Nick Roark's Blog, page 36

“Oh how the scene is altered” by Thomas Watson

“See the different state of Christ on earth and in heaven. Oh how the scene is altered!

When Christ was on earth, He lay in a manger— now He sits on a throne.

Then He was hated and scorned of men— now He is adored of angels.

Then His name was reproached— now ‘God hath given Him a name above every name,’ (Phil. 2:9).

Then He came in the form of a servant, and as a servant, stood with his basin and towel, and washed his disciples’ feet, (John 13:4-5)— now He is clad in His prince’s robes, and the kings of the earth cast their crowns before Him.

On earth He was a man of sorrow— now He is anointed with the oil of gladness.

On earth was His crucifixion— now His coronation.”

–Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity Contained in Sermons Upon the Westminster Assembly’s Catechism (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1692/1970), 206

“Let us beware of the very small beginnings of false doctrine” by J.C. Ryle

“The plague is abroad. If we love life, we ought to search our own hearts, and try our own faith, and make sure that we stand on the right foundation.

Above all, we ought to take heed that we ourselves do not imbibe the poison of false doctrine, and go back from our first love.

I feel deeply the painfulness of speaking out on these subjects. I know well that plain speaking about false doctrine is very unpopular, and that the speaker must be content to find himself thought very uncharitable, very troublesome, and very narrow-minded.

Thousands of people can never distinguish differences in religion. To the bulk of men a clergyman is a clergyman, and a sermon is a sermon; and as to any difference between one minister and another, or one doctrine and another, they are utterly unable to understand it.

I cannot expect such people to approve of any warning against false doctrine. I must make up my mind to meet with their disapprobation, and must bear it as I best can.

But I will ask any honest-minded, unprejudiced Bible reader to turn to the New Testament and see what he will find there. He will find many plain warnings against false doctrine:

“Beware of false prophets,”— “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit,”— “Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines,”— “Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God.” (Matt. 7:15; Col. 2:8; Heb. 13:9; 1 John 4:1)

He will find a large part of several inspired Epistles taken up with elaborate explanations of true doctrine and warnings against false teaching. I ask whether it is possible for a minister who takes the Bible for his rule of faith to avoid giving warnings against doctrinal error?

False doctrine does not meet men face to face, and proclaim that it is false. It does not blow a trumpet before it, and endeavour openly to turn us away from the truth as it is in Jesus.

It does not come before men in broad day, and summon them to surrender. It approaches us secretly, quietly, insidiously, plausibly, and in such a way as to disarm man’s suspicion, and throw him off his guard.

It is the wolf in sheep’s clothing, and Satan in the garb of an angel of light, who have always proved the most dangerous foes of the Church of Christ.

Let us beware of the insidiousness of false doctrine. Like the fruit of which Eve and Adam ate, it looks at first sight pleasant and good, and a thing to be desired.

Poison is not written upon it, and so people are not afraid. Like counterfeit coin, it is not stamped ‘bad.’ It passes current from the very likeness it bears to the truth.

Let us beware of the very small beginnings of false doctrine. Every heresy began at one time with some little departure from the truth.

There is only a little seed of error needed to create a great tree.

It is the little stones that make up the mighty building.

It was the little timbers that made the great ark that carried Noah and his family over a deluged world.

It is the little leaven that leavens the whole lump.

It is the little flaw in one link of the chain cable that wrecks the gallant ship, and drowns the crew.

It is the omission or addition of one little item in the doctor’s prescription that spoils the whole medicine, and turns it into poison.

We do not tolerate quietly a little dishonesty, or a little cheating, or a little lying: just so, let us never allow a little false doctrine to ruin us, by thinking it is but a “little one,” and can do no harm.

The Galatians seemed to be doing nothing very dangerous when they “observed days and months, and times and years;” yet St. Paul says, “I am afraid of you.” (Gal. 4:10-11)

Last of all, let me urge all true believers to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. We have no cause to be ashamed of that faith.

