Peace Be With You

On that first Sunday evening “ On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” (John 20:19). No one but a conqueror could say words like this; He did it three times (20:19, 21, 26). It was a peace that canceled the guilt of the disciples, for they had all deserted Him and fled. He could have rebuked them for their unfaithfulness, but He didn’t. “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. (Psalm 103:10). Jesus canceled their guilt, calmed their fears and cleared up their doubts by the word of His peace. He had “made peace by the blood of his cross” (Col.1:20). He brought peace by the power of His resurrection. The basis of all peace is found in the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is the Christ of victory. He is Risen!

"That's My King" - Do You Know Him? - by S. M. Lockridge - Easter Realties

Shadrach Meshach Lockridge (March 7, 1913 – April 4, 2000) was the Pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, a prominent African-American congregation in San Diego, California, from 1953 to 1993. He was known for his preaching across the United States and around the world.

He Never Did Deny Himself Yet

If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” 2 Timothy 2:13

“I tell you, if he were to shut you out, dear soul, whoever you may be, if you go to him, he would deny himself. He never did deny himself yet. Whenever a sinner comes to him, he becomes his Savior. Whenever he meets a sick soul, he acts as his Physician. . . . If you go to him, you will find him at home and on the look-out for you. He will be more glad to receive you than you will be to be received. . . . I tell you again that he cannot reject you. That would be to alter his whole character and un-Christ himself. To spurn a coming sinner would un-Jesus him and make him to be somebody else and not himself any longer. ‘He cannot deny himself.’ Go and try him; go and try him.”

C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1950), III:862.

Two Things Jesus Knew

"Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisee's fast, but your disciples do not fast?" And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day." Mark 2:18-20

Some people like to think that Jesus was just a good moral teacher; a really nice guy who was a great leader. This passage reveals a couple things that Jesus thought about himself. He knew who he was, and that he was going to die. 

Figuratively, Jesus knew he was the bridegroom. He was the Son of God and the awaited Savior. He also knew the reason why he came. He came to die. The culmination of his mission was to defeat death by dying a substitutionary death for his people. When you read the gospel's this way, listening to what Jesus thought and knew about himself, the stories make much more sense. His whole life,  his eyes must have been fixed on his mission. He wasn't aimlessly living life trying to help people when he could. He was on a mission; he had a purpose. He was much more than a moral teacher. He was and is the Savior of the world. 

All Of Grace

The Secret to Imitating Christ: Know You Can't

Oscar Cullmann (1902-1999), German New Testament scholar who helped a generation read the whole Bible as telling an objective history of what God has done in our real time and space (as opposed to the de-historicized existentialism of Bultmann)--

An imitation of Christ is possible only when we are first of all aware of the fact that we are not able to imitate him.

He is sinless; we are not. He offers the sacrifice of atoning death; we cannot. It is precisely the decisive act of obedience which effects our perfection which we cannot imitate. In Hebrews and in Paul the connection between our perfection and the perfection of the High Priest can be understood only as happening in faith in the ephapax [Gk: the 'once-for-all'-ness] of the high priestly act. 

 --Oscar Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament (rev. ed.; 1963), 100-101

Dane Ortlund

God Will Provide Himself the Lamb

Anglo-Catholic Bible scholar Gabriel Hebert--

The command to offer up the son of the promise, with whom the whole future lies, seems the complete contradiction of the Purpose of God on which he has set his faith. Abraham in the story is called by God to make a supreme sacrifice, an act of complete and entire worship, trusting God in the dark, committing everything to him: 'not my will but thine be done'. While God did not in the end demand this sacrifice to be made, that which he did demand was the entire willingness to make the offering.

Such is the meaning of the story as the writer tells it; and because this and nothing less is the true and original meaning therefore we, in interpreting it, may and must look onward to the self-giving of our Lord, in which case no offering of a substitute was possible.

Hence we may and must find the final answer to Isaac's question 'Where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?', and Abraham's reply 'God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt-offering, my son' (Gen 22:7-8), in the words of John 1.29 'Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.'

Gabriel Hebert, The Old Testament from Within (Oxford University Press, 1962), 34

Dane Ortlund

Jesus Wasn't Crucified for Being Boring

It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man. . . . If this is dull, then what, in Heaven’s name, is worthy to be called exciting? The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused Him of being a bore--on the contrary; they thought Him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround Him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certifying Him ‘meek and mild,’ and recommended Him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.

