Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Announcer: The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: For the charge of lawlessness has always been brought against those who dared to follow Christ into full grace. The true believer should know complete liberty in Christ, without digressing to the side path of libertinage or to the other extremes of lording it over the younger or the weaker, or even over the older and mature who still cling to remnants of legalism. We must be extremely careful of the consciences of all other Christians.

Announcer: Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's Word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio ministry which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. The application of God's Word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago.

The message we'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled "Christian Liberty." Our nation cherishes the liberty that our forefathers achieved for us through the American Revolution, but believers should cherish even more dearly the spiritual liberty secured for us by Jesus Christ. We must also respect and safeguard and never restrict the Christian liberty of fellow believers. Do you rejoice in the spiritual freedom and liberty that is yours in Jesus Christ?

The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible: Romans chapter 14. We're looking at verses 15 and 16. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled "Christian Liberty."

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. Without Thee, we can do nothing. We pray Thy blessing on this broadcast in this hour, from the heart of the speaker and the vocal cords through which the words pass, and through all of the mechanical processes, the radio engineers, the individual receiving sets of the listeners, and then the long distance from the ear to the heart. Wilt Thou be upon this work and bless it for Thine honor and glory? We ask this in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

In our study of the Epistle to the Romans, we return now to the 14th chapter and the 15th and 16th verses. If your brother is being hurt by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the loss of one for whom Christ died. So, do not let what is good to you be spoken of as evil. Some time ago, one of our radio listeners approached me in a church where I was giving special Bible studies and questioned me about the nature of this program.

Several years ago, he said, he noted that my studies were all about doctrine, and now they were all about Christian living. Had there been a change in my thinking which caused this change of emphasis? I replied that the structure of the Epistle to the Romans follows exactly the change which he had noted. The first 11 chapters of the Epistle are all about Christian doctrine. The last chapters are all about Christian living. When men build a house, they first set the foundation, then they erect the walls, and finally, they put on the roof.

This is the method that God uses to instruct us, His people, who are said to be members of the household of God, built upon the foundation which belongs to the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the spirit. The church's one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord.

This is what Christ taught the disciples when He took the words which Peter had spoken and taught that He, Christ, would build His church on that rock: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." On this foundation, the words of Peter, the walls of the church, with each individual member as a living stone, are being raised, the whole being built into Christ, who is foundation, angle stone, dome stone, and all by which we are joined and governed.

The doctrines which form the first two-thirds of the Epistle to the Romans might be called the cement which holds the structure together. Christ is the truth, and the doctrines are the truths which are a part of Him. But He Himself is also love, and the whole purpose of His work is to manifest that love which is God and which Christ brings to us. We, in turn, are to be transformed into His likeness, conformed to His image.

As men see us growing in Christ, they are to become more and more aware of what Christ is, so that they can know what God is. For this is the chain of succession whereby the individuals of this world can be brought back into the communion with God which we all lost in the Fall and which we regain through Christ. The world sees a Christian and should be reminded of Jesus Christ. It then sees Christ and is brought face to face with God.

The unsaved then understand how much they are loved, and they are melted down so that they return to the communion with the Father which was lost through sin. Now, the final portion of this Epistle is concerned with Christian living. The world looks at Christians and, from this cracked mirror, must get a perfect reflection of the Son. The only way we can perform the function for which God left us here is that we grow in love.

Our present text is given in order to teach us the practical outgrowth of our love. We must translate and explain, not merely the Greek words of the original Epistle, but the spiritual teaching that is involved in this passage about food. In the first century, the problem of the Christian conscience concerned the meat in the butcher shops of the pagan temples, where the flesh of the animals offered in sacrifice to demons was sold to all who came into the precincts of these horrible temples which maintained harlots and sodomites as a part of their devil worship.

Should a Christian enter such places? Now, this problem does not exist in the United States, so we must go farther to find a present-day example. Let us consider the problem of the Christian in the country of India. The mass of the Hindus hold, as one of the principal tenets of their faith, that the cow is a sacred animal and that its flesh must not be eaten. From this, a further step has been taken to complete vegetarianism.

