ACTS BIBLE
The Remnant Church, Since Acts — class 12 of 13 · R. C. Sproul, Chosen by God
After two world wars and the use of atomic weapons, confidence in human progress was hard to sustain. The Cold War brought the threat of another catastrophe.1 Christians also faced divisions within denominations and seminaries over the authority of Scripture and the gospel, the conflict that had occupied Machen and his contemporaries.
Churches could keep their buildings, charitable work, and Christian vocabulary while disagreeing about what Christ had accomplished. Did He rescue sinners through His obedient life, death, and resurrection, or chiefly show people how to live? Schools and hospitals remained valuable in either account. The difference concerned the message preached alongside that work.
Between 1950 and 2000, teachers and publishers brought the doctrines of grace to a wider English-speaking audience.2 These teachings locate salvation in God's mercy: the Father chooses His people, the Son redeems them, and the Spirit brings them to faith. Salvation is God's work from start to finish.
Pastors preached these doctrines, publishers returned older books to print, and recorded sermons reached people far beyond a preacher's congregation.3 Readers could study writers such as John Owen and John Bunyan without searching for scarce secondhand editions.4
The old message found new microphones.
The old message found new hearers, too. A person could encounter the teaching of a seventeenth-century pastor through a paperback bought in a twentieth-century bookshop.4 The book's age settled nothing about its truth. Its claims still had to answer to Scripture.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones began serving at Westminster Chapel in London in 1939.5 His preaching explained biblical passages at length and pressed their claims on his hearers. Understanding Christian teaching included recognizing the need for a new birth, the spiritual life the Holy Spirit gives.6
Iain Murray, his assistant, gave addresses on church history at the chapel. A businessman named Jack Cullum asked why the teaching of earlier Christians was so little known. Murray explained that their books were largely out of print. Cullum helped finance their return. The Banner of Truth Trust formed on July 22, 1957, with Lloyd-Jones advising. Its first two books arrived in January 1958.7
A generation can't learn from forgotten teachers if the books are not on shelves.8 But a reprinted Puritan book remains a human book. When Hilkiah found the Book of the Law in Josiah's day, the king heard God's commands and recognized how his people had disobeyed them (2 Kings 22:8-13). The comparison concerns returning to neglected truth. It gives no later writer the authority of Scripture.
R. C. Sproul opened the Ligonier Valley Study Center in Pennsylvania in 1971. People came to study Christian teaching and ask questions. Books and recorded lessons carried that teaching beyond the study center. His radio program, Renewing Your Mind, began in 1994 with teaching on God's holiness.9 Theology, the study of God, belonged in the life of an ordinary Christian.10
J. I. Packer's Knowing God, published in 1973, joined teaching about God's character to the believer's life of prayer and trust. John MacArthur's verse-by-verse preaching and John Piper's teaching also reached audiences beyond their congregations.11 These men differed on some important questions. Their shared emphasis on Scripture did not make every conclusion they reached equally sound.
Other Christians emphasized church growth, services accessible to visitors, or the continuing gifts of the Spirit.12 Each claim needs its own examination. Welcoming a visitor does not require removing an unwelcome doctrine. Praying for healing does not require promising that every faithful believer will recover. The difference between a useful practice and a false promise matters more than the movement's name. The accompanying timeline identifies the people, dates, and claims involved.
In Chosen by God (1986), Sproul explained election (God's deliberate choice of who will be saved (class 2 unpacks the word)), God's choosing of His people.13 He wrote for Christians who found the doctrine difficult, including those troubled by its apparent unfairness.14
The objection is serious: if God chooses whom to save, does He turn away someone who wants Christ? Jesus answers that fear in the same sentence that speaks of the Father's choice: “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).
Christ receives everyone who comes to Him. Sproul's argument concerns why a sinner comes at all. Paul describes people as dead in sins, then says that God made them alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:1-5). They did not first make themselves spiritually alive and then receive God's help.15
Election (God's deliberate choice of who will be saved (class 2 unpacks the word)) is God deciding to rescue people who would never come if left to themselves. He gives mercy to rebels.
God chose His people in Christ “before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). His mercy preceded their birth and every good thing they would do. The same verse names the purpose: that they should be holy and blameless before Him. Election (God's deliberate choice of who will be saved (class 2 unpacks the word)) gives no permission to remain content with sin.
Romans 8:28-30 follows God's purpose from foreknowledge and predestination (God's free choice, before creation, of who will be saved (classes 2 and 3 walk through it)) through calling, justification (God declaring a sinner righteous because of Christ's finished work), and glorification. He does not begin a rescue and leave its completion to the sinner. The purpose also has a shape: His people are conformed to the image of His Son.
Faith therefore looks to Christ and His promise, rather than trying to discover a hidden list of the elect (those God chose for salvation before creation (class 2 unpacks the word)). A frightened sinner has a Savior to approach, and a forgiven sinner has no ground for boasting.
Sproul repeatedly taught from Isaiah's vision of God's holiness.16 Isaiah sees the Lord enthroned and hears the seraphim cry, “Holy, holy, holy” (Isaiah 6:3). The prophet recognizes his own uncleanness. A coal from the altar touches his lips, and he hears that his guilt is taken away. Only then does he answer God's call to go.
Isaiah sees God's holiness, confesses his sin, receives cleansing, and goes when God sends him. Forgiveness precedes his service. He does not volunteer enough work to erase his guilt.
Careful planning can make a service easier to follow. It can't cleanse a conscience. When sin is reduced to a few bad habits, the cross can seem like an encouragement to improve. Before the holy God, the need is greater: guilty people need forgiveness and righteousness they cannot supply.
