Sanctification and the Gospel

I came to Christ in repentance a little over two years ago now, and was baptized two years ago this month, in April of 2007. The progressive sanctification that we undergo as believers has been an uphill struggle for me—as it is, evidently, for all believers.

I thank God for the pastors and other elders at my church, who teach the Christ-centeredness of everything: creation; life; redemption; justification; sanctification—the whole nine yards.

But I read a fair amount of Christian writing: both in book form, and on the Internet. I try to be discerning, and am careful to restrict myself to teachers and writers who are Scripturally and doctrinally sound. Even so, there is, in some quarters, a troubling lack of clarity on the nature of sanctification.

Many writers appear to lay too much emphasis on what I must do to become sanctified, and too little emphasis on what Jesus Christ has already done, and what the Holy Spirit continues to do. This can lead to a kind of legalism (for lack of a better word).

* * *

There are two kinds of "legalism" that believing Christians can stray into:

1. A legalism that binds believers' conscience with extra-Scriptural rules: for example, an obligation that men must wear suits and ties on Sunday mornings, with condemnation by oneself and others for not doing so. This kind of legalism can easily be identified as such.

2. A legalism that binds believers' conscience by exhorting the believer to obey the commands of Scripture, in such a way as to make obedience the fruit of human endeavour, rather than the fruit of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

The second kind of "legalism" is the one I am referring to here. It is subtle and pernicious, and intentionally or unintentionally taught even by many well-meaning, ostensibly Gospel-centered teachers. In fact, I would dare say that such teachers understand the true nature of obedience and sanctification, but that in the way they convey it to their hearers, it may sometimes come across as a work of the flesh, and not of the Spirit.

The premise of the teaching is that at the moment of our rebirth, we were freely justified in Christ by the grace of God, but now that we have the indwelling Holy Spirit, we have both the ability and obligation to obey God for ourselves.

On the face of it, this is plainly true. But the end result is teachers exhorting readers or listeners to be holy—manifested in a thousand various and particular ways, all perfectly Biblical—and the binding of believers' consciences when they fall short. The problem is that our utter dependence on the finished work of Jesus Christ and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit as they pertain not only to our redemption, but to our sanctification can be underemphasized, turning an ostensibly God-centered theology of salvation into a me-centered theology of sanctification.

* * *

Before continuing, I should note, however, that there are dangerous errors if we swing too far the othr way in reaction. We can fall into "antinomianism" ("lawlessness"), whereby either we reject the idea that believers must exhibit any kind of spiritually changed life at all, or we simply take a completely passive approach to our own sanctification, and wait for the Holy Spirit to do for us what we are called upon to actively participate in. These approaches lead straight to carnality and backsliddenness, condemn us to an unfulfilled life as believers, and bear poor witness to the watching world, making a mockery of the hope that we claim is in us.

So what is the answer? How can we be obedient to Christ and bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit in our lives, if taking too active a role leads to legalism, and too passive a role to antinomianism? The answer lies in this: Legalism lays everything upon us and nothing upon God, while antinomianism lays everything upon God and nothing upon us. Sanctification should rather be understood as a process begun, sustained, and completed by God, but in which we take an active role as His disciples.

* * *

It is manifestly obvious that the inspired writers of Scripture exhort us to walk in obedience to Christ. For example, Paul writes to the believers in Philippi to "work out [their] own salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12), and Peter exhorts his readers to "be all the more diligent to make [their] calling and election sure" (2 Peter 1:10). These commands accord with John the Baptist's call to the Pharisees and Sadducees to "bear fruit(s) in keeping with repentance" (Matthew 3:8; Luke 3:8).

But divorced from their contexts, verses like these imply that we must work at our sanctification as if it depended upon and flowed from nothing but ourselves, disregarding our utter reliance upon the finished work of Jesus Christ and the ongoing work of the living, indwelling Holy Spirit. And likewise, if we attempt to bear fruit in our Christian walk by merely striving to follow rules—even if those rules are Biblical commands—we are no better than the Pharisees.

Both Philippians 2:12 ("work out your own salvation with fear and trembling") and 2 Peter 1:10 ("make your calling and election sure") begin with the word "therefore." Both exhortations are predicated on something: "Statement A, therefore, Statement B." What is that "Statement A"?

