Some theological thought on CWM "Chichi no Namida(The Tears of The Father)"
Some theological thought on CWM "Chichi no Namida(The Tears of The Father)"
In Japanese Churches, so called CWM(Contemporary Worship Music) are widely used. Some CWM are theologically dangerous. Here is an example:One of the most popular CWMs in Japan is "Chichi no Namida(The Tears of The Father)"Original song is in Japanese. Here I tried to do its English translation.
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"Chichi no Namida(The Tears of The Father)"
1.
The sorrow of the Father is filling our hearts,
He put His beloved Son on the cross;
Men's sins are like flaming fire,
Without knowing love, days are passing.
2.
What the Father was watching was
His beloved Son bruised
bearing the sins of men on Himself
asking "Father forgive them."
The fountain overflowing from the Cross
Is the Tears of The Father,
The fountain overflowing from the Cross
Is the Love of Jesus.
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-----Let's look at the Westminster Confession of Faith with some proof texts.----------
Chapter X I OF JUSTIFICATION
III. Christ, by his obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are thus justified, and did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to his Fatherfs justice in their behalf.[6] Yet, inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them;[7] and his obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead;[8] and both, freely, not for anything in them; their justification is only of free grace;[9] that both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners.[10]
[6] Isaiah 53:4-6, 10-12. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.... Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
[7] Romans 8:32. He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? [8] 2 Corinthians 5:21. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
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-----When we take a close look at "Chichi no namida," Isaiah 53:10 would be one of the key verses, so we would like to see the comments on this verse by Matthew Henry and John Gill. --------------
"Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him"(Isaiah 53:10)
He submitted to the frowns of Heaven (v. 10): Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, to put him to pain, or torment, or grief. The scripture nowhere says that Christ in his sufferings underwent the wrath of God; but it says here, (1.) That the Lord bruised him, not only permitted men to bruise him, but awakened his own sword against him, Zech. xiii. 7. They esteemed him smitten of God for some very great sin of his own (v. 4); now it was true that he was smitten of God, but it was for our sin; the Lord bruised him, for he did not spare him, but delivered him up for us all, Rom. viii. 32. He it was that put the bitter cup into his hand, and obliged him to drink it (John xviii. 11), having laid upon him our iniquity. He it was that made him sin and a curse for us, and turned to ashes all his burnt-offering, in token of the acceptance of it, Ps. xx. 3. (2.)
(Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible )
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"Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him"(Isaiah 53:10) The sufferings of Christ are signified by his being "bruised"; See Gill on "Isa 53:5", and as it was foretold he should have his heel bruised by the serpent, Ge 3:15, but here it is ascribed to the Lord: he was bruised in body, when buffeted and scourged, and nailed to the cross; and was bruised and broken in spirit, when the sins of his people were laid on him, and the wrath of God came upon him for them: the Lord had a hand in his sufferings; he not only permitted them, but they were according to the counsel of his will; they were predetermined by him, Ac 2:23
(Exposition of the Old and New Testaments by John Gill)
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We should keep the propitiatory nature of the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;" (Romans 3:25) Jesus Christ is the great propitiation, or propitiatory sacrifice, typified by the hilasterion, or mercy-seat, under the law. He is our throne of grace, in and through whom atonement is made for sin, and our persons and performances are accepted of God, 1 John ii. 2. He is all in all in our reconciliation, not only the maker, but the matter of it--our priest, our sacrifice, our altar, our all. God was in Christ as in his mercy-seat, reconciling the world unto himself. God hath set him forth to be so. God, the party offended, makes the first overtures towards a reconciliation, appoints the days-man; proetheto--fore-ordained him to this, in the counsels of his love from eternity, appointed, anointed him to it, qualified him for it, and has exhibited him to a guilty world as their propitiation. See Matt. iii. 17, and xvii. 5. That by faith in his blood we become interested in this propitiation. Christ is the propitiation; there is the healing plaster provided. Faith is the applying of this plaster to the wounded soul. And this faith in the business of justification hath a special regard to the blood of Christ, as that which made the atonement; for such was the divine appointment that without blood there should be no remission, and no blood but his would do it effectually. Here may be an allusion to the sprinkling of the blood of the sacrifices under the law, as Exod. xxiv. 8. Faith is the bunch of hyssop, and the blood of Christ is the blood of sprinkling......
