SEEING THE BIGGER PICTURE - Greg Haslam

The Reformed Faith and Charismatic Believers Today

Popular conceptions of John Calvin include ‘Fascist spiritual dictator’, ‘nit-picking legalist’, ‘heretic burner’, ‘ivory-towered academic’, and ‘callous fatalist’. Nothing’s further from the truth! Calvin has left indelible fingerprints on both the church and the world for 500 years now - a legacy that includes awesome views of God, rock-like biblical truths, unshakeable Gospel certainties, massive new freedoms, life-changing worldviews, transformed nations, and generations of heroic world-changers and thinkers. It’s time to meet the real John Calvin.

I was converted in my early teens through a combination of the in-your-face witness of two school friends in the tough Liverpool school we attended and the in-your-face preaching of world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham whose London crusade was relayed via television to the Liverpool Methodist Central Hall. I sat there among many hundreds, riveted to my seat until Billy’s invitation came to ‘get out of’ it. That night I nervously went forward, longing to find the same Christ my friends had told me about, and many months of God’s work were clinched that night by a ‘decision’ to follow Him.

My life changed dramatically overnight but in the months that followed, a combination of inadequate understanding (it took me a while to grasp more fully the implications of God’s grace and what I’d done in responding to it) and deficient experience (it would be another 3 or 4 years before I was baptized in the Spirit) left me on a switchback ride of doubt and dogmatism, faith and fear as my assurance wavered dangerously. I would frequently plunge into dark pits of foggy uncertainty and fears that I’d ‘blown it’ and must surely be lost.

Three ‘Divine Appointments’

Within a year or so however, I was exposed to three of the most influential preachers that have ever touched my life. Two were still alive and one was long dead. In the summer of 1969 our Baptist Church youth group camped for the first time in a field near Derwentwater so we could attend the historic Keswick convention held in the English Lake District every year since 1875. The ‘Bible Readings’ (hour long consecutive morning Bible expositions) that week were given by the celebrated Bible teacher John R.W. Stott of All Souls, London. They were on Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy. Those four hours quite literally changed my life and my destiny, for I trace my call to the pastoral ministry directly from that magnificent sustained sandblast of biblical teaching, a vigorous clean out and restoration for my life, of the highest order.

Not long after an older friend at church asked me, ‘Have you ever read any of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ writings?’ My rather silly reply was, ‘Doctor Who?’ His response was simply to loan me the two-volume, sixty-sermon set of the Doctor’s exposition of ‘The Sermon in the Mount’ preached at Westminster chapel in the 1950’s. And so began a life-long love affair with the writings of one of the 20^th century’s greatest preachers whose books have circulated the world in huge numbers. That same friend also handed over a fat volume of sermons called ‘The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit’ by a Victorian preacher I’d similarly never heard of, a bearded, portly, frock-coated spiritual giant called Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a truly ‘apostolic leader’ way ahead of his time. I diligently read through these books whilst still in the Lower Sixth studying for my ‘A’ levels. I was so gripped by what I read that I could barely put these volumes down. I’m sure this adversely affected my examination results, but it was all well worth it!

A Second Conversion?



What happened during this time I can only describe as a kind of ‘second conversion’. Stott gave me a love for the Bible and a still undiminished excitement with the ‘magic’ of preaching - the possibility of bringing both the Bible and our hearers’ alive. This happens when close attention is paid to Scripture’s meaning, structure, vocabulary and life setting so that we bridge two worlds – the world of the New Testament and the world we inhabit. Stott also imparted to me a solid belief in the Bible’s divine inspiration, a conviction that I’ve never lost or seen shaken since, even during three year’s exposure to liberal theology and Higher Criticism at university.

Lloyd-Jones convinced me of the vital importance, even centrality of the place of preaching in building up both the Church and the Christian life of the individual believer. Finally, it was Spurgeon who, by his marvellous insight and eloquence, showed me so much more of the greatness of Christ and imparted to me an expanded love for Christ himself, as well as a growing sense of wonder for the Gospel. Those twin passions have been at the core of my existence ever since. The result was that I not only experienced the Baptism of the Spirit during this time, I also came to a clear assurance of my inviolable security and safety in Christ, a certainty that I can honestly say has never wavered since.

Significantly, I came to recognise that the perspective on the Christian faith all three of these men represented, each in their own unique way, was very different from anything I had encountered before. To put it simply, I came to realise that they all shared to one degree or another a distinctive doctrinal approach to the Bible, and ultimately derived from it. They were ‘Reformed’ in outlook or, as it has more popularly been called, ‘Calvinistic’ in their theology. Continued exposure to their works, as well as the writings of hundreds of other similar authors in later years, has deposited an incalculably rich inheritance of truth in my life, truth that has coloured and shaped my ministry ever since.

I describe this as a kind of ‘second conversion’ because I saw many things clearly for the first time ever. For example, I came to realize just how bad I really had been (though I was only 14 when I became a Christian), and hence the necessity of salvation, and more importantly, just how good God really was in providing that salvation for me. I came to see that when Christ died he didn’t merely give us the chance to be saved he actually saved us. I was in a place of abject humility and total bewilderment, at a loss to understand exactly why God had chosen me, but so glad that he did. My experience was one of renewed awe before this vision of the greatness of God, as well as one of sublime joy, at times amounting to ecstasy. It made a worshipper out of me.  I also experienced a profound sense of our eternal security in the face of every threat and danger, a confidence that brought me great peace through a time of critical illness and near death some years later. I came to embrace an attitude of cheerful surrender and submission to the absolute sovereignty of God, stemming from the realization of his complete control over all the circumstances of my life, not to mention his control of the whole cosmos! It became unthinkable for me to whine at God’s dealings with me or complain over setbacks, trials or disappointments, for I could now see beyond doubt, that everything God does is intended for our good (Rom.8:28).

Ancient Faith – Modern Relevance

These perspectives were not completely new of course, only new to me. The Reformed tradition has a long history dating back beyond the Reformation of the 16^th century to the great St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in the 5th century A.D.  Back even beyond him to the great vision of God and of his salvation sprinkled liberally in the writings of the New Testament and more particularly, in the letters of the Apostle Paul himself.

Yet it was not until the early 16^th century that this biblical life and world-view came to pervasive and popular expression in the ministries of the two great lights of the Reformation, Martin Luther in Germany and John Calvin in Geneva, Switzerland. Significantly, both men were not only fine biblical scholars and influential theological thinkers, they were extremely able writers and preachers whose prolific output of books, tracts and published sermons spread everywhere largely due to the recent invention of the printing press. This vast literary output forever reformed the life of the Church and probably had its greatest and most enduring influence of all in our own land, the British Isles.

Historic ‘Calvinism’ not only gave rise to the massively important Puritan Movement of the 17^th century which through the work of an army of preachers and theologians as well as the upheaval of the English Revolution and Civil War provoked by Oliver Cromwell and his parliamentarians, eventually came to change the politics, constitution and spirituality of our nation forever, and founded the New World of America.

Revival Spirituality

It is to this legacy that we also owe more than we can say for the later inter-continental rise of Methodism during the Great Awakening of the 18^th century, a revival that launched upon a decadent nation ministries of truly apostolic stature and power. I’m referring to such outstanding evangelists as George Whitefield and John Wesley, men like Daniel Rowland and Howell Harris in Wales, and the incomparable theologian who shook the town of Northampton, Massachusetts to it’s roots with a single sermon. I mean, of course, the incomparable thinker and theologian Jonathan Edwards, whose sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God has passed into American folklore, due to it’s extraordinary impact. These were all men who left a legacy of moral and spiritual transformation that lingers to this day. And, with the exception of John Wesley, they were all staunch Calvinists.

Preachers who ‘ring my bell’

My library contains volume after volume of the writings, and sometimes the recorded tape ministry, of a galaxy of ‘stars’ who shine as bright lights for those who will invest the time and effort involved to read their writings. I think of the deep wells of pastoral guidance and truth found in the various reprints of Puritan ‘divines’ like Richard Sibbes, Thomas Brooks and John Owen. Then, what treasure lies deep among theologians like Charles Hodge, W.G.T. Shedd, Benjamin Warfield, Louis Berkhof, G.C.Berkouwer, Jim Packer, Don Carson and most recently, Wayne Grudem.

I remain forever grateful for Bible commentators of great insight and clarity like William Hendriksen, Philip Hughes, Alec Motyer, Derek Kidner, Michael Eaton, Kent Hughes, Eugene Peterson, John MacArthur Jnr. and John Murray.  Most of all, there are hosts of preachers who never fail to ‘ring my bell’ with their printed legacy, men like John Brown, Donald Grey Barnhouse, Ern Baxter, R.T.Kendall, Stephen Brown, John Piper, James Montgomery Boice and Philip Ryken – not forgetting the three ‘giants’ with whom I began this article. And let’s not fail to mention those great apologists and thinkers who have shown us that our beliefs are not only profoundly true they are also unassailable – I’m thinking here of the likes of Abraham Kuyper, Francis Schaeffer, Cornelius Van Til, R.J.Rushdoony, R.C.Sproul, Charles Colson and Henry Morris the father of modern Creationism.

What these men all hold in common is an approach to the Bible, and above all to the God of the Bible himself, that occupies an elevation far higher than the low murky swamps some inhabit, clouded by the dank and polluted fog of twentieth century liberalism and human philosophy that poses as ‘Modern Christianity’. We’ve lived for too long in an atmosphere John Piper once complained about as being ‘far too dense with Man’. To read such authors as these is too occupy, for at least a while, the heights where God is seen in all of His majesty and glory. A rare sight indeed for many, and one you don’t soon forget.

Any cause for concern?

However, within these circles themselves some have exhibited a worrying form of blindness. I am painfully aware of this from personal experience. Ironically, for example, many of these men were ‘cessationists’, opposed to both the early Pentecostalism and the later Charismatic Movement, because they denied, on what they perceived to be biblical grounds, the reality of the miraculous, disputing the occurrence today of the spectacular supernatural gifts of the Spirit we read of in the New Testament. Ironic, because the same Bible they profess to believe so fervently, indisputably teaches that these gifts are available to God’s people until the end of history. It also exhorts us to seek them earnestly (see for example I Corinthians 1:7-8, 14:1, 39-40).

I have to say also, that historically their experience of church life has often been deficient. Many ‘Reformed’ people have conveyed the almost indelible impression that they are legalistic, judgmental, abrasive, proud, and stubborn ultra-conservative traditionalists. They seem, in many cases, determined to isolate themselves even from their fellow-believers, despising their contemporary culture and resisting all pressure to adopt a more modern face to their Christianity. Sadly, I have met some leaders and groups within this constituency who gave every impression, by both their writing and their speaking, of being ‘meaner than a nest of vipers’! Grace has often been woefully absent.

By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them?

But this, I would maintain, is not true to either the spirit or genius of authentic Reformed theology, for such theology is not only biblical in its content, it has been the source and inspiration for some of the greatest breakthroughs and revivals ever seen. It’s the secret source of strength for many of the most radical  ‘movers and shakers’ in history. These people evangelised whole nations, demolished deeply entrenched strongholds of evil and in some cases altered the course of their nation’s history forever. Research some of the suggested list of names I’ve cited above, and I think you’ll agree that this is indisputable.

