Erskine on law and gospel
March 1, 2011
Here’s an old and helpful hymn on the law and the gospel from a true Scots worthy, Ralph Erskine (1685-1752):
The law supposing I have all,
Does ever for perfection call;
The gospel suits my total want,
And all the law can seek does grant.
The law could promise life to me,
If my obedience perfect be;
But grace does promise life upon
My Lord’s obedience alone.
The law says, Do, and life you’ll win;
But grace says, Live, for all is done;
The former cannot ease my grief,
The latter yields me full relief.
The law will not abate a mite,
The gospel all the sum will quit;
There God in thret’nings is array’d
But here in promises display’d.
The law excludes not boasting vain,
But rather feeds it to my bane;
But gospel grace allows no boasts,
Save in the King, the Lord of Hosts.
Lo! in the law Jehovah dwells,
But Jesus is conceal’d;
Whereas the gospel’s nothing else
But Jesus Christ reveal’d.
Grammar of the gospel
January 18, 2011
I’m in the stage of parenting where I’m a popular resource for homework help. Algebra is a lot more enjoyable now than it was when I was a teenager, even when I have to teach it to myself again. I find a particular joy in English grammar. I have a bachelor’s degree in English, but I avoided taking the Advanced Grammar class–probably because I had heard about how difficult the class was. My wife, however, took it. She still has the textbook…and I love it. I am fascinated by the way language works.
My affection for grammar was the hook that snagged on Justin Taylor’s “notes” on the 2010 Basics Conference. Below he summarizes a session with Dr. Sinclair Ferguson on “The Grammar of the Gospel.”
One of the sections I enjoyed was when Dr. Ferguson began talking about the structure—or grammar—of the gospel. Natively, the gospel is a foreign language to us and we need to learn that the grammar of the gospel is shaped by the gospel itself. He noted how hard it is for us as Americans to learn Latin. The verbs go at the end end. We are a doing community and it’s hard for us to put the “doing” at the end. But the gospel teaches us to put our doing word at the end and Jesus’ doing word at the beginning—but our native tendency is to drag back the doing word and put it at the beginning, and then top that up with Jesus’ doing, just to make life a little better.
There’s a very clear grammar, he said, in the gospel. . . .
The Mood of the Gospel
We need to learn that the grammar of the gospel has its appropriate mood.
In our languages today we speak in the indicative mood and the imperative mood. The indicative mood is saying these are the things that are true. The imperative mood is saying these are things you need to do. And in the gospel, the structure of the grammar is always indicative gives rise to imperative….
The Tense of the Gospel
There’s also a tense of the gospel: the present is to be rooted in the past. You need to go backward to what Christ has done in order to go forward in what you are to do. There is an emphasis of the already and the mopping-up operation of the not-yet.
The Prepositions of the Gospel
Do you remember how Paul uses prepositions in Galatians 2:20-21, where in a few words he summarizes the work of Christ:
The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me;
and therefore I am crucified with Christ;
nevertheless, I live, but not I; Christ lives in me.In these three prepositions the apostle Paul has, in a sense, summarized the basic structure of our union with Christ. Since we were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, he came as our substitute and representative—there is this sense in which we now know through faith that we were crucified with Christ. And the past that dominated us has been nailed to the cross; the dominion of sin that reigned over us has been broken—so that he has died for us and we have been crucified with him, and wonder of wonders there is this third dimension of our union with Christ: a mutual union, in which not only are we are said to be in Christ, but Christ the Lord of glory, in all the fullness of his role as our benefactor comes to dwell in the heart of the merest believer.
Paul Tripp has written a short piece about how the gospel affects life right now. The original appears at Desiring God.
Jason sat in front of me with the head-down, humped-shouldered posture of a confused and disappointed man. It wasn’t that Jason’s life had been a sad narrative of personal suffering. Sure, he had faced some hard things, but they were the typical things that you face when you’re living in a world that has been broken by sin. It wasn’t that Jason was alienated and friendless. He was surrounded by a group of less than perfect, but pretty faithful companions. It wasn’t that Jason was impoverished or homeless. No, he had a decent job and an adequate condo.
Jason’s problem was that he was lost in the middle of his own faith. It had become harder and harder for him to connect the beauty of what he believed to the gritty and often difficulty realities of his daily life. Jason’s problem was that he carried a gospel around with him that had a great big hole in the middle of it.
Jason could explain to you what it meant to say that he had been “saved by grace,” and he knew that he was going to spend eternity with his Savior. His problem was in the here and now. Day after day, in situation after situation and relationship after relationship, Jason didn’t carry with him a vibrant and practical sense of the nowism of the grace of Jesus Christ. Yes, Jason believed in life after death, but he desperately needed to understand life before death; the kind of radical life you will live when you understand what Christ has given you for the life he has called you to right here, right now.
