R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 46

Is There Evidence of Adam and Eve’s Repentance and Faith after the Fall?

Should Christians expect to see Adam and Eve in heaven? From one of our Ask R.C. events, R.C. Sproul considers the evidence of our first parents’ faith and repentance after the fall.

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What Is Thanksgiving Day?

Thanksgiving is an American holiday that stretches all the way back to a time long before America became a nation. The Pilgrims landed in 1620. They faced brutal conditions and were woefully unprepared. Roughly half of them died in that first year. Then they had a successful harvest of corn. In November of 1621 they decided to celebrate a feast of thanksgiving.

Edward Winslow was among those who ate that first thanksgiving meal in 1621. He noted:

"Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we gathered the fruit of our labors. ...And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want."

In addition to the fowl eaten that first Thanksgiving, the Indians also brought along five deer as their contribution to the feast. Presumably they also ate corn.

Over the centuries, Americans continued to celebrate feasts of thanksgiving in the fall. Some presidents issued proclamations. Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation for a perpetual national holiday set aside for thanksgiving. In 1863, with the nation torn apart by the Civil War, he declared:

"I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens."

So we have a holiday of thanksgiving born in and further nurtured during times of great adversity and struggle. We might think that times of adversity and challenge would spawn ingratitude, while times of prosperity would spawn gratitude. Sadly, the reverse is true. A chilling scene from the animated television show The Simpsons demonstrates this. Bart Simpson was called upon to pray for a meal, to which he promptly prayed, "Dear God, We paid for all of this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing."

Prosperity breeds ingratitude. The writers of the Heidelberg Catechism knew this. Question 28 asks what it benefits us to know that God creates and sustains all things. The answer is it gives patience in adversity and gratitude in prosperity. Moses also knew this. In Deuteronomy, he looks ahead to times of material prosperity for Israel, then sternly warns, inspired by the Holy Spirit, not to forget God. "Beware lest you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth'" (Deut. 8:17). We did this all ourselves. Thanks for nothing. Human nature trends toward ingratitude.

Another culprit breeding ingratitude is our entitlement culture. Simply put, why should we be grateful for what we deserve and what we have a right to? I was owed this, goes the culture, therefore why would I say thank you?

A third culprit concerns what UC Davis professor of psychology Dr. Robert Emmons calls the "to whom" question. In his scientific study of gratitude, Emmons came to the realization that gratitude raises a singular and significant question: When we say thank you, to whom are we grateful?

The interesting thing here is that if we trace this "to whom" line of questioning back, like pulling on the threads of some tapestry, we find a singular answer at the end of each and every thread. The answer is God. To whom are we grateful? We are grateful in an ultimate sense to God.

Our Benefactor does "good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness" (Acts 14:17). Theologians call this common grace. God as creator cares for all His creation and provides for our needs. He gives us our very lives and our very breath.

Our Benefactor also does good by giving His most precious gift, the gift of His Beloved Son. Theologians call this saving grace. Gifts often cost the giver. What a costly gift the Father has given us in sending the Son. So Paul exclaims, "Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift" (2 Cor. 9:15).

When we consider God as the "to whom" we are thankful, we may well be seeing both the necessity of thanksgiving and the eclipse of thanksgiving. As culture veers more and more towards a secular state it shrinks back from gratitude. So vainly we think we did this all ourselves. So wrongly we think we deserve, or even have a fundamental right to, all of this. We also know what is at the end of the string if we pull on it long enough. We know that we will be confronted with a Creator. We know we will be accountable to a Creator. Saying thank you means we are dependent, not independent. We would rather be ungrateful. Paul says we know God from all the evidence He has left of Himself, but we don't want to "honor him or give thanks to him" (Rom 1:21). Then the downward spiral begins. A culture of ingratitude careens ever downward into decline.

We should not be counted among those who see the fourth Thursday in November as nothing more than a day of football and over-indulgence. We should be thankful for one day set apart to consider all that we have and realize that all that we have has been given to us. Of course, such gratitude should in no wise be limited to one day out of 365.

Having been imprisoned for one year, four months, and eighteen days in a Nazi cell measuring 6 ft. x 9 ft, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote what is certainly a reminder of the meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday:

"You must never doubt that I'm traveling with gratitude and cheerfulness along the road where I'm being led. My past life is brim-full of God's goodness, and my sins are covered by the forgiving love of Christ crucified. I'm so thankful for the people I have met, and I only hope that they never have to grieve about me, but that they, too, will always be certain of and thankful for God's mercy and forgiveness."

Dr. Stephen J. Nichols is president of Reformation Bible College and chief academic officer for Ligonier Ministries, and teaches on the podcasts 5 Minutes in Church History and Open Book.

