She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

Matt 1:20-21

The doctrine of the incarnation means that Jesus Christ, the eternal Word, is God in human flesh. The great act of God: the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, took upon himself our nature (Phil. 2:6-7). The incarnation is the miraculous bringing together of humanity and divinity in a single person, the Lord Jesus Christ. As Wayne Grudem stated so succinctly, “Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man in one person, and will be so forever” (Systematic Theology, 529). Meditate on these thoughts: God in all his glory, came down from heaven and took on the all vulnerabilities and weaknesses of a newborn child: crying, wetting, hungry, and pooping.

The divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needed to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child . . . The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets.

J. I. Packer

 

All Members of Christ’s Body 

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:12-13 ESV

Individualism in the Christian life is a destructive force. Individualism says that I can live the Christian life without the joy of fellowship, without accountability, encouragement, guidance, and the sacraments. An individualistic mindset avoids authority, responsibility, and community. It says that I can live the Christian life without you, the body of Christ. I don’t want to be challenged. I don’t want my blind spots exposed. I don’t want to minister to needy people and serve others. I want to do my own thing  just me, my Bible, and God.

Individualism says that I am not answerable, responsible, or obligated to anyone including friends, family, and church leaders. It is a form of self-deception, masking itself as a “leading from God,” but portraying an attitude of rebellion toward God and his delegated authorities.

Individualism fails to understand that the day we were baptized, we were ushered into the Body of Christ and placed in covenant relationship with other believers (1 Cor. 12: 12-14). Individualism refuses to acknowledge the biblical truth that we cannot grow in our relationship with Jesus without the help and assistance of other believers (Eph. 4:11-13).

The Christian life is a “new community: a new family, a new pattern of human togetherness which results from the unity of the Lord’s people in the Lord, henceforth to function under the one Father as a family and a fellowship.

J. I. Packer, “The Gospel and the Lord’s Supper,” in Serving the People of God: Collected Shorter Writings of J.I. Packer, 4 vols.  (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1998), 2:44

By becoming a Christian, I belong to God and I belong to my brothers and sisters. It is not that I belong to God and then make a decision to join a local church. My being in Christ means being in Christ with those others who are in Christ. This is my identity. This is our identity. . . . If the church is the body of Christ, then we should not live as disembodied Christians.

God’s Leading

Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.

2 Cor. 2: 14 NKJV

As believers, we enjoy the Blessed Trinity’s personal presence through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Therefore, we should experience an on-going conversation with God: speaking to God and being spoken to by his Spirit. The normal Christian life is God speaking, directing, and immersing us in his love. In turn, we can respond in delight by honoring his leadership through obedience to his will. This process of being directed, guided, and led by the Holy Spirit in the affairs of everyday life is called hearing God (John 10:25-30). God’s guidance does not usually involve an audible voice, but the Holy Spirit leading through a nudging, gnawing impression in our spirit.

Impressions need to be suspected before they are sanctioned and tested before they are trusted. Confidence that one’s impressions are God–given is no guarantee that this is really so, even when they persist and grow stronger through long seasons of prayer. Bible–based wisdom must judge them.

J. I. Packer, God’s Plan for You (Crossway, 2001), 105.

A Still Small Voice

And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper.

1 Kings 19:12 NLT

Prayer is an ongoing dialogue-a real and intimate conversation-between the Abba Father of Jesus and us, his beloved children. Since prayer is a conversation between us and God, we can expect to be heard by the Holy Spirit and to be spoken to by God. Our conversation with God involves sharing, asking questions, clarifying, and responding. Prayer opens our hearts to God’s presence, our ears to his direction, our minds to his will, and our spirit to his great love. Prayer makes us great receivers of God’s most gracious grace.

Prayer is standing before God transparent and open in a real on-going back-and-forth conversation. In that conversation, we share our hopes, fears, needs, and desires knowing that our Abba Father who cares for us will respond. He will hear our cry and answer: he will move on our behalf and provide what is best for us.

Does God, then, really tell us things when we pray? Yes. We shall probably not hear voices, nor feel sudden strong impressions of a message coming through (and we shall be wise to suspect such experiences should they come our way); but as we analyze and verbalize our problems before God’s throne, and tell him what we want and why we want it, and think our way through passages and principles of God’s written Word bearing on the matter in hand, we shall find many certainties crystallizing in our hearts as to God’s view of us and our prayers, and his will for us and others. If you ask, “Why is this or that happening?” no light may come, for “the secret things belong to the Lord our God” (Deuteronomy 29:29); but if you ask, “How am I to serve and glorify God here and now, where I am?” there will always be an answer.

J. I. Packer, Growing in Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1994).

Theology that Quickens the Conscience and Softens the Heart

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

Hebrews 1:1-2

Several years ago, Bishop Charles W. Jones graciously appointed me as his canon theologian. A canon theologian is responsible for advising his bishop in theological matters, teaching the classic truths of the Faith, and encouraging his fellow clergy in the study of the Word of God. I take the task seriously, perhaps too seriously. But, I feel a responsibility to equip the people of God in the truths of God for the upbuilding of the church of God for the advancement of the kingdom of God. Theology need not be a purely intellectual exercise: theology should elevate the people of God into the presence of God for the worship and love of God. Theology should be birthed in prayer, pastorally sensitive, and understandable to the everyday believer. As J. I. Packer states below, theology should clean out the church’s sewers so that God’s truth might flow to the benefit of all.