Now, suppose we move into an Indian town and take up residence there. We are Christians and, therefore, we are missionaries, whether we be professional missionaries or employed by the U.S. agricultural program. Nobody in town has ever eaten meat. There is no butcher shop. The Christian who is animated by the love of Jesus Christ will not make an issue out of meat eating. He will abstain for the sake of the weak ones who watch him.

If people in the town become Christians, they should be taught the heart of the Christian doctrine of grace and should learn that vegetarianism is no requirement of Christianity whatsoever. The American Christian may travel away from the town and may eat freely in the hotels or restaurants of the large cities of India, but he will not flaunt his liberty before those who are babes in Christ. It's for the love of Christ that he abstains.

On the other hand, I'm sure that if I were living under such conditions and had been the means to bring some Hindus into a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, I would seek to teach them the liberty that is in Christ. If traveling with them to a large city, I would almost think it necessary to teach them the necessity of eating meat at least once to prove their liberty in Christ and as an aid to their spiritual growth. They, in consequence, would go back to their hometown and resume the practice of vegetarianism before the unconverted and the weaker brethren, but they would never make vegetarianism a matter of legalism within the framework of Christianity.

In time, they might all grow strong enough to change their eating habits to include a meat diet in the regular pattern of their lives. On a large scale, this would certainly improve economic conditions in India as well as bring spiritual liberty to the believer in Christ. Now, as for our life in America, the Holy Spirit will guide each believer in his course of action. We may slightly paraphrase our text to cover all conditions and say: If your brother is being injured by any of your habits, you are no longer walking in love.

I've learned the lesson that Paul knew, and I can say: I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. I thank God for this complete liberty, for it gives me an ever-increasing knowledge of the breadth of life in Christ. But, at the same time, I recognize that many believers have not reached this position of full grace. We must live our lives in the awareness of the spiritual position of these brethren and not force them to participate in anything which their conscience forbids.

It should be noticed that there are two things that might happen to the weak brother. He might be hurt, it says, or he might be destroyed. These words must be carefully examined if we are to understand the fullness of what is being taught here. The King James Version suggests that the brother may be grieved and then destroyed. The Revised Standard Version suggests that he may be injured and that we are not to cause his ruin.

I have translated this: If your brother is being hurt, and do not cause the loss of one for whom Christ died. I have an obligation toward all men, and especially toward those who are babes in Christ. Our present text is talking only about those who have believed in Christ, and it cannot be used to deny the scores of verses that teach the eternal results of justification by faith. The man who is in Christ can never be taken out of Christ.

He cannot lose his salvation or be severed from Christ. Any teaching which even suggests such a thing is a complete departure from the truth of justification by faith. For the essence of justification is that a man who has once been justified by God in Christ can never be unjustified. The man who has been born again can never be unborn. Now, how can the believer be grieved or hurt? Today, we use the phrase commonly of one whose feelings are hurt.

Often, such hurt feelings are really injured pride. But our text carries the thought of an injured conscience. We must be extremely careful of the consciences of all other Christians. Every individual must do what he truly thinks the Lord wants him to do. The conscience of another believer must never be forced. Also, the conscience of another believer should never be relaxed. The difference between these two opposites can be explained by illustration.

If any group sets up a standard for Christian living that includes a set of legalistic principles, the conscience of a believer is forced if it be demanded of him that he should go unthinkingly with the majority. If a Christian is forced to sign a church pledge which demands conformity to certain practices and abstinence from other practices, the conscience of that Christian is being forced or regimented. This is not in accordance with the scriptures.

The conscience of a young believer is weakened if it is held up by props. On the other hand, the conscience of a young believer must not be relaxed by the example of older Christians, who, taking advantage of their Christian liberty, live in such a fashion that the young believer follows them in an example which may turn out to be license instead of liberty. We are to have no example other than Christ. We are to follow only Christ.

If a young believer abandons the call of his own conscience to follow another believer in a path of supposed liberty, he has done himself a very great harm. He is in danger of being ruined, lost, or destroyed. Now, the Greek word here translated "destroy" or "cause the ruin" or, as I have rendered it, "cause the loss," was used by our Lord to convey the idea of loss of reward. It does not mean loss of the soul or loss of salvation.

