Are You a Reformed Fundamentalist?

In a somewhat unrelated comment in an interview at the Vintage 73 blog the interviewee Rev. Sam Wheatley mentioned “Reformed Fundamentalist”s in a pejorative fashion and since all good nicknames (like Yankee and Redneck) start off their lives as epithets I’d like to own that name and put forward a list of “5 Fundamentals” that I would consider to be indicative of someone I would consider a “Reformed Fundamentalist”. The list of five necessarily are a little broad, but are succinct enough to be a clear marker between Fundamentalists and others.

If I was going to put a list of 5 things that would make someone a “Reformed Fundamentalist” in our context it would be:

1) 6-Day Creationism
2) Byzantine Text/Received Text/TR
3) Establishmentarianism (Original WCF 23)
4) Regulative Worship
5) Consistent Presbyterian Ecclesiology (See Westminster Directory for Church Government)

February Pastoral Letter

Greetings in the Name of the Lord!

Winter has seen fit to pass Ellisville by this year (and it seems much of the nation as well) and you can already see spring beginning to pop up in many places. The pear trees I planted last year in the front of the manse have started to bud and I can see my neighbors likewise out prepping their gardens and flowerbeds as the weather starts to warm and the rain continues to fall.

Preparation is also an important part of the Christian life.  One of the things we have seen as we continue to go through John’s Gospel is the failure of the men God had ordained to lead   Israel to properly understand what they were to expect from the Messiah. Most were looking for another King David who would lead them in a revolt against the oppressive Roman Empire. Others were seeking the next great prophet sent from God who would lead their particular Jewish sect against the teachings of competing sects. However Jesus was neither the King who fit what the Zealots wanted nor was He the Prophet or Priest who fit what the Essenes and Pharisees were looking for. That is why you see such indignation from Nicodemus when Jesus tells Him that you must be born again to see the Kingdom of God. The time in which we live is unfortunately not much different.

There are regrettably many false teachers today teaching a false gospel of works righteousness instead of the truth of salvation by Faith Alone. They are leading many astray and that is why it is vitally important for Christians to prepare and guard themselves against these teachers by living in the Word of God and to be, as the Bereans of Acts 17, checking the teachings they are receiving from various sources against the Scriptures that God has given them. It is also important to clothe ourselves in the Scriptures so that we can develop a right understanding of who Christ is, what Christ has come to do, and what Jesus continues to do for His sheep. There is nothing more important in the Christian life than getting the Gospel right because as Jesus notes if we do not understand earthly things how can we hope to understand heavenly things?

We will also continue our Sunday evening Bible Study at 5:00pm in the Pastor’s Study. We have been enjoying the study through the book of Isaiah and hope that you will consider meeting with us. There is some interest in having a concurrent fellowship time on Sunday evenings for the kids. Be on the lookout for more info on that front. We are of course always looking for more and varied ways in which to increase our fellowship with one another as we continue to grow in grace and in the love of Christ. As always if there is anything I can do for you do not hesitate to give me a ring or stop by the study during the week.

In God’s Love,

Rev. Benjamin P. Glaser, M. Div.

Pastor, Ellisville Presbyterian Church (Independent)

www.ellisvillepres.org

Atonement Through Marketing and Commercialism

‎“The need for atonement, the need for cleansing, and for purity is inseparable from man, and the advertising industry is well aware of it. The clean look, the new product, the spotless modern home, new clothing, these and other forms of ritual purification are sold by advertisers to a guilt-ridden populace in search of packaged atonement… The answer of the advertising industry is ritual and ceremonial purification through the purchase of symbolic goods. These answers are a supplement to or a replacement of the ancient forms of works-salvation, of religions and heresies whereby man worked out his own salvation by means of self-atonement, self-righteousness, and self-justification. They share not only a common theoretical basis but a common futility.” — Dr. R.J. Rushdoony, “Politics of Guilt and Pity” pg. 6-7

 

 

Presbyterians Don’t Do Holy Days

Since we have left the made up “holy day” of Christmas and are entering into another season of legalist attacks against the liberty won by Christ in the form of the “Lenten” season it is worth remembering that Presbyterians have traditionally (and in my opinion biblically) not adopted man-made holy days and instead have seen the Sabbath Day as the only day set aside by Our Lord for His Worship (keeping Deut 12:32 always in mind). This excerpt below is from a work written by David Calderwood discussing the various reasons often given in defense of “holy days”.

