I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

“All Flesh Is Grass”
Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)

So brief a life, and then an endless life
   Or endless death;
So brief a life, then endless peace or strife:
   Whoso considereth
How man but like a flower
   Or shoot of grass
Blooms an hour,
   Well may sigh “Alas!”

So brief a life and then endless grief
   Or endless joy;
So brief a life, then ruin or relief:
   What solace, what annoy
Of Time needs dwelling on?
   It is, it was,
It is done,
   While we sigh “Alas!”

Yet saints are singing in a happy hope
   Forecasting pleasure,
Bright eyes of faith enlarging all their scope;
   Saints love beyond Time’s measure:
Where love is, there is bliss
   That will not pass;
Where love is,
   Dies away “Alas!”

—Christina Rossetti, Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1993).

The Gospel According to John

19 Pilate then took Jesus and scourged Him. 2 And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and put a purple robe on Him; 3 and they began to come up to Him and say, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and to give Him slaps in the face. 4 Pilate came out again and said to them, “Behold, I am bringing Him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in Him.” 5 Jesus then came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold, the Man!” 6 So when the chief priests and the officers saw Him, they cried out saying, “Crucify, crucify!” Pilate said to them, “Take Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him.” 7 The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the Son of God.”
   8 Therefore when Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid; 9 and he entered into the Praetorium again and said to Jesus, “Where are You from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 So Pilate said to Him, “You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?” 11 Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.” 12 As a result of this Pilate made efforts to release Him, but the Jews cried out saying, “If you release this Man, you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar.”
   13 Therefore when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out, and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour And he said to the Jews, “Behold, your King!” 15 So they cried out, “Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” 16 So he then handed Him over to them to be crucified.

   These verses exhibit to our eyes a wonderful picture, a picture which ought to be deeply interesting to all who profess and call themselves Christians. Like every great historical picture, it contains special points on which we should fix our special attention. Above all, it contains three life-like portraits, which we shall find it useful to examine in order.
   The first portrait in the picture is that of our Lord Jesus Christ himself.
   We see the Saviour of mankind scourged, crowned with thorns, mocked, smitten, rejected by His own people, unjustly condemned by a judge who saw no fault in Him, and finally delivered up to a most painful death. Yet this was He who was the eternal Son of God, whom the Father’s countless angels delighted to honor. This was He who came into the world to save sinners, and after living a blameless life for thirty years, spent the last three years of His time on earth in going about doing good, and preaching the Gospel. Surely the sun never shone on a more wondrous sight since the day of its creation!
   Let us admire that love of Christ which St. Paul declares, “passeth knowledge,” and let us see an endless depth of meaning in the expression. There is no earthly love with which it can be compared, and no standard by which to measure it. It is a love that stands alone. Never let us forget when we ponder this tale of suffering, that Jesus suffered for our sins, the Just for the unjust, that He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, and that with His stripes we are healed.
   Let us diligently follow the example of His patience in all the trials and afflictions of life, and specially in those which may be brought upon us by religion. When He was reviled, He reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously. Let us arm ourselves with the same mind. Let us consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners without a murmur, and strive to glorify Him by suffering well, no less than by doing well.
   The second portrait in the picture before us, is that of the unbelieving Jews who favored our Lord’s death.
    We see them for three or four long hours obstinately rejecting Pilate’s offer to release our Lord,—fiercely demanding His crucifixion, savagely claiming His condemnation to death as a right,—persistently refusing to acknowledge Him as their King,—declaring that they had no King but Caesar,—and finally accumulating on their own heads the greater part of the guilt of His murder. Yet, these were the children of Israel and the seed of Abraham, to whom pertained the promises and the Mosaic ceremonial, the temple sacrifices and the temple priesthood. These were men who professed to look for a Prophet like unto Moses, and a son of David who was to set up a kingdom as Messiah. Never, surely, was there such an exhibition of the depth of human wickedness since the day when Adam fell.
   Let us mark with fear and trembling the enormous danger of long-continued rejection of light and knowledge. There is such a thing as judicial blindness; and it is the last and sorest judgment which God can send upon men. He who, like Pharaoh and Ahab, is often reproved but refuses to receive reproof, will finally have a heart harder than the nether mill-stone, and a conscience past feeling, and seared as with a hot iron. This was the state of the Jewish nation during the time of our Lord’s ministry; and the heading up of their sin was their deliberate rejection of Him, when Pilate desired to let Him go. From such judicial blindness may we all pray to be delivered! There is no worse judgment from God than to be left to ourselves, and given over to our own wicked hearts and the devil. There is no surer way to bring that judgment upon us than to persist in refusing warnings and sinning against light. These words of Solomon are very awful: “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock you when your fear cometh.” (Prov. i. 24–26.) Never let it be forgotten, that, like the Jews, we may at length be given up to strong delusion, so that we believe lies, and think that we are doing God service while we are committing sin. (2 Thess. ii. 11.)
   The third, and last portrait in the picture before us, is that of Pontius Pilate.
   We see a Roman Governor,—a man of rank and high position,—an imperial representative of the most powerful nation on earth,—a man who ought to have been the fountain of justice and equity,—halting between two opinions in a case as clear as the sun at noonday. We see him knowing what was right, and yet afraid to act up to his knowledge,—convinced in his own conscience that he ought to acquit the prisoner before him, and yet afraid to do it lest he should displease His accusers,—sacrificing the claims of justice to the base fear of man,—sanctioning from sheer cowardice, an enormous crime,—and finally countenancing, from love of man’s good opinion, the murder of an innocent person. Never perhaps did human nature make such a contemptible exhibition. Never was there a name so justly handed down to a world’s scorn as the name which is embalmed in all our creeds,—the name of Pontius Pilate.
   Let us learn what miserable creatures great men are, when they have no high principles within them, and no faith in the reality of a God above them. The meanest laborer who has grace and fears God, is a nobler being in the eyes of his Creator than the King, ruler, or statesman, whose first aim it is to please the people. To have one conscience in private and another in public,—one rule of duty for our own souls, and another for our public actions,—to see clearly what is right before God, and yet for the sake of popularity to do wrong,—this may seem to some both right, and politic, and statesmanlike, and wise. But it is a character which no Christian man can ever regard with respect.
   Let us pray that our own country may never be without men in high places who have grace to think right, and courage to act up to their knowledge, without truckling to the opinion of men. Those who fear God more than man, and care for pleasing God more than man, are the best rulers of a nation, and in the long run of years are always most respected. Men like Pontius Pilate, who are always trimming and compromising, led by popular opinion instead of leading popular opinion, afraid of doing right if it gives offence, ready to do wrong if it makes them personally popular, such men are the worst governors that a country can have. They are often God’s heavy judgment on a nation because of a nation’s sins.

