As previously announced, I’m amputating the earliest half-or-so of the blog and republishing any part of it that seems worth saving. I doubt if this post actually qualifies as “worth saving,” but you know how poets are — imposing all manner of atrocious verse on whomever will listen.
This isn’t actually the first song I’ve written, or even the first of this kind. It’s just the first I’ve inflicted on the public. It doesn’t have a title. I’m sure you can think of something to call it.
Sing to the tune of Hooked on a Feeling. Pretend you’re David Hasselhoff.
Words that are so simple
Don’t require no thought
Stir up my emotions
With pathos fraught
Yeah, I sing them
Over many times
All I ask is
That the verses rhyme
I-I, I’m hooked on a feeling
I’m high on believing
That this is worshipping
The second verse is kind of
Like the other one
Mindless repetition
Can be pretty fun
I just love this feeling
Flooding over me
Yeah, it’s warm and fuzzy
It’s kind of dreamy
When I stand here
Hands up in the air
With my eyes closed
I ain’t got a care
I-I, I’m hooked on a feeling
I’m high on believing
That this is worshipping
When I stand here
Hands up in the air
With my eyes closed
I ain’t got a care
I-I, I’m hooked on a feeling
I’m high on believing
That this is worshipping
I-I, I’m hooked on a feeling
I’m high on believing
That this is worshipping
I’m hooked on a feeling
I’m hooked on a feeling
I’m hooked on a feeling*
I know, it’s not Friday. But it was last week, and it will be again tomorrow.
Since I began using a Google Reader widget for my On the Web sidebar links, I have no way (that I’m aware of) of knowing how many of you use those links. So I want to make a special point of plugging one item in particular that has become a weekly recurring link. Every Friday, as you may have noticed, I have linked to Ligonier Ministries “$5 Friday” bargains. Over the past months, I’ve picked up some excellent resources, including hardcover books and DVD teaching series.
Last week we began making good use of them as we began our school season. We have begun each school day this season with a thirty minute lesson from R. C. Sproul. Yesterday, we completed Basic Training. Today, in just a few minutes, we will begin The Mystery of the Trinity. This series should be especially useful, since we have a group of modalists right up our street, and have occasional contact with them. Our kids have had quite a bit of interaction with theirs, so it will be especially good for them.
One thing I can say for Dr. Sproul is that he is not boring. Our children are certainly not all old enough to take in everything he says, but his manner is so enthusiastic and engaging that even the youngest are able to sit, pay attention, and afterwards to answer questions indicating that they were indeed listening and learning.
Many thanks to R. C. Sproul, Ligonier Ministries and all their supporters for these great resources, and for $5 Friday.
In this age of the therapeutic gospel, we see many Christians embracing notions unheard of by saints of the past. Among these is the idea that memories of past sins are harmful, that we need to forget them and move on. We even hear the absurd admonition to forgive ourselves.
While it is certainly true that we ought not wallow in our past, that we do need to “move on,” the idea of forgetting is quite new and unbiblical. Consider the advice given by Jonathan Edwards to one Deborah Hathaway, a recent convert who had written him for advice on living the Christian life:
Though God has forgiven and forgotten your past sins, yet do not forget them yourself: often remember, what a wretched bond-slave you were in the land of Egypt. Often bring to mind your particular act of sin before conversion, as the blessed apostle Paul is often mentioning his old blaspheming, persecuting spirit, and his injuriousness to the renewed, humbling his heart, and acknowledging that he was “the least of the apostles,” and not worthy “to be called an apostle,” and the “least of all saints,” and the “chief of sinners.” And be often confessing your old sins to God, and let that text be often in your mind, “That thou mayest remember and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more, because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God” (Ezekiel 16:63).
This hymn seems to be unknown outside of Lutheran circles. If you’re a Lutheran today, and you’ve sung this hymn, chances are it’s been a neutered version with updated and decidedly unpoetic language, no violence (“battles” are now “struggles”), sans any “great Jehovah.” I give it to you con carne.
20 We Praise Thee, O God
We praise Thee, O God, our Redeemer, Creator;
In grateful devotion our tribute we bring.
We lay it before Thee, we kneel and adore Thee;
We bless Thy holy name, glad praises we sing.
We worship Thee, God of our fathers, we bless Thee;
Through trouble and tempest our Guide hast Thou been.
When perils o’ertake us, escape Thou wilt make us,
And with Thy help, O Lord, our battles we win.
With voices united our praises we offer
to Thee, great Jehovah, glad anthems we raise.
Thy strong arm will guide us, our God is beside us,
To Thee, our great Redeemer, forever be praise!
The tune is Krember, which you may recognize as We Gather Together.
Organ
I thought I would have to do without a vocal performance, but then I discovered this gentleman:
I love the old falling-apart hymnal. I hope it means what I assume it means.
I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
Abide in Him Horatius Bonar (1808–1889) “Tecum volo vulnerari Te libenter amplexari In cruce desidero.”—Old Hymn.
Cling to the Crucified! His death is life to thee; Life for eternity. His pains thy pardon seal; His stripes thy bruises heal; His cross proclaims thy peace, Bids every sorrow cease. His blood is all to thee, It purges thee from sin; It sets thy spirit free, It keeps thy conscience clean. Cling to the Crucified!
Cling to the Crucified!
His is a heart of love.
Full as the hearts above;
Its depths of sympathy
Are all awake for thee:
His countenance is light,
Even in the darkest night
That love shall never change,
That light shall ne'er grow dim;
Charge thou thy faithless heart
To find its all in him.
Cling to the Crucified!
—Horatius Bonar, Hymns of Faith and Hope, First Series (James Nisbet & Co., 1878).
John 13:16–20
Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. 18 I do not speak of all of you I know the ones I have chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’ 19 From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He. 20 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.”
If we would understand the full meaning of these verses, we must mark carefully where they stand in the chapter. They follow right after the remarkable passage in which we read of Christ washing His disciples’ feet. They stand in close connection with His solemn command, that the disciples should do as they had seen Him do. Then come the five verses which we have now to consider. We are taught, for one thing, in these verses, that Christians must never be ashamed of doing anything that Christ has done. We read, “Verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.” There seems little doubt that our Lord’s all-seeing eye saw a rising unwillingness in the minds of the Apostles to do such menial things as they had just seen Him do. Puffed up with their old Jewish expectation of thrones and kingdoms in this world, secretly self-satisfied with their own position as our Lord’s friends, these poor Galileans were startled at the idea of washing people’s feet! They could not bring themselves to believe that Messiah’s service entailed work like this. They could not yet take in the grand truth, that true Christian greatness consisted in doing good to others. And hence they needed our Lord’s word of warning. If He had humbled Himself to do humbling work, His disciples must not hesitate to do the same. The lesson is one of which we all need to be reminded. We are all too apt to dislike any work which seems to entail trouble, self-denial, and going down to our inferiors. We are only too ready to dispute such work to others, and to excuse ourselves by saying, “It is not in our way.” When feelings of this kind arise within us we shall find it good to remember our Lord’s words in this passage, no less than our Lord’s example. We ought never to think it beneath us to show kindness to the lowest of men. We ought never to hold our hand because the objects of our kindness are ungrateful or unworthy. Such was not the mind of Him who washed the feet of Judas Iscariot as well as Peter. He who in these matters cannot stoop to follow Christ’s example, gives little evidence of possessing true love or true humility. We are taught, for another thing, in these verses, the uselessness of religious knowledge if not accompanied by practice. We read, “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” It sounds as if our Lord would warn His disciples that they would never be really happy in His service if they were content with a barren head-knowledge of duty, and did not live according to their knowledge. The lesson is one which deserves the continual remembrance of all professing Christians. Nothing is more common than to hear people saying of doctrine or duty,—“We know it, we know it;” while they sit still in unbelief or disobedience. They actually seem to flatter themselves that there is something creditable and redeeming in knowledge, even when it bears no fruit in heart, character, or life. Yet the truth is precisely the other way. To know what we ought to be, believe, and do, and yet to be unaffected by our knowledge, only adds to our guilt in the sight of God. To know that Christians should be humble and loving, while we continue proud and selfish, will only sink us deeper in the pit, unless we awake and repent. Practice, in short, is the very life of religion. “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” (James iv. 17.) Of course we must never despise knowledge. It is in one sense the beginning of Christianity in the soul. So long as we know nothing of sin, or God, or Christ, or grace, or repentance, or faith, or conscience, we are of course nothing better than heathens. But we must not overrate knowledge. It is altogether valueless unless it produces results in our conduct, and influences our lives, and moves our wills. In fact knowledge without practice does not raise us above the level of the devil. He could say to Jesus, “I know Thee who Thou art, the Holy One of God.” The devils, says St. James, “believe and tremble.” (James ii. 20.) Satan knows truth, but has no will to obey it, and is miserable. He that would be happy in Christ’s service must not only know, but do. We are taught, for another thing, in these verses, the perfect knowledge which Christ has of all His people. He can distinguish between false profession and true grace. The Church may be deceived, and rank men as Apostles, who are nothing better than brethren of Judas Iscariot. But Jesus is never deceived, for He can read hearts. And here He declares with peculiar emphasis, “I know whom I have chosen.” This perfect knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ is a very solemn thought, and one which cuts two ways. It ought to fill the hypocrite with alarm, and drive him to repentance. Let him remember that the eyes of the all-seeing Judge already see him through and through, and detect the absence of a wedding garment. If he would not be put to shame before assembled worlds, let him cast aside his false profession, and confess his sin before it is too late. Believers, on the other hand, may think of an all-knowing Saviour with comfort. They may remember, when misunderstood and slandered by an evil world, that their Master knows all. He knows that they are true and sincere, however weak and failing. A time is coming when He will confess them before His Father, and bring forth their characters clear and bright as the summer sun at noon-day. We are taught, finally, in these verses, the true dignity of Christ’s disciples. The world may despise and ridicule the Apostles because they care more for works of love and humility than the pursuits of the world. But the Master bids them remember their commission, and not be ashamed. They are God’s ambassadors, and have no cause to be cast down. “Verily, verily,” He declares, “He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth Me; and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me.” The doctrine here laid down is full of encouragement. It ought to cheer and hearten all who lay themselves out to do good, and specially to do good to the fallen and the poor. Work of this kind gets little praise from men, and they who give themselves up to it are often regarded as miserable enthusiasts, and meet with much opposition. Let them however work on, and take comfort in the words of Christ which we are now considering. To spend and be spent in trying to do good, makes a man far more honorable in the eyes of Jesus than to command armies or amass a fortune. The few who work for God in Christ’s way have no cause to be ashamed. Let them not be cast down if the children of the world laugh and sneer and despise them. A day comes when they will hear the words, “Come ye blessed children of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you.” (Matt. xxv. 34.)
