Posted by Harry on February 1, 2010
Faith is the means or instrument by which a person is saved. Christians are justified before God by faith (Rom. 3:26; 4:1–5; Gal. 2:16), and by faith they live their lives (2 Cor. 5:7) and sustain their hope (Heb. 10:35–12:3).
Faith cannot be defined in subjective terms, as a feeling or optimistic decision. Neither is it a passive orthodoxy. Faith is a response, directed toward an object and defined by what is believed. Christian faith is trust in the eternal God and His promises secured by Jesus Christ. It is called forth by the gospel as the gospel is made understandable through the gracious work of the Holy Spirit. Christian faith is a personal act, involving the mind, heart, and will, just as it is directed to a personal God, and not an idol or an idea.
It is usual to analyze faith as involving three steps: knowledge, agreement, and trust. First is knowledge, or acquaintance with the content of the gospel; second is agreement, or recognition that the gospel is true; and third is trust, the essential step of committing the self to God. These steps go together in the sense that there can be Christian faith only when the gospel is known and its truth is accepted (Rom. 10:14). Calvin defined faith as “a firm and sure knowledge of the divine favor towards us, founded on the truth of a free promise in Christ, and revealed to our minds and sealed on our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Calvin, Institutes III.2.7).
Through faith we receive Christ, who satisfied the law on our behalf. In this way we are justified through faith alone, without doing the works of the law. But since faith unites us with Christ, it cannot be lifeless. Directed toward God and resting in Him, it is active, “working through love” (Gal. 5:6), seeking to do all the “good works, which God prepared beforehand” for us (Eph. 2:10). Justification is by faith alone, but justifying faith can never be alone.
When James says that faith without works is dead, he is describing a faith that knows the gospel and even agrees with it, but has fallen short of trust in God. Failure to grow, develop, and bear the fruits of righteousness shows that the free gift of God in Christ has never been received. The answer for those with such a faith is not to save themselves by establishing a righteousness of their own, as if they could create faith by their own efforts, but to call on the name of the Lord (Rom. 10:13). God alone can save those for whom it is otherwise impossible (Mark 10:27). Paul shows that good works cannot break this impossibility; James shows that the faith required is faith that rests in the living God.
Even when we have believed, the good works we do are never perfect. They are acceptable to God only because of the mercy of Christ (Rom. 7:13–20; Gal. 5:17). We express our love for God through doing what pleases Him, and He in His kindness promises to reward us for what we do (Phil. 3:12–14; 2 Tim. 4:7, 8). In this we are not making God our debtor, any more than when we first believed in Him. As Augustine noted, God in rewarding us is graciously crowning His own gracious gifts.
- Whitlock, L. G., Sproul, R. C., Waltke, B. K., & Silva, M. (1995). Reformation study Bible, the : Bringing the light of the Reformation to Scripture : New King James Version. Nashville: T. Nelson.
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Posted by Harry on January 30, 2010
All people are naturally inclined to some form of religion, yet they fail to worship their Creator, whose general revelation makes Him universally known. Sinful egoism and aversion to our Creator’s claims have driven humanity into idolatry, the error of giving worship and homage to any power or object other than God (Is. 44:9–20; Rom. 1:21–23; Col. 3:5). In their idolatry, apostate humans “suppress the truth” and have “changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things” (Rom. 1:18, 23). They smother and quench, as far as they can, the awareness that general revelation provides of the transcendent Judge and Creator, and they transfer the ineradicable sense of deity to unworthy objects. This in turn leads to drastic moral decline and misery, as a first manifestation of God’s wrath against apostasy (Rom. 1:18, 24–32).
God will not allow human beings to suppress entirely their sense of God and of His judgment. Some sense of right and wrong, as well as of accountability to God, always remains. Even in the fallen world everyone is endowed with a conscience that from time to time condemns them, telling them that they ought to suffer for wrongs they have done. When conscience speaks in these terms it speaks with the voice of God.
In one sense, fallen humanity does not know God, since what people believe about the objects of their worship falsifies and distorts the truth about God. In another sense all human beings do know God, but in guilt, with uncomfortable inklings of the judgment they cannot avoid. Only the gospel of Christ can speak peace to this aspect of the human condition.
