The Issue Is not Only Universalism but Also Justification

Our brother Jared Wilson makes a pungent point regarding Rob Bell's questioning of whether Ghandi would go to hell. Worth digesting no matter how ready we all are to move on.

[This] begs the question, 'why Ghandi?' If you're not trying to implicitly assert a works salvation, why not ask if a loving God would let Hitler into heaven?

Eye-opening. Thanks J.

Read the rest.

Isaiah 62:7

A Vision So Big it Must Fail if God Is Not in It

I'm plodding through Lloyd-Jones on revival at the moment while rereading Edwards' revival writings and I continue to ask myself, and others:

How could you not want this to happen again?

There was nothing weird about the events of which Lloyd-Jones preached and for which he longed, and which Edwards saw with his own eyes. It is not something to be averse to. It was not goofy. It was real. God-sent (not humanly manufactured) revival is, I believe, the only thing that will prompt something from the world other than their usual yawn. Let the world say what they will, let them ridicule, one thing I cannot bear is being viewed as boring by my unbelieving friends. I hate that.

So I rejoiced to finally get my hands on this book this week. Many important books have been published in recent months, several of which deserve their own posts. But if the Lord granted that I could pick one book for every Christian to read in 2011 it would be Hansen and Woodbridge on revival. Friends, we must be aware of what God can do, and has done, with screwy nobodies like you and me.

The other night I read in Edwards' Faithful Narrative that one of the greatest means of spreading the 1734-35 revival was the testimony of fellow believers whom God had revived. People simply needed to hear what God had been doing. They needed the testimony of others to create a category of what God can do in a human life, a category they simply did not have. That category-creation is what Hansen and Woodbridge have done for us.

You cannot read this book without longing for God to pour out his Spirit in 2011.

In the preface our brothers write:

We who live in an era of small things must remember eras when the big things seen and heard in the Bible returned once more.

This book is not for those who have grown comfortable with the Christian life. Others, however, will feel the Spirit nudging them toward something more. They will begin to see ways they have been satiated by small things and lost the taste for big things. They may realize that if Jesus is truly Lord, then everything changes. The timeworn routines that promise peace no longer satisfy. They will embrace a God-sized vision for his work in this world. We cannot pretend that we see things perfectly from God's perspective. But we can plead with him to give us a glimpse of the world from the loftier vantage point. Few of us are tempted today to dream too big. Rather, our vision shrinks to the size of our limited experience. Yet all things are possible for those who believe in the God who created the heavens and the earth. In our disbelief, we can ask God for inspiration to believe. Then he may give us a vision of divine size.

--Collin Hansen and John Woodbridge, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir (Zondervan, 2010), 12

'Wake up . . .' --Revelation 3:2

'I will not be mastered by anything' (1 Cor 6:12) - including my cell phone

I find this wise piece over at the Coalition from Louis Markos very instructive. Thanks Louis.

That We Might Live Again

Athanasius:

He descended that he might raise us up; he went down to corruption, that corruption might put on immortality; he became weak for us, that we might rise with power; he descended to death, that he might bestow on us immortality, and give life to the dead. Finally, he became man, that we who die as men might live again, and that death should no more reign over us.

--'Festal Letter,' 10:8; quoted in Thomas G. Weinandy, Athanasius: A Theological Introduction (Ashgate, 2007), 96; note also p. 123

The Bible's Promise Structure

A nice one-page chart from our brother Trent Hunter, outlining the way the Bible is structured around the promises of God, climaxing in Christ. Click to enlarge.

HT: Drew Hunter

Have a Horror of Being Trivial

Have a horror of sinking into a tattling, twaddling, trivial sort of man, talking much and achieving nothing. Steer clear of a young man's rock, self-importance. Walk humbly with God. Acts of self-condemnation are, next to acts of faith in Christ, the most profitable of devotional exercises. I have grown best and done best when most frequent in them.

--Thomas Collins, 18th century Methodist preacher, in his personal resolutions; quoted in Iain Murray, Wesley and the Men Who Followed (Banner of Truth 2003), 212

To defuse a potential ambiguity, I believe Collins is setting 'acts of self-condemnation' opposite 'acts of self-exaltation,' not 'acts of gospel-appropriation.'

It is another thing than many are aware of

Sinclair Ferguson, recounting the way John Owen came to know assurance of salvation 400 years ago:

The life of Richard Davis, minister in Rothwell, Northamptonshire, provides a rare insight into the autobiographical nature of Owen's exposition.

Davis had sought out Owen for spiritual counsel and arranged an interview with him. In the course of conversation, Owen asked him, 'Young man, pray in what manner do you go to God?'

'Through the Mediator, sir,' answered Davis.

'That is easily said,' replied Owen, 'but I assure you it is another thing to go to God through the Mediator than many who make use of the expression are aware of. I myself preached Christ some years, when I had but very little, if any, experimental acquaintance with access to God through Christ; until the Lord was pleased to visit me with sore affliction, whereby I was brought to the mouth of the grave, and under which my soul was oppressed with horror and darkness; but God graciously relieved my spirit through a powerful application of Ps 130.4, But there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared, from whence I received special instruction, peace, and comfort, in drawing near to God through the Mediator, and preached thereupon immediately after my recovery.'

--Sinclar Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Banner of Truth, 1987), 100 n. 1

By the way: this new awareness of happy nearness to God was not an isolated existential event after which Owen turned once more to dry theologizing. Volume six of Owen's Works devotes a dense 200 pages to a single verse to expound assurance of salvation--Psalm 130:4.

When John Owen writes on indwelling sin, temptation, mortification, the Holy Spirit, assurance of salvation--all he is doing is using the Bible to make sense of personal experience (see also pp. 123-24). I find that very comforting. And a model for the rest of us.

Here Is a Thunderbolt

Here, then, is something fundamentally necessary and salutary for a Christian, to know that God foreknows nothing contingently, but that he foresees and purposes and does all things by his immutable, eternal, and infallible will. Here is a thunderbolt by which free choice is completely prostrated and shattered, so that those who want free choice asserted must either deny or explain away this thunderbolt, or get rid of it by some other means.

--Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:37

Realized Wretchedness Does Not Equal Humility

A good word from our brother Michael DiMarco.