Church History

Augustine’s views of sin & grace

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:56:58 +0000

Rev. R Mackenzie

AUGUSTINE
The question may be asked: why is Augustine so important in the history of the Christian Church? The answer lies in the evangelical nature of his theological contribution. He is regarded as the first great theologian since apostolic times – in the evangelical succession lying between Paul and John Calvin.

Born in 354 AD, of mixed heathen and Christian parentage, near Carthage in North Africa, Augustine manifested from his youth an insatiable thirst for knowledge along with remarkable intellectual gifts and became a rhetorician – practising this profession while continuing his studies in Carthage, Rome, and later in Milan. In 373 at the age of 18, his speculative cast of mind led him to embrace a popular heresy called Manichaeism (a universal religion seeking to combine eastern paganism with Christianity) finally lapsing into scepticism by 383, repudiating his Christian upbringing – thereby causing great distress to his pious mother, Monica, who had prayed unceasingly for his conversion. In her grief she sought help from a Christian bishop and was comforted by his parting words: “Go, it cannot be that the son of such tears will perish”.

God indeed answered her fervent prayers and tears. While stationed at Milan as public teacher of rhetoric, Augustine came under the influence of Ambrose, bishop of Milan, together with some wise Christian elders and friends. A lengthy period of deep conviction of sin eventually led to his thorough conversion. In his Confessions he candidly narrates how far he had wandered from the path of morality and true religion and how he was mercifully delivered from the snares of Manichaeism. Gospel liberty came while reading Romans 13; 13-14. In his own words: “I did not want or need to read any further, as I finished the sentence, the light of faith flooded into my heart, and all the darkness of doubt vanished.”

Shortly afterwards his illegitimate son, Adeodatus, was converted and both were baptised by Ambrose in 387. In 395 Augustine became bishop of Hippo. His deep experience of the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the sovereignty of divine grace, together with his fresh understanding of the Word of God, especially Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, enabled him to confute Manichaean dualism and fatalism by showing that human nature was not originally and necessarily evil – insisting on a measure of freedom as a necessary basis for human responsibility. Above all, it also qualified him to deal vigorously and successfully with the greater peril of Pelagianism - propagated by Pelagius, a British monk.

This learned adversary of the doctrines of grace taught that man has no inherited sin from Adam – sin proceeding from man’s will rather than from his nature – and that each new born child is created with perfect freedom to do good or evil – being in same position as Adam before the Fall. Consequently, man may choose to lead a perfect life – salvation being conditional upon good works. Therefore the Gospel and divine grace are not altogether necessary but can be of help to us in obtaining salvation – salvation resting less on Christ’s atoning death than in the example of his life and death. Clearly, Pelagius has many followers today!

Before Augustine’s time there had been general agreement on the reality of man’s apostasy, his moral accountability, the terrible curse of sin, and the necessity of redeeming grace. But there was little agreement on the extent of man’s depravity and the degree of human freedom and natural ability regarding conversion. However, when Pelagius began to set out his doctrine of the freedom of the will, Augustine found it necessary not only to oppose him but also to develop a Scriptural view of the nature of man. However, he could not stop there. He had to take the next step and examine the nature of God’s sovereignty in reference to man’s actions in salvation.

Augustine’s view of sin was that it was not something additional to man but good lost by him. Man was created with the capacity of bodily immortality but in sinning he entered into a state of inability to avoid sin and death. Adam was man’s representative not only federally as our covenant head, but organically. We sinned in him and fell with him. Hence man is totally depraved and utterly incapable of doing any spiritual good, separated from God, and burdened with guilt under Satan’s power. If man is unable, argued Augustine, then God must be altogether able. If the will of man needs renewal because opposed to God, then salvation is exclusively God’s work from beginning to end. Grace must be ‘irresistible’. All whom He has chosen to salvation are unable to resist effectually His divine work on their hearts – not forcing the will contrary to man’s natural free agency, but changing the will so that it voluntarily chooses the good. In Augustine’s own words: “Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt”. The power to obey must come from the One who commands. Hence the necessity of the operation of the Holy Spirit to complete the renewal of man’s basic disposition from being against God’s law, to desiring to love and obey it. The Holy Spirit alone can regenerate man, not man and the Holy Spirit!

