How Rich and Adequate Is the Provision

What do you say to a woman whose only son has just died? Nothing, at first. We weep with those who weep. But if they ask for counsel there is one thing above all else we can do: point to Christ, the great Sympathizer and Lover of the grieving. This is what Jonathan Edwards did for six pages in a 1751 letter to Mary Pepperrell, whose son had just died.

Those who know something of Edwards' life will note that hell had just recently broken loose over his own life.

We see then, dear Madam, how rich and how adequate is the provision, which God has made for our consolation, in all our afflictions, in giving us a Redeemer of such glory and such love, especially, when it is considered, what were the ends of this great manifestation of beauty and love in his death.

He suffered that we might be delivered. His soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, to take away the sting of sorrow, and to impart everlasting consolation. He was oppressed and afflicted, that we might be supported. He was overwhelmed in the darkness of death, that we might have the light of life. He was cast into the furnace of God's wrath, that we might drink of the rivers of his pleasures. His soul was overwhelmed with a flood of sorrow, that our hearts might be overwhelmed with a flood of eternal joy.

Death may deprive us of our friends here, but it cannot deprive us of our best Friend. . . . Therefore, in this we may be confident, though the earth be removed, in him we shall triumph with everlasting joy. Now, when storms and tempests arise, we may resort to him, who is a hiding-place from the storm, and a covert from the tempest. When we thirst, we may come to him, who is as rivers of water in a dry place. When we are weary, we may go to him, who is as a shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

--Jonathan Edwards, in Michael Haykin, ed., A Sweet Flame: Piety in the Letters of Jonathan Edwards (Reformation Heritage, 2007), 129-30

Luther's God

The final words of Roland Bainton's celebrated biography of Luther--

In his religion he was a Hebrew, not a Greek fancying gods and goddesses disporting themselves about some limpid pool or banqueting upon Olympus. The God of Luther, as of Moses, was the God who inhabits the storm clouds and rides on the wings of the wind. At his nod the earth trembles, and the people before him are as a drop in the bucket. He is a God of majesty and power, inscrutable, terrifying, devastating, and consuming in his anger.

Yet the All Terrible is the All Merciful too. 'Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord . . .' But how shall we know this? In Christ, only in Christ. In the Lord of life, born in the squalor of a cow stall and dying as a malefactor under the desertion and the derision of men, crying unto God and receiving for answer only the trembling of the earth and the blinding of the sun, even by God forsaken, and in that hour taking to himself and annihilating our iniquity, trampling down the hosts of hell and disclosing within the wrath of the All Terrible the love that will not let us go. No longer did Luther tremble at the rustling of a wind-blown leaf, and instead of calling upon St. Anne he declared himself able to laugh at thunder and jagged bolts from out of the storm.

This was what enabled him to utter such words as these: 'Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.'

--Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Hendrickson, 1977), 401

Wise and Foolish Speech in Proverbs

A really nice article in the current Themelios by my brother Eric on how Proverbs guides us into wisdom in how we use our words. Filled with good insight, and urgently relevant for our lives today in the church, especially for leaders.

Here's the big picture, from the introduction:

I would like to argue that, in the book of Proverbs, one cannot argue with a fool without making things worse. The wise person instead trusts the Lord to intervene by silencing and stopping foolish speech and vindicating those who trust him. I realize this conclusion may seem extreme. In order to recommend it, this article briefly sketches how the major characters in Proverbs speak and examines how the wise respond (or do not respond) to foolish speech. Then it turns to the NT, focusing on Paul’s directions to how Timothy and Titus should speak in different situations, as well as Paul’s presentation of Christ as the wisdom of God in 1 Cor 1. The essay closes by applying the wise speech of Proverbs to everyday-ministry settings.

 And here's a pungent paragraph from the conclusion:

Why does the fool always have to be right? Why is he always arguing, always putting others in the wrong and justifying himself? Because he does not relish the righteousness that is found in Jesus Christ—the very righteousness of God (Phil 3:10) that God confers on anyone forsaking whatever righteousness they can achieve on their own (3:9). In my experience, some Christians are burdened with a profound a sense of the wrongness of the world and the church, but do not have a correspondingly sweet sense of God’s grace for sinful people. Their strategy for dealing with the pain of this pervasive sense of wrongness is to offload it on others. I have known Christians whose “ministry” was pointing out others’ faults, being suspicious of false teaching in others, criticizing and scrutinizing other Christians, and so on. A Christian can rebuke and exhort in a larger context of grace, but the person I am talking about does not do this—it is a ministry of condemnation, not reconciliation.

Knowing the Bible

Today Crossway releases Knowing the Bible, a series of Bible study guides that will cover the whole Bible, Lord willing, in 6 years.

