Miscellanies

This week I was honored to attended the Acts 29 DWELL conference in Manhattan. There was a rainy, cold, and foggy theme to my first time in the Big Apple, but that didn’t dampen the experience.

Around 400 church diverse church planters–some wearing suits, others wearing faux-hawks and tattoos–gathered on the edge of Central Park in an 170-year-old, baroque church building owned by the Fourth Universalist Society in upper Manhattan. You get a sense of the impressive architecture, stained glass, paintings, and pipe organ from this photo I took with my phone.

The attendees were seated (by the dozen) around tables where application discussions took place between addresses. It was great to see a few old friends and meet some new one’s, too. It was an impressive lineup and location for a church planting conference.

C.J. Mahaney opened with a message titled, Pastoral Priorities, Watching Your Life and Ministry, centered on 1 Timothy 4:16: “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.”

C.J. closed his message with these words on the second half of the passage.

Paul is not teaching self-atonement. Instead he is accenting human agency in the experience of salvation. … Calvin comments on this passage, “Although salvation is God’s gift alone, yet human ministry is needed as is here implied.” In this passage we are reminded of the vital importance of human ministry and godly leadership as a means of grace. And in this passage we are assured that if we watch our life and doctrine closely and persist and persevere in these practices, we can expect God to preserve us, and those we serve, for that final day. Here in this passage we find a promise of effective ministry in a most unexpected place.

And, most importantly, what stands behind this profound promise? The reason Paul can make this promise is the one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus (2:5). The mediator stands behind this promise. What stands behind any effective pastoral ministry is the mediator Christ Jesus. What stands behind our watching our life and doctrine, what empowers our watching our life and doctrine, what guarantees the effectiveness of watching our life and doctrine, is the Savior.

Listen, if it were not for the work of the Savior, the burden of this verse would be simply too much to bear! But because of the Savior we have hope this morning for our pastoral ministry and in our pastoral ministry. We have hope that our lives, by the grace of God, will, in ever-increasing ways, faithfully reflect the transforming effect of the gospel. We have hope! We have hope that our preaching will faithfully proclaim our Savior. We have hope that our ministries will contribute to the preservation of ourselves and the congregation we serve. So, brothers, as we watch our lives, as we watch our doctrine, we are confident we will also watch the Savior work.

For me, sitting off to one side, there was dramatic irony in these closing paragraphs. C.J.’s voice rose a few decibels reminding us of the ministry-sustaining power of the gospel. The amplified emphasis of his voice, proclaiming the importance of the gospel, echoed through the old unitarian church built intentionally hollowed of the gospel and doctrine.

As I listened to the echo it was not only a great reminder to persist in watching my life and teaching, but in looking around at the church’s ornamentation it was also a reminder that failing to watch our life and teaching may not mean our churches will empty out for us to see our failures in this lifetime. A very sobering reminder we can take into all areas of life as we walk by faith, seeking to please God.

———

A longer version of this message was delivered in the 2006 Together for the Gospel conference message, “Watch Your Life.” Download here.

In the first post, I passed along a recommendation for a book that serves as an overview of the intellectual and spiritual composition of the patristic authors. Personally, I want to learn enough about patrology to roll up my sleeves and begin excavating for myself gems from the original writings.

So today we turn to a recommendation on original source reading.

There is widespread agreement on one valuable collection of writings from the apostolic period (ca. AD 70-150), a volume edited by J. B. Lightfoot (1828-1889), compiled by his student J. R. Harmer, and now skillfully updated and edited by Michael W. Holmes titled The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, Third Edition (Baker Academic, 2007).

Holmes has done a nice job of keeping the scholarship up to date, adding very helpful book introductions. The 800+ page book includes several short letters preserved from the infancy of the Church. Though academic, the book is well-written and assembled for general readership. In the introduction to the Letters of Ignatius, for example, Holmes writes, “Just as we become aware of a meteor only when, after traveling silently through space for untold millions of miles, it blazes briefly through the atmosphere before dying in a shower of fire, so it is with Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in Syria. We meet him for the first and only time for just a few weeks not long before his death as a martyr in Rome early in the second century” (p. 166).

And Baker should be commended for their work, retypesetting and printing it on nice thin Bible paper. To think of it, The Apostolic Fathers has a similar look and feel to the beautiful NA27 Greek New Testament. Overall, I love the size, feel, and features of this volume. It comes with one of those built-in bookmark ribbons, and the dark green cover with the gold embossing is sharp.

On to a few excerpts.

