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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Tony Reinke
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March 15 - March 27, 2016
Dr. [Isaac] Watts’ motto shall be mine, it is big enough for him, me, you, and for thousands that approve it, In uno Jesu omnia [In Jesus alone is my everything]. In him I have an offering, an altar, a temple, a priest, a sun, a shield, a savior, a shepherd, a hiding place, a resting place, food, medicine, riches, honor, wisdom, righteousness, holiness, in short, everything.34
As we grow more convinced that Jesus alone is our everything, so also grows the fruit of genuine faith (obedience). True obedience and faith in Christ grow concurrently. Thus, Newton can say the sincerity of our faith is measured by obedience.
A faith in God resulting in no life change is a demonic faith (James 2:19). Faith without works is a dead faith. Faith with works is a living faith.
Personal holiness is the product of a genuine conviction of the sufficiency of Christ, a delight in God, and a hatred for sin. These fruits are the products of a living faith and are impossible to counterfeit.
Dead faith produces no obedience, and the absence of obedience is proof of a heart yet enslaved to the world, the flesh, and Satan.39
where the gospel of free grace truly prevails, “the practical duties of Christianity have flourished in the same proportion.”41
Turning from evil is an evidence of living faith. Continuing in open sin is an indictment of dead faith. Are you willing to leave your sins because you love Christ? Such a question is a litmus test of faith. Living in willful sin casts doubt on the sincerity of faith, and such doubt erodes assurance.
Insincerity is a lack of gospel simplicity, “a secret cleaving of the will to evil,” a double-mindedness (James 1:8), so there is a “kind of halting between two opinions; so that while the desire and prayer of the soul seems expressed against all sin universally, there is still an allowed reserve of something, inconsistent with light received.”43
Indolence is when a Christian becomes lazy in making his Christian calling and election certain (2 Pet. 1:10).
deep sorrow for sin is quite consistent with genuine faith and assurance. In sorrow for sin, we look to Christ.
The goal of our sanctification is not to adore obedience, but to despise our indwelling sin and worship Jesus Christ.
Honesty about sin is a painful discovery, but it’s also an essential discovery if we are to embrace the all-sufficiency of Christ.
As the sun can only be seen by its own light, and diffuses that light by which other objects are clearly perceived; so Christ crucified is the sun in the system of revealed truth; and the right knowledge of the doctrine of his cross satisfies the inquiring mind, proves itself to be the one thing needful, and the only thing necessary to silence the objections of unbelief and pride, and to afford a sure ground for solid and abiding hope.55
Once the believer is united to Christ, the sap of Christ’s life begins surging through his spiritual veins by the Spirit of Christ. It will not stop. It cannot stop. It is an emanating spark that will grow into an eternal flame (Phil.
the Christian soul is wearied when we wrongly seek our joy in broken cisterns.
The soul becomes anemic and wearied when its thirst turns away from God, the only source of abiding joy, and toward a leaky holding tank of self-sufficiency.2
Spiritual weariness and spiritual thirstiness are two metaphors for the same needs in the human soul. Only in Jesus will the weary and thirsty sinner find rest (Matt. 11:28) and slaked thirst (John 7:37). Jesus puts no qualification or limitation or price on the offer; the only condition is a felt weariness and a felt dehydration: “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price” (Rev. 22:17).
Apart from Christ, the soul is thrown into bedlam, tossed from empty promise to empty pleasure, from one empty cistern to another—a spiritual vortex dehydrating and dizzying the soul.
We were created with Christ-sized thirsts for pleasure, and our gifts and successes and relationships and worldly pleasures and securities are but broken cisterns that cannot fill the void.
He is the one Spouse who can satisfy our souls. “We are prone (at least I may speak for myself) to forsake the fountain of living waters, and to hew out broken cisterns. Instead of receiving him, I am often looking in myself for something to enable me to do without him.”8
The true gospel speaks to powerless sinners and teaches us to renounce all self-sufficiency before God and to find in Christ our full sufficiency.16
Christ is our full and complete answer to God’s law and holiness, and he is the grounds of God’s favor in us. United to Christ we are adopted into God’s family, a status unchanged by any conditions within us.
To be justified in Christ—to be declared guiltless in God’s sight on the basis of Christ’s perfect life, substitutionary death, and victorious resurrection—and to have a conscious knowledge of this grace sunk deep into our hearts changes everything about the daily Christian life.
“The right knowledge of this doctrine is a source of abiding joy; it likewise animates love, zeal, gratitude, and all the noblest powers of the soul, and produces a habit of cheerful and successful obedience to the whole will of God.”17 Legalism is weariness; justification is joy (Rom. 4:7–8; 5:1
Justified in Christ and united to Christ, we discover both the purpose of obedience an...
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United to Christ we find spiritual strength for the battle, and in his crucifixion we have the victory secured, but we are prone to forget both. When we fight in our own strength, we grow weary. When we fight with the weapons of the Lord, our joy cannot be extinguished.
Spiritual victory and rest are found in Christ alone. He purchased our rest and gave it to us freely. United to Christ we have all the benefits of his life, death, and ongoing intercession in our battles. All our spiritual needs are abundantly provided.
Spiritual warfare is not comfortable, but the victory is certain in Christ, and we are promised the battle will be over soon. “A few brushes more, and the King will say to us, Come near, and set your feet upon the necks of your enemies. Then the redeemed shall enter into the kingdom with songs of triumph, and shouts of everlasting joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”26 Here in the all-sufficiency of Christ we are protected from the weariness of spiritual warfare.
