Having been challenged to write a series on “How to Be a Christian,” I’ve been considering what that would look like. I confess that it is a difficult subject for me to approach. It would be easy to go down the pietistic path of “do this, don’t do that,” but a more appropriate title for that would be “How to Present a Convincing Façade of Christianity.” Certainly, there are things that Christians must do and others that we must not do. But those things are only consequential to who we are.

There are a number of passages of Scripture that more or less summarize the Christian life. You may be thinking of these words of Christ: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27, cf. Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37–39; Mark 12:30–31). You might also think of Galatians 5 (the fruit of the Spirit is . . .), or Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

Those are all fitting passages to think of in defining the Christian life. However, the first passage that comes to my mind, probably because of the old Maranatha tune, and also because I’ve had my children memorize it, is Micah 6:8:

He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?

First, we see that we have no excuse for ignorance about what is good and pleasing to God, because God has told us. And what is it that is good and pleasing to him?

1. Do justice. The meaning of this is quite simple: do the right thing. Give what is deserved; take only what is earned; pay what is owed; deal honestly and impartially.
2. Love kindness (or mercy). This requirement moderates the previous. We often encounter people who, like ourselves, deserve harsh treatment. But we are to love mercy. If we love mercy, we will forego the justice that is due us in order to show mercy to an offender; and we will do so, not grudgingly, but joyfully, knowing what great mercy we have received.
3. Walk humbly with your God. This is the big one. The previous two points are really included in this one. What are the implications of walking humbly with God? What does that mean? It means that in all our thoughts of ourselves, we will see ourselves in relation to, and in comparison to, God. That comparison will cause us to see ourselves realistically in relation to him, and to act accordingly. Our humility before God will be manifest in what we know and in what we do.
   
   We will know that
   
   
   1. Whereas God is holy, we are unholy.
   2. Whereas God is love, we are unloving.
   3. Whereas God is self-sacrificial, we are self-centered.
   4. Whereas God is entirely independent and self-sufficient, we are utterly helpless and dependent on him.
   5. Whereas God is all-knowing and all-wise, we are ignorant and foolish.
   
   And the list could go on. Knowing those things, we will
   
   
   1. Confess our sin and seek his mercy.
   2. Love him and be profoundly grateful to him.
   3. Desire to know and obey his Word.
   4. Trust his wisdom rather than our own.
   5. Be entirely dependent on him in every way.
   
   Again, the list could continue. In short, if we have a realistic view of ourselves in relation to God, we will think nothing of ourselves, and everything of God. So the whole of the Christian life is neatly summarized in that one phrase — “walk humbly with your God.”

God is love. It is appropriate that this phrase has become so well used in describing God, for God’s love is his one characteristic which explains the relationship he has chosen to have with us. But this phrase is much misunderstood and misused. It has been used to the exclusion of God’s other attributes, such as his holiness and justice. It is also used in a trite way, being equated to human affections. But, compared to God’s love, the deepest human affections are pitifully shallow.

Packer defines God’s love thusly: “God’s love is an exercise of his goodness toward individual sinners whereby, having identified himself with their welfare, he has given his Son to be their Savior, and now brings them to know and enjoy him in a covenant relation,” and explains,

   1. Gods love is an exercise of his goodness. The bible means by God’s goodness his cosmic generosity. Goodness in God, writes Berkhof, is “that perfection in God which prompts him to deal bountifully and kindly with all His creatures. It is the affection which the creator feels toward His sentient creatures as such.” (Systematic Theology, p. 70, citing Ps 145:9, 15–16; compare Lk 6:35; Acts 14:7). Of this goodness God’s love is the supreme and most glorious manifestation. . . .
    2. God’s love is an exercise of his goodness toward sinners. As such it has the nature of grace and mercy. It is an outgoing of God in kindness which is not merely undeserved but is actually contrary to desert; for the objects of God’s love are rational creatures who have broken God’s law, whose nature is corrupt in God’s sight, and who merit only condemnation and final banishment from his presence.
   It is staggering that God should love sinners; yet it is true. God loves creatures who have become unlovely and (one would have though) unlovable. There was nothing whatever in the object of his love to call it forth; nothing in us could attract or prompt it. Love among persons is awakened by something in the beloved, but the love of God is free, spontaneous, unevoked, uncaused. God loves people because he has chosen to love them . . . no reason for his love can be given except his own sovereign pleasure.
   . . .
   3. Gods love is an exercise in his goodness toward individual sinners. It is not a vague, defused good will toward everyone in general and nobody in particular; rather, as being a function of omniscient almightiness, its nature is to particularize both its objects and its effects. God’s purpose of love, formed before creation (Eph 1:4), involved, first, the choice and selection, of those whom he would bless, and second, the appointment of the benefits to be given them and the means whereby these benefits would be procured and enjoyed. All this was made sure from the start.
. . . The exercise of God’s love toward individual sinners in time is the execution of his purpose to bless those same individual sinners—a purpose which he formed in eternity.
   4. God’s love to sinners involves his identifying himself with their welfare. Such an identification is involved in all love: it is, indeed, the test of whether love is genuine or not. If a father continues cheerful and carefree while his son is getting into trouble, or if a husband remains unmoved when his wife is in distress, we wonder at once how much love there can be in their relationship, for we know that those who truly love are only happy when those whom they love are truly happy also. So it is with God and his love for us.
. . . It is not for nothing that the Bible habitually speaks of God as the loving Father and Husband of his people. It follows from the very nature of these relationships that God’s happiness will not be complete till all his beloved ones are finally out of trouble:
   Till all the ransomed church of God
   Be saved, to sin no more.
. . . 
   Thus God saves, not only for his glory, but also for his gladness. . . .
   5. God’s love to sinners was expressed by the gift of his Son to be their Savior. The measure of his love is how much it gives, and the measure of the love of God is the gift of his only Son to become human, and to die for sins, and so to become the one mediator who can bring us to God.
   . . .
   Thus, John goes straight on from his first “God is love” to say, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we love God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 Jn 4:9–10). Similarly, in his Gospel, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall . . . have eternal life.” (Jn. 3: 16). So too Paul writes, “God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinner, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). . . .
   6. God’s love to sinners reaches its objective as it brings them to know and enjoy him in a covenant relation. A covenant relation is one in which two parties are permanently pledged to each other in mutual service and dependence. (example: marriage). A covenant promise is one by which a covenant relation is set up. (example: marriage vows). Biblical religion has the form of covenant relation with God. . . .
   All Christians inherit this promise through faith in Christ, as Paul argues in Galatians 3:15–29. What does it mean? it is truth in a pantechnicon promise: it contains everything. “This is the first and fundamental promise,” declared Sibbes, the Puritan; “indeed, it is the life and soul of all the promises” (Works VI, 8). . . . Thus faith in Christ introduces us into a relation big with incalculable blessing, both now and for eternity.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 123–127.

F. F. Bruce titles a chapter in in his book, The Canon of Scripture, “The Old Testament becomes a New Book.” By this he means that with the coming of Christ it became a Christian book. Its meaning was illuminated so that it was no longer understood as merely a Jewish book, but as a book explicitly about Christ. And the Apostles plainly stated that this was so.

   According to the Acts of the Apostles, the early preaching of the gospel to Jews and God-fearing Gentiles was regularly marked by the appeal to the fulfillment of Old Testament scripture in the work of Jesus. It is to him, Peter assures Cornelius, that ‘all the prophets bear witness’ (Acts 10:43). When Philip is asked by the Ethiopian on his homeward journey from Jerusalem to whom the prophet is referring as he describes the suffering of the Isaianic Servant, Philip does not hesitate: ‘beginning with this scripture he told him the good news of Jesus’ (Acts 8:35). The impression given in Acts is confirmed by Paul: ‘the gospel of God . . . concerning his Son’, he says, was ‘promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures’ (Rom. 1:1–3), and throughout his exposition of the gospel in the letter to the Romans he shows in detail what he means by this. Thanks to the illumination thrown on them by their fulfilment in Christ, the ancient scriptures became a new and meaningful book to the early Christians. The prophets themselves, we are assured in 1 Pet 1:10–12, had to search hard to find out ‘what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory’; they had to learn that their ministry was designed for the generation which witnessed the fulfillment of what they foretold.
   Various figures of Old Testament expectation were now identified with Christ—the prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:15–19), the son of David (2 Sam. 7:12–16), the servant of Yahweh (Is. 42:1, etc.), the righteous sufferer (Ps. 22:1, etc.), the stricken shepherd (Zech. 13:7), and others. It is not simply that a number of texts out of context are given in a Christian significance: the New Testament interpretation of a few Old Testament words or sentences actually quoted often implies the total context in which these word or sentences occur. Moreover, different New Testament writers will quote different words from the same context in a manner which suggests that the whole context had been given a Christian interpretation before those writers quoted from it. It has been pointed out, for example, that from Ps, 69:9 (‘zeal for thy house has consumed me, and the insults of those who insult thee have fallen on me’) the former part is applied to Jesus’ cleansing of the temple in John 2:17 and the later part to his patient endurance verbal abuse in Romans 15:3. While no one is likely to maintain that the one writer has influenced the other, ‘it would be too much of a coincidence if the two writers independently happened to cite the two halves of a single verse, unless they were both aware that at least this whole verse, if not any more of the Psalm, formed part of a scheme of scriptural passages generally held to be especially significant’. This implies something more substantial in the way of primitive Christian exegesis than a chain of isolated proof-texts of ‘testimonies’.