- Whitlock, L. G., Sproul, R. C., Waltke, B. K., & Silva, M. (1995). Reformation study Bible, the : Bringing the light of the Reformation to Scripture : New King James Version. Nashville: T. Nelson.
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Posted by Harry on January 23, 2010
One of the most striking evidences of sinful human nature lies in the universal propensity for downward drift. In other words, it takes thought, resolve, energy, and effort to bring about reform. In the grace of God, sometimes human beings display such virtues. But where such virtues are absent, the drift is invariably toward compromise, comfort, indiscipline, sliding disobedience, and decay that advances, sometimes at a crawl and sometimes at a gallop, across generations.
People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.
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Posted by Harry on January 11, 2010
. . . Genesis 12, marks a turning point in God’s unfolding plan of redemption. From now on, the focus of God’s dealings is not scattered individuals, but a race, a nation. This is the turning point that makes the Old Testament documents so profoundly Jewish. And ultimately, out of this race come law, priests, wisdom, patterns of relationships between God and his covenant people, oracles, prophecies, laments, psalms—a rich array of institutions and texts that point forward, in ways that become increasingly clear, to a new covenant foretold by Israel’s prophets.
Even in this initial covenant with Abram, God includes a promise that already expands the horizons beyond Israel, a promise that repeatedly surfaces in the Bible. God tells Abraham, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (12:3). Lest we miss its importance, the book of Genesis repeats it (18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14). A millennium later, the same promise is refocused not on the nation as a whole, but on one of Israel’s great kings: “May his name endure forever; may it continue as long as the sun. All nations will be blessed through him, and they will call him blessed” (Ps. 72:17). The “evangelical prophet” often articulates the same breadth of vision (e.g., Isa. 19:23–25). The earliest preaching in the church, after the resurrection of Jesus, understood that the salvation Jesus had introduced was a fulfillment of this promise to Abraham (Acts 3:25). The apostle Paul makes the same connection (Gal. 3:8).
Even when the passage in Genesis is not explicitly cited, the same stance—that God’s ultimate intentions were from the beginning to bring men and women from every race into the new humanity he was forming—surfaces in a hundred ways. In fact, quite apart from this passage, two of the three remaining passages in today’s readings point in the same direction. In Matthew 11:20–24, Jesus makes it clear, in disturbing language, that on the last day pagan cities, though punished, may be punished less severely than the cities of Israel who enjoyed the unfathomable privilege of hearing Jesus for themselves, and seeing his miracles, but who made nothing of it. His own invitation is broad: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). And in Acts 11, Peter recounts his experiences with Cornelius and his household to the church in Jerusalem, leading them to conclude, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life” (Acts 11:18).
Christ receives the unrestrained praise of heaven, because with his blood he purchased people for God “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9; see meditation for December 15).
- Carson, D. A. (1998). For the love of God : A daily companion for discovering the riches of God’s Word. Volume 1. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.
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Posted by Harry on January 7, 2010
GENESIS 2:1-16; 3:22-24 “Out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden” (2:9).
- Genesis 1-3 and its account of creation and the fall lays the foundation for the entire history of redemption, so we should not be surprised to see many of the themes introduced in these chapters recur again and again.
- The Tree of Life introduced in 2:9 is one such theme that is developed throughout the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New.
- Before we look at the Tree of Life in particular, we should note some of the ways the Bible understands trees in general.
- Trees are often used in Scripture as symbols of life, particularly life that is considered full.
- The fruitfulness of righteous people, for example, is likened to a tree filled with life (Prow. 11:30), and the fullness of life and honor is also associated with righteousness (21:21).
- Moreover, the Old Testament also uses trees as metaphors for the life that God gives, especially since trees remain perpetually green in the arid climate of the Middle East and thus, in a certain sense, “eternally alive” (Jer. 17:7- 8).
- Given these realities, it is easy to see why the Lord chose to supply life to His people by means of the Tree of Life while they lived in the garden of Eden (Gen. 2:9).
- Apparently, immortality was the gift to anyone who regularly ate the fruit of the tree (3:22) and, as one commentator notes, the Tree of Life was also an early means of sacramental communication between God and His people.
- The tree was a physical means of conducting a spiritual transaction, the very essence of a sacrament.
- As long as Adam and Eve ate of the tree they had life, and they had access to the tree because before sin they were in a right relationship with God.