—J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (Baker Books, 2007) [Westminster (PB) | Amazon (HC)].
“For too little doth he love Thee, who loves any thing with Thee, which he loveth not for Thee.” —Augustine
I had to read that quote from Augustine’s Confessions two or three times to really get the gist of it. When it had sunk in thoroughly, I was soundly smitten by the profound truth it expresses. If I love anything, even something that God loves, but do not love it primarily because God loves it and receives glory from it, I do not love God enough.
This does not mean that we may have no personal reasons for our love. Certainly, I love my wife because she is precious to me, and my children also. I love God for his grace and mercy. These causes of love are legitimate. However, if the only reason for my love is personal, it is not adequate. I ought to see God's glory reflected in my wife and children, and love them for Christ’s sake. I ought to see God glorified in my redemption and love him for that reason. Ultimately, God himself ought to be the object of my every affection.
As I was contemplating my love for God, something else occurred to me: hatred of sin, and my reason for hating it. Why do I hate my sin? I hate my sin because of the harm it does to me and others. It often has immediate negative consequences for me, and it separates me from fellowship with God. Almost as often, it has negative consequences for someone close to me. I hate that. That motivates me to avoid sin and discipline myself to “do better.”
But what should catalyze my hatred of sin? It is the same thing that should move me to love — the glory of God. I should hate my sin because it grieves my Father. I should hate my sin because it is an offense to my Savior. I should hate my sin because it quenches the Holy Spirit. I should hate it because it falls short of the glory of God. I should hate it because God hates it.
I hate too little anything that I hate not for God’s sake.
Here’s a good follow-up to the previously-posted advice of Jonathan Edwards to Deborah Hathaway, this from the same letter:
Be always greatly abased for your remaining sin and never think that you lie low enough for it. But yet be not discouraged or disheartened over it, for, though we are exceedingly sinful, yet, “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous,” the preciousness of whose blood, the merit of whose righteousness, and the greatness of whose love and faithfulness, infinitely overtop the highest mountain of our sins.
A reader, knowing of my background in the Lutheran church, recently sent me this question (paraphrased):
My daughter and I recently attended a Missouri Synod Lutheran church. During the service, the pastor said something that caught our attention. He made a comment in reference to baptism “giving” faith to someone. I am fairly certain that if I asked a Lutheran if baptism saves, he'd say “no.” But how does that jive with the remark about baptism “giving” faith? My daughter asked me that later, after the service. I didn't have an answer, and I told her I'd look into it. What would you tell her if she asked you?
I can’t speak for the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. I come from another denomination that is not as high-church as the LCMS, that (I think) does not emphasize the sacraments quite as much, but don’t quote me on that. So I don’t know how a LCMS pastor would explain it. I can only offer the following statement from the LCMS website:
Baptism, too, is applied for the remission of sins and is therefore a washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.
Before offering any of my own comments, I think it would be best to quote the Lutheran confessions, accepted by the LCMS and, as far as I know, all evangelical Lutheran denominations*.
Luther’s Small Catechism:
What gifts or benefits does baptism bestow?
It works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives everlasting salvation to all who believe, as the word and promise of God declare.
—The Book of Concord, trans. and ed. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 348-349.
The Augsburg Confession:
It is taught that Baptism is necessary and that grace is offered through it. Children, too, should be baptized, for in Baptism are committed to God and are acceptable to him.
—Ibid., 33.
The Apology of the Augsburg Confession:
Baptism is necessary to salvation; children are to be baptized; the baptism of children is not in useless, but is necessary and efficacious for salvation. . . . It is most certain that the promise of salvation also applies to little children. It does not apply to those who are outside of Christ's church, where there is neither Word nor sacraments, because Christ regenerates through Word and sacrament. Therefore it is necessary to baptize children, so that the promise of salvation might be applied to them, according to Christ's command, (Matt. 28:19): “Baptize all nations.” Just as here salvation is offered to all, so Baptism is offered to all—men, women, children, and infants. Therefore it clearly follows that infants should be baptized because salvation is offered with Baptism.
—Ibid., 178.
Luther’s Large Catechism:
. . . since we now know what Baptism is and how it is to be regarded, we must also learn for what purpose it was instituted, that is, what benefits, gifts, and effects it brings. Nor can we understand this better than from the words of Christ quoted above, “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.” To put it most simply, the power, work, fruit, and purpose of Baptism is to save. . . . To be saved, we know, is nothing else than to be delivered from sin, death, and the devil, and to enter into the kingdom of Christ, and to live with Him forever.
—Ibid., 439.
The Lutheran link between salvation and baptism should be pretty obvious. Returning to the original question, I don’t see a statement in the confessions explicitly saying that baptism gives faith (although I may have missed it); however, Dr. Mueller (an LCMS theologian), in his Christian Dogmatics, explains:
In agreement with the Romanists are all the Romanizing Protestants who claim that Baptism indeed works regeneration, but without actually kindling faith. They thus regard baptismal grace as conferred without a receiving means on the part of man, whereas Scripture teaches very clearly that there can be no regeneration without faith in the forgiveness of sins secured by Christ, John 1, 12. 13; 3, 5. 14. 15; 1 John 5, 1, and offered and conveyed to men by the means of grace the Lutheran Church, on the other hand, teaches correctly that Baptism is a means of regeneration for the reason that it offers and conveys forgiveness of sons and works and strengthens faith through its gracious Gospel offer. All (Romanists and Romanizing Protestants) who deny that Baptism is primo loco [in the first place] a means of justification by faith in the proffered grace intermingle Law and Gospel by making Baptism a means of sanctification, not by faith, but by works.
It seems to me that Mueller is working backwards from the assumption that baptism saves, therefore deducing — correctly, if the premise be granted — that baptism gives faith.
Lutherans are quick to distance themselves from Catholic baptism, saying that the water, administered by a priest, does not save ex opera operato. The sacrament is always spoken of as water and the Word, the Word making the water efficacious. However, this seems to me that they are still teaching baptismal regeneration ex opera operato, with the difference that but the power is in the Word, rather than in the church.†
The straight answer is that you probably won’t get a straight, simple answer from most Lutherans. They do believe in baptismal regeneration, but when asked, most will try to nuance their answer so as to avoid sounding Catholic. Most won’t come right out and admit baptismal regeneration, but will rather say that it works faith.
If you’re left with any doubt as to the importance of baptism to the Lutheran, it should be revealing to note that pastors will rush to the hospital to administer emergency baptisms on babies who might not survive. This is so important that, in the event that the pastor isn’t available, the Concordia Hymnal includes an Order of Baptismal Service in cases of Emergency that includes the following preface:
When a new-born child is in danger of death, the minister should promptly be called to baptize it. In such case he shall use as much of the common Order for Baptism as the circumstances allow. But where the danger is very great, and no minister is within reach, the father of the child, or some other Christian man or woman, may baptize it. But they shall not do so, except in extreme necessity . . .
