His Coming and Our Going

Former missionary and missiologist David J. Hesselgrave on the church’s priority in mission:

We Christians constantly need to remind ourselves that “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). Amid all the good things that missionaries are called to do, they should never forget that their essential task is to seek out those who will humbly confess their sins and throw themselves upon the mercy of God available in Christ Jesus. And among all the needs for which missionary intercessors might pray, they should pray that missionaries will be successful in that search.

After all, the reason for Jesus’ coming is the reason for their going. (Paradigms in Conflict, 137-38).

(HT: Kevin DeYoung)

Practical Tips for Expository Preachers

There are a variety of methods for sermon preparation and delivery. There is no one way to do it. Everyone is unique and different. Alistair Begg shares five tips that he learned from an older minister when he was a theological student:

1. Think yourself empty. Survey a passage of Scripture in the proper spirit of unlearnedness. Avoid the proud assumption that you initially know what everything means.
2. Read yourself full. Read widely and regularly.
3. Write yourself clear. Aside from the essential empowering of the Spirit, freedom of delivery in the pulpit depends on careful organization in the study.
4. Pray yourself hot. Without personal prayer and communion with God during the preparation stages, the pulpit will be cold.
5. Be yourself, but don’t preach yourself. There is nothing quite so ridiculous as the affected tone and adopted posture of the preacher who wishes he were someone else. Also – a good teacher clears the way, declares the way, and then gets out of the way.

From the new edition of Preaching for God’s Glory by Alistair Begg.

(HT: Crossway)

A pure and lasting work of spiritual renewal

“Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. . . . In their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification. . . . Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude.

In order for a pure and lasting work of spiritual renewal to take place within the church, multitudes within it must be led to build their lives on this foundation.  This means that they must be conducted into the light of a full conscious awareness of God’s holiness, the depth of their sin and the sufficiency of the atoning work of Christ for their acceptance with God, not just at the outset of their Christian lives but in every succeeding day.”

Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life (Downers Grove, 1979), pages 101-102, italics his.

(HT: Ray Ortlund)

DOCTRINE WINS

By Richard Lints:

With all of the furor surrounding Rob Bell’s recent book, Love Wins (HaperOne 2011) it may seem counterintuitive to say that interest in the book (as evidenced by the Time Magazine cover article on it) owes more to the enduring interest in Christian doctrine rather than to the ambiguity of belief so characteristic of Bell’s thesis.  The fact that people still care about the doctrinal outlines of the Christian belief in heaven and hell is testimony that at the end of the day, doctrine wins.  It does matter what one believes.  It matters because doctrine shapes life and deep down most of us know this.

David Brooks, the New York Times OpEd columinist recently wrote, “Many Americans have always admired the style of belief that is spiritual but not doctrinal, pluralistic and not exclusive, which offers tools for serving the greater good but is not marred by intolerant theological judgments. The only problem is that [this view] is not quite true. Vague, uplifting, nondoctrinal religiosity doesn’t actually last. The religions that grow, succor and motivate people to perform heroic acts of service are usually theologically rigorous, arduous in practice and definite in their convictions about what is True and False” (New York Times, April 22, 2011).

When David Brooks, a nominal Jew, understands this, it seems all the more surprising that many evangelicals still seem predisposed to soften the edges of doctrinal conviction in order to be more acceptable to the wider culture.  Doctrine wins because Truth matters to life.  Would not the “living” nature of Biblical truth be a sufficient reminder of this?

Preaching from the Old Testament

TGC 2011 National Conference

Panel Discussion: Tim Keller, John Piper, Crawford Loritts, Don Carson and Bryan Chapell

Why so little detail is given concerning the suffering and death of Christ

“So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him” (John 19:16-18).

