Monthly Archives: February 2016

Jesus and His Active Obedience

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In this excerpt from his teaching series, What Did Jesus Do?, but for His people. And if His people are required to keep the Ten Commandments, He keeps the Ten Commandments. If His people are now required to submit to this baptismal ritual, He submits to it in their behalf. Because the redemption that is brought by Christ is not restricted to His death on the cross.

We’ve seen that in the work of redemption God didn’t send Jesus to earth on Good Friday and say, “Die for the sins of your people and that will take care of it.” No. Jesus not only had to die for our sins, but He had to live for our righteousness. If all Jesus did was die for your sins, that would remove all of your guilt, and that would leave you sinless in the sight of God, but not righteous. You would be innocent, but not righteous because you haven’t done anything to obey the Law of God which is what righteousness requires.

So we have a doctrine in theology that refers to the active obedience of Jesus, as distinguished from the passive obedience of Jesus. And this doctrine is in great dispute right now particularly among dispensational thinkers, which I find extremely, extremely unsettling. The passive obedience of Christ refers to His willingness to submit to the pain that is inflicted upon Him by the Father on the cross in the atonement. He passively receives the curse of God there. The active obedience refers to His whole life of obeying the Law of God whereby He qualifies to be the Savior. He qualifies to be the Lamb without blemish. He qualifies for the song, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,” through His total righteousness. He fulfills the Law’s demands, and if you remember the covenant with Moses, everybody who fulfills the Law receives the blessing, those who disobey the Law receive the curse.

What does Jesus do? He obeys the Law perfectly, receives the blessing, and not the curse. But there’s a double imputation that we will look at later at the cross, where my sin is transferred to His account, my sin is carried over and laid upon Him in the cross. But in our redemption, His righteousness is imputed to us—which righteousness He wouldn’t have if He didn’t live this life of perfect obedience. So what I’m saying to you is that His life of perfect obedience is just as necessary for our salvation as His perfect atonement on the cross. Because there’s double imputation. My sin to Him, His righteousness to me. So that, that is what the Scripture is getting at when it says Jesus is our righteousness.

Singleness

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Tim Keller: A Theology of Singleness

Tim Keller – A Theology of Singleness from Singleness, Marriage and Family

Tim Keller
November 2001

Introduction

The church is to be an alternate city (Matt.5:14-16), alternate nation (1 Peter 2:9), even a ‘new humanity’ (Eph.2:15). It’s to be a place where the world can see what a society would look like if Christ was the ultimate value rather than sex, money, power, or some other idols. (A corporate idol is often called a ‘power’ in the New Testament (NT), which is defined as a good thing shaping a society in a bad way because it has been given idolatrous ultimate value.) It’s not enough to discuss Christian living in terms of individual ethics only. We also ask how as a community lives out the ‘gospel-values’ corporately, creating a society that reflects those priorities.

All studies show that in western cultures the percentage of single adults is growing. In 2000 the census showed that 48% of all adult householders were unmarried (up from 42% in 1990.) Center city areas are heavily single and churches like Redeemer will be largely filled with single Christians who must find a way to conduct their relationships in community so as to reflect the ‘new humanity’ created by the gospel.

A. THE GOODNESS OF THE SINGLE LIFE (The non-idolatry of marriage)

Paul’s weird passage on singleness

Paul says “Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this. What I mean is that the time is short.” (1 Cor 7:27-28) This passage is very confusing on its surface. First, this view of marriage seems at profound variance with the exalted picture of marriage in Ephesians 5:21ff. Was Paul just having a bad day when he wrote this? Second, his view of marriage seems to have been conditioned by a conviction that Jesus was coming back any day (“The time is short”). Doesn’t history show that he was wrong?

‘Kingdom Theology’ Applied to Singleness

But immediately after this passage Paul writes: “From now on, those who have wives should live as if they had none. Those who mourn as if they did not. Those who are happy as if they were not. Those who buy as if it was not theirs. Those who use the things of the world as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.” (1 Cor. 7:29-31) Here we see that behind “the time is short” phrase is a much more sophisticated view of history. Paul (as Jesus) taught the ‘overlap’ of the ages. The kingdom of God–God’s power to renew the whole of creation–has broken into the old world (‘aeon’ or ‘age’) through Christ’s first coming. The kingdom is here in a substantial but partial way (Rom 13:11-14).

