Red hot coals and punitive discipline

I had heard this second-hand, but when I finally listened to the sermon, it seemed worse than I initially thought:

[Sermon on the holiness of God] Now at this point, I know, maybe some aren't happy and maybe the question is, "well, look pastor, where is the grace and all this? I mean, where is the grace? It just feels too rigorous it feels too daunting. Maybe you're saying yes, I don't really want to feel like Peter who pulled up the net." Well, 
I want to say something. The grace is in the hot coal. Isaiah said I'm cut off. I don't think this was his conversion. I don't think this was his original call. What was it? I'm beginning to wonder if it was his prideful mouth. That he came to understand was indeed a prideful mouth, but regardless whatever it was the angel takes from the altar the burning coal. What is that? It's the consuming wrath of God on that altar takes the coal from the altar and touches his lips and says, "you are forgiven." Now what's that all about? Well, let me paint it the way I've been painting it for the conference. You have this indescribable incomprehensible and immeasurable God, and you have man, and there is a great distance between you a chasm between the two. And that coal upon the lips of that prophet was but a taste of what it would cost, in a vision mind you, of what it would cost to bridge that gap. He was invited into the experience in that vision, into the experience of what it was to experience the wrath of God that would bring forgiveness and it seems to be that because at that point we find Isaiah ready to pursue holiness and what Isaiah understands is that he cannot accomplish this atonement in and of himself.

While this scene is very gracious, and indeed, even the coal is gracious. The problem is the description of the experience of the coal. This pastor makes explicit that Isaiah is invited into the "experience of what it was to experience the wrath of God". That is quite scary. Keep in mind that Isaiah is saved at this point. This is not the beginning of his prophetic ministry. Not only that, Isaiah has just confessed his sin and repented, and after that, the coal is taken and touched to his lips.

1) I believe this is sacramental. In the sacraments, we do not "participate" in the sacrament, but we commemorate and recognize, in a tangible way, what is symbolized. That is to say that baptism is not participation in the cleansing of sin, but recognition and commemoration of the cleansing. Communion is not participation in Christ's death, but commemoration of his suffering for our sakes. This is important, in this respect, because we cannot cleanse ourselves, and we cannot atone for ourselves, we can just be reminded of that work which is done on our behalf. So, saying that Isaiah was suffering the wrath of God in a real sense in his spirit in a vision first suggests that somehow man can atone for his own sin.

2) Remember that Isaiah is saved. Isaiah suffering God's wrath after he is saved and has specifically repented suggests a God that is not the one portrayed in the Bible - one ready to forgive and remove our sin far from us. For example, the RPCNA Book of Discipline says, (Ch 3:3) "If the sinner confesses and repents, there must be forgiveness and reconciliation, and the matter shall be closed. You have won your brother. Such closure may include counsel or censure appropriate to the circumstances." So, if God is forgiving Isaiah, why would he insist on burning his lips off first? I think this is part of the justification for overly harsh discipline - both parental and church. The lesson has been learned, but the parent still has to "punish the crime". One of the best things I've read about discipline is that the discipline comes before the message. That is, the purpose of the discipline is to help the child hear and understand the message. That is different than what we hear in RP circles, and this is probably justification for that. Discipline in RP circles is more about letting a child stand before an open window into the wrath of God - exactly what we see here in this interpretation, and probably the idea of the "appropriate censure".

3) The pastor later says, and I agree, that this is a commissioning of Isaiah for ministry. I think it is gracious and sacramental - a comforting sign that the wrath of God has been satisfied, not in burning Isaiah's lips, but already in the sacrifice of Christ, and Isaiah's lips are cleansed, not because they were cauterized in the heat of the coal, but because, again, symbolically, the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing repentance and restoration. It is like simultaneously participating in baptism and communion. He's being comforted, not spanked, after he is instructed and brought to recognize his own sinfulness.

Sacerdotalism in RP sermons

I had to do a bit of research on sacerdotalism after seeing it referred to in multiple comments. My thesis has been authoritarianism, which is slightly different, but along the same track.

