Nick Roark's Blog, page 72

“His sufferings and His glory” by John Owen

“So much as we know of Christ, His sufferings, and His glory, so much do we understand the Scripture, and no more.”

–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: 343.

“I will pay that which I never took” by John Owen

“‘Ought not Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into His glory?’ (Luke 24:26)

But such, were these sufferings of Christ, as that in our thoughts about them our minds quickly recoil in a sense of their insufficiency to conceive aright of them. Never any one launched into this ocean with his meditations, but he quickly found himself unable to fathom the depths of it; nor shall I here undertake an inquiry into them. I shall only point at this spring of glory, and leave it under a veil.

We might here look on Him as under the weight of the wrath of God, and the curse of the law; taking on Himself, and on His whole soul, the utmost of evil that God had ever threatened to sin or sinners.

We might look on Him in His agony and bloody sweat, in His strong cries and supplications, when He was sorrowful unto the death, and began to be amazed, in apprehensions of the things that were coming on Him,—of that dreadful trial which He was entering into.

We might look upon Him conflicting with all the powers of darkness, the rage and madness of men,—suffering in His soul, His body, His name, His reputation, His goods, His life; some of these sufferings being immediate from God above, others from devils and wicked men, acting according to the determinate counsel of God.

We might look on Him praying, weeping, crying out, bleeding, dying,—in all things making His soul an offering for sin; so was He “taken from prison, and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living: for the transgression,” saith God, “of my people was He smitten,” (Isa. 53:8).

But these things I shall not insist on in particular, but leave them under such a veil as may give us a prospect into them, so far as to fill our souls with holy admiration.

Lord, what is man, that Thou art thus mindful of him? And the son of man, that Thou visitest him? Who hath known Thy mind, or who hath been Thy counsellor?

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! What shall we say unto these things?

That God spared not His only Son, but gave Him up unto death, and all the evils included therein, for such poor, lost sinners as we were;— that for our sakes the eternal Son of God should submit Himself unto all the evils that our natures are obnoxious unto, and that our sins had deserved, that we might be delivered!

How glorious is the Lord Christ on this account, in the eyes of believers!

When Adam had sinned, and thereby eternally, according unto the sanction of the law, ruined himself and all his posterity, he stood ashamed, afraid, trembling, as one ready to perish forever, under the displeasure of God.

Death was that which he had deserved, and immediate death was that which he looked for.

In this state the Lord Christ in the promise comes unto him, and says,

“Poor creature! How woful is thy condition! How deformed is thy appearance!

What is become of the beauty, of the glory of that image of God wherein thou wast created?

How hast thou taken on thee the monstrous shape and image of Satan?

And yet thy present misery, thy entrance into dust and darkness, is no way to be compared with what is to ensue. Eternal distress lies at the door.

But yet look up once more, and behold Me, that thou mayest have some glimpse of what is in the designs of infinite wisdom, love, and grace.

Come forth from thy vain shelter, thy hiding-place.

I will put myself into thy condition.

I will undergo and bear that burden of guilt and punishment which would sink thee eternally into the bottom of hell.

I will pay that which I never took.

I will be made temporally a curse for thee, that thou mayest attain unto eternal blessedness.”

To the same purpose He speaks unto convinced sinners, in the invitation He gives them to come unto Him.

Thus is the Lord Christ set forth in the Gospel, ‘evidently crucified’ before our eyes, (Gal. 3:1),—namely, in the representation that is made of His glory,—in the sufferings He underwent for the discharge of the office He had undertaken.

Let us, then, behold Him as poor, despised, persecuted, reproached, reviled, hanged on a tree,— in all, labouring under a sense of the wrath of God due unto our sins.

Unto this end are they recorded in the Gospel,— read, preached, and represented unto us.

But what can we see herein?—what glory is in these things? Are not these the things which all the world of Jews and Gentiles stumbled and took offence at?—those wherein he was appointed to be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence?

Was it not esteemed a foolish thing, to look for help and deliverance by the miseries of another?—to look for life by his death?

The apostle declares at large that such it was esteemed, (1 Cor. 1:21-25). So was it in the wisdom of the world.

But even on the account of these things He is honourable, glorious, and precious in the sight of them that do believe, (1 Pet. 2:6-7).

For even herein He was ‘the power of God, and the wisdom of God,’ (1 Cor. 1:24).”

–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: 340-342.

“Christ’s obedience was not for Himself but for us” by John Owen

“This was the original glory of Christ’s obedience. This wisdom, the grace, the love, the condescension that was in this choice, animated every act, every duty of His obedience,– rendering it amiable in the sight of God, and useful unto us.

So, when He went to John to be baptized, he, who knew He had no need of it on His own account, would have declined the duty of administering that ordinance unto Him; but He replied, “Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness,” (Matt. 3:15).