Christ lived the obedient life a holy God requires, died for His people's sins, and rose bodily from the grave. His finished work supplies what they lack. The believer's standing before God rests on Christ, not on the quality of his worship or the usefulness of his service.
Hebrews 12:1-3 calls Christians to lay aside sin and run with endurance, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of faith. He endured the cross and is seated at God's right hand. The witnesses encourage the runner; Christ is the one on whom the runner depends.
Lloyd-Jones and other teachers helped renew interest in expository preaching.17 Expository preaching means the main point of the sermon comes from the main point of the biblical text. The preacher explains a passage in context, follows its argument, and shows what it requires of the hearer.18
The Bible is our final authority. A pastor, confession, or trusted author may help explain it, but each remains subject to what it says. A quotation from a respected theologian cannot settle a question his biblical argument fails to answer.19
In Colossians 2:8-15, Paul warns against human tradition that takes people captive and turns them away from Christ. His answer is Christ's sufficiency: the fullness of deity dwells in Him, His people have been made alive with Him, and their debt has been canceled at the cross. No later teacher can supply something missing from His work.
The Bereans received Paul's preaching eagerly and searched the Scriptures daily to see whether it was true (Acts 17:10-12). Their willingness to learn went with their willingness to check. Asking how a sermon follows from its passage honors the authority the preacher claims to serve.
Books, recorded sermons, and study materials made sustained biblical teaching available beyond a seminary classroom.20 Their value lay in helping readers understand Scripture. Owning them was only a beginning.
Christianity grew in Africa, Asia, and Latin America during this period.21 That history is much larger than the English-speaking Reformed recovery. It includes local Christians preaching, translating, and caring for their neighbors, often without connections to the ministries named here. The growth of global Christianity cannot be credited to one theological network.
If God chooses His people, why preach? Because God also appoints how they hear and believe. Paul asks how people will believe in one they have not heard, and how they will hear without a preacher (Romans 10:14-17). God's purpose gives the messenger confidence to go.
John sees people from every nation standing before the throne and the Lamb (Revelation 7:9-10). Their salvation belongs to God. The promise reaches beyond any one nation, language, or denomination.
God saves through the preached gospel. Election (God's deliberate choice of who will be saved (class 2 unpacks the word)) gives no excuse to withhold it. Nor does confidence in His purpose guarantee a large congregation, an easy ministry, or a convert after every sermon. Christians preach faithfully and entrust the results to Him.
The 1974 Lausanne Covenant joined a commitment to evangelism with responsibility for people suffering injustice and want. It distinguished reconciliation with God from political liberation and social action.22 Feeding a hungry neighbor is good. Telling that neighbor how Christ saves is a distinct responsibility. Neither requires neglecting the other.
After 2000, the United States saw a decline in Christian identification. Pew recorded a fall from 78.4 percent of adults in 2007 to 70.6 percent in 2014.23 These figures describe religious identification, not the number of people attending church or belonging to Reformed congregations. They do not measure the effects of these ministries. They do rule out using their visibility as proof of a nationwide return to Christianity.
What, then, was recovered? Access to older books, sustained biblical preaching, and clearer teaching about salvation. Those are identifiable achievements. They do not establish a widespread awakening, a work of God in which many people turn to Christ.
Books can serve later generations. They cannot promise a later revival or excuse failure in the present. A ministry may sell sound books while tolerating pride, neglect, or abuse among its leaders. The teaching and the conduct both need examination.
Christians can test public teaching and conduct without pretending to know every heart. Paul reserves the disclosure of hidden motives to the Lord (1 Corinthians 4:5). That is no reason to suspend judgment about a false doctrine or leave a harmed person unprotected.
Teachers within the Reformed resurgence warned about people adopting its vocabulary without the humility it should produce.24 A person can explain election (God's deliberate choice of who will be saved (class 2 unpacks the word)) accurately and still treat another believer with contempt. The doctrine makes that pride less defensible: every good thing he has is a gift (1 Corinthians 4:7).25
The same danger appears when a teacher becomes too important to question. Gratitude for his work does not place his conduct beyond examination. The Bereans' example applies to the favorite preacher as well as the unfamiliar one.
Hebrews 7:23-28 distinguishes mortal priests from Christ, whose priesthood continues forever. He offered Himself once for all and lives to intercede for those who come to God through Him. A Christian's access to God does not depend on keeping a famous teacher, a movement, or an institution alive.
James describes a brother or sister without clothing or daily food, sent away with kind words and no help (James 2:15-16). Correct teaching about grace does not excuse that neglect. Christians owe their neighbors practical mercy, including those who reject the gospel. Help is not a payment for listening or agreeing.
Truth without love and love without truth both fail the neighbor. He needs truthful witness and real care. A congregation that teaches grace should be a place where people confess sin, receive correction, and help one another bear suffering.
The Bible teaching available today owes much to people who preserved sermons, reprinted books, and explained doctrine for ordinary readers.26 Their work deserves gratitude and the same scrutiny they asked readers to give other teachers.
The old message found new microphones. The microphone never became the authority. Scripture still tests the preacher, and Christ remains the sinner's hope. Knowing the right teachers cannot replace trusting Him. His obedient life, atoning death, and bodily resurrection are sufficient for everyone who comes to Him.
The recovery widened access to teaching about Scripture, God's holiness, and salvation by grace.27 These truths call for faith and obedience. A well-stocked shelf can help a Christian grow, but it cannot repent, love a neighbor, or trust Christ in his place.
Next class: the living remnant, the doctrines of grace in your own generation, and where you stand in the story.