New post will be to Tumblr

Hey guys, as of right now, I'm going to make the big switch to Tumblr. So, if you're just dyin' to know what I'm doing, what thoughts I have that make it out of my head to something even less concrete, then visit my tumblr blog.

I'm going to be featuring some of my favorite past blogs on that blog as I also continue to update it every now and then.

You can add my tumblr page to your rss feed by clicking here. Or just go to the page and click subscribe.

See you there.

Why I was disappointed at church Easter morning:

During the preaching of the Word and sacrement of Baptism my theological radar was set too high. I found it hard to put away my reformed six-shooter and rejoice in the gospel. I was looking too hard through my scope to find an enemy to see how the Holy Spirit was moving.

Said theological underpinnings became useless because the foundation that the Scriptures lay out are meant to support joy, not squash it.

I think there's a helpful medium. I pray, by God's grace, that I get there soon.

Sweet spot? The Bible by Chapter 3, Verse 16

Your favorite album, your second favorite album, and that album that you really hate for the most part has a sweet spot in it. If you haven't already noticed, it's track 8. Track 8, 94% of the time, is the sweet spot. I was noticing that the Scriptures have an interesting - not too serious similarity. Of course I hold to 2 Tim 3:16, but the third chapter, 16th verse of each book (where possible) seems to be quite the sweet spot. In other words, verses that we hold quite dear.

Hopfully this post will have you dig further into those passages. For a verse alone is only part of a whole idea being communicated. So, dig in, drink deep and be satisfied. Enjoy!
====================

Genesis
 To the woman he said,

"I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; 
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you."

Exodus
Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, "I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt,

Leviticus
And the priest shall burn them on the altar as a(A) food offering with a pleasing aroma.(B) All fat is the LORD’s.

Numbers
So Moses listed them according to the word of the LORD, as he was commanded.

Deutoronomy
and to the Reubenites and the Gadites I gave the territory from Gilead as far as the Valley of the Arnon, with the middle of the valley as a border, as far over as the river Jabbok, the border of the Ammonites;

Joshua
the waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap very far away, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, and those flowing down toward the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. And the people passed over opposite Jericho.

Judges
1And Ehud made for himself a sword with two edges, a cubit in length, and he bound it on his right thigh under his clothes.

Ruth
And when she came to her mother-in-law, she said, "How did you fare, my daughter?" Then she told her all that the man had done for her,

1 Samuel
But Eli called Samuel and said, "Samuel, my son." And he said, "Here I am."

2 Samuel
But her husband went with her, weeping after her all the way to Bahurim. Then Abner said to him, "Go, return." And he returned.

1 Kings
Then two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him.

2 Kings
And he said, "Thus says the LORD, 'I will make this dry streambed full of pools.'

1 Chronicles
The descendants of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son, Zedekiah his son;

2 Chronicles
He made chains like a necklace and put them on the tops of the pillars, and he made a hundred pomegranates and put them on the chains.

Ezra (3.13)
...so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.

Nehemiah
After him Nehemiah the son of Azbuk, ruler of half the district of Beth-zur, repaired to a point opposite the tombs of David, as far as the artificial pool, and as far as the house of the mighty men.

Esther (3:15)
The couriers went out hurriedly by order of the king, and the decree was issued in Susa the citadel. And the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was thrown into confusion.

Job
Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child,

as infants who never see the light? 

Psalm (3:8)
Salvation belongs to the LORD;
your blessing be on your people!
Selah 
 
Proverbs
Long life is in her right hand;

in her left hand are riches and honor.
 
Eccelesiates
Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness.

Song of Solomon
Go out, O daughters of Zion,

and look upon King Solomon,
with the crown with which his mother crowned him
on the day of his wedding,
on the day of the gladness of his heart. 

Isaiah
The LORD said: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty

and walk with outstretched necks,
glancing wantonly with their eyes,
mincing along as they go,
tinkling with their feet, 

Jeremiah
And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, declares the LORD, they shall no more say, "The ark of the covenant of the LORD." It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made again.