In my evening reading I’ve been especially impressed with two excerpts from Ignatius’s letter to the Ephesians, written on or before 117 AD (pp. 182-201). Two themes emerge; the centrality of the cross and cautions to cultural adaptation.

1. Centrality of the Cross. This first excerpt has a lot to exegete. Listen to the known dangers of false teaching in this passage, where we see the Pauline warnings of the dangers of false teaching here echoed by a later generation of Christians.

But more specifically, notice the centrality of the cross in building the Church.

9:1 But I have learned that certain people from elsewhere have passed your way with evil doctrine, but you did not allow them to sow it among you. You covered up your ears in order to avoid receiving the things being sown by them, because you are stones of a temple, prepared beforehand for the building of God the Father, hoisted up to the heights by the crane of Jesus Christ, which is the cross, using as a rope the Holy Spirit; your faith is what lifts you up, and love is the way that leads up to God. 2 So you are all participants together in a shared worship, God-bearers and temple-bearers, Christ-bearers, bearers of holy things, adorned in every respect with the commandments of Jesus Christ. I too celebrate with you, since I have been judged worthy to speak with you through this letter, and to rejoice with you because you love nothing in human life, only God.

Ignatius beautifully captures the centrality of the cross in building the church.

2. Darkening lines in cultural engagement. And I find the patristic authors to be stimulating on the issue of cultural engagement. Try and isolate Ignatius’s warning amidst all the commands to relate to those in the world.

10:1 Pray continually for the rest of humankind as well, that they may find God, for there is in them hope for repentance. Therefore allow them to be instructed by you, at least by your deeds. 2 In response to their anger, be gentle; in response to their boasts, be humble; in response to their slander, offer prayers; in response to their errors, be steadfast in the faith; in response to their cruelty, be civilized; do not be eager to imitate them. 3 Let us show by our forbearance that we are their brothers and sisters, and let us be eager to be imitators of the Lord, to see who can be the more wronged, who the more cheated, who the more rejected, in order that no weed of the devil may be found among you, but that with complete purity and self-control you may abide in Christ Jesus physically and spiritually.

In light of the harsh pagan culture, Ignatius reminds the Christian Ephesians, “do not be eager to imitate them.” This is a helpful reminder for us today. Love those in the world? Yes. Love in word and deed? Yes. Respond to sin with kindness? Yes. See them as your equals, as brothers and sisters? Yes. Imitate the rough and crass edges of culture? No.

Be “OK” with not following and imitating their roughness. This excerpt is an interesting warning for early Christians struggling with loving those in the world without inadvertently absorbing the roughness of culture. This balance of engagement without conformity is still a tough question to answer nearly 2,000 years later. It’s helpful to see how these early Christians tried to understand the issues and set their parameters.

I could go on, there are other excellent passages. But my intent here is to recommend these books, stir a desire to read them, and let you spend less time on this blog and more time discerningly reading the patristic authors for yourself.

Please take with you one caution. Although this book looks, smells, and feels like a New Testament—even has verse numbers like a Bible!—it’s not Scripture. I receive emails and comments frequently from folks who say patrology transformed their understanding of Christianity. Statements like these read as though patrology and canonical scripture are equally shaping for these folks. They are not. So if your reading schedule is tight, you should never substitute time in Scripture with reading the early church fathers.

——————

Title: The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, Third Edition
Editors: J. B. Lightfoot, J. R. Harmer, and Michael W. Holmes
Boards: hardcover (not cloth)
Pages: 808
Volumes: 1
Dust jacket: no
Binding: sewn
Paper: thin, slightly yellowed, Bible paper
Topical index: yes, a thematic analysis
Scriptural index: no
Text: retypeset
Publisher: Baker Academic
Year: 2007
Price USD: $29.00
ISBNs: 080103468X, 9780801034688

This morning I received a comment from a reader saying, “In your ‘Possibly related posts’ section at the end of the LotR post includes a vulgar link. You should take it off.”

A vulgar link? What?

Then I followed the permalink to this morning’s LotR post on my blog and noticed WordPress was generating “Possibly related posts” and attaching external links to the end of my post. Then, after a little research, I found that WordPress was automatically adding this little “feature” and turning it “on” without notification.

After some digging, this is the option I discovered on my dashboard: “Hide related links on this blog, which means this blog won’t show up on other’s blogs or get traffic that way.” Notice the presumption–it’s on until you turn it off.

Not only is this unethical from a blog engine, it has the potential to undermine the integrity of a blogger. So if you are considering starting a blog, surprises like this should factor into your consideration.

