Father, we want to thank you for this lovely fall weather for the beautiful colors for the wonder of your creation. And even more Father, we thank you for the wonder of yourself and all you've done for us. We pray now that as we think together in this class that you will teach us and challenge us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, point number six that I wanted to make just very quickly here, or seven, if you put evangelism down as number six, is his emphasis on the Lordship of Christ. Okay, we'll do, sorry, I just forgotten, I did that for everybody else, but I need to do it for the video. Okay, right, okay, I'm sorry. Yeah, we were discussing the third section from the basic Bible studies, and that was on salvation. We had looked at how God's Holiness is not compromised, at Schafer's emphasis on space-time history, his emphasis on the empty hands of faith that we come to God with faith plus nothing, and that any emphasis on works is humanistic. Fourthly there, we looked at how sanctification is by faith as well, and fifthly we looked at the relationship with all three members of the Trinity as one of his major stresses on Christian experience, and in answer to questions the other day, we added in a sixth point which was the evangelism as every Christian's calling. That then brings us to point number seven here, which will be the last point in this section, which is his emphasis on the Lordship of Christ over the whole of life. I just read one very short passage here, this is from Lesson 20 on sanctification, and he says, where are we? Not Lesson 20, Lesson 19, I beg your pardon. Lesson 19 on sanctification, and he says, being Christians should make a difference in every aspect of our lives. Now for Schafer, one of the central characteristics of being reformed meant this emphasis on the Lordship of Christ over the whole of life. It's something you may have heard me say in class, but he used to say it over and over again, that while in the Anglo-Saxon world when people thought about being sort of descendants of the tradition of Calvin from Geneva, that their emphasis would be primarily on Calvin's teaching, on the sovereignty of God in salvation, on God's work of saving his elect, saving his special people. But he would add on the continent in Switzerland and Holland and Germany and France, if you use the word reformed, if you talk about the reformed faith or the reformed churches, people would have, people would understand you to mean those churches which following Calvin emphasize the sovereignty of God over all of life, over the whole of history, not only over salvation, but over the Christian's life today, that we are called to serve God in everything we do, and here of course, in particular, the emphasis that there is no secular part of the Christian's life, that we are called to serve God, to honor God with our whole life. This was a constant theme of his teaching, of many, many sermons in his books, in discussions all the time. The God is interested in some corner of our life, but in the whole of life. So that's the seventh point here, the Lordship of Christ over the whole of life, which became a fundamental part of his teaching on Christian experience. Any questions there, before we move on to the next section, rising out of any of these points we've been looking at here, with regard to salvation. Well let's move on to the fourth section here, which is on the church, and there are just a few comments I want to make this point in section of from these Bible studies on the church. The first is you find a emphasis already on what he called the two orthodoxies, what he later called the two orthodoxies, but in the church there ought to be both an orthodoxy of doctrine, and an orthodoxy of community. I don't know whether he made the expression up, but it's something, an expression you'll find the two orthodoxies or the need for a double orthodoxy. You will find over and over again in his books and in his takes as you read them and listen to them. This is from Lesson 21, which is on sanctification, and page 74 in the book, he says this, he says, the fourth we are called to regular attendance at a Bible-believing church. This does not mean just any church or group, but one which is true to the word of God that has an orthodoxy of doctrine and an orthodoxy of love and community. Now this was something which was very important, and I think particularly in reaction to his own background, where the emphasis had been so strongly in the separatist movement on orthodoxy of doctrine that the only real Christian churches are those which are faithful to the word of God in their teaching, and he never changed that emphasis. If you read his little book The Church Before the Watching World, you'll see there a very strong emphasis on the necessity of churches being faithful to the word of God in their teaching. It's a fundamental part of his teaching right through his life, right to the very end, and you can consider all of his critiques of liberalism, and the very last book he wrote, of course, which was The Great Evangelical Disaster, was challenging the Evangelical Church at this very point of departing from an orthodoxy of doctrine. But particularly after those early years of his life and the crisis that he went through, he began to stress more and more the necessity not just for an orthodoxy of doctrine in the church, but an orthodoxy of love and community, as he expresses it here, became a major part of his teaching about the church. And when personally he would advise people, as they left library to find a church, he would always make this double stress and