Trusting in God

"Trusting in God is to rely on his power as a Creator, and on his love as a Father" (Thomas Watson, The Ten Commandments, 52). 

Focus on the Family?

Commenting on Nehemiah's reforms, J. I. Packer :

Thoughtful pastoral leaders, like Nehemiah, always focus on families and family life, for the family is the first and most basic form of human community. Family nurture, for better or for worse, goes deeper into children than any form of nurture from elsewhere, and the biblical ideal is that families should be the composite units out of which each church is built. Godliness is to be modeled in the family, and faith passed on there. Everywhere in today's Western world, and to some extent in urban communities everywhere on the face of the globe, family life is being weakened and undermined by pressure of various sorts, and this is likely to get worse. So the need to work as Nehemiah worked to keep family life strong, godly, and wholesome is great, and all who strategize and minister to spread God's kingdom today and tomorrow must make families and home life a matter of prime concern.

—J. I. Packer, A Passion for Faithfulness: Wisdom from the Book of Nehemiah (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 1995), 194.

James for the Twenty-First-Century Church

 In the final chapter of A Theology of James: Wisdom for God's People, Christopher Morgan draws out "four broader aspects of James's message that are particularly timely for today's church." He is speaking with particular reference to the "evangelical" church and, as you will see, to the Reformed wing of things at one particular point. And it seems to me that he was seeing things aright when he wrote in 2010. His word has not become less timely ten years hence. The chapter from which these applications come is titled "James for the Twenty-First-Century Church." Here are, in summary, those four aspects, with my brief comments added.

First, we need to align with how "James views truth holistically. His holistic approach can serve as a helpful corrective to our contemporary false dichotomies or polarizations. Many evangelicals today have a tendency to separate such things as love for God and love for others, faith and works, evangelism and social ministry, and theology and practice. In contrast, James sees that these things function together."

Next, from "James we also learn that Christianity brings a reversal of values. Reflective of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, James notes this reversal in a number of areas. . . . Churches and church leaders have a tendency to reflect the society around them, but James presses us to think and act differently. After all, we are a part of a new society, the community of Jesus."

Third, Morgan points out the right emphasis of the importance of covenant theology among the Reformed, but he likewise brings in a right word of correction: "I fear that we do not sufficiently stress the importance of covenant faithfulness. The covenant is a helpful paradigm for understanding biblical theology, but it also makes demands on us. James continually presses the importance of our faithfulness to God."

Lastly, he stresses James' view of the church. And, in my judgment, this is one of those areas where we need the greatest reform. Evangelicals have not done well with thinking through a healthy ecclesiology; instead, we've often adopted the world's models and methods for running the church. But what we need to do in repentance, according to Morgan, is take care to think about "what the church actually is" from the book of James. The church, according to James, is "an eschatological covenant community that exists in the already and the not yet and thus displays . . . the arrival of the kingdom through its relationships to God, among its members, and to society."

Now if there is one thing the evangelical church doesn't do very well—it is being distinct, you know, salt and light. She's lost her saltiness. At least here in America, she blends right in with her environs and tastes like everything else. James calls this "friendship with the world" and "enmity with God" (4:4). She's specialized in being so much like the world for decades now, and her impotence is on full display for those with eyes to see. But if she is going to recover the full-orbed gospel and bring kingdom norms to bear for the sake of potent witness to the kingdom of God, she is going to need to display how the city of God differs from the city of man. James, Morgan stresses, helps us a great deal here.

—Christopher Morgan, A Theology of James: Wisdom for God's People (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: R&R Publishing, 2010), 187-189.

The Bible Heard, Sung, Spoken, and Taught

"In [corporate] worship, the congregation should listen to the word read, receiving it by ear. We can read with our eyes at home. We should sing the Scripture in Psalms and speak the Scriptures to one another in liturgical dialogue—rolling the word on our tongues. The pastor should teach the Bible—the Bible, not a review of the week's news or an anecdote from his personal life. The sermon isn't an occasion for a theological lecture. But it should be substantial, as solid as the congregation can handle. Pastors should aspire to offer solid food rather than skim milk, oatmeal stout rather than Bud Light (Leithart, The Theopolitan Vision, 30).

