The apostle Paul in his address to the Ephesian church promises the churches purity with these words, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” (Eph.5:25-27). It is through Christ Jesus that his church will become a most pure and spotless bride made ready to dwell with him in his glory forevermore. And if this is the work of Christ toward his church then his church will desire to submit herself to the work of that purity by faith in him.
Recently I wrote concerning “The True Church” as the visible gathered people of God who confess faith in Jesus Christ and their children, and which is marked by the preaching of God’s Word, the right use of God’s ordained sacraments (Communion & Baptism), and the right discipline of her members. The true church is not always a pure church. The pure church is one that is actively pursuing conformity to God’s revealed will in the Scriptures. For example the seven churches addressed by the Lord Jesus Christ in the book of Revelation were all true churches. The Lord Jesus had some good things to say about them as his bride. However in the midst of affirming their trueness he challenged their purity in the words, “But I have this against you…”. The church will continue to struggle with purity as she struggles with the indwelling sin of her members and her corporate indifference or disobedience to the will of God. As the Westminster divines penned for us, “The purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error.” (WCF 25.5). Therefore there is a need for the true church to be pursuing by his grace being a pure church. And it is according to the revealed will of God that the church knows what distinguishes the church’s purity.
There may be many categories and sub categories understood through the Scriptures to define a pure church. Here I present a modified list from Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology. (pg.874) that biblically defines the pure church:
Biblical Doctrine in Preaching and Teaching (Eph.4:11-16; Col.1:28; ; 1Tim.3:15; 2Tim.4:1-2)
Proper Use of the Sacraments in Worship (1Cor.11:17-34)
Discipline that Aims at Nurture and Restoration (1Cor.5:1-13; Mt.18:15-20; Gal.6:1)
Genuine Worship in Spirit and Truth (Jn.4:24; Col.3:16-17; 1Cor.14:26-40)
Effective Biblical Prayer (Mt.6:7-13; 1Tim.2:1-2; Col.4:12)
Effective Compassionate Witness (Mt.28:19-20; Acts 2:44-47; 1Jn.4:7)
Effective Genuine Fellowship (Acts 2:42-47; Gal.6:2)
Biblical Church Government (1Tim.3:1-13)
Personal Holiness in Members (Heb.12:14)
Mercy to the Poor and Suffering (Rom.15:26; Mt.11:28-30)
Expressed Love for Christ (1Pe.1:8; Rev.2:4)
The purity of the church is the work of God’s grace in his church according to his revealed will therefore like any pursuit of a goal it requires something of those who pursue it. First, the church must pursue unity as we aim at this grace wrought purity. The church must be realistic in understanding that there will remain corruption and impurities that necessitate patience and forbearance as she pursues unity in purity. There are no perfect churches only messy churches. But God has filled those messy churches with people who he has justified and is sanctifying for the purpose of saving and sanctifying the whole. The pursuit of purity in unity requires individual and corporate enduring patience and faithfulness that holds to what God has done and what he promises to do in his true church. Second, the pursuit of this purity requires valued participation in the life of the church. Purity will not be experienced in silence and solitude. Purity is a corporate experience of the body of Christ. Often when members of the corporate body experience impurity and messiness they will pull away thinking they can pursue a relationship with God apart from his church in a more pure manner. But this pursuit is contrary to the purity of God’s church. The church is defined as the called out and called together people of God. And it is this church in covenant with God and one another that God purposes to purify. Third, the pursuit of this purity in the church requires prayer. While Simeon and Anna waited for the “consolation of Israel” in the coming of the One who would make his own pure, they waited in the temple in prayer (2:25-38). While the church waits on her purity through his wisdom. power and grace we wait in prayer. The church must hide in her closets and gather in her assemblies for her purity through prayer. Fourth, the church pursues purity in faithfulness to the person and work Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the effective purifier of his church. Therefore, the church apart from him and his word can do nothing. The pursuit of the goal of church purity requires the responsibility of unity, participation, prayer and faithfulness to Jesus Christ.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
An Afternoon Wedding
I sat all alone on a step in the choir loft of a grand Baptist church this afternoon witnessing “the joining of this man and this woman”. It was from an interesting vantage point that I participated in this wedding. I had been asked to read a portion of Scripture from Colossians 1:15-18 and the microphone I was to use was all alone in the choir loft. I quietly made my way there and sat on a step out of the purview of the rest of those who had come to witness the covenant of marriage. It was from this vantage point that I could see what others could not, the joy of two young people standing before their pastor as he was used of God to finalize what he had long ago ordained for his glory and their joy.
The pastor (Calvin Fowler of Bull Street Baptist Church, Savannah Georgia) exhorted this couple to view their marriage and one another through three lenses that I thought a good reminder for all who have previously taken these vows in covenant love. First, he exhorted them to view their marriage through the lens of God’s sovereignty. He reminded them it is God who has brought them together by his sovereign designs and that he is doing good to them. Therefore they could be confident that their marriage was not their own doing but his and they could trust him as the doer of it in all times of their marriage. Second, he exhorted them to view one another in the marriage through the lens of God’s grace. He reminded them that it is God’s grace in Christ Jesus that has given them the forgiveness of sins and life with him forevermore. Therefore they could through this lens of grace view each other as sinners who have been forgiven, accepted and loved by God. And now they can forgive, accept and love one another in this same grace. Third, he exhorted them to view their marriage through the lens of the power of the Holy Spirit. He reminded them that in the salvation of God they were called to live toward him and one another in the power of the Holy Spirit. In this way the glory of God would be reflected to the world in their marriage.
As I sat and listened and prayed I renewed my own commitment to the Lord and my wife in marriage to view our marriage through these three lenses. I thanked the Lord for faithful ministers of his Word who exhort us and remind us of the way of his glory and our good in the marriages he has ordained. And I thanked him for the small low step and the choir loft in the midst of a grand building where I could escape for a few minutes into his presence and pleasure to see and be reminded of his good and glorious work of marriage.
The pastor (Calvin Fowler of Bull Street Baptist Church, Savannah Georgia) exhorted this couple to view their marriage and one another through three lenses that I thought a good reminder for all who have previously taken these vows in covenant love. First, he exhorted them to view their marriage through the lens of God’s sovereignty. He reminded them it is God who has brought them together by his sovereign designs and that he is doing good to them. Therefore they could be confident that their marriage was not their own doing but his and they could trust him as the doer of it in all times of their marriage. Second, he exhorted them to view one another in the marriage through the lens of God’s grace. He reminded them that it is God’s grace in Christ Jesus that has given them the forgiveness of sins and life with him forevermore. Therefore they could through this lens of grace view each other as sinners who have been forgiven, accepted and loved by God. And now they can forgive, accept and love one another in this same grace. Third, he exhorted them to view their marriage through the lens of the power of the Holy Spirit. He reminded them that in the salvation of God they were called to live toward him and one another in the power of the Holy Spirit. In this way the glory of God would be reflected to the world in their marriage.
As I sat and listened and prayed I renewed my own commitment to the Lord and my wife in marriage to view our marriage through these three lenses. I thanked the Lord for faithful ministers of his Word who exhort us and remind us of the way of his glory and our good in the marriages he has ordained. And I thanked him for the small low step and the choir loft in the midst of a grand building where I could escape for a few minutes into his presence and pleasure to see and be reminded of his good and glorious work of marriage.
Assurance
The life of the Christian is a mixture of smoke and light. The seven churches in the book of Revelation are called the seven golden lampstands (Rev.1:20). The disciples of Jesus are called the light of the world (Mt.5:14). However God’s covenant people are also called a faintly burning wick (Isa.42:3). Often times Christians ask the question, “Why does not God do away with all my corrupt nature when he saves me?” The question comes because the reality of the Christian life persists in the way of the wilderness. In the Christian there is the presence of grace, but it is not the measure of grace that will be known at glorification when all corruption will be swallowed up in the presence of the glory of Christ. There is a certain measure of corruption that remains in the Christian that he must fight with until his soul is made righteous in Christ’s presence or he returns to make all things new. This reality is what causes the apostle Paul to say, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom.7:24). As the fog that rises upon the water in the cool of the morning is eventually swallowed up by the rising sun, so will the smoke of corruption be swallowed up by the glory of the Son in all his grace to make his bride a burning and shinning light for all time.
It is the mixture of the smoke and the light in the life of the Christian that often causes him to struggle with a sense of assurance. It is a joy that lifts the Christian up to heavenly glory when he has assurance of God’s everlasting love in Christ that will bring him into his presence forevermore. But it is the crushing weight of despair that pins the Christian down to the dust when his assurance of God’s grace wanes and he feels the fires of hell in his soul. It is inevitable that every Christian who shares the mixture of grace and a corrupt nature will struggle at times within these two extremes. The English Puritan Richard Sibbes said that this struggle that comes from the mixture of grace and a corrupt nature is meant for our own good. He says, “The end of it is especially to preserve us from those two dangerous rocks which our nature is prone to dash upon, security and pride, and to force us to pitch our rest upon justification, not sanctification, which, besides imperfection, has some stains.” (The Bruised Reed p.19) The Christian is meant to look to grace but so often he looks to the remaining corruption and sees not the grace. But as long as he remains in the earth the corruption will remain. Therefore his assurance does not rest in how much corruption has been dealt a death blow or how much remains. His assurance rests in the grace of God toward him in Christ Jesus. It is he who has the Son who has life (1Jn.5:12). The one who has the Son by faith is the one declared righteous and this is the Christian’s assurance and peace with God (Rom.5:1).
The Christians assurance rests not in himself, a decision he has made to accept Jesus, or even his progress against sin. Assurance for the Christian rests in the grace of being justified before God by faith in Christ alone. The great stalwart of the faith who stood against the tide of liberalism in the early 20th century J. Gresham Machen held confidence and faithfulness to the end of his life. He had traveled from Philadelphia to North Dakota in the dead of winter to preach. He was sick with pneumonia and dying when he sent by telegram his last words to friend back in Philadelphia. In was in those last words that were found an expressed assurance, “Thanks be to God for the active obedience of Christ Jesus.” His assurance as he lay dying was not in his own progress in sanctification, but in the righteousness of Jesus Christ who had lived for him, died for him, was raised for him and who had ascended into heaven to serve at God’s right hand for him with all his righteousness.
From where does your assurance come this day? Some say that our assurance ebbs and flows with our holiness. But as long as the corrupt nature is mixed with the new nature of grace in Christ Jesus our holiness will ebb and flow. At the end of everyday you can stand at the rock of security in self and pat yourself on the back for a job well done or you can stand at the rock of pride as you compare yourself to others. But it is at both these rocks our lives will be dashed to pieces and our souls will shrink in despair unless we look upon the Rock Christ Jesus who is for us righteousness and holiness and our true assurance.
It is the mixture of the smoke and the light in the life of the Christian that often causes him to struggle with a sense of assurance. It is a joy that lifts the Christian up to heavenly glory when he has assurance of God’s everlasting love in Christ that will bring him into his presence forevermore. But it is the crushing weight of despair that pins the Christian down to the dust when his assurance of God’s grace wanes and he feels the fires of hell in his soul. It is inevitable that every Christian who shares the mixture of grace and a corrupt nature will struggle at times within these two extremes. The English Puritan Richard Sibbes said that this struggle that comes from the mixture of grace and a corrupt nature is meant for our own good. He says, “The end of it is especially to preserve us from those two dangerous rocks which our nature is prone to dash upon, security and pride, and to force us to pitch our rest upon justification, not sanctification, which, besides imperfection, has some stains.” (The Bruised Reed p.19) The Christian is meant to look to grace but so often he looks to the remaining corruption and sees not the grace. But as long as he remains in the earth the corruption will remain. Therefore his assurance does not rest in how much corruption has been dealt a death blow or how much remains. His assurance rests in the grace of God toward him in Christ Jesus. It is he who has the Son who has life (1Jn.5:12). The one who has the Son by faith is the one declared righteous and this is the Christian’s assurance and peace with God (Rom.5:1).
The Christians assurance rests not in himself, a decision he has made to accept Jesus, or even his progress against sin. Assurance for the Christian rests in the grace of being justified before God by faith in Christ alone. The great stalwart of the faith who stood against the tide of liberalism in the early 20th century J. Gresham Machen held confidence and faithfulness to the end of his life. He had traveled from Philadelphia to North Dakota in the dead of winter to preach. He was sick with pneumonia and dying when he sent by telegram his last words to friend back in Philadelphia. In was in those last words that were found an expressed assurance, “Thanks be to God for the active obedience of Christ Jesus.” His assurance as he lay dying was not in his own progress in sanctification, but in the righteousness of Jesus Christ who had lived for him, died for him, was raised for him and who had ascended into heaven to serve at God’s right hand for him with all his righteousness.
