Category Archives: Bible Reflection

Taking It Personally

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If we were to personalize the early verses of Ephesians chapter 1, it might read something like this:

God is your Father. You live in Christ. He has already blessed you with all the riches of heaven. He chose you to belong to Christ. His purpose is to make you holy and blameless in His sight. He has an amazing love for you. Because of this love He chose to adopt you as His child. He gave you the faith to make this possible. All this is the work of His glorious grace. Through this grace all that belongs to Christ is yours. You have been redeemed and all your sins have been forgiven because He purchased you for Himself with His blood. Now you belong to Him. He continues to lavish His grace upon you. He has given you wisdom that enables you to understand the wonderful ways in which He has blessed you. He has made His will known to you because you live in Christ. It was always God’s plan that you should belong to Him. He works out everything in your life so that His will and purpose for you is completely fulfilled. Your hope is in Christ so that you can live for His praise and glory. He placed you in Christ when you responded with faith to the gospel of salvation. He has placed His personal seal upon you – the promised gift of the Holy Spirit. His Spirit guarantees your inheritance and keeps you living in the power of His redeeming love. He wants you to love your fellow saints. He imparts to you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation of who He is and what He has done for you, so that you come to know Him better. He fills you with light so that you can know and fulfil His purpose for you and enjoy the riches of your glorious inheritance. He wants you to know His power working in you because you believe in Him, a power so great that it cannot be compared with any other power. The power that raised Jesus from the dead is in you. You live in the One who reigns above every other power. God has placed everything under His feet, the One in whom you live. He wants the fullness of His life to fill your life in every way.

– Colin Urquhart

For the Sake of God’s Name

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Justin Taylor writes: Paul Miller made a comment that has stuck with me: he mentioned that he’s recently been noting the number of things in the Psalmists’ prayers that he doesn’t say in his own prayers.

With that in mind, note the basis upon which these prayers are made:

Jeremiah 14:7
Though our iniquities testify against us,
act, O LORD, for your name’s sake;
for our backslidings are many;
we have sinned against you.

Jeremiah 14:21
Do not spurn us, for your name’s sake;
do not dishonor your glorious throne;
remember and do not break your covenant with us.

Daniel 9:19
O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive.
O Lord, pay attention and act.
Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.

A few observations about this phrase as found in God’s word:

1. The name of God is God’s revelation of himself.

2. In the phrase “for the sake of God’s name,” “name” is essentially synonymous with “praise” and “glory.” Isaiah 48:9 puts “the sake of my name” parallel with “the sake of my praise.” Isaiah 48:11 puts “my name” on the same level as “my glory.”

3. God’s great name can be glorified or profaned (see especially Ezekiel 20).

4. God works for both his glory and our good (compare, for example, Rom. 8:28 and Rom. 11:36), but the Bible puts a priority on God’s interest over ours as the basis for his action (frequently saying “not for our sake” but for “your sake”).

5. In our prayers we should appeal to God, reminding God of what he cannot forget: to do all things for the glory and praise of his great name.

The following is not quite exhaustive, but here is a catalog of the main uses of the phrase in the Bible.

1 Samuel 12:22
For the LORD will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.

Psalm 23:3
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness1
for his name’s sake.

Psalm 25:11
For your name’s sake, O LORD,
pardon my guilt, for it is great.

Psalm 31:3
For you are my rock and my fortress;
and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me;

Psalm 79:9
Help us, O God of our salvation,
for the glory of your name;
deliver us, and atone for our sins,
for your name’s sake!

Psalm 106:8
Yet he saved them for his name’s sake,
that he might make known his mighty power.

Psalm 109:21
But you, O God my Lord,
deal on my behalf for your name’s sake;
because your steadfast love is good, deliver me!

Psalm 143:11
For your name’s sake, O LORD, preserve my life!
In your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble!

Isaiah 48:9, 11
For my name’s sake I defer my anger,
for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you,
that I may not cut you off. . . .
For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it,
for how should my name be profaned?
My glory I will not give to another.

