Before the Throne of God Above

The Gospel is not merely the starting-block of a relationship with Christ. It is also the track on which we run the race, our sure and certain foundation on which we face the daily vagaries, blessings, and opportunities of life.

A song that explores this truth in theologically precise, poetically beautiful words is "Before the Throne of God Above" by Charitie Lees Smith.

I've posted these words before, but they are just too powerful to ever let them get far from memory.

Before the throne of God above

I have a strong, a perfect plea;

A great High Priest, whose Name is Love,

Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on His hands,

My name is written on His heart;

I know that while with God He stands

No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,

And tells me of the guilt within,

Upward I look, and see Him there

Who made an end of all my sin.

Because the sinless Savior died,

My sinful soul is counted free;

For God, the Just, is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there, the risen Lamb!

My perfect, spotless Righteousness,

The great unchangeable I AM,

The King of glory and of grace.

One with Himself, I cannot die;

My soul is purchased by His blood;

My life is hid with Christ on high,

With Christ, my Savior and my God.

If only . . .

If only. . . .

Two words that often express a great deal of heartache.

• If only I had finished my degree. . . .
• If only he had not been driving so fast. . . .
• If only my child hadn't gone to school that day. . . .
• If only mom hadn't caught the flu. . . .
• If only I hadn't lost my job. . . .

Hindsight is twenty-twenty, as they say. How different would our lives be if we knew in advance the consequences of every decision?

But consider how wrong-headed that notion is. When we indulge ourselves in “if only” thinking we are behaving as if our lives, and history itself, progressed on the basis of some impersonal fate, a roll of the cosmic dice, rather than under the manifest control of a sovereign, good God.

This morning I was reading the last three chapters of Acts and it occurred to me that Paul had ample opportunity to engage in “if only” thinking after being jailed by the Romans:

• If only I had not agreed to join in that vow! (Acts 21:23-24)
• If only Felix had not been hoping for a bribe! (Acts 24:26)
• If only Felix had not been such a political animal! (Acts 24:27)
• If only I had not appealed to Caesar! (Acts 26:32)

As a consequence of these things, Paul spent over four years under arrest, and at least two of them in Roman prisons. He endured plots against his life, show trials, a terrifying storm at sea followed by a shipwreck, and numerous other problems. Paul's plans, ambitions—indeed, his life—was put on hold and forcibly redirected in ways he would not have chosen. If only. . . !

But Paul did not fall prey to this wistful, self-pitying sort of mindset. He shares with the Philippians his attitude about his troubles: Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else, and that most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. (Philippians 1:12-14, NASB)

Think about it: during Paul's missionary journeys he was constantly getting run out of town, beaten, jailed, mobbed by angry crowds, hauled before local officials under false accusation, etc. But from the time he was arrested in Acts 21, Paul was under the protection of the Roman empire. He was taken to Rome, and there, though under house arrest, was provided official protection while he freely preached the gospel to both Jews and Gentiles in the capital of the entire Roman Empire. Because of his arrest and incarceration, Paul had the opportunity to share the gospel with regional governors and officials. He was priviledged to testify at great length with the Roman centurians and the guards who guarded him. While on the isle of Melita, those same Romans witnessed Paul doing miracles of healing (Acts 28:8-9). In Rome, Paul presumably got the opportunity to testify to Caesar at his hearing. Paul enjoyed massive opportunities he would have never had if he hadn't been arrested by the Romans.

If only? Really? Maybe these heartaches, Christian, have come into your life “for the greater progress of the gospel.” Rather than being absorbed in regrets, start looking for the opportunities that God will provide in the very midst of your problems.

Book Review: Show Them Jesus

Show Them Jesus is reputed to be a book about teaching the gospel to kids, as the subtitle suggests. But it’s actually a captivating, practical theology, expanding what it means to be united with Christ through the gospel. The author does an outstanding job of weaving an orthodox understanding of the gospel of grace into an instruction manual for reading, interpreting, and teaching the Bible through the lens of our union with Christ.

