Tracing Out Total Depravity

Lack of Enemy Consciousness and Military Preparedness Due to a Less Than Robust Doctrine of Man's Sin

I used to sell a little pamphlet on the practical implications of Calvinism. There's been an important, yet narrow application of Calvinism in our day, mostly on the doctrine of personal salvation.

Application about the doctrine of man's depravity, we whole-heartedly agree, rightly should stress man's total inability to come to God for salvation on his own.

But what about total depravity serving us for greater enemy awareness, thus, an argument for the need for a militia in the USA?

An answer about this might be developed this way.

Doesn't it stand to reason that Adam's fall into sin requires man to have accountability? One way that man can be held accountable is through various checks and balances. He needs checks and balances of multiple kinds: authorities, parents, teachers, police and so on. Such persons themselves, to be certain, need accountability too. It's something like the different branches of government holding one another accountable. In all such roles, there's an acknowledgment that man is sinful.

One check and balance is the need to be able to answer a man and/or his people if wickedness runs too, too far amok. Therefore, isn't there a needful application of this biblical doctrine to the area of societal readiness to defend a people, and defeat another?

Man is a sinner; his sinfulness must be corrected, and at times contained, maybe conquered by military action.

When we start presenting a droopy and limp doctrine of man's sinfulness, we end up dropping our guard about those who are enemies of the cross of Christ.

G. Mark Sumpter

No Unpolished Stones

Men and Young Men of Faith OPC in Prayer This Weekend

The Puritans used to speak of refusing to lay unpolished stones into the super structure of the living temple of the Lord. This refers to their desire for pastors and elders to do their work well, to pastor well so that men and women are being polished by the Word, Prayer, the Sacraments and shepherding care.

This weekend around 20 men and young men--their sons--are gathering for prayer at a nearby Bible camp center. This will be our fourth year doing this.

We're going to prayer, this first full week of 2010, so that God's Spirit may polish His stones for His building purposes.

It will be different combinations of topics, times, places and gatherings. This is not a teaching occasion but concentrated times of corporate and private prayer, and hearing the Lord's Word read, and then, back to prayer.

Would you remember these brethren gathering for prayer?

May there be the genuine pursuit of God and His purpose. He is the Lord. He is mighty. Man must come underneath His banner of grace, truth and love.

May the Lord polish all of His living stones--from the pastor to every man and boy in the pew.

Bunyan said it well, We must pray until we have prayed.

G. Mark Sumpter

Go Away Guilt, You're No Fun

Taking Guilt to the Cross, The Holy Spirit's Ministry

Yesterday I drove around town with nagging guilt. It was the sin of propping up myself; boasting about and protecting my own name, something I just exhorted the congregation about two days ago. Preachers know the connection from the dots of their own lives to the doctrine of which they preach. The connection sets right there, right close by.

Why the guilt yesterday? Why guilty feelings, anyway, at any time for us?

Is it the standards that we carry around in our minds? Is it: “Sumpter, that was sin,”—a standard of teaching? Or maybe it’s a standard of the purity of Scripture, or another, a standard of “Oh, there you go again.”

I kept driving mulling over the guilt. At a stop sign, I confessed the sin and told God of the love that I have for my own reputation. I told Him that I didn’t want the mental management of the sin and guilt—my musing about it all—to be my Savior. I determined to cling to Jesus Christ, and to ask for the enabling steps to rid myself of such sinful speech and attitudes.

Was the guilt the Holy Spirit's revealing ministry? Here’s Kris Lungaard’s reminder: “The Holy Spirit takes the horror out of the horror show. We don’t know our hearts, but he does (Psalm 139). He is a blazing torch we carry into the haunted house, and he ferrets out the monsters. He leads us into a closet under the stairs and uncovers a seething hatred. He shines under the bed and exposes a sniveling lust. No sin escapes his searching eye.”

That’s the grace of the ministry of God the Holy Spirit—revealing sin and escorting us to Jesus Christ and His cross-work.

One of my prayers for 2010 turns on security in Jesus Christ, to be thoroughly wrapped in God’s promises in Jesus. As someone said, the beginning of religion is the love of God out-poured. Security in the Father’s hands breeds the simplicity of obedience, regardless of the one or ones before whom I speak, stand or serve.

Thank You, Father, for Your love in Christ, the One through Whom I have full pardon.

