You Are a Theologian: An Invitation to Know and Love God Well

by Jen Wilkin

But my Maker’s truth transcends. My Creator’s truth endures. It is an anchor in a storm-tossed world, beaten to and fro on the waves of faddish culture.

The serpent convinces them that what God said was not actually for their good. That God was holding out on them.

Sin is rebellion because it elevates our will above God’s. It is looking for a better title and a better task, tragically failing to realize that God has already given us the greatest title and task we could have.

Death entered the world through disobedience, our disobedience in Adam. We were there. We were complicit. We participated.

We are born in Adam, but new life comes from being born again in the second Adam—Christ. “For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor 15:22). The fall destroys our ability to not sin. The cross restores it.

Sin is not just a theological concept. It is personal. It has impacted each and every one of us. Sin is something each of us knows far too much about. We have been sinned against, and we have sinned against God and others.

If we externalize all that is wrong with the world, we will believe the solution is inside of us. Try harder. Work smarter. Be better. Do the work. Pick yourself up by the bootstraps. But when we realize the problem is in us—all of us—we realize the solution must be outside of us. We need someone to come and save us. When we personalize sin, we realize we no longer need to hide behind the trees but to embrace the Man who hung on the cursed tree in our place.

The doctrine of sin teaches us that our rebellion has led to sin, exile, depravity, and death—we need rescue.

Not only do we partake in Jesus’s death, but we also partake in His life.

At the heart of substitutionary atonement is one word: for. Jesus died for us.

The death of Jesus satisfies the wrath of God. God’s wrath is justly placed on sinners, those who have rebelled against Him. At the death of Christ, God’s wrath is not forgotten or erased; it is exhausted. Through the work of Christ on the cross, the wrath of God is fully satisfied.

Take this to heart: if you are in Christ, the wrath of God has been completely satisfied, completely exhausted, in His death for you.

Fully dead. All dead. His lifeless body had no air pumping through His lungs. No brain function. Completely dead. Because of His full death, we can know we are now fully dead to sin. No chance of resuscitation. Thanks be to God.

He is not in heaven resting; He is in heaven reigning. He is seated on a throne. He’s at the right hand of His Father, highly exalted, having received the name above all names.

The fullness of our understanding of salvation grows when we meditate on these truths. They are like facets in the diamond that is our redemption, each enhancing the preciousness of that costly gift. With such a catalog of grace, let it never be said that Christians ran short in speech to describe how great a salvation we have received in Christ.

He weeps, but He causes tears to cease.

He dies, but He gives life.

God the Father initiates all divine activity. He sends God the Son to accomplish our salvation. The Father and the Son send the Spirit to apply our salvation. God the Father initiates, God the Son accomplishes, God the Spirit applies. All that the Father wills, all that Christ purchases, is given to us through the Spirit of God. In this chapter, we will explore who the Holy Spirit is and what He does in His work of application.

We conceive of Him as a button to push for service, rather than as a person to love and worship. He is not a force or a power, though He can be forceful and powerful. He is a person. He is fully God and worthy of honor, adoration, worship, and praise.

It is true that we hear scriptural accounts of the Spirit descending on someone or departing from someone, but these accounts speak of a particular work of the Spirit. They are not describing the indwelling of the Spirit that all believers receive, but a nonnormative work.

We say, “I am praying for peace about this decision,” as though the Spirit gives peace before we should act. But the Bible says we know the good we ought to do and we still don’t do it (James 4:17). In other words, sometimes we need to do the right thing whether our liver quivers or not. Our feelings matter, but they are not necessarily reliable indicators of the Spirit’s presence or work. The Spirit is not a feeling—He’s a person!

But, while it is important to uphold the work of the Spirit through Scripture, we must also uphold His very real presence and work in our hearts and minds and lives on a daily basis. He is the Helper without whom we would not be able to retain our justification, and without whom we would not be able to effect our sanctification. It is not only His words that we need, but His activity. He is essential to our lives. He, the Spirit, is essential to life and godliness!

Jesus comforts His disciples by telling them the Holy Spirit’s presence with them is better than His own presence with them. But how can this be? Because the Holy Spirit is not just God with us but God in us.

“He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). He shows that not only is He the God who creates but, the God who recreates. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is not only true for those disciples who were present with Jesus at His resurrection; it is true for anybody who would follow Jesus. Immediately after His ascension, Jesus does the same thing for all disciples. At Pentecost we see that anybody who believes in Jesus through faith receives the Spirit of God.

