The Glorious Deeds of Christ

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

Rom 11:33 ESV

I’m a amateur theologian, I enjoy theological discussions as much as the next amateur theologian. However there are times when discussions need to end and worship should begin. Theological discussion is only helpful if it leads to awe-inspired adoration, mind-exulting praise, and heart-searching holiness for our Lord Jesus Christ. God is deep and mysterious and to think that we might ever figure him out goes beyond human pride and self-deception.

Important as it is that we recognize God working in us, I would yet warn against a too-great preoccupation with the thought. It is a sure road to sterile passivity. God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election, predestination, and the divine sovereignty.

The best and safest way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God and in deepest reverence say, “O Lord, Thou knowest.” Those things belong to the deep and mysterious profound of God’s omniscience. Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints.

A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God (Camp Hill, PA: Wingspread, 1982), 64.

Let the man go to the grammar school of faith and repentance before he goes to the university of election and predestination.

John Bradford

A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.

Isaiah 42:3 ESV

As Christians, we must realize that God is not mad at us. He is not angry with us when we struggle in seasons of depression. When the struggles of life, the emptiness of loss, and the hurt of rejection bruise our hearts, Christ is present to heal, restore, and love. Remember that the same prophet who said that my wound is grievous and incurable (Jer. 15:18) is the same prophet who said from the Lord, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jer. 29:11). In this new year, we must remember that Christ is the balm of Gilead, the bright and morning star, the healer of our souls, our hope, our future and our mercy. He is not mad at us, but is longing to show us mercy in the midst of our sad faces and heavy hearts.

The sighs of a bruised heart carry in them a report, both of our affection to Christ, and of his care to us. The eyes of our souls cannot be towards him unless he has cast a gracious look upon us first. The least love we have to him is but a reflection of his love first shining upon us.

As Christ did, in his example to us, whatever he charges us to do, so he suffered in his own person whatever he calls us to suffer, so that he might the better learn to relieve and pity us in our sufferings. . . .

But our comfort is that Christ drank the dregs of the cup for us, and will succour us, so that our spirits may not utterly fail under that little taste of his displeasure which we may feel. He became not only a man but a curse, a man of sorrows, for us. He was broken that we should not be broken; he was troubled, that we should not be desperately troubled; he became a curse, that we should not be accursed. Whatever may be wished for in an all-sufficient comforter is all to be found in Christ.

Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, 1630 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2008), 66.

And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.

Luke 1:35

A theological paradox is a Biblical statement that seems contradictory, or opposed to rational thought, and yet is eternally true. For many, the doctrine of the incarnation is a paradox: how can God become man and live in one person? The Christmas season is full of paradoxes, Puritan pastor and theologian, Thomas Watson reveals the paradoxes of Christmas:

He was poor, that he might make us rich.

He was born of a virgin that we might be born of God.

He took our flesh, that he might give us His Spirit.

He lay in the manger, that we may lie in paradise.

He came down from heaven, that he might bring us to heaven….

That the ancient of Days should be born.

that he who thunders in the heavens should cry in the cradle….

that he who rules the stars should suck the breast;

that a virgin should conceive;

that Christ should be made of a woman, and of that woman which himself made,

that the branch should bear the vine,

that the mother should be younger than the child she bare,

and the child in the womb bigger than the mother;

that the human nature should not be God, yet one with God

Christ taking flesh is a mystery we shall never fully understand till we come to heaven.

If our hearts be not rocks, this love of Christ should affect us . Behold love that passeth knowledge! (Eph 3:19).

Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity (Banner of Truth), 196, 198.

HT: reformation21

For call those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.

Isaiah 66:2 KJV

God is “looking,” he looking for a particular man or woman: one through whom he can speak, move, and bless. That person is a “humble” person, a person who knows that they cannot live life without Jesus. At its most basic, humility is seeing yourself as God sees you: dark yet lovely (Song of Songs 1:5), weak yet strong (2 Cor. 12:9), and poor yet spiritually rich (2 Cor. 5:21).