........That God does in all this declare his righteousness. This he insists upon with a great deal of emphasis: To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness. It is repeated, as that which has in it something surprising. He declares his righteousness, First, In the propitiation itself. Never was there such a demonstration of the justice and holiness of God as there was in the death of Christ. It appears that he hates sin, when nothing less than the blood of Christ would satisfy for it. Finding sin, though but imputed, upon his own Son, he did not spare him, because he had made himself sin for us, 2 Cor. v. 21. The iniquities of us all being laid upon him, though he was the Son of his love, yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, Isa. liii. 10. Secondly, In the pardon upon that propitiation; so it follows, by way of explication: That he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth. Mercy and truth are so met together, righteousness and peace have so kissed each other, that it is now become not only an act of grace and mercy, but an act of righteousness, in God, to pardon the sins of penitent believers, having accepted the satisfaction that Christ by dying made to his justice for them. It would not comport with his justice to demand the debt of the principal when the surety has paid it and he has accepted that payment in full satisfaction. See 1 John i. 9. He is just, that is, faithful to his word.
(Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible)
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---------Also we would like to share the comment by Matthew Henry on Matthew 27:46.-------
"And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? " (Matthew 27:46) That our Lord Jesus was, in his sufferings, for a time, forsaken by his Father. So he saith himself, who we are sure was under no mistake concerning his own case. .......but his Father forsook him; that is, First, He delivered him up into the hands of his enemies, and did not appear to deliver him out of their hands. He let loose the powers of darkness against him, and suffered them to do their worst, worse than against Job. Now was that scripture fulfilled (Job xvi. 11), God hath turned me over into the hands of the wicked; and no angel is sent from heaven to deliver him, no friend on earth raised up to appear for him. Secondly, He withdrew from him the present comfortable sense of his complacency in him. When his soul was first troubled, he had a voice from heaven to comfort him (John xii. 27, 28); when he was in his agony in the garden, there appeared an angel from heaven strengthening him; but now he had neither the one nor the other. God hid his face from him, and for awhile withdrew his rod and staff in the darksome valley. God forsook him, not as he forsook Saul, leaving him to an endless despair, but as sometimes he forsook David, leaving him to a present despondency. Thirdly, He let out upon his soul an afflicting sense of his wrath against man for sin. Christ was made Sin for us, a Curse for us; and therefore, though God loved him as a Son, he frowned upon him as a Surety. These impressions he was pleased to admit, and to waive that resistance of them which he could have made; because he would accommodate himself to this part of his undertaking, as he had done to all the rest, when it was in his power to have avoided it. That Christ's being forsaken of his Father was the most grievous of his sufferings, and that which he complained most of. Here he laid the most doleful accents; he did not say, "Why am I scourged? And why spit upon? And why nailed to the cross?" Nor did he say to his disciples, when they turned their back upon him, Why have ye forsaken me? But when his Father stood at a distance, he cried out thus; for this as it that put wormwood and gall into the affliction and misery. This brought the waters into the soul, Ps. lxix. 1-3.
(Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible)
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------------CONCLUSION-------------
We cannot deny that the Lord Jesus Christ was the beloved Son of the Father God. "And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased(Matt. 3:17)" But at the crucifixion, we see no such description in the Bible. Rather the wrath of the Father God is manifested on the Cross, and our Lord Jesus Christ was the propitiation so that the justice of God could be satisfied. Christ's atonement was vicarious. "He took the place of sinners, that their guilt was imputed , and their punishment transferred , to Him. .. The sufferings of Christ were not just the sympathetic sufferings of a friend, but the substitutionary sufferings of the Lamb of God for the sin of the world"---Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology(W.B. Eerdmans 1996), p 376 Can we find some description of "the tears of the Father" or some verses that could be proof texts for asserting that the wrath of the Father was somewhat weakened at the time when the Lord Jesus cried in Matthew 27:46 in the Bible? When people sing "The fountain overflowing from the Cross is the Tears of The Father," aren't there any possibilities that a kind of sentimentalism is nurtured and thus it paves the way to the wrong doctrines? Would it not be possible that we weaken, lessen, or even demean the significance of the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ if we allow this kind of sentimentalism? It seems to me that the author/composer of this song is exceeding the limit(What we call Regulative Principle which is nothing but Sola Scriptura principle) by adding something humanistic and sentimental to the Crucifixion. In doing so he would water down the significance of the propitiatory sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.(Which is almost heretic!)