From where does your assurance come this day? Some say that our assurance ebbs and flows with our holiness. But as long as the corrupt nature is mixed with the new nature of grace in Christ Jesus our holiness will ebb and flow. At the end of everyday you can stand at the rock of security in self and pat yourself on the back for a job well done or you can stand at the rock of pride as you compare yourself to others. But it is at both these rocks our lives will be dashed to pieces and our souls will shrink in despair unless we look upon the Rock Christ Jesus who is for us righteousness and holiness and our true assurance.
Longing for Revival
Are you aware that the church is in need of a revival? Are you praying for God to do a powerful work of revival and awakening in his church? Drive through the small towns in the south in the spring and you will notice the numerous church signs advertising “Revival”. According to Noah Webster in his 1828 dictionary a revival is, “Renewed and more active attention to religion; an awakening of men to their spiritual concerns.” According to this definition is it possible to “have” a revival by calling people to church over the course of a week or more to awaken men to greater spiritual concerns and to stir them up to a more active attention to their religion? A more fitting word that should be put on these church signs is “Revivalism”. There is a historical record that shows us the difference between revival and revivalism.
The first Great Awakening took place in America in 1734-35 most notably under the preaching of such men as George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards. It seemed to die down for a time then the fires of revival began to burn again in 1740-41. Jonathan Edwards describes the beginning of the awakening in December of 1734 with these words, “It was in the later part of December (1734) that the Spirit of God began extraordinarily to set in, and wonderfully to work among us; and very suddenly, one after another, five or six persons were to all appearances savingly converted…The news of it seemed to be almost like a flash of lightning upon the hearts of young people all over the town, and upon many others…The one thing in their view was to get the kingdom of heaven, and everyone seemed to be pressing into it.” Notice that Edwards describes this awakening or revival by noting the work of the Spirit of God that set in and wonderfully worked among them. It should be noted that this took place around the preaching of God’s Word and an earnest yearning and pleading with God in prayer. But as noted by Edwards it was “the surprising work of God”, and not a calculated work of man.
In the beginning of the 19th century America experienced its second Great Awakening. This again was a surprising work of God that took place in America through the preaching of God’s Word by mainly Calvinistic Baptists and Presbyterians. However, the influences of Methodism and a brand of Presbyterianism under Charles Finney changed the shape of this awakening in the middle of the century. It was under the influence of Methodism that the roots of revivalism grew. The Methodist movement not only shaped the practice of revival but the theology as well. They encouraged mass meetings, the recording of the number of conversions, and the use of the “alter call” or the invitation to come forward. This is the beginning of human means of producing the spiritual results of purported revival. These methods were “improved upon” by the Presbyterian minister Charles Finney in what came to be known as “new measures”. Finney’s new measures for producing spiritual revival were undergirded by Arminian theology. He believed that man had the ability to spiritually respond to the call of the gospel in himself. Therefore he would use whatever means necessary to stir man up emotionally so that he would use that ability to come to God. This practice and theology spread in the east and began to spread into the “frontier” of America, and became the common understanding of revival. Revival became a work that man could plan and through his own means produce the kind of spiritual results that God was pleased with in his creatures. Revival became revivalism.
The view of revival as a sovereign powerful work of God through his ordinary means of grace became a thing of the past and from this has grown the roots of modern evangelicalism in America. However, from those roots has grown a tree or a church that would acknowledge a need for awakening or revival. But it is not revivalism the church needs but a surprising work of God where he comes down to turn the hearts of the church and the unconverted to himself for his own glory.
Why does the church need this reviving work of God today? Borrowing Richard Owen Roberts words, “The crippled Church, looking more like a dying refugee camp than a militant and victorious army, needs once again the manifest presence of Christ in its midst.” We need the living and glorious Christ in our midst to bring upon us conviction of sin and a powerful release from the chains of our corruption. We need his powerful work through his Word and Spirit to change us deeply and to spread its saving effects all around us among all ages. The church will never have the power in herself to deal rightly with sin, to see deep and lasting change affected in her mind and heart, to pursue holiness, to rescue a dying and sin cursed world. There are thousands of sermons preached every week with seemingly little impact. There are hours of praying with little discernable effect for the church and the world. There are numerous works of personal witnessing in all areas of life each week with little effect seen for the kingdom of God. We need the work of God’s reviving and awakening to come upon us like the celestial tsunami that showered down from the heavens this week. Those in Alaska and parts of the north were able to see its effects. We read about it and hear about it and we long to see that glory. Let us plead with God to bare his mighty arm, and draw near to his people with his glory through his powerful Word and do a surprising work among us. Let us pray and practice his ordinary means of grace and wait in earnest for his reviving work.
The first Great Awakening took place in America in 1734-35 most notably under the preaching of such men as George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards. It seemed to die down for a time then the fires of revival began to burn again in 1740-41. Jonathan Edwards describes the beginning of the awakening in December of 1734 with these words, “It was in the later part of December (1734) that the Spirit of God began extraordinarily to set in, and wonderfully to work among us; and very suddenly, one after another, five or six persons were to all appearances savingly converted…The news of it seemed to be almost like a flash of lightning upon the hearts of young people all over the town, and upon many others…The one thing in their view was to get the kingdom of heaven, and everyone seemed to be pressing into it.” Notice that Edwards describes this awakening or revival by noting the work of the Spirit of God that set in and wonderfully worked among them. It should be noted that this took place around the preaching of God’s Word and an earnest yearning and pleading with God in prayer. But as noted by Edwards it was “the surprising work of God”, and not a calculated work of man.
In the beginning of the 19th century America experienced its second Great Awakening. This again was a surprising work of God that took place in America through the preaching of God’s Word by mainly Calvinistic Baptists and Presbyterians. However, the influences of Methodism and a brand of Presbyterianism under Charles Finney changed the shape of this awakening in the middle of the century. It was under the influence of Methodism that the roots of revivalism grew. The Methodist movement not only shaped the practice of revival but the theology as well. They encouraged mass meetings, the recording of the number of conversions, and the use of the “alter call” or the invitation to come forward. This is the beginning of human means of producing the spiritual results of purported revival. These methods were “improved upon” by the Presbyterian minister Charles Finney in what came to be known as “new measures”. Finney’s new measures for producing spiritual revival were undergirded by Arminian theology. He believed that man had the ability to spiritually respond to the call of the gospel in himself. Therefore he would use whatever means necessary to stir man up emotionally so that he would use that ability to come to God. This practice and theology spread in the east and began to spread into the “frontier” of America, and became the common understanding of revival. Revival became a work that man could plan and through his own means produce the kind of spiritual results that God was pleased with in his creatures. Revival became revivalism.
The view of revival as a sovereign powerful work of God through his ordinary means of grace became a thing of the past and from this has grown the roots of modern evangelicalism in America. However, from those roots has grown a tree or a church that would acknowledge a need for awakening or revival. But it is not revivalism the church needs but a surprising work of God where he comes down to turn the hearts of the church and the unconverted to himself for his own glory.
Why does the church need this reviving work of God today? Borrowing Richard Owen Roberts words, “The crippled Church, looking more like a dying refugee camp than a militant and victorious army, needs once again the manifest presence of Christ in its midst.” We need the living and glorious Christ in our midst to bring upon us conviction of sin and a powerful release from the chains of our corruption. We need his powerful work through his Word and Spirit to change us deeply and to spread its saving effects all around us among all ages. The church will never have the power in herself to deal rightly with sin, to see deep and lasting change affected in her mind and heart, to pursue holiness, to rescue a dying and sin cursed world. There are thousands of sermons preached every week with seemingly little impact. There are hours of praying with little discernable effect for the church and the world. There are numerous works of personal witnessing in all areas of life each week with little effect seen for the kingdom of God. We need the work of God’s reviving and awakening to come upon us like the celestial tsunami that showered down from the heavens this week. Those in Alaska and parts of the north were able to see its effects. We read about it and hear about it and we long to see that glory. Let us plead with God to bare his mighty arm, and draw near to his people with his glory through his powerful Word and do a surprising work among us. Let us pray and practice his ordinary means of grace and wait in earnest for his reviving work.
Marks of a True Church
A little boy was sent on his way to a birthday party. As he was getting ready to go on his way he asked, “How will I know the right house where the party is?” He was told by his mother the very house in which the party was held was on a certain street. But how would he know the right house unless it was clearly marked for him? His mother told him it would be marked by three balloons that were hung from the limb of a maple tree in the front yard. His father had taught him to recognize certain hardwood trees both by their bark and by their leaves. Therefore he walked with confidence on this spring day in search of the birthday party. However, what he met along the way was quite unexpected. It seemed that at nearly every house on the particular street of which he walked there was a party. There was at one house balloons on a mailbox and children in the yard playing with a pony and clown. He thought to himself that this surely must be the birthday party to which he was sent, but yet the house did not bear the correct marks so he moved on. At another house there were balloons tied to chairs in the yard and young boys and girls were standing at the streets edge inviting him to come to the party. But he noticed no maple tree and balloons hanging from the limb so again he moved on. After passing several other houses where parties of different markings were being held he finally came to the birthday party he had been invited. There in the front yard was a distinguished maple tree with three balloons hanging from a low limb closest to the ground. He made his way to the front door and was greeted by the mother of the house whom he recognized and with assurance he entered the home being greeted by the other children who had come to the party.
If you are a member or attendee of a church you should be asking the question, “How do I know that this church is a true church?” Most people today choose a church based on its location, style of architecture, form of music, programs, types of people, or what it offers them personally. It is to be sent on a fool’s errand in search of a church with these kinds of criteria. The church must correspond to and be recognized by a standard of truth established for it in the Word of God.
The marks of the true church have arisen like much of the churches biblical and systematized theology because of errors and heresy that arise in the church. The doctrine of the marks of the church has come to be known because of the church going astray from a biblical standard. Therefore the church at different times in her history has had to ask the question, “What are the true marks of the church?” The doctrine of the marks of the church is most pronounced during the history of the reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries. During these years the reformers were asking, “How do we know the true church from the false church?” As they wrestled with this question from the Scriptures three primary marks of the church arose. There was not complete consensus among the reformers in answering this question. Some thought there to be only one, the preaching of God’s Word. Others claimed two, the preaching of the Word and the observance of the sacraments, Lord’s Supper and Baptism. And still others named three, preaching of the Word, observance of sacraments and discipline.
John Knox, the Scottish reformer and five other reformers from Scotland penned the Scots Confession in 1560. In chapter 18 of the confession, “The Notes by Which the True Kirk (Church) Is Discerned from The False and Who Shall Be Judge of Doctrine”, they outline the three marks of the church with these words, The notes of the true Kirk, therefore, we believe, confess, and avow to be: first, the true preaching of the word of God, in which God has revealed himself to us, as the writings of the prophets and apostles declare; secondly, the right administration of the sacraments of Christ Jesus, to which must be joined the word and promise of God to seal and confirm them in our hearts; and lastly, ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered, as God's word prescribes, whereby vice is repressed and virtue nourished. Then wherever these notes are seen and continue for any time, be the number complete or not, there, beyond any doubt, is the true kirk of Christ, who, according to his promise, is in the midst of them. This is not that universal kirk of which we have spoken before, but particular kirks, such as were in Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, and other places where the ministry was planted by Paul and which he himself called kirks of God. The Westminster Confession written in 1546 also spoke to this doctrine. In Chapter XXV section IV it states, “This catholic Church has been sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And particular Churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the Gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them.” It is from this confession and others like it penned during the 16th and 17th centuries that we derive the doctrine of the marks of the church today.
Among most reformed Protestants today the marks of the church are three but yet there is recognized from Scripture other important marks beyond these three that constitute a healthy church. Some would add fellowship, worship, mission and leadership. The ministry of 9 Marks, a ministry of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C., says there are nine marks of a healthy church: preaching, biblical theology, the gospel, conversion, evangelism, membership, discipleship, discipline, and leadership. We as a particular church here in Brunswick recognize 18 core values that this church was planted upon and grows in as a true and healthy church. Yet in the midst of the historical and modern reformed church there is a consensus that the true marks of the church consist in the true preaching of God’s Word, the right administration of the sacraments and the right attention to discipline of her members.