This I have undertaken willingly, of my own accord, without any need of it for myself, and therefore will discharge it.

For Him, who was Lord of all universally, thus to submit Himself to universal obedience, carrieth along with it an evidence of glorious grace.

This obedience, as unto the use and end of it, was not for Himself, but for us.

We were obliged unto it, and could not perform it;– He was not obliged unto it any otherwise but by a free act of his own will, and did perform it.

God gave Him this honour, that He should obey for the whole church,– that by “His obedience many should be made righteous,” (Rom. 5:19).

Herein, I say, did God give Him honour and glory, that His obedience should stand in the stead of the perfect obedience of the church as unto justification.

His obedience being absolutely universal, and absolutely perfect, was the great representative of the holiness of God in the law. It was represented glorious when the ten words were written by the finger of God in tables of stone; it appears yet more eminently in the spiritual transcription of it in the hearts of believers: but absolutely and perfectly it is exemplified only in the holiness and obedience of Christ, which answered it unto the utmost.

And this is no small part of his glory in obedience, that the holiness of God in the law was therein, and therein alone, in that one instance, as unto human nature, fully represented.

He wrought out this obedience against all difficulties and oppositions. For although He was absolutely free from that disorder which in us hath invaded our whole natures, which internally renders all obedience difficult unto us, and perfect obedience impossible; yet as unto opposition from without, in temptations, sufferings, reproaches, contradictions, He met with more than we all.

Hence is that glorious word, “Although He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered,” (Heb. 5:8).

The glory of this obedience ariseth principally from the consideration of the person who thus yielded it unto God.

This was no other but the Son of God made man,– God and man in one person.

He who was in heaven, above all, Lord of all, at the same time lived in the world in a condition of no reputation, and a course of the strictest obedience unto the whole law of God.

He unto whom prayer was made, prayed Himself night and day.

He whom all the angels of heaven and all creatures worshipped, was continually conversant in all the duties of the worship of God.

He who was over the house, diligently observed the meanest office of the house.

He that made all men, in whose hand they are all as clay in the hand of the potter, observed amongst them the strictest rules of justice, in giving unto every one His due; and of charity, in giving good things that were not so due.

This is that which renders the obedience of Christ in the discharge of His office both mysterious and glorious.”

–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: 339-340.

“Taking a canonical line to the cross” by Jeremy M. Kimble and Ched Spellman

“For the biblical theologian, the role of the reader is never to make a path to Christ, but always to follow the path to Christ that the biblical authors have laid down. This route requires patience, but only the patience necessary to get you to the text.

Once you are there, your journey awaits. There you will find the biblical author waiting, by the Spirit revealing God in Christ to you. The grand storyline of the Bible and its network of covenant promises and expectations find their end in Christ.

This path is long and winding, but will lead you to your destination. This line is not as the crow flies, but is the one where the cross lies. Taking a canonical line to the cross may not be straight or fast, but it’s true.

The discipline of biblical theology aims to navigate this balance of unity and diversity. The gospel of Jesus Christ is to be proclaimed from all of the Scriptures.

The gospel according to Genesis will have a different shape, tone, and feel than the gospel according to Galatians.

This sensitivity to the details of the biblical texts, the theological developments of the biblical storyline, and the unity of God’s work in the divine plan of redemption will ably equip us to reckon with the gospel wherever we might find ourselves in our travels to and fro across the literary landscape of the biblical canon.”

–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), 101–102.

“The Lord is close to those who have bruised their hearts” by Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430)

“God is most high, yet near.

I will cry to God Most High. If He is most high, how can He hear your crying?

‘My confidence is born from experience,’ the psalmist replies, ‘because I am praying to God, who has dealt kindly with me. If He dealt kindly with me before I sought Him, will He not hear me now that I am crying out to Him?’

The Lord God dealt kindly with us by sending us our Savior Jesus Christ, to die for our misdeeds and rise for our justification. (Rom. 4:25)

And for what kind of people did God will His Son to die?

For the godless. The godless were not seeking God, but God sought them.

He is “most high” indeed, but in such a way that our wretchedness and our groans are not far from Him, for the Lord is close to those who have bruised their hearts.

I will cry to God Most High, to God who has dealt kindly with me.”

–Augustine of Hippo, Expositions of the Psalms 51–72, trans. Maria Boulding, ed. John E. Rotelle, vol. 17, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2001), 17: 108–109. Augustine is commenting on Psalm 57:2.

“Do not forget it, Christian friend” by Charles Spurgeon

“Friend, let me whisper in thine ear: expect to lose thy dear ones still, for death is not destroyed.

Look not upon any of thy friends as though they would be with thee tomorrow, for death is not destroyed yet. See thou the word ‘mortal’ written upon all our brows.

