Source: https://jackhammer.wordpress.com/category/brandenburg/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 08:40:06+00:00

Document:
The Bible comes first, then comes theology. When we look at the Bible, do we see Calvinism? We started with Romans 9 and we continue, picking up in v. 14.
God’s love can be trusted. The national election of Israel did not assure personal salvation. Physical descent from Abraham did not guarantee the blessings of the covenant for Ishmael or Esau. Individual Jews should not assume salvation just because of national election, any more than than a physical descendant of Abraham was guaranteed the benefits of the covenant. God is righteous to elect on His own terms. He is righteous not to elect Ishmael or Esau for the Romans 9:1-5 blessings. No one can sit in judgment upon Him.
In support of the truth of v. 14, Paul quotes Exodus 33:19 in v. 15. The Exodus text refers to God’s merciful and compassionate choice of the nation Israel over the other nations of the earth. God could have destroyed the nation after she built the golden calf, but instead He lead them and protected them into the promised land, the nation, not the individuals, because the individuals weren’t saved eternally (cf. Heb 3-4). Often the word “mercy” in the Old Testament does not refer to the individual mercy of personal salvation, but to the covenant mercy to the nation as a whole.
God’s choice of Israel was based upon nothing other than mercy (v. 16). The example of God giving Israel mercy indicates that “it,” that is, mercy, comes out of the will of God, because it certainly wasn’t merited by Israel. This does apply to personal salvation, but in the context it relates to the whole nation. God’s acts of mercy to them as a nation do not then guarantee personal salvation for any of them. Paul deals with the argument that God has been unrighteous to the entire nation just because He has not saved every individual. He rebuts this from the Old Testament.
Romans 9:17 furthers the proposition of v. 16, using the example of Pharoah. God raised up Pharoah to his position. It isn’t that God “created” Pharoah for this position, but that God worked to the end that Pharoah would arrive at this exalted position over Egypt. The point of “raised up” is not that Pharoah was foreordained or predestined to Hell, but that God brought him, an already evil man, to his reign over Egypt as the leader of that nation, so that his personal wickedness could reveal itself more plainly in order then to display the glory of God (cf. Exodus 4:21).
By hardening Pharoah’s heart, God provided the blessing for His elect nation that He might be glorified (cf. Exodus 7:3). The hardening of his heart related to his not letting the people go (Exodus 7:14), not so that he would be eternally damned. As much as God hardened his heart, Exodus also reveals that Pharoah hardened his own heart (Exodus 8:15, 32; 9:7, 34). Both Pharoah and God were hardening Pharoah’s heart. As much as hardness of heart can lead to the eternal damnation of the soul, in the context of Pharoah’s heart-hardening, God was delivering His elect nation by means of the hardening, illustrating the truth of Proverbs 21:1, “the king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD.” The deliverance was not spiritual salvation, but a physical deliverance that proved God was both powerful and covenant keeping. God was not glorified in some predestined rebellion of Pharoah, but in the victory of His elect, servant nation over a humanly powerful Egypt. God brought Pharoah to power for those purposes.
Another argument is introduced in v. 19, which is essentially, why does God find fault in anyone if He has mercy on those whom He will have mercy and hardens whoever He wills to harden? The question this poses is “Is God fair?” And it is related to the next point, that is, who would be able to resist God anyhow? The problem isn’t the answer to the question, but the question itself. Paul makes that known in v. 20.
Because of their inferiority, men don’t have the perspective to challenge God with such questions. Paul pictures man’s predicament with the potter-clay imagery, which comes from Jeremiah 18-19. In the Old Testament passage, God is the Potter and the entire nation Israel is the clay (18:6). Jeremiah 18:4 is a key interpretational verse.
A contrast exists between “he made” and “was marred.” The former is active and the latter passive. “Was marred” is a niphal verb, which speaks of the vessel, the men, marring or corrupting itself. You would see the same construction in Genesis 6:11-12, where the earth corrupted itself, not God. Since Israel had marred herself, God as the Potter could see fit not to use her. God had condemned and had the authority to condemn a marred pot. That was the message that the Jews with whom Paul argued needed to hear.
