Don't Mistake Your Passion for Theological Precision

By Kevin DeYoung

Caring Enough to Be Careful

I’m glad there are people in the world—most people in the world, it turns out—who know more about cars than I do. I don’t want good-natured well-wishers to replace my alternator. I want someone who has paid careful attention to the intricacies of auto repair. I want someone who cares about precision. I want someone who knows what he’s doing. I want an expert.

To act as if no one knows more than anyone else is not only silly; it’s also a serious mistake. In his book The Death of Expertise, Tom Nichols cites a survey from a few years ago in which enthusiasm for military intervention in Ukraine was directly proportional to the person’s lack of knowledge about Ukraine. It seems that the dumber we are, the more confident we are in our own intellectual achievements. Nichols relays an incident where someone on Twitter was trying to do research about sarin gas. When the world’s expert on sarin gas offered to help, the original tweeter (a world-class “twit” we might say) proceeded to angrily lecture the expert for acting like a know-it-all. The expert may not have known it all, but in this case, he knew exponentially more than someone crowdsourcing his research online. And when it comes to chemical warfare, I’d like my experts to have as much expertise as possible.

We’ve swallowed the lie that says that if we believe in equal rights, we must believe that all opinions have equal merit. Nichols also tells the story of an undergraduate student arguing with a renowned astrophysicist who was on campus to give a lecture about missile defense. After seeing that the famous scientist was not going to change his mind after hearing the arguments from a college sophomore, the student concluded in a harrumph, “Well, your guess is as good as mine.” At which point the astrophysicist quickly interjected, “No, no, no. My guesses are much, much better than yours.”1 There was nothing wrong with the student asking hard questions, or even getting into an argument. The problem was in assuming he had as much to offer on the subject after a few minutes of reflection as the scientist did after decades of training and research.

Requiring Rigorous Thinking

We live in an age where passion is often considered an adequate substitute for precision. Charles Spurgeon once advised young ministers that when drawn into controversy, they should “use very hard arguments and very soft words.”2 It’s a good thing Spurgeon never used social media! Too many tweets and posts specialize in overly hard words and especially soft arguments.

Many of us, even Christians, have little patience for rigorous thinking and little interest in careful definition. We emote better than we reason, and we describe our feelings better than we define our words, which is one reason we need to study old confessions written by dead people. Whatever errors of harshness or exaggerated rhetoric may have existed in earlier centuries of theological discourse, this much is wonderfully and refreshingly true: they were relentlessly passionate about doctrinal truth. They cared about biblical fidelity. They cared about definitions. And they cared about precision. Praise God, they cared enough to be careful. And in no Reformation-era confession or catechism do we see this so clearly as in the Canons of Dort.

Notes:

1. Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017), 82–83.

2. C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, Complete and Unabridged (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1979), 173.

This article is adapted from Grace Defined and Defended: What a 400-Year-Old Confession Teaches Us about Sin, Salvation, and the Sovereignty of God by Kevin DeYoung.

Posted at: https://www.crossway.org/articles/dont-mistake-your-passion-for-theological-precision/

Salvation by Propitiation

 Kevin DeYoung  

There are many biblical ways to describe Christian salvation.

Salvation can be understood ritually as a sacrifice, as the expiation of guilt through the death of Christ on the cross.

Salvation can be understood commercially as redemption, as a payment made through the blood of Christ for the debt we owe because of sin.

Salvation can be understood relationally as reconciliation, as the coming together of estranged parties by means of Christ’s at-one-ment.

Salvation can be understood legally as justification, as the declaration that sins have been forgiven and that the sinner stands blameless before God because of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.

There is, of course, more that can be said about salvation. But each description above captures something important about the nature of Christ’s saving work.

And each description holds together because the death of Christ is—not over and above these images, but inherent and essential to these images—a propitiation.

Propitiation is used in the New Testament to describe the pacifying, placating, or appeasing of God’s wrath. The easiest way to remember the term is that in propitiation God is made pro-us. Unlike expiation, propitiation has a relational component to it. Christ’s death not only removed the moral stain of sin; it also removed the personal offense of sin.

The English word propitiation comes from the hilasmos word group in Greek and almost always refers in the ancient world (when applied to God) to appeasing or averting divine anger. The root word is used several times in the New Testament—as hilasmos (1 John 2:2; 4:10), as hilaskomai (Heb. 2:17; Luke 18:13), and as hilasterion (Rom. 3:25; Heb. 9:5). The term is clearly a biblical word and a biblical concept.

Over the years, many have objected to propitiation, arguing that notions of God’s anger are not befitting a God of love. Critics think propitiation makes God rather like some petty, blood-thirsty pagan deity who must be bought off with a bribe. But God’s wrath is not arbitrary and capricious; it is part of his immutable justice and holiness. In the Old Testament there are more than 20 different words used to express Yahweh’s wrath, totaling more than 580 occurrences. And with John the Baptist’s warning about the wrath to come (Matt. 3:7), Jesus’s declaration that wrath remains on the unbelieving sinner (John 3:36), and John’s imagery of the wrath of the Lamb (Rev. 6:16), we cannot make the New Testament a “good cop” to the Old Testament’s supposed “bad cop.”