Ezekiel 20:9
But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they lived, in whose sight I made myself known to them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt.

Ezekiel 20:14
But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out.

Ezekiel 20:22
But I withheld my hand and acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out.

Ezekiel 20:44
And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I deal with you for my name’s sake, not according to your evil ways, nor according to your corrupt deeds, O house of Israel, declares the Lord GOD.

Ezekiel 36:22
Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.

The New Testament also uses this language, with Jesus frequently applying it to his own name.

Matthew 10:22
. . . and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Matthew 19:29
And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.

Matthew 24:9
Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.

Acts 9:16
For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.

Romans 1:5
through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.

1 John 2:12
I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake.

3 John 1:7
For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles.

Revelation 2:3
I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary.

Paul’s Reason for Enduring

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The following is a short meditation by Dr. James White.

For this reason I endure all things for the sake of the elect, so that they also might experience the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, and with it, eternal glory. (2 Timothy 2:10 – translation by Dr. James White)

The context is important. 2 Timothy is Paul’s farewell letter to Timothy. You don’t waste words when writing your farewell to a dearly beloved son in the faith. He is encouraging Timothy to be strong. He calls Timothy to “share in suffering” with him (2:3), to compete, work hard, and remember Jesus Christ. Then, in verse 9, he mentions his own suffering as a criminal for the gospel. This is the context lying behind Paul’s statement that he “endures.”

Endures what?

Everything. All the opposition and attacks and beatings and imprisonment and long days of toil and labor–he endured it all for what reason?

Oh, surely, we could say “the glory of God,” but that isn’t Paul’s answer here. Instead, he says he endures all of this “for the sake of the elect.”

Many may wish this term did not appear in Scripture, but it is right there – “the elect,” “the chosen ones.” Paul uses the same term in Romans 8:33 “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?”, and significantly in Colossians 3:12: “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”

Notice that Paul refers to the professing believers in Colossae as “those who have been chosen of God.” Not those who chose God (they did that, but they did so as a result of being chosen by Him: the Christian gospel is God-centered, not man-centered!). It is important to see the source of the “choosing” in election here: “chosen of God.” God chooses. God disposes. God is sovereign in this matter.

And so back in 2 Timothy 2:10, Paul endures the sufferings of his apostleship “for the sake of the elect,” but the reason he does so should not be missed, “so that they also might experience the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, and with it, eternal glory.”

Paul sees his sufferings, his ministry, his tireless work, as means God has used to bring His elect to salvation. As I have said many times, God ordains the ends as well as the means. Preaching, teaching, ministering, defending the faith–all are means used by God to bring His elect to salvation. Just a few more quick notes:

1) Why preach if the identity and number of elect was fixed in eternity? Arminians ask this all the time. Because it is our glorious privilege to be used of God in His service as the means by which He brings His elect unto Himself! We who have heard the Master’s call and been raised from spiritual death should long to be used of God to bring others into His kingdom, just as He used those in the faith before us to bring us the life-giving message of the gospel.

2) The interface of the divine decree (“the elect” here clearly refers to a specific people, chosen by God, not merely “foreseen down the corridors of time”) with its outworking in time (seen in Paul’s activity and suffering) is seen. Is God dependent upon Paul? Surely not in the eternal perspective of His decree. But we cannot “see” that decree. We have God’s prescriptive will plainly revealed to us: preach the gospel to every person! Fight the good fight! Endure persecution as a slave of Jesus Christ! We know God will save His elect, and we know those who truly respond to our message do so only by grace. This gives us boldness to proclaim God’s command to repent to all men everywhere.

3) The elect come to Christ. Almost every passage that speaks of the gospel’s specificity in the New Testament likewise denies the concept of inclusivism or pluralism. The salvation the elect obtain is “in Christ Jesus” and in Him alone. It is simply ridiculous to think that Paul includes in this the idea of some kind of “secret, ignorant disciple who clings to falsehood but is really in Christ anyway.” Such is purely wishful thinking on the part of modern neo-evangelicals who are ashamed of the exclusivity of the claims of Christ.