of creation, could be heard asking the
question, “What’s going on here?” That
is a reasonable question. There is something
“strange” going on—strange, at least, to the commentator. Rarely, however, does one hear the mention of God
in this connection. The closest approach to
what the Bible has to say is a reference to a disaster as being of apocalyptic
proportions—an obvious reference to the testimony of the book of Revelation.
We have been reminded this past year of Scripture’s testimony: “For nation shall rise against nation, and
kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in
divers places” (Matt. 24:7). Revelation
8 presents the blowing of the seven trumpets—an increase of disasters from the
average (1/4 of the earth affected) to above average (1/3 of the earth grievously
affected). Are we hearing those trumpets? It would seem so.
The Christian observes the great disasters as an increase of trials and troubles on
this earth as foretold in Scripture. Others
have called attention to the great increase of disasters in this past year as well. Casey
Research, Inc. of Dallas, Texas published an article that chillingly summarizes the
catastrophes of the past year. The article
speaks of these events and also about those likely to happen in the near future. The Christian can only respond, “The Word of
God concerning events immediately preceding Christ’s return are taking place.”
In what might have been exceptional foresight, Japanese priests named 2004 “the year
of disaster.” Indeed, it was heralded on
December 26, 2003 when a large earthquake in Iran destroyed the city of Bam, killing
30,000 and leaving around 70,000 homeless; to the day one year before the cataclysmic
undersea earthquake in Sumatra. Let’s take a look at 2004.
More than 52 tornadoes struck Illinois and
other Midwest states, devastating Utica, IL and killing 8 people in the basement of the
Millstone Tavern. The NASA Ames Research
Center found that bug populations that have multiplied unchecked due to extremely mild
winters have devoured huge swathes of forest in western Canada and Alaska since 1995. The damage had gone unnoticed because the region
is largely uninhabited and not harvested for timber.
An exceptionally strong monsoon flooding in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh left 15
million homeless. Six hurricanes struck the
U.S., drove Floridians out of their homes and left 350,000 people without power for days. Charley was deemed the second costliest hurricane
on record. Jeanne delivered a hard blow to
already poverty-stricken Haiti, and the Philippines saw the worst storm season in 13
years. Unprecedented numbers of locusts
ravaged Africa and made it as far north as Portugal and the Canary Islands. According to the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization, one ton of locusts can eat as much as 10 elephants or 2,500 people in one
day. The San Andreas Fault ruptured near
Parkfield, CA, producing an earthquake of 6.0 on the Richter scale. Mt. St. Helens was spewing huge clouds of steam. A record ten typhoons hit Japan, killing more than
100 people and causing estimated $6.7 billion damage.
Typhoon Tokage, the deadliest to hit Japan in over two decades, produced a wave
eight stories high and was followed three days later by the deadliest earthquake in one
decade, which destroyed more than 6,000 buildings and caused more than 1,000 landslides.
And, to top it off, on December 26, a 9.0
earthquake shook Sumatra, causing a tsunami that devastated the shore lines of 12
countries in the Indian Ocean and, at last count, had killed over 140,000 people from 37
different nations (and counting).
Are there more such cataclysmic events waiting
to happen? Unfortunately, yes. Consider, for instance, a warning that was issued
by a group of researchers at University College London in 1999.
There is a strong possibility, the scientists
warned, that the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma, one of the Canary islands off the North
African coast, could erupt with such force that it would virtually split the island in
two. That would cause a tsunami in the
Atlantic Ocean of such force that tidal waves up to 160 feet high would strike the North
American East Coast, destroying large parts of Boston, New York, and Miami. “Following an eruption in 1949, scientists
found a fracture running through the western side of the volcano,” states an article
in last week’s Republican. “The
land mass — a half trillion tons of rock — appeared to have slipped 13 feet
toward the sea during the eruption, but friction apparently stopped the slide.”
A new eruption, warns the team from University
College London, could cause the entire land mass to slide into the sea, creating the
feared mega-tsunami. J. Michael Rhodes, a
volcanologist at University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is skeptical. He says there is no way to predict if and when
such a landslide will occur — and what effect it would have. “[It] really depends on how big the landslide
is and how rapidly it moves. It also depends
on whether the land slides all at once or whether it goes in pieces. And there is no way of knowing that,” he told
the Republican.