"Whosoever gives to one of these little ones," Jesus said, "even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward." This Greek word was also used by John in his second epistle where we read: "Look to yourselves, that you may not lose what you have worked for, but may win a full reward." Now, when understood thus, our text may be expanded to read: If your brother is being hurt by what you eat, you're no longer walking in love.

Do not permit what you eat to let another, for whom Christ died, relax his conscience to the point where he does something just because you do it, even at a moment when his conscience tells him not to do it. For if he does this, you have caused him to do something for which he will lose his reward when he stands in the presence of Christ. Dean Alford comments on this verse as follows: The contrast is greater here, as it is between the slight occasion of food and the great mischief of a man's ruin.

The mere grieving of your brother is an offense against love. How much greater the offense, then, if this grieving end in destroying, in ruining, causing to act against his conscience, and so to commit sin, and be in danger of grieving God's Spirit within him, by a meal of thine, a brother for whom Christ died. Do not value your meat more than Christ valued His life. Now, having set forth this middle way between liberty and a bad example, the Lord now concludes the thought by saying: Do not let what is good to you be spoken of as evil.

The implications of this are very deep. In any profound difference over policy in Christian living, neither side is to call the other's action evil. In fact, our text states flatly that the believer, who is acting in conscience, must not let the opposing party call his way evil. To be very practical, let us apply this to a case that once caused considerable tension between brothers in Christ. A certain church had a history that was rooted in the old legalistic forms of Scotch Covenanter theology.

It was staid and solemn. It proceeded according to old forms. It called its church school a Sabbath school. A new pastor centered his entire ministry in grace. He succeeded in having the Sabbath school properly renamed Sunday school or a Bible school. After some time, this minister began to publish some of his sermons. There was a wide call for these. Visitors came to the church and wanted these sermons, but they could not be obtained because it was Sunday, and the church maintained the old legalistic ways.

The pastor tried to teach the people that a sermon delivered from the pulpit in the voice of the preacher, paid for by the offerings taken during the service, was in no sense different from a sermon that was put into printed form and made available in the vestibule to be paid for by a quarter of a dollar at the cost of printing. The pastor received no benefit from the proposed sale of these books. But many people who thought that there should be no sale of anything on the premises on Sunday were grieved.

They held that the building was the house of God and that it would somehow be defiling to have any financial transactions on the premises. The pastor and many other people thought that the circulation of the printed pages was a very important work in evangelism and Bible teaching and that it should proceed as far and as fast as possible. Now, anyone who has followed my teaching on the Bible Study Hour will know without question what my attitude would be in this matter.

I do not accept for a moment that Sunday is the Sabbath, or that any building other than our bodies can be considered the house of God. I hold unswervingly that the studies should be printed and circulated and that it is not wrong to recoup the cost of this circulation by collecting the price that would cover the expense of preparation and printing. If at this point one of the opponents of such a procedure should say, "You must not sell books because we are your brothers and we would be hurt by such a sale," the pastor would have the right to maintain that his good must not be spoken of as evil.

To give way before a legalistic minority would lead to further compromises and would ultimately destroy the practice of living in full grace. Let us compare the spiritual advance of all believers to letters of the alphabet. Our aim and object is Z. We start at A, and some people have proceeded to J and others as far as Q. I would consider that St. Paul's position was at Z and that the pastor in question was at least along about R, S, T, U, or V.

Doctrinally, he is seeking to be at Z, the end of the road in full biblical position. Now, the man who does not want to put out the word of the Lord in printed form on a Sunday for its cost price must certainly be considered at no more than M, N, or O, doctrinally speaking. If he seeks to advance the argument that the pastor should retreat from T back to N in order that N's might not have their spiritual life hurt, the pastor would have a right to point out that the complete legalists who want to keep Saturday as the Sabbath and who have not advanced more than E, F, or G would have the right to call him from the N position back to their legalism.

Ultimately, everybody would be back in the A, B, and C position, and the Holy Spirit would most certainly cry out: "O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?" Such backward movement, such retreat from grace into law, could not for a moment be accepted by those who had once glimpsed the glorious liberty of the children of God. Always, there would be the ringing call of the Holy Spirit: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage."

