“Legalistic remorse says, ‘I broke God’s rules,’ while real repentance says, ‘I broke God’s heart.’ Legalistic repentance takes sin to Mt. Sinai, gospel repentance to Mt. Calvary. Legalistic repentance is convicted by punishment, gospel repentance becomes convicted by mercy.”
- Timothy Keller, Church Planter Manual
HT: Of First Importance
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So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. "For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD ' Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you." The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.' "Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."
There is a far earlier and more authoritative testimony in the letters of Paul, of Peter, and of James the Just, and in the admittedly historic network of Christian churches stretching from Jerusalem through Asia Minor to the catacombs at Rome. Only from an intensely heated center of burning zeal could this vast field of lava have been thrown out from a tiny country like Palestine to the limits of the Roman world. We cannot insist on the strict reign of causality in the physical world and deny it in the psychological. The phenomenon that here confronts us is one of the biggest dislodgments of events in the world's history, and it can be accounted for only by an initial impact of colossal drive and power.
Yet the original material from which we have to derive this dynamic force consists of a habitual doubter like Thomas, a rather weak fisherman like Peter, a gentle dreamer like John, a practical tax gatherer like Matthew, a few seafaring men like Andrew and Nathanael, the inevitable women, and at most two or three others.
I do not want to minimize the character of the historic nucleus from which Christianity spread, but, seriously, does this rather heterogeneous body of simple folk, reeling under the shock of the Crucifixion, the utter degradation and death of their Leader, look like the driving force we require? Frankly it does not, and the more we think of it disintegrating under the crisis, the less can we imagine it rewelding into that molten focus that achieved those results. Yet the clear evidence of history is that it did. Something came into the lives of these very simple and ordinary people that transformed them out of all similitude to the broken and shattered party of Jesus that we have recently been studying.
“Their being discouraged by their sins will cost them many a prayer, many a tear, and many a groan; and that because their discouragements under sin flow from ignorance and unbelief. It springs from their ignorance of the richness, freeness, fullness, and everlastingness of God’s love; and from their ignorance of the power, glory, sufficiency, and efficacy of the death and sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ; and from their ignorance of the worth, glory, fullness, largeness, and completeness of the righteousness of Jesus Christ; and from their ignorance of that real, close, spiritual, glorious, and inseparable union that is between Christ and their precious souls.
Ah! Did precious souls know and believe the truth of these things as they should, they would not sit down dejected and overwhelmed under the sense and operation of sin. God never gave a believer a new heart that it should always lie a-bleeding, and that it should always be rent and torn in pieces with discouragements.”
- Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices
HT: Of First Importance
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“Believers obey Christ as the one by whom our obedience is accepted by God. Believers know all their duties are weak, imperfect and unable to abide in God’s presence. Therefore, they look to Christ as the one who bears the iniquity of their holy things, who adds incense to their prayers, gathers out all the weeds from their duties and makes them acceptable to God.”
- John Owen, quoted by Jerry Bridges in The Discipline of Grace (Colorado Springs, Co.: NavPress), 42.
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THE BOTTOM LINE
Mark LaCour
"Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God." (Rom. 7:4). "For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace." (Rom. 6:14).
You can't be joined to Christ and still date your "ex." Three signs that you're committing spiritual adultery with the law: First, you treat commands like they're promises. Promises are for the married, the covenanted; commands are for servants. Promises require faith (Rom. 4:14; Gal. 3:18) -- "evidence of things hoped for" (Heb. 11:1), which means they're futuristic; commands are present responsibilities and require immediate obedience. Promises wait for God to act; commands require us to act. Confuse the two and you'll give off the stale "perfume" (2 Cor. 2:16) of being with another lover.
Second, you relate to God more as a judge rather than a father. The pricked conscience of a judge's verdict far outweighs the joyful heart of a husband's affection. You relate to God's authority far more than to His intimacy. Christians are called to measure God's love (Eph. 3:17ff.), as "Abba! Judge!" doesnʼt make sense.
Third, you mistake the "mushrooms" of the oldness of the letter with the fruit of the newness of the Spirit. Not everything that grows is a sign of life. Zeal for God is no indicator of fidelity to Christ (Acts 21:20; Rom. 10:2). Oldness speaks of the past, our failures; newness speaks of now, Christ's successes. Fruit is found on branches attached to vines; mushrooms on stumps of dead trees -- a poisonous fungus grown in the dark, similar to self-loathing and self-centered testimonies of only how great a sinner we are, instead of celebrating our joy in the Sun of Righteousness (Mal. 4:2).
