Tag: bible

Posted on

What We Believe: He is not silent

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. Our subject for this entry is how God communicates with His people.

One important truth that underlies the preaching of the gospel is that God is not a secret from creation, but that He is present and making Himself known to, and in, creation. As Paul says in Romans 1, “‭…what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.” But to speak of God’s communication with us is not simply a matter of inference from what we see, but a matter of direct, and interactive, communication. 

One of the most striking truths about the relationship between God and man is that we have a truly personal relationship. God does not sit high above us unapproachable and uninterested, but He is deeply involved in His creation, and He has given us the means by which we may truly know Him. It is important to understand what this means for us in our daily lives, and what it looks like to draw near to God in reverence and expectation that He is both speaking and listening.

Speaking with our Father

Prayer is seen all throughout the Bible and Jesus is constant in His prayers. Very often we see Him withdrawing from others to spend time in prayer with the Father, and it is in His prayers that we see the true intimacy of that inter-Trinitarian relationship. Jesus teaches His disciples to pray in Matthew 6 with a confession that God is not just God but that He is “our Father.” That is an incredibly intimate confession for us to make, and the Son of God is calling all of us who are in Him to join with Him in calling God the Father, our own Father. 

Yet this is not said casually, for the very next line calls for His name to receive the highest reverence. Many of us have memorized it as “hallowed by Your name,” or as the CSB renders it, “Your name be honored as holy.” God is our Father and we may draw near Him, yet He is also our holy and perfect God, and we hold those two truths in balance with one another.

From there the prayer moves to a desire that God’s will should be seen in our world as much as it is Heaven. Not because God is not sovereign over all things, but in the sense that we would see the rebellion of sin be wiped away, and all creation be restored to true peace and obedience to God, to true harmony. We seek to bring ourselves into true obedience to the Shema, what Jesus rightly calls the greatest commandment: that we would love God with every element of our beings to the fullest.

Finally, we see the desire for God’s provision – for our needs, and against the failures of sin in our flesh. And we know God hears these and provides for them. Jesus says as much later in the same chapter, as He says “So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.” And we see exactly that in the prayer He teaches – it begins with the kingdom, and ends with our needs. The Lord calls us to pray to Him, and often, bringing our needs to Him over and over. There is no tiring or annoyance, because this is truly another example of God ordaining both the ends – His working in our world and lives – and the means – the prayers of His people.

Our Father speaking with us

By the same token, He speaks to us, through His Word and by His Spirit. It isn’t a matter of asking God a question, flipping open a Bible and pointing at a random verse to get an answer, but rather that devoted pursuit of God in His Word along with pursuing that intimacy with God in prayer will bring us deeper into understanding God’s will for life, strengthening our wills to endure difficulty and to glorify God in the circumstances of our lives. I wrote in the last entry on election that humility is a necessary ingredient to our intimacy with God, as it should be. The order of creation is evident from the beginning of Scripture: that which is made worships that which made it. That’s why idol-worship is so consistently repudiated throughout the Bible, because the idea that someone would make an idol and then pray to this thing they just made is simply backward. We are made to know our Creator, and intimately so.

I have encountered many moments where a question or issue has been weighing on my mind and in my prayers, and I have suddenly found myself encountering a passage that seems to speak directly to it. I try to be wary about reading my own desires into Scripture, but those moments have happened to me. I had a moment just the other day when I had a weight on my heart about an issue I was wrestling with, and my tendency when left to my own devices is to just let it eat at me. In that moment however, I pushed against that and chose to stop, and sit in the Word and prayer, and wait. What I found was most certainly the peace that passes understanding, and a reassurance that was echoed from those around me without my seeking it out from them. It’s said that those who look for patterns will find them, and certainly someone who doesn’t believe would likely make that claim. I have no qualms about the fact that personal evidence is the weakest kind – yet it is as much a part of my testimony as the truths of Scripture I’ve learned, or the evidence of God written in the building blocks of creation itself.

I’ve encountered what seemed at the time to be a moment of close communication by the Spirit. I’ve experienced the Lord ministering to my spirit in dark times in ways that are difficult to articulate, yet were clearly an experience that was bigger than myself, than my own ideas. I think the reason why these particular moments are ones I attribute to the Lord ministering to me in such a moment are because these were instances that I was seeking answers in a difficult moment, and the answers I received were very much not what I would have desired. There was also the fact that they were later confirmed, again not because I sought to make them happen, but because of how these particular circumstances concluded. I’m writing about this obliquely because these moments involve the privacy of others.