God, the Potter, will treat the clay, Israel, different, conditional upon Israel’s actions. Israel sounds like the Calvinists in Jeremiah 18, accusing God of not giving them suitable opportunity, when God had done so, and judged them based upon their faithful obedience.
In the light of Jeremiah 18-19, we understand the questions of v. 20. A fully made clay, now pot, questions the Potter, not some uncreated, formless clay. The answer is that Israel had marred herself. The formation of the clay changed conditioned upon its behavior. The sovereignty of God expressed in v. 21 is not some predetermined sovereignty, but one that chooses in accord with the condition of the clay. That’s how all of Jeremiah 18-19 reads and every other clay-potter text in the Old Testament.
Not to be lost in all this discussion is that the election of Romans 9 is national election. It contradicts a belief in personal, unconditional election unto eternal life or eternal damnation. Calvinism in its interpretation of Romans 9 fails in a proper consideration of the Old Testament texts to which Paul refers in the chapter.
I believe we have good biblical grounds for regulating worship by Scripture. True worship recognizes Who God is and gives Him what He wants. We find out Who He is and what He wants in the Bible. God’s Word is sufficient. In so being, Scripture limits what worship is. It is only what God says He wants, which is only in His Word. We know from the Bible that God forbids additions and deletions to the elements He prescribes for worship—since worship is only what He wants. God is God, He wants what He wants, and that’s alone what He will receive. He rejects those elements He does not prescribe.
Worship in and by the church is regulated alone by the Bible. The New Testament reveals elements of worship that God wants from the church: reading the Word, preaching the Word, singing, prayer, baptism and Lord’s Supper, and collection of offerings. You’ll notice that among those six that the altar call or invitation is missing. You won’t find the altar call in the New Testament—it isn’t an element of worship.
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
And then we can see in the above text in v. 21 that besides the preaching and the hearing, there is also a response to the preaching. This too is prescribed worship. What is it? It is to “lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness.” A part of the element of preaching is the response to preaching, which is doing what this first part of v. 21 says. This is an actual sacrifice on the part of the hearer. He is sacrificing something: filthiness and naughtiness. Not fulfilling this response is taking away from the Word of God and is not acceptable to God within the perimeters of the element of preaching.
How does someone lay aside filthiness and naughtiness either during preaching or after preaching? How he does this is a circumstance for worship. A church could choose to have him do this sitting there in his seat. A church could suggest to him as an application to get some further instruction and application from someone in another room. A church might apply this Divine instruction by inviting those with the filthiness and naughtiness to come forward and kneel at the front of the auditorium. None of these are the actual element of the worship, but merely the circumstances of the element.
The circumstances of worship refer not to worship content and ceremony but to those things “common to human actions and societies.” The only way someone can learn a worship ordinance is to study the Bible and see what God commands. But the circumstances of worship are not dependent on the explicit instructions of the Bible; they depend only upon general revelation and common sense (“Christian prudence”).
The Bible does not command for offering plates, hymnbooks, pews, or microphones. Those are all circumstances of the elements of either the collection, singing, or preaching. The “altar call” or invitation could fall within the perimeters of the circumstances of preaching.
What a loathsome and pitiful thing is it, to hear a man bitterly reproach those who differ from him in some circumstances of worship.
I don’t think we should assume that someone who gives an invitation at the end of preaching is disregarding the regulative principle of worship. I don’t believe we should regard someone who practices an invitation as an innovation beyond that which God prescribed. He could be obeying James 1:21 as a circumstance of worship.
Jerry Bridges published Trusting God in 1991, Transforming Grace in 1993, and The Pursuit of Holiness in 1996. I read all three over ten years ago. They were about as strong as you’ll read from evangelicals. As is typical of those who disobey the biblical doctrine of separation, Bridges falls short in application. If you trust God, you will separate; if God’s grace has transformed you, you will separate; and if you are pursuing holiness, then you will separate. The constituency of Jerry Bridges and Navigators, the parachurch organization he served for many years, would enjoy the squishy softness of his books. People not pursuing holiness would enjoy The Pursuit of Holiness. They could read the book and still not be sure what unholiness might be.
Bridges exposes himself in a recent book, published in 2007, entitled, Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate. Bridges always has much solid material in his writing. However, what some might call grace and love really is weakness. I can’t tolerate Bridges’ mushiness anymore. It’s not always what he says, but what he doesn’t. A respectable sin we shouldn’t tolerate is mistaking love for syrupy sentimentality. That will stop a pursuit of holiness in its tracks.
