Yearly Archives: 2011

Justice and Grace

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Dr. R. C. Sproul: In 1966, I was teaching a freshman college course of 250 students and assigned three 5–8 page papers that would be due over the course of the semester on October 1, November 1, and December 1.

I told the students that unless there is a death or they were are in the infirmary, then they would get an F if not turned in on time. When the first paper was due, 225 students turned in the paper and twenty-five did not have them ready.

The twenty-five begged for leniency because they said they were unprepared for college life.

I gave it and said, “’Don’t do it again.”

On the next due date, November 1, fifty students came without their papers and begged for grace because of homecoming.

I said, “Okay,” and gave them an extension.

That made me very popular until December 1.

One hundred students did not have their papers and said, “Don’t worry Professor Sproul, we’ll have them to you in a few days.”

I began marking those students down. Suddenly, they all said, “That’s not fair.”

I pointed to one student who had a late paper in November and December and I said, “Oh Johnson, it is justice that is what you want. Your paper was late in November, I’ll go and mark it an F.”

Complaints about fairness stopped immediately.

When we first receive grace, we are overwhelmed. The second time we get grace, we take it for granted. The third time we fail, we demand grace. The first time we demand grace, a bell should go off in our heads. God never owes me grace, and He never owes you grace.

The Lord of Space and Time

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Earlier today, Dr. R. C. Sproul, Jr taught a message at a Ligonier Conference entitled, “Lord of Space and Time.” Here’s an excerpt of notes made:

In his Institutes, John Calvin explains that our understanding of God is shaped by our understanding of man. And our understanding of man is shaped by our understanding of God.

God is a God of relationship — the Father to the Son, the Son to the Father, and both to the Holy Spirit. This defines who God is and yet we struggle with coming to grasp the unity of the Trinity.

Not only is God a God of relationship, but so are we.

What is man’s chief end? We know from the Westminster Shorter Catechism that man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Oh, if we could only learn to master that. But what is God’s chief end? God’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That’s what He’s for. That is His purpose.

Children can ask a myriad of questions: “How did we get here?” “How did things get to be the way they are?” And the list can go on and on. We can go all the way back to the Garden of Eden with these questions. How did all of creation come to be? What is it’s purpose? To answer these questions, we must go back to the beginning, to the Trinity: God glorifying God and enjoying Him forever. Before all time and creation, the Trinity was complete in and of itself, enjoying and glorifying each other with a complete and absolute joy. But that leads us to a dilemma. If God’s joy was so complete, why did He make the world?
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Friday Round Up

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(1) I encourage you to check out the Reformation apparel by clicking on the Missionalwear logo to the right. There are some very cool items that have now become available for both men and women.

(2) Something to bookmark: Monergism Q&A – 22 Common Objections to Christianity from Skeptics by Steve Hays there are more than 700 posts on this blog covering a very wide range of topics. There is a listing of categories on the right hand side of this, the main page, and there is now also (at the top right) a search engine feature which allows you to search this blog for specific articles. I hope you enjoy this new feature.

(4) Ouch!!:

(5) A Reminder: Ligonier has some SUPER deals today in this week’s $5 Friday sale. The online sale starts at 8 a.m. EST and goes on for 24 hours or until items are sold out. Check out the $5 Ligonier sale here.

By the way, remember that for any purchase at Ligonier, click on the green Ligonier Ministries image to the right and when placing an order, use the code “EGRACE10” and it will give you a 10% discount as a reader of this blog.