This view of sin and grace led Augustine to see from Scripture, that if God is the author of any man’s salvation, then he must have willed and predestined the salvation of that man from eternity – leading to the inescapable conclusion that man’s choice of the good and his faith in Christ were themselves the effect of divine grace and therefore of divine predetermination. He conceived God’s decree as active for the elect but passive (simply being passed by) for the reprobate.

Augustine finalised orthodox teaching on the doctrine of the Trinity by stressing a unity of essence in the three ‘persons’ of the Godhead. Unlike three human persons - each possessing only a part of generic human nature – there is, in the Trinity, a relation of mutual interpenetration and indwelling. He saw the word ‘person’ as not the most satisfactory term, but the best available. The Holy Spirit, then, must be regarded as proceeding not only from the Father but also from the Son (incorporated into the Western form of the 7th century Nicene Creed).

However, his doctrine of the Church was less clear – influenced partly by the schismatic tendencies of the Donatist controversy in North Africa at that time which involved a break-up in the catholicity of the visible church along with disorder and rioting – leading Augustine to defend the traditional organisation of the visible church without distinguishing it from the company of the elect (the church invisible). Yet he also held the necessity of belonging to this church of the elect through whose intercession sins are forgiven and grace bestowed – distinguished from the external organisation containing both good and evil members. This dichotomy between the church visible and the elect church invisible Augustine failed to resolve. The result is that Romanists and High Churchmen have claimed Augustine’s views as justification for salvation by the Church and through the sacraments – in isolation, - regardless of his modifying doctrine of sin, grace and predestination. Yet it was the revival of these same doctrines of grace that resulted in the 16th century Reformation!

Athanasius and the Person of Christ

Wed, 5 Dec 2007 22:40:56 +0000

Rev. R Mackenzie

ATHANASIUS.
The Christian Church today owes a debt of gratitude to this early Church Father of the 4th century who courageously defended the truth of our Lord’s perfect deity as well as his true manhood when this fundamental teaching came under sustained attack from enemies within the visible church who were called Arians (named after Arius, a subtle, gifted presbyter and popular preacher, who taught the Father alone was God). This heresy, akin to present day Unitarianism and Modernism became so widespread as to threaten the very existence of doctrinal orthodoxy in the early post-apostolic visible church.

Arius held that the Son of God or Logos (Word) had not existed from eternity but had been created by the Father who alone was the eternal self-existent God – the first and greatest creature indeed by whom God created all other creatures - yet a finite creature. This may have been a plausible, rational, attempt to safeguard the oneness of God but was most dishonouring to the eternal Son of God, the infinite value of His atoning work and the reality of the Gospel salvation. For no mere creature, however exalted, can save us from our sins, but One who is God and also became man to die for our sins. Arius failed to see the wonder, glory and unfathomable mystery of the Incarnation – that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. Unbiblical, erroneous, views concerning the Person of Christ are fatal to the Gospel doctrine of salvation.

Strong opposition to this heresy was to be expected from orthodox lovers of the truth.
Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, called a church council in 320 to deal with this serious heresy which had now become widespread, particularly in the eastern part of the Church – influenced by Origen (an earlier Church Father) who had asserted that the Son was inferior to the Father. Alexander contended that the Son was God in precisely the same sense as the Father and secured Arius’ deposition, resulting in widespread resistance by Arius and his followers. The controversy now focussed on two able antagonists – Arius and a pious, gifted champion for biblical orthodoxy called Athanasius, a deacon in Alexandria who, in 328, became bishop of Alexandria, on Alexander’s death. Athanasius now emerged as the unwavering champion of the orthodox party in the church.

The question at issue centred on: Was Christ the Son of the same identical substance or essence (homoousios) as God the Father, equal in power and glory? Or was He of like substance (homoiousios) – a semi-Arian view, or of different substance (heterousios) – an extreme Arian view? Athanasius saw Arianism as the reaction of rationalistic thinking to the adorable mystery of the Incarnation.

