The chief of sinners

Every believer's experience witnesses to this, that every one that believes on Jesus Christ, acts faith as the chief of sinners.  Every man that sees himself rightly, thinks so of himself, and therein thinks not amiss.  God only knows who is truly the greatest sinner, and every humbled sinner will think that he is the man.

Robert Traill, The Doctrine of Justification Vindicated, p. 262-3

Via media?

A pearl of theological wisdom from Robert Traill (1642-1716):

Usually such men that are for middle ways in points of doctrine, have a greater kindness for that extreme they go half-way to, than for that which they go half-way from.

A Vindication of the Protestant Doctrine concerning Justification and of its Preachers and Professors from the Unjust Charge of Antinomianism, in a letter from the author to a minister in the country, p. 253

God was accused of blasphemy

Christ has come from the eternal heart of his Father to a region of sorrow and death;
that God should be manifested in the flesh, the Creator made a creature;
that he that was clothed with glory should be wrapped with rags of flesh;
he that filled heaven and earth with his glory should be cradled in a manger;
that the God of the law should be subject to the law;
the God of circumcision circumcised;
the God that made the heavens working as a carpenter for Joseph;
that he that binds the devils in chains should be tempted;
that he, who owns the world and everything in it should hunger and thirst;
that the God of strength should be weary;
the Judge of all flesh should be condemned;
the God of life put to death;
that he that is one with the Father should cry out of misery, 'My God, My God why have you forsaken me?';
that he that had the keys of death and hell should lie in another man's tomb;
that his head, before whom the angels cast their crowns, should be crowned with thorns;
that his eyes, purer than the sun, should be shut by the darkness of death;
those ears, which heard nothing but the hallelujahs of angels and saints, should hear the blasphemies of the crowd;
that mouth and tongue, that spoke as never any man spoke, should be accused of blasphemy;
those hands, that held the sceptre of heaven itself, should be nailed to the cross for human sin;
his every sense irritated,
with the spear and the nails,
the smell of death,
the taste of vinegar and gall,
the sound of curses,
the sight of his mother and disciples mourning for him;
the soul was without comfort and forsaken...

Thomas Brooks

Quoted in Steve Levy, Bible Overview, p. 40

You can buy Steve's book here

Pastoral wisdom

I found this, from Malcolm MacLean, very helpful:

"It was said of Henry Smith, a Puritan preacher, that he had the ability to reprove without insulting, to admonish without forcing, and to correct without debasing. I have discovered this description should be the goal of all preachers."

More blessings than our father lost

A simple sentence from Herman Bavinck, overflowing with truth and an unquantifiable hope:

"Christ's obedience returns us not to the beginning
but to the end of the road Adam had to walk."

RD Vol. 2: Sin & Salvation in Christ, p. 326

The right use of knowledge

Sound learning is not to be squandered on personal pride and promotion. This is an inordinate use of knowledge. Sound learning is to be used for the glory of the majestic God, that others may see and admire his glory in Jesus. This is to be done by setting forward clear views of the truth so that God's Word is received for what it is.

A true commitment to orthodoxy is intended to thrive in the atmosphere of faith and love, and it will do so when others are served by the teaching of the gospel. When Richard Baxter was commended for his writers he responded by saying that he was only a pen in God's hand, and what praise was due to a pen?

Calvin's words exemplify this commitment:

"God has filled my mind with zeal to spread his Kingdom and to further the public good. I am also duly clear in my own conscience, and have God and the angels to witness, that since I undertook the office of teacher in the church, I have had no other purpose than to benefit the church by maintaining the pure doctrine of godliness."

John Calvin, To the Reader (1559), Institutes of the Christian Religion

"Perhaps the duty of those who have received from God fuller light than others is to help simple folk at this point, and as it were to lend them a hand, in order to guide them and help them to find the sum of what God meant to teach us in his Word."

John Calvin, Subject Matter of the Present Work (from the French edition of 1560), Institutes of the Christian Religion

On hell

Rowan Williams was recently asked (in a pub in Cardiff as it turns out) "what is hell like?" His answer?

"Hell is being by yourself for ever."

I much prefer R. A. Finlayson's comment on hell and heaven:

"Hell is spending eternity in the presence of God."

"Heaven is spending eternity in the presence of God, with a mediator."

