stillhaventfound.org

This is my all-time favorite Christian song. It’s a hymn. The melody is not contemporary so it gets some getting used to. But once you get used to it, it’s beautiful. And the lyrics are so meaningful. This is the kind of song I like to sing. All about God’s love. All about Christ’s death. All about the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s really a moving song. I wish more churches (especially charismatic ones) sang it. It’s normally sung in non-charismatic churches and with the organ but I love it when it’s sung to contemporary instruments - though I’ve only ever heard it like that once and that was 10 years ago.

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

‘Tis mystery all! The Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine
‘Tis mercy all! Let earth adore
Let angel minds inquire no more.
‘Tis mercy all! Let earth adore
Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace
Emptied Himself of all but love
And bled for Adam’s helpless race
‘Tis mercy all, immense and free
For O my God, it found out me!
‘Tis mercy all, immense and free
For O my God, it found out me!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light
My chains fell off, my heart was free
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
My chains fell off, my heart was free
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

No condemnation now I dread
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine
Alive in Him, my living Head
And clothed in righteousness divine
Bold I approach the eternal throne
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach the eternal throne
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

Al Mohler, in his book Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, mentions seven principles that he believes ought to guide a Christian’s response to the issue of homosexual marriage. One of them struck me:

We must be the people who love homosexuals more than homosexuals love homosexuality.

I think that’s spot on. Whatever your view of homosexuality, you can’t go wrong with the above.

[T]here are two ways and only two ways to read the Bible. You can read the Bible as if it is all about you and what you must do, and what you have to run around doing in order to get the blessing. Or you can read every part of the Bible as all about Him and what He has done for you. Is it all about you or is it all about Him? (Tim Keller)

This is part two of my previous post here. I quoted John Piper in part one and highlighted how Piper said that “many people are willing to be God-centered as long as they feel that God is man-centered.” This statement is of course meant to be a criticism of a Christianity that places the focus on man on the premise that God is man-centered.

Is Piper’s criticism valid? To answer this, I think the question needs to be asked if God is man-centered. It’s not a question often asked, but it’s an interesting question. And I believe the answer is, yes, God is to a certain extent man-centered!

I quoted Tim Keller above. Tim Keller is someone I like to listen to and read because he talks a lot about the gospel. He’s gospel-centered. In the above quote, he points out something interesting. If you read his statement carefully, he equates the Bible being “all about Him” as reading the Bible as “what He has done for you”. In other words, being God-centered in one’s reading of the Bible is really reading the Bible to see what God has done for us. That’s why I said above that I believe God is to a certain extent man-centered.

It doesn’t sound right, does it? To say that God is man-centered. But I believe that’s to a certain extent true. I mean, what is the Bible all about? From the very beginning to the very end, the Bible is a story about God as a missionary God (Announcing The Kingdom, Arthur F. Glasser). Whether we like it or not, the whole Bible is all about God’s mission in this world - His mission to rescue man through His Son Jesus Christ. Yes, God was on a mission to rescue us! The whole Bible is all about this “mystery” (Ephesians 1:9) of God saving man being revealed progressively.

This is not to deny that the ultimate purpose of man is to glorify God. But what is it that inspires us to do that? It’s knowing that God so loved us that He sent His Son to die for us. Of course, we are to live and die for God. But what inspires us to do so? It’s knowing that God first lived and died for us in His Son Jesus Christ.

Surely, our lives should be focused on God. Surely, we ought to love Him. But we love Him only because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). It’s about His love for us first, not our love for Him:

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:10)

Dare we deny that God is to a certain extent man-centered in his love for us? After all, who is the recipient of God’s love? US! His love is centered upon us, upon man!

Let me mention one last point. Many Christians would accept the above (they really have no choice because that’s the gospel!), but still be uncomfortable with too much gospel preaching that is centered on man. They kind of have the idea that too much of such “man-centered” gospel preaching makes “Him a means to [our] self-esteem” (see Piper’s quote). For example, Paul Washer said:

Yes the Savior manifests love toward the sinner. But what you need to understand is that it’s not because of some worth or value in you. The Cross is not a sign of your great worth. The Cross is a sign of your great depravity; that you are so evil the only way you could be saved is by God’s Son being crushed under the full force of the wrath that was due you…

I agree that the cross is in a sense a sign of our great depravity. Is it also a sign of man’s great worth? By even entertaining that question, I’m getting into dangerous territory. People like Washer and Piper want to make man as little as possible and God as big and magnified as possible. And that’s why they say the things they do. I understand where they’re coming from. But I think that sometimes this can be overdone. Was the cross in any way a sign of man’s great worth? I think I’ll have no problem saying that there’s a bit of truth in that. It’s not because man deserves the cross. But because man is made in the image of God and is special in God’s eyes. I don’t think we do God or the Bible justice when we ignore the important fact that though fallen, man was made in the image of God. We’re different from animals and plants. While we’ve fallen and we’re sinners, that doesn’t mean we’ve suddenly become nothing of value in God’s eyes. I think that’s going to the opposite extreme.