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking less about yourself. Humility is not denigrating yourself by making yourself out to be less than the total person that God has gifted and called you to be as his servant.

Having a, “contrite spirit,” is similar to maintaining an attitude of humility: a contrite spirit is a heart that is broken, needy, and yearning for help. It’s having a sense of sin: the emotional damage caused by sin, the selfishness that wounds others, and the helplessness that paralyzes. Contriteness is an awareness that our sin has hurt God and others, but it also acknowledges that God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness is greater than our failure.

Last, “trembling” at God’s Word is an attitude of submission, openness, and obedience to God’s spoken and written word.

In all, a believer that God uses is humble, contrite of heart, and submitted to God’s Word: the same character qualities that Jesus describes as  ”poor in spirit” in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:3). The “poor in spirit” acknowledges their complete and utter bankruptcy before God. Its admitting that we are spiritually, emotionally, and physically afflicted; completely unable to save ourselves.

In conclusion, the Lord is not looking for the adequate, successful, and influential: he seeks and supports those who know their need of him.

[God] has a heaven and earth of his own making, and a temple of man’s making; but he overlooks them all, that he may look with favour to him that is poor in spirit, humble and serious, self-abasing and self-denying, whose heart is truly contrite for sin, penitent for it, and in pain to get it pardoned, and who trembles at God’s word, not as Felix did, with a transient qualm that was over when the sermon was done, but with an habitual awe of God’s majesty and purity and an habitual dread of his justice and wrath. Such a heart is a living temple for God; he dwells there, and it is the place of his rest; it is like heaven and earth, his throne and his footstool.

Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996), Isa. 66:1–4.

Holiness

Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders.

Exodus 15:11

Holiness is God’s infinite glory manifested to the world through his sinlessness of character, purity of intention, and righteousness of person. God is right, acts right, and does right.

The holiness of God is his glory and crown. It is the blessedness of his nature. It renders him glorious in himself, and glorious to his creatures. “Holy” is more fixed as an epithet to his name than any other. This is his greatest title of honor. He is pure and unmixed light, free from all blemish in his essence, nature, and operations. He cannot be deformed by any evil. The notion of God cannot be entertained without separating from him whatever is impure and staining. Though he is majestic, eternal, almighty, wise, immutable, merciful, and whatsoever other prefections may dignify so sovereign a being, yet if we conceive him destitute of this excellent perfection, and imagine him possessed with the least contagion of evil, we make him but an infinite monster, and sully all those perfections we ascribed to him before.

It is a contradiction for him to be God and to have any darkness mixed with his light. To deny his purity, makes him no God. He that says God is not holy, speaks much worse than if he said there is no God at all. Where do we read of the angels crying out Eternal or Faithful Lord God of hosts? But we do hear them singing Holy, Holy, Holy. God swears by his holiness (Psa. 89:35). His holiness is a pledge for the assurance of his promises. Power is his hand, omniscience his eye, mercy his heart, eternity his duration, but holiness his beauty. It renders him lovely and gives beauty to all his attributes. Every action of his is free from all hints of evil. Holiness is the crown of all his attributes, the life of all his decrees, and the brightness of all his actions. Nothing is decreed by him and nothing is acted by him that is not consistent with the beauty of his holiness.

Stephen Charnock, The Attributes of God, quoted from Voices from the Past, ed., Richard Rushing (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2009), 265.

HT: Tim Challies

Love Shines in All Its Splendor at Calvary

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Cor. 5:21 ESV

As Good Friday approaches, we rejoice in the greatest event in the history of humankind. Here at Golgotha, God the Father, proved his love for us. Here, God the Son, took our place and received our just condemnation. Here, God the Holy Spirit, drew us to saving faith and deep repentance. Here, God’s grace is magnified as greater than our sin. Here, the mercy of God and the holiness of God met and kissed one another fulfilling the conditions of God’s justice and grace. Here at Calvary, the Holy Trinity’s love is displayed to the world.