Authoritarianism would say that the pastor is NOT a priest in the purist sense, but that we obey the pastor because his office represents Christ in an authoritative way. It can be manipulated into pretty much the same thing as sacerdotalism, but there is a slight difference.

Sacerdotalism would say that the pastor IS a priest - that the OT office never really went away, perhaps.

Thinking about this honestly when it comes to RPCNA sermons, I would say that the debate between the two is somewhat moot. An authoritarian or sacerdotal minister cares not whether he comes by his power by being a priest or by being an unquestionable authority. The point is that he has that power. But, listening to RP pastors preach, it is probably an exercise in futility trying to figure out where that power comes from.

Here is a quote from a recent RPTS-trained RP pastor:

And again, I think we need to notice that these apostles who were the leaders of the early church who went out as Christ messengers, it is noteworthy that the scripture records all of their failures. And I could tell you that's that's comforting as a gospel minister and I can guarantee that's comforting to your ruling elders. Because Jesus does not call perfect men to serve his church and to be his messengers and I think that's a powerful thing that's often neglected that these are imperfect men who have weak faith just like everyone else and yet Jesus commissioned them to be his messenger. Scholars almost universally agree that behind the New Testament office of Apostle was the well-established Jewish office of Shaliach. We need to remember that. There were some well-established concepts and customs that were known to John's original readers that are a bit foreign to us but I think this is worth just considering for a moment. A Shaliach in that Jewish culture represented his master. Kings, very often had Shaliachs and in the time before modern communication. It's not hard to see why this was so necessary - you needed someone who would go out and carry out your affairs with your authority. A Shaliach that Hebrew word basically means the same thing the Greek word apostle means. A Shaliach was a sent one. An apostle is a sent one. And what the original readers of this gospel would have understood is that you are dealing with the king's Shaliach. That was tantamount to dealing with the king himself.

As you may pick out, the equivocation is already clear - the gospel minister is an apostle. So, if the apostle speaks authoritatively for Christ, so does the minister. The fact that we now have the Bible - the very Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is secondary to the work of the gospel minister.

And these same men who by the power of the Holy Spirit would go out and preach that same word bringing the message of the gospel to all people. Now this is a timely message for the church today, because we are really being taught here how we should receive the gospel ministry. We're being taught here what Christ's program is for building up his church and building up disciples and establishing us firmly in the faith. The common view today in much of American Christianity is that the method of growth is simply me and my Bible. That if I just have a Bible I can go out on my own and I can read it. I can understand it and and I'll grow and that's how God's people will grow. But I think when we look closely at the scriptures we find that that idea is foreign to the Bible. Jesus has established his program he's the king it's his prerogative.

So, again, the Reformers argued for the sufficiency of Scripture, the clarity of Scripture, the Priesthood of all Believers, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but the pastor here waves it all away by saying that "God's model" is that we submit ourselves not to the Holy Spirit indwelling us, primarily, but to the gospel minister.

These men were commissioned by the risen. They went with his authority. Now, there are no more apostles. These apostles had the tasks by the Holy Spirit of writing down what we now have as the New Testament. So there's there's no more apostles and so we might ask what is the continuing relevance of all of this to us. Well, this commission still continues today because, while there are no more apostles, when it comes to gospel ministers when it comes to elders in the church none of them, no true gospel minister, no true elder is ever self-appointed. And the church has acknowledged this principle through the practice of ordination. There's an ordination process where wherein men undergo examination to see are they really sent.

Again, the pastor acknowledges that the apostle is not the gospel minister, but then ignores the concept of office and authority, focusing on the word sent. That is, the minister, the elder, is to be obeyed.

A man named Pierre Marcel puts it this way and strikes a wonderful balance between the necessity of the private reading of the word of God and the necessity of preaching. He says, "the commission of Christ implies that the private reading of the scriptures is not sufficient to lead us to salvation. Scripture is revelation, but the revelation must be proclaimed preach and put in a present day conflict. The private reading of the word must go hand in glove with the preaching of it. The graces obtained by personal reading depend on the grace of the preached word." This commission is carried out in the power of the Holy Spirit the spirit attending to and giving his blessing to the word.