But let me say this to end. I think a better statement than saying that “The cross is not a sign of our great worth, but our great depravity” is simply saying that “The cross is a sign of God’s great love for us”. It’s ultimately not about whether we’re worthy or not worthy. It’s ultimately about God’s great love for us. Whether one believes that the reason for God’s great love for us has anything to do with the fact that we were made in the image of God doesn’t really matter. (Of course, one can argue that we were made in God’s image because of God’s love for us in the beginning, and I totally accept that). Ultimately, what matters is that God loves us and God centers His love upon us when He sent His Son Jesus to die for our sins. We are the objects of God’s love. That, I think, is totally biblical. And that, I think, is to a certain extent man-centered.

From start to finish, the whole Christian life is by grace through faith. A new life in Christ commences with faith, continues by faith, and will be completed through faith. To put this another way, the gospel is for Christians just as much as it is for non-Christians. We never advance beyond the good news of the cross and the empty tomb… Therefore, the Christian always looks back to the gospel and never to the law (i.e. performance) as the basis for his righteousness before God… There is no such thing as performance-based Christianity… Justification is a doctrine for the whole Christian life from start to finish. It is not simply a doctrine for coming to Christ in the first place… Justification is a doctrine to live by each and every moment.

(Philip Graham Ryken, Galatians)

Most churches view the doctrine of Justification as merely a doctrine to be preached and emphasized to the unbeliever (to tell the person that he/she becomes a Christian by faith alone) or new believer (to remind and assure the person that he/she was not saved by his/her own works but by faith in Christ’s works). Conventional Christian thinking and practice is that after one becomes a Christian for some time, he/she ought to move on to understand more important doctrines and teachings of the Bible. In a sense, to many, Justification is an important doctrine, but one that needn’t be emphasized to mature Christians. What ought to be emphasized to mature Christians are other doctrines - basically, every other doctrine in the Bible, especially those that talk about how we ought to live for God. The Bible, after all, is a huge book and there are so many more things taught in it than merely about Justification, so the common belief is.

I disagree with the conventional belief, of course. I think we totally miss the main point of the Bible when we think that Justification is only one doctrine, even if we do think it’s a very important doctrine. I think the whole Bible is about God reconciling us to Himself. That’s the story of the Bible. That’s what the gospel is all about. The whole Bible is all about the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament foretold it. And the New Testament is all about it, all about Jesus.

One thing I like about New Creation is that they understand this. They understand that the gospel of Jesus Christ is as much for mature Christians as for the non-Christian or new Christian. They understand that Christianity is all about Jesus Christ and what He has done for us. It gets kind of boring in New Creation if we want to hear other things. But if we understand how important the gospel of Jesus Christ is to God, the Bible and the Christian, then it’s anything but boring. It can such an exciting place to be if one wants to learn more and more about Jesus and the gospel.

Most Americans believe that what their problem is, is something that has happened to them; and their solution is going to be found within. In other words they believe that they have an alien problem that is to be resolved with an inner solution; when the Gospel says that what we have is an inner problem and the only solution is an alien righteousness. (Albert Mohler)

By an alien righteousness, the author means a righteousness which is outside of ourselves, and not one that comes from within us. It’s a righteousness which comes from Christ’s life and not from our own. Our very own righteousness can never be good enough. But thank God for Christ’s righteousness which is now ours by faith.

[M]any people are willing to be God-centered as long as they feel that God is man-centered. It is a subtle danger.We may think we are centering our lives on God, when we are really making Him a means to self-esteem. Over against this danger I urge you to ponder the implications, brothers, that God loves His glory more than He loves us and that this is the foundation of His love for us. (Brothers, We Are Not Professionals)

[W]e have turned the love of God and the gospel of Christ into a divine endorsement of our delight in many lesser things, especially the delight in our being made much of. The acid test of biblical God-centeredness - and faithfulness to the gospel - is this: Do you feel more loved because God makes much of you, or because, at the cost of his Son, he enables you to enjoy making much of him forever? Does your happiness hang on seeing the cross of Christ as a witness to your worth, or as a way to enjoy God’s worth forever? Is God’s glory in Christ the foundation of your gladness? (God Is The Gospel)

Both the above quotes are taken from two books by John Piper. I’ve posted them here because I think they are extremely thought-provoking. The first sentence above is especially insightful I think:

Many people are willing to be God-centered as long as they feel that God is man-centered.

