Hardest hitting paragraphs in WCF (from "Of Providence")

The Public Square
1

These paragraphs from “Of Providence” (5.5, 5.6) are strong medicine. Do we counsel our sheep along these lines?

V. The most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave, for a season, His own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and, to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon Himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends.

VI. As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God, as a righteous Judge, for former sins, doth blind and harden, from them He not only withholdeth his grace whereby they might have been enlightened in their understandings, and wrought upon their hearts; but sometimes also withdraweth the gifts which they had, and exposeth them to such objects as their corruption makes occasion of sin; and, withal, gives them over to their own lusts, the temptations of the world, and the power of Satan, whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves, even under those means which God useth for the softening of others.

2

Our men’s group that meets once a month has been slowly working through the confession. It is both encouraging and convicting to study closely.

I think about how you may have a sin beat for a long time and then God may let you be tempted to it out of nowhere and then you are reminded that it wasn’t you who beat that sin but Him working in you. Therefore don’t you dare let go of Him nor take yours eyes off Him and His word.

4 Likes
3

How do you use this? Pastorally, I mean. What does this look like? Just reading them the confession? Digesting the theology and applying it to them? Reading them your reflections on this from your own life and experience? How do you discern which part applies to whom and when?

You’re so right: we need this. But I’ve got it wrong plenty of times, through impatience or irritation.

How do you use this for their benefit?

3 Likes
4

I think that there may be a need to recast how we teach this.

I grew up in the Pentecostal tradition, one of whose roots is the Holiness tradition of the nineteenth century. The trouble with the way it was taught, even with the best of intentions, is that it left us (me) thinking that God’s love for me was somehow a function of how well I had managed to be sanctified. What has helped me since, though, is this observation from CS Lewis, that “God will not love us because we are good, but rather, He will make us good because He loves us”.

This puts a very different cast on proceedings; not that my own efforts will somehow make me holy, they won’t; but rather, that they are the way in which I co-operate with God as He works holiness in me. Thoughts?

4 Likes
5

“You’ve fallen into sin; it appears God is humbling you. Be thankful you still feel conviction. Be careful you do not grow in your love for sin. If you continue to love your sin, you will become bitter toward God and reject His discipline. And remember, God destroys some by giving them over to their sin, and God softens/disciplines others by giving them a taste of their sin. What is God doing here? Will you harden yourself or will you humble yourself?”

These paragraphs remind us of the danger of sin, but also of God’s fatherly utility in it.

I find the Confession’s language here a good antidote to the antinomian cheap grace we often feed the sheep when they’ve fallen into certain sins. I think it was Owen, probably in The Mortification of Sin, who wrote something like this: we ought not be too hasty to comfort ourselves when we sin. If we are, we preempt God’s discipline. Rather, we ought to do the work of examining ourselves, refining the knowledge of our sinfulness, confessing to those with authority, renewing our sense of God’s holiness and our utter dependence on Him, and then, yes, remembering that Christ is our righteousness and our sins have been forgiven and forgotten.

All of this is particularly helpful for the sheep who are presuming upon the grace of God and tending toward antinomianism.

There are other sheep who labor under the burden of the continual accusing lies of the Devil. They need a different medicine.

5 Likes
6

Andrew - thanks; this does make things quite a bit clearer.

1 Like
7

Here’s the Owen quote I think I had in mind.

Under the heading “Rules to know whether God is speaking peace about a sin or it is false peace”, he writes:

Rule 3: We speak peace to ourselves when we do it carelessly. The prophet complains of this in some teachers: “They have healed the wound of the daughter of my people carelessly." The same is true with some who heal their own wounds with a careless effort. A glance of faith to the promises will do it, and we are done. The apostle tells us that “the word did not benefit” some because “it was not mixed with faith," “It was not well tempered” and mingled with faith. It is not a mere look to the word of mercy in the promise that heals, but mingling the promise with faith until it is incorporated into its very nature. Then the word will indeed do the soul good. If you had a wound in your conscience that was accompanied by weakness and anxiety, and you are now freed of it, how did you manage that? “I looked to the promises of pardon and healing, and so I found peace." That may be so, but perhaps you were too hasty. You were too obvious. You have not fed on the promise in a way that mixes it with faith, and diffuses all its virtue into your soul. You did it carelessly. Before long you will find your wound breaking out again, and you will know that you are not cured.

8

Guessing this is the part of the Confession I have most frequently quoted. It’s desperately needed in our day of cheap grace, following upon a couple centuries of Wesleyan understandings of holiness. (Listening to George Marsden’s Fundamentalism and American Culture a couple days ago on that section of Christian history in US, I keep thinking of you, Ross, and other friends of Pentecostal heritage. If you haven’t yet, you should read it. All of us would understand ourselves and our churches much better for having read it. The Christian Nationalist movement would appear in its constant line of similar postmil frenetic moments across the decades and celebrities of pre-fundamentalism and fundamentalism, for instance.)