Never forget that the power of sin is not the devil or the world, but something good and holy (Rom. 7:5; 1 Cor. 15:56). That power is only conquered by living under grace -- the mind set that Christ always loves us not based on how we perform but what He promises. Keep that in your heart and you won't ever be found in the arms of a strange "lawyer."
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Let me suggest a proven method of reading. Never plan to read an assignment only once; good readers will read at least twice and usually three times. The first time through should be a quick and casual reading to familiarize yourself with the material and find out the main point(s) the author intended to communicate. The second time through you should take notes for yourself, attempting to outline (roughly) the material presented so that the way in which the author gets to his conclusion is made clear; also write out important lists which may appear in the reading, along with key sentences which express important insights or necessary declarations (as far as the author is concerned).
Only after these two steps have been accomplished should you go through the assignment again the third time and underline (or highlight) the words, phrases, or sentences which will help you to review and recall the material later. Keep these underlinings to a minimum, for too many such markings will simply force you later to reread most of the assignment again – which defeats the purpose of underlining. By the time these three steps have been completed, the reading assignment will be clearly recorded in the mind.
HT:CMF
The main way that God deepens, strengthens and awakens confidence in prayer is not through answered prayer. It's by the word of the living God! When God says, "I hear you," we should believe him.
So when my confidence in prayer languishes and I feel like, "Why spend 10 or 15 more minutes here?," my strategy for rebuilding my confidence is not to catalog all the answers. One of the reasons for this is that they're all ambiguous, even the biblical prayers.
If you're skeptical enough you can always say, "It would've happened anyway." Always! It can be something absolutely stunning, like if you were praying over a tumor and it shrank under your hand. "Well, it was ready to do that anyway." You cannot get confidence if there is a skeptical voice inside of you constantly saying, "Answers don't do it because they're all ambiguous."
So if you base your confidence in prayer on answers to prayer, and you have a heart that is always wondering, you'll never have confidence. And I think I have that heart! I'm a really skeptical guy! I hear some story about an amazing healing and my first thought is, "Got some doctor records?" That's the way I'm wired! So if I'm going to keep praying and believing prayer, it's going to be through Jesus getting in my face and saying
Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things [or, as it says in Luke, the Holy Spirit] to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:9-11)
Now that's Jesus getting in my face and saying, "You couldn't believe me. I'm telling you that if you know how to give your child something good, your Father does it too!"
So I think at that point you pursue it a little further and say, "OK, I trust you Jesus. I believe you." And then you let your heart go on this Father idea. And you go to other texts in the Bible where he is called your Father. And you see that you are therefore his heir, and he loves his children. He will always do good for his children, and he wants his children to ask him for things!
And so if you go to enough passages of Scripture where God is telling you how inclined he is to your prayer, you either are going to throw the Bible out or you are going to start growing in confidence: "God hears me! God hears me!"
I'll give you an example just from this morning. I was praying this morning for my children and for myself from Ephesians 3:14-19, where it says,
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ...
And I stopped. I have prayed that for myself hundreds of times. Hundreds. And it hit me. I've been praying this prayer for 29 years at this church, that God would grant me to know the height and depth and length and breadth, the love of Christ that passes knowledge. And do you know what came into my mind? "That's the reason you have seen what you have seen about the nature of the love of God being the glorification of himself in people's lives."
My way of talking about the love of God today is that you are loved, not when God makes much of you, but when he, at great cost to himself, gives you the inclination to make much of him and the joy of making much of him.
I do not believe I would have seen that if I had not prayed that prayer a hundred times. So now, of course the skeptic would say, "I think you would've thought of that even if you hadn't prayed that prayer. I think you would've seen that in the Bible and you would've taught it even though you hadn't prayed that prayer." To which I would say, "I guess that's what you're going to believe. But this morning at the bottom of my soul it seemed to me that God was saying, 'The reason you see what you see is because you've asked to see it a hundred times. I've heard you. It's no accident that you've seen John 11:1-6 in relation to John 17:1-5, and 24 the way you do. I don't give everybody that. I give it to you. I give it to a hundred others, thousands of others. I give it to people who want it so bad. They pray Ephesians 3:14-19 over and over and over and over. And I store it up in a bottle, and then one day in a conversation with somebody or while you're studying the Bible I pour it out, and you see what you would not have seen.'" That's the way it works for me.
So I get subjective confirmations like that. I can't prove them. And if you're mathematically oriented, demanding proof, you won't ever get it. But if you're desperate to have help, God will give you the help; and he will show you along the way, from time to time, "I gave you that help. I gave you that help. The only reason you're a believer still is that I gave you that help."
