The Story of His Glory

Posted by Dan C. on

The greatest story ever told is a true story, recorded and preserved in the Old and New Testaments, a story which climaxes in Jesus of Nazareth. This story informs everything in your life with significance and meaning.

The Creator God

The story opens: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” By His powerful and creative word, God spoke into existence the Universe and everything in it. This truth defines everything, and its implications are massive.

Your life is not an accident, a mere product of chance. Because God is your Creator, you belong to him. Just as a sculptor is the master of her clay, and an inventor retains the ownership “rights” of his invention, God is the supreme owner of the Universe and everything in it. He created and sustains your life.

Made for His Glory

You were made for God’s purposes and pleasure, and were intended to live for His glory and fame, to display the worth and value of the One who designed you. Like a mirror, you were made to reflect another’s beauty: God’s.

God has revealed to us how we are to reflect His glory. Jesus summarized this in two great commands:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

A life fully defined by love—for God and others—is a God-glorifying life.

Shattered by Sin

But, we have not loved God supremely or loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. We’ve loved and worshiped idols of self, sex, money, power, prestige, and pleasure more than the Creator.

Our problem isn’t merely sinful actions, but sinful hearts:

What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.  For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.

We may have lived respectable and moral lives by human standards, but often this is driven by self-serving motives and tainted with sinful desires. The Scriptures remind us that “Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.” It only takes one drop of cyanide to poison a glass of water, and just one sin leaves us guilty before a holy God.

We have committed mutiny and treason against the Creator-God. We are dead in transgressions and sins; blinded by Satan, the god of this world; and slaves of our passions and desires. Although man is a mirror made to reflect the radiance of God’s beauty and glory, sin has shattered the mirror.

The Covenant God

But the Creator God is also a Covenant God, One who makes promises and keeps them. Even before man sinned, God had formed a plan of rescue. He revealed his plan to a man named Abraham, and promised that through Abraham, all the peoples of the earth would be blessed. Abraham’s descendants became known as the nation of Israel.

God chose Israel to be his special people. He later made another covenant with King David, promising him a son who would be forever enthroned over God’s people. The story of the Old Testament is the outworking of these two promises: the story of God’s glory returning to earth through His chosen people.

This story climaxes in Jesus, who was descended from David and Abraham. Jesus was born of a virgin in fulfillment of God’s promises. He was the ultimate revelation of God’s glory, the true Image-bearer of God on earth:

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus was God himself in human flesh.

The Crucified and Risen Messiah

For thirty years, Jesus lived a quiet life. Then He burst on the public scene, proclaiming the gospel (good news) of the kingdom, the fulfillment of God’s promises to his people. During his ministry, Jesus gathered followers and demonstrated both compassion and great power through many miracles. He taught with authority, appealing to the common people and raising suspicion among the religious and political leaders. He came with a message of hope, offering forgiveness and rest to those burdened and wearied with sin. He claimed divinity and oneness with God, and modeled a life of perfect love to God and man, always honoring his Father and extending mercy and compassion to broken people.

But his claim to be one with God led to his death. Jesus of Nazareth was sentenced to death by crucifixion—the most degrading and agonizing form of capital punishment at that time. A Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, sanctioned Jesus’s execution. He died outside of Jerusalem around 30 A.D., and was buried in the borrowed tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. His disciples were disillusioned and discouraged, and many of them denied and forsook him during the last hours of his life.

But three days later, mourners discovered that his tomb was empty. Jesus had come back to life and risen from the dead! For forty days, he appeared again and again to his disciples and closest friends, comforting them, commissioning them, and promising them the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit. Then he ascended into the heavens, with the promise that one day he would return again.

The Good News

The apostles and followers of Jesus emphasize in Scripture not only the fact of Jesus’ death, but also the reason. He died for our sins. The apostles realized that the death of Jesus resulted not just from the insidious plot of wicked men, but from the eternal plan of God to rescue men from their sins. Jesus himself said that he came to give his life as a ransom for many.

The death and resurrection of Jesus was the divine remedy to the problem of sin. God treated his sinless Son, Jesus, as if he had lived a sinful life, so that he could treat sinners as if they had lived the sinless life of Jesus. Through his crucifixion, Jesus absorbed the wrath of God against sin, so that God could be just in forgiving sin and declaring sinners righteous in his sight. By becoming a curse for us, Jesus delivered us from the curse of the law we had broken. The righteous one (Jesus) died for the unrighteous (us), so that we could be restored to a right relationship with God.

Jesus’ resurrection was proof that he had conquered sin and death once and for all. Death could not hold him in its grasp. Jesus destroyed Satan, who had the power of death, delivering those who through fear of death had been subject to lifelong slavery in sin.

Responding to the Good News

Someone once said that there are two kinds of people who go to hell: the unrighteous and the self-righteous. Living a moral life will not rescue you from sin, nor will baptism, confirmation, giving to the poor, or attending church. Religion is simply a more respectable pathway to eternal destruction. The only candidate for salvation is the person who realizes his utter helplessness to save himself. Self-salvation is utterly impossible.

