Tag: John Stott

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What of the Wrath of God? (Updated)

Does Sin Provoke God’s Wrath?

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.

Romans 1:18-19 (NKJV)

God’s anger is not vengeful, but is best understood as a firm and loving opposition to sin in all its forms and degrees. God’s wrath is a holy antagonism toward those attitudes and actions which oppose his Kingdom and destroy life and relationship.

God’s wrath is not arbitrary or capricious.  It bears no resemblance to the unpredictable passions and personal vengefulness of the pagan deities.  Instead, it is his settled, controlled, holy antagonism to all evil.

John Stott, The Letters of John, Revised Edition, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 88.

God’s wrath was absorbed by the Son who died in our place and bore our just judgment on the Cross. The death of the innocent and sinless Christ satisfies (i.e., propitiates) God’s wrath for penalty of sin has now been paid willingly by the Son.

A Substitute has appeared in space and time, appointed by God Himself, to bear the weight and burden of our transgressions, to make expiation for our guilt, and to propitiate the wrath of God on our behalf. This is the gospel.

R. C. Sproul, The Truth of the Cross (Orlando, FL; Reformation Trust Pub., 2007), 81.

HT: Of First Importance

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It Can Melt the Hardest Heart

The Cross Melts the Hardness of Our Hearts

But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities;upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.

Isa. 53:5

Christianity is unique among the religions of the world: Christ demands a heart change. Before any religious observance is encouraged, any code of conduct required, or any expectations fulfilled; a supernatural heart change is needed. The essence of who we are needs transformation. Not just transformation, our hearts need to be made new. You see, our hearts are what make us sinners, selfish to the core. That selfishness needs not only forgiveness, but deliverance. Our hearts are hard and they need to be made new again.

The Cross of Christ is the solution. The Cross makes us new creations (2 Cor. 5:17), the Cross melts our hearts (2 Cor. 5:15), the Cross gives us a new motivation (2 Cor. 5:9), and the Cross gives a new purpose (2 Cor. 5:14). Seeing Christ take our just judgment as punishment on that barren tree brings us to our knees and opens the door for the Holy Spirit’s life transforming work (Titus 3:5). By grace, the Blessed Trinity does the work of heart change (John 3:5-8).

There is a wonderful power in the Cross of Christ. It has power to wake the dullest conscience and melt the hardest heart, to cleanse the unclean, to reconcile him who is afar off and restore him to fellowship with God, to redeem the prisoner from his bondage and lift the pauper from the dunghill, to break down the barriers which divide [people] from one another, to transform our wayward characters into the image of Christ and finally make us fit to stand in white robes before the throne of God.

John Stott, The Preacher’s Portrait (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988).

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Great Receivers (No, Not NFL Wide Receivers)

Grace Gives, Faith Receives

I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

Psalm 81:10

It is hard to receive isn’t it? Someone gives you a surprise gift at Christmas, you did not think to purchase them a present. The moment is awkward. You have to receive with nothing to give. Our tit-for-tat obligatory works mindset does not want to receive unless we can give something back. We hesitate, we obfuscate, and we apologize. We do everything we can not to receive that gift.

We treat God that way, too. He gives us the grace of his Son’s life and death and we attempt to pay him back by performing better. We just can’t receive all that God has done for us. We must do something in return to prove to God that we are worthy of his love. We reject grace because it just can’t be that simple. We think we must do something in return, but that is not the way grace works. “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Rom. 11:5-6).

As Anglican pastor, John Stott, has noted, “Grace is God’s free and unmerited favour, loving the unlovable, seeking the fugitive, rescuing the hopeless, and lifting the beggar from the dunghill to make him sit among princes.” Grace is taking in all of what Christ has done for us in his life and death and simply saying back to the Lord, “Thank you.” We receive by grace all the spiritual blessings that are ours in Christ (Eph. 1:3).

God has called us to be great receivers. When have a need, ask of God, and we will receive mercy and grace to help in our time of need (Heb. 4:14-16). In times of temptation, in times of despair, in times of confusion–look to God, ask, and you will receive.

Someone has said that great saints are great receivers; men and women who take their holiness by faith, and who go on taking it by faith . . . . In others words, if you are impatient, you have his patience; if you are impure, you have his purity; if you are bitter in spirit, you have His grace; if you are critical in spirit, you have His love; if you are worldly in spirit, you have His glory.