I have, on several occasions, asked Lutheran pastors about this. When asked what happens to the baptized baby who dies, they will, without hesitating, declare that baby to be in heaven. But what happens to the unbaptized baby who dies?
“I can’t say. We have to trust that child to God’s mercy.”
† I don’t mean to imply here that Lutheran baptism is really no different from Roman Catholic baptism, even though, by the language they use, I think they really are asking for it. That would not be fair or accurate.
Could it be that Emergent has its roots in the Reformation? If the movement ever solidifies into anything historically significant (it won’t [and in 2010, we can say didn’t]), will they count Erasmus as one of their Church Fathers? In 1524, Desiderius Erasmus published Diatribe seu collation de libero arbitrio (Diatribe on Free Will). Luther responded in 1525 with De Servo Arbitrio (On the Enslaved Will), which we know as The Bondage of the Will. I have just begun reading Luther’s work and, so far, his words and those of the translators in their introduction seem strikingly applicable to today’s postmodern “thinkers.”
Consider this passage from the translator’s Historical and Theological Introduction:
Why did Erasmus and Luther approach the discussion of ‘free-will’ in such contrasting attitudes of mind? The answer is not far to seek. Their divergent attitudes sprang from two divergent conceptions of Christianity. Erasmus held that matters of doctrine were all comparatively unimportant, and that the issue as to whether a man’s will was or was not free was more unimportant than most. Luther, on the other hand, held that doctrines were essential to, and constructive of, the Christian religion, and that the doctrine of the bondage of the will in particular was the corner-stone of the Gospel and the very foundation of faith. Here we are confronted with the deepest difference that there was, or could have been, between the two men; and we must say a little more about it. Christianity, to Erasmus, was essentially morality, with a minimum of doctrinal statement loosely appended. What Erasmus professed that he desire to see in Christendom was a return to an apostolic ‘simplicity’ of life and doctrine, and this he thought could be brought about simply by eliminating the superstitions and abuses which had crept into the Church’s life over the centuries. The Reformation that Erasmus actually advocated under the name of ‘the philosophy of Christ’ as the true, slimmed, ‘simple’ version of Christianity, turns out on inspection to be no more than a barren moralism. Erasmus recognizes no organic dependence of practice upon faith. That the life which pleases God springs only from living trust in Christ as the Word of God sets Him forth that is something that the great humanist never saw. That is why he could profess to find so little pleasure in theological dogmatizing that he would gladly side with the Sceptics whenever Scripture and the Church allowed him to do so although, as he hastened to explain, he uniformly submitted his judgment to these authorities, whether he understood the reasons for what they ordained or not. Luther takes him severely to task for this remark, and not without justice. Erasmus cannot be acquitted of the charge of doctrinal indifferentism. His attitude was that what one believes about the mysteries of the faith does not much matter; what the Church lays down may safely be accepted, whether right or wrong, for the details of a churchman’s doctrine will not affect his living as a Christian in this world, nor his eventual destiny in the world to come therefore, however sure one might be that the Church was a some point wrong, one is never justified in disrupting Christendom about it (as Luther was doing); peace in the Church was of more value than any doctrine. The churchman would be wise not to bother his head about problems of doctrinal definition, but to concern himself simply with guiding his life by the moral law of Christ. In particular, the question as to whether or not man’s will is free, to Erasmus’ mind, can be ignored with perfect safety; it can have no possible bearing on man’s endeavor to keep the law of Christ, except perhaps to distract and discourage him. Wisdom and humanity alike dissuade us from prying too deeply into such an abstruse subject; and it is a sign of pride and folly when a man lays much stress upon it. The Christian church is better off without rash ventures of that sort.
At first glance, Erasmus’ stated willingness to submit to Scripture and the Church may seem incompatible with Emergent, but it really is not. Like Erasmus, Emergent gives the desultory nod to Scripture.* At the same time, any dogma (however noncommittal) is the result of a consensus (however loose) of “the community,” which is Emergent’s version of the Church. Erasmus’ main resemblance to Emergent is his disdain for dogma and his willingness to discard doctrine as unimportant and even harmful.
In Luther’s own introduction, he takes Erasmus to task for an offense that screams Emergent to even the most casual observer:
I forbear at the moment to mention further the fact that, in your usual way, you have taken vast pains throughout to be slippery and evasive. You are more canny than Ulysses in the way you suppose yourself to be steering between Scylla and Charybdis—you would have nothing actually asserted, yet you would seem to assert something! Who, I ask, but one who could catch Proteus himself could bring forth anything to touch people like you?
Ibid., 64.
Luther begins his Review of Erasmus’ Preface by demonstrating “the necessity of assertions in Christianity.”
Away, now, with Sceptics and Academics from the company of us Christians; let us have men who will assert, men twice as inflexible as very Stoics! Take the Apostle Paul—how often does he call for that ‘full assurance’ which is, simply, an assertion of conscience, of the highest degree of certainty and conviction. In Rom. 10 he calls it ‘confession’—‘with the mouth confession is made unto salvation’ (v. 10). Christ says, ‘Whosoever confesseth me before men, him will I confess before my Father’ (Matt. 10.32). Peter commands us to give a reason for the hope that is in us (I Pet. 3.15). And what need is there of a multitude of proofs? Nothing is more familiar of characteristic among Christians than assertion, take away assertions, and you take away Christianity. Why, the Holy Spirit is given to Christians from heaven in order that He may glorify Christ and in them confess Him even unto death—and is this not assertion, to die for what you confess and assert? Again, the Spirit asserts to such purpose that He breaks in upon the whole world and convinces it of sin (cf. John 16.8), as if challenging it to battle. Paul tells Timothy to reprove, and to be instant out of season (2 Tim. 4.2); and what a clown I should think a man to be who did not really believe, nor unwaveringly assert, those things concerning which he reproved others! I think I should send him to Anticyra!† But I am the biggest fool of all for wasting time and words on something that is clearer to see that the sun. What Christian can endure the idea that we should deprecate assertions? That would be denying all religion and piety in one breath—asserting that religion and piety are nothing at all. Why then do you—you!—assert that you find no satisfaction in assertions and that you prefer an undogmatic temper to any other?
Ibid., 67, bold type added.
Emergents, and postmodernists in general, will never define or allow themselves to be defined. But as this nearly half-century-old work demonstrates, whatever they are, they can’t claim to be onto anything new.
* When I originally wrote this, I gave Emergents more credit than I do now.
† Anticyra was a health resort on the Aegean coast where mental illness was treated.
Following my post earlier this week on the Lutheran doctrine of baptismal regeneration, I thought it would be good to address some of the texts they use to justify it. There really are only two that come to mind: Titus 3:5–7 and 1 Peter 3:18–22. Since I honestly don’t know why anyone would think Titus 3 is about baptism, I’ll go straight to 1 Peter.
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; 19 in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, 20 who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. 21 Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.
Peter has spent the first part of the chapter admonishing his readers to live righteously, not in order to gain any merit for themselves — “by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified” (Romans 3:20) — but for the sake of the gospel. They are to be prepared, so that when they are persecuted for righteousness, the will be able to give a defense, not of themselves, but of the gospel, “the hope that is in you,” the cause for which they are being persecuted.
That hope, that gospel, is that “Christ died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which he also went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.” This is a rather curious passage. It’s hard to say exactly what Christ said or where he went to say it. But that is hardly the point. We are reminded here of the wickedness of man in the time of Noah (see Genesis 6:1–7) and the catastrophic judgment that came upon them for their wickedness. And we are reminded that a chosen few were “brought safely through the water.”
Now Peter gets to the point: “Corresponding to that,” — or better, “The like figure” (KJV) — “baptism now saves you.”
We need to pause now to consider what the word baptize means. It is a word that, unfortunately, translators have chosen not to translate. So we tend to think of it almost exclusively as water baptism. To baptize means to submerge. A sunken ship is baptized. It can mean to cleanse or wash by immersion. It is not always associated with water. Christ, speaking of his crucifixion and burial, said, “I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!” (Luke 12:50) This is exactly the baptism spoken of by Peter.
So, to summarize in the briefest possible way:
The physical salvation of Noah and his family through the flood is an antetype (translated “the like figure” in the KJV) of our spiritual salvation through the death of Christ. The flood is the judgment of God. The ark is Christ. Jesus said, “I have a baptism to undergo.” If we “have been crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), and “raised us up with him” (Ephesians 2:5–6; Colossians 3:1), we have gone through that baptism (flood) with him, in him; he is our ark. Therefore, “a few . . . were brought safely through the water. Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you . . . through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
It’s not about water baptism at all. It’s about the cross.
Hymns of My Youth: Give to Our God Immortal Praise
Today’s hymn is a Psalm of Isaac Watts, titled by Watts Psalm 136 Abridged. The Concordia includes the four verses below. You can read the full Psalm here.
