David Westerfield

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Category: Theology Page 31 of 67


The Calvinistic Resurgence in America – Humbly Thank God, Cease All Boasting

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On December 6, 2008

In Christian Culture, Theology

http://www.banneroftruth.org/pages/arti … l.php?1487

“To this reviewer the Reformed Faith means four things. First, there is a love for Martin Luther and what God wrought through him in the amazing re-establishment of the doctrine of justification by faith and clarity about salvation which has its source in the sovereign grace of God and not in the merit of the free will of man. Second, the Reformed Faith is confessional. I subscribe to all the chapters of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, known as the 1689 Confession. That Confession is the legacy of the English Puritans. Third, there is the clarity of the Five Points (TULIP) formulated at the Synod of Dort. Fourth, there is passion. Another word for passion is love. The church at Ephesus was commended for orthodoxy but was running low on love (Rev. 2:1-7). The doctrines of grace mean little if they reside merely in the head and do not live with love and passion in the heart. And if grace rules in the heart we will not be sectarian, cultish, censorious, judgmental or superior to others who are not ruled by grace.”

“So how do things stand now in the USA? To discover more about the Calvinistic resurgence Collin Hansen’s first call was to the ministry of John Piper at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. Hansen describes Piper (whose signature book Desiring God has sold 275,000 copies) as the chief spokesman for the Calvinist resurgence among young evangelicals. In the year 2000 40,000 students gathered at a venue near Memphis to listen to John Piper on the theme ‘Don’t Waste Your Life’. Subsequently 250,000 copies of Piper’s book with that title have sold. If Piper is the most influential living leader in the resurgence then Jonathan Edwards is the most read theologian from the past.”

“This is not the time for Reformed triumphalism. It is time for quiet gratitude to God and earnest intercessory prayer, with tears, that what has begun will flourish beyond all human expectation.” – D.A. Carson

Link originally found here: http://www.reformationtheology.com/2008 … nce_in.php

Contentment – A Puritan Prayer from The Valley of Vision

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On December 4, 2008

In Theology

Heavenly Father, if I should suffer need, and go unclothed, and be in poverty, make my heart prize Thy love, know it, be constrained by it, though I be denied all blessings. It is Thy mercy to afflict and try me with wants, for by these trials I see my sins, and desire severance from them. Let me willingly accept misery, sorrows, temptations, if I can thereby feel sin as the greatest evil, and be delivered from it with gratitude to Thee, acknowledging this as the highest testimony of Thy love.

When thy Son, Jesus, came into my soul instead of sin He became more dear to me than sin had formerly been; His kindly rule replaced sin’s tyranny. Teach me to believe that if ever I would have any sin subdued I must not only labour to overcome it, but must invite Christ to abide in the place of it, and He must become to me more than vile lust had been; that His sweetness, power, life may be there. Thus I must seek a grace from Him contrary to sin, but must not claim it apart from Himself.

When I am afraid of evils to come, comfort me by showing me that in myself I am a dying, condemned wretch, but in Christ I am reconciled and live; that in myself I find insufficiency and no rest, but in Christ there is satisfaction and peace; that in myself I am feeble and unable to do good, but in Christ I have ability to do all things. Though now I have His graces in part, I shall shortly have them perfectly in that state where Thou wilt show Thyself fully reconciled, and alone sufficient, efficient, loving me completely, with sin abolished. O Lord, hasten that day.

Believing in Grace or Resting in Grace?

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On December 4, 2008

In Christian Culture, Theology

I have now finished reading John Piper’s response to N.T. Wright concerning justification, entitled The Future of Justification. While I could go on about some of the things said in it, there was one particular point that struck me. In critiquing Wright’s understanding of first century, Second Temple Judaism, Piper points out that it very well could be (as Wright asserts) that the first century Jews had doctrines speaking of the grace of God toward them and yet in reality were not resting in that very grace to save them, but relying upon their own supposed self-righteousness to make them right before God in the final judgment.

This made me start thinking about how many of us in the Evangelical world believe in the grace of God in Christ (as a nice and even excellent theoretical doctrine for many), but in reality do not rest in that grace provided in Christ, just as the Pharisees did not, according to Jesus Himself. This even makes me consider many of the students in our student ministry who seem (at least outwardly) to have no zeal whatsoever for the things of God. I’m not just talking about a zeal to be “good” and “moral,” but a zeal for knowing God more in the Scriptures, seeing His grace in bigger and brighter ways through the work of the cross, and taking that grace to those in our surrounding communities and to our neighbors through missions, ministry work, witnessing, living lives of holiness, … not just to be good, self-righteous, moral people, but to give God glory through works that please and honor Him.

