I am a lover of the Reformed faith – the legacy of the protestant Reformation expressed broadly in the writings of John Calvin and John Owen and Charles Spurgeon and Jonathan Edwards, and contemporaries like R. C. Sproul and J. I. Packer and John Frame.

I speak of love for this legacy the way I speak of loving a cherished photo of my wife. I say, “I love that picture.” You won’t surprise me if you point out, “But that’s not your wife, that’s a picture.” Yes. Yes. I know it’s only a picture. I don’t love the picture instead of her, I love the picture because of her. She is precious in herself.

The picture is precious not in itself, but because it reveals her. That’s the way theology is precious. God is valuable in himself. The theology is not valuable in itself. It is valuable as a picture. That’s what I mean when I say, “I love reformed theology.” It’s the best composite, Bible-distilled picture of God that I have.

—John Piper
Bloodlines

Via: Desiring God Blog

Let us be on our guard against false doctrine. Unsound faith will never be the mother of really sound practice, and in these latter days, departures from the faith abound. See then that your loins be girded about with truth, and be very jealous of receiving anything which cannot be proved by the Bible. Do not think for a moment that false doctrine will meet you face to face, saying, “I am false doctrine, and I want to come into your heart.” Satan does not go to work in that way. He dresses up false doctrine like Jezebel — he paints her face and attires her hair, and tries to make her like truth. Do not think that those who preach error will never preach anything that is true. Error would do little harm if that was the case. No! Error will come before you mingled with much that is sound and scriptural.

—J.C. Ryle
Consider Your Ways

Via: J.C. Ryle Quotes

Since our subject is theology, the truths of almighty God and the worship and obedience which is his due, we must ever consider our mental faculties and the degrees to which we are able to understand such matters as these, allowing always for our fallen and finite nature, if we wish to avoid running into confusion and ambiguity.

—John Owen
Biblical Theology: The History of Theology from Adam to Christ

Via: The Essential Owen

The stream of historic orthodoxy that once watered the evangelical soul is now damned by a worldliness that many fail to recognize as worldliness because of the cultural innocence with which it presents itself. To be sure, this orthodoxy never was infallible, nor was it without its blemishes and foibles, but I am far from persuaded that the emancipation from its theological core that much of evangelicalism is effecting has resulted in greater biblical fidelity. In fact, the result is just the opposite. We now have less biblical fidelity, less interest in truth, less seriousness, less depth, and less capacity to speak the Word of God to our own generation in a way that offers an alternative to what it already thinks.

—David Wells
No Place For Truth or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology?

Via: Ligonier Ministries Blog

Great post today from Dr. John Piper…

We are Christians. Radical, full-blooded, Bible-saturated, Christ-exalting, God-centered, mission-advancing, soul-winning, church-loving, holiness-pursing, sovereignty-savoring, grace-besotted, broken-hearted, happy followers of the omnipotent, crucified Christ. At least that’s our imperfect commitment.

In other words, we are Calvinists. But that label is not nearly as useful as telling people what you actually believe! So forget the label, if it helps, and tell them clearly, without evasion or ambiguity, what you believe about salvation.

If they say, “Are you a Calvinist?” say, “You decide. Here is what I believe.”

I believe I am so spiritually corrupt and prideful and rebellious that I would never have come to faith in Jesus without God’s merciful, sovereign victory over the last vestiges of my rebellion. (1 Corinthians 2:14; Ephesians 3:1–4; Romans 8:7).

I believe that God chose me to be his child before the foundation of the world, on the basis of nothing in me, foreknown or otherwise. (Ephesians 1:4–6; Acts 13:48; Romans 8:29–30; 11:5–7)

I believe Christ died as a substitute for sinners to provide a bona fide offer of salvation to all people, and that he had an invincible design in his death to obtain his chosen bride, namely, the assembly of all believers, whose names were eternally written in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain. (John 3:16; John 10:15; Ephesians 5:25; Revelation 13:8)

When I was dead in my trespasses, and blind to the beauty of Christ, God made me alive, opened the eyes of my heart, granted me to believe, and united me to Jesus, with all the benefits of forgiveness and justification and eternal life. (Ephesians 2:4–5; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Philippians 2:29; Ephesians 2:8–9; Acts 16:14; Ephesians 1:7; Philippians 3:9)

I am eternally secure not mainly because of anything I did in the past, but decisively because God is faithful to complete the work he began—to sustain my faith, and to keep me from apostasy, and to hold me back from sin that leads to death. (1 Corinthians 1:8–9; 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24; Philippians 1:6; 1 Peter 1:5; Jude 1:25; John 10:28–29; 1 John 5:16)

Call it what you will, this is my life. I believe it because I see it in the Bible. And because I have experienced it. Everlasting praise to the greatness of the glory of the grace of God!