Work is progressing on the two “Hobbit” movies. New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios have announced that filming on the two films will begin in 2009 with the first movie released in 2010 and the second in 2011. Interestingly, this Reuters article, is saying the 2 films will fill in the 60-year storyline gap leading up to the LotR troilogy, making some predict that parts of the The Silmarilion will be found in the Hobbit movies, too.

Remaining faithfully protestant is no hobby for the spineless, David Wells argues in his new book, The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth-lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World (Eerdmans, 2008). Remaining faithfully protestant—simultaneously faithful to scripture and and firmly rooted historically—requires vigilant steadfastness.

“The key to the future,” Wells writes, “is not the capitulation that we see in both the marketers and the emergents. It is courage. The courage to be faithful to what Christianity in its biblical forms has always stood for across the ages” (p. 21).

The book title alone inspires me to tattoo Luther on my forearm (restrained by the bruising vanity of such an image when I’m old.)

Here’s why I like the title.

In these few words Wells is calling us to:

(1) Defend protestant Christianity, not just our little denominational sub-branch. What’s at stake is really protestant-wide reaching the broad limits of catholicity. The implications of these new movements are as big as is “protestant” is wide.

(2) Be courageous, not spineless. Don’t fall for the soft-sell marketing and neo-orthodox liberalism offered to our culture’s “perpetual squishitude” (DeYoung + Kluck). Enduring the relentless shifts in theology is not for the fainthearted.

(3) Love the truth of God’s word, don’t sacrifice it. The church’s hope rests in what is unseen, rooted in preaching of ‘the age to come.’ No matter the cultural drifts and currents, keep faithful to the preaching of the gospel. And love it! Don’t just be a truth-defender, be a truth-lover.

Wells–himself a monument of courage–reminds us that the hope the church offers the world flows from the freshwater spring of gospel proclamation.

Wells writes,

———–

“Christian hope is not about wishing things will get better. It is not about hoping that emptiness will go away, meaning return, and life will be stripped of its uncertainties, aches, and anxieties. Nor does it have anything to do with techniques for improving fallen human life, be those therapeutic, spiritual, or even religious. Hope has to do with the knowledge of ‘the age to come.’ This redemption is already penetrating ‘this age.’ The sin, death, and meaninglessness of the one age are being transformed by the righteousness, life, and meaning of the other. What has emptied out life, what has scarred and blackened it, is being displaced by what is rejuvenating and transforming it. More than that, hope is hope because it knows it has become part of a realm, a kingdom, that endures. It knows that evil is doomed, that it will be banished. This kind of hope has left behind it the ship of ‘this age,’ which is sinking. And if this other realm, this place where Christ is even now ruling, did not exist, Christians would be ‘of all people most to be pitied’ (1 Cor. 15:19). Their hope would be groundless and they would have lived out an illusion (cf. Ps. 73:4-14).

Vast, mysterious, and mostly unknown as the universe is, we are neither aliens nor strangers in it. It is our alienation from God that makes us see the world as if we were aliens. It is our estrangement from him that leaves us with this haunting sense that we are alone, strangers in a cold and indifferent universe. So it is that life comes to seem like only a ‘chance collocation of atoms’ destined to disappear beneath the rubble of a universe in ruins, as Bertrand Russell put it. It can all seem so meaningless, so ephemeral, so pointless. And it is meaningless, a vanity of vanities, until we see that fallen life yields up no meaning higher or deeper than its own fallenness. And that is only as high as the spirituality from below can ever ascend.

The only future there actually is, is the one established by God in Christ, the one wrought in time at the cross that alone reached into eternity. But we must receive entry into this future. We cannot seize it. It is not there to be had on our own terms. This is not our self-constructed future. It is God’s. It comes from above, not from below.

This is why those churches that have banished pulpits or are ‘getting beyond’ the truth question are going beyond Christianity itself. The proclamation of the New Testament is about truth, about the truth that Christ who was with the Father from all eternity entered our own time. As such he lived within it, his life, like ours, marked by days and weeks and years. He lived in virtue of his unity with the Father, living for him, living as the representative of his own people before the Father, his very words becoming the means of divine judgment and of divine grace. But in the cross and resurrection the entire spiritual order was upended, his victory reached into and across the universe, and saving grace is now personalized in him. The world with all its pleasures, power, and comforts is fading away. The pall of divine judgment hangs over it. A new order has arisen in Christ. Only in this new order can be found meaning, hope, and acceptance with God. It was truth, not private spirituality, that apostolic Christianity was about. It was Christ, not the self, who offered access into the sacred. It was Christ, with all his painful demands of obedience, not comfortable country clubs, that early Christianity was about. What God had done in space and time when the world was stood on its head was Christianity’s preoccupation, not the multiplication of programs, strobe lights, and slick drama. Images we may want, entertainment we may desire, but it is the proclamation of Christ crucified and risen that is the church’s truth to tell.”

