R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 564

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A Purpose in the Pain: An Interview with Joni Eareckson Tada

Joni Eareckson Tada has lived in a wheelchair for more than forty years due to a diving accident at age seventeen. She is the founder of Joni and Friends, a nonprofit organization founded in 1979 to accelerate Christian ministry in the disability community through various outreach and church training programs. Joni and Friends has distributed more than thirty-eight thousand wheelchairs worldwide through Wheels for the World. 

This month's issue of Tabletalk features an interview with Joni Eareckson Tada and she answers questions like these:

When you first discovered that you would never use your arms and legs again, what went through your mind and how did you cope with this reality?
Which passages of Scripture have given you encouragement during your struggles with disability and cancer?
How important is it for a person with a disability to have the support of his or her family and church during such times?
What is the best way to help nondisabled people view disabled people as more than just the sum of their disabilities?

Read the interview.

Fortress for Truth: Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a giant of history. Some believe he was the most significant European figure of the second millennium. He was the pioneer Reformer, the one God first used to spark a transformation of Christianity and the Western world. He was the undisputed leader of the German Reformation. In a day of ecclesiastical corruptions and apostasies, he was a valiant champion of the truth; his powerful preaching and pen helped to restore the pure gospel. More books have been written about him than any other man of history except Jesus Christ and possibly Augustine.

Luther came from hard-working stock. He was born in the little town of Eisleben, Germany, on November 10, 1483. His father, Hans, was a copper miner who eventually gained some wealth from a shared interest in mines, smelters, and other business ventures. His mother was pious but religiously superstitious. Luther was raised under the strict disciplines of the Roman Catholic Church and was groomed by his industrious father to be a successful lawyer. To this end, he pursued an education at Eisenach (1498–1501) and then at the University of Erfurt in philosophy. At the latter, he received a bachelor of arts degree in 1502 and a master of arts degree in 1505.

Luther’s life took an unexpected turn in July 1505, when he was twenty-one. He was caught in a severe thunderstorm and knocked to the ground by a nearby lightning strike. Terrified, he cried out to the Catholic patroness of miners, “Help me, St. Anna, and I will become a monk.” Luther survived the storm and made good on his dramatic vow. Two weeks later, he entered the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt. His father was furious over Luther’s apparent wasted education, but Luther was determined to follow through on his vow. 

Lost in Self-Righteousness

In the monastery, Luther was driven to find acceptance with God through works. He wrote: “I tortured myself with prayer, fasting, vigils and freezing; the frost alone might have killed me. . . . What else did I seek by doing this but God, who was supposed to note my strict observance of the monastic order and my austere life? I constantly walked in a dream and lived in real idolatry, for I did not believe in Christ: I regarded Him only as a severe and terrible Judge portrayed as seated on a rainbow” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 24, eds. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann [St. Louis: Concordia, 2002], 62). Elsewhere he recalled: “When I was a monk, I wearied myself greatly for almost fifteen years with the daily sacrifice, tortured myself with fastings, vigils, prayers, and other very rigorous works. I earnestly thought to acquire righteousness by my works” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 12, 273).

In 1507, Luther was ordained to the priesthood. When he celebrated his first Mass, as he held the bread and cup for the first time, he was so awestruck at the thought of transubstantiation that he almost fainted. “I was utterly stupefied and terror-stricken,” he confessed. “I thought to myself, ‘Who am I that I should lift up mine eyes or raise my hands to the divine majesty? For I am dust and ashes and full of sin, and I am speaking to the living, eternal and true God’” (Luther, cited in Bruce Shelley, Church History in Plain Language [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995], 238). Fear only compounded his personal struggle for acceptance with God. 

In 1510, Luther was sent to Rome, where he witnessed the corruption of the Roman church. He climbed the Scala Sancta (“The Holy Stairs”), supposedly the same stairs Jesus ascended when He appeared before Pilate. According to fables, the steps had been moved from Jerusalem to Rome, and the priests claimed that God forgave sins for those who climbed the stairs on their knees. Luther did so, repeating the Lord’s Prayer, kissing each step, and seeking peace with God. But when he reached the top step, he looked back and thought, “Who knows whether this is true?” (Luther, cited in Barbara A. Somervill, Martin Luther: Father of the Reformation [Minneapolis: Compass Point Books, 2006], 36). He felt no closer to God.

Luther received his doctor of theology degree from the University of Wittenberg in 1512 and was named professor of Bible there. Remarkably, Luther kept this teaching position for the next thirty-four years, until his death in 1546. One question consumed him: How is a sinful man made right before a holy God?

In 1517, a Dominican itinerant named John Tetzel began to sell indulgences near Wittenberg with the offer of the forgiveness of sins. This crass practice had been inaugurated during the Crusades to raise money for the church. Commoners could purchase from the church a letter that allegedly freed a dead loved one from purgatory. Rome profited enormously from this sham. In this case, the proceeds were intended to help Pope Leo X pay for a new St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

This horrible abuse enraged Luther. He determined that there must be a public debate on the matter. On October 31, 1517, he nailed a list of Ninety-five Theses regarding indulgences to the front door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Nailing such theses to the church door was a common practice in the scholarly debates of the time. Luther hoped to provoke calm discussion among the faculty, not a popular revolution. But a copy fell into the hands of a printer, who saw that the Ninety-five Theses were printed and spread throughout Germany and Europe in a few weeks. Luther became an overnight hero. With that, the Reformation essentially was born. 

The Tower Experience

It is possible Luther was still not yet converted. In the midst of his spiritual struggles, Luther had become obsessed with Romans 1:17: “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.” Luther had understood the righteousness of God to mean His active righteousness, His avenging justice by which He punishes sin. On those terms, he admitted that he hated the righteousness of God. But while sitting in the tower of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Luther meditated on this text and wrestled with its meaning. He writes: 

Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, “As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the Decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!” Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless, I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted.

At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, “In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’” There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. Thereupon I ran through the Scriptures from memory. I also found in other terms an analogy, as, the work of God, that is, what God does in us, the power of God, with which he makes us strong, the wisdom of God, with which he makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God. (Luther’s Works, Vol. 34, 337)

The time of Luther’s conversion is debated. Some think it took place as early as 1508, but Luther himself wrote that it happened in 1519, two years after he posted his Ninety-five Theses. More important is the reality of his conversion. Luther came to realize that salvation was a gift for the guilty, not a reward for the righteous. Man is not saved by his good works but by trusting the finished work of Christ. Thus, justification by faith alone became the central tenet of the Reformation.

