R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 125

$5 Friday: Psalm 51, the Atonement, & God’s Glory

It’s time for our weekly $5 Friday sale. This week’s resources include such topics as Psalm 51, the atonement, Scripture, Isaac Watts, God’s glory, the Sermon on the Mount, the Reformation, the names of God, and more.

Sale runs through 12:01 a.m. — 11:59 p.m. Friday ET.

View today’s $5 Friday sale items.

Cultivate Cowardice and Worldliness

Here’s an excerpt from Cultivate Cowardice and Worldliness, Grant R. Castleberry's contribution to the September issue of Tabletalk:

Even one small but pure and holy church “unstained by the world,” that valiantly stands for the gospel against the secular culture we have worked so hard to create, is a great hindrance to our cause. It stands as a “city on a hill,” testifying to the people of the kingdom of our Enemy’s excellence, beauty, and goodness. Moreover, a pure and holy church protects and wields the chief weapon of our great Adversary—the gospel—which He has been using to raid our kingdom since Adam’s fall in the garden. Therefore, you must strive at all costs to extinguish the lampstand of the church, by leading her saints into cowardice and worldliness.

Begin this process by intimidating the church and pushing believers into a posture of timidity. Bring outward, public shame on them for holding to “controversial” doctrines of Scripture, focusing especially on the doctrines of man’s sinfulness, the exclusivity of Christ, and hell as eternal conscious torment—for these doctrines provide both the framework and urgent need for the gospel. Make it known to the church that in the spirit of tolerance and inclusivity of this secular age, these doctrines are considered “repulsive” and “bigoted.” Next, tempt the church to compromise on its stance on biblical ethics, particularly on issues regarding marriage, the family, sexuality, and abortion. Work to raise up leaders in their midst who will gain a hearing and propose slight ethical modifications to the traditional Christian understanding of such matters. Complete the deception by deluding our Enemy’s followers into thinking that if they will simply keep quiet about the critical ethical issues of the day, they will have a more effective platform for the advance of the gospel.

Continue reading Cultivate Cowardice and Worldliness, or begin receiving Tabletalk magazine by signing up for a free 3-month trial.

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Today Only: Save up to 50% on Select Study Bibles

Today only, save when you order select editions and cover styles of the Reformation Study Bible.

Edited by Dr. R.C. Sproul and drawing from the wisdom of 75 distinguished theologians, the Reformation Study Bible elevates Scripture on every page by providing comprehensive and trustworthy commentary, made accessible to all readers. Save up to 50% when you order today.

The Condensed Edition features the best of this commentary in a conveniently portable format. This popular edition is suitable for travel, public worship, and life on the go. Save up to 35% when you order today, including two new cover styles, plum and forest, that will be available soon.

The depth and clarity of this study Bible make it well suited for Christians of all ages. Order a copy for yourself and give one to a friend or family member to enrich Bible study for years to come. Shop today by midnight ET and save.

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Sale ends September 12, 2019 at 11:59pm ET.

Jesus, the Son of Man

In this brief clip from his teaching series Lessons from the Upper Room, Sinclair Ferguson explains what Jesus meant when He referred to Himself as the "Son of Man."

Transcript

I remember as a youngster in Sunday school, perhaps this was true of you, that my Sunday School teachers taught me that Jesus was the Son of God and the "Son of Man." That is to say, He was God’s Son, and He was also human. But when Jesus speaks about Himself as the "Son of Man," He is not simply saying that He has a human nature as well as a divine nature. He is specifically drawing on a picture that He found in the seventh chapter of the book of Daniel, in which you may remember, Daniel has this vision in which he sees the "Son of Man" ascending to the throne of the Ancient of Days as a triumphant victor. And at the throne of the Ancient of Days, He is given the privilege of sharing His triumph with those who are called the "Saints of the Most High."

So in Jesus’ mind, the picture of the "Son of Man" refers not just to his humanity, it refers also to His exultation at the right hand of the Father—His glory and then the expansion of his kingdom that will take place as He is exalted at the Father’s right hand. So when He says “The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,” He’s referring to that picture that we were given in the Book of Daniel—the way in which He is going to be exalted at the right hand of the Father. In other words, He is saying His death, His crucifixion is simply the way to His exaltation. We could put it this way, in terms of what we saw at the beginning of John chapter 13, that for Jesus, the way up to the throne of God is the way down to the humiliation of the Cross.

God Is Incomprehensible

What can we know about God? That's the most basic question of theology, for what we can know about God and whether we can know anything about Him at all determine the scope and content of our study. Here we must consider the teaching of the greatest theologians in history, all of whom have affirmed the "incomprehensibility of God." By using the term incomprehensible, they are not referring to something we are unable to comprehend or know at all. Theologically speaking, to say God is incomprehensible is not to say that God is utterly unknowable. It is to say that none of us can comprehend God exhaustively.

