One Calming Word

I’ve been reading Sinclair Ferguson’s Some Pastors and Teachers (Banner of Truth Trust, 2017). If you love historical theology, you’d love this book. It is a rich collection of Ferguson’s own meditations on John Calvin, John Owen, and John Murray.

John Owen (1616-1683) came to assurance of his salvation in Christ during a sermon by an unknown guest preacher at Aldermanbury Chapel. The text was Matthew 8:25-27 (Jesus’ stilling of the stormy sea). Owen, meditating later on the assurance he found in that sermon, wrote, “when the Holy Ghost by one word stills the tumults and storms that are raised in the soul, giving it an immediate calm and security, it knows his divine power, and rejoices in his presence” (Works, II:242; Ferguson quotes on pg. 260).

Speaks of the Holy Spirit’s “one word,” analogous to Jesus’ word calming the storm. While the great Puritan may have used this merely as a figure of speech to make a comparison (he never specifies a particular word in his meditation), the Scripture tells us there is a single word the Spirit speaks in us to calm our souls.

“Father.”

It is by the indwelling Holy Spirit that we are able to call upon the Father using the same Name the Son has used for all eternity.

“…all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:14-17a).

“…when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God” (Galatians 4:4-7).

When we trust Jesus alone for a right relationship with God now and forever, we are mystically united to Him by faith through the work of the Holy Spirit He gives to us. All that is the Son’s is ours through the Holy Spirit, including the right to call on the first Person of the Trinity as “Father.” We do not call Him this because we have earned it through our character or actions. This right is ours because it is the Son’s right, and we are united to Him. The right to have this relationship with the first Person of the Trinity does not change, for it is immutably and eternally the relationship between Father and Son as the one true God. The Person of the Spirit, Who dwells in us, speaks out the call upon God as Father because of Who the Son is, not because of how good we are or anything we do. In the storm of our souls, this is the one calming word.

Rest in this.

Praise the Father to the Fatherless

“Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord” (Baptist Faith & Message (2000), XVIII).

On Thursday mornings I have a men’s theology reading group at a local coffee shop. After yesterday's meeting I was driving around town listening to National Public Radio (NPR). There was a segment on the growth of human embryos in “lab dishes,”kept alive up to two weeks old – the current deadline for laboratory guidelines in the U.S. (the nervous system begins to form after this point). The embryos develop without “receiving instructions from the mother’s body…without any information from mom.”

My first thought was, “what a striking image of loneliness.” These human beings are conceived in a lab, grow for a brief period of time in a “lab dish,” and are terminated at two weeks – all in isolation from a mother’s womb. They are conceived to be observed and then thrown away. Alone. While not having awareness, they are human beings, and human beings were created to be the image of God, and were created with souls.

I am a one-issue voter: I am politically active for human life, conception to natural death. Apart from pro-life political activism, though, I was comforted by a single reality as I drove  - grieving - through town yesterday morning. These souls, conceived to serve human pragmatism alone and destined to die in two weeks, have a Father in heaven Who knows them and guarantees they are not to spend eternity as they spend those two weeks:

“…let the righteous be glad; let them exult before God;
Yes, let them rejoice with gladness.
Sing to God, sing praises to His name;
Lift up a song for Him who rides through the deserts,
Whose name is the LORD, and exult before Him.

A father of the fatherless and a judge for the widows,
Is God in His holy habitation.
God makes a home for the lonely” (Psalm 68:3-6).

While we oppose this laboratory conception of the lonely doomed, we should, at the same time, praise the Father Who has a home destined for them in heaven’s eternal family. He doesn't miss one of them, no matter how small.

He is worthy of our praise.

The Person of the Delight of God

"The happiness of God is first and foremost a happiness in His Son. Thus when we share in the happiness of God, we share in the very pleasure that God has in the Son. Ultimately this is what makes the gospel good news. It opens the way for us to see and savor the glory of Christ [which is the Father's glory perfectly reflected]. And when we reach that ultimate goal we will find ourselves savoring the Son with the very happiness that the Father has in the Son" (John Piper, God is the Gospel, pg. 101).

