Moving Day

After spending a couple of weeks trying to decide which blog site works better for me, I've decided to move.

I'll keep everything I've written to this point here, but will make no new additions on this page.

All new posts will now be made at the Words of Grace site hosted by WordPress.

That site also contains a full archive of everything posted on this site. It's all there. And now, so am I.....

Sunday Leftovers (6/15/08)

Galatians says much about the Fatherhood of God, but not everything. One more truth that is found elsewhere is this: God loves and is (and always will be) “well-pleased" with His Son (2 Pt. 1:17); we are in His Son (Eph. 1:17; Col. 2:20) — therefore He loves us with a Son-like love!

The pleasure that He finds in His sons is found in the familiar parable of the waiting father and the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). Of that story, author Philip Keller writes this:

…despite all that the profligate son did to dismay his father, the parent's attitude toward him never deviated. In spite of all the shame, suffering, scandal, and loss, the father's love never minished. Instead there went out from him forgiveness, compassion, love, and concern.…[But the older brother's] pride and self-esteem prevented him from enjoying all the benefits at his disposal. This was simply because he did not believe what his father said. He was trying so hard to earn and merit by diligent service what was already rightfully his as the elder son. His plight is almost the more pathetic of the two. It shows us a man who really never got to know his father. The picture painted for us is that of a person who sees God as his Father, as someone harsh and hard and very demanding. He has never sensed His love, compassion, generosity, and fantastic forgiveness. And because he keeps his father at arm's length there has never been that wondrous sensation of feeling those open arms flung about him. He has never felt accepted. He has never felt wanted.

A few more thoughts about God and His holiness

As I reflected on last night’s study, along with the tension of covering much material far too quickly, I believe I left some confusion about the sovereignty of God. So let me attempt to un-muddy the waters for you.

When we speak of the sovereignty of God, we are saying that God is in control, governing every circumstance of life. There is nothing that escapes His control and dominion. The life of Nebuchadnezzar was an excellent illustration of this truth (Dan. 4:35). We find this truth throughout the pages of Scripture:

• God is sovereign over nations (Ex. 12:35-36; Ezra 1:1; Mt. 2:14-15; Rom. 13:1-4).
• God is sovereign over nature (Job 37:3, 6, 10-13; Is. 45:7; Amos 4:7).
• God is sovereign over physical health, life and death (Job 2:9-10; Mark 1:33-34).
• God is sovereign over Satan (Mt. 4:10-11; Jn. 16:33; Rev. 20:7-10; note also that while Satan was the one who afflicted Job with illness, He attributes that illness as being from God).
• God is sovereign over individual’s lives (Prov. 16:9; 19:21; Eccl. 7:13; 2 Cor. 8:16-17; Js. 4:13-15).
• God is sovereign over salvation (Rom. 8:28-30; Eph. 1:3-6).
• God is sovereign over sin (Gen. 50:20; Acts 4:27-28; Rev. 17:17; John Piper’s sermon series “Spectacular Sins and Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ” is particularly helpful in understanding this truth).

All these verses, and many more combine to paint a picture of the absolute control, authority, and governance of God over all His created world. (Another very helpful resource on this topic is Jerry Bridges’ book, Trusting God; I have read and referred to it many times and am always challenged and encouraged by it.)

That was what I was trying to say last night. And where I got side-tracked, creating confusion, was how men attempt to discover and know that sovereignty, which is where the terms “preceptive (moral) will” and “decreed will” entered the discussion. I should have just left that out — while a related topic, it is not central to the discussion of God’s sovereignty. [If you wish to read more about how to discover God’s will, read either Garry Friesen’s Decision Making and the Will of God (the older version is better than the newer version) or Garry Gilley’s Is That You, Lord? (a more concise explanation of the same topic covered by Friesen).

I hope that helps a little.