Now I’m not saying this as a blanket statement for all Evangelicals or all students within the ministry I love and volunteer in. But I see and hear a lot of people talk about the grace of God, give the right answers, who talk of the free offer of salvation in Christ, and yet lives go untransformed by grace in reality. It seems many times there is little fruit. Are we really resting in grace, in reality, objectively? Or do we merely believe in it from afar without getting wet, so to speak?

This made me even stop and evaluate my own life, as it should. How can I critique others if I don’t stop and critique myself first? (You know the whole “taking the log out of my own eye to take the spec out of yours” thing?) Do I rest in grace every day? May God have mercy on my soul, because sometimes I don’t in all honesty. When I don’t, the results are evident in my life, for sin and vileness pours forth from my heart in various ways. And my lovely, sweet, selfless wife gets to see the best of that. May God have mercy on me, a grave sinner. This is a call to myself as well to rest in the grace of God alone for all things, salvation and progressive holiness.

Believing versus resting in grace is such a simple distinction with such vast implications for our lives. This is a frightening thought to me: affirming the doctrine of God’s grace without experiencing that grace unto salvation, and of necessity, true inner life-change by the Holy Spirit.

In American Evangelical Christianity, we can wax eloquently about all kinds of orthodox doctrines, have them written out on our websites, or in a pamphlet, and yet when I see the actual effect in people’s lives of these doctrines they propose to believe in, and see startling statistics about how a majority of Evangelicals now believe that Jesus is not the only way to get right with God, I have to wonder about the state of belief in people’s hearts within our own circles. The rampant materialism, the idolatrous pursuit of career as if it could save us from hell, the fake smiles in church toward other people who are absorbed in the same idolatrous materialism we ourselves are mastered by, the singing of songs to God in praise to Him while later cursing in our hearts in all kinds of ways? We need to not only believe in God’s grace, we need to rest in it, experience it in power, by His Spirit alone, in a way that He then effects real change in our hearts.

Can I see into what people are actually thinking and believing? Absolutely not, nor do I presume to. Yet people are making confessions concerning what they say they believe about Christianity and the Gospel that are a far cry from being Biblically accurate. In addition, the outward result in people’s lives is one that is not consistent with that confession (in no way saying people need to be perfect, for that is unbiblical, but that there is no general direction toward holiness). This is concerning to me. It is a frightening prospect: people believing the Gospel in vain. It is something Paul, Peter, John, James and Jesus Himself all warned about repeatedly in the Scriptures. Why is it we hear very little of these warnings in our churches; warnings that are so prevalent in Scripture, almost as much as the grace of God is? May it be because we have succumbed to the worldly culture of “niceness” and “positive thinking” we are absorbed in as a cultural norm nowadays?

As a movement of Christianity, are we merely believing in grace or actually resting in it? Have we come to an end of ourselves and our supposed moral goodness (I mean actually come to an end of ourselves, not just a theoretical doctrine) and have we really rested in Christ alone for salvation? If you rest in grace, you are necessarily believing in it as a stated doctrine. But it is possible to believe in grace as a doctrine without actually experiencing it and resting in it, which is what we need in order to be saved. And may I state this is true even for us in the Reformed community. No one is exempt from this horrible possibility. This is exactly what the Pharisees and many (not all) Jews were doing during Jesus’ time. This makes me think of the frightening passages in Hebrews that speak to this very point:

“Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” – Hebrews 2:1-3

“For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.” – Hebrews 6:4-8

“For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” – Hebrews 10:26-31

According to these passages and other like them, it is possible to believe in grace (theoretically) and even ascribe it to God as an attribute of His character and nature, and even experience that grace to a degree, and yet not rest in that grace in reality, by His grace alone and thus, as a result of this unbelief, go to hell. THAT is scary, as it is supposed to be. These passages are not in Holy Scripture without good reason, for many many people have gone down this very path. Jesus even said that at the judgment seat in the end of time that, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness'” (Matthew 7:21-23).

