Spirit Filled Puritan

“The place of circumcision was a huge controversy in the early church. It had a long, respected, biblical place ever since God commanded it in Genesis 17:10. Christ was a Jew. All his twelve apostles were Jews. Almost all the first converts to Christianity were Jews. The Jewish Scriptures were (and are) part of the Bible of the Christian church. It is not surprising that Jewish rituals would come over into the Christian church. The message of Christ was spreading to non-Jewish cities like Antioch of Syria. Gentiles were believing on Christ.  Some in Jerusalem thought it was essential. Antioch became the flash point for the controversy. “Men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised . . . you cannot be saved’” (Acts 15:1). A council was called, and the matter was debated. Some . . . rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.” . . . Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that . . . God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe . . . why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” And all the assembly fell silent. (Acts 15:5-12)”

Reflecting on this statement reminds me that ritual is powerless to saves us.  Yet, ritual and works are not powerless in themselves.  They can and do kill us.  They kill us when we see them as a method of winning favor with God or they become the means or an offering to God towards our salvation.   We do them because we want something from God.  We participate in them because they separate us from those who don’t do them.  The end result is that we have done something, are part of something, attended something, that someone else didn’t and thus we hope God will see this as a plus for us.   Performing ritual is a statement of self-righteousness.  And ritual doesn’t necessarily need to take the form of public religion.  It can take the form of subtle things we do on a regular basis, in the hopes of salvation.  Even our prayer, Bible reading, journaling, quiet time, etc.,  if done for the wrong reasons, can be rituals.  I can say all these things because I was guilty of performing acts in the hopes of salvation.  This is not to say we should not do good works or acts of kindness.  God commands us to do them.  However he commands us to do them in response to our salvation and out of love for him and for his glory;  not for ourselves and our own desires.  The question comes down to our heart’s motivation. The reality is that nothing we can do will ever make up for it.  Yet God himself made up for it through Christ.  God calls us not to look back on our actions in regret, nor to make up for them in religious ritual.  He calls us to repentance and faith, for these are both sources of grace and the results of grace.  Grace is the only ground on which we can stand.

Again, I am reminded of a few verses from an old song Rock of Ages by Augustus M. Toplady

Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

Questions:  Has some ritual replaced your reliance on God’s grace alone for your salvation?  What motivates your ritual?  Have you even felt guilty of something you did and then tried to make up for it by doing “good things” to win God’s favor?  Have you ever considered who assigned the definition of “good” to your works? 

Quote from “The 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die”.

Rock of Ages:  Augustus M. Toplady, Public Domain

Questions, emphasis and reflections by me.

Picture – The cross at Mount Erebus, Antarctica, commemorating the 1979 Air New Zealand Crash near Mount Erebus.

“The great conclusion to the suffering and death of Christ is this:
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). To be “in Christ” means to be in relationship to him by faith. Faith in Christ unites us to Christ so that his death becomes our death and his perfection becomes our perfection. Christ becomes our punishment (which we don’t have to bear) and our perfection (which we cannot perform). Faith is not the ground of our acceptance with God. Christ alone is. Faith unites us to Christ so that his righteousness is counted as ours. “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified” (Galatians 2:16). Being “justified by faith” and being “justified . . . in Christ” (Galatians 2:17) are parallel  terms. We are in Christ by faith, and therefore justified.”

Reflecting on this statement reminds me that what God did was total.  Christ and what he accomplished is the basis for my acceptance by God.  It was nothing I did.  My faith, which is a gift from God, unites me with Christ so that my faith would be credited to me as righteousness.  This again was God’s grace, not my actions.  Christ’s suffering and death, justification, faith and grace are all inter-related.  While the world may condemn us, they may even use brutal force as did the men and women who willingly were burned at the stake for their faith, by the ultimate judge has already said he will not condemn us.  This reflection reminds me of a song we sing in church.

