R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 13

How can I become more biblically literate?

Knowing the Word of God is an indescribable privilege, but it can sometimes feel like a daunting task. From one of our Ask Ligonier events, Steven Lawson presents several practical ways for Christians to better understand the Bible as a whole. Ask your biblical and theological questions live online at ask.Ligonier.org.

Read the Transcript

 

Accepting "No" as God's Will

I am astonished that, in the light of the clear biblical record, anyone would have the audacity to suggest that it is wrong for the afflicted in body or soul to couch their prayers for deliverance in terms of "If it be thy will…." We are told that when affliction comes, God always wills healing, that He has nothing to do with suffering, and that all we must do is claim the answer we seek by faith. We are exhorted to claim God's yes before He speaks it.

Away with such distortions of biblical faith! They are conceived in the mind of the Tempter, who would seduce us into exchanging faith for magic. No amount of pious verbiage can transform such falsehood into sound doctrine. We must accept the fact that God sometimes says no. Sometimes He calls us to suffer and die even if we want to claim the contrary.

Never did a man pray more earnestly than Christ prayed in Gethsemane. Who will charge Jesus with failure to pray in faith? He put His request before the Father with sweat like blood: "Take this cup away from me." This prayer was straightforward and without ambiguity—Jesus was crying out for relief. He asked for the horribly bitter cup to be removed. Every ounce of His humanity shrank from the cup. He begged the Father to relieve Him of His duty.

But God said no. The way of suffering was the Father's plan. It was the Father's will. The cross was not Satan's idea. The passion of Christ was not the result of human contingency. It was not the accidental contrivance of Caiaphas, Herod, or Pilate. The cup was prepared, delivered, and administered by almighty God.

Jesus qualified His prayer: "If it is Your will…." Jesus did not "name it and claim it." He knew His Father well enough to understand that it might not be His will to remove the cup. So the story does not end with the words, "And the Father repented of the evil He had planned, removed the cup, and Jesus lived happily ever after." Such words border on blasphemy. The gospel is not a fairy tale. The Father would not negotiate the cup. Jesus was called to drink it to its last dregs. And He accepted it. "Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done" (Luke 22:42).

This "nevertheless" was the supreme prayer of faith. The prayer of faith is not a demand that we place on God. It is not a presumption of a granted request. The authentic prayer of faith is one that models Jesus' prayer. It is always uttered in a spirit of subordination. In all our prayers, we must let God be God. No one tells the Father what to do, not even the Son. Prayers are always to be requests made in humility and submission to the Father's will.

The prayer of faith is a prayer of trust. The very essence of faith is trust. We trust that God knows what is best. The spirit of trust includes a willingness to do what the Father wants us to do. Christ embodied that kind of trust in Gethsemane. Though the text is not explicit, it is clear that Jesus left the garden with the Father's answer to His plea. There was no cursing or bitterness. His meat and His drink were to do the Father's will. Once the Father said no, it was settled. Jesus prepared Himself for the cross.

This excerpt is taken from Surprised by Suffering by R.C. Sproul.

$5 Friday (And More): Jonathan Edwards, Evangelism, & Baptism

It’s time for our weekly $5 Friday sale. This week’s resources include such topics as Jonathan Edwards, evangelism, baptism, reformed theology, William Carey, and more.

Plus, several bonus resources are also available for more than $5. These have been significantly discounted from their original price. This week’s bonus resources include:

Luke: An Expositional Commentary by R.C. Sproul, Hardcover book $40 $20 Parenting by God’s Promises: How to Raise Children in the Covenant of Grace by Joel Beeke, Hardcover book $19 $12 The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edwards by Steven Lawson, Hardcover book $16 $8 The Necessity of Reforming the Church , Hardcover book $17 $12 Surprised by Suffering by R.C. Sproul, Hardcover book $15 $8

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

View Today's $5 Friday Sale Items

 

The Solution to Anxiety

Here’s an excerpt from The Solution to Anxiety, Eric Watkins' contribution to the May issue of Tabletalk:

