Monthly Archives: January 2016

The Marks of a Healthy Church

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especially in regards to building a church on the foundation of the Gospel. As the book title would suggest, Dr. Dever outlines nine distinctive features of a church that is seeking to conform itself to a biblical pattern for church life and ministry. Here are the nine marks, summarized by an article on the 9Marks website:

1. Expositional Preaching
This is preaching which expounds what Scripture says in a particular passage, carefully explaining its meaning and applying it to the congregation. It is a commitment to hearing God’s Word and to recovering the centrality of it in our worship.

2. Biblical Theology
Paul charges Titus to “teach what is in accord with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1). Our concern should be not only with how we are taught, but with what we are taught. Biblical theology is a commitment to know the God of the Bible as He has revealed Himself in Scripture.

3. Biblical Understanding of the Good News
The gospel is the heart of Christianity. But the good news is not that God wants to meet people’s felt needs or help them develop a healthier self-image. We have sinfully rebelled against our Creator and Judge. Yet He has graciously sent His Son to die the death we deserved for our sin, and He has credited Christ’s acquittal to those who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus’ death and resurrection. That is the good news. Continue reading →

Did Judas Receive the Bread and the Cup?

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Mitch Chase serves as the Preaching Pastor at Kosmosdale Baptist Church in Louisville, Jesus was dining with his twelve disciples (Matt. 26:20). So Judas was present–at first.

Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me” (Matt. 26:21). The disciples replied, one after another, “Is it I, Lord?” (26:22). Matthew doesn’t focus on any individual yet. Then after Jesus said it would have been better if the betrayer had never been born (26:24), Judas speaks. “Is it I, Rabbi?” (26:25).

The narrative continues in Matthew 26:26-28 with the dispensing of the bread and the passing of the cup, and the impression is that all twelve disciples receive the bread and cup from Jesus. Matthew doesn’t report anyone missing.

But the Fourth Gospel sheds some light on this table. When Jesus said “one of you will betray me” (John 13:21), the disciples were uncertain of the betrayer’s identity (13:22). The beloved disciple (probably John?) was sitting beside Jesus (13:25). He asked, “Lord, who is it?” (13:25). Jesus responded, “It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it,” and then Jesus dipped a morsel and handed it to Judas, who must have been sitting next to him on the other side (13:26). Despite what a moment this was, the rest of the group seemed oblivious (13:28). But Judas knew that Jesus knew.

Now comes John 13:30: “So, after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.”

Here’s how the events may have unfolded at the last supper. Jesus prophesies a betrayer from the twelve, and the disciples respond with uncertainty (Matt. 26:20-25). With this conversation still hanging in the air, the beloved disciple asks the identity of the betrayer, Jesus says he will give a dipped morsel to the betrayer, Jesus then gives the dipped morsel to Judas, and after receiving the morsel Judas immediately left (John 13:25-30).

Only then does the meal transition to the breaking of the bread and the passing of the cup (Matt. 26:26-28). While Jesus began the meal in 26:20 with all twelve disciples present, by the time he interpreted the bread as his body and the cup as his blood, Judas had already left (John 13:30).

A Question was then asked, “What about Luke’s account?

“In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table.” (Luke 22:20–21)”

Response: Great question. When you read commentators on Luke’s Gospel, one argument you find is that Luke sometimes ordered his accounts topically instead of sequentially. For example, the saying in Luke 22:18 comes before the bread-breaking in Luke’s account, but it occurs after the cup-sharing in Matthew and Mark’s accounts. And in Luke 22:22 he pronounces a woe on his betrayer after the speaking about the “cup,” whereas in Matthew and Mark’s accounts Jesus speaks a “woe” on his betrayer before the elements are interpreted at all. In Luke 22:23, Luke places the disciples questioning “which of them it could be who was going to do this” after the interpretation of the bread and cup, but Matthew and Mark place that moment before the interpretation of the elements. These examples show that Luke’s account of the last supper differs in sequence from the consistent accounts in Matthew and Mark. This tells us that Luke’s design is not about the sequence of the events or sayings at the last supper. So Luke 22:21-23, ” ‘But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table. For the Son of Man goes as it is has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!’ And they began to question one another, which of them it could be who was going to do this,” is not placed sequentially in the last supper account. Matthew and Mark’s accounts rightly place that passage in Matthew 26:20-24 and Mark 14:17-21 before the events of the breaking of the bread and the passing of the cup. And in John’s parallel account in John 13, he reports that Judas immediately left the room after the discussion about who Jesus’ betrayer would be (John 13:21-30).

