Theology

Sermon Notes: The Priest’s Particular Work (NT)

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

Moving from Old Testament to New, the particularity of the priestly office continues.  In fact, just as the high priest represents the 12 tribes whose names are engraved on his heart; Christ lays down his life for his church, the New Israel, those who are made new in Christ (cf. Gal 6:16; 1 Pet 2:5, 9).

Jesus Priesthood in John’s Gospel

For instance, in John, Jesus describes his atoning work as accomplishing salvation for those who believe (3:16), for all his sheep (10:14), for all his friends (15:13), and for all those God the Father has “given to him” —Jew or Gentile.  Consider Jesus high priestly prayer,

Since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him… I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours (John 17:2, 6-9).

As John records it, Jesus does not reveal himself or pray uniformly to all people.  He prays for those whom the father has given him.  In priestly vernacular, he mediates only for those whose names are written on his ephod and breastpiece.

Maybe you are thinking, can we really connect Exodus 28-29 with John 17? That is a legitimate question, so it is important to see that there do seem to be some linguistic and conceptual links between the two passages.  This is most evident in verses 16-19.

They [i. e. those whom God has given to Jesus] are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world… For their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth

In this brief prayer, there are at least two words/ideas that were used in Exodus 28–sanctify/sanctified and consecrate.  Apparently, as Jesus anticipates his atoning death, he prays to the Father for his own.  He stakes the fact that he will consecrate himself for them, which has explicit reference to his priestly work of sacrifice, so that they might be sanctified for access into God’s holy dwelling (cf. Heb 10:19ff).  This was obviously the purpose of Exodus 25-40; and so it is with Jesus, who makes atonement not in an earthly tabernacle, but in God’s heavenly temple.  And who does he make atonement for?  According to John 17, it is those people whom the father has given.  This is not a universal group; it is God’s particular covenant people.

Jesus’s Priestly Work in John’s Apocalypse

Finally, the list of names for whom Jesus represents as priest is also given in Revelation.  For instance, in Revelation 13:8, John declares that judgment is coming upon “Everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.”  In other words, God in eternity past purposed whose names would be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  Here, John is warning earth-dwellers of their impending demise, but by contrast, those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life will be saved.  Clearly, it would be inappropriate to say that this passage refers to the ephod or the breastpiece.  However, the principle is analogous.  In both the Lamb’s Book of Life and on his priestly garments are the names of those for whom Christ died.  Again, the names indicate a particular representation for a particular people.

Likewise, in Revelation 17:8, John records, “And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come.” Like the earlier verse in chapter 13, John is describing those whose names are left out of the book; but that has to imply that their are others–a countless multitude in Revelation 7–whose names are recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

Thus in both positive (the ephod and breastpiece) and negative (the book of life) terms, God distinguishes those whom the Lamb dies for, and those whom he does not.  As God’s appointed priest and sacrifice, God sends him to earth to be slain, so that by his blood he would ransom people for God “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (5:9-10).  In this way, God’s particular means of salvation are made known to all the earth; and the promise that the gospel will be universally effective is found in the fact that in every tribe, language, people, and nation, God has his chosen ones.  In this way, God’s offer of salvation can be offered to all people indiscriminately; and it has the promise of absolute efficacy, because of Christ’s perfect, priestly atonement and intercession (see Hebrews 9-10).

The Good News of Christ’s Priestly Work

This is the Good News!  Christ’s salvation cannot be revoked.  It cannot be overturned.  It will not fail.  While the Levitical priests were weak, and unable to cleanse human guilt, they did preserve the flesh.  Yet, they could never save the soul.

Not so with Jesus.  His priestly ministry is infinitely better.  For all whom he died, he effectively saved.  He is a glorious and beautiful priest!  He perfectly intercedes for all those whose name are on his vestments; he does not forget us.  We are close to his heart.  As John records, He has lost not one!  And all those who have trusted in him and repented of sin, can have glad-hearted confidence that their name is written across his heart.

May we proclaim that word all over the earth, until the priestly-king returns to reign on the earth!

