Strawberry-Rhubarb Theology

Human Trafficking Is an Attack on God

2012-02-02T08:39:00.003-06:00

Words to heed, and pray over, from our wise brother Justin Holcomb, in light of the Super Bowl this week. With six ways we can meaningfully engage.

I love football. But: factoring in on the one hand the frothy, superficial joys of the Super Bowl, with fans unconsciously seeking vicarious glory through athletic success, and on the other hand the unimaginable misery, the nightmares, that will be experienced by many women and children in and around Indianapolis, I suspect the Super Bowl experience nets out as increasing sadness, not happiness.

Men I Thank God For

2012-02-01T09:23:00.001-06:00

A few men who mean a lot to me and who have been on my mind this past week or so, with one reason I love them. Many more can, and in future blog posts will, be mentioned.

Drew Hunter, for his grasp of the gospel of grace that gives him an ability to be both serious and non-serious, rather than always having to be always and only one or the other.

Bob Smart, for his gentleness.

The Thursday night crew, for their quietly violent refusal to be mastered by anything but Christ, the friend of sinners.

Lane Dennis, for his steely conviction transmitted through speech seasoned with grace.

Justin Taylor, for his measured, courageous wisdom.

Chris Hodge, for his preaching of the gospel to my soul week in and week out, in season and out of season.

Nate Conrad, for his state of perpetual, joyful, repentance.

Greg Beale, for his battle-tested fidelity to, and lifelong wonder over, the Bible.

David Stancil, Andrew Voelkel, Keith Ledford, and Matt Roberts, amazing seminary classmates, for their steady faithfulness in shepherding God's people while battling the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Hans Bayer, for showing me at Covenant Seminary what Psalm 34:5 looks like in a real live human being.

Interpreting the Parables of Mark

2012-01-31T10:17:00.002-06:00

A lecture by a man I love, Covenant Seminary professor Hans Bayer.

Dr. Bayer, who wrote the notes on Mark for the ESV Study Bible, recently authored a commentary on Mark as well as a forthcoming volume on christology and discipleship in Mark.

The Middle of the Marathon

2012-01-30T13:19:00.001-06:00

A great word by my brother Gavin on persevering through the long stretches of ordinariness in the life of a disciple of Jesus.

Valuable for His Own Sake

2012-01-30T08:35:00.001-06:00

Machen:

We are subject to many pressing needs, and we are too much inclined to value God, not for His own sake, but only because He can satisfy those needs. . . .

[Food, clothing, companionship, and inspiring work] are lofty desires. But there is one desire that is loftier still. It is the desire for God Himself. That desire, too often, we forget.

We value God solely for the things He can do; we make of Him a mere means to an ulterior end. And God refuses to be treated so; such a religion always fails in the hour of need. If we have regarded religion merely as a means of getting things--even lofty and unselfish things--then when the things that have been gotten are destroyed, our faith will fail. When loved ones are taken away, when disappointment comes and failure, when noble ambitions are set at naught, then we turn away from God. We have tried religion, we say, we have tried prayer, and it has failed. Of course it has failed! God is not content to be an instrument in our hand or a servant at our beck and call. . . .

If we possess God, then we can meet with equanimity the loss of all besides. Has it never dawned upon us that God is valuable for His own sake, that just as personal communion is the highest thing that we know on earth, so personal communion with God is the sublimest height of all? If we value God for His own sake, then the loss of other things will draw us all the closer to Him; we shall have recourse to Him in time of trouble as to the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

--J. Gresham Machen, What Is Faith?, 73-74

Satan's Designs: Unforgiveness

2012-01-26T20:02:00.000-06:00

What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs. (2 Cor 2:10-11)

If you and I are not forgiving someone, no matter how right it feels, we are being outwitted by Satan.

Hunger Filled Them to the Full

2012-01-26T19:51:00.001-06:00

Ambrose writes of the banishment of Eusebius and Dionysius upon the Council of Milan in A.D. 355.

They did not need a grave in their own country; a heavenly mansion was prepared for them. They wandered over the world as having nothing, and possessing all things. Wherever they were sent, it was to them a paradise. Abounding in the riches of faith, they could lack nothing. Poor in money, but rich in grace, they made others rich. They were tempted, but not slain; in fastings, in labors, in imprisonments, in watchings. Out of weakness they were made strong. They looked for no tempting delicacies; hunger filled them to the full. The summer heat did not parch them; they were refreshed with the hope of eternal grace. . . . They feared no human chains; Jesus had set them free. They did not ask to be rescued from death; they took for granted that Christ would raise them from the dead.

. . . sorrowful, yet always rejoicing . . . --2 Cor 6:10

When I am weak, then I am strong. --2 Cor 12:10

"Whoever keeps his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will keep it." --Luke 17:10

Edwards: Justification

2012-01-26T16:11:00.000-06:00

And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. --Romans 4:5

Edwards:

When it is said that God justifies the ungodly, 'tis as absurd to suppose that our godliness, taken as some goodness in us, is the ground of our justification, as when it is said that Christ gave sight to the blind, to suppose that sight was prior to, and the ground of that act of mercy in Christ, or as if it should be said that such an one by his bounty has made a poor man rich, to suppose that it was the wealth of this poor man that was the ground of this bounty towards him, and was the price by which it was procured.

--Jonathan Edwards, 'Justification by Faith Alone,' a sermon series on Rom 4:5 that, Edwards believed, was instrumental in sparking the first local revival of 1734-35; the 100-page sermon series can be found in the Yale edition of Edwards' Works, vol. 19, pp. 143-242 (here 147)

Mildewed and Numbing

2012-01-26T08:43:00.000-06:00

Thielicke:

There is a kind of piety, a kind of obedience that has about it a mildewed, numbing lack of freshness and vitality that never makes a person really happy. There are plenty of ‘good people’ whose religion never makes them really warm and happy.

--Helmut Thielicke, The Waiting Father: Sermons on the Parables of Jesus (Harper, 1959), 33

Christiformative Salvation

2012-01-25T14:31:00.005-06:00

Interesting and illuminating article in the current JETS by our brother Eric Johnson over at Southern Seminary: "Rewording the Justification/Sanctification Relation with Some Help From Speech Acts Theory."

Johnson suggests that we apply the speech act model of locution/illocution/perlocution (what a statement means/what a statement does/what a statement intends to result) to current debates on the relationship between justification and progressive sanctification. He proposes that this gives us a fresh perspective by which to keep justification and sanctification distinct yet inseparable. Specifically, Johnson suggests that justification (the declarative) is God's illocution through Christ, and sanctification (the progressive) is God's perlocution through the Holy Spirit.

I don't agree with everything (e.g. the assertion that Paul spends more time on justification by faith than any other facet of salvation, p. 770) but the essay is excellent. In one solid section of the article Johnson suggests that "Christiformative salvation" is what we are after in the Christian life (he prefers the term "Christiformity" to "sanctification"). The second-to-last paragraph is a stirring portrait of Christian transformation.

As finite, temporal, and embodied creatures Christians become conformed to Christ gradually, over time, by means of multiple faith-experiences of God and his word, through which the brain-soul of believers becomes more or less permanently restructured by (1) their relationship with God; (2) God’s declarative word (“You are already righteous and holy in Christ”); and (3) virtuous practice (which depends upon and grows from relationship with God and his declarative word), such that through faith the believer’s character is more disposed to perceive, feel, and act similarly in the future.

This gradual, long-term change is what is being termed “Christiformative salvation.”

The initial changes created by God’s word through faith include regeneration (Titus 3:5; John 1:13) or being made alive to God (Eph 2:5); the entrance of the indwelling Holy Spirit in the believer (Rom 5:5; 8:11; 1 Cor 3:19); the freedom to love and obey God; the death-blow given to the old self (Rom 6:6; Gal 2:20); and the birth of the new self (2 Cor 5:17; Col 3:10).