A dangerous crisis had emerged and the Emperor Constantine summoned all parties to large ecumenical Church Council at Nicea in 325 attended by some 300 bishops from throughout the Roman Empire (the greater number being from the East). Athanasius dominated the council and stood immovably for the eternal generation of the Son. He had rightly perceived the dangers of this heresy as being the infiltration of pagan doctrine and practice, resulting in the Son being dishonoured and the efficacy of His redemptive work being overthrown. In short, it was a subtle satanic attempt to destroy the Gospel!

Athanasius was a man of great stability and genuineness of character and showed the sure foundation on which he stood - in his firm grasp of the unity of God, which preserved him from the subordinationism (of the Son to the Father) so common in his day. He also manifested his unerring tact when teaching men to recognise the nature and significance of the Person of Christ. He felt that to regard Christ as a creature effectively denied that faith in Him brings man into saving union with God.

Furthermore, Athanasius strongly emphasised the unity of God and insisted on a construction of the doctrine of the Trinity that would not endanger this unity. While the Father and the Son are of the same divine essence, there is no division or separation in the essential Being of God, and it is wrong to speak of a ‘second’ God. But while stressing the unity of God, he recognised three distinct persons in God. He refused to believe in the pre-temporally created Son of the Arians and maintained the eternal independent personal existence of the Son while at the same time insisting that the three ‘persons’ were not to be regarded as separated in any way (leading to polytheism).

It was not merely the need for logical consistency that motivated Athanasius and determined his theological views. Undoubtedly, his clarity of conviction sprang from his own personal experience of saving grace and that no creature, but only One who is Himself God, can unite us with God.

Despite setbacks and several banishments which failed to shake his resolve, and the conflict being described as at one time ‘the world against Athanasius’ and another time as ‘Athanasius against the world’, his orthodox party eventually triumphed and the resultant Nicene Creed (as it was later termed) upheld the truth concerning the Son of God as ‘begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is, from the essence of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not created, of the same essence as the Father, through Whom (Christ) all things were created both in heaven and on earth; Who for us men and for our salvation came down and was incarnate, was made man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven, and is coming again to judge the living and the dead; and (we believe) in the Holy Spirit’.
This anti-Arian creedal statement remains a fundamental tenet of Christian orthodoxy.