Then as I was reading my Bible this morning, I was struck by the repeated emphasis in the passages I was reading on the holiness of God. They are not inherently connected to each other, yet the themes of the greatness of God and His holiness run through them. This is what I wrote in my journal about God’s holiness as it was revealed in what I was reading

1. The motive for obedience to God is because His people have been set apart to Him (Dt. 14:21). The reason Israel had strict dietary laws was because they were holy to Him — set apart to His purposes, which is still true for believers (and me!) today.
2. In a similar vein, Isaiah notes that God says, “I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness…” (42:6). The purpose of His calling is to produce righteousness (cf. also Titus 2:14); the authority for His calling men to that righteousness is His position as Lord (Yahweh — the covenant God of Israel). Yet in His authoritativeness, He also provides the ability for His people to be righteous.
3. His holiness is revealed to His people to evoke praise and gratitude (Ps. 99:8-9; 100; 103:1). We dare not come to His Word or presence only with a desire for knowledge and not also a corresponding zeal for worship and gladness in Him.

Lord, give me a yearning for You today — not for Your benefits alone, but because You have created me to enjoy You and Your perfections.

Sunday Leftovers (6/8/08)

Why is substitutionary atonement so important? Two reasons — one theological and one applicational.

For the first, J. I. Packer offers a summary definition of the atonement in his article, "Sola Fide: the Reformed Doctrine of Justification":

This is the characteristic doctrine of the Reformation concerning the death of Christ. It was an act of obedient substitution on his part, an acceptance in his own person of the penalty due to us, in virtue of which the holy Judge declares guilty sinners immune from punishment and righteous in his sight. The great exchange is no legal fiction, no arbitrary pretense, no mere word-game, on God's part, but a costly achievement. The divinely established solidarity between Christ and his people was such that he was in truth "made sin" for us, and "bore in his soul the dreadful torments of a condemned and lost man," so that in our souls the joy of knowing God's forgiveness and favor might reign forever. This, to the Reformers, was the heart and height of the work of divine grace, not to be wrangled over, but to be trusted and adored.

For the latter, Milton Vincent, in his book A Gospel Primer, offers a summary application of the gospel — preach it to yourself every day:

There is simply no other way to compete with the forebodings of my heart, and the lies of the world and the Devil than to overwhelm such things with daily rehearsings of the gospel.…As long as I am inside the gospel, I experience all the protection I need from the powers of evil that rage against me. It is for this reason that the Bible tells me to "take up" and "put on" the whole armor of God…

That God would tell me to "take up" and "put on" this gospel armor alerts me to the fact that I do not automatically come into each day portected by the gospel. In fact, these commands imply that I am vulnerable to defeat and injury unless I seize upon the gospel and arm myself with it from head to toe. And what better way is there to do this than to preach the gospel to my self and to make it the obsession of my heart throughout each day?

A few more thoughts about God's attributes

A couple more thoughts after last night's study of the attributes of God —

No, we didn't get finished with the notes, but I'm okay with that, even if it means that we won't be able to cover some other things in as much detail at the end of the summer. There is nothing more important than getting right our understanding of the Godhead. We struggle spiritually because we don't think rightly about God and His Word. [I read this morning that God let the nation of Israel be hungry in the wilderness for the express purpose of teaching them that "man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord" (Dt. 8:3). We need more of God, not less.]

Twenty years ago, R. C. Sproul summarized the problem of man well: "The root problem is that man lives in an environment where many human beings experience a profound sense of the absence of God." Perhaps the reason so many (even more today than when Sproul wrote that sentence) live without God is because they are seeking the wrong kind of God:

Many people, both believers and unbelievers, are confidently gripping an image of God that simply doesn't square with the God of the Bible. One of the most common of these images is that of a God who is only love and kindness, a kind of deified Mister Rogers. C. S. Lewis said it well:

We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in Heaven — a senile old gentleman who, as they say, 'liked to see young people enjoying themselves,' and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, 'A good time was had by all.' [Dwight Edwards, Revolution Within.]

