From the 2011 Ligonier National Conference:
The Apostle Paul declared to the Corinthian church that he had decided to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The person and work of Jesus are at the heart of the Christian faith.
In this lecture, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson explains what it means to confess our faith in one who is fully God and fully man and what it means that this Jesus was crucified for our sins.
Sinclair Ferguson “Why the God-Man?” from Ligonier on Vimeo.
God’s love is incomprehensible and unchangeable. For it was not after we were reconciled to him through the blood of his Son that he began to love us. Rather, he has loved us before the world was created, that we also might be his sons along with his only-begotten Son—before we became anything at all.
The fact that we were reconciled through Christ’s death must not be understood as if his Son reconciled us to him that he might now begin to love those whom he had hated. Rather, we have already been reconciled to him who loves us, with whom we were enemies on account of sin. The apostle will testify whether I am speaking the truth: ‘God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us’ [Rom. 5:8]. Therefore, he loved us even when we practiced enmity toward him and committed wickedness.
Thus in a marvelous and divine way he loved us even when he hated us. For he hated us for what we were that he had not made; yet because our wickedness had not entirely consumed his handiwork, he knew how, at the same time, to hate in each one of us what he had made, and to love what he had made.
Quoted in Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1960), 506-507
HT: Desiring God
Surely we cannot accept… universalistic ideas, because, if we do so, it means that we find ourselves contradicting the plain teaching of Scripture in those places where there is a clear division between the saved and the unsaved, the good and the bad, the redeemed and the lost. In spite of the arguments based upon a philosophic idea of the love of God, the Scripture draws the ultimate distinction between eternal salvation and eternal destruction… There is only one salvation—by the blood of Christ—and no-one can enter the kingdom except by belief in Christ. Such is the Universal teaching of the Scripture…
The mystic secret which we as Christians are allowed to share is that God will ultimately restore the original harmony, and re-unite again all things in Christ. Christ is over all and the old harmony will be restored . . .these blessings only apply to those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. No harmony is promised to others; they are sent to ‘everlasting destruction’; but they will be outside the cosmos, as it were; they will be out of harmony and will not disturb it eternally. As regards the fallen angels it is clear that there is no hope for them. They are ‘reserved in chains’ in the pit until their final damnation comes (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6). Satan also is to be cast into ‘the lake of fire’ where he and all his followers are to be tormented for ever (Revelation 20:10).
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God’s Ultimate Purpose : An Exposition of Ephesians 1, 1 to 23 (Edinburgh; Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth Trust, 1978), 202-07.
HT: AW
Surely he has borne our griefs (lit. sicknesses) and carried our sorrows (lit. pains); yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. – Isaiah 53:4-6
My friend, Dr. James White once wrote, “One of the most eloquent testimonies to the error of Dan Brown and the ridiculous and outrageous claims of The Da Vinci Code regarding the “creation” of the deity of Christ by Constantine is found in the sermon on the Passover preached around twenty years before the end of the second century by Melito, bishop of Sardis. I included my translation of this tremendous section in my book, The Forgotten Trinity, and reproduce it here. Remember, this sermon was preached approximately 145 years prior to Nicea, 130 years prior to Constantine’s battle at the Milvian Bridge (where he allegedly saw the sign of the cross in the sky and the phrase, “in this sign, conquer”). As you read these words, rejoice, as I rejoice, at the thought of this ancient believer and the fact that he reveled in the truth about the God-man Jesus Christ just as we do today! Oh that we had more preaching like this in our land today!” Continue reading
“For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” – 1 Corinthians 5:7
“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord…” – Romans 1:1-4
When I first discovered that many of the Biblical sites in the ancient holy land were now Christian Churches (of different persuasions and denominations) I immediately felt saddened. I guess I expected to see the hillside where Jesus delivered His “Sermon on the Mount” kept in its original condition; I wanted to see the birthplace of Christ, and be on the lookout for sheep, shepherds, donkeys and farmyard animals. But as anyone who has been to Israel knows, such is not the case. Christians through the centuries, after making careful inquiry as to the exact locations, have claimed many of these sites for their own by building grandiose Church structures right on top of them. Continue reading
“Come, ye dead, Christless, unconverted sinner, come and see the place where they laid the body of the deceased Lazarus; behold him laid out, bound hand and foot with graveclothes, locked up and stinking in a dark cave, with a great stone placed on top of it. View him again and again; go nearer to him; be not afraid; smell him, Ah! how he stinketh. Stop there now, pause a while; and whilst thou art gazing upon the corpse of Lazarus, give me leave to tell thee with great plainness, but greater love, that this dead, bound, entombed, stinking carcase, is but a faint representation of thy poor soul in its natural state;…thy spirit which thou bearest about with thee, sepulchered in flesh and blood, is literally dead to God, and as truly dead in trespasses and sins, as the body of Lazarus was in the cave. Was he bound hand and foot with graveclothes? So art thou bound hand and foot with thy corruptions; and as a stone was laid on the sepulchre, so there is a stone of unbelief upon thy stupid heart. Perhaps thou has lain in this estate, not only four days, but many years, stinking in God’s nostrils. And, what is still more effecting, thou art as unable to raise thyself out of this loathsome, dead state, to a life of righteousness and true holiness, as ever Lazarus was to raise himself from the cave in which he lay so long. Thou mayest try the power of thy boasted free will, and the force and energy of moral persuasion and rational arguments (which, without doubt, have their proper place in religion); but all thy efforts, exerted with never so much vigor, will prove quite fruitless and abortive, till that same Jesus, who said ‘take away the stone” and cried “Lazarus, come forth,” also quicken you. This is grace, graciously offered, and grace graciously applied. Or as the Confession originally puts it, “grace offered and conveyed.” – George Whitefield
