Nick Roark's Blog, page 31

“The light of the brightest day that has ever dawned” by Charles Spurgeon

“I would sooner walk in the dark, and hold hard to a promise of my God, than trust in the light of the brightest day that ever dawned.”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Fruit of the Spirit: Joy,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 27 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1881), 27: 77.

“He’s not leaving” by Paul David Tripp

“The epicenter of the Bible’s theology is the story of God coming to dwell with His people and unleashing His glory for their good.

Here in Psalm 27, David celebrates the only place He can find hope- in the presence of the Lord. To be David’s light, salvation, and strong-hold, the Lord must be near.

In the pain of unthinkable things David says, ‘God, it’s your presence that lights my way, it’s your presence that gives me hope that I will be delivered from evil, and it’s your presence that provides refuge for me when it seems that there is nowhere to run.’

When we are facing hardship, it is vital that we preach to ourselves the theology of the presence of the Lord.

That theology doesn’t just define the nature of God’s commitment to us; it also defines who we are as children of God.

Psalm 27:1 defines David’s identity more clearly and accurately than any circumstance or relationship ever could.

We were wired to get our identity vertically, because the things we look to horizontally will never deliver to us the security of identity that we find in the presence and grace of God.

Our hope is not found in understanding why God allowed suffering into our lives.

Our hope is not found in the belief that somehow we will tough our way through.

Our hope is not found in doctors, lawyers, pastors, family, or friends.

Our hope is not found in our resilience or ingenuity.

Our hope is not found in ideas or things.

Though we may look to all those for temporary help, ultimately our hope rests in the faithful and gracious presence of the Lord with us.

He is not weakened by what weakens us.

He is not confused by what confuses us.

He does not suffer from the mood swings that afflict us.

He is not afraid like we are.

He never makes a bad decision.

He never finds Himself out of control.

He never wants to take back His words.

He never regrets the way He’s behaved.

He never responds impulsively.

His choices are never driven by anxiety.

He never dreads the next day.

He never wants to give up.

He is never frustrated by an inability to make a difference.

He is with us, but the reason this is so wonderfully comforting is that He is completely unlike us in every way.

He is limitless in power, He has authority over everything, He is perfect in every way, He dwells with us, and He assures us that He’s not leaving.”

–Paul David Tripp, Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn’t Make Sense (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 147-148.

“An inexhaustible reservoir of sympathy” by John Murray

“Believers are called into the fellowship of Christ and fellowship means communion. The life of faith is one of living union and communion with the exalted and ever-present Redeemer.

Faith is directed not only to a Redeemer who has come and completed once for all a work of redemption. It is directed to him not merely as the one who died but as the one who rose again and who ever lives as our great high priest and advocate.

And because faith is directed to him as living Saviour and Lord, fellowship reaches the zenith of its exercise. There is no communion among men that is comparable to fellowship with Christ—he communes with his people and his people commune with him in conscious reciprocal love.

‘Whom having not seen ye love,’ wrote the apostle Peter, ‘in whom though now ye see him not yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory‘ (1 Peter 1:8).

The life of faith is the life of love, and the life of love is the life of fellowship, or mystic communion with Him who ever lives to make intercession for His people and who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

It is fellowship with Him who has an inexhaustible reservoir of sympathy with His people’s temptations, afflictions, and infirmities because He was tempted in all points like as they are, yet without sin.

The life of true faith cannot be that of cold metallic assent. It must have the passion and warmth of love and communion because communion with God is the crown and apex of true religion.

‘Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ‘ (1 John 1:3).”

–John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 1955/2024), 180.

“Union with Christ reaches its zenith in adoption” by John Murray

“Union with Christ is the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation.

All to which the people of God have been predestined in the eternal election of God, all that has been secured and procured for them in the once-for-all accomplishment of redemption, all of which they become the actual partakers in the application of redemption, and all that by God’s grace they will become in the state of consummated bliss is embraced within the compass of union and communion with Christ.

As we found earlier in these studies, it is adoption into the family of God as sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty that accords to the people of God the apex of blessing and privilege. But we cannot think of adoption apart from union with Christ.

It is significant that the election in Christ before the foundation of the world is election unto the adoption of sons. When Paul says that the Father chose a people in Christ before the foundation of the world that they should be holy he also adds that in love he predestinated them unto adoption through Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:4, 5).