Lamentations
He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
and made me cower in ashes; 
 
Ezekiel
And at the end of seven days, the word of the LORD came to me:

Daniel
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.


Hosea (3:5)
Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days.

Joel
The LORD roars from Zion,

and utters his voice from Jerusalem,
and the heavens and the earth quake.
But the LORD is a refuge to his people,
a stronghold to the people of Israel. 

Amos
I will strike the winter house along with the summer house,

and the houses of ivory shall perish,
and the great houses shall come to an end,"
declares the LORD. 

Obadiah (1:16)
For as you have drunk on my holy mountain,

so all the nations shall drink continually;
they shall drink and swallow,
and shall be as though they had never been. 

Jonah (3:10)
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

Micah (3:12)
Therefore because of you

Zion shall be plowed as a field;
Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,
and the mountain of the house a wooded height.

Nahum
You increased your merchants

more than the stars of the heavens.
The locust spreads its wings and flies away.

Habakkuk
I hear, and my body trembles;

my lips quiver at the sound;
rottenness enters into my bones;
my legs tremble beneath me.
Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble
to come upon people who invade us.

Zephaniah
On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:"Fear not, O Zion;

let not your hands grow weak.

Haggai (2:16)
How did you fare? When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty.

Zechariah
In that day, declares the LORD of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree."

Malachi
Then those who feared the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the LORD and esteemed his name.

Matthew
1And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold,(A) the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him;

Mark
He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter);

Luke
John answered them all, saying, "I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

John
"For God so loved(B) the world,[a](C) that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not(D) perish but have eternal life.

Acts
And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.

Romans
in their paths are ruin and misery,

1 Corinthians
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?



2 Corinthians
But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

Galations
Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, "And to offsprings," referring to many, but referring to one, "And to your offspring," who is Christ.



Ephesians
that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

Phillipians
Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

Colossians
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

1 Thessalonians (3:13)
so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

2 Thessalonians
Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.

1 Timothy
Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:

He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

2 Timothy
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

Titus (3:15)
All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith.



Phelemon (1:16)
no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. 

Hebrews
For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?

James
For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.


1 Peter
having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

2 Peter
as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

1 John
By this we know love, that(A) he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 

2 John (1:13)
The children of your elect sister greet you.

3 John (1:15)
Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends, every one of them.


Jude
Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

Revelation
So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.
====================

Ladies and Gents, Tommy Emmanuel

This morning's Scripture: Proverbs 1

The Beginning of Knowledge
1 The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:
2 To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
3 to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
4 to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
6 to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.

The Enticement of Sinners
8 Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,
and forsake not your mother’s teaching,
9 for they are a graceful garland for your head
and pendants for your neck.
10 My son, if sinners entice you,
do not consent.
11 If they say, "Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood;
N let us ambush the innocent without reason;
12 like Sheol let us swallow them alive,
and whole, like those who go down to the pit;
13 we shall find all precious goods,
we shall fill our houses with plunder;
14 throw in your lot among us;
we will all have one purse"—
15 my son, do not walk in the way with them;
R hold back your foot from their paths,
16 for their feet run to evil,
and they make haste to shed blood.
17 For in vain is a net spread
in the sight of any bird,
18 but these men lie in wait for their own blood;
they set an ambush for their own lives.
19 Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain;
it takes away the life of its possessors.

The Call of Wisdom
20 Wisdom cries aloud in the street,
in the markets she raises her voice;
21 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
22 "How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
and fools hate knowledge?
23 If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;
I will make my words known to you.
24 Because I have called and you refused to listen,
have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,
25 because you have ignored all my counsel
and would have none of my reproof,
26 I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when terror strikes you,
27 when terror strikes you like a storm
and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
when distress and anguish come upon you.
28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
they will seek me diligently but will not find me.
29 Because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the LORD,
30 would have none of my counsel
and despised all my reproof,
31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way,
and have their fill of their own devices.
32 For the simple are killed by their turning away,
and the complacency of fools destroys them;
33 but whoever listens to me will dwell secure
and will be at ease, without dread of disaster."

