Book Recommendation – What is the Gospel?

What is the Gospel? A question which most Christians will answer based more on their personal understanding of it as opposed to what the Word of God actually says it is.

Forwarded by D. A. Carson and endorsed by a handful of other eminent Christians, comes a book that seeks to point Christians to the gospel –amidst the entire muddle –on what it really is as presented in the New Testament by the earliest Christians. Titled simply as “What is the Gospel”, Greg Gilbert who serves as an assistant pastor to Mark Dever at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC, presents the gospel that is very much centred on the cross. He summarizes the presentation of the gospel as noted from the apostles in Acts and in Romans by Paul as consisting of four central subjects which are: God, man, Christ, and a response. I highly recommend this book if you find yourself still confused on what scripture says is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

Here’s a video of him talking about his book.

 

The Drama of Doctrine – Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer

Kevin J. Vanhoozer (b. 1957) is the Blanchard Professor of Theology at Wheaton College Graduate School. He was previously Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) where he taught from 1998-2009. From 1990-1998 he was Senior Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at New College, University of Edinburgh and previously taught at TEDS from 1986-1990. Vanhoozer received a B.A. from Westmont College, an M.Div from Westminster Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, England having studied under Nicholas Lash.

Vanhoozer's The Drama of Doctrine was named best book in theology in the 2006 Christianity Today Book Awards. In this book, Vanhoozer proposes a way of doing theology that corresponds to its subject matter: doctrine is direction for the fitting participation of the individual and the church in the ongoing "theodrama," the reconciling action of the triune God. Theology is faith seeking understanding of the theodrama, but understanding demands not only that we comprehend but that we also perform the Scriptures, the script that forms and transforms the people of God.

- Taken from Theopedia.com

Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer - "Gospel Theater: Staging, Scripting, Directing" from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.

Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer - Gospel Theater: Rehearsing, Improvising, Performing from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.

The Parable of the Sower Explained

In Matthew 13.18-23, Jesus explains "The Parable of the Sower" to His disciples in response to their question regarding why He chose to speak to the crowds in parables. It is evident that the disciples understood what Jesus was trying to convey in the parable. Their receptive hearts to “the secrets of the kingdom of heaven” is a clear example of the fulfilment of the fourth scenario: where the seeds feel on good soil, only because they heard His word and understood it.

Much of the crowd, in comparison to Jesus’ disciples, were dull in their hearts; their eyes and their ears were closed. They were spiritually deprived of the knowledge of the kingdom, and were dead in their sins (Ephesians 2:1) –- This is a good example of an unregenerate state.

God in His sovereignty, uses parables as a sifting tool to call before Him those whom the Father has given unto Him (John 6:44). It is what separated the disciples from the Pharisees who, because of their hardened state, where driven to frustrations because they could simply not make sense of Jesus’ plain parables (John 10:24).

So how are we to know if we belong to Christ? How are we to know if we are part of His flock? Simply by this, we will “understand with [our] heart” (Isaiah 6:10), and we will hear His voice (John 10:27), because we have been drawn to Him by the Father.

In conclusion, among the four scenarios of "The Parable of the Sower", Which one do you associate with when the word of God has been preached to your heart? how do you respond?

• “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. this is what was sown along the path” (Matthew 13:19).
• “As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away” (Matthew 13:20).
• “As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful” (Matthew 13:21).
• “As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty” (Matthew 13:22).

So I encourage you brothers and sisters, examine yourself in light of scripture, for you very well might still be dwelling in that euphoric joy that has absolutely no root. Pray that God may test your fruitfulness, so that you may progress with righteous confidence that He indeed had begun a good work in you, and will indeed complete it (Philippians 1:6).

- CHELMS VARTHOUMLIEN

Brothers, tell them not to serve God

For this post, I would like to share an article written by John Piper. It deals with the issue of serving; and how we must, at one side, serve only God, and at the other side, humble ourselves and receive His act of mercy and servitude. This article gave me a fresh perspective to the doctrine of sanctification; and how we shouldn’t make God the “beneficiary or our beneficence” (Piper).

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We have all told our people to serve God. Scripture says to "serve the Lord with gladness." But now it may be time to tell them not to serve God. For Scripture also says: "The Son of Man . . . came not to be served."

The Bible is concerned to call us back from idolatry to serve the true and living God (1 Thess. 1:9). But it is also concerned to keep us from serving the true God in the wrong way. There is a way to serve God that belittles and dishonors Him. Therefore, we must take heed lest we recruit servants whose labor diminishes the glory of the all-powerful Master. If Jesus said that He came not to be served (Mark 10:45), service may constitute rebellion.