The wrath of the biblical God is distinct from the peeved god of the pagans in at least three ways.

(1) The God of the Bible is eternal and immutable, never losing his temper, flying off the handle, or judging his creatures capriciously.

(2) The God of the Bible is not appeased by a bribe, but by his own blood (Acts 20:28).

(3) The God of the Bible, though justly angry with sin and with sinners, nevertheless sent his Son to be our propitiatory sacrifice out of love. The death of Christ did not make God love us. The electing love of God planned for the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus. “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). The God who has always been for us in eternity sent his Son in time to be the wrath-absorbing sacrifice that we might enjoy peace with God for ages unending.

Leon Morris beautiful describes propitiation in his classic work The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross:

Propitiation is understood as springing from the love of God. Among the heathen, propitiation was thought of as an activity whereby the worshiper was able himself to provide that which would induce a change of mind in the deity.

In plain language he bribed his god to be favourable to him. When the term was taken over into the Bible these unworthy and crude ideas were abandoned, and only the central truth expressed by the term was retained, namely that propitiation signifies the averting of wrath by the offering of a gift. But in both Testaments the thought is plain that the gift which secures the propitiation is from God Himself. He provides the way whereby men may come to Him.

Thus the use of the concept of propitiation witnesses to two great realities, the one, the reality and seriousness of the divine reaction against sin, and the other, the reality and the greatness of the divine love which provided the gift which should avert the wrath from me.

Because of this propitious gift, our sins can be removed, our debt can be paid, our relationship restored, and our legal status irrevocable altered. Jesus Christ is our righteous advocate (1 John 2:1), the one who turns away the wrath of God that was justly against us. And he does so—wonderfully and freely—not by pleading our innocence, but by presenting his bloody work on our behalf, so that in him we who were deserving of nought but judgment, might become the very righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21).

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/salvation-by-propitiation/

Say No to the Gospel of Self-Forgiveness

By John Beeson   

She sits in my office, tears running down her face. Two years ago her mother died in hospice while she lay asleep at home. She was trying to get a decent night’s rest after days spent at her mother’s side. “I just can’t forgive myself. I let her die alone. I knew I should have been there, but I was selfish. I can never forgive myself for that.”

Dozens have shared similar confessions with me. Does this resonate with you? What guilt do you bear? What burdens are you carrying because you can’t forgive yourself? If Christ has forgiven you, do you also have to forgive yourself?

If Christ has forgiven you, do you also have to forgive yourself?

Many are trapped because they can’t forgive themselves. My friend isn’t alone. And she feels trapped. Because she’ll never hear her mother offer her forgiveness, she feels like she can’t release herself from guilt.

What Does Scripture Say?  

Why can’t you release yourself from your sin? Is it because the weight is too much? Because you know you haven’t changed? Because the ripple effects of your sin can’t be reversed?

I have good news—such good news. You don’t need to forgive yourself, because you can’t forgive yourself.

I know, this answer sounds foreign. Our contemporary therapeutic culture tells us that self-forgiveness is not only a category of forgiveness, it’s actually the most important of them all. Writing in Psychology Today, psychotherapist Beverly Engel says, “I believe that self-forgiveness is the most powerful step you can take to rid yourself of debilitating shame.” But here’s the vital question for Christians: Can you point to one example in Scripture of someone forgiving themselves?

There is no category of self-forgiveness in the Bible. And what a freeing truth! Your shame and guilt does not depend on your ability to forgive yourself.

Two Kinds of Forgiveness

There are two—and only two—biblical categories of forgiveness: others’ forgiveness and God’s forgiveness. Horizontal and vertical.

Horizontal forgiveness marks us as Christians. Seeking the forgiveness of others is not optional. Forgiving one another is not optional. Paul writes:

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Col. 3:12–13)

It’s not enough to ask forgiveness from God; we must also ask forgiveness from those we’ve injured.

I have good news—such good news. You don’t need to forgive yourself, because you can’t forgive yourself.

As important as horizontal forgiveness is, even more fundamental is vertical forgiveness, which comes from God alone. After committing the heinous double sin of adultery and murder against Bathsheba and Uriah, David cries out to God: “Against you, you only, have I sinned!” (Ps. 51:4). How can David say this? Is he minimizing his horrifying sins against Uriah and Bathsheba?

Hardly.

David realizes that as awful as his sin is horizontally, it’s much worse vertically. He has profoundly offended his Creator—and the Creator of Uriah and Bathsheba—by devaluing one life and snuffing out another. He has offended his righteous, covenant-making God with his wicked, covenant-breaking actions.