From John Bloom:

One astonishing thing about the Gospel accounts of the death of Jesus is that they include almost no detail. They all simply say some form of “they crucified him.”¹

If the gospels were our only historical source we would not know what crucifixion is. We would not know how bloody it was since the only mention of blood in any of the narratives isJohn 19:34, where blood and water poured out of Jesus’ pierced side. We would not have known that nails were involved except for Thomas’ declaration of doubt in John 20:25: “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

And yet Jesus’ death was brutal. The Roman flagrum that shredded his back was enough to kill some men. Pinning a human being to a wooden crux with nails until they die is among the cruelest form of execution ever devised. Jesus’ physical suffering was horrible beyond comprehension.

But the Spirit did not move the gospel writers to include such gory details in the canon of Scripture. Why is that?

One reason is that the suffering of Jesus was simply ineffable. The suffering of his body was dwarfed by the “anguish of his soul” (Isaiah 53:11). No words can capture the sacred horror of the Sinless One becoming sin for us. Let words be few.

But another reason is that it is not the Son’s suffering that Father wants us primarily to see. He wants us primarily to see what the Son’s suffering accomplishes: “in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7).

For this reason God is not impressed if we are deeply moved over Jesus’ torment. Unbelievers are moved to tears watching The Passion of the Christ. “Could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone.”² He is impressed with whether or not we believe in the gospel Jesus preached.

It is true that God the Son suffered more than we’ll ever know. And it is right to pray for softer hearts and a more profound grasp of what Jesus endured to save us. But as we survey the wondrous cross today, remember that in our worship God will not be looking for tears, he will be looking for trust.

6 Things Christ accomplished by his death

Here’s a very brief summary of the six core things Christ accomplished in his death, by Matt Perman:

1. Expiation

Expiation means the removal of our sin and guilt. Christ’s death removes — expiates — our sin and guilt. The guilt of our sin was taken away from us and placed on Christ, who discharged it by his death.

Thus, in John 1:29, John the Baptist calls Jesus “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Jesus takes away, that is, expiates, our sins. Likewise, Isaiah 53:6 says, “The Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him,” and Hebrews 9:26 says “He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”

2. Propitiation

Whereas expiation refers to the removal of our sins, propitiation refers to the removal of God’s wrath.

By dying in our place for our sins, Christ removed the wrath of God that we justly deserved. In fact, it goes even further: a propitiation is not simply a sacrifice that removes wrath, but a sacrifice that removes wrath and turns it into favor. (Note: a propitiation does not turn wrath into love — God already loved us fully, which is the reason he sent Christ to die; it turns his wrath into favor so that his love may realize its purpose of doing good to us every day, in all things, forever, without sacrificing his justice and holiness.)

Several passages speak of Christ’s death as a propitiation for our sins. Romans 3:25-26 says that God “displayed [Christ] publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because in the forbearance of God he passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration of his righteousness at the present time, that he might be just and the justifier of him who has faith in Jesus.”

Likewise, Hebrews 2:17 says that Christ made “propitiation for the sins of the people” and 1 John 3:10 says “in this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

3. Reconciliation

Whereas expiation refers to the removal of our sins, and propitiation refers to the removal of God’s wrath, reconciliation refers to the removal of our alienation from God.

Because of our sins, we were alienated – separated — from God. Christ’s death removed this alienation and thus reconciled us to God. We see this, for example, in Romans 5:10-11: “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

4. Redemption

Our sins had put us in captivity from which we need to be delivered. The price that is paid to deliver someone from captivity is called a “ransom.” To say that Christ’s death accomplished redemption for us means that it accomplished deliverance from our captivity through the payment of a price.

There are three things we had to be released from: the curse of the law, the guilt of sin, and the power of sin. Christ redeemed us from each of these.

• Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13-14).
• Christ redeemed us from the guilt of our sin. We are “justified as a gift by his grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).
• Christ redeemed us from the power of sin: “knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your fathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

Note that we are not simply redeemed from the guilt of sin; to be redeemed from the power of sin means that our slavery to sin is broken. We are now free to live to righteousness. Our redemption from the power of sin is thus the basis of our ability to live holy lives: “You have been bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your bodies” (1 Corinthians 6:20).