—J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (Baker Books, 2007) [Westminster (PB) | Amazon (HC)].

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

An Open Letter To . . .

No, no open letters here. A memo, perhaps, to anyone who would utter σκύβαλον like this in public.

1. Neat story about Toscanini. It creates a nice façade of humility, but behind that façade is the implication that “I have produced such a pure rendition of Beethoven’s symphony that it bears none of my own personal marks.” That’s pretty high praise snuck in the back door. I don’t think that’s an example you want to emulate.

But that’s just a little annoyance. What really has me going is . . .

2. “Jesus lived like Mother Teresa.” Please don’t say that. Don’t compare my Lord and Savior to a disciple of an idolatrous religion, especially one whose public persona was a fraud. It’s way past time — and I’m not the first to say so — that Christians stopped holding Teresa up as an example of Christian faith, piety, and charity. She was not a Christian; she was a Roman Catholic. But she wasn’t even a good Catholic. Please, before you lift her up in praise one more time, make the effort to find out who she really was. Here are a just a couple of sources:

• The Myth Of Mother Teresa by Tim Challies
• The Missionary Position by Christopher Hitchens (read a good review, also by Challies, here)

Some of you might object to using an atheist as a source, but this isn’t theology. This is just a matter of reporting facts. Sure, Hitchens’ animosity toward religion in general comes through in The Missionary Position, but Teresa’s religion not defensible, anyway. The facts he reports concerning her alleged charitable work, and the contrast between the public persona and the private reality, will forever change the way you think of Mother Teresa.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Self-Deprecation

