The "The Puritans Are Not the Bible" Card

"If someone could point me to one passage in the Bible that says...AND DON'T POINT TO SOME OBSCURE PURITAN WHO GOT IT WRONG, OK?!...that actually says explicitly that the Law itself generates love for God and neighbor, I will listen." (Tullian Tchividjian, Chris Rosebrough Interview)

I think this was in reaction to this:

"But what of Tchividjian's claim that these false teachers assume 'that the law (in all of its uses) [has] the power to produce what it demands'? Would anyone argue such nonsense? Well, I do know of some ministers - in fact, even some who were responsible for crafting the Westminster Confession of Faith - who have argued that after Adam's fall, 'God therefore set forth a copy of his law in his word, which is the means of sanctifying us; and sanctification itself is but a writing of that law in the heart' (Thomas Goodwin). Likewise, Anthony Burgess argued that God's commands not only inform us of our duty, but are also 'practical and operative means appointed by God, to work, at least in some degree, that which is commanded.' Samuel Rutherford said essentially the same thing in his disputes against the antinomians because they denied that the law was a true instrument of sanctification.

We all know that apart from the Holy Spirit we can do nothing. And we all know that God's commandments do not have the power, in the abstract, to 'produce what they demand.' (In fact, even announcements of God's saving power in Christ have no effect apart from the Spirit's application.) But, it should be noted, the faithful preaching of God's commands in the context of a faithful gospel ministry can produce real change in a sinner's life because God has ordained his commandments to work, 'at least in some degree, that which is commanded.' In other words, failing to preach God's commandments robs Christ's sheep of a true means of sanctification, and thus they may be - ahem! - less holy as a result. We preach God's commandments to God's people because God has promised to bless such preaching with the Holy Spirit." (Mark Jones, Tullian's Trench)

I had a hunch that TT would be pulling out the "The Puritans are not the Bible" card in the event the proposed debate with Mark Jones materializes. The quote above was a foretaste. At any rate, MJ's explanation of how the Law—as blessed by the work of the Holy Spirit and not taken abstractly—is indeed a means of sanctification pretty much lays that point by TT to rest.

Dr. Marty Foord on Owen, Holiness, and the Consideration of Christ

Click on pic to enlarge.

The Manliness of Puritanism

*The following is excerpted from J. I. Packer's A Quest for Godliness, as found here:


Anyone who knows anything at all about Puritan Christianity knows that at its best it had a vigour, a manliness, and a depth which modern evangelical piety largely lacks. This is because Puritanism was essentially an experimental faith, a religion of ‘heart-work’, a sustained practice of seeking the face of God, in a way that our own Christianity too often is not. The Puritans were manlier Christians just because they were godlier Christians. It is worth noting three particular points of contrast between them and ourselves.

John Owen Contra Tullian Tchividjian

In his latest blog post, Tullian Tchividjian states:

"Redeeming unconditional love alone (not law, not fear, not punishment, not guilt, not shame) carries the power to compel heart-felt loyalty to the One who gave us (and continues to give us) what we don’t deserve." (emphasis mine)

Square that with John Owen's statement in his commentary on Hebrews:

"Motives unto a due valuation of the gospel and perseverance in the profession of it, taken from the penalties annexed unto the neglect of it, are evangelical, and of singular use in the preaching of the word. Some would fancy that all threatenings belong unto the law, as though Jesus Christ had left Himself and His gospel to be securely despised by profane and impenitent sinners; but as they will find to the contrary to their eternal ruin, so it is the will of Christ that His ministers should let them know it. These threatenings belong to the gospel, they are recorded in the gospel, and by it His ministers are commanded to make use of them (Matt. 10:28; 24:50-51; 25:41; Mark 16:16; John 3:36; II Cor. 2:15-16; II Thess. 1:8-9), and other places innumerable."

TT is an antinomian, not in the sense that he rejects the law as the guide and rule of the Christian's life, but in the sense that he does not see and acknowledge that even the Gospel itself pronounces warnings and threats upon professors who do not live sanctified, obedient lives, albeit imperfectly.

