November 11, 2009 • 1:55 pm 0
Also:
How do I know God exists? and How can God be loving yet send people to hell? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.
(HT: Justin Taylor)
Filed under: Christ crucified, DA Carson, Evangelical, Jesus Christ, Suffering, The Cross, The Gospel, The word of God
October 23, 2009 • 12:05 pm 0
This is the most important way to consider all aspects of Christian discipleship:
D. A. Carson applies the Gospel and the Glory of the transcendent Christ to the Christian life to promote change.
Filed under: Biblical Counseling, Biblical disciplines, Christ our treasure, Christ-centred, DA Carson, Discipleship, Doctrine, Jesus Christ, Sanctification, The glory of Christ
September 28, 2009 • 12:39 pm 0
September 22, 2009 • 6:54 pm 0
Filed under: CJ Mahaney, Christ-centred, DA Carson, Doctrine, Gospel-centred, Jesus Christ, John Piper, Mark Dever, The Cross, The Gospel, Theology, Tim Keller
June 8, 2009 • 11:22 am 1
“By contrast, the first two greatest commands—to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves—do not constitute the gospel, or any part of it. We may well argue that when the gospel is faithfully declared and rightly received, it will result in human beings more closely aligned to these two commands. But they are not the gospel. Similarly, the gospel is not receiving Christ or believing in him, or being converted, or joining a church; it is not the practice of discipleship. Once again, the gospel faithfully declared and rightly received will result in people receiving Christ, believing in Christ, being converted, and joining a local church; but such steps are not the gospel.
The Bible can exhort those who trust the living God to be concerned with issues of social justice (Isa 2; Amos); it can tell new covenant believers to do good to all human beings, especially to those of the household of faith (Gal 6); it exhorts us to remember the poor and to ask, not “Who is my neighbor?” but “Whom am I serving as neighbor?” We may even argue that some such list of moral commitments is a necessary consequence of the gospel. But it is not the gospel. We may preach through the list, reminding people that the Bible is concerned to tell us not only what to believe but how to live. But we may not preach through that list and claim it encapsulates the gospel.
The gospel is what God has done, supremely in Christ, and especially focused on his cross and resurrection.
Failure to distinguish between the gospel and all the effects of the gospel tends, on the long haul, to replace the good news as to what God has done with a moralism that is finally without the power and the glory of Christ crucified, resurrected, ascended, and reigning.”
D.A. Carson, Themelios, 34.1
(HT: John Fonville)
Filed under: Christ our Mediator, DA Carson, Jesus Christ, Moralism, Resurrection of Christ, The Cross, The Gospel, The word of God
June 6, 2009 • 12:26 pm 1
Andy Naselli has posted a comprehensive bibliography of D. A. Carson’s wittings. He also links to seven free PDF books. Enjoy:
(HT: Tony Reinke)
Filed under: Books, DA Carson, Devotional, Doctrine, Theology
June 3, 2009 • 6:58 pm 0
“The sovereignty-responsibility tension is not a problem to be solved; rather, it is a framework to be explored.” (2)
“Once again, then, the divine activity calls for a response, not fatalism; while human calling and seeking do not make the divine activity contingent.” (14)
“The point is so obvious that it scarcely requires making. From the first prohibition in Eden, through commands to individuals like Noah and Abraham -whether commands to build an ark or to walk blamelessly- to the prescriptions laid on the covenant people, human responsibility is presupposed.” (18)
“Men are not held to be responsible in some merely abstract fashion; they are responsible to someone.” (19)
“It is difficult to find an adequate word or phrase to express this ‘ultimacy’ in God. The crucial point is that his activity is so sovereign and detailed that nothing can take place in the world of men without at least his permission; and conversely, if he sets himself against some course, then that course cannot develop.” (28)
“…the Old Testament writers do not shy away from making Yahweh himself in some mysterious way (the mysteriousness of which safeguards him from being himself charged with evil) the ‘ultimate’ cause of many evils.” (28)
“To fail to acknowledge Yahweh’s ultimacy-to fail to praise-is not real independence from divine dominion, but overt rebellion, a misguided declaration of self-dependence. The absoluteness of divine sovereignty and the reality of human responsibility meet in the human obligation to acknowledge divine sovereignty with grateful humility.” (34-5)
“In short, although we may lack the categories needed for full exposition of the problem, nevertheless we must insist that divine ultimacy stands behind good and evil asymmetrically.” (36-7)
