Justin Taylor's Blog, page 359
February 14, 2011
How Much Information Did God Put in Your DNA?
Looking at both digital memory and analog devices, the researchers calculate that humankind is able to store at least 295 exabytes of information. (Yes, that's a number with 20 zeroes in it.)
Put another way, if a single star is a bit of information, that's a galaxy of information for every person in the world. That's 315 times the number of grains of sand in the world. But it's still less than one percent of the information that is stored in all the DNA molecules of a human being.
HT: Joe Carter
February 13, 2011
What Is Love?
Here is Paul Tripp's definition of love: "Love is willing self-sacrifice for the good of another that does not require reciprocation or that the person being loved is deserving" (What Did You Expect? p. 188).
In the following he unpacks the definition (pp. 188-189):
Love is willing.
Jesus said, "No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord" (John 10:18). The decisions, words, and actions of love always grow in the soil of a willing heart. You cannot force a person to love. If you are forcing someone to love, by the very nature of the act you are demonstrating that this person doesn't in fact love.
Love is willing self-sacrifice.
There is no such thing as love without sacrifice.
Love calls you beyond the borders of your own wants, needs, and feelings.
Love calls you to be willing to invest time, energy, money, resources, personal ability, and gifts for the good of another.
Love calls you to lay down your life in ways that are concrete and specific.
Love calls you to serve, to wait, to give, to suffer, to forgive, and to do all these things again and again.
Love calls you to be silent when you want to speak, and to speak when you would like to be silent.
Love calls you to act when you would really like to wait, and to wait when you would really like to act.
Love calls you to stop when you really want to continue, and it calls you to continue when you feel like stopping.
Love again and again calls you away from your instincts and your comfort.
Love always requires personal sacrifice.
Love calls you to give up your life.
Love is willing self-sacrifice for the good of another.
Love always has the good of another in view.
Love is motivated by the interests and needs of others.
Love is excited at the prospect of alleviating burdens and meeting needs.
Love feels poor when the loved one is poor.
Love suffers when the loved one suffers.
Love wants the best for the loved one and works to deliver it.
Love is willing self-sacrifice for the good of another that does not require reciprocation.
The Bible says that Jesus died for us while we were still sinners. If he had waited until we were able to reciprocate, there would be no hope for us.
Love isn't a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" bargain.
Love isn't about placing people in our debt and waiting for them to pay off their debts.
Love isn't a negotiation for mutual good.
Real love does not demand reciprocation, because real love isn't motivated by the return on the investment. No, real love is motivated by the good that will result in the life of the person being loved.
Love is willing self-sacrifice for the good of another that does not require reciprocation or that the person being loved is deserving.
Christ was willing to go to the cross and carry our sin precisely because there was nothing that we could ever do to earn, achieve, or deserve the love of God. If you are interested only in loving people who are deserving, the reality is that you are not motivated by love for them but by love for yourself. Love does its best work when the other person is undeserving. It is in these moments that love is most needed. It is in these moments that love is protective and preventative. It stays the course while refusing to quit or to get down and get dirty and give way to things that are anything but love.
There is never a day in your marriage when you aren't called to be willing.
There is never a day in your marriage when some personal sacrifice is not needed.
There is never a day when you are free from the need to consider the good of your husband or wife.
There is never a day when you aren't called to do what is not reciprocated and to offer what has not been deserved.
There is never a day when your marriage can coast along without being infused by this kind of love.
February 12, 2011
Beware of Worldly Definintions of Fruit
Matt Chandler: "One of the things we don't preach well is that ministry that looks fruitless is constantly happening in the Scriptures. We don't do conferences on that.""
The Holy Spirit Cannot Fail Us!
From B. B. Warfield's sermon "The Leading of the Spirit," first published in 1903 (HT: Fred Zaspel):
Let us go onward, in hope and triumph, in our holy efforts.
Let our slack knees be strengthened and new vigor enter our every nerve.
The victory is assured.
The Holy Spirit within us cannot fail us.
The way may be rough; the path may climb the dizzy ascent with a rapidity too great for our faltering feet; dangers, pitfalls are on every side.
But the Holy Spirit is leading us.
Surely, in that assurance, despite dangers and weakness, and panting chest and swimming head, we can find strength to go ever forward.
In these days, when the gloom of doubt if not even the blackness of despair, has settled down on so many souls, there is surely profit and strength in the certainty that there is a portal of such glory before us, and in the assurance that our feet shall press its threshold at the last.
In this assurance we shall no longer beat our disheartened way through life in dumb despondency, and find expression for our passionate but hopeless longings only in the wail of the dreary poet of pessimism:—
"But if from boundless spaces no answering voice shall start,
Except the barren echo of our ever yearning heart—
Farewell, then, empty deserts, where beat our aimless wings,
Farewell, then, dream sublime of uncompassable things."
We are not, indeed, relieved from the necessity for healthful effort, but we can no longer speak of "vain hopes."
The way may be hard, but we can no longer talk of "the unfruitful road which bruises our naked feet."
Strenuous endeavor may be required of us, but we can no longer feel that we are "beating aimless wings," and can expect no further response from the infinite expanse than "a sterile echo of our own eternal longings."
No, no—the language of despair falls at once from off our souls.
Henceforth our accents will be borrowed rather from a nobler "poet of faith," and the blessing of Asher will seem to be spoken to us also:—
"Thy shoes shall be iron and brass,
And as thy days, so shall thy strength be.
There is none like unto God, O Jeshurun,
Who rideth upon the heavens for thy help,
And in His excellency on the skies.
The eternal God is thy dwelling-place,
And underneath are the everlasting arms."