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

God is a Wise Lover: A Helpful Illustration from R. L. Dabney on the Wisdom and Benevolence of God

/ davidsschrock

In his Systematic Theology, 19th C. theologian, R.L. Dabney, provides two helpful illustrations explaining how our infinitely good God can at times, for reasons left unknown to us, constrain the excellencies of his love for purposes of greater good. In the first illustration, he writes,

“For instance a philanthropic man meets a distressed and destitute person. The good man is distinctly conscious in himself of a movement of sympathy tending towards a volition to give the sufferer money. But he remembers that he has expressly promised all the money now in his possession, to be paid this very day to a just creditor. The good man bethinks himself, that he “ought to be just before he is generous,” and conscience and wisdom counterpoise the impulse of sympathy; so that it does not form the deliberate volition to give alms. But the sympathy exists, and it is not inconsistent to give other expression to it. We must not ascribe to that God whose omniscience is, from eternity, one infinite, all embracing intuition, and whose volition is as eternal as His being, any expenditure of time in any process of deliberation, nor any temporary hesitancy or uncertainty, nor any agitating struggle of feeling against feeling. But there must be a residuum of meaning in the Scripture representations of His affections, after we have guarded ourselves duly against the anthropopathic forms of their expression.

Hence, we ought to believe, that in some ineffable way, God’s volition, seeing they are supremely wise, and profound, and right, do have that relation to all His subjective motives, digested by wisdom and holiness into the consistent combination, the finite counterpart of which constitutes the rightness and wisdom of human volition. I claim, while exercising the diffidence proper to so sacred a matter, that this conclusion bears us out at least so far. That, as in a wise man, so much more in a wise God, His volition, or express purpose, is the result of a digest, not of one, but of all the principles and considerations bearing on the case. Hence it follows, that there may be in God an active principle felt by Him and yet not expressed in His executive volition in a given case, because counterpoised by other elements of motive, which His holy omniscience judges ought to be prevalent.”[1]

In this way, Dabney offers a plausible explanation of the way God’s manifold perfections may check his omnipotent love.  Some may revolt at such a display of God, but I think it preserves God’s unfathomable wisdom, his holy nature, and his absolute deity, that is over and above our own understanding.
God is God and we worship him truly only when we marvel at the depth of riches, wisdom, and knowledge.  As Paul exclaimed,
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?  For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom 11:34-36).
Soli Deo Gloria, dss

[1] R.L. Dabney, Systematic Theology (1878; reprint: Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1985), 530.

A History Lesson on Hyper-Calvinism

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

In 2006, Ergun Caner preached a message called “Why I am Predestined not to be a Hyper-Calvinist!”  His message at the Thomas Road Baptist Church confused the differences between Calvinism and Hyper-Calvinism, and finished with a deplorable illustration where Caner suggested that in heaven he would stand up and declare the rightness of his views.

For the record, in heaven, Calvinist-Arminian debates will be over and only One Person who will be standing, and it won’t be Ergun Caner.  Everyone, including Liberty’s former dean, will be bowing to the One who is the Lamb that was slain for peoples from all nations, and Christians from all soteriological persuasions.

Nevertheless, Caner’s polemical message is just one of many places where Hyper-Calvinism is confused with Calvinism, a term that Carl Truman has more recently suggested is “profoundly unhelpful” (see his article on the subject, “Calvin and Calvinism“).  It seems that more often than not, when someone denigrates Calvinism, they do so by confusing it with many of the tenets of Hyper-Calvinism.

A bit of historical clarification is in order–especially, if we care about the Golden Rule and loving others enough to understand their position.

Thus, enter Kevin DeYoung and Peter Toon. This week, DeYoung, a Michigan pastor, has proffered a brief explanation of the difference between Hyper-Calvinists and those who take seriously the Reformed doctrines of grace.  He points to Peter Toon’s book,  The Emergence of Hyper-Calvinism in English Nonconformity 1689-1765, as a helpful though dense book on the matter, and he shows a number of ways that well-intentioned but errant men slipped from the warm, evangelical Reformed Orthodoxy to the anti-evangelistic notions of Hyper-Calvinism.

DeYoung quotes Toon at length to spell out the greatest differences:

[Hyper-Calvinism] was a system of theology, or a system of the doctrines of God, man and grace, which was framed to exalt and honour and glory of God and did so at the expense of minimising the moral and spiritual responsibility of sinners to God. It places excessive emphasis on the immanent acts of God–eternal justification, eternal adoption and the eternal covenant of grace. In practice, this meant that “Christ and Him crucified”, the central message of the apostles, was obscured.

