R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 33

The Importance of What We Do in Secret

According to Jesus, it is what we do in secret that matters most. Jesus is not suggesting that the outward is unimportant—far from it. "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?" (James 2:14).

The answer is emphatically no. Still, it is also possible to have outward works but no inner reality. In this instance, religion is a pretense. Six times in the Sermon on the Mount, alluding to three distinct exercises, Jesus employs the term secret:

Give "in secret…and your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (Matt. 6:4).Pray "in secret…and your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (v. 6).Fast "in secret…and your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (v. 18).

The Sermon on the Mount is addressing the issue of authenticity. Just how genuine is our relationship with the Lord Jesus? It is altogether possible to practice an outward display of piety—to "talk the talk"—without demonstrating any inner reality of godliness. This is true of every professing Christian, and it is especially true of those engaged in Christian ministry. Authentic Christianity requires an outward and discernible "work of faith" (1 Thess. 1:3; 2 Thess. 1:11). But it also requires genuine godly affections and an inner discipline of the heart.

There is a manner of ministry that is more about self-service than self-sacrifice, self-indulgence than self-discipline, and self-promotion than self-denial. There is also giving that is designed for recognition—plaques on walls intended to be read by generations to come, or press releases informing the world of "generous donations"; prayers in pristine Cranmerlike language of the sixteenth century suggesting depths of personal piety; fasting that is shown via open-necked T-shirts revealing a ribbed torso.

But all these outward demonstrations of piety may be no more than mere hypocrisy. The Greek word translated "hypocrites" (Matt. 6:2, 5) refers to the masks worn by ancient actors as symbols of pretense and show. Thus, give with fanfare; pray with pride; fast with notice. This ministry is inauthentic. It is a sham.

Inauthentic ministry was a charge leveled against Paul. The Corinthians said that there was discrepancy between the way he wrote his letters and the way he was in person: "His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account" (2 Cor. 10:10). It is a serious charge, and in his second letter to the church at Corinth, Paul spends almost the entire time defending himself. The critique came from jealousy and therefore bore no legitimacy. But the fact is, the charge can be true—not of Paul, but of us. Leadership calls for genuineness, authenticity and transparency.

True, there's something of a cliché about the word authentic when applied to Christian ministry (add contemporary, intentional, relevant, and community to that list). If we really need to add the description authentic, we are probably trying too hard and therefore not being authentic at all. Nevertheless, hypocrisy lurks everywhere, not least in Christian ministry, and we ignore it at our peril.

Godliness must be found in the heart if it is to be genuine. The one who prays more in public than in private, or only gives at special events when likely to be thanked for it, or practices spiritual disciplines and lets everyone know just how difficult a spiritual routine he keeps, is more concerned about the outward appearance than a heart-relationship with Jesus.

Jonathan Edwards observed the pattern of the hypocrite with respect to prayer:

Perhaps they attend it on Sabbath days, and sometimes on other days. But they have ceased to make it a constant practice daily to retire to worship God alone, and to seek his face in secret places. They sometimes do a little to quiet conscience, and just to keep alive their old hope; because it would be shocking to them, even after all their subtle dealing with their consciences to call themselves converts, and yet totally to live without prayer. Yet the practice of secret prayer they have in a great measure left off.

There has been a rise in the use of "written prayers" in Presbyterian worship in the last decade. In part, it is a reflection of the desire to elevate worship. Liturgical, written, prepared prayers are certainly preferable to the (otherwise) paucity and emptiness of some extemporary prayers. But written prayers (drawn from The Valley of Vision, for example) may simply mask the emptiness of the heart.

And Thomas Cranmer seemed to understand the danger of wearing a mask of hypocrisy when he included the Collect of Purity in the Book of Common Prayer for the Anglican Church. Cranmer placed it just before the celebration of the Lord's Supper:

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord.

This is a prayer for all seasons.

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.

Will You Pray for Awakening? Download Your Free Prayer Guide

We live in a world that needs awakening. Millions of people do not know Jesus Christ. The church itself needs renewed zeal for the truth, for spiritual growth, and for missions. Scripture reveals how this awakening comes about: by a powerful movement of the Spirit of God. It also tells us that when just two men—Paul and Silas—prayed, the earth itself shook (Acts 16:25–26). So we are dedicating the entire year of 2021 to pray for awakening, and we hope you will, too.