Then there is America’s pending
super-volcano in Yellowstone National Park. In
2004, it showed an alarming rise in sulfuric gases and water temperature, killing fish and
wildlife and causing park rangers to close some sites to tourism. When (note, we didn’t say “if”) a
mega-eruption happens, say scientists such as Bill McGuire, professor of geohazards at the
Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre at University College London, “the explosion
would be the loudest noise heard by man for 75,000 years.” Falling ash, lava flows and the sheer blow of the
eruption would eradicate all life within a radius of a thousand kilometers, according to
McGuire.
Or in the New Madrid zone, for example. This earthquake-prone fault runs through parts of
Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas.
The three earthquakes—each an estimated 8.0 or higher on the Richter
scale—that occurred in 1811 and 1812 near New Madrid, MO are among the Great
Earthquakes of known history and affected the topography more than any other earthquake in
North America. Large pieces of land sank
into the earth, new lakes were formed, the course of the Mississippi river was changed ...
so strong were the quakes that they reportedly rung church bells in New Eng–land. Casualties were few, however, since at that time,
the Mississippi river valley was sparsely settled. A
similar earthquake today would cost hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of lives.
Then there is the fault associated with the
meeting of the African and European tectonic plates that run through the British island of
Gibraltar. Some earth scientists forecast
that this is the one most likely to go, triggering a massive tsunami that would devastate
the coast of Portugal — as it did in 1755 when an estimated 100,000 people were
killed by the disaster.
A recent NY Times editorial titled
“The Year the Earth Fought Back” compares 2004 to 1906, a year of major
earthquakes—including the “Great San Francisco Earthquakes”—volcano
eruptions and other natural disasters around the world.
“Given these cascades of disasters past and present,” wonders author
Simon Winchester, “...might there be some kind of butterfly effect, latent and
deadly, lying out in the seismic world?” He
speculates that “the movement among the world’s tectonic plates may be one part
of [an] enormous dynamic system, with effects of one plate’s shifting more likely
than not to spread far, far away, quite possibly clear across the surface of the
globe.”
What to do?
First and probably most important, don’t take Mother Nature for granted. No amount of modernity can tame the earth. If you live in an area that has been devastated in
the past, or that is at risk, take what steps you can to be prepared—including
keeping a stash of long-lived food and try to secure a source of clean water (or, the
water purification materials need to create same). Then go about your business.
There have always been earthquakes throughout the earth’s history—often
devastating. There have always been
tsunamis—often very destructive. But all
of these things are occurring in a short period of time, are among the greatest that have
devastated the earth, and have affected more people than ever before. The writer of the above article points out that
mankind cannot withstand the forces of “nature.”
What must he do? He should prepare
himself for disaster striking in his area. He
should have adequate water and food supplies at home for any eventuality.
But there is no recognition of God. There
is no recognition of the fulfillment of scriptural signs concerning Christ’s return. In fact, some have gone out of the way to mock
with the idea that God is at work or that there may be any kind of retribution here. In the Grand Rapids Press, January
4, 2005, an article appears by David Brooks of the New York Times News Service. He writes:
Human beings have always told stories to
explain deluges such as this.
Most cultures have deep at their core a flood
myth in which the great bulk of humanity is destroyed and a few are left to repopulate and
repurify the human race. In most of these
stories, God is meting out retribution, punishing those who have strayed from his path. The flood starts a new history, which will be on a
higher plane than the old.
Nowadays we find these kinds of explanations
repugnant. It is repugnant to imply that the
people who suffer from natural disasters somehow deserve their fate. And yet for all the callousness of those tales,
they did at least put human beings at the center of history.
In those old flood myths, things happened
because human beings behaved in certain ways; their morality was tied to their destiny.
Stories of a wrathful God implied that at
least there was an active God, who had some plan for the human race. At the end of the tribulations there would be
salvation.