Reformation Six

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:44:13 +0000

6. John Knox: Reformation Achieved.
Rev. R Mackenzie

Mary’s insistence on retaining her right to hold Mass in her own chapel so provoked the people that only with great difficulty was a mob prevented from entering her chapel and disrupting the service. Today we would take such freedom for granted but in the 16th century it was perceived somewhat differently since it was commonly understood that monarchs were required to be of the same religion as their subjects! Indeed, both queen and people agreed on this. The difficulty was that the queen demanded that the people conform to her religion, while the people required her to conform to theirs!
As one of the leaders of the Reformation, Knox was repeatedly summoned to an audience with the queen but less from any desire on her part to learn the Reformed faith than to defeat him in argument and thereby discredit the Reformation! But Mary was both charming and deceitful, a clever actress, and, as her subsequent behaviour proved, a poor judge of men! Although Knox has been unjustly caricatured as one who bullied the young queen and reduced her to tears, he was simply being forthright, plain and sincere, not rude. Indeed. Knox was always deferential, courteous and respectful, never once seeking the royal presence but appearing when commanded, and only when the great concerns of salvation were touched upon did his stern inflexibility appear! On one occasion when the queen artfully asked whom she should believe – the Reformers or the Roman clergy – Knox answered, “Neither, Madam, only the Word of God”. During the six years of her reign Knox was summoned on at least four occasions to be rebuked by her!
Mary’s marital difficulties, compounded by her sheer folly, intrigue and immoral pragmatism and tainted with violence and crime such as Lord Darnley’s murder, eventually did more to discredit her than her religious views. Civil war followed between the protestant forces under the Earl of Moray, Mary’s half-brother, and Mary’s supporters, resulting in Mary’s defeat at Langside in 1567. She was then deposed in favour of her infant son, James VI, and forced to flee Scotland to England where, for the rest of her life, she was kept under confinement. During this period she remained a constant centre of plots by secret Romanist emissaries, seeking the overthrow of the Reformation both in England and in Scotland by placing Mary on the throne of both kingdoms. Finally, her evident complicity in a plot planned with Jesuit help led to her trial and execution by order of Queen Elizabeth who was acting on the strong advice of her own government.
In the midst of political turmoil, trials and difficulties, the Reformed Church continued to make sure but steady progress among all classes of the population. Its work of consolidation as a national church was helped not only by parliamentary approval of the Scots Confession but by other documents produced at the same time such as the First Book of Discipline, the Book of Common Order and Knox’s Liturgy – a necessary requirement for the infant Church to ensure Reformed orthodoxy and dignified, reverent, consistent public worship throughout the national parishes when so few able and qualified preachers were available. The most important of these documents was the First Book of Discipline that set out the blueprint for the Reformed Kirk.
The original draft of the First Book of Discipline called a ‘Book of Reformation’ was revised to include sections on superintendents, schools and universities, and was presented for approval to a convention of nobles, including the Privy Council, meeting in Edinburgh in January 1561 who, with some reservations, consented to its implementation. Its proposals were far-sighted and revealed Knox’s concern to provide for a pious and educated ministry, the evangelisation of the realm, the education of the rising generation and care of the poor. The rich patrimony of the pre-reformation church (its tiends or ‘tithes)’ was to be divided to secure these laudable aims but was frustrated by the covetous self-interest of those nobility who had already seized possession of pre-reformation church lands and their tiends. The temporary expedient of superintendents was to ensure the ‘planting of kirks’, manses, schools and schoolmasters in parishes destitute of Gospel ordinances. The parish system remained intact with its churches retained for congregational reformed worship and the people given a voice in the calling of their ministers. Elders were appointed to assist the minister in spiritual oversight and discipline, and deacons for the administration of church finances. In all these practical matters the Reformers’ aimed at God’s glory and the nearest pattern to apostolic simplicity and practice,
By 1567 the Reformation had largely won the battle for the people’s support. Although Knox died in 1572 yet sufficient progress had been made so as to make it impossible for the Roman Church to return to her former status. Knox was undoubtedly the dominant instrument in the Scottish reformation, not indeed its instigator, but its intrepid organiser. He brought the initial thrust to an ordered conclusion and his enduring legacy was to leave behind him a visible church more biblical in form and government than any other church in Europe – with the possible exception of the French Reformed Church. But it was not to the Reformed churches of Europe – not even to Geneva – that the Scots reformers looked for their model of a reformed visible church – but to the Word of God. Holding Christ to be King of nations as well as the only Head of His Church, they believed in an established church supported by the state but exercising her own independence in spiritual matters.
Despite his enemies’ attempts to vilify his character, Knox’s personal life remained unblemished to the end. A faithful husband and dutiful son-in-law, he proved himself in all his relationships to be a man of consistent integrity, sincerity and uprightness, hating covetousness, seeking the glory of God and the spiritual and temporal welfare of his fellow-countrymen above all personal advantage or consideration. A true Christian and patriot, he is deservedly recognised as the greatest Scotsman in history. As the regent Morton (no true friend of Knox) testified at the great Reformer’s graveside: “Here lies one who never feared the face of men”.