* * *

Paul wrote to the Philippians:

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
     Who, though He was in the form of God,
          Did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
     But made Himself nothing,
          Taking the form of a Servant,
          Being born in the likeness of men.
     And being found in human form,
          He humbled Himself
          By becoming obedient to the point of death,
          Even death on a Cross.
     Therefore God has highly exalted Him
          And bestowed on Him the Name that is above every name,
     So that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow,
          In heaven and on earth and under the earth,
     And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
          To the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God Who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

(Philippians 2:1-13, ESV; reformatting my own.)

Here, "work[ing] out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling" is given in the context of "being in full accord and of one mind...which is [ours] in Christ Jesus." "This mind" is "in humility count[ing] others more significant than ourselves" and looking "to the interests of others," as Jesus Christ did, "Who took the form of a servant...[humbling] Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death."

In other words, we work out our "own salvation with fear and trembling" through humility, obedience, and servanthood, loving one another, being of one mind with Jesus Christ, the Suffering Servant, Who obeyed God to the point of suffering and death, being crucified for our sins, and being raised on the third day in triumph and exaltation.

Our sanctification and obedience proceeds, in other words, from the finished work of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is not work that we do on our own, in a vacuum, but is predicated upon and proceeds from "this mind [that we are to have] among [ourselves], which is [ours] in Christ Jesus." Nor is it sustained merely through our own efforts, "for it is God Who works in [us], both to will and to work for His good pleasure." (Amen!)

* * *

So that's Paul writing to the Philippians. What about Peter? He wrote:

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him Who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

(2 Peter 1:3-11, ESV; reformatting my own)

So in this letter, Peter exhorts his audience to "make [their] calling and election sure," but again, predicated upon what? That God:

has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him Who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

And by what means has God granted "all things that pertain to life and godliness" and "His precious and very great promises"? "Through the knowledge of Him Who called us to His own glory and excellence." And on what basis is this knowledge granted? "That [we were] cleansed from [our] former sins" by the person and work of Jesus Christ, Who was a propitiation for our sins upon the Cross, was raised from the dead, and now sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven.

So again, our sanctification proceeds from the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is predicated upon what God the Father has granted to us through His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

* * *

Sanctification is not merely a matter of following the rules, nor even a matter of following the rules out of gratitude or indebtedness to Jesus Christ. The gift He has given us is one we never deserved, could never earn, and can never repay, no matter how hard we try. And indeed, the harder we try, the more we heap condemnation upon ourselves, for presuming that we can earn our way into salvation—even after God has freely justified us on the basis of Christ's sinless obedience and the penalty He paid for our sins.

No, what Christ has done forms the very basis and foundation of everything we do. Everything we do in obedience to Christ is from God, "Who works in [us], both to will and to work for His good pleasure," through the agency of the living, indwelling Holy Spirit.

The minute we begin trying to obey the commands of Scripture out of a sense of obligation—so that we can justify to ourselves or to others or to God that we are worthy of salvation—we are falling upon our own pride, our own self-righteousness, our own fleshliness: our own sin nature rearing its ugly head. We are disobeying God by attempting to follow His rules from a wrong motivation.

* * *

The Pharisees excelled at obeying God's commands to a "T." They strayed legalistically in both the senses I enumerated earlier. First, they added rules to Scripture, unnecessarily binding the conscience of their fellow Jews with "the commandments of men" (Matthew 15:1-9 and Mark 7:1-13, quoting Isaiah 29:13).

Second, they could obey the Law perfectly, yet still have hearts far from Him. The Rich Young Man in Matthew 19:16-22 and Mark 10:17-22, and the Pharisee who thanks God that he is not "like this tax collector" in Luke 18:9-14 were two such men.

True, God has "put [His] law within us, and [He] has [written] it upon [our] hearts" (Jeremiah 31:33), so that unlike the Pharisees, the fundamental disposition of our hearts is towards God and not towards ourselves.

But again, as soon as we strive of our own efforts to obey God, not contemplating the persons and work of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit for and in our lives, we are drifting into the same mire in which the Pharisees ended up, being excoriated repeatedly by their fellow Jew, our Lord and Saviour, for how they followed God's Law in the letter, yet not in the spirit (or in the Spirit, for that matter!).

* * *

How, then, do we walk in obedience to Christ—as we are clearly commanded to do—without straying into legalism, pride, self-righteousness, and all the other sins that, as empirical evidence amply demonstrates, beset Christians left, right, and centre?