—F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (InterVarsity Press, 1988), 56–57.

The life of John Knox is largely a narrative of persecution. I was already aware of this as I began reading Iain Murray’s A Scottish Christian Heritage, but I was surprised to learn that among his experiences was nineteen months spent as a slave in a French galley, chained to a bench with six other men pulling a fifty-foot-long oar. Following his release in 1549, he enjoyed a scant four years of peace in England before “Bloody” Mary Tudor ascended to the throne and restored Roman Catholicism as the state religion (her half-brother and predecessor, Edward VI, had been Protestant). Knox fled England, ending up finally in Geneva. His exile ended in 1559, when Mary Tudor died, and the Protestant faith was publicly restored in England.

His years of exile served as preparation for difficult years to come. “Of the lessons he had learned during that period,” Murray writes, “there are three which stand out:”

   1. Knox became a man of prayer. Prayer as ‘an earnest and familiar talking with God’, is not natural to us. It is be sanctified trouble and by the recognition of our own helplessness that were learn to pray. ‘Out of weakness made strong’ is the biblical principle. ‘Call upon me in the day of trouble’, became a promise of special significance to Knox. His first writing when the Marian persecution broke in England in 1554, was on What True Prayer Is, How We Should Pray, and For What We Should Pray. In another place he says that the Apostle Peter, as he sought to cross the water to Jesus, was allowed to sink because there was in him too much ‘presumption and vain trust in his own strength’. ‘Unless it had between corrected and partly removed,’ he comments, Peter ‘had never been apt or meet to feed Christ’s flock’ this was surely what Knox himself was being taught. He says that he wrote so much on prayer because,

I know how hard is the battle between the spirit and the flesh, under the heavenly cross of affliction, where no worldly defence but present death does appear. I know the grudging and murmuring complaints of the flesh . . . calling all his promises in doubt, and being ready every hour utterly to fall from God. Against which rests only faith, provoking us to call earnestly and pray for assistance of God’s Spirit; wherein, if we continue, our most desperate calamities shall be turned to gladness, and to a prosperous end. To thee alone, O Lord, be praise, for with experience I write this and speak.

   . . .

   2. Knox’s lone exile made him and international Christian. Had he remained always in Scotland he might have remained as parochial as some of his contemporaries. It was in God’s design that he spent most of his time away from home among the English. These were the people against whom his forefathers had fought but in Christ the old enmity was gone. He was ahead of his time in foreseeing a common Protestant faith binding the two nations together, and that hope became central to his life. ‘Grant, O Lord,’ he prayed, ‘we never enter into hostility against the realm and nation of England.’ . . .

   3. It was during Knox’s exile, and especially in the final years in Geneva, that the master-principles which governed his thought on Reformation came to maturity. In outline, they may be stated as follows:
   i. We exist for God’s glory; therefore zeal for the honor of God is essence of true piety; conversely, to despise God, to offend his majesty, is the darkest form of human depravity. The indignation Knox felt against Roman Catholicism sprang from this source. He saw it as a system bound up with giving to men and to idols that which belongs to God alone. . . .
   ii. Christians are bound to a universal obedience to the Word of God, no matter what the cost, no matter what the consequences. More particularly, nothing is lawful to the church unless it is to be found in Scripture. To quote the Reformer’s later words to Queen Elizabeth: ‘Whatsoever He approves (by his eternal word) that shall be approved, and what he damneth, shall be condemned, though all men in the earth should hazard the justification of the same.
   iii. The true church is to distinguished from the false church in this manner; the true has Christ as its living head, it hears his voice it, follows him, and a stranger it will not follow. This church, further, is to be kept separate from the world by the faithful exercise of discipline in order that reproach is not brought upon God by the character of it’s members, so that the good is not affected by the evil, and so that those corrected may be recovered.

—Iain Murray, A Scottish Christian Heritage (Banner of Truth, 2006), 13–15.

What does the world think of when it hears the word “Christian”? I’m afraid what it often thinks of is a people who do certain things and don’t do others, who practice certain rituals and traditions. To an extent, I suppose that is unavoidable; we do, or at least ought to, behave in ways that are different than theirs. I suppose it is reasonable that that would be the first thing they see that distinguishes us from the world in general. But it is a shame if they never see more than that, if they never see what motivates us and energizes us, if they are allowed to believe the goodness they perceive in us is our own goodness. What the world needs to see is not human goodness; they can manage that themselves. What the world needs to see is Christ-likeness. It needs to see lives that point to our Creator and Redeemer. The gospel we preach and live must not point to our improved lives — any religion can produce that — but to God himself.

When we celebrate the gospel of Christ and the love of God, and when we lift up the gift of salvation, let us do it in such a way the people will see through it to God himself. May those who hear the gospel from our lips know that salvation is the blood-bought gift of seeing and savoring the glory of Christ. May they believe and say, “Christ is all!” or, to use the words of the psalmist, “May those who love your salvation say evermore, “God is great!”
   May the church of Jesus Christ say with increasing intensity, “The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup” (Ps. 16:5). “As a dear pants for the flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God, my soul thirst for God, for the living God” (Ps. 42:1). “We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Phil. 1:23).
   The world needs nothing more than to see the worth of Christ in the work of words of his God-besotted people. This will come to pass when the church awakens to the truth that the saving love of God is the gift of himself, and that God himself is the gospel.

—John Piper, God Is the Gospel (Crossway, 2005), 16–17.

I’m feeling quite validated today. Earlier this year I posted a bit of a rant entitled Down with Values. Now I have discovered that David Wells has virtually plagiarized me in the following passage from The Courage to Be Protestant (mysteriously published in April, three months before my article). Wells writes of a shift that has taken place in Western thought that has replaced virtues with values.

Virtues, as I am thinking of them here, are aspects of the Good, or of Virtue. They are the moral norms that are enduringly right for all people, in all places, and in all times. It is true, of course, that there has been debate about what these virtues are.
   In the Middle Ages they were classified into two sets. The natural virtues were wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice while the supernatural virtues were faith, hope, and love. That makes seven virtues, which paralleled the seven deadly sins.
   The Protestant Reformation rejected this classification because it offered of basis of natural merit in four of the virtues that was simply upgraded by an infusion of grace. In fact, Scripture is more or less silent about virtue (cf. Phil. 4:8; 1 Pet. 2:9; 2 Pet. 1:3), but it clearly speaks of moral excellence and goodness in connection with the character of God. And not only in God’s character but also as reflected in the creation (Rom. 1:8-20) and in conscience (Rom. 2:14-15).
   However we understand this matter, it is inescapable that ours is a moral universe. It is one in which God sustains what is right, still abhors what is wrong, and still demands that we be accountable for knowing the difference.
   We can therefore say with confidence that there are moral excellencies that are always right because they make up who God is in his character. What Scripture speaks about in its narratives, psalms, and didactic sections is God’s holiness, justice, mercy, love, and truthfulness. And each of these has multiple variations in its application to human life. That these are the norms by which we should live is rather clear; how we might actually do so is a different matter.
   Across the ages people have tried to emulate these virtues. This has been true in Roman Catholicism, as it was in the liberal Protestantism of the nineteenth century. In their slightly different ways, they made the argument, one which has always appealed to the most morally earnest, that people should aim to be virtuous and that by practice they can become virtuous. Luther attacked this notion that, he said, came from Aristotle. It was the thought that just as a natural talent can be improved by practice, so can our own inherent virtue. This, needless to say, takes too little account of the way sin has intruded into all our virtue, perverting it. It is not practice that we need, but radical, supernatural transformation. That has always been the Protestant understanding of Scripture, and we will have occasion to return to it in due course.
   This brings us to the heart of a conundrum: Does “I ought” mean “I can”? does God still require of us obedience to what is morally normative even though in sin we cannot give that full obedience? Does he modify his demands to fit our abilities?
   The answer, of course, is that God cannot modify his demands because he cannot modify his character. His moral demands, therefore, were the same before the fall a they as they have been after it. What changed was our moral ability to obey what God demanded. Yet, being unable to live as God demands in no way changes how we should live. God does not tailor his moral demands to our ability to fulfill them, otherwise the most degrading and scurrilous miscreants would have the smallest expectation to reach! No, his moral norms are the same for all people, in all places, and in all times. It is these norms that I have in mind as virtues, and when we put them all together they make up Virtue. His grace that we encounter in Christ so takes us into itself that God is able to see us just as if we had never violated a single norm and have always given him his full due.
   To speak of Virtue, then, is to speak of the moral structure of the world of God made. Rebellious though we are, we have not broken down this structure, nor dislodged God from maintaining it. It stands there, over against us, whether we recognize it or not. We bump up against it in the course of life and we encounter its reflection in our own moral makeup. And from all sides a message is conveyed to our consciousness: “Beware! This is a moral world you inhabit!”
   . . .