So if we take an extra week or two or three talking about God, the Trinity, Christ and His work of salvation, and the transforming, indwelling work of the Spirit, I'm okay with that.

Finally, as I studied, I found that invariably the best synthesizing quote I had on a given attribute of God was penned by A. W. Tozer, and most of those statements came from The Knowledge of the Holy. What a gift of God's grace that book is to the church. So last night I ordered several copies of it for the book cart — hopefully they will arrive in time for next week's study.

The Decline of Evangelicalism

Yesterday, Christine Wicker wrote an interesting piece published in the Dallas Morning News entitled, "The Great Evangelical Decline.

The basic theme of the piece is that evangelicals are not as prominent in America as published reports indicated (i.e., there aren't really as many believers in America as most people suppose). That's something I've been suggesting for a long time.

Wicker then offers three reasons why that is so:

• Alcoholics Anonymous and all its 12-step offspring…
• The second attack came within the church as American evangelicals themselves became less willing to proclaim that they are the only ones saved.
• And along comes The Pill. It's merely one of the insidious attacks science has launched against traditional religious faith, but it is surely the most successful. Nothing in history has changed human relations as much as that little white pill.

These surely are not the only reasons, but I would agree that they are contributing causes; and I don't agree with all her conclusions:

Evangelical leaders defend their stance by claiming that God doesn't change and that neither does sin. But sin does change. Slavery wasn't sin once. Now it is. Taking a wife and a concubine wasn't sin once. Now it is. And God – or our understanding of what God is, which is all we actually have – changes, too.

I think that the Scriptures are quite emphatic that neither sin nor God are mutable. Nor were slavery, adultery and fornication once right in the eyes of God and now they are wrong. They have always been sin and always will be.

However, the piece is worth reading for the thought it provokes about what has gone wrong in the evangelical church.

Thinking about a blog change

I'm thinking about changing my blog address.

I've set up the new page at Wordpress already. Would you let me know what you think? Is one easier to navigate than the other? Both have features that I prefer; neither have all the features I want. Hmmm.

What thinkest thou?

Sunday Leftovers (6/1/08)

Communion is remembrance and celebration not only of what Christ has accomplished already at the cross, but also an anticipation of what will yet be fulfilled completely. Thinking about the themes concerning the cross we have already talked about the last several weeks, that means:

• we recall His work of salvation and anticipate salvation from all the consequences of sin.
• we recall the necessity of His death and anticipate the necessity of our own death — and the necessity of our glorification.
• we recall the willingness of His sacrifice as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world and anticipate the complete removal of the flesh of sin.
• we recall His sparing us from judgment and anticipate His full work of righteous judgment.
• we recall His fulfillment of the Law and await the completion of His imputed righteousness.

A remembrance of Christ's work on the cross is incomplete without also remembering His future work, and trusting it completely.

That is, remembering the past with gratitude will become a stimulant to anticipating the future with trust. One reason believers fail to persevere in trust is that they have failed to cultivate gratitude in the past. They are ungrateful for the past (and don't see God's graciousness at work), so they worry about the future (fail to see the potential for God's sovereign ability to act with grace).

John Piper says it this way:

…the great redemptive works of past grace — for example, the death and resurrection of Jesus — are indispensable foundations for our faith in future grace. But their power resides precisely in that — they purchase and certify future grace in which we hope. The life and death of Jesus were God's Yes to all his promises (2 Corinthians 1:20). Christ came into the world 'to confirm the promises given to the Fathers' (Romans 15:8). Because of Christ's death, God will 'with him freely give us all things' (Romans 8:32). Those whom God has justified, he will most certainly glorify (Romans 8:30). Past grace is the foundation of life-transforming faith in future grace.…True gratitude exults in the riches of God's grace as it looks back on the benefits it has received. By cherishing past grace in this way, it inclines the heart to trust in future grace. [Future Grace]

Communion is valuable not only because it is an act of obedience to Christ, and not only because it stimulates us to remember Christ's past work, but also because it stimulates us to trust Him for His future provision.