Monthly Archives: January 2011

Miscellaneous Quotes (7)

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“Let us never forget that our feelings about Sundays are sure tests of the state of our souls. The person who can find no pleasure in giving God one day in the week, is manifestly unfit for heaven. Heaven itself is nothing but an eternal Sabbath. If we cannot enjoy a few hours in God’s service once a week in this world, it is plain that we could not enjoy an eternity in His service in the world to come.” – J.C. Ryle

“The Bible is the scepter by which the heavenly King rules his church.” – John Calvin

“It is legitimate to speak of “receiving grace,” and sometimes (although I am somewhat cautious about the possibility of misusing language) we speak of the preaching of the Word, prayer, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper as “means of grace.” That is fine, so long as we remember that there isn’t a thing, a substance, or a “quasi-substance” called “grace.” All there is is the person of the Lord Jesus — “Christ clothed in the gospel,” as Calvin loved to put it. Grace is the grace of Jesus. If I can highlight the thought here: there is no “thing” that Jesus takes from Himself and then, as it were, hands over to me. There is only Jesus Himself… Grasping that thought can make a significant difference to a Christian’s life. So while some people might think this is just splitting hairs about different ways of saying the same thing, it can make a vital difference. It is not a thing that was crucified to give us a thing called grace. It was the person of the Lord Jesus that was crucified in order that He might give Himself to us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.” – Sinclair Ferguson

In introducing this quote Jamin Hubner writes:
Its not Scripture or even a piece from a great novel. But I found myself a little emotional while slowly reading through the following quote. When the greatest of truths comes to us in the shortest and simplest of words, it hits us like a ton of bricks, and we remember, as if waking up from a strange dream, where we are, who we are, and most importantly, who God is…Everything about God is dramatic. He is the epic Hero of the story called life. And He is personal. It’s amazing how quickly we become disoriented and forget these things.

“In the Christian religion the work of men is nothing, and it is God Himself who acts, intervenes in history, opens the way of redemption in Christ and by the power of His grace brings man into that redemption and causes him to walk in it. Special revelation is the answer which God Himself gives in word and deed to the question which through His own guidance arises in the human heart.
Immediately after the fall God already comes to man. Man has sinned and is seized upon by shame and fear. He flees his Creator and hides himself in the dense foliage of the garden. But God does not forget him. He does not let go of him, but condescends, seeks him out, talks with him, and leads him back to fellowship with Himself (Gen. 3:7-15). And this thing that happened thus immediately after the fall, continues in history from generation to generation. We see the same thing happening again and again. In the whole work of redemption it is God and God alone who manifests Himself as the seeking and the calling One, and as the speaking and acting One.” – Herman Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith, 267.

“We do not give birth to ourselves, we are not reborn because we believe. We believe because we are reborn.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The glory of the gospel is that when the Church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first. That is how revival comes. That must also be true of us as individuals. It should not be our ambition to be as much like everybody else as we can, though we happen to be Christian, but rather to be as different from everybody who is not a Christian as we can possibly be. Our ambition should be to be like Christ; the more like Him the better. And the more like Him we become, the more we shall be unlike everybody who is not a Christian.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The biggest challenge for the scholar is to be able to communicate what he’s learned at a simple level without distorting the truth.” – R. C. Sproul

“If one man should suffer all the sorrows of all the saints in the world, yet they are not worth one hour’s glory in heaven.” – Chrysostom

“God just doesn’t throw a life preserver to a drowning person. He goes to the bottom of the sea, pulls up a corpse, takes him up on the bank, breathes the breath of life into him, and makes him alive.” – R. C. Sproul

In the book Whatever Happened to Hell?, British evangelical John Blanchard writes these memorable words about universalism: “Universalism originated in the Garden of Eden when Satan brushed aside God’s warning and assured Eve, “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4)… All the ways to hell are one-way streets. The idea that those who go there will eventually be released to join the rest of humanity in heaven has not a shred of biblical evidence to support it. Children are sometimes told fictional adventure stories with the delightful ending: “And they all lived happily ever after.” We call that kind of story a fairy tale. Universalism is exactly that.” (pp. 204, 208; quoted in Robert Peterson, Hell on Trial)

“I believe I am so spiritually corrupt and prideful and rebellious that I would never have come to faith in Jesus without God’s merciful, sovereign victory over the last vestiges of my rebellion. (1 Corinthians 2:14; Ephesians 3:1–4; Romans 8:7).

