Chapter Five: The Greatness of the Love of Christ is Displayed in the Manifold Riches He Has Given Us
Another consideration by which we may assure our hearts of the greatness of the love of Christ for us is this, that he has freely provided for us innumerable gospel blessings which are vast and rich beyond all measure. Even among men, we understand that love which is love indeed always seeks to give good and pleasing things to the beloved. If we say that we love our children, but when they need an egg or a piece of bread, we give them a scorpion instead, we have no true love for them at all (Luke 11:11-13). Love always seeks the good of the beloved, and the greater the proffered good, the greater the love must be which offers it. If this is the case, then how great beyond all understanding must the love of Christ be for us, for the riches he has given us in the gospel are immense, manifold, and precious beyond all understanding!
Book Review: Small Things, Big Things, by Michael A. Milton
Good theology that begins and ends in the classroom is not good theology at all. Right doctrine by its very nature is broad enough to give sense and meaning to every facet of life, whether of the intellect or the affections of the heart, whether in the seminary or the cornfields of Kansas. Unfortunately, this truth is not always recognized; and when it is recognized, it is not always intentionally applied in practice. Michael A. Milton is one who cannot seem to forget the truth of God's sovereign grace and active providence no matter what he's doing. The realm of the unimportant, the tyranny of “small things,” doesn't seem to exist for him – because in the smallest things, there are pointers to and reminders of the very big things of God's eternal love for his children in Christ Jesus. Small Things, Big Things is a book that will probably help you start to see things the same way; and if it does it will be well worth your while to read.
To be up front with everyone, I am pretty leery of the whole genre of spiritual/religious meditations on everyday events. More often than not, this kind of book is plagued with at least two problems: first, man-centered theology seems to thrive on that sort of fare; and even if not man-centered theology per se, there is usually a fuzziness and general lack of substance at best. And second, there is often the tendency to try to fix problems and heal wounds that are very deep and very real with trite, “feel-good” kinds of stories that simply do not pose true solutions to the vast extent of fallen man's need. Try telling someone, “Your wife is leaving you, your kid is on drugs and in and out of prison, every day is a struggle to believe or even to survive – I know what you need! Read this “chicken soup” story about how a poor little boy got the toy he wanted for Christmas; that will fix all your problems!” But too often, this kind of book tries to accomplish that impossible task. They heal the wounds of God's people lightly.
Milton's book has largely succeeded in avoiding these errors, however. Has he done it perfectly? Perhaps not; but what he has done is to tackle a difficult and much-needed topic for the Reformed world today, that of the immanence of God in the everyday affairs of his people, in a manner that has not trivialized the extent of their need, nor cast them upon some sort of positive-thinking, “look on the bright side of life” mentality. He has a shepherd's heart for the people of God, he is willing to give of himself as a person who has hurt deeply but has overcome by God's grace, and who is confident that God's grace will prevail in the lives of every last little lamb for whom Christ died. “I dare not trivialize deep waters with little droplets of axioms,” he says. “The gospel is deep enough, Christ is savior enough, and God's patience and love are long enough and wide enough to hold you while you pray and hope and wait”. Hurting sheep do not need to hear feel-good stories, they need to hear that. And while Milton does see surprising testimonies of God's grace in the most mundane of affairs, it is never the stories themselves that he emphasizes, but the gracious God who gives glimpses of himself in all those things.
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The Doctrine of Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul
From the Ligonier Ministries (Dr. R. C. Sproul) website - "For the past few decades, a paradigm shift in New Testament scholarship has led some researchers to question whether the church has rightly understood first-century Judaism and the apostle Paul. In the name of a “New Perspective on Paul,” certain men are calling for a reassessment of the traditional Pauline understanding of the doctrine of justification, the nature of good works, and other elements essential to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Prominent among these figures is N.T. Wright, bishop of Durham and theologian who in his voluminous writings is demanding a new reading of Paul, even claiming that the Protestant Reformers misunderstood the apostle.