I am firmly persuaded that there is no system so life-giving, so calculated to awaken the sleeping, lead on the inquiring, and build up the saints, as that system which is called the Evangelical system of Christianity.

Wherever it is faithfully preached, and efficiently carried out, and consistently adorned by the lives of its professors, it is the power of God.

It may be spoken against and mocked by some; but so it was in the days of the Apostles. It may be weakly set forth and defended by many of its advocates; but, after all, its fruits and its results are its highest praise.

No other system of religion can point to such fruits. Nowhere are so many souls converted to God as in those congregations where the Gospel of Jesus Christ is preached in all its fulness, without any admixture of the Pharisee or Sadducee doctrine.

We are not called upon, beyond all doubt, to be nothing but controversialists; but we never ought to be ashamed to testify to the truth as it is in Jesus, and to stand up boldly for Evangelical religion.

We have the truth, and we need not be afraid to say so. The Judgment Day will prove who is right, and to that day we may boldly appeal.”

–J.C. Ryle, “Pharisees and Sadducees” in Knots Untied: Being Plain Statements on Disputed Points in Religion (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1874/2016), 363-386.

“The first preacher in Paradise” by Henry Bullinger

“The first preacher in Paradise was God Himself, yea, the Son of God Himself: who by the ministry of the Holy Ghost always spake to the fathers; even as afterwards, being incarnate, He was given of the Father to be a master and teacher to the whole world.”

–Henry Bullinger, The Decades of Henry Bullinger: The Fifth Decade, ed. Thomas Harding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1852), 4: 102.

“Adam broke all the Ten Commandments” by Edward Fisher

EVANGELISTA, a Minister of the Gospel.
NOMISTA, a Legalist.
ANTINOMISTA, an Antinomian.
NEOPHITUS, a Young Christian.

“EVANGELISTA: How could there be a greater sin committed than that, when Adam at that one clap broke all the Ten Commandments?

NOMISTA: Did he break all the commandments, say you? Sir, I beseech you shew me wherein.

EVANGELISTA: 1. He chose himself another God when he followed the devil.

2. He idolized and deified his own belly; as the apostle’s phrase is, “He made his belly his God.”

3. He took the name of God in vain, when he believed Him not.

4. He kept not the rest and estate wherein God had set him.

5. He dishonoured his Father who was in heaven; and therefore his days were not prolonged in that land which the Lord his God had given him.

6. He massacred himself and all his posterity.

7. From Eve he was a virgin, but in eyes and mind he committed spiritual fornication.

8. He stole, like Achan, that which God had set aside not to be middled with; and this his stealth is that which troubles all Israel,—the whole world.

9. He bore witness against God, when he believed the witness of the devil before Him.

10. He coveted an evil covetousness, like Ammon, which cost him his life, and all his progeny.”

–Edward Fisher, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, in Thomas Boston, The Works of Thomas Boston, Volume 7 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 2023), 7: 178-179.

“He is leading us home” by David Gibson

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” (Psalm 23:6)

“This beautiful psalm is not just the story of a sheep’s daily journey, out of the fold in the morning, doing its thing in the pastures and the valleys, and then returning safely home again with the shepherd at dusk.

It is the story, ultimately, of how ever since our first parents’ fall in Eden, we were exiled from the garden, the dwelling place of the Lord, so that God’s people were in need of an exodus salvation to take us from the land of sin and slavery to the land of promise.

In that land, however, we replayed our rebellion and not only vandalized a perfect garden but, this time, ruined a land flowing with milk and honey; and so the pattern continued. Exiled once more into slavery, God’s people needed a new exodus salvation to restore us to the promised land.

It is true that a return from exile brought deliverance, yes, but it was not complete; it was not total; it did not seem to contain everything that the prophets had promised.

Ever since the dawn of time we have been longing to return home, and that return is made possible only by the coming of the Lord Jesus, the true good shepherd who arrived to lead us home.

