Please open your Bibles tonight to the first chapter of John's Gospel. We're going to be dealing with a very difficult topic tonight, deconstructionism in our study of the isms that confront us in society today. And I'm going to try to make this very clear and to deal with it also in a very practical way. And I want us to begin by looking at the first few verses of John's gospel. I'll read the first four verses and then we'll jump down and read a couple of verses later on. Under the inspiration of God's spirit, John writes, In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And now verse 14, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And then also verse 18, No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the father, he hath declared him. And thus, we have the reading of God's word for this Lord's Day evening. If you've never studied modern literary theory, you may not be familiar with the term deconstructionism. Basically, deconstructionism is the application of postmodernism to literature. And one of the basic ideas of postmodernism, as we saw a few weeks ago, is that you get to determine your own reality. And when you apply this to literature, what it means is that there is no objective meaning in any written text. You need to disregard the author's background and culture. You need to disregard any clues that he may have given you in his work to help you understand his work, because these things are not determinative of the meaning. A text can only be understood if it has first been deconstructed and then reconstructed by the reader. And so in the end, the only context that matters is yours. Your job is to interpret the text according to its relationship to your situation. Now, the one name that is most commonly identified with deconstructionism is the Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida. And his most famous quote is, there is nothing outside the text. In fact, on other occasions, he even says there's no such thing as context. Well, Derrida was largely influenced by Martin Heidegger, who was a German philosopher and existentialist who supported the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler. Heidegger actually used the word destructionism But when Derrida was developing deconstructionism, he thought that that term was too harsh. And so he preferred to call it deconstructionism rather than destructionism. In any case, these two men, Derrida and Heidegger, were part of a movement and philosophy that basically seeks to annihilate meaning and language. And of course, that's not just a neutral goal that they have, their ultimate goal is really to make it impossible to say anything meaningful about God. Now, although deconstructionism is only one aspect of postmodernism, it really does deserve a discussion all to itself. And the reason for that is clear, and that is that the arrows of deconstructionism are aimed at the heart of the gospel because deconstructionism attacks the integrity of the word. If each reader supplies his own meaning for the Bible. Then the Bible has as many meanings as it does readers, which in the end means that it really has no specific meaning at all. Now, if you don't think that deconstructionism has affected how people talk about the Bible, just consider the following relatively common statements that you might hear from Christians. For example, in discussing a particular Bible verse, Someone might say, this is what God's word means to me. The assumption is when you add the words to me there that God's word may mean something completely different to somebody else. That's deconstructionism. Or again, ideas and sermons are occasionally dismissed with a handy, that's just the preacher's opinion. Well, it may be. After all, there's no preacher alive whose mind is fully conformed to the word of God, mind least of all. But it would indeed be a very dangerous thing to throw that phrase out without first consulting the Bible to determine whether or not what this preacher said is also God's opinion. Another example, one that I'm hearing more frequently, not here, I don't mean, but outside and talking to others, and that is that Christianity is life, not doctrine. In other words, what you what you believe is not nearly as important as how you live. Now, admittedly, Comments like these do not represent a well-developed deconstructionist philosophy. But there are many individuals who have built their theologies on principles of deconstructionism. We find it in liberal churches, in evangelical churches, and even in Roman Catholic churches. And let me just give you two examples of what I mean. The first is one that I've been doing some reading on lately. It's called narrative theology, or sometimes it's referred to as post-liberal theology. Now, before post-liberal theology came along, Karl Barth, a German liberal theologian, taught that the Bible is not itself the word of God, but rather it becomes the word of God when it speaks to you as an individual. So when you are in some kind of a crisis situation or some verse that applies to you and moves you in some way, It becomes the word of God at that point. However, Barthes also said that the Bible is not unique in this regard because the same thing can be said about any other literature from Shakespeare to Playboy magazine, I suppose. But his form of liberalism was very individualistic. The Bible speaks to you as an individual. God speaks in your hour of need. Now, that idea is bad enough, but narrative theology actually goes one step further than that. Reacting to the individualism of