Owen's Negative Influence on the Churches

Having reflected on the influence of Owen within the reformed churches in Northern Ireland with their inordinate emphasis on covenant children, there is surely a reason why this is the case.  The reason might not be obvious to many people in the churches, but I think a stab at understanding this unfortunate state of affairs must be made.  The fact that there is so little Gospel preaching within the denominations would suggest to me a possible explanation, and its this.  Because the great Puritan theologian, Dr John Owen, did not have any reported conversions from his ministry but was deemed to be faithful to the Word/Gospel, that in some way justifies non-Gospel preaching that is clear and pointed and direct in those churches that have adopted Owen as their mentor, because God will bring the covenant children to faith in His own time.  For them, being a covenant child equals being a Christian.  Therefore, covenant children are not urged to come to Christ, to repent, to trust the Saviour, and the need to be 'born again' is not emphasised, nor is it welcome in many  congregations - pure and mixed alike.

Because the great John Owen was not a 'successful' evangelist like Baxter et al, the position seems to be that so long as a man is faithful to the Word of God, conversions do not matter (really).  Good, mature and spiritual Christians are leaving their churches because the Gospel is not being preached with clarity and conviction, the emphasis being on the covenant children, an idea that is substituted for the Gospel of Grace.  Many hearts are broken by this retrograde development within evangelical and reformed churches. How can any church claim to be a reformed church if it does not preach the mighty Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes?  Is it because the preachers do not believe in their hearts the message they are preaching, therefore it comes across as a cold lecture of sorts?  Or is it because they do not see the eternal danger of covenant children who die without Christ that they decline to make the Gospel clear?  Perhaps it could be termed in another way: these 'reformed' preachers have not themselves been gripped by the awfulness of the hell that awaits every unconverted sinner.  In this way they are buttressing the old theological liberalism of the major denominations which they rightly criticise.

How sad and frightening is the church situation in Ulster!  What a judgement awaits those who have failed so dramatically to present Christ alone as the means and ground of salvation for all repenting sinners!  Unless God intervenes, Ulster churches will decline even further, and be lost.  Members are being fed a diet of clinically detached Bible Studies which are passed off as sermons and messages from God.  If the true saving Gospel is not everywhere apparent in our sermons, they do not honour God or glorify Christ. 

The question arises: is the Gospel absolutely dispensable for the salvation of sinners?  Is there another way of salvation apart from, and beside, the Gospel of God?  Reformed evangelicals and Arminians are convinced that there is no other way of reconciliation with God except through faith in Christ alone.  But the 'neo-reformed' men, why, they hold to a different Gospel which is no Gospel at all.  They believe that the covenant alone, and membership in it, saves the sinner. There is no need for this 'new birth' business that Jesus and Peter and Paul preach. 

For further information on issues that are germane to this subject, please visit here.

Mission and Baptism

Mt.28:18-20 are familiar verses.  They are used by our Baptist friends to teach the necessity of adult (believer's) baptism by total immersion. Within the context, this is right and proper.  Where they go astray is when they apply this teaching to covenant families, and refuse to give to the children born into covenant families the God-appointed sign and seal of the covenant - baptism.  They require them to wait until they themselves believe, after which they must be baptised by total immersion.

In Mt.28, the nations knew nothing of God's gracious covenant, or covenant of grace, which He entered into with Abraham (Gen.15).  Covenant people stand in a totally different spiritual position to the nations which did not know God.  They have privileges that others do not have.  So a distinction has to be made between the children of covenant parents and those of parents who are not in the covenant. 

The Church Our Mother?

Augustine was surely correct when he said that if God is our Father, the church must also be our Mother.  This view was also endorsed by John Calvin (1509-1564).  But when that ‘mother’ turns out to be an abusive one, uncaring, unloving; when she becomes unfaithful to her Husband and flirts with other gods, thus becoming unfaithful, when she becomes drunk with notions of her own self-importance, blinded by power and pounds, when she becomes the end of all things, she then has departed from her high calling – to be the Bride of Christ, and to submit to His will in all things. When that mother turns from and against the very children her Husband gave to her, and treats them in a most abusive manner, the entire scenario has changed drastically. The sad reality is that it is the blood-bought church of Christ that behaves in this despicable way!

Yet when preachers tell their congregations that it is their Christian duty to commit to ‘mother church,' regardless of her track record, then they have gone too far.  And some just that!  They have taken Augustine and Calvin totally out of context, and made what they say a Christian requirement.  That it is is not doubted; but whether Christians are required to submit to an abusive mother is another question altogether. 