Values, as we speak of them today, are a relatively new idea. In 1928 the multivolume Oxford English Dictionary, which had been under construction since 1882 and had accumulated the meanings of close to half a million words, had no entry for “values.” “Values” is a word in later twentieth-century talk in the West.
   Indeed, values represent the moral talk of a relative world and one that is clearly quite novel in some ways. It is true that in the past, free thinkers, novelists, artists, and other avant-gardists have dispensed with any kind of moral world. But never before have we seen an experiment on so large a scale as we are seeing in the West today. Everyone is now avant-garde, not just the cultural elite. Everyone is experimenting with how it feels to live in a world without moral form, one that is devoid of objective ethical norms.
   Once we left behind a moral world, we had no option but to treat values in a value-free way because what is right for one is not necessarily right for another. As the older moral world has faded, then, its virtues have faded with it. In the twilight of its dissolution, we are left with values.

—David F. Wells, The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth Lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World (Eerdmans, 2008), 143–147.

I reioyced, when they sayd to me, We wil go into the house of the Lord. (Psalme 122:1 Geneva Bible)

HYMN XIII
The Bitter waters. Ex. xv. 23—25.
by John Newton (1725-1807)

ITTER, indeed, the waters are.
   Which in this desart flow;
Though to the eye they promise fair,
   They taste of sin and woe.

Of pleasing draughts I once could dream,
   But now, awake, l find,
That sin has poison’d ev’ry stream,
   And left a curse behind.

But there’s a wonder-working wood,
   I’ve heard believers say,
Can make these bitter waters good,
   And take the curse away.

The virtues of this healing tree
   Are known and priz’d by few;
Reveal this secret, Lord, to me,
   That I may prize it too.

The cross on which the Savior died,
   And conquer’d for his saints;
This is the tree, by faith apply’d,
   Which sweetens all complaints.

Thousands have found the bless’d effect,
   Nor longer mourn their lot;
While on his sorrows they reflect,
   Their own are all forgot.

When they, by faith, behold the cross,
   Tho many griefs they meet;
They draw again from ev’ry loss,
   And find the bitter sweet.

—from Olney Hymns. Book I: On select Passages of Scripture.

salme 70
(Geneva Bible) For the excellent musician Ieduthun.
A Psalme committed to Asaph.
1 My voyce came to God, when I cryed: my voyce came to God, and he heard me.
2 In the day of my trouble I sought ye Lord: my sore ranne and ceased not in the night: my soule refused comfort.
3 I did thinke vpon God, and was troubled: I praied, and my spirit was full of anguish. Selah.
4 Thou keepest mine eyes waking: I was astonied and could not speake.
5 Then I considered the daies of olde, and the yeeres of ancient time.
6 I called to remembrance my song in the night: I communed with mine owne heart, and my spirit searched diligently.
7 Will the Lord absent him selfe for euer? and will he shewe no more fauour?
8 Is his mercie cleane gone for euer? doeth his promise faile for euermore?
9 Hath God forgotten to be mercifull? hath he shut vp his teder mercies in displeasure? Selah.
10 And I sayde, This is my death: yet I remembred the yeeres of the right hand of the most High.
11 I remembred the workes of the Lord: certainely I remembred thy wonders of olde.
12 I did also meditate all thy woorkes, and did deuise of thine actes, saying,
13 Thy way, O God, is in the Sanctuarie: who is so great a God as our God!
14 Thou art ye God that doest wonders: thou hast declared thy power among the people.
15 Thou hast redeemed thy people with thine arme, euen the sonnes of Iaakob and Ioseph. Selah.
16 The waters sawe thee, O God: the waters sawe thee, and were afraide: yea, the depths trembled.
17 The cloudes powred out water: the heauens gaue a sounde: yea, thine arrowes went abroade.
18 The voyce of thy thunder was rounde about: the lightnings lightened the worlde: the earth trembled and shooke.
19 Thy way is in the Sea, and thy paths in the great waters, and thy footesteps are not knowen.
20 Thou diddest leade thy people like sheepe by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Grace be with you, and Peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

This continues the theme from last Monday which is How to Be a Christian, or more appropriately, as I have chosen to call it, Being Christian.

I think we need to step back from where I began last week and begin at the beginning. Something very important must happen before we can “be Christian”: we must be saved, or as Jesus put it, “born again” (John 3:1–3). How does that happen? Paul says it simply, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:26–31). That, of course, means more than believing in the historical existence of Jesus. It means believing the truth about him and what he has done to save you, and trusting in that truth for the salvation of your soul. Briefly, the truths that you need to believe are:

• That there is an eternal state and that you are an eternal soul (Psalm 23:6, 1 Corinthians 15:51ff). If this life is all there is, what is the point? There is really nothing to be saved from, is there?
• That God is a holy and righteous God who can, under no circumstances, tolerate sin in his presence (Leviticus 19:2; 20:7). This is why you need to be saved. God cannot accept you into his presence in your natural, sinful condition. Something must be done.
• That you are by nature sinful, and can by no means deliver yourself from your sinful condition, and therefore must die. God’s justice demands that sin be punished (Romans 3:23; 5:12: 6:23).
• That Jesus Christ, the Son of God, himself God incarnate, bore your sin on the cross, and by his death, the penalty for your sin has been paid. If you have been born again, your sin has been punished. You have been united with Christ in his death and resurrection (Galatians 2:20).
• That by faith in Christ, his righteousness is imputed to you (Romans 4:16ff). It’s not enough that your sin has been forgiven. The fact remains that you have sinned. When Christ’s righteousness is credited to you, God sees you as if you had never sinned.
• That, as a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:7), your greatest happiness can only be found in knowing God and pleasing him (Philippians 3:8–11). You will be confessing your sin and repenting of it. You will be seeking to know and do God’s will. It will be your pleasure to do so. This is not a cause or condition of your salvation; but if this is not true, you have no reason to believe that you are in Christ. Conversely, if you believe all of these things, and this is true of you, you can be assured that you have eternal life.

I expect that most of the readers of this blog are believers. If you are not, and this post has raised questions in your mind about eternity and the state of your soul, get a Bible. Read it. Seek out Christians who can help you with your questions. Email me. There is no question more important than “Am I saved.” Get it answered.

Grace is a word we hear often in the church, as well we ought. Sadly, it is a word that is not as commonly understood as spoken. J. I. Packer points out that many who speak the word have actually put their faith in something else. “What is it,” he asks, “that hinders so many who profess to believe in grace from really doing so?” The answer, he says, is that they have a basic misunderstanding of the relation between themselves and God. At the root of this is a failure to grasp “four crucial truths . . . which the doctrine of grace presupposes.”

   1. The moral ill-desert of man. Modern men and women, conscious of their tremendous scientific achievements in recent years, naturally incline to a high opinion of themselves. They view material wealth as in any case more important than moral character, and in the moral realm they are resolutely kind to themselves, treating small virtues as compensating for great vices and refusing to take seriously the idea that, morally speaking, there is anything much wrong with them.
. . . The thought of themselves as creatures fallen from God’s image, rebels against God’s rule, guilty and unclean in God’s sight, fit only for God’s condemnation, never enters their heads.
   2. The retributive justice of God. The way of modern men and women is to turn a blind eye to all wrongdoing as long as they safely can. They tolerate it in others, feeling that there, but for the accident of circumstances, go they themselves. . . . The accepted maxim seems to be that as long as evil can be ignored, it should be; one should punish only as a last resort . . .
   In our pagan way, we take it for granted that God feels as we do. The idea that retribution might be the moral law of God’s world and an expression of his holy character seems to us quite fantastic. Those who uphold it find themselves accused of projecting onto God their own pathological impulses of rage and vindictiveness. Yet the Bible insists throughout that this world which God in his goodness has made is a moral world, one in which retribution is as basic a fact as breathing.
   . . .
   3. The spiritual impotence of man. Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People has been almost a modern Bible. A whole technique of business relations has been built up in recent years on the principle of putting the other person in a position where he cannot decently say no. This has confirmed modern men and women in the faith which has animated pagan religion ever since there was such a thing—namely, the belief that we can repair our own relationship with God by putting God in a position where he cannot say no anymore.
   Ancient pagans thought to do this by multiplying gifts and sacrifices; modern pagans seek to do it by churchmanship and morality. . . . but the Bible position is as stated by Toplady:
   Not the labours of my hand
   Can fulfil Thy law’s demands.
   Could my zeal no respite know,
   Could my tears for ever flow,
   All for sin could not atone
—leading to the admission of one’s own helplessness and to the conclusion:
   Thou must save, and Thou alone.
   . . .
   4. The sovereign freedom of God. Ancient paganism thought of each god as bound to his worshipers by bonds of self-interest, because he depended on their service and gifts for his welfare. Modern paganism has at the back of its mind a similar feeling that God is somehow obliged to love and help us, little though we deserve it. . . . But this feeling is not well founded. The God of the Bible does not depend on his human creatures for his well-being (see Ps 50:8–13; Acts 17:25), nor, now that we have sinned, is he bound to show us favor.
   We can only claim from him justice—and justice, for us, means certain condemnation. God does not owe it to anyone to stop justice taking its course. He is not obliged to pity and pardon; if he does so it is an act done, as we say, “of his own free will,” and nobody forces his hand. “It does not depend on man’s will or effort, but on God’s mercy” (Rom 9:16 NEB) Grace is free, in the sense of being self-originated and of proceeding from One who was free not to be gracious. Only when it is seen that what decides each individual’s destiny is whether or not God resolves to save him from his sins, and that this is a decision which God need not make in any single case, can one begin to grasp the biblical view of grace.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 128–132.

