July 3rd, 2009 by J.W.M.
“They do not attack us by open violence; but, in proportion as the name of God is more dear to me than my own life, the diabolical conspiracy which I see in operation to extinguish all fear and worship of God, to root out the remembrance of Christ, or to abandon it to the jeers of the ungodly, cannot but rack my mind with greater anxiety, than if a whole country were burning in one conflagration.”
(Calvin, Epistle to the Galatians, 4.29)
June 5th, 2009 by J.W.M.
“The law is something like chemotherapy. When chemotherapy is used to treat cancer, it does not give life. Actually, it is an instrument of death. The chemicals that are poured into the body destroy healthy tissue as well as cancer cells. During the course of treatment, chemotherapy actually makes the patient feel much worse. But it is all necessary for the patient’s long-term health. In much the same way, the law makes us worse so that Christ can make us better.”
(Philip Graham Ryken, Galatians, 136)
June 5th, 2009 by J.W.M.
“This brings us back to the point Paul has been trying to make all through this letter, the point recovering Pharisees keep needing to hear: God deals with us according to his promise, and not according to our performance… remember how promises work. It is impossible to earn a promise. The only way to receive a promise is to trust in it… there is nothing I can do to fulfill the promise. The only thing I can do is to trust him to keep his promise… But I cannot fulfill his promise to me on his behalf. So it is with the promises of God’s covenant. Only God can fulfill them. Therefore, when he promises us salvation, it follows that we cannot earn it for ourselves… This brings us to a very practical conclusion: God deals with us according to his promises, not according to our works. And so, writes John Stott, ‘every sinner who trusts in Christ crucified for salvation, quite apart from any merit or good works, receives the blessing of eternal life and thus inherits the promise of God made to Abraham.’… Salvation in Christ does not rest on a law that we inevitably break; it rests on a promise that God cannot break… The Christian life is not a quid pro quo, so that if I do what God wants, then God will do what I want. God simply does not operate this way. Instead, my relationship with God is based entirely on believing his gracious promise… We simply believe that God will make good on his promise to save us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And then, of course, we act on our faith, living like the true heirs of God that we have become through his covenant in Christ… This is the grace of God, that he does not deal with us on the basis of our performance, but on the basis of his promise.”
(Philip Graham Ryken, Galatians, 127-129)
June 5th, 2009 by J.W.M.
“Traditionally, this process of ‘gospel-realizing,’ especially when done corporately, is called ‘revival.’ Religion operates on the principle: I obey; therefore I am accepted (by God). The gospel operates on the principle: I am accepted through the costly grace of God; therefore I obey. Two people operating on these two principles can sit beside each other in church on Sunday trying to do many of the same things – read the Bible, obey the Ten Commandments, be active in church, and pray – but out of two entirely different motivations. Religion moves you to do what you do out of fear, insecurity, and self-righteousness, but the gospel moves you to do what you do more and more out of grateful joy in who God is in himself. Times of revival are seasons in which many nominal and spiritually sleepy Christians, operating out of the semi-Pharisaism of religion, wake up to the wonder and ramifications of the gospel. Revivals are mass eruptions of new spiritual power in the church through the recovery of the gospel… This is not a new program or something you can implement through a series of steps. It is a matter of wonder. Peter says that the angels always long to look into the gospel; they never tire of it (1 Pet. 1:12). The gospel is amazing love. Amazing grace.”
(Tim Keller, “The Gospel and the Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World,” in The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World, ed. John Piper and Justin Taylor, pp. 112-113)
June 2nd, 2009 by J.W.M.
“The core problem is that we are inviting men and women to come under the power of the gospel without having first come under it ourselves. Frankly, I know of very few confessing Christians who have ever shed tears over their sins. Or if once they wept over their sins, they are careful never to do it again; they see no one else doing it, and they quickly become convinced that people who shed tears are not normal Christians.”
(C. John Miller, Repentance, pp. 86-87)
June 2nd, 2009 by J.W.M.
“So in your confession to God you fight to name your sin - and to give your sin its right name. Then you hand it over to Christ by faith and taste the happiness of guilt forgiven (Ps. 32:1) and find the deliverance from hypocrisy which comes through honest confession (Ps. 32:2-5).
What you now know is almost beyond words, but has the feel of clear shining rain, sunshine after tears. Grace is for sinners, and you have felt grace make a clean sweep of your repentant heart. God loves you where you are, not where you have been pretending to be. There is a natural transition now to start loving other sinners where they are, not where they pretend to be - or where you think they should be.”
(C. John Miller, Repentance, pp. 85-86)
June 2nd, 2009 by J.W.M.
“Since saving power comes from Christ alone, it has seemed increasingly important to me of late to emphasize to those under conviction of sin that they retire and pray privately in coming to Christ. My reasons for this are twofold: First, prayer in private makes it more difficult for people to use the counselor as a priest and hopefully brings them to rely on Christ alone for salvation; and second, prayer alone brings the glory of Christ into sharp focus by moving the counselor out of the sinner’s line of vision.
Later, when repentant sinners recall their turning to Christ, they will have things on a solid basis. They will find their confidence in Christ and the gospel, not in the presence or absence of another person, and spontaneously they will give the Lord of glory credit for what He has done through the gospel message.”
(C. John Miller, Repentance, p. 82)
June 2nd, 2009 by J.W.M.
“In another instance a woman was plunged into depression for over two years, apparently with no hope of relief. More than once she had a complete nervous collapse. She had attempted suicide. The psychiatrist and his tools - tranquilizers and shock treatments - had not helped. But the gospel did.
At first she refused to pray with us. ‘It won’t work,’ she said. ‘I’ve tried and it doesn’t help.’
