The Wanderer

I frequently hear persons exhorted to give their hearts to Christ, which is a very proper exhortation; but that is not the gospel. Salvation comes from something that Christ gives you, not something that you give to Christ. The giving of your heart to Christ follows after the receiving from Christ of eternal life by faith. It is easy to work our friends up so that they say, “We will give our hearts to Christ,” but they may never do so, after all. If, with broken heart and contrite sigh, they had confessed their guilt, and had penitently cried, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” they might not have looked quite so well, but there would have been more hope of them. We cannot come to Christ unless Christ comes to us, and gives us a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

C. H. Spurgeon

HT: here.

A few days ago my brother (the gifted, famous one!) blogged about a certain Wales vs. England rivalry that would surface from time to time in the Walker household. I was more rugby, he was more football; I was more Wales, he more England.

This was picked up by Radio 5 Live, who have invited him and – with much trepidation – allowed me on for a brief interview this morning, apparently due to air at about 0750 hours, at which point we shall be expected to renew the ancient rivalry live, right here, right now. Today’s European qualifier between Wales and England at the Millennium Stadium has apparently prompted this desire.

I am early awake after a busy day yesterday with the safe arrival of a daughter, Cerys Abigail (7lbs 7oz). I imagine that they will be asking which team she shall be encouraged to support. With the name Cerys, it may prove a foregone conclusion.

Feel free to listen in, or I will try and give a post-ruck link later.

Update: so they were running late, it lasted about one minute, I gibbered like a fool and my brother could not pronounce any words. And I was all ready to give them a few verses of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau! Link to follow of my first, and very likely only, foray into national radio.

How well do you listen? Murray’s piece on listening is slightly less painful than his material on time, but just as worthwhile. It’s good counsel whether you are a leader or not.

I loathe this kind of thing from David Murray, largely because it reads more like a self-portrait than anything else.

As one who natively tends toward the Sidney Carton school of work, being more the jackal than the lion, these prods and prompts from a devilology of time are painful and necessary.

So remember Satan’s three rules of time management: squander it, stretch it, and squeeze it.

It turns out that God does not need a cheerleader.

To see why, read this helpful reminder.

Sexual Detox: A Guide for Guys Who Are Sick of Porn

Tim Challies

Cruciform Press, 2010, 108pp., paperback/download, $5-10 (depending on format)

ISBN 978-1453807286

Beginning life as a series of blog posts, this book is a very brief and direct treatment of an issue that, like it or not, almost every man must face, with sexual imagery either aggressively invading our hearts or a mere moment away, should our hearts desire it. The closest we get here to a definition of pornography is “a representation of sexuality that promotes either isolating acts of masturbation or abhorrently selfish acts of sexual abuse.” With that broad starting point, the author delivers a short, sharp shock to the spiritual system. Challies succeeds where several authors on a similar topic fails: he manages to be transparent without titillating, being frank but not crude, blunt without becoming vulgar. He urges upon his readers the profound dangers and far-reaching damage of pornography, speaking plainly of sin and grace, with some hard-hitting questions at the end of each short chapter. The whole is well-balanced, as he addresses not only the putting to death of sexual sin, but also the cultivation of genuine holiness in this area of life. In short, he earnestly demands that the porn-sick man get on his knees and – in dependence upon God’s grace in Christ – recalibrate his mind, heart and soul with regard to pornography. Those who are fed up hiding from this issue in their own lives or the lives of others will find this an excellent resource, being less about the spark of sin and more about the tinder of the heart. It drives at the right target, speaks with compassionate yet clear language, and offers a genuine and grace-soaked solution.

• Cruciform Press
• Westminster Bookstore
• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.com

As some of my regular readers will know (is ‘some’ of three necessarily two?), the last few weeks have been something of a rollercoaster. After getting a severe battering from Ramsey Hunt syndrome, leading to a slow recovery with a few ongoing effects, and waiting on tenterhooks and with bated breath (and, by now, very sore places where the hooks are and blue faces from holding our breath for too long) for the arrival of a new baby which has been indicating its imminence by all manner of means for about three weeks, we took an additional hit when some local blackguards broke into our garden, managed to get into my Fort Knox-like shed (police quote: “Well, there’s not much more you could have done, is there?”), and made off with our family bikes, all the power tools present, and a monster toolbox with the better part of fifteen years of collected hardware carefully arranged within it.

So, what with incapacitation and trepidation and invasion, and all the necessary catch-up, it has been a slightly rocky road for a few weeks. Nevertheless, believing that it is good for me to be afflicted, because by it I learn the statutes of God (Ps 119.71), I thought that I would offer some publicly reportable reminders, observations and lessons so far:

• Afflictions quickly reveal how far we have wandered from God.
• Afflictions do not automatically carry us to God: they are invitations to draw near and reminders of the benefits of doing so. Most mercifully, they are often times when God in Christ by the Spirit draws near to us.
• Prayer does not need to be articulate to be heard, any more than we wait until a child can form a coherent sentence before we understand and meet its needs.
• One of the most precious things in time of suffering is truth. It can bring more comfort than relief.
• Pain and suffering and weariness and loss are effective teachers in priorities. Remembering the lessons when the teachers temporarily retire will be harder to do.
• It is easy to confuse being upright and active with being useful and productive. Much labour, especially spiritual work, is best accomplished in stillness; to be busy is no guarantee of being useful.
• I am thoroughly dispensable. The world and the church go on without me, and do not suffer for my absence.
• There can be a big difference between the things that I think are essential for me to do, and the things that the Lord knows are essential for me to do. My “I must . . .” and his are different lists; they are not always easy to reconcile; I am the one who must conform my list to his.
• Affliction is an effective school of prayer, even while we may be ashamed at how little we pray when our felt needs are provided for.
• Doctors listen to you most carefully and take you most seriously when you are not in the habit of bothering and badgering them constantly and unnecessarily. Our heavenly Father hears us when we cry to him.
• We are fearfully and wonderfully made. That is as much evident in the experience of sickness and healing as it is in times of health and strength.
• We are frail creatures of dust. The speed and extent of our decline into ill-health can be frightening. Death is not far off any of us. “Teach me to number my days, that I may gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps 90.12).
• Impatience and irritability are no small battles for the afflicted, especially in the period when there is sufficient emotional energy to be aware of what is taking place around you, but little more for forbearance.
• The escape of a few tears of pain is humbling in a doctor’s office; it is peculiarly so when waiting at the pharmacy of a major supermarket.
• Sin is a worse evil than pain. Would I be willing to endure this to overcome sin? Christ Jesus was willing to undergo the worst of all possible pains in his own person to overcome sin.
• Confirmed: the worth of a virtuous wife is far above rubies (Prv 31.10).
• When you are sick, you may not learn much new Scripture, but you will discover how much Scripture you have learned, and you will learn more of and perhaps understand better the Scriptures that you know.
• Affliction does not inhibit sin, it merely shifts its locus. Opportunity and inclination change, but the battles must still be fought. Often while the body is immobile, the battle internalises.
• A good dose of pain does promote greater sympathy and genuine empathy for others who are suffering.
• When Mansoul is afflicted from within, Satan marshals his troops and flings them at every weak point along the walls and pounds the gates. Satan never shows a sick man mercy, but looks upon affliction as his opportunity to kick someone while down.
• When Mansoul is afflicted from within, Christ stands guard in unusual ways. For every one of Satan’s minions who takes up arms, there is a minister of Christ to oppose. Christ himself is the portion of his troubled saints.
• Times of health and ease should be employed for the storing up of Biblical truth: not a mere reading, but a memorising and meditating. These stores will be required in times of hardship.
• It can be harder to rest the mind than the body. It is easier to enforce the latter.
• When you cannot do much but think and pray, it becomes apparent how poor you are at those disciplines. That is easy to run away from: it is much easier to fill the mind with froth than to face failures and seek, by God’s grace, to correct them.
• It is easy to talk about learning lessons of patience after two days; it is hard to demonstrate that those lessons have been learned after five. Things could be really bad by next week.
• It is easier to bear the loss of material goods when you have had to reckon with their loss before. You learn to hold the things of the world more loosely when you are better accustomed to them being ripped from your grasp.
• Riches, such as they may be, really do take wings and fly away (Prv 23.5). Get used to it.
• To deal with the loss of material things at a time of pain and weariness and other more pressing issues helps to realise their relative value, or lack of it.
• God’s people really do go the extra mile. To be part of a healthy church in times of personal trial and trouble is a sweet blessing.
• You don’t just learn lessons from pain and loss. You begin to understand the lessons that you really ought to start learning. It will take a while. You usually miss or foret some of the lessons that you ought to begin to understand that you really ought to start learning. Don’t worry: your heavenly Father has not forgotten them, and he can remind you.
• Er, that’s it for now . . .

What is justification?

Justification is an act of God’s free grace unto sinners effectually called to Jesus Christ, wherein He pardons all their sins, and accepts them as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to them, and received by faith alone.

So says the Shorter Catechism. Believing that to be an accurate summary of Scripture truth, in our men’s meetings at the church I serve we have just finished working through The Marrow of True Justification by one of the early Particular Baptists, Benjamin Keach (recently republished by SGCB, and also available as an audio recording beginning here). Keach was one of the men who made it his business to stand against false teaching on this matter at the end of the seventeenth century, in company with such men as John Owen and Robert Traill, to mention only two. Keach’s work demonstrates again, if nothing else, that there really is nothing new under the sun. If you follow anything of the debates about the nature of justification and all that flows from it, Keach’s ‘Dedicatory Epistle’ will show you that the issues today, though sometimes clothed in new language and updated phrases, are really just what they always were:

Brethren,

As I was put upon preaching on this great Subject; so I am satisfied it was at a very seasonable Hour, that Doctrine being greatly struck at by too many Persons, though of different Sentiment: in many Points of Religion. And as it was well accepted by you, who heard these Sermons (and the other: that followed) when preached; and having been prevailed with to publish these in the World, so I hope some may receive Advantage hereby: Though for the meanness of the Author, and weakness of the Work, they may not meet with that Entertainment from some as the Subject deserves; yet for your sakes whose Souls are committed to my Charge, and for whom I must give Account to the great Shepherd of the Sheep at the last Day, I readily consented to this Publication; as also that all may see that we are in this, and in all other great Fundamentals of Religion, established in the same Faith with our Brethren, and all Sound and Orthodox Christians in the World: And cannot but look upon our selves greatly concerned, to see how Men by Craft and Subtilty endeavour, through Satan’s Temptations (though I hope some do it not wittingly) strive to subvert the Gospel of Christ, and corrupt the Minds of weak Christians. An Error in a Fundamental Point, is dangerous and destructive; but should we mistake some Men we have do with, we should be glad: The Lord help you to stand fast in the Truth, as it is in Jesus (in which through Grace you are well established:) Our Days are perilous; Satan seems to be let loose upon us, and is in great Rage, but Time being but short. Brethren, ’tis a hard Case that any of those who maintain the Old Doctrine of Justification, should be branded with the black Name of Antinomians. As for my part, if Dr. Crisp be not misrepresented by this Opposers, I am not of the Opinion in several respects; but I had rather err on their side, who strive to exalt wholly the Free Grace of God, than on theirs, who seek to darken it and magnify the Power of the Creature, though we fear the Design is to wound the Truth and us, through that good Man’s sides, who, I doubt not is come to heaven: O when shall we see that Truth, Peace, and Union longed for?

My Brethren, the Doctrine we preach does not open a Door to the least Licentiousness: (as ’tis unjustly said to do by some, who are either willfully or ignorantly blind.) No, God forbid. Nothing can promote Holiness, and Gospel-Sanctification like unto it, only it teaches us to act from high, sublime, and right Evangelical Principles: It shows the only way to attain to Gospel-Purity, flows from our Union with Christ, and that no Man can arrive to any degree of true Holiness, or expect to meet with any Success therein, without a Principle of Spiritual Life, or saving Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The Nature of Men must first be changed, and that Enmity that is in their Hearts against God, be removed, before they can be holy: The Tree must first be made good, or the Fruits will be evil. The Image of God must be formed in our Souls, which puts the Creature into an actual bent and propensity of his Heart to the Practice of Holiness. If a Man hates not Sin, be not out of Love with Sin, How should he be in love with God and Holiness? Now because we say Sanctification is not necessary, as antecedent to Justification, but is the Fruit or Product of Union with Christ; though we deny not but the Habits (of Holiness) are infused at that same Instant that Faith is wrought in the Soul, Must we be looked upon as Promoters of a Licentious Doctrine? Must we make our own Performances, or Observance a Condition of Justification, or be laid under infamy and Reproach? ‘Tis by Faith only, that we come to have actual Enjoyment and Possession of Christ himself, and of Remission of Sin; and not only so, but of eternal Life; and so of Holiness also, and no other ways. The good Lord help you to a right Understanding of these things, and make you all a holy People, to the Praise of his Glory, and Honour of your Sacred Profession.

The Holy Apostle having asserted Justification by the Righteousness of God, which is by Faith in Jesus Christ, desired to know him and the Power of his Resurrection, etc. which he did not to be justified thereby, but as a Fruit flowing therefrom, or as a further Evidence thereof. The first he had attained; but there was a higher degree of Sanctification in his Eye, which he pressed after, as then not having attained: Whose Example let us follow.