--Dorothy Sayers, Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World: A Selection of Essays (1969), 13

Dane Ortlund

Sipping The Coming Joy

In John 2 Jesus, having declared that his hour 'has not yet come' (v. 4), turns water into wine at a wedding uniting a bride and a bridegroom; a celebration, a feast.

In John 3 Jesus calls himself the bridegroom (3:29).

Conclusion: John 2 is an anticipation of the real wedding, the true celebration, the ultimate feast. That's why Jesus told his mom, 'My time has not yet come.' His own wedding was yet to come. (see further D. A. Carson, p. 179 of this book)

As Edmund Clowney once put it, reflecting on Jesus' presence at the Cana wedding:

Jesus sat amid all the joy sipping the coming sorrow, so that you and I today can sit amid all this world's sorrow, sipping the coming joy.

Dane Ortlund

What Does It Mean To Be Biblically Balanced?

I increasingly hear people talking about the need to be “Biblically balanced” and I think I’m starting to understand what they mean.
As I talk to people who speak about the need for our theology and preaching to be “balanced”, they mean that we need to spend the same amount of time talking about everything the Bible talks about.
So, for example, since the Bible talks about what God in Christ has done and also what we ought to do in light of what Christ has done, to be balanced we need to give both themes equal airtime. Since the Bible talks about Jesus and it talks about us, to be balanced we need to spend the same amount of time talking about both. The list could go on: since the Bible talks about x and y, to be balanced we need to talk about x and y the same amount.
But, this is NOT the balance of the Bible. While the Bible talks about a lot of things it does not give all of its themes equal airtime.
The overwhelmingly dominate message of the Bible is that God loves (and in Jesus) justifies sinners. There are tons of ways the Bible says this: the whore is made a bride, the dead are raised, the unrighteous are declared righteous, slaves are made sons, the blind see, the sick are healed, the unclean are made pure, the guilty are forgiven, sinners are saved, and so on. Obviously, no Christian denies that the Bible says more than this. But the work of Christ on behalf of sinners is clearly the emphasis of Scripture from beginning to end. What we do in light of what Jesus has done is important. But it’s not more important than (or even equally important as) what Jesus has done for us.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…(1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

Martin Luther said, “Remove Christ from the Scriptures and there is nothing left.” The emphasis of the Bible, in other words, is on the work of the Redeemer, not on the work of the redeemed. As important as how we live is, the spotlight of Scripture is on Christ, not the Christian. “The Bible is not fundamentally about us. It’s fundamentally about Jesus.” (Tim Keller)
My point is simply this: to be “Biblically balanced” is NOT to allot equal airtime to every Biblical theme. To be Biblically balanced is to let our theology and preaching be proportioned by the Bible’s radically disproportionate focus on God’s saving love for sinners seen and accomplished in the crucified and risen Christ.
Tullian Tchividjian

Jesus Saves!

One of the unique things about Robert Peterson’s new volume, Salvation Accomplished by the Son: The Work of Christ, is that he shows from Scripture the saving nature of nine events from Christ’s life.
He quotes Robert Letham for an answer to what we mean by “the work of Christ”:

In short, we refer to

• all that Christ did when he came to this earth ‘for us and our salvation’,
• all that he continues to do now that he is risen from the dead and at God’s right hand, and
• all that he will do when he returns in glory at the end of the age

While the death and resurrection of Jesus are the two central redemptive deeds, Peterson rightly includes seven additional saving events in the work of Christ. Here are his brief definitions for these additional seven:
The incarnation is the Son of God’s becoming a human being by a supernatural conception in Mary’s womb. [Phil. 2:5-9]
Christ’s sinless life is his living from birth to death without sinning in thought, word, or deed. [Heb. 4:14-15]
His ascension is his public return to the Father by “going up” from the Mount of Olives. [1 Tim. 3:16]
His session is his sitting down at God the Father’s right hand after his ascension. [Heb. 10:11-12, 14]
Pentecost, as much Christ’s saving work as any other event on the list, is his pouring out the Holy Spirit on the church in newness and power. [Acts 2:32-33]
His intercession includes his perpetual presentation in heaven of his finished cross work and his prayers on behalf of his saints. [Heb. 7:24-25]
His second coming is his return in glory at the end of the age to bless his people and judge his enemies. [Heb. 9:28]
The first nine chapters of the book look at these saving events one by one, tracing each through Scripture and showing the role that event plays in the saving work of Christ.
Justin Taylor

If You Knew

“If you knew that there was one greater than yourself, who knows you better than you can know yourself and loves you better than you can love yourself, who can make you all you ought to be, steadier than your squally nature, able to save you from squandering your glorious life, who searches you beyond the standards of earth . . . one who gathered into himself all great and good things and causes, blending in his beauty all the enduring color of life, who could turn your dreams into visions and make real the things you hoped were true, and if that one had ever done one unmistakable thing to prove, even at the price of blood — his own blood — that you could come to him, and having failed, come again, would you not fall at his feet with the treasure of your years, your powers, service and love?  And is there not one such, and does he not call you?”