5. Defeat of the Powers of Darkness

Christ’s death was a defeat of the power of Satan. “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Colossians 3:15). Satan’s only weapon that can ultimately hurt people is unforgiven sin. Christ took this weapon away from him for all who would believe, defeating him and all the powers of darkness in his death by, as the verse right before this says, “having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14).

6. And he Did All of This By Dying As Our Substitute

The reality of substitution is at the heart of the atonement. Christ accomplished all of the above benefits for us by dying in our place – that is, by dying instead of us. We deserved to die, and he took our sin upon him and paid the penalty himself.

This is what it means that Christ died for us (Romans 5:8) and gave himself for us (Galatians 2:20). As Isaiah says, “he was pierced throughfor our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities . . . the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him” (Isaiah 53:5-6).

You see the reality of substitution underlying all of the benefits discussed above, as the means by which Christ accomplished them. For example, substitution is the means by which we were ransomed: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). Christ’s death was a ransom forus — that is, instead of us. Likewise, Paul writes that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).

Substitution is the means by which we were reconciled: “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). It is the means of expiation: “He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21) and “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 3:24). And by dying in our place, taking the penalty for our sins upon himself, Christ’s death is also the means of propitiation.

To close: Two implications. First, this is very humbling.

Second, “Greater love has no one than this, than he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Jesus is the interpretative key to the Bible

“…the soundest methodological starting point for doing theology is the gospel since the person of Jesus is set forth as the final and fullest expression of God’s revelation of His kingdom. Jesus is the goal and fulfillment of the whole Old Testament, and, as the embodiment of the truth of God, He is the interpretative key to the Bible.”

Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, p. 33

(HT: John Fonville)

Only grace has the power to change us

“The best way of casting out an impure affection is to admit a pure one; and by the love of what is good, to expel the love of what is evil. . . .

Thus it is, that the freer the Gospel, the more sanctifying is the Gospel; and the more it is received as a doctrine of grace, the more will it be felt as a doctrine according to godliness.  This is one of the secrets of the Christian life . . . .

Salvation by grace – salvation by free grace – salvation not of works, but according to the mercy of God – salvation on such a footing is not more indispensable to the deliverance of our persons from the hand of justice, than it is to the deliverance of our hearts from the chill and the weight of ungodliness.  Retain a single shred or fragment of legality with the Gospel, and we raise a topic of distrust between man and God.  We take away from the power of the Gospel to melt and to conciliate.  For this purpose, the freer it is, the better it is.  That very peculiarity which so many dread as the germ of antinomianism is, in fact, the germ of a new spirit and a new inclination against it.  Along with the light of a free Gospel does there enter the love of the Gospel, which, in proportion as we impair the freeness, we are sure to chase away.  And never does the sinner find within himself so mighty a moral transformation as when under the belief that he is saved by grace, he feels constrained thereby to offer his heart a devoted thing, and to deny ungodliness.”

Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection.”

(HT: Ray Ortlund)

Is there a ‘Problem of Forgiveness’? Dissonant voices

Four voices.  Only one of them resembles the tone and accent of the Master.

Faustus Socinus (1578)

As we saw elsewhere Paul likewise instructs us to be imitators of God: just as he forgave our sins through Christ, we should forgive each other, but if God so forgave our sins through Christ, that he yet demanded the punishment of them from Christ itself, what prevents us from seeking satisfaction for ourselves for the offenses of our neighbours?

Brian McLaren (2006)

The traditional understanding says that God asks of us something that God is incapable of Himself. God asks us to forgive people. But God is incapable of forgiving. God can’t forgive unless He punishes somebody in place of the person He was going to forgive. God doesn’t say things to you—Forgive your wife, and then go kick the dog to vent your anger. God asks you to actually forgive. And there’s a certain sense that, a common understanding of the atonement presents a God who is incapable of forgiving. Unless He kicks somebody else.