These passages are meant to show us the reality that many people who claim to be not only believers in grace, but “rest-ers” in grace, that though they acknowledge a doctrine (in this instance, the grace of God), their hearts are far from it and are indeed NOT resting in that grace in reality. They are open to condemnation even now as a result (John 3:36). This is the entire history of Israel, back and forth, back and forth, resting in His grace and then falling from it, resulting in God’s punishment. It has also manifested itself in the history of the church time and time again, with various movements resulting from bad (salvation) theology popping up again and again. And yet it seems to have reared it’s ugly head within a majority of Evangelicalism now. We have stated confessions in our churches, on our web sites. But do we really believe the content of those confessions and charters?

Now, “What is the will of the Father who is in heaven,” that Jesus speaks of, you ask? To believe (like really and actually believe and rest) on the name of the only Son of God who united Himself to man, as one of us, lived a life of complete perfection before the Father on our behalf (because we couldn’t), suffered the wrath of God in the place of believing sinners, and rise from the grave triumphant over sin, death, Satan, and hell. If you believe in Him alone, rest in Him alone, trust in Him as the only source of salvation, knowing that in yourself you cannot do a thing to save yourself, but rather trust that Christ interposed His blood on your behalf, you will be saved. “But what if I just can’t believe it? It’s so hard to believe such things!” Cry out to God, just as the father of the possessed boy cried out, “Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). Beg for God’s mercy to open your eyes to the truth of it. It is your only hope.

You must believe this in order to be saved from God’s wrath that we all deserve. But in order to believe even, you must have your heart transplanted by His power alone in order to taste and see that the Lord is good in the first place. Jesus spoke about this very thing to Nicodemus. In John 3:1-15, He said in order to see, let alone enter the Kingdom of Heaven, you must be born again. Nicodemus’ response to Jesus’ statement was one that would naturally result from all of us. “How can a man be born again a second time from his mother’s womb?” But Jesus was not speaking of a second physical birth, but rather of a birth of your spirit, a regenerating of your soul from spiritual death to life. You must be born of God in your inner being, have your spirit made alive by His power alone if you are to see Him, His salvation and thus trust Jesus Christ alone for eternal life.

Here’s my challenge to all of us. Check your soul. Do you believe in the grace of God made possible by the blood of Christ, sealed in His resurrection? Well good … as James says, even the demons believe this … and shudder. The right question is, are you resting in His grace provided for you on the cross? Has the grace of God truly invaded your soul? You will know, for you will see fruit in your life: a desire to pursue Christ, a pain in your soul when you sin, a supernatural joy that cannot be explained any other way than by God’s presence in your inner being, made possible by His effective work in you.

For those of us who are resting in grace, the challenge to us is the same: are we resting in grace not only for salvation, but for true inner life change, and not resting on our supposed moral power and wills to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps to make our lives different? Only God can work in us to change us and make us holy. It is His sovereign power and effective change that we need to be pursuing everyday in Scripture reading/studying, prayer with Christ (as in actual communion with His presence, not just making Him a PEZ dispenser for our various pleasures) and fellowship with other believers who can encourage us and prod us on toward holiness and pleasing the One who saved us and justified us by His grace alone.

Thoughts on Piper’s Book, The Future of Justification – A Partial Review

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On December 2, 2008

In Apologetics, Reviews, Theology

In the past, just doing a cursory reading of some of N.T. Wright’s statements on justification, I thought that I could at least grasp a basic concept of his understanding of this centrally important piece of the Gospel message. Then I picked up Piper’s book. Now I’m even more confused than I was before; I now have some clarity on various points, but I see now I haven’t even scratched the surface of where the man is coming from on justification. Wright’s comprehensive picture of God’s working out salvation in history seems to be coming from a totally different avenue, one the church has never been down in 2000 years. It seems Piper is confused at points to, or sees seemingly contradictory understandings within Wright that he is putting out there at various junctures. While reading Piper’s critique and seeing quotes of Wright’s, I think to myself, “This is a Catholic understanding of justification,” and then at other points, I affirm with Wright that part of his articulation is the traditionally historic Protestant view (i.e. the “Wright” one … get it? Wow, okay I’ll stop … you knew it had to come, ya know, a pun … okay I’m digging a hole).

Things became much clearer tonight though as I continued reading (as much as it can in waters already muddied by a whole new articulation of a super vital doctrine that has never once appeared in all of church history). One of the things that has really come to bear in my understanding of Wright on justification is the way in which he distinguishes present and future justification. I have never even considered these as two separate, yet related doctrines (nor do I at this point still, just so I’m clear … I believe I’m justified now and will be in the future on the same basis, Christ alone). In the present, says Wright, we are justified by faith alone, knowing that all Christ has overcome and achieved is ours, or in other words, the verdict is in: we are His and have been made His by Christ. Okay that’s comforting. Here it comes though … yet future justification, the justification yet to occur at the judgment seat of God, is faith and the entire life lived in love as a confirmation of true, authentic saving faith. Confused?