Sing! You’re Forgiven.

But you know what David never walks through? The process of self-forgiveness. He doesn’t entertain for a second that he must forgive himself or that, once he’s sought forgiveness from God, he must self-flagellate to fully release himself from his sin. In fact, David would probably shock modern therapeutic sensibilities with how quickly he feels release. He admits that, once forgiven, he will have the audacity to sing: “Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness” (Ps. 51:14).

Have you experienced such freedom? Have you ever felt the complete forgiveness of God so deeply that you had to sing with joy?

Vertical forgiveness allows you to experience the power and release that comes through the cross—and then it sends you back to the horizontal, where you are made right in community.

Dear fellow sinners, does guilt plague you? Seek forgiveness from those whom you have sinned against. Seek forgiveness from God your Rescuer, who has purchased your salvation through the death of Jesus. And then sing! Celebrate your forgiveness. Enjoy your freedom.

John Beeson serves as associate teaching pastor at New Life Bible Fellowship in Tucson, Arizona. He attended Gordon College and Princeton Theological Seminary, and is married with two kids. He blogs at http://www.thebeehive.live/

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/say-no-gospel-self-forgiveness/

Four Things Jesus Finished on the Cross

By Colin Smith

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’  With that, he bowed his head and gave up his Spirit. (John 19:30) 

At Easter, Jesus went through the agony of his suffering, enduring all the pains of hell. He has cried out from the depths, but now he’s announcing his victory. He moves into death, not defeated, but triumphant: “It is finished.”

What did Jesus finish? 

1. The long night of his suffering 

I put this first because John described how someone held up a sponge soaked in vinegar on a stick, and the Apostle says, “When Jesus had received the drink, he said ‘It is finished.’” Matthew Henry says: 

When He had received that last indignity in the vinegar they gave Him, He said, “This is the last. I am now going out of their reach.” [i] 

This was the end of his excruciating suffering. Jesus knows suffering from the inside—more than anyone has ever known it. But he is not suffering now. He’s done with that. It is finished. He’s not in the grave either. He’s at the right hand of the Father where he intercedes for us.  

That is of massive importance for us. A suffering world needs a savior who knows about suffering. A savior who is overwhelmed by suffering, a savior who remains in suffering is of no use to us.  

We need a Savior who has triumphed over suffering. That is what we have in Jesus. He was plunged into indescribable suffering, but he was not overcome by it. He came through it and he triumphed in it.  

2. The full course of his obedience 

Remember why Jesus came into the world. The Son of God became a man to live the life you and I would have to live in order to enter heaven. Jesus lived the perfect life. There was no sin in him.

The night before he died, he was able to say to his Father, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do” (John 17:4). Spurgeon says: 

Examine the life of the Savior from Bethlehem to Calvary, look minutely at every portion of it, the private as well as the public, the silent as well as the spoken part, you will find that it is finished, complete, perfect.[ii]  

Jesus said, “I have not come to abolish [the law] but to fulfill [it]” (Matthew 5:17). Every commandment of God was fulfilled in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Throughout his life, Jesus loved God the Father with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and he loved his neighbor as himself. He’s the only person who has ever done it.

Jesus’ perfect life of obedience was now complete and he was about to lay it down, so he said, “It is finished.”  

3. The decisive battle with his enemy 

The life of Jesus was a life of suffering, it was a life of obedience, but it was also a life of conflict with our great enemy the devil. Look at the world today and ask the question: 

Where does evil come from? Why do so many marriages fail? Why do wars keep happening?  

Jesus spoke with absolute clarity about Satan or the devil. Confronting the devil was the first act of Jesus’ public ministry. The Spirit led him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Throughout his ministry we see Jesus casting out evil spirits that were holding human lives in bondage.  

The story of this conflict goes back to the beginning of the Bible. Satan tempted the man and the woman and led them into sin that caused them to lose the joys of the paradise of God.  

They got the knowledge of evil and came under the power of the evil one. That’s been our story ever since. It is the explanation of what we see in the world today.

But God promised that a Redeemer would come, saying to Satan, “You will bite his heel, but he will crush your head” (Genesis 3:15). What a picture!  

God’s promise in Eden is precisely what happened at the cross. In Christ’s death, he breaks the devil’s power:

Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 2:15)

When Jesus died, he went beyond the reach of Satan. Satan could no longer tempt him. The devil could no longer afflict him or cause him to suffer. When Jesus went into death, it was “game over” for the devil and “game on” for us. The decisive battle with the enemy had been won.  

4. The complete work of his atonement 

Jesus came to seek and save the lost. He came to give his life as a ransom for many, and on the cross he says, “It is finished.” He has borne the guilt of our sins. He has endured the punishment of our hell. The divine wrath has been spent on him. The justice of God has been satisfied in him. 