More on hell and the presence of God here.

God to the rescue

Be glad that this is true:

He was not conceived in the womb of Mary for those who had done their best, but for those who know that their best is "like filthy rags" (Isa. 64:6)--far from good enough--and that in their flesh dwells no good thing (Rom. 7:18). He was not sent to be the source of our good expereinces, but to suffer the pangs of hell in order to be our Saviour.

Sinclair Ferguson, In Christ Alone, p. 17

This is an extract from the chapter "Santa Christ?" The first two chapters of In Christ Alone are available online here. (HT: Scott Clark)

Humility, inability and grace

God has promised certainly his grace to the humbled: that is, to the self-deploring and despairing. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled, until he comes to know that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsel, endeavours, will and works, and absolutely depending on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of another, that is, of God only.

Martin Luther

The Bondage of the Will

Idolatry, trials and grace

"Each one of us hath a whore and idol besides our Husband Christ"

"The world, and the things of the world, Madam, is the lover ye naturally affect beside your own husband Christ. The hedge of thorns and the wall which God buildeth in your way, to hinder you from this lover, is the thorny hedge of daily grief, loss of children, weakness of body, iniquity of the time, uncertainty of estate, lack of worldly comfort, fear of God's anger for old unrepented-of sins. What lose ye, if God twist and plait the hedge daily thicker?"

"Grace tried is better than grace, and it is more than grace; it is glory in its infancy"

Samuel Rutherford

Amnesia and Apostasy

The Bible is clear: amnesia produces apostasy. That is why Scripture is so frantic about the church not forgetting what Yahweh has done for us (see Deut. 4 and 6). So Jeremiah diagnosed faithless Israel:

They did not say, 'Where is the LORD
who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
who led us in the wilderness,
in a land of deserts and pits,
in a land of drought and deep darkness,
in a land that none passes through,
where no man dwells?'

When we allow either his quiet keeping or his dramatic rescue to slip into oblivion we are on our way toward Baal.

Nor is it merely some ancient Israelite problem. The apostle warns us of false teachers who will be "denying the Master who bought them" (2 Pet. 2:1 RSV, italics added).

Which is good reason for us to partake gratefully and frequently of the Lord's Supper. Lest we forget.

Dale Ralph Davis, Such a Great Salvation: Exposition of the Book of Judges, p. 37

Praying to a sovereign God

From the pen of John Flavel:

Prayer begets and maintains holy courage and magnanimity in evil times. When all things about you tend to discouragement, it is your being with Jesus that makes you bold, Acts 4:13.

He that uses to be before a great God, will not be afraid to look such little things as men are in the face.

Messenger of Grace

Wonderful words for preachers to think on:

Would I describe a preacher...I would express him simple, grave, sincere;
In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain,
And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste,
And natural in gesture; much impress'd Himself, as conscious of his awful charge,
And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds may feel it too; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes a messenger of grace to guilty men.

William Cowper, The Task

Warfield on the Two Natures of Christ

Here is Warfield on the Chalcedonian definition:

"The final statement...was arrived at, externally considered, through protracted and violent controversies, during the course of which every conceivable construction of the biblical data had been exploited, weighed, and its elements of truth sifted out and preserved, while the elements of error which deformed it were burned up as chaff in the fires of the strife.

Out of the continuous controversy of a century there issued a balanced statement in which all the elements of the biblical representation were taken up and combined. Work so done is done for all time; and it is capable of ever-repeated demonstration that in the developed doctrine of the Two Natures...and in it alone, all the biblical data are brought together in a harmonious statement, in which each receives full recognition, and out of which each may derive its sympathetic exposition.

This key unlocks the treasures of the biblical instruction on the Person of Christ as none other can, and enables the reader as he currently scans the sacred pages to take up their declarations as they meet him, one after the other, into an intelligently consistent conception of his Lord."

B. B. Warfield, "Recent Christological Speculation," in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield vol. III: Christology and Criticism, p. 264-5

And here is the Chalcedonian definition (451 AD):

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.

The cost of the Kenosis theory

A brief extract from Warfield:

"Kenoticism differs from Socinianism fundamentally, however, in that Socinianism took away from us only our Divine Christ, while Kenoticism takes away also our very God. For what kind of God is this that is God and not God alternately as he chooses, and lays off and on at will those specific qualities that make God the kind of being we call "God"...

