Category: Theology: Thinking Deeply About God and His Relation to the World

Who is God? What is He like? What has He done?

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Understanding God’s Compassion for All . . . And Our Own

One of the most persistent questions in theology is this: how do we bring together God’s sincere compassion for all sinners and His decision to save only some of them?

Scripture presents this to us in at least three ways. First, there are God’s indiscriminate offers of mercy to all. Second, there are declarations of His love for the world, such as John 3:16. Third, there are passages that speak of God’s compassion toward those who are never saved. These seem to pull in different directions. Either God does not truly have compassion for all, or He has compassion but cannot act on it.

This is not a minor difficulty. As A. A. Hodge noted, it is one of the strongest points pressed by Arminians against Calvinists. Robert Lewis Dabney also recognized that Calvinists have often struggled here. Because of that, he believed that this issue deserved another look.

Nor is this just a theoretical issue. When we look at any person and have compassion, we may ask, “Does God stand behind this compassion?”

Dabney offered a solution to this perplexing question in his article, “God’s Indiscriminate Proposals of Mercy: As Related to His Power, Wisdom, and Sincerity.” But his real contribution, I would suggest, lies deeper than he himself fully realized. He did not so much introduce a new principle as expose one already at work—and show how it ought to be applied more consistently.

The Problem: Collapsing Affection into Action
The difficulty arises from an assumption that feels intuitive but is false:

If an affection is real, one must act on it.

If God truly has compassion, then He must relieve the misery. If He does not relieve it, then compassion must not be there.

This assumption drives both sides:

  • The Arminian says: if God has compassion, He must act—so something must limit His action.
  • Some Calvinists reply: since God does not act, the compassion must not exist in that case.

Both accept the same premise. Both are mistaken.

What is needed is not a new theological distinction, but a clearer understanding of the structure of rational agency itself. Continue reading “Understanding God’s Compassion for All . . . And Our Own”

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Our Part & God’s Part in Our Sanctification/Transformation

Power to Change
How do we become what God has made us to become? Can we become what we are supposed to become? Can we fulfill our potential? Can we become joyful, content, and just people instead of angry, frustrated, and selfish people?

The Christian faith answers honestly: on our own, we cannot. Left to ourselves, we are stuck. But it also gives us remarkable hope. The same power by which God raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us, enabling us to become what God has called us to be.

This raises an obvious question. If that is true, why are so many Christians still angry, anxious, materialistic, and even mean? Continue reading “Our Part & God’s Part in Our Sanctification/Transformation”

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Embracing Truth & Love: The Confessional Wide Catholicity of Old School Presbyterianism

[Editor’s note: you can read a much fuller version of this article here. It includes much more extensive citations and explanations]

When I first discovered Reformed theology, I felt like I had stumbled into treasure. Its systematic grasp of Scripture, its depth of thought, and its seriousness about truth captivated me. Before long, I concluded that fidelity to the Reformed system required making everything revolve around the confession. Not only ministers, but members; not only teaching, but fellowship.

The result was a church life that was confessional in every possible respect. Membership required adherence to Reformed doctrine. Relationships with other churches were kept at a distance unless they, too, were distinctly Reformed. I thought I was being faithful.

But over time, my spirit grew dry. I began to wonder if this narrowness was what Christ truly intended for his church. The turning point came when I discovered the way of the Old School Presbyterians. These were the confessional conservatives of the 19th century who held the line on confessional fidelity and made hard decisions to guard it. They taught me that my instincts about strict orthodoxy were right—but that I was missing something just as important: wide catholicity.

Guarding the Pulpit
The Old School was uncompromising in requiring confessional fidelity from its ministers. They believed the teaching office demanded the highest level of doctrinal integrity. Dabney reminded his students that ministers needed more than a casual acquaintance with doctrine, they were, as Paul said, were “stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful” (1 Cor. 4:1–2).. And as he said to Timothy, The minister must be “a workman approved unto God, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Tim. 2:15, cited in “Broad Churchism,” in Discussions: Evangelical, vol. 2, 449).