We live in a world in which we have so many technological advances—so many things at our disposal to make our lives easier—from microwaves and dishwashers to cell phones and Siri. Yet, in the midst of all these things that exist to make our lives easier and more simplified, it still seems that our lives are overwhelmingly complicated. Many people are stressed out, confused, and full of anxiety. Counseling centers have become as prolific as coffee shops, and most pastors would acknowledge that there are more people in church who need counseling than there are resources to adequately care for them. We live in a world that abounds with anxiety. But as Christians, we can turn to the Bible for God’s solution to anxiety: focusing on Christ and the hope we have in Him. And here, we read Romans 8:18–30 as the primary text for our encouragement.

Continue reading The Solution to Anxiety, or begin receiving Tabletalk magazine by signing up for a free 3-month trial.

 

Announcing Our 2021 Conference in Detroit

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There is no end to the blessings that are ours in Jesus Christ. Spanning the scope of salvation from election to future glory, the first chapter of Ephesians rests our identity as Christians in the sovereign grace of God. Knowing all that has been done for us in union with Christ, we can more clearly see how the gospel informs every aspect of our lives, directing us to serve the Lord faithfully today.

Join us on November 12–13, 2021, for our conference in Detroit. Plumbing the depths of divine mercy in Ephesians 1, we will strive to better understand God’s unfolding plan of redemption and our place in it, helping us live each day to the praise of His glorious grace.

SESSIONS:

Chosen by God by Burk ParsonsUniting All Things in Him by Stephen NicholsSealed with the Holy Spirit by W. Robert GodfreyHope, Riches, and Power by Michael ReevesThe Head of the Church by Derek ThomasSeveral Q&A Sessions

We will also host a pre-conference event titled Global Missions. In addition to addressing the global gospel outreach of Ligonier Ministries, this event will consider why and how Christians should share the good news of Christ around the world.

PRE-CONFERENCE SESSIONS:

The Great Commission by Stephen NicholsThe Community of Christ by W. Robert GodfreyFaith Comes from Hearing by Burk ParsonsPanel Discussion: The Need Is GreatRegister & Save

 

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Respect Everyone Made in the Image of God

Every person we’ll ever encounter is someone who requires our respect, for all people bear the dignity of being made in the image of God. In this brief clip, Stephen Nichols underlines the truth that directs our attitude toward others.

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Transcript:

Very fascinating, this verse we talk about for apologetics, 1 Peter 3:15. And Peter commands us to “Be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks for the hope that is in us,” and then he goes on to say this: “Yet, do it with gentleness,” with gentleness, “and respect.” And this fascinating. If you go back to 1 Peter 2:7, Peter says this is how you are to approach God—same word, but there it’s translated “fear God.” “Fear God, honor the emperor.” That word, “phobon,” phobia, is the Greek word for “fear.” At the end of verse 15—at the end of 3:15, the word translated “respect” is the Greek word “phobon.” The same attitude we are to have towards God—fear and reverence—we are to have to fellow men and to fellow women. Why? Because they’re made in the image of God.

 

Loving God with Our Minds

The human mind is one of the most incredible aspects of creation. It is more powerful than the largest supercomputer and can solve great problems and make great discoveries. That makes the noetic effects of sin especially tragic.

The noetic effects of sin describe the impact of sin upon the nous—the mind—of fallen humanity. The faculty of thinking, with which we reason, has been seriously disturbed and corrupted by the fall. In our natural, unregenerate state, there is some-thing dramatically wrong with our minds. As a consequence of our suppressing the knowledge of God in our sin, we have been given over to a debased mind (Rom. 1:28).

It’s terrible to have a reprobate mind, a mind that now in its fallen condition doesn’t have a scintilla of desire to love God. But that is the kind of mind we chose for ourselves in Adam, so in our natural fallen condition, there is nothing more repugnant to our minds than the love of God. While we remain unregenerate, we have such an antipathy to loving God by nature that we choke at the very thought of Christ’s command to love God with our minds (Matt. 22:37).

