"Many have Pardon with God that Have not Peace with Themselves"

LXIII. To LADY FINGASK

MADAM, -- Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. -- Though not acquainted, yet, at the desire of a Christian, I make bold to write a line or two unto you, by way of counsel, howbeit I be most unfit for that.

I hear, and I bless the Father of lights for it, that ye have a spirit set to seek God, and that the posture of your heart is to look heavenward, which is a work and cast of the Mediator Christ's right hand, who putteth on the heart a new frame. For the which I would have your Ladyship to see a tie and bond of obedience laid upon you, that all may be done, not so much from obligation of law, as from the tie of free love; that the law of ransom-paying by Christ may be the chief ground of all our obedience, seeing that ye are not under the law, but under grace. Withal, know that unbelief is a spiritual sin, and so not seen by nature's light; and that all which conscience saith is not Scripture. Suppose that your heart bear witness against you for sins done long ago: yet, because many have pardon with God that have not peace with themselves, ye are to stand and fall by Christ's esteem and verdict of you, and not by that which your heart saith.

Let faith hing by this small thread, that He loved you before He laid the corner-stone of the world, and therefore He cannot change His mind; because He is God and resteth in His love. Neither is sin in you a good reason wherefore ye should doubt of Him, or think, because sin has put you in the courtesy and reverence of justice, that therefore He is wrath with you: neither is it presumption in you to lay the burden of your salvation on One mighty to save, so being that ye lay aside all confidence in yourself, your worth and righteousness. True faith is humble, and seeth no way to escape but only in Christ. And I believe that ye have put an esteem and high price upon Christ: and they cannot but believe and so be saved, who love Christ and to whom He is precious. And it were not like God, if ye should choose Him as your liking and He not choose you again. Nay, He has prevented you in that, for ye have not chosen Him, but He has chosen you.

And the more your Ladyship drink of this love, there is the more room, and the greater delight and desire for this love. Be homely, and hunger for a feast and fill of His love; for that is the borders and march of heaven. Nothing has a nearer resemblance to the color and hue and lustre of heaven than Christ loved. Remember what He is. When twenty thousand millions of heaven's lovers have worn their hearts threadbare of love, all is nothing, yea, less than nothing, to His matchless worth and excellency. Oh so broad and so deep as the sea of His desirable loveliness is! Glorified spirits, triumphing angels, the crowned and exalted lovers of heaven, stand without His loveliness and cannot put a circle on it.

Alas! what do I? I but spill and lose words in speaking highly of Him who will bide and be above the music and songs of heaven, and never be enough praised by us all; to whose boundless and bottomless love I
recommend your Ladyship.

ST ANDREWS, March 27, 1640

(copied from CCEL)

Why the Son of God Loved Me and Gave Himself for Me

I'm just having another one of those days where I'm not sure I have anything to say. But when I read this quotation over at Patrick’s Pensees, I was glad I didn't have something planned so I could steal it outright.

Moreover, I really needed this. Thanks, Patrick.

If you ask, Why he made so much ado about a worthless creature, raised out of the dust of the ground at first, and had now disordered himself, and could be of no use to him? We have an answer at hand, Because he loved us. If you continue to ask, But why did he love us? We have no other answer but because he loved us; for beyond the first rise of things we cannot go.

Thomas Manton

Meditation Worthy Thoughts on the Incarnation of Christ

Patrick Ramsey just posted a link to a great lecture by Carl Trueman "The Glory of Christ: B.B. Warfield on Jesus of Nazareth." This brief sample is worth chewing on by itself before going on to read all of Trueman's lecture.

It is, of course, a truism that the language of Chalcedon, of substance and personhood, is absent from the New Testament, and, of course, no advocate of the Chalcedonian definition would ever have claimed its explicit presence in the text. Warfield’s own view of the Chalcedonian definition is that it functions as a presupposition which makes the teaching of the Bible comprehensible as a single, unified whole. To quote him on this point:

Only on the assumption of this [the Chalcedonian] conception of Our Lord's person as underlying and determining their presentation, can unity be given to their representations; while, on this supposition, all their representations fall into their places as elements in one consistent whole. [6]

