G. Wright Doyle's Blog, page 3

The Wondrous Exchange

This is the wondrous exchange which, out of his measureless benevolence, he has made with us; that, becoming Son of man with us, he has made us sons of God with him; that, by his descent to earth, he has prepared an ascent to  heaven for us; that, by taking on our mortality, he has conferred his immortality upon us; that,  accepting our weakness, he has strengthened us by his power; that, receiving our poverty unto himself, he has transferred his wealth to us; that, taking the weight of our iniquity upon himself (which oppressed us), he has clothed us with his righteousness.

 

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV.17.2, quoted in Douglas F. Kelly, Systematic Theology, Volume One, 440.

Why Christians Long for Heaven

Now, the main reason why the godly man hath his heart thus to heaven, is because God is there; that is the palace of the Most High. It is the place where God is gloriously present, where his love is gloriously manifested, where the godly may be with him, and see him as he is, and love, serve, praise, and enjoy him perfectly. If God and Christ were not in heaven, he would not be so earnest in seeking it, nor would he take so much pains in a laborious travel through this wilderness, nor would the consideration that he is going to heaven when he dies, be such a comfort to him under toils and afflictions.  The martyrs [would not cheerfully suffer so much], were it not that they hope to be with their glorious Redeemer and heavenly Father [in heaven].  The believer’s heart is in heaven, because his treasure is there.

Jonathan Edwards, Sermon on Psalm 73:25, “The Best Portion”

The Momentous Choice

Jesus is himself the embodiment of his teaching, and his goal embraces the rescue of the penitent from sin and its consequences and their restoration to holy living . . . The proclamation of the Word of God – that is, of the revealed truth of the gospel centering in the incarnate, crucified and rise Logos – therefore propels every hearer into a crisis of decision, since it calls for an immediate verdict on redemption by Jesus Christ that leads either to or away from eternal life in the present and to future eschatological salvation or damnation. Christian faith in the crucified and risen Jesus contrasts strikingly with Greek confidence in human wisdom (1 Cor. 1:29) and Jewish confidence in man’s own righteousness (Rom. 3:27).  .  . Where does anyone other than Jesus of Nazareth stand forth to declare, “I am the Truth” to be either worship or crucified?

Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, & Authority, 3.78

Jesus Is the Gospel

The Christ-event is the gospel: Jesus of Nazareth manifests the kingdom of God in his life and mission. His ministry reflects in deeds his verbal preaching of the kingdom of God. . . By a life of sinless obedience to the Father and then as the Crucified One alive from the dead he attests his triumph over Satan and sin and death and over the law’s condemning grip on mankind. The risen Jesus exemplifies the kind of humanity that God approves in his eternal presence. He is the model of a new humanity, and all godly persons will be conformed to his image ( I John 3:2). His resurrection identifies him publicly as the divinely appointed Judge of all mankind (Acts 17:31). The good news of Jesus Christ, Savior and Lord, certifies that no one need permanently resign himself or herself to the tyrannical powers of sin and forces of oppression that would do us to death. The crucified and risen Jesus so confronts and challenges the crush of evil powers that they are even now already dated and doomed.

Carl F. H. Henry, “The Content of the Gospel,” God, Revelation & Authority, 3:5, p. 68.

A great book about a great man

I first read Peter Brown’s magnificent Augustine of Hippo: A Biography in 1974, while preparing to write my dissertation on Augustine’s sermons on John’s Gospel. Like everyone else, I was struck, even stunned, by the sheer brilliance of this detailed “life and times” of Augustine. Leaving virtually no stone unturned, Brown presented to us a truly great man whose life was bound up with the tumultuous events of the late Roman Empire, and whose career – especially his writings – both transformed that world and laid the foundation for Western civilization.

Peter Brown painted a rich, even lush, portrait of Augustine’s times; showed him striving to refute the errors of the Manichees, Donatists, Pelagians, and pagans; followed him through his daily routine of preaching, counseling, teaching, and mediating innumerable lawsuits. He integrated Augustine’s writings and sermons with his own role as a bishop, the conflicts of the period, and the inner life of his soul. All in all, it was – and remains – a justly-famous work of biography, written with exquisite beauty and elegance.

Alas, Augustine’s powerful achievements were presented along with his terrible mistakes, above all his growing willingness to use force against the Donatists. Admirers of Augustine must face the enormity of his error in turning to the government to crush theological opponents, even if his reasons, which we must take at face value as sincere, were theological.