If you are a member or attendee of a church you should be asking the question, “How do I know that this church is a true church?” Most people today choose a church based on its location, style of architecture, form of music, programs, types of people, or what it offers them personally. It is to be sent on a fool’s errand in search of a church with these kinds of criteria. The church must correspond to and be recognized by a standard of truth established for it in the Word of God.
The marks of the true church have arisen like much of the churches biblical and systematized theology because of errors and heresy that arise in the church. The doctrine of the marks of the church has come to be known because of the church going astray from a biblical standard. Therefore the church at different times in her history has had to ask the question, “What are the true marks of the church?” The doctrine of the marks of the church is most pronounced during the history of the reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries. During these years the reformers were asking, “How do we know the true church from the false church?” As they wrestled with this question from the Scriptures three primary marks of the church arose. There was not complete consensus among the reformers in answering this question. Some thought there to be only one, the preaching of God’s Word. Others claimed two, the preaching of the Word and the observance of the sacraments, Lord’s Supper and Baptism. And still others named three, preaching of the Word, observance of sacraments and discipline.
John Knox, the Scottish reformer and five other reformers from Scotland penned the Scots Confession in 1560. In chapter 18 of the confession, “The Notes by Which the True Kirk (Church) Is Discerned from The False and Who Shall Be Judge of Doctrine”, they outline the three marks of the church with these words, The notes of the true Kirk, therefore, we believe, confess, and avow to be: first, the true preaching of the word of God, in which God has revealed himself to us, as the writings of the prophets and apostles declare; secondly, the right administration of the sacraments of Christ Jesus, to which must be joined the word and promise of God to seal and confirm them in our hearts; and lastly, ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered, as God's word prescribes, whereby vice is repressed and virtue nourished. Then wherever these notes are seen and continue for any time, be the number complete or not, there, beyond any doubt, is the true kirk of Christ, who, according to his promise, is in the midst of them. This is not that universal kirk of which we have spoken before, but particular kirks, such as were in Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, and other places where the ministry was planted by Paul and which he himself called kirks of God. The Westminster Confession written in 1546 also spoke to this doctrine. In Chapter XXV section IV it states, “This catholic Church has been sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And particular Churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the Gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them.” It is from this confession and others like it penned during the 16th and 17th centuries that we derive the doctrine of the marks of the church today.
Among most reformed Protestants today the marks of the church are three but yet there is recognized from Scripture other important marks beyond these three that constitute a healthy church. Some would add fellowship, worship, mission and leadership. The ministry of 9 Marks, a ministry of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C., says there are nine marks of a healthy church: preaching, biblical theology, the gospel, conversion, evangelism, membership, discipleship, discipline, and leadership. We as a particular church here in Brunswick recognize 18 core values that this church was planted upon and grows in as a true and healthy church. Yet in the midst of the historical and modern reformed church there is a consensus that the true marks of the church consist in the true preaching of God’s Word, the right administration of the sacraments and the right attention to discipline of her members.
What Ever Happened to Sin
The famous theologian Barney Fife once said to the visiting preacher who had come to Mayberry, “That’s one subject you just can’t talk enough about: sin.” The subject of sin is out of vogue in our day. The subject of sin is negative and degrading. It is damaging to the human spirit and does not give rise to a positive self image for self salvation. Sin has become “crime”, “sickness”, “syndromes” and “collective irresponsibility.” There is no longer a sense of responsibility for sin and its fruits. Where has sin gone?
The Westminster Assembly found it in the 17th century and wrote about in the Westminster Standards. In the writing of the Shorter Catechism they asked this question, “What is sin?” and gave this answer, “Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.” Sin has not gone anywhere as long as the Law of God remains, and God says his Law will never pass away (Mt.5:18). As the apostle John wrote, “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.” (1Jn.3:4). As long as there is lawlessness we will be able to find sin. As long as man fails in regard to loving God and loving his neighbor sin will be evident. Therefore sin is not lost in our culture, it has not gone anywhere. Sin is alive and unlike the creature from the black lagoon and the blob from my science fiction past it is a reality and a true killer. Sin is a misery and a destroyer of life that man cannot escape with his self made salvation. Sin is a getting rid of God rebellion that exalts man in a spirit of god almightiness. Emil Brunner says, “Sin is defiance, arrogance, the desire to be equal with God,… the assertion of human independence over against God,… the constitution of the autonomous reason, morality and culture.” (Man in Revolt). Augustine defines sin as factum vel dictum vel concupitum aliquid contra aeternam legem, every work, word, or wish contrary to the law of God. And Trench in his New Testament Synonyms gathers a "mournfully numerous" group of words out of Holy Scripture, all of which describe sin in one or other of its many aspects. It is the missing of a mark or aim; it is the over-passing or transgression of a line; it is disobedience to a voice; it is falling where one should have stood upright; it is ignorance of what one ought to have known; it is any diminishing of that which should have been rendered in full measure; it is non-observance of a law; it is a discord, and other evil things and ways "almost out of number."(from A Commentary on the Shorter Catechism - Alexander Whyte).
Though sin in our culture is often denied it is not gone but found in the heart of man and the fruit of our lives. It is produces misery and death. Paul says in Romans 3:16, “in their paths are ruin and misery.” Who is the “their”? It is those who are not righteous, those who do not seek God, those who have turned away, those who do not do what is right (3:10-12). It is all of mankind, “For all have sinned” (Rom.3:23). Therefore all sinners are in the estate of misery. Yet in this misery we exalt in the denial of sin or the will power over it. But misery does not always look like misery. Misery can be hidden in smiles, riches, wants satisfied, success and adulation. Wherever sin separates man from God there is misery even when it smiles. Sin not only produces misery but also death (Rom.6:23) and every smile, success, want satisfied and adulation under the sentence of death is misery. What possible usefulness is their in this focus on sin? What possible good could come from thinking on the doctrine of sin? Let me suggest three ways to respond.
First we should be astonished that we can see what a miserable and deadly evil sin is and love it. We would marvel if we saw someone pouring out themselves in affection on something that they knew was bringing misery and destruction to their life.
Second, we should hate sin. “There is more evil in a drop of sin than a sea of affliction.” (Thomas Watson). We see crude oil gushing out of the depths of the sea for three months and cry over this horrible disruption and destruction to the environment. Yet we see sin against the holy God as excusable and permissible with no consequences. When affliction arises in our lives we say, “I hate this!” But when sin shows its ugly head we try to ignore it, we sometimes stroke it and we often feed it. Our hatred of sin is exemplified in our willingness to kill it. “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.” (John Owen)
Third, we should run to God at the cross of Christ Jesus with confession, repentance and thanksgiving. It is God who takes sin away in the death of his Son. In Christ he will pardon us of all our sin. It is God who gives us victory over sin and death in the resurrection of his Son. In Christ he will cleanse us of all our sin and make us a holy, spotless bride to be given to the Son. Acknowledge sin don’t deny it. Turn away from sin toward righteousness. And rejoice before God with thanksgiving that in Christ you have been saved from sin
Keith Mathison recommends some helpful reading on the doctrine of man and sin at the Ligonier Ministries website: http://www.ligonier.org/blog/doctrine-man-and-sin-recommended-reading/
The Westminster Assembly found it in the 17th century and wrote about in the Westminster Standards. In the writing of the Shorter Catechism they asked this question, “What is sin?” and gave this answer, “Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.” Sin has not gone anywhere as long as the Law of God remains, and God says his Law will never pass away (Mt.5:18). As the apostle John wrote, “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.” (1Jn.3:4). As long as there is lawlessness we will be able to find sin. As long as man fails in regard to loving God and loving his neighbor sin will be evident. Therefore sin is not lost in our culture, it has not gone anywhere. Sin is alive and unlike the creature from the black lagoon and the blob from my science fiction past it is a reality and a true killer. Sin is a misery and a destroyer of life that man cannot escape with his self made salvation. Sin is a getting rid of God rebellion that exalts man in a spirit of god almightiness. Emil Brunner says, “Sin is defiance, arrogance, the desire to be equal with God,… the assertion of human independence over against God,… the constitution of the autonomous reason, morality and culture.” (Man in Revolt). Augustine defines sin as factum vel dictum vel concupitum aliquid contra aeternam legem, every work, word, or wish contrary to the law of God. And Trench in his New Testament Synonyms gathers a "mournfully numerous" group of words out of Holy Scripture, all of which describe sin in one or other of its many aspects. It is the missing of a mark or aim; it is the over-passing or transgression of a line; it is disobedience to a voice; it is falling where one should have stood upright; it is ignorance of what one ought to have known; it is any diminishing of that which should have been rendered in full measure; it is non-observance of a law; it is a discord, and other evil things and ways "almost out of number."(from A Commentary on the Shorter Catechism - Alexander Whyte).
Though sin in our culture is often denied it is not gone but found in the heart of man and the fruit of our lives. It is produces misery and death. Paul says in Romans 3:16, “in their paths are ruin and misery.” Who is the “their”? It is those who are not righteous, those who do not seek God, those who have turned away, those who do not do what is right (3:10-12). It is all of mankind, “For all have sinned” (Rom.3:23). Therefore all sinners are in the estate of misery. Yet in this misery we exalt in the denial of sin or the will power over it. But misery does not always look like misery. Misery can be hidden in smiles, riches, wants satisfied, success and adulation. Wherever sin separates man from God there is misery even when it smiles. Sin not only produces misery but also death (Rom.6:23) and every smile, success, want satisfied and adulation under the sentence of death is misery. What possible usefulness is their in this focus on sin? What possible good could come from thinking on the doctrine of sin? Let me suggest three ways to respond.
First we should be astonished that we can see what a miserable and deadly evil sin is and love it. We would marvel if we saw someone pouring out themselves in affection on something that they knew was bringing misery and destruction to their life.
Second, we should hate sin. “There is more evil in a drop of sin than a sea of affliction.” (Thomas Watson). We see crude oil gushing out of the depths of the sea for three months and cry over this horrible disruption and destruction to the environment. Yet we see sin against the holy God as excusable and permissible with no consequences. When affliction arises in our lives we say, “I hate this!” But when sin shows its ugly head we try to ignore it, we sometimes stroke it and we often feed it. Our hatred of sin is exemplified in our willingness to kill it. “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.” (John Owen)
Third, we should run to God at the cross of Christ Jesus with confession, repentance and thanksgiving. It is God who takes sin away in the death of his Son. In Christ he will pardon us of all our sin. It is God who gives us victory over sin and death in the resurrection of his Son. In Christ he will cleanse us of all our sin and make us a holy, spotless bride to be given to the Son. Acknowledge sin don’t deny it. Turn away from sin toward righteousness. And rejoice before God with thanksgiving that in Christ you have been saved from sin
Keith Mathison recommends some helpful reading on the doctrine of man and sin at the Ligonier Ministries website: http://www.ligonier.org/blog/doctrine-man-and-sin-recommended-reading/
Tolle Lege
One of the major obstacles to growth evangelical Christians face in our current culture is that we watch and listen more than we read. If you were given the choice today to listen or watch someone give a series of lectures or teaching sessions on a particular subject would you choose that over reading a book on the same subject? Most of our reading today is in bits and bites. We read an excerpt from a book or an article and we do it quickly because we have to move on to our next experience in our fast paced existence before it passes us by and we miss something.
In this article I want to not only suggest you take up reading but I want to suggest some books to read that will assist you in your growth as a child of God. When I encounter a person is not reading at all I will suggest that they begin with a small bit of time each day. If a person will set aside twenty minutes per day five days a week they will read around sixty pages a week and could therefore finish a 240 page book in one month. That is only twenty minutes out of twenty four hours each day. And even if you are a slower reader only reading eight to ten pages in twenty minutes you can still read the average book in a month. Just think that gives you the potential to read ten to twelve books a year. But it is not the number of books a year that is the goal. The goal is to grow up into maturity in Christ as a Christian reader. I think Christians should be reading all kinds of good and great books. But in this article I am focusing on books that will particularly assist you as a disciple of Christ in learning how to think biblically about the Christian life.
I first recommend the Bible. I would suggest getting an ESV Study Bible or the Geneva Study Bible in ESV. These two Bibles are helpful not only in there accurate translation of the original texts from which we have the Bible today. But they are also helpful in the use of their study helps. There are many different methods for reading the Bible but I would choose one that allows you to read through the Bible in a year. Use this practice privately and engage your family in it publically. The Bible is the Word of God breathed out to us that we may know him, his salvation and his will for our lives. Make it a regular practice of reading the Scriptures before you read any other book about the Scriptures. “This book will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from this book.”
