Exposition by Max A Forsythe
Christ Covenant Reformed (PCA)
A
couple years ago, one school invited a speaker to address the topic of sexual
morality in non-theistic terms.
Certainly, the administration wanted to pass along the essential message
of “just say
no” to easy
sexcapades.
But they were very careful to not offend anyone with theological terms.
In the midst of all our social waywardness, there is a growing
earnestness to be able to say ethically what the Christian church has been
teaching for centuries.
Why can’t things be the way they used to be?
Can’t the cultural wisdom of generations be taught once more?
Even in the midst of our multi-cultural nonsense, some few people are
even hoping for a revival of Western Civilization.
In the last two years one wealthy business man was willing to spend many
millions of dollars to reinstitute such a program at an ivy league university.
When he discovered that the university had no intention of fulfilling his
desire, he asked for and got his millions back.
Even
when I was in Seminary, twenty-some years ago, a wealthy Pennsylvania
Presbyterian was willing to completely finance a new Seminary committed to
Biblical orthodoxy.
Since that liberal denomination already had seven seminaries, he was
informed that his offer was merely redundant.
After all, we had culturally outgrown the narrowness of traditional
theology.
Libraries and faculty were purged to enhance the contemporary
opportunities for real social growth, and the salvation of humanity by building
a paradise on earth.
The student who attended classes with a notorious four letter word
printed on his sweatshirt would someday make a fine pastor.
Never mind that the young married couple who took him in were persuaded
to a menage-a-tois
scandal which prompted some of the faculty to despair over everyone’s rush to
judgment!?
Of course it was okay to hound another student, who was biblically
correct in his behavior, out of school, because there was no use for his kind
any more.
Well,
that was the seventies.
This is the nineties.
But the earnest desire for some sort of civilization restored has not
diminished.
Recently I purchased a long-expected book that had finally reached my
price range.
I could have had it when it came out for thirty-some dollars.
My cost was only three something.
I had heard of this book over a year ago.
Its title was The Western Canon.
The reviews proposed the heightened expectation that this volume would
help to lay the groundwork for a revival of all that was once Western and
Civilized.
Fifteen minutes into the book, I was absolutely horrified to learn that
the author had chopped off the entire foundation of our Western Civilization.
He deplored as unworthy of serious comment the age of theocracy which
predated the aristocratic age of Shakespeare.
He admits that one cannot understand Shakespeare and those who imitate
him without a reading the King James Version of the Bible.
However, the author, Harold Bloom, has utterly no comprehension of the
inspiration of Scripture.
He
takes a line of liberal theology from one of his earlier works, The Book of J,
where he argued for an authoress in the court of Solomon for most of the early
books of the Old Testament.
Now, at the urgings of favorable readers, he is willing to call J by
another name: Bathsheba.
His theological astuteness compels him to observe “Bathsheba’s”
portrayal of
God’s humanity:
“he eats and drinks, frequently loses his temper, delights in his own
mischief, is jealous and vindictive, proclaims his justness while constantly
playing favorites and develops a considerable case of neurotic anxiety when he
allows himself to transfer his blessing from an elite to the entire Israelite
host.”
With friends like this, the foundational theology of Western Civilization
doesn’t need any enemies.
I for one do not have any confidence in anything further that he might
have to say even about the secular issues of a civilized, western canon.
Now
that just about everyone is agreeable in thinking that we might have some
expensive kindling for a cook out, let us go to the text that we believe to be
the very word of God.
Look at verse one of chapter two.
Consider the implications of where our minds just were.
Were not we all delightfully savoring the thought that we could never be
found guilty of such theological tripe as was just reported?
Aha, I gotcha!
Now,
many commentators apply these eleven verses specifically against the Jews of
Paul’s time.
Calvin widen’s the aim to include every hypocrite who could not be
numbered in the catalog of vices we studied last week at the end of chapter one.
I believe the text might be widened even further in the same sense of
Jonathan Edwards preaching the need for revival within Christ’s church of his
day. That
dark night, when candles were dear and the only light in the sanctuary was the
one that flickered over his Bible and notes, was a notable event, when the
saints were pointedly shown the essential biblical application.
As Calvin explains the first two verses, the essential application is to
the state of mind.
He says that “Paul’s
design is to shake the hypocrites out of their self-complacency, so that they
may not think that they have really gained anything if they are applauded by the
world, or acquit themselves from guilt.”
It
is relatively easy to put on an outward obedience of the ten suggestions, as
some of my worldly friends understand them!
One of them once said that observing eight of of ten wasn’t too shabby!
And doing that wasn’t all that difficult.