I believe that God chose me to be his child before the foundation of the world, on the basis of nothing in me, foreknown or otherwise. (Ephesians 1:4–6; Acts 13:48;Romans 8:29–30; 11:5–7)

I believe Christ died as a substitute for sinners to provide a bona fide offer of salvation to all people, and that he had an invincible design in his death to obtain his chosen bride, namely, the assembly of all believers, whose names were eternally written in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain. (John 3:16; John 10:15; Ephesians 5:25; Revelation 13:8)

When I was dead in my trespasses, and blind to the beauty of Christ, God made me alive, opened the eyes of my heart, granted me to believe, and united me to Jesus, with all the benefits of forgiveness and justification and eternal life. (Ephesians 2:4–5; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Philippians 2:29; Ephesians 2:8–9; Acts 16:14; Ephesians 1:7;Philippians 3:9)

I am eternally secure not mainly because of anything I did in the past, but decisively because God is faithful to complete the work he began—to sustain my faith, and to keep me from apostasy, and to hold me back from sin that leads to death. (1 Corinthians 1:8–9; 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24; Philippians 1:6; 1 Peter 1:5; Jude 1:25;John 10:28–29; 1 John 5:16)” – John Piper

The Trinity Saves!

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The Trinity Saves! The Bible teaches that the Father elects a particular people, the Son redeems them and the Holy Spirit convicts, regenerates and unites them to Jesus Christ. The Trinity works in harmony to make certain God’s eternal will is accomplished (Eph 1:3-5; John 6:63-65), infallibly bringing it to pass.

In a recent interview, Dr. J.I. Packer was asked which theological issues he would commend young Christian leaders to study in order to be prepared for the next fifty years. His number one answer was “Regeneration.”

He said that the doctrine of regeneration has not been fully appreciated by many who do not understand that to be born again with a new heart and new nature means that we have at our deepest level a new identity and new passionate desires for God’s Word and ways. He commended to all young Christian leaders a thorough study on the doctrine of regeneration.

I’m excited to see essays on this vital theme by some of the greats in Church history become available in an e-book format. I hope it has a wide distribution.

Thanks to the graciousness of the Editor, John Hendryx, I was given the privilege of contributing one of the chapters entitled “The Wind Blows Where It Wishes.”

You can find further information on this e-book here.

The End of Racism

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Question: How many “races” are there in the world?

What is the Answer?: One? Four? Six? More than six?

And where the rubber meets the road…

“What if a Chinese person were to marry a Polynesian, or an African with black skin were to marry a Japanese, or a person from India were to marry a person from America with white skin—would these marriages be in accord with biblical principles? A significant number of Christians would claim that such “interracial” marriages directly violate God’s principles in the Bible and should not be allowed. Does the Word of God really condemn the marriages mentioned above? Is there ultimately any such thing as interracial marriage?

In an article in the Journal of Counseling and Development, 12 researchers argued that the term “race” is basically so meaningless that it should be discarded. More recently, those working on mapping the human genome announced “that they had put together a draft of the entire sequence of the human genome, and the researchers had unanimously declared, there is only one race—the human race.”