The Church's Gathering Under the Whole Counsel of God

"The church's liturgy should be Bible-saturated. There should be readings from Scripture, generous readings, not a few snippets from a lectionary or a few lines as a sermon text. The readings shouldn't skip the difficult or embarrassing parts—the tent pegs through the brains, the details about the impurity of menstruation, the severe things Jesus and Paul have to say about first-century Jews" (Leithart, The Theopolitan Vision, 29–30).

Disparities in Outcome and Getting at the Cause(s)

"The cause of a given outcome is an empirical question, whose answer requires untangling many complex factors, rather than simply pointing dramatically and indignantly to statistical disparities in outcomes, as so often happens in politics and in the media" (Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities, 33).

Righteous and Unrighteous Anger

Baxter:

Anger is the rising up of the heart in passionate displacency against an apprehended evil, which would cross or hinder us of some desired good. It is given us by God for good, to stir us up to a vigorous resistance of those things, which, within us or without us, do oppose his glory or our salvation, or our own or our neighbor's real good. 

Anger is good when it is thus used to its appointed end, in a right manner and measure; but it is sinful, 1. When it riseth up against God or any good, as if it were evil to us. . . . 2. When it disturbs reason, and hindereth our judging of things aright. 3. When it casteth us into any unseemly carriage, or causeth or disposeth to any sinful words or action: when it inclineth us to wrong another by word or deed, and to do as we would not be done by. 4. When it is mistaken, and without just cause. 5. When it is greater in measure than the cause alloweth. 6. When it unfitteth us for our duty to God or man. 7. When it tendeth to the abatement of love and brotherly kindness, and the hindering of any good which we should do for others: much more when it breedeth malice, and revenge, and contentions, and unpeaceableness in societies, oppression of inferiors, or dishonouring of superiors. 8. When it stayeth too long, and ceaseth not when its lawful work is done. 9. When it is selfish and carnal, stirred up upon the account of some carnal interest, and used but as a means to a selfish, carnal, sinful end: as to be angry with men only for crossing your pride, or profit, or sports, or any other fleshly will. In all these it is sinful.

—Richard Baxter, A Christian Directory (vol. 1 in The Practical Works of Richard Baxter; Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 200), 284.

Dying for a Worldly Church

"Tragically, many sectors of the church have become so worldly that they too are hostile to the demands of Jesus. If you call the church to repentance, be prepared for the assaults. Don't take up the task unless you're prepared to die" (Leithart, The Theopolitan Vision, xvi).

The Scope of True Religion

"It may even come about that a man's most genuinely Christian actions fall entirely outside that part of his life which he calls religious" (C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, 25).

The Preciousness of the Psalter

Speaking of his beloved Psalter, Luther says:

Here we find not only what one or two saints have done, but what he has done who is the very head of all saints. We also find what all the saints still do, such as the attitude they take toward God, toward friends and enemies, and they way the conduct themselves amid all dangers and sufferings. Beyond that there are contained here all sorts of divine and wholesome teachings and commandments.  

The Psalter ought to be a precious and beloved book, if for no other reason than this: it promises Christ's death and resurrection so clearly—and pictures his kingdom and the condition and nature of all Christendom—that it might well be called a little Bible. In it is comprehended most beautifully and briefly everything that is in the entire Bible. It is really a fine enchiridion or handbook. In fact, I have a notion that the Holy Spirit wanted to take the trouble himself to compile a short Bible and book of examples of all Christendom or all saints, so that anyone who could not read the whole Bible would here have anyway almost an entire summary of it, comprised in one little book.