talk them individually or in groups in any context, find a church which teaches God word faithfully, but also find a church which lives God's word faithfully, where there is a real community, where people really care for each other, where love is practiced. This was for him the mark of the Christian, as he called one of his little books later on, that the church displays love, shows a genuine caring of people, one for the other. It's one of the major emphasis in his book, The Church at the end of the 20th century. There he makes the point that, and in the mark of the Christian, that is he quotes John 13, 34 and 35, and John 17, Jesus' prayer, where Jesus says that, by the way you love one another, all men will know that you are my disciples. And by the unity of the church, by the act of community, the unity expressed in the church, people will know that the Father sent the Son. This was tremendously important to him, and he would say if there wasn't some reality, and he would always say something like it's always only a poor reality, but if there isn't some reality of an orthodoxy of love and community, whether we do not have a biblical church, we do not have a biblical church. We don't really even have a Bible believing church, because it clearly shows that we don't believe God's word, if there isn't at least some attempt to put what he says into practice. So that's my first point here, what he calls a double orthodoxy, and the necessity of that in the church. The second is his emphasis on the need for material sharing. Let me just read one little part here. This is from page 64. It's lesson 17, the new relationship, the brotherhood of believers, and he writes, the second practical aspect of our helping one another in the church is the need to be a material help to each other, and then he comments on Acts 1129. From the earliest days of the church, Christians gave them material goods to help those brothers in Christ who had less materially, even those at great geographical distance. And again, commenting on 1 John 3, 17, and 18, there is no use talking about Christian love. If we do not help our brothers in Christ when they have material needs, and also in this context, he emphasizes the necessity of hospitality. The Christians are commanded to be hospitable. So that's the second point I want to make here. His emphasis on the necessity of material sharing. Again, sadly, that was often something which which wasn't too much emphasized in some of the churches. Part of that, particularly in the 50s and 60s, was a sort of reaction to communism. I remember a friend of mine at seminary preaching a sermon on the need to love one another practically, and careful one another one's physical needs from 1 John chapter 3 and 4, and members of this congregation afterwards accused him of preaching a liberal communist doctrine, but for Shae for this is a tremendously important thing. The need to really give what we have materially to others who are in need. He could never have been accused of being a communist. He hated communism and saw its tremendously destructive character, but he would speak very strongly about the need for Christians to share what they possessed with one another, and of course that was something they lived out in practice very dramatically in their life there in Switzerland, as they often had very little, and they shared everything they had with with other people. The third emphasis here on the church is on the Brotherhood of Belivia, on the Brotherhood of Believers, and the need for this to cut across all barriers. He's speaking again, it's in lesson 17, on the new relationship, the Brotherhood of Believers. He says, when we come into this new relationship with God, with the Triune God, all those who trust Christ as their Savior are our brothers and sisters. This is the communion of saints, and he goes on commenting on Ephesians 5, 21, 6, 9. The Brotherhood of Believers should be the predominant factor between Christians in all the relationships of life. This is true of husbands and wives. Children and parents, servants and masters, employees, and employers. In all such relationships, we are also brothers and sisters. That may sound like a strange emphasis to you when he puts that in the context of marriage, but again, it was something he would say over and over again that one should regard one's wife or one's husband as a sister or brother in the Lord. That is central in our relationship. As soon as you do that, of course, it immediately makes the stress that what is fundamental in marriage is the love we have for one another rather than the structure that God has given. Though Schaefer would have said, yes, God has most certainly given a structure of headship to the husband, but he wanted to have his essential stress that, first of all, we are brothers and sisters in Christ, who are called to love one another and to respect one another as such and to share our lives with one another. And the other relationships we may have of husband, wife, of parent, child, of employee, and employer are secondary to that, a secondary to that, and he would take that very seriously in the way he then would treat small children, for example, whether it was his own children or anybody else's children, that he would take their profession of faith even if they were very tiny right down here, very seriously and regard this child as a brother or sister of his in the Lord. Who should be treated with respect and with dignity and spoken to as an equal. I think this was one of the things that underlay his ability to relate to so many different kinds of people of whatever age or whatever