If you listen to the discussion of the tsunami
this past week, you receive the clear impression that the meaning of this event is that
there is no meaning. Humans are not the
universe’s main concern. We’re
just gnats on the crust of the earth. The
earth shrugs and 140,000 gnats die, victims of forces far larger and more permanent than
themselves….
The writer ends thus:
This is a moment to feel deeply bad, for the
dead and for those of us who have no explanation.
But what a hopeless and heartless philosophy!
No explanation? No hope? There is only despair. There is even the dreaded thought that the vast
wealth of the United States may soon be exhausted if these sorts of disasters continue to
come—and perhaps with devastating force against this country too.
It is wise to be prepared for certain disasters, no doubt. Scripture, however, speaks of another sort of
preparation. When all these things occur,
then look up. The time of deliverance is at
hand. Then the church cries out, “Even
so, come Lord Jesus, quickly.”
Feature Article:
Prof. David Engelsma
Prof.
Engelsma is professor of Dogmatics and Old Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary.
Reflections on That Peculiar Creature: the Editor of the Standard Bearer (2)*
*Originally the text of Prof.
Engelsma’s speech at the annual meeting of the RFPA on September 23, 2004 in
Grandville PRC. Previous article in this
two-part series: February 15, 2005, p. 226.
The content of the Standard Bearer
is theological, but the theology of the magazine is not simply Reformed doctrine. It is Reformed doctrine as confessed and developed
by the Protestant Reformed Churches. The Standard
Bearer is a Protestant Reformed magazine. This,
too, belongs to its nature and purpose, its personality.
In fact, as probably everybody here knows, the Standard Bearer is not the
official church paper of the Protestant Reformed Churches, under the control of synod and
paid for through the synodical assessments. This
is unusual for a religious paper. Deliberately
the founders of the magazine set it up to be free of ecclesiastical control. This is what “Free” in the name of the
publisher refers to.
That the magazine is not the official paper of the Protestant Reformed Churches has
two implications as regards editorials. First,
the Standard Bearer has freedom to speak out against the thinking and practices
that may be found within the Protestant Reformed Churches themselves. The Standard Bearer is not a tame house
organ, parroting the party line. At the time
of the recent secession of some from the Christian Reformed Church and their formation of
still another Reformed denomination over women in church office, there was some sentiment
in the Protestant Reformed Churches that that secession was genuine reformation and that
the Protestant Reformed Churches might well have close ecumenical relations with that new
church. Editorials in the Standard Bearer
such as “The Date Is 1924,” “Jelle in Wonderland,” and others
contended that whatever the secession of the United Reformed Churches may have been, it
was not reformation of the Christian Reformed Church regarding that church’s
departure from the Reformed faith of sovereign, particular grace, and that the Protestant
Reformed Churches have the very same controversy with the United Reformed Churches that
they have always had and continue to have with the Christian Reformed Church. I regard those editorials as the most significant
of my editorship.
A second implication of the fact that the Standard Bearer is free of church
control is that the Standard Bearer publishes letters and articles that sharply
oppose the truths set forth in the magazine — indeed, letters and articles that
sharply oppose what the Protestant Reformed Churches stand for. No religious magazine I know of regularly runs
letters, long letters, often exceeding the stated limit of letters, and even full articles
attacking propositions and positions expressed in the Standard Bearer. No other magazine publishes letters contradicting
what is found in those magazines, as does the Standard Bearer in its columns. Now this makes for an interesting magazine. Some of my own children, unwarily, have let drop
that the first thing they turn to when the Standard Bearer comes is the letters
column. I assure you I did not train them
that way — editorials first! Nevertheless,
the letters column is an interesting column and makes for an interesting magazine. What is more important, these letters opposing
what the Standard Bearer proposes and teaches serve to clarify and establish the
truth. Publishing these letters, and even
articles, is possible because the Standard Bearer is not the church paper of the
Protestant Reformed Churches.
Nevertheless, all the articles, particularly the editorials, declare, defend, and
develop the Reformed faith as held in the Protestant Reformed Churches. The magazine chiefly instructs the members of the
Protestant Reformed Churches. And the
magazine warns the members of the Protestant Reformed Churches first of all against the
dangers that threaten them. For this reason
the Standard Bearer is widely known as the voice and witness of the Protestant
Reformed Churches.