I shall say no more: You own a Rule of Gospel-Holiness; Let me exhort you to labour after sincere Obedience: And pray forget me not in your Prayers, that God would graciously help me through all my Troubles and Temptations, and preserve me and you to his Heavenly Kingdom; who am your Servant for Jesus’ sake, and so shall abide till Death.

Benjamin Keach

Keach introduces his topic, and then gets down to business:

And thus I come to my Text, Romans 4:5. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that jusfifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for Righteousness.

To him that worketh not; That is, worketh not, thinking thereby to be justified and saved. Though he may work, i.e. lead a holy and righteous Life; yet he doth it not to merit thereby; nay, though he be wicked, and an ungodly person, and so worketh not, or hath no Moral Righteousness at all; yet if he believeth on him that justfieth the ungodly, his faith is counted or imputed for righteousness; Not as a simple Act, or as it is a quality or habit, or in us, as the Papists teach; ipsa fides, saith Bellarmine, censetur esse Justitia, Faith itself is counted to be a justice, and itself is imputed unto Righteousness; No, nor in respect of the effects or fruits of it; for so it is part of our Sanctification.

In this first sermon, Keach identifies two doctrines from the text: (1) That all works done by the creature are entirely excluded in the matter of the justification of a sinner in the sight of God, and (2) that justification is wholly of the free grace of God, through the imputation [putting to our account] of the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ by faith.

He proceeds to expose some of the mistaken notions about justification that were current in his day and, sadly, have not withered away with the passing of time. In the second sermon, he returns to his key text – “But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness” (Rom 4.5) – and his aim is to show the Scriptural evidence and arguments for the first point of doctrine above viz., that all works done by the creature are entirely excluded in the matter of the justification of a sinner in the sight of God.

Because Keach’s language is sometimes antiquated, and his use of punctuation quite fascinating and occasionally misleading, we produced an outline of his twelve arguments, with a summary (Keach’s kernel) and précis (our own attempt to reword the basic point) of each as appropriate. In the hope that they might be helpful, here they are:

First argument: “Taken from the very letter and express testimony of the Holy Scripture” (54). “That doctrine that gives the Holy Scripture the lie, is false and to be rejected. But the doctrine that mixes any works of righteousness done by the creature with faith or the free grace of God, in point of justification, gives the Scripture the lie; therefore that doctrine is false, and to be rejected” (58).

Précis: The Scriptures clearly and repeatedly state that no works (however considered) of a sinner have any place in his justification by God (Rom 4.2; Gal 2.16; Eph 2.8-9; Phil 3.8-9).

Second argument: “That all works done by the creature, are utterly excluded in point of justification appears from the different nature of works, and grace; ’tis positively said, we are justified by grace” (58).

Summary: “That which is of the free grace of God, is not by any works done by the creature.  But justification is of the free grace of God; therefore not by any works done by the creature. That being justified by his grace we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life, Tit. 3.5” (59).

Précis: The principles of grace and works are utterly opposed to each other, and cannot be mixed. Justification is either by works (law, merit, debt) or by grace (free, gift). If works is involved then grace is no longer grace, but the Bible says we are justified graciously (therefore works cannot be involved).

Third argument: “Faith is the way prescribed in the gospel in order to justification” as opposed to any and all works (29).

Summary: “That doctrine which confoundeth the terms of the law and gospel together in point of justification, is a false and corrupt doctrine. But the doctrine that mixeth sincere obedience, or works of any kind done by us, with faith in point of justification, confound the terms of the law and gospel together in point of justification; therefore that doctrine is false and a corrupt doctrine” (60).

Précis: Only faith takes the sinner from himself to Christ, the only Saviour. Works says, “Do this and live.” Faith says, “Believe and be saved.” These two principles are entirely opposed and cannot be mixed.

Fourth argument: “All works done by the creature are excluded in point of justification of a sinner in the sight of God, because we are justified by a perfect righteousness: if no man is in himself perfectly righteous, then no man can be justified by any works done by him” (63).

Summary: “If we are justified by a complete and perfect righteousness; then an imperfect though a sincere righteousness, doth not justify us, but we are justified by a complete and perfect righteousness” (67-68).  “We can only be justified . . . by that righteousness which is universal and complete. . . . Our obedience, though sincere, is not universal nor complete; therefore our sincere obedience or righteousness justifies us not in God’s sight” (68).

Précis: For a man to be justified requires a perfect righteousness: that is the demand of God’s holy law, which does not change. In order to be justified, we must either provide that perfect righteousness ourselves, or receive it from another. But no sinner is capable of producing or providing perfect righteousness for himself, and therefore it is not possible that we can ever be justified by any works of ours, and so we must find that perfect righteousness outside of ourselves.

Fifth argument: “All works done by the creature are excluded in point of justification of the sinner before God, appears because justification is a great mystery” (68).

Précis: A ‘mystery’ here is truth that we could not have known unless God had revealed it. The idea that we can be justified by sincere obedience suits the wisdom and nature of fallen men: humans readily conclude that the way to obtain God’s favour is to do good and so earn his smile. The doctrine of justification by faith is not unreasonable, but it is above natural (i.e. fallen) reason. It is the wisdom of God revealed from heaven.

Sixth argument: “If when we have done all we can do, [we are] are unprofitable servants; then by our best works of obedience and services under the gospel, we cannot be justified” (71).

Précis: If your works justify you, then you are not an unprofitable servant and have done all that God requires of you, and your sins are not sins, but only minor imperfections. But Jesus shows that by all our efforts – however sincere – we cannot come to deserve the blessings of salvation, which comes only by grace.

Seventh argument: “Because we are said to be justified by the righteousness of God: hence it follows that all our works of obedience are excluded, Rom 3.21, 22. ’Tis called the righteousness of God in opposition to the righteousness of the creature” (72).

“If that righteous which is the righteousness of God, which is by faith, in opposition to the righteousness of the creature doth justify us; then all works done by the creature are excluded in point of justification in God’s sight: but the former is true; ergo [therefore], all works done by the creature are excluded, etc.” (76).

“If Paul, nor no other child of God durst, or dare to be found in any righteousness of their own at death or judgment; then works done by us, or sincere obedience justify us not; but the former is true; therefore no works of ours, nor sincere obedience doth justify us in God’s sight” (77).

“That doctrine that holds a Christian down under slavish fear, by grounding his justification on his own works of holiness and sincere obedience, is not of God; but the doctrine of justification by our own work of holiness or sincere obedience, holds a Christian down under slavish fear, by grounding his justification on his works of holiness and sincere obedience; therefore that doctrine is not of God” (77).