- While they trusted His wisdom and obeyed His command not to eat of the forbidden fruit, our first parents could eat freely of the tree that gives life (2:16-17; 3:22-24).
- Their trust in God’s promises, signified by their eating of the proper tree and not the forbidden fruit, maintained their place in Eden and consequently, their life of blessedness.
- Of course, we know that Adam and Eve failed and they and their descendants were barred from eating the Tree of Life (3:24).
- Cut off from the Lord’s presence and His life-giving tree, their deed plunged all of us into darkness and death, and all people have been trying since that day to find their way back to Eden. +
- from Tabletalk Magazine, January 2010
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Posted by Harry on January 6, 2010
Hands down, Matthew 7:1 is the most frequently quoted Bible verse today: “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged.” It’s been twisted to mean we can’t say someone’s action or lifestyle is wrong. However, when someone says, “Don’t judge,” he’s judging you for judging someone else. You’ve done wrong by saying someone else has done wrong! Clearly, we can’t escape making moral judgments. Furthermore, in the same context of the oft-quoted verse, Jesus made a moral judgment about certain persons, using metaphors about “dogs” and “pigs” (Mt 7:6), stressing that we shouldn’t continue to present God’s grace to those who persistently scoff and ridicule. At some point we must shake the dust off our feet and move on to the more receptive (Mt 10:14; Ac 13:51). On the other hand, Jesus commanded, “Stop judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to righteous judgment” (Jn 7:24, emphasis added).
How do we resolve the apparent tension? By taking note of the spirit in which we make judgments. Do we think we’re superior (the attitude Jesus condemned), or are we assessing actions or attitudes with a spirit of humility and concern, recognizing our own weaknesses (1 Co 10:13; Gl 6:1)? In Matthew 7:5, Jesus told us first to examine ourselves (removing the log from our own eye), then we can help our brother or sister (taking the speck out of his or her eye). So there is a problem to be dealt with—but only after self-examination. The wrong kind of judging is condemning. The right kind of judging is properly evaluating moral (or doctrinal) matters with a humble, helpful attitude. (In 1 Co 5:5, “judging”—even excommunicating—is required in light of a church member’s shameless sexual misconduct.) We should treat others the way we would want to be treated (cp. Mt 7:12), thinking, There—but for the grace of God—go I.
So when discussing judging with others, first clarify what you mean by the word “judge.” This can serve as the context for clarifying right and wrong kinds of judgment. Further, we must take care to avoid the “Who am I to say So-and-So is wrong?” mentality. We can’t shrink from making moral judgments, nor can we escape them—lest we declare it wrong to say another is wrong.
- by Paul Copan
- Cabal, T., Brand, C. O., Clendenen, E. R., Copan, P., Moreland, J., & Powell, D. (2007). The Apologetics Study Bible: Real Questions, Straight Answers, Stronger Faith (1417). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
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Posted by Harry on January 5, 2010
- Of all recorded Old Testament saints, only Enoch and Elijah did not experience physical death (2 Kin. 2:1–12; Heb. 11:5).
- That God “took” Enoch obliquely describes his ascension to heaven (cp. Heb 11:5)
- He alone in this genealogy avoided death, thereby reflecting the hope that death was not inevitable
- The statement in Jn 3:13 that “no one has ascended into heaven” except the Son of Man refers in context to the acquisition of spiritual truth, not to physical ascension as with Enoch and Elijah (2 Kg 2:11)
- If Nicodemus cannot understand the spiritual significance of Jesus’ teaching when He uses an earthly analogy (spiritual birth), he cannot understand the things of heaven where there is no analogy (Jn 3:12)
- The Apologetics Study Bible: Real Questions, Straight Answers, Stronger Faith (13). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
- God does not want us to shut our eyes to the effects of our sin, to the inevitability of death
- Nevertheless, this chapter includes one bright exception: “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away” (Gen. 5:24)
- It is almost as if God is showing that death is not ontologically necessary; that those who walk with God one day escape death; that even for those who die, there is hope—in God’s grace—of life beyond our inevitable death
- But it is tied to a walk with God
- It will take the rest of the Bible to unpack what that means
- Carson, D. A. (1998). For the love of God : A daily companion for discovering the riches of God’s Word. Volume 1. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.