Longterm, ongoing (yet halting) Christ-centered characterological change includes the growing ability to abide in Christ and commune with God, encompassing greater knowledge, intimacy, and love for God for who he is in himself, and so better, purer worship; greater and deeper repentance; fuller, deeper faith that permeates more of one’s inner world; better obedience; growth in the quality of the fruit (or virtues) of the Spirit; increasing self-awareness and less self-deception; growing reliance upon the indwelling Holy Spirit, the mortification of the old self and fighting against the flesh (Romans 6; 8:13; Gal 5:16–20; Col 3:9–10), and increase in the psychological complexity, power, and influence of the new self (2 Cor 5:17; Eph 2:10, 4:24); greater acceptance that one is a child of God (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6); deepening fellowship with the saints and mutual edification (Ephesians 4); greater wisdom and skill in witnessing to others of Christ; greater focus on helping the poor and weak; and more contented suffering.

In the context of a living relationship with God, the more deeply and thoroughly believers consent to God’s declarative words—“You are already righteous and holy in Christ”—the more deeply, thoroughly, and permanently they actually become righteous and holy in Christ, given by God and mediated by his word, and their experience, practice, and human relationships. (p. 779)

Wildly Irreligious

2012-01-24T16:02:00.004-06:00

Capon:

Grace is wildly irreligious stuff. It's more than enough to get God kicked out of the God union that the theologians have formed to keep him on his divine toes so he won't let the rifraff off scot-free. Sensible people, of course, should need only about thirty seconds of careful thought to realize that getting off scot-free is the only way any of us is going to get off at all.

--Robert Farrar Capon, The Romance of the Word: One Man's Love Affair with Theology (Eerdmans, 1995), 11

Capon seems to have been a mildly eccentric man, and he has an awful (and awfully confused) understanding of the atonement, one which flirts with universalism. So, as with anyone, one must swallow the meat and spit out the bones. But I am loving this guy. Gospel defibrillation!

Very Helpful, Reverend

2012-01-24T08:58:00.003-06:00

A couple great things from my brother Gavin this month--a good review over at TGC of Jerry Bridges' most recent book and a really nice article in the current JETS drawing out the saving (not just the apologetic or vindicatory) significance of Christ's resurrection.

This Is Me in the New Earth

2012-01-23T20:45:00.003-06:00

Just tell me that 3:30 to 4:10 isn't eschatological.

Our Only Sanity

2012-01-23T11:13:00.000-06:00

Jesus, I my cross have taken
All to leave and follow Thee
Destitute, despised, forsaken
Thou from hence my all shall be

Perish ev'ry fond ambition
All I've sought or hoped or known
Yet how rich is my condition
God and heav'n are still my own

--Henry Lyte (1793-1847)

Two Aeons Converge

2012-01-23T11:07:00.003-06:00

Helpful.

Contrary to Jewish expectation, the Messiah has accomplished the work of redemption, the Spirit has been poured out, yet evil has not been eradicated, the general resurrection is still future, and the final state of God's kingdom has not been established.

In other words, the new era has begun--has been inaugurated--but it has not yet replaced the old era. Both ages exist simultaneously; and this means that 'history,' in the sense of temporal sequence, is not ultimately determinative in Paul's salvation-historical scheme. Thus, the 'change of aeons,' while occurring historically at the cross, becomes real for the individual only at the point of faith. The 'change of aeons' that took place in Christ is experienced only 'in Christ.' Therefore, the person who lives after Christ's death and resurrection and who has not appropriated the benefits of those events by faith lives in the old era yet: enslaved to sin, in the flesh, doomed to eternal death. On the other hand, Abraham, for example, though living many centuries before Christ, must, in light of Rom. 4, be considered to belong, in some sense at least, to the new era.

--Doug Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Eerdmans, 1996), 26

Tullian at Wheaton

2012-01-23T10:57:00.003-06:00

An outstanding three-message series of gospel-rich wisdom from our brother Tullian Tchividjian last week here at Wheaton College.

So Completely Different

2012-01-23T08:13:00.005-06:00

Helmut Thielicke, the German pastor of the mid-twentieth century, on the parable of the lost son in Luke 15:

We must read and hear this gospel story as it was really meant to be: good news! News so good that we should never have imagined it. News that would stagger us if we were able to hear it for the first time as a message that everything about God is so completely different from what we thought or feared. News that he has sent his Son to us and is inviting us to share in an unspeakable joy. . . .

[This news] comes into our life as an amazing surprise. That there should be someone like Jesus, that he should gain the Father’s heart for us, that he should rescue us from the frustration of our personal lives and snatch us away from this horrible vegetating on the edge of the void—all this is indeed a tremendous surprise.

--Helmut Thielicke, The Waiting Father: Sermons on the Parables of Jesus (Harper, 1959), 31-32, 36

Grace

2012-01-20T08:24:00.002-06:00

Death unto Life

2012-01-19T09:02:00.007-06:00

In 1974 the American Episcopalian priest Robert Farrar Capon had an experience so devastating to him that his life, as he understood it, was over. Though he was still physically breathing, death had come.

He writes:

I was not just devastated, or hurt, or ill-used, or broken; I was dead. Unless you have been through such an experience, you may find this overblown; but my life, as I had known it, was over, gone, kaput.

Capon then says a very interesting thing--

If I ever lived again--and it was inconceivable to me that I could--it would not be by my hand. Fairness or unfairness, guilt or innocence, blame or exculpation had nothing to do with the case. My life-designing capabilities were not impaired or in need of remedial treatment; I just didn't have my life anymore.

He goes on to describe how new life began.

But far from being a sad state of affairs, that turned out to be the best news I had ever heard. My death was not the tragedy I first thought; it was my absolution, my freedom. Nobody can blame a corpse--especially not the corpse itself. Once dead, we are out from under all the blame-harrows and guilt-spreaders forever. We are free; and free above all from the messes we have made of our own lives.

And if there is a God who can take the dead and, without a single condition of credit-worthiness or a single, pointless promise of reform, raise them up whole and forgiven, free for nothing--well, that would not only be wild and wonderful; it would be the single piece of Good News in a world drowning in an ocean of blame. It was not all up to me . It was never up to me at all. It was up to someone I could only trust and thank.

It was salvation by grace through faith, not works.

--Robert Farrar Capon, The Romance of the Word: One Man's Love Affair with Theology (Eerdmans, 1995), 8 (italics original)

So much I want to say about this. But I will leave it, for your own reflection. But be sure not to pass too quickly over the words, "especially not the corpse itself."

Bless the Lord

2012-01-17T08:18:00.003-06:00

I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
--Psalm 34:1

HT: Trevor Long

Why Does Genesis 1:1 to Malachi 4:6 Exist?

2012-01-17T07:57:00.003-06:00

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

--Romans 15:4

Giving Up Our Own Defensive Will

2012-01-16T09:40:00.004-06:00

Jack Miller, to a church he had recently visited and spoken to--

There is a release of God's power when control is surrendered to the Spirit of Christ.

This is not a matter of mere feeling but of faith relying on the word of Christ. Get down on your knees in prayer and then get up and take the risk of humbling yourself by apologizing to that brother or sister you have sinned against. Is not such a liberating act a giving up of your own defensive will? Or go to a friend and say, "I have such a critical spirit and a loose tongue. Will you pray for me?"

Here we have the beginnings of a deep surrender.

--The Heart of a Servant-Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (P&R, 2004), 93

The Necessity of Affliction

2012-01-14T12:42:00.003-06:00

In April 1938 war was looming in Europe. Germany had just invaded Austria. C. S. Lewis wrote to his friend Dom Bede Griffiths:

I have been in considerable trouble over the present danger of war. Twice in one life--and then to find how little I have grown in fortitude despite my conversion. It has done me a lot of good by making me realise how much of my happiness secretly depended on the tacit assumption of at least tolerable conditions for the body: and I see more clearly, I think, the necessity (if one may so put it) which God is under of allowing us to be afflicted--so few of us will really rest all on Him if He leaves us any other support.

Later that year Lewis returned to this theme in writing Owen Barfield:

I had so often told myself that my friends and books and even brains were not given me to keep: that I must teach myself at bottom to care for something else more (and also of course to care for them more but in a different way) and I was horrified to find how cold the idea of really losing them struck. An awful symptom is that part of oneself still regards troubles as 'interruptions' as if (ludicrous idea) the happy bustle of one's personal interests was our real work, instead of the opposite.