O Lord,

My every sense, member, faculty, affection,
is a snare to me,
I can scarce open my eyes but I envy those
      above me,
   or despise those below.
I covet honour and riches of the mighty,
   and am proud and unmerciful to the rags
      of others;
If I behold beauty it is a bait to lust,
   or see deformity, it stirs up loathing and disdain;
How soon do slanders, vain jests, and wanton
   speeches creep into my heart!
Am I comely? what fuel for pride!
Am I deformed? what an occasion for repining!
Am I gifted? I lust after applause!
Am I unlearned? how I despise what I have not!
Am in authority? how prone to abuse my trust,
   make will my law, exclude others’ enjyments,
   serve my own interests and policy!
Am I inferior? how much I grudge others’
   pre-eminence!
Am I rich? how exalted I become!
Thou knowest that all these are snares
   by my corruptions,
   and that my greatest snare is myself.
I bewail that my apprehensions are dull,
   my thoughts mean,
   my affections stupid,
   my expressions low,
   my life unbeseeming;
Yet what canst thou expect of dust but levity,
   of corruption but defilement?
Keep me ever mindful of my natural state,
   but let me not forget my heavenly title,
   or the grace that can deal with every sin.

—The Valley of Vision, Arthur Bennett, editor (Banner of Truth Trust, 2002).

John 19:17–27

They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha. 18 There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between. 19 Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It was written, “Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews.” 20 Therefore many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Latin and in Greek. 21 So the chief priests of the Jews were saying to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews’; but that He said, ‘I am King of the Jews.’” 22 Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”
   23 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His outer garments and made four parts, a part to every soldier and also the tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece. 24 So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to decide whose it shall be”; this was to fulfill the Scripture: “They divided My outer garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.” 25 Therefore the soldiers did these things. But standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” 27 Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” From that hour the disciple took her into his own household.

   He that can read a passage like this without a deep sense of man’s debt to Christ, must have a very cold, or a very thoughtless heart. Great must be the love of the Lord Jesus to sinners, when He could voluntarily endure such sufferings for their salvation. Great must be the sinfulness of sin, when such an amount of vicarious suffering was needed in order to provide redemption.
   We should observe, first, in this passage, how our Lord had to bear His cross when He went forth from the city to Golgotha.
   We need not doubt that there was a deep meaning in all this circumstance. For one thing, it was part of that depth of humiliation to which our Lord submitted as our substitute. One portion of the punishment imposed on the vilest criminals, was that they should carry their own cross when they went to execution; and this portion was laid upon our Lord. In the fullest sense He was reckoned a sinner, and counted a curse for our sakes.—For another thing, it was a fulfillment of the great type of the sin-offering of the Mosaic law. It is written, that “The bullock for the sin-offering, and the goat for the sin-offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall one carry forth without the camp.” (Lev. xvii. 27.) Little did the blinded Jews imagine, when they madly hounded on the Romans to crucify Jesus outside the gates, that they were unconsciously perfecting the mightiest sin-offering that was ever seen. It is written, “Jesus, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate.” (Heb. xiii. 12.)
   The practical lesson which all true Christians should gather from the fact before us, is one that should be kept in continual remembrance. Like our Master, we must be content to go forth “outside the camp,” bearing His reproach. We must come out from the world and be separate, and be willing, if need be, to stand alone. Like our Master, we must be willing to take up our cross daily, and to be persecuted both for our doctrine and our practice. Well would it be for the Church if there was more of the true cross to be seen among Christians! To wear material crosses as an ornament, to place material crosses on churches and tombs, all this is cheap and easy work, and entails no trouble. But to have Christ’s cross in our hearts, to carry Christ’s cross in our daily walk, to know the fellowship of His sufferings, to be made conformable to His death, to have crucified affections, and live crucified lives,—all this needs self-denial; and Christians of this stamp are few and far between. Yet, this, we may be sure, is the only cross-bearing and cross-carrying that does good in the world. The times require less of the cross outwardly and more of the cross within.
   We should observe, secondly, in this passage, how our Lord was crucified as a King.
   The title placed over our Lord’s head made this plain and unmistakable. The reader of Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew, could not fail to see that He who hung on the central cross of the three on Golgotha, had a royal title over His head. The overruling hand of God so ordered matters, that the strong will of Pilate overrode for once the wishes of the malicious Jews. In spite of the chief priests, our Lord was crucified as “the King of the Jews.”
   It was meet and right that so it should be. Even before our Lord was born, the angel Gabriel declared to the Virgin Mary, “The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David: and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end.” (Luke i. 32, 33.) Almost as soon as He was born, there came wise men from the East, saying, “Where is He that is born King of the Jews?” (Matt. ii. 2.) The very week before the crucifixion, the multitude who accompanied our Lord at His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, had cried, “Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.” (John xii. 13.) The current belief of all godly Jews was, that when Messiah, the Son of David came, He would come as a King. A kingdom of heaven and a kingdom of God was continually proclaimed by our Lord throughout His ministry. A King indeed He was, as He told Pilate, of a kingdom utterly unlike the kingdoms of this world, but for all that a true King of a true kingdom, and a Ruler of true subjects. As such He was born. As such He lived. As such He was crucified. And as such He will come again, and reign over the whole earth, King of kings and Lord of lords.
   Let us take care that we ourselves know Christ as our King, and that His kingdom is set up within our hearts. They only will find Him their Saviour at the last day, who have obeyed Him as King in this world. Let us cheerfully pay Him that tribute of faith, and love, and obedience, which He prizes far above gold. Above all, let us never be afraid to own ourselves His faithful subjects, soldiers, servants and followers, however much He may be despised by the world. A day will soon come when the despised Nazarene who hung on the cross, shall take to Himself His great power and reign, and put down every enemy under His feet. The kingdoms of this world, as Daniel foretold, shall be swept aside, and become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ. And at last every knee shall bow to Him, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
   We should observe, lastly, in these verses, how tenderly our Lord took thought for Mary, His mother.
   We are told that even in the awful agonies of body and mind which our Lord endured, He did not forget her of whom He was born. He mercifully remembered her desolate condition, and the crushing effect of the sorrowful sight before her. He knew that, holy as she was, she was only a woman, and that, as a woman, she must deeply feel the death of such a Son. He therefore commended her to the protection of His best-loved and best-loving disciple, in brief and touching words: “Woman,” He said, “behold thy son! Then saith He to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.”
   We surely need no stronger proof than we have here, that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was never meant to be honored as divine, or to be prayed to, worshiped, and trusted in, as the friend and patroness of sinners. Common sense points out that she who needed the care and protection of another, was never likely to help men and women to heaven, or to be in any sense a mediator between God and man! It is not too much to say, however painful the assertion, that of all the inventions of the Church of Rome, there never was one more utterly devoid of foundation, both in Scripture and reason, than the doctrine of Mary-worship.
   Let us turn from points of controversy to a subject of far more practical importance. Let us take comfort in the thought that we have in Jesus a Saviour of matchless tenderness, matchless sympathy, matchless concern for the condition of His believing people. Let us never forget His words, “Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.” (Mark iii. 35.) The heart that even on the cross felt for Mary, is a heart that never changes. Jesus never forgets any who love Him, and even in their worst estate remembers their need. No wonder that Peter says, “Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you.” (1 Pet. v. 7.)

