All That He Is Becomes Mine…

It is astonishing that I should so be one
with Christ, that all that He is becomes
mine; and all that I am becomes His!

His glory mine; my humiliation His!

His righteousness mine; my guilt His!

His joy mine; my sorrow His!

His riches mine; my poverty His!

His life mine; my death His!

His heaven mine; my hell His!

The daily walk of faith is a continuous
development of the wonders of this
wondrous truth. That in traveling to Him
empty; I should return from Him full.
That in going to Him weak; I should come
away from Him strong. That in bending
my steps to Him in all darkness, perplexity,
and grief; I should retrace them all light,
and joy, and gladness.

–Octavius Winslow (emphasis mine)

If you’re interested in reading more of Winslow’s work, consider Soul Depths and Soul Heights: Sermons on Psalm 130 and No Condemnation in Christ Jesus.

(HT: Grace Gems)

GOOD NEWS: Calvin on Justification

“Justified by faith is he who, excluded from the righteousness of works, grasps the righteousness of Christ through faith, and clothed in it, appears in God’s sight not as a sinner but as a righteous man. Therefore, we explain justification simply as the acceptance with which God receives us into his favor as righteous men. And we say that it consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.”

-John Calvin, John T. McNeil, ed., Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960) III.xi.2, p. 726-7.

(HT: Brian Hedges)

GOOD NEWS: London Baptist Confession (1689) on Justification

It’s often, in the course of my reading, that I come across a brief quote or section of a particular piece that I find especially encouraging as it relates to the glory of the gospel.  I’ve decided to begin regularly posting these findings under the heading “Good News”.

Below is section 11.3 of the London Baptist Confession (1689), on the doctrine of justification.  If you’re unfamiliar with the London Baptist Confession, a brief introduction can be found HERE.

Let the following encourage, edify, and remind you of what Christ has accomplished for all those who, by faith, receive and rest in him alone.  Don’t gloss over it.  Let it steep…

By His obedience and death Christ paid in full the debt of all those who are justified. By the sacrifice of Himself in His blood-shedding on Calvary, and His suffering on their behalf of the penalty they had incurred, He fully and absolutely satisfied all the claims which God’s justice had upon them. Yet their justification is altogether of free grace, firstly because Christ was the free gift of the Father to act on their behalf; secondly because Christ’s obedience and His satisfying the demands of the law was freely accepted on their behalf; and thirdly because nothing in them merited these mercies. Hence God’s exact justice and His rich grace are alike rendered glorious in the justification of sinners.

Isa. 53:5,6; Rom. 3:26; 8:32; 2 Cor. 5:21; Eph. 1:6,7; 2:7; Heb. 10:14; 1 Pet.1:18,19.

REVIEW: The Next Story

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO OR TO PURCHASE *THE NEXT STORY* at WTSBOOKS.com!

Technology is exciting and developing at exponential proportions.  I’m only 29 years old, and though my grandparents have seen more monumental technological developments within their lifetime, I still think the difference between my HTC EVO 4G (Android) and the Motorola flip phone that my family owned while I was in Jr. High is pretty astonishing.  I’ve heard it said that there is more computing power in my pocket than there was in the shuttle that carried the first astronauts to the moon…But wait…that’s my phone I’m talking about.  There have been such intense technological developments that making and receiving calls is only a small fraction of what my phone can accomplish.  Because of my phone’s massive computing potential, it also brings with it the ability to be connected to the world in more ways than my grandparents would understand if I tried my hardest to explain it to them.  And though this convenience of connection was supposed to make life, well…more convenient, it as often taken control of us to an idolatrous extent…

How can we live, harnessing the gracious benefits of technology, while approaching it with biblical discernment so as not to be used by technology, but to use technology for the glory of God?

Tim Challies, blogger, book reviewer, and independent web-designer, has done us a great service in thinking diligently, creatively, and yes, even theologically, about how we can effectively use technology and exist in a thoroughly digital world to the glory of God.  His recent book, The Next Story: Life and Faith After The Digital Explosion (Zondervan, 2011), briefly traces the historical development of technology into the present digital age, then, with informed discernment, examines the pros and cons of digital technology, its effects on human communication and development, and its effects on our lives and families (particularly as Christians).