Personally, because of the influences of Darwinian evolution and the resulting prejudices, I believe everyone (and especially Christians) should abandon the term “race(s).” We could refer instead to the different “people groups” around the world…

The Bible does not even use the word race in reference to people, but it does describe all human beings as being of “one blood” (Acts 17:26). This of course emphasizes that we are all related, as all humans are descendants of the first man, Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45), who was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27). The Last Adam, Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:45) also became a descendant of Adam. Any descendant of Adam can be saved because our mutual relative by blood (Jesus Christ) died and rose again. This is why the gospel can (and should) be preached to all tribes and nations…

If one wants to use the term “interracial,” then the real interracial marriage that God says we should not enter into is when a child of the Last Adam (one who is a new creation in Christ—a Christian) marries one who is an unconverted child of the First Adam (one who is dead in trespasses and sin—a non-Christian).”

Properly understood (as Ken Ham explains in the video below), the Biblical account of our origins found in the book of Genesis provides the basis for the end of all racism. I encourage everyone to read this article here and to watch the following video. Both contain great insight.

Differences with Rome

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Just this week I came across Wes Bredenhof. I particularly enjoyed reading his “Letter to a friend.” Here he outlines the major differences between Protestant and Roman Catholic doctrine both with precision and brevity.

Letter to a Friend By Wes Bredenhof

Some time ago, a friend asked me for some help in figuring out the differences between Roman Catholicism and the biblical faith confessed by Reformed churches. This was my reply:

I think you hit it dead on when you mentioned the “solas” of the Reformation. The “solas” strike at the heart of the differences between Rome and Reformed churches.

Grace Alone

Rome states that salvation is by grace — as your correspondents above have argued. However, it is grace plus man’s effort. The traditional Roman Catholic formulation is, “God will not deny his grace to those who do what is in their power.” In more modern terms, “God helps those who help themselves.” The technical term for this is semi-Pelagianism. Man is not spiritually dead, but only sick and needs a little help from grace.

By contrast, the Reformed churches state that salvation is by grace alone — grace being defined as unmerited or even forfeited divine favour, receiving the opposite of what one deserves. Man is dead in sins and trespasses (Ephesians 2:1), his heart is deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9) and he can do nothing to help himself. This is the traditional Augustinian position — it was emphatically not a Reformation innovation. It is only and entirely by God’s grace that man is saved.

Faith Alone

Rome states that people are justified by faith. However, Rome has explicitly denied that justification is by faith alone and in fact condemns Reformed believers who hold to this position:

If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning thereby that no other cooperation is required for him to obtain the grace of justification, and that in no sense is it necessary for him to make preparation and be disposed by a movement of his own will: let him be anathema [accursed] (Council of Trent, session 6, canon 9).

Moreover, according to Rome, justification is a life-long process by which we are made righteous, rather than a one-time event where we are declared righteous. We must, they say, increase and preserve our justification. Finally, faith is also redefined by Rome to include good works and these good works become part of the meritorious basis of justification.

By contrast, the Reformed churches state that justification is by faith alone (Romans 3-4). God declares us righteous (a one-time event) not on the basis of our faith, but through the instrument of our faith. We’ll come to the basis in a moment.
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O Sweet Exchange!

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“But when our wickedness had reached its height, and it had been clearly shown that its reward, punishment and death, was impending over us; and when the time had come which God had before appointed for manifesting His own kindness and power, how the one love of God, through exceeding regard for men, did not regard us with hatred, nor thrust us away, nor remember our iniquity against us, but showed great long-suffering, and bore with us, He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!”

The quote is from The Epistle to Diognetus 9, translated by Roberts-Donaldson. This text dates from early to mid 2nd century AD. It is an early indication that the doctrines of substitutionary atonement and double imputation were not first the product of the Protestant Reformation, but were held dear by the earliest generations of Christians. The author is unknown – he refers to himself simply as a mathetes “disciple”.

Saved By God, From God, For God

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Christians are notorious for using a vocabulary that is not always understood by those around them. There’s no doubt that we have our own lingo and jargon.

One such word is the word “saved.” Often, Christians ask unsuspecting neighbors, colleagues and friends the question, “are you saved?” and usually receive only puzzled expressions in response. These folk are desperately trying to understand the question, but have no reference point whatsoever from which to make an assessment of how to answer. The Christian, on the other hand, seeing this as a wonderful opportunity to evangelize, usually pounces on this hesitation, though just how much is communicated in such times is open to debate. Though the Christian is usually sincere in desiring to share his faith, he needs to provide some foundation for the person to understand what he is seeking to communicate.

