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The WordPress.com annual report for this blog:
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Here’s an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 170,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 7 days for that many people to see it.
I’m grateful to Kevin DeYoung for this:
In the past week I’ve started reading The Church of Christ by James Bannerman (1807-68). If you aren’t familiar with the work, you should be. It is a classic treatment of Reformed ecclessiology. With almost a thousand pages in two volumes, there isn’t much Bannerman doesn’t cover. Chapter 7 deals with “the church in its relation to the world.” The chapter sounds remarkably contemporary. I’ll probably say more about the book and this chapter later, but it’s worth highlighting the main points here.
It is deeply interesting, then, to inquire into the place and office assigned to the Church of Christ in the world. What is the peculiar and important work given to the Christian Church to do upon earth. . . .What, then, I ask, is the mission of the Church on the earth, and its office in relation to the world?
Bannerman then makes and expound three statements.
In the next chapter, Bannerman allows that the church may work for the betterment of society as a “secondary object,” but this, he argues, is not the primary aim.
The bottom line: Christ works out his purposes on earth by his Spirit and by his Church, and that purpose or mission is “His great work in the conversion and sanctification of His people.” This is the “mighty and mysterious task entrusted” to the Church.
C.H. Spurgeon:
We ought not, as men in Christ Jesus, to be carried away by a childish love of novelty, for we worship a God who is ever the same, and of whose years there is no end. In some matters “the old is better.” There are certain things which are already so truly new, that to change them for anything else would be to lose old gold for new dross.
The old, old gospel is the newest thing in the world; in its very essence it is for ever good news. In the things of God the old is ever new, and if any man brings forward that which seems to be new doctrine and new truth, it is soon perceived that the new dogma is only worn-out heresy dexterously repaired, and the discovery in theology is the digging up of a carcase of error which had better have been left to rot in oblivion.
In the great matter of truth and godliness, we may safely say, “There is nothing new under the sun.”
(HT: Trevin Wax)
“We are justified freely, for Christ’s sake, by faith, without the exertion of our own strength, gaining of merit, or doing of works. To the age-old question, ‘What shall I do to be saved?’ the confessional answer is shocking: ‘Nothing! Just be still; shut up and listen for once in your life to what God the Almighty, creator and redeemer, is saying to his world and to you in the death and resurrection of his Son! Listen and believe!’”
Gerhard O. Forde, Justification by Faith (Philadelphia, 1983), page 22.
(HT: Ray Ortlund)
George Ladd, in The Gospel of the Kingdom, points to five differences between the Kingdom of God and the church:The Kingdom is primarily the dynamic reign or kingly rule of God, and derivatively, the sphere in which the rule is experienced. In biblical idiom, the Kingdom is not identified with its subjects. They are the people of God’s rule who enter it, live under it, and are governed by it. The church is the community of the Kingdom but never the Kingdom itself. Jesus’ disciples belong to the Kingdom as the Kingdom belongs to them; but they are not the Kingdom. The Kingdom is the rule of God; the church is a society of women and men.
“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” James 4:8
Great stuff from Ray Ortlund:
How can we draw near to God in 2012? Let me propose two ways, consistent with the gospel. They are not heroic. They only require faith and honesty.
One, at those very places in our lives where we are the most sinful, the most defeated, let’s face it and admit it. Whatever view we take of Romans 7, surely every one of us can say, “I do not understand my own actions” (Romans 7:15). And beyond admitting the impasse which we thought that, by now, we’d have grown past, let’s trust God to love us at that very point in our existence. It is his way. God loves grace into us (Owen, Works, II:342). Let’s open up. If Jesus is a wonderful Savior in every way except where we are the most hypocritical, then he is no Savior for us. But the truth is, he draws near to broken sinners who own up. What if we saw, in our very sins, the nearness of God awaiting us with greater mercy than we have ever known before?
Two, let’s confess our sins to one another and pray for one another. No one grows in isolation. We grow in safe community. Sadly, such an experience might be rare in our churches. It should be common among us gospel people. We should be obvious, even scandalous, as friends of sinners. But so often, someone must break the ice. I see no revival in our future without a new culture of confession. Personally, I have found a good way to measure my own honesty is the level of my embarrassment. If I’m not embarrassed by my confession, I’m still holding out. But it is freeing to come clean with a brother or sister and receive the ministry of prayer (James 5:16). What if in 2012 we were, to one another, unshockable friends, down on our knees together, not judging one another but praying for one another? Surely God’s nearness would be there.