I deeply appreciated Tim’s writing-style in this book.  He was informative, engaging, and honest about the benefits and dangers presented to us in a digital world.  The sections I found the most particularly helpful included the ‘Introduction’ on becoming a “thoughtful” user of technology.  In terms of being a “thoughtful” user of technology Challies notes, “We are looking for that sweet spot where our use of technology is not just thoughtful and informed, but it is informed by the Bible, by an understanding of God’s purpose for technology” (p. 16).

Additionally, Tim included a couple profoundly helpful “Aside” sections along the way.  His first, entitled “Talk to Your Tech,” addresses the fact that we need to “seek to understand how a technology will change and shape us before we introduce it into our lives” (p. 61).  He poses four helpful questions to ask of a technology before embracing it into your life:

1. Why Were You (the technology) Created?
2. What Is the Problem to Which You Are the Solution, and Whose Problem Is It?
3. What New Problems Will You Bring?
4. What Are You Doing to My Heart?

Particularly regarding the last question, Challies notes the need to be discerning in that while the certain technology may not be idolatrous to us, it has the potential of increasing the hold of another idol upon our lives.  …Extremely helpful and timely insights here!

Further along in the book, Tim includes another helpful aside on the impact of technology upon the family.  While some may react to technology all together and desire to separate oneself as much as possible, Tim gives advantageous insights and guidelines as to how we may use technology to the benefit of our family and, again, the glory of God.  Challies introduces seven steps to consider when implementing a new technology within the life of your family:

1. Educate
2. Fence (create healthy boundaries)
3. Mentor (sit with your children as they use the new technology)
4. Supervise
5. Review (ask your children questions about how they’ve used the technology)
6. Trust
7. Model

These “aside” sections, along with his segments on communication, distraction, and the effect of technology on truth and authority, make The Next Story an immensely informative, discerning, theological and practical guide to living well in an ever-changing and fast-paced digital world before the eternal and unchanging God.  I whole-heartedly commend it to you!

Read inside (PDFs): Sample Pages

Publisher: Zondervan
Author: Challies, Tim
ISBN-10: 0310329035 | ISBN-13: 9780310329039
Binding: Hardcover
List Price: $19.99
PURCHASE at Westminster Bookstore: $12.87 – 36% Off

*The publisher, at no charge, for the purpose of review, provided a copy of this book.  I was under no obligation to write a favorable review.

 

 

MYTH: Calvinism Promotes Antinomianism

The Reformation-era charge: teaching salvation by faith breeds lawlessness

Acting with great inconsistency, opponents of the Reformation in the sixteenth century liked to imply that early Protestantism encouraged the hope that salvation through Jesus Christ could be confidently enjoyed by a faith never followed by good works.  One finds this in the Decrees of the Council of Trent, which met intermittently between 1545 and 1563. Trent condemned, as a terrible error, the opinion (attributed to Protestants) that “nothing besides faith is required in the Christian…and that the Ten Commandments in nowise appertain to the Christian”.  Now, taking as disputable the question of whether any responsible Protestant ever taught this viewpoint (I think it very doubtful), the question still remains as to why such a condemnation was ever uttered by Trent at all.  I have suggested (above) that there was great inconsistency involved in Trent’s doing so.

The bishops of the Roman church, assembled at Trent, knew full well that their church had accumulated a huge backlog of abuses involving misuse of funds, sale of offices (simony), and widespread violations of vows of celibacy (by priests, bishops, and members of monastic orders). No one attributed the widespread occurrence of these grave matters within the Roman church to its teaching that “nothing besides faith is required for the Christian”. And who would ever have accepted that suggestion as valid, if it had been made? And yet, within Catholicism there was a widespread tendency to live as though the Ten Commandments did not apply to the Christian. How could and did that communion level this very charge at early Protestants?