—Dr. John Piper

Via: Desiring God Blog

The prologue of John’s Gospel is suffused with echoes of the Old Testament.  I would like to make mention of just two echoes which enrich our understanding of the Gospel and also evidence the unity of the whole Bible.  Right at the outset John opens with these words, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (ESV)  John here is doing several things.  One thing He is doing is affirming the divinity of Jesus Christ (as will become increasingly clearer as the chapter unfolds).  One of the means John uses to build his case for the divinity of Christ is an allusion to the opening words of the book of Genesis, “In the beginning…”  A Jewish reader would undoubtedly think back to the creation account.  But we are not left to our own imaginations.  John’s use of the light/dark dichotomy also suggests the creation narrative.  Finally, as if these were not enough,  John tells us that “all things were made through him…”  The Word, Jesus Christ, was the creative agent through whom all things that are came into being.  Jesus Christ is Creator.

Jesus Christ is also Redeemer.  Not only does the Apostle John  echo the creation narrative.  He also recalls God’s great redemptive acts in the exodus narrative as well.  In verse 14, John tells us that the Word, who created all things, “became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (ESV) The Son of God, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, created the universe and all that is in it, came to dwell with his people to save them from their sins.  The Greek word behind “dwell” is ἐσκήνωσεν which means “to pitch a tent” and most likely was intended by John to harken back to God’s tabernacle in the midst of the Hebrew encampment where God would be with his people (Exodus 25).  That Jesus in John 2 says that he would replace the Temple (the stationary replacement for the earlier mobile tabernacle) as the center of worship adds weight to the recognition of this echo.

Jesus is, according to John in the first few verses of his Gospel, divine and as such he is both Creator and Redeemer.  What a wonderful savior we have!  The one who brought galaxies into existence came to tabernacle in our midst and as John puts it, “we have beheld his glory, as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  I pray this is as true for you as it was for John and the rest of the disciples who came to trust in this same Jesus.

God has given us a rich revelation.  May we, by the Holy Spirit, grow in our appreciation and understanding of it.

—Jeffrey C. Waddington

Via: Feeding on Christ

I find it difficult, if not impossible, to get inside the head of Abraham on his journey to Mount Moriah. I have never had the experience of being called to slay my son for the glory of God. The closest thing to it in my own experience pales into insignificance by comparison. It occurred not with my son, but with my dog.

When I began Ligonier Ministries in 1971 I was given a special gift of two German shepherd puppies by the benefactress of our work. Mrs. Dora Hillman gave our family two puppies that had been born on Palm Sunday. She named them Hallelujah and Hosannah. Hallie was the female, and Hosie the male. They were bred of champion stock; the sire of the litter was the Canadian Grand Victor, and the brood bitch was the champion of the noted Mellon family of Pittsburgh. Hosie was an especially magnificent animal, a classic sable German shepherd.

When Hosie was two months old he came into the kitchen through the doggie door one morning with his head swollen to almost twice its normal size. He was staggering and obviously disoriented. I quickly assumed that somehow he had encountered a bees’ nest and had suffered multiple stings to his head. I rushed him to the veterinarian’s office for treatment. When the vet examined him he discovered three deep fang wounds to his head that had obviously been made by a poisonous snake, either a copperhead or a rattlesnake. The snake had injected enough venom to be fatal to the young dog. The vet declared that it was the worst case of snakebite he had ever seen in an animal, and he gave me a grim prognosis. He explained that the ability for poisonous snakes to kill was vastly overrated and that the potency of their strikes depended upon several factors including the physical size of the animal stricken, the area of the body where the venom was injected, and the amount of venom the snake injected. On all these counts the puppy was in serious danger. The vet went on to explain that Hosie would have to go through some serious crisis stages in order to survive.

The first crisis was to survive the initial shock and the impact of the venom itself. The second was the crisis provoked by the severe swelling. He said that when animals’ eyes are swollen shut and they are reduced to temporary blindness, they simply seem to lose their will to live. He explained secondary reactions that also could prove fatal.

