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Balance in Doctrine: Lessons from the Puritan Pastorate (1)

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Balance in Doctrine: Lessons from the Puritan Pastorate (1)

13 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

The following address was delivered August 8, 1984 at the Principal’s Conference of the Netherlands Reformed Congregations, held in Pompton Plains, New Jersey, and is submitted here with the hope that it will be found applicable for teachers and office-bearers as well.

My theme tonight is both simple and complex: balance. Life and balance are inseparable. Balance is essential for proper living, for the nurturance of a Biblical belief system, and for the establishment and maintenance of a right relationship with God. In short, every sphere of life, every personal relationship, every occupation clamors for balance.

Christian education in general, and Christian School principalship in particular, is prime territory for the imperative of balance. The entire field of pedagogy or the art of teaching, with its conjoining methods of instruction, discipline, and student evaluation must ride in balanced tandem with curriculum implementation in terms of course content, resources, and subject evaluation. In turn, both pedagogy and curriculum must merge in Christian principalship with an underlying broadsweeping school policy that grasps teachers, students, parents, subjects, and budgets within its scope. In a word, the mutuality of “balance” and “Christian principalship” will certainly conjure within your minds an instant stream of seemingly unending interrelationships.

Obviously, I will make no attempt to cover the vast scope of material involved in balanced Christian principalship as I lack both time and experience to do so. Rather, I desire to focus with you, from a ministerial perspective, on two cardinal themes which fall under the umbrella of balanced principalship: balance in doctrine and balance in life.

I believe it safe to assert that no age can teach us so much on this dual theme as late-sixteenth and seventeenth century English Puritanism. In fact, the oft-recognized founder of the Cambridge Puritan movement, William Perkins (1558-1602), is thought to be responsible for the coinage of the popular Puritan phraseology: “the balance of the sanctuary.” By this expression Perkins aimed to conjoin in his preaching such seemingly divergent themes as divine sovereignty and human responsibility, and supralapsarianism and practical theology. By interweaving supralapsarian predestination with experimental soul-examination and human responsibility, Perkins attempted to keep in equilibrium a lively ordo salutis (order of salvation) which pastor-ally counselled converted and unconverted to continually search for the working of the law of predestination within their own souls on the foundation of Christ’s work. Perkins’ poised stance in attempting to wed decretal and practical/experimental theology in a happy, assuring, biblical marriage, however, does not limit his recently resurrected works to theological value. Backed by succeeding Perkinsian Puritans such as John Preston, Richard Sibbes, and John Cotton, balanced Puritan preaching which sought to convey the whole counsel of God to every domain of life, has something very valuable to say particularly to you as Christian School principals.

To appreciate the Puritan lesson “Balance in the Sanctuary” from the perspective of Christian principals, however, four things must first be understood about Puritan preaching:

First, by balanced preaching the Puritan never intended that every sermon had to be a balancing act between, for example, divine sovereignty and human responsibility. On the contrary, they allowed their text to dictate their particular emphases for each message. When Jonathan Edwards preached on hell, for example, there is not one word about heaven in his entire sermon, and when he subsequently preached an entire sermon about heaven, there is not so much as one paragraph about hell. The point here is this: The Puritans preached their text to the full, whatever its theme, but over a space of time they were sure to address every major theme of Scripture.

Secondly, appreciation for each scriptural doctrine for its own sake was greatly enhanced among Puritan congregations through such a mode of preaching. Practically speaking the typical Puritan could relish a sermon on “Make haste for thy life’s sake” for its warning note of urgency and responsibility one Sabbath, and just as deeply savor the same pastor’s message the following week on, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to Me.” Both the Puritan pastor and layman were individuals who treasured the full scope of God’s counsel rather than being held captive by so-called “favorite” doctrines or tenets through which they rated the sermon at hand.