—J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (Baker Books, 2007) [Westminster (PB) | Amazon (HC)].

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

You’d think one of them would have seen it.

In honor of St. Patrick:

What’s Irish and comes out in the spring?

Patio furniture.

Originally posted 26 May 2006.

Tim Challies posted a good article today on discernment. The topic he chose to address in his discernment excercise, self-forgiveness, caught my attention and inspired a few thoughts. You would probably benefit from reading his post first.

I can’t think of a single Biblical example of anyone sinning against himself. It just doesn’t happen. The real motive of “self-forgiveness” is to put it all behind us. We are not supposed to do that. Continuing regret over sins of the past, although forgiven, is a good thing. Three main points come to mind:

1. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” may not be a Scriptural proverb, but it definitely is a truism. Forgetting past sins means forgetting the lessons learned from them.
2. Gratitude to God requires us to remember our sin. How can we remember how much we have been forgiven if we forget our sin? The memory of our sins should serve to increase our love for God (Luke 7:47). The desire to put it behind us is really a desire to justify increased self-love.
3. The memory of our sin should cause us to abound in grace towards those who sin against us (Matthew 18:23-35).

Remembering sin is not the same as wallowing in it. If you’re doing that, your problem is not guilt, but pride. It is only pride that makes you focus on yourself and suffer from so-called low self-esteem. Get over yourself. Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. Remember how much you have been forgiven, and give thanks. Never forget.

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying,

“Do not fear, Abram,

 I am a shield to you;

 Your reward shall be very great.”

2 Abram said, “O Lord God, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.” 4 Then behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.” 5 And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them “ And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” 6 Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. 7 And He said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.” 8 He said, “O Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it?” 9 So He said to him, “Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds. 11 The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.
   12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him. 13 God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. 14 But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. 16 Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
   17 It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying,

“To your descendants I have given this land,

 From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates:

19 the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite 20 and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim 21 and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.”