earlier liberalism, it says that Christianity is really the culture of a living tradition of communal life. It says that the doctrines of the Bible are the language that we speak. But what those doctrines mean is constantly being shaped and reshaped by the continuous reading of the biblical narrative in new historical context. Now, note here with this that as with postmodernism in general, there is no objective truth and narrative theology. It's always on the move. Its meaning is never fixed. It's never anything more than how it's understood and applied in a specific culture and at a specific point of time. And narrative theologians do this on purpose because they do not believe that any individual's experiences are broad enough to embrace what the culture as a whole needs. Now, the second example that I would give to you is probably closer to home than narrative theology, although that's coming into evangelical churches and has been for a while. And that's the federal vision, as it's espoused in particular by Steve Wilkins. Steve Wilkins is, as you may know, a PCA minister from Monroe, Louisiana. And it was his church that hosted the conferences a few years ago that ignited a major discussion of the doctrine of justification. Now, our Senate, of course, did a report on federal vision. And I was assigned to write the section on Steve Wilkins. Now, Wilkins has not written a lot, except maybe on the Civil War and extolling the southern states and so forth. But from the little bit that he has written on this subject and also from interviews with him that have been published in various places, it becomes clear very soon that Steve Wilkins holds to two competing theologies. And he pretty much says that at times. He says he has one theology that he uses to answer questions in theological exams is when he had to give an account of his theology before his presbytery. And then he says he has another theology that he uses to minister comfort to little old women with weak faith. Now, I can't tell you what Wilkins motives for having two theologies might be. And I don't intend to guess why he would do that. However, I do believe with all my heart that his position and the theology of the federal vision camp in general completely lack integrity. Do not the great doctrines of the faith as they have been given to us by the writers of scripture and set forth in our confessions and understood and explained and embraced by the church for 2000 years, meet the needs of God's people. Clearly, our sinus thought so when he wrote in the first answer to question one of our catechism that our only comfort is that we belong to Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Spirit effected a perfect work of salvation for us that is solely by grace and without any merit of our own. Now, if this theology is inadequate for answering questions on the floor of presbytery, or if it's inadequate to answer questions when little old ladies come who are weak in their faith, then we have a very serious problem as Christians. But then I ask, what can we expect? What can we expect when liberals and evangelicals, now for over 100 years, have been influenced by philosophers from Bertrand Russell to Ludwig Wittgenstein to Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida, who tell us that there is no meaning to language? How can God himself be known when theological language is dismissed as nothing more than poetry and pointers, were metaphors and analogies. Indeed, the complaints of the logical positivists of the early 20th century, who were fiercely anti-Christian, was not that theology is false, but that it was utter nonsense. They claimed, you see, that the word God has no meaning whatsoever. Now, what we want to look at tonight and see from Scripture is that the entire Bible screams against deconstructionism. And that's true, because every word in the Bible assumes its own truthfulness. Every thus saith the Lord bases the unchangeableness of Scripture on the unchangeableness of the God who gave it. And Jesus sealed this for us when he said to the Jews that the scriptures cannot be broken. To safeguard the integrity of his word, the Lord also pronounced a curse against anyone who might intentionally change it. This warning was given, of course, not only in the book of Deuteronomy, but it was repeated at the end of the book of Revelation. These verses are like a divine copyright. And it really irritates me, I must say, when I pick up newer translations of the Bible and find that they have been copyrighted by whatever publishing house has funded the translation. Because in the end, the only copyright that really matters is the copyright of God himself. Who can safeguard the integrity of his word better than God? Does not God himself say in Psalm 138 that he magnifies his word above his own name? If his name is so precious to him that he protects it in the third commandment, then what does that tell you about how much he loves his word? You might say, well, why does God love his word so much? And the answer is because his written word from beginning to end tells us about his incarnate word, the Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus rose from the dead, he talked with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And Luke chapter 24 says, In beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And what this verse does not say, in a sense, is as important as what it does say, because it does not say merely that Jesus showed them all the scriptures that happened to speak about himself as if there were some who did not. But rather, it says that he showed them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself, every word of the Old Testament. was meant to lead men to Jesus Christ. And later on that same day, when he met with his disciples in the upper room, he said, These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning me. In fact, Jesus is so central to the Gospel message that the Apostle John often referred to him simply as the Word. We see this here in the first chapter of John's Gospel. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word was made flesh. We see it also in his first epistle. He says, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life. The incarnate word is none other than the eternal son of God, the second person of the glorious Trinity. And everything that John wrote about this word in the first four verses of our text tonight make this clear. Let's look at what John says here. First of all, he tells us that the word was in the beginning. That is, when God created the heavens and the earth and Genesis chapter one, the word already existed. The Greek word that's translated was in verse one does not mean only that he happened to be there at the precise moment of creation, but rather that he was and continued to exist. He existed beforehand and continued to exist throughout the period known as the beginning. And so, in other words, in just those couple of words at the beginning of this verse, John is asserting very clearly the eternity of the word. The word himself is unchangeable, and so also is the written record of that word. The written record is unchangeable because it's based on the character of the incarnate word. Next, John tells us that the word was with God. Now, here we might be tempted to say, so what? After all, Judas was with Jesus for three years during his earthly ministry. Does the fact that he was with Jesus suggest anything about him? Of course not. The mere presence of one person with another does not require the first person to be like the second. But that's not really what John wrote here. That's not what he means. His meaning goes far beyond that. The preposition that's translated with in verse one really stresses the equality of the parties. John is telling us here that quite literally, as a matter of fact, that the word stood face to face with God and the most and the closest possible fellowship. This relationship was so close that the word even shared in the father's glory. That's what Jesus said in his high priestly prayer in John 17. He said, and now, oh, father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. And you see, there's even a hint of this in verse 14. That's why we read verse 14 a minute ago. It's stressing the glory of the incarnate word. John says that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And then to dispel any lingering doubts about what all of this means, John wrote at the end of verse one, And the Word was God. That is, the Word was everything that God is and always was and always will be. And He's fully everything that God is. Our Nicene Creed states it clearly when it says that He is God of God, light of light, very God of very God. Because He is God, naturally He was with God in the beginning. That's what verse two says. He wasn't alone, but he was in the eternal fellowship of the Father and the Holy Spirit. Because he is God, all things were made by him and without him no created thing was made. That's in verse three. And because he is God, he is life itself and he has chosen to impart that life to man. That's verse four. Now go down to verse 14. Here John says that this word that has existed eternally as God also at a point in time became flesh. And why did he do so? Was it not to reveal the Father's glory in the salvation of sinners? Now verse 18 is even more explicit on this point. John says here, no man has seen God at any time. The only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the father, he hath declared him. Now, this one verse is particularly important for the seminary because it teaches us the proper method of dealing with God's word, and that's exegesis. Because the word that's translated declared here is literally the word exegesis in the Greek. And what exegesis means is that when we exegete the Bible, we draw out the meaning that is already in the written word. And when Jesus exegeted his father, he brought out in his person and in all of his teaching what the father is. In fact, Jesus was such a perfect manifestation of his father that he could say something that no one else could ever say. We find it in the 14th chapter of John's gospel. He that hath seen me hath seen the father. Now, let me ask you, after looking at these things, these statements that are made about the word, do words mean something? You better believe it. Words mean things because God chose to reveal his incarnate word through his written word. He created human language for that purpose, and therefore, we can be absolutely sure that language is adequate to convey divine truth. That's its main purpose. Now, deconstructionism denies that the authors of any work have an ethical responsibility to make their meaning clear. It also denies that readers have an ethical responsibility to the author to interpret his words in accord with his intent, which sometimes is explicit and sometimes not. You know, this ethical principle that I'm talking here about here is really just a very basic application of the ninth commandment, that we are not to twist anyone's words. Once we start twisting words, we're left with