Archives for November 2013

1 December 2013 — 10 AM Worship

1 December 2013 — 3 PM Worship

Carl Trueman writes:

“When one asks the most influential thinkers in the modern evangelical church are, one might find names such as Jim Packer, John Stott, and Don Carson.

“I would like to suggest, however, that there is one whose influence is perhaps much greater than we are aware of, yet whose thinking all but pervades the modern evangelical church: Marcion.”

[KEEP READING]

To further whet your appetite, here is Trueman’s conclusion:

“As our reading, our sermons, and our times of corporate worship neglect and, sometimes, simply ignore the Old Testament, we can expect a general impoverishment of church life and, finally, a total collapse of evangelical Christendom. Indeed, there are mornings when I wake up and think it’s already all over, and that the church in the West survives more by sheer force of personality, by hype and by marketing ploys rather than by any higher power. We need to grasp once again who God is in his fullness; we need to grasp who we are in relation to him; and we need teaching and worship which gives full-orbed expression to these things — and this will only come when we in the West grow up, ditch the designer gods we build from our pick-n-mix Bible where consumer, not Creator, is king, and give the whole Bible its proper place in our lives, thinking, and worship. Think truncated thoughts about God and you’ll get a truncated God; read an expurgated Bible and you get an expurgated theology; sing mindless, superficial rubbish instead of deep, truly emotional praise and you will eventually become what you sing.”

Also, see:

• Who Needs the Old Testament?
  by Charles D. Drew
• Is the Old Testament for Christians?
  by Graeme Goldsworthy
• We Need the Old Testament to Understand the Work of Christ
  by Curtis I. Crenshaw

David Feddes writes:

Is it possible to steer clear of church and still be a good Christian? Many people would say yes to that question, and perhaps you would agree. You believe in God; you pray once in a while; you consider yourself a Christian; but you feel you can get along just fine without church. The important thing is how you relate to God, not how you relate to church. Right?

[KEEP READING]

Nick Batzig writes:

If you were hoping to read a post about the temperance movement, wineries, micro-brews or an illegitimate use of the Bible to fuel the health food revolution (or perhaps I should have said, “health food religion”) then you could very well be disappointed. If, however, you are looking for an explanation about what the Scriptures tell us that Jesus drank when He spoke of “this cup” (Matt. 26:39) then my hope is that you’ll find this to be one of the richest subjects for the well being of your soul. So how are we to know what Jesus meant when He spoke of “the cup” that He had to drink?

[KEEP READING]

John Calvin defended the doctrine of election in A Treatise on the Eternal Predestination of God and countered a detractor named Pighius:

Some of our adversaries have preposterously asked, How can men be certain of their salvation if it lies in the secret counsel of God? I have replied in these statements, which are the truth. Since the certainty of salvation is “set forth” unto us in Christ, it is useless, and not without dishonour to Christ Himself, to pass over this fountain of life, which is thrown open that men may draw out of it, and to labour and toil in vain to draw the water of eternal life out of the hidden abysses of the mind and counsel of God! Paul testifies, indeed, that we were “chosen before the foundation of the world,” but it was “in Christ.”

Let no one, then, seek confidence in his own election of God anywhere else than “in Christ,” unless, indeed, he would blot out, and do away with, the “book of life” in which his name is written. God’s adoption of us “in Christ” is for no other end than that we should be considered His children …

Hence Christ, when dwelling on the eternal election of His own in the counsel of the Father, points out, at the same time, the ground on which their confidence may safely rest; where He says, “I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world: Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me; and they have kept Thy word” (John xvii. 6). We see here that God begins with Himself, when He condescends to choose us and give us to Christ. But He will have us begin with Christ, if we would know that we are numbered among His “peculiar people” …

If your doctrine and argument be true, says Pighius, that all the elect are thus secure in the hand of Christ “unto the end,” the condition of salvation on which Christ Himself lays down is proposed in vain, where He says, “He that endureth to the end shall be saved” (Matt. x. 22). Here, everyone must confess, that my opponent prevaricates. He had undertaken to prove that our confidence of our salvation could not consistently stand with our election of God. But now, his reasoning draws us away from that point, and leads us to prove that the former necessarily stands on the latter.

I thus find myself so perpetually tossed to and fro by the billows of this man’s violent attacks, that scarcely a moment passes in which I am not in danger of being drowned. But, as God ever upholds His elect to prevent them from sinking, I feel quite confident that I shall stand against all my adversary’s incessant storms. When Pighius asks me how I know that I am elected, my answer is, “Christ is, to me, more than a thousand witnesses.” For when I find myself engrafted into His body, my salvation rests in a place so safe, secure and tranquil, that it is as if I already realised it in heaven.

Don’t look for security in the secret things of the divine decree. Look to Jesus Christ to whom we are joined by the Holy Spirit through faith. “Christ is, to me, more than a thousand witnesses.”

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever…” (Deut. 29:29). What does Jesus reveal?  “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (Jn. 6:37).

Listen to Calvin and the Mystery of Believing by John L. Thompson, speaking on the doctrine of predestination.