Reformation Five

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 22:54:04 +0000

5. John Knox: Reformation Progresses.
Rev. R Mackenzie

The progress of the Reformation was now rapid throughout the Scottish lowlands, embracing Angus, Fife, Lanarkshire, Glasgow area, Ayrshire, the Lothian region, Dumfriesshire and elsewhere. As yet they had no preachers, meeting in places and at times which circumstances permitted for mutual edification with the ablest and most godly being appointed to read the Scriptures, to exhort and to offer up prayer (liberty of worship being denied by the authorities). Comprising all classes: nobles, barons, burgesses, farmers, tradesmen, weavers and peasants, and feeling the need for order in their meetings, they chose elders to watch over their morals, promising subjection to them- the outward organisation of a Church beginning to appear! It is interesting to note that in the Reformed Church of Scotland elders came before ministers! The first congregation to have elders was in Edinburgh, and the first town to be provided with a pastor was Dundee (so thoroughly reformed as to be called the Geneva of Scotland!).
However, the Roman hierarchy was now thoroughly alarmed, and once again resorted to persecution. They captured Walter Mylne, a former parish priest at Lunan who had fled the church authorities many years previously on becoming a protestant. When captured and brought before the ecclesiastical tribunal at St Andrews, the aged man could scarcely stand, yet he boldly confessed his faith in Christ and His truth. Convicted of heresy, he was burnt at the stake in August 1558, his memorable prophetic testimony being: “As for me I am fourscore years old and cannot live long by course of nature, but a hundred better shall rise out of my ashes who shall scatter you, ye hypocrites and persecutors of God’s people. I trust in God I shall be the last that shall suffer death in Scotland for this cause”. This proved true. He was the last in Scotland to be burnt at the stake by Rome. It roused such revulsion in popular feeling as to make it impossible for the persecution to continue. Awakened to Rome’s true nature, the nation now awaited a leader to place the Reformation on an organised basis. This leader was Knox.
During Knox’s three years’ absence (1556-9) he had remained in constant correspondence with the Scottish nobility, waiting for an opportune time to return – an inducement being the concession of liberty promised by the queen regent. In May 1559 he arrived in Perth but found that the queen regent had reneged on her promise and tried to suppress the Reformation by force. She summoned a number of the preachers to Stirling for trial but it was in vain. Alienation from the Roman Church and armed resistance to persecution led to organised revolt. Half the nobility now came over to the cause of the Reformation, many of them sincerely but others for political expediency. This was compounded by hostility aroused by the excesses of the French forces that were now seen as an army of occupation. The turning point came when her forces failed to engage a large determined protestant force at Cupar Muir in Fife. Retreating before the Lords of the Congregation, she found herself and her forces besieged in Edinburgh Castle, unable to get French reinforcements or supplies by reason of an effective blockade by the English fleet. The queen regent was deposed and died shortly afterwards. This was followed by the castle’s surrender and the Treaty of Edinburgh (or Leith) in 1560.
The nobles then called together the Estates of the realm (the Scottish Parliament) and petitioned it to reform the church in doctrine, worship and discipline, and to distribute the patrimony of the church. Within four days six Reformers headed by Knox prepared and presented a protestant Confession of Faith called the Scots or ‘Old’ Confession which was approved and endorsed by Parliament. Papal authority within the realm was abrogated and celebration of the Mass forbidden. Meanwhile the Congregation under Knox’s leadership became an instrument in organising congregations elsewhere. Soon they were able to hold a great thanksgiving service after arranging eight fully constituted churches. However, vast areas and remote parishes, especially in the Gaelic-speaking Northern and Western Highlands and Islands remained in gross spiritual darkness, virtually untouched by the reforming movement in the Lowlands.
But the return of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1561 with her French entourage, including members of the strongly Romanist Guise family, presented Knox and his brethren with a new challenge and threat to the Reformed Church. Her tenacious hold of Romanism and its superstitions soon made Knox realise that either the Reformation or the queen would fall. His concerns were heightened when, within a week of her return, she had Mass celebrated within her chapel – thereby challenging at once the legality of the proceedings of the Estates, which had legalised the Reformation!