G. Mark Sumpter

Incarnation-Driven Youth Ministry

All Stages and Ages of Human Maturation, Duly Noted, Come Under the Saving Life of Jesus Christ

One argument for the church to maintain her stance in naming teens, teens; or to address them, treat them and seize upon ministry to them as youths, rests on the fact that, Jesus, in assuming a human body and living out His own life, came to accomplish His saving work specifically for them.

Adolescents are touched by His own adolescence.

We may abuse the realities and matters of the identification of the stages of human maturation, as seen in infants, children and youths, on up to young adulthood, and so on, even up to aged folk, but the reality of Christ’s own physical, social and intellectual development reminds us that there’s import about each stage of life, and that merits attention of ministry aimed at the varied physical stages of specific persons and groups.

Listen in to the old Princeton theology professor Benjamin Warfield as he dovetails commentary with the early churchman, Irenaeus:

“In this perfect development of Jesus there has been given to the world a model for every age, whose allurement has revolutionized life. He did not, as Irenaeus reminds us, despise or evade the humanity he had assumed; or set aside in his own person the law that governs it: on the contrary, he sanctified every age in turn by himself living his perfect life in its conditions. “He came to save all by means of himself,” continues Irenaeus, “all, I say, who through him are born again unto God—infants and children, boys, and youths...He therefore passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, thus sanctifying infants; a child for children, thus sanctifying those who are of this age, being at the same time made to them an example of piety, righteousness, and submission; a youth for youths, becoming an example to youths, and thus sanctifying them for the Lord.”

Ministry in various forms to children, youths, collegians, young marrieds, older singles, etc., etc. is life and ministry according to the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Warfield finishes: “During the course of his life begun with this ideal childhood, Jesus came into contact with every stage of youth development, and manifested the tenderness of his feeling for each and his power and willingness to confer blessings upon all.”

We refer to them in varied ways: students, adolescents, youths, or young people. Ministry to, with and by them—the church’s teens—helps to preserve and promote the person and work of Jesus Christ and His saving life.

G. Mark Sumpter

Expected, Unexpected Church Reformation

Pastor Jeremy Tuinstra With Covenant Church Burtonsville Breathes Life With New Focus

I served as Associate Pastor of Covenant OPC in Burtonsville MD, 1994-2002, and back at that time, the congregation took part in the expected pillars of ministry: preaching and worship, and education and discipleship, and evangelism and outward facing ministry. The church not too long ago aligned with the PCA.

Reformation has come under God's good hand in an unexpected, expected pillar of ministry the past 4 or so years. The January 2010 issue of byFaith, a PCA publication, features the new focus of this congregation: an intense ministry to the poor.

The article calls it a messy ministry, but it's one that looks and sounds like New Testament stuff.

Here are two quotes:

“Jeremy Tuinstra could pastor a congregation he describes as a doctrinal think tank, extremely literate in theology, but he prefers to inspire Christians to put their doctrinal knowledge to work and to be the gospel to the needy...”

“Because this ministry is so different from what many churchgoers expect, some view it as a niche that may be good for some, especially those who are really gifted for compassion ministry, but not necessarily expected of all. It's discouraging to see people accommodate Jesus and His mission to their expectation. Doing church is too often made to fit our expectations of nice religious experiences for us and our families...”

I am greatly challenged by Jeremy's model and faithfulness. God has greatly used him to stir faithfulness to the Lord and to put into practice this central pillar of the church's ministry.

Significantly, the Good News of the gospel tells us right up front what the signposts of the reality of the kingdom of God are. What signposts? It is returning to God in repentance and faith according John the Baptist, just as he was preaching at the Jordan, and getting into messy ministry:

Then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” So the people asked him, saying, “What shall we do then?” He answered and said to them, “He who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.” Then tax collectors also came to be baptized, and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than what is appointed for you.” Likewise the soldiers asked him, saying, “And what shall we do?” So he said to them, “Do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely, and be content with your wages.” Luke 3:7-14

Covenant PCA Church has made strides and gains in this ministry that indeed are of the expected, yet often unexpected for reformed congregations. Pastor Jeremy is helping pierce through the mere repentance of the head, and he's helping to lead the way with his congregation expressing repentance with hands.

G. Mark Sumpter

Resolve for Discipline in 2010 From the Tedd Tripp Prequel

Desire Important, Yes; Practice Has a Pace-Setting Role

I woke on a summer afternoon day in 1976, and within the space of a 15-20 minute conversation,Yank Sumpter said, "No, you're not." I shot back, "Dad, you don't know what it's like."

I wanted to quit throwing freight for Safeway 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM---I used to be a Night Crawler, a.k.a Animal in the Market.

