Month: February 2016

The Blood on our Hands has been Sprinkled on Our Hearts (Exodus 20:13)

Murder isn’t far from any of us. We’ve got blood on our hands.

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire (Matthew 5:21–22 ESV).”

“Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him (1 John 3:15 ESV).”

When Peter preached to the crowds on Pentecost He spoke of “Jesus whom you crucified (Acts 2:26 ESV).” It is highly unlikely that this is the exact crowd that cried out “Crucify Him!” but that cry expressed every rebel sinner’s heart. Later the church would pray, “truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel (Acts 4:27 ESV).” The cross isn’t about ethnic hatred for God’s Messiah, but human hatred.

The first murder was committed by the first son of Adam. As weeds and thorns now find ready root in cursed soil, so anger finds fertile ground in fallen man’s heart to bud in the fruit of murder. Cain slew his brother Abel. God told Abel “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground (Genesis 4:10 ESV).” The blood of the murdered cried out against the murderer.

The cross expresses every son of Adam’s heart towards One more innocent than Abel. But the blood of Christ instead of calling out for our condemnation, speaks for our justification. Hebrews tells us that we have come “to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Hebrews 12:24 ESV).” With Jesus, the blood of the murdered cries out for the murderers. We are given life by His death; pardon in His bearing our condemnation. O what horrid sin, O what unfathomable grace: the blood on our hands has been sprinkled on our hearts.

The Apologist: The Glory of the Christian System: The Personal-Infinite God

The Christian system is consistent as no other system that has ever been. It is beautiful beyond words, because it has that quality that no other system completely has—you begin at the beginning, and you can go to the end. It is as simple as that. And every part and portion of the system can be related back to the beginning. Whatever you discuss, to understand it properly, you just go back to the beginning and the whole thing is in its place. The beginning is simply that God exists and that He is the personal-infinite God. Our generation longs for the reality of personality, but it cannot understand it. But Christianity says personality is valid because personality has not just appeared in the universe, but rather is rooted in the personal God who has always been.

All too often, when we are talking to the lost world, we do not begin at the beginning and therefore the world stops listening. Without this emphasis on personality we cannot expect people really to listen, because without this the concept of salvation is suspended in a vacuum.

If we understand this, we understand the meaning of life. The meaning of life does not end with justication, but is seen in the reality that when we accept Christ as our Savior in the true biblical sense, our personal relationship with the personal God is restored. Every place we turn in Christianity we find that we are brought face to face with the wonder of personality—the very opposite of the dilemma and the sorrow of modern man who finds no meaning in personality. Consider the words of Paul, ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all.’ It is the personal to which we are brought. First of all there is the personal relationship with God Himself—this is the most wonderful, and is not just in Heaven but is substantially real in practice now. When we understand our calling, it is not only true but beautiful—and it should be exciting. It is hard to understand how an orthodox, evangelical, Bible-believing Christian can fall to be excited. The answers in the realm of the intellect should make us overwhelmingly excited. But more than this, we are returned to a personal relationship with the God who is there. If we are unexcited Christians, we should go back and see what is wrong. We are surrounded by a generation that can find ‘no one home’ in the universe. If anything marks our generation, it is this. In contrast to this, as a Christian I know who I am; and I know the personal God who is there. I speak, and He hears. I am not surrounded by mere mass, nor only energy particles, but He is there. And if I have accepted Christ as my Savior, then though it will not be perfect in this life, yet moment by moment, on the basis of the finished work of Christ, this person to person relationship with the God who is there can have reality to me.  —Francis Schaeffer, The God Who is There

Bad Future Stock because of Poor Present Investments (Exodus 20:12)

This commandment, as Paul says, is the first with promise (Ephesians 6:2). Why is this one, of God’s ten words singled out to receive a promise? First, let’s ask another question, who is this promise for? Those who honor the father and mother, of course, right? Yes, but perhaps like me you’ve always thought of this promise in a personal and individualistic way. Two passages now convince me otherwise.

Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the LORD your God is giving you for all time (Deuteronomy 4:40 ESV).

You shall be careful therefore to do as the LORD your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess (Deuteronomy 5:32–32 ESV).

Same promise, but here we clearly understand the promise to refer to the nation as a whole remaining in the promised land. So it is here with the fifth commandment. In Deuteronomy this promise is attached to the whole of God’s law, but first, the fifth command is singled out, and this promise is specifically attached to it, why? Because if children do not obey this command of Yahweh, they won’t obey any, and thus they will be thrust from the land. If children do not learn Yahweh’s commands in the home, they won’t learn them, and thus they, they nation, will be thrust from the land.