He administered antivenom shots and other medications and told me the next forty-eight hours would be critical. Two days later the vet phoned to inform me that Hosie had survived the initial crisis stage but that he would have to remain in the vet hospital for two weeks. After that period elapsed the vet called again to report that Hosie was sufficiently recovered to come home. I was enormously relieved by the news.

The vet then issued one caveat. He told me that a secondary reaction to such episodes of poisoning was necrosis of the skin tissue affected by the bite. He explained that the poison had killed this tissue, causing it to rot and literally fall from the dog’s face. He said I must be prepared for a ghastly sight because the dog’s face was horribly and permanently disfigured.

All of the warnings uttered by the vet did not adequately prepare me for the sight of my dog. When I arrived at the hospital to recover Hosie, I found a dog whose facial tissue had rotted to such a degree that the skin covering his face had fallen off. I looked at naked sinew and tissue that reeked of the foul odor of rotting flesh. I scooped up the dog in my arms and placed him on the seat of my car to take him home. The vet handed me a large jar filled with a special ointment that I was required to apply to Hosie’s face twice a day for weeks to come to facilitate the healing of the skin tissue. He also gave me a pair of surgical gloves to wear while applying the ointment.

When I arrived home with the dog I prepared a special bed for him in the garage. The odor from the putrefied flesh was too intense to bring Hosie into the house. Then I set upon the task of applying the first round of ointment to his face. It was an unforgettable experience as I felt a deep revulsion within myself at even coming near the animal, let alone touching his face that was oozing with all sorts of ghastly stuff. It was as if the dog could sense my apprehension or revulsion as he seemed to cower before me in canine embarrassment. This was no longer a proud young German shepherd of champion stock and extraordinary beauty. He was a pitiable specimen to behold, and I wondered if it wouldn’t have been better for all concerned, especially Hosie, if he would have died from the initial impact of the poison.

I realize that it may seem a bit maudlin to explain the visceral feelings that transpired as I knelt beside Hosie for the first application of the ointment, but those feelings were quite vivid at the time. I put on the surgical gloves, held my breath against the stench, and forced myself to touch the hideous face in front of me. As I did, some undeniable communication took place between man and animal. It was a moment of pathos and tenderness. It was as if the dog understood my difficulty in giving him this care. I could see it in his eyes. If dogs have souls then Hosie’s eyes were the windows to his heart. A vital bonding of love took place when I touched his skin with glove-covered hands. It was obvious and instantaneous that the ointment was soothing to him. The bonding of that moment was such that it was the last time I ever wore gloves to apply the ointment. Thereafter I applied the ointment to his face twice a day with my bare hands with absolutely no sense of revulsion.

As the days and weeks passed, Hosie was restored to health and returned to life inside the house. His face become covered over again, not with normal skin, but with hard, leathery scar tissue. With the development of the scar tissue his face looked like it was frozen into what most people described as a snarl but I preferred to consider a smile.

Hosie grew to full strength. As an adult he weighed close to one hundred pounds and had a barrel chest and an unusually docile disposition. He became my inseparable companion. When I lectured he would sleep next to the podium. Along with his mate Hallie, he produced fine litters of puppies, some of which were trained for service in the canine corps of the state police.

Hosie loved to go hunting with me in the forests of the Allegheny Mountains as we sought out ruffed grouse. On one occasion when I was hunting alone with Hosie I came to a barbed wire fence that blocked my path. According to hunter safety I carefully slid my rifle under the fence before I tried to cross it myself. As I started to climb over the fence my wool coat got caught in the barbs. I struggled to free myself, making the wire taut, which then flipped me head over heels over the fence. I landed hard on a rock pile, my back striking a sharp rock, leaving me stunned and temporarily paralyzed. I was immobile upon the rocks. Hosie instantly sensed my predicament, and in Lassie-like heroics he snuggled his snoot under my arms so I could grasp his strong neck. I held onto him as he dragged me from the rock pile. Moments later feeling returned to my torso, and I was able to stand and walk home safely.

Two years later Hosie went into a sudden convulsion in our kitchen. I took him to the vet, who administered medication, but the medication failed to provide sustained relief. Within weeks Hosie was having five to eight convulsions per day. The vet opined that the seizures were a result of the residual damage to the dog’s brain from the original snakebite; he recommended that Hosie be “put to sleep.”