Copyright © 2006 Shu Suzuki
18.06.
The Law of God by Ralph Swanson (English)
THE LAW OF GOD
A HANDBOOK FOR CHRISTIANS
BY RALPH SWANSON
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1 The Attempt to Escape the Law
Chpater 2 What is the Law of God?
Chapter 3 The Use of the Law
The First Use
The Second Use
The Third Use
Chpter 4 The Importance of the Law
(In Relation to Other Doctrines)
Sin and Law
Redemption and the Law
Conversion and the Law
The Law as a Covenant
gLoveh and the Law
Christian Liberty and the Law
Chapter 5 The Holy Law of God
Chapter 6 Preaching the Law
Appendix A Scripture Used to Defend Antinomianism
Appendix B The Sabbath
Appendix C gPicturesh of Christ
The Ten Commandments
Bibliography
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He that is dark as touching the scope, intent, and nature of the Law is also dark as touching the scope, nature, and glory of the Gospel. I say therefore, if thou wouldst know the authority and power of the Gospel, labor first to know the power and authority of the Law. For I am verily persuaded that the want of this one thing, namely, the knowledge of the Law is the one cause why so many are ignorant of the otherc Again, that man that doth not know the nature of the Law, that man doth not know the nature of sin; and that man that knoweth not the nature of sin, will not regard to know the nature of a Savior.
With this quotation by John Bunyan in THE DOCTRINE OF LAW AND GRACE UNFOLDED(1659), we introduce the second book of this series. It has been our conviction that a number of the most important areas of Chrsitian truth and knowledge remain virtually unknown to many in the churches. We sing the words, gI know I shall see in His beauty The King in whose Law I delight,h but have only indistinct notions of what that Law is. With this in mind, we have prepared this Manual to aid Christians in the study of Godfs Holy Law.
The Word of God is a sharp, two-edged sword(Heb. 4:12). The two cutting edges have been called the Law and the Gospel. Only those sinners who mourn from being cut with the Law will be comforted by the good news of the Gospel. The message of justification by the Grace of God becomes a meaningless and irrelevant platitude outside of the context of the condemnation and guilt of a broken Law.
Not only has much of the visible church abandoned the Law in evangelism, but it is becoming relatively unknown as Godfs standard for the Christianfs behavior. Our prayer is that this handbook will be of great spiritual value to each one who reads it and that it will encourage you toward more diligent sutday of the Word.
Ralph Swanson
Dec. 1977
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Chapter 1
THE ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE THE LAW
During the last half of the 20th century, we are seeing an accelerated movement against law and authority. Since God is the ultimate authority and lawgiver, this rebellion may be seen as increasing sin against the Law of God. Unfortunately, this has not been restricted to the gworldh but is quite obvious in much of the visible church also. The Law, probably the second most important teaching of the Word, has fallen into disuse, and ignorance about its meaning is widespread. The purpose of this manual is to explore this problem that confronts the Christian, to discover the use of the Law and God, and to study the meaning of the Law of God itself.
Man and The Law in History
Our first parents did not set a good example for their descendants to follow. God created Adam and Eve with his Moral Law written in their hearts[Rom. 2:15]. Besides this, God gave them a special law forbidding them to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil upon the penalty of death[Gen. 2:17]. Apparently it was not long before they rebelled against their Creator. By this disobedience they caused all mankind that followed them by natural generation to fall into a state of sin, misery, and spiritual death, under the wrath and curse of God. Man thus entered his present hopeless condition. Godfs intervention in mercy is his only hope of deliverance.
The people of the antediluvian world [between Adam and the Flood] quickly departed from the Law of God following the Fall. Adam and Evefs first son killed his brother; lawlessness increased, so that by the time of Noah, his and his family alone were chosen to be preserved from the judgment that destroyed the earthfs entire population.
