How to be Truly Reformed

Ray Ortlund:

What unifies the church is the gospel. What defines the gospel is the Bible. What interprets the Bible correctly is a hermeneutic centered on Jesus Christ crucified, the all-sufficient Savior of sinners, who gives himself away on terms of radical grace to all alike. What proves that that gospel hermeneutic has captured our hearts is that we are not looking down on other believers but lifting them up, not seeing ourselves as better but grateful for their contribution to the cause, not standing aloof but embracing them freely, not wishing they would become like us but serving them in love (Galatians 5:13).

My Reformed friend, can you move among other Christian groups and really enjoy them? Do you admire them? Even if you disagree with them in some ways, do you learn from them? What is the emotional tilt of your heart—toward them or away from them?

If your Reformed theology has morphed functionally into Galatian sociology, the remedy is not to abandon your Reformed theology. The remedy is to take your Reformed theology to a deeper level. Let it reduce you to Jesus only. Let it humble you. Let this gracious doctrine make you a fun person to be around. The proof that we are Reformed will be all the wonderful Christians we discover around us who are not Reformed. Amazing people. Heroic people. Blood-bought people. People with whom we are eternally one—in Christ alone.

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I Never Wanted To Follow Jesus

There is a song that I remember hearing as a kid called "I have decided to follow Jesus." It's a slower song that is supposed to be worshipful. In the first verse, the phrase "I have decided to follow Jesus" is repeated a few times, followed by "no turning back, no turning back." This video might jog your memory.

I was reminded about the song a couple of years ago when I heard the tune again from Red Mountain Church. The melody was the same, but the lyrics were changed. In her incredible voice, Ashley Spurling simply says "I never wanted to follow Jesus...He rescued me."

I'm very glad Red Mountain redid the song and corrected the lyrics. I'm not sure how the original lyrics were ever meant to be a worship song. The truth is no one desires to follow Christ. We were enemies of God and hated Him until He gave us new hearts to accept the free offer of redemption. The response to this glorious truth is not "I have decided to follow Jesus", a statement of self-determination. That isn't worship.

This is:


Update: My friend Evan relayed the back story behind the writing of the original song. It can be found here. In the context that the song was written, I now see the justification for the use of the line "I have decided to follow Jesus." So, I apologize for posting without knowing the context.

The truth is we do make decisions daily to follow Christ rather than the world. And a newly converted person can declare "I have decided to follow Jesus." But this post is still a plea for these declarations to be rooted in the knowledge of the sovereign decision of God to allow us to make these choices. Dead heart => made alive => respond with repentance and faith => worship God for His grace.

Being Truly Reformed

Ray Ortlund has a great post about what it means to be Reformed. He does this by comparing much of what (wrongly) goes on in the Reformed church today to the error held by the many in the Galatian church. Like circumcision back then, Reformed theology today can become for many a form of divisiveness in the church, functioning as an addition to Jesus.

I am a proponent of Reformed theology because I believe this is what the Bible teaches. As I've come to understand Reformed theology I have been less than gracious with others who hold other views. However, I have been challenged the last couple of years (mainly through my Ecclesiology and the Sacraments course at RTS this past spring) to be more ecumenical. And this article by Ortlund is another encouragement towards this kind of unity.

Here is his conclusion:

...Let Jesus alone stand forth in my theology, in my emotional well-being and in my relationships with other Christians!” This settledness in Paul’s heart made him a life-giving man for other people. He was a free man, setting others free (Galatians 5:1). This is the acid test of a truly Reformed ministry – that other believers need not be Reformed in order to be respected and included in our hearts.

Whatever divides us emotionally from other Bible-believing, Christ-honoring Christians is a “plus” we’re adding to the gospel. It is the Galatian impulse of self-exaltation. It can even become a club with which we bash other Christians, at least in our thoughts, to punish, to exclude and to force into line with us.

