Always Reforming?

"When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes." (2 Kings 22:11)

King Josiah had made a startling, distressing discovery. Judah had wandered so far from the Lord. The long lost and now found Book of the Law showed quite clearly how far Judah had moved from living the life of faith required as the People of God. What had been intended at the beginning as a pure life of trusting and honouring God had descended into syncretising with the belief systems of the nations around Judah.

The sin was great and the Lord made it clear destruction was coming on Judah. Josiah's distress and repentance was looked upon favourably by the Lord and Josiah was blessed to not see the destruction to come. He quickly instituted reform.

At other times, whether in the Northern Kingdom of Israel or the Southern Kingdom of Judah, periods of syncretism or worse were notable by the Lord raising up kings more righteous than others or sending prophets to call the people back to trusting Him and His Word. There were times of correction under more righteous kings but overall the slide was in one direction. As regarding the prophets, a blessing is not received as a blessing if one is determined to continue in one's ways. For many, the prophets' message was rude and blunt and the life the prophets called the people to was unpalatable compared to the life they were living. Understandably, rejection of the message of the prophets resulted in destruction. The Lord does not withhold justice indefinitely.

The history of the Church established by Jesus Christ is not without similar episodes of 'ebbs and flows'. I turn my attention to one episode which has a clear message for the Church today.

I commend to the reader the late Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones' address entitled "1662-1962 : From Puritanism to Non-conformity" given as the Annual Lecture of the Evangelical Library for 1962. A forty eight page reprinting of the address has been undertaken by the Evangelical Press of Wales in conjunction with the Evangelical Library, London.

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a great reader and built a solid understanding of developments in the Church from the time of the Reformation up to his own time. In his address at the Annual Lecture of the Evangelical Library for 1962 he goes back to the Reformation to provide a synopsis of one hundred years of activity and individuals leading to the Act of Uniformity in 1662. Dr Lloyd-Jones was drawing from history to caution against the Ecumenical Movement of mid last century.

"1662-1962! There has never been a time, perhaps, since 1662, when conditions, and the whole atmosphere and climate of thought and of opinion, were more inimical to what we are doing to-night than this very period in which we live. We are living in an age which seems to me to be an exact reproduction of what we are told about the children of Israel in Judges 2:10, '....And there arose another generation after them, a generation which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works He had done for Israel.' Now that is a very significant statement. You observe that they not only did not know the Lord, they did not even know their history - they did not really know what the Lord had done for Israel before their time. That is a perfect description of this age. It is an age which does not know the Lord as the fathers knew Him, and the result is that it is not interested in the fathers either; it is not interested in what God has done in past ages and generations. It is an age which is self-centred and very proud of itself, proud of the twentieth century, proud of its knowledge, proud of its learning, and especially proud of its superiority over the preceding age." Dr Lloyd-Jones goes on to apply this scenario to the advocates of "ecumenicity" who, he asserts, pay lip service to the Reformers and Puritans and, of whom, "At the very best they are excused in a patronizing manner. The argument is that we are in such an entirely different position to-day because of our 'advance', and our greatly increased knowledge and understanding as contrasted with the people 300 years ago, that we can no longer possibly hold the views which they held."

"Fast-forwarding to the early part of the twenty-first century, do we not find these words of Dr Lloyd-Jones having resonance with the thinking of today's Church concerning the view and teaching of the Reformers and Puritans on the creation account in Genesis? As if to reinforce the point for today's issue, Dr Lloyd-Jones goes on to cite an advocate of 'ecumenicity', Rev John Huxtable. Note carefully a term used which is applied today to Biblical Creationists.

"Let me give but one illustration of this from a recent address by the present chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. 'Next' he says, 'we must reckon with a different attitude to the Bible. Part of our fathers' security was in the Bible; and here we confront another revolution. They handled the Bible in a way no longer possible. I doubt whether John Calvin was what is now crudely called a Fundamentalist (emphasis mine); but those parts of his writings which have given rise to this modern heresy had great influence over our fathers.' " Dr Lloyd-Jones ponders how advocates of ecumenicity could link the events leading up to and including the Act of Uniformity of 1662 with the ecumenical movement of the twentieth century. He says, "So they find themselves in this curious position of feeling compelled to praise these men, but, at the same time, compelled to indicate quite clearly that their motives and ideas and reasons were altogether wrong, and quite impossible for us with our new and greater understanding of the Scripture."

"The more I read these modern references to 1662 the more I am reminded of what our Lord says in Matthew 23: 29-31 'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.' What is the point of of praising the fathers of 1662 if you say that they were essentially wrong in their teaching and outlook? That is to put yourself into the position of enemies of the men whose glorious memory we are commemorating this evening."