God is near to us, and we know Him in Christ, through the Spirit, and thus we pray. We know His will by His Word, which points to Christ, and is brought into being through the work of the Spirit. As His church we walk in this spiritual respiration of breathing in Word and breathing out prayer, and it is what truly sustains us. It is right for us to desire knowing God intimately, because the writers of Scripture show that He desires us to truly know Him. 

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8 about the unity of knowledge and love in God. In humans, knowledge tends to produce overconfidence in ourselves, and is why God calls us to love him in the right way, the way that lets us depend upon him as His creatures, His children. He says that “if anyone loves God, he is known by him.” And in chapter 13 he expounds on love, what it is and why it is a necessary component of humanity. It’s not a mere extension of desire, as seems to us. It involves a humility, a surrender of who and what we are to the truth of who God us, and therefore to what we as humans are to each other: fellow image bearers of God, made to trust in Him with all our beings, made not to serve the will of a petulant demanding idol but instead to rely fully on the loving grace of our loving Father, our gracious Lord.

We must heed Peter’s words in his first epistle, that we must “humble [ourselves] therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt [us] at the proper time, casting all [our] cares on him, because he cares about [us.]” Our humility isn’t rooted in fear of destruction, but in the truth that we must not deceive ourselves into self-reliance and self-aggrandizement. This is why Christian unity should not look like angry people demanding external morality in others. It shouldn’t look like a bunch of smarty-pantses who have all the answers to life’s questions. It should look like people who rest in the work of Jesus for everything they need, who love one another even and especially when they don’t seem very lovable, and who give of themselves to serve others – even to the cost of themselves. What we have is His, and He is a faithful provider at all times. He is here with us, and He is not silent.

A call to speaking and listening

I want to close with what I believe are wise actions to take as we all pursue God’s ministry to us in our daily lives:

  • Be in your Bible. The Bible is given to us as a gift, and is God’s speech. It’s not a cold dead text, but a living and vibrant one that is ministered to us by the Spirit and through the church. By staying in it we find our own encouragement and instruction, and we can be prepared for serving one another by being ready to engage in “teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness.” Being in Scripture is critical when seeking to hear from God, for only by studying the true voice of our Father can we know when He is speaking with us, as opposed to us simply placing His name atop our own desires and thoughts. Scripture is sufficient to our needs for this in all things.
  • Make prayer a priority. I’ll be honest, this is a tough one for me, and I’ll bet it’s a tough one for many out there. It’s easy to find yourself distracted, or to feel like the time you have to devote to it could be used elsewhere. It’s easy to make excuses. But I don’t believe there’s ever been an instance in my life where I’ve rejected those excuses and made myself sit even for a few moments to pray, that I’ve walked away saying “I wish I had done something else.” Build the habit, and pursue it. 
  • Be in community. This isn’t simply a call to church attendance, though that is a given where it can be carried out. (Certainly as an American I often take for granted the fact that I can attend church freely and without fear, something that not every believer in the world is able to do.) This is a call to know and to be known. Develop friendships, have people who can pray for and with you, who can rebuke you in love when you’re going astray – and pursue the humility in your own heart to receive that. If your church is a place where you can’t truly be open because of a lack of grace, that may be a change you need to make. On the other hand, if it’s a place where confession brings about no encouragement to transformation, to repentance, that likewise is a deficiency in the ministry of the gospel. 

If there are ways we can provide help, guidance, or even simply prayer, please feel free to reach out to us. I desire that this podcast and blog is a place that encourages everyone who comes across it to hear the hope of Jesus, and to truly find their rest in Him. That includes you, whoever you may be. May the grace of Christ go with you into your home and work and everywhere else you venture.

Posted on

What We Believe – Election

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. Our subject for this entry is the doctrine of election.

The doctrine of election is one of the most controversial subjects often discussed within Christian theology. The concept of predestination, that God has chosen His people who will be saved not just in the course of their lives or because of their actions, but from before creation itself, has drawn many objections, including from Christians. It is a subject that requires patience and pastoral care alongside a devotion to Scripture’s inerrancy and sufficiency. It also requires a great deal of humility, which often seems to be alien to the debates this issue raises. 

Continue reading “What We Believe – Election”
Posted on

What We Believe – Sanctification

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. This week’s topic is sanctification in the life of Christians.

