A Thanksgiving Resolution

Resolved, To be grateful not only today when everyone and his long lost cousin expect it, but in all circumstances and at all times (Eph. 5:20; 1 Thess. 5:18). And, when I fall short of this resolution (as undoubtedly I will), to confess and repent of my high rebellion straightaway, looking to the blood and righteousness of Christ for pardon, and to the free grace of God in Christ for Spirit-produced renewal.

From Heaven He Came and Sought Her

Verse 1 of The Church's One Foundation  contains these glorious lines about the definite redemption of Christ:

   From heaven he came and sought her
   To be his holy bride;
   With his own blood he bought her,
   And for her life he died.

And from this verse comes the title of a new volume that will doubtless prove to be an invaluable resource on the doctrine of the atonement for many years to come. I suspect it will more than repay close study of and assiduous meditation upon its contents.

One Main Difference of These Two Covenants

John Owen on an important distinction between the old and new covenants:

This then is one main difference of these two covenants—that the Lord did in the old only require the condition; now, in the new, he will also effect it in all the federates, to whom this covenant is extended.

—John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, in the Works of John Owen, ed. W. H. Gould, 16 vols. (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1976), 10:237.

Ungratefulness

Lord, with what bounty and rare clemency
                   Hast thou redeemed us from the grave!
                           If thou hadst let us run,
                   Gladly had man adored the sun,
                           And thought his god most brave;
Where now we shall be better gods than he.

Thou has but two rare cabinets full of treasure,
                  The Trinity, and Incarnation:
                         Thou has unlocked them both,
                  And made them jewels to betroth
                          The work of thy creation
Unto thyself in everlasting pleasure.

The statelier cabinet is the Trinity,
                    Whose sparkling light access denies:
                           Therefore thou dost not show
                     This fully to us, till death blow
                           The dust into our eyes:
For by that powder thou wilt make us see.

But all thy sweets are packed up in the other;
                    Thy mercies thither flock and flow:
                            That as the first affrights,
                    This may allure us with delights;
                            Because this box we know;
For we have all of us just such another.

But man is close, reserved, and dark to thee:
                    When thou demandest but a heart,
                           He cavils instantly.
                     In his poor cabinet of bone
                             Sins have their box apart,
Defrauding thee, who gavest two for one.

—George Herbert, The Complete English Poems (New York: Penguin, 1991), 75-76.

Public Proclamation of the Word Is Not Sufficient

Manetsch on the significance of personal ministry among Calvin's "Company of Pastors":

Throughout this study it has been evident that Calvin and Geneva's Company of Pastors were committed to a model of pastoral work that involved intensive, personal interaction with Geneva's townspeople and country folk. The proclamation of God's Word in public assemblies was crucial, but not sufficient in itself. The ministers believed that they needed to know and show personal care for the men and women in their parishes, helping them apply the truths of God's Word to their particular life circumstance and challenges to promote personal godliness and spiritual reformation. "It is not enough that a pastor in the pulpit should teach all the people together," Calvin once noted, "if he does not add particular instruction as necessity requires or occasion offers."

—Scott M. Manetsch, Calvin's Company of Pastors: Pastoral Care and the Emerging Reformed Church, 1536-1609 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 280-281.

You Scratch My Back, I'll Scratch Yours

It looks like there was a handout of Gary Chapman's love languages goo at Wheaton College. (I got the e-mailing about it a little over a week ago.) Unfortunately, psychobabble goo goes over well at Wheaton.

Full disclosure. Wheaton College is my alma mater. She's family. That being the case, with real affection for Wheaton and her students, perhaps I'm allowed to say such things about some of my crazy, embarrassing family members. When Wheaton does this, she's like that crazy, oddball family member you love to pieces but whom you must nevertheless acknowledge says and does some downright embarrassing things.

I love the institution and love the student body, and pushing such rubbish makes me cringe. And all this is said, with all due respect, of course, to a venerable institution with many venerable faculty members, under whom I enjoyed the immense privilege of studying holy Scripture.

