Witness
Pipe Creek Farm is not simply a few hundred acres of dirt, some clusters of old barns and outbuildings, power machines, a herd of cattle, a few beeves and hogs or a flock of sheep.
Our farm is our home. It is our altar. To it each day we bring our faith, our love for one another as a family, our working hands, our prayers. In its soil and the care of its creatures, we bury each day a part of our lives in the form of labor. The yield of our daily dying, from which each night in part restores us, springs around us in the seasons of harvest, in the produce of animals, in incalculable content.
A farmer is not everyone who farms. A farmer is the man who, in a ploughed field, stoops without thinking to let its soil run through his fingers, to try its tilth. A farmer is always half buried in his soil. The farmer who is not is not a farmer; he is a businessman who farms. But the farmer who is completes the arc between the soil and God and joins their mighty impulses. We believe that laborare est orare—to labor is to pray.
In that sense, the farm is our witness. It is a witness against the world. By deliberately choosing this life of hardship and immense satisfaction, we say in effect: The modern world has nothing better than this to give us. Its vision of comfort without effort, pleasure without the pain of creation, life sterilized against even the thought of death, rationalized so that every intrusion of mystery is felt as a betrayal of the mind, life mechanized and standardized—that is not for us. We do not believe that it makes for happiness from day to day. We fear that it means catastrophe in the end. We fear it if only because standardization leads to regimentation, and because the regimentation that men distrust in their politics is a reflection of the regimentation that they welcome unwittingly in their daily living.
We make use of as much mechanization as we cannot escape, as suits our daily needs, but does not rule our lives. We are not going back to the grain cradle, the candle or the ox cart. We seek that life that will give us the greatest simplicity, freedom, fruitful work, closest to the earth and peaceful, slow-moving animals. We know that, at this hour of history, we cannot do this completely. We realize that we have undertaken this life late in our lives and under heavy handicaps of fixed habit and ignorance. But we were willing to offer our lives for the venture because it is a way of groping toward God and because we knew nothing better in life to give our children.
We bought this farm in my second year at Time. We knew something of the hardships we must expect. Soon we knew more of them. But we had decided that our children must grow up close to the soil, familiar with labor, embedded in the nation by attending its public schools and taking spontaneous part in its routine work and play. Above all, we wanted to place them beyond the smog of the great cities, seeing few newspapers, seldom hearing the radio, seldom seeing motion pictures, untouched by the excitements by which the modern world daily stimulates its nervous crisis. We wished them never to hear the word Communism until they had developed against it, and the modern mind from which it springs, the immunity of a full and good life.
(Whittaker Chambers, Witness, 517–518)
Static on the line
We’re going to talk about how to talk in church, how to sing in church, and how to read in church. . . . The reason I read [Revelation 15]—and we could have read several passages out of Revelation or other places—is to notice this vast number of people singing together this hymn, which we’ll sing in a minute. . . . But they all sing together.
Now I can tell you something about these people. There was nobody singing a whole lot louder than everybody else. Nobody’s voice was sticking out because they were singing chorally and together. And that’s really the reason that I read this passage. So why don’t we do that?
But first of all, let’s talk about how to talk in church and how to sing in church. . . . I was recently at a conference and we prayed the Lord’s Prayer together and there was one person who said,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
[rushed] Thy will be done on earth.And of course it stood right out because he was doing it his way. So then I asked later on, he said, well, it seems to me that’s what it means. I said, well, maybe. I don’t think so. I think it means:
Hallowed be thy name on earth as it is in heaven.
Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.And that’s why we take a pause.
But more importantly, you need to pray with everybody else. At home, you can pray it your way. In church, you pray with everybody else. You subordinate yourself and become part of the group. You can’t be an American. You’ve got to be in with the group. We are one-anothering one another. And you’re not one-anothering one another if you’re doing your own thing in the prayer. I remember years ago, there was a man in a church at which I was an associate pastor, and he would pray the Lord’s Prayer his own way every week.
[exaggerated sing-song] Our Father who art in Heaven.
And you could hear it. You know, everybody else is praying chorally. And he was way out there. He eventually wound up being excommunicated. [laughter] [joking] We took it seriously. But you know, his I-do-my-own-thing eventually led to his counterfeiting money and then telling us that we could just, you know, if we didn’t think he ought to be doing that, we didn’t have any authority over him. So he wound up being excommunicated.