Précis: God in his infinite wisdom has provided his perfect righteousness in Christ as the means of forgiving and justifying guilty and condemned sinners like us. This was Paul’s refuge and must be ours (Phil 3.8-10): Paul excludes all his past and present efforts, however sincere, from his standing with God and relies on the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone for his hope.

Eighth argument: “All works done by the creature are excluded in point of justification of a sinner in the sight of God, because we are justified by that righteousness by which the justice of God is satisfied, and his wrath appeased” (77).

Summary: “If by that righteousness of Christ which is out of us, though imputed to us, the justice of God is fully satisfied, we are justified; then all works done by us, or inherent in us, are excluded in our justification before God: but by that righteousness of Christ which is out of us, though imputed to us, the justice of God is satisfied; therefore all works done by us, or inherent in us, are excluded in our justification before God” (80).

Précis: The only righteousness that delivers us from condemnation and the curse of the law is the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to us [put to our account]. We need no other righteousness to accomplish this, and there is no space for any other righteousness in the matter of justification. Our works of righteousness as believers do not justify us, although they are necessary in us, being fruits of our saving union with Jesus Christ. Our personal righteousness apart from Christ gives us nothing in which to boast, either with regard to justification or sanctification.

Ninth argument: “All works done by the creature, are excluded, etc. because ’tis by the obedience of one man that many are made righteous, that is Jesus Christ, he is made of God unto us righteousness, etc. Rom. 5.18,19. 1 Cor. 1.30. But our own inherent righteousness is of many; i.e. every man’s own sincere obedience that obtains it” (81).

Précis: If our justifying righteousness comes by the obedience of one man, then there is no room in justification for the obedience of a second man (ourselves) or any number of other men.

Tenth argument: “All works done by the creature, are excluded in point of justification, I prove thus; if any one man was justified without works or sincere obedience, or through faith only, then all works of obedience, etc., are excluded” (81).

Précis: The thief on the cross, and saved infants dying in infancy, are saved without works of obedience, and yet still justified. This is because the remedy is always the same for every person for the disease of sin: Christ’s atoning death and imputed righteousness. Like our spiritual father, Abraham, as well as other heroes of faith, it is the righteousness that comes by faith (not by works) that justifies.

Eleventh argument: “Is, because Christ is tendered or offered to sinners as sinners” (82).

Précis: Christ is not offered to those who are good or who are trying to be good, but to men who must come to Christ for the righteousness which justifies and for the new life of holiness which invariably follows. We have no qualifications for salvation apart from our need. It is as sinners trusting in Jesus alone that we are justified: where, then, is there room for our own works, either before or after salvation?

Twelfth argument: “It is, because if a man should so walk as to know nothing of himself, i.e. be so righteous, or so sincere in his obedience, as not to have his conscience to accuse, or reproach him; yet he cannot thereby be justified.”

Précis: The holiest men (Job, for example) utterly renounce all their own obedience and righteousness before God, abasing themselves and confessing themselves great sinners. The only plea of the godliest man before the judgment seat is Christ’s blood, death and righteousness. In the day of judgment, we will not plead our works but renounce and be ashamed of them (Mt 25.37). All our good works will be swallowed up in our admiration of God’s free and infinite grace.

Selected applications

Caution: “Do not think, O Soul, that thy own Righteousness doth justify thee, through Christ’s Merits; or that Christ’s Righteousness is thy Legal Righteousness, and not thy Evangelical. No, no, he is thy whole Saviour . . .”

Comfort & instruction: “This Doctrine will support you that are weak, and doubt for want of inherent Righteousness, take hold of it, A Robe of Righteousness, Put it on, Believe on Christ, as poor Sinners come to him . . . if thou can’st not come to God as a Saint, come as a Sinner; nay, as a Sinner thou must come, and may’st come. . . . We are for the Law as Paul was, and for Holiness and sincere Obedience, as any Men in the world; but we would have Men act from right Principles, and to a right end: We would have Men act in Holiness from a Principle of Faith, from a Principle of Spiritual Life. . . . You must first have Union with him, before you can bring forth Fruit to God; you must act from Life, and not for Life.”

Entreaty: “To you that are Believers, Oh! admire Free Grace; lift Christ up who died for you, the Just for the Unjust, who bore your Sins, who was made sin for us that knew no Sin, that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him. He gave himself for you, and has given Grace, the Fruit of his Death, and himself to you. O labour to be a holy People; live to him that died for you, and rose again. To conclude. Is there any Sinner here? Are you ungodly, and in a wretched Condition (in your own Eyes)? Are you weary and heavy laden? Come to Christ, lift up your Heads: For to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the Ungodly, his Faith is counted for Righteousness.”

I found the following here:

MacKenzie told me that as a young man he met the theologian John Murray. And he mentioned to Murray that he was about to preach his first sermon. Murray asked MacKenzie if he knew the three P’s that distinguish a lecture from a sermon. MacKenzie couldn’t think of them. So Murray told him.

A sermon must be Personal.

It must be Passionate.

And it must involve a Plea.

It reminded me of this conversation about how to enliven lecturing here.

Peter: Eyewitness of His Majesty

Edward Donnelly

Banner of Truth, 1998, 160pp., paperback, £6.50

ISBN 0-85151-744-7

We might imagine that we know Simon Peter. His character seems to lie splayed on the pages of the New Testament. Yet, at the same time, we may think that a few bold strokes capture him entirely, leaving us with a limited, one-dimensional, perhaps too-readily-dismissed caricature. Here, Ted Donnelly provides a corrective, surveying the Scriptural data to give us a portrait of Peter as disciple, preacher and pastor. In this way, the author draws out principles and applications for all believers: any Christian will appreciate the realism and encouragement of the first section, while the latter two shine light on the role of pastors and preachers in a way that helps both those who labour in the pulpit and listen in the pews. Exegeting insightfully, as well as extrapolating sensitively from the white spaces in the Biblical narratives and epistles, with penetrating applications, here is a book which models the very truths and virtues it declares. It is not an easy volume to classify: you will not, for example, find it in many lists of pastoral theology, and yet the portions on Peter as preacher and as pastor would certainly merit its place. It is more than a mere character study, and yet you come away appreciating Peter better. It is not just a work on discipleship, although you understand better what it means to follow Christ having read it. Simple in its style, sweet in its tone, sweeping in its reach, substantial despite its brevity, it is an excellent book for any believer, and might be especially well-placed in the hands of any man entering or exiting seminary.

• Westminster Bookstore
• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.com

Justin Taylor offers tips from an anonymous hacker on how to protect yourself online. They are worth reading.