Steve Chalke (2004)

Is it not strange for Jesus (God incarnate) on the one hand to say ‘do not return evil for evil’ while still looking for retribution himself? Similarly wouldn’t it be inconsistent for God to warn us not to be angry with each other and yet burn with wrath himself, or tell us to ‘love our enemies’ when he obviously couldn’t quite bring himself to do the same without demanding massive appeasement? If these things are true, what does it mean to ‘be perfect…as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matt 5:48)? If it is true that Jesus is ‘the Word of God’ then how can his message be inconsistent with his nature? If the cross has anything to do with penal substitution then Jesus teaching becomes a divine case of ‘do as I say, not as I do’. I, for one, believe that God practices what he preaches!

John Stott (1986)

‘Why should our forgiveness depend on Christ’s death?’…’Why does God not simply forgive us, without the necessity of the cross?’…’After all’, the objector may continue, ‘if we sin against another, we are required to forgive one another.  We are even warned of dire consequences if we refuse.  Why can’t God practise what he preaches and be equally generous?  Nobody’s death is necessary before we forgive each other.  Why then does God make such a fuss about forgiving us and even declare it impossible without his Son’s “sacrifice for sin”?’

For us to argue, ‘We forgive each other unconditionally, let God do the same to us’, betrays not sophistication but shallowness, since it overlooks the elementary fact that we are not God.  We are private individuals, and other people’s misdemeanours are personal injuries.  God is not a private individual, however, nor is sin just a personal injury.  On the contrary, God himself is the maker of the laws we break, and sin is rebellion against him.

The reason why many people give the wrong answers to questions about the cross, and even ask the wrong questions, is that they have carefully considered neither the seriousness of sin nor the majesty of God.

(HT: Martin Downes)

God Created the World for Good Friday

John Piper explains how and why he has become more Christocentric in his preaching over the years. Here’s the outline of his theological reasoning:

1. The apex of God’s display of his own glory is the display of his grace.
2. God’s glorification of his grace was planned before creation.
3. God’s glorification of his grace was to happen through the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
4. From eternity the apex of God’s glorification of his grace was designed to be Christ’s crucifixion for sinners.
5. God’s glorification of his grace in the crucifixion of his Son for sinners was theultimate purpose for creating the universe.
6. Therefore God planned from eternity that the revelation of his glory would be the ultimate reason for creating the universe.

Read the whole thing for scriptural support and further explanation.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

It Is Finished!

Moo on Justification in Galatians

Crossway has made available Doug Moo’s essay, “Justification in Galatians” (PDF) from
Understanding the Times: New Testament Studies in the 21st Century: Essays in Honor of D. A. Carson on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, ed. Köstenberger and Yarbrough.

An excerpt:

Paul’s teaching on justification in Galatians strongly endorses the traditional Reformation emphasis on justification by faith alone.

In contrast to some recent reconfigurations of this doctrine, the Reformers did not mean by this teaching that a person gains only initial entrance into the state of salvation by faith alone—the ultimate verdict being based on faith plus works.

They intended to assert that the eschatological gift of justification, at whatever “time” or in however many stages it might be manifested, came by faith alone.

Paul seems to be saying just this in Galatians. Faith is the means not only of entering into relationship with God but also of maintaining that relationship and of confirming that relationship on the day of judgment.

Of course, it is not faith in itself that has this power; it is because faith connects the believer to Christ, in whose vindication (see 1 Tim. 3:16) the believer shares.

My brief overview confirms those who find a monergism in Paul’s teaching about salvation that stands in contrast to the synergism of covenant nomism. Justification, not only in its initial phase, but in its totality, is sola fide—and, though it has not been a focus of this study, in light of Galatians 2:21 and 5:4, sola gratia also.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Ferguson on Freedom from the Law and Freedom from Sin

Sinclair Ferguson, on Owen’s theology of mortification:

How does Christ set us free from the law? And how does that freedom involve freedom from the dominion of sin?