—Martin Luther, "Preface to the Psalter," in Luther's Works: Word and Sacrament I (vol. 35; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1960), 254.

Pure and Real Religion

"Here indeed is pure and real religion: faith so joined with an earnest fear of God that this fear also embraces willing reverence, and carries with it such legitimate worship as is prescribed in the law. And we ought to note this fact even more diligently: all men have a vague general veneration for God, but very few really reverence him; and wherever there is great ostentation in ceremonies, sincerity of heart is rare indeed" (Calvin, Institutes, 1.2.2).

Religion

In these uncongenial days in which we find ourselves, "religion" is routinely tarred and feathered and set on fire. I understand why, at least in some instances. Nevertheless, I don't think it need be. It is still useful to be able to speak of religion rightly construed. Especially if religion is defined, as it has been in the past, in a fine way.

Louis Berkhof does well in his Introductory Volume to Systematic Theology (pushlished as Systematic Theology: New Combined Edition, Kindle, Location 2197). The following definition of "religion" is taken from the chapter titled "Religion," which chapter comes within a larger section called "Principia of Dogmatics":

Religion consists in a real, living and conscious relationship between a man and his God, determined by the self-revelation of God, and expressing itself in a life of worship, fellowship, and service.

As I said, Berkhof does well. If we mean this when we speak of "religion," we shall also do well. And there shall be no need of lambasting religion rightly construed.

How Christians Press Forward in the Faith

A couple months back now I published a post titled: "The Application of Redemption." That title comes from the fifth chapter in Thomas Watson's magnificent and best-known book: A Body of Divinity. 

In that fifth chapter, expounding the Westminster shorter catechism, Watson works through key catechetical elements in our redemption, instructing the flock on matters faith, effectual calling, justification, adoption, sanctification, assurance, peace, joy, growth in grace, and perseverance. 

For this post I want to focus faith on what God's word says about perseverance in grace. (And I do indeed believe this is what God's word teaches, as I believe both Watson and Westminster offer us a faithful exposition of the doctrine.) To do so I'll quote a sizable section of the chapter from the Banner of Truth edition (A Body of Divinity, 280-281):

By what means do Christians come to persevere? 

[1] By the help of ordinances, as of prayer, the word, and the sacraments. Christians do not arrive at perseverance when they sit still and do nothing. It is not with us as with passengers in a ship, who are carried to the end of their voyage while they sit still in the ship . . . but we arrive at salvation in the use of means; as a man comes to the end of a race by running, to a victory by fighting. "Watch and pray" (Matt. 26:41). As Paul said, "Except ye abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved" (Acts 27:31). Believers shall come to shore at last, arrive at heaven; but "except they abide in the ship," namely, in the use of ordinances, "they cannot be saved." The ordinances cherish grace; as they beget grace, so they are the breast milk by which it is nourished and preserved to eternity.

[2] By the sacred influence and concurrence of the Spirit. The Spirit of God is continually at work in the heart of a believer, to carry on grace to perfection. It drops in fresh oil, to keep the lamp of grace burning. The Spirit excites, strengthens, increases grace, and makes a Christian go from one step of faith to another, till he comes to the end of his faith, which is salvation (1 Pet. 1:9). It is a fine expression of the apostle, "The Holy Spirit which dwells in us" (2 Tim. 1:14). He who dwells in a house, keeps the house in repair; so the Spirit dwelling in a believer, keeps grace in repair. Grace is compared to a river of the water of life (John 7:38). This river can never be dried up, because God's Spirit is the spring that continually feeds it.  

[3] Grace is carried on to perfection by Christ's daily intercession. As the Spirit is at work in the heart, so is Christ at work in heaven. Christ is ever praying that the saint's grace may hold out. "Father, keep those whom thou has given me." Keep them as the stars in their orbs: keep them as jewels, that they may not be lost. "Father keep them" (John 17:11). That prayer which Christ made for Peter, was the copy of the prayer he now makes for believers. "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not," (Luke 22:32) that it be not totally eclipsed. How can the children of such prayers perish?