God wills not to be served: "The God who made the world and everything in it . . . [is not served] by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all men life and breath and everything" (Acts 17:25-26). Paul warns against any view of God which makes Him the beneficiary of our beneficence. He informs us that God cannot be served in any way that implies we are meeting His needs. It would be as though a stream should try to fill a spring that feeds it.

"He Himself gives to all men life and breath and everything."

What is the greatness of our God? What is His uniqueness in the world? Isaiah says, "From of old no one has heard or perceived by ear, no God has seen a God besides Thee, who works for those who wait for Him" (Isa. 64:4). All the other so-called gods make man work for them. Our God will not be put in the position of an employer who must depend on others to make his business go. Instead He magnifies His all-sufficiency by doing the work Himself. Man is the dependent partner in this affair. His job is to wait for the Lord. 

"No Help Wanted"

What is God looking for in the world? Assistants? No. The gospel is not a "help wanted" ad. Neither is the call to Christian service. God is not looking for people to work for Him. "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show His might in behalf of those who heart is blameless toward Him" (2 Chron. 16:9).

God is not a scout looking for the first draft choices to help his team win. He is an unstoppable fullback ready to run touchdowns for anyone who will give him the ball.

What does God want from us? Not what we might expect. He rebukes Israel for bringing Him so many sacrifices: "I will accept no bull from your house. . . . For every beast of the forest is Mine. . . .If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world and all that is in it is Mine" (Ps. 50:9-12).

But isn't there something we can give to God that won't belittle Him to the status of beneficiary? Yes. Our anxieties. It's a command: "Cast all your anxieties on Him" (1 Peter 5:7). God will gladly receive anything from us that shows our dependence and His all-sufficiency.

The difference between Uncle Sam and Jesus Christ is that Uncle Sam won't enlist you in his service unless you are healthy and Jesus won't enlist you unless you are sick. "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mark 2:17). Christianity is fundamentally convalescence. Patients do not server their physicians. They trust them for good prescriptions. The Sermon on the Mount is our Doctor's medical advice, not our Employer's job description.

Our very lives hang on not working for God. "To one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due. And to one who does not work but trust Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness" (Rom. 4:4-5). Workmen get no gifts. They get their due. If we would have the gift of justification, we dare not work. God is the workman in this affair. And what He gets is the glory of being the benefactor of grace, not the beneficiary of service.

Nor should we think that after justification our labor for God begins. Those who make a work out of sanctification cry down the glory of God. Jesus Christ is "our righteousness and sanctification" (1 Cor. 1:30). "Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?" (Gal. 3:2-3). God was the workman in our justification, and He will be the workman in our sanctification.

Religious "flesh" always wants to work for God. But "if you live according to the flesh you will die" (Rom. 8:13). That is why our very lives hang on not working for God, both in justification and sanctification.

Servants of the Heavenly Master

But shall we not then serve Christ? It is commanded: "Serve the Lord" (Rom. 12:11). Those who do not serve Christ are rebuked (Rom. 16:18). Yes, we will serve Him. But before we do, we will ponder what to avoid in this service. Surely all the warnings against serving God mean that in the idea of service lies something to be avoided. When we compare our relationship with God to the relationship between servant and master, the comparison is not perfect. Some things about servanthood should be avoided in relation to God. Some should be affirmed.

Who then shall we serve and not serve? Psalm 123:2 gives part of the answer: "Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till He have mercy upon us." The good way to serve God is to look to Him for mercy.

Any servant who tries to get off the divine role and strike up a manly partnership with his Heavenly Master is in revolt against the Creator. God does not barter. He gives mercy to servants who will have it, and the wages of death to those who won't. Good service is always and fundamentally receiving mercy, not rendering service.

But it is not entirely passive. Matthew 6:24 gives another clue to good service: "No once can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."

How does a person serve money? He does not assist money. He is not the benefactor of money. How then do we serve money? Money exerts a certain control over us because it seems to hold out so much promise of happiness. It whispers with great force, "Think and acts so as to get into a position to enjoy my benefits." This may include stealing, borrowing or working.

Money promises happiness, and we serve it by believing the promise and walking by that faith. So we don't serve money by putting our power at is disposal for its good. We serve money by doing what is necessary so that money's power will be at our disposal for our good.

I think the same sort of service to God must be in view in Matthew 6:24, since Jesus puts the two side by side: "You cannot serve God and mammon." So if we are going to serve God and not money, then we are going to have to open our eyes to the vastly superior happiness which God offers. Then God will exert a greater control over us than money does.