Attacking Papal Authority

Justification by faith alone clashed with Rome’s teaching of justification by faith and works. Thus, the pope denounced Luther for preaching “dangerous doctrines” and summoned him to Rome. When Luther refused, he was called to Leipzig in 1519 for a public debate with John Eck, a leading Catholic theologian. In this dispute, Luther affirmed that a church council could err, a point that had been made by John Wycliffe and John Hus.

Luther went on to say that the authority of the pope was a recent contrivance. Such religious superstition, he exclaimed, opposed the Council of Nicaea and church history. Worse, it contradicted Scripture. By taking this stand, Luther irritated the major nerve of Rome—papal authority.

In the summer of 1520, the pope issued a bull, an edict sealed with a bulla, or red seal. The document began by saying: “Arise, O Lord, and judge Your cause. A wild boar has invaded Your vineyard” (Pope Leo, Exsurge Domine, as cited in R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God [Wheaton: Tyndale, 1998], 81).  With these words, the pope was referring to Luther as an unrestrained animal causing havoc. Forty-one of Luther’s teachings were deemed to be heretical, scandalous, or false.

With that, Luther had sixty days to repent or suffer excommunication. He responded by publicly burning the papal bull. This was nothing short of open defiance. Thomas Lindsay writes, “It is scarcely possible for us in the twentieth century to imagine the thrill that went through Germany, and indeed through all Europe, when the news spread that a poor monk had burnt the Pope’s Bull” (Thomas Lindsay, Martin Luther: The Man Who Started the Reformation [Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2004], 91). But though he was hailed by many, Luther was a marked man in the eyes of the church.

The Diet of Worms: Luther’s Stand

In 1521, the young Holy Roman emperor, Charles V, summoned Luther to appear at the Diet of Worms in Worms, Germany, in order to officially recant. The renegade monk was shown his books on a table in full view. Then Luther was asked whether he would retract the teachings in the books. The next day, Luther replied with his now-famous words: “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and

contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. I cannot do otherwise, here I stand, may God help me, Amen” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 32, 113). These defiant words became a Reformation battle cry.

Charles V condemned Luther as a heretic and placed a hefty price on his head. When Luther left Worms, he had twenty-one days for safe passage to Wittenberg before the sentence fell. While he was en route, some of his supporters, fearing for his life, kidnapped him and took him to the Wartburg Castle. There, he was hidden from public sight for eight months. During this time of confinement, Luther began his translation of the Bible into German, the language of the commoners. Through this work, Reformation flames would spread even swifter.

On March 10, 1522, Luther explained the mounting success of the Reformation in a sermon. With strong confidence in God’s Word, he declared: “I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept . . . the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 51, 77). Luther saw that God had used him as a mouthpiece for truth. The Reformation was founded not on him and his teachings, but on the unshakeable footing of Scripture alone.

In 1525, Luther married Katherine von Bora. This amazing woman was an escaped nun committed to the Reformation cause. The two repudiated their monastic vows in order to marry. Luther was forty-two and Katie was twenty-six. Their union produced six children. Luther had an extremely happy family life, which eased the demands of his ministry.

Till the end of his life, Luther maintained a heavy workload of lecturing, preaching, teaching, writing, and debating. This work for reform came at a high physical and emotional price. Each battle extracted something from him and left him weaker. He soon became subject to illnesses. In 1537, he became so ill that his friends feared he would die. In 1541, he again became seriously ill, and this time he himself thought he would pass from this world. He recovered yet again, but he was plagued by various ailments throughout his final fourteen years. Among other illnesses, he suffered from gallstones and even lost sight in one eye.

Faithful to the End

In early 1546, Luther traveled to Eisleben, his hometown. He preached there and then traveled on to Mansfeld. Two brothers, the counts of Mansfeld, had asked him to arbitrate a family difference. Luther had the great satisfaction of seeing the two reconciled.

That evening, Luther fell ill. As the night passed, Luther’s three sons—Jonas, Martin, and Paul—and some friends watched by his side. They pressed him: “Reverend father, do you stand by Christ and the doctrine you have preached?” The Reformer gave a distinct “yes” in reply. He died in the early hours of February 18, 1546, within sight of the font where he was baptized as an infant.

Luther’s body was carried to Wittenberg as thousands of mourners lined the route and church bells tolled. Luther was buried in front of the pulpit in the Castle Church of Wittenberg, the very church where, twenty-nine years earlier, he had nailed his famous Ninety-five Theses to the door.

Upon his death, his wife, Katherine, wrote concerning his lasting influence and monumental impact upon Christendom: “For who would not be sad and afflicted at the loss of such a precious man as my dear lord was. He did great things not just for a city or a single land, but for the whole world” (Katherine Luther, cited in Martin E. Marty, Martin Luther: A Life [New York: Penguin, 2008], 188). She was right. Luther’s voice sounded throughout the European continent in his own day and has echoed around the world through the centuries since.

Excerpted with edits from Pillars of Grace, © 2011 by Steven J. Lawson. Published by Reformation Trust Publishing, a division of Ligonier Ministries.

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Twitter Highlights (10/16/11)

Here are some highlights from the various Ligonier Twitter feeds over the past week.

Tabletalk Magazine It is not so much great talents that God blesses, as great likeness to Christ (Robert Murray M'Cheyne).



Reformation Trust Anselm taught that man's will is free to choose only sin. Until God moves the will...it is impotent toward spiritual good. -Lawson



Ligonier God has given us our mouths as vehicles to praise Him...and instead we have used our mouths to lie, ...to blaspheme God. - R.C. Sproul



Ligonier The Bible criticizes me far more effectively than I can hope to criticize it. —RC Sproul http://cot.ag/q2wRLE



Tabletalk Magazine "No flattery can heal a bad conscience, so no slander can hurt a good one." - Thomas Watson



Reformation Trust Uncomfortable with reprobation? Steven Lawson describes it as "the black velvet backdrop upon which the diamond of God's election shines..."



Ligonier There's a war going on, and it's a war between the flesh of man and the Spirit of God. -R.C. Sproul

You can also find our various ministries on Facebook:
Ligonier Ministries | Ligonier Academy | Reformation Bible College
Reformation Trust | Tabletalk Magazine

2011 Fall Conference - Session 7 (R.C. Sproul)

Dr. Sproul began this afternoon’s lecture by asking “Where does God live?” The Bible says He inhabits eternity. That is His residence, and it is a permanent residence because He Himself is from everlasting to everlasting.

They say Augustine was the greatest theologian of the first millennium, and we know that the work for which he is most famous is the book The City of God. He contrasts the city of God and the city of man. In the twentieth century Harvey Cox wrote The Secular City to give us an understanding of the culture in which we live. He spoke of secularism. He explained that saeculum describes “this world” not in terms of space but in terms of time.