Well may we understand that there are worldly persons around us who, like
the ancient moralists, apparently live well-rounded and decent lives.
But what of our state of mind?
Verses two and three show us the truth of God’s judgment where He will
punish sin without any respect of persons, and that He does not regard external
appearances.
What is absolutely vital to the Lord our God is the sincerity of our
hearts, or as we might say it today, the state of our minds.
Last
week we considered the worst badness of human endeavor, the unrepentant denial
of God’s Word.
Today in verse three we are reminded that very often the state of our
minds is of the same rebellious nature as those who actually do worse things
than we do.
Yet how little do we want to realize that, even though we have not been
wicked enough to merit an infamous fifteen minutes on Oprah, Maury, or any of
the contemporary “let
it all hang out”
talk shows, still the titillating wallow by televised extension should tell us
something about the state of our minds.
Thank
God for the merciful blessings of verse four, where we see that God’s kindness
might lead us toward repentance!
But like the Jews of Paul’s time, to whom he first takes the gospel
message, we are stubborn, we are unrepentant and we would often hope that those
like Paul would take their act on the road to some other city, some other
congregation.
When I was much younger, I was allowed to go with my mother, who was on
the pulpit committee of my home church.
We had traveled to hear an evangelical pastor who was invited to preach
to our church.
When the committee began to debate his merits, someone observed that he
had a tendency to preach overly much about sin.
When the vote was finally in, there must have been more of that attitude
than I was aware of, since the young pastor was wise enough to decline the slim
majority vote.
Verse
six tells
us what we all deserve.
One of the English clergy recently earned notoriety by suggesting that
the practice of adultery seemed to be programmed into our genetic structure.
At one time more of the church was in agreement with that implication.
But, then it was called original sin, and the wise Christian who would
persevere in righteousness was expected, even discipled in avoiding such wanton
irresponsible urges.
Yes, the obeying of God’s laws, regulations and the fruiting of His
Spirit in our lives is a difficult task.
Yet,
verse seven ought to encourage us on.
There is a word that ought to be translated differently here.
“Persistence”
in the NIV
ought to read “perseverance.”
That word, we Calvinists can well understand.
John Murray would remind us of Matthew’s words “that
it is he who endures to the end that will be saved.”
This is the perseverance that verse eight would encourage us in.
And that perseverance has a purpose, not in doing good words, but in
honoring the Lord whose glory, honor and immortality we intend to reflect.
So, with this verse we may come to an assurance that, as we learn to do
all for the glory of God, as we seek to bring every aspect of life under His
Lordship, as we corral and round up our stray desires and imaginations to serve
Him alone; then we find the proper state of mind which preserves us into eternal
life.
Verses
eight and nine tell us what happens to the undisciplined minds, who by their
untamed desires and wicked wants would reject the truth of God.
It really doesn’t matter, Paul would have us know, that our parents
were believers, or that the Covenant of Grace held true for six or a hundred
generations.
Just like the third-generation Puritans of Edward’s generation, there
was and is a constant need for revival.
Each and every generation must be challenged by the gospel claims so that
every living descendant of the saints may have opportunity to repent from their
sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
I know of one lady who is purposely keeping her little ones away from
evangelical teaching because she doesn’t want them to grow up burdened with
the knowledge of sin.
When they are old enough, she says, they can decide all of that for
themselves.
We know what they will decide, don’t we?
If it were left to us, we know what we would decide as well, wouldn’t
we? Paul
observes in verse eleven that “God
does not show favoritism.”
It doesn’t matter if we are Jew or Gentile, Christian or Pagan.
The glory, the honor and the peace of God’s merciful salvation are
reserved for those who persevere in putting on the mind of Christ -- and slowly,
with ever so much difficulty, putting away, by God’s grace, the sinful
attitudes and desires of the mind which would tear us away from the Kingdom of
God, if we were not held fast by God’s eternal Spirit.
How
goes it with you this day?
Are you being challenged to consider the deep dark desires of your
natural yearnings and where they would take you?
Or are you more willing to be assisted on the upward way by the
promptings of the Spirit?
May the Spirit of our gracious God lead you on to glory so that when the
end of the age arrives He will not be the Dred Judge faced by so many, many
others.
Amen.
Resources Used: The Holy Bible, New International Version
Places Preached:Bloom, Harold. The Western Canon. (Not recommended for any use) Bruce, F.F. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: Romans. Mackenzie, R. Calvin's New Testament Commentaries: Romans. Murray, John. New International Commentary: Epistle to Romans.
Christ Covenant REFORMED (Presbyterian Church in America) Post Office Box 13926 - Columbus, OH 43213-7926
Rom02a.htm 28 May 95
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