(6) Some quotes I came across:

Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then they said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.” – Psalm 126:2

“Should we not see that lines of laughter about the eyes are just as much marks of faith as are the lines of care and seriousness? Is it only earnestness that is baptized? Is laughter pagan? We have already allowed too much that is good to be lost to the church and cast many pearls before swine. A church is in a bad way when it banishes laughter from the sanctuary and leaves it to the cabaret, the nightclub, and the toastmasters.” – Helmut Thielicke, Encounter with Spurgeon (Fortress, 1963), 26

“The church’s greatest troublemakers (now as then) are not those outside who oppose, ridicule and persecute it, but those inside who try to change the gospel.” – John Stott

“This distinction [between law and gospel] must be observed all the more when the Law wants to force me to abandon Christ and His Gospel boon. In that emergency I must abandon the Law and say: Dear Law, if I have not done the works I should have done, do them yourself. I will not, for your sake, allow myself to be plagued to death, taken captive, and kept under your thraldom and thus forget the Gospel. Whether I have sinned, done wrong, or failed in any duty, let that be your concern, O Law. Away with you and let my heart alone; I have no room for you in my heart. But if you require me to lead a godly life here on earth, that I shall gladly do. If, however, like a housebreaker, you want to climb in where you do not belong, causing me to lose what has been given me, I would rather not know you at all than abandon my gift.” – Martin Luther, quoted in C. F. W. Walther, The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel (St. Louis, 1928), pages 46-47.

“If you are not a loyal servant of the King, a sheep who follows the Shepherd, a disciple who has forsaken everything, or a believer who has turned his back on a lifestyle of sin, then you are neither a servant, a sheep, a disciple, or a believer – at least not yet. Repent and believe the Gospel, lest you die in your sins and face the eternal wrath of God as many professing christians before you.” – Justin Edwards

“I know I am nothing,” say you. Yes, but you would not even have had grace enough to know you were nothing if God had not given it to you. To be nothing is ours by nature: but to know that we are nothing and to confess that we are nothing is a gift of his grace.” – C. H. Spurgeon.

“Grace does not run in the blood, but corruption does. A sinner begets a sinner, but a saint does not beget a saint.” – Matthew Henry

“Of course any contemporary observer who saw Christ die would have listened with astonished credulity to the claim that the Crucified was a Conquerer. Had he not been rejected by his own nation, betrayed, denied and deserted by his own disciples, and executed by authority of the Roman procurator? Look at him there, spread-eagled and skewered on a cross, robbed of all freedom of movement, strung up with nails or ropes or both, pinned there and powerless. It appears to be total defeat. If there is victory, it is the victory of pride, prejudice, jealousy, hatred, cowardice and brutality. Yet the Christian claim is that the reality is the opposite of the appearance. What looks like (and indeed was) the defeat of goodness by evil is also, and more certainly, the defeat of evil by goodness. Overcome there, he was himself overcoming. Crushed by the ruthless power of Rome, he was himself crushing the serpent’s head (Gen 3:15). The victim was the victor, and the cross is still the throne from which he rules the world.” – John Stott, The Cross of Christ

“He turns the Roman gibbet of the cross into a triumphant chariot on which He rides in triumph over all His enemies.” – John Calvin

Amusing the Goats or Calling the Sheep?

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Mike Riccardi oversees the membership process at Grace Community Church in Los Angeles. I dont know him personally at all but I loved all he had to say in it is veiled to those who are perishing.” – 2 Corinthians 4:3

In 2 Corinthians, Paul writes primarily to defend his own apostleship against certain men whom he later dubbed false apostles (2 Cor 11:13). These men were teaching that Paul was not a true apostle, and were advancing many attacks against both his character and his ministry, to the point that the Corinthians began to doubt Paul, and thus doubt the gospel he preached.

For example, these false apostles accused him of being under God’s judgment because of his constant sufferings. The thought was that if Paul was really sent from Christ he wouldn’t have such opposition and turmoil, but rather that God would bless him. And so in 2 Cor 1:3-11 Paul defends himself by saying that his sufferings for the Gospel are actually a mark of God’s favor. Far from discrediting him as an apostle, sufferings are a badge of his authenticity as a minister of Christ. They also accused him of vacillating, and “purposing according to the flesh” (2 Cor 1:17) because he had changed his plans about coming to Corinth. And so in 2Cor 1:15-22 he defends himself by saying his word to the Corinthians is not yes and no, but yes, just as all God’s promises are yes in Christ. Another accusation was that he was uncredentialed—a sort of Johnny-come-lately apostle, not part of the original twelve. And so in 2 Cor 3:2 he asks the Corinthians, “Do we need letters of commendation to you? You are our letter of commendation. The fact that you now know Christ because of the Gospel we preached to you is evidence of our authenticity.”