Dr. Sproul explained that Latin had two words for “earth” or “world.” The Latin “World” in terms of space is mundus. The word saeculum is the word for “world” in terms of this time – the realm of the temporal. The term saeculum was religiously neutral in the Middle Ages. But when you take a neutral word and add the suffix “ism,” everything changes.

Secularism is a worldview, a philosophy, that Harvey Cox has defined as the zeitgeist of the twentieth century. It is the “spirit of the time.” We are living in the post-Christian era where life is no longer considered in light of the eternal, but in terms of the present.

The credo of secularism – all human life takes place in the here and the now – in the realm of the temporal. Beyond the temporal there is nothing else. There is no realm of the eternal.

After Kant, many philosophers opted for forms of skepticism and cynicism. According to them, all we have is this world, and you only go around once. Rudolf Bultmann tried to create a synthesis of Christianity and existentialism and urged us to forget about eternity. The spirit of our times is the spirit of skepticism.

Dr. Sproul told us of the four men who were part of Harvard’s Metaphysical Club. They all rejected metaphysics and became pragmatists. According to pragmatists, truth is what works. Few men have more influence on America. John Dewey did away with the model of classical education. Oliver Wendell Holmes rejected natural law. We have been systematically cut off from eternity by this kind of thinking.

Pragmatism is impractical because there is an eternity, and there is a God who dwells in eternity. And He will judge all men from the perspective of eternity.

If you do not consider eternity in your thinking, you will face a judgment with eternity at stake. Jesus said, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” When you lose the eternal perspective, you lose your soul.

God’s attribute of eternity is key in apologetics. The statement that chokes every secularist is: “In the beginning, God…” But eternity is one of the most powerful arguments for the existence of God that there can be.

Dr. Sproul asked the question, “Why is there a God?”

He explained that there are two possible answers. One is simplistic. One is heavy. The first answer: Why not? The second answer: Why not? The reason there is a God is because there cannot not be a God. The reason we say “Why not?” is because God cannot not be God.

Dr. Sproul brought compelling proof for the existence of God – eyeglasses. If these glasses exist, if anything exists, then something, somewhere, somehow exists necessarily. If there ever was a time when there was nothing – no glasses, no hymnals, no people, nothing – what could there possibly be now? Nothing. You have to have something that is self-existent, something that has the power of being in itself.

Every effect has to have a cause. We have to find something uncaused. If you cannot, you cannot find a scientific explanation for anything. The only options are that the universe is eternal, self-created, or created by something that is uncaused – something that exists necessarily.

Dr. Sproul explained that necessary being is necessary in two ways – ontologically and logically. Ontological necessary existence means a being that has the power of being in himself and does not depend on anything outside of Himself. That being cannot not be. Logical necessary existence means that if anything exists, then logic demands that somewhere there is an ontologically necessary being. Otherwise nothing could be. Without an eternally necessary being all you could have is nothing. And what is nothing? We can’t say what nothing is, because nothing is not anything.

If there is such a thing as a “now” there must be an eternity.

2011 Fall Conference - Session 6 (Michael Morales)

Dr. Morales spoke this afternoon on the exaltation of Christ. He began his lecture with a reading of Psalm 2. Dr. Morales reminded us that in Colossians 3:1, Paul directs the church to seek those things which are above where Christ is at the right hand of God.

[image error]He explained that the exaltation of Christ begins with the “therefore in Philippians 2:9. Jesus undergoes humiliation in his incarnation and his death, “therefore” God has highly exalted him and given him the name above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. Exaltation comes after humiliation. It is an ascent to glory and power. Christ’s exaltation, then, begins properly with Christ’s resurrection and ascension.

The doctrine of exaltation is the central theme of the New Testament church, and the gospel flows out of that. All of the church’s boldness and endurance and joy and blessing cascade down from the throne of Jesus Christ. All of the church’s timidity and anemic obedience, on the other hand, is due to the neglect of this great reality – the fact that Jesus has entered in his state of exaltation.

Dr. Morales turned out attention to the Gospel of Luke and notes that at this Gospel’s conclusion, we read that Jesus ascended, and it gave the apostles great joy. But why? They knew that Christ’s departure from earth meant something regarding His arrival in heaven. They knew it meant His enthronement.

How did they know this? They grasped this doctrine of exaltation. They knew what happened at His ascension because their faith was based on the Scriptures of the Old Testament.

Dr. Morales explained that the book of Psalms has as its main theme the kingship of God. Psalm 2, in fact, drives us to the heart of the New Testament’s teaching on exaltation.

Psalm 2 appears to show the setting of a coronation ceremony in Jerusalem. It was likely used for the ritual enthronement of earthly kings. Psalm 2 begins with the movement of the kings of earth plotting and scheming and concludes with the prospect of their blessing at the end. At the end they submit to God

Dr. Morales explained that we must understand the nature of the Davidic kingship in order to fully understand the exaltation of Christ. The first point we must understand is that the Davidic king functions as the representative as the divine kingship of Yahweh.

The second point we must understand is the relationship between the Davidic kingship and Adam. The Davidic king inherited the mantle of Adam. When God formed Adam, Adam was begotten but made as the “son of God” in the sense that he was king of all the earth. Adam as the image of God represented God’s reign throughout the earth. His commission was to rule and subdue. Yahweh’s reign was to be incarnated through Adam.

Israel on the plain of human history became God’s second firstborn son. Israel was represented federally by the king, and the king inherited the role of Adam as king. The Davidic king received the command and promise that he will rule the earth. David’s commission was to spread the rule of God throughout the earth.

Because the Davidic line failed, the result was the Babylonian exile. God became enemy of his own people. All hope at this point must be set upon the Messiah. He is coming.

In the Synoptic Gospels, we recall the encounter between Jesus and the high priest. The high priest rends his robe. Why? He asked Jesus, “Are you the Christ the son of God?”

He is the Son of God…

But not merely as Davidic heir

Not merely as the New Adam.

He is Son of God according to His divine nature. He is the eternally begotten not made Son of God. Yet when we consider his exaltation, we are primarily focused on his humanity. He has ascended and been exalted with our human nature.

The apostles were filled with joy at Christ’s ascension because they knew Psalm 2 would be fulfilled not on earth but with the enthronement of Messiah on the heavenly mount Zion – at the right hand of God. God the Son descended through His incarnation, but He returns to the awe and worship of the heavenly host wearing our humanity.

What an infinite wonder.