Yet in saying this, the word “saved” is very much a biblical word. The scripture says, “whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)

But what exactly is this referring to? What is it that those who call on the name of the Lord are saved from?

Well let’s take a look at the word “saved.” It is a word we use quite often, especially in the world of sports. We talk of a goalkeeper making a great “save,” or a boxer being “saved” by the bell. When used in this context, the word “saved” does not have any eternal significance to it whatsoever, but refers instead to a present day deliverance or rescue from calamity. The goalkeeper doesn’t provide eternal life for his team mates when he makes a save, but merely prevents a calamity – conceding a goal to the opposing team. The boxer doesn’t gain heavenly bliss because the bell rings, but the sounding of the bell signaled the end of a round when it looked certain that the fighter was about to lose the fight. Again, the word saved refers to being rescued from a calamity.

So what exactly does the Bible mean then when it talks of our need to be saved? What is the calamity from which we need to be rescued?

The Bible’s answer is a very clear one. God is holy and He is just. That’s not good news if we happen to be sinners, which the Bible declares that we are. All of us have sinned and fall short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). But thank God, that’s not the end of the story. But it gets a lot worse before it gets better!

God is good. God is also just. God is therefore a good judge and must punish sin. God’s justice will be meted out precisely as justice demands it – which when you think about it, is the worst of all possible news for us. We won’t be able to get away with anything – all the secrets of our hearts will be exposed, and we will be called to give an account of our lives. What is worse is that the sins we have committed are so grievous to Him that the punishment for sin is eternal in duration. In fact, rather than the judgment we will face being merely being left or abandoned by God, God is actually active in pouring out His wrath against our sin.
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Thoughts on Hell and Annihilationism

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[9] And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, [10] he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. [11] And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.” (Revelation 14:9-11 ESV)

WHAT IS THE WORST THING ABOUT HELL? R.C. Sproul’s answer may surprise you:

“It is common to say that hell is the absence of God. Such statements are motivated in large part by the dread of even contemplating what hell is like. We try often to soften that blow and find a euphemism to skirt around it.

We need to realize that those who are in hell desire nothing more than the absence of God. They didn’t want to be in God’s presence during their earthly lives, and they certainly don’t want Him near when they’re in hell. The worst thing about hell is the presence of God there.

When we use the imagery of the Old Testament in an attempt to understand the forsakenness of the lost, we are not speaking of the idea of the departure of God or the absence of God in the sense that He ceases to be omnipresent. Rather, it’s a way of describing the withdrawal of God in terms of His redemptive blessing.

It is the absence of the light of His countenance. It is the presence of the frown of His countenance.

It is the absence of the blessedness of His unveiled glory that is a delight to the souls of those who love Him, but it is the presence of the darkness of judgment. Hell reflects the presence of God in His mode of judgment, in His exercise of wrath, and that’s what everyone would like to escape.
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When the Perfect Comes (2)

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By Dr. John Piper

(Continued from standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these men are not drunk as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall dream dreams; yea, and on my menservants and my maidservants in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and manifest day. And it shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

“Last week I tried to show that 1 Corinthians 13:8-12 teaches that the gift of prophecy will pass away when Jesus comes back—the way a dim mirror image will give way to the living face. And I argued that therefore the gift of prophecy is still valid in the church today. I promised that today we would take up the questions: What is the gift of prophecy, and how is it to be exercised?

Let me begin by affirming the finality and sufficiency of Scripture, the sixty-six books of the Bible. Nothing I say about today’s prophecies means that they have authority over our lives like Scripture does. Whatever prophecies are given today do not add to Scripture. They are tested by Scripture. Scripture is closed and final; It is a foundation, not a building in process.
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When the Perfect Comes (1)

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By Dr. John Piper

In 1 Corinthians 13:8 Paul says, “Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.”

