Guess What Has Not Changed?
By Rick Shrader
Perhaps the most difficult problem in dealing with a
postmodern culture is defining our terms. I doubt that a generation has ever
been so flexible with language as this one. One hundred years ago W.H. Griffith
Thomas, combating German Rationalism, said, “We cannot in any degree be sure of
the thought unless we can be sure of the word.”1 Unfortunately that
battle for context is all but lost on this generation. Consider the familiar
proverb, “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” It doesn’t occur to us today that
such a truth is not meant to be a good thing, but rather a warning! Notice G.K.
Chesterton’s comment from a past generation:
In the
heated idleness of youth we were all rather inclined to quarrel with the
implication of that proverb which says that a rolling stone gathers no moss. We
were inclined to ask, 'Who wants to gather moss, except silly old ladies?' But
for all that we begin to perceive that the proverb is right. The rolling stone
rolls echoing from rock to rock; but the rolling stone is dead. The moss is
silent because the moss is alive.2
What had always
been accepted as a bad thing: to be a rolling stone with continual motion but no
purpose or life, has now become a good thing: to be continually moving so as
not to become stale and grow roots. But as Chesterton noted, what some consider
to be alive (because it is always moving) is only a misconception of what is
really dead, and what some consider to be dead (because it is stationary) is
actually the thing that is alive.
The Scripture
always confronts the world’s thinking in similar ways. What the world considers
weakness, God says is strength; what the world believes is the way up is
actually the way down and the way down is actually the way up; what the world
concludes as folly is actually the wisdom and power of God. We always have to
be on our guard not to read a popular concept into a text and thereby come up
with an almost opposite meaning.
We have read and
studied the book of First John all of our lives in church. We do it because it
is short and to the point and speaks to a number of important issues such as
love and assurance. But the longer we read it or even translate it, the deeper
it becomes and we wonder if we will ever get to the bottom of it (which, of
course, we never will). Chapter two gives the reader four tests for the
sincerity of his faith. At first these seem simple enough, but the more we read
and reread them the more they take our thinking in the opposite direction from
the thinking of the world.
The worldling
would rather be a spiritual rolling stone, landing nowhere in particular than a
stone with Biblical moss on it, planted in a solid place, amid the raging stream
of culture (so he thinks). What he considers to be moveable and flexible God
says is permanent, and what he considers to be accepted and factual God says
will change with the power of His Word and Spirit. What the worldling believes
is new and fresh is actually as old as mankind and void of any spiritual life.
The Postmodern Mindset is Old
John’s first test
of spiritual life and vitality is whether we keep God’s commandments (1 John
2:3-8). But whoso keepeth his word, in him
verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that
saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked (vs
5-6). Though love is one of the commandments, it is not all of the
commandments of God. The Living Word has come to us in the form of the Written
Word and the believer that claims to be walking in the Light will be seeking to
live as He lived and also to be abiding by every precept that he finds in the
Scripture.
The new mindset toward the commandments of God
is as old as John and probably as old as Adam. The DaVinci Code/Jesus Seminar
mentality of our day or the Rationalism of a hundred years ago, that God’s
commands are not definite nor perceptible, leaves one in the old world and bars
him from discovering new life in Christ.
Many Evangelicals
(and some Fundamentalists) are flirting with the lure of being free from all of
God’s commands. They do this in many ways including creating unscriptural
dichotomies between belief and practice; by claiming individual vision from God
leading to para-biblical ministry; even exalting technological capabilities over
textual priorities.
Douglas Groothuis
insightfully observed, “Because postmodernists decry the tyranny of the author
over the reader, they rejoice in these technologies.”3 He also
quoted Benjamin Woolley saying, “Artificial reality is the authentic postmodern
condition, and virtual reality its definitive technological expression….The
artificial is the authentic.”4 This is to say that the old attempt
(by Gnostics of John’s day) to separate the commandments of God from the life of
the believer is nothing new nor refreshing.
The New Generation is Old
John’s second test
of spiritual life and vitality is whether we love the brethren (1 John 2:9-14).
He that saith he is in the light and hateth his
brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in
the light and there is none occasion of stumbling in him (vs 9-10). We
have let a new generation totally steal John’s words from their meaning. Today
we are told that the ones remaining in church, the ones retaining their
convictions, the ones going on doing what they have always done by God’s Word,
are the ones not loving the brethren! And why? Because they, supposedly, are
not accepting the change that the new generation is demanding. But John
obviously means (throughout this book and others) the opposite! Those who do not
like what godly Christians do in church (and argue for a less demanding path)
are the ones who do not love the “brethren.”
A few years ago
(October 2001) I wrote an article titled, “Why Those Old People Won’t Change.”