Reformation Four

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 08:07:30 +0000

4. John Knox (1513-72)

Rev. R Mackenzie

A native of Haddington, East Lothian, Knox was ordained a priest in 1536 after a liberal education at Glasgow University. He was employed at first as an apostolic notary or church lawyer and then as a tutor in the families of Douglas of Longniddrie and Cockburn of Ormiston both of whom were sympathetic to reform. During this period Knox became an avowed Protestant “when it pleased God to call me from the puddle of papistry”, attending upon Wishart’s public ministry and acting as his bodyguard!
Following Wishart’s martyrdom, a band of men, sickened by Cardinal Beaton’s cruelty, assassinated him in his own castle at St Andrews and retained the castle, fortifying it, and making it a protestant stronghold. Knox, already in danger, sought refuge in it. Castle numbers having swelled to about 150, they called a John Rough to preach, who declined and challenged Knox in the name of God and the congregation to take the Call. Knox, overcome, burst into tears and withdrew to his chamber. Fearless before men, his attitude before God was one of humility and reticence. Yielding to the call. His first sermon laid down the principles of the Reformation from Daniel 7:24-25. Yet so great was his sense of responsibility that he trembled when he ascended the pulpit to preach!
In July 1547, a French fleet assisting the Regent Arran battered the castle into submission, capturing the defenders who then became galley slaves (rowers) in French ships. After eighteen months Knox was released – to spend the next twelve years wandering through Europe and England, visiting the main centres of Protestantism and confirming his knowledge of the Reformed faith. Knox was never first a Lutheran and then a Calvinist but appears to have apprehended and embraced the Reformed faith directly so that when he arrived for the first time in Geneva he immediately found in it a spiritual home! From 1549-54, Knox was in England where, for short periods, he served as minister in Berwick, Newcastle and London, followed by six months in Frankfurt in 1555. He made a brief visit to Scotland in 1556 during which he preached incessantly and was instrumental in converting three of the nobility as well as many others. During this time he celebrated the Lord’s Supper after the Reformed practice but judging the time was not yet ripe for a national reform movement he returned to Switzerland and visited Geneva, considered by Knox to be the ‘most perfect school of Christ’ he had seen. Though his stay there was brief, it was invaluable for the furtherance of the Reformation.
Meanwhile despite the increasing strength of the Reform movement, the pro-French party felt strong enough to dismiss Arran as regent and appointed the Queen Mother in his place. But the nation was now divided, and the new regent sought to strengthen her position by means of a French army – unwisely alienating many Scots who might otherwise have favoured her cause. Meantime her daughter, the young Queen Mary, was married to the Dauphin Francis, heir to the French throne. The possibility of a French take-over of Scotland alarmed not only the Scottish Protestants but also the new English government of Queen Elizabeth who had succeeded her half-sister Mary in 1558.
An English fleet was despatched to assist the protestant forces commanded by the Lords of the Congregation, resulting in the French troops being defeated and finally expelled in 1560 in accordance with the Treaty of Leith (or Edinburgh) whereby hostilities were concluded. Shortly thereafter the Queen Regent died.
During his 1556 visit to Scotland Knox exhorted those nobility who had embraced the cause of the Reformation to separate them selves from the Church of Rome and its worship. This they did, signalling their separation by receiving the Lord’s Supper in its protestant form at the hands of Knox. Formerly the Reformation had meant the reception of Reformed doctrine but now it also became a Congregation of professed ‘brethren in Christ’ in Scotland. These protestant nobles and chiefs now banded together in 1557 and subscribed to a Band or Covenant, part of which reads; ‘We, perceiving how Satan in his members…cruelly doth rage, seeking to destroy the evangel of Christ and His Congregation…do promise that we (by God’s grace) shall with all diligence continually apply our whole power, substance, and our very lives, to maintain, set forward and establish the most blessed Word of God and His Congregation; and shall labour at our possibility to have faithful ministers purely and truly to minister Christ’s Evangel and Sacraments to His people…unto which Holy Word and Congregation we do join us, and do forsake and renounce the Congregation of Satan.’ The signatories to this remarkable Covenant were the Earls of Argyle, Glencairn and Morton, the Lord Lorne (Argyle’s heir) and John Erskine of Dun. It was a visible demonstration of separation on proper biblical grounds. Not surprisingly, this act was divinely blessed in a rapidly growing reform movement over the next three years!