24 Give to Our God Immortal Praise
Give to our God immortal praise!
Mercy and truth are all His ways;
Wonders of grace to God belong:
Repeat His mercies in your song.
Give to the Lord of lords renown,
The King of kings with glory crown:
His mercies ever shall endure,
When lords and kings are known no more.
He built the earth, He spread the sky,
And fixed the starry lights on high:
Wonders of grace to God belong;
Repeat His mercies in your song.
He sent His Son with power to save
From guilt, and darkness, and the grave:
Wonders of grace to God belong;
Repeat His mercies in your song.
I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
Short Is Time Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)
Short is time, and only time is bleak; Gauge the exceeding height thou hast to climb: Long eternity is nigh to seek: Short is time.
Time is shortening with the wintry rime:
Pray and watch and pray, girt up and meek;
Praying, watching, praying, chime by chime.
Pray by silence if thou canst not speak:
Time is shortening; pray in till the prime:
Time is shortening; soul, fulfill thy week:
Short is time.
—Christina Rossetti, Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1993).
John 13:21–30
When Jesus had said this, He became troubled in spirit, and testified and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray Me.” 22 The disciples began looking at one another, at a loss to know of which one He was speaking. 23 There was reclining on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. 24 So Simon Peter gestured to him, and said to him, “Tell us who it is of whom He is speaking.” 25 He, leaning back thus on Jesus’ bosom, said to Him, “Lord, who is it?” 26 Jesus then answered, “That is the one for whom I shall dip the morsel and give it to him.” So when He had dipped the morsel, He took and gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 After the morsel, Satan then entered into him. Therefore Jesus said to him, “What you do, do quickly.” 28 Now no one of those reclining at the table knew for what purpose He had said this to him. 29 For some were supposing, because Judas had the money box, that Jesus was saying to him, “Buy the things we have need of for the feast”; or else, that he should give something to the poor. 30 So after receiving the morsel he went out immediately; and it was night.
The subject of the verses before us is a very painful one. They describe the last scene between our Lord Jesus Christ and the false Apostle Judas Iscariot. They contain the last words which passed between them before they parted forever in this world. They never seem to have met again on earth, excepting in the garden when our Lord was taken prisoner. Within a short time both the holy Master and the treacherous servant were dead. They will never meet again in the body until the trumpet sounds, and the dead are raised, and the judgment is set, and the books are opened. What an awful meeting will that be! Let us mark, firstly, in this passage, what trouble our Lord Jesus went through for the sake of our souls. We are told that shortly after washing the disciples’ feet, He “was troubled in spirit, and said, One of you shall betray Me.” The whole length and breadth and depth of our Master’s troubles during His earthly ministry are far beyond the conception of most people. His death and suffering on the cross were only the heading up and completion of His sorrows. But all throughout His life,—partly from the general unbelief of the Jews,—partly from the special hatred of the Pharisees and Sadducees,—partly from the weakness and infirmity of His few followers,—He must have been in a peculiar degree “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” (Isa. liii. 3.) But the trouble before us was a singular and exceptional one. It was the bitter sorrow of seeing a chosen Apostle deliberately becoming an apostate, a backslider, and an ungrateful traitor. That it was a foreseen sorrow from the beginning we need not doubt; but sorrow is not less acute because long foreseen. That it was a peculiarly cutting sorrow is very evident. Nothing is found so hard for flesh and blood to bear as ingratitude. Even a poet of our own has said that it is “sharper than a serpent’s tooth to have a thankless child.” Absalom’s rebellion seems to have been David’s heaviest trouble, and Judas Iscariot’s treachery seems to have been one of the heaviest trials of the Son of David. When He saw it drawing near He was “troubled in spirit.” Passages like these should make us see the amazing love of Christ to sinners. How many cups of sorrow He drained to the dregs in working out our salvation, beside the mighty cup of bearing our sins. They show us how little reason we have for complaining when friends fail us, and men disappoint us. If we share our Master’s lot we have no cause to be surprised. Above all, they show us the perfect suitableness of Christ to be our Saviour. He can sympathize with us. He has suffered Himself, and can feel for those who are ill-used and forsaken. Let us mark, secondly, in these verses, the power and malignity of our great enemy the devil. We are told in the beginning of the chapter that he “put it into the heart” of Judas to betray our Lord. We are told here that he “entered into” him. First he suggests: then he commands. First he knocks at the door and asks permission to come in: then, once admitted, he takes complete possession, and rules the whole inward man like a tyrant. Let us take heed that we are not “ignorant of Satan’s devices.” He is still going to and fro in the earth, seeking whom he may devour. He is about our path, and about our bed, and spies out all our ways. Our only safety lies in resisting him at the first, and not listening to his first advances. For this we are all responsible. Strong as he is, he has no power to do us harm, if we cry to the stronger One in heaven, and use the means which He has appointed. It is a standing principle of Christianity, and will ever be found true. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James iv. 7.) Once let a man begin tampering with the devil, and he never knows how far he may fall. Trifling with the first thoughts of sin,—making light of evil ideas when first offered to our hearts,—allowing Satan to talk to us, and flatter us, and put bad notions into our hearts,—all this may seem a small matter to many. It is precisely at this point that the road to ruin often begins. He that allows Satan to sow wicked thoughts will soon find within his heart a crop of wicked habits. Happy is he who really believes that there is a devil, and believing, watches and prays daily that he may be kept from his temptations. Let us mark, lastly, in these verses, the extreme hardness which comes over the heart of a backsliding professor of religion. This is a thing which is most painfully brought out in the case of Judas Iscariot. One might have thought that the sight of our Lord’s trouble, and the solemn warning, “One of you shall betray Me,” would have stirred the conscience of this unhappy man. But it did not do so. One might have thought that the solemn words, “what thou doest, do quickly,” would have arrested him, and made him ashamed of his intended sin. But nothing seems to have moved him. Like one whose conscience was dead, buried, and gone, he rises and goes out to do his wicked work, and parts with his Lord forever. The extent to which we may harden ourselves by resisting light and knowledge is one of the most fearful facts in our nature. We may become past feeling, like those whose limbs are mortified before they die. We may lose entirely all sense of fear, or shame, or remorse, and have a heart as hard as the nether millstone, blind to every warning, and deaf to every appeal. It is a painful disease, but one which unhappily is not uncommon among professing Christians. None seem so liable to it as those who, having great light and privilege, deliberately turn their backs on Christ, and return to the world. Nothing seems likely to touch such people, but the voice of the archangel and the trump of God. Let us watch jealously over our hearts, and beware of giving way to the beginnings of sin. Happy is he who feareth always, and walks humbly with his God. The strongest Christian is the one who feels his weakness most, and cries most frequently, “Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe.” (Psalm cxix. 117; Prov. xxviii. 14.)
—J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (Baker Books, 2007) [Westminster (PB) | Amazon (HC)].
Since our homeschool students are currently studying the Trinity, I was reminded of this article, originally posted November 22, 2006.
I was thirty years old before I actually encountered anyone who called themselves Christians and denied the Trinity. I had heard that such people existed, but outside the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I didn’t know who they were. Then, when we moved to this small town in North Dakota, we met a character who had recently left the same church that we began attending. He was a self-styled teacher with a very overpowering personality who had managed to gather a small group of very committed disciples and formed his own “church,” renting a church building in a neighboring town. A few years ago, this little cult built its own facility just a few blocks up the street from our house.
This post is, in a nutshell, what I told one of them when I had the occasion to discuss it, along with a few comments to Trinitarians who explain it badly.
There is one true God, eternally existent in three persons.
There is only one God. In no sense are there three.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4, and quoted again by Jesus in Mark 12:29). “[H]ath not one God created us?” (Malachi 2:10) God is always spoken of as singular. God is always “he,” never “they.” He reigns over the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of the gods. In Luke 18, Jesus is addressed as “Good Master.” His reply: “Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God” [bold type added].
God is three distinct persons. In no sense are they one. All three exist simultaneously and eternally.
The Father is God.
The Son is God.
The Holy Spirit is God.
The Father is never the Son or the Holy Spirit.
The Son is never the Father or the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is never the Father or the Son.
The Trinity is revealed in Scripture from the very beginning. In Genesis 1:2, “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Farther along in verse 26 we find God talking to himself: “Let us make man in our image” [bold type added]. Who was God talking to? Why the plural pronouns? Four thousand years later, John the Apostle wrote of Christ: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:1-3) The Son was present in the beginning, and participated in creation.
“Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. … And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. … He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.” (Matthew 26:36,39,42) Who was Jesus praying to? Was he putting on an act, going through the motions of prayer in order to set an example for his disciples, as some have said? If so, what does that tell us about him? If true, it tells us that God is an actor, a deceiver, a manipulator who plays with our minds like faith-healers and “revival” preachers. No, Jesus, being God, is incapable of any kind of deceit. He was praying to his Father, as one distinct person to another.