I think I'd tie in Piper's great influence, Jonathan Edwards. In his unpublished essay on the Trinity, he says this about the delight between the Father and Son as it relates to the Holy Spirit: "The Godhead being thus begotten by God's loving an idea of Himself and shewing forth in a distinct subsistence or person in that idea, there proceeds a most pure act, and an infinitely holy and sacred energy arises between the Father and Son in mutually loving and delighting in each other, for their love and joy is mutual, (Prov. 8:30) 'I was daily His delight rejoicing always before Him.' This is the eternal and most perfect and essential act of the Divine nature, wherein the Godhead acts to an infinite degree and in the most perfect manner possible. The Deity becomes all act, the Divine essence itself flows out and is as it were breathed forth in love and joy. So that the Godhead therein stands forth in yet another manner of subsistence, and there proceeds the third Person in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, viz., the Deity in act, for there is no other act but the act of the will...the Holy Ghost is the deity subsisting in act, or the divine essence flowing out and breathed forth in God's infinite love to and delight in Himself."

While Piper does utilize these Edwards quotes in a footnote (The Pleasures of God, pgs. 44-45), I don't think he makes the application to our lives as he could have. In the one living and true God Who is three Persons, the Holy Spirit is the joy and delight the Father has in the Son (Who is eternally and perfectly reflecting His glory); the Holy Spirit is also the joy and delight the Son has in the Father (Whose glory He eternally and perfectly reflects). The Holy Spirit is the eternal Person of the joy and delight of God. It is not a happiness based on circumstance, but on the unchanging reality of the Father and Son's delight and joy in each other. Nothing in this world or in our lives can change this, for it was the reality before there was space and time. It is eternally unchanging and foundational.

What I wish Piper would have done was make the pastoral application of this truth. This Spirit Who is eternal joy is the same Spirit Who is given to believers. "...the fruit of the Spirit is...joy" (Galatians 5:22). Our reading and consideration of Galatians 5:22 usually leads us to think the Holy Spirit should make us happy - we focus on the emotion opposite depression. This is why I started with the quote I did, though. The Holy Spirit is not a "positive emotion generator" in our lives. He is the joy and delight of the Father for the Son, and the Son for the Father - a delight based on the Son's perfect reflecting of the Father's glory. The Holy Spirit is given to us to seal us in the Father-glorifying Person of the Son. Jesus said of this relationship: "He [the Holy Spirit] will glorify Me [the Son], for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine; therefore I said that He will take what is Mine and declare it to you" (John 16:14,15).

The joy that is the fruit of the Holy Spirit is not an unfocused joy (a vague, mystical, inexplicable emotion). The joy that is the fruit of the Holy Spirit is not the result of the material, earthly blessings He might bring into our lives. The joy that is the fruit of the Holy Spirit is the result of Him drawing us into the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son, which is all delight and joy in the glory of the Father in the Person of the Son.

The Spirit uses the means of the Word, prayer, the Lord's Supper, and the Christ-exalting fellowship of the Church to draw us closer to Christ, Who is the object of the Father's eternal delight. In turn, we see the Father in the Son (John 14:9) and experience the eternal joy of the Son in the Father's glory. The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith describes the Spirit's use of means to bring us grace: "...[the grace of faith] is...increased and strengthened by the work of the Spirit through the ministry of the Word, and also by the administration of baptism and the Lord's Supper, prayer, and other means appointed by God" (14.1). The "grace of faith" is the Spirit's bringing us into the joyous relationship between the Father and the Son. He uses the ordinary (continual, accessible to all believers) means of grace as they are observed in the Church.

The Trinity is eternally joy. In the salvation He has graciously given us, we are brought into His eternally delightful fellowship for His glory and our eternal joy. Do not grieve this Person of joy, but increase your commitment, obedience, and involvement in the Scripture-ordained means He uses to draw you into His joy as He helps you see the Son more and more. "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord Who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:17,18).

Jeremiah's Turning #7: His Promise to the Gathering

Following the word “turn” (שוב) through Jeremiah’s prophecy.

“‘It shall be in those days when you are multiplied and increased in the land,’ declares the LORD, ‘they will no longer say, “The ark of the covenant of the LORD.” And it will not come to mind, nor will they remember it, nor will they miss it, nor will it be made again. At that time they will call Jerusalem “The Throne of the LORD,” and all the nations will be gathered to it, to Jerusalem, for the name of the LORD; nor will they walk anymore after the stubbornness of their evil heart. In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers as an inheritance. Then I said, “How I would set you among My sons and give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful inheritance of the nations!” And I said, “You shall call Me, My Father, and not turn [שוב] away from following Me”’” (Jeremiah 3:16-19).

What promises to the gathering Church!

The place of God’s presence with His people is where God reigns over all as King! “And Jesus came up and spoke to them,saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth...I am with you always, even to the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:18,20).