If our theology does not quicken the conscience and soften the heart, it actually hardens both; if it does not encourage the commitment of faith, it reinforces the detachment of unbelief; if it fails to promote humility, it inevitably feeds pride. So one who theologizes in public, whether formally in the pulpit, on the podium or in print, or informally from the armchair, must think hard about the effect his thoughts will have on people — God’s people, and other people. Theologians are called to be the church’s water engineers and sewage officers; it is their job to see that God’s pure truth flows abundantly where it is needed, and to filter out any intrusive pollution that might damage health.

J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 15.

HT: Ray Ortlund

The Sacrifice for Sin

For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past . . . .

Rom. 3:25 NLT

Last week, a young man in my parish, asked what the word, “atonement,” meant. His request made me go back and rethink my answer. In summary, atonement is the work that Christ did in his life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, which provided the way for us to come back to God in right relationship.

J. I. Packer writes “Atonement means making amends, blotting out the offense, and giving satisfaction for wrong done; thus reconciling to oneself the alienated other and restoring the disrupted relationship” (Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Belief). I have heard several preachers reflect that atonement means “at-one-ment,” Jesus’s sacrifice has given us the opportunity to be in “oneness” with our heavenly Father.

God displays his righteousness by judging sin as sin deserves, but the judgment is diverted from the guilty and put on to the shoulders of Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God acting as wrath absorber. The atonement had to be costly because it was necessary in light of the nature of God, which must inflict retributive punishment on sin. A marvelous wisdom of God consists in his establishing the Lord Jesus as our representative and our substitute because only he could bear and absorb the judgment due to us. Being our representative makes him our substitute, and so he suffers and we go free . . . .

J. I. Packer, “The Necessity of the Atonement” in Atonement, ed. Gabriel N. E. Fluhrer (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2010), 15-16.

HT: Of First Importance

“They Will Flatter Him, But Never Obey Him.”

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Rom. 10:9

As few years ago, I had the opportunity of meeting the esteemed theologian, James I. Packer. At the time, the Lordship Salvation controversy was brewing. The debate centered on whether an individual needed to believe in Jesus as both Lord and Christ in order to be saved. Some teachers said, “Savior only” and while others believed Christ’s Lordship was essential to his saving work. I asked Dr. Packer his opinion. I will never forget his response, “You cannot have half of Jesus to have Jesus is to have all of him.” Dr. Packer was referring to the words of Peter, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). You cannot have half of Jesus, he must be Lord and Savior. In other words, Jesus cannot be considered a person’s Savior, bringer of salvation, without simultaneously being Lord of that person’s life. When we believe Jesus as Savior and Lord, he is no quasi-Christ.

Salvation comes not by “accepting the finished work” or “deciding for Christ.” It comes by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, the whole, living, victorious Lord who, as God and man, fought our fight and won it, accepted our debt as His own and paid it, took our sins and died under them and rose again to set us free. This is the true Christ, and nothing less will do.

But something less is among us, nevertheless, and we do well to identify it so that we may repudiate it. That something is a poetic fiction, a product of the romantic imagination and maudlin religious fancy. It is a Jesus, gentle, dreamy, shy, sweet and feminine, almost effeminate, and marvelously adaptable to whatever society He may find Himself in. He is cooed over by women disappointed in love, patronized by pro tem celebrities and recommended by psychiatrists as a model of a well-integrated personality. He is used as a means to almost any carnal end, but he is never acknowledged as Lord. These quasi Christians follow a quasi Christ. They want his help but not his interference. They will flatter him but never obey him.

A. W. Tozer, The Warfare of the Spirit (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1993), 173.

HT: A.W. Tozer Daily Devotional

The Case Against Individualism

For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many.

1 Cor. 12:12-14 (NKJV)

Individualism is a false conviction of the heart which says that I am not answerable, responsible, or obligated to anyone including friends, family, church leaders or even God. It is self-deception which masks itself as a “leading from God,” but portrays an attitude of rebellion toward God’s revealed will.

Individualism in the Christian life is a destructive force. Individualism says that I can live the Christian life without the joy of fellowship, without accountability, without encouragement, without guidance, and without the sacraments. An individualistic mindset shuns authority, responsibility, and community. It says that I can live the Christian life without you, the body of Christ. I don’t want to be challenged. I don’t want my blind spots exposed. I don’t want to minister to needy people and serve others. I want to do my own thing  just me, my Bible, and God.

Individualism fails to understand that the day I was baptized, I was brought into the Body of Christ and placed in covenant relationship with other believers. Individualism refuses to acknowledge the biblical truth that I cannot grow in my relationship with Jesus without the help and assistance of other believers (Eph. 4:11-13).

The Christian life is a “new community: a new family, a new pattern of human togetherness which results from the unity of the Lord’s people in the Lord, henceforth to function under the one Father as a family and a fellowship” (J.I. Packer).

By becoming a Christian, I belong to God and I belong to my brothers and sisters. It is not that I belong to God and then make a decision to join a local church. My being in Christ means being in Christ with those others who are in Christ. This is my identity. This is our identity. . . . If the church is the body of Christ, then we should not live as disembodied Christians.

Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church (Wheaton, Ill, Crossway Books, 2008), 41.

HT: Of First Importance