Second there are many books that are helpful in understanding the gospel and the Christian life. I would recommend “The Christian Life” by Sinclair Ferguson. In this book Dr. Ferguson covers in a succinct manner the major doctrines of the Christian life. John Stott’s book, “Basic Christianity” is a very helpful book for understanding the gospel. I would also recommend his work, “The Cross of Christ”. There are not many books written as clearly on the centrality of the cross to all of life as this one. C.J. Mahaney has written a short book that is very helpful entitled, “Living the Cross Centered Life”. In this book he helps the reader live with an understanding of our need for the grace of God through the cross of Christ in all things. Two books that God has used in helping me understand the Christian life as an everyday disciple of Christ are John Piper’s “Desiring God” and “When I Don’t Desire God” . Three classic works that I would mention in understanding the Christian life would be, Jonathan Edwards “Religious Affections”, Richard Sibbes “The Bruised Reed” and Jeremiah Burrows “The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.”
Third there are several books I would recommend with more emphasis in theology and history. There are three important books by R.C. Sproul, “The Holiness of God”, “Knowing Scripture” and “Chosen by God”. An important book in understanding God’s work of salvation in our lives is John Murray’s “Redemption, Accomplished and Applied.” This book assist you in seeing the order of God’s salvific work in our lives. The Westminster Confession of Faith and John Calvin’s “Institutes of the Christian Religion” are helpful in a systematic approach to theology as well as a more contemporary work, “Systematic Theology” by Wayne Grudem. A simple but helpful book on doctrine and theology is “Know the Truth” by Bruce Milne. Two books on church history I would recommend are “Sketches in Church History” by Houghton and “The Story of Christianity” by Gonzalaz.
This is a brief list of some books I think will be helpful as you seek to grow into maturity as a Christian. I hope that we will soon have a page on our church website that is dedicated to recommended books and book reviews. C.S. Lewis said, “We read to know we are not alone.” God has given to his church a community of saints to build her up into maturity in Christ and when we listen to the voices and thoughts of his community we grow into maturity in the context of knowing you are not alone. You can stand on the shoulders of others to be helped in understanding more of the glory God has revealed about himself. Tolle lege. Take up and read.
In this article I want to not only suggest you take up reading but I want to suggest some books to read that will assist you in your growth as a child of God. When I encounter a person is not reading at all I will suggest that they begin with a small bit of time each day. If a person will set aside twenty minutes per day five days a week they will read around sixty pages a week and could therefore finish a 240 page book in one month. That is only twenty minutes out of twenty four hours each day. And even if you are a slower reader only reading eight to ten pages in twenty minutes you can still read the average book in a month. Just think that gives you the potential to read ten to twelve books a year. But it is not the number of books a year that is the goal. The goal is to grow up into maturity in Christ as a Christian reader. I think Christians should be reading all kinds of good and great books. But in this article I am focusing on books that will particularly assist you as a disciple of Christ in learning how to think biblically about the Christian life.
I first recommend the Bible. I would suggest getting an ESV Study Bible or the Geneva Study Bible in ESV. These two Bibles are helpful not only in there accurate translation of the original texts from which we have the Bible today. But they are also helpful in the use of their study helps. There are many different methods for reading the Bible but I would choose one that allows you to read through the Bible in a year. Use this practice privately and engage your family in it publically. The Bible is the Word of God breathed out to us that we may know him, his salvation and his will for our lives. Make it a regular practice of reading the Scriptures before you read any other book about the Scriptures. “This book will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from this book.”
Second there are many books that are helpful in understanding the gospel and the Christian life. I would recommend “The Christian Life” by Sinclair Ferguson. In this book Dr. Ferguson covers in a succinct manner the major doctrines of the Christian life. John Stott’s book, “Basic Christianity” is a very helpful book for understanding the gospel. I would also recommend his work, “The Cross of Christ”. There are not many books written as clearly on the centrality of the cross to all of life as this one. C.J. Mahaney has written a short book that is very helpful entitled, “Living the Cross Centered Life”. In this book he helps the reader live with an understanding of our need for the grace of God through the cross of Christ in all things. Two books that God has used in helping me understand the Christian life as an everyday disciple of Christ are John Piper’s “Desiring God” and “When I Don’t Desire God” . Three classic works that I would mention in understanding the Christian life would be, Jonathan Edwards “Religious Affections”, Richard Sibbes “The Bruised Reed” and Jeremiah Burrows “The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.”
Third there are several books I would recommend with more emphasis in theology and history. There are three important books by R.C. Sproul, “The Holiness of God”, “Knowing Scripture” and “Chosen by God”. An important book in understanding God’s work of salvation in our lives is John Murray’s “Redemption, Accomplished and Applied.” This book assist you in seeing the order of God’s salvific work in our lives. The Westminster Confession of Faith and John Calvin’s “Institutes of the Christian Religion” are helpful in a systematic approach to theology as well as a more contemporary work, “Systematic Theology” by Wayne Grudem. A simple but helpful book on doctrine and theology is “Know the Truth” by Bruce Milne. Two books on church history I would recommend are “Sketches in Church History” by Houghton and “The Story of Christianity” by Gonzalaz.
This is a brief list of some books I think will be helpful as you seek to grow into maturity as a Christian. I hope that we will soon have a page on our church website that is dedicated to recommended books and book reviews. C.S. Lewis said, “We read to know we are not alone.” God has given to his church a community of saints to build her up into maturity in Christ and when we listen to the voices and thoughts of his community we grow into maturity in the context of knowing you are not alone. You can stand on the shoulders of others to be helped in understanding more of the glory God has revealed about himself. Tolle lege. Take up and read.
Vow Church
"Go where you are sent, stay where you're put, and do what you're asked." Major Ian Thomas
I stood facing my wife 21 years ago with her hands in my hands promising “to love and to cherish her till death do us part.” I was taking a vow to love my wife as Christ loved the church (Eph.5:25), and that vow before God and man was to be expressed in a daily life of the activity of love to Noelle. Now I have the privilege of standing before God and man to lead them through the taking of vows into meaningful loving relationships in the covenant of marriage. But I also have the same privilege in leading those professing faith in Christ through vows into the covenant of church membership.
As those who have professed faith in Christ come before the congregation of saints in the particular church at Redeemer Presbyterian they are charged to assent to the following vows acknowledging that they are making declarations and promises in a solemn covenant before God and his church:
1. Do you acknowledge yourselves to be sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure, and without hope save in His sovereign mercy?
2. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and Savior of sinners, and do you receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation as He is offered in the Gospel?
3. Do you now resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit, that you will endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ?
4. Do you promise to support the Church in its worship and work to the best of your ability?
5. Do you submit yourselves to the government and discipline of the Church, and promise to study its purity and peace?
God by his providence has placed each person and family in this particular congregation of saints, and through these vows is calling them to live in the daily activity of love. It is as though God is saying, “Do you promise to love and cherish my church in the daily activity of your life as I have placed you here by my sovereign will and pleasure?” In the taking of these vows the church member is not merely promising to show up each week to be entertained or soothed by familiar relationships, but to live in the activity of love toward God’s church.
Living as a vow keeping church is our privilege. God has gifted each of his children with money, natural and spiritual gifts, relationships, time, possessions and prayer. It is through all of these that we can actively plan to love his church in the keeping of vows. Jesus teaches us to give. He says, “When you give” (Mt.6:2) not “If you give.” He has ascended into heaven and given gifts to men that the church through the loving use of those gifts we may become mature in Christ (Eph.4:10-16). He has given us one another that we may live in a “one anothering” manner in love. This love may be expressed in encouragement, exhortation, example, correction, rebuke, restoration and confrontation. We are to love in wisdom making the best use of the time (Eph.5:16). We can love with what he has given us through hospitality even when our homes are a mess or our children are young. And we are to love through praying for one another and the church and her ministries. The church is not a mall where there is something for everyone. It is not a theater with 10 different movies showing where we seek our own particular choice of entertainment. The church is the visible body of Christ and his treasured possession expressing love in the keeping of vows. Therefore the church is a visible picture of the cross of Christ. It is at the cross that God demonstrates his love to us while we were sinners justly deserving his wrath and displeasure. It is at the cross that we see God’s covenant keeping love secured and exercised toward all those for whom Christ died. Therefore the church takes her vows before God in the shadow of the cross where they promise to lay down their lives for their brothers and sisters in love in the avenues of worship and work for the glory of God in his church.
The writer of Ecclesiastes says, “When you vow a vow to God, do not delay in paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow.” (Eccl.5:4) The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God, and the fool says in his heart there is no God (Pr.1:7; Ps.14:1). Therefore those who take vows must do so before God, with the right knowledge of God and the vow they take lest they be fools in whom God takes no pleasure. A vow keeping church goes where she is sent in his providence, stays where she is put to keep those vows and does what she is asked in a life of love to God and his church.
I stood facing my wife 21 years ago with her hands in my hands promising “to love and to cherish her till death do us part.” I was taking a vow to love my wife as Christ loved the church (Eph.5:25), and that vow before God and man was to be expressed in a daily life of the activity of love to Noelle. Now I have the privilege of standing before God and man to lead them through the taking of vows into meaningful loving relationships in the covenant of marriage. But I also have the same privilege in leading those professing faith in Christ through vows into the covenant of church membership.
As those who have professed faith in Christ come before the congregation of saints in the particular church at Redeemer Presbyterian they are charged to assent to the following vows acknowledging that they are making declarations and promises in a solemn covenant before God and his church:
1. Do you acknowledge yourselves to be sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure, and without hope save in His sovereign mercy?
2. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and Savior of sinners, and do you receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation as He is offered in the Gospel?
3. Do you now resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit, that you will endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ?
4. Do you promise to support the Church in its worship and work to the best of your ability?
5. Do you submit yourselves to the government and discipline of the Church, and promise to study its purity and peace?
God by his providence has placed each person and family in this particular congregation of saints, and through these vows is calling them to live in the daily activity of love. It is as though God is saying, “Do you promise to love and cherish my church in the daily activity of your life as I have placed you here by my sovereign will and pleasure?” In the taking of these vows the church member is not merely promising to show up each week to be entertained or soothed by familiar relationships, but to live in the activity of love toward God’s church.
Living as a vow keeping church is our privilege. God has gifted each of his children with money, natural and spiritual gifts, relationships, time, possessions and prayer. It is through all of these that we can actively plan to love his church in the keeping of vows. Jesus teaches us to give. He says, “When you give” (Mt.6:2) not “If you give.” He has ascended into heaven and given gifts to men that the church through the loving use of those gifts we may become mature in Christ (Eph.4:10-16). He has given us one another that we may live in a “one anothering” manner in love. This love may be expressed in encouragement, exhortation, example, correction, rebuke, restoration and confrontation. We are to love in wisdom making the best use of the time (Eph.5:16). We can love with what he has given us through hospitality even when our homes are a mess or our children are young. And we are to love through praying for one another and the church and her ministries. The church is not a mall where there is something for everyone. It is not a theater with 10 different movies showing where we seek our own particular choice of entertainment. The church is the visible body of Christ and his treasured possession expressing love in the keeping of vows. Therefore the church is a visible picture of the cross of Christ. It is at the cross that God demonstrates his love to us while we were sinners justly deserving his wrath and displeasure. It is at the cross that we see God’s covenant keeping love secured and exercised toward all those for whom Christ died. Therefore the church takes her vows before God in the shadow of the cross where they promise to lay down their lives for their brothers and sisters in love in the avenues of worship and work for the glory of God in his church.
The writer of Ecclesiastes says, “When you vow a vow to God, do not delay in paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow.” (Eccl.5:4) The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God, and the fool says in his heart there is no God (Pr.1:7; Ps.14:1). Therefore those who take vows must do so before God, with the right knowledge of God and the vow they take lest they be fools in whom God takes no pleasure. A vow keeping church goes where she is sent in his providence, stays where she is put to keep those vows and does what she is asked in a life of love to God and his church.
Word Church
"Go where you are sent, stay where you're put, and do what you're asked." Major Ian Thomas
We often do not stay where we are put and do what we are asked because of the trials we face where we are sent. We tend to think that we are meant for more glory in the present than the trials allow and we must go searching until we find that glory or escape the trials that are keeping us from a realized glory in the present. Like Israel we groan to be free from slavery in Egypt and after we are set free into trials we groan for the glory of leeks and melons that were found back in bondage. And yet there is nothing wrong with a yearning for glory. It is the reality of being an image bearer of the all glorious God who is himself the essence of glory. But as broken image bearers we are confused how that glory we long for is actually fulfilled to us.