These accusations cannot be easily brushed aside, for they strike at the heart of our entire understanding of salvation. With an aim to analyze the merit of Wright’s claims and expose both the strengths and weaknesses of his approach, the editors of Tabletalk magazine have put together this collection of tools to help Christians discern the errors behind the approach of N.T. Wright. It is our hope that you will find these resources helpful in understanding the biblical doctrine of salvation and for making an informed assessment of the work of Wright and other New Perspective thinkers."
These resources are found here.
Does Baptism Save? (two quotes)
"Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.." (1 Peter 3:21 - ESV)
Two helpful quotes on this verse:
"Now Peter sees a comparison between the waters of the flood and the waters of baptism... Now there are some denominations that love this verse because it seems at first to support the view called "baptismal regeneration." That is, baptism does something to the candidate: it saves by bringing about new birth. So, for example, one of the baptismal liturgies for infants says, "Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ's Church, let us give thanks."
Now the problem with this is that Peter seems very aware that his words are open to dangerous misuse. This is why, as soon as they are out of his mouth, as it were, he qualifies them lest we take them the wrong way. In verse 21 he does say, "Baptism now saves you" - that sounds like the water has a saving effect in and of itself apart from faith. He knows that is what it sounds like and so he adds immediately, "Not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience - through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." (Or your version might have: "the pledge of a good conscience toward God").
But the point seems to be this: When I speak of baptism saving, Peter says, I don't mean that the water, immersing the body and cleansing the flesh, is of any saving effect; what I mean is that, insofar as baptism is "an appeal to God for a good conscience," (or is "a pledge of a good conscience toward God"), it saves. Paul said in Romans 10:13, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord - everyone who appeals to the Lord - will be saved." Paul does not mean that faith alone fails to save. He means that faith calls on God. That's what faith does. Now Peter is saying, "Baptism is the God-ordained, symbolic expression of that call to God. It is an appeal to God - either in the form of repentance or in the form of commitment.
What is Baptism?
Now this is fundamentally important in our understanding of what baptism is in the New Testament. James Dunn is right I think when he says that "1 Peter 3:21 is the nearest approach to a definition of baptism that the New Testament affords" (Baptism in the Holy Spirit, p. 219). What is baptism? Baptism is a symbolic expression of the heart's "appeal to God." Baptism is a calling on God. It is a way of saying to God with our whole body, "I trust you to take me into Christ like Noah was taken into the ark, and to make Jesus the Substitute for my sins and to bring me through these waters of death and judgment into new and everlasting life through the resurrection of Jesus my Lord."
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Spurgeon on John 6:66
John 6:66, “From that time many of His disciples went back, and walked with Him no more”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, preaching on this passage (on 2/5/1882) said:
"The defection in this case was on account of doctrine... The truth was too hard for them, it was not to be borne with. “It is a hard saying. Who can hear it?” A true disciple sits at the feet of his Master, and believes what he is told even when he cannot quite comprehend the meaning, or see the reasons for what his Master utters; but these men had not the essential spirit of a disciple, and consequently when their Instructor began to unfold the innermost parts of the roll of truth, they would not listen to His reading of it. They would believe as far as they could understand, but when they could not comprehend they turned on their heel and left the school of the Great Teacher. Besides, the Lord Jesus Christ had taught the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, and of the need of the Spirit of God, that men should be led to Him, “for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.” Here our Lord uttered a bit of old-fashioned free-grace doctrine, such as people nowadays do not like. They call it “Calvinism”, and put it aside among the old exploded tenets which this enlightened age knows nothing of. What right they have to ascribe to the Genevan reformer a doctrine as old as the hills I do not know. But our Lord Jesus never hesitated to fling that truth into the face of His enemies. He told them, “Ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.” “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” Here he tells them plainly that they could not come unto Him unless the Father gave them the grace to come. This humbling doctrine they could not receive, and so they went aside." (Sermons, 28, 111-2)
Chapter Four: The Greatness of the Love of Christ is Displayed in the Extent to Which He Went in Making Us His Own
When we consider the love of men, we immediately realize that one thing in which the greatness of their love may be seen is the extent to which they are willing to go, and the labors they are ready to undertake, in order to win for themselves their beloved. It was a great love of Jacob for Rachel that he labored for her seven years, and they seemed but a few days (Gen. 29:18-20); but how much greater must the love of our Savior be for us, who for thirty-three years set his hand to unspeakably great and difficult labors and never looked back, until he had finally made us his own! But no, it was far longer than thirty-three years, even, that he undertook his immense labors to redeem us – for from all eternity, before the worlds had been created, he solemnly undertook to make us his own, and for all of history he has been engaged in no other work but that.