This charge (made by whichever party) is about what Christians have traditionally called “antinomianism”(the rejection of the moral law as relevant to the Christian’s experience); it has a long and checkered history. We are probably right in detecting it in the confused persons whom the apostle Paul rebukes in the 6^th chapter of his Roman letter (these individuals fancied that God’s grace would be magnified if they continued to sin); its existence is also highlighted in the group (termed ‘Nicolaitans’) rebuked in Revelation 2:6 and 15. Antinomianism’s opposite is the biblical insistence that the life of the one who is justified by faith in Christ (Rom. 5.1) will be one characterized by careful conformity to God’s commandments in reliance on the indwelling assistance of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5.13-26).

Antinomianism: the persistent charge against Calvinism

The council of Trent was thinking of Protestants considered generically when it gave out its warning against ‘salvation by faith’ teaching.  Since that time, this charge has continued to be hurled especially at followers of Reformed theology, and for two reasons:

1. not only does the Reformed expression of Protestantism join with others in affirming that the sinner is accepted as righteous in God’s sight by faith placed in Jesus Christ, but also
2. Calvinism (better: Reformed theology) has consistently taught that those who do place their whole trust in Christ in order to be justified before God do so as persons chosen for salvation and specially assisted by the Holy Spirit (see 1 Thessalonians 1.4).

In the judgment of many, this set of ideas contains within it the ingredients of what might be called a ‘perfect storm’.  After all, these urge, if one accepts the suggestion that he or she has been chosen for salvation (and – chosen without respect to any native goodness or prospect of goodness) why would not such a person live on ‘auto-pilot’ and be morally indifferent all in the inflated confidence that such a decreed salvation was his or hers irrevocably? One contemporary theologian, Norman Geisler, has warned of the “personal irresponsibility” that this kind of confidence breeds.

How has Reformed theology responded?

In point of fact, from the beginning of the Protestant era, Reformed theology has consistently emphasized that the man or woman who has come into right relationship with God by justifying faith in Christ may not:

rashly cast out the whole of Moses and bid farewell to the two tables of the Law…Moses has taught that the law, which among sinners can engender nothing but death, ought among the saints to have a better and more excellent use. (Calvin: Institutes 2.7.13)

And in the next century, when this confusion of grace with license had apparently not been eradicated, Reformed theology again insisted:

The moral law of God doth forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof….Neither doth Christ, in the Gospel, any way dissolve but much strengthens this obligation. (Westminster Confession 19.5)

In the judgment of these authorities, the ongoing role of the Ten Commandments (and, as amplified by Jesus Christ in Matthew 5 & 6) was permanent and ongoing for the believer. Mainstream Reformed theology has never allowed that the principle of election in any way diminishes the need for careful obedience; on the contrary the stated goal of election in Christ is that we be “holy and blameless” (Eph. 1.4); circumspect living, rather than license, is the mark of God’s chosen people.

Even so, it remains the case that not only in the century of the Reformation, but in every century since, some evangelical Protestants have theorized that the law of God is unnecessary for the believer. To be fair, a portion of these have lived exemplary lives and with these, we have little to quarrel about. There is, after all, a well-intentioned Christian attitude which takes the view that the Christian now lives under the dictates of the Gospel, rather than the dictates of Sinai. Now this, no less than the view recommended here, can make for holy living.

But quite distinct from this, there has as well always been a contingent of those who have theorized that careful walking in the ways of the Lord is non-necessary since

1. the believer has been justified from eternity, and this justification is a reality for us prior to our becoming aware of it, and
2. self-examination and confession of sin is not called for in the Christian, as all sin has already been pardoned and
3. marks of grace are not important in the life of the Christian (see 2 Peter 1.5-10) as assurance of salvation can be enjoyed independent of any such evidence of being ‘new’ in Christ.

Though it may sound strange to report it, these “fringe” attitudes not only cropped up among some late seventeenth and early eighteenth century Calvinists, but among the followers of John Wesley.  Wesley’s own brother-in-law, Westley Hall, (also a Methodist preacher) was denounced for being a polygamist and consequently forfeited his status among the Wesleyans. His was not an isolated case. Now this recognition that in recent centuries, the antinomian tendency is not associated exclusively with any particular branch of Protestantism, but found on the fringes of almost all, brings us to the realization that antinomianism is a perennial pitfall for all branches of Christianity.

