Nick Roark's Blog, page 71

“Theology should humble us” by David Wells

“The effects of theological knowledge should be humility and a deepened desire to serve and honor God in all of our commerce with created reality.

The truly profound thinkers in life are often brought to humility, too, but perhaps for different reasons.

They are humbled out of a sense of their own smallness; theology should humble us through a sense of the greatness and wonder of God.

It is what we know, not what we do not know, that subdues our pride and causes us to render to God the worship that is His due.”

–David F. Wells, “The Theologian’s Craft” in Doing Theology in Today’s World: Essays in Honor of Kenneth S. Kantzer, John Woodbridge and Thomas Edward McComiskey, Eds. (Grand Rapids: MI: Zondervan, 1994), 174.

“God is not a quantity that can be mastered” by David Wells

“There are few lines quite so poignantly applicable to the theologian’s craft as those of the medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote of ‘The life so short, the craft so long to learn. The attempt so hard, the victory so keen.’

It is, in fact, surprising that the thought should ever cross our minds that the theological undertaking could be otherwise, for understanding– understanding of God, of ourselves, of the world– comes so slowly, so painfully slowly, that ‘life’s’ summer passes and the winter arrives long before this fruit is ripe to be picked.

Or so it seems. And that, perhaps, is why we are so fiercely tempted to turn theology into a technique that we can use to produce a more efficiently gained and bountiful knowledge of God!

God, however, is not like the periodic table.

He is not a quantity that can be ‘mastered’ even though He can be known; and though He has revealed Himself with clarity, the depth of our understanding of Him is measured, not by the speed with which theological knowledge is processed, but by the quality of our determination to own His ownership of us through Christ in thought, word, and deed.

Theology is the sustained effort to know the character, will, and acts of the triune God as He has disclosed and interpreted these for His people in Scripture, to formulate these in a systematic way in order that we might know Him, learn to think our thoughts after Him, live our lives in His world on His terms, and by thought and action projection His truth into our own time and culture.

It is therefore a synthetic activity whose center is the understanding of God, whose horizon is as wide as life itself, and whose mission echoes the mission of God Himself, which is to gather together in Christ a progeny as numerous as the stars above (Gen. 15:1-6; Gal. 3:6-16).”

–David F. Wells, “The Theologian’s Craft” in Doing Theology in Today’s World: Essays in Honor of Kenneth S. Kantzer, John Woodbridge and Thomas Edward McComiskey, Eds. (Grand Rapids: MI: Zondervan, 1994), 171, 172.

“This pattern is a primal one” by Jeremy M. Kimble and Ched Spellman

“With the explicit reference to the promise to Abraham, Moses indicates that this hope for the future worship and obedience of the people is not a generic hope.

Rather, it is tied to specific promises that we find at strategic places in the story of the Pentateuch. In other words, we can ask:

Where does this hope originate? Where can we find out more information about the content of this hope?

As we see from the story of the Pentateuch, the ability of the people to follow the law and maintain obedience from a willing heart is an insufficient place to put our hope.

In fact, this is the theme explicitly articulated by a pessimistic Moses at the climax of the Pentateuch. In his book-length closing speech, Moses argues that the Mosaic covenant has failed to bring about the obedience that the Lord requires in the hearts of the people.

What hope is there for the second generation? For the reader of the Pentateuch?

Reading and rereading the story of the Pentateuch as a whole highlights that the pattern that Moses identifies on the plains of Moab began in Eden.

This pattern is a primal one. So too, the hope that Moses anticipates has its roots in that same garden.

The forward momentum of this narrative progression is a primary way that the Pentateuch functions. Throughout this sweeping narrative storyline, though, there are strategically placed poetic sections that provide reflective commentary on the story.

These carefully arranged and strategically composed poems function like windows into the meaning of the Pentateuch’s purpose and also offer a glimpse into the author’s meaning.

Within these poems, we find a cluster of images that profile the promises that bind the major themes of the Pentateuch together.

Within these poetic compositions, an individual is described who will one day defeat God’s enemies and bring about blessing for the people rather than despair.

A future hope is promised, and the proof is in the poetry. A brief survey of these textual locations can orient us to this aspect of the story and the message of the Pentateuch.”

–Jeremy M. Kimble and Ched Spellman, Invitation to Biblical Theology: Exploring the Shape, Storyline, and Themes of Scripture, Invitation to Theological Studies Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2020), 133-134.

“A continual desire” by John Owen

“Our Lord Jesus Christ alone perfectly understood wherein the eternal blessedness of them that believe in Him doth consist.