It is an unfortunate fact that the church today often gives the Old Testament second-rate status. This ought not be, and, to borrow a phrase, “from the beginning, it was not so.” First century Christians lived with the expectation of the fulfillment of Old Testament prophesies. Many of those prophesies, they knew, had already been fulfilled in Christ; others were yet to come. The Old Testament, they knew, was the story of the Christ.

That the Old Testament prophecies were ‘mysteries’ whose solution awaited their fulfilment in the New Testament age was axiomatic in the early church. Occasionally the word ‘mystery’ itself is used in this sense . . . ‘To you’, says Jesus to his disciples, ‘the mystery of the kingdom of God has been given, but to outsiders all these things come as riddles, so that they see without perceiving, and hear without understanding; otherwise they would turn back and receive forgiveness’ (Mark 4:11f.).
   In the Pauline writings one aspect of the gospel—the manner and purpose of its communication to the Gentile world—is treated as a ‘mystery . . . which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to Christ’s holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit’ (Eph. 3:4f.). That the Gentiles would place their hope on the Son of David and rejoice in the God of Israel was affirmed in the Old Testament, as Paul emphasizes in a series of quotations in Romans 15:9–12, but how this prospect would be realized and what its implications would be could not be appreciated until the Gentile mission was launched in the apostolic age.
   The individual New Testament writers have their distinctive interpretive methods. Matthew records how this or that incident in the life of Jesus took place ‘in order that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet’ (Matt. 1:23, etc.). Paul sees the partial and temporary setting aside of Israel as clearly stated in the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms as he finds the ingathering of the Gentiles adumbrated there. The writer to the Hebrews sees the priestly and sacrificial order of Israel as an earthly ‘copy’ (ineffective in itself) of the heavenly reality which was perfected by the work of Christ. John the evangelist portrays Jesus as giving substance to a number of Old Testament motifs—the word, the glory, the tabernacle; the bread of life, the water of life, the light of life. In the Apocalypse may be seen what has been called ‘a rebirth of images’ from the Old Testament and other ancient lore, some of which might have been thought unadaptable to a Christian purpose, yet all pressed into service to depict the triumph of Christ. However differently the interpretative tradition is developed by those writers, the core of the tradition is common to all: Jesus is the central subject of the Old Testament revelation; it is to him that witness is borne throughout.

—F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (InterVarsity Press, 1988), 59–60.

I love reading of the last days of great saints. While death is a fearsome thing to most, for the believer it is a gateway into life — life like we have not yet known, and cannot imagine. At long last, we will be at home with the Lord, free from all pain and suffering, disappointments and failures, and, most wonderful of all, free from sin. It is a day we should all long for, and be able to say with John Newton, “It is a great thing to die.” John Knox was such a man, and so was able to pass from this world in peace. Iain Murray writes,

   In the spring of 1572, while Knox was still in St. Andrews, there was a marked decline in his health, yet in August he was able to return to Edinburgh, and, after thirteen months absence, preach again in the pulpit of St. Giles. But the vast congregation could no longer hear his now feeble voice, and thereafter he chose the pulpit of the much smaller Tolbooth Church where he began to preach on the crucifixion on 21 September. The English ambassador reported on 6 October, ‘John Knox is now so feeble as scarce can he stand alone, or speak to be heard of any audience,’ Yet he was able, on Sunday, 9 November, to preach at the installation of his successor, James Lawson. It was the last time he was to leave his home. The following Thursday he had to lay aside reading and on the Friday, confused which day it was he declared he meant to go to church and preach on the resurrection of Christ. A week later, with increasing difficulty in breathing, he ordered his coffin to be made and waking hours were now spent in hearing Scripture read (especially Isaiah 53, John 17 and Ephesians), saying good-bye to friends, and speaking brief words of testimony and prayer: ‘Live in Christ. Live in Christ, and then flesh need not fear death – Lord, grant true pastors to thy Church, that purity of doctrine may be maintained.’
   On Monday, November 1572, he insisted on rising and dressing but within half an hour he had to be put back to bed. To the question of a friend, Had he any pain?, he replied: ‘It is no painful pain, but such a pain as shall soon, I trust put an end to the battle.’ There was further intermittent conversation that day and the last reading of 1 Corinthians 15 at which he exclaimed, ‘Is not that a comfortable chapter?’ About eleven o’clock that evening, he said, ‘Now it is come’, and, lifting up one hand, he passed through his final conflict in peace. In the words on his secretary, Richard Bannatyne,

In this manner departed this man of God: the light of Scotland, the comfort of the Church within the same, the mirror of godliness, and pattern and example of all true minister.

—Iain Murray, A Scottish Christian Heritage (Banner of Truth, 2006), 32–33.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. (Psalm 116:15)

John Piper writes that “Justification is the heart of the gospel, not its highest good.” By that he means that justification is the most important action that takes place in the gospel transaction, but as great as it is, it is only the means to an end. What, then, is the “highest good” of the gospel? Is it simply to get us to heaven, and if so, why would you want to go there? Is it because there is suffering and injustice here, and in heaven “justice and beauty will finally be everywhere”? Or perhaps it is just because the alternative is so painful. Those answers seem very reasonable, but they miss the point. Piper offers the following illustration:

Suppose I get up in the morning and as I am walking to the bathroom I trip over some of my wife’s laundry that she left lying on the hall floor. Instead of simply moving the laundry myself and assuming the best in her, I react in a way that is all out of proportion to the situation and say something very harsh to my wife as she is waking up. She gets up, puts the laundry away, and walks downstairs ahead of me. I can tell by the silence and from my own conscience that our relationship is in serious trouble.
   As I go downstairs my conscience is condemning me. Yes, the laundry should not have been there. Yes, I might have broken my neck. But those thoughts are mainly the self-defending flesh talking. The truth is that my words were way out of line. Not only was the emotional harshness way out of proportion to the fault, “Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?” (1 Cor. 6:7).
   So as I enter the kitchen there is ice in the air, and her back is blatantly toward me as she works at the kitchen counter. What needs to happen here? The answer is plain: I need to apologize and ask her forgiveness. That would be the right thing to do. But here’s the analogy: Why do I want her forgiveness? So that she will make me my favorite breakfast? So that my guilt feelings will go away and I will be able to concentrate at work today? So there will be good sex tonight? So the kids won’t see us at odds? So that she will finally admit that the laundry shouldn’t have been there?
   It may be that every one of those desires will come true. But they are all defective motives for wanting forgiveness. What’s missing is this: I want to be forgiven so that I can have the sweet fellowship of my wife back. She is the reason I want to be forgiven. I want the relationship restored. Forgiveness is simply a way of getting obstacles out of the way so that we can look at each other again with joy.

—John Piper, God Is the Gospel (Crossway, 2005), 44.

We read previously of a shift in Western thinking from virtues to values. Today we’re going to observe a similar shift, this one from character to personality. We know that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). However, there are still traces of the image of God that can be seen in man (I think the term “common grace” applies here), and so I think I am safe in saying that to some degree, man also has looked at the heart, although not exclusively or even primarily. Character, too some degree, has mattered. Integrity has been a marketable characteristic. This is no longer true as it once was, and it is becoming less true as time passes.

What we think of today as the self, a kind of internal center into which all our experiences flow and get sorted out, has been thought about as something separate from character only quite recently. Actually, the self came into prominence only in the twentieth century. Before that time people would have been quite baffled by all of this talk about finding the self, cultivating, esteeming it, realizing, and all the other things we think we are doing to it.
   For centuries we in the West have thought about our consciousness — the self, in contemporary parlance, — only in conjunction with nature and, indeed, with character. This center was thought about in terms of virtues to be learned and desires to denied. These virtues were all sustained by a belief in moral law, be it natural, or revealed in Scripture, of perhaps just generally assumed.

