Well, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) which has been a bastion of orthodox Protestant theology has just decided to go the way of the Dodo bird—extinction. In a shocking move at their 217th annual General Assembly in June, Nancy Olthoff, an Iowa laywoman calmly announced that Presbyterians should experiment with “gender-inclusive language for the Trinity.” Recommended alternatives to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit include: “Mother, Child and Womb” or “Rock, Redeemer, Friend” (Rock, Paper, Scissors will come later). As Olthoff stated church officials can propose experimental liturgies with alternative phrasings for the Trinity, but congregations won’t be required to use them. However, the panel that proposed this experiment in heresy noted that the traditional language “has been used to support the idea that God is male and that men are superior to women” thus stigmatizing the traditional language as oppressive.

At least one courageous young woman, Dorothy Hill, a student at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, had the guts to tell the Assembly that the panel’s paper on the Trinitarian language was in “tension” with what Presbyterians have always held to be true about God and that the Ten Commandments say “the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.” Hill deserves the Christian equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

All of this nonsense about mother, child and womb (this does not deserve the dignity of capitalization) is pure acquiescence to the Zeitgeist (the spirit) of our age. It follows on the heels of “The Da Vinci Code” and the whole search for the divine feminine. Goddess worship, of course, has always been associated with the crudest and vilest forms of sexualized religion. However, in a larger sense, the Presbyterians have fallen prey to the subtler trap set by Satan in the spirit of antichrist. In a vain attempt to soften the hard edges of Christianity, the Presbyterians have allowed themselves to step across the line from the truth to the lie. The lie is that God is not who He says He is nor that what He says should not be done, should not be done. Remember this little question, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?’” Guess who said that—you got it, the old serpent himself. When you begin playing games with God’s name disobedience follows like night follows day.

Those of us on Blogstream that regularly defend orthodox Christianity are deeply saddened by the Presbyterian collapse into false teaching. We also know the repercussions will not only cause an exodus from the Presbyterian Church but will give truck-loads of ammunition to the enemies of the orthodox view of the Blessed Trinity. May God strengthen his true church against the assaults of the enemy.

The other day I got into a conversation with a fellow pastor about heaven. We were discussing Randy Alcorn’s teachings about heaven from his large book on the same subject. I mentioned to my friend that Randy’s view of heaven is more materialistic than mine. This intrigued my friend so he asked me a number of questions. We ended up in a serious discussion about the subject of “change” in heaven. My friend offered that he believes that in heaven we will continue to progress in our intellectual and spiritual growth. I countered—in my usual very opinionated way—that such growth will be impossible in heaven. Here is why.

First, eternity involves immutability—changelessness. The fact is that motion is the cause of time—or, time is the measure of change. In time there is “before,” “now,” and “after.” The cessation of motion puts a stop to before and after; so that nothing remains but eternity, which is simultaneously whole. In other words, in a person’s final consummation he/she attains to eternal life, not only in the sense that he/she lives an immortal life in his/her soul—this, by the way, is already a property of the human soul by its nature—but also in the sense that he/she is brought to the perfection of immutability.

Secondly, when we see God in all of His fullness all of our intellectual striving will come to an end because He is the First Cause of all things, in which all truth can be known. There can be nothing more to know other than God Himself. In His infinite nature is all knowledge of all things in their fullness. Additionally, our wills will cease to strive as well. When we see God directly we will have found our final and last end. God is the fullness of all goodness and nothing further can be desired beyond Him. Presently our wills are subject to change because we crave what we do not possess. Clearly, therefore, the final consummation of man in seeing God directly will create absolute and perfect repose or unchangeableness in both the human intellect and the human will. By the way, this is why we will not sin in heaven.

Don’t expect to progress in heaven. The capacity that you develop in the here and now for enjoying God is what you will have in “by and by.”

Even though God has created our world in such a way that there are creatures that govern themselves (that’d be us) by free choices, this does not upset the certainty of God’s Providence. Okay, you say, how does He do that? How does God assure that what He desires comes to pass without violating human free will? Well, I’m glad you asked. Here is how.