Let me suggest four critical aspects of the nowism of the gospel (there are more) that Jason seemed functionally blind to.
1. Grace will decimate what you think of you, while it gives you a security of identity you’ve never had.
Grace will expose your sin, but it will not leave you without identity. Grace had liberated Jason, but he didn’t know it or live like it. He had not only been forgiven and empowered, but he had been given a brand new identity. Jason had been freed from looking inward for his identity. No longer did he have to measure his potential by his track record or the size of the problems he was facing.
His potential was as great as the grace of Christ. He had been freed from looking outward for his identity. No longer did he have to search for identity in his Read the rest of this entry »
Your garden hose is too small
June 14, 2010
Great post from Pastor Dave Dorr of Cincinnati, Ohio on how you can’t handle a house fire by yourself…and how you can’t handle the guilt and power of sin by yourself either:
Recently a firefighter in our church was told by one of his colleagues that belief in Jesus was for weak people. I found that ironic coming from a firefighter.
I have a fire hydrant in our side yard. I have never looked at the fire hydrant and felt any shame. I drive by a firehouse every day. I never think, “If this community didn’t have weak people than we would never need firehouses.” Every month when I pay my property taxes, which go towards financing fire departments, I never get angry at myself, thinking, “if I could just handle fire myself I wouldn’t have to write this check.”
Imagine a person whose house is on fire. The fire is raging out of control and the fire truck pulls up, sirens blaring. The person runs out of his house in a rage and says, “How dare you come to my house and think that I can’t handle this fire myself! Firefighters are for weak people, not for me.”
What would you think of someone like that? Insane.
We know that fire departments are for “weak” people because a power exists that we simply can’t deal with on our own: fire. Actually, we admire firefighters because they are people who have committed themselves to take on the power of fire at personal expense.
Christians are weak in the same sense that a community is “weak” for having fire departments. They are people who acknowledge that a power exists that they can’t confront and live — the holiness of God. This, however, is not cause for shame, because there was one man who dealt with that power at personal expense, on a cross. And, as every firefighter can admit, when someone is rescued from the flames, they’re not thinking about their weakness; they’re overjoyed that someone would risk it all to save them.
Original post here.
Cross and criticism
March 23, 2010
Few things in life are more difficult to handle rightly than criticism. How hard it is to speak and to respond in a gospel-centered way. As a pastor, I am a frequent recipient of criticism–the constructive and the destructive, the accurate, the half-true, and the utterly false, the well-timed and the ill-timed, the gracious and the malicious–I have learned that how I respond reveals a lot about me. What do I do with my critics? Do I shrink them in my field of vision so that I no longer acknowledge them, regard them, pay any attention to them, share with them, or regard them as part of the family? Or do I inflate them in my field of vision so that I brood over their words and think about them constantly, see them as larger than they really are, give them control over my feelings and decisions, or allow them to lead me around like a bull with a ring in his nose?
I commend to you Alfred J. Poirier’s “The Cross and Criticism,” which appeared in the Spring, 1999, issue of The Journal of Biblical Counseling. Here’s an excerpt:
In light of God’s judgment and justification of the sinner in the cross of Christ, we can begin to discover how to deal with any and all criticism. By agreeing with God’s criticism of me in Christ’s cross, I can face any criticism man may lay against me. In other words, no one can criticize me more than the cross has. And the most devastating criticism turns out to be the finest mercy. If you thus know yourself as having been crucified with Christ, then you can respond to any criticism, even mistaken or hostile criticism, without bitterness, defensiveness, or blameshifting. Such responses typically exacerbate and intensify conflict, and lead to the rupture of relationships. You can learn to hear criticism as constructive and not condemnatory because God has justified you.
Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? (Rom. 8:33-34a).
Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness; let him rebuke me—it is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it (Ps. 141:5).
Jesus is pure; his bride wasn’t
March 10, 2010
Russell Moore gives a gospel-saturated answer to a young woman asking about what she has a right to know about her boyfriend’s sexual past and when she has a right to know it. Take and read.
Also read Jeremiah 3.
There is a fountain
February 25, 2010
A serious topic: NPR news is broadcasting a series entitled “Campus Rape Victims: A Struggle for Justice.” The stats are alarming: one out of five college women report being the victim of a sexual assault! My experience in campus ministry and as a local church pastor (including 4+ years in a large state university town) has given me more opportunities than I would like to face this ugly reality.
Despite efforts to curb these assaults over the last decade, there’s not much evidence of progress. Why? Simple answers include: victim shame, the haze of alcohol (it tends to reduce clarity about whether sex was consensual or not), the desire of the male to deny and cover up, and (very sadly) the fear in some leaders who worry too much about false accusations. Yes, people do lie. However, the ones who bear that cost are usually victims.