“In the case of both Caiaphas and Judas, therefore, divine ultimacy even behind evil actions is presupposed. But divine ultimacy operates in some mysterious way so that human responsibility is in no way mitigated, while the divine being is in no way tarnished. In particular, Judas is responsible even when Satan is using him; but over both stands the sovereignty of God.” (132)
“There is a sense in which God’s love is directed to the ‘world’ per se; but to absolutise the passage where this is enunciated is to fail to recognize the even more numerous passages in which the divine love is restricted to the elect, while unbelievers sit under wrath and judgment.” (197)
“Hence it [John's gospel] feels no embarrassment at picturing God’s control and purposes over events themselves evil. God is neither tainted not thwarted by evil actions. Indeed, his purposes in salvation history are being fulfilled even by such actions. Men for their part do not find their responsibility lessened by God’s sovereign reign.” (202-3)
“It must be protested that although the various time/eternity models serve a useful purpose as bases for discussion, they are in no sense explanatory solutions of the sovereignty-responsibility tension. That would be to explain the obscure by the more obscure.” (210)
“The example of Job is particularly instructive. Job and his friends stress equally that God is all-powerful and perfectly good; but the message of a book as a whole is that their conception of God is not high enough. God’s ways are unfathomable; his knowledge, limitless; his power, effectual; who can tell him he is wrong? What man has arrogance to deny divine providence by ignorant words? No simple solution is possible, for men with their limited knowledge cannot judge God’s government. Man’s peace must come from knowing and trusting this God. It is significant that Job cries out in the end, not “I understand!” but “I repent.” ” (217)
(HT: Jude St.John)
Filed under: Attributes of God, Books, DA Carson, Doctrine, Human responsibility, Sovereignty of God, The word of God
April 28, 2009 • 1:40 pm 1
My thanks to James Grant for this. I recommend you read the whole article by Carson.
D. A. Carson’s recent editorial for Themelios is well worth your read. In it, makes a fundamental distinction about the gospel that is being lost in our current theological climate. Carson explains:
It is this: one must distinguish between, on the one hand, the gospel as what God has done and what is the message to be announced and, on the other, what is demanded by God or effected by the gospel in assorted human responses.
This is fundamental. The gospel is about what God has done and not about what I have done. Growing up, this was confused by saying that gospel is believing on Christ. Now this is confused by saying that the gospel is life. The current situation is a reaction to the former. We (at least in evangelicalism broadly speaking) have moved from describing the gospel as conversion to describing the gospel as a way of life. Both are mistakes.
After explaining that the gospel is the “good news” about what God has done in Christ, Carson clarifies what the gospel is not:
By contrast, the first two greatest commands—to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves—do not constitute the gospel, or any part of it. We may well argue that when the gospel is faithfully declared and rightly received, it will result in human beings more closely aligned to these two commands. But they are not the gospel. Similarly, the gospel is not receiving Christ or believing in him, or being converted, or joining a church; it is not the practice of discipleship. Once again, the gospel faithfully declared and rightly received will result in people receiving Christ, believing in Christ, being converted, and joining a local church; but such steps are not the gospel.
In conclusion, Carson reminds us:
Failure to distinguish between the gospel and all the effects of the gospel tends, on the long haul, to replace the good news as to what God has done with a moralism that is finally without the power and the glory of Christ crucified, resurrected, ascended, and reigning.
Filed under: DA Carson, Doctrine, Evangelical, Jesus Christ, Propitiation, Reconciliation, Redemption, Substitutionary Atonement, The Cross, The Gospel, The word of God
April 24, 2009 • 11:09 am 0
I want to take a minute to bring to your attention that The Gospel Coalition met this week and has made available the MP3’s from its conference. The speakers include John Piper, Tim Keller, D. A. Carson, Mark Driscoll, Lig Duncan, and many others. Here’s the link to the audio from the 2009 Gospel Coalition messages.
For those who are interested, Tim Challies has a succinct description of The Gospel Coalition.