I brought Hosie home and contemplated the vet’s advice. The procedure to end his life medically was expensive. I said to my wife, “Perhaps I should just take Hosie out in the woods as if we were going hunting. When he isn’t looking I can mercifully and inexpensively end his life with one shot from my rifle.” But even as I said it, I knew I could not do it. As I thought of training the sights of my rifle upon Hosie I knew there was no earthly way I could ever pull the trigger. I had to admit to my wife there was no way I could even drive the dog to the vet for execution. I asked her to find a student to take Hosie to the vet when I didn’t know it was being done.

Two days later I came home from a lecture, and my wife told me gently, “It’s over. Hosie’s gone.” I wept.

This episode in my life was about a dog. It was not an experience I had with my son. I could not even bring myself to kill a dog who was hopelessly ill. How radically different this was from Abraham’s situation, yet my experience gave me a much greater appreciation of what Abraham was facing. God did not ask Abraham to kill his dog; God required that he kill his son, his only son, the son whom he loved.

—R.C. Sproul
The Invisible Hand

Via: Ligonier Ministries Blog

Erik Kowalker has posted another wonderful quote from Bishop J.C. Ryle over at his site.

Let us beware of resting our hopes of salvation on mere intellectual knowledge. We live in days when there is great danger of doing so. Education makes children acquainted with many things in religion, of which their parents were once utterly ignorant. But education alone will never make a Christian in the sight of God. We must not only know the leading doctrines of the Gospel with our heads, but receive them into our hearts, and be guided by them in our lives. May we never rest until we are inside the kingdom of God, until we have truly repented, really believed, and have been made new creatures in Christ Jesus.

—J.C. Ryle
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Mark

Via: J.C. Ryle Quotes

Yesterday, Dr. R.C. Sproul delivered, via video, a message at the 2010 Desiring God National Conference. The title of his message was “Thinking Deeply in the Ocean of Revelation: The Bible and the Life of the Mind” and the Scripture reference was Acts 17:22-28. The following are notes taken during the session:

Introduction: The Primary Philosophical Questions

In May of 585 B.C., the first ever predicted solar eclipse was recorded. It had been predicted by Thales of Miletus, who is considered to be the father of Western philosophy and science. He was captivated by a pressing problem: How can I make sense of all of the diversity of my experience in this world? This gave rise to the concept of a universe and a university (unity + diversity).

The answer Thales found to his question was that the singular principle that makes sense out of everything else in this world is water. Why? He noticed that everything he saw in the world appeared either as a solid, liquid, or gas. Water manifested itself in each of these forms. Water also sustained life, which is most important.

Another problem that faced philosophers was the problem of motion. We typically assume that something in motion has been moved by another object. Thales looked for something that had the capacity for hylozoism, something that could move by itself. He came to the conclusion that water was this thing. Those that followed after Thales suggested other substances.

Parmenides, a prominent pre-Socratic philosopher, said, “Whatever is, is.” This may seem to be a transparent observation, but it is very profound. If something is real, it can’t not be. Non-being is nothingness. For everything to exist, there must be an unchangeable, fully actualized being.

Over against the thinking of Parmenides came the challenge of Heraclitus. He made the assertion that whatever is, is changing. We experience this in the process of aging. The operative word, then, is change or flux. He was famous for saying, “You can’t step in the same river twice.” The distinction was made between pure being, which can’t change, and our existence, which is constantly changing.

Who is right? This is what awakened Plato from his dogmatic slumber. By his time, philosophy had become dominated by skepticism. Socrates, Plato’s teacher, had begun asking the Stoics penetrating questions. He said that you can’t have a coherent science without both university and diversity. This eventually gave rise to Plato’s theory of ideas. Aristotle, Plato’s student, sought to resolve some of the problems Plato was left with. He postulated his idea of God: the Unmoved Mover, one who is the source of all motion and not the result of someone else’s motion.

After Plato and Aristotle a whole wave of skepticism arose. Two prominent schools of thought in this era were Stoicism and Epicureanism. They both abandoned the quest for ultimate reality and turned their attention to things they could learn and use right now. The Epicureans advocated refined hedonism: the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. The Stoics came up with a calculus, as it were, of pleasure, in the effort to avoid excess in either consumption or abstention.