This is an important point which has a general application well beyond its specific concerns. For a start, it flags up Christ's humanity and divinity as the only means of making coherent sense of the gospel accounts of his life. It is thus not in the first instance an exercise in metaphysical speculation but rather an attempt to think out the necessary presuppositions about his person which make sense of the historical account of his actions and teachings given in the gospels. This is a very important point, particularly at a time when theological diversity is something of a buzzword among biblical scholars. The current trend is, I am sure, intimately connected to the increasing subdisciplinary specialization of higher learning, fuelled in large part by the information revolution; but Warfield is surely correct to point to the presuppositional nature of our theological approach to the Bible. If we go to the Bible without a commitment to the unity of revelation and the coherence of the biblical witness at the level of epistemology, then we will inevitably find ourselves drawing certain conclusions from that, such as the God of the Old Testament is not that of the New or the way of salvation for Paul is not the same as for James. It is perhaps no surprise that the Chalcedonian definition is being called into question by theologians at exactly the same point in time as the fundamental theological unity of the Bible is also being subjected to vigorous assault.

For Warfield, the idea that Christ is one person in two substances is one of the necessary counterparts of his commitment to the unity of scripture's teaching: in other words, it must be true because it allows the church to make sense of the Bible’s teaching about Christ. The formula itself is not inspired in the way that the Bible is inspired; it is not therefore sacrosanct; one can indeed go to heaven without ever having heard of the definition; but it is nonetheless a necessary presupposition, implicit or otherwise, if the message of the Bible concerning Christ is to be properly and thoroughly understood.

emphasis mine, and done so for obvious reasons.

Ramsey (who's posted some reflection-worthy words of his own on the Incarnation lately) also provided a link to Warfield's fantastic "The Emotional Life of our Lord," which it's been entirely too long since I've read. Criminal, really. If you haven't read it in the last month or so, I encourage you to get at it :)

Thought for the Lord's Day - #51

But we must carefully note that Christian freedom is, in all its parts, a spiritual thing. Its whole force consists in quieting frightened consciences before God—that are perhaps disturbed and troubled over forgiveness of sins, or anxious whether unfinished works, corrupted by the faults of our flesh, are pleasing to God, or tormented about the use of things indifferent. Accordingly, it is perversely interpreted both by those who allege it as an excuse for their desires that they may abuse God’s good gifts to their own lust and by those who think that freedom does not exist unless it is used before men, and consequently, in using it have no regard for weaker brethren.

Today men sin to a greater degree in the first way. There is almost no one whose resources permit him to be extravagant who does not delight in lavish and ostentatious banquets, bodily apparel, and domestic architecture; who does not wish to outstrip his neighbors in all sorts of elegance; who does not wonderfully flatter himself in his opulence. And all these things are defended under the pretext of Christian freedom. They say that these are things indifferent. I admit it, provided they are used indifferently. But when they are coveted too greedily, when they are proudly boasted of, when they are lavishly squandered, things that were of themselves otherwise lawful are certainly defiled by these vices.

Paul’s statement best distinguishes among things indifferent: “to the clean all things are clean, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is clean, inasmuch as their minds and consciences are corrupted”. For why are the rich cursed, who have their consolation, who are full, who laugh now, who sleep on ivory couches, “who join field to field”, whose feasts have harp, lyre, timbrel, and wine? Surely ivory and gold and riches are good creations of God, permitted, indeed appointed, for men’s use by God’s providence. And we have never been forbidden to laugh, or to be filled, or to join new possessions to old or ancestral ones, or to delight in musical harmony, or to drink wine. True indeed. But where there is plenty, to wallow in delights, to gorge oneself, to intoxicate mind and heart with present pleasures and be always panting after new ones—such are very far removed from a lawful use of God’s gifts.

Away, then, with uncontrolled desire, away with immoderate prodigality, away with vanity and arrogance—in order that men may with a clean conscience cleanly use God’s gifts. Where the heart is tempered to this soberness they will have a rule for lawful use of such blessings. But should this moderation be lacking, even base and common pleasures are too much. It is a true saying that under coarse and rude attire there often dwells a heart of purple, while sometimes under silk and purple is hid a simple humility. Thus let every man live in his station, whether slenderly, or moderately, or plentifully, so that all may remember God nourishes them to live, not to luxuriate. And let them regard this as the law of Christian freedom; to have learned with Paul, in whatever state they are, to be content; to know how to be humble and exalted; to have been taught, in any and all circumstances, to be filled and to hunger, to abound and to suffer want.