Thirdly, this carefully cultivated appreciation for all scriptural doctrine allowed the Puritans to present a wide variety of sermonic topics. To randomly illustrate, one volume of Puritan Sermons addresses the following specific topics as the contents of separate sermons: “How May We Experience in Ourselves, and Evidence to Others, that Serious Godliness is more than a Fancy?”; “What Are the Best Preservatives Against Melancholy and Overmuch Sorrow?”; “How May We grow in the Knowledge of Christ?”; “What Must We Do to Prevent and Cure Spiritual Pride?”; “How May We Graciously Improve Those Doctrines and Providences That Transcend Our Understanding?”; “What Distance Ought We to Keep, in Following the Strange Fashions of Apparel Which Come Up in the Days in Which We Live?”; “How May We Best Know the Worth of The Soul?”

Finally, these three hallmarks of Puritan preaching, i.e., close adherence to the textual theme, appreciation for all of God’s counsel, and exposition of a wide variety of subjects, lends itself to a fourth: clergy and laymen both demanded excellence in Puritan preaching. Indeed, their very style of preaching demanded this: Can you imagine an entire sermon on, “What Are the Best Preservatives Against Melancholy and Overmuch Sorrow?”, if it were not well-researched and excellently presented? No wonder the Puritan ministry was seldom besieged with counseling calls, for Puritan pastors believed that the pulpit must be practical enough to answer the bulk of private questions!

Being an avid adherent of the Puritan mode of preaching doctrine, no doubt you can already anticipate some of my applications to Christian principalship. But let me list them anyhow:

First, seek grace for yourselves, and in the training of your staffs, to present to your students a Biblical, and I trust what is synonymous—a Reformed, comprehensive balance of doctrine. Specifically, this means that you must present in balanced perspective the six major loci of Reformed dogmatics: theology proper (the doctrine concerning Cod); anthropology (the doctrine concerning man); Christology (the doctrine concerning Christ); soteriology (the doctrine concerning salvation); ecclesiology (the doctrine concerning the church); and eschatology (the doctrine concerning the last things).

To flesh this out a bit, allow me to present one illustration from each locus. Concerning theology proper, the attributes of Cod represent an excellent case in point. Obviously, when disciplining a child you commonly place a heavier emphasis on the omniscience of God than on His sovereignty; or, when encouraging children to seek the Lord, you noticeably accent the grace and mercy of Cod. Such emphases are not only allowable; they are profitable and essential. Nevertheless, when all is said and done, and you look back on a completed school year, you ought to be able to say: “I have emphasized to my students Cod’s sovereignty, Cod’s justice, God’s holiness and transcen-dancy, as well as His immanency, grace and mercy.” In short, though particular happenings dictate particular emphases, the bottom line of your instruction relative to the attributes of Cod ought to read, “balance in the classroom,” just as the Puritan preachers strove to make theirs read, “balance in the sanctuary.”

The consequences of forfeiting such balance are disastrous: In this case, a Cod presented as basically impotent (with transcendency relegated to a parenthetical position), reaps the fruit of a shrinking God-concept in the mind of a child—a God who is not fillled with sovereign majesty, inexpressible holiness, and does not have all power in heaven and on earth; on the other hand, a God-concept presented in a transcen-dant vein at the expense of immanency, results in the intuitive understanding that Cod is not really concerned about the details of life or is too unreachable for a child to lay hold of through the medium of prayer by grace.

Anthropology presents the same need for Reformed balance. Historically, our fathers have wisely depicted this need for balance through the theological vocabulary of the image of God in man in its narrower and wider sense. Both must receive due emphasis in the classroom. When the narrower sense of God’s image in man receives all emphasis, the student is reduced to what our forefathers would call “a stock and a block” for there is nothing to speak of other than deadness and an utter loss of knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. On the contrary, when the student is no longer told that he is utterly dead in sins and trespasses by nature and has lost the image of God fully in this narrower sense, so that all emphasis is allotted to the image of Cod in its wider sense, the net result will be that many will begin to subtly believe that they can somehow climb up to salvation in their own strength or understanding. In short, depravity must never be relativized, while the student must be informed simultaneously that Cod did retain in him some remnants of His image through which he may be approached with the gospel message, being a rational creature. In fact, this balanced presentation of anthropology also serves to reinforce the balance of theology proper, for a student who is made acquainted by the Spirit with his total depravity and corresponding responsibility on account of his natural gifts, will not only conscientiously utilize the means of grace, but will also resort to all the attributes of Cod as a pleading ground for salvation—to God’s grace, because salvation must be utterly of grace, and yes, to God’s sovereignty, for if He were not utterly sovereign there would be no hope for any sinner dead in himself. Thus, you see, these balances ride in tandem: total depravity demands total sovereignty; conversely, minimized sovereignty necessitates minimizing depravity, and the result is imbalance of both scriptural loci.

