Every Moment of Every Day

“It’s no wonder that self-help books top the charts in Christian publishing and that counseling offices are overwhelmed. Our pride and our neglect of the gospel force us to run from seminar to seminar, book to book, counselor to counselor, always seeking but never finding some secret to holy living.

Most of us have never really understood that Christianity is not a self-help religion meant to enable moral people to become more moral. We don’t need a self-help book; we need a Savior. We don’t need to get our collective act together; we need death and resurrection and the life-transforming truths of the gospel. And we don’t need them just once, at the beginning of our Christian life; we need them every moment of every day.”

- Elyse Fitzpatrick and Dennis Johnson, Counsel from the Cross (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2009), 30.

(HT: Of First Importance)

Filed under: Christ crucified, Discipleship, Doctrine, Evangelical, Gospel-centred, Grace, Jesus Christ, Sanctification, The Christian Life, The Cross, The Gospel

The Holy Trinity

Here are some helpful thoughts from Bavinck on the Trinity:

For a true understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity three questions must be answered:

What is the meaning of the word “essence”?

What is meant by the word “person”?

And what is the relation between “essence” and “person” and between the persons among themselves?

The divine nature cannot be conceived as an abstract generic concept, nor does it exist as a substance outside of, above, and behind the divine persons. It exists in the divine persons and it totally and quantitatively the same in each person.

The persons, though distinct, are not separate. They are the same in essence, one in essence, and the same being. They are not separated by time or space or anything else. They all share in the same divine nature and perfections. It is one and the same divine nature that exists in each person individually and in all of them collectively.

Consequently, there is in God but one eternal, omnipotent, and omniscient being, having one mind, one will, and one power.

(HT: Martin Downes)

Filed under: Attributes of God, Doctrine, God the Father, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, The Trinity

Cautiously Missional

I like this from Todd Pruitt:

“Missional” is a word that has come along in recent years with great excitement in many cases. Pastors, churches, and even seminaries have been bold to proclaim themselves “missional.” The problem is that it is a frustratingly slippery word. Brian MacLaren defines it one way and Mark Driscoll another. I don’t mind the word, indeed I wouldn’t mind adopting it so long as it means a commitment to advance the Gospel (as Scripture defines “Gospel”).

Ed Stetzer has written a helpful piece on the issue of “missional” at the Lifeway Research blog.

After some opening observations Stetzer then asks some questions:

All this provokes me to ask, “Why are so many missional Christians uninvolved in God’s global mission?” As the missional conversation continues and deepens, what has occurred that has led to our blindness to the lost world around us?

Stetzer offers the following thoughts that I believe are worthy of reflection.

1) In rediscovering God’s mission, many have only discovered its personal dimensions [as opposed to its global ones].

2) In responding to God’s mission, many have wanted to be more mission-shaped and have therefore made everything “mission.” [The result is that the special need for sending missionaries to foreign lands is made fuzzy and ultimately lost.]

3) In relating God’s mission, the message increasingly includes the hurting but less
frequently includes the global lost. [The emphasis is on relief of temporal suffering, rather than eternal suffering.]

4) In refocusing on God’s mission, many are focusing on being good news rather than telling good news. [As Stetzer says, "As many missional Christians have sought to "embody" the gospel, they have chosen to forsake one member of Christ's body--the mouth."]

5) In reiterating God’s mission, many lose the context of the church’s global mission and needed global presence. ["Hyper focus on our community" leads to a loss of focus on the wider world and God's mission in it.]

Filed under: Christ our Mediator, Doctrine, Evangelical, Evangelism, Jesus Christ, Missional living, Missions, The Christian Life, The Gospel, The Great commission, The word of God, World missions

It Is Christ

“Remember, sinner, it is not thy hold of Christ that saves thee – it is Christ; it is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee – it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that is the instrument it is Christ’s blood and merits; therefore, look not to thy hope, but to Christ, the source of thy hope; look not to thy faith, but to Christ, the author and finisher of thy faith; and if thou doest that, ten thousand devils cannot throw thee down.”