February 11, 2011
Islam and Contextualization: A Conversation with Collin Hansen & J.D. Greear
Trevin Wax facilitates a good blog conversation here in light of the recent CT cover story on the translation of "son of God."
The Ordinary Means of Grace and Christian Spirituality
Here's a thoughtful article from Luke Stamps that does not denigrate the need for personal piety but seeks to show the importance of church-oriented spirituality. Here's the opening paragraph:
One of the great hallmarks of evangelicalism has been its emphasis on personal piety. From its roots in the First Great Awakening to the present day, the evangelical movement has stressed the necessity of personal faith in Christ, the personal spiritual disciplines of Scripture reading and prayer, personal holiness, and personal evangelism and good works. Each of these emphases can be defended from Scripture, and taken together they help explain why evangelical piety remains so vibrant even in an increasingly secular culture. However, this personal focus, combined with the evangelical movement's tendency toward theological reductionism due to its multi-denominational nature, has sometimes prevented evangelicals from fully appreciating the unique importance of the local church in the spiritual formation of God's people.
February 10, 2011
Gospel-Centered Life Audio
Audio from the recent Gospel-Centered Life Conference at Coral Ridge:
Tullian Tchividjian, The Gospel and the Individual
Michael Horton, The Gospel and the Church
J. D. Greear, The Gospel and the Culture
A Conversation with Michael Horton and Tullian Tchividjian
Michael Horton, Coronation of the Gift-Giving King (Gospel-Centered Life Conference Closing Sermon)
February 9, 2011
Union with Christ: A Crash Course
James S. Stewart wrote that "union with Christ, rather than justification or election or eschatology, or indeed any of the other great apostolic themes, is the real clue to an understanding of Paul's thought and experience" (A Man in Christ [Harper & Bros., 1955], vii).
John Calvin said that union with Christ has "the highest degree of importance" if we are to understand justification correctly (Institutes 1:737).
John Murray wrote that "union with Christ is . . . the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation. . . . It is not simply a phase of the application of redemption; it underlies every aspect of redemption" (Redemption—Accomplished and Applied [Eerdmans, 1955], pp. 201, 205).
Lewis Smedes said that it was "at once the center and circumference of authentic human existence" (Union with Christ [Eerdmans, 1983], xii).
Anthony Hoekema wrote that "Once you have your eyes opened to this concept of union with Christ, you will find it almost everywhere in the New Testament" (Saved by Grace [Eerdmans, 1989], 64.
If you want an introduction to the doctrine of union with Christ, John Murray's chapter in Redemption—Accomplished and Applied is helpeful, as is Anthony Hoekema's chapter in Saved by Grace. Below are a few notes on the latter:
The New Testament uses two interchangeable expressions to describe union with Christ:
We are in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17; John 15:4, 5, 7; 1 Cor. 15:22; 2 Cor. 12:2; Gal. 3:28; Eph. 1:4, 2:10; Phil. 3:9; 1 Thess. 4:16; 1 John 4:13).
Christ is in us (Gal. 2:20; Col. 1:27; Rom. 8:10; 2 Cor. 13:5; Eph. 3:17).
Three passages (John 6:56; John 15:4; 1 John 4:13) explicitly combine both concepts.
Hoekema says that we should see union with Christ "extending all the way from eternity to eternity." He outlines his material in this way:
The roots of union with Christ are in divine election (Eph. 1:3-4).
The basis of union with Christ is the redemptive work of Christ.
The actual union with Christ is established with God's people in time.
Under the third point, he shows eight ways that salvation, from beginning to end, is in Christ:
We are initially united with Christ in regeneration (Eph. 2:4-5, 10)
We appropriate and continue to live out of this union through faith (Gal. 2:20; Eph. 3:16-17).
We are justified in union with Christ (1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21; Phil. 3:8-9).
We are sanctified through union with Christ (1 Cor. 1:30; John 15:4-5; Eph. 4:16; 2 Cor. 5:17).
We persevere in the life of faith in union with Christ (John 10:27-28; Rom. 8:38-39).
We are even said to die in Christ (Rom. 14:8; 1 Thess. 4:16; Rev. 14:13).
We shall be raised with Christ (Col. 3:1; 1 Cor. 15:22).
We shall be eternally glorified with Christ (Col. 3:4; 1 Thess. 4:16-17).
And here's a helpful quote from Sinclair Ferguson (in Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification [IVP, 1989], 58), explaining in a nutshell why union with Christ is the foundation for sanctification:
If we are united to Christ, then we are united to him at all points of his activity on our behalf.
We share
in his death (we were baptized into his death),
in his resurrection (we are resurrected with Christ),
in his ascension (we have been raised with him),
in his heavenly session (we sit with him in heavenly places, so that our life is hidden with Christ in God), and we will share
in his promised return (when Christ, who is our life, appears, we also will appear with him in glory) (Rom. 6:14; Col. 2:11-12; 3:1-3).This, then, is the foundation of sanctification in Reformed theology.
It is rooted, not in humanity and their achievement of holiness or sanctification, but in what God has done in Christ, and for us in union with him. Rather than view Christians first and foremost in the microcosmic context of their own progress, the Reformed doctrine first of all sets them in the macrocosm of God's activity in redemptive history. It is seeing oneself in this context that enables the individual Christian to grow in true holiness.
For more resources on this vital doctrine, see:
Phil Gons's bibliography
Richard Gaffin's lectures on "The Mystery of Union with Christ" (see some notes here by Tony Reinke on one of the lectures)
Sinclair Ferguson's two talks on union with Christ
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