The negative fruits I’ve described and observed first hand, have always occurred, it seems to me, as a direct result of two things: 1) An unwitting departure from Scripture in belief and practice and 2) A deliberate and foolish attempt to quench the power of the Holy Spirit through ignorance, prejudice and fear. Whenever this occurs, the results will always be both offensive and alarming. But then, none of us are ever totally immune from these dangers. We’ve all missed the mark and departed into carnality at some time or other.

Tradition and ‘Traditionalism’

Here, I would draw a distinction between the love of the great tradition I am espousing here and the mere ‘traditionalism’ to which some adhere. As someone wisely expressed it, ‘Tradition is the living faith of those now dead, while traditionalism is the dead faith of those now living.’ There are many, of whom Dr. Lloyd-Jones himself once complained, who are marked by a faith that is ‘perfectly orthodox and perfectly useless’ for it seems to have little or no positive influence on their lives. But this is because such people live in contradiction to many of their basic premises rather than consistently with them.

At its very best however, Reformed or ‘Calvinistic’ theology makes a powerful contribution to our task of restoring New Testament belief and practice. It is also needed to help us fulfil our prophetic mandate to ‘help change the expression of Christianity around the world’. Why? Well, for many reasons. Here are just a few:

I would maintain that Reformed theology…

• Fosters a ‘clean’ fear of God – Its vision of the being and greatness of who and what God is, is true to the complete revelation found in the whole of Scripture and particularly the much neglected Old Testament. This is not considered by us to be merely ‘primitive’ and ‘outdated’ theology that must now give way to a God in ‘process’ or more ‘seeker friendly’. No. God is not God ‘All-matey’, our ‘Cosmic Buddy’. Rather, he is and forever will be God Almighty, our sovereign Creator and Sustainer, without peer, successor, competitor or rival - the true and Living God. Modern Christians need exposure to massive doses of his reality and irradiating presence if they are to be cured of their many cancers of unbelief and once again accurately preach and represent him to a world devoid of the fear of God.

• Puts the Bible in its proper place – Reformed theology has the highest views of the full inspiration, infallibility, authority and sufficiency of Scripture. As such, the Bible is seen as the purest fountain and most reliable source of truth given to man. It is completely authoritative and reliable in all it affirms and all it denies. It is an endless resource for preaching, wisdom, counsel and inspiration. It never runs dry. Without it we would have no map and no compass and would stand naked and disarmed in the battle. With it we can truly change the world.

• Diagnoses the true human condition - The Bible doesn’t teach that we are defective only in part, on account of sin, it maintains that our disobedience has infiltrated and destroyed every part of our being - mind, heart and will. Sin has rendered us perverse and rebellious, utterly unable to please God or to remedy our situation. It tells us that this is our condition from conception and may only be corrected by the radical action of the Holy Spirit who regenerates us through his Word and irresistible invading power. Our hope for any success we shall see in evangelism does not lie in the so-called ‘free will’ of man but in the irresistibly powerful call of God operating in the Gospel.

• Helps us see salvation as the amazing rescue it really is – It gives credit where credit is due. God and his invincible grace are the infinite source and the only explanation for the fact that any of us were saved at all. He loved us, he chose us, he called us, he regenerated us, he acquitted us and he will one day glorify us. This is the unbreakable ‘golden chain of salvation’ spoken of in Romans 8:29, and to see it is not only to be assured, it is finally to become a worshipper. For unless your understanding of salvation leads to praise and doxology like that recorded in Romans 11:33-36, or I Timothy 1:17, then you haven’t really seen the truth yet. ‘We’re all more wicked than we ever realized, and more loved than we ever dreamed.’ (Rico Tice)


• Gives us great views of Christ – For this theology is not only in total harmony with Scripture, it is in agreement with the ancient formulations of the Athanasian and Chalcedonian creeds that maintained the full deity and perfect union of the human and the divine in Christ. This also helps us to stand against all contemporary attempts to rob Christ of his glory. We live in a world that has widely embraced religious pluralism, relativism and syncretism and would deny Christ’s claims as mankind’s only authorised Saviour. Reformed theology will have nothing to do with this, affirming both the uniqueness of Christ’s deity and humanity in one Person and of his substitutionary death, and so presenting a whole Christ for the whole world.

• Expands our world-view – Both Modernity and Postmodernity have robbed us of the ability to explain or make sense of reality. They have no credible grand narrative or Big Story; consequently they have no hope to offer mankind. Reformed theology reflecting the Bible itself, has the power to integrate our total perspective so that we shun all forms of dualism that would divide life into the watertight compartments of sacred/secular; spiritual/material; body/soul; time/eternity; heaven/earth and work/worship. But to us, all of life is sacred and there is nothing secular except sin. We are to see God’s Kingdom progressively advance to reclaim the whole of life, every activity and ultimately even the whole of the cosmos for Christ. We are to glorify God in everything that we do.

Here then, is a faith that will never become outdated or superseded, primarily because it is biblical, and therefore as old and as true as the Bible itself.

It is surely a message that needs to be restated and proclaimed with every ounce of our being. Seeing the ‘bigger picture’ revealed in the Bible is essential to our mission of helping to change the world.

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Word Count (minus recommended reading): 3323 words

Recommended Reading

John Stott: Begin with his brilliant contributions to IVP’s ‘Bible Speaks Today’ commentaries, most notably Galatians, Romans or II Timothy.

D.Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Try a volume from his Ephesians or Romans series e.g.

God’s Way of Reconciliation (Eph.2) or Assurance (Romans 5)

C.H.Spurgeon: Still the best selling Christian author in the world. Try The Soul Winner or a paperback collection of his Twelve Sermons series. Many are readily available.

GOD IN THREE PERSONS - Greg Haslam

Re-visiting Our Trinitarian Faith



Question: What do the following all have in common? – Our existence as persons; our ability to give and receive love; our confidence that the cosmos makes sense; highly relational churches; our experience of salvation; true worship; the space, time, matter continuum; what makes us truly human, and Christianity utterly unique.

Answer: The Trinity.

The word ‘Trinity’ is not found in the Bible of course. Some dismiss it for that reason alone. To others it is a mysterious, even dubious concept, a stumbling block to sceptical minds. It seems illogical and irrational. It’s widely thought to stem from mixing biblical theology with Greek philosophy, and coming up with nonsense! Even if true, it’s considered to be impossible to explain or prove. Anyway, what’s the point? Don’t Muslims hate the concept, insisting it distorts the truth about one God? Nothing in the world’s religions resembles it. Christian cults like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians and Mormons, along with ‘Oneness’ (Jesus Only) Pentecostals deny it. And many Liberals, Unitarians, Deists and Quakers agree with them. Doesn’t it lead to some form of polytheism? Isn’t it just ‘gobble-de-gook’ designed to keep ‘armchair theologians’ busy, but irrelevant to the real world?

God the Three-in-One

Actually, ‘Trinity’ is a combination of two numbers – three and one – in one word. The word may not be in the Bible, but the theological concept definitely is. God is not a pure monad - undifferentiated one-ness, like Allah. Failure to understand this leads to something less than the God of the Bible. Manufacturing vague notions or popular ideas about God that don’t tally with what the Bible says about Him, can become wishful thinking or even idolatry. If we really want to know God we have to listen to what He says about Himself. We find this in the Bible. If the Trinity isn’t scriptural, let’s forget all about it. It would have been easier for the Apostles and the Early Church Fathers if they had. They wouldn’t have suffered so much! But they couldn’t do that. The data of their new spiritual experiences, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and the challenge posed by heretical opponents – Jewish and Gentile – forced them to articulate the truth about God as Trinity with deepening accuracy and insight over many centuries. How do we explain this concept?

Some use pictures, symbols and illustrations e.g. the family with its father, mother and child. Clover has three leaves and one stem. Water subsists as ice, liquid and steam. An actor changes costumes to play different roles in the play. Light behaves like particles, waves and observable rays. We sometimes talk to ourselves, maybe God does too? But all of these images are faulty, for none are truly trinitarian. They suggest successive roles or ‘modes’ of an undifferentiated singular Deity’s operations through time, or they indicate completely separate parts in God. But God is three-in-one, eternally three Persons in one God.



Defining the Trinity

There are five components to this idea of Trinity that find abundant support in Scripture:

1. There is only one essential being within God.


2. God eternally subsists in the form of three Persons or centres of consciousness (In Genesis 1:26, Elohim - ‘God’, is a plural noun. He says, ‘Let us make man…’)


3. Each of these Persons is fully divine.


4. Each of these Persons is distinct from the other two, yet one with them.


5. The three Persons have eternally co-existed as one God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The Bible intrudes this data upon our minds, and the Holy Spirit testifies to its truth in the hearts of genuine believers. Both witnesses tell us that there are three forms through whom God is revealed to us. Each fully shares the essence of total divinity. The Father is wholly God, the Son is wholly God, and the Holy Spirit is wholly God - three Persons yet only one God.

1. Jesus the Son is distinct from the Father, yet He is as much God as the Father is.


2. The Holy Spirit is distinct from the Father and Son, yet truly personal and equally divine with the Father and the Son.


3. Yet there is only one God, not three distinct Gods, nor three chronologically successive modes of God’s existence, each cancelling out the previous one.

A mystery? Yes. But not an absurdity. We are talking about God here!

Can we ever fully understand Him? No. Tragically, the post-modern church is drifting away from Trinitarianism! It shows up in our approach to worship. We concentrate on Jesus. We neglect the Old Testament because its God seems contradictory to popular conceptions of Jesus. We even substitute other trinitarian ideas. It’s been said that, in practice, Roman Catholics believe in a trinity of Father, Son and Holy Virgin; Anglo-Catholics believe in a trinity of Father, Son and Holy Sacrament; Evangelicals believe in a trinity of Father, Son and Holy Scripture; and Charismatics, a trinity of Jesus, Spirit, and Holy Mega-church! A parody? Certainly, but with more than a grain of truth in it! Robin Parry suggests, “For many Christians the Trinity has become something of an appendix: it’s there, but they are not sure what its function is, they get by in life without it doing very much, and if they have it removed they wouldn’t be too distressed.”[1] It seems utterly irrelevant, of no significance for life today.

What Do the Scriptures Say?

Recall that the Bible is clear in its teaching on the being of God. It witnesses powerfully to our innermost instincts concerning our experiences of God, even if we cannot fully explain them yet. We have encountered His three-in-one-ness. We know the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - all three. Yet we remain staunch monotheists and not idolaters. To us there is only one God, and we jealously guard that fact. God brooks no competitors, no rivals, and no successors. He alone is worthy of our worship (Deut. 6:4; Exod. 20:3).