Isn’t this the sorry truth? Whether it is the mishandling and embezzlement of charitable gifts, the preying on children as well as those in counseling situations, marital infidelity, covetousness and the incessant pursuit of ‘more’, these are the sins that cling to far too much of what passes for Christian leadership and Christian living today.  We have seen the fear of God evaporate; we have seen the love of the world proliferate – among those professing to be the people of God. The sad fact is that many of us frequent churches in which the commandments of God (and the amplification of them given by Jesus) are no longer recited or read. Sermons are seldom preached on these themes. Antinomianism stalks us all….

Paradoxically, Reformation Protestantism – far from being the breeding ground of antinomianism – may indeed offer us the resources for combating it.  The venerable practice of catechizing children required the committing of the Ten Commandments to memory; Reformed church walls were often emblazoned with the two tables of the law. Corporate confession of sin after reading the Decalogue was long the regular Sunday practice; cycles of sermons on the commandments were regularly preached in churches of the Reformed tradition (and with suitable evangelistic applications, too). Thus, rather than extending the life of the old canard that Calvinism promotes antinomianism, it would be better to understand that this expression of Protestantism is one of the best means of resisting it.

*READ LAST WEEK’S GUEST POST: “MYTH: TULIP has the Imprint of Antiquity”

Kenneth J. Stewart is professor of theological studies and former chair of the department of biblical and theological studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. He holds an M.Phil. in early modern European history from the University of Waterloo and a Ph.D. in nineteenth-century Christianity from the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Ten Myths About Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition.

MISSING THE SUBTLETY.

Early on Sunday, my mind revisited the whole Rob Bell/Love Wins controversy as I was thinking about his words in the book’s video trailer.  Bell says:

“And then there is the question behind the questions, the real question: What is God like? Because millions and millions of people were taught that the primary message—the center of the Gospel of Jesus—is that God is going to send you to hell, unless you believe in Jesus. And so, what gets, subtlely, sort of caught and taught is that Jesus rescues you from God. But what kind of God is that; that we would need to be rescued from this God? How could that God ever be good; how could that God ever be trusted? And how could that ever be good news?” (emphasis mine) [CLICK FOR VIDEO]

Then, by God’s grace, I thought…THERE’S NOTHING “SUBTLE” ABOUT ROMANS 5:6-11!

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

(Romans 5:6-11 ESV, emphasis mine)

We can trust Paul’s good news about this good, gracious, saving, faithful, merciful, consistent, compassionate, trustworthy, promise-keeping, reconciling, just, and justifying God!

For a compilation of resources relating to hell, divine judgment, and the Rob Bell controversy, see my earlier post: HELPS ON HELL

MACHEN & DEADLY MATH.

It’s been said, “addition to the work of Christ is the greatest subtraction of all.”  J. Gresham Machen, in his book, Christianity & Liberalism, includes a pointed section on the supreme importance of clinging solely to the all-sufficient work of Christ in the gospel, and the great necessity of guarding against the abandonment of the true gospel by adding to it our own efforts.  Speaking of the letter to the Galatians, and Paul’s fierce words against the Judaizers (a religious group who believed that circumcision was necessary, in addition to Christ’s work, for salvation), Machen writes:

“About many things the Judaizers were in perfect agreement with Paul.  The Judaizers believed that Jesus was the Messiah; there is not a shadow of evidence that they objected to Paul’s lofty view of the person of Christ.  Without the slightest doubt, they believed that Jesus had really risen from the dead.  They believed, moreover, that faith in Christ was necessary to salvation.  But the trouble was, they believed that something else was also necessary; they believed that what Christ had done needed to be pieced out by the believer’s own effort to keep the Law. From the modern point of view the difference would have seemed to be very slight.  Paul as well as the Judaizers believed that keeping the law of God, in its deepest import, is inseparably connected to faith.  The difference concerned only the logical—not even, perhaps, the temporal—order of three steps.  Paul said that a man (1) first believes on Christ, (2) then is justified before God, (3) then immediately proceeds to keep God’s law.  The Judaizers said that a man (1) believes on Christ and (2) keeps the law of God the best he can, and then (3) is justified….

