R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 66

Are You Hopeful for Another Spiritual Awakening in Our Day?

Can we hope to see another great awakening to the gospel in our lifetime? From one of our live events, R.C. Sproul and Derek Thomas provide global and historical perspectives on the Lord’s work in causing resurgences of the Christian faith.

When you have biblical and theological questions, just ask Ligonier.

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What Does ‘Ex Nihilo’ Mean?

Until the Enlightenment, the most firmly established article of Christian faith in the secular world was that of creation. It had been established not only by revelation but also by reason, not only by religion but also by science. To medieval philosophers, the idea of something coming from nothing was absurd, unscientific, and illogical. If something exists, it must either have the power of being in itself or it must come from something that has the power of being in itself. Otherwise, nothing at all could exist. This point is important because atheists and secularists in recent centuries have focused their attention on creation. If they can undermine our certainty that we live in a created universe, they can undermine any argument for the existence of God. If you do away with creation, you do away with the Creator.

The classic Christian doctrine of creation is creation ex nihilo (out of nothing). The writer who most thoroughly developed this concept was Augustine. He said God spoke the universe into being out of nothing. God did not take eternally preexisting matter or substance and reshape or reconfigure it into the present world. His creative activity is not like that of human artists.

Think of Michelangelo, who sculpted magnificent statues from stone. Michelangelo believed that he did not create a statue but released the figure from its stone prison. It is inconceivable that his statues could have created themselves without the work of a master sculptor. Michelangelo’s genius was his unique ability to reshape a block of stone into a magnificent figure. But he had to start with some substance or material. Similarly, Rembrandt had to begin with his canvas and paints. His inventive brilliance was in working with materials already at his disposal. We call this creativity, but no one in this world has the power or ability to create something out of nothing. Only God can do that.

When we assert creation ex nihilo, the obvious question is, How could God possibly do such a thing? It almost sounds like magic, where God is the magician who pulls a rabbit out of a hat. But in the act of creation, there were no trick mirrors, no rabbits, no hats, and not even a magic wand. Every effect must have a cause. There are different kinds of causes. Aristotle, for example, differentiated between several kinds, using the example of a sculpture: its material cause (out of which something comes) is the block of stone; its instrumental cause (the means by which the effect is brought to pass) is the chisel and hammer, instruments the sculptor uses to bring about the effect; its formal cause (the idea to which the effect must correspond) is the sketch used as the image is shaped; its final cause (the purpose for which it is made) is to beautify a building, fulfill a commission, or some other reason. Aristotle also distinguished between efficient and sufficient causes: the efficient cause is the sculptor, who actually brings about the sculpture; the sufficient cause is the power needed to bring the effect into being.

Creation had neither a material nor an instrumental cause. There was a formal cause, a final cause, an efficient cause, and a sufficient cause. The formal cause was God’s idea and plan to create the world, not out of necessity or His own need, but according to His own purpose. The final cause was God’s purpose, a plan He executed initially by the actual work of creation. The final cause was God’s ultimate glory and our well-being (which also redounds to His glory). God was both the efficient cause and the sufficient cause because He alone had the power to bring something out of nothing.

By what means did God accomplish the feat of creation ex nihilo? By His speech. Augustine called this the divine imperative or fiat. God spoke the words “Let there be” (Gen. 1:3, 6, 14)—meaning “There must be”—and things appeared. In the film Anna and the King of Siam, the king frequently says, “So let it be said; so let it be done.” That is an imperial command that cannot be countermanded. In creation, there was no block of stone or mass of unstructured matter, but only the command of God, who alone had the power to make things happen simply by uttering a command. It was the power of His word that created.

By the power of His word and His sovereign, efficacious will, God can make things happen simply by decree. We see this demonstrated to some degree when at Jesus’ command the Sea of Galilee stopped raging and the wind ceased blowing. Jesus said: “Peace! Be still!” (Mark 4:39), and it was still. In response, the disciples’ fear increased rather than decreased. Terrified of Jesus, they cried out, “Who then is this?” (Mark 4:41). They had never met someone with an authority so transcendent, holy, and majestic that even the winds and the sea obeyed him.