- John Calvin

The Source of Giving Thanks

THE CONTEMPLATION OF GOD’S GOODNESS IN HIS CREATION
WILL LEAD US TO THANKFULNESS AND TRUST

There remains the second part of the rule, more closely related to faith. It is to recognize that God has destined all things for our good and salvation but at the same time to feel his power and grace in ourselves and in the great benefits he has conferred upon us, and so bestir ourselves to trust, invoke, praise, and love him. Indeed, as I pointed out a little before, God himself has shown by the order of Creation that he created all things for man’s sake. For it is not without significance that he divided the making of the universe into six days, even though it
would have been no more difficult for him to have completed in one moment the whole work together in all its details than to arrive at its completion gradually by a progression of this sort. But he willed to commend his providence and fatherly solicitude toward us in that, before he fashioned man, he prepared everything he foresaw would be useful and salutary for him. How great ingratitude would it be now to doubt whether this most gracious Father has us in his care, who we see was concerned for us even before we were born! How impious would it be to tremble for fear that his kindness might at any time fail us in our need, when we see that it
was shown, with the greatest abundance of every good thing, when we were yet unborn! Besides, from Moses we hear that, through His liberality, all things on earth are subject to us. It is certain that He did not do this to mock us with the empty title to a gift. Therefore nothing that is needful for our welfare will ever be lacking to us.

To conclude once for all, whenever we call God the Creator of heaven and earth, let us at the same time bear in mind that the dispensation of all those things which he has made is in his own hand and power and that we are indeed his children, whom he has received into his faithful protection to nourish and educate. We are therefore to await the fullness of all good things from him alone and to trust completely that he will never leave us destitute of what we need for salvation, and to hang our hopes on none but him! We are therefore, also, to petition him for whatever we desire; and we are to recognize as a blessing from him, and thankfully to acknowledge, every benefit that falls to our share. So, invited by the great sweetness of his beneficence and goodness, let us study to love and serve him with all our heart.

- John Calvin
The Institutes of the Christian Religion
1.14.22

Thought for the Lord's Day - #50

Those who are strict in restraining their own liberty yet ought not to impose those restraints upon the liberties of others, nor to judge of them accordingly. We must not make ourselves the standard to measure others by. A good man will deny himself that liberty which he will not deny another, contrary to the practice of the Pharisees.

- Matthew Henry

Thought for the Lord's Day - #49

No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight hereafter, who doth not in some measure behold it by faith here in this world. Grace is a necessary preparation for glory, and faith for sight Where the subject (the soul) is not previously seasoned with grace and faith, it is not capable of glory or vision. Nay, persons not disposed hereby unto it cannot desire it, whatever they pretend; they only deceive their own souls in supposing that so they do. Most men will say with confidence, living and dying, that they desire to be with Christ, and to behold his glory; but they can give no reason why they should desire any such thing,-only they think it somewhat that is better than to be in that evil condition which otherwise they must be cast into for ever, when they can be here no more. If a man pretend himself to be enamoured on, or greatly to desire, what he never saw, nor was ever represented unto him, he doth but dote on his own imaginations. And the pretended desires of many to behold the glory of Christ in heaven, who have no view of it by faith whilst they are there in this world are nothing but self-deceiving imaginations.

- John Owen

Thought for the Lord's Day - #48

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure;
Save from wrath and make me pure.

Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eye-strings break in death
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See Thee on Thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
- Augustus M. Toplady

Thought for the Lord's Day - #47

Much of Protestantism remembers yesterday as Reformation Day, many of those even have a clue what the Reformation was about... One of those who noted that day was Wes Bredenhof, of the Canadian Reformed Church. Yesterday, he blogged part of a conversation between Guy de Bres (author of the Belgic Confession) and a Roman Catholic bishop, just nine days before de Bres went to the scaffold. The whole thing is well worth the read, but for today's post, I just posted this snippet.

As I've said before and say it again, I have never been stubborn and close-minded against clear thinking and reason. But if anyone can show me from the Word of God that I have been in error, I am completely ready to give up. Up to the present there has been nothing of all that I have heard that would make me leave the certain for the uncertain. I still hold the same position that I did at the time when by quick testimony from the Word of God, you made me appear to be contrary. As I have said, I am not stubborn, and do not prefer my judgment to the judgment of the Church. But I do certainly prefer with clear thinking and just cause the ancient and early Church in which the Apostles set up all things according to the ordinance of Christ. I prefer that to the church of our time which is loaded with a vast number of human traditions, and which has degenerated itself in a remarkable way from the early Church. With good reason, I say, I hold to that which the Apostles first received. For Jesus Christ, in Revelation 2, says to those in Thyatira that they should beware of the profound trickeries of Satan, to beware of false doctrine. He says, "I will put on you no other burden, only that which you have already, hold fast to this until I come."