-John Piper (original here)
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The ministry of Charles Spurgeon is a case in point. Read carefully the following account taken from his autobiography:
“While preaching in the hall, on one occasion, I deliberately pointed to a man in the midst of the crowd, and said, ‘There is a man sitting there, who is a shoemaker; he keeps his shop open on Sundays, it was open last Sabbath morning, he took ninepence, and there was fourpence profit out of it; his soul is sold to Satan for fourpence!’ A city missionary, when going his rounds, met with this man, and seeing that he was reading one of my sermons, he asked the question, ‘Do you know Mr. Spurgeon?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the man, ‘I have every reason to know him, I have been to hear him; and, under his preaching, by God’s grace I have become a new creature in Christ Jesus. Shall I tell you how it happened? I went to the Music Hall, and took my seat in the middle of the place; Mr. Spurgeon looked at me as if he knew me, and in his sermon he pointed to me, and told the congregation that I was a shoemaker, and that I kept my shop open on Sundays; and I did, sir. I should not have minded that; but he also said that I took ninepence the Sunday before, and that there was fourpence profit out of it. I did take ninepence that day, and fourpence was just the profit; but how he should know that, I could not tell. Then it struck me that it was God who had spoken to my soul though him, so I shut up my shop the next Sunday. At first, I was afraid to go again to hear him, lest he should tell the people more about me; but afterwards I went, and the Lord met with me, and saved my soul.’”
Spurgeon then adds this comment:
“I could tell as many as a dozen similar cases in which I pointed at somebody in the hall without having the slightest knowledge of the person, or any idea that what I said was right, except that I believed I was moved by the Spirit to say it; and so striking has been my description, that the persons have gone away, and said to their friends, ‘Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did; beyond a doubt, he must have been sent of God to my soul, or else he could not have described me so exactly.’ And not only so, but I have known many instances in which the thoughts of men have been revealed from the pulpit. I have sometimes seen persons nudge their neighbours with their elbow, because they had got a smart hit, and they have been heard to say, when they were going out, ‘The preacher told us just what we said to one another when we went in at the door’” (The Autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon, [Curts & Jennings, 1899], Vol. II, pp. 226-227).
What are we to make of this? My opinion is that this is a perfect and not uncommon example of what the Apostle Paul described in 1 Corinthians 14:24-25. Spurgeon exercised the gift of prophecy. He did not label it as such, but that does not alter the reality of what the Holy Spirit accomplished through him. If one were to examine Spurgeon’s theology and ministry, as well as recorded accounts of it by his contemporaries as well as subsequent biographers, most would conclude from the absence of explicit reference to miraculous charismata such as prophecy and the word of knowledge that such gifts had been withdrawn from church life. But Spurgeon’s own testimony inadvertently says otherwise!
-Sam Storms, "Gifts in Church History"
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“Faith is transferring your trust from your own efforts to the efforts of Christ. You were relying on other things to make you acceptable, but now you consciously begin relying on what Jesus did for your acceptance with God. All you need is nothing. If you think, ‘God owes me something for all my efforts,’ you are still on the outside.”
- Timothy Keller, How Can I Know God?
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Adalyn Olive Holthaus
Scripture is inerrant. Part of what that means is that, “It is without error or fault in all of its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.” (taken from the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy).
Not only does the bible itself teach a theology of inspiration and inerrancy, not only do most Christians seem to instinctively know this upon conversion, but from this upholding of Scripture’s truthfulness can be traced in the church fathers as well. Sadly this has to be proven though. I’ve heard liberal theologians go so far as to say that inerrancy is the invention of nineteenth century churchmen like A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield (who they say were overly shaped by modernism). I thought to myself, “How in the world can that be true? Did someone just recently invent inerrancy? If we went back in time and held a conversation with the church fathers, what would they say about the absolute truthfulness of the bible?”
I recently read a helpful book addressing this very issue, Biblical Authority: (John D. Woodbridge, 1982). I thought many of his quotes of the church fathers and reformers were worth posting. If you really like these issues, the whole book would be worth checking out.
Clement of Rome (died in 99 A.D.)
“You have studied Scripture [O.T.] which contains the truth and is inspired by the Holy Spirit. You realize that there is nothing wrong or misleading in it.”
Justin Martyr (100-165 A.D.)
“… but if (you have done so) because you imagined that you could throw doubt on the passage in order that I might say the Scriptures contradicted each other, you have erred. But I shall not venture to suppose or to say such a thing; and if a Scripture which appears to be of such a kind be brought forward, and if there be a pretext (for saying) that it is contrary (to some other), since I am entirely convinced that no Scripture contradicts another, I shall admit rather that I do not understand what is recorded, and shall strive to persuade those who imagine that the Scriptures are contradictory, to be rather of the same opinion as myself.”
