Calvin Knew How to Smile

Laughter, he taught, is the gift of God: and he held it the right, or rather the duty, of the Christian man to practise it in its due season. He is constantly joking with his friends in his letters, and he eagerly joins with them in all the joys of life. “I wish I were with you for half a day,” he writes to one of them, “to laugh with you.” In a word, contrary to general impression, Calvin was a man of a great freshness and jocundness of spirit; and so little was he inclined to suppress the expression of the gayer side of life that he rather sedulously cultivated it in himself and looked with pleasure on its manifestation in others. He enjoyed a joke hugely, with that open-mouthed laugh which, as one of his biographers phrases it, belonged to the men of the sixteenth century. And he knew even how to smile at human folly — wishing that the people might not be deprived of their pleasures and might even be dealt with indulgently in their faults. When his students misbehaved, for example, he simply said he thought they ought to have some indulgence and should be accorded the right to be sometimes foolish.
- John Calvin taken from B. B. Warfield, Calvin and Calvinism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2003), 297-98.  

Conservative is Not Enough: J. Gresham Machen and the Presbyterian Controversy

Here’s an excerpt from Darryl Hart’s biography on J. Gresham Machen underlining the importance of having a church guided by theological, rather than merely pragmatic, convictions. The difference between Machen and Charles Erdmen (who, though being theologically conservative, ended up siding with the modernists against Machen) was not in doctrine, but in the priority given to that doctrine. It is one thing to believe the right things, another to emphasize those things above sentimentalism and “unity.”

Throughout the debates the Princeton faculty and administration split  split into two distinct camps. On the one side were strict Calvinists, a group that included Machen and the majority of professors (seven of eleven) and the majority of board of directors (nineteen of twenty-eight), the body responsible for faculty and curriculum. On the other side were moderate evangelicals who were led by Erdman and Stevenson and included a majority of the board of trustees (seventeen of twenty-two), the officers responsible for finances. Contrary to the view that both sides at Princeton were conservative and therefore shared identical theological convictions, in fact, these groups held different views of the importance of theology and its role in the nature and mission of the church.
- Darryl G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing), 125.

The Greatest Secret of Practical Godliness

Three great men: Archibald Alexander, Samuel Miller and Charles Hodge all consider Thomas Halyburton’s Memoirs to be “the best specimens of religious biography extant” and Archibald Alexander says that “there is no production of the kind.” So I got it and am currently reading it. It is good. Halyburton’s genuine struggles are displayed for all to see. Manifest in his Memoirs are not only his wrestlings with sin before his conversion, but also those that he found himself grieving over after conversion. The book came at a providential time and is a fresh, fresh reminder of the efficacy of the gospel, particularly the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s active righteousness. Here’s a quote! Tolle lege!

Here, in my opinion, lies one of the greatest secrets of practical godliness, and the highest attainment in close walking with God–to come daily and wash, and yet to keep as great a value for this discovery of forgiveness as if it were once only to be got, and no more. Indeed, the more we see of it, the more we should value it; but our carnal hearts, on the contrary, turn formal, and count it a common thing. That which is our daily allowance we value little, and we are fond of novelties and dainties.
- Thomas Halyburton, Memoirs, 147.

Luther’s Basis for Theology

…Luther became a reformer who was widely heard and understood by transforming the abstract question of a just God into an existential quest that concerned the whole human being, encompassing thought and action, soul and body, love and suffering. The search for salvation was not reserved for the intellect alone. Nor did Luther liberate himself from scholastic theology by returning to his private self; it was not the battle of heart against head that drove him to raise his voice and take a more critical view of medieval theologians whom his own teachers still regarded as authorities. It was not that he found them too scholarly for the delicate business of faith, but rather that he did not find them scholarly enough. For Luther careful heed to the Scriptures was the only scholarly basis for theology and thus the reliable standard of truth.
- Heiko A. Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil, 151.

Luther’s Reformation: A Reformation of Doctrine

“Life is as evil among us as among the papists, thus we do not argue about life but about doctrine. Whereas Wyclif and Hus attacked the immoral lifestyle of the papacy, I challenge primarily its doctrine.”…The heart of the Reformation is the recovery of sound doctrine–only true faith will lead to renewal of life. Here Luther reveals his own vision of “reformation”–as unusual in his own day as it is troublesome for modern times.

Luther can be seen as a follower of Bernard of Clairvaux–but then a radical follower, because the situation since the days of St. Bernard had so deteriorated that the crusade now to be launched is no longer aimed at the liberation of the Holy Land but of the Holy People, the Church itself. Because of the advanced time of world history, these crusades can no longer be waged by armies. Only one weapon is left: the preaching of a powerless Christ, and Him crucified.
- Heiko A. Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil, 55,7; 80.

Luther: Man Between God and the Devil

Just reading the prologue is getting me pretty excited for this biography on Luther. Here’s an excerpt:

He never set himself up as healer of the Church and never regarded the renewal of the Church as his task. Effective resistance to the Reformation would neither have surprised nor dissuaded him. But disappointed he would have been had he suspected that the final return of God, Christ’s Second Coming, would be so long in arriving that his own five-hundredth birthday would have to be celebrated on earth.
Luther’s measure of time was calibrated with yardsticks other than those of modernity and enlightenment, progress and tolerance. Knowing that the renewal of the Church could be expected to come only from God and only at the end of time, he would have had no trouble enduring curbs on the Evangelical movement. According to Luther’s prediction, the Devil would not “tolerate” the rediscovery of the Gospel; he would rebel with all his might, and muster all his forces against it. God’s Reformation would be preceded by a counterreformation, and the Devil’s progress would mark the Last Days. For where God is at work–in man and in human history–the Devil, the spirit of negation, is never far away.
- Heiko A. Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil, 12.

Get to Know Martin Luther

So for the upcoming months I decided I would spent a little more time with one particular theologian. There are so many men worth getting acquainted with: the reformers, the puritans, the Princetonians, the Scottish divines, all those great Dutch theologians, the early church Fathers, etc. it’s an impossible task to know them all without compromising some depth with any particular one. John Piper recommends choosing one dead theologian and spending your life getting to him and his theology. While I’m far from making any life commitments I thought it might be worth my time to try to read up on at least the basic works of some theologian, a major biography or two, and more contemporary things pertaining to the man. And as you may have guessed by the title of this post, I decided on Martin Luther.

This decision was made for several reasons: (1) because I read Bainton’s biography on Luther and still feel like the Luther is a complete stranger. (2) Luther’s Bondage of the Will about a year ago was an invigorating read, his style of writing is so straightforward and bold that it would get any Christian’s blood rushing. It’s not hard to see why Luther was regarded as a “bull in a china shop.” He was unbounded in his zeal for the true gospel, particularly the doctrine of justification by faith alone. (3) Carl Trueman’s recommendation of The Genius of Luther’s Theology as well as his mention of the impact Luther’s theology has had on him moved me towards this direction. (4) Carl Trueman’s lectures on Martin Luther a couple months ago also did much to generate interest. (5) John Piper’s biographical sketch on Martin Luther (with an emphasis on Martin Luther’s time spent in the study). (6) Lastly, God used this man to develop the theology of the reformation! This is enough in itself to get anyone to invest some time in getting to know him.

So here are the books I’m planning on reading:

1. Biography: Luther: Man Between God and the Devil – Heiko A. Oberman
2. Works: Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings (1st edition) – Timothy F. Lull
3. Contemporary: The Genius of Luther’s Theology: A Wittenberg Way of Thinking for the Contemporary Church – Robert Kolb, Charles P. Arand