The family is foundational for covenant faithfulness. Failure here means covenant failure altogether. Charles Hodge, once president of Princeton Seminary when she was a bulwark of orthodoxy, wrote, “The character of the Church and of the state depends on the character of the family. If religion dies out in the family, it cannot be elsewhere maintained.” The Puritan with mad pastoral skills, Richard Baxter, asserted,

We must have a special eye upon families, to see that they are well ordered, and the duties of each relation performed. The life of religion, and the welfare and glory of both the Church and the State, depend much on family government and duty. If we suffer the neglect of this, we shall undo all. What are we like to do ourselves to the reforming of a congregation, if all the work be cast on us alone; and masters of families neglect that necessary duty of their own, by which they are bound to help us? If any good be begun by the ministry in any soul, a careless, prayerless, worldly family is like to stifle it, or very much hinder it; whereas, if you could but get the rulers of families to do their duty, to take up the work where you left it, and help it on, what abundance of good might be done! I beseech you, therefore, if you desire the reformation and welfare of your people, do all you can to promote family religion.

Many blame the church today for the absences of children and young adults, and there is fault, but indirectly. The church has put extraordinary resources, time, and effort into children and youth, but statistically something like ninety percent leave the church and the faith during college. Why is this? I believe there are a handful of reasons, but one of the leading ones is that the church is putting their time and resources into the wrong place. It wasn’t the failure of Israel’s temple program for tots that spelled disaster for the nation, but the failure of the family. The church should aim at parents, and in particular it should aim at fathers. The church’s failure to children is that she has failed to disciple men.

The flip-side of this command is spelled out in Colossians and Ephesians.

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged (Colossians 3:20–21 ESV).

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.’ Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.(Ephesians 6:1–4 ESV).

Children are to honor. Parents are to be honorable. Father’s are responsible. The discipline and instruction a child is should be under is God’s. Parent such that your child is relating directly with God. Labor to ensure that the honor rendered to you, is honor rendered to God.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise (Deuteronomy 6:4–7).

The Apologist: The Only Answer to the Mystery of Love

Nevertheless, he [modern man] faces a very real problem as to the meaning of love. Though modern man tries to hang everything on the word love, love can easily degenerate into something very much less because he really does not understand it. He has no adequate universal for love.
On the other hand. the Christian does have the adequate universal he needs in order to be able to discuss the meaning of love. Among the things we know about the Trinity is that the Trinity was before the creation of everything else and that love existed between the persons of the Trinity before the foundation of the world. This being so, the existence of love as we know it in our makeup does not have an origin in chance, but from that which has always been.  —Francis Schaeffer, The God Who is There

Enjoying the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8–11)

Altogether three reasons were given to Israel for remembering the Sabbath. The first, given here, is rooted in creation.

For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy (Exodus 20:11 ESV).

When Moses calls the next generation to covenant renewal and restates this command, much remains the same, but the grounds are significantly different.

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day (Deuteronomy 5:15 ESV).

Ultimately, I believe, that these two reasons have one unifying reason, and a hint as to how this can be is found in a yet third basis given for Sabbath remembrance.

You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you (Exodus 31:13 ESV).’

Like circumcision and the Passover, the Sabbath is a perpetual sign throughout their generations, of His covenant. Jesus comes as the fulfillment of the law. Because of Him circumcision gives way to baptism (Colossians 2:11–13), the Passover blooms into the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22:14–18ff), and the Sabbath, well, what becomes of the Sabbath? We’re clearly commanded to baptize and to remember the Supper, but no command is given concerning the Sabbath, nor the Lord’s day. Rather, we’re told:

One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord (Romans 14:5–6 ESV).

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ (Colossians 2:16–17 ESV).

What happens to the Sabbath? Jesus declares Himself Lord of the Sabbath in Matthew 12. Just prior to this Matthew records these words, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28–30 ESV).” Hebrews 4 speaks of entering God’s rest by faith, the rest of God that He had once He had finished from His works.

Because of Jesus, our work is finished, competed perfectly for us, and now we rest. What happens to the Sabbath? We haven’t abandoned it. We’ve entered more fully into it—in Jesus. Because of His redemption, a new day has dawned, a resurrection day, a day of new creation, a day of rest.

