Nick Roark's Blog, page 13

“He is not lacking” by Michael Reeves

“Sometimes we find ourselves tiring of Jesus, imagining that we have seen all there is to see and used up all the pleasure there is to be had in Him.

We get spiritually bored. But Jesus has satisfied the mind and heart of the infinite God for eternity.

Our boredom is simple blindness. If the Father can be infinitely and eternally satisfied in Him, then He must be overwhelmingly all-sufficient for us– in every situation, for all eternity.

And that’s why the gospel is not lacking, because He is not lacking.”

–Michael Reeves, Authentic Ministry: Serving from the Heart (Bridgend, UK: Union, 2022), 13-14.

“Take, drink” by Sinclair Ferguson

“Paul is teaching us to think about the story of the human race as a tale of two unions—with Adam and with Christ. All of us belong to one union or the other.

We are all by nature in Adam. Those who have been born again by God’s Spirit and have come to believe into union and communion with Jesus Christ are brought into this new family of which He is the Father and Head. They are “in Christ,” the “second man” (1 Cor. 15:47) and the “last Adam” (v. 45).

Paul also focuses on the way that these two representative men, Adam and Christ, engaged in two radically different acts. There is a similarity between them: both are representative historical figures.

But there is also a contrast and a comparison. Yes, in one respect Adam and Christ are like each other. But in another critical respect they are different. Their acts are radically different— indeed, antithetical.

Paul wants us to sense that the work of Jesus Christ takes on the luster of amazing grace when we see it against the dark backcloth of the work of Adam.

Perhaps you have gone into a jeweler’s shop, thinking about buying a ring. The jeweler shows you a selection. You hardly notice how quickly he slips a black cloth onto the countertop. Why is that? Because that black backcloth highlights the beauty of the ring and the sparkle of the diamonds set into it.

Whether it is an expensive ring or not, it certainly looks expensive against the black cloth.
Paul is doing something like that here— not by sleight of hand, but to help us see that the work of Jesus Christ is seen to its truest and best advantage against the background of the catastrophe that our first father, Adam, bequeathed to us.

What did Adam do? In answer, Paul ransacks biblical vocabulary to summarize the fall. He speaks about Adam’s sin, about his breach of the commandment, about his trespass, and about his disobedience.

In various ways, he is making the same point: when Adam sinned and fell, his act was our act because we are all “in Adam.” This is the tragedy of the human condition.

We come into a sick and fallen world as sick and fallen people. What our first father did had consequences not only for him but for the whole of humanity. He ruined us. As the couplet for the letter A in the famous New-England Primer, published by Benjamin Harris in 1688, put it:

In Adam’s fall
We sinned all.

There is a genre in English literature in which the hero, whose father has ruined the finances and the reputation of his whole family, manages to rise to a position of prominence and regain the family’s former glory. As the son, he undertakes to clear all debts and to reestablish his family.

He has to take the consequences of and undo his father’s failure; he then has to re-earn what his father squandered. Something about such a story touches us at very deep levels. Perhaps that is because the story echoes our own situation.

And it also echoes the gospel and the story of contrasts that it tells between Adam and Christ. Adam sinned, disobeyed God, and broke the commandment. His one great act of disobedience brought sin and death into the world.

But on the other side of the contrast stands Christ’s act of righteousness. Adam’s disobedience lasted for only a few seconds and then had lasting implications for his whole life and for ours.

But it took an entire lifetime of perfect obedience and the bearing of the judgment of God against Adam’s and our sin for the last Adam to redeem us and restore us to fellowship with God.

New Testament scholars debate whether Paul has Adam in the back of his mind when he describes the work of Christ in Philippians 2:5-11 because he does not draw on the specific vocabulary of Genesis 3.

But a theological contrast is clear enough. Adam was disobedient. Jesus’ whole life was marked by complete obedience to the heavenly Father, even to the point of being willing to die rather than be disobedient-and even if that meant the cruel death of the cross.