On the one hand, it means that all the social and material concerns of this world still exist. But on the other hand, the gospel brings us an internal joy-peace and a hope in the future-of-God which relativizes and transforms all our earthly relationships (Rom 14:17). Therefore we must not “over-invest” ourselves and our hearts in anything besides the kingdom. The future of God means radical freedom! We are neither too elated by success nor too cast down by disappointment–because our true success is in God (Col 3:1-4). Though we have possessions we should live as if they weren’t really ours–for our real wealth is in God (Luke 16:1ff.) We should ‘sit loose’ to everything. There is nothing now that we have to have. Finally, Paul applies this principle to marriage and singleness. We are neither over-elated by getting married nor over-disappointed by not being so–because Christ is the only spouse that can truly fulfill us and God’s family the only family that will truly embrace and satisfy us (Eph.5:21ff.).

The Goodness and Necessity of Singleness in the Christian Community

Christianity was the very first religion or world-view that held up single adulthood as a viable way of life. Jesus himself and St. Paul were single. “One clear difference between Christianity and Judaism [and all other traditional religions] is the former’s entertainment of the idea of singleness as the paradigm way of life for its followers.” (Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character p.174) Nearly all religions and cultures made an absolute value of the family and of the bearing of children. There was no honor without family honor, and there was no real lasting significance or ‘legacy’ without leaving heirs. By contrast, the early church not only did not pressure people to marry (as we see in Paul’s letter) but it institutionally supported poor widows so they did not have to remarry. Continue reading →

Miscellaneous Quotes (106)

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quotes“Either Scripture will be the lens through which you view the world or the world (science, politics, worldview, etc) will be the lens through which you view Scripture. Ultimately one or the other will be your authority.” – Rachel Miller

“If your god never disagrees with you, you might just be worshiping an idealized version of yourself.” – Tim Keller

“Salvation comes from the Trinity, happens through the Trinity, and brings us home to the Trinity.” – Fred Sanders

“The world has ever opposed the church and always will. The struggle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent is not only perennial but perpetual… It is more than time that the church be reminded that militancy is of its essence. When a church ceases to be militant it also ceases to be a church of Jesus Christ. The church on earth is glorious, not in spite of its militancy, but precisely because of it.” – R. B. Kuiper, The Glorious Body of Christ, 14, 33.

Note: The author is using a historical theological term known as the distinction between the “church militant” and “church triumphant” and as such is not advocating violence.

The militancy of the church spoken of here is not talking about violence, as Dustin comments in his post. “By the ‘Militant Church’ or fighting church, we mean all the faithful who are still upon the earth struggling for their salvation by warring against their spiritual enemies.”CUF

“The violent take it by force.” Matthew 11:12—The “violent” are men of eager, impetuous zeal, who grasp the kingdom of heaven—i.e., its peace, and pardon, and blessedness—with as much eagerness as men would snatch and carry off as their own the spoil of a conquered city. Their new life is, in the prophet’s language, “given them as a prey” (Jeremiah 21:9; Jeremiah 45:5). There is no thought of hostile purpose in the words. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers

“Believer, when you are on your knees, remember you are going to a King. Let your petitions be large.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“The only reason I can give under heaven why I’m a Christian is because I’m a gift of the Father to the Son, not because of anything I’ve ever done or could do.” – R.C. Sproul

“When you pray for unconverted people, you do so on the assumption that it is in God’s power to bring them to faith.” – J. I. Packer

“No man shall be in heaven but he that sees himself fully qualified for hell.” – Robert Traill

“I would never have been saved if I could have helped it.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“Our salvation depends on God’s covenant, rooted in eternity, foreshadowed in the Mosaic liturgy, fulfilled in Christ, enduring forever. No wonder Hebrews calls it ‘so great a salvation’ (Heb. 2:3).” – Sinclair Ferguson

“A congregation who prays for their pastors will be a better-fed congregation than those who do not.” – Alistair Begg

“Since Jesus is God, then He’s got to be great enough to have some reasons to let you go through things you can’t understand.” – Unknown Continue reading →