Em and I confess we've never quite gotten how people of the Book could go for that man-centered stuff. A modicum of biblical and theological literacy enables one to see it for what it is at a glance: man-centered psychobabble nonsense unworthy of the bride of Christ, and unworthy of Christian marriage, which is to reflect the gospel, not our culture's idols of the self.

As counselor Dr. David Powlison says, Chapman's teaching on love languages offers a glorified, sanitized form of "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."

So I hope students of Wheaton and of the Word will find it repellent and noxious to their biblical and theological senses. The Word is sufficient for every marriage. We really don't need Chapman. And not only will we do fine without him, but we're likely to reflect the gospel in our marriages far more if we ignore him and heed the Book, and heed biblical preaching on Christian marriage.

If you want a good review of Chapman's teaching on love languages, see chapter 14 of Dr. Powlison's book Seeing with New Eyes, entitled "Love Speaks Many Languages Fluently." The whole book is excellent, but chapter 14 alone is worth the price of the book.

The Wrath of God as an Expression of the Love of God

So far from God's wrath being in opposition to God's love, the wrath of God is actually an expression of his love. Michael Reeves explains:

His love is not mild-mannered and limp; it is livid, potent and committed. And therein lies our hope: through his wrath the living God shows that he is truly loving, and through his wrath he will destroy all devilry that we might enjoy him in a purified world, the home of righteousness. 

 To illustrate, Reeves points us to the personal wrestlings of Croation theologian Miroslav Volf, who pens these powerful words:

I used to think that wrath was unworthy of God. Isn't God love? Shouldn't divine love be beyond wrath? God is love, and God loves every person and every creature. That's exactly why God is wrathful against some of them. My last resistance to the idea of God's wrath was a casualty of the war in the former Yugoslavia, the region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed and over 3,000,000 were displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, my people shelled day in and day out, some of them brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry. 

Or think of Rwanda in the last decade of the past century where 800,00 people were hacked to death in one hundred days! How did God react to the carnage? By doting on the perpetrators in a grandparently fashion? By refusing to condemn the bloodbath but instead affirming the perpetrators' basic goodness? Wasn't God fiercely angry with them? Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God's wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn't wrathful at the sight of the world's evil. God isn't wrathful in spite of being loving. God is wrathful because God is love.

—Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 119-120.

My Uncommon Wife: Living a Beautiful Life

Yesterday I posted an update about Em's miscarriage. Finding some reprieve here the last day, and reflecting a little more on the Lord's work in our lives, I have a few more thoughts—this time about my uncommon wife.

The past month of living beside my wife as she went through this miscarriage has convinced me that she's the most godly woman I know. There may be women more godly than she, but I don't know them and haven't met them. 

In fact, I can't imagine a woman weathering such a storm with greater grace, with more patient endurance through protracted pain, with deeper hope in a sovereign God, with more firmness of faith, with a more God-centered outlook, and with a more Christ-exalting demeanor than my wife. 

This Emily of mine, hers is a beautiful life: and so I deeply admire my precious wife. And I'm learning to imitate her faith. In many important respects, she's the pillar of stability for our little family. 

I can't imagine life without her. I'm deeply grateful for God's healing hand upon her. And I praise him for fashioning a woman who reflects so much of the character and goodness and beauty of God to me. 

She's one of those holy women who hope in God above all else (1 Pet. 3:5; Ps. 62:5). She's one of those excellent saints of whom the world is not worthy (Heb. 11:38). 

Our Great Prayer-Hearing God Amid Pain and Loss

Perhaps you've noticed that my posts of late have been more personal than usual. That's true, I think. Normally I don't care to talk a lot about myself or personal matters. There are way more important things than me and my little life to set the mind on.

But the Lord has brought us through tough times, and this seems worth some reflection and some public acknowledgment of what he's done.

So a brief word and update about Em's miscarriage. It seems we're finally, truly turning a corner. After a horrible, difficult month (spare you the details), Emily ended up in the ED yesterday and ended up getting a surgical procedure that we were hoping to avoid but that was successful. So we're thankful for that, thankful for good medical care.