Every radical conversion story attests to the gracious gift of faith, but so also do the less dramatic ones if we take the time to examine them. Salvation is a gift of grace and the work of the Spirit from beginning to end. The Spirit regenerates us, applying Christ’s justifying work to our spirits. But that’s not all.

Obedience does not have to wait for the kingdom to come; we are empowered by the Spirit to obey the King now. If we are truly in Christ, then He is not just our justification, but He is also our sanctification. Since His Spirit is now alive in the believer, He enables us to live in righteousness.

In the midst of cultural ache and personal pain around loneliness, alienation, and isolation, the church is meant to be a redemptive remedy. In the church we are meant to experience a sacred siblinghood and shared sense of mission that all of us long for.

Do you not know that y’all are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in y’all? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and y’all are that temple.

Until that day, this world will feel hostile to the church of Jesus Christ. But when we feel most like sojourners, we can know with certainty that we belong to God. And to one another. How much sweeter is the journey through a strange land when it is shared by those with the same hope and the same Spirit!

The church, then, should have feet that are swift to bring the good news of the gospel, hands that are swift to serve the poor and the outcast, words that are swift to encourage and exhort the weary and downtrodden, and prayers that are swift to intercede for the spiritually destitute.

the body, which is the church, has a head, and that head is Christ. By this, we understand that we are not in charge. We submit ourselves to our head, seeking to live as He commands us. The desires of the individual bow to the desires of the whole. The desires of the whole align with the desires of the head.

When the church understands itself to be a bride in waiting, purity becomes paramount. Holiness becomes of utmost concern. As we noted in the chapter on the Holy Spirit, positional holiness is ours in Christ, but practical holiness is the task of the bride as she awaits her Bridegroom.

Her righteous acts, empowered by the Spirit, have set her apart as holy. The church is a bride awaiting her wedding day, industriously preparing herself by walking in righteousness.

The more time we can give to local church participation, the more its formative effects will shape us. The less we give, the more the world around us will dictate the shape and health of our spiritual lives.

God frequently uses water to mark significant events in redemptive history. The Spirit hovering over the waters at creation, the flood, the parting of the Red Sea, and the crossing of the Jordan River are all, in some sense, shadows of the greater reality we have in baptism. Baptism is the practice in which we proclaim that God brings order out of chaos, destroys the enemy of sin, and births new people into His family, and that He will be present with us forever.

In the Lord’s Supper, we are not just looking back to the cross, but we are also looking forward to the kingdom. We are anticipating that one day we will enjoy a meal in the kingdom with our King (Rev. 19:6–9).

When the church gathers together around the Word and participates in these sacred rhythms, we proclaim the gospel together. We remind ourselves and we announce to the world that this is not our home.

What does it look like to find a healthy church and love it the way Jesus does? When looking for a local church, we would encourage you to think through these kinds of questions: •Does this church prioritize the good news of Jesus Christ? •Does this church have a high view of God’s Word in preaching and other ministries of the church? •Does the doctrine of this church align with the historic Christian faith? •Does the church desire to see me grow, in the context of community, in my love for God and neighbor? •Does the church regularly observe the ordinances of baptism/Communion?

At death, our material bodies cease to function, but our soul continues to live. Remember, humans are both body and soul. At death, our physical bodies, which are part of who we are, die. Whether our bodies succumb to disease, a fatal accident, or the relentless aging process, we return them to the dust. Ecclesiastes tells us, “All are going to the same place; all come from dust, and all return to dust” (Eccles. 3:20). This is not good news. Our strength, our health, our wealth, our fame, generosity, or humility cannot stop this day from coming. All descendants of Adam return to the dust (Ps. 90:3).

At the moment of death the unity of our body and soul is temporarily separated. While our bodies return to dust, our souls continue to live. At death, believers are immediately ushered into the presence of God, temporarily existing as disembodied souls awaiting the resurrection of the dead.

And the God of infinite compassion looks on us with gentleness in this. He knows we cannot understand what He has done from beginning to end (Eccles. 3:11).

Jesus will return visibly, bodily, and suddenly to bring the fullness of salvation to all who are waiting for Him. In Christ’s first appearance, He dealt definitively with sin at the cross. In His second appearance, He will bring the fullness of salvation already purchased.

Waiting implies we are not in control. Only the King builds the kingdom. The citizens of the kingdom simply receive it. Our posture in the meantime is to pray and to wait. As Timothy writes to Titus, “We wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).