…Such an attempt to piece out the work of Christ by our own merit, Paul saw clearly, is the very essence of unbelief; Christ will do everything or nothing, and the only hope is to throw ourselves unreservedly on His mercy and trust Him for all” (emphases mine).

[Taken from J. Gresham Machen, Christianity & Liberalism (new ed., Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 20-21.]

Ray Ortlund is quoted as saying, “self-justification is the deepest impulse in the fallen human heart.” So easy it is to slip into the place where we allow our confidence before the throne of God to be based on the work of Jesus and something we’ve done:

“I’m saved because of what Jesus did, and I’ve been baptized.”

“I’m saved because of what Jesus did, and I go to church.”

“I’m saved because of what Jesus did, and I only read the KJV.”

“I’m saved because of what Jesus did, and I haven’t committed any ‘really bad’ sins.”

“I’m saved because of what Jesus did, and I don’t drink alcohol.”

“I’m saved because of what Jesus did, and I responded to an altar call.”

“I’m saved because of what Jesus did, and I prayed the prayer.”

God help us to guard against the temptation of believing that our right position before him depends on anything other than the all-sufficient work of Jesus in our place!  The good news of the gospel is that the sinner is saved completely by grace through faith in Christ alone.  We are not called to add to his work, but helplessly receive it by faith.  Simply stated, we’re saved by what Jesus has done, not what we do.  Any other “gospel” that demands addition to the work of Christ is no gospel at all.

For more on J. Gresham Machen, check out the archive of Westminster Seminary California’s recent conference, “Christianity & Liberalism Revisited.”

THE GOSPEL & THE PERSON OF CHRIST: Incarnation

The gospel is good news.  The gospel, as a matter of fact, is the greatest message, the greatest announcement ever to be proclaimed in the world. It is a declaration about something that has been done, something that has been accomplished.  To guard against confusion, the gospel is not something we do, or something we’ve done.  The gospel, rather, is the good news about what God has done to save sinners through his Son, Jesus Christ.  Therefore, the all-important question is not, “WWJD?: What would Jesus do?”, but “WHJD?: What has Jesus done?!”  What has Jesus done to save those who believe in him?

Some would certainly answer, and rightly so, “Jesus died for me.”  Again, while that is gloriously true, it is not all that Jesus has done for our salvation. We must not minimize the gospel to simply the death of Christ in the place of sinners.  The gospel is the good news of all of Christ’s saving work in his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension, intercession, and return.

Over the next 8 weeks, we will briefly look at how each aspect of Christ’s work in the gospel is essential to the believer’s salvation.  The implications of the totality of Christ’s work in our place are far reaching, and the fuel by which we continue to live for his glory in this life!

THE GOSPEL AND THE INCARNATION

“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…And the Word 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.”

John 1:1-5, 14, ESV

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

Galatians 4:4-5, ESV

The plan of God the Father in the person and work of his Son, Jesus Christ, creates a chasm of difference between Christianity and every other world religion.  Where the other religions of the world teach what one must do in order to earn and keep the favor of their “god(s)”, Christianity declares, emphatically, what God alone has done to graciously save, and bestow his favor upon, his people.  While the other religions of the world speak of ascending to god, Christianity dramatically differs in its news about the work God has done in his coming to seek and save the lost.  Not only has God himself accomplished everything needed to be done to restore repentant sinners into a right relationship with himself, he has graciously revealed his saving work to us through his Word; all of which centers upon his Son, Jesus Christ.

God reveals himself to us in Scripture as one God, eternally existing in three distinct persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (cf. Matt. 3:13-17).  Before time began, the triune God existed in perfect, joy-filled community within himself and was in need of nothing.  It was because of God’s good pleasure that he chose to create the universe to manifest his glory in all of creation.

God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, being distinct from all creation, chose to create humankind (male & female/Adam & Eve) in his image and likeness.  He placed them on earth [in the garden of Eden] as his representatives, and they were to worship him as Creator as they joyfully stewarded his creation and multiplied to fill the earth (Gen. 1:28).  Choosing to refuse God’s good and gracious rule, acting as gods unto themselves, they were deceived by Satan*, and willfully disobeyed God’s command; sin then entered and spread like cancer in the world.  Because Adam and Eve broke God’s good law, they became guilty of sin, incurred God’s just curse for their disobedience, were condemned to death, and cast out of God’s presence to bless.