I will glory in My Redeemer

Words and Music by Steve and Vikki Cook
(of Sovereign Grace Ministries)

I will glory in my Redeemer
Whose priceless blood has ransomed me
Mine was the sin that drove the bitter nails
And hung Him on that judgment tree
I will glory in my Redeemer
Who crushed the power of sin and death
My only Savior before the Holy Judge
The Lamb Who is my righteousness
The Lamb Who is my righteousness

I will glory in my Redeemer
My life He bought, my love He owns
I have no longings for another
I’m satisfied in Him alone
I will glory in my Redeemer
His faithfulness my standing place
Though foes are mighty and rush upon me
My feet are firm, held by His grace
My feet are firm, held by His grace

I will glory in my Redeemer
Who carries me on eagle’s wings
He crowns my life with loving-kindness
His triumph song I’ll ever sing
I will glory in my Redeemer
Who waits for me at gates of gold
And when He calls me it will be paradise
His face forever to behold
His face forever to behold
His face forever to behold

Questions:  Do you feel condemned by those around you?  Have you considered that because of Christ’s suffering and death, if you are united to him in faith, you stand uncondemned before the only judge that matters?  You have come face to face with God’s grace today.  Have you responded in faith?

Quote from “The 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die”.

Questions, emphasized text and reflections by me.

Picture – The cross at Mount Erebus, Antarctica, commemorating the 1979 Air New Zealand Crash near Mount Erebus.

The Bible speaks of an “old covenant” and a “new covenant.” The term covenant refers to a solemn, binding agreement between two parties carrying obligations for both sides and enforced by an oath. In the Bible the covenants God makes with man are initiated by himself. He sets the terms. His obligations are determined by his own purposes. The “old covenant” refers to the arrangement God established with Israel in the law of Moses. Its weakness was that it was not accompanied by spiritual  transformation. Therefore it was not obeyed and did not bring life. It was written with letters on stone, not with the Spirit on the heart.  The new covenant is radically more effective than the old. It is enacted on the foundation of Jesus’ suffering and death. “He is the Christ Suffered and Died . . .He is the mediator of a new covenant” (Hebrews 9:15). Jesus said that his blood was the “blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mark 14:24). This means that the blood of Jesus purchased the power and the promises of the new covenant. It is supremely effective because Christ died to make it so.  To guarantee that this covenant will not fail, Christ takes the initiative to create the faith and secure the faithfulness of his people. He brings a new-covenant people into being by writing the law not just on stone, but on the heart.

Reflecting on this reminds me of the time when I realized what it meant to be saved by grace.  Previously, I kept life and spiritual things separate.  I don’t know why I never put them together.  Maybe it was the way I was taught.  However when I came to understand that my life, my health, my job, my family were all gifts from God, what came next was even more transforming.  I read a book, I can’t remember the name but it essentially challenged my thinking in this way.  If God is sovereign and gave us everything, then what separated a person of faith from another without?  What made someone who heard the Gospel message, respond and the other one reject.  The potential answers were understanding, intelligence, education, exposure to Christian things, more opportunity, etc.  The next question clinched it.   The author asked, if that’s the case and the man of faith had more understanding, more intelligence, more education, more exposure to Christian things, more opportunities to respond; who was the provider of those things?  The only answer could be God.  I had it wrong.  My faith was not my contribution to God.  My faith was God’s precious gift TO ME.  The implications for me were life changing.

Questions?   Have you ever considered that faith is a gift from God?   Have you responded in faith to the savior who died to redeem sinners?   Have you ever considered what was said by John Owen when he considered what Jesus did on the cross…”To suppose that whatever God requireth of us, that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect.”

Quote from “The 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die”.

John Owen quote from Works of John Owen: volume 3  pg. 433

Questions and reflections by me.

Picture – The cross at Mount Erebus, Antarctica, commemorating the 1979 Air New Zealand Crash near Mount Erebus.

Justification is not merely the cancellation of my unrighteousness. It is also the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to me. I do not have a righteousness that commends me to God. My claim before God is this: “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ”  (Philippians 3:9).  This is Christ’s righteousness. It is imputed to me. That means Christ fulfilled all righteousness perfectly; and then that Christ Suffered and Died  and that righteousness was reckoned to be mine, when I trusted in him.  I was counted righteous. God looked on Christ’s perfect righteousness, and he declared me to be righteous with the righteousness of Christ. So there are two reasons why it is not abominable for God to justify the ungodly (Romans 4:5). First, the death of Christ paid the debt of our unrighteousness (see the previous chapter). Second, the obedience of Christ provided the righteousness we needed to be justified in God’s court. The demands of God for entrance into eternal life are not merely that our unrighteousness be canceled, but that our perfect righteousness be established. The suffering and death of Christ is the basis of both.