Christian preaching works heavily through the concepts of justification and sanctification, and for good reason. We have seen many instances throughout the history of the church where the two concepts have been muddled and confused, and it has led to a great deal of strife. To this day we still struggle with discerning the difference, either by mixing sanctification into justification in a way that requires perfection in the now in order to be or remain justified, or by emphasizing justification so heavily that sanctification becomes an afterthought. The former leads to pharisaism and legalism, and the latter leads to antinomianism and a lack of care for holiness.

From God’s eternal perspective, we are clean and holy in Christ, a finished work that glorifies Him. But to us as we walk through each day of life, the sanctification of the Spirit can involve hardship, frustration, conviction, and even suffering. One passage that captures this duality is Romans 8:28-30:

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.

The battle within ourselves

Yet in our daily experiences we don’t often feel this. Indeed, we often experience a deep sense of frustration as we live out the words of Paul in the preceding chapter, that “when I want to do what is good, evil is present with me.” As we strive forward towards the cross, our flesh continues to fail us. We find our motivations called into question, our hearts heavy, as we mourn the effects of sin even as we also rejoice in our circumstances and struggles. But this is not something we ought to lose hope over. There is, after all, excellent reason that chapter 7 is followed by chapter 8, and the joyful, life-giving truth that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Paul’s words in chapter 6 spell out the reality of sanctification for the Christian, and indeed I think it is how we can see the Lord working in our lives. It isn’t in moments of ease and contemplation that our love for God is most cultivated, but the times we experience and resist temptation. Our happiest times are made all the sweeter when we reflect on what we endure to get there, and especially in knowing that God walks through them with us. Our Lord is not distant, after all, because He too suffered with us. He too endured temptation, and in His power we have the right to reject our sinful desires and weaknesses. We can reject the condemnation of the enemy and embrace the truth that we are dead to sin, and alive in Christ.

We endure many things in this life, which serves to grind away at the hardness of heart, fear, doubt, and all the other things that point to the ways that we don’t trust God’s love and promises. For the person who loves God, when we consider all the experiences life may hold, God is promising that each and every one of them will work for our good. This idea is awe-inspiring, but also becomes incredibly vexatious to many when we consider what that might include. Disease? Financial hardship? Horrible abuse? The evils of war? Loss of a child? God’s Word is clear: yes, even these, though to walk with someone through this notion who has experienced suffering on this scale demands a great deal of empathy, patience, and pastoral care.

Purpose in all things – even the hard things

Sanctification in the Christian life is a significant part of our answer to the question of suffering and evil in this world. Why does God allow them to persist? We do not know His wisdom at its greatest height, nor would we be foolish enough to attempt to, but we do know suffering works its way through our lives so that we may be transformed, degree by degree, into the image of Christ. It is through the lens of Christ – His life, His work, His suffering and death, and His resurrected life – that we are able to endure suffering. 

When we experience hardship, grinding away at our lives and comforts, we are able to most fully embrace the truth of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 3:17 and 18. We have a freedom by the Spirit that this world cannot take away, and as we behold the truth and love of Christ we further embrace this freedom to endure this dark world. We have freedom in Christ to live knowing that He is better, He is stronger, He is more loving and gracious and providing than this world will ever be. We have freedom to endure evil knowing that He will bring justice to bear upon it in perfect time. We have freedom to be generous ourselves because He is infinitely generous towards us with what we need. And we have the freedom to give up everything, even our lives, because He stands with us, and receives us in glory as His own.

Sanctification’s role in what Paul describes in Romans 8:28-30 can be summed up in the phrase, “God ordains the ends and the means.” I can look at my life and at experiences like struggling to make ends meet, at relationships beginning and ending, or times of literal pain. I can think of moments that the Holy Spirit has lifted an idol from my hands in love, one I had been holding back for so long, and in the aftermath of that I found not loss, but true gain. I found my step lighter and my heart more free. This is why I say that sanctification is dying to ourselves, and finding freedom in Christ. We die to desires that weigh us down and find that the weight was only oppression on our souls. And when passages like Paul’s come to mind in those times when we are wrestling with our flesh, we can take heart in them. 