However, we insisted upon reading Isaiah 53 to her. Again and again my wife and I came back to one central theme: ‘You are doing penance for your sins. You are despising the cross of Christ by trying to reenact Calvary in your life as though you were Christ.’
Using verses 1-4 of Isaiah 53, we stressed that her guilt was set forth here. She was despising and rejecting Jesus, the ‘Man of sorrows’ (Isa. 53:3).
‘But,’ we added, ‘here is the great mystery of the love of God. It is too big to take in except by faith. The mystery is that Christ’s sacrifice includes in it payment for our despisal and indifference - and you repent of such a sin by trusting in Jesus’ blood for cleansing.’
Of course, human relationships also have to be set right. But having doen this, that night the woman was able to sleep normally for the first time in months, and within a short time she returned to a full work schedule. Back in church, she now gives God full credit for what He alone has done by the power of His Spirit. She says that she could not have imagined that God could so swiftly revive and restore to her the Christian joy which had been formerly hers.
Her experience is worth further reflection. It points up the danger which constantly faces both new believers and long-time Christians. It is the temptation to think of the first conversion as everything and to forget that repentance and faith include a continuing, radical reorientation of the life toward God. Hear what John Murray says: ‘Christ’s blood is the lavery of initial cleansing but it is also the fountain to which the believer must continuously repair. It is att the cross of Christ that repentance has its beginning; it is at the cross of Christ that it must continue to pour out its heart in the tears of confession and contrition.’”
(C. John Miller, Repentance, pp. 76-77)
June 2nd, 2009 by J.W.M.
“It is important to recognize that the search for priests has been greatly intensified in modern society by the breakdown of the family and of the churches. Modern education and psychology have also played a very important role. They have put the human ego under the microscope, thus making modern people intensely aware of themselves. Often students are so sensitized by self-awareness that they almost seem to me like people born without skin. They are all nerve ends. They are urgently looking for relief from the burdens of self as well as for a purpose in life.
If you are in a position of spiritual leadership, do not direct these seekers to yourself. Send them instead to Christ. Bathe them in your prayers and your love. Open your home and your heart to them. But make yourself understood, and in loving humility be very bold about it: They are not going to find their salvation in you.
Does the young man lack spiritual power because he is doing penance for sexual sins? Is that undisciplined girl on drugs functioning like a watch with a broken spring that no amount of winding helps? Is the person a ‘Christian,’ confident of knowing the Lord, but without fruit warranting the assurance?
Well, tell them the facts. You are a sinner like they are. The only place you get grace is from Christ. To make this point very strong, more than once in our home we have taken young people by the hand and placed them alone in a room with a Bible and the admonition, ‘Don’t use me as your priest. Go to Christ alone.’”
(C. John Miller, Repentance, pp. 27-28)
May 22nd, 2009 by J.W.M.
This past week I was in South Carolina for final exams at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. In many ways it was an unremarkable week. On my way down this past Lord’s Day, I stopped and supplied a pulpit at a PCA church in Hancock, Maryland. Monday was Hebrew: I got up early to study all morning, then took the exam after lunch. Monday night I studied for both a Contemporary Theology and a Medieval Church history final. Tuesday afternoon I took the former, and Tuesday night continued studying for the latter. Wednesday morning was final cramming for Medieval Church History, and I took the final after lunch. Wednesday evening I went with my hosts to the prayer meeting at the local OPC, and Thursday I drove home.
These are the bare facts. Yet there was so much more to this week than bare facts. Let me take a few moments to single out just a few. Firstly, there was my Hebrew final. I love Hebrew, but it is a challenging language and I did not have much time to study Hebrew prior to my trip. Thus, I fairly fretted the outcome of my final. What could I do? I resolved to get up early on Monday morning and study as much as possible, and meanwhile I prayed that the Lord would open my mind to the language. I believe God answered this prayer in an amazing way. As I sat down to work through the translation exercises Monday morning, things clicked for me in a way that they had not during the semester. It was overwhelming: the grammar and vocabulary were sticking in my mind, and I was able to get through all the of Hebrew Bible translations prior to the exam. In fact, when I sat down to take the exam in the early afternoon, the translation portion of the exam was a section of the very translations I had worked on that morning! God is good.
Secondly, the ability to study with my friends and classmates for the Medieval Church History final proved outstanding. Talking and working through the notes together, we got all the material for the final exam condensed from almost thirty down to ten pages. Not only was this final study guide superb, the process by which we prepared it helped instill much of the material in my mind. As a result, we all ended up doing well on the final.
Thirdly and most importantly, there was some outstanding fellowship. One of my classmates and his wife were gracious enough to put me up - or “put up with me,” as my wife put it (jokingly?). This was so much better than staying in a hotel: not only did the two of us get to study together for the two exams we had together, I got to get to know he and his family. This was really great, and we hope to be able to host them for a visit in Pennsylvania sometime this summer.
All in all, it was a great week and a great way to finish the term. At this point (only two days hence), it is still hard for me to believe that the stress is ended. Likewise, I have not yet had time to percolate fully on all that has happened this year. Being in seminary is a lot like being a pot of stew: there is heat, things are bubbling up from within, and one is subject to a constant stirring - both mentally and spiritually. It is fatiguing, yet one grows from it. I have not yet sorted through it all, so let me end with just two general observations. Firstly, this year has convinced me that seminary is not simply the means whereby God fills one’s head with ministerial information; it is also and equally the means whereby God forms one’s ministerial character. Secondly, this year has shown me just how much I do not know - and thus the extreme importance of being humble and teachable.
Study, stirring, forming, humbling, teaching: God is always better than I deserve. I am so thankful to him for bringing me hence, and I am so thankful to my church family for being his hands and feet in providing the means. Year one, the end.
