October's Hymn ( Part 2 )

October's Hymn ( Part 2 ) 

"You have made us for yourselves, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You." ( Saint Augustine, "Confessions" ) 

One of the first surprising ( or maybe not so surprising ) bits of information I learned about the Great Pyrenees Livestock Guardian Dog (known as LGDs in the working class ) when the Farmer and I were first getting acquainted with the whole notion of "dogs with jobs" is that the girls are the chief workers in the Pyrenees breed. I know, seriously. Back when I was breeding them for families with homesteads, farmers who knew their business would call and ask, "Have you got a pair a Pyrenees sisters for me?" 

Even though we had two "pair of Pyrenees sisters" working our sheep fields, my heart still ached for a big teddy bear male. I followed working farms on social media for educational purposes, and that's where I would watch these gentle-giant boys guarding homesteads and kids and their food bowls. And I wanted one too. 

My first male Pyrenees, who was also for a time our baby daddy, I named "Atlas" after one of my favorite mythological creatures. Then a year before my old boy died I was blessed with his grandson which I named after one of my favorite literary characters of all time, Lewis's Lion King of Narnia, the Jesus-figure, "Aslan."

I told the Farmer recently that if and when I get a third male he will be "Augustine," after one of my favorite theologians. "My A Team," I quickly told him before he had a chance to think too deeply about me getting another dog. ( Of course, a huge shout out always extends to my girls who do a bang-up job in the livestock field and keep us all alive. ) This while Aslan sleeps on a foam bed in front of a floor fan inside the chicken coop. 

In my last blog I said that it was on my heart this month to write about the Protestant Reformation, and in order to understand the powerful impact of that historical event, I believe, one must begin with Saint Augustine of Hippo.  

Augustine lived about one thousand years before Martin Luther was born. 

There is much that can be said about Saint Augustine and honestly it feels just plain wrong to devote so little space to him in this blog. His importance as a church theologian, and the contributions he made in how the Church came to understand many core doctrines of the Christian faith, I don't think can be overstated. 

In his own autobiography, "Confessions," Augustine isn't even the key figure, it's God. The book is addressed to God in prayer. I believe this beautiful, solemn devotion reflects Augustine's changed heart more than any other form of literature could. Through the painful recounting of honest and hard stories that eventually lead to his conversion tale and subsequent spiritual growth, he continually weaves his narratives in thoughtful prayers around Christian doctrine like an elegant braid of soft hair. 

I love how Dr. Robert Godfrey, church history president and professor emeritus at Westminster Seminary California, puts it. He said in "Confessions" that Augustine's biblical understanding breaks through. ( BTW, you can take Dr. Godfrey's survey of church history through Ligonier Ministries online. I want to share this because I believe church history is the most important and insightful study we can engage in after the Scriptures. And we live in a day and age when incredible things like working on a farm and listening to lectures at the same time is possible. ) 

If we could narrow the Protestant Reformation down to the most crucial aspects it could be summed up in what has become known as the 'Five Solas.' ( Sola is Latin for "only" ) The Five Solas are a good summary of Reformed theology, which the Reformers argued for against the Roman Catholic church during the Reformation because they understood and believed each crucial point to be biblical theology, in other words, truths they were willing to live and die for. 

They are: 

Sola Scriptura ( Scripture Alone ) ( The Bible alone is the supreme authority for Christians in faith and practice. ) 

Sola Fide ( Faith Alone ) ( Our salvation is a free gift through faith alone, not faith plus our good works. ) 

Sola Gratia ( Grace Alone ) ( Our salvation is by God's grace alone and nothing we do to merit salvation and boast. ) 

Solus Christus ( Christ Alone ) ( Our salvation is in Christ alone; Christ alone is the mediator between man and God. ) 

Soli Deo Gloria ( To the Glory of God Alone ) ( God says that He does not share his glory with another. Isaiah 42:8 ) 

Long before the Protestant Reformation Saint Augustine was already defending these biblical truths, biblical positions that the church fathers had held since the conception of Christ's Church. His debates were with a theologian by the name of Pelagius. I believe, as do many, that these series of debates and his writings that followed are Augustine's most important contribution to the Church. Augustine found that he could not avoid arguing against Pelagius because he was striking against and denying the biblical Doctrine of Original Sin while emphasizing man's choice over God's divine sovereignty and grace.

Pelagius arguments had originally arisen from his reading of Augustine"s "Confessions." 