Charles Hodge was equally blunt: “We may guard our ministry and admit none to the office of teacher in our churches, who do not hold that system of doctrine which we believe God has revealed, and which cannot be rejected in any of its parts without evil to the souls of men” (Discussions in Church Polity, 224).

For the Old School, then, confessions existed chiefly to protect the flock from unsound teachers. They were not museum pieces or denominational badges. They were guardrails at the pulpit.

The Temptation of Overreach
But the clarity of that standard can tempt us to extend it further than the Bible does. That was my mistake. I required of members what was meant for ministers. I made precision the price of admission to the church, confusing the shepherd’s responsibility to guard doctrine with the sheep’s calling simply to follow Christ.

The Old School Presbyterians knew this temptation too. And they resisted it. They maintained a line between the demands of the pulpit and the welcome of the pews. Continue reading “Embracing Truth & Love: The Confessional Wide Catholicity of Old School Presbyterianism”

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Living in Fellowship with the Triune God

[Editor’s Note: Read a shorter version of this post here]

“Now, I’m really living!” Have you ever said that? What made you think you were really living? For me, I often said it while traveling—to Egypt, to Spain, or to Mexico.

Jesus also had a sense of what “really living” is. He called it eternal life: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). According to Jesus, real life is life in communion with the Father and the Son. From other passages, we know this life comes through the Holy Spirit as well.

This is the life we were created for but turned from in the fall. It is the life Jesus came to restore (John 3:16). We receive it by believing in Him. Once we do, we are to think of ourselves as really living but unto God: “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11).

A Life in Communion with the Triune God
This is life lived in communion with Jesus. John Mark Comer, in his book on discipleship, notes that following Jesus was fundamentally about being with Him.

Jesus said that communion would continue even after His ascension: “Abide in Me” (John 15). Comer paraphrases: “Make your home in my presence by the Spirit, and never leave” (37). He explains, “Goal #1 of apprenticeship to Jesus is to live in that moment-by-moment flow of love within the Trinity” (ibid.).

This is eternal life: living in communion with the Triune God. But how do we actually do this?

A Baseline for Communion with the Triune God
The key is to keep the Triune God at the forefront of our hearts and minds—to live in His presence. We cannot focus on many things at once, but when our minds wander, there is no better resting place than the Triune God.

One practice that has helped me is making the Apostle’s Creed part of my daily rhythm (see the appendix below to read the whole creed). It brings me back to the Triune God, summarizes the biblical faith, and connects me to the church through the ages. Continue reading “Living in Fellowship with the Triune God”

Posted on

Living in Fellowship with the Triune God

[Editor’s Note: you can read the full version of this post here]

“Now, I’m really living!” Have you ever said that? What made you think you were really living? For me, I often said it while traveling—to Egypt, to Spain, or to Mexico.

Jesus had an opinion on this question. “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). According to Jesus, real life — what it means to be “really living” — is communion with the Triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit.

This is the life for which we were created, the life we lost in the fall, and the life Christ came to restore. But how do we actually enter into it? The Apostles’ Creed gives us a map. It not only summarizes the faith; it teaches us how to commune with each Person of the Trinity:

  • We encounter the Father through creation
  • We encounter the Son through the Word
  • We encounter the Spirit through the Church

This framework keeps our fellowship with God concrete, biblical, and constant.

Life with the Father — in Creation
The Creed begins: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” Creation is the Father’s temple, revealing His glory and care.

Jesus taught us to look at the birds and flowers as reminders of the Father’s provision (Matt. 6:25–26). Dutch theologian Wilhelmus á Brakel urged believers to “accustom yourself to behold creation in such a fashion that you may behold God in it” (The Christian’s Reasonable Service, 1:281). Continue reading “Living in Fellowship with the Triune God”

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