We're also thankful for people who prayed for us so diligently. More than all the practical help offered by family and friends (and we did need quite a bit of help), we truly appreciate the faithful praying of brothers and sisters in Christ.

Through tough times, we've come to learn that being prayed for faithfully means more than anything else. We are sensible of many answered prayers. We saw God provide, we felt his nearness, we were aware of his heavenly hand upon us—all because people simply prayed for us in Jesus' name. 

God is good. He's always good. He's the great prayer-hearing God! And we're swimming in an ocean of divine mercies. Praise the Lord!

Personal Righteousness Delivers from Death

I'm reading through Ezekiel nowadays for my soul's breakfast most mornings. And I came across Ezek. 14:12-14 today:

And the word of YHWH came to me: "Son of man, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it and break its supply of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast, even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, declares the sovereign YHWH."

Despite what the false prophets were spewing about "peace" (Ezek. 13:10; cf. Jer. 6:14), Ezekiel had a God-given message of impending divine judgment for Jerusalem. Divine judgment was inevitable. And not even Noah, Daniel, and Job could deliver Jerusalem by their righteousness.

But, and here's what I really want to point out, the righteousness of Noah, Daniel, and Job would avail to deliver their own lives (Ezek. 14:14).

Now, it appears to me that all too often today people speak as though Protestants have no room for personal righteousness as significant in the day of wrath (Prov. 11:4-6). I don't think that's the case, however, and certainly not for historic, classical Protestantism of the Puritan variety.

So I dipped into Matthew Henry's commentary on Ezekiel this morning to see how he interpreted the righteousness of Noah, Daniel, and Job in Ezek. 14:14. Would he simply say this is Christ's righteousness, period? Would he say this is merely hypothetical, or the like? Here's his commentary (italics original):

Though pious praying men may not prevail to deliver others, yet they shall deliver their own souls by their righteousness, so that, though they may suffer in the common calamity, yet to them the property of it is altered; it is not to them what it is to the wicked; it is unstrung, and does them no hurt; it is sanctified, and does them good. Sometimes their souls (their lives) are remarkably delivered, and given them for a prey; at least their souls (their spiritual interests) are secured. If their bodies be not delivered, yet their souls are. Riches indeed profit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death, from so great a death, so many deaths as are here threatened. This should encourage us to keep our integrity in times of common apostasy, that, if we do so, we shall be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger (Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible, 4:651-652). 

So, here's a staunch confessional Protestant of the historic, classic variety expounding Ezek. 14:14 and saying our own personal righteousness and integrity matter in the day of judgment.

This is my heritage, whatever any might say of Protestantism. This is Protestantism, whatever may go by that name today.

Pursued by God's Goodness and Steadfast Love

I got a letter today from the associate dean of the Department of Biblical and Theological Studies at Wheaton College. It read, in part:

"I am happy to inform you that you have passed your Biblical Exegesis Master of Arts comprehensive examination taken on October 26, 2013."

May God be praised! I called on him in the day of trouble, and he delivered me. And so now it's time to glorify him (Ps. 50:15), apart from whom I can do nothing. I'm utterly dependent. And he's utterly reliable. Thanks be to God for his goodness toward me!

"Surely goodness and steadfast love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of YHWH forever" (Ps. 23:6, translation mine). The LORD "holds my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance" (Ps. 16:5-6).

Many thanks also to my uncommon wife, whose steadfast help and support leave me in awe of her. I can honestly say that she never complained once, not even a word, throughout the whole degree. I married a remarkable woman.

I bless God for her. "She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life" (Prov. 31:10-12). May her children rise up and call her blessed (Prov. 31:28).

Like a Loaf of Bread without Any Flour in It

C. H. Spurgeon:

The motto of all true servants of God must be, "We preach Christ, and him crucified." A sermon without Christ in it is like a loaf of bread without any flour in it. No Christ in your sermon, sir? Then go home, and never preach again until you have something worth preaching.

—"Sermon 2899," in Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit: Sermons (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1904), 50:431, as cited in Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 84.