This is cause for the new editors and every writer to take up their pen or sit
before their keyboards with fear and trembling. What
you write will represent the faith of the Protestant Reformed Churches worldwide.
The Standard Bearer must give distinctive witness to the truth that is held
by the Protestant Reformed Churches. This is
the purpose of the magazine in its constitution. I
remind you, “the maintenance, development, and promulgation of our distinctively
Reformed principles.” These principles,
mainly, are sovereign particular grace and the unconditional covenant of God with His
elect in Christ, or the sovereignty of God in His gracious salvation in Jesus Christ.
The magazine is not, and the magazine may not be, loosely Christian or generically
Reformed.
The editor of the Standard Bearer, therefore, must not only be a Protestant
Reformed minister, wholeheartedly committed to and convinced of the distinctive doctrines
of the Protestant Reformed Churches, he must also in his writing promote, defend, and
develop these doctrines. As he does, he must
demonstrate that these truths are not some oddities of the Protestant Reformed Churches
but the genuine Reformed faith in its historical development, indeed, pure Christianity. For doing this, he will uncharitably and unjustly
be criticized as bigoted and narrow-minded.
But recent developments in the church-world are proving that the alternative to
sovereign particular grace as held in the Protestant Reformed Churches is sheer
Arminianism, if not universalism. The
alternative to the unconditional covenant as held by the Protestant Reformed Churches is
the Roman Catholic heresy of justification by faith and works. Never before in the history of the church of
Christ has it become so clear that the great doctrines for which the Protestant Reformed
Churches, and the Protestant Reformed Churches virtually alone, contend are essential to
the Reformed faith and life.
Likewise, it becomes increasingly plain that the stand, I would say, the heroic stand,
of the Protestant Reformed Churches, that marriage is an unbreakable bond for life is both
right and necessary. Our doctrine of marriage
is the implication of our doctrine of the covenant. Individuals
and concerned groups outside the Protestant Reformed Churches today all over the world are
seeing the necessity of the position of the Protestant Reformed Churches regarding
marriage, divorce, and remarriage. In the
recent past, in fact in the past year, a group of deeply concerned Reformed people in the
Netherlands have been reading, translating into Dutch, and distributing in the Netherlands
articles by Protestant Reformed men on marriage. At
present, a major Dutch publishing house is translating into Dutch and publishing a
Protestant Reformed book on marriage. The
reason, of course, is the dreadful destruction of marriage in virtually all of the
churches, which destruction of marriage now includes approval of homosexual unions. The witness of the Standard Bearer has been
one of the main means, if not the main means, by which the Protestant Reformed doctrine of
marriage has spread to these people and groups — in part, I might note, through the
Internet. Now is no time for the Standard
Bearer to pull in its horns regarding the distinctive Protestant Reformed witness. Never has the time been more opportune for our
witness.
In defending the doctrines confessed by the Protestant Reformed Churches, the
editor must be a polemical man. It belongs to
the nature and purpose of the Standard Bearer that it is polemical. Polemical means “fighting.” The Standard Bearer is a fighting magazine. It was a fighting magazine at its birth. Like old Jacob, the Standard Bearer came
out of the womb wrestling for the covenant of God and declaring the sovereignty of God in
election and reprobation. The Standard
Bearer fought a fierce warfare in middle age against the false doctrine of a
conditional covenant and salvation dependent upon man.
In its older age it is fighting still against the old errors in new dress and
against all attack on and departures from the Reformed faith.
The Standard Bearer fights fairly. The
Standard Bearer fights honorably. It
fights with the Word of God and with the confessions.
But it fights vigorously. The sword of
the Standard Bearer is sharp. In its
controversy with doctrinal and ethical evil, it is uncompromising. The Standard Bearer is not a slick,
friendly, positive, harmless magazine. It is
not a magazine that tries to please everybody and tries equally hard to offend nobody. There are many such religious periodicals. There are many such Reformed religious
periodicals. But the Standard Bearer
is not one of them.