(HT: Denny Burk)
Filed under: Conferences, DA Carson, Evangelical, Gospel-centred, Jesus Christ, John Piper, Ligon Duncan, Mark Driscoll, Preaching, Tim Keller
April 16, 2009 • 8:46 am 0
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” –Jesus (Matt 5:3)
Poverty of spirit is the personal acknowledgment of spiritual bankruptcy. It is the conscious confession of unworth before God. As such, it is the deepest form of repentance. . . .
Poverty of spirit cannot be artificially induced by self-hatred. Still less does it have in common with showy humility. It cannot be aped successfully by the spiritually haughty who covet its qualities. Such efforts may achieve token success before peers; they never deceive God. Indeed, most of us are repulsed by sham humility, whether our own or that of others.
I suspect that there is no pride more deadly than that which finds its roots in great learning, great external piety, or a showy defense of orthodoxy. My suspicion does not call into question the value of learning, piety, or orthodoxy; rather, it exposes professing believers to the full glare of this beatitude. Pride based on genuine virtues has the greatest potential for self-deception; but our Lord will allow none of it. Poverty of spirit he insists on—a full, honest, factual, conscious, and conscientious recognition before God of personal moral unworth. It is, as I have said, the deepest form of repentance.
–D. A. Carson, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and His Confrontation with the World: An Exposition of Matthew 5–10 (Grand Rapids: Global Christian Publishers, 1999), 18 (emphasis added; originally preached in 1975 and published in 1978).
(HT: Andy Naselli)
Filed under: DA Carson, Discipleship, Pride, Sanctification, The word of God, Worldliness
March 22, 2009 • 8:21 pm 0
Justin Taylor has an excellent post on, Carson on “The Biblical Gospel”. He concludes with this amazing quote, where Carson reveals the gospel within the storyline of Scripture:
Thus the gospel is integrally tied to the Bible’s story-line. Indeed, it is incomprehensible without understanding that story-line. God is the sovereign, transcendent and personal God who has made the universe, including us, his image-bearers. Our misery lies in our rebellion, our alienation from God, which, despite his forbearance, attracts his implacable wrath. But God, precisely because love is of the very essence of his character, takes the initiative and prepared for the coming of his own Son by raising up a people who, by covenantal stipulations, temple worship, systems of sacrifice and of priesthood, by kings and by prophets, are taught something of what God is planning and what he expects. In the fullness of time his Son comes and takes on human nature. He comes not, in the first instance, to judge but to save: he dies the death of his people, rises from the grave and, in returning to his heavenly Father, bequeaths the Holy Spirit as the down payment and guarantee of the ultimate gift he has secured for them—an eternity of bliss in the presence of God himself, in a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. The only alternative is to be shut out from the presence of this God forever, in the torments of hell. What men and women must do, before it is too late, is repent and trust Christ; the alternative is to disobey the gospel (Romans 10:16; 2 Thessalonians 1:8; 1 Peter 4:17).
Filed under: Christ our Mediator, DA Carson, Doctrine, Evangelical, Gospel-centred, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, The Bible, The Cross, The Gospel, The word of God
March 13, 2009 • 10:52 am 0
From an essay by D.A. Carson on “The Biblical Gospel” (in For Such a Time as This: Perspectives on Evangelicalism, Past, Present and Future, ed. Steve Brady and Harold Rowdon [London: Evangelical Alliance, 1986], p. 83):
Pundits have often noted that many in the Western world have become single-issue people. The church is not immune from such influences. The result is that many Christians assume the gospel (often, regrettably, some form of the ‘simple gospel’) but are passionate about something on the relative periphery: abortion, poverty, forms of worship, cultural decay, ecology, overpopulation, pornography, family breakdown, and much more. By labelling these complex subjects ‘relatively peripheral’ I open myself to attack from as many quarters as there are subjects on the list. For example, some of those whose every thought is shaded green will not be convinced that the ecological problems we face are peripheral to human survival. But I remain quite unrepentant. From a biblical-theological perspective, these challenges, as serious as they are, are reflections of the still deeper problem—our odious alienation from God. If we tackle these problems without tackling what is central, we are merely playing around with symptoms. This is no excuse for Christians not to get involved in these and many other issues. But it is to insist that where we get involved in such issues, many of which are explicitly laid upon us in scripture, we do so from the centre out, ie beginning with full-orbed gospel proclamation and witness and passion, and then, while acknowledging that no one can do everything, doing our ‘significant something’ to address the wretched entailments of sin in our world. The good news of Jesus Christ will never allow us to be smug and other-worldly in the face of suffering and evil. But what does it profit us to save the world from smog and damn our own souls? There are lots of ways of getting rid of pornography. For instance, one does not find much smut in Saudi Arabia. But one doesn’t find much of the gospel there, either.