As a manual for teachers and parents, it is indispensable. The author provides practical tips in each chapter teaching how to uncover the Bible's emphasis on Jesus Christ in the background of every story. He demonstrates that the gospel is always the point. The moralism that pervades much of modern children's ministry curriculum is exposed as a sterile legalism that perverts rather than proclaims the gospel.

 But suppose you aren’t a teacher, or a parent. Suppose your view of the gospel has been that, yes, I am saved through faith, and now that I am saved God’s love for me and pleasure in me is commensurate with my obedience. That if two pounds of obedience yields two pounds of love from the Father, four pounds of obedience will double His love. Klumpenhower gently dismantles that perspective, showing that the gospel of grace is always the rule through which God views His children. This book is balm to the soul of one who has been raised in a performance-based Christian environment. Using fascinating illustrations from years of communicating the gospel to kids, the author wields an impressive command of Scripture to demonstrate that the Christian is beloved by God precisely because he is in Christ.

For too long the vital doctrine of Union with Christ has been overlooked by the Church. Happily, in our day it’s being rediscovered. This little volume is part of that renewed appreciation. Though there are a few bones I might pick at in chapter nine, I just love this book. Five stars. Ten stars, really. I thoroughly recommend this book—both as an instruction book for parents and teachers, and as a volume useful for counseling someone who’s entrapped in perfectionism or a performance mentality.

The "expulsive power of a new affection"

Iain Duguid is a new Old Testament professor at Westminster Theological Seminary. The school has released a pamphlet written by Duguid, that clarifies the WTS position on Christ in the OT. The reading below is an excerpt from this pamphlet, "Is Jesus in the Old Testament?" and deals with truth that the Gospel addresses our failures to live as we ought.

How do we address this gap between what we know and what we do? Sermons and Bible studies that focus on "law" (the demands of Scripture for our obedience), no matter how accurately biblical in content, tend to simply add to the burden of guilt felt by the average Christian. A friend of mine calls these sermons "another brick in the backpack"--you arrive at church knowing five ways in which you are falling short of God's standard for your life, and you leave knowing ten, doubly burdened.

In my experience such teaching yields little by way of life transformation, especially in terms of the joy and peace that are supposed to mark the Christian life. Focusing on the gospel, however, has the power to change our lives at a deep level. Through the gospel we come to see both the true depth of our sin (and therefore that our earlier feelings of guilt were actually far too shallow), while at the same time being reminded of the glorious good news that Jesus is our perfect substitute who removes our sin and guilt. He lived the life of obedience in our place and fulfilled the relentless clamor of the law's demands, and he took upon himself the awful punishment that our sin truly deserves. As the Holy Spirit enables us to grasp this gospel reality, he frees us from our guilt and refreshes us with a deep joy that motivates our hearts to love God anew. In this way, the gospel begins the slow transformative work of changing us from the inside out. This is what the nineteenth-century Scottish pastor Thomas Chalmers called the "expulsive power of a new affection": the fact that profound change in our behavior always comes through a change in what we love most, not through external coercion.

Amen.

Life-verse Number One

I have three life verses from Jeremiah—three and counting, I expect.

As a prophet, Jeremiah is very apropos to our generation. His is a sixth-century BC book. Babylon is besieging Jerusalem. The once proud nation is now in its death throes. Sounds a lot like another country I know. And its people are enmeshed in sin and rebellion; they want relief, but are not particularly interested in repentance.

I’ll take my life verses in chronological order, as God used them in my life. First up is Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

In 1974 I was a freshman, a Geology major, at Colorado State University. I was mostly agnostic and completely lost. God was for me an abstraction at best and a distraction at worst: I wasn’t interested.

I was button-holed on the campus by a fellow named Chuck. He had a Bible in his hand; I tried to avoid him, but failed. Trapped, I grudgingly consented to hear what he had to say while making it obvious by my body language that I was not the slightest bit interested.

He began sharing the Gospel with me. As a teen I had enjoyed trying to talk other bible-banging teens out of their faith, but this guy parried every thrust with the Word of God. He patiently and gently answered my every question and my every objection right out of the text, and God began to work in my heart. I was not seeking God, but He was seeking me.