Antinomianism (And a Few Chuckles)

Dr. Mark Jones, who first came to my attention as the co-author (along with Dr. Joel Beeke) of arguably the best systematic theology to come in recent years, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life, has now penned another book, that I would think is as important and beneficial to the body of Christ as the aforementioned one, entitled Antinomianism. Don't let the brevity of the title fool you. While I am now only in chapter 2, I expect more pastoral scholarship to drip from every page—every digital page, that is, as the Kindle version, being now available, is what I have, but the paperback is due for release on the 15th of November, 2013.


You can listen to Dr. Jones' lecture on "Antinomianism," delivered at the 2013 Andrew Fuller Conference (SBTS), here.


You can view and listen to Dr. Jones talk about his book here:



You can view, listen to, and LAUGH at Dr. Jones talk about his book here:

An Important Essay from Geerhardus Vos' Boy

The Bible Doctrine of the Separated Life by Johannes G. Vos

The question of the separated life is a very important one, not only because it is a practical question which must be faced by every thoughtful Christian, but also because of the doctrinal ramifications that it has. Insistence upon the obligation to live what is called "the separated life" is very prevalent in some circles of earnest Christians today. The details of the separation demanded vary greatly; practices which are tolerated by some groups are denounced by others as inconsistent with Christian duty and fellowship, and vice versa. In general, "the separated life," as the term is commonly used, may be understood to be a life which is separated not only from what can be proved by Scripture to be sinful, but also from various other practices which may be indifferent in themselves; and this separation is regarded as binding on the conscience of the Christian, and is sometimes made a term or condition of ecclesiastical or even of Christian fellowship.

This problem is far more important than is at first apparent. It is far more important than the mere question whether Christians ought to participate in or to abstain from certain particular kinds of conduct. Other problems of the greatest importance are involved. If we give a wrong answer to the question, "What is the Bible doctrine of the separated life?" we are certain to fall into serious errors in other doctrines. Using the term "separated life" in the Biblical, not the popular, sense, we may say that the separated life is an ethical implication of the covenant of grace and is related to the doctrine of sanctification as the latter deals with the nature and place of good works in the Christian life. The other doctrines which are involved in the question of the separated life are: (1) Christian liberty in the use of things indifferent; (2) liberty of conscience from the commandments of men; (3) the sufficiency of Scripture as the standard of faith and conduct; (4) the nature and limits of the authority of the Christian church. The purpose of the present paper is to set forth the teaching of Scripture concerning the separated life, and then to show how erroneous teaching about the separated life affects the four doctrines enumerated above.

Holy, Holy, Holy Is the Lord!

Just yesterday, a package arrived at my doorstep. Even before glancing at the sender information, I already had a solid hunch about from whom it came, and I was right. My good friend from the U.S., Joel de Leon, had sent me another "bag" of Reformed goodies! Among them was a 3-CD goody from Ligonier containing R.C. Sproul's classic teaching series on the the holiness of God, aptly entitled The Holiness of God.

I haven't finished going through the whole set, but the second lecture entitled, "The Trauma of Holiness," struck a chord. In the lecture, Sproul exposits Isaiah 6, specifically, verses 1 to 8.

The following are the gems that I've gleaned:

Free to Get Sloshed? Some Principles Are in Order

I've come across an argument trying to justify getting drunk in front of other members of the church that goes along these lines, "Christian liberty permits me to indulge my love for alcohol even in front of people. I don't need to know the state of their consciences. It's their fault if their faith is too weak to recognize my freedom."

Well, the ff. by Sinclair Ferguson, taken from his book, "In Christ Alone," addresses this most grievous argument (found this from one of Ligonier Ministries' FB notes):

The Right and Wrong in Richard Foster

It is certainly a misconception by many who are vaguely aware of the meat and substance of Reformed theology, piety, and practice that we of the Reformed persuasion are lean on the area of private spiritual devotion. So you have the likes of Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Donald Whitney, et al. filling in the demand for more "instruction" on "spiritual formation," in the hopes of accelerating sanctification.

But whereas Scripture has laid out the three means of grace, i.e., the preaching of the Word, the Sacraments, and prayer, as the ways by which God has promised to meet us, build our faith, and hence produce the gratitude that is the ground of all God-pleasing obedience, gurus of "spiritual discipline" make much of introspection and obsessive "fruit-hunting" through devices that are really extrabiblical, taking more from mysticism than the catholic Christian faith.