But you see, this is not the time for you to shine. When we pray, when we read together, we read together. That means we read in a kind of a chant fashion. . . . In these prayers we read together, we fall into a rhythm. Our voices go up and down just a little bit. Our voices get loud and soft just a little bit. And there is a rhythm. You know, as a musician, I could write that rhythm out.
Our Father
Who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On earth . . .You know, there’s a slightly shorter pause there. . . . There’s a rhythmical difference. But we all do it. And you’ve always done it.
Of course, you have to be alert when you’re in a church. Are they saying trespasses or debts? If they say trespasses, they’re going to say forever and ever. If they say debts, they’re just going to say forever. And if they say sins, all bets are off. And if you’re in a Catholic church, they’re just going to say, deliver us from evil, amen. They’re not going to say the doxology, so, it’s really confusing.
It’s like saying the Apostles’ Creed, or saying the Nicene Creed, or singing it. We do it together.
Now, the same thing is true of singing. You need to sing at the same level as everybody else. . . . I’ve been in churches where somebody behind me decided that it was opera time. . . . You think, come on, man, you know, we don’t want to hear you as opposed to everybody else. You’re not really thinking of being part of the community—without intending to, perhaps. You’re doing your thing. You’re shining. Beware of that. I know most of you don’t have this.
It’s even worse if you’re a tenor. Some people decide they want to harmonize, and that’s fine. But if you’re harmonizing louder than everybody else, everybody can hear you, especially if you’re a tenor because tenor notes are one-third higher than the melody notes normally. . . . So we sing together. We subordinate our personality a little bit to be part of everything else.
Now you notice that I stepped back from the microphone when I sang. You don’t need me singing into the mic, or singing super loud so that you hear the pastor trying to lead. In liturgical worship, you don’t have a song leader. Who is the leader who leads in the singing in traditional worship? It’s not a guy doing this. It’s not a pastor singing into a mic. Who is it? The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit leads the singing. He creates this environment and you all fit into it and you all become part of it. . . .
How many of you served in the military? . . . Remember doing close order drill? You learn to march together. And it gets to be kind of fun. Right flank march. Left flank march. There’s a certain amount of pleasure that comes from that. But if everybody’s walking at his own pace, you don’t get that (unless you’re crossing a bridge, then you have to break step so as not to shatter the bridge). There are all these rules.
Alright, so in our singing, if you’re a pastor, step back a little bit from the mic. And I step back when I sing to hear—if we’re singing a hymn. Why? Because I want to sing with you, not at you. If there was lots of liturgical space back here, as there might be in a traditional church, it’d be much easier for me even to turn around and sing with you without feeling weird. But if I did that, I’m singing at the wall. So that kind of thing isn’t really possible in a space like this. But again, the idea is to sing with. I want to sing with you in the hymns. I only stand here if I’m singing in dialogue with you.
Giving you rules. These things are written down in books. But you probably don’t have those books. So, I do.
Now I get to the controversial part. Which is, every book I have on my shelf will tell you, when you read the scripture in church, you read it as if you were reading it with other people. You read it in union with Christ. You read it in union with the angels. Which means, you don’t read it dramatically.
Now, this is a real temptation in our circles, and I have friends who do it, and I have friends who would say, “Jim, I just don’t agree.” And I have to say, “man, I’m the guy with the stole on here.” I’m telling you. This is what you hear, and people, some of the finest saints I know, will read like this, but I wish they wouldn’t.
And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, [loud] Lazarus, come forth! [normal] And he who was . . .
Wait a minute. It was Jesus who cried out with a loud voice. I’m just telling you about it. Now I could tell you about the lunch that we had today.
Mr. Myers and I were having lunch and I said, [loud] Jeff Meyers said this!
And I could be very dramatic about it. . . . But that’s not the way we report things, is it? And when you read the Bible, it should be read simply. Even dramatic parts.
[wailing] Jesus wept.
No, don’t do that. Because even though you’re not aware of it and even though you have the best of intentions, people are focusing on you. They’re not hearing the Word of God. They’re hearing your dramatic power, which may not be all that great. It might be good. It might not be.
So, they don’t do this in our seminaries. But there was a time when you had been trained to modulate your voice. Go up a little bit. Go down a little bit. Get a little bit louder, a little bit softer. But don’t throw out huge amounts of enthusiasm. And the other thing is, almost all the Bible is written in lines. If you heard me read, I read in phrases and lines. . . .