nationality, whatever class or anything else because he really did regard all Christians as brothers and sisters in the Lord. They weren't people who he was over because he was a teacher and God had raised up in the church. They were his brothers and sisters in the Lord. That was the fundamental reality to him. And he goes on to say here that this brotherhood of believers cuts across all the lines of nationality, race, language, culture, social position, and geographical location. It was very precious to him. He would speak about the Church in Antioch from Acts 13, remember where it says that you had where Paul and Barnabas were set aside for the missionary task and it gives a list of some of the people in that church. You might want to be reminded of what it actually says there. Acts 13, in the Church of Antioch there were prophets and teachers. There was Barnabas, Simeon Cordeniger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manion, who had been brought up with her at the tetrach and saw. And he would make the point here you had people who were Jews and who were Gentiles, one man who was obviously very wealthy from the upper class brought up with her at the tetrach and someone who was black. And he would always say whenever he mentioned that passage that is my favorite church. He would say the church at Antioch is my favorite church because there was this real demonstration there of the brotherhood of all believers. Since the third point here in his emphasis on the church, does anybody have any questions here before we move along? This would of course sometimes get him into trouble. I remember when I was in Switzerland in 1967 to 1968. There was an English girl there, a friend of ours, and she met a young black fellow from Tulsa, Oklahoma. They got engaged and were married. They now live in England, have three children, three teenage daughters, and her parents have never seen the girls husband to this very day. And they actually wrote him and telephoned him and accused him of eating and abatting interracial marriage. And one of the sad aspects of all this was that the father was a pastor, but his belief, which he really put into practice, that there is a brotherhood of believers across all of these barriers, sometimes it was quite costly to him in terms of the way people would respond, both his teaching and to what it would work out to in practice, like that interracial marriage. And there were quite a few more of those, obviously during the years of the brief. Now let's move on to another section here. This will be a fifth section, and this will be on what we might call the last things, or that's what he would often call it, the last things, or the future. And there are just a few points I want to make here. The first is an emphasis on the continuity of life between now and the future. I think often when Christians speak about the afterlife, we speak about it as if there were a radical discontinuity, a complete discontinuity between the life we experience now and the life we will have in the future. A lot of that is because we've been affected by what one might call a platonic or a kind of super spiritual view of the Christian life now, so that much of life isn't regarded as being very important to God, and only quote, spiritual things matter. So people have this vision of the future life as a life which is sort of completely spiritual, which has no real continuity with the present, but shape emphasizes in these studies. The continuity there is between life now and in the future. Let me just find one passage here. He's speaking about Christ's resurrection, and he says he had the same body. It wasn't a new body after his resurrection, and he talks about our resurrection. He says we will have the same bodies glorified, yes, changed, yes, but the same. And he speaks elsewhere of the continuity there is in the whole of our life, in our relationships with other people, between now and the future, living in a physical environment and so on. And I think this is a very important point. What he is getting at is this. The way we often speak about the sacred and the secular, the temporal and the eternal, this world and the world to come, we give to Christians an idea of something which is a totally different experience, often in evangelical circles, even the word human is used as a kind of negative word. Well, we're human as if there was something bad about being human. Now, the point shape we're getting at here is simply this, that the discontinuity between the present and the future life is the absence of sin and the effects of sin. The removal of sin, the removal of what sin has produced, sickness, pain, suffering, death, mortality, that it's not other things that will change. We will see God face to face because our sin is taken away completely, but our relationships with other people will continue. The relationships we build now, which are good, which are built on the foundation of Christ will endure forever. Anything we build on the foundation of Christ, which is a value which is gold and silver and precious stones will endure forever. We will be physically raised up. Our life in the future is going to be physical. Salvation is not complete until the physical resurrection and that too, and we could say that as a second point here that it really goes together with this one on continuity. There's a very strong emphasis in these lessons on the physical nature of the future life, that we will be raised up with new bodies, bodies that are transformed, but there is a continuity again. We will be recognizable to people. Not exactly the same, but recognizable. The difference is that we're immortal rather than mortal, a longer subject to sickness and death. We will continue to have a relationship with the physical environment. We are going to live on a new earth in which righteousness dwells. The book of Revelation finishes with the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth. There is going to be fundamentally a continuity between life and life in the future. What will be different is that all the bad things will be gone,