Our minds have been corrupted by sin, but that does not mean our ability to think has been annihilated. The best pagan thinkers can still spot errors of logic without being born again. You don’t have to be regenerate in order to get a Ph.D. in mathematics. The fallen mind retains the ability to follow formal argumentation to a degree, but that ends when discussion about the character of God begins because that is where bias is so severe and hostility so great that many of the most brilliant people stumble. In fact, if a person begins their thinking by refusing to acknowledge what they know to be true—that there is a God—then the more brilliant they are, the further away from God their reasoning will lead them.

Any consideration of the human mind, therefore, must begin with the understanding that by nature the mind does not love God at all, and it will not love God at all unless and until God the Holy Spirit changes its disposition immediately and sovereignly to set the affections on Him. Regeneration is the necessary condition for loving God with our minds. Without it, there is no love of God. So, we must get rid of this idea that’s pervasive in the evangelical world that unbelieving people are seekers of God. The natural man does not seek after God. Unregenerate people who look like they are seeking after God, as Thomas Aquinas said, are seeking the benefits only God can give, not God Himself.

Note, however, that all of the mind’s antipathy toward God is not eliminated the minute we’re born again. After regeneration, for the first time in our lives, we are disposed to the things of God rather than against them. We are given a desire to have God in our thinking rather than despising the idea of having God in our thinking. But the residual effects and the power of our fallen human condition remain and are not eliminated entirely until we’re glorified in heaven. The whole pilgrimage of the Christian life in our sanctification, then, is one in which we are seeking to love God more and more with our minds.

Jonathan Edwards once said that seeking after God is the main business of the Christian. And how do we seek after God? By pursuing the renewal of our minds. We don’t get the love of God from a hip replacement, a knee replacement, or even a heart transplant. The only way we can be transformed is with a renewed mind (Rom. 12:1–2). A renewed mind results from diligently pursuing the knowledge of God. If we despise doctrine, if we despise knowledge, that probably indicates that we’re still in that fallen condition where we don’t want God in our thinking. True Christians want God to dominate their thinking and to fill their minds with ideas of Himself.

Isn’t it strange that our Lord says that we are called to love God with our minds? We don’t usually speak of love in terms of an intellectual activity. In fact, most of our understanding of love in our secular culture is described in passive categories. We speak not of jumping in love but falling in love, like it was an accident.

But real love is not an involuntary thing. It is something we do purposefully based on our knowledge of the person we love. Nothing can be in the heart that is not first in the mind. And if we want to have an experience of God directly where we bypass the mind, we’re on a fool’s errand. It can’t happen. We might increase emotion, entertainment, or excitement, but we’re not going to increase the love of God because we can’t love what we don’t know. A mindless Christianity is no Christianity at all.

If we want to love God more, we have to know Him more deeply. And the more we search the Scriptures, and the more we focus our minds’ attention on who God is and what He does, the more we understand just a tiny little bit more about Him and the more our souls break out in flame. We have a greater ardor to honor Him. The more we understand God with our minds, the more we love Him with our minds.

To love God with our minds is to hold Him in high esteem, to think about Him with reverence and with adoration. The more we love God with our minds, the more we’ll be driven to do that other thing that is alien to us in our fallen condition, namely, to worship Him. To pursue God with our minds simply for intellectual enjoyment and without the ultimate purpose of loving and worshiping Him is to miss what it means to love Him with our minds. True knowledge of God always bears fruit in greater love for God and a greater desire to praise Him. The more we know Him, the more glorious He will appear to us. And the more glorious He appears to us, the more inclined we will be to praise Him, to honor Him, to worship Him, and to obey Him.

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.

 

The Antidote to Anxiety

Here’s an excerpt from The Antidote to Anxiety, Burk Parsons' contribution to the May issue of Tabletalk:

In the New Testament, the Greek word that is translated “anxiety” is an interesting word. It means for someone to be pulled apart, drawn in opposite directions, or divided into parts. When we are anxious about tomorrow, we are being distracted from what is directly in front of us, and our attention is divided from focusing on today. That is precisely why we experience tension when we are feeling anxious, for we feel torn apart and unable to give our complete attention to what God has set before us today. Charles Spurgeon said, “Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.”