(The Forgotten Spugeon, Iain Murray, 42.)

(HT: Monergism)

Filed under: CH Spurgeon, Christ our Mediator, Doctrine, Faith, Jesus Christ, Joy, Union with Christ

Dual Citizens: Worship and Life Between the Already and the Not Yet

Just ordered my copy!

.
New covenant believers live between “the already” and “not yet,” a point in redemptive history between the partial and complete fulfillment of God’s promises. This means they are exiles and pilgrims in the divinely ordained overlap of the ages. As Rev. Jason J. Stellman argues in his book Dual Citizens: Worship and Life Between the Already and the Not Yet, this biblical motif shapes the identity of Christians at every turn and affects their every activity in both the sacred and secular realms. Stellman explores the Christian pilgrimage with deep biblical insight, humor, and relevance to our contemporary context, revealing how Christians are to think of themselves and their role this side of heaven.

Retail $18.00 | Ligonier’s Price $14.40
Hardcover 6.25 x 9.25 | 193 Pages
ISBN 1-56769-119-6 | Released August 2009

Order for $14.40
Table of Contents and Sample Chapter
High-Res Image: Front Cover | Back Cover

(HT: Ligonier Ministries)

Filed under: Already Not Yet, Biblical exposition, Discipleship, Doctrine, The Christian Life, Theology

No Condemnation!

“…when the devil comes and says, ‘You have no standing, you are condemned, you are finished’, you must say, ‘No! my position did not depend upon what I was doing, or not doing; it is always dependant upon the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.’ Turn to the devil and tell him, ‘My relationship to God is not a variable one. The case is not that I am a child of God, and then again not a child of God. That is not the basis of my standing, that is not the position. When God had mercy upon me, He made me His child, and I remain his child. A very sinful, and a very unworthy one, perhaps, but still his child!

And now, when I fall into sin, I have not sinned against the law, I have sinned against love. Like the prodigal, I will go back to my Father and I will tell Him, “Father, I am not worthy to be called your son.” But He will embrace me, and He will say, “Do not talk nonsense, you are My child,” and He will shower his love upon me! That is the meaning of putting on the breastplate of righteousness! Never allow the devil to get you into a state of condemnation. Never allow a particular sin to call into question your standing before God. That question has been settled.”

Martyn Lloyd Jones, The Christian Soldier, p. 255

(HT: John Fonville)

Filed under: Christ our righteousness, Discipleship, Doctrine, God the Father, Grace, Jesus Christ, Justification, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Salvation, The Christian Life

A Great Disturbance: repentance as a way of life

“Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, in saying ‘Repent,’ intended that the whole life of believers should be repentance.” Martin Luther, Thesis 1

According to Schaff, History of the Christian Church, VII:160, Luther was attacking the medieval notion of sacramental penitence. That kind of “repentance” could be limited to isolated outward acts, leaving the rest of our lives safe from the mega-upheaval of true repentance. Luther contended that real repentance opens us up to endless personal change, leaving nothing about us untouched.

When Luther posted his Theses, he undermined self-reinforcing Christianity, which is no Christianity, and he launched a new era of self-challenging Christianity, which is the power of the gospel.

In Karl Barth’s commentary on Romans, he entitles his section on Romans 12-15 “The Great Disturbance.”

The whole world needs gospel disturbance.

(HT: Ray Ortlund)

Filed under: Discipleship, Doctrine, Evangelical, Jesus Christ, Martin Luther, Repentance, Sanctification, The Gospel

A Great Summary of Gospel Ministry

From David Wayne:

There is so much right with this quote in so many ways . . .

We declare what has been accomplished, not what we would like to be accomplished.

It’s on a live blog of the Desiring God National Conference for a talk by Doug Wilson.  Gospel ministry is all about what Christ has accomplished, yet it seems to me that most of what passes for life and ministry in the church is focused on what we would like to be accomplished, hence we miss Christ.