In Defense of Hell: Six Arguments Against Annihilationism

"In the first place, the amount of time spent in wrongdoing is often irrelevant in determining the sentence. As I write these words, police in London are looking for thugs who attacked a forty-five year old man in broad daylight, almost severed his arm with a billhook, pummelled him with a baseball bat and sprayed hydrochloric acid in his face. The assault was all over in less than a minute; would sixty seconds in jail be an appropriate sentence? As William Hendriksen says, 'It is not necessarily the duration of the crime that fixes the duration of the punishment...What is decisive is the nature of the crime.'

Spiritual Disciplines or the Means of Grace?

We've all heard of the various methods that are supposedly the keys to hastening our sanctification. We are people of the new nature, the Christ nature, and we want to be conformed more and more into the image and likeness of Christ—a Spirit-wrought desire. But these methods, the ones we have come to know as spiritual disciplines, are they really the means to the receiving of Christ's enablements? The most famous of these "disciplines" is the proverbial "quiet time" wherein one purposefully sets aside an appropriate amount of time each day to spend in private prayer and Bible study. Now, times of private devotion are commendable and even necessary, but I would venture to say that when the "quiet time" becomes one's chief "means" of the attainment of Christlikeness, as what medieval monasticism and more recent pietism advocate, then we have a problem.

If faith is the way by which we are united to Christ, then we must ask how the Spirit, the Person of the Trinity tasked with the progressive transformation of our characters, creates and strengthens this faith in us. The historical, confessional, Reformed church (another way of saying the church that holds to apostolic doctrine) has always recognized that the Spirit quickens faith through the means of grace. What are these means? No, not journaling, blanking out the mind, or even fasting; they are the Word, the sacraments, and prayer.

It is quite easy to see how the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments cannot be effected in the privacy of one's room when one is alone, and even less appropriately in one's pajamas! This is because the Christian life was meant to be corporate, in the context of the local, visible church. Sanctification will not progress if one is not a member of a local church and receiving the preached Word and sacraments. Times of solitude, though needed sometimes, is not particularly more "spiritual" than being faithful in attending to the means of grace—and attending to the means of grace is not possible without being concomitantly faithful to keeping the Sabbath holy in church attendance.

It really seems to me that if more of us would disrobe ourselves of our monastic habits (def. robe of a monk) and instead put on our best Sunday church clothes, then more Christlikeness would be apparent in us.

"Consider how William Perkins (1558—1602), the father of English Puritanism, described the Christian life. In his 1558 catechism, The Foundation of the Christian Religion Gathered into Six Principles, he made it clear that conversion is not ordinarily a momentary or epochal experience and certainly not chiefly a private religious experience, but rather and ordinarily the result of the prevenient grace of justifying faith which comes through the hearing of the preached gospel and the consequent grace of sanctification received in the means of grace administered in the church. In the first part of the Foundation, Perkins summarizes briefly the six principles. Under the fifth principle he asks,

Q. What are the ordinary or usual means for obtaining faith?
A. Faith cometh only by the preaching of the Word and increaseth daily by it: as also by the administration of the sacraments and prayer.

This is virtually identical to the language of HC Q.65. The only difference between the HC and Perkins is that the latter added prayer as a means of grace, a position later taken up by the Westminster divines in the WCF 14.1.

Many years later, in his 1586 A Treatise Tending unto a Declaration, Perkins addressed the question of how sinners, who are part of Christ's visible church, which is composed of believers and unbelievers, can know that they are in fact Christians, that is, 'in a state of grace.' There can be no question whether Perkins was zealous that Christians have a deep and healthy experience of communion with Christ through His Spirit. Nevertheless, the place where Christians find their assurance in the gospel is in the hearing of it preached and in the administration of the sacraments. Perkins wrote at length about the inward work of the Spirit in convicting sinners of their need for a Savior and the 'benefits of Christ' that accrue to believers, but he always connected these operations of the Spirit to the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments. The empirical evidence to which Perkins appealed was not a peculiar emotional or heightened state of religious experience, but a joyful reception of God's Word preached, regular attendance to the means of grace, and condemnation of those who do not attend to the means of grace" (R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession (New Jersey: P&R Publishing Company, 2008), 334—335).

