Did DMLJ's Publishers Distort His Teaching?

For over 40 years I have been an avid reader of DMLJ, and I will be eternally grateful to the Banner for making so many of his books and sermons available to a wider reading Christian public.  

In my reading, I have noticed something to which I wish to draw your attention.  First, when reading through his sermons, he always quoted frequently from the hymns of the great hymn-writers of the past, and used these to illustrate some point he was making.  This practice gave me a greater appreciation of Christian hymnody, and saw how hymns could be used to light up a text of Scripture or some truth that was being expounded.

However, when I turned to his sermons on Ephesians, I discovered either that he deliberately skipped that portion (5:19, 20) which is most unlikely, given the Doctor's concern to deal exhaustively with his text; or else someone else made the decision to delete his exposition of these verses for some other reason.  If the reason is the former, then that's one thing, however unlikely it might be, but if it is the latter, then someone has decided to distort the Doctor's theology and practice by removing these sermons for the published series.  In this series, as in all his preaching, he deals thoroughly with every text, so it is most strange that he skipped over these two verses and proceeded on to v.21.

A similar policy decision was taken by Banner editors not to include DMLJ's sermon on Roman Catholicism (originally sermon 16) also in the Ephesians series where the Doctor was expounding "the wiles of the devil" in Eph.6.  One must ask, Why was this done and who authorised such an omission?  This can be viewed as shewing the Doctor's teaching, and again I ask, What was the thinking behind this move?

Another Right Question!

In an earlier post I suggested that in churches where the minister is having difficulty through opposition to the Gospel, the right question to ask is, What is God doing in our midst?

Another pertinent question that ministers can ask is, What is the Lord doing in my life?  This is a profoundly personal question, and one that can shake us to the core.  And if the question can do that, what effect will the answer not have on us!

Yet it is a vitally important question to ask.  If God is working within His church, it follows as night does the day that He is also working in us.  So what is He doing in us?  What lessons is He teaching us?  What does He want us to learn?

Unnerving questions indeed!  But we must ask them if we are to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. We must face up to what God is doing, not only through us, but IN us. 

New Book on Calvin and Calvinism

I trust you have a really blessed time as you remembered and celebrated the birth of the Saviour of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ.  As we often say, it is as far behind as ever, and we are looking at a brand new year still unspoiled by human sin and corruption.  

My reason for writing is to tell you that our new book, John Calvin 500, has just come off the printing presses, and I received mine just before Christmas.  This contains the reports/lectures/papers delivered by six speakers and dealt with six different aspects of Calvin's life and thought.

The six chapters are:

1.  Calvin and Christ - The Faith (David Bond)

2.  Calvin and Calvinism - Amyraut et al (Rev. Dr Alan C. Clifford, the editor of the book)

3.  Calvin and Church - Presbyterian Order (Dr Ronald Barnett)

4.  Calvin and Covenant - Baptism (Rev. Stephen Quinton)

5.  Calvin and Comfort - Assurance (Rev. J. Nigel Westhead)

6.  Calvin and Courage - Under the Cross (Rev. Dr J. E. Hazlett Lynch).

A seventh chapter was added, being the paper delivered by Dr Alan Clifford at the International Calvin Congress held in Geneva in May 2009, entitled John Calvin and John Wesley: an English Perspective.

I am sure that not everyone who reads this book will agree with everything that is said, given that its emphasis is thoroughly Calvinistic and therefore Presbyterian in orientation.  That said, I doubt if readers will not derive some benefit from these papers, all of which seek to expound authentic Calvinism, or the Calvinism of John Calvin, in a clear and practical way.

You can order your copies from me, price £12.50 plus P&P. 

If you know of others who would benefit from this book, please give them my contact details, or perhaps you could order the book for them from me.  This will help sustain my work as well as promote the church of the Gospel.

God Sent Forth His Son.

God has shown remarkable patience with the world.  In His patience, He has given the human race more than sufficient time to prove that it cannot save itself.  The world had all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but this could not save the world.  The Persian and Assyrian empires were also given time to prove what they could do to change man, but they too failed.  Then we had the Grecian and Roman empires with all their great philosophy and debating skills, and all their legal and administrative expertise, but still no improvement came to the world.  In fact, the longer man tried to improve the world, the more it nose-dived into moral and spiritual corruption. All these purely human attempts to save humanity from itself, let alone from the coming wrath of God, failed lamentably. 

But God!  Here are Paul's great words.  But God.  When the fulness of the time had come, when men had more than sufficient time to prove themselves, and failed, God stepped in and did what man could not do and never can do - save the world.  All man's solutions were but treating the symptoms and did nothing to resolve man's estranged relationship with God, his Creator and Judge.  If the world were ever going to be saved, God must do it. And he did.  He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world, born of a woman, the virgin Mary, and born under the law, that He might redeem those under the law.

You see, man's greatest need was for redemption.  He needed to be redeemed; and everything he did throughout the whole of history was woefully inadequate.  But God's action was adequate, adequate to save the entire human race, on condition of faith. If man would but believe in the only Saviour of the world, he would be saved.  God would redeem him and bring him into fellowship with Himself.  He would deliver him from this present evil world/age. 