Aside from teaching a course on Augustine’s thought in 1976 and giving a public lecture in Taiwan on the Confessions in 1981, I largely put aside Augustine for about twenty years. In the early 1990s, I decided to try to finish the City of God – except for the long refutation of paganism as represented by Varro . A marvelous compendium of his writings on grace (The Triumph of Grace: Augustine’s writings on Salvation, edited by N.R. Needham) re-convinced me that Augustine’s doctrine of predestination was not, as Brown had argued, “the departure of a tired old man from the views of an earlier, ‘better’ self.”

Then came a re-reading of the Confessions, surely one of the most exalted literary achievements of human history. On Christian Doctrine, the lens through which I had studied Augustine’s sermons, followed, then the Enchiridion. Now I am working slowly through On the Trinity, which challenges the reader to wrestle with the theological profundities of the relationships among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit within the one Godhead. On every page, you are confronted with a towering genius whose mind must find solutions to virtually insoluble conundrums.

In that context, I obtained and read the second edition, with an epilogue, of Brown’s now-class work. All the delight and awe of my first encounter with the book returned; I could hardly put it down, eager to see what the Epilogue would bring.

This time, however, I was bothered by Brown’s psychological reading of Augustine, which seemed to me to ignore the biblical fountain from which his theology flowed. I wondered, too, whether Platonism – or, rather, Neo-Platonism – had really continued to permeate Augustine’s thought. Most importantly, I could not agree with his assessment of Augustine’s views on sin and grace, including his teaching on predestination.

Imagine my delight when, in the second and last part of the Epilogue, “New Directions,” Brown himself admits how his earlier reading had been the product of the psychology-obsessed climate of the Sixties, when the book was first penned. He now believes that the core of Augustine’s theological structure remained pretty solid throughout his career as a bishop (after the earliest period after his conversion), and Brown sees that the doctrines of grace were meant to convince ordinary believers that they, too, could be “elect,” like the heroic martyrs whose feasts they celebrated. God’s mercy was available to all, freely, and would carry common Christians through their lives and into eternity.

Brown’s earlier understanding of the role of Neo-Platonism in Augustine’s thought now reflects his belief that this pagan philosophy had been dramatically altered by Augustine, who replaced wonder at the universe with adoration for the Maker of this glorious world. Even Augustine’s lamentably-negative attitude towards sex within marriage as for procreation only is shown by Brown to have been relatively liberal in his time!

Much more could be said in praise of this new edition. Indeed, I wish I could include long quotes from the Epilogue; Brown’s prose has lost none of its power and elegance. He has spotted and corrected some of the major weaknesses in the earlier work and has given us an example of a truly humble scholar, a worthy biographer of one of history’s most influential figures.

Seeking Jesus Alone

Blessed is he who appreciates what it is to love Jesus and who despises himself for the sake of Jesus. Give up all other love for His, since He wishes to be loved alone above all things.

Affection for creatures is deceitful and inconstant, but the love of Jesus is true and enduring. . .

Love Him, then; keep Him as a friend. He will not leave you as others do, or let you suffer lasting death. . .

Your Beloved is such that He will not accept what belongs to another. He wants your heart for Himself alone, to be enthroned therein as King in His own right. . .

You will often be disappointed if you seek comfort and gain in them [people]. If, however, you seek Jesus in all things, you will surely find Him. Likewise, if you seek yourself, you will find yourself – to your own ruin. For the man who does not seek Jesus does himself much greater harm than the whole world and all his enemies could ever do.

Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ, chapter 7

Revelation of the Heart of God

In the secret depths of his being and decree the living God willed and promised the messianic mission of the sent Son, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). God has deliberately encapsulated his grace in the name of Jesus Christ, in the humiliation of the eternal Son and the glorification of the Crucified One who stands incomparably related to the cosmos and all mankind. The Almighty manifests himself in the form of the Nazarene who, by falling prey to death exposes the depth of human animosity toward God, and by his resurrection reveals himself to be the unconditionally omnipotent executor of the Father’s will and thus discloses in the public arena of cosmic life the secret of his existence. In Jesus of Nazareth we reckon and deal with God; the Godhead is revealed in embodied existence (John 1:14; Col. 1:19). In Christ, moreover, the divine being has been made fully evident; his earthly life and ministry mirror the perfections of divinity. It is no longer baffling that the divine comes to great glory through the incarnation and crucifixion and resurrection. The revealed mystery of the incarnation, of the virgin birth, of the passion, of the resurrection, define the now open secret that the eternal God has given himself redemptively in Jesus Christ, the God-man.

Carl F.H. Henry, God, Revelation, & Authority, Volume III, 18.

Bearing with Others’ Faults

Bearing with Others’ Faults.