Unbroken

Laura Hillenbrand

Random House/Fourth Estate, 2010/2011, 496pp., hardback, $27/£20

ISBN 978-1400064168/978-0007378012

This is a hard book to read. It is not the occasional profanity that makes it so, so much as the searing – sometimes very ugly – honesty and gripping profundity. The author, as far as I know not herself a believer, tells the story of Louis Zamperini, a wild kid with an unbroken spirit and a knack for finding trouble, to a teenager discovering a gift for distance running that carried him to the Olympics (he seemed destined to be the first man to break the four minute mile until WWII intervened), to a highly-skilled bombardier in a B-24 Liberator over the Pacific in the war against Japan, to a castaway adrift on a raft in a shark-infested ocean for 47 days, to a brutalised POW in a series of Japanese concentration camps, to an apparently free man chained to his hatred, to an alcoholic who could not break free of his guilt and anger. Zamperini was finally broken, but it was grace that broke him, and made him truly whole. He heard – very unwillingly at first – Billy Graham preach, and Christ broke in upon his untamed spirit and emptied him of self before granting him a strength that he had never had before. Very skilfully and engagingly written, you will find your pulse rising and falling with the twists and turns of the story; you might suck in your breath, hold your head in your hands, clench your fists, and weep tears as you read. The book showcases the heights and depths of the human spirit, prompting us both to consider that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and that we are fearfully and deeply depraved. For those with eyes to see, the story is a stunning study in providence. That superintending wisdom and power preserves a gifted, vigorous, self-reliant rebel, guiding him slowly but surely to the cross of Jesus Christ, and changes him into a gifted, vigorous, Christ-reliant servant who preaches the gospel to his once-torturers and sets out to find others who, like himself, need the best of friends and a true Saviour. A treat especially for those who appreciate stirring biography and (perhaps mainly military) history, elements of this telling might take it outside the orbit of some. Nevertheless, read and recommended with that awareness, I believe that this is a story worth reading, for it ultimately reveals a God worth praising.

• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.com

My friend Alan Dunn has penned a brief piece trying to make Biblical sense of the tsunami. Does the Bible have anything to say about such disasters? Is there any hope in a world wracked by such tragedies? Alan’s answer, drawn from the Bible, is a resounding “Yes.” For a longer and more developed argument, you can download Catastrophes. I am grateful to Alan for his permission to make these available.

Existentialists have a word for the feeling of disconnection, the free-fall into the void of subjective meaninglessness, the disorienting bewilderment of detachment from everyone, everything and even from self. The word is “anomie:” without law, without order; chaos and confusion caused by a disconnection from everything secure, and familiar. All points of reference are gone and existence is intrinsically strange. The pictures coming from Japan depict anomie as people meander through once familiar neighborhoods now strange and severed from any point of connection. Anomie is the feeling of death, the severance of the unities that God created to constitute the fabric of life.

Does Scripture have anything to say to men when an earthquake and a tsunami so alter the landscape of life that one no longer has points of connection to the very earth upon which we walk? What do we say to people whose very relationship to the ground itself is severed?

First, we need to understand that God established a relationship between our bodies and the earth. God created man from the dust of the ground and named him “Adam,” meaning “red earth” (Gen 2:7-9,20). This “very good” creation is one in which Adam is essentially united to the earth. He is made of the same material. He lives in a symbiotic reciprocal relationship of mutual interdependence with the  earth. By his labor, Man would cultivate and keep the earth (Gen 2:15) and the earth would respond, yielding sustenance for man’s life. Man is not man apart from his union with the earth. For man to be man there must be a cosmos, a physical world over which he has dominion. God relates to the earth through the headship of the Man and as goes Adam‟s relationship with God, so goes earth’s relationship to God. But realize is that man is not man apart from the earth. He is red earth, animated dirt, made of the dust of the ground: he is Adam.

Second, we must understand the impact of the Fall on man’s relationship to the earth. When Adam sinned, he brought the earth under the sentence of the curse (Gen 3:17-19). In grace, God salvaged the original created order, but the dynamic of death now conditions man’s relationship to the earth. Man still exercises dominion, but the life-union between him and the ground is broken. The earth was subjected to futility (Rom 8:20,21) and although by his labor Man still obtains his food, he also harvests thorns and thistles, and experiences physical dissolution as his relationship to the earth disintegrates and he returns back to dust. The earth likewise is in slavery to corruption – not to moral corruption, but to decomposition, entropy, decay, rot. It will wear out like a garment (Isa 51:6). The ground has been judged through Adam with the sentence of death. Therefore from one perspective, earthquakes and tsunamis are evidence of the Fall: a world broken, convulsing in the throes of death; a world bound to the destiny of its Adam – for as it goes with Adam, so it goes with earth. Adam and his planet live or die together.

Thirdly, we hasten to bring to bear the grace of God, for this fallen earth is yet the stage upon which God’s redemptive love and saving purposes are being worked out. Immediately after the Fall, the planet was salvaged from total death. God intervened and sustained the original order of creation and announced that He would send the promised Seed who would crush the head of the Serpent and deliver the fallen cosmos from the curse (Gen 3:15). That Seed has come. He is Jesus Christ: the incarnate God/Man. His incarnation is crucial to the salvation that He has wrought for this tsunami world. Jesus taught us to see earthquakes and tsunamis not only as visitations of judgment, or as precursors to the great earthquake which characterizes Final Judgment (cf. Rev 6:12; 8:5; 11:13,19: 16:18). Jesus also spoke of earthquakes using a hopeful metaphor, albeit a painful one: the metaphor of a woman writhing in birth pangs. Earthquakes are part of those things which are the beginning of birth pangs (Mat 24:8; Mk 13:8; cf. Jn 16:20-21; 1 Thes 5:3). With the coming of Jesus, this present order of creation has been impregnated with the life of the age to come and is in the agonizing process of giving birth to what Jesus calls the regeneration (Mat 19:28; cf. Acts 3:21): the renovation of this fallen creation into the new physics of the age to come. Throughout this age earthquakes, like labor contractions, will erupt and relax in limited ways and progressively intensify until the climatic contraction which will grip the whole world in a final hour of testing (Lk 21:34-36; Rv 3:10). That hour will entail the purging fire of judgment (2 Pt 3:3-7) during which the present order of things will be destroyed (2 Pt 3:10): loosed, untied, unhinged – when the unities of creation are finally severed in a cosmic death brought on by death-cursed Adam.

But there is hope for this tsunami world: resurrection hope, glorious hope!