The editor of the Standard Bearer must be polemical. He must be a fighter, regardless whether that is
naturally his character. For this he is most
severely criticized, even hated. Nor is the
criticism limited to those outside the Protestant Reformed Churches. He must bear reproach — “negative,”
“unloving,” “harsh,” even “hateful.” And some will assure him that he is standing in
the way of Christian ecumenicity.
A few years after I became editor, I received an anonymous postcard from the city
of Kalamazoo, which I read before I realized that the signature at the end of the postcard
was not the writer’s real name but a pseudonym.
The writer, whoever he is — God knows — is a coward. But this is what he said on his postcard: “Your rhetoric in recent Standard Bearers
demonstrates at least one thing: you are a
true-blue successor to your editorial predecessors — a bad spirit. All your nit picking doesn’t change one
thing. You and your clan are still dead
wrong, especially on common grace and related matters.
And to discuss it with you guys in any way shape or form is an exercise in
futility.” I confess that that wounded
me. A bad spirit? Almost immediately after receiving that postcard,
feeling wounded, I was talking with one of my brothers.
I was looking for some sympathy, although I did not tell him that. I read him this postcard. His response, rather unfeeling I thought at the
time, was, “What did you expect when you took the job?” Upon reflection, to be called a “true-blue
successor to your predecessors” is not all bad.
One of the most powerful influences on my ministry, including my writing in the Standard
Bearer, has been Martin Luther, a vehement, even violent fighter against all attacks
on the gospel of grace. It is now in vogue in
our evil day, when the love of God and the truth has mainly cooled, to be critical of
Luther for his vehement condemnation of false doctrine and false teachers. But Luther was right, and our tolerant age is
wrong. In the strength of his faith, Luther
rejected the lie. And in his love for God, he
hated idolatry. Our age tolerates the lie
because it believes nothing with conviction and passion.
It is friendly toward heretics and heresies because there is no fervent love of God
in the heart of our age. When Luther was
criticized for the vehemence of his condemnation of error, he often responded by quoting
Jeremiah 48:10 according to another possible translation than that in the King James
Bible. The King James translation is
“cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully, and cursed be he
that keepeth back his sword from blood.” Another
possible translation is “cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently,
lackadaisically, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.”
God called His servants in the Old Testament to fight against God’s enemies
— Moab, in that particular case. And God
called His servants to fight against God’s enemies vigorously, not negligently or
lackadaisically. The work was the work of
battle, and in that battle to destroy the enemies of God.
So urgent a call was that call by God to His servants to engage in warfare against
God’s enemies vigorously, that God pronounces a curse upon anyone who fights in the
battle against God’s enemies halfheartedly or negligently.
This Word of God applies today. It
applies to the editor of the Standard Bearer among many others. Cursed be the editor of a Reformed publication,
particularly the Standard Bearer, that does the fighting work of the Lord
negligently. And cursed be the editor that
keeps back his pen, which is mightier than the sword, from blood.
Because of the personality of the magazine, the editor is polemical. Nevertheless, his warfare is on behalf of the
church — and not only the Protestant Reformed Churches, but the catholic church of
Jesus Christ. The Standard Bearer has
a heart for the welfare of the church in all of the world and an interest in developments
in all the world as they affect the church.
The magazine is not parochial. Neither
does it live in the past, as some religious magazines do.
Some religious magazines live in the past. Much
of their content is dusty old sermons of long dead preachers. The editorials are mostly résumés of the lives
and teachings of saintly men in past eras. Those
magazines are lifeless magazines. The Standard
Bearer must never degenerate into such a musty magazine. It is all right, even useful, to have an article
now and then by a theologian of the past. But
for the most part, the magazine must contain fresh writings by contemporary authors. This makes for a lively, interesting paper. This is a renewed exhortation to all the ministers
in the Protestant Reformed Churches, especially those who are on the staff of the
magazine, to write regularly.
The editor of the magazine must read widely, must keep abreast of developments in
churches all over the world, and must stay on top of political and social events in light
of Scripture’s evaluation of these events, so that he as editor can instruct and warn
and, to whatever extent God wills, give direction to the church as far and wide as the
witness of the Standard Bearer extends.
