Monthly Archives: January 2012

From the Foreword…

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Excerpt from the foreword to my new book it depends completely on the disposition of the heart. Apart from a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, the Bible says our disposition is, by nature, hostile to God and we cannot understand spiritual truth (Rom 8:7 & 1 Cor 2:14). But thanks be to God, the new birth or regeneration, is where God, the Holy Spirit applies the redemptive blessings of Christ, which give us the spiritual life that empowers us to do what we must do (repent and believe the gospel), but cannot do (while in the flesh), because of our bondage to sin (John 6:63, 65).

Clear and plain as the words of Christ regarding His identity may now seem to be, it is important to consider that there was a time when even Jesus’ disciples (who spent 3 years with him) did not understand them. Seeing they did not see, and hearing they did not hear (Matt 13:13). They could not comprehend that the Messiah was to be “cut off” (Isaiah 53:8). They refused to receive the teaching that their own Rabbi must die. Therefore, when He was finally crucified … when the Shepherd was finally struck down … they were confounded and His sheep were scattered each to his own way. Although Jesus had often told them of it, they had never internalized it as a fact. They were blinded to it.
Let us watch and pray to God against such prejudice in our own heart. Let us beware of allowing traditions, preconceived notions and unaided logic to take root in our hearts and blind us to Jesus. There is only one test of truth: what the Scripture says. Before this all the prejudices in our hearts must fall.

But even the disciples who read the Scripture still did not understand. And when they finally did, what was it that made the difference? How did they finally see Jesus for who He was? In Matthew chapter 16:13-17 Jesus asked His disciples the most important question they were ever asked. Jesus asked, “…who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”

Notice that the first thing Jesus wants to make certain Peter understands when making his declaration is that this mystery cannot be truly known by human reason, but only by God’s revelation through the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3; Matt 11:25-27). “Flesh and blood” simply refers to the natural resources of man without the Holy Spirit.

Left to himself with his natural depravity blinding him, Peter would never have understood the truth, beauty and excellence of Christ and His true identity. Left to himself, Simon wouldn’t have marveled at Jesus as the Son of God, the Savior of the world. But God Himself had revealed this truth to him by giving him a new heart (Ezek 36:26) in which the Spirit cries ABBA FATHER (Rom 8:14-17), and so his eyes were opened for the first time to recognize who Jesus really is. Apart from the Spirit of God there is no understanding of Spiritual truth (1 Cor 2:10-14) even when it is staring you in the face. You may intellectually understand what the words mean, but the heart is so naturally prejudiced against Christ, that the Spirit must disarm those hostilities if we are to see the truth in them.

Apart from a new heart, the problem in our natural state is that we are all spiritually blind (not merely short-sighted). 2 Cor 4:3-4 says: “If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.” So if God does not open our spiritual eyes, we will never be able to recognize Jesus. Unless God intervenes to replace our eyes, we are, like the disciples, incapable of recognizing Christ as He really is.

In the flesh we can go listen to a preacher, we can read the Bible, yet unless God reveals Himself directly to us, we are dead to spiritual truth (Eph 2:1). While reading the text we will actually fail to recognize Him, just as the disciples on the road to Emmaus, until Jesus opened their eyes. And that is why we need God to intervene, to take away our spiritual blindness, so that we can see clearly what otherwise is beyond our natural resources to comprehend.

It seems that Jesus believes it is critical to remind Peter of this truth as of first importance in Peter’s “follow-up”. Many in this day and age are reluctant to speak to a new Christian about God’s sovereign grace in salvation for fear it is a hard truth. Yet when Peter makes his first confession of Christ, Jesus puts it first before all other truths.

The entire eBook is available for $4 at this link.

Marriage is Just a Piece of Paper, Right?

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My partner and I have promised to follow biblical principles of marriage. Why should we participate in a public wedding ceremony? Why is it that our promise to each other is not acceptable?

R. C. Sproul – Because there are not any witnesses. You do not have private covenants in the Bible. Marriage is a covenant and a covenant relationship involves making promises and not making them in the back seat of a car. They are made with public witnesses.

In the traditional wedding ceremony, most start off, “Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today in the Presence of God and of these witnesses, to unite this man and this woman in the sacred bond of matrimony” and so on.