The opposite to everything that I am by nature, is in Christ; and He by His Spirit is in me: therefore in every moment of satanic temptation I may look up to Him and say, “Lord, in this situation I claim Thy grace, Thy patience, Thy purity, Thy love, Thy holiness.’

Alan Redpath, “Fourfold Challenge to Holiness,” Daily Thoughts from Keswick: A Year’s Daily Readings, ed. Herbert F. Stevenson (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1980), 349.

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Two Human Beings

Two Patients, Not One

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Psalm 139:14

Walked in the annual Birmingham March for Life today. Always encouraging to see old friends, folks from all manner of denominations and communions, and people of deep conviction for the pro-life cause. The abortion issue to me is quite simple: if the fetus is not human then have it–allow the fetus to be born. If the fetus is not human, then you have nothing to fear–the child, or whatever, will not be human. The fetus born will not be a baby.

But, the fetus is human–a child made in the image of God–a person who deserves the opportunity to live. The child should not be penalized for the choices of the parents.

Since the life of the human fetus is a human life, with the potential of becoming a mature human being, we have to learn to think of mother and unborn child as two human beings at different stages of development. Doctors and nurses have to consider that they have two patients, not one, and must seek the well-being of both. Lawyers and politicians need to think similarly. . . . Christians would wish to add ‘extra care before birth’. For the Bible has much to say about God’s concern for the defenceless, and the most defenceless of all people are unborn children. They are speechless to plead their own cause and helpless to protect their own life. So it is our responsibility to do for them what they cannot do for themselves.

John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today (London: Collins/Marshall Pickering, 1990), 327.

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Our One and Only Savior

Salvation Found Only in Christ

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

Acts 4:12

To the post-modern mind, no one religion can claim to have all the truth. No one way can be the only hope of salvation. No one person can claim to be the sole means to living life in all its fullness. Post-moderns assert that those individuals who make such an exclusive claim are intolerant and arrogant.

Yet much to their dismay, Jesus makes that very claim: He is the exclusive Savior of the world, the only means to salvation, and the only one who can bring true fulfillment (John 14:6).

To claim that Jesus Christ is unique is not to say that there is no truth in other religions and ideologies. Of course there is. For we believe in God’s general revelation and common grace. The Logos of God is still ‘the true light’ coming into the world and enlightening every man (Jn. 1:9). All men know something of God’s glory from creation and something of God’s law from their own nature, as Paul argues in Romans 1 and 2.

But how does this argument continue? Not that their knowledge of God saves them, but the very opposite! It condemns them because they suppress it. Indeed, ‘they are without excuse, for although they knew God they did not honour him as God   . . . .” It is against this dark background of the universal rebellion, guilt and judgment of mankind that the good news of Jesus Christ shines with such dazzling beauty.

There is salvation in no other, for there is no other mediator between God and man but only Jesus Christ who died as a ransom for sinners (Acts 4:12; 1 Tim. 2:5-6). Firmly to reject all syncretism in this way and to assert the uniqueness and finality of Jesus Christ is not ‘doctrinal superiority’ or imperialism, as it has been called. Conviction about revealed truth is not arrogance. Its proper name is ‘stewardship’, the humble and obedient stewardship of a church which knows it has been ‘put in trust with the Gospel’.

John Stott, “Response to Bishop Mortimer Arias,” International Review of Mission (January 1976).

HT: Langham Partnership

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The Stumbling Block of the Cross

“Sinners Hate It . . . “

But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Gal. 6:14 (NKJV)

We all do it. We all fall back into it. We try to earn God’s acceptance and approval by our good performance (Gal. 3:1-3). We think if we will be a good little boys or girls, then God will be obligated and have to bless us. God will see our sincerity, our best efforts, and our decent morals and accept us, forgive us, and honor us. Our goodness will earn for us freedom from suffering and hardship–true salvation. We grow secure in our own goodness by our own efforts.

However, the Cross of Christ rejects our self-sufficiency. The Cross declares our efforts null and void (Rom. 3:10-12). The Cross shouts from Golgotha, our best efforts are morally corrupt, intrinsically selfish, and ultimately self-deceiving (Gal. 3:13). In our face, the Cross declares our need for a savior. The Cross is our most precious treasure for it frees us from ourselves (2 Cor. 5:15). The notion that we can save ourselves is destroyed. We see that our best efforts for salvation are absurd and ridiculous.

We look upon our suffering Savior and recognize that our sin and selfishness put him there. That ultimately, Jesus is bearing on the Cross our just punishment for our sins. Our own selfishness, our desire to be first and foremost, our self-absorption, self-concern, and self-conceit put Jesus there (Rom. 4:25).