—Genesis 15

In this chapter, God once again demonstrates the absolutely unilateral nature of salvation. Iain Duguid explains:

   At the conclusion of a covenant agreement, it was sometimes the custom for the parties to walk between the pieces of a torn up animal. This served as a kind of acted out curse. What they were saying was, “If I break the covenant, may I be torn in pieces like this animal.” But in God’s covenant with Abram, only one of the parties passed between the pieces: God himself in the form of a blazing, smoking torch (v. 17). That foreshadowed the pillars of cloud and fire on Mount Sinai. The one who would give the law was here showing that grace comes first, for this was a totally one-sided covenant.

—Iain Duguid, Living in the Gap Between Promise and Reality: The Gospel According to Abraham (P&R, 1999), 39.

As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
And at the last He will take His stand on the earth.
Even after my skin is destroyed,
Yet from my flesh I shall see God;

—Job 19:25–26

203 I Know That My Redeemer Lives

I know that my Redeemer lives!
What comfort this sweet sentence gives!
He lives, He lives, Who once was dead,
He lives, my ever living Head.

He lives to bless me with His love,
He lives to plead for me above,
He lives my hungry soul to feed,
He lives to help in time of need.

He lives to grant me rich supply,
He lives to guide me with His eye,
He lives to comfort me when faint,
He lives to hear my soul’s complaint.

He lives to silence all my fears,
He lives to wipe away my tears,
He lives to calm my troubled heart,
He lives all blessings to impart.

He lives, all glory to His Name!
He lives, my Jesus, still the same;
Oh, the sweet joy this sentence gives:
I know that my Redeemer lives!

—The Concordia Hymnal (Augsburg Publishing House), 1960.

The Concordia tune is Duke Street, also used with Jesus Shall Reign Where E’er the Sun and Give to Our God Immortal Praise.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Petitionary Hymns
Poem XXIX. Hab. ii. 14. For the Earth shall be filled, &c.
Augustus Toplady (1740–1778)

Bring thy kingdom, Lord, make haste,
   Bring on the glorious day,
From the greatest to the least,
   When all shall own thy sway:
When the convert world with grief,
   Shall see the error of their ways,
Lay aside their unbelief,
   And yield unto thy grace.

In thy gospel-chariot, Lord,
   Drive through earth’s utmost bound;
spread the odour of thy word
   Through all the nations round:
Fill the darken’d earth with Light,
   Thine own victorious cause advance;
Take the heathen as the right
   Of thine inheritance.

In our Day expose to view,
   The standard of the lamb;
Bid the Nations flock thereto,
   Who never knew thy name:
Let them quit the downward road,
   Compell’d thy saying to receive;
Turn’d from Satan unto God,
   With one consent believe.

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

John 19:38–42

After these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate granted permission. So he came and took away His body. 39 Nicodemus, who had first come to Him by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight. 40 So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. 41 Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. 42 Therefore because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