And this is the sum of what He prays for with respect unto that end,– namely, that we may be where He is, to behold His glory. (John 17:24)

And is it not our duty to live in a continual desire of that which He prayed so earnestly that we might attain?”

–John Owen, “Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ,” The Works of John Owen, Volume 1: The Glory of Christ (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1684/2000), 1: 388-389.

“This is heaven, this is blessedness, this is eternal rest” by John Owen

“Alas! We cannot here think of Christ, but we are quickly ashamed of, and troubled at, our own thoughts; so confused are they, so unsteady, so imperfect.

Commonly they issue in a groan or a sigh: Oh! when shall we come unto Him? When shall we be ever with Him? When shall we see Him as He is?

And if at any time He begins to give more than ordinary evidences and intimations of His glory and love unto our souls, we are not able to bear them, so as to give them any abiding residence in our minds.

But ordinarily this trouble and groaning is amongst our best attainments in this world,– a trouble which, I pray God, I may never be delivered from, until deliverance do come at once from this state of mortality; yea, the good Lord increase this trouble more and more in all that believe.

The heart of a believer affected with the glory of Christ, is like the needle touched with the loadstone.

It can no longer be quiet, no longer be satisfied in a distance from him. It is put into a continual motion towards him.

This motion, indeed, is weak and tremulous. Pantings, breathings, sighings, groanings in prayer, in meditations, in the secret recesses of our minds, are the life of it.

However, it is continually pressing towards Him. But it obtains not its point, it comes not to its centre and rest, in this world.

But now above, all things are clear and serene,– all plain and evident in our beholding the glory of Christ.

We shall be ever with Him, and see Him as He is. This is heaven, this is blessedness, this is eternal rest.

The person of Christ in all His glory shall be continually before us; and the eyes of our understandings shall be so gloriously illuminated, as that we shall be able steadily to behold and comprehend that glory.

But, alas! Here at present our minds recoil, our meditations fail, our hearts are overcome, our thoughts confused, and our eyes turn aside from the lustre of this glory.

Nor can we abide in the contemplation of it.

But there, an immediate, constant view of it, will bring in everlasting refreshment and joy unto our whole souls.”

–John Owen, “Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ,” The Works of John Owen, Volume 1: The Glory of Christ (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1684/2000), 1: 385.

“Because Christ is there” by John Owen

“Here our souls are burdened with innumerable infirmities, and our faith is clogged in its operations by ignorance and darkness.

This makes our best estate and highest attainments to be accompanied with groans for deliverance: “We which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body,” (Rom. 8:23).

Yea, whilst we are in this tabernacle, we groan earnestly, as being burdened, because we are not “absent from the body, and present with the Lord,” (2 Cor. 5:2, 4, 8).

The more we grow in faith and spiritual light, the more sensible are we of our present burdens, and the more vehemently do we groan for deliverance into the perfect liberty of the sons of God.

This is the posture of their minds who have received the first-fruits of the Spirit in the most eminent degree.

The nearer anyone is to heaven, the more earnestly he desires to be there, because Christ is there.”

–John Owen, “Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ,” The Works of John Owen, Volume 1: The Glory of Christ (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1684/2000), 1: 384.

“One pure act of spiritual sight in discerning the glory of Christ” by John Owen

“One pure act of spiritual sight in discerning the glory of Christ,– one pure act of love in cleaving unto God,– will bring in more blessedness and satisfaction into our minds than in this world we are capable of.”

–John Owen, “Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ,” The Works of John Owen, Volume 1: The Glory of Christ (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1684/2000), 1: 381-382.

“As a man sees his neighbour face to face, so shall we see the Lord Christ in His glory” by John Owen

“Christ Himself, in His own person, with all His glory, shall be continually with us, before us, proposed unto us.

We shall no longer have an image, a representation of Him, such as is the delineation of His glory in the Gospel.

We “shall see Him,” saith the apostle, “face to face,” (1 Cor. 13:12);—which he opposeth unto our seeing Him darkly as in a glass, which is the utmost that faith can attain to.

“We shall see Him as He is,” 1 John 3:2;– not as now, in an imperfect description of Him.

As a man sees his neighbour when they stand and converse together face to face, so shall we see the Lord Christ in His glory. And not as Moses, who had only a transient sight of some parts of the glory of God, when He caused it to pass by him.

There will be use herein of our bodily eyes, as shall be declared. For, as Job says, in our flesh shall we see our Redeemer, and our eyes shall behold Him, (Job 19:25–27).

That corporeal sense shall not be restored unto us, and that glorified above what we can conceive, but for this great use of the eternal beholding of Christ and His glory.