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Posted by Harry on January 4, 2010
What informs your understanding of the world around you? Do you seek meaning and value from the surrounding culture or do you look to God’s Word to give you these things? The worldview of the cultures in which we live can powerfully shape our understanding of what is good, true, and beautiful, but Scripture is to judge which of these beliefs are true and which are false. Let us look to God’s Word to define the meaning and purpose for our lives.
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Posted by Harry on January 3, 2010
I was meant to live for something vastly bigger than myself. I was created to live for God — His kingdom and His glory. I was designed to get my identity, meaning and purpose, and my inner sense of well-being vertically. I was made to get my reason for doing what I am doing and my rest in the middle of doing it from God. But sin causes every one of us to live for ourselves, that is, to shrink our lives to the size of our lives. Sin causes us to reduce the field of our dreams and concerns down to our wants, our needs, and our feelings. Sin makes us scarily self-focused, self-absorbed, and self-motivated.What does this have to do with worry? Everything! As a result of sin, no longer do we attach our inner peace to a God who is the definition of wisdom, power, and love and who will never, ever change. No, without realizing what we have done, we begin to look for identity, meaning and purpose, and our inner sense of well-being horizontally. We look to the broken and ever-changing situations and relationships of this fallen world for our purpose and our inner rest. Things that were not designed to give us peace and over which we have no control become our replacement messiahs. We ask them to do for us what only God is able to do. You see, here is what happens: important things (like family, work, housing, money, etc) become all too important to us because they become the places we look to for rest. When they do, they not only do not give us rest, they become the reason for the endless cycles of worry, anxiety, and fear that, frankly, are in the daily lives of too many believers. Your job is important, but it must not be your source of identity, and when it is, it becomes the cause of endless anxiety. Your marriage or friendships are important, but they must not be the place you look for inner peace. Here’s what Scripture moves us to say. Worry that drives or paralyzes us reveals more about what is inside of us than what is outside of us. . . This battle is about whether our hearts will be effectively and functionally ruled by the kingdom of God or the kingdom of self.
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Posted by Harry on January 3, 2010
What is noteworthy in this drama, is that God never directly answers Job’s questions. He doesn’t say, “Job, the reason you have suffered is for this or for that.” Rather, what God does in the mystery of the iniquity of such profound suffering, is that He answers Job with Himself. This is the wisdom that answers the question of suffering — not the answer to why I have to suffer in a particular way, in a particular time, and in a particular circumstance, but wherein does my hope rest in the midst of suffering.
The answer to that comes clearly from the wisdom of the book of Job that agrees with the other premises of the wisdom literature: the fear of the Lord, awe and reverence before God, is the beginning of wisdom. And when we are befuddled and confused by things that we cannot understand in this world, we look not for specific answers always to specific questions, but we look to know God in His holiness, in His righteousness, in His justice, and in His mercy. Therein is the wisdom that is found in the book of Job.
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Posted by Harry on January 3, 2010
- Many OT events and institutions, usually related to Israel, foreshadow something greater in Christ and the new community
- NT writers (and Jesus) interpreted the OT in a Christo-centric manner: Jesus is the embodiment or completer of foreshadowed OT historical events, images, and personages
- While fulfillment includes literal predictions of Christ and the new covenant, it goes far beyond to a richer theological embodiment of what the OT foreshadowed
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Posted by Harry on December 30, 2009
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Posted by Harry on December 30, 2009
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Posted by Harry on December 27, 2009
Famous evangelical apologist changes his mind
- RC Sproul says he is now a six-day, young-earth creationist.
- For many years R.C. Sproul publicly advocated a non-literal reading of the opening chapters of Genesis. But not any more.
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Posted by Harry on October 22, 2009
LORD, HIGH AND HOLY, MEEK AND LOWLY,
Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.
Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.
Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine;
Let me find thy light in my darkness,
thy life in my death,
thy joy in my sorrow,
thy grace in my sin,
thy riches in my poverty,
thy glory in my valley.
- From “The Valley of Vision, A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions”
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Posted by Harry on October 18, 2009
|
 Is the New Testament Text Reliable?
. . . our New Testament is 99.5% textually pure. In the entire text of 20,000 lines, only 40 lines are in doubt (about 400 words), and none affects any significant doctrine.
Greek scholar D.A. Carson sums up this way: “The purity of text is of such a substantial nature that nothing we believe to be true, and nothing we are commanded to do, is in any way jeopardized by the variants.”