. . .
As the twentieth century dawned, Warren Susman observed in his work Culture as History, the great change was under way. The words that had peppered the advice manuals of an earlier generation, words that came out of a moral world, were disappearing. These were words like “duty,” “golden deeds,” “morals,” “manners,” “honor,” “citizenship,” and “reputation.” But as the new century began, a different set of interests came into view. These were signaled by the prominence in the advice manuals of words like “fascinating,” “stunning,” “attractive,” “glowing,” “masterful,” “creative,” “dominant,” “forceful.” The words most common earlier had been the words or character; these new words were those of personality. Character is not fascinating, glowing, of masterful. By the same token, personality is not dutiful, honorable, of full of golden deeds. Character is good or bad; personality is attractive, forceful, or magnetic.
   Here was a move out of the older moral world, where our internal moral intentions were important, to a different world. This is a psychological world. It is a shift from what is important in itself to how it appears to others. God may judge the heart, but our preoccupation is with the outward appearance that, after all, is what others see. In a society where affluence is important and ethical norms are disappearing, success is paramount and character in not. Our preoccupation, therefore, is how we “come off” before others.

—David F. Wells, The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth Lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World (Eerdmans, 2008), 147–148.

So now we live in a day when attractiveness is more important than honesty, and charisma trumps integrity. The value of a person is only skin deep. Yet, while society changes, God does not. He still looks on the heart, and so must we.

I reioyced, when they sayd to me, We wil go into the house of the Lord. (Psalme 122:1 Geneva Bible)

PETITIONARY HYMNS
POEM XI. Matt. viii. 25. Lord, save us, we perish.
Augustus Toplady (1740–1778)

Pilot of the soul, awake,
Save us for thy mercies’ sake;
Now rebuke the angry deep,
Save, O save thy sinking ship!

Stand at the helm, our vessel steer,
Mighty on our side appear
Saviour, teach us to descry
Where the rocks and quicksands lie.

The waves shall impotently roll,
If thou ’rt the anchor of the soul:
At thy word the wind shall cease,
Storms be hush’d to perfect peace.

Be thou our haven of retreat,
A rock to fix our wav’ring feet,
Teach us to own thy sovereign sway,
Whom the winds and seas obey.

—The Complete Works of Augustus Toplady (Sprinkle Publications, 1987).

Psalme 84 (Geneva Bible)
To him that excelleth upon Gittith.
A Psalme committed to the sonnes of Korah.

Grace be with you, and Peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here’s a subject I’ve avoided for a long time, and will continue to avoid hereafter; but when someone with exponentially greater abilities than I possess is given an enormous audience and a golden opportunity to present the gospel, and totally blows it, it grieves me. In fact, it makes me little bit angry.

However, if I was a charismatic pastor used to having thousands adore me, and I was asked a simple question like “if you don’t accept Jesus . . . can you find your way to heaven?”* I hope I’d have a better answer than that Jesus said no, and I’m betting on it. And I certainly wouldn’t go on from there to agree with the Jewish interviewer when he said that he and Jesus shared a common religion. I know exactly what I hope I’d say, and I’m putting it in writing so that, should I ever have an audience of, say, half a dozen eager listeners, I won’t be caught like the proverbial deer in the headlights. I would say something like this:

No, Alan, you can’t. No way. I know that sounds narrow and possibly unloving, but if there is only one road to a certain destination, and I see you on a different road, it’s not very loving of me to wave, wish you well, and go on my way, is it? Especially when Jesus said your road “leads to destruction” (Matthew 7:13–14).

The gospel is completely exclusive. Jesus and the Apostles were very explicit about that. Jesus said he is the only way, and that no one may approach the Father except through him (John 14:6). The Apostle Paul wrote that Jesus is the only mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5).

That is what the Word of God says; that is the truth, and I have no authority to deviate from that truth, even though my cowardly heart might be inclined to soften the message so you’ll like me better. But that doesn’t leave you without hope.

Jesus died for every sinner who believes his Word and trusts in him for his salvation. He is God incarnate; he came to earth in the flesh, and perfectly fulfilled God’s law, the law that we break every day; he took our sins upon himself, and bore the wrath of God that our sin deserves on the cross; he rose from the dead, victorious over sin and death; and he sits now at the right hand of the Father, interceding for those who trust in him.

And the good news, the gospel, is this: by faith in Christ, you can be united with him in his death and resurrection, you can have his perfect righteousness credited to you. You can be seen, in the eyes of God, as perfectly righteous, as though you had never sinned, and worthy to be welcomed into heaven, into the presence of God himself.

Mohammed never offered anyone that, nor did Moses. Only Jesus has died for sinners. Only Jesus has made satisfaction for sin. So I can’t offer you many ways to heaven; but I can offer you one that is guaranteed, free of charge. That way is Jesus. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:23–31).

I think that’s the right answer. I know it is. And you know, I probably don’t have to wait for that big interview to rehearse my answer. There are probably a lot of regular folks in my own world who need to hear it. There probably are in yours, too.

God is love. This, quite naturally, is a major theme in our understanding of God. We speak of God’s love, we sing of God’s love, we “love to tell the story of Jesus and his love.” It ought to be reflexive for Christians to revel in the love of God. However, God is not a one-dimensional being; he is not only love. He is a holy God who is righteous and just, as well; and his love does not nullify those attributes. Not only is he a loving father, he is a righteous judge. His justice will be served. The Old Testament is filled with narratives of the judgment of God falling on both pagans and the people of God. This is not only an Old Testament manifestation of God’s character, nor is this quality limited to the Father. Jesus himself is “the righteous judge.”

   When we turn from Bible history to Bible teaching—the Law, the Prophets, the Wisdom writings, the words of Christ and his apostles—we find the thoughts of God’s action in judgment overshadowing everything. The Mosaic legislation is given as from a God who is himself a just judge and will not hesitate to inflict penalties by direct providential action if his people break his law. The prophets take up this theme; indeed, the greater part of their recorded teaching consists of exposition and application of the law, and threats of judgment against the lawless and impenitent. They spend a good deal more space preaching judgment than they do prediction the Messiah and his kingdom! In the Wisdom literature, the same viewpoint appears: the one basic certainty underlying all discussion of life’s problems in Job, Ecclesiastes and all the practical maxims of Proverbs is that “God will bring you to judgment,” “God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden sin, whether it is good or evil” (Eccles 11:9; 12:14).
   People who do not actually read the Bible confidently assure us that when we move from the old testament to the new, the theme of divine judgment fades in the background. But if we examine the New Testament, even in the most cursory way, we find at once that the Old Testament emphasized God’s action as a Judge, far from being reduced, is actually intensified.
   The entire New Testament is overshadowed by the certainty of a coming day of universal judgment, and by the problem thence arising: How may we sinners get right with God while there is yet time? The New Testament looks on to “the day of judgment,” “the day of wrath,” “the wrath to come,” and proclaims Jesus, the divine Savior, as the divinely appointed Judge.
   The judge who stands before the door (Jas 5:9), “ready to judge the living and the dead” (1 Pet 4:5), “the righteous Judge” who will give Paul his crown (2 Tim 4:8), is the Lord Jesus Christ. “He is the one who has been designate by God as judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42 NEB). God “has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed,” Paul told the Athenians (Acts 17:31); and to the Romans he wrote, “God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as the gospel declares” (Rom 2:16).
   Jesus himself says the same. “The Father . . . has entrusted all judgment to the Son. . . . And he has given him authority to judge. . . . A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear the voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned” (NEB has “will rise to hear their doom”) (Jn 5:22, 27–29). The Jesus of the New Testament, who is the world’s Savior, is its Judge as well.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 140–141.

With the incarnation of Christ, the Old Testament had become Christian book. What had previously been a mystery was now disclosed. But not everyone got it.

[T]his Christian book, as it was to the church, comprised the holy scriptures of the Jewish people. Even the Septuagint version, which the Gentile church took to its heart, was in origin a Jewish translation. When the law and the prophets were read week by week in the synagogue, whether in the Hebrew original or in the Greek translation, they were understood in a Jewish sense, according to the ‘tradition of the elders’. Jews and Christians had the same sacred book, but that did not serve as a bond of unity between them.
   As Jews heard the scriptures read, they learned that every male child had to be circumcised when he was eight days old if he was to be reckoned a member of the people of God. They learned that every seventh day was to be observed as a rest day, and that certain other days throughout the year were to be specially set aside for sacred purposes. They learned, moreover, that the flesh of certain animals was not to be eaten, because they were ‘unclean’, and that the flesh even of ‘clean’ animals might be eaten only under certain stringent conditions—for example, both their fat and their blood were forbidden for food. These restrictions were so binding that any infringement of them imperilled one’s membership in the chosen people.
   Christians—even, to an increasing degree, Christians who had been brought up to observe these regulations—soon came to adopt a relaxed attitude to them. In the new order inaugurated by Christ circumcision was irrelevant. The keeping of the sabbath and other sacred days was not obligatory but voluntary. As for food-restrictions, Jesus was recorded as having once given a ruling which meant, in effect, that all kinds of food were ‘clean’ [Mark 7:19].
   Yet the text of scripture had not changed: what had changed was the Christians’ understanding of it in the light of their Master’s teaching and achievement. It is easy to appreciate how Jews, who did not share the Christians’ estimate of the person and work of Jesus, found this playing fast and loose with the divine commandments an incomprehensible and totally deplorable proceeding.
   Christians, on the other hand, who found such luminous testimony to Christ and the gospel in the same scriptures, wondered how Jews could read them with such lack of comprehension. One explanation was that a ‘judicial blinding’ prevented Jews from seeing what was so plain to Christians. Paul uses the story of Moses’ face, which shone with reflected glory after he had been in the presence of God, so that he had to put a veil or mask on it (Exod. 34:29–35); in Paul’s application of the story, the veil is somehow transferred from Moses’ face to the minds of the synagogue congregation ‘whenever Moses is read’, so that they cannot see ‘the glory of God in the face of Christ’ (2 Cor. 3:7–4:6).