The period from the Flood to the giving of the Law in codified form to Moses and the Israelites at Sinai proved to be little better. Even the gbesth of the people whose lives and faith have been chronicled by God in the Bible made gross violations of Godfs Law. Practically every type of perversion to the Moral Law is recorded between Genesis 9 and Exodus 20. However, now, after God gave his Will in a more definite way at Sinai, one would think that visible sin would be almost eliminated! Such was not the case. Even with threatenings and penalties to the extent of death for the breaking of many of the precepts, infractions seemed to have abounded in most periods of Israelfs history. The gentile world continued as they were before, not having the Law given to them in an oral or written form directly by God.
However, with the rise of governments, God impressed rulers to order much of their domain according to many of his moral precepts. Most of the ancient civilizations also patterned their laws to some extent after what they knew of Israelfs Law in addition to the Law that was written in their conscience.
After the coming of our Lord Jesus and His command to reach the Gospel to the ends of the world, we can see the effect of Godfs Law in many countries and in many eras. Outward conformity to Godfs Law occurred among the general populace in periods of religious revival even in the unregenerate. This can especially be noted in Europe, in the countries where the protestant reformation took place with its return to Biblical teaching, and also in Great Britain and America in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Even though there have always been the forces of the devil and fallen human nature pulling society away from God and His Law, this rebellion has intensified in the past 100 years. Not only has Godfs Moral Law been under attack, but all law including Godfs Laws which control the physical universe, the world of gnature.h Darwin helped to introduce the concept that it was impossible to speak of gabsoluteh law as he believed the universe evolved by means of chance variations. The only real glawh was the gLaw of change.h This has come to mean that moral glawh is actually only social custom and statistical averages of a particular society. Our courts have adopted this philosophy as their decisions are now made on the basis of society gnormsh and attitudes rather than on the absolutes of the Law of God.
Not only has man rejected God, his Maker, and His Law for manfs behavior, but he is actively and purposefully trying to break this Law to somehow gproveh his autonomy and that God does not really exist after all! Declaring oneself outwardly of being an atheist has become popular, even in certain gchurches,h and condoning the acceptance of the most radical and bizarre forms of sin is now commonplace among many well-known public figures. Practically unthought of sins a few years ago are now being acted out by increasing numbers in many of the formerly gChristian and civilizedh countries of the world.
Organized Religion and God's Moral Law
Unfortunately, much of organized Christianity throughout history has reflected the thinking and mood of the world. The spirit of our age is permissiveness and lawlessness. This has had great influence on the church with "situation ethics" becoming the doctrin of many. Just to mention a case in point, the humanistic notion of population control has caused the legalization of murder in the abortion of unwanted children in much of the world. Since t his was legalized in the United States, more have been killed than the six million Jews Hitler killed. Many churches ["synagogues of Satan" might be a better description of them!] are now wholeheartedly endorsing this policy.
Not only has the church been greatly affected by the opinion of the wicked of the world, but antinomianism [the doctrine that God's Moral Law has no use to believers in the New Testament era] from time to time has invaded the organized church. This is true in our present century as many professing believers assert that the Old Testament and even parts of the New Testament are not for this present "dispensation". These deceived people even reject portions of the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ such as his "Sermon on the Mount" found in Matthew 5-7. Some extreme views go so far as to declare that only a few pages of Scriptures are for us today!
The term "legalism" in theology used to designate a theory of justification by works. However this has been redifined in much of the church as meaning the obligation of obedience to the Moral Law in the Christian life, carrying with it the bad meaning of the former usage. All this with man's natural tendency to hate the Moral Law of God has caused it to fall into great disuse in most of Christendom.
The Church in Japan
Regrettably, practices and attitudes from the western world have a great influence in Japan. The churches often reflect the same weakenesses as seen in America and in other countries, show great strength, particularly in the face of persecution. However, the Moral Law of God has received little attention in many places. One glaring evidence of this is the idolatry permitted [or winked at] as professing Christians do not separate themselves completely from Buddhist and Shinto traditional practices.
"They feared Jehovah, and served their own gods." [II Kings 17:33]
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Chapter 2
WHAT IS THE LAW OF GOD?
The word "law" [torah in Hebrew, nomos in Greek] has many uses in the Scripture. The word "law" is used over 300 times in the Old Testament and over 250 times in the New Testament. It can refer to a law in general, a principle, a force or influence impelling to action[Rom. 7:21, 23a], The Law given at Sinai, the Moral Law, the ceremonial part of the Law, the 5 books of Moses [the Pentateuch], to mention the most important uses. Because we are studying the Moral Law of God, we will only investigate this usage. This occurs about 200 times in the Bible signifying the revealed will of God with respect to human conduct.