This is why Psalm 2 says the kings of the earth can find blessing by submitting to the king of Israel – because the king of Israel is seated at the right hand of God. Israel’s king is not merely the “son of God” according to an ancient ritual adoption formula but because He is God the Son.

This is the work of Christ today. He now reigns in power, and through providence over the world and in grace over the church. He subdues us. If you want to find the place of blessing become a member of the church.

Exult in Christ. He is King of Kings. Christ is reigning, ruling, and subduing. And he shall reign forever and ever.

2011 Fall Conference - Session 5 (Questions & Answers)

Saturday afternoon at The Autobiography of God conference, Voddie Baucham, Michael Morales, R.C. Sproul, and R.C. Sproul Jr. answered several questions submitted by conference attendees. Chris Larson, executive vice president of Ligonier Ministries, moderated the session:

Larson: What books or authors are currently informing your love of Christ and discipleship?

Morales: I enjoy Desmond Alexander, who is doing excellent work in biblical theology. We will have the privilege of hosting him here soon for our Doctor of Ministry program. He makes Scripture come alive.

Baucham: Graeme Goldsworthy and Dennis Johnson.

R.C. Jr.: Geerhardus Vos for biblical theology. The other is a modern classic, and we are reading through it in my course on the doctrine of man. It is Desiring God by John Piper, and we are blessed by his wisdom.

Larson: If you could restart your ministry, is there anything you would do differently?

img style="float: left; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 2px; margin-right: 12px;" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/ligonier-stat..." alt="" width="300" height="200" />Sproul: How much time do you have for my answer? The thing I would do is to get in the pulpit more often. I was ordained to the teaching ministry, and I came to the pulpit later. The pulpit has been my great joy.

<R.C. Jr.: When I look to my earlier years, I have some embarrassment, not over what I believed, but because I spent most of my time speaking to those errors furthest away from me. I was speaking to people with my same convictions, and that was a mistake. First, I need to look at my own sins and preach on those. We need to be speaking about our sins to our people. One of those sins is the pride that leads us to talk bad about others.

Baucham: I would change much of the time I spent in training and the places I received it. I have found that much of the time spent since my training is to backfill what I missed while in school. I would have been a much better steward of where and what I studied.

Morales: I pastored a church for four years, and then have been an associate pastor while teaching at the college level. One thing I wish is that I could have been in the homes more. I love ministering the Word, but there is no escaping the role of the shepherd in applying the Word in the home. This is what I have learned from the great pastors who have come into my life since then.

Larson: If the state or federal government required you to officiate and recognize same-sex marriages, how would you respond?

R.C. Jr.: The response would be “no.” There is an ancient tradition illustrated in the book of Acts that holds that Christians have an obligation to obey those in authority until those authorities order you to do something God forbids or forbid you from doing something God commands. This gets tricky and fuzzy when the state claims authority where it doesn’t belong. I would argue that if the state required me to preach only from 1 Timothy, I might have to disobey, not because God does not want me preaching from 1 Timothy but because the state does not have lordship over the pulpit. But sometimes we are too eager to draw our swords when we should be willing to go to the stake for Christ. We are also too quick to allow the state to intrude where it doesn’t belong.

This takes a great deal of wisdom. The example given in the question is an easy one. If I understand Canadian law correctly, and I’m not precisely sure that I do, then you can be arrested for preaching from Romans 1 in the pulpit. If that is so, I don’t know why people aren’t preaching from Romans 1 regularly and telling the state to come and get them.

Larson: The next question involves a family split over doctrine. What is the best approach of a family split over doctrine where children are involved so that we might maintain a cohesive unit? The example given is that one spouse is Roman Catholic and one is Reformed.

Baucham: “Wives, be subject to your own husbands so that they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives” (1 Peter 3:1–6). The rest of the passage talks about Sarah obeying Abraham. But the crux of the matter is faith. We have to believe that doing what God says we are to do will put us in the position where God will vindicate Himself.

Sproul: The question doesn’t say who is Catholic. That can make it more complicated, but we have some pastoral wisdom from the previous question. If the husband is Roman Catholic and he requires wife and children to go to the Roman Catholic Church, it is the duty of the wife to disobey. He is forcing her to go to an apostate body, and that is just not allowable. If she had to disobey in this area, however, she should she still submit to him in other areas. I could not in good conscience participate in a Roman Catholic Mass, even at a friend’s wedding, because I understand the theology of it. If I participate in it and understand the Mass’ theology, then I am sinning.

Larson: How can a sinner who cannot exercise his faith be nevertheless held responsible to exercise repentance? How can God declare someone guilty if all the person can do is sin?

Morales: Paul says, essentially, “Who are you, o man, to shake your fist at God?” This is the first, humbling answer. Then we go on and explain that though we are guilty of Adam’s sin, we increase our guilt by our own sin. That does not mean we are not suddenly not accountable. I think Dr. Sproul’s illustration of grace and justice from his years of teaching applies well here.

Sproul: Suppose God came to me and said, “I want you to cut the grass and if you don’t, you will be guilty.” Then He points out a pit and says, “Now don’t jump in that pit you, otherwise you will be unable to get out and do the job.” If I go jump in the pit, I do not lose my responsibility to mow the grass. This is essentially what happened in Adam.

We are responsible for our own moral inability, and God owes us nothing besides judgment. We chose to jump in the pit. If God comes to me and the grass is not cut, I cannot say He owes me grace. The minute we think God owes us grace is the minute we do not understand it. Grace is unmerited kindness.

Larson: How many of you haven’t heard Dr. Sproul’s illustration of grace and justice? What is it, Dr. Sproul?

Sproul: In 1966, I was teaching a freshman college course of 250 students and assigned three 5–8 page papers that would be due over the course of the semester on October 1, November 1, and December 1. I told the students that unless there is a death or they were are in the infirmary, then they would get an F if not turned in on time. When the first paper was due, 225 students turned in the paper and twenty-five did not have them ready. The twenty-five begged for leniency because they said they were unprepared for college life. I gave it and said, “’Don’t do it again.” On the next due date, November 1, fifty students came without their papers and begged for grace because of homecoming. I said, “Okay,” and gave them an extension. That made me very popular until December 1. One hundred students did not have their papers and said, “Don’t worry Professor Sproul, we’ll have them to you in a few days.” I began marking those students down. Suddenly, they all said, “That’s not fair.” I pointed to one student who had a late paper in November and December and I said, “Oh Johnson, it is justice that is what you want. Your paper was late in November, I’ll go and mark it an F.” Complaints about fairness stopped immediately.

When we first receive grace, we are overwhelmed. The second time we get grace, we take it for granted. The third time we fail, we demand grace. The first time we demand grace, a bell should go off in our heads. God never owes me grace, and He never owes you grace.