Yet, in Jesus Christ we also see One who eternally existed before the beginning of time, and who was ‘face-to-face’ (Gk. pros) with God and was God (Jn. 1:1; 8:58). He so fully represented God, creating all things alongside God, that we can affirm Him as God (Jn. 14:9-10; Col. 1:15-16; 2:9; Heb. 1:1-4). It is therefore right, to worship Him as God (Matt. 2:2; John 20:28), for He does all of the things only God can do, like forgiving sin (Matt. 9:2), raising the dead (John 5:21), judging the world (Matt. 25:31ff; Jn. 5:22-23), and claiming equality with God as His Son (Jn. 10:33-39; Ps. 2:7; Rom. 1:4; Heb. 1:2-3). Tom Wright provocatively affirms, “To say that Jesus is in some sense God is of course to make a startling statement about Jesus. It is also to make a startling statement about God.” [2] There was no time when Jesus was not God. There will be no time Jesus will not be God. There was a time He was not man. There will be no time He ceases to be man.

Similarly, the Holy Spirit was sent by the Father and the Son, and thus proceeds from them both (Jn. 14:16). He was at work in creation also (Gen. 1:2). He is fully personal and divine like Jesus (Jn. 14:16; 15:26; 16:7-8 - note the personal pronoun, Gk.  ekeinos - ‘he’, when ‘Spirit’ is neuter). He is also eternal (Heb. 9:14). He intercedes for us, implying His omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience (Rom. 8:26-27). He can be lied to, blasphemed, and grieved (Acts 5:3-4, Eph. 4:30). He indwells us as God Himself living in His ‘temple’ (I Cor. 3:16).

God-as-God-is-in-Himself (‘Immanent/Ontological Trinity’) is revealed in the way He works in His world as God-as-God-is-towards-us (‘Economic Trinity’). There is no contradiction. Though there is a much bigger remainder of mystery than there is understanding on this matter, the facts underline a strict monotheism (there is only one God), pointing away from any hint of polytheism (many gods) or tri-theism (three Gods), towards Trinitarianism (belief in God as Three-in-One). It’s taken centuries to clearly interpret and articulate the evidence for this. More light may yet break forth.

What Difference Does It Make?

Are there any important practical and world-changing implications to all this? Here’s a selection:

CREATION – Genesis 1 is essentially a polemic against the theology of ancient Egypt and all idolatrous worldviews. It kicks out all other gods except Yahweh. It rubbishes purely mechanistic and naturalistic explanations for the existence and maintenance of space, time, matter, particles, planets and people. The Triune God created them all ex-nihilo, in six diurnal days, through His Word and Spirit, declaring everything to be ‘very good’ i.e. perfect and not in the ‘experimental stage’! All creation reflects God’s nature and power as Trinity (Gen. 1:1-2; Isaiah. 6:3; Rom. 1:20, Col. 1:15-20). Each element in it has a separate integrity but is also inter-related as one – a universe not a multi-verse. Credit where credit’s due; sin apart - God alone is to be praised for everything that exists.

SALVATION – The Bible affirms salvation as exclusively God’s work. Rituals, saints, good works, sacraments, relics or pilgrimages cannot save us. If the Father had not devised a plan for our salvation by placating His holy wrath against our sin, and rescuing through His Son’s perfect life and atoning death on the cross, then recovering us by the invasive power of the Holy Spirit who re-created and washed us – then we would all be lost. We need to believe on Jesus, be justified and adopted by God, and baptized in the Holy Spirit. Salvation involves the whole Trinity.

UNIQUENESS – The Trinity offers but one way of salvation to all mankind. God is distinguishable from all pagan deities and even the Gods of monotheistic religious like Judaism and Islam, because He is now revealed in Christ and the coming of the Spirit as Trinity. The Gospel excludes alternative routes to salvation for mankind. The Gospel’s exclusive so it can be inclusive. If we believe all roads lead to God, there’s no incentive to invite others to change direction. But God will not abandon people to religious lies or damning error. He says, ‘You shall have no other gods besides me.’ (Exod. 20:3) We can’t opt to worship Him under different names or alien identities. God has rights too. He has revealed Himself as Trinity – Father, Son and Spirit - for us and our salvation. Other routes are only blind alleys. Our God is unique.

RELATIONSHIPS – The Trinity is the origin of human relationships. This is the essence of our being made in God’s image. ‘God is love’ because He has always had someone to love – the Persons of the Godhead. He did not need us, but He wanted a bigger family to share His happiness with. The loving inter-action and inter-dependence of Father, Son and Spirit from all eternity, means that society and fellowship began before angels or men existed. We reflect the perfect matrix of the Trinity in our relating well together. Churches can show the world how to do this. At the root of all present-day oppressive dictatorships, divided or monochrome societies, devaluation of certain individuals and the inability to cultivate loving community, is a denial of the Trinity. The Trinity models an image of mutuality, reciprocity and a totally shared life.

HUMANITY, AUTHORITY AND SUBMISSION – The Trinity is surprisingly ‘human’, not because God is like us, but because we are like Him – singular yet plural. God is an ordered, loving, equal, and generous society of Persons, each free to be themselves. There is no contradiction between freedom and submission to authority in human relationships, because it’s there in the Godhead. The Son obeys the Father, and the Spirit executes their will in submission to both. Yet all are equally God, and possess equal dignity and honour. Marriage reflects this supremely (Eph. 5:22-25; I Cor. 11:2-16, I Tim. 2:11-15). It should model God’s order so that both church and society can also.

PHILOSOPHY – The ultimate questions in Philosophy concern worldview issues: ‘Who are we? Where did we come from? How do things ‘fit’? Where are we going?’ This is the problem of ‘The One and the Many’ – how does amazing diversity in the cosmos find its ultimate unity? The answer is that God Himself is the original ‘One and Many’. He loves diversity, but He anchors it in total unity. God is therefore more glorified by heterogeneity than homogeneity. There’s no beauty without variety, only boredom. The regimentation of societies, churches, tastes and preferences is ugly. God set the whole creation free to be itself yet ordered and unified it in Himself, its Creator. This belief made Science possible.



TRIADIC SPEECH – The Bible is full of this. God is plural (Ps. 135:5-6; Isa. 6:3; 48:16; 63:9-10; Ps. 33:6; Hagg. 2:5-7). John the Baptist’s call to conversion involved God, Christ and the Spirit (Matt. 3:1-11). All three Persons were present at Christ’s baptism (Matt. 3:16-17). The baptismal ‘naming’ formula of Jesus is trinitarian (Matt. 28:19). Note Paul’s triune blessing of believers (II Cor. 13:14), his three-fold praise for our salvation, his trinitarian prayers (Eph. 1:1:3-14; 3:14-17), the way spiritual gifts are attributed to all Three (I Cor. 12:4-6), how successful church life flows from them too (I Thess. 1:3-4), and the fact that Christian unity is anchored in Triune diversity-in-unity (Eph. 4:1-7). We need to become more Trinity-aware and consciously vocal about this in our God-talk with others!

WORSHIP – True worship is Trinitarian or it is not Christian at all. It is a journey to the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. All three Persons of the Godhead are to be acknowledged, honoured, praised and intimately encountered in worship activities that aim to please God. We can have fellowship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all three, and enjoy their manifest presence among us. Each Person is fully alive in and through the other because of their mutual indwelling in the Godhead (Gk. perichoresis – ‘interpenetration’). The act of One is the act of All. When we encounter One we also encounter all Three - God above us; God beside us; God inside us. Amazing! It almost makes you want to worship!

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!

All Thy works shall praise Thy Name,

in earth and sky and sea;

Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty,

God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity![3]













SELECTED RECOMMENDED READING:

Tim Chester ‘Delighting In The Trinity’ (Monarch)

Brian Edgar ‘The Message of the Trinity’ (Bible Speaks Today, IVP)

John M. Frame ‘The Doctrine of God’ (Presbyterian and Reformed)

Robert Letham ‘The Holy Trinity’ (Presbyterian and Reformed)

Donald MacLeod ‘Shared Life’ (Christian Focus)

Donald MacLeod ‘Behold Your God’ (Christian Focus)

Robin Parry ‘Worshipping Trinity’ (Paternoster)

James R. White ‘The Forgotten Trinity’ (Bethany House)

Postscript: This is my favourite symbol of the Trinity. It actually moves me emotionally whenever I see it, because of the true concepts it evokes.

‘GOD IN THREE PERSONS’



This is called a Triquetras symbol for the Trinity i.e. ‘three cornered’ An early Trinitarian design found especially in Great Britain,
its three equal arcs represent equality, its continuous line
expresses eternity, and the interweaving represents indivisibility.
It is suggested that the design is based on the sign of the fish known
to be used by early Christians.

---

[1] Robin Parry, Worshipping Trinity, Paternoster, 2000

[2] N. T. Wright,  Who Was Jesus?, SPCK, 1992, p.5

[3] Last stanza of the Hymn, Holy, Holy, Holy, by Reginald Heber (1783-1826)

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY - Greg Haslam

I love stories, but then I’m not unique in this matter am I? This explains the insatiable lust we have for stories, usually on a weekly or daily basis, to punctuate our otherwise flat, two-dimensional lives. It’s a fact that TV soaps like Coronation Street, Shortland Street and Lost regularly draw us by the millions, consistently winning the highest ratings in the schedules every week. New dramas are frequently commissioned by the major networks, either as ‘classic novel’ adaptations, or as long-running drama series featuring lawyers,  lifeguards, aliens, detectives, soldiers or 18^th century sea-captains (Name those Series!). The Hollywood movie industry, in spite of its hit and miss accuracy in guessing whether a film will ‘block-bust’ or ‘bomb’, still shows no sign of decline or recession. Director Peter Jackson’s, epic three-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ has already broken box-office records and more than recovered its $300 million dollar outlay – partly due to the spectacular New Zealand scenery in which it was filmed!

THE ‘BARE NECESSITIES’ OF LIFE

It seems we cannot live without stories. We were never intended to. People will pay good money to hear a good story, spend hours listening to or reading them, and inevitably seem to build their lives on what they hear. Preachers, of all people, need to realize that. The problem is not the fact that people are listening to stories but that for the most part, they are listening to the wrong ones. A story represents a vivid expression of a total outlook on life or worldview, an overarching interpretation of reality. A worldview is an interpretive conceptual scheme designed to explain why we see the world as we do. It answers such fundamental questions as ‘Who are we?’, ‘Why are we here?’, ‘What’s gone wrong?’, ‘How can it be put right?’, ‘What time is it?’ and ‘How long have we got?’ These questions deal with such vital issues as our origin and personal destiny, the problem of evil and its cure, the absence or existence of God, the meaning of life, and how it will all end – with a bang or a whimper.

Every story we tell, hear or see reflects our underlying assumptions or unspoken presuppositions to one degree or another. Philosophically, every story pictures and embodies a world and life view. It may be Existential Despair (French films!), Optimistic Humanism (romantic comedies), Hedonistic Sensualism (porn movies), Cosmic Humanism (Sci-fi and ‘Star Trek’), and sometimes even Biblical Christianity (Luther and Chariots of Fire). The preacher’s stories are there to inculcate both negatively and positively the biblical worldview, dispossessing befuddled minds of error and repossessing them for truth (2 Corinthians 10:4-5), so that the result is a mind renewed, or a ‘Christian mind’ (Romans 12:1-2). The Christian mind has been defined as ‘A mind trained, informed, equipped to handle the data of secular controversy within a framework of reference which is constructed of Christian presuppositions’ (Harry Blamires). Without it, Christian ethics, Christian practice, Christian spirituality and even Christian beliefs will ultimately be eroded, both at the individual and societal level, to the point of total collapse and ruin. We’re dangerously near to this point today within many formerly ‘Christian’ western societies.