–David F. Wells, The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth-lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World (Eerdmans, 2008), pp. 203-204.

—————

Wells’s new book is excellent and may tempt you to get inked. Buy it, read it, and—as best as feeble sinners can—seek to walk humbly, faithfully cross-centered, and courageously protestant.

In regards to patristics (i.e. the study of the early church fathers) I’ve been accumulating some excellent book recommendations. Some books were recommended in my interview with Dr. Ligon Duncan (listen here), some books have been resting dust-covered on my shelves from previous recommendations, and some from helpful recommendations by Dr. Michael A. G. Haykin.

So this week on TSS I’ll be sharing with you various titles on my reading list for all you aspiring patrologists.

First, Haykin (on his blog) recommends dipping our toes into the pool of patrology with Robert Louis Wilken’s, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003). Wilken serves as William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Virginia.

I have found The Spirit of Early Christian Thought to be a refreshing and stimulating study of the characters and thought of the period. At times spiritually devotional, Wilken is always lucid and engaging. His goal is to draw a connection between the spirit and intellect, between worship and reason, as modeled by the early fathers. As with all books on patrology, this one should be read with careful discernment, the fruit of which, however, will be in the beholding a panorama of patristic intellectual fervor and heartfelt piety. It’s available in hardcover ($35.00) and paperback ($14.00).

Three short excerpts—

“In an essay on the church fathers, Hans Urs von Balthasar once wrote, ‘Greatness, depth, boldness, flexibility, certainty and a flaming love—the virtues of youth, are marks of patristic theology. Perhaps the Church will never again see the likes of such an array of larger-than-life figures that mark the period from Irenaeus to Athanasius, Basil, Cyril, Chrysostom, Ambrose and Augustine—not to mention the army of the lesser fathers. Life and doctrine are immediately one. Of them all it is true what Kierkegaard said of Chrysostom: ‘He gesticulated with his whole existence.’” (p. xviii)

“All the figures portrayed in this book prayed regularly, and their thinking was never far removed from the church’s worship. Whether the task at hand was the defense of Christian belief to an outsider, the refutation of the views of a heretic, or the exposition of a passage from the Bible, their intellectual work was always in service of praise and adoration of the one God. ‘This is the Catholic faith,’ begins an ancient creed, ‘that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity.’ Often their treatises ended with a doxology to God, as in Augustine’s On the Spirit and the Letter: ‘to whom be glory forever. Amen.’ They wished not only to understand and express the dazzling truth they had seen in Christ, by thinking and writing they sought to know God more intimately and love him more ardently. The intellectual task was a spiritual undertaking. In the oft-cited words of the desert monk Evagrius, ‘A theologian is one who prays, and one who prays is a theologian.’

The point may seem obvious, yet it is often forgotten. More often than not the church fathers have been interpreted as solitary intellectuals, each working out his own system, beholden chiefly to the world of ideas and arguments, as though they were clandestine members of an ancient philosophical guild. To be sure, many of the best minds in the early church were philosophically astute and moved comfortably within the intellectual traditions of the ancient world. They knew the argot of philosophy, and their books and ideas were taken seriously by Greek and Roman intellectuals. But if one picks up a treatise of Origen or Basil of Caesarea and compares it with the writings of the philosopher Alcinous or the neo-Platonist Plotinus, it is apparent at once that something else is at work.” (pp. 25-26)

“The intellectual tradition that began in the early church was enriched by the philosophical breadth and exactitude of medieval thought. Each period in Christian history makes it own unique contribution to Christian life. The church fathers, however, set in place a foundation that has proven to be irreplaceable. Their writings are more than a stage in the development of Christian thought or an interesting chapter in the history of the interpretation of the Bible. Like an inexhaustible spring, faithful and true, they irrigate the Christian imagination with the life-giving water flowing from the biblical and spiritual sources of the faith. They are still our teachers today.” (p. 321)

It’s been a rainy spring here in Maryland, and after some rain outs the little league season began yesterday for our six-year-old son. In his first ever baseball game, he hit a single, two doubles, a triple, and scored three runs. At the plate he looked like a natural (if you didn’t get distracted by the undersized batting helmet that pinched his head and refused to go down all the way). Defensively, he made two put outs from third base in one inning. His team won 20-6.