Sacraments Seal the Knowledge of God

"The sacrament is a sealing ordinance. Christ made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread; so, in the holy supper, in the breaking of bread God makes himself known to us, to be our God and portion" (Watson, Body of Divinity, 258).

How to Think about Rivals to Learning

"There are always plenty of rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarrelling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable" (C. S. Lewis, "Learning in Wartime" in Weight of Glory, Kindle, 60). 

History as Foil to the Present

"We need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion" (C. S. Lewis, "Learning in Wartime" in Weight of Glory, Kindle, 58–59).

Seeking God's Face, Finding His Ear

"A Christian perhaps may think, because he does not see God's smiling face, God will not hear him. This is a mistake. 'I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications' (Psa. 31:22). If we pour out sighs to heaven, God will hear every groan; and though he does not show us his face, he will lend us his ear" (Watson, Body of Divinity, 257).

Submission

But that thou art my wisdome, Lord,
              And both mine eyes are thine,
My minde would be extreamly stirr'd
              For missing my designe.

Were it not better to bestow
              Some place and power on me?
Then should thy praises with me grow,
              And share in my degree.

But when I thus dispute and grieve,
              I do resume my sight,
And pilfring what I once did give,
              Disseize thee of thy right.

How know I, if thou shouldst me raise,
              That I should then raise thee?
Perhaps great places and thy praise
              Do not so well agree.

Wherefore unto my gift I stand,
              I will no more advise:
Only do thou lend me a hand,
              Since thou has both mine eyes.

—George Herbert, The English Poems of George Herbert (ed. Helen Wilcox; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 47.

The Love of God and the Love of Our Neighbor in God

"All God's commandments, one of which is, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery,' and all those precepts which are not commandments but special counsels, one of which is, 'It is good for a man not to touch a woman,' are rightly carried out only when the motive principle of action is the love of God, and the love of our neighbor in God" (Augustine, Enchiridion, 139–140).

The Hand That Rocks The Cradle Is The Hand That Rules The World

BLESSINGS on the hand of women!
Angels guard its strength and grace.
In the palace, cottage, hovel,
Oh, no matter where the place;
Would that never storms assailed it,
Rainbows ever gently curled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Infancy's the tender fountain,
Power may with beauty flow,
Mothers first to guide the streamlets,
From them souls unresting grow—
Grow on for the good or evil,
Sunshine streamed or evil hurled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Woman, how divine your mission,
Here upon our natal sod;
Keep—oh, keep the young heart open
Always to the breath of God!
All true trophies of the ages
Are from mother-love impearled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Blessings on the hand of women!
Fathers, sons, and daughters cry,
And the sacred song is mingled
With the worship in the sky—
Mingles where no tempest darkens,
Rainbows evermore are hurled; 

For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

 —William Ross Wallace (1819–1891)

Dangerous Business Going Outdoors

These days of Covid-19 we are prohibited from leaving our homes without sufficient warrant. A couple of texts come to mind. I shall not comment on how I think they relate to our present state of affairs (or whether they do at all!). I shall leave that up to the reader. For now, I simply note them and find the associations (and differing contexts and meanings) stimulating.

Here are two famous texts to ponder.

Bilbo used to say: "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door" (J. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 74).

And then there's Proverbs 26:13 (ESV): "There's a lion in the road! There is a lion in the streets!"

Solid Logic Amid Trials

One of the great needs during trials of various sorts that God sends us is to keep one's head and remain cool and calm. To put it another way, we need to remain poised in the Spirit. This needs to be done, of course, according to wisdom.

So I offer up a spiritual syllogism of sorts during our crises surrounding our condition face-to-face with COVID-19. This condition includes our country's response to the virus (which may actually be far more damaging to life than the virus itself).

Premise 1: Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.