2. It is the privilege of God’s power to appoint a day of rest, and to sanctify it to his honor, as our best divines maintain (Perkins, Gal. 4; Willet, Synopsis, page 501, and Romans 14 controversy 4; Kuchlein in catechis. Holland de diebus festis.). Zanchius (In 4 pr‘cept col. 655) affirms that it is proper to God to choose any person or any thing to consecrate and sanctify it to himself, as it belongs to him alone to justify. Catechismus Hollandieus says no wise man will deny that this sanctification belongs only to God, and that it is manifest sacrilege to attribute these things to men, which are only of divine ordination. Willet says, It belongs only to the Creator to sanctify the creature. In the book of Ecclesiasticus (cap. 33: 7, 8) it is demanded, Why doth one day excel another, when as the light of every day of the year is of the Sun? It is answered, By the Knowledge of the Lord they were distinguished, and he altered seasons and feasts. Some of them hath he made high days, and hallowed them; Some of them he hath made ordinary days.

The common tenet of the divines was acknowledged by the pretended Bishop of Galloway in his sermon at the last Christmass. It may offend you, he said, that this is an holy day. I say there is no power either civil or ecclesiastical can make a holy day: no King, no Kirk: only the Lord that made the day, and distinguished it from the night: he hath sanctified the seventh day. The like was acknowledged by M. P. Galloway in his Christmas Sermons. If the special sanctification of a day to an holy use depends upon God’s commandment and institution, then neither King nor kirk representative may make a holy day.

The observers of days will say they count not their anniversary days holier than other days, but that they keep them only for order and policy, that the people may be assembled to religious exercises. ANSWER. The Papists will confess that one day is not holier than another in its own nature, no not the Lord’s Day: for then the Sabbath might not have been changed from the last to the first day of the week. But they affirm that one day is holier than another in respect of sacred mysteries whereof they carry the names, as Nativity, Passion, Ascension, etc. And so do we. The presence of the festivity puts a man in mind of the mystery, howbeit he have not occasion to be present in the holy assembly. We are commanded to observe them in all parts, as the Lord’s Day, both in public assemblies, and after the dissolving of the same. Yea it is left free to teach any part of God’s word on the Lord’s Day; but for solemnity of the festival, solemn texts must be chosen: Gospels, Epistles, Collect, Psalms must be framed for the particular service of these days, and so the mystical days of man’s appointment shall not only equal, but in solemnity surpass the moral sabbath appointed by the Lord. Does not Hooker say that the days of public memorials should be clothed with the outward robes of holiness. They allege for the warrant of anniversary festivities the ancients, who call them sacred and mystical days.

If they were instituted only for order and policy, that the people may assemble to religious exercises, wherefore is there but one day appointed between the Passion and Resurrection? Forty days between Resurrection and Ascension? Ten between the Ascension and Pentecost? Wherefore follow we the course of the moon, as Bonaventura alludes (Lib. 2. Dist. 4. num. 48.). Wherefore is there not a certain day of the month kept for Easter, as well as for the Nativity? Does not Bellarmine give this reason out of Augustine, that the day of the Nativity is celebrated only for memory, the other both for memory and for sacraments (De Cultis Sanctorum, Lib. 3 Cap. 12.) Ille celebratur solum ob memoriam, & ideo semper die 25. Decembris: at iste celebratur ob memoriam & sacramentum, & ideo variatur [The one is celebrated only on account of memory, and therefore always on the 25th of December, but the other is celebrated on account of memory and sacrament, and so it changes].

If the anniversary commemorations were like the weekly preachings, as the two forenamed preachers made the comparison, why is the husbandman forced to leave his plough at the one, and not at the other? Why has the one proper service and not the other? Why did not M. Galloway curse the people for absence from the one, as well as from the other? Why are the days of the one changeable, and not the other? To make solemn commemoration of Christ’s nativity upon any other day, than upon the putative day of his nativity, would be thought a great absurdity; such like of his Passion, Ascension, etc. And last, how could M. Galloway affirm that the evidence of God’s Spirit appeared in the Christmas Sermons that are extant, more lively than in any other sermons?…

…Against this argument is first alleged that the Apostle compares with the observation of days, Rom. 14: 5, 6. Answer. The Apostle bears with the infirmity of the weak Jews, who understood not the fulness of the Christian liberty. And the ceremonial law was as yet not buried. But the same Apostle reproves the Galatians who had attained to this liberty, and had once left off the observation of days. Next, the Judaical days had once that honor, as to be appointed by God himself; but the anniversary days appointed by men have not the like honor.