The point is that in all our efforts to address painful and complex societal problems, we must do so from the centre, out of a profound passion for the gospel. This is for us both a creedal necessity and a strategic choice. It is a creedal necessity because this gospel alone prepares men and women for eternity, for meeting our Maker—and all problems are relativized in the contemplation of the cross, the final judgement, and eternity. It is a strategic choice because we are persuaded that the gospel, comprehensively preached in the power of the Spirit, will do more to transform men and women, not least their attitudes, than anything else in the world.
(HT: Justin Taylor)
Filed under: Culture, DA Carson, Discernment, Doctrine, Evangelical, Gospel-centred, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, The Bible, The Church, The Cross, The Gospel
February 6, 2009 • 6:41 pm 0
“The cliché, God hates the sin but love the sinner, is false on the face of it and should be abandoned. Fourteen times in the first fifty Psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner, His wrath is on the liar, and so forth. In the Bible, the wrath of God rests both on the sin (Romans 1:18ff) and on the sinner (John 3:36).”
-D.A. Carson
The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, Crossway, 2000, p. 70.
(HT: Reformed Voices)
Filed under: DA Carson, God's grace, God's justice, Heresy, The Bible, The Cross, The Gospel, The word of God, Truth
October 13, 2008 • 11:07 am 0
The following hour-long conversation among Tim Keller, John, Piper, and D.A. Carson was filmed at the 2008 leadership meeting of The Gospel Coalition and recently posted on Facebook:
My thanks to Justin Taylor for this.
Filed under: Attributes of God, Christian Ministry, Communion with God, DA Carson, Discernment, Discipleship, Doctrine, Doctrines of Grace, Evangelical, Evangelism, God centredness, Grace, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, John Piper, Leadership, Sanctification, Substitutionary Atonement, The Bible, The Christian Life, The Church, The Cross, The Gospel, The glory of Christ, The word of God, Tim Keller, Worship
September 30, 2008 • 7:23 pm 4
From Acts 29, via Justin Taylor:
If you ever want to feel like you have the intelligence of a NASCAR fan that just finished off a six-pack (I think it’s a Red Neck law), then listen to D.A. Carson talk about, well, anything. Don is fluent in something like 7 languages and has written over 45 books. He is the esteemed Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School near Chicago. For instance, Carson said in his talk to us, “To be a non-perspectivalist is to be omniscient.” Nobody in the room was smart enough to argue with him over that.
Don spoke at a luncheon at Bethlehem Baptist Church (John Piper) on Friday September 26, 2008 just before the Desiring God Conference. I attended this lunch with about 40 other church leaders. Don spoke for an hour about five trends in the American church that are troubling to him.
Five Trends in the Church Today
By D A Carson, September 26, 2008
1. It is important to observe contradictory trends.
Interestingly, Don encouraged us to recognize the good things in our current culture. He said we have a lot more good commentaries available to us than we did fifty years ago. Yet, mainline churches have fewer conversions than ever before. This is a contradictory trend, according to Carson.
I understand this to mean that we know more and have access to more information, but it is not resulting in more conversions. We apparently know more about God, but less about His mission to seek and to save those who are lost. Our mainline churches are focusing on the minutia difference between supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism, for example, but are ignoring the call to both know God and to follow his sending us to our neighbor’s house. There should be a constant tension between group Bible studies and sharing of one’s faith. Otherwise we end up in a holy huddle somewhere arguing about non-essentials.
2. Current evangelical fragments are moving into a new phase — into polarized “clumps.”
Don said evangelicals are identifying themselves in clump-like expressions of evangelicalism (Health/Wealth clump, Openness clump, Arminian clump, etc.). Carson said the National Pastor’s Conference (NPC) is as inclusive as possible — some speakers are stellar while others are simply heretical — but they include as many unique tribal representatives as possible. “Even Reformed circles are clumping,” said Carson, “and the center is emptying out in favor of vague, dilute evangelicalism.”