The only answer seems to be that we must approach ongoing sanctification the same way we approach our initial regeneration. In both processes, as the Holy Spirit lays convictions and burdens upon our heart, we must humble ourselves and turn to the Cross of Christ in prayer and repentance—repenting for both our bad deeds and our "good" deeds, for even our good deeds are tainted with sin—turn our burdens over to Christ, "for [His] yoke is easy, and [His] burden is light" (Matthew 11:30). Resting in the finished work of Christ—for He already accomplished for us in His crucifixiion and resurrection what we will never be able to accomplish for ourselves—we then accept the ministry of the living, indwelling Holy Spirit in us, allowing Him "to will and to work for [God's] good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).

In fact, the one-time process of regeneration and the ongoing process of sanctification appear to be one of a piece. In both, God commands us to obedience, and holds us responsible for our response. In regeneration, we are powerless in and of our natural selves to respond, except by the monergistic work of God. In sanctification, we are able to respond, but we cannot do so adequately without relying wholly upon the Holy Spirit to work through us, and bear fruit in our lives.

So in practical terms, how do we respond? How do we cultivate obedient hearts, out of which will flow the fruits of the Spirit: the fruits of repentance in our lives? The only satisfactory answer seems to be to rest daily upon the grace of God made manifest in the finished work of Jesus Christ upon the Cross, and the ongoing work of the living, indwelling Holy Spirit.

And we can only do this through daily prayer and repentance, always turning back to the One Who created, redeemed, sanctifies, and sustains us: the One Who teaches, guides, protects, disciples, and chastises us, and Who, when we stand in His presence, will perfect us as a people whom He has called to Himself, for the sake of His everlasting Kingdom and Glory.

Amen!

Note: Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Eyewitness Testimony and the Gospel Proclamation

So on Easter morning, I finished re-reading the four Gospels. I read through them slowly once before, as a non-believer, many years ago; and since coming to faith in Christ, I've read through them fast—not really reading them for all they're worth. This is the first time, as a believer in Christ, that I have read the Gospels slowly and carefully—not skimming through rapdily—allowing their words to sink in.

The one key common theme to all four Gospels appears to be the emphasis on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ—as a fulfilment of the Scriptures—and the large amounts of eyewitness testimony surrounding those events: especially to His death and bodily resurrection. (A prime example is John 19:31-37, with the emphatic statement in verse 35.)

Indeed, when we look at Paul's definition of the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15, all those elements are there: "...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" (verses 3-4). Paul then goes on to give a long list of witnesses who saw the resurrected Jesus Christ, who—as the Gospels make clear, and Paul expounds further in this chapter—appeared to them in bodily form: Cephas (Peter), the other of the twelve Apostles, five hundred witnesses at once, James, and then all the other apostles (verses 5-7). (Paul then goes on to say that last of all, Christ appeared also to him, though Paul never claims that he saw Christ in His physical resurrection body, in the same intimate way that the others did.)

The portions of the four Gospels preceding Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, seem mainly intended to lay the groundwork for what followed, and to give a fuller picture of who Jesus Christ was and is. But the heart is this Gospel kerygma, the same one summed up by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with Scripture, was raised on the third day in accordance with Scripture, and appeared to many witnesses.

When the Evangelists wrote their respective accounts of the Gospel, the Gospel preaching tradition would already have been well established: the heart of the Gospel message preached by the earliest missionaries in Judea, Samaria, and the wider world. Each Evangelist expanded the core message to reflect His particular interest and audience, and to add from personal memory (Matthew, John) or first-hand recollections (Mark, Luke), accounts of our Lord and Saviour's life before the events of His last week in Jerusalem.

Last week, Justin Taylor linked to an article by C. Michael Patton, "What Happened to the Twelve Apostles? How Their Deaths Evidence Easter." There is historical evidence—of varying degrees of reliability—that all of the twelve Apostles except for John the Divine (and including Matthias, who replaced Judas Iscariot) eventually died for their faith: a faith that was grounded in their claim that they witnessed firsthand Christ's bodily resurrection from the dead. It would have been one thing if they had believed someone else's testimony, but they stood by their claim that they themselves could attest to what had happened.

The power of the Gospels lie in the fact that they are, in fact, expanded, fleshed-out versions of the Gospel message, based on eyewitness testimony to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Sanctification

The sanctification of the believer is a subject that takes a lifetime to comprehend (it seems), not to mention a lifetime to live out in practice! It is a matter that consumes a great amount of my thought and prayer life. How is it related to justification? What is the right balance between Divine sovereignty and human responsibility in sanctification? How do we walk the thin tightrope between antinomianism on the one hand, and works-based self-righteousness on the other?