Whatever the pain and suffering, whatever the idol being wrenched from our grasps, whatever evil the world is throwing at us, all of it serves ultimately for our good in Christ. All of it demonstrates that no matter what the world says we need or what we should value, no matter what our flesh longs for, no matter what evil another may perpetrate against us, God’s love is greater. His good plan will come to full fruition in perfect time. And so, we strive to endure it by the strength granted us as we follow behind Christ, our crosses on our shoulders, knowing that death is not the end. J. Todd Billings writes in his book Rejoicing in Lament:

As the Heidelberg Catechism states, “Even as I already now experience in my heart the beginning of eternal joy, so after this life I will have perfect blessedness such as no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human heart has ever imagined: a blessedness in which to praise God forever.” The continuity between now and then is none other than our incorporation into the life of Christ.

So we walk through sanctification each day, whatever that may look like, and we encourage one another in it in patient love, rejoicing in the Lord always. We do the work before us because it is what leads us to the day that we will truly, as Paul writes in Romans 8:29, “be conformed to the image of Christ.” To us now, that day seems far in the distance, but God sees it clearly before Him, a people made holy and perfect and honored for enduring to the end. 

Hope in all seasons, patience in affliction 

Our story is one of sanctification. All the victories and failures of live, the pleasures and discomforts, they are not purposeless. They are meant to pry our hands free from this life – not in a nihilistic way, but in a manner that points to eternity. 

I think of all the encouragements I could give to others in this, it is that we are not meant to walk through this alone. We are never truly alone of course, in that the Holy Spirit is with us and within us, giving us strength and guidance through all things. But we should seek out those who encourage our spiritual strengthening, who aid in stirring our affections for Christ and who in turn we can serve and encourage in their own walks and strivings. Be with believers who will listen, and who will aid in prayerful and practical ways – and be ready to serve. 

The Bible is full of warnings against hardening our hearts, and encouragement that to endure is to see the fruit of Christ grow in our lives. I want to encourage those of you who may be struggling in any way that you are not alone in that. If nothing else, Jake and I are here to provide prayer and encouragement. The Lord knows your needs, and is with you through it all. After all this comes not a statement, but a question: how can we pray for you?

Posted on

Episode 6 – Holidays and Hobbit-Sense

"This is the story of a little ship, that took a little Christmas trip..."

Jake and I sat down to record this a couple weeks before Christmas, but life got hectic as it does this time of year, so we’re a bit later than we expected to get it uploaded. As a result, some of the things we talk about as upcoming – like Tuba Christmas, or Jake’s winter solstice performance at our church, have already happened. But! You can still enjoy our end of year wrapup. It’s been a year of highs and lows, and we reflect on our year and our favorite holiday traditions, and what we hope to see accomplished as we mark the new year’s entry. Join in, and email us or comment below your thoughts and prayer requests.

Posted on

What We Believe – Justification

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. This week’s prompt: Please define justification.

Justification is that work of God in our lives that makes us righteous, able to stand before God as holy, when we are most assuredly not by our own human work and reckoning. Justification is what we receive and in which we walk in life after we have been regenerated. It is not just a simple hand-wave of God saying “all right, you’re fine.” It is a Trinitarian work that begins with the Father’s calling of His people, the Son’s sacrifice of Himself for the sins of His people and taking the wrath due to them on Himself, and the Spirit bringing new life to those people which enables them to place their faith in that work of the Son on their behalf. 

Justification can be described simply, such as when Paul and Silas told the Roman jailer in Acts 16:31, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” Yet the closer we look at it the deeper the truth of it runs. It is also a concept that has held heavy controversy and disagreement throughout the age of the church. One challenge I have noted as I’ve written this is discussing justification specifically without moving into its lifelong effect, sanctification. The truth is simple, however: the former begets the latter, always. One who is in Christ will bear the fruit of Christ. 

Continue reading “What We Believe – Justification”
Posted on

What We Believe – Repentance and Faith

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. This week’s prompt: Please explain your understanding of repentance and faith.

Two posts ago I wrote on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and in the previous one I moved onto regeneration, the effect of that baptism.  Now the fruit of regeneration comes into view: faith and repentance. While they are two separate concepts with different definitions, they are hand in hand in the work these words describe in the lives of Christians. No one will have saving faith in Christ that is not accompanied by a lifetime of repentance from sin. Likewise, no one can walk away from their sin in any method that does not involve a faith in Christ born of the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. 

Continue reading “What We Believe – Repentance and Faith”
Posted on

What We Believe – Regeneration

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. This week’s prompt: Please define regeneration.

The Old Testament is full of vivid imagery from God, on the subjects of His will for His people, warnings of the consequences of sin and rebellion, and the coming work of His Messiah. Some of it is delivered in words, but there are many examples of God giving visions to His prophets to show what was to come. 

