No More Important Event

Archibald Alexander (1772-1851), first professor at Princeton Seminary, on regeneration--

There is no more important event, which occurs in our world, than the new birth of an immortal soul.

Heirs to titles and estates, to kingdoms and empires, are frequently born, and such events are blazoned with imposing pomp, and celebrated by poets and orators; but what are all these honours and possessions but the gewgaws of children, when compared with the inheritance and glory to which every child of God is born an heir!

The implantation of spiritual life in a soul dead in sin, is an event, the consequences of which will never end. When you plant an acorn, and it grows, you expect not to see the maturity, much less the end of the majestic oak, which will expand its boughs and strike deeply into the earth its roots. The fierce blast of centuries of winters may beat upon it and agitate it; but it resists them all. Yet finally this majestic oak, and all its towering branches, must fall. Trees die with old age, as well as men. But the plants of grace shall ever live. They shall flourish in everlasting verdure. They will bear transplanting to another clime--to another world.

--Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1844), 35-36

The Story

This is a really nice resource, produced by Spread Truth Ministries, presenting the gospel in the biblical-theological terms of creation, fall, rescue, and restoration.

"The Story" Promotional Video from The Story (ViewTheStory.com) on Vimeo.

Being Right Is Not Enough

On October 26, 1951, Francis Schaeffer wrote a letter to a pastor friend of his, a friend who had recently assumed leadership of an independent, fundamentalist-leaning church. Schaeffer was himself in the throes of removing himself from the Presbyterian group that had been growing increasingly vociferous in its denunciation of liberal theology.

Part of that letter reads--

As I have thought perhaps more quietly than in previous days, it has seemed to me that in the past there has been a fallacy in my thinking. That fallacy is simply this: that insofar as we are so abundantly right (as we are concerning the biblical position of separation), therefore it would certainly follow of a necessity that God's rich blessing would rest upon us as individuals and as a movement. I no longer believe this is so. For increasingly the realization has welled up in my own soul that although this principle [of separation] is of tremendous importance, nevertheless there are other principles in the Word of God which must be kept with equal fidelity if God's full blessing is to be upon us. . . .

What does all this mean to me? I am not sure, except that it brings me increasingly to my knees--to ask that the Holy Spirit may have His way in my life; that I may not think just of justification and then the glories of Heaven (with merely a battle for separation between). But that I may think of all the wonders of the present aspect of my salvation, and that they may be real to me in my life and ministry. What a wonderful Lord we have, and how glorious it is to indeed have God as our Father, and to be united with Christ, and to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Oh, would to God that our ministry could be under His full direction, and in His power without reservation.

Three years later Schaeffer wrote similarly to another friend of the family:

Events since we have seen each other make me more sure than ever that the Lord is calling some of us indeed to learn all that the blood of Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit should mean to us in this present life. Increasingly, I believe that the Devil fears this above all else. Doctrinal rightness and rightness of ecclesiastical position are important, but only as a starting-point to go on into a living relationship--and not as ends in themselves.

--Lane T. Dennis, ed., Letters of Francis A. Schaeffer (Crossway 1985), 35-36, 46

What is Humility?

Groveling self-deprecation?

Smarmy self-loathing?

Incessant refusal to acknowledge anything one contributes, by God's mercy, to the world?

Edwards:

True Christian humility of heart tends to make persons resigned to the will of God, patient and submissive to his holy hand under afflictions, full of awful [i.e. awe-full] reverence towards the Deity, ready to treat divine things with great respect, and of a meek behavior towards men . . . respectful towards superiors, gentle, easy to be entreated, not self-willed, not envious, but contented with his own condition, of a peaceable and quiet spirit, not disposed bitterly to resent injuries, but apt to forgive.

--Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits, Works, Yale ed., 8:304-5

Content to Wait

George Whitefield, in a letter to an American correspondent concerned about a rash of slanderous public statements about Whitefield:

I am content to wait till the judgment day for the clearing up of my character; and after I am dead I desire no other epitaph than this, 'Here lies G.W. What sort of a man he was the great day will discover.'

--quoted in Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the 18th Century Revival (2 vols; Banner of Truth, 1970, 1980), 2:258

Wise Counsel to Those Working Hard for Jesus

Jack Miller writes to a young missionary in Uganda--

Just a few quick thoughts for you, dear brother.