I’m especially referring to chapter 17 in Bridges’ book on what he calls the sin of “judgmentalism.” Many evangelicals love the chapter. However, try to find judgmentalism in the Bible—that’s a bridge to nowhere, pun intended. Since judgmentalism isn’t in the Bible, is Bridges guilty of making his own opinion into the commandment of God?
Bridges judges judgmentalism, but how can he do that and not be judgmental?In order to understand sins that we shouldn’t tolerate, well, we’ve got to judge sin. There’s an assumption that we can judge and we should. Not judging would be a sin that we shouldn’t tolerate.
Bridges essentially says that judgmentalism is when we don’t show toleration for disputed practices. What I’ve noticed, however, is that almost everything is disputed now. At one time we were much more sure about what the truth was and its application. And so if it is disputed, which is now about everything, then you’ve got to just agree to disagree and learn to get along, and then not doing that, with the view of Bridges, is judgmentalism. You’ll have to do a lot of getting along. Getting along has become the most important doctrine.
Bridges says that “the sin of judgmentalism is one of the most subtle of our ‘respectable’ sins because it is often practiced under the guise of being zealous for what is right.” Hearing that sentence, you just know that evangelicals are going to love it. Then he gives examples of disputed practices where the sin of judgmentalism is practiced, and comments on each: dress, music, and alcohol. If his book can stop evangelicals and now fundamentalists from being judged in those areas, he might have a bestseller on his hands.
Now as you are reading this post at home, and are judging my tone, I ask “What verse tells you that my tone is wrong?” Aren’t you adding to Scripture if you can’t give me actual text from the Bible that says my take on Bridges’ chapter violates God’s will? Or is it just a feeling that you have? How do you know that feeling isn’t the Holy Spirit convicting you? Are you being judgmental? I think you know, my reader, that you are busy judging all the time. And those to the left of me are judging my tone right now. Tone isn’t even one of Bridges’ “respectable sins.” I’m judging that non-separatist evangelicals liked the chapter on judgmentalism (my spell check says it’s not a word), not for themselves, but for “fundamentalists” who are judgmental. For them at best it explains why they should be free in the areas of dress, music, and alcohol.
I grew up in the mid-twentieth century, when people dressed up to go to church. Men wore jackets and ties (usually suits and ties) and women wore dresses. Sometime in the 1970s, men began to show up at church wearing casual pants and open-collar shirts. Many women began to wear pants. For several years, I was judgmental toward them. Didn’t they have any reverence for God? Would they dress so casually if they were going to an audience with the president? That sounded pretty convincing to me.
In the next paragraph he observes, “There is nothing in the Bible that tells us what we ought to wear to church. . . . Reverence for God, I finally concluded, is not a matter of dress; it’s a matter of the heart.” What is lacking in this level of analysis is good judgment. Why did men start showing up in casual pants and open-collar shirts? Why did women begin to wear pants? And who were these people? Why did the culture start to change? What was this new emphasis on creature comfort and convenience? Do these changes have no meaning? How much, if at all, should the church be conforming to the spirit of the age?
Bridges’ dealing with all of the subjects in his chapter miss an important aspect of obedience to God’s Word, that is, the application of the principles of Scripture. The Apostle Paul taught the financial support of the pastor in 1 Timothy 5:18 from Deuteronomy 25:4, a verse which teaches the fair treatment of a domestic animal (“Thou shalt not muzzle the ox which treadeth out the corn.”).
Most of Scripture requires application and to make the right application certain truths must exist in the real world. To abstain from corrupt communication, you’ve got to judge what bad words are with no help in the Bible. Regarding dress, Paul ordered the believing women of Corinth to wear their head coverings (1 Cor 11:3-16) without any previous verse of Scripture to authorize that specific practice. If women didn’t wear the head coverings, couldn’t they just warn fellow church members not to participate in the respectable sin of judgmentalism?