Gratitude-Grounded Assurance

It can be said, and almost unanimously, that many approach the obedience and performance of good works, that are the heritage of the saints, in the spirit of fear of punishment or loss of rewards. They reason, always introspectively, that as a Christian, they must render obedience to the revealed will of God or else they might not be saved at all or suffer loss of divine real estate in the future kingdom. But is this how Scripture portrays the "working out of our salvation" to be? Must we always be laying our hearts bare, anxiously searching for the evidence of salvation that was there yesterday but somehow today feels absent?

Michael Horton writes that "John Wesley used to argue that he could not accept the doctrine of election because it undermined the main supports of holiness: fear of punishment and hope of reward" ('Putting Amazing Back into Grace,' (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 80). In opposition to this erroneous line of thinking, Paul stated, "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father'" (Rom 8:15). So if Scripture denies the fear of punishment or loss as the motivation for godly living, what then is the proper impetus? The Heidelberg Catechism provides this response in its answer to Question 86, "...that so we may testify, by the whole of our conduct, our gratitude to God for his blessings..." The only acceptable ground for all our obedience and good works, in God's sight, is gratitude.

This is where the study of theology, the immersion in the doctrines of Scripture, come into play. Of course, no one becomes a child of God without first having known the truths about the person and work of Christ, believed in these truths, and trusted in the object of these truths, Christ Himself. So then a progression emerges: the more we know of God—His attributes, His nature, and His work—the more we realize the glories of the redemption that is ours in Christ and the benefits conferred on us by virtue of this union; and the more that this knowledge is ours, the more grateful we become! This gratitude then "...hits us...we have been predestined to a high and holy calling, we discover a higher and holier motivation for pursuing God's revealed will...we realize we are part of 'a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession' (1 Peter 2:9 NASB), we begin to reflect that awareness in our daily living" (Michael Horton, 'Putting Amazing Back into Grace,' (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 81).

We obey God's law not because we want to prove that we are children of God but because we already are! We constantly look to Christ for the assurance of our salvation, and this produces in us the gratitude that is the stuff of obedience—an obedience born of faith.

The Reformed Doctrine of Sanctification

Did the Reformers then have any doctrine of sanctification? Of course they did. We are all familiar with the biblical announcements as to what is involved in sanctification: the Word, the sacraments, prayer, fellowship, sharing the gospel, serving God and neighbor. And the Reformation tradition acknowledges that there are biblical texts that speak of sanctification as complete already. This is not a perfection that is empirical or observable, but a definitive declaration that because we are "in Christ," we are set apart and reckoned holy by his sacrifice (1 Cor. 1:30; Heb. 10 and so on). Anybody who is in Christ is sanctified, because Christ's holiness is imputed to the Christian believer, just as Jesus says in John 17:19, "For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified." God sees the believer as holy. That means that Wesley should not have terrified Christian brethren with texts such as, "Without holiness, no one will see the Lord." The Christian is holy; it is all imputed. And then there are texts such as, "Be holy as I am holy." What would the Reformers do with that? They would say we are called to be holy. But why should we be holy if we are already perfect in Christ? Because we are saved unto good works, not unto licentiousness, according to Romans 6; the question has been asked before. Good works are done out of thankfulness of heart by the believer who has been saved, not by one who is trying to be saved.

Clearly the Reformers had a doctrine of sanctification. They believed that the law in the Bible has three uses. First, it is a civil ordinance to keep us from stealing each other's wives, husbands, and speedboats. The civil use of the law applies to the whole of culture. Second, the theological use of the law is to reveal our sin and drive us to despair and terror so that we will seek a savior. Luther believed that is a primary use of the law in all of Scripture. But the Reformers also believed in a third use of the law, and that is a didactic use, to teach the Christian God's will for holy living.

If a Christian is reading the law and says, "This is not yet true of me: I don't love God with all my heart, and I certainly don't love my neighbor as I love myself. In fact, just today I failed to help a poor man on the side of the road who was having car trouble. I must not yet be a Christian, " here the Reformers would counsel, "You hurry back to the second use of the law and flee to Christ where sanctification is truly, completely, and perfectly located." After this experience, the believer will feel a greater sense of freedom to obey, and this is the only way that one will ever feel free to obey. The difference between all Higher Life movements and the Reformation perspective finally turns on the question of what Baptists call the assurance of salvation and what the Reformers called fides reflexa (reflexive faith). The answer of the Higher Life movement to the struggling Christian is, Surrender more, or, What are you holding back from the Lord? The Reformation answer is different.