Again, the Word of Yahweh came to me saying,
Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre
And say to him, Thus says the Lord God,
You had the seal of perfection,
Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden, the garden of God.
Every precious stone was your cover.I’m chanting that text. I’m everything but singing it on pitch. Originally, that would have been chanting. When it says the scroll was given to Jesus in the synagogue and He read from Isaiah, He was reading it on pitch. It would sound weird to you if I did it. You’d say, one more weird thing. . . . You know how many traditional service books have got notes, reciting tones? It’s strange. We don’t do this, but we should—even reading—read like it’s coming from heaven. And you’re just one of several people reading. So if you have an opportunity to read the Bible in public, I enjoin you to read it. And those of you that are pastors, you can take me out and beat me up later on, but seriously, I think there is less static on the line if you read this way.
(James Jordan, Biblical Horizons 2012 Conference: Back to Basics)
Irreconcilable
Faced with the opportunity of espionage, a Communist, though he may sometimes hesitate momentarily, will always, exactly to the degree that he is a Communist, engage in espionage. The act will not appear to him in terms of betrayal at all. It will, on the contrary, appear to him as a moral act, the more deserving the more it involves him in personal risk, committed in the name of a faith (Communism) on which, he believes, hinges the hope and future of mankind, and against a system (capitalism) which he believes to be historically bankrupt. At that point, conscience to the Communist, and conscience to the non-Communist, mean two things as opposed as the two sides of a battlefield. The failure to understand that fact is part of the total failure of the West to grasp the nature of its enemy, what he wants, what he means to do and how he will go about doing it. It is part of the failure of the West to understand that it is at grips with an enemy having no moral viewpoint in common with itself, that two irreconcilable viewpoints and standards of judgment, two irreconcilable moralities, proceeding from two irreconcilable readings of man’s fate and future are involved, and, hence, their conflict is irrepressible. (Whittaker Chambers, Witness, 420)
See also: Truth
Wilderness
God sometimes treats the unrighteous or the rebellious in a way that matches their mistaken conception of him.
But his lord answered and said to him, “You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents.” (Matthew 25)
This is true of the rebellious generation in the wilderness.
Then they said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt?” (Exodus 14)
All these men who have seen my glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded my voice, they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected me see it. (Numbers 14)
The fact that Jesus died, was resurrected, and ascended in AD 30 is significant, because this establishes the time period between Jesus’s own exodus and the destruction of the temple in AD 70 as a 40-year period. This makes AD 70, which is the destruction of the old creation, the full entry into the new creation. This is the time of the release of the saints under the altar (Revelation 6); the time after which those are blessed “who die in the Lord from now on.” (Revelation 14)
Thus, the 40 years between AD 30 and AD 70 are a kind of wilderness wandering for the church. This is a time when the Gentiles, a kind of “mixed multitude,” are incorporated into the church.
And, crucially, this is the time when an unfaithful generation is left to die, while their children are brought into the new creation. Importantly, the fact that an entire generation dies under a covenantal curse does not imply that their children failed to enter into the promises.
Thus, apart from any historical data, from the Biblical record and typology alone it is quite reasonable to conclude that the prophecy of Romans 11 was fulfilled by the entry into the new creation, by AD 70.
And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come out of Zion, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins.” (Romans 11)
And yet in fact there is historical evidence for this.
Table
There are a number of temptations of important figures in the Bible that I believe we are intended to see as echoes of one another, and from which I think we can gain some insights.
I want to start with the temptation of Mordecai. This temptation appears to involve ease of access to political power and favor, while compromising faithfulness to God’s commands. Mordecai’s faithfulness appears to create trials for him and his people rather than relieving them. However, in the end Mordecai gains great favor with the emperor, while also preserving God’s people.
My attention was called to Mordecai’s temptation by comparison to Joseph’s temptation by Potiphar’s wife. Joseph also experiences trials in exchange for his faithfulness, but ends up gaining the favor of the emperor while also preserving God’s people.
Hebrews tells us that Moses “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.” Moses also experienced trials in response to his faithfulness. He won only reluctant favor from Pharaoh, but God used him to deliver his people. Unlike Ahasuerus and Joseph’s Pharaoh, Moses’ Pharaoh does not seem to experience dreams, although the Passover is a kind of waking nightmare.