This home to which we are returning is Eden restored; but more than this, it is also Eden recalibrated to cosmic proportions.

Eden was the first dwelling place on earth of God with us. It was the first house where God and man lived together in perfect fellowship.

Ever since, every dwelling place of God on earth has been patterned on Eden: the tabernacle and then the temple were built as garden-sanctuaries with walls decorated with Edenic images of trees and flowers and precious stones.

The tabernacle and temple had within them the ultimate dwelling place, “the holy of holies” (or “Most Holy Place,” ESV), but astonishingly, at the end, in the book of Revelation, a “holy of holies” is not to be found. It is absent in Revelation’s glorious vision of God’s end-time dwelling.

The reason for this is simply stunning: the holy of holies—a perfect cube whose floor, walls, and ceiling were made of gold—has now expanded to fill the entire new earth as a city made of “pure gold” (Rev. 21:18) and measured as square in its dimensions.

Eden’s gold, reused in the most holy places of the tabernacle and temple, has now filled the whole earth to tell the gospel story that “God’s special presence, formerly limited to the holy of holies, has now burst forth to encompass the whole earth.”1

This is why the holy city, the new Jerusalem, comes down from heaven to be the place where God will dwell with us: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Rev. 21:3).

This is the house of the Lord. We have a longing for this kind of glorious house and this kind of joyful homecoming reunion at a very profound level, I think, because we know what it is to live among the ruins in this world.

Simple homes can be the happiest palaces on earth if filled with love and life, or they can be the most awful dungeons when overrun with strife or sorrow.

Psalm 23 resonates with us so deeply because it speaks to this yearning for all to be well and to arrive, at last, in a place of unreserved welcome and untainted beauty and perfection.

So we live with Christ our shepherd amid the tension of life, the now and the not-yet of His perfect rule. For now, we are not home, but we are heading there because He is leading us.”

–David Gibson, The Lord of Psalm 23: Jesus Our Shepherd, Companion, and Host (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), 140-142.

1. G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2004), 370.

“Eternally secured” by John Owen

“In Christ the relation of our nature unto God is eternally secured.

We were created in a covenant relation unto God. Our nature was related unto Him in a way of friendship, of likeness, and complacency.

But the bond of this relation and union was quickly broken, by our apostasy from Him.

Hereon our whole nature became to be at the utmost moral distance from God, and enmity against Him, which is the depth of misery.

But God, in infinite wisdom and grace, did design once more to recover it, and take it again near unto Himself.

And He would do it in such a way as should render it utterly impossible that there should ever be a separation between Him and it any more.

Heaven and earth may pass away, but there shall never be a dissolution of the union between God and our nature any more.

He did it, therefore, by assuming it into a substantial union with Himself, in the person of the Son.

Hereby the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in it bodily, or substantially, and eternally.

Hereby is its relation unto God eternally secured.”

–John Owen, The Works of John Owen, Volume 1: The Glory of Christ (ed. William H. Goold; Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1850-53/1997), 1: 276-277.

“The beholding of His glory” by John Owen

“The revelation made of Christ in the blessed Gospel is far more excellent, more glorious, and more filled with rays of divine wisdom and goodness, than the whole creation and the just comprehension of it, if attainable, can contain or afford.

Without the knowledge hereof, the mind of man, however priding itself in other inventions and discoveries, is wrapped up in darkness and confusion. This, therefore, deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations, and our utmost diligence in them.

For if our future blessedness shall consist in being where He is, and beholding of His glory, what better preparation can there be for it than in a constant previous contemplation of that glory in the revelation that is made in the Gospel, unto this very end, that by a view of it we may be gradually transformed into the same glory? (2 Corinthians 3:18)”

–John Owen, The Works of John Owen, Volume 1: The Glory of Christ (ed. William H. Goold; Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1850-53/1997), 1: 275.