Jesus also displayed this power when raising Lazarus from the dead . After being dead for four days, Lazarus, in the language of the King James Version, “stinketh” (John 11:39) . That description underscored the fact that Lazarus was indeed dead, and that his body had begun to decay . When raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus stood outside the tomb and cried out, “Lazarus, come out” (John 11:43) . At the verbal command of the incarnate Christ, Lazarus’ heart immediately began to pulsate and to pump blood throughout his vessels, oxygen began to flow, brain waves were initiated, and Lazarus woke up and came out of the tomb a living man.

In the book of Romans, Paul speaks of the uniqueness of God, who alone can bring something out of nothing and life out of death (Rom. 4:17). Paul tells us that the energizing power of God’s Word is that which raises us from spiritual death and translates us from the kingdom of dark- ness into the kingdom of light. God can assure His church that His Word will not return to Him void because it contains His power (Isa . 55:11) . We stand in awe that our Creator formed the entire vast universe out of nothing by the sheer command of His voice.

Some profound philosophical questions flow from the concept of creation ex nihilo. Although there was no preexistent material out of which God ordered the universe, it is not as if there was absolutely nothing. Ex nihilo means that there was no substantive or physical reality, but obviously there was always God Himself and His spiritual reality. We learn in Scripture never to identify the universe or any part of it with God Himself. To confuse the Creator and the creature is to fall into pantheism, which obscures the clear distinction between creature and Creator. Yet we hear from the Apostle Paul, citing Greek poets, that “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). For our very existence we are utterly dependent on the sustaining power of God. That which He creates, God holds in existence. We depend on Him not only for the original act of creation but also for existence from moment to moment. There is no life apart from Him.

When we say that our being is in God, we raise the question of whether the stuff of the universe is an extension of God’s being, somehow a part of Him. This gives rise to forms of pantheism. It is difficult to understand how God, who is infinite in His being, can permeate everything and yet allow something to exist that is completely distinct from His own being. We do, in some sense, owe our existence to His very being, but that does not deify us in any way. There is a distinction between self-existence and creaturely existence, and we are never to think of ourselves as little gods or sparks of the infinite. We do not exist on our own power but depend every second on the being of God for our existence. We are not God, and how we exist under the influence of His creative power is something that no one can explain. Of this we can be certain: unless that power of being is over us and prior to us, nothing could possibly be.

This excerpt is adapted from Truths We Confess by R.C. Sproul. In Truths We Confess, now thoroughly revised and available in a single, accessible volume, Dr. Sproul introduces readers to this remarkable confession, explaining its insights and applying them to modern life. Order the hardcover book today.

Who Was the Most Famous Woman in America During the 1920s?

Who was the most famous woman in 1920s America? From his series A Survey of Church History, W. Robert Godfrey describes Aimee Semple McPherson, who not only influenced the Pentecostal movement but also impressed entertainers like Anthony Quinn and Charlie Chaplin.

Transcript:

One of the interesting testimonies to the ability of Aimee Semple McPherson came from the actor Anthony Quinn. Some of you will remember Anthony Quinn, a very distinguished actor at one point in American movies. Late in his life, he was interviewed about his early experiences, and he was asked, "Who were some of the really great influences on you in your youth?" Without a moment's hesitation he said, "Aimee Semple McPherson." The interviewer was sort of thunderstruck. He said, "When I was 16 years old, I was being raised by my Mexican grandmother in Los Angeles. My grandmother became quite ill, and we sent to the Temple if someone could come and pray for my grandmother. And Aimee Semple McPherson came and prayed for my grandmother. My grandmother got better—not immediately—but got better. And then Aimee turned to me and said, 'What are you interested in, young man?'” Anthony Quinn said, “I play the trombone.” She said, “Well, we have a band at the Temple. You come and play in the Temple band.” He said, “I went and played in the Temple band, and then she asked me to come along and be a translator for her when she went out to preach in Hispanic communities." The interviewer said, "Well, that must have been a really funny experience when you look back on it." He said, "I never met anyone so kind as Aimee Semple McPherson, and I never met anyone who could control an audience the way Aimee Semple McPherson could." He said, "I worked with Greta Garbo, and I worked with Katharine Hepburn, and they didn't hold a candle to Aimee." Charlie Chaplin used to come into the Temple and sit in the back just to watch her work. He was so impressed. She was a phenomenon. She was the most famous woman in America in the 1920s. There was a story about Aimee in the L.A. Times at least once a week through the whole decade of the 1920s. She was a phenomenon. She was remarkable. She anticipated, in the craziness of Pentecostal worship, what now is widely known as evangelical worship. She was a pioneer. She was an influence. She is someone to be taken seriously and thoughtfully by all of us because of the impact she would have later, but also because she is a window on what was going on in the developing Pentecostalism of the 1920s.