To help as many people as possible, we produced this free prayer guide. Download it today at PrayForAwakening.com, find it in the PrayerMate app, or order the prayer booklet in packs of ten to share with your loved ones.

To use the guide, find the prayer that corresponds to the current week. Each week of the month focuses on a different group to pray for, starting with you and your family and expanding to the world and the global church. You can also share your desire to #PrayForAwakening on social media.

FEBRUARY PRAYER FOCUS:

Week 1: Pray that you and your family will be transformed by the renewal of the mind according to the Word of God. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom. 12:2)Week 2: Pray that you and your church will contend for the faith so that it may be proclaimed with clarity to your neighbors. “I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jude 3)Week 3: Pray that your nation and city will treat the name of God as holy. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” (Matt. 6:9)Week 4: Pray that people in many nations will join themselves to the Lord by faith in Christ alone. “Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people.” (Zech. 2:11)

We hope this prayer guide encourages you this year and in future years. Join us in praying fervently for a mighty movement of God’s Spirit today, thankful that He has graciously promised to hear us, and confident that He will answer our prayers according to His will.

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The Church in Corinth

Sometimes Christians wish they could escape their present challenges and go back to the early church. In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul gives us a picture of the church in Corinth, reminding us that first-century Christians faced many struggles themselves.

Transcript:

A little bit of background on the city of Corinth. A church had been established there, and during Paul’s third missionary journey, he got very disturbing reports from emissaries who came to him and told him of trouble that was brewing in the Corinthian community.

Sometimes we have a rose-colored view of the first-century church. Sometimes we wish, “Oh, if only our church could be like the church at Philippi or the church at Corinth: so pure in its devotion, so deep in its spirituality, so powerful in its prayer life and everything. But when we look at the situation in the churches as Paul addresses the problems that are arising in each of these congregations, we see, really, a growing infant church that is still profoundly immature in its grasp and in its understanding of the things of God. We remember the Apocalypse of the New Testament where John, in his vision, is told by Christ to write a letter to the seven churches. And for the most part those letters that Jesus was writing to His seven churches, they were not complementary letters at all, were they? But we have this idealized view of the early church. But even a cursory glance at what Paul is dealing with in the lives of these congregations reveals that it’s a marvelous thing and a testimony to God’s grace and providence that the church survived at all, so vulnerable were they to every wind of doctrine and every heresy that came along.

Well, of all of those churches that were known for chaotic upheaval, perhaps there was none more problematic than this church in Corinth. And it might have something to do with its location. Corinth had been settled originally in a Greek-style culture and so on. But under Roman occupation in the second century BC, it was rebuilt and became a center of ancient commerce, and having seacoasts very close to it, on both sides, that it was the entertainment capital, kind of the Las Vegas of the ancient world. And the thing that you may find astonishing is the Corinth that Paul knew and visited had a population of 500,000 people. Now by the population standards of antiquity, that was an enormous city. I mean, that would make it one of the major cities in the United States of America. I mean, there aren’t that many cities in America that actually have a population of 500,000 persons or more.

And so, it was in that setting, a commercial business center, a city that was known internationally at that time for its licentiousness. It was a sensuous place, a place of radical corruption with respect to pagan religion, prostitution, and all sorts of immorality. And it was in the midst of that pagan environment that a church was established.

 

Some Teachers Claim the Old Testament Is No Longer Relevant. Is This True?

Today, some teachers are claiming that the Old Testament is no longer relevant for Christians. From one of our Ask Ligonier events, W. Robert Godfrey exposes the danger of this view and the negative effects it can have on the church. Ask your biblical and theological questions live online at ask.Ligonier.org.

Read the Transcript

 

Five Truths About the Holy Spirit

Jesus said: “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7). Now, I don’t want to bring cold coals to Newcastle by giving you information with which you are already familiar, so let me just briefly give some background on this verse. You know that the Greek word translated here as “Helper” is parakletos. In its technical form, it has a legal dimension; it refers to one who would be an advocate. In its wider context, it speaks of comfort, of protection, of counsel, and of guidance. Jesus also spoke of the Spirit as the Helper in John 14 and introduced Him as “the Spirit of truth” (14:17; 16:13).

I think it best for me to simply say a number of things concerning the identity of this Helper with little embellishment.