—F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (InterVarsity Press, 1988), 63–65.

Although Christians and Jews were reading essentially the same texts, the message they were reading was quite different. Jewish interpreters became deliberate in excluding interpretations, even those they had previously accepted, that were too Christian-friendly. So with the coming of their Messiah, the Jews were even farther removed from understanding their scriptures than before.

The following rather humorous anecdote from the life of the Scottish preacher Robert Bruce (1555–1631, not Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, 1274–1329) is also a good reminder to all preachers, as well as anyone who would be a witness for Christ. In other words, every Christian.

On a day when Bruce was engaged to preach twice at the church, the interval between the services was extended longer than usual due to the preacher’s absence. Some noblemen who were present became anxious because of the time on account of the distance they had to ride to their homes later that day. They therefore asked the bellman to find Bruce and request him to begin the service in view of the journey they had before them. The bellman knew where Bruce was – in a room in a house near the church which he commonly used before the afternoon service. On going to the door the man knocked, but declined to enter when he heard the preacher talking to someone inside. He went back to those who had sent him and explained that he could not tell how long Bruce would be: ‘I think he shall not come out the day at all, for I hear him always saying to another that he will not nor cannot go except the other go with him, and I do not hear the other answer him a word at all.’

—Iain Murray, A Scottish Christian Heritage (Banner of Truth, 2006), 62.

Once we have been born again and have come to understand Christ as our highest good, when we have learned that our greatest joy is in “seeing and savoring the beauty and value of God,” we still have a problem. As long as we are in the flesh, we will have poor eyesight. “For now we see in a mirror dimly . . .” (1 Corinthians 13:12). We cannot see God clearly, and so cannot enjoy him fully.

The ability to see spiritual beauty is not unwavering. There are ups and downs in our fellowship with Christ. There are times of beclouded vision, especially if sin gets the upper had in our lives for a season. “Blessed are the poor in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8). Yes, and this in not an all-or-nothing reality. There are degrees of purity and degrees of seeing. Only when we are perfected in the age to come will our seeing be totally unclouded. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12).
   This is why Paul prayed the way he did for the believers of Ephesus. “[May God] give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what in the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe” (Eph, 1:17–19). Notice Paul’s distinction between the eyes of the head and the eyes of the heart. There is a heart-seeing, not just a head-seeing. There is a spiritual seeing and a physical seeing. And what he longs for us to see spiritually is “the hope to Which [God] has called” us, “the riches of his glorious inheritance,” and “the immeasurable greatness of his power.” In other words, what he wants us to see is the spiritual reality and value of these things, not just raw facts that unbelievers can read and repeat. That is not the point of spiritual seeing. Spiritual seeing is seeing spiritual things for what they really are—that is, seeing them as beautiful and valuable as they really are.

—John Piper, God Is the Gospel (Crossway, 2005), 55–56.

During this holiday season I will not be sticking strictly to my recently-set schedule. Take today, f’rinstance (note the homey colloquialism, denoting a casual attitude). I’ve done a lot of different things on this blog. I’ve posted theology, history, rantings, and jokes. I’ve posted scripture and hymns, done a couple of mêmes, and even written a song. One thing I don’t think I’ve ever done is a recipe. It only makes sense then — don’t you agree? — that I post one now. Can’t let the bloggerbabes ladybloggers have all the fun, can I?

Lest you doubt my qualifications, let me present my extensive resumé:

To start with, I was a bit of a mad scientist in the kitchen as a child. My mother allowed me quite a bit of freedom to experiment, and taught me anything I was willing to learn; so by the time I moved out, I was not the typical helpless bachelor. Twenty-plus years later, a couple of my former roommates still fondly remember such fine things as Veal Parmigiana, chile that makes your head sweat, and fresh-squeezed lemonade. (One roommate actually had a recipe, sent by his mother, for — I jest not — scrambled eggs. Plain scrambled eggs.)

But those were amateur days. Next I took my natural talent to a professional level. After driving delivery for a time at LeeAnn Chin in Edina Minnesota, I learned to stir-fry. My Szechuan Shrimp and Beef Lo-Mein were famous for miles around, and are now a part of local legend (or if they aren’t, they ought to be). At the same time, I worked a second job at MacDonald’s, broadening my repertoire . . . well, a little.

So! Having established my credentials, and started very few fires, I move on to today’s recipe. I was inspired to do this by Thabiti, who lamented his separation from his favorite breakfasting facility. I dedicate this feast to him, and without further adieu, I give you breakfast:

David’s World Famous, Award Winning, Mouthwatering, Muscle Building, Stomach Filling, PETA Annoying

Heart Attack Eggs®

Ingredients:

• 1 dozen large eggs
• 1 pound of bacon
• 1 large Vidalia onion
• ¼ pound extra sharp cheddar cheese
  No, Velveeta will not do.
• 1 pint sour cream
  Don’t even think about substituting any of that fraudulent non-dairy slime.

Preparation:

• Crack eggs into a bowl
• Cut bacon into 1 inch pieces
• Chop onion
• Grate cheese

Fry ’em up:

• I like to use a wok, but a large cast iron skillet works as well.
• Fry the bacon and onion (add a chopped red bell pepper, if you like) together until the bacon is crispy and the onions are well cooked. Do not drain.
• Dump in the eggs and scramble. Let the eggs get well cooked.
• Toss in the cheese and mix.
• Dump in the sour cream. Yes, all of it. Stir it in. This will make it kind of sloppy, but be patient. Keep stirring it uncovered on the heat until it cooks down to the desired consistency.

Serve with whole wheat toast generously plastered with real butter. Don’t you dare use margarine. Hash browns are a good substitute for, or addition to, the toast. Accepted condiments are anything you like. The point is to enjoy it. I like ketchup (not, for pete’s sake, catsup) and Tabasco sauce. Fobidden condiments are anything that says “substitute” or “low _____” on the label. Pour up a big glass of tomato juice, or, if it’s at least lunch time and the Baptists aren’t looking, a Bloody Mary.

Serves one. Ah say, ah say, that’s a joke, son. Usually.

I reioyced, when they sayd to me, We wil go into the house of the Lord. (Psalme 122:1 Geneva Bible)

HYMN 19. (C. M.)
The song of Simeon; or, Death made desirable. Luke ii. 27, &c.
Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

LORD, at thy temple we appear,
   As happy Simeon came,
And hope to meet our Savior here;
   O make our joys the same!

With what divine and vast delight
   The good old man was filled,
When fondly in his withered arms
   He clasped the holy child!

“Now I can leave this world,” he cried,
   “Behold, thy servant dies;
I've seen thy great salvation, Lord,
   And close my peaceful eyes.

“This is the light prepared to shine
   Upon the Gentile lands,
Thine Isr’el’s glory, and their hope
   To break their slavish bands.”

[Jesus! the vision of thy face
   Hath overpowering charms;
Scarce shall I feel death’s cold embrace,
   If Christ be in my arms.

Then while ye hear my heart-strings break,
   How sweet my minutes roll!
A mortal paleness on my cheek,
   And glory in my soul.]

—The Psalms & Hymns of Isaac Watts. Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book I: Collected from the Holy Scriptures (Soli Deo Gloria, 1997).

Psalme 91
Geneva Bible.
1 Who so dwelleth in the secrete of the most High, shall abide in the shadowe of the Almightie.
2 I will say vnto the Lord, O mine hope, and my fortresse: he is my God, in him will I trust.
3 Surely he will deliuer thee from the snare of the hunter, and from the noysome pestilence.
4 Hee will couer thee vnder his winges, and thou shalt be sure vnder his feathers: his trueth shall be thy shielde and buckler.
5 Thou shalt not be afraide of the feare of the night, nor of the arrowe that flyeth by day:
6 Nor of the pestilence that walketh in the darkenesse: nor of the plague that destroyeth at noone day.
7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and tenne thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come neere thee.
8 Doubtlesse with thine eyes shalt thou beholde and see the reward of the wicked.
9 For thou hast said, The Lord is mine hope: thou hast set the most High for thy refuge.
10 There shall none euill come vnto thee, neither shall any plague come neere thy tabernacle.
11 For hee shall giue his Angels charge ouer thee to keepe thee in all thy wayes.
12 They shall beare thee in their handes, that thou hurt not thy foote against a stone.
13 Thou shalt walke vpon the lyon and aspe: the yong lyon and the dragon shalt thou treade vnder feete.
14 Because he hath loued me, therefore will I deliuer him: I will exalt him because hee hath knowen my Name.
15 He shall call vpon me, and I wil heare him: I will be with him in trouble: I will deliuer him, and glorifie him.
16 With long life wil I satisfie him, and shew him my saluation.