May Christians Vote for a Presidential Candidate Who Denies the Trinity?

May Christians vote for a presidential candidate who denies the Trinity or follows a false religion? From our 2012 West Coast Conference, R.C. Sproul, Steven Lawson, and John MacArthur examine the relationship between the church and civil government.

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

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Enjoying God Is a Command

While shaking hands at the church door, ministers are sometimes greeted with a spontaneous, "I really enjoyed that!"—which is immediately followed by, "Oh! I shouldn't really say that, should I?" I usually grip tighter, hold the handshake a little longer, and say with a smile, "Doesn't the catechism's first question encourage us to do that? If we are to enjoy Him forever, why not begin now?"

Of course, we cannot enjoy God apart from glorifying Him. And the Westminster Shorter Catechism wisely goes on to ask, "What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him?" But notice that Scripture contains the "rule" for enjoying God as well as glorifying Him. We know it abounds in instructions for glorifying Him, but how does it instruct us to "enjoy him"?

Enjoying God is a command, not an optional extra: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice" (Phil. 4:4). But how? We cannot "rejoice to order," can we?

True. Yet, Scripture shows that well-instructed believers develop a determination to rejoice. They will rejoice in the Lord. Habakkuk exemplified this in difficult days (see Hab. 3:17–18). He exercised what our forefathers called "acting faith"—a vigorous determination to experience whatever the Lord commands, including joy, and to use the God-given means to do so. Here are four of these means—in which, it should be noted, we also glorify God.

Joy in Salvation

Enjoying God means relishing the salvation He gives us in Jesus Christ. "I will take joy in the God of my salvation" (Hab. 3:18). God takes joy in our salvation (Luke 15:6–7, 9–10, 32). So should we. Here, Ephesians 1:3–14 provides a masterly delineation of this salvation in Christ. It is a gospel bath in which we should often luxuriate, rungs on a ladder we should frequently climb, in order to experience the joy of the Lord as our strength (Neh. 8:10). While we are commanded to have joy, the resources to do so are outside of ourselves, known only through union with Christ.

Joy in Revelation

Joy issues from devouring inscripturated revelation. Psalm 119 bears repeated witness to this. The psalmist "delights" in God's testimonies "as much as in all riches" (Ps. 119:14; see also vv. 35, 47, 70, 77, 103, 162, 174). Think of Jesus' words, "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full" (John 15:11). Does He mean He will find His joy in us, so that our joy may be full, or that His joy will be in us so that our joy may be full? Both, surely, are true. We find full joy in the Lord only when we know He finds His joy in us. The pathway to joy, then, is to give ourselves maximum exposure to His Word and to let it dwell in us richly (Col. 3:16). It is joy-food for the joy-hungry soul.

Joy in Communion

There is joy in the Lord to be tasted in the worship we enjoy in church communion. The church is the new Jerusalem, the city that cannot be hidden, the joy of the whole earth (Ps. 48:2). In the Spirit-led communion of praise and petition; soul pastoring; Word preaching; psalm, hymn, and spiritual song singing; and water, bread, and wine receiving, abundant joy is to be found. The Lord sings over us with joy (Zeph. 3:17). Our hearts sing for joy in return.