Daniel “purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.” I think this is not for dietary reasons but for table fellowship reasons; there is something about the fellowship at Nebuchadnezzar’s table that implied Daniel would be eating, in terms of 1 Corinthians 10, at the table of demons rather than at the Lord’s table. Daniel’s case differs slightly from the others we’ve considered so far; he is elevated to a position of power first and only later experiences trials. His labor for the deliverance of his people is also, as far as we know, primarily a labor of prayer rather than of action; although it is possible that he had something to do with Cyrus’s decree. (It is also possible that he had something to do with Nebuchadnezzar’s investiture of Jerusalem.) Daniel’s emperor experiences dreams.
Daniel’s case leads us to reflect on the place of table fellowship in this pattern. Haman and Potiphar’s wife don’t offer literal tables. But Esther and Joseph both go on to prepare tables from their positions of elevation. The same is true of Moses; the Bible does not call attention to Pharaoh’s table, but Moses does prepare God’s table in the wilderness.
If you were a prophet in the time of Elijah, you should have been eating at the table of Obadiah rather than the table of Jezebel.
Balaam is an anti-pattern, but an interesting one. God appears to him (in the night, though perhaps not in a dream), and he seems to be obedient. But, God opposes him at every step along the way. And, crucially, Balaam eats (several times) at Balak’s table rather than Yahweh’s table. Considered in this light, his fate recorded in Numbers 31 and elsewhere is unsurprising. Balaam seems to retain or regain the favor of the Midianites and Moabites, but this becomes his downfall rather than his (or their) salvation.
Seen in this light, Adam is also an anti-pattern; he has table fellowship with the serpent rather than with God, and this becomes his downfall. Importantly, part of Adam’s temptation is the pursuit of the knowledge of good and evil, which is Biblical terminology for wisdom associated with rule.
Jesus reverses Adam’s pattern exactly; he refuses table fellowship with the devil accompanied with the offer of power and authority. He appears to experience a downfall, but he is vindicated, elevated to power, and accomplishes the salvation of his people. There is even a dream involved: that of Pilate’s wife.
There are threads of this in the gospels; for example, our prayer for heavenly bread, our call to avoid the leaven of the Pharisees, and our consuming Jesus’s flesh and blood. In fact, you could say that there is now only one food law in the new covenant: do not despise God and his people in your table fellowship, either by corrupting God’s table (Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 11, Galatians 2), or by forsaking his table altogether for the table of demons (1 Corinthians 10).
Genealogies
As we have seen, there are no genealogies recorded in the New Testament after Christ’s. This means that genealogies have no religious significance in the new world. As we have noted, Paul warns against “endless genealogies” (1 Tim. 1:4; Titus 3:9). Their purpose was fulfilled in the birth of Christ. (Jeffrey J. Meyers, What Did God Promise the Jews, 27)
I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine
Marriage is a type:
“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5)
This means that sexual intercourse is a type of communion. Knowing this helps us to instinctively answer certain questions rightly.
Q1: Are we in any danger of communion’s losing its special character?
A1: My beloved put his hand by the latch of the door, and my heart yearned for him.
Q2: How often shall we take communion?
A2: Let my beloved come to his garden and eat its pleasant fruits.
Q3: Is the primary reason for weekly covenant renewal the fact that our sin has put us out of fellowship with God?
A3: I said, “Have you seen the one I love?” Scarcely had I passed by them, when I found the one I love. I held him and would not let him go.
Q4: Shall we use grape juice and crackers?
A4: Eat, O friends! Drink, yes, drink deeply, O beloved ones!
Q5: If we are not providentially hindered, is it permissible to show up late or to be absent entirely?
A5: “I will rise now,” I said, “And go about the city; In the streets and in the squares I will seek the one I love.”
Q6: How is Jesus present in the supper?
A6: He is present in, with, and under his bride, who is his own body.
Q7: How shall we examine ourselves?
A7: My beloved is mine, and I am his.
Party
Where was [Jesus] during this time? Suffering for us? No, he was in paradise. He says to the thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” We have a translation of the Apostles’ Creed that says he descended into hell. That’s not very good. The Moravians say he descended to the place of departed spirits, which I think is good. We could say he descended to Sheol.