The perfect sacrifice has been offered. Complete atonement has been made. Hell has been vanquished. The condemnation has been removed.  Now the Redeemer says, “It is finished.” Jonathan Edwards wrote: 

Though millions of sacrifices had been offered; yet nothing was done to purchase redemption before Christ’s incarnation… so nothing was done after His resurrection, to purchase redemption for men. Nor will there be anything more done to all eternity. [v]

What can be added to Jesus’s redemptive work, his death and resurrection? It is finished! His long night of suffering is over. He’s no longer on the cross. The full course of his obedience is over. The decisive battle with his enemy is over.

Christ finished. You haven’t. But with him you will. 

Posted at: https://unlockingthebible.org/2019/04/four-things-jesus-finished-cross/

The Kingdom of God is for Sinners

by David McLemore

Jesus goes down by the sea and calls Levi, the tax collector, to follow him. Soon after, Jesus is sitting in Levi’s house, reclining at the table with his friends. The Pharisees want to know “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Jesus’ answer is simple: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” It’s a common-sense answer, a proverbial quote known far and wide: a doctor must go to the sick. What good is a doctor who never does? But, coming from the mouth of Jesus to the Pharisees in front of his new tax collector and sinner friends, the answer had a different slant. It posed a question even as it affirmed a truth. It was as if he was saying, “Do you understand your sickness? Do you understand the sickness of sin? Do you understand the illness of the soul? Do you understand that no good you’ve done or could ever do will remove the evil of sin from your heart? Do you understand my salvation?”

We are all diagnosed with a sickness unto death and the sinners and tax collectors he sat among saw it. They saw their sickness. So, they welcomed the Physician.

But the Pharisees didn’t. They were concerned with the optics of it all. How could a rabbi sit with those people? Jesus says he can because it’s the entire reason for his coming: to call not the righteous, but sinners. Reclining with the tax collectors and sinners, while it proved to be bad optics for his budding ministry, was the precise reason for his ministry. He was not there for those who had no need of him; He was there for those who had a great need for him.

So here’s the question we need to answer: Do we sense a personal need for Christ or do we think we’re doing fine? Do we need a Physician or can we heal ourselves?

The Bible makes it quite clear that no one is righteous, but there is a difference between affirming that biblical truth and feeling the need for a rescue. A religious person can recognize the evil inside while thinking better behavior will atone for it. But the one for whom Christ came recognizes that no good from within can atone for the sins of the heart. The Bible is screaming to us from Genesis 3 onward that we need a rescue. We need a Savior.

There are really only two types of people in this world, no matter the religion. There are those who know their need for a savior and those who see no need for one. The kingdom of God exposes both.

We see the difference in this narrative. There are two sets of people: we have Levi and his buddies on the one side and the Pharisees on the other.

What do we know of Levi? We know from other parts of the Bible that he’s also called Matthew, the author of the gospel. We also know from this passage that he was a tax collector. Tax collectors in that day were seen as unclean people. Many of them were Jews, and to get the job, they bid the amount of tax revenue they could take in to the Roman government. The open jobs went to the highest bidder. Some taxes were fixed and you couldn’t charge more than the going rate, but others had looser definitions. Tax collectors would take advantage, collecting their quota and pocketing the excess. They were traitors to the Jewish people they extorted.

The Pharisees would have nothing to do with such men. They avoided fellowshipping with such people to maintain their ritual purity and they considered reclining with those unversed in the Law, such as these “sinners,” to be a disgrace. But Jesus didn’t seem to mind. Apparently, they were the ones for whom he came. The Pharisees didn’t like that. They are the bad guys in this story, no doubt.

But is there not a Pharisee in us all?

Somewhere, deep in our heart, there is a prejudice against others. Yes, the Pharisees didn’t associate with sinners and tax collectors, but the sinners and tax collectors didn’t associate with them, either. They were of separate worlds, and that was fine with each side. In every one of us, there is a world in which we live and world in which “those people” live, isn’t there? And if “those people” were to come in this room right now, their presence would make us uncomfortable.

In God’s kingdom, there isn't "us" and "them." There’s just us and Jesus, and we have to deal with the mercy he’s shown to all. Notice Mark says the disciples were with Jesus in Levi’s house. I wonder what they thought about Levi when Jesus called him? I wonder what they thought about entering his house with all those tax collectors? Remember, the first disciples of Jesus were fishermen. They worked hard to make a living. Remember, too, that it was beside the sea working in his booth that Jesus called Levi. That must have taken the disciples back to their fishing days when they would come to shore, and a man like Levi—maybe even Levi himself—sat in his booth, taxing the fish they caught. And now here is this man among them—one who, if he himself had not extorted them, his certainly friends had. What would they do with this? What kind of rabbi is this Jesus?

Well, it turns out, he’s the kind that saves sinners. What we see in the calling of Levi is Jesus’ continued call of the unclean, unwanted, even despised people into his kingdom. Levi was not a man any other rabbi would have wanted. The Pharisees didn’t, but Jesus did! So he went and got him.