Remember first that I love you and keep right on loving you. We all have you in our hearts. Not because of your faithful work--which truly is wonderful--but because you belong to us in Jesus. You are first His work, and we praise Him for that.

My second thought is to make sure you are enjoying yourself and not taking your work too seriously. You don't have anything to prove to us or the world. The work is finished at Calvary, and that work alone has unlimited meaning and value. Keep your focus there. And then read [novelist] Robert Ludlum and/or go on vacation.

My third thought is help others relax and enjoy the work. . . .

Fourth, major in giving thanks for what has been accomplished and don't spend more than one-half hour looking at your sins. Keep praise constant. Imagine, in a little over two years a green mission has fielded a whole new team in Uganda and is now fielding another in Ireland. Amazing, really!

--Jack Miller, The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (P&R 2004), 43-44

Thanks to our brother Drew Hunter for alerting us to this.

What Is Envy?

Envy may be defined, a spirit of opposition to others' comparative happiness, or to the happiness of others considered as compared with their own. The thing to which envious persons are opposed is the comparative relation between that state of honor or happiness which others have, or may have, and their own state.

--Jonathan Edwards, sermon 5 in Charity and Its Fruits, in Works, Yale ed., 8:219

A Christologian

Fred Zaspel:

More than just a polemic theologian, Benjamin Warfield was first and foremost a christologian.

The person of Christ and his work clearly topped the list of Warfields many interests as measured by his literary output and preaching, as well as his recurring mention of and express concern for the doctrine. His reasons were more than academic: he was deeply convinced that in this theme we are brought to the very heart of the Christian faith. For Warfield, to maintain vigorously and carefully the doctrine of Christ set forth in Scripture is to preserve Christianity itself. The contemporary denials of the historicity of Christ, his mighty works, his deity, his two natures, his vicarious death, and his triumphal resurrection all threaten the very essence of Christianity. If these issues are not understood scripturally, the entire Christian structure crumbles, and redemption from sin is only a dream.

Warfield writes, therefore, as the polemic theologian he is—with penetrating analysis, careful exposition, and often devastating critique. Yet he consistently displays a sense of adoration of Christ and of utter dependence upon him for redemption from sin. Without question, in the person and work of Christ . . . we have reached the heart of Benjamin Warfield.

--Fred G. Zaspel, The Theology of B. B. Warfield: A Systematic Summary (Crossway 2010), 213-14

Bavinck: What Happened in Christ

The sun of righteousness rose to its zenith in the heavens and shone out over all peoples.

The law and the prophets have been fulfilled and in Christ as their end and goal reached their destiny. . . . He is the truth, the substance in whom all the promises and shadows have been realized. In him all things have been fulfilled. He is the true prophet, priest, and king; the true servant of the Lord, the true expiation, the true sacrifice, the true circumcision, the true Passover, and therefore his church is the true seed of Abraham, the true Israel, the true people of God, the true temple of God, the true Zion and Jerusalem, its spiritual offering, the true religion.

Nothing of the Old Testament is lost in the New, but everything is fulfilled, matured, has reached its full growth, and now, out of the temporary husk, produces the eternal core.

It is not the case that in Israel there was a true temple and sacrifice and priesthood and so on and that all these have now vanished. The converse, rather, is true: of all this Israel only possessed a shadow, but now the substance itself has emerged.

--Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:224; Scripture references omitted

Where Ephesians 1-3 Takes Us

Taking a breath after three exultant chapters reminding his readers of what God in Christ has done, Paul turns in Ephesians 4 to remind them what this means for their personal conduct.

'I exhort you, therefore, as a prisoner in the Lord, to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called, with all ____________________.' (Eph 4:1)

What would you expect there?

Paul, suffering as a prisoner in the Lord, turns his attention now to the Ephesians; he is not so much looking at Christ in light of the Ephesians but looking directly at the Ephesians in light of Christ.

I would expect something like:

'. . . with all sacrifice'; '. . . with all zeal'; '. . . with all untempered courage.'

Paul says: '. . . with all gentleness and humility.'

That is where the first three chapters of Ephesians, lofty chapters which refuse to be exhausted by the unending proliferation of academic scrutiny, take us.

Ephesians 1 to 3 may call some of us to great sacrifice ten years from now in a Muslim land. First, though, Ephesians 1 to 3 calls all of us to great sacrifice this weekend in our living room.