Incomprehensibility is related to a key tenet of the Protestant Reformation—the finite cannot contain (or grasp) the infinite. Human beings are finite creatures, so our minds always work from a finite perspective. We live, move, and have our being on a finite plane, but God lives, moves, and has His being in infinity. Our finite understanding cannot contain an infinite subject; thus, God is incomprehensible. This concept represents a check and balance to warn us lest we think we have captured altogether and mastered in every detail the things of God. Our finitude always limits our understanding of God.

If we misunderstand the doctrine of God's incomprehensibility, we can easily slide into two serious errors. The first error says that since God is incomprehensible, He must be utterly unknowable, and anything we say about God is gibberish. But Christianity affirms the rationality of God alongside the incomprehensibility of God. Our minds can go only so far in understanding God, and to know God we need His revelation. But that revelation is intelligible, not irrational. It is not gibberish. It is not nonsense. The incomprehensible God has revealed Himself truly.

Here we allude to the Reformational principle that God is both hidden and revealed. There is a mysterious dimension of God that we do not know. However, we aren't left in darkness, groping around for a hidden God. God has also revealed Himself, and that is basic to the Christian faith. Christianity is a revealed religion. God the Creator has revealed Himself manifestly in the glorious theater of nature. This is what we call "natural revelation." God has also revealed Himself verbally. He has spoken, and we have His Word inscripturated in the Bible. Here we're talking about special revelation—information God gives us that we could never figure out on our own.

God remains incomprehensible because He reveals Himself without revealing everything there is to know about Him. "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever" (Deut. 29:29). It's not as if we have no knowledge of God or as if we have consummate knowledge of God; rather, we have a working knowledge of God that is useful and crucial for our lives.

This raises the question as to how we can meaningfully speak about the incomprehensible God. Theologians have an unfortunate tendency to swing between two poles. The pole of skepticism, which we considered above, assumes that our language about God is utterly meaningless and has no reference point with regard to Him. The other pole is a form of pantheism that falsely assumes we have captured or contained God. We steer clear of these errors when we understand that our language about God is built upon analogy. We can say what God is like, but as soon as we equate whatever it is that we use to describe God with His essence, we have committed the error of thinking that the finite has contained the infinite.

Historically, we see the vacillating between the two aforementioned errors in Protestant liberalism and Neoorthodoxy. Nineteenth-century liberal theology identified God with the flow of history and with nature. It promoted a pantheism in which everything was God and God was everything. Against that backdrop, Neoorthodoxy objected to identifying God with creation, and it sought to restore God's transcendence. In their zeal, Neoorthodox theologians spoke of God as "wholly other." That idea is problematic. If God is wholly other, how do you know anything about Him? If God is utterly dissimilar from us, how could He reveal Himself? What means could He use? Could He reveal Himself through a sunset? Could He reveal Himself through Jesus of Nazareth? If He were wholly other from human beings, what common basis for communication between God and mankind could there ever be? If God is utterly dissimilar from us, there is no way for Him to speak to us.

Understanding that we relate to the Lord by way of analogy solves the problem. There is a point of contact between man and God. The Bible tells us that we are created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-28). In some sense, human beings are like God. That makes it possible for communication to occur. God has built this capacity for communication into creation. We are not God, but we are like Him because we bear His image and are made in His likeness. Therefore, God can reveal Himself to us, not in His language, but in our language. He can talk to us. He can communicate to us in a manner that we can understand—not exhaustively, but truly and meaningfully. If you get rid of analogy, you end in skepticism.

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.

The World Desperately Needs Thinking Christians

In our biblically illiterate era, learning God’s Word with like-minded believers is more important than ever.

You support Ligonier Ministries because you share the vision Dr. R.C. Sproul outlined for us: to proclaim, teach, and defend the holiness of God in all its fullness to as many people as possible. That vision continues to shape our mission, driving us to bring believers together to learn about God’s holy character from His inerrant Word.

Together, as we submit to God’s Word and display His glory in our lives, God’s people shine as lights in a darkened world (Matt. 5:16).

By God’s grace, Ligonier seeks to bring Christians together, equipping them to know who God is and uniting them in the person and work of Jesus Christ—who is the way, truth, and life (John 14:6)—even as they joyfully serve their families, churches, and communities.