On that afternoon on the front porch, my 18-year-old know-better attitude came out loud and proud.

Of course he knew what it was like to work on 3-4-5 hours of sleep for days on in. He's of the Greatest Generation, and he's the Vince Lombardi of the work ethic. I was reared on his: Head Down, Buttocks Up mantra. [Actually, Yank was the first one to publish the runaway bestseller from Shepherd's Press, you know, the Tedd Tripp prequel, Shepherding a Child's Butt.]

Yank kept at it. Thanks Dad. You kept working on the role of discipline in a young man's life.

What did he stay at with me? What did he keep before me? Practice works a love for responsibility. Practice works into the heart a love for hungering for more.

Practice does not make perfect, but practice acts on God's provision.

Just this past week the principle was at work. I re-started a 1994 fiction publication. I love to hate fiction. But the endurance paid off. I can't put the book down 5-6 days later.

The principle goes to work at my office about every other day: Sit down, Sumpter, strap yourself in the desk, open your study notebook to your Ezra notes, Romans notes, and then the verse by verse commentary study of the Book of Hebrews. Practice on the reality that God provides. 1 Corinthians 10:13.

But what about the heart? What about shepherding a pastor's heart? Doesn't desire have anything to do with duty, responsibility and discipline? To be sure.

1. An attitude of expecting God to meet me with blessing, help, provision, guidance and fruit is key. Heart-key, heart-big. Heart-expectation-filled.
2. An attitude of responsibility, too, is key. God works in His children (Phil. 2:12-13), therefore, get to work, Sumpter. Crack the memory verses, re-listen to the Hebrew recording, choose to open the Bible and your study notes, and/or get back at the phone work, prayer, planning and sermon preparation.
3. Write down something that's bothering you, maybe distracting you. Do something with it!
4. Thank God for His correction: He corrects me by bringing me back to specific responsibilities at hand. Thank Him for that, Sumpter, thank Him! [I read about that in John White's book called, The Fight.]
5. Rest in the Sonship of knowing Jesus Christ. Today, January 1, 2010, I will NOT bat 1000. Tomorrow, January 2, 2010, I will not bat 1000. But take your cuts at the plate, God's on the mound pitching!
6. Dick Gaffin of Westminster Seminary spoke in October of 2008 at our conference about the doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He exhorted us, Act on the historical, bodily resurrection. Act on it. We're commended to obedience not merely out of a newness of heart with thanksgiving. We're commended to obedience not merely working out a thankful heart; it's not that alone; no. We're in Jesus Christ, the Risen One, act in Him. Today is the day of saving power--the Risen Jesus. Act in Him. That's been instructive. Amen, Dr. Gaffin. He was teaching from Colossians 3 and 1 Corinthians 15. Amen, Dr. Gaffin.

So, OK. Sumpter, get after it in Jesus. Reading, writing, teaching, praying, evangelizing, visiting, serving, cleaning. Now is the day of salvation.

Thoughtfulness toward my wife and children; specific acts of service in the home; taking the time to greet (hugs, words of encouragement), meet (special appointments), seat (take time and talk), and treat (have fun).

Thanks, Yank, for your work on forming my heart for discipline.

G. Mark Sumpter

Happy Anniversary, Peg

God is our Faithful God, We're Grateful for 32 Years

Here's a picture of First Presbyterian Church of Anchorage, AK where 32 orbits-around-the sun ago, on this very day, about 150-200 friends and family filled the pews to witness the vow-taking of two young folks--Gregory Mark and Peggy Kay. Dr. Thomas R. Teply, our pastor, officiated. Richard and Patty and Yank and Phyllis looked on with love, hope and blessing.

This shot right below is standing near the Earthquake Park area, the Turnagain Area, and looking back on the city of Anchorage. This area, along the Cook Inlet, is where Peg and I spent many hours taking walks. Good times. Great memories.

Peg is my very best friend, true love and help-meet; and a counselor with balanced insight. God has planted deep faith within her, and she shines with a faithful light for service to Him in His church! What a treat to be able share in life!

G. Mark Sumpter

Children and Youth---Whose Responsibility?, Part 1

On the Idolatrous Over-Correction Nowadays of Some Family Integrated Ministry

There's a timely, well-meant correction, generally, on the part of some brethren nowadays about children, youth and family ministry. Hats off to our brethren. Amen and amen.