The A, B, C Sabbatarian withdraws into his seventh-day church while the freed church goes on with Christ. The semi-legalists in the M, N group must be allowed to keep their fellowship at their point, but must never be permitted to hold back those who go on towards the goal of utter grace in Christ. Someone might say, "But suppose a still more free group would go on to proclaim their liberty to use alcoholic beverages, would you not end in debauch?"

Oh, the charge of lawlessness has always been brought against those who dared to follow Christ into full grace. Paul recognized that the epithets were being hurled against him and he refused to allow his good to be evil spoken of. "What then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, who are dead unto sin, live any longer therein?" The church, if following the Holy Spirit, will never even approach debauch because the position of a true believer is that of a libertarian and not that of a libertine.

If a libertine—and a libertine is one who seeks debauch and who wishes to live in open sin—if a libertine insisted on his right to drink and became known as someone who was drunk at the country club on Saturday night, the church session, empowered to maintain church discipline, should immediately exclude such a one from any participation in the communion service, not because of an act, but because of intemperance, which is open sin. The true believer who is advancing to the end of the alphabet in his march toward the goal of grace should know complete liberty in Christ, without digressing to the side path of libertinage or to the other extremes of lording it over the younger or the weaker, or even over the older and mature who still cling to remnants of legalism which they have known from their earliest days.

The man who does not want to buy a printed sermon on Sunday is quite free to pass the book table and go on his own conscientious way. He will be completely respected and his conscience will not be violated. And if one who truly believes that a printed sermon should not be bought on Sunday relaxes and buys one in violation of his own conscience, he has brought about his own loss. He will answer to God because he has violated his own conscience.

Such a one should be discouraged from doing anything that is in violation against his own conscience. On this point, he is not answerable to the pastor, the session, or the other members of the congregation. He is answerable to God alone, and so am I, and so are you. Each one of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ. We are answerable to Him alone. Therefore, let Him be Lord in your life.

And our God, we pray Thee that the Holy Spirit shall take these truths and ever make us to walk in love, that all that we may do shall be done not in any spirit of pride or self-will, but in humble yieldedness to Thee, that in all that we do the love of Christ may bathe our every gesture, and that men might take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus Christ, in whose name we ask it. Amen.

Announcer: The Gospel sets us free from the penalty, power, and bondage of sin. Let us acknowledge and rejoice in the spiritual liberty that is ours in Jesus Christ. We hope you have benefited from today's message, "Christian Liberty." To listen to additional teaching by Dr. Barnhouse, visit us online at alliancenet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is available by calling us toll-free 1-800-488-1888. Request "Christian Liberty" or simply ask for message number R14-28.

We would also like to make available to you a free CD copy of Dr. Francis Schaeffer's message entitled "What Difference Does Inerrancy Make?". At the heart of Dr. Barnhouse's ministry was the bedrock conviction that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God. But many people believe that the Bible is just a man-made book of fantastic tales or that it merely contains the Word of God mixed in with errors and human ideas.

That's why we're making available to you a free CD copy of the message "What Difference Does Inerrancy Make?" by Dr. Francis Schaeffer. This powerful message reinforces the vital doctrine of biblical inerrancy and its critical importance to every area of your life. Ask for your free CD copy of "What Difference Does Inerrancy Make?" when you call or write. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview. Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place. We also produce the radio broadcasts "The Bible Study Hour," featuring the teachings of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice, and "Every Last Word," featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken.

For a complete list of radio stations carrying our programs, visit our website at alliancenet.org. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of listeners like you. If you have benefited from the broadcast and would like it to continue, please prayerfully consider a donation to help us keep this ministry on the air. For more information or to make a contribution to further our work, contact us by calling toll-free 1-800-488-1888.

Again, that's 1-800-488-1888. Write to us at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19103. Visit us online at alliancenet.org. Remember to request your free resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding Reformed teachers and theologians, including Doctors Donald Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Martin Lloyd-Jones, and Philip Graham Ryken. Thank you for listening. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.