Reflecting on Philippians 3:9, I am drawn to the fact that my slate with God was not just wiped clean but that he wiped it clean and then gave me something that I was incapable of ever achieving; the righteousness of Jesus.   It was not just a paper transaction with a blanket decree of mercy for all, with my name listed somewhere in fine print.  It was a personal intervention on my behalf, carefully planned and executed as to achieve exactly what God desired.  He desired me to be a co-heir with Jesus.  Thus he not only intervened on my behalf to forgive me of my trespasses, but he gave me righteousness that was impossible for me to ever achieve.   Jesus passively and actively obeyed the Father’s by dying on the cross AND submitting every thought, word and deed perfectly to God.  Those actions were then transferred to me for God’s ultimately glory and as a result, my salvation.    Recently I recall seeing a car with a bumper sticker that said “Christians aren’t perfect, only forgiven”.  I thought, (and as with most Christian bumper stickers), that’s not 100% accurate.  A person who has faith in Christ is forgiven, but he is also perfect in God’s eyes.  I think too many Christians forget this fact that without righteousness, God’s forgiveness is not enough. 

Questions?   Have you ever considered that God did more than just forgive sinners but that he both forgave and then gave those same sinners the world’s most valuable gift; Jesus righteousness?  Have you considered that God wants to make you a co-heir with Jesus?

Quote from “The 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die”.

Questions and reflections by me.

Picture – The cross at Mount Erebus, Antarctica, commemorating the 1979 Air New Zealand Crash near Mount Erebus.

Being justified before God and being forgiven by God are not identical. To be justified in a courtroom is not the same as being forgiven. Being forgiven implies that I am guilty and my crime is not counted. Being justified implies that I have been tried and found innocent. My claim is just. I am vindicated. The judge says, “Not guilty.” Justifying is a legal act.  It is a verdict. The verdict of  justification does not make a person just. It declares a person just. It is based on someone actually being just. We can see this most clearly when the Bible tells us that, in response to Jesus’ teaching, the people “justified” God (Luke 7:29). This does not mean they made God just (since he already was). It means they declared God to be just.  The ordinary way to be justified in a human court is to keep the law. In that case the jury and the judge simply declare what is true of you: You kept the law. They justify you. But in the courtroom of God, we have not kept the law. Therefore, justification, on ordinary terms, is hopeless.

Reflecting on the definition of justification, the means of justification and the declaration of justification provides me with hope.  I hope not in a “wish” or in “possibility” but in what has been effectively accomplished for me and on my behalf through Christ’s life, death, resurrection and ascension.    By God’s grace, through faith in Jesus,  I have been justified.  This is one of the clearest doctrines expressed throughout the New Testament.  In the Book of Romans, Paul outlines justification in detail and in simple and clear terms.  As John Piper mentions above, we typically equate law keeping with justification.  So does God.  That is why Jesus kept the law perfectly.  The one who was to justify, needed to be just.  He did so in divine terms by the fact he was  God, BUT he went further and proved to be just in human terms by perfectly keeping God’s law. 

Questions?   Do you feel you can justify yourself before God with keeping his law?   Have you ever tried to keep God’s law perfectly?  Have you failed in one, or more?  If you honestly admit you didn’t keep God’s law perfectly, you now understand why Jesus came to fulfill the law and to justify sinners.    You failed; Jesus succeeded.

Quote from “The 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die”.

Reflections by me.

Picture – The cross at Mount Erebus, Antarctica, commemorating the 1979 Air New Zealand Crash near Mount Erebus.

“When we forgive a debt or an offense or an injury, we don’t require a payment for settlement. That would be the opposite of forgiveness. If repayment is made to us for what we lost, there is no need for forgiveness. We have our due. Forgiveness assumes grace. If I am injured by you, grace lets it go. I don’t sue you. I forgive you. Grace gives what someone doesn’t deserve. That’s why forgiveness has the word give in it.
Forgiveness is  not “getting” even. It is giving away the right to get even.
That is what God does to us when we trust Christ: “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name”

Reflecting on this I am struck the statement that grace gives what someone does not deserve.  Typically when we ask forgiveness, he have harmed someone and in our act of asking forgiveness we hope the other person will accept our gesture and a relationship will be restored.  However, what Jesus did was just the opposite.   God, the injured party, initiated towards us and forgave us, while we were still in the act of injuring Him.  It was a demonstration of His grace.  He gave sinners what we did not deserve.