Joy in Tribulation

Here, indeed, is a divine paradox. There is joy to be known in the midst of and through affliction. Viewed biblically, tribulation is the Father's chastising hand using life's pain and darkness to mold us into the image of the One who endured for the sake of the joy set before Him (Heb. 12: 1–2, 5–11; see Rom. 8:29). We exult and rejoice in our sufferings, Paul says, because "suffering produces . . . hope" in us (Rom. 5:3–4). Peter and James echo the same principle (1 Peter 1:3–8; James 1:2–4). The knowledge of the sure hand of God in providence not only brings stability; it is also a joy-producer.

All of this adds up to exultation in God Himself. In Romans 5:1–11, Paul leads us from rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God (v. 2) to joy that comes in tribulation (v. 3) to exulting in God Himself (v. 11; see Ps. 43:4). The unbeliever finds this incredible, because he has been blinded by the joy-depriving lie of Satan that to glorify God is the high road to joylessness. Thankfully, Christ reveals that the reverse takes place in Him—because of our salvation, through His revelation, in worship's blessed communion, and by means of tribulation.

Enjoy! Yes, indeed, may "everlasting joy . . . be upon [your] heads" (Isa. 51:11).

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.

$5 Friday (And More): William Carey, Baptism, & the Psalms

It’s time for our weekly $5 Friday sale. This week’s resources include such topics as William Carey, baptism, the Psalms, reformed theology, John Calvin, parenting, and more.

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

The Reformation Study Bible , eBook Download $25 $12
By Grace Alone: How the Grace of God Amazes Me by Sinclair Ferguson, Audiobook Download $15 $7
In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life by Sinclair Ferguson, Audiobook Download $15 $7
Willing to Believe by R.C. Sproul, Audiobook Download $15 $7
The Legacy of Luther by Various Authors, Audiobook Download $15 $7
Parenting by God’s Promises: How to Raise Children in the Covenant of Grace by Joel Beeke, Audiobook Download $17 $7
The Moment of Truth by Steven Lawson, eBook Download $9 $6
Learning to Love the Psalms by W. Robert Godfrey, eBook Download $9 $6
Acts: An Expositional Commentary by R.C. Sproul, eBook Download $9 $6
John: An Expositional Commentary by R.C. Sproul, eBook Download $9 $6
Romans: An Expositional Commentary by R.C. Sproul, eBook Download $12 $7
Foundations of Grace by Steven Lawson, eBook Download $12 $7
Pillars of Grace by Steven Lawson, eBook Download $12 $7

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

View today’s $5 Friday sale items.

Growing Opportunities for Trustworthy Teaching around the World

In the Lord’s good providence, more people than ever are looking to Ligonier Ministries for trusted teaching from God’s Word. We strive to be there for growing Christians in these unique and challenging days by providing as many people as possible with discipleship resources that exalt the holiness of God.

This rise in demand for ministry and the increase of our gospel outreach aren’t limited to the English-speaking world, however. With thanksgiving to God, we are pleased to announce the translation of significant teaching resources into key international languages. Thank you to all of our Ministry Partners and faithful supporters who make this global outreach possible by your prayers and generosity.

Farsi Outreach

Our social media channels in Farsi, the language of the Iranian people, are now live. Daily posts on Facebook and Twitter are bringing the hope and consolation of God’s Word into Iran, where Christians continue to suffer great persecution, and to Farsi-speaking believers scattered throughout many countries. New content is also being added to our Farsi website.