Anxiety has a way of making us feel trapped when in fact we have been set free from worrying about tomorrow. Having been set free by the Spirit, we are enabled to obey Jesus’ command not to be anxious about tomorrow (Matt. 6:34). However, many Christians have been taught that Jesus was teaching us not to have any cares or concerns about the future or that taking wise precautions or preparing for the future means that we are somehow not trusting God. Yet Scripture is filled with wisdom for how we are to think about and plan for the future. And so, as we pray to our Father for our daily bread, just as Israel had to daily depend on manna from above, we trust God while we work diligently in our planning and preparation for the future.

Continue reading The Antidote to Anxiety, or begin receiving Tabletalk magazine by signing up for a free 3-month trial.

 

What does it mean that Christ “emptied Himself” in Phil. 2:6–7?

The Apostle Paul teaches that in Christ’s humiliation, He “emptied Himself” (Phil. 2:6–7). How should we understand this statement? From one of our Ask Ligonier events, John MacArthur articulates what Paul is saying here—and what he isn’t saying.

Do you have another biblical or theological question? Ask Ligonier is your place for answers.

Read the Transcript

 

Christian, Do You Love God's Law?

At a PGA Tour tournament in October 2015, Ben Crane disqualified himself after completing his second round. He did so at considerable financial cost. No matter—Crane believed the personal cost of not doing it would be greater (encouraged by a devotional article he had read that morning by Davis Love III, the distinguished former Ryder Cup captain).

Crane realized he had broken one of the more recondite rules of golf. If I followed the story rightly, while in a hazard looking for his ball, he leaned his club on a stone. He abandoned the ball, took the requisite penalty for doing so, played on, and finished his round. He would have made the Friday night cut comfortably; a very successful weekend financially beckoned. Then Ben Crane thought: "Should I have included a penalty for grounding my club in a hazard?" Sure enough (Rule 13.4a). So he disqualified himself.

(Got it? Hopefully, no readers will lie awake tonight now knowing the trophy was won illegally.)

Crane has been widely praised for his action. No avalanche of spiteful or demeaning attacks on cyberspace or hate mail for being narrow-minded. All honor to him. Intriguingly, no one seems to have said or written, "Ben Crane is such a legalist."

No, we are not starting a new sports column this month. But how odd it is to see so much praise for his detailed attention to the rules of golf, and yet the opposite when it comes to the rules of life, the (much more straightforward) law of God, even in the church.

There is a problem somewhere.

The Problem

Neither Jesus nor Paul had a problem with the law. Paul wrote that his gospel of grace upholds and establishes the law (Rom. 3:31)—even God's laws in their negative form, since the "grace of God . . . teaches us to say 'No'" (Titus 2:11–12 NIV). And remember Jesus' words in Matthew 5:17–19? Our attitude to the law is a litmus test of our relationship to the kingdom of God.

So what is the problem? The real problem is that we do not understand grace. If we did, we would also realize why John Newton, author of "Amazing Grace," could write, "Ignorance of the nature and design of the law is at the bottom of most religious mistakes."

There is a deep issue here. In Scripture, the person who understands grace loves law. (Incidentally, mere polemics against antinomianism can never produce this.)

Think again of Ben Crane. Why keep the complex rules of golf? Because you love the game. Something similar, but greater, is true of the believer. Love the Lord, and we will love His law—because it is His. All is rooted in this beautiful biblical simplicity.

Think of it in terms of three men and the three "stages" or "epochs" they represent: Adam, Moses, and Jesus.

Adam

At creation, God gave commandments. They expressed His will. And since He is a good, wise, loving, and generous God, His commandments are always for our best. He wants to be a Father to us.