It really ought to be clear by now that there cannot be a half-way house erected between the doctrines that Christ is both God and man and that Christ is merely a man. Between these two positions there is an irreducible "either or," and many may feel inclined to adopt Biedermann's caustic criticism of the Kenotic theories, that only one who has himself suffered a kenosis of his understanding can possibly accord them welcome."

B. B. Warfield, "The Twentieth-Century Christ," in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield vol. III: Christology and Criticism, p. 376

Spurgeon on Law and Gospel

Here's a great quote from Charles Haddon Spurgeon:

"The doctrine of the covenant lies at the root of all true theology. It has been said that he who well understands the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, is a master of divinity.

I am persuaded that most of the mistakes which men make concerning the doctrines of Scripture, are based upon fundamental errors with regard to the covenant of law and of grace. May God grant us...the power to instruct, and...to receive instruction on this vital subject."

Forgiveness is not natural

Here is Bavinck on justification:

"...by it we understand that gracious judicial act of God by which he acquits humans of all the guilt and punishment of sin and confers on them the right to eternal life.

Certainly there can be no peace of mind and conscience, no joy in one's heart, no buoyant moral activity, or a blessed life and death, before the guilt of sin is removed, all fear of punishment has been completely eradicated, and the certainty of eternal life in communion with God fills one's consciousness with its consolation and power.

But this benefit--the complete forgiveness of sin--is so immense that the natural human intellect cannot grasp and believe it."

Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics Volume 4: Holy Spirit, Church and New Creation, p. 179

By craftiness in deceitful schemes

Heresies are made to look good so that we will believe them more readily.

So says John Owen:

It hath been the constant practice of all persons, in all ages, who have made it their design to beget and propagate a belief of any doctrine contrary to the form of wholesome words, to begin with, and insist mainly upon, those parts of their beloved conception and offspring which seem to be most beautiful and taking, for the turning aside of poor, weak, unlearned, and unstable souls.

...knowing full well that their judgments and attention being once engaged, such is the frame of men's spirits under delusion, they will choose rather to swallow down all that follows than to discharge themselves of what they have already received.

"Of the death of Christ" in The Works of John Owen: volume 10, p. 431

The endless, boundless, grace of God in Jesus Christ

Here are two quotes that have refreshed my soul at the end of a week of heaviness:

...when the conduit of Christ's humanity is inseparably united to the infinite, inexhaustible fountain of the Deity, who can look into the depths thereof? If, now, there be grace enough for sinners in an all sufficient God, it is in Christ.

And on this ground it is that if all the world should (if I may so say) set themselves to drink free grace, mercy, and pardon, drawing water continually from the wells of salvation; if they should set themselves to draw from one single promise, and angel standing by and crying, "Drink, O friends, yea, drink abundantly, take so much grace and pardon as shall be abundantly sufficient for the world of sin which is in everyone of you;"--they would not be able to sink the grace of the promise one hair's breadth.

John Owen, Communion with God, p. 61-2

These words of Samuel Rutherford are also full of encouragement:

If there were ten thousand, thousand millions of worlds, and as many heavens full of men and angels, Christ would not be pinched to supply all our wants, and to fill us all.

Christ is a well of life, but who knoweth how deep it is to the bottom?

Samuel Rutherford

Warfield on Inspiration

That we have an inspired Bible and a verbally inspired one, we have the witness of God Himself; and that this means that every statement of whatever kind in the whole compass of Scripture, from the first word of Genesis to the last of Revelation, is infallibly true and of absolute authority to bind head, heart, and life, rests on no lower authority.

The heart of God's people has in all ages responded to the fact with glad reverence. The hope of the world rests on it. It is the rock on which the confidence of our late age in the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice and the surety of our salvation is built.

May the man who through indifference, carelessness, conceit, or wickedness would deny this truth of God and teach men so--no, not perish--but be converted from the error of his way and, like a second Paul, be set by God's power and call to defend that which he would have destroyed.

B. B. Warfield.

This is an extract from an article that appeared in the Truth 9 (1883) and can be found in A. A. Hodge & B. B. Warfield, Inspiration (Wipf and Stock Publishers).