The Trinity is probably most clearly demonstrated at Jesus’ baptism: “And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16-17). Jesus was in the Jordan, the Holy Spirit descended upon him, and the Father spoke from Heaven—three distinct persons in three distinct places—simultaneously.
God does not appear at different times and places in different roles or modes. His triunity may not be compared to the way in which we fill different positions yet remain one person, as one man may be a son, husband, father, grandfather, employer or employee, etc., all at once. That is the Modalist heresy.
God also cannot be described as many Trinitarians have attempted to describe him:
The Trinity is not like an egg—yolk, white, shell.
The Trinity is not like an apple—skin, flesh, seeds.
The Trinity is not like water—liquid, solid, vapor.
The Trinity is not like time—past, present, future.
The Trinity is not like space—height, depth, width.
The Trinity is not any other metaphor you’ve thought of. I know, some of you can’t stand not having an explanation for everything. You are very creative and imaginative and love thinking these things up. Well, stop it! You almost persuade me to become a modalist. The Bible tells us quite clearly that God is triune. It does not even begin to tell us how that is so.
Lemuel Haynes on the impossibility of faith preceding regeneration:
It is necessary that we consider those things that are the attendants or consequences regeneration or the new birth, for there are no gracious or holy exercises that are prior thereto, to be sure, in the order of nature. Some seem to suppose faith to be before regeneration, but a little reflection upon the matter will show this to be wrong. By faith we are to understand a believing of those truths that God has exhibited in His Word with a friendly heart. Now, to suppose that a man believes this friendly heart antecedent to regeneration, is to suppose that a man is a friend to God while in a state of unregeneracy, which is contradictory to Scripture. Now, if to believe with a friendly and rightly disposed heart is absolutely necessary in order to constitute a true faith , and such a heart is peculiar to the regenerate only, then we must be possessed with this heart (which is given in regeneration) before there can flow from it any such exercises. So that the man must become a good man, or be regenerated, before he can exercise faith, or love, or any grace whatever. Hence we read of men’s receiving Christ, and becoming sons of God (John 1:12).
The following is taken from a letter of Lemuel Haynes to his friend and first biographer, Timothy Mather Cooley.
With respect to religion in these parts, although the year past some towns have been remarkably visited with divine influence, yet it is in general a very ignorant time. I think I never knew infidelity more prevalent. As you observe, Paine has advocates. I have attended to his writings on theology and can find little but invective and the lowest kind of burlesque. . . . We may rest satisfied that the Lord omnipotent reigneth.
Haines refers here to the deist Thomas Paine, whose book The Age of Reason was a diatribe against Christianity. Notice, though, that rather than panicking and calling Christians to campaigns and protests and boycotts, he simply says, “We may rest satisfied that the Lord omnipotent reigneth.” If only American fundamentalists believed that!
We watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s a few nights ago. This is one of those “classics” that one is supposed to watch and admire all its classic classicness, and observe that “they just don’t make ’em like that anymore.” Well, I’m sorry to say, they do. Hollywood is still cranking out empty romances featuring empty plots and empty characters. So this is nothing special.
Nearly forty years later, and this being such a “classic” that just everyone must have seen it, it seems unnecessary to provide any kind of plot synopsis. Nevertheless, for the sake of the great unwashed, I’ll sketch it out. Audrey Hepburn (contrary to my previous assumption, no relation to Katharine), plays Holly Golightly, a gold-digging socialite with absolutely no redeeming qualities. George Peppard is Paul Varjak, an equally useless once-published author who now makes his living as the plaything of a wealthy married woman (Patricia Neal). This is our romantic hero. These ingredients are mixed to yield 115 minutes of pure, senseless vanity. Our characters stumble through their morally vacant lives until Paul, for no discernable reason “falls in love” with Holly — even after learning that she has abandoned her husband (Buddy Ebson), the one decent character in the entire film — and Holly, after her other, richer prospect falls through, succumbs to his charms. We are left to assume that they live happily ever after, but can hardly believe that possible.
“Oh, but Audrey Hepburn is just so wonderful!” Right. Well, I may be a philistine, but I find her to be completely ordinary in every way. However, supposing she is just the greatest actress ever to grace the screen, so what? The story is garbage. And garbage served on china with a sprig of parsley and the best wine is still garbage.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a story with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Anyone who can call it “classic,” “must-see,” or even “mildly amusing” is morally and/or intellectually bankrupt.
On the plus side, it was interesting to see Colonel “Hannibal” Smith as a romantic lead. In this case, it would have been far better for him if the plan had not come together.
Hymns of My Youth: My Heart is Longing to Praise My Savior
I discovered this week’s hymn only shortly before leaving home at the age of eighteen. I was as yet unsaved, but a lover of music. When I asked why this beautiful hymn, right near the front of our own hymnal, had never been sung in our church, I was told it was too “ponderous.” I disagreed then, and disagree now. To this day, I have never sung it in a worship service. I have, however, sung it many times to myself.
The tune, Princess Eugenie, is a Norwegian folk tune, and as beautiful a melody as one could want. It is one of those tunes that, alone, sans lyrics, can bring tears to my eyes. Join that to a poetic triumph that expresses both the heavy sorrow and immense joy of the gospel, and you have a treasure that the church neglects to its own loss.
This is a poem written by Princess Eugenie of Sweden and Norway (1830–1889). According to Wikipedia, she “was interested in spiritual things, but she was not a confessor of any religious belief in particular.” Apparently this hymn doesn’t count as a confession of particular religious belief. I leave it to you to judge.
26 My Heart is Longing to Praise My Savior
My heart is longing to praise my Savior,
And glorify His name in song and pray’r;
For He has shown me His wondrous favor
And offered me all heav’n with him to share.
I walked in blindness, my soul was dying;
The prince of darkness held me in his pow’r.
In pain I turned, to my Father crying;
He broke my chains and saved me in that hour.
O blessed Jesus, what Thou hast given,
Through dying on the cross in bitter pain,
Has filled my heart with the peace of heaven;
My winter’s gone and spring is mine again.
O Christian friends, let your song ascending,
Give honor, praise to him who set us free!
Our tribulations may seem unending;
But soon with Him we shall forever be.
Soon we are home and shall stand before him;
What matter then tho’ we have suffered here.
Then He shall crown us, while we adorn Him;
So death and all our pains will disappear.
To Thee, O Savior, our adoration
Shall rise forever for Thy precious blood
Which blotted out all the accusation
Of sin and guilt which once against us stood.
What blessed joy overflows my spirit,
Because Thy wondrous grace was granted me.
Thy work complete, that I may inherit
At last eternal life in heaven with Thee!
I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
This is my playes last scene John Donne (1572–1631)
This is my playes last scene, here heavens appoint My pilgrimages last mile; and my race Idly, yet quickly runne, hath this last pace, My spans last inch, my minutes latest point, And gluttonous death, will instantly unjoynt My body, and soule, and I shall sleepe a space, But my’ever-waking part shall see that face, Whose feare already shakes my every joynt: Then, as my soule, to’heaven her first seate, takes flight, And earth-borne body, in the earth shall dwell, So, fall my sinnes, that all may have their right, To where they’are bred, and would presse me, to hell. Impute me righteous, thus purg’d of evill, For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devill.
Therefore when he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; 32 if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately. 33 Little children, I am with you a little while longer You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” 36 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, where are You going?” Jesus answered, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.” 37 Peter said to Him, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.” 38 Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.”