A Temporary Breakthrough of Glory

When Jesus was transfigured in the presence of His closest disciples, His divine glory broke forth, brighter than the sunrise. In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul marvels at this transformative moment when Christ gave a glimpse of His exalted majesty.

Transcript:

But then we read in Matthew’s gospel in chapter 17, verse 1: “Now after six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves, and He was transfigured before them.” Now we really hardly ever use the word “transfigure” in our vocabulary. There’s a passage in the Battle Hymn of the Republic that is, “Glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.” But apart from that, we just about never use this term, except with reference to this event. There is another word in English, however, that is used more frequently, and it is the word that does not translate the Greek word that is used here, but it transliterates it. That is, it just brings it right over into the English language, and it is the word, “metamorphosis.” We’ve heard of Ovid’s poetic work, which was written under the title “Metamorphosis.” When we were children and took science in elementary school, our first exposure to the idea to metamorphosis was with the extraordinary, interesting experience of the creation of a butterfly. It begins as a worm, a caterpillar who spins a cocoon. And after a period of dormancy, out of this cocoon emerges the magnificently beautiful butterfly. What a transformation, because that’s what the word “metamorphosis” means. “Meta” means “across” or “with,” and morphology is the study of form. And so, really, the word “transformation” means the same thing as the word “metamorphosis,” and we witness that kind of transformation when the worm becomes the butterfly.

And so, what the gospel writers are saying here is that Jesus took apart His close inner circle of disciples—Peter, James, and John—and while they were talking with Him, suddenly before their eyes, Jesus undergoes this startling transformation. And the transformation has to be understood as a temporary breakthrough of glory, because listen to the language that is used to describe what these men saw: “His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.” Those are the two graphic images that describe Him: His face began to shine like the sun.

What Is Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?

Jesus describes the unforgiveable sin as the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. What is this sin, and how do we know if someone is in danger of committing it? From one of our live events, R.C. Sproul and Derek Thomas respond.

To ask a biblical or theological question, just visit ask.Ligonier.org or message us on Facebook or Twitter.

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Grace and Gratitude

A number of decades ago at the Ligonier Valley Study Center, we sent out a Thanksgiving card with this simple statement: "The essence of theology is grace; the essence of Christian ethics is gratitude." In all the debates about our role versus God's role in sanctification—our growth in holiness—we'd stay on the right track if we'd remember this grace-gratitude dynamic. The more we understand how kind God has been to us and the more we are overcome by His mercy, the more we are inclined to love Him and to serve Him.

Yet we can't get the grace-gratitude dynamic right if we aren't clear on what grace means. What is grace? The catechisms many of us learned as children give us the answer: "Grace is the unmerited favor of God." The first thing that we understand about grace is what it's not—it's not something we merit. In fact, if that is all we ever understand about grace, I'm sure God will rejoice that we know His grace is unmerited. So, here's our working definition of grace—it is unmerit.

Paul's epistle to the Romans sheds light on what we mean when we say that grace is unmerit. In 1:18–3:20, the Apostle explains that on the final day, for the first time in our lives, we will be judged in total perfection, in total fairness, in absolute righteousness. Thus, every mouth will be stopped when we stand before the tribunal of God. This should provoke fear in the hearts of fallen people, as condemnation is the only possible sentence for sinful men and women: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (3:23).

But those who trust in Christ Jesus have hope, for if we are in Him by faith, we have been "justified freely by His grace." Note that justification is accomplished not by obligation, but freely through grace on account of the redemption purchased by Jesus alone. There's no room for boasting, for we are justified not by our works but by grace alone through faith alone. Paul goes on to cite Abraham as the preeminent example of one who was justified by faith alone and therefore free from God's sentence of condemnation. If the basis for Abraham's salvation, his justification, was something that Abraham did—some good deed, some meritorious service that he performed, some obligation that he performed—if it were on the basis of works, Paul says, he would have had something about which to boast. But Abraham had no such merit. All he had was faith, and that faith itself was a gift: "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness" (4:3; see Eph. 2:8–10).

Romans 4:4–8 is a key passage here:

Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin."

That's grace. Paul couldn't say it any other way. To him who works, it's debt; if you merit something, it means that someone is obligated to pay you. If I hire you as an employee and promise to pay you one hundred dollars if you work eight hours, I must pay you for working the eight hours. I'm not doing you a favor or giving you grace. You've earned your pay. You've fulfilled the contract, and I'm morally obliged to give you your wages.