I believe a lot of evangelicals would agree with the above quotes. And I do think that they have a lot to do with the grace message of New Creation. That’s all I’ll say for this post. Free free to leave your comments, if any.

Last Sunday (17-02-08), Pastor Prince preached his first ever Sunday service message on Tithing. That is, this was the first time in all his years at New Creation that he preached a whole sermon on Tithing in a Sunday service. He told the church this. While I haven’t listened in on every Sunday service Pastor Prince has preached in to verify the truth of what he said, I have no problems believing him. I’ve been to enough services at New Creation to know that money has never been much of a focus there. Sure, there’s talk about God prospering His people materially (and I’ll touch on this another time) and New Creation would identify itself as a Word of Faith church, but it’s not a church where the focus is on money. The preaching and services are extremely different from what one sees on many of America’s tele-evangelistic programs. If they were just a bit similar, I wouldn’t be in New Creation.

Many charismatic churches always have a mini-sermon on tithing and giving before the offering bag is passed around. By a mini-sermon, I mean that someone talks about what the Bible says about giving for about 5 minutes or so in order to motivate the congregation to give more. What is normally said is that God will tremendously bless those who give to Him and you can’t out-give God and all that stuff. I believe that the Bible says that. However, I also believe that a lot of people are sick of hearing that over and over again. It can be done - and is often done - in a way where people think that all the church is after is their money. It’s also often done in a way that makes us feel guilty for not giving more. Furthermore, constantly emphasizing that God will bless us 100 fold or that He will bless us tremendously as we give to Him sacrificially tends to promote greed and self-centeredness. The result is that while people may give sacrificially in such churches, a large part of the motivation for giving is wrong. They give to be blessed in return and that’s become main reason.

One thing I love about New Creation is that they don’t have a mini-sermon before the offering bag goes around. They hardly say much before the offering. And this is in keeping with their philosophy that they don’t want to pressure Christians into doing what they may not want to do. They don’t want to make Christians feel guilty or condemned for not giving more. Sit through any service and you’ll realize how much of a non-event offering time is. They don’t believe in manipulating people and I’ve never felt manipulated into giving when I’ve been there. In fact, once I heard one of the pastors who MC-ed during the offering say something like:

While there’s an element of truth that God will bless us back when we give, let our motivation to give be because of how much God has given us, and not because we want to be blessed!

Let me just state that I totally believe that God desires to bless us materially. And I believe that God blesses us as we give to Him. All this is true, eventhough it can be and has been taken to the extreme by many churches that preach about prosperity. I do believe that if your motivation to give is to be blessed in return, that’s not sinful as there’s a biblical truth to that. But I also believe that this is not the whole truth. I think most of the time we should be giving to God and other people out of love, not out of the desire to be blessed by God.

Something that Pastor Prince said on Sunday that really impressed me was:

I don’t want 100% tithers. I want people to tithe from revelation.

As you can see, he wants the members to have the right motivation, to have a revelation of why we tithe. It’s no use if everyone tithes in the Church but do it from the wrong motive and without understanding why they do so.

Another thing Pastor Prince said was:

If you have to ask whether you should tithe from your gross or net salary, then don’t tithe.

The point here is that if Christians are so picky about how much to give God, then we may as well not give anything because we give it with the wrong motivation. The church wants their members to give cheerfully, to give out of gratitude for all God has done for them. Not to give because of guilt.

The way New Creation doesn’t make a big issue about giving is all the more remarkable when you realize that they still have to raise about S$100 million for their new building. I mean, most Churches have huge fundraising events and plead with their members to give sacrificially when they’re raising money for their new building. But if you go to New Creation, you don’t face that at all. To me, that’s pretty amazing. For that to happen, the leaders must have real faith in God to provide. And I believe they know that the church’s calling is to preach the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ in such a way that they can leave it up to the people to cheerfully and willingly give to God (without external compulsion from the church) as the church focuses on how much God has given to them in Christ.

…modern American evangelicalism has clearly reshaped the gospel of Christ into a two-part message: what Christ has done (on the cross), and what we need to do to complete the transformation. The announcement of the gospel as the “one way” love of God that declares us righteous through the sacrificial death of Christ, completely apart from our participation or cooperation, is seen as narrowly one dimensional and dangerously antinomian, releasing Christians from the various spiritual disciplines necessary for the exaggerated progress that all followers of Christ are expected to make in this life.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, as the one-way declaration of our righteous standing before God propels us out of gratitude to love and serve him, and any addition to the once-offered sacrifice of Christ is the clearly the Galatian problem; nevertheless, to take such a stand in the modern evangelical camp will no doubt raise some eyebrows and possibly bring on some heat.