Fighting the Accuser

From Ray Ortlund's blog:

“When the devil accuses us and says, ‘You are a sinner and therefore damned,’ we should answer, ‘Because you say I am a sinner, I will be righteous and saved.’ ‘No,’ says the devil, ‘you will be damned.’ And I reply, ‘No, for I fly to Christ, who gave himself for my sins. Satan, you will not prevail against me when you try to terrify me by setting forth the greatness of my sins and try to bring me into heaviness, distrust, despair, hated, contempt and blasphemy against God. On the contrary, when you say I am a sinner, you give me armor and weapons against yourself, so that with your own sword I may cut your throat and tread you under my feet, for Christ died for sinners. . . . As often as you object that I am a sinner, so often you remind me of the benefit of Christ my Redeemer, on whose shoulders, and not on mine, lie all my sins. So when you say I am a sinner, you do not terrify me but comfort me immeasurably.’”




Martin Luther, commenting on Galatians 1:4, “. . . the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins.”

Thoughts while mopping from 1 Cor 7:17

1 Cor 7:17 Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.

My permaresolution, if I may make up words, this year and those to come is to strive to live in this: to live in the kaleō, or calling, or vocation that God has merizō, or apportioned, or dealt to me.

Now, I think I find this an easier task than some because He has apportioned to me a beautiful wife and two mighty sons. Ok, well, they aren't yet mighty in the way I'd most like, but that's the process isn't it?

I resolve to not try to be something that the Lord as not called me to be. I'm not a famous man. Not a virtuoso guitarist. Not a multimillionaire. Not some revolutionary theologian.

I am a husband and father, a redeemed sinner, a working man, a small-time musician, a theologian in desperate need of grace.

There you have it. My first post for the year. I'm getting a bit slow to post on this blog, but I'm sure it ramp up eventually. I've got to have some time, sometimes. Right? We'll see...

Lloyd-Jones (and more) on Fighting Spiritual Depression:

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression, p. 35:

Would you like to be rid of this spiritual depression?

The first thing you have to do is to say farewell now once and forever to your past.
Realize that it has been covered and blotted out in Christ.
Never look back at your sins again.
Say: ‘It is finished, it is covered by the Blood of Christ’.
That is your first step.
Take that and finish with yourself and all this talk about goodness, and look to the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is only then that true happiness and joy are possible for you.
What you need is not to make resolutions to live a better life, to start fasting and sweating and praying.
No! You just begin to say:

I rest my faith on Him alone
Who died for my transgressions to atone.

(HT: David Mathis)

Here’s the “one thing” Paul wanted to do: “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13-14).

Also remember this rule from Robert Murray M’Cheyne:

For one look at yourself,
take ten looks at Christ!

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Did Christmas Happen, what does it mean? The Scriptures vs culture:

Check out this short film by St. Helen's Bishopgate in London. It has cliips from NT Scholar Paul Barnett describing the solid foundation laid by the gospels. And it contrasts the gospel account against street interviews about the meaning of Christmas.



That's Christmas (Short Film) HD from St Helen’s Church on Vimeo.

HT: Justin Taylor

Scriptures: God's Self-disclosure >

Great article from the Resurgence.com:

Interpretation Matters

John Calvin was not only concerned about the authority of Scripture, but also with true interpretation of Scripture and its proper use in the church. To be sure, one must begin with the authority and inspiration of Scripture: “Hence the Scriptures obtain full authority among believers only when men regard them as having sprung from heaven, as if there the living words of God were heard” (Institutes). However, according to Calvin, asserting the authority and inspiration of Scripture is not enough unless interpreters of Scripture, according to their ability, supply weapons to fight against false teachings.

Doctrine and Biblical Languages

Calvin dedicated his life to the restoration of the teaching of Scripture to the church and to the training of future interpreters of Scripture, so that all Christians might be brought to the true knowledge of God and Christ. Therefore, in his pastoral training he insisted that pastors be well grounded in both doctrine and biblical languages. In parallel with the training of pastors, he saw the two key responsibilities of pastors as teaching doctrine through the catechisms and preaching through books of the bible.