The place of God’s presence with His people is where the elect from all the nations is gathered! “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth” (Revelation 5:9,10).

The place of God’s presence with His people is where all God’s people will eventually be counted – not one will be forgotten or lost! “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day...My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, Who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand...of those whom You have given Me I lost not one” (John 6:39; 10:27-29; 18:9).

The place of God’s presence with His people is where God’s people enjoy the privilege and right of adoption by His great grace! “...as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God...He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved” (John 1:12,13; Ephesians 1:5,6).

The place of God’s presence with His people is where God’s people are assured preservation unto perseverance for eternal salvation! “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified” (Romans 8:29,30).

Where is the place of God’s presence with His people? The old covenant shadow, earthly Jerusalem, passed away with that covenant: “...believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father” (John 4:21; cf. Galatians 4:22-26). The place of God’s presence with His people is in Christ alone! The fullness to Whom the old covenant shadows and types pointed is here! This is the age of His Gospel, the age of the new covenant sealed in His blood!

“...My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him...if anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him...abide in Me, and I in you” (John 6:55,56; 14:23; 15:4).

Finishing the Sermon of Glory

I finished preaching a message yesterday that I left incomplete five years ago. There are moments in the Christian walk where you learn something from the Holy Spirit as you worship in His Word with other believers; these moments are beautiful and exhilarating...and bittersweet, as well. To have said something beautiful from the Word about our incredible God but – at the same time – leave the whole tale untold is heartbreaking. Thank God for His grace in Christ!

Years ago I preached on Exodus 33 & 34 a message called “God’s Glory Is His Character.” Moses, encouraged by successfully mediating between an unworthy group of idolaters in covenant with God to be His people and to be the means of Christ coming into the world on one hand, and a holy God justly offended by their idolatry on the other (Moses foreshadowing how Christ would have to intercede on our behalf today!), makes an amazing request: “I pray You, show me Your glory!” (Exodus 33:18).

Now, the folks at the foot of Sinai would have thought Moses crazy to ask such a thing. After all, God had descended upon the mountain with impressive special effects: “So it came about on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet sound...Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the LORD descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently...the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder...” (19:16-19). And Moses was in the midst of all this up on the mountain! How could he ask to see God’s glory?! Didn’t he have eyes to see and ears to hear all that surrounded him?! Moses had a vision of his knowledge of God that went beyond the special effects. These things, as impressive (and scary) as they were, did not show God’s glory.

God tells Moses he cannot see His face, for “no man can see Me and live!” (33:20). But the covenant God does show Moses His glory (which He also calls “all My goodness,” vs. 19) through almost creedal pronouncements about Himself: “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion...the LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; Who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, Who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations” (33:19; 34:6,7). God’s glory is His character and sovereignty, not the special effects or supernatural sound system.

That was the message I preached several years ago. It’s true and it’s awesome, but that’s not the whole story. Not by a long shot.

This invisible God revealed Himself perfectly and completely when God the Son, second Person of the Trinity (one God in three Persons), added humanity to His eternal and full divinity. The invisible God became visible in His glory:

• “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God...and the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth....no one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God Who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (John 1:1,2,14,18).
• “Philip said to Him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, “Show us the Father”?’” (John 14:8,9).
• “He is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15).
• “God...in these last days has spoken to us in His Son...He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature” (Hebrews 1:1-3).

The Son, through the visibility of His divinity shining forth through His humanity, showed us the invisible Father’s glory. This was a glory the Father and Son shared from all eternity, being the one true God (John 17:5).

This is wonderful and incredible...God’s glory revealed perfectly and finally in His Son Jesus. But even this is not the whole story.

Yesterday afternoon, in the CLD class I help teach for the Southwest Baptist Association, we were covering glorification (described by the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 as “the culmination of salvation and is the final blessed and abiding state of the redeemed,” IV.D). I am thankful I got to finish the sermon left incomplete five years ago.

What is our glorification? Paul tells us. “...those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son...these whom He predestined...He also glorified” (Romans 8:29,30). To be “glorified” is “to be conformed to the image of His Son,” Who is the perfect reflection of the invisible Father’s glory from all eternity. The glorious goodness and perfection of the Godhead in all its unimaginable fullness, shared between the Father and Son perfectly, is applied to us by the Holy Spirit, Who brings us into union with the Son unto eternal glory.

Father and Son share glory. Moses sees glory, of which the Law revealed through him showed all of us to fall short as sinners (Romans 3:23). The Son fully reveals glory. The Holy Spirit applies the saving work of the Son to us, bringing us into union with the Son unto glorification. We are brought into the glory of the Triune God for eternity. A full circle of glory, told from cover to cover in the Bible and made reality in our lives through the preaching of that glory.