Carson astutely said that old-time gospel would be around until Jesus comes while he believes (as Don humorously put it, “not as a prophet or the son of a prophet, but one who works for a non-profit”) that in 25 years nobody will be calling themselves “emergent” but many will still be centralized in the gospel.
I wonder what will replace the center as the varied subcultures of evangelicalism move to the fringes. For orthodox confessionalists, the center is the perfect place for the gospel. We need pastors who call their people “back” to the inner city of the gospel without relenting to the flight to the suburbs of dilute evangelicalism, as Carson put it.
3. The most dangerous trends in any age are the trends that most people do not see.
Orthodoxy is always focused on the past but the new expressions of evangelicalism are the most dangerous. Carson recalled the once Christian colleges like Princeton and Yale that were led by pastor/theologians but became so big that they hired administrators who were not as discerning of current trends; only of past. A formally orthodox leader will head into trouble if he is not astute toward current trends in evangelicalism.
Carson made the case that 1920’s liberalism is no longer the issue-even though some churches are still fighting that shadow. Today’s issues like justification, inerrancy, primacy of family, gender roles, sexuality, pornography, modesty, race relations (very few race-integrated churches), tolerance, consumerism and human flourishing are the current issues at hand.
I think most church planters are men who grew tired of fighting for bygone issues in their churches while people are losing the wars against the current issues of today. In my opinion, mainline churches will continue to lose their best men who want to be warriors in a real war, not in the reenactments of the religious wars of the last forty years. As long as we continue to address these modernist battles, Satan and his demonic force will rule the ground in our churches with diversion tactics that consume our energy.
4. There is a trend in our churches to be consumed by social concern.
In the most intriguing point of his talk, Don said that the Gospel plus caring for the poor was an inseparable couplet. He cautioned that if the gospel was merely assumed (and not clearly articulated), our passion for social justice would overshadow the gospel. While we are not intentionally exalting social concern over the gospel, people learn what we are excited about (gospel over caring for the poor). Carson warned, “Our passion must first be the gospel and not assume it to be understood.” He continued, “We must be careful to keep the gospel central and not turn our responses to the gospel as the main target.”
Furthermore, Carson exhorted these Christian leaders to spend our time on prayer and the ministry of the Word and allow our people to begin and maintain efforts in social concern. He said we must distinguish between what the church as church must do and what the community of believers in the church must do (I did not personally see the difference but it seemed to suggest that the pastor was exempt from exemplifying an outpouring of the gospel into the community through social efforts).
Our calling, Carson said is to do good in the city (Jer. 29), because the person has an eternal destiny and we care for them. We are all poor beggars telling other poor beggars where they can find bread. Don concluded this section by warning us not to make the issues of gospel and social concern antithetical.
5. There is a trend in our churches to emphasize discipleship over the gospel.
It is crucial to teach the whole council of God centering on Christ crucified as the power of the gospel and salvation. If we see the gospel as what “saves” us and if we see discipleship as the actual place where real transformation takes place, it is not a biblical approach. Carson said this trend has a tendency to lead us to see discipleship as legalism; as what pleases God.
It is disturbing to me that some churches see discipleship as a formulaic course of study instead of a lifelong journey as a sinner saved by grace. Following Jesus is not accomplished by completing 8 classes in the basement of a church. It is a complete abandonment of our self in favor of the person, work and mission of Jesus.
We need to be aware of the current trends in the church today and pastor our church with an emphasis on the gospel. Anything less leads to narcissistic religion and away from Jesus.
Filed under: Culture, DA Carson, Discernment, Discipleship, Doctrine, Emerging Church, Evangelical, Evangelism, Jesus Christ, Salvation, Sanctification, The Christian Life, The Church, The Cross, The Gospel, The word of God, Truth
Unreached People of the Day -
Please pray for the ...
Arab, Palestinian of West Bank / Gaza;
Population: 3,823,000;
Language: Arabic, South Levantine;
Religion: Islam;
Evangelical: 0.15%;
Status: Unreached 
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