The obedience of the second man was a reversal of the disobedience of the first man. He accomplished on behalf of those who are “in Christ” (that is, those who trust in Him) what Adam failed to accomplish for those who were “in Adam” (that is, all of us).

But not only was our Lord’s life of obedience representative and substitutionary, His death was also. By it He paid the penalty for our sin, enduring the wrath due to us who have become sinners in and through Adam.

Where Adam failed, Jesus succeeded. Where Adam brought himself and us under condemnation, Jesus not only did what Adam failed to do but also took that condemnation on our behalf and paid the penalty for Adam’s failure and ours too.

Thus, what was lost in Adam has been regained in Christ. Everything that Adam did to turn away from God, Jesus reversed.

There is still more to Christ’s work, and the New Testament writers reflect on it elsewhere.

Whereas Adam succumbed to the temptation that Satan had initiated through Eve, Christ conquered.

Whereas Adam succumbed although he was in a garden surrounded by an animal kingdom over which he ruled, Christ triumphed over Satan although He was in a bleak wilderness surrounded by wild beasts.

Whereas Adam succumbed to the voice that said, ‘Take, eat,’ our Lord Jesus was obedient to His Father when He offered Him the cup of desolation in Gethsemane and said to Him, ‘Take, drink.’”

–Sinclair B. Ferguson, Union with Christ: The Blessings of Being in Him (Sanford, FL: Ligonier, 2025), 41-44.

“God Himself will be our happiness” by Thomas Goodwin

“God himself will be our happiness. He will be happiness enough, for He is all in all.

He will be all unto us in a more transcendent manner than the glory of the creatures. These contentments which God gives are the very spirits of comforts, which will add more happiness than all the drugs of worldly pleasures can administer unto us.

For all the happiness that could be had here, nay, further, all the happiness God could create to men as men here on earth, are but as one drop to the bottomless ocean of God’s glory.

And yet this falls short, this is too scant a comparison.

For I say, infinite millions of drops will at length make an ocean, but ten thousand millions of the glories of this world cannot make up one drop of the glory which is in God.

Thus God will be all things to us, and all things in a transcendent manner.

God will pour out Himself unto us. He will give us communication with Himself of this His infinite happiness, He will pour out all His glory unto us.

Ephesians 3:19: ‘That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God,’ which will give all comfort.

Open thy mouth wide, He is able to fill it. For one drop of God will fill thee full. He will fill thee with fulness, and fulness of the best kind.

Oh, what ineffable comfort will this be, when the vessels of mercy shall be thrown into this bottomless sea of glory!

Therefore do but think with yourselves, what a happiness this will be, when you shall be made partakers of God’s glory, of all the blessedness that is in God.”

–Thomas Goodwin, The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 7 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1861/2006), 7: 463.

“In Christ” by Sinclair Ferguson

“When we see that our salvation, in every single part, is found in Christ,
we must beware, lest we derive the smallest drop from somewhere else.
If then we seek salvation,
the very name of Jesus teaches us that He possesses it.
If other Spirit-given gifts are sought— in His anointing they are found:
strength— in His reign, purity— in His conception,
and tenderness— in His nativity—
thus made like us in all respects, He learned to feel our pain.
Redemption when we seek it is in His passion found;
acquittal in His condemnation lies;
and freedom from the curse is in His cross made known.
If satisfaction for our sins we seek, we’ll find it in His sacrifice;
and cleansing in His blood.
If reconciliation now we need, for this He entered Hades.
If mortification of our flesh, then in His tomb it’s laid.
And newness of our life- which resurrection brings—
and immortality as well come also with that gift.
And if we also long to find heaven’s kingdom our inheritance,
His entry there secures it now, with our protection, safety too
and blessings that abound- all flowing from His kingly reign.
The sum of all for those who seek
this treasure-trove of blessings of all kinds
is this:
from nowhere else can they be drawn than Him;
they’re found in Christ alone.”