So the question I want to try to answer today is: What time is referred to when Paul says, “Prophecies . . . will pass away.” Has it already passed away or will it pass away at some future time?

The next two verses (9-10) give the reason for why prophecies and knowledge will pass away: “For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect (literally: For we know in part and we prophesy in part); but when the perfect (or: mature, complete) comes, the imperfect (or: partial) will pass away.” So the reason prophecies will pass away is that a time is coming when the partiality and incompleteness of the gift of prophecy will be replaced by perfection and completeness and wholeness.

When is that time?

One respected tradition says that the coming of perfection or completeness refers to the coming of the day when Scripture is complete, that is, when the last inspired writings are gathered into the Bible and the canon of Scripture is closed. Let me quote from one of these writers whom I highly respect:

“When Scripture is completed, then the church will have revelation thoroughly suited to her condition on earth. Our completed Bible is perfect in the sense that it is utterly sufficient revelation for all our needs. Paul is saying, “When the sufficient comes, the inadequate and partial will be done away. Tongues will vanish away, knowledge [and prophecies] will cease at the time that the New Testament is finished.”

So when verse 10 says, “When the perfect comes,” they say it means, “When the perfect New Testament comes.” Is that what Paul means by perfect?

The other view says that the coming of the perfect refers to the experience of perfection at the return of Christ.

So you see what is at stake in these two interpretations. If the coming of the perfect in verse 10 refers to the finishing of the New Testament, then the gifts of prophecy, tongues and knowledge have all passed away because that time came 1900 years ago. But if the coming of the perfect in verse 10 refers to the second coming of Christ then the natural understanding of the text is that the gifts will continue until Jesus comes.

Let’s test these two suggestions by the rest of the passage.
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The Battle over Justification

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Justification is a legal word – a word from the courtroom. It is the legal act whereby God declares the sinner to be righteous in the sight of God. It is not that the sinner is now righteous in and of himself, but that he is “declared” righteous because of the work of Christ. Though fully deserving a guilty sentence, along with all of its eternal consequences, instead, the justified sinner is pronounced “not guilty,” is reckoned righteous, and made the very righteousness of God in Christ. This declaration of righteousness is what it means to be justified before God.

But how exactly can God make this kind of pronouncement without negotiating His holiness and righteousness? If the sinner is in fact guilty of sin, how is it right for a holy and righteous judge to declare a sinner’s innocence? In other words, how can God still be just and yet justify the sinner?

The Biblical answer is found in Romans 3:21-28, which reads as follows: But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. (NASB)

Dr. R. C. Sproul, in summing up the teaching of this passage wrote, “Paul declares a way of justification different from justification by deeds of the law. It is not a novelty, proclaimed for the first time in the New Testament. This way of justification is witnessed to by the Prophets and by the law itself. It is justification through faith in Jesus Christ. This justification is not given to everyone. It is provided to all and on all, who believe. It is based on the righteousness of God that is provided to and on the believer. It is given both freely and graciously by God through the redeeming work of Christ. This manner of justification demonstrates God himself to be both just and the justifier.”

Sproul continues, “Again, the dilemma faced by the sinner summoned to the judgment seat of God is this: The sinner must appear before a divine Judge who is perfectly just. Yet the sinner is unjust. How can he possibly be unjust and justified? The answer to this question touches the eye of the Reformation tornado. For God to justify the impious (iustificatio impii) and himself remain just in the process, the sinner must somehow become actually just by a righteousness supplied him by another.”

The youtube videos below are taken from a seminar given in February 2009, at the Sola Conference at Countryside Bible Church in the Dallas area.

The first video is an overview of the historic and present day attacks against the doctrine of sola fide (justification by faith alone). Lasting approx. 72 minutes, this presentation, made by a man I am proud to call my friend, Dr. James White, is excellent for both its clarity and insight concerning the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is highly recommended.


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