Of the Ones That Got Away and of the Perseverance of the Saints

OF TROUT: It dawned on me today that some of my most memorable trout are the ones that got away. Specifically, three fish hooked on three different streams come to mind. The first may well be the most memorable of all.

It all began back in the 1950s when I was a toddler and my dad, unbeknownst to me, had taken a fly tying course at the local YMCA from George Harvey, the premiere Penn State fly fishing authority. But Dad quickly thereafter abandoned the craft for other kinds of fishing. For some reason, however, he kept his fly tying vice and thread and hooks, mostly unused, and a copy of Harvey's A Simplified Course in Fly Tying, stashed away in an old black suitcase. Years later as a child I discovered that case and would from time to time pull it out and ponder someday taking up fly tying and fly fishing. And I can still remember at about the age of ten the absolute excitement of picking out and buying with my own money my first fly rod, a seven-foot Eagle Claw, at the old Ace Auto store in downtown Washington, PA.

Well, finally that day came when I tackled my first clumsy attempts at tying a fly--a cork bass popper. At least it stuck to the hook and with a little green paint and deer hair legs it kind of looked like a frog. I can't recall ever catching anything on it, but I was hooked.

Number 1: The first memorable trout that got away came some years later on a tiny cork bug that I had duplicated on Dad's vice from an issue of Outdoor Life. Perhaps it wasn't fly tying in the classic sense with feathers and all, but it was fairly simple and the pictures of the fellow having a field day on the trout of Pennsylvania was good enough for me. I tied up a handful and waited eagerly for the day when I could actually try them out. I shall never forget the day that Dad took me to Dunbar Creek, and standing on the shore and flipping that cork bug into the middle of a deep still pool, and having the most extraordinary sensation of watching that trout, well over a foot long, come out of nowhere to rise and suck in that bug. And then to feverishly raise my rod tip and know it was hooked--the fight was on. After several minutes I had worked the trout to the edge of the stream, ready to lift him out, and swoosh....he was gone.

Number 2: Fishing for the first time in Colorado on a family vacation, wading in the Arkansas River upstream from Salida. My son-in-law for several days had been having a terrific time with his spinning rod catching and releasing brown trout of immense proportions, in my humble estimation. Did I tell you that I have never really been a very good fisherman? Well, let's just say I had not caught a one in the Arkansas. This was fly fishing a major trout river, a first for me, and I was obviously having trouble picking the right fly and fishing it in the right way. I was at least a little disappointed. I decided to tie on a Mickey Finn, a brightly colored streamer, casted it upstream and drifted it down in the edge of a deep current. And bam, a take! After several breathless minutes of the fight I finally saw this enormous brown trout ripping through the water with my fly in its mouth. Upstream, downstream, upstream! Around my feet, then gone again. Time and again I sought to get the net in just the right position. So close, then, with a final tug, the line went limp and the trout disappeared into the deep.

Number 3: Again fishing with my son-in-law--this time we were fishing in southwest North Carolina on Big Snowbird Creek, a nice size stream, but the water was running high and murky from recent rains. Neither of us were having much success, but I was glued to a particular deep hole that had several pockets, runs, submerged logs and boulders. Surely there had to be a trout lurking somewhere. Cast after cast--nothing, not even the slightest strike. I had to have been there nearly a couple of hours but who is counting time when you're fishing. This angle and that--nothing.

Finally, I cast across the current to the far bank where the exposed roots of a tree jutted out into a swirl that paused only a second or two before swept away in a rush. The current would pull the line away quickly, so it was only possible to drop the fly in the swirl in the hopes of enticing a trout that might have been taking refuge under the bank under the roots. It worked. The Black-nosed Dace hit the water, sunk a few inches, and swoosh--out rushed the trout, grabbed the fly, and immediately sought to retreat to his lair. Somehow I was able to bring him out into the current where the combination of the force of the water and the strength of a nice-sized fish again made the landing difficult. It went on for several minutes. But once again, alas, he was gone and so was the flex of the fly rod. It was over. I could only lean back against a larger boulder and sigh. Unbeknownst to me my son-in-law from behind had witnessed most of the ordeal.

The ones that got away. Did I really catch them? Well, yes and no. In the end, they got away. So near and yet so far....Well, enough about trout. What about men?

OF MEN: An inquirer recently asked: Does the OPC believe that one can lose his salvation once he has accepted Christ as his savior?

My answer follows:

Your question relates to the doctrine of "the perseverance of the saints." The OPC believes in the perseverance of the saints, which teaches that true saving faith perseveres unto eternal life. A person who has received eternal life does not lose it. In this regard, the OPC accepts the Westminster Confession of Faith (http://opc.org/wcf.html) as a faithful summary of what the Scripture teach on this important doctrine. Indeed an entire chapter is devoted to this very matter as follows:

WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH

CHAPTER 17
Of the Perseverance of the Saints

1. They, whom God hath accepted in his Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by his Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.