- Guy de Bres

Thought for the Lord's Day - #46

stumbled across John Bunyan's Scriptural Poems the other day, interesting little ditties, I must say. His paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer provokes a thought or two.

Our Father which art in heav'n, thy name alone
Be hallowed. Thy glorious kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as 'tis in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. And ev'n
As we remit our debtors, grant remission
To us. And lead us not into temptation,
But from all evil do thou us deliver;
For th' kingdom, power and glory's thine for ever.
Amen.

Thought for the Lord's Day - #44

Though sense of God’s love fail, faith may continue to be strong. For faith is not grounded upon sense and feeling, but upon God’s gracious promises, immutable, goodness and infallible truth. Yea, when sense and feeling cease, then faith which the evidence of things not seen, begins it chief work. And the most excellent faith shows itself most clearly when we have no sense or feeling, or when we feel the opposite.

- John Ball

(via Patrick's Pensees, had to share this one...)

Thought for the Lord's Day - #42

God delights in our temptations, and yet hates them; he delights in them when they drive us to prayer; he hates them when they drive us to despair. The Psalm says: "An humble and contrite heart is an acceptable sacrifice to God," etc. Therefore, when it goes well with you, sing and praise God with a hymn: goes it evil, that is, does temptation come, then pray: "For the Lord has pleasure in those that fear him;" and that which follows is better: "and in them that hope in his goodness," for God helps the lowly and humble, seeing he says: "Thinkest thou my hand is shortened that I cannot help?" He that feels himself weak in faith, let him always have a desire to be strong therein, for that is a nourishment which God relishes in us.

- Martin Luther

Thought for the Lord's Day - #41

No man can estimate the great charge God is at only in maintaining birds and such creatures, comparatively nothing worth. I am persuaded that it costs him, yearly, more to maintain only the sparrows, than the revenue of the French king amounts to. What then, shall we say of all the rest of his creatures?

- Martin Luther

Who Needs Van Til When You've Got Woolery?

^*





There's the occasional news bit I run across that's so out there it's hard to find a way to comment on it that's more humorous than the original story. But I'll try.

According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:

A new game show on Turkish television will pit a Greek Orthodox priest, a rabbi, an imam and a Buddhist monk against one another in attempt to convert atheists to their respective religions.

In each episode of Penitents Compete, to be broadcast by Turkey's Kanal T television station in September, the four faith guides will try to persuade 10 atheists of the merits and truth of their creeds.

Yeah, okay, I got nothing...I mean, come on, Reality! There are struggling amateur humorists out here looking for material--How do I top this?^**

The article goes on to say:

The show's producers say there is a good chance none of the atheists will be converted, Turkey's Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review reports.

Uhhh, ya think?

But what's a game show without prizes?

But those who [do really convert] will be sent on a pilgrimage. New Muslims will head to Mecca, Buddhists to Tibet and Jews and Christians to Jerusalem – with television cameras following them.

"They can't see this trip as a getaway but as a religious experience," Ahmet Ozdemir, Kanal T's deputy director, told Hurriyet.

And they'll have none of that "denying your faith to pretend atheism just to get a free trip" nonsense, thank you very much.

only true non-believers need apply. An eight-member team of theologians will vet contestants to ensure they really are atheists before deciding who will participate in the show.

I keep seeing this as some sort of jury-selection kind of process, instead of voir dire maybe they call it voir Deus? Featuring such questions as "Have you now, or have you ever been a member of the Catholic Church?" or questions guaranteed to trip up potential contestants, "When's the last potluck you attended?" being a sure-fire way to discover fibbing Baptists.

The show isn't without its critics (no, really?)

Some say it will be good for interfaith relations. But Hamza Aktan, chairman of Turkey's High Board of Religious Affairs, told the state news agency, Anatolian, that "doing something like this for the sake of ratings is disrespectful to all religions. Religion should not be a subject for entertainment programs."

Aktan failed to mention that religion cannot be a subject for programs with real entertainment value, as Mel Gibson, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and TBN have taught us repeatedly.



^* Proof I need to get Micah to do all my graphics work.
^** I almost called this the biggest set-back to serious apologetics since the publication of the first Lee Strobel book, but I decided that was too mean-spirited.