But more importantly, I was watching to see how my son would respond to mistakes, errors, coaching instruction, the play of his opponents, and the successes of his teammates. We’ve been talking about the manifold temptations he will experience in baseball hoping to capture as many of these as opportunities to train him for life.

C.J. Mahaney has helped me to understand these sports as great opportunities for God-glorifying, character building in our children. And Saturday I was reminded of the very helpful teaching of C.J. as I was watched the young kids kicking the dust, folding their ears over as they squeezed on the small batting helmets, listened to coaches blurt out the most obvious of commands, the chuckles of the parents watching our kids axe hack at pitches over their heads, watching grounders trickle to the outfield past statues of infielders, and the puzzled looks of two teams of players who had never worn a baseball uniform.

In an interview with Steve Shank posted earlier on TSS C.J. explains how he trained his son in humility during the soccer season (see “Interview with C.J. Mahaney on biblical masculinity”). I’m reminded that I want to prepare my son to walk on the field with a theological awareness of what’s happening. But first I need to become a father with this cultivated awareness. And that’s where the growth needs to first happen.

Clunk. Clunk. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee… Dun. Dun. Clunk. Click.
Clunk. Clunk. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee… Dun. Dun. Clunk. Click.

For more than a week now, I’ve been working next to an awkward-looking, loudly-clicking, nonstop-running printer. My desk is conveniently located about 6 inches from R2-D2 (as it’s been affectionately named). It’s a bulky printer, but also hard working, and very, very noisy. It reminds me of the old dot matrix printers that violently slapped back and forth, making that indescribable whining sound, across an endless line of perforated paper. It sounds a lot like that, with a shot of abrupt clanking mixed in.

Clunk. Clunk. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee… Dun. Dun. Clunk. Click.

I’m told the unceasing whine from the printer will be done soon. But for the last week, “R2″ has been humming away 24/7, printing out colorful plastic nametags for each of the 5,000+ attendees scheduled to attend Together for the Gospel next week in Louisville.

Click.

As the loud printer slowly births each nametag—delivering one card every few minutes—the newborn falls on top of the other cards in the catch bin. I hear the click of the new card as it drops on the pile. Several times over this past week, at the sound of that click, I’ve paused momentarily to thank God for the person it represents. I don’t see the name, but I know that card represents someone for whom the gospel is precious, someone who prioritizes the gospel. And that is a work of God in their soul. So many works of grace. So many new births.

Click.

In the first couple days of the noise, my first thought at the click of the card was to wonder: is that the card that reads “John Piper, MN”? But separated from a thin screen, I cannot see the names. It’s just as likely the card represents a rural pastor from a farming community in Nebraska.

Listening to this printer has been wonderfully equalizing. When I get up from my desk I can see the long stacks of nametags, all arranged in alphabetical rows. Whether a main speaker, an old pastor, a young pastor, a ruling elder, a deacon, a seminary student, an aspiring seminary student, or a soul who is simply attending out of love for the gospel—each nametag is the same color, the same size, and the same arrangement. Equalized.

God knows our frame, that each of us are dust (Psalm 103:14). Saved. Precious to Him. Blood-bought. But we are all dust, equally dust, from A-Z.

Next week we gather at Together for the Gospel. But we are not coming together to huddle around prominent evangelical figures or to merely collect a stack of free books. We gather to proclaim our allegiance and faithfulness to the unchanging and eternal gospel. We gather to form a picture of God’s compassion, who, rather than destroying us, has compassionately atoned for our sin and redeemed us (Psalm 78:38-39).

Well, back to work.

Clunk. Clunk. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee… Dun. Dun. Clunk. Click.

See you in Louisville.

Tony

Today I posted my interview with Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III on “Patristics for Busy Pastors.” The interview was posted over at the Sovereign Grace blog.

Here is one excerpt:

“When we go back to the church fathers we see them defending the important Christian doctrines that are very basic to us, those doctrines that—if we’ve been Christians for a long time—we may well take for granted, doctrines we don’t question, or have any qualms about. Sometimes as important as they are, we don’t think about them much, and we don’t weave them into our teaching, nor do we express the passion for the importance of them to our people as we ought. When we go back to the patristic period and we see the church fathers defending the reality of, for example, the incarnation of Christ and showing the importance of it, we may—who have fully embraced the incarnation of Christ and never questioned it in our Christian experience—suddenly have a new sense of the significance and the absolute essentialness of the doctrine of the incarnation in a way we hadn’t before.