In response, Levi invited Jesus home for dinner. When you realize Jesus doesn’t just tolerate you but wants you, it changes everything. For a man cast outside the religious circles of his day, a rabbi who wanted him to follow him was unthinkable. When Jesus came along, Levi couldn’t help but invite him among his friends and Jesus wasn’t above attending.

Years later, another sinner, this time a Pharisee, would also understand Jesus. In speaking to his disciple, Timothy, the apostle Paul said that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom—notice this personal pronoun—“of whom I am the foremost.” Charles Spurgeon notes that between that word "saves" and that word "sinners," there is no adjective. It matters not that you are a tax collecting sinner or a murderous sinner or an obedient-to-tradition sinner. All that matters is that sinners are in the world and you are among them. That’s what Jesus is saying! He came for the sick; are you sick enough for Jesus?

We do not need simply better behavior; we need a rescue. We need a Savior. We need one who will dine with sinners and befriend them and that’s who we have in Jesus.

We have two options before us: we can stand at the door questioning Jesus’ methods or we can join his party raging inside. We can be like the elder boy in the parable of the prodigal son, angry that we’ve always obeyed but never received, or we can be the prodigal enjoying the welcome home. Jesus is saying, “Your brother has come. It’s fitting to celebrate and be glad. The dead are alive! The lost are found! Come, join the party.” Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

Are you sick enough for the Good Doctor, Jesus? If so, rejoice! The kingdom of God is at hand, and it’s coming for you!

Editor's Note: This post originally appeared at David's blog, Things of the Sort, and is used with permission.

David McLemore

David McLemore is part of the church planting team at Refuge Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He is married to Sarah, and they have three sons.

Posted at: https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/the-kingdom-of-god-is-for-sinners

How Bad Theology Hurts Sufferers

Article by Vaneetha Rendall Risner

Why does God answer yes to some prayers and no to others? Why does God miraculously heal some people and not others? Why does disaster strike one city and not another?

I’ve been pondering these questions since Hurricane Florence devastated much of Eastern North Carolina last year. I live in the center of the state, and contrary to the foreboding predictions, we were relatively unaffected. In response, a friend said, “I know why we were spared catastrophe and the storm circled our area and went south. I was praying that God would keep us safe and he answered my prayers!”

I had no words.

I know that God answers prayer. And we need to pray. God tells us to ask and it will be given to us (Matthew 7:7). But my friend’s words made me wonder if she thought that no one in Eastern Carolina was praying. I know people whose livelihoods were destroyed in the storm. Everything they owned was gone. They escaped with their lives but nothing material left. Some of them begged God to spare their city.

One Died, Another Lived

What are we as believers to infer from these natural disasters? Can we simply draw straight lines between our requests and God’s answers? Years ago, I heard a pastor tell of his cancer that went into remission. When he told his congregation the good news, several commented, “We knew God would heal you. He had to. So many people were praying for you.”

While the pastor was thankful for others’ prayers, he also knew God did not owe him healing. Faithful believers throughout the ages have earnestly prayed and yet not been healed. The apostle Paul was not healed to show God’s power could be made perfect in Paul’s weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

And then there was my own son, Paul, who died as an infant. We had prayed, fasted, and asked friends to pray for his healing. Several years after his death, we met a man who said when he learned of our loss, “Don’t take this wrong, but we prayed for all of our children before they were born. And they were all born healthy.” We had no words.

Why Did God Save Peter?

In considering the question of when and why God chooses to rescue, I was reminded of Acts 12 which begins: “About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. . . . So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church” (Acts 12:1–5). Peter was then rescued the very night that Herod was about to bring him out, to presumably kill him as he had killed James.

Why did God let James die and Peter live?

Peter, James, and John were three of Jesus’s closest disciples. These three were often selected to be alone with Jesus. Yet their earthly lives after Christ’s resurrection were markedly different. John was the last of the disciples to die, Peter was rescued from prison in Acts 12, but church history records that he was later martyred by being crucified upside down.

James was the first of the disciples to be martyred. The Bible records that Herod killed James with no elaborating details. We simply know that Peter was spared while James was not. What are we to make of this? Did God love Peter more than James? Was James’s life less important? Did James have less faith? Were people not praying for James?

Our Father Knows Best

Looking at the fuller counsel of the Bible, it is clear that God has plans that we do not understand. His ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8–9). Because we believe that death is just a passage into eternal life (2 Timothy 1:10), one that all of us will go through, it ultimately doesn’t matter when we pass through it. God numbers our days before they begin, and he alone determines when we will die (Psalm 139:16).

Though we often cannot understand God’s purposes in this life, we can be sure that James’s life as a disciple and his death as a martyr was intentional. Everything God does has purpose (Isaiah 46:10). Because of that, we can be sure that at the time of James’s death, he had accomplished what God had called him to (Philippians 1:6), while Peter’s work on earth was unfinished (Philippians 1:24–25).