From the creation of Adam and Eve, God gave man his Moral Law, implanted in the human conscience and bound mankind to perfect and perpetual obedience of it by the whole person, in soul and body. [He also gave Adam and Eve a special command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.] After the fall into sin, this Moral Law continued to be the perfect rule of righteousness from Adam to Moses. However, God was pleased to give a summary of his Moral Law to Israel in about the year 1444 BC. To use the wording of the answer to Question 98in the Larger Catechism: "The Moral Law is summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments, which were delivered by the voice of God upon Mount Sinai, and written by him on two tables of stone; and recorded in the twentieth chapter of Exodus; the first four commandments containing our duty to God, and the other six our duty to man."
Various supplemental details of the Moral Law are found throughout the Old and New Testaments that relate back to the main principles found in the Ten Commandments. In Chapter 5, we will look at some of these commands. Also, the first 4 commands of the Moral Law can be further condensed as seen in [1]Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Matthew 22:37, etc., as perfect love toward Jehovah God. The last 6 commands which is our duty toward man can be summed up as it is in Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:39, etc., "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself". The apostle Paul reduces the Law even further in one word, "love". We have then one duty but it has many forms. The Law tells us how to perform this duty. Each separate commandment requires love and obedience. Sin is defined as any failure to completely obey the Moral Law as well as actual disobedience of it. Holiness means perfect conformity to the Law of God, which is the expression of the divine will, God's standard has never changed. [Matthew 5:18]
Besides the Moral Law, God gave certain other kinds of commandments. Therefore the "Mosaic Law" or the Law given during the year that the children of Israel camped at Mt. Sinai [also called Mt. Horeb] can be divided into three categories: The Moral Law, The Ceremonial Law, and The Civil Law.
11.03.
FAQ About my stand concerning the Contemporary Worship Music(CWM)/Praise Songs
FAQ About my stand concerning the Contemporary Worship Music(CWM)/Praise Songs
By Shu Suzuki
Q 1: You mean we cannot sing CWM, do we?
A 1: No, I donft mean that we cannot sing CWM. It is legitimate that we sing CWM as far as the text of the CWM is biblical and the music is in good quality, in other words agreeing with the principle of Sola Scriptura.
Q 2: Can we use the style of rock music for CWM?
A 2: Maybe not. Because we have to always think of the cultural context. As far as I know there are several styles of music such as rock music or some genre of Jazz music that stem from voodooism which is nothing but Satanism. Music is the vessel of the text. In other words music must meet the quality of the text. Singing verses of the Bible with the tune of rock music is somewhat like serving delicious meal using a bedpan or a potty.
Q 3: You say gstyles in the cultural context.h Concerning music, how can we tell which is good or bad in quality.
A 3: First of all, we are not standing on the cultual relativism. The cultural relativism claims that every culture is equal and legitimate, and there is nothing like superior culture or inferior culture. But this is against the Biblical Principle. Please look at the following verses from the Bible.
"And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;
That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ. "
Philippians 1:9-11
Here, Paul clearly says that we have to value and discern all things according to the Christian Worldview. There are cultures/civilizations which are excellent and which are not.
The ultimate standard is the Bible. At the same time we are to be well-connected to the roots of Christendom. Though we have to always check Christian traditions by the word of God with sola scriptura principle.
(To be continued)
03.03.
Third Culture Kids
According to the statistics of Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and Yomiuri Newspaper(Dec 2, 2005), 1 out of 20 newly wed couples in the year 2000 is between Japanese and non-Japanese(International marriage). In terms of Tokyo area, and Osaka area, the figures become lager, 1 in 10 marriages and 1 in 12 marriages, respectively
Between time period of 1990 to 2000, the total number of the international marriage incresed from 25626 to 36263. During that time, marriage between Japanese is increased from 722138 to 798138 The percerntage of international marrage increases by
What does this mean?
1)The population of the children between international marriage is rapidly increasing on the other hand chilrden from the indeginous japanese people are dercereasing
Copyright© 2006 Shu Suzuki
(To be continued)
03.03.