Kenōsis is the Greek word in Philippians 2:7 translated “made nothing” (ESV). It’s what Jesus did to himself — “he made himself nothing . . .”
Donald Macleod writes,
In becoming incarnate God not only accomodates himself to human weakness: he buries his glory under veil after veil so that it is impossible for flesh and blood to recognize him. As he hangs on the cross, bleeding, battered, powerless and forsaken, the last thing he looks like is God. Indeed, he scarcely looks human. He looks like nothing but a hell–bound, hell–deserving derelict. Everything about him says, “An atheist and a blasphemer!” . . .
We should notice, too, that the kenōsis involved the willingness to go ever lower. Behind it, there lay two great decisions. The first, pre-temporal, was a decision of the eternal Son to assume the form of a servant in the likeness of men. Second, taken once he was incarnate, was the decision to humble himself even further.
From this point of view, the humiliation of Christ was not a point, but a line. Its greatest single step was that by which he became the child in the manger. The condescension involved in that is beyond imagining. Yet it was only the beginning of the long downward journey through homelessness, poverty, exhaustion, shame and pain to Gethsemane; and beyond that to Calvary. . . .
Every moment in that journey from Bethlehem to Calvary was chosen; and every moment on the cross, from the third to the ninth hour, was chosen. Every day of the Lord’s life he re-enacted the kenōsis, renewing the decision which had made him nothing and choosing to move further and further into the shame and pain it involved. He loved his own, and when eventually it became clear what that love would cost he went forward, trembling, to be what his people’s sin deserved.
The Person of Christ, “Contours of Christian Theology,” ed. Gerald Bray, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1998), 218, paragraphing added.
(HT: Jonathan Parnell)
the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.”
– Luke 1:35
Really, the Advent season runs from Genesis 3 onward, and Christmas Day is when the miracle prophesied in Luke 1:35 is fulfilled. For those of us who believe personhood can be derived from Psalm 139:13-15 and Job 31:15, we believe the Incarnation did not begin at Jesus’ birth but at his conception. And if this is so, when Colossians 2:9 says, “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,” we know that the fullness of deity dwelled in fertilized ovum.
Will the Empire State Building occupy a doghouse? Will a killer whale fit inside an ant?
And here we are told that omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, utter eternalness and holiness dwelled in a tiny person. This makes Santa coming down a chimney seem a logistical cakewalk.
“The head of all rule and authority” (Col. 2:10) had one of those jelly-necked wobbly baby heads. The government rested on his baby-fatted shoulders (Is. 9:6).
This miracle of addition is important. We must hold it tightly or lose the bigness of the Incarnation. God came as unborn child so that Christ would experience all of humanity. And he experienced all of humanity so that we might receive all of him for all of us.
If God came as a vulnerable, needful, weak baby, we have no need to fear for our own vulnerability, needfulness, and weakness. He emptied himself (Phil. 2:7) so that we would not see our own emptiness as a hopeless cause. “As you received him” — desperate, helpless, desirous — “so walk in him” (Col. 2:6). The miracle of the God-Baby proclaims the gospel’s specialty: rescue of the helpless.
By David Gibson, in the Wall Street Journal:
When he preached at Christmas, Saint Augustine acknowledged the associations between the still-dominant pagan rites and Christianity’s Feast of the Nativity. But the bishop of Hippo said that such associations should spur the faithful to deeper observance, not to downplaying the holiday altogether or tailoring it to the prevailing culture: “So, brothers and sisters, let us keep this day as a festival—not, like the unbelievers, because of the sun up there in the sky, but because of the One who made that sun.”
Mr. Gibson is a national reporter for Religion News Service.
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“For, as you see, Christ Jesus was conceived in the womb of the Virgin, and that by the mighty power of His Holy Spirit, so that our nature in Him was fully sanctified by that same power. And this perfect purity of our nature in His Person covers our impurity, for He was not conceived in sin and corruption as we are, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, who perfectly sanctified our nature in Him, even in the moment of His conception. Thus in that He was thoroughly purged, His purity covers our impurity.”