Irenaeus (born in 135 A.D. or possibly 115 A.D.)
“Now if any man set Luke aside, as one who did not know the truth, he will (by so acting), manifestly reject that Gospel of which he claims to be a disciple… It follows then, as of course, that these men must either receive the rest of his narrative, or else reject these parts also. For no person of common sense can permit them to receive some things recounted by Luke as being true, and to set others aside, as if he had not known the truth.”
Theophilus of Antioch (died circa 183-185 A.D.)
“Moreover, it is said that among your writers there were prophets and prognosticators, and that those wrote accurately who were informed by them. How much more, then, shall we know the truth who are instructed by the holy prophets, who were possessed by the Holy Spirit of God! On this account all the prophets spoke harmoniously and in agreement with one another, and foretold the things that would come to pass in all the world. For the very accomplishment of predicted and already consummated events should demonstrate to those who are fond of information, yea rather, who are lovers of truth, that those things are really true which they declared concerning the epochs and eras before the deluge: to wit, how the years have run on since the world was created until now, so as to manifest the ridiculous mendacity of your authors, and show that their statements are not true.”
John Chrysostom (347-407 A.D.)
“It was not without reason these points came in for mention, not in vain I spoke to you about them. My reason, in fact, was that some men are like robots: when they take hold of the divine books, and find in their pages a heap of dates or litany of names, they pass them by without a thought, meeting any objection with the remark: They are only names, nothing useful in them. Do not utter such infamy. God speaks, and you have the effrontery to say, Nothing useful in what is said. I mean, if you merely have the chance of laying your eyes on an inscription come to light – tell me, do you not eagerly pore over it and examine the wealth it contains? But why talk of dates and names and inscriptions? Note the force of the addition of one single syllable, and stop despising the whole names. Our patriarch Abraham (he belongs to us, you know, rather than to the Jews) was originally called Abram which has the meaning “migrant.” But later his name was changed to Abraham and with this he became father of all nations; and it was the addition of one syllable that entrusted this upright man with such a glorious destiny. In other words, just as kings hand out to their officials golden ledgers as a sign of their authority, so God on that occasion gave that just man for sign of his importance a syllable.”
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“With the Scriptures, however, it is not like this. The gold does not lie before us mixed up with earth; instead it is gold and only gold.”
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Commenting on Matthew and the gospels - “But that they [the narratives] are not opposed to each other, this we will endeavor to prove throughout the whole work. And thou, in accusing them of disagreement, are doing just the same as if thou wert to insist upon their using the same words and forms of speech.”
Augustine (354-430 A.D.)
Commenting on Jerome’s contention that a good man (St. Paul) might purposefully deceive out of a sense of duty - “For it seems to me that the most disastrous consequences must follow upon our believing that anything false is found in the sacred books… It is one question whether it may be at any time the duty of a good man to deceive; but it is another question whether it can have been the duty of a writer of Holy Scripture to deceive; nay, it is not another question – it is no question at all. For if you once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement, as made in the way of duty; unless, perchance you [St. Jerome] purpose to furnish us with certain rules by which we may know when a falsehood might or might not become a duty.”
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“I have learned to yield this respect and honor only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error.”
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“Therefore everything written in Scripture must be believed absolutely.”
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“Whatever, they [the men of physical science] can readily demonstrate to be true of physical nature, we must show to be capable of reconciliation with our Scriptures; and whatever they assert in their treatises to be contrary to these Scriptures of ours, that is, to Catholic faith, we must either prove it as well as we can to be entirely false, or at all events, we must without the smallest hesitation believe it to be so.”
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“And in order to carry out this design to a successful conclusion, we must prove that the writers in question do not stand in any antagonism to each other. For those adversaries are in the habit of adducing this as the palmary allegation in all their vain objections, namely that the evangelists are not in harmony with each other.”
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Commenting on the need to reconcile ‘time sequence’ problems in the gospels - “For this reason, therefore, when the order of times is not apparent, we ought not to feel it a matter of any consequence what order any of them may have adopted in relating the events. But whenever the order is apparent, if the evangelist then presents anything which seems to be inconsistent with his own statements, or with those of another, we must certainly take the passage into consideration, and endeavor to clear up the difficulty.”
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“With great eagerness, then, I fastened upon the venerable writings of thy Spirit and principally upon the apostle Paul. I had thought that he sometimes contradicted himself and that the text of his teachings did not agree with the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets; but now all these doubts vanished away. And I saw that those pure words had but one face, and I learned to rejoice with trembling.”