In chapter 4, we find that another accusation was that his message was obscure. And that’s a substantial accusation, because the Corinthian culture praised human wisdom, cleverness of speech, and oratorical persuasion. They regarded highly those who were skilled in rhetoric and oratory, and looked down upon those who weren’t. And so these men were saying, “Hey, look, Paul, only a few people are believing your message. If it was true, and you were really sent from Christ, more people would believe!”

Sounds a bit like today, doesn’t it? “If God was really blessing you, you’d have more people in your church! If you really had sound doctrine—and if sound doctrine really mattered!—more people would believe!”

The Church’s Purpose Defined by God’s Purpose

What’s so interesting to me is how extremely instructive Paul’s response to this accusation is for how the Church can be faithful witnesses of Christ in our various spheres of life. He tells the false apostles, “You don’t understand the doctrine of election. It may be that our gospel is veiled—that is, granted: there are many who do not believe our message—but our gospel is veiled only to those who are perishing.”

He says a similar thing in 2 Cor 2:14-16: “For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.” Paul likens the preaching of the Gospel to the emission of an aroma that finds its way into the nostrils of all people. And among those who hear the Gospel there are two kinds of people: (a) those who are being saved and (b) those who are perishing; (a) those whom God chose in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before Him (Eph 1:4), and (b) those whom He did not so choose.

The word of the cross is foolishness to “those who are perishing,” but to “those who are being saved”—the called (1 Cor 1:24)—it is the power of God for salvation (1 Cor 1:18). And so when the elect of God smell the fragrance of the Gospel, it is to them an aroma of life that leads to life. But when the non-elect hear it, it is an aroma of death that leads to death, because the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

Christ Himself said the same thing to the Jews in John 10:26-27. He said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish. But you don’t believe because you are not of My sheep.” Get that. Not, “You are not My sheep because you don’t believe,” but, “You do not believe because you are not of My sheep. You are not of those that the Father has given to Me” (cf. John 6:37, 39).

And so Paul’s defense against the accusation that not enough people are believing his message is simply: the Church’s purpose in evangelism—and in all facets of Gospel ministry—is to call Christ’s sheep, not the goats, into the fold. You shouldn’t expect the goats to believe the Gospel; only the sheep hear the Shepherds’ voice.

The Implications

Consider the implications this doctrine has for our ministry of the Gospel—for the way we “do church.” If we continue to take the unadulterated, Biblical Gospel to the world and they continue to reject it, that is not a sign of the weakness of the message. It’s not even necessarily a sign of the weakness of the messenger. Rather, it is the outworking of God’s purpose to redeem a particular people: those sheep whom the Father has given to the Son.

And so if we have taken the Biblical Gospel to our neighbors and our coworkers and our communities with the patience and the compassion of Jesus, and they seem uninterested, we shouldn’t conclude that we need to grow a soul patch, start playing secular rock songs, having light shows, performing skits, and playing videos in church to attract them. The church is not called to amuse the goats. Our task is to sound, as clearly as we can, the Shepherd’s voice in the Gospel message and call His sheep who know that voice into His fold. It is the call of the Shepherd’s voice that is the means by which Christ’s flock is brought into His fold. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers. So why would we adopt a ministry methodology other than sounding forth the Shepherd’s voice in the preaching of His Word? Why would we implement something else—something that Scripture promises will not attract Christ’s sheep, but will attract the goats? Perhaps it is because we have failed to understand the implications of 2 Corinthians 4:3.

Our gospel is indeed veiled to those who are perishing.

And so a principle for faithful Gospel ministry that Paul gives Christ’s Church in this text is: success in Gospel ministry is measured not by numbers but by faithfulness to the message. Therefore, in what seems like seasons of external failure, we must not ask what offers the greatest appeal, what will fill the most seats, or what will have the greatest “influence.” We must ask, “Have we gotten the Gospel right? Are we preaching the message we’ve received? Are we sounding the voice of the Great Shepherd, or the voice of a stranger?”