Precisely the same observation can be applied to many in the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church when they claim to be 'Reformed' in the tradition of Martin Luther and John Calvin. They praise these men, their colleagues and the Puritans for their doctrine yet they deny the doctrine and teaching of these 'fathers' on the creation account contained in Genesis. The same Sydney Anglicans are witnesses to themselves that they are children of those who were enemies of the Reformers and Puritans.

I might add that I am confident that Dr Martin Lloyd-Jones would share my view here. He had long been opposed to Evolution as a theory on life. He had also been earlier influenced by B. B. Warfield so he quite possibly held to a 'long age' for the earth. However, later in life Dr Lloyd-Jones rejected this view and came to be what is today roughly called a YEC but more appropriately called a Biblical Creationist.

Well, where does this all this lead us? Is there a lesson from the past for the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church? Most certainly! The Ecumenical Movement is not dead but it is probably does not have the momentum today it had fifty years ago.

Yet the issue of what is today defined as Biblical Creationism, the belief of the Reformers and Puritans, is no longer the mainstream teaching of the Church. Instead, a form of syncretism, a merging of the world's view of origins and the Biblical account pervades to the exclusion of pure truth.

How can this now despised teaching of the Reformers and Puritans regain its place in the doctrine of a Church declaring itself to be Reformed?

It will be difficult because the impure abounds with great freedom. It is entrenched! How prophetic was the utterance of Puritan and Martyr, John Hooper, when speaking of the perceived indifference within the Church of England to retaining certain objects of Romanism. He said, "Great shame it is for a noble king, emperor, or magistrate contrary unto God's Word to detain and keep from the devil, or his minister, any of their goods or treasures as candles, vestments, crosses, altars! For if they be kept in the church as things indifferent, at length they will be maintained as things necessary."

In similar vein, propositions such as theistic evolution, gap theory, day age and progressive creation were received into the Church as "just other possibilities" alongside biblical creationism but, as a body of thought opposed to biblical creationism, these intruders are now settled and dictate terms. In the main, to suggest having a biblical creationist speak to a congregation within the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church is to invoke, at the least, avoidance and, at worst, verbal hostility.

How can this sorry situation be redressed.

Well, King Josiah upon recognising how far Judah had departed from the pure Word of God was so grieved as to to rend his clothes and then inquire of the Lord. He later renewed the Covenant with the Lord and then instituted reforms in Judah.

By the inspiration of Holy Spirit, Martin Luther saw how far the Church of Rome had departed from the pure Word of God. By the grace of God he became a key means of reforming the Church.

The Puritans sought to complete the Reformation. Puritanism was defined this way: "It was a purification, an effort, wise or unwise, to rid the Christianity of England from all adhesions foreign to its nature, or obstructive to its power; an endeavour to remove everything in doctrine, discipline, ceremonial, which during the Middle Ages had been added to the Gospel of Christ." Dr Martin Lloyd-Jones adds something to this definition which seems to come through in Puritan writings so I will add it here; "... that Puritanism was not primarily a preference for one form of church government over another; but it was that outlook and teaching which puts its emphasis upon a life of spiritual, personal religion, an intense realization of the presence of God, a devotion of the entire being to Him."

However, the Puritans did not achieve their goal for the Church but their writings were a significant influence others, particularly on later men such as the Wesleys, Whitefield, Rowlands, Edwards and the Erskines who were key figures used of God for the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century. The Great Awakening came at a time (perhaps even to redress) when the Church had absorbed a deistic view of God. Deism arose from a flawed view of the world and its relationship to the Creator.

Several in the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church make claim that the church is "always reforming." This couldn't be any further from the truth. In fact, the Sydney Diocese is regressing. Not as fast as the Anglican Church in other parts of Australia or the globe but it is heading in the same undesirable direction due to the diluting of the pure Word of God with the "flesh of man."

What is needed then is a Reformation. This cannot come about by the will of man but by the Will of God. Elements required are an awakening to the parlous state of the Church, an earnest repentance and calling on the Lord God for forgiveness and cleansing. Only then, by the mercy of God, is He likely to act for the revival of His Church. May it be then that all the aforementioned desires of the Puritans are endowed upon the Church.

May it first be that greater numbers in the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church see how far the Church has departed from the pure Word of God on origins and the nature of God. In earnest repentance may they call upon the Lord for forgiveness and cleansing and await His most righteous and merciful blessing.

Sam Drucker