Of course I suppose you could argue that it is permissible, even necessary to discuss what could/should be accomplished based on what has been accomplished.  But it would help if we discussed this in reference to what Christ would like to accomplish, and then make sure we limit ourselves in this regard to what is revealed in the Word, to keep our own imaginations out of it.

And of course there is one thing yet for Christ to accomplish – the second coming and the bringing in of the new heavens and new earth.

 

Filed under: Christ crucified, Christian Ministry, Doctrine, Evangelical, Gospel-centred, Jesus Christ, Substitutionary Atonement, The Christian Life, The Church, The Gospel

The gospel of unconditional grace

“To preach the Gospel of the unconditional grace of God in that unconditional way is to set before people the astonishingly good news of what God has freely provided for us in the vicarious humanity of Jesus. To repent and believe in Jesus Christ and commit myself to him on that basis means that I do not need to look over my shoulder all the time to see whether I have really given myself personally to him, whether I really believe and trust him, whether my faith is at all adequate, for in faith it is not upon my faith, my believing or my personal commitment that I rely, but solely upon what Jesus Christ has done for me, in my place and on my behalf, and what he is and always will be as he stands in for me before the face of the Father. That means that I am completely liberated from all ulterior motives in believing or following Jesus Christ, for on the ground of his vicarious human response for me, I am free for spontaneous joyful response and worship and service as I could not otherwise be.”

- TF Torrance

(HT: Of First Importance)

Filed under: Christ our Mediator, Christ our righteousness, Christ our treasure, Discipleship, Doctrine, Evangelical, God's grace, Jesus Christ, Union with Christ, Worship

Man Is Not the Centre

Spurgeon writes in Lectures to My Students:

Just as the earth is not the centre of the universe, so man is not the grandest of all beings. God has been pleased highly to exalt man; but we must remember how the psalmist speaks of him: “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him; and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” In another place, David says, “Lord, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him! Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.” Man cannot be the centre of the theological universe, he is altogether too insignificant a being to occupy such a position, and the scheme of redemption must exist for some other end than that of merely making man happy, or even of making him holy. The salvation of man must surely be first of all for the glory of God; and you have discovered the right form of Christian doctrine when you have found the system that has God in the centre, ruling and controlling according to the good pleasure of his will. Do not dwarf man so as to make it appear that God has no care for him; for if you do that, you slander God. Give to man the position that God has assigned to him; by doing so, you will have a system of theology in which all the truths of revelation and experience will move in glorious order and harmony around the great central orb, the Divine Sovereign Ruler of the universe, God over all, blessed for ever.

(HT: Darryl Dash)

Filed under: Attributes of God, CH Spurgeon, Doctrine, Evangelical, God centredness, God's Glory, Sovereignty of God

Reach them with the Amazing God not helpful tips

From Kevin DeYoung:

I beg of you, don’t go after the next generation with mere moralism, either on the right (don’t have sex, go to church, share your faith, stay off drugs) or on the left (recycle, dig a well, feed the homeless, buy a wristband). The gospel is not a message about what we need to do for God, but about what God has done for us. So get them with the good news about who God is and what he has done for us.

Some of us, it seems, are almost scared to tell people about God. Perhaps because we don’t truly know him. Maybe because we prefer living in triviality. Or maybe because we don’t consider knowing God to be very helpful in real life. I have to fight against this unbelief in my own life. If only I would trust God that God is enough to win the hearts and minds of the next generation. It’s his work much more than it is mine or yours. So make him front and center. Don’t preach your doubts as mystery. And don’t reduce God to your own level. If ever people were starving for a God the size of God, surely it is now.

Read the rest HERE.