The Cross breaks us of our pride as we witness God’s love poured out in Christ. We see that our best efforts are nothing. Our choice: accept God’s grace in Christ or continue to flounder, waver, harden our hearts, and be destroyed by our pride and selfishness (1 Cor. 15:10).

The Cross does not have to be a stumbling block!

How do I explain it? The Cross is mine and your most precious treasure. The love of God is displayed in all its glory there.

The ‘stumbling block of the cross’ remains. Sinners hate it because it tells them that they cannot save themselves. Preachers are tempted to avoid it because of its offensiveness to the proud. It is easier to preach man’s merits than Christ’s, because men greatly prefer it that way.

John Stott, Our Guilty Silence (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1967), 40.

According to the Christian revelation, God’s own great love propitiated his own holy wrath through the gift of his own dear Son, who took our place, bore our sin and died our death. Thus God himself gave himself to save us from himself.

John Stott, The Message of Romans (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 115.

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“The Church Is Mission”

Evangelical Essentials (Part Twelve)

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. To receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honor and glory and blessing!”

And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying:

“Blessing and honor and glory and power. Be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!”

Rev. 5:12-13 (NKJV)

During the early years of my Christian ministry, I desired to be a missionary to China. I read numerous biographies of James Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission. I studied the lives of the great men and women of Evangelicalism who suffered the loss of their own family members, friends, and fellow co-workers as they attempted to reach the areas of the world that did not know the gospel. Names like Watchman Nee (China), Amy Carmichael (India), C.T. Studd (Africa), Jim and Elizabeth Eliot (Ecuador), and Oswald Chambers (Egypt) resonated deeply within my spirit as people who loved Christ, walked in the Holy Spirit, and communicated the gospel clearly and effectively. God did not create an opportunity for me to go to China, but he did use that desire to burn within me the importance of sharing the gospel both near and far. In our self-centered culture, we often forget that God is on a mission, and if he is on a mission, then we are on a mission with him to make known the saving work work of Christ to every person, family, and nation.

Mission is the people of God intentionally crossing barriers from church to non-church, faith to non-faith, to proclaim by word and deed the coming of the Kingdom of God in Jesus Christ; this task is achieved by means of the church’s participation in God’s mission of reconciling people to God, to themselves, to each other, and to the world, and gathering them into the church through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit with a view to the transformation of the world as a sign of the coming of the Kingdom in Jesus Christ.

[Charles Van Engen, Missions on the Way: Issues in Mission Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1997).]

There are the five parts of the Bible. The God of the Old Testament is a missionary God, calling one family in order to bless all the families of the earth. The Christ of the Gospels is a missionary Christ; he sent the church out to witness. The Spirit of the Acts is a missionary Spirit; he drove the church out from Jerusalem to Rome. The church of the epistles is a missionary church, a worldwide community with a worldwide vocation. The end of the Revelation is a missionary End, a countless throng from every nation. So I think we have to say the religion of the Bible is a missionary religion. The evidence is overwhelming and irrefutable. Mission cannot be regarded as a regrettable lapse from tolerance or decency. Mission cannot be regarded as the hobby of a few fanatical eccentrics in the church. Mission lies at the heart of God and therefore at the very heart of the church. A church without mission is no longer a church. It is contradicting an essential part of its identity. The church *is* mission.

[John Stott, “The Whole Christian,” Proceedings of the International Conference of Christian Medical Students, ed. Lee Moy Ng (London: ICCMS and Christian Medical Fellowship, 1980),  46.]

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The Two Priesthoods: Believer and Ministerial

Evangelical Essentials (Part Ten)

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.

1 Peter 2:9-10 (NKJV)

From living lives of hostility and enmity towards God, Christians have been transformed by the Holy Spirit into ministers who bring the healing and grace of Christ to the least, lost, and the lonely of our world.

The ministerial priesthood is called to serve, nourish, sustain, and guide the priesthood of all believers. The believer’s priesthood is a call to be Christ in the secular workplaces of the world. Men are not ordained into the ministerial priesthood in order to remove the priesthood away from the people of God, but to encourage, empower, and equip the priestly people of God for their work in the world.