In 1 Cor 15:44,45 Paul calls the resurrected Jesus, the last Adam. In resurrection victory, He has obtained a new order of human existence: life-giving Spirit – resurrected human life, a body alive with the vitality of God‟s Spirit as its animating principle. This is in contrast with Adam, the first man’s natural body. Paul not only contrasts our resurrection body with our post-Fall, sin-riddled, perishable, dishonored, weak body. He also contrasts Jesus’ resurrection body with Adam’s natural body which became a living soul (citing Gen 2:7 concerning Adam’s pre-Fall body). Jesus‟ resurrection body is more glorious than Adam’s original created body! The point is this: by His resurrection, Jesus has become the last Adam. Now remember, Adam is not “Adam” without the earth, the dirt, the planet which must be bound to him. Without the ground, Adam is not man. For man to be man, he must have earth. Therefore Jesus, the resurrected last Adam, must have a resurrected earth! This tsunami world has hope because Jesus was resurrected and His resurrected body is the guarantee of the resurrected earth. Originally the earth was created then Adam was taken from it and placed upon it. In the new creation, the last Adam is resurrected and the recreated cosmos of necessity follows in His train. Jesus’ physicality is this planet’s only hope. Jesus is the incarnate enfleshed Son of God. He was physically conceived in the womb of a virgin by the power of the Spirit. He physically lived in sinless obedience to God and succeeded where Adam failed. He physically died on the cross bearing the punishment of death that Adam incurred. He was physically buried in the tomb. He physically rose from the grave. He physically ascended to the throne of God. He will physically return at the end of this age to transform our bodies and all things into conformity with His resurrection glory (Phil 3:20-21). Ours is a flesh and blood salvation, a water and mud salvation, a space and time salvation. All who are in Christ inherit His Kingdom of unimaginable glory: a recreated cosmos depicted in the final chapters of Revelation as a pristine Edenic garden in which a resurrected humanity begins again, only now remade in union with the last Adam, gloriously conformed to the first born among many brethren (Rom 8:29).

God made the earth and then He made Adam from the earth and then Adam went through death back into the dust. Jesus, incarnate sinless Man, went through death into the dust and conquered death as He bodily rose again, and as the last Adam, He pulls the dirt which is this planet with Him out of its grave into resurrection glory. Death into resurrection. It is the paradigm of redemption, a redemption for which this planet eagerly longs: the redemption of the bodies of the sons of God (Rom 8:18-23) and the cosmic regeneration. The way to that glorious regeneration is the way of the cross. It is the way Jesus went. It is the way we who will populate the new heavens and new earth must go, and with us, at Christ’s return, so too it is the way our planet will go. But as the earth undergoes its own sentence of death, it will convulse and give us anomie. At times it won’t look familiar to us, and we’ll feel separated from it, as though it has turned against us. Yes, we’re being judged. But we who are in Christ have no condemnation and we’re being saved! We see the earth’s convulsions as eschatological contractions which will result in the birth of a new and glorious cosmos of resurrection life. This world has been impregnated with the life of the age to come. The Spirit of the risen Christ has been given to His spiritually resurrected people, and the world writhes in labor pains, awaiting the birthing of our resurrected bodies so that with us, it too will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Rom 8:21).

If we would experience that glory, we must get into Jesus. Jesus, the resurrected Lord, the last Adam, is our only physical connection to the world to come. This world and its works will be burned up, but all who are in Jesus, as those who were in Noah’s ark, will be saved to populate this same but revitalized cosmos where we will live and labor for eternity, making the entire universe the temple of our covenant keeping God.

So next time you sense anomie, that bewildering sense of disconnection from this world and this life, exercise faith in your risen Lord. The Spirit in you will give you a sense of being securely connected to the resurrected Jesus and assure you that your connection to Him is more solid than the ground beneath your feet. Lift up your head and know that your redemption is drawing nigh. And begin singing: “On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand; all other ground is sinking sand.”

The Sound-Hearted Christian

William Greenhill

Reformation Heritage Books, 2010, 237pp., hardback, $25

ISBN 978-1-60178-099-7

This Puritan’s parting shot hits home: his own strength fading, and conscious that he lived in times which tried men’s souls, Greenhill was concerned that his people be truly sound-hearted. Taking Psalm 119:80 as his point of departure, here Greenhill explores the nature and excellence of a sound heart, gives some sterling counsel on how to get and keep such a heart, together with motives for the work, and also provides a devastating description of the unsound man. This is the kind of probing pastoral preaching that brings us to our knees, crying out to God to search us and know us, and lead us in the everlasting way. Alongside of this longer treatise are five short addresses on various topics: the command to believe, being of Christ’s mind (some excellent things); acting in Christ’s name (demanding); and, the preciousness and the sweetness of the Word of God (delightful). This pastor-preacher both wounds and binds up masterfully. His abiding concern for comprehensive holiness and genuine faithfulness are powerfully pressed home, to the profit of all who are willing to undergo the exercise of a humble reading.

• Westminster Bookstore
• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.com

It has been a little interesting to watch not just the immediate engagement over Rob Bell’s Love Wins but also the spread of it and the reaction to it. Some of it has been useful, but some of it has been a little desperate. It is as if some of the people with a reputation for being cutting-edge, relevant, front-line, ahead of the game, theologically savvy, culturally aware, movers and shakers in the Great Game of modern evangelicalism, are trying with all their might to prove that they are just that, and orthodox to boot. Recycled material, obvious material, lists of material (with their own contributions prominent in them) – all of it looking more like an attempt to surf the wave and demonstrate engagement than anything else.

Is it genuine concern for the glory of Christ? Is it pastoral concern for the flock of God? Is it genuine interest in the kingdom of Christ?

Or might there be a danger that at least some of it is an attempt to make sure that those writing and speaking are not left out, and that people remember that they are the great guides, the ones who speak truth, the almost-omniscient gurus who can be relied upon to keep their finger on the pulse and tell us how to think, or – at least – that they are still there and saying something also?

I am grateful for the men who saw this coming and blew the trumpet of warning. I think it is often helpful that others have spread the word. I am not so sure about all those who have joined the ruckus, as if merely to demonstrate that they have a horn, too.

Brian Croft had a phobia about cleaning toilets. I don’t know if I could say that I have a phobia about it, but I would readily acknowledge that it isn’t a pastime I would choose to pursue. When my family’s time comes round on the cleaning rota, I have no instinct to step forward on this particular duty, and there are times when, if the job does fall to me, there is an air of grimness about the whole affair.