But what is impossible with man is possible with God. The God-man, Jesus of Nazareth, has done for sinners what we cannot do for ourselves. When a jail-keeper asked Paul and his companions, “What must I do to be saved?” they answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”

Believing in Jesus includes more than acknowledging the fact of his existence or the truthfulness of his claims. Believing in Jesus is trusting in him. Someone once defined faith this way: F.A.I.T.H. Forsaking All, I Trust Him. In the Apostle Paul’s words:

I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

Trusting in Jesus is the pledge of allegiance to a person. Jesus said:

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

The life of faith is a life of repentance. Trusting in Jesus involves turning–turning from sin and self-righteousness to Jesus as Savior and Lord.

If you are to be rescued from God’s just judgment of your sin and rebellion, you must ask the Lord Jesus to save you. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. This is God’s promise:

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Repenting of your sins and trusting in Jesus is both God’s invitation and His command: “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.”

Will you obey his command?

From Reviving Our Hearts

Eisegesis Unplugged – Luke 22:32

Posted by Dan C. on

This example of reading into scripture was, until today, unheard of by this old soldier.

The Passage

“…but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. . .” – Luke 22:32a

The suggested meaning was that since Jesus told Simon that he had prayed Simon’s faith would not fail, it necessarily means that genuine faith originates in men, and can be repudiated (fail), sending a person who had genuinely believed into eternal Hell.

The first thought that came to mind was “Wait a second, WHO did the praying?” followed by “If the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much (James 5:16), how much more will the prayer of the perfect God-man ‘avail’?”

We’ve heard it said that God answers all our prayers by either ‘Yes’, ‘No’, or ‘Wait’ and we know it’s because our prayers are at best, still imperfect. The perfect prayers of the perfect Savior, and our mediator, will always be answered ‘Yes’! How could it be otherwise?

The Passage in Context

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.”

Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.” – Luke 22:31-34

The man who told me that Simon’s faith could fail, completely forgot to mention that Jesus also said “And WHEN you have turned again. . .”! One has to wonder if he even read it, because the simple use of the word WHEN, signals the certainty of turning back and blows the implied possibility of faith that fails completely out of the ocean!

Then when Peter said he was ready to go to prison and die with his Lord, Jesus (knowing Peter’s heart) called him a liar!

Well, we know the rest of the story. Peter denied Christ, later ‘turned again’ and became a leader in the apostolic church.

So What?

We are told in Scripture:

“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; – 1 Tim 2:5

Just as Jesus was the mediator between Simon and God, and the guarantor that Simon’s faith would not fail, He is also the guarantor that in the end, our faith will not fail either. Jesus Christ, mediating before the Throne of Grace 24/7 on our behalf, guarantees that genuine believers WILL persevere.

How comforting a truth, knowing that even when we feel the weakest in our faith, we have the perfect intercessor!

What Does Perseverance of the Saints Mean?

Posted by Dan C. on

That question was in the Q&A area of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals Web site, here. The answer was provided by Alliance member, Mark Dever, an Alliance Council member and senior minister of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC:

"The perseverance of the saints" is perhaps better construed as the "preservation of the saints".

The idea is that those that the Lord graciously saves by granting faith (Ephesians 2:8-9) he will graciously keep by keeping them in the faith.

Biblical support:

1) Those who are the Lord’s sheep cannot be plucked out of Jesus’ or his Father’s hands. "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one." (John 10:27-30)

The emphasis is not on the saints ability to persevere, but on the Lord’s faithfulness and ability to hold onto us. Thus, to object that the person in the Lord’s hand is able to snatch themselves out would, according to verse 29 suggest that somehow they at least are in some sense greater than the Lord. Futhermore, the first promise, that they shall never perish, has no qualifications about people snatching them out of His hand at all. It is entirely unconditional. His sheep will never perish, period.

More biblical reflection might come from John 3:36 (present possesion of eternal life) Romans 8:30 (as many as are justified are glorified – so much so that the glorified is past tense!), Ephesians 31:13-14 (the present seal of the Holy spirit guaratees future inheritance).

2) This is never to be used to suggest that all who profess faith faith are eternally secure. The parable of the sower holds true. There are many who profess faith who never posses saving faith. They never have been saved. Thus it is only those who persevere to the end who have ever received saving faith.

Note the tenses of Hebrews 3:14: "We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first."

If we don’t persevere, we will show that we never shared in Christ – we were never saved.

We must recongnise that the Lord keeps us by use of means. It is not that a profession of faith saves us. Persevering faith saves us, for saving faith always perseveres. If the Lord gives us saving faith, he will use means (such as Scripture, the church, the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit) to keep us repenting and trusting in Jesus.