What happens on that occasion (which is public, that makes it more than just a piece of paper) is that I have made a commitment to that woman, out loud, in front of every authority structure of my life – in front of my family, in front of her family, in front of the Church, in front of the civil magistrate, and in front of my friends. And if I break that vow, its possible that my friends won’t take it seriously, and its possible that my family won’t take it seriously, its possible that the Church won’t take it seriously, and its even possible nowadays that the State won’t take it seriously; but you’d better believe that God is going to take it seriously.

But this idea of a private covenant – just is not done in Scripture. There always has to be some kind of witness to the covenant and some kind of document or treaty.

Why was the Ten Commandments written in stone and placed in the ark of the covenant?

Because they are the stipulations of the covenant that God makes with Israel, when He unites in marriage to His people.

This is part of the absolute fall out of the radical secularization of marriage in our culture. You are kidding yourself if you think you have a marriage that is private promises.

A transcript from a Question and Answer Session at the Ligonier Ministries National Conference, Bought with a Price, Orlando, 2006

Biblical Grounds for Divorce

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A transcript from a Question and Answer Session at the Ligonier Ministries National Conference, Bought with a Price, tadalafil Orlando, 2006

Question: If we understand marriage correctly, what are the biblical grounds for divorce?

R.C. Sproul – One of the things that I think is very destructive in the Church are those Churches (and those people within the Church) who prohibit divorce on any grounds whatsoever because that just completely denies the clear and unambiguous exceptive clause that Jesus gave in the Gospel of Matthew when he dealt with the traditonal issue among the Rabbis (the Hillel School and the Shimei School) developing the controversy over the divorce laws of Deuteronomy.

Jesus made it very, very clear that Moses, because of the hardness of their heart, gave them the right for divorce on the basis of the “unclean thing,” which is not specifically adultery but its “unclean” and so the whole debate amongst the Jewish Rabbis was, “What constitutes the unclean thing?”

The Liberal (interpretation) says, “If she breaks a dish that he likes, that’s justification for divorce.”

No, Jesus said, unless its for porneia, which is sexual immorality, there is no basis. And now we have all kinds of examples where a husband or wife gets invovled in an immoral sexual relationship and then the Church says to the partner, “That’s not grounds for divorce. You can’t get out of that relationship.” That’s devastating. That’s not what the Bible teaches.

Also, the second grounds are given by the Apostle Paul – “separation from the non-believer” – if the non-believer chooses to leave the marriage, the believer’s free at that point.

Then, of course, where it really gets sticky is “What are the boundaries of sexual immorality?’ There I think the Church has to be very wise in dealing with those questions.

Ken Jones – Yes and in those cases, the person is not commanded to get a divorce.

R.C. – Right!

Ken Jones – That option is available to them but they are not commanded to get a divorce. In fact, Paul says, as it relates to those who are married to an unbeliever who has abandoned them, he admonishes them to, if at all possible, seek reconciliation. And if that person agrees to live with you in their state of unbelief, then by all means, do not pursue the divorce. But I agree with R C that I think sometimes we have seen in the Church, things that I believe are very clear by Christ, we have made those areas more grey than they actually are…

R C – What you hear all the time though is (people say), “Well yes, you may have biblical grounds but the “higher road” is to stay married – and you tell this poor woman who has been violated that now she is supposed to go back in there and be naked and unashamed? ITS NOT SAFE! You know, her soul’s been absolutely devastated, and God in His grace has given her the right to leave that situation.

Someone says, “but what if the guy repents?” You hear that all the time.. this can happen the other way of course, women and men – but most of the time its the man.. so I say, “Well suppose a guy really repents. What is the woman’s obligation now?

Her obligation is to forgive him and to regard him as a brother but she does not have to stay married to him.

(If a guy embezzles $50,000 from Ligonier Ministries in our accounting office and repents of it and even gives the $50,000 back, I don’t have to keep him on staff as our accounting guy. He can still be forgiven, but the context of that has changed, mightily, by that action.)

The covenant of marriage has been so radically violated that Jesus gives people that option.”

Ken Jones – “I want to throw in there something that combine those two reasons that are given in Scripture that has become more of an issue in our day and that is physical violence. I think that is a grounds for a Church, a pastor, an elder, to allow a woman in the Church (if she is under physical abuse from her husband) to be removed from that situation…

R.C. – I think that is an application of the “immorality” principle and the violation of the covenant. I agree with you. But again, that becomes an issue of prudence. It should be done with great care and never in a flippant manner.