Author: GlennDavis

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Get Still to Wait on God

Hearing God Through His Word

This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.

Psalm 119:50 ESV

As believers, we enjoy the God’s personal presence through the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we can and should experience an on-going conversational relationship with God: speaking to God and being spoken to by his Spirit. The normal Christian life is God speaking, directing, and guiding us by his love and care. In turn, we can respond in delight by honoring his leadership through obedience to his will. This process of being led, guided, and directed by the Holy Spirit in the affairs of everyday life is called hearing God (John 10:25-30). God’s guidance does not usually involve an audible voice, but the Holy Spirit leading through a nudging, gnawing impression in our spirits.

It is important that we get still to wait on God. And it is best that we get alone, preferably with our Bible outspread before us. Then if we will we may draw near to God and begin to hear Him speak to us in our hearts.

I think for the average person the progression will be something like this: First a sound as of a Presence walking in the garden. Then a voice, more intelligible, but still far from clear. Then the happy moment when the Spirit begins to illuminate the Scriptures, and that which had been only a sound, or at best a voice, now becomes an intelligible word, warm and intimate and clear as the word of a dear friend. Then will come life and light, and best of all, ability to see and rest in and embrace Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and All.

A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God: The Human Thrist for the Divine (Harrisburg, Penn.: Christian Publications, 1982), 76.

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The Simple Gospel

 

Preach Christ 

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. . . .

1 Cor. 15:3-4

The gospel is the good news that God in Christ has come into the world and by his life, death, burial, and resurrection has conquered our greatest enemies: the world, the flesh, sin, death, and the devil. The gospel is the proclamation that our sins are forgiven and we are under condemnation no more. This gospel calls forth a response of faith and repentance where upon we receive Christ’s righteousness and are granted right standing in the Father’s sight. Our response allows the Holy Spirit to transform our entire beings making us new creations in Christ.

Of all I would wish to say this is the sum; my brethren, preach Christ, always and evermore. He is the whole gospel. His person, offices, and work must be our one great, all-comprehending theme.

The world needs to be told of its Saviour, and of the way to reach him. Justification by faith should be far more than it is the daily testimony of Protestant pulpits; and if with this master-truth there should be more generally associated the other great doctrines of grace, the better for our church and our age. . .

We are not called to proclaim philosophy and metaphysics, but the simple gospel. Man’s fall, his need of a new birth, forgiveness through an atonement, and salvation as the result of faith, these are our battle-axe and weapons of war.

We have enough to do to learn and teach these great truths, and accursed be that learning which shall divert us from our mission, or that wilful ignorance which shall cripple us in its pursuit.

Charles H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, 1875-94 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2008), 87-88, paragraphing mine.

HT: Desiring God

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If We Seek . . .

If We Seek , We Will Find Christ 

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name [i.e., Jesus Christ] under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Acts 4:12

Scripture reveals that our whole salvation and all its benefits are obtained in Christ. If we seek victory over sin: freedom from fleshly oppression is found in Christ. If we seek to fill our empty longing: fullness of life is found in Christ. If we seek love, a love that is enduring, gracious, and abiding: a true lasting love is found in Christ. If we seek healing in the midst of the fallout of the Fall: Christ is our balm of Gilead, the true healer of our souls. Christ is our all in all for what we seek.

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.

John Calvin, Preface to Pierre-Robert Olivétan’s 1535 translation of the Bible.

HT: Between Two Worlds Blog

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The Disease of Individualism

 

All Members of Christ’s Body 

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:12-13 ESV

Individualism in the Christian life is a destructive force. Individualism says that I can live the Christian life without the joy of fellowship, without accountability, encouragement, guidance, and the sacraments. An individualistic mindset avoids authority, responsibility, and community. It says that I can live the Christian life without you, the body of Christ. I don’t want to be challenged. I don’t want my blind spots exposed. I don’t want to minister to needy people and serve others. I want to do my own thing  just me, my Bible, and God.

Individualism says that I am not answerable, responsible, or obligated to anyone including friends, family, and church leaders. It is a form of self-deception, masking itself as a “leading from God,” but portraying an attitude of rebellion toward God and his delegated authorities.

Individualism fails to understand that the day we were baptized, we were ushered into the Body of Christ and placed in covenant relationship with other believers (1 Cor. 12: 12-14). Individualism refuses to acknowledge the biblical truth that we cannot grow in our relationship with Jesus without the help and assistance of other believers (Eph. 4:11-13).

The Christian life is a “new community: a new family, a new pattern of human togetherness which results from the unity of the Lord’s people in the Lord, henceforth to function under the one Father as a family and a fellowship.

J. I. Packer, “The Gospel and the Lord’s Supper,” in Serving the People of God: Collected Shorter Writings of J.I. Packer, 4 vols.  (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1998), 2:44

By becoming a Christian, I belong to God and I belong to my brothers and sisters. It is not that I belong to God and then make a decision to join a local church. My being in Christ means being in Christ with those others who are in Christ. This is my identity. This is our identity. . . . If the church is the body of Christ, then we should not live as disembodied Christians.

Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church (Wheaton, Ill, Crossway Books, 2008), 41.

 

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“For Us and For Our Salvation”

 

“For Us and For Our Salvation”

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.

Titus 3:4-5 ESV

Q. Why did the Son of God come down from heaven?

A. For us and our salvation, as it explained in the Nicene Creed.

Q. What does it mean when the Creed says the Son of God came down from heaven, “For us”?

A. This phrase teaches us that He came to earth neither for one nation or for some people only, but for all.

Q. What does it means when the Nicene Creed says, “for our salvation”?

A.  Salvation is God’s deliverance of men and women from the effects of the Fall through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection by bringing full and complete restoration to creation, transformation of our hearts and lives, and renewal of God’s intentions and purposes.

Q.  Is this salvation effective for our past sins, present ills, and future judgment?

A.  In fact, salvation has three tenses, past, present and future. We have been saved (in the past) from the penalty of sin by a crucified Savior.  We are being saved (in the present) from the power of sin by a living Savior.  We shall be saved (in the future) from the very presence of sin by a coming Savior.

Q.  What did Christ come to save us from?

A.  Christ came to save us from the world and its influence, sin and its bondage, the flesh and its passions, the devil and his temptations, and death and its finality.

Salvation is a big and comprehensive word.  It embraces the totality of God’s saving work, from beginning to end.  In fact salvation has three tenses, past, present and future.  I am myself always grateful to the good man who led me to Christ over forty years ago that he taught me, raw and brash young convert that I was, to keep saying: ‘I have been saved (in the past) from the penalty of sin by a crucified Saviour.  I am being saved (in the present) from the power of sin by a living Saviour.  And I shall be saved (in the future) from the very presence of sin by a coming Saviour’. . .

If therefore you were to ask me, ‘Are you saved?’ there is only one correct biblical answer which I could give you: ‘yes and no.’ Yes, in the sense that by the sheer grace and mercy of God through the death of Jesus Christ my Saviour he has forgiven my sins, justified me and reconciled me to himself.  But no, in the sense that I still have a fallen nature and live in a fallen world and have a corruptible body, and I am longing for my salvation to be brought to its triumphant completion.

John Stott, “The Messenger and God: Studies in Romans 1-5”, in Believing and Obeying Jesus Christ, ed. J. W. Alexander (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity, 1980), 10 (paragraphing mine).

 

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Seven Images of the Cross

Images of Salvation in the Cross

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

1 Peter 2:24 ESV

Q. How does the death of Jesus Christ upon the Cross deliver us from the world, the flesh, sin, death, and the devil?

A. The Cross was not a defeat, but the astonishing victory of God over the world, the flesh, sin, death, and the devil.  Seven images (metaphors) are used in scripture to describe the finished work of Christ on the Cross:

  1. Propitiation is taken from Temple worship: God satisfies his own wrath by offering himself to suffer the just punishment for our sins (Rom 3:25; Heb. 2:17; 1 John 2:2, 4:10 NASB).
  2. Redemption is taken from the marketplace: Jesus becomes our ransom paying the debt of sin we could never repay (Matt. 20:28; Mark 10:45; 1 Tim. 2:6).
  3. Justification is taken from the law court: God’s declaration that by faith in Christ we are declared righteous before him (Rom. 3:21-26; Gal. 2:15-16).
  4. Reconciliation is taken from the home: the Cross restores our broken relationship with the Father (Rom. 5:10-11; 2 Cor. 5:16-21).
  5. Victory is taken from the military: Christ has conquered Satan and his oppression, our sin and its enslavement, and death and its control (1 Cor. 15:57; Heb. 2:14-15).
  6. Adoption is taken from the family: we are granted legal status as sons of God and heirs of the Kingdom (Rom. 8:17, 23; Gal. 4:1-7).
  7. Healing is taken from the hospital: we are restored and all creation from the brokenness created by our sin (Isa. 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24-25).

Christ’s substitution is the foundation for all these images for he took our place, and paid the price for our salvation by absorbing the just judgment we deserved. Christ’s death was penal in that he bore our penalty. Christ’s death was substitutionary in that he took our place when he suffered for our self-absorption, self-centeredness, and self-conceit (Isa. 53; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:24, 3:18).

Again throughout his theology, (Thomas F.) Torrance emphasises that in Jesus Christ we have the act of God and of man, of God as man in his one person. Justification, reconciliation and redemption therefore must be thought of not simply as the act of God for our salvation, but also as the real act of man, of God as man for us. the importance of this for Torrance’s theology and for understanding it cannot be overstated.

Justification is not simply the act of God judging sin, atoning for it himself and declaring us righteous in his beloved Son, it is man saying amen to the righteous judgement of God and at the same time fulfilling all righteousness in his own perfect life and humanity.

Reconciliation is thus not simply God reconciling the world to himself in Christ, but reconciliation worked out, achieved and realised by Christ as man within his own person, in his own mind, life, heart and soul.

Redemption is the mighty act of God in which mankind is liberated from bondage and decay into the new creation through the resurrection of the man Jesus Christ from the dead in the fullness of physical existence.