I did in the end see (I dare not say 'feel') that since nothing but these forcible shakings will cure us of our worldliness, we have at bottom reason to be thankful for them. We force God to surgical treatment: we won't (mentally) diet.

--The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 225-26, 231-32

Jesus and Religion; Discernment and Nitpicking

2012-01-14T09:14:00.010-06:00

Lots of discussion on this video. Our brothers Kevin DeYoung and Jared Wilson, for example, are typically thoughtful in their appreciation mingled with a bit of brotherly pushback.

This world, the church, and my own soul would be worse off without Kevin DeYoung and Jared Wilson.

I confess I find the pushback a bit strange, though, especially Kevin's. I agree with most of the actual points of disagreement, I suppose. But is a lengthy, line-by-line analysis of this video the path of wisdom? Is that a step forward for all of us? I'm not so much asking is Kevin's post right, but is it wise--a related but distinct question.

Is there a point at which discernment becomes nitpicking?

What if I applied to Kevin's sermons the strictures he does to this video? Kevin's comments on "religion," for example--is it really that hard to understand tacitly what the video means by religion? Isn't it clear that the guy in the video isn't using the word as some texts in the Bible do? Wouldn't he agree that Jesus was an observant Jew, and so on? This critique largely misses the point, I think.

Happy to receive correction here!

Above all I am so glad to be on the same team with all three of these great guys--Kevin, Jared, and Jefferson.

I Must Venture You All With God

2012-01-13T10:55:00.007-06:00

John Bunyan spent twelve years in prison, at any point of which he could have been released had he agreed to stop preaching the gospel.

Listen to him recount the pain of staying in prison while his family, including a precious blind daughter, languished in poverty. And listen to him recount what gave him the strength to persevere through such horrific circumstances.

I found myself a man encompassed with infirmities; the parting with my wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place as pulling the flesh from the bones, and that not only because I am somewhat too fond of these great mercies, but also because I would have often brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries, and wants that my poor family were like to meet with should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer to my heart than all besides. Oh, the thoughts of the hardship my poor blind one might undergo would break my heart to pieces. Poor child, thought I, what sorrow art thou like to have for thy portion in this world! Thou must be beaten, must beg, suffer hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now endure the wind should blow upon thee.

But yet, recalling myself, thought I, I must venture you all with God, though it goeth to the quick to leave you. Oh, I saw in this condition I was as a man who was pulling down his house upon the head of his wife and children; yet, thought I, I must do it, I must do it. . . .

But that which helped me in this temptation was diverse considerations, of which three in special here I will name: the first was the consideration of these two scriptures: "Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me;" and again, "The Lord said, Verily it shall be well with thy remnant; verily I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil, and in the time of affliction.' Jer. 49: 11; 15: 11.

I had also this consideration, that if I should venture all for God, I engaged God to take care of my concerns; but if I forsook him in his ways, for fear of any trouble that should come to me or mine, then I should not only falsify my profession, but should count also that my concerns were not so sure if left at God's feet while I stood to and for his name, as they would be if they were under my own care, though with the denial of the way of God. This was a smarting consideration, and as spurs into my flesh. That scripture also greatly helped it to fasten the more on me, where Christ prays against Judas, that God would disappoint him in his selfish thoughts which moved him to sell his Master. Pray read it soberly: Psalm 109: 6, etc.

I had also another consideration, and that was, the dread of the torments of hell, which I was sure they must partake of that for fear of the cross do shrink from their profession of Christ, his words and laws, before the sons of men. I thought also of the glory that he had prepared for those that in faith and love and patience stood to his ways before them.

These things, I say, have helped me when the thoughts of the misery that both myself and mine might, for the sake of my profession, be exposed to, have lain pinching on my mind.

The rest of this addendum to his spiritual autobiography (Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners) is here.

The whole thing is well worth reading.

General Foolishness

2012-01-12T08:47:00.008-06:00

Jack Miller, Philadelphia pastor, to a missionary in Uganda, July 1986:

For me: pray for revival in my life and Rose Marie's. God did powerful things for us in Spain and Europe. We have come home and left the TV off, and this has given us extra time for work, prayer, and study--and other kinds of recreation. Not that we spent long hours before the tube, but watching news in the evening put splashes of violence, sensuous advertising, and general foolishness into our heads. We didn't need this mishmash of sensate values and violence bashing us every evening. It has been most helpful.

--The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (P&R, 2004), 144

My suspicion is that for every legalist who gets rid of the TV just to feel superior to fellow Christians, there are ten more who are absorbing "general foolishness" and "this mishmash of sensate values" without realizing what it is slowly and subtly doing to them, perhaps baptizing it as gospel freedom. I'm thinking mainly of my generation here.

Sin/not sin is not the only filter for assessing how we spend our time. Wise/unwise is the other filter. All things are lawful, but not all things are beneficial.

All in response, glad response, to the Lord's outrageous love for us.

A High Bar, with Much Grace

2012-01-11T17:12:00.001-06:00

Shepherds are not perfect men. Though God sets the bar for pastoral ministry necessarily high, he uses the poles of grace to support that bar.

--Thabiti Anyabwile, Finding Faithful Elders and Deacons (Crossway, 2012), 16

Edwards' God

2012-01-10T08:38:00.002-06:00

In Northampton, God was jealous, arbitrary, vindictive, and absolute. . . . he preached guilt, damnation, and salvation, and by 1734 began to see an effect . . .

--Larry Witham, on Jonathan Edwards' pastoral ministry in Northampton, Mass., in A City Upon a Hill: How Sermons Changed the Course of American History (HarperOne, 2007), 48

This man does not know Jonathan Edwards.

Divine wrath does not proportionally reveal Edwards' theology any more than you walking in on me spanking my kid proportionally reveals the full range of my sentiments toward my son.

One of Our Great Sins

2012-01-09T19:53:00.002-06:00

At the end of a January 1940 letter to Dom Bede Griffiths, C. S. Leis remarked--

I agree with you very strongly about the necessity of trying as hard as we can to obey the apostolic 'Rejoice always': and I think we sin by needless neglect of this as often as by anything else. The attempt to obey it is at present one of my three morning resolutions each day. I had not realised its importance till recently. There may be objections to saying the End is happiness tout court, but I agree, I think, with all you really mean.

Yours
C. S. Lewis

--The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 2 (Cambridge: Cambrudge University Press, ), 327

God the All

2012-01-09T07:56:00.004-06:00

O God, it is amazing that men can talk so much
about man's creaturely power and goodness,
when, if thou didst not hold us back every moment,
we should be devils incarnate.

This, by bitter providence, thou hast taught me concerning myself.

--The Valley of Vision, 'God the All,' p. 4

Letting (Not Making) God Love You

2012-01-06T14:04:00.000-06:00

Dad:

This week I saw a list of answers to this question: What do you regret about this past year? Here are some answers: I regret thinking more money is all I need. I regret believing this would finally be the Cubs’ big year. I regret not spending time with my lonely neighbor. I regret the date nights with my wife I didn’t take. I regret my apathy in worship. I regret being held back by human opinions of me. I regret missing times with God but not missing my show on TV. I regret every minute I gave to pornography. I regret trying to hide my sins from others. I regret the person I’ve become.

I wonder what your regret is. I know mine. But sometimes we don’t see our biggest failing. All the regrets I’ve just read lie at the surface. And there is a deeper reason why we act these ways. The deeper reason is this. We do not savor God’s love for us. Of course, if someone asked us, Does God love you?, we’d all give the right answer. But savoring his love, enjoying his love, drawing strength from his love, especially when we see how sinful we are – that’s different. All our problems stem from this – not believing and receiving the love of God for the undeserving. I am calling you today to enter 2012 with this declaration: “I will let God love me and save me.” There’s a New Year’s Resolution for you! Every day of 2012, rather than try to make God love me, I will let God love me, because he does – for the sake of Christ.

Beauty

2012-01-05T08:12:00.001-06:00

The pinnacle of beauty, the beauty toward which all creatures point, is God. He is supreme being, supreme truth, supreme goodness, and also the apex of unchanging beauty.

--Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:254, concluding a discussion of the glory of God

The Focal Point

2012-01-04T17:07:00.002-06:00

Goppelt:

If Jesus of Nazareth is “the one who was to come” (Matt 11:3), if he is the goal of all biblical history, then he is the focal point that gathers all the rays of light that issue from Scripture. Now they do not shine miraculously here and there, but give a clear, unambiguous picture that is consistent with the salvation that Christ brings.

--Leonhard Goppelt, Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New (Eerdmans, 1982), 58 (typos is a transliteration of the Greek word for 'type,' meaning pattern or imprint--this is not a book about trying to find errors in the Bible)

Richard Gaffin

2012-01-03T19:48:00.004-06:00

Professor Gaffin is a great gift to the church, much and rightly beloved for his eminent godliness and penetrating biblical scholarship. I read the Bible differently through clarity he has brought to my own understanding of the history of redemption, the ordo salutis, biblical eschatology, resurrection, and union with Christ.

Peter Lillback, the current president of Westminster Seminary, where Gaffin taught for 45 years, has a wonderful tribute to Gaffin's career in the current issue of Ordained Servant (the online magazine for the OPC, Gaffin's denomination). Dr. Lillback concludes with some warm, brotherly personal reflections.

Praise to God for this faithful servant of the church.

(And who knew Dr. Gaffin's father-in-law was E. J. Young?!)

Home Culture

2012-01-03T14:54:00.002-06:00

A helpful reflection from our brother Trevin Wax on building a healthy culture in the home.

Jesus Is Enough

2012-01-03T13:38:00.001-06:00

Great stuff, Joe Thorn.

Passion 2012 (Jan 2-5)

2012-01-03T10:08:00.001-06:00

Live stream available.

Home

2012-01-03T09:24:00.001-06:00

'I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.'

-Jewel the unicorn, upon entering the final, perfected Narnia, in The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis

He Restores

2012-01-03T09:08:00.002-06:00

Edwards, preaching in 1739--

Christ comes down from heaven on this fallen, miserable creature and gives life from the dead. He restores that which Satan had cut down. He heals that mortal wound that he had given. . . . He restores the image of God after it had been wholly defaced. He restores spiritual life after it had been wholly extinct. He restores to God’s favor.

He restores, and much more than restores, to the former state of happiness, for he brings to a better paradise and a more excellent state of honor and an higher degree of communion with God.

--Jonathan Edwards, 'Like Rain upon Mown Grass,' in Sermons and Discourses, 1739–1742, 310

I Am Not Moved

2012-01-02T12:50:00.002-06:00

In October 1520, in the wake of refusing the pope's order to retract his writings of gospel-recovery, Luther wrote to a pastor who was similarly facing heat, and considering quitting.

Our warfare is not with flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness. . . . Let us then stand firm and heed the trumpet of the Lord. Satan is fighting, not against us, but against Christ in us. We fight the battles of the Lord. Be strong therefore. If God is for us, who can be against us?

You are dismayed because Eck is publishing a most severe bull against Luther, his books, and his followers. Whatever may happen, I am not moved, because nothing can happen save in accord with the will of him who sits upon the heaven directing all. Let not your hearts be troubled. Your Father knows your need before you ask him. Not a leaf from a tree falls to the ground without his knowledge. How much less can any of us fall unless it be his will.

If you have the spirit, do not leave your post, lest another receive your crown. It is but a little thing that we should die with the Lord, who in our flesh laid down his life for us. We shall rise with him and abide with him in eternity. See then that you do not despise your holy calling. He will come, he will not tarry, who will deliver us from every ill. Farewell in the Lord Jesus, who comforts and sustains mind and spirit. Amen.

--quoted in Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Hendrickson, 1977), 140-41

What Does the Holy Spirit Do?

2012-01-02T08:42:00.003-06:00

Owen:

The Comforter gives a sweet and plentiful evidence and persuasion of the love of God to us, such as the soul is taken, delighted, satiated with. This is his work, and he does it effectually. To give a poor sinful soul a comfortable persuasion, affecting it throughout, in all its faculties and affections, that God in Jesus Christ loves him, delights in him, is well pleased with him, has thoughts of tenderness and kindness towards him; to give, I say, a soul an overflowing sense of this, is an inexpressible mercy.

This we have in a peculiar manner by the Holy Ghost; it is his peculiar work.

--John Owen, Communion with God (Christian Focus, 2007; repr.), 375-76

'Thoughts of tenderness.'

Drawing Near in 2012

2011-12-31T20:01:00.003-06:00

My dad's post a few days ago is worth reading, rereading, printing out, putting on the dashboard, whatever--get it.

Looking forward to more of this, and more deeply, with Wheaton College men Ian, Tanner, Erik, Wade, Ben, Bobby, Dave, and Mark. Eight men who make me want to live well.

I get one shot--one shot--at 2012.

Life Requires Death

2011-12-30T13:19:00.006-06:00

In April 1983 Jack Miller, pastor of New Life Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, wrote to a young woman named Catherine who was considering going to the mission field in Uganda. She was held back by fear.

Toward the end of that letter Jack said the following, the second paragraph of which I find rebuking, igniting, and illuminating of past and present experience in my own life.

Open up the Scriptures which give us the full picture of the glory of suffering for Christ. What you discover is that there is no permanent joy in Christ apart from a willingness to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him. That is, your life cannot have power in it or even salvation if you refuse to be like a grain of wheat that must fall to the ground and die in order to bring forth much fruit. God calls you to greatness, Catherine, but greatness means fruitfulness, and fruitfulness comes as we die to self and our fears and rise from the dead.

I do not presume to know whether you should go to Uganda or not. Only God can finally show you that. . . . But your life must have a death in it if it is to go anywhere. The greatest thing hindering revival at New Life is the way we tend to run away from our own death. The cross can be evaded only so long. Then if we keep away from it we begin to create our own deaths, and we die thousands of times over, killed and rekilled by our anxieties.

--The Heart of a Servant-Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (P&R, 2004), 230

Does that last sentence explain why so many Christians are so weak, so joyless? I want to make my own failings, not others', my biggest concern, so I say it cautiously; but is it not the case that most of us who have had our eyes open to Christ, have truly embraced him and been born again, refuse thereafter to let go of the more immediate security of reputation, or comfort, or career achievement, or _________? Creating a breeding ground for innumerable anxieties? Holding on to hollow 'life' when Life awaits, if we will simply release our hold on a handful of pennies to fill out the blank check being offered us?

There is so much uncrucified Dane in me. Onward to death and joy in 2012. It really is possible.

'I died.' --the apostle Paul

'Die before you die. There is no chance after.' --C. S. Lewis, Till We have Faces

Death and joy. Both or neither.

Take This With You into 2012

2011-12-29T12:06:00.001-06:00

John Owen on the Bible:

O heavenly, O blessed depositum of divine grace and goodness! . . . although every humble soul may learn and receive from it what is absolutely sufficient for itself on all occasions, with respect to its own duty and eternal welfare, yet the whole church of God, neither jointly nor severally, from the beginning to the end of the world, have been, are, or shall be, able to examine these stores to the bottom and to find out perfectly all its truths, in all their dimensions, concerns, and extent, that are contained therein.

--quoted in Sinclair Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Banner of Truth, 1987), 189-90

Get it.

Jeremiah Owen Ortlund

2011-12-24T08:05:00.004-06:00

The army grows.

'Before I formed you in the womb,
I knew you,
and before you were born
I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.'
--Jeremiah 1:5

'So much as we see of the love of God, so much shall we delight in him, and no more. Every other discovery of God, without this, will but make the soul fly from him; but if the heart be once much taken up with this the eminency of the Father’s love, it cannot choose but be overpowered, conquered, and endeared unto him.'
--John Owen

Fulfilling Genesis 1:28

2011-12-21T10:58:00.005-06:00

No posting for a bit as my wife and I prepare to receive Ortlund son #3 into the world.

Our Fundamental Loyalty

2011-12-21T10:58:00.001-06:00

Packer:

Our business is to present the Christian faith clothed in modern terms, not to propagate modern thought clothed in Christian terms.