We will serve by believing His promise of fullest joy and walking by that faith. We will not serve by trying to put our power at His disposal for His good, but by doing what is necessary so that His power will be ever at our disposal for our good.

Obedient Beneficiaries

Of course, this means obedience. A patient obeys his doctor in hopes of getting well. A convalescent sinner trusts the painful directions of his Therapist, and follows them. Only in this way do we keep ourselves in a position to benefit from what the divine Physician has to offer. In all this obedience it is we who are the beneficiaries. God is ever the giver. For it is the giver who gets the glory.

And that, perhaps, is the most important thing of all. The only right way to serve God is in a way that reserves for Him all the glory. One "who renders service [must do it] as one who renders it by the strength which God supplies; in order that God may be glorified" (1 Peter 4:11). How do we serve so God is glorified? We serve by the strength He supplies. When we are at our most active for God, we are still the recipients. God will not surrender the glory of the benefactor, ever!

So let us work hard, but never forget that it is not us but the grace of God which is with us (1 Cor. 15:10). Let us obey now, as always, but never forget that it is God who works in us both the will and the deed (Phil. 2:13). Let us spread the gospel far and wide and spend ourselves for the sake of the elect, but never venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought in us (Rom. 15:18). In all our serving may God be the giver and God get the glory.

And until the people understand this, brothers, tell them not to serve God!

 

January 1, 1995

John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Being sanctified by His truth

Sir Spurgeon here presents a systematic presentation of his soteriological conviction:

“Sanctification begins in regeneration. The Spirit of God infuses into man that new living principle by which he becomes "a new creature" in Christ Jesus. This work, which begins in the new birth, is carried on in two ways—mortification, whereby the lusts of the flesh are subdued and kept under; and vivification, by which the life which God has put within us is made to be a well of water springing up unto everlasting life. This is carried on every day in what is called "perseverance," by which the Christian is preserved and continued in a gracious state, and is made to abound in good works unto the praise and glory of God; and it culminates or comes to perfection, in "glory," when the soul, being thoroughly purged, is caught up to dwell with holy beings at the right hand of the Majesty on high. But while the Spirit of God is thus the author of sanctification, yet there is a visible agency employed which must not be forgotten. "Sanctify them," said Jesus, "through thy truth: thy word is truth." The passages of Scripture which prove that the instrument of our sanctification is the Word of God are very many. The Spirit of God brings to our minds the precepts and doctrines of truth, and applies them with power. These are heard in the ear, and being received in the heart, they work in us to will and to do of God's good pleasure. The truth is the sanctifier, and if we do not hear or read the truth, we shall not grow in sanctification. We only progress in sound living as we progress in sound understanding. "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." Do not say of any error, "It is a mere matter of opinion." No man indulges an error of judgment, without sooner or later tolerating an error in practice. Hold fast the truth, for by so holding the truth shall you be sanctified by the Spirit of God.” – C.H. Spurgeon

Grace Alone by R.C. Sproul

Soli Deo gloria is the motto that grew out of the Protestant Reformation and was used on every composition by Johann Sebastian Bach. He affixed the initials SDG at the bottom of each manuscript to communicate the idea that it is God and God alone who is to receive the glory for the wonders of His work of creation and of redemption. At the heart of the sixteenth-century controversy over salvation was the issue of grace.

It was not a question of man’s need for grace. It was a question as to the extent of that need. The church had already condemned Pelagius, who had taught that grace facilitates salvation but is not absolutely necessary for it. Semi-Pelagianism since that time has always taught that without grace there is no salvation. But the grace that is considered in all semi-Pelagian and Arminian theories of salvation is not an efficacious grace. It is a grace that makes salvation possible, but not a grace that makes salvation certain.

In the parable of the sower we see that regarding salvation, God is the one who takes the initiative to bring salvation to pass. He is the sower. The seed that is sown is His seed, corresponding to His Word, and the harvest that results is His harvest. He harvests what He purposed to harvest when He initiated the whole process. God doesn’t leave the harvest up to the vagaries of thorns and stones in the pathway. It is God and God alone who makes certain that a portion of His Word falls upon good ground. A critical error in interpreting this parable would be to assume that the good ground is the good disposition of fallen sinners, those sinners who make the right choice, responding positively to God’s prevenient grace. The classical Reformed understanding of the good ground is that if the ground is receptive to the seed that is sown by God, it is God alone who prepares the ground for the germination of the seed.