In this passage we find the Lord Jesus at last alone with His eleven faithful disciples. The traitor, Judas Iscariot, had left the room, and gone out to do his wicked deed of darkness. Freed from his painful company, our Lord opens His heart to His little flock more fully than He had ever done before. Speaking to them for the last time before His passion, He begins a discourse which for touching interest surpasses any portion of Scripture. These verses show us what glory the crucifixion brought both to God the Father and to God the Son. It seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that this was what our Lord had in His mind when He said, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.”—It is as though He said, “The time of my crucifixion is at hand. My work on earth is finished. An event is about to take place to-morrow, which, however painful to you who love Me, is in reality most glorifying both to Me and My Father.” This was a dark and mysterious saying, and we may well believe that the eleven did not understand it. And no wonder! In all the agony of the death on the cross, in all the ignominy and humiliation which they saw afar off, or heard of next day, in hanging naked for six hours between two thieves,—in all this there was no appearance of glory! On the contrary, it was an event calculated to fill the minds of the Apostles with shame, disappointment, and dismay. And yet our Lord’s saying was true. The crucifixion brought glory to the Fathrer. It glorified His wisdom, faithfulness, holiness, and love. It showed Him wise, in providing a plan whereby He could be just, and yet the Justifier of the ungodly.—It showed Him faithful, in keeping His promise, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head.—It showed Him holy, in requiring His law’s demands to be satisfied by our great Substitute.—It showed Him loving, in providing such a Mediator, such a Redeemer, and such a Friend for sinful man as His co-eternal Son. The crucifixion brought glory to the Son. It glorified His compassion, His patience, and His power. It showed Him most compassionate, in dying for us, suffering in our stead, allowing Himself to be counted sin and a curse for us, and buying our redemption with the price of His own blood.—It showed Him most patient, in not dying the common death of most men, but in willingly submitting to such horrors and unknown agonies as no mind can conceive, when with a word he could have summoned His Father’s angels, and been set free.—It showed Him most powerful, in bearing the weight of all a world’s transgressions, and vanquishing Satan and despoiling him of his prey. Forever let us cling to these thoughts about the crucifixion. Let us remember that painting and sculpture can never tell a tenth part of what took place on the cross. Crucifixes and pictures at best can only show us a human being agonizing in a painful death. But of the length and breadth and depth and height of the work transacted on the cross,—of God’s law honored, man’s sins borne, sin punished in a Substitute, free salvation bought for man,—of all this they can tell nothing. Yet all this lies hid under the crucifixion. No wonder St. Paul cries, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Gal. vi. 14.) These verses show us, secondly, what great importance our Lord Jesus attaches to the grace of brotherly love. Almost as soon as the false Apostle had left the faithful eleven, comes the injunction, “Love one another.” Immediately after the sad announcement that He would leave them soon, the commandment is given, “Love one another.” It is called a “new” commandment, not because it had never been given before, but because it was to be more honored, to occupy a higher position, to be backed by a higher example than it ever had been before. Above all, it was to be the test of Christianity before the world. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” Let us take heed that this well-known Christian grace is not merely a notion in our heads, but a practice in our lives. Of all the commands of our Master there is none which is so much talked about and so little obeyed as this. Yet, if we mean anything when we profess to have charity and love toward all men, it ought to be seen in our tempers and our words, our bearing and our doing, our behaviour at home and abroad, our conduct in every relation of life. Specially it ought to show itself forth in all our dealing with other Christians. We should regard them as brethren and sisters, and delight to do anything to promote their happiness. We should abhor the idea of envy, malice, and jealousy towards a member of Christ, and regard it as a downright sin. This is what our Lord meant when He told us to love one another. Christ’s cause in the earth would prosper far more than it does if this simple law was more honored. There is nothing that the world understands and values more than true charity. The very men who cannot comprehend doctrine, and know nothing of theology, can appreciate charity. It arrests their attention, and makes them think. For the world’s sake, if for no other cause, let us follow after charity more and more. These verses show us, lastly, how much self-ignorance there may be in the heart of a true believer. We see Simon Peter declaring that he was ready to lay down his life for his Master. We see his Master telling him that in that very night he would “deny Him thrice.” And we all know how the matter ended. The Master was right, and Peter was wrong. Let it be a settled principle in our religion, that there is an amount of weakness in all our hearts, of which we have no adequate conception, and that we never know how far we might fall if we were tempted. We fancy sometimes, like Peter, that there are some things we could not possibly do. We look pitifully upon others who fall, and please ourselves in the thought that at any rate we would not have done so. We know nothing at all. The seeds of every sin are latent in our hearts, even when renewed, and they only need occasion, or carelessness and the withdrawal of God’s grace for a season, to put forth an abundant crop. Like Peter, we may think we can do wonders for Christ, and like Peter, we may learn by bitter experience that we have no power and might at all. The servant of Christ will do wisely to remember these things. “Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.” (1 Cor. x. 12.) A humble sense of our own innate weakness, a constant dependence on the Strong for strength, a daily prayer to be held up, because we cannot hold up ourselves,—these are the true secrets of safety. The great Apostle of the Gentiles said, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. xii. 10.)
—J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (Baker Books, 2007) [Westminster (PB) | Amazon (HC)].
I have been exceedingly blessed by Mark Dever’s Bible Overview sermons from Capitol Hill Baptist Church. While I am an avid fan of detailed exposition à la John MacArthur, these birds-eye-view sermons are extremely helpful in understanding the themes of the Bible and how they all hang together. See the forest, not just the trees, by listening to these excellent summaries of the whole Bible, both Testaments, and each book. The “Download” link, as you might guess, is a direct download (posted with permission from CHBC). The “Sermon Page” link will take you to the CHBC site. Many of these sermons have a text summary available on the sermon page.
My family has gone to a wedding in Wisconsin, so I’ve had the house to myself for a few days. I thought this would be a good time to do some things I probably wouldn’t if they were here, and so I have. One of the more frivolous things on my list was to watch a couple of movies I’ve wanted to see that my wife has not wanted to see. I watched one of them last night, with mixed feelings.
It was, to my standards, a well-made movie — good writing, directing, and acting — and it starred one of my favorite comic actors. Yet it disappointed me immensely by including a sympathetically-played homosexual minor character. You see, I have certain taboos when it comes to these things. Homosexuality presented in a positive light is only one of them, but it’s a big one. This is where “enlightened” folks might expect me to confess my ignorant prejudice and resolve to be tolerant, even celebratory, of “alternative lifestyles.” I assure, you, that is not going to happen. I am, however, going to confess a wrong attitude. It isn’t one that I’ve just discovered; I’ve been aware of it for some time, and yet find difficult to shed.
There were other sinful behaviors present (implied, not explicitly shown) in this movie, portrayed as normal (which, I suppose, they are) and good — fornication and prostitution, to be specific. They didn’t bother me. I don’t deny that homosexuality is a more offensive sin. Most sexual sin can be considered a natural act, sinfully used. Any sane thinker recognizes homosexuality as a crime against everything we are made — or, for the Darwinist, evolved — to be. Does that make it more sinful? Hardly.
But my intent here is not to raise your indignation against fornicators and adulterers. I want to take that to its logical end: our own sin. While we’re looking down on homosexuals, but not so much on fornicators, how do we rank our own offenses? Not so bad, maybe? God does not grade our sins on such a scale. His scale only has two grades: sin and not sin. Sin is anything that falls short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). In other words, whenever we fail to be like God (in his communicable, or moral, attributes), we sin. My argument, therefore, is not that I am too hard on homosexuals, but rather that I am too easy on myself. My most trivial peccadillo is just as offensive to God as the most perverted sexual sin.
God help us to judge our own sin by his standards.
My Scripture reading this morning was in the Gospel of Matthew. These are a few of my thoughts from that reading.
The Gospel is often sold as the answer to our life’s problems. People are told that if they “accept Christ” their life will improve. Their marital problems will be solved. They will experience success and satisfaction in all their personal relationships. But is that what Scripture teaches? Consider Jesus’ words in Matthew 10:34–38:
34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 36 and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. 37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
Not exactly “your best life now,” is it? “When Jesus calls a man,” wrote Bonhoeffer, “he bids him come and die.” If you follow Jesus, your life might not improve. You might be shunned by your family. Your marriage might fall apart. Your children might reject you. You could lose your friends and your job. It might cost you everything. But with that life lost is the promise of a life found:
39 “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.
Our best life is in eternity with Christ; but we can only find that life by turning our backs on our best life now. And our Lord repeats (Matthew 16:24–25, cf. Mark 8:34–35; Luke 9:23–24):
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
In his sermon, Divine Decrees (1805), Lemuel Haynes answers well the question, “Why, if God has ordained all that comes to pass, ought we to pray, or take action of any kind? Why not just passively see what happens?”
Faith in divine purpose will excite the people of God to the diligent use of means, as He has appointed them as instruments by which he will accomplish His designs and has commanded them to be workers together with him; indeed, without the exertions of men, it is impossible that they should take place. God revealed to Abraham that his seed should go down into Egypt and at such a time be delivered, but this supposed series of second causes [was] all dependent on the first cause; without them the event could not take place. One was the edict of Pharaoh to destroy the male infants of the Hebrews, that Moses should be born and hid three months, that he should be educated at the expense of the King of Egypt, that the Egyptians should be visited with ten plagues, etc. I might with the propriety make the same remark with respect to the deliverance of Israel from Babylonian captivity and the birth and death of Christ. The people of God consider themselves as active instruments to bring about His holy designs and are, in a good degree, cured of that unreasonable temper of mind that will deduce a natural consequences from certain promises, in order to gratify a licentious conduct. The truly pious are pleased with the absolute decrees of God, as what will promote the greatest possible good. If it is desirable that all God’s counsels should stand, then it must be pleasing to saints to be in the use of such means as tend to bring them to pass—without which they cannot exist; this makes them cheerfulin the service of God, as they are seeking the same glorious ultimate object with Him. Jochebed and her husband doubtless understood that God, by this remarkable child, designed the deliverance of the church from the iron furnace, which was an animating object; all they did in fitting him for this work afforded satisfaction. Although the children of God cannot always see the connection between means and ends, yet they put such confidence in the divine Being as delights their souls in preserving in the path of duty—believing that God will effect the greatest good by it. The friends of God delight in expressingtheir obedience to Him. The use of means affords them opportunity to glorify God and commend him the others if love and obedience are delightful exercises to the saints, then to express them will be pleasing. As God cannot exhibit any true virtue of moral excellence without pursuing a plan, so neither can we, unless we regard His will and interest and are workers together with Him. The humble Christian will feel his own weakness and insufficiency to do anything of himself and will see that all his sufficiency is of God, and his faith and hope will rest of His power and providence to do all—which will be a motive to diligence. This will be the foundation of his trust and will excite him to work out his salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is God that worketh in him, both to will and to do His good pleasure (Phil. 2:12–13). This supported the parents of Moses amidst all their care about him and [was the reason] “They were not afraid of the kin’s commandments.” Christians will diligently attend to means, as they will see much to be done. Wherever they turn their eyes, they will behold work laid out for them. It is criminal to stand idle in the marketplace. The good man will see enough to employ his head, his heart, his hands, and his temporal interest in the service of God. The reason that so many can find but little to do for God is on account of a slothful and indolent heart that refuses to labor.
