DBTS News

We've just gotten off this week to the successful start of a new semester here at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. We are encouraged about what God is doing here. Ten hours of teaching will keep me comfortably busy doing what I most enjoy in life. A few items relative to the seminary that you might want to put on your calendar:

• I'll be leading a new class on Monday nights this year--Evangelical Theology. If you live in the area, have an interest in ministry, and would like to check out the seminary experience, it's not too late to join us for the class that begins this Monday, August 29. For admissions information and further details, visit our admissions page here or call the seminary during business hours at 1-800-866-0111.

• On September 6th, Logos Bible Software will be releasing Rolland McCune's A Systematic Theology of Biblical Christianity (3 vols.). Dr. McCune taught systematic theology at Detroit Baptist Seminary for nearly 30 years before retiring to complete the publication of this his magnum opus last year. 

• Finally, please join us for the 2011 Mid-America Conference on Preaching, held at the Inter-City Baptist Church in Allen Park, MI, on October 20-21. The conference theme this year will be "Church Planting and Renewal." 

MAS

Total Depravity and the Gospel

One of the ironies of the Keswick model of sanctification is that while its historical roots lie in Wesleyan Methodism and American Revivalism, many of its earliest proponents were Presbyterian. At first blush these groups may seem surprising bedfellows, but upon closer scrutiny, the alliance makes some sense.

Keswick theology was born when Asa Mahan convinced Charles Finney that the latter's first evangelistic tour had been successful despite the apparent lack of fruit: Finney had successfully preached justification by faith, but had failed to preach the corresponding truth of sanctification by faith. Rejuvenated by this realization, Finney retraced his steps with the message of sanctification by faith and revival broke out.

You see, in the minds of Finney and Mahan, since justification is a forensic truth, it has no efficient means of producing sanctification, and uninformed believers cannot be expected to grow in godliness. After all, the Gospel changes nothing except one's status: by it believers are declared righteous, but they remain just as totally depraved as ever. In order to experience Christian growth, a second event must occur: believers must let go and let God do what totally depraved people cannot do. This occurs when the believer "reckons" on his newfound status as a saint and in faith becomes a passive "channel" through which God can flow.

With the strong emphasis on total depravity, it is no surprise that some Reformed folk perked up and took notice. After all, total depravity is the "T" in TULIP. But to borrow a line from Tolkien, "they were all of them deceived." For while Reformed soteriology emphatically teaches that unbelievers are totally depraved (i.e., incapable of pleasing God), it does not teach that believers remain totally depraved. Justification is always accompanied by regeneration, and regenerate people are by definition no longer totally depraved: although perpetually dogged by the remnants of sin, the regenerate have been enabled by God to please him. The resultant growth in godliness is never perfect (at least in this life), but it is a real and necessary response of the new creature in Christ.

What, then, is the believer's impetus to progressive sanctification? Well, gratitude for God's justifying work is surely a great incentive. But is it the only incentive or the greatest one? I'm convinced that the answer to this question is "No." Christ's crosswork accomplished more for us than mere justification. It also accomplished regeneration--the impartation of a new nature; the creation of a new man; the partaking of the divine nature; the new birth. And while it is surely true that justification stands as a great inspiration to godliness, it is equally true that regeneration stands as a critical enablement of godliness.  

Am I diminishing Christ or the Gospel by such statements? No indeed. What I'm saying is that truncating the work of Christ in the Gospel to mere justification is a dangerous exercise in reductionism with serious consequences. 

MAS

Partakers of the Divine Nature

If you're not aware of the tiff about the nature of sanctification that began earlier this year at Christianity Today and that continues between Kevin DeYoung and Tullian Tchividjian (see a helpful collocation of the debate here), it is well worth your while to find out about it. But if you read nothing else, read this recent editorial piece by Bill Evans. It is an outstanding critique of a the growing trend in evangelical circles to reduce sanctification to an overflow of the grace of justification.