Thought for the Lord's Day - #40

The greater God's gifts and works, the less are they regarded. The highest and most precious treasure we receive of God is, that we can speak, hear, see, etc.; but how few acknowledge these as God's special gifts, much less give God thanks for them. The world highly esteems riches, honor, power, and other things of less value, which soon vanish away, but a blind man, if in his right wits, would willingly exchange all these for sight. The reason why the corporal gifts of God are so much undervalued is, that they are so common, that God bestows them also upon brute beasts, which as well as we, and better, hear and see. Nay, when Christ made the blind to see, drove out devils, raised the dead, etc., he was upbraided by the ungodly hypocrites, who gave themselves out for God's people, and was told that he was a Samaritan, and had a devil. Ah! the world is the devil's, whether it goes or stands still; how, then, can men acknowledge God's gifts and benefits? It is with us as with young children, who regard not so much their daily bread, as an apple, a pear, or other toys. Look at the cattle going into the fields to pasture, and behold in them our preachers, our milk-bearers, butter-bearers, cheese and wool bearers, which daily preach unto us faith in God, and that we should trust in him, as in our loving Father, who cares for us, and will maintain and nourish us.

- Martin Luther

Thought for the Lord's Day - #39

If every attribute of the Deity were a distinct member, purity would be the form, the soul, the spirit to animate them. Without holiness, his patience would be an indulgence to sin, his mercy a fondness, his wrath a madness, his power a tyranny, his wisdom an unworthy subtlety. Holiness gives decorum to them all.

Stephen Charnock

Thought for the Lord's Day -- 38

...what the Mediator was to accomplish was no common thing. His task was so to restore us to God's grace as to make of the children of men, children of God; of the heirs of Gehenna, heirs of the Heavenly Kingdom. Who could have done this had not the selfsame Son of God become the Son of man, and had not so taken what was ours as to impart what was his to us, and to make what was his by nature ours by grace? Therefore, relying on this pledge, we trust that we are sons of God, for God’s natural Son fashioned for himself a body from our body, flesh from our flesh, bones from our bones, that he might be one with us. Ungrudgingly he took our nature upon himself to impart to us what was his, and to become both Son of God and Son of man in common with us. Hence that holy brotherhood which he commends with his own lips when he says: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God". In this way we are assured of the inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom; for the only Son of God, to whom it wholly belongs, has adopted us as his brothers. "For if brothers, then also fellow heirs with him."

For the same reason it was also imperative that he who was, to become our Redeemer be true God and true man. It was his task to swallow up death. Who but the Life could do this? It was his task to conquer sin. Who but very Righteousness could do this? It was his task to rout the powers of world and air. Who but a power higher than world and air could do this? Now where does life or righteousness, or lordship and authority of heaven lie but with God alone? Therefore our most merciful God, when he willed that we be redeemed, made himself our Redeemer in the person of his only-begotten Son.

- John Calvin

Thought for the Lord's Day - #35

Everything lacking in us is given to us by Christ; everything sinful in us is imputed to Christ; and all judgment merited by us is borne by Christ.

- Sinclair Ferguson,
summing up the theology of Calvin

Thought for the Lord's Day - #34

CHRIST ALONE IN ALL THE CLAUSES OF THE CREED
We see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ. We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is "of him". If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anointing. If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion; if purity, in his conception; if gentleness, it appears in his birth. For by his birth he was made like us in all respects that he might learn to feel our pain. If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion; if acquittal, in his condemnation; if remission of the curse, in his cross; if satisfaction, in his sacrifice; if purification, in his blood; if reconciliation, in his descent into hell; if mortification of the flesh, in his tomb; if newness of life, in his resurrection; if immortality, in the same; if inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom, in his entrance into heaven; if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings, in his Kingdom; if untroubled expectation of judgment, in the power given to him to judge. In short, since rich store of every kind of good abounds in him, let us drink our fill from this fountain, and from no other. Some men, not content with him alone, are borne hither and thither from one hope to another; even if they concern themselves chiefly with him, they nevertheless stray from the right way in turning some part of their thinking in another direction. Yet such distrust cannot creep in where men have once for all truly known the abundance of his blessings.

- John Calvin

Food for Thought

Carl Trueman and R. Scott Clark offer some thoughts on the whole controversy about Rick Warren praying at the upcoming presidential inauguration.

Trueman comments briefly Warren and then goes on to offer some good insight on how The Church & Christians ought to react to the culture's welcoming attitude to homosexuality.