absolutely nothing. The written word of God has no particular meaning. The incarnate word and the salvation that he came into this world to give us become unknowable and God if he exists, is forever shrouded in the darkness of men's minds. But thank God that of his great mercy, he gave us the light of the gospel so that we might know eternal truth. Now, to take this one step further, Words mean something to us because God created us to use words. We think in words, we think in propositions. That's what we heard this morning, the primacy of the intellect in man. This is part of what the Bible means, in fact, when it says that we are made in God's image. Perhaps it's even the most fundamental part, since we cannot obey God unless we first understand what he wants us to do. But understanding words is only part of the equation. We also have a responsibility to speak words. We must speak true words as the ninth commandment requires us. As image bearers of God, our words must mean something. If the Lord magnifies his word above his own name, then our word must be just as precious to us as God's word is to him. Until about a year and a half ago, I had a particular view of the Ninth Commandment that was similar to John Frame's. John Frame, along with many others, he's not alone in this by any means, believes that there are circumstances in which lying is the right thing to do. For example, if you lived in Europe in the 1940s and the Nazis came to your door looking for Jews, he recommends that you deny that you are protecting any. Frame argues that to give murderers information that would help them carry out their crimes would make you a co-conspirator in their murders and thus just as guilty. as they are. He says that you also have a have a have a responsibility to protect those who entrusted themselves to your care and also a responsibility to the Nazis to have enough love for them to to prevent them from adding more murders to their infamous resumes. Now, in stating his position, Frame cites several passages of scripture. And we only have time tonight to consider one of them. And that's when Joshua sent the spies to Jericho. You remember that Rahab, the harlot, received them, hid them, sent them back a different way. And then she lied to the authorities about where they were. Hebrews 11 cites Rahab in the Great Hall of Faith, noting that she believed in God and received the spies in peace. And then James chapter two goes even further than that, commending Rahab, saying that Rahab the harlot was justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way. And so the question is, if the Lord commended Rahab for lying to protect the lives of others, then is it not permissible and perhaps even necessary for us to do the same in similar circumstances? Now, as I said, this is more or less the position that I held to until about a year and a half ago. And you might say, well, what changed my mind on this? Well, it was actually took place when my wife and I went back to Maryland for my grandmother's funeral. We went to my mother's church there. And one of the elders of the church that Sunday was basically saying the same thing that I've just said that frame says and others say. And as he was teaching, I looked at the passages of Scripture that he cited and realized for the first time that none of them say what he said they said. Not one of them actually says that God commends lying, even in the passage in James that I just quoted. concerning Rahab. It says that Rahab was applauded for two things, receiving the spies and sending them a different way. But it does not say that she was commended for lying to the king's representatives. After Sunday school was over that morning, one of the other elders in my mother's church challenged the elder who was teaching, raising the very same concerns that I had had. And what followed was a very heated, though friendly debate that the second elder promised would be continued at the next session meeting. Now, where does this leave us then? What should we say to Nazis who come to the house looking for Jews? Should we lie to protect the Jews or should we tell the Nazis where they are? I have come to believe, as I've looked at this issue, that the right answer, what I believe is the biblical answer, has been laid out most clearly by John Murray, who takes a very different position than John Frame. Murray says that there is no time in a Christian's life when lying is either necessary or good. He says that all truth comes from God. And to lie in even the smallest detail contradicts and offends the nature of God. He says it also shows that we do not trust God, since the idea that we need to lie assumes that God has put us in a situation where the truth itself is not adequate. And so Murray says that every lie, therefore, calls into question the integrity of God's word and also the integrity of God's commandments, and also raises questions about his absolute sovereignty over creation. Now, you hear that and you might say, well, doesn't that then mean that you are required to tell the Nazis that you have Jews hidden in your attic? Well, that's not what Murray means by any stretch of the imagination. Although it is true, as Murray says, that sometimes God honors complete disclosure, even to the enemies of truth. He's free to do so. After all, this is his world to do with as he pleases. And I'm sure you've heard illustrations of what I mean. One man, when he was asked whether he was hiding Nazis, pointed to the dining room table and said, yes, they're under the table. And the Nazis, you