RE-FORMING THE ‘CHRISTIAN MIND’

In his classic book The Christian Mind, Blamires catalogues six marks of a truly Christian outlook (1) Its supernatural orientation (a recognition that the world is God’s world, and transient) (2) Its awareness of evil (the all-pervasive effects of sin that perverts even the noblest of people into a lust for vanity) (3) Its conception of truth (the givenness of divine revelation which cannot be compromised) (4) Its acceptance of authority (God’s revelation, requiring from us ‘not an egalitarian attachment, but a bending submission’) (5) Its concern for the person (championing human personhood over against servitude to the machine or the State) and (6) its sacramental cast (recognizing that everything in life is ‘sacred’ and has a spiritual dimension, opening us up to ultimate reality in some way). The result is that we begin to think Christianly about everything.

And so story-telling, within the practice of preaching for example, should model and reflect this enterprise. Within a culture marked by uncontrolled eroticism, lust, unfaithfulness, rebellion, instant gratification, broken relationships, hopelessness, escapism, depression, and futility, the world needs significant exposure to stories that open the windows of the mind to another reality altogether. In fact, they need the ‘Big Story’ of God’s word, that stands aloof from the bottom-up philosophies of despair encounter everywhere around us. This Story broadcasts the top-down theology of hope contained in the Bible. Rehearsing the Bible’s grand narrative, instalment by instalment, episode by episode, week after week, colourfully illustrated with arresting subplots from the world in which we live, will build God’s truth cumulatively in our minds. In effect, this releases a time-bomb that eventually explodes in the hearer’s brain, demolishing strongholds and laying waste whole pockets of intellectual rebellion against God. Jesus’ parables regularly did this, subversively acting like unexploded bombs that could go off without warning at any time. Stories intercept us in our fear-ridden wanderings, stopping us in our tracks and awakening us to sudden decision. They cause us to question the meaning, direction and purpose of our lives, so that we finally decide to cease squandering them  for little purpose one day at a time, and start investing them in something that will outlast them.

WHY THEN ARE GOD-STORIES SO IMPORTANT?

1. Stories help us to visualize truth – They light up the screen of our imaginations. They literally ‘turn ears into eyes’. Our God-given gift of imagination needs to be sanctified too. This requires the fuel of vivid portrayals of an alternative reality, as opposed to the distorted versions we are sold elsewhere in movies, magazines and novels. The best stories take us right into the situation and right up to the characters in whose lives we can at last see how our own could be lived.

1. Stories entertain us – ‘People will pay more to be entertained than educated’ (Johnny Carson). True. But good preachers know that fine preaching can do both, simultaneously. Andrew Blackwood said that a sermon should be at least as exciting as a good ball game! It should contain all the elements of suspense, drama, excitement, unpredictability, action, pathos, humour, shock and sudden surprise that we find in a TV classic drama.

1. Stories are concrete – Many preachers deal only in abstract ‘principles’, doctrines, theses, arguments, ‘points’, explanations, and philosophical ideas. At some time, it all has to become earthed in the lives of real people, living in a particular time and place. Stories help prevent us from preaching over people’s heads and avoiding eye contact. We fix people’s gaze and insist that ‘What we are saying is for you!’ We can literally nail people to their pews, and pierce their hearts with reality!

1. Stories quicken emotion – Dead and the jaded people, hitherto fed only a diet of thrillers, violence, naked bodies, dark futures, random couplings and robotic action-heroes, need to experience fresh emotions associated with true love, pain, loss, redemption, wonder, joy and grief. They are all there in the Bible as they are in real life, and they should be there in every sermon.

1. Stories illuminate – They help us to ‘see’ the truth being announced, and to engage it with all of our God-given humanity. Jesus spoke of the digestive system and bowel movements (Mk.7), a woman in pain at childbirth, dirty dishes, ‘bent’ legal magistrates, and shocking truth of God running to us like an elderly Father – very undignified! Every one of his parables had a ‘sting in the tail’, and ‘religious’ people were often offended. But we can never forget the points he was making. We are touched at every level of our personality by such stories. They feed the mind, awaken curiosity, stir the heart, move the will, and fire the inert to make the appropriate responses.

1. Stories keep us awake and hold our attention – They arrest us, and provide much-needed relaxation for the mind during those periods of sustained concentration that substantial preaching requires. Nevertheless, we can become bored and distracted with either too much exposure to stories or too little. A good sermon is like a well-designed house, it should have a good structure - the ‘walls’ of solid teaching, combined with plenty of windows to let the light in – stories to capture the imagination. The light is there to show everything off to its best advantage. Too many illustrations and it becomes a greenhouse; too few and it becomes a dark and airless concrete basement. Who wants to live in either?

1. Stories teach us how to live well – We all know that life is hard, intimidating, mysterious, and brief. What we also need to know is that ‘Someone’ is in control, other than ourselves. Resources are available to us that we may not have been aware of. Life can work! We can win! The whole Bible basically consists of a big plot, that moves from ruin to redemption, taking us from creation though de-creation, and finally to re-creation in Christ. It has a very happy ending (sneak a look at Revelation 21-22 - we win!). The Bible’s stories and those we recount from God’s world can all serve to inculcate this message. Stories are unforgettable. They enter our minds like subversive secret agents, and stay there until their mission is accomplished. They ruin us for what we’ve previously known, not by helping us to escape reality, but rather by helping us to find it.

THE BEST PREACHERS YOU’VE EVER HEARD

Read the sermons of some of the most notable preachers and speakers in history and you will see what I mean. C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) held over 6,000 Londoners enthralled every week for 38 years, not only with his brilliant exposition of Biblical texts but with the scintillating illustrations that he used so abundantly and so effectively. He drew on Ancient History, poetry, current affairs, Greek mythology, Church History, newspaper reports, humorous jokes, curious facts, national crises, lurid battles, famous martyrdoms, personal experiences, colourful biography, dramatic dialogue and more besides. Spurgeon still holds us spell-bound, even in print.

Evangelists of the calibre of men like George Whitefield and D. L. Moody, right through to Billy Graham and J. John, have all been master story–tellers. Whitefield (1714-1770), in order to illustrate sin’s folly, once told a large audience gathered in Tottenham Court Road, London, the story of a blind man wandering obliviously over a cliff edge, with such vivid and alarming detail, that as he described the subsequent tragic fall, a hearer suddenly stood up and cried out, ‘My God!…he’s gone!’, shrieking with terror and blubbering tears of anxiety.

Of course, there are notable exceptions to this practice. Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981), one of my predecessors at Westminster Chapel (1938-1968) deliberately shunned anecdotes and illustrations, reacting strongly to the ‘fluffy’ and effeminate poetics of doctrinally challenged liberal preachers and ‘performances’ of many lightweight preachers of his day. He was this as a ‘prostitution’ of the pulpit, tending towards contrivance and artifice. Yet even he, towards the end of his long ministry, eventually regretted that he had not used more illustrations in his preaching. Even so, he was an outstanding preacher.

“LOVELY SERMON VICAR!”

Part of the present-day cultural resistance to preaching is that it is so dull. Much of it can barely sustain our attention for ten minutes, let alone the full hour our forefathers expected! But good preaching can still hold the power to arrest attention today, even among the so-called ‘word-resistant’ and ‘visually orientated’ post-moderns with their reputed ‘30-second attention span’! Among the many ingredients of the very best preaching you and I have ever heard, is surely the wise use of story and illustration.

Such preaching is Therapeutic - It accomplishes the healing of the mind, emotions and spirit. It contributes to our psychological well-being. It often reduces us to tears. We eventually feel ‘much better’. It is also for this reason Unconventional - for it startles and surprises us. Going to church ought to be a bit like approaching a live volcano – you never know when things will erupt, particularly in the pulpit. Preachers don’t always realize what they are doing when they mount a platform. They can literally wield lightning, and if so, then someone is going to get struck by it!  However, in contrast to natural lightning, in our churches it can strike the same people more than once!

We might also call it Lucid – because a sermon is both an intellectual and spiritual exercise, and in both departments we need light to bring us out of the habitual fog we live in. I like plenty of gorgeous scenery on any journey I take. Stories and pictures help provide just that in any sermon. Hence the message should always be Illustrated – because according to the old adage, ‘If you can’t illustrate it, you can’t teach it’. So read widely, note stories, file them, observe life, watch your children, understand your world, and tell people what you saw there. Turn ears into eyes.

And finally, preaching is Passionate – for preachers are real men and women who have experienced life and feel things deeply. They are contagious in their enthusiasm, varied in the use of the voice, gripping with their pathos, energy, direct appeal to their listeners, eye contact and at times, their genuine display of real tears.

Remember this, and there’s a good chance that people will remember you and what you said, and eventually get to Jesus himself. And isn’t that what it’s all about?

© GREG HASLAM

REGENERATION: LIFE CAN BEGIN AGAIN - Greg Haslam

It’s a sad fact, but many modern churches don’t clearly preach the Gospel and on many university campuses, students with church backgrounds – even in Christian Unions – often have a Primary School level knowledge of their faith. A  Presbyterian layman once declared publicly that he had joined the church on ‘confusion’ of his faith! He meant ‘confession’, but the slip may have been more accurate than he intended. How does spiritual life begin? A little boy writing on the mystery of life, interviewed his brother, his father and grandfather and asked each of them how they had been born. They all replied ‘A little stork brought me.’ The boy wrote in his essay, ‘There hasn’t been a normal birth in our family for at least three generations’!

Similarly, many believers are confused about the new birth! Yet churches can be smug and proud about mere traditions. Louis Evans, American pastor and Bible commentator, says ‘Many churches use different ways to get devils out of a person. Episcopalians chant them out. Methodists sing them out. Congregationalists vote them out. Pentecostals shout them out. Baptists drown them out, and Presbyterians freeze them out!’ The truth is, Christ alone can get them out. We need to build churches that expect him to be actively present among us by his Holy Spirit, doing mighty things, including regular conversions involving a radical new birth.

‘BORN AGAIN’ ICONS?

To discover what Christ intends, a good place to start is his midnight encounter with a hungry religionist, as yet devoid of the experience of being  ‘born again’ – the secretive Nicodemus (John 3:1-21). This is one of the best known, but least understood stories in John. Most people have heard of Nicodemus, some know he was urged to be ‘born again’, but that’s often where understanding ends and confusion begins. Our culture has frequently hijacked this evocative phrase simply to enhance the quality of our natural life. Advertisers, journalists and television programmers understand its evocative power. In recent years we’ve heard of:

• ‘Born again’ Ford Mondeo’s.


• ‘Born again’ US Presidents: Jimmy Carter (1970’s), Ronald Reagan (1980’s) and George W. Bush (the ‘noughties’).


• ‘Born again’ Celebrities: Johnny Cash, Cliff Richard, Bono, Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda.


• ‘Born again’ Serial Killers: Jeffrey Dahmer, David Berkowitz (‘Son of Sam’).