We get to share this story, that others might by the grace of God “see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, Who is the image of God...God, Who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One Who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4,6).

Believe in His glory through Christ unto infinitely satisfying union with that glory forever. That’s the whole story.

There's Just Something About That Name

“The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, the oracle. The man declares to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal: Surely I am more stupid than any man, and I do not have the understanding of a man. Neither have I learned wisdom, nor do I have the knowledge of the Holy One. Who has ascended into heaven and descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has wrapped the waters in His garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name or His son's name? Surely you know! Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him” (Proverbs 30:1-5).

Hear and believe:

• Learn wisdom, understanding, and knowledge through a Person: “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, Who became to us wisdom from God...Christ...in Whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (1 Corinthians 1:30; Colossians 2:2,3).
• Learn of the One Who has descended and ascended: “Now this expression, ‘He ascended,’ what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He Who descended is Himself also He Who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things” (Ephesians 4:9,10).
• Learn of the One Who controls the wind and sea: “They became very much afraid and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?’” (Mark 4:41).
• Learn of the One Who is the tested Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being...He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called ‘The Word of God’” (John 1:1-3; Revelation 19:13).

Know His name, called by His relationship to His Son (and by His Son His name describes His relationship to us through the Spirit): He is Father (Matthew 6:9; John 20:17; Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). Know the name of His Son: Jesus.

• “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
• “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
• “...if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved...” (Romans 10:9).
• “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, Who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:5-11).

Be ignorant no longer.

The First Petition, Our Great Need, & the Mediator

Last Thursday morning our Thursday Theology group was studying the holiness of God (we’ve been in the incommunicable attributes of God and were just starting the communicable attributes). Toward the end of class we spoke about the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer: “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father Who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name’” (Matthew 6:9).

The petition verb “hallowed” (αγιασθήτω) means to “make holy.” In the case of the Father’s name (note that the Son commands and teaches us to call Him “Father,” not the tetragrammaton), it is a request to exalt His name as unique and glorious above all things. In our discussion, we noted that the first petition of the prayer the Son commands and teaches us to pray concerns the Father’s absolute holiness; the Father is always manifesting His holiness, so the prayer is to re-orient ourselves to Him rather than to change His mind/actions. But then we noticed something amazing about this: the first petition has two seemingly contradictory ideas: He is Father and He is holy. How can these two exist together, and do so sinners' petition to Him?

Remember Isaiah’s extreme unraveling when made aware of the holiness of God: “In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.’ And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, ‘Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts’” (Isaiah 6:1-5). Isaiah received faithful and righteousness (and fiery) cleansing from the Lord for this accurate confession of his own sinfulness before the holiness of God. The prophet did not call “the King, the LORD of hosts” Father when made aware of His holiness!

Intimacy is impossible between the sinner and the Holy One. Impossible. O, but sinner, God does the impossible – even the most impossible! “When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, ‘Then who can be saved?’ And looking at them Jesus said to them, ‘With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible’” (Matthew 19:25,26).

How does God accomplish this impossibility? How is it that Jesus can possible command and teach us to pray God exalts His own holiness even as we sinners call on Him intimately as “Father”?

In this first petition we should be immediately made aware, as sinners before this Holy One Who is our Father, that we must have a Mediator. Someone must bear God’s righteous and just wrath against our sin for Him to be Father to us. Someone must lift us up and shroud us in an impossible holiness for us to call the Holy One “our Father.”

The first petition reminds us we must have Jesus the Son as Mediator between us sinful children and our Father Who is in heaven.

Someone must bear God’s righteous and just wrath against our sin for Him to be Father to us...and the petition is answered: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:8-10).

Someone must lift us up and shroud us in an impossible holiness for us to call the Holy One “our Father”...and the prayer is answered: “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, Who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification [αγιασμός, the being-made-holy], and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD’” (1 Corinthians 1:30,31).

As you pray as commanded and taught by the Son, asking Your Father in heaven that He exalt His own name as holy, may you be drawn closer to exalt the Mediator and praise Him above all things for what He has done – the impossible – to bring you to His Father and your Father:

• “Christ Jesus is He Who died, yes, rather Who was raised, Who is at the right hand of God, Who also intercedes for us” (Romans 8:34).
• “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus...” (1 Timothy 2:5).
• “Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens...” (Hebrews 7:25,26).