In Deuteronomy 8:3 we are taught that man does not live by bread alone but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And in 2 Timothy 3:16 Paul tells us that the Word of God is his breathed out word. Therefore that which we are meant to live upon is the Scriptures. But what we often miss in the Deuteronomy passage is what God tells his people precedes finding out that the Word of God is the true food. He tells us there that he humbled them bringing trials upon them so that they would know that we do not live on bread alone. It is the trials that lead God’s people to his Word where they find that in the midst of unattained glory in trial God is the all satisfying and sufficient God who reveals himself to his people as the true food. Therefore trials bring us to God’s means of giving himself to us in all his glory through his word. The glory we long for as the image bearers of God is really the glory of our Creator and Redeemer and he reveals himself to us in his Word in the midst of trials. Therefore if where we are sent and put brings us into trials it is so that we may learn to do what is asked, holding fast to the Word of God and finding the all glorious God feeding us through the means of his Word. But in these days of modernity where relativism and experiencing God through self fulfilled means rules the day we need to be reminded of why we can stay put on the Scriptures.
Steven Lawson addressed this issue at this years Ligonier Conference in Orlando by giving ten reason why he as an evangelical Christian is persuaded the Bible is the Word of God. Here the following ten reasons: The Bible’s Direct Claims, Perfect Unity, Reliable Transmission, Historical Accuracy, Scientific Accuracy, Fulfilled Prophecies, Jesus Christ’s Testimony to the Bible, Amazing Indestructibility, Ethical Superiority, and the Bibles Supernatural Power. You can listen to his excellent message online at ligonier.org.
The Bible is God’s sole source of authority in the life of the church. Christ rules over us through his Word and by the Spirit. Therefore we must hold fast to the Scriptures alone in the midst of the trials of this life as he brings us through a life of redemption until we are glorified with him. Learn to read, study and memorize God’s Word. Prayerfully hear it preached and taught as you draw near to God by faith as he speaks to you in His Word. This is our foundation for going where we are sent, staying where we are put and doing what we are asked. I pray we will be a church of the Word.
We often do not stay where we are put and do what we are asked because of the trials we face where we are sent. We tend to think that we are meant for more glory in the present than the trials allow and we must go searching until we find that glory or escape the trials that are keeping us from a realized glory in the present. Like Israel we groan to be free from slavery in Egypt and after we are set free into trials we groan for the glory of leeks and melons that were found back in bondage. And yet there is nothing wrong with a yearning for glory. It is the reality of being an image bearer of the all glorious God who is himself the essence of glory. But as broken image bearers we are confused how that glory we long for is actually fulfilled to us.
In Deuteronomy 8:3 we are taught that man does not live by bread alone but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And in 2 Timothy 3:16 Paul tells us that the Word of God is his breathed out word. Therefore that which we are meant to live upon is the Scriptures. But what we often miss in the Deuteronomy passage is what God tells his people precedes finding out that the Word of God is the true food. He tells us there that he humbled them bringing trials upon them so that they would know that we do not live on bread alone. It is the trials that lead God’s people to his Word where they find that in the midst of unattained glory in trial God is the all satisfying and sufficient God who reveals himself to his people as the true food. Therefore trials bring us to God’s means of giving himself to us in all his glory through his word. The glory we long for as the image bearers of God is really the glory of our Creator and Redeemer and he reveals himself to us in his Word in the midst of trials. Therefore if where we are sent and put brings us into trials it is so that we may learn to do what is asked, holding fast to the Word of God and finding the all glorious God feeding us through the means of his Word. But in these days of modernity where relativism and experiencing God through self fulfilled means rules the day we need to be reminded of why we can stay put on the Scriptures.
Steven Lawson addressed this issue at this years Ligonier Conference in Orlando by giving ten reason why he as an evangelical Christian is persuaded the Bible is the Word of God. Here the following ten reasons: The Bible’s Direct Claims, Perfect Unity, Reliable Transmission, Historical Accuracy, Scientific Accuracy, Fulfilled Prophecies, Jesus Christ’s Testimony to the Bible, Amazing Indestructibility, Ethical Superiority, and the Bibles Supernatural Power. You can listen to his excellent message online at ligonier.org.
The Bible is God’s sole source of authority in the life of the church. Christ rules over us through his Word and by the Spirit. Therefore we must hold fast to the Scriptures alone in the midst of the trials of this life as he brings us through a life of redemption until we are glorified with him. Learn to read, study and memorize God’s Word. Prayerfully hear it preached and taught as you draw near to God by faith as he speaks to you in His Word. This is our foundation for going where we are sent, staying where we are put and doing what we are asked. I pray we will be a church of the Word.
Community Church
"Go where you are sent, stay where you're put, and do what you're asked." Major Ian Thomas
Pastor Alistair Begg was last year preaching in Peru at a Wycliff Bible Translators conference where he heard a gentleman speak who was retiring after spending 56 years in the jungles and mountains of Peru translating the Scriptures for Peruvian tribal peoples. Alistair sought him out to glean what he could from him and it was during this time that this enduring member of God’s kingdom gave him this bit of wisdom that Major Ian Thomas had shared with him many years ago, “Go where you are sent, stay where you’re put, and do what you’re asked.”
I heard this a week ago and have already shared it on numerous occasions with a number of people. It is a truth that needs to resound in the ears of a transient culture that is always looking for more or the next thing that is going to bring more significance to their own personal lives. I would like to use this truth over the next several weeks as it applies to the church in several important areas.
The Lord Jesus Christ speaks to his own as the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep and forms them as a particular community. He is the Shepherd who speaks to his sheep and they hear his voice and follow him being kept safe from the enemy. These words come to the Israelites in John 10 and relate to them the relationship of the Father and the Son and the relationship then that they have as his covenant people called into a loving and protected community as his own. And in the midst of these words to Israel he speaks of the Gentiles also saying, “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” (Jn.10:16). Here his covenant reach goes beyond Israel to the nations, peoples, and tongues outside of Judah and Galilee and he promises they will hear his voice and come and be one with him. The reach goes out and draws in to make one people as he and the Father are one. His reach is one that forms community. His reach goes out to his treasured possession, a people of his own choosing whom he makes his own royal priesthood and holy nation from Jew and Gentile, slave and free, man and woman, child and adult from all kinds of people. His choosing, his call, his redemption, his keeping is to make for himself one people from many who live in covenant with himself through his triune nature and in community with one another.
The church’s community is a reflection of the nature and character of the Godhead as she learns to live in the reality of redemption toward restoration in relationships of love. The church will manifest that she belongs to the good shepherd when she, as adults and their children, do not lay claim to their own rights, but love one another as we have been and are being loved in Christ Jesus. In community will be a welcoming and unifying love around God’s truth and exercised in the fruits of the Spirit toward one another where we are all being built up and reaching toward the unity and maturity of faith in Christ Jesus.
But where does this occur? This occurs where we are sent and put to do what God asks us to do. If you are presently at RPC God has sent you here and put you here to do what he has asked of you, live in community reflecting his glory in the earth through love. This summer there are a number of ways this kind of community is fostered at RPC. Each Sunday there is Sunday School at 9:00 am. There are classes for children up to 12 years of age and there is one multigenerational class for all others. Following Sunday School is morning worship and evening worship at 10:15 and 5:15. Community is fostered here as we seek to worship God in Spirit and in truth together as his body and not as individuals seeking to be entertained by the music or wowed by a slick communicator. The third Sunday of June, July and August will be a time for us to gather together around a meal following morning worship. After having participated in the bread and wine of communion we will then break bread around the tables together as we seek to love one another in community. Wednesday nights is another time for us to build community this summer. Each Wednesday night you either have the opportunity to join your shepherding group in ministering at Fairhaven Assisted Living Home or in preparing a meal for our Wednesday Night Supper and Bible Study at the church.
All of these are excellent opportunities to participate in the community and the building of community at RPC. I encourage you to go where you are sent, stay where you are put and do what you are asked. If you cave into the culture of individuality where the church is a part of your life to satisfy self and do not participate in the community that you have been sent and put into then the inevitable result will be your own discord, division and disunity with the body at RPC. Therefore you have been sent to RPC and put at RPC and you are being asked by God to live in love in Christ as the community of the triune God at RPC. What a joy to share together as those who are broken in the redemptive and restorative work of grace that takes place through the body of Christ as we love one another. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” (1Jn.4:7).
I would encourage you to spend 20 – 30 minuets this week reading and studying the Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 26 Of the Communion of Saints. This is a tested doctrinal explanation of what it means to live as God’s church toward one another in community. As you read pray that God would cause his church to live by his Spirit in this way and use this to examine your own heart in regard to how you may need to apply this truth to your own life as you live by faith in Christ through his grace.
Pastor Alistair Begg was last year preaching in Peru at a Wycliff Bible Translators conference where he heard a gentleman speak who was retiring after spending 56 years in the jungles and mountains of Peru translating the Scriptures for Peruvian tribal peoples. Alistair sought him out to glean what he could from him and it was during this time that this enduring member of God’s kingdom gave him this bit of wisdom that Major Ian Thomas had shared with him many years ago, “Go where you are sent, stay where you’re put, and do what you’re asked.”
I heard this a week ago and have already shared it on numerous occasions with a number of people. It is a truth that needs to resound in the ears of a transient culture that is always looking for more or the next thing that is going to bring more significance to their own personal lives. I would like to use this truth over the next several weeks as it applies to the church in several important areas.
The Lord Jesus Christ speaks to his own as the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep and forms them as a particular community. He is the Shepherd who speaks to his sheep and they hear his voice and follow him being kept safe from the enemy. These words come to the Israelites in John 10 and relate to them the relationship of the Father and the Son and the relationship then that they have as his covenant people called into a loving and protected community as his own. And in the midst of these words to Israel he speaks of the Gentiles also saying, “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” (Jn.10:16). Here his covenant reach goes beyond Israel to the nations, peoples, and tongues outside of Judah and Galilee and he promises they will hear his voice and come and be one with him. The reach goes out and draws in to make one people as he and the Father are one. His reach is one that forms community. His reach goes out to his treasured possession, a people of his own choosing whom he makes his own royal priesthood and holy nation from Jew and Gentile, slave and free, man and woman, child and adult from all kinds of people. His choosing, his call, his redemption, his keeping is to make for himself one people from many who live in covenant with himself through his triune nature and in community with one another.
The church’s community is a reflection of the nature and character of the Godhead as she learns to live in the reality of redemption toward restoration in relationships of love. The church will manifest that she belongs to the good shepherd when she, as adults and their children, do not lay claim to their own rights, but love one another as we have been and are being loved in Christ Jesus. In community will be a welcoming and unifying love around God’s truth and exercised in the fruits of the Spirit toward one another where we are all being built up and reaching toward the unity and maturity of faith in Christ Jesus.
But where does this occur? This occurs where we are sent and put to do what God asks us to do. If you are presently at RPC God has sent you here and put you here to do what he has asked of you, live in community reflecting his glory in the earth through love. This summer there are a number of ways this kind of community is fostered at RPC. Each Sunday there is Sunday School at 9:00 am. There are classes for children up to 12 years of age and there is one multigenerational class for all others. Following Sunday School is morning worship and evening worship at 10:15 and 5:15. Community is fostered here as we seek to worship God in Spirit and in truth together as his body and not as individuals seeking to be entertained by the music or wowed by a slick communicator. The third Sunday of June, July and August will be a time for us to gather together around a meal following morning worship. After having participated in the bread and wine of communion we will then break bread around the tables together as we seek to love one another in community. Wednesday nights is another time for us to build community this summer. Each Wednesday night you either have the opportunity to join your shepherding group in ministering at Fairhaven Assisted Living Home or in preparing a meal for our Wednesday Night Supper and Bible Study at the church.
All of these are excellent opportunities to participate in the community and the building of community at RPC. I encourage you to go where you are sent, stay where you are put and do what you are asked. If you cave into the culture of individuality where the church is a part of your life to satisfy self and do not participate in the community that you have been sent and put into then the inevitable result will be your own discord, division and disunity with the body at RPC. Therefore you have been sent to RPC and put at RPC and you are being asked by God to live in love in Christ as the community of the triune God at RPC. What a joy to share together as those who are broken in the redemptive and restorative work of grace that takes place through the body of Christ as we love one another. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” (1Jn.4:7).
I would encourage you to spend 20 – 30 minuets this week reading and studying the Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 26 Of the Communion of Saints. This is a tested doctrinal explanation of what it means to live as God’s church toward one another in community. As you read pray that God would cause his church to live by his Spirit in this way and use this to examine your own heart in regard to how you may need to apply this truth to your own life as you live by faith in Christ through his grace.