Our business is to interpret and criticize modern thought by the gospel, not vice versa.

Confusion here is fatal.

--J. I. Packer, "Fundamentalism" and the Word of God (Eerdmans, 1958), 136

Mighty Weakness

2011-12-21T08:38:00.004-06:00

Just the right title--The Mighty Weakness of John Knox--in a book that avoids the hagiography of some other titles in this series.

The author, Doug Bond, writes in the opening chapter:

Who has not felt within him that he was too simple a man with too little to contribute to so great a cause as that of Christ and His church? What young woman, wife, mother, grandmother, or aged spinster has not wrung her hands, fearful and weak against the enemies of her soul and the church? Who has not thought that his gifts were too modest, that others could serve far better, and that he was too frail and timid to help advance the gospel of our Lord Jesus? Or who has not felt that hew was being unjustly maligned by critics, assaulted by the mighty, mocked and insulted by the influential?

So it was for Knox, but as he wrote of the Reformation in Scotland, 'God gave his Holy Spirit to simple men in great abundance.' His contemporary Thomas Smeaton said of Knox after his death, 'I know not if God ever placed a more godly and great spirit in a body so little and frail.'

. . . The Almighty is in the business of raising up simple, frail, and little people, and empowering them to be strong in Christ.

--Douglas Bond, The Mighty Weakness of John Knox (Reformation Trust, 2011), xxi-xxii

The Irreplaceable Value of Gentleness

2011-12-20T09:27:00.004-06:00

Jack Miller, 1996, months before his death, in a letter to a man preparing to plant a church--

I am so much this way--the aggressive personality--that for a long time I questioned whether I could function as a pastor, whether I would not overwhelm people with my personality. Enthusiasm was not just my middle name: it was my first, middle, and last names. Eventually the Holy Spirit began to tame my spirit, and out of these changes I discerned that pastoral ministry was actually much easier than I thought. Basically at the beginning of a ministry, the leader should humble himself and not try to do too much. Really, even later a good pastor is pretty much a good listener, a patient, deliberate questioner; and at the beginning of a church-planting enterprise you will be astonished how well things will go if you are just a gentle, kind learner.

My own conviction is that the flesh is still so strong in the Christian leader that each of us needs a healthy fear of our own capacity for ruining the work of God with our unconscious pride.

--The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (P&R, 2004), 86; emphasis original

Life from Death

2011-12-19T14:40:00.003-06:00

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. -Romans 6:4

(Thanks to Z for pointing us to these pictures.)

Noah and the End of the World

2011-12-19T08:48:00.003-06:00

Excellent discussion here from Mike Williams answering the question, Will this world be annihilated one day? Is that what 2 Peter 3 and Matthew 24 teach?

Amen, Dr. Williams.

HT: Joel Hathaway

Zeal without Knowledge

2011-12-19T08:40:00.002-06:00

"There is nothing that belongs to Christian experience," wrote Edwards, "so liable to a corrupt mixture as zeal." After three years studying Paul's references to zeal against the backdrop of his Jewish upbringing I've concluded that the apostle would agree. Those conclusions and the exegetical arguments that led to them will be published next year in this volume. Yours for the low low price of $110.

My argument runs somewhat against the grain of the direction NT scholars are increasingly going in understanding the heart of Paul's concerns as an apostle. More and more I discern in NT scholarship an unhealthy over-horizontalization of the core of what animated Paul, prioritizing human reconciliation (Jew-Gentile) over vertical reconciliation (God-human). Zeal-language in Paul is a slice of his thought world that clarifies the priority of the apostle's concerns.

To the degree I've explained Paul rightly I hope students of the Bible will consider and be persuaded. It is not irrelevant to the gospel itself. I believe Paul will be better understood, and therefore Christ and his gospel more deeply cherished, and therefore God more reverently adored, if my arguments are read with genuine openness and textual submissiveness.

So it is gratifying to see three years' work come to fruition in this way. Glory to God.

Your Podcast Is Not Your Pastor

2011-12-19T08:38:00.002-06:00

Great word here from our brother Trevin Wax.

Union with Christ

2011-12-19T08:33:00.003-06:00

Outstanding brief stuff on the macro-soteriological doctrine of the New Testament with my dad and David Mathis.

Two of My Favorite Statements on Inaugurated Eschatology

2011-12-16T09:22:00.003-06:00

By 'inaugurated eschatology' I mean the launching in the middle of history of that which the OT promised would happen at the end of history. The last things (eschatology) have already begun (inaugurated). NT eschatology is not about the future but about the inbreaking of the future into the present, through Christ.

William Manson, 1953:

When we turn to the New Testament, we pass from the climate of prediction to that of fulfillment. The things which God had foreshadowed by the lips of His holy prophets He has now, in part at least, brought to accomplishment . . .

The supreme sign of the Eschaton is the resurrection of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Church. The resurrection of Jesus is not simply a sign which God has granted in favor of His Son, but is the inauguration, the entrance into history, of the times of the End. Christians, therefore, have entered through the Christ into the new age . . . What had been predicted in Holy Scripture as to happen to Israel or to man in the Eschaton has happened to and in Jesus.

--William Manson, ‘Eschatology and the New Testament,’ in Scottish Journal of Occasional Papers 2 (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1953), 6

Joachim Jeremias, 1971:

There is nothing comparable to the resurrection of Jesus anywhere in Jewish literature. Certainly there are mentions of raisings from the dead, but these are always resuscitations, a return to earthly life. Nowhere in Jewish literature do we have a resurrection to doxa as an event of history. Rather, resurrection to doxa always and without exception means the dawn of God’s new creation.

Therefore the disciples must have experienced the appearances of the Risen Lord as an eschatological event, as a dawning of the turning point of the worlds.

--Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus (trans. John Bowden; New York: Scribner’s, 1971), 309

This Is the Christ

2011-12-16T09:18:00.000-06:00

Get it:

Were earth a thousand times as fair
Beset with gold and jewels rare
She yet would far too poor to be
A narrow cradle Lord for thee
Praise God upon his heavenly throne
Who gave to us his only Son
For this his hosts on joyful wing
A blest new year of mercy sing

Examining Our Thirst for Social Justice

2011-12-15T08:56:00.002-06:00

Doug Wilson:

You have a button in front of you, placed there by a helpful genie. But instead of giving you the standard three wishes (and why doesn't anybody ever wish for ten wishes?), the genie has limited your options.

If you push the button, the real income of all the "have-nots" in the world will double overnight. Their health care will be twice as good as it is now, their disposable income will be twice as large, their houses will be twice as nice, and so on. But another consequence of pushing this button will also be the fact that the "haves" will see their prosperity increase ten-fold. They will all be ten times richer, thus enabling them to swank around all day.

To spell it out, this means that the divide between the rich and poor will widen, but will do so in a way that leaves the poor undeniably better off.

This is your ethical "dilemma," and part of your test is whether or not you even think of it as a dilemma. Would you refuse to push that button out of hard principle? Would you push it, but with a guilty conscience? Or would you, like me, push it while whistling a cheerful air, with your hat on the side of your head?

If you would not push it, or if you would push it reluctantly, then that urgent yearning for social justice that you feel all the time in your gut is not compassion at all, but cancerous envy. It is evil. It is a deadly sin that must be mortified. You don't love the poor at all -- you hate the rich, and you want to use the poor as a club. And why would this malevolent genie want to take your precious club away?

HT: Chris Gensheer

UBS Greek New Testament (GBS/Crossway)

2011-12-15T08:31:00.007-06:00

I've read through every reader's Greek New Testament available and this one, which I've had about a month, is the best--readability, brief apparatus for the most important variants, references of OT/LXX quotes, paper quality, choice of Greek font, definitions and parsing of words appearing fewer than 30 times in the NT, definitions of even frequently used words in the back, and, of course, that most crucial of book qualities, which will prevent me from ever owning a Kindle or Nook: smell. And a cover that will last as long as a cow's hide. Because that's what it is.

Here is a downloadable PDF excerpt.

Bryan Chapell Talks with Jerram Barrs on Prayer

2011-12-14T13:25:00.002-06:00

A strengthening brief conversation.

