Nothing New - at all

March 19, on his A Classical Presbyterian blog, Toby Brown posted No Such Thing as 'New'.

The root of all heresies is the same impulse: Someone, somewhere in the name of Christianity says, "I have a new idea!".

This is to be expected. The human mind is a factory of idols. Always has been, always will be. The quest to find something new, something novel, something that will change everything is a part of our nature.

But, when it comes to doctrines in the Church of Jesus Christ, it's a part of our fallen nature. And that's the bad news. God gave Adam and Eve a perfect home, perfect health, perfect well...everything, and what did they do? They fell for the first new idea that was pitched to them: Has God said?

And so it has gone ever since for their descendants. We fall for everything that is packaged as "new".

"Now wait just one minute Classical Fuddy-Duddy!", You may say. "The whole protestant, reformed thingy you say you adhere to was just one big new idea in the 16th Century!"

And there, you'd be wrong. The Reformation was an unearthing and recovery of some very old ideas. Ideas and teachings as old as the One who laid the foundations of the world. Ah, for the days of the great Charles Hodge! He knew what the Reformed faith was all about: "There has never been a new idea taught at Princeton Seminary." What a man!

I'm thankful for new medicines, new software, new fishing lures and new ways of feeding starving people. I like new most of the time, really! But not in the realm of ideas. It's just shoddy argument to assert that your arguments/ideas/doctrines or plans for the church are new. It just shows that you're on the quick, wide and easy road to heresy.

Remember the New Testament word, "mystery"? It means something that was previously hidden, but that is now revealed. Like the coming of Christ to suffer and die in the place of sinners. This was the only way out of our fall into sin and death. Those who deserve the wrath of God for their unrighteousness, now--by the cross of Christ--receive full pardon and eternal life by grace through faith.

Jesus was not a new person. He was a very old person and the plan that He came to accomplish was as old as the foundation of the world.

Now, we forget that sometimes. I know I do. We forget, obscure, hide and seek to deface this fact from time to time. But when God allows the recovery of this "faith once delivered", what we are doing is not proclaiming something new. We are telling what God has given us to proclaim: News to us that is everyday reality to God.

So come with me friends! Let's grow old together!