Pride, A Public Enemy
In my current studies in 1 Corinthians I am in the middle of dealing with the first problem Paul addresses in the church at Corinth, division in the body of Christ. In wrestling with the text I believe that the root of the division that Paul is addressing is found in spiritual pride. And it appears that this issue of pride is the root that runs throughout the various problems that the church faces. Without appearing to simplistic I am speaking simplistically in appealing to the present church that spiritual pride is a great enemy to the church founded upon the gospel of Jesus Christ. As Jonathan Edwards wrote, “The first and worst cause of errors that abound in our day and age is spiritual pride. This is the main door by which the devil comes into the hearts of those who are zealous for the advancement of Christ. It is the chief inlet of smoke from the bottomless pit to darken the mind and mislead the judgment.”
Pride was the first enemy to enter the garden and it will be the last enemy to be put under the feet of Jesus. Therefore the remedy to such pride is at the cross of Christ. Pride is displayed as a public enemy at the cross of Christ, and pride is put to death at the cross of Christ. The church sees at the cross our pride on display in the horrific death of Christ as he became a substitutionary atoning sacrifice crying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?.” For all his own who would live in pride before the living God Christ became sin for them that they may be redeemed by his blood As the writer of Proverbs says, “Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the LORD; be assured, he will not go unpunished.” (Prov. 16:5). Therefore what do we see at the cross but the punishment of God upon our dying Savior in the place of prideful sinners. For the “apes of Satan” (Thomas Brooks) who follow him as the prince of the power of the air who is at work in the sons of disobedience Jesus bled and died. It is at the cross where we see the horrors of pride. But it is at the cross where all spiritual pride is laid in the dust. Because there in the gospel of God at the cross we find all boasting is laid at his throne where our salvation from him rests in our union with Christ, as Paul tells the Corinthian church, “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” (1 Corinthians 1:30 – 31) The church is meant for boasting but the boasting is in God who is for them everything they need in Christ Jesus. And it is this certainty that should lay all spiritual pride in the church to rest.
We must beware of all spiritual pride that will destroy the church of God. We must be sensitive to it’s symptoms and quick to remedy it before it’s spreading influence contaminates the whole body. I suggest you follow this link (http://www.bibleteacher.org/jedw_19.htm) to an article from Jonathan Edwards as an important bit of reading on this subject. May God grant us the grace to see spiritual pride being put to death daily in the church at Redeemer and all our boasting to be in God who is everything for us in Jesus Christ.
Pride was the first enemy to enter the garden and it will be the last enemy to be put under the feet of Jesus. Therefore the remedy to such pride is at the cross of Christ. Pride is displayed as a public enemy at the cross of Christ, and pride is put to death at the cross of Christ. The church sees at the cross our pride on display in the horrific death of Christ as he became a substitutionary atoning sacrifice crying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?.” For all his own who would live in pride before the living God Christ became sin for them that they may be redeemed by his blood As the writer of Proverbs says, “Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the LORD; be assured, he will not go unpunished.” (Prov. 16:5). Therefore what do we see at the cross but the punishment of God upon our dying Savior in the place of prideful sinners. For the “apes of Satan” (Thomas Brooks) who follow him as the prince of the power of the air who is at work in the sons of disobedience Jesus bled and died. It is at the cross where we see the horrors of pride. But it is at the cross where all spiritual pride is laid in the dust. Because there in the gospel of God at the cross we find all boasting is laid at his throne where our salvation from him rests in our union with Christ, as Paul tells the Corinthian church, “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” (1 Corinthians 1:30 – 31) The church is meant for boasting but the boasting is in God who is for them everything they need in Christ Jesus. And it is this certainty that should lay all spiritual pride in the church to rest.
We must beware of all spiritual pride that will destroy the church of God. We must be sensitive to it’s symptoms and quick to remedy it before it’s spreading influence contaminates the whole body. I suggest you follow this link (http://www.bibleteacher.org/jedw_19.htm) to an article from Jonathan Edwards as an important bit of reading on this subject. May God grant us the grace to see spiritual pride being put to death daily in the church at Redeemer and all our boasting to be in God who is everything for us in Jesus Christ.
Humility, An Unnoticed Neighbor
“And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” - 1 Corinthians 1:30 – 31
The person who thinks himself humble is the model of pride, and the person that others say of, “He is humble” is the man full of pride wanting to be thought of as humble. The person who is humble is the one who is not thinking of himself at all and therefore not causing you to think of him either unless by envy. The humble person is free for the enjoyment of God and the happiness of his creatures. He sees his life as drop of water flowing from a long mountain spring. He knows apart from that spring he is nothing and the direction of his life is originated and carried by the spring. However he is only an insignificant drop in the stream to reflect the spring’s glory. Those who experience the refreshment of the stream, who see beauty reflected in its properties, who benefit from it abundance, power or gentleness, do not notice or acknowledge the drop or even enjoy the drop. And the drop is okay with that. “Humility is of the essence of the "new creature." (Thomas Brooks)
The way to humility is through the doorway that leads to a house of mirrors where we acknowledge that we really are proud. When we are lead through that doorway and look in the mirrors and only see others sins then we are delusional. But where the grace and mercy of God is given the horrors of our pride are seen in our lives and the effects our prideful hearts have had on others. “We learn humility by a deep discovery of what we are; by an opening up of the corruption, the weakness, the wickedness, of our fallen nature.” (J.C. Philpot) But in his grace he does not leave his own just inside the doorway in a horrific room of mirrors. He leads us beyond the mirrors to the cross, the place of humiliation and our path of humility. Jesus went the way of humility to the place of exaltation that we may go with him in the way of the cross to the realm of glorification. At the cross we see our sin being punished horrifically in the body of Christ as he suffers the wrath of God. And at that cross is made the promise to all who trust in him as a sin bearing Savior, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Yet we remain, put into Christ and he has become to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and glorification that we may take up our cross and follow him as he leads us to paradise. And all our excellencies are in Christ and belong to Christ and so we boast in Christ and him crucified for he has rescued us from the horrors of pride and misery and death. And his mind has become our mind because we are in union with him and have fellowship with him through the Spirit, and the fruit he bears in us is humility. In this we live for the love of God and his creatures as drops in a stream flowing from the Spring.
Listen to John Flavel (1627 – 1691) the English Presbyterian minister as he brings us to humility through Christ, “All our excellencies are borrowed excellencies. Therefore there is no reason to be proud of any of them. What infallible insolence and vanity would it be for a man who wears the rich and costly robe of Christ’s righteousness, in which there is not one thread of his own spinning but all made by free grace and not by free will to jet proudly up and down the world in it, as if he himself had made it and he were beholden to none for it. O man thine excellencies whatever they are, are borrowed from Christ. They oblige thee to him that he can no more be obliged to him who wearest them than the sun is obliged to him that borrows its light or the fountain to him that draws its water for its use and benefit. Well then let the sense of your own emptiness by nature humble and oblige you the more to Christ.” (John Flavel 1627 – 1691). And the Apostle Peter as he commands humility, threatens the proud and encourages the humble, "All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but
gives grace to the humble." (1 Peter 5:5) May God grant us grace for the humility of Christ in his body at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.
The person who thinks himself humble is the model of pride, and the person that others say of, “He is humble” is the man full of pride wanting to be thought of as humble. The person who is humble is the one who is not thinking of himself at all and therefore not causing you to think of him either unless by envy. The humble person is free for the enjoyment of God and the happiness of his creatures. He sees his life as drop of water flowing from a long mountain spring. He knows apart from that spring he is nothing and the direction of his life is originated and carried by the spring. However he is only an insignificant drop in the stream to reflect the spring’s glory. Those who experience the refreshment of the stream, who see beauty reflected in its properties, who benefit from it abundance, power or gentleness, do not notice or acknowledge the drop or even enjoy the drop. And the drop is okay with that. “Humility is of the essence of the "new creature." (Thomas Brooks)
The way to humility is through the doorway that leads to a house of mirrors where we acknowledge that we really are proud. When we are lead through that doorway and look in the mirrors and only see others sins then we are delusional. But where the grace and mercy of God is given the horrors of our pride are seen in our lives and the effects our prideful hearts have had on others. “We learn humility by a deep discovery of what we are; by an opening up of the corruption, the weakness, the wickedness, of our fallen nature.” (J.C. Philpot) But in his grace he does not leave his own just inside the doorway in a horrific room of mirrors. He leads us beyond the mirrors to the cross, the place of humiliation and our path of humility. Jesus went the way of humility to the place of exaltation that we may go with him in the way of the cross to the realm of glorification. At the cross we see our sin being punished horrifically in the body of Christ as he suffers the wrath of God. And at that cross is made the promise to all who trust in him as a sin bearing Savior, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Yet we remain, put into Christ and he has become to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and glorification that we may take up our cross and follow him as he leads us to paradise. And all our excellencies are in Christ and belong to Christ and so we boast in Christ and him crucified for he has rescued us from the horrors of pride and misery and death. And his mind has become our mind because we are in union with him and have fellowship with him through the Spirit, and the fruit he bears in us is humility. In this we live for the love of God and his creatures as drops in a stream flowing from the Spring.
Listen to John Flavel (1627 – 1691) the English Presbyterian minister as he brings us to humility through Christ, “All our excellencies are borrowed excellencies. Therefore there is no reason to be proud of any of them. What infallible insolence and vanity would it be for a man who wears the rich and costly robe of Christ’s righteousness, in which there is not one thread of his own spinning but all made by free grace and not by free will to jet proudly up and down the world in it, as if he himself had made it and he were beholden to none for it. O man thine excellencies whatever they are, are borrowed from Christ. They oblige thee to him that he can no more be obliged to him who wearest them than the sun is obliged to him that borrows its light or the fountain to him that draws its water for its use and benefit. Well then let the sense of your own emptiness by nature humble and oblige you the more to Christ.” (John Flavel 1627 – 1691). And the Apostle Peter as he commands humility, threatens the proud and encourages the humble, "All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but
gives grace to the humble." (1 Peter 5:5) May God grant us grace for the humility of Christ in his body at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.
It Takes Two: Justification & Sanctification
And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, - 1Corinthians 1:30
There is often much confusion when talking about justification and sanctification. In this verse Paul is reminding the church at Corinth that there is no room for a self sufficient boasting as they have received in Christ Jesus both justification and sanctification. In telling them in Christ they have received righteousness he is reminding them that there acceptance before God is in the atoning death of Christ for sins and in his perfect righteous life imputed to them in Christ. But Paul goes on to tell them that Christ is their sanctification. He is reminding them that in themselves they are unholy but now in Christ they have been brought to life in the holiness of Jesus for a life of love to God. So often in the church we get these two doctrines, justification and sanctification, confused and begin to believe they are one or our acceptance before God rests in our holiness or because we are accepted by God through faith in Christ righteousness our holiness does not matter.
In thinking through this important matter I was reading John Calvin’s New Testament Commentary on the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians. The following comments he makes on this particular verse in discussing Paul’s calling Christ their sanctification. Beware because what he says in his third sentence is rather startling to those who believe with him that the church stands or falls on the doctrine of justification! Calvin says,
“Paul calls him our Sanctification. He means by that, that we, who are in ourselves unholy by nature, are born again by His Spirit into holiness, that we may serve God. From this we also gather that we cannot be justified freely by faith alone, if we do not at the same time live in holiness. For those gifts of grace go together as if tied by an inseparable bond, so that if any one tries to separate them, he is, in a sense, tearing Christ to pieces. Accordingly, let the man who aims at being justified by God’s free goodness through Christ take note that this cannot possibly be done, unless at the same time he lays hold of Him for sanctification; in other words he must be born anew by His Spirit to blamelessness and purity of life. Men find fault with us, because in preaching the free righteousness of faith, we seem to be calling men away from good works. But his passage clearly refutes them, by showing that faith lays hold of regeneration just as much as forgiveness of sins in Christ. On the other hand notice that while those offices of Christ are united, they are yet distinguishable from each other. Therefore we are not at liberty, indeed it would be wrong, to confuse what Paul expressly separates.”
Therefore let us come near to God by faith in Christ Jesus for his justifying grace, and may that faith work through love in the sanctifying grace of Jesus for his glory. It takes two, justification and sanctification, to walk with Jesus in his redemption.
