Spirit Filled Puritan

“Christ suffered and died so that disease would one day be utterly destroyed. Disease and death were not part of God’s original way with the world. They came in with sin as part of God’s judgment on creation. The Bible says, “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope” (Romans 8:20). God  subjected the world to the futility of physical pain to show the horror of moral evil.   This futility included death. “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin” (Romans 5:12). It included all the groaning of disease. And Christians are not excluded: “Not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit [that is, those who trust Christ], groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). When Christ came into the world, he was on a mission to accomplish this global redemption. He signaled his purposes by healing many people during his lifetime. There were occasions when the crowds gathered and he “healed all who were sick” (Matthew 8:16; Luke 6:19). This was a preview of what was coming at the end of history when “he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore” (Revelation 21:4). The way Christ defeated death and disease was by taking them on himself and carrying them with him to the grave. God’s judgment on the sin that brought disease was endured by Jesus when he suffered and died.”

Reflecting on this statement reminds me there is not only a reason for sickness, but a purpose.  The reason, as Piper affirms from the Bible, is sin.  Sin’s effect caused not only a spiritual fall but a physical one as well.   Many people just stop at the spiritual and never think beyond that point.  I have come to realize that if Jesus died for sinners, he died for not only sin’s affect on my eternal soul but also it’s effect on my body.  I missed this and I think many other’s do too.   As for sickness’ purpose, as with all things it is God’s glory.  While God does not take pleasure in our physical illness, he does highlight his glory through the healing of illness or, as some forget, through those who are not healed.  Our healing brings God glory and our suffering in illness can also bring him glory. 

Questions:  Have you ever considered that sins effects are more than spiritual?   If you do now recognize that sin is the source of illness and its associated suffering, do you now see that the solution for your illness is not entirely an earthly physician?  

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.

“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32.    I love the logic of this verse. Not because I love logic, but because I love having my real needs met. The two halves of Romans 8:32 have a stupendously important logical connection. We may not see it, since the second half is a question: “How will he not also with him give us all things?” But if we change the question into the statement that it implies, we will see it. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will therefore surely also with him graciously give us all things.” In other words, the connection between the two halves is meant to make the second half absolutely certain. If God did the hardest thing of all—namely, give up his own Son to suffering and death—then it is certain that he will do the comparatively easy thing, namely, give us all things with him.  What then does it mean that because of Christ’s death for us God will certainly with him graciously give us “all things”? It means that he will give us all things that are good for us. All things that we really need in order to be conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29). All things we need in order to attain everlasting joy”

Reflecting on this statement reminds me of how people twist this concept.  Rather than looking at Romans 8:32 from God’s perspective, they look it at from man’s.  John Piper puts his finger on it when he says, “I love having my real needs met”.  Riches, cars, boats, fame, fortune, an easy life, a perfect marriage, children, friends are not real needs.   Our real need is joy.  Joy that can only be filled by God giving us the ability to rejoice in him and in his glory.  Joy is something that is permanent, not fleeting.  I often wondered how Christians in poor countries can endure suffering, opposition and persecution joyfully when Christians in America call for a divine rescue because their 401(k)’s are down 30%.  Joy is found in a person, not in things.  Joy is being given good gifts by God

Questions:  Are you joyful?  Is your joy everlasting or does it fade when faced with tough times?  Is your joy man-centered or God-centered?  The joy God provides us through his grace is the joy that is unaffected by earthly matters.  As Lent progresses, considering and meditating on joy is a wonderful way to prepare for the fulfillment of joy, Christ’s resurrection. 

For more information on how to really be joyful, consider reading John Piper’s study of Biblical joy, “The Supremacy of Christ and Joy in a Postmodern World”

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.

 “Some things never change. The problem of a dirty conscience is as old as Adam and Eve. As soon as they sinned, their conscience was defiled. Their sense of guilt was ruinous. It ruined their relationship with God—they hid from him. It ruined their relation to each other—they blamed. It ruined their peace with themselves— for the first time they saw themselves and felt shame. All through the Old Testament, conscience was an issue. But the animal sacrifices themselves could not cleanse the conscience. As a foreshadowing of Christ, God counted the blood of the animals as sufficient for cleansing the flesh—the ceremonial uncleanness, but not the conscience.  So here we are in the modern age—the age of science, Internet, organ transplants, instant messaging, cell phones—and our problem is fundamentally the same as always: Our conscience condemns us. We don’t feel good enough to come to God. And no matter how distorted our consciences are, this much is true: We are not good enough to come to him. We can cut ourselves, or throw our children in the sacred river, or give a million dollars to the United Way, or serve in a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving, or perform a hundred forms of penance and self-injury, and the result will be the same: The stain remains, and death terrifies. The only answer in these modern times, as in all other times, is the blood of Christ. When our conscience rises up and condemns us, where will we turn? We turn to Christ. We turn to the suffering and death of Christ—the blood of Christ. This is the only cleansing agent in the universe that can give the conscience relief in life and peace in death.”

Reflecting on this statement reminds me that no matter how much I worked to purge my conscience with good works, donations to charity, volunteerism, doing penance, or working at church, my conscience still condemned me.  I had one big question…How much did I have to do to earn back right standing with God and stand before him with the clean conscience and how would I know when I had reached that point.  The answer I found was a paradox.  I could do both nothing but also everything.  I could do nothing to please God.  Thus what I was doing through acts of service, was futile.  This in itself was condemning.  Yet I also found out I could do everything to please God, but not through my actions but by those perfect acts that Jesus performed on my behalf.  Thus I could do everything to please God, through Christ.  I needed a substitute to stand in my place.  And that’s what Jesus does but faith in him.   Not only can I stand before him uncondemned, but also with a clear conscience, confident that he will be pleased by the sacrifice of his Son.

Questions:  Have you tried to purge your conscience with good works, donations or acts of service?  Have you ever asked yourself why?   Did those acts solve your problem?  Are you sure?  Why are resisting the only hope you have by coming to faith in Christ? 

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.

“One of the greatest heartaches in the Christian life is the slowness of our change. We hear the summons of God to love him with all our heart and soul and mind and strength (Mark 12:30). But do we ever rise to that totality of affection and devotion? We cry out regularly with the apostle Paul, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). We groan even as we take fresh resolves: “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Philippians 3:12).    That very statement is the key to endurance and joy. The basis of all this? “For Christ, our  Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” The suffering of Christ secures our perfection so firmly that it is already now a reality. Therefore, we fight against our sin not simply to become perfect, but because we are. The death of Jesus is the key to battling our  imperfections on the firm foundation of our perfection.”

Reflecting on this statement reminds me again that God created me to be perfect but  I am not perfect because of sin.  Yet, because of God’s love, he didn’t leave me in my sin but redeemed me.  God’s love is more than conditional forgiveness for all but its a covenant love which purchases (redeems) a people and He, in turn, gathers them to himself.    His plan was conceived before the world was formed and through his providence, leads each one who comes to faith through a process of remaking us into the image of His son.   As we progress, we become more holy, blameless and eventually perfect when we are brought into his presence.  Why do we need to be made holy?  Two reasons, we can’t do it ourselves and we must be holy to stand in God’s presence.    Both Old and New Testament’s mention the need to be made holy.  Our holiness is assured by God. 

Questions:  Do you see yourself becoming more holy and blameless over time?  If you were to look back, does your life exhibit more holiness today than it did, a year ago?  Are you growing in grace and in knowledge of God?  If you are not, you should be asking why.  Jesus didn’t come to just make holiness possible or to provide you with a choice between holiness and licentiousness.  He came to make you holy.  

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.

“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.