This is pretty scary the balance between private reading and preaching is that private reading is insufficient without preaching. On the other hand, listen to what Ligonier Ministries says about the Sufficiency of Scripture:

Sola Scriptura also leads us to the doctrine of biblical sufficiency. To say that Scripture is sufficient is to say that the Bible contains all that we need for determining what we must believe and how we are to live before God. Scripture must be interpreted if we are to understand what we are to believe and how we are to act, but the sufficiency of Scripture indicates that we need no other source of special revelation for faith and life in addition to the Bible. https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/biblical-sufficiency/

So here we have an RPCNA minister speaking against Sola Scriptura. The Bible cannot be both sufficient and insufficient at the same time. Yes, the work of the Holy Spirit is required to bring salvation, but the Holy Spirit does not require the Bible plus the preaching of one sent.

This is where it becomes dangerously close to sacerdotalism, yet retains the constant claim to unique giftedness and authority. If this pastor is claiming that God cannot work, but through the one sent, i.e. the pastor, then the pastor is, by definition, a mediator between God and Man.

Remember, the Bereans were applauded for searching the scriptures, not as an addition to the apostolic message, but to see whether these things were so. (Acts 17:11) The apostles were subject to scripture, not scripture to the apostles. As I mentioned in the article on gaslighting, this pastor is creating an environment where the members cannot be trusted to read their own Bible, and this comes out in an earlier sermon, where Marcel is quoted again:

One of the ways we can prepare ourselves for worship is to be in the word during the week. It sharpens us, it familiarizes us, it exposes us to the word, and then we come in on the Lord's day and we have it pressed upon us in an objective way, and believe me, this happens to preachers as well. When we read our Bibles on our own, so often we can wiggle out from underneath what it's teaching. How often do we read a passage of scripture and we think oh, my wife really needs to hear that or my son or my daughter really needed to hear that? I don't know that it comes naturally to us, we want to let ourselves off the hook, and that's the benefit of preaching. It's that means wherein God objectively presses his word onto his people and conforms us into his image, convicts us of our sin, shows us that there is forgiveness and hope in Christ.

The word 'objective' is significant. It is contrasted to our private reading. The preaching is objective - factual, where our private reading is not. We are conformed to the image of God by preaching, and not by our private reading. The congregation here is being gaslighted and groomed. 

RP grace is a red hot coal... the theology of suffering

A few weeks ago, someone related how an RP pastor dealt with the complaint that the RP church lacked 'grace'. His explanation of grace was through the eyes of Isaiah, who, in chapter 6 views the throne room. Grace, in that instance was the red hot coal that was touched to Isaiah's mouth. The image of that is the searing pain which purifies Isaiah's lips.

Interestingly, neither Calvin, nor Henry, in their commentaries feel the necessity to talk about pain - it was not until adulthood that I heard the theory that somehow the coal had seared Isaiah's mouth. Henry says: 

Here is, A comfortable sign given to the prophet of the purging away of his sin. The seraph brought a live coal from the altar, and touched his lips with it, not to hurt them, but to heal them—not to cauterize, but to cleanse them... [emphasis mine]

Calvin says:

And applying it to my mouth. We see how God condescends to meet the weakness of human sense. He puts the tongs into the hand of a seraph, that by means of it he may take a coal from the altar and apply it to the Prophet's mouth. This was, no doubt, done in vision; but by the aid of the outward sign God assisted the Prophet's understanding.

So, why would the RP church want to claim that searing pain is, in fact, gracious?

I believe it has to do with the theology of suffering. For example, Joel Beeke says:

If righteous Jesus had to suffer so much to learn obedience, how much more do we need to suffer in order to purge away our sins and grow in his likeness?

and

Therefore, preach to your people a theology of suffering that places all our trials in the hands and will of a loving Father. Hebrews 12 teaches us to view our sorrows, even the persecutions of wicked men, as part of God’s fatherly discipline

https://www.crossway.org/articles/the-importance-of-preaching-the-theology-of-suffering/

While I do believe that suffering and discipline are important aspects of the Christian walk, I don't believe that they are the single lens through which life should be viewed. For as much as learning comes through suffering and discipline, it also comes through joy and gladness. Yes, God is a stern king and awesome ruler, yet, he is our daddy! He runs to his prodigal son! He wants to protect us from our enemies! He sings over us. He leads us to still waters and gives us rest!