At some point Chuck quoted Jeremiah 17:9, and with that my resistance collapsed. I had been outed, I had been pegged, I had been exposed. All my self-righteousness went up in smoke at that moment and I knew that God saw right through my act. God knew my heart, and His knowledge was dead-on accurate.

All my objections became superfluous, because I knew that only a living God could pierce me with truth as I had been pierced. I trusted Christ that very day, and have been trusting Him ever since.

Jeremiah 17:9 is a pretty humiliating life verse—but I love it. It’s still true of me, but less true than it was thirty-seven years ago, and a year from now it will be even less true of me than it is today. The closer to Christ I grow, the more clearly I see my own corruption. And the more grateful I am that God the Son absorbed the righteous wrath of His Father; wrath that should have been poured on me. I will never be called to account for my sins before the judgment bar of God, because they’ve already been paid through the death of Christ, and God doesn’t do double jepoardy. Hallelujah!

I’m thankful for the Son of God who purchased my salvation, for a man named Chuck who gave me the facts of the Gospel straight, and for Jeremiah 17:9 which exposed my sins!

Book Review: The Discipline of Grace, by Jerry Bridges

Bridges, Jerry. The Discipline of Grace:God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2006.

Bridges is a great writer on holiness and the disciplines of the Christian life. But a one-sided emphasis on discipline can cause the believer to lapse into a performance mentality in their relationship with Christ, thus falling into a sort of legalism. The solution is a fresh apprehension of grace, which means a fresh appreciation of the gospel and its enablement of holy living. Bridges accomplishes precisely that in his book, The Discipline of Grace.

 

Bridges is able to show that it really is not “balance” that is necessary, as though we must juggle the conflicting emphases between discipline and grace; rather, it is a full-bodied appreciation of what the gospel is, and what Christ has wrought through the gospel. The author shows that we are able to pursue grace and holiness as a single pursuit, not two separate ones.

This is yet another valuable contribution to the library of Bridge’s offerings aimed at Christian growth. Believers will find it very helpful.

Book Review: What is the Gospel?

Gilbert, Greg. What is the Gospel? Wheaton: Crossway, 2010.

Truth is being assaulted from all sides in our day. From the capitulation of the Biologos cadre, to the crass man-centeredness of Osteen, to the “God is an American conservative Republican” cultural Christianity crowd, there are voices out there to confuse believers, distort the truth, and eviscerate biblical Christianity. It’s time someone wrote a book reminding us what the gospel is, and what it isn’t.

Greg Gilbert’s brief (124 pages), accessible offering, published by Crossway under the 9Marks imprint, is just what the doctor ordered. Gilbert carefully points the church back to a biblical understanding of the gospel, and along the way he manages to distinguish between the results of the gospel and the gospel itself. It does not help people much if we talk in glowing terms of kingdom and cultural transformation if we haven’t made clear how one gets through the door. As he gently corrects, Gilbert’s tone is not polemical; he’s not going to alienate anyone, whether they are lost or merely confused about the gospel.

The book contains but eight chapters, four of which cover these topics: God’s righteousness, man’s sinfulness, Christ the Savior, and the response of faith and repentance. Gilbert reminds us that one does not need to be a Princeton grad to understand that Jesus died for my sins.

One of the great things about this book is that you can give it to an earnest seeker, and know that they will be exposed to a simple, solid, accurate, biblical, and compassionate explanation of gospel. I plan on keeping a box of these things in my study for just that purpose.

Book Review: Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God

Packer, J. I. Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2008 reprint. 

To have published a single literary work that becomes a classic is a notable accomplishment. Publishing two gives the writer a corner on contemporary Christians’ reading lists. James Inverness Packer has accomplished just that. Packer is well-known for his landmark book, Knowing God, which first was published in 1973. This is not a review of that book, but if you have not read it you should. Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (first published, 1961) is the other classic Packer has written, and it punches far above its weight (my copy is a 2008 reprint edition—it’s only 134 pages) in the world of biblically faithful Christian classics. 

