Hamartia in James is used six times. James begins by describing the genesis and destination of sin. Sin is born from desire (1:15), and death is born from sin (1:15).

James tells us that if we show partiality -- specifically with regard to rich and poor -- we are guilty of sin (2:9). This is a sin that is actually quite popular in Christian fund-raising circles -- the guy with money is sought out, asked for his "wisdom" or "prayers," elected to the session of elders, asked to sit on advisory boards, and all the rest of the drill. Or he is given the seat of honor, the preferred technique mentioned by James. Now if it is really wisdom or prayer that you are after, great. And if he is qualified to be elder, that's great too. And if the godly shrewdness that got him his pile is the kind of shrewdness that you think you need to learn, that's not partiality -- that's the beginning of your own shrewdness. But if his chief qualification is his potential in the field of check-writing abilities, and the other qualifications don't matter, then James nails the problem to the wall for us. Whenever there is money around, James encourages us to be checking our motives every fifteen minutes. You know it is actually a fund-raising letter if "first and foremost" the writer "covets your prayers." That's code, people.

James also provides us with a good definition of sins of omission (4:17). The person who knows the good thing to do, and who yet declines to do it, that man is guilty of a sin. And when the elders pray for someone who is sick -- assuming a context of humble confession -- if sins were connected to the illness, they will be forgiven (5:15).

The work of evangelism and pastoral persusion -- calling someone away from the abyss of error -- is a work that covers a multitude of sins (5:20).

"A system which cannot touch the outside world, but must leave arousing and converting work to others, whom it judges to be unsound, writes its own condemnation" (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 343).

"Modern statism is the soured remnant of the Enlightenment idea of inevitable progress. This miserable wreckage, which once heralded joyfully the coming of the secular version of the kingdom of God, now hoarsely wheezes that if we worship it we shall receive salvation from extinction. The danger is not to be taken lightly. Woebegone as it is, with a record of fatuous incompetence, dishonesty, irrationality, and bloody repression almost beyond description, statism nevertheless boasts a hoard of fanatical adherents. Ignorant devotees or cunning and cynical hypocrites, they give it power and, equipped with modern technologies, make it a fierce and implacable enemy" (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 231).

"Few things are more terrible in human society than the humorless reformer . . . a man who cannot see what he most needs to see, which his own contribution to the problem. In this vain and fallen world, a man who cannot laugh has no business undertaking to cure the world's ills, because he is chief among them" (For Kirk and Covenant, pp. 125-126).

We may be induced to throw our money away in any number of ways. Here we need to consider some of the ways we lose money through the sensual snares which wait for us. Typically, when such sins are mentioned, it is so that God’s people will know that they are bad. This is of course true, but the more limited point here is that they are expensive.

First we should consider the appetites generally. "The righteous eats to the satisfying of his soul, but the stomach of the wicked shall be in want" (Prov. 13:25). Both the righteous and the wicked have a stomach and an appetite. But the righteous can eat and be satisfied, while the wicked are driven by an appetite which is out of control. In any of the areas we will consider here, the issue is generally not the thing being considered in itself, i.e. sleep, sex, etc., but rather whether or not God’s law is honored, and whether or not self-control is in evidence.

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Posted by Douglas Wilson - 5/8/2008 4:34:28 PM | Link to this post | Print this post | 2 Responses

The word hamartia occurs very frequently in the book of Hebrews (25 times), and 10 of these uses are found in chapter 10 alone. Not surprisingly, most of the references have to do with the sacrificial system, which was set up because of sin.

The Son of God, when He came to earth, did so in order to purge our sins (1:3). He was made a merciful and faithful high priest, in order to make reconciliation for the sins of the people (2:17). We have a high priest who knows what it is like to be tempted, even though He was tempted without sin (4:15). This is something that a high priest does, it is part of their calling -- sacrificing for sin (5:1), not only for the people but also for his own sin (5:3; 7:27). But Christ, as high priest, has really dealt with sin by His sacrifice of Himself (9:26). Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many (9:28), and at His second coming He will appear without sin for final salvation ... Continue Reading

Posted by Douglas Wilson - 5/8/2008 4:14:43 PM | Link to this post | Print this post | 0 Responses

"They require not so much reasoning as heart-argument -- which is logic set on fire . . . argument must be quickened into persuasion by the living warmth of love. Cold logic has its force, but when made red hot with affection the power of tender argument is inconceivable . . . When passionate zeal has carried the man himself away his speech becomes an irresistible torrent, sweeping all before it" (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 341).

"The entire ‘exhaustion-of-resources’ syndrome is one huge apology for totalitarian control over the citizens" (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 224).

I have been asked what I think of An Evangelical Manifesto, and so I read through it this evening. A short twenty pages, it was mostly magnificent. I read into it for sixteen pages without reading anything I differed with, and I was reading much that was weighty, solid, good, and desperately needed.

But if this manifesto were a twenty-days-to-a-smoke-free-tomorrow, the arm patch worked just great for sixteen days. Couldn't have worked better. But then Joe Evangelical lit up three cigars all at the same time. On page sixteen, I began to encounter clouds of smoke like the following:

In short, in this manifesto, there is a clear desire for religious liberty in the public square, but no religious law over the public square. But that leads to the obvious question, what law is over the public square?

According to this manifesto, the law over the public square must be faithless, and this faithless source of law must faithfully guarantee liberty and freedom of conscience for all. But why would it want to do that?