but not relationships, not a physical world, not music, for example, or anything else like that. Those are good parts of the creation that God has given us to enjoy. All of those good things will endure forever. It's only bad things that are going to go, that are going to be taken away. That's a very important point, I think. Again, many, many Christians have very little notion of the physical nature of future life and the continuity between the presence and the future. It makes people the fact that they don't have that makes them often very uncertain as to whether they even really want to be part of this future life because their notion of heaven is so vague because it's so rarely taught on that they don't really feel they've got anything much to look forward to. Does anybody have any questions there? I think Scripture makes it quite plain that we will live on this planet earth. You can think of what Paul says in Romans 8, he says, this whole creation is groaning in the pains of childbirth now because it, this creation has been subjected to vanity by God because of human sin, but he says, this creation is going to attain the same glorious liberty as the children of God and then he goes on to speak about our physical resurrection and Paul sees the physical resurrection as being so important that he says that he equates it to our adoption as sons. We usually think of adoption as taking place when a person becomes a Christian we're adopted into the family of God and that's quite biblical of course, but there Paul equates our adoption as God's sons with our physical resurrection and he often speaks that way. His words in two Corinthians 5 are very powerful, he says that we have been given the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of our physical resurrection he says that in Romans and he says it in Corinthians and that is such an unusual way for for Christians to think because they think of the Spirit as being entitled to do with spiritual things understood in some kind of otherworldly sort of sense, but Paul says the Spirit has been given to us as a guarantee of our future physical resurrection. Now I think Romans 8 makes it very clear that our future homes this earth I think you can look at all those pastures in the Old Testament like in Isaiah 11 for example which also make that very very clear that the curse is going to be removed from this earth that nature itself will be transformed that there will be no no more destruction even in our physical environment that what we see there now will be gone. Peter 2 says we're looking forward to a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells and that's how Revelation finishes as well with with the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth to this earth. Now I think it's a very important question actually is earth our future home I've got an excellent little book on the subject written by one of my colleagues in Libre we're in Reed Kirk it's called the future great planet earth I should bring a few copies along for you but I think it's a very exciting notion and that is simply this you see in so much of our teaching which has been sort of otherworldly we speak as if life here on this earth really didn't matter very much but that isn't the way Scripture speaks God made this earth for human beings to live on this is our environment at creation we are the crown of this creation the crown with the glory and honor of being made in the image of God the problem with life on earth is not that it's on earth but that human beings who've been made to have dominion over the earth have rebelled against God and so the earth itself is subjected to vanity is cursed because of our sins expressed so dramatically in Genesis chapter 3 when Christ comes to redeem us he comes to redeem everything about us both ourselves our relationship with him our relationship with one another to make us new internally but also to redeem our environment as well and that is a constant theme of the Old Testament and of the new you see we shouldn't think of heaven as some radically different location heaven the kingdom of heaven is God's reign when I become a Christian I am already in the kingdom of heaven now you are here the kingdom of heaven is here we pray Lord your kingdom come on earth as it isn't heaven we want God's kingdom to be completely manifest here now there certainly is a place where Christ is because Christ has a physical body for eternity he is God and man forever and it isn't right here I couldn't tell you where it is Scripture doesn't tell us but Christ is physically present somewhere surrounded by angels and by the spirits of all those who belong to him who have died and gone to be with him and revelation pictures that for us and sometimes Scripture calls that heaven because there God's kingdom is perfectly manifest already and you might say I suppose that there are even a few believers there physically like Elijah and Enoch who were taken straight up into heaven without dying first they are there physically already but what Scripture then pictures is that when Christ returned to his establishes kingdom in fullness he will return to this earth and then as