With Piper, along with Wright, I concur that our lives should be overflowing with good works (imperfectly) from the supposed supernatural change in our hearts we claim to have had happen in us by God’s working alone, and that if that isn’t happening in us now (or we have no desire or struggle even with such things), we should very well question if God has born us anew at all; that is, is our faith the work of God in us alone to save us and keep us, or is it a false faith we worked up out of our sinful flesh that cannot stand the test of time and trials that will inevitably come (and believe me, they will)? If God has created in us a new heart, made us a new creation by the resurrection of Christ, then what necessarily results from that supernatural work in us is sweetness and fruitfulness, not bitterness and rottenness. I affirm this with Piper and Wright.

Wright is correct to point out that so much of Protestantism has erred in not presenting a balanced view of Paul’s understanding of faith and works, that the two go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other (James 2:14-26). If God brings about faith in your heart, faith that can only come from Him, a faith that is supernaturally struck by the “beauty of His majesty” and the extent to which He went to bring us to Himself, that faith will inevitably produce good fruit because that is what we’ve been redeemed to. Faith and works are indeed interconnected.

But are they interconnected as the basis for our final justification? Or even our present justification? And yet somehow that understanding in itself isn’t connected with my present justification before God’s throne (the very thing that gives me hope when I’ve sinned and fallen short of the glory of God)? Are the two “justification’s” even distinguishable other than by time? I have a hard time accepting that understanding. It’s like a synthesized version of Protestant and Catholic views on justification almost, patching the former into our present justification and the latter into our future justification. Ultimately though, it comes down to our works in his view, from my standpoint.

I affirm with Piper that in Wright’s view of these two “justification’s” (present and future), the basis or root of both is different. In the present, for Wright, justification is rooted in faith alone through Christ alone. Yet in the future, our justification, the final proclamation of our vindication, that we are God’s covenant people, is based on our faith and our whole life lived … or in essence, our works. I agree that faith “works in love” of necessity and the effect of faith is works, but negate the understanding that our justification, either present or future, rests on faith + works in any fashion. This itself is a perversion of the Gospel of Christ and, as Martin Luther said, sola fide (faith alone) was “the very hinge upon which the Reformation turned.”

I have a hard time accepting the idea that my present justification and my future justification are somehow not the same at the root, that is in Christ’s work alone, appropriated through faith alone, that is all granted by God’s grace alone. The thing that gives me hope, everyday, is that both forms of justification, present and future, are exactly the same and are both rooted in the singular saving work of Christ alone, wrought out upon the cross, sealed and confirmed in the resurrection, and applied by His Holy Spirit to His elect covenant people, and in my particular case. It is knowing I’m secured by His grace, that I’m declared righteous, that gives me freedom to work for His glory and honor, because now no longer am I doing it to be justified (or made right with God), but I do it because I want to out of a love that overflows in my heart (all of which is it self a gift a grace).

If in the present I look off into the future justification of my life at the judgment seat of Christ and I see that His judgment of me is based on my faith and the life I’ve lived (or works), and not merely faith alone, will I not attempt to work harder to make sure “I’m in” the covenant community of God? Does my final justification then not hone in and rest upon what I’ve done in my life, which is defiled and wretched? What hope is that?

You see then, in all reality, if I believed this, ultimately the final verdict of whether or not I go to heaven or hell depends on my obedience, my works, which once again hits at the very distinguishing mark between Protestants and Catholics for 500 years (which Wright, in my opinion is folding on doctrinally): for Catholics, their justification, or right standing before God, comes by faith and works, produced by the infusion of the Holy Spirit into their hearts; for Protestants, our justification is through faith alone, that we are accounted righteous by Christ’s working on our behalf … but we saved through a faith that works in love of necessity … because the faith that God grants His people is of Himself and full of power, effectively changing the course of our entire lives (though we still yet remain imperfect). Ephesians 2:8-10 articulates this Protestant doctrine the best: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” God saves His people by grace, granting faith, which justifies them, and then He moves in them to work for His glory.