God's Work Begins When Ours Comes to Its End

2011-12-14T08:42:00.004-06:00

Jack Miller, writing in 1987 to a fellow pastor who is under unfair criticism--

God's work begins when ours comes to its end.

Sometimes His presence is not felt with power through our methods however useful they may be, especially when we are confident we have the right approach and insights. God has a way of wanting to be God and refusing to get too involved where we have our own wisdom and strength. Then when we run out of wisdom and strength, He is suddenly present, a lesson I find myself relearning practically every day that I am in my right mind. (On my crazy days I am not ready to learn much!)

I think He wants our confidence to be exclusively in Him, and when we lose our self-confidence then He moves in to show what He can do. Perhaps self-dependence--and forgetting the strength to be found in Christ-dependence--is always our biggest blind spot. There is also presumption and pride that go with self-reliance.

So let's not lose our trust in God and the power of His gospel and the spirit of praise which goes with its proclamation (Rom 15:13; 1 Cor 1:18, 22-25; Gal 6:14).

--The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (P&R, 2004), 200-201

The Bible Made Impossible

2011-12-13T13:06:00.003-06:00

A few paragraphs from my brother Gavin's brief interaction with Christian Smith's The Bible Made Impossible--

It seems significant to me that Smith, as he mentions in the preface, wrote this book around the time of his conversion to the Roman Catholicism (xiii). Much of the book feels directed against his evangelical upbringing, and I think I understand some of the attitudes towards the Bible at the popular level he is reacting against. A big part of what seems to annoy him, for example, is when people treat the Bible as a universal “handbook” for all kinds of issues, from dating to economics to how to train your pet, etc. Okay, I get that. But I think his book would have had greater value if he had engaged with evangelical treatment of Scripture against the backdrop of the classic Protestant doctrines of Scripture upon which it is founded, such as sola Scriptura (which was not opposed to tradition and creed) or the perspicuity of Scripture (which applied to matters of salvation, not all theological or a-theological topics). Much of what he is arguing against here seems to have less to do with different views of the Bible and more to do with different degrees of intellectual sophistication in practical use of the Bible. Christians of all traditions – including those, like Smith, in the Roman Catholic church – are guilty of treating the Bible in a simplistic way.

The core of Smith’s critique rests upon his thesis about “pervasive interpretative pluralism” – he frequently notes that even those with a high view of Scripture tend to disagree about all kinds of matters, and for him, this decisively argues against biblicism. My question is: why is “pervasive interpretative pluralism” anything more than a hermeneutical issue? Isn’t it simply a result of our finitude and fallibility as human thinkers, regardless of our doctrine of Scripture? Isn’t it just as much of a problem in the Roman Catholic church, for example – or really any sizable, diverse tradition, within or without Christendom? The myriad of different views on any given topic could be cataloged in Roman Catholicism quite easily – whether stretched back historically, focused on rulings and counter-rulings of different Popes and church councils, or seen today in the diverse opinions held on a multitude of issues within the Catholic Church. If one appeals to authoritative rulings from the Church to decide the issue, one must then adjudicate between the numerous interpretations of those rulings – and so on ad infinitum. Any authority source – whether the Bible or the Pope or human reason or the U.S. Constitution – can lead to “pervasive interpretative pluralism.” In no case does that fact as such discredit the authority.

'Reverting Back to Our Successes'

2011-12-12T13:42:00.008-06:00

Fascinating commentary here from Kordell Stewart (3:10-4:02), revealing how we are forced to cope with human disapproval without the gospel.

But I Will Always Help You

2011-12-12T09:01:00.003-06:00

'I do really wish to destroy it!' cried Frodo. 'Or, well, to have it destroyed. I am not made for perilous quests. I wish I had never seen the Ring! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?'

'Such questions cannot be answered,' said Gandalf. 'You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom, at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.'

'But I have so little of any of these things . . . !'

. . . Sam passed along the path outside whistling. 'And now,' said the wizard, turning back to Frodo, 'the decision lies with you. But I will always help you.' He laid his hand on Frodo's shoulder. 'I will help you bear this burden, as long as it is yours to bear. But we must do something, soon. The Enemy is moving.'

--J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, ch. 2

Ultimate Questions Evangelistic App

2011-12-12T08:56:00.001-06:00

Looks very helpful. Free. By John Blanchard.

He Does Not Run From Our Smelliness

2011-12-09T08:56:00.003-06:00

Jack Miller, to a discouraged missionary, directing the dear man's eyes and heart to Jesus--

He is life from the dead. When the tomb was opened, the smell of Lazarus' sin and death came forth. The Lord must have felt like running away, since He hates evil in all its forms. But He stayed there.

He does not run from us in our state of decay and smelliness. I tell you, when Jesus deals with us He does not pretend that we are lovely and odorless, but it is in the midst of our smelly death that Jesus draws near with tears and power and love and called the dead and rotting into new life. . . .

I know of no one else who can help the heart in its deepest needs, who can comfort the soul.

--The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (P&R, 2004), 183

Hope

2011-12-08T09:29:00.001-06:00

Luther on John 1:16 ('we have all received grace upon grace')

2011-12-07T08:31:00.002-06:00

Martin Luther's theological thunderclaps are wonderfully refreshing in today's fuzzy, politically correct, intolerantly tolerant, inoffensive-at-all-costs theological atmosphere.

It is a terrible and detestable blindness and a demonic presumption when a person has the audacity, as all work-righteous and hypocrites do, to attempt atonement for sin through works and tries in this way to earn the grace of God. It is wretched arrogance. . . . This is like a poor beggar--lice-ridden, syphilitic, leprous, filthy, stinking, and crawling with maggots and worms over his whole body, but nonetheless proud and arrogant--who vauntingly says: 'Just look at me, a handsome fellow!'

. . . Therefore we have no right to indulge in much bragging and boasting when we step before God. Even if we were members of the highest aristocracy on earth and were prone to take pride in this, before God we would still be nothing but bags of worms or bags of manure, infested with lice, maggots, stinking and foul. . . .

The healing alternative:

But if we do want to boast, then let us boast that we receive from the fullness of Christ, that we are enlightened by Him, attain forgiveness of sin, and become children of God through Him. . . . This fountain is inexhaustible; it is full of grace and truth before God; it never fails no matter how much we draw from it. Even if we all dip from it without stopping, it cannot be emptied, but it remains a perennial fount of all grace and truth, an unfathomable well, an eternal fountain.

The more we drink from it, the more it gives.

--Luther's Works, 22:132-34

Where the Gospel Takes Us

2011-12-06T09:07:00.002-06:00

Jack Miller, 1981, in a letter to another pastor with whom Jack has had some disagreements:

What is the gospel all about? It is the reconciliation of sinners to God through the blood of Christ and the reconciliation of men to one another as the fruit of that reconciliation to God. . . .

It must be greatly offensive to the Lord to see us defending the gospel in a manner that puts us at a distance from one another. . . . I fear that none of us have done all that well in living out [the gospel] as Christian brothers together. What has developed all too often is an adversary relationship among us, much like that in a court system. I am thinking of the tone, the pitting of position against position, the lack of mutual listening, and sometimes a breach of our covenant calling by bitterness and backbiting. . . .

How shall we give an account of ourselves when we are suddenly brought before our all-holy Father and asked to explain our divisions and quarrels?

--The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (P&R 2004), 167-68

Tolkien on How The Hobbit Began

2011-12-05T20:17:00.000-06:00

Let Us Drink our Fill from this Fountain

2011-11-30T09:17:00.003-06:00

Calvin:

If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is “of him” [1 Cor. 1:30]. If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anointing. If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion; if purity, in his conception; if gentleness, it appears in his birth. For by his birth he was made like us in all respects [Heb. 2:17] that he might learn to feel our pain [cf. Heb. 5:2].

If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion; if acquittal, in his condemnation; if remission of the curse, in his cross [Gal. 3:13]; if satisfaction, in his sacrifice; if purification, in his blood, if reconciliation, in his descent into hell; if mortification of the flesh, in his tomb; if newness of life, in his resurrection; if immortality, in the same; if inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom, in his entrance into heaven; if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings, in his Kingdom; if untroubled expectation of judgment, in the power given him to judge.