One of the most striking examples is in Ezekiel 37, where God brings the prophet to a valley full of dry bones. Not simply dead bodies, but the desiccated remains of countless humans. God tells Ezekiel to “Prophesy concerning these bones and say to them: Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Lord God says to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you will live. I will put tendons on you, make flesh grow on you, and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you so that you come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.” Ezekiel obeys and it happens exactly as God had said it would. God then repeats His command to prophesy, this time to “the breath,” to come and fill the bodies with life. Again, Ezekiel does so, and again, it happens exactly as God said it would. Dead bones become a massive host of living humans.

When we think about what regeneration is, this is the kind of image we need to keep in mind. Another image of this is given in the preceding chapter in Ezekiel, in verses 26 and 27: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.” Paul echoes this idea in Ephesians 2 when he writes, 

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses.

In many ways, to speak of regeneration is to simply reiterate what I wrote about in my last post on the baptism of the Spirit: this is the work of God in His people to bring spiritual life to those who were previously dead in spirit. He takes the unwilling, the rebellious, the God-hater, and makes them not simply able to choose to obey God, but to actually do so. 

This is the same idea that Jesus speaks of in John 3 when he tells Nicodemus that “unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus expresses incredulity at this, struggling to understand this picture, but Jesus asks him how he can not understand it, being a man who is in his position in part because of his deep knowledge of the Scriptures. He would have intimately known both references I mentioned above, yet he didn’t connect it to what Jesus was talking about. Jesus even points to it in his imagery in verse 8 when he says “The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

To talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and regeneration is to talk about the planting of a seed and the fruit that the plant that rises from it later bears. He who the Spirit baptizes lives again, and believes, and obeys. This is not, as some say, a “prevenient grace”, grace that puts everyone into sort of a neutral space where they can “choose their own destiny.” He who sees the Spirit work in his heart will find spiritual life, and he who lives in the Spirit will walk in that life. The Spirit’s work of regeneration becomes the sign and seal of the promised eternal life we hope for in Christ. This is what Paul means in Romans chapter 8:

For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on the things of the Spirit. Now the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace. The mindset of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it is unable to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through his Spirit who lives in you.

Regeneration points ahead to resurrection, both in the images used to convey the idea, and in its effect in the lives of believers. By the faith empowered in our lives through the work of the Holy Spirit, we are able to make war on the sinful desires of our old dead humanity while striving ahead towards our new, true humanity, our hope in Christ. 

Spiritual death followed Adam’s sin, but spiritual life follows Jesus’ obedience. It is not our work that brings regeneration about – and how could it? Could those dry bones raise themselves? As Nicodemus asked, could a man enter his mother’s womb a second time? Salvation is a trinitarian work of God. Just as the Father has chosen His people, and just as Jesus has been the perfect sacrifice for us and is our brother in the resurrection to come, so the Holy Spirit is the one who works in our hearts to bring newness of life and spiritual eyes which look ahead to Christ in hope and faith.

There is a larger picture to consider here but also a very personal one. As I edit this to post for the blog, there is a lot of turmoil going on in the world. I won’t belabor this post with pontificating on recent events, and those will likely wait for the next podcast episode for further discourse. But I will say this: If you are dismayed by the turn the world is taking, if you are angry or afraid or embittered: pray. Call out to your Lord and cast your cares on Him. As His church, let’s pray for our neighbors that He will transform the hearts of our neighbors – and do your part to that end by displaying Christ’s love to them.

Beware those who desire to turn you into an army for human ends, or into a voting bloc. Human power is fleeting and vanishes as quickly as it arrives. Trust that God does listen to the prayers of His people, and that He is powerful enough to save, to bring vitality where there is only death, and then: look at your neighbor. Literally, who lives around you? How are they hurting – or how are they rejoicing? Love them in that, serve them in their needs, and be patient as we all endure tribulation. Reject the urge to live a fearful life, and display the patient love of Jesus by trusting that He will be the one to bring mercy and justice to bear at the proper time – but above all, let’s pray that the Holy Spirit will bring life into the hearts of many, and by doing so, bring the only true means of transformation to a hurting and broken world.

How have you see the Holy Spirit work in your heart and in the lives of others to transform? How do you want to see Him further moving in your communities? And above all, how can we pray for you? Leave a comment below or email us.