What unifies the church is the gospel. What defines the gospel is the Bible. What interprets the Bible correctly is a hermeneutic centered on Jesus Christ crucified, the all-sufficient Savior of sinners, who gives himself away on terms of radical grace to all alike. What proves that that gospel hermeneutic has captured our hearts is that we are not looking down on other believers but lifting them up, not seeing ourselves as better but grateful for their contribution to the cause, not standing aloof but embracing them freely, not wishing they would become like us but serving them in love (Galatians 5:13).

My Reformed friend, can you move among other Christian groups and really enjoy them? Do you admire them? Even if you disagree with them in some ways, do you learn from them? What is the emotional tilt of your heart – toward them or away from them? If your Reformed theology has morphed functionally into Galatian sociology, the remedy is not to abandon your Reformed theology. The remedy is to take your Reformed theology to a deeper level. Let it reduce you to Jesus only. Let it humble you. Let this gracious doctrine make you a fun person to be around. The proof that we are Reformed will be all the wonderful Christians we discover around us who are not Reformed. Amazing people. Heroic people. Blood-bought people. People with whom we are eternally one – in Christ alone.

Read the whole thing

Reformed Movements & the Enduring Church

I've really I've really grown to appreciate Michael Horton these last few months, mainly through reading his book People and Place in my ecclesiology class this semester. He has helped me increase in my appreciation for the church (as I've blogged about earlier) and the importance of being confessional.

He provides some interesting thoughts on what many have termed the "young, restless, and reformed" movement or the New Calvinism (which was highlighted by Time magazine last year). When comparing this movement with the historical Reformed tradition, he borrows an analogy from C.S. Lewis about the hallway and the rooms. The hallway is the place "where believers mix and mingle", but they can't live there. The rooms are analogous to the church where Christians are meant to live, to be fed and nourished.

Like wider evangelicalism, the “young, restless and Reformed” movement is a grassroots trend among people who are, generally speaking, not Reformed. I’m energized by this movement every day, as I interact with people from a variety of churches, backgrounds, and traditions who are drawn to the doctrines of grace. I spend a lot of my time in this hallway and am enriched by it.

Nevertheless, not even a “Reformed” hallway is anything more than a hallway. “Reformed” has a specific meaning. It’s not defined by movements, parachurch ministries, or powerful leaders, but by a confession that is lived out in concrete contexts across a variety of times and places. The Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity (Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, and Canons of Dort) define what it means to be Reformed. Like Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Anabaptism, Reformed Christianity is a particular tradition. It’s not defined by a few fundamentals, but by a whole system of faith and practice. If being Reformed can be reduced to believing in the sovereignty of God and election, then Thomas Aquinas is as Reformed as R. C. Sproul. However, the Reformed confession is a lot more than that. Even the way it talks about these doctrines is framed within a wider context of covenant theology.

It’s intriguing to me that people can call themselves Reformed today when they don’t embrace this covenant theology. This goes to the heart of how we read the Bible, not just a few doctrines here or there. Yet what was once recognized as essential to Reformed faith and practice is now treated merely as a sub-set (and a small one at that) of the broader “Reformed” big tent.

And I love how he closes:

Right now, though, the “young, restless and Reformed” movement is in danger of succumbing to the fate of all movements at their peak: splintering. Our confessions help us major on the majors, leaving secondary matters open. Yet the “New Calvinism” movement is already showing signs of stress over questions like the age of the earth. Churches have ways of dealing with questions of fraternal relations and cooperation, but leader-driven movements can’t handle the stress. Conferences operate as quasi-official church courts, with vigilante benedictions and excommunications determining who’s in or out. It’s like the wild west.

Christ promised to be with his church to the end, expanding his embassy to the ends of the earth. Christ pledged that the gates of hell cannot prevail against his church. The same promise can’t be invoked for a movement. May God swell the hallway with new visitors! And may we all have the charity to come out of our rooms every now and again to bless each other and bear witness together to God’s sovereign grace. But discipleship has to be formed in the rooms—in real churches, where the depth and breadth of God’s Word is explored and lived.

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(HT: Challies)