Grace be with you, and Peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Further thoughts on Being Christian.

It’s easy to mouth the words “praise the Lord” when the going is good. We do it all the time. Sometimes we mean it, and sometimes it’s just a meaningless exclamation; but most of the time, if we are Christians, we really are sincere in our gratitude. That, I think, is because most of the time, things are going pretty well. But how do we react when circumstances work against us? I think most of us can handle a little adversity. Even unbelievers accept a certain amount of hard times as just being “part of life” without losing faith in whatever is the object of their faith. But what if everything should go bad on us? Most of us will never know. Most of us will never suffer any truly devastating loss. Some do, though. The people of New Orleans knew it in the aftermath of Katrina.

How we react to pain and loss is a great measure of our faith. How we feel in our hearts when disaster strikes is an accurate indicator of where our faith resides, whether in our physical and material circumstances, or in a God who is faithful to keep us and to work all things together for our good (Romans 8:28). How ought we to be able to respond to pain and loss? We find the answer to that question, of course, in scripture. Can we respond in the words of Habakkuk 3:17–18?

Though the fig tree should not blossom
And there be no fruit on the vines,
Though the yield of the olive should fail
And the fields produce no food,
Though the flock should be cut off from the fold
And there be no cattle in the stalls,

This passage doesn’t describe a little bad luck, or a minor setback. It describes the failure of every crop. This is not a dip in the stock market. This is a complete crash, the total loss of livelihood. It is the loss of everything upon which the writer would depend for living. It is possible starvation.

Yet I will exult in the Lord,
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.

Because he is my everything. If I lose everything else, but still have him, it is enough. This should be our attitude. But if we examine ourselves, we will no doubt find that we’re not quite there yet. What to do? Pray. Confess our sin to God — for it surely is sin — ask his forgiveness, and thank him for his longsuffering mercy and his sanctifying grace. And keep pressing on (Philippians 3:14), trusting in him to complete the work he has begun in us (Philippians 1:6).

Last week in our reading of Packer we saw that “The Jesus of the New Testament, who is the world’s Savior, is its Judge as well.” Today we will see what kind of judge he is. His authority as judge is unlike that of any judge in the human realm. The judge of the world differs from earthly judges in authority, passion, wisdom, and power.

What is involved on the idea of the Father, or Jesus, being a judge? Four thoughts at least are involved.
   1. The judge is a person with authority.In the Bible world, the king was always the supreme judge, because his was the supreme ruling authority. It is on that basis , according to the Bible, that God is judge of his world. As our Maker, he owns us, and as our Owner, he has the right to dispose of us. He has, therefore, a right to make laws for us and to reward us according to whether or not we keep them. In most modern states, the legislature and the judiciary are divided, so that the judge does not make the laws he administers; but in the ancient world this was not so, and it is not so with God. He is both the Lawgiver and the Judge.
   2. The judge is a person identified with what is good and right. The modern idea that a judge should be cold and dispassionate has no place in the Bible. The biblical judge is expected to love justice and fair play and to loathe all ill treatment of one person by another. An unjust judge, one who has no interest in seeing right triumph over wrong, is by biblical standards a monstrosity. The bible leaves us in no doubt that God loves righteousness and hates iniquity, and that the ideal of a judge wholly identified with what is good and right in perfectly fulfilled in him.
   3. The judge is a person of wisdom, to discern truth. In the biblical setting, the judge’s first task is to ascertain the facts in the case that is before him. There is no jury; it is his responsibly, and his alone, to question, and cross-examine, and detect lies and pierce through evasions and establish how matters really stand. When the Bible pictures God judging, it emphasizes his omniscience and wisdom as the searcher of hearts and the finder of facts. Nothing can escape him; we may fool men, but we cannot fool God. He knows us, and judges us, as we really are.
   When Abraham met the Lord in human form at the oaks of Mamre, he gave Abraham to understand the he was on the way to Sodom, to establish the truth about the moral situation there. “The Lord said, ‘The outcry against Sodom and Gamorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down an see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know’” (Gen 18:20–21). So it is always. God will know. His judgment is according to truth—factual truth, as well as moral truth. He judges “the secrets of men,” not just their public façade. Not for nothing does Paul say, “We must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor 5:10 RV).
   4. The judge is a person of power to execute sentence. The modern judge does no more than pronounce the sentence; another department of the judicial executive then carries it out. The same was true in the ancient world. But God is his own executioner. As he legislates and sentences, so he punishes. All judicial functions coalesce in him.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 141–142.

Christmas Eve is sacred night in our household. It is the one night we will, under no circumstances, alter our tradition. We will not leave home for any reason, and we will not be blogging. You may join us, if you wish, here. Tomorrow I’m going to post a few of my favorite Christmas hymns. I’ll bet very few of you will be singing any of them in church this year.

These are a few of my favorite Christmas hymns. They are lesser known than many others, which may be part of their appeal to me. I am pretty sure I have never sung them in a worship service. Links open videos in popup windows.

In the Bleak Midwinter

Text: Christina G. Rossetti, 1830-1894

Music: Gustav Holst, 1874-1934

Tune: Cranham

Meter: Irregular

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain;

heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign.

In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed

the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,

cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;

but his mother only, in her maiden bliss,

worshiped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

if I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

yet what I can give him: give my heart.

Of the Father’s Love Begotten

Text: Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (348-405)

Music: Plainsong, 13th century

Tune: Divinum Mysterium

Meter: 8.7.8.7.8.7.7.

Of the Father’s love begotten, ere the worlds began to be,

He is Alpha and Omega, He the source, the ending He,

Of the things that are, that have been,

And that future years shall see, evermore and evermore!

At His Word the worlds were framèd; He commanded; it was done:

Heaven and earth and depths of ocean in their threefold order one;

All that grows beneath the shining

Of the moon and burning sun, evermore and evermore!

He is found in human fashion, death and sorrow here to know,

That the race of Adam’s children doomed by law to endless woe,

May not henceforth die and perish

In the dreadful gulf below, evermore and evermore!

O that birth forever blessèd, when the virgin, full of grace,

By the Holy Ghost conceiving, bare the Savior of our race;

And the Babe, the world’s Redeemer,

First revealed His sacred face, evermore and evermore!

This is He Whom seers in old time chanted of with one accord;

Whom the voices of the prophets promised in their faithful word;

Now He shines, the long expected,

Let creation praise its Lord, evermore and evermore!

O ye heights of heaven adore Him; angel hosts, His praises sing;

Powers, dominions, bow before Him, and extol our God and King!

Let no tongue on earth be silent,

Every voice in concert sing, evermore and evermore!

Righteous judge of souls departed, righteous King of them that live,

On the Father’s throne exalted none in might with Thee may strive;

Who at last in vengeance coming

Sinners from Thy face shalt drive, evermore and evermore!

Thee let old men, thee let young men, thee let boys in chorus sing;

Matrons, virgins, little maidens, with glad voices answering:

Let their guileless songs re-echo,

And the heart its music bring, evermore and evermore!

Christ, to Thee with God the Father, and, O Holy Ghost, to Thee,

Hymn and chant with high thanksgiving, and unwearied praises be:

Honor, glory, and dominion,

And eternal victory, evermore and evermore!

I Wonder as I Wander

Text: Appalachian carol

Music: John Jacob Niles

Tune: I Wonder as I Wander

Meter: Irregular

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,

How Jesus the Savior did come for to die.

For poor orn’ry people like you and like I;

I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

When Mary birthed Jesus ’twas in a cow’s stall,

With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all.

But high from God’s heaven a star’s light did fall,

And the promise of ages it then did recall.

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing,

A star in the sky, or a bird on the wing,

Or all of God's angels in heav’n for to sing,

He surely could have it, for he was the King.

Lo! How a Rose E’er Blooming

Text: German carol, 16th century

Music: Geistliche Kirkengesäng, Cologne, 1599; harmonized by Michael Prætorius

Tune: Es Ist Ein’ Ros’

Meter: 7.6.7.6.6.7.6.

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming from tender stem hath sprung,

Of Jesse’s lineage coming, as men of old have sung.

It came, a flow’ret bright, amid the cold of winter,

When half-spent was the night.

Isaiah ’twas foretold it, the Rose I have in mind;

With Mary we behold it, the virgin mother kind.

To show God’s love aright, she bore to men a Savior,

When half-spent was the night.

The shepherds heard the story, proclaimed by angels bright,

How Christ, the Lord of glory, was born on earth this night.

To Bethlehem they sped and in the manger found him,

As angel heralds said.

This flow’r, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air,

Dispels with glorious splendor the darkness ev’rywhere.

True man, yet very God; from sin and death he saves us

And lightens ev’ry load.

O Savior, child of Mary, who felt our human woe;

O Savior, King of glory, who dost our weakness know,

Bring us at length, we pray, to the bright courts of heaven

And to the endless day.

on the cor anglais (English horn) and organ,

the guitar,

and a rather unusual chorale arrangement

Tune: Picardy

Meter: 8.7.8.7.8.7.