There is often much confusion when talking about justification and sanctification. In this verse Paul is reminding the church at Corinth that there is no room for a self sufficient boasting as they have received in Christ Jesus both justification and sanctification. In telling them in Christ they have received righteousness he is reminding them that there acceptance before God is in the atoning death of Christ for sins and in his perfect righteous life imputed to them in Christ. But Paul goes on to tell them that Christ is their sanctification. He is reminding them that in themselves they are unholy but now in Christ they have been brought to life in the holiness of Jesus for a life of love to God. So often in the church we get these two doctrines, justification and sanctification, confused and begin to believe they are one or our acceptance before God rests in our holiness or because we are accepted by God through faith in Christ righteousness our holiness does not matter.
In thinking through this important matter I was reading John Calvin’s New Testament Commentary on the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians. The following comments he makes on this particular verse in discussing Paul’s calling Christ their sanctification. Beware because what he says in his third sentence is rather startling to those who believe with him that the church stands or falls on the doctrine of justification! Calvin says,
“Paul calls him our Sanctification. He means by that, that we, who are in ourselves unholy by nature, are born again by His Spirit into holiness, that we may serve God. From this we also gather that we cannot be justified freely by faith alone, if we do not at the same time live in holiness. For those gifts of grace go together as if tied by an inseparable bond, so that if any one tries to separate them, he is, in a sense, tearing Christ to pieces. Accordingly, let the man who aims at being justified by God’s free goodness through Christ take note that this cannot possibly be done, unless at the same time he lays hold of Him for sanctification; in other words he must be born anew by His Spirit to blamelessness and purity of life. Men find fault with us, because in preaching the free righteousness of faith, we seem to be calling men away from good works. But his passage clearly refutes them, by showing that faith lays hold of regeneration just as much as forgiveness of sins in Christ. On the other hand notice that while those offices of Christ are united, they are yet distinguishable from each other. Therefore we are not at liberty, indeed it would be wrong, to confuse what Paul expressly separates.”
Therefore let us come near to God by faith in Christ Jesus for his justifying grace, and may that faith work through love in the sanctifying grace of Jesus for his glory. It takes two, justification and sanctification, to walk with Jesus in his redemption.
Daughters in Marriage
My wife and I sat reading aloud “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austin to one another one evening this week. The most famously quoted lines of her book come from the opening paragraph. In this opening we find Mrs. Bennett speaking to Mr. Bennett upon the occasion of a wealthy gentleman who has moved to Netherfield Park, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." Their own situation is that of five unmarried daughters and no sons. From one perspective the reader may be frustrated by this anxious, frantic and silly mother who seeks her fortune and that of her daughters among single unmarried men who must be in want of a wife from among her daughters or by the indifference, silence and often lacking leadership on the part of her husband . But on the other hand one may be delighted in the providence of God in the unfolding of the story of relationships and marriage and the joys and sorrows that accompany them. I heartily recommend this book to men and women alike.
But it is not about Pride and Prejudice that I write, rather it is about the thought of unmarried daughters. I have four. And it is about single men in possession of good fortunes that I write in the interest of my daughters and the host of covenant daughters we have being raised up under the roof of our church at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. While reading Numbers 36 this morning I was struck by the liberty given to the daughters of Israel within the confines of the law as it regards to marriage. In that chapter there is a concern over the transfer of inheritance from one tribe to another through marriage. They like Mrs. Bennett were concerned not only for their daughters but it would seem their fortunes as well. And there was the possibility of losing that inheritance through marriage, by the way is another important theme in Pride and Prejudice. But it is in the midst of the judgment that Moses gives in this context that I found this liberty protected by law. In 36:6 Moses says, “This is what the LORD commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, ‘Let them marry whom they think best, only they shall marry within the clan of the tribe of their father.” The liberty is expressed in telling them they can marry whoever they think is best. The Law is expressed in only let that person be in the clan of the tribe of their fathers. The liberty gives them freedom to choose and the law constrains and protects their freedom according to God’s own will. This was good not only for the daughters but for the daughters love expressed to God in trust and their love expressed to their family in doing what would be best for them in the days of the sharing of their inheritance with those yet to come.
Our daughters have the same liberty and law given them in the New Testament under the New Covenant. The context is different in that the inheritance is an eternal life in the Son and all that the Son possesses among the nations, not a particular plot in Israel. And the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of that inheritance not a clan member or a man in possession of a good fortune. The liberty is given in Christ Jesus where everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial (1Cor.6:12; 10:23). The daughters of the New Covenant may marry whom they think best. But the best is in accord with the knowledge, righteousness and holiness that they now have and hope for in Christ. The liberty is not a license to sin so that grace may increase, but the liberty is freedom from the bondage and dominion of sin to live in the freedom and glory of Christ in all things. Therefore the liberty is not given for the triumph of sin and lust, but for the glory of God in lives that treasure Christ more than they treasure single men of good fortune or good looks. This is why law is given with liberty in Christ Jesus commanding our daughters not be unequally yoked (2Cor.6:14). These daughters in the New Covenant have taken the yoke of Jesus upon themselves (Mt.11:29) and have been united together with him in his body. Therefore the law of love to our daughters is not to divide the body of Christ by being united in one flesh with one outside of the body of Christ. This law is obeyed by all who love Christ more than they love a single man of good fortune or good looks (Jn.14:15). And she will exercise her liberty in the confines of this law so that she will demonstrate in the liberty a greater treasuring of her true husbandman who brings her into a true inheritance than the treasuring of a single man with promise.
It is the responsibility of fathers and mothers not to be indifferent and silent or anxious and silly toward our daughters and their potential husbands. Rather we must discipline and nurture them to the love of their Lord that they will delight in his liberty and law as they seek to make a decision about a man who will bring them into their true inheritance as a bride ready for Christ their true husbandman.
But it is not about Pride and Prejudice that I write, rather it is about the thought of unmarried daughters. I have four. And it is about single men in possession of good fortunes that I write in the interest of my daughters and the host of covenant daughters we have being raised up under the roof of our church at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. While reading Numbers 36 this morning I was struck by the liberty given to the daughters of Israel within the confines of the law as it regards to marriage. In that chapter there is a concern over the transfer of inheritance from one tribe to another through marriage. They like Mrs. Bennett were concerned not only for their daughters but it would seem their fortunes as well. And there was the possibility of losing that inheritance through marriage, by the way is another important theme in Pride and Prejudice. But it is in the midst of the judgment that Moses gives in this context that I found this liberty protected by law. In 36:6 Moses says, “This is what the LORD commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, ‘Let them marry whom they think best, only they shall marry within the clan of the tribe of their father.” The liberty is expressed in telling them they can marry whoever they think is best. The Law is expressed in only let that person be in the clan of the tribe of their fathers. The liberty gives them freedom to choose and the law constrains and protects their freedom according to God’s own will. This was good not only for the daughters but for the daughters love expressed to God in trust and their love expressed to their family in doing what would be best for them in the days of the sharing of their inheritance with those yet to come.
Our daughters have the same liberty and law given them in the New Testament under the New Covenant. The context is different in that the inheritance is an eternal life in the Son and all that the Son possesses among the nations, not a particular plot in Israel. And the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of that inheritance not a clan member or a man in possession of a good fortune. The liberty is given in Christ Jesus where everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial (1Cor.6:12; 10:23). The daughters of the New Covenant may marry whom they think best. But the best is in accord with the knowledge, righteousness and holiness that they now have and hope for in Christ. The liberty is not a license to sin so that grace may increase, but the liberty is freedom from the bondage and dominion of sin to live in the freedom and glory of Christ in all things. Therefore the liberty is not given for the triumph of sin and lust, but for the glory of God in lives that treasure Christ more than they treasure single men of good fortune or good looks. This is why law is given with liberty in Christ Jesus commanding our daughters not be unequally yoked (2Cor.6:14). These daughters in the New Covenant have taken the yoke of Jesus upon themselves (Mt.11:29) and have been united together with him in his body. Therefore the law of love to our daughters is not to divide the body of Christ by being united in one flesh with one outside of the body of Christ. This law is obeyed by all who love Christ more than they love a single man of good fortune or good looks (Jn.14:15). And she will exercise her liberty in the confines of this law so that she will demonstrate in the liberty a greater treasuring of her true husbandman who brings her into a true inheritance than the treasuring of a single man with promise.
It is the responsibility of fathers and mothers not to be indifferent and silent or anxious and silly toward our daughters and their potential husbands. Rather we must discipline and nurture them to the love of their Lord that they will delight in his liberty and law as they seek to make a decision about a man who will bring them into their true inheritance as a bride ready for Christ their true husbandman.
What Do You Mean by "Covenantal"?
I was recently asked the question, “What do you mean by “covenantal”? The text below is my answer to that person and I hope it may prove helpful to many in the church.
I admit the term "covenant" can be misused and over used and perhaps the word "covenantal" is not a word at all but an idea. However J.I. Packer uses it when he writes on the covenant and my use of "covenantal” comes from his idea that in our relationships to one another in the church we are expressing a "biblical ethic" that is a reflection of God's bending himself toward us in his covenant with us. Here is how Packer says it,
"The distance between God and the creature is so great," says the Westminster Confession (VII.I), "that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant." Exactly! So biblical doctrine, first to last, has to do with covenantal relationships between God and man; biblical ethics has to do with expressing God's covenantal relationship to us in covenantal relationships between ourselves and others; and Christian religion has the nature of covenant life, in which God is the direct object of our faith, hope, love, worship, and service, all animated by gratitude for grace."[1]
Therefore when I use covenantal in regards to the life we live as the church it is the life we live out of the new covenant in Christ's blood toward one another as his body not only "animated by gratitude for grace" but exercised by faith in the ongoing grace of God we have in Christ. We are bond together in Christ for love to God and love to one another. Therefore we live in this bond by worshiping around the apostles teaching, prayers, the breaking of bread, sharing one another's burdens and joys. This is very much unlike the world expresses in the suburbs at the block party in the culdesac or in the backyard around the grill and teake torches or unlike the world expresses on the island at the club or unlike the world expresses in the neighborhood under the big oak tree and a grill full of chicken or fajitas. The churches covenatalism is around the cross of Christ where we live by faith in him submitting to his discipline, not forsaking the assembling together, worshiping in our homes and then with homes together in one place, the church building, praying, singing, eating, laughing and crying together, talking about what it means to be a man in the church, home and community with our minds and hearts in the book of the covenant and not the latest Esquire in reflection of Tom Cruises manhood.
Covenantalism is the life of the people of God who have been bought by the blood of the covenant and put by his providence among a particular visible body of his covenant and living bound together in the bonds of love for his glory there until he by his providence, and not a persons passion or wander lust, moves them elsewhere or returns in his fullness.
I am rambling but I hope this is helpful.
I admit the term "covenant" can be misused and over used and perhaps the word "covenantal" is not a word at all but an idea. However J.I. Packer uses it when he writes on the covenant and my use of "covenantal” comes from his idea that in our relationships to one another in the church we are expressing a "biblical ethic" that is a reflection of God's bending himself toward us in his covenant with us. Here is how Packer says it,
"The distance between God and the creature is so great," says the Westminster Confession (VII.I), "that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant." Exactly! So biblical doctrine, first to last, has to do with covenantal relationships between God and man; biblical ethics has to do with expressing God's covenantal relationship to us in covenantal relationships between ourselves and others; and Christian religion has the nature of covenant life, in which God is the direct object of our faith, hope, love, worship, and service, all animated by gratitude for grace."[1]
Therefore when I use covenantal in regards to the life we live as the church it is the life we live out of the new covenant in Christ's blood toward one another as his body not only "animated by gratitude for grace" but exercised by faith in the ongoing grace of God we have in Christ. We are bond together in Christ for love to God and love to one another. Therefore we live in this bond by worshiping around the apostles teaching, prayers, the breaking of bread, sharing one another's burdens and joys. This is very much unlike the world expresses in the suburbs at the block party in the culdesac or in the backyard around the grill and teake torches or unlike the world expresses on the island at the club or unlike the world expresses in the neighborhood under the big oak tree and a grill full of chicken or fajitas. The churches covenatalism is around the cross of Christ where we live by faith in him submitting to his discipline, not forsaking the assembling together, worshiping in our homes and then with homes together in one place, the church building, praying, singing, eating, laughing and crying together, talking about what it means to be a man in the church, home and community with our minds and hearts in the book of the covenant and not the latest Esquire in reflection of Tom Cruises manhood.
Covenantalism is the life of the people of God who have been bought by the blood of the covenant and put by his providence among a particular visible body of his covenant and living bound together in the bonds of love for his glory there until he by his providence, and not a persons passion or wander lust, moves them elsewhere or returns in his fullness.