I recently wrote a blog ( The Cul-de-sac ) that addressed the antinomy that exists between God's sovereignty and human responsibility.  To try and explain this divine mystery or pit one against the other is to damage both as Charles Spurgeon warned centuries later. We must be careful because there's a ditch on either side. If we elevate God's sovereignty, without man's responsibility for his actions, we make God the author of sin. 

However Pelagius denied that God's sovereign grace worked at all through our salvation and that it was entirely a work of human choice with man being fully capable of making the decision for Christ on his own since man was not too sinful from birth as to be able to reach God. A direct contradiction of the Scriptures: 

Psalm 14:1-3: ( Psalm 53:1-3 is almost identical. ) "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good. The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one."

Romans 3:11-12: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." 

Genesis 6:5: The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." ( Before the flood ) 

Genesis 8:21: And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, 'I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth." ( After the flood ) 

Genesis 9:20-21 ) "Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent." 

It appears God wants us to see that his "righteous man" was like all of us. This and then the very next story is none other than the Tower of Babel. "Let us make a name for ourselves." ( Genesis 11:1-9 ) 

( You might be saying, "Well, what then was the point of the flood if not to get rid of evil?" I believe the Bible teaches us that the world-wide flood is a shadow and warning of something to come: God's righteous judgment over the whole earth. So get in the "Ark of Salvation" while you can. Repent of your sins and trust Christ as your Lord and Savior. 

God's judgment is revealed all through the Scriptures - But. So. Is His. Mercy. How long did the people in Noah's day have to repent? 120 years. How about Nineveh with the Prophet Jonah? 

I'm getting off topic. 

Anyway, here are a few more Scriptures that are proof texts for original sin, also known as total depravity or radical depravity. ( Isaiah 53, Jeremiah 15 & 17, Psalm 143:2, John 1, Isaiah 64, Genesis 3:15, Eph. 2:1-3, Job 42, Proverbs 20:9 ) I listed whole chapters in some references because its always best to read them in context. 

Total depravity, not meaning that man is born as bad as he could possibly be, but that sin has left no part of us unmarred; our bodies, minds, spirits, emotions, and will are all in bondage to sin because of the fall of Adam, our federal head. ( Romans 5:12-19 ) If not for God's common grace and mercy over all that he has made ( Psalm 145:9 ), raining on the just and the unjust ( Matthew 5:45 ), the earth would surely crack down the center and split wide open because of the power of sin left to itself without the Grace of God. That scenario is actually hell, not earth. 

So Augustine defended the doctrine of original sin and stressed the grace of God in our lives. His writings were not so much on the freedom of the will but on "the reality of the will," making clear is it only God's grace and the Holy Spirit working in our will that we have a way back to God through Christ. 

Pelagius was deemed a heretic later in the 5th century for his emphasis on the human will being able to achieve salvation without the grace of God. ( Although later it would be reversed at the Council of Trent. ) I'm not sure what happened to Pelagius as his writings did not survive him, not that I could find anyway. However, Pelagius' students did carry on his heretical theology and through the centuries Pelagianism, as it became known, did survive and morph into a "Semi-Pelagianism" recognizing God's grace in man's salvation, along with our works added to it. This became the theology the Reformers would eventually fight against, justification by our works added to God's grace. And we'll look at that in later blogs. 

This is very incomplete and just an overview of a few events in Augustine's life. I hope more than anything I encourage folks to read and study their Bibles and to do their own research into church history. You know when you think about it, we have something the first centuries of Christians didn't have. Well, we actually have a lot of things they didn't have. Not sure sometimes if that's good or bad. But one thing we have that they didn't is 2,000 years of church history to look back on. 

Our church fathers poured over the Scriptures diligently for years seeing how we are to understand such difficult doctrines as the Trinity and the two natures of Christ. God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. They defended the church against heretics holding councils and summarizing the core beliefs of our faith according to the Scriptures in creeds and confessions so that the church would not go astray and could identify a wolf in sheep's clothing if one was to ever stand before them. Sound biblical doctrine even filled the songs the churches same because hymns were not written by professional song writers, but by theologians because they knew in their wisdom that "theology brings doxology." 

Bibles were scarce in those days for the common folk. But that would change. 

Looking back over church history, I believe, we can see Christ building his church while protecting his flock. That's why I believe remembering the Protestant Reformation is a good thing to do. 

💜