Living or dying, being spared or being tortured, being delivered in this life or the next is not an indicator of God’s love for us or the measure of our faith. Nothing can separate us from God’s love, and our future is determined by what he knows is best for us (Romans 8:28, 35–38).

Paul understood this principle well when he said in Philippians 1:21–23, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, that is far better.” Departing this world and being with Christ is far better because eternal life is far better than life on earth. No matter what this life holds, we will eventually be deliriously happy in heaven where God has all of eternity to lavish us with his kindness (Ephesians 2:7).

Suffering Is Not Punishment

Even though I know these truths, I have often been discouraged that others have been rescued while I was still suffering. Prosperity gospel proponents have told me that if I had prayed in faith, my body would have been healed, my son would have been spared, and my marriage would have been restored. It was all up to me. If I just had the faith, I would have had a better outcome.

Their words have left me bruised and disillusioned, wondering what I was doing wrong.

But that theology is not the gospel. God’s response to our prayers is not dependent upon our worthiness but rather rests upon on his great mercy (Daniel 9:18). Because of Christ, who took our punishment, God is always for us (Romans 8:31). He wants to give us all things. Christ himself is ever interceding for us (Romans 8:31–34).

If you are in Christ, God is completely for you. Your suffering is not a punishment. Your struggles are not because you didn’t pray the right way, or because you didn’t pray enough, or because you have weak faith or insufficient intercessors. It is because God is using your suffering in ways that you may not understand now, but one day you will. One day you will see how God used your affliction to prepare you for incomparable weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17). This is the gospel. And it holds for all who love Christ.

Vaneetha Rendall Risner is a freelance writer and a regular contributor to Desiring God. She blogs at danceintherain.com, although she doesn’t like rain and has no sense of rhythm. Vaneetha is married to Joel and has two daughters, Katie and Kristi. She and Joel live in Raleigh, North Carolina. Vaneetha is the author of the book The Scars That Have Shaped Me: How God Meets Us in Suffering.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/just-have-more-faith?utm_campaign=Daily+Email&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=70927869&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-93tT14cUwkflKZi2ZYuazZsx3FJlziR57wwnSyVGIoXQunnvrG9M82Blt6RqeVIXEqnKJYP3i0Ss37ak4FadilK5N5Zg&_hsmi=70927869

A Horror of Theology

Excerpt by J. Gresham Machen

"Many Christians today have a horror of theology; they suppose it must necessarily be a cold and lifeless thing. As a matter of fact, theology is merely thinking about God. Every Christian must think about God; every Christian to some degree must be a theologian. The only question is whether he is to be a bad theologian or a good theologian. If he contents himself with his own preconceived notions, or gives free scope to his own natural feelings, he will be a bad theologian; he will soon find himself cherishing a miserable, imperfect, unworthy conception of God which makes God a mere creature of man's fancy. If, on the other hand, he makes himself acquainted, through patient study, first with the teaching of the Bible about God, then with the mighty acts of God that the Bible records, then with the Bible's explanations about these acts, he will soon be in possession of a 'theology' which will give backbone to his who religious life. There need be nothing technical about such a theology; it may not even be called 'theology' at all; it may be expressed in language that a child can understand; but whatever it is called and however it is expressed, it is absolutely necessary for a genuine Christianity. Christianity is based, not upon the shifting sands of human feeling, but upon solid facts; and the apprehension and understanding of facts inevitably requires the use of the intellect."1

1. J. Gresham Machen The New Testament: An Introduction to Its Literature and History (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth, 1976) pp. 374-375.

The Scandal and Sweetness of John 3:16

Article by William Boekestein

John 3:16 has become so familiar that we no longer find its words astonishing. But this remarkable verse reveals amazing truth that should delight us every time we hear it.

A Remarkable Claim

Jesus boldly asserts that God loves the world. God, the maker of heaven and earth, is self-sufficient and needs nothing outside of Himself. He is the Holy One whose pure eyes cannot look upon sin (Hab. 1:13). His desires are always upright, His love completely pure, and His affection never misplaced. How can such a God love the broken, sin-marred world?

In the broadest sense, the world represents the universe that God created. God loves the creation that He spoke into being. His love for the sin-corrupted world is bound up in His plan to totally restore heaven and earth (Acts 3:21).

More specifically, the world represents the human inhabitants of the earth, a race of rebels, traitors, and idolaters–objects far from deserving God’s love. Because man sinned, God would have done no injustice by letting everyone perish (Rom. 3:19). Instead, God chose to love.

The Reach of God’s Love

Christ uses the word world to show the mystery and fullness of God’s love, which is not limited to any race, region, or time. Jesus is not suggesting a universal atonement. He died for those whom God chose to believe in Him (John 6:37) and in whom He works saving faith as a gift of grace (Eph. 2:8). Still, God loves sinners and has provided a way of salvation for a vast host of fallen people (Gen. 15:5).