Lane Dennis and I conceived the project a few years ago in a desire to provide the church with a theologically robust, gospel-rich, user-friendly, and digitally accessible series of study guides that take readers through any given book of the Bible in 12 units.

After asking substantive questions of the text at hand, each of the 12 units identifies the gospel, biblical theology, and systematic theology in the passage. In this way we hope readers come to the end of the study and have a strong grasp of that Bible book--and specifically how that book gives gospel nourishment, develops the big storyline of Scripture, and reinforces orthodox doctrine. J. I. Packer is Theological Editor.

The study guides are ideal for small group study, not least because the questions are substantial. (The questions are, however, built on the notes of the ESV Study Bible, so individuals too should be able to work their way successfully through a study.)

God has brought outstanding church leaders to work with us on this. The first six volumes are:

• Mitch Kim on Genesis
• Drew Hunter on Isaiah
• Dane Ortlund on Mark
• Justin Buzzard on John
• Jared Wilson on Romans
• Greg Gilbert on James 

The next six, released mid-2014, will be:

• Kathleen Nielson on Ruth/Esther
• Doug O'Donnell on Psalms
• Lydia Brownback on Proverbs
• Drew Hunter on Matthew
• Justin Holcomb on Acts
• Ryan Kelly on Philippians

Thereafter we plan to ratchet up to 8 volumes a year.

Thanks for your support, and I warmly welcome your feedback as this initial batch is released. 

Here are some endorsements for the series. And in the video below I introduce the series.

Knowing the Bible Series from Crossway on Vimeo.

An Eternity in Hell? Really?

The traditional doctrine of hell seems terrible to our modern ears because it is out of step with our modern intuitions about how God should behave. But our intuitions about these matters are hardly a reliable guide, given what Scripture says about the noetic effects of sin. To put it another way, the fact that an infinite punishment for sin seems an appalling, even disproportionate, punishment to contemporary human beings does not necessarily mean it is an appalling, disproportionate punishment. It may be that this is simply testimony to our failure to take with sufficient seriousness the idea of sinning against a being of infinite beauty and value. 

--Oliver Crisp, defending Edwards' understanding of hell, in "Karl Barth and Jonathan Edwards on Reprobation," in Engaging with Barth: Contemporary Evangelical Critiques (T&T Clark 2008), 316-17

Translation: The fact that an eternal hell seems disproportionately cruel as a punishment for sinners--that very sense of disproportion--is itself one manifestation of the sin that deserves eternal punishment.

An Echo of Christ, Lion and Lamb

Sir Ector, on seeing the dead Sir Launcelot:

Ah, Sir Launcelot! Thou wert never matched of none earthly knights' hands. Thou wert the meekest man that ever ate in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest.

--Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur (1485), XXI: xii

Luther on Preaching

A young overwhelmed preacher complained to Luther that preaching was too heavy a burden for an inexperienced man like him and that he should have stayed in his former profession. Luther responded with words that, according to Roland Bainton, "Luther was constantly repeating to himself":

If Peter and Paul were here, they would scold you because you wish right off to be as accomplished as they. Crawling is something, even if one is unable to walk. Do your best. If you cannot preach an hour, then preach half an hour or a quarter of an hour. Do not try to imitate other people. Center on the shortest and simplest points, which are the very heart of the matter, and leave the rest to God. Look solely to his honor and not to applause. Pray that God will give you a mouth and to your audience ears. I can tell you preaching is not a work of man. Although I am old [he was 48] and experienced, I am afraid every time I have to preach. . . . So pray to God and leave all the rest to him. 

--Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Hendrickson, 1977), 361

Not Cheap: Free

My life is a witness to vulgar grace—a grace that amazes as it offends. . . . A grace that hikes up the robe and runs breakneck toward the prodigal reeking of sin and wraps him up and decides to throw a party, no ifs, ands, or buts. . . .

It’s not cheap. It’s free, and as such will always be a banana peel for the orthodox foot and a fairy tale for the grown-up sensibility.

--Brennan Manning, All Is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir (Cook, 2011), 193-94

Edwards on the Gospel in the Old Testament

From his History of the Work of Redemption:

Some are ready to look on the Old Testament as being, as it were, out of date and as if we in these days of the gospel had but little to do with it; which is a very great mistake, arising from want of observing the nature and design of the Old Testament, which if it was observed it would appear full of the gospel of Christ, and would in an excellent manner illustrate and confirm the glorious doctrines and promises of the New Testament. Those parts of the Old Testament which are commonly looked upon as containing the least divine instruction are, as it were, as mines and treasures of gospel knowledge, and the reason why they are thought to contain so little is because persons do but superficially read them. The treasures that are hid underneath are not observed.

--Jonathan Edwards, A History of the Work of Redemption, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Yale edition, vol. 9, 290

He Knew the Heart of God for Sinners

HT: Eric Ortlund