A friend of mine was walking down a street in Minneapolis one day and was confronted by an evangelical brother who asked, "Brother, are you saved?" Hal rolled his eyes back and said, "Yes." That didn't satisfy this brother, so he said, "Well, when were you saved?" Hal said, "About two thousand years ago, about a twenty minutes' walk from downtown Jerusalem."

The most important thing to remember is that the death of Christ was in fact a death even for Christian failure. Christ's death saves even Christians from sin. There is always "room at the cross" for unbelievers, it seems. But what we ought to be telling people is that there is room there for Christians, too. This, then, is what was meant earlier by the motif of law—gospel—law in many evangelical circles. The law condemns, driving us to Christ the gospel, from whom we receive both instantaneous justification and progressive sanctification for the rest of our lives, according to the Reformation perspective. While the law still guides, it can never make threats. But in contemporary evangelicalism, the law can come back to undermine the confidence of the gospel. It can still make threats; it can still condemn. There is wonderful grace for the "sinner," and the evangelical is at his best in evangelism. But the question as to whether there is enough grace for the sinful Christian is an open one in many gatherings, and I have had many students tell me, "My last state is worse than the first. I think I've got to leave the faith because feel worse now than I did before." I have had people come up to me after I had spoken and tell me, "This is about the last shot I've got. My own Christian training is killing me. I can understand how, before I was a Christian, Christ's death was for me, but I am not at all sure that his death is for now because I have surrendered so little to him and hold so much back. My trouble really began when I committed myself to Christ as Lord and Savior." That perversion can be the result of pastoral teaching, Sunday school curriculum, and the declarations of evangelical Christian leaders.

Instead, there must be a clear and unqualified pronouncement of the assurance of salvation on the basis of the fullness of the atonement of Christ. In other words, even a Christian can be saved. The other "gospel," in its various forms (Higher Life, legalism, the "carnal Christian" teaching, and so on) is tearing us to pieces. I must warn you that the answer to this devastating problem is not available on every street corner. It is available only in the Reformed tradition. This is not because that particular tradition has access to information other traditions do not possess. Rather, it is because the same debate that climaxed in that  sixteenth-century movement has erupted since in less precise form. In fact, since Christ's debates with the Pharisees and Paul's arguments with the legalists, this has been the debate of Christian history. At no time since the apostolic era were these issues so thoroughly discussed and debated, as they were in the sixteenth century. To ignore the biblical wisdom, scholarship, and brilliant insights of such giants as the Reformers is simply to add to our ignorance the vice of pride and self-sufficiency. The Reformation position is the real evangelical position.

The only way out is an exposition of the Scriptures that has to do with law and gospel—an exposition of the Scriptures that places Christ at the center of the text for everybody, including the Christian. All of the Bible is about him. All of the Bible is even about him for the Christian!

I used to tell my students at an evangelical Christian college that they had never heard real preaching, with the exception of a few sound evangelistic appeals. Their weekly diet in the congregation was not, as it should have been, a proclamation of God's grace to them because of the finished and atoning death of Christ—God's grace for them as Christians. That emphasis is desperately needed. And the only way to find that kind of preaching is to go back to when it was done, and it was done in the sixteenth century. The real hope for the church in the West, humanly speaking, lies with evangelicals. Barring an unusual act of God, the mainline churches are not going to get the church back on its feet. Generally speaking, they simply do not have a high enough view of the inspiration of Scripture to listen to it anymore.

The evangelicals do. They believe that the Scriptures are true, but tend to read them as a recipe book for Christian living, rather than for the purpose of finding Christ who died for them and who is the answer to their unchristian living. We must have that kind of renewal, and it can only come from the evangelicals. The evangelical movement in America must begin reading from the Reformers instead of pretending that they are committed only to the Bible, without any system of doctrine, when it is clear what books, tapes, and sermons have shaped their faith and practice. Another thing we are going to have to re-examine in connection with Christian growth is the question of the sacraments—not sacramentalism, but the very nature of the sacraments (baptism and the Lord's Supper), which receives far more attention in the Scriptures than in contemporary evangelical discussion and piety. We are going to have to talk about them again. The major themes of the Reformers are precisely the ones the evangelical must be encouraged to recover.