Anyhow, preaching in Toledo a couple weeks ago, this is how I used it in the sermon on Psalm 6:

…verse 3 But You, O LORD–how long?

Does this sound like the prayer of the man after God’s Own heart? Does it sound like what you would imagine the prayer of a righteous, of a godly man to be? Does it sound like the prayer of a great warrior king? Of the great theologian who gave us the book of Psalms?

Or does it sound like a negative confession of a timid and faithless man—the sort of man Joel Osteen would never invite to preach at Lakeland?

What megachurch would ever invite such a pathetic man into their pulpit?

What denomination would ever approve such a weakling for church planting?

What pastor would ever allow such a man to be put up for elder by the church’s nominating committee?

Somehow, it’s doubtful Tim Cook and his marketing mavens would give the stage to this guy for one of their Apple reveals.

The world fears weak. The world hates weak. The world denies weak.

Red pill and the manosphere both share the mantra: “ME NOT WEAK!”

But how does the man who denies his weakness ever pray?

How does the man who thinks the definition of manhood is strength—if not actual, nevertheless asserted—pray, taking his needs and fears to God?

Yet here is King David’s simple plea:

3 But You, O LORD–how long?

For years at the end of her life, this was my mother’s prayer. She wanted to be done with earth and this life, and like King David right here, she would ask her Heavenly Father, “O Lord, how long?”

This same plea was John Calvin’s favorite exclamation: “O Lord, how long?”

4 Return, O LORD, rescue my soul; Save me because of Your lovingkindness.

God was absent.

David tells us this by recording this plea he made for God’s return.
We had a man in our congregation once who objected to our use of Psalm 51 as a prayer during worship. He said we should not use it in Christian worship because God would never take the Holy Spirit from a Christian:

(Psalms 51:11) Do not cast me away from Your presence And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Of course, we did not stop using it. Our sin does remove God at a distance from us, and thus David here pleads with God:

4 Return O LORD.

It is a terrible thing to experience the absence of God. When He was on the cross, Jesus’ greatest cry of agony was “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

Thus we receive this warning, and we receive it in the New Testament:

(Ephesians 4:30) Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

And this one:

(1 Thessalonians 5:19) Do not quench the Spirit…

The Westminster Confession teaches us this about God’s discipline of the Christian:

True believers may have the assurance of their salvation divers ways shaken, diminished, and intermitted; as, by negligence in preserving of it, by falling into some special sin which woundeth the conscience and grieveth the Spirit; by some sudden or vehement temptation, by God’s withdrawing the light of his countenance, and suffering even such as fear him to walk in darkness and to have no light: yet are they never utterly destitute of that seed of God, and life of faith, that love of Christ and the brethren, that sincerity of heart, and conscience of duty, out of which, by the operation of the Spirit, this assurance may, in due time, be revived; and by the which, in the meantime, they are supported from utter despair. -Chapter 18: Of the assurance of grace and salvation

David here prays:

4 Return, O LORD, rescue my soul; Save me because of Your lovingkindness.

Where would we be without God’s lovingkindness? Is it not our principal plea when we go to Him in prayer?

Then this:

5 For there is no mention of You in death; In Sheol who will give You thanks?

Why does David say this?

For those who believe the Christian is known by his smiles and strict avoidance of any negative confession, Charles Spurgeon explains this statement by King David this way:

And now David was in great fear of death—death temporal, and perhaps death eternal. Read the passage as you will the following verse is full of power. “For in death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave who shall give thee thanks?”

Churchyards are silent places; the vaults of the sepulchre echo not with songs. Damp earth covers dumb mouths. “O Lord?” said he, “If thou wilt spare me I will praise thee. If I die, then must my mortal praise at least be suspended; and if I perish in hell, then thou wilt never have any thanksgiving from me. Songs of gratitude cannot rise from the flaming pit of hell. True, thou wilt doubtless be glorified, even in my eternal condemnation, but then, O Lord, I cannot glorify thee voluntarily; and among the sons of men, there will be one heart the less to bless thee.”

Ah, poor trembling sinners, may the Lord help you to use this forcible argument. It is for God’s glory that a sinner should be saved. When we seek pardon, we are not asking God to do that which will stain his banner, or put a blot on His [shield]. He delighteth in mercy. It is his peculiar, darling attribute. Mercy honours God. …when [God] gives mercy, [He] glorifies himself.

6 Likes