First, we need to notice that the Holy Spirit is a unique person and not simply a power or an influence. He is spoken of as “He,” not as “it.” This is a matter of import because if you listen carefully to people speaking, even within your own congregations you may hear the Holy Spirit referenced in terms of the neuter. You may even catch yourself doing it. If you do, I hope you will bite your tongue immediately. We have to understand that the Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity, is personal. As a person, He may be grieved (Eph. 4:30), He may be quenched in terms of the exercise of His will (1 Thess. 5:19), and He may be resisted (Acts 7:51).

Second, the Holy Spirit is one both with the Father and with the Son. In theological terms, we say that He is both co-equal and co-eternal. When we read the whole Upper Room Discourse, we discover that it was both the Father and the Son who would send the Spirit (John 14:16; 16:7), and the Spirit came and acted, as it were, for both of Them. So the activity of the Spirit is never given to us in Scripture in isolation from the person and work of Christ or in isolation from the eternal will of the Father. Any endeavor to think of the Spirit in terms that are entirely mystical and divorced from Scripture will take us down all kinds of side streets and eventually to dead ends.

Third, the Holy Spirit was the agent of creation. In the account of creation at the very beginning of the Bible, we are told: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:1-2). The Hebrew word translated as “Spirit” here is ruach, which also can mean “breath.” The ruach elohim, “the Breath of the Almighty,” is the agent in creation. It is not the immateriality of the Spirit that is in view here, but rather His power and energy; the picture is of God’s energy breathing out creation, as it were, speaking the worlds into existence, putting the stars into space. Thus, when we read Isaiah 40:26 and the question is asked, “Who created these?” we have the answer in Genesis 1:2—the Spirit is the irresistible power by which God accomplishes His purpose.

Tangentially, one of the questions of Old Testament scholarship concerns the extent to which we are able to discover the distinct personhood of God the Holy Spirit from the Old Testament. In other words, can we understand the nature of His hypostasis in the Old Testament alone? When we read Genesis 1, it is not difficult to see that we have in the second verse, certainly in light of all that has subsequently been revealed, a clear and distinct reference to the third person of the Trinity.

In his book The Holy Spirit, Sinclair B. Ferguson notes that if we recognize the divine Spirit in Genesis 1:2, that provides what some refer to as the missing link in Genesis 1:26, where God said, “Let us make man in our image.” Ferguson observes that this is a clear antecedent reference to the Spirit of God who is at work in Genesis 1:1-2.

This issue reminds us, incidentally, that it is helpful to read our Bibles backward. As we read from the back to the front, we discover the truth of the classic interpretive principle attributed to Augustine: “The New [Testament] is in the Old [Testament] concealed, and the Old is in the New revealed.” In other words, we discover the implications of those teachings and events that come earlier in the Scriptures.

Fourth, the Holy Spirit is the agent not only of creation, but also of God’s new creation in Christ. He is the author of the new birth. We see this in John 3, in the classic encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus, where Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (v. 5). This truth, of course, is worked out in the rest of the Scriptures.

Fifth, the Spirit is the author of the Scriptures. Second Timothy 3:16 tells us, “All Scripture is breathed out by God. …” The Greek word behind this phrase is theopneustos, which means “God-breathed.” In creation, we have the Spirit breathing His energy, releasing the power of God in the act of creation. We have the same thing in the act of redemption, and we see it again in the divine act of giving to us the record in the Scriptures themselves. The doctrine of inspiration is entirely related to the work of God the Holy Spirit. Peter affirms this view, writing, “No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). The men who wrote the biblical books were not inventing things. Neither were they automatons. They were real people in real historical times with real DNA writing according to their historical settings and their personalities. But the authorship of Scripture was dual. It was, for instance, both Jeremiah and God, because Jeremiah was picked up and carried along. Indeed, in Jeremiah’s case, God said, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth” (1:9). He did so without violating Jeremiah’s distinct personality, and he then wrote the very Word of God. This is why we study the Bible—because this is a book that exists as a result of the out-breathing of the Holy Spirit.

Concerning the identity of the Helper, we could go on ad infinitum, but we must be selective rather than exhaustive. His identity is as “another Helper.” The word translated as “another” here is allos, not heteros. Jesus promised a Helper of the same kind rather than of a different kind. The Spirit is the parakletos, the one who comes alongside. Jesus said He would “be with you forever … he dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17). In other words, His ministry is both permanent and personal.

This excerpt is adapted from Alistair Begg's contribution to Holy, Holy, Holy: Proclaiming the Perfections of God.