It also often made no distinction between the secret and the revealed will of God, and tried to deduce the duty of men from what it taught concerning the secret, eternal decrees of God.

Excessive emphasis was also placed on the doctrine of irresistible grace with the tendency to state that an elect man is not only passive in regeneration but also in conversion as well. The absorbing interest in the eternal, immanent acts of God and in irresistible grace led to the notion that grace must only be offered to those for whom it was intended.

Finally, a valid assurance of salvation was seen as consisting in an inner feeling and conviction of being eternally elected by God. So Hyper-Calvinism led its adherents to hold that evangelism was not necessary and to place much emphasis on introspection in order to discover whether or not one was elect. (144-45)

According to such views, most Reformed thinkers today are far, far removed from Hyper-Calvinism.  In fact, the most articulate defenders of the doctrines of grace are often the greatest champions for biblical missions and evangelism–just read Let the Nations Be Glad.  

For those who have thought much on this matter, or read blogs or books on the subject, it is often the case that there is more heat than light, and that often titles and terms are misused.  Toon’s explanation and DeYoung’s synthesis, however, provide a helpful distinction between these two historical movements in Church History.

For believers on both sides of the theological fence, rightly understanding the difference between Reformed Theology and Hyper-Calvinism is imperative for rightly dividing the Word of Truth and protecting the church from unnecessary division caused by pejorative labels and misrepresentation.

For those who have ears to hear, DeYoung’s thoughtful blog post, “The What and Why of Hyper-Calvinism” provides much help in discerning truth from error, and recognizing the difference between Hyper-Calvinists and the seriously Reformed.   It is vital reading for anyone thinking on these things.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

 

Martin Bucer on Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King

/ davidsschrock

This fall I am writing a paper on the atoning work of Jesus the Christ as (1) Prophet, (2) Priest, and (3) King and how these relate to the church and the world.  So as I come across rich quotes, I will be putting them up. I hope they will encourage any who take the time to meditate on their truths.

The first is that of 16th Century, German theologian and contemporary of Martin Luther and John Calvin, Martin Bucer.  In his commentaries on the gospels, he makes two quotes worthy of contemplation.

Christ was anointed, so that he might be our king (rex), teacher (doctor), and priest (sacerdos) for ever.  He will govern us, lest we lack any good thing or be oppressed by any ill; he will teach us the whole truth; and he will reconcile us to the Father eternally.

And again…

Just as they used to anoint kings, priests and prophets to institute them in their offices, so now Christ is king of kings (rex regum), highest priest (summus sacerdos), and chief of prophets (prophetarum caput). He does not rule in the manner of an external empire; he does not sacrifice with brute beasts; he does not teach and admonish only with an external voice.  Rather, by the Holy Spirit he directs minds and wills in the way of eternal salvation; by the Spirit he offered himself as an acceptable offering to God; and by the same Spirit he teaches and admonishes, in order that those destined for his kingdom may be made righteous, holy and blessed in all things (Quoted from the combined version of Bucer’s commentaries on the first three Gospels and on John: M. Bucer, In sacra quator evangelia, Enarrationes (Basel, 1536), pp. 9 and 606; quoted by Geoffrey Wainwright, For Our Salvation: Two Approaches to the Work of Christ [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997],104).

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Responsibly Submitting to God’s Sovereignty

/ davidsschrock

I was not convinced of God’s “exhaustive, meticulous sovereignty” (to borrow Bruce Ware’s phrase) until September 11, 2001.  I had been wrestling with the matter all summer.  Conversations piled up.  Readings on God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility proliferated.  I had entered the summer as an ignorant open theist, had been confronted by a number of friends who argued from the whole counsel of Scripture for God’s unerring and unswerving sovereignty, and by the fall I was theoretically convinced of God’s perfect control of the world (cf Psalm 115:3; 135:6; Job 42:2; Isaiah 46:9-11; Daniel 4:34-35; Ephesians 1:10; Revelations 4:11).

But to turn theory into embrace took something more.  It took two terrorist planes slamming into New York’s Twin Towers to convince my heart of the matter that “God Reigns,” and that I am not in control of my life, any more than I can control the events in NYC.

Thinking back on that infamous day, I will never forget walking up the stairs into my dorm.  I had spent the morning glued to the television watching the horror unfold in New York.  Ascending the steps, I remember telling a friend, “Unless God is totally sovereign, I do not know how to make sense of that act of terror.”