 

In society at large, if anyone suggested that children commit to a mother who has proved to be abusive towards her children, they would be roundly turned upon, and let know what reasonable people think about such a suggestion.  Also, if it was even suggested that children have a duty to submit to what has proved to be an abusive mother, the full rigour of the law would be called into action.  But not in the church.  I have heard very senior churchmen say o radio that his church was a family centred church, meaning that looking after the family lay at the centre of its concerns.  But where is the proof, where's the evidence that this is the case?  Are ministers also entitled to be cared fr and looked after well by the church?  When ministers are subjected to indescribable abuse at the hands of the church and her authorities, then she forfeits any right to be regarded as a good mother.   In fact, in society and in the natural realm, her children would be taken from her - and rightly so!

Divine Protection All The Way.

When the Patriarchs wandered about from country to country, they were singularly preserved by Almighty God.  That little wandering family might have been cut off root and branch had not a special mandate from the Throne for their protection.  It was not the gentleness of their neighbours that screened them; nor was it their own cunning and craftiness that enabled them to avoid hurt; they were, rather, hedged about by a mysterious guardianship of heaven.  God was with them all the way.  Whether they found themselves in Egypt, or in Philistia, or in Canaan, they were being kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.  These heirs of salvation, these inheritors of the promises, dwelling in their tents, were always secure.

And this was written for our learning!  What God did for the covenant people long ago, He will do for them today.  Wherever they go, whatever their circumstances, God is with them to protect and bless them.  He will not leave us nor forsake us; He is faithful who promised, and who also will do it.  He kept them long ago, and He will keep us too.

Immanuel - God is with us!  Let us rejoice in this most glorious of messages.  Let us fix our eyes upon Jesus. 

CHRIST IS CENTRAL

It could not be clearer that DMLJ was not a system Calvinist, but a biblical Calvinist. This is unbelievably refreshing, is it not?  For him, everything had to be brought to the touchstone of God’s Word.  If a controversy arises, he asks, ‘What do the Scriptures say?’  To the word and to the testimony!  It was this that kept him on track down through the years.  Nothing was to take the place of the Word of God.

By extension, and because Christ is central to the Scriptural revelation, nothing is ever to replace Him and his message of salvation.  How sad that this is observed more in the breach than in the observance in today’s church!  I’m sure you have seen and heard how some ministers will actually replace Christ and the Gospel and the absolute need for the ‘new birth’ for the covenant.  Some ministers actually believe so strongly in the covenant and in covenant membership that they come very close to denying the need for the ‘new birth’!  Do you believe that?  I know of one minister who argued that his son ought to be eligible to be on the committee of his university Christian Union (CU) because he was a covenant child, even though he was not converted to Christ!  I know of another church situation where the application of covenant theology has led to logical conclusions, but not to biblical conclusions!  What serious and profound theological and spiritual difficulties the church gets herself into when she mis-applies covenant theology!  This is what allows unconverted people into church membership, into the eldership, and into the ministry.  This is also what wrecks Gospel ministries and Gospel ministers!  But who cares enough to say “Enough is enough.” 

But there is another slightly controversial point to be made here, and DMLJ makes it continually, and that is that confessional correctness can so often become a substitute for Christ in the church and for many reformed ministers.  Keep to the confession, and don’t worry too much about keeping to the Scriptures.http://96d537oavsftbra1j1pe5d3y32.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=CB21  Now the real problem here is that this will not be said out loud; but that is what happens in practice.  How revealing when an evangelical minister said to me that they were trying to get ministers to adhere more closely to the WCF.  I said, ‘But this is a subordinate standard of the church, not her supreme standard.’  This is the church again replacing Christ with the confession.  What a travesty!  DMLJ will have none of that, either.

Challenge to Paedo-baptists

The re-baptism of young believers who have already been baptised as covenant children is something that is becoming increasingly important for those of us who believe in and practice paedo-baptism.

A young member of ours in one of my former congregations, and whom I led to Christ in our home after I was sacked, was 'baptised' very recently in the Vineyard church at UUC.

Whilst we do not want to be sacramentalists, we have neglected the instruction of our people in this precious doctrine, and left them to the mercy of the Baptists whose simplistic doctrine and practice is all too appealing to the young Christian who wants to be obedient to Christ in all things.