2. This perseverance of the saints depends not upon their own free will, but upon the immutability of the decree of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father; upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ, the abiding of the Spirit, and of the seed of God within them, and the nature of the covenant of grace: from all which ariseth also the certainty and infallibility thereof.

3. Nevertheless, they may, through the temptations of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins; and, for a time, continue therein: whereby they incur God's displeasure, and grieve his Holy Spirit, come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and comforts, have their hearts hardened, and their consciences wounded; hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves.

In scriptural terms, we can think of the prayer that Jesus says He prayed for Peter, when Satan sought to ‘sift him like wheat’ (Luke 22:31). Jesus says, however, “but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:32). Jesus obviously knows that Peter’s faith will not fail, for He knows that Peter shall turn again, even after his sorrowful three-fold denial, to prove himself as a faithful apostle. Yes, true Christians sometimes stumble, even fall into grievous sins; but they shall not finally and eternally fall away.

True faith, saving faith, is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8). The Westminster Shorter Catechism (http://opc.org/sc.html) says, “Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel” (Answer to Question 86). He who believes in Christ has eternal life (John 6:47). Jesus will lose none of those whom the Father has given to Him (compare John 6:37 with John 6:39). No one can snatch the true sheep of the Good Shepherd out of His hand (John 10:28). “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish” (John 10:27-28). True believers “are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (I Peter 1:5).

Still, we must recognize that not all who profess faith necessarily have true saving faith. The true, God-given faith perseveres to the end. But in the gospel of John, we read of folks who ‘believed’ in Christ, who eventually turned away from Him. That is, they believed He was a good teacher. They believed He could do miracles. They even believed to the extent that they wanted to make Him their earthly king John 6:15). But we read of some of those very followers of Christ (‘disciples’) who “withdrew, and were not walking with Him anymore” (John 6:66). They withdrew because they could not accept Jesus as the ‘true food’…‘the bread that came down out of heaven’ (John 6:53-58). Amazingly, this was just a short time after they had witnessed the feeding of the 5000 that they stopped following Him. And it is in that same context that Jesus speaks to the twelve, saying that He had chosen them, yet He knew that one of them was a devil (John 6:70).

Jesus knew whom He had chosen; He knew one would betray Him. We do not know God’s secret decrees, “For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him” (John 6:64). We cannot look into men’s hearts as Jesus the Son of God could. So it is that wolves sometimes disguise themselves as sheep and make their way into the church. Members are received into the church on their testimony and the credibility of their walk in keeping with those words. Elders should exercise great care in receiving members, but even so, they cannot be infallibly sure that true saving faith is at work in a person’s heart. Sometimes, those who seem to have faith, fall away and are lost, proving that their ‘faith’ was not real saving faith after all and that they were never really saved.

This is a most sobering and humbling truth. May God’s grace comfort and encourage you according to that true faith that looks to Jesus Christ alone for salvation from sin and Satan and death.

To God be the glory,

In Christ,

R. Daniel Knox, Pastor
Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Sewickley, PA

A River Runs Through It

A River Runs Through It--what is it about the movie that captures our attention and imagination? The artistry of fly fishing? The beauty of Montana? The aspirations and recollections of youth? The love story? The tragic life? Or the mystery of a river that runs through it?

I love rivers. I also love fly-fishing, even though I am not particularly good at it. But the book and the movie are about more than just fly-fishing.

Sixteen years before the movie had been produced, I had read a quote in a fishing magazine, not even realizing at the time that it was from the book A River Runs Through It. It was a fly-fishing columnist picking up on the humorous impression that a particular fly-fishing, Presbyterian minister had left upon his sons.

Listen to the author Norman Maclean:

"In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman."

The quote in the magazine ended there; but the book, I would discover years later, goes further.

"It is true that one day a week was given over wholly to religion. On Sunday mornings my brother, Paul, and I went to Sunday school and then to "morning services" to hear our father preach and then in the evening to Christian Endeavor and afterwards to "evening services" to hear our father preach again. In between on Sunday afternoons we had to study The Westminster Shorter Catechism for an hour and then recite before we could walk the hills with him while he unwound between services. But he never asked us more than the first question in the catechism, "What is the chief end of man?" And we answered together so one of us could carry on if the other forgot, "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever." This always seemed to satisfy him, as indeed such a beautiful answer should have, and besides he was anxious to be on the hills where he could restore his soul and be filled again to overflowing for the evening sermon. His chief way of recharging himself was to recite to us from the sermon that was coming, enriched here and there with selections from the most successful passages of his morning sermon.

“Even so, in a typical week of our childhood Paul and I probably received as many hours of instruction in fly fishing as we did in all other spiritual matters."

But wait! Is fly fishing a spiritual matter? Is that just a clever turn of phrase? Or does it mean we give ourselves to things of this world with religion-like fervor? Or is fly fishing or writing a book or producing a film a spiritual matter? Is going to school or the office or the factory or raising the children a spiritual matter? What is not a spiritual matter? Or to put it another way, is there one cubic inch in the universe that does not belong to God? Does not even a river tell us something about the God who made it? Hear Maclean also in his concluding lines:

"Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now I course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.