The Reality of God’s Love

God’s love for the world seems incongruous and far-fetched–even impossible. To believe in this love, we need irrefutable evidence. Jesus’ coming to the world is the irrefutable evidence of the Father’s love for it. People can talk about their love for others, but the proof of love is action, not words (1 John 3:18). “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

The Riches of God’s Love

God’s love is not sentimental but sacrificial. It is agape, a committed and costly affection proved through action. According to John, only one event in the history of the world is capable of demonstrating true love. He writes, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

God’s love for His people can only be understood in relation to His love for His Son. The only begotten Son is the eternal object of the Father’s affection. Twice during Christ’s public ministry, the Father shattered heaven’s silence to affirm His absolute love for His Son (Matt. 3:17; 17:5). Our love for our children is diminished by both our sin and theirs. But the love between God the Father and God the Son is perfect, personal, intimate, deep, eternal, and committed.

Christ came to earth to show us the riches of God’s love. This is the good news of Christ’s advent. In Jesus Christ, God loves His believing children with this same incomprehensible, infinite, and unchangeable love. Having sacrificed His Son for our salvation is it possible that He will now withhold from us any good thing (Rom. 8:32)? No, for Christ’s incarnation confirms that nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:39).

Adapted from Joel Beeke and William Boekestein’s Why Christ Came: 31 Meditations on Christ’s Incarnation.

https://www.ligonier.org/blog/scandal-and-sweetness-john-316/?fbclid=IwAR3DzyYR54p-4V4z0POESEqssZ-CJBY7a17qiZud26fc8zUDjqeoPgz5L-Q

It Was Your Sin that Murdered Christ!

By Tim Challies

Sometimes it does us good to consider the sheer sinfulness of our sin. Sometimes it does us good to consider what our sin has cost. Perhaps these words from Isaac Ambrose will challenge you as they did me.

When I but think of those bleeding veins, bruised shoulders, scourged sides, furrowed back, harrowed temples, nailed hands and feet, and then consider that my sins were the cause of all, methinks I should need no more arguments for self-abhorring!

Christians, would not your hearts rise against him that should kill your father, mother, brother, wife, husband,—dearest relations in all the world? Oh, then, how should your hearts and souls rise against sin! Surely your sin it was that murdered Christ, that killed him, who is instead of all relations, who is a thousand, thousand times dearer to you than father, mother, husband, child, or whomsoever. One thought of this should, methinks, be enough to make you say, as Job did, ‘I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

Oh, what is that cross on the back of Christ? My sins. Oh, what is that thorny crown on the head of Christ? My sins. Oh, what is the nail in the right hand and that other in the left hand of Christ? My sins. Oh, what is that spear in the side of Christ? My sins. What are those nails and wounds in the feet of Christ? My sins. With a spiritual eye I see no other engine tormenting Christ, no other Pilate, Herod, Annas, Caiaphas, condemning Christ, no other soldiers, officers, Jews or Gentiles doing execution on Christ, but only sin. Oh, my sins, my sins, my sins!”

These words from Joseph Hart seem fitting:

Many woes had Christ endured,
Many sore temptations met,
Patient, and to pains inured:
But the sorest trial yet
Was to be sustain’d in thee,
Gloomy, sad Gethsemane !

Came at length the dreadful night:
Vengeance, with its iron rod,
Stood, and with collected might
Bruised the harmless Lamb of God:
See, my soul, thy Saviour see
Prostrate in Gethsemane !

There my God bore all my guilt:
This, through grace, can be believed;
But the horrors which he felt
Are too vast to be conceived:
None can penetrate through thee,
Doleful, dark Gethsemane !

Sins against a holy God,
Sins against his righteous laws,
Sins against his love, his blood,
Sins against his name and cause,—
Sins immense as is the seal
Hide me, O Gethsemane !

Here’s my claim, and here alone;
None a Saviour more can need :
Deeds of righteousness I’ve none;
No,-not one good work to plead:
Not a glimpse of hope for me,
Only in Gethsemane.

Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
One almighty God of love,
Hymn’d by all the heavenly host
In thy shining courts above,
We adore thee, gracious Three,—
Bless thee for Gethsemane.

posted at: https://www.challies.com/quotes/it-was-your-sin-that-murdered-christ/

The Training Ground for Sound Doctrine

Article by Tim Challies

For over a decade, I have been reviewing books that are of particular interest to Christians. While the vast majority of the titles I have reviewed are solid works founded on biblical principles, I am far better known for those occasional reviews of the very worst  books in the Christian world. Sadly, these books that teach the worst are often the books that sell the best.

I do not relish writing such reviews. That’s partly because they meet plenty of backlash. But it’s mostly because I find writing them very sorrowful. It’s sorrowful to witness the church’s widespread theological ignorance exposed by these books’ popularity. Because Christians are not trained in sound doctrine, they wholeheartedly embrace error, often finding it more satisfying than God’s revealed truth.