There is a peculiar interest attached to these five verses of Scripture. They introduce us to a stranger, of whom we never heard before. They bring in an old friend, whose name is known wherever the Bible is read. They describe the most important funeral that ever took place in this world. From each of these three points of interest we may learn a very profitable lesson.
   We learn, for one thing, from these verses, that there are some true Christians in the world of whom very little is known. The case of Joseph of Arimathæa teaches this very plainly. Here is a man named among the friends of Christ, whose very name we never find elsewhere in the New Testament, and whose history, both before and after this crisis, is completely withheld from the Church. He comes forward to do honor to Christ, when the Apostles had forsaken Him and fled. He cares for Him and delights to do Him service, even when dead,—not because of any miracle which he saw Him do, but out of free and gratuitous love. He does not hesitate to confess himself one of Christ’s friends, at a time when Jews and Romans alike had condemned Him as a malefactor, and put Him to death. Surely the man who could do such things must have had strong faith! Can we wonder that, wherever the Gospel is preached, throughout the whole world, this pious action of Joseph is told of as a memorial of him?
   Let us hope and believe that there are many Christians in every age, who, like Joseph, are the Lord’s hidden servants, unknown to the Church and the world, but well known to God. Even in Elijah’s time there were seven thousand in Israel who had never bowed the knee to Baal, although the desponding prophet knew nothing of it. Perhaps, at this very day, there are saints in the back streets of some of our great towns, or in the lanes of some of our country parishes, who make no noise in the world, and yet love Christ and are loved by Him. Ill-health, or poverty, or the daily cares of some laborious calling, render it impossible for them to come forward in public; and so they live and die comparatively unknown. Yet the last day may show an astonished world that some of these very people, like Joseph, honored Christ as much as any on earth, and that their names were written in heaven. After all, it is special circumstances that bring to the surface special Christians. It is not those who make the greatest show in the Church, who are always found the fastest friends of Christ.
   We learn, for another thing, from these verses, that there are some servants of Christ whose latter end is better than their beginning. The case of Nicodemus teaches that lesson very plainly. The only man who dared to help Joseph in his holy work of burying our Lord, was one who at first “came to Jesus by night,” and was nothing better than an ignorant inquirer after truth. At a later period in our Lord’s ministry we find this same Nicodemus coming forward with somewhat more boldness, and raising in the Council of the Pharisees the question, “Does our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?” (John vii. 51.) Finally, we see him in the passage before us, ministering to our Lord’s dead body, and not ashamed to take an active part in giving to the despised Nazarene an honorable burial. How great the contrast between the man who timidly crept into the Lord’s lodging to ask a question, and the man who brought a hundred pounds weight of myrrh and aloes to anoint His dead body! Yet it was the same Nicodemus. How great may be a man’s growth in grace, and faith, and knowledge, and courage, in the short space of three years.
   We shall do well to store up these things in our minds, and to remember the case of Nicodemus, in forming our estimate of other people’s religion. We must not condemn others as graceless and godless, because they do not see the whole truth at once, and only reach decided Christianity by slow degrees. The Holy Ghost always leads believers to the same foundation truths, and into the same highway to heaven. In these there is invariable uniformity. But the Holy Ghost does not always lead believers through the same experience, or at the same rate of speed. In this there is much diversity in His operations. He that says conversion is a needless thing, and that an unconverted man may be saved, is undoubtedly under a strange delusion. But he that says that no one is converted except he becomes a full-blown and established Christian in a single day, is no less under a delusion. Let us not judge others rashly and hastily. Let us believe that a man’s beginnings in religion may be very small, and yet his latter end may greatly increase. Has a man real grace? Has he within him the genuine work of the Spirit? This is the grand question. If he has, we may safely hope that his grace will grow, and we should deal with him gently, and bear with him charitably, though at present he may be a mere babe in spiritual attainments. The life in a helpless infant is as real and true a thing as the life in a full-grown man: the difference is only one of degree. “Who hath despised the day of small things?” (Zech. iv. 10.) The very Christian who begins his religion with a timid night-visit, and an ignorant inquiry, may stand forward alone one day, and confess Christ boldly in the full light of the sun.
   We learn, lastly, from these verses, that the burial of the dead is an act which God sanctions and approves. We need not doubt that this is part of the lesson which the passage before us was meant to convey to our minds. Of course, it supplies unanswerable evidence that our Lord really died, and afterwards really rose again; but it also teaches that, when the body of a Christian is dead, there is fitness and meetness in burying it with decent honor. It is not for nothing that the burials of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, and Moses are carefully recorded in holy writ. It is not for nothing that we are told that John the Baptist was laid in a tomb; and that “devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him.” (Acts viii. 2.) It is not for nothing that we are told so particularly about the burial of Christ.
   The true Christian need never be ashamed of regarding a funeral with peculiar reverence and solemnity. It is the body, which may be the instrument of committing the greatest sins, or of bringing the greatest glory to God. It is the body, which the eternal Son of God honored by dwelling in it for thirty and three years, and finally dying in our stead. It is the body, with which He rose again and ascended up into heaven. It is the body, in which He sits at the right hand of God, and represents us before the Father, as our Advocate and Priest. It is the body, which is now the temple of the Holy Ghost, while the believer lives. It is the body, which will rise again, when the last trumpet sounds, and, re-united to the soul, will live in heaven to all eternity. Surely, in the face of such facts as these, we never need suppose that reverence bestowed on the burial of the body is reverence thrown away.
   Let us leave the subject with one word of caution. Let us take care that we do not regard a sumptuous funeral as an atonement for a life wasted in carelessness and sin. We may bury a man in the most expensive style, and spend hundreds of pounds in mourning. We may place over his grave a costly marble stone, and inscribe on it a flattering epitaph. But all this will not save our souls or his. The turning point at the last day will not be how we are buried, but whether we were “buried with Christ,” and repented and believed. (Rom. vi. 4.) Better a thousand times to die the death of the righteous, have a lowly grave and a pauper’s funeral, than to die graceless, and lie under a marble tomb!