———–

PS- Please be praying for Dr. Duncan, First Presbyterian, and the people of Jackson, MS who recently experienced destructive storms. Please pray specifically–in the middle of a busy conference schedule–for his strength as he ministers to the needs of his congregation.

Night of Weeping & Morning of Joy by Horatius Bonar

In his exposition of Psalm 80, Augustine defines idolatry as the inability to break from “earthbound thoughts.” His understanding of idolatry stretches to encompass a communion of idolaters—of “pagans” and “heretics,” of both the polytheistic man clutching an armful of gods, and the man who identifies himself as a Christian yet whose so-called faith does not extend beyond what is seen. For Augustine, the link here between the “pagan” and the “heretic” is a paralleled inability to interpret this world by the eternal hope and promise in Christ. The antithesis of idolatry, for Augustine, is not to gain more “spirituality,” but to “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2).

Augustine’s understanding of idolatry must surely have been shocking, especially to the professing Christians who were forced to stop and ask themselves a simple question: Is my religion based upon anything more than “earthbound thoughts”?

The echo of Augustine’s exhortation—delivered almost 1600 years ago—continues to be an important in light of various influences (like theological liberalism) where it’s not uncommon to hear Christianity described in words that carry little more significance than “earthbound thoughts.” Talk of heaven and talk of hell—both used by Christ as motivating factors for decisions in this life—can too easily become unpopular themes in contemporary books and sermons. And too frequently they are not part of our thinking as individual Christians.

Night of Weeping & Morning of Joy

I was reminded of Augustine’s challenge to the “communion of idolaters” when I saw Reformation Heritage Book’s new title, Night of Weeping & Morning of Joy by Horatius Bonar (1808-1889). Here Bonar models for us how to interpret the difficult circumstances of our life on earth in light of the eternal promises and purposes of God.

Let me briefly outline the content of the book, and provide an “above-minded” excerpt at the end.

Night of Weeping

In the first half of the book, Bonar explains the nature of God’s discipline towards his children. God disciplines his children out of his eternal character—his love, wisdom, faithfulness, and power. This discipline is a training of the mind, will, heart, and conscience. God uses bodily sickness, bereavement, and adversity as he sets to work refining, sifting, pruning, and polishing. During this discipline our comforts come in several forms—Jesus weeps with us as we partake of his suffering, he reassures us in his word that all things work together for our good, he pours out special grace in every trial, he uses our afflictions as an opportunity to glorify God, he makes us useful here on earth, he supplies the means of mortifying sin, and he provides the Holy Spirit to comfort us.

In our age, which sometimes teeters on an overdose of “temporal spirituality,” the eternal spirituality and glory we are being prepared for can be easily forgotten. Life in Christ is preparation for something greater—”the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). Bonar calls us to pay attention to the suffering and trials of this life because God is at work in all of the trials and struggles of this life, to prepare us for something greater, more gracious, and more glorious.

Simply stated, our trials are God’s means of purifying our desires and preparing us for the “pleasures forevermore” awaiting those who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb!

Morning of Joy

The second half of the book details these eternally glorious promises of God. God disciplines us now, to prepare us eternally. This connection is important as we fend of the encroaching idolatry in our own hearts. Throughout the book, Bonar encourages us to look beyond the circumstances in life and to the eternal weight of glory. Here is a lengthy excerpt from chapter 12, “The Glory.”

In those vast blocks of unquarried rock what various forms are lying concealed! What shapes of statuary or architecture are there! Yet they have no history. They can have none. They are but parts of a hideous block, in which not one line or curve of beauty is visible. But the noise of hammers is heard. Man lifts up his tool. A single block is severed. Again he lifts up his tool, and it begins to assume a form; till, as stroke after stroke falls on it, and touch after touch smooths and shapes it, the perfect image of the human form is seen, and it seems as if the hand of the artist had only been employed in unwrapping the stony folds from that fair form, and awakening it from the slumber of its marble tomb. From the moment that the chisel touched that piece of rock its history began.