I stand with them—1) they have biblical concerns to trounce the entertainment-oriented contemporary expression of youth ministry; 2) they have theological drive to deputize and dispatch children and youth to do hard things, calling our kids to take up the mantle of ministry-charged service in the kingdom of God right now, not when they reach their 20s and 30s; and 3) they have practical cultural sensitivity about standing firm and standing together as today’s family in our broken world; for men in the home, it means entering into and persevering with the masculine mandate to be dominion dads and taking up the yoke of child nurture.

Who can find fault with such reforms?

It’s not these reforms, necessarily, that summon watchful attention. It’s when these reforms are cloaked in over-correction about the role of parents.

Here’s the particular danger for some: it’s the separation of church and parents.

What God has joined together, let not man separate.

In the name of recovering parental responsibility for the nurture, discipleship, and training of their children and young people, parents can be misled into the vulnerable spot of isolation from the wider body of the local church; and ironically, this is the very thing that we’ve been cautioned about regarding our children and youth for the past 25-30 years. Separating children and youth off from the Body of Christ by excessive youth group programming, we’ve been learning, is a no-no. Parents must be cautioned about this same mis-application.

Family training in isolation from the biblically-designed, grace-filled, and grace-dependent relationships of the whole of the church signals danger--an invitation to idolatry of the biological home.

What kind of isolation is meant? There can be isolation of parents from the church when they believe that faithfulness means: 1) being the primary ones to do the Bible and doctrinal teaching with their children and young people, and 2) being the ones, solely, to have responsibility for other things like: hosting social events, service projects and evangelistic ministries. When its family integration in these kinds of expressions—with parent-dominant, often parent-exclusive ministries, then we’ve lost sight of the very important doctrine of The Parenthood of All Believers.

The 16th century Reformation churchman, Martin Luther, recovered proportion about all having access to God, not merely the Roman Catholic priesthood. What he called The Priesthood of All Believers might also be connected to the doctrine of The Communion of the Saints.

The Westminster Confession of Faith 26:1 speaks to this:

All saints, that are united to Jesus Christ their Head, by his Spirit, and by faith, have fellowship with him in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory: and, being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other's gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man.

In the Body of Christ, there’s the way of grace with the communion of relationships within the whole of the church. Grace is a gift for every-generation life and ministry. This grace of The Parenthood of All Believers and The Communion of the Saints can be seen by the multiple generational expressions of life and ministry with multiple-callings on hand, varied-marriage and family situations involved and the manifold-gifting of people and their experiences deployed and employed. It’s the church and her needful role as Mother and Household with the children and youth of our homes.

Variety, rightly seen in God's design of this every-generation stewardship, leads to awe-ful, majestic, and grace-promoting glory before God. It’s a God-ward thing. It makes us dependent on Him, not man.

As a father, I have to trust in God for His work in and through the church, the whole of the Household of Faith.

Trust in God about such things reminds me of the Bible’s signature imperative: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”

G. Mark Sumpter

One Year Ago

Fifty-Something PhD-Like Work Was a 4-Week Hebrew Intensive and Field Studies in Israel With My 17 Year Old Son

Last year at this time, Jeremy and I ventured from Grants Pass to Tel Aviv to launch 5 weeks in Israel. The two of us took part in a 4-week intensive in Biblical Hebrew and also went to some 25-30 sites around the land.

Three highlights from this Study Leave for me:

1. I was completely taken by surprise regarding the burden and desire to see reformed and evangelical churches planted in Israel. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. Oh Lord, send forth Your Word and bring the strangers home!

2. The Hebrew intensive offered a challenging refresher in the Book of Jonah. Above, you see one of our instructors, Aaron, in our classroom. Fun, fun fun! What a challenge, the hard work, doing the conversational thing and the TPR--Total Physical Response. The Biblical Language Center teachers at Kibbutz Tzuba were top-notch. Jeremy and I still make use of their methods and lessons.

3. The variety of landforms, the old villages and cities, and the connected benchmarks of history were overwhleming. Tops were Qumran Community at the Dead Sea, the amazing structures and memorials of Herod of Great--his fingerprints are all over the land--and the Galilee, in particular, Tel Dan.

God is so very good, who allowed us to take this trip. Amen and Amen.

G. Mark Sumpter

From Skim Milk to Deep-Fried Snickers Bars

Why I've Moved From One Puny Pirouette to Bodacious Back Camel Spins at Christmas

Next year it's lights smothered on the fence out front; someone in 2010 hold me to that, OK?