As soon as God created man and woman as His image (Gen. 1:26–28—a hugely significant statement), He gave them statutes to follow (v. 29). The context here makes clear the rationale: He is Lord; they are His image. He made them to reflect Him. He is the cosmic Overlord, and they are the earthly under-lords. His goal is their mutual enjoyment of one another and creation in a communion of life (1:26–2:3). So, He has given them a start—a garden in Eden (2:7). He wants them to extend that garden to the ends of the earth, and to enjoy it as miniature creators, images imitating the great original Creator (1:28–29).

God's creation commands then had in view our reflecting His image and glory. His image-bearers are made to be like Him. In one form or another, all divine commands have this principle enshrined in them: "You are my image and likeness. Be like me!" This is reflected in His command: "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy" (Lev. 19:2).

Implied here is that God's image-bearers are created, hardwired as it were, to reflect Him. Yes, there are external laws given to them, but those laws simply provide specific applications of the "laws" inbuilt in the divine image, laws that are already on the conscience.

It was instinctive then for Adam and Eve to imitate God, to be like Him, because they were created as His image and likeness—just as little Seth would instinctively behave like his father, Adam, because he was "in his likeness, after his image" (Gen. 5:3). Like father, like son.

But then came the fall: sin, lack of conformity to God's revealed law, and distortion of the image resulted in malfunctions of the inner human instincts. The mirror image turned away from the gaze and the life of God, and since then all people (except Christ) have shared in this condition. The Lord remains the same. His design for His image remains the same. But the image is marred. The under-lord who was created to turn the dust into a garden has become dust himself:

By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return. (Gen. 3:19)

We remain the image of God, and the laws that govern how we live best are unchanged. But now we are haggard and spent, twisted within, off center, distorted, carrying the aroma of death. Once chief operating officers, we are now vagrants who survive only by stealing from the Owner of the company (Yahweh and Son) who provided for us so generously. The law within functions still, but unreliably at best, not because the law is faulty but because we are.

For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them. (Rom. 2:14–15; see also 7:7–25)

But God wants His portrait—His image—back.

Moses

In essence, the Mosaic law—summarized in the Decalogue—was a rewriting on tablets of stone of the constitution written on man's heart in creation. But now the law came to fallen man, and included sin offerings to address the new condition of humanity. It came to one distinct nation in one specific land. And it came until the coming of the Redeemer promised in Genesis 3:15. Therefore, it was given largely in negative terms, with added applications relevant for one specific nation in a single land, until the day when the types and sacrifices of the law would be fulfilled in Christ.

The law was given to people as "under-age children" (Gal. 3:23–4:5)—largely in negative form. We, too, teach our children: "Don't stick the screwdriver into the electric socket!" long before we explain to them how electricity works. It is the simplest and safest way to protect them.

But it was already clear to old covenant believers that the law's negations enshrined positive commands. The negative "No other gods before me" implied the full-color, developed picture of loving the Lord with all of one's heart, and commandments two through four fleshed out that picture. The rest of the commandments were negatives to be developed in "Love your neighbor as yourself."

In addition, since the animal sacrifices substituted for humans' sins, they clearly lacked in proportion and could not deliver the forgiveness they pictured. An old covenant believer could work that out by going to the temple two days in a row: the priest was still standing at the altar, sacrificing all over again (Heb. 10:1–4, 11). The final adequate sacrifice was still to come.

And then the Decalogue was given civil application for the people in the land. But these local laws would no longer function in the same way for God's people when they would be scattered throughout all the nations. The preservation and advance of His kingdom would then no longer be dependent on them.

All of this is well expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith's teaching that the "moral law" continues, the "ceremonial law" is fulfilled, and the "civil law" is abrogated, although we can clearly still learn a great deal from the ceremonial and civil legislation (19.3–5). An old covenant believer could understand this, albeit with less clarity. After all, only the Decalogue was placed in the ark, as an expression of the very character and heart of God. Yes, the law was one because the God who gave it is one. But the law of Moses was not monolithic—it was multidimensional, having a foundation and also spheres of application. The former was permanent; the latter were interim arrangements until the coming day dawned.