Jesus said that God desires mercy and not sacrifice. It was the Pharisees that expected suffering.

How does this play out?

Evangelism... RPs believe that suffering and discipline are the keys to repentance. The believe is that God can only be found at the end of someone's rope. Therefore, we witness to people by shoving their face in their sin and misery and perhaps, if they don't recognize it, being a demonstration of God's justice. Imagine the surprise when Jesus 'hung out' with the religious outcasts!

Adoption... This is perhaps the least emphasized doctrine - as it places us in God's family and assures us of his ongoing love, favor, mercy, grace and all those other things that RPs are scared will not produce adequate righteousness in light of fear. Grace is that we are siblings and friends of Jesus and rightful children.

Sanctification... This is where RPs point out the suffering and discipline aspects of sanctification and not, for example, the Spirit-led insight. I enjoyed much of school. I enjoyed learning sports. I enjoyed working beside mentors.

It shouldn't be surprising, therefore, when someone walks into an RP worship service and finds a scene that could just as easily be at a funeral.

Joshua Harris on re-evaluating the purity culture, women in leadership and legalism

If you're in conservative/homeschooling circles, you've probably heard about Josh Harris, author of "I Kissed Dating Goodbye". He has recently separated from his wife after many years, and has been slowly backing away from the authoritarian, toxic culture of Sovereign Grace Ministries. Harris was taken under the wing of CJ Mahaney and became the lead pastor of Covenant Life Church, the flagship of SGM.

While I'm deeply saddened by the breakup of their marriage, I think that Josh is starting to see how the authoritarian/patriarchal culture has led to the sort of life-sucking culture that pervaded at CLC.

Here is his perspective on the problem with many churches today:

… I think in our setting, though, the thing that I would say is that we had a very restricted view of the role of women. That's one of the biggest things I regret in my time of being a pastor is the way we taught about women in the church, women in leadership, in the home, and so on. And I think there are massive indications when you don't have a female perspective in in policymaking and decisions related to something like that. Like, I think that we would have made better decisions if there had been women in on those moments. 

But it's not quite as simple as saying that … I think there were also theological problems related to our view of the role of pastors and our view of the role of the faith and ways that were, in our case, unique to our movement: the low view of psychiatry or therapists and those types of things, and the idea that pastors should be able to help you with any kind of life issue that you're facing. 

When it comes to something like sex abuse, we just did not have the training. We needed to be calling in other people, we needed to be, obviously, making sure that — and we did report many cases of sexual abuse, but in some cases obviously we made huge mistakes.
So there's sort of a web of problems. But I do think that a very patriarchal, male-centered, low view of women has connections to sexual abuse in different cases.

I think this is a great perspective on the legalism that develops, even around something as wholesome and worthwhile as sexual purity - I think one can argue that this pervades the RPCNA - there may be an underlying desire to defend pure and undefiled religion, but it can easily turn into a legalistic, shaming culture:

Well one thing I would just say is that I think that the problem with my book and the problem with a lot of the churches that I was a part of is that you can have kind of historical Christian sexual ethics and think things about the goodness of marriage, the goodness of fidelity when it comes to sexuality, all those types of things. But if you if you surround that with a culture that places high demand on the execution of that and creates structures of accountability, reward for those that do it well, a sense of shame for those that don't do it well, it's not it's not just a sexual ethic — it's also the sort of environment around it. And those sort of high-demands religious environments ... that has a massive impact on your experience of that sexual ethic — the way that that's enforced, the pressure that's put on you. So I think that is a big problem with my book, the big problem with the church environment it came from: how the ideas are applied and how the shame culture that can be built around it is a big part of its unhealthiness.