Here is a short "catechism" (if you will) of where my thinking currently lies on sanctification. It is woefully in need of fleshing out with Scripture and more careful thought, but this is a starting point, at least.

1. How is sanctification manifested? Through the fruits of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.
   
   
2. What is evidence of the fruits of the Holy Spirit? Works done from a heart of obedience.
   
   
3. How does one cultivate an obedient heart? It cannot itself be cultivated through human works: this is pretty much the whole point of the Gospel! Consider, for example, the necessity of a New Covenant in Jeremiah 31:31-33.
   
   
4. How then does one cultivate an obedient heart? It can only be through prayer and repentance, for it can only be by throwing ourselves upon the grace and mercy of God, through the person and work of His Son Jesus Christ and the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Well, that's it for now. Short, and very much in need of revision and expansion.

The point—assuming I've got it right (and that's a big assumption!)—is that our sanctification is the out-working of our walk in obedience to Jesus Christ, and this is not a walk we can do of our own efforts. This is not to say that we should be passive in our sanctification (for that would lead to antinomianism), but that we can never rely upon our own flesh to achieve it.

One could argue that this is the process for justification, but not for ongoing sanctification. Once we have been justified in Christ, we have the seal of the Holy Spirit, and obedient, regenerated hearts, by which we are capable of walking in obedience to Christ. True, but we so easily fall back upon our flesh, and upon on our deceitful, natural inclinations, even as believers. How then can we become sanctified, except by constantly, repeatedly throwing ourselves back upon the Cross?

Rereading the Synoptics

As part of the Bible School course I'm taking currently, I have now re-read the Gospels According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Next will be John, followed by the rest of the New Testament.

The first time I comprehensively read the Gospels (including John) was in the late summer of 1992, long before I became a believer. I had read parts of the Old Testament two summers previously, and now it was time to read the New Testament. I was also attending a mainline United (Methodist-Presbyterian) church, and was generally going through a "spiritual" (for an agnostic) time in my life. I took the Gospels at face value, and my understanding of Christ deepened as a result, but there was stuff in all four Gospels that I just didn't understand, or that went over my head.

Within a couple of years, I had plunged into deep skepticism. I pored over the Synoptic Gospels a lot, though, influenced by the Jesus Seminar and writings in that vein, trying to identify the "authentic" Jesus buried under what I thought at the time were subsequent Christological accretions. As a result, I was so focussed on parts of the Gospels (the individual stories that appear in different versions in the three Synoptic Gospels), that I utterly missed the whole picture.

Fast forward many years, and I came to faith in Jesus Christ as our sole Lord and Saviour. A few months later, I participated in a class to read the Bible in 90 days, which I did. I was so excited to try rereading the Gospels—especially the Synoptic Gospels—now as a believer, but by the time I got to the Gospels, I was reading so fast (determined to finish), that I couldn't really savour the whole breadth and depth of what I was reading. Instead of minutely examining individual verses (as I'd done as a skeptic), now I was focussed on the overall redemptive narrative from Genesis to Revelation, so flew over the Gospels from a bird's-eye perspective, without taking the time to fly down and explore their nooks and crannies.

So now, two years later, I've finally had an opportunity to slowly, comprehensively reread Matthew, Mark, and Luke, taking time to pause, make notes, look up cross references, and so on. And what have I found? A multi-layered depth and richness to all three Gospels that could take a lifetime to really draw out and learn from. All the theology that is more explicitly and systematically set out in the writings of John and Paul is there in the Synoptic Gospels, but scattered about like so many glittering diamonds inlaid into a multi-coloured mosaic.

What strikes me in all three Gospels, above all else, is how delicately and inextricably intertwined are the two aspects of the person and work of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom: the human and divine; the "already" and "not yet"; the temporal and eternal. Focussing exclusively on Jesus Christ as teacher and on the Kingdom here and now, misses the divine, eternal King who existed before the foundation of the world, and who will return to judge the living and the dead. Focussing exclusively on Jesus Christ as the Son of God, Alpha and Omega, Judge and Redeemer, misses His many teachings on how we are to live in the here and now, waiting for His return.