But man still thinks he knows best, better than God.  Man is still trying to work his own salvation, but he is destined to fail, and face divine judgement. Man still needs Christ.  And the Christ he needs was sent on the first Christmas to redeem mankind.  This is what Christmas is all about.  It is about God's way of salvation.  The Son of the Virgin is our only hope for time and for eternity.  His mother cannot do anything for you, so don't be deceived by those religious people who tell you she can.  That blessed woman was a saved sinner like me and many others; she too needed a Saviour.  So she cannot help you.  But the fruit of her womb can and will do for you what no one else, including yourself, can do - he can save you the moment you trust in Him alone for salvation.

Unbiblical Authoritarianism Within the Churches.

The sad reality amongst some of the churches in Northern Ireland is that some of God's dear servants are being opposed by professing evangelical and reformed ministers.  It is strange, but true.  These are reformed evangelicals who have elevated the church denomination way above the Gospel.  For them, being a 'good servant of the church' equates with being a 'good servant of the Gospel.' These ought to be synonymous realities, but the truth is that this is not the case. It is so sad that Gospel preachers within these denominations are being harried and 'monitored' and 'watched' by the "eyes and ears" of the establishment bodies, namely, their colleagues in the ministry and their 'agents' in the pews.

Now there are also ministers who are being - at this very time - opposed and persecuted by non-believers who have been accepted as Christians by the church's elders and therefore as church members.  This is what Gospel ministers must expect in what are imperfect churches.  But the servants of Satan masquerading as Christians is another matter altogether.  Even within the ministry there are those who not only do not preach a clear Gospel message but even undermine and deny it.

My heart yearns for these brethren, knowing, as I do, what this means in experience, not only for the minister, but for his wife and children as well.  That's why, I believe, the important place of the Christian minister within the churches and his teaching role there, must be reinforced robustly because they are people within the churches that are determined to silence the preaching of the gospel, and therefore the upbuilding of the Kingdom of God.  There is too much at stake in our province to allow this to happen.  Irish writer James Joyce once said, "Evil triumphs when good men do nothing."  I do not intend this to happen in my country without a passionate effort on my part to maintain the centrality of the preaching ministry within the churches.

We often hear of the persecution of ministers in foreign lands, and we pray for these brothers who are facing death every day.  But we are allowing the devil to proceed uninhibitedly in Ulster when we believe that this is still a Gospel preaching land, and that the churches here are faithful to the Gospel.  I only wish this were the case, and pray that ere long, this will be a Gospel preaching and Gospel believing land once again.

The church in Ulster is in a sorry mess.  So deep are the spiritual problems that it defies understanding to know what way to move in order to form a biblical church.  These churches belong to high orthodoxy, so for anyone to question their adherence, say, to the WCF, would be tantamount to heresy.  These churches have been paralysed to an alarming degree by their official acceptance of Owenism, that it is difficult to see how such churches can be reformed according to the Scriptures, and to live under the Lordship of Christ.  Have you ever heard of an Owenite church being reformed?  " They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick." These are righteous churches that "need no repentance." Only God by His Spirit can bring such dead orthodox churches to see the need to seek Christ to revive and reform them.  In addition, clericalism is becoming a real problem, if not a nuisance, with reformed evangelical churches in Ulster.  Thankfully there are some who are prepared to confront and challenge this unbiblical authoritarianism. 

Amyraldian Unorthodoxy?

Reflecting on the view of some concerning the orthodoxy of Amyraldianism, I reckon that those same men would not have DMLJ, J. C. Ryle, Thomas Chalmers, R. M.McCheyne, John or Chas Wesley, Philip Doddridge, J. Edwards, Joseph Bellamy, Richard Baxter, Jean Daille, Moise Amyraut, or even the great John Calvin himself, to preach in their pulpits. How sad!  But, I trust that those who hold such views will come to see that my theological position, according to Macleod and Muller, is an integral part of our cherished reformed tradition; more importantly it is biblical because it takes the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture with utmost seriousness.  How Owen can exegete "world" in John 3:16 to mean "the world of the elect" defies comprehension!  This is to prostitute Scripture. 

The rush by reformed men to squeeze the texts of Scripture into the WCF, or any other, mould, is a denial of the supremacy of Scripture in the life and witness of the Christian and of the church.  It is surely a cardinal aspect of Romanism that Scripture alone (sola Scriptura) is not enough, having to be supplemented by the church's magisterium. Is the WCF, in the minds of many reformed men, not their equivalent of the Roman magisterium?  How would they answer that?  It is no good their saying that it is a 'subordinate standard' when they elevate it in practice above Scripture!  Does it not smack of Rome's elevation of Mary above Christ?  I think so.  Oh, I hope wiser counsels prevail.

How dangerous a thing it is for men to defer in everything to any man-made document, however good it is deemed to be, while not granting to Scripture its rightful place!  What does God think of that, I wonder?  Is He pleased that a subordinate standard has been elevated over His infallible Word?  Has the church prospered when this has happened in the past?  I don't think so. 

John Calvin 500 Now Available.

I am so pleased to inform you that the book "John Calvin 500 - a reformation affirmation" has now come off the presses, and is available for you to read and study.  Published by Charenton Reformed Publishing, the book deals with Calvin and Christ, Calvin and Calvinism, Calvin and Church, Calvin and Covenant, Calvin and Comfort, and Calvin and Courage. £12.50 (postage extra).  The six lecturers provide us with a lot to think about and assess.  The author of this blog is privileged to be amongst them.

Get your copy NOW through this blogsite.  £12.50 plus p&p.