I find all of this highly confusing, especially to those who have only a fundamental understanding of what justification is, let alone Wright coming along and making distinguishing marks between two different kinds, a present and a future justification. Wright says the Reformers were confused on the issue and that the conversation between Protestants and Catholics got off on the wrong foot during the Reformation. But I can only say Wright seems to have confused himself 1) about what the Reformers were saying concerning faith and works, and 2) he may be reading too much Second Temple Judaism back into the texts of Romans and Galatians in particular.

But, I am no scholar, nor do I presume to be, nor have I read any Second Temple Judaism from which to make any kind of a standing assertion such as that. I have only grasped a few of the concepts Wright is articulating, or at the very least attempting to, so I could very well be wrong and misunderstanding what he is saying. As you study, one of the things you realize is just how little you know of anything really. If Piper is confused at points, surely I’m going to be. Somehow I feel that Piper’s confusion comes from (possible) contradictory statements and a (possibly) confused N.T. Wright who is uttering them. But maybe I have a bias.

The Porpoise-Driven Life: A Little Cynical But Not Untruthful

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On November 26, 2008

In Christian Culture, Philosophy of Ministry, Theology

Even our Catholic friends see through much of the marketed, profit-driven nonsense that drives so much of Evangelicalism now, which is now a far cry from the faith recovered during the Reformation:

A Promise of God’s Effective Grace to His People

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On November 25, 2008

In Theology

“For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land.” – Ezekiel 34:11-13

Our God is not just a God who sits and waits for sinners to return to Him of themselves, but is One who goes out to find them, seeks them in power, who turns their hearts and their wills (being that they are dead in trespasses and sins), and brings them to Himself. Our God is not a God who just longs and desires for His people to be saved, but who actively goes out and saves them, through and through, from beginning to end, knowing they can do nothing of themselves, being utterly lost and ruined in sin.

In the New Testament, we then have the fulfillment of the verses from Ezekiel in Jesus when he says in John 6:39: “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.” Jesus has saved His people on the cross, sealed in the resurrection, and it was an effective work, not a potential one. He Saved His people, He didn’t just make them savable. And Jesus shall lose none of those people given to Him by the Father from before the foundation of the world. What a hope!

It is promises like these and the assured hope within them which give those of us believing in Christ the power to live in holiness, lives pleasing to Him. And it is promises like these in which the Lord gives us grace when we turn from Him in sin. He is the source of our salvation, but also the source of our sanctification, or progressive holiness, that is, being made closer into His image and likeness. Apart from His working in us to will and to work for His good pleasure, we can do nothing correctly in any way that pleases Him.

This promise is our hope in evangelism and missions of all kinds. We preach the Gospel through truth and actions, through Scripture and changed lives reflecting the image of God out to the world; and then God, in power, uses that as He sees fit to bring those He’s chosen to save to faith, creating in them that which was not there: belief. God is the One who works to change people’s hearts to believe the Gospel and He will save His people. And our hope in evangelism is that He will use our witnessing, teaching and preaching to save His lost sheep, whom He’s appointed us to gather from among the nations, and down the street. Praise God for His effective grace! As a result, I can only echo with Paul, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:36) That is the message of God’s effective grace, that it comes from Him alone, it is through Him alone in Christ, and it is all for His glory alone.

Unconditional Election – What Does It Mean? – Dr. James White

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On November 24, 2008

In Apologetics, Theology, Video

The Unreachable Demands of the Law of God

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On November 21, 2008

In Culture, Theology

“For whoever keeps the whole Law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the Law.” – James 2:10-11

Our culture is strongly opposed to any idea of eternal judgment, wrath, torment, and separation from God because of wrong deeds we have done. Most people would say, “Sure I’ve done wrong things. But I’m no Hitler. I’ve raised my family well, I’ve provided for them, I’ve helped the homeless, helped orphans even; I’ve given to charities, I’ve given to church. Sure I’ve done wrong things in my life, haven’t we all? But surely those good things in my life will outweigh the bad, right? Surely the Lord or Saint Peter or whoever will let me through the pearly gates because I’m basically a good person.”

When weighing our worthiness to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, it is natural for all of us to instantly begin comparing and sizing ourselves up to others around us or in history. We then deceive ourselves into thinking that since we personally don’t see anything possibly worthy of eternal condemnation and punishment, then it must not be so in reality, objectively, outside of us. Yet, when weighing our worthiness or unworthiness, the Scriptures say nothing of the comparison of ourselves to others, but rather it compares us in relation to God and Him alone. Do you want to truly weigh your holiness (or lack thereof)? Then weigh it against the infinite holiness and majesty of God. Here is the place where you will see how far you fall short.