Three things guarantee the certainty of God’s Providence: the infallibility of God’s foreknowledge, the effectiveness of His will, and the wisdom of God’s management of the universe. None of these three, in the way that they are operated by God, are factors that oppose contingency (free choice) in things.

When we speak of God’s infallible foreknowledge we must remember that God does not have to predict the future. He is not some sort of super-computer that can process all possible outcomes and predict what will happen. God is outside of time and, consequently, all of time is available to Him. God, therefore, beholds in His eternity all future events as actually existing. In a very real way, your future is “now” to God. Additionally, when God wills something, it will happen as He wills it to be. Not only will what God wishes happen, but it will happen in the way He wishes. It just so happens that God has decreed that some things happen necessarily and that other things should happen contingently (freely). What this means is that, in order for His will to be fulfilled, God applies necessary causes to some things and contingent causes to others. Of course, you have to be an infinite Supreme Being in order to be able to apply contingent causes in such a way that free creatures are not coerced or violently made to do things. If you are interested in a detailed description of how God does this check out my Blog-post "God can Make You Do What He Wants You to Do--Freely?" (12/9/05).

Finally, God’s Providence is fulfilled by the wisdom of His management—again, without any prejudice to the contingency of things. Even humans, by our wisdom, are able to supplement and strengthen contingent things that would otherwise fail. Doctors do this all the time. As a physician applies his/her healing arts to a patient, he/she is able to supplement and bring about the restoration of health in a situation that might otherwise end in death. Gardeners do the same thing. They increase or decrease watering and apply various measures in order to assist a struggling plant to gain vigor and bloom. In a much greater way, the wisdom of the divine economy brings about the effects that God desires. Although contingent causes left to themselves might fail to produce a specific effect, the proper effect will inevitably follow when God supplies certain supplementary measures. This, of course, does not do away with the contingency of the creatures involved. Therefore, the fact that there are free creatures does not exclude the certainty of God’s Providence.

Okay, there are scores of articles and blog posts on the net that are critical of Joel Osteen, so let me start with some of the problems. Joel does not preach a balanced theology. He rarely confronts man’s sinfulness directly (original sin, fallen human nature, etc.) and I have never heard him clearly explain the atoning work of Christ and, of course, these are basic tenets of faith. It can be argued that Joel does not preach the full counsel of God and therefore does not ground his sermons on the larger biblical narrative. Undoubtedly, a steady diet of Osteen sermons would, in my opinion, leave a regular attendee of Lakewood Church with a truncated theology. However, given all of this, I would argue that Joel’s preaching is incomplete and not grossly incorrect.

I have been watching Lakewood Church’s broadcast since the mid-90s when Joel’s dad John was at the helm. John was more in the mold of a classic Pentecostal preacher (with a Southern Baptist education) who was influenced by the “name it and claim it” (or Health and Wealth) theology propagated by Kenneth Hagin. When John suddenly died in 1999, his son Joel was selected to become the pastor of the very large congregation. Joel had only served as the behind-the-scenes TV producer of the Lakewood broadcast. In fact, I was shocked to see Joel preaching and saddened to realize that John had suddenly passed away. While I did not agree with the “name it and claim it” theology, John Osteen had a lot of practical wisdom, a pastor’s heart and could quote huge sections of Scripture from memory in his sermons. To the surprise of nearly everyone, Joel was almost an immediate success at preaching. Frankly, I think he even surprised himself. The church began to grow even more rapidly and the rest is history. Lakewood is now the largest church in North America.

What I did notice over time was a gradual change in the theological approach at Lakewood. Joel actually moved away from his father’s “name it and claim it” teaching toward a more subtle and nuanced approach. Many have contended that Osteen simply mixes pop psychology with Christianity, throws in his boyish charm and adds a dash of his drop-dead-gorgeous wife, Victoria, and creates a classic easy-believe-ism. I would say, yes, all those elements are there, but, I think many critics are overlooking some very positive things. When I watch Osteen, I see a lot of good being done. In fact I have never once watched Osteen and not been uplifted and encouraged to serve the Lord at a higher level. Joel preaches about a loving God, about personal responsibility and about a hope that each and every individual can have in the Lord. He, in my opinion, is not a Health and Wealth preacher—I’ve heard plenty of them. However, he does believe in miracles and, frankly, so do I. Anyone who has been in the ministry for very long knows that we desperately need God’s supernatural intervention. So I think those critics that oppose Osteen because he preaches miracles may want to re-read the Gospels to make sure their views are biblically grounded.