Christ allows repeated disappointments and trials and losses in the Christian life, not to grieve and weary us, but to train us to treasure Christ above all else, and to find in him the solution to all our spiritual disillusionments.
Our souls are wearied by chasing broken cisterns, by seeking security in legalism, by fighting spiritual battles from our own resources, and by neglecting our true dependence on Christ. What makes the Christian life wearisome is me.
“Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead,” wrote C. S. Lewis. “Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”29
So God brings into our Christian lives repeated disappointments and trials and losses, not because he wants to grieve us and weary us, but because these are necessary lessons teaching us to treasure Christ above ourselves. By taking our eyes off Christ, our own spiritual inclinations become hazardous to us. We turn inward for sufficiency, we pursue broken cisterns of worldly joy, legalistic obedience, and self-sufficiency. The very things we pursue, if we were to get them, would be like pouring boiling water over our own heads.30
Christ has initiated in our souls the work of his Holy Spirit to make Christ look more excellent and more beautiful and more satisfying to our thirsty hearts.
the Christian’s chief foe is not the world or the Devil, but the self
“Take care of self,” wrote Newton. This is the worst enemy we have to deal with—self-will—self-wisdom—self-righteousness—self-seeking—self-dependence—self-boasting. It is a large family. I cannot reckon up all the branches; but they are all nearly related to Satan—they are all a sworn enemy to our peace. If we lie low, the Lord will raise us up; but if we will be something, his Arm will surely pull us down.
“That monster Self has as many heads as Hydra, as many lives as a cat. It is more than twenty-five years since I hoped it was fast nailed to the cross, but alas it is alive still mixing with and spoiling every thing I do.”2
United to Christ, Christians are empowered to crucify selfishness in all its branches—sinful ambition, conceit, self-seeking, bitter jealousy, enmity, gossip, slander, strife, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, grumbling, divisions, envy, and the rest. Left unchecked, Mr. Self will stoke these interpersonal sins and stew disharmony
The gospel confronts the selfishness of all three versions of Mr. Self. The freeness of the gospel to unworthy sinners offends the modern Pharisee’s legalistic, self-righteous superiority (Matt. 9:11–13). The extravagant claims of the gospel in the death and resurrection of Christ offend the modern Sadducee’s unwavering fidelity to only what constitutes intelligent human wisdom (1 Cor. 1:18–31). And the holistic, life-changing gospel offends the modern Herodian’s double-minded balancing act (Matt. 10:34–39; 16:24–28; James 4:4).
Mr. Self’s artificial humility is authentic arrogance. It is right to live aware of our total depravity and to be emptied of spiritual self-confidence, but such emptiness should make room for more joy and delight and happiness in the sovereign atoning work of Jesus Christ. Thus, the truly humbled Calvinist should be among the happiest people in the world.11
Mr. Self spoils the gospel.
Wilcox writes: Christ is the mystery of the scripture; grace the mystery of Christ. Believing is the most wonderful thing in the world. Put any thing of thy own to it, and thou spoilest it; Christ will not so much as look at it for believing. When thou believest and comest to Christ, thou must leave behind thee thine own righteousness, and bring nothing but sin. (O that is hard!) Leave behind all thy holiness, sanctification, duties, humblings, etc., and bring nothing but thy wants and miseries, else Christ is not fit for thee, nor thou for Christ. Christ will be a pure Redeemer and Mediator,
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As Wilcox writes, “Every day thy self-sufficiency must be destroyed.”18 Every day Mr. Self’s self-sufficiency and self-righteousness must be dethroned. Every day the gospel must silence the boasting of Mr. Self (Rom. 3:27).
Legalism is an attempt at self-atonement for the purpose of self-worship and self-glory. Legalism is an attempt to be something apart from Christ.
“I am persuaded a broken and a contrite spirit, a conviction of our vileness and nothingness, connected with a cordial acceptance of Jesus as revealed in the Gospel, is the highest attainment we can reach in this life.”22
has your Calvinism humbled
“Calvinists should be the meekest and most patient of all men.”33
Newton affirms in a favorite story he liked to tell: “As some preachers near Olney dwelt on the doctrine of predestination, an old woman said, ‘Ah! I have long settled that point: for, if God had not chosen me before I was born, I am sure he would have seen nothing in me to have chosen me for afterwards’” (W, 1:105). Charles Spurgeon enjoyed retelling this humorous story in the pulpit.
Newton’s theology of the Christian life can be boiled down to one main point: to live is Christ (Phil. 1:21).
“None but Christ” is Newton’s motto, and it’s the best advice Newton has to offer. That three-word phrase “looking unto Jesus” (Heb. 12:2) frames the believer’s duty, privilege, safety, and happiness. The Christian life is all about Christ.
Our hope can rest only in this all-sufficient Christ. He is everything—our all-sufficient Shepherd, Husband, Prophet, Priest, King, and Friend; our Lord and Savior, Head, and Root; our Meat, Drink, Medicine, and Strength; our Hope and Foundation; our Sun and Shield; our Example and Forerunner; our Wisdom and Righteousness; our Sanctification and Redemption; our Life and Way and End. In uno Jesu omnia—in Christ alone is our everything!