Lemuel Haynes on the benefits of thinking often of death, and living in its expectation:
[T]hey who are properly looking out for death look upon it as an event to which they are exposed at any time, at any place, or on any occasion, at home or abroad, and they will endeavor not to engage in any work inconsistent with being called immediately before the bar of Christ. A willingness to depart out of time and to land on the shores of immortality comports with the nature of the duty under consideration. With what holy and ecstatic joy does the apostle, in the chapter and verse from which our text [2 Timothy 4:6–8] is selected, anticipate the approaching moment of his departure. “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” In a word: to live as expectants of death is to do the work of every day in the day, that we faithfully discharge the duties we owe to God, to ourselves, and fellow creatures; that we live in the daily exercise of Christian graces and persevere in holy obedience, in a constant dependence on the mercy of God through Jesus Christ.
This is a hymn we should all know. Concordia only includes four stanzas (all but the second, below), but I remember it with five. I must have picked up that second verse sometime later, and I’m only placing it second according to memory. As with many of these hymns, there are more verses that haven’t survived in modern hymnals.
30 Crown Him with Many Crowns
Crown Him with many crowns, The Lamb upon His throne;
Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns All music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing Of Him who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless King Thro’ all eternity.
Crown Him the Lord of life, Who triumphed o’er the grave,
Who rose victorious in the strife for those He came to save.
His glories now we sing, Who died, and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring, And lives that death may die.
Crown Him the Lord of love; Behold His hands and side,
Those wounds, yet visible above, In beauty glorified.
No angel in the sky Can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his burning eye At mysteries so bright.
Crown Him the Lord of peace; Whose power a scepter sways
From pole to pole, that wars may cease, And all be pray’r and praise.
His reign shall know no end, And ’round His piercèd feet
Fair flowers of paradise extend Their fragrance ever sweet.
Crown Him the Lord of years, The Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres, Ineffably sublime.
All hail, Redeemer, hail! For Thou has died for me;
Thy praise and glory shall not fail Thruout eternity.
I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
The Dark Guest
O Lord,
Bend my hands and cut them off, for I have often struck thee with a wayward will. when these fingers should embrace thee by faith. I am not yet weaned from all created glory, honour, wisdom, and esteem of others, for I have a secret motive to eye my name in all I do. Let me not only speak the word sin, but see the thing itself. Give me to view discovered sinfulness, to know that though my sins are crucified they are never wholly mortified. Hatred, malice, ill-will, vain-glory that hunts for and hungers after, man’s approval and applause, all are crucified, forgiven, but they rise again in my sinful heart.
O my crucified but never wholly mortified
sinfulness!
O my life-long damage and daily shame!
O my indwelling and besetting sins!
O the tormenting slavery of a sinful heart!
Destroy, O God, the dark guest within
whose hidden presence makes my life a hell.
Yet thou hast not left me here without grace;
The cross still stands and meets my needs
in the deepest straits of the soul.
I thank thee that my remembrance of it
is like David’s sight of Goliath’s sword
which preached forth thy deliverance.
The memory of my great sins, my many
temptations, my falls,
bring afresh into my mind the remembrance,
of thy great help, of thy support from heaven,
of the great grace that saved such a wretch
as I am.
There is no treasure so wonderful
as that continuous experience of thy grace
toward me which alone can subdue
the risings of sin within:
Give me more of it.
14 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”
The three verses we have now read are rich in precious truth. For eighteen centuries they have been peculiarly dear to Christ’s believing servants in every part of the world. Many are the sick rooms which they have lightened! Many are the dying hearts which they have cheered! Let us see what they contain. We have, first, in this passage a precious remedy against an old disease. That disease is trouble of heart. That remedy is faith. Heart-trouble is the commonest thing in the world. No rank, or class, or condition is exempt from it. No bars, or bolts, or locks can keep it out. Partly from inward causes and partly from outward,—partly from the body and partly from the mind,—partly from what we love and partly from what we fear, the journey of life is full of trouble. Even the best of Christians have many bitter cups to drink between grace and glory. Even the holiest saints find the world a valley of tears. Faith in the Lord Jesus is the only sure medicine for troubled hearts. To believe more thoroughly, trust more entirely, rest more unreservedly, lay hold more firmly, lean back more completely,—this is the prescription which our Master urges on the attention of all His disciples. No doubt the members of that little band which sat round the table at the last supper, had believed already. They had proved the reality of their faith by giving up everything for Christ’s sake. Yet what does their Lord say to them here? Once more He presses on them the old lesson, the lesson with which they first began: “Believe! Believe more! Believe on Me!” (Isai. xxvi. 3.) Never let us forget that there are degrees in faith, and that there is a wide difference between weak and strong believers. The weakest faith is enough to give a man a saving interest in Christ, and ought not to be despised, but it will not give a man such inward comfort as a strong faith. Vagueness and dimness of perception are the defect of weak believers. They do not see clearly what they believe and why they believe. In such cases more faith is the one thing needed. Like Peter on the water, they need to look more steadily at Jesus, and less at the waves and wind. Is it not written, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee”? (Isai. xxvi. 3.) We have, secondly, in this passage a very comfortable account of heaven, or the future abode of saints. It is but little that we understand about heaven while we are here in the body, and that little is generally taught us in the Bible by negatives much more than positives. But here, at any rate, there are some plain things. Heaven is “a Father’s house,”—the house of that God of whom Jesus says, “I go to my Father, and your Father.” It is, in a word, home: the home of Christ and Christians. This is a sweet and touching expression. Home, as we all know, is the place where we are generally loved for our own sakes, and not for our gifts or possessions; the place where we are loved to the end, never forgotten, and always welcome. This is one idea of heaven. Believers are in a strange land, and at school, in this life. In the life to come they will be at home. Heaven is a place of “mansions,”—of lasting, permanent, and eternal dwellings. Here in the body we are in temporary lodgings, tents, and tabernacles, and must submit to many changes. In heaven we shall be settled at last, and go out no more. “Here we have no continuing city.” (Heb. xiii. 14.) Our house not made with hands shall never be taken down. Heaven is a place of “many mansions.” There will be room for all believers and room for all sorts, for little saints as well as great ones, for the weakest believer as well as for the strongest. The feeblest child of God need not fear there will be no place for him. None will be shut out but impenitent sinners and obstinate unbelievers. Heaven is a place where Christ himself shall be present. He will not be content to dwell without His people:—“Where I am, there ye shall be also.” We need not think that we shall be alone and neglected. Our Saviour,—our elder Brother,—our Redeemer, who loved us and gave Himself for us, shall be in the midst of us forever. What we shall see, and whom we shall see in heaven, we cannot fully conceive yet, while we are in the body. But one thing is certain: we shall see Christ. Let these things sink down into our minds. To the worldly and careless they may seem nothing at all. To all who feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of God they are full of unspeakable comfort. If we hope to be in heaven it is pleasant to know what heaven is like. We have, lastly, in this passage a solid ground for expecting good things to come. The evil heart of unbelief within us is apt to rob us of our comfort about heaven. “We wish we could think it was all true.”—“We fear we shall never be admitted into heaven.”—Let us hear what Jesus says to encourage us. One cheering word is this,—“I go to prepare a place for you.” Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people: a place which we shall find Christ Himself has made ready for true Christians. He has prepared it by procuring a right for every sinner who believes to enter in. None can stop us, and say we have no business there.—He has prepared it by going before us as our Head and Representative, and taking possession of it for all the members of His mystical body. As our Forerunner He has marched in, leading captivity captive, and has planted His banner in the land of glory.—He has prepared it by carrying our names with Him as our High Priest into the holy of holies, and making angels ready to receive us. Those who enter heaven will find they are neither unknown nor unexpected. Another cheering word is this,—“I will come again and receive you unto myself.” Christ will not wait for believers to come up to Him, but will come down to them, to raise them from their graves and escort them to their heavenly home. As Joseph came to meet Jacob, so will Jesus come to call His people together and guide them to their inheritance. The second advent ought never to be forgotten. Great is the blessedness of looking back to Christ coming the first time to suffer for us, but no less great is the comfort of looking forward to Christ coming the second time, to raise and reward His saints. Let us leave the whole passage with solemnized feelings and serious self-examination. How much they miss who live in a dying world and yet know nothing of God as their Father and Christ as their Saviour! How much they possess who live the life of faith in the Son of God, and believe in Jesus! With all their weaknesses and crosses they have that which the world can neither give nor take away. They have a true Friend while they live, and a true home when they die.