—J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (Baker Books, 2007) [Westminster (PB) | Amazon (HC)].

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the greatest curses of adulthood is watching your offspring behave in the same maddeningly stupid manner as you did at their age. From my own experience, I could regale you with numerous examples. The one of which I’ve been reminded lately is the sensitivity to the opinions of friends, or rather, those who form the counterpart in those transient parasitic relationships that pass for friendships among the pre-whiskered.*

It happened like this†: one of my blessed offspring — who is, I think, as mature and respectful as any, which is to say, not very — was ridiculing me for my choice of music. It was, to be honest, a choice I had made not because I really liked it so much, but because I knew the kind of reaction it would provoke, and thought it would be fun. It was, as it turned out, even more fun than anticipated, as it provided an opportunity for one of my educational lectures. And that, as I’m sure you would suspect, is good fun for the whole family.

“I don’t care what you think. And that reminds me of a lesson you’re going to learn, as I did, too late.” Groans were uttered and eyes were rolled in excited anticipation of the treat to come. “You shouldn’t care what others think of your preferences, either, but you do.” Denials were made. “Oh, sure, you can deny it, but I know: if your ‘friends’ knew you had unfashionable thoughts, your social status would take a hit. And social status is important to you.

“One of the most savory benefits of age is the shedding of concern over the opinions of critics. Youth says, ‘I don’t care what you think,’ but actually means, ‘I care very much that you might think I care what you think.’ Maturity honestly doesn’t care what you think, and seldom feels the need to respond at all to ignorant ridicule.‡

“Now, to use the current example as an object lesson, when I was a child, if I had liked the kind of music I like now, I never would have admitted it to my peers. They would have mocked me mercilessly, and my fragile ego would not have born it. In fact, there were things, musical and otherwise, that I enjoyed, but kept mostly to myself. Instead of being myself, I tried to melt into the socially acceptable and be ‘cool.’

“Lesson Number One That I Learned To Late is that cool has no resale value. Every penny, every second, every effort you invest in being accepted by your peers is a complete waste. The return on your investment is nothing more than Monopoly money: worthless outside of the game. In Monopoly, at least, you haven’t traded anything of value for worthless paper. In life, you trade yourself for the worthless token (if you are successful) of the temporary esteem of the most shallow people on the planet. But hey, congratulations; for a few minutes, you’re in the in crowd.

“Lesson Number Two That I Learned To Late is that seeking peer approval defines you as one who is influenced rather than one who influences. You may occasionally encounter an individual who thinks independently and goes his own way. He is who he is, not who he is told he should be. That person will grow up to be a shepherd or, at least, a sheepdog. Everyone else is just a sheep.

“Lesson Number Two That I Learned To Late is that I could have enjoyed many experiences that I wouldn’t even consider because they were a priori not good. The choices I made are maddening now. I spent my youth listening to the likes of AC/DC and Van Halen. [Excuse me for a moment while I bury my head in shame.] I could have been enjoying art produced by adults, but I never gave them a chance because they weren’t cool. Instead, I filled a large case with cassette tapes of overgrown screaming children.”

I realize that this post has not been much of a theological nature. These are just off-the-cuff existential observations of One Who Has Been There and Lived to Regret It. For a theological treatment of the same subject, plus a whole lot more, see Ecclesiastes.

* Readers of the fair sex will have to come up with a feminine equivalent. I couldn’t think of one.

† This is, of course, the much embellished and edited-for-print version.

‡ Not all criticism is ignorant ridicule. There are people whose opinions about certain things you should value. The subject here today is those things that are judged subjectively by those who, in this context, are nobody.

Originally posted at The Calvinist Gadfly.

Q. 13. What has God especially decreed concerning angels and men?

A. God, by an eternal and immutable decree, out of his mere love, for the praise of his glorious grace, to be manifested in due time, has elected some angels to glory; and in Christ has chosen some men to eternal life, and the means thereof: and also, according to his sovereign power, and the unsearchable counsel of his own will (whereby he extends or withholds favor as he pleases), has passed by and foreordained the rest to dishonor and wrath, to be for their sin inflicted, to the praise of the glory of his justice.

Question 13 definitely takes us into the deep end of the theological pool, and if we get too caught up in those things that pertain to “the unsearchable counsel of his own will,” we will only tread water until we become fatigued and drown. Am I one of those “chosen . . . to eternal life”? Are you? Never mind that.