The position taken by Hood, DeYoung, and now especially by Evans, that sanctification is causally unrelated to justification and involves great human effort, is easy to attack. No doubt the blogosphere will soon be filled afresh with charges of "legalism," "diminishing the Gospel," and "making too little of the cross of Christ," etc.

It is this last charge I wish to address, because I believe that it could be more legitimately laid at the feet of those making the charge. Because when Christ died on the cross, he did more than simply secure for us the grace of justification. That Christ did secure for us this grace is a glorious doctrine worthy of great attention. But it is not so great as to be worthy of our sole attention. When Christ died on the cross, he secured for us what the Reformers used to call a duplex beneficium, or the double benefit of justification and regeneration. The first is legal, the second practical. Or to put it another way, the first gives us a righteous standing, the second a holy nature.

It is the latter benefit that is in jeopardy of neglect in this discussion.  Despite the significant emphasis in Scripture on the fact that the believer is a "new creation," a "new man," and, most startling of all, a "partaker in the divine nature" (2 Pet 1:4), and despite the endorsement by NT writers of self-implemented personal austerity measures in the pursuit of godliness (e.g., Rom 8:13; 1 Cor 9:27; Phil 3:13-14; Col 3:5; Heb 12:1-2; etc.), some seem to be arguing today that simple reflection on one's justification is an adequate strategy for progressing in godliness. Me genoito. It is surely true that gratitude for Christ's justifying work is a valid impetus to holiness, but without a systematic change in one's nature (which, after all, was totally depraved prior to salvation), sanctification will never occur.

We need justification. Most emphatically. But we need more than justification. And, thankfully, by extending to us his Spirit and making us partakers in the divine nature, Christ in God has given us everything necessary for life and godliness (2 Pet 1:3-4). And with that great reality in place, let us, "for this very reason, make every effort to add to our faith" the disciplines of a godly life (v. 5). The stakes are high here, brothers, for without the effort of sanctification, "no one will see the Lord" (Heb 12:14).


MAS 

Jesus Is Coming Again

My very first mental picture of the Antichrist had the face of Pope John Paul II. Although sometimes he looked a bit like Jimmy Carter. For a while his face was more obscure (after all, Reagan was a Republican and we all knew in those days that if the Antichrist was an American, he was surely a Democrat). Of course that funny mark on Gorbachev's forehead might have been a tantalizing clue...does anyone know what 666 looks like in Cyrillic characters?

Then the Soviet Union was crushed by a boulder made without hands and the ten toes of the European Union rose out of the ruins in 1993. Daniel prophesied something like that would happen, right? But now there are 27 toes, and 9 more toes in various stages of candidacy for membership. Oops.

Now we're in 2011, and the old theories have faded. The new craze is that Antichrist is a Muslim. And this time there's no doubt. He's the long-awaited Shiite Mahdi, a Muslim Messiah figure, and he might even be alive today. Technical details are available in recent book, or, if you prefer, a more popular prophetical fiction version is also available. And, sadly, someone in your church might very well be reading one of these books right now.

But, then again, maybe not, because eschatological interest is not particularly high right now. I have mixed feelings about this decline. Undoubtedly the interest during my youth was excessive--a product as much of fundamentalists'  prevailing views of American culture as of their reading of Scripture (see an old but fascinating article on this by Stan Gundry). Now that our countercultural impulses have eased, eschatology has been largely bundled up and stashed in the back room of embarrassing historical Christian curiosities. And, sadly, the people in your church that are not reading about the Muslim Antichrist probably aren't reading much biblical prophecy either. It's sad because in some cases this lack of interest represents a satisfaction with the world as it is. It's sad because in some cases this lack of interest represents a measure of embarrassment about Christian eschatology. It's sad, worst of all, because in some cases this lack of interest represents the first misgivings about the Christian faith as a whole.

A recent re-reading of 2 Peter has given me a renewed commitment to be mindful of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. I highly recommend it. No, I'm not on the Muslim Antichrist bandwagon. And I didn't give away my life savings to put up billboards for Harold Camping. But I do believe that Jesus is coming again. And I pray that this belief will always shape the way that I live.

MAS