In short, since rich store of every kind of goods abounds in him, let us drink our fill from this fountain, and from no other.

--John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.16.19

HT: Robert Peterson

Confusion or Complexity?

2011-11-30T08:36:00.003-06:00

Mike Hyatt:

In my experience, confusion sometimes masquerades as complexity. Listening to an explanation, you might be tempted to think that you’re just not smart enough to understand the issue. But in reality, the presenter doesn’t understand it well enough to make it simple.

In my experience, too.

HT: James Kinnard

Paid

2011-11-28T15:32:00.001-06:00

Bad pictures. Glorious words.

HT: Dan Orr

A Pastoral Charge

2011-11-23T13:18:00.001-06:00

A good and wise charge from Zack Eswine to a newly installed pastor.

Bavinck on the Conversions of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin

2011-11-22T08:33:00.003-06:00

Bavinck:

Calvin came to the Reformation along similar paths as Luther and Zwingli—a deep religious-moral experience also characterized his conversion.

Yet, amidst the similarity there was also distinction. Luther experienced deep guilt and discovered the joy of God’s forgiving grace in Christ. Zwingli experienced the gospel as a liberation from legal bondage toward the glorious joy of adoption as God’s child. Calvin experienced a deliverance from error to truth, from doubt to certainty.

The German Reformer held on for dear life to the Scriptural word: “The just shall live by faith.” The Swiss Reformer’s favorite verse was the invitation from Jesus: “Come to me all who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest.” The Reformer who was born in France found his strength in Paul’s boast: “If God is for us, who can be against us.”

--Herman Bavinck, "John Calvin: A Lecture on the Occasion of His 400th Birthday," trans. John Bolt, The Bavinck Review 1 (2010): 62

We do all for joy

2011-11-21T14:21:00.002-06:00

Richard Sibbes:

We do all for joy. All that we do is that we may joy at length. It is the centre of the soul. As rest is to motion, so the desire of all is to joy, to rest in joy. So that heaven itself is termed by the name of joy, happiness itself. . . . What is our life without joy? Without joy we can do nothing. . . . A Christian, which way soever he look, hath matter of joy; the state of a Christian is a state of joy.

HT: Theoblog

Off to San Francisco for ETS/IBR

2011-11-14T13:28:00.001-06:00

Back in the blogging saddle next week!

The Consolation of Fairy Stories

2011-11-14T13:20:00.003-06:00

Tolkien:

The consolation of fairy stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous "turn" (for there is no true end to any fairytale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially "escapist," nor "fugitive." In its fairytale--or otherworld--setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur.

It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence) universal and final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

The peculiar quality of the "joy" in successful fantasy can then be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is . . . a "consolation" for the sorrow of this world. . . . But in the "eucatastrophe" we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater--it may be a faroff gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world.

--J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories" (evangelium = gospel)

HT: Jerram Barrs

Reflections on William Cowper's Poems

2011-11-14T08:18:00.001-06:00

From my brother Gavin.

An excerpt:

Cowper’s life compels me to interpret life differently than I previously have. Two things emerge in my mind as I struggle with it. First, there are wounds, there are trials, there are agonies in this fallen world that cannot be described with words or contained within concepts. They stretch and bend and even break our ability to understand. They draw us into the realm of extremity, to the utter brink. But second, and without at all downplaying the reality of the first point, God can heal the deepest wounds and redeem the most broken life. I don’t believe that Cowper’s despair is the sum and total of his life. In his letters, and much more in his poetry and hymns, another strand of thought emerges, one of hope, patience, and faith.

Rightly Directed Rage

2011-11-12T15:09:00.010-06:00

What Jerry Sandusky did was a horror. If that was my boy who came home with wet hair, and had been brutalized in that way, I am not confident that I would be able to restrain myself from calmly killing Sandusky in the middle of the night. Slowly. I am not trying to be funny. If that were my son--God help him.

Now--brothers and sisters--that horror we feel is right. The thirst for personally executed revenge is not right. But the revulsion, and thirst for justice, is right. We would be wrong not to feel it.

But the horror we feel over this is not only appropriate, it is also a glimpse into the horror of our own sin. I am not leveling out all sins. Some are worse than others. But the revulsion, the rage, that we rightly feel toward that sick man is a picture of the repulsiveness of our own sick rebellion against an infinitely beautiful One, and the rage he would be right to direct toward us.

That desire for an hour, just one hour, with Sandusky in a sealed off room with nowhere for him to run, and the rage that I would like to pour out on him, is a glimmer of the rage that ought to be poured out on me by my Creator. And was poured out on his Son.

I am more like Sandusky than different from him.

God help me.

He did.

Beware Lest Humility Become Sadness

2011-11-11T07:55:00.002-06:00

C. S. Lewis, writing to his priest, December 1951--

So great is the difference between mere affirmation by the intellect and that faith, fixed in the very marrow and as it were palpable, which the Apostle wrote was substance (Hebrews 11:1).

This emboldens me to say to you something that a layman ought scarcely to say to a priest nor a junior to a senior. (On the other hand, out of the mouths of babes: indeed, as once to Balaam, out of the mouth of an ass!). It is this: you write much about your own sins. Beware (permit me, my dearest Father, to say beware) lest humility should pass over into anxiety or sadness. It is bidden us to "rejoice and always rejoice" (Phil 4:4). Jesus has cancelled the handwriting which was against us (Col. 2:14-15). Lift up our hearts!

--The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Vol. 3 (Harper, 2007), 151-52

HT: Wade Urig

Fires in Our Basements

2011-11-10T08:21:00.001-06:00

Jack Miller writes in the 1990s to a church he had recently spoken at--

Jesus knocks at the front door of our heart (Rev. 3:20). In response we do not immediately open the door via our free will. Instead, we quickly put locks on the door and push furniture against it. The Lord then sends the Holy Spirit to slip in the back door. He goes down into the basement, where He turns up the heat and sets fires until the rising heat forces us to remove the barriers and open the front door and let Christ in. I believe that the Lord keeps right on using this backdoor approach in our growth in grace.

He sets fires in our basements by putting us in limiting and painful circumstances.

--The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (P&R, 2004), 90

Any Chance?

2011-11-09T08:37:00.000-06:00

On the lighter side . . .

In the mid-1930s C. S. Lewis was given the great honor of being invited to contribute a volume to the massive multi-volume project undertaken by Oxford University Press, The Oxford History of English Literature, affectionately referred to by Lewis as O HELL. Lewis' volume was to cover the 16th century.

Lewis did eventually finish the book--700 pages of technical literary scholarship. Shortly after agreeing to do it, though, Lewis wrote the editor, Frank Wilson--

The O HELL lies like a nightmare on my chest. . . . I shan't try to desert . . . but I have a growing doubt if I ought to be doing this. . . . Do you think there's any chance of the world ending before the O HELL appears?

Yours, in deep depression,
C. S. Lewis

--The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, vol. 2 (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 221-22

Passing By

2011-11-08T08:31:00.003-06:00

'I will make all my goodness pass before [LXX parerchomai] you. . . .' The Lord passed before [parerchomai] him and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious. . . .' -Exodus 33:19; 34:6

'I will never again pass by [parerchomai] them; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate. . . . The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by [parerchomai] them.' -Amos 7:8; 8:2

And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by [parerchomai] them. . . . -Mark 6:48

Like a Greenhouse

2011-11-07T19:21:00.001-06:00

The Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because he loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.

--C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 2, chapter 5

Hallelujah! What a Savior

2011-11-07T08:09:00.002-06:00

An Irony

2011-11-07T07:54:00.002-06:00

Jack Miller, in a 1988 letter to another pastor who had been emphasizing that sanctification takes place as the gospel of grace softens and transforms hearts--

One irony that strikes me is that so often people who emphasize the third use of the law are really not great law-keepers themselves. For example, I have noted that sometimes church members given heavy doses of the third use of the law have little idea of the inner nature of the law as a delighting in God. I have also noted a tendency to exclude the tongue and a critical spirit from consideration as well, so that you can get the irony of believers defending the laws with a harshness that itself breaks the law! What sinners we can be!