It is secondly objected that seeing the Lord’s Day was instituted in remembrance of Christ’s resurrection, the other notable acts of Christ ought likewise to be remembered with their several festivities. Answer. (1.) It follows not that because Christ did institute in remembrance of one benefit, therefore men may institute for other benefits. (2.) Christ’s resurrection was a benefit including the rest, as an accomplishment of the work of redemption, and answered anagogically [allegorically] to the common benefit of creation by the beginning of a new creation. (3.) We deny that the Lord’s Day was appointed to celebrate the memory only of Christ’s resurrection. For then the Lord’s resurrection, the proper subject of all Homilies, Sermons, Gospels, Epistles, Collects, Hymns and Psalms belonging to the Paschal service should be the proper subject of divine service every Lord’s Day. Then the Lord’s Day should be a festival day: and it were unlawful to fast on it. It was instituted for the remembrance of all his actions, and generally for his worship. Athanasius says (Homilia de semente.) In Sabatho convenimus ut Dominum Sabathi Iesum adoremus. We convene on the Sabbath that we may adore Jesus the Lord of the Sabbath. Augustine (De Verbis Apostol. Serm. 15.) says Domino ut hic dies ideirco dicitur, quia eo die Dominus resurrexit, vel ut ipso nomine doceret illus Domino consecratum esse debere. It is called the Lord’s Day because the Lord rose that day, or that the name might teach us that it ought to be consecrated to the Lord. It is called the Lord’s Day, either because the Lord did institute it, as the days of Purim are called Mordecai’s days, in the second of the Maccabees, and communion is called the Lord’s Supper; or else because it was instituted to the Lord’s honor and worship. The Jewish Sabbath was the Sabbath of the Lord our God. The Christian Sabbath is the Sabbath of Christ our Lord, God and man.

John Calvin On the Wickedness of Contraceptives

Our church and nation would be wise to listen to the counsel of the Geneva reformer commenting on the wicked sin of Onan:

“Less neatly the Jews speak about this matter. I will contend myself with briefly mentioning this, as far as the sense of shame allows to discuss it. It is a horrible thing to pour out seed besides the intercourse of man and woman. Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on the ground, is double horrible. For this means that one quenches the hope of his family, and kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born. This wickedness is now as severely as is possible condemned by the Spirit, through Moses, that Onan, as it were, through a violent and untimely birth, tore away the seed of his brother out the womb, and as cruel as shamefully has thrown on the earth. Moreover he thus has, as much as was in his power, tried to destroy a part of the human race. When a woman in some way drives away the seed out the womb, through aids, then this is rightly seen as an unforgivable crime. Onan was guilty of a similar crime, by defiling the earth with his seed, so that Tamar would not receive a future inheritor.”

 

The Simple Preaching of the Gospel

What Do We Need To Do?

By Rev. Benjamin P. Glaser

Pastor, Ellisville Presbyterian Church (Independent)

One of the most important things Christ calls for His Church to do is to communicate the good news of Christ to the lost and to train up disciples in His truth. There is much confusion in our day as to what is the best way to share the gospel with others. I have heard as many pitches for schemes and ideas for reaching folks for Christ as I have received mail from organizations claiming that if I just use their program and follow their 7-step process my church will be guaranteed to become the next “megachurch”. There is a great quotation that I heard from a Baptist writer by the name of James White that goes, “What you win them with is what you win them to.” There is much truth to what Dr. White notes here. The Apostle Paul when confronted with challenges to the way in which he preached the gospel, especially among the Gentiles, says that the best way to reach the lost is through the simple message of Christ Crucified. Paul did not rely on gimmicks or fancy oratory, but plainly spoke the gospel in love. The main reason for Paul’s simple approach for outreach is because he trusted in the power of the Word of God to save sinners. He did not think the message of the cross needed to be dressed up in fancy laser-light shows or attractive dress in order to see hearts and minds turned to Christ. In his letter to the Romans Paul says in Ch.10, v.15, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!” Through the plain act of preaching Paul says the many are saved, not by publicity stunts or sideshows, but by the power of God’s Word to men.