For Owen the answers are clear: Christ sets us free from the curse of the law by taking that curse himself and he fulfills the demands of the law for holiness for the believer by his perfect life. . . . He is the believer’s righteousness.

But how does freedom from the law entail freedom from the dominion of sin? It is because the believer’s union with Christ, which effects his freedom from the law, also effects his ‘death to sin,’ for he is united to Christ both in his death under the law and his simultaneous death to sin. The two were inseparable in Christ, and through union with him, they are also inseparable in the Christian.

–Sinclair Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Banner of Truth, 1987), 130; italics original

(HT: Dane Ortlund)

I never despair, because I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit

I never despair of anyone becoming a decided Christian, whatever he may have been in days gone by. I know how great the change is from death to life; I know the mountains of division which seem to stand between some men and heaven; I know the hardness, the prejudices, the desperate sinfulness of the natural heart.

But I remember that God the Father made the glorious world out of nothing. I remember that the voice of the Lord Jesus could reach Lazarus when, four days dead, and recall him even from the grave. I remember the amazing victories the Spirit of God has won in every nation under heaven. I remember all this—and feel that I never need despair.

The arm of the Spirit is not shortened! His power is not decayed! He is like the Lord Jesus—the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is still doing wonders, and will do to the very end. I shall not be surprised to hear, even in this life, that the hardest man I know has become softened, and the proudest has taken his place at the feet of Jesus as a weaned child. I shall not be surprised to meet many on the right hand in the day of judgment, whom I shall leave, when I die, traveling in the broad way.

I never despair, because I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit.

— J.C. Ryle “The Power of the Holy Spirit”

(HT: Of First Importance)

A Response to Ricky Gervais

From Justin Taylor:

Mike Cosper has a thoughtful response to “An (Atheist) Easter Message from Ricky Gervais.”

Here’s the conclusion:

In his abundant mercy, God looks upon the broken, the downtrodden, those crushed by the burdens of Satan, sin, and death, and provides scandalous mercy in Jesus Christ. That’s the starting place of the gospel, and the starting place of any conversation about what it means to be a Christian. Ricky Gervais looks at the Scriptures and sees only law, not grace, and responds with appeals to legal obedience.

There are millions like him, both inside and outside the church. They believe that the essential message of the Bible is, “If you behave, then you belong.” We have a better message and a much richer story, one drenched in grace and mercy. Remember, as many Christians before us have understood, the gospel tells us that we’re far worse off than we ever imagined . . . and far more loved than we ever dared to dream.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones refutes Universalism

Surely we cannot accept . . . Universalistic ideas, because, if we do so, it means that we find ourselves contradicting the plain teaching of Scripture in those places where there is a clear division between the saved and the unsaved, the good and the bad, the redeemed and the lost. In spite of the arguments based upon a philosophic idea of the love of God, the Scripture draws the ultimate distinction between eternal salvation and eternal destruction . . . There is only one salvation—by the blood of Christ—and no-one can enter the kingdom except by belief in Christ. Such is the Universal teaching of the Scripture . . .

The mystic secret which we as Christians are allowed to share is that God will ultimately restore the original harmony, and re-unite again all things in Christ. Christ is over all and the old harmony will be restored . . .these blessings only apply to those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. No harmony is promised to others; they are sent to ‘everlasting destruction’; but they will be outside the cosmos, as it were; they will be out of harmony and will not disturb it eternally. As regards the fallen angels it is clear that there is no hope for them. They are ‘reserved in chains’ in the pit until their final damnation comes (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6). Satan also is to be cast into ‘the lake of fire’ where he and all his followers are to be tormented for ever (Revelation 20:10).