Apparently election to holiness is parallel to predestination to adoption—these are two ways of expressing the same great truth. They disclose to us the different facets which belong to the Father’s election.

Hence union with Christ and adoption are complementary aspects of this amazing grace. Union with Christ reaches its zenith in adoption and adoption has its orbit in union with Christ. The people of God are ‘heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ‘ (Rom. 8:17).

All things are theirs whether life or death or things present or things to come, all are theirs, because they are Christ’s and Christ is God’s (1 Cor. 3:22, 23). They are united to him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and they are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power.’

It is out of the measureless fullness of grace and truth, of wisdom and power, of goodness and love, of righteousness and faithfulness which resides in him that God’s people draw for all their needs in this life and for the hope of the life to come.

There is no truth, therefore, more suited to impart confidence and strength, comfort and joy in the Lord than this one of union with Christ.

It also promotes sanctification, not only because all sanctifying grace is derived from Christ as the crucified and exalted Redeemer, but also because the recognition of fellowship with Christ and of the high privilege it entails incites to gratitude, obedience, and devotion.

Union means also communion and communion constrains a humble, reverent, loving walk with him who died and rose again that he might be our Lord:

‘But whoso keeps his word in him verily is the love of God perfected. By this we know that we are in him. He that says he abides in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked’ (1 John 2:5, 6). ‘Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me‘ (John 15:4).”

–John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 1955/2024), 180-182.

“Tracing salvation to its fountain” by John Murray

“Nothing is more central or basic than union and communion with Christ.

There is, however, a good reason why the subject of union with Christ should not be co-ordinated with the other phases of the application of redemption with which we have dealt.

That reason is that union with Christ is in itself a very broad and embracive subject. It is not simply a step in the application of redemption; when viewed, according to the teaching of Scripture, in its broader aspects it underlies every step of the application of redemption.

Union with Christ is really the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation not only in its application but also in its once-for-all accomplishment in the finished work of Christ.

Indeed the whole process of salvation has its origin in one phase of union with Christ and salvation has in view the realization of other phases of union with Christ.

This can be readily seen if we remember that brief expression which is so common in the New Testament, namely, “in Christ.”

It is that which is meant by “in Christ” that we have in mind when we speak of “union with Christ.” It is quite apparent that the Scripture applies the expression “in Christ” to much more than the application of redemption.

The breadth of union with Christ can be seen if we survey the teaching of Scripture respecting it. When we do this we see how far back it goes and how far forward.

The fountain of salvation itself in the eternal election of the Father is “in Christ.” Paul says:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:3, 4).

The Father elected from eternity, but he elected in Christ. We are not able to understand all that is involved, but the fact is plain enough that there was no election of the Father in eternity apart from Christ.

And that means that those who will be saved were not even contemplated by the Father in the ultimate counsel of his predestinating love apart from union with Christ—they were chosen in Christ.

As far back as we can go in tracing salvation to its fountain we find “union with Christ”; it is not something tacked on; it is there from the outset.

It is also because the people of God were in Christ when he gave his life a ransom and redeemed by his blood that salvation has been secured for them; they are represented as united to Christ in his death, resurrection, and exaltation to heaven (Rom. 6:2–11; Eph. 2:4–6; Col. 3:3, 4).

“In the beloved,” Paul says, “we have redemption through his blood” (Eph. 1:7).

Hence we may never think of the work of redemption wrought once for all by Christ apart from the union with his people which was effected in the election of the Father before the foundation of the world.

In other words, we may never think of redemption in abstraction from the mysterious arrangements of God’s love and wisdom and grace by which Christ was united to his people and his people were united to him when he died upon the accursed tree and rose again from the dead.

This is but another way of saying that the church is the body of Christ and “Christ loved the church and gave himself for it” (Eph. 5:25).

It is in Christ that the people of God are created anew. “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Eph. 2:10). Here Paul is insisting upon the great truth that by grace, not works, we are saved. Salvation has its inception in God’s grace.

And this is certified by the fact that we are saved by a new creation in Christ. It should not surprise us that the beginning of salvation in actual possession should be in union with Christ because we have found already that it is in Christ that salvation had its origin in the eternal election of the Father and that it is in Christ salvation was once for all secured by Jesus’ ransom blood.

We could not think of such union with Christ as suspended when the people of God become the actual partakers of redemption—they are created anew in Christ.