know, were kind of amused by that because they could see under the table and there were no Nazis or no Jews there. And they didn't realize that the Jews really were under the table. They were just in the basement. Another example would be from Brother Andrew, who transported Bibles into communist countries during the Cold War. And one day he had a practice of leaving the Bibles out in the open because he wanted to demonstrate his trust for God. But one day he was stopped by the border guards as he was crossing, and they asked if he had any contraband. And he pointed to the back seat of a little Volkswagen Beetle that a Dutch family had just given to him not too long before. There were several Bibles sitting on the seat, and he had a whole lot more under the seat. And he just pointed back there and says, yes, I have Bibles under the back seat. And again, the guards were rather amused, and they just Push them on through. So things like that do happen. But as I said, that's not really what Murray has in mind here. What Murray is getting at is the fact that you have to speak the truth whenever you speak does not mean that you have to say everything you know in every situation. He says there are times when those who are asking you for information for one reason or another have forfeited the right to that information. And he says that that is often the case when you know that those who are asking for information will misuse it, as is the case with the Nazis. In such cases, Murray says that it is perfectly legitimate to conceal the truth without lying or deceiving someone through direct falsehood. And we have an example of that in 1st Samuel, chapter 16. After Saul had committed his great offenses against God, the Lord sent Samuel to Bethlehem to anoint David as the next king. Well, Samuel was very concerned about this because he knew if Saul caught wind of it, that it would be the end of his life. And so Samuel complained to the Lord, I need help here. And the Lord told Samuel to say that he was going to Bethlehem to make a sacrifice. Now, did Samuel lie in this case? No, because he did go to make a sacrifice. In fact, the sacrifice was a very important part of what he did on that occasion. But did he reveal his entire purpose? No, he did not. He concealed the part that the people in Bethlehem and Saul in particular had no business knowing. Now, for a full explanation, I would encourage you to read Murray's paper. We don't have time to go into all the scriptures that he deals with. Murray was a master exegete, and I think his paper is very convincing. And he exegetes numerous passages of scripture. He deals with matters of deception and war and other topics. But more than anything else, the one thing that should really impress you about that paper is that is that you, as the people of God who worship and serve a God of truth, must be people who value your words and truth as much as God values his. You must speak the truth. Words must mean something to you. And the most important truth that you that you will ever speak is the gospel itself. And so first and first, Peter, chapter three, Peter says, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. Christianity is based on the idea that words actually mean something. In fact, we can say that the word, both the written word as well as the incarnate word, are your life. Isn't that what Jesus said? It's in John chapter 6, verse 63. He says, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. The world doesn't like words because the world doesn't want to hear the gospel. It doesn't want to hear such things as curse it as every man that continueth not and all the things that are written in the book of the law to do them. But for you, the exact opposite ought to be that ought to be true. Because the Spirit of God uses the written word not only to bring you to new life in the incarnate word, but he also uses that same word to sanctify you more and more every day as that word gets into your thinking and becomes part of your thinking process. As you learn more of Christ, as he reveals himself on the pages of Scripture, you grow in your love for the truth. So how do you avoid the isms and false ideologies of our day, especially deconstructionism? There's only one answer to that, and that's by knowing the truth. If you're a diehard Coca-Cola fan and someone gave you a glass of Pepsi, you'd know the difference right away because you've had Coca-Cola so often that its taste is imprinted in your memory. But has your mind been so saturated with the truth of God's word that you can immediately spot any of the varieties of lies that are out there in the world? When the world launches its war on words, do you know God's word well enough to counter its strategies? Take heart to Paul's counsel. Study to show thyself approved unto God. A workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you that your word is and forever will be true. Not one statement in it will ever end up being the opposite of what it says. And we thank you, O God, for that. And we pray also that you would make us people of the truth so that we would not be afraid to say things when we have opportunities to confess Jesus Christ, to speak of your word and the promises that are given to your people, as well as the threats that are there for those who do not believe your word. May we always be faithful to to tell others that the only hope that we have is in the Lord Jesus Christ. May we value our words and your word more than anything else. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.