Posted on

What We Believe – The Holy Spirit

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. This will be one of the longer entries because I’ve chosen in this instance to combine two topics – who the Holy Spirit is, and what the baptism of the Holy Spirit is. I pray that this is edifying to all who read it.

The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity, and is seen in Scripture as the one who ministers most directly to the hearts of God’s people, bringing conviction and comfort to hearts, and glorifying the work of Jesus in His work in the church. The Old Testament speaks of Him on several occasions, such as the opening of Genesis 1 where He is described as “hovering over the surface of the waters.”  In Psalm 51 where David grieves his sins with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah, he cries out to God asking Him “Do not banish me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me.” In Isaiah 63, the Israelites are described as having “grieved [God’s] Holy Spirit” with their rebellion, leading to punishment. 

The New Testament sees the Holy Spirit described by Jesus as the Counselor in John 14, and as the Spirit of truth in chapter 15. Acts 16 calls Him the Spirit of Jesus, while Revelation uses the title of “seven spirits” or “the sevenfold Spirit” – not that there are seven separate Holy Spirits, but seven is a number associated with completeness in God. Just as Hebrews 1 describes Jesus as being “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature,” the Holy Spirit also bears the fullness of God’s being. He is often misrepresented as being merely an expression of God’s will, or an impersonal force representing God working in the world. But Jesus’ description of Him as being “another Counselor,” using a word that in Greek means “one like the first” as Boice points out, makes it clear that the third Person of the Trinity is not lesser in any sense.

Continue reading “What We Believe – The Holy Spirit”
Posted on

What We Believe – Our Great Hope

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. This week’s topic: the death and resurrection of Christ, and the hope that we as believers have in this truth.

The death of Jesus on the cross rightfully is the focus of so much Christian thought and worship, because in His death we have a complete atonement for our sins. But we have just as much of a hope in His resurrection, because by it we see the true defeat of the curse of death, that consequence of sin that most plagues mankind. When Adam died, all he could do was exactly what God said would happen – decay into the dust he was made from. But when Jesus died, the second Adam, He knew that it would have no hold over Him. He had told his disciples as much many times, and the Scriptures promised as much. Psalm 16:10, for example, looks ahead and says “For you will not abandon me to Sheol; you will not allow your faithful one to see decay.” 

Sheol – the grave – was the place all men went at the end of life. Death was the co-curse with sin, for to sin – to live life according to the wisdom of the flesh, in opposition to the wisdom of God – has no possible end but death. God warned Adam and yet Adam sinned and so, took this evil onto himself and all his descendants. Even beyond humanity, in all the world death reigned where life once did. Decay and entropy threatened the end of creation’s blessed existence. Man’s self-deceived foolishness is so self-destructive, in fact, that God had to destroy almost all of humanity with a flood. When the descendants of the survivors began to thrive and seek again their own power, God had to confuse their languages and scatter them across the globe.

Yet Christ conquered all of it. Man embraced sinful living and yet lived in understandable fear of its consequence in death. Christ rejected sin, living without its marks all His days, and yet walked wholeheartedly into the embrace of death – and a most horrifying and humiliating death at that. And in doing so, by letting death take Him as the perfect sin offering for all God’s people, He overcame it. He became a seed that, falling into the ground and dying, grew up into a vast tree of eternal scope and life-giving fruit that will never fail. 

Jesus Christ, the Lamb that was slain, was given glory in His resurrection, and we hope in His glory and life. We don’t simply look at His death as a tragic killing of a good man by an evil regime, because His story does not end there. He took His life back up and more than simply returning from the dead for a short period then dying again, as Lazarus did, He lives still. He ascended to the Father, to await the day that He will return to finally well and truly destroy sin and death in all creation, to bring His work to its full consummation in the redemption of all creation. 

His disciples stood where they saw him ascend for some time, until angels told them that He would return the same way He went. They held that hope and it led them to prayer in unity, and that same hope enriched all their preaching. No longer was there simply life that ended in the grave, but the resurrection of Christ was and is the hope of all. Apart from it, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, life is foolishness and hope is in vain. But with it, we can endure everything that life brings, every dart of the enemy, every pain and loss and moment of suffering, because they all cease and are undone in the life of Christ.

So what?

While re-reading C.S. Lewis’s novel Perelandra recently, I was struck by the horrifying description of death and damnation by a character that has suffered under demonic possession for most of the novel. While much of it is rooted in Lewis’s particular views of the nature of hell and the enemy, the idea that dying in sin is to sink farther away from God and away from all His hope is one that sat in my mind for a long time. 