Questions.  Did you ever consider that God loved sinners, while they were still in the act of sinning?  To those whom God has shown his grace, he has no intention of ever getting even with those who previously rejected him, even if that rejection was throughout your entire life.  Has God shown grace to you?  How have you responded to that grace?

Quote from “The 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die”.

Picture – The cross at Mount Erebus, Antarctica, commemorating the 1979 Air New Zealand Crash near Mount Erebus.

“When Jesus says that he came “to give his life as a ransom,” the focus is not on who gets the payment. The focus is on his own life as the payment, and on his freedom in serving rather than being served, and on the “many” who will benefit from the payment he makes. If we ask who received the ransom, the biblical answer would surely be God. The Bible says that Christ “gave himself up for us, [an] . . . offering . . . to  God”  (Ephesians 5:2). Christ “offered himself without blemish to God” (Hebrews 9:14).  How many did Christ effectively ransom from sin? He said that he came “to give his life as a ransom for many.” Yet not everyone will be ransomed from the wrath of God. But the offer is for everyone. “There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:5-6). No one is excluded from this salvation who embraces the treasure of the ransoming Christ.”

Reflecting on this, I am struck by the fact the God is the one to whom the ransom is paid.   R C Sproul, in his book “Saved from What?” explains of how we are saved by God, from God; a “grand paradox” as he calls it.  Christians common use the phrase “I’m saved”.  I am not sure how most would articulate that meaning but in my case when I used it it meant being save from “hell”.  And this is right, to an extent.  Yes, a true Christian is saved from hell but how many would go on to see their salvation in Christ as an act of rescue from God himself.  I never considered that until I read RC’s book years ago.  Again, when I view God as a God of purpose, not as a God of possibility, I can understand the extent of Jesus death satisfying the demands of God, in the form of a ransom for many, rather than just “hush money” paid on my behalf to keep his hands off me, if I pass some test.  Jesus death was effectual not potential. 

Questions.  Did you ever consider that in Jesus death, a ransom was paid to God?  Did you ever consider how much God required in payment for the salvation of sinners?  Did you ever think about the fact that whether Jesus died for millions upon millions or just one sinner, the ransom to be paid would have been the same? 

Quote from “The 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die”.

Picture – The cross at Mount Erebus, Antarctica, commemorating the 1979 Air New Zealand Crash near Mount Erebus.

“What a folly it is to think that our good deeds may one day outweigh our bad deeds. It is folly for two reasons.  First, it is not true. Even our good deeds are defective, because we don’t honor God in the way we do them. Do we do our good deeds in joyful dependence on God with a view to making known his supreme worth? Do we fulfill the overarching command to serve people “by the strength that God supplies— in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11)?   The second reason it is folly to hope in good deeds is that this is not the way God saves. If we are saved from the consequences of our bad deeds, it will not be because they weighed less than our good deeds. It will be because the “record of [our] debt” in (Colossians 2:13) heaven has been nailed to the cross of Christ. God has a totally different way of saving sinners than by weighing their deeds. There is no hope in our deeds. There is only hope in the suffering and death of Christ.  There is no salvation by balancing the records. There is only salvation by canceling records. The record of our bad deeds (including our defective good deeds), along with the just penalties that each deserves, must be blotted out—not balanced. This is what Christ suffered and died to accomplish.”

Reflecting on this reminds me of the way I used to think of how God viewed me.  There was a time when I thought of myself as a good person, most of the time and believed that God will focus on my “most of the time” and ignore my “occasional” [sic]  failings.  Yet, throughout the Bible, God never talks of weighing scales, yet  He does talk frequently about atonement.    This word “atonement”  is grounded in the idea of cancelling, wiping out or satisfying a debt.   God’s judgment of us is not based on what we can offer but on our account balance.  Our problem is that our debt can’t be cancelled by us, only by the one whom we owe it to.  We can faithfully attempt to pay it off but in the end, no matter how hard we try, we will always owe God something.  It is in this fact that the death of Jesus becomes real.  It is the only remedy.  For it was through His death and its effectual application of the debt-cancelling work (atonement) that God has the basis to stamp our accounts are debt-free. 

Questions.  Have you ever been in a situation where you owed so much that you couldn’t pay?  Did you go to an intermediary who helped you cancel your debt?  Jesus is our mediator and through him our debt to God can be cancelled.   

Quote from “The 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die”.