You might know that our discipleship events began as an outreach strategy at the Ligonier Valley Study Center in western Pennsylvania. Back in 1971, Dr. Sproul gathered believers and trusted teachers for mutual learning and edification in short sprints. Ligonier was one of the very first ministries in the United States to host Bible and theology conferences where believers came together for fellowship, worship, and biblical instruction. The aim has always been to propel the learners back into faithful Christian service.

The world desperately needs thinking Christians who can articulate the truth of God’s Word. Without such believers, the spiritual darkness in our nation will grow. And we believe Christians learn and grow best within a community of believers, allowing us to live out the truth that “iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” (Prov. 27:17). No Christian is an island.

So, we’re increasing the number of teaching resources that we produce and the types of events that we host by

recording more teaching series later this year in our new studio facilities;
adding additional regional conferences around the United States;
expanding these events internationally (in fact, we are in London with a conference this month and Ontario, Canada later this fall);
training preachers to refine their skills in expository preaching;
launching new events for high school students, equipping them to defend their faith; and
using our beautiful Central Florida campus to train college students and host other Christian discipleship events.

Our annual National Conference in Orlando is only going stronger, with thousands attending each spring. This is our flagship event, which has grown to become something like a “Ligonier family reunion,” with men and women, boys and girls, gathering for a learning experience unlike any other. For decades, God has used these three days each year as an encouragement and learning experience to so many people as well as a birthplace of many strategic gospel partnerships.

Ligonier events benefit not only attendees but also people around the world who stream them online for free and use the teaching resources we create from the conference messages afterward. The teaching at one event multiplies over the years as people watch and share these meaningful moments.

Your gift this month supports this vital mission. Ligonier’s costs are not covered through registration fees and resource sales. Rather, it is your support of this mission that allows Ligonier to move forward with strength.

As our thanks for your gift, we will send you a special edition DVD featuring the complete 2019 National Conference as well as the audio on an accompanying MP3 CD. This conference, centered on the theme He is Holy, explored the majestic character of God, reminding us of who He is and, consequently, who we are. It contains transformative teaching for believers of every age and at every stage of their spiritual walk. Gather family and friends to learn together so that you can grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:18).

Please respond soon. You have our continued gratitude for supporting the mission to bring people together around trusted teaching for the sake of the church and the gospel.

Yours in Christ,

Chris Larson

President & CEO

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P.S. Dr. Sproul was best known for his teaching on the holiness of God, and he played a role in shaping our 2019 National Conference. You can have all of the messages from the conference on a special-edition DVD as our thanks for your donation of any amount this month. Thank you for moving the mission forward.

Erode Evangelism and Missions

Here’s an excerpt from Erode Evangelism and Missions, Kevin D. Gardner's contribution to the September issue of Tabletalk:

Central to Christianity is the goal of bringing more followers into our Enemy’s camp. It was the parting command of our Enemy’s Son to add to their ranks, and historically, the church has placed a strong emphasis on carrying out this mission. As His message spreads around the world, our forces are pushed back. Therefore, we must work to blunt the church’s efforts.

Above all else, we must encourage the belief that missions and evangelism are unnecessary. Make the Christians believe that the Enemy saves whom He will without their efforts, that He does not use individual Christians as secondary means in carrying out His purposes. If Christians can be encouraged to see their roles as unnecessary, they can be taken off the playing field. Further, strive to water down the church’s doctrine of sin. When this is done, Christians can be made to believe that good works are sufficient to secure salvation or that the Enemy will accept all humans, and therefore evangelism becomes moot. We can even depict missions as a harmful, undesirable act of cultural imperialism that should not be entered into, and we can encourage the belief that preaching is unnecessary in evangelism and that works of service suffice for the task.

Continue reading Erode Evangelism and Missions, or begin receiving Tabletalk magazine by signing up for a free 3-month trial.

For a limited time, the new TabletalkMagazine.com allows everyone to browse and read the growing library of back issues, including this month’s issue.

Is Evangelism More Difficult in a Society Where Truth Is Considered Relative?

Has our culture made it more challenging to share the gospel with people? From one of our Ask R.C. events, R.C. Sproul considers the church's task of evangelism in light of the growing influence of relativism.

To get real-time answers to your biblical and theological questions, just Ask.Ligonier.org.