There are other "paradoxes," too. We think of Matthew as focussing on Christ's being the long-promised Davidic King, but we also find the Great Commission. We think of Mark as being short and action-oriented, yet risk missing the teaching on discipleship through suffering and servanthood that lies at the heart of his Gospel. We think of Luke as being the evangelist to the Gentiles and the outcasts of society, yet miss the fact that he—the only Gentile writer of Scripture—was steeped in the Old Testament's teaching on God's grace towards just such people.

And another paradox. As conservative, evangelical Christians, we are all about the Gospel. And yet, we can easily spend time dwelling on Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Isaiah, or Paul's letters—and easily attest that all Scripture points to Christ—while overlooking the one place where the birth, life, ministry, suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour is set out more clearly than anywhere else: the Gospels themselves. Not only that, but there are, of course, clear teachings throughout the Gospels on how we are to live on a day-to-day basis as disicples of Christ, and on how we are to live in anticipation of His return. Are we truly living as He has called us to live? Or do we skip over His teaching for fear of falling into the trap of Kingdom-now liberalism, and losing sight of the Gospel altogether?

May we, as evangelical Christians who are by definition committed to and driven by the Gospel, keep the Gospels themselves front and centre in our minds, and may we never focus on the eternal at the expense of the temporal, nor on the temporal at the expense of the eternal.

Praying in Unusual Circumstances

Something happened last Monday evening that was totally, completely out of the ordinary...so much so that I am still amazed.

I had just finished re-reading the Gospel According to Matthew the day before, and was wondering how to apply Matthew 25:31-46 in everyday life. There seems to be a clear command there for us to care for our fellow Christian brothers and sisters—the implication seems to be that how we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ is evidence of whether we are truly God's children or not. (Which seems patently obvious, but what are the practical implications of working it out in everyday life?)

Anyhow, I was taking the bus home on Monday evening. Now, I was travelling earlier than normal—I usually leave work quite late—and furthermore, the bus I should have caught was delayed, and I ended up waiting half an hour and catching the next bus. So I was on completely not my normal bus, twice removed!

The bus was full. Every seat was taken, though no one was standing. I was sitting near the back of the bus.

Suddenly, I heard a woman across from me crying out; I looked over, and noticed she was reading a Gideon's New Testament. She continued crying out; someone asked if she was okay; some other people started moving away from her.

Then she called out in a panicked voice, "Is there a Christian on the bus? Someone who can pray in tongues with me?" I normally keep to myself on the bus—read my Bible sometimes, but that's about it—but there was nothing normal about this situation. This was a fellow believer in the throes of spiritual distress! I couldn't very well not speak up: I wouldn't be able to live with myself afterward. So I called back, "I'm a Christian, but I don't pray in tongues...."

The person sitting beside me moved aside so that I could get up and sit down beside this lady (I won't use her name, to protect her privacy). As I was moving over to where she was sitting, she started praying aloud in tongues. If I'd stopped to think about it, I probably would have asked myself what I was getting into; but everything happened so fast, I didn't even have time to think about it. At any rate, I was almost certainly the only person on that bus who could provide this lady with the help she needed.

She had her bag on the seat beside her, so standing beside her, I asked, "Are you okay?" She explained that she'd had a physical, oppressive feeling, like she was undergoing a spiritual attack. "Can I pray with you," I asked.

So she moved her bag out of the way, and I sat down beside her, and asked her for her name, so I could pray for her by name. She replied, and we prayed, me out loud, on a crowded bus, for the three or four minutes before we were getting close to my bus stop (in fact, I skipped my stop, to get off at the next one 400 yards further down the road).

I prayed that the Lord God and the Holy Spirit would protect and guide her, in the name of Jesus Christ, by whose broken body and shed blood we are saved. Of course, in such a spontaneous situation, I just prayed as the words came to me. The bus was noisy, so I had to speak up as I prayed, so that she could hear me—it was probably loud enough that others could hear me as well. But she and I had our eyes closed, and we were, of course, just focused on praying.

Providentially, the Bible School assignment I'd completed just a couple of weeks previously gave me the words to reassure her—after we'd finished praying—that Jesus Christ commands invisible legions of angels (Joshua 5:13-15; 2 Kings 6:15-17; Revelation 19:11-16), and as not only our Lord and Saviour but also our protector, can fight the spiritual battles that we cannot fight. We're not alone, and we don't have to fight these battles on our own!