Peggy and I, back in our early years in the OPC, would tip-toe around the holidays. She followed me in my petty-minded parade about this. I can remember when she made a banner with the text, Luke 1:35, pasted on. She and a relative sewed two or three stand-up figures out of burlap for a manger scene. We draped Christmas lights around the banner and down near the manger scene that was sitting on a TV-tray in the living room. Nothing else displayed the holy mark, the Christian watershed mark of the calendar, regarding the coming of the Lord. For me, it was all reformed simplicty and a well-meant piety to the 10th power, absent the gospel. Silk, no leather. All about finding meaning apart from matter.

What was going on? I had a warped view of the Bible and thus, a truncated view of the cosmic renewal work of Jesus Christ in His life, death and resurrection.

I needed to get saved, and that was about it.

Warped view? My Bible and theology started with the Fall of Adam, not creation. I had the AW Pink cart before the Calvin horse. Sin loomed larger than God's creation. Sin was a broken down relationship with God---me first and only me, the-individual-person me first. That was what Jesus came to fix, to renew.

Truncated view? I was well-versed in my personal experience of conversion, like Acts 9 Damascus Road matters, but somehow Colossians 1, 1 Corinthians 15, Ephesians 1:15-22, and 1 Timothy 4:1-5 were avoided like anchovies. Jesus came to fix humans; again, me first. No new creation, only new creatures--men and women, and boys and girls. Jesus could only handle so much at Calvary, you know.

God's creation is good. Read Nancy Pearcy on this, “It becomes unclean only when sinners use it to express their rebellion against God. The line between good and evil is not drawn between one part of the creation and another part, but runs through the human heart itself--in our disposition to use the creation for good or for evil.”

Her quote from Gordon Clark brings in Christmas cheer too: “When Adam fell, it was the result of a rebellious will, and not because he had a body.”

Celebrations, memorials, anniversaries, fanfare, pageantry---you name it, there's to be doxology within contextual decorum of all kinds that get our glad attention.

The Bible does not begin with the Fall of Man but with Creation.

A bunch of us are going caroling tonight, maybe with candy canes and chocolate kisses to boot.

G. Mark Sumpter

Getters, Not Givers at Christmas...Hmmm

God's Giving of His Son Provides the Necessary Reminder: Man is First a Receiver, Then Second a Giver

In re-reading a part of his book, The Lord's Service, PCA pastor Jeff Meyers tells of the first-priority for man to remain a dependent receiver.

Pastor Meyers writes about public worship, “We have been told by well-meaning teachers, even otherwise Reformed theologians, that it is downright wrong to come to church in order to get something...Most of [the authors and teachers] define worship as what the people of God do, the work they perform on the Lord's Day, specifically the adoration, praise, and honor that they ascribe to God. This notion must not be permitted to go unchallenged. It is only half of the truth, and the second half at that. First, and above all, we are called together in order to get, to receive. This is crucial. The Lord gives; we receive.”

Meyers keeps our theology straight on this. He notes that there's a Pelagian camel's nose getting under the tent if we thoughtlessly affirm that man is first to give to God. Does man have strength to do this? Does he have ability to offer something to God? We're to keep the focus on God: He gives.

Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “What do you have that you did not receive?”

To elaborate, I found this quote at Michael Gorman's blog. It's from the Methodist Will Willimon. It's excellent application:

“I suggest that we are better givers than getters, not because we are generous people but because we are proud, arrogant people. The Christmas story—the one according to Luke not Dickens—is not about how blessed it is to be givers but about how essential it is to see ourselves as receivers.

We prefer to think of ourselves as givers—powerful, competent, self-sufficient, capable people whose goodness motivates us to employ some of our power, competence and gifts to benefit the less fortunate. Which is a direct contradiction of the biblical account of the first Christmas. There we are portrayed not as the givers we wish we were but as the receivers we are. Luke and Matthew go to great lengths to demonstrate that we—with our power, generosity, competence and capabilities—had little to do with God’s work in Jesus. God wanted to do something for us so strange, so utterly beyond the bounds of human imagination, so foreign to human projection, that God had to resort to angels, pregnant virgins, and stars in the sky to get it done. We didn’t think of it, understand it or approve it. All we could do, at Bethlehem, was to receive it….

The first word of the church, a people born out of so odd a nativity, is that we are receivers before we are givers. Discipleship teaches us the art of seeing our lives as gifts. That’s tough, because I would rather see myself as a giver. I want power—to stand on my own, take charge, set things to rights, perhaps to help those who have nothing. I don’t like picturing myself as dependent, needy, empty-handed….