–Sinclair B. Ferguson, Union with Christ: The Blessings of Being in Him (Sanford, FL: Ligonier, 2025), 149. Based upon John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 2.16.19. Author’s translation and arrangement.

“In Christ Jesus” by Thomas Goodwin

“Why is this word, ‘in Christ Jesus,’ added, which Paul had used so often before, again and again?

Not only because he would have us never to leave Jesus Christ out.

I do not know who can set up without Christ, or continue without Christ, for I am sure the Apostle never leaves him out; no, not in election and adoption, nor in anything, so not now, when he comes to heaven.

But still whatsoever he speaks of, Christ cometh in.

I say his meaning is this: all the glory that the saints shall have from the exceeding riches of His grace in heaven shall all be in Christ.”

–Thomas Goodwin, The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1861/2006), 2: 278. Goodwin is commenting on Ephesians 2:7.

“God’s free grace and Christ’s love swallows up sin more than the heavens do the earth” by Thomas Goodwin

“Great, therefore, is the mystery of godliness.

A mystery! Then it is of such depths of wisdom, as take all the poor petty plots of accommodating great difficulties, wherein the princes and wise men of the world spend their thoughts away to vanity, and yet magnify and pride themselves in; and this plot, and any one mystery in it, when once discovered, ‘confoundeth and brings to nothing’ all theirs, (1 Cor. 1:19; 2:8).

It all vanisheth as mere folly; nothing.

And there are not only depths of wisdom, but depths of love in it also, Eph. 3:18.

It reveals a breadth, height, depth of love in Christ dying for enemies, and God giving His Son for enemies, as passeth knowledge.

Sin is a great depth, therefore the apostle saith, ‘it doth abound,’ Rom. 5:20, and is ‘above measure sinful,’ Rom. 7:13, and so you will find it when you guage it to the bottom.

And so the devils and damned spirits in hell shall find it, whilst they are a-studying their sinfulness in hell to all eternity (that being their business), and can never fathom it.

But yet this of God’s free grace and Christ’s love is a depth, which swallows up this of sin, more than the heavens do the earth.

That place seems to compare it to a mighty sea, so deep, as it wants a bottom; so as though the thoughts of men and angels shall be diving into it to all eternity, they shall not come to ground.

Of the length and breadth also, that it knows no shore, that though they shall be sailing over it with that small compass of their capacities forever, yet they shall never come to land, ‘it passeth knowledge.’

And indeed, my brethren, these are great incitements, especially to large understandings, to search into them.

For men of large understandings seek after depths, as good swimmers do after deep waters, and refuse to go into the shallows, because they cannot have scope enough to exercise their skill, and presently strike aground.”

–Thomas Goodwin, The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1861/2006), 4: 236.

“Christ has bought drink for all believers” by Samuel Rutherford

“Christ cries, ‘I thirst.’

‘I thirst.’ No wonder; there was a fire in His soul.

Such a furnace, that would have dried up the sea, and all the waters of it.

Cast a coal of God’s wrath in the midst of the sea, and it would soon suck it all up if there were as much water as might lie betwixt the bottom of the sea, and the heaven of heavens: between the east point of heaven, and the west point of heaven.

The pure unmixed wrath of God would drink it all dry in a moment.

All the wells in the earth set to Christ’s mouth could not have quenched His thirst.

A drink of His Father’s well was that which cooled His burnt and dried soul.

Christ cried, ‘My soul is heavy unto death. Sorrow is like to kill Me! Fear and horror is like to break My heart!‘

O wells! O lochs! O running streams! Where were you all when my Lord could not get a drink?

Oh fie on all Jerusalem! For there was wine enough in Jerusalem, and yet their King, Jesus, is burnt like a cabbage stock.

O wells, what ails you at your Lord Jesus?

The wells and lochs answer, “Alas! We dare not know Him; we are stopped by warrant; we dare not serve our Master.”

Is there any cooling in all Judea? Or is there any room?