Am I a Calvinist? You decide!

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We are Christians. Radical, full-blooded, Bible-saturated, Christ-exalting, God-centered, mission-advancing, soul-winning, church-loving, holiness-pursing, sovereignty-savoring, grace-besotted, broken-hearted, happy followers of the omnipotent, crucified Christ. At least that’s our imperfect commitment.

In other words, we are Calvinists. But that label is not nearly as useful as telling people what you actually believe! So forget the label, if it helps, and tell them clearly, without evasion or ambiguity, what you believe about salvation.

If they say, “Are you a Calvinist?” say, “You decide. Here is what I believe….”

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 2:1–4; 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)

Call it what you will, this is my life. I believe it because I see it in the Bible. And because I have experienced it. Everlasting praise to the greatness of the glory of the grace of God!

– John Piper, from the Desiring God blogsite.

The Apocrypha

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You may have wondered why the Roman Catholic Church includes books in their “canon” that are not in our Protestant Bibles. They include books written in the Intertestamental Period (the 400 years between Malachi and Matthew in our Bibles). These are known as The Apocrypha.

Protestants have not included the books of the Apocrypha in the canon. These are regarded as Deuterocanonical books or books on a secondary (deutero) level to Scripture.

It was not until 1546 at the Council of Trent that the Roman Catholic Church officially declared the Apocrypha to be part of the canon (with the exception of 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh). It is significant that the Council of Trent was the response of the Roman Catholic Church to Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation because the books of the Apocrypha contain support for Catholic doctrines such as prayers for the dead and justification by faith plus works.

The following is an excerpt from an article by Dr. Greg Bahnsen entitled, “The Concept and Importance of Canonicity.”

In terms of the previous discussion, then, what should we make of the Roman Catholic decision in 1546 (the Council of Trent) to accept as canonical the apocryphal books of “Tobit,” “Judith,” “Wisdom,” “Ecclesiasticus,” “Baruch,” “I and II Maccabees”?

Such books do not claim for themselves ultimate divine authority. Consider the boldness of Paul’s writing (“if anyone thinks he is spiritual, let him acknowledge that what I write is the commandment of the Lord” — I Cor. 14:37-38; if anyone “preaches any other gospel that what we preached to you, let him be accursed” – Gal. 1:8). Then contrast the insecure tone of the author of II Maccabees: “if it is poorly done and mediocre, that was the best I could do” (15:38). Moreover, when the author relates that Judas confidently encouraged his troops, that boldness came “from the law and the prophets” (15:9), as though this were already a recognized and authoritative body of literature to him and his readers. (This is also reflected in the prologue to Ecclesiasticus.) I Maccabees 9:27 recognizes the time in the past when “prophets ceased to appear among” the Jews.
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Sola Scriptura (4)

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Continued from part 3 27 in the New, over a period of about 1,500 years. So how is it that all these 66 books ever got together in the Bible?

LUTHER AND JAMES

Early on in his ministry, Martin Luther had a problem with the Epistle of James. Luther, standing against the known world with the revelation of sola fide or justification by faith alone, encountered many in the Roman Catholic Church quoting the book of James to dismiss him. Luther, for some time could not reconcile James’ words in chapter 2 of his epistle, with Paul’s clear words in Romans and Galatians. He concluded that James was merely “an Epistle of straw.”

This has led some to argue that Luther did not believe that the Bible was inspired by God, for, they say, how could he believe the Bible is the Word of God and then say that the book of James was a “strawy Epistle?”

Yet these folk confuse a couple of issues that need to be distinguished carefully.

If anyone believed in the inspiration and authority of Scripture, is was Luther (remember Worms!!). He said, “The Scriptures never err!”

But there was a period in his life (though he changed his mind later) when he had real questions about James. But this is the point we need to see Luther’s question was not about whether the Bible was inspired, but whether the Epistle of James is supposed to be included in the Bible.

Can you see the important difference? Continue reading →