Accessibility to the Uneducated

In all of this, Calvin’s aim was to help make the Scriptures accessible to all people. He combined his conviction regarding the divine authority of Scripture with the claim that God’s teaching in Scripture is accommodated to the capacity of the most unlearned of people. He wrote, “All I have had in mind with this is to facilitate the reading of holy Scripture for those who are humble and uneducated” (Preface to Chrysostom’s Homiletics).

The Illumination of the Spirit

However, one cannot accept the Scripture’s author nor interpret it correctly without the illumination of the Holy Spirit: “For as God alone can properly bear witness to his own words, so these words will not obtain full credit in the hearts of men, until they are sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit, therefore, who spoke by the mouth of the prophets, must penetrate our hearts, in order to convince us that they faithfully delivered the message with which they were divinely entrusted” (Institutes).
Calvin argues that humans can have knowledge of God only because God first condescends and accommodates to human capacity to reveal to humans the truth about God. God takes on human nature and reveals through human words. According to Calvin, the self-disclosure of God is founded in the self-manifestation of God in the person of Jesus Christ and Scripture.

Scriptures Testify to Christ

According to Calvin, once Scripture sets forth the self-disclosure of the Creator, in the works God does in the universe, it passes on to the knowledge of God the Redeemer revealed in the Mediator, Jesus Christ. Christ is visible in both the symbols and shadows in the Law and the clear manifestation of the gospel. While one must avoid the dangers of over-spiritualizing the Old Testament and overemphasizing the differences between Israel and the church, when rightly understood, all the Scriptures testify to the one God and his Mediator, Christ Jesus.

It is well...

Horatio Spafford penned the hymn, It Is Well with My Soul, after his four daughters were killed in a boating accident. Here's the penmanship of a broken man with a profound sense of hope in Jesus:

The purpose of parables

D. A. Carson preached on “The Purpose of the Parables” from Matthew 13:10-17, 34-35 in chapel at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School on October 29, 2009. Here are some notes:

Why did Jesus tell stories and use parables? Three answers are common.

1. Jesus told stories because he used them as illustrations. But that doesn’t make a lot of sense of Matthew 13:11–12.

2. Jesus told stories because he favored the enigmatic, thought-provoking, and open-ended rather than truths, propositions, and narrow-minded, modernist, foundationalist stuff like that. But it doesn’t take much reading of the Gospels to realize how many different genres Jesus actually preached in. For example, he preached using wisdom literature, apocalyptic, laments, exposition of OT texts, extended discourses, proverbs, beatitudes, one-liners, non-narratival extended metaphors, dialogue, and provocative questions. Further, Matthew 13:34–35 suggests that Jesus is trying to disclose something to them.

3. Jesus used parables in order to hide things from the non-elect, to mask the truth. Yes, there is an element of that, but Matthew 13:34–35 suggests that Jesus is trying to disclose something to them.


So why did Jesus use parables? The text suggests two reasons.

1. Jesus tells parables because in line with Scripture his message blinds, deafens, and hardens (Matthew 13:11–15). Matthew 13:14–15 quotes Isaiah 6:9–10 because Isaiah’s commission points forward and finds its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus himself. There are some audiences to whom you preach where the preaching of the word guarantees that they will not hear. Cf. John 8:45: “Because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!” Sometimes the truth itself elicits unbelief because people are so corrupt that the truth is repulsive. Cf. Acts 5:41. When people insult you, don’t get defensive. Don’t get angry. Don’t get even. Rejoice! You’re in! You’re in this long line, this trajectory, that culminates in Jesus himself. There are some people who will not believe, and if you speak the truth, you will cause them not to believe.

2. Jesus tells parables because in line with Scripture his message reveals things hidden in Scripture (Matthew 13:34–35). Matthew 13:35 quotes Psalm 78:2. The Jews of Jesus’ day did not have a category for a crucified Messiah, but those categories are in the OT. Jesus refers to “the secrets of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 13:11). A “mystery” in the NT does not refer to a “Whodunit?” It occurs 27 or 28 times in the NT and almost always is bound up with things hidden in the past in Scripture but now disclosed in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. “They’re there, but I’m going to reveal to you what has been hidden. The pieces are already there.” Hence, Matthew 13:16–17, 52.