Premise 2: A brother is born for adversity.

Conclusion: Brothers are born for this moment of man's trouble.

Wild Creatures

"Though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creatures so wild as one of his own commentators" (G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy).

Baptism into Christ's Body

I just started to read Robert Letham's Systematic Theology, published by Crossway in 2019. And it just might become my go-to one-volume systematic theology along with Louis Berkhof's. So far, it is riveting. (Never thought I'd say this about a contemporary systematics text!) I will probably post a bit more on it as I get into its contents more deeply, but for now I simply want to cite a portion on baptism.

As I began to read the section on baptism (in preparation for our daughter Zoe's baptism this upcoming weekend), I thought to myself, and blurted out to my wife: "This is my view! This is what the New Testament actually teaches!" It's rooted in the Bible's fairly straightforward teaching instead of our modern systems on these things, where baptism tends to get detached from its biblical, ecclesial, and salvific contexts. Letham does well in holding things together that few Christians (North American, at least) seem to be able to hold together.

Note that the discussion of baptism in Letham's volume comes after justification, not in a detached section on ecclesiology, but in a chapter entitled "The Beginning of the Christian Life," which is itself part of a larger section on "The Spirit of God and the People of God." Here's a salutary sample, and a good simple word on baptism:

It is appropriate to bring baptism into the equation at this point [after a discussion on justification]. The New Testament presents baptism as one of the points of entry into salvation, together with repentance, faith, and the reception of the Holy Spirit; these all feature in the evangelistic sermons in Acts. Throughout the New Testament Epistles there are allusions to baptism in this connection. Moreover, Rome makes baptism the instrumental cause of justification; while this has had unfortunate consequences, it alerts us to the need to provide some coherent answer. We saw in the previous chapter the close connections between regeneration, union with Christ, and baptism, connections often missed in evangelical and much recent Reformed thought [italics mine]. The Western world has been prone to thinking in analytical categories, breaking realities down into component parts, with distinctions to the forefront rather than connections. There is need to repair this imbalance in our present context. . . . 

Baptism is essential to the church's ministry. Jesus instituted it and required it as primary (Matt. 28:18–20). The way the church is to make the nations disciples is first by baptizing them. This occurred at Pentecost only a few days later (Acts 2:37–41). There, Peter linked baptism to the gift of the Spirit and cleansing from sin (1 Pet. 3:21). Paul also connects baptism with cleansing from sin (Acts 22:16) and elsewhere mentions baptism in the same breath as membership of the body of Christ and the gift of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). It is the entry point into the church and so marks, in its way, the entrance into salvation. 

 —Robert Letham, Systematic Theology (Wheaton: Crossway, 2019), 705–706.

Christian Education's Impotence

"Christian education is no more capable of transforming men than is humanistic education" (Wilson, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, 76).

The Massive Entailments of a Clear Theology of Creation

C. S. Lewis, speaking on a clear theology of creation, as it comes to us in the Psalter, over against the alternatives of the ancient world:

Now we all understand of course the importance of this peculiarity in Judaic thought from a strictly and obviously religious point of view. But its total consequences, the ways in which it changes a man's whole mind and imagination, might escape us (Reflections on the Psalms, 93). 

This is astute. And all the more so sixty-some years after Lewis wrote this. The worldview implications of God's making all things of nothing cannot be overstated. Along with working out a biblical view of man that is desperately needed today (anthropology is the battle ground in our day, not soteriology, not anything else), there needs to be a renewed emphasis on the Creator and his spoken world. The entailments are far more numerous and pervasive than many today, it seems, seem to be able to consider. We live in a dream world. A delusion.

Being drilled for so long now in a materialistic view of things from the secular standpoint, we are hardly able to think rightly about reality at all. I say this advisedly; I don't think this is overstating the matter. It is no accident of history, for example, that we are more muddled about man (what he is, and what is his place and purpose in the world) than ever before. Lewis serves here as a salutary reminder that we need to give renewed attention to attending to the world and the Word who made it.