When Brian first arrived at his church, he realised – painfully and then peacefully – that there was not such a great gap between the pulpit and the potty as he had imagined, much to his sanctification:

I no longer clean toilets as a pastoral weekly duty. I have a dear, faithful servant in our church who now takes on that task and many others like it to allow me to address other pastoral needs. But after doing so for 3 years, I am grateful I did and what I learned. I now manage my heart in such a way that I would be willing at any time to do it again if there was a need to do so. The lessons about pastoral ministry I learned from being on my hands and knees scrubbing toilets in the church restrooms although unexpected, have been immeasurable in value.

While you can read the whole thing here, it is a good reminder that only those who are ready to do the lowliest jobs qualify themselves for the highest. It may be the closest we get to kneeling at the feet of a disciple with a basin and a towel. It is a reminder to me that, next time the cleaning rota throws up my name, it may be time to step forward.

Kevin DeYoung follows Tim Challies in giving a review of Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins. Whereas Tim’s review is reasonably brief and popular, Kevin’s is much longer and more developed, so much so that the Gospel Coalition has made it available as a pdf (21 pages).

While Rob Bell is not going to overturn the church and prevent the advance of Christ’s kingdom, and is simply one in a long line of worryingly popular errorists, it may prove no bad thing in itself for an assault on the doctrine of hell to promote some careful, Biblical thinking about this truth, and what it means, and how it is to be taught and preached.

(By the way, I have not read Love Wins so I link to this at one remove on the basis of Kevin’s good reputation and with the intention of getting the right end of the stick. It is a thoughtful, gracious review, showing a great deal of understanding and insight.)

Here is Kevin’s précis:

Love Wins, by megachurch pastor Rob Bell, is, as the subtitle suggests, “a book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived.” Here’s the gist: Hell is what we create for ourselves when we reject God’s love. Hell is both a present reality for those who resist God and a future reality for those who die unready for God’s love. Hell is what we make of heaven when we cannot accept the good news of God’s forgiveness and mercy. But hell is not forever. God will have his way. How can his good purposes fail? Every sinner will turn to God and realize he has already been reconciled to God, in this life or in the next. There will be no eternal conscious torment. God says no to injustice in the age to come, but he does not pour out wrath (we bring the temporary suffering upon ourselves), and he certainly does not punish for eternity. In the end, love wins.

Bell correctly notes (many times) that God is love. He also observes that Jesus is Jewish, the resurrection is important, and the phrase “personal relationship with God” is not in the Bible. He usually makes his argument by referencing Scripture. He is easy to read and obviously feels very deeply for those who have been wronged or seem to be on the outside looking in.

Unfortunately, beyond this, there are dozens of problems with Love Wins. The theology is heterodox. The history is inaccurate. The impact on souls is devastating. And the use of Scripture is indefensible. Worst of all, Love Wins demeans the cross and misrepresents God’s character.

Then, the bulk of the review is divided up into sections.

I want to approach Love Wins by looking at seven areas: Bell’s view of traditional evangelical theology, history, exegesis, eschatology, Christology, gospel, and God.

If this false teaching is, or could become, an issue for you, read the rest or get the pdf.

God’s Technology: Training Our Children to Use Technology to God’s Glory

David P. Murray

Head Heart Hand, 2010, 40 minutes, DVD $14.99 or download $5.99 ($6.99 HD)

What for many parents might be a bewildering landscape is for their children the norm: the digital revolution has had a profound impact on almost every part of our life in the West, and it is this brave new world in which today’s children are growing up. But how can our children be equipped to face these challenges and embrace these opportunities? To help us, David Murray provides a short but helpful treatment (see preview and trailer below), in which he gives four Biblical principles to help us understand the technology around us. Following on, he offers three possible responses: enthusiastic embrace, strict separation, or disciplined discernment. Eschewing the thoughtlessness of the first two, he embraces the third, offering seven helpful steps drawn from Scripture by means of which to negotiate this realm, and to equip our children, under God, to deal with it righteously. So prevalent are these pressures that it is often a case of master or be mastered. In such a context, Murray’s suggestions will direct parents to manage their own digital load, as well as help their children learn how to live to God’s glory in the dawn of the digital age. The concrete recommendations of useful software and websites are helpful. Individual families will profit from this, but the material would be just as useful in church and other settings where the battle lines need to be drawn and the appropriate spiritual equipment issued.

• Westminster Books
• Amazon.com

The preview:

The trailer:

God’s Technology Study Guide

In the name of God, brethren, labor to awaken your own hearts, before you go to the pulpit, that you may be fit to awaken the hearts of sinners. Remember they must be awakened or damned, and . . . a sleepy preacher will hardly awaken drowsy sinners. Though you give the holy things of God the highest praise in words, yet, if you do it coldly, you will seem by your manner to unsay what you said in the matter. . . . Speak to your people as to men that must be awakened, either here or in hell. Look around upon them with the eye of faith, and with compassion, and think in what a state of joy or torment they must all be for ever; and then, methinks, it will make you earnest, and melt your heart to a sense of their condition.

Richard Baxter, quoted in J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness (Wheaton, 1990), 279.

HT: Ray Ortlund.

I Wish Someone Would Explain Hebrews To Me!

Stuart Olyott

Banner of Truth, 2010, 208pp., paperback, £7.50

ISBN 9781848710603

Despite a title that begs a sarcastic response about the appropriateness of a whole book devoted to Mr Olyott’s shortcomings as a theologue, this volume makes the stirring claim that without a proper appreciation of Hebrews, Christians will misunderstand the Old Testament and fail to grasp the past, present and future work of the Lord Jesus. One could not ask for many better guides than Mr Olyott to address such failings: this volume is the condensed product of forty years gathering the fruit of the Letter to the Hebrews. Direct, simple, pastoral, and pungent, there is little waste or unnecessary complexity here: more difficult passages are made to yield up straightforward principles (“Olyott’s Razor”?) without pretending that there are not deep truths to ponder. The whole is profoundly Christ-centred, as it must be if faithfully expounding this book. The author himself attests that he intends this not as a “last word” but as a “first word” on Hebrews, a brief but not shallow guide through the letter that should satisfy our early cravings, but hopefully stir up a deeper and stronger appetite.

• Westminster Bookstore
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Tim Challies reflects on email and the need to abandon the old communication paradigms for the very different expectations and demands of the new:

The only way we will avoid being crushed by the weight of the hundreds or thousands of emails we receive every day is to free ourselves from the need to treat each one like it matters and like it merits a response. The only way we will avoid being emotionally crushed by having other people not respond to our emails is to stop expecting a response. If we can adapt our expectations to fit the realities of this new paradigm, we will all crawl out from under the weight of the curse of email. Email will prove a blessing.

Read it all.

I have been listening to the latest Connected Kingdom podcast from “the odd couple,” David Murray and Tim Challies. I was intrigued to hear them discussing the fall-out from Rob Bell’s new book, and asking whether or not the wider church really believes in hell anyway. Surely, they reason, if we really believed in hell we would be doing more to take the gospel to the lost?