Most accurately, we would say he went to paradise. And that’s having a party. Your Good Friday service, after the Good Friday service, have a party afterwards. Break out the champagne. Jesus is down in paradise having a great time with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Naaman the Syrian. They’re all down there partying hearty. I mean, I grew up, Good Friday service is over, and we sang—it’s a pretty hymn, but the words aren’t good in my opinion anymore:
O darkest woe!
Ye tears forth flow!
Hath earth so sad a wonder,
God the Father’s only Son
Now lies buried yonder.Well, if we’re seeing through the eyes of faith, and not the eyes of despair, what we want to participate in is much more festive on Friday night and Saturday. Actually, the Eastern Church treats Holy Saturday more festively. But it’s very much medieval for us to treat it, “Oh, it’s a mournful time. The service is over. Everyone should leave. We’re going to turn all the lights off and everybody should leave in silence. Don’t say anything as you leave.” I have come to question that.
Jesus’ second death, it was the death that Adam and Eve were supposed to have, the death that leads to glorification and resurrection. Jesus ascends out of the tomb and he now has knowledge of good and evil. Jesus did not have knowledge of good and evil before his resurrection. That’s to pass judgments.
What did Jesus say when they came? The guy says, “Tell my brother to divide his inheritance with me, my inheritance with me.” And Jesus says, “Who made me a judge? I’m not a judge.” Satan comes and tempts him, Jesus just answers back. He doesn’t say, “This is my world, I’m in charge of it.” He’s not in charge of this world. Satan says, “I’ve been traveling up and down the earth. It’s my world. All things have been given to me, and I’ll give it to you if you bow down and worship me.” Jesus doesn’t dispute that.
Now, the secret in that passage is that you might think, well, Jesus is going to get this world as a result of his resurrection. Actually, Jesus doesn’t want this world. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 says he made that world of nothing. You want this world, Satan? Here, you can have it. I’m going for a new, transfigured, resurrected world. So Satan looks around and he says, “Hey, it’s my world. Where is everybody? Where’s gravity?”
Nothing’s left of this world. It’s been made nothing. Now Jesus has this new world. We all move into it by baptism.
(James Jordan, The Centrality of Death in the Old Creation)
Bridal
In reality, and more consistent with early Patristic witness, God’s Word is and so has the highest authority. The reason this is so is that internally, metaphysically, the Scriptures are the Word of God, the Self-revelation of the uncreated mind and will of the Triune God who condescended to cause these to subsist in the form of recorded or inscripturated human language. They are His living Voice. They, the Scriptures, are therefore not merely inspired human speech, not merely spiritually influenced, but God’s own Word speaking through man. This is what gives Scripture its unique, ultimate authority, because God’s Speech has ultimate authority intrinsically. The Church, by contrast, is Bridal, is a creature, is receptive, existing on the side of created being (though, of course, indwelt by the Holy Spirit). But, as Bride, it is only through God’s creative and maintaining Word that the Church is made to be, to exist, God’s Word being the sole cause of the Church and the Scriptures, and so the sole ground of man’s knowledge. This is how there can be a Berean Principle, which exists to show that recourse to God’s Word is recourse to the more fundamental. EOP, however, makes the Church to be not only the arbiter but also the determiner of God’s truth such that recourse to the Berean principle is rendered moot and impossible. (Joshua Schooping, Disillusioned, 163)
Responsive
Eastern Orthodox Presuppositionalism (EOP) is an ecclesiological epistemology, i.e. anti-catholic. In other words, according to EOP, the epistemological ground or cause of knowledge is said to be rooted in Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology, for EOP holds that the EOC is a precondition of intelligibility and knowledge. In contrast, Reformed Presuppositionalism (RP) is rooted in the Verbum Dei, with its epistemological ground seen to be God’s Word, and its epistemological consequence being unto and causative of ecclesiology. Put more simply, the RP position is that we can know the Church because of the transcendentally fundamental nature of God’s Word, not vice versa. The EOP position is that we know God’s Word because of the Church, thus causing the Scriptures and epistemology to submit to the Church (i.e. to ecclesiology).
Now, if the Church becomes a precondition for knowledge, then the Church becomes a viciously circular precondition for its own self-knowledge, and hence self-attesting, self-justifying, and finally irreformable, which is just what we see in the EOC. In other words, EOP epistemology ceases to be Bridal, ceases to be receptively and responsively confirmatory of the Bridegroom’s Word but rather determinative. (Joshua Schooping, Disillusioned, 161, emphasis added)
I gotta have my orange juice. 