$5 Friday (And More): John Knox, Reformed Theology, & the Sabbath

It’s time for our weekly $5 Friday sale. This week’s resources include such topics as faith, John Knox, reformed theology, the Sabbath, assurance of faith, Martin Luther, 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:

The Hunger for Significance: Seeing the Image of God in Man by R.C. Sproul, Paperback book $18 $10 All That Is in God by James Dolezal, Paperback book $18 $10 Faith Alone by R.C. Sproul, Paperback book $18 $10 The Plan: How God got the World Ready for Jesus by Sinclair Ferguson, Hardcover book $10 $6 John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, & Doxology by Burk Parsons, Hardcover book $14 $8And More

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

View today’s $5 Friday sale items.

 

Committed to the Mission of God: January 28, 2021

In December, our president and CEO, Chris Larson, hosted a panel discussion with three of our Teaching Fellows: Drs. W. Robert Godfrey, Burk Parsons, and Derek Thomas. On January 28, we streamed their discussion about the certainty we have that Christ will build His church and the calling that this lays upon us to remain faithful to His Great Commission.

This special event was streamed on Ligonier's blog, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. You can also watch a recording of the discussion below.

 

Save 55% and Get R.C.’s Classic Book for Free

Tabletalk magazine exists to help you grow in Christ. With daily Bible studies and articles from gifted pastors, theologians, and teachers, each monthly issue focuses on a different theme to help strengthen and encourage you in your faith.

When you subscribe today for three years, we’ll send you the 25th-anniversary hardcover edition of R.C. Sproul’s classic book The Holiness of God for free. Add this exclusive edition to your library and consider again the truth of who God is, who you are, and what it means to be covered in the righteousness of Christ. You’ll also receive a high-quality slipcase to store each issue of Tabletalk for the next three years. Gain access to three years of in-depth, practical Bible study for only $49.

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God, Our Highest Happiness

Deep, lasting happiness is found in the glorious majesty and grace of God. In this brief clip, Michael Reeves explains that the enjoyment of God is the ultimate gift we receive in the gospel.

Transcript:

What the Reformers saw, especially through the message of justification by faith alone, was the revelation of an exuberant, superfluously gracious and happy God who glories in sharing His happiness, not stingy or utilitarian, a God who glories in being gracious. And to steal from His glory by claiming any credit for ourselves would actually be to steal our own joy in so marvelous a God. In fact, wrote John Calvin, "that is the secret of happiness and the secret of life." He said, "Whatever the philosophers have said of the chief good is cold and vain, for they confine man to himself. But it is necessary for us to go out of ourselves to find happiness. The chief good of man is nothing else but union with God." That goes against everything we're taught in our culture today, that happiness is not found in ourselves. It is not found in appreciating our own beauty or convincing ourselves of it. Deep, lasting, satisfying happiness is found in the all-glorious God, all of which is really just another way of saying, "What is the chief end of man?" "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." The fact is, we've been made to enjoy God. But without the great truths that the Reformers fought for, which display God as glorious and enjoyable, we will not do so, we will not enjoy Him. Seeing less of this glorious God, we will be lesser and sadder. Seeing more of Him, more of His glory, greater clarity on the glory of His ways and who He is, then we will be fuller and happier.

 

Why Did the Pharisees Hate Jesus So Much?

When you talk to people who are non-Christians today, they are usually very complimentary of Jesus. They’ll say: “I don’t believe that He was the Messiah, and I don’t believe that He was the Son of God, but Jesus was certainly a great person. He was a great teacher. Maybe He was prophet.”

But this kind of high regard for Jesus is by no means universal. Even in Scripture, we find people who reacted to Jesus with hostility, and chief among these people are the scribes and Pharisees. We read in Luke 20 that the scribes and the chief priests sought to have Jesus arrested. In John 5, we are told that they wanted to kill Him, and in chapters 8 and 10, they tried to stone Him.

When we read these accounts in Scripture, we are prompted to ask, Why did these people speak the way they did and feel the way they did with such hostility toward Jesus? It’s difficult to provide a complete answer as to why they were motivated in this way, but here are three reasons why the religious authorities hated Jesus so much.

The first is this: they were jealous of Him. Why would they be jealous of the Son of God? Everywhere Jesus went, He attracted huge throngs, multitudes, crowds pressing around to listen to His every word, watching His every move. He was profoundly popular among the people, whereas the rulers of the Jews laid heavy burdens on their people, and they approached the masses, the people of the earth, with something like a spirit of disdain and scorn. While they wouldn’t think of having dinner with a tax collector, Jesus freely associated with people whom the Pharisees considered “rabble.”