Old covenant believers really did love the law. They delighted in it. Their covenant God cared so much that He had rephrased His original instructions for them so that they could guide the people as sinners. Old covenant believers who knew and meditated on the Decalogue and the whole Torah (the law) would grow in their ability to apply it to every providence of God in their lives (Ps. 1). With all its rules and regulations, God's law provided security and direction for the whole of life.

At the end of my freshman year, I taught in a school for young criminals. Their lives were heavily circumscribed. But surprisingly to me, there was an extraordinary esprit de corps, a pride in and common loyalty to the school. At first this puzzled me. And then I realized that these boys knew where they were. They were safe and safeguarded from themselves and their waywardness. The teachers disciplined them with affection. Perhaps for the first time in their lives, they were getting regular meals. Yes, the rules sometimes irked them—they were sinners, after all. But they were safe. Some of them even transgressed again just to get back to the environs of the school. I understood why even if I could not condone it. There they had care and security.

Paul uses a not-too-dissimilar illustration in Galatians 3–4. Old covenant believers were underage heirs, living in the restricted environment of the Mosaic law. But now in Christ, redemptive history has come of age. There is a new dimension of freedom. You don't need to check the calendar to see if it is a holy day. You don't need to check the meat or the label on your clothes. You don't need to bring yet more sacrifices to the temple. Now that Christ has come, we have been let out of reform school. "So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith" (Gal. 3:24). Yet, the undergirding law—why would it change? Why would we be any less obedient to the same Father?

We are already discovering that we cannot fully understand the law of Moses without thinking about Jesus. God intends to get His portrait back.

Jesus

Jesus came to re-create a new and true humanity marked by a restored internal love for the Lord and a desire to be like Him. The law itself cannot accomplish that in us. It takes forgiveness, deliverance, and empowerment to do it. This God provides in Jesus Christ and by the Spirit.

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Rom. 8:3–4)

Perhaps because He knew people would draw the wrong conclusions from His teaching (they did), Jesus explained that He did not come to abolish but to fulfill the law. He would fill to the fullest the "shell" that Moses had given (Matt. 5:17–20). He made clear that He also meant to restore God's portrait and image in us (Matt. 5:21–48). As we know, He drew a series of contrasts. But His words were not "It is written . . . but I say . . ."; rather, they were "You have heard that it was said. . . but I say. . . ." He was not contrasting His teaching with God's law but with the rabbinical interpretations and distortions of it.

Yet, there is an important difference in the new covenant. Moses ascended the earthly mountain of God and came down with the law written on tablets of stone. But later, he expressed a longing that all the Lord's people might have the Spirit (Num. 11:29). The law of Moses could command but it could not empower. By contrast, Jesus ascended the heavenly mountain of God and came down in the Spirit to write His law on our hearts.

The book of Hebrews twice explicitly states this by quoting Jeremiah 31:31 (Heb. 8:10; 10:16—the only "law" that can be in view here is the Ten Commandments). The Lord of the law has rewritten the law of the Lord onto our hearts by His Spirit. Empowered from within by the Spirit of the law-keeping Jesus, we love the law because we love the Lord. Just as in the old covenant, the principle of life was "I who love you am holy, love me in return and be holy as well," so in the new covenant the principle of life can also be summed up in one sentence: "God's Son Jesus is the image of God in our human nature; so be like Jesus." After all, our becoming like Christ has always been the Father's ultimate goal for us.

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Rom. 8:29–30)

Loving God's Law

"You've got to love the law" has a double meaning. You've got to love it—it is a command. But at the same time, "you've got to love it" because it is so good. Of course it is. It is a gift from your heavenly Father. It is meant to keep you safe and well and give you security and help you to negotiate life. Pick up the Westminster Shorter Catechism (or better, the Westminster Larger Catechism) and read the section on the commandments. There you will learn how to use and apply the rules of the game of life. They are much easier to understand than the rules of golf. When Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15), He was only echoing the words of His Father. Actually, it is simple, yet all-demanding. As the hymn by John H. Sammis states:

Trust and obey, for there's no other way To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.