This doctrine of the priesthood of “all” believers is not the doctrine of the priesthood of “the” believer. In other words, every believer has a ministry, but that ministry is to be conducted in community while being accountable to church leadership and submitted to the direction and tradition of the historic church. This personal ministry of me and my Bible with God telling me, and me alone, the only correct interpretation of the meaning of Scripture is not the priesthood of all believers. Two priesthoods, ministerial and believers, serve the one Christ for the purpose of reaching the world for Christ.

The New Testament concept of the pastor is not of a person who jealously guards all ministry in his own hands, and successfully squashes all lay initiatives, but of one who helps and encourages all God’s people to discover, develop and exercise their gifts. His teaching and training are directed to this end, to enable the people of God to be a servant people, ministering actively but humbly according to their gifts in a world of alienation and pain. Thus, instead of monopolizing all ministry himself, he actually multiplies ministries.

John Stott, The Message of Ephesians (The Bible Speaks Today series: Leicester: IVP, 1979), 167.

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Faith Works and Grace Works, Too.

Evangelical Essentials (Part Nine)

Jesus Christ, will be revealed. He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds.

Titus 2:13-14 (NLT)

Although good works, which are the fruits of faith and follow on after justification, can never atone for our sins or face the strict justice of God’s judgment, they are nevertheless pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ and necessarily spring from a true and living faith. Thus a living faith is as plainly known by its good works as a tree is known by its fruit.

Article Twelve,“A Contemporary Version of the 39 Articles of Religion,” available from; www.stjohnsanglican.org/39.doc.

Good Works as the Fruit of Salvation

No works can produce salvation. However, a faith-filled salvation will produce many good works. Good works are the fruit of salvation, not its cause or basis.

It seems that ‘good works’ is a general expression to cover everything a Christian says and does because he is a Christian, every outward and visible manifestation of his Christian faith . . . Rather we are to be ourselves, our true Christian selves, openly living the life described in the beatitudes, and not ashamed of Christ. Then people will see us and our good works, and seeing us will glorify God. For they will inevitably recognize that it is by the grace of God we are, what we are, that ‘our’ light is ‘his’ light, and that our works are his works done in us and through us.

[John Stott, Message of the Sermon on the Mount, John Stott Daily Bible Study Email, August 14th, 2007 (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1985).]

Justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. Good works can be described as the fruit of faith. An expectation of redemption is living in a godly manner. There is no place in the Christian life for claiming a “born from above” experience while giving no evidence of a changed life. A changed life is life that allows Christ to live His life in and through the believer (1 John 4:9).

This is the rest of faith. You relax, almost like a spectator, except that it is your hands with which He is at work, your lips with which He is speaking, your eyes with which He sees the need, your ears with which He hears the cry, and your heart with which He loves the lost.”

[Major Ian Thomas, The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2006). 99.]

Good works are not produced by the Christian, but good works are borne in the life of  the Christian by the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). We are fruit-bearers not fruit-producers. Grace works out the life of Christ in us.

Saving faith has intrinsic power to produce fruit.

[John Piper, The Pleasures of God (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1991), 244.]

Good works or deeds display to the world the changed heart that Christ has created (Matt. 7:15-20). Faith in the finished work of Christ expresses itself in deeds done for God and others.

Although we cannot be saved by works, we also cannot be saved without them. Good works are not the way of salvation, but its proper and necessary evidence. A faith which does not express itself in works is dead.

[John Stott, Christ the Controversialist (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1970), 127.]

Therefore, good works are the fruit of faith, they follow after justification, they are evidence of a changed heart, and therefore will flow from a life changed by the Cross.

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Which Came First the Church or the N.T.?

Answer: the Holy Spirit.

If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

1 Tim. 3:15 (ESV)

The dependence of the church on the Word is not a doctrine readily acceptable to all. In former days of Roman Catholic polemic, for example, its champions would insist that ‘the church wrote the Bible’ and therefore has authority over it. Still today one sometimes hears this rather simplistic argument. Now it is true, of course, that both Testaments were written within the context of the believing community, and that the substance of the New Testament in God’s providence … was to some extent determined by the needs of the local Christian congregations.In consequence, the Bible can neither be detached from the milieu in which it originated, nor be understood in isolation from it.

Nevertheless, as Protestants have always emphasized, it is misleading to the point of inaccuracy to say that ‘the church wrote the Bible’; the truth is almost the opposite, namely that’God’s Word created the church’. For the people of God may be said to have come into existence when his Word came to Abraham, calling him and making a covenant with him. Similarly, it was through the apostolic preaching of God’s Word in the power of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost that the people of God became the Spirit-filled body of Christ.

John Stott, Authentic Christianity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 303.