While we are all of us down in the new civil public square, jostling around, visiting, talking, sampling one another's spicy foods, and the Evangelicals are busy witnessing, some of us find ourselves talking to a Muslim and a Buddhist. We tell them, rightly, that Jesus is Lord and that we all must believe in Him, and follow Him. The Buddhist points to the fellow, a big guy with a square jaw, arms folded, standing at the entry way to the public square. He is the guy maintaining order in the civil public square. "What about him?" the Buddhist asks. "Does he have to follow Jesus too?" "Yeah," the Muslim wonders. "Does he?"

"Um, no," the manifesto says. "Actually . . . and I know this must sound a little strange to you guys . . . especially to you, Muhammad, but that one is actually required not to believe. It's a theological thing. Or, rather, its not a theological thing. We're not sure what it is, frankly. Let's just hope he behaves."

My lovely daughter Bekah has had quite a saga of Internet woes with regard to her web site, the one that sells Skirties, a story which she briefly explains here. While you are there, scroll down one and read what my wife wrote about her days with InterVarsity. Good stuff.

Anyhow, Bekah's new web site can be found here.

One of the classes we offer the covenant kids here at Christ Church is a course in memorizing the Heidelberg Catechism. I know, say what you will, but we FVers can be pretty audacious at times. We even pretend to ourselves that we believe this stuff.

Anyhoo, one of my parishioners emailed me because he works through the questions with his daughter, using G.I. Williamson's commentary as an aid. And he came across something that seemed to resemble what he has heard from the pulpit here on the nature of living faith -- but which is hotly disputed by certain members of the Internet Airedales for Truth Brigade. Thought I should share it, with many thanks for the living eye illustration.

Really good stuff.

When someone proposes good deeds on a grand scale, one of the assumptions that goes into it is the idea that, if implemented, nothing can go wrong. Since nothing can go wrong, then we never have to worry about who bears the costs if it goes wrong. Since we never have to worry about who bears the costs, we can press for our solution to the crisis we are in. We are eating in the Restaurant of Good Intentions, where no one ever has to pick up the tab.

That word solution is important in this, as is the word crisis. As Thomas Sowell points out in his admirable book The Vision of the Anointed, progressives like to think in terms of "solutions." Those who do not share the progressive vision think in terms of "trade-offs." A problem arises, or is assumed to have arisen, and because we want to generate a panicked sense of the need to "act now," we call it a crisis.

"Global warming is a crisis, I tell you, and no, we can't study it for a hundred... Continue Reading

Posted by Douglas Wilson - 5/7/2008 10:10:36 AM | Link to this post | Print this post | 2 Responses

"At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore" (Ps. 16: 11)

Growing Dominion, Part 141

“Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts. If thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee” (Prov. 22:26-27).

It is commonly assumed that the book of Proverbs outlaws the practice of co-signing for a note absolutely, and this passage is why. But verse 27 appears to be indicating that you ought not to be signing away (in principle) what you cannot afford to lose. The situation appears to one in which some young bucks, let us call them musketeers, say, “all for one, and one for all!” And all of them get taken to the cleaners. But suppose a different situation—retired parents who co-sign a note so that their kids can buy a house. What they are signing for is something they are willing to give. Is that prohibited here? Given the context, I don’t think so.

"The best way to preach sinners to Christ is to preach Christ to sinners. Exhortations, entreaties, and beseechings, if not accompanied with sound instruction, are like firing off powder without shot." (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 341).

"Conservatives of practically all types, like Wills and Will, fall all over each other exalting the prerogatives of the idol state. That is why when they take power from avowed social democratic parties—as in Sweden, Britain and the United States—there are no fundamental changes. They go with the tide; an electorate that demands the property of other people will get it from their government no matter what party in power calls itself. Hayek was right, and his critics wrong, in continually denying that he was ever a conservative" (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 220).

"However, it was not merely academic; because it was the work of the Spirit of God, the Reformation was scholarship on fire. In many respects, it was an essential part of the Renaissance, whatever that was" (For Kirk and Covenant, p. 121).

Lane has taken up my question about his Calvinism.

In his response, he sets out a scheme that I agree with entirely -- which is only to be expected, since we are both Calvinists. He acknowledges that God is the first cause of all that comes to pass, which would have included the obedience of Adam, had Adam obeyed. But he then asks how this excludes reward on the level of second causes. I respond that it does not exclude reward at all. What it excludes is any reward for autonomous obedience.

We both agree that Shakespeare writes one hundred percent of all the plays, but that the characters, on the level of the plays, act in accordance with their natures.

So I agree that had Adam obeyed God, he would have been blessed with greater glory, he would have been given mountains of blessing, he would have been rewarded. He would have been told, "We... Continue Reading

Posted by Douglas Wilson - 5/6/2008 9:57:11 AM | Link to this post | Print this post | 36 Responses

The verb hamartano is used twice in Hebrews. The first time refers to the sinning of the Hebrews in the wilderness, with the early Christians being warned not to do the same thing. (Heb. 3:17). The second use tells us that if we sin willfully, by going back to the old sacrifices, after we have received knowledge of the truth that there is now only one sacrifice for sin, there is no more sacrificial efficacy back in Jerusalem where are attempting to go, but only the expectation of a Roman siege, followed by destruction and fire (Heb. 10:26).

"Let him never treat sin as though it were a trifle, or a misfortune, but let him set it forth as exceeding sinful. Let him go into particulars, not superficially glancing at evil in the gross, but mentioning various sins in detail, especially those most current at the time" (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, pp. 337-338).

"In other words, bureaucrats shuffle not papers, but people" (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 205).

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