I was also reminded that this is why the hope of Christ’s resurrection and ascension are so crucial and powerful. No longer do we who trust in Christ fear that sinking away, that loss of connection with God. Instead, we look to when that connection grows stronger, and our intimacy goes from at arm’s length to true, face to face knowledge. We know this is true, and we long for the day we finally have this most rich possession as our own.

This is bedrock Christian theology, truly the cornerstone of Christ’s work is found in His death and resurrection. Yet it can feel like a rote recitation, like something that loses its potency the more we repeat it to ourselves, if we don’t actually meditate on it. “Jesus died for our sins.” “Jesus lives.” These two sentences ought to be a soothing truth to our deepest beings, not only because of their simple truth but also because within their few words the whole of life in Christ is enfolded.

Perfect love

Jesus came as the messiah, the chosen one who would end the rule of evil and usher in God’s kingdom. When He came, so many expected him to drive out Israel’s enemies with overwhelming power – and who could doubt that He was perfectly capable of doing so? A man who was capable of feeding thousands with a handful of bread and fish could sustain endless legions. Someone who can tell a storm to cease could command the ground to open up and devour His enemies in a moment. Surely Jesus could have crushed Rome and every other human empire with a single word? 

And that’s the image John gives in Revelation 19 – the victorious Christ riding to earth on a white horse, his weapon a sword that comes from His mouth. His robe is stained with blood. Yet Jesus came before His people riding on a donkey’s colt. His clothing certainly was stained with blood – His own. 

And all of this, an image of a life in the kingdom. Our lives are not our own, but they are held in His hands – and so we can lay them down for the sake of others. We can love that neighbor who’s in need and know that such service is deeply loved and blessed by the Father. We can be patient in those times when life’s turmoil weighs on our hearts, because we know He has been there, and He walks with us in them.

I want to close with two hopes:

We hope in the death of Christ because in His death, we are forgiven for all sin. A picture of this was carried out over and over in the Israelite sacrificial system as sin was atoned for through the shedding of blood. Everything was made holy through the sprinkling of blood, and there could not be any entering into God’s presence without it. There was an endless reminder of humanity’s sinfulness in those sacrifices – yet Jesus has taken the place of all of it, and through His death He has made the way by which every people group may come to know the One who made them.

We hope in the resurrection of Christ because He has overcome death, and we look forward to the day that we too will be like Him. I love the way Paul talks about being “in Christ” in Ephesians 1, and what it truly means for us to receive the benefits of that – “holy and blameless,” “adopted as sons,” recipients of “an inheritance” and “sealed with the Holy Spirit.” So when suffering enters our lives, we know that the words of the author of Ecclesiastes, that our lives are but a vapor, is true – but we also know that in Christ’s resurrection, we have a greater life ahead of us that will never end. 

When I think of the weight of my sin, my struggles, the things that drag me down day by day, and I compare them to this tremendous promise, I can’t help but ponder the truth of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 4:17 – it truly is an “incomparable weight of glory.” 

How does the doctrine of the resurrection affect your thoughts and living? Do you struggle to see it as real and meaningful? Share your thoughts below or email us – prayer requests are welcome!

Posted on

What We Believe – Salvation Belongs to the Lord

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. This week’s prompt: “Please describe the nature of our assurance of salvation. Can we lose our salvation?”

“Salvation belongs to the Lord.” 

This statement, or variations of it, is all throughout Scripture. It’s like a diamond that you can hold up and see many facets as you turn it. Salvation belongs to the Lord because to be saved means to belong to God. Salvation belongs to the Lord because it is by His work – the Father’s choosing, the Son’s death and resurrection, and the Spirit’s renewal – that we are saved. And salvation belongs to the Lord because it is entirely His work. There’s a famous quote that’s attributed to various Christians in history, including Philip Melancthon and Jonathan Edwards: “The only thing we contribute to our salvation is the sin that made it necessary.” This is a simplification of the life of a believer, but it does capture in its essence the truest nature of the life of God’s people from beginning to end: God has saved us. God is saving us. And God is going to save us. His hand holds us fast.

I originally wrote this for our class almost exactly one year ago, and in that time, it wound up with a personal context I couldn’t have possibly anticipated, one which still lingers on my heart as a wound. My friend Jarod, who I had known for years, took his own life, an act that brought a deep and abiding grief to me and many others in my community. Wrestling with this grief while also thinking through this question required a great deal of conversation with those close to me, as well as a lot of prayer. 