I truly hope he gets the space he needs to spend time with God - not the one he was taught and was modeled for him in a legalistic, shame-filled church, but the one whose yoke is easy and burden is light. It is a hard journey.

https://sojo.net/articles/questioning-faith-after-purity-culture-conversation-joshua-harris

Biblical Counseling

"I know many, many, many people who have been through Biblical counseling methodologies. I have yet to find one who has walked away less damaged than they went in... and that's really painful to say." - Rachael Denhollander, Valued Conference 2019



What does Biblical Counseling have to say?(emphasis mine)

On domestic violence:

"Similarly, you should expect to find two sinners embroiled with each other, not an irredeemable monster oppressing an innocent victim who needs no redemption." - Paul Tripp and David Powlison (of CCEF)

On counseling the sexually abused:

"Reframe her story. She is no longer a victim. In Christ she is a victor.
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Romans 8:37
An essential part of defaming her story has three parts and is based on Ephesians 4:22-24:

• Discarding old patterns of ungodly thinking
• Thought reconstruction
• Adopting new patterns of godly thinking

Very often I show my counselees how to do this through a specific type of journaling.
Reminding your counselee of her identity in Christ, reviewing the gospel, and helping her reframing her story is part of your counselees’ healing, accomplished through Jesus Christ who is her healer." - Lucy Moll, When Counseling the Sexually Violated

This sounds similar to how matters were dealt with at Sovereign Grace Churches - (CEO CJ Mahaney was on the board at CCEF):

Deeply embedded in the SGM mindset are some assumptions:

1. All sins are just as vile in the eyes of God.
2. One of the clearest signs of “rebellion” is when a person sees himself as an injured party, because no injury that can be perpetrated against the person could ever surpass the horror that the person’s own sin is in the eyes of God.
3. The clearest sign of a “repentant” person is eager confession of wrongdoing.

In your SGM pastor’s mind, you’ve got NO RIGHT to see yourself as a victim, of any sort. In order to “bring the Gospel in,” they’re duty-bound to remind you of your own sinfulness, like it’s some sort of tonic for the normal grief that you might feel because of the ramifications of the sin that was perpetrated against you…like somehow, if I as the victim can just focus on my own badness, I’ll forget that someone molested my child. 

So OK. In SGMville, all sins are created equal. 

Now, enter the perp. Perp expresses sorrow and remorse for his sin. He truly IS the “worst sinner that he knows,” so such a mindset comes easily and naturally to him. In the eyes of his SGM pastors, he automatically then becomes the “more righteous” person, since his response is the only “truly biblical” response that they can find acceptable.
It gets worse if the victim stands up for himself/herself in any fashion. SGM pastors immediately see this as unforgiveness, which of course is a sin, which then makes the victim even WORSE than the remorseful (and therefore righteous) perp. - SGMSurvivors.com

RPCNA Clickbait - guilting members into worship attendance, but with a darker underbelly

Ordinarily, I would think this fell into the typical RPCNA practice of approving someone's conclusion without necessarily thinking through how that person justified that stand, but I think there is a deeper, and more sinister agreement here.

In an authoritarian church, the pastor and church leaders turn our desire to revere and serve Christ into reverence and service for Christ's appointed officers. A reverence and service that, at best, borders on idolatry.

This is why Tim Challies's paper deserves a deeper look. On the surface, it is the typical shock-and-awe Evangelical situation-flipping to break through our natural defense mechanisms. (You were told that skipping church hurts you, but... wait for it... you're really hurting others instead)

Despite Synod's later protests with respect to the Directory for Worship revision, two modern Reformed concepts are enshrined in RPCNA doctrine:

Worship as Covenant Renewal: 

The fundamental issue concerning the public worship of God, then, is the nature of the assembly of the saints before God, for what reason it comes together, and what is required of it. The assembled congregation of the New Testament Church, like the assembled congregation of Israel, is God’s people met together in His presence at an appointed time to review and renew their part in God’s covenant with them, and to celebrate His gracious benefits toward them. In its worship the assembly of the saints expresses its faith and its loyalty to the God of the Covenant. (Worship of the Church, Adopted as a position paper by the 2003 Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, pp.16-17)