R.C. Jr.: Going back to Dr. Morales’ answer, Romans 9 is one of the few such questions that is asked and answered in Scripture. “Who can resist God’s will?” Paul says. It’s really not an answer. His answer, on God’s behalf, is basically this: “I’m God. You belong to me. I can do with you what you will. My goal is to manifest my glory.” If you cannot swallow this, then you do not know the living God. This doesn’t make it easy to swallow, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to encourage dueling verses, but take your Arminian friend to this text and ask them how any of it makes any sense in the way you understand things. Stay with this text. I have friends who transferred to my church because their former church, whose pastor was preaching through Romans, skipped over this text.

Larson: Why do sinners suffer for eternity for sin when Christ did not?

Sproul: Because Christ is of infinite value, His suffering for even one second is of infinite value. Even if a sinner suffers an eternity in hell, and even if eternity never ends, a sinner cannot suffer infinitely. He can never fully satisfy the debt he owes to God even when he spends in an eternity in hell.

As humans, we always stand on the side of human beings. Even if we are penitent sinners and others are impenitent sinners, then at least we have in common that we are sinners. Until we are glorified, we are never going to fully identify with the glory of God. We are always going to have more sympathy with other human beings than the best delight in God’s holiness. The most sanctified person in this world is closer to Hitler than he is to Jesus. We don’t understand that. We do not understand the gravity of our sin. Were the Holy Spirit to reveal it to me all at once, I would die and couldn’t handle it. Thankfully he reveals my sin to me slowly.

I can’t stand the thought of anyone except myself being in hell forever. I know that if I heard that verdict, I would be crushed, but I could not say, “that’s not fair.” That’s why nothing less than the perfect sacrifice, one of infinite value can avail for me. It’s a horrible to know that my non-Christian friends will go to hell if they do not turn to Christ.

R.C. Jr.: The suffering of Jesus is of infinite value because of the incarnation. This is God and man together. That said, one of the great horrors of hell is that an individual goes to hell as a person, as one without the grace of God. Actually, a sinner never goes to hell saying of the verdict: “That’s fair.” They continue to offend the holy and righteous God forever. They continue to sin and store up wrath forever.

Larson: The word orthodoxy is mentioned in different contexts. What is the basic meaning of the word?

Morales: Orthodoxy refers to historic Christianity. We have creeds like the Apostles’ Creed and Nicene Creed. Orthodoxy is the true church that has embraced these doctrines in distinction to the heretics who have denied the truth of the faith.

Larson: How should we deal with separation from a professing Christian who is outwardly involved in sin and yet a part of the covenant community?

Baucham: Matthew 18 shows us that we are to confront sinners in a process that might lead to excommunication. That is part of what sets the church apart from the world.

Sproul: But as an individual, I cannot carry out the penalties of excommunication before the church has delivered its verdict.

Larson: Is there a great gulf or a small stream between John Wesley and John Calvin?

Sproul: In what degree? Theologically? In my opinion, Wesley was regenerate and understood the basics of the faith. However, the doctrines of grace are not minor principles. They talk about the doctrine of God and how people are saved. Wesley did not affirm most of these doctrines of grace. These differences are extremely wide and important, but are not essential for salvation. You do not have to believe in the biblical doctrine of election to be saved or to be a true church. It is not a doctrine of the essence of the church, but it is a doctrine of the well being of the church.

Thus, those who are very hostile to the doctrines of grace are hostile at their great peril. If people ask whether Arminians can be saved, I say, “Yes, barely.” But this is my answer only if they hold to the traditional doctrines of Arminius. When I hear some preachers say the doctrine of predestination is the doctrine of demons, such as Jimmy Swaggart, I worry about the state of their souls.

But most Arminians are not Reformed simply because they have not wrestled strongly with Calvinism. You don’t have to be perfect in theology to get in the kingdom.

R.C. Jr.: There is a temptation to be binary. We can say on the one hand that “this is not in the Apostles’ Creed, so it doesn’t matter and we shouldn’t talk about it.” On the other hand, other people say it is damnable heresy to deny the doctrines of grace. Both ways are errors. We have, however, a historical outworking of the right approach in Wesley and Whitefield. Eventually, Wesley preached a strong sermon against election, and Whitefield then responded with one of the best historical arguments against Arminianism. The response was magnificent, strong, and gracious. In that strength, many of Whitefield’s followers pressed further and asked Whitefield if he would see Wesley in heaven. Whitefield said he didn’t think he would see Wesley because Wesley would so much closer to the throne than he would be.

Still, errors regarding the doctrines of grace are exceedingly serious, just as our errors are exceedingly serious.

Larson: What would you say to parents trying to decide between home schooling and those who want their kids to let their kids be witnesses in the public schools?

Baucham: I think they are making a category error. They are confusing discipleship with evangelism. Essentially, they are asking this question: “Should I give my kids an education that points them toward Christ and acknowledges His lordship, or should I let my kids have an influence on unbelievers.” It is a false dichotomy. Why do we think the only way to have influence on unbelievers is to send our kids to public schools?

We have to discuss things properly in the same category. A question that recognizes the same question would be this: “Should I give my kids an education that acknowledges Christ’s lordship or should I give an education that doesn’t do that?” That is easy to answer, and that’s why people do not ask it.

Sproul: The economic question is a tough one. You can get a free public education or pay private school tuition. Yet a free education can be the most costly thing ever. Public schools are not today what they were fifty or twenty years ago when there was not such a strong built-in hostility to Christianity. Government schools today are a lot different.

Larson: Jesus says, “If you love me you, will obey me.” What does obey really mean in our lives as Christians. If we trust Christ as Savior, how do we deal with the doubt about our own salvation when we do not obey?

Sproul: Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Rom. 10:17). The simple answer is to get in the Bible, as the Spirit works through the Bible to give us assurance.

R.C. Jr.: This warning from Jesus can be very helpful. The solution is not to make everyone assured, for some people need not to be assured because they might be falsely assured. First we start with the gospel. Then we see the Devil’s strategy is accusation. He accuses us of not obeying. Ironically, the Spirit works in a way we think is similar because when We works, He shows us how sinful we are.

Baucham: Pastorally, you worry about the one who does not worry about how obedient he is. The person who is not worried has a standard that is too low.

R.C. Jr.: A great theologian once gave this answer: First, we ask this question “Do I love your God with ALL my heart, soul, mind, and strength?” Of course, we will answer, “no.” Then we ask this question: “Do I love as much as I ought to?” We will again answer, “no.” The last question is this one: “Do you I love Him at all?” The blessing of a robust view of depravity is that we can see the work of the Spirit in us. If we are so sinful, we could only love Him by His grace; thus, if we love the biblical Christ at all, then we are God’s children.

