Nick Roark's Blog, page 33

“The whole world is not a theater large enough to show the glory of Christ upon” by John Flavel

“Let me tell you, the whole world is not a theater large enough to show the glory of Christ upon, or unfold the one half of the unsearchable riches that lie hid in Him.

These things will be far better understood, and spoken of in heaven, by the noon-day divinity, in which the immediately illuminated assembly do there preach His praises, than by such a stammering tongue, and scribbling pen as mine, which doth but mar them.

Alas! I write His praises but by moon-light. I cannot praise Him so much as by halves. Indeed, no tongue but His own is sufficient to undertake that task.

What shall I say of Christ? The excelling glory of that object dazzles all apprehension, swallows up all expression.

When we have borrowed metaphors from every creature that hath any excellency or lovely property in it, until we have stripped the whole creation bare of all its ornaments, and clothed Christ with all that glory.

When we have even worn out our tongues, in ascribing praises to Him, alas, we have done nothing, when all is done!”

–John Flavel, The Works of the John Flavel (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1820/1997), 1: xviii.

“The world will never starve for want of wonders” by G.K. Chesterton

“I will sit still and let the marvels and the adventures settle on me like flies. There are plenty of them, I assure you. The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.”

–G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co, 1909), 7.

“Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder” by G.K. Chesterton

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

–G.K. Chesterton, A Short History of England (New York: John Lane Company, 1917), 72.

“The promise of promises” by Thomas Goodwin

“The coming of the Spirit I may farther call the great promise of the New Testament. For as Christ’s coming was the great promise of the Old Testament, so the sending of the Spirit is entitled the ‘promise of the Father’ in the New: ‘And behold I send the promise of my Father upon you.’ (Luke 24:49)

And he is so styled, not only in that he had been promised in the Old Testament by the prophets (as in that of Joel 2:28-29), and in multitude of other prophecies of old; but because that Christ himself did now de novo (as it were) promulge it as His promise, and the Father’s; and that upon this authority, that this Spirit proceeded from Him, as well as from the Father, and that He was first to receive Him for us, and then shed Him forth on us, (Acts 2:33), that so it might be made good, that ‘all the promises are yea and amen in Him;’ seeing this promise of the Spirit is given upon Christ’s account, as He is the Son (according to that, ‘God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts,’ (Gal. 3:13-14), and also because now under the New Testament this promise was to be fulfilled in such a manner and measure as was never under the Old; and so it becomes a promise proper to the New, that next great promise, which was to succeed that of Christ Himself, the promise of promises; the sole great promise now left to be given.

God the Father had but two grand gifts to bestow; and when once they should be given out of Him, He had left them nothing that was great (comparatively) to give, for they contained all good in them; and these two gifts were His Son, who was His promise in the Old Testament, and His Spirit, the promise of the New.

And the Father doth honour Himself to us by this title, that He is the promiser and giver of the Spirit; and Christ himself, now when He is come, takes the honour too of that, to make the sending of the Spirit His promise also, in saying, ‘Behold I send Him:’ (Luke 24:49), and in John 14:26, ‘Whom my Father will send in my name.’

And it is evident that our Saviour, in calling Him ‘the promise of the Father,’ which was spoken by Him after His resurrection, Luke 24:49, doth refer to His own words and sermons uttered afore His resurrection, in 14th, 15th, and 16th chapters of John, rather than to the prophets primarily in his intention.

Acts 1:4 says: ‘Wait for the promise of the Father, which ye have heard of me.’

Again, Christ had John the Baptist, who ‘began the gospel,’ to foretell His manifestation in the flesh, and to prepare the way for this Lord. And besides him, His angels did it.

But the Holy Ghost hath Christ Himself to foretell His coming upon flesh: and that to prepare the hearts of men for Him whenever He should come.

And, lastly, on purpose to honour His visible coming, He had answerably an extraordinary work left to Him, upon that His visible coming: the conversion of the whole Gentile world; and the raising and building of the churches of the New Testament was reserved of His glory.