We have attempted to make Christianity palatable by making it simplistic.

There are many reasons that ignorance pervades today’s church. For decades, Christians have focused on felt needs rather than doctrinal truth. We have focused on immediately-applicable topical sermons rather than verse-by-verse exposition that unleashes the whole truth of God’s whole Word. We have ceased catechizing our children, building within them a solid, systematic foundation for their faith. We have emphasized Christianity as a relationship with God at the expense of Christianity as an established body of truth. In so many ways, we have focused on feelings rather than facts. We have attempted to make Christianity palatable by making it simplistic.

While the Christian faith is much more than facts, much more than doctrines, it can never be less. Christianity is dependent upon truths that are taught by God’s Word and received by God’s people. Every Christian is responsible to learn sound doctrine, to be trained in the truth in order to discern error. Here are three means God has provided for us to train ourselves in sound doctrine.

Train Yourself in Sound Doctrine

Every Christian is individually responsible to study sound doctrine and learn it for themselves. Paul told Timothy, “If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed” (1 Timothy 4:6). Paul wanted Timothy to know that this training would be hard work: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

To know sound doctrine, we must know the Word of God, for “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Every Christian must read, study, and know the Bible and the truth it contains. King David models an appropriate love for God’s Word when he exclaims, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97). By day and by night he read the Bible, he learned the Bible, and he applied it to his life.

Christian, you must know the truth of the Christian faith. And to know the truth of the Christian faith, you must know the Bible. You must sit under the teaching of God’s Word week by week in the local church. You must ensure a habit of regular, consistent Bible intake, reading the Word, pondering the Word, and ensuring you are living consistent to it. You have access to myriad resources to help you in this—books and commentaries and web sites that will help you further understand, embrace, and apply the truths of God’s Word. Commit your life to the pursuit of the sound doctrine by a deep commitment to God’s Word.

Train in Sound Doctrine With Your Family

Parents have a sobering, God-given responsibility to instruct their children in the Word.

Every Christian is responsible to personally know and embrace sound doctrine. Every Christian parent is also responsible to teach sound doctrine within the home. Moses commanded this from the very beginning when he said, “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9). Parents have a sobering, God-given responsibility to instruct their children in the Word. This involves reading the Bible to their children, but also explaining it in age-appropriate ways and applying it to specific situations.

We see this beautifully modeled in young Timothy. Paul commended Timothy’s mother and grandmother for the way they had raised the lad to know, understand, and treasure the Word of God. Paul was able to say, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:14-15). Timothy had the inestimable privilege of spending his whole life being taught the Word and the sound doctrine it contains.

Parents, it is your solemn responsibility to instruct your children in the Word of God and in its doctrine. Familiarize them with the Word, with the story it contains and the characters it describes. But also ensure that you also familiarize them with its pattern of sound doctrine. Take advantage of the many devotionals, creeds, and catechisms Christians have created for just this purpose. Instruct your children so they, too, will know the truth.

Train in Sound Doctrine With Your Church

Just as parents bear the responsibility of teaching sound doctrine with the home, pastors bear the responsibility of teaching sound doctrine within the church. As Paul writes to his colleagues Titus and Timothy, he pleads with them to teach sound doctrine, to guard it faithfully, and to ensure its preservation by entrusting it to others (Titus 2:2, 2 Timothy 1:13, 2:2). Paul himself taught sound doctrine by instructing believers both “in public and from house to house” (Acts 20:20). In public ministry and private ministry, in big groups and small groups, Paul actively taught the people the Bible’s key truths. Paul’s most solemn charge of all was for Timothy to preach the Word and its every truth: “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:1-2).

But it is not just pastors who bear the weight of training in sound doctrine. Every church member must be rooted in truth. Paul commanded all believers in Ephesus, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.” God has provided fellow believers in the local church to admonish us in sound doctrine and to guard us against falling away from it.

When Paul spoke the word to the Jews in Berea, they “received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). Likewise, all Christians are called together to test all things according to the Scriptures. This is a noble calling in God’s sight.

Train in Sound Doctrine for a Lifetime

Training ourselves in sound doctrine cannot happen without diligence. But even as we use all of the means God has given us, training in sound doctrine cannot happen overnight. It requires small, daily investments of mornings in private study, evenings of worship with the family, and weekly faithfulness in gathering with the church. Over time, these small seeds of training will yield the fruit of righteousness.

Christian, start training in sound doctrine today. Make daily investments of faithfulness in private, with your family, and with your church. Then you will be “equipped for every good work,” ready to hold God’s unchanging truth and reject any deadly doctrine.

Posted at: https://www.challies.com/articles/the-training-ground-of-sound-doctrine/?fbclid=IwAR0b8K07gitiEuEKnyICek9MaCw3ILBquPUtW5_O_oOibIeIrJIE-D7Rj6M