Declared Righteous: Rome vs. the Reformation
Rome set forth their doctrine -- and still does -- that God will never declare a person just until that person actually, under divine scrutiny, is found to be just...when God looks at us, he will not say that we are just until he sees that we really are just.
Rome teaches that we cannot be just without grace, that we will never become just without faith, and that we will never become just without the assistance of Christ. We need faith, we need grace, and we need Jesus. We need the righteousness of Christ infused or poured into our soul, but you must cooperate with that grace to such a degree that we will in fact become righteous. If we die with any impurity in our soul, thereby lacking complete righteousness, we will not go to heaven. If no mortal sin is present in our life, we will go to purgatory, which is the place of purging. The point of the purging is to get rid of the dross so that we become completely pure. It may take three years or three million years, but the object of purgatory is to make us righteous so that we can be admitted into God's heaven.
Part of the reason for this belief, that justification is rooted in an inherent righteousness in the sinner, comes from something unfortunate in church history. In the early centuries, when the Greek language passed away from the central attention of the church fathers and Latin became the dominant language, many scholars read only the Latin Bible, not the Greek bible, and they borrowed the Roman or Latin word for justification, iustificare, from which we get the English work justification. The Latin verb ficare means "to make" or "to shape" or "to do." Isutus means "righteousness" or "justice," so iustificare literally means "to make righteous," which we believe is what happens in sanctification, not in justification.
The Greek word that we are dealing with here in the Romans text is the word dikaioo, dikaiosune, which does not mean "to make righteous" but rather "to declare righteous." In the Roman Catholic view, God will never pronounce a person just or righteous until, by the help of God's grace and Christ, that person actually becomes righteous. [But] If God were to judge us tonight, what would he find? Would he find sin in our lives? Could he possibly declare us just if he considers only the righteousness that he finds in us today? Remember what the Apostle Paul said: "By the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight" (3:20). That is precisely why the ground for our justification cannot be found in us or in any righteousness inherent in our souls. That is why we need so desperately what Luther called a iustia alienum, an alien righteousness, a righteousness that comes from outside ourselves. Luther called this righteousness extranos, outside or apart from us.
In simple terms, this means that the only righteousness sufficient for us to stand before the judgment of God is the righteousness of Christ.
Excerpt from Romans (St. Andrew's Expositional Commentary) by R.C. Sproul
Believing is the Evidence of the New Birth - Dr. John Piper
Book Review: Our Secure Salvation, by Robert A. Peterson
One of the most central questions related to the daily, practical living out of the Christian life, in any age, is that of preservation and apostasy – May I be sure of final victory over sin, the flesh, and the devil? If so, for what reasons and upon what basis? What can I do today to increase my assurance of final salvation? And what if I apostasize? If I have come to Christ with genuine faith, can I fall away later and lose my salvation? These and similar other questions have plagued (and sometimes paralyzed!) believers in Christ throughout Church history. Beliefs about the security of salvation in Christ and the reasons for that security (or lack of it) have a greater impact upon the everyday experience of Christians all across the world than just about any other theological topic. Wrong beliefs may lead to a lifetime of fear and frantic, works-based endeavors, on the one hand, or a casual flippancy and carelessness, on the other – but right beliefs are certainly one great means of energizing humble, faithful, joyful perseverance in the truth of the gospel and the fruit of good works. Robert Peterson's biblical-theological treatment of the themes of preservation and apostasy, Our Secure Salvation, has found just the right balance: in this substantial and yet accessible volume, Peterson deals competently with the many strong preservation texts and the sobering apostasy texts alike, and brings them all together in a coherent and mutually-supportive whole.