The most unlikely ones die first. When I heard during this week of several cases of dear friends who have gone to their reward, I could have sooner believed it had been others, but God has been pleased to take from us and from our connexion many whom we supposed to be what are called good lives, and they were good lives in the best sense, and that is why the Master took them; they were ripe, and he took them home; but we could not see that.

Now, remember that all your friends, your wife, your husband, your child, your kinsfolk, are all mortal.

That makes you sad. Well, it may prevent your being more sad when they are taken away.

Hold them with a loose hand; do not count that to be freehold which you have only received as a leasehold; do not call that yours which is only lent you, for if you get a thing lent you and it is asked for back, you give it back freely; but if you entertain the notion that it was given you, you do not like to yield it up.

Now, remember, the enemy is not destroyed, and that he will make inroads into our family circle still.

And then remember that you too must die.

Bring yourself frequently face to face with this truth, that you must die. Do not forget it, Christian friend.

No man knows whether his faith is good for anything or not if he does not frequently try that faith by bringing himself right to the edge of the grave.

Picture yourself dying, conceive yourself breathing out your last breath, and see whether then you can look at death without quaking, whether you can feel, “Yes, I have rested upon Jesus, I am saved, I will go through death’s tremendous vale with his presence as my stay, fearing no evil.”

If you have no good hope, may God give you grace at this moment to fly to Jesus, and to trust in Him, and when you have trusted in Him death will be to you a destroyed enemy.

May God grant his blessing for Jesus’ sake. Amen.”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Last Enemy Destroyed,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 12 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1866), 12: 647–648.

“What must it be to lose your soul?” by Charles Spurgeon

“You may tell how serious it is to lose the soul, from its intrinsic value.

The soul is a thing worth ten thousand worlds; in fact, a thing which worlds on worlds heaped together, like sand upon the sea shore, could not buy.

It is more precious than if the ocean had each drop of itself turned into a golden globe, for all that wealth could not buy a soul.

Consider! The soul is made in the image of its Maker; “God made man,” it is said, “in his own image.”

The soul is an everlasting thing like God; God has gifted it with immortality; and hence it is precious. To lose it, then, how fearful!

Consider how precious a soul must be, when both God and the devil are after it.

You never heard that the devil was after a kingdom, did you? No, he is not so foolish; he knows it would not be worth his winning; he is never after that; but he is always after souls.

You never heard that God was seeking after a crown, did you! No, he thinketh little of dominions; but he is after souls every day: his Holy Spirit is seeking his children; and Christ came to save souls.

Do you think that which hell craves for, and that which God seeks for, is not precious?

The soul is precious again, we know, by the price Christ paid for it.

“Not with silver and gold,” but with his own flesh and blood did he redeem it. Ah! it must be precious, if he gave his heart’s core to purchase it.

What must it be to lose your soul?”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, “Profit and Loss,” in The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, vol. 2 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1856), 2: 310–311.

“The bottomless river of joy” by Charles Spurgeon

“Christ has abolished death by removing its greatest sorrows. I told you that death snatched us away from the society of those we loved on earth; it is true, but it introduces us into nobler society far.

We leave the imperfect church on earth, but we claim membership with the perfect church in heaven. The church militant must know us no more, but of the church triumphant we shall be happy members.

We may not see the honoured men on earth who now serve Christ in the ministry, but we shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the noble army of martyrs, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, and the glorious company of the apostles.

We shall be no losers, certainly, in the matter of society, but great gainers when we are introduced to the general assembly and the church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven.

I said that we should be taken away from enjoyments.

I spoke of Sabbath bells that would ring no longer, of communion tables at which we could not sit, and songs of holy mirth in which we could not join—ah! it is small loss compared with the gain unspeakable, for we shall hear the bells of heaven ring out an unending Sabbath, we shall join the songs that never have a pause, and which know no discord.

We shall sit at the banqueting table where the King Himself is present, where the symbols and the signs have vanished because the guests have found the substance, and the King eternal and immortal is visibly in their presence.

Beloved, we leave the desert to lie down in green pastures.

We leave the scanty rills to bathe in the bottomless river of joy.

We leave the wells of Elim for the land which floweth with milk and honey.”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Last Enemy Destroyed,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 12 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1866), 12: 646.

“The path of self-sacrifice is the path to glory” by B.B. Warfield

“Our self-abnegation is not for our own sake, but for the sake of others. And thus it is not to mere self-denial that Christ calls us, but specifically to self-sacrifice: not to unselfing ourselves, but to unselfishing ourselves.

Self-denial for its own sake is in its very nature ascetic, monkish. It concentrates our whole attention on self—self-knowledge, self-control—and can therefore eventuate in nothing other than the very apotheosis of selfishness.