“Do not think Christians are made by education; they are made by creation. You may wash a corpse as long as you please, and that corpse could be clean, but you cannot wash life into it! You may deck it in flowers, and robe it in scarlet and fine linen, but you cannot make it live! The vital spark must come from above! Regeneration is not of the will of man, nor of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but by the power and energy of the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God alone! See then, the ruin of nature and the freeness of grace! Void and dark, a chaos given up to be covered with blackness and darkness forever, and, while as yet it is unseeking God, the light arises, and the promise is fulfilled, “I am found of them that sought me not; I said, behold me! behold me! to a people that were not a people.” While we were lying in our blood, filthily polluted, defiled, he passed by, and he said in the sovereignty of his love, “Live!” and we do live. The whole must be traced to sovereign grace! From this sacred well of discriminating distinguishing grace we must draw water this morning, and we must pour it out, saying, “Oh Lord, I will praise your name, for the first origin of my light was your sovereign purpose, and nothing in me.” – C. H. Spurgeon, Light, Natural and Spiritual” No. 660
Finally, after much hard work behind the scenes by a man named JJ, and pray that many may indeed by edified as they hear them. Titles include:
“The Five Solas of the Gospel”
“The Meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything”
“Rightly Handling the Word of Truth”
“The Golden Chain of Redemption”
“The Baptism and Temptation of Jesus”
“The Truth of the Gospel”
“Who Is This Jesus?”
“Rest and Fight”
There is no charge to hear these messages, wherever you are in the world – be blessed!
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Musings about this difficult and perplexing question has gone on for centuries. Thankfully though, the consequences for an incorrect answer are not particularly severe. Life goes on regardless.
But there’s an area of study in Christian theology called soteriology (the study of what the Bible teaches regarding salvation), and within that context, how we answer the question as to “which came first?” has far more significant impact. I am speaking here of the order of salvation; namely does a person have faith and then is born again, or are they born again and then have faith? Is Divine election based upon God foreseeing us putting our faith in Christ or do we have faith in Christ because God first elected us?
As I have written elsewhere, I believe Scripture emphatically teaches that man is spiritually dead like a corpse (nekros) in sin and trespasses and without Sovereign election, evangelism would be the most futile activity imaginable. It would be much like a salesman trying to sell his products in a graveyard. The dead need to be raised to life before a salesman can make a sale! The dead have no interest in skin cream products, double glazed windows, hair loss prevention treatments, air purifiers or the latest and greatest vacuum cleaner. They are not moved by even the greatest of sales pitches! Why? Well that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Its because the dead are, in a word…. dead!
The same is true regarding a person coming to Christ. We need to be born again, or born from above, before we can even see or enter the kingdom of God (John 3). We need to be brought to life before we can actually do anything spiritually. There’s a logical order involved. Theologians refer to this as the ordo salutis, which is Latin for “the order of salvation.” Though being born again and exercising faith may be instantaneous in terms of our awareness in time, logically, one thing has to come before the other. It is a logical rather than a temporal distinction. When someone is dead, resurrection needs to take place before a person can even think about moving a muscle, or walking in a certain direction. It is not the walking that takes place before the resurrection. No, it is the other way around. Dead people don’t walk, living people do. In the same way, spiritually speaking, regeneration (being made alive, or born again) must precede faith. A person needs to be raised from the dead before they can take any steps towards Him.
Continue reading
“In this system of theology [the doctrines of grace], the glory of God is central. As every planet revolves around the blazing sun, every truth of sovereign grace rotates around this one fixed point – the glory of God. The unrivaled pre-eminence of God stands at the focal point of this theological universe. That God is to be the chief object of praise in the display of His grace is what energized this solar system of truth. As the compass always points north, so the doctrines of grace constantly point upward the lofty heights of the glory of God.” – Steve Lawson, Foundations of Grace, A Long Line of Godly Men, Volume 1, page 31.
I believe the second generation of Protestant Reformers really understood this truth and that is why they went as far as they did in the Synod of Dordt to respond to the Remonstrants by calling Arminianism heresy – because they saw it as the first steps on the road that leads to Rome and away from the “true north” of giving glory only to God for salvation.