A. E. Whitham, quoted in Raymond C. Ortlund, Let the Church be the Church(Waco, 1983), page 39.

HT: Ray Ortlund

Being a Christian Means Christ is All!

Iain Murray writes:

Christianity means knowing and trusting Christ as a living Person; it is a relationship which so captures both the mind and the heart of the believer that henceforth to know Christ, to esteem Him and His words, becomes the very object of existence: “To you who believe He is precious” (1 Pet. 2:7) – more precious certainly than all earthly goods or even life (Luke 14:26). A Christian is someone who no longer lives for himself but understands, with Paul, why Christ is his righteousness, his life, his all . . . A Christian . . . is one who so knows Christ that all things are secondary to his Saviour . . . A Christian is one whose greatest pleasure is to see God magnified in Christ.

Iain Murray, Evangelicalism Divided (Carlisle: Banner Of Truth, 2001), 152, 159, 166, 316.
HT:Christ is all

Resolved To Know Nothing

1 Corinthians 2:2:

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (NIV)

Anthony C. Thiselton (First Corinthians, NIGTC, p. 211):

Did Paul steadily resolve to empty his mind of everything except the message of the cross? …
As the Greek stands, the act of resolution or of firm, considered decision is qualified by the negative. Paul’s firm, considered policy on which he committed himself was only that which concerned Christ crucified. Whether or not he spoke of anything else would be incidental; to proclaim the crucified Christ, and Christ alone, remains his settled policy. He did not take a vow of excluding everything else, whatever might happen, but he did make a commitment that nothing would compromise the central place of Christ crucified.

David E. Garland (First Corinthians, BECNT, p. 84):

Paul is not anti-intellectual, but he does oppose intellectual vanity. He did not come to them as a know-it-all or compose speeches fishing for admiration. On the contrary, he was content to be identified as a know-nothing who preached foolishness: Jesus Christ crucified. But announcing the gospel was his sole focus, and the cross molded his entire message and his whole approach. … Jesus Christ can only be preached as the crucified one, and no one can preach Christ crucified to win personal renown.

May each of us resolve to center our lives upon Jesus Christ and him crucified in 2011.
Happy New Year!
Miscellanies

He lives at the right hand of God

That same Jesus who once died for sinners, still lives at the right hand of God, to carry on the work of salvation which He came down from heaven to perform.
He lives to receive all who come unto God by Him, and to give them power to become the sons of God.
He lives to hear the confession of every heavy-laden conscience, and to grant, as an almighty High Priest, perfect absolution.
He lives to pour down the Spirit of adoption on all who believe in Him, and to enable them to cry, Abba, Father!
He lives to be the one Mediator between God and man, the unwearied Intercessor, the kind Shepherd, the elder Brother, the prevailing Advocate, the never-failing Priest and Friend of all who come to God by Him.
He lives to be wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption to all His people—to keep them in life, to support them in death, and to bring them finally to eternal glory.

— J. C. Ryle
Old Paths
(Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1999)
Of First Importance

The Diverse Excellencies of Christ

From John Piper's 2008 Together 4 the Gospel Conference message titled "How the Supremacy of Christ Creates Radical Christian Sacrifice". Christ is supreme because:

He is God's final revelation
He is the heir of all things
He is the creator of the world
He is the radiance of God's glory
He is the exact imprint of God's nature
He upholds the universe by the word of His power
He made purification for sins
He sits at the right hand of the Majesty
He is God enthroned forever with the scepter of uprightness
He is worshiped by angels
His rule will have no end
His joy is above all other things in the universe
He took on human flesh
He was crowned with glory and honor because of his suffering
He was the founder of our salvation
He was made perfect in all of his obedience by his suffering
He destroyed the one who had the power of death
He delivered us from the bondage of fear
He is a merciful and faithful high priest
He made propitiation for sins
He is sympathetic because of His own trials
He never sinned
He offered up loud cries and tears with reverent fear and God heard him
He became the source of eternal salvation
He holds His priesthood by virtue of an indestructible life
He appears in the presence of God on our behalf
He will come a second time to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him
He is the same yesterday, today, and forever

Jared Wilson