• ‘Born again’ Make-overs - with Trinny and Suzanne, Gok Wan etc.


• ‘Born again’ restaurants – thanks to chefs like Gordon Ramsay.


• ‘Born again’ New Agers – involving ‘birthing pools’ and ‘divinisation’.


• ‘Born again’ lifestyles – via New Year resolutions, the Atkins diet, and ‘Quit Smoking’ campaigns.

We seem to be mixing categories here! Few of these lead to positive results. And most are not what Jesus actually had in mind. Even the concept of ‘born again’ Christians does not appeal to some. One American female journalist asked, “How is that so many people you meet who are ‘born again’ make you wish they had never been born in the first place?” Sad, but true. This is why Christ’s dialogue with Nicodemus in John ch.3 is so important. It goes to the heart of what Jesus Christ came to do.

INTRODUCING NICODEMUS AS ‘EVERYMAN’

Nicodemus was a prominent figure in the Jerusalem religious establishment. He was a Pharisee, an OT scholar, and guardian of the Torah and its lifestyle from any contamination with paganism. He sat on the Jewish Supreme Court or Council – the Sanhedrin. He was a highly qualified trained theologian and serious thinker – ‘The Archbishop of Israel’. Apparently fair-minded and tolerant of new movements within Judaism, he refused to be dismissive or condemning without checking the facts first-hand. He was devout, spiritually-minded, polite, intelligent, and eager to discover the truth. Yet, Jesus told him he needed to be ‘born again’ or ‘born from above’ (the Greek anothen can be translated both ways, whilst pointing clearly to God’s action alone).

We can infer some important things immediately about the ‘new birth’, taking our cue from John 1:1-12.

1. It’s not connected with a person’s social standing or status – The life Christ offers is not the ‘good life’ measured in terms of money, sex or power. Indeed, everybody who has made these things their main pursuit has ended up ‘burned out’ and disillusioned, often concluding that they’ve wasted their lives on trinkets and trivia. So Christ said, ‘You must be born again!’



2. It’s not a matter of adherence to one of the world’s major religions – Nicodemus was a Jew. Judaism has left an incalculably rich legacy upon western civilization – our courts, civil laws, literature, theology, commerce, and entertainment industries. The same is claimed, with less justification, for Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism etc. Each has helped some, but none offer what Christ declares to be essential for ALL, ‘You must be born again!’

3. It doesn’t depend on intellectual attainments or lack of them – Western philosophy speaks of ‘The Enlightenment’ and sets great store by rational thinking, scientific research, discovery, invention and solutions to common problems. But education alone cannot change the human heart or make us children of God, rightly related to Him. This entails a deeper, more radical, change than ‘switching horses’ philosophically. ‘You must be born again!’



4. It’s not a question of age, ethnicity, or gender – We tend to label or ‘box’ people in ascending categories. The elderly are more/less significant than the young, men are superior/inferior to women, and certain ethnic groups have a ‘manifest destiny’ to rule the ‘useless eaters’ or ‘sub-human’ species among the rest. But the Bible does not endorse class-ism, racism, sexism, or age-ism. Instead, it calls out to us all, ‘You must be born again!’



5. It is not mere external or ‘cosmetic’ change in your life – Your car, home, fashion tastes, or cell phone may be seen as a major ‘statement’ of your identity, but they tell us little about the real ‘you’. It’s not the clothes you wear, but the person who stands up in them that counts. Most of these acquisitions effect only temporary and superficial change in us. The greatest change of all is demanded in Christ’s words, ‘You must be born again!’



6. It’s not connected with natural breeding or descent - some people are ‘a breed apart’ due to wealth, schooling, accent or manners, tracing a ‘blue blooded’ ancestry many hundreds of years long, with a family crest to prove it. But Christ’s words level us all, insisting upon one vital distinguishing factor – ‘You must be born again!’



7. It’s not a matter of church attendance or denominational distinctives – Nicodemus was a regular worshipper, Psalm-singer, Bible reader and liturgical practitioner for all of his life. But he was not born again. You may be an Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, or member of a South Carolina ‘Snake Handling’ sect! But having your name on a church role or attending services regularly does not automatically convey the change Christ envisaged here - ‘You must be born again!’



WHY MUST WE BE ‘BORN AGAIN?

Nicodemus illustrates the answer in many ways. It’s not sufficient to be a ‘secret admirer’ of Jesus, and respectful of his authority and power, which is often lacking even in theologians like Nicodemus. Our problem is not a few deficiencies in our education, dysfunctional emotions, arrested personal development or bad social conditioning. Christ asserts that none of us are ‘normal’ in the divine estimate. We’re not quite human now. It is a potato problem not a lettuce problem! A lettuce goes bad from the outside in. A potato goes bad from the inside out. So a radical solution is required to make us fully human again. We need new birth from the inside out, an ‘inside’ solution. The symptoms are plain.



1. Nicodemus was a man ‘in the dark’ - He came to Jesus ‘at night’, a graphic picture of his spiritual and mental condition too. This was an act of self-protection in fear for his reputation, more afraid of peer opinion than what God might think of him. He was ‘the’ teacher or top theologian of Israel, and had a lot to lose. He ‘loved the darkness’, as we all once did (v.20-21).

2. He flattered Jesus but failed to truly honour him – ‘Rabbi’ was a term of respect for a theological teacher, but it’s inadequate as a description of Jesus’ person, total worth, divine status and mission. Jesus cannot simply be categorised among the world’s greatest teachers. He is peerless. He was God walking among men in sublime theanthropic union with our humanity – the  God-Man. He deserves total submission, worship, and whole-life obedience, not misdirected flattery.

3. He had not yet understood that his human lineage back to Adam had transmitted total depravity to him – The effects of sin are all-pervasive, affecting us in our entirety. The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart. Sin affects our minds, emotions, will, body, soul and spirit. It is an all-pervasive terminal illness. We’re carriers of strong and lawless lusts, amid treacherous rebellion against God. We hate God, ‘use’ people, lack self-control, lie through our teeth, abuse our bodies, and pollute God’s creation. We must be ‘born again’.

4. He lacked spiritual understanding to grasp the truth – Don’t we all? He met Jesus words with crass comments, and bemused questions. Nicodemus claims sight, but Christ highlights his blindness and lack of understanding (v.10). He thinks his first birth was all important (a Jew, a family man, a Pharisee etc.), but it wasn’t. He saw himself as a Law-keeper, but in fact he was a Law-breaker - just like the rest of us! He was a Jew, with many privileges, but not yet in God’s Kingdom! And so he had to go back to the beginning and start over. But he thought of the new birth in terms of a natural ‘birthing experience’ like re-entering his mother’s womb. Knowing this was physically impossible, he concluded ‘I’m too old to start again!’, as if Jesus referred merely to making some kind of ‘fresh start’ in life, like we offer to ex-offenders, alcoholics, slum dwellers and those who return to night school to ‘try again’.  All very well in their place, but Jesus refers to being born ‘out of water and Spirit’, not our mother’s tummy! Our ‘sink estates’ tell us that we can take a man out of the slums but we can’t take the slums out of the man. Christ can!



WHAT IS IT TO BE BORN AGAIN?

The one thing needed to change the world – is changed men and women! A caterpillar climbs a tree and throws a robe around itself of woven silk until it’s fully hidden. Weeks later a beautiful butterfly emerges. Metamorphosis! If only we could wrap ourselves in silk pyjamas and wake up a new person! We can’t, but God can. The early church theologian, Irenaeus (d. circa 202 AD), once declared that ‘The glory of God is a man or woman fully alive!’ This is profoundly true. New birth is the miracle of new creation within our innermost being, so that we become fully alive spiritually again, literally a ‘new creation’ (Rom.8:29-30; II Cor. 5:17; II Pet. 1:4). It involves both a crisis and a process leading to metamorphosis. Without the crisis there can be no process. The crisis involves the miraculous action of God in connection with the preaching of the Word of God. This is necessary because we are ‘dead’ in sin, ‘deaf’ to God’s voice, depraved in heart due to diabolical deception, which made us idolaters in orientation and incapable of seeking God without his aid (Eph. 2:1-3, Rom. 1:18-23; 3:9-18). The undoing of this is a creative miracle (Eph. 2:4-10; Rom. 6:1-4), so God can ‘draw’ us to Christ (Jn. 6:44, 65).

The Holy Spirit illuminates the mind, re-orientates the heart, and persuades the will, enabling us to answer that call. He ensures that a special operative grace occurs in, with, and under the evangelistic message we read or hear. This is an effectual call, occurring within the general call of God to all people indiscriminately under the sound of gospel proclamation, whatever the medium or that takes. The grace of regeneration occurs as a re-birth of our dead spirit, so we can respond to the saving call of God (Jn.3:5). This entails a sequence of life-changing effects or outcomes within the recipient of the call.

We can outline this conception and process in stages, analogous in some ways to our natural conception and birth, but of a different order altogether. Regeneration is both a creative miracle and a supernatural process. It is a momentary creative act, then a developing process. The former is instantaneous, the latter occurs in identifiable stages that we might call ‘The normal Christian birth’. The Apostle Peter called for these in heralding and promising salvation to his enemies in Acts 2:38-41. He called them to (1) Repent (2) Believe (3) Be baptized in water (4) Receive the Spirit and (5) Be added to the church – an example of a Biblical ordo salutis (steps of salvation). This is the ‘normal birthing process’ for a newly regenerate child of God, which is continuous and progressive. It is often vandalised or criminally neglected, and each ingredient has been the subject of much debate. Some churches major on only one or two of these ingredients.

Liberal churches emphasise repentance, a change in thinking, issuing in good works. Evangelicals major on faith or right beliefs. Sacramental churches value highly water Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Pentecostals and Charismatics champion ‘Baptism in the Spirit’, and Catholic and Orthodox traditions insist on membership of their own communion. God wants us to experience all of these foundational experiences. They have sometimes been labelled ‘The Peter Package’, and involve a birthing process that fully initiates a new convert fully into authentic Christian life, minimising the danger of short-changing seekers with one or two of these experiences alone (Acts 2:38-41). God is powerfully at work at each stage, supernaturally effecting radical change in the converts mind, heart, will, soul, spirit and body.

We see this in echoed substantially elsewhere in Hebrews 6:1-3, where five statements are made covering more or less the same ground

1. Repentance from acts that lead to death


2. Faith in God


3. Instruction about ‘baptisms’, i.e. in water and the Spirit


4. The ‘laying on of hands’ to receive the Spirit


5. Resurrection and Judgement so that you are assured of your safety in God’s sight and have a guaranteed future along with all the people of God.

CONCEPTION, GESTATION AND BIRTH



It might be helpful to inquire about what the Holy Spirit actually accomplishes in the conversion process outlined above in a little more detail, as he initiates and launches radical new birth.