What Justifying Faith Is

In the last post from Thomas Watson's justly famous A Body of Divinity I sought to introduce a portion of the book and its broader context. That portion is the fifth chapter entitled "The Application of Redemption." Here, working through key catechetical elements in our redemption, Pastor Watson instructs the flock of God on matters of faith, effectual calling, justification, adoption, sanctification, assurance, peace, joy, growth in grace, and perseverance, each in turn. And each full of matter for meditation and provocation for practice. We look now, first off, at what justifying faith is.

Watson wisely notes first what it is not. This is important, not least when counterfeits go about unchecked and unchallenged. Everyone believes today in the evangelical church. Or they wouldn't be there, right? Wrong. Without going into all the reasons why man (who is incurably religious) might attend an "evangelical" church, it is sufficient to focus on what Watson avers: "There may be assent to divine truth, and yet no work of grace on the heart" (215). That's no doubt right. One may agree that the gospel is true and still not know God or be justified by his grace. This sort of "faith" is the faith of devils. They know the gospel is true, but don't love it or trust it. So, Watson continues: "Many assent in their judgments, that sin is an evil thing, but they go on in sin, whose corruptions are stronger than their convictions. . ." (215). May it never be with us.

Well, what then, you ask, is a justifying faith, or a faith that justifies? What is the sort of faith that saves sinners from the coming wrath? What faith unites to the risen Jesus and puts one right with a holy God, a God who cannot truck with sin? According to our trustworthy physician of the soul for this post, it consists in three things: 1) self-renunciation; 2) reliance; and 3) appropriation.

First, self-renunciation. "Faith is a going out of one's self, being taken off from our own merits, and seeing we have no righteousness of our own. 'Not having mine own righteousness' (Phil. 3:9). Self-righteousness is a broken reed, which the soul dares not lean on. Repentance and faith are both humbling graces; by repentance a man abhors himself; by faith he goes out of himself" (216). For our purposes today, almost certainly the main thing to observe here is that justifying faith does not make much of the self. It's not impressed with the self. The self-serving swollen-self is a thing to be repented of rather than touted and tickled. Faith looks away from this swollen self upward "to him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." And it looks to his goodness, his greatness, his glory, and says: "not having a righteousness of my own." It says: “not impressed with the self.” It says: “no good thing dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.”

Next, Watson speaks of how faith, if it is to be a faith that justifies, includes the element of reliance. Faith relies not on the self, but on another. "Faith rests on Christ's person. Faith believes the promise; but that which faith rests upon in the promise is the person of Christ. . . . Faith is described to be 'believing on the name of the Son of God' (1 John 3:23), namely, upon his person. . . . Faith rests on Christ's person 'as crucified' [and, I'll add, risen and reigning and coming again in great power and glory]. It glories in the cross of Christ (Gal. 6:14)." This is the proper person (not the swollen self) for faith to rely on. And this person—Christ crucified, risen, reigning!—knows nothing of the modern self, which is conceited and self-absorbed. No, the person of the risen Jesus is swallowed up in his Father's glory and will. The person of Christ is swallowed up in diving love, not self-love. And he came to nail the modern self to the cross along with all our other God-belittling sins of self-exaltation. 

Lastly, then, comes appropriation. A justifying faith applies Christ to itself. To illustrate, Watson paints this picture: "A medicine, though it be ever so sovereign, if not applied, will do no good. . . . This applying of Christ is called receiving him (John 1:12). The hand receiving gold, enriches; so the hand of faith, receiving Christ's golden merits with salvation, enriches us" (216). And this receiving or appropriation language is fitting for faith that focuses on another away from the swollen self. The modern self can do nothing for its self, or by its self, or with its self. No, rather, looking up and away from its self, authentic faith receives with the hand of a beggar the free gift of God.