Or as Jude puts it, he keeps us from falling out of His love by calling us to keep ourselves in God’s love, and enabling us by his Spirit to obey that command, and through the comunity of the church that will always be calling us back to repentance. "Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear-hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy – to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen." (Jude 1:21-25)

The Baptist, John Bunyan puts it well:

The Father’s grace provideth and layeth up in Christ, for those that he hath chosen, a sufficiency of all spiritual blessings, to be communicated to them at their need, for their preservation in the faith, and faithful perseverance through this life; "not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began" (2 Tim 1:9; Eph 1:3,4).

(There have always been Baptists who have held to the perseverance of the saints).

NOTES:

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is a broad coalition of evangelical Christians from various denominations, including Baptist, Congregational (Independent), Anglican (Episcopal), Presbyterian, Reformed, and Lutheran. The purpose of the Alliance’s existence is to call the Church, amidst a dying culture, to repent of its worldliness, to recover and confess the truth of God’s Word as did the reformers, and to see that truth embodied in doctrine, worship, and life.

The Alliance Council members include:

Eric Alexander, Alistair Begg, Gerald Bray, Jerry Bridges, Donald Carson, Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, Sinclair Ferguson, Robert Godfrey, John Hannah, Paul Jones, Steven Lawson, John MacArthur, C.J. Mahaney, Albert Mohler, Richard Phillips, John Piper, Philip Ryken, Derek Thomas, Carl Trueman, Gene Veith, David Wells,

For more about the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, go here.

Luther on the Sovereignty of God

Posted by Dan C. on

“This, therefore, is also essentially necessary and wholesome for Christians to know: That God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will.”

“… it follows unalterably, that all things which we do, although they may appear to us to be done mutably and contingently, and even may be done thus contingently by us, are yet, in reality, done necessarily and immutably, with respect to the will of God. For the will of God is effective and cannot be hindered; because the very power of God is natural to Him, and His wisdom is such that He cannot be deceived. And as His will cannot be hindered, the work itself cannot be hindered from being done in the place, at the time, in the measure, and by whom He foresees and wills. If the will of God were such, that, when the work was done, the work remained but the will ceased, (as is the case with the will of men, which, when the house is built which they wished to build, ceases to will, as though it ended by death) then, indeed, it might be said, that things are done by contingency and mutability. But here, the case is the contrary; the work ceases, and the will remains. So far is it from possibility, that the doing of the work or its remaining, can be said to be from contingency or mutability. But, (that we may not be deceived in terms) being done by contingency, does not, in the Latin language, signify that the work itself which is done is contingent, but that it is done according to a contingent and mutable will—such a will as is not to be found in God! Moreover, a work cannot be called contingent, unless it be done by us unawares, by contingency, and, as it were, by chance; that is, by our will or hand catching at it, as presented by chance, we thinking nothing of it, nor willing any thing about it before.”

“And how can you be certain and secure, unless you are persuaded that He knows and wills certainly, infallibly, immutably, and necessarily, and will perform what He promises? Nor ought we to be certain only that God wills necessarily and immutably, and will perform, but also to glory in the same; as Paul, (Rom. iii. 4,) “Let God be true, but every man a liar.” And again, “For the word of God is not without effect.” (Rom. ix. 6.) And in another place, “The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His.” (2 Tim. ii. 19.) And, “Which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.” (Titus i. 2.) And, “He that cometh, must believe that God is, and that He is a rewarder of them that hope in Him.” (Heb. xi. 6.)”

John 17–The Lord’s Prayer

Posted by Dan C. on

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said,

"Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”

"I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.”

“I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.”

"I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."

"I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint." — Psalm 22:14

Posted by Dan C. on

Did earth or heaven ever behold a sadder spectacle of woe! In soul and body, our Lord felt himself to be weak as water poured upon the ground. The placing of the cross in its socket had shaken him with great violence, had strained all the ligaments, pained every nerve, and more or less dislocated all his bones. Burdened with his own weight, the august sufferer felt the strain increasing every moment of those six long hours. His sense of faintness and general weakness were overpowering; while to his own consciousness he became nothing but a mass of misery and swooning sickness. When Daniel saw the great vision, he thus describes his sensations, "There remained no strength in me, for my vigour was turned into corruption, and I retained no strength:" how much more faint must have been our greater Prophet when he saw the dread vision of the wrath of God, and felt it in his own soul! To us, sensations such as our Lord endured would have been insupportable, and kind unconsciousness would have come to our rescue; but in his case, he was wounded, and felt the sword; he drained the cup and tasted every drop.

"O King of Grief! (a title strange, yet true

To thee of all kings only due)

O King of Wounds! how shall I grieve for thee,

Who in all grief preventest me!"

As we kneel before our now ascended Saviour’s throne, let us remember well the way by which he prepared it as a throne of grace for us; let us in spirit drink of his cup, that we may be strengthened for our hour of heaviness whenever it may come. In his natural body every member suffered, and so must it be in the spiritual; but as out of all his griefs and woes his body came forth uninjured to glory and power, even so shall his mystical body come through the furnace with not so much as the smell of fire upon it.

– Charles Haddon Spurgeon