With respect to the Lord, we are debtors who cannot pay. That's why the Bible speaks of redemption in economic language—we were bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:20). Only someone else—Christ—can pay our debt. That's grace. It's not our good works that secure our rescue but only the works of Christ. It's His merit, not ours. We don't merit anything. He grants us His merit by grace, and we receive it only by faith. The essence of grace is its voluntary free bestowal. As soon as it's a requirement, it's no longer grace.

Grace should never cease to amaze us. God has an absolute, pure, holy standard of justice. That's why we cling with all our might to the merit of Jesus Christ. He alone has the merit to satisfy the demands of God's justice, and He gives it freely to us. We haven't merited it. There's nothing in us that elicits the Lord's favor that leads to our justification. It's pure grace.

And the more we understand what God has done for us as sinners, the more willing we are to do whatever He requires. The great teachers of the church say the first point of genuine sanctification is an increasing awareness of our own sinfulness. With that comes, at the same time, an increasing awareness of God's grace. And with that, again, increasing love and increasing willingness to obey Him.

When we truly understand grace—when we see that God only owes us wrath but has provided Christ's merit to cover our demerit—then everything changes. The Christian motivation for ethics is not merely to obey some abstract law or a list of rules; rather, our response is provoked by gratitude. Jesus understood that when He said, "If you love Me, keep My commandments." If I may have the liberty to paraphrase: "Keep My commandments not because you want to be just, but because you love Me." A true understanding of grace—of God's unmerited favor—always provokes a life of gratitude and obedience.

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.

$5 Friday (And More): Worship, Scripture, & Jonah

It’s time for our weekly $5 Friday sale. This week’s resources include such topics as worship, Scripture, Jonah, the attributes of God, guilt, suffering, 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:

What Is Faith? by R.C. Sproul, Paperback $2 $1
Can I Lose My Salvation? by R.C. Sproul, Paperback $2 $1
The Whole Christ with Sinclair Ferguson, DVD $48 $15
Welcome to a Reformed Church by Daniel Hyde, Paperback $13 $10
Maturity: Growing Up and Going on in the Christian Life by Sinclair Ferguson, Paperback $17 $11
Knowing Scripture by R.C. Sproul, Paperback $16 $10
Jonah with R.C. Sproul, CD $17 $12
In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History by Sinclair Ferguson, Hardcover book $18 $9
Blessing and Praise: Benedictions & Doxologies in Scripture with H.B. Charles Jr., CD $28 $12
The Attributes of God with Steven Lawson, DVD $54 $12
Meaning for Men with R.C. Sproul, CD $17 $12
The God We Worship with R.C. Sproul, CD $24 $10

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

View today’s $5 Friday sale items.

Ministry Report: See What Your Support Has Enabled This Year

Scripture declares that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14). Together, we are praying and working toward that end. In His faithfulness, God has used your support of Ligonier Ministries in 2020 to awaken people around the world to His holiness.

Your generosity and prayers help provide more ways for Christians to read, listen, and gather around God’s Word. Under His blessing, the outreach we have accomplished together has continued to expand.

This year alone, your support helped reach more than twenty-five million people with the hope that they would better understand who God is, who they are, and how the Lord is calling them to live in this world. Thanks to you, minds are being renewed by biblical truths and lives are being transformed through the knowledge of God.

This ministry report is a celebration of what God has been doing through Ligonier and your continued, generous support. Please take some time to read through this overview of our shared work in 2020, and feel free to share this report with your friends, family, and church.

As we approach our fiftieth year of ministry, demand for trustworthy Bible teaching from Ligonier has never been higher. Will you commit to praying with us for faithful, fruitful ministry in the years to come?

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Relativism and Embodied Truth

Here’s an excerpt from Relativism and Embodied Truth, Sharon James' contribution to the November issue of Tabletalk:

Once upon a time, boys were boys, girls were girls, and binary was a mathematical term.

Today, however, the idea that there are only two sexes, male or female, which you stay in from birth, has been condemned as transphobic. The sex binary, we are told, is just an idea. To argue otherwise is sometimes regarded as hate speech.

This new orthodoxy is a denial of reality, a rejection of science, and an attack on God our Creator.

Continue reading Relativism and Embodied Truth, 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.

Rewriting the Rules of Meaning

In a culture where truth itself has come into question, we must pay careful attention to the assumptions people make in support of their preferred beliefs. In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul illustrates by examining the so-called “verification principle.”