What is worthy here to focus faith's attention on as I end this post is how a justifying faith is not one that merely knows the benefits of redemption or thinks of those benefits as the proper object for faith. Rather, as Watson eloquently puts it, faith fastens itself on Christ himself. It is the person of Jesus faith embraces—as coming in the likeness of sinful flesh, working miracles in our midst, teaching about the kingdom of God, and as crucified and risen and reigning as King of the nations, pouring out his Spirit, coming again in power and glory. Yes, no doubt as working wonders on our behalf and bringing forgiveness and freedom. Yes, no doubt as reconciling the rebel to the Sovereign whose majesty was infinitely offended by the self-satisfied-swollen self. But the benefits of redemption ought never to be held forth for faith except as they come in the person, work, and words of the Christ sent from above. He alone in all his glory is the proper place for faith to fasten its gaze. And when it does so through self-renunciation, reliance, and appropriation, the swollen-self is crucified, and the sinner justified. Forgiven! Freed! Righteous! Loved! Not guilty! No condemnation! Reconciled to a holy heavenly Father. All in the beloved, in whom alone is there redemption. 

"Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing" (Rev. 5:12).

The Application of Redemption

The title above comes from the fifth chapter in Thomas Watson's magnificent and best-known book: A Body of Divinity. I have been reading this book through for a second time now (the first time feels like ages ago) a few mornings a week when faith is flagging in order to fan the flame. And this second time through for me is far more invigorating than the first (which is not to say that the first was without benefit and appreciation, but more years have a way of clarifying a lot of things). My esteem for Thomas Watson and for this work in particular continues to grow.

Just a brief bit of background and then I'll jump right in to a series of posts pertaining to the aforementioned chapter on the application of redemption. Watson was an English Presbyterian Puritan minister who lived circa 1620–1686. His Body of Divinity, published posthumously in 1692, comes from a series of sermons he preached to his people on the Westminster Shorter Catechism. This series of sermons numbered 176. Many of these fed into the Body of Divinity, but not all. The rest fed into Watson's books The Lord's Prayer and The Ten Commandments. These three books together make up a trilogy on the Westminster Shorter Catechism. (See Meet the Puritans by Beeke and Pederson for the chapter on Thomas Watson, from which I refreshed my memory of this background information.)

The first section in the chapter "The Application of Redemption" from Watson's Body of Divinity is on faith. He begins by citing Gal. 2:20 (in the king's English, of course): "The life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." And he asserts that it is the Spirit who "applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us" (Watson, Body of Divinity, 215). And then, before getting into the kinds of faith that people may possess, Watson speaks a short pithy word that packs the punch of the profound pastoral theology for which Watson has became known and loved. Here is trademark Watson: "Christ is the glory, and faith in Christ the comfort, of the gospel" (215). Christ is indeed the glory of the Gospel. And faith in his name is indeed its comfort. Amen, pastor Watson. 

I'll end this brief introductory post here on this simply yet profoundly stated note. In the next post I shall cover something of what Watson teaches about what justifying faith is. I hope this present post has whet your appetite for more. Lord willing, in the posts to follow, as here, I shall be citing and summarizing from the Banner of Truth's revised edition of Watson's book. Which reminds me: Banner of Truth books ought to be part of any disciple's diet these days, and perhaps my mentioning one of them here in glowing terms will set you going to get a meal from that market. 

Zeal AND Prudence

"Zeal without prudence is rashness; prudence without zeal is cowardliness" (Thomas Watson, Body of Divinity, p. 173).

An Altogether Different World

"To take hold of the Son and to believe in Him with the heart as the gift of God causes God to reckon that faith, however imperfect it may be, as perfect righteousness. Here we are in an altogether different world—a world that is outside reason. Here the issue is not what we ought to do or by what sort of works we may merit grace and the forgiveness of sins. No, here we are in a divine theology, where we hear the Gospel that Christ died for us and that when we believe this we are reckoned as righteous, even though sins, and great ones at that, still remain in us" (Luther's Works, vol. 26, Lectures on Galatians 1535, p. 234). 