Robert Bruce, The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper, p. 25
(HT: John Fonville)
“The supreme mystery with which the gospel confronts us . . . lies not in the Good Friday message of atonement, nor in the Easter message of resurrection, but in the Christmas message of incarnation. The really staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man – that the second person of the Godhead became the ‘second man’ (1 Cor. 15:47), determining human destiny, the second representative head of the race, and that He took humanity without loss of deity, so that Jesus of Nazareth was as truly and fully divine as He was human.
Here are two mysteries for the price of one - the plurality of persons within the unity of God, and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus. It is here, the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. ’The Word was made flesh’ (John 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. And there was no illusion or deception in this: the babyhood of the Son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets.”
J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, 1973), pages 45-46.
(HT: Ray Ortlund)
Mary was “blessed among women” (Luke 1:42). She received the singular holy gift of being the mother of our Lord (Luke 1:43). God the Son dwelled inside of her body in human form. Then he lived in her home and was under her care until adulthood. This has tempted some to worship her.
In fact, one woman publicly exalted Mary by crying out to Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed” (Luke 11:27)! But Jesus corrected her by replying, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it” (Luke 11:27-28)!
Do you see what Jesus is doing? In this correction Jesus is protecting Mary’s true blessedness and protecting us from idolatry.
Gabriel told Mary that she had “found favor with God” (Luke 1:30). Certainly bearing and raising the Christ Child was an incredible favor. But it was not the greatest favor God bestowed on Mary. Though he gave Mary a completely unique calling, he favored her in a way similar to how he favors all his children.
Mary was not sinless. Mary deserved God’s wrath along with every other fallen human. This meant that God’s favor on her was unmerited — his grace upon her was of staggering proportions. Mary’s greatest blessing was not being mother of The Child. Her greatest blessing was that her Child would save her from her sins. And this blessing is given to everyone who believes in him (Matthew 1:21).
That’s why Jesus directs our attention away from Mary to his Word in Luke 11. The greatest blessing anyone can receive is the gift of the forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus (Ephesians 2:8). Mary’s vocational calling as the mother of Jesus was a great blessing, but it was nowhere near the blessing of her salvation.
God was “Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14) to Mary in a way no one else has experienced. But the most important way God dwelled with Mary was the same as he dwells with all his children: through faith (Ephesians 3:17).
And so with her relative, Elizabeth, we say of Mary, “blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Luke 1:45). Because God’s greatest blessing is given to those who believe him.
J.I. 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
(HT: Dane Ortlund)
Excellent post by Jonathan Leeman:
There are a lot of things a church should look for in its next pastor. But as your church considers different pastoral candidates, I want to make sure this is toward the top of your list: a supernatural faith in the power of God’s Word.
AS IMPORTANT ANY OTHER QUALITY
I’m not talking about a man who simply checks the belief box on the “authority” or “sufficiency” or “power” of the Bible.
I’m talking about a man who whose conviction here runs so deep that it profoundly influences the way he works and lives. He plans his weekly schedule based on this conviction. He rests his daily mood upon this conviction. He even picks his clothes in the morning knowing that, it’s not how good he looks that will bring life to the dead, it’s the resurrection power of God’s Word and Spirit.
This is as important as any other quality a pastor could have. It’s as important as swimming is to a lifeguard, throwing is to a quarterback, or adding is to an accountant. It defines the very task of what a pastor does.
THE POWER OF THE WORD
Humans create with hands, shovels, and bulldozers. Not God. God creates with words. He says, “Be,” and it is. He says “Peace” to the riotous wind and waves, and they obey. He says “Come forth” to dead people and their eyes pop open.
Just as astonishing, God tells the light to shine in dark hearts, giving them the ability to see the glory of his Son (2 Cor. 4:6). His Word of power saves (Rom. 10:17). It fundamentally changes people (1 Thess. 1:5-7). It gives the new birth (1 Peter 1:23).