Seek the Lord while He may be found;
Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
And let him return to the Lord,
And He will have compassion on him,
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.

—Isaiah 55:6–7

Have you sought the Lord? Have you found him? Then now is the time to consider his eternal decree for you:

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

—Romans 8:29–30

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

—Ephesians 1:3–6

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.

—1 John 3:2

Before the creation of the world, we were predestined to ultimate glory. Our entire salvation was worked out, from our election in Christ to our final glorification with Christ. In the in-between time, we are day-by-day being conformed to his image. One day, in our glorified state, we will be like him. We will be like him because we will see him, not “in a mirror dimly” (1 Corinthians 13:12), but just as he is in the full glory of his perfection. We will see Christ as he is, holy and blameless, and we will finally be perfectly holy and blameless, conformed to his image. What a glorious day that will be!

What, then, are we to be doing now? If seeing Christ as he is will be the final cause of our future glorification, does it not stand to reason that looking to Christ now will be the means of our present sanctification? The writer to the Hebrews tells us it is so:

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

—Hebrews 12:1–3

Q. What has God especially decreed concerning you?
A. Look to Jesus!

Get your own copy of The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms here.

Originally posted 30 August 2006.

These are just a few quick observations on truth. Feel free to add to the list or expand on any of them.

1. No one is entitled to his own opinion.*
2. Everyone is obligated to seek, find, and believe the truth.
3. Truth is knowable.
4. Truth matters. Some truth matters more than other truth, but all truth is important. No error is benign.
5. Honest people may disagree, but no more than one of them can be right about any one proposition in a given context. When there is disagreement, someone, maybe everyone, is wrong.
6. True is true and false is false; right is right and wrong is wrong. Unless you are talking about clothing sizes, don’t give me any of that “this is what’s right for me” nonsense.
7. On babies and bathwater: I don’t need to give my respect to men of dubious character or qualification “because they make a valuable contribution to the conversation.” I can throw out their baby with their bathwater because that same baby can be found in cleaner water elsewhere.
8. You are all entitled to disagree with me. However, you must be willing to say I am wrong, not simply that we see these things differently.

* Chocolate vs. vanilla conflicts excluded. Let’s not be obtuse about this.

So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos of all flesh in which was the breath of life. Those that entered, male and female of all flesh, entered as God had commanded him; and the Lord closed it behind him.

—Genesis 7:15–16

A few years ago, I began reading John Bunyan’s Exposition of the First Ten Chapters of Genesis. I didn’t get far before Bunyan’s extreme allegorizing of the text almost made me wonder if he believed it was an actual historical account. Since then I have been very wary of any preaching that imposes symbolic meanings where Scripture doesn’t specify them. You might want to keep that in mind as you read what follows, and beware of the possibility that I might be taking the allegory too far. Of the substance of theology, I am sure. That it can definitely be drawn from this text, I am not so certain.

1 Peter 3:18–21 tells us that the Genesis flood serves as an allegory of the wrath of God against sin and the salvation of his elect in Christ. (I wrote about that three weeks ago.) From Peter we know that the flood and the ark are symbols of Christ’s death and resurrection and the necessity of being in Christ. Like the New Testament parables, we must be careful not try to drag meaning out of every detail, but I do think there is soteriological significance in the phrase “the Lord closed [the door] behind him,” or as the KJV has it, “the Lord shut him in.” Matthew Henry wrote,

3. Those that by faith come into Christ, the ark, shall by the power of God be shut in, and kept as in a strong-hold by the power of God, 1 Pet. 1:5. God put Adam into paradise, but he did not shut him in, and so he threw himself out; but when he put Noah into the ark he shut him in, and so when he brings a soul to Christ he ensures its salvation: it is not in our own keeping, but in the Mediator’s hand. 4. The door of mercy will shortly be shut against those that now make light of it. Now, knock and it shall be opened; but the time will come when it shall not, Luke 13:25.

—Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible (Hendrickson, 1991), 1:50.

Following Peter’s formula, we could say:

Those that entered the ark were shut in by the power of God; corresponding to that, those who are in Christ are kept in by the power of God. While the door was open, there was hope of survival, but when it closed, it was closed for good, there was no alternate means of rescue, and all who remained outside were destroyed; corresponding to that, all who reject Christ while he offers salvation in himself will one day find the door closed, and it will be too late. (See also Psalm 95:8–11, cf. Hebrews 3–4.)