Unto whom is it not a matter of rejoicing, that with the same eyes wherewith they see the tokens and signs of Him in the sacrament of the supper, they shall behold Himself immediately in His own person?

But principally, as we shall see immediately, this vision is intellectual.

It is not, therefore, the mere human nature of Christ that is the object of it, but His divine person, as that nature subsisteth therein.

What is that perfection which we shall have (for that which is perfect must come and do away that which is in part) in the comprehension of the hypostatical union, I understand not.

But this I know, that in the immediate beholding of the person of Christ, we shall see a glory in it a thousand times above what here we can conceive.

The excellencies of infinite wisdom, love, and power therein, will be continually before us.

And all the glories of the person of Christ which we have before weakly and faintly inquired into, will be in our sight forevermore.

Hence the ground and cause of our blessedness is, that “we shall ever be with the Lord,” (1 Thess. 4:17),—as Himself prays, “that we may be with him where He is, to behold His glory.” (John 17:24)

Here we have some dark views of it;– we cannot perfectly behold it, until we are with Him where He is. Thereon our sight of Him will be direct, intuitive, and constant.

There is a glory, there will be so, subjectively in us in the beholding of this glory of Christ, which is at present incomprehensible. For it doth not yet appear what we ourselves shall be, (1 John 3:2).

Who can declare what a glory it will be in us to behold this glory of Christ?

And how excellent, then, is that glory of Christ itself!

This immediate sight of Christ is that which all the saints of God in this life do breathe and pant after.

Hence are they willing to be dissolved, or “desire to depart, that they may be with Christ,” which is best for them, (Phil. 1:23).

They choose “to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord,” (2 Cor. 5:8); or that they may enjoy the inexpressibly longed-for sight of Christ in His glory.”

–John Owen, “Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ,” The Works of John Owen, Volume 1: The Glory of Christ (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1684/2000), 1: 378-379.

“Herein is He glorious in the sight of God, angels, and men” by John Owen

“The establishment of the righteousness of God on the one hand, and the forgiveness of sin on the other, seem so contradictory, as that many stumble and fall at it eternally. (See Rom. 10:3-4).

But in this interposition of Christ, in this translation of punishment from the church unto Him, by virtue of His conjunction therewith, there is a blessed harmony between the righteousness of God and the forgiveness of sins;– the exemplification whereof is His eternal glory.

“O blessed change! O sweet permutation!” as Justin Martyr speaks.

By virtue of His union with the church, which of His own accord He entered into, and His undertaking therein to answer for it in the sight of God, it was a righteous thing with God to lay the punishment of all our sins upon Him, so as that He might freely and graciously pardon them all, to the honour and exaltation of His justice, as well as of His grace and mercy, (Rom. 3:24–26).

Herein is He glorious in the sight of God, angels, and men.

In Him there is at the same time, in the same divine actings, a glorious resplendency of justice and mercy;– of the one in punishing, of the other in pardoning.

The appearing inconsistency between the righteousness of God and the salvation of sinners, wherewith the consciences of convinced persons are exercised and terrified, and which is the rock on which most of them split themselves into eternal ruin, is herein removed and taken away.

In His cross were divine holiness and vindictive justice exercised and manifested; and through His triumph, grace and mercy are exerted to the utmost.

This is that glory which ravisheth the hearts and satiates the souls of them that believe.

For what can they desire more, what is farther needful unto the rest and composure of their souls, than at one view to behold God eternally well pleased in the declaration of His righteousness and the exercise of His mercy, in order unto their salvation?

In due apprehensions hereof let my soul live.

In the faith hereof let me die.

And let present admiration of this glory make way for the eternal enjoyment of it in its beauty and fulness.”

–John Owen, “Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ,” The Works of John Owen, Volume 1: The Glory of Christ (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1684/2000), 1: 358-359.

“It is a joy of heart unto us that Thou art what Thou art” by John Owen

“Let the world rage whilst it pleaseth.

Let it set itself with all its power and craft against everything of Christ that is in it,– which, whatever is by some otherwise pretended, proceeds from a hatred unto His person.

Let men make themselves drunk with the blood of His saints.

We have this to oppose unto all their attempts, unto our supportment,– namely, what He says of Himself: ‘Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of hell and of death,’ (Rev 1:17-18).

Blessed Jesus! We can add nothing to Thee, nothing to Thy glory.

But it is a joy of heart unto us that Thou art what Thou art,– that Thou art so gloriously exalted at the right hand of God.

And we do long more fully and clearly to behold that glory, according to Thy prayer and promise.”

–John Owen, “Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ,” The Works of John Owen, Volume 1: The Glory of Christ (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1684/2000), 1: 347.