At the same time, satellite TV is broadcasting Farsi-dubbed teaching series with Dr. R.C. Sproul and other Ligonier teachers into the Middle East. Christians in Iran are expressing their thanks to God:

“Having Ligonier resources available in Farsi is an answer to prayer. For a long time, we were praying that the Lord would provide solid Reformed resources for Farsi-speaking believers, and now we have received the answer. We use these materials for personal study and our small groups. We are so blessed, and we pray for Ligonier Ministries. We are praying that we can eventually have access to the entire Ligonier library in Farsi.”—Babak

“I am former Muslim, and all the time I had questions about the person of Christ. I came to Christ because I was tired of Islam, but I didn’t have a true understanding about the person of Christ, and every single day I have been asked a lot of questions about person and work of Christ from others. I want to thank you for the Christology Statement. It has opened my eyes to have a better understanding about Jesus.”—Mohammad

Christology Statement

The Ligonier Statement on Christology is now available in 20 written languages, including Farsi. Editions were released in Polish and Modern Hebrew earlier this summer. We aim to continue translation into other languages. The statement summarizes the biblical teaching on the person and work of Christ with beauty, clarity, and simplicity, bringing the biblical and historic teaching of the church to new readers today.

Spanish Outreach

A ministry milestone will be reached in September with the much-anticipated release of the Reformation Study Bible in Spanish. This monumental project has been overseen by Ligonier’s Spanish Outreach team and is now available for preorder. Lord willing, we will bring you more news in the coming weeks. Later in 2020, we’ll also see the release of the Reformation Study Bible in Portuguese.

The Spanish edition of Renewing Your Mind, Renovando Tu Mente, is being broadcast on more than 120 radio stations across several Spanish-speaking countries, as well as online. On our Spanish YouTube channel, the equivalent of almost 20 years of continuous program content has been watched.

Also, in recent months, two children’s titles by Dr. Sproul have been published in Spanish for the first time (The Priest With Dirty Clothes and The Prince’s Poison Cup).

Arabic Outreach

Ligonier’s output in Arabic continues to be far-reaching. Our popular Arabic Facebook page now has more than 110,000 followers. In recent months, we released Dr. Sproul’s classic video teaching series The Holiness of God and Chosen by God subtitled in Arabic for the first time. They are available, along with 14 other series, on our Arabic website.

In addition, Ligonier’s Arabic-language resources are now available for purchase online in North America and the Middle East. Work continues on translating additional titles into Arabic.

The Holiness of God: French Edition

Dr. Sproul’s renowned book The Holiness of God has been published in French for the first time. This title is being made available to French-speaking people around the world, and it can also be downloaded for free on our French website.

Compared to all that is available in English, trustworthy theological resources in French are few and far between. Ligonier is working to change that. Another classic book by R.C. Sproul, Chosen by God, is now being translated into French, and we expect to add more titles in the coming years.

Chinese Outreach

Later this year, we plan to launch our online outreach in Chinese. By God’s grace, this is an answer to many years of prayer. A new designated website, available in both simplified and traditional Chinese, as well as a new YouTube channel, will open up access to resources by Dr. Sproul and other teachers to Chinese-speaking people worldwide. This outreach will feature subtitled and dubbed videos, articles, books, and more, in one of the most-spoken languages on earth. Please join with us in praying that these efforts will have a deep and widespread impact for the kingdom of God.

Help Us Reach More People with Trustworthy Teaching

We appreciate your prayers on behalf of the international outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Your support of Ligonier makes gospel outreach possible in these and other languages. Thank you for helping us reach even more people around the world with the truth of God’s holiness and the message of His saving grace in Jesus Christ.

Peace as a Fruit of the Spirit

Here’s an excerpt from Peace as a Fruit of the Spirit, Joel E. Smit's contribution to the July issue of Tabletalk:

As the pastor of my local congregation, I raise my hands each Sunday and pronounce the benediction on the people of God, often using the Aaronic blessing from Numbers 6: “The LORD bless you and keep you . . . the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (vv. 24–26). Yet, everyone leaves the worship service and enters a world that is anything but peaceful. Our personal lives are chaotic, stressful, and filled with worry, and almost immediately, those words of blessing seem to fade as we navigate our days, trying to juggle what life throws our way. We love the idea of peace, but it is often elusive and seemingly far from us.

Continue reading Peace as a Fruit of the Spirit, 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.

Which Old Testament Translation Did Calvin Use?