Transcript:

What was the Achilles’ heel of the principle of verification? The principle of verification has been pretty much discarded by analytical philosophers. Why? What’s wrong with the principle of verification? Let me tell you the principle of verification: “The only meaningful truth is a truth which can be verified either analytically or empirically.” Hm? It’s very easy, so obvious it bites you if it were a snake. There is a principle that the original founders missed completely at the beginning. Their whole philosophy rests on what principle? The truth of the verification of principle. Can the verification principle be verified empirically? Is the verification principle analytically true? If a guy stands up and says the only thing that is true is that which can be verified empirically, can he now verify his statement that the only thing that is true is that which can be verified empirically? No, he can’t verify that empirically. It’s an utterly gratuitous rule. Remember, they’re trying to rewrite the rules of meaning. And if you apply their own rules of meaning to the new rules of meaning that they have foisted upon the public, that rule of meaning collapses, and later philosophers saw that. But dear friends, don't make any mistake, that the impact on that kind of thinking has been enormous through our culture.

What Does the Church Most Need Today?

What does the church most need today? In answering this important but rather general question, Psalm 81 is uniquely important and helpful. This psalm obviously contains beautiful promises and clear directions to help the people of God. But careful study of this psalm will deepen our appreciation of it, increase its value for us, and show us how distinctive it is for helping the church.

As we study psalms, we soon learn that the central verse of a psalm is often significant as a key to its interpretation. The central line of Psalm 81 is the heart of that psalm, as the plaintive cry of God is heard: "O Israel, if you would but listen to me!" (v. 8b). The center of Psalm 81—indeed the whole psalm—is a reflection on the Shema.

The centrality of this line and its importance are underscored when we recognize that Psalm 81 is the central psalm of Book 3 of the Psalter. Book 3 (Psalms 73–89) principally concerns the crisis in Israel caused by the destruction of the temple (Ps. 74) and the apparent failure of God's promises that David's sons would forever sit on his throne (Ps. 89). Something of the cause and character of this crisis is contained in this central line of the central psalm.

Since Book 3 is the central book of the five books of the Psalter, Psalm 81:8b actually is the central line of the whole book of Psalms. It stands at the very heart of Israel's songbook. It calls Israel to deep reflection on her relationship to her God.

This psalm also appears to be central to Israel's liturgical calendar. The praise at new moon and full moon can refer only to the seventh month of the year, the Feast of Trumpets (Lev. 23:24; Num. 10:10) and the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23:26–32). Between these two feasts occurred the Day of Atonement (Lev. 23:27). As God called Israel to celebrate His great provisions as Creator and Deliverer, so He called His people to hear Him.

As the Shema was crucial to the Torah, so it is central to the Psalter and to the Christian life. God's people must hear His Word, particularly to reject false gods (v. 9) and to walk in His ways (v. 13). They must not follow their own wisdom (v. 12). How sad to contemplate that God might give us what we think is good for us.

The Lord reminds His people that in history He has been the Deliverer and now promises that when we open our mouths in prayer, He will hear us and meet our needs (v. 10). He is the God who preserves and provides for the needs of His own.

The failure of Israel to hear the Word of God was rectified by God's own Son. Jesus always heard and honored God's Word. His Father delighted in Him for that reason: "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 17:5). Jesus perfectly listened and followed so that His people would have a complete and perfect salvation. The Father continues to call His people to listen, now directing them to the words of His Son: "listen to him" (Matt. 17:5). The salvation and health of the church depend on it continuing to listen to God's Word.

Psalm 81 seems to reflect the time of exile, when God punished Israel with the loss of the temple, its king, and the land of promise. It also reminds us of an earlier time, when Israel doubted God and grumbled about Him (v. 7). At Meribah (Ex. 17), Israel tested the Lord, doubting that He was with His people, so the Lord tested Israel and found her wanting. Similarly, we can look at the history of the church and see many times and ways in which the church failed to listen to the Word of the Lord.

The time of the Reformation, of course, was one of the greatest times in which the church returned to the Word of God. The Reformation of the church occurred because Christians began again to study the Bible carefully. The Reformers studied Greek and Hebrew, provided the church with new translations of the Bible, used the new technology of the printing press to print Bibles, and prepared some of the finest commentaries and theologies in the history of the church.

Again in our time, the church must be called to listen to the Word of God. The churches of America too often seem interested in following other voices than the voice of God. For decades, some churches have taught that the Bible is not fully and truly the Word of God. Other churches formally recognize the Bible, but seem to have lost confidence that preaching and teaching the Bible is what will convert unbelievers and build the church. Many Christians today seem to practically ignore the Bible, and as a result, they are as worldly as their unbelieving neighbors.

God says to us today, as He said to Israel of old and says to every generation of His people: "O Israel, if you would but listen to me!" Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will open ears in our churches and throughout our land. And let us listen carefully and believingly. Such listening is what the church most needs today.

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine. Learn more about the Psalms in Dr. Godfrey's book and teaching series titled Learning to Love the Psalms.