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,

And with fear and trembling stand;

Ponder nothing earthly minded,

For with blessing in His hand,

Christ our God to earth descendeth,

Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,

As of old on earth He stood,

Lord of lords, in human vesture,

In the body and the blood;

He will give to all the faithful

His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven

Spreads its vanguard on the way,

As the Light of light descendeth

From the realms of endless day,

That the powers of hell may vanish

As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six wingèd seraph,

Cherubim with sleepless eye,

Veil their faces to the presence,

As with ceaseless voice they cry:

Alleluia, Alleluia

Alleluia, Lord Most High!

These are just a few links to what I have done in past years.

2005
Lord’s Day 51, 2005
Christmas Eve
Lord’s Day 52, 2005

2006
We Don’t Even Have a Chimney
Lord’s Day 52, 2006
Saturday Stupidity: Christmas 2006

2007
Have Yourself a Mercenary Christmas
Infiltrated!

And better yet , a few things others have done this year:
Natural Law on Christmas Eve
What Christmas Is All About
The Christmas Story
Could Mary have said “no”?
The Death of Santa
Did the Magi Follow an Angel?
Is the Celebration of Christmas a Pagan Ritual?
Merry Christmas
Bad News: Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
Gloria, in Excelsis Deo (sung by, I believe, an eskimo choir)

I was checking my stats last night, wondering if anyone is coming here when they should be spending time with their families, and I was truly surprised at the amount of traffic that continues to flow through. Shame on all of you. As long as you're here, though, I'll give you something to read, and you will see that it was like so totally not worth it to come here.

These are some of the google searches that have led poor, lost souls to this site lately. These aren't even as interesting as they sometimes are.

dumb theology — What can I say?

stan and doug christmas songs — They're here.

why is rick warren overweight — Now, be nice. Everyone looks fat in a Hawaiian shirt.

Well, maybe not everyone.

I reioyced, when they sayd to me, We wil go into the house of the Lord. (Psalme 122:1 Geneva Bible)

Cords of Love
by Ralph Erskine (1685–1752)

Seek God while yet He may be found,
Call on Him while He’s near;
While graces trump, the joyful sound
Of mercy strikes your ear.

Oh, let the wicked change his way,
And the unrighteous man,
His thoughts, and legal hopes, that stray,
Cross to the gospel plan.

And let him now return to God,
The Lord our righteousness;
Who, through the merit of His blood,
In mercy will him bless.

To our God let him run betimes,
For gracious will He be;
And for his multitude of crimes
Will pardons multiply.

Let, saith the Lord, My boundless grace
Move guilty souls to come,
And trust Me with their desp’rate case
When hopeless thoughts do roam.

Because My thoughts and ways divine
Are not as yours; for why?
All yours are base and low, but Mine
Immensely great and high.

For as the heav’ns, in height and space,
Transcend your earthly boors;
Much more My thoughts and ways of grace
Surmount all thoughts of yours.

Great God, then bid the mountains move;
Our sins that reach the sky,
Be melted down with flames of love,
More infinitely high.

—Worthy Is the Lamb (Soli Deo Gloria, 2004).

Psalme 98
Geneva Bible
A Psalme.
1 Sing vnto the Lord a newe song: for hee hath done marueilous things: his right hand, and his holy arme haue gotten him the victorie.
2 The Lord declared his saluation: his righteousnes hath he reueiled in the sight of ye nations.
3 He hath remembred his mercy and his trueth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth haue seene the saluation of our God.
4 All the earth, sing ye loude vnto the Lord: crie out and reioyce, and sing prayses.
5 Sing prayse to the Lord vpon the harpe, euen vpon the harpe with a singing voyce.
6 With shalmes and sound of trumpets sing loude before the Lord the King.
7 Let the sea roare, and all that therein is, the world, and they that dwell therein. 8 Let the floods clap their hands, and let the mountaines reioyce together
9 Before the Lord: for he is come to iudge the earth: with righteousnesse shall hee iudge the world, and the people with equitie.

Grace be with you, and Peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

I received an email some time ago posing a few questions concerning circumcision, questions I have answered privately due to the awkward nature of the subject. (Have you noticed how quiet everyone gets when it comes up in the adult Sunday School class?) I’ve decided to answer at least one of those questions* here. The particular question I am addressing today is,

Why, of all things, did God choose circumcision as the sign of the covenant?

The question is not why God instituted circumcision; it is why he chose circumcision rather than something else.

That is a question I’ve asked myself, and I imagine a lot of people have wondered with me. Why did God institute such a strange practice? Really, isn’t it just weird, to say the least? Surely he could have come up with something else, something that would cause less embarrassment when it comes up at Wednesday night Bible study — a tattoo, or a piercing, anything, just not that! Yes, I have had these thoughts, and so have many other Christians, I think.

The answer is I don’t know, and I’ve never read any attempt at answering this question. I have an idea, though, and while I must admit it is only an opinion, I’m fairly well convinced it’s right — at least as convinced as I can be without a direct word from Scripture.

I believe circumcision demonstrates the depth of intimacy God wants to have with his people. He wants such an intimate connection with us that he put the physical mark of his covenant with us in the most intimate possible place. Furthermore, the removal of the foreskin represents the uncovering of our most hidden parts. Think about it: even when a man is entirely naked , his most private part is still covered by his foreskin. Only under the most intimate of circumstances is he entirely exposed, and then only to the one with whom the intimacy is shared. God wants that degree of intimacy with us.

This concept is by no means unexpressed in scripture. Marriage is explicitly an earthly picture of the heavenly relationship of Christ and his church (Matthew 25:1–13; Ephesians 5:22ff; Revelation 19:7–8). And so I believe that circumcision, in part, represents the total, uninhibited abandonment of modesty and privacy between bridegroom and bride.

As I have said, this is my opinion. But I think it’s as good an answer as any to the question of why God chose that specific sign.

Judge — it’s a serious title, and one that does not evoke pleasant thoughts. It’s certainly not the first word we think of when we hear the name “Jesus.” But we do not understand Jesus rightly if we neglect knowing him as our judge.

It is not always realized that the main New Testament authority on find judgment, just as on heaven and hell, is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Rightly does the Anglican burial service address Jesus in a single breath as “holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy Judge eternal.” For Jesus constantly affirmed that in the day when all appear before God’s throne to receive the abiding and eternal consequences of the life they have lived, he himself will be the Father’s agent in judgment, and his word of acceptance or rejection will be decisive. Passages to note in this connection are, among others, Matthew 7:13–27; 10:26–33; 12:36–37; 13:24–50; 22:1–14; 24:36—25:46; Luke 13:23–30; 16:19–31; John 5:22–30. The clearest prefiguration of Jesus as Judge is in Matthew 25:31–34, 41: “The Son of Man . . . will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations [everybody] will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another. . . . Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance. . . .’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire.’”
   The clearest account of Jesus’ prerogative as Judge is in John 5:22–23, 26–29: “The Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. . . . The Father . . . has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man [to whom dominion, including judicial functions, was promised: Dan 7:13–14]. A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned” (RSV). God’s own appointment has made Jesus Christ inescapable. He stands at the end of life’s road for everyone without exception. “Prepare to meet your God” was Amos’s message to Israel (Amos 4:12); “prepare to meet the risen Jesus” is God’s message to the world today (see Acts 17:31). And we can be sure that he who is true God and perfect man will make a perfectly just judge.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 144–145.

These last few posts have presented Jesus as quite fearsome, and fearsome he is. But there is more to the story of “Jesus as Judge.” Next time . . .

The Bible contains few words more obvious than the phrase “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). It always interests me to find fresh illustrations of this ancient truth. Postmodernism, for example, is rich with proofs of this truism. This week I discovered another piece of modern folly that is nothing new. It seems King James Onlyism has ancient roots, reaching back (at least) to the early first century. Many KJVOists scorn any attempt at scholarly textual criticism, claiming that the KJV is not only translated from inspired documents, but is itself an inspired translation. It is therefore unnecessary, and in fact dangerous, to go back to the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. The early church father Jerome (347–420), in his work of translating the Old Testament, encountered the same attitude in regard to the Septuagint.

[H]e soon became convinced that the only satisfactory way to translate the Old Testament was to cut loose from the Septuagint and work from the original Hebrew—the ‘Hebrew verity’, as he called it. Accordingly, he gave himself to this task and completed the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Latin in 405. This work included a further version of the Psalter, the ‘Hebrew Psalter’, a rendering direct from the original; religious conservatism, however, preferred to go on using the more familiar wording based on the Septuagint.
   For this work Jerome needed to perfect his knowledge of Hebrew, and did not hesitate to rely on the help of Jewish teachers. . . . Jerome’s dependence on Jewish instructors increased the suspicion of some of his Christian critics who were put off in any case by such an innovation as a translation of the sacred writings from Hebrew (with its implied disparagement of the divinely-inspired Septuagint).

—F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (InterVarsity Press, 1988), 88–89.