Revelation puts it the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ and they will reign forever otherwise that the final blow in the battle that Christ has fought against Satan and against his forces is the banishing of Satan and evil completely from our environment as well as from our hearts and from our lives so that we look forward to the future great planet earth I mean they're very seriously that's this is our home this is where God has set us this is the the world that he's made us to rule over and Scripture teaches that very very strongly it's not a speculation it's a clear part of the local teaching whatever view may you you may have about the millennium regardless of what view you have you ought to be able to say we are going to live with physical bodies in a physical environment which will be this earth transformed yes that's part of the transformation and I think that the picture there is of the burning away of all that is sinful in Peter he speaks about just as the world was once destroyed by water will be destroyed by fire and he parallels the two but there is a that just as once God judged the world with water in the flood he will judge it again with fire are becoming of Christ but only to renew it just as the people of God are cleansed by fire we may say which Scripture also clearly teaches you know we are going to understand as believers before the judgment seat of Christ and the fire of God is going to examine what we've done what did we build on the foundation of Christ gold silver precious stones wood hay or stubble it's wood hay and stubble it will be burned away so God is going to renew his creation Jesus actually uses the expression the regeneration of all things we usually think of the term regeneration in terms of the new birth of a Christian that an individual is regenerated and certainly Scripture uses it that way but Jesus uses it also of the regeneration of everything that everything is going to be made in you when he comes again and I think we should take those passages in in the prophets and in the Psalms pastures like Isaiah 11 quite literally they are describing a physical reality they are not metaphors for the peace which we are going to experience the passages also speak about that quite straight they are a description of what God is going to do now if we have a problem with this I think we have to ask ourselves why is our problem that we have swallowed some notion that really the spiritual matters more than the physical and therefore the notion of living in a physical environment for ever seems rather strange to us no he doesn't that's a very good question doesn't pull point to such conclusions only if only if we misread him let's take an example excellent example Colossians chapter three Paul says don't set your mind on things on the earth set them on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God set your mind not on earthly things but on things above okay and oh even even in the last year I heard somebody preach a sermon on that saying that that meant that life here really wasn't all that significant in comparison with our spiritual relationship with Christ and the life there is to come but Paul even in the context defines what he means he says read yourself of all those things that belong to your earthly nature immorality idolatry lying I mean he makes it very clear that what he means by the earthly is sin that he's not talking about that the Christian the ideal Christian should be one who walks out of this building doesn't notice the color of the autumn leaves doesn't know the changing of the season but has his mind up there somewhere that's nobody's talking about at all and by the things which he says other things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God he tells us he talks about peace and love forbearance and gentleness that's what he's talking about now of course because our physical experience now is one which is so subject to mortality Paul speaks about that as a life which we long to be set free from but look what he actually says when he says it this is a wonderful passage from two Corinthians chapter five you see and you can read the first part of this passage as if it was a completely kind of platonic statement he says now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed we have a building from God an eternal house in heaven not built by human hands meanwhile we grow longing to be but notice what he says here you see he says this meanwhile we groan longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling because when we are clothed we will not be found naked for while we are in this tent we groan and are burdened because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life it's not his physical existence that Paul has a problem with it's his mortality that is that his body is decaying he says elsewhere even though our outer nature is wasting away and it is when you get to the age of 44 like me 45 in a few days time you your outer nature is wasting away somebody once said one of my friends said to me if you wake up on your 40th birthday and you don't have any eggs you're in heaven you all have that to wait for but the the our physical experience isn't is filled with mortality people really get sick they really suffer they have such pain and that's why Paul says I'd rather be with the Lord but not because he devalues physical life but because the experience of abnormality is so acute and the more filled we are with compassion for people not the more other worldly we are but the more filled we are with compassion for people in this situation the more experienced the more completely