I made the point that the older folks are rightly offended by a younger
generation accusing them of not changing. The fact is that the older generation
DID change when they came to Christ and they have remained changed ever since.
The irony is that the new generation, which is demanding change, has never
changed from their worldly ways and has no intention of changing even within the
church. The old truth is that such a new generation does not love the
“brethren” (i.e. what Christians really are) and recoils at their very life of
faith!
John’s example of
this truth is in chapter three with Abel and Cain (3:10-16). Cain is the one
who did not love Abel and in fact killed him
because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous (12). So
John adds, Marvel not, my brethren, if the
world hate you (13). Today we still have the Cains not loving the Abels
because the Abels have lived and done righteously, and the Cains have no
intention of making the same sacrifice.
Isn’t it
interesting that we start out instructing “children” (2:13-14) to be like
Christ, pointing them to a life of maturity and wisdom, praying that godliness
will grow with the years, but at the same time we dishonor the “fathers”
(2:13-14) in the church when they arrive at that very goal! One church father
wrote, “This, then, is undoubtedly the genuine, legitimate rule of progress, the
established and most beautiful order of growth: mature age always develops a
person’s part and forms that which the wise Creator already framed in the
infant.”5 How tragic then is the old truth that the new generation’s
attitude is unloving toward “the brethren.”
The Contemporary Technique is Old
John’s third test
of spiritual life and vitality is whether we do not love the world (1 John
2:15-17). Love not the world, neither the
things in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not
in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world (15-16).
The black and white nature of John’s statement is shocking to our generation.
We have let the abnormal Christian life become the normal. Love of the world
has become an accepted spiritual plateau, perhaps even an accepted theological
position! By a verbal sleight of hand we have replaced the Biblical word
“world” with the non-Biblical word “culture” and have even (against history)
made culture morally neutral.
The new technique
is to draw people into church with “culture” and to embrace it ourselves as an
artist embraces his work. We hear, for example, things like, “there is no such
thing as Christian music” and “God made all music” as if man has never put his
sinful hand to anything and “made” it. The fact is God doesn’t make art, man
makes art! And it is an expression of our natures which we rightfully call
“culture.” It has always been a godly man’s duty to change and improve the
culture of the world, not embrace it. Donald Whitney wrote, “The world finds
the church and the things of God the most boring things imaginable. At best it
finds them much less meaningful than other things. And the people of the world
can’t understand why we don’t get as excited as they do about the things that
turn them on.”6
The Ecumenical Spirit is Old
John’s fourth test
of spiritual life and vitality is whether we do not love the antichrists (1 John
2:18-27). Little children, it is the last time:
and as ye have heard that antichrist will come, even now are there many
antichrists (18). Anything that neutralizes our doctrine is aiding and
abetting the flow of the age into the final antichristian religion and person.
Doctrine is being down-played in favor of cooperation. Separation has become a
nadir of the faith rather than a badge of courage. Denominating your faith
honestly with an honest title has become hateful and prideful.
Pergamos and
Thyatira have become the models for Christian ministry, active and busy in works
while allowing things which God hates. These things still bring success with
the world and in our pragmatic day we have learned to ignore the leaven and
enjoy the growth. In chapter four John demands that we “try the spirits” (4:1)
not “try them out.” He said of the false messengers,
They are of the world, therefore speak they of
the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that heareth God
heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us (4:5-6).
And So . . . .
Guess what has not
changed? The world has not changed! Whether outside the church or inside, it
will not and cannot live by the Spirit. Even carnal believers will continue to
walk after the flesh, desiring only milk but carrying the baggage of the old
life like strong men!
Guess what has
changed? The church of Jesus Christ has changed! She is as a bride adorned for
her Husband, as a chaste virgin to Christ, waiting to be removed from her
present surroundings and transported in the skies to her Father’s house, where
she will reflect the glory of her Lord forever! She is not of them that turn
back!
Notes:
1. W.H. Griffith Thomas, "Old Testament Criticism
and New Testament Christianity" R.A. Torrey, A.C. Dixon & others, eds.,
The Fundamentals (Grand Rapids: Baker
Books) 144.
2. G.K. Chesterton,
Heretics (Nashville: Thomas Nelson,
2000) 23.
3. Douglas Groothuis,
The Soul In Cyberspace (Grand Rapids:
Baker Books, 1997) 69.
4. Quoted by Groothuis, 27.
5. Vincent of Lerins, “Spiritual Maturity,” Sharrer
& Vanker, eds. Day by Day With the Early Church
Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999) 243.
6. Donald Whitney,
How Can I Be Sure I’m A Christian? (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1994) 56.
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