At best it succeeds only in subjecting the outer self to the inner self, or the lower self to the higher self; and only the more surely falls into the slough of self-seeking, that it partially conceals the selfishness of its goal by refining its ideal of self and excluding its grosser and more outward elements.

Self-denial, then, drives to the cloister; narrows and contracts the soul; murders within us all innocent desires, dries up all the springs of sympathy, and nurses and coddles our self-importance until we grow so great in our own esteem as to be careless of the trials and sufferings, the joys and aspirations, the strivings and failures and successes of our fellow-men.

Self-denial, thus understood, will make us cold, hard, unsympathetic,—proud, arrogant, self-esteeming,—fanatical, overbearing, cruel. It may make monks and Stoics,—it cannot make Christians.

It is not to this that Christ’s example calls us.

He did not cultivate self, even His divine self: He took no account of self.

He was not led by His divine impulse out of the world, driven back into the recesses of His own soul to brood morbidly over His own needs, until to gain His own seemed worth all sacrifice to Him.

He was led by His love for others into the world, to forget Himself in the needs of others, to sacrifice self once for all upon the altar of sympathy.

Self-sacrifice brought Christ into the world. And self-sacrifice will lead us, His followers, not away from but into the midst of men.

Wherever men suffer, there will we be to comfort.

Wherever men strive, there will we be to help.

Wherever men fail, there will be we to uplift.

Wherever men succeed, there will we be to rejoice.

Self-sacrifice means not indifference to our times and our fellows: it means absorption in them.

It means forgetfulness of self in others.

It means entering into every man’s hopes and fears, longings and despairs: it means manysidedness of spirit, multiform activity, multiplicity of sympathies.

It means richness of development.

It means not that we should live one life, but a thousand lives,—binding ourselves to a thousand souls by the filaments of so loving a sympathy that their lives become ours.

It means that all the experiences of men shall smite our souls and shall beat and batter these stubborn hearts of ours into fitness for their heavenly home.

It is, after all, then, the path to the highest possible development, by which alone we can be made truly men. Not that we shall undertake it with this end in view.

This were to dry up its springs at their source. We cannot be self-consciously self-forgetful, selfishly unselfish.

Only, when we humbly walk this path, seeking truly in it not our own things but those of others, we shall find the promise true, that he who loses his life shall find it.

Only, when, like Christ, and in loving obedience to His call and example, we take no account of ourselves, but freely give ourselves to others, we shall find, each in his measure, the saying true of himself also: ‘Wherefore also God hath highly exalted him.’

The path of self-sacrifice is the path to glory.”

–B.B. Warfield, “Imitating the Incarnation,” in The Saviour of the World (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1916/1991), 268-270. This sermon is from Philippians 2:5-8.

“We are not to be always going about the world searching out heresies like terrier dogs sniffing for rats” by Charles Spurgeon

“We should avoid everything like the ferocity of bigotry.

There are religious people about, who, I have no doubt, were born of a woman, but appear to have been suckled by a wolf.

I have done them no dishonour: were not Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of Rome, so fed?

Some warlike men of this order have had power to found dynasties of thought; but human kindness and brotherly love consort better with the kingdom of Christ.

We are not to be always going about the world searching out heresies, like terrier dogs sniffing for rats, and to be always so confident of one’s own infallibility, that we erect ecclesiastical stakes at which to roast all who differ from us.

And, dear brethren, we must acquire certain moral faculties and habits, as well as put aside their opposites. He will never do much for God who has not integrity of spirit.

If we be guided by policy, if there be any mode of action for us but that which is straightforward, we shall make shipwreck before long.

Resolve, dear brethren, that you can be poor, that you can be despised, that you can lose life itself, but that you cannot do a crooked thing.

For you, let the only policy be honesty.

May you also possess the grand moral characteristic of courage.

By this we do not mean impertinence, impudence, or self-conceit; but real courage to do and say calmly the right thing, and to go straight on at all hazards, though there should be none to give you a good word.

I am astonished at the number of Christians who are afraid to speak the truth to their brethren.

I thank God I can say this, there is no member of my church, no officer of the church, and no man in the world to whom I am afraid to say before his face what I would say behind his back.

Under God I owe my position in my own church to the absence of all policy, and the habit of saying what I mean.

The plan of making things pleasant all round is a perilous as well as a wicked one. If you say one thing to one man, and another to another, they will one day compare notes and find you out, and then you will be despised.

The man of two faces will sooner or later be the object of contempt, and justly so.

Now, above all things, avoid that. If you have anything that you feel you ought to say about a man, let the measure of what you say be this— ‘How much dare I say to his face?’

We must not allow ourselves a word more in censure of any man living.

If that be your rule, your courage will save you from a thousand difficulties, and win you lasting respect.”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, The Sword and Trowel: 1874 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1874), 78-79.