All of this makes the editorship of the Standard Bearer a responsible
position. It makes editorship of the Standard
Bearer an exciting position. It makes the
editorship in the end a rewarding position, with the reward of a sharper, clearer, fuller
knowledge of the truth of God.
The editor of the Standard Bearer is a peculiar creature because the
magazine itself is a unique instrument of God on behalf of His truth and covenant. Thank God that the men who now take over the
editorship are such peculiar creatures. Let
us pray God that they ever be such peculiar creatures.
Grace Life for the Rising Generation:
Rev. Mitchell Dick
Certain Tsunamis...
Tsunami” is the odd word many folks first learned about a month ago when big tidal
waves, tsunamis, struck the shores of many a land fringing the Indian Ocean and beyond. These tsunamis, spawned from an earthquake some
six miles below the Indian Ocean in the area of Indonesia, brought great destruction, as
you know. Upwards of 250,000 bodies have or
will have been counted or counted missing, either swept out to sea by or smashed against
the flotsam and jetsam of the killing, resort-mashing, tremendous, and tremendously
horrific waves, those tsunamis.
Now maybe you are not into these things, but they fascinate me, these tsunamis, and
the earthquakes with the force of a million atom bombs that are their origin. Equally intriguing is how humans, those not buried
by them, react to them. Impressive is the
fact that we in America, even mid-west, oceanless Michiganders, know of the
tsunamis that hit on December 26, 2004, and knew of them the very day they hit. How information flies! How much reporting has been done, from video
footage, satellite images, word of cell phone, word of Internet, and the like. Not too long ago it might have been years before
one heard of such a thing, even such a great devastation, so far away. And then by word of mouth. With this recollection here. And that there.
With embellishments. So that we might
have thought these things myths.
Impressive also is the response by the entire world to aid those and those people
and countries and businesses devastated by the waves.
Billions of dollars pledged from around the world.
All kinds of folks and organizations and churches holding fund-raisers, taking
collections, sharing expertise in order to express the care and concern of the world
community when large numbers of its own kind are found out, tossed about by, and are
suddenly, and tragically, no longer with us. One
blood, we bleed together. It is news. It is more. It
is touching. We want to help. And where there is opportunity and need we must. In the name of Christ, we must pray about the
opportunity this may be for us to help these twenty-first century needy far-eastern
neighbors, and then take the opportunity God may give.
And if we are thoughtless about this, even nigh unto inconsiderate, then some other
tsunami or ten have already killed our souls. And
we, not they, are in need of the Red Cross….
Others of the sin kind…
But about tsunamis other than those ocean ones we need especially to reflect. One wonders if indeed God Himself, whom we believe
is the Sovereign of the waves, has shaken up the world, and sent these waves for just
this. For us to think of certain other,
spiritual tsunamis. Not to build our resorts
on just a bit higher ground. But for
repentance. To cling not to palm trees, but
to Christ. To hope not in foreign aid, but to
seek Heaven’s help. To live no more
according to self and status quo, but according to Scripture and standards of
righteousness. To live no more by tooth and
claw and hook and ladder but by grace and by faith.
About sin tsunamis, first of all, let us be thinking.
Sin tsunamis are caused by certain earthquakes of the devil-kind. They first came crashing onto the shores of
humanity from a quaking long ago in Eden, when the Evil Tempter met a morally perfect and
yet fallible man and woman, shook them up to slouch into sin, and set the whole world
a-trembling and a-slouching. From this Edenic
epicenter other sin-earthquakes have been triggered history-long and increasingly along
certain fault-lines and among certain tectonic plates of humanity (Hollywood, Harvard, and
the Happy-without-Truth Church, to name a few).
Oh the tidal waves generated by these off-the-Richter-scale quakings! Tidal waves of lies, waves of philosophies
starting from man and ending there, and along the way declaring there is no God, there is
no one God! Waves of Materialism. Waves of Evolution.