Three Pastoral Reflections
1. We should gain wonder in worship where there is a fresh grasp of how God has put the Bible together. The Bible is not a collection of arbitrary proof-texts. The more you dig into it, the more you unpack its simplicity and profundity.

2. We should gain gratitude and humility for the gift of seeing the truth about Jesus and his gospel. We are just as perverse as others. We should never tire of being overwhelmed by the sheer privilege of grace in our lives.

3. We should gain discretion in witness where there is a hostile environment.

HT:Andy Naselli

Tomorrow's Less celebrated Holiday

Reformation Day

A day where we should remember a time when the church power of the time was shaken by the proclaimed Word of God against it's doctrines of justification. Dr. Martin Luther (left) set off this reformation of the church by nailing his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg.

Dr. Luther proclaimed a gospel of grace to the broken-hearted sinners: "God receives none but those who are forsaken, restores health to none but those who are sick, gives sight to none but the blind, and life to none but the dead. He does not give saintliness to any but sinners, nor wisdom to any but fools. In short: He has mercy on none but the wretched and gives grace to none but those who are in disgrace. Therefore no arrogant saint, or just or wise man can be material for God, neither can he do the work of God, but he remains confined within his own work and makes of himself a fictitious, ostensible, false, and deceitful saint, that is, a hypocrite" (Luther W.A. 1.183ff).

I'll be taking some time in my prayers to thank God for His gospel of grace, one that cause Dr. Luther to say, “The true treasure of the Church is the Most Holy Gospel of the glory and the grace of God” (Thesis 62).

If you'd like to read all 95 Theses, you can here.

Thanks to Resurgence for a great article.

He works, we respond, He blesses

From DG's Blog, written by Piper:

Sometimes readers of the Bible see the conditions that God lays down for his blessing and they conclude from these conditions that our action is first and decisive, then God responds to bless us.

That is not right.

There are indeed real conditions that God often commands. We must meet them for the promised blessing to come. But that does not mean that we are left to ourselves to meet the conditions or that our action is first and decisive.

Here is one example to show what I mean.

In Jeremiah 29:13 God says to the exiles in Babylon, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” So there is a condition: When you seek me with all your heart, then you will find me. So we must seek the Lord. That is the condition of finding him.

True.

But does that mean that we are left to ourselves to seek the Lord? Does it mean that our action of seeking him is first and decisive? Does it mean that God only acts after our seeking?

No.

Listen to what God says in Jeremiah 24:7 to those same exiles in Babylon: “I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.”

So the people will meet the condition of returning to God with their whole heart. God will respond by being their God in the fullest blessing. But the reason they returned with their whole heart is that God gave them a heart to know him. His action was first and decisive.

So now connect that with Jeremiah 29:13. The condition there was that they seek the Lord with their whole heart. Then God will be found by them. But now we see that the promise in Jeremiah 24:7 is that God himself will give them such a heart so that they will return to him with their whole heart.

This is one of the most basic things people need to see about the Bible. It is full of conditions we must meet for God’s blessings. But God does not leave us to meet them on our own. The first and decisive work before and in our willing is God’s prior grace. Without this insight, hundreds of conditional statements in the Bible will lead us astray.

Let this be the key to all Biblical conditions and commands: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12-13). Yes, we work. But our work is not first or decisive. God’s is. “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

The Gospel and Biblical Storyline

As said by Don Carson, edit by Justin Taylor:

God is the sovereign, transcendent and personal God who has made the universe, including us, his image-bearers.

Our misery lies in our rebellion, our alienation from God, which, despite his forbearance, attracts his implacable wrath.

But God, precisely because love is of the very essence of his character, takes the initiative and prepared for the coming of his own Son by raising up a people who, by covenantal stipulations, temple worship, systems of sacrifice and of priesthood, by kings and by prophets, are taught something of what God is planning and what he expects. In the fullness of time his Son comes and takes on human nature. He comes not, in the first instance, to judge but to save: he dies the death of his people, rises from the grave and, in returning to his heavenly Father, bequeaths the Holy Spirit as the down payment and guarantee of the ultimate gift he has secured for them—an eternity of bliss in the presence of God himself, in a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.