Now the unfortunate thing is that we have no ability naturally of ourselves to see the holiness and righteousness of God with which to compare ourselves to begin with, because we are spiritually blind and in fact we are, “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). But that is why the Lord gave us the Scriptures, so that He can sovereignly reveal Himself, by His Spirit alone. We must wait on Him and His illumination though.

But, by the grace of God, He has given us Scriptures that show us our lost condition and we have this verse in James that comes along and says, “For whoever keeps the whole Law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.” How in the world is seeing our lost condition good news you say? Let’s continue, we’ll get to that.

Let’s just say for arguments’ sake you keep the Ten Commandments, except that you break one. According to this verse in James, you are now accountable for the whole thing, for you have become a transgressor of the Law. One sin, one falling short of the Law of God, and you are done for. And being “done for” means the Lord punishes you for eternity, because the One offended is infinitely and eternally holy.

But why is this so with the Law? Why is it breaking one Law constitutes breaking the entire thing? James explains why when he says, “For [God] who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the Law.” Whereas we want to cut each commandment up into little pieces (originally given to us in that way so the Lord could give us specifics and no wiggle room), to the Lord, the entire Law, the summing up of God’s revealed decrees, is a whole unit. It isn’t segmented, it is one organic piece, like a window. If you break one part of the window, the window is broken. So it is with the Law of God.

Then, Jesus came along and summed up the whole Law when He said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30) If we can say with Jesus that this is the summing up of the whole Law (Ten Commandments and otherwise), then it is right to say that breaking any one of the commandments of God is ultimately failing to, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” So if you commit murder, you have failed to, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength,” and you are thus subject to the judgment of God for all eternity. If you commit adultery, the same stands. And so it is with all the commands of God.

Here’s where the news just gets worse for humanity, though. All of us can attest that we probably have not broken just one single commandment. If we can say that, we’re probably deceiving ourselves. But how many of us would say we’ve broken all Ten Commandments?

Many deceitful teachers of all kinds love to preach from the Sermon on the Mount. “Ah,” they say, “I just love those passages because the instructions are just so simple. I teach these things to myself daily … along with Buddha’s wise teachings. Don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t give false testimony … yes, what great passages of teaching us to do what is right.” Really? It is obvious to me when someone says they love the Sermon on the Mount in the way stated above that they have absolutely no idea what Jesus is actually saying in it. It is a hard sermon.

Let me quote you just one passage: “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire” (Matthew 5:21-22).

Here’s my question: just going on the text above as the definitive rule of whether or not you will go to hell based upon just one day’s worth of deeds, how many of us have broken this Law? How many of us have been unjustly angry at someone? All of us, in some form or fashion have committed this and do so daily. I myself do this all the time and am desperately wicked as a result.

So is Jesus merely giving instruction on how to live? Or is He doing something else? Could it be Jesus is showing that performing external deeds and adhering to the Law in that manner totally neglects our hearts’ disposition in obeying it in the first place? If you have been angry with anyone, ever, Jesus is calling you a murderer and you are thus liable to judgment. Let that sink in. I am a murderer. And that is just one Law that Jesus refines. Theft? Adultery? Go through and read what Jesus is saying. It is quite radical and shines a spotlight upon our ruined natures. We are desperately wicked.

All of this shows that the Sermon on the Mount was not meant to just give us more instruction to follow, because based on Jesus’ principle, it is absolutely impossible for fallen man to adhere to the Law in order that he can be saved. The Sermon on the Mount raised the bar of the Law to a level that shows us we are lost, ruined and unable to do that which God commands.

Where is there hope in all of this? What a bleak picture for humanity! And with the current cultural climate so obsessed with positive thinking therapy/salvation, it is no wonder no one wants to hear these things. The truth is very difficult to believe, which is exactly why we need the Spirit’s working in us to show us its truth and validity.

Praise God He sent Jesus to do that which we could never do, so that by trusting in Him alone, we gain all that He merited in His morally perfect life. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, right before he starts going through the refining of the Law of God, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18). Until what is accomplished? The fulfilling of the Law of God by Christ Himself.