It’s tough to be on the receiving end of love, God’s or anybody else’s. It requires that we see our lives not as our possessions, but as gifts. Nothing is more repugnant to capable, reasonable people than grace, wrote John Wesley a long time ago….

This is often the way God loves us [referring to God's promise to King Ahaz of a baby, not a bigger army---Isaiah 7]: with gifts we thought we didn’t need, which transform us into people we don’t necessarily want to be. With our advanced degrees, armies, government programs, material comforts and self-fulfillment techniques, we assume that religion is about giving a little of our power in order to confirm to ourselves that we are indeed as self-sufficient as we claim.

Then this stranger comes to us, blesses us with a gift, and calls us to see ourselves as we are—empty-handed recipients of a gracious God who, rather than leave us to our own devices, gave us a baby.”

G. Mark Sumpter

Anselm of Canterbury

Before the Close of 2009, Anselm Should be Remembered

Anselm, born in Italy in 1033, was blessed with a faithful mother who taught him the ways of God, and that was mainly through her own prayers. As a child being reared around the Italian Alps, he thought of God as above, high and exalted, much like the towering peaks before his eyes. But his young manhood years were not anguish-free. After his mother died, focus turned to his father. He quarreled with his dad, and evidently, the quarreling was over the proverbial concerns of his dad riding him about making something of his life. He ended up leaving home in his late teens.

He headed north and west into France by foot--can you imagine?--crossing the Alps! He nearly died in the trek. We might say that he literally stumbled onto the care of the local abbey of Lu Bec, near Rouen, France. While there in the area, he soon learned about the able French teacher of law, Lanfranc. Anslem made use of some money left to him after his father had passed away and was seated as a student.

Lanfranc soon learned that Anselm worked hard and within a few short years, the dividends paid off academically. This model student became known around the circles of Christian orthodoxy, and that led to a number of assignments: first, as a monk, then to the elevated service as a Prior, and eventually an Abbot. He ended up taking Lanfranc's position in Normandy.

From his letters in the years as an Abbot, we learn of his pastoral approach with respect to the concerns of fellow churchman. He also at this time began to turn to his first writing projects. He wrote his now-famous twin-works: The Monologium and The Proslogium. The Monologium takes up The Existence and Attributes of God. Famous proofs for the existence of God are noted. The Proslogium annotates his pursuit of explanation of various points of theology--he wanted to grow in the faithful understanding of orthodox doctrine. In the writing of his Proslogium, his signature theme surfaces: Faith Seeking Understanding. We hear that a lot in reformed theology. Faith submitting to the Word for understanding. The Word, in accord with the Holy Spirit, directs the thoughts and intellectual quests of man's understanding, not the reverse--not reason and rationality working it's way to faith!

As part of his work as Abbot, Anselm was summoned to England, and after a few urgings, became the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1093.

Here, at this post as Archbishop, Anselm's major contribution to the biblically conservative, evangelical faith emerged. It's his doctrine of Christ's atonement. His work, Cur Deus Homo, remains a reliable rule for the doctrine of the person and work of Christ to this day. The title is, Why God became Man? The book covers the importance of the penal substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ for the sinner. It rests squarely on the biblical teaching of God's justice rightly due to fall on man as sinner. Sin requires judgment. Anslem explored the fact that God's righteous standard must be maintained, He cannot pardon sinners by lowering His requirements of holiness. He cannot turn and wink at the sinner, and He cannot let sin and justice dissolve. Sin is sin! Justice is justice! In order to satisfy the just reward of death, judgment and hell due to man's sin, someone--a genuine, authentic man--must satisfy and pay according to God's demand. God must be vindicated in keeping with the demands of His own holy nature. So, God became man--very God who became very man.

Christ's death was the penal acceptance offered to God in that He took on Himself the penalty of death, judgment and hell when He died. His death was God's appointed substitution in that He was the One who died for sinners, for us, when He was nailed to the cross. God's wrath must be turned away--we praise Him, for Jesus Christ covers our sin, and covers over the just wrath of God. By faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, God pardons the sinner, accepts him and reckons him righteous because of the righteous record and satisfaction of Christ.

Anselm faithfully recovered this potent doctrine of the atonement. He corrected the teaching from the earlier work of the churchman, Origen (d. about 250 A.D.), who taught that Christ died paying a ransom to the devil. Origen viewed Satan as having legal authority over sinners, and in order to be freed from him, payment must be made to him.

Anslem died in April of 1109. He advanced the church's formulation of such essentials for historic backbone and biblical faith. We stand on his shoulders today.

G. Mark Sumpter