Now that I’ve come to this paper, one that was written in such a raw moment, reposting it with just a bit of tweaking seems inappropriate. I also want to take time to consider everything I write here in a pastoral light. While the sadness over Jarod still lingers, I have taken a lot of time to consider what it is that needs to be said. What does it mean for God to be the author of salvation in the face of sin, tragedy, terror and loss? What does it look like for someone to reach his breaking point – can he break the hold of grace? Or perhaps, do we shrug and go “well, I guess he was never saved to begin with?” Neither seem sufficient either to minister the Word rightly, nor to answer humanity’s deep need for God’s bottomless grace.

This brings me to the phrase “perseverance of the saints,” the last point of the famous “five points of Calvinism.” When we say that the saints will persevere, we say that those who are Christ’s will ultimately stand before the Lord in triumph, that no blow the enemy might strike or sin that might lead to backsliding will undo what Christ has done. And this is so because God is the one who saves. It is the very name of our savior – Jesus, Yeshua, “God saves.”

So we have this doctrine, and we have significant Scripture pointing to it. Paul says to the Philippian church in chapter 1 of his epistle, “I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Or Jesus’ own words in John chapter 6, verse 37: “Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.” And again in verse 44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.” 

But when I got the heart-breaking news about my brother, I was forced face to face in reckoning with many questions. The first and most frustrating one remains “Why?” But along with it comes questions and doubts that linger around the work he had accomplished in his life in serving others in Christ. To see one of our own brothers, one who has served in ministry so faithfully over the years, who has been seen by our and other churches as a faithful servant take his own life is a strong blow dealt to our experience of the faithful love and work of Jesus. The very real pain that is poured out in such a time cannot be ignored, nor can we simply turn away from the enemy’s assault on the faith of brothers and sisters. 

It is one thing to say simply that God saves us. But here we had an example of someone who has demonstrated with so much of his life that he placed his faith in Jesus, but suddenly he displayed a deep and abiding despair, or at least that is what it seemed. In this life we shall never know the true depths of his heart in those final moments. So we have to turn to God’s promises. Jesus said no one will snatch His people out of His hand. But can we jump out?

Christian tradition is certainly divided on this. But if salvation is founded on the work of God, and continued by the work of God, it must certainly be completed by the work of God. Over and over my mind has returned to 2 Timothy 2:13, where Paul seems to be quoting from a hymn or creed of his day: “if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” Believers will struggle and feel weak, but His strength far exceeds any we could ever need. Believers will have crises of faith, but He never will. Believers can find the way clouded, we can fear to take the next step that’s set before us. We can sin. We can fail in myriad ways. But in those times, it is more important than ever to take the character of God into account. 

Does God cast aside His people? No, He does not. Does He found their place as “His own” on their deeds and strength and faith? No. While the means of salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, the rock upon which it all rests is Christ – His love, His work, His life. I think in a tragic way it was fitting that I should have to address this topic in such a time of heartache and sorrow. I believe that in that dark moment, my brother struggled with believing that Jesus was enough—and yet, I trust that God’s grace covered him even in that doubt, as it does for all of us when we face our darkest moments. 

In His Hands

When I wrestle with what this means for his faith, for his eternity, I have to come face to face with the Bible’s prescription over and over that salvation is God’s, from beginning to end. On one hand it feels almost terrifying. I can do nothing to save myself, not even one tiny bit? Even the parts that are worked out through my actions are rooted in the Holy Spirit’s work? The room for doubt grows by the minute. But really, this is something that should be a call to rest, to peace. I can do nothing to save myself, not even one tiny bit. Even the parts that are worked out through my actions are rooted in the Holy Spirit’s work. The words of Paul in Romans 8:31-39 are a balm to my soul: 

What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything? Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

Because of you
we are being put to death all day long;
we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And so, I pray that the Lord will prepare my heart to endure to the end, even though I am still a broken and sinful human who longs for wholeness in Christ. My brother Jarod acted in a way that made many wonder – did he really believe that Jesus was enough? I believe that for a moment, a critical, horrifying moment, he believed that He wasn’t – and now, He is with Jesus, and learning that he was wrong. May the Lord’s grace strengthen us to endure trials and temptations until the day comes that we all stand before Him.

How have you faced the dark moments of the night? How can we and other believers support you in such moments? Leave a comment below or email us – prayer requests, comments, reflections are all welcome.