But not only does the new life have its inception in Christ; it is also continued by virtue of the same relationship to him It is in Christ that Christian life and behaviour are conducted (Rom. 6:4; 1 Cor. 1:4, 5; cf. 1 Cor. 6:15–17).

The new life believers live they live in the fellowship of Jesus’ resurrection; in everything they are made rich in him in all utterance and in all knowledge.

It is in Christ that believers die. They have fallen asleep in Christ or through Christ and they are dead in Christ (1 Thess. 4:14, 16). Could anything illustrate the indissolubility of union with Christ more plainly than the fact that this union is not severed even in death?

Death, of course, is real—spirit and body are rent asunder. But the separated elements of the person are still united to Christ. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Psalm 116:15).

Finally, it is in Christ that the people of God will be resurrected and glorified. It is in Christ they will be made alive when the last trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible (1 Cor. 15:22). It is with Christ they will be glorified (Rom. 8:17).

We thus see that union with Christ has its source in the election of God the Father before the foundation of the world and it has its fruition in the glorification of the sons of God. The perspective of God’s people is not narrow; it is broad and it is long.

It is not confined to space and time; it has the expanse of eternity. Its orbit has two foci, one the electing love of God the Father in the counsels of eternity, the other glorification with Christ in the manifestation of his glory.

The former has no beginning, the latter has no end. Glorification with Christ at his coming will be but the beginning of a consummation that will encompass the ages of the ages. ‘So shall we ever be with the Lord‘ (1 Thess. 4:17).”

–John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 1955/2024), 171-174.

“None are so safe as those whom God keeps” by Charles Spurgeon

‘The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: He shall preserve thy soul. The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.’ (Psalm 121:7-8)

“Jehovah will keep thy soul. Soul-keeping is the soul of keeping. If the soul be kept all is kept. God is the sole keeper of the soul.

Our soul is kept from the dominion of sin, the infection of error, the crush of despondency, the puffing up of pride.

Our soul is kept from the world, the flesh and the devil.

Our soul is kept for holier and greater things.

Our soul is kept in the love of God and kept unto the eternal kingdom and glory.

What can harm a soul that is kept of the Lord?

When we go out in the morning to labour, and come home at eventide to rest, Jehovah shall keep us.

When we go out in youth to begin life, and come in at the end to die, we shall experience the same keeping.

Our exits and our entrances are under one protection.

Three times have we the phrase, “Jehovah shall keep,” as if the sacred Trinity thus sealed the word to make it sure: ought not all our fears to be slain by such a threefold flight of arrows?

What anxiety can survive this triple promise? This keeping is eternal; continuing from this time forth, even forevermore.

The whole church is thus assured of everlasting security: the final perseverance of the saints is thus ensured, and the glorious immortality of believers is guaranteed.

Under the aegis of such a promise we may go on pilgrimage without trembling, and venture into battle without dread.

None are so safe as those whom God keeps; none so much in danger as the self-secure.

To goings out and comings in belong peculiar dangers, since every change of position turns a fresh quarter to the foe, and it is for these weak points that an especial security is provided.

Jehovah will keep the door when it opens and closes, and this He will perseveringly continue to do so long as there is left a single man that trusteth in Him, as long as a danger survives, and, in fact, as long as time endures.

Glory be to the Keeper of Israel, who is endeared to us under that title, since our growing sense of weakness makes us feel more deeply than ever our need of being kept.”

-Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David: Psalms 120-150, vol. 6 (London: Marshall Brothers, n.d.), 6: 16-17. Spurgeon is commenting on Psalm 121:7-8.

“Powerful help” by Charles Spurgeon

‘My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.’ (Psalm 121:2)

“What we need is help– powerful help, efficient help, constant help. We need a very present help in trouble.

What a mercy that we have it in our God. Our hope is in Jehovah, for our help comes from Him.

Help is on the road, and will not fail to reach us in due time, for He who sends it to us was never known to be too late.

Jehovah who created all things is equal to every emergency; heaven and earth are at the disposal of Him who made them, therefore let us be very joyful in our infinite helper.

He will sooner destroy heaven and earth than permit His people to be destroyed, and the perpetual hills themselves shall bow rather than He shall fail whose ways are everlasting.

We are bound to look beyond heaven and earth to Him who made them both.

It is vain to trust the creatures. It is wise to trust the Creator.”

-Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David: Psalms 120-150, vol. 6 (London: Marshall Brothers, n.d.), 6: 14–15. Spurgeon is commenting on Psalm 121:2.

“The sighs of poor souls” by John Owen

“There is more glory under the eye of God, in the sighs, groans, and mournings of poor souls filled with the love of Christ, after the enjoyment of Him according to His promises— in their fervent prayers for His manifestation of Himself unto them— in the refreshments and unspeakable joys which they have in His gracious visits and embraces of His love— than in the thrones and diadems of all the monarchs on the earth.”

–John Owen, The Works of John Owen, The Glory of Christ, Vol. 1 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1850/2000), 159.

“The voice of peace is heard on Calvary” by F. W. Krummacher

When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished,” and He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. (John 19:30) 

“These are the greatest and most momentous words that were ever spoken upon earth since the beginning of the world. Who does not find in them a cry of victory?

It is a shout of triumph, which announces to the kingdom of darkness its complete overthrow and to the kingdom of heaven upon earth its eternal establishment. How wonderful!

At the very moment when, for the Hero of Judah, all seems lost, His words declare that all is won and accomplished!

Our Lord’s exclamation is like the sound of a heavenly jubilee-trumpet, and announces to the race of Adam, which was under the curse, the commencement of a free and sabbatic year, which will ever more extensively display its blessing, but never come to an end.

Listen, and it will appear to you as if in the words, “It is finished!” you heard fetters burst, and prison-walls fall down.

At these words, barriers as high as heaven are overthrown, and gates which had been closed for thousands of years, again move on their hinges. But what was it that was finished at the moment when that cry was uttered?

The evangelist introduces his narrative with the words, “After this, Jesus knowing that all things were accomplished.” Only think—“All things!” What more can we want? But wherein did they consist?

We hasten to lift the veil, and view in detail what was realized and brought about, and may the full peace be imparted to us which the words, “It is finished!” announce to the world! “Jesus cried with a loud voice, It is finished!”

It would seem as if He had wished to drink only to make this victorious cry sound forth with full force, like the voice of a herald or the sound of a trumpet.

The Lord has now reached the termination of His labors. He has performed the stupendous task which He undertook in the council of peace, before the world was, when He said, “I delight to do thy will, O my God!”

Death, to which He is on the point of submitting, formed the summit, but also the concluding act of His mediatorial work.

Only take into your hands the divine programme of His vicarious earthly course, as compiled in types and prophecies in the archives of the Old Testament, and be convinced how it has been most minutely carried out.

The mysterious delineation of the Messiah, as it passes before us in increasing brightness and completeness in the writings of Moses and the prophets, is fully realized in its smallest and minutest traits in the person of Jesus.

If you ask for the wondrous Infant of Bethlehem described by Micah, “whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting;” or for the Child born, and the Son given, with the government upon His shoulder, whom Isaiah brings before us; or for the meek and lowly King mentioned by Zechariah, who makes His entrance into Jerusalem on the foal of an donkey— it meets you bodily in Jesus Christ.

Do you seek for the Seed of the woman, who with His wounded heel bruises the serpent’s head; or the second Aaron, who should actually bring about a reconciliation between God and a sinful world—look up to the cross, and there you will see all combined in One.

Do you look about you for the antitype of the brazen serpent in the wilderness, or of the paschal lamb and its delivering blood in Egypt; or for the exalted Sufferer who appears in the appalling descriptions given us in Psalms 22 and 69, which record a malefactor’s awful doom, even to the mournful cry of “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!”—all is combined in Him who hangs yonder, and exclaims, “It is finished!”

Then take a retrospective look into the writings of the ancient prophets, and what meets your view? The ancient types have put on flesh and blood in Jesus Christ.

Their importance to us is henceforth limited to the testimony they bear that the divinely-promised Messiah is indeed come, and that no other is to be looked for.

Every condition of the work of human redemption had been fulfilled at the moment when Christ uttered the words, “It is finished!” with the exception of one, which was included and taken for granted in them, because it inevitably awaited Him, and actually took place immediately afterward—thus bringing the whole to a perfect conclusion.

That which still remained unaccomplished clearly proves that Jesus did not hang on the cross on His own account, but as our Representative. It was our death. The laws of nature forbade that a green and thoroughly healthy tree, which was rooted in eternity, should bleed and sink beneath the blows of “the last enemy.”

He dies in the crown of triumph. At the moment when His heart ceased to beat, the words, “It is finished!” revealed the entire fullness of their meaning.