I don’t know why in that moment, the Holy Spirit impressed upon my heart the conviction of God’s sovereignty, but I can mark it to that day, that God, in his sovereign grace, invaded my heart with a love for his divine control. I submitted to his sovereignty.

Such a reaction to the claims of God’s sovereignty are not uncommon.  Many Christians I have spoken to have articulated a similar journey–from arguing against God’s sovereignty to embracing it as one of their greatest comforts.

Marking his own journey towards sovereign submission, Jonathan Edwards writes:

From my childhood up, my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God’s sovereignty…. It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me. But I remember the time very well, when I seemed to be convinced, and fully satisfied, as to this sovereignty of God….

But never could I give an account, how, or by what means, I was thus convinced, not in the least imagining at the time, nor a long time after, that there was any extraordinary influence of God’s Spirit in it; but only that now I saw further, and my reason apprehended the justice and reasonableness of it. However, my mind rested in it; and it put an end to all those cavils and objections.

And there has been a wonderful alteration in my mind, in respect to the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, from that day to this; so that I scarce ever have found so much as the rising of an objection against it, in the most absolute sense…. I have often since had not only a conviction but a delightful conviction. The doctrine has very often appeared exceeding pleasant, bright, and sweet. Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God. But my first conviction was not so (Jonathan Edwards, “Personal Narrative,” in Jonathan Edwards: Representative Selections, ed. C. H. Faust and T. H. Johnson [New York: Hill & Wang, 1962], 58–9; quoted in John Piper, Desiring God [Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2003], 38).

I suspect that anyone who arrives at delighting in God’s sovereignty, did not do so naturally.  It was aided by the Spirit of God and prompted his Word, a revelation that is filled with inescapable claims of God’s complete control.

Consider just a few: The Bible speaks of all creation existing under his and being sustained by his powerful word (Job 38-39; Psalm 135:5-7; Acts 17:27-28; Heb 1:1-2), kings and individuals are directed by God’s invisible but omnipotent hand (Prov 16:9; 21:1; Dan 4:34-35), nations, good and evil alike, accomplish his intended,though often unintelligible, purposes (Psalm 33:10-11; Isaiah 10:5ff; Habbakuk 2:1ff), and that every roll of the dice at the river boat bounces as God intends (Prov 16:33).  All things happen according to his will (Eph 1:11).  Even the world’s greatest evil–like September 11–is mysteriously governed by God (Isa 45:7; Lam 3:37-38), in a way preserves God’s absolute innocence and purity (James 1:13) and yet maintains that even the gravest tragedy will be turned for good (Rom 8:28; cf. consider the unlawful murder of Jesus, ordained by God before the foundation of the world, Acts 2:23; 4:27-28; 1 Peter 1:19-20).

Even with the testimony of Scripture mounting, embracing God’s sovereignty grates against our fallen condition.  Ingesting the fruit in the garden put within every human being a penchant from liberty apart from God.  Our innocent freedom was traded for bondage to sin (cf Romans 5, 8).  Consequently, our human nature revolts against the idea that we are not sovereign in our own lives.  We long to be God and to suppress the truth (Gen 3:1-6; Romans 1:18ff).

The irony about embracing God’s absolute sovereignty is that it does not make us robots, it makes us more human.  Men raging for their own sovereignty are less than human because they are denying the position God gave them as ‘created beings’ under his rule (cf Gen 1:26-28).  Why is this so hard to accept?  Because the effects of the fall still poisons our hearts and blinds our eyes.  The Bible renews our minds, mends our hearts, and opens our eyes to see the world not from our fallen human condition, but from God’s omniscient position.

Jonathan Edwards was exactly right: Embracing God’s sovereignty is not natural.  It is an act of submission, a denial of self, a willingness to give God back his crown.  Yet, in so doing, mankind is made most like its creator, submitting to his sovereign plan and purpose, one that is unstoppable in turning independent men and women into slaves of righteousness who find their greatest freedom in servile obedience to the King of Glory, the Lord of grace and truth.