"Eventually, all thing merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

"I am haunted by waters."

Beautiful! The longing for the transcendent. Did you know there is a river that runs through the Scriptures that appears in the beginning, flows through the pages of history, and reaches out to eternity? Here are three texts to consider, one from the beginning, one from the middle, and one from the end of the Bible:

Genesis 2:10 "Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers."

Psalm 46:4
"There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,The holy dwelling places of the Most High."

Revelation 22:1-2 "Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street (On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

In the beginning God provided refreshment to the Garden He had made. His word speaks of the life and blessing He offers as refreshment to His people. It is no accident that the revelation of God in the flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ, speaks of Himself as the "living water." It is He who gives life and refreshment in a dry and thirsty land. It is He who waters the garden; it is He who makes glad the city of God; it is who He brings healing to the nations. The river precedes time, He appears in history; He goes somewhere; He has an end, a destination. So do we have an end, a destination, in Him--"to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever."

Of the Waters of Infant Baptism

Let's begin by wading into the water, the water of infant baptism, in the hopes of catching 'little ones'. The water seems shallow enough, but many have slipped on slippery stones, even close to shore, and many 'little ones' have gotten away. Any successful trout fisherman will tell you, you must first learn to 'read the water' to learn the secrets that lie underneath the surface.

Yes, Roman Catholicism says that infants should be baptized in the church. And they believe that infants need to saved from sin and the power of the devil. But their misunderstanding of the sacraments makes salvation dependent upon the power in the sacraments themselves, failing to understand the sacraments as signs and seals of the covenant of grace. This is a crucial distinction and difference from the faith professed in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

In the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter XXVIII, paragraphs 1 and 4, we in the OPC affirm the following:

1. "Baptism is a sacrament of the new testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church; but also, to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life. Which sacrament is, by Christ's own appointment, to be continued in his church until the end of the world."

4. "Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one, or both, believing parents, are to be baptized."

Further, in Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 95, we confess the following:

Q. 95. "To whom is baptism to be administered?"
A. "Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him; but the infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptized."

Underlying the importance of baptism in the Reformed churches like the OPC is the whole biblical understanding of the covenant. In the old covenant, the sign and seal of circumcision pointed to the covenant made with Abraham and his descendants the Jews. God promised to be their God and for them to be His people; He would be their shield and their great reward. All males were to be given the sign and seal of the covenant, namely circumcision. The descendants of Abraham and those received into his house were to be circumcised. In Romans 4:11, Paul describes circumcision as a sign and seal of a faith and salvation, which Abraham already had by God's grace. To be sure, not everyone circumcised in the covenant community (Israel) was saved, but only those who had true saving faith. Still the sign and seal were to be applied to the many, including the infants, before they evidenced any faith or not.

We confess (WCF XXV.II.) that the visible church, which is ... catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children. The new covenant includes both Jews and Gentiles. The new covenant like the old includes the believers and their children and also includes both privilege and responsibility.

Baptism marks a person as a member of the covenant community (the church). But baptism, like circumcision, does not save. It does, however, stand as a sign and seal of the covenant, pointing both the parents and the child to the promises and the warnings, the privileges and the responsibilities of being included in the covenant in the church.

We believe baptism sets us apart from the world. Scripture says that the children of a believing parent(s) are holy (I Cor. 7).

The baptism of our children says to them that they belong not to themselves but to God in Christ. Therefore, they are continually reminded and called by their baptism to covenant faithfulness. Woe to that child who does not improve upon his baptism, who does not repent and believe. Like a Bethsaida or Jerusalem to whom the ministry of Christ had come, only to be rejected, how great will be the woe to come upon the child who does not respond to God's covenant faithfulness and His testimony of compassion and love in Christ.

In a certain sense, infant baptism epitomizes covenant grace. Like the child who cannot understand, who cannot say yes or no, the baptism of an infant points to the wonderful truth that our sovereign God saves the weak, the helpless. Again, I say, God speaks to us through baptism; it is, as it were, a sermon in picture (sign) and an awesome confirmation that binds us to the covenant (seal).

We acknowledge that the covenant sign and seal set before us both God's covenant blessing and curse, both promise and warning. The child included among those receiving the covenant privileges of the ministry of word, sacrament, and discipline are more than doubly accountable. Not only are they created and included in the original covenant with Adam, but they are privileged to be accounted among the people of God. Thus, their baptism continually beckons them to obedience and faith.

Baptism no more saves our children than circumcision saved an Esau, for example. Nevertheless, the sign of the covenant testifies to us and to our children of the new covenant. Baptism is not so much what we say to God as it is God's testimony to us. It says to us that it is God alone who saves, God alone who washes and sanctifies. It is the washing of the Spirit from above, the washing that comes through the blood of Christ, that saves us.

This will have to do this evening for a first lesson in 'reading the water', an essential in 'man-fishing'.