Picture – The cross at Mount Erebus, Antarctica, commemorating the 1979 Air New Zealand Crash near Mount Erebus.

“The death of Christ is not only the demonstration of God’s love
(John 3:16), it is also the supreme expression of Christ’s own
love for all who receive it as their treasure. The early witnesses
who suffered most for being Christians were captured by this fact:
Christ “loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). They
took the self-giving act of Christ’s sacrifice very personally. They said, “He loved me. He gave himself for me.  And what do I mean? I mean that he paid the highest price possible
to give me the greatest gift possible. And what is that? It is the gift he prayed for at the end of his life: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory” (John 17:24). In his suffering and death “we have
seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). We have seen enough to capture us for his cause. But the best is yet to come. He died to secure this for us. That is the love of Christ.”

Reflecting on this reminds me of the costly nature of love.  Love that is not costly, is not love.  The cost of the love directly translates into to value.  If God loved everyone in the same way and then left everyone in their state of despair, it could not be described as love.  It would be more along the lines of  “concern” or “sympathy”;  a passive emotion.  But the Bible says that Jesus prayed purposefully for the salvation of those whom the Father had given Him.  Simplistically I think it’s  safe to say that if Jesus prays for something, it is going to happen.  For if God wouldn’t answer the prayers of His Son, what assurance is there that he would answer ours? 

Questions.  Have you ever considered the fact that Jesus prayed for sinners personally?  Did you ever stop to think that Jesus knew each and every person whom the Father had given him?  How does this personal, directed and purposeful love of Jesus toward sinners affect you?

For further study on Jesus personal love for sinners, listen to John Piper’s sermon here

Quote from “The 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die”.

Picture – The cross at Mount Erebus, Antarctica, commemorating the 1979 Air New Zealand Crash near Mount Erebus.

“The measure of God’s love for us is shown by two things. One is the degree of his sacrifice in saving us from the penalty of our sin. The other is the degree of unworthiness that we had when he saved us.  We can hear the measure of his sacrifice in the words, “He gave his only son” (John 3:16).  The measure of his love for us increases still more when we consider our unworthiness.   I have heard it said, “God didn’t die for frogs.  We are worse off than frogs. They have not sinned. They have not rebelled and treated God with the contempt of being inconsequential in their lives. God did not have to die for frogs. They aren’t bad enough. We are. Our debt is so great, only a divine sacrifice could pay it.”

Reflecting on this quote reminds me of the futility of trying to impress God in an attempt to win favor.  What separates true Christianity from other religions is not the ritual or the requirements but, in fact the lack of them.  Christianity is not the religion of do’s and don’ts as some people believe or as others attempt to change it into, but a religion of God’s initiative and grace shown to sinners.  I used to see God’s grace as a reward for doing what I thought was right.  However, that violates the fundamental definition of grace.  Grace is the unmerited favor of God shown to ill-deserving people.  It comes to us by the power of God, through Gospel with the purpose of saving sinners which ultimately glorifies God.  God’s grace irresistibly draws, it commands, it empowers, it transforms.  It creates a desire in the hearts of people to love God as more valuable than anything else.  It transforms those who have no place for God or those who want to gain His attention or those who only see him as saver from hell, ticket to heaven conductor, sin forgiver, gift giver, body healer, etc into those who see him as the “pearl of great prize”.  Too many times today, grace is portrayed as a sort of unending free banquet table set before gluttons.  We can consume as much as we want and never have to worry about it being taken away.  This is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer referred to as “cheap grace” or “God’s grace we bestow on ourselves”.  However God’s value of grace is just the opposite.  It’s costly.  Not that we have to pay or work for it in some way but that fact that its value is of infinite value.  It was earned on our behalf by the suffering and death of Jesus.  Grace is costly because it cost God his Son and it’s bestowed by His hand, not ours, for His glory in the name of His Son.

Questions.  Do you view yourself being worthy of grace?  Do you view  God’s grace a reward to you for doing something good for Him?  If we had the power to do something good for God apart from His grace, what would be the value of Jesus death?

For an appreciation of grace and its cost, see Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book “The Cost of Discipleship”

Quote from “The 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die”.

Picture – The cross at Mount Erebus, Antarctica, commemorating the 1979 Air New Zealand Crash near Mount Erebus.

One of my favorite quotes:  "To suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have the power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ to none effect" – John Owen, English Puritan Theologian