The people loved Jesus, and they received Him gladly, but what they felt from the Pharisees was judgment. The only thing the Pharisees looked at was the people’s sin, and so they had a certain contempt for the common people. They saw Jesus associating with the common people and saw them cheering Him, loving Him. They couldn’t stand it because they were envious and suspicious of His popularity.

The second reason why they hated Him was because He exposed them. Before Jesus came, it was the Pharisees particularly, as well as the Sadducees and scribes, who set the moral standard for the community. They sat in the highest places in the synagogue. They were the ones who were most honored and celebrated for their virtue, but their virtue, as Jesus taught repeatedly, was a pretense. It was external. He said: “You’re like dead men’s tombs, whitewashed sepulchers that are painted without blemish on the surface but inside are filled with dead men’s bones. You clean the outside of the platter, but the other side, the inner side, is filthy. You do everything possible to hide that impurity, that grime, and that filthiness from public view. You pretend to be righteous, and you major in that pretense of being righteous.”

The Pharisees started in the intertestamental period as a group who were upset because the people were abandoning the purity of the covenant that they had made with God and were being lax in their morality and in their obedience to the commandments of God. So the Pharisees sought to draw together and draw apart from the masses and to set a moral example. These were the conservatives of the day. They had a high system of honor and virtue, and they committed themselves to obeying God. In fact, one sect among the Pharisees believed that if they could keep every law that God gave in the Old Testament for just twenty-four hours, then that would prompt God to send the Messiah to Israel.

But a lot of things had happened between the day of the formation of the Pharisees and the time of Jesus’ incarnation, when they masqueraded as devotees of righteousness and obedience. In a word, they were counterfeit. They were fake. And nothing reveals a counterfeit like the presence of the genuine. When Jesus walked this earth, true righteousness and holiness was manifested by Him before the eyes of the people. It didn’t take exceptional brilliance to discern the difference between the real and the counterfeit. So the Pharisees were exposed, and because they were exposed by the true and authentic holiness of Christ, they hated Him, and they couldn’t wait to get rid of Him.

There is a common idea out there that God must grade on a curve. Grading on a curve happens when an instructor gives an exam and everyone flunks it. It must therefore be a bad or unfair exam, or the teacher has failed in teaching because the students have failed to learn. The instructor then grades on a curve, so that an F might be counted as a C and a C as an A, and so on. There’s a formula for doing that.

But every once in a while, you have someone who breaks the curve, meaning that everyone else failed the test but this student scores very high. This messes up the formula, which means that most students don’t like people who break the curve. Curve breakers make the rest of us look bad.

The bad news is God doesn’t grade on a curve. A lot of people think He will, but there is no curve. All people will be judged according to His perfect standard of righteousness. There is no sliding scale.

The good news, however, is that Jesus broke the curve. While we all fall short, He achieved a perfect record of righteousness. And He did so for us. While this is a source of rejoicing for those who have placed their faith in Christ, it moved the Pharisees to hate Him because He exposed their phony righteousness for what it was.

The third reason I think that they hated Him is because they were afraid—not so much of what He would do to them in His wrath but of the consequences of welcoming Him into their midst. Why were they afraid? Look at the history of Israel. In almost every generation going back to Abraham, the Israelites lived under the domination and oppression of a foreign nation. You’ve heard of the Pax Romana; there’s also the Pax Israeliana. The Pax Israeliana, or the peace of Israel, was always extremely short-lived. Almost always, the people were a conquered people, a people who lived under the oppression and the tyranny of their enemies. In the case of the first-century Jews, the oppressor was Rome.

Throughout Jewish history, there had always been those who were committed to revolution, who wanted to throw off the yoke of the foreigners who held them captive. You’ll see one revolt after another in the history of Israel, and one revolt after another being quashed by the power of the enemy. There were people—at least two, probably more—among Jesus’ disciples who were called Zealots.

Those who were in positions of power and authority, as the Pharisees and Sadducees were, feared losing their power and authority. The Jewish leaders feared the consequences of a revolt against Rome. That’s on almost every page of the New Testament. They feared the Romans. They feared that Jesus somehow would lead an insurrection, cause another uprising, and consequently bring a bloodbath, and so they sought to remove Him before He caused them trouble.