Now get this: God gives his faithful servants the ability to do the same things. “If anyone speaks, she should do it as one speaking the very words of God.” (1 Peter 4:11). This is why Don Carson calls preaching “re-revelation.” A preacher’s primary task is to say again what God has already said. Did you think life comes to the dead through the power of our intelligence or humor or charisma?
Picture Ezekiel standing in a valley of dry bones. He preaches God’s Word, God’s Spirit blows, and the bones come to life. Your church wants a pastor who believes—deep in his bones!—that the same supernatural power is available to him. POW! He doesn’t rely on “the weapons of the world” but on “divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4). KAZAMM!
WHY THIS IS CRITICAL
Why is this critical for who your church should look for in a pastor search?
HOW CAN YOU TELL?
How do you know if a pastoral candidate has these convictions?
David Mathis’s three part series is a great refresher course on Christology (the doctrine of Christ). He writes:
Advent is my yearly reminder to brush up on Christology, the doctrine of the person of Christ. I’ve found it helpful to approach the subject under three headings: Jesus as Lord (fully divine), Jesus as Savior (fully human), and Jesus as Treasure (one person).
In this Christological triad (Lord-Savior-Treasure), Jesus’ Lordship is tied to his divinity. He is rightly called Yahweh, the name surpassingly more excellent than the angels (Hebrews 1:4), the name above every name (Philippians 2:9). Here’s the connection between Lordship and the divine name.
Not only did he remain fully divine when he took humanity to himself, but the humanity that he took was full humanity. And so Jesus has a fully human body, emotions, mind, and will — and this in no way compromises his deity.
God was glorious long before he became man in Jesus. But we are human, and unincarnate deity doesn’t connect with us in the same way as the God who became human. The conception of a god who never became man will not satisfy the human soul like the God who did.
(HT: Justin Taylor)
Todd Pruitt:
I believe it was C.S. Lewis who wrote about “chronological snobbery”: the tendency to think that your time, your methods, your generation, etc are somehow worthy of greater esteem than that of the past. This has been tragically true within evangelicalism. The irony, of course, is that we are a people whose entire existence depends upon events 2,000 years ago and beyond. What is more, we have two millennia of church history from which to draw. Unfortunately, in our preaching, praise, and education we seem to prefer the cheap porridge of contemporary trends over the rich and thoughtful deposits of our forebears. The finest historians on the planet ought to be Christians. Our churches ought to be filled with historical referents. Not that our buildings would be museums and our gatherings exercises in nostalgia. A thousand times no! However it seems to me, to quote one of my co-laborers, “We are sowing the seeds of our own demise.”
Read the whole article here.
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From Matt Smethurst:
More than 30 years ago, J. I. Packer wrote an article titled “The Vital Question” for Themelios (the entire archives can be accessed for free at TGC). In it he considers whether Jesus of Nazareth was and remains God in person—that is, whether the deity of Jesus is “an item of factual truth” or “a notion with the status of a non-factual myth.” For [most people], this question is intriguing; for Packer, however, it’s imperative. He writes, “This is as far-reaching an issue as can well be imagined. On it hangs your view both of God and of salvation.”
All Christologies, Packer argues, can be boiled down to two basic brands: “Man Plus” and “God Plus.”
“Man Plus” Christologies almost unanimously agree that Jesus was an utterly unique figure. He was no ordinary man. He was man plus a number of things—a unique sense of the divine, uncommon personal charisma, unfettered religious devotion, God-given insight, and so forth. Jesus of Nazareth was a godly man, perhaps even the godliest man ever to walk the earth. Nevertheless, the idea that Jesus was God is a myth. It doesn’t correspond to space-time fact, nor does it really need to.
“God Plus” Christology, on the other hand, is the position of historic Christian orthodoxy. It’s the view that Jesus of Nazareth was actually—that is, historically, publicly, objectively, necessarily—God incarnate. He was divinity plus humanity. Wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger was the eternal second person of the Trinity.
So virtually everyone agrees that Jesus was unique. But what was the nature of his uniqueness? Anti-incarnationists invariably ground Jesus’ uniqueness in his impact, while Christians root it first and foremost in his identity. In fact, believers maintain, his impact is a function of his identity, for without the Incarnation, the entire edifice of Christian doctrine would crumble.