I am rambling but I hope this is helpful.
An Everlasting Covenant to An Uncertain Culture
Someone has said, “There is only one thing that is certain and that is that everything is uncertain.” We live in uncertain times, our jobs and livelihoods are uncertain. We live with the uncertainty of our future as a church, a community, a state or a nation. Uncertainty and a struggling sense of security are marks of our culture. What does the church have to offer in a culture of uncertainty and insecurity? The answer comes in God’s everlasting covenant.
God said to Abraham, “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.” (Genesis 17:7). This covenant is a relationship that God established with Abraham by his sovereign will and guaranteed it by himself (Genesis 15:17). He made the promise in the relationship in love and promised with an oath to keep it (Deuteronomy 7:8). Therefore God is true and his everlasting covenant is true. This everlasting covenant God makes with his people is further realized in the New Covenant in the blood of Christ (1Corinthians 11:25). God’s grace promised (Genesis 3:15) and realized throughout the covenants of the Old Testament was fully confirmed in the death of Christ on the cross. There on the cross Jesus made full atonement for sins as a righteous substitute for sinners (Romans 3:21-26) satisfying the justice of God and at the same time being the justifier of all who by faith in him come into a relationship with God by his grace through faith. Through Jesus Christ God the Father establishes his relationship with his elect sealing them to a promised life forevermore through his Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:3-14). God is true, not false and he cannot lie or go back on his promise. Therefore the covenant that he establishes with his people is an everlasting covenant that cannot be undone. And it is in the certainty of this everlasting covenant that the church is secure.
This doctrine of assurance founded in the truth of God is called by some, “The prime error of heretics”. And by the Council of Trent it was said “a believers assurance of the pardon of his sins is a vain and ungodly confidence.” Others would say this assurance is presumption. They argue that having a confident assurance in God’s everlasting covenant and salvation is not a true and spiritual humility and often leads to a passive and apathetic form of Christianity. But all who would denounce this doctrine of assurance on grounds of abuse or untruth must acknowledge the Scriptures clear statements to the contrary. And when the Scripture makes this doctrine clear to our minds and hearts this “grace with assurance is no less than heaven let down into the soul.” Here are a sampling of Scripture passages that may prove helpful in considering God’s eternal grace to all who are saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus: Job 19:25-26; Ps.23:4; Isa.43:1-3; 54:10; Jer.32:40; Mt.18:12-14; Jn.3:36; 5:24; 6:35-40, 47; 10:27-30; 17:11,12,15; Rom.5:8-10; 8:1,28-30, 35-39; 1Cor.1:7-9; 10:13; 2Cor.4:14,17; Eph.1:5,13-14; 4:30; Col.3:3-4; 1Thes.5:23-24; 2Tim.4:18; Heb.9:12,15; 10:14; 12:28; 1Pe.1:3-5; 1Jn.2:19,25; 5:4,11-13,20; Jude 1, 24-25. It is the grace of assurance that allows the church to live in God’s kingdom of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, and this is what the church can offer to a culture of uncertainty.
A toddler plays happily in the kitchen. He climbs under the cabinets and cleans out the pots and pans making a fort, he bangs the pots and pans in the floor, he digs unidentified objects out from under the refrigerator or from under the table missed by the broom, and unnoticed by Mom, eats them. He is secure in Mom’s kingdom as she works around him, goes back and forth to the laundry caring for the families needs. He does not fear when she disappears around the corner because he knows she’s coming back. So are all who have been brought into God’s kingdom by his grace through faith in Christ and live and rest in his everlasting covenant.
For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, 14saying, "Surely I will bless you and multiply you." 15And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. 16For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. 17So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. 19We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf,
. - Hebrews 6:13—20
God said to Abraham, “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.” (Genesis 17:7). This covenant is a relationship that God established with Abraham by his sovereign will and guaranteed it by himself (Genesis 15:17). He made the promise in the relationship in love and promised with an oath to keep it (Deuteronomy 7:8). Therefore God is true and his everlasting covenant is true. This everlasting covenant God makes with his people is further realized in the New Covenant in the blood of Christ (1Corinthians 11:25). God’s grace promised (Genesis 3:15) and realized throughout the covenants of the Old Testament was fully confirmed in the death of Christ on the cross. There on the cross Jesus made full atonement for sins as a righteous substitute for sinners (Romans 3:21-26) satisfying the justice of God and at the same time being the justifier of all who by faith in him come into a relationship with God by his grace through faith. Through Jesus Christ God the Father establishes his relationship with his elect sealing them to a promised life forevermore through his Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:3-14). God is true, not false and he cannot lie or go back on his promise. Therefore the covenant that he establishes with his people is an everlasting covenant that cannot be undone. And it is in the certainty of this everlasting covenant that the church is secure.
This doctrine of assurance founded in the truth of God is called by some, “The prime error of heretics”. And by the Council of Trent it was said “a believers assurance of the pardon of his sins is a vain and ungodly confidence.” Others would say this assurance is presumption. They argue that having a confident assurance in God’s everlasting covenant and salvation is not a true and spiritual humility and often leads to a passive and apathetic form of Christianity. But all who would denounce this doctrine of assurance on grounds of abuse or untruth must acknowledge the Scriptures clear statements to the contrary. And when the Scripture makes this doctrine clear to our minds and hearts this “grace with assurance is no less than heaven let down into the soul.” Here are a sampling of Scripture passages that may prove helpful in considering God’s eternal grace to all who are saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus: Job 19:25-26; Ps.23:4; Isa.43:1-3; 54:10; Jer.32:40; Mt.18:12-14; Jn.3:36; 5:24; 6:35-40, 47; 10:27-30; 17:11,12,15; Rom.5:8-10; 8:1,28-30, 35-39; 1Cor.1:7-9; 10:13; 2Cor.4:14,17; Eph.1:5,13-14; 4:30; Col.3:3-4; 1Thes.5:23-24; 2Tim.4:18; Heb.9:12,15; 10:14; 12:28; 1Pe.1:3-5; 1Jn.2:19,25; 5:4,11-13,20; Jude 1, 24-25. It is the grace of assurance that allows the church to live in God’s kingdom of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, and this is what the church can offer to a culture of uncertainty.
A toddler plays happily in the kitchen. He climbs under the cabinets and cleans out the pots and pans making a fort, he bangs the pots and pans in the floor, he digs unidentified objects out from under the refrigerator or from under the table missed by the broom, and unnoticed by Mom, eats them. He is secure in Mom’s kingdom as she works around him, goes back and forth to the laundry caring for the families needs. He does not fear when she disappears around the corner because he knows she’s coming back. So are all who have been brought into God’s kingdom by his grace through faith in Christ and live and rest in his everlasting covenant.
For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, 14saying, "Surely I will bless you and multiply you." 15And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. 16For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. 17So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. 19We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf,
. - Hebrews 6:13—20
Covenantalism by J.I.Packer
"The distance between God and the creature is so great," says the Westminster Confession (VII.I), "that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant." Exactly! So biblical doctrine, first to last, has to do with covenantal relationships between God and man; biblical ethics has to do with expressing God's covenantal relationship to us in covenantal relationships between ourselves and others; and Christian religion has the nature of covenant life, in which God is the direct object of our faith, hope, love, worship, and service, all animated by gratitude for grace.
Our theme is the life-embracing bedrock reality of the covenant relationship between the Creator and Christians, and it is high time we defined exactly what we are talking about. A covenant relationship is a voluntary mutual commitment that binds each party to the other. Whether it is negotiated, like a modern business deal or a marriage contract, or unilaterally imposed, as all God's covenants are, is irrelevant to the commitment itself; the reality of the relationship depends simply on the fact that mutual obligations have been accepted and pledged on both sides. Luther is held to have said that Christianity is a matter of personal pronouns, in the sense that everything depends on knowing that Jesus died for me, to be my Savior, and that his Father is my God and Father, personally committed to love, nurture, uphold, and glorify me. This already is covenant thinking, for this is the essential substance of the covenant relationship: God's covenant is precisely a matter of these personal pronouns, used in this way, as a basis for a life with God of friendship, peace and communicated love. –
From what has been said so far, three things become apparent. First, the gospel of God is not properly understood till it is viewed within a covenantal frame.
Jesus Christ, whose saving ministry is the sum and substance of the gospel, is announced in Hebrews the mediator and guarantor of the covenant relationship (Heb. 7:22, 8:6). The gospel promises, offering Christ and his benefits to sinner, are therefore invitations to enter and enjoy a covenant relationship with God. Faith in Jesus Christ is accordingly the embracing of the covenant, and the Christian life of glorifying God by one's words and works for the greatness of his goodness and grace has at its heart covenant communion between the Savior and the sinner. The church, the fellowship of believers that the gospel creates, is the community of the covenant, and the preaching of the Word, the practice of pastoral care and discipline, the manifold exercises of worship together, and the administration of baptism and the Lord's supper (corresponding to circumcision and Passover in former days) are all signs, tokens, expressions, and instruments of the covenant, through which covenantal enrichments from God constantly flow to those who believe. The hope of glory, as promised in the gospel, is the goal of the covenant relationship (Rev. 21:2 f.), and Christian assurance is the knowledge of the content and stability of that relationship as it applies to oneself (Rom. 5:1-11,8:1-39). The whole Bible is, as it were, presented by Jesus Christ to the whole church and to each Christian as the book of the covenant, and the whole record of the wars of the Word with the church as well as the world in the post-biblical Christian centuries, the record that is ordinarily called church history, is precisely the story of the covenant going on in space and time. As artists and decorators know, the frame is important for setting off the picture, and you do in fact see the picture better when it is appropriately framed. So with the riches of the gospel; the covenant is their proper frame, and you only see them in their full glory when this frame surrounds them, as in Scripture it actually does, and as in theology it always should.
J.I. Packer Covenantalism http://www.gospelpedlar.com/articles/Bible/cov_theo.html
Our theme is the life-embracing bedrock reality of the covenant relationship between the Creator and Christians, and it is high time we defined exactly what we are talking about. A covenant relationship is a voluntary mutual commitment that binds each party to the other. Whether it is negotiated, like a modern business deal or a marriage contract, or unilaterally imposed, as all God's covenants are, is irrelevant to the commitment itself; the reality of the relationship depends simply on the fact that mutual obligations have been accepted and pledged on both sides. Luther is held to have said that Christianity is a matter of personal pronouns, in the sense that everything depends on knowing that Jesus died for me, to be my Savior, and that his Father is my God and Father, personally committed to love, nurture, uphold, and glorify me. This already is covenant thinking, for this is the essential substance of the covenant relationship: God's covenant is precisely a matter of these personal pronouns, used in this way, as a basis for a life with God of friendship, peace and communicated love. –
From what has been said so far, three things become apparent. First, the gospel of God is not properly understood till it is viewed within a covenantal frame.
Jesus Christ, whose saving ministry is the sum and substance of the gospel, is announced in Hebrews the mediator and guarantor of the covenant relationship (Heb. 7:22, 8:6). The gospel promises, offering Christ and his benefits to sinner, are therefore invitations to enter and enjoy a covenant relationship with God. Faith in Jesus Christ is accordingly the embracing of the covenant, and the Christian life of glorifying God by one's words and works for the greatness of his goodness and grace has at its heart covenant communion between the Savior and the sinner. The church, the fellowship of believers that the gospel creates, is the community of the covenant, and the preaching of the Word, the practice of pastoral care and discipline, the manifold exercises of worship together, and the administration of baptism and the Lord's supper (corresponding to circumcision and Passover in former days) are all signs, tokens, expressions, and instruments of the covenant, through which covenantal enrichments from God constantly flow to those who believe. The hope of glory, as promised in the gospel, is the goal of the covenant relationship (Rev. 21:2 f.), and Christian assurance is the knowledge of the content and stability of that relationship as it applies to oneself (Rom. 5:1-11,8:1-39). The whole Bible is, as it were, presented by Jesus Christ to the whole church and to each Christian as the book of the covenant, and the whole record of the wars of the Word with the church as well as the world in the post-biblical Christian centuries, the record that is ordinarily called church history, is precisely the story of the covenant going on in space and time. As artists and decorators know, the frame is important for setting off the picture, and you do in fact see the picture better when it is appropriately framed. So with the riches of the gospel; the covenant is their proper frame, and you only see them in their full glory when this frame surrounds them, as in Scripture it actually does, and as in theology it always should.
J.I. Packer Covenantalism http://www.gospelpedlar.com/articles/Bible/cov_theo.html
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