The Puritan prayer, “Love Lustres at Calvary,” describes this great exchange: we receive Christ’s holiness and forgiveness while Christ takes upon himself our guilt and just judgment. As an act of love, God gladly made this unfair, one sided trade of our selfishness and pride for Christ’s righteousness and holiness. Therefore, we can live a life of intimacy with the Father because Christ has made all things right. This great exchange means that we can live on a daily basis an exchanged life of victory.

At Calvary, the greatest of all exchanges occurred. Jesus Christ, the one who is fully man and fully God, truly innocent and without sin, took upon himself all our selfishness, rebellion, and hate and substituted his righteousness, forgiveness, and love. Christ bore the just judgment of God for our miserable sins, guilt, and shame. Some theologians call this act, double imputation. I call it glory.

We can daily live the exchanged life because Christ by his gracious grace made the exchange of our sins for his righteousness on the Cross. The exchanged life is not a one-time act, but a lifestyle lived as we abide in Christ, trusting the Holy Spirit to live Christ’s life in and through us.

Love Lustres at Calvary

My Father,

Enlarge my heart, warm my affections,

open my lips,

supply words that proclaim ‘Love lustres at Calvary.’

There grace removes my burdens and heaps them on thy Son,

made a transgressor, a curse, and sin for me;

There the sword of thy justice smote the man,

thy fellow;

There thy infinite attributes were magnified,

and infinite atonement was made;

There infinite punishment was due,

and infinite punishment was endured.

Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy,

cast off that I might be brought in,

trodden down as an enemy that I might be welcomed as a friend,

surrendered to hell’s worst that I might attain heaven’s best,

stripped that I might be clothed,

wounded that I might be healed,

athirst that I might drink,

tormented that I might be comforted,

made a shame that I might inherit glory,

entered darkness that I might have eternal light.

My Saviour wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes,

groaned that I might have endless song,

endured all pain that I might have unfading health,

bore a thorny crown that I might have a glory-diadem,

bowed his head that I might uplift mine,

experienced reproach that I might receive welcome,

closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness,

expired that I might for ever live.

O Father, who spared not thine only Son that thou mightest spare me,

All this transfer thy love designed and accomplished;

Help me to adore thee by lips and life.

O that my every breath might be ecstatic praise,

my every step buoyant with delight, as I see my enemies crushed,

Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed,

sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood,

hell’s gates closed, heaven’s portal open.

Go forth, O conquering God, and show me the cross, mighty to subdue, comfort and save.

Arthur Bennett, ed., Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers (Carlisle, Penn.: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), 76.

What Is God’s Holiness?

Who among the gods is like you, O Lord? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?

Exodus 15:11

Holiness is God’s infinite glory manifested to the world through his sinlessness of character, purity of intention, and righteousness of person. God is right, acts right, and does right. God’s holiness opposes wrong and his love reaches out to the wrongdoer. God’s holiness opposes sin for sin turns the world upside down, inside out, and wrong side up. Sin brings destruction, pain, and suffering to all. It denigrates God’s majesty and exalts humankind’s pride and rebellion. God’s holiness stands against sin’s evil, and therefore, gives God glory. God is beautiful for he cares about rampant injustice, ugly selfishness, and our self-inflicted pain.

It is his glory and beauty. Holiness is the honour of the creature; sanctification and honour are linked together (1 Thess. iv. 4); much more is it the honour of God; it is the image of God in the creature (Epn. iv. 24). When we take the picture of a man, we draw the most beautiful part, the face, which is a member of the greatest excellency. When God would be drawn to the life, as much as can be, in the spirit of his creatures, he is drawn in this attribute, as being the most beautiful perfection of God, and most valuable with him. Power is his hand and arm; omniscience, his eye; mercy, his bowels; eternity, his duration; his holiness is his beauty (2 Chron. xx. 21);—’ should praise the beauty of holiness.’ In Ps. xxvii. 4, David desires ‘to behold the beauty of the Lord, and inquire in his holy temple;’ that is, the holiness of God manifested in his hatred of sin in the daily sacrifices. Holiness was the beauty of the temple (Isa. xlvi. 11); holy and beautiful house are joined together; much more the beauty of God that dwelt in the sanctuary. This renders him lovely to all his innocent creatures, though formidable to the guilty ones. . . . And the angels’ song intimate it to be his glory (Isa. vi. 3); ‘The whole earth is full of thy glory;’ that is, of his holiness in his laws, and in his judgments against sin, that being the attribute applauded by them before.