Waves of Egalitarianism. The Tolerance
wave. Sex waves. Entertainment waves. Waves of Products and Ads crashing into our stores
and into our living rooms telling us to get them, tempting us that there is no meaningful
life without them…. Waves of women,
waves of men, the great ones, the buxom ones, the fast ones, the dunking ones, the ones
who rock ’n roll to raise money for tsunami victims…themselves sweeping into our
life and wanting to take us out, far out, to their sea, and to their beliefs, to their
lifestyle, and to their Neptune.
You know them. These and many other
waves from hell have inundated the world. They
have engulfed the universities, the entertainment industries, the churches, the websites,
the homes, the schools, the governments, the unions, the revolutions, the malls, the main
streets, the high and the low of all the world. There
is no coast where these tsunamis have not struck. There
is no society not swept away. There is even
no high ground that sin has not flooded. No
high ground either where men might have thought they were safe, or smart, or even on
sacred ground.
See the results of the tidal waves of sin? No
possibility for ABC and CNN or the BBC or bloody Arab websites to convey them to us, for
they themselves are drowned under the waves. But
by wisdom and a horror born of holiness we can see. By
wisdom and with holy horror we see the death and destruction, the dissolution and despair,
and the deceit of the floods of sin. By
wisdom and horror, what Satan’s tsunamis have done is known. We see the men, the women, the young people, and
the children left dangling from or crushed under the palm trees, or the very towers of
learning they thought would be their refuge. We
see one, and many even, cured of cancer, having a good time or making good time over here,
another of the seven-foot variety with a great future on the court, another under the big
lights…but all under the wrath of God and facing yet a final tsunami from heaven
itself, a final judgment (of which, ultimately, all the present ones are preliminary!)
sweeping sinners into sea depths and crevices into which they are righteously delivered,
and into the pit of hell forever!
And ours…
All well and good that we have reported and do report those tsunamis, I think
you will agree. But there must also be this,
dear reader. There must be a reporting that
is more, I suppose, “in your face.” But
it must be. For the problems of Indian Ocean
tsunamis may (we might think) be far removed from us.
But the sin tsunamis are not. In fact
they are our tsunamis. Our sin tsunamis!
Yes, dear young reader. There are
tsunamis that threaten us. They might
kill our bodies. They would certainly bash
and drown our souls. They are either headed
our way, and at an alarming rate, or they have already overwhelmed us and are banging us
around, pulling us out to sea, killing us. And
so we need, for the waves coming, an early warning system of the spiritual kind. And, for the wreckage already done, the Red Cross
of the gospel.
You ask: how can it be that there is
the danger for us believers, of tidal waves, even, of sin?
We are blessed! And has not the
inspired Word revealed to us that we have received of the fullness of Jesus Christ? Is not this the life, even, of heaven? Has not our Lord, by saving us, committed Himself
to preserving us? Are we not safe in our
orthodoxy, our traditions, our homes, our schools, our churches … and our dating? I mean, Christian, and Reformed, and Protestant
Reformed, and three or thirty generations of all this … is not this very high
ground? Tsunamis, we believe and are
sure, might sweep out the lowlands of humanity. They
have, we see, hit hard those places of Christendom that are even below sea level. So we do not marvel when the sin waves sweep out
the health-and-wealth gospellers and the churches of the smile,
God-loves-your-homosexuality, variety. But
really: What tsunami can ever threaten, or
even reach us?
Response:
One, tsunamis from Satan are very powerful, more powerful than we. And, though under God’s sovereign government,
this world is now the place of sin waves. They
are all over the place, flooding and threatening the whole of this world in which we live,
no matter how high and dry we are or think we are.
Two, we have a nature as low as the sea of humanity.
Our flesh is at sea level, and not a foot above.
And, according to this nature, and though in principle we be taken up to the mount
of heaven, we are, nevertheless, by nature those who love to sip tea with, and cavort
with, and resort to things worldlings resort to.
Three, there is evidence that the tsunamis of sin are fast approaching and/or have
had their influence among us. Sometimes I
wonder if in fact we are not treading, even now, in deep water, even being swept away, in
our generations, with the world, out to sea….
Now, about these our sin tsunamis we would like