Because of his faithful grace, God promised that through the offspring of the woman (Eve) a Savior would come to defeat Satan, sin, and death (Gen. 3:15). He would redeem God’s people from the curse, restoring them into a right relationship with God, and finally renewing all of creation through his work.  God, being the first mover, chose to continue to relate to his people through unfolding covenants that pointed toward a new covenant through which he would save a people to the praise of his glorious grace.  [We’ll look more specifically at aspects of these covenants in the weeks ahead.]

John wrote in his gospel that the eternal Word of God, Jesus Christ (God the Son), became flesh and made his dwelling among us (cf. John 1:14).  Conceived by the power of the God the Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary, God himself entered human history in the person of his Son.  God fulfilled his promise to Adam and Eve in the garden, in the giving of himself.  He came to be the Savior of his people.

Theologians refer to Christ’s taking on of human flesh as the incarnation.  The word “incarnation” comes from a Latin term, which literally means, “in meat.”  God the Son wrapped himself in human flesh in the incarnation.

Dr. Robert Reymond explains the incarnation as follows:

“Without ceasing to be all that he was and is as the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the eternal Son of God took into union with himself in the one divine Person that which he had not possessed before-even a full complex of human attributes-and became fully and truly man for us men and for our salvation.  Jesus of Nazareth was and is the God-man.”

[Robert Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 546.]

Simply stated, Jesus, God the Son, uncreated and pre-existing infinitely in eternity past, added to his eternal divine nature a fully human nature, thus having two full natures united in his person.  As Reymond stated, “Jesus of Nazareth was and is the God-man.”

What does the incarnation have to do with the gospel?  Why was the incarnation necessary?

 

As human beings, because of the guilt inherited from Adam, we’ve all been born sinful, spiritually dead, and separated from God and are sinners to the core.  Apart from a Savior who can make us new, all we can do is sin.  And, because our sin is against an infinite God, the penalty we incurred is of infinite measure.  We deserve death and eternal separation from God.

Jonathan Edwards wrote on this matter:

“The crime of one being despising and casting contempt on another, is proportionably more or less heinous, as he was under greater or less obligations to obey him.  And therefore if there be any being that we are under infinite obligations to love, and honor, and obey, the contrary towards him must be infinitely faulty.

Our obligation to love, honor, and obey any being is in proportion to his loveliness, honorableness, and authority…. But God is a being infinitely lovely, because he hath infinite excellence and beauty….

So sin against God, being a violation of infinite obligations, must be a crime infinitely heinous, and so deserving infinite punishment….”

[Jonathan Edwards, “The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners.” In The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974), 669. Cited in John Piper, Desiring God (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah, 2011), 60.]

We need an infinite person to take upon himself our infinite penalty.  We also need someone who can completely identify with us in our humanity to be qualified to stand in our place.  Jesus is the only person who has ever met those qualifications.  He alone is qualified to be our Savior from God’s righteous wrath, our sin, and the eternal death we deserve.  We are people in desperate need of God Incarnate.  Praise be to God that, “when the fullness of time had come, [he] sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5).

Some gospel conclusions in light of the incarnation:

• Jesus wrapped himself in human flesh so we could be wrapped in his righteousness.
• Jesus set aside his glorious position with the Father and Spirit in eternity past so, through him, we could be welcomed into the joyful communion of the Trinity for all of eternity future.
• Jesus was the ultimate missionary who was sent by the Father to reveal God to humankind; humbly dwelling among those he came to save. And, by Jesus’ authority, we are commanded to be on mission with God in all the world, proclaiming the good news about what God has done in Christ.
• Jesus added full humanity to the fullness of his deity to fully redeem fallen human beings and fill them with his Spirit.
• At the incarnation, Jesus, the Uncreated, entered creation so that the created could dwell forever in the New Creation with the Uncreated.

