or the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith (Rom. 4:13).
We must begin by acknowledging that in the providence of God the steady stream of rootless American evangelicals into eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism is not entirely a bad thing. The exodus does serve one valuable function: it reveals the theological bankruptcy of contemporary evangelicalism.
The sooner mainstream evangelicalism abandons the generic and vanilla faith it has drifted into, the closer we will be to a second Reformation -- which is desperately needed.
This should not be taken as anything like approval of any form of sacerdotalism. But if a man is going to base his worship around ceremonies and traditions of human devising, then it makes far better sense, humanly speaking, to opt for the traditions that were invented in the fourth century, as opposed to those traditions which were invented in Dallas in the early 70's.
But of course this is a false dilemma. We are prohibited from worshiping God according to the word of man, regardless of what theological label man uses, or which century forged that idolatry.
We must, therefore, begin our discussion by admitting (with grief and repentance) that the idolatries of modern evangelicalism are not spiritually better than the idolatries of eastern Orthodoxy, and they are greatly inferior aesthetically. Having lost our ability to see the glory of the gospel in the proclamation of the risen Christ, we have done what men have always done in this situation -- we have turned to baubles and trinkets, programs and gimmicks. If our worship were supposed to be sensual, then aesthetics would make a difference, and aesthetic superiority would count for something. But the Bible teaches us that the Father is seeking those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.
Now, of course, all this will invite the retort, "Why is it any better for evangelicals to revert to the traditions of the Reformation?" The answer is that it is not better, which will no doubt bring the question, "What, then, are we debating? Why all the fuss?"
Those who worship the Lord in spirit and truth are those who can trace their spiritual lineage back to Abel. If a man is not a member of the oldest church on earth -- the church of those justified by faith alone -- then he is not saved. Abel was put right with God, as the author of Hebrews tells us, because of his faith. This faith of Abel's was placed in God long before the Reformation. And millenia before the Reformers preached the gospel of Scripture -- sola gratia, sola fide -- Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him as righteousness. Abraham obviously did not use the Latin phrases to describe what had happened, but as Paul teaches us, it was faith from first to last. The language does not matter; the faith does.
As Christ pointed out, those who are related to Abraham spiritually carry with them a spiritual family resemblance. And what is that mark? What is it that shows a man's relation to Abraham? It is his faith -- with absolutely no admixture of human effort, striving, deciding, altar-calling, church-attending, willing, or running. Many admirable things will always proceed from faith alone, but nothing mixes with faith alone.
The fact that the Reformers recovered this gospel of "grace alone through faith alone" hardly makes what they taught a theological novelty. Things were falling to the ground long before Newton described how they did so, and men were being put right with God long before the Reformers were included in their number. Every man who has ever been justified was put right with God on the basis of a covenant -- an ancient covenant -- between the Father and Son, and revealed to men from Genesis on.
But rootless evangelicals, who bear the name Protestant, have no concept of this ancient covenant, and they are consequently an easy mark for those who present to them a church which looks ancient from the human vantage point. God has put eternity in the heart of man; we do have a hunger for antiquity and eternal roots. Moreover it is a hunger we are commanded to satisfy; but the means of satisfaction must always be faith.
Classical Protestantism stands by faith alone. If that is lost, then everything is lost -- everything but the name Protestant. And if everything but the name is lost, it does not much matter where you go, or what you bow down to after that.
The Bible teaches us that the word of Christ should dwell in us richly. We are standing in the midst of a theological ruin because this has not been true of us. But if the word of Christ does not dwell in us richly, something else will. And because the only alternative to God Himself is some created thing, the result of this fall into sin will always be idolatry. This is the essence of idolatry -- the substitution of a created thing for the Creator. When idolatry can occur in an "informal" way through the sin of greed (Eph. 5:5), how much more obvious should it be to us when a created thing is the object of religious devotion and worship?
Whether the idolatry is "Orthodox" or "evangelical" does not really matter. When this has happened (and it has), the church is named Ichabod -- the glory has departed from her. Where once the lampstands
burned brightly, there is now nothing but spiritual darkness. Where
once the Lord was pleased to inhabit the powerful preaching of His Word, we now have
nothing remaining but the word of man -- a verbal haunt for owls and jackals.