Stephen Charnock, “The Atributes and Existence of God,” Complete Works of Stephen Charnock, Vol. One.

When We Grieve Our Sin, God Promises to Heal

God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Matt. 5:4 NLT

We discussed the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) here and here. We found that the Sermon on the Mount is what our lives will look like when Jesus is having his way in us. With much encouragement, we discovered that Jesus will make us what he teaches what we should be. Then, we saw that spiritual bankruptcy is a good thing. It’s a good thing for God does not call us to be adequate, he only calls us to be available. Jesus yearns for us to come to the end of ourselves. He is waiting for us to stop trying to prove ourselves and to start trusting his sufficiency.

Surprisingly, mourning also becomes a good thing. Jesus speaks of a mourning that grieves over our sin, the corruption of our motives, the loss of innocence, and the pain we caused God and others. Gospel mourning opens the door for God’s healing, forgiveness and restoration. It is good to mourn our sin for there God’s redemption is found.

What is the right gospel-mourning?

It is spontaneous and free. It must come as water out of a spring, not as fire out of a flint. Tears for sin must be like the myrrh which drops from the tree freely without cutting or forcing. Mary Magdalene’s repentance was voluntary. ‘She stood weeping’ (Luke 7). She came to Christ with ointment in her hand, with love in her heart, with tears in her eyes. God is for a freewill offering. He does not love to be put to distrain.

Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

Hearing, But Never Doing

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

James 1:22-23 ESV

What a frightening thing to read. He listened and listened to three years of the most anointed and insightful sermons that have ever been preached and his heart was never moved. Not one truth did he take to heart, not one insight did he apply, and not one sentence did he act upon. Years of hearing truth without ever allowing the message to change his motives, his character, or his behavior. Who am I talking about? Of course, I talking about Judas, he heard all of Jesus sermons and the truth never impacted his life. Sadly, Judas never changed.

This realization should lower us to our knees, and cause us to cry out for God’s mercy. How much truth have I heard and never applied? How many Biblical insights have I gained, but never lived? How much of Jesus have I experienced, but never walked out? (James 1: 22-25). Oh, God! Change our hearts, change our lives, make us like you.

All external means cannot work faith. Christ preached, and preached as powerfully as ever man did, he ‘spake as never no man spake,’ — John 6:63, ‘The words I speak to you are spirit and life,’ — yet the Jews remained unbelievers; and Judas, that heard all his sermons, and missed not one, yet remained an unbeliever.

Thomas Goodwin, Works of Thomas Goodwin: The Object and Acts of Justifying Faith (2006 Biblesoft and Ages Software).

Christ Most Precious

Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.

Phil. 3:8 NKJV

Jesus Christ is more precious than the finest diamond, more precious than all the world’s power, and more precious than all the praise of men (and women). He is more precious than sin’s best pleasure, the world’s mightiest throne, and Satan’s best promises. Jesus is worth living for and dying for. Cast aside all power, privilege, and authority to have him. Run to Jesus, the man of forgiveness, love, joy, and liberty. At Jesus’ feet, one finds a jewel that cannot be bought or sold only treasured and loved (Isa. 55:1-3). Embrace him and embrace all that life was meant to be, miss him and stumble into a vast void of emptiness (John 10:10 NLT).

Christ is a jewel more worth than a thousand worlds, as all know who have Him. Get Him, and get all; miss Him and miss all.

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, Vol. 3.