In short the physical rest of the Old Testament Sabbath has become the salvation rest of the true Sabbath. Believers In Christ can now live in God’s Sabbath that has already dawned. Jesus’ working to accomplish this superseded the Old Testament Sabbath (John 5:17) and so does the doing of God’s work that He now requires of people—believing in the one God has sent (John 6:28, 29). In fact the Sabbath keeping now demanded is the cessation from reliance on one’s own works (Heb. 4:9, 10). —A.T. Lincoln

The Apologist: The Only Infinite-Personal God

The God who is there according to the Scriptures is the personal-infinite God. There is no other god like this God. It is ridiculous to say that all religions teach the same things when they disagree at the fundamental point as to what God is like. The gods of the East are infinite by definition—the definition being ‘god is all that is’. This is the pan-everything-ism god. The gods of the West have tended to be personal but limited; such were the gods of the Greeks, Romans and Germans. But the God of the Bible, Old and New Testaments alike, is the infinite-personal God. —Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There

God’s Name Is the Measure of Our Sin and His Salvation (Exodus 20:7)

How does one take the name of God in vain? Let’s reflect on one obvious answer: oaths. One profanes God’s holy name, not by taking oaths, but by taking them falsely. “You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD (Leviticus 19:2).” Many recall Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount and think we shouldn’t swear at all, but this loses the real significance of what He was saying and contradicts both the Old and New Testaments.

“You shall fear the LORD your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear (Deuteronomy 10:20).”

“For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you (Romans 1:9).”

“For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:8).”

So what was Jesus’ speaking of when He said:

Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil (Matthew 5:33–37).

If you couple this with what Jesus later says concerning oaths I think you’ll get a clearer picture:

Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it (Matthew 23:16–22).

Here are two related errors: 1. excessive oath taking and 2. thinking only some oaths are binding. Whatever other factors there are, this is clear, they aren’t taking oaths seriously. God commanded that when they swore, they were to swear in His name (Deuteronomy 10:20), and therefore, when they swear, it  must be with the utmost seriousness and reverence.

Further, when a child of God swears by anything, He swears by God’s name, for everything is God’s, all our life is lived Coram Deo (before God’s face), and His name is ever upon us. This means that we can profane the name of YHWH not just with oath words, but with all words and all actions. His name is on us. We bear His name as a wife bears her husband’s. God in covenant love has set His name upon us. How we live reflects on His name (Deuteronomy 28:9–10). God’s children never put down God’s name, even when they put it down.

We are guilty and God doesn’t let this sin fly. Paradoxically, and gloriously, our only hope for blaspheming God’s name, is God glorifying His name. God chose to magnify the glory of His name, by exalting the name of Jesus above all other names, in His redeeming sinners who have blasphemed His name, through Jesus’ perfectly revering God’s name for them, and suffering for their every taking of God’s name in vain.

All praise be to His holy name.

The Apologist: Innie or an Outie?

Probably the best way to describe this concept of modern theology is to say that it is faith in faith, rather than faith directed to an object which is actually there. Some years ago at a number of universities I spoke on the topic, ‘Faith v. faith,’ speaking on he contrast between Chrsitian faith and modern faith. The same word, faith, is used, but it has an opposite meaning. Modern man cannot talk about the object of his faith, only about the faith itself. So he can discuss the existence of his faith and its ‘size’ as it exists against all reason, but that is all. Modern man’s faith turns inward.

In Christianity the value of faith depends upon the object towards which the faith is directed. So it looks outward to the God who is there, and to the Christ who in history died upon the cross once for all, finished the work of atonement, and on the third day rose again in space and in time. This makes Christian faith open to discussion and verification. —Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There

Baal Out (Exodus 20:4–6)

The second commandment isn’t redundant. It does repeat the first command, but whereas the first command tells us not to worship false gods, the second expounds saying nor are we to worship God falsely. How you worship cannot be separated from who you worship. Methodology isn’t a piston that fires independently of theology. Methodology is theological. God speaks to His people revealing Who He is, and then, flowing from that, He informs them how He is to be worshipped.

They are not to make an idol and worship it as God, for idols tell lies. Idols are measurable, our God is infinite. Idols are created, our God is Creator. Idols can be controlled, our God is sovereign. Idols need, our God overflows. Idols were visible, our God is invisible.

And yet, the second member of the Godhead became flesh, the image of God. But how is He represented to us today? By the Word of God. Worshipping God in Spirit and in truth means that our worship is focused on Christ. Our worship being centered on Christ means the preeminence of the Word in Christian worship. Who? Christ. How? The Word. The church gathers simply to pray the Word, sing the Word, hear the Word, see the Word (in the sacraments), and preach the Word.

Our worship is never pure, but where methodology is gloried in and theology sidelined, where the visual receives applause and the audio of the preached Word is only tolerated, be certain that idolatry is underfoot.