(Joseph Martin, Reformation Diaries)

The above is taken from the Modern Reformation website. Modern Reformation is a magazine of Protestant Reformation thinking and very respected among Reformed believers. The magazine, its articles and its authors shaped my thinking quite a lot regarding the issue of the Gospel 10 years ago.

The above quote focuses once again (as with the two previous posts in this series) on how when Christians preach the biblical gospel, they will be accused of preaching a dangerous and antinomian message. The preaching of the biblical gospel in New Creation Church has no doubt raised many eyebrows and brought on lots of heat!

I’ve still yet to touch on an extremely important question of whether the gospel actually promotes antinomianism. Of course it doesn’t and I’ll explain my reasons in greater detail another time. However, I think this is extremely important to note:

There’s a crucial difference between saying that preaching the biblical gospel will inevitably attract accusations of antinomianism and saying that the biblical gospel actually promotes antinomianism.

I’ve been emphasizing the former, but that doesn’t mean I agree with the latter. I strongly believe that the preacher who preaches the biblical gospel will definitely be accused of promoting antinomianism (if he’s preaching the biblical gospel). But the biblical gospel (i.e. the one-way declaration of our righteous standing before God) “propels us out of gratitude to love and serve Him”. The gospel does not result in licentious living - it does not promote antinomianism.

I love the quote (in my previous post) by Martyn Lloyd-Jones. I’ve never heard or read Pastor Prince or New Creation Church mention it (maybe they have?), but if they haven’t they should! Pastor Prince, however, quotes from Lloyd-Jones in his book “Destined To Reign” (2007, p. 253-254). Let me quote it here as it’s good too:

The apostle [Paul] is asserting that if we are Christians, your sins and mine - past sins, present sins and future sins - have already been dealt with once and forever! Had you realized that? Most of our troubles are due to our failure to realize the truth of this verse. ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus’ is so often understood to mean nothing more than that past sins have been dealt with. Of course it means that; but it also means your present sins; even more, it means that any sin you may ever chance to commit has already been dealt with. You will never, you cannot ever, come under condemnation.

…But why does the apostle say this, and on what grounds does he say it? Is it not a dangerous thing to say? Will it not incite people to sin? If we tell Christians that their past sins, their present and their future sins have already been put away by God, are we not more or less telling them that they are free to go out and sin? If you react in that way to my statements I am most happy, for I am obviously a good and true interpreter of the apostle Paul.

(Romans - The Law: Its Functions & Limits: Exposition Of Chapters 7:1 - 8:4, p. 272-273)

This quote really complements the previous one. I can say a lot more about the above quote, but I won’t here. Let me just say that the reason why I’ll be quoting many different authors is not because I think quoting the Bible is not enough. I think the Bible is more than enough. It’s perfect and authoritative. But unfortunately I also realize that many people have different views on what the Bible says. We all differ in our interpretation of the Bible. Equally godly, intelligent and wise Christians differ on so many biblical issues!

So I’m not going to go through a Bible study on Romans and Galatians to demonstrate why I believe New Creation’s message on grace is biblical. I could do that but that would take too much time. One thing I want to show through these posts on grace is that there are many respected Christians who would agree with New Creation’s message on grace. There are many Christians who believe that the moment one has faith in Christ, even future sins are forgiven. There are many Christians who believe that if you’re a Christian, you’ve already been forgiven of all your future sins even before you’ve confessed them. There are many Christians who believe that you won’t go to hell if you die with unconfessed sins - because your sins have already been forgiven (past, present & future) from the time you put your faith in Christ. And there are many Christians (in addition to Paul) who would proudly preach the kind of gospel that people would criticize as antinomian and dangerous.

In fact, I would go so far to say that the whole Protestant Reformation was built upon this belief, but has been corrupted in many ways since then. Just as Paul would have been accused of being an antinomian, so the Protestant Reformers were accused of antinomianism by the works-centered Roman Catholic Church.

Knowing the above, I think it’s sad to see Singaporean Christians singling out New Creation Church as dangerous. Now, if they are fundamentalists, I’d expect that of them. Fundamentalists would take shot at everyone - including themselves. But it’s sad when you see the non-fundamentalistic, charismatic Churches criticizing New Creation’s message of grace. It’s sad because I think it just goes to show how far we’ve deviated from the Protestant Reformation’s view of justification by faith alone.