— Rod Rosenbladt, "Conclusion, Christ Died for the Sins of Christians, Too," Christ the Lord (The Reformation and Lordship Salvation), ed. Michael Horton (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1992), 204—208 (italics original).

Simul Justus Et Peccator

"We are not either carnal Christians or spiritual Christians; rather, all Christians are simultaneously sinful and spiritual—not because of their 'surrender,' but because of Christ's. We are all in the same category, simply at different points along the way.

The message of the Reformation has been salve in the wounds of many, including this writer. I am not a Christian with great faith or with praiseworthy character, but a Christian who is confident that I share with every regenerate Christian 'every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ' (Eph. 1:3). I am simultaneously sinful and justified, as I am simultaneously at peace with God because of Christ's imputed righteousness, but at war with myself because of Christ's imparted righteousness. I am not a 'successful runner,' but I am 'looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of [my] faith' (Heb. 12:2). I trust and obey Christ (however feebly), and I know that I will continue trusting and obeying until the day I die—not because I have appropriated Christ, but because he has appropriated me."

— Dr. Michael S. Horton, Christ the Lord (The Reformation and Lordship Salvation), 33.

Gospel Holiness

Moral reform is not of the essence of Christian spirituality, though many teachers in our day seem to give off this impression. Some even ground supposed "blessing" and "victory" upon a manifestation of heightened moral virtue—a sort of divine payback for excellent performance. This is not the Christian life as pictured in Scripture.

There is no other foundation upon which holiness in a believer's life is built than the work of the triune God in redemption, as declared and proclaimed in the gospel. The love of the Father, enfleshed in the atonement and mediation of the Son, as applied and made real by the Spirit in the person's life is the driving force, the engine, behind the "machinery" of sanctification, and thus holiness. It is to this truth that the Christian will find himself returning perennially in times of doubt, despair, defeat and despondency "for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).


"Real spirituality is therefore not fundamentally about self-improvement but about intimacy and communion with the triune God who transforms the believer's life."

— Dr. Kelly Kapic, 'Evangelical Holiness: Assumptions in John Owen’s Theology of Christian Spirituality', WSC Convocation Lecture, 02/25/10.

A Brief Reflection on WCF 5.5

"The most wise, righteous, and gracious God does oftentimes leave, for a season, His own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and, to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon Himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends" (WCF 5.5).

Pietism and Wesleyan perfectionism would have you either feeling guilt-ridden all the time, or smug in self-righteous pride through a diminishing of what biblically counts for sin. They argue that sinless perfection is the norm of the Christian life and that something must be terribly wrong if sin is still being committed. In fact, given this scenario, if a Christian dies with at least a single "unconfessed" sin, that's it! It's hell for him, and make no qualms about it.

This view finds no warrant in Scripture and actually robs Christ of the glory due His Name for the utter perfection and sufficiency of His life and death. In fact, as the passage from the WCF above stipulates, sin is sometimes an agent of sanctification in God's wise, loving, and providential hands.

The new birth did not strip off the Adamic nature which every man possesses by virtue of being human. No, we as Christians, enabled by the Spirit, are still left to wrestle with the old man, to continually be putting it to death. But then, this process of mortification is not carried out pietistically as well, as if a set of rigorous "spiritual disciplines" is the key to victory. It is through the Gospel of Jesus Christ that the subjugation of sin is had, and the lingering presence of sin in our lives is cause for us to ever be humbling ourselves before a holy God, in submission to the Hope that He has set before us. We cannot reform ourselves by a gritting of our teeth in willful resolution—the radical depravity of man, the onslaught of the world, and the minions of Satan make that a certainty.

If we attend to the means of grace (Word and Sacrament), God's ordained vehicles of imparting the benefits of the Gospel to us, then we are truly conforming to the nature of Christ that has been wrought by the Spirit, desiring Him above all, and progressing steadily along the pilgrim path.

Vocation and the Two Kingdoms

There is indeed a distinction between holy or sacred work and common or secular work. The Christian, in his person and in his being, is holy and sacred by virtue of his union with Christ, and yet it is not an affront to this fact if his vocation is labeled as that which is common or secular.

Common grace ennobles secular work for God has not abandoned the present world, and it is through this type of labor that He sustains it, just as His redeeming grace empowers the Church's sacred work through Word and Sacrament.