—J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (Baker Books, 2007) [Westminster (PB) | Amazon (HC)].
My situation is very much as it has been—I think not very encouraging. I am in the hands of God and in a measure reconciled to His will; and it is impossible to determine what will be the issue of the disease. I hope I can say, “The Lord reigns; blessed be His name.” But you see what poor work I make of writing—should be glad to see you all before I die—I commit all to God. Oh! Remember your Creator! Let not the fashions of the world divert your minds from eternity!
I have thus far only read the introduction, and I am hooked. Rather than a compartmentalized manual on biblical church membership and discipline, Leeman’s thesis begins with Theology Proper, or the doctrine of God. Our doctrine of the church is only as good as our doctrine of God. He writes:
What we need, I believe, is a truly systematic theology of church membership and discipline. We need to consider how the practices of local church membership and discipline fit into the larger matters of God’s love, God’s judgment, God’s authority, and the gospel. when thinking or writing about the church, it’s easy to err in one direction by sidelining questions of polity. it’s also easy to err in the other direction by quickly jumping to our favorite proof-texts about elders and deacons, the Lord’s Supper, or church discipline, but doing so in a way that doesn’t carefully consider the larger theological context. A proper doctrine of the church should be informed by everything else we know about God, his love, and his plan of salvation. It should reflect everything we know about God’s love and holiness; about humanity as created in God’s image but fallen into guilt and corruption; about Christ’s sinless life, sacrificial death, victorious resurrection, and the imputation of his own righteousness to sinners; and about life beneath his inaugurated rule through repentance and faith. . . . Theologian John Webster captures the spirit of what I’m getting at when he says, “A doctrine of the church is only as good as the doctrine of God which underlies it.” You will understand what or who the church is if you understand who God is. The same relationship abides between our doctrine of the gospel and our doctrine of the church. Webster also writes, “It is . . . an especial concern for evangelical ecclesiology to demonstrate not only that the church is a necessary implicate of the gospel but also that the gospel and church exist in a strict and irreversible order, one in which the gospel precedes and the church follows.” In other words, you will only understand what or who the church is if you first understand what God’s gospel is.
Temptation called—she called my name; ’Twas nothing new, but just the same Enticing call with promise sweet, “Come taste my wine,” she did entreat.
I sought the source of that sweet voice—
It seemed as though I had no choice.
Although I searched, I found her not,
But found the pleasure she had brought.
I smelled the scent of her perfume
That lingered there inside my room.
I drank the wine that she had mixed,
Though it was sweet, I was perplexed.
I sought companionship to share
Forbidden pleasure, fine and fair,
But promised company had flown
And left me guilty, and alone.
The wine that I had drunk in haste
Soon left a bitter aftertaste;
Perfume so sweet, the scent of rose,
Began a-burning in my nose.
Who was this temptress who beguiled,
Who my conscience had defiled?
Who had done this thing to me?
I would search, and find, and see!
I looked around out in the dark—
Perhaps a devil there did lurk!
I searched the streets all through the town;
My nemesis could not be found.
And then I heard her voice again:
“Come home, come home, you’ll find me then.
I’ve been here waiting. Don’t delay!
Come to my side, and with me stay.”
I came back home, there to seek
The evil one who made me weak.
There! ’twas the voice! It seemed to call
Out from the glass upon the wall.
How can this be? I thought with fear,
Who can it be? There’s no one here!
I stilled my heart, prepared to see,
Looked in the glass—saw only me.
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. —James 1:14
Thomas Goodwin (1600–1680) was an English Puritan nonconformist. In another of the Profiles in Reformed Spirituality (Joel Beeke and Michael Haykin, gen. ed.), A Habitual Sight of Him: The Christ-Centered Piety of Thomas Goodwin, we are given a short biography of Goodwin and, through a sampling of his writings, a thumbnail sketch of his theology and character.
In the following excerpt, Goodwin writes of the value and purpose of our trials and temptations in this life, namely, proving the grace of God to us and the perfections of Christ in us.
If you are true and right Christians, and you know, as the apostle says, how to put a due estimate on what is our greatest interest and privilege in this life—the proof and trial of your graces, and of the grace of patience above all, as the highest perfection of a Christian, yea, of Christ Himself, and the most eminent praise of prophets and apostles—and if you value being rendered most pleasing to God, then count it all joy when you fall into temptations. For now you have God and Christ, the great, the Chief Master Orderer and Designer of these conflicts, setting His most gracious eye on you, pleasing Himself to behold how valiantly, wisely, and gallantly you behave and acquit and yourselves. He sits in heaven as the great Spectator of these jousts and tournaments, which are to Him as spectacles which are sports to us. The apostle alludes to this when he writes, “For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men” (1 Cor. 4:9). Rejoice, therefore, just as good soldiers would rejoice to inter into battle in the sight of their great general and emperor, whom they have given themselves to please.
One thing I can say for Dr. Sproul is that he is not boring. Our children are certainly not all old enough to take in everything he says, but his manner is so enthusiastic and engaging that even the youngest are able to sit, pay attention, and afterwards to answer questions indicating that they were indeed listening and learning.
Though God has forgiven and forgotten your past sins, yet do not forget them yourself: often remember, what a wretched bond-slave you were in the land of Egypt. Often bring to mind your particular act of sin before conversion, as the blessed apostle Paul is often mentioning his old blaspheming, persecuting spirit, and his injuriousness to the renewed, humbling his heart, and acknowledging that he was “the least of the apostles,” and not worthy “to be called an apostle,” and the “least of all saints,” and the “chief of sinners.” And be often confessing your old sins to God, and let that text be often in your mind, “That thou mayest remember and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more, because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God” (Ezekiel 16:63). 
“For too little doth he love Thee, who loves any thing with Thee, which he loveth not for Thee.” —Augustine
I forbear at the moment to mention further the fact that, in your usual way, you have taken vast pains throughout to be slippery and evasive. You are more canny than Ulysses in the way you suppose yourself to be steering between Scylla and Charybdis—you would have nothing actually asserted, yet you would seem to assert something! Who, I ask, but one who could catch Proteus himself could bring forth anything to touch people like you? 
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; 
Short is time. 
It is necessary that we consider those things that are the attendants or consequences regeneration or the new birth, for there are no gracious or holy exercises that are prior thereto, to be sure, in the order of nature. Some seem to suppose faith to be before regeneration, but a little reflection upon the matter will show this to be wrong. By 
Nearly forty years later, and this being such a “classic” that just 
My pilgrimages last mile; and my race 
I am not yet weaned from all created glory, 
What we need, I believe, is a truly systematic theology of church membership and discipline. We need to consider how the practices of local church membership and discipline fit into the larger matters of God’s love, God’s judgment, God’s authority, and the gospel. when thinking or writing about the church, it’s easy to err in one direction by sidelining questions of polity. it’s also easy to err in the other direction by quickly jumping to our favorite proof-texts about elders and deacons, the Lord’s Supper, or church discipline, but doing so in a way that doesn’t carefully consider the larger theological context. 
If you are true and right Christians, and you know, as the apostle says, how to put a due estimate on what is our greatest interest and privilege in this life—the proof and trial of your graces, and of the grace of patience above all, as the highest perfection of a Christian, yea, of Christ Himself, and the most eminent praise of prophets and apostles—and if you value being rendered most pleasing to God, then count it all joy when you fall into temptations. For now you have God and Christ, the great, the Chief Master Orderer and Designer of these conflicts, setting His most gracious eye on you, pleasing Himself to behold how valiantly, wisely, and gallantly you behave and acquit and yourselves. He sits in heaven as the great Spectator of these jousts and tournaments, which are to Him as spectacles which are sports to us. The apostle alludes to this when he writes, “For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men” (1 Cor. 4:9). Rejoice, therefore, just as good soldiers would rejoice to inter into battle in the sight of their great general and emperor, whom they have given themselves to please. 