Paul in Athens

When Paul arrived in Athens, Luke tells us that he was “deeply moved.” His soul was provoked within him because he saw that the city was given totally to idolatry. The best that Athens could produce, in the final analysis, was to be a center of factories devoted to the making of pagan idols. Paul went to the synagogues and marketplace preaching Christ. He then went up to the Areopagus and encountered these philosophers whose practice was to meet every day and discuss what’s new.

He began to teach the philosophers: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.” He noticed that they were filled with religion because their city was filled with idols. They even had one dedicated “To the Unknown God.” Paul said, “The one whom you are worshiping in ignorance, I want to declare to you this day. He is the one who is the creator of all. He is the one who does not need your prayers, your gifts, your worship, your idols. In fact, he doesn’t need anything.”

Paul urged them to seek God and then gave what I believe to be the most profound philosophical statement in the whole New Testament: “In him we live, we move, and we have our being.” Ultimate reality is found in God who is the creator of everything. God is absolute, pure being. He reveals himself to Moses as “I am who I am.” He is the supreme monarch of heaven and earth. God alone has pure actuality. There is no room for improvement with him.

I’m a human being. More accurately, to use Plato’s language, I am a human becoming. I still have potential that hasn’t been realized. I’m still changing. But God doesn’t change. My being is not found in me independently. It is found not in water or air but in God, who brings something out of nothing.

Conclusion

Let this be a brief introduction to the way the biblical witness gives answers to the questions that have plagued theoretical thought as long as there have been people. We will never find an answer to being if we try to find it outside the being and the character of God.

—Dr. R.C. Sproul

You can watch the entire presentation or listen to the audio at the Desiring God website.

Update: The audio and video from all speaker presentations are now available on this page.

Via: Desiring God

1. Scripture alone. When the Reformers used the words sola Scriptura they were expressing their concern for the Bible’s authority, and what they meant is that the Bible alone is our ultimate authority—not the pope, not the church, not the traditions of the church or church councils, still less personal intimations or subjective feelings, but Scripture only. Other sources of authority may have an important role to play. Some are even established by God—such as the authority of church elders, the authority of the state, or the authority of parents over children. But Scripture alone is truly ultimate. Therefore, if any of these other authorities depart from Bible teaching, they are to be judged by the Bible and rejected.

2. Christ alone. The church of the Middle Ages spoke about Christ. A church that failed to do that could hardly claim to be Christian. But the medieval church had added many human achievements to Christ’s work, so that it was no longer possible to say that salvation was entirely by Christ and his atonement. This was the most basic of all heresies, as the Reformers rightly perceived. It was the work of God plus our own righteousness. The Reformation motto solus Christus was formed to repudiate this error. It affirmed that salvation has been accomplished once for all by the mediatorial work of the historical Jesus Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification, and any ‘gospel’ that fails to acknowledge that or denies it is a false gospel that will save no one.

3. Grace alone. The words sola gratia mean that human beings have no claim upon God. That is, God owes us nothing except just punishment for our many and very willful sins. Therefore, if he does save sinners, which he does in the case of some but not all, it is only because it pleases him to do it. Indeed, apart from this grace and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit that flows from it, no one would be saved, since in our lost condition, human beings are not capable of winning, seeking out, or even cooperating with God’s grace. By insisting on ‘grace alone’ the Reformers were denying that human methods, techniques, or strategies in themselves could ever bring anyone to faith. It is grace alone expressed through the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ, releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from death to spiritual life.

4. Faith alone. The Reformers never tired of saying that ‘justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone.’ When put into theological shorthand the doctrine was expressed as “justification by faith alone,” the article by which the church stands or falls, according to Martin Luther. The Reformers called justification by faith Christianity’s “material principle,” because it involves the very matter or substance of what a person must understand and believe to be saved. Justification is a declaration of God based on the work of Christ. It flows from God’s grace and it comes to the individual not by anything he or she might do but by ‘faith alone’ (sola fide). We may state the full doctrine as: Justification is the act of God by which he declares sinners to be righteous because of Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone.

5. Glory to God alone. Each of the great solas is summed up in the fifth Reformation motto: soli Deo gloria, meaning ‘to God alone be the glory.’ It is what the apostle Paul expressed in Romans 11:36 when he wrote, ‘to Him be the glory forever! Amen.’ These words follow naturally from the preceding words, “For from him and through him and to him are all things” (v. 36), since it is because all things really are from God, and to God, that we say, ‘to God alone be the glory.’

—James Montgomery Boice
Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace?

Via: Reformation Theology