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God’s Ultimate Purpose : An Exposition of Ephesians 1, 1 to 23 (Edinburgh; Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth Trust, 1978), 202-07.

(HT: Adrian Warnock)

E.M. Bounds on what makes great preaching great

The gospel of Christ does not move by popular waves. It has no self-propagating power. It moves as the men who have charge of it move. The preacher must impersonate the gospel. Its divine, most distinctive features must be embodied in him. The constraining power of love must be in the preacher as a projecting, eccentric, an all-commanding, self-oblivious force. The energy of self-denial must be his being, his heart and blood and bones. He must go forth as a man among men, clothed with humility, abiding in meekness, wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove; the bonds of a servant with the spirit of a king, a king in high, royal, independent bearing, with the simplicity and sweetness of a child. The preacher must throw himself, with all the abandon of a perfect, self-emptying faith and a self-consuming zeal, into his work for the salvation of men. Hearty, heroic, compassionate, fearless martyrs must the men be who take hold of and shape a generation for God. If they be timid timeservers, place seekers, if they be men pleasers or men fearers, if their faith has a weak hold on God or his Word, if their denial be broken by any phase of self or the world, they cannot take hold of the Church nor the world for God.

The preacher’s sharpest and strongest preaching should be to himself. His most difficult, delicate, laborious, and thorough work must be with himself. The training of the twelve was the great, difficult, and enduring work of Christ. Preachers are not sermon makers, but men makers and saint makers, and he only is well-trained for this business who has made himself a man and a saint. It is not great talents or great learning or great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God—men always preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, by holy lives out of it. These can mould a generation for God.

E. M. Bounds, Power through Prayer (London: Marshall Brothers, 1907), 12-14.

(HT: Chris Castaldo)

Stott on The Self-Substitution of God

We strongly reject, therefore, every explanation of the death of Christ which does not have at its centre the principle of ‘satisfaction through substitution’, indeed divine self-satisfaction through divine self-substitution.

The cross was not:

a commercial bargain with the devil, let alone one which tricked and trapped him;

nor an exact equivalent, a quid pro quo to satisfy a code of honour or technical point of law;

nor a compulsory submission by God to some moral authority above him from which he could not otherwise escape;

nor a punishment of a meek Christ by a harsh and punitive Father;

nor a procurement of salvation by a loving Christ from a mean and reluctant Father;

nor an action of the Father which bypassed Christ as Mediator.

Instead, the righteous, loving Father humbled himself to become in and through his only Son flesh, sin and a curse for us, in order to redeem us without compromising his own character.

The theological words ‘satisfaction’ and ‘substitution’ need to be carefully defined and safeguarded, but they cannot in any circumstance be given up. The biblical gospel of atonement is of God satisfying himself by substituting himself for us.

John Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 159-160.

(HT: Desiring God blog)

Treasure Christ, and You Cannot Lose

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. –Philippians 1:21

Edwards, preaching on this text–

If it be so that your death is your gain, be exhorted to wean your hearts more and more from the world. If your gain consists not in staying in the world but in going out of it, how important is it to set your hearts upon it as if it consisted in it.

Will you set your hearts upon the things of this life when your gain consists not in this life but in the next? Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Is death gain to you?

Be entirely resigned to God’s will while living or dying: you are always safe in either of these conditions, for you to live is Christ and to die is gain. . . . And seeing it is so that you are got into such a happy estate and condition that either by life or death you obtain your great end, cast yourself upon God’s hands: let his will be your will, knowing that whether you are to die in youth or in old age, this year or next, today or tomorrow, whether a natural or violent death, by sickness or by accident, whether at home or abroad, whether an easy or a painful death; yet let it come when, how, and where it will, it will be your unspeakable gain.

–Jonathan Edwards, ‘Dying to Gain,’ in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 10,Sermons and Discourses 1720-1723 (ed. Wilson Kimnach; Yale University Press, 1992), 590

(HT: Dane Ortlund)