Such is the case of a saint. From the moment that the hand of the Spirit is laid on him to begin the process of separation, from that moment his history begins. He then receives a conscious, outstanding personality, that fits him for having a history—a history entirely marvelous; a history whose pages are both written and read in heaven; a history which in its divine brightness spreads over eternity. His true dignity now commences. He is fit to take a place in history. Each event in his life becomes worthy of a record. “The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.” …

“The wise shall inherit glory” (Prov. 3:35). “The saints shall be joyful in glory” (Ps. 149:5). They are “vessels of mercy, afore prepared unto glory” (Rom. 9:23). That to which we are called is “eternal glory” (1 Peter 5:10). That which we obtain is “salvation in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2:10). It is to glory that God is “bringing many sons” (Heb. 2:10); so that as He, through whom we are brought to it, is “crowned with glory and honour,” so shall we be (Heb. 2:9). We are “to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). We are not only “witnesses of the sufferings of Christ, but partakers of the glory that shall be revealed” (1 Peter 5:1). So that the word of exhortation runs thus: “Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:13). And the promise is not only, “if we suffer we shall also reign with him;” but, “if we suffer with him, we shall be also glorified together” (Rom. 8:17). …

Glory, then, is our inheritance. The best, the richest, the brightest, the most beautiful of all that is in God, of good, and rich, and bright, and beautiful, shall be ours. The glory that fills heaven above, the glory that spreads over the earth beneath, shall be ours. But while “the glory of the terrestrial” shall be ours, yet in a truer sense “the glory of the celestial shall be ours.” Already by faith we have taken our place amid things celestial, “being quickened together with Christ, and raised up with him, and made to sit with him in heavenly places” (Eph. 2:6). Thus we have already claimed the celestial as, our own; and having risen with Christ, we “set our affection upon things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:2). Far-ranging dominion shall be ours; with all varying shades and kinds of glory shall we be encompassed, circle beyond circle stretching over the universe; but it is the celestial glory that is so truly ours, as the redeemed and the risen; and in the midst of that celestial glory shall be the family mansion, the church’s dwelling-place and palace—our true home for eternity. …

All that awaits us is glorious. There is an inheritance in reversion; and it is “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away” (1 Peter 1:4). There is a rest, a sabbath-keeping in store for us (Heb. 4:9); and this “rest shall be glorious” (Isa. 11:10). The kingdom which we claim is a glorious kingdom. The crown which we are to wear is a glorious crown. The city of our habitation is a glorious city. The garments which shall clothe us are garments “for glory and for beauty.” Our bodies shall be glorious bodies, fashioned after the likeness of Christ’s “glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). Our society shall be that of the glorified. Our songs shall be songs of glory. And of the region which we are to inhabit it is said, that “the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Rev. 21:23).

The hope of this glory cheers us. From under a canopy of night we look out upon these promised scenes of blessedness, and we are comforted. Our dark thoughts are softened down, even when they are not wholly brightened. For day is near, and joy is near, and the warfare is ending, and the tear shall be dried up, and the shame be lost in the glory, and “we shall be presented faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.”

-Horatius Bonar, Night of Weeping & Morning of Joy (Reformation Heritage, 2008), pp. 227-232.

… Though they sometimes come seeking debate, students and workers today [at L'Abri] have no use for Schaeffer’s presuppositionalist apologetics, which he adapted from the teachings of his professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, Cornelius Van Til. …

More from Christianity Today.

Thankfully, Schaeffer’s legacy has been preserved on paper. His Complete Works are available from Crossway. I hope to write more on Schaeffer in the near future, as this CT article and a forthcoming biography will stir some interest.

In our culture the influences upon young men and women include everything from vocal atheism (God Is Not Great) to influences within the church culture towards postmodern originality (Everything Must Change). Yet the demographic of young Calvinists—those returning to ancient theological roots—is growing. Young men and women are confessing that God is great and the need for all-out change within the church is exaggerated alarmism.

This fascinating growth in Calvinism among young Christians caught the attention of Christianity Today editor Collin Hansen. Hansen invites others to ride “shotgun” as he travels across the country discovering the far reaches of the emerging Calvinism in his new book—Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey With the New Calvinists (Crossway, 2008).

This is one of the most engaging and adventurous books we’ve seen in 2008. Read it to meet the cast of characters behind this rise; read it to discover the far-reaching influences of Calvinism on the lives of young men and women; read it for the excellent and descriptive perception of the author.

Young, Restless, Reformed is a must-read and now available from Crossway.