(HT: Todd Pruitt)

Filed under: Attributes of God, Doctrine, God centredness, God's Glory, Moralism, The Gospel

The Spirit of Love

“When we thus think of the Holy Spirit we properly think of Him as the one who generates love towards God in our hearts…When we are thinking of the biblical ethic as motivated by and fulfilled in love to God and our neighbour, it is a caricature and travesty of this love that we entertain unless it is a love generated in us by the apprehension of the love that passes knowledge, the love of God in Christ…How vacuous and hypocritical are the pretensions of those whose religion and ethic consist in the maxim, ‘As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them (Luke 6:31), but who know nothing of the constraint of the love of Christ.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth and therefore as the Spirit of love He captivates our hearts by the love of God and of Christ to us. In the diffusion of that love there flows also love to one another. “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11). The biblical ethic knows no fulfillment of its demands other than that produced by the constraint and claim of Christ’s redeeming love (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:14, 15;Galatians 2:20). Our love is always ignited by the flame of Christ’s love. And it is the Holy Spirit who sheds abroad in our hearts the igniting flame of the love of God in Christ Jesus. The love that is ignited is the fruit of the Spirit”

John Murray, Principles of Conduct, p. 226

(HT: John Fonville)

Filed under: Affections, Discipleship, Doctrine, Evangelical, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, Love for Christ, Love for God, Sanctification, The word of God

D. A. Carson on the Gospel and Personal Devotions

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

Propitiation as the Ground for Christus Victor

This is a great post from Justin Taylor:

John Murray:

Redemption from sin cannot be adequately conceived or formulated except as it comprehends the victory which Christ secured once for all over him who is the god of this world, the prince of the power of the air . . .

[I]t is impossible to speak in terms of redemption from the power of sin except as there comes within the range of this redemptive accomplishment the destruction of the power of darkness.

(Redemption—Accomplished and Applied, p. 50)

Colossians 2:14-15 is a key verse in this regard.

Paul lists two results of Christ’s work on the cross: (1) Christ disarmed the rulers and authorities, and (2) he publicly shamed them.

How? By triumphing over them in himself.

So how does Christ bearing God’s wrath for sinners, taking their sin as a substitute, constitute a victory over Satan?

George Smeaton (1814–1889), Professor of Exegetical Theology at New College, Edinburgh, provides the answer.

Sin was (1) the ground of Satan’s dominion, (2) the sphere of his power, and (3) the secret of his strength; and no sooner was the guilt lying on us extinguished, than his throne was undermined, as Jesus Himself said (John 12:31). When the guilt of sin was abolished, Satan’s dominion over God’s people was ended; for the ground of his authority was the law which had been violated, and the guilt which had been incurred. . . .

[A]ll the mistakes have arisen from not perceiving with sufficient clearness how the triumph could be celebrated on His cross. (The Apostles’ Doctrine of the Atonement (Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1870), 307–308; my emphasis and numbering)

In other words, Satan’s power is based on sin and guilt; Christ’s death meant the ultimate death of sin, guilt, and death itself; and thus Satan was ultimately defanged by Christ’s atoning work.

As Smeaton says, “it was on God’s part at once a victory and a display of all God’s attributes, to the irretrievable ruin, dismay, and confusion of satanic powers.”

So it’s not Christus Victor (Christ defeating his enemies) instead of propitiation (Christ bearing God’s wrath)–rather, it’s Christus Victor because of propitiation. Both are gloriously important, but only in that order.

Filed under: Christ crucified, Christ our Mediator, Christ our sin bearer, Doctrine, Evangelical, Jesus Christ, Penal substitution, The Cross

Spiritual Life & Faith in Jesus

“Spiritual life and faith in Jesus come into being together. The new life makes the faith possible, and since spiritual life always awakens faith and expresses itself in faith, there is no life without faith in Jesus. Therefore, we should never separate the new birth from faith in Jesus. From God’s side, we are united to Christ in the new birth. That’s what the Holy Spirit does. From our side, we experience this union by faith in Jesus.”

- John Piper, Finally Alive (Scotland, UK; Christian Focus, 2009), 32.

(HT: Of First Importance)

Filed under: Doctrine, Evangelical, Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, John Piper, Monergism, New Birth, Regeneration, Repentance, Saving faith, The word of God, Union with Christ