To believe in the Holy Ghost, and the holy catholic church, you know how near they stand together in the Creed.

His visible coming at Pentecost was the visible consecration and dedication of that great temple, the mystical body of Christ, to be reared under the gospel (the several members of which body are called ‘temples of the Holy Ghost,’ 1 Cor. 3:16), as that appearance at Christ’s baptism was the consecration of the head.

Of this work of the Spirit, that of the psalmist, though spoken literally of the first creation, may yet be used in allusion, and is mystically applied by some of the fathers thereunto: ‘Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; thou renewest the face of the earth.’ (Ps. 104:30)

The whole earth was decked and adorned with a new array, when the Spirit of God moved upon that chaos; and the whole face of the world was in that age of the gospel’s promulgation no other than a chaos, void, and without all form; ‘all nations had walked in their own ways.’

But the Spirit was sent forth, and lo this barren wilderness became a fruitful field all the world over.”

–Thomas Goodwin, The Work of the Holy Ghost in Our Salvation, The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 6 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1861/2006), 6: 8-9.

“There are no maverick molecules” by R.C. Sproul

“There are no maverick molecules running around loose. God is sovereign. God is God.”

–R.C. Sproul, Chosen By God (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2011), 117.

“The entire aim of the Christian life” by J. V. Fesko

“The entire aim of the Christian life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, whether in this world or the next.

Until faith gives way to sight and this mortal frame dons immortality, our prayer should be that we would live for the glory and enjoyment of our Triune God in the present.”

–J. V. Fesko, The Giver of Life: The Biblical Doctrine of the Holy Spirit and Salvation (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2024), 281.

“We shall see His face” by Charles Spurgeon

“Certainly, brethren and sisters, to no believer would heaven be desirable if Jesus were not there, or, if being there, they could not enjoy the nearest and dearest fellowship with Him.

A sight of Him first turned our sorrow into joy; renewed communion with Him lifts us above our present cares, and strengthens us to bear our heavy burdens: what must heavenly communion be?

When we have Christ with us we are content on a crust, and satisfied with a cup of water; but if His face be hidden the whole world cannot afford a solace, we are widowed of our Beloved, our sun has set, our moon is eclipsed, our candle is blown out.

Christ is all in all to us here, and therefore we pant and long for a heaven in which He shall be all in all to us forever; and such will the heaven of God be.

The Paradise of God is not the Elysium of imagination, the Utopia of intellect, or the Eden of poetry; but it is the heaven of intense spiritual fellowship with the Lord Jesus—a place where it is promised to faithful souls that “they shall see His face.” (Revelation 22:4)

In the beatific vision it is Christ whom they see; and further, it is His face which they behold.

They shall not see the skirts of His robe as Moses saw the back parts of Jehovah; they shall not be satisfied to touch the hem of His garment, or to sit far down at His feet where they can only see His sandals, but they “shall see His face;” by which I understand two things: first, that they shall literally and physically, with their risen bodies, actually look into the face of Jesus; and secondly, that spiritually their mental faculties shall be enlarged, so that they shall be enabled to look into the very heart, and soul, and character of Christ, so as to understand Him, His work, His love, His all in all, as they never understood Him before.

They shall literally, I say, see his face, for Christ is no phantom; and in heaven though divine, and therefore spiritual, he is still a man, and therefore material like ourselves.

The very flesh and blood that suffered upon Calvary is in heaven; the hand that was pierced with the nail now at this moment grasps the sceptre of all worlds; that very head which was bowed down with anguish is now crowned with a royal diadem; and the face that was so marred is the very face which beams resplendent amidst the thrones of heaven. Into that selfsame countenance we shall be permitted to gaze.

O what a sight! Roll by, ye years; hasten on, ye laggard months and days, to let us but for once behold him, our Beloved, our hearts’ care, who “redeemed us unto God by his blood,” whose we are, and whom we love with such a passionate desire, that to be in his embrace we would be satisfied to suffer ten thousand deaths!

They shall actually see Jesus. Yet the spiritual sight will be sweeter still. I think the text implies that in the next world our powers of mind will be very different from what they are now.

