The Ten Commandments

How Christianity Becomes Irrelevant

November 28, 2018 By Robert Truelove Leave a Comment

The vast majority of people think the way they have been taught and conditioned to think. It makes no difference if they think they are critical thinkers or not—for part of their conditioning is to convince them that they are critical thinkers while bringing them to tow the line of the cultural Intelligentsia.

Biblical Christianity requires, at a fundamental level, critical thought. It is never and has never been in favor with the culture at large anywhere on this Earth. The maintenance of Biblical Christianity requires incessant critical thought that runs directly against the grain of the worldly culture.

When Christianity deviates from this, it is incoherent. This is why broad evangelicalism in America today is increasingly becoming irrelevant.

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I’m “Different-Sex” Attracted to Women Who Aren’t My Wife!

February 1, 2018 By Robert Truelove 3 Comments

“I mean come on, that chick is smokin! How could I not be attracted to her?”, I tell my wife again as she slaps me on the shoulder.

“What’s the problem? God made me to be attracted to women!”

The above is a fictional conversation. It doesn’t take much for the reader to realize this would be a violation of the Seventh Commandment, for Jesus was very clear when he taught…

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

—Matthew 5:27-28

When I am attracted to women who are not my wife (and hey, it happens because I’m a sinner), I am to recognize it as sin (or at the very least, a temptation to sin) and mortify it. Pretty basic right?

Well not in this day and age. Now we have all of this talk about same-sex attraction being fine as long as people do not act on said attraction. I’m old enough to have watched the dialog shift in this direction since my childhood in the 70s and 80s. We used to speak clearly to the fact that homosexual desires are sinful but somewhere along the way we have lost our clarity.

This may seem like a small concession, but the implications are massive and this change in thought is a major victory for the kingdom of darkness. What we have done in trying to please the world on this point is downplay the seriousness of this sin. By saying this sinful desire is not a sin at all, we have invited Satan up onto a toehold of our own making.

Should we then excommunicate church members and defrock ministers who confess same sex attractions? This is what the mind-sapped, media-brainwashed, evangellyfish are already thinking that I am saying. To those types, it doesn’t matter what I say, you will distort my meaning into things I am not saying no matter what I say. Just look at the comments section on this post.

No, we should begin in the same place we began—with my lust for women who are not my wife. That is, confess it as sin and pray for grace that such sins be mortified every time they raise their ugly heads. Someone who struggles with the sin of same sex attraction CAN BE a Christian and such men CAN EVEN be ministers, but I fail to see how it is consistent with Christianity to say these desires are not sinful and do not require mortification. They are no longer who we are!

Finally, I must deal with the objection that a temptation itself is not a sin, for even Jesus experienced temptation and was without sin (Hebrews 4:15). The question is, when does a “desire” become sin? This is a valid question. For the sake of brevity, I will provide a short answer to this question as it relates to the matter at hand.

When someone is so given to their same sex-attractions that they identify as “same-sex attracted”, they have so crossed the line as to have left it several states back. My friend, if that is how you identify yourself, you need to repent of such thinking and speaking. If you are in Christ, you are now a new creation.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a newcreature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

—2 Corinthians 5:17

Could you imagine if I identified myself as a man who desires women who aren’t my wife? Yes, I may struggle with that sin, but it is not to define who I am in Christ and I should never make that a defining point of who I am. Again, I should mortify it.

To the Christian suffering under the homosexual delusion, your sinful, “same-sex attractions” are no longer that which define you any more then my sinful “different-sex attractions” for other women who are not my wife to define me.

For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

—Romans 7:15-17

Why There Remains a Sabbath Keeping for the People of God

January 30, 2018 By Robert Truelove 3 Comments

“I’m Reformed, but I don’t believe in the Christian Sabbath because every day is a sabbath in Christ.”

*me facepalming*

No, you’re not really Reformed if you don’t hold to the Christian Sabbath. The Christian Sabbath is a key confessional commitment of Reformedom.

I know some of you will now claim the “Continental Sabbath” position and claim Calvin’s view of the subject. The trouble is, I very rarely find people who truly understand Calvin’s understanding of the sabbath (more on that in a future post).

Getting back to the idea that “every day is now the sabbath in Christ”. This is falsely derived from Hebrews chapters 3 and 4 so I will hone in on a few, very revealing verses.

For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

—Hebrews 4:3

“Do enter rest” is in the present tense in the original just as we read it in English. This is something we have and are experiencing, but have not yet experienced in its fulness. What we have is one of those “already, not yet” tensions of the New Covenant. That is, in one sense we are already in Christ and at rest from our own works, and in another we are waiting and laboring (all in grace) towards the fulness of this rest which happens at Christ’s second coming. This is why, throughout the text, we are encouraged to press on in Christ.

This is precisely why once we get to verses 9 and 10 we have the following explanation…

There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

—Hebrews 4:9

The word “rest” in verse 9 is a different word in the original than the word “rest” we see throughout chapters 3 and 4. In all the other places we have κατάπαυσις (katapausis) which simply means…you guessed it, “rest”.

However, in verse 9 the word is σαββατισμός (sabbatismos). This is a derivative of σάββατον (sabbaton) which is unambiguously the Jewish sabbath.

Hebrews 9:10 is the only place in the entire Greek New Testament that we encounter the word sabbatismos. I think it is because, while the author of Hebrews is saying there remains a “keeping of a sabbath” (sabbatismos), he is also using a distinct word to set it apart from the Jewish sabbath (sabbaton). The sabbatismos is therefore our “Christian Sabbath”.

But wait we are not done yet. Lest one think those who understand the text thusly are guilty of a creative flourish on the language, let’s look at the very next verse…

“For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.”

—Hebrews 4:10

This verse is set forth as an explanation for why there remains a sabbatismos for the people of God and oh what a mangled mess many expositors make of it.

For many, “he that is entered into his rest” and “ceased from his own works” is a reference to the believer who has rested in Christ having abandoned an attempt at works righteousness. While this is certainly true of every Christian (Romans 1:17), it is not what this verse is teaching.

Note…whoever it is that has entered into his rest has done so just “as God did from his”. We must then ask, what work did God do and then rest from? Creation of course! God made everything in 6 days and declared it “good” and then rested on the 7th day. Just as God rested from his perfect work of Creation on the 7th day, whoever the “he” is in this verse has entered into his rest in the same way. That is, having completed a perfect work, he is at rest.

Now what sinner has completed a perfect work from which he may now rest as God did from his?

Verse 10 is a reference to the work and rest of JESUS!

Verse 10 explains why there remains a keeping of a sabbath for the people of God. Not the Jewish sabbaton but a sabbatismos. Jesus, having completed his perfect work of redemption, is now at rest from that labor. He sits enthroned at the right hand of the father.

He did not do this on the 7th day, but on the 1st day when he rose from the dead and was thereby “declared to be the son of God with power” (Romans 1:4). Here then we see why it was on the first day the apostolic church gathered for worship and why John called it “The Lord’s Day”. The first day of the week is the Christian Sabbath. The sabbath now commemorates redemption, not creation. Consider that! The redemptive work of Christ is more glorious than the creation of the entire cosmos!

The author of Hebrews is using this weekly observance that the reader was already aware of by practice, the sabbatismos, to illustrate the doctrine that he is setting forth earlier in the text. Every time we gather on the Lord’s Day for worship, this teaching should come to mind to encourage us to press on in the faith.

The Christian Sabbath is a treasure of the New Covenant!