Consider this too. We know that Judas departed from the disciples at some point because he shows up with a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and Pharisees (John 18:3) so that he might betray Jesus to them with a kiss. In other words, the question isn’t whether Judas left the room but WHEN. And neither Matthew, nor Mark, nor Luke report when Judas exited the home where the last supper was being held. The Synoptics, then, are silent. Only John tells us when Judas left, and Judas left immediately after the conversation about who Jesus’ betrayer would be–a conversation that Matthew and Mark report, in sequence, BEFORE Jesus broke the bread and passed the cup.

The Will of God

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“What is the will of God for my life?” In this excerpt from his Foundations teaching series, R.C. Sproul distinguishes between the decretive and the preceptive wills of God.

Transcript

The secret things belong to the Lord our God… (Deut. 29:29).

That refers to what we call the hidden will of God. Now usually when we’re speaking of the hidden will of God we have in our mind the decretive will of God. And when people say to me, “What is the will of God for my life?” I say, remember that the Bible uses the word “will of God” in several different ways. The first way in which we talk about the will of God is what we call the decretive will; and the decretive will of God is that will of God by which God sovereignly brings to pass whatsoever He wills. Sometimes it’s called the absolute will of God.

Sometimes it’s simply called the sovereign will of God. Sometimes it’s called in theology the efficacious will of God. But normally, we talk about the decretive will of God. That is, when God decrees sovereignly that something should come to pass, it must needs come to pass.

The Bible frequently speaks about the determinate counsel of God. Where, when God has decreed from all eternity that Christ should die on the cross in Jerusalem at a particular time in history, it must needs come to pass. It comes to pass through the determinate counsel or will of God. That’s what we’re talking about when we’re talking about the decretive will of God. That will that God brings to pass by the sheer power of His sovereignty. It’s irresistible—it has to happen. When God calls the world into existence, it comes into existence. It cannot not begin, the lights cannot not come on when He says, “Let there be light.” That’s the decretive will of God.

Now, we also talk about the preceptive will of God. And we understand that the decretive will of God cannot be resisted. The preceptive will of God not only can be resisted by us, but is resisted all the time. The preceptive will of God is a reference to God’s law, to His commandments. This is the will of God that you not have any other God’s before Him. Now when people call me and they say, “How can I know the will of God for my life?” I want to say to them, “What will are you talking about? Are you talking about the decretive will of God? Are you talking about the hidden will of God?” If you’re talking about the hidden will of God, the first thing you have to understand about the hidden will of God is that it’s hidden.

And when people say to me, “What does God want me to do in this sort of case?” I say, “How do I know? I study theology, but I can’t read God’s mind. All I can do is read God’s Word. And what God’s Word does for me is give me His revealed will. And that’s enough of a task to last me my lifetime trying to sort out everything that is in this book that God has revealed. And if you’re asking me about that I can help you with it. But if you’re asking me about His hidden will you’re asking the wrong person, because I have no earthly idea what is in God’s mind where He has not revealed Himself.”

Now Calvin made his comment at this point, he says, “Where God closes His holy mouth, I will desist from inquiry.” I’ll say that again, “Where God closes His holy mouth, I will desist from inquiry.” Now to translate that into modern nomenclature, we would say something like this, “The hidden will of God is none of your business. That’s why it’s hidden.”