ENDNOTES |

*Satan is a created angelic being who, at some point in eternity past, set himself up to be worshipped as God.  He was cast out of heaven, along with the angels who followed him, destined for eternal damnation (2 Pet. 2:4; Rev. 20:10).

“THE GOSPEL & THE PERSON OF CHRIST” SERIES:

Introduction

The Gospel & The Incarnation

THE GOSPEL AND SUBSTITUTIONARY…RIGHTEOUSNESS.

As we speak the gospel to others we often tend to focus, sometimes solely, on the death of Christ, in the place of those who believe, to pay the penalty for the breaking of God’s holy Law (Rom. 5:18-21).  It is a wonderfully glorious truth that Christ died, as a substitutionary atoning sacrifice, absolving our guilt of sin and absorbing the just wrath of God (Isa. 53:4-6, 10; Col. 2:13-15)!  However, we often fail to rest in the fact that Christ lived a life of perfect obedience to the Law of God (Matt. 5:17; Gal. 4:4-7) that he may be our substitutionary righteousness as well.

Zach Ursinus, a 16^th century theologian, professor, and key author of the Heidelberg Catechism, noted the following about the relationship between the Law, the gospel, and our righteousness in Christ in his Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism:

“The law promises life to those who are righteous in themselves, or on the condition of righteousness, and perfect obedience. “He that doeth them, shall live in them.” “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” (Lev. 18:5; Matt. 19:17) The gospel, on the other hand, promises life to those who are justified by faith in Christ, or on the condition of the righteousness of Christ, applied unto us by faith. The law and gospel are, however, not opposed to each other in these respects: for although the law requires us to keep the commandments if we would enter into life, yet it does not exclude us from life if another perform these things for us” (pp. 104-105, emphasis mine).

The righteousness that we have in Christ with God is not based on our performance for him, but rather on Christ’s radical performance and perfect fulfillment of the Law for us.  The gospel frees us from the weight of trying to gain favor or keep favor with God through our obedience by pointing us to Christ who has done for us all that God the Father requires.  Therefore, God no longer condemns us because of our sin, but by his Spirit he graciously convicts us, freely and fully forgives in Christ, and continues the good work of sanctification that he began in us when he saved us (Phil. 1:6). Thus, we are freed to joyfully and vigorously pursue holiness in the environment of the gospel (Gal. 5:1).

As you live before God today, thank him for sending his Son, and rest in all of Christ’s work for you.  Not simply limited to Christ’s life and death, the amazing grace of the gospel is that Christ came, lived, died, rose, ascended, intercedes, and will return to save to the uttermost those who, by faith, receive his work on their behalf.

**Tullian Tchividjian has written an important post on recovering an emphasis that focuses upon the totality of Christ’s work in our place.  Read it here.

INTERVIEW W/ MIKE HORTON.

Zondervan Academic recently interviewed Michael Horton regarding the upcoming release of his new systematic theology, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims On the Way.  Some are saying it will be the most influential systematic theology since the release of Berkhof’s in 1932.

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EDITORIAL DESCRIPTION

Michael Horton’s highly anticipated The Christian Faith represents his magnum opus and will be viewed as one of—if not the—most important systematic theologies since Louis Berkhof wrote his in 1932. A prolific, award-winning author and theologian, Professor Horton views this volume as ‘doctrine that can be preached, experienced, and lived, as well as understood, clarified, and articulated.’ It is written for a growing cast of pilgrims making their way together and will be especially welcomed by professors, pastors, students, and armchair theologians.Features of this volume include: (1) a brief synopsis of biblical passages that inform a particular doctrine; (2) surveys of past and current theologies with contemporary emphasis on exegetical, philosophical, practical, and theological questions; (3) substantial interaction with various Christian movements within the Protestant, Catholic and Orthodoxy traditions, as well as the hermeneutical issues raised by postmodernity; and (4) charts, sidebars, questions for discussion, and an extensive bibliography, divided into different entry levels and topics.

FOR MORE RESOURCES BY MIKE HORTON CHECK OUT…

White Horse Inn & Modern Reformation

(HT: ZonderAcademic)