The first chapter, Divine Sovereignty, makes the case that all believers adhere to a confidence in God’s absolute sovereignty. Packer calls the average Christian’s prayer life to the witness stand, and the testimony is irrefutable. If you are inclined to question this last sentence, just read the chapter and form your own opinion: it’s only seven pages long.

Next, in Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility, Packer shows that these two poles of activity (divine and human) comprise not a paradox, but an antinomy: the assertion of two statements which seem to be contradictory, but both of which are logically necessary: “An antinomy exists when a pair of principles stand side by side, seemingly irreconcilable, yet both undeniable” [26]. Packer goes on to show, with plenty of examples, that both divine sovereignty and human responsibility are taught in Scripture. His advice regarding how to handle the conflict between the two is wise:

What should one do, then, with an antinomy? Accept it for what it is, and learn to live with it. Refuse to regard the apparent inconsistency as real; put down the semblance of contradiction to the deficiency of your own understanding; think of the two principles not as rival alternatives but, in some way that at present you do not grasp, complementary to each other. Be careful, therefore, not to set them at loggerheads, nor to make deductions from either that would cut across the other (such deductions would, for that very reason, be certainly unsound) [28-29].

In his chapter entitled, Evangelism, Packer answers four questions in the light of the foregoing. “What is evangelism? What is the evangelistic message? What is the motive for evangelizing? By what means and methods should evangelism be practiced” [45]? The bulk of the book is found in this chapter, and it is excellent. Packer fully delivers on the promise to deal with the questions, and in doing so he faithfully and powerfully represents the biblical gospel.

The final chapter, Divine Sovereignty and Evangelism, demonstrates that, far from being a damper on our evangelism, a good understanding of God’s sovereign role stokes the flames of our passion to tell the message. God’s sovereignty is, in fact, a guarantee of our success in evangelism.

Without being disrespectful or polemical, Packer has dismantled the typical Arminian concerns regarding the doctrines of grace, as regards evangelism. This book is not a “gotcha!” to be used to win a debate; rather, it is a powerful, positive, pastoral accounting of what must remain a divine mystery: God’s absolute sovereignty, and our undeniable responsibility to evangelize.

The Impotence of Myth

I’m a Tolkien fanatic. I have mounted on my wall a replica of Sting, Bilbo’s sword (inherited by Frodo), given to me by my son on Christmas Past. I love Tolkien’s fantasy world and the many layers of history he gave it to make it seem real. I read the trilogy (quadrilogy??) while backpacking through the Rockies in my youth—and I have read it many times since. It is inspiring, and the wonderful productions of Peter King and his merry band of movie-makers have done a wonderful job of bringing the Tolkien myth to the big screen in a canonically faithful fashion. It’s almost, . . . lifelike.

But there is a clear delineation between that which was, and that which was not, and Tolkien’s work belongs to the latter. It’s myth—not history—and only those with nothing else to cling to will confuse the two.

There’s not much power in myth. There’s some, to be sure, but not much, and it is but a faint imitation of the power of reality—the power of God.

Myth wears thin in the Emergency room, or the hospital bed, or the funeral home. Myth loses its pizzazz when the family is self-destructing around you. The power of myth is powerless to mute the angry, self-condemning voices of conscience in the early hours when you desperately need sleep. It is too impotent to control the raging desires of addiction. Myth distracts, but does not deliver confidence when you’ve lost your job and the rent is due. Myth fascinates, but it cannot change the heart.

In short, the inspiration of a myth is like the fog; impressive until it meets with the heat of the day. Only truth transforms. The power of the Gospel is anchored in twin realities: the inexplicable power of the Holy Spirit, and the facts of history. It-actually-happened.

Think about it. Liberal theology has turned the Gospel to myth, because the purveyors of this deficient theology deny that the supernatural God actually invades history and performs miracles contrary to natural law. It is an assumption of rationalism. It is frankly a contradictory notion to the idea of the existence of a personal God. When your God stops invading history, He no longer exists in any real terms.

But what you really need, in that hospital room, that funeral home, in that broken family, is for God to invade history, real life, on your behalf and perform real miracles contrary to natural law. May it be unto you according to your faith.