we experience how broken people's lives are and the more we long for the return of Christ and for everything to be made new I remember when my wife was don't say this to her she wouldn't like me to say this so you keep this to yourself but when my wife had her back problems so very bad four or five years ago almost thought in a box it's not she wished she would dead every day and when you really sick you do you know you can be an unbearable pain but that's thoroughly biblical to wish that there's not something wrong you shouldn't make somebody guilty who wishes their suffering feel guilty wishes their suffering was over it's bad enough to cope with it anyway without having people telling you chin up you know feel good really it's all fine you know as well no pain here it's it's all in the mind it's something like that and lots of Christians speak that way you know just make you feel guilty for feeling so awful but that's what Paul said he said I would rather die and go to be with the Lord it's far better certainly it certainly is far better than what we experience now I came across this wonderful statement in Calvin when I was preparing a sermon several years ago and on your parents Calvin says this amazing thing he's commenting on Paul's words in Ephesians 6 where he says on your father and mother that your days may belong on the earth and he's taken the promise from the mosaic law on your father and mother that your days may belong in the land the Lord your God has given you and he applies it now generally to all believers wherever they are in the world on your father and your days may be long on the earth and Calvin says one may wonder why anybody should think it a blessing to have long life now it's hard to imagine anybody in the 20th century saying that because of not elsewhere in the world but here in the United States where we have so much blessing in terms of medicine and care which makes our lives far more comfortable than most people's lives in history of being and the most people's lives in much of the rest of the world are at the moment but long life for many people has been a tremendous burden because of the amount of suffering there is now Calvin isn't another worldly kind of person at all he has a wonderful respect for God's creation and for being physical and so on he's not a kind of platonic Christian and the slightest but he is taking seriously the reality of the abnormality of our experience so our hope as Christians is indeed the future it is indeed the future that Christ is going to come and wipe away every tear that is our hope but what we're noticing here is that our hope is not to be delivered from the physical from the earth but to be delivered from sin and mortality that is what we are looking forward to and then thirdly thirdly here you'll see in these Bible studies if you read through them that Schaeffer was a pre-millennialist strongly a pre-millennialist you won't find that in many of his books but you'll find it on lots of the tapes he's a series I guess of 30 hours on the book of revelation and another 30 hours maybe on the book of Daniel but he was a very committed pre-millennialist and he used to say one interesting thing and let me just mention this about the millennium he used to say when people asked him well what sort of value does it serve why he doesn't Christ come back and put everything right immediately why does there have to be this gap of a thousand years where he is raining on the earth and yet the final judgment is still to come and the creation of the new heavens and the new earth is still to come why is there this sort of hiatus and he would say well obviously I can't really answer the question this sense of telling you why God has done this but but I would suggest one thing and he said he used to say this he said I think that you know in this time unbelievers always say that the reason they're not Christians is because there isn't enough evidence you know we're living in a created world where there is so much evil earthquakes natural disasters where there's so much suffering which comes to human beings this clearly isn't a world that God has made what kind of God would make a world like this well they would say well there's not enough evidence some history to believe about Christ or to believe the Bible so he says the unbeliever is always saying that his reason for rejecting the gospel is a lack of evidence and of course that isn't the reason at all the reason is the hardness of people's hearts people are surrounded by evidence the evidence for the truth of Christianity is absolutely overwhelming so that people are totally inexcusable if they don't come become believers but he would say what God will be doing one of the things he will be doing in the millennium is demonstrating the truth of this because Christ will be present in person raining on the earth and the curse will be removed and people still won't believe people still won't believe there will still be those who rebel against him at the end of the millennium and this will demonstrate for everyone for the whole of time that the real problem is the sinfulness of people and the hardness of their hearts against God and not evidence and of course Christ himself would say this to people people would ask him for a sign and he said to him if you know if you saw somebody race in the dead you wouldn't believe and you remember what happened when he raised Lazarus from the dead instead of believing they tried to kill Lazarus and Jesus too to get the evidence out of the way the problem is never the evidence the problem is the hardness of people's hearts okay we must stop there