Christology necessitates balance as well. Christ must be presented in His humiliation to merit salvation, in His exaltation to keep salvation. He is equally needed as Savior and as Lord. He cannot be missed as Prophet, Priest, or King. In short, the merging and balancing of the loci continue to integrate themselves with Christology, for is it not sovereign and gracious God that richly proclaims a total Christ for totally depraved sinners? Hence, a balanced theology proper and a balanced anthropology makes room for an unfettered Christology.

In soteriology the balance of divine sovereignty and human responsibility comes to the fore. Though divine sovereignty must remain ultimately on the foreground, it must never be presented at the expense of responsibility. Sovereignty is aggregate; responsibility is aggregate. As William Perkins so brilliantly elucidates: sovereign, predestinarian doctrine must be balanced with, not set up against, the doctrine of human responsibility. The two cannot be reconciled in our minds, but we thank God that they need not be reconciled either. Spurgeon said it best. “Sovereignty and responsibility are friends,” he quipped, “and I never try to reconcile friends.”

Ecclesiology also dictates a wide array of needed balances. Consider only the need for presenting in balanced perspective how children stand in relation to the covenant of grace — what wealth of balancing grace is needed to correctly expound the simple doctrinal expression, “under, but not in, the covenant apart from regenerating grace”! What wisdom is needed by you and your staffs to persuade your students of the great benefit of an external relationship to the covenant while simultaneously pressing home upon them the necessity of a radical transplantation by the Holy Spirit into the internal essence of it!

And what shall we stammer of the incredible balance needed in teaching eschatology? Must we not here have the eternal balance in view between hell and heaven? What discretion is needed to warn of hell and woo toward heaven without making students both hell-hardened and heaven-hardened! How fully the purpose of heaven must be stressed, namely, the glorification of Cod, and how earnestly you are called to display to your students that this glorification is what life once was in paradise, what life is still meant to be, indeed, what life is all about forever!

Rev. J. R. Beeke is pastor of the First Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan.


New Year’s Wishes

On behalf of the Banner of Truth committee, we desire to wish you and your loved ones the divine riches of grace for Christ’s sake in 1988. May God grant us to experience repeatedly in 1988, the psalmist’s ever new refrain: “for His mercy endureth for ever” (Ps. 136).

Receive our warm thanks for all the support you have provided relative to our Banner of Truth by means of prayers, letters, subscriptions and gifts in 1987. Once again, we have felt that many of God’s dear children among us were as Aarons and Hurs also for this work. A particular thanks to the scores of you who have written appreciatively.

May the Lord use this periodical in 1988 to the glory of His worthy Name, the edification of His people, and the conversion of the unconverted.

Let us also pray that the Lord may grant our Netherlands Reformed denomination a good year. May He bless our churches, office-bearers, and the means of grace administered through the spoken, taught, written, and sung gospel message. May He add to the number of His servants and bless their labors; remember ministerial widows; and all widows, widowers, and those who have special needs, throughout our congregations. May He prosper our church publications, and the ongoing committee work in our denomination. May He grace our schools, principals, and teachers with divine favor. May He add to the number of our young people and children who know saving grace, and grant them spiritual growth and firm adherence to the truth. May He sanctify all efforts of home, church, and school to this end. May He augment the glory of His name via mission work and evangelistic endeavors, and return wandering prodigals under the banner of truth.

May God remember us in Christ Jesus, the only pleading and expectation ground! May He send forth His indispensable Spirit and revive us before the candlestick of the established churches be removed exclusively to the heathen. May God receive His rightful place among us by divine conquest, “He: all in all; we: nothing at all.” —JRB


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Bekijk de hele uitgave van vrijdag 1 januari 1988

The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's

Balance in Doctrine: Lessons from the Puritan Pastorate (1)

Bekijk de hele uitgave van vrijdag 1 januari 1988

The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's