She asked for my name, too, and my church, and I found out her church as well: a Foursquare Gospel church. I didn't know anything about the Fousquare Gospel movement, but oddly enough, when I got home, a TV documentary on the life of Aimee Semple McPherson was just starting, and I learned all about it!

That evening and the next day, I was in a stupor. What had just happened, I wondered. After a lot of sober-minded reflection, I can honestly say only that it all just unfolded in some strange, Spirit-led way. It was the strangest thing, not least because I was on a bus I don't even normally take—but for this lady, I was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. God in His sovereign providence had led me to that be on that bus, that evening, to minister to that lady.

She later contacted our church to thank me for what I'd done. The whole episode was as strange to her as it was to me! I found out that when she started getting this oppressive physical sensation, she pulled out her Gideon's New Testament, which she doesn't even normally carry with her. I learned that these were the verses she'd felt led to read before I prayed for her:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his Cross (Colossians 1:15-20).

So from a non-believer's point of view, here were a couple of crazy Christians having their own prayer service at the back of a crowded bus. But it was a witness to the power of the Word and the Spirit—and the Spirit working through the Word—and I pray that in some small way it advanced the Kingdom. Had she been having a medical emergency, I wouldn't have had the skills to help. But if it's a spiritual emergency, evidently God has given me a gift I didn't know I had—albeit a gift he'd already given me opportunity to practise in our church's weekly prayer meetings. I'd never before had to exercise this gift in such a rubber-meets-the-road situation.

And the strangest thing of all? A non-Charismatic Calvinist had the privilege of relying on the Holy Spirit to minister in word and prayer to a Charismatic sister in Christ, seeking the intercession of our common Mediator and High Priest, our soul hope and salvation.

Soli Deo gloria!

The Gospel

Update (October 16, 2008): made some minor edits for clarity.

Recently, I have been wrestling with the question of what exactly is the Gospel.

If you go by Paul's definition in 1 Corinthians 15, and go over the sermons in Acts (especially Peter's sermons in chapters 2 and 10 and Paul's sermon in chapter 13)—as well as the Old Testament texts cited throughout Acts (especially Psalm 2:7, Psalm 16, Psalm 110:1, Isaiah 52-53, and Joel 2)—and consider Jesus Christ's own pronouncements in Luke 24, a few basic elements emerge:

1. Jesus Christ died for our sins in accordance with Scripture.
2. Jesus Christ was raised bodily on the third day in accordance with Scripture, appeared to many witnesses, and sits at the right hand of God.
3. Jesus Christ will return to judge the living and the dead.
4. We are called to repent for our sins and be baptized, for all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Providentially, Phil Johnson has posted John Newton's very beautiful description of the Gospel here (see the last two paragraphs). Note that the contrast Newton depicts in the very last sentence between those who are self-sufficient and those who are hungry echoes Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and publican in Luke 18.

In fact, the essence of what our response should be is summed up in the publican's prayer in Luke 18:13—compare it especially to the heart of David's prayer in Psalm 51:1, and Asaph's prayer in Psalm 79:7. And on what basis should God have any mercy on us at all? On the basis of Christ's imputed righteousness to us, for He died for our transgressions.

There are a couple of sermons on the Pharisee's and publican's prayers in Luke 18 that are very much worth reading or listening to. First, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, whose words are recorded here. Secondly, Reddit Andrews, who may be heard here (MP3 file).

Finally, the recent discussion a few of us have been having on my old Old Testament post also helped to bring a lot of the stuff I've written above together.

The Gospel is the good news of what Jesus Christ has done to reconcile us sinners to our holy and righteous God. What wonderful news it is. Isaiah couldn't even have known its ultimate fulfilment in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour when he wrote this in Isaiah 53:7:

How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, "Your God reigns."

(Note that in the Septuagint, "brings good news" is "euangelizomenou," or "proclaims the Evangel": proclaims the Gospel. This is hardly a novel observation, either, since Paul quoted this very verse in Romans 10:15.)

I want to flesh out this post in future days, but this is all I can write for now, due to other demands on my time. Praise God for His grace and mercy, and to Him be all power and dominion and glory, forever and ever. Amen.

reFocus Conference Notes

My session notes from the reFocus Canada 2008 conference, Leading with Biblical Authority, are now up at the reFocus blog.

Update (April 29th, 2009): The conference notes are temporarily unavailable, and may be moved to a new location, when I have an opportunity to do so. For now, you can access audio and video recordings for the main sessions of both the 2007 and 2008 reFocus Canada conferences at this page.