Yea, there are tables full of vomit; but our Lord was forced to take a good-night of the creature, with a denial.

Oh! to hear the wells say, “We will give Herod and Pilate a drink, but we will give Christ none.”

Yea, give me leave to say there is none on earth brewing for Christ; nothing but a drink of gall and vinegar!

The wells say, “We will give oxen and horses drink; but never a drop for the Lord of glory.”

For all His service done at Jerusalem; for all His good preaching; for all His glorious miracles—not so much as a drop of cold water!

Fie on you, famous Jerusalem! Is your stipend this? Is this your reward to your great High Priest?

No, not so much as the beggar’s courtesy, a drink of cold water, to your dear Redeemer, Jesus!

But by this, Christ has bought drink for all believers.”

–Samuel Rutherford, Fourteen Communion Sermons, ed. Andrew A. Bonar, Second Edition (Glasgow: Charles Glass & Co., 1877), 288-289.

“He took the curse and gave you the blessing” by Samuel Rutherford

“Take to you now free purchased redemption, your Brother’s new forgiveness of sins, peace, joy, and a kingdom.

And more, take Him to be your Lord, and much good may you have of your new Master, Jesus Christ.

Of all wonders that ever were read in a printed book this is the first: Christ made an exchange; Christ would barter lives with you, and make an exchange.

He never beguiled you, for He took shame, and gave you glory.

He took the curse, and gave you the blessing.

He took death, and gave you life.

The fairest Candle that ever was lighted is blown out.

The Head of the Church is dead, and the Lord of Life is laid down in the grave!

No wonder that the sun, that did share part of his labours, be shut down; because the great Sun of Righteousness was shut down in the grave, and a stone laid above Him.”

–Samuel Rutherford, Fourteen Communion Sermons, ed. Andrew A. Bonar, Second Edition (Glasgow: Charles Glass & Co., 1877), 282-283.

“The Candle that lighted the sun and the moon was blown out” by Samuel Rutherford

“Mount Calvary, since God laid the first stone of it, did never bear such a weight as when the Lord of Glory was hanging upon a tree there—

O! it was made a fair tree when such an Apple grew on it!

It was a green orchard! It was our summer, but death’s winter!

Darkness was in all Judea when our Lord suffered.

And why? Because the Candle that lighted the sun and the moon was blown out.

The Godhead was eclipsed; and the world’s eye was put out.

He took away the sun with Him, as it were, to another world, when He that was the world’s sun was put out.

When He went out of the earth, the sun would not stay behind Him.

Sun, what ails thee? ‘I have not will to shine when my Lord is going to another world.’

As if the sun had said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if Thou be going to another world, take me with You.'”

–Samuel Rutherford, Fourteen Communion Sermons, ed. Andrew A. Bonar, Second Edition (Glasgow: Charles Glass & Co., 1877), 286-287.

“There was more than a tree upon His back” by Samuel Rutherford

“Jesus cried with a loud voice, with such a shout as never before went to heaven.

The Son, crying to the Father, shouting with tears and strong cries, “Father, Father, God’s mercy!”

O what a cry would all believers have made in hell, if Christ had not cried.

Ye had been always crying.

But O what a conflict was there! God weeping, God sobbing!

Never was there such a conflict in heaven, and earth, either before, or shall be after.

Angels might have quaked, if they be capable of such passion.

They might have said, “Alas! What ails our dear Lord and Master to cry so hideously?”

Christ was harassed and torn on a piece of tree!

He who takes up the isles of the sea as a little thing; yea, He who can take up heaven and earth with a touch of His little finger!

He who can weigh the mountains in a balance!

O what a onset was it to Christ’s back and thighs!

No wonder; there was more than a tree upon His back.

The curse of the law of God was above the tree.

And that was heavier than ten thousand mountains of iron.”

–Samuel Rutherford, Fourteen Communion Sermons, ed. Andrew A. Bonar, Second Edition (Glasgow: Charles Glass & Co., 1877), 285–288.