May we humble ourselves and embrace God’s sovereignty.  Why?  Because that’s our human responsibility.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Beware of “Do-It-Yourself Christianity”

/ davidsschrock

Yesterday I preached on Galatians 2:17-21, and in my sermon I emphasized  the dangers of “Do-It-Yourself Christianity.”  I described it as the kind of Christianity that arises from a debtor’s ethic, one where someone  saved by grace tries to ‘repay’ God for his grace.  Paul adamantly opposed to this grace-nullifying kind of Christianity (Gal 2:21) and warned the Galatians and us to beware of working out in the flesh what God gives only by faith and the power of the Spirit.

Wonder if you suffer from Do-It-Yourself Christianity?  Here are ten symptoms which might indicate an emphasis on living the Christian life in the power of the flesh.

  1. If you ever pray, “God help me to be the best Christian I can be.”
  2. If you take pride that you are not like those other people.
  3. If you believe Christ died and rose again, but you do not know how those events impact your daily life.
  4. If “What Would Jesus Do?” summarizes your understanding of the Bible and Christianity.
  5. If you base your Christian faith on the “decision” you made and/or the “aisle you walked,” instead of the death Jesus died and the life he gives you by faith in him.
  6. If prayerlessness marks your daily life.
  7. If, in the words of Robert Fulghum, you learned all you needed to know about God, the Bible, and Jesus in VBS and Sunday School.
  8. If putting to death the deeds of the flesh means simply continuing to maintain the manmade barriers–no smoking, no drinking, no cussing, no long hair, etc.– instead of learning to walk by faith and love the unloveable (among other things) in the power of the Spirit.
  9. If confessing sin sounds something like this, “God forgive me for the things I have done, whatever they are.”  When the Spirit convicts, He pinpoints specific areas of sin and disobedience.
  10. If fear of doing wrong moves you to separate from ‘sinners’ and establish greater barriers to protect you from sin, instead of walking in the Spirit, praying for the lost and asking God to make you a Spirit-filled vessel whom God can use to shine light into the darkness (cf Gal 5:16).

Bottom line, do-it-yourself Christianity is trusting in yourself to continue what Christ has begun.  When you compare that mindset to that of the Apostle Paul and Jesus Christ, you will soon realize that such thinking is bankrupt of the gospel.  Gospel living is a life marked by daily repentance and fresh faith in the living and active word of God.  Salvation is not marked by checking a box, but is marked out by Spirit-produced fruit (cf Gal 5:22-23).  Sadly, American Christianity is rife with do-it-yourself Christianity.  It is a kind of religion that confesses Jesus, but denies his power.

May we repent of our self-reliance and learn to walk by faith in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

In need of the gospel more today than yesterday, dss

Gospel Reflections

/ davidsschrock

Preaching through Galatians and attending Together for the Gospel have caused me to think a lot about the gospel lately–what it is, what it is not, how to preach it to those who “know the gospel,” how to speak of it gravity and glory to those who don’t know it.

I have put down a couple thoughts on our church’s website: www.cbcseymour.org.  I pray these meditations might encourage you and more than that the gospel itself would be the source of your greatest encouragement.

Together For the Gospel: 7000 Who Have Not Bowed The Knee

God FOR Us: The Power of a Preposition

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Church Discipline?

/ davidsschrock

This Sunday, our church will meet to discuss a new church constitution and covenant.  One of the additions to the constitution is the inclusion of the important and biblical, but often misunderstood, practice of church discipline.  This Sunday morning I will be preaching on 1 Corinthians 5:1-8, addressing church discipline and why it is so important for the health of Christ’s church.

In my preparation for Sunday’s message I came across many helpful comments by David Garland on Paul’s sobering instruction to the Corinthians.  In his commentary on 1 Corinthians, Garland provides a summary of Paul’s teaching on church discipline.  If you are thinking through the subject, it is is worth reading.  