Thomas F. Torrance, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ, ed., Robert T. Walker (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009), xlv. (paragraphing mine)

HT: The Evangelical Calvinist 

 

 

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The Deeper Christian Life

Real Victory

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Romans 8:37

The deeper Christian life is a victorious, holy, faith-centered, Spirit-empowered, Christ-dependent, surrendered, fruit-bearing, broken, overcoming, sustained life. Abiding in Christ is another way of describing the deeper Christian life: a life of an on-going conversational relationship with Christ. This “life abundant” is maintained by faith through gratitude in the midst of life disappointments, dependence on the Spirit, and acknowledgment of our numerous weaknesses and failings. The deeper Christian life is daily experiencing the presence of Christ by allowing him to live his life in and through us. Christ lives the Christian life in us because by our own efforts we cannot imitate Christ’s love and selflessness.

It is by the grace of God that we can be conquerors. To be a conqueror, one must allow God to live His Life in and through us. Again and again he has to break us; that is to say, He breaks the things in us that protect and maintain “self.” We must surrender totally to Him, and let Him do all that is necessary. Thus he gets more and more room in us. He does not want only a part of us, but to fill our whole heart with His power; to fill us more and more with Himself. That means a closer fellowship with Him. That is glory!

Corrie ten Boom quoted in His Victorious Indwelling, ed., Nick Harrison (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 240.

 

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Regeneration

Heart Change Wrought by the Holy Spirit

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel 36:26

He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, [6] whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,

Titus 3:5-6

Regeneration is a change wrought by the Holy Spirit in the heart of a person transforming their motivation from a heart of self-centeredness to a will that is Christ-loving and people-serving. This work of regeneration is released by faith and changes us from hearts of stone, that can only sin, and nothing else, to hearts that serve, love, and sacrifice.

This means that our regeneration is owing to the historical work of Christ. . . . New birth is not a vague spiritual change disconnected from history. It is an objective historical act of the Spirit of God connecting us by faith to the historical, incarnate—the appearing—Lord Jesus, so that the life he now has as the crucified and risen Savior has become our life because we are united to him. New birth happens because Jesus came into the world as the kindness and love of God and died for sins and rose again.

John Piper, Finally Alive: What Happens When We Are Born Again (Christian Focus, 2009), 94.

 

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The Doctrine of Apostolic Succession

Apostolic Authority and Character  

It has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, . . .

Acts 15:25 ESV

Apostolic Succession is historic continuity with the apostles imparted through the laying on of hands in ordination; thereby, receiving the apostles’ authority while simultaneously experiencing the Holy Spirit’s anointing to embody apostolic character and teach apostolic doctrine. This ancient succession grants to the bishops the same authority, commission, and responsibility as the apostles. Also, this ancient continuity extends special grace and authority to the clergy from the Holy Spirit to advance the gospel throughout the world. An Anglican theologian defines the doctrine of apostolic succession:

As our blessed Lord ordained the twelve to be his representatives when He left the earth, so the apostles chose others to take their place when they in turn were withdrawn by death. … During this long period, successors of the apostles, first receiving, and then in turn handing on the divine power and authority which Christ gave to the twelve, have never been wanting. The apostolic succession is the link or bond that connects the Church of the 20th century with that of the 1st century.

Vernon Staley, The Catholic Religion (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Press, 1983), 15.

The doctrine of apostolic succession has both Petrine and Pauline qualities. Petrine in that the bishop’s consecration and ministry must be in historic continuity with the church catholic and Pauline in that the bishop should be governed by the Holy Spirit and has an individual (not individualistic) walk with the Lord exemplified by the “faith that works through love” (Gal. 5:6).

If a bishop is not Pauline then he is not apostolic. In other words, no matter the fact of his ordination, he is not a representative of the church if he is not living a holy life and does not believe the historic doctrines of the apostles. However, when a bishop is Pauline and not Petrine, he lacks authority in his ministry. That deficiency keeps him from speaking from and to the church. As one presbyter stated:

When I received Christ, I discovered the grace of God. When I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, I discovered the power of God. When I received the laying on of hands in apostolic succession of the government of God, I discovered the authority of God.”

Ed Wills, “Sensitive to the Holy Spirit,” Sursum Corda (November 1994), 2.

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Whether You Eat or Drink

Do All to the Glory of God 

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

1 Cor. 10: 31 ESV

“Glorify,” means to clothe God in splendor by those who recognize their victory in the Cross, their triumph in the resurrection, and their restoration in the ascension. To glorify is to give the reverence, awe and honor in worship to God for his excellencies and praiseworthiness. We glorify God when we find the Lord beautiful for what he is in himself.

In the difficulties of life, the righteous choices we make and the Christ-like attitude that we maintain gives praise to the holy God we serve. This manifested presence is the person and work of the Holy Spirit magnifying Jesus. To glorify God is to recognize God’s presence in our lives while yielding to his Lordship in utter dependence on his grace.

The chief end of man is to glorify God. And it is truer in suffering than anywhere else that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of Christian Hedonist (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2003), 288.