Read the Transcript

Endless, Bottomless, Boundless Grace and Compassion

The New Testament's most frequent, and indeed most basic, description of the believer is that he or she is a person "in Christ." The expression and its variants overwhelmingly dominate the teaching of the Apostles. And one of the clues Scripture gives to help us understand what this means is to express our union with Christ in terms of what Owen calls "conjugal relations," or, as we would say, "marriage." Through the ministry of the Spirit and by faith, we become united to Christ, "one" with Christ, in the way a man and a woman "become one flesh" in the marriage bond. This picture, already present in the Old Testament, (Isa. 54:5; 61:10; 62:5; Ezek. 16:1–22; cf. the book of Hosea) comes to fulfillment in the New in the relationship between Christ and His church. Christ rejoiced in this prospect in eternity, and He has made it a reality in time, enduring the humiliation, pain, and anguish of the cross. Christ, in all His saving grace and personal attractiveness, is offered to us in the gospel. The Father brings to His Son the bride He has prepared for Him, and asks both parties if they will have each other—the Savior if He will have sinners to be His; sinners if they will embrace the Lord Jesus as their Savior, Husband, and Friend.

Like many of his contemporaries, Owen saw this spiritual union and communion between Christ and the believer foreshadowed and described in the Old Testament book the Song of Solomon. His exposition of the attractiveness of Christ to the Christian is heavily influenced by the descriptions of the Lover and the expressions of affection of the Beloved. Though his analysis was typical for his day, few commentators today would follow him in the details of his exegesis.



But what is paramount and striking in Owen's thinking is that being a Christian involves a deep affection for Christ. He is a person to be known, admired, and loved. Fellowship with Christ, therefore, involves a "mutual resignation" or self-giving between ourselves and Him. There is "endless, bottomless, boundless grace and compassion" in Christ, a "fulness of grace in the human nature of Christ" of such proportions that, says Owen (in a stunning outburst of wonder and praise):

If all the world (if I may so say) set themselves to drink free grace, mercy, and pardon, drawing water continually from the wells of salvation; if they should set themselves to draw from one single promise, an angel standing by and crying, "Drink, O my friends, yea, drink abundantly, take so much grace and pardon as shall be abundantly sufficient for the world of sin which is in every one of you;"—They would not be able to sink the grace of the promise one hair's breadth. There is enough for millions of worlds, if they were; because it flows into it from an infinite, bottomless fountain.

Thus, to become a Christian is, for Owen, to feel the weight of the Lord's words in Hosea 3:3 as if spoken personally to us: "You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you." In response, we yield our wills to Christ and to the way of salvation God has provided in Him, and say:

"Lord, I would have had thee and salvation in my way, that it might have been partly of mine endeavours, and as it were by the works of the law; I am now willing to receive thee and to be saved in thy way,—merely by grace: and though I would have walked according to my own mind, yet now I wholly give up myself to be ruled by thy Spirit; for in thee have I righteousness and strength, in thee am I justified and do glory;"—then doth it carry on communion with Christ as to the graces of his person. This it is to receive the Lord Jesus in his comeliness and eminency. Let believers exercise their hearts abundantly unto this thing. This is choice communion with the Son Jesus Christ.

It is surely difficult for us to read passages like this—however quaint the language may seem at first—without feeling our hearts bursting as they seek to take in the sheer magnitude of what has happened to us in our coming to faith in such a Savior. We cannot spread our sin further than He can spread His grace. To meditate on this, to taste the waters of such a pure fountain, is surely to know "joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory." (1 Peter 1:9)

This excerpt is adapted from The Trinitarian Devotion of John Owen by Sinclair Ferguson.

The Priority of Preaching in the Early Medieval Church

In this brief clip from his teaching series A Survey of Church History, W. Robert Godfrey discusses the priority of preaching in the early medieval church. Watch this entire message for free.

Transcript

Now while we can say a number of negative things about Gregory and think we must we also have to remember some positive things about Gregory and one of the intriguing positive things is to look at his very influential book called “The Book of pastoral rule.” And here, he's talking principally to the bishops who are the pastors of their diocese but he's looking at the church as a whole time and what the function of the clergy is as a whole and what's interesting when we read this book is that the focus is primarily upon preaching. So when Gregory thinks of the pastor's role in the life of the church in the year 600, it’s still primarily a role of preaching. And if we go back a little more than a century to John Chrysostom, the great preacher but also a patriarch of the church in Constantinople when he wrote his book on the priesthood that was a book almost entirely on preaching.

And so when we look at the conviction of the ancient church the early medieval church as to what the principal role of the clerical leadership of the life of the church ought to be it was still a conviction that ought to be preaching, preaching might not of quite lived up to our standards theologically but there were still the sense that was the work that will be progressively lost as the Middle Ages wears on. Partly will be lost because of an ever declining level of education in the common Parish clergy, there will still be very educated people in the church but the clergy as a whole, the priest as a whole will see a real decline in their education as the Middle Ages wears on. And if you're not very well educated, you still may be able to memorize the Latin Canon of the mass so you can recite it at the altar but you won’t be much of a preacher if you’re not well educated and that's what happens as time goes on. But for Gregory, preaching was still critical, was still central.