The shame felt by victims stays with them a long time. It hinders marital intimacy and oneness, as a victim often does not tell her husband about “what happened in college,” afraid that he would not marry her if he knew the truth. The victim feels like damaged goods and ends up feeling ruled by the shame.
As Christians, it’s not a question of if we will deal with such issues; it’s more a question of when. Most of us can present the gospel in a way that deals with sins for which we bear responsibility and guilt. While this is true and essential, we also need to speak clearly about the ways the gospel addresses sins that have been committed against us. You cannot repent of being abused, tortured, or raped; however, the blood and righteousness of Christ speak of cleansing and hope for shame and defilement. Your identity must be marked only by what Jesus Christ has done for you and no longer by what has been done by you or to you. The scriptural language of atonement, cleansing, washing and purifying speaks a powerful truth to such souls. Jesus’ sacrifice takes away sin and shame forever for those who trust him. It’s a simple truth, but, as John Owen would say, “exceedingly difficult to exercise faith upon.”
Mark Driscoll and Garry Breshears’ Death by Love: Letters from the Cross has a chapter which addresses this issue wonderfully.
The Lord is my shepherd…he laid down his life for his sheep.
December 7, 2009
Joseph Randall at Feeding on Christ wrote this meditation on Christ our Good Shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep:
The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. Psalm 23:1
This amazing truth is ultimately fulfilled in the Good Shepherd – the Lord Jesus Christ. Only in Him is this supernatural satisfaction fully realized, and for this realization to happen, Jesus had to lay down His life for the sheep (John 10:11).
Jesus had to lack everything for His sheep.
Contra rest in green pastures, He had no place to lay His head (Matthew 8:20)
Contra still waters, He was baptized with the wrath of God (Luke 12:50)
Contra a restored soul, His soul was poured out unto death (Isaiah 53:12)
Contra being led in right paths, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter and offered Himself as a propitiation so that God might be proved righteous (Acts 8:32, Romans 3:25-26)
Contra fearing no evil in the dark death valley, He was made evil Who knew no evil and sorrowed unto death as He contemplated the darkness of death that would utterly consume Him (2 Corinthians 5:21, Mark 14:34-36)
Contra having God with him as His comfort, God forsook Him, pouring out His just wrath upon Him (Matthew 27:46)
Contra having a rod and a staff to comfort Him, the rod of the Father was pleased to crush Him (Isaiah 53:10)
Contra having a table spread before Him, He hungered in the wilderness and thirsted unto death (Luke 4:1-2, John 19:28)
Contra having His head anointed with oil, He wore a blood-soaked crown of thorns (Matthew 27:29)
Contra having a cup that overflows, He drank the cup of the wrath of God to the dregs (Isaiah 51:17, Matthew 26:39)
Contra goodness and mercy pursuing Him all His days, wrath and torment pursued Him unto death (Isaiah 53)
Contra dwelling in the house of the LORD, He was banished from the dwelling of the LORD as the unclean and cursed one (Galatians 3:13)
And He did all of this on behalf of stubborn, sinful, hell deserving sheep who rebelled against Him. This is the best news in the world! All who know this Good Shepherd by grace through faith will lack no good thing, for He will provide for them, protect them, comfort them, and satisfy them fully – He will be all and all to them now and forever and ever…
Bearing shame and scoffing rude
November 4, 2009
In Saudi Arabia these days a criminal can be crucified, though the practice differs from the Roman version. From Saudi court upholds child rapist crucifixion ruling:
A Saudi court of cassation upheld a ruling to behead and crucify a 22-year-old man convicted of raping five children and leaving one of them to die in the desert, newspapers reported on Tuesday. The convict was arrested earlier this year after a seven-year old boy helped police in their investigation. The child left in the desert after the rape was three years old, Okaz newspaper said. . . . In Saudi Arabia, crucifixion means tying the body of the convict to wooden beams to be displayed to the public after beheading.
Human rights activists quibble over the punishment for this particularly horrible crime. I suspect that beheading the criminal before crucifying him was seen, historically, as a merciful gesture. But the shame of crucifixion–displaying the malefactor for all to see–is undeniable.
This contemporary crucifixion preserves at least part of the significance of what our Lord Jesus went through: how heinous it was for Jesus to bear and take away the sin of the world, including child rapes! How repulsive the spectacle. How shameful, that he be lifted up, convicted and condemned, humiliated and killed.
Nietzsche and the death-of-God theologians, the new atheists who accuse God of immorality and child-abuse, those who mock and blaspheme God today, have nothing on what God already did of and to himself to redeem us.
“Bearing shame and scoffing rude/ in my place condemned he stood /sealed my pardon with his blood / Hallelujah! What a Savior!” (Philip Bliss, 1875).