Jesus Will Have His Prize

"The success of the gospel for which [the Puritans] yearned was bound up with their trust in Christ. They never gave way to the feeling that because the condition of the world was so deplorable the Second Coming of Christ was the only hope for mankind; in their mind, to have done so would have been to fall into unbelief in regard to the promised results of his first coming. If what was predicted seemed impossible, the remedy was to contemplate more closely the authority and glory which now belongs to the Head of the Church" (Murray, The Puritan Hope, 90).

O Lord, Teach Us to Pray, and Pray Well

In 1519 Martin Luther wrote a "Personal Prayer Book" to help people know how to pray in the midst of so much confusion about what true prayer is. In giving an example of how to pray according to the third petition of the Lord's Prayer, Luther writes this as part of his model for this petition:

Grant us true obedience, a perfect, calm, single-minded composure in all things—spiritual, earthly, temporal, and eternal. Protect us from the horrible vice of character assassination, slander, backbiting, frivolously judging or condemning others, and misrepresenting what others have said. O hold far from us the plague and tragedy which such speed can cause; rather, whenever we see or hear anything in others that seems wrong or displeasing to us, teach us to keep quiet, not to publicize it, and to pour out our complaints to you alone and to commit all to your will. And let us sincerely forgive all who wrong us and be sympathetic toward them.

—Personal Prayer Book (Luther's Works, vol. 43; ed. Gustav K. Wiencke; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957), 32–33.

Children at the Table

"When in 1 Corinthians Paul said that a man should examine himself, he spoke only of adults because he was speaking about those who were quarreling among themselves. However, he doesn't here forbid that the sacrament of the altar be given even to children" (Luther, Works, vol. 54, p. 58).

Bible Interpretation: No Fixed Rules

Luther:

I acknowledge no fixed rules for the interpretation of the Word of God, since the Word of God, which teaches freedom in all other matters, must not be bound.

—The Freedom of the Christian (Luther's Works, vol. 31; ed. Harold J. Grimm; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957), 341.

Backbiting

"Backbite (vt): To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you" (Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary, 12).

Solomon's School

"Over the gates of Plato's school, it was written: 'Let no one who is not a geometrician enter.' But very different is the inscription over these doors of Solomon [in the book of Proverbs]—Let the ignorant, simple, foolish, young enter" (Charles Bridges, Proverbs, 2).

More Heat

The issues are different for us today from what Jonathan Edwards was addressing in the shortcomings or faulty views of the Great Awakening in his writings on the subject. So in quoting Edwards here, and in thinking of the need for more heat today, I'm thinking mainly not of how we have so much light (we don't), but of how we have so many other things in which we trust (e.g., programs, new initiatives, church expansion projects, committee work, etc.) that are ineffectual for bringing about the revival and reform needed in the church in America. Yes, and even those parts that we think healthiest. See if you can map Edwards' insight onto our current situation.

Here is Edwards on the need for heat more than light:

Though as I said before, clearness of distinction and illustration, and strength of reason, and a good method, in the doctrinal handling of the truths of religion, is many ways needful and profitable, and not to be neglected, yet an increase in speculative knowledge in divinity is not what is so much needed by our people, as something else. Men may abound in this sort of light and have no heat: how much has there been of this sort of knowledge, in the Christian world, in this age? Was there ever an age wherein strength and penetration of reason, extent of learning, exactness of distinction, correctness of style, and clearness of expression, did so abound? And yet was there ever an age wherein there has been so little sense of the evil of sin, so little love to God, heavenly-mindedness, and holiness of life, among the professors of the true religion? Our people don't so much need to have their heads stored, as to have their hearts touched; and they stand in the greatest need of that sort of preaching that has the greatest tendency to do this (Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 4, Yale University Press, 387–388).