Dealing with four basic blocks of text: the Old Testament, the Gospels and Acts, the Pauline Epistles, and the General Epistles and Revelation, Peterson first moves in clear, logical progression through the multitude of texts dealing with preservation; then, through the equally numerous texts dealing with apostasy and its certain end of eternal torment; and finally, he ties all the data together in a unified overview. The discussion and exegesis throughout is brief, to the point, and easy to follow, but it is also up to date, deals fairly and extensively with opposing viewpoints, and is not loath to quote from sources friendly to his thesis. The balance of academics and forthright, non-technical presentation is a perfect fit for any serious-minded Christian who struggles with assurance of salvation, regardless of his level of theological training.
The capstone of Peterson's book is his last chapter, entitled, “Connecting the Dots”. This chapter contains a summary of his findings, for one thing; but more than that, it also brings together all of the seemingly-contradictory bits of information in a way that they can be understood in their manifold and consistent inter-relationships, and then applies that full-orbed understanding to the Christian's psyche. Sin, Satan, fears, doubts, sorrow over failures, anxiety over future temptations – these all afflict the soul of Christians in many ways. How can such an afflicted believer gain hope and peace in the gospel? Well, Peterson's analysis seems directed specifically toward answering those questions. His conclusions are not just abstract, they are experimental (in the old, Puritan sense of the word).
Peterson gives four reasons to vindicate his attention to his themes: 1) the Bible often speaks of preservation and apostasy; 2) God uses preservation to assure his children; 3) God teaches his children the need to persevere to the end; 4) God warns his children of the danger of apostasy. These are the conclusions that he has spent the better part of his book laboring to establish. But at the end of his book, he takes another step, and traces out in brief the relationships between these themes – how does God use the doctrine of preservation to assure his children, for instance? By basing that doctrine, not on our lives of fruitfulness, but upon the roles of the Trinity in salvation, the attributes of the godhead, the saving acts of Christ, the faithfulness of God's promise. This foundation paves the way for understanding the nature of our need to persevere, and the complex relationship between perseverance as a fruit of divine preservation, on the one hand, and a necessary means of divine preservation, on the other. The apostasy warnings, given in the light of this basic paradigm, have several vital functions and purposes as well, which Peterson draws out – in sum, all the parts of a complex whole are given an appropriate place, and the result is a solid foundation for pursuing a godly life that is serious and sober, but also joyfully and assuredly rooted in the certain truths of the gospel.
Peterson ends with a reference to what was perhaps the most compelling chapter of the book – his treatment of the Hebrews warning passages, and in particular the warning found in 5:11 – 6:12. In this justly famous passage, Peterson finds not just one of the strongest warnings against apostasy, but also (although not quite so well known!) one of the strongest assurances of preservation. In fact, the four joint themes of perseverance, apostasy, assurance, and preservation are all found in full and harmonious expression in this one passage. Just this one chapter on the warnings in Hebrews would be well worth the reading.
The Church is full of Christians who are growing dull of hearing, and need to be woken up by the serious apostasy texts of scripture; it is also full of insecure, struggling, and doubting Christians who desperately need their faith in the immutable nature, promises, and saving acts of God to increase. Peterson's book deals fairly and in context with both of these widespread biblical themes; and therefore, it is a recommended book for believers whose personality, background, and theological underpinnings tend to cast them into either one of these dangerous and potentially deadly errors.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood...
In the Christian life we have three basic enemies: the world, the flesh and the devil. I am not sure about which category this cat's issue should be placed. - JS