Over the last few days I have been putting the finishing touches to the manuscript of what I hope will be my next book, with the working title The Broken-Hearted Evangelist. I finally submitted that manuscript to the publisher yesterday, and – though I have no idea how long it will be before it is available – it is intended, at least in part, to address the issue of a right response to the realities of judgement and salvation.

As a taster, here is the draft preface of the current manuscript. Not sure how much of it will survive the editing process, but hopefully it will give a sense of the nature and scope and direction of the book. I will keep you posted on progress, God willing.

There is nothing that more glorifies God than the accomplishment of His saving purposes in His Son, Jesus Christ. Do you know and believe that? There is nothing more important to a man than the destiny of his immortal soul. Do you know and believe that? There is a heaven to be gained and there is a hell from which to flee, and our relationship to the Lord Jesus is the difference between the two. Do you know and believe that? Only those who repent of their sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved. Do you know and believe that? The saints of God are sent by God into the world in order to preach that gospel by which sinners are saved. Do you know and believe that?

It is easy to answer such questions with a gutless orthodoxy. Lively faith in Christ grasps spiritual realities in a way that galvanizes the believer. All truth – whether of God’s grace to us or of our duty to God – bears fruit in us only insofar as we are connected to Christ by faith. This being so, says John Owen,

he alone understands divine truth who doeth it: John vii.17. There is not, therefore, any one text of Scripture which presseth our duty unto God, that we can so understand as to perform that duty in an acceptable manner, without an actual regard unto Christ, from whom alone we receive ability for the performance of it, and in or through whom alone it is accepted with God.

John Owen, Christologia in The Works of John Owen (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965), 1:82.

We cannot pretend that we have understood divine truth unless we are living it. We cannot pretend that we know and believe the truth about men and souls and heaven and hell and salvation unless it is making a difference to the way in which we think and feel and pray and speak and act.

A vigorous and practical concern for the lost, growing out of a desire for God’s glory in man’s salvation, is an eminently Christlike thing and a hallmark of healthy Christianity. By such a standard, there are many unhealthy churches and unhealthy Christians; by such a standard, and to my great grief, I am not well myself.

While I accept that there can be an unbalanced and crippling expectation and even unbiblical obsession with some aspects of evangelism and “mission” (as the portentous modern singular would have it!), there is an opposite and perhaps, in our day, greater danger that believers and churches enjoying possession of a great deposit of truth nevertheless do not know it. If they did, they would be doing something.

It is very easy to be up in arms, for example, about current assaults on what can so calmly be described as the doctrine of hell. “Of course there is a hell!” we protest, offended and disturbed that someone could deny what is so plainly written in the Word of God. Is there a hell? What difference has it made? What have you done differently because there is a hell? Is its reality driving our thoughts, words and deeds? Many of us who have entered the kingdom have come perilously close to the flames of the pit. We have felt its fire, and yet we have, perhaps, forgotten that from which we have been delivered. The urgency with which we fled to Christ ourselves has perhaps been replaced with a casual awareness of spiritual reality that never energizes us to do anything for those who are themselves in danger of eternal punishment.

The same could be said of heaven, of Christ’s atonement for sinners, of God’s grace and mercy, of the freeness of the gospel, of the excellence of salvation. “Yes, yes, yes,” the monotonous ticking off of doctrines received continues. But what difference does it make to you and to me?

It is my heartfelt contention that the truths we believe ought to make the people of God broken-hearted evangelists. My prayer for this book is that the Lord Christ would make its author and its readers truly to understand the gospel duty which God has laid upon His church, and therefore to make us willing to perform the work we have been given to do, and by His strength to make us able to do it, to the praise of the glory of God’s grace.

From the Finger of God: The Biblical and Theological Basis for the Threefold Division of the Law

Philip S. Ross

Christian Focus (Mentor), 2010, 448pp., paperback, £12.99

ISBN 9781845506018

With wit, verve and insight, Mr Ross sets himself against the apparently-growing consensus that the threefold division of the law is without basis in Scripture and illegitimate in theology, taking in as he does so some of the typical corollaries of such a position. He begins with a demonstration of the historical validity of this perspective, before leading us on a sequential trawl through the Scriptures, beginning with Moses, heading swiftly and surely to the New Testament and the experience and teaching of Christ and his apostles, reaching satisfying and searching conclusions, not least in the central matters of the gospel. While the scholarly depth and breadth of research is readily evident, the book is straightforward to read (helped by that lively style). Those who themselves hold to the author’s perspective will find much to encourage, instruct and stimulate, not least in those areas where there may be different nuances of understanding. Those who disagree must face and reckon with the gracious but forthright challenge that Mr Ross holds out. An excellent book, and warmly recommended.

• Westminster Bookstore
• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.com
  

Love to Christ is the great and primary love; it drives and relativizes all other loves; it gives right priorities to all other loves. Brian Croft provides a warning against getting these priorities wrong:

If we love our ministry more than our wife, it is likely we could lose our wife.

The Major Works of Herman Witsius (3 sets in 5 volumes)

Herman Witsius

Reformation Heritage Books, 2010, 2392pp., cloth, $70

ISBN 978-1-60178-095-9 / 978-1-60178-096-6 / 978-1-60178-097-3

Of necessity, this is more a book notice than a review. Herman Witsius (1636-1708) is one of the Dutch Reformed scholars who too easily falls without trace into the gaps in popular knowledge of post-Reformation theologians. Reformation Heritage Books provides high-quality facsimiles of 19^th century editions of his The Economy of the Covenants (2 vols), Sacred Dissertations on the Apostles’ Creed (2 vols) and Sacred Dissertations on the Lord’s Prayer (1 vol). The English translations are generally clear and forceful, if sometimes dense. The first two volumes are a ‘body of divinity’, or systematic theology, worked out in terms of God’s covenants with man: one must sometimes read between the lines of the controversy Witsius is addressing to get at the profitable meat of his manifestly Biblical treatment (in the sense that he is clearly wrestling with Scripture). The Apostles’ Creed takes a different approach, providing a similar theological overview grounded in the language of the Apostles’ Creed. The Lord’s Prayer provides not only an exposition of that passage, but also a broader treatment of the whole topic of prayer, covering a variety of fascinating questions and concerns. For all its erudition, there is no absence of warm and pointed application throughout this collection, for Witsius allows no separation of heart and mind. His work will reward the meditative devotee better than the occasional dipper, and that reward will be well worth the effort.

(Note that the three sets which comprise the larger set are available separately.)

• Westminster Bookstore
• Monergism Books