1. ELECTION: God sovereignly and secretly chooses to conceive another spiritual child. This is his initiative, not ours. The Bible speaks of God’s election or choice as antecedent to our very existence (Eph. 1:4-6, 11-12). God determines our destiny before we are born. A review of Romans 9:10-18, where Paul discusses this matter of election and predestination, as illustrated from the story of the unborn twins Jacob and Esau, indicates that God’s choice has nothing to do with our achievements, age, status, good or bad deeds, personal choice, desires, faith or the lack of it, or even our subsequent personal response to God’s grace. It is rooted entirely in God’s sovereign will for reasons God has chosen not to disclose, other than his secret purpose and special electing love for us (Rom. 9:25).  It’s due to God’s grace (Eph. 2:8-9).

2. CONCEPTION: The ‘fertilization’ or coming together of ‘sperm’ and ‘ovum’ (Jn. 3:4-6). The seed is the Word of God; the ovum is the human heart. Christ speaks directly through the preaching of his Word to the individual. God’s word is powerful (I Pet. 1:23-25), in that new spiritual chromosomes, packed with information and spiritual DNA, are imparted to make a brand new you! The Holy Spirit acts on this gospel truth to re-create us in a single moment of time. It’s not a result of human feelings, emotions, or volition (Jn. 1:13). Even enabling our response to that word by imparting faith to us as we become ‘good soil’ that receives not resists this word. God does the rest.

3. GESTATION: The Spirit unfolds a hidden supernatural impartation of new life into every part of our being, God working from the inside out (Jn. 3:6-8).   This is what it means to be ‘born out of Spirit’. God’s Holy Spirit assaults our deadened and dying humanity, decaying in sin, and re-creates us in the likeness of Jesus Christ. Taking what’s old, he renews it, and performs a miracle of transformation that no ‘cosmetic’ changes can effect (Titus 3:3-6; Jas. 1:18). The result is that you change! You are changed! The Puritan Stephen Charnock says, “Regeneration is a universal a change of the whole man…it is as large in renewing as sin was in defacing.” And Thomas Boston compares it to the skills of a doctor “Man is, in respect of his spiritual state, altogether disjointed by the fall; every faculty of the soul is, as it were, dislocated. In regeneration the Lord loosens every joint, and sets it right again.” As a result, you start to love the things you once hated, and to hate the things you once loved. Like the wind, we cannot predict this or know all of the directional changes occurring, let alone control it, but we know when the wind hits us  and feel its effects upon us (Jn.3:8)! 

4. SEPARATION: Entailing abandonment of the ‘old’ in repentance from ‘dead works’ (Heb. 6:6). In natural birth the womb is abandoned, the umbilical chord severed. Repentance is like this. Regeneration by the Spirit precedes repentance and faith. Biblically, no one ever repents or believes without the Spirit’s power enabling them to turn to God and trust the Savour (Jn.3:5; Acts 16:14). This is a sovereign work of God, for ‘the wind blows where it wills’ (Jn.3:8). Spiritually, repentance issues in a renewed mind and renounced sins - narcotics, fornication, thieving, idolatry, lying, slander etc. – which are dealt with very specifically, resulting in a complete life change over time (I Cor. 6:9-11). Even our ‘righteous’ and ‘religious’ deeds are considered ‘dead works’ here, because they were the product of our fallen ‘flesh’ not the Spirit, and done for our glory not God’s. We repent of the very idea that we were ever ‘good’ at all or could please God, realizing that this was a ‘dead-end’ that could ruin us eternally if pursued any further.

4. ILLUMINATION: We come out of darkness and into the light. The Holy Spirit at now engineers a response of faith. He explains truth to us and then persuades us it is true. No one comes to faith without preaching (Rom. 10:14-15). We thus emerge from the womb of God’s secret work in our lives, to a state of full-blown faith in Jesus Christ. Two emphases are uppermost in His work:

(1) This illumination is primarily connected with the Cross of Christ (Jn. 3:13-14) - where we discover that everything necessary has already been done for us. We now cease trying to earn merit with God and transfer our trust to Christ and his finished work on the cross. This is the essence of saving faith. John 3:16 describes God’s love. Here God is said to have ‘so loved the world’ – a term that shows not so much how ‘big’ the world is, but how ‘bad’ the world was! It is a sinful world. At the cross, our sin and liabilities were reckoned as Christ’s, and paid for in full, including our death. Now, his righteousness can replace our crookedness. A ‘divine exchange’ took place (Jn. 3:16-18; 2 Cor. 5:21).

Christ our substitute or ‘stand in’ became obligated to pay debts he did not owe, for people who could not pay. Consequently, Christ had no sin but ours, and we have no righteousness but his. We stop looking in here within ourselves for merit with God, and start looking out there to Christ and his cross (Jn. 3:14-16). Hence, Christ’s allusion to the ‘snake on the stake’ (Jn. 3:14; Numb. 21:4-9). The Israelites received healing from deadly snake-bites by looking at a model bronze serpent hoisted on a gallows. A mere glance would bring healing to the sufferer. So with Christ. We have to believe in Him, not just about Him, if we are to be made whole again and not perish.

(2) Illumination entails recognition of the true person of Christ – Not just a ‘good teacher’, but the unique Son of God and King of the Universe, the Co-creator of everything including ourselves, and the only Saviour God has authorized for mankind, the one who deserves our total trust and allegiance as well as our submission and obedience to him as Lord (v.16-17). This is ‘saving faith’, and it is part of the ‘birthing work’ of the Holy Spirit. It is the gift to believe, and links me to Christ so that all that I am responds to all that He is in such a way that I become justified from sin, assured of God’s favour in Christ.

5. DYNAMIFICATION: An experiential encounter with the Holy Spirit of God. This follows regeneration by the Spirit, in a new ‘separation’ and ‘electrification’ by the Spirit. We change kingdoms and the power is turned on. To be born ‘out of water and Spirit’ (wind and water!) is connected with God’s washing and empowering of our new life with God. The washing is signified by a public act of baptism in water. In the NT, every record of a water baptism follows faith without exception, it does not precede it. This is why we call it believers baptism. We wash newborn infants to remove ‘gubbins’ like mother’s blood and amniotic fluids as it leaves the darkness of the womb for the world outside. We also smack its bottom to enable it to breathe air for itself now the umbilical cord is cut. Baptism in water and in Holy Spirit, are the spiritual counterparts to this. We are ‘washed’ and we’re meant to know that it has happened, not ‘take it by faith’ that we were (Acts 2:38-41). This is our ‘border crossing’ whereby we transfer kingdoms and supreme loyalty to take up new citizenship in Christ, on entering his kingdom. The first thing he asks of us is to ‘Be baptised…’ (Matt. 28:19, Mk. 16:15-16; Acts 2:38) The first privilege he offers us is to be filled with his Spirit to access his gifts. Immigrants leave the old to share in the new. They leave, they join. We do so as we ‘go public’ in baptism, bold in our new faith in Christ. We ‘bury’ the old life, and are ‘raised’ to a new one, i.e. ‘born of water and of the Spirit’. We simply cannot remain secret disciples anymore!

Hopefully, all of this occurs as soon as possible after believing! We don our new uniform, and take up our spiritually weaponry to become full soldiers of Jesus Christ in his conquering army. The Holy Spirit is God inside us, the personal energy of God from another world, who now comes upon us and fills our whole rescued humanity to energize it and enable us to do new things we never could before (e.g. Matt. 5-7; Acts 2:42-47; I Corinthians 12-14)!

6. PARTICIPATION: The new convert now baptized in water and Spirit, enters the Body of Christ. We don’t leave newborn infants in a hospital corridor lying on a trolley. Instead, we send them home to be with parents and siblings, because that’s best for them! The experiences of regeneration, repentance and faith in Christ is in order to emerge ‘out of water and out of Spirit’, then engage actively as vital member of the Church in the Body of Christ. We’ve already met Jesus. He then he introduced us to God as our Father. They both enable us to have an encounter with the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit, and it’s now time to meet some of God’s bigger family! Experiencing meaningful love, service and unity with his people, the Church, is also essential.

This is what the Bible means by new birth. No one remains the same after it. It’s the gateway to a new order of fully human existence again, that is the core promise and demand of the Gospel - ‘You must be born again’. This is quantitatively and qualitatively different from anything we’ve had so far from our first birth. It means you can really start to live at last, and this will go on for ever. Life really can begin again!

© Greg Haslam 

EPHESIANS 4 MINISTRIES AND CHURCH UNITY - Greg Haslam

I Cor. 12:27-31; Eph. 4:1-16



Introduction: God is in the business of re-creating and renewing people's lives, imparting saving knowledge to them and, over time, dramatically transforming their thinking, lifestyle, character and skills. We are all dependent and inter-dependent upon others for the successful outcome of this process of Christ-like change. God uses the power of truth and his own direct, sanctifying power to effect these changes. Word and Spirit work in tandem, but God does not bypass human agency either. Christian leaders and mentors play a vital role. The discipling process therefore entails both meaningful involvement in community, and the impact of select individuals upon our personal lives in order to bring about the desired results.

Ephesians 4:1-16 discusses the function of several diverse ministries of God’s Word and Spirit in this matter, and their cumulative and collective contribution to individual and community transformation.

A fresh consideration of these verses will help us to see that the Ephesians 4 ministries are Christ's gifts to the whole of His church, not just one sector of it. They therefore function as Christ's human instruments or ‘hands’ to help govern, guide, gather, guard and ground his people in the truth, and so foster their growth in ministry (v.12), unity (v.13a), maturity (v.13b), stability (v.14) and fully functioning activity (15-16).  To understand this fact is to recover a renewed appreciation for the Church as a whole in its ‘catholicity’ (universality) and its central role in God's universal kingdom purposes.

At this point in the Epistle (Eph.4:1ff), the Apostle Paul makes the transition from doctrine to duty and from exposition to exhortation.  It is fascinating to see that the theme uppermost in his mind after his lofty explorations of God's sovereign grace and ultimate purpose in Ch. 1- 3, is that of Christian Unity. This is the governing idea of the whole of this section 4:1-16, and must not be lost sight of.

'Unity' is a theme which has already been sounded many times earlier (see 1:10, 2:14, 2:19-22, 3:6, 3:15). Sin has fragmented and disintegrated God's cosmos.  It has divided men from God and men from each other. The Gospel integrates. God's ultimate purpose is the restored unity of His created universe.   The primary prototype as well as the primary instrument in advancing that unity, is the Church.  God is looking to display on earth a glorious church forged together in peace and divine power.  We are summoned to respond to this imperative call in Eph. 4:1.



I. A PASSION FOR UNITY (4:1-3)

Paul begins: "As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you…" Paul was no ‘armchair theologian’ or pious theoretician (cf. 3:1 and 6:20), and these are not impractical blueprints of an unworkable philosophy. These are the words of a man willing to pay the ultimate price to see this God-given vision become reality. Unity is a matter for which we should feel such passion we would willingly face prison or death to see it realized.

The Unity of which Paul speaks is not organizational or institutional, it is organic.   It is a ‘unity of the Spirit’ (v.3). It presupposes life.  It cannot be arranged by man. "Putting two coffins side by side will not produce a resurrection." It is not the familiar ‘unity’ achieved by some expressions modern ecumenism - masses of icebergs engineered by human endeavour into one huge continent of ice.  It is a unity which only God can give, but which involves our active co-operation as the people of God if it is ever to be fully attained. It is a doctrine that demands to be applied. Unity will not, be effortlessly achieved - "Make every effort,” he says (v.3).