The biggest question any semi-Pelagian or Arminian has to face at the practical level is this: Why did I choose to believe the gospel and commit my life to Christ when my neighbour, who heard the same gospel, chose to reject it? That question has been answered in many ways. We might speculate that the reason why one person chooses to respond positively to the gospel and to Christ, while another one doesn't, is because the person who responded positively was more intelligent than the other one. If that were the case, then God would still be the ultimate provider of salvation because the intelligence is His gift, and it could be explained that God did not give the same intelligence to the neighbour who rejected the gospel. But that explanation is obviously absurd.

The other possibility that one must consider is this: that the reason one person responds positively to the gospel and his neighbour does not is because the one who responded was a better person. That is, that person who made the right choice and the good choice did it because he was more righteous than his neighbour. In this case, the flesh not only availed something, it availed everything. This is the view that is held by the majority of evangelical Christians, namely, the reason why they are saved and others are not is that they made the right response to God’s grace while the others made the wrong response.

We can talk here about not only the correct response as opposed to an erroneous response, but we can speak in terms of a good response rather than a bad response. If I am in the kingdom of God because I made the good response rather than the bad response, I have something of which to boast, namely the goodness by which I responded to the grace of God. I have never met an Arminian who would answer the question that I’ve just posed by saying, Oh, the reason I’m a believer is because I’m better than my neighbour. They would be loath to say that. However, though they reject this implication, the logic of semi-Pelagianism requires this conclusion. If indeed in the final analysis the reason I’m a Christian and someone else is not is that I made the proper response to God’s offer of salvation while somebody else rejected it, then by resistless logic I have indeed made the good response, and my neighbour has made the bad response.

What Reformed theology teaches is that it is true the believer makes the right response and the non-believer makes the wrong response. But the reason the believer makes the good response is because God in His sovereign election changes the disposition of the heart of the elect to effect a good response. I can take no credit for the response that I made for Christ. God not only initiated my salvation, He not only sowed the seed, but He made sure that that seed germinated in my heart by regenerating me by the power of the Holy Ghost. That regeneration is a necessary condition for the seed to take root and to flourish. That’s why at the heart of Reformed theology the axiom resounds, namely, that regeneration precedes faith. It’s that formula, that order of salvation that all semi-Pelagians reject. They hold to the idea that in their fallen condition of spiritual death, they exercise faith, and then are born again. In their view, they respond to the gospel before the Spirit has changed the disposition of their soul to bring them to faith. When that happens, the glory of God is shared. No semi-Pelagian can ever say with authenticity: To God alone be the glory. For the semi-Pelagian, God may be gracious, but in addition to God’s grace, my work of response is absolutely essential. Here grace is not effectual, and such grace, in the final analysis, is not really saving grace. In fact, salvation is of the Lord from beginning to end. Yes, I must believe. Yes, I must respond. Yes, I must receive Christ. But for me to say yes to any of those things, my heart must first be changed by the sovereign, effectual power of God the Holy Spirit.
Soli Deo gloria.

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Dr. R.C. Sproul is founder and president of Ligonier Ministries, and he is author of the books A Taste of Heaven and Getting the Gospel Right. For more than thirty years, Dr. R.C. Sproul has thoroughly and concisely analyzed weighty theological, philosophical, and biblical topics in Right Now Counts Forever, drawing out practical applications for the Christian in his own engaging style.

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From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. © Tabletalk magazine.
Website: www.ligonier.org/tabletalk

The Blood of Jesus Christ Cleanses From All Sin

“Our sins are great; every sin is great; but there are some that in
our apprehension seem to be greater than others. There are crimes that
the lip of modesty could not mention. I might go far in this pulpit
this morning in describing the degradation of human nature in the sins
which it has invented. It is amazing how the ingenuity of man seems to
have exhausted itself in inventing fresh crimes. Surely there is not
the possibility of the invention of a new sin. But if there be, ere
long man will invent it, for man seemeth exceedingly cunning, and full
of wisdom in the discovery of means of destroying himself and the
endeavor to injure his Maker. But there are some sins that show a
diabolical extent of degraded ingenuity — some sins of which it were a
shame to speak, of which it were disgraceful to think.

But note here: ‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.’ There
may be some sins of which a man cannot speak, but there is no sin which
the blood of Christ cannot wash away. Blasphemy, however profane, lust,
however bestial; covetousness, however far it may have gone into theft
and rapine; breach of the commandments of God, however much of riot it
may have run, all this may be pardoned and washed away through the
blood of Jesus Christ. In all the long list of human sins, though that
be long as time, there standeth but one sin that is unpardonable, and
that one no sinner has committed if he feels within himself a longing
for mercy, for that sin once committed, the soul becomes hardened,
dead, and seared, and never desireth afterwards to find peace with God.”

- Charles Spurgeon, The Evil and Its Remedy