Listen, I clearly realize that if Christians are getting all their biblical instruction from Osteen, they are being deprived of important input they really need to know. Having never been to Lakewood, I certainly hope that they have other venues for in-depth instruction. On the other hand, for Christians who are active in a church and are receiving a balanced biblical diet, I think little harm is done watching Osteen’s weekly broadcasts. Certainly it doesn’t hurt to hear that God loves us. Contrary to what critics say, it is my experience watching him that he does continuously inform his congregation that life and being a Christian are tough. He lets them know that we are not going to get all our “wants” this side of eternity. What he does stress is that we can, by obedience to God’s Word and faith in our loving Lord, overcome difficulties to have a positive impact in the world. Frankly, I cannot fault this.

By the way, I have also noticed that many of the people who are the biggest fans of Osteen are older folks. These are people who often have had a lifetime of solid biblical instruction.

Finally, Joel Osteen has the so-called “blue state” liberal secularists in a quandary. Osteen can go right into huge arenas in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, etc. and fill them with overflowing crowds. He doesn’t have to go to the Bible belt to fill an arena. This has been the source of many worried columns in newspapers and magazines. He appears to secularists to be a special ops soldier dropped behind enemy lines to organize dispirited insurgents and convert the marginal. Yes, I know Joel was very soft on sin when he was on Larry King; but, to his credit, like Rick Warren, Osteen does not take a salary from Lakewood do to his book sales; Lakewood never solicits donations on their television broadcasts; and the Lakewood congregation is 1/3rd Hispanic, 1/3rd African-American and 1/3rd Anglo. Maybe I’m being soft-headed, but it seems to me there may be a real possibility that he is a flawed but genuine instrument of God.

Providence

Providence is God’s intelligent plan by which he orders all things to their appointed end. God alone plans all things but he orders things by secondary causes. Just as a good architect himself designs a building and then employs a contractor and craftsmen to build his structure; so, God uses secondary causes to fulfill all that He plans. Of these secondary causes, some are necessary causes and some are contingent causes. Another way of saying this is that some things happen by necessity and other things happen by free choice. Men and angels have free choice. This may sound unusual, but God, by His providence, conceives and orders things to happen by free choice. This can only be possible because of God’s divine power and because He stands above time.

Predestination

Predestination is a sub-set of God’s providence. Created things are planned and ordered by God’s Providence to their end in one of two ways. One way is that which is right and proper for its nature. For instance the proper end of a rock is to be a rock. A rock doesn’t need anything beyond its own nature to fulfill its purpose and destiny other than to be itself—a rock. However, some things that God has created have a purpose above their nature. Man has the purpose of being united with God which exceeds anything in his nature. Therefore, in order for man to achieve his divinely appointed purpose, he needs God’s supernatural (meaning, “Above nature”) assistance. This supernatural assistance is called predestination. God must positively take action on behalf of men in order to assist them in attaining their divinely appointed (providential) end—eternal life. This positive action on God’s part is called grace.

Reprobation

God’s activity is necessary to predestine men to a salvation above their natural capacity. In other words, without God’s intervention and grace, no man could achieve his end, which is union with God. This activity of predestination is a direct act of God. However, God permits those who are resistant to His grace to not achieve their purpose (union with Him). The name for this is reprobation. Reprobation is a purely negative act on God’s part (He allows it to happen). While God’s causal activity (a positive act) is necessary so that men can be predestined to salvation above their natural capacity, reprobation is not parallel to this. A simple way of saying this is that God saves the saved and the damned damn themselves. The guilt for eternal separation from God and the desertion of God’s grace rests with the free will of the person who is reprobated.

It is my view that it is a horrible thing to imagine that God both predestines some people to heaven and some people to hell. This concept is called double predestination and those people who hold to such a doctrine often do not realize that it has been formally anathemized in the West at the Council of Orange in 529 and by the Eastern Orthodox Church since the 1600’s. The Council of Orange stated:

“We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema.”