This passage speaks of a unity that is yet to be attained - ‘Until we all reach unity in the faith' (v.13), i.e. a future prospect. Yet there is also a unity to be maintained - 'Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit' (v.3) i.e. a present ontological reality. Unity is possible in prospect because it is already present in principle. It is not an alien imposition upon us, but rather a natural unfolding or exposition of a reality already implanted within us. It is factions and schisms are unnatural, they are alien.

Unity has to be worked at.  Paul mentions three areas to be addressed in v.2-3.

(1)  Instead of pride let there be humlitv (v.2a) - Pride manifests airs of superiority.  It. may be pride over doctrinal purity (Reformed evangelicals), historical ancestry (‘Catholic’ groupings), spiritual vitality (Charismatics and Pentecostals) or clear leadership authority (‘Restoration’ streams).   This results in refusal to network with those considered 'inferior' to our group. Humility helps us to be honest about our deficiencies and genuinely grateful for the strengths evident within other expressions of the body of Christ e.g. for their theological legacy, ethical purity, social action, faith expectancy and church-planting mobility.

(2) Instead of harshness let there be gentleness (v.2b) - Harshness usually accompanies a defensive fortress mentality or the ambition to build one’s own little empire. Verbal character assassinations, or contempt for the methods or achievements of other leaders are common within the Christian press and denominational magazines. These arrogant attitudes must give way to restraint and self-control which learns to speak well of our brothers in Christ.

(3)       Instead of frustration let there be patience and faith expectancy as we honour one another in love (v.2c) - Other Christians sometimes irritate us intensely. They are slow to see what we see, believe what we believe and do what we do.This makes us impatient. The Elizabethan Puritans had a slogan - "Reformation without tarrying for anybody".  But we have to tarry!   Christ is going to bring the whole fragmented body of Christ into his end-time purposes We can afford to be patient with eachother: God hasn't finished with us yet.

A passion for unity necessarily entails the larger-heartedness that releases the familial love the Father in our hearts by the Spirit.

II. THE PILLARS OR FOUNDATIONS OF UNITY (v.4-6)

Paul now addresses the incentives to be passionate about the maintenance of the Unity already existing between us.   There are groups of genuine believers to whom we feel both drawn and distant tat the same time. We treat as complete foreigners those who are fellow citizens in God's Kingdom.  And yet though differences exist between us, there is a lot we have profoundly in common, that transcends peripheral issues that divide us.  Paul lists them.  Essentials matter. If they didn't we could make friends with the Devil! True unity is essentially spiritual, i.e. fostered by the life of the Spirit within us. Doctrinal unity is also important, but is yet to be perfected. These are the great essentials which unify us in principle by the Spirit. Each is prefaced by the numeral "one” – the very unity we want.

• ‘One body' – The parts are congenitally joined in the Body of Christ, by grace and by faith. The diversity of 'thumbs', ‘feet', 'ears' and ‘eyes’ within Christ’s universal church are all linked by mutual organic unity with the same Head. Geographical, cultural, temporal and even minor doctrinal differences cannot affect this reality.  What God has joined together let no man put asunder.

• ‘One Spirit' - Each believer shares the same divine origin.  We are ‘born from above’ (Jn 3:2-7), and possessors of the Spirit of Christ (Rom 8:9).  We all have access to the same birthright of being able to 'drink of one Spirit' (1 Cor 12:13).   Hence the same life energizes all believers everywhere to one degree or another.  If the Holy Spirit seals someone as his own by anointing them (Eph.1:13), then l am obliged to own them as mine also!

• 'One Hope' - Hope speaks of our ultimate prospects and destiny. We share the same future both in time and in eternity. We will live on the restored New Heavens and New Earth together.   We will be together in in harmony then, why not practice now?

• ‘One Lord’ – Do people make much of Jesus Christ confessing gladly His uniqueness as Saviour, His sovereignty and supremacy? Then this explains the affinity and resonance we feel when we meet genuine believers from any part of the world.   It should be easy to love those who love Jesus and want to be with them.

• 'One Faith' – Is this objective or subjective faith? Probably both. Do they submit to the same truth – the Faith – of scripture that you do, and do they have personal faith in it’s message and the Christ it preachers to us? Then this was imparted to them by the Spirit, who has linked them savingly to Christ (Rom 10:17)?  Then their faith is our faith and we are one at the most fundamental level of our existence.

• ‘One Baptism’ – Do they believe and practice the biblical rite of water baptism into Jesus as Lord and the Trinity as God, in a dramatic initiation picturing our death to sin, and immersion into union with Christ –  the symbol of  God’s cleansing grace, forgiveness, and renewal (even if they are in disagreement over the amount of water to be used)? Then our unity in Christ is deeper than the amount of water we used and dispute about - important though this is – it will probably all become clearer to them later!

• 'One God and Father' - Do they repudiate all unbelief, agnosticism and atheism, and trust the Triune God who is revealed as our Creator and Sustainer and who in Christ, has adopted us both legally and experientially as his children, in the new birth in Christ to be part of his family? Then if they pray to the same Father through the one Mediator Christ , then people who share the same Father and siblings are one,  whether they like it or not!

Louis Berkhof sums up the thrust of this passage in this way:

"The reformers argued that the body (referring to the invisible church) was controlled by one head, Jesus Christ, animated by one Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. This unity meant that all those who belong to the church share in the same faith, are cemented together by the common bond of love, and have the same glorious outlook upon the future.”

(Systematic Theology p.577)

So, no matter how diverse they are in peripherals like ethnicity, social status, speech, style, dress, culture or location in time and space, if they share with us the same vital connection with Jesus, renewal by his Spirit, expectation of his heaven, submission to his Lordship, confidence in his word, experience of his saving mercy and adoption into his family and life in his kingdom along with us, then we are one. Their unity in Christ with us is more fundamental and real than any lesser issues which may temporarily divide us.

III. THE PROCESS OF UNITY (v.7-13)

It is obvious then, that the true Unity of the church is as indestructible as the Godhead itself.  It is no more possible to split the church than it is to split the Godhead.  We can no more multiply churches than we can multiply Gods!  Yet the sad fact is, we have quite a way to go as yet. There are 30,000 Christian denominations worldwide and the picture they present is not pretty.   There is widespread selfish ambition, protectionism, exclusivism, rivalry, mutual animosity , ignorance, fear and strife.

The Apostle moves on from his exhortation to understand the unity which is to be maintained, to describe how full unity is to be attained. This involves the crucial role that the Ministry Gifts of the Ascended Lord will play in reaching that goal. These very ministries are diversity in unity. We are not all the same! Unity does not equal uniformity.  The completed church will not look the same, with each believer simply a clone of the next, and each congregation an exact reproduction of others in worship, teaching style, liturgy, kingdom works or leadership.  But it will be one!

The process by which this will be unfolded is given in 4:7-13.  It involves the dynamic of three agencies:

1)            The Ascended Lord.

2)            The Anointed and Appointed Ministry gifts of the Ascended Lord

3)            The Every-Member ministry of the whole body of Christ.

I’ll comment on the most significant threads within this process.

(1) These ministries are given by the Ascended Lord (v.7-11).  They are not lifted up by men, but sent down by the Lord himself.  It is Christ who calls, commissions and equips them from His present position of rule and authority in heaven.  Our job is to recognise, receive and respond to their gifts and work. They are not 'optional extras' in our mission.  Their emergence and appearance is a test for us.

It tests our congregation’s spirituality. Will we ape the Corinthians and choose our ‘favourites’? (1 Cor 3) It tests our  submission and generosity of spirit. In the words of Jesus, can we receive a prophet because he is a prophet, and so not forfeit a prophet’s reward? (Mk 10:41) It tests our inner security, for we often feel jealous and threatened by their position gifting.

Jesus alone is the Apostle (Heb 3:1), Prophet (Lk. 24:19, Jn 4:9), Evangelist (Mk 1:15), Pastor (Jn 10:14) and Teacher (Mt 7:28). Yet in these anointed men, we are in some way encountering the words, works and wonders of the Lord Himself as he deploys them to extend His kingdom and to build His church.



The time note struck in v.13, ‘Until’ - indicates the terminus of their function and operation, and it is not the end 1^st century AD, more like the end of history! It is ‘until’ we all reach the fulfillment of their raison d’etre, the point at which the church emerges in her most glorious, mature and perfected state before Christ returns and then they all become redundant and cease to function (Eph. 4:13).   We will then be unified, perfected, and matured, and on the threshold of eternity. But this has not happened yet, so we need them still.

The allusion in v.8 is to Psalm 68:18.'The Ascended Christ first 'received' then 'gave' these men to His church, like a military conqueror he took some of the Devil's generals as prisoners of war following his victory at Calvary, then released them as part of his Triumphant Procession to act as his own anointed leaders in the fight against their old master, Satan.  These five-fold ministries are actually former rebels, now captured, de-toxified, freed, re-orientated, called trained to fight for their new Commander in Chief, Christ. They are then given back to the church as its leaders and ministers.

(2) These ministries are given in a wide diversity, representing Jesus himself (v.11)

Christ’s own abilities are broken down and shared out among other individuals listed here. Perhaps the most controversial is the first, the apostles. The word ‘apostle’ literally means ‘sent one’. It is used in a number of contexts in the NT, and the context decides its particular meaning in that location. The early church knew that certain individuals were commissioned by Christ to spread the Gospel and found healthy Christian communities in any geographical area. There are five kinds of ‘apostle’ in the NT:

1. Jesus the Chief Apostle – there is no one like him (Heb.3:1). All other ministries only share a small measure of his gifting and anointing by the Spirit.

2. The Twelve apostles of the Lamb, Jesus Christ who accompanied him in his earthly ministry for three years and became eye-witnesses of his resurrection – there are none like this today (Acts. 1:22, Rev.21:14). Interestingly, Matthias probably became one of them (Acts 1:23).

3. Paul, the thirteenth apostle, the ‘last of all, born out of due time’ (I Cor. 15:11), who shared equal authority with the Twelve (I Cor.15:9, Gal. 1:15-17, 2:9); Eph. 3:8), and who wrote inspired scripture as the definitive standard of teaching for the church. No apostle today is like him in this respect, but Paul was a ‘bridge’ apostle and model for later individuals who were missionary church planters, since he was also called by the Ascended Lord to model and train others for this task.

4. A pioneer church planters sent on trans-local ministry usually in teams, and who make new converts, plant new churches, lay foundations of life and doctrine (I Cor. 3:10), decide matters of controversy and conduct and generally set things in order (Acts 15:1,2, 23; 2 Thess. 3:6-8, I Cor. 11:14; Titus. 1:5) etc). The apostle Paul did this, of course, but so did many other named individuals in the NT who were not part of the Twelve but were apostles too. They include Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Titus, James the Lord’s brother, Julias and Andronicus.

5. Any Christian sent anywhere to do anything as an envoy of the church – e.g. Epaphroditus who was a ‘sent one’ to be Paul’s servant in Rome (Phil. 3:25). Many individuals are sent on special errands by churches like this today.