I also grew up in the era of the grand old hymns sung to the accompaniment of piano and organ. It was majestic. To me, it was reverent worship of God. Today, in many churches, the grand old hymns have been replaced by contemporary music, and the piano and organ with guitars and drums. Again, I was judgmental. How could people worship God with those instruments? But the New Testament churches had neither pianos nor organs, yet they managed to worship God in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (see Colossians 3:16). I still have a preference for church music sung as we did when I was younger, but it’s just that—a preference—not a Bible-based conviction. It’s true that a lot of contemporary music is shallow and human-centered. But there is much that is as God-honoring and worshipful as our traditional hymns. So let’s avoid being judgmental.
How did Bridges know if the old hymns were grand or majestic? Why are churches replacing them with contemporary music? What’s the difference between the music with piano organ and that with guitars and drums? How does he know that the New Testament churches didn’t have instruments? What verse says that they didn’t use instruments? On what basis does he judge the contemporary music to be God-honoring and worshipful? He is judging that, so what is the basis? He says, “let’s avoid being judgmental,” and yet he’s obviously making his own judgment and criticizing. He’s judging that people have no basis for judgment, so that if they do judge, they are sinning. He’s calling people’s judgment about the contemporary music “sin.” I don’t know if I like his tone. My pursuit of holiness says that I need to judge worship, whether it is acceptable to God, since it is being offered to Him.
Is Jerry Bridges saying that only the words have any meaning in worship, and the music is meaningless? Is music meaningless? Can we use grunge music? What about rap? Is heavy metal fine? Is there any line that Jerry Bridges draws? If so, he’s judging too. I guess some people would think that such pablum as what Bridges writes is significant enough to conclude everyone who judges some worship music to be wrong to be sinning in doing so. We’ve got the thing that we should be the most picky about in the world, our worship of God, and Bridges wants to tamp down that pickyness so that people won’t feel so criticized. God gets disrespected and blasphemed so that men can have fun and feel good—party time at church at God’s expense.
We have convictions that we elevate to biblical truth on a number of issues. I wrote somewhere that I had finally come to the conclusion that in most instances, the Bible teaches temperance not abstinence. I had to work through that issue also because again I found myself being judgmental when I would see Christians having a glass of wine at a restaurant.
Bridges’ second sentence in that quote I judge to be ridiculous. I wish he had an editor who was a little more judgmental, but I guess that’s what happens when you throw this kind of judgment under the beer truck. The Bible can’t teach both temperance and abstinence. He says that in most instances it teaches temperance. If it teaches abstinence in a lesser number of instances, those instances would be contradicting temperance. His judgmentalism, he testifies, caused him to “work through that issue.” Some people have a hard time working through even simple problems when they are under the influence of one drink of alcohol. If the Bible teaches abstinence even a few times, shouldn’t we judge drinking a glass of wine as disobedience to Scripture? Shouldn’t we applaud that judgment? Now what he’s going to do about it is another thing, but it’s a fine thing to make a judgment.
I understand that there are professing Christians that think that drinking alcohol is acceptable to God. There are many others that believe that alcohol is prohibited by God in the Bible. The ones who understand it correctly, that is, that God forbids alcoholic beverages, really should continue to judge people who are drinking it, despite what Jerry Bridges seems to be trying to do with heavy applause from a large evangelical audience, that with this chapter and the present condition of evangelicalism, will be growing even larger.
Here’s what has happened. Rationalism in the 19th century placed truth under human reasoning. In the 20th century, every person’s opinion stands as his own authority. The only permissible dogma is tolerance. That philosophy now is accepted by many if not most churches. Bridges’ chapter against judgmentalism represents the influence of that philosophy. If you follow what Jerry Bridges writes here, you shouldn’t judge if your church were to have a rock concert, serve alcohol at it, and everybody came in their shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops. They can call it “worship” ta boot. Evangelicalism already does this and some of the younger fundamentalists are totally kewl with it.
To be effective, Scripture must be applied. To apply God’s Word, Christians must judge. They make decisions based on biblical principles. The most prominent present attack on the Bible in evangelicalism and fundamentalism is against its application. The attack says, “Don’t judge.” It means, “You can’t know how the Bible applies.” God’s Word then loses its authority in many practices of churches and their members.
My recommendation to you is don’t listen to Bridges. Keep applying the Bible and biblical principles to dress, music, and alcohol. Keep judging in those areas.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
in casu