Nick Roark's Blog, page 8

“His patience is His power” by Mark Jones

“God does not need to be in a rush.

His patience is His power, and when He exercises the former, He shows more of the latter than He would if He created a thousand worlds.

How? Creating worlds shows a power over creatures and matter.

Exercising patience shows power over Himself.”

–Mark Jones, God Is: A Devotional Guide to the Attributes of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 145.

“May the blessed Trinity protect me” by Johann Habermann

“May Your glorious Majesty surround me,
the blessed Trinity protect me,
and the eternal Godhead preserve me.

May Your unlimited mercy support me;
Your loving kindness encompass me;
Your favor make me to rejoice.

May the eternal truth of God be my delight,
the saving knowledge of Christ strengthen me,
and the all-prevailing grace of God be sufficient for me.

May the grace of God the Father lead me,
the wisdom of God the Son be my consolation,
and the power of the Holy Spirit enlighten me.

Lord my Creator, stand by me;
my Redeemer, save me;
and my Comforter, dwell with me.

Amen.”

–Johann Habermann, as quoted in Jonathan Gibson, Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 42.

“God is more than this” by Stephen Charnock

“Whatsoever God is, He is infinitely so.

He is infinite wisdom, infinite goodness, infinite knowledge, infinite power, infinite Spirit.

He is infinitely distant from the weakness of creatures, infinitely mounted above the excellencies of creatures, as easy to be known that He is as impossible to be comprehended what He is.

Conceive of Him as excellent, without any imperfection— a Spirit without parts; great without quantity; perfect without quality; everywhere without place; powerful without members; understanding without ignorance; wise without reasoning; light without darkness.

Conceive of Him as infinitely more excelling the beauty of all creatures than the light in the sun, pure and unviolated, exceeds the splendor of the sun dispersed and divided through a cloudy and misty air.

And when you have risen to the highest, conceive Him yet infinitely above all you can conceive of spirit, and acknowledge the infirmity of your own minds.

And whatsoever conception comes into your minds, say, ‘This is not God. God is more than this.'”

–Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, ed. Mark Jones, Updated and Unabridged, vol. 1 & 2 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022), 1: 298.

“We serve an infinite God” by Mark Jones

“The doctrine of God’s infinity gives us great joy because it assures us that our sins are forgiven, due to the infinite worth of Christ’s sacrifice. Additionally, we can rejoice that we as finite creatures can never comprehend the infinite.

Far from being a problem, this doctrine is a delight, for we shall one day be given glorious resurrected bodies. As Paul says, “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49).

In this exalted state, we will be able to perfectly apply our minds to the knowledge of God and Christ by means of the Holy Spirit illuminating our spiritual and intellectual faculties. We shall spend an eternity knowing God, because He is the infinite God. Yet even for all eternity, we shall never fully comprehend God.

Still, this impossibility remains our delight insofar as we have so much to look forward to in what awaits us. By knowing God, I do not mean merely coming to a greater awareness of who He is but also coming to a greater awareness of all that He has done and will continue to do for us, including our understanding of His attributes displayed in the new creation. We all, for example, shall be true scientists of the highest order.

But we should always remember our established place as creatures. We serve an infinite God, and our praises in this life come so very short of what is due to Him. But He accepts our praises, despite our weaknesses. The Infinite One stoops and stoops and stoops in order to raise us to places that are undeserved.

Our union with the infinite Son of God puts us in the most privileged place possible for a human being—far more privileged than Adam’s place in the garden. We belong to an infinite God who will satisfy us forever because he alone is in the position to pour out everlasting blessings on His creatures.

As Matthew Mead puts it,

‘Alas! it is an infinite righteousness that must satisfy for our sins, for it is an infinite God that is offended by us. If ever your sin be pardoned, it is infinite mercy that must pardon it; if ever you be reconciled to God, it is infinite merit must do it; if ever your heart be changed, and your soul renewed, it is infinite power must effect it; and if ever your soul escape hell, and be saved at last, it is infinite grace must save it.'”

–Mark Jones, God Is: A Devotional Guide to the Attributes of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 48-49.

“We could sooner fit the oceans of the world in a teacup than understand God” by Mark Jones

“When we consider God’s attributes, we must always consider them as infinite. His infinity is a positive concept, so that we must say that His attributes are intensively and qualitatively infinite.

God’s infinity is the highest sense of perfection. Without bounds or limits or degrees, God knows infinitely (Isa. 40:28) and is a sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. He is as present in our midst as He is farthest from us in the universe. Yet while He is present in one place, He is never confined to any place.

The psalmist explicitly acknowledges God’s infinity: “Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure” (Ps. 147:5). God’s understanding exists without measure. The psalmist here combines one attribute with another, as he does elsewhere. God is great, because He is abundant in power (omnipotent) and measureless (infinite) in His understanding (omniscience).