Larson: Thank you all so much.

2011 Fall Conference - Session 4 (Voddie Baucham)

We were pleased to welcome the Rev. Voddie Baucham who brought us the midday message entitled, "The Rescuer". Here is what he had to say:

My piece in this conference is to address the subject of God as rescuer and especially through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.

In Genesis 3:15 we have the thesis statement of the Bible, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel." The rest of the Bible is the outworking of that redemptive plan as we look forward to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and his work on the cross.

And yet we have come to a place where we treat the Bible as though this redemption is only a minor thing or that it is something we only see in the New Testament. I'd like to address the argument about the nature of the rescue. Speaking of the doctrine of penal substitution, one person has said it amounts to cosmic child abuse. Brian Mclaren says it makes God out to be a butcher. So somehow there is this picture of God's rescue that changes from what we see in the Scripture. And you can't change the nature of the rescue without changing the nature of the Rescuer himself. If my house is on fire, what we need is the fire department. The nature of our rescue is that we need the fire department. If I have a burglar I don't call the fire department. I call the "ambulance". The nature of the rescue determines the nature of the rescuer. You also change your understanding of the need of the one being rescued. If I don't need penal substitution then what do I need? Some say what I need is to be at peace with myself. I need therapy. There are those that argue what I really need is social justice. Or some who say what I really need is to be educated. After all, that is the key–the answer to my greatest problem.

Now when we look at the Bible we don't see God crushing the head of the serpent, but a way to be more at peace with ourselves or more just with others. The way we teach the Old Testament we hear time and time again that man needs something other than the rescue we find in the redemption of Jesus Christ.

But that's not the way Jesus taught the Old Testament. In Luke 24 we have one of the most profound questions in all of the Bible. On the road to Emmaus Jesus is walking with some disciples after his resurrection and they have a conversation. They say, "Are you the only one who doesn't understand what's been going on." He says, "I'm the only one who does understand what has been going on. Oh slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken." Jesus doesn't say you should have understood my redemption on the cross because of what I've been telling you, but rather because you have the Old Testament.

John chapter 5 says, "Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?"

What are you talking about, Jesus? Do you mean we can go to the pentateuch and find you and your redemption work. We don't have to read the Old Testament like Aesop's fables? That's exactly what he means. Redemption is not an afterthought in the Bible, we find it in page after page. We must be careful and not allegorize the Old Testament, but the other thing we don't do is go to the Old Testament and read it as if Christ's redemption work is not important. I want to go to a familiar passage in the Old Testament and see the redemptive work of Christ in it. I want us to see Christ in all of his redemptive glory. I want us to have a pattern and hope in the way we deal with the redemption of Christ in the Old Testament.

In Genesis 41 we find the apex of the Joseph story. He has already been in the pit and in prison and at this moment Pharaoh announces his approval of Joseph. He has interpreted the dreams. The first two dreams got him into the pit. He tells his brothers then he tells his father. After this we see him in the pit. After this there is another pair of dreams. One ends marvelously the other not so much. And now he stands before Pharaoh who asks for the interpretation of his dreams. He interprets the healthy and sick ears of corns and healthy and sick cows. and he tells Pharaoh there are going to be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine.

At this moment we see what is considered the pay off of his life. In Sunday school this is how it goes. "Have you ever been hated? Joseph was hated, but because he endured these circumstances God elevated him." The moral of the story is if you will trust God despite difficulties God will elevate you to a place of prominence. Really? I beg to differ. If you are reading Genesis for the first time, when you get to chapter 41 the first time you don't cheer. You get on your face and pray for Joseph. Let me explain. In verse 37 we have to see this in its grammatical, historical context in order to understand Christ's redemptive work. "This proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants. And Pharaoh said to his servants, 'Can we find a man like this, in whom is the Spirit of God?' Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, 'Since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only as regards the throne will I be greater than you.' And Pharaoh said to Joseph, 'See I have set you over all the land of Egypt.'" Now all of a sudden he's gone from the pit to Potipher to prison and now to Pharaoh. Now we say this is the payoff moment. I don't think so. He is part of the covenant community. That covenant is not that you will serve pagan kings.

But there's more. "Then pharaoh took his signet ring… by the way there is an intentional reference here that goes back to the first dream joseph interpreted. his brothers would rather have killed him than bow the knee to them. family didn't accept you, covenant comma didn't accept you, but that 's okay. pagans will bow to you. he's got the ring, and he's riding in the "Benz". Not only does he have pagan power but pagan wealth. "It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. And again in the Sunday school lesson, this is why you hold on. If you do God will give you great power and wealth. After all that's what life is about. "And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphenath-paneah." Now he has a pagan name - a paging identity. We say this is the payoff moment. Why in Genesis 41 do we praise this, but in Daniel 1 we decry it? They get their names changed. Joseph gets the exact same thing. Is that what Genesis 41 is about–pagan wealth? No. There is final piece of the puzzle. "And he gave him in marriage Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On." Now he's got a pagan wife. God makes a covenant with his people. It has to do with the promise land and now Joseph is taken away from his father, and covenant community and we say, "Just hold on in difficult circumstances, Jr. and you can have that too." If this is the way we interpret Genesis 41 why do we get angry at a boy who grows up and give his entire life to a corporation in order to attain wealth. If we challenge him all he has to do is go back to his Sunday school lesson of Genesis 41.

There is another reason why this can't be what it's about. In verse 50 two sons are born to him. Watch what is happening in the naming of his sons and you will see that he doesn't see this as the payoff moment. He gave his boys Hebrew names. He says to everyone I do not consider myself an Egyptian I'm a Hebrew. This is not my payoff moment. Secondly, his second boy's name does not mean that I've forgotten my fathers house. I have forgotten the afflictions. My translation is "I let that stuff go." I do not choose to define myself by the difficulties I have encountered this far in my journey with God. We think, "Joseph, embrace Egypt. It was because of your brothers that you spent years as a slave. He says, "I let that stuff go."

I do not define myself by those things. Instead I look to a promise of God. The name of his first born, Ephraim - God has blessed me in the land of my affliction. Joseph says Egypt is the land of his affliction. Not the land of payoff. Yeah, but your rich. It's the land of my affliction. Why? Because this is not what I was living for. I'm a child of the covenant. A child of the one true God. I don't exist to serve pagan kings.