“The long overdue republication of Robert Rollock’s Select Works introduces us to one of the greatest Reformed thinkers of the sixteenth century. Robert Rollock (c. 1555-1598), first principal of Edinburgh University, able preacher and philosopher, and a renowned biblical commentator in his own day, was a seminal Reformed theologian particularly as an early exponent of covenant theology in Scotland. His treatises on Gods effectual calling and the passion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ are themselves worth the purchase of this two-volume Select Works. These volumes represent the cream of sixteenth-century Reformed theology, and should be treasured by all who love biblical truth. May they whet the appetite for more of this prolific Scotsman, who wrote five volumes of sermons and nine commentaries.” – Joel R. Beeke

“Partly because of his reluctance to engage in the rough and tumble of church and state relationships, Robert Rollock’s name has been almost unknown outside of a small circle of scholars interested in the history of covenant theology—in which he features significantly. But for all his irenic spirit, Rollock was a powerfully intellectual and spiritual influence in late sixteenth-century Scotland. He was wonderfully endowed with remarkable intellectual gifts, possessed a rare ability to inspire University students, and was an outstanding preacher whom the common people of Scotland’s capital listened to gladly. An added bonus to this edition of Rollock’s long unavailable Select Works is a splendidly informative and sensitive introduction by Dr. Andrew Woolsey—further underlining that the republication of these volumes is an event to be celebrated by scholars, pastors, and ordinary Christians alike.” — Sinclair Ferguson

Download the table of contents in PDF (1.4 MB)

Title: Select Works of Robert Rollock
Author: Robert Rollock; bio by Andrew Woolsey
Reading level: 3.0/5.0 > moderate
Boards: hardcover (not cloth)
Pages: 1,334
Volumes: 2
Dust jacket: no
Binding: sewn
Paper: white and clean
Topical index: no
Scriptural index: no
Text: facsimile from the 1844-1849 Woodrow Society ed.
Publisher: Reformation Heritage Books
Year: 2008
Price USD: $68.00
ISBN: 9781601780362

The Shed Blood of Christ: The Foundation of Christianity

What is Christianity? Not metaphysics, not mysticism, not a compilation of guesses at truth. It is the history of the seed of the woman—that seed the Word made flesh—the Word made flesh, the revelation of the invisible Jehovah, the representative of the eternal God, the medium of communication between the Creator and the creature, between earth and heaven.

And of this Christianity, what is the essential characteristic, the indispensable feature from first to last? Is it incarnation or blood-shedding? Is it the cradle or the cross? Is it the scene at Bethlehem or at Golgotha? Assuredly the latter! “Eh, Eli, lama sabachthani,” is no mere outcry of suffering nature, the cross is no mere scene of human martyrdom, and the great sepulchre is no mere Hebrew tomb. It is only through blood-shedding that conscience is purged; it is only at the cross that the sinner can meet with God; it is the cross that knits heaven and earth together; it is the cross that bears up the collapsing universe; it is the pierced hand that holds the golden sceptre; it is at Calvary that we find the open gate of Paradise regained, and the gospel is good news to the sinner, of liberty to enter in.

Let men, with the newly sharpened axes of rationalism, do their utmost to hew down that cross; it will stand in spite of them. Let them apply their ecclesiastical paint-brush, and daub it all over with the most approved of mediaeval pigments to cover its nakedness, its glory will shine through all. Let them scoff at the legal transference of the sinner’s guilt to a divine substitute, and of that Surety’s righteousness to the sinner, as a Lutheran delusion, or a Puritan fiction, that mutual transference, that wondrous exchange, will be found to be wrapped up with Christianity itself. Let those who, like Cain of old, shrink from the touch of sacrificial blood, and mock the “religion of the shambles,” purge their consciences with the idea of God’s universal Fatherhood, and try to wash their robes and make them white in something else than the blood of the Lamb; to us, as to the saints of other days, there is but one purging of the conscience, one security for pardon, one way of access, one bond of reconciliation, one healing of our wounds, the death of Him on whom the chastisement of our peace was laid, and one everlasting song, “unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.”

-Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All: The Piety of Horatius Bonar (Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), pp. 79-80.

“The real history of Christianity is the history of a great spiritual tradition. The only true apostolical succession is the lives of the saints. Clement of Alexandria compared the Church to a great river, receiving affluents from all sides. The great river sometimes flows impetuously through a narrow channel; sometimes it spreads like a flood; sometimes it divides into several streams; sometimes, for a time, it seems to have been driven underground. But the Holy Spirit has never left himself without witness; and if we will put aside a great deal of what passes for Church history, and is really a rather unedifying branch of secular history, and follow the course of the religion of the Spirit and the Church of the Spirit, we shall judge very differently of the relative importance of events from those who merely follow the fortunes of institutionalism.”

-W. R. Inge, Things New and Old (1933), p. 57. As quoted on page 161 of F.F. Bruce, The Spreading Flame: The Rise and Progress of Christianity from its First Beginnings to the Conversion of the English (Paternoster, Wipf & Stock), 1958.