Because God is eternal and omnipotent, nothing can limit Him or be too hard for him: “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jer. 32:27). He is the eternal, independent, powerful God who determines all things.

He is perfection, so that nothing extends beyond him. God’s infinity consists not in “indefiniteness” or “potentiality” but in the perfection of His attributes. God is fully actualized potentiality. In other words, He cannot “become” anything; He always has and always will be what He alone is: a fully actualized being who needs nothing and possesses everything.

Affirming God’s infinity implies his incomprehensibility. We can never know God as He knows Himself, for the finite cannot comprehend the infinite. We possess a bounded understanding, because we are creatures. God has a boundless understanding as the infinite, eternal God.

We could sooner fit the oceans of the world in a teacup than understand God. Our grasp of God compared with God’s actual being is like a dim light compared with the vast radiance of the sun. We can say with certainty that what we know about God can never be full but only adequate (i.e., saving) knowledge, which can always increase.”

–Mark Jones, God Is: A Devotional Guide to the Attributes of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 44-45.

“Brighter than all brightness” by Heinrich Bullinger

“What can you fitly think of God,
He that is above all loftiness,
higher than all height,
deeper than all depth,
lighter than all light,
clearer than all clearness,
brighter than all brightness,
stronger than all strength,
more virtuous than all virtue,
fairer than all fairness,
truer than all truth,
greater than all greatness,
mightier than all might,
richer than all riches,
wiser than all wisdom,
more liberal than all liberality,
better than all goodness,
juster than all justice,
and gentler than all gentleness?

For all kinds of virtues must needs be less than He, that is the Father and God of all virtues: so that God may truly be said to be such a certain Being, as to which nothing may be compared.

For He is above all that may be spoken.”

-Henry Bullinger, The Decades of Henry Bullinger: The Fourth Decade, ed. Thomas Harding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1851), 127–128.

“Christ was a very plain preacher” by John Flavel

“Christ was a very plain preacher.

Jesus Christ discovered truth powerfully, speaking ‘as one having authority, and not as the Pharisees,’ (Matt. 7:29). They were cold and dull preachers, their words did even freeze between their lips; but Christ spoke with power.

There was heat as well as light in His doctrine. And so there is still, though it be in the mouth of poor contemptible men:

‘The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the casting down of strong holds,’ (2 Cor. 10:4). It is still ‘quick and powerful, sharper than a two edged-sword; and piercing, to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow,’ (Heb. 4:12).

This Prophet (Acts 3:22), Jesus Christ, taught the people the mind of God in a sweet, affectionate, and taking manner.

His words made their hearts burn within them, (Luke 24:32).

It was prophesied of Him: ‘He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard on high. A bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench,’ (Isa. 42:2)

He knew how to speak a word in season to the weary soul, (Isa. 61:1).

‘He gathered the Lambs with His arms, and gently led those that were with young,’ (Isa. 40:11).

How sweetly did His words slide to the melting hearts about Him! He drew with cords of love. He discouraged none, upbraided none that were willing to come to Him.

His familiarity and free condescensions to the most vile and despicable sinners were often made the matter of His own reproach.

But such is His gentle and sweet carriage to His people that the church is called the Lamb’s wife, (Rev. 19:7).

He revealed the mind of God purely to men. His doctrine had not the least dash of error to debase it. His most enviously observant hearers could find nothing to charge Him with.

He is ‘the faithful and true witness,’ (Rev. 1:5).

And He hath commanded His ministers to preserve the simplicity and purity of the gospel, and not to blend and sophisticate it, (2 Cor. 4:2).

And lastly, He revealed the will of God perfectly and fully, keeping back nothing needful to salvation. So He tells His disciples: ‘All things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you,’ (John 15:15).

He was ‘faithful as a Son over His own house,’ (Heb 3:6).

Thus you have a brief account of what is implied in this part of Christ’s prophetical office, and how He performed it.”

–John Flavel, The Works of the John Flavel, Volume 1 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1820/1997), 1: 124-125.

“Right fear falls on its face before the Lord” by Michael Reeves

“The right fear of God, then, is not the flip side to our love for God. Moses’s command to Israel in summarizing the law was precisely that God’s people should fear and love the Lord their God.

Right fear does not stand in tension with love for God. Right fear falls on its face before the Lord, but falls leaning “toward the Lord.”

It is not as if love draws near and fear distances. Nor is this fear of God one side of our reaction to God. It is not simply that we love God for his graciousness and fear him for his majesty. That would be a lopsided fear of God. We also love him in his holiness and tremble at the marvelousness of his mercy.

True fear of God is true love for God defined: it is the right response to God’s full-orbed revelation of himself in all his grace and glory.

Evidently, the fear that Christ himself has (Isa. 11:1–3), and shares with us, is the opposite of being afraid of God. Godly fear casts out being afraid. But neither is it a cool, passionless regard of God.