The context determines the meaning and use of the term ‘apostle’.

Here in Eph. 4:11 other ministry gifts are named also.

Prophets bring insight, exhortation, and transcendent guidance to the church that is not available by natural ability alone, it is by the Power of the Spirit in the form of words, visions, impressions and pictures, all tested by scripture (I Cor. 14:3, 37-38; I Thess. 5:19-22). Hans Kung once said ‘A Church in which prophets have to keep silent declines and becomes a spiritless organization.’ And Abraham Heschel, the Jewish OT scholar and theologian, once observed ‘The prophets do not offer reflections about ideas in general. Their words are onslaughts, scuttling illusions of false security, challenging evasions, calling faith to account, questioning prudence and impartiality.’ Is there a prophet in the house?

Evangelists spearhead the church’s outreach into the unbelieving community, equip others to do the same, and persuade people to come to faith in Christ by proclamation and demonstration of the Gospel in words and deeds of signs and wonders (Mark 16:15-20; Acts 8:4-8).

Pastors and Teachers have a special influence on peoples lives by their gift and clarity in teaching the word of God in the power of the Spirit, both privately and in pubic. They mature, guide, clean-up and protect new converts through their ability to expound scripture, and counsel, instruct, admonish, lead and feed groups of new converts so that they become healthy churches.

Someone has helpfully summarized the range of word-ministries delineated here in this way: Apostles govern, Prophets guide, Evangelists gather, Pastors guard and Teachers ground God's people in the Truth. As such, we can expect to see huge numbers of such gifted individuals emerging and formed many varied teams among all denominations worldwide.  We must honour their gifting wherever it manifests and whenever they arise.

The greatest single step we can take to further the unity and maturity of the church is to recognize and receive them. Drawing on their influence, wisdom, and spiritual authority to effect godly reformation, restoration and renewal.  Without them we’ll remain deficient, disintegrated, diseased and disordered.



Their function then is not to take centre stage and top-billing within the Christian enterprise, nor even to form an organization or 'ministry' focused upon their own name, and anointing.  It is rather to take their place within flexible networks or teams of similarly commissioned servants, for higher ends than their own self'-glorification.

They aren’t to be ‘loners’. Each is to know his limits and work with others. The Bible says ‘Two are better than one’ (Eccl. 4:9-12). Jesus sent the apostles out ‘two by two’, and later did the same with the Seventy-two (Luke 9:1-6, 10:1ff). Paul rarely chose to work alone, and traveled with individuals like Barnabas, Mark, Silas, Timothy, Luke, Priscilla and Aquila and scores of others. (Acts 13:1ff; 16:10; 14:23; 17:14; 18:8; 19:29; 20:4). In the New Testament, "leadership" is clearly a collective noun.  In the NT leadership is a plural noun!

For example:

-                Philip the Evangelist called Apostles Peter and John to the revival in Samara (Acts 8:14f).

-                Barnabas summoned Paul to help him in Antioch (Acts 11:25).

-                Paul and Barnabas shaped a large team of prophets and teachers in that same city (Acts 13:1ff).

-                Paul and Barnabas travelled with young trainees like John, Mark and Timothy.

-                Later still numerous individuals were to weave in and out of association with Paul - e.g. Silas, Luke, Epaphroditus, Apollos, Stephanus, Fortunatus, Andronicus and Junias.

Individualism, independence and isolation are therefore the quickest routes to error or imbalance in belief and behaviour.

Without this diversity of ability, the balanced development of the body is impaired. Teachers functioning alone tend to produce passive lovers of doctrine, evangelists gather large numbers of spiritual babies who may remain infants. Prophets working alone forge a handful of fanatical and visionary enthusiasts, whilst pastors may cultivate only a flock of fat, cozy, smugly-contented and navel-gazing sheep!

Exposure to the diversity of word-ministries which Jesus gives, brings balance and perspective to individuals and to whole congregations.  As Philip Greenslade expresses it, “The Apostles have a fatherly ministry, laying a foundation of life, obedience and doctrine in each place.   The prophets, the seers and spokesmen of Christ to His Church, bring vision to believers, giving them a sense of purpose and direction through the living Word. Evangelists proclaim the good news, heal the sick and cast out demons.  Pastors rule and care for the sheep, feeding and fattening them for God.    Teachers expound in detail the revelation brought by the apostle and prophets applying the whole counsel of God to the lives of believers and making disciples in the process." (‘Leadership: Reflections on Biblical Leadership Today’ CWR 2002)  Who could argue with the necessity of that?



(3) These ministries exist to equip the whole church everywhere to function properly (v.12-13)



In recent years large Christian events have enabled vast numbers of believers and churches to become exposed to the Ephesians 4 ministries, and particularly to apostolic and prophetic gifting. This has brought about cross-fertilization in truth and acted as a visual aid of what ought to be our normative experience in churches every week not just at Keswick, New Wine or Spring Harvest once a year.

To reject or deny, repudiate or silence these ministries when the Lord providentially puts them our way, is to rob the church of some aspect of Christ's ministry to her.  Some vital emphasis will be starved out or shut out.



Welcomed however, these dynamic ministries will advance us toward four significant goals, already alluded to:

(1)         Ministry - every member functioning appropriately (v.12, 16).

(2)         Unity - every member relating meaningfully (v.l3a).

(3)          Maturity - every member growing and effective (v.l3b)

(4)         Stability - every member standing firm unshakably (v.14)

In short, these fivefold ministries will have the effects their names suggest: apostles make individuals and whole churches more ‘apostolic’ and mission-minded, prophets make us more prophetic and future oriented as we are filled with hope for what God is bringing from the future, evangelists make us more bold and effective in evangelism, pastors make us more loving and familial in community, and teachers deepen our roots theologically so that we are marked by a love for doctrine, theology and able to defend our faith well in a hostile world. These are wonderful prospects.  Let's consider their outcome.

IV. THE PURPOSE OR GOAL OF UNITY (v.13-16)

As translocal ministries ignore denominational boundaries and cross-fertilize diverse congregations, they will help to break up the lonely, isolated and in some cases fiercely independent ethos of so many Christian groupings.  Think of the widespread influence in the last 50 years of such ministries like those of Dr. Paul Yonngi Cho, John Wimber, Dr. Billy Graham, Reinhard Bonnke, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Dr. John Stott and Terry Virgo for example.   It is because such ministries have hitherto been comparatively scarce, barely recognised, and frequently unwelcome, that the Church has remained ill equipped, numerically small, chronically immature and vulnerable to deception.



These are the very problems which Paul is addressing in these last verses.  It is our resistance to these gifts which explains much of the dismal nature of the church scene we see almost everywhere today.

A recent Gallup poll of churches in N. America discovered several alarming trends:

1. Members were seriously ignorant of the central tenets of their Christian faith.


2. Gullibility to error, e.g. the same percentage of church goers believed in such things as astrology as would be found in a sample of un-churched people.


3. Most were totally ill-disciplined in their personal spiritual lives.


4. An anti-intellectual mood prevailed that preferred an intellectually content less Christianity with an emphasis on feelings and emotionalism.

This description is all-too-typical of the church of Christ everywhere in its present manifestation. But it will not always be so.

Ephesians tells us that we are headed towards four divinely appointed ends within the purpose of God.

1. 1. VISIBLE UNITY - in the Faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God (v.13a)

Our present, split's and divisions over doctrinal issues, man-made customs and traditions, tastes in dress or styles of worship, length and frequency of meetings and status of leaders, will all one day yield to a unity based upon wholehearted understanding of and commitment to Apostolic faith and doctrine.



We will all know Christ better - His words, His works and His wonders.  The ministries of Eph. 4 will be used by the Lord to bring this about.  Jesus is not returning for a bunch of quarrelsome school children, split into rival factions in the playground, but rather a people solidly united on scriptural truth and proclaiming Jesus Lordship on the battleground of this world.

1. 2. INCREASING MATURITY -  Attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (v13b, v.15)

Infancy is a condition of unreleased and undeveloped potential. To grow up is to come to the full expression of all that Jesus has imputed and imparted to us by reason of our union with Him. On earth he had power to preach with stunning authority, to heal and deliver with dramatic and lasting effects, to convert and disciple with radical and attractive change and to speak prophetically to the unclean 'powers' of his day.   A mature church will do the same.   We will accurately represent our ascended Lord before the eyes of a watching world.  Jesus is not returning for a teenage adolescent but the mature man. The Ephesians 4 ministries will help bring this day to birth.

1. 3. STRONG STABILITY - No longer gullible infants unsettled by false teaching (v.14-15)

Infancy is a time when convictions are held lightly and there is extreme vulnerability to deception.   Children are fooled by noise, colour, lights, ostentation and show.   The present day kindergarten of 'Janet and John readers' still learning their ABC's will yield to a vast association of serious minded and biblically well-informed men and women who know what they believe, are capable or discerning good from evil and even best from better. They will be rock-like, steady, immoveable and fully assured amid a world of bankrupt philosophies and syncretist religion. At present the church is like an unguarded crèche ravaged by spiritual child molesters and perverts. That era will cease.  The ministries of Eph 4 will help draw it to a close.

1. 4. EFFECTIVE MINISTRY - The whole body joined and held together each part doing its work (v.16)

Uncooperative isolation, freelance and maverick ministry, spiritual hobos, tumbleweed Christians, These are the marks of the church today.  We are a body, true, but not a healthy one. Muscles are paralysed, limbs hang useless, senses are impaired, vital organs malfunction, and arteries lie open and bleeding from various wounds the enemy has afflicted. If our physical bodies were in the same shape Christ's spiritual body is, we would be in a critical condition.  But the church can and will recover.  She will be made well in every part, and each organ and limb will submit totally to the directives of the Head.  Jesus is not returning for a spiritual paraplegic, a church with so much wrong with it that it will be in need of a resurrection! The church at the end will be a restored, healthy and fully functioning organism in A-1 condition! Jesus will raise up Ephesians 4 ministries in large numbers to see to that.

This then is the prospect.  A unified, fully-developed, mobilized and dynamic expression of Jesus on earth! And this could transpire within our lifetime!

The ministries of Ephesians 4 can see to that . Or will they?

The answer to that question depends to a large extent upon our individual response to the overall challenges presented in this essay.

1. Are you willing to pay any price, as Paul himself was, to see the goal of Christian unity come to closer realization through your own personal ministry – whether that price is financial, or to your reputation, vocation, or position (you may be ‘demoted’)?  It will cost you!

1. Will you repent decisively, of any pride, harshness, impatience and intemperance towards other members of the Body of Christ?

1. Will you resolve to honour the presence, identity, shape, impact and witness of every genuine Christian congregation and God-appointed leader, both in your own town and in the regions beyond? This may mean willingly demolishing some of the walls that have been historically erected around, you so that traffic can once more begin to move between you and them?

1. Will you allow your own life and congregation to be mentored by growing relationships with genuine apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral and teaching ministries? A school in the North of England has a motto carved in stone over portals ‘Audio, Video, Disco‘ – not early branch of Dixons or Currys but Latin for ’I hear, I see, I learn.’  Until such ministries are heard and seen in action, people cannot learn. God help us if that remains the case.