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by
Tony Reinke
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March 15 - March 27, 2016
Christian trials are not the wrath of a holy God, but the loving discipline of a tender Father drawn close.
“The Lord has been pleased to put us in the fire,” to be sure, “but, blessed be his name, we are not burnt.”86
Likewise, Christ is a skilled surgeon. “Faithful are the wounds of our infallible Friend; he sometimes cuts deep, but never too deep, nor in the wrong place, nor at the wrong time, and he is near to heal. Perhaps the pain may be felt for a season; but it will subside as the cure advances, till at length nothing will remain but a scar.”87
If Christ bore for us the searing agony of God’s wrath, the same Christ will never send into our lives one pinch of pain beyond what is absolutely necessary for our ultimate flourishing. Whatever pain is necessary, our crucified Savior will dispense. Whatever pain is unnecessary, our crucified Savior will withhold. Such careful and loving providence is proven by the pain he bore for us on the cross.
Those things in life that bring the most comfort are the things that, when taken away, leave the harshest sting.
all the disciplines in the Christian life ultimately center on the revelation of Christ in God’s holy Word.
2 Corinthians 3:18 and 4:6 operate as the medulla of the Christian life,
four elements inform our approach to the Bible—sincerity, diligence, humility, and prayer.
“Let us not be like fools, with a prize, an inestimable prize, in our hands, but without heart or skill to use it.
We do not come to the Bible with confidence in our powers of interpretation; we approach with humble dependence on the God who is eager to reveal himself.
“Prayer is indeed the best half of our business while upon earth, and that which gives spirit and efficacy to all the rest. Prayer is not only our immediate duty, but the highest dignity, the richest privilege we are capable of receiving on this side of eternity.
We pray rightly when we pray largely. We approach God as a King only when we pray for things that an all-sufficient King alone can offer, which includes accurate understanding of his Word. Therefore, in light of these prayer privileges, all theological education, our work in the original languages, and our access to commentaries will only stoke our pride if we fail to approach the Bible with true sincerity and humility, evidenced in dependent prayer.
In fact, “it is not worth while to preach unless we preach Christ and him crucified.”17 Such a Christ is all-sufficient for every sermon, because he is all-sufficient, and the all-sufficient answer for every need in
By loving the Bible we behold Christ, and by beholding Christ we take hold of power for all outlets of the Christian life.
To see Christ on every page requires a familiarity with the entire Bible,
All Bible study, done rightly, is a feast upon Christ and him crucified.
Foolish is the sinner who neglects the infallible Bible for fallible books or simply neglects Scripture, a common tendency for Christians and a trend Newton lamented in his own life.
“There is no right knowledge of God where the Bible is not known.”25
Bible neglect is an ethical lapse, and a gold mine untapped. But as long as we are not reading other books instead of Scripture, there is a proper place for reading books alongside Scripture. If we have time for only one book, let that be Scripture.
In reading “human authors,” especially theologians, Newton suggests reading books like eating an apple—eat what’s good, toss the rest.27
In speaking of building a library, Newton commends Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Augustine’s Confessions, along with spiritual biographies of faithful saints in previous centuries.28 Newton gives priority “to those books that can say something to me about Jesus, or give me some directions towards stirring me up to faith and communion with him.”29 If you are looking to prioritize books in your bus...
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True knowledge, true learning, will make sin more hateful and Jesus more precious to the soul.30 Books that achieve this end shou...
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maintaining a warm and affectionate zeal for the gospel of Jesus Christ requires care in choosing the books we
a reader who is marked by sincerity, diligence, humility, and prayer will be quite busy reading the Bible.
While Newton did read a number of Christian books (and enjoyed some occasional Shakespeare), his priority of reading Scripture is unmistakable.
“The more we read of his person, offices, power, love, doctrine, life, and death, the more our hearts will cleave to him: we shall, by insensible degrees, be transformed into his spirit.”34
“They say, whoever looked at the Gorgon was transformed into a stone—such are the effects of sin. But, oh! For such a sight of Jesus in the glass of the gospel, as might transform my heart from stone to be a heart all over love to him who has loved me.”36 The glass of the gospel is Scripture.
Christ’s glory, beheld in the Word, awakens new spiritual affections.
There is no teacher like Jesus, who by his Holy Spirit reveals himself in his word to the understanding and affections of his children. When we behold his glory in the Gospel glass, we are changed into the same image. Then our hearts melt, our eyes flow, and our stammering tongues are unloosed.”37 “In proportion as we grow in the knowledge of Jesus we shall grow in grace.”38 “Even now, when we contemplate his glory as shining in the glass of the Gospel, we feel ourselves, in some measure, transformed into the same image.”39 “In ourselves we are all darkness, confusion, and misery; but in him
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The Christian life centers on Christ, the Bible centers on Christ, and therefore we must center our Bible interpretation on Christ.