But I do think that the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession have an excellent emphasis on faith and sanctification. . . .

I suspect that Reformed people, especially in the English Puritan tradition, have been especially prone to nomism.

--The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (P&R, 2004), 59

A Civil War

2011-11-06T13:37:00.004-06:00

Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at war. But it does not think this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel.

Enemy-occupied territory--that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.

--C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 2, chapter 2

Bavinck on Calvin

2011-11-05T14:33:00.003-05:00

Men sometimes speak as if Calvin knew of nothing else to preach but the decree of predestination with its two parts of election and reprobation. The truth is that no preacher of the gospel has ever surpassed Calvin in the free, generous proclamation of the grace and love of God. He was so far from putting predestination to the front, that in the Institutes the subject does not receive treatment until the third book, after the completion of the discussion of the life of faith. It is entirely lacking in the Confessio of 1536.

--Herman Bavinck, Calvin and Common Grace (New York: Westminster, 1909), 18

God Must Do It

2011-11-04T08:28:00.001-05:00

Bavinck:

If for insignificant, guilty, and impure persons there is to be a possibility of true religion, that is, of genuine fellowship with God, of salvation and eternal life, then God on his part must reestablish the broken bond, again take them into fellowship with him and share his grace with them, regardless of their guilt and corruption.

He, then, must descend from the height of his majesty, seek us out and come to us, take away our guilt and again open the way to his fatherly heart. If God were to wait until we—by our faith, our virtues, and good works of congruity or condignity—had made ourselves worthy, in part or in whole, to receive his favor, the restoration of communion between him and ourselves would never happen, and salvation would forever be out of reach for us.

--Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:204-5

One Central Conviction

2011-11-03T14:42:00.004-05:00

In August 1988 Jack Miller wrote to a pastor in Ireland. He said at one point:

One central conviction has come to me: it is that pride and self-centered ambition crowd the love of God out of my life. Therefore I constantly need to repent of pride and self-importance and to have the love of God as seen in the golden message of grace crowd out wicked stuff like self-importance. I pray; I believe; Lord, help me with my unbelief!

--The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters of Jack Miller (P&R, 2004), 62

How God Became King

2011-11-03T07:54:00.002-05:00

Eager to read this next Spring.

Triumph, even in Weakness

2011-11-03T04:36:00.003-05:00

Love this.

Luther--

We have been cast down many times in this conflict, and still are; but we do not perish, for Christ has always triumphed and does triumph through us. Therefore, we firmly hope to obtain the victory against the devil through Jesus Christ.

This hope brings us sure consolation, so that in the midst of our temptations we take courage and say, 'Satan has tempted us before and by his deceit has provoked us to infidelity, contempt for God, despair, and so on; yet he has not prevailed, nor shall he prevail from now on (1 John 4:4). Christ is stronger and has overcome and continues to overcome that strong one in us, and he will overcome him forever.'

Still, the devil sometimes overcomes us in the flesh. But even then we may experience the power of a stronger person over that strong enemy and may say with Paul, 'When I am weak, then I am strong' (2 Cor 12:10).

--Martin Luther, Galatians (Crossway, 1998), 120

Does God Send Trouble?

2011-11-03T04:34:00.001-05:00

Warfield:

It is because we cannot be robbed of God's providence that we know, amid whatever encircling gloom, that all things shall work together for good to those that love him. It is because we cannot be robbed of God's providence that we know that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ--not tribulation, nor anguish, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor peril, nor sword. . . . Were not God's providence over all, could trouble come without his sending, were Christians the possible prey of this or the other fiendish enemy, when perchance God was musing, or gone aside, or on a journey, or sleeping, what certainty of hope could be ours?

'Does God send trouble?' Surely, surely. He and he only. To the sinner in punishment, to his children in chastisement. To suggest that it does not always come from his hands is to take away all our comfort.

--B. B. Warfield, 'God's Providence Over All,' in Selected Shorter Writings of B. B. Warfield (2 vols; ed. J. E. Meeter; P&R, 2001), 1:110; quoted in Paul Helseth, 'Right Reason' and the Princeton Mind: An Unorthodox Proposal (P&R, 2010), v

Defeat in Victory

2011-11-02T10:03:00.002-05:00

My brother Eric--

I was talking with a brother struggling with sin once. He told me he had managed to resist temptation the night before. "Good!" I said. "But whether you gave in or not, are you still able, looking beyond yourself, to rejoice in Christ's perfect obedience on your behalf?" He hung his head. That was a more difficult question--even more difficult than resisting temptation.

If a Christian resists temptation and then focuses on their victory, is pleased with it, and the joy of it carries them onward--that may be a defeat at a deeper level.

Ultimate Meaninglessness Is Un-Discoverable

2011-11-02T08:45:00.004-05:00

Lewis:

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe . . . we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

--C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 2, chapter 1

One Reason We Love Nature

2011-11-02T08:31:00.002-05:00

Lewis:

What indeed can we imagine heaven to be but unimpeded obedience?

I think this is one of the causes of our love of inanimate nature, that in it we see things which unswervingly carry out the will of their Creator, and are therefore wholly beautiful: and though their kind of obedience is infinitely lower than ours, yet the degree is so much more perfect that a Christian can see the reason that the Romantics had in feeling a certain holiness in the wood and water.

The Pantheistic conclusions they sometimes drew are false: but their feeling was just and we can safely allow it in ourselves now that we know the real reason.

--C. S. Lewis, in The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 2 (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 177-78

The Tragedy of Spiritual Impotence

2011-11-02T08:28:00.002-05:00

Tim Dalrymple, on the institution founded by Archibald Alexander--

Surely it says something that when I drove back to Princeton Theological Seminary from my chaplaincy work with the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, it felt as though I were leaving behind a place where God was real and urgent and present to a place where God was formally honored but rarely dynamically present. And surely it says something that, when I was suddenly struck with the fear of death before a surgery, I went around to my professors, essentially begging them for assurance that there was an eternity with God to be enjoyed, and the most affirmative answer I received was: “I think there’s an eternity with God; but if not, this life has been a wild ride.”

Sobering and sad.

Brothers considering seminary: I can't speak for other seminaries because I only went to one, and no place is perfect. But you will find the opposite of this at Covenant Seminary. And a dozen other schools that quickly come to mind.

HT: TGC

The Benefits of Sorrow

2011-11-01T11:24:00.001-05:00

Wise, strengthening words from our brother Zack Eswine.

Lewis' Advice to Young Men

2011-11-01T08:26:00.001-05:00

C. S. Lewis, in a letter to Arthur Greeves, Dec 29, 1935.

Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say, 'sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.' I know I am very fortunate in that respect...

--Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Vol 2, ed. Walter Hooper (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 174

The Temporariness of Life

2011-10-31T08:52:00.001-05:00

Jack Miller, to his daughter Keren as she and her husband consider going to the mission field, April 1986--

You wouldn't believe Morocco between Casablanca and Fez. The valleys are just splendid with green grass and flowers. The verdant land is singing the praises of its Maker, and so shall we in fullness when Jesus brings in the big springtime of His new world. This old world is such a mess when you get to know it: so much hatred in it, so much revenge, so much greed, and an almost endless supply of human foolishness. It makes it a mystery that we mortals cling to it with such strong fingers when we are really holding on to winter's fog, mist, damp, rot, and mud. Lord, give me a longer view. . . .

Get a good view of the temporariness of life and--believe it or not--you will enjoy it more. When we get our footsies so mired down in time that we think it is eternal, we become subject to all the ups and downs, the vagaries, of time. Our loves are so easily disturbed because we are loving only what is changing and finally will be replaced altogether.

But to see this temporariness of many of our dreams isn't bad. We cannot remain adolescents forever. God's will is for us to become adults, and the heart of being an adult is the capacity to put away the toys and put on the love and joy and peace of Christ. The mind of Christ brings such quietness where otherwise the life would be ruled by discontent and all kinds of defenses and ambitions.

--The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (ed. Barbara Miller Juliani; P&R, 2004), 32-33; with thanks to Drew Hunter for giving me this treasure of a book!