The only alternative is to be shut out from the presence of this God forever, in the torments of hell.

What men and women must do, before it is too late, is repent and trust Christ; the alternative is to disobey the gospel (Romans 10:16; 2 Thessalonians 1:8; 1 Peter 4:17).

This story-line, and its connection with the gospel, could be fleshed out in a number of ways. But the point is simply this: the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ makes sense in the context of this story-line and in no other.

If, instead of this world-view, this storyline, some other is adopted, the good news of Jesus Christ no longer makes sense or is so badly distorted it is no longer the same thing.

For instance, if one adopts a pantheistic world-view, then ‘sin’ takes on an entirely different configuration and there is no transcendent God to whom to be reconciled. In that case, the ‘good news’ cannot be the announcement of God’s reconciling act in the death and resurrection of his Son, by which he bore his people’s penalty.

If one adopts some naturalistic world-view, something similar could be said.

If one holds that history is going nowhere or in circles determined by impersonal fate, then the notion of final judgement and ultimate division between bliss and the abyss is incoherent—and so too the good news that Christ reconciles rebels to their Maker, prepares them for glory, enabling them even now to enjoy foretastes of the kingdom still to be consummated.

source: Evangel

God Equips and Effects

From DG's blog:

What does the blood of the eternal covenant secure for us? It secures both God’s equipping of us and the successful use of that equipment to make our lives pleasing to God.

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant,

- equip you with everything good that you may do his will,
- working in us that which is pleasing in his sight,

through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Hebrews 13:20-21)

Christ shed the blood of the eternal covenant. By this successful redemption, he obtained the blessing of resurrection from the dead. He is now our living Lord and Shepherd.

And because of all that, God does two things:

1. He equips us with everything good that we may do his will.
2. He works in us that which is pleasing in his sight.

The “eternal covenant,” secured by the blood of Christ, is the new covenant. And the new covenant promise is this: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33-34).

Therefore, the blood of this covenant not only secures God’s equipping us to do his will, but also secures God working in us to make that equipment successful. The will of God is not just written on stone or paper as a means of grace. It is worked in us. And the effect is: We feel and think and act in ways more pleasing to God.

We are still commanded to use the equipment he gives: “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” But more importantly we are told why: “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

If we are able to please God—if we do his good pleasure—it is because the blood-bought grace of God has moved from mere equipping, to omnipotent transforming.

The Beauty of Harpagmos

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (or harpagmos in Greek), but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

Phillipians 2. 4-7

I've sometimes had trouble with this passage since I didn't understand exactly what was meant by the translated word "grasped". It almost sounds like Christ didn't consider being God as something that he should or could do or be.

Upon reviewing the Greek word "harpagmos", I found that this grasping was not a reaching toward divinity with the hopes that it might be grasped. On the contrary, it conveys that Christ considered his eternal divinity (already possessed) not something to be hoarded for his own good, but was willing, for a time, to humble himself that he might redeem us. In doing this, Jesus magnifies his name among his creation while at the same time sanctifying them.

Who knew such an ugly word could convey such a beautiful meaning.

The Best, The Best, The Best

One of the best blues guitar solos I've ever heard - and I've heard a lot of them. Listen right around 2 minutes 45 seconds.

Do enjoy, peoples:

Providence Doesn't Excuse Our Wickedness

And whence, I ask you, comes the stench of a corpse, which is both putrefied and laid open by the heat of the sun? All men see that it is stirred up by the sun's rays; yet no one for this reason says that rays stink. Thus, since the matter and guilt of evil lie inherent in a wicked man, what reason is there to think that God contracts any defilement, if he uses the wicked man's service for His own purpose? Away, therefore, with this doglike impudence, which can indeed bark at God's justice afar off but cannot touch it.

- John Calvin
Institutes of the Christian Religion
Book 1, Chapter 17, Section 5