“If men have not eyes to see what is taught of the person, offices and saving work of Christ, even the Scripture is a sealed book to them, and with the Word of God in their hands and in their mouth, they stumble like the blind at noonday.”42
The glory of Christ is the hermeneutical key to understanding the entire Bible (Luke 24:27). Such a key is hidden from the “wise” and given to the chi...
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It would seem that the aim of all ministry, the essence of all true sermons, the theme behind all Christian books, and the choruses of all worship tracks should all be the same: putting on display the magnificent beauty of Christ.45 This aim can be accomplished from the Wisdom Literature and the Psalms in the Old Testament, or it may be reached through the Gospels and the Epistles in the New. If the glory of Christ is the hermeneutical key to all of Scripture, every Christian communicator is called to achieve this same end in laboring to faithfully and creatively articulate and promote the
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The best advice I can send, or the best wish I can form for you, is, that you may have an abiding and experimental sense of those words of the apostle, which are just now upon my mind,—“LOOKING UNTO JESUS.” The duty, the privilege, the safety, the unspeakable happiness, of a believer, are all comprised in that one sentence. Let us first pray that the eyes of our faith and understanding may be opened and strengthened; and then let us fix our whole regard upon him. But how are we to behold him? I answer, in the glass of his written word
I would wish for a thousand hands and eyes, and feet, and tongues, for ten thousand lives, that I might devote them all to his service: he should have all then; and surely he shall have all now!
Timothy Keller frequently cites this from Newton in his messages: “If you’re pessimistic about what God can do in your life and what God can do through you, you are not treating him as a King. Can you serve him? Can you obey him? Can you kiss him? Can you rejoice with trembling? There is no refuge from him, but there is a tremendous refuge in him. Blessed are those who find refuge in the King” (sermon, “Jesus Our King” [December 12, 1993]).
Spurgeon: “There may be times when church government is to be discussed, and peculiar doctrines are to be vindicated. God forbid that we should silence any part of truth: but the main work of the ministry—its every day work—is just exhibiting Christ” (The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, vol. 3 [London: 1857], 369). Newton was once asked what makes effective preaching? “Effect, I believe,” he responded, “has been produced in my preaching by a solemn determination to bring forth Jesus Christ as the great subject in all my discourses” (Eclectic, 20).
Living faith will evidence itself in obedience, but a principle of disobedience will remain deeply rooted in the heart of even the most sincere and genuine Christian. Assurance is not the eradication of indwelling sin, but the honest and humbled awareness of it.
sorrow over our sins are no hindrances to assurance. 5. Willful sin inescapably erodes assurance; indwelling sin does not. Newton is careful to maintain a distinction between indwelling sin and willful sin. Willful sin is committed in light of full knowledge of its evil, and yet with willful continuance of the disobedience (Num. 15:22–31; Heb. 10:26). Perhaps it’s easier to explain willful sins as a string of interlocking
9. Unbelief erodes assurance because assurance is robust faith.
10. Personal assurance rests not on escalating personal reformation, but on increasing confidence in the saving power of Jesus Christ for sinners like us
Our attainment in sanctification is weak and our progress slow; but our justification is perfect, and our hope sure.”20 Assurance does not rest on the confidence we have in our personal reform, but rests on the confidence we have in our justification in Christ.
11. Personal assurance is objectively grounded in the Christ revealed in Scripture
“Assurance is the result of a competent spiritual knowledge of the person and work of Christ as revealed in the Gospel, and a consciousness of dependence on him and his work alone for salvation.”23
True faith is married to holiness, and true faith must evidence itself in fruits of gospel holiness
The proper act of faith is to receive these testimonies and to cast ourselves on this Savior, without regarding any thing in ourselves, but a consciousness that we are unworthy, helpless sinners, and that we are willing and desirous to be saved in this way of God’s appointment. The best evidences that we believe, are a broken spirit, obedience to the Lord’s precepts, submission to his will, and love to his cause and people.
Make no mistake, living faith evidences itself—faith works, faith purifies, and faith overcomes (Acts 15:9; Gal. 5:6; 1 John 5:4). Living faith is active faith. It purifies the heart from the love and practice of sin; it works by love to the Lord Jesus Christ, his ordinances, ways, and people; and it enables the professor to overcome the world, to stand fast against its frowns, and to resist the more pleasing but not less dangerous influence of its smiles. Each of these effects is beyond the power, and contrary to the inclination, of the natural man.30
Where there are no works there is no living faith, and where there is no living faith there can be no genuine assurance.
Newton is eager to stress obedience and holiness as evidences of faith, so long as we are first convinced that our salvation is based not on our faith but in the object of our faith, Jesus Christ.
As modern theologian D. A. Carson puts it, “The assurance that we are accepted by Almighty God is tied not to the intensity of our faith or to the consistency of our faith or to the purity of our faith, but to the object of our faith.”31