This issue is no longer contested by non-Christian scholars, and for good reason. Simply put, if we reject the authenticity of the New Testament on textual grounds we’d have to reject every ancient work of antiquity and declare null and void every piece of historical information from written sources prior to the beginning of the second millennium A.D.
Has the New Testament been altered? Critical, academic analysis says it has not. |
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Posted by Harry on October 15, 2009
TITUS 3:8 “I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.”
Chapter 3 of Titus began with a call for believers to “be ready for every good work” and “to show perfect courtesy for all people,” (vv. 1-2), and Paul returns to this admonition in today’s passage after providing the theological basis for his charge. Lest any of us think that it is proper to serve only those who are “worthy,” God’s willingness to redeem us when we were foolish and hateful means that we must likewise seek the best even for our enemies if we are to be imitators of Him (vv. 3-7). Sound theology, then, is not merely a collection of abstract truths about our Creator but also a ground and motivation for fulfilling the call of Jesus that we serve one another (John 13:1-17).
In grounding our good works in the trustworthy biblical doctrines outlined in Titus 3:3-7, the apostle reminds us of the relationship of faith and works in our salvation. Tenets such as the supreme manifestation of God’s goodness in Christ Jesus, justification by grace, and the hope of eternal life are all things that we must believe in order to be saved. We do not add our good works to our faith in such things in order to merit divine favor; rather, we trust in the person and work of Jesus by faith alone and good works are the fruit of such faith (see also Luke 19:1-8; Gal. 5:2-6; James 2:14-26). John Calvin writes, “the design of Christian doctrine is that believers should exercise themselves in good works,” but “faith must go before in such a manner that good works may follow.”
For us to be devoted to good works, Paul says in Titus 3:8, church leaders must insist on “these things.” But while preachers and teachers are those primarily responsible to instruct us in biblical doctrine and the discernment of those works that are truly good, all believers must also train themselves and encourage one another in right doctrine and behavior. As we do so, we produce good works that are “excellent and profitable for people.” Loving service to the world is one of the means through which the Holy Spirit attracts men and women to the gospel (Matt. 5:14-16), so may we be quick to show others our faith by our works (James 2:18).
Authentic theology motivates us to do good works and gives us the ability to discern what kind of works are truly good from God’s perspective. Oftentimes we find ourselves motivated by what feels good now, but this is short sighted; we need biblical wisdom to discern what feels good from what is good. Similarly, something is wrong with us or our theology if our studies do not lead us to help others. Knowledge without love puffs up (1 Cor. 8:1).
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Posted by Harry on October 11, 2009
“Assurance is having a confidence of eternal life which is rested upon the sure foundation of Jesus Chris, but presumption is presuming ourselves to have eternal life when, in fact, our confidence is based on nothing more than the flimsy foundation of our own self-righteousness.”
- Dr. McDowell Richards, president of Columbia Theological Seminary
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Posted by Harry on October 7, 2009
In theory we know very well the paradoxical principle that suffering is the path to glory, death the way to life, and weakness the secret of power. It was for Jesus, and it still is for his followers today. But we are reluctant to apply the principle to mission as the Bible does.
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Posted by Harry on October 2, 2009
Renewal of the mind is impossible without regeneration (John 3:3). John Calvin writes, “Meditation on the heavenly life begins with regeneration. Before we have been regenerated, our desires lean towards the world, and rest on the world.” With regeneration comes a new mind able to receive God’s truth and a new desire to do His will. This will, Paul says in Titus 2:12, includes the renunciation of ungodliness and worldly passions. The apostle is characterizing the whole of the Christian life, which is a turning from all that Scripture calls unrighteous unto the Lord and everything He defines as righteous, whether or not the world recognizes it as such. In short, Paul calls us to a life of repentance. The grace of regeneration and the affirmation of sound doctrine not only move us to deny evil but to become good . . . We must submit to Jesus as Lord and work towards self-control, uprightness, and godliness, but let us never forget that pleasing God in these areas is begun and completed by grace. Augustine comments that we dare not attribute any progress in righteousness to ourselves but to the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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Faith is the means or instrument by which a person is saved. Christians are justified before God by faith (Rom. 3:26; 4:1–5; Gal. 2:16), and by faith they live their lives (2 Cor. 5:7) and sustain their hope (Heb. 10:35–12:3).