He had now reached the final completion of His work of redemption. The exclamation, “It is finished!” resounded in heaven and awoke hallelujahs to the Lamb which shall never more be mute.

They reverberated through the abodes of darkness, like the thunders of God, announcing the termination of the dominion of their prince.

But a more blissful sound on earth does not strike the ear of the penitent sinner to this hour than the words, “It is finished!” It is as the sound of the great jubilee-trumpet, and the proclamation of an eternal salvation. Yes, we are delivered.

There is no longer any cause for anxiety, except in the case of those who refuse to acknowledge their sinfulness, and turn their backs on the Man of Sorrows on the cross. But if we are otherwise minded and, honoring truth, have judged and condemned ourselves in the presence of God, then come!

No more circuitous paths—no fruitless efforts to help yourselves—no vain recourse to the empty cisterns of this world, whatever proud names they may bear!

The voice of peace is heard on Calvary.

O that we were solemnly conscious how much was done for us there! Great was our guilt; we were condemned to death, and the curse lay upon us; but all is done away in the words, “It is finished!”

If He has paid the ransom, how can a righteous God in heaven demand payment a second time? Know you not the assertion of the apostle, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus!”

Let us give our whole hearts to Him, and neither the multitude nor the heinousness of our sins need appall us. His closed eyes, His death-like visage, His pierced hands and feet oblige us, even for the glorifying of His name, to oppose not only the infernal accuser and the judge in our own breasts, but even the law of Moses, with the apostle’s watchword, “Who is he that condemneth, since Christ hath died?”

What invaluable fruit, therefore, do we reap from the tree of the cross! That which the Saviour accomplished by His death was not merely the work of saitisfaction to divine justice, by which He removed the curse from our heads, but likewise His representative obedience, which is henceforth imputed to His believing people, as the righteousness which avails in the sight of God.

Along with the sentence, “Depart from me, ye cursed!” is also the “Mene, Tekel,” erased from our walls, and in its stead we read the mighty words, “Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

And that we are so is confirmed to us by the fact that God now lovingly inclines toward us, breathes His Spirit into us, leads us in bonds of mercy and kindness, and as soon as we have finished our course, opens the gates of His heavenly mansions to us.

But that condemned sinners are regarded as holy before God, without any infringement on His justice, holiness, and truth, is intimated by that which the suffering Saviour accomplished on the cross.

Even the twenty-second Psalm asserts that this would be the consequence of His death, since in the last verse it is said, “They shall come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.”

How just and well founded is, therefore, the victorious cry, “It is finished!” with which the Lord, after performing His work, inclined His head to rest! “With one offering he hath forever perfected them that are sanctified” (Heb. 10:14).

Yes, by the one act of the offering up of Himself, He has so laid the foundation for all who believe in Him, of their justification, sanctification, and redemption, that they may now unhesitatingly rejoice in the first as an accomplished fact; that they bear in them the second; and that they have the third as surely and certainly in prospect, as Christ their Representative has already taken possession, in their names, of the glorious and heavenly inheritance.”

—F. W. Krummacher, The Suffering Saviour: Meditations on the Last Days of Christ (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1947/2004), 403-410.

“A new, and better, beginning” by Peter Leithart

“A crucified man, still bearing the scars of His execution, appears in a garden to Mary, walks through doors, eats fish with His disciples, claims to have inherited all authority in heaven and on earth.

When the angel descends from heaven, women become braver than soldiers; the dead more lively than the living; the cross more potent than all the weapons man can produce.

Men have always dreamed of a new beginning. They have always wished that time could be run in reverse and we could have a new start on the sorry spectacle of history.

Those who pursue that dream usually end up with more of the same, only worse. They end up entrenching Death’s power even more securely.

The old week of human history ended in a cross, and the dream of going back to Day One has ended with guillotines and Gulags.

But that sobering reality should not lead to despair.

We cannot reverse time, return to Eden, and make sure that this time round Adam stays clear of that tree until it is time.

Earth cannot start earth’s history over again.

We cannot turn the clock back and make a new, and better, beginning.

We cannot, but the God of heaven can, and Easter announces that He has.”

—Peter Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew Through New Eyes Volume Two: Jesus as Israel (West Monroe, LA: Athanasius Press, 2018) 2: 343. Leithart is commenting on Matthew 28:1-10.