The number one reason that New Creation Church is the most attacked Church in Singapore is because of what people call “antinomianism”. Basically, that word means “against law”. There are at least two kinds of antinomianism - one doctrinal/theoretical and one practical. The first is the belief that the Moral Law (10 Commandments) are not for Christians today. The second is the belief that Christians can sin all they want because there’s always grace available for them. Christians have accused New Creation of being antinomian in both these ways.

In this post, I’ll only focus on the second kind of antinomianism - i.e. practical antinomianism. The charge goes something like this: “Pastor Prince and New Creation teach that a Christian can sin all they want because grace is always available.” I’ve heard that charge from many Christians who come from many different Churches in Singapore.

Whenever I hear New Creation being accused of antinomianism, I’m both happy and sad. Sad because I know that such an accusation is meant to be a criticism or judgement against the message of New Creation. But I also feel happy, because I know one thing (and I think this is really powerful and profound):

Paul was also accused of preaching an antinomian gospel!

A whole lot of my posts in this series will be dedicated to this area - that is, New Creation’s teachings on grace. So I won’t get too much into this now but I’ll just leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Martyn Lloyd-Jones and some comments below. I won’t say much about him except to say that he was one of the most respected preachers (known as “the last of the preachers”) in the world when he was alive and his works are still very much read today. He’s Reformed in theology yet at the same time open to Charismatic things. Here’s his brilliant quote. I’m not exactly sure where it came from (I came across it about 10 years ago) but I believe it’s probably from his commentary on Romans 6:

It is true that where sin abounded grace has much more abounded; well then, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound yet further?” The true preaching of the gospel of salvation by grace alone always leads to the possibility of this charge being brought against it. There is no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel than this, that some people might misunderstand it and mis-interpret it that it really amounts to this: that because you are saved by grace alone, it does not really matter at all what you do, you can go on sinning all you like because it will redound all the more to the glory of grace. That is a very good test of gospel preaching. If my preaching of the gospel does not expose it to that misunderstanding, then it is not the gospel. Let me show you what I mean. If a man preaches justification by works, no one would ever raise the question. If he says, “If you want to go to heaven, you must stop committing sins, live a life filled with good works, and keep this up regularly and constantly until the end, then you will be a Christian and go to heaven when you die.” Obviously, no one will accuse a man who preached like this of saying, “Let us continue in sin that grace may abound.” But every preacher who preached the gospel has been accused of this! They have all been accused of “antinomianism.” I would say to all preachers: If your preaching of salvation has not been misunderstood in that way, then you had better examine your sermons again, and you had better make sure that you really are preaching the salvation that is proclaimed in the New Testament to the ungodly, the sinner, to those who are dead in trespasses and sins, to those who are the enemies of God. There is a kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation.

Understanding the above quote alone would prevent a lot of criticisms of New Creation’s gospel of grace. It’s not about the quote alone, but about understanding the quote and how it’s based on a proper understanding of the gospel as presented by Paul in Romans 1 to 8.

For those who still don’t get how being accused of antinomianism actually means you’re preaching the biblical gospel, please understand one thing. Neither Paul nor Pastor Prince believe that we can sin all we want since grace is always available! Neither of them would encourage Christians to go and sin! Both are against sinning! (Pastor Prince has mentioned many times that he’s thoroughly against sinning). However, the important thing to note here is this: The gospel they preach is such that they will be misunderstood as saying such a thing! It’s about people misunderstanding your gospel. If you preach a works-centered gospel, no one would mistake you for promoting antinomianism. No one would accuse you of that. But then, that’s because you haven’t been preaching the true biblical gospel of justification by faith alone. However, if you preach the true biblical gospel of justification by faith alone, then you’ll face that charge as Paul did - and as Pastor Prince is facing also.

Romans 6:1 says, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” Why did Paul write that immediately after writing about justification by faith alone in the earlier chapters? It has to be one of two reasons. Either people were asking him that question and he’s just responding to it in his letter. Or he anticipates that the glorious gospel of justification by faith alone he had just written in the previous chapters would be open to such a charge (after all, he had just written in Romans 5:20 the “heretical” and seemingly “antinomian” teaching that “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more”!) and so he quotes the charge and then immediately provides a response to it (which I’ll write about in another post). Whatever the case, if you’re truly preaching the same gospel that Paul preached, people will accuse you of saying we can carry on sinning as grace will increase.

If Pastor Prince and New Creation Church are accused of antinomianism in this way, I actually take it to be a wonderful compliment, not a criticism.