  1. Paul consider the purity of the congregation to be a serious matter, as it affects the congregation’s relationship to God and its witnesses to the world.  The immorality of church members not only undermines any grounds for the church’s boasting but also wrecks its witness of God’s transforming power to change lives.  Paul assumes that the church is implicated in the sins of its individual members.  There is no such thing as private morality (or immorality) for church members.  The sin of one tarnishes all.  Glossing over infamous sin implicates a congreagtion even more seriously in the sin.  In many cultures, what consenting adulats do in private is nobody’s business.  If they are Christians, however, it is very much the business of the church when it brings shame upon the believing community.
  2. Infamous sin cannot be swept under the rug.  The reason is that Paul understands the church body to be one lump.  The moral depravity of one element affects the moral condition of the whole group.  They are either leavened dough [i.e. pure] or unleavened dough [i.e. impure or corrupt with sin].  The sin must be confronted openly and decisively for the good of the individual and the good of the church body.  The only way to make sinners aware of the serious plight of their dire spiritual condition is through drastic discipline–the church’s complete renunciation of them.  Forgiveness can come only after this discipline has been imposed and the sinner has comprehended the full gravity of the sin and genuinely repented.  The church must be humbly mindful, however, that ‘only on the Last Day of the Lord will it become apparent what was decided on the ‘previous days of the Lord.'” [In other words, only when the Lord speaks on judgment day will the judgments of the church today be made fully manifest].
  3. The church walks a tightrope between being a welcoming community that accepts confessed sinners and helps the lapsed get back on their feet and being a morally lax community where anything goes.  The danger carrying out disciplinary measures is that the church can become judgmental, harsh, and exclusivistic.  Nevertheless, paul assumed ‘that the well-being of the community is primary and cannot be compromised.'” (1 Corinthians, BECNT [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], 180-81)

May the Lord give his churches grace, wisdom, and power to heed his word in a culture of (in)tolerance and moral chaos.  The biblical injunction for church discipline (Matt 18:15-20; 1 Cor 5:1-13) is not optional, but neither can it be operational apart from the guidance of God’s Word and the administration of Spirit-filled Christians.  As Garland later adds,

[Church discipline] has its dangers.  The church can degenerate into a defensive commmunity that regards everyone with suspicion and deals out harsh discipline.  It can lead to vain self-righteousness, a chilly exclusivism, and a spirit of suspicion.  The context [1 Cor 5], however, refers to glaring sin that is very public and brings disgrace upon the community.  There is a limit beyond which patience, toleration, and charity toward another’s sin ceases to be a virtue (190)

The balance of grace and truth, correction and compassion is a Spirit-led process.  Man-made decisions, manipulated in the flesh will not succeed.  We must be humble, prayerful, and hopeful that Christ himself will work in and through us.  And indeed his word promises that he will, “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matt 18:20).  In that promise we trust and act for the good of Christ’s church.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Thinking about the Atonement?!

/ davidsschrock

Currently, I am taking a hiatus from my doctoral studies.  Having recently moved to a new city, with a baby on the way, and learning what the daily life of a pastor looks like, I thought it best to ‘interrupt’ my studies for one semester.  Which means I have less assigned reading, but more opportunity to prepare for the messages at Calvary BC and to read up on the subject that I hope to eventually consider in my dissertation–the power of the cross and the covenantal application of Jesus blood.

With that in mind, I came across a helpful reminder from D.A. Carson on the subject in the introduction to Graham Cole’s new book, God the Peacemaker: How atonement brings shalom — I love that subtitle, by the way!  If you are thinking about the cross of Christ, especially at a level where you are trying to explain it to others, Carson’s words are worth remembering.

Even to do justice to this theme [atonement] one must attempt at least five things: (1) The way the theme of sacrifice and atonement develops in the Bible’s storyline must be laid out. (2) Equally, the way this theme is intertwined with related themes (the holiness of God, the nature of sin, what salvation consists of, the promise of what is to come, and much more) must be delinated, along with (3) more probing reflection on a selection of crucial passages.  These first three items belong rather tightly to biblical theology.  Of course, (4) how therse themse have been handled in the history of the church’s theology must not be ignored.  (5) Equally, if [any volume on the cross] is to speak to our generation, it must engage some of the more important current discussion (p.12).

May we labor together to better know, love, and tell the message of the cross.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

By Evidence or By Faith?

/ davidsschrock

If you are looking to prove the validity and authority of the Bible based on extra-biblical evidence, consider this:

For those who make their doctrine of Scripture dependent on historical research into its origination and structure have already begun to reject Scripture’s self-testimony and therefore no longer believe that Scripture.  They think it is better to build up the doctrine of Scripture on the foundation of their own research than by believingly deriving it from Scripture itself.  In this way, they substitute their own thoughts for, or elevate them above, those of Scripture (Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena, vol. 1 [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], 424).

Spirit of Christ, let those who seek the Truth, do so “believingly.”  Open eyes to see the wonders of your law (Ps 119:18).

Soli Deo Gloria, dss