During the Reformation, cities like Strasbourg, France, and Basel, Switzerland, saw a resurgence in the study of Hebrew. From one of our live Ask Ligonier events, Stephen Nichols surveys this scholarship and its influence on Luther and Calvin.

Get answers to your biblical and theological questions online as they arise at Ask.Ligonier.org.

What Came Before God?

People may argue that if every effect has a cause, then God must have a cause. They may therefore ask, What was there before God? But the eternal God is not an effect. There never was a time when He was not. God’s being is derived from nothing outside of Himself, nor is He dependent on anything outside of Himself. Nothing differentiates God from the creature more dramatically than this, because the creature, by definition, is dependent, contingent, and derived and lacks the power of being in and of himself. God requires nothing; He exists from all eternity.

Eternality goes in the other direction as well. There will never be a time in the future when God will cease to be. His being remains self-existent for all eternity. If anything exists, then something has always existed. If there ever was absolutely nothing, then nothing could possibly be now, because you cannot get something out of nothing. Conversely, if there is something now, then that in itself demonstrates that there always was something. And that which always is exists in and of itself. That is the One who has the power of being within Himself, the living God. So His eternality is another attribute that should incite our souls to adoration and praise: we are made by One who has the very power of being in Himself eternally. Imagine the greatness of a being like that.

His eternality, perhaps more than anything else, sets God apart from us. His holiness refers not only to His purity but also to His otherness or transcendence—the sense in which He is different from us. One thing we human beings have in common is that we are creatures, who by nature are temporal. At the end of a person’s life, when he is buried, his grave is marked by a tombstone on which are inscribed his name and the dates of his birth and death. We live on this earth between those two dates: birth and death. There are no such dates for God. He is infinite not only with respect to space but also with respect to time. There never was a time when God was not. He is from everlasting to everlasting. God’s eternality is inseparably related to His self-existence, His aseity. Yet the word aseity is virtually absent from the average Christian’s vocabulary. Aseity means “to have being or existence within oneself.”

The mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell, in Why I Am Not a Christian, spelled out the reasons for his unbelief. Until he was a teenager, Russell had been convinced that there had to be a God to explain the universe. Then he read John Stuart Mill, who disputed the traditional cosmological argument for God’s existence, which reasons from the presence of things that are now in existence back to a first cause. This reasoning is based on the law of causality, which says that every effect must have an antecedent cause. Mill asserted that if everything must have an antecedent cause, then God Himself must have one as well. But if God has an antecedent cause, then He is a creature like everyone else. When he read this in his late teens, Russell decided that the classical argument for God’s existence is fallacious. Russell maintained that position until his death, failing to realize that it was built on a faulty definition of the law of causality.

The law of causality teaches that every effect must have a cause, not that everything must have a cause. Effects, by definition, are caused by something outside of themselves. However, we need not assume that everything is an effect—temporal, finite, dependent, and derived. There is nothing irrational about the idea of a self-existent, eternal being who has the power of being within Himself. In fact, such a concept is not only logically possible but (as Thomas Aquinas demonstrated) logically necessary. For anything to exist, something somewhere, somehow, must have the power of being, for without the power of being, nothing could possibly be. That which has the power of being in and of itself, and is not dependent on anything outside of itself, must have the power of being from all eternity. This is what distinguishes God from us. We recall the first sentence of the Old Testament: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Everything in the cosmos, apart from God, is creaturely. Everything in creation—in the universe—has a beginning in time. God alone is from everlasting to everlasting and possesses the attribute of eternality. That majestic aspect of God’s nature so far transcends anything that we have ever conceived of in this world that it alone should be enough to move our souls to praise and adore Him. He alone has the power of being in and of Himself. We do not think about these things often enough. If we reflect on a being who is eternal, who generates the power for everything else that exists, including ourselves, we should be moved to worship Him.

This excerpt is adapted from Truths We Confess by R.C. Sproul. In Truths We Confess, now thoroughly revised and available in a single, accessible volume, Dr. Sproul introduces readers to this remarkable confession, explaining its insights and applying them to modern life. Order the hardcover book today.