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law of God because He is the last Adam, the perfect Savior who accomplished all that we infinitely couldn’t. Whereas Adam, as humanities representative, failed in the task given to him by God, Jesus as the last Adam succeeded as the representative of all those who trust in Him alone (and not their works!) to bear their deserved wrath on the cross and credit to them all the rights and privileges earned during His earthly life.

God’s Law stands and we are required to uphold it for the glory of God, but also for own eternal futures’ sake. However, as shown above, we are incapable of upholding it ourselves and are thus thoroughly lost. Therefore Christ came and did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves, that by trusting in Him and His work, you will be saved from the coming day of judgment upon all people for all time.

The message of the Law is not one merely of giving us instruction on how to live. It is primarily about Christ and His bearing the demands of the Law on behalf of His people. The Law is a mirror we hold up to expose how far we fall short of the glory of God, and yet at the same time it points to a great Law-bearer, who came and suffered wrath in our place for all the laws we have broken and then credits us with His perfect life and righteousness. There could be nothing better!

Calvin: Man’s Spiritual Blindness Shown From John 1:4-5

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On November 18, 2008

In Theology

“But we are drunk with the false opinion of our own insight and are thus extremely reluctant to admit that it is utterly blind and stupid in divine matters. Hence, it will be more effective, I believe, to prove this fact by Scriptural testimonies than by reasons. John very beautifully teaches it in a passage that I have previously quoted; he writes that: “Life was in God from the beginning and that life was the light of men; this light shines in the darkness, but the darkness comprehends it not” [John 1:4-5]. He shows that man’s soul is so illumined by the brightness of God’s light as never to be without some slight flame or at least a spark of it; but that even with this illumination it does comprehend God. Why is this? Because man’s keenness of mind is mere blindness as far as the knowledge of God is concerned. For when the Spirit calls men “darkness,” he at once denies them any ability of spiritual understanding. Therefore he declares that those believers who embrace Christ are “born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” [John 1:13]. This means: Flesh is not capable of such lofty wisdom as to conceive God and what is God’s, unless it be illumined by the Spirit of God. As Christ testified, the fact that Peter recognized him was a special revelation of the Father [Matt. 16:17].”

– John Calvin, Book 2, Chapter 2 of the Institutes, pgs. 278

All that to say: Regeneration precedes Faith and any understanding of spiritual things at all. God must open our eyes, our ears, open our minds and hearts if we are to ascend to the demands for understanding, true spiritual illumination, faith, and repentance in the Scriptures. What God commands of us He gives in Jesus Christ, including the very faith and knowledge to believe in Him. Therefore, anyone attempting to ascend to understand God of himself and his own devices will completely fail in this endeavor, for knowledge about God is revealed by God Himself. Darkness cannot reveal and ascent to the light. Rather the light illumines the darkness and causes it to flee from its presence. So it is with the Lord.

Calvin: Science as God’s Gift

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On November 16, 2008

In Culture, Philosophy, Theology

“Whenever we come upon these matters in secular writers, let that admirable light of truth shining in them teach us that the mind of man, though fallen and perverted from its wholeness, is nevertheless clothed and ornamented with God’s excellent gifts. If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God. For by holding the gifts of the Spirit in slight esteem, we contemn and reproach the Spirit himself. What then? Shall we deny that the truth shone upon the ancient jurists who established civic order and discipline with such great equity? Shall we say that the philosophers were blind in their fine observation and artful description of nature? Shall we say that those men were devoid of understanding who conceived the art of disputation and taught us to speak reasonably? Shall we say that they are insane who developed medicine, devoting their labor to our benefit? What shall we say of all the mathematical sciences? Shall we consider them the ravings of madmen? No, we cannot read the writings of the ancients on these subjects without great admiration. We marvel at them because we are compelled to recognize how preeminent they are. But shall we count anything praiseworthy or noble without recognizing at the same time that it comes from God? Let us be ashamed of such ingratitude, into which not even the pagan poets fell, for they confessed that the gods had invented philosophy, laws, and all useful arts. Those men whom Scripture, calls ‘natural men’ were, indeed, sharp and penetrating in their investigation of inferior things. Let us, accordingly, learn by their example how many gifts the Lord left to human nature even after it was despoiled if its true [spiritual] good.”

– John Calvin, Book 2, Chapter 2 of the Institutes, pgs. 273-74

Isn’t it amazing how something granted to man as a gracious and merciful gift (to sinners even) could be taken and used in the service of defaming and ruining His name and honor nowadays? One more example of the total depravity of man.

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