We are, the best of us, in our infancy as yet, and know but in part; but we shall be men then, we shall “put away childish things.”

We shall see and know even as we are known; and amongst the great things that we shall know will be this greatest of all, that we shall know Christ: we shall know the heights, and depths, and lengths, and breadths of the love of Christ that passeth knowledge.

O how delightful it will be then to understand His everlasting love; how without beginning, or ever the earth was, His thoughts darted forward towards His dear ones, whom He had chosen in the sovereignty of His choice, that they should be His forever!

What a subject for delightful meditation will the covenant be, and Christ’s suretyship engagements in that covenant when He undertook to take the debts of all His people upon Himself, and to pay them all, and to stand and suffer in their room!

And what thoughts shall we have then of our union with Christ—our federal, vital, conjugal oneness! We only talk about these things now, we do not really understand them.

We merely plough the surface and gather a topsoil harvest, but a richer subsoil lies beneath. Brethren, in heaven we shall dive into the lowest depths of fellowship with Jesus.

“We shall see His face,” that is, we shall see clearly and plainly all that has to do with our Lord; and this shall be the topmost bliss of heaven.

In the blessed vision the saints see Jesus, and they see Him clearly.”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Heaven of Heaven,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 14 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1868), 14: 436–438.

“Communion with the triune God” by Kevin J. Vanhoozer

“Communion with the Father, Son, and Spirit begins with God’s love for us and ends in our love to God.

Communion with the triune God is sweeter yet more profound than human friendship or any human relationship.”

–Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “Foreword,” in John Owen, Communion With The Triune God, Eds. Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 13.

“God’s purpose in revelation is to make friends with us” by Scott Swain

“Speech is not merely adventitious to God. In contrast to mute idols, the true and living God is a speaking, commanding, promising, and pledging God (cf. Ps. 115:5, 7; 135:16).

Indeed, before all ages God is a communicating God: “In the beginning was the Word” (Jn 1:1). Before God created the world, the Word was “with God,” reposing at his side in active fellowship (cf. 1:18), and this Word “was God,” the radiant self-communication of the Father’s being, his “only-begotten Son” (Jn 1:1, 14; Heb. 1:3).

According to Holy Scripture, the eternal fellowship of the Father and the Son is shared by the Holy Spirit, who searches the “depths” of God’s intelligent and adorable life (1 Cor. 2:10). The one true God thus ever lives a life of communication and communion as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 17:5, 24).

In his unfathomable kindness, the blessed Trinity has determined to share his life of communication and communion with us. To be sure, “we cannot fully comprehend his incomprehensible being.”

The being and ways of the triune God are “past finding out” (Rom. 11:33, KJV). Nevertheless, because it is the triune God himself who personally undertakes to reveal himself to us, “we can truly taste and see his goodness.”

The unfathomable God can reveal himself to finite humanity in a manner that is sufficient for creating, sustaining, and perfecting an intelligent, saving fellowship with humanity.

To this end, the Son was sent to reveal his own unique knowledge of the Father: “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Mt. 11:27; cf. Jn 1:18).

Moreover, the Spirit was sent “that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Cor. 2:12; cf. 2:7; Jn 16:13–15).

In all of God’s words to us, and supremely in Holy Scripture, God wills to include us in the blessed life of communication and communion that he is.

1 Jn 1:3 is thus a kind of mission statement for God’s word: “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (cf. 1 Jn 4:13).

Communication from the triune God is a means to communion with the triune God. ‘God’s purpose in revelation is to make friends with us.'”

–Scott R. Swain, Trinity, Revelation, and Reading: A Theological Introduction to the Bible and Its Interpretation (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2011), 15-16.

“The Trinity” by John Owen

“Deny the Trinity, and all the means of the communication of grace, with the whole of the satisfaction and righteousness of Christ, fall to the ground.”

–John Owen, “Of the Divine Original of the Scriptures,” The Works of John Owen, Volume 16 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1684/2000), 16: 341.