So why Genesis 41? I'm so glad you asked. Joseph answers this question when his brothers show up. When he reveals himself to his brothers and here's what happens. He doesn't say I'm the one you sent into slavery. He doesn't say I'm the one you didn't think much of but now God has made much of me. That's what you would have said. How do I know that? Because that's what I would have said. but what does Joseph say to his brothers? "I'm your brother who you sold into slavery." He says, "Do not be angry with yourselves because God sent me here to save you."

Joseph doesn't say God sent me here to give me all the things that egypt has to offer. God sent me here because God is a rescuer. God made a promise to Abraham that through his seed redemption will come. We see the covenant through the line of Abraham, Isaac and then Jacob comes. His wife Leah gives birth to Ruben, Simeon, Levi and Judah. In Genesis 38 there seems to be a chapter out of place because it's not about Joseph it's about Judah. God redeems Judah. Then later we see Judah say I will be a substitute for Benjamin. Does that sound familiar? Judah's line leads to David. What does he do? He brings forth his presence with authority. He goes down to Goliath as the representative substitute of all of God's people and is victorious. Great King David eventually has a greater son who is the Lion of Judah. The promised seed who will crush the head of the serpent. What does Jesus do? Like his forbearers, He stands as a substitute on behalf of God's elect, lays down his life, accepts the wrath of God that all of God's people might be rescued. Why Genesis 41? Because God rescues Joseph in order to rescue Judah in order to rescue Israel in order to rescue me. This is not about material wealth. This is about rescue and redemption. This is about God the Rescuer. When the first Adam died we all died in him. The last Adam died and as a result we shall all feast with Him. This is not only why Genesis 41, but the whole Old Testament matters and makes sense. It points to God's redeeming and rescuing work in the person of Christ. Therefore regardless of where your story ends up, you must find it's significance in God's redemption and rescue. If you don't you are settling for something far more insignificant.

2011 Fall Conference - Session 3 (R.C. Sproul Jr.)

We continued the morning sessions at the 2011 Fall Conference with Dr. R.C. Sproul Jr. speaking on "Lord of Space & Time". Looking at Matthew 7, Dr. Sproul's focus was on helping us come to a better understanding of God's sovereign authority.

We read in Matthew 7:1, "Judge not, that you be not judged." This is a common verse we hear from our unbelieving friends, but God isn't saying here that we're not supposed to judge. How can you not judge unless you stop judging the judging of others? Jesus isn't saying that we are not to judge at all, but He's telling us to judge carefully and honestly. The danger is that in our judging we fail to be mindful of our own sins because as humans, we are manifesting and reflecting the very character of God.

In his Institutes, John Calvin explains that our understanding of God is shaped by our understanding of man. And our understanding of man is shaped by our understanding of God. God is a God of relationship—the Father to the Son, the Son to the Father, and both to the Holy Spirit. This defines who God is and yet we struggle with coming to grasp the unity of the Trinity. Not only is God a God of relationship, but so are we.

What is man's chief end? We know from the Westminster Shorter Catechism that man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Oh, if we could only learn to master that. But what is God's chief end? God's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That's what He's for. That is His purpose.

Children can ask a myriad of questions: "How did we get here?" "How did things get to be the way they are?" And the list can go on and on. We can go all the way back to the Garden of Eden with these questions. How did all of creation come to be? What is it's purpose? To answer these questions, we must go back to the beginning, to the Trinity: God glorifying God and enjoying Him forever. Before all time and creation, the Trinity was complete in and of itself, enjoying and glorifying each other with a complete and absolute joy. But that leads us to a dilemma. If God's joy was so complete, why did He make the world?

When we do things, we do them because of a perceived lack. We eat because we're hungry. We sleep because we're tired. But God has no lack—He didn't create the universe to solve a problem. He created the universe not due to lack but out of manifestation of his lacklessness. The universe is God's expression for His complete, internal satisfaction and completeness. God is glorious. God is complete, the creation then being a theater of God's glory. No matter how glorious the message of a theater, the real glory is told in the story found on the stage. The story in the theater of creation is the story of the glory of Jesus Christ, the Lord of space and time.

In Scripture, we read of God having a "strong right arm." That's a relational term. A strong right arm protects the beloved, attacks the enemy, and is the wing we come under to find comfort and peace. The same is true when we understand that God's Lordship is not merely a title but a description of His relationship to all of creation. God is not just a glowing ball of power, but God is the judge of heaven and earth. This judging is not merely something God does, but it's who He is. God speaks and it happens. That's a manifestation of sovereign power and a strong right arm. In Genesis, the text tells us at the end of each day, God looks at his own work and saw that it was good. As the judge, God pronounces His judgment of blessing.

We have a tendency of only thinking of judgment as something guilty. But God's judgment includes the pronouncement of blessing and peace. In Scripture, we see that God judges from beginning to end. The Fall happens and God shows up. What does he do? He pronounces judgment first to the serpent but then God judges blessing and promise on the woman and her seed. In judgment, God brings promise. We see God show up again with Cain. When God pronounces woe, He pronounces blessing on His people. His judgment on Cain is a vindication of Abel. We see this again and again throughout Scripture with Noah, the tower of Babel, Egypt and the Israelites, and even through the reign of David who, as we read in Psalms, cries out to God to fix the wickedness of the world. After David, we see the rise and fall of kings as God continues His judgment through His prophets until finally the seed of the woman comes.

If we want to understand the Incarnation, we have to see the centrality of judgment. "Why the God-man?" asks us to think of all the ways that God could manifest His glory. Some think of hell as merely a contrast for the scope of our redemption in Christ, as a place God sheepishly created to display this contrast. But this is not what Paul says in Romans 9. God wanted to make his wrath known. The God that we worship, the God of the Bible, rejoices to exercise His justice on sinners.

The glory of the gospel is that God did not sacrifice judging with justice in order to be able to judge with mercy. God could have winked at our sin by merely passing over our sins. But love won because instead of sacrificing justice, He sacrificed His Son. He not only pronounced Jesus guilty, but exercised His judgment by pouring out the fullness of his wrath. When we think of judgment as urge only in the negative, we miss who God is.

2011 Fall Conference - Session 2 (George Grant)

Dr. George Grant began the Saturday portion of Ligonier’s The Autobiography of God with his lecture “Before All Time.” Here is what he said about the Lord’s eternal triune existence:

Nothing New Under the Sun

Let’s turn to Gen. 1:24–28. We’ll note verses 26–27 in particular: “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

The Preacher in Ecclesiastes said that “what has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” (1:9).