Time and again we have seen in Scripture that believers who have a godly fear tremble before God. Overwhelmed by his goodness and majesty and holiness and grace and righteousness—by all that God is—the faithful tremble.

The biblical theme of the fear of God helps us to see the sort of love toward God that is fitting. It shows us that God does not want passionless performance or a vague preference for him.

To encounter the living, holy, and all-gracious God truly means that we cannot contain ourselves. He is not a truth to be known unaffectedly, or a good to be received listlessly. Seen clearly, the dazzling beauty and splendor of God must cause our hearts to quake.

To appreciate something of this, take a moment to enjoy the following poem by the hymnwriter F. W. Faber (1814–1863). Entitled “The Fear of God,” it is a paean to fear as the intense ecstasy of love:

My fear of Thee, O Lord! exults
Like life within my veins,—
A fear which rightly claims to be
One of love’s sacred pains.

Thy goodness to Thy saints of old
An awful thing appeared;
For were Thy majesty less good
Much less would it be feared.

There is no joy the soul can meet
Upon life’s various road
Like the sweet fear that sits and shrinks
Under the eye of God.

A special joy is in all love
For objects we revere;
Thus joy in God will always be
Proportioned to our fear.

Oh Thou art greatly to be feared,
Thou art so prompt to bless!
The dread to miss such love as Thine
Makes fear but love’s excess.

The fulness of Thy mercy seems
To fill both land and sea
If we can break through bounds so vast,
How exiled shall we be!

For grace is fearful, which each hour
Our path in life has crossed;
If it were rarer, it might be
Less easy to be lost.

But fear is love, and love is fear,
And in and out they move;
But fear is an intenser joy
Than mere unfrightened love.

When most I fear Thee, Lord! then most
Familiar I appear;
And I am in my soul most free,
When I am most in fear.

I should not love Thee as I do,
If love might make more free;
Its very sweetness would be lost
In greater liberty.

I feel Thee most a Father when
I fancy Thee most near;
And Thou comest not so nigh in love
As Thou comest, Lord! in fear.

They love Thee little, if at all,
Who do not fear Thee much;
If love is Thine attraction, Lord!
Fear is Thy very touch.

Love could not love Thee half so much
If it found Thee not so near;
It is thy nearness, which makes love
The perfectness of fear.

We fear because Thou art so good,
And because we can sin;
And when we make most show of love,
We are trembling most within.

And Father! when to us in heaven
Thou shalt Thy Face unveil,
Then more than ever will our souls
Before Thy goodness quail.

Our blessedness will be to bear
The sight of Thee so near,
And thus eternal love will be
But the ecstasy of fear.”

–Michael Reeves, Rejoice & Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord, ed. Michael Reeves, Union (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 52–56.

“Garrisoned by the grace of God” by John Owen

“When the heart is cast indeed into the mould of the doctrine that the mind embraceth; when the evidence and necessity of the truth abides in us; when not the sense of the words only is in our heads, but the sense of the things abides in our hearts; when we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for,—then shall we be garrisoned, by the grace of God, against all the assaults of men.

And without this all our contending is, as to ourselves, of no value.

What am I the better if I can dispute that Christ is God, but have no sense or sweetness in my heart from hence that He is a God in covenant with my soul?

What will it avail me to evince, by testimonies and arguments, that He hath made satisfaction for sin, if, through my unbelief, the wrath of God abideth on me, and I have no experience of my own being made the righteousness of God in Him,—if I find not, in my standing before God, the excellency of having my sins imputed to Him and His righteousness imputed to me?

Will it be any advantage to me, in the issue, to profess and dispute that God works the conversion of a sinner by the irresistible grace of His Spirit, if I was never acquainted experimentally with the deadness and utter impotency to good, that opposition to the law of God, which is in my own soul by nature, with the efficacy of the exceeding greatness of the power of God in quickening, enlightening, and bringing forth the fruits of obedience in me?

It is the power of truth in the heart alone that will make us cleave unto it indeed in an hour of temptation.

Let us, then, not think that we are any thing the better for our conviction of the truths of the great doctrines of the gospel, for which we contend with these men, unless we find the power of the truths abiding in our own hearts, and have a continual experience of their necessity and excellency in our standing before God and our communion with Him.”

–John Owen, “The Mystery of the Gospel Vindicated,” The Works of John Owen, Volume 12 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1684/2000), 12: 51-52.

Lord’s Day Hymn – “I Cannot Nearer Be”

“I Cannot Nearer Be”
By Horatius Bonar

So near, so very near to God,
I cannot nearer be;
For in the person of His Son,
I am as near as He.

So dear, so very dear to God,
More dear I cannot be;
The love wherewith He loves the Son,
Such is His love to me.

–Horatius Bonar, as quoted in Fred Sanders, Union With Christ and the Life of Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2025), 121. See this post on the hymn’s attribution.