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“For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the MS. Is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it. As to all other writings, in reading them, however great the superiority of the authors to myself in sanctity and learning, I do not accept their teaching as true on the mere ground of the opinion being held by them; but only because they have succeeded in convincing my judgment of its truth either by means of these canonical writings themselves, or by arguments addressed to my reason. I believe, my brother, that this is your own opinion as well as mine. I do not need to say that I do not suppose you to wish your books to be read like those of prophets or of apostles, concerning which it would be wrong to doubt that they are free from error. Far be such arrogance from that humble piety and just estimate of yourself which I know you to have…”
Luther (1483-1586 A.D.)
“It is impossible that Scripture should contradict itself; it only appears so to senseless and obstinate hypocrites.”
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“But everyone, indeed, knows that at times they [the fathers] have erred as men will; therefore I am ready to trust them only when they prove their opinions from Scripture, which has never erred.”
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“Whoever is so bold that he ventures to accuse God of fraud and deception in a single word and does so willfully again and again after he has been warned and instructed once or twice will likewise certainly venture to accuse God of fraud and deception in all of His words. Therefore it is true, absolutely and without exception, that everything is believed or nothing is believed. The Holy Spirit does not suffer Himself to be separated or divided so that He should teach and cause to be believed one doctrine rightly and another falsely.”
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“One letter, even a single tittle of Scripture, means more to us than heaven and earth. Therefore we cannot permit even the most minute change.”
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“Consequently, we must remain content with them [words], and cling to them as the perfectly clear, certain, sure words of God which can never deceive us or allow us to err.”
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“For if they believed they were God’s words they would not call them poor, miserable words but would regard such words and titles as greater than the whole world and would fear and tremble before them as before God himself. For whoever despises a single word of God does not regard any as important.”
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“Not only the words but also the diction used by the Holy Ghost and the Scripture is divine.”
Calvin (1509-1564 A.D.)
“Scripture is produced by the inspiration of the Spirit who testifies to our hearts of the truth and authority of his words.”
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Commenting on 2 Timothy 3:16 – “This is the principle which distinguishes our religion from all others, that we know that God hath spoken to us, and are fully convinced that the prophets did not speak at their own suggestion, but that, being organs of the Holy Spirit, they only uttered what they had been commissioned from heaven to declare. Whoever then wishes to profit in the Scriptures, let him, first of all, lay down this as a settled point, that the Law and the Prophets are not a doctrine delivered according to the will and pleasure of men, but dictated by the Holy Spirit.”
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Commenting on a number discrepancy in 1 Corinthians 10:8 and Numbers 25:9 – “… for in one day twenty-three thousand, or according to Moses, twenty-four thousand, of them perished. But although they differ about the number, it is easy to reconcile their statements. For it is not unheard of, when there is no intention of making an exact count of individuals to give an approximate number. For example, there were those whom the Romans called the Centumviri, The Hundred, when in fact there were on hundred and two of them. Therefore, since about twenty-four thousand were destroyed by the hand of the Lord, in other words, over twenty-three thousand, Moses gives the upper limit, Paul the lower, and there is really no discrepancy.”
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“… we see that the Spirit is not less diligent in narrating burials than the principal mysteries of faith.”
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“[We] ought to embrace with mild docility, and without any exception, whatever is delivered in the Holy Scriptures.”
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“For Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit in which as nothing useful and necessary is omitted, so nothing is taught which is not profitable to know.”
William Whitaker (An Anglican/Puritan-sympathizer, 1548-1595 A.D.)
“But, say they, the church never errs; the pope never errs. We shall shew both assertions to be false in the proper place. We say that scripture never errs, and therefore judge that interpretation to be the truest which agrees with scripture.”
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“… we cannot but wholly disapprove the opinion of those, who think that the sacred writers have, in some places, fallen into mistakes. That some of the ancients were of this opinion appears from the testimony of Augustine, who maintains, in opposition to them, “that the evangelists are free from all falsehood, both from that which proceeds from deliberate deceit, and that which is the result of forgetfulness.”
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“… it becomes us to be so scrupulous as not to allow that any such slip can be found in Scripture.”
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“We, on the contrary side, say that the authentic and divinely-inspired scripture is not this Latin, but the Hebrew edition of the Old Testament, and the Greek of the New.”
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“For authentic scripture must proceed immediately from the Holy Ghost himself… (2 Tim. 3:16); now Jerome’s translation is not divinely inspired; therefore it is not authentic scripture.”
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“That Scripture only, which the prophets, apostles, and evangelists wrote by inspiration of God, is in every way credible in its own account and authentic.”