Indeed, there is nothing new under the sun. The pagan preconceptions of scientific modernity match the pagan presuppositions of the myths of antiquity. The doubt of the present looks like the doubt of the past. Ancient Greek and Babylonian creation myths depicted man as the result of an accident caused by capricious forces, another happenstance of the long chain of being. Man, in these stories, is therefore little different than any other material creation. Sound familiar?

Whether taught by Sennacherib’s astrologers or Darwin’s biotheorists, the philosophical commitment remains the same. Man can enjoy no special place in the world because there is nothing special about man or the world. Mythmakers past and present share ontological (being) and epistemological (knowledge) assumptions loaded with specious metaphysical claims. Today, capricious gods are traded for random amino acids, but the argument is the same, and so is the resulting inhuman humanism.

A Different View

But the Genesis account of creation, especially the sixth day, provides a corrective. It tells us that man is no accident or extension of what came before. Man is pivotal, the crowing glory of a personal, intimate, creation made by a personal Creator. At the beginning of God’s autobiography is the biography of man. In telling man’s story, God reveals much about Himself—His preexistent self-sufficiency and his glorious covenant relationship from before time.

At first glance, day six looks much like the other five days. Like the other days, God made, God saw, and God said it was good (Gen. 1:31). But notice in verse 26 that the familiar falls away and the narrative grows longer and more detailed. The language is altogether new when the story turns from beast to man. We have an interruption in the creation pattern. We have something new and glorious, not just a continuation of a series of processes. And this change is no accident.

Verse 26 says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” The use of the plural pronoun here is striking. Some commentators explain it as the royal “we,” the plurality of majesty, the language of deliberation, or a plural intensive. But we can’t help but assume that also here is the first glimmering of Trinitarian revelation. Here God reveals Himself as Elohim. This plural noun is pared with singular verbs, providing a hint that the one God, in eternity past, dwelt in community: one God existing in three persons.

We cannot find an explicit definition of Trinity in the Old Testament, but we do find scattered hints there, as Dr. R.C. Sproul says in his booklet, What is the Trinity?

In his Reformed Dogmatics, Herman Bavinck says, “The seeds that developed into the full flower of New Testament Trinitarian revelation are already planted in the OT.” He notes that God calls all things into existence by the mediation of the Word, and He is present by His Spirit (Gen. 1:2; Ps. 33; Isa. 40). He preserves His people by His Word and Spirit.

Genesis 1 hints at the Trinity not only in plural pronouns but also in the declarative, consultative language: “Let us” (v. 26). Some translators suggest that this can be rendered as “shall we?”

This reveals a divine harmony, an equality of the persons, the glory and majesty of the preexistent One in three. God in all of his glory and majesty makes a mark on his creation like never before. We see light and glory before this. He orders all creation in days one through five, showing His character and what He is like.

But on day six, in this deliberative language with plural pronouns, God shows us something far more powerful. He makes man after our image and likeness. These words are synonyms, though they have slightly different nuances. Image is concrete, while likeness is more abstract. The point is that the creation of man shows us — the image of God in man — shows us something unique and glorious. The crowning glory of the work of creation is man’s relation to the Lord God.

Immediately, we see that man is to exercise co-regency on the earth. In verse 27, He creates the image of God as male and female. He makes man in community with unity and diversity, equal but not identical. This is a revelation of God Himself and His nature.

The Glory of the Trinity

The fourth-century church faced enormous challenges. Escaping the persecution of Diocletian at the beginning of the century, the church was forced to endure many schisms. No challenge was greater than Arianism. For generations, Arianism shook the church and brought devastation to the life of the church. God in His wisdom raised up faithful apologists, not the least of whom was Athanasius, the one who stood contra mundum (against the world) to stand and fight for biblical orthodoxy.

Dr. Sproul also notes in What Is the Trinity? that the concept of the Trinity has emerged as a touchstone and non-negotiable truth of Christian orthodoxy. We can say that this in large measure due to the courage and biblical fidelity of Athanasius. Remarkably, however, while he understood that Arianism was a heresy about the Son that diminished the Son’s deity and glory, Athanasius recognized that Arianism was equally an assault on the Father and Spirit. After all, the one who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father (John 5:23).

Athanasius begins with Genesis 1, arguing that the great flowering of Trinitarian theology that comes with the revelation of Jesus in John 1; 8; and 17 ultimately finds its origin in Genesis 1. God reveals who He is in creating man. Athanasius insisted that it is not possible to have a Christology (doctrine of Christ) without a doctrine of the Father and a Pneumatology (doctrine of the Holy Spirit).

C.S. Lewis discusses the Trinity in Mere Christianity. He describes the eternal relationship between Father and Son, saying that we must think of the Son as eternally streaming forth from the Father and know that there was never a time when the Son was not saying what the Father was saying. Yet he reminds us that the Father and the Son are not two things but two persons, and so we should go back to the personal language of Father and Son in Bible because God knows best how to describe Himself.

The most important thing to know about the Trinity is that it is a relationship of love. The Father loves the Son, who delights in the Father, and the Spirit illumines this love to all creation. This is what we mean when we say “God is love.” The dynamic relationship of love has been going on in God forever, and it has resulted in everything else. This love created the imago Dei, the image of God in mankind.

The Trinity gives us a way to say that God really is love in a meaningful sense. That is the major difference between Christianity and every other religion and philosophy. In Scripture, God is a dynamic, pulsating relationship and not a static force.

In Genesis 1, we catch a glimpse of this triune God, a tantalizing glimpse that we do not see more fully until the incarnation of Christ.

At the very beginning of the Bible, we catch glimpses of a glory that will unfold marvelously and seamlessly. Mutual love brings forth all things, and then, by His decrees, God unfolds redemption until the end of time. This is the picture of the living God.

On the sixth day, mankind is fearfully and wonderfully made. We are not the result of capricious gods or random collisions of molecules. This reveals much about man’s nature and purpose. At the same time it reveals much about the nature and purpose of God and His providential purposes. The autobiography of God begins with the biography of man.

Dr. Sproul says in What is the Trinity? that one of the best ways to learn orthodoxy (right doctrine) is to learn what is false. Heresy has forced the church to define orthodoxy, to be precise about what is true and false. In the creation of man and woman we see the triune God revealed, which has Trinitarian implications for all of life. Unfortunately, we often give lip service to the Trinity but live as practical Arians.

Thomas Chalmers, in His astronomical discourses, says that we should look at the fullness of creation and see Father, Son, and Spirit infiltrating history from all time and laying the groundwork for all eternity, motivating change in all that we do and all that we are.

May God be pleased to strike us again with the glory of the Trinity. May we see in these glimmerings of the Trinity our marching orders and a wondrous picture of the God of love from before all time.