The fundamental dividing line, then, between “Man Plus” and “God Plus” Christologies isn’t whether Jesus was unique. It’s whether he was divine.
It’s nearly impossible to overestimate the significance of the Incarnation for Christian belief. To deny the Incarnation is to undercut the very scaffolding of orthodoxy, for a non-divine Jesus is neither the one whom the New Testament presents nor he for whom believers throughout history have lived and died.
Practically speaking, “humanitarian” Christologies eviscerate both our objective reconciliation through Christ and our subjective renewal in Christ. Everything bound up with these precious doctrines vanishes the moment we discard his deity. A superhuman Jesus can inspire and he can impress, but he cannot redeem. The “humanitarian scaling down of Jesus Christ,” as Packer puts it, robs us of the divine Savior we so desperately need.
Anti-incarnational Christologies, though perhaps appearing benign, empty the gospel of its meaning and eternity of its hope. They don’t merely gut the richness of our salvation; they gut salvation itself. After all, if we deny that Jesus was God incarnate, then we cannot ascribe to him “any mediatorial ministry involving anything which it takes God to do.” Once the Incarnation hits the cutting room floor, in other words, the entirety of our salvation isn’t far behind.
Far from being some outmoded leftover from a more primitive stage of belief, the Incarnation is a truth on which the very hope of Christianity hinges. If we lose it, we lose everything.
From an anti-incarnationist standpoint, Jesus’ significance for us consists in a revelation of godliness but not of God himself. “Teacher and brother-man and example to us he may be,” Packer writes, “but Son of God and Savior he is not.”
Downsized versions of Jesus are bound to become both more common and enticing. But make no mistake: only the divine Jesus, displayed on the pages of holy Scripture, is worthy of being trusted and treasured. This Christmas, let us adore him who lay in the manger not simply for being a godly man, but for being and remaining, for us and for our salvation, the God-man.
My thanks to Justin Taylor for this:
Kelly Kapic:
It is important to note that Owen maintains an essential distinction between union and communion.
Believers are united to Christ in God by the Spirit. This union is a unilateral action by God, in which those who were dead are made alive, those who lived in darkness begin to see the light, and those who were enslaved to sin are set free to be loved and to love. When one speaks of “union,” it must be clear that the human person is merely receptive, being the object of God’s gracious action. This is the state and condition of all true saints.
Communion with God, however, is distinct from union. Those who are united to Christ are called to respond to God’s loving embrace. While union with Christ is something that does not ebb and flow, one’s experience of communion with Christ can fluctuate.
This is an important theological and experiential distinction, for it protects the biblical truth that we are saved by radical and free divine grace.
Furthermore, this distinction also protects the biblical truth that the children of God have a relationship with their Lord, and as a relationship, there are things that can either help or hinder it. When a believer grows comfortable with sin (whether sins of commission or sins of omission) this invariably affects the level of intimacy this person feels with God. It is not that the Father’s love grows and diminishes for his children in accordance with their actions, for his love is unflinching. It is not that God runs from us, but we run from him. Sin tends to isolate the believer, making him feel distant from God. Then come the accusations—both from Satan and self—which can make the believer worry he is under God’s wrath. In truth, however, saints stand not under wrath, but in the safe shadow of the cross.
While a saint’s consistency in prayer, corporate worship, and biblical meditation are not things that make God love him more or less, such activities tend to foster the beautiful experience of communion with God. Temptations and neglect threaten the communion, but not the union [Works, 2:126]. And it is this union which encourages the believer to turn from sin to the God who is quick to forgive, abounding in compassion, and faithful in his unending love.
Let there be no misunderstanding—for Owen, Christian obedience was of utmost importance, but it was always understood to flow out of this union, and never seen as the ground for it. In harmony with Bunyan and other Dissenters like him, Owen “insisted upon a very personal and emotional experience of union with Christ and the Holy Spirit,” and out of this union naturally flowed active communion.
Kelly M. Kapic, “Worshiping the Triune God: Insights from John Owen,” introduction to John Owen, Communion with the Triune God, ed. Kelly M. Kapic and Justin Taylor; foreword by Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), pp. 21-22.
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