“The prime motive of existence” by John Calvin

“It is not very sound theology to confine a man’s thoughts so much to himself, and not to set before him, as the prime motive of his existence, zeal to illustrate the glory of God.

For we are born first of all for God, and not for ourselves. As all things flowed from him, and subsist in him, so, says Paul, (Rom. 11:36) they ought to be referred to Him.

I acknowledge, indeed, that the Lord, the better to recommend the glory of His name to men, has tempered zeal for the promotion and extension of it, by uniting it indissolubly with our salvation.

But since He has taught that this zeal ought to exceed all thought and care for our own good and advantage, and since natural equity also teaches that God does not receive what is His own, unless He is preferred to all things, it certainly is the part of a Christian man to ascend higher than merely to seek and secure the salvation of his own soul.

I am persuaded, therefore, that there is no man imbued with true piety, who will not consider as insipid that long and laboured exhortation to zeal for heavenly life, a zeal which keeps a man entirely devoted to himself, and does not, even by one expression, arouse him to sanctify the name of God.

But I readily agree with you that, after this sanctification, we ought not to propose to ourselves any other object in life than to hasten towards that high calling; for God has set it before us as the constant aim of all our thoughts, and words, and actions.

And, indeed, there is nothing in which man excels the lower animals, unless it be his spiritual communion with God in the hope of a blessed eternity. And, generally, all we aim at in our discourses is to arouse men to meditate upon it, and aspire to it.”

–John Calvin, A Reformation Debate: John Calvin and Jacopo Sadoleto, Ed. John C. Olin (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1539/1966), 59.

“There is no better way” by John Calvin

“I love you, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalm 18:1-2)

“Love for God is here laid down as constituting the principal part of true godliness; for there is no better way of serving God than to love Him.”

–John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2009),84. Calvin is commenting on Psalm 18:1-2.

“Here we have often found it hard to worship God joyfully” by J.C. Ryle

“The day is coming when there shall be a congregation that shall never break up, and a Sabbath that shall never end, a song of praise that shall never cease, and an assembly that shall never be dispersed.

In that assembly shall be found all who have ‘worshipped God in spirit‘ upon earth. If we are such, we shall be there.

Here we often worship God with a deep sense of weakness, corruption, and infirmity. There, at last, we shall be able, with a renewed body, to serve Him without weariness, and to attend on Him without distraction.

Here, at our very best, we see through a glass darkly, and know the Lord Jesus Christ most imperfectly. It is our grief that we do not know Him better and love Him more.

There, freed from all the dross and defilement of indwelling sin, we shall see Jesus as we have been seen, and know as we have been known. Surely, if faith has been sweet and peace-giving, sight will be far better.

Here we have often found it hard to worship God joyfully, by reason of the sorrows and cares of this world. Tears over the graves of those we loved have often made it hard to sing praise.

Crushed hopes and family sorrows have sometimes made us hang our harps on the willows.

There every tear shall be dried, every saint who has fallen asleep in Christ shall meet us once more, and every hard thing in our life-journey shall be made clear and plain as the sun at noon-day.

Here we have often felt that we stand comparatively alone, and that even in God’s house the real spiritual worshippers are comparatively few.

There we shall at length see a multitude of brethren and sisters that no man can number, all of one heart and one mind, all free from blemishes, weaknesses, and infirmities, all rejoicing in one Saviour, and all prepared to spend an eternity in His praise.

We shall have worshipping companions enough in heaven.

Armed with such hopes as these, let us lift up our hearts and look forward! The time is very short. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us worship on, pray on, praise on, and read on.

Let us contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, and resist manfully every effort to spoil Scriptural worship.

Let us strive earnestly to hand down the light of Gospel worship to our children’s children.

Yet a little time and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Blessed in that day will be those, and those only, who are found true worshippers, ‘worshippers in spirit and truth!‘”

–J.C. Ryle, “Worship” in Knots Untied: Being Plain Statements on Disputed Points in Religion (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1874/2016), 330-331.