Worship as a Dialogue between man and God (Dialogical Principle):

According to the Westminster Confession, the Church comes together “more solemnly, in the public assemblies” (21.6), especially on the Lord’s Day, to engage in a covenant dialogue with God through the “means of grace”: prayer, Bible reading, preaching, singing psalms, and the sacraments. (ibid, pp.17-18)

The intriguing problem with these being the basis of worship is that they are vertical and based on the Old Covenant. That is, that there is no mutual edification in either Covenant Renewal or Covenant Dialogue. In fact the focus on Old Testament worship ignores the consequence of the Priesthood of all Believers, and puts a man back in the priestly position of confessing congregational sin before God, and then, on behalf of God, proclaiming forgiveness:

As subjects appearing before our Lord, we must seek pardon for past sins. Under the Old Covenant, the saints brought animals for sacrifice, laid their hands on them, and confessed their sins (Lev. 4:15; 16:21). Under the New Covenant, the saints by faith lay hold of the sacrifice of Christ, confessing their sins to God (Heb. 9:14; 1 John 1:7, 9). In the solemn assemblies of the Church, the saints properly respond to God’s call to meet with a confession of sin and hear God’s assurance of forgiveness for Christ’s sake. (ibid, p.20)

Note that the role of the priest in the Old Covenant sacrifice is conveniently ignored, and, seemingly the work of Christ as a once-and-for-all sacrifice are ignored. Instead, there are strong hints of the authoritarianism:

In the reading and preaching of the Word, the saints hear God Himself speak to them. (ibid, p.20)

While these two principles stand loud and proud, there is some vague reference to a horizontal relationship - note, however, that this precedes the talk about what worship itself is, and is never fleshed out any further:

Chapter 26 of the Confession teaches that, because Christians are united to Christ, they are united to one another and have holy obligations to God and to one another. There is a continuing duty of love that binds the saints together in church and out. This holy communion of the saints is visibly expressed when they gather for worship: 

Saints by profession are bound to maintain an holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God, and in performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification. (Confession, 26.2) 

Joining in public worship is the central means by which Christians encourage and edify one another. (ibid, p. 9) 

Not surprisingly, the paper on worship so elevates worship that the "central means" of mutual edification and mutual encouragement for the saint is 1-2 hours on Sunday morning.

However, there is a deeper darkness looming. If the central means of mutual edification is during worship, who is being edified? Is it our fellow saints, or is it the pastor basking in the glory of authoritarian worship? If good RPCNA members are being told that during the sermon, "the saints hear God Himself speak to them." then who is the pastor, but God Himself?

This is where Tim Challies's paper and the seeming RPCNA endorsement become revelations of the central idolatry.

And, of course, our commitment to the local church is far more than a commitment to Sunday morning services. It is a commitment to other people through all of life. It is a commitment to worship with them once or twice a week, then to fellowship with them, to serve them, and to pray for them all throughout the week. It is to bind ourselves together in a covenant in which we promise to do good to them, to make them the special object of our attention and encouragement. It is to promise that we will identify and deploy our spiritual gifts for their benefit so we can serve them, strengthen them, and bless them. (The Worst Consequence of Skipping Church, Tim Challies)

Whether or not Challies, who is also authoritarian, would have understood this through the same sort of worship-centric lens as the RPCNA, it is deeply concerning that the sole message the RPCNA gleans from this is seemingly don't skip church. Not surprisingly pastors here and there re-shared the message as a helpful reminder to attend Sunday worship. This, however, leads to a dark conclusion. If worship is our central means of edification, and seemingly the pastor is the only one who receives this edification, then aren't all these "mutual" promises simply about edifying the pastor?

Cindy Burrell on a godly response to spousal abuse

I've copied this article with permission, as I feel it is very applicable to the RPCNA study of whether divorce is permitted in abusive marriages. The original article is here: http://www.hurtbylove.com/love-a-redemptive-force-or-an-enabling-one/