Let the Christian, in humble circumstances, take joy in his labors as he engages in them for the glory of God.

"The kingdom of God advances through Word and Sacrament in the power of the Holy Spirit, while the kingdoms of this world advance through the arts and sciences, technology, literature, education, agriculture, business, medicine, and so forth. When a Christian is called to cabinet-making, he or she is not engaged in 'kingdom work' or a sacred calling. But that is not to demean this trade, as it was in the case of medieval Rome and much of modern Evangelicalism. Rather, it is to liberate us from thinking that something has to be justified by its usefulness to redemption, as if creation is not sufficient as a sphere in and of itself. A calling to make cabinets is the same for Christian and non-Christian alike. Because the unbeliever is still created in God's image and is the beneficiary of God's common grace, he or she is given a vocation by God in this world. God did not abandon the world and creation in order to work with his elect people, but rather he patiently endures the world's rebellion during this interval, restraining wickedness, while he extends his kingdom of grace to the ends of the earth (2 Pet. 3:1-13). This creates space for this shared sphere of human activity which is neither sacred nor sinful, but common and eminently worthwhile.

So let's stop blurring distinctions on this matter. Oil painting does not a 'minister' make. It is not kingdom work (if it is the kingdom of God that is meant), but cultural work. The only reason we would find that distinction offensive to our secular callings is if we already assume that whatever is not somehow a part of the kingdom of Christ is unworthy of a believer's passionate attention and interest. We need to recover creation as a sphere of common grace activity. Christians need to be freed to embrace the world which God has created without being burdened with trying to justify everything in terms of its 'kingdom value.' It is enough to serve one's neighbor and society without having to figure out how it all contributes to the regime of 'redeeming culture.'"

— Dr. Michael S. Horton, 'How to Discover Your Calling'.

Holiness and Self-Esteem

"We need to work at ensuring that our commitment to holiness is a commitment to God, not to our own self-esteem. Frederick W. Faber, a nineteenth-century British writer, showed me great insight into this tendency (I've paraphrased his words for clarity): 'When we sin we are more vexed at the lowering of our self-esteem than we are grieved at God's dishonor. We are surprised and irritated at our own lack of self-control in subjecting ourselves to unworthy habits....The first cause of this is self-love, which is unable to stand the disappointment of not seeing ourselves in time of trial come out beautiful, erect, and admirable.'"

- Jerry Bridges, Holiness, 'Sin and Self-Esteem', p. 119

Wretchedness

I have a mental picture of the kind of man I want to be. A stable man, walking in integrity, and in constant obedience to the Lord. But then there's the real me.

Hope does not exist in anything, anywhere, at any time except in the prospect of conformity to the character of the Lord Jesus Christ, secured for me by His life and death and applied by the Holy Spirit, and in His promise to really carry this out and not leave me as I am. "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Rom 7:24,25)

Whenever despair over my self grips me, to You I cling, O, Lord. Leave me not as I am.

Unfashionable

Billy Graham's grandson, Tullian Tchividjian, pastor of New City Church in Florida, has a new book about to be released this April called "Unfashionable". Of course, availability in the Philippines by that time is quite another matter—LOL—but do listen to Tullian discuss the premise of the book in the vid below. I was extremely blessed and inspired to find underdogism promoted in his thought.



A snippet from the upcoming book:

"According to Jesus, Christianity is not cool. There, I said it. I'll even go a step farther: if what's fashionable in our society interests you, then true Christianity won't. It's that simple.Think about it. Jesus said some pretty unfashionable stuff. If you want to live, you must die. If you want to find your life, you must lose it. He talked about self-sacrifice and bearing crosses and suffering and death and the dangers of riches. He talked about the need to lay down our lives for those who hate us and hurt us. He talked about serving instead of being served, about seeking last place and not first. He talked of gouging out our eyes and cutting off our hands if they cause us to sin. He was making the profound point that daily Christian living means daily Christian dying—dying to our fascination with the sizzle of this world and living for something bigger, something thicker, something eternal. Jesus calls his people to live for what is timeless and not trendy, to take up the cross and follow him, even when it means going against social norms. Of course, all this is flat-out uncool in a world that idolizes whatever cultural craze is in style, whatever is fashionable."